Quick After Dinner Post

I just had an amazing mostly-homemade meal and I had to share it with my readers.  No original recipes this time...I finally got around to reading my July/August copy of Food Network magazine and found my dinner inside!

My husband and I made this recipe from the magazine and it was amazing!  Mike played grill master and I was queen of the knife and cutting board.  By the way, if you have a significant other and you don't already cook together...start!  Mike and I have wonderful nights in cooking dinner together: ) 

Anyway...back to the recipe.  I actually changed very very little in it.  Mainly I used around 2 teaspoons of minced garlic instead of one and ground red pepper instead of red pepper flakes.  Also, I picked shallots over red onion and used chicken breasts instead thighs.  After having made the recipe, I don't think I would change anything else!  It was fantastic!  Well, mike wasn't a huge fan of the grilled romaine but I was amazed I even got him to eat half a serving.  He's a meat and potatoes kind of guy.

I also think this recipe could be easily altered to work with different flavor profiles.  You could try changing the vinegar, herbs and/or vegetables used.  I was thinking of making this dish next time with green onions, sage and maybe rosemary(?) instead of shallots, oregano and red pepper.   I would also reduce the amount of garlic.

For dessert, we made ice cream sandwiches (another idea from the magazine).  We bought small cake doughnuts and light mint chocolate chip ice cream.  Not the most healthy dessert to follow up a healthy meal (oops...) but it was so good!!!  We used the tips from the magazine and they made it so easy! (1) Put the "bread" (in our case, doughnuts) in the freezer for a little while before cutting and/or assembling the sandwich.  (2) Use hard ice cream. (3) Freeze the whole sandwiches for about an hour before eating.

Well I just had to share this great meal.  I hope you can try it an enjoy it sometime: )

How-to: Onions and Garlic

I don't know about you guys but I used to have the worst time dicing onions.  It took forever, my cuts were never even...ugh!  I hated cooking with them for a long time.  Those days are over though!  I now know how to dice an onion and I'd like to pass that knowledge on.  One note: this technique does work and is quick but it may take a little while to get the hang of it: )

Start by cutting off the non-root end of the onion. 

Then set the onion cut side down and cut in half, through the root.  Make sure that part of the root is still attached to both halves of the onion.  The root holds the onion together while you make the remaining cuts.  Peel both halves of the onion.

Place half of the onion on the cutting board so that your first cut (where you cut the non-root end off) is facing you and the second cut (where you cut the onion in half, through the root) is face down on the cutting board.   Here is the most difficult cut (at least I think).  What you want to do here is make a couple evenly-spaced cuts parallel to the cutting board.  How many you make depends on how big you want your dice to be.  The bigger your dice, the less cuts you need.  Be sure to not cut all the way to the root.  Again, the root is holding the whole thing together and its a lot harder to dice an onion that is falling apart: )

I made two parallel cuts because I wanted a medium dice.  Unless you have a really large onion, 3 cuts is probably the most you're going to need at this stage, even for a small dice.

 Now you want to make evenly spaced cuts going across the top of the onion, perpendicular to the root.  They should be spaced the same as the previous set of cuts, so that your dice is even.  There are two things to be careful of here.  One, don't cut the root!: )  Two, start your cuts toward the middle of the onion so that you don't chop off the sides.

Once you've made the perpendicular cuts, you need to make evenly spaced (again, same spacing as previous cuts to ensure an even dice) cuts parallel to the root.  Stop your cuts just short of the root.

                                     
 Now you have a diced onion: )  Well, half of the onion is now diced.  Obviously, repeat the process for the other half of the onion.

Okay on to some tips for mincing garlic!

To peel the garlic: Place the garlic clove on your cutting board.  Use the flat side of a large knife and place it on top of the garlic clove.  Strike the knife with the heel of your hand (as shown above).  This will split the outer covering and make it easier to peel. Peeling garlic is still a pain though.

The main problem with mincing is that the garlic likes to stick to the knife.  It's so frustrating!  There are two ways to combat this.  One, buy (or use if you already have one) a santoku knife (pictured above).  The groves in the santoku knife help prevent sticking.  Two, wet the blade of your knife before you start cutting your peeled clove.  

To mince:  Mincing is just a word for "roughly chopping really really small".  Basically, I just cut the clove into slices, cut the slices into strips and cut the strips into really fine pieces.  Your cuts definitely don't need to be even for garlic...yay!

I hope all this made sense.  Let me know if you have any questions: )