I inquired about what particular Wildflower bread variety is used, bought their Nine Grain loaf and set out to make my own batch at home. I've made it several times now for myself, Wednesday Night Dinners and other gatherings. The first time I made it, I added fresh mozzarella balls and dumped a container of marinated artichoke hearts/mushrooms all from the olive bar inside Safeway, which was recently listed as #2 Healthiest Grocery Store in the nation. I'm lucky to have one within walking distance from our house. As I don't get to Wildflower that often, I switch up the bread with whatever's on sale at either Safeway or the Marketside (also just a hop skip away). Tonight, I made a batch (with mainly organic or natural ingredients) for hubby & I.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Quick Bite Recipe: Bread Salad
I inquired about what particular Wildflower bread variety is used, bought their Nine Grain loaf and set out to make my own batch at home. I've made it several times now for myself, Wednesday Night Dinners and other gatherings. The first time I made it, I added fresh mozzarella balls and dumped a container of marinated artichoke hearts/mushrooms all from the olive bar inside Safeway, which was recently listed as #2 Healthiest Grocery Store in the nation. I'm lucky to have one within walking distance from our house. As I don't get to Wildflower that often, I switch up the bread with whatever's on sale at either Safeway or the Marketside (also just a hop skip away). Tonight, I made a batch (with mainly organic or natural ingredients) for hubby & I.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Cozy Spot. Good Eats.
All the "Black Friday" bargain shoppers surely flocked to the new shopping center, so we had the place to ourselves. That was perfect, since we wanted to avoid a long wait & a crowd. We arrived a little after 1pm and they end their lunch hours at 2pm.
Everything on the Lunch and Dinner menu was open for us to order from. Mind you, the waitress explained they are planning on changing the menu soon...So, the food we ate today, might not be on the menu tomorrow.
We ordered for appetizers crab&salmon cakes with spicy Thai peanut sauce and Hummus with grilled pita triangles. The cakes were nicely cooked, not overcooked, lightly crispy on the outside. if you like things uber crispy, then you might not like these. Mom & I enjoyed the little side veggies & peanut sauce. if you come just by yourself. You could make the Crab & Salmon Cakes as a little meal. The texture & taste of the Hummus was just right and fresh and plenty to share with our family of 5.
We also were served slices of warm crusty bread with EVOO/balsamic, that the waitress refilled for us later too. Hubby had a tomato bisque arrive that went with his Bacon Bleu Cheese Kobe burger. The bisque had a nice balsamic drizzle for presentation & great texture and was not overly salted. Hubby liked dredging his bread in it as well.
Overall, our experience was above average for local small (non-chain) Yuma restaurants and give this place a thumbs up from each of us. I'm already eyeing the spicy cajun Seafood Gumbo, the Pistachio Crusted Salmon with goat cheese ravioli, black beans & chipotle sauce. On our next holiday in Yuma, we'd eat here again for sure!
River City Grill
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
MarMars' Spam Musubi Recipe
Since then, our groups of friends have gobbled up two more variations of this spam musubi: recently Nelly & Ninette made a batch for Mia's birthday party, non-fried, but the spam was marinated in a soy based mixture...oooh yeah. And when it was my turn to cook for When's d Night Dinner. That time, Ron rigged up his own sushi mold by cutting off the bottom of Spam can, and using a slice of spam to compress the rice down. Worked out pretty good. But, wasn't so neat and even though we pinched down the edges of the can, it was still a bit dangerous sticking our hands into the can. Thankfully, all digits were left intact.
This Saturday, Ron had a hankering for Spamsilog: spam, rice with 2 over easy eggs for breakfast. So of course, I obliged and fed my man exactly that. But, I had other plans for my three slices of spam...I'm sure it's obvious what I had in mind.
And thanks to Ninette, my Spam Musubi turned out perfectly shaped with the brand new plexi-musibi maker. It's so pretty! It cost $11 and I think she picked it up at either Lee Lee's or Mekong Plaza. I love it!
