Wings #1: Garlic Buffalo

Ah yes the good ol' tasty buffalo wing. Probably the most known finger food eaten during the Ssuperbowl. I'm not really a football fan. Quite frankly, I don't even understand how it's played. All I know is there's two teams -- one will win and one will lose.  But one thing's for sure I've got to have my wings on Superbowl Sunday. Once in a while I'll eat it up on other occasions, but Superbowl is a must.

Now I wasn't sure as to how to actually make it without deep-fry. If you've been following this blog long enough, you'd know that I try to avoid frying as much as possible. so in came Alton Brown to the rescue. Not really in person, but via Good Eats recipe.  I actually made two kinds of wings for my little Superbowl munchies, along with some guacamole and tortilla chips.  Here's number one. I pretty much stuck to the recipe except that don't have one of those oven-safe wire racks, for the drippings, so I just laid them on the parchment paper and roasted. It still came out pretty awesome. I added some red pepper flakes, too. Chicken goodness with all that heat. Mwhahaha.... I served this with some ranch dressing.

Makes 1 dozen

Garlic Buffalo Wings
adapted from Good Eats

1 dozen wings separated with tips removed.
1 Tbsp unsalted butter - melted
1 tsp crushed red pepper (or more to your liking)
1 large garlic clove - minced
2 Tbsp hot sauce (or more to your liking)
pinch of salt to season

Steam the chicken on a metal steamer or steaming basket on medium heat for 10 minutes. Do not use the bamboo kind. Then pat the chicken dry and place them on a cooling rack or a baking pan with paper towels underneath. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 425˚F

Place the chicken on a parchment paper lines baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes. Give the chicken turn halfway through for an even browning or until the skins are golden brown.

While the chicken cooks, prepare the hot sauce mix. Combine the butter, garlic, red pepper flakes and hot sauce in a large enough. Season with a little salt. Then toss the nicely roasted chicken pieces until they are coated with the mixture.

Serve warm with some ranch or blue cheese dressing with some carrots and celery sticks.

Pasta with Broccoli in Carrot Sauce

Carrots are good for betacarotines. Helps your eye sight. They are tasty when you dip them in a little ranch dressing. So I bought a couple from the farmer's market from the weekend. Usually when I buy produce, I have a vague idea as to what I can or will make with them. I usually decide the day before or the day of. Then I remember seeing a recipe over at Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice, which is run by the lovely Reeni of using carrots as a sauce for pasta. Ding! Bugs Bunny's Pasta Toss aka Roasted Carrot Cream Pasta Toss. Carrot sauce was a new idea to me and it's been a while since I've had a really good pasta fix, so why not. I adapted the sauce a bit by adding some onion, fresh basil, I didn't have any parmesan on hand, but I did have a 4 cheese Mexican blend on hand. I also cooked up some broccoli with it as well before tossing everything together.

Serves 2-3

Pasta with Broccoli in Carrot Sauce
adapted from Cinnamon Spice and Everything Nice

3 medium to large carrots
4 small heads of broccoli - cut into florets
1/2 small onion sliced
3/4 c fresh basil - chopped
3 Tbsp olive oil (plus extra)
1 tsp dry thyme
2 garlic clove - chopped
1 5oz can evaporated milk
1/3 c shredded cheese - 4 cheese blend
salt and pepper to taste
3 c uncooked pasta
1 c pasta water


Preheat your oven to 400˚F

Peel and cut the carrots into 1/4-inch coins. Place them in a bowl along with the onion and toss them in olive oil, garlic, thyme, and a little bit of salt an pepper. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 30-40 minutes until the carrots are tender. Give the carrots a toss half way.

When the carrots are done place them in a food processor or blender and puree. Include the onion and garlic bits. Add the basil. Slowly drizzle in the evaporated milk and blend until smooth.

Bring a pot of water to a boil, seasoned liberally with salt and a tiny drizzle of olive oil. Boil the pasta to al dente. Roughly 8 minutes. Give it a stir to prevent sticking. Reserve 1 cup of the water and drain the rest from the pasta.

Heat a tiny drizzle of olive oil in a skillet and saute broccoli until tender. Turn off the heat and pour in the carrot sauce, the pasta water, cheese and pasta. If it looks slightly dry add a a tiny drizzle of olive oil.

Sprinkle a little more cheese just before serving and enjoy with some garlic bread.

Fish Tacos

Since I've started making my own tortillas, I can't get tacos out of my mind. One other taco I love to eat are fish tacos. Yes, that is what I shall make. My fish of choice on this was some dover sole, which was basically the thing that looks decent and appetizing at the market.

I had also received in the mail a small bottle of ponzu sauce with lime courtesy of the Tastemaker program from Foodbuzz and Kikkoman, yes those who make the soy sauce. Anyway, ponzu sauce can mostly be associated with Japanese food. It really great to dipping tempura. I decided to marinate the fish in the ponzu with some minced garlic. While that did its thing. I prepped the other ingredients and made some more flour tortillas.

When the fish was ready, I grilled it on good ol' Georgie along with a bell pepper that I sliced up after. Made myself a couple taco and drizzled some tapatio over. Yum!

