Recipes

Take-Out Style Chinese Orange Chicken & Rice

October 4, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

Take Out Style Chinese Orange Chicken

I never think to order take out Chinese food because I always just wind up making it from scratch. The reason for this is that I always have the ingredients lying around so I figure why not just make it myself? The recipe is easy to make and healthier than take out so there’s benefits to making it at home. The chicken is full of orangey, tangy flavor without being overly sweet. You can also customize a bit with the sweetness by reducing the sugar by about 1/4 cup. I love how tender the chicken winds up being when it’s made at home–there’s really no reason to pick up the take out! I plan on making this one a lot. I like to serve it with simple rice bowls with peas or veggies. You can also skip the rice and opt for more veggies for a lower carb version.
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Penne Vodka Roasted Tomato Soup

September 22, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

Penne Vodka Roasted Tomato Soup

One of my favorite pasta recipes is penne with vodka sauce and one of my favorite comfort foods is homemade tomato soup. Recently I figured, why not combine these two awesome recipes? Since it’s the first day of Fall I figured it would be appropriate to share a cozy soup recipe. While I recommend using fresh tomatoes in this recipe you can use canned tomato sauce if you’re in a pinch. The roasted tomatoes broiled in the oven in olive oil do offer a little extra something to the flavor. The soup really does taste like a perfect combination of penne vodka and tomato soup! It offered great flavor but wasn’t overly rich or heavy. When I first started brain storming this recipe I was wondering how to incorporate the pasta into the soup. Penne Rigate is way too cumbersome to have in soup but after some searching I found the solution–mini penne! It’s about an inch long even after fully cooked which makes it a perfect size for soup. I don’t add the penne all at once but rather cook to order for each bowl, that way the noodles don’t sit over night in the fridge and soak up all that good broth! I recommended garnishing this one with grated mozzarella, parmesan and fresh basil.

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Bacon, Avocado & Roasted Jalapeño Sandwich

August 31, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

This sandwich is my top favorite at the moment and it’s actually really easy to make. How can you not love bacon and avocado in one sandwich? That is practically a match made in heaven! The key to this recipe is the roasted peppers. I like to use jalapenos that are on the moderately hot side. You can make them milder by removing the pith–that’s the white part–and the seeds. I get them good and charred in the broiler and they add a nice grilled flavor. For the avocados I like to mash these as if I were making guacamole. The mashed avocado holds the sandwich together like a paste for easier flipping. I know this might sound crazy but I actually love grilling these over the stove in the leftover bacon grease. Why dirty up a different pan with oil when you have a perfectly good one to cook with? If you’re squeamish about using bacon fat, just wipe down the pan and add the oil of your choice to it but I do recommend the bacon fat for this. You also gotta have sourdough on hand for this one; I’ve tried making it with other breads and it just isn’t as good without sourdough! The cheese I’m a little more flexible on. I’ve tried it with an aged white cheddar and swiss and I recommend both. The cheddar has a little more bite and takes longer to melt down. I also tried it with Jarlsberg swiss which added creaminess and melted pretty quickly. I liked both but maybe preferred the swiss a bit more than the cheddar. Try them out and let me know what you think!

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Blackberry Lemon Quick Bread

July 19, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

Lemon Blackberry Quick Bread 5

Apologies that it has been so long since I have last posted! I have been working on some exciting new things for the blog and an update will be happening on that soon. Until then I wanted to update with a great new breakfast recipe. A quick bread is perfect for when you’re short on breakfast ideas and just want something already made for busy mornings. This bread takes inspiration from my typical banana bread recipe. The typical banana bread is so full of moisture and fluffiness that I wanted to recreate it with different flavors. I love the combination of lemon and blackberries because it gives just the right amount of sweetness and tart. The final result was a moisture rich bread full of tart berry flavor, perfect for breakfast mornings. You can use frozen blackberries–just let them thaw completely before using. I use room temperature water to thaw the berries and it takes about 10 minutes to get them completely thawed. I minimized the amount of sugar on this recipe as much as possible but you can add more if you prefer a sweeter bread.

Lemon Blackberry Quick Bread 2
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French Dip Beef Soup

June 11, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

French Dip Beef Soup French dip sandwiches are simply delicious. I wanted to recreate that deliciousness in soup form by “deconstructing” the traditional recipe. I think it worked out rather well! It’s a little bit French Onion soup and a little bit french dip. If you think about it the sandwich actually lends itself well as a soup because the “au jus” is pretty much a broth. All the ingredients were there to be reformed! I chose ground beef as a substitute for the sliced beef but if you’d like to use top round or rump roast (same as the sandwich) I’m sure that would be delish as well. I figured the ground beef would lend itself better in soup form but your mileage may vary. The key to this soup is actually the sourdough croutons. You gotta have those to complete the french dip experience! A good white cheese is also imperative, either shredded provolone or an aged white cheddar are both great options.
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Sweet & Sour Tofu and Rice Bowls

June 4, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

Sweet & Sour Tofu and Rice Bowls

I love tofu but it can be a bit tricky to prepare correctly. I’ve had a couple issues with tofu, I wonder if anyone else had this happen? No matter how much oil I use in the pan, the tofu will stick to the pan and all the nice crispiness is sitting there stuck to the bottom! Very frustrating. Then if I’m using tofu in a stir fry, it has a tendency to crumble apart. Or if I’m attempting crispy baked tofu, it can become hard and have an unpleasant texture.

