Dinner

Game Day Quesadillas

I am more of a sunny day or in the Oregonian case the rainy day sports fan. However, one must have some game day grub that is easy to eat so let’s go with a good quesadilla. I make quesadillas full size with two tortillas each so a full one can get you eight pieces of a good size. In these pictures I am using an eight inch tortilla here.

bacon quesy ingrde

Ingredients:

2 tortillas per quesadilla
2 pieces of bacon or 1/4 C of refried beans
2 slices golden cheddar
2 T chopped green onions

The secret comes in the cooking we will be doing this in pan and it take close to five minutes on medium heat. Cooking it in pan is closest to the flattop stove that most restaurants. You want to have your bottom layer with the cheese in their first so that everything melts together. Doing it this way also allows the tortilla to crisp up a little before cutting in to it and that means less on you when your team is fighting for the win.

bacon quesa 3

Flip it over when it looks like this.

bacon quesa 5

Finish it up.

For the bean and cheese quesadilla I like adding some green onion to it to give it just a little more aroma. Make sure to spread it as evenly as possible without having an O.C.D panic attack.

When your food is done cut it up and use the green onions to garnish. It adds just a little bit of aroma to the overall dish and aroma is the one sense that can make you hungry better then your taste buds. Cut in to eight pieces like a pizza or four if you know some of the hungrier guys are coming around. For twelve inch tortillas you want to go to three basic slices of golden cheddar. If you don’t get the sliced stuff then you want about 1/3 C shredded or diced small.

A little bit of ketchup or your favorite salsa on the side and this makes a good snack to watch a game, play a game, even make a game of your trying to be or already are an indie developer.

final quesa

Now when your cooking for yourself you’re not going to be so finicky in the exact placement of garnishes. That will be for another blog post. Have a good one.

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Chili tofu

Now with this you can put it over rice or noodles. I still wasn’t sick of ramen so I used dry pack ramen noodles. The chili tofu is hot though so if you can’t stand the heat find a substitute. Cooked vegetables work well or even just a touch of soy after the tofu is browned in pan. For the chili tofu you will need the following.

Tofu

A 16 oz package of tofu – Extra firm – tofu normally they come in 16 oz portions so no worries about over shooting and if you don’t want to make a full batch just replace the water in the tofu container before putting your remainder portion and that should give you about a week of time to play with it.

2 t of vegetable oil to help lubricate a wide shallow pan for the tofu

2 T chopped garlic

1/4 C sweet chili sauce or (1/8 C water, 1/8 C sugar, 3 T red chili flake)

1/4 C ketchup or (1/2 C tomato paste, 1/2 C white wine vinegar, and reduce to half)

Your seasonings of choice in my case.

Set your pan up and place on medium high heat. Oiled and ready we then move to the tofu and for this you will need a plate and a couple extra paper towels to make it easier on yourself. Open the package and drain it before setting it on the plate and pressing the paper towels lightly in to it. What this does is help remove some of the excess water so it will be easier for you to saute without breaking in to chunks.

What if it breaks in to chunks anyway? Use less sauce smaller pieces will not need so much to represent the same heat level. Other then that no changes so go for it. Next take your knife of choice and chop it up first in to planks before going in to cubes.

cut tofu

Behold cut tofu. Now after chopping your tofu up toss it in the pan.

tofu 3

You should get some sizzle as you drop it in so after that if you have to fuss with it you can set up your sauce to be poured in later. It will take some time to get a nice even browning or you can be like me.

tofu4

After about ten minutes let it flip and toss in your garlic. If you want it to be more browned what you do not want to do is try to scrape it from the bottom of the pan within the first few minute you will have more of a chance of the tofu cubes breaking if that happens. After the garlic gets some browning time you want to add your sauce.

What if I let the garlic cook to long or everything seems dry in the pan?

Great question, now with tofu because it is so porous their will always be some absorption and the garlic will help with that so if you need a little more liquid  as soon as your going dry you can add a couple drops of oil to finish your browning. Or if you say my ingredients I also had a lemon and an orange. They were on sale and I don’t get a lot of fruit so you can add the juice of a couple citrus.

tofu5

I like mine a little hotter then normal so this is with an extra teaspoon of chili powder with the citrus juice to produce that red color. As soon as you finish this if you let things cook until they stick the pan still the juice will help bring those particles back up to add some flavor to your sauce. Add your mix of sweet chili sauce and ketchup to the pan and let it reduce a little making sure to get all the flavors together to properly introduce each other.

tofu 6

Ketchup has been used in dishes like this for many years, and old fans of Iron chef will remember the Chen ken min had a delicious prawns in chili sauce recipe that worked with ketchup as a base. If you don’t feel comfortable though you can pull back on it or make a quick version from the ratio I put up.

So after your sauce is ready its thick, full bodied, and delicious you need to have something to serve it with. For things like this I gotta go with the incredible edible egg. High in protein and adds just the right match to spicier things over rice or noodles in my opinion.

end

Lightly fried egg and spicy tofu over noodles. Enjoy, if you like anything I have been up to comment and if you know someone that could enjoy one of these please show them the way to my little corner of the internet.Oh and before I forget you can actually catch me at the twitter thing call me old fashioned if you like but I am at oneguyportland on the twittery thing. Have a good one everybody.

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Chicken a la kiev

Chicken a la kiev is a dish I found a recipe to in the old cookbook. We will do some slight changes here is what you will need.
Chicken breasts (skinless and boneless)
Egg for breading
Breadcrumbs for breading
Seasoning for the breadcrumbs
I use a combination of parmesan cheese and old bay to season my breading

Compound butter –
A compound butter is a butter mixed with other things to add more flavor and has been used in kitchens as a form of sauce. In this recipe my compound butter was made with an addition of crushed garlic, green onion, and honey mustard with a splash of lemon juice.

After mixing it all together you want to put your butter in the freezer. If you like everything a certain shape you can fill up an ice tray half full so you get little squares of butter already setting up.

Butterfly your chicken and after the butter has frozen stuff in the middle of the chicken before breading it up and dumping it in a frypot already heated up. Let it cool and dress as you see fit. If you do not feel comfortable putting frozen butter in raw chicken then you can put the butter on top before plating. The butter will melt to form a sauce to match the chicken.

After plating garnish with what you want. I use a small little piece of muenster cheese to work with the small amount of butter.

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