I had a hankering for Chinese street style chicken on a stick and decided to expand and make my own glaze. I have used Soy Vay brand teriyaki sauce before but wanted to make my own and make it spicier and alcoholier. These are boneless skinless chicken thighs with my improvised recipe of a bourbon teriyaki glaze.
Posted in Asian, Chicken, Sauces
Tagged boneless, bourbon, chicken thighs, Chinese, cornstarch, garlic, Ginger, glaze, jalapeno, sesame seed, skewered, skinless, soy sauce, street style, teriyaki
This is a quick post because it is very simple but worth showing. I used fresh chives from our garden and mixed them into softened butter and sent the butter back to the fridge to be available for many uses.
I was inspired to make this after flipping through my Bon Appetit magazine. It seemed simple, yet delicious and that’s exactly what it was! If you haven’t yet discovered fennel I really encourage you to give it a try. It is certainly an odd looking vegetable, but once you start working with it, it is pretty straight forward.
Posted in Recipes, Sauces, Seafood
Tagged bon appetit, crispy tilapia fillets, fennel, fennel bulb, fennel fronds, mint, pan fried, tilapia recipe, yogurt sauce
It should come as no surprise to anyone by now that I am a fan of homemade salad dressings. I made this for a family dinner some time ago and have been meaning to post it forever now. It was a delicious dressing that I ended up using on a spring salad. It would also be a great marinade or you can serve it warm as a sauce as well. It’s very versatile and easy to make.
I’ve professed my love for homemade salad dressings on numerous occasions and I have made a few recently that were particularly delicious. The picture you see above is of a seared tuna salad with ginger-miso dressing, like one you would get a good Japanese restaurant. The work involved in this dressing mostly comes in the shopping for the ingredients! Otherwise, it’s pretty much a process of prepping the ingredients and throwing them in a food processor (or blender). It can’t get much easier and you will love the way it tastes.
Posted in Asian, Recipes, Sauces
Tagged carrots, Ginger, ginger miso salad dressing recipe, miso paste, rice vinegar, seared tuna salad, sesame oil, yellow miso paste
When I was younger and my family would go out for Italian dinners I would often get the penne or rigatoni ala vodka (aka a tomato vodka cream sauce). For some reason I forgot all about my love for this sauce until I came across a recipe for it one day as I was reading blogs. Luckily, this sauce was super easy to make and just as decadent as I remember. We served it with sausage for some added protein and spaghetti squash instead of pasta. It was divine! I encourage you to try this, you won’t be disappointed. Continue reading
Posted in Sauces
Tagged ala vodka sauce, basil, dinner idea, easy, Italian, low carb recipe, pancetta, quick, recipe, san marzano, spaghetti squash, tomato cream sauce, tomato vodka sauce, vodka sauce
Thanks to my sis we now receive Bon Appetit magazine! This recipe comes from the January 2011 issue. I adapted it in a couple of ways. First, I nixed the pomegranate relish that was supposed to accompany it and secondly, I used chicken thighs instead of making kebobs with breast meat. Once it’s grilling season I would love to make this again, this time by making the kebobs. The thighs came out great though too!
Tagged baharat seasoning, bon appetite, chicken, chicken thighs, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, garlic, lemon juice, mint, nutmeg, oregano, recipe, Seared, tahini yogurt sauce, Turkish
For Christmas eve Greg and I were asked to bring a salad and veggie option to our family party. I thought it over and decided to make a homemade caesar salad, with fresh made dressing and croutons. Homemade dressings make such a difference. You can taste each ingredient and they are just far superior to any bottled dressing you find in the grocery store. Making caesar dressing was easy and and the outcome was delicious!
Greg got a loaf of bread from Mancini’s- tomato basil bread to be exact- and I made croutons with it. I don’t see any pictures of them on my camera so I guess I forgot to snap a few. Croutons are easy to make. I cut the bread into small cubes and placed them on a lined baking sheet. I brushed the pieces of bread with olive oil and baked them at 350 degrees for about 8-10 minutes. Keep an eye on them so they don’t burn.
Yes another crab dish and I think that this may have been the best one yet. We had a hankering for some pizza and being that we live in Maryland, making your own pizza is the only option. So we stopped at Marchone’s Italian Market in Wheaton and grabbed a frozen dough ball.
