Category: Misc.

Old El Paso Chicken and Pineapple Tacos with Cabbage Mango Slaw

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It’s been a good bit of time since I last posted. In that time I’ve been traveling, working, catering, celebrating and creating recipes . Unfortunately it just hasn’t made it to the blog. Where to begin?

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First Certain Someone spent a lovely week at Half Moon in Montego Bay to celebrate a friends wedding. It was the best experience Ive ever had in Jamaica. Imagine your own luxury villa, butlers, maids, sunshine, private beaches, and just being spoiled. We really  needed it. We will  heading to Portugal and Sweden soon for another destination wedding, and to catch up with family and friends.

I’ve been getting some great catering gigs from consulates, a European airline carrier, and just overall great clients. I’m so happy the word is spreading about Coco Cooks.

And last before we get onto the food. Certain Someone turned 40! We decided to have a belated birthday party at the house in July ( In the fashion of the Queen), as its hard to coordinate everyone’s schedules.

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I made the whiskey bottle cake, and commissioned the label and cigar from a great friend who has amazing talent. Check her out if you need customized toppers for your cakes.

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Now onto the recipe! Yes it another Old El Paso post. I was commissioned to do a total of 12 recipes for them, which are figured on their new website. While I don’t normally use prepared ingredients, I’m not naive enough as chef and career woman, that sometimes shortcuts and convenience are OK, especially when paired with fresh ingredients and creativity. Not everyone has the time nor inclination to make there own spice blends, salsa, tortillas, etc. So accepting the assignment and the challenge , where what motivated me. I love a challenge to think out the box. It’s grilling season and one can create all sorts of good things on the grill, or on an indoors grill, it you don’t have a gas or charcoal grill. I love the sight of grill marks . Check out the recipe and other great ones on the site.

Old El Paso Chicken and Pineapple Tacos with Cabbage Mango Slaw
 
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Ingredients
  • For Cabbage Mango Slaw
  • ½ head of small green cabbage sliced thinly or grated.
  • 1 carrot skinned and grated
  • 1 mango chopped into small pieces( no skin)
  • ¼ cup chopped cilantro
  • ⅛ cup brown sugar
  • ⅛ cup balsamic vinegar
  • ⅛ cup extra virgin olive oil
  • ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 pineapple sliced
  • 2-3 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts or boneless skinless chicken thighs.
  • 2 tablespoons Olive Oil
  • 1 Old El Paso Hard and Soft Taco Kit.( Contains taco shells, soft tortillas, Taco Seasoning, and Taco Sauce)
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 320°.
  2. In a glass dish or bowl marinate chicken with 1 packet of the Old El Paso Seasoning and 2 tablespoons olive oil contained in kit.
  3. In a small bowl add grated cabbage, carrot, chopped mango, cilantro, brown sugar, cayenne pepper, olive oil, salt and balsamic vinegar. Mix thoroughly and set aside while grilling chicken.
  4. Using an indoor or outdoor grill, preheat to higher setting to obtain a good sear.
  5. Wrap the soft tortillas in the kit in foil and place in oven. Heat for 10 minutes.
  6. Add chicken to grill and cook several minutes on each side until done.
  7. While chicken is grilling, place hard tacos shells on a placing sheet and add to the oven with soft tortillas. Don’t overcook. Turn off oven after 5 more minutes and keep warm till serving.
  8. Remove chicken from the grill and let reat a few minutes.
  9. Add pineapple slices to hot grill and sear on both sides for a few minutes. Remove from grill.
  10. Slice chicken on the diagonal and serve on platter with chopped grilled pineapple slices.
  11. Garnish with chopped cilantro.
  12. Serve with cabbage mango slaw, soft and crunchy tortillas, and sauce contained in the kit.
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Coco Cooks and Caters With The LG Intuition

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Starting a business is not as hard as one thinks, and with catering, all I need besides my pots, pans, knives, and right hand assistant, is a reliable gadget. I have no money for sales and event coordinators, etc, so I have to wear many hats in executing events for Coco Cooks. A typical inquiry comes over via email from my website, I check my email, set up a time to talk, write-up a proposal, negotiate fine points, and show up.  With the LG Intuition it makes all so easy.  I can market my successes via  social media, reply in lightning speed to clients, save excel documents with costs on Polaris Office, take pretty good pictures on the fly, save recipes on my Evernote account,calculate, make lists, send texts to staff about event details, run credit cards on Square,etc…. Get the drift? I think this is just the tip of the iceberg, and if I had the time I could find countless more uses.

This week I had the opportunity to cater for another Consul General, that’s two Consul General clients now. This was a sit down dinner for 15 people in a fabulous duplex penthouse overlooking the lake and city of Chicago. Being a start-up , I rely on my right hand, my cousin Inda, and friends to help me out. And boy did they help out. After plating the main the main course we had ourselves a high-five behind the kitchen doors. It’s a great feeling to hire my friends and give them new experiences as we all in the process of reinventing ourselves. It’s this spirit that attracted our latest client  to us. They liked not only our food, but self-starting  spirit, and team work.All that positive energy shows in our food.  I hope you had a blessed Thanksgiving. I know I did.

