So last night, as I was driving home from class, my husband put a chicken in the oven and started the rice cooker and corn.  How simple does it get!   A full chicken costs about $8 and feeds us to 2-3 days.  Rice is also pretty cheap, especially when I got 10 lbs for $14 from BJs.  Then we also have frozen corn, another inexpensive product.

So, to make the chicken (this is going to be difficult!). First pre-heat the oven to about 350 degrees.  I typically use a broiler when baking a chicken so the juices run off. So tinfoil the bottom of part of the broiling pan and oil the top part.  Place the chicken on the dish, be sure to remove the innards (usually in a plastic bag). Salt and pepper the chicken, pop it in the oven and wait about an hour!  To tell when it is done, you can use  the pop tab on the chicken (similar to turkeys), a meat thermometer (typically what I do), or simply cut the chicken and check after about an hour.

While the chicken was cooking, we used our rice cooker to make some rice and added some frozen corn to the rice cooker. It is just so easy!  So next time you think you are too busy, give this a try.  You could also use a stovetop to make the rice.  But it’s so little prep and you can continue to get stuff done while it all cooks!

How to start?  Choose your avocados!  Avocados should be slightly soft when you squeeze them.  Too soft and they are likely going bad and brown inside.  If it is too firm, you won’t be able to mash the avocado with a fork, which is the goal.

Once you get home, cut the avocado in half and scoop out all of the insides into a dish.  Make sure to scrape the skin to get every last drop!  Remove the pit from the dish.  Compost the pit and skin.  Next add a little bit of lemon juice and whip it into the avocado.  Then add some pepper and salt (I prefer fresh cracked pepper and fresh cracked sea salt the best).  Continue to add lemon juice, pepper and salt to taste.  I prefer my guacamole to have a very distinct salty taste.

Put into a fun fiesta bowl and serve with your favorite side of chips!  I think sometime soon I am going to try my hand at chips… I will post if/when that day comes.

What is better than the perfect guacamole?  LOTS of the perfect guacamole!!  Tuesday I was shopping for dinner when I saw 6 avocados on the “old” produce card for .99!  They were a bit soft and some did have brown spots inside but it was a super find!  I just scooped out the brown bits and voila! Perfect guacamole!

Holy Moly Guacamole!!

The owners were nice enough to stock the kitchen before they departed on vacation so Megan and I set out to make dinner with what we had on hand.  Having just gathered fresh eggs, both of us wanted to have them for dinner.  We decided to make a Hollandaise sauce from scratch.  It’s actually not that hard!  It is a combination of egg yolks, butter, lemon juice, and salt.  The recipe I used also added some cayenne.

The key to making a great Hollandaise (besides using the freshest eggs possible) is a good whisking arm and low heat!  First combine the egg yolks and lemon juice and whisk thoroughly.  Then put the yolk mixture over a double boiler and add melted butter SLOWLY.  Make sure the water is also just barely simmering.  If the butter is too hot or the water is too hot, you can actually start to make scrambled eggs, which is nothing like a Hollandaise.  So slowly add the butter to the egg yolks while whisking rapidly.  Some recipes call for a set amount of butter but I would start by adding 1-2 tablespoons of melted butter at a time until the proper consistency is reached.  You can also taste it and you will know when it has the proper flavor.  The particular recipe I used called for 4 egg yolks and 1/2 cup of butter.  We started with the 4 egg yolks and 1/4 cup butter and slowly started adding butter from there.  The best addition to the Hollandaise was the cayenne pepper at the end.  It really gave the sauce a perfect kick!

What else did we find in the kitchen of wonders?  Fresh steaks, baby spinach, craisins, shaved almonds, goat cheese, garlic, a day old baguette, and raspberry vinaigrette dressing.  We salt and peppered the steaks and broiled them (the grill was not behaving properly), made garlic bread, and then made a fancy salad with the spinach, goat cheese, almonds, and craisins.  It was absolutely delicious!

The Hollandaise sauce really brought the dish home.  It added a delicious, rich flavor to the meal that tasted excellent on the steaks and on the bread.  We actually went in search of more bread so we could finish the Hollandaise it was that good.

All in all, it was an excellent trip to a country home with great company!

Happy Eating!

