Breakfast Sausage

Homemade Breakfast Sausage (serves 8)

Avoid lean or extra-lean ground pork; it makes the sausage dry, crumbly and less flavorful.

2 lbs ground pork
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon maple syrup
2 teaspoons dried sage
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon salt
1.5 teaspoons pepper
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper (I didn't actually use this...)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1. Mix Sausage
Combine pork, garlic, syrup, sage, thyme, salt, pepper, and cayenne in a large bowl. Gently mix with hands until well combined. Form mixture into 2.5-inch patties, about 1/2 inch thick. (You should have about 16 patties)

2. Brown Sausage
Melt 1 tablespoon butter in large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Cook half of patties until well browned and cooked through, 3-5 min per side. Transfer to paper towel-lined plate and tent with foil. Wipe out skillet. Repeat with remaining butter and patties. Serve.

Make ahead: The raw sausage patties can be refrigerated, covered, for 1 day or frozen for up to 1 month. To cook frozen patties, proceed with step 2, cooking patties for 7-9 min per side.

Dutch Babies

This is a SUPER easy and yummy breakfast dish. It can be served sweet with maple syrup, or you could make it savory and add some eggs, mushrooms, etc.

Preheat oven to 425

5 eggs
1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cup milk
1 1/4 cup flour

put butter in two pie dishes and melt (place in oven while preheating)

put in a blender:
eggs
milk
flour - 1/4 cup at a time

blend for less than 2 min

pour into pie dishes

bake for 20-25 min

Pistachio (and cashew) encrusted chicken

This is my new favorite way to cook chicken - encrusted in delicious, salty-sweet, nutty deliciousness. The recipe calls for only pistachios, but the last time I made this I replaced half of them with cashews, and it was even better. This is very easy and will impress and delight your friends and family, which is very important.

You'll need:

1 cup chopped pistachios (or 1/2 C pistachios, 1/2 C cashews)

1/2 cup bread crumbs (those not into gluten/wheat can just omit these)
2 tablespoons mustard
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons honey
salt and pepper to taste
2 large skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, cut into 1-inch strips

Then do this:

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Lightly coat a baking sheet with cooking spray, oil or butter. Mix together pistachios and bread crumbs in a shallow bowl. In a separate bowl, stir together mustard, olive oil, honey, salt and pepper until smooth. Dip chicken into mustard mixture to coat, then coat with bread crumb mixture. Place onto prepared baking sheet.

Place into preheated oven and turn the oven down to 375 degrees. Bake until the chicken is no longer pink and the pistachio coating is golden brown, about 20 minutes.

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How to make mini ice cream cups at a restaurant

In the same category as the microwaveable chocolate cake - probably gross, but fun to try! Special note to Cristin: you will not like this.

Step 1
Go out to eat at any restaurant with the word "waffle" or "pancake" in their name, and/or serving bacon strips in the morning. Many diners, sit-down places at truck stops, and some fast food places. Home will work, too, if you have some of the mini half-n-half cups.

Step 2

Order water. You need two big glasses on the table. Drink all the water. The server will bring water to you right away and usually you won't have to order it. Tell them you are thirsty and would like a big glass. Two big glasses at the table are necessary. You need ice water, not just water. Crushed ice is better. But cubes work too. You need two glasses of ice water for this. Don't order extra ice in your glass, the normal half ice and half water is best. Drink all the water. It's good for you! After drinking the water. you now have 2 big glasses each half filled with ice. Empty ice from one glass to another.

Read the rest here!

Easy Beef Stroganoff

I haven't actually made this yet, but it looks awesome and easy and this used to be one of my favorite dishes - I have no good reason why I stopped making it years ago. Recipe from here.

6 Tbsp butter
1 pound of top sirloin or tenderloin, cut thin into 1-inch wide by 2 1/2-inch long strips
1/3 cup chopped shallots (can substitute onions)
1/2 pound cremini mushrooms, sliced
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon of dry tarragon or 2 teaspoons of chopped fresh tarragon
1 cup of sour cream at room temperature

Melt 3 Tbsp of butter in a large skillet on medium heat. Increase the heat to high/med-high and add the strips of beef. You want to cook the beef quickly, browning on each side, so the temp needs to be high enough to brown the beef, but not so high as to burn the butter. You may need to work in batches. While cooking the beef, sprinkle with some salt and pepper. When both sides are browned, remove the beef to a bowl and set aside.

