Vote for Hawks

Was watching Regis and Kelly today (home w/ furlough) and see that Hawks has entered a recipe in the grilling contest they are running. They need your vote to appear on the show. Vote here.

Palaver Chicken

These days it is not often that I try new recipes. It's the same ol story. I'm single, lazy, and poor. But I really want to try more recipes from my Mideast cookbook and so I tried this one because I had all the ingredients.

It turns out that this is one of those recipes that gets better the next day. On the day I cooked it I thought, "it's good, but could use more spice". Then I parceled it into single servings and froze them for work lunches. Today I had one and it was SOOOO much better. I also think that this recipe could easily be done in a crockpot and done as a stew by just throwing in the rice or, in my case, quinoa.

PALAVER CHICKEN

* 1 1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts
* 2 garlic cloves, crushed
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 1 onion, finely chopped
* 4 tomatoes, chopped (I used a can of diced tomatoes)
* 2 tablespoons peanut butter
* 2 1/2 cups chicken stock
* 1 teaspoon dried thyme
* 8 ounces frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
* 1 chili pepper, seeded and chopped (I used a medium jalapeno)
* salt
* pepper

Cut chicken into thin slices, place in a bowl and stir in garlic and a little salt and pepper.

Melt the butter in a large frying pan and fry the chicken over medium heat, turning once or twice to brown evenly. Transfer to a plate using a slotted spoon and set aside.

Heat the oil in a large pan and fry the onion and tomatoes over high heat for 5 minutes, till soft.

Reduce the heat, add the peanut butter and half of the stock and blend together well.

Cook for 4-5 minutes, stirring all the time to prevent the peanut butter burning, then add the remaining stock, thyme, spinach, chili and seasonings.

Stir in the chicken slices and cook over medium heat for 10-15 minutes till chicken is cooked through.

Pour the chicken mixture into a warmed serving dish and serve with boiled yams, quinoa, or rice.

Buckhorn Grill - Mostly Good

If you like tri-tip, you need to try Buckhorn Grill.

The Grills are an offshoot of the original Buckhorn restaurant in Winters. The Buckhorn has long been known for serving Certified Angus Beef that has been aged for 21 to 42 days. They also serve great game such as antelope, buffalo, and duck.

The Grills are a semi-fast food offshoot of the restaurant. After they had success selling tri-tip sandwiches at the Napa farmers' market, they opened their first Grill and now they have a total of six throughout northern California. The one in Sacramento is located at 18th and L Streets. You order up at a counter and then your food is served up in about five minutes. They are most famous for the tri-tip, but they also serve salmon and chicken.

I agree that the Buckhorn's tri-tip is of the very best quality and never see a need to order the salmon or chicken. The meat has been aged 21 days, marinated, rubbed with seasoning, and then cooked over a wood fire and smoked. The meat is always tender and delicious.

Another favorite item at the Grill is their Roadhouse Onions. If you like onion strings then I would say the Grill has the best I've had. Their onions are sliced super thin, battered and the deep fried to perfection. What makes them stand out is that they are super light, crisp and totally greaseless. Other restaurants the strings will be clumped and a bit mushy from grease. Not here.

I'm a small eater and so usually I just order the small plate of tri-tip and Roadhouse Onions. But the other day I went for the full plate which includes a roll, mashed potatoes and roasted veggies. I switched the veggies for my onions, but was really disappointed in the mashed potatoes. They were like potato porridge after having had too much milk added to them. I was remembering the movie Close Encounters when Richard Dreyfuss starts sculpting a giant Devil's Tower out of mashed potatoes. They were nice and stiff. If you had used my Grill potatoes it would have been the mudslide down the side of the mountain.

But generally the food is good and the service is as well.

Arnold, YOU SUCK!

Another 5% paycut for a total of 20%?!?!?!

Doesn't he realize that by furloughing us on Fridays it means that businesses like shops and restaurants will have to layoff or decrease hours for their employees? That all of this is has a cyclical effect? That he's spiraling the State further downwards? When we get cut, we can't spend. Then those businesses cut and then there is even less spending. Thus less sales tax generated.

HOW IS THIS SUPPOSED TO STIMULATE A DEPRESSED ECONOMY TO RECOVERY???

Disgust with Firefigher Waste

This actually happened on July 3rd and has irritated me since then.

At about 7:30 p.m. a house was on fire on 10th Street. It was one of those old houses that has an apartment on the ground floor and another on the top floor. The top floor and attic were in flames and luckily had been unoccupied. The ground floor tenant got out.

Tenth street was completely closed off by tons of emergency response teams. I had to bike by on my way to the Crest. My movie was sold out and so I had to bike by it again on my home. I, like many others, stopped to watch and see what was going on.


