Monday, November 10, 2008

Come on Baby Light my Fire...Potatoes!

This last weekend a couple of my favorite blogs featured potatoes... ZestyCook...For the Love of Cooking. These blogs gave me a hankering for my Fiery Potatoes.

There is a fun little Tibetan restaurant in Salt Lake called, 'House of Tibet.' I have been eating there since I was in high school. They have a GREAT lunch time buffet that you can taste each of their fabulous, flavorful dishes. One of my favorites after their noodles with cabbage are the spicy potatoes.

I bought my office dinner from House of Tibet and every LOVED their potatoes. One of my co-workers loved the potatoes so much he went online and found a recipe similar to what House of Tibet serves. I have modified the recipe he found as I didn't feel it used enough seasoning as the original recipe called for.

Life My Fire! Potatoes:
3 large garlic cloves (roughly chopped)
3-5 tablespoons olive oil
2-3 tablespoons pepper sauce
1 tablespoon turmeric
1 tablespoon salt
2 teaspoons pepper
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
6 medium russet potatoes (scrubbed and cut into 1 -inch chunks)
Notice from my picture I didn't include the garlic...yes, I forgot to add the garlic to the potatoes...they still turned out just as fabulous!
Preheat oven to 500 F.

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl...you can do this on the cookie sheet you intend to bake them on...but I find it is easier to do it in a bowl. Toss and coat evenly. Place coated potatoes on a cooking sheet in the center of the oven for 15 minutes.

Remove, scraping bottom while stirring to expose uncooked potato.
Return to oven and continue to roast an additional 15 minutes or until tender when pierced with fork.
Talk about comfort food! These potatoes can mend ANY bad day! I love that they are spicy and baked!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Six random things about me.

I was tagged by Meg of Megan's Munchies with this six random things about me Meme. Here are the rules and six things about me.

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
1. I have two yellow labs Ruby and Alice. I have had Ruby since she was 16 weeks old. She is going to be 10 this Christmas...Yep! She is a Christmas puppy!
2. I LOVE sunflowers! I have a sunflower tattoo that got when I was 19...and I have never once regretted it!
3. I am a crime show addict. I love CSI, Law and Order, and City Confidential.
4. I have been putting of getting my master's degree because I am afraid of taking the GMAT...I am a bad tester. I know! I'm lame and need to just bite the bullet!
5. I LOVE vintage children's books. I like to find my childhood books on ebay and purchase them for my kids. I drew in all my books and ruined them. :(
6. Cooking relaxes me. I have a 70 miles commute everyday and cooking gives me some thing to look forward to when I am cursing people on the road.

This is who I am passing it on to (I love that Meg breaks the rules and only sent it to four...it makes me feel better about breaking the rules):

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Cooking with my Sis!

Last weekend I went up to Portland to see my sister and her family. What a great weekend trick-or-treating with my nieces and hanging out with my sister and her fam! The best part of the weekend was cooking with her, of course. :) She is so cute. When I arrived she told me we needed to cook something so we could put it on my blog.

My sister has a ton of cook books that are completely different than the ones that I have. She had a recipe for Mole that she had been wanting to try for awhile and she used this opportunity to make it. She and I always thought that Mole was a day long process, but this recipe was so simple and TASTY!!!!! It rivaled some of the authentic Mole I have had in restaurants and at the homes of Hispanic friends. Did I mention EASY?

Mole:
1 can chicken broth
3 T sesame seeds
2T oil
1 med onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 square semisweet chocolate
1/3 C golden raisins - I know...this sounds barf, but it isn't!
1/4 C slivered blanched almonds - what is blanching? Can any one tell me?
1 10 oz can mild red enchilada sauce
2 ready-to-eat taco shells, crumbled - we used tortilla chips
1 slice white bread, crumbled - my sister is healthy and only had wheat bread
1 t salt
1/4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground coriander
1/4 t anise seed, crushed - we couldn't find anise seed so we used anise extract
1/8 t ground cloves
1/8 t pepper
Cooked turkey - We used 5-6 poached chicken breasts

In 12 inch skillet over med high heat, cook sesame seed until lightly browned; remove to paper towel. In same skillet, in hot oil cook onion and garlic until tender; stir in chocolate. Heat until chocolate melts.In covered blender container, blend 1 T toasted sesame seed, chocolate mixture and remaining ingredients until smooth. Return mixture to skillet and stir in chicken broth. Over medium heat, heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Spoon some sauce on chicken; sprinkle with remaining sesame seed.
We served this up in flour tortillas with a little cilantro over the top. YUM!

The only draw back to this meal was the spicy factor. I grabbed the bottle of red pepper flakes when I sat down at the table. But since we were serving up little kids, it was probably a good idea to keep the heat down. The kids LOVED it! All of them except my niece, Meagan. She thinks she is a vegetarian...she is just a picky eater. She eats hot dogs, hamburgers and almost anything with cheese on it. She sure is lucky we love her! :)