Corn Souffle

This is a cheap, quick, and easy dinner to make when you're really busy. A box of corn mix, eggs, and cans of corn are almost all you need!

Ingredients:

16 oz. can creamed corn
16 oz. can whole corn, drained
I package of corn muffin mix
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 beaten eggs, or 1/2 cup egg substitute
8 oz. sour cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 30 degrees. Mix all ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Pour into a greased round baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, and the top is golden.

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Baked Buffalo Chicken Tenders

Joe: "I worked to create a low-fat version of the boneless buffalo chicken from Buffalo Wild Wings. This version is guilt-free and almost as good as the original recipe. Add more or less hot sauce and cayenne according to your taste."

Ingredients

Blue Cheese Dip

2/3 cup reduced-fat sour cream
2/3 cup crumbled blue cheese
1 tablespoon white vinegar

Wings

¼ cup skim milk
3 tablespoons hot sauce
3 tablespoons white vinegar
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
½ cup whole-wheat flour
¼ cup fine cornmeal or dry bread crumbs
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Butter-flavored cooking spray, or oil spritzer
2 cups carrot sticks
2 cups celery sticks

Directions

To prepare dip: Whisk sour cream, blue cheese, and vinegar. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight.

Cut chicken breasts into small strips across the grain. Whisk milk, hot sauce, and vinegar in a large bowl until combined. Add chicken; toss to coat. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, turning chicken pieces occasionally.

Stir together cayenne, flour, and cornmeal on a plate. Roll the chicken strips in the flour mixture until evenly coated.

Spray a baking pan with oil or cooking spray. Lay the chicken strips in the pan so that the pieces do not touch. Pour the remaining marinade over the chicken. Spray the tops of the chicken with more oil.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes or until done, turning occasionally. Arrange tenders on a platter, and serve with carrots, celery, and blue cheese dip.

Serves 4

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Duck with Sausage and Herb Stuffing (Anatra en Porchetta)

Save this recipe for a day when you're not watching your weight, or after you've been shoveling Chicago snow all day and you need rich, fulfilling refueling. A day after the Chicago SnowPocalyse of 2011 is perfect for making this, especially if someone else is doing the shoveling while you're cooking.

If your chain grocery store doesn't often provide duck, and you don't know any hunters, try an Asian or Latino store, where the meat selection is usually much wider and cheaper than in mainstream American stores.

Note: this is a recipe that we originally received from friends in Tuscany. Ordinarily this recipe would be used for roasted pork, which is often sold off street carts in panini sandwiches, or offered in local butcher markets. Using duck instead of pork is an interesting innovation, but feel free to use the basic recipe with a pork shoulder or an entire pig, if you have the facilities to cook it.

Ingredients:

2 cloves of garlic, minced

3 fresh sage leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon fresh thyme, chopped
½ teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves, chopped
1 fresh Italian sausage, skin removed
1 5-pound duck
3 bay leaves
6 thick strips pancetta or bacon
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup dry red wine
Salt and pepper

Preheat an oven to 450 degrees.

Crumble the sausage into a bowl and mix in the garlic and herbs. Rinse the duck and pat dry. Insert 1 bay leaf and the sausage mixture into the duck. Sew up the cavity with kitchen string and tie down the wings and legs close to the body so they do not brown too quickly. Cover the breast with the pancetta or bacon and place the remaining bay leaves on top of the bacon. Place the duck breast-side up in a roasting pan. Stir together the wine, oil, salt and pepper, and pour it over the bird.

Roast for 1 ½ to 2 hours, basting occasionally, until the pancetta or bacon are crisp and a thermometer inserted into the breast registers 175 degrees. Transfer the duck to a board and let sit for 10 minutes. Remove and discard the string and bay leaves. Remove the stuffing and carve the duck. Serve over a wide pasta such as fettucine, if desired.

Serves 4-6

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Joe's Award-Winning Chili

Joe won a prize for his chili in a Jaycees Chili Cookoff and then years later in the Grayslake Winter Carnival cookoff. It's fantastic, even though he doesn't add beans. In fact, it was so fantastic that it was all eaten at the Winer Carnival before I could get a photo. You know what chili looks like anyway, don't you?

Ingredients

2 lb. chuck or round steak (or top sirloin steak)
2 tbsp olive oil
Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
1 (28 oz) can tomato sauce
1 (12 oz) can of beer
1/3 cup chopped white onion
1/3 cup chopped red bell pepper
5 garlic cloves minced, or pressed with garlic press
2 tsp ground cayenne pepper (more or less to taste)
12 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp smoky paprika
1 tsp ground cumin

½ lb. Chihuahua Mexican cheese or goat cheese

Directions

In a skillet heat the oil with crushed red pepper flakes for a minute, then adding meat. Brown meat on both sides in the oil.

Place the meat into a heavy stock pot with lid, adding tomato sauce and beer to meat. Then add onion, garlic, chili pepper, oregano, paprika, salt, ground cumin. Simmer 2 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally but leave the lid on as much as possible.

Add cheese, and stir often while poking apart the steak so it shreds. Cook another ½ hour.

Optional:

Serve with pinto beans, chopped onions, grated cheddar cheese, and sour cream on the side. Your "chili gourmet" friends can customize it if they like. For your Midwest friends with stereotypical Scandinavian or Northern European ancestry they may need to add elbow macaroni or spaghetti as they might not have had anything other than ‘chili-mac' in their lives!

Makes 6 - 8 big servings (12 - 16 servings if they're little bird-like eaters!).

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Seafood Udon Soup

I love simmering a stew on a cold winter night. For this satisfying fish stew, you may have to make a trip to an Oriental grocery store. Some of these items may be a little hard to find. Joe makes his own fish soup stock from leftover vegetables, dried fish flakes, crab shells, and 2 sheets kombu (thick dried seaweed), but you could substitute chicken, fish, or vegetable bouillon if you're short on time.

Ingredients

2 dried Chinese wood ear mushrooms
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1/2 cup crab or crab substitute, cut into 1-inch cubes
8 ounces salmon, cut into 1-inch cubes
8 ounces halibut or other white fish, cut into 1-inch cubes
16 large shrimp, peeled and tails removed
1/2 teaspoon black ground pepper
2 ounces sake
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 can baby corns, drained
1/2 cup celery, thinly sliced diagonally
4 cups chopped bok choy
16 ounces Udon or stir-fry noodles
1 cup concentrated miso broth
8 cups fish broth
1 tablespoon Chinese chili-garlic paste, to taste
2 tablespoons sliced green onions

Instructions

Put mushrooms into a bowl and cover with boiling water. Let soak for 30 min. Drain water and slice into matchstick pieces.

Heat sesame oil in frying pan. Saute fish and shellfish for three minutes. Add pepper, sake, and lemon juice.
Add vegetables and stir for one minute. Cook Udon noodles according to package directions; drain. If you can't find udon noodles, you can use wide spaghetti or linguine noodles instead.

Combine fish broth and miso concentrate; heat the liquid but do not bring to a boil, as this will cause the miso to break down and become grainy. Place cooked udon noodles in bottom of each soup bowl. Arrange cooked seafood and vegetables over udon noodles and fill the bowl with broth.

Serves 6-8.

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