Valentine's Day Dinner!! (Or any dinner for two)

Marinated BBQ Steak, hasselback potatoes stuffed with cheese, and garlic butter asparagus sounds amazing right? Well it was divine. 

Lets start buy poking holes into your steaks of choice with a fork. This will allow the sauce to get into the meat and soak up all that flavor. Now rub on your favorite spices or seasonings. I used a Cajun mix I bought. Next grab a gallon zip lock bag, and place your steaks inside. Put about a 1/4 cup of BBQ sauce into the back and close. I chose Jack Daniel's Hickory Brown Sugar BBQ. Shake the bag up until the meat is fully covered by the BBQ sauce. To achieve an ultimate savory soft steak, let it marinate overnight. If you forgot to do this the night before, try to prep it at least 4 hours in advance.

Turn on your grill and start grilling your amazing steaks. 

Grab two potatoes of your choice as well as the cheese of your choice and prep to cut. Slice a little sliver of potato off one of the long sides. So the potato doesn't wiggle on your cutting board. Now cutting through the girth of the potato, slice very slender cuts just past halfway through the potato. Not all the way through, were not making potato slices. (Google pictures for hasselback potatoes for clarification on cuts.) Once both potatoes are complete, stuff the slivers with your favorite cheeses. Now melt about 2 tbsp of butter, mix in some 1/4 tsp of garlic powder, 1/4 tsp of oregano leaves and 1/4 tsp of salt. You can add more or less, to your preferences. Brush this mixture onto the top of the potatoes and bake them for 30 mins at 350 degrees. Or until top has nicely browned.

While the steaks are grilling and the potatoes are baking, melt about 2 tbsp of butter. Then stir in about 1/2 tsp of minced garlic. Wrap the mix and the asparagus all together in some tin foil and throw it on the grill, you'll come back to these in a bit. Verify the mix covers the asparagus, you can brush on the mix if you're struggling with this.

After the steaks are almost complete, remove the asparagus and place them onto the grill. This will add a little extra flavor and firmness into them.

Homemade Buffalo Chips

Homemade buffalo chips are easy but takes a bit of time. BUT SO WORTH IT.

Ingredients:
1 potato
2 TBSP of buffalo sauce (more if desired)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Slice up your potato with a slicer and please be careful! I bought one off amazon for $10.

Next on a cookie sheet that's sprayed with cooking oil, line out your potato slices next to each other (without overlapping). Now using a brush, brush on your desired amount of buffalo sauce per chip.

Bake on one side for 10 mins at 400F, flip, repeat brushing process and bake for another 10 mins.

If you wish for them to be crisper, bake a little longer on a lower heat. If you like them soft, bake for 6 mins on both sides.

Fried Veggies

Sorry for the absence. Today I'll explain my fried veggies. They're nothing special, semi healthy and easy to make.

First grab a handful of your favorite friable veggies, I chose sweet potatoes and asparagus.

First slice up your potatoes into wedges or cubes. This makes it easier to cook and eat.

I used one medium sized potato and 5 pieces of asparagus.

Mixture Ingredients:
1 TBSP of extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp of minced garlic
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 TBSP of butter

THAT'S IT. Easy right?

Now on a medium heat, melt your mixture of ingredients until the butter melts. Next place your veggies in the pan and bring the heat down to low. This will take about 10 mins to cook until the veggies are soft. If you get them perfect, the potatoes can be mashed by barely touching them. AKA the best type ever.

Dragon Roll Sushi Casserole

Photo via Kristen Farmer

2 imitation crab legs (or snow crab if you're feeling fabulous)

7 fried jumbo shrimp (fresh from butchers)

1/2 avocado sliced or diced

1/2 cucumber sliced or diced (without seeds)

1/2 carrot sliced or diced

1-2 cups of cooked rice (Japanese sushi rice works best)

1/2 cup of panko flakes

1 seaweed square (9"x9")

2 cup of panko flakes

1 egg

Eel Sauce

1/4 cup of mirin

1/4 cup of soy sauce

1/4 cup of sugar

Start to boil a cup (or two cups) of rice in a cup of water (or two if you used two cups of rice). Once it boils bring the temp. down to low. Cook covered for 15-20 mins. Check it after 15 mins to see how tender the rice is. The process will simmer off all the excess water and make lovely fluffy rice. I added 1 tbsp. of mirin to my rice for some flavor. Set it to the side for a few minutes if it isn't burning. This helps fully cook any rice that didn’t get to finish.

