Mushroom Love

Jeff and I went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival a little while back and there was only ONE thing that I wanted to eat: stuffed mushrooms. Unfortunately, I kept putting off buying some until the very end and guess what... they were all GOOOONNEE!! -sobs hysterically- Then, afterward, I kept hearing about how good they were and how I missed out. Damn it! I might go to the festival next year just to get 'em... cause the rest of the festival was just alright for me.

(My condolence gift: garlic fries with crab)

Back on point, though. The craving never really left me, so Jeff and I decided to dust off our cooking skills and make some crab-stuffed portobello mushroom caps! (click here for recipe) It's Paula Dean! It's gotta be good. The woman loves everything delicious and heart attack-inducing! Luckily, Jeff's always down to tinker around in the kitchen with me. I just have to suggest a recipe I want to try ^_^

The ingredients!

Jeff removing the gills and stems from the MASSIVE portobellos.

Good job, babe!

I guess the mushrooms reminded him of me?

I got the hang of it after a while.

Bringing the stuffing together.

Seriously. The caps were huge.

Panko bread crumbs.

We made 2 versions. Jeff likes the ones with more bread crumbs on top because they were crunchier. I like the one with less and pepper jack on top. Nom Nom Nom.

I do believe it was a success. We didn't realize how filling they would be, though. We weren't able to finish the 4 that we made. :/ Hope you guys give it a try! So good!

It suddenly occurred to me...

that I should have probably posted the recipe for the dish that we worked on. Here's a link to the site: Dhanggit's Kitchen.

If you're too lazy to click that, then you're probably too lazy to cook for yourself as well. Haha. I kid. Sort of. Anyway, to save you the finger strain of clicking. Here's the recipe, haphazardly thrown together as an afterthought:

Ingredients:
500 g of fettucine pasta
250 g of prawns
250 g of mushrooms (champignon de paris)
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 a tsp of cayenne powder (more if you desire)
some sliced chili if you desire (optional)
1 onion
20 cl of fresh cream
1 tsp pg ginger powder
2 tsp of curry powder
some olive oil
salt and pepper
some parmesan cheese

(you should probably have your spices ready to be tossed in, measured and everything)

1) Clean and slice the mushrooms. You should probably go ahead and start dicing the garlic and onions while your at it. Get those tears out of the way early.
2) Shell and gut the prawns. Really get in there. Think of yourself as some seriously hard-core laxative. Keep the shells, because you're going to add those to a half a cup of water and let them simmer. Boil it until it reduces to a quarter. This is going to be the broth you'll use for later. Don't forget it!
3) Put your garlic and olive oil in a sauteing pan until it browns. Chuck in the onions, then mushrooms. I repeat, onions THEN mushrooms.
4) Add the prawns last and let it cook for about 3 to 4 minutes.
5) Mix in the spices: curry, cayenne, ginger... the tobasco and chopped chili , if you decided to go that route... and stirstirstir.
6) Pour in the broth that you smartly did NOT forget about and let simmer for 5 minutes.
7) Pour in the cream and cook for a few more minutes.
(salt and pepper optional at this point)
8) Let stand for a few minutes if you want the sauce thicker, then pour over the fettuccine that I obviously forgot to tell you to cook earlier, but being the clever cookies that you are, you had done it already anyway...
9) Top with Parmesan cheese and devour.



Okay, that out of the way... on to more food talk!

Jeff and I were running around my neighborhood a little earlier, scavenging. No. No. Not scavengers. Hunter-gatherers. Yeeeesss... We were hunting and we were gathering.

First we hopped down to my favorite Salvadorian restaurant for some pupusas. The wait was 20 minutes, so we walked over the Safeway and bought a cheesecake sampler (Y'know. Those frozen cheesecakes where each slice is a different type. Mmmm.). Jeff didn't want any pupusas because he's an alien butt, so we headed over to his favorite taqueria for a super burrito.... BUT, WAIT! We stopped by a new taqueria that just opened (as if 2 on every block weren't enough), not to go in, but for what they were selling out front. I sooo wish we had streetside food vendors. I want to vacation somewhere that has droves of them.

