Saved by Sushi

And this is why I married the guy! Besides his devilish good looks and ability to walk on stilts, this might be one of my favorite things about him: he knows how to win me over with fresh sushi.

My office was slammed today. Lunch is usually my escape, but not today. As soon as I walked into the kitchen I realized I had 5 minutes to rush back. Needless to say, my lunch plans were scraped and I started to hope I could find 15 quiet minutes later in the day to at least scarf down a crusty bagel (gluten free! Udi’s Handcrafted Foods Plain Bagels).

Thankfully a knight in shining armor saved me by delivering a plate of sushi, complete with a side of Diet Coke.

Lunch  

• Max’s California-ish Rolls
• Yellow Fin Sashimi
• Diet Coke

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Sushi Rice

Prepared Short Grain Rice, still warm

Sushi Vinegar

Fan

Rice Paddle

Cookie Sheet

Plastic Wrap

Four Hands

1. Cover your cookie sheet with plastic wrap (this is awesome for clean up!), then dump your rice onto it.
2. Add your sushi vinegar to the pile 1 Tbs at a time then “cut” it in. You don’t want to mix it because it will lose the consistency you want; instead you slice into it with your rice paddle repeatedly until it is thoroughly mixed in.
3. While you are cutting in the vinegar you need your other hand (or a borrowed hand) fanning the rice to cool it. The longer you take to cool it, the drier your rice will turn out.
4. Keep adding the vinegar until you get the taste you are looking for, no amount is a wrong amount.
5. When you are ready to roll sushi be sure to only handle the rice with wet hands, that way the rice won’t stick to your fingers.

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Happiness is a Good Pasta Sauce

Our garden is slow going this year. With the colder than normal temperatures in the NW we have had lame fruit and veggies that take fooorrrever to ripen. Luckily we planted 12 tomato plants and hung up a “Topsy Turvey”. Still, the fruits of our labor (ha) are barely enough to cover dinner each night.

If you ever asked me what my favorite food was, I would automatically give you my Creamy Tomato sauce recipe. Perfect over salty Chicken Parmesan on a bed of (gluten free!) noodles, yum. The sauce is light, sweet, tangy, and just rich enough. I am drooling thinking about it!

Dinner

• Chicken Parmesan 
• Ancient Harvest Gluten Free Spaghetti (the best!) 
• Loads of Creamy Tomato Sauce 
• Naked Wineries Vixen Syrah

Seriously, still drooling over here, it is almost embarrassing at this point.

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Creamy Tomato Sauce

3-4 Cups Tomatoes, use fresh and a variety of Cherry, Plum, and Romas, skins removed.

3-4 Cloves Garlic chopped (I like garlic a lot)

1 Shallot chopped

2 Tbs Butter

¼ Cup Heavy Cream

¼ Cup Shredded Parmesan (or more, to taste)

Salt

Step #2, Half Way Through

1. Place butter, onions, and garlic over med heat. Sautee until translucent and soft.
2. Add tomatoes to the mixture bring to a high simmer then turn down heat to a low simmer. Cook until most of the tomatoes break apart and are soft. About 15-25 minutes.
3. Add the cream, stirring frequently over medium heat for around 5 minutes, or until it starts to thicken.
4. Turn off heat on the burner and add the Parmesan, stirring constantly until melted.
5. I don’t add salt; this is a perfect taste to me on its own. But if it is too sweet for you, this is where you would add a pinch of salt.
6. Serve immediately or the cheese will clump and separate.

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The wine? Adorable bottle, cute slogans, all in all a nice package! The wine itself wasn't half bad, but for $20+ a bottle? Could have been better.

Pierogis-A-Go-Go

We have a local restaurant in town that has great food and I used to waitress at. Some of the best memories I have of working there were coming home after a horribly long dinner shift with a huge bag of food (half off dinners!) that we would spread out on the coffee table and feast on. One of our favorite things to get was the pierogies. Pastas stuffed with potatoes and cheese, covered in bacon and sautéed onions, and dipped in sour cream? Yum.

We both were craving comfort food the other night and you guessed it, this is what we wanted. So, we learned how to make a pierogi.

Comfort Snack

§            Pierogies

§            Whatever-was-left-in-the-cooler-mish-mash-beer

We ended up with too many to eat so we froze them to eat later.