Now mix all your eel sauce ingredients in a sauce pan and set the temp to medium. Let it "thicken" and fully mix. It will be "watery" when it's hot. I cooked it for about 3-5 minutes.

*Important* You have to let it cool to get a "gel-like" sauce to pour over the finished casserole.

This is a good time to cook your shrimp if you didn’t buy pre-fried shrimp. 1 cup of panko flakes, 1 egg in two separate bowls. Dip shrimp in flakes, then egg, then back in the panko flakes. Fry in 1/2 cup of oil until golden brown.

Next shred up your crab legs and put them in a bowl. Cut up your cucumber and carrots. Put them to the side with the crab.

Also cut up the avocado and sprinkle a little lemon juice on the cutting board. Coat both sides of the avocado slices with the lemon juice. (The lemon juice will help preserve the look of the avocado, so they don't brown.)

Once your rice is slightly cooled, spread it out over the bottom of a casserole dish (or a big bowl, if that’s all you have). Place down your seaweed square and press it into the rice gently. (Preferably when the rice is still slightly warm, this helps soften the seaweed so its easier to slice.) Now spread out the carrots and cucumber over the seaweed evenly. Do the same with the crab. Next spread out the fried shrimp. Put the avocado slices on top of the shrimp or scatter throughout the dish. Add the remaining cup of panko flacks generously over the entire top. Drizzle the eel sauce over the panko flakes. I added some sesame seeds for a little extra flair. Cause why not!

Udon soup

After making ramen with organic ramen noodles, i decided to finally be brave and make udon soup! So good for cold days. This is a very filling, comfort-food dish.

(Serves two)
1 box of vegetable broth **UPDATE** I recently tried seafood broth (AMAZING)
1 grilled chicken breast
1 package of using noodles
2 hard boiled eggs
Chopped veggies if your choice

Optional:
Couple drops of Rice vinegar
Couple drops of Sesame oil

There's nothing special for this. Just put all the ingredients in a big pot filled with the broth. Cook on low temp slowly for full flavors or medium temp if you're in a hurry.

Tamagoyaki Rolls

I'm in the midst of learning a vast amount of Japanese recipes. Their food is amazing. I've always wanted to be one of those ppl that are obsessed with another countries food. Everyone loves Thai, Chinese, etc. I love Japanese food. Not to sweet, not to sour, not to tany, not to spicy. Perfection.

Ingredients:
3 large eggs

Seasonings:
1 tbsp of sugar
1 tsp of soy sauce
1 pinch of salt 
1 tsp of mirin 

Instructions:
First beat all ingredients in a bowl. 

With an oiled or buttered pan, on medium heat, pour a third of the mix to a pan. Let it cook until its no longer liquid. Roll it up into a 2"x5" roll. Add more oil or butter to the pan, then pour in another third of the mix next to the finished roll. Once this is cooked roll the finished roll into the new cooked mix, this will make the roll thicker. Now, pour the final third and repeat the last step. 

Finally, remove the egg from the pan and slice it into bit sized pieces. 

Mozzarella sticks or Pepper Jack sticks

After spending some time on Facebook, just browsing around. I found a few good ideas for mozzarella sticks. Now these aren't some ultra fabulous recipes of the best home cooking. But they are ultra simple for the days where you just want to lounge around like a lazy burrito. These recipes can be enhanced into something really good. Just depends on your wallet size. Here is one that is kind to your wallet.

The other recipe has to many options and needs its own blog. See future post called "Mozzarella Meatballs."

Now I haven't made this yet. But rest easy, I've cooked enough to know when you might run out of a certain ingredient.

Mozzarella sticks (Or any other ingredients you'd wish to substitute, such as pizza toppings for pizza rolls. Yummy!)

Ingredients:
1 package of mozzarella sticks
Bread Slices (Qty. will depend on the qty. of sticks in the package of mozzarella.)
4 tbsp of melted butter (You may need more if your bread soaks up to much.)
4 tbsp of Parmesan (You may need more if your bread picks up to much.)
4 tbsp of parsley (You may need more if your bread picks up to much.)
Marinara for dipping

Instructions:
First, trim off the crust from each slice of bread. Second step is to roll the bread flat with a rolling pin.

Next, place a mozzarella stick in each piece of bread and roll them up tight, like a burrito. I plan on pinching the ends closed, to prevent producing melting cheese lava.

Following this, roll each stick and bread through the melted butter then the parsley. Giving it a nice coating of each.

Either, fry them in oil, on medium, until golden brown or bake them for 15 mins at 375 degrees.