I’m not really fan of pork, but yum.
+ barbeque sauce halfway through the grilling
Archive for the ‘Recipes’ Category
Barbeque pork skewers
Posted in Recipes, tagged charcoal gril, grilling, pork, skewers, summer on August 18, 2011| 1 Comment »
White wine lemon butter noodles with capers
Posted in Recipes, tagged capers, lemon butter sauce, noodles, pasta, recipe on August 6, 2011| 3 Comments »
Yes, the title is a mouthful. But if you can memorize the title, then you’ve pretty much memorized the ingredient list. 🙂
The A/C went out at my apartment, so it’s about 90° in there. It’s 106° outside right now (at nearly 6 p.m.), so it’s still a significant difference from outside, but 90 degrees indoors is just not ok. Thus, I was FORCED to go sit at an air-conditioned coffee shop, at which I’m currently sipping an iced mocha and typing this post at my leisure, with no sweat in sight. Let’s not think about the fact that I eventually will have to go back and go to sleep in that sauna.
So. The noodles.
I know it looks plain, but the goodness that bursts onto your tastebuds is surprisingly flavorful.
As I started to eat, Stephen said “Did you get a picture of it for your blog yet?” I immediately thought 2 things: (1) He loves it! and (2) I just threw a bunch of stuff in a pan… how am I supposed to turn that into a recipe? That’s how I roll, folks. Which is why I will never become a great chef.
Ingredients
But I’m going to try. FOR YOU. Here is my rough attempt at reconstructing the noodle dish.
- Angel hair pasta
- A few Tablespoons of butter (REAL butter)
- A couple glugs of white wine (not “cooking wine”)
- A few teaspoons of capers, chopped a little smaller if they’re big
- 2-4 tsp lemon juice
- A few good sprinkles of garlic powder
The great thing about it is, you can experiment with how much of each ingredient you use, and it will still taste delicious no matter what.
Directions
It’s incredibly quick, easy and low-maintenance. I threw the whole meal (salmon, steamed broccoli and noodles) together, start to finish, in about 30 minutes.
- Cook angel hair pasta as usual, drain, and set aside. While the pasta is cooking, you can make the sauce:
- Combine all the sauce ingredients into a small skillet over medium heat. Simmer until the liquid is reduced by about half (the alcohol cooks out, leaving you with a delicious browned butter and wine flavor).
- Pour the sauce over the drained pasta in the pot and stir. If it looks a little dry, add 1-2 Tbs butter and heat over low heat for a few more minutes, stirring every now and then.
And that’s all! It doesn’t look like much, and I had to warn Stephen ahead of time that I wasn’t actually serving him plain pasta with random little green things in it.
Despite its humble appearance, it definitely has enough flavor to stand on its own, and it pairs marvelously with salmon. It stands out from all the “normal” pasta that people expect, so it’s an easy dish to add to a fancy meal if you’re having people over.
Note: The Albertson’s near us has had an incredible sale on salmon for the last couple weeks. It turned out to be a pretty cheap meal!
Asparagus & tomato-stuffed portobello mushrooms
Posted in Recipes, tagged asparagus, portobello mushroom, recipe, stuffed mushrooms, vegetarian on August 1, 2011| 5 Comments »
This recipe from a magazine clipping sat on my parents’ refrigerator for years before I moved off to college and took it with me. Someone had unceremoniously written “Gross!” while someone else countered the scribble with an equally messy “Yummy!” but it remained uncooked. I love mushrooms and asparagus, and I was enamored with the idea of cooking it, but eventually it became nothing more than a glorified refrigerator decoration.
But hark! I rescued it from the depths and decided to try it once and for all. And oh, friends. It delivered. I don’t even know what magazine it came from anymore (if anyone knows, please let me know, and I’d be happy to attribute it!), but if you like mushrooms and asparagus, you won’t be disappointed. I wish I could take credit for something in it, but I actually followed the recipe this time. Almost. I know.
Ingredients
Ok, I guess the one thing I changed is that I didn’t have multigrain breadcrumbs, I only had Italian-seasoning breadcrumbs. I would use multigrain next time.
- 4 portobello mushrooms, gills scraped off with a spoon
- 2 tsp + 1 Tbs olive oil, divided
- 1 1/2 cups asparagus, sliced into 1-inch sections
- 2 Tbs chopped shallots
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tomato, diced
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp black pepper
- 1 cup multigrain breadcrumbs (I would actually use less next time, maybe 1/2 cup)
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
Directions
It’s actually pretty quick. I am a fan of The Quick.
- Preheat the oven to 400°. Remove the mushroom steps and coarsely chop them. Brush the 2 tsp oil over the smooth top of the mushroom caps, and place them top-down on a baking sheet (make sure you use one with edges so nothing drips into your oven).
- Heat the other 1 Tbs oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook asparagus, shallots, garlic and mushroom stems for 5 minutes or until the vegetables are barely tender.
- Remove from heat and stir in the tomato, salt and pepper. Spoon the mixture into the mushroom caps.
- Combine the breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese and sprinkle it over the mushrooms. Bake for 10 minutes or until the breadcrumb topping is golden brown (mine doesn’t look golden brown in the picture because there was too much breadcrumb topping).
