Grilled Fish and Veggies a la Harry Potter for a Mexican Friend

Alec Lopez loves Harry Potter, don't let him tell you otherwise.

We know this because the whole time I cooked him dinner (the past 2 hours) he has been sitting on the couch, eyes glued to "Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone." Every once and a while, a "yum. smells like chicken" would be muttered (fish... chicken... what's the difference, really) but other than that, the kid was straight-up enchanted with the world of Hogwarts. Really, this obsession is coming on at a perfect time, because movie 8 comes out in a few short weeks and it would be embarrassing if he showed up at the midnight premiere not knowing his Potter facts. 

The menu tonight (ingredients courtesy of Harry Potter's #1 fan himself) was:

Citrus and beer grilled halibut

Corn, ham and tomato mixed veggies

homemade pita bread and tzatziki (see previous post for recipe)

fudge brownies with fresh whipped cream

I took pictures of the cooking process, only to realize after that I didn't have a memory card in my camera... it's been one of those days. 

The recipe for the fish and veggies can be found Here (I substituted halibut for flounder, only difference was increase grilling time to about 20 minutes.)

The brownie recipe can be found here (for fresh whipped cream, just take 1 small container whiping cream, beat with 1/2 cup powder sugar and two table spoons vanilla until desired consistency. serve with warm brownies for some serious deliciousness.)

Olive Garden Inspired Soup, Salad and Bread sticks

Last night's activity...

This is why we couldn't go to Olive Garden today. Actually, to be accurate, this along with our friend/neighbor Pearl's bottle of Kettle One is why we couldn't go to Olive Garden. Or to our friend Heather's cookout (sorry Heather!) This is why we watched reality TV for 7 hours today, and saw about 347 Olive Garden commercials, giving us a ridiculous craving for some soup, salad and bread sticks action (those annoying commercials are shockingly effective.) However, neither one of us were in any state to put on socially acceptable outfits, comb our hair, or even drive a car, forcing us to make some home-made Olive Garden yums. We opted for the "Soup, Salad and Bread sticks" option.

The Menu:
Spinach salad with olive vinigerate and homemade cheesy croutons (no real recipe here, just throw spinach into a bowl, throw some butter-covered bread into the oven and top with shredded cheese)
Cheesy Garlic Bread Sticks
Italian Meatball Wedding Soup

First up..
Cheesy Garlic Bread Sticks
1.5 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons fresh dill
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1/2 cup milk
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
4 tablespoons butter

preheat oven to 425. Mix all dry ingredients in large metal bowl. Add milk, 2 tablespoons melted butter and 1/2 cup shredded cheese and mix until incorporated. Dough should be a kind-of-sticky ball (you can always add more flour if it's too sticky)

Roll out dough into rectangle, about 1 foot long and 1/2 foot tall.

Take remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and place on cookie sheet. Throw in the oven for about 2 minutes or until melted. Remove pan and sprinkle butter with salt or garlic salt.

 Take rolled out dough rectangle and place on butter-covered cookie sheet. Carefully cut rectangle of dough into strips, but don't pull them apart. (the butter will creep in between the cuts and make them crispy)

Bake bread sticks at 425 for ten minutes. Take them out of the oven, flip them over and sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup of shredded cheese. Put them back in the oven and bake for another 5 minutes, or until slightly brown on both sides.


great to dip in...
Italian Meatball Wedding Soup 

Meatballs:
1 pound ground turkey, beef, chicken, or any other animal that lives on a farm
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 egg
1/2 cup shredded cheese (parm or cheddar work best)
1 tablespoon fresh dill
1 teaspoon dried parsley
pinch of salt and peppa

Preheat oven to 350.
Combine all ingredients in bowl. Roll into around 1-inch balls, throw on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until brown on edges. Roll them around after about 15 minutes for even baking.

Obviously we had to somehow incorporate cheese into these little guys... SO YUMMY

Soup:
1 cup chopped carrots
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
2 tablespoons olive oil
5 cups chicken broth
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup small pasta
5 cups fresh baby spinach (stems removed)

Place chopped carrots, celery and onion with olive oil in large soup pot and sautee for about 10 minutes or until veggies are soft.

Add broth and white wine, bring to boil (should take about 15 minutes.) Add pasta and cooked meatballs and cook for 5 minutes (I choose letter pasta because we like to spell inappropriate words while eating)

Tah-Dah! Almost as good as O.G's

 Add spinach and cook for about 3 minutes or until wilted. Add salt and pepper to taste (I used about 1/2 tablespoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper)

Cheesy Artichoke Bread... fat kid wednesday

Most of the time, we eat pretty healthy (not counting our frequent wine-and-popcorn-for-dinner nights, which we've recently reduced from 5 to around 2 per week.) But every once and a while, we...are...fat kids. 

We left a party early to go get Gumby's pokey sticks... and got caught. Fat. Kid. Moment.

We put cheese on places it just does not belong, we eat cookie dough by the bowl, we leave in the middle of movies because we get yogurt-land cravings (sorry "Social Network", you weren't interesting enough to keep us from red velvet cake batter fro-yo.) When we're craving inappropriately unhealthy amount of food, we have a couple of go-tos... puppy chow, homemade caramel corn (recipe to come soon) and this little gem... cheesy artichoke bread. 

Click here for the recipe!

Tzatziki Dip (so good you'll eat it plain)

Both Dieter and I have spent some time living abroad, and both agree that it was probably the coolest/most exciting time of our lives to date, not to mention the most time we've ever spent apart from one another! (Dieter spent a fabulous month roaming around Italy while I took a semester to live in Athens, Greece and bum around the Islands.)

