Aha! I have returned!

Last week I didn't cook anything of note. Monday we did the tacos which have been so successful in the past, and Wednesday we were invited to the New Price's (This is AJ and Rachelle; as opposed to the old Prices which would be Matt and Jeni...also, we didn't go to Scotland.) to have a meal with all Prices. They made a really cool Lasagne with goat cheese and bison meat which resulted in a tangy and satisfying Italian variant.

I brought completely unhealthy dessert items.



Monkey Bread

Ingredients:

1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Cup Butter
3 Tsp Cinnamon
2 cans Grands Biscuits (extra rich, non-flaky)

Ah, looks healthy already doesn't it? This recipe is pretty automatic. Preheat oven to 350. Take 1/2 cup of both sugars and the cinnamon and put them into a ziplock bag, gallon-sized. Open your biscuit cans and quarter them. Put the biscuits into bag and coat with the sugar mix. You might to shake or push or whatever it is you enjoy doing whilst...coating.

Now, the caramelizd glaze. Take the rest of the sugar and your butter, put into a saucepan and caramelize.

Taking a bundt pan, put in half of the biscuits. Then pour in half of the glaze. Then put the rest of the biscuits in and then pour the remainder of the glaze. Bake for 20-40 minutes, making or until knife blade comes out clean from testing.

I...actually burned mine a tiny bit. I didn't hear the timer go off. But it was still 95 percent edible! So, it's a pretty fool-proof recipe. This is a Rockney family staple and works wonderfully at parties or for a rather rich breakfast treat.

=====

Before I went on hiatus I actually did one rather complicated project. I made eclairs completely from scratch for my dad for Father's Day. But...that story is one of tragic endings. One day I'll get up the courage to type it out. It's only now starting to be funny.

My grandpa apparently found a collection recipes that my Great Uncle Larry had made from a variety of newspapers. He scanned it and gave a copy to my dad, who in turn gave me a copy on a DVD. I just started looking at them to day and there is a GIGANTIC amount of recipes in it. All from Hawaiin newspapers. So, I'm going to start off next week by trying out Island Style Barbecued Chicken. Looks easy and should be tasty. We'll see what the past has to offer!

Hello foodins!

Apologies for the break. But over the past six weeks, Megan has been working at nights, and without a second mouth to feed my motivation to duel the culinary world plummeted. But prepare thine tines and swashbuckle your spoons because starting next week we shall be a cooking again!

Huzzah!

One of the benefits I'm discovering with cooking is that every now and again you're faced with a quickdraw situation where you just have to "Eat NOW". With Megan this can be quite frequent as she and her schedule combined with overwhelming hunger can put a guy in a bind. Fortunately, though, I've been doing this long enough now to be able to apply some techniques quickly and still make something delicious in just under 30 minutes.





Chicken di Rockney + Emiril

2 Chicken Breasts (around a pound)
Olive oil
Herbes de Provence
Emiril's Essence


Emiril's Essence (Found on Food Network site)
2 1/2 tablespoons paprika

2 tablespoons salt

2 tablespoons garlic powder

1 tablespoon black pepper

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon dried leaf oregano

1 tablespoon dried thyme



This was a bit of improvising. Chicken di Rockney is what Megan's parents make quite frequently, and it's pretty good. It's basically just an herb chicken; olive oil, then add Herbes de Provence (the main flavor) and then Basil. Bake and serve. But instead of just throwing that in, I decided to bring out my container of Emiril's Essence and toss that on there.

Good idea.

Emiril's essence is a little spicy and definitely zesty and peppery. It's really good and quite easy to make and store. I first made it back when I did the Chicken Marsala recipe and I've used it about three times on a whim since then adn have had great results every time. I do forget to say "Bam" though.

Anyway, oil, Essence, Herbes de Provence. I use tin foil to increase ease of cleaning. Bake in oven at 375 for about 25-30 minutes (45-50 if breast is frozen). Then you're pretty much done! Super easy peasy.


Sweet Vegetables

Red Bell Pepper
White Onion
Zucchini
Salt
Pepper
Cumin
Cinammon

Ah, now this is where I got creative. Megan brought home these vegetables and told me to sautee them with olive oil in a pan (just a bit of olive oil). So as I was doing so, I glanced over my shoulder and waited until she wasn't looking, then opened up the spice cabinet and went to town.

