Salt & Pepper Potato Chip Seasoning

Homemade Salt & Pepper Potato Chips

I'm a big fan of most salt & pepper potato chips. My favorites are the Lay's Kettle Cooked Chips or Kettle Brand. I was hankering for some salt & pepper chips, but we only had the plain wavy HyVee potato chips on hand, so I decided to experiment and came up with this recipe. I think it works, and I've been enjoying way too many yummy chips ever since. 

Most people have the ingredients on hand, so I think it's worth a try to see if you like these. If you're a fan of salt & pepper potato chips, I think you'll be pleased.


Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons onion powder
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• plain salted potato chips of your choosing

Instructions:

Mix all ingredients in a small lidded container.

Either keep the chips in their bag or just do a handful in a quart size zip top bag. Add 2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons of the mix for a quart size bag, and use about 2 tablespoons of the mixture for an 8 oz. bag of potato chips. Seal the bag and gently shake to distribute seasoning. Add more seasoning and shake, if desired.

You can enjoy the chips immediately, but I think they taste better after sitting (sealed) for a day or so.

Store leftover seasoning in an airtight container. Scale the recipe up or down as desired.

Use whatever brand and style of plain salted chips you like. 
This local brand happens to be my fav.

Before shaking

Sloppy Joe Filling

My husband is a big fan of sloppy joes. I, on the other hand, am not. It's not that they taste bad, per se, but they just don't taste good to me. I used to keep a can of Manwich sauce in the cupboard for an easy dinner that made the husband happy, but one day I decided to just look up a recipe and try it from scratch. 

What do you know--it's really simple and actually tastes better than what you get in the can. Still not something I would choose to cook just for me, but I'm counting it as a win. 

There are lots of recipes out there. I have tried a few, and am finally committing this one to the blog because I keep losing the papers I print the recipes out on. I realize there are apps that will keep track of recipes, but I don't want to go and start a whole new thing. I've got pretty much all the recipes I want right here on this blog.

So here you go. Basic sloppy Joe recipe. Enjoy.

Sloppy Joe Filling

Adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon yellow mustard
• 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic chili paste (optional)
• 3/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Instructions:

In a large pan set over medium high heat, brown the ground beef.

Add the onion and bell pepper and cook until veggies are soft.

Add ketchup, mustard, garlic chili paste, garlic powder, and black pepper. Stir to combine.

Reduce heat to low and simmer for another 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add a little more ketchup or water if it seems to be getting too dry.

Serve on sliced buns.

Store leftover filling in an airtight container in the refrigerator and consume or freeze within 3 days.

Makes about 8-10 servings

Sourdough Bagels

So many things are going on right now. I'm starting a new job next week and I'm going to be overlapping that with my current job for a few weeks. So, with my last two days off before a 9-day stretch with no day off, I decided to try my hand at sourdough bagels. I was already making sourdough loaves to have on hand in the freezer, and I had some extra ripe starter, so I looked up a recipe and found the perfect recipe on The Perfect Loaf. 

I really recommend looking at the recipe there, as they really do a great job explaining the recipe better than I did here, timeline and all. I tweaked the recipe a bit, so I decided to post it here mainly for myself to replicate in the future.

These bagels take a bit more time than the usual ones, but they are so much more satisfying. Today I made plain, Asiago, and everything bagels--all of them fantastic. 

If you are itching to try out sourdough bagels, give these a go. You will love them.

Sourdough Bagels
     Adapted from The Perfect Loaf

Ingredients:

Levain

• 116 g bread flour
• 65 g water
• 30 g ripe sourdough starter

Bagel Dough

• 850 g bread flour
• 475 g water
• 30 g white sugar
• 30 g molasses or barley malt syrup
• 18 g salt
• 7 g non-diastatic malt powder
• batch of levain (noted above)

Boiling and Topping

• 3-4 quarts of water
• 2 tablespoons rice flour (for boiling)
• toppings, such as shredded Asiago cheese, everything bagel seasoning, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, etc.

