Entries Tagged 'general interest' ↓

I was out on the web looking for some broccoli slaw recipes since I have a potluck to attend and lots of broccoli. After learning how to spell broccoli (2 c’s one l) I came across the “What Geeks Eat” blog. Well, as a geek, of course I had to check it out. Not only did the recipe sound great but also down-to-earth-doable for those of us that spend way too much time on the computer. Plus, the author is a fan of fresh local food – so I have a new food blog on the links here and in my RSS reader. I’ll be trying this recipe out later today. If it comes out well and I remember to take a photo, I’ll post my version (full of substitutions as always) here.

Meantime check out What Geeks Eat for some new ideas and delicious brain food.

Summer has come to our little corner of the woods, but no summer break in the craziness. So when I felt the need for fresh baked goods I had to fall back on good old “just add water” Marie Callender’s Cornbread mix. As a way to sneak some additional veggies into our diet I decided that grated carrots would be a good addition. And since I was getting creative anyhow, I decided to add some grated lemon peel and powdered ginger too. After smelling it in the oven, I was really glad I did. Jim was late for work but stuck around long enough to try some and declare it delicious enough to blog about – so here it is. Just follow the recipe on the package for an 8 x 8 pan and cut the water back to just over a cup for about 1/2 cup of grated carrots and add the rest to taste.

I’ve been making up recipes for years. I think it all started when it was my job to have the family dinner on the table by the time mom came home from work. Ah nothing like the pressure of cooking everyday with limited store bought ingredients, but plenty of frozen & canned meats, fruits & veggies from the garden to get those creative juices flowing.

Here’s one I made up in college, flexing my skills on the fast, easy, available, pre-made foods. I gotta say it became a favorite among my friends. This one also works wonders for those last minute potlucks too. Just double the recipe to 6 cans & 2 boxes & use a larger cake pan. Guys at potlucks love this stuff & clean the plate every time! Go figure…

Three Cans & a Box

1 Can Tamales
1 Can Chili
1 Can Corn
1 Box Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix + milk & egg

Pre-heat oven 350°

Open can of tamales & dump into 9×9 pan. Remove the pieces of paper surrounding each tamale & chop into bite size pieces. Open can of chili & add the pan. Open can of corn, use lid to drain juice & add to the pan. Mix ingredients together. Make corn muffin mix by following directions on the back of the box. Spoon batter over the top of the chili mixture & bake until the top is golden brown.

So I like the flavor of pozole, but the hominy, well, not so much. So this is what I came up with. It’s perfect for my oh too big 6-quart slow cooker crock pot thing, but I’m sure it can be slow-baked in one of those fancy enamel coated cast iron dutch ovens too. Don’t let the fact that it contains 5 jalapenos slow ya down either, after 8 hours they mellow into a flavorful sauce that won’t send you grasping frantically for your beer. I don’t measure when I cook so the amounts are approximate, just make it look & taste good to you.

Sweet Potato Stew

4 Pork Shoulder Steaks
Salt & Pepper
Oil
2 Onions, sliced thin
3 Jalapeno chilis, seeded & minced
1 Tbsp Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Meat Magic
6 Cloves Garlic, pressed
1 28oz can diced tomatoes in juice
2 Oranges (Peel a strip of zest with a potato peeler, about 12″ or so, then juice the oranges)
2 Chipotle Chilis in Adobo sauce, minced
1 Tsp dried oregano leaves
2 largish Sweet Potatoes, washed & chopped about 1/2″ cubes
Chicken Broth
corn starch
1/2 bunch Cilantro, remove the big stems & chopped

Salt & pepper then brown steaks one at a time in a dutch oven over medium-high heat. You won’t need oil, there should be enough fat on the steaks. Stack them up in the middle of your slow cooker.

Add some oil if there isn’t juices in the pan from the meat. Add the onions, jalapenos & meat magic to the pan. Cook until the onions are softened & the rendered juices have cooked out. Add the garlic & just warm it on top, don’t brown the garlic. Add the tomatoes, using the juices to scrape up all the goodness stuck on the bottom of the pan. Bring to a simmer, then add it the slow cooker.

