The Delightful Obligation

On Chicken Fat

2011-11-15T20:01:00.000-08:00

Let's get something right out on the table...fat is amazing. I won't go into all the reasons we think this. Let me just mention that we all love it, which is why we feel deprived when we don't get it. We make excuses for why we can't have it.

The classic chef adage is "fat is flavor." Boy are they right. If you think eating out at a restaurant tastes better merely because the chef is more talented in his left pinky than you ever might be in a million years you are only half right. A big reason they are better is because they do things you would never think of doing. They use more heat, more salt, and more fat.

Fat is not all together bad for you. Yes, I know the 459 diet books you have on your shelf say that any kind of fat (and any flavor and joy in life) is hateful against your body, but they are wrong. How do I know this...one simple word...France. You're welcome. The French eat so much more fat than we do it is mind boggling. In fact there is an entire term for it, "The French Paradox." Not kidding.

Now to chickens in particular. Chickens are God's gift to simple eating. This is for many reasons, but the main one I would like to focus on is it's fat. The vast majority of the fat on a chicken resides in its skin. This insulates the lean interiors making the bird almost perfect as is. But fat in any form scares us to death. Accordingly, we in America have done our best to remove all skin from the parts of the chicken we eat. This is why the abominable practice of abusing a boneless, skinless chicken breast has become the pastime of seemingly every suburban middle class "food enthusiast." Don't get me wrong, on a busy week night this hunk of low fat, bone free, chunk of animal protein can serve as a beautiful and rapid vehicle for any number of flavorful preparations (most of which add a significant level of fat in other forms to the party). Just don't kid yourself that grilling this thing to death while basting it with "Italian dressing", or the like, is going to satisfy you. It won't.

Back to the skin.

The wonderful thing about the skin is that it can be heated and rendered leaving you with two products you never had before...schmaltz and chicken crackling. These two gifts must be on the top 100 list of pleasures in life. Here is the quick process of going from useless, lifeless, rubbery skin and fat to two delectable treats if you are breaking the whole chicken down into various pieces. Wait...you have never bought a whole chicken...you have never lived. And I'm not joking. Break down a bird. Get dirty. Use the bones for stock. See what it is like to dismember an animal and use it for food. I honestly see it as a spiritual experience. Something has given its life up for you to enjoy it, treat the thing with respect.

Step one: Remove fatty sections from the back of a whole bird (located near the big cavity) as well as from the chicken back. Really, you can use all the skin you have. The more the merrier. Then throw it all into a skillet (don't use non-stick...it sucks) and put it over medium heat. It will look like this:

Step two: Don't screw with it. Turn it every once in a while, but not too often. Lower the heat if it begins to smoke. You really can't mess this up. It will start to look like this, but leave it alone.

Step Three: Remove the skin and what you have left in the pan is liquid gold. People pay big money for good fat...you just got some for doing nothing. On top of that you have this:

That is free, fresh, low(er) fat crackling my friend. Little salt and pepper and you are good to go.

"Jeremy, what do I do with my new found free fat of awesomeness?!?"

Anything you want. Use it to fry eggs (chicken on chicken...mind bendingly good) or anything else you would use fat for. This is natural stuff, good stuff. Love it, appreciate it, and begin to embrace flavor.

Liquid gold

Triple Threat Cookies

2011-04-20T09:24:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me know that in my opinion, the only thing that makes chocolate better, is more chocolate. These cookies have cocoa powder, chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. Awesome.

The original recipe called for 1 c crushed oreo cookies instead of the white choc chips. I made them both the original way, and my way and I have to say I like it my way better.

1 c butter
1 ½ c sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ tsp vanilla
2 c flour
½ c cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 c chocolate chips
1 c white chocolate chips

Cream together the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until fluffy. Add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt and mix until combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Refrigerate dough for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350. Roll dough into balls and set in baking sheet. Bake at 350 for 10 – 12 minutes.

Burnt Sugar Almonds

2011-03-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

We made these and gave some of them away as Christmas presents but mostly we snacked on them all day long and put them out whenever people came over for dinner. They were super easy,really yummy and they are almonds, so good for you, right? We made another batch that had no vanilla and instead of cinnamon they had 3 types of chili powder on them but I liked the sweet ones the best.

1/3 plus 2 Tb water
1 c sugar
1/3 c sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 c raw almonds
1 tsp vanilla

Put water, 1 cup of sugar and cinnamon in a Dutch oven and stir. Bring to a boil over medium heat. As soon as it starts to boil add the almonds to the mix, raise the temperature to high and stir CONSTANTLY until the water is boiled away.

The sugar will fry out a little but start to stick to the almonds. Keep stirring them around, so that the almonds don’t burn to the bottom of the pan.

Turn the heat to medium low. Keep stirring until the almonds have an even shiny coat.

Dump in the rest of the sugar. Keep stirring and add the vanilla.

Keep stirring until the almonds are shiny but lumpy. As soon as this happens take them off the heat and spread them out on a sheet of parchment paper as much as you can. While they are cooling keep breaking them apart with your spoon until they are all separated.

Once they are cook store them in a dry closed container or bag.

Lemon Cornmeal Cake

2011-03-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

Raise your hand if you know what Prince's Hot Chicken is. If you DIDN'T raise your hand you need to come and visit us... like now... so Jeremy can introduce you. What does that have to do with Lemon Cornmeal Cake? Well, I made it for dessert the other day. On a day when we had some friends over for dinner. Pasta, roasted cauliflower, salad, dessert. You would think that would be a filling yummy dinner right? Wrong, not if Prince's is an option. AFTER eating dinner and playing a board game the boys headed out to get some chicken. And when their insides were burning with hot chicken I pulled this dessert out for round two. Apparently it paired beautifully with the belly scorching madness that is Prince's. Here is the recipe. A friend got it from someone's blog and emailed it to me. Sorry I can't link to the original. Enjoy.

1 ½ c flour
1/3 c yellow cornmeal
½ c sugar
¼ c brown sugar
3 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 c buttermilk
2 eggs
1 Tb lemon zest
½ c + 1 Tb butter melted and cooled
Glaze:
1 ½ c powdered sugar
3 – 4 Tb lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350. In a 9 or 10 inch cast iron skillet, melt butter over med heat until browned and fragrant. Tilt pan so butter coats pan bottom and sides evenly. Remove butter to a dish to cool.

In a large bowl whisk together flour, cornmeal, sugars, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a small bowl, whisk together eggs, buttermilk, lemon zest and butter. Add wet ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients and fold together with a spatula until very few lumps remain. Pour into cast iron pan and place in oven.

While the cake bakes whisk together powdered sugar and juice to make glaze.

Bake cake for 30 minutes or until toothpick test comes clean. Remove from oven and let rest 10 minutes. Use a skewer or fork to poke holes all over cake. Pour glaze over cake and spread evenly. Let it rest 30 min before serving.

King Prince

2011-03-07T19:38:00.000-08:00

"Wait, is that..."

"Yes"

"Seriously? Two eggs scrambled in chicken schmaltz with the addition of a Prince's Hot Chicken thigh in the heat range of "hot" topped with some Tillamook Vintage White Cheddar all waiting to be wrapped up in a tortilla and scarfed?"

"Yes"

"Did you really do something like this at 5 AM?"

"Yep"

"Was it one of the best all time breakfast creations that you dreamt about late the same night you ate it...two days after a previous late night trip to Prince's?!?"

"Absolutely."

Chicken & Cheese Enchiladas

2011-03-04T12:00:00.000-08:00

This is another easy weeknight dinner. Just make sure you get good corn tortillas. Please don't buy them at your regular grocery store. Find a good international market or grocery store and get fresh tortillas.

2 c shredded cooked chicken
2 – 3 c shredded cheese
½ c sour cream
1 medium onion chopped
Salt & Pepper
1 green pepper, chopped
2/3 c water
1 Tb chili powder
1 ½ tsp chopped oregano
½ tsp cumin
2 green chilis seeded, chopped
1 clove garlic, diced
1 can tomato sauce
10 corn tortillas

Keep out a handful of cheese. Mix chicken, cheese, sour cream, onion, salt and pepper; set aside. Put green pepper, water, chili powder, oregano, cumin, green chilis, garlic and tomato sauce in a sauce pan over high heat. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350. One at a time, dip each tortilla in the enchilada sauce to coat both sides. Spoon about ¼ c of the filling into the tortilla then wrap the tortilla around the filling and place seam side down in a 9 X 13 baking dish. Pour remaining sauce over top and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake, uncovered for 20 minutes at 350.

Simple Biscuits

2011-02-25T14:16:00.000-08:00

Here is another base recipe that is just a jumping off point. Easy, quick biscuits that you can throw together last minute to complete a meal.
I made chowder for dinner tonight using a recipe that some good friends gave us a couple of years ago, every time we eat it, it makes me think of them and the night they brought this over to our house. Don't you love how food is interwoven through our memories and lives.
Just before dinner I realized I really wanted something to eat along side the chowder so I slapped these bad boys together. The base recipe is below. Tonight I added cheddar cheese and pepper to it. You could also add pesto, sausage, olives, herbs, basically anything you can think of.

1 c flour
1 c whole-wheat flour
1 Tb sugar
1 Tb baking powder
1 tsp salt
½ c shortening or butter
½ - 1 c milk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter until the mixture looks like fine crumbs. Stir in milk until dough leaves side of bowl. Knead lightly several times then roll about ½ inch thick on a floured surface. Cut into circles and place in ungreased baking sheet. Bake for about 10 – 12 minutes.

Sopapillas

2011-02-01T12:19:00.000-08:00

This recipe is awesome, it takes a little bit of time just because it has to rise but is totally worth it! It comes together fast and nothing finishes of a great Mexican meal like an equally great Mexican dessert! Sopapillas can be sweet or savory, you can even stuff them with anything you like, such as beef and cabbage. My favorite, of course, is to go in the sweet direction.

2 1/4 tsp instant Yeast
1/2 tsp Salt
1 - 2 cups Flour
3 Tbsp warm water
3/4 cup Milk
2 Tbsp Butter, melted

Mix together the yeast, salt and 1 ½ cups of the flour in a mixing bowl. Add butter, water and milk. Add up to ½ cup more flour until the dough comes together. The amount of flour you need to add will depend on how much it will take to bring the dough together. The dough should be soft but not sticky.

Knead the dough using your kitchen aid and dough hook or knead on a floured surface until it is completely mixed. (If the dough is still sticky add a little more flour). Then place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise in a warm place until about double in size.

When the dough is about double in size punch it down and roll out on a floured surface to about 1/4 inch thick. Then cut 2 to 4 inch triangles (you can make any shape you want but traditionally they are made in triangles).

In a fry pan or deep fryer (we used a cast iron pot) heat vegetable or canola oil to about 350 F. Drop the triangles in 4-6 at a time and cook on each side for about 1 to 2 minutes or until golden brown. When desired color is reached remove from the oil and place on a plate. Dust with powdered sugar or sugar cinnamon mix or drizzle with honey. Continue doing this until all the sopapillas are cooked and coated.
Serve immediately.
ota

White Russian Cake

2010-12-01T15:55:00.000-08:00

Well, Jeremy requested a White Russian Cake for his birthday. Years ago we saw an episode on food channel where 'Ace of Cakes' made one for some Big Lebowski party. Unfortunately I couldn't find any recipes I liked online so I decided to wing it... and it was awesome!!

I used the recipe for my coconut cake, but substituted half and half for the coconut milk, omitted the coconut extract and added a shot of Kahlua to the mix.

Can I just take a minute here to show you something? Everyone has probably seen a box cake mix being poured into a cake pan right? Very thin, pours right out. Here is what a made from scratch cake looks like, see the difference?

I had to scoop this stuff out of the bowl, it doesn't pour at all. So besides tasting better this is why cakes made from scratch have such a great texture. Anyway,back to the recipe.

As soon as the cakes came out of the oven I poked holes all over the top of it with a fork and poured Kahlua and vodka all over the top. I let the cakes sit in the pans for about 15 minutes to let all that goodness soak it. Then I made a cream cheese frosting with, you guessed it, more Kahlua. Any cream cheese frosting will work but here is what I ended up doing.

8 oz cream cheese softened
1/4 c butter softened
2 Tb half and half
2 Tb Kahlua
3 - 5 cups powdered sugar

Beat the first four ingredients together until they are smooth. Add one cup of powdered sugar at a time beating on high until frosting is smooth and spreadable.

Here is what I love about recipes and baking. When I first started baking I thought it was an exact science, but the more I bake the more I realize as long as you have some basic understanding of ratios and what stuff should look/feel like you can manipulate any recipe into something completely different.

Spiced Apple Cream Cheese Danish

2010-11-20T14:19:00.000-08:00

To begin with:

A) I can't believe I made this.
B) I can't believe how easy it was.
C) I can't believe how well it turned out.

As soon as I saw this post over at Annie's Eats I knew I had to make and devour it. And since today was my amazing husband's 30th birthday it seemed like a good day to splurge and eat this butter filled treat for breakfast.

I started it on Friday morning. Made the dough, made the butter square (that's right, a butter square) then played with Jake for a bit. Rolled out the dough with the butter square.

Went and ate lunch at school with Alexis, came home and rolled it out again (looks the same as above) and made the fillings.

So this morning all that was left to do was roll it out the last time, fill it, braid is, bake it and devour it.

We didn't take the time to take a picture of the whole thing before we dug in!
It does take time, but 90% of that time is just waiting, it only took about 15 minutes to roll it out each time I actually had to do something. Now, this thing seems to be so packed full of calories I won't be making it weekly or anything but I will be making it again and I will use the dough recipe to make croissants some time soon!

Head over to Annie's Eats for the recipe. The only thing I did differently than her was the apples. I added a whole teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp cloves and a dash of ginger to the apples before throwing them into the pan.

Apple-Raisin Bars

2010-11-16T08:46:00.000-08:00

This is a great and easy little recipe that I make all the time. Jeremy eats it or breakfast if he is running late and the kids eat it for afternoon snack. The only person in out family who doesn't eat it is Alexis because as she says "I don't like stuff in my food".

1 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 c butter softened
1 tsp vanilla
1 large apple diced
1/2 c raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 X 9 pan. In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
In a large bowl cream together sugar, eggs, butter and vanilla until smooth.
Gradually add flour and mix until just incorporated. Stir in apples and raisins. Spread into pan evenly.
Bake at 350 for 35 – 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Unexcused Absence

2010-11-10T07:44:00.000-08:00

We were on a roll there posting once a week and then all of the sudden, one month with no posts... what's with that?

Our computer's hard drive crashed, so we lost all of our pictures and recipes.... but now we are back up and hopefully back in working order. I'll try to get something up here soon.

For now though - for all of you who are hosting Thanksgiving dinner and cooking a big turkey, I would like to share with you the biggest thing you can do to make your turkey amazing. Ready?

Brine it.

I wish I had all my pictures from last year to show you how to do this but instead I'll point you to a great web site that I love. The Pioneer Woman. This link has a step by step guide on how she makes her turkey brine each year.

Turkey Brine Recipe

Please brine your turkeys people, it will revolutionize your Thanksgiving meal!

Easy Weeknight Dinner

2010-10-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

This is a super easy dinner that you can get on the table pretty quickly. The first few times I made it were a disaster but I think I've tweaked the recipe enough that it now comes out great every time.

Chicken Milano

1 Tb butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 c chicken broth
½ c sun dried tomatoes, drained and chopped
1 c heavy cream
1 lb chicken breasts
salt and pepper
1 Tb olive oil
2 Tb chopped fresh basil

In a large saucepan over low heat, melt butter; add garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and chicken broth; increase to medium heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes or until the tomatoes are tender. Add the cream and bring to a boil; stirring. Simmer over medium heat until the sauce is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Start water boiling for pasta. Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper on both sides. In a large skillet over medium heat, sauté chicken in olive oil for about 6 minutes per side or until is no longer pink inside. Drop pasta into the water when you flip the chicken over.
Drain pasta, cut each chicken breast into 2 to 3 diagonal slices. Transfer the pasta to serving plates; top with chicken and coat with the cream sauce; sprinkle with basil; serve.

