Chicken Amandine Tacos

Hey there folks, I know it's been a long time, a lot of my cooking has consisted of the "ol' stand-by's" so i haven't really had an opportunity to post anything adventurous. Tonight however, i made something incredibly delicious that i feel i need to share with all of you.

Tonight's dish is Chicken Amandine. And i know what you're thinking "lol, he doesn't know how to spell, it's ALMONDine not amandine." well sit you and your smart ass down for a moment while i learn ya something. Dressing a dish with almonds has roots back to french cuisine, The french word for almond is amande and their word for garnished with almonds is Amandine. When the method was carried over to the states the cookbooks mistakenly spelled it as Almondine and it's just stuck in english literature ever since.

Anyways, the ingredients you will need for this recipe will be:

• 3 Chicken tenderloins
• 3 Corn tortillas (the small ones)
• 1 tablespoon of garlic
• salsa (any kind will get the job done)
• two dashes of oregano
• a dash of thyme
• olive oil

Once that's all said and done, it's time to start cooking!

1. if the tenderloins are frozen defrost in microwave. 50% power, 1:30 timer. Then, cut each tenderloin in half, then cube both halves.
2. pour just enough oil into your pan to cover the surface completely, turn on your surface to high. After 20 seconds or so, drop chicken in. BE CAREFUL it's going to sear and oil is going to start popping all over the place. Add garlic. Bring heat down to medium. Stir frequently to prevent sticking to the pan.
3. Once the chicken is 90% cooked, add almonds. Once your chicken is cooked to satisfaction, remove from pan onto a plate with paper towels to drain oil. Add more oil to pan, and heat the tortillas in the new oil one at a time. Should only take a couple seconds per side per tortilla.
4. Place tortillas on a plate so that they overlap a little (think venn diagram), spoon out the chicken amandine evenly between the tortillas, fold each one into a taco, set them side by side, finish filling out with extra chicken if applicable, add salsa to taste.
5. Enjoy!

The end result is slightly messy, a little oily, 100% delicious and relatively healthy for you so long as you didn't go overkill with the oil. Hope you all enjoy this one as much as i did!

Peanut Soy Chicken

Hello everyone and welcome back to another edition of Scrub Chef. I realize that my previous recipes have been novels to read so i'm gonna go ahead and try to keep this one short and sweet. This dish doesn't have a photo as of yet because i just made it and i'm enjoying it as we speak. For this dish, you will need the following:

• 3 Chicken tenderloins
• 1/3rd pound of noodles (your choice really, i used plain-old spaghetti for this one though.
• 3.5 tbsp of peanut butter (used super chunky which had a nice result but i'm guessing it would be equally as good with smooth)
• 1.5 tbsp of soy sauce (preferrably low-sodium but it doesn't have to be)
• 1 tsp of lemon juice
• sriracha for taste and the level of spicy that you are comfortable with
• 1 cup of water
•  1 tbsp of garlic salt (plain old garlic powder will do fine as well)
•  a dash of thyme
• 1tsp of dehydrated diced onions
• 1tsp ginger
• olive or vegetable oil

The steps are as follows:

1. prepare a pot of water and put it on the stove top set to high. let it reach boil while doing prep of other steps.
2. in a mixing bowl, place the peanut butter, soy sauce, lemon juice, sriracha, thyme, garlic salt, water, onions (ground to a fine powder) and ginger. Mix thoroughly with whisk or cake mixer.
3. when mixed thoroughly, it should be mildly thick but still have a liquid texture to it. Taste to ensure proper flavor. Peanut should stick out the most, with a hint of soy, lemon juice and the bite from sriracha. Set the sauce aside.
4. Once your pot of water has reached boil, add noodles.
5. defrost chicken tenderloins, cut the tenderloins into strips then add to a pan with a small amount of olive or vegetable oil that is set on high. when tenderloins start to sizzle and pop bring heat down to medium and cover the pan. When chicken is white on both sides. add 3 tablespoons of the sauce to the pan, stir the chicken in the sauce until evenly covered, then recover the pan for 2 minutes.
6. remove the pan from the stove. remove chicken onto a paper-towel covered plate to strain excess fat.
7. when noodles are at desired softness, strain. then place back in the pot and mix in the remainder of the sauce, stir till evenly covered, mix in the chicken and serve!

I got home tonight and had the strangest craving for ramen but while reading the ingredients of the flavor packets, i decided i'd make my own creation involving soy sauce and peanut butter. the result was the awesome peanut soy sauce of this dish. Chicken has the potential to taste like whatever you cook it in or with so adding the peanut soy sauce as close to the finish as i did allowed me to almost glaze the chicken and sear in the flavor without unintentionally turning it into a goulash. 

Chicken Ramen

Now contrary to what you might think by the title, this is not your standard run of the mill chicken ramen that you purchase at the store. That stuff is dirt cheap, yes, but it's also extremely unhealthy for you. The sodium content in the seasoning is enough to kill a salt fiend, i promise you.

