Starving Kitten

Are We the Next Food Blog Star?

Posted on September 19, 2010 | 4 comments

FoodBuzz (see add to the right) is a food blogging community that we are happy to be a part of. They are currently having a contest to find the next food blog star! Are we them?!?!

We started the blog back in January with our first post on January 11, 2010. It’s a nice time to reflect back some nine months later and ask ourselves in what ways do we stand apart from other blogs. In other words, what makes Starving Kitten unique, special and important?

We have some ideas on that.

Looking back at the first posts it’s clear that it’s taken some time for us to find our identity. We had just received the camera we use (though we still struggle with that), we were new to wordpress and struggled with the formatting at times, and we were not taking or posting as many pictures as we do now. We’ve learned a lot since then. We became more disciplined in taking better pictures. We bought a tripod. We got new dishes. And we studied other food blogs. Now, I can say with confidence that we have found our identity and are proud to say what sets us apart.

1. We make good food that everyone can make with ingredients that most people have or that are easy to find.

Our rosemary lemon chicken thighs are a good example of this. This is the second most viewed recipe post on our blog.

Stuffed Banana Peppers have also been a highly viewed recipe. This is probably due to the simplicity of the recipe and the availability of the ingredients.

Grilled Balsamic Flank Steak was an easy recipe with ingredients you probably already have in your pantry.

2. We pay homage to American classic dinner recipes.

Chicken Piccata a classic favorite.

Meatloaf aka the All American Dinner- is this not a 1950’s diner on a plate?

Meatballs and spaghetti (squash)… a very traditional dinner at least in my house.

3. We love to take a classic dish and put our spin on it.

Here is our chicken carbonara casserole where we took a classic, chicken carbonara and put our spin on it- it is our number one most viewed post.

Edamame Hummus. Hummus but made with soy beans (edamame).

Gyro Burgers where we took a love for the classic gyro and paired it with the American hamburger. This was an awesome meal (served with our homemade tzatziki sauce.

Spicy Cilantro and Green Onion Crab Cakes a spin off the classic crab cake recipe.

4. We recreate restaurant favorites at home and tackle dishes that seem difficult to make outside of a restaurant kitchen by simplifying them as needed.

One of the things we love to do is get inspired by food we eat out. Above is a picture of our recreation of the mussels we had at Dr. Granville Moore’s in Washington, DC, moules fromage bleu.

Homemade sushi!

Thai Basil Beef a favorite of ours to order when we go out for Thai food.

5. We make our own sauces.

Blue Cheese Dressing that we paired with buffalo wings and buffalo chicken burgers.

Parmesano Reggiano/Pecorino Romano Alfredo Cream sauce one of our most highly viewed sauce recipes. This was one of the best we ever made!

Marinara sauce and Alfredo Sauce. Basic but tasty!

6. We document all of the steps with pictures so that anyone can follow and we take the time to write out the recipes.

8 Layer Taco Dip– Every step of the way is detailed.

Slow Cooked Pulled Pork. Greg highlights how to set up the grill and how to prepare the meat and side for this dish to come out perfectly.

Grilled Crab Pesto Pizza. Step by step directions on grilling and creating this pizza.

7. We’ve have a diverse palate.

Seared Tuna atop a lime slaw. A great appetizer or meal.

Natural Daquiris. Drinks!

Balti Beef. Indian inspired cuisine.

Crab and Corn Chowder. Soups.

Avocado Salad Dressing. Salads and homemade dressings.

Cold Crab Dip

8. We’re honest. We’ll tell you when something we made didn’t work our or what we’d do next time to make it better.

(burnt) Walnut Pesto Chicken Thighs

Tiramisu fail.

9. Food is our entertainment.

Crab Feast!

Pig Roast

10. …and lastly because we are missing our namesake 😦 Bogie went missing on 9/5. We hope he returns soon as he is dearly missed.

We’d also LOVE to hear what you all think makes our blog special. Please leave a comment and let us know!

Also, our profile is public at foodbuzz.com so please go to the site and vote for us!

4 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Spicy Thai Basil Beef

Posted on September 17, 2010 | 3 comments

Spicy Thai basil beef is always one of our favorite dishes to get when we go out for Thai food and this was the first time that I have tried to make it. It turned out to be pretty easy and was really good, and since it was made at home, the portion was much bigger and cheaper than you would ever get out at a restaurant.

These are the veggies that were used and that is Thai basil. I sauteed them in their own pan to begin with in sesame oil. I started these up, minus the basil and had them going while I got started on the beef.

For the beef, I used flank steak which is not the usual type of cut that you would use for a dish like this. Usually, a cheaper cut like top round would be used, but the flank was amazing! We were so glad that I used flank because it was so much more flavorful and more importantly, it was so much more tender. Sometimes the beef can be the weak spot in this dish, but with the flank it was the highlight.

