Hawaiian Chicken

When Brian and I went to Utah a few weeks ago for his Mom’s college graduation, it turned out that my cousin, Devin, was graduating also. His wife, Lauren, threw him this great little luau themed graduation party with amazing food. Me, and all the other guests, were dying for the recipes. Lauren was kind enough to email them out and last night I fed them to my seven dinner guests. They were a huge hit! I couldn’t take all the credit, obviously, but they were quite good.

The chicken is a super easy recipe and I don’t see how anyone wouldn’t be able to make it. The coconut sweet potatoes had a bit of my spin on them. The recipe calls for sweet potatoes, and Lauren used the ones with the orange flesh. When I was at the grocery store they had sweet potatoes and yams. So I bought the sweet potatoes, only to get home and find out that mine were not orange inside, but more of a yellowish color and had the texture of a white baking potato. So I did some research to find out what the deal was with yams vs. sweet potatoes. Bottom line: either white or orange flesh, they’re all called sweet potatoes, they are just different varieties. People generally call the orange flesh yams, which apparently is in error, but that’s how was do it in America. Turns out the real yams and sweet potatoes aren’t even related botanically. So if you want the orange colored flesh make sure you buy the sweet potatoes with the darker skin. (more sweet potato info here) more info. But the good news is that the recipe turned out with the sweet potatoes just the same. It is a very sweet recipe, I would think about cutting down on the sugar, and the original recipe called for water, but I substituted milk, made more sense to me. But definitely try these out and feel free to post up any other luau recipes!

Hawaiian Chicken Recipe:
About 10-12 chicken breasts
2 cups pineapple juice
2 cups sugar
2 cups soy sauce
1 small can of pineapple (optional)

Throw everything into a pot and bring to a boil. After brought to a boil, turn down heat and simmer for 45 minutes. Take out the chicken and thicken the sauce with cornstarch. (Mix cornstarch with some of the sauce, instead of water). Put chicken back in and re-warm (if they've gotten cold). Serve over rice

Aloha Sweet Potatoes: (these did not photograph very well)
5-6 medium sweet potatoes (dark flesh, or "yams")
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup coconut
2 tbsp milk

Boil the sweet potatoes in their skins until soft, about 25 minutes. Let them cool, then peel. Cut up into squares. Melt butter in sauce pan, then add brown sugar and coconut and water and mix together. Add potatoes and mix together and rewarm on stove if necessary.

Calphalon Nonstick Skillet

Since I love so many of my kitchen items, I though I'd share with you what I'm loving this week and perhaps every week! This week I am absolutely loving my nonstick Skillets. I have a 10 inch and 12 inch set by Calphalon that I registered for and I couldn't imagine life without them. (Great for all those week night rice and sauce meals!) I don't even use a regular skillet, for anything! I have the contemporary design and the handle is amazing. It is so comfortable to hold and handle. These skillets cook nice and even and clean up like a dream. I do hand wash them, per handling instructions, but since nothing sticks it's not a big deal.

I think I didn't know the joy of cooking with nonstick because my mom never used them. My brother finally gave her one for Christmas last year, and she is constantly talking about how much easier her life is now! Below are some links of where to find these lovely little kitchen helpers. And a few are on sale, half off for two!


Macys
Bed Bath and Beyond
Crate and Barrel

Sweet and Sour Chicken

You may notice that many of my go to week night meals involve rice and some sort of sauce/topping to go with it. But we love these dishes. They are quick, easy, and generally a great way to get in the veggies. This recipe for sweet and sour chicken is something my mom use to make when I was growing up, but I have only started making it the past few months. The ingredients are all things it's easy to have on hand, which makes it nice for a week night. No trips to the store!

Sweet and Sour Chicken:
Saute in 1/2 cube of butter:
1 onion
1 green bell pepper

Add:
1 C chicken broth
3 tsp. soy sauce
3/4 C pineapple juice
1/4 C water
2 Tbs ketchup
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 C brown sugar

Disolve 2 Tbs cornstarch in a little bit of pineapple juice. Add the cornstarch to sauce stirring slowly and constantly to thicken.

Add in a can or so of pineapple chunks or crushed pineapple and 2 cups of shredded chicken.

Serve over rice

*If you boil and shred your own chicken, which I usually do, you can just use that broth for the chicken broth and water. It works great. And just use the pineapple juice from the can of pineapple chunks. However if you use crushed pineapple it's hard to get the juice, so I have some little cans of just juice that work out great.

Les Madeleines, Salt Lake City

This past weekend Brian and I were in Utah for his mom's college graduation. Congrats Kathleen! We ended up with some down time on Saturday and Brian suggested we head 30 minutes north to Salt Lake City to check yet another restaurant off our list. This time is was a patisserie and cafe called Les Madeleines. This ended up on my list from another episode of The Best Thing I Ever Ate when the Neelys went on and on about this pastry the Kouing Aman. (Still not sure on the pronunciation.) Our friends, the Colson's, recently visited SLC and told us this place was not to miss. The Kouing Aman is by far the best pastry I have every had. It was caramelized and crunchy on the outside, buttery, gooey and flaky on the inside. I probably should have shared one with Brian, but I was a little sick so he didn't want my germs. So I had my own and had not problem polishing the whole thing off. Two would have definitely been out of the question though. So if you're in the area, stop by and enjoy one tasty pastry.


