Culinary Disasters

Mike over at Mike’s Table had to go ahead and throw down the gauntlet again and this time his poison was frozen deserts.  For those who don’t follow Mike’s Blog he is pretty much the ice cream guru in my book and is always doing something cool and exciting with his trusty KitchenAid.

So when he announced this frozen dessert post off (I like to remember the scene from Zoolander where David Bowie stands on the catwalk and announces the walk off when saying post off) I started thinking and wanted to do something with an not heavily used ingredient and something more light for warmer weather.  I debated a basil ice cream and yeah that sounded cool.  Maybe serve it in a tomato or something like a tomato gelee.  Hmmm…possibility but wait could I use my poor lavender plant that never seems to get any love but what in the hell could I do with it.  Hmmm…well if I screw this up what am I out absolutely nothing except for many 10 cents of sugar so screw it sorbet attempt here I come.

Yes it tastes surprisingly good and is very refreshing (I ate it all yesterday after getting home from a long day at the lake) plus how could you say no to that killer color. 

For this recipe you will need:

• 1/4 cup of lavender (I used about 9 stems with flowers a small handful of leaves).
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 2.5 cups of water
• Juice from 1/2 lemon

That is also my joy of sorbets is their ingredient list is short and simple.

The first step is to make simple syrup.  To do that take the 1/2 cup of sugar and mix it with 1 cup of the water over medium in a small saucepan.  Let this mixture go till the sugar has dissolved and shut off the heat.  Add in the lavender leaves and flowers, lemon juice, and cover.  Let this mixture steep for 30 minutes.

Strain out the lavender and add in the remaining 1.5 cups of water.

Place this mixture in the fridge covered overnight. 

When ready set up your ice cream mixer per the instructions.  If you are using the KitchenAid ice cream maker remove the ice cream bowl from the freezer (you did remember to freeze it for at least 24 hours right?), attach it to the stand, slowly pour in the mixture, and put the paddle on, and turn it to setting 1 (these steps are all detailed in your instruction handbook but really does anyone read them?).  It will take about 15 minutes to set up so relax and walk away.

Pour the contents out of the mixer bowl into another bowl and place it into the freezer for a couple of hours.

Tags: Dessert, All // 4 Comments »

Quinoa is one of those ingredients I seem to run into at the grocery store and always in odd weird places so I have taken that to be a sign that well I need to use it.  Luckily Kevin over at Closet Cooking has done a couple dishes with quinoa and the Aztec salad sounded like an awesome first documentable (I love to make up words) experiment.

I hate to say this but for being a vegan friendly dish this was very good and definitely a dish that I am going to have to keep making to have as a quick snack.  Plus it is bloody easy and for summer and spring that equates to more time running around outdoors. 

Since I am lazy and not in a typing mood I am going to leave you with a pointless fact of the day: quinoa is not a grain but rather a seed from the chenopodium or goosefoot plant. 

For this recipe you will need:

• 1 cup quinoa
• 2 cups of water or chicken stock (I used water)
• 4 green onions sliced thin
• 1 jalapenos deseed and finely diced
• 2 cloves of garlic finely diced
• Cup or so of cherry tomatoes cut in half
• Teaspoon of cumin
• Teaspoon of ancho chili powder
• pinch of crushed red pepper
• Good handful of cilantro and parsley finely diced
• Juice from 1/2 lemon
• Good glug of extra virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt and black pepper

In a medium saucepan bring the water to a boil, add in the quinoa, cover, and simmer till the water is gone (about 15-20 minutes).

You should let the quinoa cool but once again my impatience kicked in. Throw the rest of the ingredients together in the nearest large bowl.  Taste and adjust so it fits your tastes, cover, and let it sit in the refrigerator for a couple of hours so the flavors blend together. 

I would have gotten a cooler plating picture but the quinoa got transferred into Tupperware containers for quick on the go snacking.

Tags: Salad, All // 3 Comments »

Do not check the URL yes you are still at the same artery clogging, braise filled, pork hugging, vegetarian bashing blog.  However, now that the garden is starting to spit out some decent produce time to start incorporating it into dishes. 

