Thai beef salad is, in many ways, a perfect appetizer. It has thin slices of grilled beef resting on a bed of tomatoes, cucumbers, and fresh herbs, all rounded out with a spicy, tangy, salty, sweet, and explosively flavorful dressing. Padded out with a bit …
When you think of horchata, you probably think of a cold glass of sweetened rice milk spiced with cinnamon. This is the most prevalent variety in the US, available at many taquerias and Mexican restaurants. It is a delicious and refreshing drink, and perfect to …
Growing up, chicken nachos were my absolute favorite food. There was a Mexican restaurant about a fifteen minute walk from my house, and my friend and I would head over there after school to gorge on those glorious plates of chips, chicken, and cheese. The trick to their nachos, which puts them on a tier above every other nacho plate I’ve had, is the use of a queso sauce. Melted cheese is wonderful, but pouring queso over the chips first ensures that cheese reaches every part of that magnificent pile of chips, eliminating the dreaded under-topped nacho. Continue reading Stovetop Chicken Nachos
This recipe came to me after I fell into an obsession with arroz con leche. Arroz con leche is, essentially, Mexican rice pudding. There are some variants where it is made with sweetened condensed milk, but I prefer the simpler and less sweet version of …
This sauce might strike some of you as a bit strange. In fact, it will likely strike almost all of you as a bit strange. When I first discovered what was actually in it, even I, a lifelong consumer of this sauce, found it quite …
When we were planning our build, for whatever reason, we could not find any good information about ovens for vans or RVs. We found a few vanlife articles, but in every case, the person was installing a propane-fired oven that was explicitly intended only for outdoor use. The installations involved tons of work, tons of space, and still didn’t seem particularly safe to us. So we opted for a 3-burner propane cooktop, and I vowed to learn to bake on the stove. Continue reading How To Bake Without An Oven (plus a stovetop pizza recipe)
Poke (pronounced poh-kay) literally means to slice crosswise into pieces. Effectively, to cube. And its origins are every bit as humble as that name implies (at least compared to the profusion of variations now available). The first poke was eaten simply as a means of …
The plate lunch is as Hawaiian as it gets. You can find them all over the place, and they always have the same formula: a meat, two scoops of rice, and one scoop of macaroni salad. Common meats include Hawaiian favorites like kalua pork, huli huli chicken, and teriyaki chicken or beef. A plate with more than one meat is typically called a mixed plate, and for me there are few better meals out there. Continue reading The Plate Lunch (Huli Huli Chicken and Mac Salad)
Spam Musubi is one of those dishes that could only come about in Hawaii. It stands as an example of exactly what is so interesting, comforting, and delicious about Hawaiian food. In Hawaii, spam is a highly regarded food. Oahu is home to that famous …
