Why You Crying?

What I hate more than chopped onions, is chopping onions. Whenever I would see my mom take a break from chopping onions to wipe her eyes out I would ask "what's wrong?" and she would reply "the onions make me tear up" and I would be like "psshh, whatever mom." Now I know why.

My coworker, David, refered me to an awesome Korean BBQ sauce recipe. I decided to give it a try. It came out very tasty, and I will be sure to use it again.

Ingredients:

4 cloves of garlic (chopped)

1 onion (chopped)

2 cups low sodium soy sauce

1/4 cups toasted sesame oil

3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1 cup white sugar

1.5 lbs of beef steak

The recipe calls for blending the ingredients, but since my blender is cracked and sucks in general, I had to just chop everything up as much as I could and mix it by hand like crazy.

Once everything is mixed, just throw in your meat (trim that excess fat) and let it marinate over night.

Cook it over a grill (on medium) the next day and you got yourself a delicious pile of meat.

When serving, you can use some of the leftover sauce to cover the meat.

Serve if over corn tortillas! ITADAKIMASU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Joe

Beans, beans, the magical fruit! The more you eat, the more you toot!

The more you toot, the happier you feel, so let's eat beans with every meal!

Okay, perhaps eating beans at every meal isn't that great of an idea.  Eating beans at home should be okay, but make sure you use separate blankets with your loved one because it will get stinky up in there.  Also, avoid eating beans at work because c'mon guys... as Stephanie Tanner put it best: "How rude!" 

As I hope you guessed based on the previous hint, a quote taken from The Simpsons' chili cookoff episode, we had a chili battle!  Chiliiiiii!  No Guatamalans were harmed during the process of this battle.  Actually, maybe Mynor's stomach did... :)

This time, a new challenger arose.  His name is John Marino, our weird-movie loving Italian friend (go wiki the movie "Teeth") whose peacock dance leaves you chanting for more.  His mustache might seem a bit intimidating, but just because you're sporting a 'stache and wearing a fancy hat doesn't mean you can cook!

A three-way challenge for our third battle: Joe vs Linda vs John.  Did Linda triumph again with her creativity?  Was the challenger's chili as impressive as his mustache?  Wrong!  In this battle, Joe "Tosdada" Carbajal won.  The score: Linda 1, Joe 1, John 0.  All the chilis were super good.  I hope you'll try out our recipes!  Here is mine (Linda's).  We will be posting Joe and John's recipes so come back soon!

Linda's Chili

6 strips of bacon, chopped
1 chopped onion
5 cloves chopped garlic
2 lb ground beef (I used 88% lean)
28 oz can of tomato sauce
28 oz can of diced tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 cup of red wine or beer
4 chopped chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
5 diced sausages (I used chicken sausage)
4 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp chili pepper
Salt and pepper
3 tbsp roasted cumin (regular is fine)
4 bay leaves
2 cloves
1 can of white beans, drained and rinsed
1 can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
Chopped green onions for garnish
Sour cream for garnish
Cheddar cheese for garnish

This recipe is so simple! In medium-high heat, cook bacon until crispy. Remove the bacon and drain of any excess fat on some paper towels. Set aside. Reserve about 2 tablespoons of bacon fat and add chopped onions. Cook for about 5 minutes and then add the chopped garlic and beef. Cook until the beef is no longer red. In a crockpot (or a big pot if you don't have one), dump in the onion/garlic/beef mixture, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, tomato paste, red wine or beer, chipotle, sausage, bay leaves, and spices. Set on high heat for 2 hours. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you are using a pot, cook on medium-low heat for 2 hours and stir periodically. Add the drained and rinsed beans 30 minutes to an hour before the chili is done. That way the beans don't get too mushy.

Serve the chili with a dollop of sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese, green onions, and cornbread (recipe below). Enjoy!

Bonus: Pepper Jack Bacon Cornbread

1 box of Jiffy cornbread mixture
1 egg
1/3 cup of milk
1/2 cup of shredded pepper jack cheese
2 tbsp chopped green onions
Handful of chopped cooked bacon
1 tbsp of bacon fat (I know... horrible!!!)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Oil an 8x8 baking dish with bacon fat and add the cornbread mixture. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown delicious. Serve with chili!

Hint for next battle: 50 Cent - 21 Questions

Chili Sauce...

Watch out Linda! I came into this one with a plan and that plan was MEXICAN! The previous weekend before this battle, Ratana and I had picked up a bowl of posole from a local taco shop near my house. While eating I thought that adding homony to my chili recipe might be a little different from what most chili recipes consist of. I passed the idea across to my mom but she did not seem to think it was a good idea, but I gave it a try anyways. It turned out to be my favorite part of the chili. Anyways, onto my recipe.

