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If there is actually anyone out there following my blog, I'm going to be temporarily halting posts due to me not being able to put in the full effort that you guys deserve!  As of late, I have pretty much just been posting recipes and not including much else.  I owe it to myself and to you all to wait until I have adequate time to dedicate to the blog until I start up again.

Thanks!

Slow Cooker Moroccan Chicken with Orange Rice

This recipe comes from the newest addition to my cookbook collection.  I got it from an antique store Nick and I went to a few weeks ago, despite the fact that there is nothing antique about it!  It just happened to be sitting on a table full of other cookbooks, of course I had to look through nearly the whole table until I found the perfect one.  It is the Low-Salt Cookbook from the American Heart Association.  I was paging through the recipes and found myself wanting to try nearly all of them!  Because the recipes are all about reducing the sodium in your diet, they use a variety of herbs, spices, and other flavorings....something the average American's palate is not used to!  I think this book is great at showing how easy it is to cook with herbs and spices to give flavor to dishes without adding salt.  The first recipe I made was the Slow Cooker Moroccan Chicken with Orange Couscous (except I used rice instead).

The recipe looked intimidating at first with a long list of ingredients, but was fairly simple to whip up considering you just throw most of the ingredients into the crockpot and let it go! The slow cooker chicken and sauce turned out sweeter than I was anticipating, but makes sense because the recipe includes cinnamon, brown sugar, dried apricots, dried plums, raisins, balsamic vinegar, and sweet white wine (probably should use dry next time!).  At the same time it has a spicy kick because there is cayenne pepper. The other ingredients were ginger, cumin, carrot, onion, garbanzo beans, garlic, and chicken.

First start by spraying a crock pot with nonstick spray, then layering in the chopped onions and carrots (1).  On top of that layer the cubed chicken (2), and on top of that the chopped apricots, plums, and raisins (3).  Don't stir the mixture.  In a separate bowl, mix vinegar and flour until smooth, and then add the wine.  Whisk in the rest of the seasonings (brown sugar, garlic, cumin, cinnamon, ginger, and cayenne pepper) and mix well. Pour this mixture over the crock pot ingredients and cover without stirring (4).

Cook on high for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, or on low for 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 hours.  When the time is up, add the rinsed and drained garbanzo beans and stir.  Cover and cook for an additional 10 minutes until they are fully heated through.

In the last half hour before the crock pot is done cooking, start your rice by combining the rice, orange juice, and water in a frying pan.  Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and cover.  Simmer for the designated amount of time on the package.

Serve chicken mixture over a bed of orange rice.

For the full recipe and nutrition information, click HERE.

I want to share this song that I have always enjoyed from the movie Uptown Girls.  It's called "Charmed Life" by Leigh Nash.

Thanks for stopping by!

Gotta Have Another Slice, Banana Bread

Dear Lord, I think it is almost gluttonous how much I loved this banana bread after making it and trying it for the first time last week.  Of course it started out by having a few too many bananas that got over ripe, and also just happening to have all the other ingredients needed for this recipe from my boyfriends grandma. I had a big slice an hour after it came out of the oven, and wouldn't you know it I found myself digging for a second slice within the half hour. I felt like I could have eaten the entire loaf right then and there.  It was THAT good. The crisp outside with the soft and moist inside...plus it's a flavor bomb!  I'll just skip to the chase and say you seriously need to try this bread if you are at all a fan of banana bread.

For the recipe and nutrition information, click HERE.

Here is "Stars" by Fun. Hopefully one you haven't heard yet if you've only heard the singles. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Caprese Pasta with a Kick

So simple, yet so delicious.  I guess you could say this is a sort of spin on lasagna.  But there are definitely distinct differences.  You see, I had these gourmet type rigatoni noodles, made from tomato, spinach, carrot, and red beet, and have been saving them since Christmas (thanks again Katrina! :D).  It was something like THIS...Maccheroni, though, instead of Misto. I had been thinking all along that I wanted to stuff them...with something...just didn't know what!  Well, cheese is always a good option I think.  But once I started cooking the noodles, I noticed they were some that were broken and torn, and it would be a very delicate and trying task to stuff every single one of them. :P So instead I made a pasta bake and just mixed the cheese WITH the noodles rather than IN the noodles! It turned out very tasty.

This is perfect to make in the summer with fresh tomatoes, basil, and spinach from the garden.  The tomatoes aren't quite ripe yet here, so I just used some store bought ones.  After they are washed and dried, mix together the basil and spinach.  Chop the mixture finely.  Also dice the tomatoes and strain them to get most of the juice and seeds out (perhaps Roma tomatoes would work nicely). Place the tomatoes, spinach, and basil in a large bowl, adding the cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese, egg, and red pepper flakes (if it's garden season you could try jalapenos or another hot pepper instead!).  Pour the mixture into the bottom of a greased 9x13 baking dish.

