Chicken Schnitzel (and a different breading technique)

I'm rather fond of German food, including wiener schnitzel, which has nothing to do with hot dogs. Or any sausage, really. It's actually a veal cutlet that's pounded thin and breaded.

Chicken is pretty much my go-to substitution for veal, particularly in dishes like this. So I ended up with chicken schnitzel.

The spice mix I used came from Raw Spice Bar which is another subscriptions service. There are soooo many subscription services. This one is different because you get packets of different spice mixes, so it's not like you need a lot of space to store jars and bottles and bags. And the bags are sealed, so you don't need to use them all right away.

They sent me a couple different boxes. Well, envelopes, actually. You get packets of spices, not jars. One had a cocoa chili rub that I used on steak, a pizza seasoning that I used on chicken and a chipotle salt that I used on popcorn. The ones I got most recently included schnitzel seasoning; caraway, fennel, and anise seasoning; and mustard and horseradish seasoning.

So far, I've only used the schnitzel seasoning from the second batch. I haven't decided what I'll do with the others, but the mustard and horseradish might go into a salad dressing or dipping sauce, and the seedy one will probably go into a rye bread.

So, I decided to use the Schnitzel spice to make some chicken.

This uses my secret breading technique. I used to hate doing any kind of breading. It took three bowls or plates, for the flour, egg, and then the final breading mixture - sometimes bread crumbs, some times more flour.

And then it was messy.

Okay, my technique is still a little messy, but it only requires one bowl, so that's a huge plus. And the breading stays on better. Try it, you'll like it!

Chicken Schnitzel

1/2 cup flour
1 packet Raw Spice Bar schnitzel seasoning
1 large chicken breast or 2 small ones
Mayonnaise, as needed
Olive oil, for cooking

Combine the flour and seasoning. This makes it pretty spicy. If you don't want it as spicy, use half as much spice or twice as much flour.

If you're using the larger chicken breast (you know the ones I mean, right?), use a sharp knife to slice it in half to make two thinner pieces, then pound the two pieces until they're evenly thick and no more than 1/4 inch thick. If you're using smaller breasts, don't split them; just pound thin.

Coat the chicken pieces on both sides with a thin coat of mayonnaise. You don't need a lot. Not even like a sandwich. You can use a pastry brush, or just smear it on with your fingers.

Coat the chicken breasts with the seasoned flour. You can dip them in the flour, or you can sift or sprinkle the flour on.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a saute pan until hot. Fry the chicken on both sides until evenly brown and cooked through.

Serve hot.

Thanks to Raw Spice Bar for providing products for me to review; I wasn't required to write a recipe.

Chili, Four Ways

So, what do you do if you need to cook for people who have different likes and dislikes that simply aren't compatible?

What if you want to make a batch of chili and one person won't eat meat, one can't have dairy, and another can't have gluten?

Or maybe it's different levels of spice. Sure, you can add the heat at the end, but that's not the same as when you cook the peppers right into the chili.

Well, that's not my house, but I thought it could be a fun experiment to make a bunch of different chilis all at the same time. And the nice folks at Brod & Taylor made it easy for me when they sent me their latest folding proofer.

A proofer, if you don't know it, is a warm, cozy place where you set your bowl of bread dough to let it rise. Or you put the formed bread in there for a final rise before baking. And there's a little tray included that fits under the rack so you can add water to proof dough in a moist environment.

The "folding" part refers to the fact that the proofer folds down flat for storage.

I reviewed one of their previous proofers, but this one has a nifty new function - it has precise temperature control so you can use it as a slow cooker. You can also use it for making yogurt or creme fraiche. Or for cooking sous vide ... the water in your pot wouldn't circulate, but you could keep it at a nice even temperature.

I don't mean that you can dump food right into the proofer. That would be really messy. But you can put food into a pot and put the pot into the proofer and set a temperature and let it cook. Or put your yogurt in jars. Or put whatever food into whatever container it is you want to use.

In my case, I made 4 little pots of chili - each one just about a cup. The pots I used are made from cast iron and hold about a cup, but of course you could use larger little pots. Or little ceramic dutch ovens. Or little ramekins. As long as the containers are heatproof, you're good to go. You should have a lid, but foil would be fine on a ramekin.



Here's how it went.

4-Way Chili

1/2 medium onion, diced
1 can pinto beans, drained
1 boneless, skinless chicken thigh, diced
1 teaspoon chili powder (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
2 tablespoons small pasta (I used small shells)
4 tablespoons shredded cheddar cheese
Tomato juice (as needed, about a cup)
1 teaspoon olive oil (optional)

Line up four 1-cup cast iron dutch ovens with covers. Or you could use 1-cup ramekins and cover with foil for baking.

