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Recent media panic has been broadcasting that we need to up the veg to eight yes EIGHT servings per day! Did I mention preferably raw? Continue reading “One night in Bangkok Salad”
Drunken Noodles
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I have cooked for a few drunks in my day….and this recipe right here is a great one if you want to have a great meal to accompany beer or cocktails. Traditionally in Thailand these are served to late night patrons to help wake them back up. This dish is spicy but you can prepare it to your own liking. My favorite drunken noodles are at the the “I like Thai” cart and are all of $5, but when I don’t want to drag my nearly three year old son downtown I have found a pretty close second place version that serves at least 4 other noodle munchers. I have access to many Asian markets and pick my ingredients up there, they are usually cheaper and better quality but most of these items can be found at your local supercenter du jour. Continue reading “Drunken Noodles”
Greek-style Chickpea soup
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This simple recipe is a great way to enjoy chickpeas. Very popular in Greece, the ingredients and preparation are simple. The trick to flavor is the use of olive oil and slow cooking to produce a rich, and full flavored soup. This is what I like to call “refined peasant food” it’s cheap, accessible, healthy, and feeds a small army.
Continue reading “Greek-style Chickpea soup”
Japanese Curry
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The other night we went down to Moon and Sixpence and had their amazing “Curry Chips”, I guess in Britain this is totally a thing…a really, really, great thing! Basically its delicious French fries with curry gravy, and it is about the best thing I have ever had as a drinking food.
Continue reading “Japanese Curry”
Vegan IPA beer cheese
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I love browsing the recipes and ideas that others have to share. I was doing some reading on food52 and came across this recipe for vegan cheese and thought it sounded really easy and good. It also made me think of one of my favorite things at the bar I used to work at in Ogden, their Stout ale dip is delicious!
Continue reading “Vegan IPA beer cheese”
Egyptian “Koshari” inspired one-pot chicken
Way back in 2006, my mother in law took my husband and myself on a trip to Egypt. We went in a travel group with some of her friends and it was an amazing, once in a lifetime trip. We sailed down the Nile, walked in the great pyramids, smoked tobacco out of a hooka in a “men only” café ,rode camels, saw king Tut’s tomb, pondered how the Sphinx lost his nose, I even did Egyptian dancing in full regalia! It was fantastic, I do however have one regret…..I never ate Koshari. Even before our trip began I became obsessed with this high carb, no meat, street food that is on every corner from Cairo to Luxor. It’s a staple for the working folks there and it’s out of this world delish. Basically, it is rice, pasta, lentils, chickpeas, fried onions, and topped with “Shatta” which is an Arab tomato based hot sauce that they put on the top. As delicious as it is, it is also filling and affordable. I also noticed at the food stands they served rice stuffed pigeons, being in the height of the “bird flu” scare we avoided the pigeon. This amazing experience (which may never happen again) inspired today’s dish, but Koshari is one of those “use every pan you have” dishes, I being the sole dishwasher in the house decided to fusion it out a bit and mix the idea of koshari with my mom’s arroz con pollo (one pot chicken and rice dish). My mom would make this growing up, it made the house smell so good, she never had an exact recipe but it always turned out great and was ample enough to serve an army. Since the Egyptian’s used pigeons to stuff with rice, I figured one pot chicken with koshari flavors would be a no fail.
I first made shatta, there are many different recipes, I changed mine up a bit:
• 6 oz can tomato paste
• 1 Cup water
• 6 cloves garlic
• 2 tbsp Sambal (chili paste) you can use fresh chilies as well, but to simplify things and make sure it wasn’t too hot for the kids (some recipes insist on 15 Thai chilies!)
• 1 handful cilantro
• 1 handful parsley
• 1 tsp each salt, pepper, and cumin
Blend. Easy, they use this to put on top, but I just used it to add in the rice mixture.
• 1 chicken, I butterflied mine to get the most crispy skin as I could, salt both sides
• 1 Cup each, lentils, pasta (I used broken angel hair), rice
• ½ onion
• 1 carrot
• 1 rib of celery
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup of “shatta”
• 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp canola oil
Method: in a dutch oven, or large pot heat canola oil on high, add chicken, brown both sides, remove chicken, reduce heat to medium high add veggies, pasta, and rice sauté till pasta is golden, add shatta and chicken stock, add lentils (add a bit of water if your mixture seems to thick, maybe ½ a cup), chickpeas, lemon cut in half and juiced, a bit of salt, and your chicken. In a pre-heated 350 degree oven bake uncovered 60 minutes or chicken is crispy and fully roasted. Add a bit of lemon zest, and cilantro to the finished product and imagine the pyramids of Egypt!
