Bring 1¾ cups of chicken broth to a simmer. Add 1 cup of large pearl couscous. Cover and simmer for 25 minutes. Turn off heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Serve.
NOTES: For beet couscous; replace ¾ cup of chicken broth for beet juice from a can beets. The beets can be cooked in butter or pickled. Be sure NOT to use the juice from a jar of pickled beets or your couscous may taste Nasty.
Wash and dry the scallops well. Season with paprika, onion powder, salt and pepper on both sides. In a large pan heat 1 tablespoons of olive oil very hot. Using tongs place each scallop into the pan. Do not move and let cook for two minutes to developed a nice seared crust. After two minutes flip over the scallops using tongs and spatula if necessary. Fry an additional two minutes on the other side. Remove the pan from the heat. Deglaze with a splash of white wine (Chardonnay) if you have it. Add butter and garlic to the pan and whisk into the wine getting all the good brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Drizzle your butter/garlic sauce over the scallops. Serve with lemons wedges.
NOTES: Try serving on beet couscous and with steamed asparagus as a vegetable.
3 tablespoons of Madeiran Orange Juice (from the can of mandarin oranges)
1 can Mandarin Oranges (chilled)
1 Cucumber
1 bag of candied Pecans
DIRECTIONS:
Begin by making the Balsamic Vignette. The recipe can be found by clicking the link above.
Wash and destem the spinach before placing it on the salad plate. Deseed one large cucumber. Dice the deseeded cucumber and place on the spinach. Sprinkle on chopped and a few whole candied pecans. Fry the shrimp tempura. Cut it into third discarding the tail and place the shrimp on top of the salad. Garnish with cold mandarin orange segments.
Serve with Mandarin Balsamic Vignette on the side.
When you give the bags away. Put the Day 1 date on them.
Important Preparation Tips:
Do not use a metal spoon or bowl for mixing
Do not refrigerate
If air gets in bag, let it out
It is normal for batter to thicken, bubble and ferment
Day 1: Congratulations – you received fermented batter – do nothing
Day 2: Squeeze the bag several times
Day 3: Squeeze the bag several times
Day 4: Squeeze the bag several times
Day 5: Squeeze the bag several times
Day 6:** Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup milk. Squeeze bag
Day 7: Squeeze the bag several times
Day 8: Squeeze the bag several times
Day 9: Squeeze the bag several times
Day 10: In a large non-metal bowl combine the batter with 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Mix with wooden or plastic spoon.
Pour 4 1-cup starters into 1-gallon Ziploc bags.
Give these starters away to family or friends with a copy of these instructions.
To the remainder of your batter in the bowl ADD:
1 cup cooking oil
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 large eggs
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 cups flour
1/3 cup milk
½ tsp baking soda
1 large box or 2 small boxes of instant vanilla pudding
2 tsp cinnamon
MIX WELL.
In a small bowl mix together 1 tsp cinnamon and 3 tbsp. sugar… sprinkle into well-greased loaf pans before pouring batter into pans. Bake at 325° for 1 hour or until done.
Enjoy!
Extras you can add = 1 cup raisins, nuts, or chocolate chips.
** If you don’t want any starters to give away, on day 6 and day 10 only add ½ cup of each. That will give you 2 starters (one to keep and one to give away) and a batch to bake – or you can bake the two batches for 4 loaves. Hope you enjoy!
Do not put in the sun. Do not use any metal (spoons, bowl or measuring cups) plastic only. Use Pyrex loaf pans to bake
Heat oil in a large wok or skillet. Add the chicken. Add a splash of teriyaki to cook the chicken in. Cook on medium high until no longer pink. While the chicken is cooking steam your broccoli and carrots if you adding them (I am not a carrot fan when they are cooked like this so I left them out).
Once the chicken is almost done add the raw vegetables and stir. Keep the steamed ones to the side. I left out the onion because Jennifer does not like onion cook like this.
Now I guess you could call this a stir-fry so cook on high and stir.
While vegetables cook, make the sauce by combining the ingredients and whisking.
Now add your steamed vegetables (broccoli and carrots)
Heat oil and butter in a medium size pan. Add the zucchini. Sprinkle with garlic powder, onion powder or use fresh if available. Cook on medium low to low heat. Turn a ¼ turn every few minutes (3). After 12 minutes test with a fork. They should just be tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve.