Fill as follows:

Vegan Chili

1/4 of the chopped onion
1/2 of the beans
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon olive oil

Everything but Gluten Chili

1/4 of the diced onion
1/4 of the beans
1/4 of the chicken
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoon shredded cheese

Dairy Free Chili Mac

1/4 of the diced onion
1/4 of the beans
1/4 of the chicken
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
Pinch of salt
1 generous tablespoon small pasta

Meaty Bean-Free Chili

1/4 of the onion
1/2 of the chicken
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
Pinch of salt
1 generous tablespoon small pasta
2 tablespoons shredded cheese

These are just suggestions on how to fill them. You can put cheese on all of them, pasta in none of them, use beef instead of chicken, or go crazy with hot peppers. The point here is that you can make different chilis depending on what people like, or don't.

As you're filling the pots, try to make them relatively evenly filled compared to each other.

Fill each pot with tomato sauce until they're almost full. There will be some simmering, so if you overfill, there will some spillage. Cover the pots.

Place the pots in the proofer set to 195 degrees. That's a nice simmer, but below boiling.

The temperate in the proofer is the temperature of the items in the proofer, not the air temperature, as is the case with your oven. That's something to keep in mind if you're using the proofer for cooking.

For actual proofing, there's a rack that you set the bowl of dough on. For slow cooking, the pots don't use the rack. If I was making a large pot of chili, I'd probably put heat the pot on the stove to a simmer, then put it in the proofer for a long, slow cook. The small pots heated through pretty quickly, though, and then they started simmering just a little bit. Perfect.

Yes, you can make this in your oven. I didn't try it, but I'd suggest 325 degrees and just check it until the chicken is done.

The proofer doesn't have a timer, so I set a timer for 2 hours and walked away. I checked the chilis a couple times during the cooking time and decided they were done after 1 hour, 45 minutes. The ones without the pasta could have happily cooked longer, but I thought the chili mac was definitely done.

These can be topped with more cheese, sour cream, avocado, jalapenos, or anything else you like. Serve hot.

I received the proofer from Brod & Taylor at no cost to me.

Retro Recipe Redo - Impossible Turkey Taco Pie

Way back when, there were a whole bunch of recipes for what were called Impossible Pies. They were magical recipes that made their own "crust" as they baked. And they all used Bisquick to make that magical crust.

I was browsing through some old newspaper and magazine clippings I had saved and scanned, and I found a recipe for Impossible Taco Pie. I had made that recipe many times back in the day, and I really liked it. I decided to make it again, to see if I still liked it.

But of course I made some changes.

I used turkey instead of beef, and I have to say that I doubt anyone could tell the difference in this recipe. Which is a good thing.

I didn't have any Bisquick in the house the first time I made this, but there are a lot of "make your own Bisquick" recipes online, so I figured I could do that rather than run to the store.

Nope. It didn't work. Not at all. I made it with Bisquick, and it was perfect. So, although that "make your own" recipe is probably a fine substitution for some recipes, it didn't work for this one. Maybe if I fiddled around with it some more, I could work it out, but that doesn't seem like a good use of my time.

Or my ingredients.

So now I have Bisquick. So it's a pretty sure bet I'll be making this again. Or maybe some other version of it. Because, seriously, this is comfort food, in the best possible way.

Panela cheese is interesting. It's a fresh cheese with a mild flavor. It softens when warm, but it doesn't really melt. So you'll end up with soft pockets of cheese in the pie, but they won't melt and get disappear into the pie.

Impossible Turkey Taco Pie

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 large onion, diced
1 pound ground turkey
2 tablespoons chili powder (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
1 fire-roasted red pepper, diced
4 ounces panela cheese, cut in small cubes
3/4 cup Bisquick
1 1/4 cup milk
3 eggs
1 4-ounce can diced Hatch chiles
4 ounces shredded provolone cheese
Diced tomatoes (as needed for garnish)
Diced avocado (as needed for garnish)
Green salsa (for garnish)

Green Salsa

8 medium tomatillos
1 small green pepper, cored and seeded
1 serrano pepper, cored and seeded
1 small bunch cilantro
1/2 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
2 teaspoons lime juice (or to taste)

Heat your oven to 400 degrees and have a 9-inch pie plate standing by.

To make the taco pie:
Heat the olive oil in a saute pan. Add the onion, turkey, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, and salt. Cook, stirring as needed, until the turkey and onion is cooked through. Take it off the heat and add the roasted red pepper and the panela cheese.

Add the meat mixture to the pie plate and level it.

