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Defrosting the Fridge, or deciding on a Snack?


Yet another chapter in the Great Book of Use Your Leftovers! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; you can and should do something fun with leftover grits, so just do it!

Confession time; when I made that steak din din the other day, I had this leftover feast in mind. Many moons ago, I stayed a few nights at The Edgewater in Seattle; their breakfast menu included an incredible prime rib hash, and I’ve been chasing it ever since.

You might have noticed, I like simple things; great ingredients, well prepped and cooked, and that’s that. I took the veg medley from the other night, cubed up some of that incredible T bone and threw it all into a sauté pan and let ‘er rip; no additional anything needed.

Three eggs over medium, fresh sourdough toast, a little more of the precious WSU Cheddar, and a shot or two of Frank’s.

Total prep and cooking time, maybe 15 minutes; I took longer than that to savor every bite. Life is very, very good…

P.S. Don’t forget da bonz! I saved these for Bandito, although they’re dang near as long as he is…

Where’s The Beef?


Right here, A. R.!

My friend Adam Rafferty, guitarist/composer/performer extraordinaire, responded thusly to our last recipe entry:  “Where’s the beef?”  Of course, he’s right, so Buddy, this one’s for YOU!

Got a new Baby Weber table top grill unit; I had one of these years ago and loved it; I’d bet there are still some Ski Patrollers at Mount Baker who recall hot lunches in the summit shack with great fondness, as I do, (Yes, I hauled it to the top, with charcoal and lunch fixin’s, on the chairlift, in a backback…)  What better time to do up a nice beef offering?

If you’re gonna grill, then nice steaks aughta be on the top of the ‘What to make’ list, so that’s where I went.  Got some nice, thick, local T bones and away we go!  I paired those with a roasted vegetable medley and a romaine wedge salad; the counterpoint of cold, crisp lettuce with hot, roasted veggies and tender beef was simply amazing, just like it should be.

I prepared a fresh rub for the steaks; I wanted smoky as my main note, so the following went into a spice grinder:  You’ll note some granulated and powdered ingredients here; I know I always tout fresh, but for rubs, dried/powered/granulated is preferred.

The Rub

1 tablespoon Black/Red/White/Green Pepper corn medley

1 teaspoon whole coriander

½ teaspoon each Alder smoked salt and kosher salt

½ teaspoon granulated garlic

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

¼ teaspoon onion powder

¼ teaspoon celery seed

½ teaspoon hickory smoke powder 

All that got a quick shot in the ol’ spice grinder; the steaks got a jot of good olive oil, and then I liberally rubbed all exposed sides of the steak.  Once they’re well coated, they go to the fridge to get acquainted with their new skins for a half hour or so.

For the veggy medley, I used the following:

Red, white, and blue baby potatoes, left whole

½ sweet onion, rough chopped

½ sweet red bell pepper, rough chopped

Handful of cherry tomatoes

Juice from one lemon and one lime

Liberal sprinkling of olive oil

Sprig of fresh Cilantro

Couple sprigs of fresh Thyme

Salt & Pepper

Since my new grill is itty-bitty, the veggies went into a baking dish, in a 375 oven until fork tender, (About 30 minutes).  Note that the veggies were cut to be roughly the same size to aid in everything cooking fairly evenly.

For the salad:

Heart of Romaine, trimmed and sliced in half

3 green onions, trimmed and outer layer peeled

Handful of cherry tomatoes

sprinkling of grated 2 year old WSU Cheddar

For the dressing:

3 Parts good Olive Oil

1 part White Balsamic Vinegar

Salt & Pepper to taste

1 shake of dried Tabasco chile

The steaks go on the grill with my age-old proper cooking method; 1 classic rock and roll song per side, (No In a Gadda Da Vida, drum solos or extended dance versions!). 

Pull ‘em off the grill and let them rest inside for about 5 minutes before slicing for serving – They were, FYI, perfect; no need for any other seasoning whatsoever, just as it should be.

Plate it all up and there you go, couldn’t be easier; simple, good food, prepared and cooked well; everything sings very sweetly together!

