Roasted Bacon Brussels Sprouts

Excuse the over-exposed photos. My kitchen lighting is terrible!

If you had asked me a year and a half ago if I liked Brussels Sprouts, I'd have laughed and said a loud "NO!"  But I owe it all to my friend Abbey and her roommate. We had a movie night in June of last year and Abbey's roommate made an dish with Brussels Sprouts. I had always turned up my nose at them, but didn't want to be rude. The dish (which I will have to see if she'll let me post it here sometime), was mostly made up of Brussels Sprouts so it wasn't like I could pick them out. So I bravely smiled and ate them. And I really liked them! Which makes sense, I love broccoli and Brussels Sprouts are nothing more than a large broccoli floret. I am a convert. So few weeks ago I bought some sprouts and using Whitney's recipe as a base made these roasted Brussels. They are mighty delish! They're even good warmed up the next day (I like eating them with a chicken breast, but they definitely hold their own). The great thing about "recipe's" like this is that they are easy to alter based on the quantity. I usually buy around 1lbs. since there's only three or four people in my house who eat them, and there is always enough left over for lunch the next day. Enjoy!

Supplies:
Salt
Pepper
Garlic
Bacon Grease (or diced uncoocked bacon. I've done both and they are great either way!)
Brussels Sprouts

Method:

Wash and trim the bottoms of your sprouts and cut in half. Place in a bowl and mix in salt, pepper, & garlic to taste, covering evenly. Arrange on a baking sheet.

Drizzel bacon grease over the sprouts ( or mix in diced uncooked bacon (I usually do about 4 slices for 1 lbs. of Brussels) evenly over your Sprouts.) Roast @350 until browned and crunchy. Enjoy!

Lemon-Lime Sriracha Chicken

You read that right. Lemon. Lime. Srircha. Chicken. Seriously guys, this is the stuff. I happen to be a big fan of Sriracha, I mean, I'd eat it on ice cream if it were socially acceptable. Whenever I get sick I heap the stuff onto/into anything I eat (soup, toast, pho (I am particularly fond of pho when I am sick)), and whether it's in my mind or not, I instantly feel better. So one night  a few weeks ago I was cooking some dinner. I started with chicken and began throwing in a bunch of stuff I had, and voila, this is what I came up with. You should note that when I cook it isn't exactly an exact science, I'm more of a this looks like it needs more butter, ooooo let's throw in some pepper, kind of cook. But the thing about this recipe is that it is easily adaptable to your taste buds/spice tolerance. And it's made up of ingredients most people always have on hand, plus it's super easy!

You will need:

Chicken Breasts

Sriracha Sauce

Butter

Garlic cloves

Lime Juice

Lemon Juice.

Method:

Over medium heat I start by adding a bit of butter to my frying pan to melt before I add the chicken. I just do. I like butter. Add the cubed chicken. Next you will crush a few garlic cloves. I like garlic, I usually add four cloves. Then add the lemon and lime juice. Let all this cook until the chicken is nearly cooked through. Then add the Sriracha. Give it a healthy squirt. Mix the Sriracha in and you will notice a little bit of a sauce begin to form. Now add more butter. This does two things, makes you a sauce, and helps cut down the heat of the Sriracha a little (which is helpful if you have added too much!). Find a thoroughly cooked piece of chicken and test the taste. Too spicy, add more butter and lemon and lime juice until it reaches your preferred spice level. Take off the heat and let cool for a few minutes (no more than three our four) to let the sauce thicken. And you are done! 

I love this over white rice! But I've also had it inside a pita. I've also had this with rice, inside a pita (lol I wrote Peeta at first. Yes, I am Hunger Games obsessed.). I'm terribly creative. But I can imagine there would be a myriad of ways you can consume this, in full breast form, in a stir-fry (omg! happening next!), It would probably even be delicious in a salad. Either way this is seriously the easiest most delicious chicken I have ever had. Enjoy!

Buñuelos

One of my favourite places to eat in San Diego is El Indio. My parents discovered the place while they were in college and I have been eating there my whole life. They serve Mexican-Indian food, and are seriously one of the most delicious places in the world. It also happens to be where the Taquito was invented (Which if you go to Taco Time in Oregon they call that a burrito, which is what my father thought was a burrito until he moved to California... so many things wrong with that.). If you ever happen into San Diego I definitely recommend El Indio, especially the Enchiladas, which are my favourite!

As a kid my favourite thing was when my parents would pick up a take home bag of their chips and another of the Buñuelos. Buñuelos roughly translates as 'doughnuts,' but these are actually fried flour tortillas covered in cinnamon sugar. Oh! They are heavenly!! One bag is never enough and in my family they always are gone too quickly. A few days ago I was seriously craving El Indio (frankly I'd have taken any good Mexican food at that point!), so I decided to make myself some Buñuelos. These are ridiculously simple to make simply take some flour tortillas and cut them into your desired shape, heat up some oil in a frying pan, and fry the tortilla pieces until they are golden brown on either side. Transfer the fried tortillas to a bag full of cinnamon and sugar, shake, and voila! I should warn you that they are terribly addictive. I ended up bringing a bag of them on our road trip last weekend. They were gone far too soon. In fact I think I shall whip up some more right now...