Mix the Bisquick, milk, and eggs in a medium bowl. Pour over the meat in the pan. Sprinkle the chiles on top.

Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes. Sprinkle the provolone cheese on top and return the pie to the oven. Bake for an additional 10 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the pie comes out clean.

Let the pie rest for 5-10 minutes for easier slicing.

Garnish with chopped tomatoes, avocados, green salsa

To make the salsa:
Put all the ingredients in a blender, and blend until smooth.

Cheese and Scallion Enchiladas with Salsa Verde #sponsored

I didn't grow up eating Mexican food. I was on a date when I first tried it. And I fell in love.

With the food. Not so much the date.

Tacos have become my go-to food when I have leftovers. I pretty much always have tortillas here, and I have cilantro growing in my herb garden. There's always some kind of salsa, too.

So it's easy to turn leftover steak or chicken or pretty much anything into a quick taco dinner.

But enchiladas are still one of my all-time favorites. They're a tiny bit more work than simply tossing food bits into a tortilla. On the other hand, they're great for times when I want to make enough food to have leftovers for a meal or three. The best thing is that enchiladas reheat really well.

This recipe makes 12 enchiladas, with some extra green sauce. You can serve the extra sauce at the table, use it as a salsa or dipping sauce, or make a few extra enchiladas later.

This post is sponsored by my good buddies at OXO who sent me a really sweet 14 Piece Glass Bake, Serve & Store Set that I used for both baking my enchiladas and for storing and serving all the extras. The round containers are sturdy and they look nice enough to use for serving, which is a huuuuge bonus. Fewer dishes to wash!

The lids for the SNAP containers are interchangeable between the OXO glass and plastic containers, so I don't need to worry about which ones I'm grabbing - I already have some of the plastic ones that I use all the time, and the lids fit really tightly. I haven't had one that has leaked yet. The containers nest when they're empty for storage and they stack well in the fridge when they're full. And they're microwavable for reheating. Even the lids can be used in the microwave, if you want to leave them on to contain splatter (but loosen them, first!)

The glass is a thermal shock-resistant borosilicate, so the bakeware can go from freezer right into your oven or microwave. That's not something I do often, but it's nice to know that it can withstand up to 250 degrees of temperature change without cracking, so I don't have to worry about taking something from fridge to microwave. The lids on the bakeware are handy for keeping foods neatly contained for travel or storage, and the handles are big enough to be able to grab while wearing oven mitts. Which you really do need.

One thing I really like is how clear the glass is, so I can see how things are cooking. As far as cleaning, I just rinsed the baking dish and put it in the dishwasher and it came out perfectly clean.

Cheese and Scallion Enchiladas with Salsa Verde
Makes 12 enchiladas, plus extra sauce

Salsa Verde
Salsa verde simply means green sauce. This one is tart from the tomatillos and a little spicy from the jalapenos. 

2 pounds tomatillos
4 jalapenos
1 onion
1 yellow bell pepper
1/4 cup cilantro
2 tablespoons adobo seasoning
Salt, as needed

Remove the papery skin from the tomatillos and rinse well. There's a sticky coating on the outside of the tomatillos that can be bitter, and you don't want that in your sauce.

Quarter the tomatillos and place them in a blender or food processor. Remove the stem and seeds from the jalapenos and add them to the blender. Peel the onion, cut into quarters, and add to the blender. Remove the core and seeds from the bell pepper, cut into chunks, and add to the blender. Add the cilantro and adobo seasoning.

Blend until smooth.

Add the sauce to a saucepan and cook on medium heat until it simmers. Continue cooking until the sauce loses the raw onion flavor. Taste for seasoning and add salt, as needed. If your adobo seasoning was salty, you might not need additional salt.

Set aside until needed.

Cheese and Scallion Enchiladas
The first enchiladas I ever had were cheese and onion, and it's still one of my favorites. This time, I used scallions. They're a little milder, and the green adds some extra color.

8 scallions
4 cups shredded mild or medium cheddar (plus more for garnish)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
12 corn tortillas
Salsa verde, as needed
Cilantro, as garnish

Remove the roots and any wilted or damaged green parts. Slice the scallions thinly. Combine the cheese and scallions in a medium bowl and set aside.

Heat the oil in a small frying pan on medium heat. One at a time, dip the tortillas into the hot oil, cooking just a few seconds on one side before flipping over to cook another few seconds. This softens the tortillas and makes them easier to roll without breaking. You don't want to cook them so long that they start to become crisp.

Let the tortillas drain on paper towels and pat off any excess oil on top.

Put about 1 1/2 cup of the sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 glass baking dish. A little more or less is fine - you just want to make sure the bottom is covered.

