For love of balsamic vinegar!

My gentleman and I recently came back from a visit to Houston. During this visit, we ate. We ate a lot. Like, a lot A LOT. And much of it was not necessarily healthy eating. Delicious eating, but not always healthy. So, when we got back, we moved to this place in our lives where we decided we needed to step up our health game - eat better, be more active. The day after we got back, we finally signed up for a Krav Maga studio about 20 minutes away, and I stopped at the local grocer to get salad and some simple meats. Then, we proceeded to have a veritable feast of balsamic vinegary foods. By the end of the week, my belly was in throes of ecstasy that have since calmed down due to this no longer being the menu. However, the leftover possibilities for these dishes are tremendous, and worked well for our surprisingly busy summer lifestyle.


Baked Balsamic Brussels Sprouts

1 bag brussels sprouts (I use the big one from Costco) cleaned and halved
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 tbsp lemon olive oil
1/4 c blackberry white balsamic vinegar
1 dash red wine vinegar
1 dash olive oil
fresh ground pepper to taste

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Cover a large baking sheet or pan with foil.
2. In a boil, combine all ingredients and toss to cover the brussels sprouts.
3. Bake in oven for about 25 minutes. If you like, you can take them out at around 15 minutes and stir the brussels sprouts so they cook more evenly.
4. When the 25 minute mark hits, check to make sure that your sprouts are finished - they should be easy to eat. You decide how crispy you want them to be.
5. Enjoy! I like to reserve some of the sprouts for salads later on. They go great with a simple spring mix and chicken salad.

Steak Strips with Mushrooms and Onions

2 thin steaks - sandwich or thin flank steaks work beautifully for this - cut into thin strips

1/2 onion, chopped

1/4 c sliced mushrooms

2 tsp minced garlic

1/2 in ginger paste or fresh ginger

1 tbsp olive oil

1/4 c balsamic vinegar

fresh ground pepper to taste

1. Heat the oil and the pan for about 3-4 minutes. 
2. Throw in the onions, mushrooms, and half of the vinegar.
3. Cook until the onions are soft and the vinegar has started to thicken. Remove this mixture from pan. 
4. Add a dash more of olive oil to the pan. Allow to heat for about 2 minutes. 
5. Add steak strips and remaining balsamic vinegar to the pan and cook until brown. 
6. Add garlic and stir.
7. Pour onion/mushrooms mixture into the pan and allow vinegar to cook down.
8. Serve on tortillas with lettuce, or over rice. 

*The leftovers for this are delightful when mixed with leftover balsamic chicken and served over rice.

Please let me know if you try any of the recipes on my blog! I would love to hear how they turn out!

Buffalo everything!

About seven years ago, I moved back to the city where I went to high school, my parents' house, and every bad memory I ever had there. Don't get me wrong, there were spectacular things that I was able to do in the year following that move, and it was great to get to see my family more often than two or three times a year. It was even better once I moved out and every time I saw them was on purpose and a happy occasion.

During that time, I also got to hang out with one of my best friends. For whatever reason, we were obsessed with boneless buffalo wings. We would eat out just for boneless buffalo wings, Arby's shaker tenders were a godsend (not delicious, but still something worth a try every now and then), and we constantly found ourselves munching on them for about two months. Then we slowed down and moved back into being real adults.

Every now and then, I still want them. I still love buffalo flavored things. So, one day I decided that it was high time to make a buffalo themed dinner.

Creamy Buffalo Chicken and Cauliflower

Creamy Buffalo Sauce
1 c Greek yogurt
1/2 c hot sauce (I used Crystal buffalo sauce) - you can use more if you like your sauce really spicy
pinch of salt

To make the sauce, merely stir or whisk all ingredients together. It's really simple.

Baked Buffalo Chicken
1/2 c Buffalo sauce (reserve the rest for the cauliflower and dipping after everything is cooked)
2 chicken breasts
Panko crumbs (optional)

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place a layer of buffalo sauce in the bottom of your loaf pan, and then put the two chicken breasts over that, making sure to squish them nicely in the sauce. Pour the remaining sauce over the breasts. Bake for 30 minutes.

