Return of the (chipotle) mac

Something about a brisk and sunny Saturday afternoon just makes me want to open the windows and spend some quality time in the kitchen. Today we revisit my favorite kitchen experiment - Chipotle Mac!

As always, this tasty treat just needed a little help to make it all the mac it could be.

Chipotle Mac

5 c medium pasta shells, cooked

6 tbsp butter

6 tbsp flour

2 1/2 c 2% milk

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp ground mustard

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/4 tsp black pepper

4 tbsp adobo sauce

1 bay leaf

1/2 c gruyere, shredded

1 c vintage English cheddar, shredded

1 c extra sharp cheddar, shredded

3 tbsp panko

1 link chicken andouille sausage, chopped and browned

3 tbsp scallions, chopped

Combine milk, ground mustard, garlic powder, pepper, chili powder and bay leaf in a small saucepan and keep warm over medium low heat.

Heat butter and adobo sauce in a pot over medium low heat. Slowly whisk in flour. Once flour is incorporated, slowly pour in warm milk, whisking constantly to avoid lumps. Remove from heat and stir in cheeses.

Coat pasta with sauce and pour into a baking dish. Sprinkle with panko, sausage crumbles and scallions. 

Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes at 375. Remove foil and bake at 425 for another 5-10 minutes or until top starts to brown.

I used whole wheat shells this time around and I think that was a really bad idea. I'm not a fan of whole wheat pasta in this dish because of the texture. Regular pasta works perfectly and honestly, if you are going to make some mac n cheese, go all out and rock the regular pasta. Just saying.

Since I made way too much cheese sauce than pasta, I scrambled and cooked up some 1/4 boxes of trottole and campanelle I had in the cabinet to make another batch. Way more photogenic and SO much better tasting. Ahh. So what if it's a random mix of shapes? It tastes amazing!!

Re: sausage crumbles - I first thought of bacon crumbles, but I had chicken andouille sausage in the fridge. It's tough since the chicken sausage is already cooked, so make sure you chop it up well in order for it to brown nicely. 

Of course, if you have some regular andouille sausage lying around, feel free to slice it out of the casing and brown the crumbles that way!

Have you tried my chipotle mac yet? I think it's about time you did!

Recipes galore!

As promised, here are the recipes for my weekend creations. Enjoy!

Tomato, Fontina & Basil Tarts

1 package phyllo dough, cut into 2x2 squares

melted butter

24 cubes fontina

24 grape tomatoes

24 pieces basil

balsamic vinegar

Brush layers of phyllo dough with butter and place into a mini muffin tin. Drop a cube of fontina, one tomato and a piece of basil into each phyllo cup and brush with butter to finish. Bake at 350 for 5-10 minutes or until phyllo turns golden brown. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar.

Sole Wrapped Asparagus

4 Dover sole fillets

2 cloves garlic, sliced

3 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp white wine

8 spears asparagus, trimmed

Combine all ingredients except asparagus in a dish and let marinate for 15-20 minutes.

Roast asparagus for 5-10 minutes at 375 and set aside to cool. Wrap sole around asparagus and secure with a toothpick.

Heat a large pan over medium heat. Cook sole for about 2 minutes on each side. Serve immediately.

Mustard Tarragon Sauce

1 tbsp whole grain mustard

1 tbsp white wine

1 tbsp butter

1/4 tsp tarragon

2 tbsp heavy cream

dollop honey

salt

Melt butter in a pan over medium low heat. Whisk in mustard and tarragon for 2 minutes. Add heavy cream, honey and salt to taste and whisk for another 2-3 minutes. Spoon over fish before serving.

Mixed Potato Pancake

1 medium Russet potato, shredded

1 medium Japanese sweet potato, shredded

1 tsp salt

1 small onion, shredded

3 tbsp flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 egg

oil for frying

Drain as much liquid as possible from the shredded potatoes and onion and place in a bowl. Stir in salt, flour, baking powder and egg.

Coat the bottom of a frying pan with oil over medium high heat. Spoon 1.5 tbsp of potato mixture into pan and flatten. Cook for 4-5 minutes or until potato starts to brown and flip over for another 4-5 minutes.

