Category: Recipes

Pistachio Pesto

This new vitamix is crazy. I love it. One of the first non smoothie thing I made was pesto. This thing is a champ. I didn’t have to prechop anything. Just threw in the nuts, garlic, basil, olive oil gave it a whirl and it was beautiful.
So much so, that I had too much pesto. And of course I had to make 2 things, pizza and pasta!
Pesto goes great with grilled chicken. Always handy to have it around. And look at those grill marks. YUM. Thank you Le Creuset.

Pesto is fairly easy to make, fresh and delicious. I got this recipe from my friend Anna. But you know me, I don’t measure! So this recipe is straight from wherever she got it. Hope it works for you!

Pistachio Pesto

Ingredients:
1 cup shelled pistachios
2 cups fresh basil
2 large cloves of garlic
1/2 cup of grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup of olive oil

Directions

Process the first 4 ingredients then slowly add olive oil to your desired consistency.

 

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Curry Chicken and Coconut Rice

Yum! It's been awhile since I cooked something during a week night, but this one made this list. I used Shutterbean's recipe and its awesome.

Rosie came over for our monthly dinner/catch up night. She brought all the ingredients, she watches me cook dinner, and washes dishes. Then we eat and she gets to keep the leftovers for the week. That's our deal and I love it. I get to try out new recipes and I don't have to eat it all week! If you need me to do this, I am willing haha!

 

I didn't get a lot of pictures of the process because I made a video from it, but it smells great. The only thing I would change is use chicken stock instead of water for more flavor. No one else thought it was bland though, just me. Maybe because I was getting a cold when I made this.

 

Definitely will make this again!

 

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I Don’t Like Lobsters

Whaaaat? How can you not like lobsters?! That’s what you are thinking right? Let’s break it down. I usually give myself at least 3 tries before I state that I don’t like something, especially if it’s something that is known to be universally good.

The first time I had lobsters, it was at a Vietnamese wedding. The meat was cooked in a ginger asian sauce. I didn’t like the texture.

The second time, I had it just steamed, dipped in butter. The traditional way right? I had that at a blogger preview of Tacklebox in DC (which has since closed down). Didn’t like the texture, or the flavor.

The third time, I had surf and turf at the Palm. It was a nice restaurant, I figured it would be done right, and I can see what it was really supposed to taste like. Nope. Still didn’t like it. Definitely a texture thing.

So here we go again. A friend of ours went to Maine and brought back 6 lobster tails. She didn’t know how to cook them, I didn’t know how to cook them, and no one that was invited to eat knew either. As the designated chef of the family, I was tasked to figure it out.

After googling things here and there. I decided to wing it and hope for the best. We started with cutting the tails down the middle, then splitting the flesh open.

Rubbed it down with olive oil, sea salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

Grilled it flesh side down for about 3 minutes, until it go its nice charred flesh. Then rubbed it down with a garlic, lemon, butter concoction I mixed together. We then put it back on the grill butter side up and let it cook and smoke for another 5 minutes.

I really liked the flavor of the meat, and the smokiness. It was very similar to scallops. But I didn’t like the texture of the meat! So I guess no lobsters for me. However, I did like the butter and the technique, so I guess I will have to save this recipe and use it on something else, like shrimp, scallops or fish!

Seafood Lemon Garlic Butter

Ingredients
1 stick of butter, softened
2 tbsp. dried parsley
2 tsp cayenne pepper powder
4 cloves garlic, minced
Zest of 1 lemon
Juice of half a lemon
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions
Combine all the ingredients, mix well. Refrigerate until use.

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Peanut Butter Bacon Pancakes

Breakfast on weekends are a pretty big deal at my house. We are so busy during the week that we always skip out on the most important meal of the day. But not on Saturdays and Sundays! As you may remember, I made macadamia nut pancakes before.
This time lets use peanut butter! This recipe comes from Joy the Baker and I pretty much did exactly what she said so if you want instructions, click away!
Bacon and peanut butter sounds weird…but it worked well together, especially topped with banana. There is just enough peanut butter to give you a hint of nutty sweetness, but not enough to overpower your palate. Don’t just trust me for it, make it yourself!
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Citrus Asian Chicken

Inspired by the soy hoison orange salmon meal I make I wanted to make a chicken version. Who doesn’t love chicken right? And a roast chicken is a classic favorite because you get that tender meat with crispy skin.

