I recently made these cute stuffed potato mini potatoes. (The mini roasted potatoes got hallowed out and filled with Duchess Potatoes (Recipe is on my site)
The water that I boiled the potatoes got really thick and starchy so I saved it for making bread.
I winged making the bread but instead of water I used my starchy and kinda thick potato water instead of plain water.
I made one bread braided like a challah. (I do have a Challah recipe on my site that you can use if you care to)
It’s very tasty…….A little different than challah with less egg. I also used Italian Chestnut honey in it and it gives the bread another flavor.
With the other half of dough I made these vegetable and cheese breads in a cup cake pan.
roll out dough and top with fontina cheese
Topped the cheese with vegetables
Cut the dough in half long ways and rolled up like little jelly rolls in the cup cake pan and baked
They came out good too!
The next time you boil a bunch of potatoes you should save your potato water and make some yummy breads!
Surf City is a 24 hour 7 days a week bar that also offers Mexican Food, and Gaming in a North Las Vegas Strip Mall. They have all high top tables and the bar is decorated with surf boards.
They started us off with complimentary chips and a roasted smokey salsa.
I tried the Pollo Asada and a Golden Cadillac Margarita. The Margarita was good and also strong.
It’s an enormous platter of chicken pounded as thin as a lasagna noodle that was marinated in a mix of soy sauce mixed with some sort of medium-hot salsa. The chicken was topped with those frozen type mixed vegetables (peas, corn, carrots, green beans) that was also mixed with what the marinate taste like (soy sauce and medium hot salsa). To the side was a generous amount of fajita style vegetables (onions, peppers, zucchini) and Mexican style rice. It’s not the best but also not the worst either….It better than from some places in the area………………..and tortillas on the side.
My husband tried the Chile Verde (also with tortillas on the side).
He said that the beans were very good……..The rest average…Not bad but not a favorite.
You are not going to travel across town to go here but if you are in the area and are craving Mexican food you might want to give it a try.
Surf City Bar and Grill
1435 W Craig Rd North Las Vegas NV
02-633-4234
I haven’t found a website for Surf City Bar and Grill but they can be found on Facebook.
Bistro 57 is an American-Italian sort of restaurant at Aliante Hotel/Casino in North Las Vegas Nevada. It’s big and modern. They offer a nice bright bar area.
Just past here are a few dining areas.
They start you off with a non-Italian bread basket with oil embellished with balsamic vinegar. (My husband thought the rolls were olive rolls…….was very surprised to bite into sweet raisin rolls)
For my main I tried the Flounder Francese.
They gave me a generously sized filet of flounder that was nicely prepared and battered in a lemony, buttery batter. To the side are petite green beans with some toasted almond slices. There is also a side of Italian seasoned potato wedges that seem like they were re-heated a few times…………
My husband tried the baked rigatoni with sausage.
This is also a generous serving of pasta tossed with marinara sauce, accented with globs of ricotta cheese, and lots of melted mozzarella cheese and topped with grated cheese. You sure won’t leave hungry with this dish.
We also tried the pistachio gelato.
It has a nice pistachio flavor and a few pistachios through it. It’s different……..It seems light and not too heavy…….It’s almost more like an Italian Ice more than a gelato…….
Bistro 57 at Aliante Hotel/Casino is Worth a Try!
7300 Aliante Pkwy North Las Vegas NV – 702-692-7777
BB.Q Chicken sounds like a barbecue chicken restaurant but it’s not. It’s actually-
Best BEST Quality Chicken.
At eye level you read this and then you know what kind of restaurant it is.
BB.Q Chicken is an enormous chain of Korean Fried Chicken Restaurants in over FIFTY countries. To be honest this wasn’t my destination on this particular day but it is very hard to get into many of the Chinatown restaurants in Las Vegas Chinatown. Many of the better ones you have to be willing to wait outside in a one or two hour line just to get in. (that is why I haven’t made it to many of them yet)…..
Anyways-
BB.Q Chicken offers a variety of fried chicken that is boneless or wings. They also offer a few other Korean dishes and sides. To me it’s like if Kentucky Fried Chicken was Korean.
I try a small Hot Spicy Boneless (this is 1/2 a chicken. You get white and dark meat) with sweet potato fries. Our server tells us that it will be about 20 minutes. About 20 minutes latter it comes out piping hot with a side of pickled radish.
It is SPICY! It is slightly too spicy for me but I can eat it……The chicken inside is nice and moist…..The coating isn’t oily either. The dark meat ones do have more flavor than the white meat pieces. The radish and the sweet potato fries provide some NEEDED relief. It’s tasty but differs especially in texture from other Korean fried chicken that I have tried. This Korean Fried Chicken (texture-wise) is more like Kentucky Fried Chicken. This is also a much larger portion than it looks like. I ate a bunch and had enough leftover for TWO dinners. So it is a value for $15.99.