One at a time, add about 1/3 cup of the cheese and scallion mixture to a tortilla and roll up. Place it in the baking pan, seam-side down. Continue rolling the cheese in the tortillas and adding them to the pan until all the tortillas are used up.

Pour another cup or more of the sauce on top of the enchiladas, as desired. If there is any cheese and scallion mixture left, sprinkle that on top of the enchiladas. Add extra cheese on top, if desired.

Bake the enchiladas in a 350-degree oven until the cheese is melted and the sauce around the edges is bubbling, 25-35 minutes. Sprinkle cilantro on top, as a garnish, if desired.

Serve the enchiladas with your favorite sides and toppings. I served mine with black beans and seasoned rice as sides. Guacamole, and sour cream were the extra toppings for the enchiladas.

Thanks to OXO for sponsoring this post!

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin over Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

Once again, the nice folks at the Oregon Raspberry and Blackberry Commission asked to sponsor a post here on Cookistry, and of course I said yes. I love berries, and I like to have frozen ones on hand for smoothies or for cooking.

In season, fresh berries are a wonderful thing. But they're also very perishable. Frozen berries are great year-round, and I can use a few or a lot and not worry about having the rest go bad before I get to them.

Raspberries are actually one of my favorite berries, but I'm sort of a weirdo since I like them better cooked, juiced, macerated or otherwise manipulated than I like them fresh and raw. Yep, I'm odd.


I decided to use the berries two ways - or three, if we want to count the garnish.

Stuffed Pork Tenderloin over Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

For the raspberry vinaigrette:
Frozen Oregon raspberries, to fill small jar
Cider vinegar, as needed
Olive oil
Salt, as needed

For the pork:
1 cup frozen Oregon raspberries
1 tablespoon butter
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored, and finely diced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
2 pork tenderloins

To make the raspberry vinaigrette:
Fill a small jar with frozen raspberries and add cider vinegar to fill. You can leave this at room temperature for a few hours, if you need it quickly. If you're planning ahead, refrigerate until needed - you'll have more raspberry flavor if you let it sit for a day or so.

When you're ready to make the salad dressing, combine 1 part vinegar with 2-3 parts olive oil, to taste. For example, 1 tablespoon of vinegar with 2 or three tablespoons olive oil. Add a pinch of salt, to taste, and whisk to emulsify. You can also combine the oil and vinegar in a small jar and shake it. Taste and add more salt, if needed. If you like a sweeter dressing, add sugar or honey to taste.

Serve this over fresh salad greens. Garnish with some thawed frozen berries, if desired.

To make the pork:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and have a baking sheet standing by.

Put the berries, along with about 1/4 cup of water, in a small saucepan. Heat on medium-low heat, stirring as needed, until the berries have fallen apart. Pass the sauce through a fine-mesh strainer to remove the seeds. Set the sauce aside.

Put the butter in a saute pan and heat on medium until melted. Add the onion, apple, and salt. Cook, stirring as needed, until the onions are softened and translucent. Add the raspberry sauce, and stir to combine. Cook until the mixture is jammy rather than saucy. Add the thyme and give it one more stir.

If the tenderloins have any silverskin, remove it, then butterfly the meat and pound it flat. The thinner the meat is, the more of a spiral you'll have with the filling. You don't want to pound so thin that the meat will tear and shred, though.

Spread half of the filling on each tenderloin and roll each one up, jellyroll-style. You can fasten the seam with toothpicks, tie the rolls with kitchen twine at intervals, or just very carefully lift the rolls and place them on a baking sheet.

Roast the tenderloins at 375 degrees, until done to your likeness. I prefer tenderloins at 140 degrees, which takes about 30 minutes.

Let the meat rest for 10 minutes before slicing and serving with salad greens drizzled with the raspberry vinaigrette. Garnish with a few berries, if desired.

Thanks to the Oregon Raspberry and Blackberry Commission for sponsoring this post! Oregon brands of frozen berries include Stahlbush Island Farms, Scenic Fruit, Columbia Fruit, and Willamette Valley Fruit Company.

Instant Pot Baby Back Ribs

Mmmm. Ribs, potato salad, and asparagus!

Way back in the stone age, when I was a mere youngster, my mom always boiled pork ribs before slathering them with sauce and finishing them in the oven. I know, the horror of it all.

But ... it's the best we could do. There was no back yard or barbecue grill or smoker. There were pots and ribs and an oven, though.

If I have to admit it, those ribs were pretty good. Obviously, they weren't smoked. But they were tender and juicy and saucy and just fine. And since I'm being honest here, I've had smoked ribs that weren't great.

