Ouzi: National Dish of Jordan

For those of you who aren’t aware I’m having a love affair with middle eastern / african food, and wanted to share my recent introduction to a wonderfully flavorful new dish from Jordan I had while enjoying live Belly Dancing, Shisha and microbrews: Ouzi, sometimes referred to as Mansaf. At its core, the dish is just your basic chicken and rice, but with all the flavors, it is truly much more. Enjoy!



Serves 4-6

Ingredients:
• 8 Chicken thighs
• ½ cup low fat, plain yogurt, divided
• 2 tbl Four Spice mixture (equal parts Ginger, Cloves, Nutmeg and Black Pepper)
• 1 cup brown rice
• Pinch of Saffron
• ¼ cup each almonds and pine nuts
• ½ cup shredded carrots
• ½ cup frozen peas, thawed
• 3 cloves garlic, minced and divided
• ½ bunch parsley, chopped and divided
• 2 tbls Lemon Juice, divided

Directions:

Prep ahead:
1. Prep the Chicken: Wash and clean thighs; marinate 12 - 24 hours in a combination of ½ yogurt, ½ garlic, salt and pepper
2. Toast and chop almonds and pine nuts: prep a medium skillet over medium heat, add almonds and pine nuts, watching carefully. As soon as they start to brown, remove pan from heat, cool and store up to 3 days.
3. Make the Dressing: Mix 1/4 cup yogurt, minced garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and parsley well, and store up to 3 days.

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 375 F
2. Prepare brown rice as directed, using low sodium chicken or veggie stock for extra flavor.
3. Preheat a medium skillet with 2 tbls of olive oil, wipe excess yogurt and garlic from chicken thighs. Dust skin side with four spice mixture.
4. Put thighs skin side down in skillet until crispy, turn over, dust with spice mixture and repeat. Remove excess fat and place in oven while remainder of dish is prepared.
5. Mince onion and garlic, sauté until translucent in butter. Add rice, 1/4 cup of stock, saffron, and remaining lemon juice, mix well, simmer for 2 - 3 min. Add in carrots and peas, mix well, remove from pan and let cool 2 - 3 min. Add in toasted nuts and remaining parsley.
6. Serve on a platter with chicken on the bed of rice and drizzle with yogurt dressing.

Alternatives: traditionally, ground lamb is added into the rice mixture; remove chicken skin for lower fat alternative; use ½ water, ½ stock for lower sodium; add feta to the rice for some extra tang and creaminess

Workout Queen's Spicy Sauteed Garbanzos with Meat

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb. ground beef 
  
• 1 tsp. plus 1 Tbl. extra virgin olive oil
  
• 1/2 tsp of your favorite meat seasoning
  
• 2 cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drain and save liquid 
  
• 1 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
  
• 1/2 tsp. ground chipotle chile powder, more or less to taste
  
• 1 1/2 tsp. minced garlic
  
• salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
  
• *optional: 1/2 cup finely chopped cilantro, plus more for garnish if desired
  

Directions:

1. Drain chickpeas and save the liquid.
   
2. Heat 1 tsp. olive oil in a large deep trying pan over high heat
3. Add ground beef, crumbling into pieces as you put it into the pan. Add seasoning.
4. As you cook the meat, make sure to break it up into small pieces.
5. When the meat is browning and is broken up, add the garbanzos. 
6. Keep the heat high, saute meat and garbanzos together until meat is well browned and garbanzos start to change to brown. (10-15 minutes depending on stove temperature. (if the mixture starts to stick turn down the heat a little.)
7. Add ground cumin, ground chile powder, and minced garlic. Mix it all around. 
8. Cook for about a minute more. 
9. Add garbanzo liquid now to the mixture. Scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any meat from the pan.
10. Season with salt and pepper, then reduce heat and simmer until most of the liquid has evaporated (about 10-15 minutes)
11. Turn off heat and serve hot.
12. *optional: Stir in chopped cilantro and the 1 T olive oil. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Commentary:

I'm BAAAACKKK!! Yes, boys and girls...after just completing a half-marathon, I am back in action and ready to cook for YOU!! During my 8 weeks of training I was trying to figure out ways to give my body the proper nutrition it needs to be energized and ready for super-training action. So I read this book Food for Fitness: Eat Right to Train Right By: Chris Carmichael's, and if there is anything like a training BIBLE...this is it. If you're training hard, pick yourself up a copy because it really helped me to get to know what and how I should be eating, especially to replenish depleted carbs and proteins from my body. This recipe is perfect to boost up the carbs because of the garbanzos and has a great amount of protein as well. The ground beef is high in protein as well, so this meal is quite nutritious and I would eat it as a lunch (before working-out) or a dinner before a good training day to come. It's flavorful, tasty and gives your body what it needs to stay focused and motivated. Don't think I'm going to slack on you guys anymore, cause I'm definitely not! We are just at the beginning of a triathlon season, and it's time to get-in-SHAPE!!! (By the way, my camera broke, so sorry that my pictures are terrible) Comment and let me know what you think!