My husband tries a different spicy small boneless chicken. On my receipt it’s called Red Chak.
It’s spicy and tasty but not as delicious as the hot spicy boneless to me. This one seems even closer to a Korean Kentucky Fried to me.
I think that anything marked spicy here might be too hot for most people……..But the chicken was fried nicely and it is an enormous portion and most people will get 2-3 meals out of a $15.99 order.
BB.Q Chicken is Worth a Try!
BB.Q Chicken – 4276 Spring Mountain Rd Las Vegas NV – 702-227-2449
I came across a recipe called Snickerdoodle Shortbread on www.Food52.com by Emma Laperruque. This is a very easy recipe but I did change a few things. I don’t have a food processor so I changed the recipe to grate frozen butter into it instead. I also changed the types of sugar used for more flavors and texture. Doubling the sugar crust was needed because all of the sugar cinnamon stuck to my pan and I didn’t have any left to top it. I added baking powder to insure a nice texture. I know they came out really delicious. I got lots of compliments on them and one person said that they were the most delicious snickerdoodle that he has ever eaten and thanked me for bringing them. This makes around 16 servings give or take. You also have to cut them when they come out of the oven and let them cool. If you cut them cold they will crumble. Bake them in any pan that you would use for brownies.
This makes around 16 Snickerdoodle Shortbreads
5 Tablespoons Turbinado sugar – sugar crust
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon – sugar crust
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 teaspoon course sea salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup unsalted butter – frozen
3/4 teaspoon vanila extract
Neutral non stick spray
Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Spray your brownie pan with non stick spray.
In a small dish combine the turbinado sugar with the 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon. Set this to the side. This is the sugar crust mixture.
Half of the sugar crust mixture goes in the brownie pan. Shake the mixture all over the pan.
In a large bowl combine the flour, sugars, baking powder. salt, cinnamon, and vanilla. Grate the cold butter into this bowl. You don’t want a fine grater….You want a slightly bigger grate. mix well.
Pour in your mixture and pat it flat.
Add the rest of the sugar crust mixture and make the top is flat.
This goes on a middle rack for 40-50 minutes or until it looks dine.
As soon as it comes out of the oven you have to cut it up because it will harden quickly. Slice it up and let it cool.
Snickerdoodle Shortbread
A Special THANKS!!!!!!! to Emma Laperruque and www.Food52.com . So I could do what I got here.
They were practically giving away apple cider at the supermarket today. I knew I had uncooked chicken breasts in the freezer so I got the idea to marinate the chicken in apple cider and latter sous vide the chicken. I also made an apple cider shallot mustard sauce to go with it so here is how it went.
Ingredients for around 6 servings
13 oz apple cider + extra if you want to marinate chicken or whatever protein you feel like.
5 shallots – rough chopped
1 apple – peeled, cored, rough chop
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 Tablespoons (heaping) whole grain mustard (I used Maille Old Style)
2 Tablespoons flour
1 Tablespoon Better Than Bouillon Reduced Sodium Vegetable Base
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
sea salt – to taste
black pepper – to taste
Directions
In a sauce pot on medium high heat add the oil, shallots, and apples. Cook about 5 minutes and turn the heat down to medium-high.
In a small mixing bowl combine the apple cider, mustard, flour, vegetable base, and vinegar. Whisk well. Add this to the pan contents and stir as needed till thickened.
Serve this over your protein. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Chicken Sous Vide in Apple Cider with Apple Shallot Mustard Sauce
Sushi Day is a small neighborhood budget sushi restaurant located in North Las Vegas Nevada. They offer classic and standard sushi rolls, baked and fried rolls, rice bowls, chef’s specials, burritos, desserts, and more. You can order a la carte or go for the All-You-Can-Eat. (Lunch around $25. and Dinner about $30. subject to change). They have bar seating, tables with 1/2 booths and at least one traditional table by the door.
We decided to try the All-You-Can-Eat Dinner. To start with I picked the crispy tuna and the vegetables tempura.
Both are A-OK but would only cost $8.50 a la carte.
Then we try a variety of nigiri sushi.
Up above is cajun tuna, yuzu yellowtail, red snapper, and salmon nigiri sushi. They all run smaller in size than from most sushi restaurants. Today the rice is loser than it should be. All the fish is reasonably ok…..It’s not that melt in your mouth sushi quality but hey…it’s only priced around $4.00 per each type of sushi here so you get what you pay for.
I think a better choice is the spicy tuna roll……The rice is better on this one. The tuna is spicy. This isn’t bad.