Pita Pizzas

I love having a kitchen, but I am seriously lazy about cooking. Also my body clock is completely weirded out by the sun setting at like 9:15pm these days, so I get thrown off by what time it is, and suddenly it's really too late to eat... But lately I've been forcing myself to cook more, even if that means just making some mac'n'cheese.

When I was a kid my mom would make us Pita Pizzas. They were kid sized and you could customize your pizza to your personal tastes. So Bri could get her's filled with all those nasty veggies I hated, and I could stick with my plain cheese. While these days I am not quite such a picky eater (<--- total lie), I still really love these mini personal pizzas. They're perfect for lunches or dinners and because you're only using half the pita, they're pretty economical too!

Pita Pizzas

You will need:

Pita Bread

Pizza Sauce (I usually make my own, but our store of spices are rather depleted so I have been buying this organic stuff. It's quite good!) 

Mozzarella Cheese (or any cheese you prefer)

Toppings (I have moved on from plain cheese to pepperoni. Ever the risk taker...)

Method:

1. Start by splitting the pita in half. Pita bread is a tad on the delicate side, but I use a large serrated edge knife  and slide it along the sides until I have two halves.

2. Next cover your pita in a layer of pizza sauce. I'm not a huge sauce fan, so I usually just give it a thin-ish layer of sauce and call it a day.

3. Cover in cheese.

4. Add your toppings and broil for about 5-7 minutes. I use a toaster oven, and these cook up perfectly in there.

5. Enjoy! 

These are super simple to make and incredibly delicious! While I am a big fan of traditional pizza crust, I have been trying to cut out most bread products from my diet, and these are just thin enough I don't feel bad! I've also started freezing them. I make up a bunch and seal them in individual ziplock bags. When I want one I just pop it in the broiler for a little longer and presto! dinner is done. I also want to get some pesto and try this with some grilled chicken and maybe a fancy cheese. The possibilities are endless!

Foodie

While my parents were on vacation I had the very wonderful pleasure of cooking dinner for myself each night (also because I was broke). This is one thing I made the first night they were gone. It was incredibly yummy! So I thought I'd share. It was super easy to make and took about a half and hour total. So, tie on your apron and let's get cracking!



You'll need pre-marinated chicken. I tossed some white wine, garlic, onion powder, parsley, and oregano in a ziplock bag and let the chicken sit over night. Cut the chicken into cubes and set aside.



Get out a frying pan and dollop some butter or olive oil to cover the whole pan. Toss in come chopped garlic cloves.


Add the chicken to the pan and stir occasionally.



Get a small pot and fill with milk/cream. Add come crushed garlic, salt (if your family happens to leave you any while they are on vacation, which mine did not), pepper, and parsley. Stir. Grab a handful of mozzarella cheese and add to the mix. Stir occasionally until the cheese melts.





Once your chicken has been fully cooked and slightly browned, add veggies. I used carrots, snap peas, corn, and my favourite, lima beans, but you can use anything you have on hand. Cook until the veggies are tender.



Your sauce should be all melted by now. Stir to make sure, then add to your veggies and chicken.



Let the sauce come to a small boil, then turn off the heat. You're now ready to serve!



It's particularly yummy over noodles or rice, but I was too lazy to cook either, so I ate it plain. Either way it's super delicious and easy! Enjoy!

How I spent my Summer Vacation

Vintage everything, except shoes from BC Footware

I think it is safe to say that yesterday was the best Independence Day of my life. Good food, good family, good weather... I cannot gush enough. It was wonderful. Chelsea and I were in charge of the menu and if I do say so myself, it was out of this world! Chili-lime stakes, grilled asparagus, yummy chips and salad, jello (ew for me), homemade carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, Italian sodas, lemonade, iced teas, some random Irish Cream coffees, pocket pies.... It was one heck of a good old-fashioned feast! I've included the recipe's here at the bottom of the post. Trust me, no one makes up recipes like I do, and my made-up recipes were a hit yesterday! But golly everyone it really was wonderful! Just how a Sunday should be spent! Swimming in the pool, laughing at each other, telling stories, and making some of the most wonderful memories ever. I honestly hope each and everyone of you had an equally wonderful day!

