Bits Of Dust

Archive for the ‘Recipe Link’ Category

In case you didn’t know, Chef Tom has another blog called The Secret Recipe Blog.

Last week he featured a copycat recipe of Red Lobster’s Schrimp Scampi.

Ingredients:

1 cup White Wine
1/2 cup unsalted Butter
3 tablespoon minced Garlic
1 pound Shrimp, peeled and deveined
salt & pepper, to taste

Preparation:

Combine the butter, wine, garlic and shrimp in a pan.
Bake in a 350 degree F oven for about 7 minutes or until the shrimp turn pink.
Be careful not to overcook the Shrimp.
Season with salt and pepper, to taste.
Serve.

This recipe serves 2-4 people (if you’re a shrimp lover like me, this will serve 1). I worked at Red Lobster for a short time, and I can personally vouch that this recipe tastes just like the real thing, except you don’t get the rude waiter, ignorant management, or the high price.

If you’re wondering, no, I didn’t work at Red Lobster very long, the food servers I worked with were rude, the management didn’t have a clue how to run a restaurant (lucky for them they were small fish in a bigger sea), and the price you pay for the food you get? Ridiculous.

Try this copycat recipe, it’s easy, and it’s delicious, or head on over to the Secret Recipe Blog and check out some of the other yummy creations.

I found it ironic yesterday, that Chef John would post a recipe using apple cider, when the wife and I just got done putting together the ingredients for 45 pints of apple butter, which included apple cider.

So, in keeping with the apple cider theme going on here at our house, tomorrow night we are planning to make Chef John’s Cider Braised Beef Brisket.

Normally I post his videos here, but you can go to his site for this one, since he lists the ingredients over there, and well, it is his video (but don’t hold it against me if I post some here for the lazy readers one day).

I hate brussel sprouts. I can’t stand them. Chef John seems to think I might like them if I try them the way he makes them.

I am going to buy some this week and give it a try. I will not be telling the kids or the wife what I am making either, and we’ll see what they say. I will post an update after the “taste test” with results. There are five of us in the house and not all of them hate brussel sprouts, so, we’ll see just how good this recipe is.

Oh gawd, now I can smell them already. Well, brussel sprouts in general, not Chef John’s specifically. Ugh.

Back in July, I found a recipe for herb braised artichokes that Chef John had done. They were delicious. Then, to celebrate our anniversary the wife and I had crab legs and filet mignon one night, and I mentioned I always crave artichokes with crab legs.

For some reason my brain has decided those two items must be served together.

Well, today, the wife and I were discussing when we would be eating crab legs again (yes the kids love them too), and I instantly began craving artichokes. Then guess what happened?

Chef John, wherever he is, was reading my mind, and posted a recipe for Simply Roasted Artichokes. Guess what we’re having for dinner tomorrow night?

Chef John has an excellent Roast Chicken recipe up. He’s using the new blogger video upload for it, which is kewl, cuz now you all will have to visit his awesome blog to see the recipes rather than seeing a Youtube embed.

Speaking of chicken, this weekend my wife made some chicken stock (I think she was running out of other things to can, so she decided to make stock). I can hardly wait to make egg drop soup with it, yum…

The other day, Chef Tom had a great recipe for Spicy Breaded Potato Weges.

They were absolutely delicious, and the recipe was uber-simple to make. I was going to post a picture, but I forgot to take a picture before we devoured half the plate.

While the picture would have been inviting, I think the smell of them coming out of the oven would have knocked you over.

Go check out the recipe and tell Chef Tom to stop helping me gain weight. It took me too long to lose the weight in the first place.

While you’re out there enjoying your Labor Day holiday, cooking out on your grill, why not make this delicious recipe from ifood.tv?

I, for one, will be relaxing and enjoying as much of my day as I can. With a surprise party yesterday and a lot of running around today, I can hardly wait to just sit back, relax, and enjoy some peace and quiet.

Yesterday, Chef John posted a recipe for Wild Halibut Steaks with Warm Bacon Dressing.

Normally, I don’t like fish. But I love Halibut. I thought this would be a perfect dish to try on the kids. It’s difficult to get all three of them to eat new foods, but I thought, with the bacon and all that, I might just have a chance.

Do you know though, I drove around for an hour and a half looking for wild halibut at the grocery stores and the hell if I couldn’t find any. Dagnabbit.

Anyway, I will be trying this dish just as soon as I can get one of our local po-dunk stores to get some fresh wild halibut in stock for me.

I was first introduced to baklava by my grandfather. Delicious stuff I tell you. Here is Giada De Laurentiis’ recipe for simple baklava.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup almonds
1/2 cup walnuts
1/4 cup chopped dried apricots
1/4 cup plain bread crumbs
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
Pinch of salt
1 stick butter, melted, divided
3 tablespoons honey
12 sheets phyllo dough

Instructions:

Special equipment: 2 mini-muffin tins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the almonds, walnuts, apricots, bread crumbs, sugar, cinnamon, ground cloves, and salt in a food processor. Run the machine until the mixture is very finely chopped. Transfer the mixture to a small bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of the melted butter and the honey and stir to combine.

Check out more of Giada’s recipes at the Food Network website.

On a dry work surface place 1 sheet of phyllo. Using a pastry brush and the remaining melted butter, lightly cover the entire sheet of phyllo with melted butter. Cover the first sheet with a second sheet of phyllo and brush with melted butter. Continue until there is a stack of 6 sheets of phyllo. Cut the stacked phyllo rectangle into 12 equal pieces (Cut lengthwise into 4 pieces and widthwise into 3 pieces.)

Gently press each cut piece of phyllo into the mini-muffin tin cups. Press 1 tablespoon of the nut mixture into each of the phyllo cups. Gather the ends of each of the phyllo squares and twist to make a sachet shape. Continue shaping the remaining sachets in the other mini-muffin tin. Bake until the edges of the phyllo are golden, about 20 to 25 minutes. When cool enough to handle, remove the baklava sachets and transfer to a serving plate.

This is so cool! I make my own tortilla chips all the time, and I get razzed for it. But I prefer the taste of my homemade chips over the store bought ones, and they contain less preservatives and other crap that I don’t want to be eating anyway.

Well, today, Chef Tom has a “Homemade Spicy Tortilla Chips” recipe on his site. Now I never thought to add the spices to the chip (although I did use a touch of salt), so this is going to be fun. I am going to try out a bunch of different combinations and I’ll let you know how they turn out.

In the meantime, head on over to Chef Tom’s site. Be careful though, you could gain 10 pounds by doing so.