French Toastilla with Peanut Butter and Banana

April 7, 2018 by Leave a Comment

 

It’s been a minute since I blogged here!  Being a working mom means being busy and having limited time and energy pretty much.. always!  I’ve been trying to find ways to jazz up my mealtime, but still eat fresh, healthy foods cooked at home instead of pure convenience foods. I LOVE how this little experiment turned out, so I had to share!  I was craving french toast, but didnt want something that heavy or sugary. I was trying to work with ingredients we had in the house, and I wanted it to have enough protein to balance out the carbs. I actually thought of the idea of french-toasting the tortilla because I wanted the tiny bit of extra protein that tossing it in egg added. 

This meal was a big hit with the whole family! I would love to see pictures if you decide to give it a try! 🙂 

French Toastilla With Peanut Butter and Banana
Serves 1
Delicious take on french-toast, lower sugar and lower carb than the traditional option.
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Prep Time
3 min
Cook Time
2 min
Total Time
5 min
Prep Time
3 min
Cook Time
2 min
Total Time
5 min
582 calories
67 g
186 g
26 g
21 g
5 g
255 g
573 g
14 g
0 g
18 g
Nutrition Facts
Serving Size
255g
Servings
1
Amount Per Serving
Calories 582
Calories from Fat 225
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 26g
40%
Saturated Fat 5g
27%
Trans Fat 0g
Polyunsaturated Fat 6g
Monounsaturated Fat 12g
Cholesterol 186mg
62%
Sodium 573mg
24%
Total Carbohydrates 67g
22%
Dietary Fiber 7g
30%
Sugars 14g
Protein 21g
Vitamin A
7%
Vitamin C
15%
Calcium
8%
Iron
23%
* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your Daily Values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
Does this look wrong?
Ingredients
  1. 1 whole wheat tortilla
  2. 1 egg
  3. 1 tspn vanilla
  4. 1/8 cup peanut butter
  5. 1/2 medium banana
  6. 1/4 cup blueberries
Instructions
  1. Whisk egg in a bowl and add vanilla. Dip tortilla in the egg mixture, let extra liquid drip off. Place tortilla in a heated nonstick pan (optionally, can use nonstick spray or butter to prevent tortilla from sticking). Let tortilla cook about 30 seconds per side.
  2. Remove tortilla from pan and top with peanut butter, bananas, and blueberries.
Notes
  1. This fast and simple breakfast can be jazzed up with any toppings you prefer! Add chocolate chips or chocolate syrup for a sweeter treat. Stick with just peanut butter and bananas for a more traditional taste!
beta
calories
582
fat
26g
protein
21g
carbs
67g
more
SashAroundTheClock http://www.sasharoundtheclock.com/
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Better Breakfast

February 3, 2015 by 2 Comments

The word breakfast literally means to break one’s fast. A fast is a time of not eating. So breakfast is literally the time of day where we give our bodies the nourishment that it has not received during our slumber.

You can argue that our bodies need less energy during the night, to which I would agree. But breakfast skippers (my former self included) find themselves not eating until lunch time. Guilty as charged. On an average night, if I went to bed around 11, and ate lunch at noon, that means I was leaving my body without proper nourishment for 13 hours! And by the time I ate, I would crave sugary, fatty foods. And lots of it.

So I started eating breakfast.

I have been thinking about breakfast a lot lately, and doing a bit of Google-research. I find study after study that says eating breakfast has no effect on health or weight loss. And study after study that says it does. So where is the truth in it?

I’ll put up a big disclaimer – I am not an expert. I did not conduct a study. But I can say this:

The studies that seemed to prove that eating breakfast didn’t matter did not control WHAT the eater ate for said breakfast. For example, both studies cited in this article, “Is Breakfast Overrated?” only seemed to control whether participants ate breakfast. No information is given about what was eaten.

In contrast, articles that were proponents of breakfast talk about high protein breakfasts, or low glycemic index breakfasts, and the effects on the participants. This website provides a list of studies addressing the importance of breakfast, if you’re interested: Breakfast Studies

I used to be a poptarts kind of breakfast girl. When I got into calorie counting, I nixed those, and breakfast all together as everything I considered to be a great breakfast ended up being most of the calories I would allot myself for the day. I don’t know what you eat for breakfast, but my typical breakfasts might have been:

– Poptarts on the go

– pancakes with syrup

– scrambled eggs with muffins

– eggs over easy with toast

Carb-laden goodness with a side of butter and sugar of some sort!

