Quinoa Pilaf

So, how many of you have ever heard of quinoa?  For my foodies, quinoa is what my health conscious aunt would call a “Super food”, not only containing carbohydrates but containing 14 grams of protein per 100 grams!

What is Quinoa? 

Kinda crazy right?  What’s great about it is, it cooks just like rice and can be used in the same ways rice would be used.  So, here’s my recipe for quinoa pilaf.

2 cups of quinoa

4 cups of chicken stock

1 packet of chicken base (Yeah… I ganked that out of a pack of ramen noodles, DON’T JUDGE ME! LOL)

1 celery rib, diced

1 cup of frozen peppers

1 cup of frozen spinach

1 tbsp. garlic powder

1 tbsp. onion powder

1 tbsp. dried parsley

1 tbsp. olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Chicken base... hahahahahahaha!

Heat the olive oil in a pot and lightly toast your quinoa.  About 2 minutes.  Doing this helps to develop the flavor of the quinoa.  You can also do this with rice or any other grain you cook.

Then add in your celery and sauté it allow it to soften.  This will impart that light celery flavor that a lot of people love.  Takes about 2 minutes.

After you’ve toasted the quinoa and , add in your chicken stock.  Bring the liquid to a boil, and reduce to simmer, stirring it every so often.  Add in your seasonings.  Simmer for about 10 minutes covered, until the liquid starts to become absorbed by the quinoa.

At this point, drop in your frozen veggies, stir, and allow them to cook for another 10 minutes with the quinoa, or until ALL the liquid has been absorbed by the quinoa.

Turn off the heat and fluff with a fork.  This side dish goes great with grilled chicken and fish.  Try something new!

Onward and upward…

-Vince

Crockpot Beef Stroganoff

With the coming of cooler fall weather (and the donation of a beef roast to us by my mother… HI MOM!!!), I got inspired to make something in my trusty crockpot.  This is a rendition of a recipe that I saw on Food Network’s 5 Ingredient Fix .  I’ve never been the 5 ingredient kind of guy, but hey… it definitely got me inspired.  So… LEHGGO!

1 Beef Roast (Any size)

2 tbsp of olive oil

1 Cup of Onions

4 cloves of garlic

1 Shallot

1 can creamed soup (I used cream of chicken)

1 cup of mushrooms

1 cup of frozen peas

1/2 cup of white wine

2 cups of vegetable stock

1 tablespoon of dried parsley

1 tbsp. of cornstarch

1/2 cup of water

Salt and Pepper to taste

Season your beef roast with salt and pepper.  In a hard bottomed pan, sear off the roast on all sides in 1 tbsp of olive oil.  Takes 3-4 minutes on high heat.

Remove the roast from the pan and place into crock pot. 

In the same pan you've seared the roast in, saute your onions, garlic and shallots in the 2nd tbsp of olive oil.  Deglaze the pan with the white wine and vegetable stock, ensuring to scrape up any brown bits on the bottom of the pan.  Add your can of creamed soup.  Bring to boil, the reduce to simmer for about 5 minutes.  Turn off the heat and add the liquids to the crock pot.

Place the crock pot  on low for 5-6 hours or until you can shred the meat.  Once cooked, remove the roast from the stock pot and shred the meat. 

Make a slurry out of the cornstarch and water, combining the two thoroughly so that there are no lumps.  Add this to the stock pot liquids to thicken the sauce.  Once thickened, add in your mushrooms and peas and return the meat back to the pot.  Turn off the crock pot and allow the meat, peas, and mushrooms to heat back through.

Crockpot Beef Stroganoff

Serve with buttered noodles.  Making the buttered noodles was SIMPLE.  

1 lb. bag of egg noodles

1 tbsp. of butter

1 tbsp. of dried parsley

Boil the noodles in salted water for about 8 minutes.  Drain the noodles.  In the same pan, use the residual heat from the pan to melt the butter.  Add the dried parsley  to the butter.  Return the noodles back to your butter and combine.  Voila!  Buttered Noodles!

Buttered Noodles

Pour your stroganoff over your buttered noodles and enjoy!

Yummo!

Onward and upward…

-Vince

Coupons and What They’re Used For

 Hey everyone!

In an effort to save cash these days in this completely effed up economy, I have started couponing.  No where near the extreme stuff you see on TLC’s Extreme Couponing Extreme Couponing, but just attempting to save some money here and there.  It’s amazing the types of deals that one can get just by going through your Sunday circulars.  Just make sure they are things that you use.  In my case, as you’ve seen from my blog, I use a lot of bottled tomato sauces and pasta, so the coupons that I find in the Sunday advertisements really saves me a little bit of money.  And quite honestly, it’s kinda relaxing clipping coupons on Sundays…

Try it out… just make sure the coupons are for items you use… otherwise, you are just being wasteful.

Onward and upward,

-Vince

Curried Cabbage

 Have you ever bought a head of cabbage and had no idea what to do with it?  I mean, people braise it and stir-fry it, but somehow it always ends up tasting the same; kinda bland.  Well here’s a great recipe for those that want to amp up the flavor on your cabbage dish!  Let’s do this…

1 Small head of cabbage with the core removed and sliced

2 carrots, peeled and sliced on an angle

1 half of a large onion, sliced

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

3 strips of bacon, chopped

1 cup of chicken broth

3 tbsp. of curry powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. red chili flakes (or to taste)

1 capful of apple cider vinegar

a few dashes of worcestershire sauce

a few dashes of hot sauce (of your choice)

½ cup of frozen peas

Cabbage

Bacon

Onions, Garlic and Carrots

Chicken Broth, Worcestershire Sauce, and Hot Sauce

In a pot over medium heat, render the fat of the bacon.  Sautee for 5 minutes, or until the bacon is crisp.