Versatile Risotto for seasonal cooking
Spring veg right now have been crazy! You can get local stuff right now that is amazing, so I I wanted to devote a recipe technique that can be used any season with whatever is local right then…it is Spring here so that is what we will be focusing on here. Not to mention I found a 2lbs box of imported Italian Arborio rice, the stuff for risotto! Gonna roast some veggies to bring out their natural sugar and starch…it’s a good time. Risotto should be done over medium heat and done with patience and care, many a risotto has been rushed and ruins the integrity of the dish…as with most things…the good stuff takes time and thought. Once mastered, risotto crafting can take on many delicious, crowd pleasing, variations…and its gluten free! So what the hell right?!
Playas:
1 ½ Cups Arborio rice
1 shallot minced
5 Cups chicken or veg stock
4 Tbsp butter
¼ Cup Parmesan
¼ Cup White Cheddar (I used a sharp, New Zealand import…but use a semi soft cheese of choice)
1 Cup dry white wine, if you won’t drink it, don’t cook with it
In a flat bottomed pot, over medium high heat, I used my le cruset French oven, put a few tbsp. of olive oil, add shallots, brown, add half of the butter, add rice, brown mixture, add wine, when it has evaporated start adding stock, ladle by ladle until the rice is perfectly al dente, probably will take about 25 minutes or so….taste as you go….add cheese and rest of butter, stir, serve right away!
A variety of seasonal treats, I choose some local asparagus roasted at 400 degrees, lightly coated with olive oil and salt for 20 min. I roasted some Leeks, same process as asparagus but takes about 15 minutes longer. I used some petite peas, and then topped it with whipped sundried tomato, which is super easy, basically you rehydrate some dried tomatoes with boiling water, for about 10 minutes, drain all but a ¼ Cup of water, add ½ Cup olive oil, and blend till foamy. Its super tasty, easy, and can be put on anything and will keep in the fridge forever.
This recipe serves four as a main.
Pistachio Crusted Sockeye Salmon and Confetti cous cous
Well today turned out to be, as Bob Ross would put it “A happy accident”. Meaning by that…my original plan was foiled but brought about a better scenario. I could’ve sworn that today was the start of our local farmer’s market, it is three blocks away and totally awesome. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so instead we went to Wholefoods. I was bummed at first, already being a victim of “cookers block”, my term for a food blogger with writers block. I had a TVP (textured vegetable protein) incident on Thursday that had taken the wind out of my sails, I rarely prepare something that I deem inedible and I was slightly crushed that I couldn’t make it work. Anyway, I decided I would make a “confetti” cous cous salad, I had a bunch of Oregon bay shrimp at home and thought it would be great, while collecting my ingredients to be purchased I noticed Wholefoods had a sale on Local, wild, WA, whole sockeye for $5.99 a lb! I couldn’t pass that up so I purchased one and the fish monger even fileted it for free. My husband, never one to neglect the beer selection picked up the NWPA from Fort George, which just happens to be my favorite brewery….I have never had beer I didn’t like from them but I had yet to try the Tender loving empire NWPA, so we grabbed a four pack and headed on our way. I decided I would make a pistachio crusted sockeye with my whole wheat cous cous confetti salad and pair it with the easy drinking NWPA.
Salmon:
• 1 whole sockeye, fileted, I had to remove the pin bones from mine, but I got a helluva deal.
• 2 clove garlic, smashed
• A handful fresh flat leaf parsley
• Half a handful cilantro
• A few springs of basil
• Tsp salt
• Tsp pepper
• Tsp red pepper flake
• Handful of shelled pistachios
• Zest of one lemon
• 1 tbsp. capers
With a mortar and pestle, combine ingredients, mash with a lil’ olive oil until it reaches a pesto type texture. Put your “pesto” mixture on your fish.
Roast at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. Serve with some lemon wedges.
