Adventures in Cooking...Mariscos in Hard Cider

Last Christmas Nick's parents got me the Trader Joe's Cookbook. I have been consistently cooking through it this year and love it. Here is a recipe that I tried the other night. I didn't have every ingredient the recipe called for (original recipe was shrimp in hard cider) so here are my improvisations. Be-aware there is a fire show below!

Mariscos in Hard Cider
Ingredients:
1/2 Bag Trader Joe's Mariscos seafood mix (calamari, scallops, shrimp)
1 Tablespoon Butter
2 Cloves garlic, minced
1/4 Cup Brandy (I had EJ Gallo VSOP)
1 Cup Hard Cider (I used Trader Joe's Newtons Folly red)
Salt and Pepper

Directions:
1) In a large pan heat the butter and saute the garlic until fragrant.

2) Add the mariscos and saute until cooked through (about 5 minutes).
3) Remove mariscos to a bowl.
4) Add brandy to pan, then flambe to burn off alcohol.

5) Add the cider and bring to a boil.
6) Reduce heat and simmer until mixture is reduced to half.
7) Add back the mariscos for 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

8) Add to your favorite rice (I served this over my Roasted Corn and Basil Cauliflower rice)

Note: The meal was delicous, but as you can tell the mariscos mixture was a bit soupy. Next time I could cook the frozen mariscos first, then 2 minutes before they were ready drain the water off and add the butter and garlic to saute.

Adventures in Cooking...Gluten Free Apricot, Cherry, Walnut Muffins

First I have to say, it is SO nice to have my gifted Kitchen Aid mixer back.

Isn't she a beauty?

Okay, maybe she looks a bit sad, and odd colored. Well she is, she was the HOT Kitchen Aid for the 70s. My mom received it as a wedding present and I was informed that the cream color was the IT color of the time and the only color my dad wanted. I think it's fantastic and totally retro. I just love it. In college I was misdiagnosed as having celiac disease. At the time it was just becoming known and there were not many baked goods around. So my mom gifted me her mixer so that I could at least make some baked goods from the meager supply of mixes stores offered. Over the years it has moved with me and gone back to my mom's at least once, until now. I finally have the room to have it and am so excited.

After 5 years of eating gluten free, and many doctor's tests later I found out that I'm only slightly intolorent, yay! However, the past few years have been hard, as I went back fairly quickly to a gluten heavy diet and noticed that I was sluggish again. So I have decided that I will try to be gluten free with my baked goods at home (mostly) and in home made sandwiches and only eat gluten out. Since I got the mixer I decided to start with some muffins. Plus, now I don't have to buy one when I'm at a coffee shop studying, I can just pack in my own and save some money.

Here is my recipe for Gluten Free Apricot, Cherry, Walnut Muffins

Ingredients:
1 Box King Arthur Flower Gluten Free Muffin Mix (this one happened to have a vanilla base)
6 Tbs Melted Butter
3/4 Cup Milk
3 Eggs
1 Cup dried Apricots, Cherries, Walnuts, diced, evenly split (1/3 each)

Directions:
1) Prepare muffin tin (spray or put in muffin cups)
2) Preheat oven to 375
3) Mix Eggs, Melted butter, Mix in mixer on medium
4) Slowly pour in milk
5) Add in Apricots, Cherries, and Walnuts
6) Pour into muffin pan
7) Bake for 18-22 minutes
8) Let cool and enjoy
This recipe makes 12 large muffins

Note: Next time I would make 16 smaller muffins as there was a lot of mix and I like smaller muffins. You can add in fresh fruit like blueberries or raspberries or other dried fruit or poppy seeds.

Adventures in Cooking...Cauliflower Rice

This is one of three favorite cauliflower recipes that I have (other recipes to come soon). Cauliflower is low in fat and packed with fiber, water, and vitamin C. It's a great addition on any meal, almost. For over 20 years I thought there were only 2 ways to eat cauliflower, raw, yuck, or steamed, okay but not that great. This year I stumbled (with Nick's help) on 3 fantastic cauliflower recipes. Now we eat more of the stuff than ever.