So A. R.?  There’s the beef, Brotha!

Pesto to the People!


Spring done sprung down here and so has our cilantro; not where we planted it last year, interestingly enough, but in a bed where it hung out 2 years back – What they hey, never look gift herbs in the mouth, right?  We’ve been using at best we can, but as you can see, it’s gotten really leggy and flowered out, so what to do with it?

A recon trip by M to the freezer found some nice skinned chicken boobs that need to get used, so how about a shotgun wedding for those two?  Pesto it is, then!

Pesto? You say; I thought pesto was made with basil?

It is, I nod sagely, (Pun intended),  but that’s only one popular permutation, truth be told:  Let us consult our handy pocket dictionary where we find, and I quote:

“A sauce typically made with basil, pine nuts, olive oil, and grated Parmesan blended together and served hot or cold over pasta, fish, or meat. Origin: 1935–40; upper Italian, (compare Genoese dialect pésto):  noun derivative of pestare; to pound, crush.”  (Notice how close the root sound of the word is to pestle, as in mortar and?)

There you have it; think of pesto as a combination of veg, something from the Alliaceae family, (AKA garlic, shallot, onion), a hard cheese, a nut, an oil and a little salt and you’re there.   Basil pesto is wonderful, as is cilantro; hey… Cilantro!  We’ll do a nice cilantro pesto sauce for the chicken, and marry that with some beautiful Asparagus M found at the market, and we’re talkin’ serious bounty – So let’s!

Cilantro Pesto

1 bunch fresh cilantro, (roughly 2 lightly packed cups)

1-2 cloves garlic, minced, (And you can roast them first if you like a milder, smokier taste!)

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese

¼ teaspoon ground chile (I like Tabasco for this)

½ cup pine nuts, (Sub Hazelnuts for a very cool taste)

½ cup olive oil

salt to taste

Add everything but the oil to quisinart or blender and zap it all into a nice dry paste.  Slowly add up to ½ cup of olive oil, while blending constantly, until you get the thickness you like for pesto.

Store pesto in a sealed glass container in the fridge for at least 20 minutes to allow all those flavors to get to know one another:  You can store it long term in the freezer in an airtight container for a few months without losing much flavor.  When you’re ready to use it, you can either add it to, say, pasta that you’ve tossed into a medium sauté pan until well coated and serve right away, garnished with a little more cheese and a cilantro sprig, or, for what we’re gonna do, just pull it out of the fridge, stir it a bit to re-blend and top a piping hot chicken breast with it just like that.

We’re gonna braise our chicken, so we get nice, juicy meat for that cilantro to land on:  We rinsed and patted dry two nice breasts, then threw them into a sauté pan on medium high with a couple shots of olive oil therein; we seared the breasts on both sides, then tossed ‘em into a glass baking pan and added;

½ cup white wine

½ cup chicken stock

A shake or two of salt, pepper, and ground Tabasco chiles.

We put the ol’ temp probe equipped thermometer to use and shoved that into a preheated oven at 350º F; we’ll cook that, (I’ve said it before and I’m fixin’ to say it again), to temperature, not time – Done chicken breasts should reach 170º F, then be pulled and allowed to rest for 5 minutes or so; they’ll continue to cook and seal in all those juices so they don’t bleed out when you cut ‘em, leaving you with nasty, dry chicken jerky, (Which nobody wants, right?  Right!) Let me point out at this juncture that this recipe will work GREAT for any poultry, including wild game; as Pheasant, Grouse, Dove, etc are all quite lean, searing and braising as we have seals in moisture and delivers very tender, juicy birds indeed.

