My Favorite Brussel Sprouts

Were you one of those kids who hated brussel sprouts or anything green? My brother, my dad, and I were, and to this day my dad still is. He won’t eat anything green, except for peas which he says should be purple. They just made a mistake. But this Christmas I actually got him to try one of my brussel sprouts. I wish I had my camera, not even my grandma had ever seen him eat a brussel sprout. In his defense, it was only a quarter of one and he ate it with a fork full of roast beef, gravy, and mashed potatoes.

So, if my dad will try one of these flavourful baby cabbages, then they must be good right? Yep, they are great. Actually they are my favorite side dish.



The best way to make brussel sprouts is to cut them in half, caramelize the insides with lemon juice, and then let them simmer for a good while. If you arrange them with their insides down in a large fry pan the carmalization is easily achieved and the bitterness that we all associate with brussel sprouts is replaced by a sweet and lemony taste. The best part is that there is no fat at all in this dish. Enjoy.

Christie's Brussel Sprouts
20-25 brussel sprouts, cut in half, leaves that fall off reserved
1 lemon
1/2 onion
2 cups of water
Salt and pepper

Squeeze lemon juice into pan, place brussel sprouts facing down in one layer. Chop reserved leaves and one brussel sprout roughly, sprinkle these over the brussel sprouts in the pan. Chop the onion and add to the pan. Add salt and pepper. Turn temperature up to high and cook until the brussel sprouts develop a brown colour on their bottoms. Turn down temperature to medium and add 1 cup of water. Reduce until water is no longer remaining, then add the second cup. When all the water has reduced remove brussel sprouts from heat and serve.

Whoopie Pies with Peanut Butter Buttercream Filling

I know you are drooling right now because seriously, these taste even better than they look. These cake like cookies are number 7 of 175 different cookies in my Martha Stewart Cookie Book that I have made. I was going over to Ian's on Saturday to watch the Habs game (Toronto won? Seriously?) and all of his sweaty hockey buddies from the ball hockey game they played earlier were gathered around the TV. I wanted to bring some kind of cookie, so I started to put together a list of ingredients that I knew men loved:
1. Peanut butter
2. Chocolate
3. Peanut butter and Chocolate together

And that is how I picked the whoopie pies for the Saturday night Habs game. I prepared half a batch which made 9 massive cream filled cookies, and boy oh boy did those men love them. I think Ian is now considered the luckiest man alive. Even the bus driver tried to get one off of me when I was heading over there. Listen up women, the way to a man's heart is through cookies. A lesson for us all. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies
adapted from Martha Stewart Cookie Book

3 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp baking soda
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 sticks (1cup) unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups butter milk, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract

Filling
1 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
salt

Cookies
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Sift together flour, salt, cocoa powder, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside. In the bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla. Beat until well combined. Slowly add dry ingredients. Mix until combined. Drop 1-1/2 tbsp of batter onto lined baking pans, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake for 9 minutes. Remove to a rack to cool. Repeat with remaining batter. Spread 2 tablespoons of frosting onto half of the cookies. Sandwich together with remaining cookies. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Filling
Cream peanut butter and butter a bowl. Mix in sugar until combined, then beat mixture on high speed until fluffy and smooth, about 3 minutes. Add salt to taste, if desired. Use immediately.

Beet and Celery Soup with Carrot Salad - In the Bag

Pretty eh! Today Ian and I decided to join in on a food challenge called In the Bag. The idea is to create a dish using the ingredients "in the bag". It just sounded like so much fun that we couldn’t miss out. The three ingredients this time around were inspired by a detox from Christmas junk food : carrots, beets, and celery.

It was so fun. We made two types of soup, the beet which was sweet, and the celery that was more savory and a little tart. When the two were eaten together they balanced each other out by adding a great depth of flavour. And yes, it was neat eating two toned soup. I felt special.

The carrot salad was simple, with bursts of sweetness from the raisins and a slight taste of cumin. We love this little side salad and used to buy it for something like 2 dollars per 100g, but now I know the recipe. Ha ha, overpriced suckers.

