Bahn Mi

Don’t ever go to the K-Roger when you’re hungry and they have a sale on pork.

Or, do.

This was delicious. I’ve had about what seems like 16 different meals from that little pork chop incident at the store. But, this was, by far, the best.

Ingredients

2 (6-8oz) pork chops, thinly sliced

2 demi baguettes or bolillos, horizontally halved

1 TBS fish sauce

1 tsp Truvia (use sugar if you roll like that)

1 TBS Sambal (sub Sriracha if it floats your boat)

3 large garlic cloves, peeled

2 green scallions, roughly chopped (are there other colored scallions? why do we say green?)

1 TBS cilantro, chopped + a few springs to top your Bahn Mi

1 TBS canola or coconut oil

1 TBS butter

Salt/pepper to taste

2 TBS hoisin sauce

Instructions

Place the fish sauce, Truvia, sambal, garlic cloves, green scallions (not the orange ones), cilantro, and oil into a mini food processor and zap until the ingredients create a loose paste/marinade. Set aside.

Place the thinly sliced pork into a gallon-sized resealable plastic bag, season pork with salt and pepper. Add the marinade into the bag over the pork. Remove air from bag by carefully rolling up the bag a bit and then sealing the bag. Once the bag is tightly sealed, massage the bag with your hands or roll around on the counter until the pork is completely covered with the marinade. Set aside.

Heat a skillet to medium-hi temperature. Butter the interior four sides of the halved demi baguette and place the baguettes open-side-down onto a skillet to toast. If you don’t butter your bread, why are you in the kitchen? Get out. You don’t deserve this Bahn Mi.

Once the buttered baguette is toasted, remove from skillet and set aside.

Open bag of marinating pork and add to skillet to cook. Increase heat to sear pork on all sides, stirring infrequently to ensure browning occurs. For best results, use a cast iron skillet.

While the pork is browning, you can use this time to make a quick pickle of cucumber and carrot for the Bahn Mi topping. Super easy. Ready?

Slice matchsticks of one carrot and one cucumber. Add to a bowl, add 1/4 cup of rice wine vinegar, 2 tsp of Truvia, and season with salt and pepper. If you want, throw in a little cilantro. If you’re daring, throw in a few slivers of jalapeño. You’re welcome.

Back to the Bahn Mi. Once the pork is cooked through, remove from heat and set aside. Grab your BUTTERED and toasted baguettes, and smear some hoisin sauce on each side. Add a healthy amount of pork to the sandwich, top with your sweet and spicy pickled veggies, and don’t tell me I never brought anything good into your life.

Spatchcocked Rosemary Lemon Chicken

One of The Hub’s favorite meals is roasted chicken with crispy skin. So, for his birthday recently, I whipped this super simple recipe up just for him, and he loved it! I know you will, too!

Spatchcocked rosemary lemon chicken with garlic herbed roasted potatoes.

– 6lb whole chicken
– 1 small bag red potatoes
– 1 bunch parsley
– 5 sprigs fresh rosemary
– 3 large cloves of garlic
– 2 TBS olive oil
– 5 TBS softened butter
– 1 large lemon zested/juiced
– salt/pepper

Preheat oven to 375F. Par-boil the potatoes in salted water, drain and set aside. Chop parsley and divide into two medium-sized bowls. Chop rosemary and add into only one of the bowls. Chop garlic cloves and add 3/4 to the parsley bowl and 1/4 of the garlic to the mixed herb bowl.

Add one (1) TBS of olive oil and two (2) TBS of butter to parsley and garlic bowl. Toss par-boiled potatoes into the parsley and garlic bowl. Season with salt/pepper. Set aside.

Add lemon zest and juice to the mixed herb bowl. Add remaining butter to mixed herb bowl and combine well. Season with salt/pepper. Set aside.

Spatchcock chicken. Spread mixed herb butter mixture under chicken skin and over all sides of the bird. Season with salt/pepper.

Lightly oil large heated skillet. Sear chicken skin side down in large skillet for 5-7 minutes. Carefully turn over chicken and sear on the underside for 5 minutes. Remove from skillet and set aside.

Add herbed potatoes and all mixture into the heated skillet and toss potatoes. Using a masher, lightly press potatoes to break open but not mash.

