What’s left in the kitchen? – Fusion Cabbage Spring Roll Surprise

I haven’t properly grocery shopped in a while b/c of work taking over my life, but I finally had a chance to cook tonight and was too lazy to make it to the store. Luckily, my previous weeks’ over purchasing left me with some interesting ingredients to try to turn into a meal. Check the video below for the evolution of this dish as I rummaged about my kitchen and threw things together into this yummy dish now to be known as Fusion Cabbage Spring Roll Surprise!

Ingredients:

• 2 skinless, boneless chicken thighs or breasts, fat removed
• 1/2 lb fresh spinach
• 1/2 apple
• 2 TBSP garlic
• 1 TBSP miso
• 1 TBSP curry powder
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp coarse ground black pepper
• 1 cup orange juice
• 2 tsp dried basil
• 8 napa cabbage leaves
• 8 rice papers
• sticky rice

1. Cook the spinach – heat up a wok with 1 TBSP minced garlic, 1 TBSP miso & olive oil til garlic is sizzling. Add spinach, dash curry powder and cook down, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and pour into blender. Add 1/2 cup OJ and blend. Set aside in a bowl.
2. Chop & marinate the chicken – chop chicken into 1/2 inch cubes and add to a bowl. Add 1 TBSP curry powder, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp coarse ground black pepper, 1/2 cup OJ, 2 tsp dried basil and stir to mix. Let marinate about 10-15 min while you prepare the next steps.
3. Chop the apple into small dice
4. Blanch the cabbage – Chop off the last 1/2 inch of the napa cabbage head and separate the leaves into a bowl of cold water. Wash thoroughly and let drain in a colander. Heat up about 1 inch of water in a pot to boiling. Add the cabbage leaves and cook about 2 min. Drain in colander and set aside.
5. Cook 2 cups of rice in a rice cooker with 3 cups of water.
6. Cook the chicken – Heat up the same wok (no need to wash) with 1 TBSP minced garlic and olive oil. Add chicken when garlic sizzling. Careful to drain off the marinade. Stir while cooking and pour out excess liquid as needed. Once chicken is cooked through, about 7 min, add the diced apples and cook another 2 min. Remove from heat and place in a bowl for assembly.
7. Roll the rolls! – On a plate, place the wet rice paper, a napa cabbage leaf with the frilly end facing away from you. Add a scoop of rice, some chicken/apple mix, and some of the spinach sauce and roll like a spring roll or a burrito.

Now you are ready to chow on this very healthy, delicious meal packed full of flavor and nutrients. I gluttonously ate 3 for dinner after I turned off the camera. nom nom nom!

Miso Beer Slow Cooked Salmon Steaks

Today’s recipe was inspired some deliciously fat salmon steaks I found at the store. I tossed together some marinade centering around miso & beer and slow cooked these babies to get that wonderfully silky texture to the salmon that allows the fish’s rich flavor to shine through.

Ingredients:

• 2 salmon steaks
• 1 beer
• 1 TB miso paste
• 1 clove garlic minced
• juice & zest of a lime
• 1 TB honey
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 1 stalk celery

Steps:

1. Whisk together beer, miso, garlic, lime, honey, curry in a container
2. Wash and pat dry the steaks and place in the container w/ marinade. Let sit for at least 20 min
3. Heat the oven to 275 degrees
4. Chop the celery into 4ths and place like a stand for each the salmon steaks in a foil lined pan like below:

5.  Place the salmon steaks on the celery stalks – this allows the white proteins that will form when the salmon is cooked to drip down onto the pan and not stick to the steaks

6. Cook for 25 min on the bottom rack.

7. While the salmon is cooking, take the reserved marinade and boil it down slowly to a sauce.

8. After 25 min, turn the oven to broil and move the pan up to the top near the broilers. Broil for about 7 min til you see the edges of the steak getting browned and crispy!

9. Now the salmon is ready to serve. I had this with some quinoa tossed with sauteed shitake mushrooms, onions, and FIGS (not dates), alongside garlic sauteed watercress. The sauce is great for drizzling on top of the salmon or on the side for dipping.

