Cilantro Chicken Nuggets And Roasted Buffalo Cauliflower

Hey hey ladies and gents! I was going through my vast collection of recipes trying to find a perfect meal to match the mood I'm currently in. My mood you ask? I'm feeling a bit childish. Not the "I'm going to throw a tantrum" kind of childish, but rather the "I need some finger food" childish. I've realized that chicken nuggets is the quintessential finger food for people of all ages.

We're taking a more grown up route though. I'm not a fan of those processed, nasty McDonald's nuggets or any fast food chain nuggets really. These nuggets are the furthest from processed as we can get! And even better, we will be paring these cool cilantro nugs with some spicy buffalo roasted cauliflower. I'd say this is a pretty complete meal. The best part? Everything takes about 30 minutes to cook and serves 2 to 4 people. Now, I'm ready to get my foodie on. Will you all join me in the kitchen? Yes? Awesome. I'll meet you all there!

Cilantro Chicken Nuggets

and

Buffalo Roasted Cauliflower

For the Cauliflower, you will need:

• 1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets
• 1 tablespoon oil or butter
• salt
• pepper
• 1/4 cup hot sauce
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted
• blue cheese or ranch dressing for dipping

For the Nuggets, you will need:

• 1 pound ground chicken or ground turkey
• 1 egg, whisked
• 1 bundle of cilantro, chopped
• 3 scallions, chopped
• 2 teaspoons sesame oil
• 1/2 cup Coconut Flour
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• salt 
• pepper
• 1 to 2 tablespoons Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil

Ready?

To Make the Cauliflower:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 
2. Cut up the cauliflower into florets.
3. Toss the cauliflower florets in the oil, salt and pepper, arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet.
4. Roast in the oven until lightly golden brown, about 20 to 30 minutes.
5. Toss the cauliflower in a mixture of the hot sauce and butter and enjoy warm with blue cheese or ranch dressing for dipping.

To Make the Nuggets:

1. Mix all of your nugget ingredients together: ground chicken, egg, cilantro, scallions, sesame oil, ginger, salt and pepper.
2. Heat up a large skillet over medium heat and add 1 to 2 tablespoons of coconut oil.
3. Place your coconut flour in a shallow bowl.
4. Make small  nugget-sized balls from your mixture, and place each nugget in the coconut flour (being sure to only lightly dust the nuggets) then place in your skillet.
5. Use a spatula to slightly flatten out each nugget. 
6. Cook on both sides for 5 to 7 minutes or until cooked through.
7. Enjoy!

Thanks for joining us here at The Tasteful Texan. I'll be back again tomorrow with a new recipe for everyone to enjoy. Until then, have a great weekend, and happy blogging to all!

Breakfast Saturday: Bacon and Hash Brown Egg Bake

Good morning friends, families, and bloggers! It's Breakfast Saturday again, and we all know that means something yummy will be sitting on our table tops very soon. That something today is a bacon and hash brown egg bake. This is really one of those all-in-one breakfasts that I enjoy so much.

I'm not going to lie and say I enjoy hash browns as much as my hubby, but considering that this is one of those all together meals, I'll eat it. I'm normally more of a pancake, waffle, super ooey, gooey cinnamon roll kinda gal. Though every now and again a recipe catches my eye, much like this one. We're going for savory instead of sweet today. This recipe really has all the essential items in it: bacon, onions, eggs, hash browns, and cheese. I think that's a win in the breakfast category. Anyway, now that I'm talking about it, my tummy is a-rumblin'. Why don't I meet you guys in our favorite spot, the kitchen, and we can whip up a pleasing breakfast? I'll see you there!

Bacon and Hash Brown Egg Bake

Yields 12 servings

You will need:

• 1 pound bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 medium red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 package (8 ounces) sliced fresh mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon pepper
• ¾ cup milk
• 12 eggs
• 1 package (2 pounds) frozen hash browns, thawed
• 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

Ready?

