Fried Onions & Sauce = the Perfect Steak Side Dish

We're splurging on the calories here today on The Dish List as I serve up a recipe for fried onions and sauce, the perfect sides to a grilled steak. What's unique about these onions is the addition of cornmeal to the flour mixture, adding a great crunch to every bite. 

Cornmeal-Fried Onion Rings 

1 large Spanish Onion

1 cup buttermilk

salt and pepper

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup yellow cornmeal

1 quart vegetable oil

Peel the onions, slice them 1/2 to 3/4-inch thick, and separate them into rings. Combine the buttermilk, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon pepper in a medium bowl. Add the onion rings, toss well, and allow to marinate for at least 15 minutes. (The onion rings can sit in the buttermilk for a few hours.) In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Set aside.

When you're ready to fry the onion rings, preheat the oven to 200 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with paper towels.

Heat the oil to 350 degrees F in a large pot or Dutch oven. (A candy thermometer attached to the side of the pot will help you maintain the proper temperature.) Working in batches, lift some onions out of the buttermilk and dredge them in the flour mixture. Drop into the hot oil and fry for 2 minutes, until golden brown, turning them once with tongs. Don't crowd them! Place the finished onion rings on the baking sheet, sprinkle liberally with salt, and keep them warm in the oven while you fry the next batch. Continue frying the onion rings and placing them in the warm oven until all the onions are fried. They will remain crisp in the oven for up to 30 minutes. Serve hot.

Who Dished it originally? Ina Garten on the Food Network

Have you ever eaten the Awesome Blossom at Chili's restaurant? This sauce is very similar:

Fried Onion Dipping Sauce

1/2 cup sour cream

2 Tbsp ketchup

1/2 tsp seasoning salt

1/4 tsp paprika

1-2 tsp hot sauce 

Mix all the ingredients together and chill for at least a half hour before serving.

Sauteed Mushrooms

Do your kids refuse to eat mushrooms? Do YOU? My oldest child is the one who silently pushes the tomatoes and mushrooms to the side of her plate and says she's full. The litmus test for this recipe is that she actually ate the 'shrooms without a single complaint! We didn't even have to mention our typical bribery of dessert. I guess that says something for this tasty side-dish.

Sauteed Mushrooms
Recipe courtesy of Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network


2 pounds mixed wild mushrooms
1/2 cup good olive oil
1 cup chopped shallots (4 large)
4 T (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
2 t kosher salt
1/2 t freshly ground black pepper
2 T chopped garlic (6 cloves)
1 cup chopped flat leaf parsley

Directions

Brush the caps of each mushroom with a clean sponge. Remove and discard the stems. Slice the small mushrooms thickly and cut the large ones in a large dice.

Heat the olive oil in a large (11 - inch) Dutch oven or saucepan. Add the shallots and cook over low heat for 5 minutes, or until the shallots are translucent. Add the butter, mushrooms, salt, and pepper and cook over medium heat for 8 minutes, until they are tender and begin to release their juices, stirring often. Stir in the garlic and cook for 2 more minutes. Toss in the parsley, sprinkle with salt, and serve warm.

*My Notes: I had a lot of common white button mushrooms and used those instead of a wild mushroom mix. Also, this dish had a lot of oil so I think I'll cut down the amount of olive oil next time I cook it.

A Different Cranberry Sauce

Okay. My Thanksgiving confession is I don't like cranberry sauce. My first impression of the sauce was as a young child at my grandmother's house. I still remember seeing the ring marks from a can on the jelly-like red substance that stood firm in the serving bowl. I guess even as a child I felt that if a food looked far from it's natural state it wouldn't taste good (and most likely wasn't healthy for me).

I probably never gave the stuff a fair taste test until a few years ago when my dad made this recipe. As a little introduction to my wonderful dad, he loves stores that give samples (Trader Joes, Costco) and most of the time he gets the recipe, buys the ingredients and makes the dish at home. Yes, that marketing strategy works very well on my dad. I love this version of cranberry sauce or relish to be exact. It's light and fruity and most definitely fresh. I'm excited to make this recipe for our Thanksgiving seeing as we now live in Hawaii and can include fresh pineapple. I LOVE pineapple bought fresh on the islands. Mmmm.. Now if I can only find a market that sells sugarloaf or white pineapples I will be completely pineappley satisfied.

Cape Cod Cranberry Relish

Slightly adapted from recipe featured at a local Albertsons store; source is Decas Cranberry Sales, Inc.