Whole Grilled Fish a la Mom&Dad

I’m writing today from in-flight wifi on my flight back to Dallas! This weekend I went home to see my parents for the first time in ages. Of course my mom called me the days before asking me, “What do you want to eat??!” I had recently dined at Chow Thai in Addison where they had awesome, super fresh spring rolls, so I had spring rolls on the mind and happily requested whole grilled fish spring rolls.

In our family, spring rolls have always held a prominent place in the dining rotation. We’ve spring rolled everything from grilled fish, to sweet grilled pork, to boiled shrimp, to van de kamp’s fish sticks.  My mom lays out an entire table of heaping plates of greens (lettuce, mints, bean sprouts, cucumbers, other fragrant fresh herbs), rice noodles, rice paper, fish sauce, and the meat of the day. We all dig in and compete over happy mothfuls to see who can wrap the biggest or neatest spring roll.  Having lived on my own for quite a while now, I’ve brought this tradition on to my friends and have found some very skilled spring roll wrappers amongst them. :-)

So, this weekend, we went to the nearby vietnamese market to pick out a fresh fish to prepare for the requested meal. My parents took on the task of picking out the fish as, to be honest, I’m still a little squeamish at the smell of the fish market at asian stores! The picked out a LARGE red snapper and took him home with us. My parents passed on some good tips on picking fresh fish:

• Make sure the eyes are clear, not cloudy, otherwise your fish is not fresh
• Some old asian ladies will sniff under the gills of the fish to make sure it doesn’t stink

I think i’ll go with the first tip for now!

My parents also requested the fish to NOT be scaled. I thought this was strange, but they explained to me that keeping the scales on the fish provides a built in encasing layer that will seal in the juiciness of the fish, prevent the meat from burning when the skin does, and keeps the fish from sticking to the grill. cool!  My parents’ recipe was so simple and delicious and I’m eager to try my hand at it once I get home.

Ingredients:

• 1 whole fresh fish – red snapper is great!
• 1 head red/green leaf lettuce (this wil not have too stiff of a spine to get in the way of rolling your spring rolls)
• any variety of fresh herbs like mint, basil, cilantro, etc
• 1 package thin rice noodles/vermicelli
• 1/2 cup dried minced onion
• 1 scallion minced
• olive oil
• crushed roasted peanuts

1. Clean and pat dry the fish. Wait for your dad to heat up the grill….just kidding! Heat your grill up to around 250 degrees.
2. Place the fish on foil in the grill and cook 15 min per side.
3. Just before the fish is done cooking, heat some oil in a pot, add the dried minced onions and stir to cook til just golden and remove from heat. Add the chopped scallions and stir.
4. Once the fish is done, bring it inside. The skin + scales have now turned into this thick armor like layer that you can peel off pretty easily. Peel all the skin off and remove any tail/fin that is in the way. You can also remove the head if it feels strange to have your food looking at you while you eat. ;-) Place the whoel fish on a serving dish.
5. Pour about 1/2 the oil + onion mix over the fish meat and spread to cover. This mix imparts just enough flavor to complement the firm, fleshy white meat.
6. Top with crushed peanuts
7. Bring to the table and dig in, each person grabbing the meat directly off the fish, onto their plate, and into their spring roll!
8. Once you have worked your way through the top half of the fish and now see the spine, you can pull the whole spine out, and add more of the oil/onion mix on top of the other 1/2 of the meat.  It is bad luck to flip the fish over, according to Navy traditions (my dad is ex-Navy) b/c it means you’ll flip your boat over! ;-)

 

Fish Sauce Ingredients:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup warm water
• 1-2 limes to taste
• about 1/4 cup fish sauce
• minced garlic
• chili paste

1. Mix the water & sugar & lime til it tastes sweet enough to be a limeade. The add the fish sauce by the spoonfull til the color is about an amber color. Add the garlic and chili paste to taste.
2. This is a complete guess on the proportions, but I thought I’d throw it out there!

Hope you enjoy this exceedingly simple, fresh, and delicious meal!

Jambalaya Style Seafood Linguine

This weekend, Colin and I had a dinner date night, so we cooked up this flavorful dish starting from some cute frozen, cooked clams I found at the grocery store the other day. We’ve all had linguine with creamy garlic clam sauce, but I wanted something lighter on the sauce, heartier on the meat content. The final product was a clam, shrimp & italian sausage linguine with a sauce of garlic, white wine, lemongrass, butter, tomato, and parsley. I also added some spice in there to lean towards a “jambalaya” style flavor. MMM! So flavorful and a perfect sauce for dipping crusty bread into.

