Life, food, family, friends…
During our recent trip to Idaho my bro and sis-in-law invited us over for a fresh trout dinner at their place. I hadn’t had trout for a really long time and was looking forward to it. The day before, my bro had gone out fishing and caught lots of fishies. So anywho, on to the pictures!
Mmmmm……makes me want to go fishing (as long as someone else kills the fish!).
Mmmmmmm…..
I love this salad and Chanin makes it really well! But, then again, she makes everything really well!
Here are the basic ingredients:
I’ve always loved my Grandma’s chile (chee-leh as she says) but usually have to go long periods without it since we don’t all live near each other. I’m actually lucky enough to have two Grandmas who make excellent chile. So, on a recent visit to Grandma Becky’s we brought home a jar and promptly gobbled it up. We figured it was time we tried to make it on our own. After firming up a few details with the Grams we hit the store and bought all of the goodies. Chanin is an excellent cook/chef so she improvised a little to make it her own.
I roasted those bad boys on the grill as the first step.
The house smelled really good after bringing the veggies back inside. I’m not too clear on the rest of the steps but after much blending and seasoning Chanin produced an excellent chile. I know she wants to try a few more things to tweak the recipe but I’m sure it will become a family recipe.
Here are a few pictures from some of our recent grill experiences. These were taken a little while ago but I’ve been slackin’ on the website duties.
First up is our rotisserie chicken. This was actually our second attempt. Both times it turned out really good but next time we think we’re going to brine the bird first. That should give it some more flavor internally. The meat turned out really tender and juicy but just not a ton of flavor, except for the skin.
To accompany the chicken I decided to try grilling some artichokes. I was inspired by the recipe I saw in my new grilling cookbook (Thanks Phil and Angela!). Well, it didn’t work. They looked pretty good but were really rubbery and tough. Actually, I couldn’t even pull a leaf off to eat. Oh well, I may try again but cook them longer and make sure they have enough moisture in them.
Next, we have some beef and veggie kebabs. Chanin made a really good marinade for the meat (london broil) and we added different types of peppers, onions, and pineapple (Thanks Phil and Angela again!). They were “da bomb” as the kids say these days (do they still say that?).
To go along with our nice new backyard we finally went out and bought a new grill. After a lot of research I had the choice narrowed down to a Weber gas grill or one from Sam’s Club. They both had good reviews but the grill from Sam’s came with more features for the price.
I’ll get a picture of our grill soon but for now here’s a picture from the Sam’s website.
Here are some of the important “deets:”
To “break in” the new grill we bought some T-bone steaks, potatos, zucchini, and squash. I seared those bad boys on the infrared sear burner but wasn’t successful with the grill marks. I’ll have to keep working on that. I also grilled up the veggies to eat on the side. Everything was really good and it make a perfect first meal for our grill.
Since then we’ve cooked fish a few times, chicken, pork, and some more steaks. Everything has turned out pretty darn good and I’m having fun learning how to cook on a gas grill. In the past I’ve only cooked on a charcoal grill but cooking with gas is just so much easier. I’ll still go back to the charcoal for some things but probably not too often. I’ll post more about my grilling adventures as they happen.
OK, just catching up here. So here goes a few posts that we’ve been too busy to write!
————————————————————————————–
So, we ended up back in Southern California for Easter, partially because I had some customer work to do in San Diego. We figured we would just drive out there so we could spend some time visiting our families and hanging our for a bit.
We celebrated Easter at Chanin’s parent’s house with lots of family and food. Of course, I forgot to take pictures of all of the food but we had ham, potato cheese casserole, yams (with marshmallows), corn, deviled eggs, and lots more! I can’t seem to remember what else we had but I assure you it was a FEAST!
I was charged with making dessert and decided to make carrot cake since it seemed “Eastery.” I love carrot cake and hadn’t made it before so I scoured the ‘net for recipes and found one that looked good on Chowhound. My bro and sis in law suggested cupcakes since they’d be easier to eat so I went with that approach. I must say they turned out really good. I think I outdid myself! Even Chanin said that if she liked carrot cake then she would’ve liked mine!
Here are a few pictures of the cupcakes. I’ll post the recipe further below.
So, we’re at the store the other day and spotted the Marsala wine and thought “Hey, we should make Chicken Marsala!” I love mushrooms so I went and picked some out and we also got a few of the other necessary ingredients. The next day I looked up some recipes with the help of FoodieView.com, which is a recipe search engine which searches lots of different sources. One of the recipes, from Cooking Light magazine, looked promising so we decided to make that one. I had planned on making this dinner but we decided that I should make the next dinner (probably Shrimp with Red Chiles, Ginger, Garlic & Scallions) and Chanin would make this one. She’s good at making adjustments and I pretty much just stick to the recipe so this one suited her better. I’ve put our version below but if you’d like to see the original (and slightly more healthy) recipe you can find it here.
