The Best BBQ Chicken – with Cornell Sauce

September 19, 2011 by · 5 Comments


I know that some of you are thinking – aren’t you a little bit late with your grilling recipe??? I know, maybe I should have posted this in June or July, but honestly, September and October are my favorite grilling months. We really grill year round here in North Carolina, but the summer is so hot we actually take a little break from grilling in August. So, come September, we are rejuvenated and ready for some good grilled food. Plus, since football starts in September I can’t think of a better month to get out the tongs and start grilling!

When we were growing up my dad would make this chicken probably about every other weekend during the summer. Well, maybe not quite that much, but looking back, I remember having this chicken on many many summer weekends. This is honestly the best BBQ chicken that I have ever had. Jim and I probably grill this chicken 3-4 times a year and it is always my request around Mother’s Day.

The recipe was developed by a professor at Cornell who was trying to help farmers sell more chicken back in the 1940′s. He came up with this recipe so that the farmers could sell the smaller fryer chickens and thereby bring their chickens to market sooner. However, he needed a way to make them tastier – and so Cornell Sauce was born!

If you live anywhere in Upstate New York there is a pretty good chance that you have had this chicken. I have also seen it referred to as “State Fair Chicken,” however I have never been to the NY State Fair so I can’t confirm or deny that they serve it there.

This recipe is so simple, but the taste is honestly out of this world. The egg in the marinade gives the skin a nice crispy crust and the salt and vinegar not only give the chicken a tremendous amount of flavor but they also keep the chicken nice and moist during grilling. The poultry seasoning complements perfectly and gives it some herby flavor.

My dad would sometimes parboil the chicken in the sauce before grilling so it would cook quicker and more evenly on the grill. Just make sure if you do this that you don’t cook the chicken too much as it will get a bit rubbery. Also, you can cut back on the salt if you want, however I do think that it gives the chicken a lot of flavor and moisture so I don’t necessarily recommend cutting back too much. I mean, there aren’t a ton of other ingredients in this, so cutting out the salt really does change the end results in my opinion. Finally, be ready to baste the chicken a lot (so grab a drink and be ready to hang out by the grill.) We usually baste liberally about every 10 minutes or so. The grill will flare up so just try your best to get the marinade on the chicken and not on the grill.

Chicken on Grill

Enjoy! If you try it, I promise you will never need another BBQ Chicken Recipe again. I mean, if it’s good enough for Cornell, it should be good enough for you, right?? Dad, this post is for you:-).

The Best BBQ Chicken – with Cornell Sauce
 
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This recipe is for the marinade, but I usually buy a whole cut up chicken at the store and then buy another package of either wing sections or drumsticks. I usually double the sauce for that much chicken.
Recipe type: Main

Ingredients
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 cups cider vinegar
  • 3 tablespoons salt
  • 1 tablespoon poultry seasoning
  • 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Instructions
  1. Crack the egg into a medium bowl and whisk until beaten. Slowly whisk in the oil until fully blended. Then whisk in the vinegar, salt, poultry seasoning, and ground black pepper. Set some of the sauce aside to use for basting while grilling. Place chicken in shallow baking dish, and coat with sauce. Cover, and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours. It is ideal to marinade 12-24 hours though.
  2. Place chicken on the grill over medium high heat and baste with sauce ever 10 minutes or so. Grill until chicken is cooked all the way through. This usually takes about 30 – 45 minutes depending on how large the bird is.

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Pork Tenderloin with Mushroom Gravy

September 9, 2011 by · 4 Comments

This is a dish that my mom made several times before I snagged the recipe.  That way I didn’t have to wait for her to come down to North Carolina to make it for me:-).  It’s funny how my mom will pick out a recipe to make that I would have passed over- however, when I try it, the dish quickly becomes one of my favorites. That happens a lot  This is definitely one of those recipes.

I mentioned a few weeks ago how much I love pork tenderloin and this is without question my favorite way to serve it.  It’s a simple recipe, but it does take a little while to  cook, so I usually reserve this for a Sunday night dinner.    The mushrooms, onions and celery in the gravy create some wonderful flavor so there is really no need to add any extra cream or butter to make this any more flavorful.

I usually serve this with some mashed potatoes (to pour the gravy over of course) and a simple veggie side like peas or green beans.  You really don’t need anything else because the pork is the star here.  Pork tenderloin very often comes in packages of two (which is what this recipe calls for) so you will definitely have leftovers if you are serving 4 or 5 people.  You can easily freeze half of this dish and have another whole meal for another busy weeknight.