Now after a lot of experimenting I think I figured out the perfect way to get crispy fried tofu but still incredibly soft on the inside. I follow the same steps as pan frying sweet and sour chicken or fish: dipping the tofu in egg and batter, then finishing off in the oven. So simple I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it earlier! The tofu really does taste just like sweet and sour chicken. Besides the awesome texture of the fried tofu, the sauce is really where it’s at. It caramelizes to perfection and is just so tasty! I served the tofu with just a basic rice bowl and peas as a side.

Sweet & Sour Tofu and Rice Bowls
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Bacon & Lentil Soup with Vegetables

May 29, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

Bacon & Lentil Soup with Vegetables

We have recently been finding some new hikes around town and finding some really nice trails. Over the last few months my fiance and I have racked up a huge wildflower photo collection along with some beautiful snaps of the scenery.

Lupine

California Poppies

Wild Pansies

Wild Roses

When we get home on the weekends from hiking we’re usually not in the mood to work on complicated dinners

Spotted this cool guy on the trail!

That goes for the busy work day nights as well–ain’t nobody got time for that! Enter: Bacon Lentil Soup to the rescue. The healthy lentils cancels out the bacon right?? Pretty sure that’s how nutrition works. Anyways, I am a big fan of this soup as it’s simple to throw together and full of good stuff. The bell peppers and mushrooms go great in this recipe which is flavored with white wine, fresh sage, garlic and spices. A pinch of cinnamon lends itself great to the flavors of the recipe. I like the bacon with this recipe because–well do I even need to explain why? You can definitely remove the bacon to make this vegan or vegetarian.

Bacon & Lentil Soup with Vegetables

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Banana Oatmeal Bread

May 8, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

I love a good loaf of banana bread. It’s a great breakfast when you’re busy during the week or when you’re just relaxing on the weekend with a cup of coffee. I chose to cut out some of the sugar on this recipe to make it more breakfast friendly while also adding some quick oats to the batch to make it more filling. The oats give it a little more texture that I like too. I love the way bananas make bread so tender and fluffy. I’m not sure what the science is behind that–perhaps the extra moisture from the bananas? They do something to the bread that makes it so soft! Banana bread really doesn’t dry out like others and you can keep it on the shelf 4-5 days without it turning stale. It’s also pretty cool that you can turn over-ripe bananas, something you wouldn’t normally eat, into something delicious. I think the final verdict is that bananas are magic, plain and simple.
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Slow Cooker Beef Fajita Soup with Roasted Peppers

April 14, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

Slow Cooker Beef Fajita Soup with Roasted Peppers

Spring has been lovely this year with the recent rains and the wildflower blooms. The last few days it’s been particularly windy so I got in the mood to fire up the slow cooker for some soup. This one takes all the great elements of beef fajitas and combines them into a soup. You really can’t go wrong with that! Smoky Adobo chiles combine with roasted peppers and chili spices alongside a medley of beef, rice and beans. To prevent the rice from soaking up all of the stock I just prepare the rice separately for each bowl and mix it into the soup at the end. I love roasted peppers and I thought they brought the perfect fajita flavor to the soup. After cooking for 8+ hours, all the ingredients became fall apart tender and delicious! You can garnish this soup with nearly anything that works on fajitas–chopped green onion, cheese, sour cream, sliced avocado, jalapeno slices, cilantro…you name it!
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Slow Cooker Hearty Elk & Vegetable Stew

March 5, 2016 by The Partial Ingredients

Hearty Elk & Vegetable Stew

For those who have game meat available to them, this is the recipe for you! I am lucky to have a local butcher that supplies all sorts of meats, including elk and bison. This one is lovely for ground elk but if that is not available to you, ground beef works just fine. This is a very nice recipe for St. Patrick’s day since meat and potatoes is the perfect entree for the holiday. Flavored with fresh oregano and sage, paprika and garlic, this is a fragrant blend for your holiday stew. I thickened up the soup a bit with a little flour but that is an optional step. I also added balsamic vinegar and worcestershire for a little acid to flavor the stock. Throw everything in the slow cooker to cook all day and you will have a lovely stew for the evening! Garnish each bowl with a little aged Irish white cheddar and fresh parsley to perfect the recipe.
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