Kind of a hot mess.

Let it be known! For any Tex-Mex dish in existence, there is an equally delicious breakfast version of that dish.

For evidence to back this idea, I offer exhibit A – The Breakfast Nachos.

The topping possibilities are pretty unlimited, but should probably include some sort of egg and cheese, plus some good veggies.

They are actually very easy to make and definitely fun to eat. Just be careful or you might find yourself in a very solid food coma for the day.

Breakfast Nachos

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

8 ounces spicy pork sausage
4 large eggs, scrambled
1/4 red onion, diced
1 jalapeno, minced
2 cups pepper jack cheese, grated
Tortilla chips
Avocado
Cilantro
Salsa
Sour cream

Directions:

1) Lay out tortilla chips on a baking sheet in an even layer. Top with grated cheese.

2) In a medium pan, add sausage and begin to brown over medium-high heat. Crumble sausage as it cooks and cook until it's well-browned, about 10 minutes.

3) Scramble eggs and pour into pan with sausage. Cook until eggs are barely cooked, another few minutes.

4) Add eggs and sausage to tortilla chips on top of the cheese.

5) Top with diced veggies.

6) Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes until cheese is melted.

7) Top with avocado and cilantro and serve with salsa and sour cream.

The Prep

There’s actually very little prep for these bad boys. Feel free to combine them with some of the more advanced nacho techniques I’ve used over the years like the individually topped chip or the cheese sauce method.

If you’re starving though, you can just throw some chips on a baking sheet!

The chips are down.

Obviously you could add a lot of veggie toppings to these. I kept it pretty simple though and just diced up a jalapeno and a chunk of red onion.

Just some basic chopping

Eggs and Sausage

When it comes to a good hardy breakfast, it’s pretty hard to beat eggs and sausage. So that’s what I used here! While you could definitely leave off the sausage for a veggie version, I’m not sure I’d leave off the eggs because then you’d just have nachos and not breakfast nachos.

If you are using the sausage though, just add it to a pan over medium-high heat and break it up as it cooks until it’s nice and browned.

Well-browned!

Then pour in your scrambled eggs! The grease from the sausage will be more than enough to help the eggs cook.

This will work. Trust me.

Stir the mixture vigorously as it cooks and it’ll just take another minute or so to cook the eggs.

Don’t worry if the eggs are slightly under-cooked. We are going to bake them also so it’s better to under-cook them a bit at this point.

A bit undercooked is fine.

Finishing the Nachos

Nothing rocket science about it. Add your cheese to the tortilla chips. I like a good pepper jack, but feel free to use almost any cheese.

Then add your egg/sausage combo followed by your veggies.

This guy is ready for the oven!

Cheesed and topped.

These will need to bake for about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile you can prep your toppings. I think Betsy would leave me if I served nachos without avocado, so I sliced up one.

It is the most marriage saving of all toppings.

Essential.

As soon as the nachos come out of the oven, top them with some avocado and cilantro (if that’s your thing).

I like to serve salsa and sour cream on the side so people can add their own.

Delicious breakfast.

This is obviously a pretty filling breakfast, but it really hits the spot on a cold winter morning. Especially if you maybe had a longer than expected night at the bar the previous night!

And yes. We did eat this entire tray of nachos. Do not judge!

Better than it looks. Promise.

The first time I saw tempeh in the store I thought that whoever first made it must have been very hungry. It doesn’t look too appetizing.

The first time I ate tempeh I thought that whoever first made it was a freakin’ genius.

I think it’s one of the most under-rated foods around. Trust me. It’s not just for vegetarians and health nuts. It’s for anyone who likes really good food that easy to make.

Tempeh has more flavor and texture than tofu and is about ten times easier to make.

In fact, one of my favorite tacos to this day is my crispy tempeh tacos. This is actually kind of a riff on that dish made as a breakfast instead of a dinner. I ate this breakfast two days in a row which is pretty rare for me. It was just that good.

The Tempeh Scramble

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

4-6 ounces tempeh, crumbled
1/2 red or orange pepper, diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
2 scallions, diced
2 tablespoons salsa
4 large eggs, scrambled
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
3 ounces pepper jack cheese, grated
1 avocado, sliced
Cilantro
Flour tortillas
Salt and pepper

Helpful Equipment:
Cast Iron Skillet

Directions:

1) Crumble tempeh and dice all your veggies. Mix the veggies in a bowl with salsa.

2) Add the small amount of vegetable oil to a cast iron skillet and get it hot over medium-high heat.

3) Add the tempeh and cook until it's well browned, about 5-6 minutes.

4) Stir in veggies and salsa and season with salt and pepper. Cook for a minute or two until veggies are soft.

5) Scramble eggs and add eggs to skillet. Stir vigorously so eggs mix with other ingredients. Cook until eggs are almost all cooked, probably just a minute or two.

6) Add on grated cheese and stick the pan in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for about a minute just to melt the cheese.

7) Serve scramble with warm tortillas, cilantro, and avocado!

Tempeh Tempeh

I’ve already raved in this post about my love for tempeh, but the reality is that it might be kind of hard for you to find. I only know of one health food store in my town that sells it.

Most grocery stores don’t carry it unfortunately. Maybe the demand isn’t quite there yet. But call around to a few places and you should be able to find it somewhere.

If you’re curious what tempeh is, it’s basically just fermented whole soy beans that have been mixed with other flavors like flax seeds or, in this case, random vegetables.

The nice thing about tempeh is that you can prepare it a million different ways. You can slice it thinly or just crumble it up. I thought for a scramble like this, it would be better to just crumble it.

Super easy to use.

The Veggies

While I listed specific vegetables in the recipe, I’d just encourage you to use what you have in your fridge. Some kind of pepper is good and something like an onion or scallion is a good idea.

It’s pretty flexible though… kind of like an omelet.

A few chopped veggies.

Whatever veggies you are using, dice them up and then stir them together with some salsa. This will give the dish a nice Tex-Mex feel.

Adding a tex-mex element.

