This is the best BBQ sauce i have ever had. It is the original Stubbs Barbecue Sauce. Joe just baked the chicken in the oven for 45 min. at 375° F in this sauce and it came out GREAT. We would have grilled it, but the condo/ apt. building we live in has restricted grill use to apartment renters only and put PADLOCKS on the grills. Now hardly anyone uses them, it is such a shame. If we could rig a small fire on our balcony, we would…
We served the chicken with couscous (leftover from last night’s picnic) and a romaine lettuce, kalamata olive, sun dried tomato, and walnut salad.
This picnic got a little more creative than the last one. Sorry i forgot to bring my camera along! it was a pretty colorful meal. At least I took a few photos during prep. Here’s the menu:
- Baguette with nettle and Rembrandt cheese.
- Steam frozen edamame and chill. Toss with olive oil, lemon juice, a pinch of sugar, lots of chopped mint, salt, pepper, and Parmesan.
- Peanut sauce noodles. Sauce = (1/4 C peanut butter, 1/4 C soy sauce, 1 T C warm water, 1 t ginger, 1 T rice vinegar, 1 1/2 T Asian toasted sesame oil, 1 T honey, 1 t dried hot red pepper flakes)
- Toss 1 C cooked couscous with oil, chopped parsley, chopped black olives, capers, sun dried tomato, chopped onion, feta, salt and pepper.
- Brown fresh corn kernels in hot oil with chopped chili and garlic, salt and pepper. Remove from heat and toss with cilantro and lots of lime juice.
- Watermelon for dessert.
I eat at least two of these a week for breakfast… and sometimes for lunch on the weekends. they are so easy and cheap to make, i cannot see why ANYONE would go to one of those expensive smoothie places.
- 1/2 C frozen strawberries …..large bag of frozen strawberries: $9.50/64 oz. bag~ $0.70/serving
- 6 oz Fat Free Plain Yogurt: $2.70/32 oz tub~$0.50/serving
- 1/4 C Orange Juice (or milk if you’re Joe): $2.60/64 oz canned~$0.16/serving
- 1 small banana: $0.19 at Trader Joe’s
- first add yogurt, then berries, using an immersion blender cup,
- Optional ingredients: flax seeds ($5/lb~$0.25/serving), rolled oats ($4/carton~$0.10/serving)
total cost: $1.54 – $1.79 per smoothie
YESSSS!!! i have been secretly counting the days till i could make these! during my freshman year of college, i visited the campus Cinnabun more than i should have. i have an evident weakness for sweet cinnamony (esp. frosted) things! I made 9 large cinnamon buns and at this point there are 6 left. we’ll run it off! I had a really hard time deciding which was the most mouth-watering photo to use for this post. thank heavens for FLICKR.
Once again, i am appreciative of the one-day bread recipes. This one was perhaps the easiest challenge to make to date. The only thing i would do differently next time is to put the WHOLE 1/2 C of cinnamon sugar in after rolling out the dough. It seemed excessibe to dump that much sugar onto the dough, and i probably only ended up using half. Now that i am eating th thanks to some extremely well executed dough, they are very tasty anyway. I had forgotten how good these were. i am tempted to go back for bun #2.
Check out more scrumptious photos (and step-by-step commentary) on FLICKR!!!
as usual, and out of respect for this excellent book (which i have been borrowing from my local library) i will not publish Peter Rinehart’s proprietary recipes on this blog. You may find a portion of the recipe on googlebooks.
tomato basil sauce + sun dried tomato + kalamata olive + onion + spinach + sea salt
It has been so easy to do pizza night now that i make the dough ahead of time (still using Peter Rinehart’s dough recipe from the Bread Baker’s Apprentice). Tonight i used my mother in law’s shaping technique – pressing the dough out into a disc instead of stretching it by hand. The result was a MUCH more circular shaped, even thickness pizza. I shaped them directly on parchment paper, slid them onto the pizza stone in a preheated 550 F oven, baked for 2 1/2 minutes, then removed the parchment paper and baked directly on the stone for another 5 minutes. My personal pizza (photographed above) was from a much smaller ball of dough than joe’s and basically wafer-thin. I enjoyed it, but it was hard to appreciate the crust when it was the consistancy of a cracker.
For two people it is really best to make just two avocados worth of guac. The original recipe i used called for three, but it always leaves too many leftovers that turn brown in our fridge.
- 2 large Haas Avocados
- 1 lime, juiced
- 1 large clove garlic, minced (let the garlic sit for a min. after mincing to let the juices intensify)
- 1/2 C petite diced canned tomatoes, drained (i just scoop in a couple spoonfuls)
- 1 1/2 t red pepper flakes
- 1/2 small onion, diced
- stir together avocado, garlic, salt, and lime juice in small bowl. Add tomato, red pepper, and onion. Let sit in the fridge for 15 or so minutes before serving.
