Like many of you, we eat a lot of chicken especially during the week. Why? It’s inexpensive, tasty and considered a healthier alternative vs many other types of meat. But many people, especially the health conscious ones, tend to only focus on the chicken breast for their cooking and they ignore the dark meat. This is a big mistake in my opinion. Not only is a chicken breast more expensive to buy but it’s simply not as flavorful as the dark meat is.
For this recipe we bought a large packet of drumsticks for the super market. It was a large pack, about 16, which meant we had a fair amount of leftovers. If you are having a party and need to cook and don’t want to break the bank, this is a perfect recipe.
So how do we make regular ol chicken drums special? It’s all in the sauce. For this recipe we used the tequila lime recipe we had used for our stuffed portabellas and just made about 3 times as much of it. This is the great things about learning to make your own sauce recipes. They are super versatile and the end result can taste totally different depending on what you are cooking with.
Here are the ingredients for the sauce:
- 1 ½ a Cup of Tequila
- Juice of 6 Limes
- 3/4 of a stick of butter
- About three pinches of the EME Fish & Poultry Seasoning
- 15 Shakes from a Sale Shaker depending on your preference
- 3 tbsp. of flour to thicken (Here is the flower is used available on Amazon – low carb flour)
Preparation
The first step is to actually make the sauce
- You will need a medium size sauce pot for this step.
- Grab the butter and put in the pot at high heat until it fully melts.
- Once the butter melts, pour the tequila in and squeeze the lime.
- At this point I back off the heat to about medium and let the sauce reduce.
- Once it has reduced I put the flour in and whisk it with a spoon, this will thicken the sauce.
Marinating
Once the sauce is made you are going to need to let the chicken cool so you can use a portion of it as the marinade. I used two large freezer bags and put equal parts of the chicken inside of each bag. Using a ladle, I put enough of the tequila lime sauce to cover all of the chicken in the bags. In my case about 2/3s of sauce went in as marinade. Your marinade should look something like this:
Cooking
Once your chicken has been sitting in the marinade for at least 30 minutes (More is better here) you are ready to cook!
Here are the steps
- Make sure your Grill is clean and ready to go.
- Fire up the grill to about 400 degrees.
- Using tongs grab the marinated chicken and put it on the hot grill.
- Pour the marinated sauce into a bowl.
- Make sure that the sauce that wasn’t used as marinade is put into a separate bowl is this will be used later.
- Baste the chicken (I used a Silcon Basting brush like this one – http://amzn.to/1qewnw5) with the marinated sauce close the lid to your grill.
Note – If you have a gas grill you are going to need to keep a close one the chicken, the fat from the dark meat will drip onto the heat plates and can cause a flare up. If you see smoke coming out open the lid. If a flare up is happening, move the chicken off the flame and let the flare up burn off. You can also keep the lid open and turn the heat up. It will take a little longer to cook but you will be able to see what’s going on easier.
- Every Few minutes, rotate your drumsticks and baste them with the marinate sauce. This will begin to cook the tequila flavor right into the skin.
- By the time the chicken is done you should have basted all of the marinade sauce on the chicken.
- Once the chicken is done plate the chicken into a separate container and with a separate brush, baste the sauce that was not used as marinade onto the chicken to give it a great finishing touch. Make sure you either wash your brush or use another one.
That’s it! You are now ready to eat.
Let us know what you think.
Smoked Salmon Spinach Salad with homemade honey mustard vinaigrette
One of the difficult things about cooking during the week is that time and energy often come up a bit short when you get home to cook an elaborate meal. This challenge is magnified when you are trying to make the meal not only taste good but be healthy for you as well.
Luckily, this recipe manages to be healthy, tasty and quick to make. This is the holy trinity when it comes to weeknight dinners as far as I’m concerned. I can’t take the credit for this one however as it was my lovely wife’s idea.
The only real work you have to do is making the homemade vinaigrette.
Prep
- Put the Spinach in a salad bowl.
- Slice the grape tomatoes to your preferred size.
- Put the salad aside while you make the vinaigrette.
