Archive for the ‘Home Cookin’’ Category
2010
07.08
Tags: broccoli, cauliflower, Celebrity Intern, chicken, cilantro, curry paste, green chili, Green Curry 10-Minute Simmer Sauce, Green Curry Paste, Randalls, Thai food, Thai food should be spicy, Thai Kitchen, Thai Kitchen's Green Curry 10-Minute Simmer Sauce is a joke, where is the spice?
Posted in Home Cookin', Thai, stir fry | 1 Comment »
As a Thai food enthusiast, I have been checking out the wares of the grocery stores near my house every time Celebrity Intern and I venture forth on a food-gathering mission, hoping that some kind of spicy green chili paste will magically appear. While at Randalls the other day, joy of joys! We spotted a jar of Thai Kitchen’s Green Curry 10-Minute Simmer Sauce, and snatched it up. The ingredients looked right, and I told Celebrity Intern that I was sure I had tried their concentrated Green Curry Paste before and it had been just the right level of spiciness.
After sautéing up some chicken, letting it simmer in the simmer sauce for the allotted time, and having steamed some broccoli and cauliflower to complete the meal, I served it up with some fancy looking sprigs of cilantro on top:
A disappointment, brought to you by Thai Kitchen's Green Chili Simmer Sauce
Looks tasty, right? Well, it would’ve been, except for the fact that Thai Kitchen’s Green Curry 10-Minute Simmer Sauce is apparently totally lacking in green chili! WTF?! Although green chili is one of the ingredients listed on the bottle (under “green curry paste,” it is the primary ingredient), it tasted to us like there was nothing spicy in the jar at all. I don’t think I even tasted any garlic or lemongrass, so I fired off an email to Thai Kitchen inquiring therein.
The result? NADA. It’s been two weeks and not even a “thank you for your comments!” email in return. Therefore, I must strongly advise Thai-lovers out there to avoid this product. It is bland in the extreme and, frankly, we would have had a better tasting sauce if we’d just made a brown gravy to pour over our chicken.
In the meantime, we will keep on searching for the Thai spice mixtures of our dreams. Stay tuned when we finally hit up an Asian grocery!
Got any suggestions for products we can find locally that will kick our Thai meals up a notch? Any recommendations for spicy green chili would be greatly appreciated!
2010
06.26
Tags: Celebrity Chef, Diet-of-Insects, Italian sandwiches, Italian sausage, Italian Sausage-Pepper-Onion sandwiches, Italians do it with sausage, nonnas, red onions, shim the DJ, yellow bell peppers
Posted in Home Cookin', Italian/pizza, sandwiches | 1 Comment »
While it seems my buddy Shim The DJ over at Diet-of-Insects is taking all the credit for the tasty Italian Sausage-Pepper-Onion sandwiches *I* made this afternoon for lunch, the fact remains that these bad-boys are a tasty, inexpeez, and non house-heatingly delicious way to kick it up a notch.
Used with permission
Okay, so he came up with the idea to try this recipe when we were fumbling around at the grocery store, asking ourselves “What should we eat?” But that’s about it. He’s currently spouting some nonsense about my just being “the vessel” for his “genius,” which you can take or leave. I mean, it’s obviously an old Italian recipe passed down by generations of nonnas. Still, you ought to try these sandwiches. Check his blog for the deets on how to make ‘em, and then give him the gears for reducing me to a mere “Celebrity Chef” footnote!
2010
06.23
Tags: 2-way chili, 3-way chili, 4-way chili, 5-way chili, bacon, beans, black beans, cayenne pepper, cheddar cheese, chili, chili powder, chuck roast, Cincinnati chili, Coney Island hot dog, Cook's Illustrated, Cooking The Books, diced tomatoes, dried oregano, eating hot food will cool you off, elementary my dear Watson, garlic, ground beef, ground coriander, ground cumin, home cooking, one-pot meals, onions, RecipeZaar, red bell pepper, red onions, red pepper flakes, salt, spaghetti and chili, summertime is chili time, Texas chili, The World's Finest Chili, tomato puree
Posted in American, Cook's Illustrated, Cooking The Books, Home Cookin', Tex-Mex, chili, one-pot meals | No Comments »
Some will argue that winter is the best time for chili, and as someone who formerly lived in the Great White North, I would certainly agree that chili is delicious as a bone-warming wintertime meal.