1. In a 12-inch skillet, cook bacon until crisp. 
2. Remove the bacon from the pan to a small bowl. 
3. Cover and refrigerate. 
4. Drain the drippings, reserving 1 tablespoon in the pan. 
5. Add the onion, bell pepper and mushrooms, then cook for 4 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally. 
6. Stir in the mustard, salt and pepper. 
7. In large bowl, beat the milk and eggs with wire whisk. 
8. Spray a 13×9-inch (3-quart) baking dish with cooking spray. 
9. Spread half of the hash browns in the baking dish. 
10. Spread the onion mixture evenly on top. 
11. Sprinkle with 1 cup of the cheese. 
12. Spread the remaining hash browns over top. 
13. Pour the egg mixture over the hash browns. 
14. Heat oven to 325 degrees. 
15. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until thermometer inserted in center reads 160 degrees. 
16. Sprinkle with the remaining 1 cup cheese and the bacon. 
17. Bake 3 to 5 minutes longer or until a knife inserted in center comes out clean, the top is puffed and the cheese is melted. 
18. Let stand for 5 minutes.
19. Enjoy!

I'll be back again tomorrow with another scrumptious recipe for you all. Until then, have a great day with your friends and family. I'll catch you on the flip side. Happy blogging to all!

Turkey, Cranberry, and Brie Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Hello lovelies! I hope each and every one of you had an amazing Independence Day yesterday. Today, I decided that I wanted to take it easy. I can imagine that a lot of you are still trying to recover from some rowdy parties and gatherings, so today I figured we'd make some delicious grilled cheese sandwiches.

No, we will not be making bland, boring grilled cheese. We are taking a huge step away from that. We will be making turkey, cranberry, and brie grilled cheese. This would be the perfect day after Thanksgiving sandwich, like, no joke. It looks beautiful, sounds beautiful, and tastes amazing! It'll have your taste buds wishing for Thanksgiving to arrive sooner rather than later. I know I'm salivating at the thought of all the food that will be sitting on our serving table come Thanksgiving...

Anyway... I'm ready to get into the kitchen and grill us up something delicious. How about you? Yes? Great! I'll meet you there!

**Note: This recipe makes 2 sandwiches. If you need more, tweak the recipe for however many servings you need.**

Turkey, Cranberry, and Brie Grilled Cheese

Serves 2

You will need:

• 4 slices cranberry walnut bread
• 6 slices brie, rind removed
• 4 slices turkey breast, about 6 ounces
• 1/4 cup cranberry sauce
• 1/2 avocado
• 2 to 3 tablespoons butter

Ready?

1. Heat a skillet on medium heat. 
2. Butter one side of each piece of bread. 
3. On the unbuttered side of the bread layer the brie, the cranberry sauce, 2 slices of turkey and a few avocado slices. 
4. Repeat to prep the other sandwich.
5. Place a slice of bread on top of each sandwich, buttered side up, cover with a lid and grill in the skillet until the bread becomes golden. 
6. Flip the sandwiches once, cover again with lid and cook until cheese melts and bottom piece of bread becomes golden. 
7. Cut the sandwiches in half and serve hot.
8. Enjoy!

Thank you for joining me today. I'll be back tomorrow for Breakfast Saturday, so stay tuned! Until then, have a wonderful day and I'll catch you on the flip side. Happy blogging to all!

Happy 4th of July!

Welcome friends and bloggers! It's the 4th of July, and that means celebration and delicious food. It also means picnics, parties, and fire works. For today's entry, I didn't want to do an ordinary recipe. I wanted to do a couple of treats, so today, we will be making 4th of July Cupcakes. We will also be making a Red, White, and Blue Watermelon Almond Tart.

I actually really like the idea of the watermelon tart! It is Summer after all, so we need something cool to eat that doesn't require a ton of cooking. This tart is just the thing for that. So, I'm going to keep our conversation small so we can prep for what's sure to be an amazing day. I'll meet you in the kitchen!

4th of July Cupcakes

Makes 12

You will need:

• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1+1/3 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon raspberry or strawberry jam 
• 1 tablespoon blueberry preserves
• red food coloring
• blue food coloring

For the Cream Cheese Frosting, you will need:

• 6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1/4 cup butter, room temperature
• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Ready?

