Parmesan Bread Twists

I had leftover dough when making pizza, so I decided to make some parmesan breadsticks. They're fun for entertaining and easy to make. I did have some trouble keeping the bread from unraveling after twisting them, but in the end, I think they turned out okay.

Ingredients:
- Pizza dough (you can use store bought or this recipe)
- Parmesan cheese
- Garlic powder
- Oregano or parsley or other herbs
- Salt
- Oil

Directions:
- Roll out the pizza dough into a rectangle. If you have trouble rolling it out because it keeps bouncing back, let the dough rest 10-15 minutes and try again.
- Sprinkle parmesan cheese, garlic powder, herbs, and salt to taste on the bottom half of the rectangle.
- Fold the top half of dough over the part with the filling and using a knife or pizza cutter, cut it into ~3/4" strips.
- Twist each strip and place it on a lined baking sheet.
- Let them rest for about 20 minutes.
- Brush them with oil.
- Put them into a 400 degree oven for about 15-20 minutes or until they're golden brown.

Artichoke Dip

Here's another appetizer that I put out on our buffet table for Thanksgiving. I put the artichoke dip in a mini crock pot to keep it warm.

The crackers are rosemary crackers, also homemade. But since my husband made them (and refuses to share the recipe) I can't tell you how he made them. I'll keep bugging him about it, but in the meantime, here's the artichoke dip recipe.

Ingredients:
- Marinated artichokes
- Mayo
- Cream cheese
- Salt
- Pepper

Directions:
- Drain and chop the artichokes.
- Mix the artichokes, cream cheese and mayo together, microwaving it periodically, until it reaches the consistency you desire.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Serve with crackers, pita chips, or veggies.
-

Simple Artichokes

So work has been kicking my butt lately, which leaves little time for blogging among other things. Hopefully it'll lighten up soon, but for now, here's something quick and simple.


Ingredients:
- Artichokes
- Water
- Salt
- Lemon juice
- Garlic
- Mayo

Directions:
- Use a vegetable peeler to get rid of the tough skin on the stem, cut in half, scoop out the furry insides.
- Sprinkle on a bit of salt and a squeeze of lemon and toss them in a steam tray in your pressure cooker and for a about 15 minutes or until they're soft. If you don't have a pressure cooker, boiling, steaming, grilling and even microwaving are all acceptable cooking methods. They just might take a bit longer.
- In a separate bowl, mix mayo, minced garlic, lemon juice and salt to taste.
- Peel each leaf of the artichoke off one by one and dip the ends in the sauce.
- Fight over the stems and heart of the artichoke :)

Told ya it was quick and simple!

French Onion Soup

What can I say about this soup? I didn't do a particularly good job on the presentation, but the flavors were there, and that's what's really important, right?

Either way, I think if I ever make this soup again in the future, I'm going to have to get myself some cute little ramekins and do it right way. But seeing as how I already have more than enough kitchen clutter, I don't see that happening. Oh well, at least I can say that I made it at least once and that it was rather tasty.

Ingredients:
- 5-6 large yellow onions
- 2 cups of beef broth
- 2 cups of chicken broth
- 2 cups of water
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- a splash of balsamic vinegar (optional)
- salt and pepper to taste
- baguette slices
- shredded cheese

Directions:
- Slice all the onions.
- Heat the oil in a big oven-safe pot over medium heat.
- Add the onions and a bit of salt and cook until the onions are wilted. Putting the lid on will help, but be sure to check it and stir it constantly so that it doesn't burn.
- Stir the onions until slightly carmelized.
- At this point, you can either put it in a 250 degree oven and let it carmelize to a deep brown color there, or keep it on the stove and just keep an eye on it. In the oven, I didn't really worry about it burning and only checked on it every 20 minutes or so until it got the deep color I wanted.
- Deglaze the pot with the water, then add the chicken and beef stock.
- Season with salt and pepper to taste and a splash of balsamic if you'd like to brighten the soup up a bit (be very careful with it, a little goes a long way).
- Pour it into an oven-safe bowl and top with a few slices of crusty baguette and cheese (I used mozzarella because that's what I had but found it a bit bland. Gruyere is probably best).
- Place the bowls under the broiler and watch it until the cheese melted and slightly browned.