Ingredients: (4-5 servings)

• 1 lb clams
• 1 can claw crab meat
• 2 large italian sausage links (i used the chicken basil sausage again!)
• 1/4 lb med/large shrimp shelled
• 1/2 large tomato diced
• 2 cups mushrooms sliced
• 1 vidalia onion diced
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 3 inch piece of lemongrass minced
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 cup chicken broth
• salt, pepper, red chili flakes
• 1-2 TB butter
• 1 TB dried sweet basil
• 1 package linguine

Steps:

1. Chop everything: Dice the tomatoes and onion; mince the garlic & lemon grass; slice the mushrooms (about 1/4 inch slices);  slice the sausage into 1/2 inch pieces, shell the shrimp if needed; chop the parsley
2. Heat a large pan (with lid) to med high. Add 1-2 TB butter. Add the 1/2 the  garlic and stir to cook til golden (30 sec). Add onion, mushroom, lemongrass, dash salt. Cook til onions are transluscent &/or mushrooms are soft, stirring frequently.
3. Add sausage to the same pan and cook 2-3 min to get a good sear on the sausage pieces.
4. Once sausage is cooked add wine, chicken broth, dried basil, red pepper flakes, pepper and let the sauce cook down a bit.
5. heat up a pot of water to cook the linguine to al dente. When done, drain and toss with olive oil to keep from sticking.
6. Heat up a separate pan with 1 tb butter. Add the remaining garlic and quickly add the shrimp & crab to cook about 3 min flipping/stirring. Once just cooked, still translucent, toss everything into the sauce pan and stir.  Add more broth, wine if it is getting down too low. Add tomatoes.
7. Right before you are ready to eat, add the clams (with any juice) into the pot. Add a handful of chopped parsley. Stir, cover and let cook together about 1 min on high.

Aww yeah, baby!!

Look all te good stuff in there!!

To serve, plate up some linguine. Top with several spoonfuls of the sauce mix. garnish with more chopped parsley and shredded parmesan. Eat this with some wine and good bread for dipping! We had some fresh ciabatta, a yummy chianti, and some steamed broccoli on the side for colin the broccoli monster. YUMMY!!!

Hope you enjoy this meal!

Sausage & Eggplant Towers of Loove!

Today’s recipe comes after a bit of the time looking for a new way  cook eggplant and sausage. I wanted something with hearty grilled vegetables + sausage + lots of love!

This recipe is also the first  episode of my new cooking show…..Healthy, Hot, & Delicious with Cookie!! Today will be concentrating on the food, but as I get better at working this camera and editing videos, we’ll be covering ideas on how to live a Healthy, Hot & Delicious life through good food & exercise!

So here she is, the first episode:

Would love to hear your feedback!

Ingredients:

• 1 medium sized eggplant
• 1 zucchini
• 2 large sausage links (i used a chicken basil sausage)
• 1 vidalia onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 small can peeled/diced tomatoes
• 1 small can tomato sauce
• about 1 cup flat parsley chopped
• 3 TB almonds chopped fine
• Agave Nectar (sugar is fine too)
• 8 eggs
• olive oil, salt, pepper

Steps:

1. Prepare the eggplant – Slice the eggplant crosswise into circles about 1/2 inch thick. Place onto a plate covered with a paper towel and sprinkle with salt and let rest for about 20 min.

1. Heat the oven to 350.
2. Slice everything else – Slice the zucchini in half crosswise, then into long slices along the length of each half. Dice the onions. Mince the garlic. Chop the parsley.

1. Grill the eggplant – brush olive oil and sprinkle salt, pepper on an aluminum lined pan. Place the eggplant slices flat on the pan.  Brush tops of slices with olive oil, sprinkle with salt pepper. Place in oven for 25 min. Flip half way through.
2. In a pan with a lid, heat olive oil. Add garlic and cook about 30 seconds, stirring quickly. Add the onion, sprinkle of salt, and cook til onions are translucent. Add the sausage (remove from casing if necessary) and cook til browned, breaking apart any chunks.
3. Once the meat is cooked, add diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, 1/2 the parsley, about 2 tsp agave nectar, almonds, and salt/pepper to taste. Stir to combine, lower heat to medium and cover loosely with a lid. Let cook around 10-15  min stirring occasionally til liquid is cooked down.