Instructions:

The evening before you plan to mix the bagel dough, mix the levain in a wide-mouth pint size mason jar, or in a small bowl. This mixture will be quite stiff, but try to mix it completely. You and take it out of its container and kneed it, if that helps. Cover levain loosely and allow to ferment overnight (about 12 hours) in cozy location.

In the bowl of a sturdy stand mixer, mix about a quarter cup of the water with the sugar, molasses, malt powder, and salt. Add the ripe levain, remaining water, and the flour. Mix on low for about 5-6 minutes or until it looks relatively smooth and elastic. Transfer dough to a bowl or other proofing container. Loosely cover and allow to ferment until puffed, about 3-4 hours.

Note: Do not use bench flour when working with this dough. It should not be sticky enough for that.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Turn the dough out onto a clean counter and divide evenly into 12 pieces (I used my digital scale for this). At this point you can choose to shape the bagels one of two ways: rope or ball. I used the rope method, and today the bagels turned out a bit wonky. Once your bagels are formed place them on the prepared baking sheet.

When all are done, cover the baking sheet with a lid or a large plastic bag, and allow them to proof for 2-4 hours at room temperature. If they don't seem to puff at all, just put them in the fridge anyway after 3-4 hours. Leave in the fridge overnight.

When you're ready to boil and bake, preheat your convection oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit (or 500 degrees F for non-convection). Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

Fill a wide-mouth pot or dutch oven about half full of water and bring to a boil. Add the rice flour and whisk to incorporate (this helps give the bagels a nice shine).

Boil bagels in batches of 3-4 for about 1 minute, turning each bagel at the half-minute mark. Using a spatula with holes, or other straining kitchen tool, scoop each bagel out, tap bottom of spatula on a kitchen towel to drain a bit, and slide bagel onto the prepared baking sheet. Immediately top with toppings that you want to stick. Continue with remaining bagels, placing about 6-8 bagels on each pan, making sure to not crowd them if you don't want them to touch.

Bake bagels at 475 for about 7 minutes, and then turn oven down to 450 to bake another 6-7 minutes, or until they are deep golden brown. Carefully transfer bagels to a cooling rack to cool at least 10 minutes before enjoying. (Note: I used a baking steel and baking stone and slid the bagels onto the stone/steel on the parchment, and this produced nice crisp exteriors. I you don't have either of those items, baking the bagels on the baking sheets will be just fine.)

Ciabatta Rolls

Ciabatta Rolls

So, I started this post about eight years ago, and I cannot recall why I didn't finish it then. I didn't completely finish it today either. I just want to get the recipe posted because I think I'll be making it again. Perhaps there are other bread people out there who might be up for it as well. And perhaps I'll even make these again soon so I can take more pics or even make a TikTok about it. We shall see.

For now, this is what I have. 

There are so many things I love about these rolls, I don't know why I forgot about them. They're light, flavorful, versatile, and such a great sensory experience to make. The dough gets super puffy and jiggly (see video clip at the bottom), and they're delicious.

This week I used one of these for a fantastic breakfast sandwich with Black Forest ham, egg, and American cheese. Mmm. Super satisfying. The rest are waiting in the freezer for my nephews who visit next month, but I think I may try to bake some more because I'll want to eat and share these with Ezra AND I want to add more pics here.

Okay, enough rambling. Back to baking.

Ciabatta Rolls
    --adapted from Cook's Illustrated

Ingredients:

Biga

• 2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1 cup water (8 ounces), at room temperature

Dough

• 4 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1 teaspoon instant yeast
• 3 teaspoons table salt
• 1 1/2 cups water (room temperature)
• 1/2 cup milk (room temperature)

Instructions:

1. FOR THE BIGA: Combine flour, yeast, and water in medium bowl and stir with wooden spoon until uniform mass forms, about 1 minute. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature (about 70 degrees) overnight (at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours).

