Frying Pickle

Tuna at Sea!

2010-06-07T08:47:00.000-07:00

For Memorial Day weekend, Adam and I packed up and spent the weekend in Austin with my Mom and her husband Bill. I decided it would be fun to prepare my next recipe down there for the Holiday weekend AND because the only grill they have is on their amazing boat! So not only was it for the perfect occasion, but I had the experience of grilling on a boat for the first time.

There were a lot of ingredients involved in this recipe, but luckily I had most of them already in my pantry. So I packed up everything I could take with me to Austin, that way I could avoid having to spend money on ingredients I already had. We had decided we would do the burgers on Sunday, so Saturday night my Mom and I hit up the HEB. FYI, I wish we had a HEB here for me to shop at, because it is like Central Market and the neighborhood grocery store had a baby and created this awesome shopping place! We were able to find everything we needed, except the fresh tuna steaks, because the meat shop had already closed down for the night. In fact, the whole store was closing down, but my Mom and I were able to sneak in and power shop! We just decided we would wake up early and go back to get the tuna steaks in the morning. It turned out that early for us was actually 10am in the morning. We all accidentally slept in, but it was ok because that is what vacation is all about. Once we were up and at 'em, off we went, back to HEB. We walked up to the meat counter and all I saw were ahi tuna steaks, which are SUPER expensive ($18/lb expensive). So we asked the nice "meat lady" where we could find tuna steaks and she pointed us to the freezer section and told us they were actually on sale that week! PERFECT! So instead of $18 per lb for ahi tuna, we were able to get 4 tuna steaks, about a lb a peice, for $18 total! It was definitely a sigh of relief for me to not spend almost $70 on tuna!

Once we got back to the house, I decided to do most of my prep work there, before going on the boat. That way, all I had to do on the boat was grill my poblano peppers and tuna burgers. Plus with this recipe, the prep work takes longer than the actually cooking portion does. Since we all wanted to get to the boat as soon as possible, I had my lovely sous chef step in and help (aka Mom). Side note: Apparently Adam and my Mom don't really LIKE to be my sous chef because they say I'm bossy (inside joke)! I say, have you ever seen Gordon Ramsey? I'm not even close to being as bossy as him!! Anyway, she started chopping away at the onions, dill pickles & cilantro for the green chile-pickle relish, while I started on the Pineapple-mustard glaze. The glaze was super easy, you just throw the pineapple juice, vinegar, chopped (fresh) ginger, soy sauce and brown sugar into a sauce pan and turn the stove on high to bring it all to a boil. One thing I have learned is NEVER try and watch something boil. It knows you are watching and will take forever! Simply walk away and start prep on another item. Once I walked away and showed my sous chef how to properly chop everything, my glaze came to a boil. I then reduced the heat to low, where is was just simmering and left it.

By this time, my tuna had completely thawed out and it was time to start on the burgers. I wanted to go ahead and get them formed and ready for the boat. I have to admit I wasn't sure if I was suppose to cube the tuna or chop it like ground beef, or what? In cases like this, I refer to the Internet and find the show in which the recipe was made. I watched as Bobby cut the tuna and realized you should cube it into medium sized pieced, rather than beat it to a pulp where it looks like ground beef. You want the tuna to retain its texture and be somewhat durable. Away I chopped and I chopped, and chopped some more until I finally had all the tuna cubed up and in a bowl. After I had it all the bowl, I added in the dijon mustard, chipotle puree (which was just the sauce from the chipotle in adobo can), honey, oil, green onions, and a dash of salt and pepper. I gently combined everything together and started forming my patties. I also referred to the internet and the show to see exactly how to form a tuna patty. It was actually a lot easier than I thought. Although, since my hands are smaller, the burgers turned out to be smaller! You simply grab a chunk in your hand and form it into a ball and toss it back and forth between your two hands to get the cubes of tuna to form together into one single patty. You want to make sure the patty is super tight, so it doesn't fall apart when cooking it. The burgers were formed and then placed directly in the freezer to keep them super cold. Another REALLY important thing when making tuna burgers!

Once the patties were made, my sauce was just about done so I whisked in my dijon mustard and removed it from the heat. Then I added my fresh lime juice and white pepper and placed that in our cooler to go to the lake. It needs time to cool, so it can thicken up further. In all honesty I would have liked it a little bit thicker, but all in all it came out perfect. The only thing left to finish at this point was the green chile-pickle relish. My sous chef had everything chopped and in tupperware, so we simply added in lime juice, honey, olive oil and salt & pepper. We all worked together to make sure everything was packed on ice and on we went to the lake!

Of course when we got to the lake we HAD to hang out and swim and goof off for a little while before we ate! But after all the fun, we set up the grill on the back of the boat and I started grilling my poblano peppers. All the other boats were SUPER jealous that we had a grill, it was a good feeling! My poblano peppers grilled up perfectly on the "boat grill". They were de-gutted once they were done grilling, which is basically skinning them and taking out all of the seeds from their insides. Then it was just a matter of getting them diced up and put into the pot with all the other yummy ingredients for the green chile-pickle relish. The time had come for my tuna burgers and just as everything was going perfect, I noticed the grill wasn't hot anymore. We knew we were low on propane, so Adam grabbed another bottle and went to put it on and BAM...the bottle dropped off the valve. Over and over he tried to put it on and it just wouldn't stay. After he investigated, we learned that the valve was stripped and tried EVERYTHING to make the propane stay on. After about 20 minutes and a whole role of tape later, we came to the conclusion the grill was no longer an option. I must say I was a little sad because I wanted to do everything "by the book" and grill my burgers, but I had to go with the flow and it turned out to be GREAT!!

Not only does the boat have a grill, but it also has a kitchen! So I put the burgers in the saute pan and started "grilling" them up and glazing them with my pineapple-mustard glaze. While we were cooking, my sous chef and I realized that we were kind of glad the grill didn't work out. The burgers cooked up great and the glaze adheared a lot better than it would have on the grill. It turned out to be a PERFECT storm!! No, not the movie where the boat sinks...this was a good thing to come out of an unexpected situation. Some of Mom and Bill's friends, Jan & Gordon were able to join us. Without going into a whole other story about the awesomeness of it, let me just say that Gordon makes the most amazing tuna dip I have ever had in my entire life!! He was kind enough to make us some, which went along amazing with the burgers. We all put our burgers together, first the way the recipe calls for with just the green chile-pickle relish (I was adament about no one using mustard or ketchup on their first burger), then we all put our own spin on our burgers and added tuna dip or another amazing artichoke/jalapeno dip that Jan brought! Bill and Adam were the champion tuna burger eaters...I think between the both of them they ate 7 1/2 tuna burgers in ONE sitting! It was truly amazing to watch them eat that much. Of course they waited 30 minutes before swimming again, once we were all done.

It was an amazing experience to be able to grill on the boat! I wish I could do that every weekend, but it was nice to have a "special treat" for my recipe! We had a blast and by far it was the best Memorial Day weekend ever. I was elated that everyone liked my tuna burgers so much! I will definitely keep this recipe in the back of my mind for future grilling parties! Last, but not least, I must say a HUGE thank you to all the men and women who have lost their lives in battle, have served and came home or are currently serving. Their courage is beyond anything I could ever imagine and they will never be forgotten. Thank you for allowing us to be able to go to bed at night peacefully without bombs exploding overhead and for giving us the right to live and speak freely!

Recipe Rating: Medium, there are a lot of steps involved
Good Leftover: Mom & Bill ate the tuna burgers the next day and said they were just as good, if not better than the first day!
Tip: Always be flexible when cooking. The unexpected might happen...role with it, you never know when you'll be pleasantly surprised!

Stay tuned in 2 weeks- Shredded Chicken and Tomatillo Tacos with Queso Fresco

You can find the Tuna Burgers with Pineapple-Mustard Glaze and Green Chile-Pickle Relish recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/tuna-burgers-with-pineapple-mustard-glaze-and-green-chile-pickle-relish-recipe/index.html

Bubba Gump Shrimp...ok not really!

2010-04-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

This weeks recipe was by far the easiest I have done so far, so unfortunately I don't have any funny stories or interesting ingredients I used. I decided to keep this recipe low key and incorporate it into one of our dinner nights during the week, instead of having people over and making it on my usual Sunday recipe nights. It worked out great, because we had just enough for myself, my mom and Adam to enjoy!

I was able to easily find all the ingredients I needed at Kroger. I had to get a little help on this recipe, which is usually a NO NO when I'm doing this. By that I mean, I don't LET anyone help me because I take joy in doing it all by myself. Unfortunately, since we did the recipe during the week, I had just finished a P90X workout, and it was getting late, I needed extra hands on deck! So myself, Adam and my Mom all jumped in to peel the shrimp. They were already deveined, luckily! Then we all chipped in and started chopping everything that needed to be chopped. We just did a rough chop because the food processor took care of the rest. We had to chop the: serrano chiles, garlic & ginger (peel and chop). Once those were all done, I threw it into the food processor along with the: mint leaves, sugar, white wine vinegar & fish sauce! FYI, fish sauce smells so disgusting, but REALLY adds flavor to the sauce and is super yummy. Once it comes out of the food processor, you can use your own judgement to add salt to taste.

After the serrano mint sauce was done it was on to cooking the shrimp. Adam of course heated up the grill for me while I was giving my shrimp a quick toss in some canola oil. Following that, I added a little bit of salt and pepper and gave them a quick toss again. Then it was off to the grill. This was the trickiest part of the whole meal. You have to be super careful not to let the shrimp fall in between the grates on the grill! I used tongs to help me do this. Unfortunately though, it was super windy and my temperature dropped quickly with me having the grill open so long. I was able to get all the shrimp on the grill successfully and closed the lid. You only want to cook shrimp for about 1-2 minutes on each side. Since my grill had lost it's heat, I left mine on for about 3 minutes on each side. Just watch them closely, because if you overcook shrimp they tend to be super tough and rubbery. So depending on the weather and your grill, cooking time might change a little. The end result you want is for them to be pretty pink and white (no clear).

