Hummina-hummina hummus, II

(As I mentioned in the previous post, me and a buddy got together recently and came up with some hold-on-to-your-hat-they're-so-good recipes. This isn't one of those- they're next- but it's pretty damn good, and one I've been wanting to post for awhile.)


So, a long time ago I tried making hummus for the very first time and found out I was actually pretty damn good at it, and have been hooked on it ever since (well, mine anyway. Maybe I'm biased, but whenever I try somebody else's hummus, I always compare it to mine, and mine always comes out on top). So one day awhile back I came across a recipe online for sweet potato hummus, which I had surprisingly never thought of doing before. I gave the recipe a brief scan just to get an idea of what was in it and then quickly thought to myself that I've got to give this a try, except that mine will be even better. And it is. What's more, I'm even willing to admit that I have never actually even made that hummus recipe, and I still think mine's better. Oh yeah. That's right. Sure, she's got cooler/sexier photos, but whatever. Mine calls for coconut milk, which automatically makes it better than any other sweet potato hummus that doesn't. For real.

Here's the actual recipe:

1 1/4 lb baked sweet potatoes
1 lb garbanzo beans, drained + 1/4 c of the juice (homemade is preferable, but canned will work just fine too)
1 1/4 c coconut milk
1 t ea. kosher salt/pepper/crushed red pepper flakes
1T lemon juice
1T fresh minced garlic
1T cumin

Don't forget- this is hummus; don't feel like you have to follow the recipe exactly. I usually like a little more cumin/salt/garlic/lemon in mine, but when I'm making it for other people, this is one of the few recipes that I do try to stick to. But even when I just whip it up on the fly, without actually following the recipe, and I think it's 'just ok,' or 'not as good as it usually is,' folks have still raved about it to me. Maybe I just happen to hang around a bunch of yes-men, or crazy people, or whatever, but I think this recipe is pretty kick-ass and definitely worth your time (especially since it's super quick and easy to make). It goes great on homemade flatbread, but is also good on veggie sticks or whatever. I've even been known to eat it straight out of the bowl with a spoon.



crappy cell phone pic, because my camera's main lens died :(


As you can see, it's not very orange-colored, as you might expect. The coconut milk really lightens it up, yet the coconut flavor is not too strong. I find it to be quite subtle, in fact. If you like hummus- or maybe even more so if you don't- give it a go. I think you'll be surprised.

Thai Sticky Rice With Basil And Chicken

Let me just come out and say it at the beginning here- this dish Kicks. Ass. It's definitely one of the Best Things Ever and you owe it to yourself to make it. I've been wanting to post it for a long, long time. This is one of my top favorite dishes of all time, something I could eat daily and not get tired of for a very, very long time. I figure now that I'm finally down here in Nash Vegas and mostly moved in and such, what better way to kick off the first post here in my new town/new life than with such a worthy, tasty dish as this.

The name 'Sticky rice' is slightly misleading; it's not really sticky in the sense that most of us think of when we think 'sticky rice.' While it does stick a little to the cloth when it's done cooking, it's not at all like somebody overcooked their rice and it's just a big pile of sticky, starchy goop. I think 'Chewy rice' would probably be a more accurate title for it.
It's a fairly easy dish to make and most everything is easily obtained. If you live in a smaller town somewhere, you might not be able to find Thai basil (if not, it's definitely worth growing your own) but regular basil is awesome too. Not quite as awesome on this dish as the Thai kind, but pretty damn good in it's own right. Anyway, here's a rundown of what you'll need:

Main Dish:

Boneless chicken parts, small-to-medium dice (breast, thigh, doesn't really matter; whatever you prefer)

Thai Sticky Rice (also known as Sweet Rice or Glutinous Rice. It comes in a purple variety, and probably others, but go with the the white kind for this recipe. The other kind cooks different, in my experience, and I haven't been able to get the same texture for it). You'll also need either a bamboo steamer or a colander, along with a cheesecloth or cloth napkin, for steaming the rice. Cooking it on the stovetop, or using a rice cooker, will not work. I tried it once just to see how it would come out, and it didn't. At all. It has to be soaked and steamed.

