For the second week in a row, back by popular demand… a martini recipe – please enjoy responsibly and for those 19+ only… but for all of us at home going on 7 weeks – It’s Quarantini Time (only responsibly though!). The super sweet and tart lemon drop martini.
Lemon Drop Martini
Ingredients for lemon drop martini
1 lemon – juiced (you need about 2 tbsp
1-1.5 oz vodka
ice
1 oz simple syrup
(If you don’t have simple syrup you can make it – it is a 1:1 ratio of water and sugar – for instance use 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar and heat until the sugar has dissolved completely. )
Directions
place ice cubes in a martini shaker along with all other ingredients. Then shake. Allow the ice to melt a little bit. Pour into a martini glass – voila so good and easy… remember to enjoy responsibly even when stuck at home. (and yes, I am really good at making martinis… and I take requests…_
My husband loves fried chicken. Fried chicken is not super healthy. We are also in a pandemic and we don’t love the idea of eating out too much… plus we are trying to keep ourselves as healthy as possible at the mo. I have also been scouring the cupboard for long forgotten things to use so that we can avoid the grocery store as much as possible – I found a box of panko bread crumbs (likely long ago expired but oh well) and found a great recipe that I modified for the air fryer! So here is a good healthier option for panko fried chicken legs!
so crispy and yummy and I served it with salad and rice… so good
Ingredients for panko fried chicken legs
chicken legs (6 or so)
buttermilk (1/4 c) or use 1/4 c milk and 1/4 tbs lemon juice mixed together and allowed to stand for 15 min
panko bread crumbs (1 cup)
parlsey 1 tsp
your choice of seasoning (Italian or I used fajita seasoning 1-3 tsp)
salt – about 1/4 tsp to taste
cooking spray
Instructions
Place chicken in a ziploc bag with buttermilk to coat and refrigerate for at least 30 min. You can leave this here all day or overnight if you like though. Spray inside of basket of air fryer with cooking spray; if you like put about 1 tsp of vegetable oil in the bottom. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl and coat the chicken well. I tried to pat a good layer of panko mix onto each side and then balanced as much as I could on the top. Then spray each side of the chicken and place in air fryer basket. Cook for 10 minutes at 380F then flip and cook an additional 14 minutes. Make sure the chicken internal temperature reaches 165 degrees so you know it is done.
This recipe doubles easily but my air fryer will only hold 6 legs at a time … I did double this and had lovely left overs…
I tripped across a recipe about 10 days ago for an Apple Pie Martini – in my usual fashion I changed it to make it my own and then posted it on facebook – my personal page. It got a lot (A LOT) of traction… It is a really REALLY good recipe… and you know, 6 weeks into stay at home time really does equal quarantini time. So…. I asked my friends on my personal facebook page if it was inappropirate to post a martini recipe on my blog since a lot of my patients come here to look at recipes. One of my friends said a more appropirate question was really “should I post 1 or 2 martini recipes on my blog each week?” And thus, I have been schooled. I therefore bring you The Aplle Pie Martini (to be enjoyed occasionally and responsibly for those 19+)
This was the original FB photo with the caption “current situation – holding open cookbook with Clorox wipes while making goulash and drinking an Apple Pie Martini
Ingredients for Apple Pie Martini
This is a list for a batch of martinis – do not drink it all at once!
One cup of Vodka
One apple sliced really thinly (for surface area)
2-3 tablespoons lemon juice
one cinnamon stick
Symple syrup (1 oz -1.5 oz per drink – to be used later when ready to drink)
ice
Directions
In a glass sealable container place sliced apple, cinnamon, lemon juice and vodka and seal. Place in refrigerator at least 24 hours. Once the day has gone by drain into a different container. When ready to mix place ice and simple syrup in a martini shaker along with 1-2 oz of flavoured vodka and shake – allow the ice to melt for a few minutes then strain into martini glass.
So simple and really tasty.
Remember to enjoy responsibly.
More formal and pretty picture of Apple pie martini
Why the recipe for the easy chocolate cake? Here is the back story: So back during the depression there were shortages of supplies, or it was just too costly to get things like eggs, butter, yeast. Want to bake a cake and you may be out of luck. Sound familiar? Here in week 5 of physical distancing I almost cried when my husband went to Costco and then Walmart and found zero eggs at any price. We got lucky and found some at the local grocery store; but the point of going to Costco was to avoid going to more than one store – frustrating.
So, here we are trying to conserve things in a way that I really never thought we would have to in my lifetime. We poked fun at our grandparents for washing plastic bags and saving milk bags to reuse, saving wrapping paper and bacon grease. Lo and behold I am now doing all of these things; ok, I always saved bacon grease because it is awesome for some cooking. I say it is a good thing this happened now so that my generation, who witnessed our grandparents wisdom, knew what to do. Our kids would have otherwise had no idea. Ok so the search for this easy chocolate cake came from that: no eggs, or milk, and it uses things on hand. I can also be found under names like “depression cake” or crazy cake… doubles easily…
Oops I forgot to take a picture before we ate some… so yummy!
Ingredients
flour 1.5 cups
sugar (white) 1 cup
cocoa powder 1/4 cup
vegetable oil 3/8 cup (or so dont stress over the exact amount…)
water – 1 cup cold
vinegar (white) – 1 tablespoon
vanilla – 1 teaspoon
chocolate chips (a handfull or so)
sprinkles to top…
Directions for easy chocolate cake
Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a square glass pyrex baking dish with oil or baking spray. (but this can also be done right in the glassware with no greasing and all mixing done in the one bowl and no clean up! but this makes cleaning the pan a bit harder after baking). Mix all dry ingredients in mixing bowl – you can sift together but I am lazy and never do… it would probably make it fluffier though. Make three depressions in the dry ingredients and add oil to one, vinegar to another and vanilla to the third. Pour the water over all and mix all together. Pour into baking pain and toss hand fulls of chocolate chips over top and add sprinkles. Bake for 25-30 mins checking occasionally at end until inserted knife comes out clean.
