Category Archives: ingredients

itty bitty crabcakes

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A tale of two bays: the Chesapeake meets Galveston Bay in this Papa Lovett classic. I needed a simple, but substantive app for our house’s leg of the progressive dinner party this Saturday, so crab cakes were an easy answer. These ‘lil guys couldn’t be simpler and they’re oh, so scrumptious. The calories don’t count if they’re bite-sized, right?

All you’ll need is:

a container of crab meat (I used backfin, but if you want to #treatyoself spring for jumbo lump!)

juice of a lemon

Ritz crackers or their Whole Foods equivalent (tip — crumble them all in their sleeve, so you can pour in the crumbs!)

mayo

stick of melted butter (+ more for pan frying)

scallions

old bay + salt + pepper + some splash’s of tabasco

Mix everything together in one big bowl (that’s right — one big bowl #oneanddonedishes) in this order: crab meat + lemon juice + mayo + melted butter + scallions + seasoning (you should be tasting throughout!). I add the egg last (nothing scientific except the aforementioned tasting throughout and a desire to minimize my raw egg consumption). Then add your Ritz Cracker breadcrumbs. Take a tablespoon and start scooping mini-patties. Lay ’em on a cookie sheet and keep ’em in the fridge until you’re ready to pan fry ’em. Once it’s time to sizzle — melt a combo of butter & olive oil in your pan & cook these lil guys have a golden glow!

sesame ginger udon noodles with vietnamese caramel pork belly

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Hello!  or should I say, Konnichiwa… or wait- Chào bạn!  Okay, so I admittedly mixed cultures with this dinner.  But it’s delicious and I’m busy surviving a hurricane, people, so forgive me.  Now that the apologies are over, let me count the ways that I love these Japanese noodles and Vietnamese caramel sauce:

1. Pork belly is cheap.  I found three bellies for $3, enough for dinner for two.

2. You don’t have to cook it for days in order to get tender, flavorful results.  Sure, you could brine it, braise it, slow cook it, and eat it 36 hours later.  But this recipe proves that you don’t need to.  It takes less than an hour from start to finish.

3. In Vietnam, this caramel pork belly is called Thit Kho and it’s usually served with a soft boiled egg.  You could take the traditional route, or you could stack these delectable treats on a crusty French baguette a la Bahn Mi.  But for this easy dinner, the flavored udon noodles were just perfect.

you’ll need: (2 servings)

1 lb pork belly

2 tbs fish sauce

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

2 cloves finely chopped garlic

scallions

for the caramel:

5 tbs water

5 tbs sugar

for the noodles:

1 package udon noodles

3 tbs sesame oil

1 tbs toasted sesame seeds

1/2 tbs freshly grated ginger

In a large saucepan, heat 2 tbs of vegetable oil and saute the chopped onion and garlic.  While that’s getting soft, slice the pork belly into one inch bites (I half-froze the pork belly, which made this much easier).

When the onions and garlic are happy, throw in the pork belly.  Let it brown on each side over medium-high heat (should be about 10 minutes).

While the pork belly is browning, add the water and sugar to a small sauce pan.  Keep an eye on your caramel and stir it with a wooden spoon regularly over medium low heat.  When the sugar melts and the mixture turns from sugar-water to caramel, you want to be there for it.

Once your pork belly is browned, add the fish sauce and then the caramel sauce.  You’ll notice that the pork belly is already starting to look more like scrumptious pork and less like fatty belly.  Let the whole thing simmer for another 30 minutes.

Onto the noodles!  These are super easy and you can use whatever type of noodles you prefer.  I’m not a huge fan of vermacilli, so i try to choose a thick wheat or egg noodle when I’m shopping.  Cook the noodles per instructions on the box, then toss them with the sesame oil, sesame seeds and grated ginger.

Serve the pork belly over the noodles, top with scallions, and enjoy!

xoxo,

hungrytexans

French Apple Cake

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Don’t fret…still cleansing. But all this cleansing frees up all the time we’d spend eatingcookingeatingcooking with time for blogging. Texas may be bigger than France, but what they lack in size they make up for in pastry proficiency. I spotted this recipe last weekend and was immediately drawn to a non-pie recipe for Fall’s favorite fruit! A friend’s birthday was the perfect occasion to give this recipe a whirl in the HungryTexans test kitchen.

