You too can be a Goddess...

Just make this chicken!

Since i started bloggin' about my adventures, recipes are coming at me from everywhere. EVERYONE wants to be a part of my chronicles. And i love you all and want to make every single one of your fabulous recipes, i do, really truly, so keep 'em coming. But i just need to be feeling it at the moment. ;) And that moment has finally arrived...SARAH! :)

Everyday i get inspired by one ingredient, one random thing that i start to pop into allrecipes ingredient search or search for at foodtv. That day the convo had turned to plain yogurt. One of my girlfriends said she uses it as a condiment on nearly everything. I said no way, i just bought plain yogurt and i have no idea why! One of my friends says she only buys plain yogurt and then puts all kinds of good things in it, fruits, granola, etc and enjoys it that way. Another, Sar, said she uses it as a marinade for chicken. DING DING DING!!! Now i'm inspired! Her response: "SCORE!!!!! my first recipe to be featured on meli can cook!"

So now without further adieu, Sarah's Goddess Chicken (i named it, not her) as written by Sar...

this is the marinade:
1 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon grill seasoning

let it marinate and stick it on the indoor grill.
and you can make this and put it on top: :)

Parsley Feta Pesto:
1 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves
1/2 cup feta crumbles
1 clove garlic
1 teaspoon coarse black pepper
3 tablespoons chopped walnuts
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

*SCORE IS RIGHT! YOU MUST TRY THIS RECIPE. IT TASTES AS GOOD AS IT LOOKS, PROMISE!*

I made the pesto as my chicken breasts were grillin. The only change i made was i used pistachios instead of walnuts. Check this out.

Doesn't that look amazing?! You're damn right it does! I had to cut up a tomato and spread the pesto on so i could sample it, cause those giant breasts were taking forever to finish in my grill pan.

Let me tell you, it tasted as amazing as it looked. And the yogurt marinade made the chicken oh so juicy and tender, i served it up with Mom's Rice Pilaf and a couple of sliced tomatos that i didn't inhale while cooking and it was a fabulous dinner.

I had a teeny bit left over for lunch the following day, and the pesto just got better overnight. So if you want, make the pesto a day in advance so the flavors have plenty of time to get to know each other. ;)

Mom's Rice Pilaf

I remember this rice dish from when i was a kid, rice and onions, so simple so delicious.

I called my mom and asked her for the recipe. She said, it's an oldie, she doesn't remember if she got it from my grandmother or my abuela, but it's a goodie.

Mom's Rice Pilaf

1 onion, mom says vidalia is best, but you can use any kind of onion
1/2 stick of butter
1C white rice
2C chicken stock

Slice the onions, saute in butter, cook until almost translucent.
Cook rice as stated on the package, but use chicken stock instead of water and add onions. I cook my rice in the micro, so i throw it all in the corning ware, cover and zap.

The day i asked my mom about the rice, i went to the hospital to visit my abuela. I asked her if she had a rice pilaf recipe. She said yes, a good one and recited the exact same recipe as my mom, cept hers had 3/4 of a stick of butter! lol. So if you are feeling exceptionally decadent, then try abuela's version! ;)

4 Minute Filet

Ok, so this story goes a little something like this. I went on my usual run through Publix, when there was this young guy sampling filet. I initially said no thanks, then said ok, what the hell. It was good but so thin. I've never eaten thin filet mignon before.

He was like, good right? I said yeah, but i'm not buying it, cause mine would turn out like leather. He said no, the trick is to cook it for 2 minutes on each side. Try it, you can do it! I replied, i can try! And threw it in my shopping cart.

I felt really bad for the kid, he was so nice, i even circled back around to the meat section later and almost put them down, thinking why bother with such thin cuts of meat. But then i thought the kid was so nice, and what if he gets credited for how many filets he sells while sampling. i know, i'm such a sucker. :P

Mid-week comes around and i'm thinking about dinner and what to defrost, i see those filets staring at me and just go ok, tonite, we're trying this.