White Bean Dip

Joelen of Joelen's Culinary Adventures is featuring the almighty food processor this month for her Tasty Tools event. Check out her blog in March for the roundup or send in your entries before Feb 28th.

The first thing I ever made using my food processor was hummus. In fact, that's the main reason I bought the thing to begin with! I've made hummus countless times now and still love the stuff.

This was supposed to be hummus, but the can of garbanzo beans and the can of white beans look awfully similar and I grabbed the wrong one. By the time I realized my mistake, it was already opened and drained, so I decided to make a white bean dip instead. And you know what? It was pretty darn tasty!

Just like with my hummus, I replaced the oil with chicken stock to make it healthy yet tasty, and dusted the top with a bit of paprika for color. I served it with tortilla chips, carrot sticks and celery sticks and plan on making this again the future (on purpose!)

Ingredients:
- 1 can of white beans (cannellini beans)
- 1 clove of garlic
- about 1/4 cup of chicken stock
- juice of 1/2 a lemon (more or less depending on your preferences)
- salt to taste

Directions:
- Drain the beans and toss them in the food processor.
- Toss all the other ingredients in the food processor too.
- Process everything until the beans are a nice, smooth consistency. You made need to stop and scrape down the sides every so often.
- Taste to decide whether or not you want more salt, lemon, etc.
- The consistency will be pretty watery, but don't fret! Cover it and stick it in the fridge for a few hours. It will set up during this time and become a nice thick, scoopable, delectable dip.
- Sprinkle some paprika or herbs for a bit of color and enjoy!

Pork flautas

Since I had overcome my fear of deep frying when I made french fries, I knew that I wanted to deep fry something for our Super Bowl party and decided on flautas.

I love flautas. It's basically the same thing as a taquito except you use flour tortillas instead of corn. I prefer flour tortillas better because it's fluffier and lighter and a bit airy. You could easily make taquitos instead by substituting the flour tortillas with corn.

You can also easily replace the meat with chicken, beef or whatever other meat you prefer. The important thing is to keep the meat moist and flavorful.

Ingredients:
- pork butt
- onion
- garlic
- cumin
- chili powder
- paprika
- garlic powder
- onion powder
- salt
- pepper
- salsa (optional)
- tortillas
- oil for frying

Directions:
- Cut the pork butt into chunks if you want to. It'll make it easier to work with and fit in the pot. I like 1.5x1.5" chunks.
- Generously sprinkle the salt and herbs and seasonings on the meat and put it into a pressure cooker if you have one, or a heavy pot if you don't.
- Fill the pot with water until the meat is barely covered. Toss in an onion (quartered) and a few cloves of garlic. These are just used for flavoring and will be discarded, so they don't need to be chopped nicely.
- Either cook it at high pressure for about 30 minutes or simmer/braise in the oven until the meat is fall apart tender and moist and flavorful.
- Take the meat out and shred it with two forks or your hands.
- If the meat is a little dry, or if you want a little more flavor, toss it with a few spoonfuls of salsa. Don't use too much though, you want the meat to be juicy, but not "wet".
- If you want, cut your tortillas in half (I did this as I found it wasn't necessary to use a whole tortillas). Put a line of meat in tortilla and roll it up. Help keep them rolled up with 3 toothpicks. I only used one in the middle the first time and this is what happened.
- Heat up a pot of vegetable oil until it reaches 325 degrees.
- Slowly slide the flautas into the oil and fry until the tortillas get brown and crispy.

Inari

As a kid, I called these little guys Japanese footballs, so I figured they'd be nice to serve during our Super Bowl party. Plus they make great finger food. Don't they look like little footballs to you?

