Playing with Food

Here's some fun stuff I've made in the last week!

Spaghetti with Pesto Sauce
Pesto sauce is rich and delicious!  It's also great as a dip.

Ingredients (makes enough for 6 servings):
2 cups fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves
3 tablespoons pine nuts
pinch of salt
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
3 tablespoons softened butter

1.  Wash and dry the basil leaves.  I cut the stems off. 

 2.  Mix the basil leaves, olive oil, pine nuts, garlic cloves, and salt in a food processor until they reach a creamy consistency.

3.  Place this mixture in a bowl.  Add the butter and Parmesan cheese and mix by hand.  Taste and add more salt if you'd like. 

 4.  In the meantime, you've been cooking the spaghetti!  Once you drain the pasta, mix in the pesto sauce.  Don't heat the pesto sauce--the heat of the freshly cooked pasta will do the trick.







Mojo Chicken and Tostones with White Rice (that's toast-oh-nes, for my Gringo friends =)

Ingredients
4 Chicken Breasts  (thinly sliced)
Mojo marinade (1 cup sour orange juice, 6-8 garlic cloves (minced), salt, black pepper, cumin)
1/2 an onion
Olive Oil
3 Sweet Plantains (green!)
Corn Oil
Salt
Steamed White Rice


Mojo Chicken
1.  Making the mojo marinade:  This is the traditional marinade of Cuba.  What you will notice with most Cuban meat dishes is that citrus flavor, courtesy of the sour orange.  You can buy pre-made mojo marinade by Goya or Badia at most supermarkets.  Those are authentic and yummy.  If you want to make it yourself, it's pretty easy!  Squeeze the juice of a couple of sour oranges into a bowl (until you get about 1 cup).  add the minced garlic, salt, and black pepper.
2.  Once you have sliced the chiken breasts, season generously with cumin and then place into the bowl with the mojo.  Cover and place in the fridge to marinade for a couple of hours.
3.  Slice about 1/2 an onion and save for later use.
4.  When you're ready to cook the chicken, start by heating some olive oil in a pan.  Once the olive oil is very hot, add your chicken breasts.  When the chicken starts turning golden-brown, throw in the onions and some of the juices from the marinade.  The onions should still be soft when you are done. It will look like this:

Tostones: 
1.  While the chicken is marinading, peel the the sweet plantains and then cut into 1-2 inch-thick slices.
2.  Fill a medium-sized pot about halfway with corn oil.  Heat the corn oil at medium-high heat until it's very hot.  (Do this right before you're ready to start cooking the chicken).  Add the plantain rings into the hot oil until they start turning golden.  Do not fully cook them!  You just want them to get nice and soft.  This will take about 3-5 minutes.  Remove from the oil onto a plate and drain with a paper towel.
3.  Here comes the fun part!  You are going to flatten the plantains.  This can be accomplished in two ways:  The traditional way is to use a plantain press or you can simply place each slice vertically on a cutting board and then press down on the top with the bottom of a cup. 
4.  Add the flattened plantains to the oil again and cook until they are a nice golden color and the edges look crispy.  Don't forget to turn them over as they cook.
5.  Remove from oil onto a paper towel to drain.  Sprinkle with salt.

Flat bread Pizza with Pesto Sauce

Ingredients:
Pesto sauce (see above!)
Flat Bread
Shredded Cheese of your choice
Red and green peppers
Chicken breasts

1.  Make the pesto sauce!
2.  Slice as much pepper as you'd like on your pizza!

3.  Heat some olive oil in a pan and cook thinly sliced chicken strips or cubed chicken breasts.  Season with garlic powder and basil.  Throw the peppers in the pan until they are soft and chicken is fully cooked.  Set aside.
4.  Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.




 

5.  Spread the pesto sauce across the flat bread.

6.  Cover the flat bread with a layer of shredded cheese.  I used an Italian cheese blend.
7.  Add your peppers and chicken to the pizza, and then one thin layer of cheese.









8.  Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese has melted.  The one thing I didn't like about baking it was that the pesto sauce gets dried up and loses its flavor.  =(.  Next time I think I will just brush the flat bread with olive oil and season with rosemary and garlic. 

I also tried the Fancy Macaroni recipe from the Pioneer Woman.  You can find that recipe here.

 Mine looked like this:  

It was good...but I wasn't that happy with it.  I'll have to try again. 

I'm having fun playing with food with all of my spare time!  Hopefully I will have more to come in the next couple of weeks!