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Believe it or not chorizo makes a healthy dinner recipe for soup. Chorizo is a spicy sausage of Spanish origin made with pork or beef and lots of seasonings. It is fatty but since it’s so flavorful you only need about 1/2 pound to make enough for four hearty servings.

Shape the chorizo into meatballs about the size of a large marble. Brown over medium high heat. Lower the heat to medium and add two chopped onions. Saute for about five minutes until the onions have softened but aren’t browning.

Roughly chop one large bunch of kale, mustard greens, chard or any other green you like.

Add 6 cups of good chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Add the greens and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes until the greens are soft.

Peel and chop four large potatoes into 1/2 inch cubes. Add to the soup and turn up the heat to medium high. Cook about 10 more minutes until the potatoes are soft. Remove one from the pot and mash against a plate with a fork to check.

Serve with corn chips or corn bread for a hearty supper. For dessert ice cream cools off the taste buds.

Every cuisine it seems has its own “little plates.” The Italian’s answer is antipasto, the French prefer hors d’oeuvres, the Spanish serve tapas and the Chinese come up with dim sum, tasty little bites of filling wrapped up in dough.  The yummy packages are steamed two or three in a metal basket and then placed in a cart.  The server goes to each table and you pick what you’d like.

Lunch at the Golden Buddha restaurant located at Chinese Cultural Center, 668 N. 44th St. Ste 115,  Phoenix, AZ 85008 started with small sweet shrimp dumplings.  The wrapper was so thin you could see the whole shrimps inside.  This taste of the sea was followed by a combination of vegetables and pork inside a dumpling  and steamed rice.  But not any old steamed rice.  No.  The sticky steamed rice was flavored with Chinese sausage, shredded chicken and a hint of garlic then wrapped and steamed in lotus leaves. When you unwrapped the package the fragrance was heavenly.

Our culinary adventure continued with beef meatballs, and egg rolls.  These were filled with cabbage, shrimp and pork, crisp on the outside with a nice crunch from the cabbage on the inside.

You wouldn’t think that there would be dessert dim sum but you’d be wrong.  The cocktail bun  has a rich creamy coconut filling  wrapped in a sweet dough that when baked, has the consistency between cake and bread.  However, the  egg tart was not one of my favorites.  The crust was flaky but the custard was bland.  It could have used some vanilla or lemon flavoring, but then it wouldn’t have been a traditional dim sum egg tart.

The food on the regular menu has both Cantonese and Mandarin favorites.  Prices are reasonable, although a touch higher than average, but if the quality is similar to the dim sum, it’s worth it.

The service was fast and friendly.  The tables were far enough apart that you didn’t feel like you were eavesdropping on the people next to you.  Fresh fish and lobster swam in tanks ready to become a gourmand’s delightful dinner.  The decor was kicked up several notches above the typical Chinese restaurant.  And yes, there is a gold Buddha, smiling happily, as diners come in the front door.

And a special thank you to Owen Robbins of Benchmark Research Technologies for introducing us to Dim Sum. It was fun.

Dinner Menus for St. Patrick’s Day

St Patrick’ Day is a holiday for both adults and children. It doesn’t matter if you’re Irish or Italian, you still get to wear the green and look for that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Putting together a St. Paddy’s day dinner menu is a snap. Use low fat ingredients to keep them healthy dinner recipes.

Traditional Irish St. Patrick’s Menu

Corned beef and cabbage: add carrots and potatoes.  Believe it or not, ids like corned beef and will most likely eat two out of the three side dishes, especially if displayed in separate dishes. You can buy prepared corned beef at the grocery store deli. The potatoes can be ready to heat and serve.  Carrots can be carrot sticks or baby carrots.   Serve with bread or rolls. This is an easy dinner if you don’t want to cook.

All American St. Patrick’s Menu

Hot dogs served with pickle relish, “green” ketchup and “green” mustard.  Add liquid green food coloring to change both to green colors. Ketchup takes more color to change and is sort of a brownish green.  Be sure to label them, they end up looking the same.

Cole slaw can be store bought or homemade. Homemade is one package of shredded cabbage or bagged coleslaw mix.  Add ½ cup of mayonnaise, a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, and a tablespoon of sugar. Mix well. Salt to taste.

Crackers with green cream cheese spread or cheese wiz/spray sprinkled with dried or fresh parsley.

Green apple salad:  Here is a fast easy recipe: 3 chopped green apples with skin on, 1 cup of chopped celery, ½ cup chopped walnuts, 1 cup of green grapes, 1/4 – 1/2 cup of mayo.  Salt and pepper if desired. Mix everything together in a bowl with a fair amount of mayo coating all ingredients. Use enough mayo so that the ingredients can absorb the mayo. Refrigerate at least two hours.