So thanks to Julia for hosting this challenge. Enjoy!

Beet and Celery Soup with Carrot Salad
soup adapted from Ricardo TV series

Beet Side
4 beets, cut in halves
1 onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp cider vinegar
2 cups chicken broth
Salt and pepper

Celery Side
2 1/2 cups chopped celery
1 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, chopped
1/2 cup white wine
2 cups chicken broth
2 cups potatoes peeled, cut in cubes
1/2 tsp Herb de Provence
1/4 cup 10% cream
Salt and Pepper

Carrot Salad
2 cups carrots
1 tbsp white-wine vinegar
pinch of ground cumin
1/4 cup raisins
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup water
Salt and pepper


Beet Side
Preheat the oven to 375 °F. Put the beets in an aluminum foil and close.
Cook in the oven for about 1 hour and 30 minutes or until tender. Let cool.
In a saucepan, sauté the onion and garlic in oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Deglaze with the vinegar. Add the broth and the beets. Bring to a boil and continue to cook for 5 minutes over medium heat. Sprinkle salt and pepper.
Use a mixer to reduce all the ingredients to a smooth and homogenous purée. Put through strainer. Adjust the seasoning. Reserve in a hot area.

Celery Side
In a sauce pan, sauté the celery and garlic in oil over medium heat for about 3 minutes. Deglaze with the wine. Add the broth, potatoes and herbs. Bring to a boil and simmer over medium heat covered until all the vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes. Use a mixer to reduce the soup to a smooth texture. Put through a strainer. Add the cream and adjust the seasoning.

Pour the two soups into bowls at the same time. Serve hot. To facilitate the task of pouring both into bowls at the same time, transfer to measuring cups.

Carrot Salad
Grate or julienne the carrots. In a large skillet over high heat, bring water, wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and cumin to a boil.
Add carrots and raisins. Reduce heat to medium; cook until liquid is gone, 8 to 10 minutes. Mix in the olive oil. Chill then serve.

Rosti with Eggs and Carrot Sabayon

Oh Wow. Have you ever had one of those meals that are just so good you lick the plate clean? Ian and I met up early to make this one of a kind, lick the plate breakfast.

It started off pretty normal, eggs, Swiss-style potato pancakes, and well, more eggs. But then I put together the double boiler to make this super unusual but delicious sauce called carrot sabayon. It is made like a hollandaise sauce, but you know how there are just a couple recipes out there that never work for you, no matter what you do, and the cat could probably do a better job? Well hollandaise is my all time epic 'fail' dish. Trust me, I have tried a good dozen times but the result is the same, me throwing a hissy fit and some yellowish clear goo all over the kitchen. All things emulsified do not work in my favour.

So you can see why I was a little afraid to make the sauce. The whole point is to sit there and whisk until it becomes thick and creamy, but half way through Ian decided that it was never going to work and stopped whisking, throwing me into a panic. I was determined and therefore, even with his skeptical whispers in my ear, I trudged on. Low and behold, in another 3 minutes we had this wonderfully smooth, light and fluffy carrot sabayon. He says he never doubted it.

The taste of the sabayon on the potato rosti with fried eggs was so gratifying. I thing next time I will just skip the hollandaise sauce all together, and make this.

Rosti with Eggs and Carrot Sabayon
adapted from Ricardo magazine, Holiday 2008

Rosti
5 yellow fleshed potatoes, peeled
2 green onions, finely chopped
1tbsp butter
1tbsp olive oil
Salt and Pepper

Carrot Sabayon
1/2 cup carrot juice
1tbsp lemon juice
3 egg yolks

Fried Eggs
1 tbsp butter
5 eggs
Salt and Pepper

Rosti
Grate potatoes onto a clean tea towel; wring out the liquid by wrapping the potatoes in the towel and twisting it over the sink. In a bowl, combine the potatoes and green onions. Season with salt and pepper. Heat butter and oil in large pan over medium heat. Divide the potato mixture into 3 pancakes per skillet, pressing each pancake lightly together. Fry for 8 min. then carefully flip and fry for another 8 min. Add butter as needed.