2-cups chicken broth (I use Better then Bullion when I don’t have homemade)
1-cup brown basmati rice
2-tablespoons of butter
DIRECTIONS
Start by bring the chicken stick to a boil. Add the rice. Stir and cover. When the rice has returned to a boil, stir again and turn to low. Let rice simmer covered for 35 minutes. I check on it half way through and stir it to make sure all the chicken stock has not boiled away. I have not had to add more yet but I still do it. I turn off the heat the last five minutes and leave it covered to finish cooking without burning the bottom layer of rice. When done I stir in 1 to 2 tablespoons of butter and serve.
Enjoy life, stay healthy, and have a great weekend!
1-cup chicken broth (I use Better then Bullion when I don’t have homemade)
1-tablespoon flour
1-tablespoon butter
DIRECTIONS
I usually start by added the butter to a pan I have already cooked the chicken in. Then I add the four. I find by cooking the flour in the butter you do not get a flour taste in your gravy. The flour cooked in butter is called a rue. It’s French. Most sauces are French. Now you slowly add your liquid (chicken stock) while whisking it into the butter and flour (rue). As soon as the gravy or “sauce” come to a simmer, the sauce is done. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Most of time when using any store brought chicken stock you don’t need to add any salt. Its already in there.
Enjoy life, stay healthy, and have a great weekend!
It is day thee of the friendship bread adventure. The Starter is doing well eating the sugar and flour and making carbon dioxide in the process. It just bubbling away. I transferred it to a zip lock bag and there is nothing to do but squeeze the bag now for a few more days. By the way, my wife thinks I’m nuts for starting this now.
Breakfast yesterday was easy. I toasted a bagel I got at 6am from the bagel place down the road. There are three bagel shops in this town but only one makes a decent New York City bagel. I had butter on mine and spread peanut butter on Jennifer’s. Lunch was nothing to speak of as I just picked up two roast beef sandwiches at the deli by work. I gave one to Jennifer and kept one for myself. I had plain potato chips, a Snapple iced tea and no pickle.
Dinner went well. It was the same meal as the night before, marinated skirt steak with all the trimmings. It was really good. This is best skirt steak I’ve had in a really long time, at home. For dessert, I wanted something different then ice cream. First, I wanted brownies, but alas I had no walnuts. I didn’t want brownies without nuts so I turned to the cake mixes. CUPCAKES! I thought. I searched for a can of chocolate icing next, being too lazy to make my own from scratch. That would be, as they say, a deal breaker. I found it-hidden among the cholates chips of all different sizes, shapes and flavors now. In addition to the frosting, there were all kids of nuts, everything expect walnuts. I held the last can of milk chocolate frosting in my hand and smiled widely; as I spotted the cupcake holders too. I went to work mixing up the batter with my electric mixer. Eggs, oil, water, yellow cake mix, ka-bam, batter! I poured the batter into a 4-cup liquid measuring cup to making filling the cupcake holders easier and faster. In no time, I had cupcakes in the oven. I did the dishes and turned on the dishwasher. Then just like that, they were done!
Now, have you ever waited for cupcakes to cool so you could frost them? It seems like they take for forever to cool! I waited and paced, like an expectant father in the waiting room. That does not happen anymore, now does it?! Nope, your ass, better be in that delivery room! (Tangent) Back.
The cupcakes were cool enough and I frosted them up. Hmmm. They needed something for a little pop, Nonpareils! I had a brand new unopened container of the little suckers and sprinkled some on top of the icing. Then I sent out some INSTAGRAM photos with the caption: “guess what I’m making?” I immediately received some responses. One of them was: Are you making cupcakes to bring into the office? Honestly, the cupcakes were for me, but, yes, I have them packed up and ready to go into the office this morning.
Well I’m off to work. If you’re just tuning in you can quickly catch up by reading about or better yet getting, the recipe for the starter here:
Makes 1 cup (enough for two large steaks or 5 pounds of skirt steak)
SPECIAL IMPLEMENTS
Tupperware Season-serve Marinating Container or equivalent $39.00
INGREDIENTS
½-cup Worcestershire Sauce
¼-cup Soy sauce
¼-cup olive oil
4 or 5 cloves of garlic
1 small onion diced
1-tablespoon course Dijon mustard
½-teaspoon ground ginger
¼-teaspoon black pepper
DIRECTIONS
Add all the ingredients onto a bowl, deep 9 by 13 inch baking dish or if you like me you have a special marinating container. You can easily find these on Amazon. Mine is Tupperware but other brands work well too I suppose. Mix everything together well with a whisk and then add your steak. Turn the meat over every four hours or so. Marinate beef at least overnight or up to 3 days.
Serve with beer or an old vines red zinfandel wine.
The Magic of a Perfect Pairing 