Scallops are not Shellfish

I know the title sounds complicated, doesn't it? But really, it's a good thing to remember, because things like crab, shrimp, crayfish, etc. will kill me. That's not how I want to go out! If I go out choking and not breathing well there better be some illicit activities involved! Simple as that, yo.

Mollusks? Generally seem safe. So, when me and Miss Rabbit went protein searching at our local Sprouts (I hate hippies but hey a sale is a sale!), this is what dropped her My Little Pony Headed jaw.

The hard part? She doesn't like most veggies! But that's ok, the few she does, I can cook well. This leads us to:

Scallops, Zucchini, and Pasta

I love headers..

So first things first. Ingredients. Well, maybe after shopping so is it second things second? F it, first. 

• Scallops (I do about a pound)
• Pasta (I like angel hair a lot)
• 4 tbsp. butter 
• Herbs to taste: in my case 1 tbsp. Parsley and 2 tbsp. "Italian Seasoning" 
• 1 Zucchini: I did have a normal green zucchini and 1 yellow Mexican squash thingy.. Yellow Zucchini!
• Garlic. Many. Seriously I'm sure this is 1/2 the reason I'm single. I did 5 big cloves in all this. 
• Bread - Tonight was a yummy olive bread.

I used probably too many dishes making this, but, I'm still getting used to pictures..

There's a hard part to scallops. They often come frozen, especially if you live in a desert, like me. So what do you do? Thaw them. Now you can't just let them sit out all day. They get funkay. So what's an industrious young 1D3 (nerd joke) creature like myself going to do?
How water bath

Seriously, let them soak in hot water. Change it a few times until thaw.

And now, to cook it!

Noodles

1. Cook noodles according to directions on package. Seriously. Follow those directions.
2. Make sure you're following directions

The Sauce 

1. Take about 1/2 your butter and dice it.
2. Mix in your herbs.
3. Toss in a little of your garlic
4. Add it to a pot.
1. Secret ingredient for happiness: While your scallops cook down, pour some of your water/butter from there into this. Don't tell anyone. It's just between me and you. 
5. Slowly heat this until everything is melted. 
6. Keep cooking until it smells awesome. 
7. Add your noodles.

Zucchini

1. Slice your zucchini as close to evenly as possible. I'm no pro, I don't expect you to be. If you are and you're reading my blog? Comment, I automatically love you. 
2. Add About 1tbsp. of the butter to a pan and let it melt 
3. Throw in about a third of your garlic and let it brown in the butter
4. After the garlic is browned a bit, toss in the slices of squashes (try to keep one flat layer as best you can).
5. It's time to flip them when they start getting translucent. I flip them really a total of three times. 

The Scallops, or "The Magic."

1. Throw in what's left of your butter.
2. Toss in what's left of your garlic when the butter is melted.
3. Again, brown that garlic! 
4. When the garlic is brown, the butter is sizzling, turn down the heat just a bit and lay out your scallops. Again, try not to stack. Spread them just a bit.
   
   This is apparently where people think it's confusing. When do you flip/turn them? I leave them until the edges start to turn color. See, scallops have that layer of kind of see through area. When the sides start to take on a more, flesh\white tone, I flip them. Simple as that. 
5. After your first flip, you might notice a lot of fluid/butter in the pan. Drain some off.
1. This is where that secret I told you about earlier (wink wink) comes in.
6. After they look all around fleshy/white, they should be done. 
1. Another secret? This is the point I drain off all the fluid and let them sit in the pan for a bit. Flipping them around every minute or so. This gets some browning and texture besides "scallop," all around. 

Slice your bread, add it all together. You can keep salt and pepper handy, but honestly I didn't need any between my herbal choices, the garlic, the little bit of.."fishiness," that scallops have, and the olive/salty in the bread choice. 

Wanton for these Wontons

Once, back in the ancient history, me and Miss Rabbit were thinking about how fun it would to run a small diner, or food truck, with a target audience that might include those who frequently used certain substances that cause a bit of hunger.
Yep we were thinking about stoner food.

We had multiple ideas, including simplicity of pricing, decor, etc. But when it came to thinking about food? Peanut Butter and Jelly came to mind. I mean, sober, drunk, stoned, PB&J is where it's at.
But sammiches and toast? Boring. I can't charge for that!

This gave birth to Peanut Butter and Jelly Wontons.

So I'm going to try and add picture for steps now, too. Because, well, this is for my attention disabled friends. 

