The Cantina Cuisine – food talk, recipes and more

Lol. Strange combination but if it works, fill me up! Gimme some of that lol

 

In retrospect, I'm not sure I'd recommend flambeing things with bacon grease too often. It worked out well this time, but who knows what'll happen next time.

Go for it y'all!

 

I really want some ramen but I really don’t feel like going to a store. Decisions decisions

 

Lol. I have a craving for garlic naan but all the Indian places are so far

 

Closest Indian place to me is like 30 minutes away

 

D

Mine is about 30 mins too. But there are pointless roundabouts in the area which just increase traffic and it takes more time. So maybe 35-40 mins on a bad day.

 

my neighborhood is right next to a shopping center, so i can walk 10 mins and be at McDonald's, PetSmart, sushi, dollar store, ice cream... its really convenient when you are randomly craving a milkshake and your dog wants something from PetSmart... also the middle and highschool are across from it, so if you go to McDonald's when they let out, you will see swarms of kids getting milkshakes and ice cream and other stuff. the closest Indian place to me is like 20 mins, but the wait lines really long and chick-fil-a is next door, so we never really eat there, because with a long line we don't want to wait so we just go to chick-fil-a

 

I could really go for some sushi today. I do think Asian food is so much better than any other types of food. Give me Korean, Japanese, Chinese or Indian any day

 

personally, i like Italian and American food the best, can't go wrong with Asian food though.

 

Nice. Quite convenient. I like to something kinda like that. Expect, there is a local greek restaurant, a liquor store, and some steakhouse lol

 

I got kinda tired of the same old burgers on the grill so I tried this. Holy smokes!!!! These are the best burgers I've ever tasted! I free-styled it with the sauce, but his is a decent enough foundation. Anyway, thought I'd share because of how much my family and I enjoy these. Bon appetite!

 

The good news is that only two of the three fell on the same weekend!

My dad was out of town to visit his mother (he hadn't seen her in over a year due to the Pandemic), so my mom and I went down to my sister and brother-in-law's place (at my sister's request - it was her first Mother's Day and she wanted to spend it with her own mother (and me)) and had a good time.

Thursday I made cookies for my choir, and they turned out excellent according to those who at them.

The day before we left I helped my mom make spaghetti. Spaghetti is to my mom what chicken curry is to me - a recipe that can be made any time, anywhere, that involves no recipe card or guide. It's just somethin you have to memorize and know in your heart. I'm working on getting there, but it's not that easy for me. Fortunately I'll have help the next few times. She even let me experiment a little, so I added a 1/4 cup of wine (Merlot) and some red pepper flakes. The sauce turned out great, and it was one of the better attempts. The wine didn't really impart a flavor, but it enhanced the meatiness of the sauce to a rarely-seen degree. It reminded my mom of the lasagna recipe we use, which also uses wine. The pepper flakes added an occasional kick, but we didn't want the sauce to be too spicy anyways.

I prepped most of the sweet potatoes waffle batter the night before we left, and pounded chicken the morning we left. (I should have seasoned it with salt and pepper then too, but I wasn't thinking that far ahead.) The next day is when I cooked it all, and it turned out really well! The chicken was perfectly cooked, although they weren't as spicy as they were last time, much to my chagrin; the waffles were light and fluffy. It was a success.

Next time, I'm going to do a similar thing and prep ahead, even if I cook it at home. I want to see what marinating the chicken in buttermilk for a full 24 hours will do to the tenderness - I want to get to the point where the chicken feels like it's melting in the mouth!

The chicken & waffles and cookies were all well received, and I was told I put my foot in the dishes three times!

This week I'm FINALLY going to try out a recipe I've been eyeing for a few weeks now, and hopefully it's going to be a mainstay in my diet. I have a whole meal based around this recipe, and I'm really excited.


I also found a nice pumpkin cinnamon roll recipe I'm going to make the same day as the Harley Quinn Breakfast Sandwiches. It won't be anytime soon, as I'd like to wait for pumpkin season to roll around, but we'll see if I can wait that long. The cinnamon rolls will be prepped the night before. There are a lot of carbs in this meal, but there's no higher blessing for me than people enjoying my food and then passing out into a food coma.

