Artichoke-stuffed Chicken Marsala

I apologize that I haven't been posting new stuff lately, I haven't really made all that much, and things have been a little on the hectic side schedule-wise.  Enough with the banter and the excuses though, let's get this rolling.

As a first caveat, I've only actually done this once, and due to time constraints I actually couldn't make this as ideally as I would've liked, so some of the baking times and temperatures might be slightly estimated, meaning, I haven't actually tried them to see if they're ideal.  You'd probably want to tweak it a little as you go along, just so things work out a little more nicely.  I haven't really tried everything on here, so this is more of an ideal situation of how I'd make it.

Ingredients:

boneless, skinless chicken breast

canned, quartered artichoke hearts

fresh mozarella cheese (preferably a block, not shredded)

onion

mushrooms

marsala cooking wine

flour

sugar

salt

black pepper

lemon juice

Italian seasoning

Cooking directions:

1.) Soak the chicken breast in lemon juice overnight (not necessary, but it will tenderize the meat)

2.) Sear the chicken breast in lemon juice, just to get the outside looking cooked, you can skip to this if you don't have time or the inclination (or the lemon juice) to soak the breast the night before

3.) Drain the artichoke hearts

4.) Split the chicken breast open and stuff with a slice of mozarella, some artichoke hearts and season with salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning

5.) Place stuffed breast into a roasting tray, pour in marsala cooking wine (a small layer)

6.) Cover with foil and cut slits in, then bake for 35 minutes

7.) On a stove heat a sauce pan with butter, saute the onions and mushrooms (and remaining artichoke if you have extra), seasoning with salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning

8.) When the vegetables have browned add marsala wine and sugar and mix

9.) Let the wine reduce with the vegetables for about 15-20 minutes

10.) Add a little more butter and flour to thicken the sauce into a glaze/roux

11.) Pull the chicken out of the oven, drain out excess liquid

12.) Pour glaze over the chicken and bake uncovered for another 10-15 minutes

That should do the trick, I'll update if I try this and it doesn't work out that well.  The first time I did it, I didn't really have time to drain the chicken.  Cooking the chicken in the wine will give the meat itself a marsala flavor and keep it from drying out, however, I kind of like that roast flavor too, so, you want to drain it afterwards so you can get that edge.  I think you could probably just bake it uncovered with out adding the glaze and add the glaze afterwards.  As with all my recipes, I encourage you to play around with it and see if you get some better results.  Each person likes it a little differently.  Hope you enjoy!

Fried Pork Chops with a Chipotle Mushroom Gravy

So I used pork chops but feel free to use any sort of other meat here if you'd like.  I'm not sure fish would work too well, but chicken or steak (think country-fried) would work exceptionally well as well.  The gravy also makes for a good topping over mashed potatoes.  This kind of flavoring is what got me to liking spicy foods.  So, as promised with the picture from the previous post:

The Pork Chops

Ingredients:

pork chops (again, other meats ok, so feel free to use chicken or beef)

flour

garlic salt

lemon pepper

taco seasoning

eggs

Cooking instructions:

1.) In a large pot or wok (needs to be deep) pour oil, enough to immerse the pork chops completely and heat at a medium high to high heat (if you have a deep fryer it's actually that much easier)

2.) Mix together the flour, garlic salt, lemon pepper, and taco seasoning (use a lot of taco seasoning)

3.) In another bowl beat the eggs

4.) Coat the meat in egg and then the flour mixture (from hence I will call it fry batter)

5.) When the oil is hot, put the coated meat into oil and fry until a golden brown

The Gravy

Ingredients:

mushrooms

onions

butter

chicken stock (any kind of stock works)

left-over fry batter

chili powder

black pepper

Tobasco Smoked Chipotle sauce

1.) In a large sauce pan (or wok) grill the onions and mushrooms at a medium heat

2.) When the mushrooms and onions are cooked to desired amount (usually when the onions start releasing flavor) add butter and black pepper (I used a little Italian seasoning too, but that's optional) 

3.) After butter melts add chicken stock

4.) Add the left-over fry batter (if you don't have any left over just add flour and season)

5.) Season with black pepper, chili powder, and Tobasco sauce mix until desired consistency

So there you have it, serve the gravy over the chops and it is delicious, if I do say so myself.  I originally had wanted to try it with crushed smoked chipotle peppers, which you can buy canned at the supermarket, but I went with the Tobasco first.  I'll try the iteration with the peppers but essentially I expect it to be pretty similar.  Success!  Hope you enjoy it.

