Oh man, I love raw/rare ocean fish. A nice hunk of tuna marinated then seared over white-hot coals for maybe a minute on the side is sublime. I could eat this a couple times a week, every week, and never get sick of it. Also, this is a pretty low effort meal, perfect for a midweek or lazy weekend dinner.
This evening, I had a craving for oreos. But not the disgusting store bought ones full of preservatives and voodoo magic which makes the frosting act like it does. Barf. Anyway, after digging through a couple different cookbooks stashed in the kitchen, I found a recipe for chocolate tuiles. I figured by rolling them out a bit thicker, they should substitute just fine for the cookie part of an oreo.
I was right. These are fantastic. They are everything an oreo wishes it was. Chocolaty, crispy, and not overly sweet. They would go well with a cup of hot chocolate or a coffee. Also, it took me just under 45 minutes from start to finish, so it’s not painstakingly difficult either.
Cochinita pibil is a traditional Mexican pork dish that is slow roasted in banana leaves with a citrusy marinade seasoned with a variety of spices and colored a deep red with a large amount of achiote (or annatto) seed. So delicious and damn simple to make. Dressed with pickled onion, queso fresco, avocado, crema, salsa verde, cilantro, and a squirt of lime, this was a fantastic way to have a bit of Cinco de Mayo in cold, rainy Wisconsin.
Oh yeah. Nothing like a hearty meat pie on a deary day to warm your body up. Hearty beef and sweet carrots, rutabaga, and peas in a caramelized onion, Guinness, and mushroom gravy, all served up in a puff pastry crust. So delicious.
Also, just like most things I eat, it’s surprisingly easy to make (and looks fancy enough to impress others).
I’ve been craving mussels like none other for weeks now and I’ve just never been able to get to the store when the fish counter had any in stock. Today I finally was in luck. The fish guy also had some nice looking cod and a good price on shrimp, so cioppino it is.
Cioppino, to the best of my knowledge is a San Francisco thing. Fishermen would make this with the leftovers from the day’s catch. How much truth is in this? I dunno. It is delicious and fairly quick to make though.
I acquired a delicious rabbit and was clueless about what to do with it for quite a while. While perusing the internet, I stumbled upon a decent looking chicken marsala recipe. Rabbit cooks up similarly to chicken and as long care is taken to not overcook the meat, it makes a great (and far more delicious) substitute in many dishes. This recipe works wonderfully using chicken thighs or breasts too.
Puff pastry can be a real pain in the butt. Dealing with rolling the dough out and laminating with butter, then re-rolling, waiting, rolling again, and again, and again to get all the flaky layers is just horribly time consuming.
Therefore, I set out to make a puff pastry that takes a lot less rolling and no lamination. I think this resulting recipe is a success. It has all the flaky, crispy, buttery goodness of a traditional puff pastry, but with much less hassle.
This was my first attempt at making a red velvet cake. I try not to post failures, but the crumb was fantastic, the flavor was great, and the frosting was sublime. In other words, it was a complete success as a cake, just not a red velvet cake.
This is why I love nice weather. Fresh veggies in the store and beautiful weather outside makes for a perfect combination for dinner.
I really like grilling ribeyes because I don’t have to pay attention as closely to the meat. Their really nice marbling means I can accidentally take them a bit over medium rare and still have a delicious slice of meaty goodness in the end.
Also, I’m bored of really heavy starchy sides with beef. Instead, I grilled some peppers and onions, roasted a beet, sliced some radishes up and make a quick watercress salad and dijon vin to help cut the fattiness of the steak.
What I love about this recipe is that you can really mix and match a lot of different ingredients to suit your current craving.
For instance, this batch is pepitas, dried cherries, vanilla chips, coconut oil, and maple syrup. But it could be apricots, flaxseed, peanut butter and agave if I wanted. Or any sort of combination you want, really. Also, they’re really easy to make and just as delicious as the really expensive hippie ones you get at the fancy organic coffeeshops and the like.