Recipes
How To: Make Rice Whiskey Treats
It’s Friday night. Holla.
Here’s how you do it:
- Melt half a stick of butter together with one 10 ounce bag of marshmellows over medium heat.
- Once fully melted, remove the mixture from the heat and add 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon (trust me), a pinch of salt and 2 Tablespoons of whiskey. Mix thoroughly.
- Add 5 1/2 cups of Rice Krispies, stirring until they are completely coated.
- Pour them in a well buttered 8″ square dish and press them firmly into the pan.
- Allow to cool for 30 minutes before cutting into squares and serving.
The Texan gave me a leftover jug of cheap whiskey from his last boy/golf outing to use on these treats. I was a little miffed that my experiment didn’t warrant something off a higher shelf, but in the end I really don’t think it matters.
The cinnamon adds a nice touch to the whiskey taste, which isn’t strong at all. These treats are extremely unlikely to make you tipsy – even for a light weight like me.
However, my other half has already requested to be the whiskey-adder for next time, meaning they might be more potent. Really you could make them as strong as you like I would imagine.
Treat responsibly.
Amy & Jamie: Rustic Tortilla Soup
So far we’ve brought you exciting tales of brick steaks, competition chicken, and a southern apple and walnut salad in this new little bloggy series Amy & Jamie. It rhymes which makes me both giggle and feel very proud of myself at the same time.
Today it’s Rustic Tortilla Soup. It is supposed to come out looking like this.
Ours looked something more like this.
More like distant cousins than brother and sister, but we imagine (as always) as equally delisioso.
In fact the only real difference is that ours was soupier. If we had slow cooked it longer, maybe in a Crock Pot even, I think it would have come out much chunkier and Jamie-like. Also this photo was taken before we loaded it up with tortilla chips. That’s a lot of excuses for a soup that came out really tasty.
The basis of this recipe? Cook a bunch of tomatoes, onions and peppers and suprisingly few spices together for a long time. Mix it up with some chicken broth and water and cook for a really long time. Toss in tortilla chips and avocado for extra yumminess.
No broken spoons this time, no carnage in the kitchen just some good soup and happy stomachs. If we had to improve it we’d cook it longer next time, and toss some shredded chicken into the mix. We’re carnivores like that.
Amy & Jamie: Competition Chicken and a Salad
The first installment of Amy & Jamie came last month with a little steak plus brick experiment. It went well enough to cause us to continue to cook our way through Jamie Oliver’s cookbook, Jamie’s America. And if gives me an excuse to speak in a British accent around the kitchen all afternoon. I promise it’s not annoying at all.
During some down time from both of our j-o-b-s we whipped up Mr. Oliver’s Competition Chicken which can be found on page 292 as well as a Southern Pecan & Apple Salad, found on page. 248. In an attempt not to totally plagiarise the book I will refrain from posting the recipes that aren’t available online – and these aren’t online.
I assume that Jamie Oliver and his people would prefer you to buy his cookbook rather than get the recipes free from me. Here is a nice interview from his website though with the man named Lonnie who helped inspire the chicken.
Things learned while making this recipe:
- We were duped in that this one chicken recipe was really three. You had to concoct a dry rub as well as a homemade barbecue sauce before proceeding. Thus it took some time. The chicken also cooks on a low heat of 275 degrees for about two hours. The results were worth the time committment though. The dogs were going nuts just for the smell that filled our teeny house. Seriously, there was foam from the mouth and wag from the tail.
- Perhaps I am too aggressive with my measuring spoons. I really liked this one too. This set is the only thing in our house from Anthropologie – unless you count my Design Sponge book. Oh, and I also learned that I need a mortar and pestle so that I can grind “fennow” seeds, as Jamie would say.
- Also, I am really bad at remembering to take after photos of our meals. As soon as the time goes off I switch my blogger switch to eater. Here is a nice progress shot though. It was taken about 1.5 hours into baking before the final dunk in homemade BBQ sauce.
And here’s the salad. Neither dish came out as pretty as the book, but does it ever? We’re telling ourselves that both were just as tasty as they were meant to be.
So we’re agreed, you’ll get this book and follow along from now on? It’s got some tasty vittles in it - next up is Rustic Tortilla Soup. Avocado is involved, you’ll want to participate.
Candles Around the Casa
We hosted our 3rd Annual White-d Elephant Gift Exchange Party this weekend. Also known as the Whited Wonderland Christmas Party. The name is interchangeable but the shenanigans are not. I failed miserably at taking photos during the festivities but here is a picture that Lin took on her phone:
That is the Texan dressed as Santa and that is Mrs. Claus looking down in embarassment. Okay, I’m not really embarassed I think I was laughing at something that bourbon-drinking Santa said before beginning our gift exchange.
The rules are simple. Everyone brings a small gift that can be funny or serious. We just ask that no one spends more than twenty bucks. Then each guest just draws a number, picks gift in that order either by unwrapping one from under the tree or stealing one that’s already been opened. Gifts are locked in on the third steal. It’s a pretty fun game considering most of our friends bring handmade treasure or just random stuff from around their house.
This year’s hot items were as follows:
- R-E-S-P-E-C-T singing Santa, still haven’t figured out who put those two things together in a toy
- a free massage from our friend Lili who works at the Retreat - there were two prego gals in attendance, massages are needed
- a bottle of seasonal brew from Fullsteam(supplied by Santa)
- a collection of items picked up from the local art section at the Scrap Exchange
My holiday decor included lighting a lot of candles.