Ingredients:

2 14.5 oz. diced tomatoes

1 15.5 oz. red kidney beans

1.5 lbs ground beef

0.5 lbs chorizo (beef)

2 garlic cloves (crushed)

1 whole white onion (chopped)

2 tbsp chili powder (california chili)

1 tspn cumin

1 green chili pepper

Homony

This recipe is fast and easy. Just the way I like it. The first step was to get all the Vegitables (onion, garlic, green pepper) chopped up and thrown into the Crockpot. The next thing I did was cook the meat. I waited until the beef was almost fully cooked before I added the chorizo to it. I did this because chorizo cooks pretty fast and I did not want it to burn.

After the meat is cooked and you have all the vegitables chopped, just throw everything into a crockpot and let it cook on high for about 2.5 to 3 hours.

Serve it with tortilla chips from Superior! Mmmmmmmmm.

-Joe

You'd better cut the pizza in four pieces, because I'm not hungry enough to eat six.

Pizza battle!  Ahh, pizza.  Oh, how I love you so!  Thin, deep, tossed, round, square, meaty, meatless, hot, cold, frozen, fresh, we don't care.  I will eat pizza in any form.  If I ate pizza everyday... I would become round and meaty as well so I'll take you in moderation.  I gotta maintain the sexy, you know.

The battle was Joe vs. Linda.  Joe's pizza was covered with decadent gourmet toppings (chicken, arugula, mushrooms, garlic) and Linda's pizza was an ode to one of her favorite foods: baked scallop roll.  The winner?  Another tie, perhaps?  Nope.  In this battle between man vs. woman, woman wins!

Linda's Baked Scallop Dynamite Pizza

The inspiration for this recipe came from my boyfriend, Joe ("Rice Joe" not "Beans Joe"), who loves sushi.  Then I thought mmm, baked scallop roll from Tommy's Sushi.  Delicious. Then I thought mmm, suzumaru pizza from Sushi Kappo Suzumaru which isn't actually pizza but a baked roll.  Delicious. Then I thought hmm, what if the baked scallop roll and suzumaru pizza had babies?  Those would be some delicious babies!  My mind kept rolling until I thought of this simple yet fantabulous recipe.  I'm not a huge fan of fusion, but baby, this one was good.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups of sifted flour
1 package of dry yeast (1/4 ounce)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 cup of warm water
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup of mayo (if you have Japanese mayo, even better!)
4 tbsp sriracha chili sauce (or more, depending on how spicy you like it)
Sesame oil
1 cup of soy sauce
1 cup of mirin
1/4 cup of sugar
8-10 big scallops, sliced into 4 (I bought mine frozen from the Korean store and thawed it in the fridge overnight)
2 chopped green onions
1 sheet of toasted sesame cut into strips or furikake
Toasted sesame seeds

First, the dough.  In a big bowl, mix warm water and sugar until the sugar dissolves.  Sprinkle the yeast on top and wait about 10-15 minutes until it foams.  Add the flour, salt, and olive oil and knead for about 10 minutes.  Oil the bowl, oil the dough, cover in plastic wrap, and let sit in room temperature for about an hour.  The dough should double in size.  This makes enough for two pizzas. 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Heat the soy sauce, mirin, and sugar in a pot until sugar melts which will make a quick teriyaki sauce.  The rest can be used for chicken or unagi!  Mix the mayo and sriracha sauce together in a bowl to make a quick dynamite sauce.  Brush a large baking sheet with sesame oil which will prevent sticking and create a nice flavor and aroma.  Spread the dough out evenly onto the sheet.  Brush teriyaki sauce onto the dough and evenly spread out scallop slices.  Cover pizza with about half the dynamite sauce and bake for 15-20 minutes.  It will go in looking funky, but it will come out looking delicious!  Top with green onions, sesame strips, and sesame seeds.  For more kick, dot each scallop piece with some sriracha sauce.  You can substitute the scallops for shrimp, mussels, and lobster if you have the dough (*buh dum ch*!).  Enjoy!

Hint for the next battle: "The merciless peppers of Quetzlzacatenengo, grown deep in the jungles primeval by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum."

And No Anchovies Please!

I loooooooovvveee pizza. It doesn't take a whole lot of quality in a pizza to leave me satisfied. When I was a kid, Little Cesar's Pizza (which isn't the best quality) used to be my favorite, mainly because I was never exposed to anything better. It wasn't until I was old enough to buy my own pizza that I found out how quality is what makes a pizza. I still crave Little Cesar's from time to time.

On to my pizza!

Again, I went with the traditional association with pizza, nothing to fancy. Everything was made from scratch, except the dough since The Italian (John Marino) told me it is easy to screw up dough. Also, I didn't have a whole lot of time to make the dough from scratch. For toppings, I wanted to use chicken but didn't want the chicken flavor to dominate the pizza, so I limited the amount of chicken toppings and added arugula, garlic, and mushrooms. I also marinated the chicken in a mixture of virgin olive oil, tapatio hot sauce, salt, and pepper.

