Balsamic-Roasted Red Pepper Sauce with Shrimp and Chicken

The aforementioned balsamic-roasted red pepper sauce with chicken and shrimp,

garlic couscous, and a spinach salad with a cranberry-balsamic vinaigrette.

In January, I was given a free ticket to go visit my fantastic friend Michael in St. Paul, Minnesota. I've never been there, hadn't seen him in aaaaages, and was super excited. As always, it was a fantastic couple of days of mocking each other, watching ridiculous movies, and going on exciting thrift store hunts. Micheal's prize-find was a couch for his office, super cheap! Mine was a pair raspberry Doc Martins, also for super cheap. We were pleased.

Pleased and hungry.

Now, we ate out once and had pizza another night. But! I also made pumpkin-ginger cupcakes (which I NEED to post on here, they are my most requested cupcakes, and he had informed me from the first time I said I was visiting that I would, in fact, be making them) and Michael made a balsamic roasted red pepper sauce for some chicken.

Holy deliciousness, Batman. I demanded the recipe.

Then, promptly, I altered it. Because that's what you do. He did it too! It's the delicious way.

Seriously, nom. Make lots of variations. It was originally based on a recipe from About.com for Spicy Cornish Hens. I do quite a lot of variation, as you can see. It is spicy, it has some sweetness to it, and it goes deliciously with chicken and/or shrimp. I also like to add couscous as a grain. I prefer them to be whole wheat, but it is up to you.

My Ingredients!

- 10 oz roasted red peppers (I have also done roasted red-and-yellow peppers)
- 3 tablespoons seedless, all-natural, blackberry jam
- 2 teaspoons French mustard
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2/3 teaspoon rosemary
- 2 -3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
- dash sea salt
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne (or less or more, depending on how spicy you would prefer)

Put all the ingredients in a food processor/blender/silver-bullet style zoom-machine. Whizz until smooth, taste, and adjust seasonings as you prefer.

On the stove, have a deep skillet and spray a non-fat cooking spray (actual oil would also work...) and cook your protein and/or veg. When partially cooked, pour sauce over it and let finish cooking - the sauce will reduce somewhat.

Enjoy with a glass of wine!

Or any beverage. Or none, but this is a chance to get your eight glasses of water a day.

No joke, this smells and tastes amazing. It has received rave reviews and I can not encourage you enough to try this. Lock it down - it's delicious.

Source: http://kitchenry.blogspot.com/

BK Supperclub Challenge: Seitan Steak in Beurre Blanc Sauce with Oven-Baked French Fries

This Bitchin' Kitchen Supperclub Challenge was probably a meat-eater's dream. Rib-eye steak cooked in tons of butter with a white wine butter sauce served with french fries cooked in duck fat. Yuck!! Tons of cruelty, tons of calories, tons of fat, tons of NO WAY!!

What a great challenge, though, for me to veganize! I love being able to show that I can make a very similar and delicious dish that is much healthier and more importantly, compassionate. The plan seemed simple: leave the cow alone and use seitan for the steak, swap out the butter for vegan butter and the fries would be oven-baked.

Since going gluten-free, I don't make seitan very often but I wanted to do this challenge and I feel bad that Tom, who does not need to be gluten-free, eats that way because of me. I know he misses seitan; I do too, so you can imagine how happy he was to see this meal!!

I used to boil the seitan and it was a hit or miss experience. Sometimes it came out perfectly and sometimes it was soft and jiggly, kind of like meaty jello. But now I've switched to Terry Hope Romero's technique of steaming the seitan and it's so much better. It's firmer and chewier and just perfect. If you don't already have Terry's book, Viva Vegan!, go get it! NOW! I'll wait....

Ok, so now that you have Terry's beautiful and amazing book of vegan Latin recipes, we can continue. I didn't play around much with her recipe. I added some flaxseed because I'm always looking for excuses to add them into my food and I, of course, added more spices.

The Beurre Blanc Sauce is Nadia G's recipe except that it's vegan and instead of tarragon (which I didn't have), I used a combination of fresh parsley and fennel fronds. The combination gives a similar flavor to tarragon. And the fries were oven-baked to crispy perfection. Parboiling them before baking them helps them get that crisp texture we all want from fries.