Cut into thin bite sized strips

I got another pan with sesame oil heated up and lightly coated the beef in cornstarch and pan fried it for a few minutes. This was the first time that I had ever used cornstarch and the consistency of the cornstarch itself freaked me out a little bit! It was like finely powdered styrofoam the way it would grind against whatever it touched.

Once the beef was just about fully cooked, I added it to the vegetables and added the Thai basil also.

It was close to done at this point. Fish sauce and beef broth were added and allowed to simmer and thicken for a few minutes. It was served over brown rice that was cooked in a half and half mixture of water and beef broth.

It was excellent and I even got a “one of the best things you have made in a while” quote! I can’t emphasize how easy it was to make what would seem like a more complex dish.

Recipe for Spicy Thai Basil Beef

Greg

3 Comments

Posted in Beef

Tagged Beef, beef broth, cornstarch, fish sauce, garlic, Green onion, jalapeno, peppers, restaurant favorite, spicy thai beef, Thai, Thai Basil

Cold Sesame Noodle Salad

Posted on September 10, 2010 | 1 comment

We were heading to a family Labor Day cookout and decided on this cold sesame noodle salad. I guess it’s not the most American dish for Labor Day, but it worked out just fine.

Cook the noodles and run them under cool water. Then toss with sesame oil and set aside until the sauce is ready. The sauce was a blended combination of many ingredients that was then tossed with the cool noodles.

The base seasonings headed for the blender

Can be a little fluffy at first but will settle

These did not go into the blender, but were tossed with the noodles and sauce.

Noodles with chopped vegetables waiting for the sauce

Sauce is here!

Once the sauce is prepared, veggies are chopped, and noodles are cooked and cooled, combine all ingredients and chill before serving.

The colder the better

Directions for Cold Sesame Noodle Salad

Greg

1 Comment

Posted in Salads, Uncategorized

Tagged Asian, cold, easy, garlic, Ginger, good leftovers, Green onion, Noodles, quick, Rice wine vinegar, Serrano peppers, Sesame, sesame oil, sesame seeds

Buffalo Chicken Burgers with Rosemary Roasted Potatoes

Posted on September 2, 2010 | 4 comments

This is an interpretation of burgers and wings and most importantly, buffalo and blue cheese flavors! This was inspired by our friend Matt that brought buffalo chicken burgers to a cookout a while back. He got the idea from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I took the basic idea and added some flavors that we have enjoyed with this combo.

Start with ground chicken.

These are made in the same fashion as regular burgers but with a few different ingredients.

Garlic Parmesan buffalo sauce was a key ingredient that was mixed into the burgers and I also reserved some as a topping sauce.

Garlic Parmesan Buffalo Sauce

Get those hands dirty and mix up the meat and form the patties.

Patti Mayonnaise

I prepped the rosemary potatoes and threw them on the top shelf of the grill for about a half an hour before starting the burgers. It was just foil wrapped redskin potatoes with rosemary, garlic, onion, banana peppers, salt, and pepper, and oil.

Be sure to wrap it well in 2-3 layers of foil.

Ready for battle

About 45 minutes on the grill

Grill the burgers up as you normally would. Be sure that the grill is well oiled as the chicken has more of a tendency to stick and come apart a bit.

A key component of any buffalo dish is the blue cheese. Nothing beats a good garlicky homemade blue cheese dressing!

So simple and so great!

Great as a dip, dressing, topping

The final product minus the sauces

Recipe for Buffalo Chicken Burgers

Recipe for Garlic Parmesan Buffalo Sauce

Recipe for Blue Cheese Dressing

Greg

4 Comments

Posted in Chicken, Sides

Tagged buffalo chicken burgers, dinner ideas, easy, garlic parmesan wing sauce, good leftovers, grilled burgers, ground chicken burger, homemade blue cheese dressing, low carb, pittsburgh food blog, post-gazette, recipe, rosemary roasted potatoes

Chicken Crocks with Garlic White Romano Sauce

Posted on August 29, 2010 | 1 comment

A friend was coming over and I wanted to make a little afternoon snack. It wasn’t too hot out so I didn’t mind baking something. I started by pan sauteing some cubed chicken breast with some salt and pepper and putting it in the crocks.

I started on the sauce by sauteing the aromatics in oil.

Browned garlic is the key for this one

I sauteed the aromatics a little longer than usual to really brown the garlic and get a deep almost smoky garlic taste.

Once the garlic was browned enough, I added some fresh basil for the last few minutes of sauteeing.

Then add the rest of the sauce ingredients which is basically an alfredo. The cheese was grated imported Romano which we got in the Strip District for $6.99 a pound. What the Strip provides is amazing and limitless!

Then pour the sauce over the chicken until covered.

Add a bit of mozzarella and throw into the oven at 350 for about 15-20 minutes or until browned.