My theory was this: I knew that the chicken would be a little spicy because I'd used the Essence before. So if I was going to season the vegetables in a direction, I should take it sweeter.

Good idea.

Just a tiny bit of salt (two twists from my sea salt grinder), much more ground peper (10-15 twists?), two pinches of cumin and just a dash of cinammon. When sauteed, both bell peppers (especially red, in my opinion) and white onion become sweeter as they are cooked longer. The cinammon is REALLY key in bringing out the sweetness even further while I feel like the cumin sort of neutralized any remaining harshness from the peppers and onions. Cook until you are satisfied with softness.

The sweetness was an amazing off-set to the spicyness of the chicken and was quite enjoyable. Not bad for 30 minutes, huh? Watch out Rachel Ray, I'm coming for you.

===

My hope is that tomorrow I'll be stir-frying. Stay tuned.

The Food Labs will be opening soon. You'll see what it is when my brother finishes the banner, but Pizzadillas would've been part of the Food Labs had it been around.

I've become enamored with this concept of chile peppers and chocolate. Anyone that's ever seen Chocolat knows or if you're a chocolate lover like me knows that the ancient Mayans used to drink this bizarre drink that was a combination of chile water and chocolate. I'm really curious to see what happens when you mix those ingredients together...maybe when I have some time...

Yipes!

Why are you looking at a picture of a distressed tomato? Well, that's simple. I forgot to take a picture of the meal I made yesterday. And as such, the tomato, who has been waiting quietly in the corner fully content at the use of pictures in each entry, was quite fretful that there would be no picture today. So he volunteered his services. Hopefully we won't see too much more of the Worried Tomato in the future, but at least he's around in case we need him.

Anyway, yesterday I made the Pepper Chicken, previously featured on this blog, and roasted cauliflower for Megan's parents yesterday and it was a smashing success. It was also the first time I used the public grill and I have to say, it's quite a bit better than fighting that grill pan. It's not too far from the apartment, and since no one else ever uses it, why the heck not, right? So me and public-grill will be getting far more familiar with one another in the coming days as my cooking skill sharpens.

===

The original entry on Pepper Chicken. I skipped the lime sauce this time, but did nothing different in terms of ingredients. Cooked it on the grill for about 20-25 minutes total on medium-high heat, although I changed the heat settings many times since I was getting used to it. I'll have to try a more controlled test next time.

Roasted Cauliflower

1 really big head of cauliflower
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

Have you ever wanted to eat something that looks like a white brain but the idea of boiling/steaming it just to chomp on a mushy vegetable puts you off? Well, have I got the thing for you. Roasted Cauliflower is an Ing Family staple (although a relatively recent one) and has been acclaimed as a favorite by all who have chomped into it.

The process is simple. Preheat your oven to 450. Take the head, chop it into chunks. No real shape or size is needed, I'd say no larger than 2 inches long at the most. Megan did it much smaller and it came out fine, so meh. Spread out the pieces on a baking sheet (lipped, as you'll be using oil and you don't want to start a fire in your oven...I have personal experience with that one.) and coat lightly with olive oil. Add salt and pepper and mix it up with your hands. The cauliflower will shrink considerably from the heat, so don't worry about it being too much. Throw in oven.

The only real downer of this recipe is that it takes 45-min to an hour to roast thoroughly. Check it every 20 minutes and stir it up with a spoon, keeping the cauliflower even. Once the cauliflower has shrunk and is golden brown on the edges, take it out and eat. It's really simple, really good, and a fun new way to deal with vegetables you may not otherwise eat.

====

Not much else for this week: My dad's retirement party is Wednesday so no cooking on that day. Megan leaves this weekend for a women's retreat leaving me alone. I may try a few solo runs with some steak ideas I have, but we'll see how motivated I end up being.

Apologies for those of you waiting for my report on last Monday's family cooking lesson: it was really good and I learned a LOT of dishes and techniques. But I foolishly left my camera at home so my mom and brother took pictures with theirs. I haven't yet gotten the pictures from them, so when I do I'll do a thorough write-up.

