Sunday Cookout

As I had mentioned in my Homemade Dumpling post, I decided to do a cook out in the middle of making dumplings.  The reason behind the cook out was because I really wanted ribs when I saw baby back ribs on special in the HEB weekly ad.  And I really wanted to make the peach BBQ sauce I had made a little while ago in my Pulled Pork Pancakes post.  I ran to the store real quick and picked up the ribs and some fresh corn to grill.

I seasoned the ribs real quick with a rub that I make consisting of about 10 plus different items in it.      A lot of people like to eat ribs that just fall of the bone and that is achieved usually by a slow cooking method such as smoking.  Do not get me wrong, I love eating smoked ribs, but I already had it in my head that I wanted grilled ribs that you have to pull off the bone with your teeth.  I grew eating ribs like that, but my mom cuts them into each individual rib and I only like to cook my ribs as a whole slab.  Anyways...since it was pork and they were pretty meaty ribs, I popped them in the oven for about an hour and a half at 300 degrees to let it partially cook.  I finished the ribs on the grill to get that char and then slathered it in the peach BBQ sauce and let it caramelize on the grill. While I was doing that, my brother had mentioned that Greg was smoking chickens on the grill at his house.  So we wrapped everything up after I finished the ribs and went over to Greg's house.

When I got to Greg's, first thing he tells me is that he has some leeks in the fridge that he needed to use and had no ideas for it.  I have been wanting to try to make leek soup for some time now, but never remember to buy leeks when I am at the store.  So I go through his fridge and find bacon, potatoes, milk, clam juice and fresh crab meat.  Long story short, I cook down the bacon, toss in the potatoes, then the leeks and cook everything down.  I added some flour to the pot and slowly added milk in to form a creamy chowder consistency.  Essentially, I made Bacon Potato Leek Crab Chowder.  To everyone's surprise, it was a hit!  It was so many flavors going on in it, but it worked so well together.  Everyone had seconds and some had thirds and fourths.

I had thrown a quick portabella burger together for my brother as well since he is still not eating meat.  He even refused to eat the amazing soup I had made because of the bacon.  I was pretty excited to do this because I have always wanted to make a portabella burger.  I made a quick marinade for the portabella which basically consisted of balsamic vinegar, olive oil and Italian seasoning.  I grilled the portabella and then figured I might as well grill the bread, tomato, and red onion.  I had poured the marinade onto the tomato as it was grilling.  Greg happened to have some Boca Burgers as well so I grilled that and added it to the burger.  Look terrific, but I only made one for him to eat.

Crystal had wanted a pasta salad as a side dish.  So I whipped something up real quick with red and green bell pepper, onion, garlic, celery, olives, and oregano.  I threw in this "Italian" seasoning I had accidentally made a while ago.  The pasta salad turned out very well.  I would have to say, along with the people eating, that this was my best pasta salad.  I think from the heat of the pepper flakes and the fennel seeds really brought the flavors out.

The grilled corn was so simple yet so good.  I think I may have said it before, but corn any way shape or form is amazing.  Many people have lectured me the way I grill my corn.  Many people grill corn with the husk on because they say it cooks it without burning it.  To me, that is just steaming the corn on the grill.  You do not get that grill and char flavor to it.  When I grill corn, I pull all the husk off and cook it directly.  Many non believers in my methods end up liking my style of grilling corn.  You get these random char "burned" kernels that are amazing.  To their surprise, it does not burn and it does cook through all the way.

The chicken Greg had smoked was pretty amazing.  I mean, how often can you slice or cut into a chicken and literally have butter still oozing out of the meat.  It was amazing.  He did the same with the tri-tip.  It was cooked perfectly.  With a tri-tip, you cannot really cook it past a medium rare or else it becomes tough.  It is a really great cheap roast if cooked properly like Greg did.

The Menu for the cookout:

• Peach BBQ Grilled Ribs (me)
• Smoked Chicken (Greg)
• Smoked Tri-tip (Greg)
• Bacon Potato Leek Crab Chowder (me)
• Grilled Corn (me)
• Pasta salad (me)

My avocado was bleeding!!!!!  And yes I checked my fingers and I did not cut myself.

I am happy to say that their was not a single bad item that was made that day.  I even brought over some seaweed salad for people to try and they loved it.  Happy Eatings!

Homemade Dumplings

I have been wanting to make my own dumplings for some time now.  I had bought the wrappers a while ago and it has just been sitting in the freezer waiting to be used.  The reason I have been putting it off is I knew that it was going to be very labor intensive for each dumpling.

I woke up Sunday morning and decided that it was time.  My goal was to make ginger and cabbage pork with dried shrimp dumplings.  Ingredients in the dumplings are: napa cabbage, green onions, ginger, onion, garlic, pork and dried shrimp.