Ingredients for the salad
- 1 Bag of fresh spinach
- 1 small smoked salmon filet
- ½ a box of grape tomatoes
Ingredients for the vinaigrette
- 1/3 cup of extra virgin Olive Oil
- 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
- 2 teaspoons of mustard
- The Juice of ½ lemon squeezed
- 1 teaspoon of dried dill weed
- ½ shallot finely chopped
- 2 teaspoons of honey
Making the vinaigrette
- Mix the lemon juice, mustard, vinegar, dill weed and shallots in a bowl
- Whisk them vigorously until they are well mixed together
- While whisking, slowly stream in your olive oil to help integrate it with the vinaigrette
Final Preparation
- In a slow stream pour the vinaigrette over all part of the salad and then toss it to ensure the vinaigrette is well integrated.
- Cut the smoked salmon in half and place it on top of the salad for final presentation.
This is definitely one of the simpler recipes we have done but the end result is fantastic. The smokiness of the salmon pairs perfectly with the tangy and slightly spicy finish of the vinaigrette. We paired this meal with a Geyser Peak Sauvignon Blanc which will be a “Wine under Nine” selection in an upcoming post.
So if you are looking to be healthy on a weeknight, give this recipe a try and let us know what you think!
Grilling with Gramps
I have mentioned on a number of occasions that my Father in Law was one of the main reasons I got into cooking. We have even featured one of his recipes when we talked about how to make Beer Can Chicken. The difference with today’s recipe was that he actually did the cooking and all of the tips and tricks are coming right from the source. So what are we going to talk about today? Grilling some beautiful Rib Eye and T-Bone steaks.
This is not a complicated recipe. There are no fancy marinades or sauces. Why? Because a good steak doesn’t need much added to it to make it great. What you do need however is good technique so that you can make the most of the delicious cut of meat.
So let’s get to it. Here is what you need to know to make a great steak.
The first step is to trim the meat so that the hard outer fat layers that you often find in cuts like these. Some of you may have heard the phrase “Fat is flavor” and my father in law agrees for the most part. However he told me “These hard outer layers doesn’t melt into the the meat so it’s not really adding anything to keep it on”. If you think about it, whenever you get a cut of meat like this at a restaurant and it has that hard thick layer of fat, all you ever do is cut it out.
Once the meat is trimmed it’s time to do the seasoning. He kept the seasoning pretty light. Just a little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper and a healthy dash of paprika.
Once the meat is seasoned, let the meat sit because it’s time to get the grill fired up. He opted to use his Weber Charcoal grill over his gas grill. It was more of a hassle, but when you are cooking a great piece of steak he insists on cooking over the coals. The key is getting the coals nice and hot before putting the meat on them.
The reason for this is you want to get a a good sear on the steak early so that you can “lock in the flavor”.
Timing is key here. You want to make sure that you get a good sear on both sides but once you do, you should move the meat away from the hot coals and letting the indirect heat of the grill finish off the cooking. My father in law refers to this phase as “putting the steak in the oven”. At this point, the only thing left to do is wait until the steak is done. Now if you were to ask either of us, done means medium rare, medium at the most.
But that’s the beauty of cooking you can make your own meals to your own taste.
So fire up the grill try it out and let us know what you think.
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Baily’s 2011 Malbec Wine Review
Today we are going to do a wine review for a wine that you cannot buy at the market or the store. It is not under nine dollars like some the wines we have talked about in the past. My In-laws live in Temecula, CA which has a number of wineries, which means we spend a lot of time out here visiting.
Being a lover of wine, we have visited a number of the local wineries to see what they had to offer. In general I would say that the wines of this region are hit or miss. There are a lot of big commercial wineries here and their grounds rival anything I have ever seen in terms of beauty. But those big wineries just don’t have the consistent quality, especially within a reasonable price range, that we are looking for.
But there are small wineries in this region that seem to put all of their effort and emphasis on the wine instead of the Marketing.
Baily’s winery one of those wineries. And I can honestly say that I put my money where my mouth is in this case because we have been members of this winery for some time now.
2011 Malbec Review
I have always likes the Malbec Grape, it’s a varietal that can be drank by itself but is definitely more at home with a nice piece of meat. My introduction to this varietal was during my trips to Argentina and Chile. The former being the epicenter of the varietal in the modern era.
When I first saw this bottle I was a bit skeptical / snobby. I had never had California Malbec that I had really liked and didn’t think this would be any different. Boy was I wrong!
