Happy New Year

Cheers to 2010! I hope this year will be a better year. 2009 was good as far as good goes: I mean, we got married, went to the beautiful islands of the Bahamas, snowboarded in Park City and celebrated our first Christmas as husband and wife.
This year hopefully we will be blessed with financial stability and more! What I can say is that I've accomplished many great dishes over the last few months. For Christmas Day dinner I made lobster tail, veggies and mashed potatoes. I thought the lobster tails were going to be so easy; I tried to remove them from their bag and to my surprise I became a bit squeamish! They weren't the beautiful red color as you always see in restaurants and their legs were loose and out there. Looked like a radioactive roach lol. I sucked it up and laid them in about 3/4 cup of boiling water and let them steam for 7-8 minutes. I didn't have metal skewers but I recommend them- that way for asthetic reasons (they curl up a bit if not used).





Anyway, the other new thing I learned was the clarified butter. You know, that yummy liquid butter mixture at the restaurant were you can dip anything into it and it just be delightful? Yeah that. The clarified butter was pretty easy to make; I used 3 sticks of butter (cut into slices) and some lemons, zested. I used my Paula Deen small, heavy saucepan (what other way to melt butter than to give homage to Ms. Deen?!) and let that set under med-low heat. After melted, let it stand and then using a spoon remove the foam on top. Pour butter over lemon zest in a small bowl and discard the milk solids. So what exactly is clarified butter? In simple terms it's the separation of milk solids and water from the butterfat. Which equals YUM.




So on to other lovely things I have made! :D Breakfast is big in the Bryant house, so what better way to kick off a good day with french toast? Well I like to kick things up a notch and found a delightful receipe for Bananas Foster French Toast.
Here's the link...thanks again Ms. Deen Bananas Foster French Toast For Thanksgiving (lol I know these aren't in order) I used the turkey leftovers and made an amazing Turkey Pot Pie. Seriously, Marie Callendar's needs to eat her heart out. Delicious. Craving it right now. Really easy to make, too!



Ingredients


1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch double crust pie
2 cups cubed cooked turkey
2 cups frozen mixed vegetables, thawed
2 tablespoons chopped onion
1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Line bottom of pie pan with crust. In a skillet saute the chopped onion until slightly soft and set aside.
2. Mix together the turkey or chicken, mixed vegetables, onion, soup and milk. Pour into pie crust, cover with top crust and crimp edges.
3. Poke holes in top crust and bake for 40 to 50 minutes.

The other night I was craving kabobs; since we don't have a grill really thanks to our porch and the balcony right over it, I found a cool receipe that allowed kabobs to be used in the oven broiler. FYI make sure if you use wooden skewers like I did to soak them under water for at least 30 minutes, otherwise you can find metal skewers at a Bed, Bath and Beyond. Again, I wanted to challenge myself and put a twist to the normal kabob and add a Hoisin glaze (asian in me) with pineapple salsa. Yum! P.S. I used flank steak instead of pork and added some steamed rice!

Ingredients

1 lb pork tenderloin, cut into 1-inch cubes when slightly frozen
1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon chile, minced
2 tablespoons sliced green onions
1 teaspoon fresh ginger
pepper, to taste
1 small firm fresh pineapple, peeled, cored and cut into 1-inch cubes


Directions
1 Combine hoisin sauce, ketchup, chili,green onion, and ginger; set aside.
2 Season pork cubes with pepper. Thread pork and pineapple onto skewers; grill over direct heat for about 4 minutes, turn and glaze with hoisin mixture. Continue cooking on grill until pork browns, about 8-10 minutes total cooking time.