Monthly Archives: March 2015

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March 26, 2015

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Meat

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Red Wine Roasted Chicken

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Like I said in a previous post, I pretty much spend free time trolling Yahoo Food and other food blogs/sites.  I came across this one for a roast chicken recipe and it looked good and easy, so I thought I would do it.  I have tried this dish twice now, and I have to say, the first time, I wouldn’t call a disaster, but it definitely didn’t turn out well.  Thankfully, I stuck with it and it was much better the 2nd go around.  A few of the flaws that arose were I didn’t use any potatoes and I also had way more chicken than the original recipe had.  As it turns out, you need those potatoes to soak up some of that water, and when you have about 2x as much chicken as the recipe calls for, it also takes a lot longer to cook.  Who woulda thunk?  Anyways, the 2nd time, I was much better about what I was doing ad while I still didn’t use potatoes, I put in less water and had a much better turn out. I think the one downfall this time around though was that it came out a little too oily in the vegetables from both the water and the chicken juice.

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Ingredients:

  • ⅔ cup red wine
  • 6 tbsp/100 g tomato paste
  • 3 sprigs thyme, leaves picked
  • 3 sprigs marjoram, leaves picked, or ½ tsp dried
  • ½ cup red wine vinegar
  • 1 whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces (I used chicken leg quarters)
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • 18 oz/500 g baby potatoes, washed (Didn’t do that)
  • 3 onions, quartered
  • 6 carrots, peeled and quartered lengthwise
  • ½ cup water

Directions

  • Mix the wine, tomato paste, marjoram, thyme, and red wine vinegar
  • Season the chicken with salt and pepper
  • Place the chicken in a plastic ziploc bag and pour the sauce over the chicken
  • Shake the bag to make sure each piece is well coated and let marinate for at least 30 minutes (I did about 2 hours)
  • Make a bed of vegetables at the bottom of a large baking dish/tray and pour in the water
  • Place the chicken pieces over the vegetables (skin side up) and pour the remainder of the marinade over the chicken
  • Cover with foil and roast in the oven for ~30 min at 400 degrees
  • Uncover the chicken and baste with cooking liquid and roast again uncovered for another ~15 minutes (I had to go ~30min)
  • Pour yourself a nice glass of red wine and enjoy!

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March 17, 2015

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Meat

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Beer Braised Short Rib

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So the slow cooker is a thing of genius when you think about it.  It’s what I always think of when I hear that guy’s phrase “set it and forget it” even though he wasn’t selling a slow cooker at all. It just seems to fit that line so much better. Because you can literally set it for hours, go to work, come back, and shabam…you can have dinner.  Now you want to make lunch, that’s a bit tougher.  But I doubt most people are using a slow-cooker for lunch.  Anywho, I decided to make a short rib because I get it a lot when I am out and don’t want to spend the dinero all the time on the steak.  It’s a tender piece of meat and I enjoy that melt in your mouth texture.  I got the recipe from Yahoo Food, which is what I do when I am bored at work. It came out well and it allowed me to go do other things in my day, which was greatly appreciated.  Overall, I am pretty happy with the dish.

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Ingredients:

  • 2 lbs boneless beef short ribs
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 1 cup flour
  • 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 2 onions, sliced
  • 4 carrots, cut into sticks
  • 5 garlic cloves, smashed
  • 6 oz stout beer
  • 1 qt beef stock
  • 1 sprig rosemary

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Directions:

  • Reduce the beef stock in a sauce pan to ~1cup
  • Season short ribs with salt and pepper then cover them in flour
  • Cook in a dutch over (I used a cast iron pan) over med-high heat until brown on all sides
  • Add the onions and carrots as a bed in the slow cooker
  • Add the short ribs on top and add any left over pan drippings
  • Cover the ribs with the garlic, butter, herbs, salt, and pepper
  • Add the beer and the beef stock
  • Cover and cook on high for 6 hours
  • Enjoy (I put them over whipped garlic mashed potatoes)

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March 5, 2015

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Appetizers, Recipes

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Tropical Chili Shrimp Appetizer

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So the other day I decided to make a light appetizer using some shrimp I had, but wasn’t enough for a meal.  This is a recipe that I made up as a conglomerate of some other recipes I saw while flipping through a magazine and thought I would try and combine aspects of each that I thought would be interesting. It turned out pretty good and refreshing, which is not something I would normally say about a shrimp dish, but it really was. It is also super easy and takes very little work to put together and only 1 pan, which is always a plus.  Try it out and let me know how it goes!

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Recipe:

  • 8 oz shrimp
  • 1 tbsp chili powder
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Pinch of red chili flakes
  • Juice of 1 lime/lemon
  • 1 Mango, cubed
  • 1 Avocado, cubed
  • toothpicks

Instructions

  • Wash and pat dry the shrimp
  • In a bowl, mix the shrimp with chili powder, salt, pepper, a pinch of red chili flakes, and garlic
  • In a pan over medium heat, cook the shrimp until they turn orange/pink, and add the lime juice as you cook
  • Remove them from the pan and using a toothpick, stick a shrimp on top of 1 mango cube and 1 avocado cube

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