Mushroom & onion potato pancakes

I'm posting some recipes for now because I sometimes forget, and it makes it easy! Like when I made gazpacho tonight.

I make potato pancakes from left over mashed potatoes. I tubaware them and put them in the fridge until I make them.

Ingredients: 

•  leftover mashed potatoes
• egg(s) 1 egg per 4 servings of potato
• olive oil
• white or yellow onion
• pepper
• salt
• flour
• minced garlic
• mushrooms
• (optional: chives)

Chop up the mushrooms and the onion into very small pieces. Mix in a bowl with the potatoes, egg, a table spoon of flour per 4 servings, garlic (clove per 4 servings), and chives if desired.

Heat up the pan to high heat

Grease the pan, and drop some olive oil in, then pour the mix in like a pancake. Flatten it, mold it to a circle, and let it sit for about 4 minutes. Pepper and sprinkle flour on the top side, and flip it.
Throughout this process shake the pan a little side to side so that the pancake keeps from sticking.
Remove from pan when it is the desired brownness.

Serve with ketchup/sour cream/ or apple sauce. Whatever you like

Spanish foods: Gazpacho

Learned at a cooking class here!

I don't like tomato soup. I don't like tomato juice. BUT this has become one of my favorite things here.
Gazpacho
ingredients:

• kilo of tomatoes
• a red bell pepper
• a garlic clove
• shallots or onion
• a cucumber
• 6 tablespoons of olive oil. 
• 3 table spoons of white whine vinegar
• half a table spoon of cumin
• salt & pepper
• (opt. bread, croutons, bits of feta cheese, chopped watermelon, chopped any of the above veggies- NOM)

Make a cross at the base of the tomatoes. scald the tomatoes in hot water for a while, take them out and peel them when they are warm.
Put all of the veggies in all in a blender AFTER chopping them up, and add the oil and vinegar. To avoid lumps strain the juice after blending.
Add water depending on your preference.
Chill it and eat like a soup or drink.
NOM

Bacon wrapped poppers (with or without chicken)

 This is one of my FAVE things to make for a side dish in a meal or, more so, as snacks/appetizers during a party or game.

In this example, I cooked boneless quail, but I often use small pieces of chicken breast or no chicken at all. The recipe is essentially the same no matter which of the above you use.

Ingredients:

• Cream cheese
• bacon
• quail/chicken/nada if your vegetarian
• Jalapeños ---> I sometimes use fresh and sometimes (if in a rush) use jarred & sliced. It's your call. If you cook it sans meat, I encourage the fresh. 
• Brown sugar
• bbq sauce

Foil that pan, and set the oven to 350 degrees.

wear gloves and cut up your jalapeños. De-seed them & cut down the middle long ways then across so they are in 4's. [Consider this when you buy them, 1 jalapeño makes about 1]

Set up your station like I did, or better if you can! Brown sugar and bbq sauce on the right with a bunch of wooden toothpicks. Cut your bacon into half or third slices depending on the size of the meat you are using.
For the quail, I used one whole slice, but with chicken, I use two halves and wrap them cross-wise. If only jalapeños, I use about 1/3 slice.

 So take your jalapeño slice, press cream cheese onto it (about a table spoon), insert it into or beside the meat (I say into for quail). Next, wrap with bacon. If it's a decent sized chicken piece, put two half pieces like a present  (crossed) with the ends on the underneath side, and put a tooth pick through the bacon and jalapeño. If it's quail, and you have big freaking bacon like I did here, wrap one piece around. If it's just jalapeño, wrap a third a piece around it.
Coat the pieces with bbq sauce and sprinkle brown sugar.
Cook on 350 degrees for 40 minutes
At the end broil it on high for 5 minutes with the oven cracked open
BOOM

Parmesan Crusted Grouper

 I'm really bad at taking nice, culinary photos. I should've photographed this on the plate, but it's okay! This dish was DELICIOUS & super easy!! Once again, I didn't really measure things out, so bear with me on amounts. Feel free to substitute or leave out certain ingredients. 

Dinner was for 5 people, so we had a large amount of grouper; 2 lbs. 

Spray foiled pan with Pam! 

• 2 lemons
• white wine/sherry
• olive oil
• opt. 1 egg
• opt. some chimmichurri sauce
• grated & shredded parmesan cheese
• bread crumbs (try to get corn syrup free)
• garlic powder

I set up my cooking station- combining the egg, olive oil, chimmichurri, lemon juice squeezed in, and white wine. 

Also, the parmesan, rind of the lemons grated into the mix, bread crumbs, and some garlic powder. 

This is the beautiful fish. 

dip it in the liquid mix, and coat it in the other mix. Once you are done, and it's on the foiled pan*, coat and press the rest of the mix onto it. I even drizzled the liquid on top. 

400 degrees

20-25 minutes 

I cooked mine ~25 then broiled it for a minute on high with the door cracked open. 

