foodie pics

 Heart attack special

Toast, aged cheddar cheese, crispy bacon, fried eggs

 Chicken wok with rice

 A really nice Merlot in my new carafe

 Bacon, mushroom, fresh spinach pasta with some Parmigiano Reggiano. 

Best Chocolate Brownies

 Best Bistro Style Chocolate Brownies

This is an amazingly easy recipe for Brownies. Great if you are simply feeling a little peckish or if you have someone drop in and you want something delicious to serve with a cup of hot tea.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup melted butter
2/3 cup pure cocoa
1 cup sugar
2 whole eggs
1/2 cuo of all purpose flower
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
optional: you can add some chopped walnuts into the batter.

Preheat over to 175 C.

Mix all ingredients in a bowl until everything is combined. prepare an oiled baking form and spread the batter evenly. Put the form in the oven and bake for 25- 30 minuted. check with tooth picks after the 25 minutes.

 

 

after testing I needed another 5 minutes to get it done.

Chicken and Bean Burritos

For those who know me they will tell you that I love my Texmex. Today I made Chicken and refried bean burritos.

Chopped chicken Fillet
texmex spice
Refried beans recipe
Salsa
sour cream
burrito wraps
grated cheddar cheese

Put some texmex spice on your chicken and fry using a little olive oil. When the chicken is almost done you can warm your beans in the frying pan or warm them in the microwave. Heat your wraps to make them more flexible. lay some chicken and beans in the middle of the wrap in a straight line. Add some grated cheddar, sour cream and salsa. I like some hot sauce as well. Fold up the bottom of the wrap and than roll it together. Dinner is done.

 

Bacon and Jalapeno wrapped chicken

This is a very simple meal to make.

ingredients

1 chicken fillet per person
1 Jalapeno per chicken fillet
sliced bacon
your favorite BBQ seasoning.

Cut the chicken fillet into two even slices. Lightly spice. Cut Jalapeno in half and remove the seeds. Place half of a Jalapeno on each slice and then wrap with bacon. I usually use 2 slices of bacon for each piece. Use tooth picks to hold the bacon, jalapeno and chicken together. Place on hot grill and grill about 3 minutes on each side (all 4) Bacon should be starting to get crispy when they and that's when you know the chicken is done. Makes sure to get the bacon on all sides grilled. The tooth pics will help with standing the pieces on their sides.

Today I made oven baked potato wedges, roast onion and roast carrot to go with the meal.

Oven baked potato wedges recipe

 

Blueberry Pancakes

This original recipe comes out of an old cook book that a friend of mine once found at a garage sale. It has a lot of great recipes and I use it quite often. It's hard to find newer cook books that dont include mixes that I can't get here in Sweden. This is old school and everything is from scratch.

Recipe

ingredients:

1.5 cups of flour
1 tbs sugar
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 egg yolks, beaten
1.5 cups milk
2 tbs melted butter(not margarine)
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/5 cup blueberries

1. Combine Flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add the vanilla and mixture of beaten egg yolks and milk: beat until well done.
2. Beat the egg whites until stiff, not dry, lay over the batter, then add the blue berries. Fold the mix together
3. Heat your frying pan until quite hot, add a little butter and pour your batter into pancakes. Turn the pancakes when they fluff up and get lots of bubbles. Turn only once.
4. Serve the pancakes immediately on a plate and top with a little butter and real maple syrup. They can try to say the fake stuff tastes as good, but that just aint so. 

Nice sunset this evening

just pics

A little update for today. BBQ of course and a nice evening.

Quiche Lorraine

 


I've been busy visiting family and enjoying life so I haven't had a lot of time for the blog but I'm still cooking of course. Thought I'd post some pics and then come back with the recipe another day

 Quiche Lorraine

 

Refried beans

Love my Texmex

When I first traveled to LA in 1986 I had no idea what Texmex was and that's a shame. In LA I was introduced to a whole new world of flavors and Fell in love with it. I'm a real fan of hot and spicy so it was love at first taste. There was a great Burrito place that I spent a lot of time at on Sepulveda Boulevard. It was a cheap lunch and a very tasty one. They had a great beef and bean burrito. They also had a nice orange whip drink, but that's a whole different story. 

When I moved to Sweden in 1989 they were just starting to market Texmex, but it was impossible to get good refried beans. They sell a small can of something they call refried beans but there is nothing  in them that you should be putting in your body. It's like buying guacamole dip that contains no avocado, how is that even possible? A couple years ago a decided I needed to figure out how to make my own beans. I watched a couple youtube videos and read some recipes and started the testing process. Now I have a pressure cooker and it's down to a science. You can make them without a pressure cooker, but it takes A LOT LONGER. 

ingredients

800g Pinto beans

1 medium onion

2-3 cloves garlic(chopped)

1 tsp cumin (ground)

4 chicken bullion cubes

1-2 jalapenos (depends on your personal hot scale. I like two)

I use an 800g bag of beans and it makes about 2kgs of refried beans. The import thing is they are incredible easy to reheat after being frozen. I put them in plastic bags and they keep for a couple months in the freezer. 