My three favorite boys

Las Vegas Restaurants

Not too many blog posts this past week, as I was on Spring Break! (Read with much excitement!) The week went by way to fast, but I did manage to squeeze in a trip to Vegas with the family (minus Brian). Definitely not a lot of cooking going on, but I thought I'd give you an overview of my tasty travel finds.

I did a bit of research to see which of our famous chefs has restaurants in Las Vegas. The first night there we hit up another Mario Batali restaurant, Enoteca San Marco, located in the Venetian Hotel. I blogged about another Mario Batali restaurant in LA, and this one had a very similar menu. This time we got a starter of cheeses and it was amazing. I honestly can't remember the different types of cheeses we had, but they were accompanied by apricots, cherries and honey with truffle oil. When you ate these with your cheese it was pretty much the best thing ever. I personally liked the apricot and the honey the best. I ordered a arugula and parmesan salad, Penne alla Norma (pictured at top) with tomato, eggplant, and ricotta, and finished it all off with some dark chocolate malt, salted caramel, and olive oil gelato. Throw in great conversation with most of my favorite people and it was a near perfect dinner.



The next night we decided to go to Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill in Caesar's Palace. I actually ate at his New York location a few years back and absolutely loved it. So I figured, why pass up an opportunity to share this restaurant with my mom and sister. We all ended up ordering the same thing: Grilled Mahi Mahi with roasted pineapple-cascabel chile sauce, caramelized pineapple-green onion salsa served with creamy green chile rice. I thought I died and gone to heaven. I haven't had fish in a while and this far exceeded my expectations of what mahi mahi could be. The sauce was sweet and had a bit of a kick, and my mom couldn't get enough of the creamy green chile rice. (I'm pretty sure she was trying to figure out how she could make it at home.) We also shared the gala apple salad. It was made with thinly sliced baby spinach, Maytag blue cheese, toasted pecans and tossed with a spicy orange vinaigrette. It definitely was spicy, which was interesting on a salad, but of course Bobby knows what he's doing and the flavors were perfect together.



Another New York favorite that has made its way to Las Vegas is the ever popular Serendipity 3. It has a new pink color scheme and sits outside Caesar's Palace, but the food is exactly the same. Well, I can't speak for the real food, I've only eaten real food there once (in NY) but they have my favorite chocolate cake/brownie and ice cream dessert ever. It's huge, messy and topped with the most amazing hot fudge. The Forbidden Broadway Sundae is a dessert to share with friends, but you'll wish you could eat it all by yourself. It's that good. I always hope that someone I'm with with orders the frozen hot chocolate, it is, after all, what they are famous for. I can't handle two desserts, but I always want a long sip of the frothy, frozen drink.



You can probably tell that my vacations generally revolve around food, but I have absolutely no problem with that. Feel free to share great restaurants you've eaten at. I currently have a list going of a dozen cities and places I want to eat when I visit there!

Chicken Terryaki Stir Fry

This is one of our favorite weeknight meals. It's really a no recipe recipe. You can clean out the fridge, use up all your veggies and it's super quick and easy. I cook the chicken first. I've cooked it a variety of different ways. Sometimes on the Cuisinart Griddler, other times just in the pan. I like it to get some good color on it, looks more appetizing. Remove the chicken from the pan, then saute all kinds of vegetables in some olive oil. I always start with an onion, then add some peppers, usually red. For some green color you can use pea pods, asparagus (our current favorite) or broccoli. We also like something a little crunchy, so I do bean sprouts and/or water chestnuts. Any veggies you like or have will work great, so just clean out the fridge and use up all that great stuff! While the veggies are cooking add in some sauce. I don't make my own, but we absolutely love Yoshida's Gourmet Sauce. It's sweet and savory, and it's amazing. It works wonders on the chicken (and other meat) as a marinade too! I use our rice cooker, and use Jasmine rice. I love our rice cooker. Brian's aunt gave it to use for our wedding, and it's a good one, works like a champ every time!

So there you have it, spoon some of the stir fry and chicken on top of the steaming rice, maybe a little extra sauce, and you've got a quick, easy, and oh so tasty meal. And it's easy on the waste-line too!

Peanut Butter Caramel Swirled Brownies

I'm going on a little spring break vacation to Las Vegas, but Brian can't come. So whenever I leave him, I always make him some treats so he's not too sad and lonely. I've been looking for a reason to make these brownies I saw Bobby Flay make on an episode of Throwdown. He actually lost the throwdown, but of course his brownies looked delicious, and these ones definitely are. The brownies are so fudgy and rich.

They don't take too long to make, but there are a few parts to them. You start by making a peanut butter caramel. It was simple and delicious. I think my pinch of salt in the caramel was a bit too big since the peanut butter is already salty, so just be careful. Then you melt unsweetened chocolate, bittersweet chocolate and butter in a bowl over simmering water. Then mix that up with the eggs and sugar. The brownies only use one cup of flour, which, I think, is what makes them so fudgy. I thought about using more, thinking it wasn't right, but they came out perfect.







The only thing I did adjust was the cooking time. After reading the reviews online everyone said they needed to be cooked a big longer than the 25 minutes is called for. I ended up doing them for 35, but think 30 would be perfect. (Brian likes them more on the gooey side.)

Whoever came up with the idea of putting peanut butter and chocolate together, I thank them. And these brownies are just another great way to get these two amazing flavors together.



Peanut Butter Caramel Swirled Brownies Recipe