What you are going to want to do is, roughly chop the cabbage and sprinkle it with salt.  Cabbage has plenty of moisture in it that needs to be pulled out so it does not make the dumpling wrap too soggy.  Let the cabbage and salt sit in the strainer for about 45 minutes and just watch all the water pull out of the cabbage.  Squeeze out the excess moisture as well.

For the dried shrimp, let it soak in hot water to let it re-hydrate.  Reserve some of the water that the shrimp was soaking in to add to your dumpling mixture.  With the remaining ingredients, chop those up.  Mix all the ingredients together with some soy sauce, oyster sauce and sesame oil.  The the mixture rest in the fridge.

I had let the mixture sit all day in the fridge because I decided I wanted to do a cook out that day since it was just too nice out to not.

After the cookout, I got home around 9PM that night and began to form the dumplings.  The first 10 seems like it took forever, but after that, it started going pretty quickly.  The most tedious part of making dumplings and making the pleats and I had about 8 to 10 pleats per dumplings.  For 45 minutes straight, it was pinch and pleat...pinch and pleat...pinch and pleat...over and over again.  After all the pleating, I let the dumplings freeze over night.

Tonight (Tuesday) I finally had a chance to actually cook it.  I guess a dumpling turns into a potsticker when you pan sear it.  Add some oil to your pan and put the dumplings on there.  Right as it starts to brown, add in some water and cover it with a lid to steam it.

I already had in my head how I wanted to do the presentation for the dumplings...I had been planning it since yesterday.  I sliced some cucumber to place the dumplings on.  Made a dipping sauce and poured it over the dumpling and onto the cucumbers.  Finished it off was thinly sliced green onions and dried shrimp "powder".

These little dumplings were amazing.  The ginger really came out in the meat and the little dried shrimps were like little burst of salt as you bite into it.

Asian Dinner (4 Course Meal)

Our friend Linn had come over to hangout that afternoon so Crystal and her were down by the pool for hours.  It was just way too hot for me to be outside so I hung out by myself inside.  I got a bit antsy so I decided to play with some food.  I had purchased some dried seaweed a while ago and wanted to put it to use.  I have never done anything with seaweed before so it was going to be fun.

I soaked the dried seaweed sheets for a while in hot water to re-hydrate it.  I forget all the time when re-hydrating dried food, it tends to double or triple in size.  Needless to say, I had a lot of seaweed to eat.  After about 45 minutes, i strained it and notice there was tons of sand in it.  Now this was the tedious part...had to get out all the sand.  It was easier to clean when I cut the sheets of seaweed into stripes and just washed it that way.  

I threw together a quick dressing for the seaweed consisting of soy sauce, vinegar, thai garlic chilli sauce and lime and just let it set in the fridge for a while.  

At this point, I ran to the store after realizing I was officially out of food at home.  Normally I can whip together something real quick with whatever was in the fridge, but in this case, I had nothing.  I knew the girls were going to be hungry anyways so I had planned another Asian dinner with multiple dishes.

Since I had the Peking ribs for Mother's Day, I have been craving it.  So dinner for Saturday consisted of:

• Seaweed Salad
• Cucumber Salad
• Peking Ribs
• Eggrolls

The seaweed salad was sitting in the fridge already from that afternoon.  The cucumber salad was something thrown together quickly.  I used the same dressing for the seaweed salad and thinly sliced the cucumber and just let it marinade. 

For instructions to the peking ribs, please visit my post from Mother's Day.  A quick tip that I did this time around that I did not the first time was to reserve the stock that was made from boiling the ribs.  This can be used for another dish or day to make soup.

For the eggrolls, I had some in the freezer from the last batch we had made.  I have been told by many people that my eggrolls are amazing.  My eggrolls consist a mixture of pork, shrimp, shredded carrots, onion, garlic and black fungus.  Of course I threw in my mixes of sauces into the mixture.  

Asian Quiche

Well I have been busy the past couple days creating new dishes.  It has been a lot of fun playing with food and see how it turns out.

I woke up Saturday morning to a very empty fridge.  It looked bad since we have been trying to just purchase groceries for up to just a week at a time so we do not waste food...even the freezer looked deserted.  With very minimum for breakfast that morning, I had to get really creative.  Here is what I had to work with: black dried fungus in the freezer, a puff pastry sheet, 3 eggs, milk, one potato, onion, garlic, and frozen broccoli.

I was kind of in an Asian mood that morning thinking about a simple dish my Mom use to make when I was growing up.  It was just basically and omelet with black dried fungus and ground pork with fish sauce mixed in with the egg.  So I took that idea and came up with an Asian Quiche (basically whatever I had in the fridge went in kind of Quiche).