The Nose
- The Nose has an interesting mix of strong earth tones with a deep rich berry note
- You get full experience right out of the bottle, the nose is just as consistent on the first pour as it is 30 minutes later on the decanter
Tasting Notes
- The overall taste of the wine is dry with but very smooth
- The berry flavor you get in the nose translates to smooth subtle blackberry jam flavor. It is not in your face however and the traditional Malbec Tannic dryness subdues the berry flavor.
- You get a slight hint of the berries but it is by no means a fruit bomb.
Pairs well with
This wine begs to be paired with a nice big steak or other piece of meat. It also pairs fabulously with smoked foods.
I highly recommend trying this bottle out. It’s not too expensive, about $25 for the bottle and it is well worth the price of admission.
You also couldn’t be buying from a greater group of people. The winery is full of friendly knowledgeable people. Here is the link where you can check them out.
If you buy it, let me know what you think!
Nonna’s No Bake Easter Cookies
This episode is a mother in law special, because well, it’s her recipe. When it comes to decorating for a holiday event it’s hard to outdo my mother-in-law. Whenever she prepares for a holiday everything, including the food she makes, has to adhere religiously to the theme being prepared.
This recipe is a perfect appetizer or dessert if you are having people over for Easter. What really make it great is you don’t actually have to bake these cookies.
Here are the ingredients you will need to assemble your Easter treats.
- Pepperidge Farm Milano Mint – Chocolate Cookies
- Orange Candy Melts
- Green Candy Melts
- Green Sprinkles
- Orange Sprinkles
Preparation
- Use a bread knife and cut the Milano Mint Cookies into the desired carrot shape.
- Once the basic shape has been made, use a paring knife smooth out the edges.
- Melt the desired amount of Orange Candy Melt into a “dippable” container
- Dip the shaped cookie ¾ of the way into the Orange Candy Melt.
- Place the dipped carrots on a pan with parchment paper and sprinkle them with the orange sprinkles.
- Wait 15 minutes for the sprinkle Melt to dry.
- Melt the desired amount of Green Candy Melt into another “diappable” container, this one does not have to be as deep as the first one.
- Dip the cookies so that the remaining ¼ of the cookies gets a green top.
- Place the dipped carrots on the same pan with parchment paper and sprinkle the newly dipped portion with green sprinkles.
- Wait another 15 minutes and you are ready to serve.
That’s all there is to it. Let us know what you think!
Grilled Skirt Steak with the “Green Sauce”
Yesterday we made the Green Sauce to put on our dinner for Taco Tuesday and it ended up being a big success. The only problem that we were left with was that we made far too much of the sauce and using it for Tacos and dip were not enough to finish what we made.
Our Tacos had sour cream, Guac, lettuce, ground beef, and cheese to go along with the green sauce. As you can see there are a lot of flavors to compliment the sauce. The sauce made the Tacos great but how would it stand up when it was the only thing being put on something?
So I decided to test the versatility of the sauce by pairing it with a grilled skirt steak. The results exceeded my expectations.
The recipe is exceedingly simple and took only about 15 minutes to prep and cook the entire meal. Just what the doctor ordered for a Wednesday night. Here are the details:
- Let the skirt steak sit out until its room temperature.
- Season the steak with Salt and Pepper to your taste.
- Throw the steaks on the grill and cook to the desired level of “Doneness”. Keep in mind that skirt steaks are much thinner than a typical cut of steak so the will finish more quickly.
- Once the steak is done take it off the grill and let the steak rest.
- Pour the desired amount of sauce onto the Green Sauce onto the steak and serve it.
That is it, it’s really that simple and I promise you that it delicious. So the next time you get home and don’t have time to prepare a big elaborate meal, give this recipe a try.
Thanks for reading.
“Green Sauce” Salsa & Taco Sauce
Today was Taco Tuesday in my household. We normally keep it pretty simple. Ground beef, store bought taco seasoning, some lettuce some cheese and some sour cream. We usually top it with some citrus or a store bought salsa. It’s quick, it’s easy and who doesn’t like Tacos?
But today I wanted to take Taco Tuesday up a notch. Enter the “Green Sauce”. I found a similar recipe to this years ago and have been adjusting it to my taste.