That being said, chili is effin’ wicked in the summertime, too. As some Old Wives will tell ya, eating or drinking hot stuff actually cools you off. Dunno if I necessarily believe in this concept, but it sure is nice to stuff your gob with spicy deliciousness and then drink down a gallon or two of water. Pair it up with an ice-cold beer and some might even say you’ve got a little slice of heaven there, pardner.
As any good Texan knows, there are many different kinds of chili, not the least of which is “Texas style” chili—i.e. the no-bean variety that uses chuck roast rather than ground beef for the meat. Having done some time in Cincinnati, I’ve also come to appreciate the joys of a good Cincinnati chili, complete with cocoa powder and cinnamon, thin “gravy” style sauce, and fixin’s 2 (spaghetti + chili), 3 (add cheddar cheese), 4 (add diced onions or beans) or 5-ways (add diced onions and beans). And perhaps it’s the New Yorker buried deep down inside that says you’d better serve that chili on a Coney Island hot dog or it’s not worth bothering with.
As you can see, I love me some chili, in all its glorious incarnations.
The recipe I currently use, however, comes from Cook’s Illustrated and maximizes the spices combined to form this chili in the least amount of time possible, though it grows more tasty over time. I submit to you that this is actually The World’s Finest Chili recipe, in that it is infinitely customizable. Ingredients are kept basic, but fixin’s can range from a simple sprig of cilantro to the kitchen sink version of the dish, including everything from fresh tomatoes, diced avocado, sliced scallions, chopped red onion, sour cream, shredded cheese, up to extra shots of Tabasco or your preferred hot sauce. Yum!
Now, at this point in the game, I would typically type up a copy of the recipe for you to put to the test, but since it’s from Cook’s Illustrated and they absolutely deserve the credit from anyone who should find it here—not to mention the fact that I firmly believe that stealing someone’s intellectual property is the King of No-No’s and will earn you a one-way ticket to Bad Ju-Ju City—I must regretfully omit the specifics on this page.
However, if you want to check out the original recipe, which goes under the name “Beef Chili with Bacon and Black Beans,” I highly encourage you to sign up for a free trial membership at the Cook’s Illustrated website to get the straight dope right from the horse’s mouth. It’s a 14-day free trial of all the recipes on the site, and it’s really worth it if you like to cook. I realize this sounds like some kind of sneaky way for me to get you sign you up for the Cook’s Illustrated website with a concealed profit from said sign-up cha-ching!-ing somewhere for me, but I can assure you that this benefits me in no way. Heck, they don’t even have an affiliate program, which sucks cus, frankly, I would LOVE to be an affiliate of theirs!
Anyway, my point is that I admire the way they are all about maximizing the awesome factor of classic American recipes by making them tasty, foolproof, standardized and far less time consuming than their dusty, crusty ancestors. To be fair, yes, I am all about Cook’s Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen, where their recipes are tasted, tested and released into the wild, but there’s absolutely nothing in it for me.
Unless, of course, you count delicious chili like this:
Cook's Illustrated Beef Chili with Bacon and Black Beans recipe burbling on the stove
Seriously, make some tonight and tell me you didn’t fall in love!
Oh, and here are the ingredients, in case you’d like to play detective on your own to figure out the golden copyrighted ratio:
- bacon
- onions (preferably red, but that’s my opinion, not theirs)
- red bell pepper
- garlic
- chili powder
- ground cumin
- ground coriander
- red pepper flakes
- dried oregano
- cayenne pepper
- ground beef
- black beans
- diced tomatoes
- tomato puree
- salt
It may not quite be elementary, Watson, but it’s darn close.
2010
05.31
Tags: breakfast tacos, cayenne pepper, chili powder, cilantro, Crema Salvadoreña, cumin, Diet-of-Insects, El Salvadorean creme fraiche, garlic, great homemade tacos, ground beef, ground coriander seed, guacamole, Herdez salsa, homemade tacos, I hate pre-packaged taco seasoning, La Vaquita, lettuce, Mexican cooking, Mt. Olive mild banana pepper rings, Old El Paso, onion, oregano, pepper, recipes, salsa, Salsa Casera, Salsa Verde, salt, shallot, Shim, spices, spicy tacos, taco seasoning, Tex-Mex, the secret to making great tacos, the world's best tacos, tomato, white cheddar cheese
Posted in Home Cookin', Tex-Mex, tacos | 1 Comment »
The secret to delicious homemade tacos does not, number one, lie within:
Old El Paso isn’t being particularly singled out here; it’s just one example among many. People seem to think that you need “taco seasoning,” purchased in a packet such as this one, in order to make great tacos.