Update: I've tried it with the crushed chipotle, it gives it tons of kick, if you want to tone it down, don't use the whole can

New Food!

As promised long ago, here is a picture of stuff I make. I will have the recipe up for it shortly.

Homemade Croutons

Everyone loves croutons right? Of course! How can you have a salad without croutons? They give all those greens a little more substance. Actually croutons are really, really easy to make, and usually, fresh homemade ones taste way better than those super dry, crunchy ones from the supermarket. Of course, there's something to be said for those too.

Ingredients

Bread (sliced)
Olive oil (or butter)
garlic powder
Italian seasoning

Cooking Instructions:

1.) Preheat the broiler on your oven (yes, the broiler)

2.) Cut the bread into cubes (the size you want your croutons)

3.) Put the cubes into a bowl and drizzle liberally with olive oil

4.) Mix the cubes with the oil with garlic powder and Italian seasoning, to flavor

5.) Spread the cubes out on a cookie sheet

6.) Broil with the oven open a crack for 1-2 minutes, flip if you want it crispy on all sides

And voila, homemade croutons! So, you note in the ingredients that it says you can use butter as well. The original way I learned it was to use melted butter instead of olive oil, I've found though, that olive oil works just as well. Just kind of depends on what you like in terms of flavor. Since you are using the broiler, make sure that you don't leave them in there too long, or they get burned. Feel free to mix in any other seasonings and such that you think would taste good. Enjoy!

Hand-pressed Cheddar and Jalapeno stuffed Burgers

So, after making these last night (they were good), I have a new respect for places that hand press their burgers. Kudos out to those employees at places like In-N-Out and Five Guys Burgers, my respect level is high now that I've tried it myself. Anyways, this isn't anything super original, I mean, I think you can buy a frozen variation of this somewhere, however, there's something satisfying when you make it yourself, and I think it tastes better. I have to try this again with a new batch of meat, I think it can be better.

Ingredients:

Ground beef
1 onion
salt
pepper
garlic salt
sharp cheddar
jalapenos (the deli style ones work pretty well)

Directions:

1.) Dice the onion

2.) In a large mixing bowl, mix the beef with the onions, then flavor/season with salt, pepper, and garlic salt (feel free to experiment here, maybe I should've tried some of that dry steak rub)

3.) On a flat surface make a very thin flat patty, about double the size of a bun

4.) Place one slice of cheese and jalapenos on the patty

5.) Collapse the patty on itself (usually I just fold it in half and cover everything up)

6.) Grill the burger (yes in this case a George Foreman does count as a grill)

There you have it. They'll usually come out pretty big, but they have a little kick, and flavor. I really liked it. If you want cheesier add more cheese, it's as simple as that. You can probably do the same with a chicken sandwich, in which you use chicken breast and slice down the middle, then stuff the middle, but of course, it's entirely up to you. It's not quite as easy as like a frozen burger, but it's probably healthier, and you get a certain degree of satisfaction from it, in that's it's "from scratch". If you use a George Foreman, honestly, the cleanup is pretty similar, only an extra bowl possibly, and I think you can get a lot more burgers out of it.

Ray Choi's Enchiladas

I have never had the honor of meeting Ray Choi, but I would like to thank him for whatever contributions he has made to the culinary world by providing this enchilada recipe. I hear various stories about proper attribution of this enchilada recipe, but I'll leave that for another time and another place, here we care about the food. Honestly, this is a very straightforward recipe in terms of prep, and I've actually heard it dubbed, "the best enchiladas ever". So after hearing so, I feel compelled to share the wonder of it with everyone else.

