Real Vietnamese barbecue...

Van Loi II in Greensboro is one of the bat restaurants we've found. Pho, Bun, and a wide variety of barbecue meats.
















From top to bottom:
Barbecue meat case and take out counter.
Bun with ground pork barbecue and fried spring rolls
Bun with Lemongrass Beef
The last lovely spring roll. (I almost did not catch a shot of this one...)

-posted from my IPad.

Now This Tastes Like Summer!

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Pepper roaster

My husband has been wanting a pepper roaster for years... The kind that you put on the grill and stuff jalapeños to make your own roasted poppers... I was Charleston the week before Fathers Day and I love to shop in the Maverick Kitchens store... Double win!

Here are some banana peppers and jalapeños that I stuffed with left over spicy sausage, left over sticky rice and a half container of pimento cheese supplemented with some shredded cheese from a bag.







Unfortunately... These were a solid meh. They look beautiful but they tasted blah. Stuffing suggestions anyone?




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Thai Cucumber Relish

Here's a delicious side to go with last weeks Lettuce Wraps!
I found it in Saveur's May 2011 magazine. (and by the way when did this mag get so awesome?)


Ajad: Thai Cucumber Relish
1/4 C Raw Sugar
1/4 C White Vinegar
1/4 t. Salt
2 T Cilantro
1/4 Fresh Chile Pepper
4 Thinly sliced Shallots
1 Cucumber sliced and quartered

Mix sugar, vinegar and salt into 1 C boiling water. When sugar has melted, chill in fridge.

Combine remaining and allow to pickle in the fridge.


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Lettuce Wraps with Hmong Sausage

It started with our first weekly box of produce... I was inspired by food again!

Beautiful Lettuce

Not even Mafioso Cat could resist it...

I crumbled and cooked a package of Hmong Sausage with minced onion, fresh mint, Thai Basil, Lemongrass and a can of minced Water Chestnuts for crunch.

The yummy spicy kind

It was difficult not to eat it out of the pan...

John made the sticky rice in his huot (from best buddy Mike).

Huot

Some of the other ingredients

Hmong Sausage Lettuce Wraps

1 package Hmong Sausage

1/2 minced Red Onion

1 can minced Water Chestnuts

Mint - a handful chopped

1 Cayenne Pepper minced
2 T. Thai Basil

1 T. minced Lemongrass

2 Cups prepared Sticky Rice (sweet rice steamed)

Wrap in individual leaves from 1 head Bibb Lettuce.

The Anniversary Cake

White Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream Cake

Happy Anniversary to Kerry and Brian and Us!

This is a modified Cooking Light recipe! Most of you will know the modification is due to the Whitey's ice cream that is definitely NOT low fat. The cake is however, and it is the perfect texture for ice cream cake.

One note: when you get the low fat egg product; make sure that your Egg Beaters or similar brand does not have garlic and spice in it! Probably not what you would be expecting...

• Cooking spray
• 3/4  cup  unsweetened cocoa
• 3/4  cup  boiling water
• 6  tablespoons  butter, melted
• 1  cup  packed dark brown sugar
• 1/2  cup  granulated sugar
• 3/4  cup  egg substitute
• 1 1/2  cups  all-purpose flour (about 6 3/4 ounces)
• 1/2  teaspoon  baking powder
• 1/2  teaspoon  baking soda
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 2  teaspoons  vanilla extract
• 3  cups Whitey's White Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream  
• 3  cups  frozen whipped topping, thawed

Preheat oven to 350°.
Spray 2 (8-inch) round cake pans. Line with wax paper.
Combine cocoa, water, and butter, whisk to blend. Cool.
Combine sugars well. Add egg substitute; beat 2 minutes or until light and creamy.
Add cocoa mixture, and beat 1 minute more.
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add dry mixture to bowl; beat for 1 minute until combined. Stir in vanilla. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake at 350° for 28 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes on a wire rack. Remove from pans. Wrap in plastic wrap, and freeze for 2 hours or until slightly frozen.
Spread ice cream in an 8-inch round cake pan lined with plastic wrap. (even hard frozen ice cream can be mashed into a pan using the heel of your end over the plastic wrap) Cover and freeze 4 hours or until firm.
To assemble cake, place one cake layer, bottom side up, on a cake pedestal. Remove ice cream layer from freezer; remove plastic wrap. Place ice cream layer, bottom side up, on top of cake layer. Top with remaining cake layer.
Frost with whipped. Spread frosting over top and sides of cake. Sprinkle with crushed peppermints. Freeze until ready to serve. Let cake stand at room temperature 10 minutes before slicing.