While my shrimp were grilling away, I went inside and started prepping my curly leaf lettuce. Basically, all I did was rinse it and peel off sections of leaves about as big as a corn tortilla. I then placed them really pretty like on a big plate (I recently lost my big pretty crystal platter *sad face*). Instead of making all of them individually and the shrimp getting cold, I figured I could just put the shrimp in the middle and everyone could just grab a lettuce leaf and fill their own to their liking! I would definitely recommend doing it this way! It saves time and makes eating this dish more fun!

By the time I was done with the lettuce, my shrimp were perfectly grilled and ready to eat. I went and took them off the grill and placed them directly on the lettuce leaves, in the center. Then, I had a little dish with the serrano mint sauce on the side, so everyone could add as little or much as they wanted. Good thing I did this because, WOW, that was some spicy sauce!! I absolutely loved it, but it was even borderline too hot for me. I had to get some milk to wash it all down! I knew it was going to be spicy, though, because the serrano chiles I bought were super wrinkly and had tons of seeds (sure sign you have a spicy pepper). Adam and my mom could only manage one shrimp taco with the serrano mint sauce, so if you prefer less heat I would suggest removing the seeds or just using 1 serrano chile for your sauce.

This dish was a perfect, healthy, reasonably priced dinner! I would definitely suggest having this for your next party or even as a fun meal that you can eat hands on with your family! Overall it was a huge success and ranked #1 in my Mom's book and #2/3 (he was torn with the Moo-less Choc. Pie or this as #2) in Adam's book from the recipes I have done so far. I would have to rank it as #1 so far because I am a sucker for heat and seafood!!

Recipe Rating: Super Easy, anyone can do this recipe!
Good Leftover: You COULD have it the next day, but the shrimp after re-heat will be a little tough.
Tip: Use latex free gloves when chopping any hot pepper. This saves you from having that hot oil from the pepper on your hand and accidentally touching your eye!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks-Tuna Burgers with Pineapple-Mustard Glaze and Green Chile-Pickle Relish

You can find the Grilled Shrimp in Lettuce Leaves with Serrano-Mint Sauce recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/grilled-shrimp-in-lettuce-leaves-with-serrano-mint-sauce-recipe/index.html

Oysters!!

2010-03-15T07:18:00.000-07:00

This week my recipe was Grilled Oysters with Mango Pico de Gallo and Red Chile Horseradish (how's THAT for a name?). I was terrified to make this recipe only because I knew I would have to eat it. The only encounter I have ever had with oysters was at Red Lobster with my Mom (who happens to LOVE oysters) and we ordered them on a half shell, raw! I'm always open to trying new things, so I added a little hot sauce and took a saltine and put it in my mouth thinking this can't be THAT bad right? WRONG!! It was the most horrible thing ever...(if you have a weak stomach, skip the next few sentences) It was like I had hawked a loogie and then added a few spices to it and then tried to swallow it again (I still gag just thinking about it). My eyes were watering and my Mom was telling me to just swallow it, which was easier said than done. I finally got it down after "gag tears" rolled down my face and I'm sure I turned green and horrified our waiter. So, needless to say I was wanting to skip right over this recipe and never look back...BUT I made a committment to this book, so I was determined to push through it and make the best of it!

So Sunday rolled around and it was time to make the oysters. Luckily we had some friends over who like oysters (and some that didn't) so it was a good mix to try and polish off the 20 oysters that this recipe called for! I had decided before even making this recipe that I was going to purchase my oysters from Central Market, since their food is brought in daily and I knew I was purchasing something fresh! It was hard for me to go there, but ya know, we just HAD to. That was so sarcastic by the way! I absolutely LOVE Central Market and could spend days there-Adam actually calls it "my Home Depot" because he gets the same giddy feeling when he goes into a Home Depot. Unfortunately when we got to Central Market to gather all the ingredients (that we didn't get at Kroger), the "seafood man" wasn't as helpful as I was hoping he would be. They had 3 kinds of oysters-Gulf, Blue Point & Malpeque. I told him I was grilling them and asked which would be the best oyster to purchase for this and he proceeded to tell me that either the Gulf, Blue Point or Malpeque would be good. I'm thinking to myself, Really?! I know one of those 3 would be good, considering those are the only ones you have here! He said the Gulf were the saltiest and the Blue Point were the least salty, so I decided to just go right in the middle and get the Malpeque. Apparently after looking up some fun facts on this oyster, it is very popular in Europe and has won several awards for its flavor and texture. So I'm glad I chose that one!

We got home safely with the oysters and the first thing I did was take them out of the bag, scrub/clean them well, get them on ice and in the fridge until my grill was ready. You do not want to seal the bag they come in, because they need to have good air circulation. It is important that the oysters are alive right up until consumption (whether raw or cooked). If you buy them and one is already open then throw it away because it is not safe to eat and could cause you to be very sick! Anyway, I got the oysters put up and it was time to start on my mango pico de gallo and red chile horseradish. I started with my Red Chile Horseradish and measured out 1/2 cup of horseradish and then strained it to get all the juice out. Then I just placed that in a bowl, added a little salt and my acho chile powder and blended it well. Easy as pie! Then it was on to the chopping for the mango pico de gallo (get your neck & back braces ready)! I started with the mango and cut off a little piece from the top and bottom, so that it had a flat surface for me to stand it on to peel the skin off with my knife. The I layed it on it's side and cut off slices around the pit of the mango. After that I julienned each strip and then cut those pieces into itty bitty cubes. I repeated these steps with my onion and jalapeno. This took about 45 minutes alone because I am not the fastest chopper and wanted everything to be uniformed and pretty! It was well worth the neck and back pain because I got many compliments on the presentation. The recipe calls for Recao (Puerto Rico), also known as culantro (Latin America) or long corriander (Asia). Since I couldn't find this as Central Market, it says the substitute is Cilantro. I chopped my cilantro super fine and added it into the bowl with my other ingredients. Then I drizzled in my olive oil and honey, squeezed my lime juice and added in a little sea salt and pepper. I decided to use the sea salt since this pico was going on top of my oysters, but you can use any kind of salt for this...the recipe doesn't specify. Then you just set the bowl aside and let all the yummy flavors of the pico marry together!

Finally it was time to grill the oysters, so my handsome assistant, Adam, once again lit the grill for me and set it to high. After waiting a few minutes I went out to put my oysters on the grill and all I saw were flames and smoke, YIKES! They weren't huge flames and the grill lid was closed but I could definitely tell that it wasn't right! Luckily I had a bowl of water in hand and Adam came and put out the fire. The grill had gotten up to 750 degrees, oops! So note to self for next time you grill, be sure to watch it so you don't catch your house on fire! Luckily nothing was damaged and everything was under control. I let the grill heat up again to about 450 degrees and carefully dipped each one of my oysters into a bowl of water and placed them directly on the grill and closed the lid. The reason for dipping them in the water before placing them on the grill is to help the oysters steam and open inside the grill. It says to let them grill for about 4 minutes until they slightly open, but after 4 minutes none of mine were open, so I left them on for another 4 minutes (total of 8 minutes) and they were perfect! If you decide to make this recipe, just be sure to watch and gauge your time, depending on your grill.

After I removed the oysters from the grill, I let them cool slighty before opening them, since the shells get super hot! Once they were cooled, I took a butter knife and inserted it into the opening of each shell, twisted to pop it open and removed the top part (that the oyster is not in) and threw it away. If you have any oysters that do not open and there is no seam, throw those away as those are bad, just like if you buy one that is already opened. I luckily only had one that did this,thank goodness, because oysters are not cheap and I didn't want to waste a single one! Next I took a teaspoon measure and dipped out a pretty little dollop of my mango pico on each shell right above the oyster. Then I used my fingers to place a tiny bit of the horseradish on top of that. I tried using the measuring spoon for this too, but it just wasn't working for me! When in doubt, get your hands dirty!

We also made garlic-pesto chicken breasts (pre-marinated from Central Market, of course) and asparagus to go along with the oysters. Those of us who weren't too fond of the oysters all toasted and ate them together, or so I thought! After we toasted our shells I put mine down the hatch and started chewing and looked around to discover everyone else was still staring at their oyster! I think they were waiting to see if I spewed before trying it for themselves. To all of our surprise they were actually good! The pico was a great compliment and helped with the texture of the oyster. Since I grilled them they weren't as slimey if they would have just been raw and luckily they were super fresh and had no gritty texture whatsoever! I only managed to get 5 down, but I was super proud of myself for even eating one! Overall, my hesitancy to make this recipe was for nothing and everything turned out perfect! We had great company and great food which made for an overall great night!!!

Recipe Rating: Easy, except opening some of the oysters (if you don't have strong hands)
Good Leftover: Absolutely not, I would not recommend this!
Tip: Always make sure that you are buying your oysters from a trustworthy source that gets it in fresh, daily.
Stay tuned in 2 weeks-Grilled Shrimp in Lettuce Leaves with Serrano-Mint Sauce

You can find the Grilled Oysters with Mango Pico de Gallo & Red Chile Horseradish recipe here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/grilled-oysters-with-mango-pico-de-gallo-and-red-chili-horseradish-recipe/index.html

You say Potato, I say Potato!

2010-02-22T12:05:00.000-08:00

This weeks recipe just to happened to fall on Valentine's Day and what better way than to celebrate with your loved one and good friends! Since we hadn't seen them in a while, we decided to get together with Valerie and Ryan for Valentine's Day and just hang out and watch movies. We definitely didn't want to go out and face the crowds since Valentine's fell on the weekend this year! So instead, we decided that Val and Ryan would bring the meat (pork chops, YUM) and I would make my next recipe in line from my book which was Grilled Potato Salad with Watercress, Green Onions and Blue Cheese Vinaigrette.