Workout Queen's Colorful Plate

They say that a colorful plate, in a happy plate. And a happy plate is also a healthy plate. As I'm sure you know by now, I'm all about healthy eating, so check out a colorful, yet delicious meal.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 Red, 1/4 green, and 1/2 yellow peppers
• 1/4 cup Olive oil
• 1/2 cup Crumbled Feta Cheese
• 1 Boneless chicken breast
• 1/2 packet of Sazon Goya Seasoning
• 2 cloves garlic
• garlic powder
• other seasonings

Instructions:

1. Heat olive oil in pan
2. Slice peppers to desired sizes and add them to the oil
3. Leave peppers there for 15 - 20 minutes. Flip them several times. Cover the pan to ensure that the peppers are SOFT!
4. Add garlic gloves to oil while peppers are on heat
5. Sprinkle peppers with garlic powder and any other seasonings you enjoy
6. While the peppers are on the heat, add sazon Goya seasoning to chicken on a separate plate
7. Once peppers have started to soften, add chicken pieces/slices to hot pan. Cover pan
8. Chicken only requires 7 - 10 minutes cooking.
9. Once chicken is cooked, and peppers are soft, sprinkle feta cheese on the inside of the peppers.
10. Place chicken pieces/slices on top of the cheese.
11. Carefully remove filled peppers from the heat and place on plate. Add a touch more of feta, as garnish. ENJOY!

Sometimes I feel like I eat the same things over and over, and that gets a little boring. But this plate made me really excited because it was a twist on the same foods. It was actually an experiment that I just threw together. I'm a girl of quick meals, and hate lots of preparation, so you'll notice that most of my recipes will require minimal or no preparation, and can be made on the fly. The feta cheese on this dish made the peppers creamy which allowed the different textures to blend together. This meal, as you can see, is full of color and is fun to eat. You can use your hands, and just grab the pepper. I ate it in 5 minutes and feel like I ate plenty. For all you calorie counters out there, just look at the meal. Veggies - CHECK, chicken - CHECK, small amount of cheese - TERRIFIC! If this were on weight watchers, it wouldn't be more than 4 points...so go on girl and EAT IT UP!!

Check out my yummy dessert...coming out next!!

Platanos Maduros

This delicious treat is very simple and quite effortless. It includes two ingredients: plantain, yellow bananas aka platanos and oil.

Ingredients:

• Plantains (yellow large bananas that come from the Tropics, not to be confused with regular yellow bananas. These plantains are larger and thicker than regular bananas. They can be purchased as green bananas, but must ripen.)
• Olive Oil (or you can use any oil you prefer)

Directions:

• The plantain bananas MUST be blackening on the outside before beginning this recipe. Don't try this when the bananas are green or you've got a whole different dish. 
• pour 1/3 cup of oil into pan
• let pan heat, so that oil is hot
• slice the bananas to desired thickness and place them in the pan
• make sure the flame is low, as you don't want the plantains to burn
• after a few minutes (approx. 7-10) check the bottoms of the plantains. They should be golden to golden brown before you flip them.
• flip the slices once they are golden brown
• in the next 7-10 mins, check on the plantains again
• once they are golden brown, remove them from heat
• place the ready plantains on a paper towel in order to soak up the excess oil

Commentary: Platanos maduros are also known as sweet, soft bananas. Once they are cooked they have a sweet and savory banana flavor. I find that I can accompany this dish with anything I eat. It allows me to add a bit of sweetness to any meal. When I made this dish, I also whipped up an easy chicken and spinach meal to go along with it. I like to add a little bit of seasoning and flavors, so my chicken had some sazon (Goya) flavoring, which added the hint of latino. I had my platanos on the side, as I would eat rice or potatoes. It's definitely a mouth pleaser and a treat. You can also save any extra platanos in some foil and just fry them another day. But don't wait too long or they won't be ripe anymore. I also let my platanos sit for a while until they are truly blackened, just so that I can be absolutely sure that they are SWEET!! You can also make a dessert dish out of these platanos by simply adding ice cream! (Maybe I'll make that one for you too) So, get a fryin'...and remember that platanos aren't just for Latinos. They are for the Latinos in all of us!! Buen provecho!

RISOTTO CHALLENGE: Entry One

Strawberries and Cream Risotto, with Sausage Crostini

These are two recipes from Italy’s Joy of Cooking, which as you can guess is way better than dowdy ol’ American Joy. It’s called The Silver Spoon, and you should all buy it, or get a roommate who owns it, as we did.

This risotto is definitely unusual. For one, there is no cheese whatsoever in it. Also, it smells a lot like the strawberry filling we added to a puff pastry dessert a while ago. But it is more of a savory than sweet dish.

The Risotto

ingredients

• 6 ½ cups Vegetable Stock
• 7 tbsp butter
• 1 chopped onion
• 2 cups risotto rice (Arborio in our case)
• 1 ½ cups white wine (pick one you'd like to drink with dinner, naturally)
  
• 2 ½ cups mashed strawberries
• 1 cup light cream
• salt and pepper to taste

(Serves four, though we cut it in half for the two of us.)

