Asparagus and Cheese Stuffed Chicken Dinner with Sour Cream Banana Bread Dessert

So today we decided to pick another homemade recipe from Pillsbury: The Best Of Classic Cookbooks, and we picked out a delicious sounding dinner: herb cheese-stuffed chicken breasts. But we didn't have all the ingredients, which called for a trip to the grocery store. While in the vegetable aisle of Albertson's, Brian spotted some asparagus, something we both love but have never made ourselves, so we decided to buy some and try to take that on. I mean, we really had no idea how to prepare it, so after a quick call to Kirk Plummer (Brian's chef brother who cooks the dankest food), we got tips and an idea on how to best cook the asparagus. After paying for our goods, we left the grocery store with our bags...and the grocery cart. Hey, we're college kids with no cars, and there's no way we're walking home holding many heavy bags without some help; so we took the cart home with us. Not saying that I wasn't against this idea to begin with (happy Brian?)

We got some stares along the way home, but I guess we fit in with SLO's homeless 

community who drag along carts with them all the time.

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DISH lightly seasoned asparagus

INGREDIENTS

fresh asparagus

olive oil

salt and pepper

chili powder

HOW TO
1) Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2) Cut off bottoms of fresh asparagus
3) Lay asparagus on baking sheet. Coat with olive oil, salt, pepper, and a little bit of chili powder.
4) Cook until soft or semi-hard, however you prefer.

DANKNESS FACTOR 8/10
 

COMMENTS/TIPS

     Such an easy dish, but it comes out as such an amazingly delicious and flavorful side dish, all while using minimal ingredients. And you don't feel bad overeating these, which you will, because it's healthy and light. The texture was so good; slightly soft, slightly crunchy near the ends. Definitely will be making these again. Most props to Brian for making these and a big thanks to Kirk for telling us how to prepare this.
     The aspar-gas came out great, with a big thanks to my brother. When I made them, I used way too much olive oil and had to drain some out in the middle of the cooking process because you could hear it sizzling. Regardless, they were absolutely full of flavor and tender. Asparagus is one of my favorite vegetables and I had the urge to buy them and make them. My brother recommended that I use chili flakes, but we didn't have any so I used chili powder instead.

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DISH herb cheese-stuffed chicken breasts

INGREDIENTS

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
2 oz. feta cheese, crumbled (1/2 a cup)
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano or 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
2 (14.5 oz.) cans Italian-style diced tomatoes, undrained (we actually just used 2 medium tomatoes and diced them up and added some salt, pepper, and herbs)
1/4 cup sliced ripe olives (we used mushrooms instead)
4 teaspoons corn starch

HOW TO

1) Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Using a sharp knife, cut a 3-inch slit in meaty side of each chicken breast to form pocket.
3) In medium bowl, combine feta cheese, parsley, oregano, and oil; mix well.
4) Gently spoon half of filling into each pocket. Place chicken in ungreased 13x9 baking dish.
5) In another medium bowl, combine tomatoes, olives (mushrooms in our case), and cornstarch; mix well. Pour over chicken.
6) Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes or until chicken in fork-tender and juices run clear.

DANKNESS FACTOR 7.5/10

COMMENTS/TIPS
     The idea of stuffing chicken was what made this recipe so initially appealing, and it turned out to be much easier than I thought it'd be. My one regret about this dish was not seasoning the chicken before placing the tomato/mushroom mixture on top: what was I thinking? But the feta cheese was delicious (my first time trying feta cheese by the way) along with the fresh parsley. The highlight was definitely the stuffing. It's a fairly easy dish to make and opens up ideas for making our own stuffing next time. It's also a pretty satisfying, healthy dish.
     It was aight; I think that it got better overnight. I love chicken, I love cheese, and I love tomatoes, but for some reason it was just mediocre to me. A little season or marinade on the chicken would have changed things. On the positive side, I do like the idea of stuffing chicken and baking it; usually I just saute or grill my chicken, so it was a nice change. 