Anyway, a lady had her station set up, selling corn.
Not just, *bam*, "Here's your corn, don't burn your mouth."
More like, *BAM*, "Hold on while I slather this freshly-cooked ear of corn with a layer of butter, coat it with Parmesan cheese, sprinkle some spices on it, and finish it off with a squeeze of lime. Oh, and I hope you're ready to have your lips and tongue catch fire, but be so completely enslaved by deliciousness that you are unable to stop eating." -diabolical cackling and suspicious lighting flashes inserted here-

THE SHIT WAS BOMB!
That's all. G'night!

We Made That Shit!

I really wanted to use Movie Maker for this, but it's acting up and keeps freezing on me.

Anyway, the hubby and I wanted to test out our culinary skills today. We had actually been trying to decide what recipe to try our hands at and decided on spicy fettucine curry with prawns and mushrooms (found this on Tastespotting.com). It was a bit ambitious for two people who opt for microwaves over stoves, but hey, we've got skills like that. I also have a cookbook and Jeff picked out a banana cream pie for dessert. We were out most of today, hunting down ingredients at the Asian markets (soooo much cheaper). Whatever we didn't find at Pacific Super, we got at Lucky's. One ingredient (fresh cream) was elusive. I even called Katelin and bothered her at work, but no go. Thanks for the effort, though!

Our supplies gathered, we headed back to my house and got down to it.

Slicing up the bananas for Jeff's pie:
Jeff mashin' them up for the filling.

Jeff actually started on the crust (crushing the cookies + mixing it with butter + spreading it over the pan), but I smoothed it out for him :)

Okay, so the recipe said we needed whipped cream. Genius that I am, I bought the one in the carton instead of the one in the can. This is a picture of Jeff trying to whip the whipped cream. lol Our arms started to get tired, so we poured it in the blender to speed things up. Another genius move. We ended up with half milk, half froth. Not attractive. So, we went off to the corner liquor store to grab a can (wondering all the while if we looked suspicious ONLY buying whipped cream). We had images of the clerks nudging each other as we left with knowing smiles. IT'S FOR PIE!!

The (somewhat) finished product.
It said to refrigerate for 4 hours. Honestly, do you think that happened?

With dessert in the freezer, we started on the main course. Truthfully, I was a little intimidated and nervous about how it would turn out, but you never know until you plunge in! In this picture, Jeff is shelling the prawns and I'm gutting them. Who wants dirty intestines messing up the flavor? Spew. Nikki being helpful.
A nice, long one!

Honey using the skins to make a broth for later.

Jeff is basically just a big baby, so guess who ended up chopping the onions.
-sniffle-

Browning the garlic.
I think that this can pretty much be considered his cooking outfit.We like to keep things spicy.
Can you say, "Ticking time bomb"?Try n tell me that doesn't look great.After we added the prawns, spices, & broth:
Jeff adding the cream to thicken it up.
Oh, yes. We grubbed tonight!

It was fun! And everything turned out delicious, even the pie. I say, "even the pie" because we took it out and ate it prematurely and it was still mushy. Mouth-wateringly mushy. lol I realized that Jeff and I were all-business while we were cooking. We didn't really crack jokes, but we were really in sync with each other's actions. I love him so much and his willingness to not only try new things, but just do ordinary things together.

It's almost 2 years!

Breakfast of Champions

I feel as if I've been packing on weight like I'm about to go into hibernation, so I've been doing some selective shopping. Here's something that I picked up at Lucky's (or Albertson's. Whichever it's called at the moment.):

Smart Bacon: Meatless, low fat strips. I actually bought it out of curiosity. C'mon. Meatless bacon? I actually think that calling it bacon on the box... in the product's NAME... should be considered false advertising. Bacon, by definition is

1.the back and sides of the hog, salted and dried or smoked, usually sliced thin and fried for food.

Whatever sells, I guess. Anyway, I had to add Jufran. It's how I eat REAL bacon, so I had to eat it with these strips of deception as well.


The shit doesn't even remotely look like bacon in the pan. You know what it does look like, though? Long, rectangular strips of...


Tell me I'm wrong!

(no worries. hands washed. fully santitized.)

Slight hint of bacon-like flavor. It'll do, I s'pose.