Here was the Menu for the latest event.

The winner of the Walmart Give away is….

Nicole Larsen

Her biggest mishap was:

My biggest mishap was not having all the food done at the same time. So now, I do as much preparation that I possibly can the night before and I also have everything (cans, bowls, etc) set out for the next day!

Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Wireless Midwest Savvy Gourmets program and have been provided with a wireless device and six months of service in exchange for my honest opinions about the product.

Cellar Soup,Thanksgiving Mishaps,and a $50 Wal-Mart Giveaway

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It’s hard to believe our national day of thanks is next week. I chuckle when hear people stressing about, what to me is , a day of cooking for pure love and joy. And truth be told,  I prefer a cozy lazy holiday with just Certain Someone and I to indulge in good food, with no drama or timeline pressures. Not everyone has that luxury. This post is about mishaps on the big day. I can’t say I’ve had a serious mishap on Thanksgiving , but I’ve had them when entertaining for large crowds.The most recent ones have occurred over this past summer with the new  gas grill. We had two dinners planned for very important clients and colleagues of Certain Someone’s.  No one except the repair man on the adjacent property will ever know how my special juniper  cured pork belly were burnt to a crisp black ash.  I mistakenly left the temp on high on one direct burner as I rushed downstairs several floors below, to prep the other courses. The poor repairman kept knocking on the terrace door believing it was an one level apartment and I couldn’t hear him. By the time I came up to check on my supposedly slow grilled bellies, they were a lump of black coal and the man was smoked out while trying to do bis job on the  terrace next door. He didn’t even turn the knob to cut it off. I panicked for a second, and went to plan B, taking a frozen belly out , cleaning the grill, and starting over. The party and the food went well. Lesson to this is font sweat the small stuff and just carry on. It wasn’t the first time it happened. Imagine a similar scenario a month before with my hand made sausages.No matter how much you plan and stress, mistakes happen.
We chefs and cooks  take our successes and failures personally, because we put so much into what we do. But the key is to learn from the mistakes and move forward. Also, to be open to learning and  receiving tips from others. One Thanksgiving I roasted a gorgeous  crispy goose. I like to change it up from traditional turkey. Everyone was curious about my offering and how it would turn out. An older aunt called me the next day and asked me for the goose fat. I was perplexed as to why she would.want all that fat. This was years ago, and while I was  a good cook, not where I am now.She was quite upset that I discarded all that precious golden goose fat. Seems old southern folk lore  has uses such things as remedies, and not to mention cooking other great dishes . Goose or duck fat potatoes anyone? I learned a few things  from that incident . So listen to the wisdom.of your older elders, don’t stress, pay attention to details, pour a glass of wine and relax.Remember that scene from the movie Eat Pray Love when she prepares  a Thanksgiving for her Italian  friends . They cut into the eagerly awaited turkey and it’s frozen inside? No worries. They all chilled, put the bird back into the oven,drank, talked, and woke up to a marvelous turkey breakfast. That’s the spirit.

Tell me about your mishaps or approaches to holiday cooking. I will draw a winner for a $50 giftcard from Wal-Mart to help you with your holiday preparations. You have until the 21st of November to enter. Help spread the word. Who couldn’t use $50 with these high food costs?

If you want to read about some more Thanksgiving mishaps, check here. Wal- Mart has put together a great page of mishaps, interesting tidbits, and tips.

So now on to the cooking…
Here is a lovely restorative soup to serve at the big celebration. I call it Cellar soup, as it uses all sorts of root vegetables and apple’s to create a creamy rich soup.  I made this , froze it and gave quarts away to friends and family.They looovvvved it. Even Certain Someone who resisted because it sounded too healthy for him, gave it a thumbs up.

Cellar Soup
 
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A rich creamy soup made from root vegetables.
Author:
Recipe type: Soup
Ingredients
  • 1 Acorn Squash peeled ,seeded, and chopped
  • 3 small apples peeled, cored, and chopped
  • 3 small yellow onion chopped
  • 1 sweet potato peeled and chopped
  • 3 parsnips peeled and chopped
  • 1 celery root peeled and sliced
  • 6 leaves fresh sage
  • 1 branch of rosemary
  • Kosher Salt and Pepper to taste
  • 2 teaspoons coriander
  • 2 teaspoons Cumin
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 2 tablespoons Grape seed oil or olive oil
  • 12 cups water
  • 4 cups chicken stock
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400.
  2. In a large Dutch oven, toss all the prepped ingredients and spiced with the oil.
  3. Roast until caramelized for approximately 45 minutes or more. Check frequently and adjust heat if necessary.
  4. Remove from oven and set atop stove .
  5. Turn heat to high.
  6. Add the water. Bring to boil.
  7. Reduce heat to simmer.
  8. Remove cinnamon stick.Set aside.
  9. Take an immersion blender and pulse until smooth and pureed.
  10. Add cinnamon stick back to to soup.
  11. Add chicken stock.
  12. Simmer for another 40 minutes until flavors merge, and soup is a nice creamy consistency.
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I’ve been counting my enormous blessings this season, and want you readers to know how thankful I am for your support and encouragement, especially during these years of  change.