Top with some fresh basil and chopped tomatoes.

Recipe for Garlic White Romano Sauce

Greg

1 Comment

Posted in Chicken, Uncategorized

Tagged alfredo sauce, basil, chicken, garlic, homemade, Italian, low carb, romano, tomato, white sauce

Fosters Can Turkey with Rosemary Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Posted on August 26, 2010 | Leave a comment

It is what it looks like

Ever heard of beer can chicken? Well, this is beer can turkey. I have been slow grilling a lot recently and am trying to make the most of the ending summer 😦 I had never heard of this and wanted to give it a try. Whereas a standard 12 oz can works well for a chicken, I used a Fosters “oil can” which is 25.4 ounces.

First with the grill. This time I started the charcoal and once it was ashed over, pushed it all to the outer edges to make a ring.

I put a disposable foil baking dish in the center as a drip pan

While the coals were heating up, I prepared the turkey and the can. I covered the turkey with a store bought rotisserie chicken rub. Leave about half of the beer in the can, with the other half you figure it out. Once it was magically half empty, I removed the top with a can opener. This worked really well and there were no sharp edges. I then added bay leaves, garlic, and rosemary to the beer.

Good ol oil can

With the bay leaves and spices

Now the grill, turkey, and can were ready. I placed the can on the grill and lowered the turkey down onto it and pushed it down a bit to make sure that it was stable.

Now for the cooking. I thought that this might be a problem and it was. The turkey was too tall to close the lid all of the way, so I quickly Macgyvered a contraption by using two bricks on the handles for the lid to rest on.

2 bricks, a grill, a novelty beer can, and a turkey, what do you do???

I was concerned about the heat loss from the semi open lid but it was not a factor and the bird cooked much quicker than I thought it would. The whole 12 lb turkey was finished in about 2-2.5 hours.

Sorry we did not get a pic while it was still standing

Towards the end of the turkey, I prepared the mashed potatoes by boiling them and then sauteing the aromatics.

These smelled great!

Once they were tender, add the potatoes and milk and whip with an electric mixer.

It turned out to be great dinner!

Recipe for Rosemary Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Greg

Crispy Fried Eggplant and Mozzarella Finger Sandwiches

Posted on August 24, 2010 | 1 comment

I am sorry to say that most of these pictures are slightly out of focus. Our camera has a mind of it’s own sometimes and I just couldn’t get it to agree with me when I was cooking today. I was also running around the kitchen, cooking and trying to take pictures all at the same time. I apologize in advance, but hopefully that won’t deter you from enjoying this recipe!

Believe it or not, I found this recipe in a Suzanne Somer’s book several years ago. It has been a while since I made it, but I had a bunch of little eggplants and some fresh mozzarella in the fridge so I gave it a go.

These guys were little. I got them from a farmer’s market (this is about half of what I got for $2.50).

The first step was to slice up the eggplant and roast the slices in the oven for about 20 minutes with a little olive oil and salt and pepper.

While the eggplant was cooking, I made the herb spread (aka pesto), which was comprised of garlic, basil, oregano (which I substituted for parsley), red pepper flakes, and olive oil. I used the bullet for this.

I also prepped my work station for the next steps of the recipe. I used fresh mozzarella for the sandwiches, but if you don’t have any on hand you can use shredded or sliced. There is something about the way fresh mozzarella melts though that makes it extra special, so I definitely recommend it for this dish.

After assembling the sandwiches, the next step is to dip them in egg and coat them with grated cheese. So I prepped my egg dip and cheese for that as well.

Now for the sandwich assembly…

Basically all you do is take a slice of eggplant and spoon the herb spread over it. Add the mozzarella and then put a second slice of eggplant on top. Easy peasy.

Next, dip the sandwich into the egg and then roll it around in the grated cheese to coat.

Once you have all of your sandwiches coated it’s time to fry ’em up. They just need a couple minutes per side. Enough time for the cheese in the center to melt and for the eggplant to turn a nice golden brown.

When they are done place them onto a paper towel covered plate to drain any excess oil. Serve ’em up nice and hot and feel free to add any fillings you like. I’ve added roasted red peppers before, for example. They are also good served with marinara sauce on the side for dipping if you’d like.

Yum! These are so good!

Recipe for Crispy Fried Eggplant and Mozzarella Finger Sandwiches

-Eileen

1 Comment

Posted in Appetizers, Vegetarian

Tagged basil, egg dip, eggplant, fresh mozzarella, garlic, homemade, low carb, olive oil, vegetarian

Tomato Panzanella Salad

Posted on August 21, 2010 | 2 comments

Greg and I were invited to a family BBQ and knew we wanted to bring something good for a side dish. We remembered a great dish that Ash brought over one time, tomato panzanella salad, and decided it would be the perfect thing to make. You can find the recipe here on Ash’s site (I didn’t alter it much as you will see).

