I'm going to run through this one quickly, then add the links for the credit at the end. Ready? Okay, here's a recipe the way I did it.
1.) Heat your skillet to medium or so. I used my cast-iron-like skillet.
2.) Put some olive oil in the skillet and let it warm.
3.) Coat both sides of a flour tortilla with olive oil. You can either coat it and then put it in the pan or you can flop the naked torilla in the pan and swirl each side in the olive oil until it's lightly coated.
4.) Season your tortilla with spices. In a pinch, you could probably make due with salt and pepper, but I used basil, oregano, and garlic powder.
5.) Pile some cheese (I used Colby) in the middle of the tortilla.
6.) Add other ingredients that sound interesting. Timing is pretty important here. I just added orange bell peppers today. Those can be eaten raw, so heating them was not important. If you use something that actually needs to cook, I'd probably bake the pizza rather than use this method.
7.) Watch the bottom of your tortilla closely. I slightly burned my first one (I ate it anyway and hardly noticed). If your timing is really good, you can add some tomato sauce (I used Prego spaghetti sauce because I love it) while the tortilla is in the skillet. I wasn't that good, so I removed the tortilla from the skillet, put it on a plate and then added the Prego. I topped the whole thing with some parmesan cheese and put it in the microwave for about thirty seconds.
Ooh la la.
Let me say that again: oooh la la.
8.) Eat it while its warm, then do the whole process again because it's so darn good.
This is definitely two tomato-y thumbs up!
Oh yeah. The credit for the recipe goes to www.cooks.com. Here's another link for homemade pizza that sounds good. If you try it, let me know. This gal actually bakes her pizzas: homemade pizza.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Gluten free brownies - a product review
I have to start this post with a confession: I've blown off my diet. I maintained the food sensitivity diet pretty well--even when eating at restaurants in the US--for about a month. While stringently maintaining the diet, I noticed that I had a bit more energy and noticeably less sinus drainage, so I can now see the cause and effect behind my body's reaction to eating certain foods. Before this experience, there were too many variables associated with my fairly minor symptoms. Was my nose running because of an allergic reaction to something in the environment? Was it acid reflux? Was I coming down with something? Or was it something I ate? Would my nose really run because of something I had eaten several days in the past? Now I have a much better idea.
That knowledge was worth the effort. But with my international travel schedule, maintaining that diet on the road, in so many places where the food preparers and servers do not speak english, was not worth the effort. Here in the US, I now eat pretty much whatever I want, but I minimize my consumption of the reactive foods. It seems to be a nice compromise. I live an active, healthy lifestyle, and eat foods in a combination that seems to be working very well. Given a choice between eating 'reactive' foods and non-reactive foods, I'll choose the latter most of the time and I'm fine. It's working for me.
With that confession/discussion out of the way, I'll move on to my latest product review, another great product from Juli at The Cravings Place. You can see another of her products that I reviewed in this post.
I'm running out of time so I'm going to make this a quickie...
I used her Ooey Gooey Chocolatey Chewy Brownie Mix to make brownies and, despite the fact that I messed up, made some great brownies. My mistake? I used the wrong sized pan. Apparently it makes a difference! Who knew? She calls for a 9" x 13" pan and I used a smaller glass dish. I ended up cooking my version for about five minutes longer than prescribed in order to get them "done". When we ate them while still warm, they were pretty good, but the taste was different from what we expected. Had we had vanilla ice cream to top them, that would've been great and we wouldn't have noticed, but the taste was just a tad "off". Then the next day, I had some more and the taste grew on me. I put the remainder in a Ziploc bag and took them on a trip with me. The more I ate, the more I liked them. If you had never had the conventional kind--the kind made with eggs and all the conventional stuff--you would love this stuff. As it was, for me it took a little transition period, but now I do like them very much.
Inside the box you find two bags. One bag has the powder mix; the other bag contains chocolate chunks. Those chocolate chunks taste pretty much just exactly like the dark chocolate I used to love buying in Germany. I dumped it all together in the mixing bowl, mixed with oil and water as described by the directions and found it all very easy and (now) very tasty. I'd definitely do it again.
It doesn't get much easier than this to make and, after my adjustment period, I give it two chocolate-covered thumbs up.
That knowledge was worth the effort. But with my international travel schedule, maintaining that diet on the road, in so many places where the food preparers and servers do not speak english, was not worth the effort. Here in the US, I now eat pretty much whatever I want, but I minimize my consumption of the reactive foods. It seems to be a nice compromise. I live an active, healthy lifestyle, and eat foods in a combination that seems to be working very well. Given a choice between eating 'reactive' foods and non-reactive foods, I'll choose the latter most of the time and I'm fine. It's working for me.
With that confession/discussion out of the way, I'll move on to my latest product review, another great product from Juli at The Cravings Place. You can see another of her products that I reviewed in this post.
I'm running out of time so I'm going to make this a quickie...