After a few people told me how great the Instant Pot was for cooking ribs, I decided to give it a go. I mean, why not? I looked online and found tons of recipes. A few proclaimed that the ribs were fall-off-the-bone tender. Which is fine if you want them that way. Me, I prefer a little more toothsomeness. Yes, I want them tender. But I don't want them totally falling apart if you give them a strong glance. I want them to have a little fight left.

I'm happy with the result I got. I would have been happier if I had a working broiler or a normal oven to finish the ribs. But for ribs that never saw a grill or smoker - I sure as heck can't complain.

And, yes, of course you could use a different brand of pressure cooker. There are plenty to choose from.

Pressure-Cooked, Oven-Finished Babyback Ribs

1 or two slabs of baby back ribs
Water, as needed
Apple cider vinegar, optional
Salt, optional

Put your ribs in your pressure cooker. I sort of coiled mine up so they were sitting on the protruding bone ends. I'm sure they'd be fine cut and stacked as well. Add about an inch of water to the pot along with a splash of apple cider vinegar (optional) and a pinch of salt (also optional).

Put the cover on the pressure cooker, set it to the seal rather than vent, and set the cooking time for 15 minutes at high pressure.

When the time is up, turn the pressure cooker off and let the ribs rest for 15 minutes before venting any remaining steam.

Stick a fork in a rib to test the tenderness. If you need to cook a little longer for your preferred tenderness, do so, and make note of how long you like your ribs cooked for the next time you make them. At 15 minutes plus the resting time, my ribs were fork tender, but not soft.

Remove the ribs from the cooker, place them meat-side up on a baking sheet (line it with foil for easy cleanup) and slather with your favorite sauce.

Heat your oven to 250 degrees and put the ribs in. Cook for another 30 minutes or until the sauce has thickened and grabbed onto the ribs. Cook longer or less, if you like. Or slather with sauce and just put them under your broiler for a few minutes.

Serve hot with more sauce on the side. Because more sauce is never a bad thing.

I received my Instant Pot at no cost to create a blog post for 37 Cooks, but my obligation to them is loooong over. I'm just having fun now.

Spiralized Zucchini, Fennel and Onion with Langostino Tails #OXOSpiralizer

All the cool kids are spiralizing these days. Are you?

This post is sponsored by OXO and their new hand-crank spiralizer, which they sent me so I could use it for this post.

Like most OXO tools, this one is thoughtfully made, with blades that store in an included box - and then the box attaches to the spiralizer, so it all stays together in storage.

That's a huge plus when it comes to kitchen gadgets with multiple parts. I have a neat little collection of things that belong to other things.

But this particular collection is special. I know the parts all belong with ... something. But I don't quite know what that something is. Sooner or later, I'll find the mating parts, but until then, I let them rattle around in a drawer.

So anyway, the OXO spiralizer keeps its parts together. It includes three blades - one for larger spiralized cuts, one for smaller cuts, and a slicing blade.

For this recipe, I used the two different spiralizer blades - the larger one for the onion and fennel - and the smaller one for the zucchini.

And yes, you can use the spiralizer to cut things that aren't solid all the way through, like the onion in this recipe. The fennel and onion didn't actually result in long ribbons, but they cut nice thins trips that were exactly what I wanted.

So, if you haven't spiralized, the absolutely best tip I can give you is that if you're cutting something like zucchini, it's really cool to end up with a few super-long noodles. But ... those super-long noodles aren't so fun to eat. It's better to cut the noodles in lengths similar to spaghetti, or even a little shorter. The easy way to do that is to stop the spiralizing once in a while and just snip the strands with scissors.

I used langostino tails for this recipe, but if you can't find them, shrimp would be just as good. you can use fresh, cooked, or raw - just make sure your remove the shells and they're deveined.

Lemony Spiralized Vegetables with Langostino Tails

1 medium onion
1 medium fennel bulb (Reserve some of the frilly fronds for garnish; discard the green stalks)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 green bell pepper
2 zucchini (not the teeny ones, but not the ones that your friends and enemies drop off on your porch in the summer)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Pinch of red pepper flakes
12 ounces langostino tails (or shrimp)
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon finely chopped parsley and thyme (about half of each - eyeball it)

Use the larger spiralizer blade to cut the onion and the bulb of the fennel into strips. Reserve some of the fine fennel fronds for garnish.

Heat the olive oil in a large saute pan on medium heat and add the onion and fennel. Add the salt an pepper and stir. Cook, stirring once in a while. Meanwhile, core and seed the bell pepper and slice it into thin strips. Add it to the pan.

Continue cooking the vegetables in the pan while you spiralize the zucchini.

When the onions have softened and are no longer sharp-tasting, add the zucchini, lemon juice, and red pepper flakes. Cook, stirring as needed, until the zucchini is cooked through.

