Sweet Love and Ginger

Side Dish

Roasted Carrots

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Roasted Carrots  Roasted carrots might very well be one of the most boring posts I’ve ever done but really it must be done. As I’m working my way through the cooking school series I’m starting to realize all the little, mindless recipe that I make that go into a meal, recipes that you guys need to know just as much as you need to know how to make that amazing pasta dish or roast meat.

But really, I shouldn’t call roast carrots boring, because honestly if they weren’t delicious I wouldn’t cook them all the time and I do cook them quite often. Carrots are cheap, hearty, healthy and go so well with so many dishes, that they really do make the most convenient side dish.

Roasted Carrots

In this particular recipe, I use chopped chives, since its spring and they are in abundance, but Just about any other herb or even many spices work also. I personally like dill, thyme, cumin, turmeric, and smoked paprika, but I definitely suggest experimenting and finding a hand full of spices that you like best. Since each spice can be so different it’s pretty easy to see how the same recipe can be applied to a number of different meals. For example, if I’m making a roast chicken I prefer thyme, or chives whereas if I’m having fajita chicken I would prefer cumin, and smoked paprika to go with barbecue,  again the options are endless.

Roasted Carrots

Roasted Carrots
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4 servings
Ingredients
  • 8 large carrots
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon fresh herbs (1 teaspoon dried)
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Wash, peel and chop the carrots into 1 ½ inch thick slices.
  3. In a large bowl toss the carrots with the olive oil, salt and pepper until well coated. Transfer to a sheet pan and roast in the oven for 20 minutes. When done the carrots should be slightly browned on the edges and tender.
  4. Remove the carrots to a serving platter and sprinkle with herbs. Serve immediately.

 

Hawaiian Rice Pilaf

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This is a recipe for basic Hawaiian Rice Pilaf. It is a fun twist on traditional pilaf that is sure to jazz up week night meals.

Hawaiian Rice Pilaf

Almost a year ago now I have my first experience with this awesome take on a classic pilaf. It was the starch that Sister Chuck served at her wedding. I remember it being a burst of flavor, with a touch of creaminess, and lots of texture, essentially it was the perfect combination. With the summer drawing near around here I’ve been craving everything tropical. Yes my taste buds are on trend, no surprise there. Anyway I thought this would be the perfect dish to test out to satisfy my cravings.

It took a couple tries but I finally got that rich and tangy flavor I was looking for and it was perfectly satisfying. I really love how the macadamia nuts add just enough texture to the dish to really make it pop. I tried it with almonds and it just wasn’t right. Macadamia is where it’s at for this one.

Also if you didn’t notice this was the also the main inspiration for last week’s Hawaiian Chicken Recipe. They go together like a charm, now add a tropical salad and you will be transported.

If you are interested in some other options to go with this one I also noticed some of my other favorite food blogger ladies are on this tropical kick too. Check out Christine’s Hawaiian Pineapple Chicken Kabobs, Chungah’s Asian Salmon Kabobs , or Tieghan’s Hawaiian Carne Asada.

It’s quite possible that you could make a giant batch of this pilaf and eat it with a different main dish nearly all week. I sincerely doubt that you could get bored with this much flavor going on.

Hawaiian Rice Pilaf

Hawaiian Rice Pilaf
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4 Servings
Ingredients
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • ½ a medium onion, chopped
  • ½ cup chopped macadamia nuts
  • 1 cup diced pineapple
  • 1 ¼ cup white rice
  • 2 ½ cups chicken broth
  • 2 tablespoons chopped parsley
  • salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
  1. Melt butter in a thick bottomed sauce pan over medium high heat.
  2. Sauté onions, buts and pineapple for 1 to 2 minutes until the onions have softened.
  3. Add in the rice and cook for another 2 to 3 minutes until the rice begins to toast.
  4. Stir in chicken broth and bring it up to a boil. Reduce to a simmer cover and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the rice is tender.
  5. Remove from heat and add parsley. Adjust the seasonings and serve.

What are summer flavors are you craving right now? I’d love to know.

