Comfort Food & Good Friends

Our good friends, Janel and Edwin (another Edwin!), had us over for dinner the other night.  They made us a delicious meal of comfort food, so this entry is dedicated to them and covers  the yummies they shared with us!

Let me back up a little bit...the dinner was actually the wager we won from a game of Nertz played a few weeks back.  Edwin (not mine) had been honing his Nertz-playing skills and challenged us to a game.  We willingly agreed (always up for a friendly...and competitive game).  Plus a girl's gotta eat, and either way, a dinner would be the outcome.  So after a VERY close and intense game, the final verdict favored us...woo-hoo!  But our competition kept us on our toes...you could tell Edwin had been practicing, and it helped that his partner, Janel, played at the speed of light and steadily barked out orders (while answering a phone call mid-game)! :)

Our victory dinner included pork chops with mushroom sauce, macaroni & cheese, and green beans.  I know right?!  My mouth is watering too.  Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures until after we ate.  Not usually a good representation of the food.  I didn't get a shot of the pork chops because they quickly disappeared, but I got what I could of the sides.  Janel was kind enough to send me the recipes they used that night.

Porkchops:

Wanna know the secret???  Cream of mushroom soup!  The meat was perfectly done and tender, and the sauce really added to the flavor.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Golden-Pork-Chops/Detail.aspx

Mac & Cheese:

She said they used a combination of a couple different recipes due to their lack of ingredients.  What a true chef!  All I know is it came hot and fresh from the oven, topped with bread crumbs and crumbled bacon.  Delicious!

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chucks-Favorite-Mac-and-Cheese/Detail.aspx

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/creamy-macaroni-and-cheese-recipe/index.html

Green Beans:

No recipe for this one.  Just good ol' sauteed green beans with garlic and spices?

Thanks guys for the great meal, and any time you want to play Nertz again, we're game!

Steak Sandwiches

We've had the good fortune of being friends with Wender who is in the meat distributing industry.  Not only is she kind and thoughtful, but she offers great cuts of meat for a good price!  We had a couple of her steaks in the freezer, so I thought I should use them up.  I like steak but don't particularly like eating it in a big chunk (preferring it to be cut up in a stir-fry or paired with other things).  So I decided we would have steak sandwiches! 

It also just so happened that a friend of mine sent me a link to an awesome food website with phenomenal pictures and recipes : http://www.tastespotting.com/  Thanks Cherry!
From there I grabbed my steak sandwich recipe (http://www.lifesambrosia.com/2009/02/rib-eye-steak-sandwiches-recipe.html) and got to work.


Simple, simple, simple: some ciabatta bread, prepared caper cream sauce, arugula leaves, and grilled rib-eye.  

Edwin liked the steaks so much, he ate a sandwich and another steak on the side. :)  In his defense, the steak in his sandwich was thin.

I also made a salad on the side, always wanting to make one of those cabbage or lettuce salads with bits of ramen noodles thrown in.  It reminds me of a salad at a potluck in a teacher's lounge.  It was very tasty and very unhealthy!  I feel like I've been cooking a lot more with butter lately...maybe we oughta cut back on that...Anyway here's the recipe if you want to try it: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Napa-Cabbage-Salad/Detail.aspx.

Antipasto Salad & Seafood Pasta

We had some good friends over the other night, and I decided to try out a couple new dishes.  Edwin always gets nervous when I try out new dishes on other people.  He says, "What if it doesn't turn out right?  It's better to try it out on ourselves first."  I remember we actually had a fight once because I wanted to make a brisket for Easter one year for our friends.  This was a PRE-COOKED brisket from HEB, and all you had to do was pop it into the oven!  My stubbornness won over, and luckily so did the brisket.  Recently he hasn't had many objections to my experimental cooking on others; maybe because he's realizing that he can't bite the hand that feeds him...and be fed!

The menu for the night: Antipasto Salad, Seafood Pasta, and Garlic Bread. 

Antipasto Salad: If you live in Austin and have ever been to Mandola's, you probably know about their Antipasto Salad.  It is phenomenal.  My husband, the non-salad eater, loves this salad (yes, it is dripping in dressing).  I tried to replicate this dish that night, even finding the perfect Garlic-Parmesan dressing.  The salad is big and hearty, so get ready for this laundry list of ingredients: bag of greens, salami, provolone & mozzarella cheese, kidney & cannellini beans, artichoke hearts, hearts of palm (these are so neat!), roasted red peppers, and cherry tomatoes.  I mixed a little shredded parmesan in with the dressing, and I have to say it was pretty close to the original!  Mandola's includes olives, fennel, and pickled red onions in theirs, but I opted out of these ingredients.