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

2010-10-04T16:18:00.001-07:00

This is a butternut squash. I have never ever purchased a butternut squash before but as I stood in the produce section of my grocery store last week it seemed like a good purchase and made me feel like fall. So, for most of last week it sat on my table while I tried to decide what to do with it.

After several "butternut squash recipe" google searches I decided I wanted to make a soup. So I read about a bagillion recipes and came up with my own. I knew I wanted to start off by roasting the veggies, I just couldn't decide whether I wanted to roast the onions or not. Also I couldn't decide whether I wanted to roast them at 350, 375, 400... So I choose a random temperature and went with it. (Why don't people ever cook at 380?)

I ended up cooking the onions in the stock pot instead of roasting them, I thought I had some white wine I could throw in there to deglaze the pan but I didn't. I'll have to try that next time.

All in all, it turned out really well. We ate this with grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. Even Alexis and Jake said it was good!

1 large butternut squash
4 medium carrots
olive oil
salt
butter
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
2 c chicken broth
salt
pepper
¼ c heavy cream or half and half

Heat oven to 380 degrees. Peel and cube the butternut squash and the carrots. Toss with salt and olive oil and spread out onto a sheet pan. Roast for 45 minutes.

In the mean time, chop up the onion and garlic. Melt butter in a large pot and sauté the onion until it starts to turn brown, turn the heat down low and let the onions cook down for about 20 minutes. Make a space in the center of the pot and add the garlic, let it cook for a few minutes. Add chicken broth and vegetables. Bring to a simmer for 5 minutes.

Using an immersion blender (or in batches in a counter top blender,) blend soup until smooth. Add heavy cream and bring back up to temperature before serving. Season with salt and pepper.

Quick Molasses Stout Bread

2010-09-26T13:18:00.000-07:00

I have a folder on my desktop full of recipes that I have seen and would like to try one day. Every once in a while I'll go through it and pull something out, this is one of those recipes and I am SO GLAD I finally made it. This bread is awesome, and as the name implies, quick to make. It is in the banana bread/zucchini bread family of breads so it's great for an afternoon snack or with your morning coffee. We ate it with honey cinnamon butter.

3 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
½ c sugar
1/3 c molasses
12 oz beer (stout)
butter

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a loaf pan with cooking spray. Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Pour in the beer and molasses. Stir ingredients just until combined.

Pour batter into the loaf pan and bake for 40 – 50 minutes. Let it cool 5 minutes in the pan then turn onto a cooling rack. Brush with soft butter.

Black Bean and Corn soup

2010-09-21T07:30:00.001-07:00

Don't you just love fall? In the fall I stop wanting to eat salads and light foods and I start wanting to eat soups, stews and braises. Here is a super easy recipe for black bean soup to start off your fall. Serve it with cornbread or cheese quesadillas.

Olive oil
2 c corn
3 c cooked black beans
1 can diced tomatoes
1 ½ c chicken stock
cilantro
salt and pepper to taste
sriracha sauce

Heat a Dutch oven over medium high heat. Sauté the corn in the olive oil for a few minutes until lightly browned. Combine stock and 2 c black beans in a blender and blend until smooth. Add bean mixture and remaining ingredients to corn stirring well. Let it heat up then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Serve with sour cream and more cilantro.

Lavash

2010-09-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me know that I very rarely follow recipes exactly as they are written. I like to take a recipe and use it as a starting out point. I take what I like from the recipe (the ingredient list, the cooking method, the idea, etc.) and then change everything else to make it into something I would enjoy making/eating. Sometimes the change is small, like adding black beans to a recipe, or oregano. At other times the change is huge. Taking a recipe for blue berry bread and making lemon ginger muffins for example. With this recipe; however, I made it exactly as I was told to, and having made it I wouldn't change a thing. It's perfect as is.

I got the recipe from a blog called "at the bakers bench"

1 ½ c flour
1 c whole wheat flour
2 Tb brown sugar
1 tsp instant yeast
1 tsp sea salt
2 Tb wheat germ
2 Tb sesame seeds
¾ c water plus more if needed
2 Tb olive oil
1 c mixed seeds (sunflower, flax, poppy, sesame) for topping

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl and add water and oil. Mix and knead until dough is smooth.

Place dough in a greased bowl; cover and let rise for one hour.

Divide dough in half. Work with one half at a time keeping other half covered. Roll out dough to 1/8-inch thickness. As you roll sprinkle with seed topping, pressing them into the dough. If the dough springs back as you are rolling it out, cover it with a clean kitchen towel and let it rest for 10 minutes, then continue rolling. Repeat with other half of dough.

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Place the sheets of rolled dough on parchment and prick all over with a fork. Cut each sheet of dough into strips or diamonds with a pizza cutter. Let the dough rise for 20 minutes and preheat oven to 350.

Bake for 20 minutes rotating sheets halfway through baking. Turn off oven and let crackers sit inside for an additional 15 minutes until crisp and browned. Remove crackers from oven, cool, break apart and store in an air-tight container.

Gingersnap Cookie Sandwiches

2010-08-31T09:19:00.000-07:00

Ginger and lemon. A Classic pairing. Pretty much anything that has ginger and lemon together tastes great in my book. This was just my normal gingersnap recipe. I altered it a tiny bit, I put in chopped crystallized ginger to make up the ginger flavor a bit then made the cookies half the size I usually make them. Then I filled them with this easy lemon frosting recipe. THEN I moved them around the house before they set trying to find good light which caused them to slide all over the place. But, they still taste awesome.

Here's the filling recipe.

2 Tb butter
2 Tb lemon juice
powdered sugar

Beat the butter until light and fluffy, add the lemon juice and beat until totally incorporated. Add as much powdered sugar as is necessary to make it into a good frosting consistency. Let cookies set before serving, or photographing.

Sweet Potato Hummus

2010-08-22T15:03:00.000-07:00

Basic hummus is a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern dip made from chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic. After that you can go crazy with it. Everyone you talk to has a different ratio of ingredients and everyone likes to add something different. Parsley, paprika, roasted garlic or cumin for those who like to play it safe. If you are adventurous you can add anything from artichokes, olives or red peppers to fresh fruit, sriracha sauce or wasabi. There are people out there who substitute black beans, white beans, lima beans or even lentils for the chickpeas, but since hummus litereally translates to chickpeas I wouldn't consider those dishes hummus. Although white bean hummus does sound better then white bean dip.

Hummus is relatively good for you (for those of you who might care). Chickpeas are full of protein and fiber, the tahini and olive oil add "good" fats and if you eat it as a dip with raw veggies it can be a filling lunch with nothing else added. I kept this recipe pretty basic and just added one sweet potato which I had peeled, cubed and steamed.

¼ c tahini
¼ c fresh lemon juice
1 garlic clove chopped
2 Tb olive oil
2 tsp cumin
salt & pepper
1 can chickpeas
1 lb sweet potatoes, steamed

Put the tahini and lemon juice into a blender and blend until it's frothy, white, and creamy. Add the garlic, olive oil, cumin, salt and pepper and blend it into the cream.

Drain and rinse off the chickpeas in a strainer. Gradually add the chickpeas and sweet potato making sure each addition is well blended, until the cream has thickened, but isn't too thick. Add salt to taste.

Scoop the hummus onto a plate, drizzle good olive oil over it, and sprinkle some parsley and/or cumin on top if you like.

Tahini

2010-08-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

So a while ago Jeremy and I got a chance to go out for dinner just the two of us, no kiddos, and Jeremy decided to take me to Tin Angel. It was wonderful. We shared the local platter appetizer which included, among other things, cornbread crostini and sweet potato hummus. Ever since that night I have been craving it. So finally this past Friday, since it doesn't look like we will be visiting the Tin Angel any time soon, I decided I was going to make it myself. A quick look in the cupboards showed I had all the ingredients save one. Tahini.

Now, we live pretty close to Nashville but we do NOT live in one of the ethnically middle eastern areas. I know from experience that the grocery stores around here do not carry tahini nor have the people who work there even heard of it before. The last time I went looking for tahini the conversation went something like this:

me: "Excuse me do you know if you carry tahini?"

grocery worker: "ta what?"

me: "tahini"

grocery worker: "What?"

me: "ta - he - knee"

grocery worker: "What's that?"

me: "It's a paste made of sesame seeds."

grocery worker: blank stare

me: "Sesame seeds? It's paste made from them, you use it to make hummus..."

grocery worker: "What's hummus?"

me: "It's like a dip made from chickpeas."

grocery worker: blank stare...crickets chirp...paint dries

me: *sigh* "I miss Seattle."

grocery worker: "what did you miss?"

me: "Nothing, thanks for your help."

So my options are to drive 15 minutes north to a store that might have tahini, drive 30 minutes south to a store that probably does have tahini or google homemade tahini and take my chances. Taking into account the fact that it is about a bagillion degrees outside and my car's A/C isn't working I decided on the last option. I looked at 5 or 6 different homemade tahini recipes and they all had different ratios of sesame seeds to olive oil but the process was the same. So I decided to just dive in and wing it.

First you place the sesame seeds in a sauté pan over medium heat (here's what they start off looking like).

and toast them until they turn golden brown, pull off immediately and let cool. (here's how dark mine got).

I was just barely on this side of burnt so I would definitely not let them go as long next time.

Once they are toasted just put them in a food processor and begin to process them drizzling olive oil in a little at a time until a paste of medium thickness comes together. Scrape down the sides of the processor thoroughly to make sure everything is evenly blended. I used all mine up that night but I read you can keep it in the fridge tightly covered for up to a week.

Chocolate Oreo Cupcakes

2010-08-09T11:23:00.001-07:00

These cupcakes are crazy. First of all - they are a great chocolate cupcake with out any additions. The crumb stays light and moist even in the fridge overnight and they taste kind of like chocolate ice cream. The recipe was actually a sheet cake recipe from the Pioneer Woman. Then just to make them amazing. I added oreo cookies to them and frosted them with a vanilla cream cheese frosting. Just to make sure there would be enough oreo goodness to go around I even put half an oreo with the cream on it in the bottom of each cupcake.

24 oreo halves with cream
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
¼ tsp salt
12 – 24 oreos cut in fourths
2 sticks butter
4 heaping Tb cocoa
1 cup boiling water
½ cup buttermilk.
2 beaten eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two muffin tins with liners and place a half an oreo in each liner.
Combine flour, sugar, salt and oreo fourths in a mixing bowl.
Melt 2 sticks butter in a saucepan. Add cocoa and stir together, add boiling water, allow mixture to boil for 30 seconds, then turn off heat. Pour over flour mixture, and stir lightly to cool.
In a bowl beat together buttermilk, eggs, baking soda and vanilla. Stir buttermilk mixture into chocolate/flour mixture. Fill cupcake liners almost to the top. Bake for 20 minutes or until set.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz cream cheese softened
6 Tb butter softened
4 ¼ c powdered sugar
2 Tb vanilla
2 Tb half and half

Beat cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Add sugar and beat until well mixed. Add vanilla and half and half. Mix slowly until incorporated and then beat on high to “whip” frosting to desired consistancy.

Go ahead, take a bite, I know you want to :)

Apparently there weren't very many oreo chunks in this one and the half an oreo floated to the top! Told you they were light.

My New Favorite Appetizer

2010-07-29T09:51:00.000-07:00

These are the easiest fastest apps to make and SO GOOD! Especially if you are using good homegrown basil leaves. I've been making these a lot lately and eating them for lunch. Chickpeas are full of protein so these will fill you up and this recipe is just a basic jumping off point. I've added sriracha sauce, tyme, and plain yogurt so far.

1 cucumber
1 can chickpeas
lemon juice
salt
pepper
basil

Cut cucumbers into ½ inch slices. Rinse and drain chickpeas then mash with a potato masher adding salt pepper and lemon juice to taste. Spread a tsp of the chickpea mixture on each slice of cucumber and sprinkle chopped basil on the top.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

2010-07-22T10:05:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a lot of baking this week getting ready for family to come visit and I thought I'd try these out. They've been in my "want to try" file for a long time because they looked really time consuming. They do take longer than the average cookie but it really wasn't too bad. I think if I were to make them again I would wait until I had someone to help to make it go faster.

1 ½ c flour
½ c cocoa powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ c sugar
½ c brown sugar
½ c butter
¼ c peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
¾ c powdered sugar
¾ c peanut butter

In a small bowl blend together flour, cocoa and baking soda.
In a large bowl beat sugar, butter and ¼ c peanut butter until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and egg, beat. Stir in flour mixture until blended and set aside.
Combine powdered sugar and peanut butter to make filling. Roll filling into 1 inch balls.
For each cookie, with floured hands, shape 1 Tb dough around 1 peanut butter ball, covering completely and pat flat. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake at 375 for 8 – 10 minutes.

Falafel

2010-06-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

This is definitely not an "easy 30 minute weeknight meal". However it is totally worth the time and effort and I'm sure that now that I have the process down it will go much quicker next time.

To start with I made a variation of the Black Bean and Quinoa Salad. This one had red peppers and a honey-lime dressing on it instead of cilantro-lemon. I'll have to take some good pictures and post the recipe later.

I also made Tzatziki Sauce but instead of using the blender I grated the cucumber, chopped the garlic and mixed it all together.

Then I made the falafel mixture and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours. While that was waiting I made homemade pita bread.

Then comes the moment of truth. You have to fry these suckers which I am usually horrible at. Most of the time I wait until Jeremy is home and pass off the frying job to him but today I decided to just go for it. Here's a picture of the first one in, I was very nervous.

And guess what! They were perfect!!! It made my whole day :)

So here is the recipe. Try it out... healthy, vegetarian, and really it is easy, just a bit time consuming.

1 can chickpeas drained and rinsed
1 medium onion roughly chopped
3 cloves of garlic
¼ c chopped fresh cilantro
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cumin
1 squirt srirachi sauce
¼ c flour or so

In a food processor place the chickpeas, onion, garlic, cilantro salt and cumin. Process just until blended. Turn out into a bowl and mix in the flour. Cover and refrigerate for a few hours.
Form mixture into little balls about 2 Tb each. Heat oil to 350 – 375 in a wok and fry balls a few minutes on each side until golden brown. Drain on a paper towel.

Serve with pita bread, tomatoes, lettuce, olives, and Tzatziki sauce or tahini thinned with water.

Chicken with Tarragon Cream Sauce

2010-05-30T15:55:00.000-07:00

This is one of my go to dinner recipes when I need something fast and easy that the whole family will like. And it is relatively healthy for you. Add mashed potatoes and a veggie and dinner is on the table.

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp freshly ground pepper
3 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
¼ c finely chopped shallots (or onions)
½ c chicken stock
½ c dry white wine
1 Tb Dijon mustard
1 Tb sour cream
1 Tb chopped fresh tarragon
Season chicken on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat 1 ½ tsp. oil in a large heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook until well browned, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate and tent with foil.
Reduce heat to medium. Add 1 ½ tsp. oil to pan. Add shallots; cook, stirring, until softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add broth and wine and bring to a simmer. Cook until reduced by half, about 3 minutes.
Return the chicken and any accumulated juices to the pan; reduce heat to low. Simmer until the chicken is cooked through, about 4 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a warmed platter. Stir mustard, sour cream and tarragon into sauce. Season to taste with salt and pepper and spoon over the chicken.

Chocolate Cobbler

2010-05-25T10:54:00.001-07:00

This recipe is awesome. I got it off of the pioneer woman, she got it off of her member submitted recipe website, the tasty kitchen, the lady who originally posted it apparently got it from her grandma because her recipe title was "My Grandma's Chocolate Cobbler". Regardless... you have to try it. The directions sound a little weird but just go with it. This turns out to be a cake with it's own chocolate sauce. I thought about serving it with vanilla ice cream but after some deliberation I came to the conclusion that the only thing that can make chocolate better - is more chocolate. SO I served it with chocolate ice cream that has chocolate cookie crumbles in it. Here you go.