Carrot Sabayon
In the top part of a double boiler, off the heat, whisk together carrot juice, lemon juice, and egg yolks. Season with salt and pepper. Place the double boiler over a pot of simmering water and whisk constantly until the sauce is thick and creamy. Cover with plastic wrap. Set over a saucepan of hot (but not boiling) water.

Fried Eggs
Melt the butter in large skillet over medium heat. Fry the egg in the butter until the whites are set, and the yolks warm, about 5 min.

Top each rosti with a fried egg and drizzle with sabayon.

Tortellini en Brodo

It seems that everyone is sick today, including Ian and my roommate, so what better dinner than tortellini en brodo.

Tortellini en brodo is a classic Italian dish, simple and delicious. My mom always made it for me when I was sick, so I have carried on the tradition here in Montreal.

The first time I made this for Ian he kept passing out on the couch from the flu. Regardless of his narcolepsy, he could not get over the fact that I just stuck a whole bird into a pot, added veggies, covered it with water, and an hour later he was eating home made chicken soup. I told him I was a magician.

Making your own broth is really easy and takes little to no effort. That’s not to say that I don’t use store bought stock for every other dish, but there is something so comforting about the smell and taste of home made chicken soup.

The key to good soup is to add a bunch of vegetables and herbs along with the secret ingredient, a turnip, then once it has simmered for a while, strain the soup through a piece of paper towel to get rid of the molten fat.

Let’s just go ahead and say that this soup was invented by the Italians, all those years ago, solely for those pesky sick days. Enjoy.

Tortellini en Brodo
adapted from Tyler Florence

1 whole chicken (about 2 pounds)
2 carrots, cut in large chunks
3 celery stalks, cut in large chunks
1 large white onions, quartered
1 head of garlic, halved
1 turnip, halved
¼ bunch fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
1 tsp whole black peppercorns
Salt to taste
1 package of tortellini

Place the chicken and vegetables in a large stockpot over medium heat. Pour in only enough cold water to cover (about 3 L); too much will make the broth taste weak. Toss in the thyme, bay leaves, and peppercorns, and allow it to slowly come to a boil. Lower the heat to medium-low and gently simmer for 1 to 1½ hours, partially covered, until the chicken is done. As it cooks, skim any impurities that rise to the surface; add a little more water if necessary to keep the chicken covered while simmering.
Carefully remove the chicken to a cutting board. When its cool enough to handle, discard the skin and bones; hand-shred the meat into a storage container.
Carefully strain the stock through a fine sieve lined with paper towel, into another pot to remove the vegetable solids and extra fat.
Bring salted water to a boil in a stock pot. Add tortellini and cook as suggested. Strain and add to soup. Add chicken and Parmesan cheese if you desire.

Nutella Linzer Cookies

WORLD NUTELLA DAY

WORLD NUTELLA DAY

WORLD NUTELLA DAY

If you really couldn't figure it out, today, Feb 5, is world nutella day. Actually every Feb 5 is nutella day, and bless them for creating such a holiday.

Each nutella holiday, we as happy followers of the nutella religion are supposed to create some sort of dish with the nutty chocolate spread in it. I made cookies, but usually I just eat it off the biggest spoon I can find to commemorate the anniversary.

These cookies were originally raspberry linzer almond cookies, but due to such a joyous holiday, I switched the almonds for hazelnuts, which are the nut element in nutella, and then filled them with as much nutella as I could. When I pushed the two sides of the cookie together glorious nutella squeezed out of the cutout top. They are as good as they sound, trust me.

The people that started this holiday are Ms.Adventures in Italy and Bleeding Espresso. You can see the official site here. Happy Nutella Day!