I used her Ooey Gooey Chocolatey Chewy Brownie Mix to make brownies and, despite the fact that I messed up, made some great brownies. My mistake? I used the wrong sized pan. Apparently it makes a difference! Who knew? She calls for a 9" x 13" pan and I used a smaller glass dish. I ended up cooking my version for about five minutes longer than prescribed in order to get them "done". When we ate them while still warm, they were pretty good, but the taste was different from what we expected. Had we had vanilla ice cream to top them, that would've been great and we wouldn't have noticed, but the taste was just a tad "off". Then the next day, I had some more and the taste grew on me. I put the remainder in a Ziploc bag and took them on a trip with me. The more I ate, the more I liked them. If you had never had the conventional kind--the kind made with eggs and all the conventional stuff--you would love this stuff. As it was, for me it took a little transition period, but now I do like them very much.
Inside the box you find two bags. One bag has the powder mix; the other bag contains chocolate chunks. Those chocolate chunks taste pretty much just exactly like the dark chocolate I used to love buying in Germany. I dumped it all together in the mixing bowl, mixed with oil and water as described by the directions and found it all very easy and (now) very tasty. I'd definitely do it again.
It doesn't get much easier than this to make and, after my adjustment period, I give it two chocolate-covered thumbs up.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Blog problems
Hey Folks-
I wanted to post some pix and some other stuff, but Blogger--the outfit that created this blogging system--is having difficulties. In fact, it looks like they've been having intermittent problems the past several months. I cannot post pix for the time being. More to come later.
I wanted to post some pix and some other stuff, but Blogger--the outfit that created this blogging system--is having difficulties. In fact, it looks like they've been having intermittent problems the past several months. I cannot post pix for the time being. More to come later.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
EZ Salmon Recipe by the Numbers
Step One: Go to Alaska
Step Two: Catch your salmon (this one's a Humpie--can you see why they call it that?)
Steps three, four, and five might be: Clean your fish, freeze your fish, and smoke your fish, but this is getting out of hand, so I'm going to skip to the recipe...
Okay, here's the scoop...
I basically marinate my salmon with a salt/brown sugar/water mixture. Then I cook the fish in the oven (375 - 400 degrees) and that's it. I can be done. Serve it with rice or steamed veggies or whatever. It's good. But what's even better is to make tortilla wraps with it, using rice as a filler. This is a straightforward process that's pretty easy. But for me, it takes about three days of planning because I thaw the fish in the fridge (day one), cook the fish (day two), then put the fish back in the fridge for a day to lock in the flavor (day three) before eating.
I usually prepare about a pound of fish at at time with this recipe. If you figure 1/4 pound per serving, that's about four servings. I usually fillet my own fish and freeze the fish, storing it in one pound or half pound sizes. The nice thing about freezing the fish is that the freezing process will--or some I'm told--kill any kind of critters that might be living on or in the fish that might harm us. I've also eaten the fish I've caught right away and that's nice too. So far so good. ;-)
So I thaw my pound of fish in the fridge the day before. In the summer, I smoke my own fish once it's thawed, but in the winter, with tons of snow in the yard, that's not something I try. Instead I use Wright's All Natural Hickory Seasoning Liquid Smoke. Now I have to take a detour for a second.
If you follow that link, you'll see that Wright's is a product from the B & G folks. These are the same folks I talked about in my Cream of Rice post below. Interesting. Like I said, these folks make all manner of stuff we use all the time, but most of us have never heard of them. Anyway...
Getting back to the liquid smoke, a couple of warnings are in order. For starters, I'm just beginning to figure out this liquid smoke stuff, so I'm experimenting with the quantity. It takes very, very little. Seriously. The cap on the bottle is about the size of a woman's pinky finger. I use about half a cap. We're talking just a few drops. And this stuff is runnier than water. It's like anti-viscous. And it stinks! Use the stuff as required, then put the lid back on right away or your house will smell like smoke right away.
All right, so how do I use the liquid smoke and all the rest? Well first, I get a gallon sized Ziploc bag. I put the following ingredients in the bag:
Brown sugar 1/2 cup
Coarse sea salt between 3 tsp and 1/8 cup
Water 1/8 cup
Liq smoke 1/2 capful
If you use regular salt or something that's not coarse, you'll need to use a lot less salt. If you're a smoker, you'll probably use closer to 1/8 cup of the coarse sea salt. If you're not big on salt, you'll use about half (Google tells me 1/16 cup is about three teaspoons) of your 1/8 cup. I use something in between. You can always add more salt later, so err accordingly.
Once you put all that stuff in the bag, you can sort of slosh it around to mix it all together. It will seem like there's not enough, but it seems to work with a big ole slab of fish. And speaking of which, the next step is to put your fish in the bag.
You're basically going to marinate both sides of the fish in the ingredients for about half an hour per side in the frig. Once that's done, put the fish in your pre-heated oven (depending on thickness, I've had good luck with 375 to 400 degrees F) and cook until it flakes. It's probably going to take about fifteen minutes.