The joy of a salad is it can be whatever in the heck you want to add in it.  I had some awesome lettuce that I have been patiently waiting for to come out of the garden finally ready for the picking.  I noticed some spinach was ready so into my greedy little hands it goes.  Ohhh….rocket is ready (You noticing a theme yet?).  Oh the way back into the house I grabbed some thyme and basil.  Radishes I love but mine are not ready but a quick trip to the store for those and some tomatoes and green onions.  Of course not wanting anything to go to waste I shredded up some of the radish leaves and tossed them with the salad (note: radish leaves can be bitter so a little bit goes a long way but they add a great dynamic to any salad).

As far as salad dressing so many people go for this three million ingredient list dressing and then soak the salad in the dressing to the point all it is dressing.  If you work with the best ingredients you can find why would you kill that awesome taste?  I like to simply dress it with a pinch of salt and pepper, squirt of lemon juice, and a dash of extra virgin olive oil.  Toss to combine and plate.

For chicken you will need:

• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• About 1 cup of finely grated parmesan cheese
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Black pepper

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees.  Rub some of the extra virgin olive oil over the chicken breasts and sprinkle some black pepper over them (parmesan cheese is already salty to begin with so do not salt the chicken).  Roll the chicken around in the parmesan cheese.

You want to keep the chicken off of the bottom of the pan and if you don’t have a roasting pan a simple trick is take a wire cooling rack and put it on top of a normal oven safe pan.  Put the chicken on the roasting pan.

Place the chicken in the oven and cook till done (about 20 minutes).

Serve and enjoy!

Tags: Salad, Healthy, chicken, All // 6 Comments »

This is my first attempt at Taste and Create (http://forfood.rezimo.com/) which for those who don’t know each month you are given another blog and choose something from the blog and create it.  I have to say this is an amazing and fun concept and definitely something I am looking forward to next month. 

The blog I drew is Cooking All 4 Seasons (http://cooking4allseasons.blogspot.com/).  I ventured over to her blog and was ecstatic to see Indian food.  Indian is one of those cuisines I love but have never dabbled in to much.  I was like a kid in a candy store and had such a hard time deciding what to make but this one really really stood out at me. 

The dish I chose to recreate was Chicken with roasted spices (http://cooking4allseasons.blogspot.com/2008/02/chicken-with-roasted-spices.html).  The major reason is this is this was one of my favorite styles of dishes which is simply what do I have available and what can I do with it.  The flavors in this dish also really stood out to me with this awesome spicy and sweet combination paired with the flavor from roasting some of the spices.  I have to tell you I am so happy I did it and hats off to Srivalli for coming up with this dish. 

I must confess I did attempt to make the roti (http://cooking4allseasons.blogspot.com/2007/08/biyam-rotti-rice-flour-rotis.html) to horrible horrible disastrous results.  Well not disastrous just ugly looking and lacking that cool brown poofiness that she had.  So instead I threw some basmati rice together and served the chicken with the rice.  However, I still think the failed roti is more proof of why baking is evil.   

For this recipe you will need:

• 1 lb of chicken
• 1 onion sliced finely
• 1 tomato diced
• 2 garlic cloves diced finely
• 1 thumb size piece of ginger finely diced (her recipe called for garlic ginger paste and there is even a good write-up on how to make it on her blog http://cooking4allseasons.blogspot.com/2008/02/ginger-garlic-paste-allam-vellulli.html but an already overflowing sink meant the blender or food processor was not getting dirty so I skipped making the paste )
• 1.5 tsp of chili powder
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp  garam masala
• 1/2 cup of water or chicken stock
• roasted spice blend (listed below)
• Canola oil
• Kosher salt and black pepper

For the roasted spice blend you will need:

• 1 tsp coriander seed
• 20 whole peppercorns
• 4 cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 cardamom
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tsp poppy seeds

For the roasted spices place them in a dry skillet over medium and roast till fragrant (about 5 minutes).  Once they are fragrant transfer them to your spice grinder and grind away.

In a large skillet with a lid over medium-high add in the oil and then toss in the onions with a pinch of salt and pepper.  Cook the onions till they are softened (about 5 minutes).  Add in the garlic and ginger and cook for another minute.