 

1. At this point we are 15ish minutes in, place the zucchini on an oiled/aluminumed pan. Salt + pepper. Add the pan to the oven for the last 15 min of the eggplant cooktime.
2. Remove the veggies from the oven.
3. Fry an egg over easy – heat oil in a non-stick pan to almost smoking. Add egg, lower heat immediatly to med-low. Flip egg over and cook to over easy. Turn off heat.
4. Assemble your tower of love:

• Lay down a slice of eggplant
• Top with 2 zucchinis crosswise
• Spoon meat mix on top
• Top with fried egg
• Garnish with parsley
• Add  shredded cheese if you wish

 

That’s it! Dive in and enjoy the flavors.  There’s lots of flavor and texture here to entertain your tastebuds, alongside plenty of nutrients and protein to take care of your body.

Lil Indian Excursion – Almond Cilantro Yogurt Chicken

Last week one of my coworkers invited my project team over to his house for dinner. His wife whipped up this massive array of delicious Indian food and we all pigged out happily while enjoying the family atmosphere of the dinner at his home. It’s rare as a young, single professional living far away from your parents to get that family feeling at a meal – kids running around, a lovely mother-like hostess graciously encouraging you to eat more, the heart of a person’s life shared with you. It was really so lovely and made me feel a bit sad to miss out on that by living so far from my own parents. But, anywhere you go, you can create a new family. Not to replace your blood relatives, but a new branches to your family tree in all the good friends you find along the way. This is my extended family for whom I cook these days. We feast over too many bottles of wine, raucous laughter, and highly inappropriate conversations. A very different flavor from dinners at home, but so warm and wonderful in its own way.

In any case, my fave dish of the night was actually served as an appetizer. The wife made these baked chicken drumsticks with a cilantro yogurt sauce that were soooo tasty! We begged her for the recipe and she happily talked us through what she did. I only remembered some of the main parts, fully expecting to be able to google something similar when I got down to actually cooking it. Sadly, my google skills failed and I did not find anything really similar to what she described! unbelievable! So, left to my own devices, I devised the following recipe from what I remembered with, of course, a few cookie-experimental modifications.

 

Ingredients:

• 6 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (you can also use drumsticks or breasts)
• 1/8 cup slivered almonds
• 4 TB minced garlic (or 4 cloves, minced)
• 1/2 piece of ginger cut into matchsticks
• olive oil
• 1 bunch cilantro chopped
• salt, pepper
• 2 cups low fat plain yogurt

1. Make the sauce base -  In a food processor, or a blender, if you are gangsta like me, toss in the almonds, garlic, ginger, and about 1 TB olive oil. Run the blender, pouring in some more olive oil as needed to help it all flow. In the end you should end up with a chunky paste like below. Place it into a large bowl.

  + Much blending + olive oil =

2. Add the cilantro – Take your coarsly chopped cilantro and pop it in the blender w/out cleaning it out. Add some more olive oil and chop til you’ve got your fresh greens down to something that looks kinda like pesto. Add that to your big bowl with the almond/garlic/ginger paste.

 

3. Add seasoning & yogurt – Add salt, pepper and stir together, tasting to see if it is the right flavor for you. Then add the yogurt and stir all together to make your delish sauce.

4. Marinatin’ Time! – In a very large container, place some sauce on the bottom, then place the chicken as flat as you can in the container. Cover evenly with sauce. Add more layers if needed. Cover with plastic wrap and let it marinate at least 2 hours, or, even better, overnight!

 

5. Cook it – Heat the oven to 350. Line a baking pan with foil and spray with some cooking spray. Place each piece of chicken onto the pan after shaking off any excess sauce.

Bake for about 35 min, then turn oven to broil and finish off the chicken for about 7 min or til the edges get toasty brown.

now, as a new feature on Cookie Loves Eating, we bring you VIDEOS!!

Are you ready to chow down on this dish??

Woo hoo! hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did!

Portabello Party in Yo Mouf!