Some type of adult beverage (not for the dish, but for the cook. Cooking's always better/more fun when you're consuming some type of beer/wine/booze)


Marinade:

Fish sauce
Soy sauce (a good kind, not LaChoy, which is not even a real soy sauce)
Teriyaki sauce
Rice vinegar
Fresh lime juice
Dried basil
Fresh minced garlic
Fresh minced ginger
Sugar
Kosher/sea salt
Pepper
Crushed red pepper
Szechuan peppercorns, toasted (those are the things in my header photo. If you don't have a good international market where you live, they can be obtained from Penzey's and other online spice merchants.
MSG (optional, I guess. I always use it, though. I think the whole anti-MSG thing is a bit overblown and I highly recommend the stuff)


The list above is just what I currently typically use. I have no set recipe or list of ingredients or anything like that. If you have other Asian ingredients like Maggi, Soba, or Oyster sauces, they'd probably go pretty well too.

Garnishes:

Fresh basil, preferably the Thai variety

Sriracha, aka Rooster sauce or Cock sauce

Chopped dry-roasted peanuts

Fresh lime juice

Bean sprouts


Making it happen-

Rice-

The rice has to soak for a good 8 hours or so, so you'll want to get that out of the way first. I never bother to measure it out, but when I cook for just myself, I typically use about 1 cup/8 oz. dry rice. I try not to let it soak for more than 10 hours, so if I start it the night before, when I get up in the morning I'll usually just drain the water off and leave it like that until I'm ready. It also doesn't have to soak in the fridge, though I usually put it in there if it's going to be sitting for awhile after I drain the water.

Marinade-

While the rice is soaking, get to work on whipping up some Asian-flavored goodness to marinate that chicken in. Get yourself a good sized metal mixing bowl, toss in a big pinch of salt and a bigger pinch of sugar, add in some hot water to help it dissolve quicker, and mix until it's completely dissolved. Then, little by little, add in splashes of the ingredients listed above until it tastes the way you want. Remember to add more water as necessary (you'll need at least some, so it's not too overpowering) and possibly more salt and sugar. I also typically add the most of the ingredients that are near the top of the list, and go down in volume from there- so more fish sauce than soy, more soy than teriyaki, etc. Go light on the szechuan peppercorns, though. If you're not familiar with them, they're not actually peppercorns, so they're not 'hot' like regular peppercorns. It's hard to describe them, but they have a citrus-y smell and flavor, and if you pop one in your mouth it'll make your tongue kind of tingle and feel a bit numb. That's a good thing. Just be careful not to overdo it; they can be quite strong and I've damn near ruined a dish by using too much. A pinch is all you need to start with. Also, if you don't happen to have any fresh minced garlic (which I don't for this particular batch), the granulated kind is better than nothing.
The main thing to remember is that there is no right or wrong way to do it, and that what you're shooting for is something that's savory and has a good blend of Hot, Sour, Salty, and Sweet (light on the Sweet, but that's just me. Mostly I just use the sugar for a bit of balance. Plus, the lime juice, rice vinegar, and basil add their own bit of sweetness too). That's my main objective whenever I mix this up. If you're not sure because you've never done it before and you don't have much experience with Asian flavors or whatever, don't sweat it, it's easy. E-Z. Taste it often as you go and add whatever you think it might need more of. It won't be the exact same every time, but that's part of the fun of making and eating it. If you're feeling cautious about it, you may want to actually measure stuff out instead of just adding it in random splashes. Also, you may want to start with fairly uniform and equal measurements of things; say, for example, 1 T each of (almost) everything, and then adjust from there. The main reason I don't have an actual recipe for this is because every time I try and come up with one, it never works out. I'm always adjusting and fine-tuning the marinade as I go, and it's really, really hard to keep track of every little dash of whatever sauce I'm adding, and it always seems to come out vastly better when I don't even try, so I finally gave up on that and now I just focus on tasting as I go, adding more of whatever I think it needs here and there. And it never fails to come out awesome.
Once your super-amazingly-awesome marinade is up to your standards, toss in the chicken and let it soak a bit. Depending on how much lime juice you put in, you could probably get away with 20 minutes or so, but I think an hour is good. Two is too, but if you let it go more than four hours, call a physician. No wait, that's something else. Anyway, you get the point.