*I LOVE and almost always try to use foiled pans. THEY ARE THE BEST. Good for cleaning and cooking, but spray with Pam!!!

Pineapple Burgers

This is one of my FAVORITES, so I thought I'd post it nowwww before I get to Spain since I probably won't be making any type of burger too often.

Time: ~45 minutes
Ingredients:

• fresh baked rolls from the grocery store
• swiss cheese
• ground beef ( I like it quite lean)
• onion
• BACON
• pineapple slices
• (opt. toppings - pickles, stadium mustard or dijon mustard, brown sugar, etc.)

The Burgers
So, it's quite easy. I almost ALWAYS line my baking sheet with foil because it is sooo much easier for cleaning. Set the oven for 350 degrees. 
I mince the onion and mash it with the burgers and make them pretty large. 
Then place pineapple slices on top (you may have to cut them to fit nicely).
Wrap two slices of bacon around a burger and over the pineapple criss crossed + and put the ends on top. 
Cook in the oven for about 35 minutes, but keep an eye on them. This is about how long I cooked them, but mine were quite thick. Then, for 10 minutes, broil them on high, so the bacon cooks more and crack the oven door open a few inches. 


Pull them out & place swiss cheese on top. I throw them back in the oven on broil for a minute or two with the door cracked to fully melt the cheese.


THE ROLLS -- cut them in half (or use regular buns- I recommend wheat)
You can do one of two things, 
1. broil them in the oven on another baking sheet face up with a bit of olive oil or butter on the face. 
2. (what I do so I don't have to use the oven) Get a skillet and put some olive oil, butter, and a dash of garlic powder on the faces of the rolls or the skillet and just face each one down individually into the mix- adding a little bit each time if you do it on the skillet. Leave each for about a minute and set them all on a plate, and they're ready for burgers. 


I typically do this the ten minutes the burgers broil. ^


Enjoyyyyyy

Veggie Lunch on White Rice

First post on NOM
Veggie lunch on riceI made this today because we just got home from  Puerto Rico and went to HEB and bought TONS of new produce. PLUS, my mom has been growing  jacinto kale, chives, cilantro, parsley, tomatoes, peppers, and rosemary at the house, so I decided to make a veggie, healthy meal for lunch since I've been eating almost ALL fried food in Puerto Rico.
This was just for me and a half a serving for my mom, so I didn't use the entire vegetable shown below (such as the bell pepper, onion, and sweet pepper)
I also used my brand new wok from William Sonoma that will be my number one at my new house next semester at A&M.

isn't it BEAUTIFUL??!?

 Okay so, first things first, the veggies!!!!

Keep in mind, anything is optional, anything can be added. I didn't use the entire vegetable listed. For example, I used about 4 cherry tomatoes since I was only making a serving and a half. I basically grabbed everything awesome and put it in here, so do what you feeeeeeel:

• red onion
•  cherry tomatoes (cut in halves)
•  garlic (minced)
• red bell pepper
•  kale
•  broccoli
•  spinach (organic)
•  shittake mushrooms
• hydroponically grown cress (ooOOoh)
• chives and cilantro (from the garden)
• pineapple - (cut into smallish chunks)
• sweetly bred pepper-                               
•     --> I have to comment. These orange peppers are selectively bred so that they are not spicy at all and only taste like the flavor of a hot pepper without the spice! So good because I'm not a big spicy fan, and they are amazing in salads and eggs!!!

You'll begin to notice in my posts that I'm an estimator when I cook. I rarely use exact measurements unless I'm baking, so try to put what you like in measurements you want. 

Basically I cut all of those ingredients up.

 I then put a little pour of olive oil in, turned the stove on middle heat, and I stirred the veggies for about 5 minutes, adding the pineapple after along with a squeeze or two of some honey. 

THEN I added half a can of beef broth and half a can of cream of mushroom soup. 

Salt & Pepper to taste.

I let that heat up to about 8/10 so that the liquid would cook down, stirring frequently. 

While I cut the ingredients & while this cooked I had made some white jasmine rice by the brand Jasmati - recommended by Javi's family because they use it for their rice and beans ALL the time. I boiled water with a drop of olive oil and some sea salt with the rice already in it as it heated up. I put it on a 7/10 for about 20 minutes with a lid until it bubbled up, and I became agitated, and I took the lid off and left it at medium heat for about 10 more minutes. 

I'd just start the rice and cut the veggies & let everything cook, and once the thirty minutes is up, it should be cooked to your liking. 

When the rice was done, I strained it and put it in bowls, and I took a large straining spoon (one with holes in it), and I put the veggies coated in broth on the rice. You could definitely pour the delicious broth into the bowl and have more flavorful, rich rice throughout, but I didn't although I want to next time.  

A dark image of the final results. 

If you are vegetarian, simply replace the beef broth with french onion soup or don't use another at all.