Inside Out Eggrolls

So I thought of trying something different. Most of us wrap egg roll shells around ingredients. This time I exposed the insides, left the egg roll wrapper flat, fried it, and placed a ground pork mixture with stir fried veggies on top! You can garnish with honey, sweet thai chili sauce, or leave by itself. Of course you can put so much more filling when you don't have to worry about wrapping it ha Recipe and how its cooked with be posted soon. I am going to try and get all the recipes that need to be put up done before I leave town so I have a lot of typing to do. Meanwhile enjoy the view!

Lo Mein Mixed Up

So we love to make lo mein. It is so versatile and you can use tons of different ingredients. Pork, chicken, shrimp, beef, fish etc. This time I switched it up with some asparagus spears, snap peas, yellow squash, chicken breast, oyster and fish sauce, sweet onion, garlic, ginger, and bean sprouts. I also made mini pork egg rolls with ground pork, black soy sauce, dry sherry, ginger, green onion, garlic, shitake mushrooms, and sriracha hot sauce. This time no recipe. Experiment on your own to find what your taste buds enjoy. I do not use a tons of soy sauce because its so salty but I pack in a ton of flavor with the sherry, the mushrooms, and fresh aromatics like the ginger and garlic!

Kielbasa sausage and Roasted Potatoes

Something a bit different. There is a local shop that has these awesome sausages that are hand made here in Florida. They have no fillers, no artificial anything, and they are so tasty. I threw them together with some caramelized onion and red bell pepper with roasted red potatoes on the side.

Roast Pork Tostada with Fresh Guacamole and Pico De Gallo

Here is the last dish on the latin food week. I experimented a bit with the pork loin roast, some peppers, dry sherry, lime juice, and a few other ingredients and wow this has tons of flavor. From the first bite to the last the flavor just hits your mouth each time and sends your tastes buds tingling. Ingredients and how I cooked it will come soon. I have all these new recipes written down in a notebook and I am trying to condense them a bit as far as the procedures are concerned. I have to make sure that I have all the ingredients written down right as well before I post them. I will have the recipes up sometime mid week.

My Two Basil Plants!

I have been trying to grow both Thai basil and traditional basil. Here they are thriving and getting big. We rescued the traditional basil from a Publix grocery store where it was not looking so great! My dream would be to have tons of fresh herbs at my disposal.

Tequila Lime Chicken Fajitas

This is a delicious dish and if you use good tequila the results are amazing. Do not use mixed tequila only 100% agave. Tequila supplied by Josh!


Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and whisk to combine. To use with beef, place beef in gallon sized freezer bag or in the bottom of a shallow baking dish. Pour carne asada marinade on top of beef, cover dish or close bag, and marinate beef overnight before grilling.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup lime juice
1 cup tequila
1/4 cup tomato paste
2 each garlic cloves, minced
1 whole jalapeno pepper
2 teaspoon salt
2 ts chili powder
2 teaspoon cumin
2 pound chicken breast or top sirloin, cut into strips
10 each flour tortillas for fajitas
3 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large bell pepper, cut into
1 large onion, cut into strips
1 large tomato, cut into chunks

In a glass bowl or baking dish, combine 1/2 cup oil, lime juice, tequila, tomato paste, garlic, jalapeno, salt, chili powder, and cumin. Blend well. Add chicken, cover, and marinate in refrigerator at least 6 hours.

To prepare Fajitas:
1. Wrap tortillas in aluminum foil and place in a 325 f oven for 15 minutes (do this just before preparing fajitas).
2. In a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat, heat 3 Tbsp oil. Remove meat from marinade and add to skillet, stirring constantly, 6 to 7 minutes or until meat is at least 1/2 cooked.
3. Add bell pepper and onion and cook 7-10 minutes more along with tomatoes, just until vegetables are crisp-tender and meat is fully cooked (reduce cooking time on beef to 4-5 minutes for medium/medium-rare).