And this is where my disgust of absolute waste comes in. I counted 11 firetrucks! That does not even include the ambulances, police, and fire captain trucks. I'm talking 11 firetrucks with hoses and ladders. Of these only two were actually actively involved, I believe. And really, isn't that all that was really needed? I can see that fire requiring two firetrucks with a third on the side in case the fire jumped to another house. But 11!!!

Perhaps you've seen in the paper lately how firefighters have been difficult to deal with in reaching concessions during these tough economic times. They eventually did agree to take a pay reduction in order to save layoffs of some of their brethren. I also see dealings with the union in the course of my job. So I know a little about them from work as well. They are tough negotiators and, in my mind, pretty greedy.


Let me say that I'm talking about the UNION, not firefighters themselves. Firefighters are heroic folk. Just like we can support our troops and not support the war.

So, yes, I'm disgusted because I know how the union operates constantly wanting more benefits and pay and yet here is a fire with 11 firetrucks. Keep in mind this was July 3rd - the Fourth of July weekend. Shouldn't they be waiting in their firehouses for other fire calls that usually spring up thanks to thoughtless misuse of fireworks instead of parked on a street chatting while some of their brothers fight a house fire?

Shortcuts Don't Pay and a New Favorite

Shortcuts often don't work out in gourmet cooking. Such was the case with a recipe I made today of a Thai corn chowder. So...I won't be critiquing the corn chowder recipe because I don't feel I did it justice by using shortcuts and now want to make it again the proper way.

You see, I shortcutted by not using fresh ginger or lemongrass. Instead, I used the pastes of each that come in the tubes at the produce section. That might have been OK but that after I finished everything I checked the expiration dates on the tubes and then were LONG past. So let's just say the flavor I was wanting just wasn't there. Silly, considering I have an awesome Asian market a block from my house and I was in there TWICE today! Sheesh!

So, although it was good, the chowder wasn't great. Not like I think it could be with fresh ingredients. So I will make it again.

BUT....
I do want to share my new favorite Pampered Chef tool. Each season they come out with something that I'm not all that thrilled about until I start using it. Then I just LOVE it.


This season it is our Kernel Cutter for taking corn off the cob. It works great!


This is definitely a must if you like to use fresh corn in recipes or if you have someone who cannot eat corn on the cob - like kids with braces. I've used it quite a few times this season. And it is way safer than using a knife to slice off the kernels. It is only $7.50. Let me know if you want one. I have an order going in soon.

Mideastern Apricot Bundles

You gotta love when you go to the sale table at the bookstore and find a great deal. I got a nice cookbook that included recipes from Spain, the Mideast, and Africa for just $5. Big and full of pictures. It had a recipe for apricot bundles that I had to alter for size.

With apricots at their peak right now, this is a great recipe and super easy.


Apricot Bundles

6 apricots, halved and pitted
1/2 c almond meal
1/4 c sugar
1 T rose water
4 sheets of phyllo dough cut into squares
honey

Heat oven to 350 degrees.
In a bowl, mix together the almond meal, sugar, and rosewater to create a paste. Take a tablespoon of the paste and sandwich it in the middle of two apricot halves. Place a filled apricot in the center of a phyllo square and pinch/twist the ends together to create a boat around the apricot. Place on a baking sheet. Drizzle the bundles with honey. Bake bundles for 20 minutes. Serve hot with ice cream.

Wheat Berry Salad

Wheat berries were something new for me. I had seen this recipe done on the Food Network show Healthy Appetite and realized that I had eaten them before, but never seen them in the store. Off I went to the Food Coop and the bulk bins. They had both hard and soft berries, so I opted for the soft and got about a cup and a half of them.

Wheat berries are the whole wheat kernel before it has been stripped of the bran and germ. It is a true whole grain packed with nutrients. When cooked, it is a chewy kernel with a nutty flavor. You can use it in salads or even eat it for breakfast with milk and honey or your favorite cereal toppings. If you are industrious, you can grind raw wheat berries into your own whole wheat flour.

The first step for the salad is to boil the wheat berries for about an hour to get them tender. Then you can combine them with chopped veggies, herbs, and lemon juice and voila! You have a super healthy salad. Basically this is the same recipe as my quinoa salad, just with wheat berries.

Wheat berry salad

1 c wheat berries, cooked and drained
2 ears of white corn or canned
1/2 c chopped red onion
1/2 c chopped bell pepper
1/4 c raisins or dried cranberries
1/4 c red wine vinegar
1/4 c olive oil
Juice from one large lemon
Fresh ground salt and pepper to taste.

Cook the corn and after it has cooled, cut off the kernels into a bowl. Add remaining ingredients. Toss together and enjoy!