Gardening is such a great option. It allows you to grow things that you enjoy eating and harvest them at the peak of their ripeness. And it gives you a past time that is rejuvenating. Often, after a hard day working with my mind, I’ll …
Our dear family friend, Carolynn was the caterer for our wedding. We had an intimate wedding during the pandemic that ended up being our wedding party and immediate family only. Carolynn was kind enough to be a one woman show for around 25 guests. As …
Sometimes fried rice just fits the bill. It gives you that takeout flavor with all the carbs of the rice – so satisfying! This is a great fried rice recipe. Unfortunately, I don’t have a wok yet, but was able to cook this in a Dutch oven just fine. It takes a little bit of work once you add the rice to the hot pan. There’s lots of stirring required and sticky rice. But once you get the rice a bit crisped up, the sauce will resolve the sticky pot.
First make the sauce, by combining all ingredients. Mix well and set aside.
In a large skillet, with at least 3" sides, heat oil over medium to medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook until lightly browned. Set aside. Using the same pan, add the garlic for 30 seconds and then onion. Stir fry for 2 minutes, adding more oil if needed. Next add the pineapple and cook for a couple more minutes. Add the vegetables and green onions and cook for a few more minutes until tender. Set aside with the chicken.
Add a little more oil and stir fry the rice over medium high heat, resulting in crispy fried rice. This will stick to the pan, and that's ok. The sauce will clean up the bottom of the pan once added. Once the rice is cooked to your liking, make a well in the center, add more oil, and add the scrambled egg. Stir until cooked through and then add the chicken and veggies back to the pan.
Next, add the sauce and stir until well combined. Let the fried rice cook a few more minutes. Add the cashews and cilantro.
Serve with more cilantro, cashews, and lime wedges.
Inspired by: Feasting At Home
Rice: Fried rice is best when made with leftover, dried out rice. You can use leftover takeout rice, or make a batch of rice in the morning and spread it out on a sheet pan and place in the refrigerator unwrapped.
Yellow Curry Powder: You can make a great version of this by combining the following. Consider doubling the batch so that you have some available for other batches of fried rice.
Granola is one of those staples that can save you considerable money to make versus buy and it always tastes better when you do. I should do a future post focusing on make vs. buy. This would obviously be unique to everyone because we all …
It’s Memorial Day Weekend! Which, in my book, is the kick-off to summer. So we are kicking off summer with a 5-week series on all things burgers. We’ll cover meat, toppings, buns, and sides. A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to visit a …
Groceries are expensive. Inflation over the last four years has been atrocious. I haven’t looked for a couple of years, but around that time I took a peek at the deli counter at our local grocery store. Turkey breast was $15-16/lb. That’s more expensive than steak in many cases! It was one of the many examples I experienced in the grocery store that made my mind wonder how lower income families even make it by in this economy, and in this case, afford packing lunches for kids. I realize that there are other options than turkey for sandwiches, but even looking at the bread aisle and peanut butter and jelly … it’s all very expensive.
In November, it’s pretty easy to find whole turkeys for $1/lb. We all buy our single turkey for our Thanksgiving dinner with family, but why have we never thought of taking advantage of this deal? $1/lb when the breast meat goes for $15/lb at the deli counter and chicken is 3-5x that year round. Even if you want organic meat, it’s still $3-4/lb … a bargain. So we started buying a couple of extra turkeys in November. We break them down into their respective pieces and vacuum seal them for future meals. I made braised turkey legs in a vinegar-based liquid and my husband still talks about how delicious that meal was a year later. And that brings me to lunch meat. I started using the breasts to make turkey lunch meat. It’s pretty easy to make and results in delicious turkey breast for sandwiches. When I was pregnant, I craved turkey sandwiches. I’m not sure if it was the nutrition in them that lead to the craving or the fact that you’re not supposed to have them. So there’s an added bonus – you can even eat this turkey sandwich when you’re pregnant. No worry of listeria here.
This recipe uses a sous vide cooker. You can probably find a recipe where you can roast the breast in the oven at a lower temp to retain the juiciness of the meat. Sous vide is great for that.
If you're pulling the turkey breast out of the freezer, you can place it directly in a pot of water with your sous vide machine. Assuming the turkey breast was vaccum sealed in a BPA free bag. If it's fresh, or if it was frozen in something else, you can add the optional ingredients before vaccum sealing.
In a large stock pot full of warm water, attach your sous vide machine and set to 145F. Place the sealed turkey breast in the water bath and set the timer for 3 hours.
Once the turkey breast is finished in the sous vide vessel, remove from the bag and place in a casserole dish. Season with roasting ingredients, and roast at 350F until turkey reaches 165F. Slice with a very sharp knife and enjoy on sandwiches.
Inspired by: Anova Sous Vide
The start of a new month is a good time to be thinking about budgeting. We’re not quite there, but it’s approaching. In previous budgeting posts, I hinted toward some of the things we’ve learned along this journey and tips we’ve found that helped us …
Dumplings are a fun thing to make when you feel like you want something takeout like or want to make something a little fun for a crowd. This recipe has a sauce that is SO GOOD! We usually double the sauce recipe because it’s that …
Street tacos are like this elusive mirage of something that you know has the possibility of being incredible, but isn’t always easy to reach that level of deliciousness. We’ve tried many versions of street tacos and never get it quite right. We’ve used ground beef, chicken, flank steak and it just didn’t quite hit the spot. And then we tried barbacoa tacos. Mike and I actually made a barbacoa taco bar for our rehearsal dinner. On that occasion, we cut large chunks of chuck roast and marinated it in a Fronterra barbacoa packet. It was delicious! A few years down the road, we thought to ourselves, “why are we buying these packets?” Buy the packets if you need convenience, but that wasn’t our reason. We bought the packets because barbacoa seemed out of reach. Sometimes I think as home cooks, we think we have to rely on a premade version of something in order to make it. That is such a fallacy! Search for a recipe online, do some research, and give it a try. I’ve found that it’s much less complicated than maybe I originally thought and I probably already have most of the ingredients in my pantry – making it much more economical and healthy.
So here’s to barbacoa tacos. And if you’re feeling extra ambitious, make them along with my corn tortilla recipe. And top with crumbled cotija cheese and diced onion mixed with cilantro. Plus a little hot sauce (we used Tapatio). That combination has lead to the best street taco I’ve had – no exaggeration.
For extra credit, make this Cabbage Pico de Gallo for a chips and salsa predecessor to your street tacos!
Preheat oven to 325F.
To make the marinade, remove stems from the dried chiles, discard the seeds, and tear the chiles into pieces. Add these to the blender or food processor and blend until the pieces are as small as possible. To this, add the remaining marinade ingredients and blend/process until smooth.
Season all sides of the meat with salt and pepper. Heat a large, deep skillet or dutch oven over medium high heat and add the oil. Sear the meat in batches until deeply browned on all sides.
Nestle all of the meat into the pot and add the onion and oranges to the top. Add the bay leaves and then the marinade and stir to combine and coat well. Cover tightly and place in the oven for about 4 hours. Check on the meat to ensure there's still liquid in the bottom of the pot. If you run out of liquid before the meat is tender, just add water.
Shred the meat and serve with corn tortillas (homemade preferably), cotija cheese, chopped onion and cilantro, and hot sauce of choice.
Inspired by: Feasting At Home
Birthdays, and every other milestone or accomplishment, are meant to be celebrated! Other than the occasional batch of cookies or throwing together an apple or blackberry crisp for dessert, we don’t make a ton of desserts throughout the year. Sugar is probably one of the …