For now, though, let's talk Tacos. Megan loves tacos and taco night has been a standard option for us since we've gotten married. Partially because it's nearly automatic and it's always satisfying. Last night, however, we were feeling adventurous and decided to do a "gourmet taco" with some more home-made ingredients. The results were spectacular, and so, here's a post about it.



Taco Components

1lb of Ground Beef (you can substitute Turkey...but you know how I feel about that)
Homemade Guacamole
Black Beans
Grated Cheddar Cheese
Tortillas (duh)
Olives (I didn't put any in mine: Megan loves olives)
Homemade Taco Seasoning
White Onion
Sour Cream (another Megan-only thing)

Taco Seasoning
This is the original recipe

This is what I ended up using. It's nearly identical, it's just missing cayenne. Not that I don't like it, I just didn't have any.

1 teaspoon chili powder

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon dried minced onion

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or more to taste)

1/4 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1 1/2 teaspoons cumin

1 scant teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon black pepper (about 40 grinds)


Mix and throw on your taco meat, then add about a 1/4 cup of water. Pretty simple. It looks like a lot of seasoning, but throw it all in, it needs it. The flavoring is amazing, much better than the Lawry's packs we used to use (cheaper too, since we already had all of the spices in the rack). We personally missed the cayenne; it could stand to be spicier in general, especially when you use cheese and sour cream, etc. Still, it's a very savory seasoning that doesn't quite have the strange acidy bite that the Lawry's packets have and it's quite satisfying to have done it yourself.


Taco Meat

We bought the beef from Trader Joe's. I was surprised in the immediate difference in quality: so much better! And cheaper. Anyway, I only put this here to mention that we put white onions in with our meat as we cooked it. I think next time I'd put the onions on first, then add the beef to the pan so that the onions have a chance to get extra-cooked. Maybe a bit of olive oil next time too: the beef was so lean that it was hard to get the onions to sizzle the way I wanted them to.


Guacamole
1 Avocado
Juice from 1/2 lime
Salt and pepper

All right, since I know this place is frequented by Prices I'm sure to get a lecture on proper Guacamole making (I hope I do, anyway) but since this was my first foray into making it, I kept it simple. Mash the avocado (I used a potato masher: worked well, took about 5 seconds to get to the correct consistency) then squeeze half a
lime over it. Add salt and pepper to taste. Simple but effective. A neat trick for your next party? Perhaps!

====

The in-laws are coming over on Monday so I have to think of an interesting chicken dish. We'll be doing roasted cauliflower for sure that day, which I think some of you might enjoy. I just have to pick appropriately.

I don't liked mixed food.

By that I mean, without qualms, most "white" food. Casseroles, potato salads, coleslaw, meatloaf. I won't eat any of it (well, occasional casseroles get a pass for me). This is simply because I didn't grow up eating it. To me, why mix all those ingredients in a dish and melt it together when you could prepare those ingredients separately and come up with a much more pleasant experience?

Of course my marriage to Megan has changed that experience some. By force, mind you, but I have become slightly more open to the idea of these mixi-cated dishes as meals. Plus my adventures in cooking have made me a little more apt to try things I normally would not have. So when AJ suggested we make a cottage pie, my initial reaction was "Ew!" followed by "Hm..." followed by "Why the heck not!"

I'm glad we did it.


All day I had "God, That's Good!" from Sweeney Todd stuck in my head.

Ingredients

Cubed stew beef
Packet beef stock
5 lbs of potatoes? I think it was 5.
Carrots
1 bag frozen peas
2 yellow onions
Soy Milk
Salt/Pepper
Worcestershire Sauce
Herbes de Provence
2 heads of garlic

I'm doing this from memory, and since it was on Friday and it is now Wednesday I may make a mistake. AJ feel free to jump in and correct me and I'll edit the post as needed.

We didn't use a real recipe, but we did have this one on hand as sort of a reference.

Ok, this dish was a lot of work, so it's not a quick and easy weeknight thing by any means.

The best part about this, I think, is its infinite customization. You could add whatever vegetables into the center or remove whatever you don't like. Of course you probably wouldn't want to toss say, a bell pepper in there, but you never know.

First step: Start boiling your potatoes. AJ did not peel them, it's up to you. He also chucked in the potatoes before the water came to a boil, so that's kind of a cool idea. I once again used the Pasta pot with the built in strainer. Also preheat your oven to 350.

