Adobo-don

It’s the Filipino Godfather of chicken dishes. Get it? Don…Godfather…

Actually, “don” in this case comes from the Japanese donburi, meaning “rice bowl dish,” and one of my husband’s standby’s when we go to our favorite Japanese restaurant is katsu-don (pork rice bowl). One of his other favorite meals is adobo (uh-doh-boh), a traditional Filipino dish made from pork or chicken stewed in a spiced vinegar-soy broth. One evening while making adobo, he proposed combining the two, so with the addition of some leeks and onions, Adobo-don was born!

Ingredients

12-16 boneless, skinless chicken thighs

1 bunch of leeks

1 bunch of green onions

1-2 small sweet onions

½ cup soy sayce

¾ cup vinegar

1½ cups water

Black pepper

Garlic powder

Canola oil

Rice (I prefer brown)

 

Making the adobo

Layer the bottom of a large pot with chicken. Dust with pepper and garlic. Add another layer of chicken, and again season with pepper and garlic. Repeat until all the chicken is in the pot. Combine the soy sauce, vinegar and water and add to the pot, making sure all the pieces of chicken are submerged. Bring to a boil, then reduce to med-lo and cook for about an hour.

Making the “don”

Prepare rice according to directions on the package.

While the rice and chicken are cooking, prepare the leeks. They can be especially dirty, so after rinsing the outside and shedding some of the outer layers (much like lettuce) I like to slice them length-wise in quarters so I can rinse between the inner layers as well. Chop off the root end and the super green top ends, keeping the white part and about 2-3 inches of green. Chop these remaining parts of the leeks into segments about 3 inches long. Rinse the green onions and similarly chop them into 3-inch segments, discarding the root end. Coarsely slice the sweet onions into strips approximately the same size as the leeks and green onions.

Sauté the leeks, onions, and green onions in about 3 tablespoons of canola oil until they are soft. Add a few ladles of the chicken broth (once the chicken is done cooking) to the vegetables for flavor, and season with additional garlic powder and a sprinkling of soy sauce as desired.

A chicken bowl you can’t refuse!

Now it’s time to assemble the bowls! Rice on the bottom, followed by some vegetables, then top with a few piece of chicken, adding some adobo broth for more flavor and moisture. Then enjoy the bowl of deliciousness!

~Karla

Cheesecake Bites with Chocolate Crust

A few months ago, we posted a recipe for cheesecake bites that Karla had made for a dessert exchange at work. Over the last couple years, we have experimented with both the crust and the filling, including a crushed nuts crust, a chocolate crust, and even a sweet potato + cream cheese filling for a delicious thanksgiving dessert. The chocolate crust cheesecake bites were made for a couple occasions recently, and there were several recipe requests, so here’s a variation on Karla’s original cheesecake bites recipe.

Original recipe: Cheesecake Bites

The filling is the same, but the graham crackers were replaced by chocolate graham crackers. We added an extra chocolate graham cracker sheet. The consistency of the crust mixture should be such that you can form a ball, so if it’s too oily, add some more crackers! (9 cracker sheets did the trick for us). Instead of a fruit topping, we used chopped nuts. Macademia nuts or hazelnuts taste good, but you could use other nuts too, or leave the nuts out altogether. We drizzled dark chocolate to pretty up the cheesecake bites.

~Gayatri

Chocolatey-Banana Muffins

Every once in a while there is an overload of bananas in my kitchen :-). So far, banana nut bread has been my primary go-to recipe to use up ripe bananas. There are a few other things I like to make as well, including shira (Indian semolina pudding), banana pancakes, bread pudding, and good old shikran (a simple Maharashtrian dessert – sliced/mashed banana, milk, sugar, cardamom powder). But these typically don’t call for as much banana as the banana bread. So whenever I had more than one old banana to get through, I would always turn to the banana bread…. until last weekend. I realized that I was a little bored of the banana bread and wanted to try something slightly different, so I decided to add chocolate to it. But I didn’t quite know what else to change in the recipe to adjust for this addition, so I kind of just played with the ingredients till the batter tasted good and seemed to have good consistency… and it actually turned out pretty nice! This can be baked as a loaf, but I think it is better as muffins because of the light and moist texture.

