We've got family in town this coming weekend for a couple of weeks....so we may not be crockpotting at all until they leave. Got lots of places to go, family to see, etc. Which means we may have lots of "Dining Out" posts!
Tonight we went to Paesanos in Manoa...will be posting a "Dining Out" review. The food was fabulous and so was the service.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Crock Pot Red Wine Braised Short Ribs for Two
RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Good, tasty, reminds me of my mom's pot roast - meat just falls apart.
SHE SAID: Tasty and delicious, but only once a year due it being beef and not very lean.
This past week there were several articles mentioning braised short ribs. Reading through the recipes made the female half of this couple hungry for braised short ribs...mmmm....we don't eat beef much and if we do, it's very thinly sliced for shabu shabu or sukiyaki, once in a while a nice steak, but never short ribs! Most of the recipes we found required red wine, mmmm...almost everything braised in wine tastes yummy!
This is also our very first beef dish made in our crock pot (other than the first try on Skyline Cincinnati Chili)! Wow, if were meat eaters (the reason we're no longer meat eaters, we're getting older, need to watch the cholesterol, etc) we'd make this dish at least once a month! This was very tasty and tender. It's very simple, there were several other more complex recipes we thought about trying, but this recipe we didn't need to purchase any additional ingredients other than the ribs.
RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 7-9 hours on low
4 qt. crock pot
1 c. dry red wine
2/3 c. ketchup
3 T. low sodium shoyu (soy sauce)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. dark brown sugar (we used light since we had it already)
1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper
4 lbs. beef short ribs with bone
1 small red onion, chopped
Combine first six ingredients in slow cooker and mix. Add ribs, submerge as much as possible in sauce (we spooned sauce over the ribs too). Scatter onions over ribs. Cover and cook on low for 7-9 hours. We turned the ribs over half way thru cooking to ensure the sauces soaked into entire ribs. If you plan well enough ahead, we read a lot of reviews which suggested cooking the ribs the night before, refrigerating the sauce separate from the ribs, then the next day scrape the fat off the sauce. We took out as much of the oil/fat as we could just before serving. Serve with rice or pasta. If you like gravy, mix some cornstarch paste (cornstarch with water) into the gravy, stirring constantly to make your own gravy.
Enjoy..we sure did!
HE SAID: Good, tasty, reminds me of my mom's pot roast - meat just falls apart.
SHE SAID: Tasty and delicious, but only once a year due it being beef and not very lean.
This is also our very first beef dish made in our crock pot (other than the first try on Skyline Cincinnati Chili)! Wow, if were meat eaters (the reason we're no longer meat eaters, we're getting older, need to watch the cholesterol, etc) we'd make this dish at least once a month! This was very tasty and tender. It's very simple, there were several other more complex recipes we thought about trying, but this recipe we didn't need to purchase any additional ingredients other than the ribs.
RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 7-9 hours on low
4 qt. crock pot
1 c. dry red wine
2/3 c. ketchup
3 T. low sodium shoyu (soy sauce)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. dark brown sugar (we used light since we had it already)
1/2 t. freshly ground black pepper
4 lbs. beef short ribs with bone
1 small red onion, chopped
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| Before |
Enjoy..we sure did!
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Dining Out: Island Sub and Burger in Manoa
One of our favorite takeout places in Manoa is Island Sub and Burger. Inexpensive, great food tucked away in the Manoa Marketplace. The only thing is, they close early (7:30PM and even earlier on Sundays).
We haven't tried everything...we haven't even tried their burgers...but the male half of this couple loves their marinara sauce. For $4.95, you can get a nice sized serving of penne with marinara and a small piece of garlic bread. We'd ordered it in the past with chicken...but for the extra money, the chicken is nothing to write home about. We normally share the penne with marinara and one of our other favorites, the Chicken Philly sandwich. Another great deal. There aren't too many restaurants in Hawaii who can cook up a Philly sandwich up to a Pennsylvanian's liking. Island Sub and Burger uses that CheezWhiz stuff on theirs which makes their cheese really gooey...mmm. One of our friends reminded us shredded cheese has an anti-caking agent which when melted will never melt into that gooeyness of CheezWhiz. Their philly sandwiches may not be the best or equal to the ones you can get in Philadelphia..but for Manoa, we love it.
