Tequila-Honey-Pineapple Chicken

Here's another Cooking Light recipe: Tequila-Glazed Grilled Chicken Thighs. This one was also really good, although we used a completely different type of chicken, which probably gave it a bit of a different flavor.

We decided to use the half a chicken we had in the basement freezer for this rather than buying the chicken thighs the recipe calls for. Nate cut the chicken apart and ended up with chicken breast strips, for a lack of a better term.

We followed the rest of the recipe exactly, even though I knew we'd end up with too much glaze/sauce, which we did. Nate glazed the chicken pretty good, and we used some reserved sauce for dipping.

This was really tasty--it was a great mix of sweet and spice. You could not taste the tequila at all (not sure if that's a good or bad thing!). I thought the sauce would be good in a stir fry, too. I had the two leftover pieces on my lunch salad today, which was also really tasty.

Sloppy Mushroom Joes

The June 2011 issue of Cooking Light is sure getting a workout! We made two recipes from it this week alone. The biggest reason for turning to Cooking Light this week was that I was making out the shopping list late Sunday afternoon, after our camping trip, and couldn't bear to put too much thought into meal planning this week--the June issue was out, so I went with that.

Lucky for us, the two meals we made were fabulous, and I've been telling lots of people about them. The first was Beef and Mushroom Sloppy Joes. Before I really got into the recipe, I figured they would be mostly beefy sloppy joes, with some mushrooms mixed in (which is just the way I like my sloppy joes). But, as I made the meal, I realized that they were made mostly of cremini mushrooms and just a small amount of beef--but they still taste really beefy.

The recipe was super easy, as it's one of the issues 20-minute-cooking meals. I find these meals always take a bit longer than those 20 minutes, though, when you have to chop vegetables and prepare things (granted, the recipe calls for pre-chopped onion and pre-sliced mushrooms, but those types of foods are often more expensive).

I followed the recipe just about exactly, except I subbed dried oregano for the fresh and added a bit more hot sauce (and, really, I should have added more!). The recipe says this makes four servings, but we got six out of it.

All in all, the sloppy joes were really, really good--Nate (Mr. Steak himself) took a bite before I even picked mine up, and he immediately said, "OH, this is good!" It's the type of meal in which you forget you're not really eating much meat.

Campfire Cooking

Nate and I went camping with some friends this past weekend. We always split up the cooking duties--one couple takes breakfast and one of the dinners, while the other couple takes lunch and the other dinner. We were in charge of lunch (just sandwiches, chips and salsa, veggies and fruit) and Saturday's dinner. We cook everything right on the campfire grate, so anything we can wrap in heavy duty foil is a good idea.

I found this recipe for Pesto Chicken Packets in my trusty Betty Crocker Cookbook. It looked super easy (easy to prep while sitting at a picnic table in the middle of the woods) and delicious, too. The recipe only requires four things: chicken, tomatoes, zucchini and basil (I made my own pesto).

The chicken was super tasty and, like I thought it would be, easy to make. It took about 20 minutes over a pretty hot fire to cook. I think each packet could have used a bit more pesto (the recipe says it makes four servings; I made six by adding more chicken and a bit more zucchini and tomato).

I think it's a great starter recipe--you could add more vegetables, different vegetables or even put a different sauce on top. We served ours with a rice, black bean and corn salad. It was a hit! (And for the record, Betty Crocker is/was not a real person :)).

Edamame and Steak Salad

Nate found this recipe for Edamame Salad with Crisp Steak Bits while flipping through the June 2011 issue of Cooking Light (of course he did--it says "steak" so he was drawn to it!). We had been meaning to make it for a few weeks, and finally did so early last week.

The recipe was super easy, quite and delicious. The salad was really refreshing and great one a warm, summer night.

For our first night eating it, we stuck with the recipe exactly as it's stated. The recipe says to cut the steak into "small pieces," and I would recommend doing as we did--cut them into really small bits, so you can get a taste with each bite.

We had it for leftovers a few nights later, and it was still really good--I was a bit worried it would get a little soggy, but it was just fine. We added half a chopped avocado to it when we had it for leftovers.

Potato & Pasta-less Side Salad

I love potato and pasta salads for cookouts or tailgates, but I was looking forward to trying this Cucumber, Tomato and Feta Salad. I thought it would nice to have something a little lighter.

We went to the Brewers game last Saturday with my parents, and I happened to come across the Epicurious salad recipe on Facebook (I believe it was). I thought it would be great with the chicken sandwiches we made for our dinner.

The recipe was super easy and straightforward. I didn't do anything differently other than halve the recipe, as I wasn't sure it would be too good leftover for too long.

The salad was very good, and I'll definitely be making it again. I threw a can of tuna in the last bit of leftovers for lunch tomorrow--we'll see how that goes, but I'm sure it will be good.

Restaurant Review: Ginza

I bought a Groupon for Ginza, a new sushi place in Tosa, a few months ago, because I know we always like going out for sushi. We finally decided to use it last Friday when we wanted to go out to dinner but didn't want to go too far from home. I had heard really good things about Ginza, so I was really lookin forward to it.

The restaurant is located in a newish strip mall-type of development on the corner of Center St. and Mayfair Rd. The decor is very modern, but comfortable, too. I really like the place, but I have one small complaint: the music was not very good and kind of distracting. While we were there, it ranged from Linkin Park to something similar to Boyz II Men.

Overall, though, we had a great experience and really enjoyed the food.

We started with the shrimp shumai, which came with a spicy, creamy sauce. It was really good, and the perfect amount for two of us.

We then split three of the rolls:

• Alaskan roll: salmon, avocado and cucumber (bottom row of rolls).


• Hot maki: shrimp tempura and avocado inside, topped with tuna, jalapeno and a special sauce (middle row).


• White swan: spicy yellowtail, tempura flakes, caviar and white tuna (top row).

We agreed our favorite was the hot maki, but really, they were all quite good. We thought the rice was a little stickier or softer than it usually is and usually should be. The flavors of the rolls, however, outweighed the texture of the rice.

One thing I liked about Ginza is that you have a choice between regular soy sauce and lighter-sodium soy sauce. I hadn't seen that at other sushi restaurants. The service was very good, and the server came back often to check on us. The food seemed really reasonable, too--our total bill, before the Groupon, was $45 for the shumai, three rolls and two big Japanese beers. Not bad! I can't wait to go back and try more.

Pork and Mango-Lime Salsa

As I've mentioned before, I have a huge binder filled with recipes I've cut out from magazines or the back of boxes of food, printed off websites or collected from other sources. One of those recipes was called Pork Tenderloin Medallions with Mango-Lime Salsa. I've had it for years, but never made it. That changed last week when I finally made it.

A Google search for the recipe has led me to believe the recipe originally came from Real Food magazine. It can also be found on Recipe Girl blog.

The recipe was super easy and didn't take much time at all. I couldn't find pork tenderloin at outpost, so I used boneless shoulder instead. The pieces of pork were probably bigger than they would be if I had used tenderloin, but it worked fine and tasted great. The salsa would be good with chips or on tacos, too.

We served the pork with the Spicy Southwestern Tabbouleh I made earlier in the week and corn on the cob.