The result: a beautiful, elegant dish that would make a beautiful Valentine's Day dinner. In fact, I think it's going to make it into my Valentine's Day Menu coming up soon. I love these Supperclub Challenges because what it shows me again and again is that being compassionate is really not a challenge at all. Next time someone says vegans can't enjoy a thick, juicy steak, prove them wrong with my Seitan Steak in Beurre Blanc Sauce with Oven-Baked French Fries.

Seitan Steak in Beurre Blanc Sauce

For the Seitan Steak:

Ingredients
1 ½ cups cold low-sodium vegetable broth
4 cloves garlic, grated
3 Tbs. tamari
4 Tbs. tomato paste
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 ½ cups vital wheat gluten flour
¼ cup chickpea flour
¼ cup nutritional yeast
2 Tbs. ground flax seed
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. ground cumin
½ tsp. ground coriander
½ tsp. paprika

Directions
In a large bowl, combine the vital wheat gluten, chickpea flour, nutritional yeast, flaxseed, and spices. In a smaller bowl, combine the broth, garlic, tamari, tomato paste and olive oil. Mix well.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir with a rubber spatula until you have a dough. Knead by hand for 3 minutes and the dough will become firmer as the gluten develops. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes and then knead again for a minute.

Place the dough on a cutting board and divide into 4-6 equal pieces, depending how big you want each piece to be. Knead each piece and form each into the shape of a steak or cutlet.

Wrap each piece loosely in a piece of aluminum foil. Place the foil packets in a steamer and steam for 30 minutes. If you are making more than 4 packets, you might want to do this in batches so the steamer isn’t too crowded and each packet has room to expand. When the steaks cool, transfer them to the refrigerator for at least an hour but preferably, overnight in a container.

Oven-Baked French Fries

Ingredients
2 – 4 large russet potatoes, sliced into French fries
4 cups water
1 tsp. Kosher salt
2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp. paprika
¼ tsp. black pepper
A pinch of cayenne
Non-stick cooking spray

Directions
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Put the potato slices into a large pot of cold water. There should be just enough water to cover the potatoes. Bring the water to a boil and add the salt. Cook the potatoes for about 5-8 minutes or until they are just shy of fork-tender. They should be cooked about 75% of the way.

Remove the potatoes from the heat, drain them in a colander and run cold water over the potatoes to stop the cooking. Dry the potatoes on paper towels or with clean dish towels. You want the potatoes to be pretty much dry.

Transfer the potatoes to a large bowl. Add the oil and spices and mix well. Place the potatoes on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Turn the potatoes and bake for 10 minutes more or until they are golden and crisping up. When they look about ready, turn the oven to broil and broil the potatoes for just 5 minutes. Serve while hot.

For the Beurre Blanc Sauce:

Ingredients
1/4 cup vegan dry white wine
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 shallots, minced
1/2 cup cold vegan butter, cubed
1 Tbs. fresh parsley, roughly chopped
1 Tbs. fresh fennel fronds, chopped
1/2 tsp. sea salt
Freshly cracked pepper

Directions
Heat saucepan on medium high. Add white wine, vinegar, and shallots. Let boil and reduce down to 2 tablespoons of liquid. Take off heat and let cool for about 1 minute. Put saucepan back on burner without turning on the heat. Throw in a few butter cubes at a time; whisk until butter is melted. Continue until all butter is melted. Add herbs, salt, and pepper. Mix. Cover, turn heat to very low and let sit.

For the Seitan Steak in Beurre Blanc Sauce:

Ingredients
1 Tbs. canola oil
Salt and pepper to taste
¼ cup chickpea flour
2 Tbs. vegan butter

Directions
Heat canola oil in a pan on medium high. Put the chickpea flour on a plate and season it with salt and pepper. Lightly dust the seitan steaks in the flour. Shake off the excess. Cook for 3 minutes per side, until the seitan steaks have a crispy, browned coating. For last minute of cooking, add butter and melt. Baste the steaks with the butter. Remove steak from heat.

Serve the seitan steak on a plate. Drizzle on the beurre blanc sauce and serve with the Oven-Baked Fries. Enjoy!

