Author: urbanmonique

I cook, write, throw flies, and play music in the Great Pacific Northwet.

Pickling Two – The Sequel…


Had a bunch of gorgeous jalapenos hanging around the fridge, (Summer vacation, you know – They were bored because “there’s nothing for them to do” – Sheesh…). So I did a variation of the quick pickle brine recipe I posted the other day for these beauties – It’s been three days tonight, so they’re coming out with some green chile & chicken enchiladas for dindin!

Pickled Jalapenos

4 Cups Jalapenos, whole, cleaned and topped.
2 Cups white vinegar.
2 teaspoons sea salt.
1 teaspoon granulated sugar.
1 Tablespoon whole peppercorns, (I used our favorite black/red/green/white blend).
1 teaspoon of Dill.
3 Cloves Garlic, peeled and quartered.

Bring vinegar and seasonings to a low boil.

Place Jalapenos in a clean, glass container.

Pour hot solution over veggies to cover. Refrigerate at least 24 hours, and 3 days are even better. Kept refrigerated, they’ll last a good couple of weeks, if you don’t devour them first, of course!

We’ll let ya know the verdict after dinner!

Scots or Scottish?


Shortbread, that is!

I don’t get sweet teeth often, but when I do, I go straight to my Scots roots. The simplicity of this wonderful stuff infuses the house with amazing smells, and you with amazing taste and texture. This is the bar cookie style that I fell in love with as a kid.

Scots Shortbread (About 16 pieces)

2 ½ cups unbleached, white flour
½ pound unsalted butter
½ cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350º F with a rack dead in the middle.

Set butter out at room temp for about an hour prior to starting.

Combine butter and sugar and cream well together with a whisk. Add flour ½ cup at a time and incorporate with butter-sugar mix thoroughly after each addition, with a spoon. Finish blending by hand, kneading lightly.

When dough is fully blended, press into a 12” x 12” pan to a thickness of about ¾”. Prick the entire surface with a fork, all the way through the dough, at about a ¼” spacing.

Bake for 10 minutes at 350º F, then reduce oven temp to 300 º F and bake another 40 minutes. Remove pan to a cooling rack and let cool for 5 minutes, then slice shortbread into bar sized portions. Allow to completely cool in the pan before removing.

Ideal by itself, it’s unbelievable with fresh berries and a little crema, (Or crème fraiche).

P.S. – That one piece missing in the last pic, that’s just quality control…

Weird Veggies of the World, Unite!


My dear old friend Darcy sent this in from Sunny California, and I’ve taken way too long to answer!

Ok – fennel (whole) and kohlrobi . . . . picked them up at the CSA and hove no idea what to do with them. Any (non animal) ideas?

Yup, I sure do! And let me just add that this post is titled as it is not ’cause Darce is weird using such stuff, but because all three of the mainline veg ingredients here are often either completely overlooked or, at best, treated as redheaded step-veggies. And they shouldn’t be, because they are all wonderful, unique and very tasty indeed.

So, in the interest of better late than never, here’s a great slaw for summer. We love O & V based slaws as much as the mayo/aoli style, and especially in summer, where lighter is better. This one really lets the veggy mainstays sing!

Fennel – Kohlrabi Slaw with Sautéed Kale.

1 Bulb each Kohlrabi and Fennel, washed and sliced sliver thin.
1 bunch Kale sliced into strips roughly ¼” wide.
Juice and zest from 1 Lemon.
½ teaspoon prepared Horseradish.
2 cloves Garlic.
¼ Cup dry white wine.
¼ Cup Veggy stock.
1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard.
2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar.
Extra Virgin Olive Oil.
Salt and Pepper to taste.

Combine lemon juice, zest, horseradish, salt, pepper and whisk thoroughly. Mix the sliced fennel and kohlrabi until well coated and allow to marinate, refrigerated, for at least 3 hours.

Remove veg mix, discard marinade and set fennel-kohlrabi aside.

Combine white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper. Whisk in up to 6 tablespoons olive oil slowly, allowing vinaigrette to emulsify – Stop when you hit your preferred mark for the dressing, (And if you like more oil than that then use it!)

Combine dressing and marinated fennel-kohlrabi and coat thoroughly. Return to fridge for at least 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, blanch kale in boiling water for about 30 seconds. Remove quickly and dunk in a bowl of ice water to shock it, (AKA, stop the cooking RFN). Pat dry, and set aside.

Mince garlic.