We bought the tomatoes at a local farmer’s market. Obviously for this dish the quality of the tomatoes can make or break it. I was so happy to get these tomatoes. As imperfect as they look, they tasted great!

I cut the tomatoes and added some thinly sliced red onion. I actually completed this step the night before the BBQ, as I knew I would be facing some time restrictions the following day.

Similar to the importance of using good tomatoes for this dish, the quality of the bread is also something to be mindful of. We picked up a french baguette from our favorite place on Earth, Pittsburgh’s strip district (wahoo!), the day before the BBQ. On the day of the BBQ I cut the bread into bite-sized cubes (slightly larger than croutons) and baked them for 20 minutes. 20 minutes was about 2-3 minutes too long and some of the pieces were a little too baked for my liking. I recommend keeping an eye on them after the 15 minute mark.

Sorry for the blurry pic! You can get a sense of the size though.

While the bread was baking I assembled the rest of the dish by adding fresh basil, olive oil, red wine vinegar, and salt and pepper to the tomatoes and red onion.

I just love all the colors in this dish!

Once the bread is done baking it gets added to the salad. You want it to absorb moisture from the dressing and tomatoes while still maintaining some of it’s crunch.

The final step in making this salad is to top it with ricotta cheese and a little olive oil. Since we were transporting this dish to another house I felt it would be best to keep the ricotta and olive oil in a separate container prior to serving. Before dinner was served the ricotta was placed on top of the salad.

Overall, this was a true crowd pleaser! I received several compliments on the dish and answered some questions about it too. People seemed to really enjoy it and want to recreate it themselves.

Take advantage of the Summer tomatoes while they last! Hope you like this one.

-Eileen 8)

2 Comments

Posted in Appetizers, Salads, Sides, Vegetarian

Tagged basil, olive oil, red onion, red wine vinegar, ricotta cheese, side dish, summer, tomato bread salad, tomato panzanella salad, tomatoes

Slow Smoked Brisket with Horseradish Sauce and Broccoli Slaw

Posted on August 16, 2010 | Leave a comment

This is our first Kittened dish in Pittsburgh and we have been discovering that food is very cheap. This was a 9lb cut of brisket for $30, and that was not a sale. Plenty more to come on the great deals found. I smoked this similarly to the pork shoulder a bit back. Slow cooked over indirect heat, but this time it was cooked as the debut dish on our new charcoal grill that we got for our wedding (thanks Mo and Stosh).

First to prep the rub

Started with a quick made rub.

Yeah, $30!

As similar to the pork, I started the grill with a large pile of charcoal and once it was ashed and ready, it was moved and kept to one side. I also used a store bought foil baking dish as a drip tray below the meat to limit the mess and possible flare up.

The grill will never look like this again.

Opposite the coals

Now a lot of waiting. The grill was covered with the below air intake about halfway open and the lid air intake also about halfway open. The lid intake was placed over the meat, opposite the coals so that the heat and smoke are forced to go around the meat in order to escape. The brisket cooked for about 5 hours total. Here is is about halfway through. I turned it about every hour to alternate the side facing the heat.

About 3 hours in.

And after all five hours.

Allow the meat to sit for 15 minutes or so before slicing and always slice against the grain. It would be great to have a deli slicer here, but that is a bit excessive!

Patient, patient

Hey guys, Eileen here. I am going to fill you in on the sides, which I was responsible for making.

In addition to the brisket, we served a simple horseradish sauce from all recipes (sorry, no pictures of it) and a broccoli slaw from Smitten Kitchen. I have made this broccoli slaw once before for a cook out and people seemed to like it. I decided to make it again, figuring it would be a nice complement to the meat and tangy horseradish sauce.

First, I made the dressing for the slaw, which is composed of buttermilk, mayonnaise, cider vinegar, sugar and shallots.

Give it a good whisk and set aside.

Next, it is time for the broccoli. I used the slicing blade on my food processor to cut the broccoli for me. This method is a major time saver and produces pretty uniform slices of broccoli. Here it is pictured with chopped red onion as well.

To this, I added dried cranberries and sliced almonds and eventually the dressing.

Give it all a good stir and let it sit in the fridge for an hour or so before serving.

It’s a great slaw and a bit different than your typical cabbage slaw. If you are looking for something new to have or bring to an event this could be it! The crunch of the broccoli with the tartness of the cranberries and the sharpness of the red onion are all tamed by the buttermilk sauce. It was a great compliment to the brisket too!

All in all, this meal was delicious! We were very happy with the final product and our guests seemed to be too.

Brisket Dry Rub Recipe

Stuffed Banana Peppers

Posted on August 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

These were simple and good but they sure were hot! Start by making the stuffing which was primarily hot sausage with chopped onion, garlic, and Italian cheese. Make the stuffing with the proportions of your choice.