Po Boys for Po College Kids

I sure do have a lot of updating to do. The past two months have been filled with plenty of school work and Christmas shopping. Now that I am an alumnus of Florida Gulf Coast University, and now that the holidays are over, I can finally share my latest culinary adventures. I will do my best to recall the recipes exactly, but I apologize in advance if they seem a little rusty. Thanks everyone, for bearing with me. 

After such a successful enchilada night, the next Thursday Scott and I opted for fish. He had a terrible craving for a po boy, so we decided to try it out. A fried fish sandwich can't be too difficult...wrong! 

Scott got the recipe from the Today Show. One of my favorite Canadian chefs, Chuck Hughes, was a guest on the show, and shared his recipe with the cast. It looked delicious, so off to Publix Scott and I went to duplicate the dish. Click here for the original recipe. This is what you will need:

• 1 cup  flour
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
• 1 (12-ounce) bottle medium bodied beer (Scott and I used Newcastle)
• Canola oil (I'm pretty sure we used veg oil)
• 8 (3-ounce) fillets fresh haddock or cod (or go to Publix and get a frozen bag of haddock, and defrost it yourself, like we did)
• salt & pepper
• 2 sandwich size baguettes, cut in half
• Tartar sauce (Scott and I made our own) 
• Iceberg lettuce, chopped

Combine salt, pepper, cayenne, and flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the beer and mix well. Be sure not to over mix the batter; you still want to see bubbles. (Our mixture looked a little soupy. I'm still not sure why, because we followed the recipe exactly). 

Put at least 3 inches of oil in a deep-bottomed frying or sauce pan. Heat to medium-high heat. You will know when the oil is ready when you can drop a piece of batter in to the oil and it fries right away. (This is where Scott and I ran awry. We ran out of oil and did not have enough to fill our frying pan. We thought we'd be able to shallow fry the fish and flip it when it was ready...we were thoroughly mistaken. The fish flaked apart everywhere in the pan.)

I digress, season your fish with salt and pepper, dip into the batter, then into the oil. Fry all the way through, and place on a paper towel to dry off the excess oil. 

Spread the tarter sauce on your baguette, place the fish on the bread, add some chopped lettuce, some hot sauce if you so desire, and there you have it. I hope your sandwich looks much prettier than ours did. The taste was there, but the crunch from the fish was missing. 

Not only did we flub on our fish sandwich, but we failed tremendously with our onion ring side dish. The batter did not 

stick to the onions and we wound up with soggy, naked onions. Next time, I think we should dredge the onions in flour first before dipping them in batter. At least our cucumber salad was tasty! 

If you have any tricks of the trade to a perfect onion ring, or a perfect po boy, please do tell! What is your favorite kind of po boy?  

Chicken Enchiladas, Anyone? Olé!

Scott and I both love Mexican food, but to novice chefs, there is only so much that we know how to make. We've done tacos, we've done fajitas, and we've done burritos. So, when we wanted to cook Mexican two weeks ago, we hit a brick wall. This time around, I did not go to Pinterest. I had an epic eureka moment of my own, and suggested chicken enchiladas. Since, I've never made enchiladas, I decided to look at some of the recipes on the Food Network, but I never actually replicated one. I took some of the ideas and ran with a thought of my own. I am pleased to say that this recipe is Food Network inspired, but Christine Nanio crafted. 

There are only a few ingredients to this recipe, so it'll be easy on your wallet.

• 1 rotisserie chicken, shredded
• 1 pkg mushrooms
• 1/2 of a green pepper, chopped
• 1/2 of a red onion, chopped
• 4 tortilla rounds
• 1 pkg Mexican blend cheese (or whatever you may have in your house)
• 1 can enchilada sauce
• 1/2 jar of mild salsa
• sour cream (for topping) 

Start off by shredding the entire rotisserie chicken into a bowl. It'll be tedious and messy, but totally worth it. Combine the chicken, the onion, the pepper, the mushrooms, and the salsa in a large saucepan on medium high heat. Cook down the mixture for a few minutes so all the vegetables have a chance to soften. Season with salt, pepper and I also use Italian seasoning. That stuff is my go-to seasoning for everything! I love Mrs. Dash! 

Once the mixture has reduced a bit, you can fill each tortilla shell with a little bit of the mixture, a dollop of sour cream, some cheese, some hot sauce if you're adventurous, and roll it all up nice and tight. Place the enchiladas in a baking dish and cover with the enchilada sauce and the rest of the cheese. Bake for 15-20 minutes. 

