I love coming up with new recipes, and this past weekend was one of those times. I particularly enjoy family dinners on Sundays. There is something about that day when we can all come together and enjoy a meal together. Granted it is extremely important for me to have everyone come together every day for dinner, but I realize that is not always possible with work schedules. So as I have been trying to eat more healthy throughout the week, meaning for vegetables, I decided to come up with this lightly sauteed Thai curry asparagus.
I recently fell in love with this curry paste when I made Khao Poon and there was something about the sweetness that I fell in love with.
Thai Curry Asparagus Recipe
Ingredients:
4 oz can sweet Thai Noodle paste
1/4 cup of water
1 bundle of asparagus, washed and trimmed
3 kaffir lime leaves, optional
1 Thai chili, lightly bruised, optional
salt to taste
Start by heating a large skillet on medium heat. Add in the Thai noodle paste and give that a good stir, cooking for a couple of minutes to waken all of the paste.
Next add in the water, kaffir lime leaves, salt, and chili. Give another good stir. Add in the asparagus, and cook for about 4-5 minutes or until your desired tenderness. I still like my asparagus with just a slight crunch. Next, just plate and serve.
The end result is a perfect vegetable dish with that sweet curry flavor. Serve alongside with some rice for a perfect side dish. I hope you enjoy!
The Super Bowl has passed, and to be honest I do not think that any one of us in my family actually cared. Sure, the boys said ‘I want the Patriots to go down!’ a few times that day, but the only thing I really cared about was what we were going to snack on. I am done asking, for the most part, what everyone would like to eat, and just lay things out. My menu was simple. Slow baked ribs that would be later fried and glazed, and loaded potato skins that would also be fried.
One of my top recipes is the loaded potato skins, and as I have made so many awesome variations of potato skins, there is one thing I have never done and that is to actually fry the skins. It’s a total game changer. Why? Well because you get a whole shell of that awesome crispy and crunchy texture, not just on the edges, but the entire shell. It’s almost chip like in texture, but with a bit, and just a bit of that creaminess from the potato.
Loaded Potato Skin Nachos
As with any nacho, you load this as you darn well please, but for me, there was one ingredient that made this shine and that was crispy, Nueske’s smoked duck breast lardons.
Let’s get started.
Ingredients:
4 lbs of russet potatos, cleaned
4 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
Nueske’s smoked duck breast, cubed (or substitute bacon), and fried until slightly crisp
1 shallot, thinly sliced
2 oz can of black olives, drained
2 green onions, thinly sliced
sour cream, optional
avocado, sliced, optional
Your favorite hot sauce
cilantro, roughly chopped
1 serrano chili, thinly sliced, optional
shredded lettuce, optional
salt, to taste
3 cups of canola oil, 350 degrees
Again, you can build your nachos however you want. Add beans and tomatoes if you desire. Load these suckers up!
Start by preheating your oven to 400 degrees. Add the whole potatoes to a baking sheet. Use a fork and poke a few holes into each potato to allow steam to release while baking. Bake the potatoes for 50 minutes to 1 hour. Remove from the oven, and let them completely cool.
Once the potatoes have cooled, sliced them in half, lengthwise. Use a spoon and gently scoop out all of the potato into a bowl. I use all of the potato, add a bit of butter, salt, and milk and whip them up to mashed potatoes for another meal.
Once you have all of your skins ready, heat up a pot with the canola oil. Get the oil to 350 degrees on medium-high heat, and once you have your temperature, drop in about 7-8, or whatever can easily fit into the pot without crowding, and cook the skins for about 5-10 minutes or until you begin to see the interior of the skins get golden and nicely crisp. Using a slotted spoon, remove the potato skins and place them on a paper towel lined plate to release any excess oil. Immediately season by showering the skins with salt. Taters need salt.
Ingredients for making Loaded Potato Skin Nachos
Repeat with the potato skins.
Add the skins to a oven safe baking pan, and begin adding cheese into each skin.
When all of the skins have finished cooking and the excess oil is removed and they are nicely salted, layer the potato skins onto the baking pan and continue to add cheese into each shell.
Keep the oil on the stove, and take the cubed Nueske’s smoked duck breast and add them to the oil. Get them lightly crisp, then the same process with the slotted spoon and place onto the paper lined plate.
Take those Nueske duck lardons and place a couple into each shell. If you are using bacon, cook until slightly crisp, then crumble and add that into each shell. Add the shallots into each shell, then place back into a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is nicely melted.
Remove the potato skins from the oven (do not devour), then decorate them with green onions, avocado, cilantro, serrano chilies, olives, hot sauce, and sour cream (or whatever you desire).
Loaded Potato Skin Nachos Recipe
Plate and serve. You want to talk about an ultimate game day snack, this is the one! As much as we all love nachos, this loaded potato skin nacho recipe is really, really hard to beat. It’s everything you love about a nacho but in a crispy potato skin boat! Hope you enjoy!