This is a sauce that you build from scratch, unlike some of the other sauces we have covered in this post. The sauce is a little bit creamy, a little spicy, citrusy and salty. Then you throw in the brightness of the cilantro and you have a truly special little sauce.
Tonight we used it as both the sauce for our Tacos and as the “Salsa” for our chips. It did a great job of both. If you decide to make it you will see that this is very versatile, and tasty little sauce.
Here are the ingredients that you will need:
- 1/4 head of lettuce, torn into pieces
- 4 jalapeno chilies, seeds and veins removed
- 1/4 cup mayonnaise
- 5 green onions
- 1/2 bunch of cilantro leaves (try to avoid the stems)
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 2 Limes
Please note that this makes a large quantity of sauce. If you are alone or with your significant other you may want to cut this recipe in half. Or you could store it and use it for later, it stores pretty well.
Preparation Steps
You are going to need a food processer, we used the small cheap one that you can get for about 20 bucks from Walgreens. If you have a nicer one by means use that.
- Cut the lager components up so that they fit into your particular food processor.
- Put the lettuce, jalapenos, onions, cilantro into food processor and chop it to a paste.
- Once all of the solids components have been processed add the lime juice, mayo, salt, pepper and garlic and run the processor until you get a creamy consistency that looks something like this:
That’s all there is to it. The prep time for this should really only be about 15 minutes. And trust me, once you taste the results you will see it’s well worth the effort. Try it out and let me know what you think!
Thanks for reading
Stuffed Chorizo Portobellos with a Tequila Lime Sauce
One of my favorite parts having people over and entertaining is getting to cook an elaborate and tasty meal. It also usually means that I’m making appetizers to go with the main dish. I love making appetizers, I think appetizers allow to be more creative than other dishes. You can experiment with flavors that might be too much in the context of an entire meal but work great as bite sized snacks.
This dish ware originally conceived on a weekend when we were going to have family over. We were making our Beer Can Chicken and we wanted to something tasty to munch on while the main course finalized.
Enter the baby Portobello. If you haven’t cooked with these mushrooms let me assure you that they are very versatile. In this instance, we decided to give the meal more of a Mexican flair. Here are the ingredients that we used:
- 1 dozen Portobello mushrooms with the gills removed
- 1 package of Pork Chorizo
- 1 package of Monterrey Jack Shredded Cheese
- ½ a Cup of Tequila
- Juice of two Limes
- 1/3 of a stick of butter
- A pinch or two of the EME Fish & Poultry Seasoning
- 5-10 Shakes from a Sale Shaker depending on your preference
- 1 tbsp. of flour to thicken (I used low carb flour)
Prepping the Mushrooms
- Use a small spoon to remove the gills from the mushrooms. You have to be careful and gentle while you are doing this because it’s fairly easy to break them. And once their broken it’s hard to stuff them. They should look like this:
Making the Sauce
- Now it’s time to make the sauce you’ll need a small sauce pot for this step. Grab the butter and put in the pot at high heat until it fully melts.
- Once the butter melts, pour the tequila in and squeeze the lime.
- At this point I back off the heat to about medium and let the sauce reduce.
- Once it has reduced I put the flour in and whisk it with a spoon, this will thicken the sauce.
- Keep the sauce on a low heat so it doesn’t overly thicken.
Final Cooking Instructions
- Once the sauce is made it’s time to cook the Chorizo. All I do here is put it on a pan on high heat until the chorizo is fully cooked. I did not bother seasoning it at all since we already have a sauce for it and chorizo is flavorful on its own.
- Once the chorizo is done, put it in a bowl and put it aside.
- Heat up your grill to about 400 degrees or so and put the Portobellos on the grill BY THEMSELVES. This step is key, because as the mushrooms heat up they produce a lot of liquid.
- Use tongs to grab the mushrooms and drain the liquid into the grill. You want them to be as dry as possible so that your sauce doesn’t get watered down by the mushroom juice.
- Once the mushrooms have been drained, use a spoon to stuff them with the chorizo.
- Pour the sauce onto the chorizo as it will do a good job of absorbing it.
- Finally, put the cheese on top of the chorizo and close the lid of the grill.
- Once you have the mushrooms stuffed you just need to leave them long enough for the cheese to melt.