The Salmon Lover Roll is even better in a garlic ponzu sauce.
This one has layers of flavors.
Because my husband is with me he can fit in a Korean BBQ Beef Burrito so I do take a bite to try.
Summer House is a unique California Style restaurant located in the Durango Casino-Hotel in Las Vegas Nevada. Other locations of Summer House are in – Disney Springs on The Lake, Chicago, and North Bethesda MD. This restaurant offers a wide variety of different foods for different appetites and tastes. They offer appetizers and starters like meatballs, shrimp cocktails, guacamole, edamame, and cheesy dream puffs. They also offer sandwiches, tacos, pastas, pizzas, and entrees. Unique to this restaurant is a cookie bar and more!
It’s modern light and airy inside.
outside is a nice airy patio for when the weather is nice.
We started out by sharing the potato salad deviled eggs.
It like they are mixed deviled eggs and potato salad together stuffed into the egg whites. Then they sat the eggs on top of what taste like tartar sauce. Then they topped the egg yolks with capers and chives.
For my main I tried the Costa Mesa Salad with added salmon.
I do have to give them credit for giving me a really fresh tasting piece of salmon that is nicely grilled and prepared to a perfect medium. The salmon is really good. The salad contains queso fresco, charred corn kernels, pico de Gallo, avocado, quinoa, tortilla strips, chipotle creama, and lime vinaigrette. The flavors are good. My only minor peeve is that all the greens inside are extra chopped and very soaking wet…..like marinated…….Maybe it’s usually not as soaked?
My husband tries the Prime Cheeseburger that we were told was ground in-house. (cheddar, lettuce, tomato, pickle, mustard, mayo (requested not to add), fries)
I didn’t try it but I was told that the burger was very good. The skinny fries got cold fast.
Service was efficient and plates and silver were cleared quickly.
Summer House is Worth a Try!
Summer House at The Durango 6915 S Durango Dr Las Vegas NV
The Durango Casino Hotel offers many new restaurants and an Eat Your Heart Out food court with many options. If you live in Las Vegas you saw commercials all day long on how amazing the food is. If you go on Facebook you read everyday about praise for some of the restaurants there. They say on TV that the restaurants here are the best of Las Vegas and include a few of the best from New York and California. They say they offer the best pizza, the best sandwiches, the best burgers, the best steak house….ect.
One of the restaurants I heard the most buzz about was Prince Street New York Pizza. They offer several styles and flavors of pizza that are, square, regular NY slice, and grandma style.
The caesar salad is different here and contains pepperoni.
The dressing taste bottled.
I start with a slice of Mercer Margherita (It’s the grandma style pizza)
This isn’t thick like most square pizzas. It’s a nice thinner square but is very dense…..and hardly seems fermented. This one is topped with two cheeses, tomato sauce, olive oil, garlic, and basil……I like the fresh basil but the sauce is cloyingly sweet….(It’s suppose to be topped with Prince Street Pizza Sauce…???)
My husband tries a square of pepperoni…..I think it’s called spicy spring.
He said that the pepperoni is good but the sauce is kinda sweet…….(This one is suppose to be topped with Fra Diablo sauce….?????)
I go for a second slice. The four cheese Fresh mozzarella, regular mozzarella, ricotta, pecorino Romano, and garlic. This one is thicker than the grandma and not quite as dense.
After a bite I honestly don’t want a second bite. This is not seasoned at all. I didn’t get any garlic in this bite. It taste very flat and not the best ricotta. My husband tries it and says that this isn’t seasoned at all. He also said that he didn’t get any garlic either.
The Fancy Prince is next. (mozzarella, original sauce, basil, extra virgin olive oil)
This one is thin and foldable. It seems slightly more fermented than all the other slices we’ve tried. I don’t know what original sauce is but the sauce on this slice is so sweet that it turns both of our stomachs.
From this experience I have to say to be a fan of Prince Street Pizza you need to enjoy your pizza unseasoned and made with extra sweet sauce.
Prince Street Pizza 6915 S. Durango Dr. Las Vegas NV – 702-567-7848
www.DurangoResort.com
www.PrinceStreetPizza.com
www.ToastTab.com
We didn’t get to eat much at Prince Street Pizza so we thought we’d share a pastrami sandwich from Uncle Paulie’s.
It comes on a baguette or sourdough…..My husband picked the baguette.
ICK!
WTFork is this?? I pulled out some slices of meat so you can see what I see.
This is gross….Neither of us can eat this. It just doesn’t taste good. It doesn’t even seem like real beef. The ends of it are tasteless, black, and crunchy.