Serve with tortillas, guacamole, sour cream, salsa, and grated cheese on the side

Traditional carne asada with pico de gallo and sour cream avocado sauce

Carne Asada Marinade:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup red wine vinegar (can substitute with white vinegar)
1/3 cup lime juice (can substitute with lemon juice)
1/3 cup orange juice
1 cup dark Mexican beer
2 tablespoons peeled fresh garlic - crushed
1 tablespoons white pepper
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon Mexican oregano
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 orange, sliced
1/4 bunch cilantro, chopped (no stems)

Marinate skirt steak over night

Carne Asada Ingredients:
2 lbs skirt steak
Marinade
Pico de gallo
Cream cheese
Guacamole
Flour tortillas
Tortilla chips

1. Grill marinated steak until medium well, slice thinly
2. Put marinated steak on tortilla with pico de gallo
3. Serve with some tortilla chips and cream cheese guacamole (just add a bit of cream cheese to your guacamole)

Enjoy!

Chile Verde con Puerco

Another authentic Mexican dish with some slight modifications.

2 pounds Pork loin or tenderloin or pork shoulder or butt, chopped into 1 inch cubes
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 large onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups chopped roasted Anaheim or New Mexico green chiles
1 cup canned crushed tomatoes
10 ounces freshly diced tomatillos
3 cups water
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon Mexican Oregano, dried
1 teaspoon salt and pepper, to taste

1. Bring water, cumin, oregano and salt and pepper to just boiling in a large stockpot and add pork. Reduce heat to just simmering and cook for 1 hour.
About 40 minutes after the pork starts simmering, place the vegetable oil in a saucepan and warm to medium heat.

2. Add onion and saute until well softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and saute for an additional minute, then add the flour and continue cooking for another 1 or 2 minutes. Mix in the chile, tomatoes and tomatillos and saute for 5 minutes.

3. After pork has simmered for an hour, add the ingredients from saucepan. Taste and adjust cumin and oregano as necessary. Reduce heat to a low simmer and cook for another hour, or until pork is tender.

REMEMBER - the stock will reduce, so resist the urge to add salt at this point. About 15 minutes before ready, taste and add salt if needed. If you like your green chile thicker, take 2 tablespoons of cornstarch and mix with liquid from pot in small bowl. Mix together and add to pot.

Taste and serve with warmed flour tortillas and refried beans.

Pepper Jack Enchilada's with Tomatillo Sauce

Photos coming soon!
Mandi has been craving a good enchilada so I made them for her. I home made the tomatillo sauce from fresh tomatillos. The chicken I used I marinated in seasonings, fresh squeezed lime and orange juice, lime and orange wedges. The flavor was amazing.

Whats in it:

Chicken marinade. Marinates 4 chicken breasts depending on size
1. 2 oranges cut into wedges squeezed and rinds put in, 1 limes same as oranges, 1 tbsp sazon tropical, 2 tsp ground black pepper
Marinate for 3-4 hours
Cook chicken on grill or grill pan until done, shred

Tomatillo Sauce:
2 tbsp canola oil
2 medium sweet onions
5 large jalapeno
1 cup chicken broth
3 1/2 cups fresh tomatillos diced
3 tbsp lime juice
2 tbsp oregano
1 tbsp cumin
sea salt to taste

Cooking:
1. Heat oil on medium heat, add onions and cook until tender. Stir in jalapeno, chicken broth, tomatillos, lime juice, oregano, and cumin. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer uncovered for 25 minutes, use blender or immersion wand and blend well until smooth.
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The Enchilada:
4 cups shredded chicken
3-4 cups grated good quality pepper jack, I used Cabot brand
2 large cubanelle peppers cut into 1/2 inch pieces and sauted in olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper to taste
6 medium flour tortillas
tomatillo sauce
sour cream
cilantro
white rice- cook as the enchiladas are baking
refried beans

Cooking:
1. Fill the tortillas with, the chicken, some rice, and some beans. Place seem down in a lightly oiled baking dish. Cover with pepper jack cheese and bake on 350 until the cheese has melted and the insides are hot. Plate and cover with hot tomatillo sauce. Garnish with cilantro.

Enjoy!