Comfort me.

Do you ever get those days where all you want is to be comforted...surrounded by familiar faces, things and food? I've had a couple of those days. Does that mean I'm homesick? Naw, I don't think so.

The beginning of the week was full of leftovers and a repeat attempt at my Warm Lentil Salad since I still had half a package of lentils that needed to be used. Exciting, right? To toss things up a bit, I decided to take a mini adventure after work on Monday. Where did I go? To a running store, duh!

There's no denying that I was spoiled by working at an awesome running store in DC, a mere half mile from my apartment. I've been searching for good running stores in San Francisco since before I started packing my first box. One store kept popping up again and again...enter Fleet Feet San Francisco!

My prerequisites for a go-to running shop:

1. Friendly, non-condescending staff - just because someone walks into a running store doesn't mean they are a hard core runner. Don't judge me because I'm not super fast.
2. Must carry one or more of the following essentials: Mizuno Wave Inspires, Balegas, Feetures, Nuun, Nike Fundamental Race Day Shorts, Mocha Clif Shot Gels
3. Running group with fun people that run a variety of paces
4. Easy to get to
5. Have a legit shoe fitting process - dude, I loved the store I worked at. I will judge.

Conveniently (sort of) located in San Francisco's Marina District, the tiny shop definitely had almost everything I was looking for (apparently nutritionals really don't have a home in the store so I was directed to a larger sporting goods store - I appreciate the honesty) and the staff was great. I chatted with a couple people, including one of the owners, about the group runs and the half marathon training program to feel things out a bit, and everyone was really nice. Unfortunately, the store's group run is too hard for me to get to during the week :( I did learn that they do these things called "Sunset Runs" - non-competitive races on select Thursday nights. It's $10 to register, you get a shirt, run 5 miles with a hundred or so people and the proceeds go to charity. Score.

I'm checking out the run on May 20th so I'll definitely report back. Also checking out the first training group session this Saturday...very excited! It'll be tough to find a replacement to my store, but that was a whole different situation. I spent a crapton of time there working and not working...how could I not love it?

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes...comfort. It all hit me yesterday - I only know 4 people here and of those 4 people only one is a good friend, one is a friend I haven't seen in a long time, one is an old coworker friend and the other is an old coworker. Yeeh. I mean, I knew I'd have to make new friends, but something just got to me last night. I was sitting at work and realized I didn't know what to do with myself that evening. It's not like I was overloaded like I was in DC...packing in a ton of things into my day. For some reason all I wanted to do last night was call someone to grab a last minute dinner or drinks or run or wandering. I can't do that here...not yet at least. *big big BIG sigh*

O well. What did I do? I craved comfort. Comfort in the kitchen. I did a grocery trip and decided to make that Rosemary Polenta with Spicy Garlic Shrimp I make o so much...

This time I sauteed some broccolini for some green

and did a combination of that last attempt with lemongrass and the usual spicy garlic shrimp.

Not my best work (I still think my lemongrass one was the best), but the polenta and the big cookfest comforted me. Yes, I was comforted by my complicated, 3 pan meal.

After basking in home-bodyness, I agreed to check out this thing called Alpha Bar with a friend of mine. Basically you follow this group on Facebook or their blog (though it's not really updated) and see what bar they are going to next. It meets every other Wednesday at a new bar...they start at A and go to Z (tonight they were on G so we went to Green's Sports Bar - conveniently located a block from MY NEW APARTMENT!!) We're both sort of in the same boat (she moved out in January) so we were into the idea of meeting up with a social group at a random bar...seemed like a good idea?

We planned on grabbing a quick bite to eat, but I got there late since I was swamped at work (seriously? Week TWO) and apparently Green's does not serve food (but you can bring a pizza in?). We wandered a couple blocks down and found ourselves at Nick's Crispy Tacos. I know, I know you're probably thinking 'hasn't she had enough taco??' The answer is no. There is never too much taco. Especially fish taco.