1 lb fresh cranberries, washed and picked through
2 small navel oranges, well washed (or 1 large)
1 c sugar
half a fresh pineapple, cut in 1-in chunks (or canned pineapple tidbits)
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled and cut in 1-in chunks
1/2 c chopped dates
1 c chopped walnuts, lightly toasted
Additional sugar, if necessary

Remove the peel of the oranges with a zester.  Place the peel and sugar in a food processor.  Pulse until peel is ground and well mixed with sugar.  Scrape frequently.  Add the cranberries and pulse until chopped well.  Place in a large mixing bowl.  Remove the white pith from the remaining oranges, cut oranges into 2" chunks, and process in the food processor by pulsing quickly.  Add to cranberries and orange.  Repeat the process with the fresh pineapple chunks and apples and add to cranberries and orange.  Add the chopped dates and nuts to the cranberries and fruit, stir well and cover.  If desired, add additional sugar to taste.  Refrigerate 24 hours before serving.  Serves 4-6.

Roast Cabbage

This recipe is healthy, tasty, and most importantly very easy! I had some cabbage growing in the garden that I wanted to eat so I looked around and found many internet references to roasting cabbage wedges.

Roasted Cabbage
1 cabbage
olive oil
salt
pepper
1 lemon

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut cabbage into about 6 wedges. Be sure leave the core intact so that each wedge has 1/6th the core. This helps keep the leaves of cabbage intact in the wedge. Arrange cabbage on a rimmed baking sheet. Brush both sides of wedges with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Roast, flipping halfway through, until edges are brown and crisp, 25 to 30 minutes. Squeeze lemons over cabbage.

*I forgot to squeeze lemon on top and it tasted just fine. Next time I'll give the lemon flavor a try. I thought about using lemon pepper as a part of the seasonings as well.

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

My husband is the official mashed potato maker in our home. That's because he is VERY good at it! The other night we invited my brother over for dinner since his wife was out of town. I realized as I was planning the menu that we always make mashed potatoes when he visits since it's an effort to step up the meal quality. Since the meal I had planned was pot-roast and who doesn't like potatoes with their roast I decided to try a new recipe to give my ol' brother some variation. To make things even more exciting I made the potatoes instead of my husband. ("Ooooooooo! Ahhhhhhh!) End result: these were a HIT!

Creamy Mashed Potatoes
(Pioneer Woman)

5 pounds Russet Or Yukon Gold Potatoes
3⁄4 cups Butter
1 package (8 Oz.) Cream Cheese, Softened*
1⁄2 cups (to 3/4 Cups) Half-and-Half
1⁄2 teaspoons (to 1 Teaspoon) Lawry's Seasoned Salt
1⁄2 teaspoons (to 1 Teaspoon) Black Pepper

Peel and cut the potatoes into pieces that are generally the same size. Bring a large pot of water to a simmer and add the potatoes. Bring to a boil and cook for 30 to 35 minutes. When they’re cooked through, the fork should easily slide into the potatoes with no resistance, and the potatoes should almost, but not totally, fall apart.

Drain the potatoes in a large colander. When the potatoes have finished draining, place them back into the dry pot and put the pot on the stove. Mash the potatoes over low heat, allowing all the steam to escape, before adding in all the other ingredients. Turn off the stove and add 1 1⁄2 sticks of butter, an 8-ounce package of cream cheese and about 1⁄2 cup of half-and-half. Mash, mash, mash! Next, add about 1⁄2 teaspoon of Lawry’s Seasoning Salt and 1⁄2 a teaspoon of black pepper. Stir well and place in a medium-sized baking dish. Throw a few pats of butter over the top of the potatoes and place them in a 350-degree oven and heat until butter is melted and potatoes are warmed through.

(When making this dish a day or two in advance, take it out of the fridge about 2 to 3 hours before serving time. Bake in a 350-degree oven for about 20 to 30 minutes or until warmed through.)

*My Note: I didn't do the last step of warming it in the oven because of a lack of time. Thankfully my mashed 'taters were still steaming hot for service at dinner.

Candied Coconut Sweet Potatoes

This year for Thanksgiving we gathered for a large extended family dinner with my dad's side of the family. I remember when I was young we used to get together with these same relatives but once my uncle became sick and passed away and my grandma as well we didn't gather as often. I really enjoyed this mini reunion and seeing family that I haven't seen in many years.