Ingredients:

1 bundle of scallions
1 onion
1 tub of sour cream
2 cans of cream of chicken soup
1 can of jalepenos
6 boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 can of enchilada sauce
Mexican cheese
tortilla rolls (I like to use the soft taco sized ones)

1.) Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F

2.) Boil the chicken breast

3.) Chop (dice) the onions and green onions

4.) In a large mixing bowl, mix together the sour cream, cream of chicken, jalepenos, and some cheese

5.) Once the chicken is cooked cut it into bite sized pieces and mix into the mix you started previously

6.) Roll in the tortilla rolls, and place into a large greased roasting tray, you might need more than one (roasting tray)

7.) After you have filled the tray, use the remaining filling to cover the enchiladas

8.) Put a coat of cheese over everything

9.) Pour in the can of enchilada sauce

10.) Cover with foil and put in oven to bake for 45 minutes

11.) Remove foil and bake for another 10-15 minutes

So the original recipe calls for use of a can of olives, of course, I don't like olives so I didn't put them in. Additionally, the jalepenos can be optional, as they can get to be very spicy, you might not want to use too large of a can or opt out of them completely. Finally, I usually get the red, mild enchilada sauce, but again, I leave it to your discretion. Enjoy!

Grilled Chicken Pesto

Another easy pasta sauce coming up for you. Pesto normally is pretty daunting to most people, but in actuality it's actually fairly simple and straightforward. The only caveat I give to you, is that you need to make sure you have like a food-processor of some sort. I'm have convinced that you can make it in a blender, and more than half convinced that it might actually be easier in a blender (the whole ice crush feature kind of thing), but I use a food processor, and I know that works. The ingredients are a little more exotic in some senses relative to the kind of run of the mill tomato sauce pastas. I think since I'm going for the more authentic mode, maybe I'll try to make a real alfredo next (not that creamy American kind). Additionally, I'm going to assume that you all know how to make pasta already, so I'm not going to tell how to cook it. If you don't, I'm sure it's buried in here somewhere.

Ingredients:

boneless, skinless chicken breast
onion
fresh basil
freshly grated parmasean
garlic
pine nuts
olive oil
salt
pepper

Cooking Instructions:

1.) Cube the chicken breast and julienne the onion (slice into slivers)

2.) Cook the chicken and onion on a pan in olive oil on a medium heat

3.) In a food processor, mix the parmesean, pine nuts, olive oil, garlic, and basil until a sauce is created (you'll have to kind of guess the amounts that you'd like to eat)

4.) Salt and pepper to taste

5.) Pour sauce over chicken and onion and mix over pan

6.) Mix with pasta

That's all there is to it, it's really quite simple. You only have the major annoyance of having to clean your food processor, if you consider that an annoyance. It's good, and it's a little lighter than the standard marinara and meat sauces (not necessarily healthier, it's a lot of oil). For the parmesean, you don't HAVE to grate it if you have a food processor that would break it down fairly easily, like a blender with an ice crush feature might do the trick nicely, the standard blades on a food processor don't really break down the parm all too well leaving you with big chunks, which you don't want. You can use flakes or slices as well, I like to get a fresh brick of parm and grate it down, you can use the pre-grated ones but that's usually lower quality. If you don't mind you could even go as far as to try the powdered stuff. To me, that might be kinda nasty.

Basalmic Bread Dip

So, I kind of picked this up from a restaurant in Seattle called Piatti, it was really good, and a it's a nice twist to the normal basalmic vinegar and olive oil dip. I think more people do this than I know of, but this is kind of an easy way to do it yourself.

Ingredients:

basalmic vinegar (as a note, the more expensive or higher quality the vinegar the less sour it is)
olive oil
crushed red peppers
Italian seasoning (basil, oregano, thyme)
black pepper

Directions:

Mix and serve with bread

So the key is that you need to have good bread to go with this. Of course, don't make it too sour, so I'd recommend a better brand than the cheapest vinegar you can find in your local supermarket. The Costco ones (I think like Basalmic Vinegar of Modena or something) are actually quite nice. I recommend a good sourdough or Italian loaf for if you make this. This is ideal for artisan breads, where I would back for maybe 5 minutes at 350 degrees or 1-2 minutes under the broiler. This makes the bread crispy on the crust, but also warm and chewing on the inside, allowing it to soak up the basalmic. I prefer this to the standard bread and butter, and actually even to garlic bread.

