Tag: cooking

Choripan with Pebre

I don’t write about recipes very often, but cooking unique meals is one key to having a fabulous kitchen. Take mine for example–it may not have much going for it in the decor category (currently), but I make up for it by making delicious food! So, when I come across something amazingly delicious, I have to share it with the world!

Right after we moved here, my best friend (since 7th grade!) Angela invited Doug and me to her house for a Chilean Independence Day party–September 18. I’ve loved her family’s cooking for years, so I would have been crazy to decline! Angela has declared me “Chilean by association” so I was happy to participate in the evening’s meal!

Back in high school, I did not know the first thing about cooking so I never lent a hand in the kitchen. These days, I love to cook, so I was given instructions to make the incredibly simple Pebre, which could be classified as a very mild salsa, I guess?

Note: Our dinner contained about six or seven different Chilean dishes. This was just an appetizer! 

Pebre Ingredients: 

1 large bunch of cilantro
6 to 8 green onions
Some tomatoes (I picked these heirlooms up at a farmer’s market. If using Roma, maybe use 5 or 6?)
Olive oil
1 large lemon

This salsa will be very green with a little red in it–very different form the kind of salsa people normally expect!

  1. Cut the tips and ends off the green onions, and dispose. Then chop the onions in small pieces, the green part and the white part, and put them in your bowl.
  2. Dice the tomatoes into very small pieces. Include all the seeds and juice. If you look at the photo below, I suppose my tomatoes could have been diced even smaller.
  3. Divide the cilantro in half. Pull off the long stem part of each piece of cilantro–You don’t have to take each leaf off the stem, just get rid of the longer part (before the leaves start).
  4. Chop the cilantro finely. Use a very sharp knife so you are actually chopping it, not just mashing it into the cutting board. Alternatively, you can use a food processor/quick chop tool.
  5. Combine everything in the bowl, stir, and eyeball the cilantro. If there’s to much red (tomato), repeat step 4 until the mixture is predominantly green.
  6. Cut the lemon in half and squeeze one half into the mixture (watch out for seeds!). Drizzle with olive oil and stir. Then, set aside to allow flavors to mix while you make the Choripan!

Fun fact: In certain regions of chile, this contains no tomatoes whatsoever. It has to do with whether or not tomatoes even grow there. This leads to disputes regarding which recipe is the “right” version. 

Choripan Ingredients: 

Sausage- Linguica (pronounced leen gwee sa)
Hoagie rolls

Choripan is a combination of Chorizo and Pan (bread). The Linguica I used here is a portugese sausage that I was able to find at Vons (here in California). If you are unable to get this where you live, I guess you could try making this recipe with an Andouille sausage? Try to stay away from heavier bratwurst- and summer-style sausages and use a light, slightly spicy kind.

  1. Grill the sausage on the barbecue (preferably) or on George Foreman device, frying pan, etc.
  2. Cut hoagie rolls (toasted on grill, if you want to) in half.
  3. Cut sausage to fit in half-hoagie rolls.
  4. Top with a generous spoonful of Pebre.

This was served to us as an appetizer (hence the small size). The flavors haunted me for days, so it wasn’t long before we were making this at home! The great part about this is although the sausage will be slightly spicy, the Pebre is cool and refreshing, which makes for a great complement. Even those who don’t like spicy foods should give this a try! Or, just come on over, I will cook for you. :)

Also, check out this Huffington Post slide show containing beautiful pictures of Chile!

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who commented on my new house tour yesterday, whether it was on the tour post, or the announcement post, or facebook, or twitter. It means so much to get positive feedback on something I have been living and breathing pretty much since the day we walked through the house with my in-laws (who we are our landlords). Since I noticed some people have questions, and I like to talk, I think I might do a room-by-room breakdown. Sometimes I do a project with the intention of blogging it and it never happens. So a detailed post on each room might give me the chance to play “catch up” a little bit. Looking forward to it.

Speaking of catch-up… This post has been a looooong time coming. In fact, the particular pizza pictured here was made several days before the super bowl big game. While I usually try to cook on the healthy side, I must make a confession: ANY TIME is a good time for pizza in my book! If you are a fan of pizza (it’s a food group on it’s own in my world) and like buffalo wings (or buffalo chicken strips, or whatever), then I may just blow your mind.

Onward we go!

First, you gather your ingredients. Here I have a whole wheat pizza crust (my attempt to make this a little less unhealthy), Chicken (um, sometimes I use canned because it’s precooked, but you can use any cooked chicken breast), mozzarella, onion, wing sauce, and bleu cheese. I’ve made this before with chopped up celery on top (since wings are usually served with celery) and it works out great :)

Follow the crust instructions–usually you oil it before putting other stuff on it. Watch out, because the oil will go through the holes. You should use a brush to spread the oil–I didn’t because I don’t have one, but when I worked at a restaurant, that’s how we did it :)

Prep the chicken and onions: I began heating them in the skillet and then added buffalo sauce to flavor. You can use a little or a lot, depending on how hot you want it. The first time I made this pizza, I was scared so I didn’t use enough–this time I went for it! I used maybe 1/3 of the bottle and it was perfect!

I layered the pizza like so: mozzarella on the oiled crust, then the onion/chicken/buffalo concoction–then bleu cheese (and celery if you are using it). Go ahead and be liberal with the mozzarella… there is nothing worse than a pizza without enough delicious, melty cheese.

Having preheated the oven according to crust instructions (usually 400 or 450) throw the pizza on in! Another reason I like using canned chicken is that I know that it is 100% cooked by the time it goes in the oven–so I don’t have to worry about cooking the chicken–just making sure the cheese is melty and the crust is baked. Somewhere around ten minutes is a good time. Another tip: do not position the rack too low in the oven or the bottom will be toooo crispy!

Aha. The finished product. As I warned above… this was baked too close to the coil, so the bottom of the pizza was a crispy critter. Still edible though. This pizza was enough for me & my hubs to enjoy (I repeat: this is a two person meal… do not try to feed your family of four with one little pizza)–but if you have a pizza making party you can make several pizzas and cut smaller pieces to try lots of new things! Standard pepperoni, margherita pizza, barbecue chicken, taco pizza, pesto, the list could go on…!

Do you like cooking posts like this? I love cooking and don’t mind writing about it if you readers think it’s interesting! 

Zucchini Boat

I guess you could call this my Pinterest Challenge, part two.

Pinning dream DIYs and not following through seems to be common, although all the completed challenges linked to the bottom of YoungHouseLove.com and BowerPower.com, etc. yesterday, show how with a little inspiration, projects can get completed. I was so excited to see how many people tackled projects!

Well, I’m going to actually try to tackle some recipes I’ve been pinning. Cooking is almost easier than DIYing because, well this is me as an example, while a coat of paint dries it’s easier to wander off and forget about your project. Cooking something on the stove or leaving the oven on would, I hope, demand a little more attention. So, yesterday I took one of the three giant (over 12 inches) zucchinis given to me by my Mother in Law and made these zucchini boats.

Actually, I didn’t follow any recipe. The only thing I did that I saw on Pinterest was make the boats themselves. Whatever else I put in was just my “let’s use up this produce from the fridge before it spoils” effort.

My boats. I used zucchini, tomato, green pepper, onion, black beans, tuna, creole seasoning, salt, and topped it with Swiss cheese. Next time I want more zest in it, so I’ll use more tomato (only had one on hand this time) and will definitely use more cheese–probably mix some shredded cheddar into the filling. All in all, this tasted good and was a good way to use up a lot of veggies!