Eating Dinner With My Family

This salad is a wonderful side or main dish.  The chorizo chips are a great change up from croutons or bacon bits.  The Spanish flavors are delicious! It is, like all salads, super fast, and despite the sausage, not too fattening :) Green Salad with Chorizo Chips 6 ounces dry chorizo, very thinly sliced 1 1/2 tablespoons sherry vinegar 1 tablespoon minced shallots 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil Salt Freshly ground pepper 2 celery ribs, thinly sliced 4 large radishes, thinly sliced 3/4 cup Spanish green olives, sliced 4 ounces mesclun 2 heads baby Bibb lettuce, leaves torn 1. Line a large microwave-safe plate with paper towels. Arrange half of the chorizo slices on the plate and cover with a paper towel. Microwave at high power for 1 minute; the fat should be rendered and the chorizo slightly browned. If it is not yet browned, cover and microwave at 20-second intervals until done. Transfer the cooked chorizo to a plate to cool; it will cr...

If you read my brief post on the tagine, you would know I had sausage issues with it.  I bought this raw chorizo they had at the store even thought I was sure the tagine called for cooked sausage.  I was quite annoyed with the tagine and my store.  Fast forward to today, and I am looking to make something with the superfluous chorizo I have.  I see this recipe in the to try file and I think it fits the bill nicely.  It was easy to cook and other than the potatoes taking like three times as long to brown up, the recipe was accurate and fast.  Let me tell you, once we tasted this, all was forgiven with the tagine.  I love that I made it because it caused this dinner to happen.  Oh myyyy!  If I were going to make any tweaks, I would have liked a tad more potatoes to meat in the hash.  It wasn't bad, but I tend to like less meat than most.  As it was, I was making it with only a pound of chorizo, and I used 1 pound 12 ounces potatoes wh...

I decided to make this to use up the rest of the kale from the lentil stew.  I cooked off the kale when I made the stew because I was afraid that it would get funky in the fridge uncooked.  I was worried about this recipe when I started sauteing the onion and chorizo. They really filled the pan 10" pan called for in the recipe and I didn't see how with the kale and eggs it would fit in an already full skillet.   So I bust out my 11.5" pan and get it ready to cook the frittata in, oil and all.  I test my theory by slowly adding the egg mixture to the 10" pan. It was a perfect fit. Doh!  So I dump out the 10" pan into a bowl and wipe it out.  Add the oil from the 11.5" pan to the 10' one and follow the recipe.  I set the timer for 8 minutes when I was cooking it on low and added one minute at a time until the required 1" border was set.  It took 11 minutes on my stove. I then baked it for about 17 minutes and it was set.  I liked it; the boy re...

Well this dish was one enormous pain in the butt from start to finish.  It was pretty tasty at the end but not pretty and not really worth all the effort.  I put it in the fixable file.  It is from a top chef winner so I'm sure with a professionals skill it would we easier and perfect but in my less adept hands it was just a hot mess.  This was supposed to be yesterday's dish, but when I looked over the recipe at three, (normally plenty of time to prep and make the dish) I realized that there were a good 5 hours of prep before I could even start the final dish, so I make the stock and refrigerate it and make tonight's scheduled dish yesterday.  Of the 9 "cakes" I made, only 2 resembled a cake and not a bowl of pasta.  I know this means I made them a bit too big. (there was to be 12) However, I could not get them to hold any sort of cake shape and the only solution was to use an egg ring I had and press the cake mixture into it and lift the ring.  ...

I get to go out with the girls again to my all time favorite hang out.  ( http://ormondwineco.com/ )  I left the husband to reinvent a previous recipe we have made and really liked.  (see 12/12/11) It was made almost the same except the fillings.  He cooked up some chorizo we had on hand, but it wasn't quite enough so he diced up some of the leftover steak as well and threw that in.  They thought the end result was a bit pitchy. I tried it reheated later and it was alright.  I remembered the sour cream and they didn't.  I think that would have made the dish.  Reheated fried thing are never as good and I seemed to like it better than they did.  (ahh the magic of sour cream:) Chorizo And Cheese Arepas 2 c  Masa Harina,(maseca Brand if Possible) 1 3/4 c  Water,Hot (plus 2 Tablespoons) 2 c  Red Cabbage 1/4    Small Red Onion,Thinly Sliced 2 T  Red Wine Vinegar 1/2 lb Chorizo (sauteed) 4 oz Sharp Ch...

Another new pizza tonight.  I did not try the dough recipe.  I have recently been inspired to try baking breads, so maybe next time.  However, getting dough from the deli or a local pizzeria is a HUGE time saver.  So dough aside, everything else was the same save the escarole.  There were only very small heads available, so I used the whole head but it was most likely the same as a half of a normal size head. I happened to love the escarole, chorizo and manchego combo, but found the shrimp superfluous.  They didn't detract from the pizza, but I didn't notice them adding either.  The boy, who has proclaimed that he loved escarole in the past said he didn't like it tonight.  I'm not buying it;). Shrimp-And-Chorizo Pizza With Escarole And Manchego Dough 1/2 t  honey 1/2 c  warm water 1 1/4 t  active dry yeast 1 1/2 c  bread flour 1 1/2 t  extra-virgin olive oil,plus more for brushing 1/2 t  kosher salt Topping...

