Sunday, January 13, 2013

CAFE RIO’S SWEET BARBACOA PORK

Maybe will try with in the future:
http://www.the-girl-who-ate-everything.com/2008/10/missing-cafe-rio.html

Grilled Bruschetta Chicken



Ingredients:
4 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1/2 cup KRAFT Sun-Dried Tomato dressing, divided
2 tomato, finely chopped
1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil or 1 tsp. dried basil leaves

Instructions:
Place a large sheet of heavy-duty foil over half of grill grate; heat grill to medium heat. Meanwhile, place chicken in resealable plastic bag. Add 1/4 cup dressing and seal bag. Turn bag over several times to evenly coat chicken with dressing. Refrigerate 10 minutes (I marinate it all day if I remember in time). Remove chicken from bag; discard bag and dressing.

Grill chicken on uncovered side of grill for about 6 minutes. Meanwhile, combine remaining 1/4 dressing, tomatoes, cheese and basil.

Turn the chicken over and place cooked-side up, on foil on the grill. Top with tomato mixture. Close lid. Grill 8 minutes or until chicken is done.

*Sometimes we add a splash of balsalmic vinegar to give it a bit more zip.

Buffalo Chicken Mini Cupcakes

2 chicken breasts
1 8oz package cream cheese
1/2 cup ranch dressing
1/2 cup buffalo wing sauce
1 cup cheddar cheese
Package blue cheese crumbles
Wonton wrappers

1. Cut chicken into 1/3, put in boiling water for 10 minutes or until cooked. Remove from water and chop up.
2. Preheat oven to 375.
3. In a bowl mix together the chicken, ranch, buffalo wing sauce, softened cream cheese, and 3/4 cup cheddar cheese.
4. Spray mini muffin tin with Pam, put wonton wrapper down, then about a tablespoon of mixture, another wrapper and mixture. Top with remaining cheddar cheese and blue cheese crumbles.
5. Cook about 15 minutes or until wontons are golden brown.

I did this with both mini and normal cupcake tins. The mini tin was easier as finger food, you needed a fork for the normal cupcakes.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

What's for Dinner January 2013

1/2/13
Lasagna Cupcakes
Taco Cupcakes
Southwest Chicken Wraps (Sizzling Salad Marinade)

1/7/13
Thai Chicken Curry
BBQ Chicken with corn
Reubens
Shake and Bake Pork with Couscous with Tomato topping
Taco Salad

1/14/13
Steak with Baked Potato
Mushroom Chicken with Swiss Chard
(http://www.marthastewart.com/925229/chicken-mushrooms)
Salmon with rice
Rob's Chicken Enchiladas
Pizza

1/21/13
Pad Thai
Lasagna Cupcakes
Steak potato
Fish tacos
Shake and bake chicken and green beans
Chicken with stuffed mushrooms

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Lasagna Cups

I used this recipe but added Italian sausage that I browned between the sauce and ricotta layers. 375 for 25 minutes at high altitude.

http://www.catchingfireflies.com/blog/2012/06/mighty-tasty-mini-lasagnas/




Meatza

http://www.justinowings.com/meatza-meatza/

Anyway, it’s the meatball recipe that really knocks the meatza crust out of the park, so without further ado, here are the ingredients:

I use a 12×17 rectangular pan
Get a decent sized mixing bowl to mix the meat
Start pre-heating the oven to 450
For ease of mixing into the beef, I go ahead and get all my seasonings out and into a little bowl (this will make more sense in a second):
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese**
3 tsp salt
1 tsp caraway seeds (this is the magic ingredient in my opinion)
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp coarse ground pepper
1 tsp red pepper flakes (optional)
2 lbs. ground beef (80/20 is fine)
Seasonings mixed, put the beef into the mixing bowl, crack into it two eggs and mix beef and eggs first. This is because the runny egg can cause the seasonings to clump together and it just makes mixing a lot messier and less uniform if you don’t mix beef and egg first prior to adding the seasonings. Thus, the need for to pre-mix the seasonings — your hands are all covered in beef at this point, so you just have to pour in the seasonings!
Add seasonings and Parmesan cheese and mix well! (Note: you can also do the Parmesan after the egg/beef pre-seasonings if you want)
Take the mass of mixed beef and slam it onto your pan. BAM!
Flatten it out: you should be able to just about cover a 12×17 pan with the beef
Oven pre-heated, throw it in there for 10 minutes!
At this point, I immediately start pre-cooking certain ingredients that need a little extra attention; in my case, it’s sliced mushrooms and diced green pepper sauteeing in a cast iron skillet with some pasture butter.

Ten minutes up, take the crust out of the oven. Set the oven to Broil (it will take a few minutes to heat to this point).

You’ll now notice the crust has shrunk considerably and there’s a good bit of rendered fat in the pan. Pour the fat out of the pan. Optional step: take a paper towel and wipe up any extraneous beef “stuff” that is exterior to the crust. This is simply because it’s not part of the crust and if you leave it, it could cake to the pan and make clean-up more of a hassle.

Now, you just add your toppings. For me, I added Newman’s Sockerooni spaghetti sauce as a base, then a layer of pepperoni, then a base layer of mozarella cheese. From there, I add sliced green olives, feta cheese, the mushrooms and green peppers, more pepperoni, and top it all off with more cheese.

Broiler heated up, I throw it all back in the oven until the cheese is done. It cooks very fast at this point! Like five minutes is almost too long in our case, so make sure you keep a close eye on your meatza!

Take it out, let it sit for a minute or two, and slice and serve. I find this slices into six solid size pieces — I can eat a half a pizza under the right conditions, but one slice of meatza and I am good to go.