i a m m i k e . o r g
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Recipe: Cuban Goulash a la Miguel
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Have been wanting to eat a bunch of the random things we have collecting dust in our cabinets and fridge. Additionally, I worked a 20-mile race this morning and went home with a large number of unripened bananas, which are great for cooking (hold up better, but do soften and turn sweet).
After a short search, I found Cuban Goulash. We didn't have the exact ingredients, but were pretty close. Rather than read theirs, go with my recipe... it's much easier:
Ingredients
 three bananas, peeled and diced (the less ripe, the better)- one can of Furmano's diced tomatoes (because they are the best)
- one yellow (or white, they're similar enough) onion, diced
- four links of Trader Joe's chicken italian sausage (feel free to use whatever meat you want, this is just what we had), diced
- tablespoon vegetable oil
- dash of cayenne pepper
Steps
- In saute pan, heat oil over medium heat.
- Once heated, add sausage and onions.
- Once sausage is browned and onions are soft, add tomatoes and bananas.
- Once a boil is reach, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 15-30 minutes, while stirring occasionally.
- Add cayenne pepper to taste.
We ate ours in bowls, like a chili. The recipe recommends eating it over egg noodles, but I think I'd prefer the bowl format. In fact, I may make this next time I'm on the hook to make a chili or something of that nature. The above ingredients can serve four.
Was super simple, a complete unknown, got a giant can, an onion, and four sausage links out of here, and was absolutely delicious. The acidity of the tomatoes, the spice of the sausage, the tang/sweetness of the onion, and the sweetness of the bananas was truly a match made in heaven.
Total cost? No idea, we bought all this stuff a while ago, but it wasn't much.
Will definitely be making this one again.
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i a m m i k e . o r g
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I've been cooking
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Four nights in a row now! Nothing super spectacular and only one of my own recipes, but here goes:
Night #1
Threw some steaks in the oven. Nothing special. Just add some Montreal Steak seasoning to two of them and salt/pepper to the other. Sides were roasted asparagus (roll them in olive oil and salt/pepper) and some mashed sweet potato (brown sugar, vanilla, butter).
Night #2
Three-bean Soup w/ Dijon Dumplings. I watched the show this was on, it sounded fairly healthy, so I made it. Two things I screwed up: 1) Well, he screwed this up. The girl on the show asked him about if she could only find dry beans. He said "No problem, will just take a few extra minutes to cook." He was wrong. It took over an hour of simmering to get the dry roman beans hydrated. 2) I accidentally added too much water to the dumplings. Normally not a problem, just throw in more flour... We were out of it. I instead used some corn starch, which worked out. The soup was really darned good aside from the cooking time due to the dry beans. The dumplings? Needed more flavor. They were just kind of heavy balls of dough. Maybe the dijon flavor left them and went in to the soup?
Night #3
Crunchy Noodle Salad. This turned out really well. Great colors, great flavor, pretty easy to make. It wasn't really crunchy due to me accidentally soaking the peas in the ice water rather than just flashing them so I threw in some dry chow mein noodles, which turned out to be a great addition. The other problem was the store didn't have enough red peppers. I instead bought a variety pack of those smaller sweet peppers. Despite being a bit more prep, I think it actually turned out better as the dish was much more colorful.
Night #4
I had bought some Tilapia at the store that we had to use ASAP. Went with tossing the fillets in a marinade that consisted of the juice of 1/2 a lime, juice of 1/2 an orange, a squirt of Sriracha or "Rooster" sauce, some orange zest, a couple tablespoons of olive oil, and freshly ground pepper (to taste). Slice the remaining halves of your citrus and lay them over top the fillets (lime on bottom). I would have preferred letting the fillets soak it up for a bit, but it was already 8:45 so I just threw it in the oven for 20 minutes (approximately) at 350. In hindsight, I would have added a bit more pepper and would have bumped the temp to 400, but it was still pretty tasty. Be sure to drizzle the filets with marinade before serving. No sides with this meal as it was late...
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i a m m i k e . o r g
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Recipe: Garlic Butter Shrimp
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It's freaking hot out. When it's hot out, I like seafood. Checked the ad for Teets, saw shrimp were on sale... Done and done.
Ingredients
- 1.5lbs white shrimp (31-40ct)
- 1 stick butter (salted)
- 4 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
- 1/3 bushel parsley, chopped
- Juice of 1/2 lemon
Steps
- Melt butter in a large pan
- Add garlic
- Toss in shrimp
- Once shrimp have cooked a bit, toss in parsley and lemon juice
- Serve!
Simple, quick, and tasty. On the side I steamed some carrots and broccoli and concocted a honey-lemon sauce... Pretty good, but it would have been better with a touch of ginger. Dessert was poppyseed cake w/ freshly sliced strawberries and blueberries. Drink was a 2006 Chardonnay from Rappahanock Cellars. Sorry, no pictures. |
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i a m m i k e . o r g
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Recipe: Pancake Mix Rocky Road Cookies
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Watching food network tonight, Caitlin and I got a hankering for some cookies. Sadly, we had no baking powder. A quick googling later, and we found that you can substitute pancake mix. The basic recipe was sourced from another site, but we made some pretty drastic changes so we could call it our own.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter (unsalted)
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- Splash of coffee licquer
- 2 cups buttermilk pancake mix
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 cup milk chocolate chips
- 2 handfuls mini marshmallows
Steps
- Preheat oven to 375.