Nutella Linzer Cookies
adapted from Martha Stewart
makes 2 dozen cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup hazelnuts, toasted
2 tbsp confectioners' sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup nutella

Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl; set aside. Pulse hazelnuts, confectioners' sugar, salt, and cinnamon in a food processor until finely ground (but not wet); transfer to a bowl. Add butter and granulated sugar; mix until fluffy. Mix in vanilla and egg. Add flour mixture; mix until combined. Halve dough; shape into disks. Wrap in plastic; refrigerate until firm.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/8 inch thick. Refrigerate 20 minutes. Cut out circles with a 2-inch fluted cutter. Cut out centers of half the circles with a 1/2-inch cutter; reroll scraps. Space 2 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake circles until pale golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer to racks to cool.
Sprinkle cutout cookies with confectioners' sugar. Spread nutella onto uncut squares; top with cutout ones.

Very Vanilla Bean Rice Pudding

Some questions to ponder:
Q. What could be better than a warm comforting bowl of rice pudding on this f*%$ing cold day?
A. I'll tell you, nothing.

Q. What’s better than the smell of vanilla and cream cooking on the stove?
A. You guessed it, nothing.

Q. What else could make Christie and Ian catfight over the last spoonful of pudding?
A. Absolutely nothing. (We get along great sans pudding)

Q. What are you going to go make right now?
A. I think I’m psychic, Very Vanilla Rice Pudding, was I right?

It seems that this season rice pudding is the "it" food to eat and blog about. All the foodies out there have made some variation of this pudding at one time or another during this snowy winter. Heck, in this little apartment we have made it five times in the span of three days.

The secret is in the pudding, actually there are three secrets. Of course you can guess, the first is the addition of two types of vanilla, vanilla bean and the extract. If you buy the cheapy vanilla beans that have been soaked in bourbon, you will find yourself getting more bang for your buck. Bourbon, check. Vanilla bean, check. It pays to be cheap.

The second secret is to use Arborio rice. What is that you say? It’s the type of rice used in Italian risottos, so inherently it cooks up plump and creamy.

The third secret is a little out there, are you ready? It’s a bay leaf. Don’t diss it till you try it. I read about using it somewhere down the line and it really works, so lets not mess with a good thing, ok people.

A marvelous little extra to this pudding is that it is made with 1% milk, which makes this dessert low fat, equaling more in my tummy.



Also, because we eat this pudding so often I decided to get myself a pretty bowl specifically to hold the starchy gold. You may find this weird, but in my world food is rewarded for tasting so good (hence my coffee cup that no one else may use). Enjoy!


Very Vanilla Bean Rice Pudding
serves 5, or just 1 if you are like me

1/2 cup Arborio rice
1/4 cup sugar
4 cups 1% milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 vanilla bean, split in half
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp salt

Add all ingredients to a pot, bring to boil, and then turn down to a simmer for 40 min. Stir every 10 minutes so that the rice does not stick to the bottom. When finished; remove bay leaf. Scrape out extra vanilla seeds from bean and stir seeds back into the pudding.

GUEST BLOG DAY! Alex's Chocolate Pecan Cookies

Hello there, today Coco Bean has it's first guest blogger. Ian and I are very busy this Tuesday and don't really have the time to cook so Alex has been very kind to share his cookie baking experience. So, without due, here he is...

Alex Goldberg
So I’m supposed to be guest blogging on this strange Coco Bean site. My name’s Alex, and I’ve started to bake cookies like mad, mostly due to Christie’s influence. My latest creations were these pecan chocolate chip cookies, a recipe I can thank Martha Stewart for (Christie always advised me that you can NEVER go wrong with a Martha recipe). I decided to make these because my last batch of cookies, a delicious recipe of white chocolate,dark chocolate, and butterscotch chip mixed with vanilla dough, came out slightly too sugary and overdone. While they looked, in all respects, perfect, their taste was not half of what I was capable of, leaving the horrible taste of failure in my mouth. Such circumstances called for a rebuttal, and I was ready to provide one as soon as possible.