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, vegetable oil, melted butter and vanilla extract until smooth.
4. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk just until batter is smooth. 
5. Take out two small bowls and place 3/4 cup batter into each one. Add 1 tablespoon jam and red food coloring to first bowl and whisk to incorporate. 
6. Add 1 tablespoon blueberry preserves and blue food coloring to second bowl and whisk to combine. 
7. Add additional food coloring (batter should be very brightly colored.  Use at least 15 drops of each color minimum) as needed until desired color is reached.
8. Divide red batter evenly into prepared muffin cups. 
9. Divide blue batter evenly into muffin cups, centering it on top of the red batter (do not attempt to smooth it out). 
10. Divide remaining white batter evenly (again, do not attempt to smooth it out).
11. Bake for about 15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of each cupcake comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed.
12. Meanwhile, beat cream cheese and butter in a large bowl until well-combined.  
13. Gradually add in confectioners’ sugar until the mixture reaches a thick easy-to-spread consistency. 
14. If you prefer stiffer icing, add a little extra confectioners’ sugar.
15. Spread on cooled cupcakes.

------------------------------------------

Red, White, and Blue Watermelon Almond Tart

You will need:

• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1 seedless watermelon, cut 3 to 5 inch thick, rind removed
• 1 cup low fat vanilla yogurt
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1 cup sliced strawberries
• 1 tablespoon chocolate syrup 

1. In a skillet set over medium heat, toast the almonds while constantly stirring to prevent burning. 
2. When they are golden, remove them to a heatproof tray or foil to cool. Cut the watermelon slice into 6 to 8 pie-shaped wedges. 
3. Dip the curved side of each slice in the yogurt and then the almonds, re-assembling the pieces on a serving platter as you complete each piece. 
4. When finished, it will look like a pie crust of almonds around the watermelon slices. 
5. Frost the top of the reassembled watermelon with the remaining yogurt and decorate the top with the berries. 
6. Drizzle the chocolate syrup over the top. 
7. Serve cold.

I hope you have a wonderful day with your friends and family! I'll be back tomorrow, but until then: Happy 4th of July, and happy blogging to all!

Dani Wednesdays: Sharpening My Knife Skills - Salad

Hello, Ladies and Gents. I am excited to announce I am now part of the working class. This job completely fell into my lap and I could be happier. A few days a week, I will be a personal chef and companion to an older lady. She is in her eighties and has stage 2-3 kidney failure. Living alone in her home is the main goal and my job is to fill in the gaps when other friends and family are not there, as well as, make sure she has meal specific to her specialized diet.

Those who have kidney disease need to watch their potassium and phosphorus, but most importantly… NO SALT. This will be a wonderful challenge. I will share some of my recipes in later posts. Since I will be cooking many meals at one time, I needed to work on my knife skills to improve my efficiency and organization. Today, I wish to reveal the salad I made which working on my knife skills. Waste no, want not.

Sharpening My Knife Skills Salad

Serves 2

Ingredients
-Salad

• 3 c. spinach (roughly chopped)
• 2 green onions (thinly sliced)
• ½ sm zucchini (diced)
• ¼ red bell pepper (chopped)
• ½ carrot (diced)
• ¼ c poblano/pasilla pepper
• 1 stalks celery
• 2 tbsp red onion (finely diced)
• 4 basil leaves (thinly sliced)
• 3 mint leaves (thinly sliced)

-Dressing

• ½ c light olive oil
• ½ c balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp dijon mustard
• 1 sm clove garlic (pressed)
• 2 tsp Italian seasoning
• ½ tsp pepper
• Pinch of sugar

1. Combine all dressing ingredients in a container with lid and shake to emulsify.
2. Toss all salad ingredients in a bowl.
3. Coat with desired amount of dressing.
4. Enjoy!

As I always say, you can really use what ever ingredients you desire and still have a great salad. Often I like to add the sweetness of fruit to balance out the savory, but I did not have any on this day. If you want more of a dinner meal, simply add any left over meat you have from earlier in the week. Cheers!

Baked Teriyaki Chicken

Hey my lovelies! Welcome to another entry to The Tasteful Texas! Today, we will be serving our take on Teriyaki chicken. I know there might be a few people out there who don't like Teriyaki anything, so if that's you, feel free to have a look around this blog for something you might like such as:

Orange Chicken

Okinawa Shoyu Pork

Or

Tokyo Fried Chicken



All the links listed above will send you to one of our scrumptious Asian themed recipes. If Asian food isn't your thing, feel free to scroll through the rest of this blog for something else.

