Archive for the ‘Cooking’ Category

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Expanding My Horizons

May 25, 2010

I’ve been meaning to attempt a novel non-French/American/Mexican dish for a long time, but always defaulted for whatever reason.  Finally, Jamie Oliver helped me break through this invisible barrier.  Who wouldn’t want to cook an asian noodle dish when the Brit in his entertaining TV show says things like, “and smell all of this fresh ginger!”

On Sunday, I was set to entertain my family.  Here’s what I knew:  First, I wanted to grill.  Second, I didn’t want to cook my standard grill fare (sausage, chicken, burgers, etc).  Third, I wanted something clever to accompany my grill eats.  After mulling over the second and third issues for a few minutes, for whatever reason, salmon burgers popped into my mind.  And then Jamie Oliver and his fresh ginger popped into mind.  “Salmon burgers and asian noodles it would be,” I declared!

For the salmon burgers, I went with Whole Foods’ pre-mades.  I would have considered making them from scratch, but with 400 veggies to julienne for the noodle dish, I decided I’d save some time by getting the pre-mades.  And call me lazy, but man I really enjoy dem puppies.

I usually make some sort of aioli for salmon burgers, and in this case, I wanted an asian style aioli.  I’m a wasabi fan, so why not a wasabi aioli?  Get a little wasabi powder, some mayo (homemade if you’re a Julie Child wannabe), and a touch of water.  Bam.  Bob’s your uncle.

Now for noodles, I really didn’t know who’d be the best source of information since I can’t remember Alton Brown cooking a noodle dish and Julie Child operated on the other side of the world; thus, I went to foodnetwork.com.  Guy Fieri’s dish struck a chord, so I decided to give it a shot.  As guy would say, “it was money.”  Damn those noodles were good.  Thank goodness I made extra, because I can’t wait to eat the leftovers.

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F*%$ Trophy Cupcakes – Make Alton Brown’s

May 2, 2010

Trophy Cupcakes are bomb.  Don’t get me wrong.  But there’s something wrong about paying 3 dollars for a cupcake.  The funny thing is, I don’t think I’ve ever actually paid for a Trophy cupcake.  And I don’t think I will.  Especially now that I found Alton Brown’s Carrot Cake recipe.

The recipe isn’t a cupcake recipe, but the end result is so similar in flavor to Trophy’s carrot cake cupcakes, who cares?  I followed the recipe pretty closely, but here were my deviations, which didn’t seem to matter:

- Replace all purpose flour with whole wheat flour.  The only difference is that whole wheat flour doesn’t hold together like all purpose.  I don’t really care though.

- Cut the sugar in half and then taste.  Go with what ends up tasting right, both in the cake and in the frosting.  I probably ended up using about 2/3rds of what was called for.  I would have hated the recipe had a used all of the sugar.

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Alton Brown’s Chicken Dumpling Soup

March 28, 2010

This recipe is hot of the press, yo!  Alton Brown’s Chicken Dumpling Soup episode aired sometime last week on television, so the recipe hasn’t made its way to the web yet.  But that’s all about to change courtesy of Charlie Freedom.

The recipe goes like this:

- Pop the biggest whole chicken you can find, minus giblets, into your pressure cooker.  (If you don’t have a pressure cooker, multiple the time below by 6.)  I used a 4.5 pound fryer.

- Fill the pressure cooker with water to the max fill line (around 2/3).

- Get a boil and build the pressure.  Then let the thing cook on low heat for 45 minutes.

- Pull the bird out and place it in a bowl.  Let it cool.

- If you want a nice smooth broth, strain it through a colander or cheesecloth into another pot.

- At this point, if you want vegetables, chop ‘em up and put them into the broth.  Bring it to a simmer and leave it there until the veggies are cooked through.

- When the chicken is cool enough to handle, pull off all of the edible meat and place it into another bowl.

- Now it’s time to make the dumplings.  Take a 1/2 cup of the broth, 3 tablespoons of butter, and a 1/2 cup of all purpose flour, and place them in a small saucepan (or even a saucier if you’re cool).  Hit them with high heat.

- Mix with a wooden spoon until they come together to form a ball, and when they do, kill the heat.

- Add an egg to the ball of dough and hit them with a hand mixer (or stand mixer with the wire whip attached).  Then add a second egg.  Beat it until it turns into a super sticky mashed potato like substance.

- Transfer the sticky stuff to a large zip top bag.  Cram it all into the corner of the bag.

- When the veggies are cooked through in the broth, bring it back to a rolling boil.  And now comes the fun part.

- Cut a 1/2 hole in the corner of the zip top bag.  Then squirt out the dough and cut into 1 inch long chunks.  Let them fall into the boiling broth.

- When you’ve gotten all the dumplings created, cover the soup, and cook at a simmer for 10 minutes.

- Serve the soup and finish with fresh cracked black.  Bob’s your uncle.

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Julia’s Boeuf

March 10, 2010

Wow, that title is disturbing.  But I had to get your attention!

On Sunday night, I made Boeuf Bourguignon, one of the defining recipe’s in Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking“.  There’s not a lot I can say about the recipe that hasn’t been said before.  Except this: while it was a fantastic stew, it did let me down.  Why?  Because everything I’d heard about the recipe suggested it would be the greatest meal I’d ever cook.  And while yes, it was money, it definitely wasn’t mind blowing.  It was merely great.  Kind of like watching a good movie based on a mind blowing book.

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A Quality Waffle Recipe

February 28, 2010

http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/hearty-whole-wheat-waffles-recipe

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Sausage Always Overwhelms

February 22, 2010

Don’t get me wrong, I love sausage.  But I’ve also recently realized that it dominates any meal.  That’s not a bad thing; it’s just something I’ve come to realize.