So I started by dicing up the onion, potato and garlic and chopping up the broccoli and black fungus and mixing all that together.  I whipped up the 3 eggs with some milk and stirred in some fish sauce, oyster sauce, and soy sauce and finished it with five spice powder.  Mixed in my veggie mix into the egg mixture and poured into my dish lined with the puff pastry.

Several minutes later...I had my Asian Quiche!  It turned out delicious especially with the puff pastry.  This is one of my better quiches that I have made.

Chicken Fried Steak with Jalapeno Gravy

Well after eating soup and salad all week, I was craving something fried.  All I had in the freezer were some beef cutlets...and I have been craving chicken fried steak for some time now.  Oh,,,and I had some jalapeno gravy that I had froze from a couple weeks ago.  It was just natural that chicken fried steak was going to be tonight's dinner!

Tonight's Menu:
Chicken Fried Steak with Jalapeno Gravy
Balsamic Glazed Green Beans
Garlic Mash Potatoes

For the chicken fried steak, I seasoned the flour and the beef with salt, pepper, oregano, ground pepper flakes, and paprika.  From there I set up my dredging station to prepare the meat for frying.

I used golden yukon potatoes for the mash potatoes.  While the potatoes are cooking, I always like to throw some garlic, onion, milk, salt, pepper, and parsley in a saucepan and keep it simmering until the potatoes are done.  Always use warm milk and milk to mash with the potatoes.

The green beans were simple...garlic and shallots, toss in the green beans and add in the balsamic vinegar and toss it until it coats the green beans. 

Mother's Day-Asian Family Style Dinner

In honor of Mother's Day, I did a whole Asian family style dinner with several dishes.  When you go to an Asian restaurant, it is typically family style where you have like a ten course meal and everyone just shares everything.  I thought it would be fun to do something similar to this for my Mom today.

Our option was either to go eat somewhere or me cooking...what are the odds of me choosing the second option.  I woke up this morning and started planning a menu in my head.  I thought back on what are the typical dishes that we usually order at the restaurant and keeping my brother in mind since he is still on the no meat diet.  This is going to be a long post since there were 7 food items featured in tonight's menu.

Tonight's menu includes the following:

• Peking Ribs (Suon Kinh Do): This is one of my all time favorites when going out to eat growing up and till this day.
• Black Pepper Beef
• Chinese Lobster Stir Fry
• Steamed Tilapia
• Walnut Shrimp
• Pan Seared Scallop with an Asian Citrus reduction
• Bok Choy with Shiitake Mushroom

To many this may sound like alot of food, but I portioned everything so we would have just enough to eat. 

Here are the before pics:

Peking Ribs (Suon Kinh Do):

These are fried pork spareribs cut into bite size tossed in a peking sauce.  Best thing to do is ask your butcher to help you with this process.  I had a slab of St. Louis Ribs cut crosswise in 3 sections.  Since it is pork, season your pork and boil it half way through.  If you were to straight fry these, it will probably burn before it cooks all the way.  After you take it out the water, toss it with some tapioca flour and then drop it in some oil.  Once they are crispy, toss it with your peking sauce.  (I forgot what I had used to make the sauce).  To think, I grew up only getting to eat this once in a while and it is the most simple item to make.  

Black Pepper Beef:

This dish is typically served on a hot cast iron plate at the restaurants.  Since I do not have one, I had to make do.  This is another favorite dish of mine.  The best thing to do at the restaurant is to toss the sauce and onion with you jasmine rice.  This is my interpretation of the dish.  I lightly seasoned some skirt steak and set that aside.  This dish is best cooked and served with plenty of onion.  Slice up an onion and garlic and saute it.  Once it is cooked down, place it on a plate.  Now with your seasoned pan, quickly brown the skirt steak then set that aside again.  Deglaze the pan with some broth (I used chicken) and plenty of pepper and toss back in the onion and beef.  Hit it with a cornstarch slurry to thicken the sauce.  Let everything simmer to soak in all the flavors.  A couple minutes before, throw in long slices of green onion.

Chinese Lobster:

Now this was always a fun dish at the restaurants.  It is bite sized pieces of lobster with a delicious seasoning.  What I did with this dish was, sauteed some onion, garlic, green onion and ginger until it is fragrant.  Toss in your lobster pieces that is dusted tapioca starch to cook it.  For the sauce, I kind of made something up along the way.  I made a sauce consisted of bean cured, oyster sauce, mirin, and fish sauce.  When the lobster is half way cooked, hit it with the sauce and let it finish it off so the lobster takes in all the flavors of the sauce.  

Steamed Tilapia:

Typically this dish is served as a whole fish at the restaurants.  Since I did not have access to whole tilapia, I used the fillets that my Dad had bought in bulk.  This was a simple yet flavorful dish.  I used a lime, fish sauce, sesame oil, mirin and fresh ginger and garlic.  