Ingredients:

1/2 lb boneless chicken breast
1 (14 oz.) can tomato sauce
1 (8 oz.) can tomato paste
Fresh Arugula
1 garlic clove (chopped)
Earth Mushrooms
Fresh Dough (from Trader Joe's)
1 lbs. Mozzarella Cheese (grated)
Parmesan Cheese
Salt
Pepper
Virgin Olive Oil (from Trader Joe's)
Tapatio Hot Sauce

The first step was to cook the chicken in a mixture of olive oil, tapatio hot sauce, salt, and pepper. I added the hot sauce until the chicken had a slight orange/red coloring to it. At the same time I cooked up the pizza sauce composed of tomato sauce/tomato paste, crushed garlic, mushrooms, salt, and pepper. The salt and pepper were added and adjusted to taste. After the sauce and chicken was cooked, the rest of the pizza was pretty easy to assemble. I just spread out the pizza dough onto a pan (added a little bit of olive oil on the pan so that the dough does not stick) and covered with a layer of sauce. Then I added all the toppings, mozzarella cheese, mushrooms, arugula, chicken, and Parmesan cheese. Throw it in the oven for 15 minutes on 375 degrees. Even though there was a set time of 15 minutes, I let the pizza cook until the bottom was cooked all the way through so that no areas had uncooked dough.

Itadakimasu!!!!!

-Joe

The Idea!

I have an idea for the next battle. I thought of it while eating a bowl of posole, mmmmmmmmmm. I might need to test it out before hand just in case. Watch out Linda!

-Joe

Linda's Lasagna

We are proud to announce the results and recipes of our first food battle: lasagna!  Mmm mmm mmm.  Our food babies sure were satisfied!  Look at Joe... he couldn't even keep stop himself from licking the damned thing. 

Joe went more into the traditional route while Linda went more into the creative one.  However, both lasagna turned out yummmmm-o (ugh too much Food Network... I hate you, Rachel Ray).  The results?  A tie.  Perhaps a bit anti-climatic for our first battle, but I guarantee you that they will get better and make us fatter. 

Linda's Roasted Vegetable Lasagna with Pesto Ricotta

I wanted to create something a little more unique than the traditional lasagna so I decided to add my favorite pasta sauce in the mix: pesto!  If I had a food processor, I would have made my own fresh pesto but there was some Costco stuff in our fridge.  Don't hate!  This stuff is good and is only made with fresh ingredients and no preservatives.  I was worried that there were too many flavors squeezed into one dish but it all came out really well together.  Pesto?  AND tomato sauce?  Are you crazy???  Maybe I am!  But crazy = good.  There was a lot of love put into this one.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Ingredients:

Olive oil

1 pack of hot Italian turkey sausage, casings removed

28 oz can of crushed tomatoes

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 small yellow onion

4 cloves of chopped garlic

1/2 cup of red wine (the kind you would drink, not the crappy cooking wine)

1 tbsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

Salt and pepper

1 box of lasagna sheets

15 oz ricotta cheese

1/4 cup of pesto (I used the one from Costco)

1/2 cup of parmesean, plus more for topping

1 beaten egg

2 zucchinis, sliced thin lengthwise

1 jar of roasted red peppers (I got mine from Trader Joe's)

1 can of artichoke hearts, chopped

1/4 cup of bread crumbs

Shredded mozzarella

Fresh sliced mozzarella

In a nonstick sauce pan or skillet,  cook 1 chopped onion in 2 tbsp of olive oil for about 5 minutes.  Add the chopped garlic and turkey sausage.  Cook until sausage is no longer pink.  You can use regular pork sausage, too, but one of our judges doesn't not eat pork.  Add canned tomatoes, tomato paste, basil, oregano, black pepper red wine and reduce heat to simmer.  Simmer for about 4 hours, stirring occasionally.  If you're impatient, you can just add more tomato paste to thicken the sauce faster, but I like the intense flavors that come out from simmering for a long time.  You want the sauce to be thick and hearty.  You can add a little bit of sugar to cut the acidity.

Slice the zucchinis lengthwise thinly.  Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper and bake in the oven for 20 minutes.  Soak lasagna sheets for 20 minutes in the hottest tap water.  A trick I learned from Ina Garten!  Mix ricotta, parmesean, beaten egg, and pesto in a bowl.

Assembly!  In a 9x12 baking dish, ladle some sauce at the bottom of the dish then layer in this order: pasta, ricotta, zucchini, shredded mozzarella, sauce, pasta, ricotta, bell peppers, shredded mozzarella, sauce, pasta, ricotta, artichokes, shredded mozzarella, sauce, pasta, sauce, sliced mozzarella.  Then sprinkle the top with bread crumbs and a little drizzle of olive oil.  Bake in oven for 30 minutes, until cheese is gbd (golden brown delicious).