FoodFash

Adventure Begins in the Kitchen

Ariel’s Simple No-Mix Margaritas

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Like most industry peeps in LA, Ariel spends her time in between acting gigs working as a bartender.  Selfishly, this works out perfectly for me.  She has tons of off-time for my extended visits and she makes a meanly delicious cocktail.  And who doesn’t love a meanly delicious cocktail?

She also works a ton of promotions and always has free stuff laying around.  Hair products, jeans, tequila.  Again, this works out well for me.  Sitting around looking pretty with fabulous hair while sipping on tequila is most certainly my idea of a good time.

Ariel’s Simple No-Mix Margaritas

2 parts tequila blanco

2 parts limeade

1 part triple sec

ice & soda water to taste

Mix tequila, limeade and triple sec together.  Pour over ice, filling the glass about 3/4 of the way full.  Top off with soda water and enjoy a super delish margarita that’s free of that syrupy, artificial margarita mix taste!

Seasoned Kale Chips

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Last week, my friend Baily gave me an Instagram shout out when she posted a picture of her first batch of homemade kale chips.  You see, I coached her through the process a bit, using my blog archives as a reference.  It was nerdy to the nth degree.

But nerdy-ness aside, it was then I spent a few brief moments in nostalgia-land daydreaming about my old kitchen realized that I hadn’t made kale chips since last year.  Waiting the appropriate amount of time before re-blogging about a dish is a food blogger’s dilemma.  A dilemma that often results in forgetting about said dish completely.

I decided to ditch the sriracha this time around and bake seasoned kale chips, which was totally an excuse to browse the local spices at Whole Foods.  I landed on this Wildly Natural One because the list of ingredients immediately induced a drool situation.

Because these chips didn’t have the added sriracha moisture, they only needed to bake for about 17 minutes before they were super, super crispy.  And the Wildly Natural One seasoning was amazing.  It gave the chips that little extra something that made you think they were store-bought.  De-lish!

Hatch Chile & Cilantro Chicken Broth

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I fully intended this post to be about hatch chile cilantro boiled chicken.  But if you scroll down to the bottom of the page and take a look-see at how unfortunate the appearance of boiled chicken is, I’m sure you can understand why this post quickly changed to hatch chile cilantro chicken broth.  Ikea lidded jars are much more photogenic than boiled chicken.  Much.

And maybe the broth knew all along that it was going to take center stage, because it ended up being impossible to toss out.  What didn’t fit in the jar has been gradually making its way into my belly.  Hatch chiles and cilantro are such a stellar combo that I bet you’d do the same.

FoodFash Hatch Chile & Cilantro Chicken (and broth)

One 3-ish pound whole chicken

2 hatch chiles, seeds removed and sliced

1 large white onion, sliced

1 bunch of cilantro

4 tablespoons salt

Place chicken in a large pot and top with hatch chiles, onion, cilantro, and salt.  Fill with the pot with water until the chicken is covered with about an inch of water.  Place pot over a burner on high heat.  When the water comes to a boil, continue boiling for 45 minutes.  Remove chicken from the broth and let cool.  Strain broth and store in a large jar.

So what to do with all this broth and meat?  How about this?

Very Berry Quick Jam

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I’ve had jam on the brain ever since reading Joy the Baker’s quick jam post.  And then when I received a slew of coupons from Driscoll’s Berries, I had all the motivation I needed to whoop it up.  If only motivation triggered memory, I would have been jamming it up much sooner.  As it turns out, coupons don’t do much good sitting on the kitchen counter…

Joy’s recipe seemed easy enough, but I wasn’t completely sold on the fruit sauce description.  After all, I wanted to make jam jam.  A traveling jam.  The kind of jam you put on a PB&J before packing it up and heading to Barton Springs.

FoodFash Very Berry Quick Jam (yields two – 8 ounce jars of jam)

adapted from Joy the Baker

1 pound of fresh strawberries, rinsed, tops removed, and sliced

1/2 pound of fresh raspberries, rinsed

1/2 cup sugar

juice of one lemon

2 tablespoons quick cooking tapioca

In a medium pot, mix berries, sugar, and lemon juice until evenly distributed.  Over medium heat, stir occasionally until the mixture comes to a boil.  Boil for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, and then add the quick cooking tapioca.  Continue boiling for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes before spooning jam into a mason jar.  Refrigerate until cool.

Ordinarily, leaving out one ingredient and adding another wouldn’t warrant re-posting a recipe; however, the addition of quick cooking tapioca modified both the instructions and texture.  With that said, this jam is GOOD!  It’s sweet, tart, and seedy, and begging to be paired with peanut butter!