Oriental Vinaigrette

So, I actually picked this up from my brother a while back, and I like the flavor and all that. It's a good solid salad dressing that's easy to make, and the ingredients are pretty straightforward and easy to come by. At least they were back home at my parents' place. I'm sure you can find them anywhere though.

Ingredients:

soy sauce
rice vinegar
sugar
oil

Prep instructions:

Mix the ingredients together measuring until you get desired taste, then serve over salad.

Super easy, as salad dressings often are and ought to be. So some people like my brother prefer it a little sweeter, I like it a little on the more sour side. So according to how you like it you should adjust how much sugar and vinegar you put in. For oil, use normal cooking oil (i.e. vegetable oil, canola oil, peanut oil, etc...) because olive oil has a very distinct taste that doesn't mix well with the soy sauce. I recommend doing it in an old jar of some sort, so that if ever you want some you just shake it up.

Fish Fry

So, there was this crazy deal at Costco where they were selling catfish for like $3.99 a pound, and I was like, "That's crazy!" Of course the catch was that I have only a week to eat all of it. So as a start, I tried this fish fry recipe that I threw together in my head and to my amazement, it turned out really, really good. I think it might be the catfish, but the batter was good as well, so all in all, it was a success. Maybe I should get some potatoes and do fish and chips next time.

Ingredients:

Fish (preferably smaller pieces or fillets, I recommend a white fish such as haddock, cod, catfish, or even maybe Dover sole)
flour
garlic salt (I used the Costco one with parsley flakes in it)
lemon pepper
egg

Cooking instructions:

1.) In a large wok or deep sauce pan pour oil in until it is about 1/2 full and heat at a medium-high to high heat

2.) Mix together the flour, garlic salt, and lemon pepper in a large mixing bowl, I leave you to determine how much you want, but be liberal with the garlic salt and lemon pepper, that's my recommendation

3.) In another bowl beat the egg(s) (again the number of eggs is determined by how much fish you want to fry, I've found that 1 egg should probably do like 3 fillets pretty well)

4.) Take the fillet and dip it in the egg so it is completely covered, then cover with the batter (flour) mixture (I may try to mix everything together and use it as a solid batter, but I don't think that would work as well)

5.) Put the battered fillet into the hot oil and fry for about 5 minutes

Since the fish are in fillet or smaller form they ought to cook pretty fast, if the fish is completely submerged in the oil it ought to cook that much faster. Afterward I like to liberally drizzle lemon juice over the fish after letting it sit for a little bit. I was somewhat surprised at how crisp the fish came out and pleasantly surprised at how tasty the batter was. I would've used some malt vinegar, but I didn't have any, otherwise I'd have used some cocktail sauce, didn't have any of that either. I ended up using corn salsa (kinda weird, yeah), but it was good, all in all though, it was actually really good even with just the fish on its own with lemon juice.

Stuffed Round Roast Au Jus

There's nothing in terms of spectacular history behind this, really, I mean, I just saw a pack of round roast at Costco and thought, "Hey, this is a pretty good deal for all the beef." I ended up buying it, but then I wasn't really sure what I should do with it, so I ended up coming up with this because I was hankering for something savory. Originally, I was thinking about slicing into smaller chunks, but it doesn't end up tasting as juicy and tender when you do that. This is probably like one of the most informal of all recipes considering I had no real idea what I was doing.