What you will need

• Peanut Butter - I like natural peanut butters, or fresh ground up peanut butter. But that's just my tastes.
• Some sort of Preserves or Jelly - This is what was on hand. 
• Wonton/Dumpling wrappers. Yep, This is an excuse to go to the Asian market.. Everyone that knows me knows this hurts my feeling. Twist my arm even. 
• Water. 
• Optional (and not shown) hot sauce (I use sriracha).

• A pan for cooking in - I love my wok.
• A little oil of choice - Seriously if I had peanut oil I'd probably have used that to keep to a theme.

Seriously these might be some of the easiest things to make. Almost as easy as a standard PB and J sammich. 

Lets get cookin'

Lay out the dumpling wraps.

About 1/2 to 1/3 spoonful of peanut butter.

Wet around the edge of the wrapper, fold, and pinch, pinch, pinch around the edged. I get about 8 pinches each.

Heat some oil in your pan (enough to coat the bottom) and toss in the wontons.

When they brown (about 2 minutes or so) flip.

Remove to some paper towels to let the oil siphon off.

The Sauce

This is simple: Add preserves (2 or 3 scoops), about equal amount water, heat for 30 seconds in the microwave, and mix that stuff up! TADA! If you want to add in your hot sauce, glob in to taste, stir it up. This is a simple, quick sauce.

So how hard was that? Not hard at all. Serve it up! There are so many fun things to do with these. We tried with the jelly inside (ends badly). We tried with honey inside (It melts out as Honey Lava and melts your hands off!). We have also toyed with the idea of adding banana inside but have not yet determined if this is a good idea. Please, try it and let us know!

In the end? Our favorites are a simple dipping sauce like listed above, or drizzled with a little honey before they cool off. You can use Nutella, chocolate, what ever you would normally put on your PB&J and then some. It's a simple, easy to change, lovely little meal. I eat about 10. Rabbit eats like 6. They are filling, you get more than enough peanut butter, you get to choose how much jelly you get, it's all toasty and hot.. Really just be careful not to spill the oil !!!!!

On a roll! Wait no, Tortilla!

I am on a roll with posting though! This cooking this be fun, yo.

So tonight the Mighty Miss Rabbit was burdened with finding something to make. So she hit up her secret lover (Pinterest) and I can only assume she typed something like "OMFG what can I make that isn't too hard and I can still con Kobold into cooking tonight!!!"

Ok she doesn't con me as much as I enjoy helping, and then she sneaks away and laughs maniacally. It works.

So what did we do?
White Sauce Enchiladas.

Thanks to the awesomeness that is Gimme Some Oven we had something to go off of!!

We pulled up their recipe and went to the market. And promptly screwed up, grabbed "Mexican Cheese," forgot sour cream or yogurt, and, well, lets just say we might have been distractable. It happens. Don't judge.
The worst part? We didn't notice until we got home. So, we made due:

• 6 tablespoons butter
• ½ cup flour
• 1 can o' chicken stock
• 1 small can chopped Chiles
• ½ teaspoon ground cumin
• ½ cup mozzarella 
• 10 normal sized tortillas
• Around 1 lb chopped and cooked chicken
• 1 can White Northern beans
• 8 ounces Mexican Cheese
• 1 avocado
• Cilantro to taste

You'll notice it's almost spot on to Gimme Some Oven's. It gets a little weird around here. Mainly because we ain't that smart sometimes. 

Onto the Yummy

Let's start with the chicken (the easy part).

1. Chop up that chicken into bits and pieces as small as you want. Rabbit uses scissors, and giggles. 
2. Throw it in a pan, and cook it!
1. So I didn't add in the spices. But, all we did was add about
• 1 teaspoon garlic
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon this awesome citrus chili power I've acquired somewhere.
3. Cook it through. It doesn't take but like, 8 minutes if you cut them small. 

The sauce (the not as easy part!)

1. You get to learn to make a roux!
1. In a sauce pan throw in half of your butter and let it liquify
2. Add in about a quarter of your flour
3. Whisk this until it becomes a lovely gelatinous glob- Cook until it browns a bit
2. Add in about half of your chicken stock, whisking and stirring to get it mixed and no clumpy bits. Let this cook for about two minutes.
3. Add in more flour and chicken stock. Whisk whisk whisk! Continue until you're out of flour and chicken stock. Going a bit slow helps.
4. Throw in your chiles.
5. Add that mozzarella!
6. Stir this occasionally on like, 3 or 4 depending on your stove. Not quite half heat. You'll notice the sauce thickens, the cheese at first forms a ball all on it's own, then slowly (but surely) it'll mix into the sauce and taste yummy. 
7. Add your cumin

While the sauce becomes freaking incredible off to the side, spend some time building your first layer of nom. This isn't hard. Chop some tortillas in half, and lay them out in a roasting pan of some sort (I use one that's like 9"x14"). Make a good covered layer. Throw in some of your beans. I added some sliced cilantro. Throw in some of your chicken, about half. By now your sauce should be saucey and sassy. Pour about a third of it over this layer. I use a spoon to spread and mix all the yumminess over the tortillas. Spread some of your Mexican Cheese over the top. Add tortillas like you did before, and do it all again. More tortillas, and you'll be out of meat and beans! But you have a top. You can stop here, but, I like more sauce and cheese.
 Lay out your sliced lawyers (err, avocados) over the top and make it pretty! 

