van.nurse@gmail.com – Page 76 – The Adventures of a Calamari Queen

Baked Meatballs

I’ve been slacking with my blog since last week and I realized I have a couple of recipes/dishes I have to post here! Here’s another Alton Brown recipe that I used when I prepared the simplest meatball recipe out there. This is my first time to make meatballs and although the result is not as yummy like my father in law Phil’s meatball recipe, I’m happy with the result of this one ( I didn’t use ground lamb and spinach here!).

Ingredients

1/2 pound ground pork
1/2 pound ground lamb
1/2 pound ground round
5 ounces frozen spinach, thawed and drained thoroughly
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan
1 whole egg
1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil
1 1/2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 cup bread crumbs, divided

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the pork, lamb, ground round, spinach, cheese, egg, basil, parsley, garlic powder, salt, red pepper flakes, and 1/4 cup of the bread crumbs. Using your hands, mix all ingredients until well incorporated. Use immediately or place in refrigerator for up to 24 hours.

Place the remaining 1/4 cup of bread crumbs into a small bowl. Using a scale, weigh meatballs into 1.5-ounce portions and place on a sheet pan. Using your hands, shape the meatballs into rounds, roll in the bread crumbs and place the meatballs in individual, miniature muffin tin cups. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden and cooked through.

Tzatziki sauce!

Hubby wanted to have a healthy snacks this weekend,so he made this sauce to accompany his veggies! I just wish I had some gyro meat,so I can fully enjoy this sauce.

Tzatziki Sauce: (Alton Brown’s recipe)

16 ounces plain yogurt

1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped

Pinch kosher salt

4 cloves garlic, finely minced

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 teaspoons red wine vinegar

5 to 6 mint leaves, finely minced

Place the yogurt in a tea towel, gather up the edges, suspend over a bowl, and drain for 2 hours in the refrigerator.

Place the chopped cucumber in a tea towel and squeeze to remove the liquid; discard liquid. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the drained yogurt, cucumber, salt, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, and mint. Serve as a sauce for gyros. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to a week.

Yield: 1 1/2 cups

Chocolate mousse!

Happy Royal wedding day! I’m excited to see the wedding tonight but I will probably not stay up the whole morning just to watch it because I know for sure they will be showing it the whole day (again and again). Growing up in the PI, Prince William was my celebrity crush, not a lot of people knew but I use to “collect” pictures, books, magazines (anything that is related to HRH Prince William (I’m a normal teenager too!) But I have to leave my so called royal “memorabilia” when I moved here to the states! I’m excited to see Kate’s wedding dress and how handsome William will be (just thinking about it brings back memories when me and my sisters got so excited and screamed like crazy whenever William and Harry were on tv!

Enough of my Royal talks, Hubby made a very yummy chocolate mousse tonight! I’m having a really bad headache today that kept me in bed most of the time. So Zach knew I’m having a bad day because of this and just wanted to make me feel better, so after his work, he had to stop at the grocery to get some ingredients of my fave dessert ( one of my fave). I’m so blessed to have him, such a sweet, loving, husband I got! Who needs Prince William?! LOL..

This Chocolate mousse is Alton Brown’s recipe, If you’re a big chocolate fan you are going to love this mousse!

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups whipping cream
12 ounces quality semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 ounces espresso or strong coffee
1 tablespoon dark rum
4 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon flavorless, granulated gelatin

Direction:

Chill 1 1/2 cups whipping cream in refrigerator. Chill metal mixing bowl and mixer beaters in freezer.

In top of a double boiler, combine chocolate chips, coffee, rum and butter. Melt over barely simmering water, stirring constantly. Remove from heat while a couple of chunks are still visible. Cool, stirring occasionally to just above body temperature.

Pour remaining 1/4 cup whipping cream into a metal measuring cup and sprinkle in the gelatin. Allow gelatin to “bloom” for 10 minutes. Then carefully heat by swirling the measuring cup over a low gas flame or candle. Do not boil or gelatin will be damaged. Stir mixture into the cooled chocolate and set aside.

In the chilled mixing bowl, beat cream to medium peaks. Stir 1/4 of the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Fold in the remaining whipped cream in two doses. There may be streaks of whipped cream in the chocolate and that is fine. Do not over work the mousse.

Spoon into bowls or martini glasses and chill for at least 1 hour.Garnish with fruit and serve.

(If mousses are to be refrigerated overnight, chill for one hour and then cover each with plastic wrap).

Easter weekend!

Happy Easter everyone! I hope that you had a great Easter and remember to thank the Lord for what He did for all of us, to celebrate Him everyday because He is Alive, He is Risen!