Ingredients:

1 round roast
small red potatoes
onion
mushrooms
celery
carrots
1 can beef stock
garlic salt
garlic
pepper
butter
rosemary

Cooking Instructions

1.) Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F

2.) Slice the roast open down the middle and season with a little rosemary and pepper

3.) Mince the garlic, slice celery, carrots, mushroom, and onion and mix together in a bowl, apply garlic salt liberally

4.) Cut the potatoes into bite size pieces

5.) Put the roast in a deep roasting tray and stuff the slice with the veggie mix, fill the rest of the tray with the remaining veggies and the potatoes

6.) Sprinkle garlic salt and rosemary over the top

7.) Cut up some butter into chunks and place it throughout the tray

8.) Pour the beef stock over everything into the roasting tray

9.) Bake for 35-40 minutes or until meat is cooked to desired readiness

This is the reason I love beef, it's ok if it's not cooked all the way. Anyways, I've also done a pseudo steam roast where I covered the tray with foil while baking it and cut two slits into it. The long slit cut into the roast should help it cook through more thoroughly, and the butter and stock add some flavor in addition to the inherent beef flavor. Generally the baking should cook all of the veggies, but if you want to be safe, you can blanche them (or as I do it put them in a pot of water over a stove and pull them out as the water begins to boil, maybe that is blanching, I don't remember) prior to mixing them with the garlic salt. I always liked it, it's hearty and the sauce is good. Can't go wrong with beef stock and butter, seriously, you can't.

Grilled Steak with a Red Wine Mushroom Sauce

I had to do a lot of makeshift changes with this, so I haven't "technically" tried this recipe yet. However, I basically made this a couple of times for myself and my roommate, and it's turned out fairly well. Usually, it's because I find some crazy beef deal at Safeway or something, yay for beef. As a note, the steak that you want to use should be of a flatter variety, I think I used a flank steak, but sirloin should work well as well, tri-tip I think is doable but probably a little harder to pull off. Anyways, you try out your own iterations and let me know how it turns out.

Ingredients:
steak (you pick which one)
Worchester sauce
lemon juice
Montreal steak seasoning
red wine (something fruity, of course I didn't have any so I used red wine vinegar, red cooking wine works as well)
sugar
butter
Italian seasoning
garlic salt
mushrooms
black pepper
olive oil

Cooking Instructions:

1.) In a bowl soak the steaks in Worchester sauce and lemon juice, coat with Montreal seasoning

2.) When ready, heat a pan to a medium/medium-high heat with olive oil

3.) Grill the steak on the pan, add Montreal seasoning if necessary

4.) When the steak has been cooked to order, remove onto a plate. I understand that sometimes, especially on a pan grilling, it's hard to tell if a steak is done enough, I like to apply some of the methods I use to cook fish, which is watch the sides of the meat, flip when the sides seem like their almost cooked, and then after a while, poke a hole in it and see if it bleeds, if it does leave it on for another 5 minutes. I think I cooked mine for about 15 minutes or so, of course the thickness of the steak determines the time too.

5.) Wash mushrooms and allow to soak in water. I've heard that soaking the mushrooms make them better to saute

6.) In a sauce pan, on a medium high heat, saute the mushrooms, add in butter and season with Italian seasoning and garlic salt

7.) When the mushrooms are soft add in wine (again I used red wine vinegar), and mix with sugar. When I made it the other night, I added some flour before the wine to make the mixture a little thicker. Make sure you don't add too much. Makes the butter clumpy.

8.) When the sauce has reduced to desired state, serve over steak

So, depending on the wine you use, it'll be differing amounts of sugar if any that need to be added. Since I used a wine vinegar, I added a fairly large amount of sugar as it's much more sour. The mushrooms should come out soft with a sweet and tangy touch to it, and the steaks should be slightly peppery, but mix well with the sauce. Hope this works for you! If you want the meat to be more tender, marinate in the lemon juice and Worchester sauce the night before.

Rigatoni with Chorizo Meat Sauce

So I've been asked to post pictures as well, and well, I'm getting around to it, so sorry, no pics for this one either. This is something of a recipe that I've sort of become known for, of course, it's taken its course of iterations and variations, but the essence has been the same. This specifically, I can tie to my development of an appreciation for spicier foods. It has a very nice kick and tangy flavor. Apparently it's a big enough hit that my mom always asks me to make it whenever I'm home (well, now it's the salmon). Apparently a lot of people like it, I know I do.

