We also did a lot of eating; hitting up old favourites like Lamberts, Magnolia Cafe, and El Chilito, and exploring new restaurants like La Condesa and Frank, which was probably the most fun and original meal we had all week: hello, hot dog covered with bbq sauce and mac & cheese, plus they had bloody marys with bacon-infused bourbon and a strip of fried bacon as a stirrer!

On Saturday, I went to the Techmunch food blogging workshop hosted by Babette of Bakespace and Jaden of Steamy Kitchen. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but wow, what an inspirational and educational afternoon! There were a whole slew of experts discussing how to make your food blog better from selecting content to developing your brand in an effort to one day monetize your blog. My mind was just racing the entire time with different ideas and changes that I want to make to improve Recession Recipes. One of the first changes is going to be regular posts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Perhaps the panel that resonated with me the most was Jaden’s discussion of Creating Personal Buzz. She talked about her decision to make food and blogging her livelihood and how she created a visual inspiration board of her goals and the life that she wanted to lead. Three years later, she has achieved the life that she dreamed of and now uses her inspiration board to remind her of her journey and why she does what she does. As someone on the brink of a huge change with our impending move this summer and me still figuring out what I want to do career-wise, Jaden’s talk hit home and I’m going to make my own visual inspiration board to reimagine the life that I really want. If you want to learn more about all of the different sessions, the Austin-based food blog Setted does an excellent job of recapping the workshop: Part One and Part Two.

When we got back to Vegas, our bodies were craving healthy food and vegetables. In fact, I bet I was the only person on my flight to Vegas who was actually looking forward to lots of sleep, no drinking, and working out once I arrived! I made this Chickpea Tagine for our first dinner back as a way to atone for our trip to Austin. We both loved the hot and sweet combination of harissa and honey in the dish, which has inspired Carlo to make some harissa and honey chicken wings tonight (so much for the health kick ). Anyway this tasty and good for you dish makes enough for 6 generous dinners at $2.02 per serving.

Chickpea Tagine, adapted from Fitness Magazine, February 2010
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 red onions, halved and thickly sliced
4 small carrots, sliced lengthwise and cut into 1/2-inch slices
12 ounces cubed and peeled butternut squash
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 inches peeled fresh ginger, grated
1 tablespoon harissa paste, plus additional to taste
1 tablespoon honey, plus additional to taste
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
2 cans 14-ounce chopped tomatoes
2 medium zucchini, quartered and cut into 1/2-inch slices
20 dried apricots, sliced
water
2 cans 14-ounce chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 lemon
salt and pepper
2 cups couscous, cooked according to package directions

In a large heavy pot over medium-low heat, warm up the olive oil and and add the onions and a little bit of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, then add the carrots and cook for 5 more minutes. Add the butternut squash, garlic, and ginger, and raise the heat to medium. Cook everything, while still stirring for 5 minutes.

Add the harissa, honey, cumin, cinnamon, turmeric, and stir the spices until they become fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the tomatoes, zucchini, apricots and stir well. Fill up 1 of the cans of tomatoes with water and add it to the pot and bring everything to a simmer over medium heat. If the tagine is too thick, add a bit more water until the mix is juicy but not too liquidy. Cover and reduce the heat as needed to let the tagine simmer gently, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender and not mushy, about 20 to 25 minutes.

Add the chickpeas and lemon juice to the pot. Raise the heat and simmer, uncovered, until the chickpeas are heated through and the liquid has thickened slightly, 5 to 10 minutes. Season the tagine to taste with salt, pepper and additional harissa and honey. Serve the tagine over couscous for a delicious dinner that perhaps tastes even better the next day as leftovers.

In addition to the spectacular location, Firefly has some tasty food. I think the best way to experience their menu is to order lots of tapas plates and share them among your party. One of my favourite things on the Firefly menu are the Bacon-Wrapped Dates Stuffed with Almonds. When we went with my sister and brother-in-law, we ate the first order so fast that we had to order another because they are just that good. They are the perfect combination of salty and sweet with the contrast of flavours between the bacon and the date.