Also, I was planning on doing a little video clip of me mixing up the marinade, just so you'd have some sort of reference point, but my Flip cam has suddenly disappeared, even though I just had it a few days ago when I originally started writing this post and was planning on doing it then. If it turns up at some point, I'll do the video and then update this post with it, but for now I got nothing.

Cooking the rice/chicken-

When you're ready to start cooking the rice, you'll need to drain and rinse it thoroughly. Like, put it in a fine-mesh colander and rinse it underneath the faucet until the water starts to run clear. When it's ready, put it into your cheesecloth-lined colander or bamboo steamer and set it on top of a pot of boiling water to steam. Make sure it's evenly spread out and that there's not too much- depending on what you're using and how big it is, you're probably going to have to keep it to 2 cups (dry) or under. Cover it with another cloth and then set a lid on tightly to keep as much of the steam in as possible.
In the past, I used to use one of the more traditional style conical bamboo steamers-





But I don't really like the way those cook. This is a fairly decent sized basket, big enough to cook for 4-5 people, but unless you're cooking only a small amount, like enough for 1-2 people, the cone shape tends to cause the stuff at the bottom to be overdone while the stuff at the top isn't even close, and probably won't ever be. I found this out the hard way while trying to cook for several friends. So now I've switched over to the round kind, which typically has 2 steamer baskets and it's own lid. You see them at Bed Bath and Beyond for 20 bucks or so. I got mine at Williams-Sonoma for about $15. It's a large one with only one layer. (Maybe a bit too large, since I currently don't have any pots that big around, but I make it work.) I like this style a lot better, since it allows for much more even cooking, so you can fit more rice in for more people. Depending on how much rice you're cooking, it usually takes about 20-25 minutes to steam. When you're getting close to that time, just lift the lid and scoop out a small amount with a fork (or a long pair of tongs, if you have them) to test for doneness.
While the rice is cooking, get out your wok and turn that thing on high high high. Let it get super scorching hot. Like, to the point that it starts to smoke. Make sure your chicken has been thoroughly drained, since the liquid will cool the pan down considerably, and the chicken will still throw off some more liquid anyway. Do not do what you might be tempted to do, and what most people probably do, and add oil to the pan. You do that and then when you drop the chicken in it's just going to splash up and burn you in the face. You don't want to be blinded or horribly disfigured, do you? If you're already blind and horribly disfigured, then do whatever you want, but for your own safety, either hold off on the oil until after you add the chicken, or toss the chicken in a little bit- just enough to coat it- before you add it to the pan. Either way, it's not gonna stick (if you're using any kind of decent cookware, that is. Cheapo pans that don't conduct heat well might give you some problems, but use a good wok or cast iron skillet and you'll be golden). If you use no oil at all, then it may stick a little at first, but the super high heat will sear the outside nicely and then the chicken will start throwing off juice, and then that will loosen things up. If you saved any of the marinade (always a good idea, just in case) you could add some of that after a bit to help it along too. The chicken won't take long at all to cook, under 10 minutes easily, so try and time it so that it's done around the same time as the rice, because Thai sticky rice doesn't keep for very long at all. It dries out quite quickly. If you're not sure when to start, just remember the chicken will probably hold for much longer than the rice so if the chicken's done first, not a big deal, you can just hold it warm in a 150 degree oven or whatever.
Make sure you have a large plate or bowl ready for when the rice is done. When it's ready, cut the heat and lift the lid (and top cloth, if you're using one); as soon as the steam clears enough for you to grab the cloth napkin or whatever you're using, grab it by its corners and quickly turn it over onto the plate or into the bowl. The cloth will still be wet enough that you can easily remove it from the rice and then lay it back down as a cover, without much, if any, of the rice sticking to it.

From there, just break off as much or as little as you want and spread a layer of it on a plate. I typically sprinkle some fish sauce on top of that layer, then cover it with a layer of my freshly-wokified chicken, then cover that in a fairly thick layer of Sriracha, fresh Thai basil leaves, fresh lime juice, crushed peanuts, and sometimes bean sprouts (when I'm brave enough to buy them. I've just heard too many horror stories about them. Going to have to start growing my own just to be safe).

It usually ends up looking something like this:


This is what Awesome looks like


Prepare to be blown away when you take a bite. Especially if I happened to make it for you.