Thank You.
Disclosure. Wal-Mart is sponsoring this post with $50 gift card provision’s for myself and the selected winner. My opinions are my own.

Verizon Jet Pack Giveaway….Always Staying Connected as We Roam The Globe

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I think is one of the best giveaways ever on Coco Cooks. If you are anything like Certain Someone and I , you know the importance of staying connected while traveling. I can’t tell you how many vacations we have been on , when Certain Someone is taking conference calls in airports, cars, or golf courses, while working on his computer or smart phone.It’s the price we pay I suppose. But we don’t want to stay connected just for work. We need to know whats going on back home, with our families, and other areas of life. I can’t imagine not being connected. The mobile hotspots saved us on our most recent road trip to the remote Upper Peninsula. Hard to think how we lived without all of this before. My slimline XYBoard tablet fit snugly in my little basket purse and away we went.

So I’m offering you a chance to win a Verizon Jet Pack and $150 gift card (to purchase other equipment or use toward bills).

For those who aren’t so tech savvy here is what a Verizon Jet pack can do for you!

  • Stay Connected to internet where ever you are.

  • Connect 2 or more devices for extended data sessions.

  • The entire family can stay connected to the Internet without relying on a Smartphone user to be home for use of their Mobile Hotspot feature.

  • As a device dedicated to Internet connections, customers can easily multi-task with a Jetpack.

  • Jetpack™ provides the best battery life experience compared to Mobile Hotspot on a Smartphone (which can consume battery power extremely fast).

  • Traveling coworkers can share a connection while awaiting flights at the airport.

  • Family members can connect all their WiFi capable devices connected in the car on a road-trip

  • Access the Internet when roaming outside the U.S. in more than 205 countries.

  • More than 150 of those countries support 3G data speeds.

Pretty amazing  isn’t it.  I’m running this contest until October 1st and will chose the winner then. Please comment to enter and spread the word to all your friends. Now more than ever we really need to stay connected. Good luck.

Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Wireless Midwest Savvy Gourmets program and have been provided with a wireless device and six months of service in exchange for my honest opinions about the product.

Taste of Summer…Homemade Root Beer and Floats

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It’s hard to believe summer has come and gone. I sit here on Labor Day grilling a turkey breast and anticipating Fall, yet cherishing the memory of a brief fleeting summer vacation, I enjoyed. All the while driving through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I spied Birch Trees and couldn’t wait to start a home brewing project of root beer. I love the idea of root beer, a natural soda devised as a sort of medicinal tonic from our earliest settlers. I saw an article on Serious Eats while checking my emails on my XYBoard, during lunch, and knew this project was for me. I wasn’t put off  on finding the ingredients. My XYBoard lead me to a  neighborhood herb shop for sassafras, birch bark, and sarsaparilla, as well a local home-brew shop for ale yeast and great advice. I really don’t know how I survived without this nifty new tablet. The smart phones are great , but I get that same ease of portability, clearer larger pictures taking, fonts, voice controlled key board options, navigation, and heaps of smart technology “on the go”. So its indispensable in the kitchen, traveling, and living everyday life. All of the root beer snaps were taken with the XYBoard to record the process.

I brewed up this recipe for root beer  but I tweaked it a little with the addition of a handful of  dried cherries and  a few juniper berries. Rather than spend $22 for a case of plastic bottles for soda, I purchased a case of water which I used the contents of, and saved the bottles for the brew. Because of the carbonation process, the thin  water bottles swelled , and I believe the more expensive bottles would have alleviated that issue. But , next time I know better. Be careful with glass bottles, as the pressure may cause them to explode. I could have pushed my carbonation one more day before retarding the yeast, by refrigeration.

One more note… Commercial root beer these days not contain Sassafras  roots due to safrole, which the FDA has  banned in commercial production  and labeled  as causing liver cancer .However some  extracts are used for culinary purposes with the safrole having been removed.The  safrole oil is used  to make Ecstasy. The consumed amounts needed  to be carcinogenic , would be large. But if we look to history,and the Native Americans, they used it to cure many ills. So the message is everything in moderation. Many soda makers, home brewers and hobbyists aren’t deterred in their use of sassafras.

 

So there you have it. Summer is just about over.  So what better way to go out than sipping on a homemade root beer with a few scoops of vanilla  ice cream to make a float? A Root beer float is  old-fashioned, simple, and the essence of summer.

Thank you Verizon for making my summer a little easier.

Disclosure: I am participating in the Verizon Wireless Midwest Savvy Gourmets program and have been provided with a wireless device and six months of service in exchange for my honest opinions about the product.