Cooking the Scramble

I used my cast iron skillet for this dish, but you could use any large skillet really. I do recommend using one that is oven-safe so you can transfer the pan to the oven at the end and melt the cheese quickly.

The first step is to brown the tempeh. Add a small drizzle of oil to the pan and then add all the tempeh. Over medium-high heat, it’ll take 5-6 minutes to brown nicely. It’s pretty hard to burn this stuff. It’s very sturdy.

Way easier than tofu!

Once the tempeh is browned, add in the veggies and salsa and cook for another minute or two until the veggies are soft.

Then pour in your scrambled eggs!

Already smells good.

Everything will cook pretty fast at this point.

Just stir it all together and let it cook until the eggs are almost completely cooked.

This is about perfect. It looks like a hot mess, but it’ll smell great.

Not sure how many style points I get here...

Top the whole scramble with some cheese and stick it in a hot oven for a minute or two just to melt the cheese.

Can't forget the cheese.

You could just eat this as-is or serve it as a side. If you want to make a really good meal out of it though, serve it with some flour tortillas, avocado, and maybe some fresh cilantro.

Delicious breakfast.

There’s a lot of nice things about this meal. For one, I guarantee you that you won’t miss the meat. The tempeh is very flavorful, filling, and has a great texture.

The other nice thing is that this whole thing takes less than 30 minutes to make. You could also easily double or triple it and feed a crowd.

This is a great introduction to tempeh if you’ve never tried it before so hunt some down and give it a go!

Yes please.

I thought it was going to be a close poll last week, but a dip of some sort won by a landslide!

I’m big believer in the general philosophy that almost any appetizer can be made into a dip of some sort. It’s really just simple physics. If it tastes good on it’s own, it’ll probably taste good processed down, baked, and put on a piece of bread or chip.

Sometimes, the dip is even easier to make then the original appetizer which is an added bonus.

That’s definitely true for this recipe.

There are two ways to make jalapeno poppers that I know of, both of which are delicious but a bit of work. This recipe pushes both of those methods aside and just mashes a metric ton of jalapenos with cheese.

How could it not be delicious?!

Jalapeno Popper Dip

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound cream cheese
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
5-6 jalapeno peppers, minced
1 poblano pepper, minced (opt.)
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 cup Panko bread crumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
1/4 cup butter, melted
Tortilla chips, for serving

Directions:

1) Mince jalapenos and poblano. Leave the seeds in.

2) Add olive oil to a skillet and saute peppers over medium heat for about 4 minutes until they soften.

3) In a large bowl, mix together sauteed peppers with cream cheese, grated cheddar, and mayo. Stir well to combine.

4) In a small bowl, mix together Panko, butter, and parmesan cheese.

5) In a 1 1/2-2 quart buttered baking dish, scoop in the dip and spread it evenly in the dish. Top with panko topping.

6) Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees until cheese is melted and topping is browned.

7) Serve immediately with tortilla cheese or toasted bread.

Adapted from a Tablespoon recipe.

Pepper Overload

I know. This recipe has a lot of jalapenos in it. In fact, I’d bet that the only recipe you would ever make that has more jalapenos is if you were to make actual jalapeno poppers.

The truth though is that there is so much creamy stuff in this dip that the heat of the jalapenos is really reduced. If you only did one or two, you wouldn’t get any heat at all from them.

And don’t worry about seeding the things. Just wash them and dice them up. I like to quarter mine into segments and then dice them.

Leave the seeds.

I threw in a poblano in my batch just for fun, but I’m not really sure it gave the final dip much flavor. You can leave it out without too much worry I think.

Once you have all your peppers diced, saute them in a skillet with a drizzle of olive oil over medium heat for a few minutes. You just want them to soften a bit and cook off some of the liquid.

Just a few minutes will do the trick.

Trust me on this.

Mixing the Dip

There’s a lot of creamy stuff in this dip. No doubt about that.

I just did the full fat version because, hey… this is for the Super Bowl!

If you wanted to make this somewhat healthier though you could:

1) Cut the mayo amount in half.
2) Substitute the mayo entirely for Greek yogurt.
3) Sub out a quarter to half of the cream cheese for whipped silken tofu.

The third one might change the texture slightly, but I doubt it would be very noticeable. It’s a substitution that I frequently use in dips like this.

The creamy business.

But like I said… this is for the Super Bowl so why not just do it all the way?!

Once your peppers are done cooking, just stir everything together. Pretty straightforward!

This will even smell spicy.

The Topping

Probably the most common type of jalapeno popper is the fried ones with a golden crust. To get the same effect in dip form, just mix together some Panko bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, and melted butter in a bowl.

If you don’t have Panko, you can definitely use normal bread crumbs.

Butter is important.

Baking the Dish

In a medium-sized casserole dish, scoop in your dip mixture and top it with your bread crumb topping.

I’d recommend buttering the dish before adding the dip just to make sure it doesn’t stick badly. It would be horrible to lose some dip!

Don't forget to butter the dish!

Bake this whole thing for about 25-30 minutes at 350 degrees.

It’s done with the cheese is all melted and the topping is nice and browned.

Really nicely browned.

Serve this sucker as soon as possible with lots of tortilla chips or toasted bread.

The chip to dip.

This is about as easy as a dip gets. It’s definitely way easier than making actual jalapeno poppers, but the flavor is really very similar.

If you happen to have leftovers, let me tell you a little secret. Put a few spoonfuls of it in a rice and bean burrito. Amazingness.

When in doubt, serve it on arugula!

I love my kitchen as much as the next food blogger. I feel very comfortable there. It’s normally very relaxing for me to cook.

But sometimes I just want dinner to be made. I want a dish that’s quick, flavorful, and simple.

I want a dish that I can make within the time it takes me to listen to one podcast of Car Talk.

This dish is that dish.

It can look a bit intimidating, especially if you aren’t use to cooking with a lot of Asian flavors. But really it’s dumb simple to make and utilizes one of my favorite kitchen tips!