These wrapped dates are really simple to make at home as a quick appetizer or as part of a larger array of tapas dishes. Here is a really basic recipe that you can adjust according to how many you would like to make.  My only advice is to make more than you think you will need  because they will go fast! I promise.

Bacon-Wrapped Dates Stuffed with Almonds
bacon strips
dates
whole almonds (we used raw almonds, but I bet roasted almonds would taste just as good)
toothpicks

Remove the seeds from the dates and insert the almonds into the hole left behind by the seed. Cut the strips of bacon in half or into thirds depending upon the size of your dates. Wrap a small slice of bacon around each date and secure it by using a toothpick to pierce the bacon and date. Cook the bacon-wrapped dates in a frying pan over a medium heat until the bacon is cooked and crispy on all sides. Serve and watch them disappear!

One of the three dishes that he made in the class was this Pineapple Fried Rice, which is a great way to use up leftover rice (or if you are us, we now make extra rice so we can have leftovers for fried rice). Whenever I had previously attempted to make fried rice at home, my rice would always get smushy and not taste anything like it did when I ordered it in restaurants. Rice made the day before or a few days before is the key to any successful fried rice recipe as the rice grains have dried out a bit and hold up better when recooked. Cooking the fried rice over a high heat is also important–I get a bit scared by high heat sometimes and its oil splatters, but it really does get the job done and best mimics the power of restaurant woks.

I love the sweetness of the fresh pineapple against the saltiness of the soy sauce and bacon. This recipe is just a guideline for how to make the fried rice, so be sure to keep on tasting it throughout the cooking process and adding a bit more fish or soy sauce until it tastes just right to you. You can also throw in other meats or veggies into the rice as well if you want. This recipe makes enough fried rice for 4 side dishes at 96 cents per serving.

Pineapple Fried Rice, from Jet Tila at Wazuzu, Wynn Encore
3 tablespoons vegetable cooking oil
3 to 4 garlic cloves
1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and grated
3 tablespoons shallots, diced
1 egg (optional)
4 ounces bacon, diced
4 cups day old rice
2 to 3 tablespoons fish sauce
1 to 2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon curry powder
1 1/2 cups pineapple, diced
2 to 3 green onions, chopped
2 teaspoon white pepper
3 tablespoon cilantro leaves, chopped

Pour the oil into a large skillet or wok and swish it around until all of the cooking surface is covered. Pour out the remaining oil and heat the wok over a high heat. Add the garlic, ginger, and shallots and cook them until they are light brown. Add the bacon and cook until the pieces are slightly crisp, around 1 minute. If you want to add an egg to your fried rice, crack it open while cooking the bacon and mix it around until the egg becomes scrambled.

Fold in the day old rice using the back of your spoon so you don’t break the rice grains. Add the fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar, and curry powder, and continue to stir the rice for about a minute. Stir in the pineapple and incorporate it well into the fried rice. Cook the rice for another few minutes, folding all of the ingredients into the mixture. Add the green onions and white pepper, and check your seasonings to see if you need to add more fish or soy sauce. Serve the fried rice with a sprinkle of chopped cilantro on top.

Murgh Makhani (Butter Chicken), from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s The River Cottage Meat Book

1 1/2 pounds boneless chicken breasts

For the Tikka Marinade:
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons plain yogurt
1 tablespoon lime or lemon juice
2 tablespoons garam masala
2 teaspoons chile powder
2 teaspoons ground mixed spice (some mix of cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, and ground ginger)
2 teaspoons ground fenugreek
golf ball-sized piece of fresh ginger, grated
4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 to 2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
2 to 4 green chiles, finely chopped

For the Tomato Sauce:
1 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes
small nugget of fresh ginger, grated
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 to 3 small green chiles, finely chopped
5 cloves
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup water

For the Makhani Sauce:
1/2 cup butter
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons tomato puree
4 teaspoons honey
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon fenugreek
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon black pepper

Mix together all of the ingredients for the tikka marinade and then add the chicken. Let the chicken marinate for at least 4 hours in the fridge, although overnight is preferable if possible.

