Grilled Potatoes with Sour Cream Green Onion Sauce

This recipe I loosely based off of a recipe from Life's Ambrosia and after making them they were really good but I think they would be better with pain yogurt instead of sour cream, much less mayo, and I think raw garlic pressed into the sauce rather than the powder.  That said here is the story.  It's BBQ season and I attended my first of the season, this last beautiful weekend here in Portland, Oregon.  In preparation I went on a grilling recipe hunt through the endless blogs to get ideas for new things or ways to grill.  I came upon this recipe after about an hour and decided it was perfect.  The BBQ of course had all the other basics of steaks, sausages, asparagus, salad, wine, beer the usual.  So here is something new, fun, and easy to put on your grill this summa time!

Serves about 5 as an appetizer

The Ingredients
5 medium red potatoes, sliced about 1/4 inch thick
3 green onions, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper 
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 cup sour cream
1/3 cup mayonnaise


The Process
1.  Start by putting sliced potatoes in boiling water and boil about 4 minutes so that they are par-boiled.

2.  While potatoes are boiling mix together in large bowl green onions, salt, pepper, garlic powder, sour cream, and mayonnaise.

3.  When potatoes are done boiling rinse them several times with cold water to stop them from cooking and then put into the bowl of sauce.

4.  Make sure that each potato is covered with sauce and place on large plate for grilling, there should still be about a 1/2 cup of sauce remaining in the bowl for post grilling dollops.

5.  Grill potatoes until tender, about 5 minutes each side.  Take off grill and put a small dollop of sour cream sauce on each potato and eat!
 

Mushroom Chicken Curry Soup and Becca's Bday

This soup is my go to.  It impresses, comforts, fills, warms and is damn irresistible.  I owed Becca a wonderful birthday dinner because I was unable to go to her celebration so I had to knock her socks off with this dinner.  I began the birthday dinner search by trying to find an amazing new recipe that didn't include pork or big slabs of beef.  I knew I could make chicken, fish, tofu, or full on vegetarian.  After looking at countless recipes I settled on this panko crusted tofu chunks but as I thought about it I realized I needed to create a meal that I know well, something that isn't new, something that will impress and Becca is a fellow cook so impressing pays off.  So I decided on the chicken curry mushroom soup full of onions some butter and mounds upon mounds of varying mushrooms!  I accompanied this meal with roasted broccoli and a large bottle of wine and much laughter.  Birthday dinner success!  And now she is going to make me an amazing birthday dinner, um yes please!

New York Steaks with Gorgonzola Cream Sauce

Two things that I have been doing a lot of lately writing papers and cooking/eating very well.  Who doesn't want to eat well? Especially when you have to stay focused on school and not go frolic in the sun with friends and make trouble...this is hard for me so I cook.  Mid-Monday work day my lovely friend Serenity commented on this lame Lil' Wayne quote I posted "and if you got beef I turn into a tender loin" she said she had two New York Steaks for us.  At that point on I couldn't study any longer, all I could do was research fancy ways to make steaks.  We settled on a simple yet delicious sounding Gorgonzola cream sauce....need I say more.  We accompanied the meal with avocado slices and roasted asparagus.

Serves 2
Adapted from The Family Kitchen

The Ingredients
2 New York Steaks about 1 inch thick
1/3 Worcestershire Sauce
4 cloves garlic, pressed
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sour cream (light)
1 tablespoon half n half
4 tablespoons Gorgonzola cheese (crumbled)
Salt and Pepper
Olive oil

The Process
1.  Marinate steaks in Worcestershire, salt and pepper, and 2 cloves garlic (pressed) for about 15 minutes.


2.  In the meantime whisk together 2 cloves garlic (pressed), mayonnaise, sour cream, half n half, Gorgonzola cheese, and salt and pepper to taste.  Set aside in fridge.

3.  Heat skillet over medium/high heat, add some olive oil and when hot add steaks to pan.  Cook for about 45 seconds on each side and quickly remove because steaks will continue to cook.

4.  Let steaks rest for about 5 minutes then add as much Gorgonzola cream sauce as you want.

I will say that while once again this is a "fat kid recipe" it feels good to eat meat and cheese.

Asian Feast

This feast was  brought on by a rad trip to Uwajimaya the awesome Japanese store in town.  After my dear friend Elisa and I were done poking every weird thing in all the isles and grabbing at almost all of the candy we decided hey lets make a feast!  So as I have made before I made pot stickers with a couple different ingredients including thai basil and bean sprouts.  Elisa made a delicious miso ramen with some added kimchi.  And my roommate Jen made an apple slaw salad, to say the least we ate like queens.  Amazing food and company, so here are some pictures to drool over and let it be known that a large bottle of cold sake was also consumed during this lovely Sunday night dinner.