One of the recipes floating around on facebook or the internet in general during the first few weeks of stay at home Covid-19 style was this one for “Dalgona Coffee”. I don’t even really know how to pronounce that so I just called it a fancy instant iced coffee…. if you are missing Starbucks or just want a treat and have some instant coffee at home (I found some in the back of a cupboard – think we bought it for camping… and yuck…so it is still there). So of course I had to give it a try… here is the recipe I used and the directions as pitfalls to avoid… it was fun to try and pretty yummy but quite full of sugar.
Fancy Instant Iced Coffee or Dalgona Coffee
Ingredients
These are the ingredients needed for one serving of coffee
instant coffee – 2 tablespoons
white sugar – 2 tablespoons
hot water – 2 tablespoons
1 cup of milk
ice cubes
Directions for fancy instant iced coffee
Put coffee, sugar, and hot water into small bowl and either whip by hand (super tiring); or use a hand mixer to whip. Be careful here! I think I ‘overwhipped’ the first time I did this and it wasn’t as yummy. Please stop whipping as soon as the mixture starts to get thick. Place milk and ice into a glass and float froth on top. Take picture. Post on instagram. Once done then take a spoon and mix layers together. Otherwise you will just get foam on your nose when you try to drink the it.
This week in quarantine cuisine… I seem to be scouring my fridge and cupboards trying to use up old stuff I never tend to eat. This time I came up with dried kidney beans and olives. I have a lot of olives in the fridge for some reason and no one in the house except me eats them. With these seemingly random items I decided to make dip/spread – No, not with them both in the same one – two different spreads – Olive tampenade and Kidney bean dip. They were both super yummy and I have been eating them on (stale) pita that I toast (and had in the freezer for some reason. Don’t worry, the pita is actually good when it is toasted!
What you do need for both of these is a food processor or really good blender.
Olive Tampenade ingredients and directions
around a cup of olives (pitted) green or black or mixed
one clove of garlic
around 3-4 tablespoons of Olive oil
salt to taste
Parlsey (I used dried) about a tablespoon – but cilantro would work too
If you have some – capers (I didn’t have these) if you do add them omit other salt
All you do is throw it all into the food processor and process until smooth- ish. It is super yummy on toasted (stale) pita (and would work on non stale items too).
Kidney Bean Dip Ingredients and Directions
1 can kidney beans drained (I had dried so had soaked overnight and boiled for ages until soft… let cool)
olive oil – 1.5 tsp
1 clove garlic (or two if you live alone – I mean who are you going to go see right now anyways?)
around a tsp ground cumin (if you like it – you can omit this too if you like)
lime juice or lemon juice (around 1 tbsp)
salt to taste
1-2 tsp water depending on desired thickness
Same directions as the Olive tampenade above – through it all in a food processor and blend until smooth – serve on toast or pita (stale toasted pita is my go to)
it actually tastes better than it looks in this picture!
So that is my edition of this week’s quarantine cuisine – clean out your cupboards and fridge and give olive tampenade and kidney bean dip a try!
(I actually made both of these twice before I ran out of ingredients… )
This recipe was born out of quarantine … again – hey we gotta try to laugh right? I was really trying to figure out what to do with a couple of stale pitas – and I came up with this recipe made of stuff that was in the freezer/fridge. It turned out so well that I think it may make it into the regular rotation. And I totally made it up! I was kinda shocked… ok so here is my quarantine Mexican Casserole recipe!
Finished (and half eaten) product!
Ingredients for Mexican Casserole
Stale Pita (one – cut up in 1 cm x 1 cm squares – I used scissors)
2 chicken breasts
fajita or southwest spice (or use a combo of chili powder and paprika)
2 cups of rice cooked
kidney beans (around a can – I used dried but this means you have to soak them overnight and boil them before you get the recipe started- I happened to have some at home so that is what I used)
red pepper (about 1/2 cut up into small pieces)
a large carrot – also cut up very small
garlic – 1-2 cloves
grated cheese to top the casserole – around a cup
salsa to taste
Remember I totally made this one up flying by the seat of my pants so the amounts are kind of fluid and guess work
Directions
To make the Mexican Casserole you need to work on layers. Grease an 8×8 inch glass pyrex dish and preheat the oven to 350 F. Cook rice. Cut the pita into 1cm x 1cm cubes and put them evenly in the bottom of the pyrex roasting dish and set aside. Mix rice and beans and add some garlic to the mix as well as paprika or southwest seasoning and set aside. Place cut carrots in pan with a bit of oil and fry until semi soft then remove from pan. Add chicken breast that has been cut into chunks and cook (I had to thaw mine in the microwave and I ended up half cutting and half shredding the chicken which gave it a nice texture. Season with southwest seasoning and at the end of cooking add in the veggies to cook slightly. Transfer on top of the pita layer into the pyrex dish and top with salsa to taste. Then top the salsa layer with a layer of rice and beans. Top with shredded cheese and bake about 20 minutes to heath through and melt cheese. And that’s it my made up quarantine Mexican casserole! I had some leftover ingredients and made it twice it was so good!