Then it's chopping/mincing/julienne time. Mince the garlic, place into a small dish or into a pile somewhere. We julienned the carrots, but you can cut your carrots however you want. Then chop your onions, also place into a pile. AJ also sliced down the size of the beef pieces; the cubes for the stew were just slightly too large to be eaten comfortably within a pie setting.

Brown the beef a bit, then add beef stock and simmer. We overcooked our beef a little bit, but with so many things moving in the kitchen at the same time it was hard to keep track. Add W. Sauce to taste, then add peas and carrots evenly throughout.

For the potatoes, AJ used my...hand mixer? Super slicer? I can't remember what it's called at the moment, actually. In any case, it's a hand thing with a spinning blade. I'll look at the box when I get home to give you a proper name. He used it to blast the potatoes into their final creamy form, forgoing the need for the hand-masher. Then add the onion, garlic, milk (we used soy milk for Rachelle's sake) and then salt and pepper to taste.


OBJECTION!

AJ posted a better potato instruction in the comments. Apparently I really wasn't paying attention while he was doing it. So, I have placed it in the main entry for clarification.

Corrected Potato Procedure

Put water on heat to boil. Chop up
potatoes into about .75 inch chunks. Throw chunks into water. If you
wait for the water to boil you will just be wasting time and
electricity/gas. The small chunk size will cook them evenly. When you
can stick a fork through them with moderate ease take them of and drain
them.

Put the pot back on the stove and pour in a good amount of
olive oil. This will be the only fat used, so don't be too frugal with
it. Once heated, throw in a respectable amount of chopped onions and
garlic. These should be measured in heads and bulbs, not cloves and...
um... whatever a small unit of onion is. Saute!

Then add milk.
Go ahead, add too much! We don't want dry potatoes. Then dump on
potatoes and blend, with an IMMERSION BLENDER, until creamy. Too dry?
Well, you didn't add too much milk. Too wet? Thats fine. Just let it
sit on heat until the desired consistency is reached. The excess now
evaporated milk will just help with the creaminess. Salt and pepper to
taste.

Eat out of pot while making the rest of your food.

Serve with entree.

Go back for seconds... and thirds.

Place extra in container in fridge for another time.

Eat any stuck to the spoon and pot while cleaning.

Go back to fridge in an hour and eat leftovers.

Repeat same cleaning method with leftover container.

Repeat.

Meanwhile in beef land, strain out the meat and vegetables from the rest of the juice, place into a casserole dish or whatever preferred baking dish you like. Then take the strained juice and place over low heat and thicken it. Ideally one should use corn starch, but I didn't have any and we used about three tablespoons of flour, pre-mixed with water to prevent clumping. It...didn't quite work. At this point you can also season the liquid to taste: I added additional pepper and just a bit of Herbes de Provence. I'm not sure the HdP did anything, but hey, I knew it was there.

In any case: pour thickened liquid over vegetables then layer with potatoes on top. Bake in oven at about 350 for 30 minutes. Remove, cool, eat.

As I said before, our beef was a little chewy; slightly overdone because our attention was divided among a few other things we were working on. But it was still quite good. As you can see, however, our liquid pierced through the top of our potato layer, preventing our potatoes from every really browning and crisping over like in our example recipe. Between the lack of thickening that my failure to provide corn starch created and I think sheer amount of liquid, AJ thinks that it boiled while in the oven and bubbled through the surface. I think a combination of proper thickening and using just a little bit less of the liquid would prevent that.

Still, over all, it was quite a good meal. Filling and satisfying. And it was a fun learning experience for me as AJ was head chef on this venture, showing me his processes and steps. As you can see it involves rather little measuring and quite a bit of guesswork and eyeing out, but I sort of have a fondness for that kind of cooking.

I hope to have AJ and Rachelle over again for more adventures in cooking. Next time I'll take the lead though and show AJ something...like...I dunno, the Ing Steak-Thumb method? That's a secret move that's pretty cool.

=====

Ah, the great experiment! No, I'm not talking about our system of government, I'm talking about the most delicious mis-hearing of a word ever: Pizzadilla.

As stated previously, the concept came from a conversation my brother Matt and I had on the phone, by which I told him I was making Quesadillas (with said quesadilla in mouth) and he thought I said Pizzadilla. The great experiment began!