Since I am the worlds biggest procrastinator (ok maybe not THAT bad), I waited until the day of to go out and get all the ingredients for this recipe, which at the time seemed pretty simple. We had a lot of the stuff already at the house, so all I needed were: red potatoes, shallot, green onion, blue cheese, watercress & aged sherry wine vinegar. That's nothing like chipotles in adobo sauce or anything, right (refer to pressure cooker chili for that story)?! So Adam and I head off to Kroger to get everything, that afternoon, and our first headache was finding the aged sherry wine vinegar! We say sherry cooking wine and aged vinegar, but no combination of the two! So after standing and talking for what seemed like forever...since all the last minute, disgruntled husbands were all frantically taking over the store trying to find cards, balloons, dinner ingredients, flowers, etc...we decided that we would buy both and just mix it together to make our own aged sherry wine vinegar. So we continue along, trying to get in and out as quickly as possible, because neither of us do well in crowds of people, and hit another road block-watercress was no where to be found. After looking up pictures from google on Adam's phone thinking that maybe I was mistaken and it isn't a leafy green veggie, I decided to ask the produce stocker if they carried it. He proceeded to say, "hmmm, let me check" and I followed him over to where I had just come from and he pointed and said, "No, we just have water chestnuts" (apparently everything was in alphabetical order)! SERIOUSLY Mr. Produce stocker guy...I mean I know you were stocking the oranges, but watercress and water chestnuts are two TOTALLY different foods. Not to mention I sincerely loath water chestnuts and just hearing him say that word made me gag! I tell him, ya that's not quite it...watercress is a leafy green veggie and he said "OH YA, you are like the 4th person to ask about that, so I'll let my Manager know and maybe we can get it in stock for you". I politely said thank you and found my way back over to Adam who was gathering the green onions (which side note: 2 green onions means 2 stems of green onions, not 2 bunches, haha LOVE YOU HUN)! Since waiting a week for them to get watercress in stock wasn't really an option, we decided we would give Tom Thumb a try, since they seem to be an upper class Kroger and are right around the corner. ALSO I need to mention that we put both the sherry wine and aged wine vinegar back, thinking that maybe Tom Thumb would carry the aged sherry wine vinegar we needed as well!

We enter Tom Thumb and quickly discover that they do not carry watercress, but decide to ask Customer Service, just in case they had it hidden in the cereal isle or something (we were desperate)! While Adam dealt with Customer Service, I went off to look for my aged sherry wine vinegar, only to discover that they carry the exact same sherry wine and aged wine vinegar as Kroger it is just about $3 more expensive!!! Feeling more than frustrated, I return to where Adam is and of course the watercress wasn't hidden on the cereal isle, they don't carry it either. I told Adam that I no longer think that Tom Thumb is an upper class Kroger...it is just the same store, same stuff, more expensive! We decided we would give Whole Foods and/or Central Market a try. Instead of driving to both and getting the same result as we had with Kroger and Tom Thumb, we called to check first and found out both of the stores carried watercress and they had it in stock. Of course I'm thinking we will just go to Whole Foods, since it is closer than Ft. Worth, but Adam quickly reminds me that the All-Star game is in town and Whole Foods is located right by the stadium and he was not going anywhere near that area of town. I was in complete agreement, and it doesn't hurt that I absolutely love Central Market, so we decide to go there instead! So LONG story short, we find watercress at Central Market, but still no aged sherry wine vinegar. I decide to just get sherry cooking wine and mix it with some white vinegar and use that, because if Central Market doesn't have it then it must be a New York thing and I didn't have the time nor money to make that trip to find it!

Moving right along to the fun stuff...the cooking part!! First you have to take the potatoes and par boil them. This is basically placing your whole potatoes in a pot of cold water, bringing it to a boil and as soon as it starts to boil, removing it from the heat, draining and letting the potatoes cool for a bit. After I was done with letting the potatoes cool, I got to bust out my super cool julienner that Adam got me for Christmas! I have to admit I was standing there about to try and measure and cut my potatoes by hand 1/4 inch thick and Adam reminded me that I now had super cool kitchen gadgets that can do that for me! Thank goodness for him, otherwise I would have been there for hours measuring and cutting potatoes, ugh! With the julienner it was a cinch and the potatoes were done in no time. Although, I must warn you, they are SUPER sticky at this point. After they were all cut and put into a bowl, I tossed them with some olive oil (just enough to coat them all) and salt and pepper (again, just eye ball it) and it was off to the grill. Adam went ahead and lit the grill again for me and placed it against the house so that the horrid wind wouldn't blow my flame out. Not the safest thing to do and I don't recommend it at home, but it was my only option. I think my next invenstment will be an in-door grill like the Neely's use on Food Netword! I carefully and meticulously placed all my potatoes on the grill and waited about 10 minutes before flipping them over and cooking again for another 10 minutes. Note: Since there are different "hot spots" on the grill, you may have to re-arrange some of the potatoes so they all get evenly browned.

While my potatoes were finishing up on the grill I went ahead and combined my sherry wine with my white vinegar to make my aged sherry wine vinegar. I then added my chopped shallot, dijon mustard and 1/2 cup of olive oil to the bowl. While that sat, I chopped my watercress and green onions and set them aside for later. Since I was knee deep in doing all of this, I lost track of time, but luckily Adam had my back and was able to remove my potatoes from the grill for me and bring them inside! Once you have your potatoes grilled you just simply toss it in your vinaigrette mixture of olive oil, shallot, vinegar and mustard and remove them with some tongs and set them aside in a bowl or platter of your choice. Then you take your watercress and green onion and add it to the remaining vinaigrette.After you have everything tossed in your vinaigrette, it's time to crumble your blue cheese. The recipe called for Cabrales blue cheese or Roquefort blue cheese. Kroger didn't carry Cabrales, but luckily had Roquefort on hand. The piece I got was about the size of the palm of my hand and cost $8! So this isn't just any blue cheese we are talking about. The "cheese lady", for lack of a better term, at Kroger informed me that a little bit of this blue cheese goes a long way! I am not really a huge blue cheese fan, so this was the only part of the recipe I was hesitant about. The thought of aged, moldy cheese just doesn't excite me! Luckily the recipe only called for 1/2 of the blue cheese! I crumbled it up and placed it on top of my potatoes (washed my hands, because this stuff was pungent) and then poured my remaining vinaigrette over my potatoes and blue cheese and tossed it all together!

We had these delicious, thick, juicy pork chops that Valerie and Ryan brought over to pair with the potatoe salad and a side green spinach salad, and I must say it was quite the feast! It all not only looked pretty together, but complimented each other quite well in taste. I wasn't a huge fan of this recipe, just because of the blue cheese, but everyone else said they really enjoyed it and even went back for seconds AND thirds! They all promised they weren't just doing it to make me feel good and they genuinely liked it, so I will take their word for it! For dessert (since you HAVE to have dessert on Valentine's) Valerie and Ryan brought over and assortment of candy and m&m cookies...DELICIOUS! So we all just sat around and nibbled on chocolates and watched a movie after dinner! It was the perfect Valentine's Day surrounded by lots of love and laughter!

Recipe Rating: Medium, only because not everyone has a julienner to save time
Good Leftover: My Mom was the only one who tried it left over and said it was good (note: she also ate it cold)
Tip: Never trust Tom Thumb to carry what Kroger doesn't and call ahead to other grocery stores before going on a wild goose chase!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks-Grilled Oysters with Mango Pico de Gallo and Red Chili Horseradish

You can find the Grilled Potato Salad with Watercress, Green Onions & Blue Cheese Vinaigrette recipe here (FYI: The quail wasn't in my recipe book):
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/grilled-potato-salad-with-watercress-green-onions-and-blue-cheese-vinaigrette-recipe/index.html

Holy Guacamole!!

2010-02-15T12:44:00.000-08:00

This week was my first recipe with Bobby Flay!!! I was SUPER excited to start on this chapter because Bobby is one of my favorite chefs on Food Network. Even though he is from New York, he still has a Southwest flair to his cooking and usually packs a punch when it comes to his recipes. This is my favorite part, because if you know me, you can not make it TOO hot...that just doesn't exist in my book!

I was looking for an excuse to make this Charred Corn Guacamole recipe, because it isn't a main course and I wanted to be able to make it to take some where for an appetizer instead of having people over like we normally do. So it was perfect when our good friend Lori and Nathan invited us over for a game night at their house! It fell on the weekend I was suppose to make this recipe and there would be about 10-15 people there!! Since I wasn't sure how much the recipe would make, considering portion size in Texas is usually double everywhere else, I went ahead and doubled the recipe to be safe. Better to have too much than too little, right?

Luckily all the ingredients were recognizable and super easy to find at Kroger. Even the avacadoes were good and ripe, for being out of season (FYI-avacado season is in the spring). The first thing I did was get all of my ingredients prepped and prepared when I got home. I started first with finely chopping up my serrano chile. If you aren't familiar with serrano chiles, just think of it this way...compared to a jalapeno, a serrano chile (if it were a man) could lift a VW van and a jalapeno can lift a vespa! So, needless to say you are going to have more heat with a serrano than a jalapeno! Serrano peppers are like a slender jalapeno and as it ages it turns from green to red to yellow. You might have seen these variations at your grocery store! Anyway, I used the green (young) serrano's and it was perfect for a large crowd. It isn't "Brittany" hot, but it still packs a punch and gives the dish some flavor! If you are sensitive to heat and still want the flavor then remove the seeds and that will eliminate some of the heat of the pepper. After chopping and setting aside my serrano chile, I went ahead and finely diced my red onion and cilantro leaves and also set those aside in my bowl.

Next it was on to juicing my lime. Unfortunately, the limes weren't as impressive as the rest of the produce. For some reason, I just HAD to get the hard as a rock lime with no juice!! BUT since I am a Food Network freak, I learned a little trick that some may or may not know about! If you come across a hard lime, just pop it in the microwave for about 15 seconds, roll it on the counter and then cut, WAHLAH...a practically dried up lime becomes this fresh and revived juicy fruit (not the gum)! Also, it helps to have one of those fancy juicer dishes for those of us who don't have a strong grip! Or you can always rely on the strong hands of your husband (or Dad, Brother, someone with man hands that's around) like I do most of the time! Once everything was chopped, squeezed and placed in my bowl it was time to move on to the main star of this dish, the CORN!! First, I must tell everyone I have only grilled one other time in my life and Adam was by my side the entire time. Not sure what it is, but I have always been intimidated by the grill. I guess I just always viewed it as a man's cooking tool and never really wanted to interfere with that. Plus there are many times when I see men missing hair on their face, hands, etc...and there is always a funny grill story to go along with it! I tend to like my eyebrows and didn't want to have to start drawing them on, so I usually leave the grilling to Adam!