Ingredients:
Chorizo sausage
1 can crushed tomatoes (aka tomato puree)
1 onion
garlic
chili powder (or diced chili pepper)
white cooking wine
1 lb rigatoni pasta
black pepper
salt
olive oil
spicy Italian sausage (optional)

Cooking Instructions:

1.) Bring a pot of water to boil for the pasta, add pasta when water reaches a rolling boil (I add salt to the water, it makes the pasta cook faster because salt water needs to be hotter to boil)

2.) Slice the onions into slivers and mince the garlic, then on a pan, saute the garlic and onions in olive oil

3.) Cook the chorizo, normally it should come in a tube, and you just squeeze it out after cutting off one of the ends. Add the chorizo to the garlic and onions, additionally, you want to cook the Italian sausage as a meatball form here as well, if you have it.

4.) In a pot or saucepan, heat the crushed tomatoes on a medium heat.

5.) Season the tomatoes with chili powder (or add the pepper), black pepper, salt, and Italian seasoning, also add in the white wine (I think officially it's 1/2 cup, but I'm not positive)

6.) When the meat has been cooked, add the contents of that pan into the sauce, mix well.

7.) Serve over pasta when finished

And there you have it. I originally made it the first time with chorizo, but that's a little hard to find sometimes, so I used spicy Italian sausage the second time, afterwards, when I found both of them, I found that the chorizo creates the sauce and added with the wine and pepper gives it the kick, however, for people who like a little more substance in their pastas, the meatball-shaped sausage indeed makes it more substantial. I've yet to experience immense success using Anaheim chili peppers, so I think I'm picking the wrong ones, however, chili powder, for all extesnive purposes works quite well. Of course, you might want to take it easy on that stuff if you're cooking for people who don't really appreciate spicy foods as the sausage (if you have it) and the chorizo will already be adding a bit of its own kick to it. As a side note, the chorizo is very oily, so try not to get a lot of it on you, it's really hard to get out, trust me, I know.

Chicken Cordon Bleu

I think this was like the first "real" recipe that I ever learned, it was something that really got me into enjoying cooking. It's fairly straight forward and simple, I might have added a couple of personal touches over time, but in essence it's still the same. Hopefully you'll enjoy this as much as I do.

Ingredients:
boneless, skinless chicken breast (1 piece per person)
deli-sliced ham
sliced Swiss cheese
cream of mushroom soup (2 cans)
salt
pepper
Italian seasoning (basil, oregano, thyme)
garlic salt
butter
tooth picks (not for eating)

Cooking Instructions:

1.) Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2.) Flatten/tenderize the chicken breast as much as possible. If the breast is really thick, I'd say, thicker than your hand, then you can fillet the breast in half, which saves you on some of the tenderizing. If you don't have a meat tenderizer, I've found that the flat of a cleaver works quite well.

3.) Rub the Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper into chicken breast. You can kind of make up your own rub, I made it once with a basil, oregano, and thyme mix that was a free sample in a Sunday paper, and it worked out really well, so I've never really looked back since.

4.) On the breast piece, place a piece of ham and a slice of cheese (the size of the chicken breast should be comparable to that of the ham and cheese), then roll into a roll and skewer with a tooth pick to hold together. Place it into a greased casserole dish or roasting tray. Do this until you run out of chicken, ham, or cheese

5.) Place tray into oven for 25 minutes. So some people have also had chicken cordon breaded, which you can do to if you'd like, just bread it when you roll it up. I'm not a huge fan because I think the chicken flavor with the rub will be brought out, especially when you make the sauce.

6.) In a sauce pan, heat up cans of cream of mushroom soup (add only one can of milk, not water). Add in butter and garlic sauce and mix until it is a thick sauce.

7.) After the chicken has cooked, apply sauce and reduce oven heat to 375 degrees F and bake the chicken with the sauce for about 10-15 minutes.

And there you have chicken cordon bleu. It's a simple and straightforward recipe I think and the result is a very, very tasty piece of chicken, ham, and cheese. The mushroom sauce sort of accents the chicken flavor, and hopefully also keeps the chicken from getting too dry. Hopefully this works out for you.