- Mix butter, brown sugar, egg, and Kahlua in medium-sized bowl.
- Slowly stir in all other ingredients
- Place a teaspoonfuls on an ungreased baking sheet about 3 inches apart.
- Bake for ~12 minutes or until nicely browned.
Conclusion
Quite tasty, but they were a huge pain to remove from the baking sheets. I'd suggest using as thin a spatula as possible and as quickly as possible. The marshmallows froze to the pan... Additionally, using the pancake mix resulted in cookies that were much more fragile than what you're used to. Regardless, it was an interesting change. I'd also use fewer marshmallows (Caitlin's fault) as they interrupted the binding of the cookies. I also might not mix them in to the batter and instead just place them on the spooned out batter; they left empty voids in the cookies, which couldn't have been good for cooking.
7.8/10 - Good in a pinch, but I'll surely be picking up some baking powder tomorrow.
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i a m m i k e . o r g
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Recipe: Turkey Dip
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Drunk one night at home, we all needed a snack. With nothing flavorful in the cabinet, I got concocting. What I ended up with, on my first try, was quite delicious. I wrote down the recipe that night, but found it to not be legible when I woke up in the morning, so what you'll find below is an approximation and exactly what I've made ever since. I swear the original was better, but lord knows how much crap I put in it.
Ingredients
1 can of Snow's canned turkey breast (found at Costco in packs of 4)
1 sleeve of Ritz crackers
Mayonnaise
Nutmeg to taste
Steps
1. Open and drain canned turkey
2. Empty turkey in to large bowl
3. Squirt in mayo
4. Toss in a dash of nutmeg
5. Mash it all up until it's spreadable and tasty
6. Throw it on your crackers and enjoy!
Quick meal, pretty healthy assuming you use some low-fat mayo (Ritz are awful for you), and ready in five minutes.
8.5/10 - Nothing special, but certainly delicious
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i a m m i k e . o r g
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Recipe: Citrus Glazed Mahi Mahi
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Teets had a deal on Mahi Mahi, I love me some fish, I love me some citrus flavored fish, and I've been in a cooking mood as of late. Following a quick googling, I had a recipe that looked like it'd work.
Prep? Cake. Actually, I had Caitlin do that while I went for a run. Upon my arrival, the glaze was simmering and the prep-island littered with spent citrus. I peeled the skin from the fish, threw it in a pan on medium heat w/ olive oil, fifteen minutes later we were done. We also added some jasmine rice to ours, which was a very nice touch... Just toss a little glaze over top that as well.
Presentation was a bit bland; the fish was whitish, the rice was white, the plate was white. I would have added some carrots, some sugar snap peas, and maybe a few water chestnut slices.
Clean up? Cinch, since I had previously washed the glaze pan to cook the fish. One pan to clean = Mikey likes it.
Cost: $3.25/ea
9.2/10 - Very cheap, very easy, but not very manly
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i a m m i k e . o r g
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Recipe: Steak and Onions
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Following a hard run yesterday, I was faced with going to the grocery store and figuring out what I wanted to eat for dinner (my companion was away). Solution? A MAN meal.
Picked up a pair of nice steaks ($8), a small white onion ($.75), three fingerling potatoes ($.75), and the rest I had at home.
Ingredients
1/2 stick of butter (unsalted)
1 small white onion
1 steak (I figure mine was ~10oz)
Salt
Pepper
Steps
1. Slice onions in to rings
2. Melt butter in pan over medium heat
3. Add onions to butter, cook until translucent, but still firm
4. Remove onions, place on the side
5. Decrease heat to medium-low
6. Toss in steak
7. Apply salt and pepper (to taste) to one side of steak
8. Flip steak after side has browned most of the way up
9. Apply salt and pepper (to taste) to this side
10. Cook until it looks done and then some (will brown a bit)
11. Place steak on plate
12. Place onions on top of steak, apply salt and pepper (to taste) on onions
I also cooked up some fingering potatoes, added some salt and pepper to them and bathed them in the natural juices that came off the steak. I also added some broccoli for some greenery.
Cost: ~$5.50/serving
9.4/10 - Simple, fast, cheap, delicious
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i a m m i k e . o r g
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Recipe: Baked Ricotta and Spinach Rigatoni
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Saw this on an episode of Good Deal with Dave Lieberman, it looked tasty, seemed pretty cheap, and it was my turn to prepare a meal.
Unfortunately, it wasn't that tasty unless good amounts of salt were added on your plate. Once it was added though, it was a pretty good meal... The family enjoyed it (note: the recipe makes a solid portion for 5 people).
The prep time was way off, which I'm used to with food show recipes, but I am not used to it being off by as much as it was; figure two hours to make this start to finish. Clean up time was also very lengthy as there are many cooking vessels and containers involved.
Given the time and effort this entire meal took, it wasn't worth it. I doubt I'll be making it again unless someone makes a special request for it. The only real positive I have to say about it is that you're left with 3/4 a bottle of wine that must be drank.
Cost: ~$4/serving
6.5/10 - Took a long time, wasn't all that good
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