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Cool Beans

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We’re all running a bit behind this week and things have gotten a little hectic. Thankfully it’s almost the weekend, and fortunately we’ve had some fabulous beans to use throughout the week in various dishes.

We first whipped up this recipe for the popular Nicaraguan Gallo Pinto last Sunday with our Nicaraguan steak and Mormom Johnnycake, and the leftovers have graced our table ever since. Gallo pinto is a traditional Nicaraguan dish of rice and beans cooked together.

For this particular version, Mr. N selected black beans – his favorite. We soaked our beans according to the package directions and then simmered them for an hour and a half in a sauce pan with about 8 to 10 cloves of garlic and water.  Continue reading →

“Energy and Persistence Conquer All Things”

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I don’t think that Benjamin Franklin was referring to a Chopped Challenge, but let me tell you, that’s what this event and this particular basket took – energy and persistence.

Our final dessert round began after an epic clean-up of this mess.

It was late, it was dark (thus some of the not so great pictures), it was New Year’s Day…but persevere we must! That, and you better believe the kids weren’t letting us off that easy. They wanted their dessert! So on to the dessert basket offered up to us by Kay, the always inspiring, artistic genius at Pure Complex. Her basket of Oranges, Red Miso Paste, Kettle Chips and Cottage Cheese won by a landslide victory (Kay your family all came through!). And we thought the last basket challenged us!  Continue reading →

Rocked Lobster

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Tonight we bring you our main course dishes from Sunday’s Chopped Challenge. The basket for this round came to us from Sally at Bewitching Kitchen and included lobster tails, edamame, buckwheat noodles and chipotle peppers. We were a bit intimidated because if you’ve been to Sally’s blog, you know she’s always coming up with inventive dishes that look deliciously full of flavor – without fail – and we wanted to make sure we did her proud.

We were also a bit nervous and baffled about how to combine edamame and buckwheat noodles with chipotle peppers. This one was definitely throwing us. Do we go Asian or Southwestern? Ultimately we went both directions. I went towards Asian flavors and Mike embraced the Southwest. And while our dishes may not look as restaurant-worthy as the last round, these were hands down our favorite dishes of the day. Mr. N and Miss A were also very excited about the lobster. You should have heard Miss A, “Is it ready yet? Is this the lobster? Is it dead? Can I eat the lobster?” Apparently we taught them well in Maine this summer. Continue reading →

Scallops and Drunken Chestnuts

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Yesterday was our epic Chopped Challenge for Mike’s birthday celebration and our New Year’s Day fun. The baskets of ingredients were provided by members of our blog family and put up to vote by our readers. We completed three rounds including an appetizer, main course and dessert recipe. It was a crazy day of cooking, spills, dirty dishes, laughter, a bit of competitive jabbing and absolute fun. Thanks for all of those that participated and followed along. We hope you had some fun too. 🙂

Now as promised here are the first recipes from the event. We’re going to kick off with the appetizer dishes. We used the ingredients suggested by Linda at Savoring Every Bite (who has some fantastic recipes – we’ve tried several in fact – not to mention amazing party planning/hosting skills) which included Chestnuts, Brandy, Polenta and Scallops. The measurements provided in the recipes are approximated as we didn’t do too much calculating yesterday. We mostly went on gut feel and tossed in what we thought worked.  Continue reading →

Chopped Challenge Begins…(A Live Blogging Event)

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Our chopped challenge begins with the appetizer round.  We’ll be posting live updates through the day, so check back often!  Our voters were generally kind, hopefully our judges will be kind as well, though we don’t expect them to be as kind as the Dalai Lama himself.

Continue reading →

Sweet and Spice and All Things Nice

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Before we close up the computers for one last holiday (and birthday) fling this weekend, we wanted to share a new appetizer recipe we whipped up for our Christmas parties, a Cranberry Bruschetta.

We started by whipping up our traditional cranberry sauce recipe with a little twist. This time we tossed in some Cointreau with the fresh orange juice and zest. We also substituted agave nectar for some of the sugar and added some crushed red pepper flakes to the mix. I also used this as a chance to try out my new immersion blender –  I never knew making cranberry sauce could be so quick and easy (and with a ton less dishes!). While the cranberry sauce cooled down, we prepared the bread  by slicing it on a bias and brushing it with olive oil.  Continue reading →