1 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
7 Tb cocoa powder, divided
1 ¼ c sugar, divided
½ c milk
1/3 c melted butter
1 ½ tsp vanilla
½ c brown sugar
1 ½ c hot water

Preheat oven to 350
Stir together flour, baking powder, salt 3 Tb cocoa powder and ¾ c sugar. Stir in the milk, melted butter, and vanilla to the flour mixture and mix until smooth. Pour into an ungreased 8 inch baking dish.
In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining sugar, brown sugar, and cocoa. Sprinkle evenly over batter. Carefully pour the host tap water over all and do not stir.
Bake for 40 minutes or until center is set.
Let is stand for a few minutes. And serve warm with ice cream.

I doubled the recipe and made it in a 9 X 13 dish and it turned out great.

Dr. Pepper Cake

2010-05-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

This is one of those things I HAD to try once I heard about it. Dr. Pepper.... in a cake... hmm... and actually it was REALLY good! The frosting just kind of soaked into the cake and it was very chocolaty. I'll be making this again for sure.

1 ½ c dr. pepper
½ c canola oil
1 stick butter
4 Tb cocoa powder
2 c sugar
2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
½ c buttermilk

1 stick butter
4 Tb cocoa powder
8 Tb milk
4 C powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 and grease a 9 X 13 pan. Combine Dr. Pepper, oil, butter and cocoa powder in a saucepan over medium heat. When it comes to a simmer. Mix well and turn the stove off.
Mix the dry ingredients together; add to the dr. pepper mixture and mix well but don’t over beat. In a small separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs and buttermilk together, then add them to the saucepan and mix the batter well.
Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 for 20 – 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
In a saucepan, combine butter, cocoa powder and milk over medium heat, stirring occasionally until melted and smooth. Add in the powdered sugar a little at a time, combining after each addition until smooth. Pour over warm cake.

Why The Kurds Rock

2010-05-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

Nashville has the largest concentrations of Kurds outside northern Iraq. No lie. Look it up. While I know next to nothing about them I DO know that their bread product rocks. Naan is what Kurds eat every day.

I happened upon, by pure chance (and the fact that I thought that an Indian spice shop would be open at 7 in the morning, but that is another story), one of the biggest naan bakeries in Nashville. It is behind a Kurdish food store (that just so happens to be next to the Indian spice shop and does open at 7 am). The shop also carries some AWESOME smoked sardines...a recent obsession of mine.

Naan.

Sardines.

Pizza.

I couldn't help myself.

On the left is extra virgin olive oil, garlic, salt, black pepper, and sardines. Moments after the pic was taken it was doused in Romano cheese.

On the right is a classic with a twist: crushed tomatoes, sardines, garlic and mozz.

The left dominated the right.

I found a new favorite snack.

What Jeremy Had For Dinner (AKA - What Happens To Jeremy When Left At Home Alone For Any Period Of Time)

2010-04-29T18:24:00.000-07:00

Here is how it goes in my head:

I'm not hungry.

Who are you kidding, of course you are. You should eat something.

Yes, yes, but something small.

Of course!

Like an egg or two, just enough to keep the metabolism up...you've got to study.

Agreed, lets get ready.

Hey look! Some potatoes on the counter.

Awesome, maybe a bit of hash browns.

Rad, but then there are those onions and garlic.

No problem, they can join the party.

Might as be all inclusive and add the eggs as well.

It would only be prudent.

Frittata it is.

You are the only one eating, might as well add the pimenton your lovely wife doesn't like.

Sure, and some cumin too.

Hey look! Sausage from the other day.

Heck, there is a tomato and some olives too.

Perfect, the acid will cut through the fat a bit.

So will some red wine.

Genius.

How should I top it off.

Romano cheese sounds good.

It always sounds good.

--------------

Original plan - egg on a plate
Estimated time - 5 minutes

Finished plan - Uber-Frittata
Actual time - 40 minutes

Awesome.

Best part - I'll probably finish this entire thing given enough time.

Balsamic Vinegar Chicken with Almond Peppers

2010-04-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

This is a pretty easy weeknight meal. While the chicken is finishing cooking in the oven you can be working on the peppers. Serve it with mashed potatoes or rice pilaf.

6 chicken breasts
3 Tb dry breadcrumbs
3 Tb grated Parmesan cheese
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
2 tsp olive oil
2 Tb balsamic vinegar
2 Tb chicken stock
2 large red bell peppers
2 large green bell peppers
2 tsp olive oil
1/3 cup raisins
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
1 ½ tsp sugar
¼ tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
¼ cup slivered almonds, toasted

Combine breadcrumbs and cheese in a shallow dish. Place flour in a shallow dish; dredge each chicken piece in flour, and dip in egg. Dredge chicken in breadcrumb mixture.
Heat 2 tsp olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken, and cook for 3 minutes on each side or until browned. Remove to a 9 X 13 glass pan and put in oven until cooked through. (about 10 minutes).
Add 2 Tb vinegar and stock to pan; stir with a wooden spoon to loosen browned bits. Keep warm.

Cut bell peppers into 2 x 2 1/2-inch strips. Heat 2 tsp olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add peppers and sauté 8 minutes. Add raisins; sauté 1 minute. Add ¼ cup vinegar, sugar, salt, and black pepper; cook 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir in almonds.

Serve chicken and peppers with pan sauce drizzled over top.

I forgot about the pan sauce! It was still great food. :)

Cinnamon Rolls

2010-04-20T11:30:00.000-07:00

I hate cinnamon rolls that are just dry white bread with a little cinnamon in them. Good cinnamon rolls should be gooey and very bad for your health. Otherwise they are just not worth eating!! This recipe has pudding in it which helps combat dryness and I always put cinnamon in the bread itself to make it even yummier. Beware - this recipe makes a LOT of rolls! Make sure you really roll it out to 34 X 21 inches. And don't crowd the pan. You can see I didn't try to cram them into one or two pans. You want to give them plenty of room to grow in the second rise.

½ cup warm water
2 packages dry yeast
2 Tb sugar
3 ½ oz. pkg. vanilla pudding mix
milk
½ cup butter melted
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1 Tb cinnamon
6 cups flour

In a bowl combine water, yeast and sugar. Stir until dissolved. Set aside. In large bowl, take pudding mix and prepare according to package directions. Add butter, eggs, cinnamon and salt. Mix well. Then add yeast mixture. Blend. Gradually add flour; knead until smooth. Place in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled. Punch down dough and roll it out on floured board to 34 x 21" size. Take 1 cup soft butter and spread over surface. In bowl, mix 2 cups brown sugar and 4 tsp cinnamon. Sprinkle over top. Roll up very tightly. With knife, put a notch every 2". Cut with thread or knife. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet 2" apart. Take hand and lightly press down on each roll. Cover and let rise until double again. Bake at 350° for 15-20 minutes. Remove when they start to turn golden.
DON'T OVER BAKE.

Frost warm rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting
To make frosting, mix all ingredients until smooth.
CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:
8 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups confectioner's sugar
1 Tb milk

Valentine's Day Cookies

2010-02-12T18:09:00.000-08:00

Most of you who know me know that I really like to bake and that anything that has to do with flour and sugar I can make well. It will taste awesome. However, I cannot seem to make things look pretty AT ALL. I have always said who cares what it looks like as long as it tastes good, right? And while I still hold fast to that I have to say that I envy people who can make cakes that look good enough to be a wedding cake or cookies that look like they come from a Martha Stewart ad.

Yesterday I read a tutorial on royal icing. It looked time consuming but really not all that hard so I decided I'd give it a try today. Seeing as how Valentine's Day is on Sunday and I happen to have a heart shaped cookie cutter I decided to make cookies that look like sweetheart candies.

All in all it was actually a LOT easier then I thought it would be. Obviously my piping skills are lacking, and I had a hard time getting the consistency of the icing just right (especially the pink) but I am really happy with these. And I am happy that I finally tried the whole royal icing thing.

The cookies are my favorite sugar cookie recipe so they aren't just pretty (or semi-pretty in my case) They also happen to taste awesome!

Banana Bread

2010-02-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

This is a pretty easy, basic recipe that you can add pretty much anything to. Nuts, craisins, chocolate chips... whatever floats your boat.

I usually change the flour to whole wheat or at least half of it to while wheat flour and add cinnamon and cloves or nutmeg.

1 ¼ c sugar
½ c butter, softened
2 eggs
1 ½ c mashed ripe banana
½ c buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
2 ½ c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Grease bottom of a 9 X 5 bread pan.
Mix together sugar and butter. Stir in eggs until well blended. Stir in banana, buttermilk and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and mix lightly.
Pour batter into pan. Bake 50 – 60 minutes. Cool 10 minutes on rack before removing from pan.

Oatmeal Buttermilk Pancakes

2010-02-02T10:34:00.000-08:00

2 cups rolled oats
2 ¼ cups buttermilk
½ cup whole wheat flour
1 Tb brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
¾ stick unsalted butter, melted

The night before you want to make the pancakes Mix together the oats and buttermilk in a medium bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.
The next morning, take the bowl of buttermilk and oats out of the fridge. Set aside. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Add the eggs and melted butter to the oat mixture, and stir well. Add the flour mixture, and mix until well blended.
Then just make the pancakes on you griddle like regular pancakes. No need to grease the griddle because there is enough butter in the batter that they won't stick.

I like to eat mine with warm apple butter.

Study Food

2009-12-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

This post goes out to my homeboy Jamie. Our bromance continues long distance. The only difficulties are not being able to drink the worlds best beers together on a bi-weekly basis...and our long walks on the beach.

I hate school. I'm just not self disciplined enough to apply myself to things I care so little about I could cry.

That is why I need study aides. In particular my wife's amazing fruitcake and a bottle of Bells Kalamazoo Stout. Both are world class.

We don't get Bells here in Tennessee. It is one of the saddest facts about working in the beer industry here (the others are that we dont have Deschutes, Russian River, New Glarious, and a host of other breweries...yet). Caleb, a beer junkie and good friend, gave me one the other day. It lasted all of about a week before the desire to drink it overwhelmed me.

I'd share the recipe for the fruitcake, but it is my grandma's recipe and I am under pain of death to keep it a secret. Marge was married to me for years before she even got a peak at it. No joke.

So really this post is just about me sharing a moment of savor. Enjoy.

Coconut Cake

2009-11-23T08:14:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I totally forgot to take a picture before this cake got demolished so this one will have to do.

A gal at our church is getting married in December and I am making a coconut cake for the reception. Since I've never made one before I thought I had better test out a recipe first. A friend emailed me this one and after a few modifications here is what I came up with.

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 cups sifted flour
4 ½ tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp salt
1 cup coconut milk
1 tsp coconut extract

Preheat oven to 350
Grease and flour 3 (9”) cake pans. Mix flour, baking powder and salt together, set aside. Cream butter until fluffy. Add sugar and continue to beat well 6 - 8 min. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour and milk alternately, beginning and ending with flour. Add extract and continue to beat until just mixed. Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Level batter in each pan. Bake 25 - 30 min or until done. Cool in pans 5 to 10 minutes. Invert cakes onto cooling racks.

FILLING
¾ cup sugar
1 cup sour cream
2 TB milk
½ cup flaked, sweetened coconut

Stir all together until well blended. Invert first layer onto cake plate. Spread ½ of filling mixture on cake layer. Top with second layer, repeat process. Top with last layer.

FROSTING
1 ½ cups sugar
¼ tsp cream of tartar
1/8 tsp salt
1/3 cup water
2 egg whites

Place all ingredients in the top of a double boiler. Beat with an electric mixer for 1 minute. Place pan over boiling water, don’t let boiling water touch the bottom of the top pan. Beat constantly on high speed with electric mixer for 7 minutes.

Chicken Thighs in Yogurt a.k.a. what we had for dinner last night

2009-11-11T15:42:00.000-08:00

Chicken legs quarters seem to always be on fire sale around here so we bought some and decided to make this basic recipe.

3 Tb Olive oil
2 Garlic cloves; peeled and chopped
2 md Yellow onions; peeled and chopped
8 Chicken thighs
Salt; to taste
Freshly-ground black pepper;
2 c Plain yogurt
1 Tb Chopped parsley

Heat a large frying pan and add 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add the garlic and onion and saute until the onion is tender. Do not brown. Season the chicken with salt and pepper to taste. Heat another frying pan and add the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil. Brown the chicken on both sides and remove to a 13-by-9-inch glass baking dish. When the onions are tender stir in the yogurt and parsley off the heat. Salt and pepper to taste. Pour the mixture over the chicken thighs and bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

I just used one pan. When the onions were done I removed them to a bowl and used the same pan to do the chicken. I guess that takes a little longer but one less pan to wash! As an added bonus it gave the chicken more flavor.

Simple Stir-fry

2009-11-03T17:43:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I have the hardest times trying to figure out what to make for dinner. Stir fry is always a sure bet and it requires very little meat compared to the veggies and rice so it's pretty economical too. For this I just chopped up some carrots, cabbage, an onion, and some frozen ginger. I cubed about half a pound of pork and threw it in a bowl with soy sauce, white wine, sesame seed oil, water, sugar and cornstarch. The key to a good stir fry is getting the pan's temperature right. Too cool and the meat steams, cooks slower and gets tough. Too hot and it burns before the inside is cooked. First I cooked the pork.

Then I took it out and placed it in a bowl while I cooked the veggies. I like them to still have a little crunch. While these were cooking I sprinkled some more sesame seed oil (because I really like it) and soy sauce on them.

Then you just throw the pork back in the pan and stir it all around to combine it and make sure it is evenly heated. Plate it on a bed of rice and dinner is ready. The longest part to making this was slicing the carrots because I like the look of the matchstick carrots and I like the way they cook better but I did all the prep work this morning while the kids were playing so when it came time to make dinner it was easy peasy.

When Everything Goes Wrong

2009-10-28T08:21:00.000-07:00

Saturday night I set out to make a dessert to bring to church on Sunday. I started off alright with a great recipe from one of my favorite websites but it was all down hill from there. When baking a dessert the most important rules I have ever learned are - always bring all the ingredients to room temperature before beginning and always preheat the oven. I did not follow these rules. Here's what I did wrong:

- I used a recipe I've never used before but didn't allow myself time to really read through or get acquainted with said recipe.
- I decided to tweek the recipe
- I chose to make this cake as my husband was headed out the door, I needed to give my son a haircut, give the kids a bath, and put them to bed
- As I mentioned the eggs and yogurt were NOT at room temperature and the butter was frozen
- I didn't chop up the apple a head of time
- I didn't preheat the oven and my oven takes a long time to warm up

SO - here is a picture of what the cake should have looked liked, look how pretty, golden brown top covered with apples that are all caramelized with butter and sugar and are actually part of the cake, embedded in it...

and this is what mine actually looked like

Not golden brown, no caramelized apples and sugar, just a big weird pile of cake with apples on top. Sunday morning I got up early and made brownies to bring to church because I couldn't bear the thought of people looking at this mess.

But guess what, we ended up eating it Sunday night with friends and it tasted wonderful.

Quinn's

2009-10-21T07:56:00.000-07:00

We are settling into our new apartment in Tennessee but before we left Washington we had to have one last weekend of eating with our dear friends Jamie and Steph. We went to Seattle for the day and did a sort of self guided walking/eating tour around pike's place market. And ended up going to a "gastropub" call Quinn's on Capitol Hill for dinner.

This place is amazing! They had a 5 page menu, one page was food and the other four were beer and whiskey. The service and the food were some of the best I have ever had.

Here we are seated and awaiting our food.

chicken liver croquettes - our awesome waitress brought these out to whet our appetites

frites, fontina fonduta, dime-glacé

marrow bones, citrus jam, baquette

grilled half chicken, chickpea purée, olives, tomatoes, arugala

painted hills beef, spring onion, mushrooms - we forgot to take a picture of this until after Jeremy plated his

Our awesome waitress served it tasting menu style bringing each dish out one at a time so we could all share and really focus on one dish at a time. awesome, awesome, awesome. Dinner was followed by a trip to Fado Irish Pub to drink a Guinness and eat brownies topped with home-made Guinness ice cream.

Jamie and Steph - we already miss you!

No, We Are Not Giving Up

2009-09-16T23:16:00.000-07:00

Don't worry, we are still eating. We are not posting much however because life is insane right now. Weddings, visiting family, ridiculous amounts of homework, and preparing to moving half way across the country tend to crimp ones blog posting abilities.

I am undaunted.

Question: how do you make THIS any better?