Today i will be going briefly over how to make your very own chicken ramen that not only has some texture and flavor to it, but is significantly more healthy for you.

What you'll need:

• 3 chicken tenderloins
• a package of ramen noodles (Bags of generic dried ramen will do fine)
• Olive oil
• Italian Seasoning (lots of companies make it, any one will do)
• Garlic (chopped)
• Chopped Onions

1. Place a medium sized pot of water on the second largest burner of your stove. Set the burner to high.
2. Defrost the Chicken tenderloins in the microwave. Use the built in defroster or run the microwave for 1-1.25 minutes on 50% power till the ice on the chicken get's wet and loose. Place tenderloins in a small plastic bag 1 at a time, and with a poultry hammer or the bottom of a pan, flatten the tenderloins out. Cut the tenderloins into cubes or slices and season heavily with the Italian Seasoning on both sides.
3. place pan on largest stove burner, pour enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan, set burner on high. Cover pan with lid. After about a minute, drop your chicken cutlets into the oil and re-cover them immediately. Drop in 2 teaspoons of the garlic after chicken is in.
4. Once water in pot is to a boil, place ramen noodles in the pot, and turn the burner off. let the noodles sit for 2-3 minutes.
5. flip chicken constantly. After about a minute, place the chopped onions in the pan to sautee with the chicken, re-cover After 1 more minute, turn the burner off on the pan. Check noodles for limpness.
6. Strain the ramen noodles and place in a bowl. Then place the chicken in the bowl, making sure to get the extra juice in the pan into the bowl. Stir and Enjoy!

Have you tried this recipe? How did it taste?

Shortbread Cookies

Well, if you're still here after Tuesday's disaster of a recipe, thanks for sticking with me as i figure out a not-so-long-winded and easy to understand writing style for this blog. I quickly forget that cooking instructions should not be like my other blog where i just rant for 500+ words. I digress, today we're going to be stepping back from the chaos that was last weeks recipe (not the end result but the juggling act i tried to put into words), and do something a little more simple and laid back.

Shortbread cookies are one of my favorite things to cook because it's a nice slow and self-paced process that doesn't really have a lot of involvement to the user. Kinda like most other cookie recipes. However, with shortbread, the mixture is always a little bit of an enigma which is why none of the instructions in this blog are going to be end-all-see-all measurements. it's going to take a lot of tasting the dough to get it just the way you want it. I've tried about a dozen different recipes for shortbread cookies and i have finally come up with one of my own which i think is better than the ones i've come across.

What you'll need for this recipe:

• 1.5 sticks of butter
• 1.25 cups of flour
• 5 tablespoons of sugar
• Chocolate of your choosing.

Pretty simple ingredients list for today which is what i was talking about. The first think you're going to do is put the one and a half sticks of butter in a microwave safe bowl, and microwave it at 50% power until you see that at least 70% of the butter has been melted. It doesn't have to be completely melted when you pull it out because the heat generated from the liquified butter will actually do the rest of the work for you.

Get out a mixing bowl, pour in the flour, sugar, and then the melted butter. stir until it starts to congeal and turn into a doughy substance. You're going to want to try balling the dough up, if it feels sandy or powdery in any way, you need more butter, usually, if you do need more, you just add the other half stick and you're good to go. Be sure to mix thoroughly so that the new, additional ingredients are added throughout the mixture.

Once it feels doughy and there is no remnant powder or sandy feel to it, tear off a small piece and taste it. Taste like butter? More sugar. Taste kind alike a sugary butter? you're good to go. Once you've got the mixture whipped and doughed, start preheating the oven to 325 degrees.

From here you can choose to make squares like i do, or your traditional style cookies. For squares, get all the dough into 1 massive dough ball, and kneed it out, making sure to stitch up any cracks in the dough as you go along until it is at the desired thickness, then chop off the rounded edges and cut the cookies out of what's left, rinse and repeat till you're out of dough or don't have enough to make any more.

For traditional circular cookies, just make smaller balled pieces of dough. lay them all out on a pan that's been sprayed with a non-stick additive like Pam and spread out your cookies.

Drop the cookies in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the edges of the cookies start to get noticeably golden brown. Take out the cookies and let them cool while you melt the chocolate in the same fashion that you melted the butter. If you've got chocolate mousse, it won't loose it's shape, it will just get really shiny and then burn. so be sure to take it out and whip it with a fork on occasion to make sure it's not already melted and you just can't tell.

With that same fork you whipped the chocolate with, use it as a drizzle stick and just wave it over the cookies while they're still hot to give it the look i have on my cookies, then sprinkle a dab of sugar on each cookie while the chocolate is still liquid to lock it onto the cookie. If you get too much sugar on the cookies, not to worry, when you're taking them off the pan, you can always tap off the extra sugar gently.

Lastly, Be sure that you let the chocolate dry 100% before removing the cookies from the cookie pan. You're always going to get some chocolate on the pan itself so you can always just poke it with a finger as a gauge to how dry all of the chocolate is.

