Saturday, April 30, 2011

Tonight's Menu

Tonight we are having:

  • Whiskey-Glazed Carrots 
  • Tomato and Cucumber Salad (halved cherry tomatoes, chopped cucumber and a little bit of onion marinated in homemade italian dressing)
  • Potatoes (either roasted or mashed...haven't decided yet)
  • Smoked Baby Back Ribs - 3 varieties: Asian, Smoky Barbeque, and Spicy
  • Smoked Pork Tenderloin
Gonna be yummy! I can't wait!

Friday, April 29, 2011

Easter Cookies

Just wanted to share a picture of the cookies I made for Easter...


I took them to the Easter event for kids where I also volunteered my mad skills as a face painter and got to put joy on the faces of little kids like the one in the picture below...


Doesn't he look miserable? Don't worry...I do think he was really happy to have his face painted...just maybe not so happy about having to sit still for so long and not being able to touch it until it was dry. He's also just very shy.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Do you like Tuna?

Steaks that is...not the canned stuff in water...

When Husband and I were dating we ate dinner together a lot - I was in school in the evenings for the entire time we were dating pretty much so the nights I had off, we often hung out at his apartment - he would cook dinner while I worked on homework and then we would watch a movie. At some point we made the decision to try to eat "healthier". To us this meant vegetarian or fish at least one night a week. Neither of us had really cooked fish before so we consulted with Husband's brother, Nick, who is a chef (currently Executive Sous Chef at Reata in Fort Worth - visit the restaurant if you're ever there - get the buffalo steak...yum!). He gave us a great recipe for Tuna Steaks that has never failed (even with the modifications we've made just based on what we had on hand).

Living in Honduras, we don't always get the freshest seafood (unless you go to the coast). We buy most of our meat at PriceSmart - the Costco/Sam's type warehouse store. Generally you know it is stored correctly and of good quality - not that I'm saying the other grocery store's meats aren't - just that I know PriceSmart's are. Even at PriceSmart you have to be careful - I'm not sure they monitor the meats once they put them in the cases so it's always smart to check and buy the meat that was put out most recently. Fish especially - with the tuna it starts to look gray and you know that then you definitely don't want to buy it. We try to buy it the day it was put out - if we can get it still fully frozen that's what we do. When we do find the Tuna frozen we always buy it...it's a nice treat.

So here's the what you need....

Soy Sauce, Rice Vinegar, Honey, Sesame Oil and Red Pepper Flakes 
(and Tuna Steaks of course...plus salt and pepper)

First you'll want to salt and pepper your Tuna Steaks...then sear both sides - basically to whatever done-ness you prefer.

(Do you like our grill pan? My sister bought it for Husband for Christmas)

Then you'll need to remove them to a plate for a few minutes.


Pretty nice grill marks, right? This is a little more done than we usually like our tuna...but since when we buy it frozen we prefer to cook it a little more.

So next you'll mix all the glaze ingredients together and pour them in the pan...let it thicken up a little then put the Tuna back in for about 30 seconds per side.


We've done this before in a regular skillet, and I really think it works a little better because generally a skillet is smaller so it the glaze is where the tuna is and only where the tuna is (this means more glaze on the tuna and the glaze is so yummy!)

We eat ours with Wasabi - it's a good match (sorry about the dark picture - it gets dark at like 6:00 here).


Here's the recipe! Enjoy!

Nick's Asian Glazed Tuna Steaks
(measurements are approximate - adjust to taste)

1 t. Sesame Oil
2 T. Soy Sauce
1 T. Rice Vinegar
1 T. Honey
Red Pepper Flakes
Tuna Steaks

Mix the glaze ingredients together.
Sear Tuna Steaks to desired done-ness. Remove to a plate.
Pour glaze into hot pan and let thicken.
Return Tuna Steaks to pan and cook for 30 seconds per side.

Serve with Wasabi.


