Lomo Saltado

Along with pisco sours, an almost daily staple during our time in Peru was lomo saltado. It's like THE dish down there. Uh...steak AND french fries?! ALL ROLLED INTO ONE?! Count my fat ass in! (not my pic. too lazy to take one)

Ingredients

• 1 (16 ounce) package frozen French fries
• vegetable oil as needed
• 1 pound beef tri tip, sliced 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 large onion, sliced into strips
• 3 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and sliced into strips (I didn't seed mine. Should have. They got kinda mushy)
  
• 1 yellow chili pepper (preferably Peruvian aji amarillo)(have yet to see one of THOSE stateside. I bought a 'yellow chili pepper'. Close enough, right? It was super mild, though. My Peruvian sister in law bought the closest thing she could find when she made it for us, being unfamiliar with gringo peppers, and picked up a habenero. DO NOT DO THIS. You will cry fire.)
  
• 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 dash soy sauce to taste
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Directions

1. Prepare the bag of French fries according to package directions.
2. While the French fries are cooking, heat the oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Season the sliced meat with salt and pepper to taste. Fry the meat until just cooked, and the juices begin to release. Remove the meat from the frying pan, then cook the onions, with additional oil if needed, until they are transparent. Stir in the tomato and aji amarillo; cook until the tomato softens. Pour in the vinegar and soy sauce, add the French fries, cover, and cook until the beef is done, about 3 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with chopped parsley to serve.

TADA!!!!! Total success. Wasn't as good as is was in Peru (duh), but totally tasty.

Raspberry Banana Bread

The thought of eating bananas always sounds great. They're sweet! They have potassium! Yay! So I buy them. Then they turn brown and die because it just seems like a really big commitment to eat a whole banana. You know? So, this morning I had 3 "ripe" bananas. Solution? Banana bread. Duh. I found this recipe and decided to give it a go.

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 cup fresh or frozen unsweetened raspberries* (STUPID expensive right now, so I got frozen blackberries. Totally worked)
  
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (blech. Do not want. If you do, go for it. I won't judge. Or make jokes about how you like nuts)

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, combine the eggs, bananas, oil and water. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in raspberries and walnuts. Pour into two greased 8-in. x 4-in. x 2-in. loaf pans (I sprinkled a little brown sugar on top for a crusty sweet topping. Oh AND, I don't have loaf pans, so I used my glass 9x9. Worked fine). Bake at 350 degrees F for 55-65 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

Final result: SUCCESSSSS!!! Super good. Warm it up (aka eat half of it while it's still warm from the oven) slather some butter on it and your mouth with thank you.

ps-Look at me substituting ingredients and not totally ruining the whole thing!!!! Ok, subbing blackberries for raspberries isn't exactly daring, but STILL.

Pisco Sour

When I went to Peru for my brother's wedding to his Peruvian princess, one of my favorite things was Pisco Sours. Pisco is Peru's national booze. Sweet! When they recently brought me back a bottle, I was determined to make them myself.

2oz Pisco Brandy
1oz lime juice
1/4 oz simple syrup
1/2 egg white
dash of bitters

Throw all but the bitters in a shaker and shake the snot out of it. The egg white's froth up and make a rad foam, which you sprinkle a couple drops of bitter on. I think if I had stuck all the liquid in a blender, it probably would have frothed up better (like in that pic, which was taken in Peru). Obvious you-might-die warning: RAW EGG WHITES. Basically, you're taking your chances. Risky risky!!

Meat is Tasty Murder

I did it!!! I MADE STEAK!!! So, I'm suuuuuper good at eating meat, but I have yet to fully hone my skills at actually cooking it. With my workouts leaving me bruise riddled lately, I'm wondering if I need to up the iron intake, so steak plopped itself on my menu. The BEST source of iron is red meat. Veggies and supplements don't even come close to comparing. Sorry, vegetarians.

So I hit up the meat aisle and grabbed a pack of steaks. I can't remember which cut I got. They all look the same to me. It's pretty much "eeny meeny miny THAT ONE!". Now. My dad makes a killer tri-tip. It's like bloody heaven. His trick? Fagundes meat seasoning. Apparently Santa is a fan as well, as bottles of this stuff found it's way into our stockings one year.

I got home, sprinkled the seasoning on each side of the meat and let it sit for a half hour or so. Not sure if seasoning needs to "sink in", but it sounded good, right? I fired up my electric skillet to see if I could find another use for it. I had it on med-high, and cooked the meat on each side basically until I couldn't see any red from the outside anymore (5-ish mins on each side, maybe?). Not quite sure what the protocol is for that. I served it with some quinoa and fire roasted veggies (frozen isle at Trader Joe's. Comes with a 'balsamic glaze' that tastes like it's own heaven).