So lets do this.

For the marinade, we don’t even need to make it pretty. Also long as we can fuse all the flavors into the chicken, we win! Smash and peel the garlic, cut off the roots and smash the green onions. Don’t even need to chop it! Just release those flavors!

Wash then peel some zest off one orange, and one lemon.

Throw the zest, garlic, green onions into the bag. Pour in the liquid ingredients. Give it a good shake, and taste it to see if it’s something you are proud of.

Add the chicken to the bag, seal and mix, shake, massage. Get all the flavors in there. Lay it down in a pan and refrigerate for a couple hours (the longer the better) and remember to flip the bag over halfway through, for even soaking.

Citrus Asian Chicken

Ingredients
2 oranges
1 lemon
3 stalks of green onion
4 cloves of garlic, smashed
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup honey
4 chicken thighs or breast
Vegetable oil

Directions
Wash and zest strips of one of the oranges and lemon. Place those in a gallon size zippered plastic bag. Squeeze the juices of the citrus in the bag. Trim the green onions, cut in half and smash the white parts. Add to the bag, along with the liquid ingredients. Shake the bag and taste. Alter to your taste.

Rinse and pat dry your chicken thighs. Add to ziplock and marinate for 2-8 hours, turning halfway.

Preheat your oven to 425F. Stick your cast iron in the oven (empty) for 10 minutes to get it nice and hot.

Remove your chicken thighs from the bag and lay them in a pan to let the marinade drip off a little. Brush the skin with a thin layer of vegetable oil. Remove the hot skillet from the oven, and place the thighs, skin side down onto the skillet and return to the oven for 20-30 minutes.

While your chicken is baking, pour the leftover marinade into a small saucepan, discarding the chunks of citrus, garlic and green onion. Bring to boil over medium high heat, then reduce to a medium low simmer. Taste and season accordingly. If you want it sweeter, add honey, if you want it saltier add soy sauce.

After 20 minutes, check on your chicken. If you think it needs a little more time to brown the skin side give it a little, if not, let’s flip! Pull out skillet. Add about 2 tablespoons of water to help loosen the skin from the bottom of the pan. Flip the chicken over, and baste with the marinade that you turned into a sauce! Cook for another 10-15 minutes, until chicken is done.

Let your sauce thicken, then serve chicken with sauce over rice.

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Macadamia Nut Pancakes and Coconut Syrup

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I don’t think I will ever have maple syrup again. Which sucks, because I went to costco last year and got two huge bottles for a brunch I was hosting. Fail. Anyone need syrup?
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This picture is from Longhi’s. A super cute french decorated restaurant where we had my birthday breakfast in Hawaii. We had a sidewalk seat that overlooked the street and water, which was like a combination of my France trip last year! I looooved it.

I loved it so much, that I wanted to recreate a Hawaiian breakfast myself.

For the coconut syrup, I took the simple syrup approach. But instead of water, I used coconut milk.

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Jammin’ Jambalaya

What a cliche name, I know, but it really is jamming. And delicious. So delicious, that AFTER my mardi gras party, I had to make another round to enjoy (since I didn’t get to at the party). And I made it a little spicier, which I didn’t do for the party since I was feeding a large group of people with a different range of spice levels.

So let’s get cooking!

Get the ingredients ready. The divine trinity in cajun cooking is celery, onions and green bell pepper. This is the base for the flavor in both etouffee and gumbo as well! For jambalaya I’ve got those three, plus garlic, tomatoes and a medium grain rice.

Emeril used olive oil. I used butter. Cook the onions, celery and green onions in the butter for about 4 minutes, when the onions turn clear.

Then add the garlic, tomatoes, hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce. Stir until well mix. Then add the rice.

