Weekend Eating - Mom's in town!!

My mom is here visiting, and I have not seen her for 7 months! So we took on the town while she was here and ate alot of food!
Friday: We had Baby Barnaby's for breakfast/brunch before her hair appointment at Traci Scott with Justin, my hair guru.She had the breakfast tacos with chorizo and I had huevos rancheros. Yum! And not too terrible heavy either.
For dinner we went to Tia Maria's and had margaritas (and fajitas).
Saturday: Off to the Galleria we go! We stopped at Gigi's Dumpling house for lunch, which I had never been to. The prices were reasonable and the food was YUM! We had a shrimp/crab dumpling and chicken-ginger dumplings. My mom snapped a photo with her camera, I need to get it from her. They have all you can eat dim-sum on the weekends for $15 a person and it's totally worth it.
Dinner: We went off to Gravitas in the Downtown/Montrose area. I have been here many times for brunch but never for dinner. We had a really nice time!{image: kellyniemannphotography.}

We started off with stuffed calamari - which was grilled and stuffed with scallop mousse and lemongrass. It had a small salad of tempura green beans and some baby spinach on the side. Man o man was this yummy! It went perfect with our pino grigio. Then we both ordered the market catch - Flounder. It was served over a bed of mushrooms, fingerling potatoes, and green beans. It had a nice rich marsala type sauce over it as well.We finished off the meal with a little dessert - Chocolate Fondant with ice cream. We felt we needed a magnifying glass to see it!But it was still tasty!
Sunday: I had to take her to Canopy for eggs benedict. The BEST.
Sunday night I made the turkey tacos I just posted about. Very yummy and light.

Tonight is a basic meal - meatballs, potatoes, and green beans.

Fake-out: Pulled turkey tacos

Last night I tried a new recipe from Food & Wine magazine that was very similar to the pulled pork shoulder we just did. I like the alternative to all the fat that is in pork. It turned out REALLY well! My only add would be to put some whole chipotle's in the mix to simmer so you get that flavor into the meat. Otherwise, I am totally making these again!

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• Two 1-pound bone-in turkey thighs or drumsticks, skin and fat removed
• Salt and freshly ground pepper
• 4 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced
• 1 medium white onion, cut into 1-inch dice, plus minced white onion, for serving
• 1 large oregano sprig
• 1 large jalapeño—stemmed, seeded and sliced crosswise 1/4 inch thick
• 1 medium tomato, coarsely chopped
• 1 ancho chile—stemmed, seeded and coarsely chopped or torn
• One 2-inch cinnamon stick
• One 12-ounce bottle Mexican dark beer, such as Modelo Negro
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 small can chipotles in adobo sauce, whole - not choppped
• 12 corn tortillas
• 2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds and cilantro sprigs, for serving

Directions

1. In a large enameled cast-iron casserole, heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Season the turkey with salt and pepper and cook over moderately high heat until richly browned all over, about 8 minutes. Transfer the turkey to a plate.
2. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil to the casserole along with the garlic, diced onion, oregano and jalapeño and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until the onion is softened, about 8 minutes. Add the tomato, ancho and cinnamon stick and cook, stirring, until the tomato releases its juices.
3. Return the turkey to the casserole, add the beer and water and bring to a boil. Add chipotle's, cover and simmer over low heat, turning once, until the turkey thighs are tender, about 1 hour. Transfer the turkey to a plate and let cool. Discard the oregano sprig and cinnamon stick and boil the sauce over high heat until reduced to 1/4 cup, about 12 minutes.
4. Preheat the oven to 350°. Wrap the tortillas in foil and bake for about 8 minutes, until softened and heated through. Remove the turkey meat and shred it. Transfer the sauce to a food processor and puree. Return the sauce to the pot and stir in the shredded turkey. Season with salt and pepper. Spoon the turkey onto the tortillas. Top with minced onion, sesame seeds and cilantro sprigs and serve.

(Per Food and Wine - 220 calories a taco)
(so i had 3)
(yum)

From this experience, stay with the thighs. The drumsticks were hard to shred.

Do yourself a favor and buy a bottle of Chipotle Tobasco ASAP. Best thing ever, especially on these tacos!

Souffle

I attempted chocolate souffle for Valentines day and I think I would give myself a B if I was grading it!

I can't tell if either the dish was a little too large or I didn't quite whip and fold the whites correctly, but the texture was great. I need another recipe, as this one wasn't very rich to me.
But it was pretty tasty!

Fresh out of the oven (see how it isn't just bursting out of the dish?)


But the texture is right!
Yeah we hated it, can't you tell?Anyone else ever tried a souffle? I need a good recipe, and I will have to pick up a smaller dish it looks like!