Now that i already knew how to cook the steak, it was time to think of sides. To me, nothing goes better with steak then onions. So onion was the keyword of the day. And you know, i found a ton of onion recipes for Thanksgiving. I thought that was really interesting, cause i do Cuban Thanksgiving, so a lot of traditional American sides, i've never had at Thanksgiving. Anyhoo, i digress.

I did come across a grilled onion recipe that sounded tasty, and even though we have a grill, in this house, the grill is my hubby's territory. So i made it in the oven.

Grilled Onions

I cranked the oven up to 400, broke up the bullion cubes, stuffed the onions with the bullion and butter, wrapped them in foil, threw them on the middle rack and set the timer for 90 minutes. Well at 75 minutes, i checked the oven and the damn onions leaked all over the oven. i know, i know, didn't i learn ANYTHING from the Pound Cake from Hell debacle?! Yeah, apparently not. But the onions were perfectly ready in 90 minutes.

With minutes left to go on the onions, i heated up my pan, seasoned my filets with salt and pepper, and got on it. 2 minutes on one side and 1.5 minutes on the other. The steaks came out with perfectly pink centers. HOORAY, i did it, no leather to chew on tonite! :)

I served it to my hubby with some mac n cheese (out of a box), and as he cut into the onion he said, what's this. I said a faux grilled onion, it's supposed to taste like... he answered mouth-full, it's good.

Psht, yeah it was! Everything was really good and really fast to prep. So i highly recommend that you try this for a quick weeknight meal! :)

Polenta-Shmolenta

I've been reading alot about polenta lately, so i decided to make it as a different side dish. The first time i made it, i served it with RR's Chicken Palliard and i must say, in a head to head battle, mine looked MUCH better then hers. lol. :)

However, the polenta, we were not impressed with. I mixed with with some butter and sprinkled(ok maybe not sprinkled, but you know) it with some Parmesan and it did nothing for this bland side dish. In fact bland is an understatement, it's bland-o-rama, blandissimo, tastes like nothing.

But instead of dumping it, i continued reading and found you can make polenta fries. So i figured ok, this is what's going to make or break polenta for me. So, for lunch i grilled up a chicken breast, some asparagus and fried the damn polenta in some olive oil and sprinkled more . Now, i HATE frying. I'm a disaster at it. When i fry, it splatters everywhere and i get burned and my house smells, in a nutshell i suck at frying. But i plugged ahead and did it anyway hoping to unlock the mystery of why so many love polenta. This was my result.

Looks good right?! Yeah well, now i have a lovely golden crispy crust to the bland bland bland polenta. Biting into it was nice, i will admit, crispy outter shell to a nice warm center, but again the flavor was just not there.

I'm not giving up on polenta though. I now understand that like most anything, you need quality polenta, and next time i'm at Epicure, i'm going to look for some good polenta and maybe a new mix in. But the instant polenta that i picked up at Publix... never again.

The Pound Cake from Hell!

Ok, so as i run up and down the aisles of Publix i call my hubby and ask him if there's anything special he wants me to pick up. He rattles off a list of things including pound cake, and i know i heard it, but it went in one ear and out the other. That nite after dinner he asks where's the pound cake?! Oops, i apologize and tell him i'll make him one tomorrow.

So i attempted to.

First i go on a mission to find one, and am happy to report that good ol Paula Deen has one! And before even clicking on it, i just knew that hers would have at least a stick of butter in it, and what do you know, it doesn't have 1, but 2! I love Paula and her a stick of butter in EVERY recipe mentality.

Grandmother Paul's Sour Cream Pound Cake

I don't have a bundt cake pan but i do have a loaf pan and my hubby's fave store bought pound cake comes in a loaf, so i just decide to use my loaf pan. My hubby got home when i was pouring the batter into the pan and i ask him, do you think i should pour this batter to the top or stop 2/3's of the way to the top or what? He says fill it up! So i do. Why did i listen to him?!