We've also tried their Reuben sandwiches which are also very good.
If you're looking for an inexpensive, but great tasting fast food meal, Island Sub and Burger is worth a try.
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| Half of the penne w/marinara |
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| 1/2 of a Chicken Philly 6 inch |
We've also tried their Reuben sandwiches which are also very good.
If you're looking for an inexpensive, but great tasting fast food meal, Island Sub and Burger is worth a try.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Crock Pot Chicken Adobo for Two
RECIPE RATING:
HE SAID: Good, moist but a bit salty
SHE SAID: Same, salty, but good.
Happy May Day! May Day is known as Lei Day in Hawaii. We both were really busy, so no Lei Day festivities for us. Decided we needed something lighter to eat and we've been on a vinegar kick (both food and cleaning!). Didn't take the time to find the female half of this couple's recipe which came from a Filipina friend's grandmother (her recipe calls for more vinegar versus shoyu). Instead, we decided to pull one off allrecipes.com which is often times a great resource. Generally what we do is what many other posters do, take the recipe and tweak it with our own additions/changes as well as suggestions by other reviewers of the recipe. Most have turned our fabulous...this one was a bit too salty for the one with high blood pressure. Plus, we prefer our adobo more on the "vinegary" side.
For those who don't like a strong vinegar taste, this recipe may work for you! As mentioned in other posts, the female half of this couple is on a lower carb diet, so we make more than 2 servings. The crock pot worked well for this recipe. We normally simmer the chicken in the adobo sauce for about an hour on the stove, it's still good on the stove, but not as tender as when done in the crock pot.
Since the female half is on a lower carb diet and we've been reading about vinegar's greatness, we will definitely use our own adobo recipe very soon (and we may marinate the chicken first)!
RECIPE:
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 6-8 hours on low
2 qt crock pot
6-8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2/3 c. low sodium shoyu (soy sauce)
1/3 c. white vinegar
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 t. ground ginger
2 bay leaves
1/2 T. black peppercorns
1/2 to 1 t. truvia (or sugar)
1 T. garlic powder
Rinse and pat dry chicken. Place chicken in crock pot. Layer in ingredients (we usually start with the dry ingredients first). Give it a quick stir. Cover and cook on low for 6 - 8 hours. Serve with white rice.
We didn't need rice this week, so we bought the male half of this couple a kaiser roll, toasted it and served the chicken shredded with sauce on the roll. We prefer adobo with rice.
Enjoy!
P.S. Forgot to take a pic of the finished product!
HE SAID: Good, moist but a bit salty
SHE SAID: Same, salty, but good.
 |
| Chicken Adobo, before |
For those who don't like a strong vinegar taste, this recipe may work for you! As mentioned in other posts, the female half of this couple is on a lower carb diet, so we make more than 2 servings. The crock pot worked well for this recipe. We normally simmer the chicken in the adobo sauce for about an hour on the stove, it's still good on the stove, but not as tender as when done in the crock pot.
Since the female half is on a lower carb diet and we've been reading about vinegar's greatness, we will definitely use our own adobo recipe very soon (and we may marinate the chicken first)!
RECIPE:
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 6-8 hours on low
2 qt crock pot
6-8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
2/3 c. low sodium shoyu (soy sauce)
1/3 c. white vinegar
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 t. ground ginger
2 bay leaves
1/2 T. black peppercorns
1/2 to 1 t. truvia (or sugar)
1 T. garlic powder
Rinse and pat dry chicken. Place chicken in crock pot. Layer in ingredients (we usually start with the dry ingredients first). Give it a quick stir. Cover and cook on low for 6 - 8 hours. Serve with white rice.
We didn't need rice this week, so we bought the male half of this couple a kaiser roll, toasted it and served the chicken shredded with sauce on the roll. We prefer adobo with rice.
Enjoy!
P.S. Forgot to take a pic of the finished product!
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