Our Asparagus was hand chosen by M at the market; as you can see, it’s beautiful stuff, indeed!  She did the standard test; choose firm, smooth stalks with nice tight flower heads.  Give the bunch you like a sniff, it should smell lightly of fresh veggies, nothing funky or heavy.  Don’t wash your asparagus, or soak it:  If you’re not going to use it right away, trim the ends and stand the bunch upright in a glass or dish with enough water to cover the freshly cut ends, and don’t wait too long to enjoy it!  The sugars in Asparagus convert pretty quickly to starch after it’s been harvested, the results being woody stalks and accompanying lousy flavor… When you’re ready to cook, pull out and quickly rinse the bunch. Gently bend each stalk and allow it to snap where it will; toss the ends and cook the good stuff. You want to cook Asparagus pretty quickly to a slightly al dente consistency; just a bit of snap to the bite, and certainly not mushy! We chose to roast ours, so we gave it a light coating of olive oil with a splash of white balsamic vinegar, then added freshly chopped rosemary, thyme, and salt. We roasted for 10 minutes in a 400º oven, and since we had that, we decided that there should be some nice buttermilk biscuits to keep ‘em company, (Another time for that recipe, honest!).

All that went nicely onto the plates and voila, dinner fit for a queen!

Looks Great In Cyberspace, Too!


I’m writing this entry from my iPhone, which is pretty cool to be able to do; That alone makes me pretty jazzed about this new site!

That said, be sure to check us out from your portable devices, (Phone, iPad, laptop); you’ll find the layout excellent on all those options, which will come in real handy in the kitchen and at the market.

There seems to be very few things that the new scheme cannot do, so if there’s a specific function you think we’re missing, just shout and we’ll see what we can scare up!

E

Vegan Chili, Anyone?


>My old friend Darcy writes, “Got any suggestions for an easy vegan meal? I am sick of my own cooking.”
We discovered she had some nice white beans about, so I suggested chili! Vegan sometimes gets a bad rap, but the fact is, it’s great cooking and eating – Read the ingredients and you’ll see there’s nothing weird or funky about it; just simple, good ingredients well married!

Vegan Chili

2 cups each white, kidney, pinto, black, or garbanzo beans, (the more the merrier; I like at least three varieties, and white/black/garbanzo is my fave combo)
2 cups tomato, diced, crushed, or pureed as you prefer
1 sweet onion, diced
1 or 2 cobs of sweet corn
1 carrot, diced
2 cloves of garlic, fine dice
1 each red, orange, or yellow bell pepper
1 or 2 hot chile of your choice.
½ cup cilantro, chiffenade cut.
1 teaspoon Mexican Oregano
½ tsp Cumin
½ teaspoon ground pepper, (I like a blend of black, red, white and green)
2 cups vegetable stock, (And if you don’t make this yourself, then more on that down the line)
2-3 cups of water (start with 2 cups and see if you need more)

Put beans, 2 cups of water, and the tomatoes into a crock pot or large soup pot over medium heat. Stir often, and as soon as this comes up to heat, reduce so that it is on a low simmer.

Lightly brush your bell peppers, chiles, and corn with olive oil, salt and pepper. Place ‘em on a baking pan whole and slide that onto a fairy high rack with your oven on broil. Keep an eye on the peppers and chiles and rotate them as they blacken and blister; don’t let your corn burn; it needs to be turned faster and pulled before the chiles are done! When the peppers and chiles are done all around, pull them out and let them cool enough to touch. Remove stems, seeds and veins and rough chop; slice the kernels off the corn and use your cob for compost.

Pour a few tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet or sauté pan and let it get nice and hot. Toss in your carrot first, let it sauté for a couple minutes and then add your onions and sauté until starting to caramelize. Reduce your heat to medium and add the garlic, cilantro, diced and roasted peppers, chiles and corn. Add the veggie stock and all spices to your liking, (Those amounts are a decent starting point to middle ground volume; do more or less as you please!)
As this gets up to a simmer, throw it all into the big pot and let the flavor marriage begin!

Vegan Cornbread

2 cups coarse yellow corn meal
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons honey
2 cups soy milk
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
½ teaspoon salt

Preheat your oven to 350. Lightly oil a 10 x 10 baking pan.
Whisk soy milk and vinegar together well.
In a second bowl, combine the corn meal, flour, baking powder and salt.
Add oil and honey to the wet mix. Whisk for a few minutes, until air bubbles form in the mix.
Pour wet into dry and blend gently but thoroughly with a spatula.
Pour batter into your pan and bake for 30-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.