Many of you may or may not have heard of sambal. Sambal itself is typically a mixture of chilies and a variety of other ingredients making it one really, really good condiment. Most of us are probably aware of the default Asisan sambal oelek, the red condiment found in Asian markets, or in your ethnic aisle at your grocery store, however there are lots of other varieties. Sambal matah is one of those, and it’s a force to be reckoned with. Simple ingredients make this sambal super addicting.
Sambal Matah Recipe
This is what is known as a raw sambal using fresh ingredients such as chilies, shallots, and lemongrass.
Let’s get started.
Ingredients:
5 shallots, thinly sliced
8 Thai bird’s eye chilies, thinly sliced
4 kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced and chopped
2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced and chopped
2 stalks of lemongrass, tender parts (near the bottom) only, thinly sliced and chopped
1 lime, zested and juiced
1 tbsp fish sauce (Red Boat or 3 Crab brand)
1 pinch of salt
1 tbsp coconut oil, warmed until a liquid
That’s it, and trust me when this is all mixed it is a powerhouse of flavor.
Once you have done all of your chopping and slicing, mix everything in a bowl. That’s it.
This sambal matah goes great (in my opinion) with pretty much anything. I’ve even caught myself just eating it by the spoonful. If you love the combination of shallots and chilies, then this will be right up your alley. This sambal is sweet, salty, sour, and spicy. Store this in an airtight container in the refrigerator (if it lasts that long) and serve as a condiment with your favorite dishes throughout the week.
You can find the fish sauce, lemongrass, and kaffir lime leaves at any of your local Asian markets. Hope you enjoy!
I find it interesting that over the last few months there are a couple of boxes of fillo dough and puff pastry in my freezer. I’m almost certain I had a couple of ideas bouncing around in my head during those purchases, but it was not until team members from D’Vash Organics contacted me once again to partner with them in creating yet another great recipe using their amazing D’Vash Date Nectar. That’s when I knew exactly what I was going to make. A traditional baklava, in some ways, but using D’Vash date nectar in replace of honey. The result was mind blowing to say the least.
Start by making your sweet sauce that will be used after the baklava has baked. You will want to do this ahead so that it has time to cool.
Add 3/4 cup of sugar, water, lemon juice, and D’Vash date nectar to a small pot. Bring to a boil on medium-high heat, then once boiling reduce the heat and cook for about 5 more minutes. Stir along the way. After 5 minutes, remove from the heat and let it cool.
Now the backbreaking work. Just kidding. This is the only time consuming part, and if you are having your kids help, this can take a bit of patience as unlayering each piece of fragile fillo can be a bit nerve wracking. Just make sure your fillo dough is completely thawed. I set mine out the day before and place it in the refrigerator overnight for a day or two to ensure it is completely thawed.
Get a baking sheet out, or if your are super detailed get a baking dish out that will fit your sheet of fillo dough. I go with my baking sheet and make sure that when I layer each fillo that it matches up with the previous fillo dough.
Make the sugar and nut mixture. To a food processor, or use a knife if you desire, pulse the nuts into a fine chop. Add the nuts to a bowl along with the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and cinnamon and give that a good mix.
Get your bowl of melted butter ready along with a pastry brush. Unroll a roll of fillo and get ready to baklava!
Place 10 fillo sheets onto the baking sheet one at a time, and brush each sheet with butter once it’s in the pan before adding the next sheet of fillo. After the 10th sheet, spread about 1/5 of nut mixture over the fillo dough.
Do the same process, but this time layer only 5 sheets, buttering each sheet, then on the 5th sheet, top with the nut and sugar mixture.
Do this about 4 more times with the 5 sheet layer process, then on the final top, go back to the 10 stack of fillo, ensuring that all nut mixture is used up before layering the top 10 sheets of fillo.
Butter the top of the 10th sheet, then gently push down and form the baklava.
Homemade Baklava Ingredients using D’Vash
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
Now let’s cut the baklava. Cut the fillo into about 2 inch strips, lengthwise, then make diagonal cuts to make somewhat of a diamond shape. If you want to keep things simple, just cut into rectangles, it’s up to you.
Place the baking sheet into the oven and cook for about 1 hour, up to 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Once the baklava is a great golden brown, remove from the oven, and immediately ladle over the cooled syrup you made earlier, ensuring that you get into all of those crevices.
Now the hard part… waiting.
The goal is to not only let the baklava cool, but you want that syrup to penetrate all of that great fillo that you took your time stacking. After about 4 hours, go ahead and try the baklava, but trust me the longer you wait, the better it gets. Kids approved, neighbors and friends approved, and chef approved.
If you are looking for a great treat that will be sure to please everyone (with the exception of those with nut allergies), then give this baklava a try. The replacement of D’Vash really made this baklava stand out. It had this subtle tartness that really made this delicious baklava pop.
If you are wanting to try D’Vash Organics Date Nectar (and I highly recommend it), then head over to their store and pick some up. My lucky readers can use the coupon code DVASHSIMPLECOMFORTFOOD upon check out! Hope you enjoy D’Vash as much as we do!