Ingredients: (Makes approximately 18 regular sized muffins.)

1 cup sugar

2/3 cup butter

2 eggs

2 cups flour (all purpose/wheat)

3 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

a pinch of salt

2/3 cup buttermilk (See note below)

2 medium-sized ripe bananas (mashed well)

3/4 cup melted dark chocolate

chocolate chips (optional)

chopped walnuts (optional)

Heat oven to 340 F. Line muffin pan with liners or grease the pan.  Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a small bowl (sift if necessary).

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and beat until combined. (Do not beat after this step. Use a spatula to mix ingredients). 

Add the flour mixture and buttermilk. Mix well with a spatula. Add the melted chocolate and bananas, and mix until combined. Add chocolate chips and walnuts and mix well.

Fill the muffin cups ¾ full and bake for ~22 min or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If you wish to sprinkle chocolate chips on top, sprinkle them about 15 min after putting the pan into the oven.

~Gayatri

Note: If you don’t have buttermilk, use 1 Tbsp. lemon juice/vinegar for every cup of milk. Mix them well and let stand for about 5 min.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Bread

This one is a completely experimental recipe, but I got some good feedback from the folks who I tried this experiment on ;-)... so I figured I could post this! It’s a roasted rhubarb and strawberry bread, but any other fruit would also work, as long as it doesn’t release a lot of juice while baking. The reason I roasted the rhubarb with some sugar was to reduce the tartness, but this is optional. If you like the tart flavor of rhubarb, this step can be skipped. I plan to try using mango in this recipe while the stores still have good mangoes, and will update this post with the outcome of that… hopefully it will be just as delicious!

 

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter / margarine

1 cup + ½ tbsp brown sugar

2 cups flour (I used 1 cup all purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour)

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 egg

2 cups chopped fruit (rhubarb and/or strawberries)

¼ tsp ground nutmeg (optional)

¼ tsp ground cinnamon (optional)

Mix ½ tbsp. sugar with the chopped rhubarb, and broil for a ~3-4 min. This can also be done in a pan on the stovetop.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish or two loaf pans (I used three mini loaf pans and another small baking dish). Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt.

Beat butter with ¾ cup sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat. Fold in the flour mixture and buttermilk alternately. Add vanilla and mix. Stir in fruit.

Add batter to prepared pan. Mix nutmeg and cinnamon to ¼ cup brown sugar and sprinkle on top of the batter. Bake for ~35 min or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

~Gayatri

Stuffed Sweet Cubanelles

While visiting my good friend Pranati and her husband a couple weekends ago, I came across a picture in one of their photo albums – it was a picture of her proudly posing with the delicious stuffed sweet peppers she had made for lunch! This is a very easy and relatively quick recipe, so Pranati and I used to make these often when we were in grad school. The reason I like Cubanelles is because they are minimally hot once steamed, but any other pepper would work if you want more heat. The peppers in her picture looked so good, I had to make some once I was home :-)

Ingredients:

3 green Cubanelle peppers
1 medium onion – finely chopped
½ cup chopped cilantro
1 ½ cup grated coconut (I never have fresh or frozen coconut at home, so I use desiccated coconut – add just enough milk to soak the dry grated coconut and let it sit for 15-20 min)
2 tsp oil
2 tsp coriander powder
salt

For tempering (optional, but it certainly enhances the flavor)
Mustard seeds
Cumin seeds
Asafoetida powder (typically used in Indian food for tempering)

Heat oil on medium high, and add mustard seeds. Once the seeds start sputtering add the cumin seeds and asafoetida, followed by the chopped onion. If not tempering, add the onions directly once the oil is hot.

Sauté onions until they are translucent. Add coconut, coriander powder, and salt and sauté for a couple minutes until the mixture dries out a little (don’t let it lose all the moisture). Mix in cilantro and turn off the heat.

To prepare the peppers for stuffing, slit them open lengthwise without removing the stem. Carefully remove and discard the seeds. Stuff the peppers with the filling - really pack it in! Steam the peppers with the cut side up until they are soft (test by poking with a fork or a knife). I used a steamer, but this can be done in a rice cooker or pressure cooker as well.

