When I first discovered Doña María’s Ready-to-Serve molé sauce I was really, really skeptical. Molé, a spicy chocolate sauce, is one of those things that I’ve tasted done really, really well and really poorly. And, quite frankly, my expectations were so low that I actually reserved some of the sauce and only made half my enchiladas just in case they turned out bad. But when all was said and done, this was absolutely incredible.

I added a chipotle pepper with adobo to the sauce, which added a really necessary spice and complexity to the sauce that really brought it together. But even as I was spooning it over my enchiladas, stuffed with chicken sautéed with chipotle and lime, sweet onions and red pepper and chihuahua cheese, I still wasn’t entirely convinced this would work.

After baking this at 350º for 15 minutes it was bubbly and smelled incredible. And, when all was said and done, it was just delicious!

I served it up with some Mexican rice (leftover rice cooked up with leftover salsa and a little butter) topped with fresh avocado, and a fresh vine-ripe tomato. It was easily one of the best meals I’ve made in a long time, and you can bet I used the leftovers and the rest of the sauce for an impressive lunch tomorrow. Next time, I’m going to stuff these with nothing but vegetables and cheese for an awesome vegetarian meal.

When it comes to Doña María Ready-to-Serve Mole, I’m a believer.

I’m not sure how traditional my crabcakes are, but I absolutely love them. This time I had some leftover cornbread to use up, so I decided to use that for the breadcrumbs and it made all the difference in the world! These were designed more for a snack than a meal and were probably a little sweet if they were going to be for a full meal, but as a snack they were awesome.

Read on for the recipe!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cans crabmeat (lump is best, but I just used regular crabmeat)
• 1 eggs
• 4 tbsp mayonnaise
• Creole or Old Bay seasoning
• 1 cup cornbread breadcrumbs
• 1 small onion, diced fine
  1/2 bell pepper, diced fine
  2 cloves garlic, crushed

Whisk together the eggs, mayo, and seasoning. Then add in breadcrumbs and let them soak for a bit. Next, drain the crabmeat and add the meat. Mix it all together and toss in the fridge or freezer.

Sauté the onions, garlic and peppers until soft. Mix into the crabmeat mixture, then toss back in the freezer for at least 10 minutes, the fridge for half an hour. This will make the cakes more solid and easier to form.

Coat the bottom of your pan with oil or melted butter and brown each side on medium for a couple minutes on each side. Drain them on paper towel and serve with a remoulade, spicy mayo, or just on their own!

For the chili mac I add fresh shredded cheddar, a little tomato paste to punch up the tomato flavor, some no-salt-added canned tomatoes and lots of my own chili powder to Chili Cheese Hamburger Helper. I also sautéed some bell peppers and onions, tossing them into the mix when everything was cooked through.

I also love fancying up Jiffy Cornbread, which you can usually get for under 50¢ a package at the grocery store. I follow the instructions on the box, but add a few tablespoons of honey (you can eyeball it), frozen corn and some Tastefully Simple Garlic Garlic.

Again, it’s nothing special, but who says every meal has to be special? Sometimes simple really hits the spot.

Lee Kum Kee’s prepared sauces are about the same price (often less expensive, depending where you go) as the super-salty-low-on-flavor LaChoy selections, but here’s the difference: great big in-your-face flavor. The Spicy Garlic Eggplant sauce is one of my absolute favorites for restaurant-quality food at home AND, unlike many LaChoy products, is MSG-free.

Plus, it’s so easy to make! I like to peel my eggplant first (not a fan of the skin), but leaving the skin on adds a cool purple color to the dish. I also add onions, whatever pepper I have in the house, and this time the rest of some broccoli rabe that I bought for stir-frying a couple weeks ago.

I’ve made this with pork and, as I did last night, with chicken and tofu, and it never disappoints. Stick with the American brands if you’re cooking for kids or those without a sophisticated palette, I suppose. But if you’re cooking Chinese, buy the brands the Chinese use.