Makes 6 tacos

Fish Tacos
3 fillet of sole
1 large garlic clove - minced
1/3 c ponzu sauce  (kikkoman ponzu with lime)
juice of half lemon
 
6 tortillas - taco-sized
2 c shredded lettuce
1 c fresh tomato - deseeded and small diced
1 small yellow bell pepper - quartered and deseeded
1 c shredded cheese

Marinate the fish, in a shallow dish, in the ponzu, lemon and garlic for at least an hour.

Prepare your grill. If cooking in a skillet, heat 1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil.

Cook the fish 2-3 minutes per side depending on thickness of the fillet. Place on a clean plate and cover and let the fish rest for a couple of minutes.

Next grill the bell pepper until slightly charred and slice them into strips. 

Put the taco together:
Take a tortilla. place a few chunks of the fish in the center. Top with some lettuce, tomato, bell pepper and cheese.

Serve with some sour cream and/or hot sauce.

Production Eats - No.16

Worked NCIS:LA again this week. Same location, but small crew from last week. I'm happy to say that everything went smoothly. No running involved, just some good old walking. Onto lunch:

 

Top clockwise: Bowtie pasta with mushroom sauce, dinner rolls dusted with paprika, rice, mushroom stuffed chicken, Marinated tofu squares, broccoli, a small slice of corned beef with some cabbage.

I really like the chicken. There was salmon also, but it didn't look too appetizing to me. That reminds me that I haven't made anything with mushroom in a long long time. I was happy to see tofu as part of the selection again. The corned beef and cabbage was actually really good. Slice carved at request so you know it's fresh, which was cool. The meat was nice and tender.

 

That meal was accompanied with a salad of mixed green, corn croutons, shredded parmesan with some light ranch. watermelon slices and an oatmeal raisin cookie for dessert.

There was some germ chocolate cake, which was staring me right in the face, but I backed off and was content with a delicious crisp cookie.

Homemade Croutons

There's not much to say about this one. A simple easy recipe to make croutons. Once in a while I like some added crunch in my salads aside crunch of the lettuce. I like croutons once in a while. I guess it depends on the mood I'm in. But I love it on caesar salad. They are relatively easy to make. Almost like a biscotti. Yet these are baked once. I used a couple sliced of sourdough, but you can use whichever bread you prefer. They don't really have to be one type. the neat thing is that they absorb some of the vinaigrette I lovingly drizzle over the greens. As you can tell by the photos, I piled them on there pretty good.

Served 2-3

Homemade Croutons

3 slices day old sourdough bread
3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil (plus extra if needed)

Preheat your oven to 375˚F

Using a serrated knife cut the bread in to 1/2-inch thick squares. Place them in a bowl. Drizzle in the olive oil and give them a toss. Make sure to coat them well. Then place on an ungreased baking sheet. Baked for 30 minutes. Give then a toss half way through to even out the browning and until crisp.

Serve with you favorite salad.

Sinigang na Isda (Sour soup with fish)

 
It's nice when someone else does the cooking even for one day. My mom had decided to cook one of my favorite soups from the Phlippines with one of my favorite fishes. Bangus or as it is referred to here in the US, milkfish. It's not common to find here, but you can find them in many Asian markets. If you can't find it at all whole catfish would do. For the sour aspect of the soup, she had used a tamarind soup mix from the Mama Sita's Brand. If you can't find that either, you can use lemon juice or if you're lucky enough to find fresh tamarind. It's just to give it that little sour punch.

Serve 2

Sinigang na Isda (Sour soup with fish)

2 milkfish bellies or whole catfish cut into 4ths
1lbs mustard leaves
2 small daikon radish  - peeled and sliced
3 Tbsp tamarind base soup (Mama Sita's)
        or juice of 1 Lemon or tamarind paste
1 tomato - rough chopped
1 small chunk - ginger  - rough slice
1 smal onion - sliced
1 12oz can chicken or vegetable tock
pepper to taste

In a pot combine the fish, tamarind/lemon juice, tomato,  stock, onion. Season with a little pepper. Bring the mixture to a slight boil and until the fish it cooked. The add the daikon radish and let it cook. then finally add the mistart leaves. Let the whole soup simmer for a couple of minutes.

Serve it some warm rice or eat alone.

 

 

Sourdough French Toast

Whoever thought that eating breakfast for dinner is a genius!! Hats off to those person(s) responsible. I was planning to bake bread that day, but i was running low on ingredients, to I opted to get a fresh baked sourdough loaf from Panera. The day wears on without a hitch until my stomach tells me it's time to feed it. It had been hours since I last ate. I decided to cook up some good ol' fashioned french toast. Made a general batter of egg, milk, cinnamon and vanilla. Grab a few thick slices of sourdough and cook 'em right up.

I've always used french bread with making french toast, so in using sourdough it bring a nice balance of sweet and slightly sour with the syrup. Make sure you put a good drizzle of syrup. I can't think of french toast without it. For those who don't want to use the whole egg, you can use 2 egg whites instead.

Makes 4 slices

Sourdough French Toast

4 - 1/2-inch thick slices sourdough bread
1 egg or 2 egg whites.
1/3 c milk
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
butter
syrup - your choice

Beat the egg in a flat dish, Season with the salt then add the milk, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix together thoroughly.

Heat up a skillet and lightly grease with a little butter. Dip both sides of the bread into the milk batter for 15 seconds and cook on the skillet for 2-4 minutes (per side) on medium heat and until slightly browned. Do this for each slice.

Serve it warm with a good drizzle of syrup and some  extra butter with maybe a side of fruit.