Category Archives: Food

Garlic Chicken with Mediterranean Couscous

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Last weekend I was watching a show on The Food Network and saw this recipe. I made a few changes to it and you can find my recipe along with step by step pictures at the end of the post.

This recipe takes a bit of time with all the preparation and marinating times but the finished product is well worth the effort.

First you need to roast the garlic and make the paste to marinate the chicken. You do this by placing the garlic bulbs in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 F. Then you add all the ingredients into a food processor or blender. You then rub the paste on the chicken and let it marinate for 2-4 hours.

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When making the couscous you first partially cook the grain then hold it to the side. In a pan you brown the chicken then use the pan to finish cooking the couscous.

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For the final step you transfer the couscous to an oven safe dish and add the chicken. You then bake covered for 20-25 minutes then uncovered for 20-25 minutes, or until chicken is done. Enjoy!

Garlic Chicken with Mediterranean Couscous

Ancho Chicken Tacos with Avocado Cream

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These chicken tacos offer a smokey change from the usual ground beef hard shell tacos. The spice rub for the chicken is smokey with a slight heat and compliments very well with the avocado cream. The fresh coleslaw gives a great crunchy texture to this taco. You can also top it with salsa or your favorite hot sauce. This recipe is quick to make for an easy dinner. Enjoy!

Ancho Chicken Tacos with Avocado Cream

Roasted Pork Tenderloin With Black Bean-Chorizo Ragu

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I realized I have not cooked a pork dish in quite some time. When I was looking through a magazine I saw a picture of a black bean and chorizo ragu and thought it would pair very well with pork tenderloin. I looked up a few recipes and combined them to make up the this recipe.

It is best to marinate the pork for at least 4-6 hours but you can get away with 2 hours. Before putting the pork in the oven you will brown it on all sides in a pan.

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By browning the pork it seals in moisture, shortens the amount of time it will spend in the oven, and preps the pan for cooking the ragu.

While the pork cooks in the oven you will cook the ragu in the pan that your browned the pork in. First you will cook the peppers and onions, until soft.

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Then you will add in the chorizo and cook until finished.

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Finally you will add the beans, chicken broth, and tomato paste and reduce liquid by half.

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Finally you serve the ragu over the pork tenderloin. This recipe is quite simple and looks and tastes great. Follow the link below for the full recipe. Enjoy!

Roasted Pork Tenderloin With Black Bean-Chorizo Ragu

Jerk Chicken

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With all the warm weather we have been having recently, and with my cousin’s Jamaica wedding coming up in two weeks I decided to make Jerk Chicken. The recipe is very simple but for best results does require it to marinate overnight. The Jerk rub is quite spicy but not overpoweringly so. You can use boneless chicken breasts or a full chicken depending on what you feel like using. Enjoy!

Jerk Chicken

Shrimp Fra Diavolo

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This is a classic Italian seafood recipe. I modeled this sauce after the base of the vodka cream sauce. The first few steps are just the same. You add the onion to pan; saute 4 minutes or until tender. Add Garlic and saute an additional 30 seconds.

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Then you add 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper, and wine and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat, and simmer until the wine is reduced by about half.

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Then stir in 1 teaspoon salt, shellfish stock, and tomatoes; bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer 8 minutes.

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Finally add Shrimp and cover sauce. Cook shrimp for 5-6 minutes or until done. By cooking the shrimp in the sauce you infuse more shrimp flavor into it.

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Pour sauce and shrimp over cooked paste and garnish with basil. This is an easy simple recipe so give it a try. Enjoy!

Chocolate Souffle

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I wanted to try something special for Easter so I used the techniques I learned last week at the cooking class and made chocolate souffles. These souffles are very rich and go well with red wine, Irish Cream, or a nice stout.

You can make the souffle mixture in advance and keep it refrigerated for up to 2 days. The most important part making these souffles is to do all the prep work before you start cooking. Separate egg whites and egg yolks, chop chocolate, and measure out other ingredients. Lightly butter ramekins and coat sides with sugar. By doing all the prep work before hand the process of making the souffles will run smoothly.

To make the chocolate mixture use a double boiler to avoid burning the chocolate. The mixture should look smooth and creamy.