The recipe was a simple one, consisting of mixing lots of creamy butter with a lower than normal amount of sugar, vanilla, egg, and flour. I also made the addition of chopped pecans and chocolate (both dark and white). I had decided that I wouldn’t put the extra whole pecan on top of the cookies, but after much deliberation, I changed my mind and put it on top. Of course, Martha is never wrong, and the extra pecan not only added flavour to the cookie, but also made it look almost professional. And my oh my, these cookies did all but fail! Even prior to tasting, my mouth was watering.

WAIT! While I may have tasted one cookie, I was premature in my assessment of cookie greatness. While the dough is extremely soft and tasty mixed with pecans and chocolate, there are two minor flaws keeping me from cookie perfection:
1. The outside of the cookie is slightly drier than I would have liked and,
2. There are not enough chocolate chips in the dough to make them ultra rich.

Well... this is simply disappointing. I can’t even... no. This is awful. OK, not THAT awful. But it’s not perfect. And that’s unacceptable. If I hadn’t achieved such euphoria watching the Superbowl last night (I’m a rabid Steelers fan since 2004), I’d surely give up on life.


But perhaps I’m being too harsh on myself. The third taste attempt made me realize that they are, indeed, good cookies. And so long as others enjoy eating them, I suppose I should be happy, especially when I can’t possibly eat even more than 4 of any batch of cookies that I bake (my stomach is the size of a peanut).

Soooo.... keep eating, and uhm, if you don’t like them, then file a complaint. Or make your own... but you’ll never make as good a cookie as me or Christie! Well you might... if you do, give them to me, because well, I like cookies.
–the end-

Thanks to Alex for his cookies and writing.


Chocolate Pecan Cookies
adapted from Martha Stewart

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg, room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
8 ounces pecans, chopped (2 cups)
6 ounces white chocolate, coarsely chopped
30 perfect pecan halves

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, with two racks centered. Line two baking sheets with Silpat non-stick baking mats or parchment paper.
In bowl, cream butter and both sugars until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add salt and vanilla, and mix to combine. Add egg, and continue beating until well combined.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and baking soda. Slowly add dry ingredients to butter mixture. Mix until just combined. Stir in chopped pecans and chocolate.
Using a tablespoon, scoop out dough, and place about six balls on each baking sheet, about 3 inches apart. Flatten each ball slightly, and gently press a pecan half in the center.
Bake 7 minutes, rotate pans between oven shelves, and bake until just brown around the edges, 6 to 8 minutes more. Remove from oven, and let cool slightly before removing cookies from baking sheets to cool on wire racks. Repeat process with remaining dough.

Banana-Walnut Chocolate-Chunk Cookies

Nom nom nom.... nom nom nom.... nom nom.... ohh.. Excuse me; I will put the plate of cookies down... for now. Yes, they are that good, and I got them to taste that good on the first try. Thank you very much, I know, I am a cookie star.

OK, so I didn't come up with the recipe, nor did I test it a million times to create that perfect soft, chewy, nutty, chocolaty-banana texture and taste that is so irresistible. It was Martha, all Martha and her housewife army, I admit it. But just think; now you too can have this little taste of heaven, without the fuss.

I finally caved in on Saturday and found myself in Chapters, huddled on the floor of the baking section, completely enthralled with the new Martha Stewart "Cookies" book. Even though Martha has a 'Cookie of the Day' on her website, I still had to have this book. Each recipe has a full page glossy photo of the cookie, delicious looking enough that I am constantly tempted to lick the page. And now it is mine, all mine! (Insert evil laugh.) But you don't have to go out and buy it, because I will be posting all of them on this very blog over the span of however long it takes me to make 175 types of cookies( along with gaining about 30 pounds in butter weight).

So I’m ask you to just think about making these, you could soon be eating a cookie that tastes like banana bread dotted liberally with dark chocolate chunks and crunchy walnut pieces all rolled up into a tiny bite sized treat. OK, I am now going back to my plate of cookies, or what is left of it. Enjoy!


