Here's a (somewhat) heathy, quick dinner that tasted pretty darn good, if I don't say so myself.
Pasta with some store bought stuff, cheesy-garlic bread and steamed broccoli.
I found this mushroom-olive mix in the deli section by the olive bar and thought it would work well in a pasta (it looked better than this picture shows!). It was like a chunky tapenade.
I heated it up in a pan with EVOO, tossed in some minced garlic then the store mix
I had some homemade spaghetti in the freezer I could use. If you go through the effort to make homemade pasta...which it is not hard, just a bit time consuming..make plenty and freeze it portioned amounts.
Once I heated the deli mix and garlic through, I tossed the pasta in salted, boiling water...just needs about 4 minutes then right into the pan with the mix.
It is very important you add the pasta TO your mix/sauce/whatever. The pasta with absorb the flavor and it all becomes one. If you simply dump sauce on a plate of pasta...well...boring. Also, save a cup or so of the pasta water...this help add more flavor and the water will assist in thickening your sauce.
Don't ask why...just do it from now on
Right at the end I added some fresh basil. I good way to do this is to "chiffonade" it...that is to cut them into thin strips. Why? Why not...it's the correct method to do something like this. Yes, you could just hack at it with a knife...or you could be more civilized and chiffonade away!
First stack up your basil leaves
Roll them into a cigar shape and slice thusly
And you have little thin strips
Add them into the pasta and gently toss a bit.
I topped it with parmesan-reggiano and served it with some cheesy bread and the broccoli
#1 REMEMBER! Don’t put this list on your blog! (keep it in secret file inside the "fake" hot chocolate canister) :-)
#2 Come up with new a recipe for my Chicken Feet Sliders (I have the feeling the family doesn’t like it when the claws get stuck in their teeth)
#3 Try to return the salad spinner to the store; say it came that way (remember next time not to use it to dry the cat after a rainstorm)
#4 Need to use up the bacon grease; I think 3 gallons is too much to keep.
* Maybe add it to Cathy’s strawberry jam?
* Add it to the coffee for a more “robust” flavor
* Freeze it for a unique popsicle
* Use it as shaving cream???
#5 Recipe Idea: “Crepes a la Eggplant with a ganache glace’ “ (fancy sounding name will make it taste better)
Blanch eggplant slices then dip in melted chocolate and roll into a tube; use a toothpick to hold it.
Heat enchilada sauce in pan and thicken into a thick paste (use lots and lots of flour, if too thick add bacon grease)
Pipe paste into center of eggplant tubes
Top with hollandaise sauce. (or syrup???)
Garnish with sliced olives.
(try it first on the dog)
#6 For the stuffed grape leaves (dolma) dish on next “Greek night”, don’t substitute maple leaves from the lawn (I think they knew!)
#7 REMEMBER! If the dog gags on it… next time don’t serve it to the family!
#8 Broccoli stalks are under appreciated.
#9 I don’t think using ground up cat food instead of flour is “gluten free”
#10 Stop using the green stuff from the Shrek chia pet as a garnish (it’s just has an “off” taste)
#11 Parker didn’t like the peanut butter and pepper jelly sandwiches in his lunch.; I think it was the peanut butter.
#12 I think the family is getting tired of me yelling: “thatsa spicy meatball!” after every bite on Mexican nights.
#13 The seafood cake was a winner for Parker’s birthday…there wasn’t one crumb anywhere to be found the next morning (a good sign!); I heard a lot of his friends saying “ooh”; make it again real soon
#14 Using the ukulele to slice bananas and mushrooms doesn’t work; steal Dan’s banjo next time he’s up and try that instead.
#15 Try the loofa out of the shower as a strainer (don’t tell anyone)
#16 Pick up more anchovy sausages at the meat market (there are 4 pounds in the freezer!)
#17 Next time at a restaurant, order the steak tartar well done!
#18 Instead of garlic and rosemary in a compound butter use okra.
#19 Try again to get the cat to shred cheeses.
#20 The dill pickle sushi was a hit! Mix it up next time, dill pickle and lettuce sushi, dill pickle and cracker sushi…
#21 Refuse to take chocolate coins from Alvin at the corner store as change…they melt, plus they wont fit into the parking meters.
#22 Next Thanksgiving…when the recipe says “baste with pan drippings”, it means the turkey.
#23 Next time when someone says “hey, where’s your other brother Darryl?” spike their drink with syrup of ipecac.
#24 Remember to put the lids back on the BBQ sauces when taste testing in stores. (bring straw next time)
#25 Next time downtown, check out "Larry's Pussycat Prowl and Liquors"...maybe they have a good price on cat food.
It's been 25 years for Mrs. Blogger Man and me…and we’re just getting started. To celebrate our anniversary, in part, I pulled out a few rib eye steaks from the freezer we get from her father who raises a couple beef each year…organic, grass fed Blank Angus, some Alaskan weathervane scallops and a couple of bakers.
First...the amuse bouche (a little appetizer, chef's choice...although "chef" is used loosely here). Alaskan weathervane scallops on toast points with sort of a cilantro chimichurri or a loose pesto type sauce. The scallops were prepared by a quick pan sear with a bit of S&P in olive oil. The sauce was buzzed up in the food processor...a couple of handfuls of cilantro, garlic, S&P, olive oil, red wine vinegar and red pepper flakes.
I didn’t want to do too much to the steaks…I wanted let them speak for themselves, but did want to help it along and heighten the meal.