Spread 2 cups of spaghetti sauce (or your own homemade pasta sauce) over the noodle mixture.  Sprinkle with the Italian seasoning blend, and sprinkle with the remaining mozzarella.

Bake for 20-25 minutes at 425 degrees Fahrenheit. For the full recipe and nutrition information, click HERE.

The song today is "Code Monkey" by Jonathan Coulton. (PS-If you're reading this Matt, it's your theme song :P Nick says so. Haha.)

Thanks for stopping by!

BBB: Blackberry Basil Buckle

Adapted from Alexandria's Kitchen for the buckle idea, and my cousin Katrina (via Ally's Kitchen) for the blackberry and basil combo! Plus a little bit of my own experimentation. :)

As I said, I got the idea for the combination of blackberries and basil from my cousin Katrina. She is looking for wedding cake alternatives, and liked the idea of the two together, so she asked me if I would be willing to experiment with it to make a bar-type dessert.  What a great excuse for me to be in the kitchen, right?! :D

So I set out on my adventure to experiment with baking recipes...something I have always thought never to do because it is so precise, and easy to mess up!  But I decided to just jump right in.  I found a rhubarb buckle recipe that had a nice bottom crust and crumble topping, so I just thought I would replace the rhubarb part with blackberries and basil.  Simple enough right?

I started out by making the crust first, because it needs to chill for at least an hour before using it.  Whisk together the flour and sugar in a bowl, then cut in the chilled and chunked butter, blending with a pastry blender until it has a coarse texture and pea size chunks of butter left (a little bit finer than the picture, some of those chunks are a little big yet).  In a separate bowl, combine the heavy cream and egg and beat well, then stir it into the dry ingredients and gently knead (with floured hands if its sticking) until a dough forms.  Flatten the dough ball into a disk and chill for at least an hour.  If you don't have heavy cream, you can substitute 1.5 tbsp milk and 1/2 tbsp. butter, tempered together.  This will work with any recipe that calls for heavy cream in baking, as long as it doesn't need to be whipped.

In the meantime, collect your basil, blackberries, and lemon, washing and drying them all well.  The basil I used came straight from the garden so it had extra dirt on it, so I placed it in a bowl of water and swirled it around to let all the dirt sink to the bottom while the leaves float.  Then I set them out on a paper towel, patting them with another towel to dry them. Alternately, if the basil is store bought, you could rinse and dry it in a salad spinner.  This method just works well if there is a lot of excess dirt on the leaves.  Also prepare the lemon zest for the fruit mixture.  I don't have a micro-plane to grate the lemon, so I used a regular cheese grater and it worked just fine.

Chop the basil into medium size pieces, and combine in a bowl with the blackberries, lemon zest, and sugar. Stir well and mash the blueberries slightly.  Let it sit for a while (in this case until time to use it in the bars), allowing the mixture to macerate.  You can stir it every once in a while to aid in that process.

To make the crumb topping, simply mix together the flour, brown sugar, and salt.  Then add the softened butter and mesh with your hands until it is clumpy. Mine didn't end up very clumpy so I am contemplating the implications.  It was still yummy, but I wonder if using all white flour instead of half and  half would help with this....perhaps next time I make it, the crust will be 100% whole wheat and the crumb topping will be 100% all purpose flour...

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a 9x9 baking dish with parchment paper, pressing down into the corners and edges.  Take the the dough out of the fridge after an hour minimum, and place it in the center of the dish and flatten it, pressing all around the sides and edges to make sure the dough is evenly spread into the corners and center (I contemplated if it would be better to chill the dough for a half hour, then do this step, then chill it again once its pressed into the pan....that will be another modification I will make next time I try it!).  Then spread the fruit mixture on the crust, topping with the crumble.  Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 400 degrees, then reduce the heat to 350 and bake for an additional 25 minutes.

The buckle will be golden brown on top with the fruit mixture bubbling through slightly.  Let sit for about 15 minutes before doing anything with it. It will be too soft to pull the parchment paper out yet.  After the resting period, pull buckle out of the dish and cut into squares. :) Each bar should come out fairly clean, with a solid crust.

Yummy!  I would have never thought of mixing basil and blackberries, but this one is definitely going in the recipe box to make in the future! I had to sneak 2 pieces right away because it was so good. :) For the full recipe and nutritional information, click HERE.

Another chill song...this time from the band Cocoon, called "Owls."

Thanks for stopping by!

A Multicultural Feast: Take Two!