*If using panko crumbs, dip chicken breasts in sauce and then cover with crumbs. Place on a baking sheet covered in foil and bake for 30 minutes.

Baked Buffalo Cauliflower
1/4 c Buffalo sauce
1 head cauliflower, rinsed and cut into bite-sized pieces
salt and pepper to taste

Cover a small baking sheet with aluminum foil and set to the side. Dip each piece of cauliflower in the creamy buffalo sauce and place on the baking sheet. Make sure you space the cauliflower out evenly over the sheet so it will bake correctly. Once you have dipped all of your cauliflower, grind salt and pepper over it all to taste. Bake for 25-30.

Serve your chicken and cauliflower with a salad and the remaining sauce for dipping. You can also have blue cheese dressing to dip for additional flavor.

What to do with part of leftover crawfish!

I have a serious problem. I've mentioned it before, but it rears its head far too often for me to be able to pretend that it isn't chronic. It's avoidable. I have controlled it in the past, but right now it is a hard beast to battle.

I am very bad at letting recipes simply be. And that is if there is a recipe!

Saturday night, the gentleman and I had crawfish with some friends of ours. Not just a little. Oh no! We went ahead and ordered 20 lbs of the stuff because we weren't sure how much we would end up eating. Let me tell you, 20 lbs of crawfish is a lot. Even though the tales are tiny and a lot of work, they are also delicious. So, we gathered around the picnic table, a pile of brilliantly red crustaceans in front of us and dug in. Once we made it halfway through, we realized we would never be able to finish. So, we peeled the rest, divided the haul in half, and went our separate ways.

Sunday rolled around, and I woke up around 7:30, awake and feeling like I should do something. So I did. The gentleman sounded like he was about to die, so I let him sleep and decided to make breakfast using the various things we had floating in our fridge. By the end of the process, I had finished two loads of laundry, made coffee, cleaned the kitchen, and cooked one of the better breakfasts I've made. All in all, I was quite satisfied with the day. Now, without further ado, I give you my recipe for leftover omelets with potatoes, crawfish, and cheese sauce!

Leftover Omelets Featuring Cumin Potatoes and Crawfish

Omelet
1 handful of crawfish tails, halved or diced
1/2 c of leftover baked cumin potatoes (or pan-fried potato cubes)
4 eggs
1 tbsp milk
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic (or about 1 tsp minced garlic)
Salt and pepper to taste

Cheese Sauce
1 c milk
1/2 c cheese of choice, diced (I used a delicious comte, but can use any kind)
1 tbsp cream cheese
1 in ginger paste
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp chipotle chile powder
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, place biscuits on cookie sheet and cook as instructed. (I used Grands because I like how flaky they are.)
2. Start milk heating in a sauce pan, whisking frequently.
3. Once the milk is hot and starting to boil, add the cream cheese and whisk as it melts.
4. Keep an eye on the milk mixture and start heating your frying pan and olive oil. Once they are hot, add the leftover potatoes and garlic, stirring as needed to keep from burning.
5. Whisk together eggs and milk, set aside.
6. Add the diced cheese to the original milk mixture and continue mixing every few minutes to help the cheese melt smoothly.
7. Add the crawfish tails to the potato mixture, stir two or three times, and then evenly distribute the contents over the bottom of the frying pan. Make sure your burner is at medium or medium-low heat. Pour the egg mixture over the potatoes and swirl the pan around to make sure everything is coated. Allow the eggs to cook, as you would an omelet. I like to swirl the eggs every few minutes to coat the edges which have crisped.
8. Add the remaining ingredients to the cheese sauce (ginger paste, garlic powder, chili powder, cayenne powder, salt, and pepper) and whisk to combine. Allow the sauce to cook down until everything is finished. If the sauce becomes too thick, add a little more milk.
9. Once your egg mixture is mostly cooked, other than the top, you can decide how you want to flip your omelet. I folded mine like a burrito and then flipped it over. If you prefer a more traditional fold, then do that!
10. Once the omelet is done (no more egg oozing), cut it in half and plate it. I added some extra leftover potatoes and a biscuit, which we ate with butter and homemade cherry jam. Don't forget to drizzle liberally with the cheese sauce!
11. Have with a delicious cup of coffee or orange juice, and enjoy!

