Mambo Rice

Easy, refreshing, and oh so good!

* 2 cups water
* 1 1/2 cups chicken stock
* 2 cups rice
* 1 cup chopped Italian parsley
* 1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves
* 4 tablespoons minced garlic
* 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
* 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
* Kosher salt, to taste
* 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

Add water, chicken stock and rice to a rice cooker. Cook until al dente.

Combine all other ingredients in a bowl.

Remove rice from cooker and toss, separating with fork. Once rice is separated, slowly add the blended mixture.

Rice can be served hot or cold.

Recipe Compliments of The Food Network: Guy Fieri

Brined Pork Chops

1/2 gallon of water
1/2 c Kosher Salt
1/4 c Sugar
3 Bay Leaves
5-6 Dried Juniper Berries (crushed)
4 cloves of garlic (crushed)
1 tsp dried sage

Add all ingredients to a pot and bring to a boil to dissolve salt and sugar. Allow to cool and refrigerate. Soak chops in brine 1 hour, 10 minutes for 3/4 " thick pork chops. (for 1 1/2" chops soak for 2 hours) Remove from brine, rinse, and pat dry with paper towels. Allow to rest in refrigerator uncovered for approximately 2 hours. To cook: sear on each side for 2 minutes then cover and cook for 4 minutes.

Recipe compliments from

Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing

Katie's Campari Spritzer

(stock photo because this drink was too good to put down a take a picture of it!)

Unique, refreshing, and completely hip

Campari Spritzer

1 (12-ounce) can frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
1/2 cup Campari
2 cups sparkling mineral water
Ice cubes
6 orange peel twists

Stir the orange juice concentrate and Campari in a pitcher to blend. Stir in the sparkling water. Fill 6 tall glasses with ice. Pour the Campari mixture over. Garnish with the orange peel twists and serve.

Butternut Squash Chocolate Chip muffins (for H!)

My main New Years resolution is to provide more organic, fresh, and wholesome food for Harrison. It is so easy to grab and go with food that requires no prep, cooking, or clean-up. I search online for a muffin recipe with squash and wow...this one is a winner. We only used half the chocolate chips and they are fantastic!


3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup white wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup acorn squash puree (pumpkin, butternut, or other winter squash will work)
1/2 cup olive oil
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1/2-1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl. Combine the eggs, sugar, water, oil in another bowl. Combine wet and dry ingredients and mix by hand just until combined. Do not over mix. Stir nuts and chocolate chips. Bake in lined or unlined muffin tins at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

*For mini muffins bake for approximately 11 minutes!

(based on this Simply Recipes by Elise)

Braised Turkey Leg Soup

Braised Turkey Legs
(compliments of Simplyrecipes.com)

Everybody loves turkey breast for their turkey sandwiches but the more flavorful meat comes from the dark meat found in turkey thighs and legs. These, by the way, are much less expensive than the breasts. Mom and dad have a great way of preparing braised turkey legs, perfect for a cold winter day.
Print Options

Braised Turkey Legs Recipe

Ingredients

* 2 turkey legs and 2 thighs, about 4 lbs
* Olive oil
* 1 cup finely chopped yellow onion
* 1 cup of finely chopped celery
* Salt, pepper, and cayenne
* Water or other braising liquid (dry wine or stock)
* Corn starch
* Parsley, chopped, about 1/4 cup

Optional winter vegetables such as:

* Potatoes, peeled and quartered
* Carrots, chopped
* Turnips, quartered
* Rutabagas, quartered
* Parsnips, chopped

Method

1 Sprinkle turkey thighs and legs with salt and pepper. Brown the turkey thighs and legs on medium high heat in a little bit of olive oil in a large sauté pan with high sides. Add chopped onion and celery to form a nest under the turkey pieces. Sauté an additional 5 minutes.

2 Add enough braising liquid - either water, stock, wine, or a combination - so that the liquid covers the bottom inch of the pan, about 1 cup. Bring to a simmer. Lower heat and simmer covered for an hour and a half, or until the turkey is so well cooked and tender that the meat easily falls off of the bones. Remove the turkey meat from the pan and remove the bones, taking special care to remove the many small narrow bones of the legs. Remove the skin.

Optional: At this point you can use the liquid remaining in the sauté pan to cook the potatoes, carrots and turnips. Add the vegetables to the pan and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper. Cook covered until they are done, about 20 minutes. Remove from pan so you can reduce the remaining liquid without overcooking the vegetables.

3 Reduce the liquid remaining in the pan to intensify some of the meat juices for added flavor. Take a teaspoon of cornstarch and dissolve in a 1/2 cup of water. Add cornstarch mixture a little at a time to sauce, adding more liquid, until the sauce achieves the desired body. Adjust seasoning. Add salt and pepper if needed, add a little cayenne or Tabasco sauce. If the sauce is too sweet, add a little vinegar or lemon. Add parsley.

4 Add the turkey meat back in the pan with the sauce. Serve immediately over rice or bread or with the vegetables if you have chose to make them.

Serves 6-8.

Picture and review to follow

Amazing little appetizer

This is Allison's specialty and now my favorite summer appetizer - what should we call it Allison?

Sliced peaches
truffle honey
triple cream cheese (Allison recommends: delice de bourgogne or pierre robert)
cracker of your choice

Chicken and Smoked Sausage Etouffee

Recipe: Tyler Florence

* Extra-virgin olive oil
* 1 pound andouille sausage links
* 4 leg-thigh chicken pieces
* Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
* 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
* 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (we used less than half this amount)
* 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
* 2 ribs celery, roughly chopped
* 1 green bell pepper, roughly chopped
* 4 cloves garlic
* 1 (12-ounce) can beer (Lager Times from Trader Joes)
* 4 cups low-sodium chicken stock
* 2 bay leaves
* 2 tablespoons paprika
* Pinch cayenne pepper
* 1 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
* 2 scallions diced

Directions

Set a Dutch oven (I used a large stock pot) over medium heat and add a 1 TBSP of olive oil. I cut up the sausage and browned slightly as I rendered some of the fat. Remove and set aside on a paper towel. Season chicken with plenty of salt and pepper and add skin side down to the pan. Cook over medium heat to render fat for 7 to 10 minutes, then turn to brown both sides of the chicken. Remove and set aside on a paper towels.

With the pot still over medium heat add 2 tablespoons butter to melt with the fat then add flour and whisk to incorporate, and then swap to a wooden spoon. Cook until it is nice and brown (you want a nice deep rich colored roux), about 10 to 12 minutes.

Dice the onion, celery, bell pepper, and garlic. Add the vegetables to the pot with the roux and stir with a wooden spoon. Cook over medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes to sweat out some of the moisture, then deglaze the pot with the beer. Add the stock, bay leaves, paprika and cayenne. Return the chicken pieces to the pot and simmer until the chicken is tender, about 1 hour. Remove the chicken pieces from pot to a cutting board and shred the meat. Discard the bones and return the meat to the pot. Cut the andouille sausage into chunks and nestle back into the pot amongst chicken to heat through.

Give it all a final taste and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Transfer to a serving platter and garnish with plenty of parsley and scallions.

When this was finished Mark ended up skimming off quite a bit of the fat. Due to the fact that we didn't add as much flour our Etouffee had less of a gravy consistency.

This was absolutely delicious! We served it with jasmine rice because that just happened to be what we had on hand. It worked very well with it. In the picture you can see that Mark topped his serving with red chili flakes for a little kick.