Tag: kids

Ropa Vieja in the FoodiNinja

I have great friends who support this shit show of a blog. One sent me a tricked out FoodiNinja and has expected a post about using it for months now. 

I attempted Ropa Vieja (as you can guess from the title).

What you need:

Big hunk of meat, flank steak is traditional but you can use a shoulder or butt

Onions – sliced

Bell peppers – sliced

Garlic – smashed up or chopped

Diced tomatoes (I recommend a can or two because I hate chopping) see my salad post

Tomato paste

Spices: paprika, cumin, oregano

Salt and Pepper

Chicken broth

Orange juice (or any citrus juice) either from a fruit or from a cartoon. You do you.

White wine for the pot, not just to drink, I mean you get to drink most of it.

What I did:

The FoodiNinja has a saute setting so I started with that on high.

Salt the meat.

Brown the meat on all sides

Add sliced onions and bell peppers and garlic and get them soft.

Cover in spices, more is better.

Once you’ve got a nice smell coming out of the pot add the tomato products.

For the chicken stock and citrus I took about a cup of broth, juiced two small oranges and one lime topped off with white wine till I had 2 cups of liquid.

Dump that in and stir it all around.

Cook on low for as long as you can.

One thing I like about doing this in a pot or slow cooker is that the house smells amazing all day. The FoodiNija has a wicked seal on it so I didn’t get to make the house smell nice. 

I ran up against dinner time. And the shoulder wasn’t shreddable. I switched it to pressure cook and BOOM in 10 more minutes I had shredded meat. Given how my biggest challenge is often timing with dishes having backup pressure cooking is my biggest reason to use the FoodiNinja. 

chefmckean

Sea Bass with Ginger and Soy Sauce marinade

I made the mistake of trying to juice ginger. In my fancy juicer that presses the juice out of things. Well,  out of juicy things. Which ginger is not. I almost broke my fancy juicer that I don’t want to replace. I also tried to add these funny apple-pears to add juice. It didn’t fucking work becuase they also aren’t juicy enough. So I had to clean it out a second time. Soooo much fiber from the ginger. Any who. I was planning on making some magical ginger cordial.

 I used a small amount of the precious ginger juice in this recipe and will have to rethink my cordial.

What you need:

Soy sauce.

Ginger (only a tiny amount, that shit is spicy!). Or chop up peeled ginger into tiny bits.

Shallots.

Green onions.

Honey (for a fancy drizzle at the end).

Sea bass.

What you do:

Mix the soy sauce, ginger, shallots, and green onions together. 

Marinate the sea bass in the mixture. 30 min is enough. Often I say more is better in this case it isn’t. Sea bass is too fragile to handle overnight or long marinating. 

Put it in a well-greased pan and cook at 350 0F for about 12 min. Check it. If it isn’t done at the 12 min mark leave it in but check it constantly. Like every minute–sea bass is finicky. If you overcook sea bass you will go to hell.  

I also figured out that you can microwave the fish if it isn’t quite done. In 10 second intervals. How, you might ask, did I find this out? It’s because my kids are shits. They got hangry so I got the fish on the plates and tried to get them to eat. But it wasn’t quite done and they threw a fit! So I microwaved it at 10 second intervals until it was flaky, DO NOT GO FOR MORE! I’m trying to save your soul here. 

Drizzle honey on top like a fancy restaurant. I thought the kids would at least want to eat something with honey on it. Nope they did not.

Did I mention my kids are shits and did not appreciate the fact that this would cost as much as one of their bikes in a fancy restaurant (depending on how much sea bass you’re dealing with)?

My husband and I enjoyed all the fish and the kids had PBJ’s.  My husband loved it so much and was so effusive about how good it tasted,  I wonder if he would accept this in place of more adult activity.

chefmckean