Answer: You cook up sausage and deglaze the hash pan with white wine and top your eggs with it.

Somewhere there are Frenchmen standing in applause.

It looks bad...I'll give you that, but the taste was heaven.

Thick, caramelized heaven.

Bring it on Fall.

Let Them Eat Soup

2009-09-06T13:38:00.001-07:00

You can make anything into soup...seriously. Not only is it possible with most things, but it is surprisingly good.

today I took a so-so saute and turned it (in frustration I might add) into something really good.

I made a quick saute of zucchini and yellow squash with onions and garlic. I decided to add some salsa verde at the last minute because we were eating burritos also. It worked, but not all that well. There was nothing wrong with it, just nothing to incredibly good.

Soup was in store.

After lunch I stuck the saute into a sauce pan and added a cup of chicken stock and let it simmer away until everything was nice and soft. Like this:

See how they are translucent? That is when you know you have got them where you want them.

By the way, if you hate zucchini, like I did for the longest time, it is probably because they were served to you at this stage. These things have little life left in them. The goodness is all in the liquid part. Cook them quick and you'll be craving them all summer.

After a quick meeting with the immersion blender I had this:

You can use a regular blender as well. Be careful if you go the immersion route. These things go zero to 500 in about a second and will fling boiling zucchini meat at your neck, face, arms and torso in a flash if you are not careful. Pulse, pulse some more, and when everything is more or less chopped up puree away.

The next part is the more important.

You may have asked yourself on occasion, 'why do the sauces and soups at the good restaurants we go to come out so smooth when mine come out all chunky and broke down looking?'

Answer: They pass everything through strainers. Sometimes multiple times.

What should you do? Buy a strainer. We use ours on a daily basis. Find a restaurant supply store and buy one with very small mesh. It wont cost you more than ten bucks and will last you a very long time. Here is mine, ready for the soup:

Note: I usually don't do this directly into bowls, but into another pot and then proportion out. I did it this way today because it was only one bowl of soup.

Another note: always heat your bowls. This will keep your soup hot. Microwave is your best friend for this one. 45 seconds and you are golden. Hot bowls, hot plates, hot food, happy people.

Here is why I strained this soup:

This is all peel and seeds that did not get pureed well enough. It might not look like much, but the texture that you get after the process is amazingly different than before. I should note that the soup does not strain itself. You have to get a ladle or other concave object to move and mash the inside of the strainer.

I decided to plate it like this:

Romano for the saltiness and some cherry tomatoes for the acid to cut through the richness of the soup.

It was great. It was very spicy because of the salsa verde, but all in all I enjoyed it a ton.

Amusing Myself With My First Amuse-Buche

2009-09-03T00:17:00.000-07:00

Amuse-Buche - A mouth amuser. Usually a highly flavored bite-sized dish at the beginning of a meal to get your taste buds jacked up for a good night of eating.
-------------------------------------
I'm in the middle of some really lame homework.

I've got tomatoes coming out my ears.

I've been thinking about a good way to showcase the distinct flavors of different basils in a simple way.

I just bought a rad plate to do different platings on.

I've got a camera.

Tomato - Sweet 100

Basils - Thai, Cinnamon, and Genovese

Extra virgin olive oil with a drop of 15 year old balsamic.

Romano cheese with some black pepper.

If I had more time I would have done some large bread crumbs...in effect making a deconstructed bruchetta.

And yes...it tasted great.

Tomaotes Anyone? Seriously?

2009-09-01T22:36:00.000-07:00

Obscene is really the only way to describe it.

We have so many tomatoes we don't know what to do with them all. I'm talking about heirloom and cherry tomatoes that will make you cry they are so good.

If we were not moving half way around the world in a few weeks we would be making salsas and sauces like crazy people, but they don't transfer super well so we have decided to forgo making any this year. That is a near sin in and of itself. Letting these things go to waste would be equally grievous.

Take some off our hands...please!

How We Rock The Din-Din On Occasion

2009-08-30T19:21:00.000-07:00

This one goes out to all those who are to scared to invite us over or who dread the possibility in the future. Get any preconceived notion that we are pretentious foodies out of your heads.

The above picture is exactly what you might think it is. Mac and cheese out of a box topped with a bit of sausage. Yes, the sausage is homemade and exponentially increased the dish, but the only reason it made it to the table was because I had it laying around in the fridge needing to be eaten.

This is normal for us. If this were a high point of the harvest season this would be sad, but it is more like a 'I've-worked-to-much-this-week-and-don't-feel-like-doing-anything-fancy' dinner.

Don't feel bad about making comfort food that makes no culinary sense.

Have us over...if you want...we'll eat it...we're easy.

How I Roll For Breakfast

2009-08-29T09:14:00.001-07:00

I have been working like a real man painting houses this week. Needless to say I can't wait to get back to the haven of job awesomeness that is delivering gumballs. This morning I woke up to a rainy day. As I am currently painting an exterior I had the morning off.

Bonus.

I immediately dreampt of eating hash and eggs. To my own surprise I didn't even care if there was some kind of cured pork product on the plate.

Homegrown potatoes, peppers and onions cooked over medium high heat in shallot infused oil with a few dashes of Tabasco Chipotle, topped with two eggs...over easy of course. A nice cup of Guatemalan coffee with a splash of milk rounded out the deal.

My wife mentioned that it took me almost as long to make my breakfast as it did for her to eat a bowl of cereal and straighten her hair.

Too true.

I didn't care.

It was totally worth it.

Peanut butter Chocolate Cheesecake

2009-08-25T15:49:00.001-07:00

The Most Meaningful Foods

2009-08-22T14:59:00.001-07:00

Do you have a certain dish that holds so much meaning yet makes little meaningful sense? We often think that the most elaborate of meals will stick in our memory for some time...and the often do, but it is peculiar that we all seem to have inconspicuous foods in our past that mean a lot to us.

One of these kinds of foods for me is French bread pizza. My best friend Brian and I made these things while in high school with such regularity and devotion that it became like a cult food. We both had very little sense of good taste and could hardly find our way around the kitchen, but when it came to French bread pizza we ruled the world. Our process never varied. Indeed, it got more precise in a religious-like manner as time went on. While most of the details are lost on me now, I remember how seriously we took the task. The ingredients were cheap, the talent was non-existent, but there was a serious amount of love in those bad boys.

Perhaps the best part of the French bread pizza saga is the reason we would embark upon this quest almost daily. It was...and I am not even kidding...in order to give us something to do while watching that cinematic classic "The Wedding Singer." I am still not quite sure why this movie became quite so popular with us. Drew Barrymore was hot for sure, and Adam Sandler was the funniest guy around, but we did not remember much of the 80’s, had no affinity for singing at weddings, and enjoyed a plethora of other movies. It will forever remain a mystery.

Remembering those illustrious days of high school with Brian I made French bread pizza again. The ingredients were finer, the execution better performed, and the taste I am sure was highly superior, but I didn’t have Brian to eat it with and…worse yet…didn’t have “The Wedding Singer” to watch.

All in all it was great.

Brian, come over and we’ll do it again…but this time we’ll make the thing from scratch…and drink beer…legally.

On Squash Flowers

2009-08-20T22:07:00.000-07:00

This one is for Lydia...to whom I promised a post about six weeks ago and have not got around to it.

Sorry.

"Hold on, so you actually use the flower as a pouch to put something into, then you fry and eat it?" - Said by anonymous at the Meeks household

I'll admit it, stuffing a flower sounds weird. It also sounds expensive. Chefs get away with murder charging for these things. Its so crazy because of the ease of preparation and the insane abundance of the ingredients.

The idea of this dish is really simple. Find things that are not to overpowering in flavor and taste good together and let them have a party inside of a unique and edible container provided by nature.

Simple as that.

Here is a photo journey of just one of many preparations we have done this summer.

Like most things at our house we cook with what we have on hand. Zucchini, onions and garlic are in crazy abundance right now. We decided on this day to make them a part of our homage to the squash flower.

I did a quick saute with the three ingredients in some good olive oil. Quick as in two minutes over medium high heat. I was looking for a bit of crunch to still be present, but mellower flavors. This got combined with some Romano cheese. I also had Thai basil flower buds on hand and decided to use them.

Yes, I know, this is absurd, but it is the truth. Don't go looking for thai basil flower buds. You probably can find them and they probably cost a ton. They do have an insane flavor quite different from their leafs, but they are not worth looking around the world for them. I'd never think to use them except I had them on the counter, ready to go into the compost and thought, "Hey, that would be weird."

When you have the ingredients prepped it is time to stuff. This is the hardest part...except maybe restraining yourself from the urge to eat these things ten seconds out of the pan, knowing that permanent facial scaring is inevitably in your near future. You will be helped greatly if you follow this one piece of advice:

Pick blossoms early in the day when they are still open.

Once they close you will half lose your salvation, drown your cat (not a bad idea by the way), or give up cooking all together and live at a Waffle House. This is because these things are flowers...they don't take much in the way of abuse.

Don't try and set any records for "most junk crammed inside a delicate vegetable product." This will lead to frustration...and Waffle House. Instead just add a bit. Yes, that is ambiguous. All men are created equal, all squash flowers are not. Big ones get more, little ones get less.

Now that is cooking wisdom.

It is time to set up your mise en place. Don't neglect this....ever. Especially when frying stuff. Get everything in its place. For all of those of you who complain about the size of your kitchen note the counter space I have to work with.

People in pop up campers laugh at me.

In the left bowl is a beaten egg. Right bowl has breadcrumbs. A bit of canola oil is in the pan over medium heat. Once the oil is hot dip, roll, and place your stuffed blossoms in the pan.

This is what you are looking for. Good browning, but no burning (pan blackened as my brother puts it). Notice that there is not much oil in the pan. Speaking of the pan...have I mentioned that my wife is the best? This thing is absolutely amazing.

Here is how we plated and ate these ones. Not the best looking dish as both elements are zucchini based and browned, but man was it heaven to eat. The entire thing is edible, don't be scared.

Homemade Mustard part II

2009-08-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

Remember this?

I kind of forgot about it which means it got to mellow out in the fridge for a long time. We tried it the other day and may I just say, I will never again buy store bought mustard!!! This stuff was AWESOME! It just has such a clean strong flavor. Great texture, great flavor, simple, with no fillers I'm glad it took me so long to try it because it is still pretty spicy. So we paired it with some homemade baguettes and some homemade sausage cooked up with onions to make a great sandwich.

'nuff said

It's A Harvest

2009-08-15T11:40:00.000-07:00

20 minutes of work.

28.6 pounds of zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes (7 kinds), green beans, and peppers.

Pure dopeness.

How To Eat Garlic

2009-08-15T10:04:00.000-07:00

Question: What is the only thing better than roasted garlic?

Answer: When you swap the classic olive oil for some rendered bacon fat.

Duh.

Nostalgia On A Plate

2009-08-11T15:01:00.000-07:00

Many of our most vivid memories in life, be it of our home life or travels abroad, usually revolve around things we smelled and ate. Conversations are remembered in tandem with what we were eating. Parties, meetings, and events are remembered the same way.

This unique function of memory we have is particularly acute when coming upon something from our past that struck us as singularly stimulating when we first encountered it . Maybe it was the way it looked (the first time I ever saw a whole roast pig...Meeks family reunion), or the way it smelled (first time I smelled and subsequently devoured balut...Manila, Philippines...right outside a mall), or the way it tasted.

Today is about taste and my grandpa's garden.

My Grandpa Meeks loved his garden. I wrote about the garden back in 2006 after visiting and taking this picture:

Here is what I had to say about it then:

My grandpa Meeks has a garden. Its not the prettiest thing in the world. There are no cute walk ways and hanging planters, it's a mans garden, a real garden, one you get food from, not sweet smelling plants that just make you think of food. My grandpa's garden is one where tomatoes, green beans and corn are grown, not a bunch of sissy herbs planted inside a carriage wheel. He has no special watering equipment, tin cans dug in ingeniously to small irrigation ditches, a system that can only be perfected after many years of use.

And my grandpa has had those years.

Ever since I was a little boy I have loved being in that garden. There was something about it when I was small that might have well made it an enchanted forest. It seemed endless in size, I could get lost in it for what seemed like days. One day my grandpa asked me if I'd like to cut down the old corn stalks, smirk on his face and a hint of mischief in his eyes. I took up the task in a second. I couldn't have been more than 10.

Grandpa gave me pruning shears, the kind with long wooden handles used to cut off branches, not the ones you use to cut fresh flowers...or some wuss herbs. I remember what Herculean effort it took for me to even lift the things. I tried to look tough of course, I was the big kid, the oldest, but I seriously doubted if I could do my solemn task.

Grandpa led me to the rows of stalks and let me have at it. It must have been quite a sight watching me try and figure out how to get those two stinking curved blades that were only a few millimeters long, seemed to be 4 miles from my tiny hands, and weighed upwards of a ton and a half around the first corn stalk.

I don't remember how long Grandpa stayed, I was a boy on a mission, my sole focus in life was to chop down the mighty forest before me. When I was finished I drug myself to the back door of the house. I might as well have cut off the head of a dragon for all I thought I had accomplished.

Grandpa asked if I was finished and I triumphantly declared that indeed I was. We both walked back out to the area formerly inhabited by the corn stalks and grandpa just smiled and said "well I'll be."

This picture was taken at my grandpa's house. These tools have seen use in his garden for many years and I'm sure there are many more to come.

My grandpa is older now, and doesn't move quite as fast and somehow the garden has shrunk considerably as most things curiously do when we grow up. We talked about the garden and the time I cut down those corn stalks and both laughed.

Thanks Grandpa, it was one of my finest moments.

It was at my Grandpa's house that I first encountered the simple joy in life that is a tomato topped with a bit of mayo, salt and some pepper.

This was a Brandywine tomato from our garden. The basil is the only addition. Quite a good one, but it was the original ingredients that took me back. They take me back every time.

Thanks Grandpa, it was a great memory.

The Winner

2009-08-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

Congrats to Lorna!

Lorna said...: Fresh Basil Pesto
Made with pine nuts or walnuts, olive oil, fresh basil, garlic, and parmesan cheese. It's great on everything.

Tools of the Trade

2009-08-07T16:23:00.001-07:00

** TIME IS UP**
We have a lot of cooking tools in our kitchen. Some are big purchases that get used a lot like the All Clad pan that the kids gave Jeremy for Father's day.

And others are little purchases like this 97 cent squeeze bottle that Jeremy is really happy about (think sauces, infused oils, dressings, etc.).

The things we buy must be things that we use on a regular basis and usually have multiple functions. Thus, we don't buy things like this:

Yes ladies and gentlemen...this is a mango splitter. Good for nothing...not even splitting mangoes.

Some of the tools we have are things we use every day and seriously could not do with out yet they get no fame, no glory. These wooden cooking utensils fall into this category.

Why are they so great? They work on every surface (non-stick, cast iron, enamel, etc.) without scratching, warping, melting, burning the user or any other nasty hazard. They are tough, light, and renewable (for all of those hippie readers we have...don't worry...we are too).

Today, we would like to give a set of these bamboo work horses to one lucky reader. All you have to do is answer this question in the comment section:

What is your favorite dish to make that requires the use of fresh basil? or if you don't use fresh basil let us know.

Check back on Monday to see who won. The winner will be chosen by a random number generator.

RULES:
1. You must be a subscriber or sign up to be one to enter.
2. Only one entry per person.
3. No entries after 6:00 pm (Pacific) Sunday August 9th.

Pumpkin Spice Cake

2009-08-06T16:54:00.001-07:00

This cake is, in a word, awesome. I usually only make it in the fall/winter months but I had promised some friends I would make it for them last winter and only just recently got the opportunity to do so. It has a cream cheese frosting that is laced with... more pumpkin. It has become a staple in our house, when we lived in Nicaragua I would make this for the big gringo Thanksgiving dinners and people would bum rush the dessert table to get at it. Enjoy :) I think I got the recipe out of a Christmas magazine my dad sent me one year.

¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
½ cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350˚F. Lightly grease two 9-inch cake pans with softened butter. Cut two 9-inch circles out of parchment paper and fit them into the bottom of the cake pans. Lightly coat the paper circles with butter and set aside.
Cream butter until smooth in large bowl with an electric mixer set on medium speed. Add the sugars and mix until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, until the mixture is smooth and light. Set aside. Combine the pumpkin puree, buttermilk, and vanilla in a medium bowl, set aside. Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, and nutmeg in a large bowl and set aside. In thirds, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk mixture to the butter mixture, blending well after each addition until smooth.
Pour batter into the prepared pans and bake until a toothpick inserted into the middle of each cake comes out clean 35 to 40 minutes. Cool the cakes in the pan on wire racks for 30 minutes. Remove cakes from pans and return to wire racks until completely cool.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting

8 oz cream cheese, softened
¼ cup pumpkin puree
¼ cup unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp fresh orange or lemon juice
½ tsp vanilla extract
2 - 4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Blend the cream cheese, pumpkin, butter, juice, and vanilla in a large bowl using an electric mixer set at medium speed until smooth. Add the sugar a little at a time and continue to beat until light and fluffy – about 5 more minutes.

Baby Greatness

2009-08-03T16:13:00.001-07:00

"Shallots are for babies; Onions are for men; Garlic is for heroes." - Anonymous

I'm with whoever said this...mostly. Onions and garlic are burly and awesome. This much is true. This is one big reason we love them so much.

Shallots are related, but on another level. They are delicate, sweet and, dare I say it, unctuous. Yep, I said it. But shallots are something to behold. Yes, they will get drowned out by many other flavors if used as an onion, but then again, you would have to be half crazy to use a shallot in this way. Caramelized shallots over anything...say, steak frites or a telephone book, brings a whole other level of comprehension to ones palate.

The bad thing about shallots is that you will grow broke buying them. That is, unless, you grow them yourself. Here ladies and gentlemen is our 2009 shallot harvest:

Make your way over soon...I just got them out of the ground today and I'm already itching to use them.

Shallot rings, shallot and potato gratin, and of course mountains of caramelized shallots...heaven on a plate.

Got Ramen?

2009-08-02T23:42:00.001-07:00

Most of you that have spent any kind of time at our house have probably had tonight's dinner.

Kids were antsy,Marj was gone, and nobody was coming over. No need to do something on the list of 12,875,917 food concepts I have running through my mind. Time to turn to an old standby.

I don't do many dishes repeatedly. There are just to many things to try. Even if I do a dish a second time I'll almost always change it in some way. This is one reason I don't think I would be good in a professional kitchen.

There are a small handful of things that I'll probably do till the day I die. This is one of them.

Tonight we did a kind of pan fried top ramen (appealing title I know).

- Ramen gets cooked al dente and drained.
- Sesame oil to hot pan.
- Add onions, garlic and ginger.
- Remove after a minute or two and replace with drained ramen.
- Turn heat to medium low.
- Add soy, fish sauce, and sweet hot chili sauce to taste.
- Add one egg per pack of ramen and toss well to coat.
- Throw the veggies back in.
- Add toasted sesame seeds.
- Plate.
- Add Thai basil and garlic chives.

This dish takes 10 minutes at the outside. It is so classy that it gets paired with a Mikes Hard Lime...nothing classier than that. A nice wit beer or sweet Riesling would go well with it too.

This is true fast food. The best part about it is how many people hear about it and become something beyond skeptical (you know who you are) only to go back for seconds...or thirds.

Jake pounds this stuff.

Be sure to note the flecks of flying noodle that have speckled this champions forearms and chest.

This kid is a beast.

Lunchtime Scramble

2009-08-02T13:06:00.000-07:00

Despite what many of you seem to think, I get just as burned out thinking up things to make as you do. This afternoon was one good example. It is hot, we are all hungry, there are no leftovers, and nobody wants to do much in the way of cooking.

Thinking fast I did a quick rundown of what we had and how they could possibly be combined in a hurry. We received a basket with some iceberg lettuce (from who we don't know) and some other things a few days ago. As we did not grow any head lettuce this year and we don't buy iceberg it made for a launching point in thinking about a meal.

A flash of inspiration caught me and I immediately thought of using the big leaf of the iceberg as a wrapper, Vietnamese-style. Just so happens that I made some Vietnamese inspired sausage.

Golden.

- Six ounces of sausage browned.
- Remove.
- 2 T sesame oil go in with an onion cut into 1/4 inch rounds (med heat)
- When crisp tender add three cloves garlic and some ginger.
- 30 seconds later add a bit of fish sauce and Sriracha (to taste).
- Add sausage.
- When warmed through move pan to table.
- Make wraps as you go.

Along with the leafs we had thai basil, cilantro and chives on the table. Sriracha (Alexis calls it 'man sauce'...long story) was also present for those who like it hot.

Here is the result:

Joy was experienced by all.

It only took 20 minutes to put together from beginning to end.

Rachel Ray ain't got nothin' on me.

A (Mostly) Vegetarian Dinner

2009-08-01T23:47:00.000-07:00

I have (rightfully) been accused of not seeing how anyone can not eat animals or the awesome products they provide us. That being said I do enjoy dishes without meat as long as they are good and don't hope to be glorified simply because they lack one of God's furry creatures.

Being that summer time is in full swing here and we have a ton of produce coming in from the yard I decided to make a meatless meal tonight. It is a challenge to make vegetarian food beat the poor rap it so well deserves most of the time. I was up for a challange.

We, like most every home gardener this time of year have a ridiculous amount of zucchini. Thankfully there are a million and one ways to cook these things. If you are lost for ideas look outside the US for inspiration. Other countries seem to get a lot more creative than we do.

I decided to make zucchini pancakes. Here is (more or less...I'm horrible with recipes) what went in them:

- 2 1/2 lbs zucchini - grated and squeezed mostly dry
- 2 eggs - beaten
- 1 small onion - minced
- 2 cloves garlic - minced
- 1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
- 1 T olive oil
- 1/4 c flour
- 3/4 c bread crumbs
- 1 1/2 t baking powder
- Salt to taste
- olive oil - to cook with

- Grate Zucchini, add 2 t salt, wait 5 minutes (no more), and press in colander till mostly dry.
- Mix with all other ingredients.
- Cook over medium or medium low heat...just like pancakes.
- Plate and top with a bit of grated Romano.

Now, I could not just make this for dinner. I made a sauce as well. A caramelized onion and whiskey porter demi-glace. Yep, that's the name. Sounds cool, huh? Tastes about as great as it sounds.

- Caramelize two onions.
- Add a cup of good (homemade!) chicken stock.
- Reduce.
- Add a cup of porter (a homemade oaked whiskey porter in my case...the goal is to get something not super bitter).
- Reduce till coats the back of spoon.
- Money.

The sauce went down on the plates and the pancakes stacked on top, dusted with Romano.

For a side we mandolined some cucumber, onions and tomatoes. Salt, pepper, and 15 well placed drops of 15 year old balsamic.

"Ahh" you say, "but today is Saturday and your wife is at work. Did your kids eat it?"

No, not really. Alexis is just a straight up ham for the camera and Jake was sick so he just packed away a tube of Ritz crackers (not even kidding). Alexis ate hers under pain of not being able to finish Kung Fu Panda.

I could have gotten her to eat sweatbreads with a tripe sauce (not a bad idea actually).

It was stellar. It would have been better if my lovely wife would have been present and/or that guy I called and invited to dinner (Daniel C I am talking about you...your loss buddy), but it was still great. A homemade Belgian Saison accompanied the meal in what might have been the best beer pairing I have ever had.

The Best Fruit Juice On Earth

2009-08-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

14 pounds of amazing coffee came from Sweet Maria's (the greatest green coffee source in America) this week.

Jake is almost as excited as his dad.

We have roasted some sample batches...the next few months of coffee drinking look to be awesome.

Beer City

2009-07-31T16:45:00.000-07:00

Here is how I spent my afternoon.

I am bottling the Oaked Whiskey Porter for my brothers wedding. The Hefeweizen was bottled a few days ago and the Golden Ale will be meeting up with the Pinot Grigio and oak in a few days from now.

Good times.

Better drinking.

If you are coming to Kyle's wedding you are going to score. If not...tough.

Homemade Mustard

2009-07-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I got the idea that I wanted to make mustard, I mean how hard can it be right? Jeremy and I were at Fred Myer at the time so we went over to the bulk food section and picked up 1/4 pound of mustard seeds. Then we came home and I googled home made mustard. Every site I saw said something different! Some said never heat mustard seed or you will loose the flavor, others had you heating the mustard seeds in the recipe. Another one even told you to microwave them! So many choices, what was I to do? Well, I thought, in the spirit of Jeremy, I would choose the one recipe that had beer in it. :)

Here is the recipe I more or less followed. I made a few changes here and there and a substitution or two. So far it looks good but I haven't tasted it yet. You have to refrigerate it for a few days to let the flavors mingle and get to know one another and to let them mellow out. I'll let you know how is tastes next week.

Hot Summer Nights

2009-07-30T00:06:00.001-07:00

It is midnight.

It is 89 degrees in my house.

There is no wind at all.

I have no A/C (I live in Washington...it doesn't get hot here you know...)

I'm hot.

I went digging in the freezer for some ice cubes and ran upon a bag of ice pops. Generic ones. Ones like in Nicaragua where you can almost taste the green #68 and yellow #9846 and you don't care at all. Ones that bring back a thousand and one warm nights of summers long past.

Like edible memories.

I don't know where they came from.

I don't care at the moment. Probably my awesome wife.

I haven't been this happy with a surprise find in a long time.

It is the simple things in life.

Now, if you will excuse me, the electric blue one is calling my name...

Bring On The Brushetta

2009-07-28T22:37:00.000-07:00

There are fewer things greater to eat during the summer growing season than the most popular American version of brushetta. I am of course referring to the classic combination of tomatoes, basil and garlic over a piece of simple bread. In case you were wondering, bruschetta originally meant nothing more than a piece of grilled bread rubbed with garlic and covered in olive oil, salt and pepper. Many variations have come to be loved by people the world round, but here in the good ol' USA we seem to think that the definition of the dish is the way we make it. No matter. It is a good way to do it.

The problem with most American brushcetta is that it is made with poor ingredients, over salted, undersalted, drowned in olive oil, drowned in some other kind of oil, placed on soggy bread, filled with to much garlic, etc. In other words, most brushetta is not that appealing. the key is to get good ingredients and then treat them right. Let them be the star of the show.

Here we have the first tomato "harvest" of the season as well as some Genovese basil and purple striped garlic. All three from the garden:

These were chopped up and mixed with a bit of Costco's surprisingly good extra virgin olive oil and precisely 5 drops of an amazing bottle of balsamic vinegar that my sister in law got as a gift and is letting us "borrow." After the preliminary test I was convinced this needed no salt and no pepper...it was perfect.

I should mention at this point the importance of tasting food during the cooking process. This is essential. Not tasting food during the cooking process is like painting a canvas without pausing to make sure you are still on the canvas at all. Taste your food. If it stinks fix it. If you get to a point in the making of a dish and it tastes great to you then stop. If not keep pushing the envelope a bit. In cooking there is definitely such a thing as too much of a good thing...unless you are talking about sausage or something. Remember being a kid and thinking you could paint all the colors of the rainbow, be a real Picasso, with just one brush stroke if you just put all the paints on the brush at one time? Don't lie to your self. Every time it came out looking like you had just dipped your brush into peanut butter instead of paint. The color was always mostly indistinguishable and unimpressive. So to with food that is mercilessly killed with to much of anything.

Here is how ours turned out:

There was only enough for a few bites a piece, but we were left satisfied and hungry for more. The perfect dish.

What Sausage Is Good For

2009-07-27T21:40:00.000-07:00

Derek, a friend and former youth group leader (almost in a past life), and I got reconnected on Facebook recently (yes, make your snide, cruel, and relentless attacks...I have joined the thronging masses). We had not seen or spoken to each other in over 10 years and he just happens to be in town. Seeing as I was still trying to figure out how to become an orthopedic surgeon...or...failing to do that...become a member of Aspen's ski patrol last time we talked (hey...I was 19...at least I didn't want to be an Indian any more...ok...that was a lie...I still want to be an Indian) we had a lot of catching up to do. Meeting up at a local restaurant we quickly found out that we share a few key passions...namely food and beer (big shock I know). We retired quickly to the house and promptly tried one of every beer I had left in my beer closet. While reminiscing and getting all kinds of beer-chemistry-nerd-like I happened to mention that I had 16 pounds of pork shoulder sitting in my fridge waiting to be turned into sausage and asked Derek if he would care to join me.

Derek is no fool and happily agreed.

Now, there is no crazy 56 piece gallery of pork grinding glory this time around. The beauty of making sausage, one of the many beauties, is that it is so wicked simple. There is no great art to it really. It is hard to screw up and...well...its sausage...who wouldn't stick it in their mouth?!? I decided to get all kinds of ambitious however and make six, yes 6, kinds of sausage. Here was my recipe sheet:

On the list were:

- Merguez - A Moroccan lamb sausage...made with pork...all irony included.
- Hot Italian
- Sage and Ginger Breakfast
- Chorizo
- Roasted Pasilla
- Vietnamese

Derek was enthralled, as is plainly evidenced here:

You can't buy or fake that kind of contemplative bliss/focus. This was a man who, like everyone else that makes sausage for the first time, was simply lost in the genius/insanity that is sausage making. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth round he commented something to the effect of:

"Dude, you have completely revitalized my desire for sausage. I am reinvigorated to cook. You are the best guy in the whole world."

Ok, the last one he didn't even remotely say, nor is it remotely true, but the other ones he did say. I was moved, touched, and driven to make even more people feel the same way.

We spent a lot of time talking about just how good food is and how crazy it is that as God's image bearers we find it to be so. There is no reason to enjoy food as much as we do. There is no reason to enjoy art, mountains, rivers, or country music either (yes, the latter is growing on me...I've got to entrench myself in Nashville culture you know). While the problem of evil is a difficult one for people of all worldviews to cope with (yes, including you), beauty, enjoyment, and the things in life that give us the most pleasure are no simpler to deal with.

In the Christian tradition God created everything good. Man screwed it up royally (by eating something I might add), but not completely. This is a good thing. Common grace abounds and we see the goodness of creation around us constantly. According to the bible God is in the process of putting the world to rights. One day this job will completed. Until that time we are left with glimpses of things to come. The smile of a child on a carousel, the man who jumps into a burning building to save a neighbor and succeeds, and (I'm completely not joking here) a fantastic sausage sandwich are all things that bring us a certain kind of inexpressible joy. That these things are merely a foreshadow of the reality to come is mindbendingly cool.

I could go on, but I won't. It's rad, that's all.

I am now in the possession of 15 pounds of sausage and mere months before the move to Nashville. My wife, always the rational and thinking one of the family pointed out that this would be the predicament just as I hefted the pork shoulder onto the cart at the market with reckless abandon.

"Don't worry" I told her "we'll have lots of people over before then and they'll help us devour it."

Don't make me a liar.

Philosophy Of Eating

2009-07-24T13:43:00.001-07:00

This was so good I had to share it. I read it at the library and then read it twice upon arriving home. These few paragraphs do more to explain some of my own philosophy of cooking and eating than I have ever seen in print. They come from the intro to the book 'The Kitchen Diaries' by Nigel Slater.

"Right food, right place, right time. It is my belief - an the point of this book - that this is the best recipe of all. A crab sandwich by the sea on a June afternoon; a slice of roast goose with applesauce and roast potatoes on Christmas day; hot sausages and a chunk of roast pumpkin on a frost- sparkling night in November. These are meals whose success relies not on the expertise of the cook but on the more basic premise that this is the food of the moment - something eaten at a time when it is most appropriate, when the ingredients are at their peak of perfection, when food, the cook and the time of year are at one with each other.

...It is about seasonality, certainly, but also about going with the flow, cooking with the natural rhythm of the earth.

Learning to eat with the ebb and flow of the seasons is the single thing that has made my eating more enjoyable. Our culinary seasons have been blurred by commerce, and in particular by the supermarkets' much vaunted idea that customers want all things to be available all year round. I don't believe this is true. I have honestly never met anyone who wants to eat a slice of watermelon on a cold March evening, or a plate of asparagus in January. It is a myth put about by the giant supermarkets. I worry that today it is all too easy to lose sight of food's natural timing and, worse, to miss it when it is at its sublime best."