In the same pan, reduce the heat to medium and add the shallots. Cook the shallots for a minute or two, allowing them to soak up any meat drippings. Remove the shallots to the same bowl as the meat and set aside.

In the same pan, melt another 3 Tbsp of butter. Increase heat to medium high and add the mushrooms. Cook, stirring occasionally for about 4 minutes. While cooking, sprinkle the nutmeg and the tarragon on the mushrooms.

Reduce the heat to low and add the sour cream to the mushrooms. You may want to add a tablespoon or two of water to thin the sauce (or not). Mix in the sour cream thoroughly. Do not let it come to a simmer or boil or the sour cream will curdle. Stir in the beef and shallots. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve immediately over egg noodles, fettucine, potatoes, or rice. (Potatoes, rice, and wheat-free pasta are wheat-free options.)

Serves 4.

Seared Tuna with Soba Noodles

Bret, I think it has been a month since I promised to submit more recipes... so here we go. Simple, fast and delicious. Make sure to get high quality, sashimi-grade tuna for this, since it will be pretty raw (for those living in Berkeley, Tokyo Fish Market is the place to go). I found the recipe on BBC's Good Food site.

- 1/2 lbs Hamachi tuna (fresh and almost wiggling)

- 4 tbsp sesame oil

- 4 tbsp sesame seeds (I used sesame salt, a mixture of black sesame seeds and coarse salt sold in Japanese markets)

- soba noodles

- 1 small cucumber, cut into matchsticks

- 4 spring onions, chopped

- 4 tbsp lemon juice

- 4 tbsp soy sauce (I used the one with less salt)

- 1-inch chunk of fresh ginger, finely grated or chopped

- 3 tbsp mirin

- 1 tbsp sugar

Drizzle the tuna with 1 tbsp sesame oil and season with salt and pepper. Roll in sesame seeds until coated. Heat a pan until very hot, sear the tuna on all sides and chill until using. Make sure not to overcook the fish, you want to achieve a nicely seared crust while keeping it raw in the center.

Boil the noodles in salt water, drain and rinse well in cold water. Divide noodles between bowls. Arrange the cucumbers and spring onions on top. 

Mix the lemon juice, soy sauce, ginger, mirin, sugar and the remaining sesame oil to make a dressing.  Slice the tuna and arrange on top of the noodles. Pour the dressing over and sprinkle with some sesame seeds.

Image (c) www.bbcgoodfood.com

Easy, delicious, beautiful, healthy 'chinese' cabbage salad

I've been thinking about the recent article in the nytimes that seems to be circulating around alot - The 11 foods you should be eating or something to that effect. Basically, ive been trying to incorporate them into my diet in fun & new ways as much as I can. I was somewhat inspired by the photo of red cabbage slaw/salad they featured, but thought I could do a little better. This salad, which can be a stand alone meal, is super yummy, colorful, cheap to make and very healthy. my boyfriend summed it up by saying, 'you feel like you're killing all the cancerous cells in your body when you eat this.' Let's hope so!

Here's what you need (adjust to how much you want to make)

Red cabbage - chopped
Carrots - julienned
Daikon (japanese radish) - julienned
Green onion - chopped finely
Ginger root - chopped finely
Pumpkin seeds
Almond slivers
1 package of instant ramen - crushed into bitesized pieces
Cooked chicken (optional)

Dressing:
Sesame seed oil/salad oil/olive oil
Fish sauce or soy sauce or both!
1/2 of the seasoning package from the instant ramen

Instructions:
Simply chop all of the vegetables and mix them in a big bowl. If you are in a hurry, you can just crush the ramen noodles and add straight to the salad. Another interesting twist is to fry them for a few minutes with some butter until they are golden brown. For the dressing, I felt that 100% sesame would be too strong, so I used about 80% salad oil and 20% sesame. Then add just a few drops of fish sauce if you have it and a few drops of soy sauce. If you dont have fish sauce, I would totally invest in it - it's great to add to curries, stir fries and salads like this. it has a much richer taste than soy and you don't need nearly as much. I also added about 1/2 of the seasoning packet to the dressing for a kick.

This meal is great - from 1 head of cabbage, 3 carrots and 3/4 of a daikon, I've been able to make 8 meals! Yeahhh!

Insanely delicious chocolate truffles

This recipe comes courtesy my friend Abby, who makes these for Christmas every year. They're pretty damn easy, and will impress the hell out of your friends and family. Seriously, make these. Ok?

