Tag Archives: recipes

Techniques

Posted on September 13, 2011 | Leave a comment

So, last night I was watching a bunch of reruns of No Reservations on the Travel Channel.  I am a huge fan of Anthony Bourdain and absolutely love his brilliant, snarky, honest attitude.  I find it quite refreshing in this day and age of dumbed down cookie cutter television programming, and I’m totally looking forward to his new show “The Layover.”  I know there are some of you out there that despise the man, but whatever, I really don’t care.  You should probably go run to the donut shop so you can make yourself a hamburger or something.

Anyway, I guess I missed the techniques episode, which reminded me that my cousin James still needs to learn some skills.  As you may recall, James did not inherit the cooking gene from our family.  I’m not too sure why the hell it didn’t happen to him, maybe it’s some sort of disability.  I’m hoping that he will become a wonderful cook later on in his life, since it is mandated by the Luong family to share our culture and love of food with any future little Jamesies out there.

So, here is the No Reservations: Techniques Special that I watched last night. Hopefully my cousin and the rest of you noncookers will learn something useful and to appreciate the greatness that is Anthony Bourdain.

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Sausage, Kale & Potato Soup

Posted on May 19, 2011 | 1 Comment

Here is recipe number two that I made last week in order to clear out my overloaded fridge.  Sorry, I’m not much into writing lately.  I’ve been feeling a bit pooped, and not too sure why.  Perhaps it’s because I’m 35 weeks pregnant, have swollen feet, and need at least a two hour nap daily.  But hey, I should be glad that I’m not working or going to school at the time being.  If I were, I’m sure I wouldn’t be the most pleasant of people to be around.

Sausage, Kale and Potato Soup

Extra virgin olive oil

1 package of sweet Italian sausage

3 russet potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 large onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tbsp Italian seasoning

2 quarts of chicken broth

4 red potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 bunch of dinosaur kale, stemmed and sliced into shreds

salt and pepper

In a large Dutch oven, brown sausage in olive oil over medium heat.  Remove and let rest.  Slice sausage into bite-sized pieces when cooled.  Set aside for later.

Add the russet potatoes, onion, garlic, and Italian seasoning to the remaining oil.  Sauté for 3-5 minutes, and then add one quart of chicken broth.  Cook until potatoes are very tender.

Once potatoes are tender, use an immersion blender to puree soup.  Then add the red potatoes and remaining broth to the blended soup.  Bring to a boil.

When soup comes to boil, add sausage and kale.  Reduce heat and let simmer until red potatoes and kale are tender.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with a salad and crusty bread.

Enjoy!

FRE

 

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Mushroom & Asparagus Quiche

Posted on May 17, 2011 | 2 Comments

I’ve been getting my veggies delivered to me regularly from Farmer Fresh to You about every other week.  With last week’s shipment, my fridge was overflowing so I had to quickly make a couple of dishes to ease the overload of food.  Here is one of the recipes I made last week.

Mushroom & Asparagus Quiche

1 pie crust

extra virgin olive oil

1 bunch asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1 in pieces

8 oz mushrooms, sliced

4 eggs

1 ½ cups heavy cream

¼ cup parmesan cheese

¼ tsp Celtic sea salt

¼ tsp pepper

dash of nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Prick bottom of pie shell with a fork. Bake in oven for 12 minutes.  Cool for about 10 minutes.

While pie shell is baking and cooling, sauté asparagus and mushrooms in olive oil until al dente.   In a medium-sized bowl, beat eggs, heavy cream, cheese, salt, pepper, and nutmeg with a whisk.

Once pie shell is cooled, place sautéed veggies in the shell and then pour egg mixture on top.  Bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes.  The quiche will puff up and turn a nice golden brown on top.

Serve for dinner with a salad and/or soup, or serve for breakfast with sausage/bacon and your choice of potatoes.

 

Enjoy!

FRE

 

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Turkey Chili

Posted on May 13, 2011 | 2 Comments

My mom lives down in San Diego and unfortunately I don’t get a chance to see her often.  So, a few weeks ago she decided to come up for an extended visit. Normally, my mom does all the cooking for the family, whether it’s at her house or a relative’s house.  I believe that it’s both a curse and a blessing that she’s a fantastic cook.  I know very few people who can taste a dish once and go home and recreate it, often making it even better than the original recipe.

Anyway, since I’m no longer working and have more time on my hands I’ve been improving and adding to my list of recipes inside my mental database.  I figured I would give my mom a much needed break, and cook for her during her stay with me. Yes, I allowed her to cook me a meal a couple of times while she was here (she’s a very pushy woman), but for the most part I did all the cooking.

