Thanksgiving Shrimp Sliders

In my quest to win the thanksgiving cooking contest at work this year, I tried out a new recipe with some of our favorite ingredients from this sweet Holiday. I made a few shrimp sliders topped with homemade potato chips and yam chips and served with a cranberry and cilantro sauce. 

I made the shrimp patties by putting chopped shrimps and onions, cilantro, parmesan, flour and a small tomato in the food processor and turned the mix into a shrimp paste. I fried the patties until they were golden brown on both sides. I then deep fried the slices of yam and potatoes which gave a nice crunch on the first bite. I put a nice amount of my mix of cranberry sauce, mayonnaise and cilantro and served them with toasted sweet rolls.

They were absolutely delicious and I can't wait to share them with guests at Thanksgiving.

Healthy with a Dash of Tasty

Stoners sometimes have a bad reputation for being lazy and eating horrible food to cure their munchies....and like most stereotypes, there is some truth to it. Ordering a pizza while waiting patiently on the couch is a stoner's favorite sport and since I had already worked my finger out on the phone's keypad the night before to order pizzas that took an hour and thirty minutes to be delivered, I decided to make my way to the fridge to see what was hiding in there.

Since my girlfriend and I recently started eating a little healthier, our shopping carts mainly get filled with fruits, vegetables, and natural juices and cigarettes.....which is (mostly) great for our health, but not so great for nibbling on finger food in front of "Workaholics".

Champagne was already flowing by 5pm, and after enjoying the summer weather by the pool, I wanted to celebrate this fabulous day with an unforgettable meal.....or at least with a meal that would make my munchies go away. After combining things I wanted to eat with things I actually had in the fridge, I started cooking our snack.

I once learned from a chef that the first thing to do when you're about to cook is boil some water: You can use it to boil vegetables, make a broth, cook pasta or drink tea during the process...And if you don't end up using it,throw a few eggs in the boiling water and you'll have a few hard broiled eggs for the next big salad you will be making. So....I boiled some water.

Here's what I ended up making: "Fried Zucchinis with bacon on top of a Rice and Carrot patty" baked in the oven with a slice of mozzarella cheese on top.

Recipe:
- Rice & Carrots Patties:
- 1 1/2 cup of Rice
- 8-10 Carrots
- 1/4 cup of butter
- 1/4 cup of milk
- Chives
- Onions
- Garlic
- 2 eggs

- Cook the Rice.  Peel and boil Carrots until tender. Strain the carrots and mash them with the butter and the milk over low heat. Mix the rice and the mashed carrots into a big bowl. Add the chopped onions, garlic, pepper and chives. Add 2 eggs and mix it all together.

Make small patties out of the mix and fry them with olive oil until golden.

- Fried Zucchinis
- 3 Zucchinis
- 1/2 onion
- 1 strip of Bacon cut into small pieces
- 1 Tomato
- Italian Herbs
- Salt & Pepper
- Olive oil
- 1/4 cup of red wine

Cook the onions in olive oil until golden, add the bits of bacon and the Italian herbs and let it cook on low while you cut the zucchinis in thin slices (leaving a little bit of the skin will help). Stir the zucchinis in the pan with the rest, add the chopped tomato and the salt & pepper and add the red wine to the mix. Let it simmer until slices are soft in the center and a little crunchy on the outer edge.

Add the Zucchinis on top of the Rice Patties on an oven safe dish and top it off with a slice of mozzarella cheese. Bake everything in the oven on "Broil" at 425 degrees 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is golden.

Enjoy this with a good bottle of red wine.

Stack of Eggplant, Chayote and Tomato slices

Sometimes I pretend I'm on a cooking show where I try to come up with something good an creative. Yesterday was one of these days.

I had bought a lot of vegetables at the grocery store because I am trying to eat a little healthier these days and I decided to use them for my homemade appetizer. 

I cut an eggplant in thin slices and seared them in a pan with olive oil until they were a little softer but not quite cooked all the way. In the meantime I peeled a Chayote and let it cook in boiling water for about fifteen minutes. Once it was almost cooked, I cut the chayote in thin slices and finished with slicing the tomtato.

in a separate bowl I mixed some olive oil, sour cream, chives, salt and black pepper. I then stacked all the ingredients on top of each other alternating eggplant, chayote and tomatoes while adding a thin layer of the sour cream mix on top of each sliced vegetable. I topped it all with a slice of Mozzarella and threw it in the oven at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes and finished by broiling it at 425 degrees for 3-4 minutes.

It was delicious and full of good vitamins.

 

Grilled Feta

There are times when the will to cook is overpowered by the lack of motivation....especially after a few joints. Our primal stoner instinct tells us to pick up the phone and call the closest pizza place for delivery, but as long as you have a few ingredients in your fridge you can make something good and somewhat healthy in less than five minutes (which can be less than the amount of time spent on the phone with the person taking the order).

After watching Hell's kitchen on TV, I got hungry and decided to cook during the commercial break. I grabbed a big firm tomato from the fridge and cut it up in slices, I then grabbed the big block of Feta cheese that I had bought a day earlier and sliced it in the middle. I covered the tomatoes with the two thin halves of feta cheese, drizzled some olive oil on top, added salt, black pepper, basil and thyme and threw it in the oven at 425 degrees for 15 minutes (which is usually about two commercial breaks later). I resumed watching TV and 15 minutes dumber, I got up from the couch and turned the oven to "broil" for three more minutes. when the cheese is a little grilled at the top take it out and enjoy this easy dish with some fresh bread or some naan. Make sure you don't leave it too long though, or the yummy sauce at the bottom of the dish will be all gone.

Quinoa cakes and Smoked Salmon

Today I wanted to eat some of the smoked salmon that was in my fridge but i didn't have any bread and I didnd't want to just throw the salmon in pasta or an omelete that was going to cook the salmon and ruin the taste so I ddecided to make some small quinoa cakes.

I cooked the quinoa in a rice cooker, poured it into a bowl and added some italian herbs, basil, garlic, salt and black pepper, some flour and one egg. I made some small patties out of the mixture that I sizzled on a skillet. once they were ready I let them cool down for a few minutes, added a little bit of sour cream, a slice of salmon, and some lemon juice. it was delicious.