I pop that sucker into the oven, set the timer and walk away from the kitchen. I think it was about 25 min in, i smell something funny. I'm like what the heck, weird, and go to the kitchen to see smoke pouring out of my oven. WHAT?! I open it up and sure enough, there's cake batter pouring out over the side of the pan and well turning into charcoal at the bottom of my oven.

I turn everything off and amid a flood of expletives, take out the pound cake, the racks and start scraping the mess off the bottom of my oven with a spatula and bleepity bleeping that i can't believe i used 6 eggs and 2 sticks of butter and a whole hell of a lot of flour in a recipe that was ruined in less then 30 minutes!

After i cleaned everything up, i popped it back into the oven for the remaining hour. THIS is what came out of the oven.


It looked like it was doomed to me. I didn't taste it, but later that nite, my hubby walked over with a slice saying "it's good, babe". I hacked into it and pulled out a not too burned piece and thought, eh.

The next morning, i continued hacking away at it and decided to smear it with some butter, it was really good, like i had 3 pieces, that good.

So yes, make this recipe, but make it in a bundt pan! ;)

My hubby just walked in asking why i looked so serious, i told him i'm recanting the pound cake from hell story. He said really? I just bought a pound cake! LOL!

Guess i won't be making the recipe any time soon. :P

Orange-y

Last nite's dinner was tilapia and even though this recipe is fabulous, Broiled Tilapia Parmesan, i have made it so many times, that my hubby is over it.

So the search began...i came across this appealing recipe, Mango-licious Tilapia but didn't have any of the ingredients to make the salsa. I thought what the hell, and just went ahead and prepared the tilapia part of the recipe.

Well as i was plating up, i realized my rice was like 5 minutes behind the rest of my dinner. Man, i hate when that happens, my fish can go from flaky to gross in 5 minutes! So i took the fish out of the baking dish and threw in some steamed asparagus and left it there to marinate or soak or whatever you call it.

5 minutes later, my rice, ok well not MY rice, but the awesome Zatarain's Caribbean Rice, a curried rice with pineapple and coconut pieces was done.
i love this rice, it totally rocks. :) Dinner was ready and it was time to present the new orange-infused tilapia to my hubby.

Two bites in, i get a "hmmm...orange-y" out of him. And there you have it people, tilapia cooked in oj and orange zest tastes...ORANGE-Y...shocking, i know! :P The asparagus was nice, i thought the orange was a nice compliment.



I will probably make this one more time, but next time with the mango-licious part of the recipe. I'd like to see how it compliments the orange-y-ness of the tilapia. But as i made it, i prob won't be making it again.

Pizza, Pizza

We just got a Christmas gift, a really cool one, yes in May, those are the best kind to get! We got a super cool pizza stone and a little tip that The Big Cheese sells pizza dough. So off to the Big Cheese i went and i got a couple balls of dough, a quick pizza stretching lesson and a high five cause i was a gal who wanted to be a pizza guy! lol.

Well little did i know but my hubby wanted to be the pizza guy, so he hand stretched the dough and we embarked on our homemade pizza journey. I don't usually name-drop but i have to tell you that it was super tasty so, what can i do?!

Pizza Crust: The Big Cheese
Pizza Sauce: Barilla Roasted Garlic
Cheese: Sargento Parmesan, Romano, Mozzarella Blend & extra mozzarella
Fresh Basil leaves



The next nite, my at home pizza guy got all wild and crazy and made a pepperoni pizza. And that pizza was better then the last. I can't wait to see what kind of funky pizza recipes i come across.

Thank you dahling, fabulous gift, we've LOVING it! :)

The Big Cheese
8080 SW 67 Ave
Miami, FL
305.662.6855
www.bigcheesemiami.com

Not Just Another Squash Casserole

I went looking for a fast, easy, different take on squash for tonite's dinner. I found what felt like a million recipes on the same Ritz cracker casserole (you know, cooked in mushroom soup). Which is why i totally HATE casseroles, that and they take like 1.5 hours to cook.

i came across this recipe and it sounded somewhat interesting,
Cream Cheese Basil Summer Squash

so i changed it up a bit and here's what i came up with.