Weeknight baking begets little time for lots of ingredient scrutiny — without fail I’m missing something and on weeknights seldom have the time or energy to make that second & third trip to the store for the [INSERT MISSING INGREDIENT DU JOUR]. Per usual, couple substitutions from the orig, below’s this HungryTexan’s spin on Cook’s Illustrated’s French Apple Cake.

4 granny smith apples, cut into 8 wedges and the sliced 1/8 thick

A healthy pour of vanilla

1/2 tsp vinegar (no lemons on hand)

1 cup + 2 tbl flour

1 cup + 1 tbl sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg + 2 egg yolks

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup whole milk

The best trick of this recipe was — zap your apples before you bake ’em! Microwaving them first makes sure their tender, but not mushy. Quick 3 minutes in a glass pie plate. Let them cool and pour in the vanilla & vinegar.

While those babies relax, get your liquids whisking in your stand mixer. Start with the oil, milk, and large egg. In a separate bowl, whisk together 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of sugar, baking powder & salt. Add the dry to the liquid and whiskwhiskwhisk.

Remove a cup of the batter and set it aside. Then add two egg yolks to your main mixture. Once that’s all wonderful looking, gently fold in your apples. Pour the extra two tablespoons of flour into the mix you set aside.

Assemble your baking dish — I used a springform round pan and covered the bottom with parchment paper. Pour the apple mixture in first — make sure you have a nice healthy layer of evenly-distributed apples. Then, you can add the mixture you set aside on top. Look at you! Double layered, you’re doing great.

Sprinkle a tablespoon of sugar over the top and pop in the oven at 325 for oh…45 to an hour until it passes the toothpick test. When we sliced it the next day, it definitely passed everyone’s tastebud test! Custard meets cake meets apply yumyums! Plus, it’s the kind of cake you can eat unabashedly with your bare hands. Extra bonus, it’ll make your house full of boys smell like a well-kept home for 3 whole days.

chicken salad, two ways

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sometimes i have everything planned for a quick, healthy dinner at home- and then that last minute call comes with the happy hour i can’t refuse, the movie tickets i’ve been wanting, the list is endless.  and it usually ends up with me abandoning ship on dinner.

so maybe i can’t always predict what will happen between quittin’ time and dinner time.  but i can control what i’m eating for lunch.  which is why i try to spend sundays whipping up lunches for the week- a hearty soup that reheats well, turkey-cheese wraps and sliced bell pepper, even just leftover Pho stretched to last until Thursday.  and if something is delicious, i can eat it for days- no variety necessary.  but this afternoon, i thought i would mix things up, so i made two chicken salads to keep me satisfied through the week.  one curried chicken salad with golden raisins and another lemon-thyme chicken salad with feta and raw corn.  both delicious.  both healthy.  both recipes (and gifs!) follow:

 

for the curried chicken salad, you’ll need:

2 chicken breasts

2 tbs curry powder (divided)

1/2 cup golden raisins

1/4 cup chopped red onion

1 tbs non-fat mayo (you could sub greek yogurt here, but i didn’t want to)

1 tbs non-fat sour cream


season the chicken breasts with salt, pepper, and one tablespoon of the curry powder.  grill for about 4 minutes on each side, or until they are done.  chop the chicken breast into rough cubes and add the chopped onion, golden raisins, curry powder, mayo & sour cream.  mix until combined and pop it into the fridge until you’re ready for lunch!

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for the lemon-thyme chicken salad, you’ll need:

2 chicken breasts

6-8 sprigs of tyme

1 lemon

1/4 cup red onion

1/2 cup raw or grilled corn (i did a mixture of both!)

1/4 cup feta cheese

just like the curried chicken salad, start by seasoning the chicken breasts (i used thyme and lemon zest) and grilling them.  i also threw an ear of corn on the grill.  chop the chicken breast into cubes and add the red onion, corn, feta, mayo, sour cream, and a bit more thyme and lemon zest.  mix until combined and munch on it with radicchio, pita chips etc.

Twice-Baked Sweet Po-tay-toes!

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Rich orange autumnal color? Check. Complete protein? Check. Set-it-and-forget-it-esque weeknight dinner? Check.