That’s why I took a chance when grilling the steak for this meal, and it made a really big difference! I just grilled it on my Mario Batalli grill pan, since I don’t have the luxury of a nice outdoor barbecue.

This was also my first time trying Archer Farms’ Basil Pesto Cream Sauce, Target’s new house brand of “gourmet” sauces and food products. And the verdict is… meh? This has sadly been the case for every Archer Farms product I’ve tried, and that makes me incredibly sad. They look so promising, with their pretty packaging and exotic flavors, but so far everything I’ve had has been bland as hell until I doctored it up. This sauce was still just cream sauce — barely any basil flavor — even after I added garlic, a few cubes of Dorot Frozen Basil, fresh tomatoes and peppers and shredded parmesan. The steak was well-seasoned, which balanced it out, and it was a yummy dish overall, but I like my basil cream sauce to be overpowering with the flavors of basil and garlic.

In fact, the inspiration for this dish, Bertolli’s Steak Rigatoni & Portobello Mushrooms frozen prepared meal (picked up for a couple dollars on super-sale + coupon), had far more flavor than Target’s jarred sauce. I think I’ve officially sworn off Archer Farms’ sauces, which is just too bad. There’s too much good stuff out there to keep wasting my time with something that doesn’t work.

]]> http://www.shortcutchef.com/archives/451/feed 0 http://www.shortcutchef.com/archives/445 http://www.shortcutchef.com/archives/445#comments Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:30:57 +0000 Tiara Lynn http://www.shortcutchef.com/?p=445 Without fail, whenever we go someplace where pan-seared tuna is on the menu, my husband orders it. For years I’ve been terrified to make it myself. It was just one of those things that was so deceptively simple, I knew it had to be easy to screw up. And when dealing with fish that’s $24/lb (and that’s not even for the REALLY good stuff), it’s a risk one has to consider.

A recent trip to Mitsuwa, our awesome Asian market, proved too tempting. The fish had just been sliced, placed in the cooler while I stood there. I pressed on the fish like Ming taught me to do to see how fresh it was… solid as a rock. It was beautiful, and it cost about the same as the rolls of sushi I had in my cart. I decided to take the leap, and I’m so glad I did. I paired this with some of my famous TiaraMaki rolls, and this is how I made the tuna:

I only had a 1/4lb slab of fish — plenty for the two of us, especially when paired with some salmon for the sushi. I cut it into two sections, in case I screwed one up.

For the marinade I used 1.5 tbsp of Tamari soy sauce, 1/4 teaspoon of fresh ground ginger (The Ginger People make my favorite) and a splash of lime juice. I marinated the fish in a zipper baggie for about 45 minutes before cooking.

In my sauté pan on medium I heated up about a tablespoon of dark sesame oil. When it was hot, I put the fish face down, keeping my tongs handy while I watched the searing progress. I found recipes online that called for up to a minute per side, but I quickly found that letting it cook for that long would quickly cook the fish all the way through. So I just watched, and for about 20-40 seconds on each side I seared the tuna. When it was done I placed it on a layer of paper towel and quickly put the plate in the freezer to keep the fish from cooking longer.

That was it.

Seriously.

My husband declared it amazing and quickly ate it up. I’m actually not a huge fan of this dish, but even I could admit that the freshness of the fish paired with the bite of the ginger made this phenomenal. And it was so easy! I know it won’t be long before he asks me to make this again.

I served this on a bed of chinese broccoli greens that were stir-fried with carrots, mushrooms and onions in just a little soy sauce. Very plain, but beautifully simple.

The Bayou Bourbon Glaze was appealing immediately, even though I didn’t have a plan for using it. This recipe came together because of a handful of ingredients that needed to get used. A bunch of carrots and half a green pepper needed some love, so I peered into my pantry to look for some options.