My version is basically a combination of all varieties of Spam Musubi that we've enjoyed the last couple months: Marinated spam, breaded and fried spam, plus the extra touches of scrambled egg and pandesal bread crumbs! (Yes, pandesal bread crumbs, baby. I didn't finish the dozen Manila Bakery pandesal, so, rather than let it rot in the trash bin, I gave it a second life. It's final life ended in my backyard compost bin, courtesy of my buddy Myrna, whose passionate about many things, composting is not one of them, which turned out good for me.)
***Disclaimer, I don't tend to follow recipes, so I think it's funny that I'm posting a recipe here, since I didn't really follow any exact measurements. I just taste, things while I cook, adding more seasoning as I go. Hence, my recipe...it's really a guide...so these measurements are guestimations. Good luck!
MarMars' Spam Musubi
PREP TIME 4 MIN COOKING TIME 10 MIN SERVES 3-4
Spam Marinade
6T Soy Sauce
2T Mirin
2T Vinegar
2T Peanut Oil
2t Sesame Seeds
Whisk all these up.
Slice the spam to the desired thickness. I used the spam slicer (love this! thanks rod!) Marinade the spam for about 5 minutes. Pan fry the spam 'til nice & crispy. Dry on paper towels.
Breaded Spam
1 can of Spam
2-3 Hard Pandesal (crumbled up) - I bought mine from Manila Bakery, but didn't eat them fast enough. So, instead of trashing them, I figured I'd make it into bread crumbs...and whatever I didn't use went into my compost bin.
2 cups Panko breading (just depends, you may need to add more as you go)
2 egg whites (whisked)
2 cups flour
Mix the Pandesal crumbs with the Panko breading. Lightly cover each fried spam with flour. Quickly dredge in the whisked egg whites, then quickly coat in the Pandesal/Panko mixture. And fry until browned. Set aside on paper towel.
Scrambled Eggs
2 whole eggs
3 T Mirin
Whisk the eggs & mirin thoroughly. Pan fry on low heat. The finished scrambled egg should be very thin. Set aside.
Sticky Rice
1c White Rice (recommend Calrose)I had Jasmine on hand.
2T Sweet Saki (optional)
1T Sugar (optional)
1T Furikake (optional)
Mix the above ingredients together. Set aside.
And, of course you'll need a bag of Nori. I just eyeballed to make sure the Nori equaled the length of the musubi and made the Nori as long as I'd need to wrap around the musubi. So, it will vary, depending on how much rice you like, if you do a single layer or double layer of rice.
Time to Assemble the Musubi
You will need the musubi mold
Or if you want to go MacGyver style, carefully remove the bottom of the Spam can. Use a nose head plyer and pinch down any sharp edges. On our first attempt, we did this...but still got nicked. So, thank you Ninette for the $11 upgrade!
Here's a series of photos showing how I assembled the musubi:
To seal the nori, just dap lightly a wet fingertip along one edge of the nori, then fold. And gobble it up, like me, I ate as I finished wrapping.
Now, if you'd like to try out another Spam Musubi recipe, by all means go for it, there's a multitude of ways to personalize your own Spam Musubi experience. Here's just a few that you might like to try by: Cooking Cute, Rashad Maiden, What's Cooking America, Kathy YL Chan, and a YouTube vid by Single Guy Chef showing the macguiver style use of a can of spam as the mold. This last method is not recommended for the accident prone chef.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Oh Romeo...
$9.50 - Feta Dill Fritters: A blend of gyros meat, feta cheese, fresh dill, spinach and pine nuts. Served with yogurt sauce. The three of us, all had our eyes on this and it was also our waiters favorite appetizer. He wisely suggested that one appetizer would be good for us…These were lovely every bite: Crunchy on the outside, warm and savory on the inside. The yogurt sauce brightened up the slightly heavy appetizer and made you think you could eat more.