Add the langostino tails (or shrimp) and cook just long enough to warm the seafood (if it's precooked) or to cook it through if it's raw.

If the seafood gives off a lot of liquid, turn up the heat briefly to reduce it.

Add the butter and continue cooking, stirring, until the butter has melted. Taste for seasoning and add more salt, pepper, or lemon, if desired. Add the herbs, stir once more, serve. Garnish with some of the reserved fennel fronds, if desired.

This post was sponsored by OXO. Want to know what they're up to? Follow them on Facebook!

Quick and Easy Chicago Style Beef Sandwiches #OscarMayerNatural #sponsored

As a Chicago-born gal, I have a special place in my heart for Chicago-style Italian Beef sandwiches. But making them can be quite a long process, starting with cooking a large hunk of meat, followed by slicing the meat really thinly.

For some folks, that's the hard part - the slicing. And and Italian beef sandwich just isn't right if the slices aren't thin. I have a meat slicer, but I'm weird. Most people would have to wield a knife.

The annoying part about making Italian beefs at home - for me - is that it ends up being a LOT of food, since it starts with that big hunk of beef. While I do love a good Italian Beef sandwich, don't want to make a month-long commitment to eating it. I want a few sandwiches, and that's it.

In Chicago, Italian Beef sandwiches were fast food. They were the thing you ran out to get if you didn't feel like cooking. They were the thing you stopped for on your way from here to there. They weren't fancy.

There are shortcuts, though, that make it a lot more convenient. Like using beef that's already cooked and sliced and all ready to meet the rest of the ingredients. This time, I used Oscar Mayer Natural slow roasted beef. They've sponsored this post, but I created the recipe based on what I like.

The classic Italian beef sandwich in Chicago has a few options. You can get them with sweet peppers, hot peppers, or both.

And you can get them dipped (or wet), which means the sandwich is dunked in the jus or that tasty beefy juice is ladled onto the finished sandwich gets the bread pretty soggy. It's messy, but that's what it's supposed to be.

I usually opted for sweet and hot meaning that I wanted both types of peppers, and of course I wanted the bread nice and wet. The sandwiches in Chicago use bread similar to French bread, and much of it is supplied by specific bakeries. The bread is pretty solid before it's dunked, so it holds up well to being soggy.

Obviously those specific breads aren't readily available outside Chicago, but you can still make a decent sandwich. The important thing is that the bread needs to be sturdy enough to handle the jus. Hot dog buns would dissolve. French bread or sturdy hoagie buns work well. If the bread is a little stale, it doesn't matter, so this is a great way to use up extra bread that's a tiny bit dry.

If you have leftovers, you can refrigerate the meat and peppers in the jus and just reheat gently the next day.

The beef isn't the only type of Oscar Mayer Selects Natural you can get - it is available in five flavorful varieties including Slow Roasted Turkey, Applewood Smoked Turkey, Rotisserie Seasoned Chicken, Applewood Smoked Ham and Slow Roasted Roast Beef.

If you're worried about what's in the cold cuts you buy, Oscar Mayer Selects Natural is made with no artificial ingredients, and is minimally processed. Selects Natural has no artificial preservatives (the back side of each package lists the ingredients used to preserve quality), no artificial flavors, no artificial colors, no gluten and no by-products.

Quick and Easy Chicago Style Beef Sandwiches
Makes 3-4 sandwiches

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 green bell pepper, seeded, cored, and sliced in strips
2 cups beef broth or stock (home-made or bought)
1 tablespoon dry oregano
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 7-ounce package Oscar Mayer Naturals slow roasted beef
1 hoagie roll per sandwich
Hot giardiniera peppers, optional

Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the bell pepper. Cook, stirring as needed, until the peppers are cooked through. These aren't supposed to be crisp-tender - they're fully cooked. Add the stock, oregano, and garlic powder. Bring to a simmer and let it cook for a few minutes so the flavors infuse the broth.

Add the beef and cook just to warm the meat - it's fully cooked, so there's no need to cook any longer.

Divide the beef among 3 or 4 hoagie rolls, depending on how full you want them. Add bell peppers to each sandwich, if desired. Ladle the jus onto each sandwich. Pass the hot giardiniera peppers at the table for people to add their own, as desired.

If you like, you can bring any remaining jus to the table for people to add more, or give them small bowls filled with jus to dunk the sandwiches.

You can learn more about Selects Natural and all the Oscar Mayer products on OscarMayer.com, Facebook at Facebook.com/OscarMayer, Twitter at @OscarMayer and on Tumblr at OscarMayer.Tumblr.com.
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Bahn Mi Rolls

Okay, okay, I know that "bahn mi" actually refers to the rolls, so the Bahn Mi Rolls is redundant.