After grabbing some cash at the ATM, friend snagged a spot at the bar and ordered us $3 margaritas (yum) while I stood in line for our tacos! We both decided to give both types of fish tacos a shot: the Pescado (baja style fried fish in a corn tortilla with salsa, lime mayonnaise, cilantro, cabbage & onions)

AMAZING. I usually don't like fried fish tacos, but this was perfectly crisp - not at all soggy. The toppings were great, squeeze a little lime, drizzle on some of the red and green sauce...perfect with the mayo/salsa/slaw. A tad messy to eat, but SO worth it.

the Grilled Fish (seasonal fresh fish served with tomatillo and pico de gallo salsas, cilantro, cabbage & onions in a corn tortilla)

I almost got just the grilled fish because I didn't even see the fried fish one at first glance! The grilled ones were ok...they were really no match to the fried ones. I think it's the toppings. Seriously. There were just a lot more fun and flavorful ones on the fried ones. Indeed.

By the time we got out of there (hey, it was a long line!) it was a little after 9 so we booked it over to the bar only to realize that we had no idea what to look for. I guess the whole bar runs specials on Alpha Bar nights, so there's a mix of regular bar goers and people there for this event. Long story short, we got there, grabbed a drink and caught up with each other. HA. So much for meeting new people. Oh well, there's always the next event!

Nitey!

Who are you, Box?

I just realized I left you guys hanging about Box!

When I got home, I was so focussed on making that lentil salad that I just plopped Box on the couch and almost forgot about it. I made my bowl o lentils, poured a glass of vino and then remembered I still had to open Box. Oops.

French press! Unbreakable too! Very excited to test this out...with my decaf :)

I still had that strange sushi craving on Thursday, so I moseyed over to Sushi Hunter after work. Selin took me here once to experience the All You Can Eat special - me + all you can eat sushi = AWESOME.

For the reasonable price of $23.95, you can pick from a variety of appetizers, hot entrees, rolls and nigiri. It's a pretty decent sushi variety...no special rolls though. You have to order those off the regular menu.

This time around I just ordered off the menu - Miso Soup, 2 pcs Escolar Nigiri, Spicy Tataki Roll (Spicy Tuna & Cucumber Inside, Topped with Seared White Tuna and Garlic) and Futomaki (for some reason I really wanted futomaki...very strange craving).

The miso soup was okay, nothing compared to the miso soup at Kaz :(, I think the tofu was too firm or something. Whatever, it whet my appetite! Onto the escolar - oh. my. god. I love you butterfish. So for the longest time, I thought escolar and white tuna were one and the same. Incorrect. Escolar = butterfish; Albacore = white tuna. Monumental discovery.

Anyway, Escolar Nigiri was awesome. Perfect proportion of rice and fish. Futomaki was pretty good, satisfied my craving and wasn't too massive. The Spicy Tataki smelled phenomenal...I think the garlic and the seared white tuna combo sealed the deal. However, after a bite of the escolar, the white tuna just tasted blah. Sowwy white tuna.

Today I woke up and I was a whole year older. YEEEHH! Funny, I didn't feel any older...;p

Got to work and saw this:

Cute, yah? Best part of my morning - a coworker asked how old I was, I said 29, and she said 'NO WAY.' :D

Lucky me, my birthday happened to fall on a half day Friday! I love half day Fridays, except when it comes to getting home via public transportation. The bus I usually take only runs during peak hours so I had to wait for this sucker:

I'm just making the public transport rounds, aren't I? I grabbed some stuff for tonight's dinner, Skyped w/Jamie and then it was time for the festivities to begin!

We had a Siete de Mayo fiesta with some tacos

and Corn & Black Bean Fritters (a variation) with some Crack Sauce.