Here is our final product! 

It looks a little sloppy, and the refried beans look a tad bit scary, but I promise you, this is definitely a recipe worth trying! I wouldn't write about anything that wasn't delicious. And next time, someone please remind me to take pictures during my cooking process. I suck at that. 

What's your favorite Mexican dish? 

Date Night Dinner for Two: Chicken Cordon Bleu

The days I'm not on Pinterest surfing through dinner recipes, I look to the Food Network for inspiration. Since my Typical Thursday journey, I have adopted a few fancy, yet inexpensive go-to dinner recipes, and Chicken Cordon Bleu is definitely one of them. Tyler Florence of the Food Network, hits it out of the park with his version.

Minus the thyme leaves, Scott and I stick to this recipe step by step. It's absolutely fool proof and absolutely delicious. All you need is:

• 4 chicken breasts, skinless and boneless
• 4 slices of thin prosciutto
• 1/2 lb Gruyere cheese, grated (you can use any type of Swiss cheese)
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour
• salt and pepper
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs 
• 1 clove garlic, peeled and minced
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 2 eggs, beaten
• olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place chicken between two sheets of plastic wrap. Use a mallet, a rolling pin, the back side of a pan, anything you have handy in the kitchen that can pound the chicken down to a 1/4 inch thickness. Scott has a surfboard shaped, wooden carving board that I use to pound out the chicken. If you're having a bad day, I suggest you be in charge of this step...It's a great stress reliever! 

Remove the plastic wrap from the chicken. Place a piece of the prosciutto down on each chicken breast. Then, sprinkle with some of the Gruyere cheese. Roll up the chickens like a jelly roll. Be sure to not over stuff the chicken so all the contents stay in side, and be sure to roll everything up tight so it stays intact. 

Season the flour with salt, pepper, garlic, melted butter, and thyme (if you choose to use it). Lightly coat the chicken in flour, dip into the egg wash, then into the panko bread crumbs. Be gentle with the chickens during this step so they don't unravel. 

Place the chicken roulades into a greased baking dish and bake for 20-25 minutes. When the chicken is done, it will come out crispy, and bubbly, and delicious. If you're trying to impress a mate with a fancy date night dinner, pull out this recipe! I guarantee that it will score you brownie points! Do you have a go-to date night recipe that you would like to share?

Buffalo Chicken Pasta

After two months of not writing, I think it's time to update. My break was unintentional, but I have had a lot on my plate lately. At long last, I will finally bring everyone up to speed with my culinary adventures. 

If you like it spicy and you actually like carbs, then this Buffalo Chicken Pasta is the recipe for you! If I do remember correctly, Scott and I prepared this meal before we went away for the weekend of my 23rd birthday back in April. It was a Thursday night, obviously, and we needed something fast, simple and delicious. So, I decided to boldly go to Pinterest, where I found the recipe.

The Blog where I found the recipe is super cute and super easy to follow. As usual, Scott and I varied from the original, but our version still turned out pretty good! Here is what we used:

• Marie's Bleu Cheese Salad Dressing (1 jar)
• Hot Sauce (whatever was on sale that day at Publix, about 1/2 to 3/4 of the jar)
• 1 diced red onion
• Diced chicken breast (about 2 depending on their size)
• pasta (we used spirals)
• 1 pkg diced mushrooms

Now, just add everything in a large mixing bowl and stir it all up! Alli's Blog instructs you to add salt and pepper to taste, and to chill the mixture. I discovered that it is delicious both hot and cold! Here is how ours turned out!

Instead of using celery, Scott and I substituted shrooms. I'm not too big on celery...and instead of rotisserie chicken, we used chicken breasts, which are a lot less messy. This recipe was super fast to make, and there was so much of it that Scott had left overs for days! 

I love pasta and I love different sauces, so this was a homerun for me! What do you like to drown your pasta in? 

An Asian Sensation!

Two nights ago, Scott asked me to brainstorm for Thursday night's dinner, so immediately, I started thinking, but of course I drew a blank. Thankfully, he sent me a helpful text message, "look through all your good Asian recipes." Well, to clarify, they're not my recipes, they belong to Pinterest and to the users who posted them on Pinterest. On the other hand, they are good, so I thumbed through the few that I had repinned, and the Mongolian Beef stuck out for me. 

Mongolian Beef has been one of my favorite Asian dishes since I could remember, and the Elephant Bar Restaurant makes a pretty mean Mongolian Beef that I remember and love all too well. So, I figured if they can do it, I surely can do it. I found a very easy to follow recipe right here with very few ingredients. 