As some of you know Nick loves listening to NPR, and one day he was listening to Splendid Table and discovered that you could make cauliflower rice. It's super simple and an easy replacement for rice in meals, and a great way to sneak in veggies to someone who doesn't like veggies.

Here is a simple way to make cauliflower rice.

What you need:
1/2 head cauliflower
Cheese grater or food processor with a grater tool (much easier, less chance of nicking the fingers since cauliflower breaks easily)
Microwave safe bowl
Saran wrap

Instructions:
1) Grate the cauliflower

You DON'T need to add any water, cauliflower is packed with water and it is enough to cause the rice to steam, if you add water you will get soggy rice :(
2) Place in microwave safe bowl
3) Cover with Saran wrap and place in microwave
4) Microwave on high for 3 minutes

5) Carefully remove (the bowl will be hot), remove Saran wrap (careful the steam can burn)
6) Add any other ingredients you want and serve as a side dish or the main meal.

Here I added Trader Joe's frozen roasted corn, basil, sea salt and pepper.

Some other ideas are chopped green onions, chives, other herbs, diced tomatoes, the possibilities are endless.

Adventures in cooking...Butchering

Nick and I have found that if you buy a large steak (about 20lbs) from Costco and butcher it yourself you can have at least 20 meals for about $40 to $70 depending on the type of steak you buy. We like to cut it up in to steaks, cubes and carne. Here are a few photos of our (or rather Nick's butchering adventure, I just wrap it up for the freezer). When we want steak I just pull out one of the wrapped steaks (we wrap up two steaks at a time) and put it in the fridge to de-thaw.

Adventures in Cooking...Camping Menu

We spent 3 days camping and I was pretty impressed that we didn't have much spoilage or too many left overs. I am learning how to ration and pack better. I am going to share our camping menu with you, maybe some items will make it on your next trip. I'm sorry I don't have more food photos, next time I will be more diligent in taking photos.

Day 1

Lunch- Stopped at In-and-Out Burger (my road trip favorite)

Appetizer- Guacamole and chips

Make the guac at home and put in a plastic container. I made mine with 2 avocados, 1/2 white onion- diced, 1/4 cup diced jalapenos, and a squirt of lime and some pepper. Leave the pits in the dish as they will help by keeping browning away.

Dinner- at the campsite, consisted of wood BBQed Steaks and garlic-pepper potatoes (both purchased at Meat House) 

We bought the potatoes already seasoned but you could easily prepare them before hand and just wrap in foil to put on the BBQ.

Desert- S more's, yumm. 

I guess August is National S more's month, at least that's what the grocery store person told me.

Beverages- Water, Beer (Tecate for Nick), and Wine (I found this lovely Spanish red at Albertson's for $20, it was pretty good for a box and great for camping)

Day 2

Breakfast- Coffee (Nick), Tea (Katie), bacon and scrambled eggs. 

Hint if you do the bacon first you and eggs right after they cook in the bacon fat and taste so much better.

Lunch- Cut up veggies and hummus dip. Chicken salad sandwiches with jalapeno cheddar.

I made the chicken salad before hand and put in a Tupperware. Then I assembled the sandwiches that morning and put in plastic baggies for the car ride. My chicken salad recipe was 2 cans chicken from Costco, 3 sticks celery diced, 1/2 red bell pepper diced, 2 carrot sticks diced, and 1/4 cup light mayonnaise. 

Appetizers- Oysters at Ah Shucks and Calamari at The Tap Room

Dinner- Spinach fettuccine, basil pesto, and meatballs.

We cooked the meatballs on the grill, they turned out great.

Dessert- S more's

Beverages- Water, Tecate, Wine

Day 3

Breakfast- French toast, Coffee, Tea

Lunch- Guac and chips, Chicken salad, cheese and crackers

Dinner- Wedding food!

