The first thing you notice about Dos Chiquitas is the great lighting in the building. Unlike China King, and some other small but great chow stops, Dos Chiquitas has softer, warmer lighting instead of florescent bulbs buzzing two inches from your eyeball for the entire meal. The next thing you notice? The super friendly, even more super attentive staff who make you feel at home from the moment you walk through the doors.

Then comes the food. Your started off with a basket of light, crispy tortilla chips and a little cup of the best salsa you can imagine. And they keep it coming while you wait for your order.

The menu is full of combos and drinks, and even a burger or two, but what Laota and I got were shredded chicken soft taco combination plates that come with heaping helpings of rice and beans. We couldn’t finish it there, we had to take it home!

The food is fragrant, and packed full of flavor. Like our server (awesome guy, very friendly!) said about other Mexican restaurants in the area, “There’s no flavor, it’s just food.” and I agree with him. The difference between Dos Chiquitas and other places serving Mexican-style or TexMex food is that Dos Chiquitas food is infused with flavors. The chicken was delicious, the tortillas were delicious, the rice is to die for and the beans were a great balance to it all. There was a mild fruity note to the meat, as if it had been cooked with peppers or tomatoes, and the order was on our table in no time.

I can’t gush enough about this place, and I can’t wait to go back! Four out of five stars, would have been five if FoxNews hadn’t been on the televisions lol.

DOS Chiquita’s
(660) 425-4639
Bethany
3507 Bulldog Ave
Bethany, MO 64424

Dough Recipe:

# 1/2 cup milk
# 1/2 cup water
# 2 tablespoons butter
# 3/4 teaspoon salt
# 3 cups all-purpose flour
# 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
# 1/4 cup white sugar
# 1 egg

The Rest at Allrecipes.com

These are a bit dark for cinnamon rolls, as they were in the oven for only 3 minutes longer than they should have been. I didn’t hear my timer go off, but 3 minutes was all it took. They were still delicious, but make sure to watch them carefully while they’re cooking!

Pasta sauce is convenient these days. What used to take hours, sometimes days, now takes only the few minutes necessary to open up a can of red sauce and heat it up on the stove top. It would be great, delicious even, if Ben didn’t continually buy Hunt’s pasta sauce.

What’s wrong with Hunt’s? Is it cheap? Well, not bad at $1.10 per can. Is it red? It’s very red, there are even scales of redness. Is it sauce? Technically, yes, it is sauce. Is it tasty? Okay, herein lies the problem. Hunt’s pasta sauce is bland, bitter and tastes a bit like the sauce they put on canned ravioli. There’s no sweet, savory love like you get with Prego (I believe it really is in there), and no fruity, juicy goodness like you’d get with a similarly sized, 20 cent cheaper can of Del Monte which, incidentally, is my choice in cheap pasta sauces.

So how do we remedy this? Apparently it’s surprisingly easy. Here’s what you need:

1/2 can of Hunt’s pasta sauce
1/4 lb of browned ground beef
Sea salt and ground black pepper to taste
2 T clover honey

Basically, after you brown your ground beef you stir in your spices and pasta sauce over medium-low heat until the sauce barely starts to heat up. Pour in your honey and stir it in slowly. Keep stirring with the heat on for about 5 or 6 minutes, or until the sauce is thoroughly heated. Serve over your favorite pasta!

I’m absolutely crazy about seafood, and I don’t get it that often because it’s very expensive here. But there’s one treat I do get on occasion and that’s Tilapia, a tender and mildly sweet whitefish. It’s decently priced and incredibly tasty, but unfortunately the other treat I need to do any real cooking is time off – a treat which I rarely can afford.

The solution to this was simple, but it took me ages to figure it out – you can make many small fish fillets in the microwave! While I”m not an advocate of cooking just anything in the microwave (unless you know what you’re doing), this is one dish that comes out delicious and piping hot every time! Here’s what you’ll need:

• 2 Tilapia Fillets, 6-8oz each (frozen)
• Lemon Pepper to taste
• Accent! to taste. (Yes this IS commercial MSG, but I’m actually a big advocate of MSG awareness and use. If you’d rather not use it, a little salt or soy sauce will do!)
• 2 tablespoons of butter (one tablespoon for each fillet)
• 2 slices of lemon (one for each fillet)

• Prep: 1 minute
• Cook: 4-6 minutes

Place your FROZEN tilapia fillet (one at a time, please) in a microwave safe dish with a cover – I place mine in a bowl and use plastic wrap, but I’m used to doing this and if you don’t watch the fish carefully you could end up with a melted plastic mess!