2. FOR THE DOUGH: Place biga and dough ingredients in bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Mix on lowest speed until roughly combined and shaggy dough forms, about 1 minute; scrape down sides of bowl as necessary. Continue mixing on medium-low speed until dough becomes uniform mass that collects on paddle and pulls away from sides of bowl, 4 to 6 minutes. Change to dough hook and knead bread on medium speed until smooth and shiny (dough will be very sticky), about 10 minutes. Transfer dough to large bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let dough rise at room temperature until doubled in volume, about 1 hour.*

3. Spray silicone spatula or bowl scraper with nonstick cooking spray; fold partially risen dough over itself by gently lifting and folding edge of dough toward middle. Turn bowl 90 degrees; fold again. Turn bowl and fold dough six more times (total of eight turns). Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 30 minutes. Repeat folding, replace plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled in volume, about 30 minutes longer. Meanwhile, adjust oven rack to lower-middle position, place baking stone on rack, and heat oven to 450 degrees at least 30 minutes before baking.

4. Line two rimless baking sheets (or the underside of a baking sheet)** with parchment paper Transfer dough to liberally floured counter, being careful not to deflate completely. Liberally flour top of dough and divide in half. Adjust each piece of dough so cut side is facing up and dust with flour. Cut each half again in half along the length of the dough. Working with one fourth of the dough at a time, cut each strip into thirds (you will end up with 12 rolls in the end). 

With well-floured hands, take each piece of dough and press with your fingertips to stretch dough to a rough 3x5 inch rectangle. Fold rectangle into thirds and gently press the seam on the long side. Roll in a little bit of flour to prevent sticking. Place on parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough until you have six little loaves on each parchment lined baking sheet. Cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let loaves sit at room temperature for 30 minutes (surfaces of loaves will develop small bubbles).

5. After this last rise, place one of the pans in the fridge while you bake the other. Using floured fingertips, evenly poke entire surface of each roll. Spray loaves lightly with water. Carefully slide parchment with loaves onto baking stone using jerking motion. Bake at 450 degrees, spraying loaves with water twice more during first 5 minutes of baking time, until crust is deep golden brown and instant-read thermometer inserted into centers of loaves registers 210 degrees, 14-18 minutes. Transfer to wire rack, discard parchment, and cool loaves to room temperature, about 1 hour, before slicing and serving. Repeat with the other pan that's waiting in the fridge.

Makes 12 large rolls

** I use a baking stone in my oven, and it's always in there. If you do not have a baking stone, just bake the rolls on a parchment lined baking sheet and ignore all of the instructions to slide the rolls onto the bakig stone. Just put the baking sheets in the oven to bake.

*It's kind of tricky to keep track of the steps of dough development, so here's a summary/check list:

• Prepare biga the night/day before.
• Mix dough.
• Let dough rise 60 minutes.
• Fold dough 8 turns with greased spatula. 
• Let dough rise 30 minutes. 
• Fold 8 turns again .
• Let dough rise 30 minutes.
• Preheat oven.
• Form loaves. 
• Loaves rise 30 minutes. 
• Poke loaves with fingertips.
• Spray with water 
• Bake 14-18 minutes.

Corn Salad

My good friend Amy made this for us one summer evening, and my husband who doesn't really go out of his way for veggies LOVED it. (I know corn is more of a grain than a vegetable, but we grew up in the 70s and our moms counted it as a vegetable.)

It's a light, refreshing, and flavorful salad. I still need to perfect it, but since I keep going back to my texts to get the recipe, I'm finally committing it to the blog. I'll try to remember to make changes here as I adjust the recipe. What Amy sent me was not an exact recipe, so the way I quantified it here is me ballparking it.

Corn Salad

Ingredients:

• 4 large corn cobs, grilled & cooled/refrigerated 
• 1 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
• 1/3 cup finely diced red onion
• 2-3 tablespoons fresh finely diced jalapeño pepper
• 1/4 cup (or so) cilantro, chopped
• juice of one small lemon
• 1/2 to 1 tsp salt
• 1 teaspoon chili powder

Instructions:

• (Watch this video if you want to see how one person grills corn.)
• Carefully cut the corn kernels from the cob and place in a large bowl. (Watch this video for corn cutting tips.)
• Add the rest of the ingredients, starting with only 1/2 teaspoon salt. Mix thoroughly.
• Taste to see if you want to add more salt (or any other ingredient). 
• Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Makes about 6-8 cups of corn salad.