A bunch of asparagus contains more than just 1 1/2 cups, so I used the leftover asparagus for the side dish. I had made a tomato dish the previous night, so I dumped it into another skillet and stirred in the remaining asparagus pieces plus a few handfuls of fresh spinach.
It’s so colorful and pretty!
Peach cobbler-pie
Posted in Recipes, tagged Peach cobbler, Peaches, pie, recipe, stone fruit on July 30, 2011| 3 Comments »
It’s not quite a pie, but it’s not quite a cobbler either. What is it? Delicious.
My mom has an amazing Poor Man’s Cobbler recipe with a slightly more cake-like topping, which I’ll post some other time. But this is not Poor Man’s Cobbler. This recipe is a combination of cobbler and pie (like I know the exact difference, haha).
Peaches are in season, and I can’t get enough of the big, juicy stone fruits. In season means cheap, and Sprouts had peaches for $0.47/lb.! Oh, the things that make me happy these days.
Ingredients
The crust on this beauty is more flavorful than your average pie crust, but it’s still sturdy like a regular crust. And it’s really easy to work with!
For the Crust
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup sugar (I used brown sugar because I was out of white)
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 Tbs vanilla
- 3 Tbs milk
- For topping: 1 Tbs milk, a sprinkling of sugar, and a sprinkling of cinnamon
For the Filling
- 8 medium peaches (the number of peaches is flexible)
- 1 cup brown sugar (you can use 1/2 cup white and 1/2 cup brown sugar if you want)
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg (or just sprinkle it on)
- 1 tsp lemon juice
Of course, none of these measurements is set in stone. Feel free to experiment as you wish. 🙂
Side note: I think a stray nectarine may have made its way into the cobbler while I was trying to use up my fruit. The world did not end.
Directions
This is a very low-maintenance crust, along with a superbly easy filling. I love low-maintenance things. I AM low-maintenance.
- Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt for the crust. Cut in the butter with a fork or a pastry blender until crumbly. In another bowl, gently beat the eggs and vanilla and add it to the flour mixture. Add the milk and stir until it becomes a ball.
- Split the dough into 2 pieces. Press 1 piece down onto the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan as the bottom layer. Refrigerate the remaining piece of dough.
- Pit the peaches and slice them thinly (don’t worry about making them perfect). You can peel them if you don’t want to bite into the occasional skin, but if you don’t care about eating the skins, and peeling them is not worth it to you, then don’t do it. I sure didn’t.
- Stir all the filling ingredients together in a large bowl and pour into the pan over the bottom layer of crust.
- Roll out the remaining piece of dough into a long rectangle to cover the filling in the pan. If you’re fancy, use “a rolling pin on a floured surface.” If you’re me, use an olive oil bottle and roll it between 2 sheets of waxed paper. Place the dough on top of the filling in the pan.
- Poke it several times with a fork. Brush the top with the remaining Tablespoon of milk and sprinkle it with a little cinnamon and sugar. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes.
- Plop a dollop of Bluebell “homemade vanilla” ice cream on top of a serving in your bowl. Consume with glee.
It refrigerates nicely, it doesn’t get soggy, and it doesn’t ooze out all over the place when you try to cut into it. By all that I mean to say, it’s great to bring to parties or serve to guests!
Guacamole – The dip you can eat with a spoon
Posted in Recipes, tagged avocado, chips and dip, guacamole, Mexican food on July 19, 2011| 4 Comments »
So, I’m from Texas. If you set out a bowl of fresh guacamole and some chips, it will be gone before you can say “I love being next to Mexico.” If you don’t have chips, a few spoons will suffice. I could live on avocados.
It never occurred to me until recently that someone might not know how easy it is to make guacamole. Listen up, world: IT’S EASY! Can’t boil water? That’s ok. Go grab some avocados. Do you know why it’s so easy? Because it pretty much doesn’t matter what you put in it. I have never once looked at a guac recipe, nor have I ever made it the exact same way twice. Measurements? Are you kidding? This is definitely a taste-as-you-go dish.
It’s done when it tastes perfect. And “perfect” is entirely up to you.
Side note: I’m on vacation in Colorado right now, so these are old pictures. I’m sorry that hiking in the wilderness and riding horses through the mountains is keeping me from giving you better pictures. But not really.
Ingredients
Whatever you want, as long as it starts with avocados! But here’s what I used that time. I’m only giving ingredients, not measurements, so when it says “onion” for example, it doesn’t mean you need a whole onion!
- Avocados
- Roma tomatoes, diced
- Onion, diced
- Salt
- Pepper
- Garlic powder
- Cilantro (I can’t remember if I used cilantro that day, but I LOVE cilantro in guacamole, so I’m including it here)
- A splash of orange juice (you can use orange, lemon, or lime, but it needs some citrus for freshness)
You can use whatever you want, though.
Directions
It’s almost pointless to write instructions.
- Dump all the ingredients into a bowl. Stab the avocados A LOT with a fork or knife to break them down, especially if they’re not very soft.
- Mash everything together with a fork. Taste. Season some more. Taste.
Cover it with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator, but gently press the plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the guacamole to keep it from getting brown.
What do you put in your guacamole?
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