Add chicken skin side up over the potatoes and roast at 375F for 90 minutes or until thickest part of the breast is 165F. Remove chicken from skillet, set aside and lightly cover with foil to rest. Return potatoes to oven and broil until golden brown and lightly crisp.

Tamales Tradition

I’m so thankful for my recent opportunity to help Verify TV during their search to find the best tamales in North Texas. While it’s always a fun adventure to participate with them, this particular assignment meant a great deal to me personally.

It’s not Christmas until the tamales are made. For my family, and so many others, it’s a tradition that involves participation from everyone — in many ways a rite of passage.

I remember very clearly the day I was first allowed to help. It was at my Grandma Ollie’s ranch, and I must have been around six or seven. Sitting around the long counter right next to my Ma, I was handed an oja (corn husk) and a spoon.

My job was to spread masa on as many ojas as I could. I recall my Grandma helping me figure out how to hold the oja in my little hand.

There’s a distinct way to gently use the spoon to smooth out the masa in swift strokes. I was so frustrated at first.

I recall feeling like each oja took FOREVER to do!

But, I was at the table. And, that’s what mattered.

An assembly line of family members laughing, working, and celebrating an extraordinary culinary experience rooted in my heritage — a memory that would imprint on my heart forever.

To be able to continue the tradition — right next to my Ma and with Grandma Ollie at 99 years and still in charge of the crew — means everything to me and more.

Merry Christmas. May your own family traditions during the holiday season be as special to you as mine are to me.

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*song used for entertainment only – no copyright infringement intended*

Holiday Happy Hour

If you’re anything like me, things are a little nuts right now. It’s the busiest time of the year. Fourth quarter craziness at work. Family, friends, holiday shopping (online or in person), and food preparations have you running non-stop.

So, why not have an impromptu holiday happy hour and volunteer to bring the food!?!?

Because that’s what I did!

Insane? Maybe. Fun? Of course, it was. And, here’s how I survived.

First, don’t cook. That’s right. I said it. You can still put together some elegant snacks without spending hours on end in the kitchen and then trying to figure out how to transfer everything. Plus, you even get to take a shower and get ready!

Smoked Salmon Stuffed Tomatoes with Chive Cream Cheese

1 package of plump cherry tomatoes

1 package of cream cheese

3 TBS chives, chopped

1/2 package of smoked salmon, chopped

2 TBS capers

Slice 1/8 off the vine end and 1/16 off the opposite end of each tomato. Using a paring knife, carefully hollow each tomato from the wider vine end without piercing the bottom.

Soften the cream cheese and mix with the chives. Set aside.

Fill the hollowed tomatoes with smoked salmon, add a few capers, then pipe the chive cream cheese over the top to cover.

Tasty Trio on a Toothpick

1 wedge of Manchego cheese

1 package of Prosciutto di Parma

1 small jar of pitted Castelvetrano Italian olives

Cut Manchego in 1/2 inch bars. Slice prosciutto into 1/2 inch slices and roll up. Remove olives from the brine.

Assemble with the cheese on the bottom, prosciutto in the middle and olive on top, and secure with a toothpick.

Congratulations! You’re a hero! And, if you’re feeling like an overachiever, make some deviled eggs and top with fresh dill and bacon.

Most importantly, have fun at your holiday happy hour!!

Independence Day Salad

Super easy summer salad for a sunny day!

Freedom from complicated recipes and hours in the kitchen is what this super simple summer salad serves up! (alliteration, anyone?)

This is one of the best salads to make using my absolute favorite Greek salad dressing, John the Greek Original Salad Dressing. I first saw it at a Texas specialty grocer, Central Market — a brand close to my heart since I used to work for them years ago. And, I fell in love!

I don’t know what John put in that dressing, but it’s zippy and makes my tastebuds happy. Plus, it’s sugar free — another plus in my book. Here’s the quick and easy recipe to enjoy on any summer day.

12 Petit Cucumbers, 1/4 inch sliced
2 Roma Tomatoes, cubed
1/4 Red Onion, thinly sliced
1 TBS Fresh Dill, chopped
3/4 Btl John the Greek Original Salad Dressing

Mix all ingredients together and refrigerate in a covered bowl for at least one hour. Serve as a side salad or over grilled meats and veggies.

Last night’s dream

I woke up on my own at five til six this morning.

I’d had a dream that I was in France under a tent in the warm summer sun. I was with a rather chatty older French fisherman who wore thick glasses — short, bald with wisps of hair decoratively peeking out from under his black beret.