This is a lie.
The way to great tacos, my friends, lies in combining just five important seasonings you probably already own. They are:
- chili powder
- cayenne pepper
- cumin
- oregano
- salt
You can also toss in some ground coriander seed, to bump up the corianderliciousness of your cilantro leaves (sprinkled over the top of the finished dish), but it’s purely optional. If you’ve got chili powder, cayenne, cumin, oregano and salt, you’ve got it made in the shade. Enough with the pre-packaged “taco seasoning”! Free your kitchen of this sodium-laden packet of injustice, and marinate your meat in deliciousness.
DIRECTIONS:
- Brown about a pound of ground beef (or pork, or chicken, or whatever) in a buttered skillet.
- Chuck in your minced garlic (2 or 3 good sized cloves) and chopped red onion or shallot.
- Add your spices, as mentioned above, plus about a cup of water to create the “sauce.” My spice ratio is about a teaspoon to a tablespoon each of the coriander seed, oregano and cayenne pepper, plus about 1/8 of a cup of both cumin and chili powder; adjust these as you please for heat and general taste, adding more if you like it more savory. Simmer down your sauce, stirring occasionally, until most of the water has evaporated—about 10 minutes or so.
- Spread on your favorite tortilla, garnish as desired, and enjoy. Suggested garnishes include: lettuce, tomato, white cheddar cheese, cilantro, guacamole, salsa (I enjoy both red Salsa Casera and green Salsa Verde from Herdez), pickled banana pepper rings (I’ve been using some from Mt. Olive), and Celebrity Intern’s favorite, La Vaquita’s Crema Salvadoreña, a kind of El Salvadorean crème fraiche.
That’s it, that’s all. No fuss, no muss. Just great tacos. You’re welcome.
Also, if you’re looking for a great recipe for breakfast tacos, my fellow blogger Shim’s got you covered, over at Diet-of-Insects. (And no edible insects, I promise.)
2010
05.30
Tags: Butter Chicken, Central Market, cooking magazines, coupons, domestic chores, fictional letters to the editor, free magazines, H-E-B, H-E-B brand products, honeymoon, learning to cook, My Texas Life magazine, Penthouse Forum, Shoestring lifestyle
Posted in Across Austin, Frugal Fun, Home Cookin', My Texas Life magazine | No Comments »
Friends, I love me some free magazines. Especially the type that come with coupons, to indulge my Shoestring lifestyle. And I’ve got nothing against H-E-B; they have great low prices, and lots of excellent items like my favorite Butter Chicken sauce (not to mention delicious Central Market wares). But I’ve gotta say, I’m not sure what’s going on in their My Texas Life letters section.
Seriously, I haven’t seen such indulgent, over-the-top fantasies since Penthouse Forum.
Exhibit A:
From the May 2010 issue of H-E-B's My Texas Life magazine
The text of the top letter reads as follows:
Dear My H-E-B Texas Life Staff,
My boyfriend and I have talked about an engagement and marriage for over a year. However, a ring hadn’t been in our budget, much less a wedding! Thanks to the in-store savings and the coupons in your magazine, I am finally engaged and have a ring to show off! The night that my fiancé proposed, I prepared the Moroccan Roasted Chicken Dinner. The evening turned out perfect! Thank you for everything! Especially the super savings and delicious recipes!
Brittni, Cherokee
While I, too, appreciate the magazine’s savings and delicious recipes, I question the idea that shopping at H-E-B and reading this magazine magically created enough money for a wedding ring. How much did this wedding ring cost, 40 bucks? I mean, there are some good coupons in there, but it’s not like they are giving away groceries for free! A dollar off here and a two-for-one there doesn’t really add up to that much cash, and if the coupons are for things you wouldn’t normally buy, it’s not really saving you money, is it?