Picadillo with Chipotle Refried Beans

So I love picadillo but it has never had enough kick to it so I added some jalapeno and it turned out well, just enough kick to make it not overly spicy.

Whats in it, The Picadillo:
3 lbs ground beef: 2 lbs 90/10, 1 lb 80/20
3 Tbsp Oregano
1 Tbsp Cumin
7 garlic cloves minced
3 sweet onion carmelized
3 green bell peppers cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 small can tomato paste
6 cups canned tomato: 3 cups regular rotel brand tomatoes, 3 cups unseasoned diced tomatoes
2 bay leaves
1 can green olives
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/2 tbsp capers
1/2 tbsp coriander seed ground
2 tsp sazon tropical
4 chopped jalapeño peppers
Sea salt to taste

Refried beans:
1 lb pinto beans
2 tsp sazon tropical
4 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, rinsed of extra sauce, diced
2 tsp black pepper
1 large sweet onion diced
2 garlic cloves minced
Sea salt to taste

Steps to cook it, The picadillo:
1. Mix all ingredients together and let simmer for 3.5 hours or until beef is done all the way. The longer you can cook this the better the flavor. But do not overcook the meat.

Refried beans:
Make sure you soak your beans over night, rinse them well before cooking.

1. Place the onion, rinsed beans,chopped chipotle peppers, garlic, sazon tropical, tsp black pepper into a slow cooker. Pour in water to cover the beans and stir to combine. You want about enough water in the slow cooker so that when the beans are cooked there is still about an inch of liquid on the top. Cook on High for 8 hours, adding more water as needed. Note: if more than 1 cup of water has evaporated during cooking, then the temperature is too high.

2. Once the beans have cooked, strain them, and reserve the liquid. Mash the beans with a potato masher, adding the reserved water as needed to attain desired consistency.

Serve with white or yellow rice. Garnish with cilantro and crumbling cheese for the beans.

Chipotle black beans and rice with sauted chicken thighs

Here is the start of my Latin influenced round. This was an experiment I tried out but unfortunately I did not write down how I made it.

Tomato Basil with Sauted Artichoke and Baked Italian Bread Crumb Chicken Thighs

So I had some ingredients I need to use up before I started my Latin cuisine round. Here is something I came up with.

Ingredients:
6 cups diced Campari tomatoes
1/2 cup fresh chopped sweet basil leaves
4 cloves minced garlic
Sugar to taste
1 cup Merlot wine
4 De boned chicken thighs trimmed
1 cup Italian bread crumbs preferably one that does not have 30 ingredients in it, all natural is the way to go!
3 Tbsp butter melted
Parmesan and fresh basil leaves for garnish
Store bought garlic bread
Angel hair pasta
EVOO
1 cup artichoke hearts peeled

Step 1:
Start your water for the noodles, once boiling add noodles, cook until tender, drain and rinse set to the side. Mix 1 cup Italian bread crumbs and 3 Tbsp butter well, make sure there are no clumps. Coat moist chicken thighs well with bread crumbs. Put in the oven on 375 in a lightly oil coated baking dish until chicken reaches temp about 180 F for thigh meat and the bread crumbs are golden brown. Make sure not to start the next step until you are at least half way done with cooking the chicken. It will take roughly 30-35 minutes to cook the chicken to temp.

Step 2:
While chicken is cooking place 1 Tbsp EVOO and diced tomatoes in a saute pan, cook on medium high heat until the tomatoes are slightly reduced. You are not making a spaghetti sauce so you will not be reducing tomatoes to a liquid. You want them still chunky. Cook for about 5 minutes, add merlot wine, cook for another 5 minutes, add garlic cook for 1 more minute, sugar to taste, turn off heat, add chopped basil leaves, cover and let sit for about 5 minutes. While the chicken is in the oven go ahead and cook up your garlic bread the last 5-6 minutes or so while the chicken is still cooking. Place artichoke hearts into saute pan with 1 tsp EVOO and cook until lightly golden in the outside. Mix into sauce.

