Tag: food

The Sooner the Better

63 Comments

It’s time once again to return to our state night adventures and while we thoroughly enjoyed our time with Hawaiian cuisine, it’s time to head back to the mainland. For these next few recipes, Mike is taking us to The Sooner State, Oklahoma. We’ve driven through Oklahoma a few times, including once during a terrible storm complete with tornado warnings. The wind was so intense that it was blowing the rain sideways and we had no choice but to stop and ride out the storm (I’ll have you know it’s taking all my will power not to include another 70’s song link here). Oh, and did I mention that we were in the process of moving across the country in a rental truck packed full of all our earthly possessions, our car hooked up to the back and our only cat riding shotgun? Talk about a hair-raising experience. Despite our brief and harrowing stay in Oklahoma, we have no memories of the food. In fact, I’m not sure we ever took the time to eat while we were there.

Fortunately we came across several websites in our search for Sooner cuisine, including the Made in Oklahoma Coalition which inspired this recipe for our Bourbon Steak Quesadillas with Peach Salsa. We started the recipe yesterday by preparing the peach salsa with peaches, a Serrano pepper, a tomato, a bit of red pepper and green onions. Continue reading →

Hakuna Matata

47 Comments

Hakuna matata. There are no worries – especially with today’s dish from Mozambique. Seafood is predominant in this coastal nation which is fortunate since all four of us enjoy it. This time we selected a clam and peanut stew called Matata.

We started with our bag of unsalted and raw peanuts. The kids were both super excited – as in asking over and over if it was time to make dinner – to crack the peanut shells.

Now you might be wondering why cracking peanuts would garner such excitement, well it’s probably because I told the kids they could toss the shells on the floor like at the ballgame. Hakuna matata!  Continue reading →

It Ain’t Easy Being Green

65 Comments

Well, here we go! It’s time for our next international adventure. This time we’re heading back to Africa for a culinary visit with Mozambique. Mozambique is in southeast Africa and borders the Indian ocean. Now what I was surprised to learn is that the official language of Mozambique is actually Portuguese; and like the language, the food is infused with Portuguese influence.

For our first recipe, we went with one that had a high chance of success around here – Shrimp Mozambique. Not only did it promise to be simple, but we’re all big shrimp fans. We started today’s recipe by melting some butter in a large skillet and then tossing in some diced shallots. Continue reading →

Hot Diggity Dog!

55 Comments

Whew! That week went by in the blink of an eye. We hope you all enjoyed our adventure with Kosher cooking. We know we sure did. I imagine we’ll revisit Kosher food at some point along this adventure again. Until then, many thanks to Tori for our first introduction to it. Incidentally, Tori just won the IACP People’s Choice Best Culinary Blog or Website for 2012! Congrats! It’s well-deserved.

Now before we get to our next international cooking adventure we wanted to wrap up our stateside culinary tour of Hawaii. This last dish doesn’t really have a recipe per say. We didn’t whip up any original ingredients, or make any fancy homemade sausages. Nope. We simply wanted to see how authentically we could recreate our favorite treat from Hawaii, The Puka Dog!  Continue reading →

All Fired Up

28 Comments

Tonight we wrap up our adventure with the official recipes from Greenland. We do however have one more Greenlandic inspired dish coming your way, but I promise it will not involve halibut or a casserole. As for tonight’s recipe, well it’s one I had a sneaking suspicion we would enjoy – Mike and I anyway. This one is not for the kids.

You see tonight is the blog’s first “grown-up drink” recipe and who knew it would come from Greenland! Now you’ve probably heard of Irish Coffee, Mexican Coffee and Calypso Coffee, but have you heard of Greenlandic Coffee? Well, we had not until this little cooking adventure, but it will be a part of our repertoire from here on out.  Continue reading →

If I Was a Betting Woman

60 Comments

Fortunately I’m not, because this is one bet I would have lost. I should know by now not to assume what the kids will or will not eat. It’s not like they haven’t surprised me before, but this time I thought I would surely have been right.

Aerial of Greenland from my best friend Sue’s flight to Europe.

You see this was one meal that kept popping up on our search for Greenlandic recipes, and it’s one I was not terribly thrilled about making. In fact, I think we were all kind of dreading this one. Now you would think that would be enough to find a different recipe, but we were determined to give it a shot. After all you never know, and that’s what this whole experience is about for us – learning new things.

Aerial of Greenland, shot by Sue.

So we finally set to making the recipe for Halibut Cream Casserole. (I think it was the word casserole that had me dreading this meal. While I’ve had plenty of good casseroles over the years, I still associate the word with the many bad ones I’ve eaten.) The kids were also complaining about the meal before we even started as they’re not big fans of stews, but on we went. We started with the halibut, which we were fortunate enough to find this time – and on the first try too!  Continue reading →