Chipotle Pork Shoulder - Tacos

Monday was Kelly's birthday. (and Laura's). Instead of the same ole steak and potatoes, we decided to do something much different. Kelly is a Texas girl through and through (except she doesn't like pecans... i am still stumped) so we went with tacos. We made a chipotle pork shoulder, which you shred and serve with corn tortillas. I tried making my own, something I have done a number of times, but it was just taking way way way too much time!
Thank you, Lee, for going to Randall's TWICE in one night.

The pork, shredded in a bowl with fixin's on the side (Sour cream and avacado):

My taco - with a little Chipotle Tobasco dabbed on (YUM):


Singing Happy Birthday (while Lee and I clean up in the background.)I hope you had a great birthday Kelly! (and Laura!)

Recipe:

Chipotle Pork Shoulder

Ingredients:

3 onions, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

4 roma tomatoes diced

1 can (small) chipotle peppers in adobo

½ cup water

1 cinnamon stick

1 bay leaf

salt and pepper

3 pound pork shoulder

Oven: 300

In a large skillet, or dutch oven, cook onions and garlic a good 15 minutes, until sweet to taste. Generously salt and pepper pork shoulder. Place meat on top of onions and garlic in dutch oven or oven proof large pot. Just thrown in entire can of chipotle chilis and adobo sauce ( no chopping…), and rest of ingredients. Add a little more salt and pepper.

Place foil over top of pot, or lid on dutch oven, cook for 3 – 4 hours. Don’t touch it, just let it do it’s thing.

Once finished, discard bay leaf and remove meat to bowl and shred. You can add a spoonful of the veggies in if you like. Note that the juices will be pretty spicy so keep tasting as you add juices/veggies into the shredded meat.

Awesome served on warm corn tortillas with a little sour cream and Tabasco.

(We made this the day before because of time and it was just as awesome)

Fresh veggies

No cooking this week, and off to vacation!

What's for dinner?

I had no idea last night. I hopped in my loaner Mini (standard as well. A little stressful!) and was on the way home when I turned my head and saw "Hebert's Meats" and had a great idea.
They are famous here in Houston for deboned stuffed chickens. Specifically the chicken stuffed with crawfish dressing. So I ran inside, grabbed one for $12, and got back in the car. Less than a 5 min stop.

You put it in a dish, plop it in the oven for an hour, and that's it.

I steamed some potatoes and broccolini to serve on the side.

Lee got home, peeked in the oven, and said "ALRIGHT!"
Needless to say, this chicken is a crowd pleaser.

That was my answer to dinner.

I have found it is beyond helpful to keep your pantry and fridge stocked with basic veggies. This week that has led me to throw together 3 dishes without a visit to the store (ignore the chicken I had to buy above). Along with veggies, i keep chicken in the freezer along with some frozen veggies, and rice and pasta in the cupboard. It really helps you throw together something in a pinch.

Stuffed Poblanos

Monday night, AKA Donald Night, I had everything I needed to make this dish. We had picked up the poblanos the week before and never gotten around to using them. I have a bag of frozen chicken breasts in the freezer at all times for emergency dinners. This week that bag helped me make this and a stir fry, without any trips to the store! I honestly have not been to the store in over a week. Pretty cool...

Anyway, back to this.

First up - preheat the oven to 425. De-seed the peppers and put in a baking dish with non stick spray:These will cook until soft, about 30 minutes-ish.
While those were in the oven, I slowly cooked 3 (thawed) chicken breasts in the skillet with salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder. Once those were just about cooked, I pulled them onto the butcher block and sliced them pretty small.
I added a little oil to the same skillet and thew in some onion. After that got a little brown I added some garlic. My new favorite way to add garlic to a dish is to grate it with my microplane. I like that you get the flavor but you don't end up with a stray chunk of garlic in your mouth. P-yew!After those cook down a bit, add the chicken back in and let it cook a few minutes, till they get to know one another.
By this point, you should have peppers finished up:

Now is the fun part. You will stuff the peppers with the chicken mixture and some cheese. I chose pepper jack, for a little extra kick. Poplanos have a subtle heat, they aren't really all that spicy.
However, after seeding them, i scratched my nose, not pleasant. So still wash your hands well after you deal with these!!
After you stuff them, pop them back in the oven for about 15 minutes, just to let everything get melted together.
Like so:
I had a little extra chicken so i threw it off to the side.
Since I worked all day, I used a little help from Uncle Ben on the rice (the microwave pouch spanish rice!), and I heated up some black beans in a sauce pot, threw in about a 1/4 cup cream and squished them really good with the potato masher.
And whala - pretty simple dinner that is super yummy!
I have a photo of the finished product but it is a little blurry. Don't worry, Donald and Lee demanded I make this again. I will get another photo!