This is my oldest daughters’ favorite dish.  She loves the mushrooms and they both love the meat.  The girls always refer to any pork dish as chicken (which I think is funny.) Sometimes fish is even chicken (I guess because it’s white.) A few weeks ago when I made tofu, I told them it was chicken and it was gone in about two seconds flat – no questions asked.  Any meat that is red is automatically steak. Anyways, I always think its funny when they do that:-).

So, I hope you enjoy this dish as much as we do.  This is another one that is great to make with cooler weather coming our way.  And yes, 80 degrees qualifies as cooler weather:-)  Enjoy!

Recipe from Taste of Home

Pork Tenderloin with Mushroom Gravy
 
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Ingredients
  • 2 pork tenderloins (about 1 pound each)
  • 3 tablespoons butter
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon pepper
  • 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
  • 1-1/2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms
  • ½ cup thinly sliced celery (make sure you get some of the leaves in here as they add so much flavor)
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • ½ cup chicken broth

Instructions
  1. In a skillet, brown pork on all sides in melted butter, Remove meat and place in an ungreased 9X13 baking dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and set aside.
  2. In the pan drippings, saute the onion, mushrooms and celery until tender (about 10 minutes.) Combine flour and broth until smooth and add to skillet with the vegetables. Cook and stir for 2 minutes over medium heat. The mixture will get thick and bubble. Pour over meat. Cover and bake at 325° for 1 hour or until a meat thermometer reads 160 degrees. Let sit for about 5 minutes before slicing.

Notes
**I sometimes double the broth and flour mixture as I like a lot of gravy**

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Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting

September 8, 2011 by · 8 Comments

This is a great cake for fall.

We were up in Maryland last weekend visiting my in-laws and this cake was actually a collaborative effort between my mother-in-law (Martha) and me.  It turned out wonderfully (even though at one point I dumped some of the flour mixture on the counter) – oops!  I think I carefully got most of it back in the mixing bowl though because this cake was so moist and delicate – it turned out perfect!

After the cake finished baking we decided to take the girls to the park to get some of their energy out of their system.  While we were out, my mother-in-law finished up the frosting.  That was a nice surprise because I have only made this type of frosting once before and since there was company I was a  bit nervous.  It really isn’t too difficult, but if you get any moisture into the frosting it can set you back a bit.  The end results are glorious though – as you can probably see from the picture.  This frosting is very similar to a seven minute frosting which I can only describe as a mixture between marshmallows and a meringue – it’s heavenly.  If you haven’t tried it before I definitely suggest giving it a try.  It’s a nice change from your typical buttercream or cream cheese frosting.

The cake is just the right blend of spices.  You will definitely not want to overbake this one as spice cakes can sometimes end up a bit dry – this didn’t at all, it was just right.  We made this cake in honor of Jim’s grandfather’s birthday next week.  Happy birthday Herb!  We hope this year is full of spice – ha ha!

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Spice Cake

Recipe is from the New York Times Heritage Cookbook – Region: Maine

2 2/3 cups cake flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
½ t. nutmeg
½ t. ground allspice
¾ cup butter
1 ½ cups light brown sugar
¾ cup buttermilk
3 eggs

This recipe also calls for 1 cup raisins, rinsed in HOT water, drained and chopped and 1 cup finely chopped nuts.  We did not add these.  The raisins would add moisture to the cake.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and set oven rack to middle position.

Sift the flour with the baking soda, salt and spices

Beat the butter to soften and cream it.  Add the flour mixture, brown sugar and buttermilk and mix to moisten.  Beat 2 minutes with electric mixer on medium speed.  (Note from Martha – Because we were using a more powerful mixer than was available at the time this cookbook was published, I would use caution and adjust the time to possibly 1 minute.)

Add the eggs and beat one minute longer.

If using the raisins and nuts add at this time.

Pour into 3 8 inch cake pans.  Greased and floured.  Bake 25 minutes.   We used 2  9 inch pans and probably baked about 20-21 minutes You will have to adjust time for thickness of cake.