Moving along...I had to start by removing just the outer husks from the corn. The husks are the "leafy" parts of the corn and tear away fairly easy. Once the outer husks were removed from my ears of corn, I loosened up the silks without removing them completely (the silks are the stringy, silky looking parts attached to the kernels). I have to admit that I still had Adam light the grill because we are in desperate need of a new grill (it's on the list, don't worry) and he had to do it by hand. As stated above, I wanted to keep my eyebrows so I let him take care of that part! Other than that, he left me to do everything else all by myself (after a quick lesson on all the parts of the grill). I dunked my corn in a bowl of water and placed them all directly on the grill. The recipe calls to leave the corn on the grill about 15min, rotating occasionally. It was a bit windy and cold the day I was making this that I left mine on about 30min, since everytime I would open the grill to rotate the corn all my heat would go out. So don't always go by time on a recipe...go according to your cooking instruments and pay attention to the elements! If it would have been summer time with a small breeze, 15min would have done just fine! Once you see the kernels showing through the husk and you have a nice char on your corn, they are done!!

I brought my corn inside and let it cool a little before I handled it. It isn't pleasant to try and cut corn while it is still hot unless you have no nerves in your hand! Once it was cooled, I carefully removed the remaining husks and silk from the cobs and cut the kernels off using a sharp knife. Make sure you have a sharp knife, otherwise your kernels will look butchered and you'll make a HUGE mess! Once the corn was added in with the rest of my ingredients in my bowl, I went ahead and started on my avacadoes. I didn't cut my avacadoes up with the rest of my ingredients at the beginning because I didn't want them turning brown. Avacadoes are super sensitive and if you cut and mess with them too much they can turn brown and look unappealing really quickly! So, I saved these for last, for a reason! I cut my avacadoes into chunks by first slicing each one in half and CAREFULLY removing the pit. I say carefully since there have been many occasions where I have seen many people, myself included, severely cut themselves while trying to remove those stubborn pits. Once you get the pit removed, take a tablespoon and slide it around the edges and remove the avacado from its skin. Place it flat side down on a cutting board. Then slice it length wise (or hot dog style as I say) and then width wise (or hamburger style) to form the perfect size chunks.

Once everything was in the bowl, I added the final touches of vegetable oil and salt and pepper (to taste). Then I tossed it gently, cleaned up my edges around the bowl and we were off to game night!! Adam and I agreed that it was more like a pico de gallo guacamole instead of the traditional mashed guacamole, we Texans are used to. All-in-all I think my guacamole was a success and everyone enjoyed it (or at least I hope they weren't lying)! A huge thanks to Nathan and Lori for having us over for game night, it was a ton of fun (especially since we won the Newlywed Game, YEA!!).

Recipe Rating: Easy, just chop, grill and pour everything into a big bowl!
Good Leftover: Yes and No, if you scrape off the top to get rid of the brown avacadoes you can probably eat it the next day!
Tip: Instead of eating this like a dip, you can also use it as a fun topper for fajitas, tacos, burritos, chicken, etc...
Stay tuned in 2 weeks-Grilled Potato Salad with Watercress, Green Onions and Blue Cheese Vinaigrette

You can find the Charred Corn Guacamole recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/charred-corn-guacamole-with-chips-recipe/index.html

I Scream, You Scream, We all scream for...Yogurt?

2010-01-06T13:43:00.000-08:00

This weeks recipe was bitter-sweet. Bitter because it was my last recipe from Alton Brown! Sweet because my next set of recipes are Bobby Flay!! I love Bobby Flay and am excited to start grilling, which is something I always leave Adam to do. So it will be fun to do new recipes while learning to grill at the same time!

First, before even starting the recipe, I had to find an ice cream maker. I read the recipe before hand (tip learned from previous recipes, ie English Muffins) and realized I needed an ice cream maker and instead of buying one that I would never use, it was my mission to find someone that would let me borrow theirs. My mission was short lived, being that my Mom had one and conveniently she is staying with Adam and I right now! Once I had the basics down, it was off to Kroger to get my ingredients. Luckily, Adam was off work the week of Christmas and was able to go to the store while I was at work and round up everything I needed! My plan was to have the lemon-ginger yogurt on Christmas Day! A break from the normal Holiday treats...something different.

I woke up Christmas morning and first things first, I had to open up all of my gifts from Adam!! I was so excited because I already knew I was getting a Food Processor, something I have wanted for a while! Yes, I'm bad and guess my gifts before the actual day, and Adam is bad and tells me if I'm right or wrong! So after opening all my wonderful kitchen gadgets (garlic chopper-you put the garlic inside this little car looking thing with wheels and roll it on your counter and it chops the garlic for you, cheese grater-one of those big bell looking graters with different grating sections, food processor-self explanatory, julienner-SUPER sharp slicer that makes all sort of fun shapes and MUCH MORE) it was off to start making Christmas lunch/dinner and my frozen yogurt.

First, you must separate the curds from the whey in your yogurt. Basically the curds are the solid particles (the ones you want to keep) and the whey is the liquid that you see when you first open the yogurt, before stirring it. You don't want your whey, because this would hinder your yogurt from becoming a solid and turning into and ice cream-like frozen treat. So you have to use a colander (or splatter screens, which is what I used) lined with cheese cloth, set over a large bowl, so that the whey has something to drip into. After reading the recipe many times, I knew I would have to go through this process, but completely over-looked the fact that this would take 12hrs and it was now 10am!! There was no way I could get this done and have the Frozen Yogurt on Christmas! It seemed as if my plans had been ruined, until I decided to pull out the laptop and watch the actual show Alton Brown did on the recipe to see if JUST MAYBE there was a short-cut. Low and behold, there was! The 12hr time frame is for gravity to naturally pull out the whey from the curds. Well to speed up this process you simply FORCE gravity. I'll explain: You take your cheese cloth-lined colander set over a bowl, spoon the yogurt onto the cheese cloth and fold the cheese cloth over the yogurt to keep it clean and then take a tupperware lid or any kind of flat lid that you have and place it on top. Then you take a soup can or anything that is heavy (but not TOO heavy) on top of the lid and PRESTO you force gravity and instead of waiting 12hrs you cut your time to 4hrs! This was definitely do-able, we would just have yogurt as a late night, after dinner snack!

SIDE NOTE: Make sure you buy yogurt that CONTAINS live and active cultures, not yogurt MADE with live and active cultures. Made with means that they were once live, but are now dead.

So after crossing my first hurdle, it was a waiting game. I just had to let the yogurt sit in the fridge and drain for 4 hrs. I started with a soup can on top of the lid at first and then moved to a ketchup bottle and then to a bag of flour! You could say that I'm not the most patient person in the world!! It worked out great though, because during this 4 hours I was able to spend Christmas with my family, play a few games of farkle and let all the food we had eaten throughout the day settle! Once the whey has separated from your curds your yogurt should be a cream cheese-like texture. You could actually use this as a spread for crackers or add ingredients to make it a cheese ball and it is much healthier than actual cream cheese (just a little extra tid-bit for you people with the New Years resolution to lose weight). I discarded the whey and emptied my yogurt into a medium bowl and threw away my cheese cloth. It was time to start using 1 of my new gadgets...the cheese grater!! Except I used it to grate my lemon zest and ginger instead! If you have never worked with ginger root before, do not be afraid! It was my first time as well and for some reason I heard it was hard to work with, but in fact it was really easy! I just used my vegetable peeler (sorry Angela, I went back to being lazy and didn't use your nifty techniques you showed me with the knife) and peeled away the outer "skin" and then grated 1 tablespoon to add with my yogurt. On top of that I grated 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon zest and 3 tablespoons of lemon juice! It smelled so good already, that I wanted to just stop and devour it then, but knew other people would probably want to enjoy some too. Then you just throw in your corn syrup and sugar and it is prepped and ready for the ice cream maker!

I had never used an ice cream maker, so I enlisted the assistance of my Mom. We put the yogurt in the mixing bowl part and then filled it up with ice-salt-ice-salt...and plugged it in and...NOTHING! It didn't budge an inch, so we fidgeted with it again and plugged it in and....NOTHING! It still wasn't moving, so we fidgeted again and again and this goes on for about 15 minutes until we finally decide that either 1. the yogurt is too thick so the ice cream maker thinks it is done and won't churn or 2. the ice cream maker is broken (which it was bought in 2006, but had only been used once, so we assumed 1. was the safest bet). We came to the conclusion that we were just going to have to churn it by hand. Sounds easy right? NO! It only had about a 1 inch knob on top that you would have to spin for 25minutes (probably longer, since we were doing it by hand and were slower). So feeling defeated, I call Adam into the kitchen and ask him to trade off with my Mom and I on spinning the ice cream maker for about 30 minutes. Adam, determined that he wasn't going to spin a 1in knob for any amount of time says, "WAIT A DAMN MINUTE"!?!?! If you know Adam you can hear him saying this and you are probably laughing right now! He runs off, leaving my Mom and I bewildered as to what is going on and quickly returns with a hammer drill. Thinking, in my head, that he is going to beat the crap out of the machine until it works, he corrects me and shows me that we will use the drill instead of our hands to churn the mixer. I assured him this was exactly why I loved him so much and that he is a genius!! We are still singing his praises for saving us from hand churning the yogurt!!

With the drill in hand, we churned away for 20 minutes and at the end it looked fantastic! It still isn't ready to eat at this point though. I chopped up my crystallized ginger (which is super yummy and SUPER expensive for such a little bottle) and gently folded it into the mixture. I placed it in an air tight container and put it in the freezer for about 2hrs. It was well worth the wait once the 2hrs was up and we were able to try it. By this time it was about 9:00 at night and we were all stuffed from all the food we had eaten that day, but managed to each have a couple scoops of yogurt!

My plan worked out and we were all able to enjoy frozen yogurt on Christmas Day! I hope everyone had a wonderful Holiday season and a Happy New Year! Here is to a New Year filled with new recipes!!!