This week was packed full of even more cultural presentations, and thus even more food! We started out the week by covering the different regional areas of the United States, including Alaska (Salmon Dip), Northeast/Mid-Atlantic (Cheddar Apple Pie), South East (Mississippi Okra and Tomatoes), South Atlantic (Ambrosia), South West (Shrimp Po' Boy Sandwich), and the West (Island Mango Tilapia).  Then we moved on to more ethnic groups, including African American (Baked Macaroni and Cheese), Greek (Moussaka), French (Macarons), Hmong (Tapioca with Coconut Milk), Mexican (Chicken Chimichangas), Scandinavian (Lingonberry Muffins), Caribbean (Fried Plantains), German (Apple Dumplings), Chinese (Stir Fry Tomato and Eggs), Native American (Fry Bread), Filipino (Pineapple and Coconut Curry), and Japanese (Yakisoba)!

Ambrosia

Macarons

Yakisoba

Multicultural Foods class is foodie heaven! And even my teacher could tell how much I was enjoying myself.  After my presentation on Greece, the first thing she said was something along the lines of, "I think we can all tell you really love food!" Haha. What can I say...am I that transparent?! I guess I might have been just a little overenthusiastic. But how can I help myself? I have had so much fun these past two weeks and have met some wonderful people, like my new friend Abby (turns out she has a food blog too! check her out at http://thetickledpinkturnip.blogspot.com/)!

Shrimp Po Boy Sandwich

Apple Tart with Cheddar Cheese

Okra and Tomatoes

So, again, I wanted to share some of the recipes and experiences with you all from this week.  I'd like to say I'm pretty adventurous when it comes to trying foods, and I will rarely ever not try something at least once.  However there were a lot of things we made this week that I had never had before.  The Alaskan Salmon Dip being the first.  It consisted of smoked salmon, lemon juice, onion, horseradish (which I am normally not a fan of!), garlic, capers (also have never tried these...and I will admit I have been slightly scared of them. Something in the name made me think they were going to be hard and spicy, kind of like those little seeds that are in pizza sausage!), mayonnaise, cream cheese, salt and pepper, and pecans and parsley for garnishing.  Everything basically just gets mixed together and eaten with crackers or chips.  So the horseradish and capers were the reason I was leery about this one at first. but the horseradish was not even noticeable, and the capers were a nice surprise!  In fact they weren't crunchy at all. Haha. I have no clue where I got that idea from.

Alaskan Salmon Dip

I would definitely make it again, some changes I would make to make it more healthful are: Substitute olive oil mayo for regular mayo and add less of it, Substitute Neufchatel cheese  for regular cream cheese. With those substitutions, it is a dip that is actually not half bad for you. Granted you probably shouldn't eat it every day, but the salmon is high in health omega 3 fatty acids, and the chopped nuts (whether you use pecans, walnuts or almonds, are also full of healthy fats.

I can see this is already turning into something longer than I would like, so I will just talk about the Greek Moussaka and then get to the recipes for the rest, because that's the important part right?!  So, Moussaka (pronounced moo-sah-KAH) is a very popular dish in Greece, the origins of which are fuzzy....I think it came from the Arabs to the Turks, and then from the Turks to the Greeks.  But nevertheless, it made its way to Greece and became very common.  It is a layered dish that is precooked ahead of time, and then baked in the oven to further develop the flavors (similar to lasagna in that way!).  The recipe we used was from Simply Recipes and can be found HERE.

Moussaka

Ours didn't look as pretty as the picture, But it sure tasted good! :)  So, for the layers...they consist of potatoes, eggplant, spiced lamb meat sauce, more eggplant, cheese, bechamel (pronounced bay-sha-mel), and more cheese!  The meat sauce has a plethora of different flavors going on, which really give this dish something unique I think. There is cinnamon, allspice, oregano, garlic, black pepper, salt, onion, red wine, lemon, and tomato paste!  All of the layers took a while to prepare and put together, however it was definitely worth it, because it was really good and it was something new and unique that nobody had ever tried before. I know that I'll be putting it in my recipe book.

The recipes for the Salmon Dip and the rest of the above dishes can be found through the links below:

U.S. Regional Recipes
Salmon Dip - Alaska
Ambrosia - Florida
Cheddar Apple Pie - Vermont
Okra and Tomatoes - Mississippi
Shrimp Po' Boy Sandwich - Louisiana
Island Mango Tilapia - Hawaii

Ethnic Group Recipes
Baked Macaroni and Cheese - African American
Moussaka (includes nutrition information)- Greek
Macarons - French
Tapioca with Coconut Milk - Hmong
Chicken Chimichangas - Mexican
Lingonberry Muffins - Scandinavian
Fried Plantains - Caribbean
Apple Dumplings - German
Stir Fry Tomato and Eggs - Chinese
Fry Bread - Native American
Pineapple Coconut Curry - Filipino
Yakisoba - Japanese

Try a few!

