Whenever we are preparing a meal, we like to use fresh ingredients as much as possible. That being said, we all have day jobs and sometimes you just don’t have enough time and energy to cook a weeknight meal from scratch.
But just because you are buying some ready made food doesn’t mean you can’t have a great meal. Today, we’ll show you how to take something as simple as instant jasmine rice, and make it into a world class side dish.
One of the main ingredients, lime basil, is a little bit on the exotic side. It doesn’t taste like normal basil. It has a bright citrus flavor that goes great with the rice. You can likely find it at your local Asian market or you can grow it in a pot. They grow like weeds here in California and reseed themselves every year.
If you would like to buy some seeds you can click on the link below:
Super Simple Lime Basil Rice Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 Box of instant Jasmine Rice – click here to get it on amazon
- 1/4 cup of chopped of Lime Basil (Feel free to add more if you like the citrus flavor)
- 1/2 stick of Butter
- Juice of 1 Lime
Steps to Cook
- Follow the cooking instructions on the instant rice.
- Cut the butter into smaller chunks and mix into the cooked rice. Stir until all the butter is melted into the rice.
- Mix the lime basil into the rice until it is fully incorporated.
- Squeeze the lime juice on top of the rice.
- Serve and enjoy!
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
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
Super Simple Chipotle Aioli
Today we are going to talk about making sauces. Making your own sauce is the single easiest way of making an ordinary meal much more tasty and exotic.
While some sauces can be complex and time consuming to create this is not one of cases.
In fact, there are only 4 Ingredients that you need to have and you can whip this up in less than 2 minutes.
Here are the ingredients:
- 4 Tablespoons of Mayo
- 5 Table Spoons of Chipotle Powder
- ½ of a Lime
- 4-5 Shakes of salt from a Salt Shaker
All you need to do is pour the ingredients into a small bowl and mix them together with a Spoon.
As with all of the recipes that we talk about, you don’t need to follow this to the letter. If you don’t like spicy food? Tone the chipotle back. Like your like your food more salty? Crank up the salt.
The best part of cooking is experimenting with the ingredients and making it your own.
Here is what the end result looks like:
So what does this sauce work well on? Well if you like spicy food it works on a whole lot. We have put this on fish tacos and it works really really well. We have also had great results with Burgers.
Frankly, it’s so easy to make I say just make a batch, have a taste and decide for yourself!
Thanks for Reading.
Quick and Easy Homemade Chicken Broth
How many times have you gone to a place like Costco or your local market an picked up a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken for a quick meal on the way home? If you are like me, it happens pretty frequently. After all, you are busy, the chickens can be pretty tasty and it requires almost no effort before you are eating something.
Is it as good as buying a chicken and preparing it yourself? Of course it’s not. But let’s be realistic, most of us don’t have time to prepare a whole chicken on a random Tuesday.
So you have your dinner, you enjoy the chicken and you are left with something that probably looks like this…
This is where post really begins. For the longest time I would do what you likely do today. Chuck that thing in the trash and go about my day.
Here is the thing though, I use chicken broth all the time all forms of cooking. Basically i was throwing away a fresh chicken so i could go spend money buying canned broth to use in my cooking.
So i decided to make my own broth and let me tell you the difference in taste is night and day. Just like with all cooking the key is all about control. You get to choose the ingredients that are appropriate for what you are trying to do.
For example, if the end result of this is going to be a chicken soup, you may want to toss in all kinds of things like carrots and celery to go along with the spices that will be mentioned below. In this this case i wanted something that was more of a cooking broth.
Here is what i used:
- Chicken Carcass
- Filtered Water – You don’t have to filter the water but i promise you it will taste better.
- Fresh Parsley from my Herb garden (About 3 bushy stems)
- One Shallot – Doesn’t need to be finely chopped
- Three Bay Leaves
- Onion Powder – Here is an amazon link to the one I used (Link)
- Garlic Powder – Here is an amazon link to the one I used (Link)
- Italian Seasoning – Here is an amazon link to the one i used (Link)
Now notice I didn’t give any detailed specifics on how much of each ingredients that I used. There will be other recipes that will require more precision, this is not one of them. Put ingredients that you like in, taste the broth and add more as needed. The whole point is that you can use something that you would normally throw away to create a product that is going to be superior to something you are likely buying already in the store.
Once you strain the soup, I highly recommend putting the broth into various small containers and freeze them. This allows you to only thaw what you need when cooking. This final step is less important if your goal is making soup.
So take a little extra time after you are done eating and use the rest of the bird to make broth. You will be saving money and ending up with a much better tasting product!