Step 3:
Mix noodles with sauce, plate, place chicken thigh on top, garnish with Parmesan and fresh basil leaves.

Enjoy!

Traditional Pad Thai

So Mandi has encouraged me to teach myself all that I can before doing an apprenticeship or going to cooking school. So I have made a large agenda that is organized into groups of foods I am most interested in cooking. Each week I will try to a different themed dish with different ingredients using different cooking methods. So I will keep everyone posted on how it is going. Thus far I have made this dish since Thai cuisine was first my list to tackle. I make Thai cuisine alot however I really need to dive deep into the traditional sauces, pastes, flavors, meats, veggies, and try to get the entire picture. I have such a small grasp on food because there is so much to learn and so seemingly infinite combinations of ingredients. I know I can not tackle every type of cuisine or learn every dish so I thought I would do 5 dishes from each category, Asian, Mediterranean, Italian, Latin, and Cajun/Creole. I have cooked pad thai before with my own little twists but this time I used traditional tamarind sauce and man it was good.

Here are some pics of the pad thai I cooked I will post ingredients and how to do everything sometime this week. I have also started to write down every portion I use while cooking so I can keep track of things better and explain ingredients and amounts in a more precise way.

Ingredients for main dish:

These portions are for smaller batches as you may not have enough heat to maintain a proper stir fry environment.

1/3 lb chicken breast or shrimp
About 3/4 cup zucchini and yellow squash chopped into smaller pieces, snap peas added to this mix, or any other veggies like hot peppers, bell peppers, mushrooms etc.
Crushed peanuts
1 lb nice noodle soaked for about 40 minutes in cold water. You do not want them to be cooked as they will finish cooking as you cook. You want to do this so that the noddles don't fall apart when stir frying.
Fish sauce
4-5 garlic cloves minced
3 shallots cut thin
3 eggs beaten
3 cups bean sprout optional, I did have any on hand so I used a bit more veggies.
1 cup scallions
8 Tbsp Pad Thai sauce
High burn point oil

Tamarind water:
1 Tbsp tamarind paste
1/4 cup warm water
You will need to quadruple this in order to get the full cup you will need for the Pad Thai sauce. But this is the ratio in which to use.

Step 1: Mix tamarind paste well into warm water for about 5 minutes or until completely mixed. Strain to remove fibers and seeds.

Pad Thai Sauce:
1 cup Tamarind water
1/2 cup fish sauce
1 cup palm sugar
1 cup water

Step 1:
Mix all together and cook on low heat for 45 minutes or until the sauce thickens. Pad Thai sauce should never be runny but not too think.

Main dish

Step 1:
Heat wok smoking hot with about 1/2 Tbsp oil, put protein in and stir fry adding about 1 tsp fish sauce. Do not cook all the way, just sear and set to the side. Heat wok back up now put your veggies in and stir fry with another 1/2 Tbsp oil for about 5 minutes or until veggies are done but still have a slight crunch. Put protein back in stir fry for about 30 seconds, throw in garlic, shallots and toss for another 20 seconds. If you need to add a tad more oil do so now. Put in a hand full of noodles into the wok, mix around well, add pad thai sauce, bean sprouts and toss for another minute. Move mixture to the side and add egg, cook up egg, cut it up with the wok spatula and then mix the egg well in the dish.

Serve up with lime wedges and crushed peanuts on top.

Panko Pan Fried Flounder with Green Curry

So I have not put up a lot of fish yet mainly because Mandi does not like fish unless it tastes nothing like fish. So I picked up some fresh flounder which is a very mild fish with flaky meat. I did not make the green curry full strength because only I would be able to handle the heat level. So here is what I came up with.

Ingredients:
2/3 pound flounder fillets
3 large eggs
1/3 cup all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1-1/2 cups of panko bread crumbs
5-8 Tbsp Green curry paste depending on your heat tolerance, I used 6
2 cups thick coconut milk
2 Red bell pepper
1/2 sweet onion chopped
2/3 cup chopped yellow squash
Canola or other high burn point oil
2 tsp minced garlic
Jasmine rice

Step 1:
Put your rice on to cook. Prepare veggies. Heat wok up and and stir fry your veggies in small batches usually 2 cups at a time. Stir fry for about 2 minutes or until the veggies start to soften but are still somewhat crunchy. Add garlic the last second before you pull out the batch and set it to the side for the next. Between each batch make sure to heat the wok back up in between batches. Set veggies to the side.