Anyway, Inari is a great "sushi" for beginners. It's very simple, there is nothing raw, and the flavor is mild and sweet. It's just fried tofu pockets and rice - very non-threatening.

They're also super easy. Just buy the already seasoned tofu skins in a can like above and stuff them with rice. Ideally you should stuff it with seasoned sushi rice, but the skins already have so much flavor that if you don't season your rice, you'll still be fine.

Ingredients:
- Seasoned tofu skins (aburage - pictured above)
- White rice
- Rice vinegar to taste (optional)
- Sugar to taste (optional)

Directions:
- Cook the rice and season it (the seasoning part is optional).
-To season the rice, you can either be lazy like me and dump vinegar and sugar to taste, into the water while the rice is cooking, or do it the right way - cook the rice and then spread it out on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle the vinegar and sugar on the rice and mix until combined.
- Open the can of tofu skins and take them out. If you'd like, you can also use the liquid in the can to season the rice.
- Carefully open the pocket of each tofu skin, they are very delicate.
- Stuff some rice in. You can put as much or as little as you like. You can also sprinkle some sesame seed or furikake on top if you'd like, but traditionally, they're served plain.
- Pop them in your mouth and rub your tummy with delight!

This is about 2 cans worth of inari, minus a few that I accidentally ripped while opening and had to eat them myself :)

Potato Slabs

I saw these at Amber's Delectable Delights and knew that just I had to make them for our Super Bowl party. How she got them to be so evenly sliced, I have no idea. But regardless of how they look, they taste great!

Both the hubs and I like them better than traditional potato skins. Potato skins, although crispier, are often too oily. If we could just get these crispy like potato skins, they'd be perfect. Maybe deep fry them instead of baking them next time?

Source - Amber's Delectable Delights
Ingredients:
- Potatoes (I used russett)
- Bacon
- Shredded cheese
- Sour cream, chives, etc (optional)

Directions:
- Cut the potatoes into ~1/4 inch slabs.
- Lay them out in a single layer on a buttered baking sheet and put them in a 350 degree oven until soft (about 30 minutes).
- Crisp up the bacon and crumble into small pieces.
- Sprinkle the cheese and bacon bits on the potatoes and put them back in the oven until melted.
- Top with sour cream and chives if desired.

Scallion Pancakes

The Chinese name for this dish is cong you bing which literally translates to onion oil pancake, and that's really all there is to it. Since the ingredient list is so short, it's perfect for this month's Weekend Cookbook Challenge which is run by Sara of I Like to Cook: 5 ingredients or less!

I love green onion pancakes (aka scallion pancakes). You can eat it alone as a snack, dipping it in a simple sauce if you'd like. You can eat it as a side instead of rice. You can wrap meat and veggies in it with some hoisin sauce - yum! Fry it up with scrambled eggs for a great breakfast. The list goes on and on. Plus it freezes really well, so you can make a ton and freeze them for convenient future usage! I even had a green onion pancake-off with a friend once. We both made them and fed them to our friends for judging, and I'm proud to say that I won :)

Another thing I love about green onion pancakes are the layers. Look at those gorgeous layers! As a kid, I loved peeling off the layers and eating them one by one, and I'm not ashamed to say that I still play with my food to this day!

Anyway, enough babbling, here's the recipe!

Ingredients:

• All purpose flour
• Hot, preferably boiling, water (approx 2:1 ratio of flour to water)
• Oil (I like to use a combo of vegetable and sesame and will elaborate below)
• Salt
• Green onions (diced)

Method:

• In a stand mixer, or by hand, mix the flour and water together and knead until a nice dough is formed. The ratio should be about 2:1 and should be a non-sticky but relatively soft dough. It's pretty forgiving, so this doesn't have to be perfect. Hot water is important however because that will give you the texture you want (or so I was told when I first learned to make it).
• Take a small piece of dough (however big you want your pancake to be) and roll it out as thin as possible. The shape doesn't matter (as you can see below). And it's even okay if you rolled it so thin that there are holes in it.