Now, on to the recipe:
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add 2 teaspoons olive oil, shallots and garlic; cook until tender. Add mushrooms and cook 3 additional minutes; remove mushroom mixture from pan. Set aside.
Place each chicken breast half between 2 sheets of heavy-duty plastic wrap; pound to a 1/4-inch thickness using a meat mallet or rolling pin. Sprinkle both sides of chicken with 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Place flour in a shallow dish; dredge chicken breast halves in flour.
Add butter to pan, and place over medium-high heat. Add chicken; cook until browned. Remove chicken from pan. Add broth and Marsala to pan and scrape pan to loosen browned bits. Bring mixture to a boil and thicken with a flour water mixture (1 teaspoon of flour to 2 tablespoons water). Return chicken to pan and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes; add cream, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Return mushroom mixture to pan and stir in peas. Cook until thoroughly heated. Serve chicken and sauce over pasta.
Chanin modified the recipe to use some ingredients we already had on-hand and to make a larger amount of sauce. The original recipe was lower fat but considering that this made four big servings we don’t think it was too bad for us. I’ll just skip the ice cream tonight!
Today we made homemade French dip sandwiches for dinner. And when I say “we” I mean Chanin. I put the full recipe below so you can try it out sometime. It’s really easy to make (at least it looked easy from my view on the couch) and I’d highly recommend you give it a try because I think it was the best French dip I’ve ever had. And since it’s a crock pot recipe you get to smell it cookin’ all day. If anyone out there happens to try this please let us know in the comments!
Crockpot French Dip Sandwiches
Enjoy!
There’s nothing like a chilly day around the holidays to bring out my inner baker. I love baking (yeah, I know it’s kind of girly) but unfortunately don’t do it very often because I never seem to have enough time. But, today I had the urge to eat some cupcakes so I went in search of a good recipe. I looked online and found hundreds of recipes but ended up using my trusty cookbook “Baking Illustrated.” It’s a cool book that’s made by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated magazine and the people from America’s Test Kitchen on TV. I think I like it so much because it’s very scientific. All of the recipes are tested many times over with many different variables until the best combination is found. It suite me well since I’m a techie kind of guy.
The cupcakes turned out really well and definitely satisfied my craving. Chanin really like them also. The only thing that bothered me a little bit is that they seemed a little too “thick.” I feel like I need a big glass of cold milk to really enjoy them (but that’s OK because I love milk).
I attempted to do some fancy frosting work on the cupcake tops but that was pretty much a disaster. First, I tried using a Pampered Chef cake decorator but it didn’t hold enough frosting so it was a little tough to use. Then I used a pastry bag which ended up bursting about 1/4 of the way through the first cupcake. So I ended up just spreading the frosting with a butter knife which worked out well. I’ll pick up some real pastry bags and tips for the next batch.
Overall, the cupcakes were a success and I’d try this recipe again. It’s about time for bed right now but I’ll be looking forward to a cupcake for breakfast!!
Keep reading for the full recipe…
This year we enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner at the Rodriguez residence (aka Chanin’s parent’s house). We had all of the usual dishes which included a roasted turkey, cornbread stuffing, spinach salad, yams (with marshmallows of course), green bean casserole, mashed potatoes with gravy, homemade cranberry sauce, and biscuits. Oh yeah and of course the pumpkin pie for desert. Mmmmmm….
Chanin and her mom spent a lot of time over the past couple of days prepping and cooking and everything turned out perfect! My favorites were probably the green bean casserole, yams, and the turkey. Chanin lovingly placed an entire row of mini marshmallows completely over the top of the yams and they came out nice and toasty. And the green bean casserole is always one of my favorites. We offered to bring it to the Carr Thanksgiving but were denied by the boss because it contains artificial ingredients, canned ingredients, etc. Who cares about that stuff on Thanksgiving anyway?!
(click on the pictures below to see a larger size)
So, enough about the food. What am I thankful for anyway? Well, I’m most thankful for my loving wife. She always takes care of me and she’s the best cook in the entire universe. I’m also thankful for our families who are always there for us and always welcome us. And lastly I’m thankful for our health. I just had a big surgery and am doing well and Chanin is also doing well and has found a great doctor. Of course I’m also thankful for all our material possessions (house, TV, etc.) but those are definitely secondary.
Does anyone read this blog? What are YOU thankful for? Remember, you can always leave comments if you feel compelled!
Powered by FireStats