Here’s one dish that my mom particularly loved:

Turkey Chili

A few swigs of extra virgin olive oil

2 cups chopped onion

2 cups chopped bell pepper

9 garlic cloves, minced

2 lbs ground turkey

1 jalapeno pepper chopped

2 tbsp chili powder

2 tbsp brown sugar (or 1 tbsp brown sugar if using ketchup instead of tomato paste)

1 tbsp ground cumin

3 tbsp tomato paste or 4 tbsp ketchup (I don’t always have tomato paste in my house)

1 tsp dried oregano (or Italian Seasoning if that’s all you have in your cupboard like me)

½ tsp ground black pepper

¼ tsp Celtic sea salt

2 bay leaves

1 ¼ cups of fruity wine, preferably red but go ahead and use white if you have an open bottle in the fridge

2 cans whole or diced tomatoes, undrained (coarsely chop the whole tomatoes)

2 cans kidney beans, drained

Heat the olive oil in a large pot.  Add the onions, bell pepper, garlic, turkey, and jalapeno to the pan.  Cook for 8-10 minutes or until meat is browned, stirring to crumble.

Add chili powder, brown sugar, ground cumin, tomato paste (or ketchup), dried oregano, black pepper, salt, and bay leaves. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

Stir in wine, tomatoes, and kidney beans.  Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat & simmer for a couple of hours.  Stir occasionally.

Uncover and cook for an additional 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Discard bay leaves if you can find them.

Serve with shredded cheddar cheese and cornbread or rice or whatever you like. Even better, cook the chili the night before and serve for dinner the next day.  For some reason chili, soups, and stews taste better the next day.

And leftovers can be used to make nachos!

Enjoy!

FRE

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Carrot Cake Muffins

Posted on April 28, 2011 | Leave a comment

Last week I harvested all of the carrots, turnips, and parsnips in my garden in order to get the beds ready for the next planting.  Needless to say, I had a sh*t load of carrots I wanted to use soon since I didn’t have much room in my fridge, so I decided to make some carrot cake muffins for Easter and my dad’s camping trip to Death Valley.  As always, I was inspired by the Carrot Cake Muffin recipe by Martha Rose Shulman who writes Recipes for Health for the New York Times.  Enjoy!

Carrot Cake Muffins (makes about 12)

2 1/2 cups organic whole wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp fresh ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground allspice

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp Celtic salt

2 farm fresh eggs

1/2 cup turbinado sugar

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (or whatever vegetable oil you have on hand)

1 1/3 cups organic whole milk

1 tsp organic vanilla extract

2/3 cup of sliced almonds

2 cups of grated carrots

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease muffin tins.

Mix dry ingredients together in a medium bowl.  Mix wet ingredients and the sugar together in a large bowl.  Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until well combined.  Fold in the almonds and the carrots.

Spoon into greased muffin tins and bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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Ryan Apple Pie

Posted on April 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

For some reason I had over 20 apples in the vegetable drawer of my refrigerator.  I like apples a lot, but there’s no reason to have that many taking up valuable room in the fridge, especially now that I have a bounty of fresh veggies delivered to me each week.  So, I decided to make my family’s apple pie recipe for Easter.

Technically, the recipe comes from an old cookbook called, the Mennonite Community Cookbook, which my dad’s family gave to my mom when she first came to this country.  This was the first cookbook I learned to use, even though we’ve only actually cooked a couple recipes out of the book.  Anyway, here’s our adapted version of the Apple Crumb Pie.

Apple Crumb Pie (a.k.a. the Ryan Apple Pie)

6 apples (preferably tart, but I tend to use whatever I have on hand)

1 cup sugar (Turbinado or regular)

1/3 cup organic sweet cream butter (very cold and cut into cubes)

3/4 cup organic whole wheat flour

1 tsp cinnamon

Pastry for one 9 inch shell (I am unable to make a nice, flaky pie shell, so I buy the Marie Calendar’s shells from the freezer section and always end up making two pies at a time.)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

 

Pare apples and cut into eighths, put in a medium sized bowl.  Sprinkle 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon over apples and mix until well coated.  Put apple mix into unbaked pastry shell.

 

Combine remaining sugar and flour into a mini food prep or large food processor.  Pulse until well mixed.  Next, add cubes of cold butter and pulse until crumbs are formed.  Sprinkle crumbs over apples.

Bake the pie at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, and then reduce temp to 350 degrees.  Bake for 35-60 minutes, depending on how done you like your apples. We like them nice and soft, so we bake the pie for 60 minutes.

Let it cool for a few hours, then slice and serve.  Eat at room temperature or reheat it.  Eat it a la carte, serve with ice cream or whipped cream, or put the pie in a bowl and pour milk over it and eat it like cereal (this is what my dad likes to do for breakfast when we have leftover pie).

Enjoy!