Not Just Another Squash Casserole
3 yellow squash, diced
4 oz crumbled goat cheese
3T pine nuts
Fresh oregano
Frsh parsley
Fresh basil, twice as much basil as the other herbs
Salt
Pepper

Steam squash (in corningware,covered in about 2Tbs of water micro for 3 minutes) and drain. Toast pine nuts over med high heat. Chop fresh herbs. Mix all together until creamy. S/P to taste. Enjoy!



I served it with Apricot Glazed Turkey Tenderloins and good ol' Stove Top Stuffing. I really liked the squash, but my hubby didn't. But he's really not a squash kind of guy anyway, anyday, anyhow. ;)

David Eyre’s Pancake

So there's this old pancake recipe that has been going around for the past couple months, it's vintage, yay! lol. As soon as i came across it, right before Easter, i was dying to make it. We got the chance to make it on Sunday. And boy it was BEAUTIFUL, but the monga that reprinted the oringinal 1966 recipe, reprinted the original ERROR in the recipe too. Man, what a disappointment.

1966: David Eyre’s Pancake

NOTE: DO NOT USE 4TBS OF BUTTER, THIS IS WRONG. The correct amount of butter to use is 2TBS or less.


Here's what it looked like as soon as it came out of the oven. We were shocked at the pool of butter but i was hoping that the extra 5 minutes in the oven would miraculously make that pool disappear. After dusting with powdered sugar and the juice of half a lemon, it went back into the oven and we had hoped it would come out tasting as good as it looked.

Sadly, the pool of butter was still there and all that extra butter made the inside of the pancake inedible. But we did eat the outside and it was very good. Shame on Amanda Hesser w/ the NY Times mag for reprinting the error, but kudos for finding a good recipe.

I will make this recipe again, using the correct amount of butter. It sure was impressive to look at and with the correct measurments, it should be impressive to our tastebuds as well. ;)

No Ricotta, no problem!

i got a HUGE herb garden from my mother in law on Sunday, so i was all inspired to use some of my fresh herbs and decided to make lasagna.

After a quick inventory of my fridge, i realized i didn't have any ricotta or cottage cheese. So i called my mom. the question of the day was: 'if i make a lasagna without goopy cheese will it fall apart?' my mom said it won't work, so just make it all in a pan on the stove. Um, not the answer i wanted to hear so i just kept looking for a ricotta-less lasagna recipe and came up with nothing. Damn.

Dinner time was fast approaching and i decided whatev, i'm just going to do it. and i did, and it came out fabulous! :) i used no boil lasagna noodles and used the baking times from the back of the box as a guideline, outside of that, it was my own recipe.

No Ricotta, No Problem Lasagna
Serves 6 hungry people, or 8 'i could eat' people

1tsp of olive oil
1/2 yellow onion
2 cloves of garlic
1.3 lbs lean ground beef
1 jar prepared tomato sauce (i used a mushroom, olive tomato sauce)
1/2 package of no boil lasagna noodles
12-14 fresh basil leaves
shredded mozzarella cheese
Parmesan/ Romano cheese
parsley, basil and oregano

Preheat Oven to 375.

In a pot saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil, when translucent add the ground beef. When the ground beef is brown, add a jar of tomato sauce. Simmer for a few minutes.

Now time to start layering. Add some sauce to the bottom of the baking dish. Put a layer of lasagna noodles down, then put the meat sauce, then the cheese (i didn't put amounts of cheese down, cause everyone likes their cheesiness in different degrees). Add another layer as written. Then on top of the cheese add a layer of fresh basil leaves. Continue to layer until you run out of meat sauce. Finishing with more cheese.