Sesame Chicken Noodle Salad

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 35 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound chicken breasts, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 red pepper, sliced
1 pound linguine
Vegetable oil
Arugula

Sesame Sauce:
2 inches fresh ginger, peeled and diced
1/3 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1 tablespoon chili-garlic sauce
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1/2 cup pasta water (from linguine)

Directions:

1) Season chicken with salt and pepper. Add a drizzle of vegetable oil to a large skillet and heat over medium-high heat.

2) Sear chicken on both sides for about 4 minutes, then turn down heat and continue to cook chicken, flipping occasionally, until chicken is cooked through, about 12 minutes total cooking time.

3) Remove chicken from pan and slice into large chunks.

4) Start cooking pasta. When pasta is almost done, scoop out some pasta water.

5) Mix sauce ingredients in a bowl. Stir well. The sauce should be very smooth and silky. If it's very thick, add more pasta water.

6) Using same pan that you cooked the chicken in, add another drizzle of oil and add red peppers. Cook for just a few minutes over medium-high heat until veggies soften.

7) Add diced chicken back to skillet and stir in sesame sauce.

8) Drain pasta and add to skillet. Stir together to incorporate everything.

9) Serve sesame chicken salad on a bed of arugula.

Heavily adapted from a Cook's Country recipe.

The Sesame Sauce

When I say this meal can be intimidating, it’s mostly because I’m not sure a lot of people keep their pantries stocked with the stuff to make this sauce.

If you have to buy this stuff for the first time, it’ll involve lots of words you probably can’t pronounce and at least one panda bear.

Lots of jars...

Have no fear though. Once you hunt down all the jars that you need, the only actual work you need to do for the sauce besides measuring is peeling and dicing some ginger. Not rocket science!

There is one problem though. When you mix all these ingredients together, it will taste very good, but it’ll most likely be a bit on the lumpy side.

Don’t worry about this right now. We’ll fix it later!

A bit chunky...

The Chicken

The sauce is definitely the star of this show. You don’t have to use chicken for this dish if you wanted to make a vegetarian version. You could just toss the sauce with the noodles or use some seared tofu if you wanted.

I went the chicken route on this day though. Assuming you are using chicken, just season a few boneless skinless breasts with a good pinch of salt and pepper. I’m usually not a huge boneless skinless chicken fan, but it works well for this recipe.

Keep it simple.

In a large skillet, heat a drizzle of oil over medium high heat and once the pan is hot, add the chicken.

Sear the chicken for about 4 minutes per side. Then turn down the heat to medium and continue to cook until the chicken is cooked through, probably another 6 minutes or so. That of course will depend on how big your chicken breasts are.

Mine were on the smaller side.

Make sure it's cooked through...

Once the chicken is cooked through, scoop it out of the pan and slice it into big chunks.

You want the chicken to be visible in the final dish!

Big chunks work great.

Finishing the Dish

There’s just a few other things you’ll need to finish off this recipe. While it’s kind of optional, I recommend dicing up a red pepper and also getting some arugula ready.

Two quick veggies.

When it comes to the pasta for the dish, you can use almost any thin pasta. Spaghetti, linguine, angel hair… it would all work fine.

Fantastic Kitchen Tip Alert

Anytime you are making a sauce to go with pasta, one of the best sauce helpers you can have is the actual water that you cook the pasta in. Pasta water is starchy and salty and will help smooth out sauces and give them some body.

If you ever find yourself with a lumpy or lackluster sauce, try adding some pasta water to it.

In this case, we will add about 1/2 cup to that lumpy sauce that we mixed together earlier.

Wonderful water.

This will completely smooth out the sauce and make it perfect.

In the same skillet that you used to cook the chicken (no need to wash it even), add another drizzle of oil and then toss in your red peppers.

Cook them for a few minutes until they are soft and then add in your chicken. Pour your sauce over the whole thing!

Sauce is really smooth now.

Assuming you are decent at timing, hopefully your pasta is done as well right around this time.

Almost any pasta will work.

Then just stir your pasta in with the chicken and sauce.

It’ll look like a lot of sauce, but it’s just enough to coat all the stuff.

If at any point, the sauce gets too thick, just add a bit more pasta water to it and it’ll thin out.

This was my finished version!

All tossed together!

Now, you could just serve this in a big bowl, but I tried something a bit unconventional.

I served mine on arugula. This might sound strange to serve a pasta dish on greens, but it worked really well actually. The arugula is nice and peppery and holds up well to the strong sesame flavors.

And it makes for a pretty plate!

Pretty plate!

So there ya go!

If you can master the sauce, this dish is really simple to throw together, but really delivers in the flavor department.

Give it a shot if you’re in the market for a quick and easy dinner. And let’s be real… who isn’t in the market for a quick and easy dinner?

Glaze it up!

I’m not sure that I’ve ever been more thrilled about a poll result than when I saw that bourbon won last week’s poll. This excited me for a number of reasons.

1) I already have bourbon. I always have bourbon. So I didn’t have to go to the booze barn.

2) I very regularly sneak bourbon into all kinds of stuff because I find it delicious. Cakes, scones, sauces, whatever. Put bourbon in it.

Instead of giving you a single recipe for a bourbon thing, I decided to give you a recipe that you can use on dozens of things. When I say this is an all-purpose, any time glaze, I mean it.

Put it on chicken, pork, beef, or even grilled tofu. It’ll be great.

All-Purpose Bourbon Glaze

Yield: 1 Cup glaze

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 cup bourbon
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup ketchup
2 tablespoons Braggs (or worcestershire sauce)
1/2 lemon, juice only
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
Big pinch of salt and pepper

Directions:

1) Combine all the glaze ingredients into a small pot and bring to a simmer over medium heat.

2) Simmer, stirring regularly for about 20-25 minutes until the glaze reduces to about 1/3 of it's original volume.

3) Remove the glaze and let it cool slightly.

4) Put it on anything!

It’s all proportions

The key to any good glaze is nailing the proportions. You want a good base flavor which, in this case, is bourbon obviously. You need something that will give the sauce some body (ketchup). You want something sweet and something sour (sugar/vinegar). You want some acids as well.

