Food Planet Tour Wicker Park

Helloooooo Kitty!

My Mom and I are taking the Wilton I cake decorating class and for our first week we worked on decorating using the star decorating tip. We were supposed to do a rainbow cake, but after seeing several "flops" of this cake online, I decided to do a character cake, Hello Kitty! Next week we learn how to make flowers.

Rainbow cake I found online, ick!

Chicken Sate' with Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce

Just because I haven't been posting, doesn't mean I haven't been cooking. This summer has been awesome and I've been busy making alot of great recipes. Here is one of my favorites: Food on skewers is fun, this recipe is a great summer appetizer, who doesn't love chicken? The sweet and spicy taste of the peanut sauce is soo tasty. Tastes great with a good drink too! I made watermelon mojitos to go with these skewers (my mixed drinks still need some work so I'll save that post for later.)


Recipe from Cook's Illustrated

Spicy Peanut Dipping Sauce Recipe:
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup hot water
3 Tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 Tablespoons ketchup
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1 Tablespoon fresh minced cilantro
1 scallions, sliced thin
1 1/2 Teaspoons Tabasco
1 garlic clove, minced

Whisk together the peanut butter and hot water. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Transfer to a serving bowl.

Chicken Sate' Recipe:
6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (two pounds) trimmed
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro
3 Tablespoons ketchup
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 Teaspoon Tabasco
4 scallions, sliced thin

Slice the chicken diagonally into 1/4 inch thick strips. Combine the soy sauce, oil, sugar, cilantro, ketchup, garlic, Tabasco, and scallions over the chicken. Refrigerate 30min to 1 hour.

Adjust oven rack to approx. 6 inches over top broiler unit. Line pan with foil. Weave the chicken onto the bamboo skewers, lay the skewers on the pan and cover the skewer ends with foil so that they do not burn. Broil until fully cooked, about 8 minutes, flipping skewers half way. Serve, passing the peanut sauce separately.

New Grocery Store Products

Recently I've been getting coupons at the Jewel and Dominick's to try some new products for Free: Sierra Mist Splash, Good Belly Probiotic drinks, and 100 calorie pack yogurts, here are my reviews:
One Thumb up!
Diet Sierra Mist has a new flavor, Ruby Splash. This soda is worth trying if you like diet Sierra Mist products. It has a more artificial grapefruit taste than it's Coca Cola counter part Fresca. Less tang and bite than Fresca though that some people may prefer.


If you're looking for a two thumbs up soda i'd recommend Diet Orange Crush. One of the few diet sodas that contains calories, a mere 15 calories per 8oz serving. For those measily 15 cals this soda tastes very close to the full calorie crush. Two Thumbs up!

Two Thumbs down!
Breyer's 100 Calorie pack yogurt packs contain four 4oz yogurts each with sometype of candy sprinkles to stir into the yogurt. I tried the cheesecake flavor with graham cracker candy pieces on top. The pieces tasted like lame cereal and the yogurt was sour and very light tasting. I'll keep my 6oz Dannon Light and Fit yogurts at 80 calories each thank you very much. Needless to say most of these yogurts went straight in the trash.

Dannon Light and Fit has two limited edition summer flavors: Watermelon and Canteloupe. I recently tried canteloupe and it has a nice smooth flavor, one thumb up!

One Thumb up! The Dominick's register spit out two coupons for Free 4 packs of Good Belly to me. I've tried the strawberry and the Blueberry Acai. Good belly is a probiotic drink found near the yogurts in the refrigerated section. This drink is filled with good bacteria for your digestive system. They cost about $2.99 for a four-pack which makes me question if this small shot sized dairy free juice drink is affordable for the average person to regularly consume. The taste wasn't that great either, I'd stick to Dannon's Activia if you want a healthy dose of probiotics.

Cookies Quick

I'm getting some pictures ready to post of some foods I cooked over the weekend. 2-day Marinated Steak sandwiches with Adobo BBQ sauce, Korean Short Ribs in sticky rice lettuce wraps with Cucumber Kimchee, Homemade Hawaiian Pizza, Chicken Satay with Peanut Dipping Sauce, Watermelon Mojitos... a friend even gave me a lesson in candy making as we tried making Chocolate Covered Toffee and Peanut Brittle that turned out fantastic!

While I'm getting my next postings ready, here is a list of my favorite cookies to try at nearby chain restaurants:

#4 Sugar Cookie at Pot Belly Sandwich Works

#3 Snickerdoodle Cookie at Noodles and Company

#2 Oatmeal Raisin Cookie at Subway

#1 Chocolate Chip Cookie at Qdoba (My favorite of all, although I hear now some locations use
a different formula)

Honorable Mention, Best Grocery Store Cookie: Jewel-Osco Chewy Chocolate Chip

Leave me a comment if there's a fantastic cookie that you feel should've made the list, I'd love to hear from you!

Best Lost Recipes

I love recipes that take me back to a different culture or era. The Pagache also known as Polish Pizza and this hearty beef and barley soup accomplish just that. Both recipes are from America's Best Lost Recipes cookbook.

The Pagache was a cross between a large pierogi and a potato and cheese calzone. Pagache features cheesy mashed potatoes encased in a light, yeasted crust. I've never been good at making foods that involve yeast so it was clear C would be making the dough.

Here are the steps:

Roll out the dough into a 14 by 20 inch rectangle on a floured work surface and evenly put potato cheese filling on half of the dough.

Fold in half and pinch sides closed.

Place in 9 by 13 inch buttered pan and poke holes in the top to vent.

Brush top with melted butter, let cool about 10 minutes, cut, serve and enjoy!

I love making soup because it usually involves me cutting up vegetables in front of the television and then going to bed and awaking to an alarm clock to turn the stove top off when the pot of soup is done simmering. Soup means meals for a week and extras to freeze to enjoy the fruits of your past labors on a relaxing no cooking day. Soup is inexpensive, healthy, and good for your soul.

And the winner is....

I'm waiting for some pictures to be uploaded for my blog, more entries coming soon. In the mean time, I received my free coupon for a package of Oscar Mayer All Beef Hot Dogs in the mail and gave them a try. Oscar Mayer claims that they were voted higher than Ball Park and Hebrew National in a taste test. I agree, these hot dogs were pretty good.