The pizzadilla, as modeled by Matt.



Ingredients



Flour tortillas (We used taco-sized Mission tortillas)

Pizza sauce (We used Boboli pizza sauce packets)
Cheese (We used mixed Pizza cheese)
Pepperoni (We used turkey pepperoni: it crisps up really crunchy)
Italian Sausage (I browned some up)
Parmesan (optional)
Crushed Red Peppers (optional)
Olive Oil

Ok, pretty simple idea and really, you probably don't even need to read the ingredients or the procedure: but we did try it with two different oven settings and two different ingredient combinations. So let's see the results!

Pizzadilla 1

Ingredient Order: Tortilla, Sauce, Cheese, Pepperoni and Sausage, a bit of Cheese, Tortilla, Brushed Olive Oil, Parmesan, Red Pepper.

Oven Setting: Broil

This takes about two minutes. Broil is very hot and applies heat from above, which gives it that crunchy, crispy aspect (the pictured Pizzadilla is Pizzadilla 1). This was a smashing success, though as you can see the crushed pepper got scorched and effectively destroyed its flavor. I think we both ended up brushing ours off, actually. In any case, I really liked the crispiness of it because it felt more pizza-like. Quite delicious!


Pizzadilla 2

Ingredient Order: Tortilla, Cheese, Sauce, Crushed Red Pepper, Pepperoni and Sausage, Cheese, Tortilla, Brushed Olive Oil, Parmesan.

Oven Setting: 450

Ok, I prefer this ingredient order. With cheese on both sides of the tortilla it holds together better (Pizzadilla 1 was a bit slide-y) and putting the red pepper inside the sauce prevented it from being scorched, giving it that extra kick. I do not, however, like that oven setting. It took much longer to bake this way, about 5-10 minutes. This slower cooking made the Pizzadilla much softer and in someways, much more Quesadilla-like. I prefer the crunchy kind myself, but if you like it soft, 450 is the way to go.

I think the ultimate Pizzadilla would probably be Ingredient Order 2 on Broil.


Unofficial Pizzadilla 3

Using the leftover ingredients, I made one on Monday, but this time used the Toaster Oven on Broil. It is equally effective to broil in a toaster oven, but it takes longer. Still, it does save you from having to pre-heat and subsequently heat up your apartment, something you don't want this close to summer here in Los Angeles.


Experiment result: A smashing success! A great lunch-time food or maybe even for a party? I think maybe using the larger burrito tortillas could lend to making an appetizer as well, if you slice it up with a pizza cutter and throw on a plate.

=====

I love mozzarella sticks. So when I saw this recipe, I had to try it. We had these on Pizzadilla day.


Don't be fooled: Italian Goodness waits inside!

Here is the recipe.


Ok, this is pretty simple.

String Cheese
Egg Roll Wrappers
Oil.

Ta-da!

I do want to mention one thing about Egg Roll Wrappers, however. We spent forever trying to find them: looked in Vons, looked in Gelson's, and ultimately went to a Korean market where my brother and I were assaulted with the smell of Kim Chi and fish and were given sidelong looks as to say "What're those guys doing here?" to find them. But the sad truth is you can find them in a regular grocery store! The key thing that I did not know is that Won Ton and Eggroll wrappers are refrigerated. You'd think I'd know that, but I didn't. So if you want to try this, remember that tip.

Ok, heat your oil to 350, wrap the cheese, fry it, dry it, and eat. REALLY REALLY REALLY GOOD. Like, it shouldn't be that good type of good, but it is. The cheese melts perfectly, the eggroll wrapper is easier to eat than the normal breading found on Cheese Sticks and it's simple and good. Another good appetizer method for not a lot of work!

=====

Not sure when I'll be posting again: Took Monday off as I was cooked-out from Friday and Saturday. I may make something simple tonight and if it's a recipe I haven't posted I will, but no big projects for this week.

Family Secrets!: Next week, however, my grandparents are coming into town for my brother's college graduation. On Monday my dad and grandpa will be teaching me their secret Korean BBQ Wing/Beef Recipe, a recipe that has to be conducted entirely by taste. I will definitely be writing a post about that once it's concluded: though don't expect me to tell you what's inside :P .