The "V" Word: Say it. Eat it. Live it.

Source: http://theveeword.blogspot.com/

Twice-baked sweet potatoes I (p. 302), Au gratin II (p. 961), Steak Diane (p. 475), Sauteed steak (p. 475), and Black pepper vinaigrette (p. 573)

On the second of January, Mom and I had our fancy New Year's meal (just one day late). Mom really wanted some sort of TJOC potato dish but I have made almost all of them. We decided to make Twice-baked sweet potatoes I (p. 302).

I baked three sweet potatoes and scraped out their guts:

I mashed the sweet potatoes with butter, hot cream, and salt.

I spooned the potato mixture back in to the potato shells, covered them with Au gratin II (p. 961) (which is breadcrumbs and dots of butter) and popped it in the oven:

Done!

Honestly, the twice baked sweet potatoes tasted pretty much like just like buttered baked sweet potatoes. Not really worth the extra steps, even though they were good. They heated up really well, which was great, because mom and I ate them for two additional meals. I did like the au gratin topping--TJOC says you can use au grain III, which uses cheese (I think that would be really strange on sweet potatoes).

The main dish was Steak Diane (p. 475). I had originally chosen against steak Diane because we didn't have brandy--I was going to make an orange, leek, and rosemary sauce for the steak. It was only after I was halfway through steak Diane that I realized I was making the wrong recipe--I'm not sure how that happened, the recipes aren't even in the same chapter. We still didn't have any brandy, so mom had to run out and get a small bottle.

The first step is to make Sauteed steak (p. 475). I seasoned a couple boneless ribeye steaks with salt and pepper and cooked them in a pan with a little olive oil:

After five minutes, I flipped the steaks:

Five more minutes and it was done! An extremely easy way to cook steak. I tend to broil all meat but this is a much better way to cook steak in the summer if you don't want to grill but don't want to turn on the oven.

Back to the steak Diane....

I cooked shallots in butter until softened:

I added beef stock, brandy, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, and salt and pepper to the shallots.

I swirled in a little butter and added some parsley.

The sauce was poured over the steaks and it was done! The steak Diane was really good. I can't say it was anything amazing but if you like shallots, this is a great match for you.

I thought Black pepper vinaigrette (p. 573) would be a good match to the meal. I chopped up a garlic clove, added salt, cracked peppercorns, red wine vinegar, and a little bit of lemon zest. I slowly whisked in olive oil:

Delicious! This was a really great salad dressing. I love black pepper. I LOVE black pepper. So this was a great match for me. Vinaigrette is so simple that I don't know why anyone ever buys it--in fact, almost all salad dressings are so easy that you might as well just make them from scratch.

It was a pretty tasty meal (the salad was in it's own bowl):

It was a delicious meal and a good start to the year!

Source: http://thejoyofthejoyofcooking.blogspot.com/

Smothered Cube Steak

Nothing could be easier and more economical than this dish. Cube steak is a great way to feed your family without breaking your wallet, in today's economy they average $1 per person at my local market. They key to this dish is to set your oven at 200 to keep the cooked steaks warm while you finish browning the rest and finally make the sauce. The real flavor for this dish comes from Worcestershire [WUUS-ter-sher] sauce, which is a popular, fermented condiment used to flavor meats.

4 cube steaks (roughly 1/2 lb each)
3/4 cup flour
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tbsp. butter
1 onion, sliced thin
1 cup beef broth
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce.
1/2 tsp. dried thyme

Preheat oven to 200 degrees and place a half-sheet pan in there to keep warm. Combine flour, garlic powder, salt and pepper together and place in a dish to dredge the meat in. Pat steaks dry if needed and dredge each one in the flour mixture, coating well - set aside. Reserve 1 tbsp. of the flour mixture.

Heat two tablespoons oil in a large pan (preferably not non-stick) over medium heat until oil shimmers. Place two steaks into pan, leaving alone (do not move around) until browned - roughly 3 minutes per side. Remove steaks from pan and place into sheet pan in oven to keep warm. Repeat with remaining steaks, placing them in the oven as well when done.