PS: We tested the ice cream maker with water to see if our theory of the yogurt being too thick was right and we were wrong. The poor ice cream maker had sadly just given out from lack of being used! RIP ice cream maker 2006-2009 :(

Recipe Rating: Medium if you have a faulty ice cream maker or want a quick recipe!
Good Leftover: YES! Just like ice cream it will last for a while!
Tip: Think outside of the box when you run into a problem, there is almost always an easier solution than your first thought!!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks-Charred Corn Guacamole with Chips

You can find the Lemon-Ginger Frozen Yogurt recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/good-eats/lemon-ginger-frozen-yogurt-recipe/index.html

Pineapple Up-side Down Cornmeal Cake!!

2009-12-21T14:48:00.000-08:00

This recipe was SUPER special, since I was able to make it for Thanksgiving and ALSO that Thanksgiving was spent in Italy this year. Well technically we were in Poland for Thanksgiving, but we improvised and had Thanksgiving dinner 2 days early at my Sister and Brother-in-laws house in Aviano, Italy. We were on vacation for 2 weeks and were able to spend time with family and travel Europe and taste ALL kinds of delicious food! More about that later, though.

My recipe for this week was Pineapple Up-side down cornmeal cake, BREATH, whew that is a long name! I love pineapple and love cake even more, so I knew right away that I would love this recipe! I had to multi-task while making this recipe because at the same time I was helping Angela with our Thanksgiving feast! So I'll leave out all the parts where I stopped to make greenbean casserole and Angela giving me a crash course on how to peel vegetables with a knife instead of a peeler (I'm spoiled)!

First thing to do was to place the milk in a microwave-proof dish and bring it to a boil. Let me just say that European microwaves are weird! You have to turn them off, otherwise when you open the door they keep going! Anyway, once your milk starts boiling you add in the cornmeal and let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. This was helpful since, as said above, I was helping with other dishes for our feast that evening. Once I was done with my other duties, though, I took the butter and melted it in a cast iron skillet over the stove. Once the butter was melted I added in my brown sugar. NOW here is the part that tripped me up! The recipe says wait for the sugar to dissolve (about 5 minutes). Well I waited and was expecting the sugar to completely dissolve and become a syrup...which didn't happen! So I thought I would leave it a little longer and maybe it would dissolve. NO, it didn't happen...all the sudden Angela and I start smelling this awful burning smell and yes you guessed it, I burned the sugar! Who burns sugar?? That's almost like burning water!! Anyway, I burned the sugar and it was hell trying to get it off the cast iron skillet, but it worked and luckily I had the PERFECT amount of brown sugar left to start over. Funny enough, when I was done with the first batch I almost threw the brown sugar away because there wasn't much left. Thank goodness I didn't because I needed every little granule that was left!

Round 2, I was much luckier and realized that brown sugar doesn't dissolve like white sugar. It will be a little bit thicker consistancy. Just be sure to look out for this if you attempt this recipe! After you perfect your sugar mixture, just remove the cast iron skillet from the heat and now the decorative part comes in! I placed 1 slice of pineapple in the center of the pan and then around that placed the other 5 slices to make a pretty flower pattern. Then in each of the pineapple circles, I put a maraschino cherry perfectly in the middle. OF COURSE I had to taste test the pineapple and cherries just to make sure they were edible for everyone else! This is HIGHLY recommended when making this recipe. After you make your pretty "flower", you take 1/3 of a cup of chopped pecans and sprinkle it like fairy dust on top of the pineapple, sugar, cherry-yummy goodness! Then if that wasn't good enough, you take 3 T of your pineapple juice and drizzle it all over to top it off.

I let my pretty flower pattern sit while I sifted, in a separate bowl, my flour, baking powder, and salt. If you don't have a sifter handy, just whisk through it really good to combine everything and get any lumps out. In another bowl (yes there are a LOT of bowls in the recipe which bro-in-law Jason can attest too. He did the dishes that night...Sorry Jason) I whisked my eggs together. Before I continue, make sure your egg bowl is a big one because this is the bowl that you use to combine all your other bowls together in. Continuing along, to the eggs I added the sugar and incorporated that in fully, then it was time for the canola oil to join the party! After that the cornmeal and milk mixture (the FIRST bowl I made in the microwave and let sit) gets into the mix of things. By this time your arm MIGHT be tired, but you aren't quite done whisking yet! Add all of the "party" bowl to your flour bowl and whisk away!!! It's ok if there are lumps, you just want to make sure to combine everything.

Once everyone had joined the party in 1 bowl, I poured the mixture into the skillet on top of my pretty flower pattern and into the oven it went. You bake it at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes. Once I removed it from the oven, it was really hard, but I had to let it sit for 30 minutes before trying to flip it over (hence the name pineapple upside-down cornmeal cake). At the end of 30 minutes though, I have to admit, I was a little nervous to try and flip the cake. I am not the most coordinated person in the world, so Adam was there to save the day! He flipped the cake flawlessly onto the platter and all the yummy buttery sugar ooey-gooey stuff ran over the top of the cake and it looked beautiful!

It was the perfect ending, along with pumpkin pie, to the most perfect Thanksgiving I have ever had! Angela made the best turkey I have ever eaten and we had every side you could ever think of! We were all stuffed and happy at the end of the night!

*As a special treat I will post pictures of some of the food we experienced while in Europe!! Buon Appetito!!

Recipe Rating: Easy
Good Leftover: Yes, just be sure to cover with saran wrap, so it doesn't dry out
Tip: Beware of hot cast iron skillet! It can be super dangerous, so have oven mits handy at all times!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks- Lemon-Ginger Frozen Yogurt

You can find the Pineapple upside-down cornmeal cake recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/pineapple-upside-down-cornmeal-cake-recipe/index.html

No cow in this pie!

2009-11-24T02:52:00.000-08:00

This week I did things a little differently. Instead of making it on Sunday night, I did the recipe on Thursday. The reason I did this was because Adam and I were leaving to go out of the country and were going to be gone on Thanksgiving. My Dad and Glenda invited us over for dinner to celebrate early, so I figured it was the perfect time to make my moo-less chocolate pie.

This pie scared me a little bit at the beginning when I read it was made from tofu. I've never had tofu, but have heard some stories that weren't so pleasant about tofu. BUT this is all about making and trying new things, so I pushed my way through it. (FYI the enter is for you Ang and J...shoutout!). So first I started with a metal mixing bowl over a saucepan with simmering water in it (in essence a homemade double boiler) and melted the chocolate chips and kahlua together. I really wanted to stop here and just eat the melted chocolate and Kahlua, but didn't think everyone else would appreciate eating pie crust for dessert. Once the chocolate was melted down I added in 1t of vanilla and stirred it all together. Quickly (so the choc. didn't harden) I placed the rest of the ingredients in a blender, silken tofu & 1T of honey. Make sure you empty the water out of the tofu before you place it in the blender. After this, I placed the melted chocolate mixture in the blender with the tofu and honey and blended everything together until it was creamy.

Instead of making the pie crust this recipe called for pre-made chocolate wafer crust. I had only ever heard of vanilla wafers so had no clue where to find a chocolate wafer crust. I looked up and down the cookie isle to see if chocolate wafers even existed. I found the chocolate sugar wafers, but no chocolate cookie wafers. I then made my way over to the pie crust isle and found a chocolate cookie pie crust and just convinced myself this is what the recipe meant by chocolate wafer crust. So once the mixture was creamy I simply poured it into the pre-made pie crust and made the journey to my Dad's house.

Once we got there, I placed the pie in the fridge and it calls for it to sit 2 hours in the fridge. This was perfect because it gave us time to eat and chat before we had dessert. Glenda and Dad made the perfect meal! We had chicken parmesan, zucchini wth a tomatoe sauce, mashed potaoes and rolls. It was the perfect pre-Thanksgiving meal!

We pulled the pie out of the fridge and my Dad and Adam has the first pieces. I was a little worried because no one was saying anything at first. It seemed like an eternity but finally they all assured me it was delicious. Believe it or not Adam, who doesn't even like sweets, said that this was his favorite recipe I have made from the book to date. So sorry Pressure Cooker Chili, you got trumped! Everyone said it tasted almost like a chocolate mousse and agreed it would be best paired with a cup of coffee. A huge thanks to Dad and Glenda for having us over and agreeing to try tofu pie!!

I will definitely be making this pie again! I might not tell people prior to eating what ALL the ingredents are, but hopefully after trying it and me letting them know it is healthy for them, they will have more of an open mind when it comes to unconventional ingredients.

Recipe Rating: SUPER Easy
Good Leftover: Great, but make sure to cover with saran wrap overnight so it doesn't dry out.
Tip: Have a cup of hot joe at hand when eating, because this pie is RICH!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks- Pineapple Upside-Down Cornmeal cake

You can find the Moo-less Chocolate Pie recipe here:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipe/alton-brown/moo-less-chocolate-pie-recipe/index.html