I love my new job.

So still getting settled in here in town, but I was lucky enough to land a job at the Two Twenty Two, located inside the Country Music Hall of Fame, within two weeks of arriving in Nashville. Check out their menu, and especially their catering menu, and you'll see why I love my job. There really is nowhere else in town I'd rather work.

Another reason I love my job is because of some of the equipment we use, such as this steamer-



That's right, it's a Cleveland Steamer.



(Still got a few more weeks of transitioning to do, then we've got some new stuff in the works. Stay tuned.)

Road Trip/Moving/New Stuff

Going to be busy for a bit while I move...






But then I got some tasty new stuff coming- Thai Sticky Rice, a cool Hummus variation, Muhammara, and a Buffalo Chicken Quesadilla; maybe some video versions of stuff like The Tacos (they're way, way quicker and easier to make than the post might lead you to believe).

Going to have a blogging partner too, so she'll probably have some cool recipes to share as well.

Good Times.

Rockin' the Burrito Casbah, Part Dos.

(updated, May 19. See * at the bottom.)

This, in my opinion, is the be-all, end-all of burritos. It pretty much does not get any better. Maybe, possibly, somewhere in a remote town in Mexico, there's a 10th generation Mexican granny who's been making the original burrito recipe that's been passed down through the family of the actual creator of the burrito, and that one might be better than this one- but I doubt it. I'm pretty sure that one bite of this one and that granny would be furiously rewriting the recipe. Luckily for us though, you don't even need a recipe. It's dead simple. Here's pretty much everything you need:

Meat (beef is good, but I almost always use chicken nowadays)
Cheese
Black beans
Onion
Lime
Your favorite hot sauce (I prefer a homemade vinegar-based jalapeño type, but for store-bought stuff, Cholula and Valentina are both excellent)

Flour tortilla dough
Jalapeño-lime spice mix

Let's start with the last two first: Flour tortilla dough recipes abound on the internet. Some list baking powder as an optional ingredient. It makes the tortillas a little puffy, more like the ones you find in the store. I never use it. I like mine not-puffy. They're super easy to make from scratch, so don't waste your money on the store-bought ones-- these are infinitely better. Also, the recipes are flexible so don't feel like you have to follow them exactly; the other day at work, I forgot to bring in a dough ball I'd made at home, so had to make one there instead- but I don't have easy access to the internet at work, so had to kind of go from memory. Technically, the recipe I made was 'wrong,' but it still came out fantastic. There's a recipe here if you want to use that, but this is more or less what I used at work:

Flour Tortilla Dough

2 cups flour
1/2 - 1 t kosher salt
1/4 c or so of fat (whatever I've got on hand. I've used butter, olive, and canola oil. They all work just fine.)
1/2 c or so of water

Mix the flour together with the salt, then add the fat and mix it all up with your hands until it's all nice and crumbly. Add some water and mix it up until you've got a slightly sticky dough ball going. Knead it a bunch of times, then cover it with a damp cloth and let it sit awhile.

And that's pretty much it for the tortilla. When it comes time to make it, if you've got a scale, a 3 1/2 - 4 1/2 oz ball will give you a pretty decent-sized tortilla when it's all rolled out nice and thin.


Jalapeño-lime Spice Mix

There is no specific recipe for this, nor is one needed. Here's what you do need-

Jalapeño powder
Granulated garlic
Kosher salt
Lime juice powder

Start with the Jalapeño powder as a base, and just keep adding the rest of the stuff to it until you think it's ready. I like a lot of lime flavor in mine, followed by the garlic. You won't need a whole lot of salt, but don't skip it altogether either. Jalapeño and lime juice powders can be found Here and Here, among other places.

*****

Alright, here's how you make a totally kick-ass burrito...

Take your meat of choice and dice it up pretty small (as I've mentioned before, way easier if it's partly frozen) then douse it liberally with your jalapeño-lime spice mix.