My Favorite Chicken EVER!

I teach high school esl, and sometimes I just do not want to have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen after dealing with children all day. On those days, my favorite thing to do is toss things in balsamic vinegar and minced garlic and then roast them in the oven for however long is needed. This recipe came from one of those days when nothing sounded particularly nice, but I wanted something fast and easy. At the end, I threw in a sprig of rosemary we had gotten from my gentleman's parents, and you wouldn't believe how amazing this smelled!

This recipe has become one of my go-tos for practically all of my chicken needs - quesadillas, salads, pizza, fried rice, and anything else you would put chicken on. My gentleman and I also love to eat this on its own with a delicious salad and some baked brussels sprouts or asparagus. This is also one of the easiest ways I have ever tried to make chicken as well.

If you use this recipe, please comment with what you did. I always love new ways to make dinner!


Garlic Ginger Crusted Balsamic Chicken

2 chicken breasts
~1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp minced garlic
2 inches ginger paste
1 long sprig fresh rosemary
a dash of olive oil

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Place both chicken breasts in a loaf pan and dash sparingly with olive oil. Put 1 tbsp garlic and an inch of ginger paste on each breast and rub in to create a coating. Pour balsamic over both breasts, place the sprig of rosemary over them, and put them into the oven. Bake the chicken for 30 minutes and serve with a couple of delicious vegetables!

Asian-Inspired Pork Meatloaf/Dumpling Filling

My name is Kylle, and I've been experimenting with food since I started cooking around age ten. My biggest failure was trying to create dessert mashed potato that included cinnamon and sugar. My family still likes to talk about how bad those potatoes were, and tease me about being worried for my next experiment.

I love cooking, though, and I can't stop experimenting more and more as time goes by. And, from what I hear from my gentleman, I shouldn't stop either!

My cooking is a strange combination of Chinese inspiration, random ingredients pieced together, and whatever I decide I want to try. I try to do a lot of fast, easy, and cheap meals, but that so often does not work out. I love complicated flavors and can almost never leave a recipe alone. I doubt this blog will be updated very regularly (I'm not great at habitual things), but I'm going to do my best to put up the best recipes I can come up with. Fair warning - most everything I do involves a lot of guesswork and estimated measurements, but I do my best.

Today, I made an Asian-inspired meatloaf from leftover dumpling pork with no recipe, and it ended up being DELICIOUS! You can either use the entire recipe for the meatloaf, or you can make some dumplings and then the meatloaf from the remains. Remember that the portions are easily altered to taste, and pretty much everything is estimated. Use your good judgement.

Asian-Inspired Pork Meatloaf (and/or Dumpling Filling)

2 lbs ground pork
1 bunch cilantro
6 green onions
3-5 cloves of garlic
1 inch of ginger paste (can use fresh shredded ginger)
~7 generous splashes of soy sauce
~3 generous splashes of sesame oil
~7 generous splashes of white (or rice) vinegar
~3 splashes of red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
5 grinds of fresh ground pepper

Spicy Sauce
~4 tbsp soy sauce
~2 tbsp white or rice vinegar
3 splashes red wine vinegar
2 tsp sriracha
1/2 tsp sesame oil
(Whisk all ingredients together to combine)

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Mix all ingredients together. Form the mixture into a loaf, or put into a normal loaf pan. Cover with the sauce and put into the oven for 20-30 minutes depending on size. (I used only about 1/3 to 1/2 the mixture since I had made dumplings and fried rice a few days earlier.) Make sure your meatloaf is cooked through, and then enjoy with the remaining sauce. I baked potatoes and poured a little of the extra sauce on top with some melted cream cheese and fresh ground pepper.

I hope you enjoy this, and I look forward to sharing more with you!