Grilled Salmon Teriyaki

So, in my previous post, I discussed how to make teriyaki sauce, basically if you carry that over, and now prep it with salmon, it turns out to be quite delicious. Of course, being fish, there's a slightly different prep method that I like using, but the basic recipe for the ingredients are the same. Please refer to the previous ingredient list and add a large fillet (steak) of salmon.

Directions:

1.) Grill salmon on a pan with oil. So the common question when dealing with fish is, "How do I know when it's done?" The easy way I like to deal with it, is to use relatively little oil, keeping an eye on the side of the fish. Generally speaking, the fish is done when it is no longer translucent, not when you can flake it with a fork. Once it gets to the flaking stage, you probably have overcooked it, and are going to end up with a little drier fish. As soon as half of the fish (measure by the edge) turns opaque (the meat), flip, and continue. Once the whole edge turns opaque pull it out of the pan, we'll be cooking it a little more so don't worry if there might be parts you can't see that aren't completely cooked yet.

2.) Heat up a pan/wok with cooking oil to high heat, add and saute minced garlic, ginger, and scallions. This is where I deviate a little from the original teriyaki sauce recipe. By sauteing the garlic, ginger, and scallions at a high heat, it releases a lot of the flavor in the ingredients, in and of itself, with a little salt, it could be a fairly tasty sauce as well.

3.) Put the salmon back into the pan with the sauteed ingredients, reduce heat. Basically, now is the time to mix the flavor into the fish. Liquid marinades don't work exceptionally well with fish, so I've found that one way you can get a little more flavor if you want to do some prep work before hand is to rub some salt into it and leave slices of ginger on it overnight. Now, make sure you get the garlic and ginger all over the fish.

4.) Add in soy sauce, sugar, and pineapple juice mixture. It's easier to mix these before hand to dissolve the sugar. 1-to-1 is usually a pretty good thing to go by, but of course, I prefer to adjust by taste. To change the sauce to more of a glaze take a bowl of cold water and mix in some corn starch until it's completely dissolved, then add to the sauce over heat.

There you have it. If you're scrapped for time, you can use the old teriyaki mix and apply it to the salmon and bake it in the over for 15 minutes at 400 degrees F. Of course, it doesn't come out with the nice crisp edge you'd get if you'd grilled it, which is what some people like.

Teriyaki 101

So, a common thing to make is teriyaki, it's quick, it's fairly simple, and relatively easy to make. What makes teriyaki ultimately is the sauce, and so if you know how to make teriyaki sauce, then everything else just sort of falls into place. It can be used both as a marinade and as a sauce to serve over the meal, which lends it great versatility, hopefully you enjoy this.

Ingredients:
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup sugar
1 can of pineapple juice
garlic
ginger
scallions

1.) Mince garlic, ginger, and scallions

2.) Mix ingredients

Some of you might be wondering what the pineapple juice is for, usually a little citrus gives the teriyaki a little tang, and additionally, if used as a marinade, the acid helps to tenderize the meat. If necessary, you can replace the pineapple juice with orange juice as well, lemon juice might work too, but I'm afraid it might be a little too tangy. Basically that's all there is to teriyaki sauce, now how what to do with it is kind of the other question. Of course, the most basic is chicken teriyaki. You'd probably want a piece of chicken breast and grill it in oil. An option could be to first marinate the chicken in the sauce and then grill it. Use on whatever you want, it's teriyaki, they have teriyaki everything.

Italian Nachos

I really didn't have a better name for this than Italian Nachos so that's what I called it, basically because it was inspired by the idea of normal (Mexican) nachos. It takes the idea of nachos, or chips and salsa, or x-number layered dip and transforms it by using Italian ingredients. I think it's kind of like bruschetta, but not really, I made it for a party once and the people liked it, so if I ever get the opportunity, maybe I'll make it again.

Ingredients:
Club crackers
2 cans of diced tomatoes
pepperoni
green bell peppers
onion
mushroom
mozarella cheese
Italian seasoning
salt
pepper

1.) Stew the tomatoes, begin by seasoning them with salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and anything else you find to your liking.