This weekend I went to austin to see my friend Jen and we went out to La Condesa. Normally, I would say that I do NOT like mexican food, b/c living in Texas, there are Tex-Mex places on every corner and every Texan will list Tex-Mexican as their favorite food. I find the food at these places just too heavy for me and i feel like rolling over and taking a nap after eating endless bowls of chips n salsa, fajitas, cheesy things. blahhhhhhh.  However, knowing that Jen loves delicious food as much as i do, I was excited to see what was in store for our Mexican dinner.  First off, the restaurant is beautiful! such unique decor and beautiful atmosphere. Also, the cocktail list was yummy and fun. I had something delicious with Jim Beam and the waiter lit an orange peel on fire and rubbed it on the rim of the glass before plopping it into my drink. So cool! and tasty!

Anyway, on to the meal. I have to say, the food was fantastic, and I was so happy to have some very tasty, creative Mexican Mexican food! Also,I am now obsessed with one of the dishes we had: Hongos Y Huitlacoche (I had to look that up!). From what i remember, the dish was a crunchy corn crust, topped with portabello mushrooms, some of that crumbly mexican cheese and truffle oil. HOLY CRAP this smelled like heaven!! the combination of earthy, meaty portabello against the rich truffle made this such a decadantly delicious nibble. I thought my mouth was doing a happy dance with each bite I took!

So now, back home, I obviously can’t stop thinking about this dish and had to experiment with my own version.  I haven’t reached the level of amazingness of the La Condesa dish, but I think it is a nice variation. Great for an appetizer or a quick snack. I can see how these ingredients could also translate well into a pizza/flatbread/bruschetta.

Ingredients (Makes 4 appetizers):

• 1 large portabello
• Some sort of thick cracker or flatbread (I used WASA)
• Corn (frozen or canned is fine)
• Shredded mozzarella
• Fresh figs
• Truffle oil
• Salt, pepper

1. Heat the oven to 350 and line & spray a pan with tin foil.
2. Place 4 crackers on the pan. I picked up these crackers b/c from the box the looked like the right consistency. They are a little bit less crunchy than i had hoped for. Any suggestions for a crunchy, corny cracker?

 

3.  Wash portabello and squeeze dry in a paper towel. Slice in 1/4 inch strips and line up about 2-3 strips on each cracker. Carefully, lightly sprinkle some truffle oil on the mushrooms and sprinkle with some sea salt.

4. Slice the figs along the latitude lines intos nice little circles and lay them on top of the mushrooms.

5. Sprinkle with some corn and a little more salt.

6. Pop in the oven for 10-12 minutes until you can see the mushrooms start to get a little bit darker/more shrunken.  Pull out of the oven and sprinkle with shredded mozzarella. Pop back in, turn onto broil for about 3-5 min to melt the cheese and brown the edges of the cracker. Remove from heat and serve quickly.

I am so in love with the truffle oil on portabello. They are like lovers that are even better together than they are on their own!  I dug the fig too. That little tiny bit of sweet. I might even try some balsamic on the figs next time!

With the extra portabello I had, I whipped up a quick, light veggie pasta dish:

Ingredients (2-3 servings):

• 1 portabello mushroom
• 2 roma tomatoes
• small handful of yellow grape tomatoes (optional)
• handfull of fresh cilantro
• 4 basil leaves
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• some pasta (I used bowtie!)
• Shredded parmesan cheese or asiago

1. Boil the pasta and set aside when done.
2. Mince the garlic, dice the tomatoes, Portobello, cilantro.
3. Heat some olive oil in a pan. Add minced garlic and stir about 30 seconds, add Portobello and dash of salt/pepper. Then tomatoes (red & yellow) and sautéed some more. Adding salt/pepper/sugar to taste. I generally prefer my tomato dishes with a touch of sugar to mellow out the tartness. Don’t overdo it! Just a dash to cut the tart.
4. Cook about 5 min til combined well. Add chiffonaded basil and toss once. Pour over bowl/plate of pasta. Top with coarsely chopped cilantro and shredded cheese, if you please. ;-)

 

MMM. Super light, but still very tasty and filling. I also sauteed some of these greens I found at the asian store. They are kind of like watercress, but smaller, more tender. I have no idea what they are, but they are very green and tasty!

Hope you enjoy trying out these portobello recipes! Remember, these puppies are a great source of fiber, selenium, potassium and lots of other good stuff.