Back to our Teriyaki chicken... Teriyaki is actually a cooking technique, where food is broiled or grilled while being basted in marinade of soy sauce, mirin, and sugar. For those of you wondering, mirin is a rice wine. We will not be using mirin today. So, now that I've blabbed your ears off, directed you to other blog entires, and schooled you on what Teriyaki is, are we ready to go cook? I am! I'll meet you all in the kitchen!

Baked Teriyaki Chicken

Makes 6 servings

You will need:

• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1 tablespoon cold water
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 12 skinless chicken thighs

Ready?

1. In a small saucepan over low heat, combine the cornstarch, cold water, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, ginger and ground black pepper. 
2. Let simmer, stirring frequently, until sauce thickens and bubbles.
3. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
4. Place the chicken pieces in a lightly greased 9x13 inch baking dish. 
5. Brush the chicken with the sauce. 
6. Turn the pieces over, and brush again.
7. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes. 
8. Rotate the pieces once again, and bake for another 30 minutes, until no longer pink and the juices run clear. 
9. Brush with sauce every 10 minutes during cooking.
10. Enjoy!

Now you have a delectable meal to share with your friends and family! I will be back later with a new recipe for everyone, but until then, have a great day and happy blogging to all!

New England Turkey Burger

Hey bloggers and friends! It feels great to be back. I decided that this weekend would be devoted to family and a little "me" time. It's not often that I take an entire weekend away from the blog, but when it does happen, it's much needed. I'm back though with a delicious burger recipe to set your taste buds into action.

I chose this recipe because it reminded me of my time in Massachusetts. I lived there for a couple of years. The best part of New England, you ask? The food and the weather. Nothing tops actual seasons. Then again, nothing tops the amazing food they serve up North! Come to think of it, I can't find challah bread down South to save my life, and that's a shame. Now, what makes this recipe New England would be the use of Vermont white cheddar cheese. If you can't find Vermont white cheddar cheese, any white cheese will do. After all, not all you readers hail from the USA, and your cheese selection may differ from ours. So, with that being said, let's head to the kitchen and then we will make our way outdoors to fir up the grill. Let's go!

Note: If Samuel Adams Summer Ale cannot be found, any other Summer Ale available can be used as well. No worries.

New England Turkey Burger

Serves 4

You will need:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cups thinly sliced onion 
• 3/4 cup Samuel Adams Summer Ale
• 1 pound ground turkey 
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 
• Cooking spray 
• 1.5 ounces reduced-fat Vermont white cheddar cheese, shaved
• 4 teaspoons canola mayonnaise 
• 2 teaspoons whole-grain mustard
• 4 (1 1/2-ounce) hamburger buns, toasted
• 4 small green leaf lettuce leaves
• 4 (1/4-inch-thick) slices tomato

Ready?

1. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. 
2. Add oil, and swirl. 
3. Add the onion, and cook 7 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. 
4. Add the beer, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then reduce heat. 
5. Simmer for 20 minutes or until the onion is golden and the liquid almost evaporates. 
6. Stir occasionally, then let cool.
7. Preheat the grill to medium-high heat.
8. Remove the 1/4 cup onion mixture from pan and finely chop. Combine the chopped onion mixture and the turkey. 
9. Divide mixture into 4 equal portions, then gently shape each into a 1/2-inch-thick patty. 
10. Press a nickel-sized indentation into the center of each patty. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. 
11. Place the patties on grill rack coated with cooking spray. 
12. Grill for 5 minutes, turn the patties, then grill for 3 minutes. 
13. Top with cheese, the grill 1 more minute or until cheese melts and the turkey is done.
14. Combine the mayonnaise and mustard. 
15. Spread 1.5 teaspoons of the mayonnaise mixture on the bottom half of each bun. 
16. Top each burger with 1 lettuce leaf, 1 tomato slice, and 1 patty (or with whatever your preference of condiments may be). 
17. Divide the onion mixture evenly among servings, then top with the top halves of the buns.
18. Enjoy!

Well, thank you for joining me on my first day back from a great weekend. I'll be back tomorrow (for sure) with another tasty recipe. Stay tuned, and until then, happy blogging to all!