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We kind of forked the hell out of our bread everytime we went to check if it was done...whoops.

DISH banana sour cream bread

INGREDIENTS

1 tablespoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 1/2 tablespoons butter
3/4 cups white sugar
1 egg
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 of 16 oz. container sour cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

HOW TO

1) Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease 7x3 inch loaf pans.
2) In a small bow, stir together 1 tablespoon white sugar and 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Dust pan lightly with cinnamon and sugar mixture.
3) In a large bowl, cream butter and 3/4 cups white sugar. Mix in egg, mashed bananas, sour cream, vanilla extract, and cinnamon. Mix in salt, baking soda, and flour. Stir in nuts. (at this point, I also added a good amount of cinnamon to the mixture)
4) Pour mixture into pan, bake for an hour or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

DANKNESS FACTOR 8.5/10

COMMENTS/TIPS

     Very easy to make and it turned out to be one of the best banana breads I've had (and I've had plenty in my life). The sour cream gives it an interesting kick; definitely makes it more dense and thicker. After a while searching for the perfect banana bread recipe on allrecipes.com, I found this one, which seemed to get great ratings. Of course people recommended changing the portions of ingredients around, which I did. We ended up baking it for more than an hour. The taste was perfect; the addition of ground cinnamon into the mixture went perfectly with the portion of bananas called for. The texture was just the best; a bit mushy, dense, and thick.
     The banana bread came out so dank; I could eat that every day of my life. It had nice bits of banana and the texture was just perfect. I liked it warm out of the oven and cold out of the fridge equally. Great recipe. Can't wait to make it again.

Taj Palace

So after passing this Indian restaurant numerous of times and having the scent of curry go up our noses every time, we finally got around to going! So let's get to the food...
(side note: the pictures didn't come out so great due to the very dim lighting in the restaurant)

DISH Garlic Naan; leavened bread lightly sprinkled with fresh garlic - $2.95

DANKNESS FACTOR 8/10

COMMENTS

     So cheap and such a good appetizer. Tasted like garlic bread but much better because of the different type of bread they used. It was seasoned perfectly, it was nice and warm, and its spices were just great. I loved the texture; it was light and thin but packed with so much flavor. It was like lightly oiled, garlic-ed up, spiced up pita bread. 

     They had a really nice doughy texture that added to the nice oily garlicness of the bread. It came with 4 pieces so we had 2 pieces each and didn't have to fuss over the last piece like usual. I thought it was a good appetizer.

DISH Lamb curry; lamb cooked in a mildly spiced gravy - $9.95

DANKNESS FACTOR 7.5/10
COMMENTS
     The curry was delicious, as expected. We had a hard time choosing between the chicken and lamb curry, but I personally wanted to try to lamb because I don't have it often and it's different. The curry was tasty, with many spices infused in it; it wasn't so spicy which I liked. I wasn't the biggest fan of the slight cilantro taste, but it was very minimal so it didn't bother me much. The lamb was very tender and cooked pretty much to perfection; I wished they added more pieces of lamb though.
     The lamb was nice and tender, but the curry wasn't very spicy at all and was more sweet than anything. I wasn't really sure how to eat it because it is very soup like and they gave us plates to eat it. I haven't had lamb in a really long time so that was a nice change. A little skimpy on the portion, but it was a good.

 

DISH Chicken Biriyani; basmatic rice cooked with chicken - $10.95

DANKNESS FACTOR 8/10

COMMENTS

     I really appreciated the portion that they gave us. We ended up dominating it all, but still wished for more. The rice had a mild curry taste to it, and it was just packed with flavor. The chicken pieces tasted and felt like they were slow cooked for hours; it was cooked so tenderly and each bite was just a burst of curry, Indian flavor. 