Well, I was thinking of ways to use up the chorizo I had left from the shrimp dish and use up some of the cheese I bought way too much of for the mac and cheese.  I was thinking of whipping up some kind of mexi pizza.  So, I started out chopping celery and onion for my black bean recipe, only to find out that I didn't have a can of black beans.  I did, however, have some refried beans (vegetarian). I figured they would work too, so into the pot they were thrown. I am quite pleased with the result.  I think I put a but too much cheese so I reduced the amount in the recipe.  Also It is easy to put too much beans.  I think I did but didn't reduce the amount here.  Haven't gotten feed back from my husband yet, but the boy liked it too. It could easily be made meat free by omiting the chorizo. Mexi Pizza 1 pound Pizza dough 1 1/2  tablespoons  Olive oil 2 stalks celery, chopped 1/2 onion, chopped, reserve about 1/4 of it 2 tablespoons toma...

I changed this only slightly.  I used the light wheat bread I had on hand and I don't care much for pickled jalapenos so I took a few slices of the jalapeno from the salmon night and put it in some pickle brine for a few days.  The pepper jack was not hot at all so I added the pickled chilies after cooking.  I don't know if they are particularly hot this year or if I though jalapenos were milder but they did add a lot of kick.  All in all tasty, easy and will be made again.  Oh and for the salad dressing I used the leftover dipping sauce from last night.  It was good, but I think next time will thin it a bit with olive oil and add some salt. Grilled Cheese And Chorizo Sandwiches  4 Servings 3    chorizo sausages (6 ounces) thinly sliced on the diagonal 2 T  unsalted butter,softened 8 sl of sourdough bread,cut from a pullman loaf 6    ounces Pepper Jack cheese thinly sliced 2 T  drained and sliced pickled jalap...

So at one point I had found a Rick Bayless recipe for a chorizo taco, but I could only find this adaptation.  I think it was pretty plain; I would have liked cilantro and sour cream.  So overall meh. Potato-Chorizo Tacos With Avocado Salsa       2    -3 (about 12 ounces total) medium red skin or smallish Yukon Gold potatoes peeled  and h cubes          (about 2 cups)       1    2-15 ounces Mexican chorizo sausage,store-bought (casing removed if       1    small white onion,finely chopped       4    ounces (2-3 medium) tomatillos,husked, rinsed  and cut into q       1    garlic clove,peeled       2    serranos or 1 jalapeno       1    large rip...

Tonight we get to try a Rick Bayless recipe.   I'm so excited!!! It was all I thought it would be. It was simple and amazing.  I don't like to mess with a master but I did change the recipe a tad.  We didn't care for the pickled jalapenos, so we took them off.  I don't have a Latin market nearby so I used hoagie rolls from the bakery. The biggest divergence was we added fresh cilantro to the sandwiches, YUM!  The beans are so amazingly tasty, we are very sad that there are so few of them left., (I'm looking at you my dear. TWO sandwiches?!) On the bright side, really easy to make, so we can have them again any time:)    Mexican Tortas With Black Beans And Chorizo Yield: 4 Servings       1 T  vegetable oil,plus more for brushing     1/2 lb fresh Mexican chorizo casings removed       2    fifteen ounce cans black beans,drained      ...

Well tonight was I guess you could call a "pantry raid".  I had chorizo leftover after the clam recipe and tortillas from the fish tacos.  I decided to wing it and try to re-create something we had at Maria Bonita's.  So, as I am preparing to cook this without any plan, my husband calls and asks about dinner.  Regardless of his intention (honey, that means you are not the bad guy, I'm just neurotic ;*), his comments made me feel the need to now look up a recipe.  (Despite the fact I wasn't going to the store before I cooked, and knew full well that I wouldn't have all the ingredients to any recipe I found, I was still going to look a recipe up.) While I knew wouldn't be able to make any recipe I found, I thought I might at least find some "hypotheses" for the experiment I was about to embark on. Well of course, I found an amazing sounding recipe from Rick Bayless for chorizo tacos.  I had most of the things needed, but the main...

Well I over salted the water tonight, and it made the dish a bit too salty.  I knew I had so I didn't add the salt when the recipe called for it, but it was still too salty.  That being said, it wasn't bad.  If the salt had been correct I think it would have been outstanding.  I've been wanting to make this dish for a while.  We love fresh chorizo and I can only ever find the dried.  One of my neighbors told me they had the fresh at Publix; I didn't believe her since I had been looking for it there forever. Turns out I was wrong. (shhhh, don't let my husband hear that I said that;)  Tonight I started soaking the clams when I brought them home from the store at about 12:30.  (I put down a bed of cornmeal and placed the clams on top of it then covered it with water)  I soaked them for an hour on the counter and then put them in the refrigerator.  I had looked up way...