After rice is mixed in well, slowly add chicken broth. Simmer over medium until rice is tender. While this is happening, I dice the chicken breast, and chop the shrimp then add the crawfish tails in the same bowl, and mix well with cajun seasoning, you can you Tony’s or Louisiana brand creole seasoning. Emeril also has a recipe for his bayou blast.

You can find the recipe here.

 

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Portobello Mushroom Burgers

Yes, I tried to make and eat a vegetarian burger. Yes it was good, but NO I WILL NOT CRAVE THIS. I love burgers. I love the beef, I love the bacon. This will never replace a juicy, bacon-y burger with crunchy tangy pickles and oodles of cheese. Nope, not for me. But some of you did ask how I did it (via my instagram) and I am happy to oblige!

Portobello Mushroom “Burgers”
Makes 6

Ingredients:
6 portobello mushrom caps, stem removed
2 tbsp olive oil
Coarse Salt
Ground Black Pepper
Steak Seasoning (optional, your favorite kind will do)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425F. In a roasting pan, toss the mushrooms, and olive oil with a little seasoning. Place is stem side down and add 3/4 cup of water. Cover pan loosely with foil. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the mushrooms are tender.

Add it to a toasted bun with your favorite toppings and enjoy! You might wonder why I chose this way versus grilling. I feel like grilling it would make it lose its juiciness, and yeah it would have that charred taste you love from a burger, but its not the same kind of protein so it won’t work.

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Meatless Quesadilla

Remember how I am trying to eat less meat, and attempting to only eat meat on the weekends? Yeah I’m struggling. But this is one of the deliciously simple, quick meatless meals I made. Here’s how:

Enjoy when done! You can added any kind of cheese you like, I also threw in a slice of pepper jack for an added kick of flavor. I don’t like to eat the garlic, so you can just discard that (that’s why I leave it whole, and smashed versus mincing) or put it in someone’s quesadilla that wants it!

Meatless Quesadillas

Ingredients
4 white mushrooms, sliced
1/4 of a medium onion, sliced
1 clove of garlic, smashed or minced
1 tbsp of butter or olive oil
1-2 tsp adobo seasoning
cheeses of your choice
2 flour tortillas

Directions
Melt butter, or heat olive oil in a skillet. Saute onions and mushrooms with adobo seasoning until mushrooms are cooked and onions are clear and caramelized. Remove mushrooms and onions from pan and set aside on a plate. Keep the remaining butter in the pan.

Add the tortilla to the pan, put desired cheese on one side, then top with onions and mushrooms. Fold over the opposite side and the the cheese melt and seal. Then flip the quesadilla to brown the other side. Repeat this with the second tortilla.

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Homemade Funnel Cakes

This happened, at about 11:40pm. My dear little brother was craving funnel cakes so bad, that he was starting to barter for me to make them. I don’t even remember the last time I had funnel cake. I prefer my deep fried and sugar powdered goodness to come in the form of a beignet. When I think of funnel cakes, I think of my summer with a theme park season pass.

Anyhooo. I was a little daunted with the idea of making it though. Funnel cakes, there’s got to be some kind of difficulty to it right? Or else people would make it everyday instead of eating it only at county fairs and carnivals? Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

I had everything to make it with in my cupboards. So simple, and quick! Whisk together your wet and dry ingredients, put it in a squeeze bottle, squirt into a design in hot oil…

..et voila! You have funnel cake. Dry on paper towels and sprinkle on powdered sugar. Enjoy while hot!

Homemade Funnel Cakes

Ingredients:

1 egg
2/3 cup milk
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions
In a small deep pot, heat about two cups of oil over medium-high heat until hot.

While that is heating, beat egg and milk. Mix all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and slowly add to the wet ingredients, whisk until smooth.

Using a funnel, a squeeze bottle, or a ziplock bag with the corner snipped, drop into hot oil working from center outwards in an overlapping pattern. Flip until evenly browned on both sides. Set on a plate with paper towels to catch excess oil. Serve with powdered sugar

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