English Muffins

2009-11-06T13:58:00.001-08:00

This week was a little different because instead of an entree, I had a breakfast recipe to tackle. I have to admit this was my least favorite recipe I have done so far! I prefer a recipe that is a little more complex and has a few more working pieces, I'll get to that shortly and you'll understand why. So this past weekend was Halloween and we were having a Halloween party as well as some friends come into town. So I figured why not have this weeks recipe on Saturday morning instead of the morning after Halloween when we are all tired and just want to sleep in. So that is what we did! One of my best friends Brittney, her 2 girls and her Sister A'Lisha and her boyfriend all came into town Friday night and stayed the weekend with us. It worked out perfectly because Brittney lives about 2hrs away and has wanted to be a part of one of my recipes! This time I went to Wal-Mart Neighborhood Store instead of Kroger, since we were having a party and I could just get everything there for a little bit cheaper than Kroger. So I woke up on Saturday morning ready to get started and I wasn't as prepared for this recipe as I thought I was. Usually I'll sit down the day before and read through the recipe just making sure I understand everything and have everything I need. I just skimmed through it this time because I had so many other things going on at the time. BIG MISTAKE! Come to find out, the recipe calls for metal rings to pour your batter in on the griddle to make sure it keeps its round shape and plumps up all pretty. It gives you a tip to use a tuna can and just clean it out and cut the tops and bottoms off for a do-it-yourself metal ring. So I bought 1 tuna can and the first problem I ran in to is that I didn't read closely enough that the tuna can needs to have a flat, crimped top and bottom. So, luckily I have an innovative husband and he pulled out his knife and was able to cut the bottom off my tuna can. Whew, so problem solved right? NO! Next I start reading and see that each muffin takes 5-6 minutes on EACH side to cook. So do the math...I had 5 people staying with me plus Adam and I, so a total of 7 people times 11minutes and if each person had 2 muffins and I only had 1 tuna can well I would be in the kitchen for a VERY long time making english muffins. So, on to innovation number 2...my Aunt sends home from Alabama every time my Mom goes and visits, cans of fresh green beans, tomatoes, etc...in those mason jars with the pop tops and the rings that screw on around them. I decide to use these tiny little rings and we can just deal with mini and regular sized english muffins. Of course looking back, I should have 1. thoroughly read the recipe before beginning or 2. instead of getting tuna cans, just have bought round metal rings! It was ok though, it made the meal a little more interesting and is a funny story to tell...now. Once we figured out the ring situation, it was time to start actually making the muffins. First I combined my powdered milk (which I have never even noticed at the store before), sugar, shortening and hot water with 1/2t salt and stirred until the sugar and salt were dissolved and then I set this aside to cool. While this was cooling, in a separate bowl I mixed my 1 envelope of yeast (Ok, funny story is that I was thinking how is an envelope a measurement? Am I going to have to buy an envelope, this is confusing? No worries though the packages the yeast come in are "envelopes". It was my "blonde" cooking moment) with 1/8t sugar (I STILL don't understand the point of having 1/8 of anything) and warm water. Then you also have to set this aside until the yeast dissolves, about 10 minutes. Sounds super exciting huh? So far you just mix and set things aside! Once the yeast was dissolved I poured it in with the powdered milk mixture. Then in a THIRD bowl I sifted my 2C of flour and added this into the party with the rest of the ingredients. My favorite part was what came next, I got to BEAT it with a wooden spoon until I got all the lumps out! It was a great stress reliever to say the least!! After that you just cover the bowl and let it rest in a warm spot for 30 minutes. During this time I got my griddle out and heated it up to 300 degrees. I placed my metal rings on the griddle, sprayed them with good old Pam, and learned a valuable lesson that you DO NOT touch anything metal if it is placed on something that is 300 degrees! I already knew this, I just think that Murphey's Law was in FULL effect during this recipe. So anyway, once my griddle was heated and my mixture had set I added the remaining 1/2t salt and got to beat it again, FUN!! Then I took an ice cream scoop and dipped out 2 scoops for my tuna can and 1 scoop for my mason jar rings and then covered with a cookie sheet and pot lid and then I waited for 5-6 minutes and flipped the rings and mixture over with tongs and let it cook on the opposite side for another 5-6minutes. You just repeat this process until all your mixture is gone. You might want to re-spray your Pam on your rings after the first few you make. This lasted for about 45 minutes until I was completely done with the mixture! Needless to say I only got 1 picture of the girls enjoying their English muffins, because everyone ate at scattered times. Luckily I had wonderful sous chefs and Adam made yummy sausage patties and Brittney made fried (over easy) eggs. So we had runny, yummy, English muffins. Brittney did say it was the kind of food you want to eat in private because you felt so savage due to how messy it was! We all had a good time, I survived my burns (yes plural, I decided to touch the metal pot lid, cookie sheet and rings not once or twice but 3 times! UGH!) and everyone either lied to me because they felt sorry for everything I went through that morning or they really did enjoy the English muffins! Brittney's girls assured me that their "pancakes" were yummy too. They are too cute! Either way, I thought they were good, but this type of recipe as simple as it may be is not my forte at all! I just hope I didn't scare Brittney and her girls away and they'll come back for another recipe sometime!

Recipe Rating: Easy
Good Leftover: Not sure, we didn't have any left. I'm sure they would be though!
Tip: Read any recipe before starting, THOROUGHLY and NEVER touch hot metal!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks- Moo-Less Chocolate Pie

You can find the English Muffin recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/english-muffins-recipe/index.html

A WHOLE lot of fish!

2009-10-22T16:52:00.000-07:00

This weeks recipe was Red Snapper in Papillote. What is a Papillote, you ask? It's ok, I didn't know either until I started this recipe. Basically cooking in Papillote is French for "Cooking in Parchment Paper". So don't worry it isn't some crazy, exotic ingredient you have to search the Earth's end for. This week all starting at....NOT KROGER! I know, it's hard to believe, but rest assured I did get most of the ingredients from Kroger still. It all started at, Central Market, a new and wonderful place that I can't believe I didn't know about until now. It is located in Ft. Worth off I30 and Hulen. Adam and I went there to get the Red Snapper because this recipe didn't just call for Red Snapper meat, it called for the WHOLE fish! I was a little freaked out about this because last time I remember eating a whole fish was when my family and I lived in Georgia, when I was 9 years old and our church held a fish fry. Afterwards we all went to McDonalds because we just couldn't eat anything that was staring at us! So I just had to repress that memory and push forward with the recipe since this whole idea was to challenge myself. Anyway, back to Central Market, I was so amazed with everything there I actually asked Adam if we could live inside the store. Their meat, seafood, gelato, produce, even pears (which I didn't think I liked until I went there) were so fresh and delicious. So if you are out to make a special meal or even a regular day to day meal, I would definitely recommend Central Market. I'm sure you will hear me talk about Central Market a lot more as I get deeper into my cookbook, so I'll save some raving for another post. We went to the fish counter and ordered the Red Snapper (about 2.5lbs). When you are looking for a Red Snapper you want a firm-fleshed fish with bright red skin, red gills, and clear eyes. Also, the fish shouldn't smell fishy, it should smell like the ocean. The "fish man" cleaned the fish for us, which consists of de-scaling the fish and cutting off its fins and gills, which helps out a lot, so be sure to ask them to do this for you. I knew the Red Snapper would be a little pricey just because you are ordering a whole fish, but it wasn't THAT bad (it was about $10/lb). So after Adam was able to drag me out of Central Market, we made our way to Kroger and picked up the rest of the ingredients. Once we got home I made sure to turn my oven on 450 degrees, so it was all ready to go when I was. I went ahead and got my couscous started too. Let me say I have had couscous once before and wasn't thrilled with it at all. It tasted to me, the way that cardboard smells, so I was also a little apprehensive about this ingredient too. On the upside it is SUPER easy to make. Just take about 1 cup of couscous and pour very hot water over it and let it sit for about 10 minutes. While I was waiting on my couscous, I rolled and cut out about 4ft of parchment paper and folded it in half (hamburger style), placing half on a cookie sheet and the rest hanging off (so you can fold it over the cookie sheet when you are done prepping everything). Next I laid my fish diagonal on the parchment paper, on the cookie sheet, and seasoned it with salt and pepper outside AND inside the fish. After your fish is seasoned you take 1 small bunch, each, of fresh oregano and fresh parsley and just stuff it inside of the fish. I prefer the flat leaf italian parsley over the curly parsley-the kind you see that is used to decorate plates in restaurants. At this point I went ahead and sliced my lemon and red onion into thin slices. Take half of the slices of each the lemon and red onion and also stuff this inside the cavity of the fish. Your fish should look "full" at this point and your couscous should be about done, go ahead and drain your couscous and season it with a pinch of salt. With the extra water in my couscous drained out, I placed it all around my fish, on the cookie sheet, in a thin layer. Then I used my handy dandy garlic press and pressed about 2 cloves of garlic to get 2t and placed on top of my fish with the rest of my lemon and red onion slices. I'm really picky, so I had to arrange them all so it looked pretty. I truly believe you "eat" with your eyes, then your nose and then your mouth. Next I cut my grape tomatoes in half and instead of having to quarter my artichokes I bought them pre-quartered, in the can. I'm glad it didn't call for fresh artichokes because I would have to google how to clean and prepare those! You spread the tomatoes and artichokes evenly all over the couscous. Last but not least you take 3/4cup of white wine (I used a Pinot Grigio) and pour it all over your fish and then take 1T of butter and put the "period" on your recipe and dot your fish with the butter. It sounds like a lot of steps, but if you do your prep work before (all the chopping) it takes about 15min to do, including the 10min for the couscous. After everything is prepped and pretty, you fold that extra 2 ft of parchment paper over your fish and seal to create an almost air tight seal. This allows the white wine and the juices in the fish and vegetables to steam and cook everything through. I didn't have one, but you can use a stapler to help you create that air tight seal. Then just throw everything in the oven and cook for about 30min (turning your cookie sheet once). When your fish is done, be careful when you open up the papillote, because the steam will come pouring out and will be HOT! Also, don't be scared when you see the eyeballs on the fish! They "burst" out a little and will be white. I have to admit I got a lump in my throat when I saw its eyeballs, but it was mind over matter. This week it was just my Mom, Adam and I that got to enjoy this feast. None of us really knew how to eat a whole fish, so we just dug right in, avoiding anything close to the head at all costs! Make sure you are careful for bones, especially the little, sharp ones that can really cut you. Just chew slowly and use your fork to "inspect" before you eat. I have to say, the fish was really delicious and Adam and my Mom agreed!! I still am not a HUGE fan of couscous but the salt, tomatoes and artichokes helped make it easier to eat. Adam, on the other hand, doesn't like couscous in any form or fashion, so a good substitute for this recipe would be rice or even cheese grits. So overall, I can now eat a whole fish without apprehension and enjoy it! Although, I still prefer the headless, skinless, boneless kind!

Recipe Rating: Easy (all you do it stuff, season & cook)
Good Leftover: No more than 1 day old
Tip: Go into this recipe with an OPEN mind, you will be pleasantly surprised!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks- English Muffins

You can find the Red Snapper in Papillote recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/red-snapper-en-papillote-recipe/index.html

Pig out on City Ham!