A thorough thaw is very important
This was about 2 hours of thawing and the dough had expanded to about twice the original size.
Thoroughly thawed and ready to work with
If the dough is not thawed to room temperature, it will be very difficult to work with which I have learned from experience. At the same time, you can’t work with the dough too much and remember that flour is your friend!
I rolled the dough out to the desired size while the grill was heating up. Once the dough and grill are ready, give the top of the dough a thorough spray of oil. You will then put the dough on the grill otherwise plain.
Straight on the grate oil side down and plain
Leave the dough on for about 3-5 minutes. Just until the down side is lightly browned and basically firm enough to pick the whole piece up without folding and flopping like raw dough.
We need a new grill!
The bottom of this piece is uncooked. The top would look better if we had a better grill that cooked evenly(grill companies we are looking for a sponsor!). When we move, the gas grill is not coming. The grill doesn’t know that, but I guess once this is published the news will be out.
Now it is time to dress the pizza with your toppings as you normally would and then throw it back on the grill. Instead of a red sauce we used a pesto base.
Summer basil is great
Next we used some more of the famous leftover crab which was starting to run low. Note that this was published well after the dish was made and we did not keep fresh crab in the fridge for 3 weeks.
We were able to be pretty generous with the crab since we had so much. This was almost but not quite a pound.
Cheese it up
We used a store bought Italian blend.
Fresh tomatoes
We love fresh tomato slices on pizza. Now it is ready to go back on the grill for a little longer than the plain dough.
Close the lid, which will help to melt the cheese. I gave it a few turns because of our extremely uneven grill as you can see the full blast flame or no flame options. It would be a good idea to give it a spin either way though. This stage will take closer to 7-9 minutes to melt the cheese and cook the pizza through.
Summer basil again
It turned out great! Slice it up, cheese it up, and go to town!
Recipe for Standard Pesto with Walnut
Greg
(Since I have been begun posting over the last month, we will start to tag our posts)
This was another leftover use of the pulled pork. We were invited to a gathering and thought of using the leftover pork in an appetizer. The intention was to make spring rolls, but they did not have spring roll wrappers at the grocery store and I was too lazy to go to the Asian store to get them so I used egg roll wrappers. The wrapper said they could also be used as spring roll wrappers. They were not the consistency that I was looking for, so I ended up adjusting the plan half way through and it worked out.
First off was to prepare the filling which involved sending peaches, carrots, cucumber, and jalapenos through the food processor.
Then adding some of the leftover pulled pork.
I guess it works out that we don’t know how to cook for just 2 people (tons of leftover pork!)
I mixed the filling together.
Fillings are not meant to be pretty. That's why they are hidden.
Then I prepped the rice stick noodles.
Keep them in the water until you use them otherwise they will all stick together.
At the same time, I warmed water to just about as hot as I could put my hand into. Then I would quickly dip the wrapper into the warm water to soften it up.
Just a real quick dip
Then to the assembly process which can be a bit tricky.
First add a small twirl of noodles.
Then a scoop of the filling. It is hard to be disciplined enough to put in the right amount of filling. Remember that less is better and easier to wrap up.
It's tempting to put so much filling in!
Then to the wrapping process. Much the same as a burrito. Over from one corner first.
Then the two outer corners over and try to pull the filling in a bit and tighten it into a roll.
Then flip it over onto the remaining flap and try to tighten it and round it. You can do this by rolling it back and forth a bit.
Next onto the peanut topping and dipping sauce.
I followed this recipe from Ellie Krieger, which was first introduced to us by Ashley. This recipe is easy to follow- I just threw everything in the blender- and it is delicious! I doubled the recipe so we’d have some leftovers. Believe me, you’ll want some leftover!
I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
YUM!
Like I said, the original plan was to have spring rolls so I was not planning on cooking these at all. However, when it came down to it the egg rolls were really wet and sticky and needed to be cooked. We baked them in the oven for a few minutes, just enough to stiffen up a bit and this worked pretty well. We also ended up with a few of these leftover and later fried them in a skillet with a little sesame oil, which created a nice crunchy outer shell. Both cooking options worked well, so it’s really up to you and what type of consistency you want. Enjoy!
Posted in Appetizers, Pork, Sauces
Tagged Asian, Carrot, cucumber, jalapeno, Peanut sauce, pulled pork, Spring Roll
Starving Kitten 