Cover with aluminium foil and pop into preheated oven for 55 minutes. Remove the foil and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving. Prior to serving, chop up herbs and sprinkle over the lasagna. Enjoy!

What happened to the roasted pepper?!

Duh! Ok, so i mentioned earlier that i was cooking up a storm on Sunday. I defrosted a couple of pork chops and went on a mission to find something good. I came across a good recipe at FoodNetwork.

Spanish Style Pork Chops with Chorizo and Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

But as i clicked, i noticed it was a Rachael Ray recipe (shudder), ok, i'm just going to say it, Rachael Ray annoys me. There i said it. And the very few other recipes i've made from her have been disastrous. But we love chorizo in this house, so what the hell, i decided to give it a shot.

I cooked the pork chops as written and they came out super SUPER dry. Damnit. The sauce was ok, but how can a Spanish stlye anything not have cumin in it? This recipe definitely needed that flavor.

Now onto the STELLAR part of the meal...the cheesy rice. as i was cooking it, i was like hmmm, homemade rice o roni, neat-o. When i told my hubby i was making cheesy rice, he said cool, when i told him, i was making it homemade, he say okay?! somewhat reluctantly. Well the only change i made was i used gruyere cheese instead of manchego, cause it's what i had in the fridge. This rice is super good. My hubby LOVED it.

Good job on the rice, ray ray... :P

Sometimes it's not how you cook it, but how you serve it

ok, so i've made variations of this recipe a couple of times. The first time i made it as written (cept without the green pepper), the potatos came out crunchy but the chicken came out perfect. The second time i made it, i left out the potatos and the chicken came out dry with a ton of sauce. boo. On Tuesday nite, i decided to throw caution to the wind and try again.
Pineapple Chicken Delight

Well as i was reading the new reviews, someone had suggested shredding it. hmmm... shredded chicken?! i've never tried it that way, but i'll give it a shot.

um, HELLO! The recipe SHOULD have called it to be shredded, cause it came out delicious!

I served with over mashed fingerling potatos and honey glazed carrots. This recipe is definitely a keeper! :)

Plumpy

While looking in my spice cabinet on Sunday, i saw a can of rolled oats and the Quaker dude staring at me and decided to make oatmeal cookies.

After looking over a TON of cookie recipes on allrecipes, i decided to give Bobbie's Oatmeal Cookies a try. Well I'm glad i only made half the cookie mix her way. They were blah. The only substitution i made was i used golden raisins instead of regular raisins and and butterscotch chips instead of chocolate chips. And when they came out of the oven in 10 minutes, they looked blah too. Check it out:

I was cooking up a storm on Sunday so the rest of the cookie mix went into the fridge. A couple days later, i pulled out the mix and started messing with it. I added an additional 1tsp of vanilla extract and a couple shakes of ground cinnamon and a handful of white chocolate chips and flattened the heaping spoonfuls of mix before baking, and what do you know, the recipe went from bland to grand!

A great tip i picked up from reading a ton of reviews was to soak the raisins, i did it and they came out AWESOME. I will never make anything with raisins without first soaking them. All you need to do is pour hot water over the raisins and let it cool. The raisins come out all plumpy...um, is plumpy even a word? Perhaps not, but i'm telling you plumpy raisins is where it's at. ;)

How to roast a red pepper

so, i came across an 'easy' recipe that called for roasted red pepper and what do you know? i didn't have any! but i did have a fresh red pepper and google. YAY!
here's how you roast a red pepper:

1. preheat oven to 500
2. quarter your red pepper, de-seed it and cut out the white membrane.
3. place on a baking sheet and brush lightly with olive oil.

4. bake until the skins are blisted and black (my oven did it in about 20 minutes).

5. put the red peppers in a bowl and cover with a tea towel.

6. when the peppers cool simply peel off the skins.

That's it! See, easy-peasy!