In one pot, bring stock to boil. In another pot, melt butter and add onions. Cook for 5 minutes. Add rice and cook until you’re sure it’s all covered in butter. Then add the wine. Once wine evaporates add a ladle of stock and cook till it’s absorbed. Do this over and over until the stock is used up (about 18-20 minutes). Halfway through, add the mashed strawberries. At the end, add the cream and season with salt and pepper.


Sausage Crostini
ingredients

• 3 Italian sausages (skinned)
• 5oz of cheese (they called for straggiano, which we couldn’t find and replaced with parmigiano reggiano. If you do this, it won’t need any extra salt)
• 1 tbsp fennel seeds (strangely, the sausage we bought already had them in it!)
• baguette slices

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix sausage meat, cheese, and fennel in a bowl. Add salt to taste. Spread mix on bread, put in baking dish and bake for 15 minutes. Serve hot.


The crostini was delicious. It's really just cheese and sausage on bread, you can't go wrong there (in fact, we ate it for breakfast the next morning and it was still good).


This risotto met mixed reviews. It didn't turn out gluten-y, which is a plus, but it took on an unexpected brown color from the vegetable stock. The strawberries maintained some of their taste, but were blanched while cooking and got lost visually and texturally in the rice. We were a little wary of the whole thing, but were surprised that the more we ate, the more we liked it. And Shake's Silver Spoon-owning roommate approved, and we trust her, so it must have been good.

Our recommendation is that if you try making this risotto, add the strawberries later while cooking. They won't lose as much of their color or shape that way.

mammy's home made soup

This soup is one my mother makes all the time, and for years I didn’t realise it was her special recipe. Recently various relatives and friends asked me how she makes it so tasty and I realised there was actually a little trick to it! Her special ingredient is butter. My mother always makes this soup with potato and leeks but my favourite is with red pepper, which is what I did today. Any veg goes really, apart from the basics. These quantities make four servings.

For this one I used:

• 1 potato
• 2 onions
• 1 red pepper
• 1 yellow pepper

You also need:

• Butter (not sure what amount, but a nice big chunk…add whatever you think yourself)
• Salt and pepper
• One vegetable stock cube
• 2 pints of water.
• And a blender (hand held)

Peel and chop the potatoes and onions. Melt the butter in a saucepan and when melted, throw in the potatoes and onions. Don’t have the heat too high, you don’t want the potatoes and onions to fry, you just want them to sweat in the butter to absorb all the buttery flavour. Make sure they are well covered in butter, add in LOTS of salt and pepper and mix around. Then, with the heat low, cover the veg with some paper kitchen towel and let it all sweat in the butter for about ten minutes. Stir it every now and then. (Ha! I was about to write ‘stirring occasionally’ there, and then realised I sound like a cookbook. We couldn’t have that!)



While this is cooking up, chop the other vegetables. And boil a kettle of water. When the water is boiled pour about two pints into a jug and mix in a vegetable stock cube. When the pototoes and onions have sweat in the butter for ten minutes, throw in all the other veg and mix around. Then pour in the veggie stock. You don’t need to bring it to the boil, but let the whole thing simmer for about fifteen minutes. After it has simmered, take the blender to it. I used a hand held one to liquidise the whole thing. I left it on the heat for another five minutes after that. Divide into bowls and serve with some cream poured in, and a little more black pepper dashed on top.

 

Mammy’s verdict:
"Hmmm. Nice with the red pepper, but I do prefer the leek soup myself. Not quite as flavourful as mine, maybe sweat it in the butter for a bit longer, and add another onion. Could do with a bit more salt and pepper as well."

(note: I adjusted the recipe above to take account of her comments)

Bunner’s Baked Bacon Mac N Cheese

(Yes, I'm into foods that start with B)

Ingredients

• 1 box elbow macaroni
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 6 slices of turkey bacon, chopped (go without if you like, your loss, but it's still a good basic MnC)
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (if you don’t like it spicy optional)
• 3 cups milk
• 1 large beaten egg
• 1.5 12 ounces bags of your favorite shredded cheese( I like a sharp cheddar and jack mix)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• Fresh black pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the pasta to al dente.
3. While the pasta is cooking, in a separate pot, melt the butter add bacon. Whisk in the flour and cayenne pepper and keep it moving for about five minutes. Make sure it's free of lumps. Stir in the milk. Simmer for ten minutes.
4. Temper in the egg (temper just means let the liquid cool a little and then add the egg a little at a time, so it doesn't turn into scrambled eggs). Stir in 2/3 of the cheese. Season with salt and pepper. Put half the pasta in a 2-quart casserole dish top with two handfuls of cheese and half the sauce. Repeat with the other half of the pasta). Top with remaining cheese.
5. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for five minutes before serving.
6. If the top is not browned in 30 minutes (and you like a brown top) throw it under the broiler for two minutes.