We had a great Easter weekend, nice weather (blue sky, sun is out = perfect weather).. Hubby and I had dinner at seattle last Friday in this Spanish tapa place called “pintxo”. This is our 3rd time at pintxo’s, we really like the food because it gives us a little taste of Spain through the food that they serve! We had the typical cheese and meat platter, their appetizer plate, that consists of olives, chorizo, shrimps, meatballs (very tasty). After hearing the Easter service, off we went for our Easter brunch to Anthony’s (@kirkland), lots of people there and although my mom in-law had a reservation we still had to wait for a good 20 minutes..view was nice, good brunch with family…it was a great Easter sunday for me!

family; starring ang milk sa akong bana!

Beef and Broccoli

I’ve made this recipe before and we really liked it! I had left over broccoli from last week and I’m kinda sick and tired of the usual steamed veggies..so I decided to just prepare the broccoli this way. At least the sauce helped to add so much flavor. I think the cornstarch made all the difference because the meat was so tender and just melts in your mouth! I’m not sure if the cornstarch did the trick or the beef was just so thinly sliced..Anyways, the whole preparation and cooking time was so quick, like less than 10 minutes (excluding the marinating time of 2 hours). Dinner time is so much easier whenever I do the prep work ahead of time. This cuts down on the time needed for cooking and saves us money too! If I’m not cooking, I tend to ask the hubby to just buy fast food (KFC, Mcdonalds, Pizza!).

Ingredients:

1 pound steak ( I used tenderloin,thinly sliced)

1 tbsp soy sauce,1 tsp fish sauce,3 tbsp oyster sauce,1 tsp cornstarch,1 tsp sesame oil, 2-3 garlic,cooking oil,pepper,1/4 water

Instructions:

Mix the thinly sliced beef with the soy sauce,fish sauce,oyster sauce,cornstarch, sesame oil,garlic, pepper. Marinate for couple of hours (2-3 hours).

Heat the oil in a wok, toss the marinated meat and cook quickly! Add the broccoli,keep tossing until well coated with the sauce,add water if it starts to look dry. Keep tossing until meat is cooked and broccoli is crisp!

Dad in-Law’s 60th bday!

Yesterday was my Dad in-law’s 60th birthday, but we celebrated it last Saturday since everyone is so busy lately! We had steaks and shrimps and salad and yummy carrot cake that my mom in-law prepared. Everything was yummy especially the bday cake! Here’s some of the pictures I took:

Mango float!

This dessert is one of my Hubby’s fave desserts! I got the mangoes from Costco, they look like the same kind of mango I can find back home in the PI, just the perfect kind for making a mango float! This is so simple, it’s just graham cracker, cream and condensed milk combined, sliced mango..you just layer it(graham,mango,cream mixture then back again to graham, mango, cream..), then you freeze it and just remove it from the freezer 1o minutes or so before you want to eat it.

Thai and Filipino Food!!

I love Rice! Hey, I’m asian so a meal isn’t “complete” if I don’t have any rice! LOL..so usually on a Friday Hubby and I just try to relax and treat it like our “date night” and we’ll probably eat out or just take out food and have a loungy session at home( movie or tv shows marathon)..So whenever hubby asks me what I’m craving my famous answer is always ” I want rice”, hehe! Last week we had Thai, then this week we went to seafood city and had filipino food! I’m lucky because it was a weekend and they had Letchon..It’s not as yummy like we normally have in my city but they still have that letchon flavor, salty and tender ribs!

Grown Up mac n cheese!

This is another recipe from my fave food network chef/cook Ina Garten! I think this is called “grown up” mac and cheese because there is blue cheese in the recipe, and blue cheese is very pungent and not a lot of people will like blue cheese in the mac n cheese especially kids! She used 3 cheeses here, there’s cheddar, gruyere, and blue cheese! Hubby and I really liked the combination although I didn’t follow her 2 ounces of blue cheese because I’m not sure if I will like that much blue cheese in the dish! I kinda cut it in half, it was perfect for us, little hint of blue cheese! I made more than we can eat tonight because I want to freeze more of the dish for our future dinner! If you want to try this recipe, just go to food network website and search for “grown up mac and cheese” under Ina Garten!

Dogsitting

Last weekend, we “dogsat” our friends dog, Peanut! I think she is a mixed breed (doberman and lab) not sure if I’m right! Peanut is such a good dog, she was well behaved and very obedient. Riley had fun playing with her and they really got along very well. It’s just funny because they are very opposite in size, Riley, a mini schnauzer, and Peanut is not so mini :-).. Saturday morning we woke up early so we can have the dog park to ourselves and the 2 dogs had the grandest time! It was quite a busy weekend for me because I had two shadows following me most of the time..very fun weekend!