And our menu consisted of pizza and salad from Pulcinella in the Woodcroft shopping center. Ah-mazing. They seriously have the best salad dressing ever. We get the sicilian pizza with extra sauce. It’s huge and perfect for a crowd. We needed two. I also added a nice batch of Martha’s soup, as seen here for our vegetarian friends. And also a nice cocktail for our adult-beverage loving friends.
It came from NPR, yes, the radio with all the news on it.
Mix: one cup of Triple Sec with one bottle of Prosecco and two cups of cranberry juice. The lady on the radio called it a Poinsetta. But it’s the good, non-poisonous kind. And it’s delicious. The preggers gals cheated and mixed Martinelli’s sparkling grape juice with some cranberry juice and called it even.
You would have thought that I gave one to the beast by the end of the night.
and mid-yawn.
Looks like he may need a long-winter nap. And braces.
Pep-tember
Man oh man who can believe that September is almost over? It seems like we were just saying the exact same thing about August and preparing for this month’s giveaway – which was won by Leigh Ann, congrats again! We know you’ll love your curtains.
Looking back through the hundreds of photos we take and store each month just waiting for posts to go with them – we stumbled on some shots that Chad took in the kitchen. These images weren’t of countertops, tile or something the dogs ate slash ruined. They were of large peppers we tried to turn into dinner on more than one occasion.
We haven’t posted many recipes lately, partly because we haven’t really been cooking this summer outside of our steady canned soup and grilled cheese, spaghetti, and sharing a steak that was on sale rotation. Although we did bake treats for Lucy’s birthday awhile back and threw the recipe up on Durham Magazine’s blog. Just for fun, let’s relive the tastiness…
But back to the peppers. In another slackers-of-the-summer move we also stopped posting all about our CSA bounty after about three weeks of the farm fresh veggies delivered directly to my office doorstep. But about two weeks in a row we did find ourselves with plenty of poblano and green bell peppers. Being the carnivores that we are, what else would we do but stuff ‘em with meat and roast ‘em? So that’s what we did to each of them. Here are the details that we used for both kinds:
1. Wash your peppers and place them under your broiler, rotating them until they are blackened all the way around. Once, blackened let them cool and peel the roasted black skin off the peppers.
2. Cut the top off the peppers, gut and seed them. When cooking bell pepppers cut a small slit in the bottom to allow the juices to run out of the pepper.
3. Stuff with any mixture you like, we used cooked ground turkey, a can of Rotel, corn, onions, garlic salt and other seasonings.
4. Top with cheese and bake at 350 for 30 minutes on a cookie sheet.
Yum!
As a P.S. we know we’ve been totally slacking lately – again! We had to sneak away for friend’s wedding and are back in the swing of things tonight. We’ll be putting together some posts tomorrow to share all the details of our latest trip – and last trip for some time now. We had a blast but it’s great to be home.
Sweet Potato Fish Tacos?
As promised.
Fish tacos seem to have originated from the Baja region of Mexico – likely the result of a tourist. Being in North Carolina for almost two years now, we are no longer tourists but still went looking for ways to make one of our favorite meals a little more southern. Enjoy!
North Carolina Fish Tacos
Ingredients for the Tacos, serving 12:
- 12 corn tortillas (we like homemade ones from La Vaquita here in Durham)
- 1 pound of tilapia filets, cut into ½ strips, patted dry
- canola oil, 1” deep
- shredded cabbage
Batter:
- 2 cups of white wheat flour
- A pinch of baking powder, this makes the batter a little more tempura style
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
- ½ teaspoon dry mustard
- ½ teaspoon oregano
- One bottle of Fullsteam Carver Sweet Potato beer (approximately 10 ounces)
Whisk together batter until it is the consistency of pancake batter. Coat tilapia strips in batter and fry for approximately 2 minutes in a cast iron skillet. They should be golden brown and float when done. Drain on paper towels and then cut fish into pieces, about 1” thick. Give fish a heavy dose of fresh lime juice while still hot after cutting.
Assemble tacos in warm tortillas by adding fish, shredded cabbage and topping with sweet potato salsa, avocado sauce, and spicy cream sauce. Recipes below.
Sweet Potato Salsa:
Mix the following together and refrigerate for 1 hour before adding to tacos.
- one sweet potato, diced and boiled for 2 minutes
- one medium tomato, diced
- one jalapeno, seeded and minced
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- ¼ cup of white onion, minced
- one avocado, grilled for two minutes on each side and diced
- one 8 oz. can of white corn, grilled for 5 minutes
- Juice from one lime.
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil
- 2 tablespoons of roughly chopped cilantro
Cool Avocado Sauce:
Blend the following together and refrigerate for 1 hour before topping tacos.
- ¼ cup of milk
- half of an avocado, cut into cubes
- 2 tablespoons sour cream
- 1 tablespoon cilantro
- salt to taste
Spicy Cream Sauce:
Blend the following together and refrigerate for 1 hour before topping tacos.
- one 7 ounce can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (found in Mexican food aisle next to canned jalapenos)
- ¼ cup of sour cream
- ¼ cup of plain yogurt
- 2 teaspoons of Sriracha hot sauce (can substitute with whatever you have in the house)