Have you come across any awesome tropical recipes? Please share them!! I’m working up quite the collection right now.

Hawaiian Rice Pilaf

Crispy Honey Mustard Sweet Potato Fries

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Honey Mustard Sweet Potato Fries

I might be the smartest person to ever enter a kitchen.

Ok that might just be my opinion, but you should strongly consider the possibility that it’s true.

I came up with the craziest concept the other day and I had to try it. Then tweek it, and try it again, and again, and well hell 4th time is the charm. I may or may not have eaten all the experiments in between, you guys, because omg they were all delicious. Too bad I wasn’t just going for delicious though.

Honey Mustard Sweet Potato Fries

Not that delicious is bad (it’s totally great), you see, I wanted sweet potato fries and honey mustard, because they just go together you know? I mean that combination is already delicious so I wanted to do something different than just make a dipping sauce, because lets be real here that’s been done for year now. Not that there’s anything super wrong with dipping, dipping sauce is awesome, but not what I was looking for either.

I wanted an all in one fry, kind of like barbecue chips, they need nothing, all the flavor is there already.

Honey Mustard Sweet Potato Fries

So I toiled and toiled in a hot steamy kitchen; ok maybe I just baked a few batches of fries while I waited for Chuck to get back from golfing and it was actually a lot of fun. Let’s just go ahead and establish my dork status now, I like to experiment and you know use the scientific method, that thing we all learned in middle school. Yeah I’m that girl. Anyway coming up with the right spice to liquid ratio was the key here. We want crispy fries, with all the flavor and then there was the honey. I’m pretty positive there’s no way to cook the fries with the honey on them and have them come out both crispy and not burned honey tasting.

In the end the honey drizzle was just the thing. I’m pretty sure I ate my weight in sweet potato that day. It’s cool, I don’t have a wedding dress to squeeze myself into in a few months or anything. Psh. Whatever.

You are going to love this really, it’s the best, and the new way to cook sweet potato fries. I’m telling you this is going to be a thing.

Crispy Honey Mustard Sweet Potato Fries
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4 servings
Ingredients
  • 2 tablespoons oil
  • 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon ground mustard
  • ½ teaspoon turmeric
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon pepper
  • ¼ teaspoon paprika
  • 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into strips
  • 1-2 tablespoons honey
  • 1 teaspoon of course sea salt
  • 1 tablespoon green onion, chopped (for garnish)
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
  2. In a small bowl whisk together the oil, vinegar, lemon, mustard, turmeric, salt, pepper, and paprika.
  3. In a large bowl toss the sweet potato with the spice mixture until well coated.
  4. Spread the potato out on a large prepared baking sheet, so that none of them are touching and place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes.
  5. Turn the fries once and place back in the oven for 15 minutes then remove from heat and let cool slightly.
  6. Drizzle with honey. Sprinkle with salt and green onion. Serve immediately.

Honey Mustard Sweet Potato Fries

Venison Sausage Stuffing

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I’m so incredibly excited to share this recipe with you today.

It’s a recipe that I got from Miss Amy, kind of. She’s not exactly one to write down what she does or how she does it, so there is definitely some improvisation in nearly everything she makes based on what she has on hand. This of course makes it difficult for me or anyone else to recreate it. I can usually figure it out pretty easily. I mean most of these recipes I have seen made about 8 bajillion times but once in a while there is just one that I cannot for the life of me get right.

This is one of those recipes.

It only took me 2 or 3 YEARS to get right. I didn’t make it often at first because I could never get it right, but this winter I made it my life goal, and after several unsuccessful attempts I think I’ve finally gotten it.

You see this is one of Chuck’s favorite things ever so it’s kind of imperative that I get it right. I don’t think it would make or break the relationship or anything but I like pleasing him, so it became pretty important to me, and he was happy to be my guinea pig.

The thing is with stuffing that it’s very dependent on personal preference. I know quite a few people who prefer it dry and others that prefer more of a chunky-pudding consistency. Personally I like it exactly in the middle, and that’s what made getting it right hard.

Now if you don’t have or are not a fan of venison sausage just swap it out for any other sausage you prefer, it will change the flavor a bit, but not the recipe.