Corn & Black Bean Fritters (revised - measurements may be a little of)

3 c frozen corn, defrosted and drained

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1/4 c scallions, chopped

1 shallot, minced

1/2 red pepper, diced

1/2 c eggs, beaten

1 tbsp cumin

1 tbsp salt

pepper

1 tbsp chili powder

1/2 - 1 c flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp butter

Cilantro Lime Avocado Sauce

1 c chorizo (or soyrizo), browned and crumbled

Combine first 5 ingredients and 1/2 c chorizo in a large bowl. Combine eggs, cumin, chili powder, salt and pepper in a small bowl and stir into vegetable mixture. Sift flour and baking powder together and slowly add to the vegetable mixture until a thick batter forms. Set aside.

Heat 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Pour 1/4 c of mixture into the skillet, flattening the batter out a bit.

Cook for 3 minutes, flip and cook for another 3 minutes. Serve immediately with a dollop of Cilantro Lime Avocado Sauce and a sprinkle of browned chorizo (or soyrizo) bits.

So the revision was that I tried making my own batter instead of falling back to good 'ol Bisquick. Then I looked back at my original recipe and realized I was missing cheese! AAAGGGHH. Cheese would have made these so much better!

Also, there was CAKE! Red Velvet Cake!! :)

YUMYUMYUM. Delicious birthday :)

Taco!Taco!

Hope the weekend has treated everyone well! My first weekend in San Francisco has been a successful and productive one (more on the productivity later this week).

This morning marked the return of the savory oat bowl for breakfast. I made a pretty decent sized bowl of oats with some egg, spinach and arugula, chili garlic paste and feta cheese. Not exactly a photo-worthy bswl, but it did taste ok (I should have grabbed a box of MSF sausage patties). I stared at my TJs Soy Chorizo that I've been dying to experiment with and seriously considered opening it up for just a little bit of spicy goodness.

Laziness won and I went sans fake meat all together.

I'm seriously glad I ate that big bowl of oats because it fueled me for the WHOLE day. Jeebus. I did a few errands downtown and hoofed it up a hill a bunch of blocks to check out an apartment. Saw it, thought it was cute and big enough, and boom...secured my place in line. Hopefully I'll have good news by the end of this week!

To celebrate, I went over to Crissy Field with Selin and a couple of her friends for a quick run. The running path isn't very long, but I managed to do a little more than a loop that totaled 3.25 miles. Rocked it in a smidge under 30 minutes and I'm content :)

Running on the path near Crissy Field is sort of like running on the Mall, but with wind and water nearby. Of course I had difficulty keeping my balance on the gravel path and my achilles started to bother me, so when I turned around, I took the long way along the paved bike path. MUCH better.

For dinner, we headed to Tacolicious in the Marina. What do you think they specialize in?? hehe. I've been hearing lots of good things from Selin and I've smelled the delicious tacos before, so I was really excited to finally sample some of their goodies. We sat down with a carafe of some pretty potent sangria de la casa (wine, apricot brandy, oj, spicy apple salsa), which I had to nurse since it was so strong.

The spicy apple salsa was actually little chunks of apple and pepper in the bottom of our glasses - really good at the end once they soaked up the sangria. The spice paired with the sweet was a pleasant surprise!

Then came the food! We split some made-to-order guacamole

Rich, creamy, minimal chunks of onion, lots of cilantro...delish. I generally like my guac with a little lime juice and jalapeno, but this was pretty tasty. Just the right size too!

Next up was a ceviche of line caught mahi-mahi (manzano chiles, red onion, cilantro). They were served on tostadas with some avocado chunks.

I liked the combination of the crunchy tostada, creamy avocado and tangy mahi-mahi, but I thought it could use more flavor. Most ceviches I've had have a very strong citrus taste. This was VERY mild. A little difficult to split between 3 people, but we made it work...it just wasn't an attractive presentation hehe.

Snacky number 3 were fried sweet plantains (rancho gordo heirloom beans, cumin crema)

Ok, I had really high hopes for the plantains. For some reason, I imagined they would be crispy fried, almost like tostones. They were not. They were nice and sweet, though. Sprinkled with a little salt too. I thought they tasted great on their own, but they would be ideal as a dessert and not as an appetizer. The beans and crema were just eh. Nothing special and honestly, I don't think they added to the dish.

Now to the important stuff - TACOS!

