Lemonade

Lemonade - YUM

I’ve never made lemonade from scratch before but the lemons at the store looked particularly good the other day, and I picked up a big bag of them. So today was the day I thought I’d give it a try. It was really easy, especially since I have an electric citrus juicer. The kitchen smelled particularly good after making this drink.    This turned out the be the simplest and most refreshing indulgence of the day.

Ingredients:
Lemons (I used about 9 or so)
Simple syrup (1 cup water + 1 cup sugar; boil.)
2 cups of water

Steps:
1. Make simple syrup and cool it.
2. Juice the lemons.
3. Add the cooled simple syrup and water to the lemon juice.
4. Mix. Chill. Serve.

Roasted Salad

Roasted Salad

I am so thrilled that it’s finally summer, but it seems I can’t give up my oven. Though I do have a grill, it’s an electric one. My local fire department does not allow grilling on balconies. But I still love summer veggies and have a tendency to buy too much. So, today, I decided to put some of those veggies to good use and make a salad. Since roasting is so easy and brings out the flavor so much, I decided to sacrifice personal comfort in my caricature-worthy tiny kitchen for the benefit of the salad.

Ingredients:
3 bell peppers (I used red, orange, and yellow)
1 bunch of asparagus
1/2 red onion diced
1 tb basil
Salt, pepper, olive oil, balsamic vinegar to taste

Steps:
1. Cut up the peppers in large chunks and clean the asparagus
2. Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
3. Roast to your desired doneness at 425 degrees; I roasted the asparagus for about 5-6 minutes and peppers for about 15-20.
4. When the veggies cool, dress with a little bit of balsamic vinegar.
5. Add the diced onion.
6. Sprinkle with a little bit of basil

Roasted Salad Detail

Voila! Ready to serve.

Oven Roasted Shrimp

Oven Roasted Shrimp

I have tried all sorts of ways of making shrimp in the few years that I’ve been making shrimp.  But after watching Ina Garten, I decided to give her recipe a try.  It’s absolutely the easiest and most delicious one I’ve tried.  No fussing, just shrimp, olive oil, salt, pepper, oven.  Of course, shrimp has to be fresh too.

This is where Fabian Seafood of Galveston Texas comes in. You see, a friend of mine has been telling me about shrimp from the back of a truck for nearly a decade. It always sounds like someone is selling stolen goods or spoiled goods so I never tried it. But then I noticed the buzz about it in the local blogosphere with the Julia of Yulinka Cooks and Peef & Lo so I figured they were safe. I actually bought shrimp from Fabian a couple times now, and tried different things, but this is the dish that turned out.

Ingredients:
Shrimp (I used about 1 lb large, but you can use as much as you want)
Salt, pepper, olive oil

Steps:
1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Clean your shrimp (Fabian’s shrimp isn’t cleaned, but it’s ok, it’s delicious).
3. Place the shrimp on a baking sheet, drizzle olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Mix well so all the shrimp is coated evenly with the mixture.
4. Bake for about 5-7 minutes, dpending on your oven and size of shrimp.

Orzo with Roasted Shrimp

Shrimp and Orzo salad

This dinner is completely inspired by Ina Garten of Barefoot Contessa.  I love her style of cooking and many of her recipes and have tried quite a few.  But I had a couple pounds of shrimp sitting around and I wanted to use up some of it.  I also had a ton of veggies sitting around and I didn’t want to waste those either.  So, I thought that orzo would be a perfect canvas to combine all these great ingredients. I tried to stick to her recipe for the most part, but of course, I had to make things “mine” by switching a few things.

Ingredients:
Shrimp
1/2 cup (dry) orzo
2 bell peppers (I used yellow and orange)
1/4 large hothouse cucumber
1/4 cup feta (I used French feta, but use your favorite/whatever you have on hand)
basil, lots (I used about a 1/4 cup)
2 TB olives, finely minced
2 scalions finely minced.
Olive oil, salt, pepper to taste

Steps:
1. Dice the bell peppers and cucumber.
2. Cook the orzo according to package directions.
3. Combine all the ingredients.

Orzo with Shrimp

Oven Roasted Shrimp

Grilled Chicken

This is one of my favorite and easiest recipes. It also happens to be very frequently requested. The important part is not to skimp on the seasonings or the time it takes to marinate. It’s best to let the chicken sit in the spices for about 24 hours, or even longer, but even overnight will be good. This keeps well in the fridge for a few days, and travels well in a cooler if you’re going tailgating or to a grill-out somewhere.  This even works on an electric grill.  But a real grill (the kind with actual flames), or an oven, work much better.  Though, the chicken was just as tender as if it were on a real grill or in the oven.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:
Chicken legs, as many as you want. Clean it as you would normally.
Spices (salt; I also use the following blends from Penzey’s: Tandoori, Southwest, Northwest; or you can use your favorite chicken rub/seasoning blend).

Steps:
1. After you clean the chicken, pull back (but don’t remove) the skin. Sprinkle the seasoning liberally. Pull the skin back to cover the seasoning.
2. Season the outside of the chicken leg.
3. Place into a container and into the fridge for about a day. The longer it sits, the better it will be.
4. Grill using your favorite method.

*IMPORTANT NOTE*
DON’T MIX THE SEAONINGS. Each leg gets its own blend. For example: one leg gets Tandoori, another leg gets Northwest. Don’t mix Northwest with Tandoori; it will taste nasty.

Season Outside

Season Inside

Grilled Chicken

Grilling

Grandpa’s Mashkurda (Машхурда)

After a long but unintentional absence from the blog, I have a recipe to make up for the absence.  I don’t know if this recipe is “authentic Uzbeck”, but this is how my grandpa does it, so that’s how I made it.  Having been making this for ages and ages, he wasn’t really clear on all the quantities and such, so I had to improvise a little and guess at times as well.

Ingredients:
1.5-2 lb of lamb (diced into large-ish pieces since the meat will shrink during cooking)
1 large onion
2 medium carrots (cut thinly into half or quarter moons)
1.5 cups of mung bean
3/4 cup of rice
1-2 TBSP of each: ground cumin, ground corriander, corriander, cumin (yes, I used both ground and whole)
Salt, pepper to taste.
6.5-7 cups of water (depending on how well done you like the beans and rice and how “liquidy” you like the dish)
Olive oil

Lamb pieces cut up

Lamb pieces

Steps:
1. In a dutch oven, brown the meat and cook for about 5 minutes.
2. Add the onions and cook till they’re translucent. Reduce heat to medium or medium-low.
3. Add water, carrots, and mung. When adding the water, I added it about a cup or so at a time. Mainly so I would know how much I’d need since I didn’t get a measurement for it from grandpa. So just keep adding water to keep things pretty moist, so things don’t dry out and stick to the pan. Cook this until the mung starts to “split” or get really soft. For me, it took about 5-6 cups of water.
4. Add rice. You might need to add more water at this point, so the rice can cook.
5. Place a lid and reduce to low. Cook for about 10-20 minutes. Depending on how “wet” or “soft” you want the final dish. I think I cooked it just a few minutes too long when I set it to 20 minutes. But hey, this is my first attempt.

Lamb, Mung, Carrots

Lamb, Mung, Carrots, Rice

Nearly done

Done!

*IMPORTANT NOTES*
1. When I got the meat home, I salted it before sticking into the fridge. I think it makes it much more tender and flavorful when cooking.
2. Season the meat after cutting it up and let it sit for a bit and absorb the cumin and corriander.
3. Season the dish as you go along. I add spices, salt, pepper throughout the cooking process.