Waka Waka Salad vs. Dara's Chinese Chicken Salad

Tracy and I wanted to make something easy this week so it was Waka Waka Salad..  In reading the ingredients it sounded a lot like my Chinese Chicken Salad. So we had to do it.  We had the Friday night fights on Sunday afternoon. We purchased all the ingredients and began chopping away.  Whose idea was this to chop so much darn cabbage, cilantro slice onions thin, shred carrots and fry wonton wrappers? It was mine according to Tracy.  I had a great time bossing Tracy around this time.  It was hysterical because every time she went to sit down or do something else I had another task I needed done. My husband welcomed Tracy to his world. LOL

You see it was also my bright idea to use up all the veggies I had lying around my house. I had gotten a little overzealous at the farmers market so along with the 2 salad’s we made ratatouille bake that we mixed with pasta, spaghetti sauce, zucchini, corn and pepper sauté.  We grilled up peaches for spinach salad with blue cheese, pecans and bacon, sautéed green beans in garlic, onion and tomatoes with corn bread croutons and oh yeah and we cut up melons. 

Ok enough of that it makes me tired again just thinking about it.  So anyways Guy your Waka Waka salad was a huge Waka Waka let down.  The salad its self was fine but the dressing was awful.  I mean bad bad bad. I was super bland and too much vinegar.  So Tracy and I tried to work our magic by adding and extra packet of the ramen noodle flavoring, sugar, mustard more garlic and ginger but nothing was helping this dressing.  Sorry anyone who makes the salad, do yourself a favor and buy marzetties Asian ginger dressing in the bottle. You won’t be disappointed.

Dara’s Chinese Chicken Salad

There are not measurements here folks you need to use what you love in the amounts you like, We love

Napa cabbage

Red cabbage

Green cabbage

Lettuce

Spinach

Green onions (I like a lot of these)

Cilantro

Carrots

Celery

Toasted almonds (I love a lot of these)

Rotisserie Chicken shredded

Slice everything thin toss together with the Asian Ginger dressing and enjoy!!

Beef, Beef and more Beef its’s for dinner

I wanted to make the Chicago Beef Sandwich and Baltimore Beef sandwich this week because basically the ingredients are similar and we get two recipes done at once.  Plus left over sandwiches are always good.

$40.00 in meat alone later, we were told that this is fall and winter meat so there was no sales going on and did I mention its 93 degree with a heat index of 115 today.  We are in the dead of summer and here we are buying almost 8 pounds of roast.  We followed the recipes of marinating the Baltimore beef 24 hours and the Chicago beef 4 hours.  This left plenty of time for watching and trying to do the Zumba DVD’s Tracy just purchased off an infomercial.  Back-story on Tracy she loves, I mean LOVES infomercials, QVC and HSN.  If Tracy had a lot of money god help us all because we would try every diet and exercise program while wearing our pajama jeans cooking in our Nu’ Oven’s while changing out our many purses… now wait a minute this could be good. I love purses. Then we would be using our Wen shampoo and styling are hair with the ion hair style and cleaning it all up with our Shark hot steam clean upper thingee.. So you get the drift Tracy it’s your perfect demographic when you want to sell a product on TV. LOL

As we were trying to learn some Zumba moves we notice smoke was filling the house. Now smoke is nothing new to us just this past Christmas while making caramels we let some sugar go too far and it burnt.  It smelled of marshmallows that were roasted on the fire.  We weren’t sure what to do with the burning pot of sugar except run through the house screaming and out the sliding glass door and poor the bubbling sugar mix into the snow.  We made a sugar snow angel…  Ok back to the smoke filling the room.  The Baltimore beef was grilling in the grill pan since Tracy does not have an outside grill note to self these grilling recipes will be done at my house so we don’t have to rip down the smoke detector again. 

With all that smoke and heat from the oven Tracy and I took the meats out to rest and then left to get a much needed pedicure.  AAhh the magical pedicure, who doesn’t want a foot massage and some pretty paint on the toes… Plus the spice shop is right next-door and I can never get out of there without at least one or two spices.

Back to Tracy’s and slicing the beefs.  This was tricky to do thin enough so next time Tracy and I will invest in a slicer because we will for sure be making this rockin meat again.  It’s awesome. Love Love Love it!!! Guy you totally ruled these recipes. My husband said this is a Guy’s Guy type of meal like Chili is.   We will be making this again in the fall when the meats on sale for sure.  

Look for our next installment of Gal Fiere when we have another Friday night fights. 

See you all soon….

Tracy and Dara J

Cooking Alone...