Mine ended up in the Cuisinart with fresh parsley. :)

Martha vs Meli

ok, so yesterday i was looking for a new tilapia recipe and i came across Martha Stewart's Cornmeal-Crusted Tilapia with Salsa


it is pictured above. instead of spicy black beans i made an original recipe called Canned Salad. i know, not a very sexy name, but fitting. it can also be called a salsa, but since there are no chips in the house, it's a salad. ;)

Canned Salad
Seves ALOT
Prep Time 5 min

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can summer sweet corn (any canned corn will do), drained
1 can diced tomatoes with onion and garlic, just pour out the top of the liquid
1 can of green chiles
1/2 packet of Italian dressing seasoning
red wine vinegar to taste

ok, so open all the cans, dump into a bowl and add seasoning and vinegar, adjust to your liking. cover and refrigerate for a minimum of 30 minutes, but the longer it sits the better. *UPDATE: this salsa or salad or whatev tasted terrible the next day, so this recipe needs some serious tweaking on the seasoning part.*

so, here's my attempt:

the tilapia didn't make it from the pan to the
plate as gracefully as i would have liked, but my beans look so much better then her's. :P and i know my hubby would have gone to mcdonald's after dinner if i only served him fish and my salad, so i also heated up some really yummy rice. actually yum-o (ok, i gagged a little), that recipe is to follow soon. ;)

so, the fish alone was bland-o-rama, but paired with my salad, it was really good. :)

i'm going to call it a draw in our first head to head match. i LOVE being both the contestant AND the judge! ;)

Japi Cinco de Mayo

Hope you are out there getting your Mexican eat and drink on! :)

We tried Paquito's Mexican Restaurant in Aventura for our authentic Mexican Cinco de Mayo lunch. It's in a strip mall, but don't hold it against this place, it's Zagat rated and has valet parking...fancy!

I found it by looking for "Mexican" at miami.citysearch.com and with the numerous positive reviews, i knew this was going to be the place to get a little festive.

The atmosphere was super 'authentic', really, i felt like i was in 'Mexico' at Epcot, lol, lots of bright colors and just a ton of nic nacks everywhere.

The food was really good, but the presentation, not so much. we started with a shredded chicken Mexican pizza. i ordered the carne asada from the mi abuelita's recetas (my grandmother's recipes) section of the menu and my hubby had the enchiladas. everything was delicious and tasted like the kitchen was full of abuelitas! :)

And this margarita was damn good too!


It's definitely worth a trip to check it out.

Paquito's Mexican Restaurant
16265 Biscayne Blvd
Aventura, FL 33160
(305) 947-5027

Broccoli's taller, thinner, sweeter cousin

Broccolini is actually a naturally-occurring cross between broccoli and Chinese kale. And i get really excited when i see it at Publix. i've only had broccolini a handful of times, but it is memorable. like broccoli, only sweeter. :)

i went looking for a recipe at allrecipes and came up empty-handed. I headed over to the ametuergourmet and he didn't have anything on it either. GASP! what?! after a little googling, i found this recipe and decided to give it a try.

Garlicky Broccolini

i felt a connection to this recipe cause '...extra-virgin olive oil, 2 turns of the pan' i knew what that meant, and i couldn't wait to get my swirl on! ;)

well, i had read on a previous website that broccolini can go from fab to soggy crap if left too long to simmer, so as soon as it turned bright green, i pulled the pan off the heat. i think it was a little too soon.



though the garlic flavor was great, I think that 2 turns of the pan was just a touch too much evoo, and next time i'll only swirl once. ;)

Thursday nite is Pizza Nite!

i hit up Blu (la Pizzeria del Sole) last thursday with some friends before the theater, and it was the perfect place for a delicious, quick bite in south miami.

we dined al fresco, at sunset, and the weather was so nice. in keeping with the theme of thursday nite is pizza nite, guess what i had?! well first we had some wine, red was all i recall. ;) we moved onto calamari, it was light and crispy, very good and i totally forgot to take a photo... :P

Then my pizza arrived!



i ordered the arugala and proscuitto pizza. it was a super thin crust, wood-oven baked delight. :) i think i ate the whole thing. i may have left a polite piece of the crust, but if i did, i didn't want to! lol. and we totally skipped out on dessert cause we were rushed to catch the show. but the waiter was very polite and quick and we made it to the theater just in time.