Step 2:
Rinse wok and reheat on medium high, add curry paste and stir fry for about 15 seconds, add coconut milk, and mix well. Reduce heat and let simmer for about 5 minutes. Add veggies to the curry mix about 3 minutes into the simmer. Now for the flounder.

Step 3:
Dry the flounder fillets with a paper towel. Mix all purpose flour, black pepper, and sea salt together. Coat the flounder in the flour. Beat the eggs until frothy, dip the flour coated flounder into eggs, let excess drip off, now place in a bowl with panko and press down to coat the fish. Coat well and add to a hot pan, about 350 F temp oil, fry up until golden on both sides. Place flounder on bed of rice, cover with green curry. You can smother it like I did for my plate or just a little like in the picture.

Eat it up.

Ginger Honey Stir Fry

So this was something I wanted to do because I love honey and ginger, throw it a bit of spice, fresh veggies and you got one heck of a dish. Easy and tasty.

The reason why you have seen a lot of stir fry dishes us because they are easy to incorporate fresh veggies, have a lot of flavor, and can be cooked farely quick. I also want to show everyone that stir fry is not limited to what you find in the american chinese places around the corner.

Stir fry is the technique you are using to cook and is so versatile with so many different ingredients. Starting soon I am going to start doing themed weeks so this time around it has been Asian, the next round will be latin inspired. I will try to make latin dishes using the stir fry technique and the wok. This will be the first official test on here but I hypothesize that using the stir fry technique you can cook just about any dish.

Mix it up, try different ingredients like asparagus, mango, papaya to keep your stir fries unique in flavor and different every time you cook it.

Ok so here is the dish at hand Ginger Honey Stir Fry

Ingredients:
3 Tbsp Honey (not clove)
1/2 Tbsp fresh ginger powder
1/4 pound chicken thigh meat trimmed and cut into smaller pieces
1/2 cup red onion chopped
1 green bell pepper sliced into strips
1/2 cup yellow squash chopped
1 tsp minced garlic
Crispy chow mein noodles
Jasmine rice
Fish Sauce
Canola oil or any other high burn point oil
Sriracha sauce

Step 1:
Heat up your wok for about 5 minutes, most stoves in consumer kitchens do not put out enough heat to just start stir frying so you need to give the wok a few minutes to really heat up. Add 1 Tbsp canola oil to the wok once heated, drop chicken in the wok, sear, add about 1 tsp fish sauce, cook chicken until almost done, but not all the way. Take out and set to the side. Rinse the wok quickly to get any fish sauce residue that may burn out. Heat wok back up for another 5 minutes.

Step 2:
Mix honey and ginger powder together well.
Once wok is reheated add some more oil, place veggies in and stir fry tossing constantly. Stir fry for about 1-2 minutes, add chicken back in, add garlic, toss and mix well, reduce heat to medium high, add honey mixture, coat well, put onto bed of rice, and sprinkle chow mein noodles on top with a few drops of hot sauce. Enjoy!

Make that you start the rice ahead of time as it will take longer to cook than the dish will.

Some essential ingredients for awesome stir fry!

Here are some essential ingredients for stir fry! Remember lots of heat on the stove, fresh ingredients, cook meats and veggies separately, and small batches!

Pictured from left to right:
Lime Juice
Viet Huong Three Crab fish sauce
Double black soy sauce
Korean red pepper powder
Oyster sauce no msg!!!
Minced garlic

Picture of stir fry and low mein added from dinner the other night.

Thai Red Curry Paste Nam Phrik Kaeng Daeng

Here is my first batch in awhile and it turned out awesome. The aromas are so amazing and the heat level is just right. No prepackaged red curry can touch this stuff!