A Google image search for “typical American breakfast” pulls up pictures that have eggs, bacon, pancakes (with butter and syrup), a glass of juice, and a glass of coffee.

I did a poll on Facebook to see what some of my peers were eating, and some responses included:

– green smoothies

– oatmeal with peanut butter and/or banana

– chicken

– cereal

– a ham sandwich

– toast with peanut butter and banana

– just coffee

– And the closest response to the American “classic” : two eggs, an english muffin with butter and jam, and apple juice

The Case for a Better Breakfast

I used to fall asleep in class. I used to start my day with a sugar/carb laden breakfast, then a healthy-ish lunch, and I would still feel exhausted by 2. or I would skip breakfast and have a heavy lunch. Same result. Even if I had a “healthy-ish” breakfast – for a long time greek yogurt with fresh fruit and a squirt of agave was my go-to healthy breakfast!- i still ran out of energy and felt tired through out the day.

Then I was challenged to eat protein and VEGETABLES for breakfast. Gross, right? It really was, the first week. Once I got myself out of my American way of thinking about breakfast, it really changed how I approach my meals.

This website shows Breakfast Around the World, and I was surprised to see some veggies make a cameo on the breakfast plate!

Long story short, for the last few months I have been eating breakfast daily, and I typically eat a protein and a vegetable. I have more energy, feel better, and my weight has been creeping down. Just eating a good breakfast won’t guarantee weight loss, but it is a strong way to start the day — with the right nutrients so you have energy and can crack down on those cravings!

For ideas on how to add veggies into your morning meal, you can see what two of my favorite breakfast go-to’s are, as well as peruse Buzzfeed’s 29 Ways to eat More Vegetables at Breakfast.

Breakfast 1: Slowcooked Chicken with Snow Peas and BlueBerries 

IMG_2134

This breakfast eases the stress of morning food prep – I throw the chicken into the slow cooker the night before, and when morning comes around, I am awoken to the delightful scent of savory chicken. Throw it on the plate with some veggies and some blueberries, and you are all set!

Any slowcooker chicken recipe will work, but one of my favorites is below. It makes plenty for multiple meals, which is also a bonus!

1 can tomatoes

2 chicken breasts, 3 thighs

1/2 onion

1 tspn garlic powder

1/2 tspn onion powder

1 tspn italian seasoning

salt and pepper to preference

Toss in the slowcooker on low over night, and VOILA! Done!

Breakfast 2: Brussels Sprouts Power Bowl

IMG_2167

Okay, clearly my over-easy egg needs a little help. Gordon Ramsay?  Personal Lesson?  Just kidding! (but not really!) I’ll keep trying and if I get a better picture, I’ll edit this. 🙂

This delight is a little more work intensive, but it’s worth it!

2 ounces lean ground beef (or turkey!)

1/2 cup brussels sprouts, sliced into thin rounds (that’s the irritating part, but worth it!)

1 tspn coconut oil

1/4 onion

1/2 tspn paprika

1/2 tspn oregano

1/2 tspn red chili flakes

1/2 tspn garlic salt

1 egg

pepper to taste

Saute onions and all seasonings in coconut oil until tender. Add meat, cook until nearly done. add brussels sprouts. Saute 5 minutes. While sauteeing, cook an over easy egg. Serve egg on top. The yolk will taste so rich and delightful when it oozes out all over your breakfast!

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Lightened Up Jambalaya

June 4, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Ingredients:

(Serves 4)
4 cups cooked brown rice
1 can diced tomatoes
1 bunch kale, de-stemmed and chopped
1/4 lemon, juiced
1/2 onion, diced
1/2 tbspn fresh diced or pureed garlic
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon cayenne powder
16 ounces chicken sausage, cooked.
pepper to taste
optional: 2 cups chicken broth

Instructions:

1. Cook brown rice as instructed on package, but can optionally sub out half of the water required for chicken broth to give rice extra flavor.
2. While rice cooks, sautee kale, onions, garlic, and lemon juice in a large pot until kale is soft. Reduce heat to low, and stir in canned tomatoes.
3. Slice sausage links into rounds, and sear in a hot pan until the bottom is caramelized. Flip and sear other side.
4. Add the caramelized sausage to the large pot with the kale. Gently stir in your fully cooked rice. Add paprika, cayenne, and pepper to taste.