As you can see, there's a lot of spice mix sitting on the bottom of the bowl. That's partly because the chicken was still a little frozen when I doused it, and the spice mix doesn't stick quite as well like that. But also because I might have gone a little overboard on the spice too (well, not overboard for me, but for some people. My general rule of thumb is: use a LOT). No matter, once the chicken thawed a little more, it all got absorbed. Let it sit like that for at least a couple hours. Overnight is even better. A couple days is really good. When you're ready to make it, the chicken will be thick and goopy, and not very appetizing-looking:



Forget about what it looks like. Think about how it's going to taste. And it's going to taste like the best damn burrito in the world. Also, see that little fan in the right part of the photo? You're going to want a lot of airflow when you start cooking this. Either that, or hold your breath for however long it takes to make. Seriously, use your stove's hood fan, your ceiling fan, and get a couple more from down in the basement. Once you start cooking it, the jalapeño powder really messes with your ability to breathe.

Fire up your pan, add a little oil and let it get hot for a minute or two. Add the chicken and give it a couple stirs, then let it sit for a bit. Stir it up some more, but know that the spice mix will start to really stick to the pan:



That's good. You want that. Let it burn, but keep the heat at about medium so it doesn't totally scorch. Once the chicken is all the way, or at least mostly, cooked, squeeze in a little lime juice to help deglaze the pan. Maybe some white wine. A squirt of water will work, if you've got nothing else. But not too much. Now is when you also add the black beans, along with some of the juice from the can (or cooking liquid if you made them yourself). Let that cook for a minute and it'll dissolve all that baked-on flavor and then you can easily stir it into the rest of the mix:




Once you get to this point, turn it down to low, or even off, and fire up your tortilla-cooking surface. All I've got is a wok, unfortunately, but it does the job.



Set it on about medium-high and let it get pretty hot. Toss your tortilla in/on the pan, and when it starts to bubble up all over, it's ready to flip. It won't take long, so keep a close eye on it. As soon as you flip it, add your cheese. (But if you forgot to shred it, like I did, not a problem, just scramble to try and get it done before your tortilla burns, which you probably won't be able to do in time at this point, so just pull your tortilla from the fire when it's ready and then add the cheese. It'll still be one kick-ass burrito.) Don't let it sit too long on the heat, though. You should probably pull it from the heat before the cheese is even mostly melted; leave it on too long and it'll become brittle and break as soon as you try and roll it.
It's probably easiest to just put the tortilla right on the plate and then add the meat/bean mixture and your diced, raw onion, because then you can just roll it up right there and be done with it, but if your tortilla is too big for the plate before it's rolled (like mine usually are), not a problem- it rolls up easy. If you're not really sure how to properly roll a burrito, it goes kind of like this-

Lay all your stuff in the center and fold over the two sides:



Then take the bottom edge and fold it almost the entire way over to the other side (probably even a little more than what's shown here), tucking it in under itself as best you can:



After that, just tuck in the sides and roll it the rest of the way:



Grab your lime, a big-ass beer or two (that's a 24 oz. in the pic) and a big-ass bottle of decent hot sauce (34 oz. here)...



...and prepare to be blown away by the awesomeness of it.


Yeah, you're welcome.


(If you use steak instead of chicken, lettuce and tomato also go especially well with it too- but not iceberg. Go for something crunchy, like romaine.

*Also, almost forgot! If you make the steak version and want to put a salsa on it, use this one, instead of something else- the two were made for each other!)

My Badass Meat Cleaver

I was going to do a post today on the most awesome burrito in the world- my Jalapeno-Lime Chicken Burrito... But I spent so much time running around town buying booze and weaponry that I probably won't be able to finish it tonight, so in its place I'd like to just show off my new kitchen axe-





The blade is about 7 1/2" x 4" (with a total length of 13"), and it weighs just a hair under 2 1/2 lbs. This will come in mighty handy should I decide to butcher an entire cow, or if I need to chop down any trees. And when the apocalypse comes and I need to fight off the zombies, I will be prepared.

I'll be sure and keep it close by at all times-





(I'm going to work on the burrito post tonight and try to have it up on Monday sometime. If you like burritos, then you'll want to check this out because I'm of the opinion that you almost certainly have never had a burrito as good as this one. Ever.)

My new favorite cooking show

Epic Meal Time.



"Ain't no cookin' show exists like we exist."


Better than 99.9% of anything I've seen on Food Network.

Breakfast: It's not just for breakfast anymore. (Updated)

(updated)

Sometimes it can be the soup of the day.