Sheer genius. I can't wait to read/cook through this book.

Just to prove his point, here are some stuffed squash blossoms awaiting their shot at jumping in egg, breadcrumbs and hot oil. It would be both improbable and impossible to eat these things even a few months from now. But today, they are pure gold. I'll post some ideas on how to use these bits of natural greatness later.

Food is rad.

Books and libraries are awesome.

First Of The Season

2009-07-23T20:55:00.001-07:00

Now, I know some of you people have been eating fresh tomatoes from your garden or the garden of someone else for a while now (read: all three readers in Tennessee), but we here in the frozen northland are only getting into the season. This week we had our first tomato harvest. The above picture was our total take. Alexis and I killed it in one bite a piece.

It was super tart, but the sweet goodness of things to very promptly come...and in our case overwhelm...was evident. It was a great few seconds of eating and looking at each other knowing exactly what the other was thinking. Yes, my daughter is only 4, but she knows produce and she especially knows a good tomato.

When we were done with our paltry, but pleasing snack we talked for a while about how cool it is going to be in a few weeks when we have dozens of tomatoes ready to eat every day.

Quite possibly the only was to make gardening better is doing it with your kids.

Hopz

2009-07-21T21:54:00.001-07:00

In the last week our hop vines have gone from zero to hero. It really defies belief to watch these things grow. Putting off flowers (aka - hops...the bittering agent in beer) seems to be just as fast as the vine growth.

This picture was taken out our window...15 feet up in the air. Other hop vines hit the underside of the roof long ago and are now trying to climb the shingles. Needless to say, this year might be a good hop harvest. With prices in the range of 5 dollars for two ounces I am looking at a lot of free money.

Guess I'll have to make more beer.

Bummer.

Flowers

2009-07-20T16:53:00.001-07:00

I know, most are not edible, and this is a food blog. But next to those wonderful vegetables in our garden grow cosmos, marigolds, and bachelor buttons.

And while I thoroughly enjoy all the wonderful edible produce, I think I might like the flowers better. (Don't tell Jeremy!) They are just so pretty and make the house feel fresh and clean. This is the first little bouquet of the season.

Good To Great

2009-07-20T13:11:00.001-07:00

Supposedly there is a really great book on management by the same title as this post. I have not read it. I'm not one cut out for corporate management. Big shock I know.

The title came to mind however when talking to a friend about what makes great chefs great. I'm sure there are many, many things, but one big thing is taking something and making it a little bit better.

Yesterdays lunch will serve as a good example. I should note that I do not consider myself great or even a chef. I just learn from them.

Here is a classic American lunch:

Note that it is a notch above a regular quesadilla in that I am using Tillamook cheese. No, this is not the pinnacle of cheddar, but it is one of the biggest bangs for your buck in the food world. Even with the Tillamook we have a simple food. A good food. But what does it take to make this better? How difficult is it? Not very.

Here is the same quesadilla. Within 5 minutes I had picked, cleaned, and/or cut everything here. Pork (from dinner a week ago), chives, cilantro, a bit of thyme, freshly ground black pepper, some chipotle chilies (leftover from the chili), and basil.

Now, I know you might not have an herb garden. My point is not to show off what I have, but to spurn you on to always ask what else you could add to make the dish pop. Even if it is only a small pop. Think of leftovers not as gross things you should probably eat to save a few bucks, but rather:

A) ready made dishes for improvising on.
B) ingredient sources for new dishes.

Push thy self.

The quesadilla was great by the way.

"Chili, meet sausage."

2009-07-19T23:04:00.000-07:00

I had a bunch (4 pounds) of bulk sausage hanging out in my fridge from random sources. I pointed this out to my wife. Being the loving, thoughtful wife that she is, she pointed out that this is an odd problem to have.

"Most people don't have random sausage just laying around."

True.

But I did. I also had to make something for a church meeting.

There was only one thing that came instantly to mind...

'How cool would it be to make chili out of all sausage?!?"

Cool indeed.

Here is how it went down.

Seeing as 'chili' connotes using chilies I figure it is the star of the show. This being the case I can see no reason to use pre-ground chili powder. A big reason is that red stuff you usually use is bland, stale, and not wholly chili powder. The best thing about making your own is how insanely simple it is. Seriously...you can do this.

For this batch we have (from left to right) Chipotles in adobo sauce (these go in later and don't get dried), New Mexico, Negro, California, and Poblano.

Here is what you do to them:

That's right, put their proverbial feet to (in my case) the proverbial fire. Put your burner on high, grab some tongs, hold the pepper over the heat 6 inches. Turn when it starts to smoke.

That simple. You don't want to scorch these things into charcoal, but do get them toasted well.

Rip the tops off and get any loose seeds out of the chilies. If you are particularly sensitive to heat you can get all the seeds out, but don't worry about it to much. Tear the chilies into a blender or food processor. As you can see I am doing all of mine at the same time.

This is what I ended up with. It smells and tastes even better than it looks. It stays fully flavorful for a few weeks if sealed well. I used almost all of this (over half a cup) though so I wont have it around for long. Once you start making your own you will never go back. You might also find yourself obsessing over the different characteristics of certain chilies and how to make your mix just right...but then you'll be able to join the club.

After browning the sausage I dumped it into the strainer and got most of the fat off it. I then added it back to the pot and threw in some diced onion and a head, yes head, of garlic. Seven tablespoons chili powder, three tablespoons cumin, two tablespoons crushed coriander.

I'll be honest, I just added this picture because I was so proud of myself. See, I HATE (yes, hate) chunks of warm tomato. Gross, sick, nasty, barf...you get the point. As a sauce I am a big fan. All I had was a can of whole tomatoes. With a little thought I figured my hand blender might work to puree the tomatoes right in the can. It was perfect. The entire 28 ounce can went in.

This would be a good point to get on a bit of a cooking soapbox in general and a chili soapbox in particular. If you want to cook better learn techniques, not recipes. Learn how to put flavors together and methods of cooking. Read recipes, but ALWAYS think outside of the box, even if you have all the ingredients. By forcing yourself to do this you will improve quickly. Taste everything and taste it often. Modify as needed. Savor food, both yours and others, however chic or ghetto, and figure out why it tastes good/bad. You cannot screw up with something like chili very easily. Just look at some award winning recipes and you'll soon figure out that there are some pretty crazy ideas. Most of them work. Be willing to fail.

Go big or go to McDonald's.

Now, if you'll pardon me, I have to put the soapbox away.

Yep, beer. Always add liquids that bring something to the party. Beer works incredibly well. This particular beer is my newest, a Belgian Sasion called 'I'm Mostly Belgian Myself'. I have yet to even drink one of these. I was bottling it before I made the chili and had some leftover. Beer, meet chili.

This is also when 5 chipotle chilies were diced and added to the mix along with a tablespoon or so of cider vinegar, a bunch of black pepper, and a cup of homemade pork stock.

And here is the bean addition. A pound of freshly cooked kidney beans. Beans are insane cheap dried, taste 1,000,459 times better than canned, and are really simple to make. Try it sometime and you'll thank me.

No, there is no parting shot. I had to rush off to the meeting. How was it? Thanks for asking. It was really good! I'll be trying homemade sausage next time...probably some smoky chorizo.

Cook some chili this summer. I'll be making a lot more of it. Go crazy or don't, but cook.

Oh Yeah?!? What Did YOU Have For Lunch?

2009-07-18T15:01:00.000-07:00

I ate a big breakfast and thus decided to pass on lunch.

Then I changed my mind.

I am in the process of making a chili for a church gathering right now and I got hungry...shocking I know. I would give some secrets away about the chili, but two out of the whopping 5 people who read this blog are going and I dont want to give it away. The only hint is that the meat part of the chili is pure sausage. Can I get an 'amen'!

Rooting around for something to eat I fell upon these three items:

Basil (Thai and Cinnamon), Bush Beans, and Purple Stripe garlic. All from our garden. What more could a hungry person need? I would say sausage...but I put it all in the chili and now I'll have to make a bunch more. Poor me.

Here is how I combined these three stellar backyard products.

- Dab of bacon fat (you really didnt think I was going to leave the pig out of this thing did you?)

- Green beans in over medium heat. I should add that one of the greatest parts about having your own garden is that you decide when to pick stuff. Beans are a great example. In the store they are big and tough, but you can pick them young and tender. People and chefs pay a ton for them this way because it does not make economic sense to pick them small, but they are so amazing. If you have big beans you should blanch them first in order to soften them up a bit.

- When heated through add basil and garlic.

- A minute or so later add 5 or 6 drops of good balsamic.

- Stir and plate quickly.

- Top with a few paper thin slices of Romano cheese.

- Scarf.

Five minute meal from heaven.

The First Berries Of Summer

2009-07-17T15:38:00.000-07:00

The northwest is some of the most insane berry growing territory in the U.S. Entire town's economies revolve around them, people obsess over them like some of you obsess over just who really wants to be a millionaire, and they are to be found in almost every nook and cranny. One of those nooks (or crannys if you will...just where did that term come from?!?) is our parking lot. Blackberries grow wild and grow well.

Those of you that know me know I love free food. Finding it, picking it out of the ground (not so much out of the garbage), or being given it is a great pleasure. Therefore something as wonderful as free and über-local blackberries are truly enjoyed in the Meeks homestead.

These berries will not be in their prime for another month, but today we found a small handful of berries that got confused and ripened early:

No problem....our gain:

Beef...It Was For Dinner

2009-07-16T20:56:00.001-07:00

There are times in this life when words are superfluous. This seems to be one of those times.

London broil.

Mesquite smoked to 100F.

Grilled over direct heat to 135F (med-rare).

Sides: French bread, Zucchini and baby green beans lightly sauteed in bacon fat and pimentón.

P.S. - I should also mention that it made an insane sandwich with Marjorie's toasted bread, dijon, tomato and onion.

Garlic From Our Garden

2009-07-15T16:43:00.001-07:00

As I have established in previous posts garlic is awesome. But there is much I have not shared about this wonderful little plant.

Most of us only know soft neck garlic. This is the white stuff we find in almost every store. This is good stuff, I don't want to knock it. There is something to be said for diversity however and that is where hard neck garlic come in. There are many different types and you don't really care so I wont bore you. All you need to know is that we just harvested our crop of purple stripe hard neck this week.

Here are a few pictures of the harvest and drying:

We planed this stuff last September. I was sure it was going to come to nothing, but was heartened when I saw the first shoots coming up. Now it is huge and the bulbs grew well.

These things are really big. Jake is a good prop. As you can tell, he's nearly as stoked as his dad to have something so cool come out of his garden.

Some parents have their kids model for Gap.

My kid models vegetables from the backyard.

Who is laughing now?

This is my highly customized drying rack. On the left we have my mash tun for extracting the sugars from grains in beer making and on the right is a brew kettle. The rack itself is a space age material called "screen" that I got from my living room window.

'Meeks....We're High Tech.'

This is the garlic as of tonight. This stuff will keep for less time than the silverskin you usually find at the store, but those of you that have eaten here (some on a regular basis) know that ten heads of garlic don't stand a two week chance.

Now the only dilemma is how best to celebrate such a harvest. I am suffering from a deluge of options, but I was wondering if any of you had any suggestions.

What is your favorite way to enjoy garlic? Let me know.

I don't care how labor intensive or insane it is. I am thinking about a few dessert options, so you know how crazy I am.

Bite Me Frito Lay

2009-07-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

Here is something:

Potato Chip Pasta.

Think about it.

How rad is that?

'No way' you say?

Yes way.

Yes way indeed.

I should mention a the outset that I claim absolutely almost no credit for this meal. H. Alexander Talbot from Ideas In Food (check it out) receives most of the props for this one. I would also like to thank my children from the outset as they were left home with their mostly crazy father who likes nothing more than experimenting while their mom is working.

Here is the basic recipe for the dough

400g flour
100g dark roasted potato flakes (20 min @ 350, ground to flour)
300g whole egg
75g egg yolk
8g salt

(Credit: Ideas In Food)

Here is a photo essay of tonight's work in the kitchen.

Here are the potatoes, nothing special. You will need a scale for this recipe, but get serious, you need one anyways. You'll find yourself using it all the time. It gets to be an obsession.

The flakes spread thin on a baking sheet. These are going to get dark, but don't get scared, they wont burn.

While the flakes are toasting I measured the eggs. This is what 300g of whole egg and 75 g of yolk look like. Cool huh?!

Toasted and ready to be pulverized.

Done.

Work the dry ingredients together and whisk the eggs. Then add the eggs to the dry ingredients. Stir the eggs with your fingers, incorporating the flour bit by bit. When it is absorbed knead the dough. It should look like the above. Not wet at all...almost crumbly, but not.

Vacuum sealing the dough is new to me, but it is genius in action. The theory is that it hastens absorption of the flour. Plus, you get to use a vacuum sealer...how cool is that? I love this thing. Let it rest for at least 10 minutes. I let mine go for an hour.

This might be my favorite photo of the day. This is how I put a meal together most of the time. This is the back of a receipt from a held library book that I had lying around. My thought process for this dish was something like this:

- My dough will taste like a potato chip/french fries.
- What goes with a potato chip and what do I have within 50 feet of my house? (having kids to take care of can be some amazing inspiration)
- Chicken schmaltz is available and would be rad. (Pasta that tastes like fried chicken and potatoes? yes please)
- Best thing with potato chips is french onion dip.
- Sour cream, chives and caramelized onions are all close.
- Tim's Cascade Chips has some amazing pepper jack chips.
- I'll go with black pepper and some Romano cheese...not the same at all, but would make for one heck of a chip and works well with the other players.

Here are the players for the ravioli filling. I decided to do this pasta two ways. Fried ravioli and regular spaghetti. Results to follow.

This is my pasta work station for those who are interested. It is a piece of laminated press board used for shelving. Works like a beloved charm for pasta making.

This is only one half of the pasta. It makes almost two pounds. I might add that it rolled out like butter. The vacuum sealer was a dream.

Here are the handmade ravioli. Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the making.

This is schmaltz...i.e. the stuff left at the bottom of a cast iron skillet after I get done roasting a chicken. That is fat on top and juices below. Simply amazing stuff. Try getting this kind of goodness out of a roasted Tofurkey. When it heats up the house smells like a roast chicken. Tastes like it too.

Here is the spaghetti after being cooked (60 seconds is all it takes with the fresh stuff). The sauce was the schmaltz, the sour cream, and the caramelized onions at this point. All it needed was a quick toss for a few minutes and it was good to go.

I realize that I don't have any pics of the ravioli. Too much going on. The ravioli were done in a bit of butter that had garlic infused into it. I had them over medium heat till browned. My Paulaner Hefeweizen clone was chosen to accompany the meal...good choice.

How did it taste? Incredible.

The spaghetti had the hint of both roast chicken and the sour cream and onion goodness. The ravioli stole the show in my opinion however. The mix was more concentrated and gave the feeling of the best sour cream, onion, and chive potato chip like thing you could imagine. Definitely one I'll be busting out again. I also plan to do something with barbecue chicken wings and blue cheese flavors. Jamie and Steph...this Monday I'll be in P-town...we might have to try this. No?

As for my kids? They loved it:

Ultimate win.

What To Do With Zucchini

2009-07-11T11:01:00.001-07:00

The first zucchini were ready the other day and I was left with only one question, how best to savor the first fruits without screwing them up?

I might add that this is the same question you should ask yourself all this summer when in possession of some wonderful vegetables or fruit. In case you have something you really want to do (like make dried tomato powder out of incredibly ripe tomatoes....stay tuned for that one), you should strive to do very little.

I do not enjoy the "lets-see-who-can-grow-the-biggest-zucchini-in-the-world-game-merely-to-be-the-envy-of-my-neighbors" game. Seriously? Large zucchini are the reason I detest most zucchini preparations. Pick them small, eat them small.

Being that I am unabashedly on a pimentón kick right now (and so should you) I decided that this would have to be part of the dish. A little olive oil, a dab of bacon fat, a few cloves of garlic, the zucchini, and of course the pimentón were all added over medium heat and allowed to get to know each other for about 5 minutes. Just enough to heat the zucchini and not enough to make it resemble something that came out of my nose that time I got a wicked cold back in '87.