But maybe I’m missing the point, which is actually in the left-hand sidebar on the same page:
Aha! Brittni received a $25 H-E-B gift card for writing in, plus an unspecified “small gift”! Maybe the gift was an H-E-B wedding ring?
I’m gonna have to write a letter to My Texas Life myself and see what crops up!
So, Brittni, if you’re out there, please share your secrets with the rest of the class. And if you’re imaginary (as I suspect you may be), well… at least there’s still plenty of dollar-off coupons for H-E-B brand products in the mag to keep my hopes of one day affording the honeymoon my husband and I never had alive.
P.S. The letter from “George and Alice” is pretty fantastical too. Her husband learned how to cook from reading the H-E-B magazine?! I suspect he just never put forth the effort in the first place, to avoid a domestic chore, but maybe I’m just being cynical.
2010
05.09
Tags: aromatic spices, Butter Chicken, Butter Chicken on the cheap, Celebrity Intern, chickpeas, garbanzo beans, garlic, ginger, H-E-B, HEB, Home Cookin', Indian cuisine, Indian food, Kitchens of India, lentils, Tasty Bite Chunky Chickpeas
Posted in Home Cookin', Indian, one-pot meals, stovetop | 2 Comments »
I’m a big fan of Indian cuisine, but I hate paying restaurant prices. It’s worse than hitting up your local sushi bar! I mean, seriously, $12 for a plate of chicken with spices (aka Butter Chicken)? I can make that shizzle at home—and better!
So I did, with the aid of Kitchens of India, an inexpeez ready-made spice packet for Butter Chicken found at my local H-E-B.
THE METHOD:
In a pan, we combined approximately 1 lb. of boneless chicken breasts, cut into small chunks, with 3 T butter (slightly more, due to Celebrity Intern’s heavy hand!), plus the contents of the Kitchens of India Butter Chicken Curry Paste packet. We mixed it up and simmered for 20 minutes under a lid. We then simmered on high for another 5 minutes, before removing from heat, covering, and letting sit for another 3 minutes. We also combined a packet of Tasty (i.e. NASTY) Bite Chunky Chickpeas, supposedly with garlic, ginger and “aromatic spices,” which I had lying in wait after a run-in with their doubly-nasty chickpea & lentil combo (a word to the wise: avoid this product at all costs and just buy yourself a can of plain chickpeas instead!). After fine-chopping some freshly-washed cilantro, we plated it up and got this:
(Photos by Celebrity Intern, who complained about the lack of natural sunlight.)
Superb! Stupendous! Only $8 for dinner for two!
Seriously, yo. Stop overpaying for Indian cuisine, and make it yo’damn-self. It’s delish, it’s inexpensive, and it’s easy to do.
Suggested wine pairings:
2010
05.02
Tags: Bitty, Celebrity Intern, cooking apps, food writer, fresh ingredients, great cheap apps, How to Cook Everything, How To Cook Everything On the Go, iPhone, iPod Touch, iTunes, Mark Bittman, minimalist recipes, New York Times, radish salsa, recipes, stocking your kitchen, Thai-style salsa, The Minimalist, yellow tomatoes
Posted in American, Cooking The Books, Home Cookin', iPod/iPhone apps | 1 Comment »
Here at Shoestring Austin, we like to blend deliciousness with cheapness. In our quest for delicious, cheap food, we have naturally downloaded many a free cooking app from the iTunes store. Unfortunately, as with many things in life, when it comes to free cooking apps, you get what you pay for.
Enter Mark Bittman, aka “The Minimalist.” New York Times food writer Bittman is all about cooking inexpensive, minimally time-consuming recipes with good, fresh ingredients, and has written several excellent books on the subject, including the brashly titled How To Cook Everything. And now, there’s an app for that: How To Cook Everything On The Go. (Click on the link or image below to download from the iTunes store for the iPhone or iPod Touch.)
For just a buck ninety-nine ($1.99), Bitty will literally teach you how to cook everything, without having to connect to the Internet. It’s a great self-contained app that offers easy access to a wide variety of recipes, kitchen basics, ideas for quick dinners and even lists compiled by Bittman like “Top 102 Essential Recipes,” “10 Soups to Eat Hot or Cold,” “16 Sauces for Any Simply Cooked Tofu,” and “15 Meat Dishes That Are As Good or Better The Next Day.”
