Living Insanity's Loving Food

Last night our friends had reservations for Raku and invited us along. We went to the Bethesda location but there is also a location near Dupont Circle and in Arlington. http://www.rakuasiandining.com/ They only had chopsticks at the table and I'm terrible at using them Luckily everyone else at the table was great at using chopsticks. When our friends were served the tofu salad (this looked good and you must love seaweed) they brought them forks but they used chopsticks and I scored a fork :) Our friends also ordered some spring rolls but the spring rolls on the menu seemed to come with shrimp which I dont eat. The dipping sauces that came with their rolls looked really good. The presentation of the dish was really nice They split an entree which was a bento box with beef tenderloin with pomegranate wine sauce (they said the sauce was divine) and an assortment of fish, tempura veggies, some mushrooms etc. It was a huge box of food My husband and I ordered 8 tempura green bean s...

On Sunday Anthony and I went to the Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show. We bought tickets to see Tyler Florence and we also watched Top Chef contestants. Tyler made an amazing turkey. It had a cornbread stuffing, sage butter rubbed all over the outside, then bacon wrapped over the top of the turkey, and a basting liquid with maple syrup. It sounded so amazing it made us want to make a Thanksgiving dinner at our house. Tyler also made gravy, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes with roasted bananas. I want to roast some bananas now! After Tyler we watched Brian V, a Top Chef contestant who has a restaurant here in Maryland. He had a plate of chocolate 4 ways and one was ice cream where he used nitrogen to cool it down quickly. Then we visited Top Chef contestant Carla. She was on the show last year and she also has a catering business here in Maryland. She was FABULOUS. She is great at doing a demonstation. She made Pad Thai. Here is my husband with Carla. He worked o...

I am blogging this entry just because it was a yummy meal and I cooked the steaks perfectly so I'm sharing the method. 2 steaks. I never use NY Strip. Its my least favorite cut 2 baking potatoes Sour cream Fresh Dill Trader Joes beer bread (Its a mix they had a few months ago) Butter Olive Oil Grill seasoning (Ours is called Montreal) Scrub potatoes, poke holes in the skins all around the potato, lightly coat in olive oil, and sprinkle with salt. Put in a 350 degree oven for about an hour-hour and a half. This will depend on your type of potato and size of your potato. For your potatoes make a sour cream and dill sauce by chopping fresh dill and mixing with your sour cream. Trader Joes beer bread was made simply by mixing 1 can of beer together with the mix, then it was put in a loaf pan, and topped with some melted butter. Baked according to the directions on the box Now for the STEAKS. Coat a large heavy stainless steal pan in olive oil. Heat the olive oil until it waves b...

I made two giant calzones and it was really too spicy for me (I think it was our brand of wing sauce) and now I have a whole one sitting in my fridge that has been left uneaten. 1 pound chicken breasts 1 8 ounce package of cream cheese handfuls of mexican cheese blend half of a small onion, diced minced garlic 1 cup wing sauce 1 roll of Pillsbury thin crust pizza dough (Its the long tube of dough in the refrigerated section)This is the same dough I use for pepperoni rolls 2 tablespoons melted butter Olive oil Preheat oven to 400 degrees In a wok cook the chicken, breaking up the breasts into bite sized pieces, add the garlic and onion to the wok. Remove the chicken mixture and put it in a large sauce pan on the stove top. Add the wing sauce and cream cheese and mix everything together until cream cheese is melted. Spray a baking sheet well with olive oil spray Lay out the pizza dough Cut the pizza dough into two equal pieces Use a brush and brush the pizza dough with butter Add a lay...

We did not have a huge Halloween party. Just a few friends over for appetizers I made the Jalapeno popper dip again and even though we had about 9 people it still was gone at the end of the night. People cant stop eating it! We made "eyeball" meatballs We used my meatball recipe found in the appetizer section Cut up string cheese into bite sized pieces and put one piece on top of the uncooked meatball. Then we placed a canned black olive slice on top of that Bake and serve on top of marinara sauce We cut some rolls into thirds so people could make mini meatball sandwiches with their eyes :) We also made "mummy" dogs but I did not draw on faces with mustard but you can absolutely do that. We used all beef hot dogs and crescent rolls Take the cresent rolls and keep two of them together creating a square. Then slice the square into strips, about 8 strips. Roll the strips into ropes and wind them around your hot dog. I used about two strips per hot dog. Bake in the...