Brown Sugar Frosting

2 egg whites
1 ½ cups light brown sugar
1/8 t. salt
½ cup water
1 T light corn syrup
1 ¼ t. vanilla

Place all except VANILLA in top of a double boiler, beat for about 1 minute then place over boiling water and beat with a mixer for 7 minutes or until frosting stands in stiff peaks.  Remove from over boiling water, add vanilla and beat into mixture.   Frost cooled cake.  (During very humid weather you make have to beat longer to get stiff peaks)

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Easy Spaghetti and Meatballs

August 10, 2011 by · 4 Comments

Spaghetti and Meatballs

One of my favorite comfort foods is spaghetti and meatballs.  We like to make this on a Sunday and let it simmer for a while on the stove top.  However, we can also make this on a weeknight when it doesn’t have as much time to simmer (and we don’t have as much time to make it) and it still tastes great.  This is a basic recipe that we use, but to be honest every time that we make some it’s probably a little bit different depending on what we have in the pantry or the fridge.  If we have some bread that needs to be used up we will use fresh breadcrumbs.  If we are in a hurry we will use panko.  Sometimes we will use straight ground beef and sometimes we will also add some pork.  If we want to get really crazy we might use part Italian sausage.  On any given day this dish can turn out in many different ways.  It’s always good though and with some freshly grated cheese it’s a great meal for the whole family.

This is a recipe that Jim and I made together.  He was mostly responsible for the meatballs and I put the sauce together.  We hope you enjoy!

Spaghetti and Meatballs

1-1.5 lbs ground beef – we use lean and it tastes great

1 egg

1/3 c onion minced

2 garlic cloves minced

1 tsp dried Italian herbs or a handful of fresh basil, oregano, parsley finely chopped

1/2 cup panko

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

You can also add some grated parmesan if you would like some more flavor.

Gently combine all ingredients and shape into golf ball sized meatballs.  Cook on the stovetop in a little bit of olive oil until browned on all sides.  Drain  some of the fat and remove meatballs from the dutch oven to a plate.

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 red wine

Cook the onion in the fat that remains in the dutch oven until translucent.  Add the red wine and reduce by almost half.

28 ounce can of good whole peeled tomatoes

14 oz can of diced tomatoes

1 can tomato paste

3 garlic cloves minced

Salt, pepper dried or fresh herbs and sugar to taste.

Add the remaining ingredients to the onion/wine mixture adding only half of the paste at first.  Break up the whole  tomatoes with a potato masher.  As the spaghetti cooks down add more of the paste to your own preferences.  Add the meatballs back in.  Let this simmer ideally one hour (longer is good), but if you have less time, that is fine, too.  Serve over hot noodles and freshly grated parm.  I use my microplane to shred the cheese.

If you want more sauce than this you can also add another can of sauce or some more diced tomatoes.  If you want your sauce less chunky you can throw it in a blender and process.

**Note: if you want to make this more healthy use the lean ground beef and drain all of the fat and then use olive oil to saute the onions.  Use whole wheat noodles – or the Barilla Plus noodles which is a good compromise.  Also, instead of serving garlic bread serve with a veggie salad and toss with an olive oil based dressing.  If you can’t live without the bread, get a whole wheat baguette and dip in some extra virgin olive oil flavored with herbs***

We have also added red peppers or zucchini into the sauce for more flavor.  Mix it up to your own taste and enjoy!

 

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Peanut Butter Pie

August 8, 2011 by · 7 Comments

This is a great easy desert.  It is really rich, so a small slice is all you will need.

We are up in Western New York today at my mom’s house, so this morning’s post will be a bit short.  I have to get my laptop set up on her network so that will take a bit of work this morning because right now it isn’t cooperating.  I need to work today so hopefully the helpdesk can help me get it figured out!  We will be here for two weeks so I will have lots of yummy food posts to share.  I already have a few from dinner last  night.  The weather is much cooler so we are really enjoying the 70 degree temperatures.  The kids are really enjoying playing with their cousins and being out in the country.  I will post some pictures of the view from her house later this week.

Make this pie.  If you want to make your own chocolate crust that would make it even better, I am sure.  The day that I made this, I was in a bit of a hurry, which is why I used the store-bought crust – it was still great!

Ingredients

3/4 c creamy peanut butter

3 oz softened cream cheese

1 1/4 c confectioners’ sugar

1 12 oz container frozen whipped topping, thawed

1 9 inch prepared chocolate cookie crumb crust

Chocolate Syrup

Crushed Peanuts

Directions

In a large bowl, mix together peanut butter, cream cheese and sugar. Then, fold whipped topping into peanut butter mixture. Mix together until smooth and no lumps remain.

Pour filling into pie crust and drizzle chocolate syrup over top.  Sprinkle chopped peanuts over top.  Refrigerate for about 3 hours until pie is firm.

 

 

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