a recipe with no name, but it's delish and another proud recipe-less moment!

I visited some friends for whom I do some book-keeping, as I have for about 7 years now (time flies!!!). They were making dinner, which smelled amazing and they insited I have a small plate before I go (twist twist). it was quite tasty, so I inquired. They had learned a pasta trick on TV I'll share with you. They had picked up a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken from the grocery store. Their dish included, among other things, zucchini, which as of late is one of my fave veggies. They also used asparagus, which is most certainly not one of my faves. At any rate, since the next night was my night to cook for the fam, I thought I'd take this non-recipe and do my own spin off... and a new dish was sort of born :)

By the way, the following is not really "in order" so much as just talking about the various components, so you'll have to work that part out on your own if you want to try this!

Pasta: Farfalle... ok that's fancy for Bowtie Pasta and I couldn't remember it so I had to look it up. Anyway, a bag o'that. Hey here's the secret... while it's cooking, get a really fine grater and grate some parmesan cheese (from a wedge... don't cheap out on me here, it's important). Once you pull the pasta from its boiling bath and drain it, sprinkle the freshly grated parmesan and mix it up. Do this "infuses" the pasta with the parmesan flavor... very much worth the effort

Meat: Instead of a rotisserie chicken, I got a couple boneless skinless breasts, briefly marinated them in garlic & herb marinade, butterflied them, and threw them on the grill. Once those are done, slice and dice

Veggies: I am always trying to balance between my pickiness and my pop's love for flavors and vegetables I can't stand :) So this was a great opportunity. I sauteed some onion and garlic and bell peppers, then added zucchini and yellow squash and diced roma tomatoes. We cooked these in an iron skillet on the grill , just so I didn't have to run back and forth between kitchen and grill (PS some EVOO in that skillet and season it up too). Once the veggies were fairly well ready, I added a little tomato paste (like 1/2 of one of those teeny cans) and some water, to kind of meld it all together.

OK in a gigantic bowl, I combined and tossed the parmesan infused pasta, the veggies, and the grilled, marinated chicken, and then tossed in a little more parmesan cheese.

It was delish indeed!!!

YUMMY PIES

Levi's fave pie is Strawberry-Rhubarb... especially the one his mom makes. So I've set about making a couple before (I think I blogged about those). Well I wanted to make another since the grocery store had rhubarb in stock again. Before the rhubarb went bad in my fridge, it was apparent we were gonna need to go with the quick and easy pre-rolled dough crust, so I asked Levi to pick one up on the way to my house. He picked up 2 pkgs which is 4 crusts. so much for just making one pie! I made one, and we shared it with his parents a couple days later after a fishing trip... DELISH and it wasnt runny at all! yay!

But what to do with the remaining 3 crusts? Looked up a couple of "low cal" recipes and decided to try one: Apple-Blackberry... http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/apple_blackberry_pie.html.
My notes:

• the only thing that I can tell that makes this low-cal is if you use their special low-cal crust recipe... I kinda failed to do that, but one day when I feel like making my own crust is worth it again, maybe I'll give it a whack!
• Peeling, coring, and dicing 6 granny smiths is more of a task than I thought! I was surprised that it rivaled the S-R Pie recipe! aside from that, however, couldn't ask for the filling to be more simple to put together
• I took a walk on the wild side... I used Marion Berries instead of Blackberries... A dear dear friend of mine and her Marth-loving sister :-) are from the area (Oregon) where these berries are grown, so I regard them fondly. When I saw them in the freezer section, I wondered what the consequence of my defection from the recipe would be. By the way, a Marion Berry is: a cross between the Chehalem and Olallieberry blackberry, so it's kind of a blackberry anyway!
• I don't know what happens if you use a different berry or if you use fresh berries... hmmm...
• The color from the marions leeched out into the apple + stuff mixture super fast... i was shocked and the color was like this bright magenta color... strange!
• The amount of filling was way more than i thought would fit in the pie. However, I put it all in anyway, as it heaped up in the crust bottom and covered it with the top. I am glad I did because it came out perfect! If I hadn't I guess i would have had a concave pie!
• When I pulled the pie out, a little had leaked out... perfect for tasting, no? well, lemme tell you, this dribble tasted like a jolly rancher! haha! I found it very interesting and wondered if I'd like the pie... or anyone else at the 4th of July BBQ for that matter! :-)
• But it was a hit! YUMMY! I would definitely recommend it!