Distribute the onions & peppers between the steaks, but keep them stacked in the center of the slow cooker. Add the orange juice, chipotles and oregano to the slow cooker & stir. Nestle the sweet potatoes & orange zest strip around the edges. Add the chicken broth until the meat & potatoes are covered.

My cooker has a low 8 hour setting. Cook for 8 hours, go to work, go to bed, whatever, just don’t stir or mess with it. If you are using the oven, cover tightly, 300° for 4 hours or so, until potatoes are soft & the meat is starting to fall apart.

Turn off slow cooker & pull the meat out & set aside to cool. Pull the potatoes out & set aside. Discard the orange zest strip. Let the juices settle & skim off the fat. Mix some corn starch with water. Add to the juices & turn slow cooker on to high to thicken sauce. Add potatoes back in & the cilantro. When the meat is cool enough to handle, pull the bones, gristle & fat bits out & toss the meat chunks back into the pot.

Spoon into bowls & serve with a daub of sour cream & some tortillas, a spritz of fresh lime, & the beer of course! Mmmm

This freezes well too.

From my friend Jan:

A small dab of goat cheese on a small square of dark chocolate, washed down with a glass of blueberry juice 

her verdict: Yum Yum!

Once again there has been too much to do and no time to shop. And yet we need to eat. Foraging in the freezer I turned up the last 2 salmon patties from Costco – wild alaskan salmon in burger format, one of our favorites. We were out of bread products but still had the last packet of Trader Joe frozen Jasmine rice. So we have protein and carbs – but what about veggies?

Rummaging through the crisper (my friend says it should more accurately be called the rotter) I turned up a few mushrooms and a bit of kale that needed some serious sorting through. Not quite enough for a meal for 2 so I needed something else. The cupboards yielded pineapple which inspired a sweet and sour stir fry. It turned out amazingly well considering its origins.

Here’s how it went down:

Fried up the salmon patties in a little oil and removed to keep them crisp. Quick and easy – about 4 minutes a side.
In the same pan I added the mushrooms, a bit of onion, kale and finally half a can of pineapple with just a bit of the juice.

For flavor some soy sauces and sweet chili sauce and for sour some rice wine vinegar.

I let that cook down a bit and poured the lot over the salmon patties nested on a bed of rice.

Turns out that pineapple works well with salmon after all and does a bang up job standing in for vegetables some times.

Well New Years has come and gone and all thats left of the parties are hazy memories and a cabinet of leftover liquor. So what do you do with the three bottles of Stoli you were convinced would not be enough – never mind the fact that the amount you purchased worked out to like 10 White Russians or 20 martini’s a piece. The answer lies in a spicy pasta sauce originating the Bologna region of Italy. I first experienced this dish growing up in NY/NJ where it first gained popularity in America. It’s most commonly served with chicken or prawns but you could really use any protein that can stand up to a strong sauce.

I’ve written the recipe as I think it’s best but many of the ingredients can be substituted to suit different tastes or availability of ingredients. There are two exceptions: first, the vodka. Use good vodka. I’ll elaborate in a minute. The second exception is the cheese – Pecorino Romano is a sharp, salty, semi-hard sheep’s milk cheese that really makes this dish sing. Feel free to substitute parmesan cheese, or get creative if you like, but if you enjoy this dish enough to make it a second time I urge you to try it with the romano cheese and let me know what you think.

Ok, back to the Vodka. Like I said, use good vodka. This is a rule I follow religiously with all forms of liquor, beer, wine, olive oil, spices – you get the idea. To quote Papa John – Better ingredients make a better pizza. Now chances are you already have decent vodka at your disposal but if not I’d suggest rethinking why you have so much vodka leftover in the first place. My personal favorite for this dish is Monopolowa but I’m willing to bet any mid-range vodka will yield pleasing results.

