me make food

So we trying to make some new meals. Have had some failures, but nailed it Friday night. Some folks suggested some good sites to find recipes. Epicurious seems like a favorite, but after scanning a bunch of recipes I was getting frustrated and decided to try an recreate dishes we would get if we went out. It has worked for us before and usually comes out pretty good. Theresa likes the voodoo chicken from Lazlo’s and I decided to try something like that.

Voodoo Chicken
Boneless breast blackened with Cajun spices, topped with a three-cheese sauce.

When it comes to blackening chicken I usually stick to just cayenne, salt, black pepper, and maybe some garlic salt. I checked out Alton Brown’s blackening for salmon and added some celery seed, onion powder, sage, paprika, and mistys seasoning. Spread lightly over the flattened breasts and sauted in olive oil and clarified butter.

I did not get good pics of this meal cuz I was a bit flustered.

^sorry I did not get a final pic

Got this idea from triple D when they visited Dixie Quicks (Site seems down) in Omaha. YOUTUBE of episode (recipe 2 mins in)
Mixing fresh peppers and onions into the sauce seemed like a great idea since we have modified the standard anyway.

We have been rocking the peppercorn steaks for a long time. It was getting a bit old and we decided to chill on them for a while. I saw the vid and knew we had to try it. I picked up the biggest NY strip I could find, some Anaheim peppers, and onion. I really did not check the steak enough and it was not a good cut at all Still decided to try it out because the sauce looked so interesting.

Borky Lou 3:52
IMG_0876 on Flickr – Photo Sharing!
figured out a secret last week. put the basil on top of the sauce but under the cheese to keep the flavor in there and not let it burn

Spkthed 3:54
whoa, that’s fascinating…

Loves me those Le Quartier pizza crusts. Really light sauce, fresh mozz, garlic salt, black pepper, and mushrooms and olives that pee all over the pizza and make me have to soak it up with a napkin

i usually make sauces with milk to cut down on the fat, but we had to try a heavy one. Oh man was it good. I looked up some recipes and some called for thickening with corn starch while others said to reduce the cream. I decided to use a bit of roux and reduce the cream.

So I actually measured for this one. Started on the roux and used 3 tablespoons of butter and 3 tablespoons of all purpose flour. Slightly browned it and put in a coffee cup for later use.

MMMMMmmmmmm sausage gravy and breaded and fried beef. That is as rich and bad for ya as it loks. I have tried making my own CFS a long time ago. It did not turn out well.
Theresa’s parental units got us a gift box from Hollenbeck farms and it has a bunch of minute steak which will fill my breakfast desires for quite some time.

I think this recipe got lost when I got my account closed from youtube. I will do it again here really soon cuz it is one of my staples.

Anyway I made this and cooked some shrimp to go with it.

I spiced them waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much and it was strong, but so good. I made it through 1/6th the pasta, but the shrimp was good.

I have attempted some marinades before. Mostly just basil, parsley, oil, wine, garlic, salt and pepper. We tried some lemon chicken a few times but it gets too intense. For the heck of it we picked up a bottle of citrus peppercorn marinade and it was pretty good. I looked at the ingredients and saw vinegar in there. Kind of forgot about that.

So it was off to try and recreate the store bought stuff. I used an orange for the citrus thinking it might be a bit less powerful than lemon. A bit of the zest and juice with wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and cayenne. It was not too bad, but the orange really stood out.

Anyone have any suggestions or ones they like. Mostly for chicken, maybe pork. I think our biggest problem is neither of us really think using mustard will be good. maybe just a touch.

I mention the peppercorn steaks often around here. It is so good. We have started doing it a bit differently. We take about 10 ounces of beef tenderloin I cut from a PSMO and cook it like a roast with a peppercorn cream sauce.

Alton Brown helped me get this down with his second episode on tenderloins. He shows how to make a chateaubriand which we make a peppercorn sauce from.

Vid long enough to be in two parts. I will get better at this, swears.

part 1

part 2

Nailed this first attempt. We were both pleasantly surprised.
Chicken and chillies was a special every now and then at Crane River. From what we could remember it was a creamy sauce with chillies and onions in it over some sort of chicken on top of rice. We took that idea and tried to work it. I asked about the chillies on the forum. Got some great answers, but an email to the guy who prob invented the dish sealed the deal. “canned, diced green chillies” That was all I got out of him, but it made the difference.

you know that show with the playboy girls next door. They are in Italy eating there and the gangster one says “its good, but it is not Olive Garden.” Well that would explain this meal. Olive Garden might be a crappy chain, but dam they make some really awesome pasta dishes. I usually get a chicken pasta with a creamy sauce and other crap in it. Pretty much every pasta dish I make is trying to be like them. I am not ashamed to admit it. But it never comes even close

So this attempt pretty much was pulled from nowhere. I was looking through recipes from Elise and saw this one. I figured I could mess with it a bit and get something awesome out of it. My plan was use the pancetta, some lightly dredged chicken, garlic, chicken stock, a touch of wine, and some medium cream to make a sauce to go over pasta. Long story short there was just not enough flavor. It was a thick creamy goop that was meh…. I guess with some other ingredients mixed in I could of kicked it up, but I doubt I will try again.