Because this is mainly going on meat, you also want to make sure you give the glaze some savory flavor. You could add soy sauce or worcestershire sauce to get the savory flavor, but I chose to use some Braggs which is a fairly recent discovery for me. I’m finding that it’s delicious on many things and it worked great in this glaze.

All good flavors.

This glaze is not hard to make and yet another piece of evidence for why you have no need for store-bought sauces.

Basically, you just throw everything together in a small pan.

Starting out...

A cup of bourbon might seem like a lot, but remember that the alcohol will cook off and the flavors will reduce so it’s good to start with a nice amount of it.

Honestly, you could even use more than a cup if you wanted, but that gets the job done.

Heavy on the bourbon!

Just bring this all to a simmer over medium heat and let it simmer until it reduces down to about a third of its original volume. Stir it regularly so the sugars don’t burn.

It’ll make your kitchen smell like a distillery which is just fine in my book.

Don’t rush the reduction process, just let it do its thing and eventually you’ll be left with this slightly thick, glossy sauce that will knock your socks off.

Way reduced.

Glaze the world!

I’m almost positive that you could slap this stuff on pretty much anything and it will be good. Put it on some grilled chicken or a pork chop. Add a light coat of it to salmon or pork tenderloin.

If you’re cooking any kind of roast, just slather it on.

I happened to have something interesting to try put it on this time around…

What up moose?

Yep. You read that right. Moose roast! My dad always brings me all kinds of various goodies when he visits (like Alaskan salmon) or in this case a moose roast.

I think I’ve only had moose once or twice so I was excited to try it and I figured it would be good to put a bunch of bourbon glaze on it also.

You, of course, do not have to go hunt down a moose to make this glaze.

I also decided to prep some good roast veggies to go with the moose. These are just some fingerling potatoes and carrots tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, and dried thyme.

Always good roast veggies.

To cook the roast (you could do the same with a beef roast), I seared it well on high heat and then surrounded it with the veggies.

Then I just inserted my digital probe thermometer and stuck it in a 350 degree oven.

Never start a roast without a good thermometer!

My target temp for the roast was 145 degrees, but starting at about 100 degrees, I began slathering on the glaze every 15 minutes or so.

It’s hard to go wrong really.

Get the glaze on.

To be completely honest, I didn’t love the moose roast. It was a bit too gamey for me.

But that’s neither here nor there.

The important part is that the glaze is really delicious and wonderful. I found myself sneaking spoonfuls of it while my roast cooked.

If you’re grilling or roasting something soon, give this glaze a shot! If you have questions on whether or not it would be good on something, leave a comment!

Pretty healthy for tex-mex!

My dad stopped by a few weeks ago and brought me some salmon that he caught on a recent trip to Alaska. When you catch the fish, they basically filet it and flash freeze it so it’s still incredibly fresh when you eat it later.

At first I was going to just grill or sear the fish to really let the fresh salmon flavors shine, but then my creativity got the best of me.

I’ve made a lot of fish tacos, but a lot of times the fish is fried which is delicious but not healthy and definitely hides the fish flavor. So I thought I would keep these tacos very simple with just a few toppings.

While the tacos were absolutely outstanding, what I did with the salmon skin was even better.

Salmon Tacos

Yield: Makes 6-8 tacos

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound salmon, skin removed and seared
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Flour Tortillas
Avocado, sliced thin
Salsa

Marinated Red Onions
1/2 red onion, sliced very thin
1 lime, juice only
1 teaspoon Kosher salt

Spicy Sour Cream
1 cup sour cream
1 jalapeno, diced (remove seeds for less heat)
1/2 lime, juice only

Helpful Equipment:
Silpat mat (for skin)

Directions:

1) For marinated onions, slice them thinly and toss them with lime juice and salt. Let them sit for at least 15 minutes before using.

2) Mix together ingredients for sour cream.

3) Remove skin from salmon and, optionally, cut the skin into strips and lay out on a silpat mat.

4) Sprinkle skin chips with oil and salt and bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes until very crispy.

5) For salmon, rub with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Sear on medium-high heat in a large skillet for about 3 minutes per side, until it's cooked through.

6) Using some small/medium flour tortillas, add a spoonful of salsa and sour cream. Lay in a piece or two of salmon (or some salmon skin). Top with avocado, cilantro, and marinated onions.

The Toppings

There’s really nothing to these tacos and you can throw them together in under 30 minutes. The toppings are where it’s at though.

I started by jazzing up some sour cream by adding some fresh jalapenos and lime juice to it.

Dice that pepper.

If you want the sour cream to have some some real heat to it, leave the seeds and guts in the jalapenos, otherwise you can just scoop them out before dicing the peppers.

Stir these into some sour cream with a squeeze of lime juice.

This stuff is fantastic on tacos.

Tasty stuff.

Marinated Onions

One of my favorite toppings for tacos is simple marinated red onions. The key to these is to slice them as thin as you can. No need to use a professional slicer or anything, but just take your time and get them thin.

Toss them with some lime juice and salt and let them sit for a few minutes. The onions will get slightly soft as they marinate and will be really delicious.

One of my favorite toppings

In my house, tacos without avocados is a pretty big no-no.

Also good to have.

The Salmon

Salmon comes in many different shapes and sizes these days depending on how you get it. I prefer to buy salmon with the skin on because it keeps it a bit fresher (I think) and I also think the skin is delicious (more on that in a minute).

But for tacos, step one is slicing the skin off the filets. This isn’t too hard if you have a decent knife. You can just run it under the filet and the skin should peel off pretty easily.

Straight from Alaska!

For the actual salmon, just rub each filet with some olive oil and season them well with salt and pepper on each side. Then just sear them over medium-high heat for about 3-4 minutes per side. Salmon, like most fish, will cook pretty quickly and you don’t want to over-cook it or it will get really dry.

The total time it’ll take to cook depends a lot on the thickness of your filets so just keep an eye on them and start checking on them after they’ve been cooking for 6 minutes or so.

When the salmon is done, just dice it up into big pieces that would fit nicely in a taco!

Try not to overcook it!

