Tuesday, March 31, 2009

French Lentil Soup



















It's been beautifully sunny since the start of spring, but we still get that cold brisk in the air as soon as 4 pm roles around. So, I'm still in the mood for soups. I found a tasty looking French Lentil Soup at Bon Appetit and decided as I had a little conference call with my husband that a light side would work out great with this like Sushi. :) Salmon and Tuna to be exact....

I went to Morton's Steakhouse for dinner last night, best steakhouse ever. I had a nice juicy fillet topped with asparagus and crab meat along with creamy spinach in Parmesan and we topped it off with the best souffle I've ever had in my life and I can just say it is one of my top 4 restaurants in California. I give 5 stars and I recommend this place to anyone that lives near one. I've had their food before but I'm still impressed every time I visit. It's funny because I've had their food in 3 different locations, I never seem to eat at the same location.

Plan on visiting California soon? Or maybe you are lucky enough to have one of these in your home town, if so check out the food... you will not be disappointed:
Morton's Steakhouse
Roy's Hawaiian BBQ
La Finestra
Rockin Baja Lobster

Friday, March 27, 2009

Mango Kulfi Pie...



I've attempted the mango dessert I've been wanting to try after making this Strawberry one. It's actually pretty easy and it taste just like Mango Kulfi without all the work. Using only mango pulp, sweetened milk and some crushed cardamon seeds, freeze for 2 hours and my invention is made. :) I have this sitting in a wafer cookie pie crust.

French Onion Soup with Ciabata Bread


Tonight for dinner I needed to have cheese, its' been so long and my favorite cheese is Fontina. So, what better idea than to have French Onion Soup. Perfect, light and satisfying.... I grabbed this recipe from Chief genius herself, Giada!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Spicy Okra

















So, I'm on an Indian kick the last couple of days and I borrowed another recipe from Manjula's kitchen. This is so tasty! The area of India my husband grew up in this dish is called Pinda. Very similar to how my mother in law makes it and so tasty. That's the thing about India, there are so many different languages from the North to the South, so many different flavors of food from how one area makes it to the next. I know my mother in law uses chili powder and ginger garlic paste in almost everything she cooks and noticed in Manjula's Kitchen she doesn't, yet they both taste really good just slightly different. It's interesting..

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Indian Yellow Fried Rice


















There are only two kinds of rice I enjoy eating, Thai Fried Rice and Indian Yellow fried rice, just scrumptious. If I can eat rice as my main meal and be satisfied that is how I know it is good, unlike plain white rice, Mexican or Chinese rice where it needs to accompany some other dish in order to enjoy it. I'm just not a fan of a plate full of food, your main dish needs to be so good that you don't need a side dish, and rice usually is never a main meal, that is until I found a very tasty Yellow Fried Rice from Manjula's Kitchen, I'm so excited to have found this blog, there are so many recipes I'm excited about trying in the future.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Chicken Marsala

















I don't use chicken breast very often when I cook, I prefer the taste of legs and thighs. So, aside from a few stir fry dishes, I make a tasty Chicken Marsala dish. It's best to either buy pounded chicken or pound it down yourself to 1/4 inch thickness as the flavors of the sauce and a nice thin chicken piece taste better than a big thick breast of meat. I believe I started this recipe using all recipes, but added my own flavors each time I made this dish for more flavor. So my version is as follows:

For 2 Breasts-

1/4 cup of flour
1 tsp of cayenne
1 tsp of smoked paprika
1 tsp of Oregano
1 tsp of salt and pepper
mix and dredge the chicken in the spices once the chicken has been pounded thin. Sauté in 2 TB butter and oil. Brown and set aside.

Cut up 1 large onion or shallot, 1 package of Mushrooms of your choice and sauté in that same pan, add 2 TB oil and butter. Once this has become soft, add 1 cup of marsala wine, 1/4 cup of chicken broth and 1/3 cup of cream, whisk and let this cook for 20 mins or so, until the sauce has thicken slightly. Add chicken back to pan let that cook for an additional 15 mins coating chicken in the sauce and keep lid on. I make a side of sautéd zuchinni to go with it but you can also make whole wheat spaghetti pasta to sit this on top of as it is traditionally done this way for less carbs I cut the spaghetti part out.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Strawberry Frozen Pie



I've had this little Pillsbury baking book for almost two years now and every summer I swear to make this and don't. Well, let's call this my intro to Spring....

My great grandmother from my mom's side of the family made this for us when we were kids. I can still remember my first bite of this dessert, I remember looking at mom and saying, "This is so good I can eat the whole thing myself." The strawberry flavor is subtle, it is more like a vanilla creme with a hint of strawberry. Than you have chunks of frozen strawberries in it. My next attempt at this dessert will be with the use of Mangoes, simply because it is a all around favorite fruit in my house. Though I have witness the mangoes coming out all over the place in the stores recently I know they are not at the peek of their season yet so the color or juiciness is not right yet as it would be in the next couple of months. Though I'm not sure if frozen mangoes would do this type of dessert any justice I want to try it out to see.

You will have to email me to get the recipe for this. I'm okay with posting recipes from magazines and food bloggers because I can link them but when I get the recipe from a book I feel bad to post it because I'm sure the author would prefer the customer to buy his/her book instead of finding their recipes all over online. It kind of defeats the purpose of having a published book right? :)

Monday, March 16, 2009

Misoyaki Salmon


I think I stumbled on the most delicious Salmon Recipe yet... I found it at Stickey, Goey, Creamy, Chewy. The polenta I made to go with it was like eating paste so I will not bother posting that sucker.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Porto's Bakery- Happy Birthday To Me.. ;)


One of the best bakeries around town is Porto's, and most people that love the taste of really amazing baked goods knows about this place. You must love sweets to appreciate this place. For my birthday today, my husband got me the triple white Chocolate Mouse cake.....Can I just say, how @*#@**^! insane this cake is? Big pieces of shaved white Chocolate on top.....

That's very thin layers of white chocolate shavings you see on top and around the cake.

Sunday, March 8, 2009

BBQ Smoked Shrimp


This is one of my favorite type of shrimp dishes to make. Though I'm not a big shrimp fan to begin with, it's not so bad to have every once in a while. This recipe came from Food and Wine May 2006. Just by looking at the stove in these pictures, this was way before I got my new appliances that's how long this recipe has been around, I most likely have been making it since the Food and Wine issue came out in May of 2006. I posted this recipe when I had my old blog and I'm honestly too lazy to take a new picture. :)

Sorry about the delay on getting the link, this was difficult to locate.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Some Kind Of Beautiful....
































I had to share my beautiful pictures of the Mountain getaway trip we went on this weekend....
Click on the picture to see a bigger version. :)

Since we met up with some friends there, I decided to bake up a tasty apple pie, though I have posted pictures of it before I think it photos nicely before the top crust has been added.

Cookies With Chocolate Filling



Cookies with Chocolate Creme filling. I found this in an European Butter advertisement in my cooking light magazine. I am one to believe what kind of butter you use makes all the difference in the taste of what you are cooking and baking. Though I know lots of bakers are big believers of unsalted butter for baking, I've actually found it to be better using salted butter or European butter for what I bake up.

Striped Bass Meuniere



I found this delicious recipe in Cooking Light . Though I did not use Bass, but any firm fish was recommended either Mahi Mahi or Halibut. I used Halibut and I added to this recipe 1 tsp of Cayenne and 1 tsp of Mexican Chili Powder and it gave it so much more flavor. As a side I also found in Cooking Light this spicy broccoli with grape tomatoes.