 

 

 

20140603-223401-81241623.jpg

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Schnitzel with Dill sauce with Honeyed Prosciutto Brussels Sprouts

December 28, 2013 by 1 Comment

Image

 

Last night, Jonathan and I teamed up to make what turned out to be a delicious dinner! We made a pork schnitzel with brussell sprouts and cranberry sauce. Okay, the cranberry sauce was on hand, as you can tell from the perfect can-shape pictured above (thanks, Ocean Spray!). 

For the Schnitzel, we used this recipe: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/pork_schnitzel/ but with a few alterations:

– instead of seasoned salt, we used our seasoning favorite, Tony Chacheres’ Creole seasoning

– for the dill sauce, we added chopped shiitake mushrooms. 

 

The Brussels sprouts were actually made with a recipe I got from my big sister, using the honey vinegar that she gave me for Christmas. If you don’t have an amazing honey store from which to buy honey vinegar, you can make your own by stirring in a spoon full of honey into apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar. 

Sorry that this is more of a description than a recipe, but I like to cook with my heart rather than with measuring spoons sometimes!

All I did for the Brussels sprouts was:

wash them, and chop into quarters. Drizzle with walnut oil and honey vinegar and toss. Tear up 1 piece of prosciutto and toss. Place onto a lined cookie sheet and cook for about 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Delish!  Thanks, big sis, for the awesome gift and the awesome Brussels sprout recipe! 

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Meal plan!

November 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment

meal plan

 

 

I wanted to share my healthy meal plan, and before I go any further, I have to thank the amazing folks over at Pursuit Fitness (https://www.facebook.com/PursuitFitnessPerformance) because this meal plan comes from them.  Getting organized is all me, but the food ideas for staying healthy and energized are all theirs.

 

Anyway, that’s what my Sunday food prep looks like!  The picture shows four days worth of daytime food (food for while at work!).

Breakfast: (not pictured, served hot)

2 turkey sausage patties

1 c spinach + 1 apple juiced

 

Snack 1:

1 oz almonds, 1 oz baby carrots, 5 strawberries

 

Lunch:

Salad + oil vinegar dressing + 3 oz turkey meat

 

Snack 2:

2 stalks celery + 2 tbspn almond butter, 3 oz blackberries

 

Dinner: (served hot, not pictured)

4 oz herb rubbed chicken

salad + oil vinegar dressing

brocolli + oregano + a sprinkle of parm cheese

 

Dinner we shake up sometimes, and have other things, but basically a protein, a salad, and a cruciferous veggie.

I think I’m going to add in and try some purple sweet potatoes next week!

 

This meal plan is actually from two weeks ago. This week, instead of turkey meat at lunch, I’m going to have hard boiled eggs.  And instead of blackberries, I am going to have oranges.  And instead of almonds, I am going to have walnuts. But you get the picture! Planning my meals ahead of time makes life SO MUCH EASIER and food tastes SO MUCH BETTER!

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Cilantro Lime Steak with Citrus Salad

November 3, 2013 by Leave a Comment

I got the inspiration for this dish from here: http://www.fortheloveofcooking.net/2012/05/cilantro-lime-marinated-flank-steak.html

The steak is basically the same as in this recipe, but since my measurements were different I will still post my version below. 🙂 

and this is how it turned out: 

Image

 

Here’s how I did it: 

For the steak:

Ingredients:

2 beef chuck tender steaks (or flank steak or whatever cut of meat you prefer)

1 lime, juiced

1 serrano pepper, seeds in (you can take the seeds out to cut the heat)

1 cup fresh cilantro

2 tbspns olive oil 

salt to taste

California Seasoning (basically powdered onion and powdered garlic) to taste

1 tbspn chopped garlic 

 

Blend all of the ingredients (except for the steak). Put half of the sauce in a ziplock bag with the steak, making sure that all surfaces get coated. We let it marinade about 3 hours.  Stir in 1 tbspn of sour cream (optional) to the remaining sauce. This helps cut the heat and adds a nice tang to the sauce. 

We pan seared the steak to about a medium temperature (140 with meat thermometer) and then thin sliced. Drizzle the remaining sauce over the sliced steak. 

 

For the salad, it was just fresh baby spinach, fresh navel orange segments, and slivered almonds, tossed. I didn’t put any dressing on, but a nice oil/vinegar dressing would have gone nicely. I found that the meat had such an assertive flavor that I didn’t want to add anything to the salad, just let the citrus and spinach add bright notes to the dress. 