FRE

(P.S.  For some reason I don’t know how to use my camera and there are date stamps on my pictures with the incorrect date!  Luckily I figured how to fix it, but of course by then the apple pie was made and gobbled up.  Lame.)

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Pumpkin Waffles

Posted on April 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

Since I still had a cup of pumpkin puree leftover from the muffins that I made the other day, I decided to make some pumpkin waffles.  It was dinner time when I decided to do this, so I figured I could just freeze and reheat them in the toaster for future lazy breakfasts.  Here’s my version of the Weelicious Pumpkin Waffles.

Pumpkin Waffles (makes 12 waffles)

2 ¼ cups organic whole wheat flour

¼ cup flax meal

1/3 cup Turbinado sugar

2 ½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp Celtic salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

4 eggs

2 cups organic whole milk

1 cup (or so) pumpkin puree

6 tbsp melted organic sweet cream butter

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preheat waffle iron.  Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl.  Mix the wet ingredients together in a large bowl.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until smooth.  Pour about ½ of the batter into heated waffle iron.  Cook according to your waffle maker’s specifications.  Eat with butter and syrup, or cool to room temperature and then freeze for later use.  Reheat waffles in toaster or oven.

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Pumpkin Apple Muffins

Posted on April 21, 2011 | 1 Comment

The other day I was inspired by one of my friends to make the Pumpkin Apple Muffin recipe featured on Weelicious.  Actually, she made the mini sweet potato muffins, but I didn’t have any sweet potatoes on hand, instead I had a can of pumpkin puree in the pantry.  And of course, me being me, I did not have all of the ingredients at hand to make the original pumpkin apple muffins, so I decided to modify the recipe to fit my needs. Here’s my rendition of the tasty muffins.  I hope you enjoy!

Pumpkin Apple Muffins (makes 12 muffins)

1 2/3 cups organic whole wheat flour

1/3 cup of flax meal

1/2 cup organic Turbinado sugar

2 Tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp Celtic salt (you can use regular salt, this is just what I like to use)

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp pumpkin spice

3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil or whatever type of fat you want to use

1 egg (I got this egg and 11 others from Farmer Fresh to You!)

3/4 cup organic heavy whipping cream (For some reason organic dairy doesn’t affect me like regular dairy.  I have no clue why.)

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

1 Fuji apple, peeled and diced (This apple is from Farmer Fresh to You as well.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl.  Mix wet ingredients in a large bow.  Add dry ingredients to wet and mix lightly.  Fold apples into the mix.  Spoon into greased muffin tins and bake for 20-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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Somewhat Healthy Banana Nut Muffins

Posted on April 19, 2011 | Leave a comment

I have a large collection of cookbooks as well as a binder full of collected recipes; however, I hate making a recipe exactly how it is written.  This is due to the fact that I despise going to the grocery store to buy specific ingredients to make a particular dish.  Instead, I like to use ingredients that I have on hand to make something I’m hungry for.  So, here’s my highly modified, somewhat healthy, banana nut muffin recipe that I made on Sunday.

Unfortunately, in the middle of baking, the power went out in my neighborhood  and shut off my oven.  Luckily the muffins had just finished cooking when the power went out.  The gods must love banana nut muffins.

Makes 6 jumbo muffins or 12 mini muffins.

1 1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour

1/2 cup Turbinado sugar

1/4 cup rolled oats

2 Tbls Flax meal

1 tsp Cinammon

2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 overly ripe mashed bananas

2/3 cup heavy whipping cream (this is the not so healthy part)

1 large egg

2 Tbls extra virgin olive oil or whatever vegetable oil you like or have on hand

1 tsp Vanilla extract

1/2 cup or more of chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Mix the dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Then, mix the wet ingredients in a large bowl.  Add the dry ingredients and walnuts to wet ingredients.  Mix until comes together.  Spoon evenly into greased or lined muffin tins.  Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out nice and clean.  Muffins should be golden brown.

Enjoy!

FRE

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Black & Tan Cupcakes

Posted on March 13, 2011 | Leave a comment

I’m hungry for all things sweet, but I must resist.  One day I will make these cupcakes I found on Babble.com, hopefully when I’m nice and skinny and not pregnant.

Black & Tan Cupcakes

1/2 cup butter
1 cup Guinness or other dark stout
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
1 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt

Guinness frosting:
1/2 cup butter, softened
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4-1/3 cup Guinness

In a small saucepan, melt the butter with the Guinness over medium heat; remove from heat, pour into a bowl and whisk in sugar and cocoa. Whisk in the sour cream, eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking soda and salt just until blended. Divide the batter between paper-lined cupcake tins and bake in a preheated 350°F oven for 20-25 minutes, until tops are springy to the touch.

To make the frosting, beat the butter, confectioners’ sugar and Guinness until you have a spreadable frosting. Wait until the cupcakes have cooled completely before frosting.

 

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