Tracy has been super busy with her philanthropy work at the Indy Film Festival so that has left me all alone to cook this week.  Normally Tracy and I talk over what sounds good and what looks good but I am all alone to decide.  Just to let you know I am a Libra and we are know for being indecisive but fair, so this decision was a task but I narrowed it down to Bloody Mary Flank Steak and Sloppy Joes w/ Maui Onion Straws. I chose the Sloppy Joes because I can freeze that meat for Tracy to try next time we cook.  I choose the Bloody Mary Flank Steak because my husband loves steak.

I quickly took stock of what I had on hand and I was off to the grocery store where I chose a pork roast to have ground on medium for the Sloppy Joe’s because my grocery store does not carry ground pork only ground pork sausage.  I am finding more and more grocery stores are caring all kinds of things they never used to but I still always need some specialty item from somewhere else for a lot of recipes.  I was glad to not have to visit more than one store for these recipes. Other than semi irritating my butcher to ground the pork these items are readily available.

Back home and unloading all my goodies, I quickly get the marinate ready for the flank steak it has to rest for 8 hours.  I realize I don’t mind cooking dinners by myself on a regular basis but I do miss the witty banter between Tracy and me so I decided to turn on the cooking channel as back round noise.  Julia Child’s the French chef is on.  So many people have parodied her and as I listen I notice she does have a strange dialect and accent but not as bad as some have portrayed her.   So off I went sauté peppers in the oil until soft and then add the beef and pork and the next thing I know I am talking out loud in my best parody of Julia Childs voice about how to break the meat up. Please join me now in your best Julia Child voice and now we add the chopped garlic, stir in the wine, and add the rest of the ingredients… Stir thoroughly…  My cat is sitting at my feet looking up at me with her head tilted as if to say “what the hell has gotten into you”.  I laughed at myself and that is all that counts.

While the mix cooked I fried up a few onion straws since it was just me and I didn’t need to eat a whole batch of them, though I probably could have.  I top the meat on the bun with the onion straws and sat down to enjoy my Sloppy Joe lunch with the cooking channel.

Sloppy Joes with Maui Onion Straw’s pg 134/135 

By they way folks the sandwich was very tasty….

After hours of visiting with my friends Giada, Ina, Sunny, Guy, Anne, David, Jamie and Chuck (from the Food Network and Cooking Channel) Yeah that’s right I spent the afternoon watching TV, what wrong with that?  You got a problem with that? You got something to say? That’s what I thought. LOL… I needed to get moving and get dinner going.  I pulled out the flank steak so that it could come to room temperature and be ready for the grill.   Now usually men love to grill, it gets all their manly man things going and grunting like Tom Hanks in Cast Away when finally gets the fire started and he pounds his chest and says I have made fire…. Mixed with a little Tim Allen grunts from Home improvement. But since my husband is at work and I want dinner at a decent hour I will venture out to the grill where I am in NO WAY intimidated by it.  We have a charcoal grill because I don’t really like an electric one, I don’t think it gives a good crust to meat so sorry folks I am bad for the environment by using charcoal.

I grilled that meat like a pro all the while I spouting tips about not to move the meat and veg or press on it and get good cross marks only to find a lonely squirrel looking at me from a tree and the neighbors dog is sitting at the end of the drive way with the look on his face like he is saying “Lady is your phone ringing in the house?”  Or “don’t you need to go in the house for something?”  He was licking his chops.  The squirrel was intrigued at me as well probably wondering is this lady talking to me?  Anyways the steak, onions, tomatoes and asparagus were all grilled and ready to go so I said goodbye to Skippy, that’s what I named the squirrel and looked for the neighbor’s dog but he ventured away probably because I didn’t get that phone or go in the house so he could steal my steak. As I entered the house my two trusty friends where there to great me Ed and Max, Doodie as she is know to us.  They look at me and sniffed the air as to say YUMMM as their heads nodded in agreement and approval to me and each other.  Just then Tom has come and we are ready to eat.  We devour the steak and veg , the cats eat there Iams cat food, the dog I am sure got his dinner and as Tom and I do the dishes we notice Skippy watching us from a tree outside the window… Poor Skippy…..

Bloody Mary Steak pg 239

Steak was excellent; I will for sure make this one again

Well guys and gals, can’t wait to get back to cooking with Tracy a real person…

See you all soon.

BBQ RESULTS ARE IN!

Everyone is full because we chowed down just now. Here are the results

Tracy says Gals win for flavor but the texture and cooking method of Guys gives a good result.

Dara says ditto and will add Guys flavor is very spicy which we all like it sweeter and sort of has a chili flavor so I would love to use it in a chili minus some of the cayenne pepper.