Once the cheese is melted the mushrooms are ready to eat. They were a big hit the last time I made them. If you make them let me know what you think!
Thanks for reading.
EME Fish and Poultry Seasoning
Yesterday we discussed a quick and easy way to “enhance” a common condiment like BBQ sauce to give it and your food a much more gourmet feel. Our recipe today is going focus on another way to easily transform your food into something delicious, seasoning.
If you like to cook, most of you have probably purchased many different types of seasonings and used it on everything from beef, to chicken to veggies. Used correctly a good seasoning can add interesting new flavors to a dish while complimenting and enhancing the flavor of the food itself.
The problem with most store bought seasonings and rubs is, as my Father in Law taught me several years ago is that they are pricey and the main ingredient in them is salt. Now don’t get me wrong, I do not hate salt, quite the opposite actually I think it does a great job of helping to enhance food flavors. The problem I have is that salt is cheap and these seasonings and rubs are not.
This means you are spending 6 or 7 bucks for small container of seasoning or rub whose main ingredient you can buy by the pound for just a few dollars. I get why they do it, salt does improve the flavor and it helps them make money.
But as you will see in the post, making your own seasoning is not hard and it will leave you with a superior product. If you want to add a bunch of salt to your seasonings, by all means go ahead but at least when you make it you decide how much to put in.
This Fish and poultry seasoning recipe came to me as I was thinking how to prepare some personally caught rockfish for a Friday meal.
Here are the ingredients you will need:
- 12 Parts Lemon Pepper
- 4 Parts Garlic Powder
- 4 Parts Dryed Minced Onion
- 3 Parts Dill Weed
- 2 Parts Mustard Powder
You can see I went pretty heavy on the lemon pepper. For this reason I highly recommend not applying this liberally like a rub unless you are a big fan of pepper. 2 or so pinches on each side of something like a fish fillet should be more than enough.
If you wanted to make this more like a rub I would probably cut back the Pepper to like 8 or even 6 parts. Who knows I may even do so and let you know the results?
As with all the recipes that we talk about here, I highly recommend that you experiment and tweak them to fit your taste buds. Recipes should really only be a guide that try and then use as a launching point.
If you make the seasoning, let us know what you think. I haven’t tried it on poultry yet but I imagine that it would work very well on say a chicken breast especially if you combine it with a little bit of citrus like say a lemon.
Thanks for reading!
Dressing up your everyday BBQ Sauce
One of the benefits of living in Southern California is that sunny warm days come early and often. And when it’s warm there are few things I enjoy doing more than firing up the grill and making a delicious meal.
The only problem is when you fire up the grill on a weekday, you don’t have the time prepare an elaborate meal like you might to on the weekends. That doesn’t mean that you can’t make a delicious meal, it just means you have to get creative.
In this post we are going to look at a staple ingredient that you use when grilling, BBQ sauce. While it would be great to have the time to make your own BBQ sauce from scratch, most of us don’t have the time to do so.
That doesn’t mean however that you have to just use what you buy in the store. With minimal effort, you can spruce up your store bought sauce so that it has much more of a gourmet flavor.
We started with between three quarters of a bottle of Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce (Which you can buy at the super market.)
We then added the following ingredients:
- 2 Tablespoons of Onion powder – here is the one I used on Amazon.
- 2 Tablespoons of Garlic powder – here is the one I used on Amazon.
- 1 Tablespoon of Chipotle powder – I used the Tradewinds Chipotle Powder
- 2 Tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar
The prep for this is simple, you dump in the powder, mix it thoroughly with a spoon and then add the vinegar and mix it thoroughly once more. The vinegar not only adds a tangy flavor, which I like, but it also thins out the sauce. Adding that quantity of spices and powders make the flavors more interesting but it also thickens the sauce to the point where it’s harder to spread.
The sauce we made today was destined for BBQ chicken. We cooked up a delicious assortment of thighs and drumsticks. A few notes on cooking the chicken with the sauce. I like to add the sauce as the chicken is cooking so that cooks into the meat. This infuses the sauce into the chicken and reduces the overly sweet flavor that BBQ sauce can give.
As with all of the recipes that we give you, I highly recommend that you experiment and find the flavors that best suit your taste. Recipes should only be a guide, don’t be afraid to get creative.
Thanks for reading