use real butter

Recipe: dragon roll sushi

The Daring Cooks are making sushi this month! We have done quite a bit of sushi making (and more eating) here at urb so I was quite excited for the selection. Even with the familiarity, I was hard pressed for time to get this done. Because of that, it is with great sadness and yet relief that I am withdrawing from the Daring Cooks. This will be my last DC challenge.

daring cooks – one last cha cha cha!

I really have to thank the ladies of the DARING KITCHEN: beloved Lis of La Mia Cucina and sweet Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice. These two fine women give and give and give to all of the Daring Cooks (and Bakers). I don’t know how they do it, but I admire them for their love and enthusiasm, and especially for their friendship. Thanks, you beautiful babes!

Here’s the official line: The November 2009 Daring Cooks challenge was brought to you by Audax of Audax Artifex and Rose of The Bite Me Kitchen. They chose sushi as the challenge.

And once again, I colored outside of the lines which is probably why I should be leaving the DCs… I didn’t use their sushi recipe, I used the one I always use because we had a very small window of time to get this done. But I still learned a new technique and the sushi totally rocked (because it always does). I decided to try my hand at tempura frying based on this recipe from Allison who does all things sushi-related.

i thought the egg and ice water looked neat before mixing

whisking the wet and dry ingredients together

I think the biggest barrier to making tempura for me has always been the mystery of how to do it. Allison’s recipe is SUPER easy to throw together and so the true hurdle in tempura is the frying. I hate frying, but the more I do it, the more I lose my dread of it. We decided to tempura fry some alba clamshell mushrooms, asparagus, and shrimp. I didn’t have any softshell crab on hand, but tempura shrimp in a roll is another favorite of mine.

ingredients including: alba mushrooms, masago (fish roe), quail eggs

the goods: maguro (tuna), large dry scallops, wild-caught gulf shrimp

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: vietnamese beef pho

NaBloWriMo day 14. I’m blogging daily and trying not to lose it.

Eat on $30 day 4. I’ll cover what we ate on day 4 tomorrow since the Daring Cooks challenge usually goes live at midnight. This posting date was set in stone millennia ago, but I made it (and we ate it) last week, so it isn’t part of the Eat on $30 challenge.

It’s my Dad’s birthday! Happy Birthday, Baba! I hope you have an awesome day. Love, JenJen.

Did you see the giveaway for 2 $25 Macy’s gift cards? Go! Go enter! Then come back because this recipe RAWKS!

daring cooks – we slice, we dice, we sizzle, baby!

It’s time for the Daring Cooks again after last month’s hiatus. Let’s pay proper homage to the ladies of the kitchen… the DARING KITCHEN, that is: lovable Lis of La Mia Cucina and irresistable Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice. Our hostess this month is one of my favorite chicas of the food blogging world, Jaden from Steamy Kitchen. I had the pleasure of meeting her in person last month at the BlogHer Food conference in San Francisco – such a sweetheart.

Here’s the official line: The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.

The challenge for October was Vietnamese pho. Jaden gave us a lot of options to choose from, but I went straight for the long version of the Vietnamese beef pho recipe. I have been wanting to make beef pho for years and this was the kick in the patootie I needed. I only made a half recipe since we had to empty our fridge of perishables before starting the Eat on $30 challenge. The first step was to roast the ginger and onion in the oven. While that was roasting, I parboiled the beef bones ten minutes for the precious broth then drained them and cleared the pot of scum.

halved onion and ginger

beef bones

I’ve never made broth with this combination of spices before and I was so excited! The parboiled bones went into a fresh pot of water and were brought back to a boil. I placed the spices in a little mesh pouch and chucked those in with the ginger, onion, fish sauce, sugar, and salt.

spices

my favorite brand of fish sauce (oddly enough, three crabs)

into the pot the onion goes

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish, and artichokes

I’m here, but I’m not really here – in all likelihood I’m someplace up in the Rocky Mountains as you read this. But that doesn’t keep me from posting a Daring Cooks challenge because the challenge MUST BE MET (thanks to cron jobs).

daring cooks – ha cha!

Let’s get down to the nitty gritty here, shall we?
Our most revered and badass founders: Lis of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice.
Our beautiful host this month: Olga of Olga’s Recipes.
The challenge: a delicious Spanish recipe, Rice with mushrooms, cuttlefish and artichokes by José Andrés.

The recipe is not paella, but it is similar to paella according to Olga. Either way, it is filled with a fantastic combination of fresh ingredients that are cooked into a hearty dish of traditional Spanish flavors. This post is going to be heavy on pictures and short on words… you’re welcome.

trimming the artichokes

chopped onions, garlic, mushrooms, peppers, and tomatoes for the sofregit

**Jump for more butter**