Uncle Paulie’s – 6915 S. Durango Drive – 702-567-7854
www.DurangoResort.com
www.Toasttab.com
Now we are off to Shang Artisan Noodle. They are suppose to be one of the very best Chinese Noodle Restaurants in Las Vegas. They specialize in the pulled or shaved noodle.
This one is different. It’s like a small restaurant in the food court. You can either go on the wait list for service inside or go on the wait list for taking out to the food court. The original location in Chinatown is always busy with a long line outside the door. I left there a few times because I didn’t want to stand out there and wait to get in. I thought waiting 25 minutes for a seat in the food court wouldn’t be too bad.
We shared a bowl of chicken chow mein with the hand pulled noodles.
The noodles are very long and chewy. I like the lettuce mixed in with the noodles. It’s in a mild kind of soy based sauce. The lettuce sort of lightens the dish.The only downside is the chicken. Most of it is overcooked and very dry……..So we don’t finish this one either.
www.ShangArtisanNoodle.com
DurangoResort.com
My husband generously suggests that we get something from Nielsen’s Frozen Custard.
He gets a small cup of chocolate custard.
It’s mildly chocolate but is smooth and very creamy.
I decide to try a vanilla concrete blended with peanut butter Reese’s Cups.
This is enough for FOUR People……….It’s creamy but you don’t get any Reese’s Cup taste you do get small hard pieces of Reese’s chocolate through it. I’ll go back to Nielsen’s and enjoy something in the future but will never order a concrete again.
On another visit I got a small cup with Reese’s topping and it was MUCH BETTER.
Niesen’s Frozen Custard – 6915 S. Durango Dr. Las Vegas NV – 702-567-7853
www.NielsensFrozenCustard.com
www.DurangoResort,com
On another trip we made it to Irv’s Burgers.
Irv’s Burgers offers breakfast, burgers, sandwiches, hot dogs, fries, milkshakes, floats, and cookies.
My husband tries a burger. (They bake the buns here)
He said that it was juicy and tasted better than it looks.
He also got a Chilli Cheese Dog.
The hot dog is good. He said that the chilli is good. He thought it needed more cheese.
I tried Irv’s Pastrami Sandwich.
The rye bread is good and also is nicely toasted. Flavor-wise this is good and the hot honey mustard and pickles go well with all the flavors. Today the pastrami is a bit tough………It needed another hour.
Irv’s Burgers – 6915 S. Durango Dr Las Vegas NV
702-567-7843
www.DurangoResort.com
That was My trips to The Durango Casino/Hotel Eat Your Heart Out Food Court.
The Cook’s Country Recipe for Potato and Cheese Pierogis can’t be beat. Today I made the Pierogis with sweet potatoes and I thought cranberry salsa matcha would be great with them. This made 32 pierogis for me. I did have extra filling and scrap dough left that I put together and made a crazy kind of small 2 serving lasagna with. Serving size is difficult to determine because I don’t know if you want this for a side serving or a whole meal…….I like this for a side serving so I’ll say at least 10 servings.
Ingredients for around 10 side servings
2 1/2 cups bread flour + extra for lightly flouring surfaces
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 yolk
salt to taste
4 average to small size sweet potatoes – peeled
1/4 cup whipped cream cheese
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
dash nutmeg
sea salt – to taste
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 F.
The sweet potatoes go in a pan or. baking dish with about a 1/2 cup of water. The pan or dish gets covered and they stay in the oven till fork tender. (about an hour)
The bread flour, baking powder, sour cream, egg, yolk, salt go in the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook. Mix at medium-high speed for 8 minutes. Cover the dough so it doesn’t dry out. This needs to rest about 30 minutes. You can chill it but then you will have to let it warm to room temperature.
While the sweet potatoes are hot mash them with the cream cheese, butter, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.
Roll out about 1/3 of your dough on a board or rolling mat. If desired use plastic wrap over the dough so it doesn’t stick to the rolling pin. (us flour as sparingly as possible.)
Roll around 1/8 inch.
Remove scap dough and either use for something else or toss because it is much tougher second time around.
Fill about 1/2 meatball size and pinch the middle shut.
Then finish closing it up.
Repeat with rest of dough until done.
Place the pierogi on trays that are oiled or sprayed with nonstick spray because they might stick.
Boil them in batches in salted water till they float.
You don’t need to fry them but if you want to fry them I do one stick of butter with a splash of canola oil. If desired fry on each side on medium heat till done.
I usually make my own cranberry sauce but picked up a can. I forgot how bad canned cranberry sauce taste and added some of the salsa matcha I made that is published on my website……These days you can buy salsa matcha at the store if you want but this one here is very good.
Sweet Potato Pierogis with Cranberry Salsa Matcha
A Special THANKS!!!! To Cook’s Country Magazine so I could do what you see here!