Always start by hand sorting through your beans to make sure there are no small stones. The plants are kept in soil with a lot of small gravel to make them easy to irrigate and it's not uncommon to find a small stone mixed in with the beans. Nothing you want to be biting into so start with the sort. 

Once sorted put the beans in a bowl and cover with water a couple inches over the beans because they will absorb a lot of water. Let them soak over night with a cover.

Chop a medium size onion and fry it with a little butter. Put the kettle on to cook up water while you are letting the onion get slightly yellow and soft. Chop up 2 or 3 garlic cloves and add them and 4 chicken bullion cubes with a little of the water. Mix until the cubes have melted. Chop up a jalapeno and throw it into the pot. Grind up a teaspoon of cumin and add that. Then strain your beans and put them into your pot. Add enough boiling water to cover your beans plus a couple centimeters extra. Once again the beans will soak up water and you will be able to remove excess water later.

Bring the Beans to a boil on medium high and put the lid on. Once the pressure cooker seal closes, turn the heat down to low and let it cook for an hour. Take the pot off the heat and let it cool down and release the steam on it's own. This will help the beans cook the last little bit without risk of burning them. The beans should be soft and you should be able to mash them with your finger. This is a great time to taste test.

Strain the beans into a bowl saving the liquid. Put the beans back into the pot and mash the beans. The consistency is up to your own personal preference. Use the liquid you save to give the beans moisture. You don't want dry beans and there is so much flavor in the liquid. I like to use the liquid instead of water when cooking up my texmex beef to get full use of the amazing flavors. 

 

Tips

• portion your beans into small plastic bags for freezing
• you can reheat in microwave or in a pot. 
• You may need to add a little water when you reheat
• for a really good bean dip you can just add a little sour cream
• bean burrito is a great thing to serve to your vegetarian friends

Burgers don't have to be complicated

 Lazy burgers

Not every meal has to be a lot of work to be tasty and enjoyable. Today I went with all beef frozen burgers. To make the meal a little more of a treat I picked up some fresh baked rolls instead of traditional hamburger buns. Every burger should be sculpted to the person who is going to eat them and you can really make the difference with little extra work. Today I had my standard French's mustard, Heinz 57(anything else is not ketchup), some onion, dill pickle and tomato slices, cheese slices and one of my favorites for burgers Blue cheese dressing. I'd call today a very lazy day because one of my favorite ingredients didn't make it to my burger. Bacon... mmm bacon!! next time

The whole blue cheese dressing thing actually started when I was in Hawaii. I was there for a few months and was on a tight budget. Wendy's had a $1 cheese burger which was not horrible, but kind of boring. One of the people I was in Hawaii with said that it was ok to take salad dressing with the burger because it was in the condiments section and not at the salad bar and suggested I give it a try. Well I can say that 30 years later I'm still having blue cheese dressing on my burgers. If you like blue cheese you should give it a try.

I'll make some real burgers during the summer and post a solid recipe and pictures then. 

Tips

I highly recommend that you toast your roll or bun so that the topping don't make your bread soggy.

The day started grey

 The first half of the day was cloudy, cold and misty, but it cleared up nicely and ended up a nice day.

Strip loin steak

 Strip Loin

Today I made one of my favorites, steak and potatoes and that's never a bad combo. Today I used a prime cut strip loin steak. When Grilling Strip loins you want to make sure that your steak is about an inch thick.

TIPS

1. It is really important to take your meat out at least half an hour before you are going to grill. If the meat is still cold it will cook fast on the outside and not get the even grilling that you want. 
2. Good cuts of steak should not be marinaded or rubbed. You pay the good money for the taste of the steak. All you want to do is brush on a very thin layer of vegetable oil and then put on a bit of salt and pepper just before you throw it on the grill. 
3. Make sure your grill is very hot before starting to cook. Place the steak on the grill and let it sear on the first side for about a minute and then flip it over. You want to do this so that you lock in the moisture in the meat. If you leave it on the first side too long there is nothing to keep the juices from being forced out of the meat. 
4. How well done the meat is depends on the individual, but I would recommend never cooking a Strip Loin past medium and if you can live with the red color the taste and tenderness of the steak is better if you grill it to a medium rare.

The day started nicely

 The day started with some really nice weather. The moon was still hanging in the air as the sun was coming up and the sky was perfectly clear. The clear sky gave way to some clouds and rain early in the day, but a little rain isn't going to get in the way of getting some BBQing in.

Time to watch the end of the baseball game and we'll see whats cooking tomorrow.

Grilled Chicken

Summer is a great time to get outside and use the BBQ. I like to experiment with rubs, marinades and glazes. Today I decided to go with a Glaze.

First I rubbed the chicken with a Texmex and Ginger mixture. Then you have to grill the chicken and just before it's done brush the glaze on to give it a nice edge. You dont want to add the glaze too early because the sugar from the honey WILL burn if you put it on from the start.

Glaze

Honey
French's Mustard
Garlic

Roast potatoes, sweet corn and grilled mushrooms round out this tasty meal.

There was a nice sunset to enjoy this evening as well.