Myr got sick as she was coming back from Peru so she wanted comfort food. In our house this usually means an Asian chicken soup. I found a Cooking Light recipe that was close to what I wanted and with only a few tweaks I developed what I was looking for. I saw some fresh bamboo in the Japanese store that I just couldn’t pass up. Another recipe called for using marinated chicken, instead of the shredded cooked chicken of the Cooking Light recipe. Continue reading
Author Archives: karllueck
Karl’s Clay Pot Oyster Chicken
The reason that most of my recipes start with “Karl’s …” is so I can tell the ones I downloaded from the internet (usually for reference) from the ones I have changed enough to call my own. This is one of those occasions where I had a dish in my mind (a faded memory of some dish served at a Chinese banquet), but how it was made and what when into it was a mystery.
One search technique I used for this recipe was Google Images. Using the search “clay pot chicken” brought up hundreds of pictures that I could then scan for ones that “looked” like what was in my memory of that dish in China. However, the recipes I found on the internet did not come close to what I was looking for. I had to be creative. I took an ingredient from this recipe. Oyster sauce as the marinade base seemed a good choice, I was also making Ma po Dofu for this meal so I did not want to use Hoisin (another common marinade ingredient in clay pot chicken).
Filed under Clay Pots, Main Dishes, Poultry, Techniques
Karl’s Wild Rice Pilaf
This is one of those recipes where I took a cooking technique from another recipe that completely changes the dish. I have been making variations of this dish for most of my cooking life, but it rarely came out how I knew it should be. For me this has been a dish in constant evolution, I do not think I have ever made it the same way twice. This is the first time I have even written it down.

Karl’s Wild Rice Pilaf
Filed under California Fusion, Pasta, Rice, Side Dishes, Starches
Karl’s Mesclun, Heirloom Tomato and Cucumber Salad
Our garden produced another spectacular cucumber and I did not want to make the same salad as the last time so I had this in mind when I went to the farmer’s market. One of the sellers had bags of mixed baby greens and vine ripe heirloom tomatoes. What I came up with is this salad.
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Filed under California Fusion, Salads
Karl’s Tomato and Cucumber Salad

Karl’s Tomato and Cucumber Salad
We started a raised bed garden and we had one perfect cucumber. We had also planted basil and chives. So I created this recipe to match these ingredients.
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Filed under California Fusion, Salads