I know my plating skills leave something to be desire, but these enchiladas are undoubtedly better than last time. more vegetables and less cooking time. I made these with a side of guacamole and homemade chips, while joe prepared the dark and stormies.
- 2 chicken breasts
- 1 medium onion
- 1 1/2 C plain yogurt
- 1/2 C shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 small green pepper, chopped
- 1 C black beans
- 1/2 C frozen corn kernels
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 1 t oregano
- 1 t black pepper
- 1 t garlic powder
- 1 t onion powder
- 1 t chili powder
- 1 can enchilada sauce
- 1/2 C shredded cheddar cheese
- Preheat oven to 350° F. Cook trimmed chicken breasts in a large skillet over medium heat until no longer pink. remove from skillet, shread, and return to skillet with onion, yogurt, and 1/2 C of cheese.
- stir over medium-low heat until cheese is melted. then add green pepper, spices, canned tomato, black beans, and corn. simmer for 5-8 minutes.
- Scoop a portion of the filling into a flour tortilla in a 9″ x 13″ baking dish. Roll the tortilla over so that the seam side is down, or on the side. Repeat with as many tortillas will fit in the pan. I always have leftover filling, but it is good by itself.
- cover the rolled tortillas with enchilada sauce and sprinkle with last 1/2 C of cheese.
- Bake for 20 minutes in preheated oven.
Click here for Guacamole recipe.
inspired by all the veggies on sale at the grocery store, we decided to make a bunch of them for dinner tonight!
salad: romaine lettuce with cucumber and blue cheese
corn: boiled for 5 minutes
squash casserole:
- 1 t lemon juice
- 1 yellow squash and 1 zucchini cut into 1/6th-inch slices
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 C oregano
- 1/4 C parsley
- 1 large garlic clove, chopped
- 1/4 t fine grain sea salt
- pinch of red pepper flakes
- 1/2 C evoo
- 1/4 C butter
- 2 C fresh (whole wheat) bread crumbs
- 3 small potatoes, sliced transparently thin
- 1/4 C grated Gruyere cheese + 1/2 C (fat free) feta
- Preheat oven to 400F degrees and place a rack in the middle. Rub a 9×9 gratin pan (or equivalent baking dish) with a bit of olive oil, sprinkle with lemon juice, and set aside.
- Place the zucchini slices into a colander placed over a sink, toss with the sea salt and set aside for 10-15 minutes to drain a bit.
- Make the sauce by pureeing the oregano, parsley, garlic, 1/4 teaspoon salt, red pepper flakes, and olive oil in a food processor or using a hand blender. Set aside.
- Make the breadcrumbs by melting the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook for a few minutes until the butter is wonderfully fragrant, and has turned brown. Wait two minutes, then stir the breadcrumbs into the browned butter.
- Transfer the squash to a large mixing bowl. Add the potatoes and two-thirds of the oregano sauce. Toss until everything is well coated. Add the cheese and half of the bread crumbs and toss again. Taste one of the zucchini pieces and add more seasoning (salt or red pepper) if needed.
- Transfer the squash to the lemon-juiced pan, top with the remaining crumbs, and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. You don’t want the zucchini to go to mush, but you need to be sure the potatoes are fully baked. Remove from oven, and drizzle with the remaining oregano sauce.
With one month to go before we move out of DC, we are beginning our kitchen clean out effort. We have had a bag of stir fry veggies in our freezer almost as long as we’ve been married. Joe used his classic garlic sauce recipe and mixed it with a bag of stir fry veggies. We served it with some brown rice and veggie spring rolls. The brown rice was not quite enough to cut the spice of Joe’s garlic sauce, so it was a good thing that we had sweet mojitos to drink alongside dinner. Oh yeah, and i made black bean bownies for desert!
MOJITO recipe:
- 2.25 oz spiced rum
- 12 mint leaves
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1/4 lime juiced
- 3 oz soda or tonic water
- Use a spoon to muddle mint leaves with rum and sugar in a highball glass. add lime juice, soda, and a couple ice cubes. Enjoy!
what could be more perfect for a summertime road trip than some really good limeade? it is super simple to make and DELICIOUS. why bother wasting money on a sugary drink at a gas station? we paid a dollar for 15 limes as our local (Alexandria) Latino grocery store, and cents for the sugar. It tastes better than any limeade i have ever had.
- 1 1/2 C sugar
- 8-10 limes (16 oz. lime juice thanks to our beach house’s electric juicer)
- 4 C water
heat sugar and 3 C water in microwave, stirring once, until sugar is fully dissolved. juice limes and mix with sugar water, adding additional water to taste.
two skinny jenkins 