After wedding- Garlic bread and meatballs

Beverages- Water, Tecate, Wine

Day 4

Breakfast- Bacon and Scrambled onion and cheese Eggs with Avocado, coffee and tea

This time we cut up some green onions (from the cut veggie snack on Day 2) and some cheese and scrambled them up with the eggs. Also had a fresh avo to slice over the eggs.

Lunch- Firestone's, yummy

Adventures in Cooking....Grilled steak sandwiches with Chimichurri Sauce (Argentine style)

My favorite place in Argentina was this road side lunch stand. They served the best sandwich de vacio or steak sandwich with grilled egg, onion, cheese and chimichurri sauce. I loved it so much I would plan my weekends so that I would be in the Palermo area so that I could eat one, and I took every one I knew (Nick when he visited and new kids from the internship program) to the place. I have to say it was by far my favorite thing to eat in Argentina. Since Nick and I butchered up a bunch of steaks not long ago (post on this soon), I have had quite a few steaks in the freezer and decided it was time to make my favorite sandwich.

So here you go.

Argentina style steak sandwich. 

For 2 people you need.

2 fresh sourdough rolls sliced in half

2 thin cuts of steak

Some medium cut onion rounds

Jack cheese

Montreal steak seasoning

2 fried eggs

Season the steaks with Montreal seasoning. BBQ the steaks and onions regularly, add the cheese to the steaks when you have 2 minutes left of grilling time. Add the roles to the BBQ to get crispy.

While you are BBQing fry the 2 eggs.

Assemble the sandwich (bread, steak, cheese, onion, egg, chimichurri (see below for recipe), bread). 

Chimichurri Sauce

The original recipe I used needed to be tweaked quite a bit, my version is below.

1 bunch fresh parsley

2 bay leaves

3 tablespoons minced garlic

1 1/2 teaspoons smoked paprika

1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 small white onion

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (definitely not Argentine, but I like spice)

Put all ingredients into a food processor, chop until you have a smooth sauce with small pieces of parsley visible. This made about 1 1/2 cups of sauce. I recommend putting what you won't eat up in 2 weeks (it will go bad, even in the fridge) in an ice cube tray in the freezer and to pull out a cube and de-thaw as needed. 

I hope you enjoy, preferably with a glass of Malbec, we did!

The artichokes were to get some green in the meal...

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Adventures in cooking...Baking sweet potato fries

Have you ever tried to bake fries at home, only to have them 1) raw or 2) burned? I have until I stumbled across a baking tip (I don't remember where I found it) that said to pre-boil your fries before baking, this will soften them up and help them to not burn while baking, they also come out with pretty good fry consistency. It is really easy, you just need about an hour of time (but you can read a book, clean, cook the rest of the dinner, while these puppies are baking).

Ingredients:

2 large sweet potatoes

Spray olive oil

Butter - to season (optional)

Lava salt- to season (or what ever you like on your fries)

First:

Cut the sweet potatoes into fry sticks (1/4 in thick worked best)

Second: 

Place in boiling water for about 12 minutes

Third:

Spray cookie sheet with olive oil (I like to spray tin foil so I don't have to scrub the baking sheet) then spread out your fries evenly on the sheet. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes at 450 degrees, flipping fries half way through to brown on all sides.

Fourth:

Season how you would like (or you can season half way through baking time), serve (we had lettuce wrapped cheese and avocado burgers), and enjoy!

Adventures in cooking...Inventive beach BBQing

 

Nick and I spent a lovely Saturday afternoon/evening this weekend surfing out at San Onofre State Beach. The waves were small but the water was balmy almost 70 degrees and trunk-able/ swim suit-able. It was nice to get out in the water without a wetsuit. We couldn't remember if Old Man's had BBQs or just fire pits, so instead of purchasing a tiny charcoal BBQ at Home Depot (we debated it while we were there getting herb garden stuff earlier in the day) we decided that the beach had them....WRONG! So after surfing we decided we still wanted to BBQ at the beach so we got inventive. 