Place butter into browned pan where steaks were cooked and melt over medium heat. Add onion and cook until softened, roughly 5 minutes. Take reserved tablespoon of flour and sprinkle over onions, cooking for an additional minute or two. Add broth, Worcestershire and thyme, stirring up all the browned bits. Sauce will begin to thicken in a minute or so. Taste sauce and season with salt and pepper if necessary. Remove steaks from oven and add to pan along with juices, turning the steaks to coat with sauce. Serve.

Source: http://kon-tent.blogspot.com/

Grilled Steak and Chimichurri

The other day, I was craving a really good steak. So, I went to my local Vons and bought some meat. I also bought some ingredients to make Chimichurri to go with steak. Oh how I love chimichurri. It's good with anything!

Here's my Steak with Chimichurri and Strawberry Salad. It came out so juicy and tender...yum!

It's my first time cooking steak on a grill, and I had no idea how easy it is. Usually, I like to cook it on the stove top or oven. But I wanted to try grilling for a change. I used the community gas grill in our apt. Kiko had to help me though. I had no clue how to start it. I know, I'm such a girl O_o.

My chimichurri has parsley, cilantro, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, lime juice and chili flakes.

Source: http://f-overourdiet.blogspot.com/

Cauliflower "Steaks"

This is an amazing first course or side dish. Roasted slabs of cauliflower topped off with a tomato olive type salsa. I read about this technique in an older issue of Bon Appetit. Taking a whole head of cauliflower, peel off the outer leaves, standing it on its core end and cutting slabs from it's thickest part, a good half inch or a more keeping everything intact resembling a little tree. I decided to roast my "steaks" so I drizzled each side with olive oil, salt, pepper and a sprinkling of romano or parmesan cheese of course!

Bake in a 400F oven until tender and golden on each side gently flipping each "steak" over with a spatula. Don't worry about the stem and core being attached you're going to eat it all!

The end result gives you the perfect surface for a topping of your choice, think about it for a minute, the possibilities are endless! I might even stick a fried egg on top for some "steak" and eggs next time!

The topping I made had quartered grape tomatoes, sliced green and kalamata olives, finely diced red onion, fresh basil, parsley and olive oil, if I had a jar of artichokes I would have chopped a few in there and maybe even a couple sun dried tomatoes.

It was the perfect compliment to the creamy roasted slabs of cauliflower, and a definite WOW factor! I hope you give it a try.

Buon Appetito!

Spicy Oven Baked Steak Fries

I love me some fries...

But dang it, they are fried...you know in oil!

Now in this day and age you can't go around eatin' french fries all the time.
And I LOVE me some fries!

So I discovered oven fries a couple of years back, and tricked myself out into thinking..."they are just like french fries". And you know what? They really are....maybe not a crispy, but every bit as tasty and a lot healthier.

And I LOVE me some fries!

So here's a different version, a spicy steak fry. I mean these babies have KICK! You can certainly reduce the heat if you feel the need, but they are slammin!

These are really easy to make using nice russet potatoes. I like those best for my oven fries.

Let's make some Spicy Oven Baked Steak Fries.

So you'll want to wash and peel them. Then slice the potato in half lengthwise, and cut each half in half again so you have planks. You'll have about 4 plank or more per potato. Lay each plank down flat and slice in to medium or large sized steak fries.

Once you've done that you just need to drizzle with a nice olive oil, then sprinkle on the spices. I used, salt, cracked black pepper, cumin, and red pepper flakes.

Lay them out flat on a large baking sheet. Bake them in a 450 degree preheated oven for about 15 min. Then turn them over to brown on the other side and cook for another 10 min.

All done! Spicy Oven Baked Steak Fries....Smokin"!

Spicy Oven Baked Steak Fries

serves 4

2 large russet potatoes
olive oil for drizzling
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
1/2 t cumin
1/4 to 1/2 t red pepper flakes

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Wash and peel potatoes. Slice potatoes in half and then in to planks. Slice each plank in to medium or large steak fry wedges.

Drizzle olive oil over potatoes. Sprinkle with all seasoning, tossing to cover. Place potatoes flat on a large baking pan. Cook for 15 min. Take out and turn over to brown the other side. Return to oven and bake another 10 min. or until golden brown. Serve warm.

Source: http://asliceofsouthern.blogspot.com/