I think I just got sick of trying to be witty and failing miserably. Although today I was informed by a friend that as a future lawyer I was required to be witty and malicious. I’m not sure how the two coexist but there is my future.  Despite this abysmal future, I also have my cooking!  In the past few months I have cooked up a storm!  Among my most notable dishes are homemade beet ravioli, sweet potato gnocchi, and homemade tortillas.

My sister came to visit in March and she decided that it was time to make homemade beet ravioli.  This is delicious if you like beets!  I found this recipe on epicurious and pretty much follow it fairly exact.  The dough is simple to make, especially if you have a mixer with a dough hook.  The hardest part is making the beets and keeping everything clean!  They are so messy and they stain everything, including your hands!  One point to note, the filling is mainly beets and ricotta cheese.  Use the whole milk ricotta!  If you choose to make this dish with a low-fat version it is a waste of time.  and a waste of a lot of time!  Do yourself a favor, do an extra 10-20 minutes on the treadmill and really enjoy this dish for what it has to offer!  I use a pasta roller to roll out the dough and then use a cup as my cookie cutter.  This dish goes a lot faster if you have 2 sous chefs helping.  Unfortunately I don’t have ANY photos of this!  I shall have to make it again! Oh darn, I hate making and eating delicious foods.

I’ll have to post again about my lovely homemade tortillas and sweet potato gnocchi.

She came out with some lobster tails from Kate’s Fish of Cleveland, Ohio.  She also had homemade lemon pepper pasta, artichoke hearts, capers, scallions and garlic.  She started by sauteing the oinion and garlic in some butter and started a pot of water.  She added the lobster shell to the pasta water to add some extra flavor.  After the onion became translucent, she added the artichoke hearts and diced lobster tail.  Once the pasta was done, she added it to the dish with some more butter and capers.  It was delicious and fresh!  The lemon pepper pasta had a great flavor and I may try making my own sometime soon.

It was awesome, simple, flavorful food.  We topped the dish with fresh parsley and freshly shredded parmesan cheese.  Dinner was paired with a nice bottle of Pinot Noir in my fancy glasses.  For dessert, Megan brought over chocolate covered strawberries, the perfect touch to a Valentine’s Day dinner with one of my best friends.

What is clemencello?

I am so glad you asked.  It is similar to limoncello but with clementines instead of lemons.  I had some at a wine tasting a few years ago and decided to try to make my own.

So how did I do it?  I googled a bunch of recipes for limoncello and clemencello and then set forth on my dessert liquor adventure.  The outcome: delicioso! So how did I do it?

I found a glass container with a tight lid.  My bottle happened to be a recently emptied bottle of peppermint schnapps (it goes quick in the winter when paired with hot cocoa). I then figured out how many cups it held.  I accomplished this by simply filling the bottle then pouring out the liquid in measuring cups.  My bottle held 6 cups.  After cleaning the clementines, I used a peeler and took only the skin of the clementines and put the peels into the bottle.  Then I filled the bottle half full with 3 cups of Skyy vodka.   Next, I combined 3 cups of water and 1 cup of sugar in a saucepan on medium.   I squeezed the juice out of the clementines into the water mixture as the sugar was dissolving.  Once the sugar had completely dissolved, I added the mixture to the bottle, put the cap on and then put the bottle in a dark cupboard.  I’m not sure why it had to be in a dark cupboard but that’s what some recipes said so I did.

Then I completely forgot that I had made it. It was in some dark cupboard hidden behind the tupperware, until last weekend.  My sister was searching for some lid or bottom and found this odd looking bottle and pulled it out.  In all, it was probably in the cupboard for 6 weeks.  A quick taste test revealed it sat for lunch enough and was ready!  It is quite delicious and sweet, fulfilling two different types of cravings

If you like limoncello, I would highly recommend trying clemencello, it is not difficult and it well worth the wait.

Before I continue this blog, I must confess.  I do LOVE Indian food, I wish I knew how to make it better. But, most days I get my Indian fix by going to the food court next to my school.  It is a very good Indian food court place and I love their saag.  However, the atmosphere of the food court cannot compete with the atmosphere of Tantric.  So already Tantric was a leap ahead of my typical Indian food experience.