Combine 2 tablespoons olive oil, white wine, stock, salt and pepper in a sauté pan on medium high. Sauté Kale to al dente, adding minced garlic in last minute or so. Remove kale and discard sautéing liquid.

Plate a nice layer of the sautéed kale, then toss a nice big portion of the slaw on top. Serve with a nice, crusty bread and some more of that dry white wine!

Enjoy!

P.S. – I apologize for no pics, but I’m working freelance on this one…

Chilled Out Radishes


We love radishes, and always plant a couple of varieties at least. This year, the nice little red and white ones came in well, but it’s been unusually warm and dry, (OK, hot, actually), and the little buggers started getting real hot themselves.

We initially tamed them by blending 50%-50% with sweet onion, but we had a bunch coming in and needed to do something more broad scale.

Our solution? Pickling! After a couple days in the fridge, these came out cool, crisp and tangy – Fabulous in salads, or as part of a nice, fresh antipasto!

Easy Pickled Radishes

2 Cups Radishes, whole, cleaned and topped.
1 Cup white vinegar
2-3 Sprigs cilantro
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
Dash of Salt, pepper, onion powder and celery seed

Bring vinegar, salt, sugar and spices to a low boil.

Place radishes and cilantro in a clean, glass container.

Pour hot solution over veggies to cover. Refrigerate at least 24 hours, and 3 days are even better. Kept refrigerated, they’ll last a good couple of weeks, if you don’t devour them first, of course!

Memorial Day Twist


Ah the holidays of summer!  Each is and should be seen with very particular focus. That is, view them as a day to cook, eat, read, enjoy each other and little else!

Memorial is the first of these, of course, and we used it as a chance to do a nice Surf & Turf dinner.

For the Surf, we went with some fresh caught gulf shrimp, which I marinated in citrus, chipotle chile, salt and pepper, a very straightforward preparation as we always do here.

The dominant sub-theme to this post is food safety, so let’s talk about handling proteins.  We paired some nice T bone steaks with the shrimp. I pulled the steaks out just long enough to apply the rub, and then put them back in the fridge right away. Shrimp came out for thawing in very cold, running water, (Which gets it done as quickly as possible), deveining, (Which you must be conscientious about!), marinating, and then also went straight back into the fridge. NEVER leave proteins out in room temperature long enough for them to get into the Food Temperature Danger Zone! I’ll add that these shrimp were stated to be ‘Cleaned with tail on,’ and there’s a lesson to be learned there. They were lovely shrimp, sweet and tasty and smelling good right out of the package, but very few of them were actually clean – Moral of the story, check and correct, don’t assume! Post marinade and immediately before cooking, I hit the shrimp with some melted butter and more fresh squeezed citrus.

Steaks got a nice simple rub with a bit of olive oil to make sure everything sticks nicely.

Fresh sweet corn got butter, salt and pepper of course!

Onward to GrillLand!

The real story here isn’t the Memorial Day meal, it’s the aftermath! Yes, once again I am harping on leftovers, because that is the real deal when it comes to creativity. You’ve probably heard the term ‘Garde Manger’ before, right? Know what it means? Literally, it’s ‘Keep to Eat,’ AKA, the art of creative use of leftovers.

In a restaurant, just as in your own home, wasting food is not only wrong, it’s a waste of money as well! If you follow what we do here and subscribe to the concept of using the best ingredients you can find and afford, then you certainly can’t abide by allowing leftovers to go to waste, right? Granted, a next day turkey or steak sandwich is great, but what about letting great ingredients speak again in something a bit more creative than that? It’s easy, and fast and fun to remake a meal into something equally wonderful yet completely different, so let’s Garde Manger this Memorial Day feast!

M and I love Tex Mex, and we live in the heart of that country. It inflects our cooking more often than any other style, not because it’s local, but because we love it that much. As such, we decided to let these wonderful leftovers find a new voice as beautiful, fresh tacos.

First, we prepped our steak to become taco meat and it couldn’t be a simpler process. I cut the meat down into bite sized pieces. Note that the steak is fairly rare, which is how we like it when we grilled it. I’ll cook accordingly to assure a nice medium-well condition when reheated, which gets the food quickly to a ready-to-eat internal temperature of 165º F.  In this case, I braised the beef in a nice bottle of Shiner Bock, with no other seasoning added.  That nice rub we cooked into the steak will incorporate with the simmering beer to make a wonderful complex taste!

Meanwhile, M does up some fresh veggies for taco garnish; nice crips lettuce, cilantro, jalapenos, tomato and a 50%-50% mix of radish and sweet onion fits the bill just so.