Liberally season both sides with your Lemon Pepper and Accent! then place a slice of lemon and portion of butter on top of the fillet. Now cover your fillet and place it in the microwave on high for 4-6 minutes (check after 5 minutes). Let stand for a full minute then re-plate. Great with salads, soups or by itself – makes a tasty sandwich, I hear!

We like to have this by itself as a midnight snack at our house, and Laota and I have been talking about having it with some wilted baby spinach and mashed sweet potatoes. If you try this, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Yep, that’s really all there is to this dish. It’s tasty, and pretty – dinner in 5 minutes!

Related articles

• What’s for Dinner? Parmesan Tilapia with Fresh Lemons and Tomatoes (chicagoist.com)
• DELICIOUS ROASTED WHITE WINE FISH wrapped in Smoked Bacon with Lemon Mayonnaise & Asparagus (becomeabetteruin365days.wordpress.com)
• A Steamy Affair With Microwave, Vote & Win! (luxuryhaven.blogspot.com)
• Thai fish curry recipe (telegraph.co.uk)
• Pair panko, tilapia for real fish sticks (pbpulse.com)
• Eating a Good Mood (notecook.com)

1 pack of store-bought wonton wrappers
1.5 lb of ground pork
2 cloves of fresh garlic, crushed and chopped
2 T. grated ginger (must be fresh! and yes 2 whole tablespoons)
Soy sauce to taste
Salt & pepper to taste
Dash (light dash!) sesame oil
1 tsp oyster sauce
2 T. rice vinegar
2 shallots, finely chopped
5 large napa cabbage leaves (3 shredded, one whole)

In your steamer (or the steamer rack of your rice maker, which is what I use), fill the water tray with the amount of water your manufacturer recommends. Place half of the ginger in the water and a dash of salt and start the steamer.

Save out the skins (obviously!) and the whole cabbage leaf and combine everything else in a large bowl. Try and make sure it’s as dry as possible so make sure you try not to over do it with the soy sauce.

In your steamer rack, place the whole cabbage leaf (it’s a great way to protect the rack from food getting stuck on it!). Now place your wonton skin in the palm of your hand and put about a rounded teaspoon of filling right in the middle. Remember, don’t over do it! Now make a loose fist (don’t squeeze too hard, just tight enough to close up the dumpling) and place the dumpling on the cabbage leaf in your steamer. Don’t over crowd (make sure there’s a dime’s worth of space between each or they may touch each other and stick). Now just steam them over a boil for 5-7 minutes, and take them out carefully to avoid being scalded by the steam.

You can serve these as is, but I like to let them cool for a few moments and serve them with either a good spicy mustard or a ginger-based sweet sauce. Hope that wasn’t too hard to follow without the photos!

A simple recipe today for a fake Chashu Ramen you can make when you’ve got almost nothing in the house, like we do. It’s simple, it’s tasty and it goes a little something like this:

3 oz of uncooked ramen (for the love of Thor, not the freeze-dried kind, try for real ramen if you can!)
2 quarter-sized slices of fresh ginger (peeled and crushed)
3 C ready-made chicken, pork or beef broth (we used chicken)
4 hard-boiled eggs (peeled and cut in half from pole to pole)
2 large handfuls of fresh baby spinach
2 standard sized hotdogs (cut into strips)
Soy sauce to taste

Prepare your ramen according to the instructions on the package then drain it into a colander and rise with cold water to stop the cooking process. Set aside.

In a wok or large sauce pan bring the broth, hotdogs and ginger to a low boil then reduce the heat and simmer for a good 5 minutes. Turn the heat back up and add your salt and a few dashes of soy sauce. Return to rolling boil.