Jessica says Guys texture of the meat reminds her of beef brisket which is good but was too chili like for her and she likes the sweetness of the Gal’s.

Tom says love the texture and look of Guys but the chili seasoning was over powering. The flavor of the Gal’s was more subtle and sweeter which he likes.

Sorry Guy but I guess my family likes the Gals better… If you want to enjoy Guys Pulled pork con huevos recipe its on page 225 of his book.

We look forward to our next recipe whatever that is. Happy 4th of July. Talk to you all soon.  

The Gal’s

Tracy and Dara J

BBQ COOK OFF

So the Friday Night Fights turned into the Sunday morning we’ve got to get this going. So it was up at dawn measuring, this measuring stuff is going to kill me.  LOL.  This 8-pound Boston Butt pork is a monster we had to clean out the fridge to make room for it along with our 8 pounds of our country pork ribs.  Let me start at the beginning. If you don’t know Tracy she likes to have a plan, which is great, but Dara flies along with a half assed plan in the back of her mind that usually works out.  Tracy is making lists of what we have and what we don’t and Dara is supposed to read Guy’s recipe and write down our bbq recipe.  Well I don’t know our recipe and neither does Tracy.  So here we are looking at spices and wondering how much of this do we usually use?  This is how we figured it out.  I took an empty bowl and began to shake the spice over it like I would if the pork was in there and then poured it on to a paper plate then poured it in the measuring spoons. Stop laughing! But now we know was our recipe actually is. This was a chore but it worked, I said stop laughing.

We followed Guy’s recipe that says to refrigerate the pork for an hour or more but we only did the hour.  When it was time to cook Guy says to cook on the stovetop so in the interest our getting them done at the same time we did them same with ours but we usually throw it in the crock-pot and go shopping.  No shopping now because according to Guy you need to baste his with the MOP every 45 minutes to an hour. Jessica (my daughter) needs her new desk put together and we already have Tom (my husband) working on her new dresser, which he just loves to put things together.  If you don’t get the sarcasm I am laying it on pretty thick here.  Tracy and I and Jessica are going to attempt to get this done, I am one thing and it’s not an assembler who follows directions well…

All the pieces of the desk are laid out on the floor and Tracy is doing well with barking out directions for Jessica and me to follow.  We actually moved along pretty good until we couldn’t use the electric screw driver because it didn’t fit in this small space.  Jess picked out a cool desk that had a drawer and shelves and a curved desk top which we now know its going to cause problems. I can’t get the screw in I have carpel tunnel and my thumb is going numb, I am standing up bending over, Tracy is squatting down trying to get the screw in and Jessica is holding the board that is curved up straight so one of us can get the screw feed in and not split the wood.  Tracy is becoming more and more agitated and is yelling you are not flexible, you are not being flexible.  Was she yelling at the board or Jessica or me we will never know because we I started to loose it laughing like Dom Delouse in cannon ball run, Jessica lets go of the wood and falls over laughing and Tracy is left squatting and holding all the wood and screws then she belts out don’t laugh at me and then she loses it as well and when I say lose it I just don’t just mean laughing she loses the ability to hold her gas and we are all left coughing and laughing and gagging and thank god there house it finally starting to smell like bbq.  Tracy says between laughing and crying I had and egg today.. I am laughing so hard right now that the mucus has set in and I am blowing my nose and crying, mascara is everywhere and Jessica has her shirt over her face when Tracy says the MOP we need to mop the bbq. We all take five to gather ourselves and we clean up, Mop the bbq and continue with the assembly of the desk which went pretty smooth unit we realized Tracy can’t read and follow directions either because we put the things for the drawers in the wrong way so we moved them to the other sides.  We obviously don’t know left and right and then we found we don’t know front from back because we had to flip them around again. Finally we got it all assembled and set up.

Back to cooking, something I am good at. We have checked and Mopped Guys bbq and we have looked at ours since we are not used to doing anything to ours, we just looked at it.  It will be ready soon for the blind taste test to the family.  Guy takes his bbq and makes a hash and eggs out of it which well will do tomorrow morning today we are just have it the bbq along with our baked beans, macaroni salad and corn bread it is after all fourth of July weekend we need to be patriotic. 

 If you want to make our bbq pulled pork follow our recipe

8 pounds of pork it can be country ribs trimmed of excess fat or boston butt

6 oz of a store bought pre made pork rib rub we used Kroger brand pork rib rub

2 tbls onion powder

2 tbls garlic powder

2 tsp black pepper

4 tsp salt

10 to 12 tbls of brown sugar more if you like it sweet.