Now, let’s address that wonderful sweet corn. Here’s another food that will go bad pretty quickly and, more to the point, I’d bet 90% of it gets thrown out after the Big Meal. Thanks be that sweet corn makes some of the finest salsa there is! We went with a nice sweet corn pico de gallo here, simply cutting the corn from the cobs and adding that to diced onion, cilantro, tomato and jalapeno, with fresh citrus juice and a dash of salt and pepper. The taste is out of this world and the corn adds a great textural pop as well.

We topped all this great stuff of with warm, fresh flour tortillas, light and tasty!

And there ya go! Maybe 20 minutes work in the kitchen, and you’ve taken a traditional grilled meal and twisted it 180 degrees into something unique and incredibly tasty. More to the point, being creative with leftovers means you got your money’s worth and then some!

A final note/reminder on safe leftover use. With every meal, you need to keep food out of the temperate danger zone. Cold means under 40º F and hot means over 140º F, period! Under or over those temperature constraints means you’re safe. In the middle for any significant length of time just plain ain’t good. Reheating hot stuff means an internal temperature of 165º F, which will kill the vast majority of nasties we don’t want to consume. Proper handling also means getting foods up or down to safe temperature ranges quickly. If you’ve made soup, and have some left over you’re gonna cool, you want it below 40º F fast, as in a matter of minutes, no more. Use an ice bath to cool quickly and a reliable thermometer to confirm you’re there!

Always keep in mind what you have to work with, and plan your preparations based on avoiding spoilage. Proteins often go bad first, so use them first. If you’re cooking with leftovers the next day, freshness shouldn’t be a problem, assuming you’ve stored things properly. If you’ve made a wonderful dish, side, etc that will store well as is, then properly contain it, freeze it and use it as you see fit. Keeping freshness in mind at all times will help you create great dishes and keep everyone safe as well.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie


My absolute favorite pie of all time is Strawberry-Rhubarb, (Followed closely by Cherry). The sweet of fresh berries combined with their tart side, and the wonderful tang of Rhubarb is truly hard to beat. Here’s a an easy to make recipe for the whole shebang!

The root of any great pie of course is the crust, so let’s chat about that for a sec. Probably safe to say that the number one sin committed in the name of bad pie crust is excessive handling. Pie crust will end up flaky and light if you use the right ratio of ingredients and handle it as little as possible.  When the ingredients are just mixed and holding together is the time to stop and let it rest!

The Kitchenaid crust recipe is my go-to, so here it is. If you don’t have a mixer, no problem. Use your fingers or two butter knives to cut and mix ingredients and, as with the mixer version, stop playing with the crust as soon as it holds together.

Crust

2 ¼ cups all purpose flour

¾ cup shortening, chilled

2 teaspoons butter, chilled

4 – 6 tablespoons of very cold water

Sift flour and pour into mixing bowl. Cut shortening and butter into roughly ½” cubes and add to flour. Using the flat beater, mix on low speed for about 30 seconds until shortening chunks are roughly pea sized. Slowly add water a tablespoon at a time until and only until the dough forms a ball. Stop mixing, wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes. Roll dough out to roughly 1/8” thickness and place into pie pan.  For moist filing pies, blind bake the crust prior to filling. To blind bake, put crust in a preheated 425º F oven for 6 to 8 minutes until it browns lightly. Allow crust to cool completely before ya fill it!

Filling

1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar.

3 tablespoons tapioca.

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg.

4-6 stalks fresh rhubarb, rinsed, end cut off and chopped to roughly 1” pieces.

1 ½ cups fresh strawberries, rinsed, tops cut off and halved.

2 tablespoons butter, well chilled

Dash of salt.

Combine all ingredients except the butter in a non-reactive bowl. Mix gently until fruit is thoroughly and evenly coated with other ingredients. Pour filling into cool, blind baked crust.

Top crust method is up to you!  You can do woven, solid, whatever you please. If you do a solid tip crust, cut several slits a couple inches long in the top crust to avoid Exploding Pie Disorder!

Bake in a preheated 425º F oven for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350º F and continue baking for 20 minutes. Remove pie and place on a cooling rack. Allow to cool thoroughly before serving, (To avoid Sloppy Pie Syndrome!)

Vanilla ice cream with a nice, fresh mint leaf on top of your first slice does nothing wrong at all, (Especially of the ice cream is freshly homemade…)

Cheers!