Once the peppers are steamed, you can eat them as is, or crisp up the skin in a frying pan with little or no oil (I didn’t use any). If any more filling is left, that can be toasted in the pan with the peppers as well. Serve hot with roti or rice!

~Gayatri

Cheesecake Bites

A few weeks ago at work, we had a dessert exchange with the theme “bite-sized treats.” My husband’s mom makes a delectable no-bake cheesecake, so I thought I’d try out miniature versions to share. Some minor modifications later, and I had a pretty good bite-sized treat!

 

 

Ingredients:

Crust

8 whole graham cracker sheets, crushed

3 TBSP sugar (or Splenda)

1/3 cup melted butter or canola oil

~2 oz applesauce

Filling

8 oz cream cheese (I used reduced fat)

½ cup + 1 TBSP sugar (or Splenda)

4½ oz cool whip ( I used fat-free)

For the crust: Mix all crust ingredients together. Press into mini-muffin molds. Bake at 375°F for 10 minutes. Let crust cool completely before filling.

NOTE: For the original no-bake version, omit the apple sauce and do not bake the crust. Just press into a pie pan and you can immediately pour in the filling.

For the filling: Mix cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Fold in the cool whip. Store in refrigerator until the crust is cool enough to fill.

Construction: Spoon the filling into the graham cracker crust shells. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Optional: top with your favorite small fruit or candy topping.

~Karla

Vegetarian Enchiladas with Sour Cream Sauce

What do you do when you’re stressed out from school/work or having a really bad day? Well, I generally bake :-)… shopping helps too, but baking is always better! So yesterday, after arguing with my apartment management folks to no avail (didn’t know carpet cleaning could be so complicated!), I came home and decided to bake. I was thinking of making a simple chocolate cake, but didn’t have all the ingredients (that rarely happens!). I realized that I had not baked anything savory in a while, so I figured I’d experiment with a tomatillo and sour cream sauce for enchiladas… it turned out pretty delicious! The recipe might seem long, but it is very simple and quick. The sauce can be modified as per taste and desired consistency. Also, the filling for the enchiladas is completely customizable to your taste, or ingredients available in your pantry :-). Here’s what I used:

Ingredients:

For sauce

6-8 tomatillos (can use canned)

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp flour

1 ½ cup vegetable stock (or water)

1 – 1 ½ cup fat free sour cream (depending on how thick you want the sauce to be)

Diced Serrano pepper (to taste)

½ cup chopped cilantro

Salt

Cumin powder

For enchiladas

1 tbsp olive oil

Salt

Paprika (to taste)

Pepper (to taste)

1 tsp cumin powder

(You can use fajita seasoning or other spices of your choice)

2 cloves of garlic - chopped

1 small onion sliced/diced

½ red bell pepper sliced

1 zucchini chopped
1 cup cooked black/kidney beans (or 1 can)

Any other vegetables/meat of your choice

Shredded cheese (I used the Sargento 4 Cheese Mexican blend)

6-8 corn/wheat tortillas

To make the sauce:

Cut tomatillos in half and broil on both sides until soft (Took me about 5 minutes per side). Heat butter in a saucepan. Add chopped Serrano peppers, flour. Add vegetable stock once the flour is golden brown. Whisk to avoid lumps. Let the mixture boil and reduce till the vegetable stock is thickened. Add sour cream and cilantro, mix well and take off the heat.  Puree the mixture with tomatillos in a blender. Season with salt as required.

Making the filling:

For the filling, heat oil and add onions, garlic. On medium-high heat, sauté onions and garlic for a minute, then add peppers. After the peppers have softened a little, add zucchini, beans, salt and spices. Sauté for a couple minutes and turn off the heat.

To assemble:

Pour about ¾ cup of sauce in a baking dish. Lay the filling in the middle of a tortilla, sprinkle cheese (optional), and roll. Lay it seam side down in the baking dish. Repeat for all the tortillas. Pour rest of the sauce evenly and top with more shredded cheese if desired.

Bake in the oven at 350 deg F for 20 min followed by broiling until top is golden brown (only about a minute). Let it cool for a few minutes before serving.

~Gayatri