Gastronomic Globetrotting

Hope everyone is enjoying this heat!

Or...not.  I'd rather have heat in my mouth, not heat outside.  Thus, last night we had tacos.  Red Bell actually eats these!  Both she and Thai love to douse their meals in Taco Sauce (generally Ortega), but were appalled to realize we were out save for a drop of this favorite.  What could I possibly do about this?

Make my own!

That's right, I read the ingredients on the bottle (not overly complex) and pulled them out of my pantry with the food processor to attempt to recreate the sauce.

What an awful mess, right?  This is certainly a fun little test to try and reproduce the exact flavor.  A can of tomato paste, about 3/4 cup of water, few dribbles of light corn syrup, some distilled white vinegar, paprika, cayenne pepper, chili powder, and dash of taco seasoning later, I had both girls eating it by the chip-ful. 

Much experimenting (much, much experimenting!) later, I've approximated the flavor.  This is certainly a delightful challenge for an amateur chef (and even the pros) to hone their taste buds.  This is also a 5/5 Napkin Stains achievement for me!

Red Bell will be out of the house this evening, leaving us an opportunity to attempt a cuisine the rest of us enjoy: Indian food.  Thai picked out some recipes a while ago, and I even purchased the ingredients (odd things like garam masala, garlic paste, and ginger paste.)  However, we've been putting the endeavor off for a while.

We're going to use a package of marked-down lamb meat--I absolutely support mark-down meat.  The grocery stores are held to a high standard, and this "mark-down" stuff is close-dated, but perfectly clean, processed, and edible.  My Jalapeno and I will often buy a couple such items, and put them in the freezer to wait until we're ready.  When we stumble across something like a good deal on lamb, we get to flip through our recipe books to find a suitable preparation.

What we're going to try are samosas, which are often an appetizer of rice and peas inside a batter, lamb kebabs with a really kickin' marinade, and some saag in the crock pot (referring to a spinach concoction in which to cook the lamb to a great tender state.)  We often do tandoori chicken because it is simple enough to use tandoori paste and use the grill, but these dishes are more complex because we'll be using some unfamiliar ingredients--and I'll actually have to use measuring cups (my mortal enemy!)

Stay tuned to see how our Indian excursion shapes up!

Recipe Rewind

It seems it's been one catastrophe after another for a few days.  My heart goes out to anyone else in the Mid-Atlantic suffering from storm damage. 

Time to recap the last few days: Tuesday had been meatballs, from the previous post.  Wednesday was steak night--and common misconception states this is an easy meal.  It can be difficult if you don't handle your meat wisely (watch those steaks, people!)  My hubby loves his steak rare (preferably still moo-ing), but Thai and I like more of a flame on ours.  Red Bell won't eat a regular steak, so I use a packaged sirloin wrapped in bacon and marinated in some teriyaki to please her tastes.  Alongside the steak, I made some caramelized onions, fennel (with sugar and sherry), baked potatoes, and I tried a new recipe at the request of my Jalapeno: stuffed zucchini.  Now, I'm not always one for casseroles (which I thought this was), but I was happy to try the recipe on his behalf.

On top of the finished steaks, I put a little butter.  The best thing you can do to ensure you get a juicy steak is to let these sit and rest after you pull them off the grill--this way, the juices reabsorb into the meat rather than oozing out onto your plate and therefore being lost to your taste buds.  That butter will melt away quickly and add a subtle touch of flavor.

The recipe (from a Gilligan's Island novelty cookbook) basically entailed boiling the zucchini for a couple minutes to scoop the insides out and stuff with a mix of mushrooms, monterey jack cheese, and roasted red pepper, which I finished under the broiler.  Surprisingly, these earn an impressive 4/5 Napkin Stains--everyone seemed to enjoy them.  I think I could probably improve on the recipe by using smaller zucchinis.  Ours were a little ungainly for a single serving.

I was worried when I saw how the Parmesan I sprinkled on top browned up, but my faith is restored.  The flavor was just right, the zucchini was tender, and the filling was satisfying.  To me, they look like zucchini boats!

Thursday, we fired up the grill a second time for some BBQ chicken.  I soaked chicken parts in buttermilk, coated them in my favorite paprika rub, and then made my own sweet, sticky BBQ sauce.  Alongside, I made grilled eggplant, but was disappointed with the results this round.  I think I may have slacked on the olive oil, and they came out a little dry.  Then, I decided to whip some scalloped potatoes out of the air (sometimes you just have to follow your muse) and used my mandolin to sliver potatoes, and layer a casserole dish with these slices, jack cheese, some cream, scallions, salt, and pepper.  Every layer got the cheese, scallions, salt and pepper because otherwise you simply won't get any flavor and it'll taste like paste.

Thursday's spread was a nice one.  The leftover eggplant, steak, and other odds and ends went into a frittata: I chopped them, put them into a cast iron skillet, added eggs, and put it in the oven to set up.  You can cut it like a pie--it's almost like a one-stop omelet so everyone can eat at the same time.

I also sliced up tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and basil from our personal herb plants and drizzled with olive oil to make a simple, light, and fresh type of salad.

Simple, but lovely and delicious!

Friday, we had leftovers from all these goodies!  Also, the power went out around 10pm.

Yesterday, we were slated to have fair food: brats, sauerkraut, pretzel rolls (the recipe for which I'll share eventually!), and peppers all cooked on the griddle we place on top of our grill.  However, with the power crisis, we had other concerns.  The power did come back on by about 7pm, but we were too tired to follow through with the menu plan.  Thus, Red Bell made some macaroni, and Thai made me some surprisingly good pasta using ramen, olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, and basil. 

The fair food was reserved for today, and was nice to have with the power back on and the pool fully functioning.  Thai also helped me put together some deviled eggs, veggies and ranch, and other hors d'oeuvres.  (To make the perfect boiled eggs: put your eggs in the pot, cover with cold water, add a pinch of salt, put a lid on the pot, bring to a steady boil--once it boils, turn off the heat, leave the lid on, set a timer for ten minutes to let them sit, then run them under cold water to peel.  This will prevent the green sheen from forming outside the yolk, and hopefully will make peeling much simpler.)

That catches you up with our feasting, and tomorrow, we are are slated to fix pasta, a personal favorite of mine.