If you do prefer it moister I would suggest not uncovering it while it cooks, before you try adding more liquid. It makes a big difference. If you like it dryer simply uncover it sooner. However I would do this in small increments because a lot can happen in a minute or two in the oven.

Venison Sausage Stuffing
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 4 to 6 Servings
Ingredients
  • ½ lb venison sausage
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 1 onion, peeled & chopped
  • 1 celery rib chopped
  • 3 cups chopped toasted bread of choice (I like to use
  • different types for texture)
  • 1 cup vegetable broth
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • ½ tsp thyme
  • Salt & Pepper to taste
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 Degrees.
  2. Place bread cubes on a rimmed baking pan and bake for 6 to 8 minutes, until toasted and golden.
  3. Meanwhile in a large skillet cook and crumble the sausage until browned over medium high heat. Discard excess fat if any (venison usually doesn’t have much but beef or pork sausage will) and remove from pan and place in a 9×12 inch baking pan.
  4. In the same pan add butter, onion, celery thyme, parsley, salt and pepper. Sauté over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the vegetables are softened. Remove from heat and combine with sausage.
  5. Deglaze the hot pan with broth and allow it to simmer over medium high heat until reduced slightly (you should be left with 1 ½ cups liquid), scraping the browned bits from the bottom of the pan while it simmers.
  6. Combine the toasted bread with the sausage and vegetables. Add the reduced broth and toss to combine.
  7. Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes until browned on top and hot in the middle.

Similar Recipes:

Caramel Apple Bread Pudding

Leftover Turkey & Stuffing Casserole

Leftover Mashed Potato Pancakes

 

 

 

Appreicating Simple Recipes & Wild Rice Pilaf

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I LOVE cooking (obviously right?), so I have a lot of recipes. Even a few that I don’t or haven’t yet shared on here. The reason is simple; it’s a lot of freaking effort. I have to plan, prepare, cook, photograph, edit, write a post, a recipe, double check it all and then it’s ready to post.
Wild Rice Pilaf

Sometimes I just want to write down a recipe and hold onto it for later use or to share with others. There are about a million places to do that, but lately I have been keeping track of them all on MyRecipeMagic.com. So I uploaded this recipe recently that I have made a bunch over the years. I didn’t post it on this blog because it was such a simple recipe that I didn’t think it would generate a lot of traffic, and honestly I wasn’t that excited about it.

I’m not going to put myself through the hoopla I just described if I’m not excited about it. This blog is meant to be a hobby, something fun, and therefore I don’t put pressure on myself for it because then it would defeat the purpose.

Anywho; I uploaded this recipe and within a day it received double the views of any other recipe I had uploaded to the site. Did you catch that? Within. A. Day. What’s more, is something I hadn’t noticed until I was looking at these results was the very next most popular recipe was my Parmesan Pasta Recipe, also a super simple recipe that I make all the time. The reason for this phenomenon I’m not quite sure, but it’s made me think that perhaps this is in fact a recipe worth posting on the blog. Maybe simple recipes are  something to get excited about, I mean we all need then from time to time, we all make them, and I’m sure that those non-cooking people would really appreciate a good explanation of how to make some of these simple dishes.

I won’t wax on about the virtues of the simply prepared dish instead I will leave you with the recipe in question. A perfectly simple side dish that can elevate any meal, and as an added bonus it is completely clean. Enjoy!

Wild Rice Pilaf

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 onion ( chopped )   
2 carrots ( medium, peeled and chopped )   
1 cup wild rice, raw
2 1/2 cups water1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup peas ( fresh or frozen )   
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon scallions ( chopped )    
In a large sauce pan Heat oil over medium high heat and sauté onion, and carrot for 5-7 minutes or until the onion becomes translucent. Add rice water and salt to the pan and bring to a boil. Once boiling reduce heat to low, cover and cook for 50 minutes to an hour. The rice should be tender, and water dissipated. You may however need to drain the last little bit. Add peas, pepper and stir to incorporate. Serve with scallions on top.

 

Wild Rice Pilaf