 Here are the tales of our inventive BBQ and how to recreate it...
Step 1: Find a Fire pit
Step 2: Find some thin flat rocks (San O has plenty of these at the water line)
Step 3: Wash/dry your rocks and light your charcoal
Step 4: Lay the rocks out over the hot charcoal
Step 5: Cook your food on top of the rock! Ingenious and since some of the food had marinades/butter the rocks also got seasoned for the meat....

First we started  with corn (with garlic butter)

Then Asparagus (with cilantro lime marinade)

Then the meat (juicy kabob)

Now enjoy the sunset.... Such a great night.

Wrapped up with desert (Lava cake) at Hapa J's our favorite San Clemente and post San O surf restaurant. 

Cool Wine Serving Idea

I had a much needed girls night this weekend (complete with a burger and wine dinner, followed up with some sweet dancing to a live band at Perqs in HB, and yes we were some of the youngest patrons in the crowd but had so much fun). Sorry I don't have photos from the night and/or don't want to embarrass any friends....

We had dinner at 25 degrees in HB and they served the wine by the glass, 16oz or very large carafe! I thought it was a great idea, and the wines were really decent, while the girls went for the Riesling I went for the French Rose (16oz obviously!) and and was very satisfied, especially since it was a warm evening. I might serve my wine this way at my next party.

Adventures in cooking...Zucchini boats with caramelized tomatoes

I grew up with 2 parents who were very competent cooks, if not gourmet chefs, but somewhere between leaving home and now I never seemed to have their ingenuity and skill with cooking. The last year I have had more time off work than Nick, which has led me into the kitchen. I have learned that cooking is a soothing end to the hectic day and that I love every aspect of it, especially since I mostly cook with a glass or wine or beer... Occasionally I will share a great recipe or meal I tried out. I tried this one last week, it was surprisingly easy and was delicious.


Nick's parents gave us a ton of fresh veggies from their garden, so I went in search of a fun recipe to use them. I came across this Martha Stewart recipe for stuffed Zucchini, and boy was it good. I did adapt the recipe to my skills and veggie liking, the adaptations are noted in *.


Ingredients:
3 zucchini, halved lengthwise
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 onion, coarsely chopped
4oz Mediterranean* feta cheese (with herbs)
2 whole tomatoes cut thinly*
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar*


Time: just over an hour to make


Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Using a tablespoon, scoop out zucchini centers to form "canoes," leaving a 1/4-inch border. Roughly chop centers; set aside. 
2. Arrange zucchini, cut sides down, on a rimmed baking sheet; bake 15 minutes. Remove from oven. Turn oven down to 375*
3. Spray cookie sheet with olive oil. Lay down thin tomato slices, coat with balsamic. Place in over for 30-40 minutes at 375. Every 10 minutes baste with more balsamic. Tomatoes are done when caramelized.*
   

   

   
   

4. Meanwhile, heat oil in a large skillet over medium. Add onion; cook, stirring, until soft, 3 to 5 minutes. Add chopped zucchini, and cook, stirring, until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat; let cool slightly. Fold in feta. 

5. Turn hollowed-out zucchini cut sides up, fill with vegetable-feta mixture, and bake until top is lightly browned, about 20 minutes.

6. Top zucchini boats with caramelized tomatoes.*  Lift zucchini from baking sheet with a wide spatula, and serve.

The recipe calls for chopping cherry tomatoes up and adding to the zucchini boat mixture, but Nick and I are not a huge fan of tomatoes, and I didn't think we would really eat them if I cooked them this way. We both just discovered that we WILL eat deliciously caramelized tomatoes, so I just adapted the recipe for the way we would actually eat the tomatoes. I think it turned out much better and gave the zucchinis a sweet and tangy compliment. I thought they kind of tasted like zucchini pizza boats (but much healthier than pizza). I served the zucchini boats with some sausages to round out the meal.