With Bittman’s cooking methodology, it’s all about getting good, fresh ingredients and not screwing them up. His recipes are simple (or minimalist) mainly because he will teach you how to mix and match recipe ideas with whatever you’ve got in your cupboards, how to keep the right ingredients stocked at all times, and how to quickly and easily prepare straightforward meals. Most recipes offer a “variations” tab that will show you how to change up your old favorites, to keep things interesting, and they’re often cross-linked to accompanying dishes that pair well.
Truly, a great app to invest in, and at $1.99 it’s well worth the price.
One of the recipes I’ve recently tried from the app is the Radish Salsa, which offers a unique take on an old favorite. While Bittman doesn’t include tomatoes in his recipe, Celebrity Intern saw yellow tomatoes on sale at the grocery store and couldn’t pass up a deal, so we tossed in a few for the following colorful and tasty results:
Photo (and yellow tomatoes) by Celebrity Intern
Looks great, tastes great, and can be served up solo or stuffed into the taco of your choice. Yum!
Ingredients for this salsa include: chopped radishes, English cucumber (the long skinny kind), red onion, scallions, garlic, jalapeños or serrano chiles, lemon juice cilantro and salt and pepper. Toss in a few tomatoes (red or yellow) if you like, or download the app to check out Bittman’s unique Thai-inspired variations on the theme.
2010
03.07
Tags: Angus beef, avocado, baby your beef, bacon, bleu cheese, butter, Celebrity Intern, Chilean wine, Frontera Carmenere, Julia Child, meat thermometer, Ming Tsai, PBS, perfect burgers, Randalls, romaine lettuce, Salemville Amish Blue Cheese, Simply Ming, wine, world's best burgers
Posted in American, By Cuisine, Drinks, Food Type, Home Cookin', burgers, wine | 3 Comments »
People of Earth: hear me now, believe me later! If you love burgers, this recipe is gonna rock your world. I wouldn’t have even thought it was possible to improve upon the delicious and dead-simple cheeseburger we all know and love, but it is—and it’s not even crazy expeez, either! These are the tips (which we originally learned from watching episodes of Simply Ming and Julia Child on PBS) that will help you achieve godliness on the stove. Please note: today’s recipe is brought to you by the mad cooking skillz of Celebrity Intern, who taught me everything I know about burgers.
- Get good beef. What does this mean? Don’t buy the non-specified mystery meat; if they don’t tell you it’s ground round or ground chuck, you’re getting lips & assholes. Buy the good stuff: Angus beef (at least here in Texas) doesn’t cost that much more, and it’s so worth it.
- Baby your beef. Don’t handle the meat too much when you’re actually forming the burgers into patties. Pat it into a roughly rounded shape, but don’t try to make it perfect. The more you handle the meat, the more moisture you press out of it, and the more dry your burger will be.
- Searing-hot pan. Make sure your pan is hot and ready to go before you put your patties in. It should be hot enough that when you put in a pat of butter, the butter will melt but not turn brown before you put in the beef. (And yes, you are using butter to grease your pan. None of this Pam or margarine or olive oil horseshit. BUTTER!)
- Set it and forget it. Put in your patties and leave them be. Do not slide them around, press down on them, or otherwise meddle with the beef once it is in the pan. Let them brown for between 4 and 5 minutes before you flip them over. Do not mash them down once you’ve flipped them! Just let them do their thing. This is the secret to moist, delicious burgers.
- Use a thermometer. You’ll know your burgers are ready based on their inner temperature. Insert a meat thermometer and take your burgers off the heat when they’re around 130 degrees F. (Don’t worry; although most recipes will tell you to cook ground beef to 165 degrees, we’ve been eating these regularly with no ill effects, mostly since they’ll eventually get that hot even without the help of the stove. You may want to abstain, however, if you’re knocked-up—just to be on the safe side.)
- Cheese and cover. Put your bleu cheese on top of the burgers, which are still resting comfortably in the pan, and then cover the pan with a lid. Let the burgers sit, cheese slowly melting, for at least 5 minutes before plating them up. Use a good quality bleu cheese; we like the Salemville Amish Blue Cheese (available at Randall’s), which has been aged for 60 days. Delish!