Take out the marinated chicken from the fridge and grill it when you are ready to make the curry. We put our chicken on the bbq, but you can easily cook it on a griddle, or even roast the chicken breasts in the oven.

Put all the ingredients for the tomato sauce into a pan and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat and gently simmer the sauce for 20 minutes until it has nicely thickened. Rub the sauce through a sieve and set aside the strained sauce.

To complete the sauce, melt the butter in a large pan, add the ground cumin, and let it sizzle gently for a couple of minutes. Add the reserved tomato sauce, and bring it back to a gentle simmer and cook for 5 minutes. Add the tomato puree, honey, cream, fenugreek, lime juice, and black pepper, and continue to simmer, stirring gently, for about 5 minutes, until the sauce is rich, thick, and creamy. Finally, add the cooked chicken, mix and heat through, simmering for a final 5 minutes.

Serve the curry with plain white rice and lots of naan bread to soak up all that creamy sauce.

Carlo looked through the Craftsteak cookbook and found the recipe for Bordelaise sauce that Tom normally pairs with hanger steak, which was also on our tasting menu–amazing! He improvised and came up with this recipe for Brussels sprouts using the recipe from last week’s Braised and Glazed Brussels Sprouts as the basis for the dish. The Bordelaise Sauce is a bit of a pain to make, but we made the full amount and froze the rest so we can use it on some grilled steaks after the holidays.

Bordelaise Sauce, from Tom Colicchio’s Craft of Cooking
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 small yellow onion, peeled and chopped
1 small carrot, peeled and chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
3 cups chopped mushrooms
1 cup chopped shallots
1 bottle dry red wine
3 quarts beef stock
1 bunch fresh thyme, leaves picked
salt and freshly ground pepper

Plus:
Braised and Glazed Brussels Sprouts
3 slices bacon, thinly sliced

Heat the oil in a large pot over a medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrot, celery, mushrooms, and shallots. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the veggies soften and begin to brown, about 15 minutes. Add the wine and simmer everything until the pan is almost dry, about 25 minutes, then add the beef stock.

Reduce the heat to medium and let the sauce simmer, skimming frequently, until the sauce has reduced enough to coat the back of a spoon, at least an hour. Strain the sauce, add the thyme leaves, and season with salt and pepper.

To make this dish, follow the recipe for the Braised and Glazed Brussels Sprouts. Once the sprouts are almost cooked, take them out of the pan and add the bacon. Fry up the bacon until it is crispy, and then return the sprouts to the pan. Pour over a bit of the Bordelaise Sauce and saute the sprouts and bacon with the sauce for a couple of minutes and then serve.

When we went to LA a few weeks ago, we both wanted to try their Korean-inspired bbq, but with a long list of other restaurants to try, we didn’t get a chance. So when I saw a recipe for Korean style tacos with Kogi bbq sauce on Steamy Kitchen, I knew I had to finally try what lots of people are talking about.

The recipe calls for some leftover chicken, pork, or beef. If you don’t have any leftovers on hand, shredding up a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store would work well too. We had some leftovers from the Chicken Under A Brick, so I used that meat as the base for our Kogi BBQ Tacos.

The tacos were incredible with a whole lot of spice cut by the sweetness of the sugar and rice wine vinegar. They were a bit juicy from the sauce and the kimchi, but well worth the mess! This recipe feeds 4 people at 57 cents per serving.

Kogi BBQ Tacos
1 pound leftover chicken, pork, or beef, shredded
2 tablespoons chili-garlic sauce
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
2 teaspoons sesame oil
12 corn tortillas
kimchi

Combine all of the wet ingredients and add the sugar. Mix everything together well until the sugar is thoroughly dissolved.

