Barefoot Plumies is now CAB Cooks!!

It's final. The small blog of Barefoot Plumies will be no more after today. But with encouragement from readers and the Mister, I have decided to start a new blog elsewhere. I'm hoping to make it better than Barefoot Plumies with more recipes, more pictures, and more kitchen gadget reviews.

My sincere thanks to everyone who has stopped by, to those who have shared thoughts to help improve the blog, and most of all, to the Mister and Guinea Pig Panel for being the first to try my concoctions and supporting my half-baked ideas (sorry for the bad pun)! Hang on to your slippas cuz there will be more for the new site.

What's the new site, you ask? It is....(wait for it...) CAB Cooks ! Okay, maybe not original but at least it's to the point. I will be migrating most of the recipes from this blog over to the new one so they are all in one convenient place. Hope to see you over there!

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Google Screw-up

I'm posting this since mainly to notify readers who have RSS feeds or Google Readers to my site to let you know of the problem I am having with my blog at the moment.

Some of you have been wondering what in the world is going on with this blog. Well, I'm trying to re-establish BarefootPlumies.com but Google Apps dropped the ball and Blogger is completely useless at this point. Fo the time being, I am reactivating the old URL: barefootplumies.blogspot.com until the issue is resolved one way or another by the end of the week.

At this point, I'm debating to even stay with Blogger or go with another blog service provided (possibly Typepad). And quite frankly, I'm ready to just dump the whole thing and recreated Barefoot Plumies under a completely different URL with a more reliable (i.e., paid services!) provider. I guess this is my lesson on getting what I paid for, hehe.

Thanks for hanging in there and as always, thanks for all your support and visitations. I would be such a lonely person without you guys!

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Monterey Pasta Company Lobster Ravioli

On a recent shopping trip to Costco, I kept an eye out for fresh lobster raviolis that my friend L said was really good. So when I saw these in the refrigerator section, I didn't hesitate to pick up a package, especially at about $9 (which should have been an indication as to what's to come).

Actually, it is 2 packages, 16 raviolis in each. The ravioli is a rectangular shape and didn't look quite as "pillowy" as the pictures depicted.

I originally wanted to make a lobster cream sauce to go with it but I didn't have time and had to improvise. I used some previously made and frozen simple tomato sauce, hoping it wouldn't overpower the raviolis.


Sauce was heated up and the raviolis cooked up in matter of minutes (5 to be exact). Plated everything up, sprinkled some cheese and the Mister and I were ready to chow down.

Before taking a first bite, I cut open one of the raviolis and the filing didn't look anything like the raviolis on the package (surprise! not). The filling looked like a lump of white mystery meat of some sort. The red sauce in the picture below is from the tomato sauce, not the red "creamy Newburg Sauce" advertised on the package. As a matter of fact, neither of us tasted any kind of sauciness to the filling.

I was starting to wonder if there was some mix up at the packaging site. Could we have gotten some other kind of ravioli by mistake? After we started eating more, and dissecting what we were eating, I came to the conclusion that this was most likely lobster ravioli since I can taste clams, which was one of the ingredients (maybe they should have called it lobster and clam raviolis). I think I actually tasted a little bit of the lobster (there was some kind of stringy meat which could have resembled lobster).

Anyway. The Mister summed it up pretty well on this meal. Tomato sauce aside (which did kind of overpower the ravioli a tad and I would definitely recommend cream sauce), if no one told us these were lobster raviolis, we would have thought these were some kind of cheese raviolis with maybe some mystery seafood in them, fish perhaps. Overall, it was not a bad meal, it wasn't a toe-curling meal by any means, just a so-so meal that filled the belly. And the Mister said not to buy them again. Oh well. How would you know if you don't try, right?

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.

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Happy Mother's Day

Wishing mothers everywhere a wonderful day!

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Thai Fried Chicken Wings

If I had a dollar for every time I said I love fried chicken wings...

I finally made Pim's Thai Fried Chicken recipe using chicken wings. I had a family sized package in the freezer and have not fried anything in over a month (unheard of!). I like cooking with wings since I seem to have a better handle on cooking it just right. Besides, how can you resist those cute little and delicious drummettes.

I didn't do anything too different from Pim's original recipe. I do, however, like my fried chicken (wings and other parts) very crunchy. So instead of putting straight into the oil after dredging, I let the wings sit a bit to help crust formation. I then dredged it one more time and then shaking off excess flour before putting them into the oil. While one batch was cooking, which took about 7 minutes to cook through and to get a nice golden brown, I would dredge the next batch and let them rest. Then while the oil was getting back up to temperature (350 degrees), I'd dredge them again and then into the oil. If you like the thinner crust, just follow Pim's original directions. Either way, I think you'll love these.

Here's what I modified for the chicken wings.

Ingredients:
3-4 lbs of chicken wings, separated, discard tips
6-8 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 Tbsp coarsely chopped cilantro stalks
1 Tbsp ground black pepper
1 tsp kosher salt (or other course salt)
6 Tbsp oyster sauce
1/3 cup fish sauce
2 cups of rice flour, you might need more if double dredging
Canola oil for frying

In a small food processor, ground cilantro stalks, garlic and salt until you get a rough paste. You can also do this in a mortar/pestle or using the flat side of a wide knife to grind into paste.

In a large container or food storage bag, combine paste with oyster sauce, fish sauce and ground pepper. Add chicken wings and mix until all wings have been coated. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours. About half way through the marinating time, retoss to make sure all the wings get equal marination.

In a Dutch oven, add about 1 - 1 1/2" of oil. Heat oil to 350 - 360 degrees Fahrenheit. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Fahrenheit; put a cooling rack on top of a baking sheet into the oven. This will keep the cooked wings warm and crispy as you finish frying all the wings.

Put rice flour in a medium to large bowl for dredging. Dredge the wings and let rest for a few minutes. I did this while the oil was just reaching 350 degrees F. Dredge the wings again and shake off excess flour and gently put it into the hot oil. I was able to get about 9-10 wing sections into my DO and adjusted the heat to keep the temperature around 315 degrees F. The wings were done around 7-8 minutes.

Drain the wings on paper towel for a minute or two before putting it into the oven. I did this to remove any excess oil that might have been on the wings. Let the oil temperature come back to 350 degrees before putting in the next batch. Continue frying up remaining wings in the same way.

The wings were not greasy at all and were wonderfully crunchy and mouth-smacking good! We had them with some macaroni salad and steamed white rice. Delicious! The Mister said these were the most crunchiest chicken to date and called them "money." What more can I want? Okay, maybe a vacation to Hawaii but I'll take what I can get!

Hope y'all are having a wonderful week. Now go and eat well.

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