I had promised many moons ago to talk about Pecan Bourbon pie. I will at least give the recipe here and a couple notes. Did these for Thanksgiving and Christmas I think... would definitely do them again, although they can be a little bit high maintenance... http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Bourbon-Pecan-Pie/Detail.aspx

My Notes:

• go ahead... use a little extra bourbon... or fail slightly to cook it all the way. OK maybe not unless you plan on getting people a little silly off of your pie. I had one such pie that folks could really taste the bourbon... then they could "feel" it... WOOPS!
• I found keeping the chocolate chips and pecans from sinking to the bottom to be a challenge... particularly the chips. they seemed to "stick" to the bottom of my bowl... particularly problematic when making 2 pies... so I learned not to pour the mixture... and spoon it instead ;-)
• I haven't figured out exactly how to make the top of this pie come out "pretty" just yet. I always get extra bubbles and what not that make it not look flat and pretty... hmmm...
• It's a crowd pleaser, but it is very rich... small slices!

Happy Birthday Levi - The Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Saga

***OK Apparently I am kinda lame because I never finished this post and posted it.. it's been sittin in my drafts***

Levi's birthday was last night (3/27)... a Thursday, which means it coincided with LOST night where we often are joined by a couple friends for dinner and commercial free LOSTness. The festivities...

I asked Levi to choose whatever he wanted to have for dinner. He requested the pecan-crusted fish and lemon beurre blanc and requested I use tilapia this time. No problema. I think I have finally mastered this lemon beurre blanc and don't have to measure anymore! Might I add that this time I used a chenin blanc from Trader Joe's called "Fish head" because it cracked me up and it was fish and well, it's Levi's birthday, so it was a no-brainer.

He also requested sweet potatoes. I'm not a huge fan of sweet potatoes so I looked for a twist. Got a great tip from a co-worker to make sweet potato fries... you can buy pre-cut sweet potatoes (I have since done some of my own cutting and experimented with different cuts - fries vs circles, wedges, etc). Also had a recipe for sweet potato salad, which I still need to try.

Ro brought a yummy salad, and so all that was left was a desert. I know Levi's favorite is Strawberry-Rhubarb that his mom makes. I have never had it, but he raves about it and I'm sure with as much expertise she has I could never measure up to that one, but I thought I'd at least try to make one of similar delight. Headed for a non-lattice topped one ;-) and found one Strawberry Rhubarb Pie with Almond Crumb Topping by Emeril Lagasse (BAM!) on FoodNetwork. It was the one that would cook the fastest, easy pie top (I was a little intimidated by the edge crimping business at this point, and it used rum and flaming... a slam dunk.

OK finding 2lbs of Rhubarb is no easy task. I went to 3 or 4 different produce specialty stores (Trader Joes, Henry's, Whole Foods, a hippie store in my neighborhood) and made several phone calls (each of the 3 previous in several locations plus Ralphs x2). I couldn't even find frozen rhubarb! I was about to give in and just do a strawberry pie or go buy one when I finally, at the last possible minute, found some rhubarb rumpled up in a bin at Vons... the bottom of the barrell... barely 2lbs once they cut of the parts that had deteriorated. Sonnet and I set to work on peeling and cutting the rhubarb and hulling and slicing the strawberries. The ingredients for the filling filled the pan on the stove to the brim, so it made quite the mess as it bubbled. I had hoped the torching would be a little more dramatic, but it was not. Apparently rum is tougher to light and flame than it looks. I am sure it was a snap for Emeril! The filling made 2 pies... an hour later when they finally seemed ready enough to pull from the oven we waited as long as we could for them to cool. Not long enough apparently because it was Strawberry Rhubarb soup between the crust! And let me tell you that at this point it was like 11pm or so! The second one, however, was great and I think we ended up enjoying that at game night at my parents' house or something. YUM! All in all, it was fun to make!

It's been a while...

It appears that once I took up running, Culinary Journey went on the back burner, so to speak. I haven't really done too much in the area of new yummies, but let me see what I will need to catch up on in the near future... Ummm...

I think the most notable would be the honey pineapple chicken... once in the crock pot and once in the oven. Ooh that reminds me... cranberry gravy pot roast will need to have it's piece. Did I ever talk about the bourbon pecan pie? I don't think I did... so we'll have to add that one in. Made some sugar cookies for V-Day with the little one, which was fun too.

Well I have a lot of catching up to do, but I think I'll just go ahead and roll with Levi's birthday dinner for now... stay tuned for others...

OK This is SO not ok...

Seriously? Somebody please tell me this isn't real...

Squirrel Melts Recipe Video

A Proud Culinary Moment...

I made another step in the culinary journey. I sought to prepare a delish fish dinner and browsed a few recipes. I boldy took pieces of each recipe and came up with my own menu.

Let's talk fish...

