Question about Spices

We had a comment on what essential spices would be in the kitchen for an aspiring chef. As I am an aspiring chef myself of we can say a backyard chef I can give you all a good guess on what I would have in my kitchen. I think the essential spices you need in your kitchen depends on the style of cooking you like to do. If you tell me what style you think you like I can give a guess on the essentials for say Italian, Greek, Mexican, Chinese or we could list them all. In our kitchen the basics I would always have for everyday would be: Pepper, Salt, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Chili Powder, Dried Oregano, Dried Basil. I hope this helps for starters. We can get into specifics when we cook certain types of food.

The Bobby Flay recipes featured a variety of chilis. Some of the chilis were not as easy to find. The essential for Bobby recipes are: Ancho Chili Pepper, Arbol de Chili Pepper, Pasilla Peppers, it is also good to have some honey in the cupboard for Bobby.

Pork Skewers and Sweet Potato Tamales

This was a finale to the Bobby Flay themed recipes. We forgot to take a picture of the Chocolate desert and the appetizer. We will have to describe it the best we can. We did two entrees and two side dishes for this meal and an appetizer.

Lets start with the appetizer

Jalepeno and Artichoke Dip

We used Jarlsberg cheese and 1 Jalepeno and I used the boat motor to mix up the artichokes and cream cheese.

We served the dip with toasted french bread.


The first meat is a Bobby flay from Foodnetwork.

New Mexican Rubbed Pork Tenderloin with Sweet Potato Tamales

Both of the Recipes above were delicious. We toasted the pecans a little to long so be aware. we used a sirloin chop instead of the tenderloing and I made a different sauce to go with the pork.

Apricot Chili Sauce

1/2 cup apricot jam
1/4 cup dijon mustard
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup orange juice

We also made another Flay recipe with the wife loved.

Pork Skewers with Chili Sauce

Everyone loved the Skewers. The chili sauce was a hit with some but not everyone.

The last was twice baked potato's. This is a pretty standard recipe.

Bake the potato's for about an hour on 350°.
Cut the potato's in half
Remove the inside of the potato's and place them in a large bowl.

Add milk butter garlic powder and salt and pepper to taste.

Put the mashed potato's back into the skins and top with cheese.

Bake until cheese is melted to your desired taste.

The last thing we made was a chocolate caramel molten lava cake

We like to call this first Recipe Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate. It can be used as a cake, most of the time it is made in a bundt pan. We filled cup cake tins with it this time.

3/4 cup sour cream
4 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup oil or applesauce
1 chocolate cake mix
1 sm box chocolate pudding
1 cup semi-sweet chips ( We did not use these this time)

Mix all ingredients. And bake 45-55 min. Check with a toothpick.

Our cooking time was a little less because of the cupcakes. We poured the batter into the tins and dropped som La Leche caramel in the middle. Served with Vanilla Ice Cream

Sorry no pictures. This was a big cooking day but it was fun.

Left-Over Roast Floutas

1 lb roast beaf choped into pieces

1 can tomato sauce

1 can corn(drained)

1 can black beans(drained)

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp paprika

garlic powder and onion powder to your tasting

Simmer over medium heat

Load into flour tortillas and top with cheese then wrap tortilla and place seam down on pan.

Baste with olive oil and bake at 350 until crispy like 10-15 min

Chili's Avocado Ranch Dip

1/4 cup smashed fresh avocados (about half of an avocado)

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/4 cup sour cream

1 tablespoon buttermilk ( I did 1 Tbs mild and 1tsp lime juice)

1 1/2 teaspoons white vinegar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon dried parsley

1/8 teaspoon onion powder

1 dash dried dill weed

1 dash garlic powder

1 dash pepper

Mix well and refrigerate.

This was a more subtle recipe that the chicken Flautas. These were a great leftovers meal.

Southwest Flautas

1 13 oz can precooked chicken (or cubed Browned Chicken Breast)

1/4 cup diced red onion

1/2 green bell pepper diced

2 Tbs lime juice

2 Tbs honey

1/4 cup apple juice

2 tbs oregano

salt and pepper to taste

If desired add 1 strained can of corn and 1 can rinsed black beans.

mix all together in pan and heat until warm

Fill the center of a small flour tortilla and then top with pepper jack cheese, then roll and place seem down on the pan. after all tortillas are filled brush with olive oil and bake at 400 for 15-20 min if they are not cripsy after that try placing them on the top rack.

Pinapple chipotle dipping sauce.