Italian St. Patrick’s Menu

Spinach pasta with Alfredo sauce.  Sprinkle minced parsley or basil over top for more “green” effect or your choice of plain pasta with pesto sauce. Serve pesto on the side if you want to have plain pasta for the children available, although kids like pesto sauce.

Baked French bread: Take loaf of French bread and cut lengthwise.  Spread butter or margarine on both halves. Sprinkle grated parmesan cheese, parsley, and basil. Bake in a 350 degree oven watching carefully. Bake until toasted.

Cooked asparagus or broccoli with melted Velveeta cheese. Caesar salad or simple garden salad with Italian dressing.

Mexican Food St. Patrick’s Menu

Tostadas: Top corn tostadas with warm refried beans, cheddar cheese and shredded lettuce.  Top with green salsa or verde sauce.  You can add taco seasoned hamburger if you like, just end up with the green lettuce and salsa on the top.

Cheese Quesadillas topped with sprinkled parsley or cilantro.

Nacho cheese dip: Melted pasteurized process cheese spread with green color added.

Guacamole: Homemade or store bought.  Guacamole is easy to make, simply mash an avocado.  Add finely chopped onions and tomatoes and hot sauce.

Serve with tortilla chips

Corn muffins- Use favorite corn muffin mix add diced green bell pepper or chopped cilantro, jalapeno and/or cheese. Any combination works well. You can add some green food coloring if you like. Bake Following the muffin mix directions.

Holiday time is gift giving time. Cooks are making batches of jellies and jams, pickles and relishes, sauces and chutneys, while bakers are decorating cookies, cakes and breads.

If you love food and have a sense of adventure consider giving that special someone their choice of experience days. You may be asking yourself exactly what an “experience day” is. Well it’s a day they’ll never forget. Choose from a hot air balloon ride at sunrise with a scrumptious breakfast included, or a mini spa day for two with delectable cuisine for lunch. If your significant other has always wanted to drive a Ferrari, rent one for the day. Pack a lunch of duck pate, water crackers, fresh fruit, and smoked turkey sandwiches slathered with bacon, avocado and spicy chipotle mayonnaise.

It’s no mystery that Agatha Christie chose the Orient Express as the setting of one of her best known books, “Murder on the Orient Express,” also made into a movie, more than once, by the way. The Northern Belle was designed to travel inland in Britain, while the Pullman Express was outfitted in over-the-top luxury to ferry passengers to the luxury liners.

While a full overnight trip may be out of the budget both wallet and time wise, one of the orient express day trips might fill that gift box perfectly. It’s perfect for anyone who has a sense of adventure and taste for the exotic. And speaking of taste there’s the food.

Start with fresh salmon and crayfish napped with a delicate but bright lemon mustard dressing. The soup course is always seasonal to take advantage of the ripest vegetables accented with chives and cream. And how could you travel the English countryside on the Orient Express Pullman Express and not order rare roast beef paired with crisp dauphinoise potatoes for dinner? Of course, you’ll enjoy a cheese course before a rich and satisfying pudding, perhaps custard over a dense fragrant vanilla scented cake smothered in fresh berries.

And that’s just one of the menu choices. There’s also rare juicy lamp chops, seared pork served with apples or succulent chicken breast stuffed with ham.

December 3, 2011

If the kids are telling you they’re dying of hunger and you’ve got only 30 minutes before you have to get junior to the soccer game, and you to the PTO meeting, don’t panic. You’ve got time to make chicken wraps, a fast, easy, healthy dinner recipe. Try the Asian chicken wraps accented with hoisin sauce, scallions and shredded cabbage, wrapped in a warm flour tortilla. Or perhaps you’d prefer Italian wraps redolent with garlic and onions, tomatoes and basil. Finally there’s South of the Border wraps. Add brown rice topped with peas and carrots to round out the meal. Serve fresh sliced fruit for dessert. Dinner is less than half hour away.

Get Started

Sauté 4 ounces of chicken breast for each serving. Slice the breast into 1/2 inch slices for quick cooking. If time is really short, use sliced roast deli chicken instead or shred the meat off a cooked rotisserie chicken.

Asian Wraps

Spread the flour tortilla with about 1 tablespoon of purchased hoisin sauce. Hoisin sauce is a dipping sauce traditionally served with seafood, but goes wonderfully with chicken and pork as well. The flavor is sweet and tangy with a bit of smokiness. Children like it because the flavor isn’t overpowering.