Lamb Gyros

This recipe was a fix to another recipe gone horribly wrong.  I began the evening cooking up some beautiful lamb shanks with the wonderful coffee glaze recipe. I got it from one of my favorite food blogs which will remain nameless because I don't want to give him a bad name for such a bad recipe, because normally his recipes are great, but this one was far from great.  The part of the recipe that really failed was the coffee glaze sauce, it tasted like rancid gamy burnt coffee, there was no fixing it.  So after my initial state of disappointment and defeat I realized how this dish could be saved.  During this whole process my friend Elisa made couscous and stir-fried some Swiss Chard, two lovely side dishes that became fillers.  BAM gyros popped into my head.  I shredded the lamb off of the bone and made a lovely yogurt sauce to go with the gyro style ingredients, and it turned out wonderfully.  Yogurt sauce saved the day.  So here is the fail/success recipe by yours truly.

Serves 3

The Ingredients
2 lamb shanks (about 1 lbs)
1 tablespoon stone-ground mustard
6 cloves garlic, minced
4 cups fresh Swiss chard, chopped
2 cups cooked couscous, follow package but make with chicken broth
1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced
1/2 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/2 tablespoon Braggs
1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup yellow onion, chopped
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
3 large flour tortillas
olive oil
salt and pepper

The Process
1.  Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Rub lamb shanks in mustard, salt and pepper, 3 cloves garlic, and rosemary.  Put in pan and bake for 30 minutes.  Then turn oven down to 325 degrees and bake for 15 more minutes.

2.  While the lamb shanks are baking cook up the couscous. 

3.  In a large skillet heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add the rest of the garlic to hot oil and cook for about 1 minute.  Then add Swiss chard and cook for about 3 minutes.

4.  Add balsamic vinegar, Braggs, and salt and pepper to taste.  Cook Swiss Chard until wilted but still slightly chewy.

5.  Lamb should be done cooking around this time so take it out and let it rest. 

6.  While lamb is resting keep couscous and Swiss chard warm and covered on stove top.  In small bowl add yogurt, onion, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.  Note the longer this yogurt sauce sits, the better it tastes.

7.  When lamb is done resting (about 15 minutes) shred it.  Heat up tortillas and then assemble like this: tortilla, couscous, Swiss chard, lamb meat, and lots of yogurt sauce.  Then wrap the tortilla up like a burrito and enjoy!  Success after all!

Osso Buco with Orzo Risotto

This post is a "feature post" meaning I didn't personally make the food but I was very lucky and got to consume it!.  My father always talk about this amazing Italian restaurant in Vegas and he goes there every time he has to travel to Vegas for business.  This last time that he went there he tried something new and it was indeed Osso Buco which is originally made with veal and that is how he had it.  After this amazing meal he was determined to recreate it.  So my mom and dad both made this amazing dish, the recipe they used was from Emeril's cookbook and they also substituted the veal for a small leg of lamb.  The smell in the house when I went up for dinner was absolutely amazing like a buttery pastry meat bread, I almost started drooling on myself.  So to say the least it was absolutely amazing and helped get me through filing my taxes (soooo boring)!  It was indeed another successful Sunday night dinner at the Himes house.

Asian Chicken Wings

These chicken wings came about on a night full of academia.  My dear friend Serenity and I took a trip to the Reed Library to gather information on their reference collection for our collection development class.  It was quite entertaining to see the materials that they had, my personal favorite was the Complete Encyclopedia of Wine.  So after this "taxing" adventure it was time to regroup and make a delicious dinner, we were going for cheap and tasty.  We found this recipe from BS' in the Kitchen and of course adapted it to our own tastes.  Might I also add this meal involved the X-Files and hot toddies...the way it should be :)

Serves 5

The Ingredients
21 chicken wings, rinsed
1 cup flour
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup green onions, sliced
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup rice vinegar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 medium tangelo (or orange) juice & zest
1 tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated
1 tablespoon cornstarch (plus 1 tablespoon water)
Frank's Redhot sauce
salt and pepper

The Process
1.  Heat oven to 400 degrees.  In brown bag shake chicken, flour, and salt and pepper (to taste).  Make sure the chicken gets coated with flour.  Then put chicken in greased pans and set aside.

2.  On stove top over high heat mix rice vinegar, garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce, sesame oil, tangelo juice & zest, honey, and ginger.  Bring to boil and then turn to simmer.

3.  When sauce is simmering add the cornstarch/water mix.  Simmer for about 5 minutes.

4.  Bast chicken with sauce (leaving half the sauce for later), and put in oven.  Cook for 30 minutes.

5.  After 30 minutes take chicken out of the oven, flip the wings, bast with the rest of the sauce, sprinkle the green onions and cilantro over the top and put back in the oven for another 30 minutes.

6.  Chicken should be done, but make sure to check.  Once you take the chicken out of the oven let rest for 5 minutes.  Definitely serve with Frank's RedHot sauce.  

We also had roasted asparagus with these lovely chicken wings, yum yum!