Add the shredded meat to the sauce and let it sit to marinate for a few minutes.

Place the shredded meat in a warmed up corn tortilla and top with some kimchi for some finger licking tacos.

However this fast and easy Thai Chicken, Zucchini, and Tomato Curry can make you rethink that Thai delivery because you can have dinner on the table faster than the delivery guy can make it to your house at a fraction of the cost. This Thai Curry feeds 4 people at $2.03 per serving.

Thai Chicken, Zucchini, and Tomato Curry
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts, sliced crosswise 1/3 inch thick
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 onion, sliced 1/4 inch thick
2 zucchini, cut into 2-by-1/2-inch sticks
1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes
1 tablespoon Thai red curry paste, or to taste
1/2 cup unsweetened light coconut milk
2 tablespoons water
finely grated zest of 1 lime
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
rice, for serving

In a large pot, heat 2 tablespoons of the vegetable oil. Add the chicken seasoned with salt and pepper, and cook it over a high heat until the chicken is just white throughout, around 2 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate.

Add the remaining oil to the pot, and add the onion and stir-fry over a moderately high heat for 2 minutes. Throw the zucchini and cherry tomatoes into the pot and stir-fry for another 2 minutes. Stir in the curry paste (you can add as much as you want depending on how hot you like your curries), coconut milk, water, lime zest, and lime juice and bring the curry to a simmer. Add more coconut milk if you think the curry needs a bit more juice and then stir in the chicken and cook for a couple of minutes.

Serve the curry with cooked rice and top with fresh chopped cilantro for a quick Thai dinner at home.

While that might be quite pricey for some home cooking, think about how much crab salads go for in fancy restaurants? We would be paying at least $15 for the lunchtime equivalent of this salad in a Vegas restaurant, and when we can’t eat out like we used to, special lunches like this help me feel like I’m not totally constrained by life on a severe budget.

You can buy a pound of fresh lump crab meat at Costco for $15, which comes in really handy for recipes like this. The chunks are really big and tasty, and you don’t have to mess around with cooking the crab and then pulling all the meat out of the claws and body. The recipe also includes a pretty ingenious way to cook all of the thick asparagus that is cropping up at our farmers’ market by thinly slicing the stalks and lightly cooking them for salad greens.

Crab, Avocado, and Asparagus Salad
1 pound thick asparagus
7 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
6 medium basil leaves
1 small shallot, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup salted roasted pistachios, coarsely chopped
1 pound jumbo lump crab meat
2 Hass avocados, diced
2 hard boiled eggs, diced

Cut off the asparagus tips and cut each tip in half lengthwise. Cut off the very woody end of the asparagus stalk and then use a peeler or mandoline to shave the spears lengthwise. Blanch the asparagus tips and shavings in a boiling pot of salted water until they are just heated through, around 10 seconds or so.

Quickly drain the asparagus and place it in a bowl of ice water to stop them from cooking. Once the asparagus is cool, remove it from the water and drain it well. You might have to use some paper towels to pat the asparagus dry so you don’t end up with a soggy salad.

Whiz up the olive oil, lemon juice, basil, shallot, and 1/4 cup of the parsley in a food processor. Taste the dressing and then season with salt and pepper.

Mix together the crab, asparagus, and hard boiled eggs in a large bowl. I tossed in around half of the dressing and let the salad topping sit for a few minutes for the flavours to marry.

Mix the asparagus with the pistachios and remaining parsley in a bowl and drizzle with a little bit of dressing. Place the salad on each plate and then top with the crab mixture for a special lunch.

Kudos to Whole Foods for providing a tasty and easy option for lunch on the run. I just wish that everything was this cheap at Whole Foods!

Beet and Kale Salad in the Whole Foods packaging

Much fancier on a plate