I thought the food was to die for.  My dinner was mango chicken, spicy level 5, with garlic naan accompanied by my very first Amstel Light.  Be it said that I am on a huge mango kick at the moment, I loved my food.  It had the richness of Indian food with just enough spicy to give it a special kick.  We also had delicious appetizers but I have a bad memory and forgot to take pictures. I believe one was Gobi Manchurian.  It is deep fried cauliflower with a sweet and sour chili paste.  It was very spicy and hot but it was good.  I think I would have preferred slightly less spice to let some of the other flavor come forward. The second appetizer is a mystery.  It reminded me of the crispy deep fried Chinese crackers I used to get as a child, but I feel that comparing Indian food to American Chinese food is an insult so I apologize.  It had a very light flavor and was topped with chickpeas and yogurt.  The lightness was a perfect accompaniment to the Gobi Manchurian that a slightly heavier taste.  It was a great pallet cleanser to start the main course on the right foot, or should I say taste bud.  Oh and Amstel light is delicious!  It helped to cut the spicy.

For dessert, I decided to continue my mango craving with mango kulfi.  Kulfi is Indian ice cream.  I personally thought it was like gelato but it was still delicious.  It had a very distinct mango flavor and they used the pulp to make a sauce that was scattered sparingly around the dish.

So, be it said, that I enjoyed Tantric very much.  The atmosphere was definitely met the hip vibe the designers were going for, the bathrooms were clean, the wait staff was attentive, friendly, and knowledgeable.

My friends also seemed to enjoy the restaurant and the food very much.  They are true connoisseurs so I shall trust their judgment. As a side note, and perhaps a future blog, Indian food as Americans know it is actually North Indian food.  India is just as diverse as the regions of the states, probably even more so when it comes to their food.  My friend is not northern Indian and has promised to share the recipes of “his people.”  I look forward to such recipes and shall share the results.  I shall also share about his culture and the differences and the reasons behind the differences.

Traveling the world through food is just so much fun!

First I cube the eggplant, wash and rough chop the mushrooms and put them in a 13×9 greased pan.  Then I through in a carton of cherry tomatoes add some salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar.  The whole thing goes in the oven at 350 for …. maybe about an hour, maybe 45 minutes.  Some stirring along the way.  Then I either pan fry or bake the sausage on a broiling pan.  If I bake it, then cube it as well. It probably takes about 30 minutes to bake, but it saves turning on another burner.  Cook up the pasta when the tomatoes start to blister.

When it all comes together, toss and serve!  Add some parmesan on top if you like!  It is an awesome dish and I really love it.  It’s also fun because you can vary it up. You can mix up some of the veggies, change up the balsamic as well. You could add red wine, some olive oil, or maybe marsala.  I like using balsamic because it is very low calorie.  You could also use some cooked chicken which is a little healthier than the chicken sausage, but I like using the sun-dried tomatoes.

Another great addition could be sun-dried tomatoes or capers.  Now that I think about it, I am DEFINITELY adding capers next time.  As my husband says, the are little nuggets of joy.   This meal also pairs very nicely with red wine and maybe some vanilla sorbet for dessert.  It’s great for a dinner part because of its simplicity but also because you can prepare most things ahead of time and do a lot of clean up before guests arrive.  No one wants to see a dirty kitchen!  Another great dinner party point: it’s a great if you have a vegetarian coming over because you can separate out another dish and simply not add the sausage.  This way your guest enjoys the same thing as everyone else, minus the meat component.

Definitely next dinner party meal!

Menu:

Rice Blini’s with Capers and a cheese plate

Pasta dish with a side salad and a bottle of pinot or shiraz…

Vanilla sorbet with clemencello

YUM!!

Happy Eating!

Instead, I began to search through my iphone to some delicious recipes and stumbled across Moroccan Chicken and Eggplant from my favorite cooking website epicurious.com.  It was phenomenal.  I took the advice of many reviewers and doubled the spices to give it a more robust flavor.  I also didn’t listen and did not refrigerate over night, who thinks that far ahead!

The only snag I ran into was peeling the chicken skin.  Being the very talented chef that I am, I managed to jam the knife into my finger while attempting to cut the skin.  While I was tending my wounds, my sou chef stepped up the plate and vigorously finished peeling.  All in all, this dish was delicious but not very exciting to make.  It was super simple and I highly recommend it.

I expected something a lot spicier, so next time I may add some hot peppers when I am frying the onions, who knows?