I decided to be adventurous and tried the Taco of the Week, which happened to be one with a grilled cactus paddle, oaxaca cheese, and serrano chile salsa.

O hi, adventurous Sunday dinner. Cactus paddle?! Turns out it's not as exciting as I thought it would be. It tasted pretty much like any grilled green vegetable (I compared it to a grilled green pepper, but after Googling, I found out it's best described as similar to green beans with a slight acidity). I thought my taco tasted like a quesadilla on a corn tortilla.

They gave us a trio of sauces (yellow to green: hot, medium, mild)

Which I promptly doused on my taco because I love spicy sauces. Cute bowls and spoons yah?

I got about 3/4 through my second taco, the guajillo braised short rib, when I realized I hadn't taken a picture of it. Oops.

It was pretty messy and full o meat. It oozed that red grease that always spews from red meat. Yummy, but I didn't need to see that. Especially after the lack of healthy foods in my life. The other ladies ordered the fried local rock cod taco (cabbage, tangy crema) and I was eyeing it like no one's business. The colors alone were enough to make me drool!

K. I'm out. Bedtime and first full week of work begins tomorrow! Nitey!

Time to chillax

I've been a bit of a stress ball lately and I'm realizing it's about time I took some time to chill out and detach from things. I spent a couple hours getting checked out by a doc and while I walked out with a clean bill of health, I decided I needed to start learning how to leave work at work and stop taking on so much at once. Easier said than done.

First thing I did when I got home? Made myself a large, beautiful, well-balanced meal.

I was so worked up today that I only had a banana and some Cheerios around 3pm, post doc visit. I figured I earned some quality kitchen time and a pretty meal :) Do you cook to de-stress?

I had one fairly large piece of salmon defrosting from yesterday, plus I had an urge to make a mustard sauce. Salmon + mustard = yum! Did I mention I also stashed a lonely sweet potato in my grocery basket this weekend? I think sweet potatoes go wonderfully with mustard. Wait, who am I kidding...I think everything goes great with mustard haha.

To start things off, I troasted some diced sweet potatoes. Kept them simple and only sprayed them with some olive oil.

Why did I troast? Because there's no reason to use the whole oven for just one sweet potato! These babies troasted for about 25 minutes at 400 degrees.

While those were cooking, I got started on the spinach and TJ's Harvest Grain Blend. All together, I think this meal took about 45 minutes to make? A glorious and relaxing 45 minutes :) The most stressful part was trying to cut the Harvest Grain Blend proportions in half. Who has a 5/8 measuring cup?? Thanks, Google for informing me 5/8 c equals 10 tablespoons!

Sweet Potato Grains

10 tbsp Trader Joe's Harvest Grain Blend

1 tbsp butter

1 c chicken broth

1/2 onion, diced

1/8 tsp allspice

pinch salt

1 sweet potato, diced and roasted

Heat butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion, allspice and salt until onion is softened. Add grains and stir for a minute or so until coated. Pour in chicken broth and stir in sweet potatoes. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Oniony Spinach

1/2 onion, thinly sliced

1 tsp olive oil

1 tbsp chicken broth

3 c baby spinach

Heat olive oil in a pan over medium high heat. Saute onion until it starts to brown. Add spinach and broth. Stir and cover for 1 minute. Uncover and cook until spinach is wilted.

Sweet Whole Grain Mustard Sauce

3 tbsp whole grain mustard

1 1/2 tsp greek yogurt

3/4 tsp milk

1/2 tsp mirin

1 tbsp butter

1/2 tsp maple syrup

Melt butter in a small saucepan. Whisk in mustard, yogurt, mirin and maple syrup. Add milk slowly until desired consistency. Continue whisking over heat for 1-2 minutes.

Take all those elements and combine them with a simply pan seared salmon fillet and you've got quite a meal!

The sweet potatoes went wonderfully with the grains. They added a nice flavor and texture - not too mushy either! I was worried since a few pieces weren't totally troasted, but those 10 minutes in the broth made them perfectly soft. The mustard was EXACTLY what I was looking for with the salmon and potatoes :) What are your favorite ingredient combos?