This fact  dawned on me when I cooked a sausage, white bean, and kale soup based on a recipe in the Whole Foods newsletter.  It’s a tasty soup, it just tastes like “sausage” soup.  I guess the beans and kale make it healthy.  If you’re interested in making it, here’s how it goes down:

Brown one pound of any type of sausage in a heavy bottomed pot.  Add a diced yellow onion and cook until it is translucent.  Then add a quart of chicken broth and bring to a boil.  Add chopped up kale (thick stems removed), and cook until the kale is soft.  Blend 3 cups of white beans with 3/4 of a cup of chicken broth in a blender.  Add the mixture to the soup along with another 3 cups of white beans.  Finally, add a little more broth if the soup needs it.  (Mine had too much broth which definitely brought the soup down.)  Add salt and pepper to taste.

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Simply Clams

February 22, 2010

I forgot how good clams are.  This afternoon Anne suggested we buy some at the Ballard Farmer’s market and cook them with a little wine, garlic, and butter.  And that’s just what we did.

Heat the garlic in a little oil, then add white wine and some water.  Throw the clams in and enjoy the symphony as they pop open.  When they’re done, pull ‘em out, and toss a few tablespoons of butter into the left over liquid.  When the butter has melted, ladle the delicious sauce over the clams and serve with a hunk of bread.

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Taco Salad

February 15, 2010

My wife Anne had a craving for taco salad tonight, so she pulled up two money recipes: the first, a simple ground beef mixture:

  • 1 pound of lean ground beef (I know, a real shocker – I normally hate ground beef)
  • 2 teaspoons unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1/8 teaspoon granulated garlic
  • 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons chili powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt

The second, another simple one, a cilantro-lime dressing:

  • 1/2 cup cilantro
  • 1/4 cup oil
  • 1 tablespoon lime juice
  • pinch of garlic powder
  • pinch of Mexican oregano
  • salt to taste

Mix the ground beef and the spices in a bowl and then throw them into a hot pan that is capable of searing the meat.  For me, that meant putting them in my beloved cast iron frying pan.

While the meat is doing its thing, put all the ingredients for the dressing in a blender and liquefy.

Finally, in whatever order you choose, place the following:

- lettuce

- ground beef

- diced red onion

- diced tomato

- avocado

- tortilla chips

- cilantro dressing

Bam.  Absolutely money.

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Chicken, butter, thyme, shallots, and cream – and I guess some salt

February 7, 2010

Julia Child brings it home.  She really does.  First, it was a creamy tilapia.  Now, it was a creamy chicken dish.  What’s funny is that I attempted to cook something like this off the cuff recently.  And I failed miserably.  I can’t even remember why.  But at least I’ll have this post to remind me how to do it properly moving forward.

What’s also funny is how simple the recipe is.  Heat some oil and butter in a dutch oven until it starts to foam.  Then add bone-in chicken (thighs and breasts are equally delicious).  Cook them on both sides until they’ve reached a nice golden brown.  Then salt them, and throw in an herb you have on hand (for me it was thyme).  Put them in the oven at 350, and they’ll be done in about 30 minutes.  If you want the timing to be perfect, set the skinnier pieces aside, and add them back about 10 minutes into the 3o minute session.

After 30 minutes, pull the dutch oven out of the oven.  Ladle a tablespoon of the oil and fat into a saucepan and add a tablespoon of shallots.  Cook that for about a minute, then throw in a half a cup of dry (but not young!) white wine.  Boil that down to three tablespoons and put in a cup of cream.  Cook that for a few minutes and you’re ready to go.  Serve and enjoy.  And pair it with a pinot noir or some other light red wine.  Lovely really!

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Meatballs and Soup

February 7, 2010

I cooked two bomb dishes in the last two weeks.  The first was a helluva spaghetti and meatballs.  Now for those of you who know me well, probably only my wife unfortunately, you’ll know that I don’t really like ground beef.  I think it has a gamey taste that pretty much makes me want to barf directly back into my meal.  So in order to make money meatballs, I use other ground meat.  This time I used ground turkey (pretty much tasteless and fatless) and ground sausage meat (pretty much the tastiest and fattiest ground meat in the world).  As I have been doing recently, I went with an Earthbound Farms recipe.  Having cooked various meatball and meatloaf recipes in the past, I was pretty skeptical of this one due to the shear amount of ingredients involved.  Beyond the standard cheese, milk, and breadcrumbs, it wanted every damn spice and herb in the kitchen.  But whatever, I was feeling it.  After throwing all of the ingredients into a bowl, I proceeded to use two of my favorite gadgets – a stand mixer and an ice cream scooper.  I used the mixer to fold everything together, and the ice cream scooper to portion out evenly sized meatballs onto parchment paper, which is pretty money in its own right.  I then covered them with plastic wrap and let them sit overnight.  The next day I was in heaven.  I ate them plain, I ate them with spaghetti, I ate them in sandwiches.  They really were some of the best I’ve ever had.

Next up on the docket was chicken tortilla soup, which I’ve cooked probably a half million times before.  It is one of my favorite soups if only for its fantastic broth.  But I’m always disappointed that in the end, the only thing I end up chewing is chicken and tortillas.  This time around, the Whole Foods recipe kiosk pulled through.  It spit out a chicken tortilla soup recipe that included corn, spinach, and copious amounts of fresh chopped cilantro on top.  This time, unlike my previous attempt, I remembered to set aside some fresh chopped red onions.  So for this go round, I had my standard chicken and tortillas, but also cilantro, fresh chopped onions, spinach, and corn.  With a fuller bowl, I was much more satisfied.

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