Recipe for 4 dozen truffles (or 3 dozen if you make them a bit bulkier)

1 Tb instant coffee, disolved in 1/4 c water (or, 1/3 C espresso)
8 oz semisweet chocolate
1 oz bitter chocolate
3 egg yolks
1/2 c unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/4 c myers rum or grand marnier
Unsweetened cocoa
Powdered sugar

1 - Chop chocolate into pieces, put in in a double broiler with the coffee, and melt, while stirring.

2 - In a separate bowl, beat egg yolks. Add 1/2 c chocolate mixture to them, beat well, and add back to the chocolate in the pan. Beat well for 2 minutes, let cool for 5 minutes, and then gradually beat in butter, one or two pieces at a time. Make sure no butter is visible, and add the rum/grand marnier.

3 - Refrigerate one and a half hours (or longer if you're making multiple recipes), until firm enough to do the next step.

4 - Scoop up truffles with a teaspoon and drop them onto a cookie sheet. They will be sticky blobs with no particular shape.

6 - Refrigerate for at least half an hour, but probably not more than an hour and a half.

7 - Combine two parts cocoa and one part powered sugar in a lidded container (I like a glass jar). Probably 1/4 c cocoa and 1/8 c powered sugar will be enough. drop truffles into mix, put on lid, shake to coat, and the pluck them out and quickly roll them into a ball with the palms of your hands. Store in a sealed container in the fridge. I also sometimes keep a jar of cocoa/sugar around to freshen them up when needed.

Broiled Polenta with Winter Tomato Sauce

Made this on new year's eve, and it was totally delicious. We used regular cornmeal instead of the instant polenta, which took a long time but was totally worth it. Pretty easy recipe, would be even easier with instant.

Also, I'm not sure why it's a "winter tomato sauce." It's just a very basic tomato sauce, and honestly, you can probably make this polenta with any of your favorites sauces and it would be delicious. Maybe the recipe makers knew I was making this during the winter.

For the basic polenta:

4 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup cornmeal or instant polenta

1/4 pound Fontina cheese, preferable Italian, grated (about 1 cup)
2 tablespoons olive oil plus additional for brushing
1 large onion
1 garlic clove, chopped
a 28- to 32-ounce can whole tomatoes including juice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley leaves (I didn't use any parsley...)

To prepare basic polenta:

In a heavy saucepan bring water and salt to a boil and gradually whisk in cornmeal in a thin stream. Cook polenta over moderately low heat (it should be barely boiling), stirring constantly, until very thick and pulls away from side of pan, about 40 minutes for cornmeal and about 15 minutes for instant polenta. Remove pan from heat and cover to keep warm. Stir polenta just before using. Polenta will keep warm, covered, about 20 minutes. Makes about 3 cups.

To prepare the polenta:

In a bowl stir together warm polenta and Fontina until smooth. Pour polenta into a lightly oiled shallow 1 1/2-quart bowl (or just a plate... it will be very solid) and cool. Polenta may be made 2 days ahead and chilled, covered.

To prepare sauce:

In a large skillet heat 2 tablespoons oil over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking and sauté onion with salt to taste, stirring, until golden and tender, about 10 minutes. Add garlic and sauté, stirring, 1 minute. Add tomatoes with juice, stirring to break up tomatoes, and simmer, covered, 30 minutes. Stir in parsley. Keep sauce warm.

Preheat broiler.

Unmold polenta onto a cutting board and cut into 3/4-inch-thick slices. Arrange slices in one layer in a lightly oiled shallow baking pan and brush slices with additional oil.

Broil polenta about 3 inches from heat until edges are golden, about 5 minutes. Turn polenta over and broil until edges are golden, about 3 minutes more.

Arrange polenta on a platter and spoon sauce over it. Enjoy!

Ramen with an Egg

This is a quick, cheep and easy meal that never gets old.

1 pack oriental ramen noodles (including flavor packet)
5 green onions (white and light green parts only) chopped small
1 egg
toasted sesame seeds

In a large pan, bring an inch and a half of water to a boil. Add noodles and cook (3 minutes?) drain water out of pan (I use a plate to hold the noodles in the pan while the water drains). Put pan back on burner and add flavor packet. return the flame to medium and crack the egg (or two if you're super hungry) over the noodles and scramble it all together. Once the egg is cooked, add the green onions and sprinkle the sesame seeds over noodles.

Serve and enjoy!!