 

 

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The Jonny Burger and the Easiest Delicious Onion Strings

October 1, 2013 by 1 Comment

Jonathan’s birthday was yesterday, and since we had already celebrated by camping with our dear friends and then satisfying our foodie souls in Chicago and meeting Graham Elliot (yes, there will be an entirely separate post about all of this!!)-  I decided to keep his actual (and unfortunately landed on a MONDAY) birthday pretty low key. 

But, you know, they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach so I created a signature burger just for my hubby’s bday. I call this masterpiece the Jonny Burger:

Image

 

The Jonny Burger is made with a groundbeef and sausage blend, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a special smokehouse seasoning. Fresh butterhead lettuce, a whole wheat bun, and thick sliced bacon, topped with barbecue sauce and homemade spicy onion strings.  Oh, and cheddar cheese. How could we have a Jonny burger without cheese??

(You could lighten up this monstrosity by using ground turkey, and baked onion straws instead of fried… but hey… for my hubby’s birthday we went all out!)

 

Now, how do you get delicious onion straws?  actually, this is a recipe that my Mom and I created when I was a kid. We had onion straws at a restaurant and were determined to create our own. This recipe is so ridiculously simple yet delicious and so satisfying. You will be enjoying your own restaurant quality onion strings in NO time. 

Image

 

Ingredients: 

1 egg

appr 1/4 c milk 

flour

Seasoning (I recommend Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning)

A pot of hot oil 

A pile of thin sliced onions 

So, I will warn you, I don’t have precise measurements for this, but don’t worry, it is still super easy. 

Get an onion and thin slice a good sized pile. However many you want to make. 

Take a bowl, and pour as much flour in the bowl so you have a pile about as big as your pile of onions. Then shake on the Tony Chachere’s over the top in an even layer until you basically can’t see the flour. Stir. (You will probably have to adjust this to your own tastes, but this is how I judge how much to put. 🙂 )

In a separate  bowl, beat an egg. Add as much milk as you have egg (appr a 1 to 1 ratio, which i find is about 1/4 c). 

Put the onions in the egg/milk mixture and stir to coat. In small handfuls, grab a handful of the wet onions, shake the extra liquid off, roll them around in the flour, shake the excess flour off, and set aside. Repeat until all the onions have a fine coating of your flour mixture. 

Now, is your oil hot? If not, heat oil in a pot. Don’t know how to tell if your oil is ready? Toss one onion in as a test. if it sinks to the bottom it’s not ready. When it’s ready, your test onion will pop to the top and crackle in the oil. 

When the oil is ready, drop a small handful of onions into the oil. I always stir the onions a little bit to keep them from clumping up. 

I sort of poke the top of the onions with my spoon. At first, they will feel sort of soft. When they are ready, they will feel crunchy. Trust your intuition! 

When they feel crunchy, remove them with a slotted spoon, shaking the excess oil off, and place on a paper towel to absorb the extra grease. Continue until you’ve fried all of your onions. 

I always pat the top with another paper towel. 

That’s it. Simple. Easy peasy! It’s a lot more intuition than an actual recipe, so if it isn’t perfect the first time, adjust and try again!  Frying takes practice and confidence! You can do it! 🙂 

 

 

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Homemade Bubble Tea – EASY! :)

August 24, 2013 by 2 Comments

Today, I had the immense pleasure of spending the day with one of my favorite people to do crafty things with – Nancy!  We decided to take on something crafty AND delicious – making homemade bubble (boba) tea!

 

We had so much fun that I felt the need to share how delightfully easy and cost effective this is! A much cheaper way to enjoy bubble tea – and Nancy and I agreed that it tasted as good as at the local bubble tea cafe.

 

bobainputs

 

You will need:

– Boba (found at your local asian market)

– Condensed sweetened milk (or regular milk or almond milk or soy milk!)

– Tea of choice (or fruit juice or coffee!)

– Big straws (found at local asian market OR these were milkshake straws found at the local grocery store)

– Optional: brown sugar and white sugar and ginger for the sugar syrup

 

Now, as you can tell from the ingredient list, there are tons of options. The world is your oyster!

 

We tried two types of boba:

–  tapioca balls that were already precooked. These were easy and ready to use in about 10 minutes.

– dried starch balls (made from potato starch) that took over 40 minutes to get ready.

The package you buy should have some sort of instructions. The larger, colorful, precooked tapioca balls had great instructions, which we followed. The smaller, dried starch balls did not have instructions in English so we had to feel it out.

