Week 6: Brazilian - Churrasquinhos

Brazilian.. oh man.  I had a tough time with this one.  I searched and searched for recipes and nothing really sounded that delicious; nothing struck my fancy in terms of taste buds or learning a new technique.  I feel like I sorta copped out on this one and found something that didn't necessarily feel all the Brazilian, but whatever.  It was absolutely delicious. 

I cubed the beef loin and marinated it olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and onion. 

The cubed loin was then skewered with squares of Hempler's pepper bacon between each cube.

I used the same recipe for the green onion slaw that I made with the Tequila Lime Chicken a few weeks back but this time I made it directly according to the recipe (last time I was kinda winging it!). It was more beautiful this time, but it wasn't as tasty.  Not quite sure why... perhaps it was the extra Serrano pepper, perhaps it was more green onion, the real red wine vinegar (instead of red wine and white vinegar), or the forgotten salt and pepper... anyway, it wasn't disgusting, just not as awesome as last time. 

The beef skewers grilled up nicely and were so juicy!

We had some of our favorite dinner guests over and they brought some very tasty mashed potatoes to add to the mix.  Given the extreme spice of the slaw, they were the perfect compliment.

It was a pretty plate and a flavorful meal.  Maybe I don't hate Brazilian after all. :)

Week 5 - Alcohol - Tequila Lime Grilled Chicken with Cabbage Slaw

This week's cooking challenge was alcohol.  There as so many ways to incorporate alcohol into cooking that I thought I would tackle a type of alcohol I never use - tequila.  Now, I love to drink the stuff, but when it comes to cooking I usually find myself using a red or white wine. These recipes are all over the internet but I found it on the Smitten Kitchen.

This recipe called for marinating chicken in a tequila and lime marinade before grilling it so I decided to go for it. I found someone else who'd paired this recipe with the cabbage slaw recipe (which uses red wine so this is a double boozy dinner) and I was ready to go. 

I was supposed to marinate the chicken over night but I am an impatient cook with little foresight so I adapted.  Instead of full chicken breasts, I nuggeted (I know that is not a word, but I want it to be so I am using it) up my chicken and pierced each piece many times with a fork to allow the marinade to get in there as fast as possible. I dumped the marinade and the chicken into a freezer bag and then refrigerated it for just under and hour. I heated up the grill and threw my nuggets on.  I basted them a few times while cooking with the delicious marinade and cooked them 'till there were nice grill lines on each side. 

While the marinating was taking place, I sliced up my cabbage - I used green instead of red since we already had it in the fridge - and onions.  I emulisified the dressing in my totally awesome bullet blender and basically waited to dress the slaw until we were ready to eat.

Andrew cut up a tomato that needed eating and not only did it add some color to our plates, but also fit really nicely with the flavors of lime and hot peppers. The chicken had a really nice lime flavor and I imagine with a longer marinade the tequila might have come through more. 

The slaw was AMAZING.  This will most definitely become a regular rotation. It was so easy and it had such a nice mix of tang (due to the red wine vinegar) and spice (due to the serrano peppers).  Really yummy stuff. 

It needed to be paired with a margarita. Duh. 

Grilled Pizza

This wasn't one of our challenges, but A's parents are in town from Alaska and we wanted to make them a fun dinner last night.  We've done this once in the past, but we got more ambitious this time making three medium-ish pizzas all with different toppings and sauces.

The trick is to have all your ingredients ready to go on the pizzas since you build them on the grill.  On a well oiled grill, you lay down your pizza dough and cook one side fro just a few minutes.  Once it's got nice brown grill marks, you flip it and quickly build your pizza; sauce, veggies, meats, cheese, then close the lid hope to heck the cheese melts. You have to keep your eye on the dough while the toppings are getting cooked and when the bottom is about to get too brown for your liking, take it off the grill and brown the top in the oven (if you want). 

The top (un-cut pizza) was a red sauce pizza with fresh tomatoes, spinach, garlic, pepperoni, jalapenos and basil under way too much cheese (I got ambitious. This is the one we had to finish in the oven).  The bottom left pizza had mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, grilled eggplant, and garlic over a red sauce. The bottom right pizza had a white sauce with artichoke hearts, red onion, spinach, mushrooms, and garlic.  