Walnut Shrimp:

This is an interesting dish.  It is salty and sweet.  I only remember having this on a couple occasions, but it sounded really food for tonight.  If you think the steamed tilapia was simple, this may even be easier.  Devein and peel some shrimp and toss with tapioca starch and pan fry.  To make the sauce, whip up some mayo, condensed milk, honey, soy sauce, and toss in some walnuts.  When the shrimp is done, toss in the sauce.  Simple!

Pan Seared Scallops:

I thought this would have been just a great addition to the dinner.  I had made these a while back and enjoyed it.  Make a citrus marinade consisting of orange, lime, olive oil, sesame oil and a dash of fish sauce.  I used the zest of the fruits as well.  Let this marinade for a couple minutes.  Pan sear the scallops on both sides and then toss in the marinade until it reduces.  

Bok Choy:

Figured I would throw in the mix some vegetables to make myself feel better.  My Mom had some dried shiitake mushrooms that I had rehydrated.  Sauteed this with some onion and garlic and tossed in the bok choy until it cooks down.  I tossed in some chicken broth and oyster sauce to make a sauce for the stir fry.  

The dinner turned out great!  Better than I had anticipated.  Everything was dead on as far as flavor goes.  I have been wanting to do a dinner like this a for a little while so I have had some time kind of play with the recipes in my head.  Happy Mother's Day!

Chicken Boudin Roulade with Crispy Chicken Skin

Thought I would have a little bit of fun for dinner tonight.  I was going through my food pictures last night and ran across a boudin stuffed chicken I had made several months ago and that sounded delicious for dinner. 

I had some boudin my parents had given me and chicken breast with skin on I had deboned.  I peeled the skin off and set that aside.  The first fun part was flattening the chicken breast out.  I have a meat mallet, but it is so much more fun and easier to just use a pan and pound away!  Great way to take some anger out.  I lightly seasoned the chicken breast and the skin.

I took the boudin out of the casing and spread it evenly on the chicken and rolled it up.  I tied it up with some butchers twine to help keep it together during the cooking process. 

Now the other fun begins!  I used a butter and oil mix to pan fry the chicken  I threw in some fresh oregano as well.  I took the skin and started to slowly cook this down until it became similar to a pork rind.  I added the chicken roulade in as well so it can begin cooking.  Fearing that the chicken would not hold up after I take the twine off, I let the seam side of the roll crisp up to form a "burned" crust.  By the time the chicken skin became crisp, the chicken roulade was fully cooked as well. 

I set all this aside to rest so I can cut it without it all falling apart. 

With the same pan, I deglazed the pan with some chicken broth.  Keep in mind, the pan had all these delicious flavors from the butter and oregano and chicken juices from the chicken.  I added in some brown mustard and peach preserve and just let it cook down.  When I taste tested the sauce...it turned out delicious!  The sauce had so many different flavors going on.  Of course the sweet peach from the preserve and then you get a hint of "fried chicken" from the skin that was cooked in the butter & oil mix. 

I decided to have some fun with the plating of the Chicken Boudin Roulade as well.  I spread out some of the Peach glaze on the entire plate.  After the chicken had rested, I sliced it like a sushi roll and plated it like it as well.  The chicken skin was the last addition to this plate...I just added that to the front of the plate to highlight it.

I present to everyone...Chicken Boudin Roulade and Crispy Chicken Skin with a Peach Glaze.  This may been one of my most fun dishes to create.  Happy Eatings!!

Starting off the day right! Whole Wheat Blueberry Pancakes and Green Juice!

 

 

Well, I fell off the wagon the past couple weeks with my eating habits.  Not going to the gym and bad eating habits makes a big boy bigger!  Back on track I go! 

We had blueberries in the freezer that we had froze and it needed to be used.  I whipped up a pancake batter using whole wheat flour and AP Flour.  Unless you want blue pancakes (which I thought about) do not mix the batter and blueberries together because the blueberries will burst.  Add the blueberries once you have poured your batter onto the skillet. 

I have never been too big on syrup so I made a blueberry sauce for my pancakes.  I cooked this down and added a bit of Stevia to sweeten it a bit. 

Onto the protein.  I pan fried a couple eggs.  While the eggs were cooking, I got the bright idea of taking the jalapeno turkey lunch meat and rolled it up with some jalapeno jack cheese and threw that on the pan with the eggs.

Now this next part may not be for everyone, but I promise, over time it grows on you.  Making of the Green Juice!  Basically whatever greens you want throw it in the blender with water (or any liquid) and blend away.  This morning, the blend included: Kale, cucumber, apples, kiwi, carrots, parsley, cilantro andddddddd ginger!  Now when drinking this, you want to stir and drink at the same time.