     This dish is right up my alley; rice and chicken. The chicken was cooked perfectly and was probably cooked for several hours to get the juicyness of it. Very easy to eat and I wish I was able to eat this plate to myself, but I guess i'll just do that next time. 

 

DISH rice pudding - $no idea

DANKNESS FACTOR 5.5/10

COMMENTS

     So we asked our server what their desserts were, and she replied in a very quiet, hard to understand voice with rice pudding and cheeseballs. We decided to keep it safe and go with rice pudding, though I kind of wished we tried the cheeseballs now. The rice pudding, which I thought would be like tapioca, had a subtle taste to it. Actually, it really had very minimal taste at all. I mean, it was sweet and sugary and all, but just didn't have a strong pudding taste which I was looking for. 

     I asked the lady what desserts they had, and when she was naming them off, I couldn't really understand her because of her accent, but I was able to pick up rice pudding so I ordered it. It was more of a traditional rice pudding I guess because it wasn't very sweet and had a strange underlying flavor that I couldn't put my finger on. But overall I think I would have preferred to end my meal without this. It left a bad taste in my mouth and kind of upset my stomach. Would not order again. 

     So our waitress comes back with our check and brought this with it, to which Brian asked, "What's this?!" She told us, once again in a very soft tone, that it was candy; it must be some sort of Indian candy. Brian went to try it, but I wasn't really feeling it. He said it was hard and crunchy and that it was just basically sugar. Ehh, not for me.
     So this came with the check after we started to eat the rice pudding. So I asked the lady what it was and she mumbled something and all i could pick up was candy. By no means was this candy. It felt like I was going to chip a tooth and it left a gross taste in your mouth afterward...so I didn't eat too many. If you know what this is, please let us know. A very odd way to end a meal.

As you can imagine, if we smelled the curry from outside the restaurant, then it must have been extremely potent inside. So when we walked out of the restaurant, we reaked of curry, which I guess is slightly good and bad.

Taj Palace
795 E Foothill Blvd.
San Luis Obispo, CA 93410
6.5/10

Gooey Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

What's the best thing to do on a rainy class-less Friday? Bake cookies. This happens to be the second time I've made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies using this recipe. I got the recipe online from allrecipes.com, and after reading a bunch of reviews for it, different people recommended different portions of certain ingredients, so I took bits of every advice and also changed around the recipe. It's the best recipe I've found yet.

DISH soft oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

 

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2/3 tablespoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 cups quick-cooking oats

1 cup chopped walnuts (I used chopped almonds instead)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

(ground cinnamon is not included in the recipe, but adds a great flavor to the cookies)

HOW TO

1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2) In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth.
3) Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.
4) Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt (and ground cinnamon if desired) and stir into the creamed mixture until just blended.
5) Mix in the quick oats, walnuts (or whatever nuts you're using), and chocolate chips.
6) Place spoonfuls of dough mixture onto ungreased baking sheets
7) Bake for 12 minutes. Allow cookies to cool on sheet for 5 minutes after cooking.
Bakes about 30-36 cookies

DANKNESS FACTOR 8/10

COMMENTS/TIPS

     The best part about these cookies are that they stay chewy and soft after cooling down, even days after. These cookies are one of the more healthier ones I've found, considering it only uses 1/2 a cup of butter and minimal amount of salt, but the sugar I guess not so much. They're a lot more thick and oat-ey compared to other oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, if you're into that. Warning: they're addictive - that slight cinnamon oat chewy texture mixed with the sweet indulgent taste of melty chocolate chips and crunchy nuts.
     I didn't have the privilege  of eating it fresh from the oven, but they were still nice and chewy and I'm actually eating one right now... hehehe. You don't feel like a complete fat ass eating them either cause there are lots of oats in them. It also gives you a reason to devour a whole plate of them. Like I've always thought...cookies are the most evil of all desserts.