½ cup apple cider vinegar

10 to 12 dashes of liquid smoke

½ cup water

Combine everything and put in crock-pot and cook all day on low 8 to 10 hours or high 4 to 6 hours. Then go shopping… when you come home the pork will be fork tender for shredding in the crock pot pull out all bones and cover in Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce original or your favorite BBQ sauce and enjoy..

New Haven, MI - Day 2

No Sun and fun today the local forecast is rain with a high of 61 degrees.  The Comfort Suites where we are staying offers the standard continental breakfast but interestingly enough the Dark Roast is really good and they don’t just offer powder creamer they offer real cream or half and half. We grab a cup and we are off to the Golden Brown Bakery. They offer many things like donuts, breads, cakes, cookies and pastries but we are here for the almond logs.  This light and flaky pastry is rolled up around freshly ground almond paste baked and then drizzled with almond flavored glaze and topped with toasted almond slices.  This goes perfectly with the coffee.  We dip and drink and enjoy this quick bite before we are off the Saugatuck Michigan. 

Saugatuck is about 25 minutes north of South Haven.  When we arrive it is still very early and the shops are just starting to open up but the farmers market is beaming with people so we head in and soon we realize we are sniffing all the fruits, veggies and herbs the vendors have to offer.  Too bad we don’t have a kitchen at the hotel because we could have made a feast with what was offered.  We settle on no fruits or veggies but some breads from the local baker.  We got whole wheat, whole-wheat California sour dough and a whole-wheat raisin walnut bread.  I ate mine today for breakfast it was outstanding, no preservatives even better.  We found another olive oil shop like the one in South Haven and this time we couldn’t resist, so we left there a lot lighter in the wallet but we both brought home walnut oil with white peach balsamic aged 12 years and Tuscan herb oil with pomegranate vinegar.

Tracy over heard a gentleman who leads culinary walking tours of the area say there was a spice shop just around the corner so she didn’t need to ask me twice if I wanted to go. I could have spend 100.00 dollars in there but I was good and resisted I limited myself to just at few spices like green chili powder, smoked chili powder and ancho chili powder.  I will be making some type of Mexican dish soon… We sample a candied chili nut that was awesome, first it was sweet then it left the heat in the back of your throat. 

On to what I call a “my porn” store.  I know what you are thinking it’s not really porn it’s a kitchen store.   Yes I said it I have an addiction to these stores.  They are in every outlet mall, in every upscale mall in the world.  I love them, they carry everything I want and don’t need.  You know these stores, pots and pans from France, knives and cutting boards and every and I am every kitchen gadget know to man.  Plus they carry a verity of jellies jams spreads cake mixes you know one of everything you want to make with the utensils to make it with.  Ok I am rambling about it now so you know how much I like the stores.  But we are good we sniff some coffees and taste an apricot jam and some garlic green salsa and we are out, Tracy yanks me out and we move on.

We move through boutiques and wine shops and galleries then we come across the James Brandess studio where I pick up a couple of prints and Tracy nabs a sketchbook.  I love this gentleman’s work it is right up my alley, flowers, beach scenes, mountain scapes and more.  If you get the chance please look at his work its is beautiful, well worth it. (www.jamesbrandess.com)

By this time we covered a few streets and its not even lunch so we decided to forgo another breakfast and move up to Holland MI another 15 mins up the highway.

We are not sure where we are going and we follow exit signs in to Holland and we first notice its like any other medium sized city buy we spy a sign that says windmill island and gardens we follow that through there downtown area and realize that its really an island and it cost to get on and everything is outside. So with the cold weather and rain we head back to the downtown area where there was some interesting shopping to do. 

We park in front of guess what else a coffee shop were we get a tip on where have lunch and we get a chocolate espresso.  It’s truly a shot of espresso and a piece of ghiradelli dark chocolate that you break up and stir in the shot.  It zoomed us right down the street around to the next block where we ended up at our lunch destination, The City Delicatessen.  This was a soup and sandwich shop and nothing more and nothing less.  I had the tuna and Tracy got the chicken salad and we shared.  The chicken salad wins here.  Roasted chicken with dried sweet cherries onions and celery in a creamy mayo on a chibatta roll yes this was clearly the winner. They serve a peppered kettle chip with the sandwich, which was something I would never have thought to buy, but I will if I see them in the store now.  They offer a frozen yogurt bar 44 cents an ounce but we wanted some chocolate from the corner store we passed on the way.  So it was off to the powder room before we left.  Ok here is where the story kind of goes in a different direction please go along for the ride.  This bathroom didn’t belong to this sandwich shop it couldn’t have because it was beautifully decorated. It had a stone sink with puter finishes very luscious.  When I went to the toilet the seat lifted up as if to great me hello… I sat down and then almost jumped back up the seat was heated and very warm I laughed to Tracy and told her what was going on.  Ok I did my business and went to grab some toilet paper when I noticed a fixture on the wall it said clean front, clean back, blow dry, there were a few up and down buttons and something that said flush.  Hum.. What to to?  I said Tracy I think this is a bidea as I pushed the button that said clean front and what did you know, warm water came out and I couldn’t find the stop button because I was laughing so hard but after pushing everything on the gismo I found the stop button and thought great, now what?  I guess the blow dry was in order. Needless to say after the blow dry I found the toilet paper but wouldn’t give it to Tracy because she needed the same attention I got. 