End of Season Stuffed Peppers

There was a bonanza of peppers at the Farmer's Market this weekend!!

I used the turkey meatloaf/meatball recipe that my family has been requesting to stuff and bake these beautiful Italian and Banana Peppers.  Gutted them, stuffed them and pan fried them to soften. Then baked with sauce and cheese. What's not to like, right?

 

They totally tasted as good as they look.

Use Giada's Meatloaf recipe!

One Beautiful Pie

This pie is a compilation of all the frozen berries I had left over from the summer... I did buy a bag of rhubarb and 2 fresh apples to add to them.

There may not be anything lovelier than a pie.

Cap'n Crunch Halloween Crispies

The package says they turn green in milk... We just wanted to see what would happen to it in hot marshmallow...

NOT My Mother's Blondies

My husband loves hazelnuts. I have a historic love for Blondies.

These are the Blondies With Dark Roots from the Food Network Magazine and my Mother would have never made this recipe. Too many ingredients.

My mother made Butterscotch Squares on a regular basis when I was a kid. This new recipe was a hit, but...

Since I have Executive Power in my kitchen, I will be going back to Mom's recipe.
Forget the coconut, chocolate chips, cream cheese and hazelnuts.
Use more butter, brown sugar and pecans instead.

There were, however, no complaints.

Heartbreaking Failure

It had such great potential... 2 Cherokee Purples (they are the ones looking a little green in the picture - they are actually dead ripe they just grow that way!) and 2 German Johnson tomatoes fresh from the Farmers Market. I had been dreaming about the return of my favorite tomatoes for weeks.

The looked so big and beautiful when they were sliced. Juicy and warm tomato-ee smelling...

You could have used them as stunt doubles for real tomatoes! Just don't put them in your mouth.

It has been a long time since food disappointed me this badly. They sucked.

Total mealy mush in the mouth feel department. My close friends will immediately cry "texture issues!" but really these were bad. So bad.  So so bad.

I am currently debating if they are even worth cooking into a spaghetti sauce. sucks.

Tomatoes

My favorite thing about summer.

Fresh ripe heirloom tomatoes. Still warm from the sun.

Sweet onion slices

Fresh mozzerella (the soft creamy kind)

Freshly torn basil leaves

A crushed and minced garlic clove

Maybe a little cracked black pepper if you are feeling spicy

Dress with olive oil and red wine or balsamic vinegar

I could eat these all day every day. I use them as a side dish, as a salad, as the basis for a spectacular mozzarella BBT sandwich (bacon, basil, tomato), and I have been known to toss them with leftover spaghetti for a snack.

Summer is the only time of year that I eat uncooked tomatoes and I intend to make the most of it.

Marge's Brownies

I never remember how to make these and they are my husbands favorite. This is his mothers ultimate recipe for team dinners, cast parties, family reunions or just a plain old pot luck. We called her to make sure we got them right.

Marges Brownies

Make one box of chocolate brownies, spread batter in a rectangular baking pan 

and bake to the box directions.

THEN - not before, after.... that's the tricky part... while the brownies are still piping hot...

cover hot brownies with a layer of walnuts

cover the walnuts with marshmallows

cover the marshmallows with chocolate fudge frosting

Do all of this as quickly as you can because it has to go together while everything is hot 

...the marshmallows and the frosting get all melty together...

And then you have to hide them so they don't disappear before they get where they need to go.

Vaca Frita

Cuban  Crispy Beef...