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Pierogies

3 Cups Flour (for the gluten free variation use my flour mix)

¼ Cup Olive Oil

1 Cup Water

1 Tsp Salt

2 Cups Prepared Mashed Potatoes

1 Cup Grated Cheese

Butter for browning

Red Onion, sliced

6 Strips Cooked Bacon

Sour Cream

1. Mix together flour, water, and olive oil in a bowl or mixer (you can mix with your dough hook on med for 1 minute) until well blended. Turn onto a floured surface and knead for 3-5 minutes, or until a good elastic consistency. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30.
2. Roll out the dough on a floured surface until 1/8 inch thick. Use the mouth of a glass or a cookie cutter to cut out circles from the dough.
3. Mix together potatoes and cheese. Make a 1 inch ball from the mixture and place in the middle of one of the dough circles. Fold the dough circle over and pinch the edges to “seal” the potato mixture inside.  Repeat for all the other pierogies.
4. Drop pierogies a few at a time into a pot of boiling water, be sure to not crowd them. Let boil 7-10 minutes or until they are all floating and appear done. Remove from water, drain, rinse with cold water, and lay out to dry for 15-20 minutes, turning once.
5. Heat butter in a skillet over med-high heat and place onion slices and dried piergoies in the pan. “brown” each side for 2-4 minutes and then flip when golden and starting to crisp. Drain.
6. Serve with crumbled bacon over the top and dipped in sour cream.

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Gluten Free "Flour"

I recently discovered that I have a mild wheat intolerance. Stomach issue plagued me for a long time until I figured this out. Now, I will “cheat” just like I would on a diet; I get excited, open up a baguette, devour it… then an hour later feel like someone just punched me in the stomach. But for the most part I will try and stick to wheat (or gluten) free alternatives. Max has even gotten great at putting together wheat free breads for me.

So far the BEST “flour” I have found is a blend that I can use in substitution for flour in any recipe. It seems to dry out some recipes more than others, so add more liquid as needed.

1 Part Rice Flour

1 Part Potato Starch (not potato flour, if you can't find potato starch you can substitute tapioca starch)

1 Part Cornstarch

1/2 Part Fine Corn Flour

1/2 part Tapioca Starch

1 Tsp Xanthan Gum Per Cup of Flour Mix

We make up big batches of this blend and store it in an airtight container in the fridge.

Camping Ribs

Camping food is always a treat; you are dirty, hungry, and generally ready to tear into anything you can get your hands on. Over the weekend we went on a short camping trip with friends and decided to really make a dinner fit for camping.

Dinner

§            BBQed Ribs

§            Baked Red Potatoes

§            Corn on the Cob

Since we were camping we paired this with beer, Bud Light to be exact, delicious and refreshing.

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The Perfect BBQed Ribs

3-4 Pounds Beef Ribs

4 Tbs Water

2 Tsp Hickory Flavored Liquid Smoke

Bottle of BBQ Sauce (homemade or Sweet Baby Rays are our favorites)

Heavy Duty Tin Foil

1. Start warming your grill (med high heat). Cut the ribs up into sections of 2-3 ribs.
2. Place the 2 sections of ribs on tin foil and fold up into a “pouch” (so that liquid placed in the tin foil can’t leak), leaving one side open. Repeat until you are out of ribs.
3. Mix together the water and liquid smoke then pour evenly into each pouch. Seal the end of the pouches.
4. Before you place the ribs on the grill, be sure to turn off the burners directly under where the ribs will be placed. You want indirect heat. We have 4 burners on our grill, so I turn off the two middle ones and place the ribs there, with the two on the outer edges still burning.
5. “Smoke” the ribs like this for 1-1.5 hours, turning the ribs every 20 minutes or so.
6. Remove the ribs from the tinfoil and place back on the grill, same indirect heat as before. Brush one side with BBQ sauce and let it caramelize (lid closed) for 10-15 minutes. Flip the rib, brush other side with BBQ sauce, let caramelize for another 10-15 minutes. Repeat this until you get the BBQ sauce consistency you like (takes me about 4 cycles of this, 2 times on each side).

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No chicken?

Our house is usually like a zoo; we have friends coming and going, family coming and going, dogs here and there, and just general chaos. Today was supposed to be an exception to that. The plan was to relax at home with a cocktail in hand with a close friend of ours. Dinner was to be ready by the time I got off work (started it at lunch!) and no worries!

Well, not so much. 

After stewing the chicken for the right amount of time I congratulated myself on a perfectly done chicken, pulled it out of the stock pot, and started to debone it. I walked away for a few minutes while it cooled to the back of the house. Faintly I thought I heard a few loud thuds. Odd I thought, no one else is here. I folded a few more towels, then it hit me; the chicken is on the counter and the dogs are in the kitchen. I ran through the house, passing two of the sleeping dogs in the office then another dog playing with a squeaker, I thought I was in the clear. Nope. In the kitchen was our oldest girl, Diesel, smacking her lips and giving me a smile to show she appreciated her afternoon snack. 

Sigh, there goes dinner. 

So, what do you make when you're in a pinch?