Plate, salt and eat. Simple as that.

Don't mess with good ingredients. Let it shine. Save the cream of mushroom soup casserole for...well...never.

Roasted Garlic

2009-07-07T14:22:00.000-07:00

If I ever had my own restaurant I would probably call it Allium in honor of my favorite class of plants. My second choice for a name would be The Meeks Family Grubbin' Joint With All The Fixin's. I don't know about you, but I think the first would both do better and be cheaper to put on a business card. Still, The Meeks Family Grubbin' Joint With All The Fixin's has quite a ring to it.

No?

Allium it is.

In case you were asleep in biology class or, like me, went to public school, Allium pertains to the plants in the onion genus...genius. This includes things like onions (shocking), leeks, shallots, chives, and garlic. Garlic is what we are talking about today.

In case you didn't know, the world thinks garlic is awesome and so should you. in 2008 the world produced 15,686,310 tons of it (that is 31,372,620,000 pounds...not even kidding you). That means there is 5.22877 pounds of garlic per person in the world.

Get some.

Garlic, like every other delicious treat in the allium genus, has the potential to impart many flavors depending on what you do to it. This post excludes the fact that there are a multitude of types and two classes of the plant.

One of the greatest things that can be done with garlic is roasting it. By doing this you turn a biting, spicy, powerful bulb into a sweet, buttery, mellow bunch of heaven. It is like taming a wild bronco, only you get to eat it once it is tame. Score one for the garlic roaster, zero for the cowboy.

Roasting garlic also happens to be a kitchen activity that even those beloved of you readers who have difficulty boiling water or making toast can pull off with relative ease. You will also stun your guests with this number.

I never cease to get a kick out of the fact that most people rant about simple food done well, yet these same people are daunted in the kitchen because they feel they must make something akin to Fois Gras Cotton Candy (not kidding, check it out...yes, I am going to be making pancetta and aged cheddar cotton candy as soon as I buy my machine...again, not kidding...thanks for asking). Just cook simple things well and people will always be finding awkward reasons to show up at your house at meal times (you know who you are).

Get in the kitchen.
Make simple food.
Have friends over to eat it with you.
Enjoy it.

- Jeremy Meeks (I know, I am quite the sage, thank you)

Now down to business.

- Take a few heads of garlic. How many? Well, this takes a while so just do a bunch (5 or more) and eat it for a week.

Yes, you will reek.

No, you will not care at all.

- Strip the heads of their papery exteriors.

- Cut the tops of the heads off. Not the root site. How much? Check the picture below.

- Place the head on a small square of tin foil and douse it with some good olive oil. Yes, the good stuff makes a difference. Surprisingly, Costco sells a bottle of some really good extra virgin olive oil. It is not hand picked by albino gypsy children and it wont cost you a second mortgage, but it is great. the above photo has a picture of it in the background. This is not something you fry chicken in (although that would be rad), so don't choke at the 12 bucks you'll spend. It is for finishing applications and times when you are going to get that flavor imparted big time. A second option is butter, but not as good as olive oil. Rendered pancetta fat, a small piece of lardo, or some chicken schmaltz are all good ideas. Shoot, now I am getting hungry.

- Sprinkle with a pinch of kosher or sea salt.

- wrap foil around clove sealing it up.

- Place in some kind of oven proof container. Muffin tins work great for this, but just about anything works.

- Bake these aluminum foil balls of goodness at 400 till the heads feel soft. This could take anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour depending on your garlic.

You now have one of the great wonders of food. Not crazy. Not flashy. But something that ANY chef in the world would be stoked to eat.

Just squeeze the heads and the cloves will come right out.

They will keep for a week in your fridge, but honestly it will be gone quicker than that.

What to do with it?

Here are a few options:

- use like butter on bread.
- stuff olives with them.
- wrap them in bacon and fry. (heaven, I'm in heaven)
- make a pan sauce featuring them for some pasta.
- use as pizza base instead of tomato.

The options are endless. The joy is not.

Yogurt Cheese

2009-07-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

Making cheese can be incredibly complicated. Especially when it comes to all the different bacterias and rennet and aging... But it can also be amazingly simple. Like this recipe for Yogurt cheese. This one has 3 ingredients but the possibilities are endless. You could add smoked salmon, any number of herbs, garlic. You can get fancy like my husband and add sake infused sweet onions. Or you can go the sweet route instead of savory and add strawberries or blueberries and spread it over a bagel for breakfast. Much yummier and healthier then cream cheese!
For this cheese I am using caramelized onions and fresh basil.

All you do is chop up the basil as fine as you like it. Then throw about 1 1/2 cups of yogurt, the basil, and however many onions you want ( I know.. very technical) into a mixing bowl. Stir it all up until everything is evenly distributed. Then you need to get a fine mesh strainer and line it with cloth. I have a piece of an old t-shirt that I bleached and now use all the time instead of cheesecloth. Set the strainer over a bowl, or sauce pan, or whatever you have that is deep enough let the cheese drain. Then scoop all that yogurt goodness into the cloth lined strainer, cover with plastic wrap pressing it down on top of the yogurt and set it in the refrigerator overnight.

All the whey and extra water drains out of the yogurt and it becomes very thick and creamy. The nest day you can just dump it over onto a plate or into Tupperware or a pretty dish and ta-da. Yogurt cheese. Perfect for crackers or veggies. This stuff never lasts long in our house.

What's For Midnight Snack

2009-06-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

I love food.

I love eating late at night as well.

I know this is not conducive to looking like the Hulk, but every once in a while a guy has got to let himself enjoy some of the more simple pleasures of life.

Here we have a beautiful Romano, a peppered salami, Triscuits, and a chocolate espresso stout I made over a year ago.

As C.S. Lewis would (I'm sure) agree, these are very real shadows of how great heaven itself is.

Why do I post this? For this reason...take a little time to enjoy the culinary greatness of the world around you sometimes.

Forget about the amount of fat, carbs, protein, or red #5 a product it has in it and just enjoy it.

Try new food or old favorites. Stretch yourself and make something with the things you have in your house, includes less than five ingredients and takes less than 15 minutes to get together.

Enjoy food.

Savor all of life.

Is there some food you eat late at night every once in a while? I'd love to know what it is.

Easy Apple Tart

2009-06-20T08:33:00.000-07:00

This is a super easy recipe that looks very pretty when served. You can change it up however you like, add caramel sauce, nutmeg, whatever you like to eat with apples. In these pictures I made the apple tart even more simple than the recipe. I didn't add cinnamon or vanilla-honey sauce and I served it with vanilla ice cream.

1 sheet of puff pastry
4 apples
lemon juice
brown sugar
cinnamon
¼ c honey
1 Tb vanilla
powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 400. Place the puff pastry on the counter to let it thaw. Peel, core and thinly slice the apples. As you are slicing them, place them in a bowl and every once in a while sprinkle lightly with lemon juice, cinnamon and brown sugar.
(Not too much, you want to be able to taste the sweetness of the apples, not just sugar)

Cut puff pastry into thirds and put on a baking sheet that is lined with parchment paper. Arrange apple slices over lapping down the center of each puff pastry.
Bake for 20 - 25 minutes until golden brown.
Mix honey and vanilla together until smooth.
Remove tart from oven and place on serving platter. Drizzle with vanilla honey mixture then dust with powdered sugar.

Two New Brews

2009-06-18T22:19:00.000-07:00

Today a few more beers make their way towards my cellar (read: closet).

On the left is a Saison I've named "I'm Mostly Belgian Myself." This prestigious title is due to the fact that I took a Belgian Saison recipe and messed with it a bit. Made my own candi sugar and used a yeast strain that is a bit different. It is all Belgian, just not all the "right" stuff.

On the right is my version of Black Butte Porter. I have conveniently titled it Mack Suit Porter because...well...I wanted to rhyme at the time. Shoot, there was another rhyme right there. They say you should never mess with a good thing. I usually ignore "they". Home brewing is supposed to be part art and part mad science. This one is a bit different than last time in that I used a different porter yeast, it has a bit more alcohol than last time, and I'll be aging it with twice the amount of Jack Daniels and oak. Just goes to show that I am a real American...bigger is better.

Why My Wife Is Better Than Your Wife

2009-06-16T23:20:00.000-07:00

The above is my fathers day present (my wife has a self confessed problem with waiting to give people gifts). It is a 12" stainless steel fry pan from All Clad (read: as awesome as it gets).

I felt the insatiable urge to use said pan immediately upon opening it. The only proper thing to do in the Meeks household to christen a pan of this nature? Caramelize onions.

I decided I would bring you all along for the ride and let you in on the experience as well.

To begin with, you will need butter. Don't be afraid. It is real food and it is (moderately) good for you. While it is hard to gauge exactly how much you will need a rough estimate is a tablespoon for every onion.

If the very mention of this makes your left arm go numb thinking about the heart attack that is on its way remember...this is a powerful flavoring ingredient...not a main course.

Caramelizing onions takes a long time. Not a lot of work, but you are going to have to dedicate some time to love these natures of wonder if you want the real deal. Therefore make it worth your effort and do a bunch at one time. This batch was used today on a bunch of pizzas, but I often will make more than I need and let them sit in the fridge, tempting me to get creative. Being good (or at least decent) in the kitchen often depends on whether or not you have good stuff laying around to use. Have these and you wont be sorry.

Once the butter is melted over medium heat and it has stopped bubbling add the onions. In this case I added five. Immediately toss them to coat them in the wonder that is rendered fat from milk. Then toss in a few hearty pinches of kosher salt. This will help draw out water.

Dont worry about the pan to much. Stir whenever you feel like it, but not constantly.

Ten minutes in or so you should have something like this. Onions are just turning translucent. If they are sticking to the bottom the heat is to high or you got scared and skimped on the butter. Slap yourself in either case and correct the problem. the heat now goes to low and you continue to chill with the Food Network wanna be chef routine of whipping the pan frantically like you are making meringue.

Get a beer and go outside.

This is going to take a while.

Now we are getting somewhere. Nice and brown. You could stop right here, but you shouldn't.

Sneak a taste.

Don't drop the fork.

I told you the butter would be worth it.

Here is the final product. The onions are so rendered out that they are almost forming a paste. This stuff could be spread on bread and you would faint.

What is it good for?

- French onion soup (do the diligence and get them this dark, use good stock and you will be in heaven.)
- Pan sauce pasta (think a little white wine, some stock, add the cooked noodles, hit with fresh herbs, Parmiggano, mouth.)
- Burger or pizza topping (used in small quantities it can turn around even your horrible decision to buy the 3 for 5 dollar Tostinos...almost.)

So how was the pan? Something to behold. It was better than I expected and I am stoked to have it.

I have the best wife in the world.

I am sure yours is great...mine is just better.

Of Singularities

2009-06-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

There are certian things that only happen once. It might be once a day (lunch) or once an hour (the vast majority of you checking your Facebook). Today we partook of something that only happens once a year.

That we got to put said thing in our mouths was even better. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Growing garlic is a no brainer. It is easy, mostly maintenance free, and is...well...garlic. What you might not know about garlic is that it grows a scape that houses a bulbils.

No, I am not kidding.

You are welcome for giving you an awesome conversation starter at your next akward Facebook meetup.

These scapes must be cut off if you want healthy sized bulbs of garlic. What this leaves you with are some of the gardens most tasty remnants.

The hardest thing to do is to decide what to do with them. This is in no way due to a lack of options, but the very opposite. Only one real rule is in play with something this special...don't screw it up. This includes burning it, boiling it, or using it in conjunction in ANY way with cream of mushroom soup. This also takes into account that you should not put it in something that will kill all flavor of such a special gift.

My mind automatically went to stir fry. Chicken, ginger, a bit of soy, sake, sesame oil, toasted sichuan pepper corn, a touch of salt, thai basil to finish and a bunch of scapes was all I needed.

Tada!

Here is the finished product:

Now, this is the point at which I am supposed to tell you that the dish was a revelation, the best ever, "pure awesome", or something. Not going to happen.

What did the scapes taste like? Garlicky green beans.

What I can say about the meal it is that it was good. I enjoyed it over a few beers with my good friend Daniel Crosby (we tried 4 types...don't you wish you were here?) and my lovely wife. We ate, drank, and talked about anything that came to mind. All the while we enjoyed a once-off dish that included an ingredient that we'll most likely not eat again this year...at least from our garden. This all made the dish memorable and special.

Grow something and eat it.

For My Father...The Vegetarian

2009-06-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

I will not comment on my dad's recent move towards not eating anything with a pulse. My infatuation with cured meats should state my position clearly.

I figured that in honor of my dad's desire to spare Bambi, Babe, and Thumper I would post a recipe for a great salad using quinoa...a wonder food if there ever was one. This very well may be my favorite cold salad of all time. We got the recipe from epicurious and it is wonderful.

Black Bean and Tomato Quinoa Salad

2 tsp grated lime zest
2 Tb fresh lime juice
2 Tb melted unsalted butter, cooled
1 Tb olive oil
1 tsp sugar
1 cup quinoa
1 c black beans, rinsed and drained
2 medium tomatoes, diced
4 scallions, chopped
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro

- Whisk together lime zest and juice, butter, oil, sugar, ½ tsp salt, and ¼ tsp pepper in a large bowl.

- Wash the quinoa in 3 changes of cold water in a bowl, draining in a sieve each time.

- Cook the quinoa in a medium pot of boiling salted water (1 Tb salt for 2 quarts water), uncovered, until almost tender, about 10 minutes. Drain in sieve, and then set sieve in same pot with 1 inch of simmering water (water should not touch bottom of sieve). Cover quinoa with a folded kitchen towel, then cover sieve with a lid (don't worry if lid doesn't fit tightly) and steam over medium heat until tender, fluffy, and dry, about 10 minutes. Remove pot from heat and remove lid. Let stand, still covered with towel, 5 minutes.

- Add quinoa to dressing and toss until dressing is absorbed, then stir in remaining ingredients and salt and pepper to taste.

In our part of the world tomatoes are still a not-too-distant reality. Store bought are beyond a joke as they taste like soggy cardboard on a good day so we don't use them. In a few months we'll be inundated with them from the 6 tomato plants in the garden, but for now, the salad just has to make do without them.

Roast Chicken Heaven

2009-06-03T22:32:00.001-07:00

There is something amazing about roast chicken. Skeptical? Thomas Keller, one of the most well respected chefs in the world, gives his recipe for his preferred way of cooking the delectable bird at the very beginning of his amazing book 'Bouchon'. This book includes stuff such as 'Foie Poele Aux Oignons Et Figues Aux Epices' (Liver and Onions with Figs) and other wild and pretty incredible dishes, but the roast chicken comes first.

I am a big fan of simplicity in the kitchen. Eating something that can only be described as "spicy" or "sour" is bad mojo. If you can't tell what is in the dish it probably has to much. I could tease this theme out to all of life, but this is a food blog and not my soapbox for philosophy...you'll have to come over and eat for that.

This chicken will actually be used principally for a taco filling I am making tomorrow, but for now it is late and I have salted and peppered chicken skins along with a great and strong hefeweisen to keep me company.

Here is the process quick and dirty:

- Heat oven to 450.

- Clean chicken with cold water inside and out.

- Dry chicken inside and out

- Liberally salt and pepper chicken inside and out.

- Truss chicken. (Check youtube if you don't know how)

- Place in roasting pan or cast iron skillet.

- Place in oven for 40-50 minutes.

- When inside reads 155 on meat thermometer remove.

- Let rest for 15 minutes.

- Chow down.

Roasting at its easiest...and probably its best.

Brownie-Bottom Lemon Cheesecake

2009-05-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

Cheesecake is one of those things that I was always afraid to try to make. Mainly because most of the homemade cheesecakes (made by other people) I had tried in my earlier years were disgusting. But last December I ran across a chocolate cheesecake recipe that looked incredibly easy and it turned out great. Then this past January I made a Baileys Cheesecake for my brother-in-law and that turned out great too! With this latest cheesecake success under my belt (literally) I'm starting to think that cheesecake isn't so hard after all!

This one takes a little bit longer just because of the brownie part but it is WELL worth the effort!
Here's the link to the original recipe from Bon Appetit magazine.