Have you tried this recipe? What did you think? leave your feedback in the comments section!

Family Sandwich

For my first recipe into this blog I would like to post one of my favorite and one of my first real recipes which has been a huge success to everyone i've offered it up to. The best part about it is: after purchasing the initial ingredients, which will run you about 20 bucks, you can make one of these sandwiches for about 10 bucks, give or take a dollar or two, and it feeds 4 people comfortably. This recipe is the Family Sandwich.

Just so we're clear on a few things before we get into the recipe, that sheet in the image above is a 16" cookie sheet. This sandwich is roughly 13 inches long (i didn't actually measure it but it's safely over a foot long ) and about 4-6 inches wide. When it's all finished, it's about an inch and a half thick maybe more. This thing is gargantuan; hence why it's fit for 4 people comfortably.

What you'll need for this mean sandwich is:

•  8 Boneless Skinless Chicken Tenderloins OR 4 Boneless Skinless chicken breasts
• 1 Small package of provolone cheese (i worked with a package of 12 slices by Lucerene for those of you who have safeways in their area)
• 1 Italian Loaf
• 1 can of Hunt's Rosemary & Oregano Diced Tomatoes
• Garlic
• Dehydrated Onions
• Rosemary Leaves
• 1/4th stick of  butter
• Olive Oil
• 1 red bell pepper
• Salt
• Pepper
• Paprika(Optional)

As optional additions, you can also add jalepenos and peperoncinis but for those who don't like the spice of these, they are not required.

1. Make garlic bread seasoning out of 2 parts garlic, 1 part dehydrated onions, 1 part rosemary leaves. Crush in Mortar and pestle until evenly granulated.
2. Cut Italian loaf into halves and evenly spread garlic seasoning across the two pieces
3. Warm butter so it is soft and spread over loaf halves
4. defrost chicken
5. flatten chicken evenly with poultry hammer or bottom of pan. (1/3rd inch will be sufficient)
6. cut chicken into strips or cubes
7. place pan on stove, pour in olive oil and start heat at medium-low to medium
8. season chicken liberally on both sides with garlic, salt, pepper and paprika (if you have it)
9. drop all chicken into pan and cover immediately (keep pan temperature at medium to medium-high the remainder of this recipe.
10. place Italian Loaf halves on skillet 1 at a time at 200 degrees or medium-Low
11. flip chicken frequently until white then another minute aftwards
12. place chicken on plate covered with 3 layers of towels to strain out the excess oil, turn stove head off
13. when first half of loaf a golden brown on the outside and a little yellow in the middle, remove and place second half on skillet.
14. Turn oven on to 350 degrees.
15. Take can of diced tomatoes, strain often, dump tomatoes out on loaf half and spread evenly with a knife
16. lay chicken over tomatoes.
17. cover all chicken with cheese.
18. drop into oven regardless of whether it's preheated or not.
19. pull out bell pepper, remove core, and slice into strips of any desired size.
20. when cheese is thoroughly melted, remove loaf half from oven, turn oven off.
21. when second half is browned like first half, remove.
22. spread bell peppers, jalepenos and peperoncinis over cheese
23. cover with second half, slice sandwich into segments with bread knife and enjoy!

If you do not have pan covers, you can use a pot cover of a similar size, it's alright if some of the steam escapes, you're just aiming to sear the chicken to lock in the flavor.

I seasoned the chicken heavily which added to the robust flavor of everything else. All in all this is an amazingly delicious dish that is very versatile. any meat sandwich you could make normally you can adapt this to. I've made this into things as complex as a philly cheesesteak before and things as simple as a massive grilled cheese and ham. 

How easy were my instructions to follow? And if you made this dish, what did you think of it?

Welcome!

Hello my fellow viewers! I would like to take a moment to go a little it into detail as to what this blog is about, what you can expect from it and what you can't. If the title isn't a dead giveaway about the content that will be covered in this blog, i am a college student who has recently found a passion for cooking. The whole science behind it and making the one thing i enjoy most in this world, besides a good video game and a stout beer; Food; I will be releasing a new blog post every other day or as close to it as i can, as some days i don't have the gumption to cook but on most days i do and thus mostly every other day i will have a new recipe with a new experience tacked onto it.

Which leads me to the primary content of this blog. What you can expect from me is to find recipes that i end up dreaming up out sudden odd cravings that i've had, they're not always normal but i promise to be completely honest and visceral to a degree when i explain how it came out and what i could have done better, to a degree. What you cannot expect from this blog is professional cooking tips or 5-star cuisine recipes that will be absolute party winners that you could start a restaurant. Since I am a college student paying my own way through college with no assistance, the recipes will be made up of meals that server many people for not very many dollars or just one person for several meals.

I work a lot with chicken because it's cheap, it's easy to work with, and really open to spicing as it's flavor is relatively inert. On occasion i will probably do some recipes that don't involve poultry, but be warned, the majority of my cooking is done with it as it's the cheapest meat on the market.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the recipes i put up here as much as i do!