Levi and his dad took my sis and I out fishing on Saturday. It turns out Becka is a total fish slayer. She caught the first, the biggest, the smallest, and the most fish of the day between the 5 people on the boat. Who knew! When we got back, Levi fileted the fish and his friend and I split the meat between us, except Becka's huge rock fish, which remains in my freezer for another day. Enter fishing pictures...

Monday night, a couple friends and Levi were coming over so I had to think about what we could do with this fish for dinner...

To bake or to grill?

To encrust or no?

Sauce?

Sides?

The final decision? Pecan crusted fish with a lemon buerre blanc sauce, mashed potatoes, green beens, Wilson Creek 2005 Chardonnay. Here I will talk about the fish

Before I give you the details, note that there was a lot of left-over crusting and sauce...

The Fish:

We caught white fish and red rock fish and the filets were about 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick. I bet this would work with lots of different kinds of fish, but I don't know fish all that well. All I know is that I looked for rock fish and white fish recipes, but found these for some other kind of fish instead and thought it sounded good. :o)

The Crusting:

About 1 cup of toasted, chopped pecans... I say get the whole ones and toast them up... just make sure not to chop them up too fine, but not too coarse either

1 1/2 cup of bread crumbs

2 tbsps kosher salt - I would recommend grinding it up a little bit... regular salt is probably too fine, but just regular kosher salt seemed a little coarse

2 tsps pepper

Some chopped fresh rosemary and chopped fresh parsely (I "eyeballed" it... so proud!!!)

Shake all that junk up in a bag and only put into the bowl what you need and freeze or fridge the rest for next time... I wonder if you have to re-toast up the pecans if you fridge or freeze them to get the oils going again... dunno. But wouldn't keep them un-fridged for very long because I hear oils in nuts spoil.

This particular recipe insisted I rub butter (not melted, just softened) on the fish, but that sounded retarded to me so I used something I saw in a different "encrusting" recipe that used olive oil... so...

Fire up the oven to 450 and get a cookie sheet out. The recipe said spray with cooking spray, but I say nay... I like parchment paper instead cuz it rocks.

2 bowls/plates - one with EVOO (so rachel), one with the crusting (I refuse to say breading)

Simple... dip the fish in EVOO (I gave it a quick swish against the dish to get excess oil off, and then press one side into the crusting mixture... press nice and firm so it all gets nice and stuck on there and lay it on the cookie sheet/parchment paper.

Bake 'em for 12 minutes... check for flakiness... mine were perfect at 12 minutes. (I did this recipe a couple nights later with chicken, also delish, and 12 minutes was a bit too long)

Lemon Beurre Blanc sauce:

Beurre Blanc is just a "white butter" sauce. I saw tons of Beurre Blanc sauces with fish recipes... a lot of them looked annoyingly complex, including the one that accompanied an encrusting recipe. Then I saw this one with a grilled fish and it sounded delish. I'll warn you that it takes for freakin ever, makes way too much sauce, and does not taste even a little bit good by itself. Way lemon-y. But it's fairly simple and I learned about how tedious "reducing" liquid is AND that even if a sauce tastes retarded by itself, it could still REALLY complement the food you serve it with... without further ado...

In a saucepan, over medium heat stir together

1/2 cup dry white wine (I used that Chardonnay I mentioned earlier)

1 cup heavy cream

the juice of 4 lemons (I bet 2 lemons and maybe a little more wine would do quite well instead)

Bring that to a boil and then let it reduce to about half... should be a thick-ish sauce

cube up 2 sticks of butter and let them soften just a little. The first time I let them soften too much and the sauce was runny. the second time, maybe not enough and I over reduced the liquid so it was more of a lemon butter spread than a sauce. Anyways, Stir the cubes in slowly until they blend into a nice sauce. Might have to let it cool just a little bit to thicken...

Drizzle that over the fish and even in your taters... YUMMO...

By the way, I mentioned "first time," "second time" in here... when I say second time I am referring to when I tried it with chicken.

So this was kind of a fancy meal for me, but still went pretty quick... gotta say I am super excited that I braved up and put together different recipes... one step closer to culinary fabulousness!!! :-)

Thanksgiving Feast

Ok sorry about this kids, but I have to whine considerably for several minutes tonight. I just spent like 4 hours in the kitchen, not to mention about 100 bucks at the grocery store. Why? Thanksgiving. I am hostess-with-the-mostessing on Wednesday night and I work on Wednesday. Below... some trials and tribulations SO FAR

Knowing I would not have time to babysit a bird, I thought maybe I could just go ahead and crock pot it. Got the smallest lil bird I could find at the grocery store, bout 8.5 lbs.