I actually was obsessing over this song a couple months back when I heard it at a wedding, but I just found it in my iTunes library again today and thought I would share it.  Plus it fits with the theme this week because Enrique is Spanish. :P  Enjoy "Finally Found You" by Enrique Iglesias.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Multicultural Feast

Who here loves ethnic food and trying new things? I know I do! I have been absolutely loving being in my Multicultural Foods class for the past week.  I almost wish it were longer than just two weeks! In the first week, we covered Greek, Pakistani, Korean, and Norwegian foods. Every day we get to cook and sample cuisine from other cultures.  I have already learned so much in this class, and the food has been amazing!

The Greek foods we made were Greek Salad, Spanakopita, Hummus, Greek Chicken, Tzatziki, Pita bread, and Baklava.  I am especially fond of Mediterranean food, so I really enjoyed this day.  I had never had Spanakopita or baklava before, and I had no experience with making pita bread.  Spanakopita is a spinach and cheese pie made with either fresh or frozen spinach, feta cheese, and phyllo dough (if you've never had it, you're missing out!).  You layer the phyllo dough at the bottom of a pan and brush it with butter, and then lay in a wilted spinach and cheese mixture, then cover it with more phyllo dough and brush with butter, and bake it.

Spanakopita

Baklava is similar to Spanakopita in that it involves layering phyllo dough and putting a filling in between the layers.  There are many more layers to Baklava, though, and the filling is a mixture of nuts and spices. The Greek version traditionally uses just walnuts, but you could make it with any combination of nuts.  Once the layers are put together for the Baklava, it is cut into small triangles and then baked, and when it is done, you pour a sugar and honey mixture over it.  You really only need one small square because this dessert is so rich!  The last thing I will say about the Greek food was that making the pita bread was a lot of fun.  You make somewhat of a regular yeast bread dough, but you form it into smaller balls and then roll it out with a rolling pin, and bake it flat.  If you do it right, it puffs up like a balloon and then deflates when it cools, but it leaves a large pocket on the inside to stuff other ingredients into it! I won't go into too much detail about the other dishes we made, but I have page with all the recipes listed HERE.

Baklava

The Pakistani foods we made were Rasmalai, Butter Chicken, Chapati, and Mixed Vegetable Pulao.  All of these dishes incorporated many spices, as they are used in their all of their cooking.  A dish without seasonings is seen as a dish without flavor! Rasmalai is a dessert that is normally served cold. Traditionally, you use Indian Cheese (although we used ricotta), mixed with sugar, and form it into balls.  Then you create a mixture of heavy cream, half and half, sugar, and cardamom in a saucepan and bring it to a boil.  The cheese balls are dropped in the boiling mixture to cook and then chilled until serving time.

Ras Malai

Butter Chicken is seasoned with a type of curry that includes Garam Masala, Fenugreek, Tandoori, and many other spices.  It was a flavor that I cannot even describe or compare to anything else I've ever tasted, but it was so good!  Chapati a type of whole wheat flat griddle bread that is eaten every day, and is used to pick up food.  It is made in a similar manner to the pita bread, however it does not use any yeast, and it is fried in a dry pan rather than in the oven.  The Veggie Pulao was also delicious, and it was just a mixture of vegetables with basmati rice and spices and seasonings. All of the recipes we used can be found HERE.

Butter Chicken/

We also made several Korean dishes, including Bi-Bim-Bop (Beef and Mixed Vegetable Rice), Bul-Go-Gi (Marinated Beef), Jap-Chae (Vermicelli Noodles), Dae-Ji Bul-Go-Gi (Marinated Spicy Pork), and Yu-Bu-Cho-Bap (Seasoned Fried Bean Curd Slice).  My favorites were the spicy marinated pork and the marinated beef.  The first four recipes can be found at http://www.trifood.com/ by navigating through the side links, and the Fried Tofu can be found at http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/yubuchobap.

Bul-Go-Gi

Dae-Ji Bul-Go-Gi

Lastly, the only Norwegian food we made was Lefse, and it was something I had never heard of (It seems as if I am in the dark on cultural foods! I definitely need to change that.).  It is basically a type of potato pancake.  You boil your potatoes and then rice them, adding butter, sugar, salt, heavy cream, and flour to form a dough.  You then roll the dough out as thin as possible, while still allowing yourself to be able to handle the rolled dough.  It is then placed on a dry skillet and fried for a minute or two on each side.  It is traditionally served with butter and brown sugar, but other toppings, whether sweet or savory, could be used.  A recipe for Lefse can be found HERE.

Lefse

Nick just showed me a Russian band called Leningrad, and I liked one of their songs (despite the fact that I don't know what they're singing about! :P).  But this song reminded me of Pinocchio for some reason. Haha. Don't ask.  But here it is! "Fish" by Leningrad.

Thanks for stopping by!