The Skinny

The first time I had salmon skin was actually at a sushi place. They were charging like $5 for a roll with salmon skin in it. I thought this was very inventive and a great use for a piece of the fish that most people probably just throw away.

Oh… and it also happened to be delicious. It’s one of my favorite rolls now and I order it every chance I get.

I quickly learned how to reproduce it at home.

The key to doing this correctly is to cut the skin into strips and use a nonstick mat (like a silpat mat). I’ve made these without the mat and they still work (parchment paper is another option), but you really need something like that or they will just stick pretty badly to the baking sheet.

So just lay out your skin pieces and drizzle them with oil and give them a good sprinkle of kosher salt.

The skinny.

Bake these guys at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes until they are very crispy. No need to turn them or anything, just let them bake.

Normally, I eat these just like this. Little salmon chips!

It may sound weird, but they are seriously addictive and use a piece of the fish that most people discard.

These are seriously delicious.

The Tacos

I think you know the story from here on out. Basically just spread some of that delicious sour cream mixture on a tortilla and maybe a spoonful of salsa. Top with a few piece of salmon, some cilantro, avocado and some of the marinated onions.

A salmon taco!

If you want to get crazy, you can put the salmon skin right in a taco! While I made a few all skin tacos, a better way to do it is to just put one or two salmon chips in with a normal taco which makes it nice and crispy.

An all skin taco was great also though.

My favorite.

The next time you get your hands on some salmon, consider the taco. It’s about as healthy as a taco can get and is super-flavorful. It’s also a good way to stretch out what can be an expensive cut of fish.

But seriously, salmon skin. Sounds weird. So delicious!

Health in a bowl!

I’m a huge fan of instant Netflix. In fact, Betsy and I don’t even have cable anymore.

Currently my queue on instant Netflix breaks down into:

1) Dorky science shows like Mythbusters.
2) Awesome TV series like Breaking Bad and Law and Order: SVU
3) Documentaries or movies that people have recommended to me about food.

Last week, I finally watched a show that a friend recommended to me approximately 6 months ago called Forks Over Knives. I think the movie can be summarized in the title of it, which I didn’t fully understand until halfway through the thing. I thought the title was forks over knives because you use a knife to eat things like meat and forks to eat things like veggies.

The real meaning of it though is that if you wisely choose what you eat with your fork you can almost certainly avoid going under the knife. It argues that as a society, we have put the knife over the fork and now we think that it’s much easier and less drastic to have a few surgeries instead of changing eating habits.

So, as a shout out to what I thought was a really interesting and very well done movie, I decided to cook something that I think the Forks Over Knives crowd would approve of… mainly because it’s from their website!

Spicy Orange Greens

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 bunch greens, like broccoli rabe, kale, or chard
1 red pepper, diced
1/3 cup water
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4-1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon orange marmalade
8 ounces soba noodles, cooked
1 tablespoon sesame oil
Chili garlic sauce (opt.)

Directions:

1) Wash and roughly chop greens and dice peppers and garlic clove. Cook soba noodles according to package. Drain soba and toss with sesame oil to make sure the noodles don't stick.

2) Add water, garlic, red pepper flakes, soy sauce to a large skillet or wok. Bring to a simmer over high heat and cook until garlic is fragrant, just a minute or two.

3) Stir in marmalade.

4) Add greens and red pepper to the pan and cover.

5) Cook for 2-3 minutes until veggies are soft. Stir everything together so the sauce evenly coats the veggies.

6) Serve greens with soba and top with chili garlic sauce.

Adapted from Forks Over Knives website.

Forks over Knives

Based on my post from the weekend, it’s pretty obvious that this movie didn’t turn me into a vegan. But it did reinforce a lot of what I already think. Namely, that through healthier eating, we would drastically reduce some of the health issues we face as a country.

This doesn’t just mean obesity, but even more radical diseases like heart disease and even some cancers. To make huge progress in this effort, the film argues that we have to basically completely eliminate from our diet three things: meat, dairy or other animal products, and processed foods and oils.

The problem that I have with the movie is that it makes the whole situation seem like a switch. It’s either on or off. You’re either eating healthily or you’re on a path to cancer.

I like to think of more as a sliding scale. Sure, if you eat nothing but deep-fried cheesesteak every day, you’re in for a rough haul, but having a slice or two of bacon on the weekends I don’t think is going to set my body into a tailspin.

Of course, Americans tend to have a problem with the word moderation so I can see how arguing for a cold turkey approach might be more effective.

Anyway, so I liked the movie. It has some fascinating statistics and compiles work from two very respected doctors who have been researching this stuff for over 40 years.

But enough about reviews… let’s eat!

Spicy Orange Greens

I wanted to cook something from the Forks Over Knives website after I watched the movie. One thing that I found ironic was that the recipe they posted probably leads to a lot of people breaking one of the main Forks over Knives rules!

The recipe calls for a tablespoon of orange marmalade and about 90% of marmalades in the store contain mostly high fructose corn syrup which the movie is very against. Oh well, nobody’s perfect. Of course, you can find marmalade without HFCS (I did), but I doubt most people would do this for the recipe. They would just grab a jar.

Anyway, this recipe was actually very delicious and takes less than 30 minutes to toss together which is cool.

You’ll need these things to make the sauce!

Good stuff.

One cool tactic that they mentioned in the movie, and that this recipe used, was that instead of stir-frying in oil, try to use water. So basically you make a very flavorful steaming liquid and cook your food in that.

I was skeptical that this would work but it turned out to be great and definitely healthier than cooking the greens in oil which is what I would’ve done if left to my own devices.

Speaking of greens… you can use almost anything for this recipe. You want something hardy like rabe, kale, or chard though. I went the rabe route.

Love the rabe.

To prep the veggies, just wash and roughly chop the ingredients. Pretty simple!

Just a rough dice is good.

Soba Noodles (I bend the rules)

You could serve the greens over rice or something, but the recipe also suggested noodles and that sounded better to me.

So I went with soba noodles which are some of the healthier noodles out there!

One of my favorite noodles.