Guess what... they don't do crockpots in most stores for a 8lb bird. You can get teeny tiny ones up to about 6qts and then WHAMMO they smack you with a big fatty 18qt one that I'll never use again. so the conventional oven method was going to have to work. Save $20 by purchasing roasting pan instead of crock pot and onward we go.

Good Eats' Alton Brown introduced me to "brining" which he strongly recommends... this was confirmed by the Food Dude on Channel 933. Food Dude even gave several brining recipes and posted them. Martha Stewart also has a tempting brine recipe. I signed on... I went for the "Earthy" style one... though must admit was quite tempted to try the "Apple/Spicy" one... perhaps next year or maybe I'll do a game hen in that since I hear brining is good for all birds and I could use something new to do with game hens. Besides, the earthy one had a lot less ingredients and went along with the "how to cook it" recipe I wanted to try. So let's talk brine, cuz really that's where I'm at right now... I'll give you the recipe

Brine (for a bigger bird, per the recipe):
2qts vegetable stock
2qts cool water
1 tbls Dried Rosemary
1 tbls Dried Sage
1 tbls Dried Thyme
3/4 cup Kosher/Coarse salt

some notes...
I wasn't paying attention to the word "dried" and assumed I needed fresh... was shopping fresh for the cooking recipe.
Couldn't find fresh sage anyway... only dried.
I realized when i got home with yet another gargantuan box of Kosher salt that I had one already.
Wish I had made my mind up before I also bought the stuff for the Apple/Spicy one cuz I got a whole butt load of apple juice and OJ now... (1 gallon cold water, 2 quarts apple juice, 2 quarts orange juice, 3 cups Kosher or coarse salt, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 10 whole cloves, 1 tablespoon ground nutmeg) although it will be nice to have some cloves around and I can use the juice anywho.

I only made about 1/2 of the brine because it was a small bird. was very conservative with the herbs cuz I wasn't sure if dried or fresh were more potent. Put the bird in the stock pot and then opened up another veggie broth (which I now have to figure out how to use within 10 days before it goes bad... turkey soup anyone?) to top off the pot with that and cool water and a little more salt and herbs. Ooh and since Martha had a reisling in her brine (but lots of other stuff I didn't feel like hunting for), I thought I might throw in a little dry white wine just for kicks. It was a bottle I was scared to open anywho... just gave the turkey a couple splashes of it.

By the way, turkey doesn't quite fit in the pot so I'm having to rotate his briney butt a few times here and there to make sure all gets a good soak.

Tomorrow, hoping to leave work a little early and finish up work from home... will slip the turkey into the oven at about 4/4:30 so it will be ready by 6:30/7... in theory. Tomorrow is the easy part, right? Pull the turkey out of the brine, give him a quick rinse and a pat down. Now for the other recipe...
in the cavity, stick a half a lemon, a medium onion, quartered and peeled, 4 sprigs each of rosemary, thyme, and sage, all fresh (well in my case all but one). Tie the birds legs and set him in the pan. Squeeze the other 1/2 lemon out into a bowl. brush the bird with the lemon juice and olive oil; salt and pepper to taste. initial blast of higher heat (425) for first 15 minutes, then 325 for the rest of the time.

A word on turkeys... ew.
THANK GOD this was a pre-gutted turkey... giblets and neck were in lovely little packages in the cavity along with a turkey gravy in a packet (um no thanks?) and some strings that are supposed to be turkey lifters (whatever). that whole giblet and neck thing... gross. thank god it was in a packet and I could get rid of it instantly. grody. Also, mine spilled turkey juice all over the place. When I thought the last of the turkey juice was gone and drained... alas there was more. And looking inside the cavity? ugh... I barely tolerate this kind of thing for game hens. eesh.

Also on the menu, lil sis will be in charge of mashed taters and some kind of veggie, but I have back up veggies and taters in case she doesn't get a chance.

Ah, but what for dessert you ask? Well I'm so glad you did. About a year and a half ago, I bought a book for a donation to a local charity. it's called 'California Sol Food' and most of the stuff in there is a wee bit foo foo for me... but there was this pie that I have always wanted to try so now was my chance... Pecan Bourbon Pie...

Although I do want to whine some more, it's late and I actually do not know the final outcome of said attempt at home-made pie. But let me just say that making pie crust sucks and I'd rather not do it again. Lucky for me, I've got friends in high places... a certain someone I know has some tricks up her sleeve she is willing to pass on to me... IF ONLY WE COULD DO THIS LIKE TOMORROW??? I wanted to make one for my Wednesday night Thanksgiving thing and also one for the Thanksgiving shin-digs I'll be attending on Thursday.

More to follow on the rest of the bird saga and pie saga tomorrow...

-S