One kabob, two kabob, three kabob, four!

Week 22 & Week 23 (June 2 & June 9)

I've been neglecting this blog, I know. I don't know what it was about June that has kept me so busy, but it has. So now that we are half way through July (I KNOW, can you believe it!), I thought I'd better catch up! So here we go again:

Since we eat so much chicken, we decided to try out two new marinades and make kabobs.

Lately we've been running to Whole Foods to get our exercise in for the day and pick up dinner. I saw the Honey Mustard Chicken and Veggie Kabobs marinade in their weekly bulletin and decided to give it a try.

The honey mustard marinade was very easy and only required a few main ingredients: honey mustard, lemon, EVOO and salt/pepper. 

The second marinade was from the June Real Simple magazine.  The recipe was for Soy-glazed fish with sauteed summer squash, but I thought it would be good on chicken so we decided to try it as well. This recipe was also very simple and required a few main ingredients: brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger, EVOO and salt/pepper.

While the chicken was marinading, I soaked the skewers. Did you know that if you soak the skewers for 15-20 minutes, it makes the items on the kabobs easier to slide off? Try it, it really works!

I threw the kabobs on the grill...

And served the kabobs with some rice pilaf!

Our ratings:
Honey mustard marinade: 8.5 (Mayra:8, Geoffrey: 9)
Soy Glaze: 9 (Mayra 9, Geoffrey 9)

Banh Mi a la Mayra

Week 15 (made up on April 18, 2010)

Earlier this week I had an amazing sandwich from Kitchenette. It was called the dogpatch millionaire (Indian-inspired fried chicken sandwich with garam masala honey, spicy cabbage, coriander and lemon mayonnaise). It was divine! It sort of reminded me of Banh Mi, which is a Vietnamese sandwich filled with meat or tofu, pickled veggies, cilantro and fresh jalapeno (my favorite part). I've been craving it ever since and because today was a hot day in San Francisco (mid 70's!!!) and to avoid further turning our apartment into a sauna, I was inspired to make my own version of banh mi as my recipe this week.

I couldn't find a recipe that appealed to me on my usual recipe websites, so I decided to combine recipes. I wanted to bbq the meat, so I used the marinade from this Korean beef barbecue recipe. (Note: I didn't have mirin, so I substituted port). I realize that it may sound silly to use a Korean marinade for a Vietnamese sandwich and yes, I know that Korea and Vietnam are two different countries, but I found that the main components of the Vietnamese marinades were garlic, sugar and fish sauce and simply decided to use the Korean recipe because it didn't use fish sauce. Plus my friend Linda, who is Vietnamese, once told me that I could substitute soy sauce for fish sauce.

I wanted to pickle my own veggies, so I used the "slaw" portion of this banh mi recipe. It was surprisingly easy and very light tasting. (Note: I used rice vinegar instead of distilled white vinegar and onions instead of the daikon radish)

I toasted the french rolls and put the rest of the fixings on the sandwiches (chicken, mayo, pickled veggies, cilantro and jalapenos).

The sandwiches came out yummy and the chicken was very flavorful and juicy. I think I will try the marinade on beef next time.

Our rating for this recipe: 9.5 (Mayra: 9; Geoffrey: 10).

Comfy Chicken Noodle Soup

Week 12 (March 31, 2010)

I wanted to make something quick this week and use up leftover ingredients from last week's Asian night so I found a recipe for Chinese Chicken Noodle Soup with Sesame and Green Onions.  Geoff was also starting to feel under the weather and SF was colder than usual, so this was an easy choice!

Geoff had purchased these ingredients last week (with the exception of the noodles), so they came in handy for this week's recipe.

I did the usual veggie chopping. Good rule of thumb for healthy cooking is to use colorful fruits/veggies. We find that most often we cook with greens (avocados, lettuce, cucumbers, broccoli, celery, cabbage, green onions, spinach),  whites (onions, garlic, potatoes) and red/orange colors (carrots, bell peppers, tomatoes, radicchio). For this recipe I added bean sprouts, since I love them but don't often get to eat them.

Note I did not use tahini or cilantro, mainly because I didn't have either on hand. I also didn't use the dry sherry because we were still on our "no alcohol" thing. The soup was easy to make and came out pretty good. Next time I will use less sesame seed oil (I didn't think it added much to the soup) and try not to omit too many ingredients.

Our score for this was 7.5 (Mayra 7; Geoffrey 8).

Chicken...the Kosher white meat

Week 4 (January 27, 2010)
It is my turn to cook this week and since the past couple of weeks have included beef dishes (weird, because we rarely cook beef), I decided to make chicken. I found a super easy recipe for Cilantro Chicken and decided I wanted to try a new salsa recipe as well (Roasted Tomatillo-Mango Salasa with spiced tortilla chips). Fearing that the chicken would turn out dry, I decided a good side dish would be Black beans and rice.

I started with the chicken since it needed to be marinated for at least 1/2 hour.

Then I worked on the spiced chips and on roasting the items for the salsa (great technique and super easy, btw).

When I had a free moment, I started the beans and rice dish.

At this point, it was chaotic in the kitchen, especially when I had to get out the food processor for the salsa and get the chicken on the grill. I was surprised that I didn't make a mess with the food processor so much so that I proudly told Geoffrey "Wow, I didn't make a mess" and moments later, as I was pouring out the salsa into the serving dish, the processor blade fell out, bouncing off my hand and to the floor. This resulted in me tilting the serving dish and spilling half the salsa on our toaster and counters. Yes, I had officially jinxed myself.

Overall, I think I was a little ambitious with tonight's dinner (tested 3 new recipes!), especially since it was a long day at work and I still had to go grocery shopping. It took longer than I would have liked (1.5 hours), but the dinner came out pretty good. Overall, we give it an average of 7.875 (Mayra: 7; Geoffrey: 8.75). Geoffrey really liked the salsa, although it turned out pink (note to self: do not use purple onions) and I only used 1/2 chopped mango (I prefer my salsas savory not sweet). I halved the beans/rice recipe but forgot that in the beginning, so the rice had enough salt and EVOO for 2 cups worth, which was disappointing even though it was only 1 tsp salt and 1.5 tsp of EVOO (next time I will just use plain white rice--the beans had enough flavor). The chicken came out nice and juicy too, which surprised us.

By the way, I couldn't find a slogan for chicken, so I made it up. Pretty good, huh? Note to everyone: I am available for all your slogan needs!