I have never thought of sweet potato casserole as a must-have for Thanksgiving dinner. A few years ago when Dan and I started making our own dinner for just our little family we made sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top which the kids ate. This year I saw this recipe for sweet potatoes with coconut crumble on top and I just had to make it. With my ridiculous fashion of cooking a brand new and never tested recipe when guests come for dinner, I made this recipe and we all loved it! It will definitely be a staple on our traditional Thanksgiving dinner table.


Candied Coconut Sweet Potatoes
Recipe from Our Best Bites


4 C mashed Sweet potatoes (4 med sweet potatoes or abt 2 large sized cans)
6 Tbs Sugar
6 Tbs butter (no margarine), softened or melted
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 can Sweetened Condensed Milk (eyeball it)
1 t vanilla

Topping:
1 C brown sugar
1 C sweetened coconut flakes
6 Tbs melted butter

Note: You can make these up to a day or two ahead of time, just keep them well covered in the fridge and don't put the topping on until just before baking.

If using fresh sweet potatoes, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prick each sweet potato with a fork and place on foil in the oven. Cook for 40-60 minutes or until tender. Once they've cooled enough to handle, slice in half and scoop out the insides into a mixing bowl.

To the mixing bowl add in sugar, butter, eggs, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla. Your butter should be soft enough to blend up easily so nuke it in the microwave before you add it to the bowl if you need to. You could mash it all up by hand, but an electric mixer works great. Spread this mixture evenly into a 9 x 13 pan.

For the topping, combine brown sugar and coconut and then pour melted butter over and combine. Sprinkle the potatoes with the topping and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 40-50 minutes.The top should be nice and browned and bubbly so just keep an eye on it.

Jayne's Notes: 
*I highly recommend using fresh sweet potatoes. Their preparation is just like baking a normal potato so it's real easy. Also, the canned potatoes have added sugar so be aware that this recipe already is plenty sweet and you may want to leave out the sugar in the batter if you used canned yams. 
*I increased the crumble topping mixture because we all like a bite of yummy crumblies with our sweet potatoes. I ended up doubling the sweet potato mixture (allowing me to use the entire can of sweetened condensed milk) and making the crumble recipe x 2 1/2. 
*The original recipe said you could leave the sweet potatoes slightly clumpy and not fully beat the mixture smooth. Next time I try this idea and beat the batter ingredients separately to allow them to fully mix and then mix it with the sweet potatoes until just barely mixed yet still lumpy.

Roasted Tomatoes

My husband found Ina Garten's Roasted Tomatoes recipe on the Food Network site and since we had so many garden tomatoes we made this as a side dish for dinner. It was an easy and delicious twist to sliced tomatoes and we all loved them.

Roasted Tomatoes

Recipe and Photo Courtesy of the Food Network

• • 12 plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise, cores and seeds removed
  • 4 tablespoons good olive oil
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 2 large garlic cloves, minced
  • 2 teaspoons sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

  Directions

  Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.
  Arrange the tomatoes on a sheet pan, cut sides up, in a single layer. Drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Sprinkle the garlic, sugar, salt, and pepper over the tomatoes. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes, until the tomatoes are concentrated and beginning to caramelize. Serve warm or at room temperature.
  
  
  *Jayne's Notes: It looks like she garnished with maybe some fresh parsley. We didn't garnish our dish and it tasted just fine. I did serve these directly off the pan because they were too delicate to transfer to a serving dish.

Oven-roasted Potato Wedges

We ate potato wedges for dinner tonight and they were seriously the best I have EVER tasted! Every time I've attempted to make these in the past the potatoes took too long to get soft and the seasonings just weren't very good. I don't know what made tonight's dish so yummy but here are a few of the tricks I learned.

First, I boiled the potatoes for 5-10 minutes until they were just starting to get soft. This decreased the oven cooking time (Yay!) from 50 minutes to 20 at 450 degrees.

Second, I avoided using powdered onion soup or some other odd concoction of flavors. In a bowl I mixed some olive oil, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Once the potatoes were drained I poured this oil mixture in and made sure the potatoes were thoroughly coated. Once the potatoes were spread on a baking dish I sprinkled some seasoning salt on top. These were so yummy they didn't need anything else!! 

The third difference from my usual potato wedge baking attempt was that we used FRESH red potatoes straight out of our garden. This was probably the real kicker in making the end product so delicious. Still, I was so amazed at the success of tonight's potato attempt I just had to record my 'recipe'.