2009-10-07T11:53:00.000-07:00

Sunday was the first recipe I have ever been nervous about making. It was a City Ham! The only reason is because I had to cook a WHOLE ham and have never done this before. The closest I have ever been was making a Thanksgiving turkey, which always turned out great. So even though I had some nerves, I felt confident because of how past turkey's have turned out for me. We invited over my Dad and Glenda & Andy and Sonja for this recipe and it turned out perfect because I had a true critic there. Glenda doesn't even like ham and she is always honest, so I knew she would be my toughest critic to impress! This time around I didn't start my journey at Kroger, instead it was at the liquor store! No, I wasn't so nervous that I had to go and buy some booze to help...the recipe actually called for bourbon. So off I went into the liquor store and Adam and I definitely looked like fish out of water. We had about 3 employees ask us if we needed help as we just stood staring at the bourbon section trying to decide what to get. We finally found these tiny little bottles of bourbon and I used Jim Beam. Then it was off to Kroger to get the ham and all the other yummy ingredients (brown mustard, brown sugar & gingersnap cookies). The first place I stop is at the meat counter and ask the guy if they have city ham. He looks at me with a puzzling look and said, "Well I've heard of country ham, but what's city ham". In my head I'm thinking, aren't you suppose to know, you are the meat guy!! So I tell him it's just a whole ham with hock end on and he says that those are seasonal only during Thanksgiving and Christmas and run about $60! So after picking Adam's jaw up off the floor, we strolled over through the meat section and low and behold there sits a whole ham by the bacon. The only difference between this and what I needed was, it cost less and was partially cooked (hickory smoked). So we grabbed that, since I couldn't wait until Thanksgiving (side note: I'll be in Italy then, WOHOO) and finished getting the rest of the ingredients. Also a side note: All brown mustard is labeled "spicy" brown mustard. Anyway, on to Sunday morning...I started the ham about 10:45 in order to get it into the oven by 11:00 because it said it would take about 5hrs to cook and then 30min to rest. First thing you have to do is give the ham a good little rinse and then place it in a roasting pan (put a towel at the bottom to allow it to drain and to help keep it from sliding during the next step). Next, I took a small pairing knife and "scored" the ham. Basically this is starting at the right "corner" of the ham and making a small incision, if you will, from bottom to top in a diagonal direction. Then once you make it all the way around the ham, start at the left side in the opposite direction and repeat. This should make pretty little diamond patterns all over your ham. Be sure you are only cutting through the layer of skin and first couple of layers of fat, don't cut too deep. Then you place your handy thermometer in the ham and stick it in the oven at 250 degrees for about 4 hours or until the thermometer reads 130 degrees. Don't forget to wash your hands after this step, no one likes Escherichia coli (E. Coli)!! Once the ham reaches 130 degrees take it out of the oven, remove the thermometer (note: they get hot, so use a hot pad) and use tongs to peel away the skin/fat diamonds all over the ham. My tongs aren't great, so this took me about 5 minutes to do. Finally I just grabbed a small knife to help my tongs out. Then take your brown mustard and use a basting brush or brand new paint brush to liberally apply the mustard onto the ham. The next few steps are the messy part...you then take the dark brown sugar and sprinkle a light layer on top of the mustard and pack in slightly as you go around. You WILL get messy during this and if you are anything like me have the lotion handy because you will wash your hands 100 times! After your brown sugar, you take 1oz of your bourbon and spritz (I used one of those 80 cent spritzer bottles in the cosmetic section at Kroger) it all over the ham. Then take your gingersnap cookies and crush them up (I used my blender because I don't have a food processor) and apply to ham in the same fashion as the brown sugar until the ham is covered. Then put your thermometer back into your ham (don't use the same hole as before) and turn the oven up to 350 degrees and bake for another hour or until your ham reaches 140 degrees. This is the only problem I ran in to. I probably should have only done 3 hrs in the morning for my ham because within about 5 minutes my ham was at 140 degrees so I just turned the oven down and kept it warm in order to let all that yummy goodness I put on it crust up. Once that is done, just remove it from the oven and let it sit for about 30 minutes. A lot of people don't know that you need to let meat rest before cutting into it, otherwise all the juices and flavors that you worked so hard at getting will just run out all over the place and you'll have a dry piece of meat. I served my ham with fresh rolls from Kroger's bakery and asparagus wrapped in phillo dough with fresh parmesan sprinkled on top. My father-in-law brought apple pie for dessert, so it was quite the feast. Everyone, including Glenda LOVED the ham and we even had enough to send both my Dad/Glenda and Adam's parents home with the rest!!! After it was all said and done, there was no reason to be nervous. All I had to do was cut, peel, baste and cook the ham. No tricky ingredients or fancy techniques needed!

Recipe Rating: Easy
Good Leftover: VERY
Tip: I would recommend doing this recipe during the Holiday's when the REAL city (or country) ham's are out. It will for sure be a crowd pleaser!!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks- Red Snapper en Papillote

You can find the City Ham recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/city-ham-recipe/index.html

Eggplant Pasta!

2009-09-21T13:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Eggplant Pasta day! So far, this was the only recipe I was nervous to make because I have never worked with nor made anything using eggplant. My sister-in-law was the first to introduce me to this delicious vegetable, so who better to be our guests of honor than her, my brother and my nephew! We had to do a luncheon instead of dinner b/c Cris works nights, but it worked out PERFECT! As usual, the recipe started Saturday with a trip to Kroger. I did my research on eggplants and come to find out there are male and female eggplants. Here is a little education, when choosing your eggplant, if you decide to make this recipe or anything using eggplant for that matter. First you want to choose an eggplant with tight skin, no wrinkles or blemishes, the calyx (top hard part) is bright green and has a nice clean cut. Then if it's a little heavy in size and you press it with your finger and it bounces right back, that's a good start! BUT the bigger the pod is, the seedier it is, meaning the more bitter it will taste, so stick with the medium sized ones. Lastly, the difference between the female and male eggplant is the shape of the "belly-button" OR that top hard part (the calyx). The female has an oval "belly-button" and the male has a round "belly-button". It's best to try and get a male eggplant b/c they have fewer seeds and as stated above are less bitter. Anyway, moving right along to Sunday mornings preparation first things first was to get the eggplant peeled and purged. I had to look up what purging an eggplant meant...don't worry it's not some crazy eggplant bulimia diet! Basically you peel the eggplant (leaving about 1in of skin at the top and bottom) and then you slice it lengthwise into 1/4 inch layers and lay out on a wire rack on top of a cookie sheet. Then you take kosher salt and evenly sprinkle it on the eggplant and let the eggplant purge for about 30min. I did 30min, but would recommend doing about 45-1hr if you are patient enough. This removes all the juices from the eggplant (therefore making your sauce less runny, which I will get to shortly). Then you give them a quick rinse and paper towel them off before slicing them into fettuccini like pieces. OH YES, you were thinking pasta WITH eggplant weren't you?! OH NO, this was full out eggplant as the pasta, so cool! So after that you heat your oil, garlic and red pepper flakes in your skillet (I used a small stock pot b/c I doubled the recipe. If you know my brother, you know why) and heat up until the garlic is SLIGHTLY brown. I say this b/c while my garlic was heating up I was cutting the tomatoes and completely forgot about my garlic and BLACK garlic=nasty food. So we had a take 2 on the oil, garlic and red pepper flakes. Second time was a charm. Once it's heated up add your eggplant "pasta" and toss to coat it and cook for about 3-5 minutes. Then you add your diced tomatoes & heavy cream and increase your heat to let your sauce thicken. This bring me back to the purging of the eggplants...my sauce wasn't as thick as I wanted it to be so I improvised and added about 1 T of Corn starch and it made it a lot better! So being patient during the purge is definitely a must! Once your sauce is thick, throw in your fresh parmigiano reggiano and your chiffonade basil (chiffonade is just a fancy way to cut your basil into ribbons. Simply stack the leaves, roll them up together and cut) and WAHLAH you have Eggplant Pasta! I served the pasta with a fresh salad and toasted french bread. Scot, Cris, Kai and myself all LOVED it and had seconds. Adam on the otherhand almost took the literal meaning of purging an eggplant and just had salad and bread for lunch. He wasn't a fan of eggplant before so we expected that reaction from him! So this recipe definitely isn't for picky eaters! A big thanks to Scot, Cris and Kai for joining us for lunch and I hope you enjoy the leftovers!

Recipe Rating: Easy
Good Leftover: According to Scot, yes. BUT as he said he LOVES leftovers and eats them cold. So you'll have to be the judge on this one.
Tip: Patience is a virtue when purging eggplants! Leave yourself plenty of time for this process!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks- City Ham

You can find the Eggplant Pasta recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/eggplant-pasta-recipe/index.html