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The hardest part of making souffles, both technically and physically is whipping the egg whites. You will stop once firm peaks form. Firm peak is when the egg whites can stand on their own.

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The most important part of making the souffle mixture is to fold in the egg whites into the chocolate. Do not stir them together, this will prevent the souffle from rising properly. Although this recipe seems intimidating it is not as hard as it sounds. Everyone will be impressed by both the final presentation and taste of this dessert. Enjoy!

Chocolate Souffle

French Toast

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All this week I have wanted to make French Toast for breakfast. I have not made it in a while so I needed a quick refresher on the recipe. After looking up a few basic recipes I put together parts that I liked and started cooking. Cooking the toast in the pan then finishing it in the oven made sure the French Toast was warmed all the way through. Enjoy this simple recipe for breakfast sometime!

French Toast

Cooking Class Week 6: Souffles

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Week 6 was bar far the toughest week of the cooking classes. I had always wanted to attempt to make a souffle but was always intimidated by the process. Our chef broke down each step from the creation of the base, the whipping of the egg white, and the folding over of the two. After the class I was very excited to try to make a souffle for Easter.

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I chose to make a basic ham and cheese souffle in the class. Unfortunately I was unable to take pictures throughout the cooking process but I will give a few of the tips I learned. On Sunday I will post step by step pictures for the next souffle I make. The hardest part of making the souffle was whipping the egg whites. It is quite exhausting and as delicate as souffles are they are rough on the cook. An important tip before you whip the egg whites, add a pich of salt and 1 tsp cream of tartar for every 8 egg whites. These ingredients will help the eggs fluff up and not become too bubbly. It is also important to line your ramekins with something to allow the souffle to grip something as it climbs up the wall. For this souffles I used butter and Parmesan cheese. If I were making a sweet souffle I would have used sugar. The final tip came when we were mixing the base with the egg whites. During this step you want to keep folding the base over the whites until the mixture looks faintly streaky, do not stir the two together.

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You will probably be seeing a few souffle attempts in the coming weeks because they are fun, challenging, and rewarding to make. Keep checking the blog out to see how it goes.

 

Smoky Poblano Mussels

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I have wanted to make a dish with mussels for the longest time. One of my future culinary goals is to perfect my own recipe for muscles marinara but I’m still working on developing a sauce that has the right mix of flavor and heat. In the meantime I wanted to make something just to get some practice with cooking mussels. I found a very simple recipe for muscles in a pablano pepper broth in Cooking light magazine and adapted to suit my tastes.

On important step in this recipe is to combine the ingredients for the broth and simmer then for 8-10 minutes before adding the muscles.

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This allows for the flavor of the sauce to develop and become more complex. After cooking the muscles you remove them from the pot and again reduce the broth until there is about 1 cup left then you pour it over the muscles. This recipe is very simple and is a great dish to try if you want to experiment with mussels.

Smokey Pablano Mussels

Stout Macaroni and Cheese

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For Some reason I have been experimenting with cooking with beer a lot recently. I wanted to make mac and cheese and saw a recipe that used hot turkey sausage and Guinness in mac and cheese and adapted some of what they did for this dish. A warning in advance, while this recipe is delicious it does not taste like your traditional mac and cheese. Depending on how hot the sausage is that you use it could have some heat to it. Also the stout gives this dish a very distinctive finish. I will walk you through the recipe in this post, you can find the full recipe by clicking on the link at the bottom of the page.

Heat a large saucepan over high heat, add oil and swirl to coat pan then reduce heat to medium. Remove casings sausages and add sausage and onion to pan. Cook for 6 min, stirring to crumble up sausage.

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Add flour, salt, and pepper. Stir and cook for an additional minute.

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Add beer and bring to a boil. Cook mixture for 3 min until thick and bubbly, stirring continuously.

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Remove from heat and add cheddar, Velveeta, and milk; stir until smooth. Then add pasta and mix in.

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Divide mixture evenly among 4 ceramic gratin dishes sprinkle with panko bread crumbs and bake at 450 for 10 min. You could also put mac and cheese in a casserole dish and serve family style, timing will remain the same. Enjoy and find the full recipe below.

Stout Macaroni and Cheese