All three were delicious and this is quite a simple way to do pizza.  Not the simplest, but really tasty and fun and the prep is worth it. In the bottom right pizza you can see a bit of our grilled eggplant.  We also made grilled brussel sprouts. 

Week 2 Sriracha Fried Rice

So, when planning last nights Orange Chicken we intended to pair it with a fried rice.  We did all the shopping  for our orange chicken and thought "There is no reason to buy rice, we have a 10lb bag of it at home!" We got home and I spent the next 30 minutes searching our house in a huff.  The rice is nowhere to be found.  Nowhere. Grrr.  I was baffled - and still am.

When out on the town today, we picked up a small bag of jasmine rice (I will find that 10lb bag) and when we got home I got out the rice maker to get rolling.  Without paying close attention, I washed the rice and poured it into the rice maker, then started measuring and adding water. A small pool of water appeared underneath the rice maker and I thought "huh".  It wasn't till Andrew said to me "Oh god. Unplug it!!" that I realized what was happening.  I forgot to put the bowl into the ricer maker and had poured the rice and, more tragically, the water directly into the electrical hot plate which has a hole into the inner workings. 

Well, shit. Andrew handed me towels to sop up the water and after a few beats said, "Let me know when it is ok to laugh." Such a good husband. 

He spent the next 30 minutes taking the whole thing apart and getting all the rice and water out of the insulation, the levers, the wires, the crevices, etc. A little red wine, a pair of pliers, a screw driver and a project and Andrew is pretty much in heaven. He managed to get it all fixed and we were back up and running in just under an hour.   (I managed to also drop an egg on the floor and defrost frozen turkey incorrectly... I was in fine form tonight.)

On to the tonight's dish: I made Sriracha fried rice! Some peas and carrots, fish sauce and soy sauce, an egg and some chilled rice = DELICIOUS.  Somehow, I had never made fried rice before, but it turned out well and I plan on making this easy dish a more regular item in our house. 

I cannot wait to eat the leftovers.  

Week 2 - Chinese - Sweet, Sour & Spicy Orange Chicken with Cashews and Broccoli

Andrew was the mastermind and expert chef this week for our second challenge. He scoured cookbooks and we talked about what to make for days.  He was off at a work retreat for a few days so the cooking had to wait and when he returned and we tackled both challenges in one night.  

The process was elaborate and Andrew remarked more than once how ridiculous this recipe was for needing 12 different bowls ready to give and receive a variety of parts of the ingredients.  Bowls for sauces, bowls for cooked things to be added to the mix again later, bowls for everything; basically, lots and lots of prep and it truly required finesse (which A has is spades).  Andrew is a seasoned chef having cooked in all sorts of environments, from fine dining to burger flipping, so there was no question he could pull off this complicated dish.

 

As you can see above, while cooking Andrew had a beer in his (or my?) favorite coozy!

Here is the finished dish.  It was certainly sweet and sour but we decided that perhaps next time to cut some of the vinegar as we both were a bit puckered due to the sour.  Next time we would also add more red pepper.  We like spicy food and the amount required by the recipe was not nearly enough for our tastes. 

The chicken was juicy, the broccoli cooked perfectly, and the cashews really made the dish complete. 

As you can see, it was disgusting and we could barely choke it down :)

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Look at these pretty eggs from our hens!

Nothin' like fresh eggs for making a delicious spaghetti (ok, we used linguini) alla carbonara. Cutting the Cooks Illustrated recipe in half was hard given the need for 3 eggs for a full recipe, but with only two mouths to feed, it was necessary to improvise. 

It is a time sensitive dish because the egg & cheese sauce needs to be applied to the pasta very quickly after being drained and then it should also be eaten right away.  So, the pressure was on, but man did it work out.  Having awesome thick cut Hempler's bacon (best bacon I've ever had) gave a nice crunch and saltiness to the pasta and mixing pecorino romano with the parmesan makes the egg sauce really smooth.

I learned a nice pan frying/steaming method for the brussel sprouts that Anderw and I have been using regularly and they turned our perfectly this night. Brussel sprouts go nicely with the bacon flavor from the pasta and cut the richness of the main dish wonderfully.