Italian Loooove Cake

I haven't been following this blog too much but I just tried this great cake and I got the recipe and I can't believe how easy it is to make. It was really delicious. I don't have any idea why it is called what it's called. Enjoy!

Italian Loooove Cake

1 Box Fudge Marble Cake Mix
2 lbs Ricotta cheese
3/4 cup sugar
4 Eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 Box (3 3/4 oz) Instant Chocolate Pudding
1 cup milk
1 8oz carton Cool Whip

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix cake mix as directed on box. Pour into greased and floured 9 x 13 pan.

In a separate bowl combine ricotta, eggs, sugar and vanilla. Mix well. Spread over the top of unbaked cake. Bake for 1 hour. Cool.

Mix pudding with one cup of milk. Fold into whipped topping. Spread over cake and refrigerate for at least three hours before serving.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies - Grad Student Style

*Candied Bacon not included in this recipe

So Bret promised me his first-born child if I posted these to Recipe Go 'Round, and as there is no such thing better than a tiny little helper monkey, I must post it.

History 

It was given to my mother when she was getting her masters in behavioral therapy by another grad student.  The name of the original giver is lost to time, but the recipe remains.  It was a favorite of mine as a child and still is.

Also, this is probably the easiest recipe in the world.

Ingredients

• 1 box Duncan Hines Butter Recipe Fudge Cake
  
• 1/2 Cup Flour
  
• 2/3 Cup Vegetable Oil
  
• 2 Eggs
  
• 6 oz Chocolate Chips
  
• 1 Cup Walnuts (optional)
  

Directions

• Pre-heat oven to 350˚
  
• Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl until everything is well incorporated.  The cookie dough should have a slightly glossy shine to it.
  
• Take a spoonful of dough or just tear out a chunk from the mix and roll into balls between your hand.
  
• Bake on a greased cookie sheet for 8-11 minutes.
  

Notes

I personally prefer the cookies to be slightly undercooked and allowed to cool for 15 minutes before eating them silly-like.  Also, the boxed cake mix doesn't have to be Duncan Hines nor the Fudge cake variety.  The cake mix does heavily influence the flavor of the cookie, so choose wisely.   From personal experience, strawberry cake mix does not taste that good.

Coconut Rice

This is super easy, super delicious and super not that great for you.

If you want to mix it up and have something more exciting with your meal instead of the same old brown rice, white rice, etc; try using a can of low fat coconut milk instead of water. Works best with white rice. It is freaking amazing. Burma Super Star inspired me to try this because it is so delicious, and a bit over priced, and I figured it couldn’t be that hard - and it wasn't! I would recommend using the low fat coconut milk though - even the low fat has quite of bit of fat. yummm...fat.

1 cup basmati rice
1 can coconut milk

Put the two in the rice cooker, press down the button and wait for it to be done. Easy as that.

A Quick Sort of Oven-Fried Chicken

This is SUPER easy...and yummy!

Get some:
Chicken - Breasts are the best, I think.
Corn Flakes, or even better Trader Joe's Toasted Oatmeal Flakes
Butter
Paper bag
rolling pin
baking sheet
if you use plain corn flakes you might want some seasoning like garlic powder, paprika dried oregano....but if you use the oatmeal flakes its good as is.

Preheat oven to 375
Put enough cereal in the paper bag to cover your chicken, then use the rolling pin to roll the bag and crush the flakes into crumbs.
clean your chicken
put wet chicken in paper bag and give it a good shakin
place covered pieces on baking sheet, there will probably be crumbs left in the bag that you can place on top of your chicken
drizzle some melted butter over pieces
stick it in the oven!

The cook time depends on the type of chicken - breasts: 40-45 min

*its kinda fun to use different types of flaky cereal for this - even some with clusters!

Spanish Rice

This was really easy, and totally delicious. Double or triple the recipe and eat it alllll week long.

1 T veggie oil
2 slices bacon, minced (I didn't use this, but I bet it's good)
1/2 C chopped onion
1/2 C chopped green bell pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
1 C long-grain white rice
1 3/4 C chicken broth
1 C chopped drained canned tomatoes
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

In a 10-inch ovenproof skillet or casserole dish, cook the oil, bacon, onion, bell pepper, and garlic over medium heat about 5 minutes. Add the rice and stir until well-coated. Add everything else, bring to a boil, then cover and put in the oven. (note - I don't have an ovenproof skillet, so I transferred everything to a bread loaf pan and it worked great). Bake about 25 minutes or until fluffy and awesome.