Now here's the weird part. While you can eat the fish right away (I have and I like it), I actually like to crumble the fish, removing all the bones I might've missed, and put it into a glass bowl which will go (covered) into the fridge. I let it sort of setup overnight. It seems to lock in the flavor and tastes a little gooier. I don't know a better term right now. I just like it better after it's been in the fridge overnight.
The next day I like to make salmon tortillas with wasabi paste and mayonnaise. The problem in preparing this is that I tend to eat the salmon while I'm fixing the tortillas, so I'm stuffing my face when I'm supposed to be preparing the food. At any rate, what we do is we put some mayo in a bowl, then add the wasabi to taste. We mix that up real well. Then take your tortilla shell and put it on a skillet (no oil required) and just heat it up a bit. When your tortilla is warmed, put your wasabi and mayo on the shell and then add the salmon (and if you have it, rice). Fold the tortilla and feast.
I'm weeping as I think about it. It's so good.
That's for you, Mom!
Step Two: Catch your salmon (this one's a Humpie--can you see why they call it that?)
Steps three, four, and five might be: Clean your fish, freeze your fish, and smoke your fish, but this is getting out of hand, so I'm going to skip to the recipe...
Okay, here's the scoop...
I basically marinate my salmon with a salt/brown sugar/water mixture. Then I cook the fish in the oven (375 - 400 degrees) and that's it. I can be done. Serve it with rice or steamed veggies or whatever. It's good. But what's even better is to make tortilla wraps with it, using rice as a filler. This is a straightforward process that's pretty easy. But for me, it takes about three days of planning because I thaw the fish in the fridge (day one), cook the fish (day two), then put the fish back in the fridge for a day to lock in the flavor (day three) before eating.
I usually prepare about a pound of fish at at time with this recipe. If you figure 1/4 pound per serving, that's about four servings. I usually fillet my own fish and freeze the fish, storing it in one pound or half pound sizes. The nice thing about freezing the fish is that the freezing process will--or some I'm told--kill any kind of critters that might be living on or in the fish that might harm us. I've also eaten the fish I've caught right away and that's nice too. So far so good. ;-)
So I thaw my pound of fish in the fridge the day before. In the summer, I smoke my own fish once it's thawed, but in the winter, with tons of snow in the yard, that's not something I try. Instead I use Wright's All Natural Hickory Seasoning Liquid Smoke. Now I have to take a detour for a second.
If you follow that link, you'll see that Wright's is a product from the B & G folks. These are the same folks I talked about in my Cream of Rice post below. Interesting. Like I said, these folks make all manner of stuff we use all the time, but most of us have never heard of them. Anyway...
Getting back to the liquid smoke, a couple of warnings are in order. For starters, I'm just beginning to figure out this liquid smoke stuff, so I'm experimenting with the quantity. It takes very, very little. Seriously. The cap on the bottle is about the size of a woman's pinky finger. I use about half a cap. We're talking just a few drops. And this stuff is runnier than water. It's like anti-viscous. And it stinks! Use the stuff as required, then put the lid back on right away or your house will smell like smoke right away.
All right, so how do I use the liquid smoke and all the rest? Well first, I get a gallon sized Ziploc bag. I put the following ingredients in the bag:
Brown sugar 1/2 cup
Coarse sea salt between 3 tsp and 1/8 cup
Water 1/8 cup
Liq smoke 1/2 capful
If you use regular salt or something that's not coarse, you'll need to use a lot less salt. If you're a smoker, you'll probably use closer to 1/8 cup of the coarse sea salt. If you're not big on salt, you'll use about half (Google tells me 1/16 cup is about three teaspoons) of your 1/8 cup. I use something in between. You can always add more salt later, so err accordingly.
Once you put all that stuff in the bag, you can sort of slosh it around to mix it all together. It will seem like there's not enough, but it seems to work with a big ole slab of fish. And speaking of which, the next step is to put your fish in the bag.
You're basically going to marinate both sides of the fish in the ingredients for about half an hour per side in the frig. Once that's done, put the fish in your pre-heated oven (depending on thickness, I've had good luck with 375 to 400 degrees F) and cook until it flakes. It's probably going to take about fifteen minutes.
Now here's the weird part. While you can eat the fish right away (I have and I like it), I actually like to crumble the fish, removing all the bones I might've missed, and put it into a glass bowl which will go (covered) into the fridge. I let it sort of setup overnight. It seems to lock in the flavor and tastes a little gooier. I don't know a better term right now. I just like it better after it's been in the fridge overnight.
The next day I like to make salmon tortillas with wasabi paste and mayonnaise. The problem in preparing this is that I tend to eat the salmon while I'm fixing the tortillas, so I'm stuffing my face when I'm supposed to be preparing the food. At any rate, what we do is we put some mayo in a bowl, then add the wasabi to taste. We mix that up real well. Then take your tortilla shell and put it on a skillet (no oil required) and just heat it up a bit. When your tortilla is warmed, put your wasabi and mayo on the shell and then add the salmon (and if you have it, rice). Fold the tortilla and feast.
I'm weeping as I think about it. It's so good.
That's for you, Mom!
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