Tag Archives: jalapeño

Recent cooking adventures: Mango-jalapeño salsa, Greek potato, fried pork, and biscuit pizza

Mango-jalapeño salsa and tilapia

I haven’t posted much about my recent cooking, so this’ll be as quick look at a few things. First up, mango-jalapeño salsa! This was pretty simple with mango, jalapeño, cilantro, red onion, lime juice, and some seasoning. Here it’s served on tilapia on a bed of mixed greens, but it goes great with chicken too as well as chips!

Greek potato

For lack of a better term, I was just calling this a Greek potato. Not much to this really – just a Hasselback potato with feta and honey, but it’s totally delicious.

Marinated pork collar butt

Farm Direct had some cheap, delicious marinated pork collar butt, so I bought it a few times because it was easy to use with other things.

Marinated pork collar butt

With onions, bell pepper, and some eggs, it was perfect.

Marinated pork collar butt

I should go buy more actually.

Biscuit pizza

I’m probably too old to share something so dumb, but I liked these anyways. These pizzas were made with Pillsbury Grands! biscuits. At first I used a whole biscuit per pizza, but I revised them to use half a biscuit per pizza. Less calories, less carbs, more tastiness.

Biscuit pizza

I’m glad Anela shared the video with me from BuzzFeed Food!

Assorted veggies

Bonus veggies!

What happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas

What happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, but I’m going to talk about food anyways.

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Okay, this wasn’t even actually Vegas. Before leaving Orange County, we stopped for breakfast at Xa – Sweet & Savory Cafe. It was really delicious, but what makes me especially like it is how simple and clean (not the song) the food was. There weren’t a lot of mysteries. You get what you order, unlike places to add a bunch of sauces and fat and bacon to everything.

For dinner that first night we ate at Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill. The shepherd’s pie was hot, tasty, and filling.

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We had brunch the next day at Hash House A Go Go. As usual, portions were humungous. I got a pancake.

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Back in the hotel room, three of us played Spaceteam while Duncan napped. Sorry, Windows phone.

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We wanted to have a buffet for dinner, but brunch was too filling. Instead, we ate at Gordon Ramsay’s BurGR. The “GR” are his initials. Get it? Okay.

Somehow we ended up a Gordon Ramsay restaurant both nights in a row. First, the drinks and appetizers were great. Those jalapeno poppers were pretty good (although I prefer my own), and the “Honey-Pig Bao Buns” were tasty as well.

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Neither of those really compare to the burger. This is the Farm Burger cooked medium with duck breast bacon, English sharp cheddar, and a fried egg. Wow. As it turns out, a place named BurGR makes good burgers.

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I spent five dollars in the Ghostbusters and the Plants vs. Zombies slot machines. Yay.

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On the way out of town, we had lunch at SkinnyFATS. This was a neat restaurant that had the menu divided into two sections – happy and healthy. I ate something off the healthy side, Naked Chix, which consists of seared chicken breast, mango basil sauce, brown rice, and cilantro yogurt. It was only $7.50 as well, which is pretty great. I wish SkinnyFATS was in Irvine.

It was a weekend full of food.

Chocolate loaf cake, calzone, and pizza

Chocolate loaf cake

I spent most of the last two nights baking. I had Amish Friendship Bread, so I decided to make a couple things. Tuesday night I made a chocolate loaf cake. When I had a piece that night, it wasn’t as chocolaty as I expected. However, my piece Wednesday morning had a much richer taste. I think the first piece wasn’t as rich because it was the end piece and had cooked more. I’m pretty happy with it. I also made dough that I left rising for a day.

Making the calzone

Wednesday night my dough was ready. I started with a calzone packed with sauce, cheese, turkey sausage, turkey pepperoni, mushroom, red onion, and red bell pepper.

Calzone

It was kind of huge.

Calzone

While the crust tasted fantastic, I probably should have made it a bit thinner. Also, I might have filled it a bit too much.

Pizza

I also made two pizzas with the same ingredients except I also added jalapeño and pineapple. I didn’t actually try the pizzas yet; the purpose was to have food in the fridge so I wouldn’t have to cook nightly.

When I was all done, I was exhausted and sleepy. I suspect a lot of that had to do with eating most of that calzone. It was so tasty!