Cover the pan with foil, and toss it in the oven at 350. You probably should have pre-heated, but who am I to judge?
Let this bake for about a half an hour, and poof, yummy, if improvised, white enchiladas. 

Sere with a cold beer and a shot of tequila! I like Don Julio myself ahaha.

Pulled apart at the BBQ seams

Somewhere in Imgur I saw a picture of some awesome buffalo pull aparts. Like monkey bread, really, but stuffed with chicken, coated with some sort of nuclear hot sauce.

I was in love.

Miss Rabbit, on the other hand, is scared of things that might give her cotton candy haired self some sort of nasal drip based aneurysm, the scaredy cat.
Instead I revert to my BBQ-Mechanic roots, and came up with something much more fun.

BBQ PULL APARTS! NOM

These are simple. Like, any rocket scientist with a chimpanzee brain can probably make these. But they look good, seem complex, and are freaking yummy.
Yum-My. NOM, even.

Heck you only really need three things to make them:

• Pork
• BBQ sauce
• Dough

Ok so that's vague. we will get into each one of these on their own. Let's start with my favorite, the protein. You're going to need:

• About a pound of pork
• Choice of fancy seasonings
• 1 tablespoon Cayenne
• 1 tablespoon Paprika (I like the smoked for this)
• 1 tablespoon Garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 tablespoon Black Pepper
• 1/2 tablespoon White Pepper
• 1 tablespoon Italian Seasoning 
• 1 teaspoon Cumin
• An oven safe cooking device
• A stove top place to get some searing going down
• A little oil or butter for that stove top place

Now you can change the spices around, these are just what sounded good at the time. It's pork, enjoy it. 

1. Mix your spices up, and spread them over the top (and some of the sides) of your meat. 
2. On the stove top, throw in your butter or oil on medium high heat. Lets get that hot. 
3. Drop the meat onto the sizzling stove top, and let the tops and sides sear a bit. This gets a tasty effect out of those spices, gives a bit of color. 
1. You're not cooking the meat. Just trapping the top bits in!
4. After about 6 minutes, really, just like 6 minutes, pull them out of the pan, into your oven safe place, and add a little water to the bottom of this. You want to meat to stay nice and juicy. I sometimes add a splash or two of bourbon (it's BBQ after all) to this water. Cover it all with foil and throw it in the over at like 200 degrees for.. a while. If you can go lower (I do halfway between "Warm" and 200) do it. This will sit in here for 4 hours, untouched, left alone, forgotten. 

While this is going, we start with the dough. Why? Because you can buy BBQ sauce at the store. I mean, I don't (and I'll go into detail I promise!) but, you can. If you want. Lazy sack of..

Ahem, onto the dough!

• 1.25 cup of flour
• 1 cup of water
• 1/2 cup of corn meal or corn bread mix
• 1 packet instant cheater yeast
• 1.5 tablespoon of butter

Easy right? I mean, it's dough.. But:

1. Mix 1 cup flour, about 2/3 of your corn meal/mix, yeast and butter together. I like to use a whisk and mix it all up nice like. Make it pretty. 
2. Add a bit of water, mix. Add water, mix. I mix until it's..err..doughy but not sticky. If you add too much water, add a bit more flour and corn yumminess.
3. Flour your counter (I add in a bit of the left over cornie goodness when doing this) and roll out, punch, knead your dough. I roll it flat a few times. 
4. Make a ball, toss it in a covered bowl, and leave it alone for an hour. 
5. After the hour is up, roll it out, punch it down, add more flour/corn if needed, toss back in the bowl, recover, and leave it to rise for a bit longer. 

BBQ sauce (sing it.. You know you want to). 

• A big can of tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon Cayenne
• 1 tablespoon Paprika (I like the smoked for this)
• 1 tablespoon Garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 1 tablespoon Black Pepper
• 1/2 tablespoon White Pepper
• 1 tablespoon Italian Seasoning 
• 1 teaspoon Cumin
• A squirt of hot sauce
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• a splash of red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
• A splash of soy
• ---I like to add a splash of bourbon. Again, BBQ. 