Cinnamon Sugar Biscuits, Part 2

So if you remember our previous biscuits we made (if not, click), we finally got around to making them again, this time adjusting some things - adding sugar and more cinnamon and replacing milk with chocolate milk. Definitely made it twice as better than the last.

DISH cinnamon sugar biscuits

HOW TO 

We used the same procedure and ingredients as the last biscuits, except this time adding about half a cup of sugar, 2/3 cup CHOCOLATE milk (sorry Dalila! I took just a little), and some cinnamon to the actual mix.

DANKNESS FACTOR 6.5/10

COMMENTS/TIPS

these can get addicting. These don't taste like typical biscuits because they're made from multigrain pancake mix, so they have this multigrain-y pancake-y taste and texture to them.

They were a lot better this time. I slept over at Keiko's house and she baked them for breakfast. Definetly a lot better this time around than before. They were easy to eat and didn't even need butter. I thought it was interesting that she used chocolate milk. 

Mushroom Alfredo Chicken

Sorry for the lack of delays; we got lazy and had a pasta dinner 2 nights in a row. Now back to the grub!

DISH cut up chicken breasts simmered and cooked in Alfredo sauce topped with mushrooms coated in basil, garlic powder, and pepper. 

DANKNESS FACTOR 6/10 

COMMENTS/TIPS

     Nothing special; just a simple, quick chicken dish. Tried something new with the Alfredo sauce, which ended up being pretty tasty. I also cooked some eggplant on the side, but half the eggplant went all soft and discolored because it froze from being in the back of the fridge (sucky fridge) and then melted. Sooo..(not pictured)

     There were certain bites that had some extra alfredo or mushroom on it and were super tasty, but most of the bites were plain chicken. Next time we'll probably add more alfredo and let it cook longer. Good idea, just not good execution.

Juicy Chicken Sausage

 

DISH smoked apple chardonnay chicken sausage (from Trader Joe's)

DANKNESS FACTOR 6.5/10

COMMENTS/TIPS

     The name sounded so appealing I just had to try it, and interestingly enough it was chicken sausage, something we've never tried before. The flavor was not as prominent as I thought it'd be; it had a mellow flavor, a slight smoky taste, but couldn't really taste the apple part of it. It was still tasty nonetheless. The sausage was nice and juicy and the outer casing was nice and tough which is how I like my sausage (that's what she said). It's really an easy dish to prepare, simply cook it on a pan. Plus, it's only 140 calories a sausage. Next time we're going to eat it hotdog style, with some ketchup, mustard, onions on top. Mmmm 

     The chicken sausage was alright by itself. I think it should be eaten with some other stuff...like a sausage sandwich with a good mustard. It tasted more like a maple-y sausage compared to the spicy Italian sausage that I really enjoy.

Brian and his Forgetting Sarah Marshall impersonation of the movie's very accurate portrayal of Asian tourists. konichiwa ^o^

Oh, we also added a handy sidebar of everything we made so far ---->

Breaded Fish Fillet

First time we had fish this whole year! Once again, I walked into the house and dinner was almost done cooking :)

 

MAIN DISH panko-breaded tilapia fillets (Trader Joe's) 

SIDE DISH pasta with traditional marinara sauce topped with sauteed onions and a side of salad topped with onions and beef steak tomatoes

DANKNESS FACTOR 7.5/10

COMMENTS/TIPS

     Even though they're frozen, the fillets are cooked in the oven, so it turns out to be super crunchy and perfect. The fish is very flavorful and rich, but it's 360 calories a piece! (if you're counting calories like I am). Also, next time you're at Trader Joe's buy the beef steak tomatoes. They really are thick and beefy, and have a nice amount of sweetness to them.

     It was nice to eat some fish for once. There were parts that were really crispy and others that were more chewy. Next time, I would probably cook it a bit longer to infuse more crunch. Once again, another cheap great Trader Joe's frozen item.


So we watched 127 Hours the other day. Go watch it; it's just so intense and the editing is really clever.