Those are the basic steps to great burgers, even if you’re not big on the bleu cheese idea. But if you are, let us also recommend additional toppings (which you really MUST do) of bacon strips (easy to make in the microwave!), some romaine lettuce, and a bit of mashed avocado. Pure decadence, pure bliss.
Wine pairing: a delicious ($5) Chilean wine, the Frontera Carmenere, tastes fabulous with this bleu cheeseburger. Yum!
There should obviously be a tasty and succulent photo of our burgers here, but we were salivating too much to take pictures and gobbled them up before a photo shoot could be arranged! We’ll try to get one eventually, but no guarantees.
2010
03.03
Tags: Bart Simpson, BBQ ribs, beer, chardonnay, cheap gourmands, country-style pork ribs, Crock-Pot, Dining Companion, easy weeknight meals, foolproof recipes, Good to the Bone Country-Style Ribs, lazy recipes, leftovers, onions, Pinot Gris, ribs, shallots, slow-cooker, slow-cooker ribs, Texas-Texas BBQ sauce, wine recommendations
Posted in BBQ, By Cuisine, Drinks, Food Type, Home Cookin', barbecue, wine | 1 Comment »
Here at Shoestring Austin, we are nothing if not cheap gourmands. Except for one other thing: sometimes, we are pretty darn lazy. Cooking occasionally takes a back seat when you’re going about your daily business, get swamped with work, or have a family member in the hospital in another state whom you’re concerned about. (Hi, Mom! Hope you’re feeling better!)
In any case, we’ve come up with a completely fool-proof recipe, for fools like us who can’t concentrate on cooking all the time.
In honor of the motto on the BBQ sauce we elected to use in this recipe, we’ve named it Good to the Bone Country-Style Ribs. Here’s what you need:
- 2 lbs. country-style pork ribs
- 1 jar Texas-Texas BBQ sauce
- 1 large shallot (that’s a fancy onion; you can substitute a red onion as you see fit)
That’s it, that’s all! We told you this was easy, right?
Here’s the entire set of directions: Cook for 5 hours on high in your slow-cooker. Seriously, what could be simpler?
Okay, here’s a couple of notes for y’all: layer onions, ribs, and more onions on top so you can soak up the tasty goodness. Trim off the fat a bit, cus gnawing through the gristle isn’t very nice (but a little fat is pretty tasty). And then just let ‘er rip!
Here’s a photo of our results:
Delicious Good to the Bone Country-Style Ribs
Final bit of advice: check around at your local grocery store, as sometimes the packages are mislabelled and you can score, like, 5 lbs of ribs for something crazy like 30 cents. Um… not that we did that. At a store that shall remain nameless. (Tip: Be calm at the cash. Don’t give yourself away. Channel Bart Simpson. You didn’t see me do it. Nobody saw anything…)
Wine recommendation: pair it with a nice Chardonnay or Pinot Gris. Superb! Or drink beer if you must. This is Texas, after all.
The Dining Companion (DC) and I will be fighting over the leftovers tomorrow!
2010
02.23
Tags: avocados, BFFs, broccoli, Capital Metro, CapMetro rail line, Carsi, Double Broccoli Quinoa, going green, green tips and tricks, Greening Austin Daily, home cooking, It's My Park Day, Katherine, link swap, quinoa recipes, recipes, Torchy's Tacos
Posted in Blogs, Home Cookin' | No Comments »
Hey Shoestringers! I just found out about an awesome new blog called Greening Austin Daily, which is offering tips and tricks to Austinites looking for fun and practical ways to go green. They’ve recently posted about everything from “It’s My Park Day” (coming up on March 6), my new fave Torchy’s Tacos, and the actual launch (at long last!) of the CapMetro rail line—which is apparently going to be free to riders during its first week of service next month.
Definitely add this blog to your hit list, as it’s chock full of information on how to get groovy and get your green on right here in Austin, and it’s not at all preachy or warrior-vegan in its approach. Bloggers and BFFs Katherine and Carsi even bust out their tasty recipes every Tuesday, like the Double Broccoli Quinoa that I’ve got to try with the rest of the quinoa I’ve got squirrelled away in my cupboard. Broccoli + avocado = winner in my book.
Got any other awesome Austin blogs you’d like to share with the Shoestring Austin crew? Get in touch and we’ll swap links!