The other day at work, I was trying to think of some sort of new soup I could come up with to possibly do for the soup of the day. They already have a bunch of decent recipes, but sometimes you just want something different. Plus, I just like being able to play around with food, especially when I'm not the one buying it. So, out of the blue an idea popped into my head for some sort of 'breakfast' soup- the original idea involved hash browns (with bacon, onion, and green pepper) eggs, biscuits (or pancakes) and maybe a touch of maple syrup to finish things off. Then I was thinking maybe skip the maple syrup and use salsa instead- sort of a southwestern feel to it or something. I'll admit, at first glance they both sound a little weird, but that's how new, great recipes are made: you play around with your food and do weird stuff to it. Mix flavors that you wouldn't necessarily think would go good together (soup/breakfast). So anyway, today I made a small test batch, and ended up skipping both the salsa and the maple syrup (though I'll probably try them both out later when I make more). And the result? It was excellent! I was actually kind of surprised. It sounded pretty good in theory, but when I actually started making it, I got a little nervous. Then again, since I was at work, using work's ingredients, I didn't really care.

Naturally I don't have a recipe, but thankfully I made a small enough amount today that I was able to somewhat keep track of what went in it. No photos, either, but I'm hoping to get one or two when I make a larger batch next week. Here's the rundown-


2 medium baked potatoes
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 green bell pepper
1/2 a large onion
5 strips of bacon, diced
3 cheddar biscuits
3-4 slices of American cheese (y'know, to class things up)

(the following amounts are approximate)

1 Tbs garlic powder (I prefer granulated, but restaurants seem to like the powdered stuff better for some reason)
1 Tbs black pepper
1 Tbs dried thyme
2 Tbs Cholula hot sauce
2 qts chicken stock


Fry up the bacon in a large soup pot until it's mostly done. Add in the pepper and onion (diced, or whatever) and cook for a few minutes more. Add the eggs and scramble it all up. When that's ready, toss in your spices and Cholula. (This is probably a good time to add the cheese, too, even though I waited until after I added the chicken stock). Mix all of that up good and then add the chicken stock, and the baked potatoes and biscuits (just coarsely crumbled with your hands. Leave the skin on the potatoes, too; no need to make more work for yourself). Let it get hot and simmer for a minute, then blast it a couple times with an immersion blender.

And that's how it went down today. As I was making it, I realized I should probably add the biscuits and potatoes first and blend those up with the stick blender, and then add the veggies and bacon, but in the end it turned out alright. As far as those biscuits go, this being a restaurant, we use premade frozen ones (which aren't that bad, really. These ones, anyway), but if I was going to make this at home or whatever, I'd definitely make mine from scatch. But for amounts purposes, those restaurant biscuits are small, and I figure two are about equal to one that you'd make yourself. I hope to have a more expanded recipe for this next week, one that includes trying it out with maple syrup, and salsa (but not together) as well as photos. I took one today with my cell phone, but it wasn't anything, so it's not going up.

***

4/25


Apparently the boss didn't like the stuff at all when he tried it the following day, so he dumped it out. Dang. So I probably won't be making any more of that at work then, and since I have none of the stuff on hand (yet) to make it here at home, it might be awhile before pics are taken. But dammit, I liked the stuff, and I do want pics for here, so I'm going to go out and buy the stuff to make it again, I just don't know when. Sometime.

4/29

Ok, so I went out and bought the stuff to make it here at home. Well, most of the stuff. I forgot the onion and pepper, but did remember to pick up the maple syrup. And I don't have Cholula, so I used Valentina instead (awesome stuff, by the way). So here's my updated recipe, and review-

1 medium baked potato
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 strips of bacon, diced
2 biscuits
2 slices of American cheese
Shredded sharp cheddar (couple ounces or so, I didn't really measure it)

(the following amounts are approximate)

2 Tbs or so minced fresh garlic
2 Tbs Valentina hot sauce
1 Tbs Italian seasoning
1 tsp black pepper
2 qts chicken stock

Ok, so putting it all together is basically the same thing as the original. I didn't have any Thyme, so I used some Italian seasoning that I have instead (it's got all the usual players in it- thyme, basil, oregano, etc... all that stuff).