2.) Dice all other ingredients, basically it can be anything that you would normally put on a pizza, the above listed are just my recommendations.

3.) When the tomatoes become more sauce like and start excreting more liquid, add the other ingredients.

4.) Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F (maybe this can happen first)

5.) Put the "sauce" into a deep baking/roasting tray (it's like salsa)

6.) Cover the top with mozarella cheese

7.) Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cheese is melted

How to eat:
So since some people may not be familiar with it, basically, it's the equivalent of Italian salsa, the difference being that it's more of a savory flavor than spicy. Normally for nachos you'd include the chips in with the dip sometimes, but since we're using club crackers you don't want them to get too soggy. When it's done, you basically scoop up the "salsa" with a club cracker and enjoy, use a spoon if the stuff is too chunky (heavy to be scooped by a club cracker). I really loved this stuff, and it's a lot easier than bruschetta.

Homemade Hamburger Helper (Pasta made easy)

So, this is an old recipe that my mom made all the time, I added a little bit of my own touches here and there, but inherently, it's my mom's recipe. Essentially it's pasta with meat sauce, I personally prefer shorter pastas such as bow-tie, rigatoni, ziti, penne, and such, but this recipe works fairly well with spaghetti as well. Actually, I think it'd probably work the best with spaghetti, but I've yet to try that since I don't really cook a lot with longer pastas.

Ingredients:
1 lb pasta (I recommend spaghetti or bow-ties)
1 large can/bottle of spaghetti sauce
1 pack taco seasoning
1 lb ground beef
1/2 cabbage
mushrooms
1 green pepper
1/2-1 onion
minced garlic (if not available you can use garlic powder as a substitute)
Italian seasoning (basil, oregano, thyme)
salt
black pepper

Cooking instructions:
1.) Put a pot of water onto the stove, high heat, to start boiling. Add a little salt to the water, it makes the water boil at a higher temperature allowing for it to cook the pasta faster. When the water reaches a rolling boil, pour the pasta in. Allow for it to cook for about 6 minutes. To tell if the pasta is done, just try a piece.

2.) Dice all of the vegetables, mushrooms you can slice, but you want fairly small pieces for the cabbage, onion, and green pepper.

3.) Brown the ground beef on a separate pan (I like to use a large and deep wok). As the beef browns, add the onion, taco seasoning, and garlic and season with salt and pepper. It sounds kind of weird, almost like you're making tacos, but trust me, it works out really, really well.

4.) Mix in the sauce and the remaining vegetables with the beef. It should turn into a sort of meat sauce. Season with pepper and Italian seasoning. If you like the sauce to have a little more of a tang or flavor, I sometimes put in a little white cooking wine or vinegar.

5.) Serve over pasta, or if you like, something I enjoy doing is mixing the pasta and sauce into a large pot so it can be served on its own. Add cheese and crushed red peppers as desired for flavoring, but it really is quite good on its own.

With that, you have a hearty meal that can easily serve 4-5, or 3 hungry college students, of course you can always adjust the serving size to fit whatever needs you have. On that note, you can also adjust and put in other vegetables, really, the only requirements I think for this specific recipe are the ground beef, cabbage, and the onion, I like to add green pepper and mushroom for flavor, maybe you can add others, feel free to experiment, I think maybe zucchini and carrots might work in there too. Let me know if you try out anything and it works out for you! It's really quick, quite easy, and provides a fairly wide variety of foods to your diet. Bon apetit!

Food for Thought

So, among my many passions, one of the greatest is food. I thoroughly enjoy cooking and experimenting with cooking. Thus, this is a venue by which I hope to be able to share the experiences I've had regarding cooking and hopefully spread the joy and enjoyment of food to each of you readers out there. You'll notice that a lot of times I'll neglect to mention specific quantities for some of the recipes that I use, but I think that in those cases, it's a matter of discretion and preference. I also may tend to get a little verbose, but I enjoy writing in more of a conversational style, so that it's a fun read, since I want to share my experiences in the kitchen with you, more than just the food I make. I hope that you'll be able to grow in appreciation of cooking and the food art as well, and good eats to you.