1/2 fresh pinapple processed

3 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce

1 can tomato sauce

3 tbs sugar

1 dash salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/8 tsp black pepper.

mix all incredients together over medium heat, after all mixed together can be served immediatley.

peanut butter chocolate creme brulee

11.5 oz milk chocolate chips
3/4 cup heavey cream
1tsp vanilla

bring cream to a boil over medium heat. Put chocolate chips in a pyrex bowel and pour heated cream over the top, let sit for a second to slightly melt chocolate then mix until smooth, add vanilla and stir in. place in fridge to cool.

Now boil

2 cups cream

while that is boiling wisk together in seperate bowl

5 egg yokes
1/2 cup sugar

1tsp vanilla

then stir in

1/4 heaping cup of creamy peanut butter

put in a dollup of chocolate in the creme brulee dish or other small baking dish and pour liquid on top and bake at 350 for 45 minutes. make sure you check it often the edges should be stiff but the very center should still be slightly liquid. if you shake it just she center should move. we ended up cooking it for about an hour and it was still slightly undercooked so make sure that just the very center is liquid.

Next coat the top with raw sugar and toarch it until sugar is melted

Chipotle honey lasagna rolls

Ya'll need to prepaire yourself for a mark original and by that I mean completely original, we were worried at first, but they ended up wonderful!! so heads up not all the recipes on this blog are going to be from famous chefs, some are going to be from yours truly! but because bobby is this month's chef this recipe is southwestern inspired!

Chipotle honey lasagna rolls:

This was a little Trial and error.

Start with preparing 12 lasagna noodles as the box directs. How many noodles depends on how many rolls you want and how thick you want them. We ended up using the left over noodles and sauce to make an actual layered lasagna and it was just as delicious.

Brown 1 1/2 pounds of ground pork and set aside

The sauce is:

1 can chipotle chili's in adobo sause
1 can diced green chili's
1 can tomato sauce
1 tbs oregano
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder

Blend together with a blender or I used a boat motor mixer

This is when we realized that that sauce was way spicy, taste it and see what you like but we decided to take 1 cup of the sauce mixture from above then decided to add:

1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 more can of tomato sauce

This toned down the sauce so it was not so spicy, so sorry about being left with a lot of spicy sause!! (If you just add the honey and brown sugar it would be a great dipping sauce)

Mix the new and improved sweeter sipicy sauce with the pork and one can of strained corn and let simmer for 10 minutes.

You are now ready to start rolling.

Take a lasagna noodle and put the pork mixture in the middle then add dubliner cheese (cubed), this tastes simular to a white cheddar. Add about 1 Tbs ricotta cheese on top of everything else. Wrap up the edges of the lasagna noodle around everything. Repeat this process for as many rolls as you would like. Top each roll with mozerrella and cook at 400 until cheese is desired doness!!! ha ha then enjoy! word of advice: you might want to eat with a glass of milk because they still have a bite to them. so good luck and happy cooking!!

Pumpkin French Toast with Fig-Maple Syrup & Allspice Butter

In my opinion Breakfast anytime of the day is the best meal of the day.


http://www.bobbyflay.com/contents/recipe_print.php?id=66


There were not many modification to this recipe except the bread we used. We used a sourdough loaf that my sous chef Rob sliced into perfecty one inch slices. I did change the syrup recipe because I did not have any pure maple syrup. The recipe for the syrup is

1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar
1/2 cups of packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp maple flavor
1/2 tsp pure vanilla
10 quarterd figs

Bring all ingredients to a boil over medium heat and boil until thick about 5-7 minutes. I removed the figs before serving for the kids but I am sure they would be great on the french toast as well. We served the french toast with hash browns and scrambled eggs.

What made this meal wonderful was the friends that came over for a Sunday afternoon Linner Brunch. We all had fun talking, cooking, and eating and that is what cooking food is all about.

Bobby Flay's throwdowns fried chicken with ancho honey

This is it, the first entry for the food blog. I decided to start the blog with a selection of Bobby Flay recipes.

http://bobbyflay.com/contents/recipe_print.php?id=80

We mades some modification to the recipe as you can all see in the picture. We used chicken breasts cut into strips instead of the chicken pieces. We also used hot sauce instead of the de arbol chile powder. The hot sauce was Cholula. The only other change was we made the anhco honey sauce a dipping sauce instead of putting it on the chicken. The frying time was a little different (less) than the recipe states as well because of the smaller chicken strips.



This is easy rice that is our favorite you can buy this little package from walmart for like a dollar and it tastes devine! It is great to pair it with more complex item and tastes wonderful.