Sunday freezer cooking

Coconut red curry chicken with spinach and cilantro

Chicken Alfredo with spinach and broccoli

Cilantro lime chicken with corn and black beans

Black bean taco soup

Leftovers: Subverted Green Bean Casserole & Turkey Pan Pasta

Man, do I miss Thanksgiving. We ate a lot of Thanksgiving leftovers, and now I miss them too. Thankfully (ha!), my inter-holidays cooking endeavors have been even better since I inherited the rolling butcher block that my dad made. It's so beautiful and useful!


Subverted Green Bean Casserole

Everybody loves green bean casserole, right? It was the one thing I missed at Thanksgiving because this year, we did creamed spinach instead. So a couple of days after Thanksgiving when I'm walking through Target, I can't help but be drawn into the green bean casserole display right at the front in the bargain section. Fried onions, green beans and cream of mushroom soup all right next to each other for the taking and purchasing and eating.

Much to my dismay, when I got home and actually set out to make the easiest of holiday classics, I had been swindled! While I was seasoning, Nate was draining the cans of green beans. But one was practically empty!!


Well if Target wanted to play that way, then fine. We were ready to step it up and get creative. Instead of a second can of green beans, we used a can of Great Northern beans. Nate really wanted to spice it up and added a can of Rotel tomatoes and green chilis. Who says sacrilege isn't delicious?

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Turkey Pan Pasta

When we brought home the turkey leftovers from Thanksgiving, we had segregated the meat. All of the white meat had been consumed, and we had a ziplock full of dark meat that needed to be eaten. I wanted some sort of chicken pot pie style dinner because it was cold as balls outside, so Nate and I created what we now dub Turkey Pan Pasta.

We used a box of Campbell's Supper Bakes of the Garlic Chicken with Pasta variety. I always keep a bag of frozen mixed vegetables in the freezer because I've loved mixed veggies since my elementary school lunchroom served them to me twice a week. I boiled some veggies while Nate picked through the turkey meat and pulled of the icky bits.

Ugh, he's SO CUTE.



Then we mixed it up and followed the directions on the box. These Supper Bakes come with "baking sauce" and crumb topping, so it makes a lovely little Minnesota hot dish when you're done.



Yum!
Now that all the turkey is gone, get ready for some serious Christmas cooking in the next post. Holiday cookies, anyone?

Special Video Post - Beer Cheese Curry Chili

Hey, Internet. Here's a special edition video post since my sister's in town for Thanksgiving. We came up with a silly way to make dinner: Eight ingredients, chosen at random by some guy in a blindfold (actually Haley's friend Rob, who made the video).


Garbanzo beans, Great Northern beans, red curry paste, corn, broccoli, a Grain Belt Premium beer, some fresh Wisconsin Muenster and some brown rice. (We ended up leaving out the rice.)
Cheese, beer, broccoli... only means one thing: beer cheese soup. We started by checking out this recipe.

Starring me, Haley, Nate and Rob --


We started by sautéeing carrots and onions in some butter. We took it out and then used more butter to make a roux with the red curry paste and some flour. A roux is something I ought to be well-acquainted with because it's the start of every good Cajun dish, but, to the shame of my mother, I wasn't sure if I'd ever made one without my Mom. Good thing Haley was there. She taught me how to thicken it up with flour, making sure it was brown enough -- which was a bit of challenge because the curry paste gave it a lovely rust color.

After this, things went along pretty quickly. We added the veggies back in and dumped in some beer (after testing to make sure it was good still). A lesson for you, young kitchen padawan: always have some organic vegetable broth in your fridge. You never know when you may need to make soup. We then added the garbanzo beans, Great Northerns, corn and chopped broccoli.


The one big improvement to this recipe that I would recommend would be to use a cheese that melts better; muenster just doesn't cut it even though it tastes so darn good. We grated the cheese and slowly -- very slowly; Nate put in one shred at a time because he's Nate -- added it to the chili-ish Frankenstein soup we had created with our godlike kitchen powers.

Here's us enjoying it.





... After dinner, we made s'mores. I'll assume you know the recipe for that one.



Next time on Experimental Cookery...
It's pre-Thxgvg! Get ready to get your pumpkin on.
My friend Jerome will teach me, Nate, Haley and Brian how to make his infamous pumpkin soup. I'll share a friend's recipe for a delicious dessert, pumpkin crunch.