• Drizzle some oil and rub it in with your hands so that the entire surface is lightly covered, but there are no pools of oil in any one spot. I like to use a combo of vegetable oil and sesame oil. I find that all sesame oil is a bit too strong for my taste, but vegetable oil alone is a bit boring, but really, use what you have and what you like. In fact, lard is probably the best option if you're brave enough to use it! (I'm not)
• Sprinkle on the green onions. Again, it's up to your personal preference how much you like.

• Roll the dough into a long rope. It's okay if oil and onions squish out the sides.
• Next, coil that rope into a circle.

• Using your hands and/or rolling pin to flatten out the pancake to your desired thickness. Some people like super thick pancakes, others like thin ones. Both are perfectly acceptable. You may need to let the dough rest a bit if it's being difficult to work with.

• In a pan, heat up a bit of oil over medium/low heat. Plop your pancake down and let it cook until golden brown, and then flip to crisp the other side. Thicker pancakes will obviously take longer (you might want to put the lid on and turn down the heat so that it doesn't burn before it's cooked through) and thin ones will take less time. Deep frying these is another delicious alternative!

• Cut them into wedges and serve them however you like. My favorite is with a dipping sauce of half black vinegar and half soy sauce, but experiment away to find what you like!

Healthier Hummus

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season! We were out of town for a bit, but am back now and I'm determined to finish all the Thanksgiving posts. There are about 3 more or so after this.

Another appetizer that we made for Thanksgiving was hummus. I love hummus and its great for entertaining as well as just keeping around the house as a healthy snack. Especially if its served with carrot and celery sticks instead of pita bread or chips.

A trick that I learned a long time ago from Martha Stewart is to replace the olive oil with chicken stock. That makes it even more healthy!

Ingredients:

• 1 can of garbanzo beans
  
• 1 tablespoon of tahini (to taste)
  
• 1-2 cloves of garlic (to taste)
  
• juice from 1/2 of a lemon (to taste)
  
• 1/4 cup of chicken stock, olive oil, the liquid from the garbanzo beans, or a combo of all.
• salt to taste
  

Method:

• Drain the garbanzo beans and reserve the liquid if desired.
• Pour the beans into a food processor.
  
• If desired, add a clove or two of garlic.
  
• If desired, add some lemon juice, to taste. I used about about half a lemon.
  
• If desired, add some tahini, I used about a tablespoon.
• Turn on the food processor while slowly drizzling in the chicken stock, olive oil or liquid from the beans or a combo of any of the three until the desired consistency is reached. You may have to stop the processor and scrape down the sides during this process.
• Add salt to taste.
• Serve with anything from pita bread, to chips, to carrot and celery sticks.

You can sprinkle a bit of paprika or herbs on top for color and flavor too.

Award Winning Bacon Wrapped Dates

Can you believe these little guys have won an award?

Well, not these exact guys, but a variation of them that I made last year. We have some friends who have an annual Iron Chef potluck where you are told a secret ingredient about a week ahead of time and then everyone brings potluck dishes to share and vote on by secret ballot. We got to participate in this fun event last year and the secret ingredient was liqueur.

Normally, I either stuff my bacon wrapped dates with goat cheese or with an almond. Since the secret ingredient was liqueur, I decided to infuse the goat cheese with amaretto! Great idea, right? It tasted great and we won the prize for most creative dish and was up there in the running for best appetizer too!

But since Thanksgiving didn't require me to use liqueur and I was being lazy, I didn't stuff the dates at all. The hubby said that without the cheese, the dates were too overpowering, so next time I won't leave out the cheese.

