All in Good Food

Hi I just wanted to share with you a little appetizer I whipped up yesterday.


I was looking for something light and filling to eat for lunch yesterday as I was in the middle of reorganizing my sewing area. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. Although I have not written a post on it yet I have spent the last year working on making my own tortillas and through trial and error I have finally found the recipe balance I like. I know what you are thinking why go through all that trouble when you can just buy them in the store? Well I like to have the flexibility to make them any size I want and to add any flavor I want to them. You don’t get that with the store bought. As of yet I have not see them in the 4” rounds or in square shapes. I also have the ability to make chips any size and shape I want. That is the key right have the flexibility to have it the way you want it.

Well I am not going to cover making the tortilla dough in this post. This post is for the appetizers I made from them. I will have another post and link to the tortilla recipe and preparation. So here we go.

This recipe is very simple and easy. You can even have things pre-made and set aside to assemble and heat up later. This is perfect for those busy days or for an after school snack for the kids. As I have been working a lot with my sewing lately I needed another quick and easy go-to recipe.

Ingredients

1 chicken breast (cut into thin slices)
10 large broccoli florets
Cheese of any variety you like (shredded or sauce)
Home made tortillas
Yellow mustard


1. Make tortilla dough, following what ever recipe you are comfortable with, and roll, press and/or cut to desired size.

2. Pan sear the chicken piece.

3. Once chicken is fully cooked. Add taco seasoning of choice to taste and a small amount (I didn’t measure the amount but I would say around 3 tablespoons) of chicken stock or water to the pan. Note adding the liquid helps to coat the chicken better with the taco seasoning.

4. In the same pan add about a tablespoon of butter and let it melt. Don’t clean the pan between cooking the chicken and broccoli so that the broccoli can get some of the flavor from the taco seasoning. Once butter is melted sauté the broccoli. Note I use frozen broccoli and let it thaw out in the pan when it is cooking to retain it’s color and flavor.

5. Once broccoli is cooked remove it from the pan to a cutting board and let cool enough to handle. Cut into slices.

6. Then assemble. Lay down your tortilla, cover with cheese, add broccoli slices, then the chicken.

Note: Sorry I don’t have step-by-step photos. A lot of the time when I try out a new recipe I forget to take photos of the steps. So the next time I make it I will remember to take the photos and update the post.

I hope you will try these out and let me know what you think and if you tried anything different ingredients. These are designed to be very flexible to taste.

So until next time, Itadaki masu!

Sometimes I feel you have to go back to the beginning to regain what you feel you lost. Lately my friend rice has not been coming out right and I could not figure out why. Then I realized to began to suffer the fatal flaw that happens to some cooks and that is complacency. Most of the time when I cook I don’t measure I cook by taste but there are times when measuring is needed and/or required to get the taste right every time. So what I had been doing was not measuring when I cooked my rice I would just eyeball the amount of rice and the water that went into my rice cooker. Well this past week I went back to my old ways and measured out my rice and my water and the result was my perfect fried rice.

Being a free spirit when cooking is good at times but when it comes to basics keep it by the book so to speak.

Here is my bento from Friday. Fried rice, sautéed broccoli with cheese sauce, and turkey patties. Can’t get more basic than that.

Today I want to share with you one of the yummy creations I have made. Sometime early last year I was making pancakes. I had some chicken I was going to shred to make chicken salad and my mind started working. My original chicken pancakes had only chicken and shredded cheese in them. I only added a small portion of the chicken and cheese to the batter so those looked more like regular pancakes then these. Over time I began to experiment and added this and that to it to see what worked. What you see in this post today is what has evolved from a curiosity of what would I get if I put chicken and cheese in my pancake mix. That is the beauty of this recipe you can easily change it for taste or ingredients on hand.


Ingredients

1 cup flour
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 tbsp oil
1 medium chicken breast shredded
1/4 cup of chopped cooked broccoli*
1/4 cup of shredded cheese*
2 tbsp of real bacon bits*

* Amounts are an estimate because I usually eyeball these ingredients.