$9 regular price, but had it as a side to my entrée. Bleu Cesar Salad: Tomatoes, spring onions, red peppers and capers, tossed with bleu cheese, Italian dressing on romaine lettuce with homemade croutons. Anchovies. I don’t mine had Anchovies, but this little salad was clean and simply delicious every bite. But, by now, I was starting to get full and worried, I wouldn’t have room for my entrée and dessert!
$15 - Penne Carbonara: Ham and bacon sautéed with red and green bell peppers in creamy cheese sauce with penne pasta . This was the birthday boy’s selection and yet again, I was able to sample a yummy mouthful. I’m a believer in that if the dish has bacon in it, then it’s going to be good. In addition to the bacon, the sauce was my favorite. It was creamy, but not too heavy, which is contrary to the Carbonara I’ve had a few times before. Again, not a bad thing. This was so good the next day too. Plenty of left overs.
$18 - Tortellini Kalypso: Crab meat, asparagus, red peppers, garlic, onions with tricolor cheese tortellini in creamy white wine sauce. This was my dish and it’s a beauty. Colorful pasta and veggies and you wouldn’t know it by looking at it, but every bite, had a large chunk of real crab meat. That alone made this dish a winner for me. While the price tag looks steep, it’s worth it, because this dish was deep. I was thouroughly bursting, but was surprised to see I barely made a dent.
$ 17 - Garlic Pesto Chicken: Chicken breast sautéed with roasted garlic, pine nuts and olive oil in basil pesto cream. My brother-in-law Ray wanted to test out what his favorite dish would taste like here at Euro Café. He liked it a lot, but wasn’t feeling the extra creaminess of the sauce…he also preferred the lighter cream sauce of the Carbonara dish.
Euro Café doesn’t have a set Dessert Menu because the selection varies day to day, depending on how long it takes them to make. While my two companions, were too stuffed to stand, I gleefully mozied over to the dessert counter and ogled at all the goodies behind the glass. I finally decided upon two truffles and a slice of three-layered cheesecake labeled “Fantasy” as an ode to my hubby’s favorite online sports pastime. I let our waiter know that the three of would be sharing the desserts and walked back excitedly to our table. The desserts were served a few moments later, but the waiter teased, by placing a truffle in front of Ron & Ray and the huge cheesecake slice in front of me! LOL! We shared, honest! Ok, well, I finished up the cake…and the chocolate drizzles…As if that wasn’t enough, Ray, ordered a Baklava Cheesecake to-go! He told me later, that it was goooooood. Judging from what we ate that night, I believe him.
Pecan (Fantasy) Cheesecake (I think this was about $5 a slice)
Chocolate Powdered Truffle (This was about $1.50)
Chocolate Ganache Pecan Truffle (This was a little more than $1.50)
Baklava Cheesecake (Don’t know, Ray got this to take home.)
Passion fruit tea $2.25 (just a regular flavored tea, good.)
Needless to say, we will go back to Romeo’s Euro Café several more times.
Heritage Court
480-962-4224
http://www.eurocafe.com/menus/EuroCafeMenu.pdf
http://www.eurocafe.com/Static/About_Euro_Cafe.html hours and directions
Thursday, November 6, 2008
No more treats?!
First treat bearers, I have to thank, are Ray and Christina...who came by with two huge pink boxes! I knew those pink boxes could be up to no good. And indeed they held some devilishly sweet treats from the local donut shop, Bosa Donuts. They had with them a dozen assorted donuts, some sprinkled, some cake, some chocolate, some glazed. But my eyes zoomed in on two donuts that bring back childhood memories, of cinnamon on my mom's apron and the ring of the bell, as early morning customers stopped in to my family run "Lola Lly's Donutery".
The creations that mom and dad lined their trays with every morning sure could make a girl swoon. But, my first two donut affairs were staring back at me inside those pink Bosa boxes: Cinnamon Crumb and Boston Cream. Oh, my, oh my...I gobbled up the Boston faster than you could say "Lola Lly's Donutery". The donut bread was yummy and soft and filled with oh so good creamy goodness. The Cinnamon Crumb met a similar fate the next day. Unfortunately, I must watch my donut intake, another nuisance of poly cystic ovary syndrome, so I sent the rest of the lovelies to work with my hubby Ron. Lucky co-workers.