I really love soba noodles because they are extremely flavorful. They have a really nutty flavor. I also like them because they are very good warm or cold so they make for quick leftovers.

There’s one problem with the noodles that led me to slightly bend the Forks Over Knives rules.

Soba noodles stick together like they are made of Elmers. After you boil them and drain them, if you walk away for a few minutes, they will congeal into one big mass of noodles: like a noodle cake.

These will stick like glue!

There’s one cure for this and it’s not approved by the Forks Over Knives doctors, but whatever.

The cure is oil… specifically sesame oil. For me, I’d rather use a tablespoon of this stuff and have really flavorful (and separated) noodles, but I do not think that the doctors in the movie would approve.

Necessary in my opinion.

Finishing the Dish

Once the noodles are cooked, this dish takes about five minutes to finish up. It’s really quick and easy.

Basically, just add the water, garlic, red pepper flakes, soy sauce, and marmalade to a large skillet or wok.

Water. Not oil.

Bring this to a simmer over high heat and then toss in your veggies.

A quick steam.

Cover this up and cook the veggies for just a few minutes. So basically you are steaming the veggies but with spices and some sweet orange flavors.

When the veggies are done, just toss them a bit so they all get evenly coated with the sauce.

Maybe two minutes later.

I wanted to kick up the heat a bit more on mine so I added some chili garlic sauce as well.

Simple and delicous!

It’s hard to deny that it would be good if more people ate meals like this pretty regularly.

I was also impressed by how actually delicious and creative this dish was. The oil-to-water change was a great one and probably one that I’ll use regularly.

So, check out the movie if you’re interested. But, more importantly, make this dish. Some might say that by eating it you’re warding off cancer, but I’ll just say that I’m recommending it because it’s really tasty!

Fun, quick, delicious. What more do you need?

For quite some time now the most popular post on Macheesmo was a recipe that I made kind of on a whim almost two years ago. It was just a simple breakfast sandwich with two twists:

1) You could freeze them.

2) They were made in a muffin tin so you could make a bunch of them at a time.

Based on the comments and emails I’ve received about the post, I think the muffin tin thing was what people really liked. It totally takes the guess work out of eggs and you can cook them in big batches.

I also do not think it’s coincidence that a muffin tin is the perfect size for an egg.

Something that great couldn’t be coincidence.

So I started brainstorming quick breakfasts that could use a muffin tin, but didn’t involve actual muffins.

These guys were the first dish that I tried and I loved them about ten times more than the breakfast sandwiches. We’ll see if they get ten times the traffic…

Tex-Mex Egg Cups

Yield: Makes 6 cups.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

6 corn tortillas
Butter or oil for muffin tins
6 tablespoons salsa
6 teaspoons Adobo sauce (from chipotle can - optional)
6 large eggs
3 ounces cheddar cheese, grated
1 avocado, cubed
Cilantro, garnish

Helpful Equipment:
Muffin tin

Directions:

1) Lightly butter or grease muffin tins and form corn tortillas into the tins. It's okay if they get folded a bit.

2) Add a spoonful of salsa and a tiny dab of Adobo sauce into each corn tortilla. You could also add in some black beans or something.

3) Crack an egg in each cup.

4) Bake eggs at 350 for 15 minutes.

5) Top with cheese and bake for another few minutes.

6) Top with cilantro and/or avocado and serve immediately!

Prepping the Cups

While eggs are a perfect fit in a muffin tin, corn tortillas are not. Luckily they are flexible so you can make them fit!

So corny.

There are two very important steps to make sure this goes down smoothly.

First, grease your muffin tin. You could use butter, vegetable oil, or even a nonstick spray. Doesn’t matter. If you don’t do this though, the corn tortillas are going to stick horribly to the pan.

Second, microwave the tortillas for about 10 seconds on high. That will loosen them up and make them easier to work with.

Then you just kind of shove them in there! There’s no science to it and they might fold and break a bit. Don’t worry about it.

Grease or butter those cups!

The Bottom Layer

I knew my middle layer in these cups was going to be an egg. I knew my top layer was going to be cheese.

I struggled with the bottom layer. At first I thought black beans would be a good thing, but then I worried that it wouldn’t have enough kick.

So I went with some salsa and this stuff!

Kick it up a notch.

I didn’t want the actual chipotle peppers, just the Adobo sauce! This stuff has fantastic flavor.

Now, you could use a whole bunch of different stuff in this layer, but just don’t add too much stuff. Remember that we have a lot of other stuff to fill!

This was my bottom layer of flavor.

This is a spicy cup.

The Egg Business

Next step is the eggs. Nothing rocket science about this… just crack them in!

If you’re worried about shells, you can crack them into a separate bowl and then pour them into the cups.

Perfect fit.

We are going to add some cheese to these later, but I like to bake them for a while first so they are almost done.

So throw your muffin tin in a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile you can prep your toppings. I went with some grated cheddar, cilantro, and avocado.

Good flavor toppings

When your cups come out of the oven, most of the whites should be cooked, the tortillas should be starting to crisp up nicely, but the yolks should still be soft.

This is perfect.

Almost done...

Then sprinkle on some cheese for each cup. You don’t need a lot, just enough to give each cup a light layer of cheese.

Then back in the oven for another 4-5 minutes just until the cheese is melted.

Pull these guys out and carefully remove them from the muffin tin. They shouldn’t stick much, but you might still need to go around them with a knife to loosen them a bit.

Then just top them with some avocado and cilantro and serve them up!

Yolks should still be a bit soft.

I definitely recommend making these soft so that the egg yolks are still a bit on the runny side, but you could cook them hard also.

Just like the breakfast sandwiches, these guys are definitely freezable. After they are done cooking, let them cool and then pop them out of the muffin tin. Freeze them on a baking sheet and when they are frozen solid you can individually wrap them in foil and then store them in a freezer bag.

Good luck having leftovers to freeze though…

See what I did there?

Sometimes indecision can lead to greatness.

For example, I love John Stewart’s Indecision election coverage. He always makes it very clear how much of a hot mess politics can be on both sides of the old aisle.