So, to be honest, I liked the first batch better, even though it's basically the same thing. Maybe it was the onions and peppers, or maybe it's just because our bacon at work is just really, really good (it's made by Hormel, which is what I bought today, but the stuff I got still wasn't as good, even though it was their 'Black Label,' whatever that's supposed to be). Overall, it's a pretty good soup, but really, it just tasted like a spicy, potato-and-bacon soup. So... not really worth the extra effort of adding in the eggs and biscuits. And even though it was pretty good, it's not something I'd rave about to all my friends and talk about selling on the street from a mobile food truck, like I do with other things I've made (tacos). But that's ok, they can't all be winners, right? Plus, I've got a couple more things coming up that I think are good enough to rave about and sell from my food truck (which I'm totally hoping/planning to do).


P.S. I did try it out with the maple syrup, because, well why not? It was... different, as you might imagine. At first it almost kind of tasted like some weird instant oatmeal or something, but then it kind of seemed like it tasted like what you'd imagine it would have tasted like if you'd used sweet potatoes instead of regular ones (which I almost did). Anyway, stay tuned- better things ahead.

This is totally on my to-do list for the blog.

Justin Bieber look-alike tries to make a grilled cheese sandwich, while drinking.




I actually had this great idea awhile back to do alcohol reviews here on the blog- mostly beer, some wine, maybe some occasional harder stuff. But since I don't really know critic-speak, I figured the reviews would be kind of boring ("It's good, you should buy it," or, "It tastes like turpentine mixed with piss; don't buy it.") - unless I was writing the review of the alcohol while drinking it. Then it might be could get a little interesting. But I quickly found out that that gets a little expensive, since I was mostly interested in reviewing decent quality beers, not the cheap, mainstream crap that everyone's already familiar with. So then I figured maybe I'd start out with the good stuff, then switch over to some cheaper stuff to stay just intoxicated enough to actually be able to write a review. It didn't really work out. I was always either too sober, or too drunk. But I'm not giving up! Sometime this summer, I'm hoping to get myself a video camera, for the times when I come up with something decent in the kitchen but absolutely cannot work out a recipe for it- I figure I can always film myself making it, that way I can at least show people what it was I did, even if I can't work out an actual recipe for it.

And since I'll be having a friend help me out with the blog this year too, we can film ourselves drinking and cooking and reviewing different boozes.

Excellent.

Stir-fried chicken & barley (or, chicken & barley soup)

So I just whipped this up for dinner tonight, and it was way, way too easy to be as good as it was. I've been messing around with barley for lunch at work a lot lately because we've got a ton of it and hardly ever use it for anything. So since I had to skip lunch at work today, I brought part of it home with me and threw this together-




Super, super simple. No exact measurements were used or are needed here, but this is what I used for ingredients:

Cooked barley
Cooked, shredded chicken
Fresh spinach (hopefully E. Coli-free. I'll find out tomorrow, I guess)
Diced yellow bell pepper
Fresh ground coriander & cumin
Sun-dried tomato paste
Kosher salt
Granulated garlic
Cooking sherry
Extra-virgin olive oil
Chicken stock (optional, but tasty)

Heat up your fry pan nice and hot, splash in a couple glugs of the oil and saute up the bell pepper. After a minute or two, add the spinach until it starts to wilt, then add the barley and chicken and cook for another minute or so. Push it all to the outer edge of the pan and let it get really hot again, then douse it with the sherry and give it a couple good stirs to thoroughly mix it all together. Sprinkle on a hefty dose of coriander, cumin, and the garlic (fresh garlic would have been ideal, but I was too pressed for time to chop any, so I went with the granulated), add a couple pinches of salt, and you're good to go. Sun-dried tomatoes (or paste, in my case) add a nice touch of flavor. I think preserved lemon would have been tasty too, but I was already planning on adding the chicken stock and I wasn't sure if it would clash or not, since this was leftover stock from when I made Pho Ga the other day, so I held off on it. (I think I'll try it next time.) Even though that Pho recipe needs a little tweaking, in my opinion, the broth from it goes really well with this barley dish-




Very good stuff. And it's pretty quick to make, too- since I had the soup stock handy, and the barley and chicken was already cooked and the pepper diced, it took less than 10 minutes to dish this up.

Definitely worth making again.