For, the most part, Scott and I stuck to the recipe but we made a few changes. Here are the ingredients that Scott and I used, but feel free to stick to the original.

• 1 pkg of stir fry steak pieces
• 1/4 cup flour
• 3 tsp. of veg oil
• 1/2 tsp. of grated ginger
• 1 tbsp chopped garlic
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 3 green onions chopped 
• about 1/2 cup mushrooms
• about 1/2 cup broccoli 

Pat the meat dry and coat completely in flour. Toss in a strainer to shake off any excess flour. The recipe says that the meat should be lightly coated. Where we used flour, she used cornstarch. I don't really know the difference, so feel free to use either. Set the meat aside and start on the sauce. While you're preparing the meat, be sure to get a pot boiling with water and cook white rice according to the package.

To make the sauce, heat half the oil in a wok on medium-high heat. Add in the garlic and ginger. Immediately add the water, soy sauce, brown sugar and red pepper flakes. Cook this mixture for about 2 minutes, then transfer to another container. 

Add the meat back to the wok and fry it until it is brown. Throw in the mushrooms and the broccoli and add the sauce in. The recipe instructs that you can now continue to cook the sauce to reduce and thicken it, or you can finish it as is. Scott and I cooked it down for another 5 minutes or so. Be sure to add in the green onions at the last minute. Pour it over a bed of white rice and enjoy! 

Seriously, this turned out so well! I was pleasantly surprised. I would venture to say that it is just as good as any Chinese or Japanese steakhouse...not to mention, it's super quick! Give it a try and let me know what you think! I'm definitely going to make this one of my go to meals! What is your favorite Asian inspired dinner? And can anyone tell me the difference between cornstarch and flour?

The Best Recipes...

Sometimes the best recipes are the ones that we don't plan.

Although I have a few old Thursday recipes that need to be shared, I do not have any new ones. I do, however, have a pretty simple, pretty fast, pretty wholesome recipe that can put a smile on any meat lover's face. 

As you all well know, Tropical Storm Isaac was barreling towards southwest Florida just about a week ago. So, last dreary, Sunday night, Scott pleasantly surprised me when he suggested that we cook  sirloin steaks. Although I love sticking to a recipe and having step by step laid out for me, I absolutely love when Scott and I don't plan our dinners...they always seem so much more heartfelt. 

Let's talk about the subject at hand though...steak. I've killed many a steak in my day, but I think I have got it down to a science. Broiling on a baking rack is definitely the key. And through trial and error, I have figured out that size does play a role in cooking time, but generally for small steaks, 5 minutes on each side should produce a good medium rare (just the way I like it). Scott , on the other hand, likes his steak medium well to well done, so he wound up putting his steak in an extra 5 minutes. The past few times I've cooked steak, I have stuck to this method and my steak has come out juicy and tender. Another good tip...always let your steak rest. If you cut the poor thing open straight away, you're going to lose all the juice and flavor, so give it at least 5 minutes for the juices to redistribute throughout the steak. 

Anywho, here is our Tropical Storm Isaac, Sunday Funday dinner. 

The veggies came from a bag, and the potatoes are instant, but the steak is pure genius and raw talent. Scott marinated the sirloins in a teriyaki glaze, and I was the brains behind the operation. This recipe may not be the most creative that we've tackled but it was one of the most heartwarming! Do you have any special comfort food recipes? Do you have any tips on how to cook the perfect steak! Share them with me!

Chicken Bacon Ranch Mac n Cheese

I've taken a very unnecessary hiatus from blogging, and I deeply apologize. I have a lot to catch you all up on, but I need to start with the most recent and work my way back from there. 

Scott and I have been at somewhat of a loss for Thursday dinners as of late, whether it be because of our budget, recent lack of creativity, or spontaneous, random plans that just come up. So, obviously, when I am out of ideas, I head to my crutch, Pinterest. Last week, I found a rather awesome recipe from a blog with a very similar name, One Ordinary Day.

Everyone, including myself, loves mac n cheese and I'm always trying to think up new and inventive ways to spice up the classic. One Ordinary Day beat me to the punch with a Chicken Bacon Ranch Mac n Cheese recipe. Click here to check it out! Scottie and I tweaked the recipe a little bit by using just regular pasta and regular butter, but it still came out pretty awesome!

  

 Season and saute the chicken on medium high heat.  








