Good Eats

I think I'm still a little behind in my monthly new recipe venture (#73), but I have still been doing some regular cooking over the past several months.  My first attempt was barbecued pulled pork in the crockpot for a carry-in at work.  I cooked the pork butt in the crock pot, then shredded the meat and put it back in with some barbecue sauce which I warmed up at work.  I'm surprised I've never tried this before, because it was very easy and quite tasty.  We had a pretty big turn-out at that particular lunch, and it was all gone before everyone even got to try it! 

My next project came out of buying a jar of Onion Garlic jam from The Fresh Market.  I saw it advertised in their monthly flyer, and it really caught my eye.  (guess that means their advertising works!)  At any rate, I made a sandwich layering sliced French bread, ham, spinach, gruyere cheese, and the jam.  Then I used my grill press on the stove to warm it up and kind of smash it all together.  This was also the first time I'd used the whole grill press... previously I had just used the grill plate to cook meat but had never used the press on top of it.  The general concept was quite tasty, although the jam was too sweet for my taste.  I think I'm going to look for some fig jam or some other thing along the same line, but I definitely want to make the sandwich again.  It tasted (and looked!) like a gourmet sandwich you would order in a nice restaurant!  As for the onion jam, I also tried it with some goat cheese on a baguette and still felt it was too sweet.  I like the flavor though, so I'm thinking maybe a glaze for some sort of meat?  A pork loin maybe?

And then finally, last weekend, I made buffalo chicken tenders.  I recently subscribed to and started receiving boxes from Food for Love.  For $11 per month, you get a box filled with lots of small packages of foods to try.  They also donate a meal through food pantries and kitchens all over the country for every box they send out, so in addition to trying out some new products, you're also doing something good!  Anyway, in the April box I received a small jar of buffalo dip.  Around the same time I found a recipe in the newspaper for the buffalo chicken tenders, which had you mixing up a buffalo sauce which you used to drench chicken tenders and then coat them in panko crumbs and bake.  I decided to use the buffalo dip in place making their buffalo sauce.  It sounded good in theory, but it just didn't have enough flavor.  I tasted the dip before putting it on the chicken, and it had a nice spice to it, but it must have evaporated in the oven, because there was none of it when we at the cooked chicken!  The panko coating and baking the chicken was good, though, so I'll definitely use the recipe again but make it with their sauce instead.

Just to finish things off, I did go to my last new restaurant back in September (yes, yes, I know that was like eight months ago!) (#98).  Naked Tchopstix is a local chain with a location over in Broad Ripple.  Now I'm not always a huge sushi eater, but it turns out they have tons of other options, too, so I was eager to try it out.  We ended up ordering several different rolls for the table in addition to some sides and tempura-fried shrimp and veggies.  First, I realized I need to read the ingredients for the rolls very carefully.  I don't like cucumber, but since it seemed to be in nearly every roll they make, I learned to watch for where it fell in the roll.  Some had much more than others, so I obviously tended to prefer the ones with less.  Cucumber is such a distinct flavor, and for me it can totally overwhelm many of the other flavors of an otherwish good roll.  I love, love, loved their seaweed salad!  It had a great flavor, very fresh seaweed, and it wasn't drowning in the sauce.  I first discovered seaweed salad when I got it as a snack at a museum in San Francisco and have since found that not all are created equal.  The tempura was good, but tasted like most others I have had.  I am intrigued by some of the lunch and dinner combinations which come as bento boxes, and I was excited to find out they do carry-out, so I expect I'll be going back there again.  I hope they stick around!

I'm still working on my "great meal" (#96), although I think I'm pretty close, so stay tuned!