I’m not so indecisive about politics though.

I’m more indecisive about sandwiches.

On this occasion I was torn between making a grilled cheese sandwich or a club sandwich. My indecisiveness led me to just smack them together and call it good. And trust me, it was really good.

Grilled Cheese Club

Yield: 1 sandwich

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

3 pieces of bread
2-3 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, grated or sliced
1 chipotle pepper, diced
1 tablespoon salsa
1/2 avocado, sliced
2 slices bacon, crispy
Cilantro
Butter

Directions:

1) Butter two pieces of bread. Slice or grate the cheese and dice up the chipotle. Cook bacon either in a pan until crispy or on a wire rack in a 350 degree oven until crispy, about 15 minutes.

2) In a small skillet, add one piece of buttered bread, butter side down. Top with cheese, pepper and salsa. Top with other piece of buttered bread, butter side up.

3) Cook grilled cheese over medium heat for about 6-8 minutes, flipping occasionally until bread is browned and cheese is well-melted.

4) Toast other piece of bread. Top with bacon, sliced avocado, and cilantro.

5) When grilled cheese is done, add entire sandwich to the top of the open-faced part of the sandwich.

6) Slice and serve immediately!

A Tex-Mex Flair

When slapping together a grilled cheese sandwich and a club sandwich, almost any toppings will work. This is more a post about a simple idea rather than an exact recipe.

I decided to go with a tex-mex version though with chipotle peppers, cilantro, avocado, and salsa. Feel free to adapt to your tastes.

Some of my personal favorite flavors.

The Grilled Cheese

You might ask why I wouldn’t just shove all the ingredients into one grilled cheese sandwich.

The answer is two-fold. First, I don’t think they would all easily fit. Second, things are just better when they are stacked. Take my word for it.

The grilled cheese sandwich itself is pretty basic. I always recommend buttering the bread for a grilled cheese, but you don’t necessarily have to go as heavy on the butter as I do. I have a heavy butter hand – no question.

Butta that bread.

Add one slice of bread, butter side down, into a small skillet and then top with cheese, diced chipotle pepper and salsa. If you want to not have it be super-spicy, leave out the chipotle and just use some salsa.

Also, your cheese will melt easier if it’s grated. I didn’t grate mine on this occasion because I just plain forgot.

Some spicy stuff.

Cover this with the other piece of bread (butter side up) and cook it over medium heat until the cheese is melted and the bread is nice and brown. It’ll probably take about 8 minutes.

The key with cooking a grilled cheese is not to cook it over high heat. If you do, the bread will brown before the heat has time to transfer through to the cheese and you’ll end up with a burned sandwich.

Just keep it over medium heat and flip it every few minutes and you should be good to go.

The Club Section

I just couldn’t make a club sandwich without bacon. It’s not to say that you couldn’t, but I couldn’t.

I like to bake my bacon in the oven on a wire rack at 350 degrees so it gets nice and crispy.

The only way to do bacon.

Toast your third piece of bread and then add your bacon to the bread.

You’ll also need to slice up some avocado and grab a few cilantro leaves. I went heavy on the cilantro because I wanted a lot of herb flavor, but use it to your tastes which for some people is not at all.

Sandwich building 101.

Stack the avocado slices and cilantro right on top of the bacon. Notice that I didn’t put down any mayo or anything. You don’t really need it for this sandwich because the avocado has a creamy texture to it and there’s lots of cheese in the grilled cheese half.

Half of a sandwich.

Putting it all together

This isn’t rocket science, but I was pretty giddy while making it.

When your grilled cheese is done, it’s as simple as plopping it right on top of your club sandwich half.

Stacked up!

Slice it up so it’s easier to eat and you’re good to go.

I just love the layers in this bad boy. It was really good.

This worked.

This might be a bit more complicated than a normal grilled cheese, but it’s also more filling and has some really complex flavors which I liked.

The thing that takes the most time for the recipe is actually cooking the bacon. If you’re rushed you could leave it out or sub it with deli meat or something.

While indecision created this lovely thing, you should be decisive about making it as soon as possible.

First gumbo is a good one.

I’ve had gumbo on my list of recipes to try out for over a year now. There’s one main reason why I haven’t made it until now: Gumbo snobs.

Yep. You read that right. I’ve discovered that people who make gumbo are very… um… opinionated. There’s one way to do it and it’s their way.

Of course, the reality of it is that there are a bunch of different ways to make gumbo. It can have seafood, sausage, chicken, or just veggies. It can use a dark or light roux made from oil or butter. It should probably be served over rice, but I’m sure there are other options.

So let’s just get this out of the way: This is one way to make gumbo. I’m not sure if it’s the best, but it’s damn good.

If you have issues with it, please take it up with Bettyjean, the creator of the recipe. Who’s Bettyjean you might ask? I have no idea.

A friend (Hi Jess!) let me borrow a cookbook to browse through called Old Biloxi Recipes and this was the recipe that caught my eye. The book is basically a collection of really wonderful recipes that have been handed down generation to generation. Some of the recipes don’t even have amounts. It’ll just say stuff like “Carrots” or “Celery”, but you can figure it out.

Anyway, Bettyjean apparently let them publish her gumbo recipe and I’m glad she did. I made a few changes to it, but nothing major.

Bettyjean's Chicken Gumbo

Yield: Serves 8.

Prep Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 4 hours

Ingredients:

Stock:
1 whole chicken or 3 pounds pieces with bones
2 onions, quartered
2 carrots, quartered
3 stalks celery, quartered
20-30 black peppercorns
1 head garlic, halved
A handful of parsley stalks

Roux:
1 cup peanut oil
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Finished Gumbo:
1 large sweet onion, diced
1 bell pepper, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
6-8 scallions, diced (reserve green parts for garnish)
1/2 cup white wine
Hot sauce
Long grain white rice
File powder
1 pound sausage (andouille is best), sliced and browned (opt.)

Directions:

1) Add stock ingredients to a large pot with enough water to cover everything, 8-10 cups. Bring to a simmer and simmer on low, covered, for at least 2 hours.

