38 Pounds of Pesto?

Some info on pesto , salsa, a review of the Spin N Stor salad bags, and a wine pourer/aerator/stopper....from insidebayarea.com

Instant dinners
Inside Bay Area - Oakland,CA,USA
And I like the way it looks on the top of the bottle of wine ? it matches my kitchen. I also like that it's only $10 and can be found anywhere OXO gadgets ...

Southwestern Omelette

As you can probably tell if you have been following my blog that most of my recipes tend to be on the spicier side. I will admit that I enjoy spicy food, for any meal of the day and breakfast is no different. Here is an easy to cook omelette that will stick with you for the morning, and part of the afternoon.

• 3 large eggs (you may use an egg substitue)
• 1/4 cup of salsa (hotness selected by taste. I use medium)
• 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper
• 1/4 tsp of garlic powder
• a few slices of canadian bacon
• tbsp of cooking oil. I use a hot oil called Mongolian Fire Oil since I like spicy stuff
• tbsp or so of parmesan cheese
• 1/4 cup of low fat mozzarella
• 1/4 cup of low fat cheddar
  

Begin by beating 3 eggs in a mixing bowl until the yokes are fairly broken up. Then add the cayenne pepper, garlic powder and salsa. I usually use a red salsa , but have substituted salsa verde in the past which is equally as tasty....mix contets.

Next heat up your frying pan. I spray a little Pam on the surface to prevent sticking.


While the pan is heating up sprinkle the parmesan cheese across the pan , and allow it to brown a little before pouring in the contents of your mixing bowl. When your omelette is done the parmesan cheese will add a slightly crunchy texture and an appetizing golden brown color.

Next add the contents of your mixing bowl and wait about 30 seconds for it to begin to solidify. At this point you can sprinkle your cheeses across the top of the omelette. I do it this way so the cheese doesn't sink all the way to the bottom, but rather gets mixed and melted thoroughly in the omelette.



I usually let this cook, all the while checking the underside of the omelette to get golden brown. Here you can see that I added a few bacon bits on top as well for color and added taste.

Once the omelette underside is a nice golden brown I take it off the heat and fold it over on a plate.

Next I drop some of my Mongolian Fire Oil in the same pan and then fry up 5-7 slices of Canadian bacon. You may use more or less or even substitute some scrapple, ham or regular bacon. I go with Canadian bacon since it is lower in fat.

I usually cook the Canadian bacon as seen above (about 5 minutes on medium flame) and then serve with the omelette. Enjoy!

Spicy Thai Pork Panang

I previously posted about this recipe using chicken. Tonight I used some boneless pork chops. I baked them in the oven for 50 minutes at 375 degrees. Next I cut them into small pieces and stir fried them in a pan with the coconut milk/panang curry paste mixture.

See my Chicken recipe
for this and simply substitute pork chops.

Here you can see what it looks like while reducing in a frying pan. The coconut milk and panang curry paste make a nice deep golden/reddish color.




After the coconut milk/curry paste sauce reduces to a nice pasty consistency you can serve it with rice. Here you see it mixed with brown rice...I like to mix my meats and sauces with my rice. Delicious!

Spicy Pot Roast

The thing I like most about a roasts is that they practically cook themselves…after a bit of prep work.

I started with a decent size roast…use any kind. In today's case I used a chuck roast that weighed about 4.3 pounds. I placed the roast on a plate and sprinkled each of the following on the cut of meat:

2 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp cayenne pepper

Then I poured approximately 2-3 tbsp of olive oil and rubbed the oil/spice mixture evenly around the meat.



Next I peeled about 2.5 pounds of carrots and cut them into small pieces. Then I peeled and cut up 5 pounds of potatos.

Once done the meat was placed in my handy 6qt roaster by Nesco. You could use the oven as well. I like the Nesco because it doesn't heat up the house too bad. I preheated to 325 degrees and then set the cooking temperature to 350 degrees.

I generally cook for 20 minutes per pound, and will check doneness with a meat thermometer. Beef should go to about 170-180. Always remember to cook your beef thoroughly.

Here is a shot of it while cooking



And here it is served up on a handy dandy paper plate!

Americans Cooked With Chili Peppers 6,000 Years Ago, Study Finds

A recent article in National Geographic reports that Americans were using chili peppers in cooking 6000 years ago. This points towards a more advanced agrarian society with more sophisticated cuisine. The interesting thing here is that this seems to have happened before the advent of pottery. Some researchers theorized that this type of cultivation did not occur prior to the introduction of pottery.

Now I know why I love spicy food!

Mexican Chicken and Spanish Rice

This is an easy to cook chicken dish with rice.

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts with some cumin and chili powder sprinkled on top.

Rice:
1-1/2 cups of Uncle Ben's brown rice (see package for amount/serving if you scale recipe)
3-1/3 cups of water
1 tablespoon of butter (I used Olivio...no trans fats!!!)
1/2 cup of tomato sauce
1 teaspoon of chili powder
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 small can of diced chiles
1 small can of diced jalapenos



I placed 3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts in an iron frying pan and cooked them unitl they were browned on the outside. The pieces were frozen at the outset so I decided to go this way to quickly thaw them. Another way to go would have been to bake them in the oven at 350 degrees for 50 minutes but I felt like being hands on today!




Once I had the chicken thawed and browned I diced the chicken into 1 inch cubes and cooked them the rest of the way, sprinkling some cumin and chili powder on them.



While cooking the chicken I boiled a large pot of Uncle Ben's brown rice. I like the brown rice since it has a slightly higher fiber content than white rice. I tend to cook my food in large batches on the weekends so I cooked an amount of rice that I could eat over 3-4 days with meals. For your purposes you may want to scale it down to the number of servings appropriate for your requirements.

While the rice was cooking I placed a large onion (diced) in a wok with about 1 tablespoon of olive oil and stirred it until it was sauteed. Once this was done and the rice was done cooking I transferred it to the wok and mixed it in with the onions. Next I added 1 small can each of diced jalapenos and chili peppers, 1 teaspoon of cumin and 1 teaspoon of chili powder. Finally I poured 1/2 cup of tomato sauce over the rice and stir fried it until it had reduced to a nice pasty consistency.




If you like you can add the chicken to the wok and mix it in with the rice. This will add a zesty flavor to the chicken as it picks up the tomato sauce....this time I didn't do that but have been known to mix my foods together especially when enaging in wokery!

I served it up with some frozen sliced zucchini that I whipped up on the stove in about 10 minutes. Fresh zucchini is better and is very good if you cook it in a frying pan in a little olive oil...perhaps another post on that?



That's it!