This is not the first taste of Bosa, I've had. I went with another friend Ninette, one day, just on her craving for it. This is small mom & pop biz with a drive-through and inside a couple of booths that seat up to 4. We were pleased to learn they also serve bagels, icecream and smoothies. But we focused on donut holes and french cruellers. All soft and yummy. I can't recall what smoothie I had, but I do remember I liked it, but with the combination of donuts and smoothie...it was a bit too mush sweet for me. On the other hand, Little Mia downed a near dozen donut holes! The customer service was friendly and prompt. The food was yummy, fresh and affordable. Simple decor, a little outdated, but it reminds me of my parent's donut shop back in Virginia, so it felt like home.
Bosa Donuts
1016 N Arizona Avenue
Chandler, AZ 85225
(480) 899-7134
~ . ~
The 2nd treat bearer that I have to thank is Myrna! She came to drop off Mr. Marley for some hang out time, while she went to do errands...but before she left she revealed a very dubious white (unfortunately styro) container. Can't judge a book by it's cover, right? So, I opened it immediately because I hadn't eaten lunch and it was already 3pm...inside were two half slices of cake that I knew from looking at them...were Better Than Sex Cake Classic and Chocolate Ecstacy!!!!! Myrna & I shared a slice of BTS cake Classic before and the memories of it's moist sweetness made my eyeballs bulge out of their sockets. So, it was without question, skip lunch. Eat desert first! I wanted "Ecstacy" first and plunged my fork into it's moist darkness: Chocolate Cake, Coffee, Coffee Liqour, Chicolate Mocha, Sweetened Raspberry, Topped with Whipped Crream and Shaved Chocolate. YUM! The raspberry seeds, may be off-putting to some, but, I didn't mind the little bits.
BTSCC is located in a quaint little shopping center, off the main intersection of Arizona Ave and Pecos, just south of Downtown Chandler's town center. Park behind the deli, walk underneath the little vine covered arches and follow the path to the left. That's where you'll hit the spot where they make cake that espouses to be better than sex. Now that of course is a topic I won't go into too much detail. But, I will say, that take a bite of their cake, and you may elicit an ooooh! or an aaaaahhh!
Marely sure wanted a taste, but sadly for him, my BTS cake leftovers were saved for my hubby. I am after all a one man kinda gal.
Oh, don't forget you can get a $1.99 BTSCC slice, if you print out their > coupon <
241 S Oregon St
Chandler, AZ 85225
480-722-1220
Friday, June 13, 2008
Quick Bite Recipe: Turkey Brie Roll
Anyhow...that's just a sneak peak into what I live breath sleep and think about all day. It's no wonder I have no interest lately in cooking. Well, today, was one of those days, where I just could not pry myself from the laptop for too long, not even to eat. But, my stomach growls finally forced me off the net & into the kitchen. I opened the fridge and all I had was rice from last night, sliced smoked turkey, and a big wedge of brie.
Could be a disappointing fare for the unimaginative. But, creativity being my thing...i quickly thought of the fastest way to deliver those into my tummy. It's not really a new idea...no, I can not take credit for The Roll. But, well, this combination, I dare say, I have yet to see on a menu. These puppies are done up psuedo sushi style, becuase there's cold rice, toasted sesame seeds, and Furikake involved.
1. Center a little log of cold Jasmine rice down the center of a deli slice of smoked turkey. I especially love the Hormel Natural Choice Smoked Deli Turkey because it tastes good and it has no artificicial preservatives and no hormones. But, if none of that matters to you, use whatever kind of deli meat you love.
2. Add a half slice of brie soft cheese atop the rice. I bought this brie from Costco the other day, and really loved it. It's creamy and has a nice mild tart afterbite.