I know that. But this recipe was named by Andrea Nguyen, the author of The Bahn Mi Handbook.

Ah yes, we Americans have co-opted another word and made it our own. That's what we do.

While the intent is to use these rolls to make bahn mi sandwiches, they're good for so much more. Like sub sandwiches, hoagies, grinders, muffalettas, Italian beef sandwiches, or pretty much anything else you want to put on a crusty roll.

Leftovers, after a few days, could be sliced into rounds and toasted for bruschetta or crostini. Or cut up for croutons or turned into panzanella. Yup, these are versatile. If you like baking bread, I suggest you give these a try.

The recipe in the book is quite a bit longer that what I've adapted, with much more detail, including photos that show how to shape the buns. So if you're not super-comfortable with making bread, go check out the book for more instructions.

The book suggests using a Vitamin C capsule or tablet, but I used sour salt. It's the came thing, but less trouble. You can find sour salt at some supermarkets and for sure online. It's handy to have on hand if you want to add a little tartness to foods, but you don't want actual lemon or lime flavor. My mom used it for her tomato soup if the tomatoes weren't tart enough.

You can knead this by hand, of course, but a stand mixer is sooooo much easier.

Bahn Mi Rolls
Adapted from The Bahn Mi Handbook by Andrea Nguyen

1/4 teaspoon sour salt (citric acid)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons (one envelope) instant or rapid rise yeast
2 tablespoon vital wheat gluten
1 pound unbleached all purpose flour (3 cups plus 3 1/2 tablespoons), plus more as needed
1 1/2 tablespoons shortening at room temperature
1 1/4 cups very warm water (110 degrees)

Put the sour salt, salt, sugar, yeast, gluten, and flour in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low to combine. Add the shortening and mix until it disappears into the flour. Stop the mixer and add the water. Mix for a minute, or until the dough forms a shaggy ball around the paddle. Let it sit for 5 minutes.

Pull the dough off the paddle and attach the dough hook to the mixer. Knead on medium-low speed (2 on a KitchenAid stand mixer) for about 2 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and somewhat firm.

Transfer the dough to your work surface. No flour is needed unless the dough feels soft and moist. Knead the dough briefly. When you're done, it should be barely tacky ad not sticky at all. When you press it, it should immediately bounce back, but leave a little indent.

Drizzle a little oil on the dough, put it back in the stand mixer bowl, turn it around a few times so it's evenly coated. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside in a warm spot for 45 minutes, or until doubled.

When the dough has risen, uncover the bowl and turn out the dough onto your work surface. Divide it into 6 equal pieces, then form each into a ball. Cover with plastic wrap and let the rest for 10 minutes, then form the balls into torpedo shapes. (The book goes into great detail about how to make this shape, but you can use any method you're comfortable with.) The torpedoes should be 6 1/2 inches long and 1 3/4 inches wide at the plump center.

Place the finished rolls on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Cover with lightly greased plastic wrap. I opted to just use a second baking sheet as a lid. Let them rise until more than double. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 475 degrees.

Set up the oven for steaming with a broiler pan or heavy pan on the bottom of the oven (or on a bottom rack, if your oven had exposed heating elements.)  Place a baking stone on a rack above the pan.

When the rolls have nearly doubled, remove the plastic wrap and let the surface of the rolls dry for the final 10 or 15 minutes.

Bring about a cup of water to a boil and keep it warm. Have a spray bottle filled with water standing by.

When the rolls are porpoise-like (my favorite description!) slash each each one with a sharp knife, nearly horizontal to the roll at the midline. It should be a very shallow cut.

Mist the rolls with the spray bottle and put the baking sheet in the oven on top of the stone. Carefully pour about 1/2 cup of water into the pan, then close the oven door. Lower the heat to 425 and bake for 22 to 24 minutes, or until the buns are golden brown.

At this point, my oven malfunctioned, the door locked shut with the oven turned off and cooling down. I had to rescue the rolls using a coat hanger to unlock the oven. So I didn't finish the rolls according to instructions. Instead, I took the par-baked and cooled buns to a neighbor's house to finish baking. Fortunately, it worked just fine.

If you're not dealing with a dead oven, turn off the oven when the rolls are done, leaving the rolls inside for another 8 to 10 minutes to brown and crisp a little more.

Let the rolls cool on a rack for at least 45 minutes.

About the book:

I have to admit that I've never actually eaten a bahn mi sandwich, so I can't really say if these buns are right or not. But they are really good.