So here are the steps to making perfect Bubble tea:

Step 1:  Make a simple syrup (option)

– We boiled appr 3 c water with 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup white sugar and a pinch of ginger powder. Fresh grated ginger would have been better but mine had gone bad. 🙁 But it was delicious! We left the “syrup” more liquidy so the balls could roll around in it. It had a texture only slightly thicker than water.  Set aside once ready.

Step 2: Get your boba ready!!

For precooked tapioca balls: For every 1/4 cup boba, boil 2.5 cups of water. Once boiling, pour in the 1/4 cup boba.  Let boil for 5 minutes. Then empty into a colander and run cold water over the boba so they don’t stick.

For dried starch balls: For every 1/4 cup boba, boil about 8 c water. Once boiling, add boba. Boil for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.  Take off of heat, cover, and let sit for 20 minutes. Empty in colander and run cold water over the boba so they don’t stick.

After the boba (either type) is rinsed, pour into your pot of now-cool simple “syrup.” Let sit for about 5-15 minutes. The longer is sits, the sweeter it gets! we let our first batch sit in the sweet water while we went out and get Indian chaat for lunch!

Step 3:  Make your tea!

While the boba is sitting in the syrup, make your tea. You could already have your tea made ahead of time, or have the water boiling while everything else boils (we had three stove aisles with boiling water because we were doing tea and two types of boba at the same time!)

We used Jasmine tea, and it was delicious. For iced bubble tea, I recommend making the tea ahead of time and letting it cool down.

Step 4: Add milk, ice, and boba, and TA DA!!

We took the jasmine tea, and added sweetened condensed milk and ice and shook it in a shaker. Delish!  I wish I could tell you how much sweetened condensed milk but it’s really just up to your preference. Add a little taste, and then add more if you like!

We then spooned the boba out of the simple “syrup” and into the bottom of a glass. Then we poured the delicious milk tea into the cup over the boba.

jasmineboba

After drinking this yummy treat, we decided we needed to experiment. Since I am obsessed with tea, we had a ton of flavors to choose from. We decided to make a watermelon mint tea from Teavana.

bubblegumbobaI’m not sure if you can tell in this picture, but the tea and the boba are PINK! too cute. It actually tasted a lot like bubblegum -which I liked but Miss Nancy did NOT. 🙂

 

bobafriends

 

All in all, it was a great way to spend a day with a friend, and now we might have a new snack time obsession!!

 

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Brut Risotto, with seasoned chicken

September 24, 2012 by Leave a Comment

This week, I am visiting my sister, Alysha, in Lexington. She loves mushrooms and my “cheesy rice” (which is her affectionate term for my risottos.)
So I invented a new one for her!

I am going to tell you guys how I made this, but I wanted to add a few notes.
First, halfway through, I decided my approach was wrong. That being said, it turned out DELICIOUS. And that’s in Alysha’s words. And she is one of the pickiest/highest standards eaters I know, so that means alot! So, I am going to describe how I did it. I am sure I could edit the recipe so that it doesn’t abruptly change part way through, but I hesitate to do that without testing it myself.

So, if you decide to attempt this recipe, I recommend reading through the entire risotto process up front so you know what’s going on!

For the Seasoned Chicken, all I did was grease the bottom of a baking dish with olive oil (the kind rated for frying!) and preheat the oven to 350. I rubbed 1 tbspn herbes de provence and 1 tspn rosemary over both sides of the chicken. I let it cook for 12 minutes on each side,and then let it rest for 5 minutes before slicing. The chicken baked while I worked on the risotto.

For the mushrooms, I melted 1 tbspn butter in a small sauce pan, and added 1/2 cup sliced white mushrooms. I let them cook slowly on low heat, and stirred them occasionally while cooking the risotto.

Risotto:
Ingredients: (ingredients listed twice means they are used in different steps and should be separate)
1 tbspn butter
1/2 large yellow onion, diced
1.5 c arborio rice
1/4 c peas
2 cups low sodium chicken broth
2 tbspn balsamic vinegar
1 cup water
3 cups water
1/8 cup Brut
1 cup Brut
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
juice of half of a lemon

For the risotto, you will need three liquids.
Liquid 1: 1 cup Brut, set aside for later.
Liquid 2: heat broth, balsamic vinegar, 1/8 c brut until warm, but not hot. Keep on low heat.
Liquid 3: 3 cups water, set aside for later.