2) Remove chicken pieces from stock. Remove skin from chicken and shred the pieces into large chunks. Strain the stock.

3) Add stock and chicken back to large pot.

4) To make roux, stir oil and flour together over medium-low heat until it turns a nice dark color. The lightest it should be is the color of peanut butter, but you can go much dark. Stir regularly while it's cooking so it doesn't burn. It will take at least 20 minutes to get to the right shade.

5) Dice up onions, bell peppers, and celery for finishing ingredients. Split into two piles.

6) Add one pile of diced veggies to the roux when it's the shade you want. That will stop the cooking process for the roux. Stir together veggies and roux.

7) Saute the second pile of veggies in a skillet over medium-high heat with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Cook until softened, about 4-5 minutes.

8) Bring stock and chicken to a simmer and start adding roux mixture to it. Add it in large spoonfuls and make sure it dissolves completely before adding more. It'll take 5-10 minutes to add all the roux to the stock. Continue to simmer for 20 minutes uncovered to thicken the mixture. If you're using browned sausage (like andouille) add it now.

9) Add sauteed veggies to gumbo and white wine. Season with hot sauce and salt and pepper.

10) Serve gumbo over rice sprinkled with file powder. Garnish with scallion greens.

Adapted from the Old Biloxi Recipes book.

Starting with Stock

I got into a brief comment debate recently on an old post about how I’m a hypocrite. Basically, I talk a lot about how people should make their own stock and stuff and then I sometimes use store-bought stock.

This is true. At the end of the day, I’m a human being and try to have a life outside of the kitchen. Even when I do use store-bought stock though, I’m well aware that there’s a better way to do it. I don’t kid myself.

But when I do have time, I always try to make my stock. This is especially true for soups (although Macheesmo detectives will be able to find examples of soups on the site that I used store-bought stock to make).

This is really especially true though when the soup involves chicken because you have to cook the chicken anyway so it’s not a too much extra work to just make stock at the same time.

Taking stock.

For this recipe, you can either use a whole chicken or about 3-4 pounds of chicken pieces. Whatever you do, don’t make stock out of boneless skinless chicken breasts. There will be no flavor!

You need bones and skin to make your stock. So if you’re doing pieces (which I did for this version), use some thighs or legs and make sure to get breasts with the bone in.

Then just add everything to a large pot and bring it to a simmer.

This will smell great in an hour.

Let this simmer, covered, for at least two hours. The longer you go, the deeper your stock will be. Two hours is the absolute minimum.

When you’re happy with it, remove the chicken pieces and let them cool. Then strain the stock you’ll have a nice dark chicken stock that will smell delicious.

The real stuff.

Once your chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the skin from the pieces and shred the chicken into large pieces. Then add the chicken back to the pot with all the stock. You should have about 8 cups of stock here. If you have less, then add water or a good store-bought stock to make up the difference.

Chicken and stock.

The Roux

I make a lot of roux for recipes. Most importantly, it’s how I make queso dip. The roux for gumbo though is a much different beast although the idea is the same. Basically, it’s just fat and flour, cooked together and used to thicken something.

Instead of butter though, I used peanut oil. You also need much more of it and it’s good to get it much darker than when you’re making a light cream sauce.

Just two ingredients.

Add your oil and flour to a medium pot and get it cooking over medium heat. Stir it frequently while it cooks to make sure it doesn’t burn.

After 15-20 minutes, it’ll resemble the color of peanut butter. This is about as light as you can go for gumbo. You could stop here if you wanted and proceed with the recipe.

You could stop here.

Generally though, you’ll get a more flavorful gumbo if you continue to cook your roux for another 5-10 minutes so it gets really dark.

Like I said, this was my first gumbo so I wasn’t sure exactly how far you could go before burning the flour, but I got mine a few shades darker before deciding it was done. You might be able to go even darker, but this was the stage I stopped at and it made for a great gumbo.

You could maybe even go darker.

It’s really important to stop the cooking of the roux when it reaches the color you want. It could keep cooking and possibly burn.

The easiest way to stop the cooking is to stir in about half of the finishing veggies that you’ll need for the finished gumbo. Stir these in and it’ll stop the roux from cooking and actually cook the veggies a bit at the same time.

Stop that cooking!

Finishing the Gumbo

The gumbo is really easy to finish at this point.

Take your other half of the finishing veggies (onions, scallions, pepper, celery) and saute them on medium in a drizzle of oil until they are soft. You don’t want them browned, just soft. This will bring out some of the sweet flavors of the veggies.

Just 4-5 minutes of cooking should do the trick.

More veggies.

Bring your stock and chicken mixture back to a simmer and slowly start adding your roux to the stock in large spoonfuls. Make sure each spoonful gets dissolved before adding more.

Once all your roux is incorporated into the stock, let the gumbo simmer for 20 minutes or so to thicken up. Then add in the sauteed veggies, white wine, and sausage if you’re using it. Brown the sausage and slice it up before adding it to the gumbo.

Season the gumbo with hot sauce and salt and pepper. It’s really important to taste it and adjust the seasoning. I probably added 2-3 tablespoons of hot sauce to mine and a few big pinches of salt and pepper.

Don't forget to taste and season.

Serving Gumbo

While there is a lot of different ways to make gumbo, I’m not sure how many different ways you can serve the stuff. It’s really made for rice.

I just used normal long grain white rice and sprinkled on some gumbo file which gives the finished dish a very distinct gumbo flavor. I think this stuff is worth ordering if you want your gumbo to taste authentic, but you could definitely forego it and still have a pretty good meal.

Good stuff.

I garnished my gumbo with some of the greens from the scallions.

This was a really great winter meal.

Really good!

Besides being delicious, this also makes a metric ton of gumbo. Betsy and I ate it for multiple meals. It would also freeze really well if you wanted to keep it for longer than a week.

The next time I make it, I do think I’ll try adding some sausage to it, but I was pretty happy with this as my first gumbo attempt.

Ok. What did I miss?

People who know gumbo – leave a comment with tips/suggestions/etc.