I have a pate recipe bookmarked, as well as pickles. Both are traditional on bahn mi. When those are done, I can make a sandwich.

But to be honest, the pickles and pate and bread all look like I'd find other uses for them aside from sandwiches.

And this bread? Yes, I'll make it again. Well, I will when I have an oven.

Considering the narrow subject matter of this book, there's a good variety of recipes. There are sandwich ingredients, like the bread, pickles, and pate, but also mayonnaise, sauces, sausages, and terrines. Then there are sandwiches. And finally, non-traditional bahn-mi-like foods, including a bahn mi salad.

So even if you don't want to make a lot of bahn mi, there are recipes you can use for other purposes.

Enchiladas Suisas and a #giveaway

I love enchiladas, so the fact that there's an entire book about them makes me just a little giddy. I was invited to participate in a book tour for the book and I got the chance to make some amazing enchiladas.

Enchiladas suizas were one of my favorites, dating way back to when Bob and I were dating. Suizas, I was told, meant that the enchiladas were Swiss-style, which refers to the dairy products used. These enchiladas have a creamy green sauce and are topped with cheese.

Mmmm. Cheese.

The instructions are long, but that's because they're detailed. These are actually very easy to make, and you can make some of it ahead of time, like the sauce that can be made and refrigerated until you need it, and the chicken that can be cooked, shredded, and refrigerated until you're ready to assemble.

I had more sauce than I thought I needed, but when I reheated, I added more sauce, because it's really good. I've also used some on tacos. Next time I make these, I might mix some sauce into the shredded chicken. It's a really good sauce. I can see using it for a LOT of things.

Here's what you can WIN in the Giveaway (see the entry at the end of the post):

Enchiladas Suizas
Reprinted from Enchiladas: Aztec to Tex-Mex Copyright © 2015 by Cappy Lawton and Chris Waters Dunn. published by Trinity University Press.
Makes 12 enchiladas

Ingredients:
For the sauce:
1 pound (454 grams) tomatillos, husks removed, cored
1–2 serrano chiles, destemmed
1⁄2 medium white onion, peeled, coarsely chopped, and root end removed
3 cloves garlic, peeled
3⁄4 bunch cilantro
Chicken broth as needed for thinning sauce
1 tablespoon (15 ml) vegetable oil
1 cup (237 ml) crema Mexicana
Kosher salt to taste

For the filling:
2 cups (260 grams) poached and shredded chicken

For the assembly:
12 white corn tortillas
Vegetable oil as needed for softening tortillas
2 cups (240 grams) queso asadero, queso Chihuahua, or Emmentaler Swiss, grated

For the garnish:
1 cup (237 ml) crema Mexicana, or to taste
1 medium white onion, peeled and thinly sliced
Cilantro leaves to taste

Directions:
Start with the sauce:
Place the tomatillos, chiles, onion, and garlic in a saucepan, cover with water, and
bring to a boil.

Reduce heat to a simmer and gently cook until the tomatillos change color but
do not burst.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer vegetables to a blender.

Blend the vegetables until smooth, adding chicken broth as needed to achieve a
medium sauce consistency.

Add cilantro and process for a few seconds more.

In a saucepan over medium heat, place 1 tablespoon (15 ml) oil.

When it is hot, add the sauce and cook for a few minutes until warmed through
and slightly thickened.

Reduce to a bare simmer and stir in crema Mexicana. Heat the sauce through,
but do not let it boil.

Remove from heat and season with salt to taste. Cover, set aside, and keep warm.

Assemble the enchiladas:

The authors.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C).

Pour oil to a depth of 1⁄2 inch (12 mm) in a heavy skillet over medium-high heat.
Heat to low frying temperature, about 300°F (150°C).

Place each tortilla in the oil and fry for a few seconds, just long enough to soften.
Drain on paper towels.

Fill the lower third of a tortilla with 2 tablespoons shredded chicken, roll, and
place seam side down in an ovenproof baking dish large enough to accommodate
the enchiladas in a single layer.

Repeat with the remaining tortillas.

Generously cover with the sauce, making sure the edges of the enchiladas are
well covered.

Sprinkle queso asadero or queso Chihuahua on top.

Bake in a preheated oven until the enchiladas are heated through and the cheese
is melted and brown in spots, about 15 minutes.

Garnish with crema Mexicana, onion slices, and cilantro leaves.

Note: These enchiladas are intended to be flavorful but not spicy hot, so use chiles accordingly.

I used purchased tortillas (we have some good ones out here) but there's a recipe for homemade tortillas in the book, and the authors created an awesome video as well. Check it out!

For more information, check out the book's website, Pinterest, and Facebook.

Giveaway has ended.