                                                                    Dieter being fabulous in Rome

                                                           Mairz hanging out in front of the acropolis

 Both of us returned much wiser, much tanner and with some fantastic recipes. While living in Greece, my diet consisted of pita bread, greek veggies (eggplant, tomato and olives were a common dinner) and a seriously unhealthy amount of fresh feta cheese. I took away a massive amount of amazing recipes, but this one happens to be mine (and dieter's) favorite.


Tzatziki dip (pronounced za-zee-kee... greeks and their words, out of control)

Tzatiki
2 cups plain greek yogurt
1 Cucumber
7 garlic cloves (thats right, 7. No making out after eating this)
1 bunch fresh dill
dash of olive oil

Peel skin off of cucumber. Then, into a large bowl, use a carrot peeler to peel off thin slices of cucumber. Once cucumber is completely shredded, take shredded pieces and put into paper towel. then, (and this is important) squeeze EVERY OUNCE of water out of the cucumber. This might take a couple of paper towels, but it's important to remove allllllll water, or the dip will turn out runny and icky. Once cucumber shreds are dry, set aside.

Place two cups of plain, greek yogurt into large bowl. throw in about 2 tablespoon GOOD olive oil (I'm a poor recent college grad, and I still pay the big bucks for good olive oil. no excuses) Chop 7 cloves of garlic into teeny tiny pieces, and stir into yogurt. Take cucumber shreds and stir in as well.

Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for at least 1/2 hour. Right before serving, chop about 1/2 cup dill and stir in as well.

Serve with pita chips, crackers, or if you're anything like us, a spoon.

The Seriously Epic Tale of the Teal Door

First and foremost... the story of the teal door is NOT over with this post. We have some seriously awesome visions of turning him (yes, its a boy door) into an amazing table in the future, we are just in the process of taking carpenter applications. (Actually, we're just hoping one of our friends here in San Diego has some big-kid tools and knowledge of how to actually make a table. Being ladies... we have no idea.)


The Teal Door: One day (last Sunday) Dieter found an old, beat up, teal door in our alley. Being the crafty girl she is, she saw some serious potential in it. That night (yes, we waited until dark because we felt sketchy just taking a giant door in broad daylight) we grabbed the door and threw it in our garage. (backstory: we have a history of stealing oddly large objects and walking them home... see picture where we decided we should walk home from the bars with a giant plumbing tube... which, by the way, should never be used as a pole-vaulting device, but thats another story.)

Because we are impatient and wanted to do something with the door NOW, we decided that it would be a great kitchen decoration until it becomes a table. So...

We cleaned it (and made sure there were no gross bugs that we were about to infest our apartment with... we're keeping our fingers crossed nothing with scales or fur crawls out of it)

                                             Kitchen corner before being teal-doored




Fabulous kitchen corner with the door! (We have been informed by Russell, our next door neighbor, that a door in the corner is very French. Or Tuscan. He's not totally sure)

This was the easiest decorating project we've had to-date. Now go take a look in your local alley and see what you find! ( Please bring a friend if your going after dark)

Orange Chicken with Crispy Parmesan Asparagus

Mairz shared the lovely photos from dinner below and here are the recipes! If you order Orange Chicken from the take-out menu at your local Chinese place I highly recommend giving this a try. Delicious!

Orange Chicken:
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breast cut into cubes
1 1/2 cups cornstarch
1 cup panko bread crumbs
2 eggs, beaten
salt
pepper
Vegetable oil (for frying)

Combine cornstarch, salt and pepper. Prepare 3 separate bowls, one with beaten eggs, one with bread crumbs and one with cornstarch. Dip cubed chicken in egg mixture, toss in cornstarch, return to eggs then dip in bread crumbs. This creates the perfect amount of crisp! After all of your chicken is coated, heat a pan with vegetable oil to 375 degrees. Fry the chicken in batches until completely cooked.

Orange Sauce:
1 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup orange juice
1/3 cup rice vinegar
2 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ginger root, grated
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tablespoon orange zest
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons water

In a large saucepan over medium heat combine 1 1/2 cups water, orange juice, rice vinegar and soy sauce. Heat liquids for a few minutes to blend them well. Stir in brown sugar, orange zest, ginger, garlic. Increase heat and bring to a boil.

Combine 3 tablespoons of cornstarch with 1/4 cup water and mix thoroughly. Slowly stir mixture into sauce until it thickens. Pour sauce over breaded chicken and enjoy!!

I used this recipe for the crispy parmesan asparagus - mine didn't turn out quite as crispy and are still a work in progress. But were delicious nonetheless.

Happy cooking! xoxo,
Dieter

Dieter does Dinner

Living with Dieter is great for a berjillion reasons (house is always clean, get access to cool dog, always have someone to drink wine with, and living with best friend are just a few) and when she cooks me dinner, I can't help but think how much I've lucked out on this bomb-ass roommate. Tonight she cooked Orange Chicken with Parmesan asparagus, all while I drank wine and laid on the floor watching SNL.

I'll let Dieter post the recipe, but here are some pics of the amazing meal!

The chef hard at work. Yes, we have tons of cute aprons, but sometimes you just want to cook in your sweats 

Mozzarella and I waiting waiting patiently 

Parmesan crusted asparagus waiting to be cooked

DELICIOUS orange chicken nugs

She cooks best when shes painfully sunburnt