In a large skillet, melt 1 tbspn butter. Add onions, and cook until very slightly caramelized. Cook slowly so as not to burn the butter.
Once onions are tender, add the arborio rice. Stir for about 2 minutes. Rice grains should look glassy.
Turn up the heat, and add 1 cup brut (liquid 1). It should absorb in a bubbly way. If it isn’t, turn the heat up.
Once it’s absorbed, begin adding liquid 2 one ladleful at a time. Let each ladleful absorb completely, continually stirring the risotto, before adding the next.
*********************
Here is where I decided the risotto was off. About 4 ladlefuls in, I decided the broth was a bit too pungent. At this point, I added the juice of half a lemon and the peas. I also switched the liquid three. You can alternate between liquid 2 and liquid 3 as much as you want, tasting between each ladle to decide if the flavor is too weak or too pungent. I used pretty much only liquid 3 from this point on, which,if you remember from above, was plain, room temperature water.
*********************
Continue adding liquid a ladleful at a time until rice is cooked. Once rice is cooked, remove from heat and stir in the parmesan cheese.
Serve with sliced chicken and mushrooms.

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Kalbi, Warm Fennel Salad, and Rootbeer Risotto

August 31, 2012 by 1 Comment

For dinner tonight, I made kalbi, warm fennel salad and a root beer risotto.

For the kalbi, I used a recipe from Food Network which you can find here.

In case you aren’t familiar with kalbi (or galbi), it is a korean barbecued short rib. To really do this right, you would purchase korean cut short ribs. The cut is sometimes called “flanken.” It’s a smaller cut of meat that grills faster. However, I bought American style short ribs and sliced the meat off of the bone. I also bought a small sirloin steak and thin sliced that to see how the two different types of meat fared in this cooking style.

I pretty much followed the food network recipe to a T, except I could not find Mirin in our local grocery store and didn’t feel like hitting an Asian store in the rain today. So I used white cooking wine instead. Also, in hind sight, I would add three times as much green onion as it calls for, and 2/3 as much soy sauce, as I found the marinade to be a bit salty.

Other than that, I thought they turned out delicious!

Kalbi with warm fennel salad

For the side dish, I wanted to create something light, that would compliment the heavy flavors and feeling of the beef main dish. I decided to create a warm fennel salad. While I don’t think the salad is something I would make on its own just for fun, I thought it was an excellent side dish to the kalbi.

It’s also a Sasha-Original-Recipe! 🙂

Ingredients:
1 bunch fennel, sliced thin
1 stalk celery, sliced into thin half moons
6 baby carrots, sliced into small rounds
1/8 cup cooking wine
1/2 nectarine, diced
1/2 tbspn chili oil (optional, can use any oil)
1 tspn mango vinegar (optional)

Heat a pan with 1/2 tbspn oil. I used chili oil to add flavor, but you can use olive oil, grapeseed oil, or any other anti-stick. Add in fennel, and sautee in the oil for about 1 minute. Add the other vegetables and the cooking wine. Let cook for about 4 minutes. Add in cooking wine, vinegar, and nectarine. Cook until vegetables are slightly tender but still crisp. It’s a warm salad, not a stir fry!

Warm Fennel Salad shown with kalbi.

And finally, the dessert! I made a root beer float dessert risotto!

A recipe completely of my own making! Here it is:

    Ingredients

:
Rice:
1 cup arborio rice

Flavoring Liquid:
1.5 bottles of IBC rootbeer (2 cups)

Base for toasting risotto:
1 tbspn butter
1 tbspn brown sugar
1 tspn dark rum

Base Liquid:
3.5 cups 1% milk
5 green cardamom pods
1 stick cinnamon
1 tspn vanilla

Topping:
2 tbspn marscapone
1 tbspn rootbeer

Instructions:
In a pot, put all of the base liquid ingredients in a pot and heat until warm. Take care not to burn or boil the milk. Keep it handy and on a low boil.

In a skillet, heat the base for toasting risotto. Once the butter is melted and the sugar stirred in, then add the rice. Stir the rice until the grains are glassy. Add in 1 c of rootbeer and stir until it is absorbed. Add in .5 cups of root beer and stir until it is absorbed.

Start adding in the base liquid one ladle full at a time, stirring until it is absorbed. Do not feel like you have to stir in ALL of the milk, but keep adding it in until the risotto is cooked, tender, and creamy. At the end, add in 1/4 cup of root beer to create a delicious frothiness.

Serve warm. Use the remaining rootbeer to top off your risotto root beer float (the warm risotto absorbs it pretty fast). You can add a creamy marscapone topping if you’d like. I stirred the marscapone and rootbeer together and then put a dollop on top.

Ta da!

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