Carlos planted the seed of this vegetarian delight in my mental recipe book last weekend, and I was quick to try my hand at recreating it! The only regret of this is I made waaaaaaay more than I could eat between cooking ’em on Tuesday & scooting away to the most Magical Place on Earth Thursday night. All you need is this short list of ingredients:

Sweet potatoes (I found itsy-bitsy baby potatoes at Capital Supermarket, and baked way too many)

1 container of nonfat greek yogurt

1 lime

2 cans of black beans (drained)

1 can of corn (drained)

your favorite mix of yummy spices! I did a to-taste mix of cumin, healthy amounts of salt, & pepper

queso fresco at whatever quantities you fancy!

avocado for garnish

Coat your potatoes with a nice olive oil rub, wrap them in aluminum foil, and pop ’em in the oven at 400. Take the hour they’ll take to bake and treat yo’self to some R&R (I did an embarrassing little circuit workout on a yoga mat in my living room). Once your potatoes are soft to a poke, pop ’em out of the oven, and brace your hands for a literal game of hot potato. This HungryTexan is neither patient enough to wait for said potatoes to cool or been cooking for as many years as many Southern grandmothers who can pickup a hot baked potato without flenching. I unwrapped my potatoes, sliced them in half (hot-dog-style), and proceeded to wince in pain from the extreme potato heat as I did my best to scoop each potato’s contents into a big bowl while doing my best not to completely mangle the delicate skins (note: some potato skins were harmed beyond repair in the making of this dish).

Once you’ve scooped all your taters into a big bowl, dump in the greek yogurt, and squeeze that lime (faux-sour cream: ‘das it, ‘das it). Mix it all together, add your spices to taste, and then dump in your drained black beans and corn to the mix. Here’s where I started nibbling (such a yummy flavor combo!).

Scoop your mix into each potato skin (don’t worry, your potato shouldn’t runneth over, so load ’em up high!). Sprinkle your desired amount of queso fresco. Pop ’em back in the oven (still at 400 — so convenient!) and bake ’em for another 15-20 minutes or until they seem sufficiently “twice-baked”.

Slice an avocado on top and badabing, there you have a full-protein, complex-carb meal. Also worth noting, since I admittedly made waaaaaay too many of these little guys for just one HungryTexan — I took them to work for lunch and they were good as new with a one minute zap. Also…spoiler alert and a preview of coming attractions: since I had so much potato mix leftover, I made some potato patties and popped ’em in the freezer. I’m going to try pan-frying some latke-esque sweet potato/southwestern pancakes next week!

brussels sprouts with roasted chicken

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you’ll notice that this recipe is for brussels sprouts with roasted chicken on the side.  that’s because, no matter how hard i try, i can’t manage to get these sprouts to step out of the spotlight.  so, i give up.  you can be the star, little sprouts.  try adding a little crunch with toasted pumpkin seeds or walnuts.

For the Sprouts:

1lb Brussels Sprouts

1/2 Small Red onion, sliced

3 cloves garlic

1 tbs balsamic vinegar

3 tbs maple syrup

 For the Chicken:

2 breasts and 2 wings (or any part of the chicken you like)

10 sprigs fresh thyme

1/2 lemon

preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

rinse the brussels sprouts and chop the stems off of each one.  then cut them in half (this makes the inside really crispy).

in a heavy cast iron skillet, heat 2 tbs of olive oil and add the sliced red onion.  let these swim around for about 3 minutes, then add the garlic.  scoot the onions and garlic to the edges of the skillet and add your brussels sprouts.  try to get them face down so that the flat side gets good and brown.  then- don’t touch them!

about 1/2 a glass of wine or bourbon later, give your sprouts a good stir, season with s&p, and drizzle the balsamic and maple syrup over the whole thing.  be sure to use a good maple syrup, of course.  brussell sprouts are like little sponges, so if you roast them with good ingredients, they’ll really shine.  If you’d like to, season a couple chicken breasts (we did wings & breasts) with salt, pepper & thyme.

Add them to the brussels sprouts, skin side down, and let them sizzle for about 5 minutes.  then, pop these babies into the hot oven and let them roast for approx 20 minutes or 1/3 of an episode of The Wire.  

Easy enough?  Absolutely.  Leftovers?  Not in a million years.

xoxo,

hungrytexans