Penne alla Vodka
(Serves 3-4)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2C vodka
• 1 can Muir Glen fire roasted tomatoes (for extra tomato flavor add tomato paste or fresh tomatoes)
• 1 lg onion, medium dice
• 1 head garlic, minced (you could use less – but why?)
• 1 Tbs cayenne pepper (a jalapeño or other hot pepper will also work)
• 1 C heavy cream (often called whipping cream or heavy whipping cream)
• 2 Tbs butter, softened (professional chefs use unsalted – if you use salted go easy on the cheese which will be salty)
• 1/2 C Fresh grated Pecorino Romano Cheese

Preparation:

1. Sweat the onions in oil or butter over med-high heat. Cook until translucent or even golden but do not brown or burn.
2. Add garlic and saute briefly – until pungent garlic smell is noticed; usually about 30 seconds.
3. Add caned tomatoes including any juice and cayenne pepper. Saute until nearly all liquid has cooked off. Stir frequently enough to prevent scorching of tomatoes.
4. Add vodka and again cook until most the liquid is evaporated being careful not to scorch.
5. Add heavy cream and reduce heat to medium. Reduce cream by about 1/3rd.
6. Turn off heat and finish with grated cheese and softened butter (butter is optional but will add richness and sheen to the sauce).

The taste should be a creamy tomato with a strong cheesy richness and a pronounced heat. If any of these parts are off the flavor will seem a little lacking – play with the recipe until you get it to your liking. All that’s left is to serve it with a hollow pasta such as rigatoni, ziti or penne.

Garnish with fresh basil.

Enjoy!!

whoops this comes a bit late but Scott Noble, a real chef – as in he does this for a living has joined the fold and his first post sounds good to me… real good.

note to self: add author attribution to posts

Ok, so wow – so very happy that we delayed last nights dinner plan until today. Our mealtime adventure started as when, as sometimes happens, Jim did a little impulse buying … he came home a few days ago with a gigundo organic rib eye steak and declared –   “I think we should start eating steak”.

This being one of my all time favorite foods (except for my stint as a vegetarian) I couldn’t find any fault with his logic. There just remained the question of what to do with it to fully celebrate the flavor and luxury. We don’t often cook meat in the house due to the intense interest our cats have in it and the fact that we don’t often eat meat just out of habit. To say I am rusty at preparing such things would be overly kind. But its hard to go too terribly wrong with great ingredients, which we happened to have on hand.

The first would be the cup or so of semi-sauted Chanterelle mushrooms from the freezer. This fall we went mushroom gathering for the first time and harvested many more than a sane person could eat in a month. We were giddy from the hunt and brought them all home. After giving some away we still had an excess, and our mushroom mentor Linda said that by quick frying them halfway in butter you could store them in the freezer. New Year’s steak seemed the perfect time to finish off the last batch.

In supporting roles would be some lovely organic purple kale and a couple of shallots left from Thanksgiving preparations. Here is how it went…

In my very largest frying pan I defrosted the chanterelles with a bit of extra butter and a couple of finely diced shallots until it was all becoming a lovely golden color. Then I added some chopped kale on top and mixed it together until the kale was wilty and brightly colored. I removed this from the pan leaving as much butter behind as possible and added a bit more.

Then one big steak was seared on both sides until it was just about done (or so I thought) when I added back the veggies and a handfull of finely chopped parsley. The steak was seasoned with salt, pepper and a dash of worcestershire sauce. I had some trouble getting all of the meat to the same level of done-ness and ended up cutting it in half so I could rotate things around. I removed the greens and mushrooms to the plates as a bed for the steak and splashed brandy on the steak in an impromtu tribute to Steak Diane.

As seems to always happen we started in eating before I thought to get a photo for the blog, so the plating is sloppy and its not the best image – it was so incredibly tasty though. I am going to try to be more mindful of taking the pictures in the future.

Jim has declared this better than restaurant steak (although not topping Ruth’s Chris) and wants to start a weekly steak tradition. Unfortunately many parts were a overdone (medium rather than medium rare) so we only had glimpses of how great this meal could have truly been. But it gave us a goal and so starts our quest for 2008 – the perfect steak.

Happy New Year
Its been too long since I have posted and I did miss some stellar opportunities with holiday foods I pretty much invented. Then today, we needed lunch and didn’t want to spoil our appetites for our special new year’s dinner, so I did the combine leftovers thing – lentil soup and pumpkin (not the same can as the previous post!). Rummaging in the cupboard I came up with the additions of paprika and hot sauce this soup proves that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I might do this again on purpose since the pumpkin made it creamy and smooth and the paprika added both color and sparkle. Anyone have another example of this to share? Here’s to a great new year of making things up as we go along.