Note about Wine Pairing: We drank Joseph Faiveley Bourgogne Passetoutgrains 2008 which is a red Burgandy wine from France. For seared tuna, a Pinot Noir is recommended and this was as close as we could get! For spicy tuna (which this could qualify), they recommend a Pinot Grigio. Husband thinks that a sweet Reisling would work pretty well too.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Comfort Food

Tonight, Husband and I made Kung Pao Chicken - from a packet. My mom bought me some and sent them home with me when I went to visit them a while back. Kung Pao is one of my family's favorite dishes...it was a normal rotation and all of us knew how to make it (follow the directions on the package, duh!). For me, it is definitely comfort food. So much so that I had seconds (I definitely didn't need seconds).


What is comfort food to you? To me it's pretty much anything that is comfortable to eat...anything that I crave because it is familiar...


My top 5 comfort foods (in no particular order) are:

  1. Cajun bean soup with sausage
  2. Kung Pao Chicken
  3. My mom's chili
  4. Hot and Sour Soup
  5. Pho
Yes, I do realize that 4 of the 5 are soup or soup-like, but I don't care...I love soup. Soup is comfort. Comfort is soup.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Sorry! Well...not really that sorry

I'm sorry I have been absent but Husband and I took a sudden trip to Buenos Aires for 3 weeks and just returned tonight! So - sorry about the absence but we were having fun! Soon I will post about some of the yummy food we ate while we were there!

But for now this will have to do...Before I left I made some Valentine's cookies and truffles to sell...here are some pics!

            

 

Monday, February 7, 2011

Dinner Recommendation

I didn't take a picture of what I made tonight because my camera battery is dead - but I wanted to recommend it.

You can find the recipe we based our dinner on here: Balsamic Glazed Chicken Breast on FoodNetwork.com.

We only made it for two so for the balsamic vinegar and wine we used 1/6th of the recipe...but we used fresh heirloom tomatoes from our friends' garden and red onion instead of yellow (spanish) onion (because it's what we had). We also added 1/3 of a yellow bell pepper and a few chopped Kalamata olives. Next time if we plan for it, I think adding mushrooms would be good too!

I would give it a 5 star rating but make a couple suggestions: 1) Sear well or bake a longer than 10 minutes and 2) Serve with bread to soak up the yummy juices (husband soaked the juices out of the serving dish with a roll after we had dessert because they were so good). 

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

What are we cooking?

Shockingly, Husband and I actually thought about dinner for this week...or at least part of the week. Most of our cooking tends to be whatever we happen to throw together when we get hungry. Sometimes I'm good and actually do a bit of menu planning. This week we planned two meals (go us!).

Our throw together dinners tend to be relatively simple. Last night we made a simple pasta with onion, garlic, zucchini, green bell pepper, mushrooms, and kalamata olives with white wine, butter and lemon juice. We tossed the pasta with olive oil, parmesan cheese, and what I think was lemon basil (a random basil that grew from the seeds my friend planted) before adding the veggies. After tossing with the veggies we served it up and topped it with a little more parmesan, some cracked black pepper, and a few red pepper flakes. Simple and yummy - and all stuff we had on hand.

Tonight we made lasagna (it's in the oven right now). We've had some Spicy Italian Sausage in our freezer for a couple months and wanted to use it before it gets freezer burn. We had planned to make it in November or December - but that didn't happen. So yesterday we took the meat out of the freezer to defrost in the fridge - forcing us to use it this week! I made sure to buy all the cheeses we needed as well as sauce when I went shopping yesterday - and we already had veggies to put in it.

Tomorrow or Thursday I plan to make soup - either chicken tortilla or chicken and rice - I haven't decided yet. I originally was planning to make chicken and rice - but then Pioneer Woman posted chicken tortilla soup yesterday and it made me crave it. I have what I need to make either one so it depends on what I'm in the mood for I suppose.

The reason I say tomorrow or Thursday on the last one is because Husband informed me that we may be doing a leftovers exchange with some friends of ours for dinner tomorrow...so we'll see.

Lasagna should be done soon which is good since writing about all this food is making me hungry!

Happy eating!