Verdict: SUCCESS!!! It was perfectly pink on the inside and, as usual, the seasoning made it taste like granted wishes.

Product Review: Soy Creamer by Trader Joe's

A lot of the things that I eat/use, I don't necessarily cook, but I still wanna tell you about them! So, this whole lactose intolerance thing. Still here. Still blows. With my coffee, I could totally go without sugar, but I can NOT go without creamer. I hate milk in it. I hate anything except half and half. And soy milk? ICK. I don't really like the flavor, and it's far from creamy enough for my liking in my coffee. Enter stage right: Trader Joe's Soy Creamer. Omg, people. #1-it doesn't taste super soy-y at all, but it does have a tiny hint of a nutty flavor. #2-totally creamy!!! WIN! I loooove it. In fact, I told my sister about it and she uses it now, too, and she's not even lactose intolerant (yet). Bonus: it's like $2!

Swiss Chard

Wanna impress someone? Tell them you know what the hell to do with chard. Or maybe I'm just impressed by it. I mean, it's a green other than lettuce, so it sounds all fancy to me. Anyhoo, this is a little side dish made with chard. As far as I can tell, there is no difference in taste between the different colors of chard. It usually comes in red, green, or rainbow. I usually get rainbow, just because it's purdy! If you get it at the farmer's market, wash it well. This last batch I made was a wee bit gritty because I'm totally lazy and just rinsed it quickly. I have no idea where I got this recipe. Off the interwebs a long time ago...in a land far away...

-2Tbl butter
-2Tbl olive oil
-1Tbl garlic
-1/2 red onion
-Two bunches of chard (they vary in sizes. Some have huuuuuuge leaves, some have tiny stems. Yay for variety! Basically-just chill. Don't worry about it)
-1 cup white wine
-1 Tbl lemon juice
-2Tbl parmesean cheese

First off-the chard leaves should be cut up separately from the stems. The stems are usually pretty thick, so they take longer to cook. If the stem goes up pretty far into the leaf, just cut it out. Cut the leaves into about 2 inch chunks (totally up to you how big you want the pieces. It'll cook down in size a lot).

Heat up the butter and olive oil in a pan over med (or med-high. Crap, I don't know!). When melted, add in the garlic and onion and sautee until soft. Next, add the white wine and the stems of the chard and cook until the stems are soft. Add the leave and cook just until they're wilted.

Drizzle the lemon juice on top, and sprinkle some cheese on it.

And now you can totally rock the farmer's market and be all "what, that? Oh that's just swiss chard. I've totally made that before. Be jealous, bitches".

Electic Skillet Cooking-chicken, veggies

I got a 12-in electric skillet for Christmas. Truth be told, I don't know what the hell to do with it. I mean, I just don't get what I can do with it that I can't do with a regular pan on the stove. Yet more proof for the title my blog. Since my mother was SO excited to give it to me, I certainly couldn't take it back, so it was time to put it to the test.

Also-I feel like I need to start eating 'cleaner'. I owe it to my body. I recently figured out that I have some sort of acute lactose intolerance, which blows, but I think I need to take it even further. I'll be trying to load the veggies into every meal, eat leaner meats (mostly chicken), and limited the gluten. Back to good 'ol quinoa!

Ok, so I started with making some quinoa (in a regular pot). The usual: 1 part quinoa, 2 parts chicken stock or water (I used half low sodium stock, half water, but it came out a little bland).


4pcs chicken tender-sized chicken breasts
4 bok choy
4 broccoli


I put the electric skillet on low-medium, threw in some "buttery spread" (ugh. I miss butter) and 3 cloves of sliced garlic. Let the garlic get nice and soft/light brown. Then I threw in 4 bok choys (pieces of bok choy?) and 4 stalks of broccoli, stems and all. I put some low sodium broth and white in, enough to cover the bottom of the skillet, and let it simmer. I covered it, so it would steam the veggies. Make sure to flip them every once in a while. When both types of veggies were soft enough for a fork to easily go through, I took them out and put the chicken in. There should still be some 'juices' left in the pan to cook the chicken in.

Cook for a few mins on each side, making sure it's cooked all the way through. Throw it all together and you've got yourself a pretty damn healthy meal! Mine came out a little bland. I always feel like regular broth is too salty, and low sodium isn't salty enough. And I totally suck at seasoning stuff!! I'll have to work on all that...

I'm still not totally convinced that I couldn't just do all that in a pan on the stove, but the skillet worked well enough. Moms told me that it would be good to make stuff with 'sauces' in, so I'll have to try that next.