Crust
6 Tb flour
1 ½ tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
¼ cup unsalted butter
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1 large egg
½ tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray inside of 9-inch-diameter spring form pan with 2 3/4-inch- to 3-inch-high sides with nonstick spray. Whisk flour, cocoa, and salt in small bowl; set aside. Combine chocolate and butter in medium metal bowl; place bowl over saucepan of simmering water and stir until melted and smooth. Remove bowl from over water. Add both sugars to chocolate mixture and whisk until blended. Let cool until mixture is barely lukewarm, about 10 minutes. Whisk egg and vanilla into chocolate mixture. Fold flour mixture into chocolate mixture. Spread brownie batter evenly over bottom of prepared pan.
Bake brownie crust until top looks slightly cracked and tester inserted into center comes out with some moist crumbs attached, about 20 minutes. Transfer pan to rack; cool crust to room temperature, about 30 minutes.

Filling
40 ounces cream cheese, room temp
1 ¾ cups sugar
2 Tb all purpose flour
1 Tb finely grated lemon peel
4 tsp fresh lemon juice
5 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
½ cup sour cream
¼ cup heavy whipping cream

Place pan with cooled crust on rimmed baking sheet. Using electric mixer, beat cream cheese in large bowl until smooth. Add sugar, flour, lemon peel, and lemon juice; beat until smooth. Add eggs and yolks, one at a time, beating just until incorporated after each addition. Beat in ½ cup sour cream and whipping cream. Pour filling over brownie crust in pan; smooth top.

Bake cake until puffed, light golden, and set around edges (center will still move slightly when pan is gently shaken), about 1 hour 20 minutes. Remove cake from oven. Maintain oven temperature.

Topping
Spoon 1 cup sour cream in dollops over top of cake, then spread evenly over top. Return cake to oven and bake 5 minutes. Run small sharp knife around sides of cake to loosen. Place pan with cake directly in refrigerator and chill uncovered overnight (cake will sink). Garnish top edge of cake with chocolate curls.

What To Do WIth Spring Radishes

2009-05-29T15:47:00.001-07:00

Clean.

Butter.

Salt.

Mouth.

Fergus Henderson...you are the man.

Sausage-go-round

2009-05-29T13:21:00.000-07:00

The other day saw another session of turning mediocre pork into something transcendent. How rare for this household.

Here is a short series of photos depicting a great use of an afternoon:

Besides being an interesting photo, this shows the chorizo getting ready to be ground into a dirty bowl that previously held sweet Italian sausage. My point is that you don't always have to worry about keeping all these things separate and super clean. Make some room in the fridge to store everything when it is not in immediate use and you will be good. We get way to crazy about keeping things in order in the kitchen. Get over it. Seriously.

Before wrapping everything up it is essential to try the product. This is the garlic and wine sausage. Mysteriously my children were more than willing to volunteer for tasting duty. In the background is the book you should all steal from your local library...Charcuterie.

This is the portioning part. You've got to work quick to keep the fats from emulsifying (cool word, huh?). I made 4 oz. portions this time as I have run into many situations when I don't want a half pound (my usual division). A scale is essential here...and for many other things in the kitchen. Just go buy one and you will be happy.

All in all I made 5 1/2 lbs of sausage. 2 of both the chorizo and sweet itialian and one and a half of the garlic and wine sausage. This should last us for a while. We don't eat sausage as a snack food (generally), but rather use it like a stellar demi-glace, i.e. it serves as an essential ingredient to make a dish pop.

Here is the trusty grinder at the end of another day of doing its duty to perfection. All in all it took about three hours to make all this, but I was in no kind of rush.

Come over and get some before it is gone.

Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chips cookies

2009-05-27T09:00:00.000-07:00

These rock, I got the original recipe on the back of the craisin package and then (of course) tweaked it a little. It's a nice change from chocolate chip or oatmeal raisin.

2/3 c butter, softened
2/3 c packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ c oats
2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¾ c craisins
1 cup white chocolate pieces

Preheat oven to 375. Beat butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mixing well. In medium bowl combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt. Add to butter mixture in several additions mixing well after each addition. Stir in craisins and white chocolate. Drop by rounded teaspoon onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 10 – 12 minutes.

First Real Salad

2009-05-24T22:35:00.000-07:00

I'll freely admit to be one of those young white American middle class males taken with Thoreau's idealism when it comes to man and nature. Something about taking nothing but an ax and your will into the forest to make a life for yourself just sounds cool and adventurous.

Growing your own food and eating it minutes after being picked is cool too. It's not much for adventure, but that is what I have kids for.

Here is the progression of my first real salad from our garden. Five kinds of greens, French radish, Fuji apple, touch of salt, dab of pepper, olive oil and some balsamic was all that adorned the plate. It was perfect. Ok, not perfect. I had no Parmigiano-Reggiano...that would have been perfect.

I'll settle for stellar.

The beer is the new delectable clone I made of the classic Belgian golden strong ale Duvel. If your name has anything to do with J. Nizzy (you know who you are) you will be getting a taste soon.

Almond Cake

2009-05-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

This cake is a winner! Every time I make people ask for the recipe. I can't remember where I got the original recipe but I know I tweaked it here and there. It's VERY important that all your ingredients are at room temperature before you start. If they aren't, the butter and almond paste will seize up and the texture will be off. This cake is surprisingly full of flavor and moist.

2 sticks butter, softened, room temperature
1 cup sour cream, room temperature
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups sifted flour (measured after sifting)
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups sugar
7 oz almond paste, cut in small pieces
4 egg yolks, room temperature
1 tsp almond extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the sides and bottoms of one 9-inch spring form pan; line sides and bottoms with parchment paper then butter the paper.

Mix together the sour cream and baking soda in a small bowl. Sift the flour and salt into another bowl.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Then add the almond paste, a little at a time, at medium speed, it should take about 3 - 4 minutes to add the paste. You want to do this slowly so that it all gets incorporated and the batter doesn't end up having little balls of almond paste in it. Then leave the mixer on and let it all beat together for 8 minutes.

Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, and mix until incorporated. It will look curdled; don't worry.

Blend in the almond extract and sour cream mixture. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add the flour mixture, just until blended.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake about 1 hour. It is done when you press the top and it returns to its shape, and also shrinks from the sides of the pan. Remove from the oven and place on a baking rack to cool in the pan. The middle will fall down, don't worry that is normal.

When you are ready to serve the cake, sift confectioners' sugar on top. You can also decorate it a bit with slices of toasted almonds.

The Passing of the Bottle Opener

2009-05-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

Although not nearly as prestigious as the passing of the Olympic torch, today's event was a big one. I have had my old and faithful aluminum bottle opener since Oktoberfest in Munich. The year was 1997. It has served me well. Opening more bottles of beer (and the most amazing Coke in the world...Nicaragua, I love you) than I can even remember. In recent years however it has lost quite a bit of effectiveness. Its lip faltering under the stress I put on it. Now it will go to the same place all old bottle openers go...a gigantic pool filled with used bottle caps that need not be freed any longer. Together the caps and worn out openers live in harmony forever, both having served their functions admirably.

Bet you didn't know that.

Learn something every day.

My new opener is a thing of beauty. Yes, I have already put it through its paces and warmed it up. Like a young mustang it has taken some coaxing to open bottles just right, but I think he trusts me now. Someone may ask, "why would you ever use an opener from another beer company? Especially one you do not particularly care for?" Two answers come to mind:

1. If it works, use it. That's about as sustainable as it gets. Bite me Prius.

2. I got it for free. My amazing wife has the 'free-stuff-you-get-on-the-internet-for-no-apparent-reason' game down to a science...but that is for another post.

Here is to many more years of faithful service from my new opener. I miss the old one already, but I'll get over it...

Maybe some of you should come over and help me break in the new one some more.

Just a thought.

You are always invited.

Knock before entering.

Sal y La Carne

2009-05-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

There are some classic duos in the world. Batman and Robin, Abbot and Costello, Peas and Carrots, Lewis and Clark, Maverick and Goose (RIP), Bert and Ernie, The modern age and our collective slide toward idiocy, Wayne and Garth, TV preachers and big hair, Simon and Garfunkel, Romeo and Juliet, Luther and Erasmus, Barbie and Ken, and last but not least, Salt and My Palate.

I love salt.

So should you.

Salt is truly amazing. Want to know why? Look it up. For the purposes of this post lets just say that it is the single most important ingredient in cooking...no joke. Some would argue and say fantastic stock, but they are just wrong.

The American Heart Association says that your daily intake of salt should not exceed one and a half teaspoons...this is ludicrous. Unless you have high blood pressure already forget about it and use salt liberally. It will do amazing things to your cooking. Ever wonder what the difference is between your not so great cooking and chefs who carry around Michelin stars around in their pockets like chump change? Well, a lot honestly, but one of the biggest things is that they really know how to use salt. I'm not even kidding. Next time you are at El Bulli or The Fat Duck ask them. Tell them I sent you too. They wont be impressed, but I will be.

In the spirit of salt I give you what we did with a half decent beef roast and a load of salt.

Preheat the oven to 450.

Above we have a three pound roast (in the saran wrap). It is nothing special. No great marbling of fat or anything to brag about. It's the kind that usually ends up like a chunk of shoe leather passed off as miserable "pot roast" at your co-workers house that you inevitably have to drench in some horrible "gravy" (read: powdered nastiness out of a bag reconstituted with some good ol' H20) just to get down. I mention this in order to evade the thousand of accusations from all two of the readers of this blog that I just got lucky because of a good piece of meat.

In the bowl we have:

- Two cups of kosher salt
- 1/4 cup freshly ground chili powder (New Mexico chilies)
- 6 cloves of diced garlic
- 1/4 cup freshly ground black pepper
- 1 1/2 Tablespoons freshly chopped thyme

To this add just enough Canola oil to bring it all together into a dryish paste. It should take about 3/4 cup, but go slow. Too much is a killer.

After trimming up the roast take a sheet pan or roasting pan and line it with tin foil. Lay down a bed of the salt mixture slightly bigger than the roast you have. Then place the roast down and brush with oil. When the roast is covered start packing on the salt. This is the best part. It's like making a sand castle out of pure awesome that makes you so hungry you have to keep yourself from drooling.

Cook in the oven till the little ball of greatness hits 135 in the center. Yes, this is rare. Yes, you should eat it this way. No, if you like your meat well done you would not be my friend.

Some of the salt crust might fall off during the process. This is ok, just let it ride. When done tent it with foil and let sit for at least 20 minutes. Leave the house if you have to. Those juices will get sucked back into the meat and leave you with beef twice as savory.

Above we have a twist on the Argentine classic chimichurri. I had a ton of cilantro sitting around so decided to switch it out for the traditional parsley. Turned out awesome.

Cimichurri Inventado

1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/3 cup minced fresh cilantro
1 clove garlic
2 minced shallots
1 teaspoon thyme
Salt and pepper to taste

Just blend it and let it sit for a few hours. You'll want to put it on everything, including your face (not recommended), so make some extra.

Here is the finished product. No, the picture is not world class. You are lucky to get anything at all...this was too good to mess around with.

Be sure to save some of the salt mixture, now baked and unique in flavor and texture, for crumbling on the slices of meat after plating. Set out a bowl as well. Be warned however. You will inevitably look like a crazy person in front of whomever sits around your table for the meal due to the fact that you will be unconscious licking fingers and sticking them unapologetically into the bowl to get "just one more taste."

This was served up with a quick cold salad of cucumber and tomato in balsamic with fresh red and yellow pepper jullianed on top.

Now go find yourself a chunk of beef, a box of salt, some kind of fire, and get to it.

S'more?

2009-05-16T21:55:00.000-07:00

There is a special bond between dads and their sons...especially when the son is eating his first s'more.

Chicken Gyros

2009-05-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

So I promised my friend Vanessa I would post this recipe. I usually marinate the chicken overnight and make the Tzatziki sauce the day before as well. Then the day of all I have to do is cook the chicken. We usually make our own pita bread also but I'll leave that out for now.

Marinade:
¼ C lemon juice
3 TB olive oil
3 large garlic cloves, peeled and roughly diced
1 TB fresh oregano, minced
1 tsp mustard
1 pinch salt (to taste)
1 lb chicken breast or chicken breast tenders, cut into 1-inch pieces

Whisk together lemon juice through salt and combine with chicken in a zip lock bag. Let it sit all day or overnight. Turn the bag over every once in a while to make sure they all get evenly covered.

Tzatziki sauce:
1 cup plain nonfat yogurt
1 cucumber peeled and seeded
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 TB fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper

Combine all the ingredients except the yogurt in a blender for a few minutes. GENTLY fold the cucumber mixture into the yogurt and let it sit in the fridge overnight. If you want it to be really thick then let it drain in a strainer lined with cheesecloth over a bowl in the fridge overnight.

2 TB olive oil
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
1 TB lemon juice
4 pita bread rounds, heated
lettuce, tomato, olives, red onions to top

Heat 1 Tb oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the marinated chicken with a tiny bit of the marinade; sauté until brown and cooked through, about 5 minutes. Transfer to plate. Add 1 Tb oil to skillet. Add onions; sauté until beginning to brown, about 10 minutes. Return chicken and any juices to skillet. Add 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Stir until heated through, about 2 minutes.

Arrange pita rounds on plates. Top pita rounds with chicken mixture. Spoon some yogurt sauce over chicken. Then add lettuce, onions, olives or whatever you like on your gyro.

Goodness

2009-05-09T12:30:00.000-07:00

Recently our good friend Ara came to visit from California. While he was here pretty much all we did was eat, drink, and make beer. He and Jeremy made a Duvel clone and a Ported Russian Imperial Stout. What is Ported Russian Imperial Stout? Well, back in January, Jeremy and I made port. When we moved the port over to the secondary stage of fermentation Jeremy saved all the yeast and sludge that was at the bottom of the primary fermentator. Then when he made the Russian Imperial Stout he poured all that port goodness into the secondary and fermented it a second time. Bottom line is - I tried this stuff when it was warm and un-carbonated and you can tell it will be awesome!
SO - here is our current "beer cellar" It's a little bit ridiculous but it's always fun to have a little beer tasting with dinner when we have friends over.
On the far left we have the remnants of beers past, some smoked scotch ale, cranberry celis, meet joe buck, oaked mack suit porter, golden gem and 3 generations of chocolate espresso stout. There are just a few of each and it is sad to say good bye to them :(
The next group is called gris meets gold, its an improvement on the 4 fold gold beer because Jeremy added some wood chips that were soaked in pinot grigio to add depth of flavor.
The next line of beers is call Wee Awesome. Its a wee stout.. and its awesome.
The next line is the Duvel clone that Jeremy and Ara made. We bottled it Sunday night so we have to wait a bit to try that one.
And last we have the Miss P.R.I.S.
That one bottle all the way to the right is the Russian Imperial Stout without any of the port wine in it.
Ara, you've gotta come back to help drink all this!

Prizes in Unusual Places

2009-05-04T00:17:00.000-07:00

They say that one mans compost pile is sometimes the same mans accidental repository of tuber goodness. I can't remember how the original saying goes, but I think this gets close.

The above photo is our compost pile as of today. A few weeks ago we got rid of some pretty old baby red potatoes that had lots of eyes. Honestly forgetting about them we went to Nicaragua and left the garden alone for over a week. Imagine the surprise of returning to find that our kitchen scrap pile and straw mixture was now the growing grounds for 8 potato plants.

Besides being awesome, if this does not convince you that sometimes gardening could be done even by blind and crippled mice I don't know what will.

Grow something.

Wash it. (very important)

Eat it.

Enjoy it.

First Eats

2009-05-03T13:22:00.000-07:00

The first thing from the garden that actually goes in your mouth is always amazing. As a side note, eating the new stuff gives one a better idea of the biblical talk of first fruits. Another reason to garden.

Radishes are amazing. Not only are they sweet and spicy at the same time, but they also grow faster than a genetically modified meat chicken (30 days compared to 42 days...yes...full sized chicken in 6 weeks...awesome and gross at the same time).

Here are our french radishes. Still small, but incredibly delicious. Soon we'll be in the midst of a flood of fresh goodness. I can't wait.