I was trying to get oysters, cockles and clams from him. The longer it took for me to wrap up the talk and get the tub of scrubbed shellfish, the more humorous it became. Finally, in a moment when he bent over to grab another bucket, I slipped away my tub of delights and entered another tent.

There, I placed the tub over a low fire and immediately began adding in slices of garlic, crushed tomatoes, handfuls of basil and parsley, plus seafood stock straight into the tub. When I looked up, there was Anthony Bourdain.

We spoke for a moment. He was wearing a comfy-looking long sleeve black and white striped cotton shirt with jeans — sort of pirate-like, really. Tall and sun-kissed from the French beaches — we sat under the tent waiting for the shells to open.

After a short while, I had to leave. I decided to hug Tony on my way out — at first an uncomfortable embrace for both of us. I’m not a big hugger myself and could tell he wasn’t either.

I felt compelled to tell him it was okay.

Suddenly, I was somehow behind Tony — observing a genuinely friendly hug between two people who understood the moment without need of discussion. My view was slowly being drawn back until I was outside of the tent.

Then, I woke on my own at five til six.

Classic Roasted Tomato Salsa

Last week, Chef Rick Bayless posted a challenge to create a personalized version of Classic Roasted Tomato Salsa and a dish you’d use it in. I’ve always been a sucker for a good salsa. And, when he announced this salsa contest, I armed myself with fire and tongs. Continue reading “Classic Roasted Tomato Salsa”

Coconut Flour Pancakes

Let’s just cut to the chase here. If you’ve ever tried to blindly create anything with coconut flour, it’s highly likely you ended up angry, frustrated, confused, and most definitely hungry. Continue reading “Coconut Flour Pancakes”

Garam Masala Grilled Chicken Skewers

Let me start by saying that what I’m about to share with you is the easiest, most delicious bite of fabulous I have thrown together in a long time. And, I throw together bits of fabulous frequently. This one was practically perfect in every way. Eat your heart out, Mary Poppins. The. Bomb. Diggity. Continue reading “Garam Masala Grilled Chicken Skewers”

Roasted Garlic

You hear it all the time.

You have to “layer flavors” when you’re cooking. Well, what the heck does that mean? Load up on ingredients? Add tons of spices? Continue reading “Roasted Garlic”

Lemon Rosemary Roast Chicken

Everyone needs a back pocket recipe. It’s that one impressive yet easy meal you can pull from your back pocket anytime you need a pass for dinner. Continue reading “Lemon Rosemary Roast Chicken”

Pollo con Calabaza

By now you’ve figured out that I have a serious love of food.

Grandma Ollie used to hypnotize me with the movement of her wooden spoon, creating intoxicating aromas in the kitchen at the ranch with the simplest of ingredients. And, when I wasn’t at the ranch, my smoking, 500-pound, denture-wearing, narcoleptic, poem-reading babysitter (best. babysitter. ever.) would lovingly knead potato rolls then slather them with jewel-toned homemade jelly once baked, all while I sat on top of the kitchen table, anticipating the very moment she would hand over that pillowy-sweet treasure. Continue reading “Pollo con Calabaza”

Red, Red Wine Chicken

Well, there’s been a theme to this week…

Now that I’ve completely lost your attention and I, myself, am swaying back and forth dancing in my seat, let’s talk about the week, shall we? Continue reading “Red, Red Wine Chicken”

Turkey Bolognese with Zucchini Pasta

If you’re still feeling romantical after your lovely Valentine’s Day dinner, and even if you’re way over it, here’s a quick and easy Turkey Bolognese with Zucchini Pasta for any weeknight dinner! Continue reading “Turkey Bolognese with Zucchini Pasta”

Valentine’s Day Beef Kabobs and Chocolate Decadence Cake

It’s showtime, e’rybody. It’s that time of year where the romantic gesture of cooking a scratch-made meal can only end one of two ways, canoodling or calling the fire department. Well, not only am I here to help get your canoodle on, but we’re going to make better choices to get to that canoodle. Plus, we’ll let the fire department handle a real emergency. And, if you’re flying solo, then you’ll have a killer dinner, lunch for tomorrow, and dessert all week long because #lovethyself. Boom. Continue reading “Valentine’s Day Beef Kabobs and Chocolate Decadence Cake”

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