I added chicken, shrimp, and mushrooms, and it was a full meal. Basically a really great and easy way to make rice more interesting.

Veggie Lasagna

•1/2 box lasagna noodles or ~0.5 lbs lasagna noodles, cooked according to directions on box.
•1 Jar Pasta Sauce of your choice
•16 oz mozzarella, shredded
•A container of Ricotta Cheese (not sure how many ounces are in it)
•Two Eggs
•Two Zucchinis, sliced into rounds
•A gaggle of mushrooms. I had a bunch, I think 8 or so large white buttons, sliced
•1 Package Frozen Spinach, also prepared according to directions and set aside.

Preheat oven to 375˚

1) Take all of the ricotta cheese, and 3/4's of the sliced mozzarella, and mix together in a large bowl. Also add two eggs to this cheesy mixture and make sure it is well blended. You could also at this point mix in the cooked spinach to make things easy, but I made things hard on me and did not as will be seen below.

2) Grease up a baking pan with spray, olive oil, or butter. Anything will work, you just don't want too much sticking.
2) Lay down a layer of zucchini slices, and pepper/salt generously
3) A layer of sliced mushrooms
4) A layer of spinach goodness
5) Layer of Ricotta/Mozz/Egg mixture
6) Slap some noodles down, depending on the size of the pan, 3.5 noodles will do.
7) Cover in some sauce!
8) Repeat these steps indefinitely until you run out of things to add.
9) Once you have your top layer of sauce, cover with the remaining 1/4 of the shredded mozzarella on top.
10) Cover this whole 'Mesopotamia with aluminum foil and pop it in the oven for 30 minutes.*
11) Rip off the aluminum foil and let bake uncovered for 10 more minutes. Longer if you like it extra crunchy.
12) Take out of oven, let cool for ~10 minutes or until you cannot wait any longer and eat. I like it with salad and crusty bread.

**So someone in the Corral used all the aluminum foil and so I baked mine uncovered for the entire time. If you do this, it may take a bit longer for everything to get done. The veggies remain toothsome and the noodles are crunchy. You may want to have some sauce (or gravy) on the side if you like it wetter.

It makes a ton of lasagna. And is good energy for tackling reaction mechanisms.

Pickled Red Onions

I had these at my birthday bbq a few weeks ago.  You can add whatever spice mixture you want, I used these for something slightly sweeter and hot, but you can go savory if you like.

adapted from David Leibowitz:

~3/4 cup white vinegar

~3 TB sugar

pinch salt

1 cinnamon stick

5 Cardamom seeds

small dried chili pepper

1 bay leaf

•large red onion, peeled and thinly sliced into rings.

1) heat vinegar, salt, sugar, and seasonings until boiling

2) add onion slices, submerge completely in boiling liquid, lower heat, simmer for ~30-60 seconds

3) Remove from heat and cool completely

4) Transfer to a jar and refrigerate.

Should last a couple of weeks.  Really good on hot dogs, pulled pork, any type of sandwich where you want some bite.

Mac 'n' Cheese Pancakes

You read that right.

Onion Soup

This past weekend I spent a lot of time with a colleague from China. He owned two Chinese restaurants in the 70s in Palo Alto and he gave us a very simple recipe for Onion Soup. I haven’t tried it yet so no guarantees, but it is apparently a great base for other soups. Written out here it seems much less exciting than when Bill told me the recipe. Just try to imagine an elderly man describing the taste and smell of each common, yet amazing ingredient.

Heat a small amount of oil in a large, sturdy pot. Add about 4 or 5 sliced onions and saute until a lovely golden brown color. Add a small amount of butter to coat the onions with the rich flavor. Add a decent amount of any type of wine you like, either white or red. Add flour to make the broth thicker and to coat the onions. Afterwards, add water and simmer until the flavors are deliciously balanced and the desired consistency. Yum!

The juiciest chicken you'll ever eat

It sounds crazy, I know. But trust me - you're gonna love it.

Juicy-ass chicken

- Chicken (as much as you're going to want)
- Sprite
- Soy Sauce

Marinate the chicken overnight in a Sprite/Soy Sauce blend (or as long as you can). Use 1 part soy sauce to 1 part sprite, so that the chicken is barely immersed in it. Either bake, grill, or saute the chicken. Add to your favorite dish.

It's fuckin' great.