In a decent sized bowl portion out a fourth of the noodles in one fourth of the bowl, dedicate one fourth of the bowl to spinach, another fourth to hotdog strips and the final fourth to one of the hard boiled eggs (cut side facing upward). Once your bowl is arranged, ladle your boiling broth over the top and cover it your bowl with a bowl lid or plate for a few minutes.

It serves four, it’s cheap and easy to make and very tasty. It’s not really chashu ramen but still good when you don’t have a lot in your house. Be sure to serve it with a little red chili sauce and maybe some hot mustard.

It’s basically a non-beef taco made of seasoned turkey meat with fresh, cold toppings to give it sort of a salad taste instead of a really taco-y taste, which I prefer.

The recipe is very simple, brown half a pound of taco-flavored ground turkey in a skillet (we used a wok), on medium-low because turkey does not behave like ground beef – don’t make the mistake I made and follow the instructions on the package, lol!

Then we used our beautiful new toaster oven (only $18 at Walmart, works like a dream!) to toast two regular corn taco shells for set on ‘toast’ for about five minutes.

The toppings for this are fairly simple but they’re what make this Tacos Valhalla. You need fresh or canned tomatoes (diced), a bit of salsa (we go with peach or mango at our house) and plain vanilla yogurt. We’d have used shredded lettuce but we didn’t have any on hand, so the tacos aren’t as salad-y as I usually like them to be. This dish is best served at room temperature, because the cold toppings give it a great fresh salad taste with a unique sweetness (like sweet cream, not like candy lol) and a great tang. It really tastes more like hearty salad than a taco!

Here’s a tip – a well seasoned wok will never need to be greased, so you shouldn’t have to use any oil or even cooking spray for this, so it’s a great way to get your protein without all the fat!

Veggie Base:

1/2 C each: Frozen Broccoli Florets, FrozenSnap Pea Pods, Canned Water Chestnuts, Red and Yellow Peppers (julienned)

3 Slices of FRESH Ginger Root (Can’t stress this enough, must be fresh!)

Dash of: Salt, Sesame Oil

Glazed Chicken:

3 – 4oz boneless, skinless chicken breasts, uncut.

Juice from half a lemon

3 T Pineapple Duck Sauce

1 tsp. Raw Minced Garlic

2 tsp. Raw Shredded White Onion

2 T Pineapple Mango Marmalade or Orange Marmalade

Dash of: Cinnamon, Fresh Grated Ginger, Salt, Pepper, Shoyu

Method:

Put your wok (or skillet, but I prefer a wok) over a medium flame and add a few dashes of your favorite sesame or peanut oil with half of your garlic and half your onions until translucent with a nice, fragrant aroma. Now add a dash of shoyu and a dash of your lemon juice and turn the heat up to medium high.

Lay your chicken breasts thickest side down in the pan and cook on medium high for 5 minutes. Once they’ve gotten a good browning on one side, add more sesame oil and shoyu and flip them over to their other side – cook another 2 minutes. Now you want to take your spatula and start to cut the chicken breasts into 1 inch by 1 inch pieces and turn the heat back down to medium.

When the chicken is almost cooked through (important – cannot be entirely done!), add the rest of your lemon and another dash of sesame oil to the pan and turn the chicken over to coat well. Now add the duck sauce, the rest of your garlic and onion, the marmalade and the rest of your spices to the pan and continue to cook on medium for another 5 minutes, stirring constantly until the glaze starts to thicken and the chicken is cooked through. Set this aside in a bowl with as much glaze as you can scoop out with your spatula – we want about a teaspoon left in the wok.

Deglaze the pan with a mixture of shoyu and a little sake (not much, only a tablespoon or two) then add your veggies and spices all at once (unthawed). Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, until veggies are cooked through and the thawed water is evaporated. Push them over to the side of the wok and add the chicken back to the pan and turn the heat down to low. Now reheat on low for a few seconds, which will help melt the glaze enough that you can use your spatula to stir the meat and veggies together.

You can have it on rice if you want, but I liked it all by itself. Sorry my photos aren’t better, I was in a hurry and only had my phone! My total prep time and cook time was about 20 minutes – fast and delicious!