Confetti cous cous
• 2 cups whole wheat cous cous, add a tbsp. of olive oil and cover all the dry cous cous with it, it give it a nice fluffy texture (this makes a ton….but can keep in the fridge for a week)
• 2 cups boiling water
• ½ tahini dressing (the recipe is included in my Asian Slaw recipe, check it out, or purchase the premade version at Wholefoods, totally acceptable)
• 1 cup Bay Shrimp, cooked
• ½ red pepper, diced small
• 1 shallot, diced small
• 2 cups baby spinach
• A handful sundried tomatoes
• ½ cup diced olives, your choice, I used a spicy Greek olive blend
• 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
In a large bowl, add dried cous cous and olive oil, mix around with fingers, when all are covered, add sundried tomatoes and chickpeas, add boiling water, set aside five minutes. Fluff with a fork. Add your other ingredients and combine, serve or refrigerate till ready to serve.
The dish ended up being great with the beer and my faith in humanity has once again been restored….not to mention we have had 6 days of sunshine in a row! Can’t complain….
Wings?! We don’t want no stinking wings! (poulet “Legs” aux Buffalo stylie)
Okay so I have cooked, cut, sauced, tossed and eaten my fair share of “buffalo wings”. The worst thing about them is washing a sink full of wing plates at 11pm at night…you get a greasy hot sauce line up to your elbow, and you basically need to exfoliate to get that off. Anyway, most chicken wings are fried, then placed in a variation of the classic “Frank’s red hot” and butter. The possibilities are endless! The wing as a pop culture food phenomenon has grown to where the whole point in using them (as a way to make mass profit from a cheap protein, and cut the booze in your system) has become quite counter intuitive. With most trends….the wing has been played out…what used to be $1 a lb are now up to $4 a lb. For about 5 years or so I have toyed with and perfected….the oven baked…sauced….inexpensive CHICKEN LEG! Yes I said it….I decided to try this first of all because I’m on budget….second because my husband only likes the “drumettes” and not the joint of the classic wing and thirdly (not an actual word, but should be) I like me some pub grub. Anyway you dice it Chicken and “frank’s” is a hit. Now don’t go and buy leg quarters (thigh attached) unless you want to hack off the thigh and use for something else (which I totally do if the price is better), you can buy NW raised, all natural “value” packs of legs at our Fred Meyer’s here for sometimes 99cents on the dollar….or go to “New Seasons” and buy the “classy” chicken for about $2.50 a lb….let’s say you are going to a kegger….or a church outing whateves….and you need to feed a bunch of folks (hopefully not a Vegan convention….im sure you could do a tofu version though and use smart balance instead of butter..off on tangent must return) buy 5lbs of chicken legs and follow my simple non-fried approach to “bar food” gluttony.
- 5lbs of chicken drumsticks
- sheet pans or a big roaster…I use a roaster to get a faux “confit” type of fall of the bone thing…think poor mans confit…sure yeah.
- 400 degree oven pre heated
- 1 Cup of franks (or if you are a “mild” opposed to “wild” ..BBQ sauce, I really like using teriyaki sauce then top with sliced scallions and sesame seeds)
- 1 stick melted butter (margarine if you are gross, or vegan and think that using hydrogenated oils (scientifically modified fat chains) is healthier then a natural product from a critter….it’s your world we are just living in it!) Skip this if you are using a pre-made sauce
- and a few tablespoons of honey to taste.
YOU DO NOT NEED 20 INGREDIENTS TO MAKE GOOD WINGS (legs)! Simple is better, cheaper, and lower on labor. Dry your chicken with some paper towels, this ensures the skin will be nice and crispy. We are not salting our chicken…it draws water out and won’t be as moist. I took out the frying cuz it’s messy, fattening (we are already dipping them in butter), and not efficient with two small children. Set your dried chicken on your sheet pans, you are using dark meat, so it contains natural fat, doesn’t need greasin…you can if you want cuz they do stick, but if you have a good metal spatula you will be fine…you can put foil underneath for clean up…but I don’t do that because aluminum is a non-renewable resource, but to each their own. Put those puppies in the oven and cook the life outta em’ (about an hour, to 90min). Mix your butter, hot sauce and honey in a large bowl, toss chicken legs in sauce….put on a plate…or if you want to leave em in the bowl and put the garbage can next to you while you sit on the couch and watch “Lifetime” movies that is totally fine (I have a non-judgmental blog). Serve with all your fav (dressing, carrots, celery, BEER) and viola “I feel like chicken tonight…like chicken tonight!” (commercial from the 90’s). Look ladies take these to your favorite bachelor, wearing a trench coat, and even birkenstocks and romance is on the agenda…..if you want that or just sit at home eat them for yourselves and be glad you are not one of the “Dance Moms”. Don’t be a leg hater! Try chicken wing’s, cheap and voluptuous cousin…once you try that you won’t ever go back! Prost!
