All that glitters is not gold

It's quinoa. Quinoa goes everywhere just like glitter. We just made a dish using quinoa and we got quinoa EVERYWHERE.

Tonight, we decided to recreate Skinny Taste's dirty brown rice with shrimp recipe, found here: http://www.skinnytaste.com/2012/02/dirty-brown-rice-with-shrimp.html.

Dirty rice is a traditional NOLA dish, typically made with brown beef, rice and peppers.

Per usual we took our own spin on the dish. We subbed quinoa for the rice which in hindsight we would have done a little differently. The hamburg to quinoa ratio was 98:1.

Here's how we did it:
-1/2 cup quinoa and 1 cup of water. We added salt, paprika, thyme, chicken bouillon, and a bay leaf to the water.
-Bring quinoa to a boil, then simmer and cover on low for 10 minutes or until the water evaporates.

-Simultaneously, in another pan, saute garlic, onion, green pepper and scallions in oil for about 5 minutes. Then add in a pound or so of hamburg and your spices. We used: salt and pepper, thyme, paprika, cayenne pepper and another bay leaf. Brown up the 'burg and then the best part: add a poundish of peeled shrimp. Once the shrimp are cooked, mix everything and add the quinoa. Then serve and eat.

Things we'd do differently:

We would either increase the quinoa to meat ratio or skip quinoa an use rice or even try spaghetti squash. Also add more veggies such as red pepper. The recipe did call for celery but we don't care for celery so we didn't add it.

We only used a quarter teaspoon of cayenne but would use more to increase the kick.

We would also add garlic powder.

This would be a good dish to feed a crowd as it makes a lot. Very easy to clean up besides the quinoa  glitter.

Until next week!

Our Bout with Beef

Beef Stroganoff is a classically rich dish. We were craving comfort food on this warm spring day, but realized we can't eat mass amounts of sour cream with warmer weather and beach trips approaching. We had a recipe and decided to make a number of substitutions...a few too many substitutions. 

We started by sauteing a diced onion and one package of sliced baby bella mushrooms in olive oil for about ten minutes, until the onions browned. Meanwhile, we seasoned cubed steak with salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce. The meat was added to the vegetable mixture and cooked all the way through. Once this was complete, we turned off the heat and added plain Greek yogurt. We opted for yogurt instead of sour cream, hoping to reduce the fat amount. Unfortunately, the texture of the dish was compromised. The sauce was a little watery and the yogurt began to separate. 

Traditionally beef stroganoff is served over egg noodles but we wanted to use a vegetable instead of carb heavy pasta. We cut up a head of broccoli and partially boiled it. This was drained, and transferred to a skillet with olive oil and sliced garlic. The broccoli was cooked in the garlic oil mixture until the garlic browned. 

All in all this dish had a lot of positives and an equal number of negatives. The healthy alternatives were a good idea in theory, but because of the number of them we felt that it barely resembled the actual dish. When a situation like this happens, we tend to add extra ingredients to give the recipe more flavor. We ended up with broccoli, topped with beef stroganoff, topped with mozzarella cheese...an undesirable menu. 

 

Until next week where we "experiment" with shrimp-its all about learning from mistakes.

PS If you're looking for a twist on cocktails, check out our BFF Kata's new blog: http://alcoholidays.wordpress.com/

Hungry Hungry Hippos

jkjk. But we ate pretty late so we were pretty hungry. Almost as hungry as hungry hungry hippos.

We're extremely sorry for the long hiatus. Tori casually went to China for half of February which didn't leave us a lot of time to cook and blog and wine. Becky was forced to eat candy while she was gone...

China was a great experience. Tori actually cooked with a hot pod over there. A hot pod is essentially a boiling pot of water placed in front of you and you individually cook veggies, noodles and lamb. Wasn't really a fan of the lamb but she gave it a go. It was all about trying new things and going with the flow. Very zen.

While Tori was gone, Becky was cooking up a storm. She experimented with ricotta sausage lasagna, chicken noodle soup, baked pesto pasta, and breaded chicken legs with garlic roasted broccoli.

Onto tonight's dish!

Tonight, we used a recipe from skinnygirl.com for tortellini mushroom soup. We eliminated some ingredients such as garlic and halved the broth to make it heartier.

We used:

4 cups of low sodium chicken broth
1 cup water
2 tablespoon butter
1 onion
1 stalk celery
1 colored carrrot
A blend of bella and shitake mushrooms
A package of cheese tortellini fresh from Trader Joe's

We added:
salt and pepper to taste
freshly grated Parmesan

and a bottle of Riesling.

First we diced all of our veggies and sauteed them in butter until tender. Then we added the chicken broth and water. Brought it to a boil and added the tortellini. We tasted it and it was a little bland probably because of the low sodium broth. So we added salt, pepper and parmesan. Next time we would use a beef broth to deepen the flavor.

The veggies really enhanced the flavor of the broth to give it that authentic homemade taste. In total this meal took 20 minutes. It was very quick which was great because we were hungry hippos.

As a side note, the recipe said it served 4. The package of tortellini served 3. As a main course for 2 hungry hungry hippos, it served 2.

Stay tuned for next week's beef stroganoff!