And the weather! What I am about to say may shock some (I'm even having a hard time believing it) but I could not love the weather more these past two days. I'm sure by writing this, I am jinxing any hope of continuing this wonderful, wonderful weather, but I'm going to write it anyways. So this is what you all mean by summer? 80 with a gorgeous breeze, wind in your hair, sun on your face, just warm enough to make you feel alive, and that breeze at the ready just when the sun's a bit much? Well sign me up, because I am loving it. Of course I wouldn't mind a rainstorm or two either, but man alive! This is great. I think we may have set a record for the coolest July 4th ever. I don't have any memory of ever having such nice weather in July. Every year it's at the very least in the 90's, usually the mid 100's (oh July 2003, you and your 112 in the shade were not fun). But this year? Oh, we maybe got up to 85 at one point. The morning started off overcast and cool, and even at the hottest point of the day it was wonderful. And today was overcast until about 11:30! I have never known the joys of summer because I am usually too busy sitting in front of the air conditioner, but this makes me want to trek out to some water hole with a tire swing and eat cherries and burgers and lemonade. And spend my nights driving around in a Woody on my way to a bonfire. If I didn't have rehearsal tonight, you can sure as heck bet I'd be doing just that (minus the Woody). If this is summer, I love it. I think I'll go out and read on the patio with a glass of lemonade now. Ahhh...

Ashley's Chili-Lime Steaks

You will need:

Stakes

Chili powder

Limes

Garlic

Garlic powder

Red wine

Onion powder

Salt

Pepper

put stakes in roasting pan or on a deep cookie sheet. Pour wine generously (but not too generously) over top. cover in spices. press fresh garlic and cover stakes. cut limes in half. cut each half into quarters. Place around stakes while squeezing gently. cover with towel and leave out for 2 hours. flip stakes and repeat. leave out overnight, covered with a towel (or paper towels). In the morning refridgerate. leave in fridge until cooktime. cook slowly. enjoy.

Ashley's Really Amazingly Wonderful Grilled Asparagus

You will need:

Asparagus

butter

salt

pepper

half a fresh lemon

parsley

warm up a roating pan or deep cookie sheet (a large bowl works too) so that is is warm enough to melt butter. But butter on sheet and spread around until covered. sprinkle salt, pepper over butter. Take parsley in palm of hands and crush while lightly covering pan. squeeze lemon juice on pan. mix around with a spatula. put asparagus on and mix around until the asparagus are covered. Grill for 15-20 mins. Enjoy

This is the recipe I used for the carrot cake, except I added a 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg and cloves, as well as a bunch of chopped walnuts. I also only used one cut of finely chopped carrots instead of the 3 cups of shreaded. This is possibly the best carrot cake I have ever tasted. And I love carrot cake.

And this is the cream cheese frosting recipe. Best. Frosting. Ever. Not too sweet, not to cheesey. Absolutely perfect.

Food of the Irish

I don't cook very often. The reason being that I tend to get carried away when I do. See I really love to cook, and I really love big festive dinners, and if I had my way every dinner would be a festive event.

Observe:

Guys, cupcakes were a success. Like a serious, I wanted to marry them, success. I know. We ended up making variations on the ones we'd planned. The first set were a brown sugar cake with Creme de Menthe buttercream frosting, and the second batch were Guinness cake and Bailey's Buttercream frosting. Both were out of this world! I think we ended up with about 100 cupcakes (only a slight exaggeration), so this morning I brought half of what was left over to work. They're almost all gone. I guess bringing Guinness and Bailey's cupcakes to an office filled with current and former alcoholics wasn't the best idea. But in all fairness they are pretty freaking amazing.

Gracie seemed to really like them. She usually sticks to licking off the frosting, but she actually ate her cake too.

Of course we did eat other food too. Like Corned Beef. We bought ours at Costco and I can highly reccommend theirs (I don't know if they still have any). It comes pre seasoned, but I did add a bit of parsley, ground mustard, peppercorns, and salt to the pot as it boiled. And yeah we boiled it. You can also slow cook it, but boiling took about 10 hours less. Yeah.

My pretty much amazing Colcannon. Which happens to be the easiest version of Colcannon ever. Boil your red potatoes, skin on, boil cabbage (I used a whole head), fry bacon. Mash potatoes, add salt, pepper, butter, and half & half. When the cabbage is done chop it up and add it to the potatoes. Chop up the cooked bacon and add as well. Then mix and you're done. Super easy, super yummy. You can do corned beef instead of bacon but since we were having the beef on it's own I went with bacon. I also decided to make this like I was a poor peasant Irish Woman in, like, 1798, and mixed everything with a wooden spoon. My arms are sore today. Not my best idea ever.

And Irish Soda Bread, which was kind of epic to make since Delaney made it and she hasn't really ever made bread before and so the dough was a little runny at first and she was covered in it. After a few handfulls of flour though, we were back in business and it came out super yummy! We ate ours plain with butter, but this would be so good with jam or even cheese. I really loved it.

We ended up watching Darby O'Gill and the Little People after dinner and my mom and I had Irish Cream Coffees. Overall I'd sya it was a pretty awesome night! How was your St. Patrick's Day?