Ingredients:
- Pitted dates
- Bacon
- Goat cheese

Method:
- Split the dates and stuff them with goat cheese.
- Microwave the bacon for about a minute to render out some of the excess fat.
- Cut the bacon pieces in half (unless you have huge dates) and wrap each of the dates in the bacon.
- Place the bacon wrapped dates seam side down on a baking sheet (I used a silpat to make clean up a bit easier). If you have trouble keeping the bacon from unraveling, stick a toothpick through them.
- Put them into a 350 degree and cook until the bacon is nice and crispy. I think it took about 30 minutes though I wasn't really paying attention =P

Sushi! Arigato gozaimasu!

Sushi night! I love Japanese food.

So with sushi, you can really put in whatever you want, so I don't have an ingredients list and measurements or a real "recipe" for you today.


The first thing though, is the rice. You can use plain rice (short grain is better if you have it because it's stickier) and even better (and more traditional), you should flavor your rice with sugar and vinegar. The way I do it is to just add the vinegar and sugar (to taste) straight into the water that I'm using to cook the rice (rice vinegar is best if you have it, but any old vinegar will do). If I forget or decide to add more, I stir the sugar into the vinegar and let it dissolve, then mix it into the rice. On a side note, make more rice than you think you'll need. I'm always surprised by how much rice I use per roll.

Now on to assembly. The first thing to do is to spread the rice on the seaweed. Use room temperature rice because hot rice will make the seaweed mushy and rip and cold rice is too stiff and won't adhere to the seaweed. I like to use the rice spatula to help smush and smooth the rice onto the seaweed. If you find the rice sticking to the paddle or your hands, just wet them a bit. Not too much though, otherwise it'll make the seaweed soggy/rip through it.


As you can see, the rice doesn't cover every single inch of the seaweed and that's perfectly fine. Just make sure that it covers one of the edges. This edge will be the edge opposite of where you put your filling and will act like a glue to keep the roll from unraveling.

Line up whatever fillings you want across the bottom. Sliced cucumbers, avocados and imitation crab for california rolls. Mix the imitation crab with mayo and sriracha sauce for spicy california rolls.


This one is actually salmon skin (just salted and lightly dredged in flour and then deep fried), cucumber and fish roe.

Here's a closeup of the salmon skin that I fried up.


I also made some with unagi (eel), cucumber and avocado. (I bought the unagi, already marinated, in the frozen seafood section of an asian market. This is what it looks like)


After spreading the rice, it's time to roll! A bamboo mat will help, but is not necessary. If stuff starts smooshing out the sides, just shove it back in and don't squeeze so tight.


After rolling, use a sharp knife to cut it into pieces. Don't cut until you're ready to eat to prevent the rice from drying out. If it gets difficult to cut, dip the knife in some water (and wash off the rice that's stuck to it). The edge pieces are a bonus for the chef since they're not very "presentable", so just pop 'em in your mouth!

*BONUS: If you want to do inside out rolls, wrap your bamboo mat in plastic wrap so that the rice won't stick. After smooshing the rice onto the seaweed (you'll probably want to be more meticulous about getting a nice, pretty, even layer of rice on contrary to before where only the outer edge mattered), flip it over and put the line of filling in. Roll it as you would normally, except this will be more difficult, sticky and messy, but your rolls will get prettier with practice. After rolling, you can pat/roll sesame seeds, fish roe on for extra flavor and decoration. Wrap each roll in plastic wrap to prevent the rice from drying out. When you're ready to serve, unwrap, cut and eat!

i heart bacon

Who doesn't love bacon? You can wrap almost anything in bacon and it'll be good. This time, I chose shrimp.

This is a super simple, super delicious appetizer.

Ingredients:
- 4 strips of bacon
- 12 Shrimp, peeled and deveined

Instructions:
- Lay out the bacon on a paper towel and cover it with another paper towel
- Put the bacon and paper towel in the microwave for 1 minute (this will soften the bacon and soak up some of the grease)
- Cut the bacon into thirds
- Wrap each shrimp with one-third of the bacon and place on a baking sheet, seem-side down
- Put it under the broiler for ~5 minutes, until the shrimp is cooked and the bacon is crispy. Be sure to keep an eye on it, it doesn't take long at all and can burn really quickly.