Great Atmosphere, Food (& wine, hehehe), and Friends...what more could a girl ask for?! :) oh yeah, a great time at the show, and we did have a fabulous time! ;)

Blu Pizzaria del Sole
5894 Sunset Dr
South Miami, FL 33143
(305) 666-9285

Oh, so i guess i am an Original kind of girl!

so, mid-week dinner slump came around last week (i was actually running all over town and totally forgot to defrost something), so i decided to pick up some Chicken Kitchen.

ok, so i did the math, i've been eating chicken kitchen for about 12 years now. after initially trying the Original chop chop with the wrong sauce (sweet n sour) in freshman orientation, i went a whole year before trying it again and loving it with the mustard curry sauce. so, for the last 12 years, it's ALWAYS been the original, i may get a little wild by having it Deluxe style with lettuce and tomato, but never have i ventured outside of THE ORIGINAL.

on this particular nite, i decided to throw caution to the wind and actually try something new, the Oriental Chop Chop. i know, total gasp, right?!

here's the description from their website, www.chickenkitchen.com:
Oriental CHOP-CHOP®
Something different! Delicious and juicy
boneless thigh meat cooked in Oriental
spices and served on a bed of white rice,
tomatoes, lettuce, scallions and sesame
seeds, then topped with a Tangy
Teriyaki Glaze.

See that doesn't sound too bad at all. So i order, my hubby orders the old favorite. ;) As my chicken was getting chopped, the lady in line behind me asks what's that?! i said i'm trying something new tonite, first time ever. she says, how do you know if it's any good? i said i don't, but my hubby ordered the Original so if it's not any good, i'll just eat his.

so i get to the cashier and she asks what i'm having and i proudly proclaim (again) that i'm trying something new tonite, the Oriental. and i proceeded to tell her, i've been eating the Original forever and we'll see how the Oriental is.

do you know what she did? you'll never ever guess. now i know service is really shitty in sofla, but you'll never guess. she says Oriental? YUCK! and shutters as she rings me up. WHO DOES THAT?!

so mentally, i've already got 1.5 srikes against this stupid chop chop. i get home, open it up and dive right in. my first impression...YUCK, i want your Original, babe.

ok, i apologize in advance, the following photo is terrible, but then again, so was the Oriental Chop Chop :P


it was SUPER salty and way too saucy. the only interesting thing in the whole bowl was the scallions. but even they couldn't save this dish. They should try to make this with a chopped chicken breast, lettuce, tomato, scallions, sesame seeds and maybe a squirt of teriyaki, but as is, it's a disaster.

so at the end of the nite, i realized, i'm an Original kind of girl. ;)

Chicken Kitchen
www.chickenkitchen.com
474 Arthur Godfrey Road
Miami Beach, Florida 33140
Phone: (305) 531-1888

God Bless the Chef!

the chef that decided to put lobster in the macaroni and cheese at The Forge should totally get extra blessings. good lord, that's the best macaroni and cheese i've ever had in my entire life! and trust me people, i'm a mac and cheese ho, i eat it everywhere. it was your traditional mac and cheese with chunks of lobster mixed in and topped with a buttery bread crumb topping. mmmmmm....

i would have taken a photo, but i ate it too fast. i may have a teeny bit left over, if i can arrange it nicely on a plate and snap a photo, it will go right here...


yup, that's chunks of lobster!

ok,ok, no need to drool over my description, just get down to The Forge and try it yourself. ;)

The Forge Restaurant & Lounge
www.theforge.com
432 W 41st St
Miami Beach, FL 33140
(305) 538-8533