Deep Fried...Something

Buffalo Chicken Dip

I came across this recipe yesterday, and I couldn't wait to try it.  Not only did it sound pretty easy (and tasty), but it's the perfect thing to munch on during a football game, even if it is only preseason.  Thanks to my friend Jan for this recipe!

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Ingredients:

• 2 (10 ounce) cans chunk chicken, drained
• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup Ranch dressing
• ¾  cup pepper sauce (such as Frank's Red Hot®)
• 1½ cups shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1 bunch celery, cleaned and cut into 4 inch pieces
• crackers

Directions:

1. Heat chicken and hot sauce in a skillet over medium heat, until heated through.
2. Stir in cream cheese and ranch dressing. Cook, stirring until well blended and warm.
3. Mix in half of the shredded cheese, and transfer the mixture to a slow cooker.
4. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top, cover, and cook on Low setting until hot and bubbly.
5. Serve with celery sticks and crackers.

Notes:
You could also make this with freshly cooked chicken instead of canned, but there are enough other flavors that it doesn't taste like canned chicken at all.

Baked Quinoa Casserole

I was browsing TasteSpotting the other day for quinoa recipes and this one caught my eye.  Not because it looked amazingly good, but because the picture was to put it nicely, not very appetizing and I was curious what the heck it was.  Once I clicked through, the recipe actually sounded pretty good so I decided to make it.  I made a couple of modifications, which I've incorporated below.

Baked Quinoa Casserole

Ingredients:

• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 2 cups water
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1½  cups fresh broccoli florets
• ½ white onion, chopped
• Handful of spinach
• 4 large eggs
• 1½ cup milk
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• ½ cup shredded cheese
  

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Lightly oil a 9" pie plate or casserole dish and set aside.
2. In a medium-sized sauce pan over medium-high heat, combine the water, quinoa and salt. Bring the mixture to a boil, cover and simmer for 15 minutes, or until most of the liquid has been absorbed. Turn off the heat and fluff the quinoa with a fork.
3. Place the broccoli florets, spinach and onions on top of the quinoa, cover, and let the saucepan rest on the warm burner for about 5 minutes, or until the florets are bright green and crisp.
4. Meanwhile, beat the eggs in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Add the milk and pepper, whisking until combined. Add the cheese and whisk to combine. 
5. Place the quinoa-vegetable mixture in the prepared casserole dish. Pour the egg mixture over top, mixing gently if necessary.
6. Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Allow the baked quinoa to cool for 10 minutes on a wire cooling rack before cutting into slices and serving. Serve hot.

Notes:
You can use soy milk and eliminate the cheese to make it a dairy-free recipe like the original if you want. 

Sous Vide Pork Chops

I haven't really been a fan of pork chops historically speaking.  They're usually either too dry (yuck) or undercooked (even more yuck), so I haven't bothered trying to make them in quite some time.  I was reading my favorite sous vide web page though and saw the recipe for pork chops.  Given how juicy everything else had been, and the fact that you don't have to worry about undercooking when you cook sous vide, I decided to give them another try.  The resulting pork chops were so good, and so juicy, that I might be back on the pork chop bandwagon.  Because these are brined before cooking, they needed very little seasoning.

Sous Vide Pork Chops

Ingredients:

• Pork chops (I used center cut)
• ¼ cup salt
• 2½ Tablespoons sugar
• 1 quart water
• 1 Tablespoon canola oil
  

Directions:

1. In a large ziploc bag, combine the water, salt and sugar.  Mix until dissolved.
2. Add pork chops and brine in refrigerator for 1-2 hours.
3. Remove pork chops from brine and pat dry.  Place in individual vacuum bags.
4. Cook in sous vide machine at 135F for 12 hours.
5. Heat oil in heavy pan over high heat until just before smoking.  Place pork chops in pan and sear, about 45 seconds on each side.
6. Remove from pan and serve!

Notes:
I brined my pork chops for about 12 hours.  They were still good, but I think 1-2 hours would be plenty.  I served these splashed with just a little bit of this pomegranate tangerine vinegar  Also, in case there's any doubt about how juicy these are, here's a cropped close-up from the above picture:

Sous Vide Salmon - Try This At Home!

I know some (ok fine, most) of these sous vide recipes aren't easily recreated at home unless you either have a sous vide machine or have cobbled together a reasonable approximation of one.  This one is different.  You can make this at home with nothing more complicated than a ziploc bag, a big pot, and a candy thermometer (or a similar large thermometer).

One of my only complaints about my sous vide machine is that the manual has fairly ridiculous cooking temperatures and times in it.  When I decided to make sous vide salmon, I looked around a bit on the internet to find a consensus, and I'm glad I did or I would have cooked this about 20 degrees hotter and for about 20 minutes longer than I needed to.  I ended up basing my times on this recipe from The (Baltimore) Sun.  The salmon was absolutely amazing and it only took 15 minutes to cook!  I've already made this twice and I'll definitely be making it again.