Pressure Cooker Chili

2009-08-31T08:14:00.001-07:00

Last night was Pressure Cooker Chili night! I was really excited to do this recipe because I have never used a Pressure Cooker before! Luckily instead of having to buy one, my Father-in-law who is also an AMAZING cook had one that he let me borrow. As you can probably guess our guests of honor last night were my Mother, my Nephew and my amazing 2nd parents Sonja and Andy! Once again all the ingredients were bought at Kroger (Side note: Kroger should really pay me for as much as I advertise them!) EXCEPT Chipotle Peppers in Adobo sauce. This is where the adventure begins. My Mom and I looked EVERYWHERE at Kroger and couldn't find this ingredient (this was Saturday), so figured we would go on Sunday to Tom Thumb and surely they would have it, right? Well of course, we go and search Tom Thumb high and low and even ask Customer Service for help and the 16-yr-old that informed us in all his years working there (1 year) he has never even heard of this ingredient. I said I knew what it looked like and it does exist, just can't find it. So after he took us up and down every isle we had already looked on, we called Adam (who usually can provide me some insight as to where to go) and he said to try Whole Foods or La Michoacana. He highly suggested La Michoacana because he thought he had seen them there before. Of course we start on our way to Whole Foods, because I wasn't too excited about going to "Mexico" where if we ran into any problems between my Mom and I, no one could help us because all we can say is Si and No! BUT on the way I had a feeling and Adam is usually right about these things so we stopped at La Michoacana and BAM...first isle my Mom and I walked on it was right in front of us and looked as if a light from Heaven was shining on it, leading us towards it! Ok not really, but that's how I felt because I really needed this ingredient, it was a main component to the dish! So anyway, enough about Chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce! I got home and the first thing you do is take the 3lbs of meat out of the package and put it in a large bowl and mix it with the peanut oil and salt. Just incase you didn't know I hate touching raw meat, this is usually Adam's job when we are cooking, but this is all about challenging myself, so I just went for it! My hands were freezing because the meat was so cold and I was totally disgusted but it was over quickly! Next you are suppose to heat your pressure cooker to high (lid off) and place the meat in there to brown in 3 batches (so basically 1lb per batch). So I go to place the first batch and WOW, it looked like I was trying to burn the house down! It started smoking uncontrollably and the fire alarm went off, I couldn't see anything, Kai was saying "shut it off" to the fire alarm, my Mom was saying "What's wrong" and Adam was scrambling to shut off the fire alarm and open the back door! No worries though, I stayed put and probably got a little smoke inhalation and browned that first batch of meat REALLY good! HA! It was over in a matter of minutes and I turned the heat down. So word to the wise, when it says to place it on high, I would do maybe between a 6 and 7! The next 2 batches went smoothly and browned perfectly! I then took the meat out and you are suppose to use a "medium ale" beer to de-glaze the brown goodness on the bottom. Backtracking a little, when I was at Kroger I asked about 3 men at the beer station what a good "medium ale" beer is and of course they had no clue and looked at my like I was crazy! Where is a beer connoisseur when you need them? UGH! So I just went with some Hawaiian Pale Ale beer I saw. Once you de-glaze everything you throw the rest of your ingredients into the pot and shut the lid. Wait until is hisses and then turn the heat down to a low simmer and cook for 25 minutes. Super easy to do and cooks really quickly! After the 25 minutes I opened the lid and this is really a recipe you shouldn't judge by its cover. It looked like dog food, but smelled delicious! So we all sat down around the table and dug in. I provided either bread, saltines or tortilla chips to go along with it. First bite was a surprise to all, it was really spicy! Of course I LOVE spicy food, but everyone else doesn't have taste buds of steel like I do, so they added extra crackers/chips/bread to theirs to soften the blow of the heat. I then went around the table and did a little survey of what everyone thought of the recipe, what they would change, etc...The general concensus was that they would cut the meat into smaller cubes and maybe do a few tweaks to the ingredients for next time, but overall it was a hit! Adam even said it was his favorite recipe of all the 3 I have done so far. So success with yet another recipe!

Recipe Rating: Easy
Good Leftover: Yes, actually a little better because all the ingredients have time to meld
Tip: Have a fan readily available, in case of heavy smoke
Stay tuned in 3 weeks- Eggplant Pasta

You can find the Pressure Cooker Chili recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/pressure-cooker-chili-recipe/index.html

French Onion Soup-bon appetit!

2009-08-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

This week my recipe was French Onion Soup! I'm actually a HUGE fan of this soup, but it was going to be interesting because Adam has never tried it before. When I told him it was pretty much broth, onions and soggy bread you can imagine he wasn't too enticed! Our guests this week were my Dad (also a HUGE fan) and his wife Glenda. Everything started, yet again, at Kroger and luckily this time I found all the ingredients I needed. I've never really bought fancy cheese before so the only shocker for this recipe was how expensive Fontina cheese is ($6.50 a package). Other than that, everything was fairly simple and easy to find! I came home and first things first was to get all 4lbs of my onions prepped. Of course chopping and peeling onions reeked havoc on my eye balls and nose! It was taking me forever to cut them because I kept having to walk away to wipe my nose and wash my eyes off because it burned so bad. So my husband, being the wonderful man he is, equipped me with a respirator to cut the remainder of the onions. I looked silly, but trust me it worked wonders! If you don't have a respirator I've heard there are other methods for cutting back the onion tears you can do. So once the onions were chopped into half moons, into the pan they went layer by layer: Butter, Onions, Salt, Onions, Salt, Onions, Salt...you get the idea. Then you have to let them "sweat it out" for 20 minutes or so before you do your first stir. Then it says to stir occasionally for 45-1hr to get onions to a dark molasses color. Of course 45 minutes goes by and my onions are still white and some are maybe translucent. Then an hour goes by and still nothing! It says to keep it on low heat as to not scorch the onions, but at the rate I was going we wouldn't have been able to eat the soup until Monday. So I turned up the heat and after about another 45 minutes (yes a total of 1hr 45min passed) my onions were finally PERFECT! This was the "hardest" part of the whole recipe because after you get the onions to perfection, you just throw everything into the pan and let it sautee another 20 or so minutes! I did improvise on 1 thing and that was the bouquet garni. You are suppose to take fresh thyme, bay leaf and parsley and tie them together. Instead of buying them at the store and tying them together, I had them already in my spice rack, so I cleaned out a tea bag and placed them all in there and tied the string around it so they couldn't get out and placed it in the pan to simmer. It worked perfect and I'm sure if you don't drink tea you could also use a coffee filter. Once it was done sauteing, it was time to toast the bread and grate the cheese. Of course I had the oven on broil and put my 4 bread pieces in and got to grating the cheese and completely forgot the bread. Even though they were in there for a minute and a half they were "crispy" to say the least! Luckily I came equipped with 2 French loaves so there was plenty to spare! Second try was a success and the bread was perfectly toasted! So I ladled the soup into my nifty little soup crocks I got at Bed Bath Beyond (also WAY expensive $30, ugh! But I do love them) and placed the toast, toasted side down and topped with cheese. Then in the broiler they went for another minute or so until the cheese was golden brown. The recipe does have Cognac as an optional splash to the top, but I didn't think I would like that, so I opted out! We served the soup with grilled chicken and steamed veggies. You can't forget dessert either...we had Key Lime pie one of my Dad and Husbands favorites! Overall everyone said it had great flavor and they loved it! Adam wasn't too keen about the soggy bread, but loved the cheese. My challenge to you for this week...Open a cookbook you rarely use to a random page and make that recipe and share with me what you make and any adventures you have during the process!

Recipe Rating: Easy
Good Leftover: Only if you do the bread and cheese the next day. Don't save ALL put together
Tip: Have some febreeze handy, the onions do make a stink of things!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks- Pressure Cooker Chili

You can find the French Onion Soup recipe here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/french-onion-soup-recipe/index.html

Hot Diggity Dog

2009-08-03T12:31:00.000-07:00

Corn Dogs were the first recipe I was to tackle (hence why Adam chose this book). I love corn dogs, but they aren't exactly figure friendly, but the deal was to cook from start to finish every recipe no matter what. All the ingredients were simple and I could get them on our normal grocery shopping trip to Kroger. Of course, once I get to Kroger, though, they are completely out of jalapeno's and the produce stocker barely speaks enough English to explain to me that they won't be getting more until the next day and to just get serrano peppers that it would be just as good. I was a little frustrated because I wanted all the recipes to be exact, but didn't want to drive to another store for 1 jalapeno. Another thing I didn't like was the price of the peanut oil...GEEZ!! It costs a lot to get fat these days! Luckily Kroger brand saved us some money and 1 gal was "only" $10. Good thing I don't have a deep fryer, because the peanut oil for that was $45!! Anyway, I think I was most excited about buying a thermometer. Of course corn dogs are fried and we aren't "fried food eaters" so I have never purchased a thermometer. Now I have my very own...not sure how much use it will get but just cool to have one (yes I'm a dork). I get everything home and I start to prep anything I could ahead of time. Not having experience with serrano peppers I wore latex free gloves to cut it and de-seed it. Good thing I did because I cut off a piece to taste (you have to taste what you're using) and it had a little kick. If you know me, I have an immunity for spice, so it was to my liking. I chopped the onion, mixed the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet in another, poured the peanut oil (which I hear is the best oil to use to fry) in the pan and clipped on my new handy dandy thermometer and then I waited. Once it was time to fry, I turned the burner on high to heat up the oil. This was the only tricky part I encountered! I needed the oil to be at 375 degrees and of course it shot up past 400, so I had to wait for it to come down. Once the temperature came down I was a little nervous because I didn't want the dogs to splash and burn me and didn't really know what to expect because I have never fried something in 1 gallon of oil before. I made Adam come in the kitchen to stand with me for the first "dunk". I skewered the hot dogs, dipped them in and out of my batter and in the oil they went. It wasn't as dramatic as I thought it would be at all! It just bubbled a little bit, no burns, no explosions...everything went smoothly! Of course once the first cold dogs went into the oil, the temperature dropped again and I had to keep tweeking my stove to make it hot, but not too hot. After the first few I finally got it down and before you knew it the dogs were done and golden brown! Our first victim, I mean guest was my Mom because I knew if it was a disaster she would still eat it and smile and tell me how delicious they were! Luckily, I don't think anyone had to lie and overall the corn dogs were a success. For dessert I threw in some white chocolate dipped pretzels with strawberries (I would recommend getting the pretzel sticks for this, it makes less of a mess when dipping)!

Recipe Rating: Easy
Good leftover: Only if heated in a toaster oven, otherwise you get soggy dogs
Tip: Use the left over batter to make hush puppies. Great compliment to fish!
Stay tuned in 2 weeks- French Onion Soup.

*Sorry, the only picture I got was the day after when Adam heated them up for lunch! Too bad he used a microwave...soggy dogs! UGH!

You can find the corn dog recipe here:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/corn-dogs-recipe/index.html

Background of Frying Pickle

2009-08-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

I was watching TV a few weeks ago and saw the preview for the movie Julie & Julia, a story about a girl named Julie cooking her way through a Julia Childs cookbook. I was inspired by this and love trying new things, so I thought "What better way to utilize my cookbooks than to start on p.1 and cook my way through to the end". I ran the idea by my husband and told him that we would have to eat every recipe no matter what it was and if we didn't like it Pizza Hut was a call away. So we decided, since some recipes can be pretty expensive, to do 1 recipe a paycheck. We also decided to cook them on Sunday evening and invite new people over each time to try the different recipes (of course we would tell them of our back-up plan should they not like it). Now the next step was to pick a book. I grabbed 3 of my favorite cookbooks and read the first recipe out of each book and had my husband choose which one I would be doing, based on that. He chose "Food Network Favorites", which is a book with most of the BIG Food Network stars in it (Alton Brown, Paula Dean, Bobby Flay, Rachael Ray, Giada De Laurentiis, Mario Batali, Wolfgang Puck, etc...). So now the adventure begins...