Add the chicken into the pan along with the chili powder, coriander, and garam masala.  Cook for a couple minutes and then add in the stock or water along with the diced tomatoes.  Make sure to scrape the bottom of the pan to free up any stuck bits.  Bring this mixture to a boil and then cover and reduce to a simmer till the chicken is cooked through (about 10 minutes).

After the chicken is cooked through remove the lid and toss the ground roasted spices into the pan and cook till almost all the liquid has evaporated out of the pan (about 5 minutes).

Serve and enjoy and of course hello cilantro garnish.

Tags: chicken, All // 4 Comments »

Another one of those I have lemongrass, ginger, garlic (duh), and a bunch of other random shit so hmmm…ohhh….marinated steak sounds awesome.  I wanted to use flank steak but since I can’t read I grabbed flat iron out of the freezer on accident.  No harm no foul since both cuts love smoking hot heat and on the up side I still have a couple flank steaks in the freezer for another day.

Confession time the reason why I had lemongrass is because I thought it would be cool to halve the lemongrass and use them as skewers for shrimp using a marinade very similar to this one.  Ummm….yeah that idea absolutely blew up in my face and the lesson learned is lemongrass skewers + shrimp = might as well just take lemongrass and gnaw on it.

For this marinade you will need:

• 1 lb of your favorite steak cut sliced into 1 inch strips 
• 1 stalk of lemongrass
• 1 shallot
• 2 cloves of garlic
• Thumb size piece of ginger
• 1 TB of rice wine vinegar
• 2 TB of soy sauce
• 2 TB mirin
• Good squeeze of honey
• 1 of your favorite hot pepper
• Pinch of crushed red pepper
• Pinch of ground coriander
• 2 TB of peanut or canola oil (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: beef, All // 4 Comments »

Tamarind is another one of those culinary adventures I have not experimented with but want to learn.  It really adds a great sour flavor to any dish and the first thing I think of when I think of sour is hot and sour soup.  So in order to balance that sourness I chose to add in a couple jalapenos.  The jalapenos added some great heat but next time I am going to use a habanero instead.

I of course went with pork chops since I have them on hand at all times.  However, chicken would be another awesome protein for this.  Fishwise I think this marinade is going to be way to strong and kill the fish.

For this marinade you will need:

• 1 cup rice wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup of tamarind paste
• 1 onion
• 5 cloves of garlic
• 2 jalapenos or 1 habanero pepper depending on how spicy you want it
• 1 TB of fresh ginger
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• 2 TB of cilantro (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: pork, All // 4 Comments »

This dish is kind of my big f you to the crappy producers out there who have to scare us with salmonella in tomatoes.  Weird to go into a grocery store and see where tomatoes use to be just an empty area with a sign informing us because we want the cheapest tomatoes we could possibly get sick.

Fennel is one of those herbs that I rarely ever use.  So sad because it has an awesome flavor similar to anise and can bring a different level to any dish.  Plus every part of fennel is edible from the bulb to the flowers and everything in between so instantly I love it.

Even though it is getting close to the start of summer I can’t stop braising dishes and don’t think I ever will.  For some reason there is something relaxing about a protein simmering away and the flavorful liquid filling the house with beautiful aromas (way cheaper than buying air freshener).

For this dish you will need:

• 1 whole chicken cut into 6-8 pieces
• 1 bulb of fennel sliced thinly
• 1 onion sliced thinly
• 3 garlic cloves sliced thinly
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 cup of dry white wine
• 1 28 ounce can of tomatoes
• 1 cup of chicken stock
• Teaspoon of crushed red pepper
• Teaspoon of coriander
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• High temperature oil (I used a extra light olive oil) (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: chicken, All // 5 Comments »

Char siu is Chinese barbecued pork and probably the best way to describe this dish.  Traditionally it is strips of pork that are marinated in a mixture of honey, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, 5 spice powder, and sugar.  I modified it a little bit (hello crushed red pepper and garlic) and instead of using slices of pork I chose to marinate a pork tenderloin and then grill it.  While the pork was cooking I took the marinade and boiled it for a couple of minutes on the stove.

This brings me to another question for debate.  I will use reserved marinades as long as I can bring them to a boil on the stove for a couple of minutes.  I have never gotten sick but people look at me like I am strange for suggesting this.  If you are one of them then reserve some of the marinade and use that over the stove.