 

I ate a taco, but not a fake U.S taco

 

I made Bourbon Chicken and Cilantro Lime (and Lemon) Rice to put it on top of.

The Good: The bourbon chicken's flavor was popping. It was there and I really enjoyed it. I want to make this recipe again, which is always a plus. The tips of putting salt and a bay leaf in the rice were great ones. The rice flavor was there, even if the texture was bad.

The Bad: Either the rice recipe used too much lemon, or I did. I'm not sold on the rice recipe just yet. I might skip the lemon next time.

The Ugly: The rice's texture was bad. I blame this on me though - I usually don't work with Basmati rice, so I ended up cooking it longer than I probably should have. Next time I'm going to rinse it (the recipe specifically says unrinsed for Basmati, but I'll skip that part) and cook it for a far shorter time.
The time it took to cook this recipe - the rice is supposed to be finished in about 20 minutes, and the chicken in 30. This meal took me nearly two hours. I more or less expected this, as the first time cooking anything will always take two to three times longer than what the recipe states. A person rarely runs an obstacle course perfectly on the first go, so why should we expect perfection on the first attempt at a new recipe? I do plan on cooking this frequently enough to get down to between 30-45 minutes, but it'll take time.
The chicken also was weird. The sauce had great flavors, but I found the chicken itself to be mediocre at best. Next time I'll probably treat it like I do the chicken in my curry and tenderize it first. And next time, I'm using thighs instead of breast for this recipe. I'll also let the sauce reduce a bit more.

The Bittersweet: I had planned on prepping another recipe for breakfast, but after being out and busy all day, and this meal taking as long as it did, I'm saving the prep for tomorrow night and the meal itself for Thursday.
I also had a Lemon Kale salad that I wanted to serve with this, but that didn't happen AT ALL. I may save that for the leftovers, since everything else will just be heated up.

Verdict: The meal was a 6.5-7/10. I'm going to make the chicken again and again and again until I can perfect it, but the rice is a toss-up. The next time I make it, I'll give it to my parents and see what they think. (Or maybe they can have the leftovers and make a decision from there.)

Recipe:

I had planned on trying a different new dish tomorrow, outside of the breakfast stuff, but I may save that for next week.

 

Homemade Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with cream cheese frosting!

This was the recipe I've been dying to try out that I hinted needed to wait for Fall. Well, I got too impatient and tried it out anyways. It was a little laborious, as cinnamon rolls apparently are, but the results were quite good! The rolls were moist and dense, with just the perfect amount of chew. The pumpkin and pumpkin spices added a nice dimension but they never overpowered the classic cinnamon and brown sugar flavor. It didn't taste like a pumpkin pie either, so that was nice. The frosting was a really nice touch, and overall the recipe came together in ways I wasn't sure it was going to. Sadly, the cinnamon rolls didn't rise the second time as much as I wanted them to, but that didn't affect the flavor or texture as far as I can tell. And that first rise was pretty high...
This was also my first time working with yeast in about ten years, so I'm glad it turned out well!
I wouldn't recommend making this with the Harley Quinn breakfast egg sandwiches. My peers and parents were right - too much bread. I don't mind, and it wasn't that hard to put everything together since I prepped the cinnamon rolls the night before, but it may be a bit much to serve to others. I'll work on a different accompanying protein...
I had wanted to serve all of the food with some Mexican Hot Chocolate, but I couldn't find any of the Abuelita's Chocolate at my local grocery store, and I didn't have the time (or the willpower) to go to another store and check.

Overall, this was a definite win, but I'm not making these again until fall. 8/10

https://www.averiecooks.com/the-best-pumpkin-cinnamon-rolls/

 

Whenever I see cinnamon buns, I immediately think of lea’s hair. Now you will never unsee this. Lol

 

Ha! Joke's on you, I can only see those with two buns that are brown, not orange!

 

Drat! Lol