Add in your onions and carrots and allow them to sweat in the bacon fat.  Once your onions are translucent, add in your dry seasonings.  Then add in your cabbage.

Once your cabbage has begun to sweat and get tender, then add in your chicken stock and the rest of your liquid spices.  Simmer on low, covered for about 15 minutes.

At the very last minute, add in your peas and cook for one more minute.

Voila!  Curried Cabbage.

Serve as a side dish, or as the main course, over rice or your grain of choice!

Enjoy!

Onward and upward,

-Vince

The Beauty of Saturday Breakfast...

In previous posts, I’ve talked about the memories that a certain Filipino breakfast brings me.  But I never really talked about how a home cooked breakfast, no matter what it is, makes me really feel.  After a long work-week of instant oatmeal, hardboiled eggs, and pay-by-weight steam tray “country breakfasts”, I take pride in cooking a homemade breakfast. 

One of my earliest memories (Well hell!!!  This is a pretty recent memory!!!!) is the memory of waking up on a Saturday morning (never Sunday mornings because we were rushing to get to Church) to the smell of bacon frying,  the sound of sausage cooking, and to the pouring of the occasional flapjack onto a cast iron griddle.  I would wipe the sleep from my eyes, throw on my slippers, and rush downstairs to set the table so that we could sit down and eat.

With my father sitting at the head of the table, my brother and sister sitting across from me, and my mother sitting by my side, we would sit at the table and have discussions about everything.  My brother and father would argue about the simplest things; how algebra works or the inner workings of the car, while the rest of us sat by and watched them go at it.  My sister and I would go back and forth from the table, refilling platters with whatever breakfast food needed to be refilled.

When my mother had enough of the back and forth bickering between my brother and pops, she would sit with her face smooshed up and say “OK.  STOP IT NOW.”  Man… the memories.

This memory is cool, don’tchathink?  Well, here’s something even cooler.  We still do this.  My family is a busy one; the Valle kids have moved out of the house, my sister has a family of her own, including her husband and her 3 kids, myself with my partner, and my brother with his girlfriend, we all make attempts during holidays to replicate this.  We all meet at Casa de Cascade Lane and breakfast happens. 

When my nieces and nephews stay with my parents overnight, my parents wake up first thing in the morning and make breakfast for the kids, the same way they did for us when we all lived in the house.

As I’m writing this, tears of joy are starting to well in my eyes, because I now have a tradition to pass on to our children.

Saturday Breakfast

Onward and Upwards,

-Vince

Chicken in Mushroom Thyme Sauce

Do you ever have issues trying to figure out what to do with your chicken breasts?  Do you ever feel like you are constantly making the same dishes with chicken breast?  After going through my shelf of cookbooks, I came across my Campbell’s Kitchen Recipe Collection.

The Campbell's Kitchen Recipe Collection

 Now… I’m never really good with staying true to the recipe in the book, because I like to cook by what I have in the cupboards.  So here’s my rendition of Campbell’s Fish & Vegetable Skillet, only made with chicken and veggies that I had laying around.

4 chicken breasts, cut into bite-sized cubes

4 celery stalks, chopped

4 carrots, peeled and chopped

1 half of a large onion, sliced

4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 tbsp. granulated garlic

1 tbsp. granulated onion

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

1 tbsp. of dried thyme

1 tbsp. of dried parsley

1 tsp. of red pepper flakes

1 tsp. of paprika

1 tbsp. olive oil

1 tsp. of worcestershire sauce

1 cup of chicken broth

1 can of cream of mushroom soup

½ cup of water

4 chicken breasts, cubed

Carrots, Celery, Onions and Garlic

Chicken Broth, Olive Oil, Worcestshire Sauce,  and Cream of Mushroom Soup

All the herbs and spices

Now that you have the ingredients… lets get it in with the process!

In a hard-bottomed pot, heat up the olive oil over medium heat.  Once hot, add your chicken to pot and allow to brown on all sides.  About 5 minutes.

Browning chicken

As your chicken is browning, add the red pepper flakes, salt and pepper.

Browned chicken with spices

Once you’ve browned the chicken, add in your vegetables and allow those to sweat and release their liquid. Cook for about 3 minutes.

Chicken and veggies

Once you’ve cooked the vegetables for a minute, add in all of your liquids, the can of cream of mushroom soup and the rest of your herbs and spices. 

Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer.  Cover and cook for another 20 minutes.  This should be plenty of time for the flavors to meld and be merry.

After your 20 minutes is up, uncover and turn off the heat.  Let the dish stand for about 10 minutes so that the sauce thickens up.

Thickened and reduced sauce

Serve with your favorite starch… As you can see, I have an affinity for rice (Duh… I’m the Filipino Foodie), but this dish will go great on a baked potato, with a side of buttered noodles, or even a few croutons.

I love this dish because it’s a quick cook.  It’s flavorful, savory, and can feed an army.  It’s even better the next day! 

Try it out!

Onward and upwards,

-Vince

Different Palates, Different Tastes in Foods

I was talking to my cousin today and I was discussing with her the fact that one's palate affects your tastes in restaurant.  Have you ever found yourself in the situation you took a suggestion from a friend on a restaurant and did absolutely love the restaurant?  I’ve been in this situation on numerous occasions… the food at that particular restaurant just wasn’t my cup of tea.  Not that the food itself was not good, but the combinations on the plate didn’t go well together.  As the Filipino Foodie, I feel that when a combination of food comes to you on a plate as a meal, the combination should go together, right? 

What are your feelings about this?  Are there certain friends that you take food suggestions from?  Are there certain people that you can’t take their suggestions?  Tell me about your experience!

Onward and upward,

-Vince