3. Roll it up. That's it. the toothpicks are just to hold it in place long enough to take the picture. These things went fast. I ate about 5 rolls. As a final touch, I sprinked toasted sesame seeds for the nutty flavor. And Furikake for a nice saltyness.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Corn "Compostable Clamshell"
I love it when company's take hold of their environmental impact and most importantly make significant changes in their practices. One thing that irks me, is why companies are not held legally bound to use earthy friendly packaging. I know that changes on a grand scale take time. That's why I'm so happy to see when companies do their part now. I love organicgirl. There. I said it.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Crispy Sushi Icecream
(inspired by Mojo's from Moto's in Phoenix)
You'll Need:1 bag or 2 of marshmellows
1 box of rice crispies
Butter or I Can't Believe It's Not Butter
Magnolia Green Tea Ice Cream or Neopolitan Ice Cream.
Little Debbie Brownies or whatever brownies you've got.
Chocolate, Strawberry, and/or Caramel syrup.
Red or orange sugar sprinkles.
Plastic Wrap.
1 or more Rectangular Pyrex dish(es) at least 13 in. long...
OK...Are you Ready?
1. Before you start the rice crispy action, take out your
icecream & set it on the counter to soften a tad bit. (If you
do choose to use Magnolia Green Tea Icecream...it gets
soft fast, so no need to set it out on the counter.)
2. Prep your other "sushi filling". Slice the brownies thin &
long. (Because later, you'll be laying it down the center from
one end of the pan to the other.) Have all your syrup bottles
and sprinkle bottles open. Shoot...you can line up any kind
of toppings you want to put inside: nuts, cut up candybars,
more marshmellows, cookie dough, whatever! Just make
sure they are open, cut up, set out & ready for action.
3. Then, prep your Pyrex, by laying an oversized sheet of
plastic wrap inside it. Letting a good amount to hang over
the sides. Then, smother the plastic wrap with your butter
of choice. (If you're making more than one roll, have 2-3
other pyrex prepped as well)
4. Now, basically, Follow instructions on the marshmellow
bag on how to make rice crispy treats, except add a
handfull of extra marshmellows from bag #2 or don't use the
entire box of rice crispy cereal...less by 2 cups. (reason being:
more marshmellows make it easier to spread...you'll see)
5. While the rice crispy mixture is still hot, start scooping it
out and smoothing it out, edge to edge, onto the buttered
plastic wrapped pyrex. Try to make it a maximum thickness
of 3/4 inch. (Any thicker, and it gets harder to roll up later)
Work quickly, if you intend on making more than one sushi
icecream roll. Because once the mixture gets cold...it's
pretty hard to smooth out and you're left with a pot of one big
rice crispy treat...which isn't bad, but not what we're going for.
6. Next, quickly smooth out your icecream down the center
(LENGTHWISE!) but avoid smoothing it all the way to the top
& bottom...LEAVE a 1 inch min. border on the top & bottom.
The icecream layer should be about 3/4 inch deep.
7. Speedily layer your other "sushi fillings" down the center
(LENGTHWISE)...don't make it too thick now...remember,
you gotta be able to Roll this puppy next.
8. (this part can get messy) Lift the Plastic Wrap edge
closest to you, then start rolling the whole thing, but be sure
NOT to roll the plastic wrap into the sushi roll. After you get
the whole thing rolled, take the same plastic wrap to cover
it up, and twist the ends, then pop it in the freezer to let the
icecream get hard again...about an hour later, remove the
plastic wrap, set on a nice serving dish, take a sharp knife
and slice the roll. (1 - 1 1/2 inch thick each piece.)
For added flare, drizzle chocolate, red sprinkles, and whip
cream over top individual servings. Best if eaten the day it's
prepared. If it's not eaten up in one sitting, then it will keep
in the freezer for several weeks, but, the rice crispies will
lose 90% of their crispiness.
After I learn how to make chocolate ganache, I plan on
layering a thin layer of chocolate ganache on top of the
rice crispies before smoothing down the icecream layer.
Or putting the chocolate ganache layer first, then the rice
crispies...the possiblities are endless with this.
Have fun! And send me pictures if you try this out.
from mars
living a life inspired!