Banana-Walnut Chocolate-Chunk Cookies
adapted from Martha Stewart "Cookies"

Makes 3 Dozen
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tsp coarse salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup mashed, very ripe banana (about 1 large)
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
8 oz. (1 cup) semisweet chocolate chunks
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, toasted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together flours, salt, and baking soda in a small bowl; set aside. Put butter and sugars into a bowl; mix with whisk until pale and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; mix until combined. Mix in banana. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in oats, chocolate chunks, and walnuts.
I like bitesized cookies so this is how I made them: Roll dough with hands untill just smaller than a golf ball, place onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake cookies until golden brown and just set, 10-12 minutes. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers up to 2 days.

Asian-style baked drumsticks with dill side dressing, crispy oven fries, and a carrot-celery slaw with toasted garlic and lemon dressing

Wheeeeeeeeeww, now that was a long name! But in all seriousness, this was so worthy of its long winded title.

Now, for my birthday my loving mother just knew that I would be dying for the new Anthony Sedlak cookbook, "The Main". If you haven't seen BC's newest heartthrob on the Canadian Food Network then let me tell you, you are definitely missing out. So here we are, making our way slowly through each main he has in the book, word for word, or should I say ingredient for ingredient, but it seems that Ian and I have become stuck on this one recipe.

The book originally calls for chicken wings instead of drumsticks and blue cheese instead of dill dressing, but the first time we made this recipe it was good, but not great. And so over the past months we had set out to perfect this chicken dish, and hit the jackpot on the second try. Now it is just too good to pass up and every time we get out "The Main" to try a new recipe we end up drooling on page 31 and head to the store in search of drumsticks and dill (you can tell that we like it because the pages are stuck together and splattered with all types of sauce and food.).

Oddly enough the dinky little coleslaw brings the whole meal together. I don't know how and really, I don't care. I'm sure that is what Mr.Sedlak and his lackeys are paid for, not me.
I would like to say one thing though, if you don't have something to julienne the celery, then do not, I repeat, do not attempt the slaw. I personally do not own one and I don't know why, but every time I actually attempt this grueling task and sit for almost an hour cutting teeny tiny little match sticks, by the end I'm often convinced that I should just check myself into the insane asylum and save myself the trouble. Enjoy!

Baked Asian Spiced Chicken Drumsticks
adapted from "The Main" Anthony Sedlak

3/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup oyster sauce
1/4 cup chopped cilantro stems
1 x bunch green onion, coarsely chopped
4 x cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
2 tbsp hot sauce
2 tbsp sesame oil
1 x 1 1/2 inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
10-12 chicken drumsticks
2 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted

Carrot Celery Slaw
4 x celery stalks, julienned
1 x large carrot, julienned
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 x cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
juice of 1 lemon
salt and pepper

Baked French Fries
8 russet potatoes
3 tbsp vegetable oil
salt, pepper, and Italian spices

Dill Dressing
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup low fat sour cream
1/2 tbsp dried parsley
1 tbsp grated onion
4 tbsp fresh dill weed
salt and pepper to taste

Baked Asian Spiced Chicken Drumsticks
In a large bowl mix soy sauce, oyster sauce, cilantro stems, green onion, garlic, ginger, hot sauce, and sesame oil. Add chicken and marinate 20 minutes - up to overnight.
Preheat oven to 450 F. Transfer chicken wings to a large ovenproof dish. Pour extra marinade over wings. Place in preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350F and bake another 40-45 minutes.
Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Carrot Celery Slaw
In a medium bowl, mix celery and carrot to combine.
In a small skillet, heat vegetable oil over medium heat. Add garlic and sauté for 2-3 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from heat and add oil to celery and carrot.
Add lemon juice and toss to combine.
Season with salt and pepper

Baked French Fries
Wash potatoes with skin on. Cut potatoes into any sized fries you would like. Place in cold water for 20min. then pat dry with a towel. Toss with oil and spices then spread out on baking sheet and bake at 375F for 40 min. Flip fries half way through.

Dill Dressing
In a medium bowl combine the mayonnaise, sour cream, parsley, onion, dill weed, and salt. Mix all together, cover, and refrigerate.