Pizza Sauce -- Quick and Easy

Easy peasy pizza sauce

After years of using mediocre store-bought pizza sauce for my homemade pizza, I finally searched up and found an easy, delicious option for homemade sauce. I kind of like my pizza sauce to be a little thick, so I looked for a recipe that included tomato paste, and found this recipe pretty quickly on JoyFoodSunshine.com. That recipe does not involve fresh garlic or any cooking, but I really wanted an intense garlic element, so I tweaked the recipe a bit.

Depending on how much red pepper flake you put in, you can make this pretty spicy. The half-teaspoon called for in my rendition below gives it just a small kick that I don't think will be too much for sensitive folks, but put in less if that's your preference.

I had the Orlondo's Pizza Spice on hand, and I realize now it's kind of a local thing. So, if you don't have that or anything like it, go to JoyFoodSunshine.com and check out the ingredients they have there for the original recipe of this sauce. I think you could also use "Italian spice" and augment with basil, parsley, and fennel seed, since that's what is listed on Orlondo's bottle (see pic below).

Overall, I consider this pizza sauce a win, and it's now my go-to sauce for homemade pizza night at my house. It's flavorful, just the right viscosity and spice. I keep the leftovers in my fridge and one batch covers about six 12-inch pizzas, which covers 2 different pizza nights at my house.

So, it's a winner in my book. Give it a try.

Pizza Sauce

  -- Adapted from JoyFoodSunshine.com

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons pizza seasoning (I used Orlondo's Pizza Spice)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 can tomato paste (6 oz)
• 1 can tomato sauce (15 oz)
• 1 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Instructions:

In a medium saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic, pizza seasoning, oregano, onion powder, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Stir and cook for about 30-45 seconds before adding the tomato paste. 

Stir in the tomato paste to incorporate, and then stir in the tomato sauce.

Turn heat to medium low and cook until bubbles start to pop through and sauce is very hot, but not boiling.

You can allow the sauce to sit & cool in the pan while you prep the other ingredients for pizza, or you can transfer it directly to a glass container (like a Mason jar), cover, and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.

Use as you would any other pizza sauce.

Makes about 2 1/2 cups sauce

Orlondo's Pizza Spice Ingredients:
basil, parsley, fennel seed, Italian spices

Potato & Beef Burritos

Potato and Beef Burritos

I like to eat mine with a fork.

If you live in Southern California and have access to a Smart and Final store, you are able to purchase Ramona's Potato and Beef burritos, $19.99/dozen, any time you want. Since I no longer live in SoCal, but really really wanted to eat a delicious potato and beef burrito, I took to the internet and found this fantastic recipe from Pina en la Cocina. 

These burritos don't taste exactly like Ramona's but they're pretty darned close and pretty darned satisfying.

I still need to find a better, more consistent way to introduce heat. I have yet to actually try the Anaheim chiles called for in the recipe at Pina en la Cocina. So far Trader Joe's jalapeno sauce has been sufficient and easy.

So there you go. Potato and beef burritos. Try them.


Potato and Beef Burritos
     --Adapted from Pina en la Cocina

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds cooked, simply seasoned beef (Click here for a good recipe.)
• 4 - 6 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3-4 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 3/4 inch cubes
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 1/2 cups beef stock (I use as much of the liquid from the roast recipe linked above as I can)
• 4 cans (4 oz. each) fire roasted diced green chiles
• Jalapeno hot sauce to taste (I use 3-4 tablespoons Trader Joe's Jalapeno Sauce.)
• 12-16 large flour tortillas

Instructions:

• In a Dutch oven over medium-high heat, heat up 2-3 tablespoons of oil. add the cubed potatoes. Salt and pepper the potatoes to taste. Stir potatoes occasionally until they start to brown and begin to soften.
• Add the garlic, onion, and cumin to the potatoes. Stir and cook until potatoes are cooked through.
• Add the cooked beef, green chiles, jalapeno sauce, and beef stock. Stir to combine and heat through.
• Scoop about a cup or so of the mixture into the middle of a tortilla and roll up into a burrito. (Click here for a video that shows the best way to fold/roll a burrito.)
• For real Ramona's authenticity, wrap each rolled burrito in plastic wrap. When you do this, the tortilla becomes soft, steamed, and even moist from the filling juices.
• Any burritos you do not eat the day you make them can (and should be) frozen (in their plastic wrap) and placed in a zip top freezer bag for later enjoyment.
• When ready to reheat from frozen, place wrapped burrito on a microwave safe plate and microwave on high for 2 minutes*. Turn burrito over and heat for another 30-60 seconds. Allow to sit for at least 3 minutes to allow heat to evenly disperse throughout the burrito. Unwrap and enjoy.