Place about 1/4 cup of shredded cabbage and two thinly sliced scallions in the middle of each tortilla. Top with 2 ounces of the cooked chicken. Roll up burrito style.

Italian

When the chicken has just about finished cooking, add 1/2 thinly sliced onion and 1 small smashed clove of garlic to the pan for each 4 ounces of chicken. The onion and garlic should be cooked long enough to lose that raw taste.

Spread the flour tortilla with 1 tablespoon of purchased pizza sauce or tomato sauce. Add 1/4 cup of raw spinach leaves and the chicken. Top with 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese. Roll up and you’re good to go.

South of the Border

Think of these as fast and easy dinners inspired by the flavors of the Southwest. Chop one green pepper, two tomatoes, and one bunch of scallions for 1 pound of chicken. Add 1/4 cup of fresh lime juice. Mix in 1 teaspoon of cumin and 1/4 cup of chopped cilantro. Add from 1/4 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon of hot red pepper flakes depending on how spicy you like your food. If that’s too much trouble, substitute 1 cup of prepared salsa.

After the chicken has cooked, add the salsa. Cook a few minutes until the liquid has almost evaporated.

Spread the tortillas with 2 or 3 tablespoons of refried beans and top with the chicken-salsa mixture. Sprinkle grated cheddar cheese on top.

If you’d like to make these wraps ahead of time, make them enchilada style. Put the wraps into a baking dish you’ve sprayed with cooking spray. Top with enough enchilada sauce to cover. Sprinkle the cheese on top of the sauce rather than inside the wraps. Freeze or refrigerate. Defrost about 30 minutes before dinner time and pop into a preheated 350 F oven. Bake for 30 minutes until the cheese has melted and is gooey and the sauce is bubbling.

It’s the Fourth of July and what better way to celebrate than with a good old-fashioned barbecue of summer sausages. Bratwurst sausages boiled in beer and then grilled accompanied by all-beef hotdogs. The boiling makes sure the brawts are cooked and stay juicy.  The grilling gives them a crisp casing which snaps when you bite into one.  These babies will be snuggled in toasted buns and blanketed with sweet onion relish.

The brawts and hots will be served with a fresh tomato, cucumber, basil salad with lemon zest and a touch of olive oil; black bean salad made with cilantro, lime juice, cumin and jalapenos; and Asian coleslaw — julienned carrots, snow peas, cashews, cabbage and orange slices tossed with a ginger garlic soy sauce dressing. . For dessert?  What else but ice cold watermelon. In case you didn’t notice it’s a melting pot theme for Independence Day — German sausages, Italian tomato salad, Mexican bean salad and the Asian coleslaw.

Poke the brawts with a fork in several places.  Put in a sauce pan and cover with beer.  Bring the beer to a boil then lower to a simmer for 15 minutes.

Chop 3 cups of onions.  That sounds like a lot but it cooks down considerably. Put 1 tbsp. butter in a frying pan on low heat.  Add the onions and slowly cook until the onions are a light golden brown.  This will probably take 15 minutes.  Add 1 tbsp. each apple cider vinegar and brown sugar.  Stir until the sugar is dissolved. Turn off the heat.

Cut three tomatoes into eight quarters each.  Slice one cucumber and add to the tomatoes. Grate 1 tsp. of lemon zest and the juice of half a lemon over the vegetables.  Sprinkle with five chopped scallions.  You don’t have to add any oil to this dish if you don’t want to. Right before serving add 1/4 cup or a good handful of basil leaves.  If you add them before that they have a tendency to turn a dark green unpleasant color.

Drain one can of black beans.  Add 1 tbsp. of cumin and 1 tsp. of red pepper flakes.  Squeeze in the juice of two limes.  Stir in 1/2 cup of chopped sweet red peppers — you can also use orange or yellow peppers.  Add from 1 tbsp to 1/4 cup of chopped cilantro.

Combine the ingredients for the Asian slaw.  Dress with 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 1/2 tsp each minced ginger and garlic, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, 1/2 cup of cooking oil.

Grill the brawts and hot dogs until the brawts are golden and the hot dogs expand a bit.  While you’re grilling the sausages, toast the buns on the grill.

Put the sausages in the buns with a squiggle of mustard and top with the sweet onion relish.  Set up a hot dog bar for the kids. Offer chopped toppings such as tomatoes, lettuce, green peppers and cheese.  Add Fritos — seriously they go great with hot dogs — sauerkraut, dill pickles and sweet pickle relish.  Finish the bar with ketchup and mustard of course, but also include sweet and sour sauce, barbecue sauce and mayonnaise.  Arrange the hot dog bar ingredients in a bed of ice, each in its own container.

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