For this recipe you will need:

• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 TB honey
• 2 TB hoisin sauce
• 1/2 TB kosher salt
• 2 teaspoon garlic powder
• pinch of crushed red pepper
• pinch of five spice powder (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: pork, All // 5 Comments »

I have been a grilling fool the last couple of weeks.  Normally I am a huge fan of the gas grill during the week but lately my trusty Weber charcoal has been getting a workout.

After doing the herb butter smoked chicken my next goal was to do a beer butt chicken.  For those who don’t know the prearation is done pretty much how it sounds.  A can of beer is stuck up a chicken’s butt and the chicken rests on the beer can and cooks that way.

There are many fancy tools you can buy at the local mega mart to help you keep your chicken upright but I have found the best way is just use what the chicken does to keep it up.  Put the beer can in about 1/2 way and use the two legs as tripods.  I have never had a chicken fall over with this method. 

I have also found the best way when grilling a beer butt chicken is to stick with an indirect method.  This means coals on one side and the chicken on another side or if you are a gasser one burner on and the chicken opposite side of that burner.  The skin will get plenty crispy with this method but if you like it a little more crispy start it with the chicken more towards the heat and then move it away after 10 or so minutes.

I also like to rotate the chicken 90 degrees every so often so all sides get equal treatment under the heat. 

For this recipe you will need:

• 1 whole chicken
• 1 can of beer about 1/2 empty.  The type of beer really does not make a difference which was disappointing to find out because I really wanted some of that Guinness flavor to get imparted into the meat.
• 3 cloves of garlic smashed
• 2 sprigs of thyme
• 2 sprigs of rosemary
• 1/4 cup of your favorite dry rub (relax I have a simple one for you)

Simple dry rub (yes this makes more than 1/4 cup but you can never have to much dry rub floating around)

• 2 tb of paprika
• 2 tb of chili powder
• 1 tb of kosher salt
• 1 tb of onion powder
• 1 tb of garlic powder
• 1 tea of oregano
• 1 tea of coriander

Pat the chicken dry inside and out and cover the chicken in the rub.  Take the beer can and cut off the top and drink 1/2 the beer or dump it out (wasteful bastard).  Put the garlic cloves, thyme, rosemary, and if you want a TB of the rub in the beer can.  Mix to combine.  Finally, shove the beer can about halfway up the chicken’s butt.

Place the chicken on the grill over indirect heat, cover, and cook till the breast reads 160 (about 20 minutes a lb).  Remember rotate him 90 degrees every so often so you have an equally browned chicken.

When done remove from the grill and discard the beer.  Oh yeah be very freaking careful because the beer can and beer is hot. 

Tags: chicken, All // 6 Comments »

Last week my boy Blaine over at Seven Son’s Meat (shameless plug) called me and informed me my order of 15 chickens were ready for pick up.  After doing a happy dance I scheduled a time to run out to the farm to pick them up. 

I wanted to get some pics when I was at the farm since it is where happy animals live but they were busy doing farm stuff and did not want to bother them.  However, imagine a beautiful 100+ acre farm full of woods where pigs, chicken, turkeys, and cattle all hang out eating and playing together.  It is like Disney Land but instead of an annoying mouse wishing you good luck as you leave you end up shrink-wrapped and wrapped in freezer paper.

I defrosted one of them when I got home and then sat there staring at him going now what.  Hmmm….it is a beautiful 70 degree day outside and I have zero things to do today but yard work.  I head out to the garage and there staring at me with this come on coach put me in the game look was my good old faithful smoker.  Started up some charcoal and went back inside to contemplate the chicken’s fate.  Kind of rubbed out but wait in my backyard I see it yes the joyous herb garden.  Hmmm….butter + herbs + smoke = goodness.  Ok butter + anything = goodness but my doctor keeps telling me I need to eat more green stuff. 

Simple easy recipe to follow:

• 1 whole chicken 
• 1/4 cup of butter at room temperature
• 1/4 cup of assorted diced herbs (I used dill, parsley, sage, thyme, rosemary)
• 2 sprigs of thyme
• 2 sprigs of rosemary
• 1/2 lemon sliced
• Kosher salt and black pepper (Click here to read the rest…)

  Tags: BBQ, chicken, All // 4 Comments »