*You may need to adjust this time depending on which size tortilla you used and how big your burritos end up.


Makes 12-16 burritos

Simple Chicken Nuggets

Chicken Nuggets

This chicken nugget recipe actually started with a recipe for fried pork tenderloin--a super popular dish here in Iowa. It was such a simple and delicious dish, that I decided to try the treatment on chicken. It immediately became my older son's absolute favorite dish. 

The recipe involves pounding the chicken with a meat tenderizer, which really tender chicken doesn't really need, but it does make the nuggets extra delicate and tasty. You may need to just try it and get a feel for what works for you.

This was actually the first time I made nuggets from this recipe. Usually, I fry up the fillets and we eat them on buns. We were having a Hot Ones party with friends (for those unfamiliar, you can click on the link, or just know it's a sort of challenge to eat 10 increasingly hot sauces while answering thoughtful questions), so I needed a lightly breaded chicken in relatively small pieces. These nuggets fit the bill perfectly. They're savory without being overly-seasoned OR overly breaded which is what generally occurs with store-bought nuggets.

At any rate, these are a delicious homemade chicken nugget. Give 'em a go.

Simple Chicken Nuggets

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds chicken breast meat
• 1 cup hot water
• 1 tablespoon chicken base (or chicken bouillon)
• 2 sleeves of saltine crackers
• vegetable or canola oil for frying

Instructions:

• Mix the hot water and the chicken base/bouillon and pour into a large bowl.
• Slice each chicken breast horizontally into two or three pieces/fillets.
• Place slices between two layers of plastic wrap, and then with a meat tenderizer pound the chicken, only hitting each spot once on each. Take care to not tenderize too much. Turn the chicken over and do the same on the other side.
• If a slice of chicken is already pretty thin, skip the pounding step.
• Cut the thin/thinned chicken into 1 1/2 to 2 inch pieces. Place cut pieces into the bouillon liquid.
• Working with about half a sleeve of crackers at a time, put the crackers into a gallon size zip top bag and roll with a rolling pin until the crackers are a relatively fine powder.
• Pour the cracker powder (or some of it) into a bowl or dish where you can coat the chicken.
• Set a wire cooling rack in a rimmed baking sheet or line a baking sheet with paper towels.
• Heat about an inch to inch and half of oil in shallow frying pan or cast iron skillet set over medium high heat. (Alternately, you can use a wok or other deep frying apparatus.)
• While oil heats, start to coat the chicken pieces with the cracker dust. Set coated pieces on a plate until the oil is heated.
• When oil is heated, fry as many pieces of chicken that will fit in the pan, leaving at least a quarter inch between pieces.
• Fry until light golden brown and then using tongs or a fork, turn over to fry another minute or two until browned on the other side.
• Remove cooked chicken pieces to the prepared wire rack or paper towel lined baking sheet.
• Continue frying until all chicken has been fried. When finished, turn off the heat and  set oil aside to cool and then discard.

Makes about 2 dozen chicken nuggets.

This chicken breast is pretty thick, so I filleted it into 3 pieces.

Chicken should be about this thick.

Today I doubled the recipe for a Hot Ones party.

Pound chicken lightly with a meat tenderizer. 
It's easy to shred the chicken, so be cafeful.

Cut each pounded fillet into smaller pieces

Chicken pieces soaking in the chicken broth.

Crackers should be pulverized almost into a powder.

Toss the chicken in a bowl.

Breaded pieces can be set aside until all are breaded before frying.

I liked frying in this wok today.

This is the best way to drain the oil--a wire rack over a pan.

Tender, delicious chicken nuggets.