Drunken Herbal Chicken Marinade

My mom and I were discussing what to have for dinner tonight, and we decided on chicken, whipped carrots with dried cranberries (it's seriously awesome), and a salad. So, what to do with the chicken? I felt the need to make a marinade, and in my fridge I found some fresh parsley, fresh basil, and white wine that nobody wanted to drink since it isn't all that good. Plus I had a lime that needed to be used soon. And so a marinade was started. I added in some more flavors, and let it sit for a while. Then my brother used his indoor electric grill (it's rainy and nasty so no one wanted to grill outside) and we had a tasty and easy Monday night feast.

Click here for the recipe!

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Nutty Irishman Semifreddo (Ice Cream!)

Ok, so this really has nothing to do with herbs, but I make a lot of other types of food, and this is my blog, so I figure I can randomly post about awesome things I make. Let me tell you about how this most delicious of semi-frozen treats was created.

Isn't it beautiful? My new favorite ice cream surrounded by my favorite coffee beans, it's absolutely mouth-watering (at least for me!).

The Story:
I went to the Mohegan Sun a couple weeks ago with my brother, Mark, and my cousin, Jenna. While we were at the free Soul Asylum concert, we decided to be fancy and order Nutty Irishmen. It turns out that this is one of the best creations in the entire world. We all fell in love with it. Luckily, we knew we were coming back the next weekend to see Sponge.

The Nutty Irishman is just Frangelico, Bailey's, and hot coffee topped with whipped cream. It is heavenly and warming.

Back to the unnecessarily long story. During the week in between concerts, Mark and I craved it too much and just decided to buy Frangelico and Bailey's and make it ourselves. It was pure genius. Also, I learned that a little drop of Frangelico into whipped cream makes it a gazillion times more tasty.

So we went back, had it again, loved it. Last weekend I decided to make a Citrus Semifreddo from Giada De Laurentiis' book Giada's Kitchen. It was crazy easy to make, and so good that my whole family has been craving it since we first tried it last night. It's hard to hold back from eating the whole thing.

Today, my brother and I were discussing other flavors we could make. He had the brilliant idea of trying to make a Nutty Irishman Semifreddo! So i looked at a bunch of recipes, realized they all have very similar measurements and very easy parts that I could substitute for the flavors I wanted. We made it. It is the smoothest, creamiest, coffee, hazelnut, beautiful, magic, indescribable-yet-I'm-still-going-to-try-to-describe-it kind of flavor. And it isn't even done yet. I know the flavor is good, but I'm waiting to see how well it freezes. I was so excited that I had to type this before it was even finished being made!

Update: It has finished freezing and it is just as perfect tasting as I thought! I apparently didn't fully incorporate the whipped cream, but I think it makes it look pretty and it still tastes bangin' so it's all good.

Click here for the recipe!

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Sage = Adorable & Dill = Wicked Cool

First off, I heard about how some random from NY wants to ban the use of salt in all NY restaurants. That's just a whole new level of stupid. Nothing will boost an economy like a massive chef strike! Hopefully NY realizes this is a silly idea and moves past it. If people are against salt in restaurant food, then they always have the viable option of cooking their own flavorless blobs of nothing at home. Oh well.

On to better things: herbs! Sage and dill are growing at an explosive speed! Meanwhile, parsley and basil haven't changed all that much. The sage has started growing little herby leaves that are simply adorable. They're all wrinkly and fuzzy and tiny, like a baby, except sage is actually cute.

The dill is just crazy whirls of mayhem. I like it. I had no idea that dill was quite so cool looking while it grows. I must say it is a pleasant surprise.

Poor basil and parsley are being wicked lame. They're still so small! The parsley is starting to sprout little herby leaves, however they are not all that impressive right now. I tried to take a picture of it, but it was just too lame to post. I hope you enjoy the sage and dill instead.

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Couscous Peperoncino

This is an Italian recipe that I learned about while I was in Japan. Most of their versions of Italian food I found to be incredibly hilarious, such as pasta with a ketchup ragu sauce topped with a raw egg. But this one was actually pleasant. I used to buy packets of the sauce mix while I was living there, but when I moved back I found them to be overly expensive. So I went to the store, found a packet, read the ingredients, and made my own version. Being cheap and poor has had the positive side-effect of forcing me to be a good cook.

This recipe is both spicy and fresh tasting. It would go well as a side dish with meat or fish, or is good as a lunch. The garlic is very subtle. You taste more of the spicy hotness from the peppers, which is slightly tamed by the parsley.

When I make this I used dried chili peppers from Asian markets, and I usually buy them pre-chopped into little rounds. You can always buy whole dried chili peppers and chop them yourself. Those are probably at regular stores, but I never really checked.

I also prefer whole wheat couscous because it's got an extra bit of flavor that is slightly nutty. This recipe can be made with pretty much any type of grain., I just like couscous the best for this. 

This recipe also only takes about a total of 10 minutes to prepare and cook. It's kind of awesome like that.

Click here for the recipe!

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Dill and Sage are finally growing. And Runsas are tasty.

My dill and sage have been growing awesomely. When they first started growing they were both kind of ugly, so I didn't take any pictures. They were brownish and wimpy looking. Luckily, that quickly changed. Apparently dill grows really tall in a short amount of time. One day they were just peeking out of the soil, and the next they were like 2 inches high! I might have to raise my grow-light if they keep up like this.






Some of the sage kept the seed shell on for a while after they busted the soil. I wanted to just pluck it off, but I figured it's probably a natural thing  so I left it. It's cool to watch it though because the stem is all fuzzy and weird. You can see one in the middle with the seed shell still on the top.

It's so interesting how all the herbs look so completely different, and the shapes of them remind me of the seeds. Dill, for example is really long and thin. The sage is very round and fat. Basil is round and thin. The parsley is long and very delicate looking. Maybe I'm looking into it all too much, but I think its fascinating.

On a completely unrelated side note, I just finished making Runsas (beef and cabbage buns) today and they are FANTASTIC. Savory filling wrapped in a lightly sweetened soft bread? Yeah, doesn't get much more delicious than that. I plan on using the bread recipe and inventing my own filling with various herbs. You should be excited, because it's going to be epic.

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