We shopped and shopped and then drove back to South Haven and back to the Warner Winery store because you know we didn’t get enough wine the first time.  Lol

Our time in the beaches of Michigan was fun and quick 3 and ½ hour drive from Indianapolis is a great getaway.   So tomorrow we head home… Cant wait to do the guy vs. gal Friday night fights pulled pork challenge.  See you all next week….

VACATION

The gals are on vacation this week.  We thought we would leave hot and stormy Indianapolis for the beaches of Michigan, South Haven to be exact but wouldn’t you know it its raining here.  South Haven is a quaint little beach style town of course there is no true beach because it’s a lake not an ocean but hey it’s the closest to what Tracy and I grew up with in Manhattan Beach California without actually going there.  

So this rainy day we decided to do our own version of Diners Drive In’s and Dives.  We really wanted to start out with a latte from our favorite coffee place Starbucks but to no avail there is no starbucks in this town but we were told the best place to get coffee is at the coffee beanery which is located in a village market a local grocery store. Boy were the locals right our latte’s were very similar to our favorite drink and they gave us the kick we needed to cruise the streets for treats.

We found ourselves at a place called the wild blueberry. Everything you can imagine done with blueberries even blueberry coffee.  We tasted some lovely very chunky preserves on vanilla wafers.  Then we were off to the Olive Bar its not really an olive bar its carries olive oils and vinegars.  The best thing about this place is you get to taste all the oils and vinegars; there are plenty to choose from. We tasted a buttered olive oil and we said buttered popcorn, there was orange flavored and lime flavored rosemary, garlic and Chile and so many more but the best thing we tasted was the peach and white balsamic vinegar and cherry Chianti balsamic vinegar.

Then we shopped in and out of all the local chic stores with lots of fun jewelry, clothes purses (a favorite of mine) and of course the typical souvenirs too choose from.  With all the shopping it made us hungry, so we asked at the visitor’s bureau and they told us the best place for dinner was Su Casa, a really cool Mexican restaurant.  It’s in an old building with beautiful wooden floor and high seelings with exposed brick.  There is a large bar with a large tequila list.  We ordered the chicken soft tacos rice and beans. I am getting ahead of myself here.  They delivered chips and salsa not your standard blended salsa and warm chips they brought us crispy tortilla chips with three condiments. A fresh tomato, onion cilantro salsa, and pickled carrots with jalapenos this is very California style and a great tomatillo/avocado sauce/salsa, which was refreshing.  Now back to the chicken taco’s, I have eaten my fair share of Mexican food and chicken taco’s are one of my favorites and these taco’s were right up there with some of the best I have had.  Warm corn tortilla’s stuffed full of chicken some of the tomato onion salsa and lettuce. You get three tacos rice and beans for 8.50.  We love this fresh style of what I call California Mexican style food. 

Stuffed to the gills we head out for more shopping and we find ourselves at Warner Vineyard store.  They have a local winery and this is were you can by there wines without visiting the winery.  They also have wine tasting you get to try 6 of their wines for free, so of course Tracy bought 6 bottles. We cruised around town a bit more just to work up a small appetite for some of the best ice cream we have ever tasted at Sherman’s Dairy bar.  Tracy got mocha fudge and I got chocolate peanut butter.  Now if I love California Mexican style food a lot, I love ice cream even more.  This ice cream is so creamy and flavorful its in the top ten of my favorite places not to mention the size of the scoop its huge.  Unlike other ice cream shops were scoops are getting smaller and the price is going up this place gives you a softball size scoop and we paid less than 7 dollars.   Stuffed we had just enough energy to make it back to the hotel where we decide if its raining tomorrow we are off to Saugatuck/Holland to check out there eats. 

Well until next time when we are having the Friday night fights Gal vs. Guy in pulled pork…  See you all then.