You'll notice this and the pork seasoning are friends. It's because, well, I like similar flavors across the board.  I'll be honest, when I made this, I messed up. that BBQ sauce only went on the top. The insides were coated with Honey Sriracha Sauce that I mistook for another bottle of BBQ. 

• 3 to 1 ratio honey and Sriracha
• That's it

So, to cook the BBQ sauce, it's not that hard. Just mix all of that in a pot on low heat for as long as you want to cook it. I do about 2 hours. For the Sriracha, mix the honey and sauce I mix the two, put it in the microwave for 30 seconds, mix it again. Sauce is easy. 

-------------Now the hard part.------------------

This is where things get hard. Like the header says. 

• You need a muffin pan, or bundt pan, or a clean pan you can stack things in for the oven.
• You need a bowl with a bit of melted butter in it
• I like a silicone brush for brushing sauce

Take your pork out of the oven, and shred that beast. Rip it, cut it, make it fine bits of animal byproduct.

Roll out your now fluffy dough and make it far less fluffy. Then roll it into a tube and cut into about 12 pieces. Mostly equal, though a bit here and there is fine. 

Roll these parts into balls, and smoosh them flat. 

This is where it gets fun.
Take the flat bits, place a finger load of meat in it, dab some sauce inside, and close it like a dumpling, or ball. Pretty much the goal is to get balls of meat and sauce. Dip the bottom in butter, put in the pan. Depending on your pan, your stacking methods will vary. I use a muffin pan, so I fill a few muffins, then stack on top and make a pile. In a bundt you make a layer, add a layer. In a normal roasting pan or cake pan or something, add a layer, make stable, stack. While stacking, every so often, drizzle and drip BBQ sauce

When you're done, throw it in the over at about 400 for 10-15 minutes. They will puff up. They will smell delicious. They might not be pretty. I'm ok with all of this. 

To serve: I served with seasoned corn and baked beans that I cooked through with a bit of the pork dripping from the searching, and a chunk of pork fat I didn't want to make into the pull aparts. Pull out as much pull apart as you want, stack on a plate. They pull apart, if done right, and are like pork dumplings! 

Eating out is fun, but eating in works too

Now it's been a good solid minute since Miss Rabbit and I have updated. The move has seen a lot less of us eating out, and more of us eating in.
Which means more of me cooking.

Which means there is going to be a change to our writing. I am going to brag, and post, about the great things that we are making and eating. Is it all healthy? Probably not. Is it good? Certainly.
So stay tuned for a once a week (for now) adventure into our dietary delights.

or something.

Change of Venue!

Hello readers! For those of you who didn't know, our little hiatus was partially due to the fact that the Amazing Kobold and I have moved from Las Vegas to Phoenix. I know, I know... it's sad, no more super awesome Vegas recommendations for the moment, but we have been working our way around the Phoenix valley and have found some awesome places to eat. Please stay tuned for awesome updates and delicious ideas for those of you in, or visitng the Haboob capitol of the Southwest!

Are you a Mexican, or a Mexican't?!

That makes me laugh, only because I've heard it in person so many times.
Lindo Michoacan fits the bill as a good little place, though a bit pricey, to try something good and new.
The staff was fairly efficient, considering there were two large groups in when we got there. First, I love any place that will stuff me full of chips and salsa. Carbs are my kryptonite. That and Rabbit got me this cheesy goodness that I think the gods have named "Queso Fundito" which considering my complete child like understanding of Spanish, I believe means "Cheese of Fun." It was gooey and cheesy and went great with salsa.

Onto the main course Miss Rabbit got these gi-huge-ant chicken chimichangas that were wonderful. But they paled next to my soup. It was this goat soup that was cooked in beer, not water. It was a HUGE bowl, so much that I took some home for lunch the next day. It's a red brothed, tender, spicy, flavorful party in my mouth, and the goat was invited.

I don't know your experience with goat, but mine is hit and miss. I've cleaned up after goats, I know what these things eat, so I don't blame anyone on that. But this was fall apart in my mouth wonderful. Birria de Chivo (Cabrito) is what it's called on the menu, but in my mouth it's called "Daddy," errr.. "Good."

Dessert, well, we went the "Choose your own adventure" route and picked the best picture we could find.
Because it was on fire.

We didn't even look at the name (And I'm not seeing it on the online menu) but it was Ice-Cream, crunchy bits, some sort of cake, and FIRE.
There is one down side. We couldn't figure out how to put the fire out (it takes a person on either side, and a HUGE blast of lung power, so you smokers beware), so it was a little charred when we got to eating it. But under the charcoal it was still an awesome dessert to finish off a great meal.