What you need for a bechamel sauce:
- butter
- flour
- milk
- cheese

 

Crisp up bacon in a skillet on medium high heat.

 

Here is our finished product! These are the basic steps. If you follow the recipe I linked above, you'll have a killer chicken, bacon, ranch mac n cheese too! The only minor disappointment that I encountered was that I felt our bechamel sauce was a little grainy...delicious, but grainy. Does anybody have any tips to avoiding that problem? Also, do you have a favorite mac n cheese recipe that you'd like to share?

Freestyle Friday

One of my favorite shows on Food Network, and quite possibly one of my favorite shows of all time, is Chopped. If you're not familiar with the show, there are four contestants and each have a basket filled with secret ingredients. They are required to make an appetizer, entree and dessert course, and each round someone gets eliminated. It's super suspenseful and super entertaining and I just can't get enough of it. If you are just as excited as I am now, you can watch Chopped every Tuesday night at 10 PM on the Food Network! ( I should be their spokesperson). 

Elise's Shepard's Pie

Anyway, Tuesday night, Scott and I got to have a Chopped of our own...at least I felt that way. Being two college students on a limited budget, with a limited pantry, we put our heads together and came up with a pretty delicious end result. Our "secret" ingredients that night were instant mashed potatoes, ground sausage, a frozen bag of veggies, and croutons. With those ingredients we came up with one delicious Shepard's pie! 

Shepard's pie is usually a layer of meat and vegetables and a layer of creamy mashed potatoes, but I was assigned the position of sous chef Tuesday evening, so the creation of our dinner was up to Scott. I was assigned crust duty. Here is an easy Shepard's pie recipe you can follow, but basically, if you have the four ingredients I mentioned earlier, you're good to go! 

Here are the five simple steps Scott and I stuck to:

• Heat the ground meat and vegetables through to a golden brown.
• Prepare instant mashed potatoes according to package. 
• Spoon everything into a greased baking dish (you don't need pretty layers).
• Crush and season croutons, and sprinkle on top of mixture.
• Bake for about 10-15 min on 350. (We cut the time in half because everything was basically cooked already)

Me and Scott's Shepard pie

Shepard's pie and Garlic bread

My helpful tip to you, don't drink and make a crouton crumble at the same time! If you're like me, you'll absentmindedly add salt, garlic salt, and bacon bits to the mixture because you're too preoccupied with the way your Shocktop Raspberry Wheat beer tastes. SODIUM OVERLOAD!

Do you have any spur of the moment, out of the box recipes that you're proud of? Do you have any "Chopped" moments?

4th of July Follow-Up

First off, I would like to start by saying that I hope everyone had an enjoyable and safe fourth of July! I know I sure did! Aside from the fireworks, I had a quiet fourth, complete with a perfect alternative dinner to the usual grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. If you're looking for a twist on the traditional, or your grill is broken beyond all repair, I have the recipe for you...

BBQ Pulled Pork!!

Scott suggested the idea, so I got to searching the Web for the perfect recipe. The best way to have a relaxing and stress free holiday is to break out the slow cooker. Get up early and try this recipe because it's definitely worth it! Instead of reading the entire page, I really found the pictures helpful. Just remember, all you need is:

• salt & pepper
• rib rub (or any meat rub)
• 1 - 2 onions (depending on their size)
• a few cloves of garlic
• BBQ sauce
• a slow cooker
• water
• liquid smoke (I used worcestershire sauce)

...and most importantly, 8 hours! Different recipes told me different times, but eight seemed to be the average. Just season your meat, season your vegetables, cover everything with water, and eight hours later you have pulled pork! Once you strain everything, mix in the BBQ sauce and you've got a great alternative to any grilling shenanigans. 

I think my favorite part of the meal was the pasta salad. A few nights prior to the fourth, Mom made a warm pasta salad tossed in some oil, garlic and herbs. It's amazing what you can do with some ingenuity and some Italian dressing. I kept the pasta cold, tossed it in some Italian dressing, salt, pepper; threw in some diced red peppers...and BAM! I had to steal Emeril's classic line, because the pasta salad was just so darn creative and delicious, if I do say so myself!

What are some of your tricks to transforming left overs? What dinners did you prepare to celebrate the fourth? Do you have any creative alternatives to hamburgers and hot dogs, and outdoor grilling?

A Typical Thursday Morning

There is no better way to start a typical Thursday than with breakfast made by my boyfriend! I really can't believe how much better the day can be with breakfast...

They say breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Do you eat breakfast every morning? Do you have any special breakfast recipes?