Sous Vide Salmon

Ingredients:

• 2 boneless skinless salmon fillets, 5-8 ounces each
• Salt
• Pepper
• Herbs of choice

Directions:

1. Brine the salmon in a salt water bath for about 10 minutes.
2. Drain the salmon, pat dry, and season with salt, pepper and herbs. 
3. Seal each fillet in a vacuum bag (see notes).
4. Bring water to 123-125F (it will cool down slightly when you add the salmon).
5. Add salmon bags and cook for 15-18 minutes, keeping water as close to 120F as you can.  Stir the water every minute or so to ensure even heat distribution and turn stove on and off as needed to keep temperature in the right place.
6. Remove bags from water.  Remove salmon from bags.  Eat salmon!

Notes:
I highly recommend Ziploc's vacuum bags.  They're cheap and they work like a charm.  However, if you don't want to spend the $3, you can use the technique from the article:

Submerge all but the top of the still-unsealed bag in a heavy pot of cool water. Work the remaining air bubbles out of the bag, taking care not to let any water leak inside, and then seal the bag. (If water does get inside, remove the fish and place it in a new bag. And don't feel bad - even Chef Erjavec was forced into a do-over.)

Make sure the thermometer you use to measure the temperature of the water doesn't touch the bottom of the pot or the salmon, or your numbers will be off.

You can sear the salmon over high heat in a little olive oil after removing from the bags if you want a nice pretty crust.  I haven't been patient enough to try it yet though.

Sous Vide Chuck Steaks

The biggest challenge yet for the sous vide machine: could it turn $2.99 pound chuck roast steaks into delicious and tender medium-rare steaks?  I bought a couple of big chuck roasts at Costco, cut one of them into quarters, and decided to give it a try.  I cooked them for about 20 hours at 138F, turning the temperature down to 135F after 12 hours or so.  They came out remarkably tender, but I'll probably cook them a LITTLE bit lower next time.  Overall, the experiment was a success.  I'm pretty confident that with a little bit of tweaking, a cheap cut of chuck can be every bit as tender as a much more expensive cut of meat when cooked this way.

Sous Vide Chuck Steaks

Ingredients:
4 chuck steaks, about 1/2 pound each
Garlic powder
Salt
Pepper
1-2 Tablespoons Olive oil

Directions:

• Season each steak with garlic powder, salt, and pepper.  Seal individually and place in sous vide machine for 18-24 hours.
• Remove from bags, pat dry and sear in hot skillet with olive oil for about 45 seconds per side.  Reserve liquids from each bag.
• Pour oil out of skillet and return to heat.  Pour in reserved liquid from sous vide bags.  Cook for 2-3 minutes, until reduced to a syrupy consistency.
• Spoon liquid over steaks and enjoy!

Notes:
I served this with quinoa asian slaw, roasted baby yukon gold potatoes, and sourdough bread with roasted garlic.  I made the potatoes and garlic in my rotisserie and the total prep time for the entire dinner was about 15 minutes.  As I told Sarah, it took longer to serve the food up than it did to prepare it.  I love dinners like this.

Quinoa Asian Slaw

My friend Leigh sent me this recipe, because she knows that I love quinoa recipes.  I already had grand plans for dinner tonight, but this seemed like it would be a great side dish for our meal.  The initial recipe came from here, and after I clarified a typo with the person who posted it (she initially had 2-3 cups of water listed instead of Tablespoons), it was a remarkably simple recipe to make.  I didn't take a picture of it by itself, so you'll have to look at this post to see it.

Quinoa Asian Slaw

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup quinoa
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup cabbage purple, and green
• 1/2 cup carrots shredded
• 1/4 cup green onions
• 1/4 cup green pepper

Sauce

• 1 Tablespoon natural peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon fresh ginger minced
• 2-3 Tablespoons water
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 1/2 Tablespoon sugar
• 2 Tablespoons Hoisin sauce

Directions:

1. In a pot, combine rinsed quinoa with the water and bring to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer, cover, and let sit for 15 minutes until all the water has been absorbed. 
2. Combine with cabbage, onions, and peppers in a large bowl.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together sauce ingredients.  
4. Pour over slaw mixture and stir well to combine.  
5. Cover, refrigerate and let cool for 1-2 hours until quinoa is cold and flavors have had a chance to blend together.  Eat as a side or as a whole meal!

Notes:
I doubled the recipe, and replaced the peppers with more cabbage and carrots and green onions.  I also used a blender instead of a whisk for the sauce, which made it much quicker.