This recipe came out sweet, delicious, and really unique! I know it’s not what the sauce was intended for, but that’s what makes it fun! Here’s what I did…

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 Bottle of Tastefully Simple Bayou Bourbon Glaze (you’ll use about half)
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1/2 green pepper
• 1 small onion, sliced
• 1/2 can of pineapple chunks
• 1/2 lb of gemelli or other pasta, cooked

Sauté the chicken and onion with a little bit of olive oil until browned. Add the green pepper, the carrots and the bourbon glaze. Cook on medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until the chicken is cooked through and the ca. If the sauce seems very thick, add a bit of pineapple juice. When everything’s cooked through, add the pineapple and heat it through.

Toss the chicken, vegetables and sauce with pasta!

When I was growing up, apparently we didn’t eat a lot of the traditional home cooking that are familiar to friends. Among the “traditional family meals” that are a mystery to me has always been Frito Pie. Can of chili, covering Fritos with cheese and onions sounded both fascinating and terrifying. However, it fascinated me enough that I decided to try it with some extra chili as a way to creatively use some leftovers.

I looked up some Frito Pie recipes online, but they were almost all identical. It involved a bed of Frito chips, layered with chili, cheese and onions.

This was tasty, and an interesting way to use chili. However, the Fritos at the base ended up a bit stale, so next time (and there WILL be a next time) I’m going to try crushing the Fritos and make a more solid base. Overall, though, using homemade chili in this recipe made it really, really tasty!

Part of fine cooking on a budget means minimizing waste and utilizing leftovers, and one of my favorite ways to do that is by making my own breadcrumbs. For the first time, though, I tried something different.

A recent dinner party left us with a couple baguettes, which we used to make homemade garlic bread, full of butter and real garlic. Then we did something dumb; we left the garlic bread out overnight. It was fine, but too hard to eat. Instead of tossing it, I decided to try something new: garlic breadcrumbs!

They’ve been in my fridge for awhile waiting for a purpose, but I found it when I made some delicious breaded tilapia. I mixed the garlic breadcrumbs with The Spice House’s Chesapeake Bay seasoning (The Spice House’s version of classic Old Bay).

I took the tilapia fillets and pressed them into the garlic breadcrumbs and panfried the fish in a little bit of olive oil. The flavor was light and crispy, and absolutely wonderful. I served it with butter-and-garlic orzo and broccolini (sometimes called baby broccoli).

Another great discovery made entirely by accident! Be creative in the kitchen and good things will happen!

Yes, my dearhearts, this grown-up grilled cheese is exactly as good as it sounds. This recipe was born from the bargain bin. Two packages of brie, nearing their “sell-by” date, less than half price. Sign me up, right?

It was also born from a really bad day, and what better comfort food than macaroni and cheese? The end result was absolutely amazing. The saltiness of the bacon, the richness of the brie, the sweetness of gloriously caramelized onions… it all came together beautifully. Here’s how I made it:

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 lb of pasta, cooked (I used a small bag of shells)
• 7oz of brie (remove the rind)
• 1/2 package of bacon, cut into bits
• 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 1/2 stick of butter, split in half
• 1/2 large sweet onion, sliced into strips or rings
• 1/2  tsp brown sugar (optional)
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 cup half & half
• 1/2 cup milk

Cook the bacon until crispy and set aside for later.

In a small sauce pan, add half butter and sauté the onion with the brown sugar until caramelized. Remove onions but don’t clean the pan. Set aside.

Preheat your broiler. If you don’t have a broiler, preheat oven to 400º.

In the same pan, heat the rest of the butter and the garlic, and add the flour until combined. Add the milk and half & half, stirring continuously as you bring it to a boil. Lower the heat and add the brie little by little until everything is melty and combined.

Toss the pasta in a casserole dish with the sauce, the caramelized onions and half the bacon. Stir it all up and toss under the broiler for 15 minutes, or bake in the oven for 30 minutes.

When done, stir again. Serve with fresh bacon bits.