Seafood Pasta: My sister sent me this recipe a couple weeks ago, and coincidentally it was from Jaden Hair from Steamy Kitchen!  She had posted a recipe on http://thepioneerwoman.com (who is awesome!), and right away I knew I had to make it.  I used both scallops and shrimp, and I learned quite a lesson in how to sear a scallop.  She has some great step-by-step photos and tips that walk you through the recipe, but unfortunately my stove had a mind of its own.  After the smoke detectors went off, it turned out that all the seafood came out okay.  Whew!  You can check out the recipe here: http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen-blog/2010/01/scallops-n-pasta/  Hers is much prettier than mine. :) 

Garlic Bread: I didn't take a picture of the bread, but here's the recipe I used, courtesy of Mr. Bobby Flay: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/garlic-bread-recipe/index.html.  A lesson I learned from this is don't skimp on the butter!

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend full of holidays to celebrate.  I was lucky enough to have another reason to celebrate~ Edwin and I celebrated 6-months, that's right 6 whole months, of marriage!  Did I cook him dinner?  Did he take me out?  Neither!...we had pizza and wings from Papa John's! 

Chinese Hot Dogs

One of my dreams is to open a Chinese bakery in Austin.  We all know we need one!  Some common responses after telling people about my vision:

-Ooo, you should do it!  And you should offer smoothies! (Cherry)

-I'll be the first in line everyday and be your most loyal customer. (Pastor Gaylord)

-Wanna use our kitchen as a testing grounds?  (my sweet and practical husband)

I realized I didn't really know how to make any Chinese bakery items- savory or sweet.  So I thought I'd start with one of my favorites- The Chinese Hot Dog (some know it as Chinese Sausage Buns).

Got a great recipe online, step-by-step photographs included.  The trickiest part of it all was converting the grams to teaspooons/cups!  Oh and getting the right consistency for the dough.  My FIRST time hand-kneading dough with that instant yeast.  I was on the phone with my sister a lot figuring out what I was doing wrong.

Here's the recipe if you want to check it out: http://dailydelicious.blogspot.com/2008/06/sausage-cheese-rolls-with-hand-knead.html

A few variations from the recipe (I'm such a dare-devil now):
-Used turkey dogs instead of regular hot dogs (I'm turning into my mom who is forever making recipes healthier)

-Didn't use cheese

-Sprinkled sesame seeds on top

-Tried a few different ways of wrapping the bread

The final product was pretty but lacked a bit in flavor.  It was delicious with some mustard and ketchup...just like a real American hot dog!  Happy Chinese New Year!

Citrus Grilled Shrimp Salad

You've probably noticed by now that my cooking is essentially copying other people's recipes.  Sometimes I'm adventurous enough to throw things together on my own, but I'm pretty much a stickler to what's on print.  It used to be so bad that if the recipe called for 1/4 teaspoon of an obscure spice, I would search frantically for it until I procured that particular ingredient, even if it meant going to several grocery stores.  That's probably why I have a dozen spices in my cabinet that all have 1/4 teaspoon missing from them, never to be touched again!  Cream of Tartar anyone?  So I have been learning that cooking is all about experimenting, and that it's okay to use substitutes when you don't have a specific ingredient OR you can just omit that ingredient all together...well as long as it isn't salt when you're making cookies or something- that's pretty essential!   

I decided to make a salad one night; Edwin is not a huge fan of salads unless they are covered in Ranch dressing or laced with fried chicken strips, so I decided to search for a healthy but tasty salad online.  I came across one of Robin Miller's recipes.  Here is the video for you visual learners (first link) as well as the recipe version:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/citrus-grilled-shrimp-salad/8545.html

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robin-miller/citrus-grilled-shrimp-over-greens-recipe/index.html

The salad was easy to prepare, and I even did a little ingredient substitution and additions!  The salad called for chives, but alas I did not have any chives.  Strangely enough I did have leeks in my fridge, so I used those instead.  My resource for figuring out what to substitute came from : http://rawtestkitchen.blogspot.com/2007/10/substitutions.html.  I'm sure there are a ton out there, but that's what popped up when I performed my search.  I also added some grapefruit and cucumbers.  Aren't you real chefs out there proud of the risks I took? :)  

We brought the salad over to share with our friends Tim & Christine, but boy did I get one-upped.  Tim had made Chinese Roast Pork (siu gue yuk), and Christine made Turnip Cake (loh bak go).  I knew my salad was tasty enough, but it was the roast pork and turnip cake that Edwin kept reaching for.  Okay, I guess I did as well!  Too bad we didn't get pictures of those dishes.