The chicken breast was cooked in my slow cooker. It stays very tender and moist. But any baking method will do that keeps the chicken breast tender and moist.

7. Place a small amount of butter or oil in the pan or on the griddle and coat the surface. I personally prefer using butter as I don’t make these on a regular basis. I feel it gives them a better taste but use what you prefer. A butter flavored cooking spray works well too.

8. Cook pancakes on one side until golden brown then flip to the other side and cook the other side to a golden brown. I usually brush a little butter on them when they are finished but this step is optional.

And you’re done. I hope you enjoy them as much as me.

So until the next recipe, Itadaki masu!

While I was on my short break from blogging I did continue to make bentos on a daily basis. Some worth photographing and sharing and some that were not. Here is one of those I thought was worth sharing. The bento box I used for this one is one of my favorites. It is in the shape of a fan and I was lucky to find it for next to nothing on eBay an few years ago. I’ve been dying to use it and this time I had my chance.

Ok I have been out of the bento loop to a few weeks but I am now back with my entry for the j-Cation Virtual Bento Box Battle with my Maneki Neko or Beckoning Cat. I have to admit this was a definite challenge for me because I usually don’t do character bentos. I think I needed to accomplish this one to get myself back on track.

This bento is filled with tamagoyaki with nori, mini turkey burgers seasoned with a packet of vegetable dip mix, sautéed broccoli and apple cinnamon flower tarts with craisins. The cat consists of plain white rice for the body, red bell peppers for inside the ear, collar, mouth and on the paw. I used nori on the paw and for the inner eye and fried egg for the outer eye. Angel hair spaghetti was used for the whiskers and a pink edible flower petal for the nose. The collar is decorated with sour cream dot flowers.

From my reading the Maneki Neko are sometimes shown holding a gold coin called a koban which was used during the Edo period in Japan. The koban is supposed to be worth one ryō but because as in any society early monitary units could very. The one I made although not gold has the value of two million ryō as depicted in the kanji written on it. The coin was made of a tortilla cut into an oval. Then I wrote the kanji (千万両) or two million on it using food coloring and a tooth pick which reads . I have to admit that is came out better than expected. I did use Google translator to make sure what the kanji said.

Well there you go. I hope to have another bento posted soon.

Until next time Itadaki masu!

This is just a quick post for today’s lunch bento.

As I was trying to come up with my bento for Valentine’s Day I was trying to figure out what can I put in that is different from my usual stuff. That is when I remembered seeing an episode of Road Tasted with Bobby and Jamie Dean on the Food Network. The episode was called New York-Forgettaboutit and they went to a place called Landi’s Pork Store. At this place they are famous for a deep fried rice ball that looked absolutely delicious. Ever since then I have been trying to figure out how to make rice balls myself but could never get them to come out right until now. I owe some of my success to Claudia of What’s Cookin’ Italian Style Cuisine. She wrote a post on her Grandma Victoria’s rice balls. So I was then inspired to do my own. My recipe differs form Claudia’s and the one at Landi’s because I wanted to achieve a different taste.

Serve alone or with a complimentary dipping sauce like one made from the Hidden Valley Ranch Fiesta Dip mix that was used in the rice mix. Also if you have any left over they can be eaten the next day. Just place them in the oven on 380° for about 5 minutes or until crispy again. I am not sure at this point if they can be put in the freezer for later as I did not have any left over to test but when I make another batch I will test it out and update this post.

Note: Please test out the oven temperature of your own oven because I used a toaster oven for this recipe and a large oven will heat up more than a toaster oven. So all of the temperature references are according to how a toaster oven will cook.

I hope you enjoyed this recipe as much as I did making it.

I would also like to thanks Claudia of What’s Cookin’ Italian Style Cuisine for the inspiration for these rice balls.

So until next time.

Itadaki masu!