I have been obsessed with cooking Cuban food since we came back from Miami where my niece went out and got us the BEST Cuban takeout. So this is my version of Vaca Frita which I made using a London Broil steak.

Step 1: halve an onion and a bell pepper, cut steak into 4 pieces, cover with water, add a bay leaf and first boil then simmer for at least 45 minutes.

You want to cook it enough that it will shred.

Discard the veggies and save broth for some other use.

Let the meat cool and then use a fork to shred.

Marinate the cooked shredded beef for 2 hours in:
2 crushed garlic cloves
1/4 C. lime juice
3 Tablespoons olive oil
Cracked black pepper

Traditionally you fry the beef in batches, but I spread it out on a cookie sheet and put it under the broiler until sizzling and crispy.

I served it with my favorite yellow rice and black bean salad. Just layer rice, black beans, red onion and dress it with olive oil and red wine vinegar.  Guaranteed yummy.

The Importance of Being Functional

This picture is probably not as exciting to you as it is to me...

Now - after 13 months of a stove top that has burners that work only part of the time at best - I have a fully functioning stove top.

At the point where I only had one semi-reliable heating element we had to call in the repair guy who replaced the "guts".

Now I can boil water in about 35 seconds!

You cannot imagine how frustrating it was to put pasta on to boil and come back five minutes later to lukewarm water. There is enough swearing going on in my kitchen as it is.

Now if I can just find a replacement for the oven temperature knob so that it's not approximately 150 degrees off give or take. I will be set.

all'amatriciana

Wow. I knocked this one out of the park.

You totally cannot tell by this picture just how great this pasta sauce turned out. Spectacular.

I started by needing to make something rather quick for just the two of us and didn't want to go to the grocery store again... so I made a quick check of the pantry and freezer and decided on a jar of Arrabiata sauce (spicy red pepper and tomato sauce) and a pound of bacon.

I had a pound of Oscar Mayer Natural Smoked Uncured bacon in the freezer so I cubed it and fried it. I realize that it should have been hog jowls or pancetta or something equally gourmet but this is what I had ok?! Plus no nitrates or nitrites or sulfites or other ites and for someone with an allergy to all of the above this is a bonus. Believe me.

Chopped a half of a sweet onion I had in the fridge.

Sauted the onion in bacon grease (don't ya love it??) and then added the jar of Arrabiata AND

A half cup of the Chateau Ste. Michelle Reisling (the number one selling American Riesling btw that I bought a bottle of at Costco for the same price you pay for an entire glass in restaurants).

And effectively put back in the -ites that I dodged with the bacon... sigh.

I let it simmer while I cooked the rigatoni which requires another post entirely dedicated to how much my stove SUCKS... then mixed the cooked pasta into the sauce and voila!

It was smoky and bacon-y and the wine was perfect in it. That's it. We ate it all.

Pork Souvlaki Craving

I crave Pork Souvlaki on a regular basis. You could offer it to me at any time day or night and I would jump at the chance to eat it. There is something about lemon and garlic... I would eat anything with lemon, garlic and olive oil poured over it.  Probably not peas. Everything else.

Our community has a surprisingly large Greek population. There's even a Greek Festival at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church next weekend! I will be there eating Loukoumades and Souvlaki until I need a nap. Any other day there are dozens of Greek restaurants to choose from. Except Sunday. On Sunday you are on your own. Here is my standard "It's Sunday and I need to have Souvlaki" recipe.

Souvlaki 

2 pound pork tenderloin marinated in olive oil, lemon juice and crushed garlic.

Grill pork for 35-45 minutes and let rest. Cut into Cubes.

(traditionally you cube it first, then marinate, then grill on kabob skewers)

Assemble into sandwiches with

pita bread

red onion slices

bell pepper slices

lettuce

my version of tzatziki sauce:

plain Greek yogurt or sour cream mixed with shredded cucumber and a little garlic

(I am tempted to add more lemon and olive oil to the mix next time...)

We had it tonight with a chilled Riesling and it was delicious!!