For me, to cook a steak it has to be on the charcoal grill. Although, I have cooked many steaks using the cast iron pan method on the stove, usually when its raining sideways. Season the steak well, get a dry cast iron pan good and hot on the burner, slap down the steak and sear one side, about 4 minutes depending on the thickness and how you like your steak. Then flip the steak and throw the pan in your 400˚ F preheated oven. Remember, if the steak does not want to come off the pan before you flip it, it’s not ready to…just wait a bit more. This goes the same for any protein regardless of the cooking method. Many people try to force flip a fish or whatever before it is ready to and they end up with a mess of shredded fish falling through their grill grates. Your steak should be ready in another 4-5 minutes while you plate up your garlic-mashed potatoes and grilled asparagus. Remember, it will continue to cook until it is stone cold.
So back to our rib eyes…that we all know is prime rib cut into a steaks. Prime rib is also known as a standing rib roast. I have the steaks out of the fridge for about 15 to 20 minutes. This is important so you so not slap down refrigerator cold steaks on a hot grill. I feel it will just take longer to get the steak up to cooking temperature and will cook more evenly. I liberally rain kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper on both sides.
I have my coals ready, the grate is clean and it too is at cooking temp. Having hot coals and enough of them will create a crust to seal in the juices…when in doubt prepare a bit more coals than you think you’ll need. Outside air temp and wind will be a factor when the steaks are cooking. The amount of coals you need in the winter will be more than a 75˚ day.
Because I know the steaks will only take a few minutes each side, I have most of the side dishes ready or waiting in a warm oven. Twice baked potatoes…and what the hell, we might as well make it a complete “heart attack on a plate”, so the double baked bakers are made with extra sharp cheese and of course, bacon pieces!
Now class, we also remember to let your meat rest before hacking into it. This will allow the juices to calm down go back to their proper meat room inside the steaks. I have prepared a cutting board with kosher salt, pepper, garlic and rosemary…all minced up together into a paste of sorts. While the steaks rest on this paste…they will pick up a few extra subtle notes, enhance the flavor just a bit, without it tasting like garlic steak. This type of paste is perfect when roasting a full rib eye roast, slather it all over the sides.
The dinner was completed with some rot gut, wino wine...a Leonetti Merlot.
So nice.
Music to dance to in the kitchen: (what else? OUR song!)Fly me to the Moon, Frank Sinatra
The old man lifted the heavy stiff sack of wet sea salt onto his shoulder as he has done countless times before; so many times they say his right shoulder is 6 centimeters lower than his left. His shirt, not yet sweat stained from the hot Caribbean sun as it was still early, has patches to repair the wear of the canvas sacks have made over time…only a few dogs were up roaming the streets while the roosters darted about announcing the beginning of a new day. The old man adjusted his straw hat and set off with the burdening sack down the well-worn path between the office and the fence to the street, ducking under the divi-divi tree he turned left into town. As he walked past the tank-like Chevy coups and pickups with all their chrome glistening in the morning sun at the dealership along Kaya Grandi, he could see the sea and he thought of his days of fishing, fishing for albacore or perhaps marlin if he was lucky, buying fresh sardines for bait, rowing out early after the morning coffee with his “amigus” or friends. He remembered working his small boat with the current and wind...he has not to worry about tides, as there are none to speak of in the Caribbean.
He remembered how he carefully set the hooks into the sardines as not to expose anything but the sweet smell of the bait, lowering down three or four at a time at different depths, he waited until the telltale bumps and tugs of the line through his brown wrinkled fingers told him one was on a line. He remembers how he could set the hook fast and was able to land the fish without much effort due to his long experience.
But now it's 1951 and those days are long gone. He sold his boat, lines, harpoon and all the tackle 12 long years ago to send his sick wife to Venezuela for a specialist, it cost all of his possessions but it did not matter to him, this was his bride, his love of his life where they built a good home and life together. He called her "mi chikitu pára" or “my little birdy”. She never fished with him, as that was a man’s job. She would tend to the house and had odd jobs for the tourist bureau. They were happy how things turned out, their life, working on their dreams, their happiness. But even after selling the boat they could not afford to have both of them to go to the Venezuelan mainland, so...his little birdy went by herself by sea to the hospital. She never came back. He received word she died a week later and he had no choice but to have her body buried there on the mainland through the government program. He was sick of remorse for not going along, but what could he have done? He never talks about it and no one asks. They say that is when he turned old and wrinkled and sunken and quiet.
He arrived with his sack of salt to its destination, a local restaurant.
“Halo?...Wiki are you here?...halo?”…” mi tin bo salu komandá!” ( I have your salt order!). The local Bonaire language is papiamentu, which is a mix of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and a bit of African, English, French and Italian tossed in.
Wiki comes from the back to receive the order and checks to make sure the crystal size is what she ordered, not too big, no chunks but flakes. Perfect for her fried plantains and kabritu (goat) stew. She pays the old man plus a 0.15 guilder tip. Perhaps he will buy a paper today with it to see the American baseball scores and maybe a beer. But at times after work from the Bonaire Salt Works, he sits across the street from the old lighthouse in Kralendijkat the pier, he sits and stares blankly into the sea for hours watching the scurrying little sandpipers with their pointed beaks probing for food along the shore, smiling, maybe a laugh…his amigus know where he is…he is with his little birdy again.
Although purely fictional I suppose this scenario could have been a reality. Since the slave days in the 1600's, sea salt has been processed on Bonaire in salt flats, now run by a giant international food conglomerate.
Huge salt pyramids on the south east edge of Bonaire taken from the Westerdam Christmas Eve 2011.
For the past few years, I have cooked the T-Day bird on a rotisserie on my Weber gas grill...and it always came out great. It's tricky to time it, as it is not cooking the conventional way. ”X” minutes per pound at “X” degrees in the oven are thrown out the window. I made sure I always had a full tank of gas, but you are working out in the elements with low air temperature (at least where I live) and probably some wind which will affect the inside temp...and how accurate are those gas grill lid thermometers anyway?
It was also tricky to get it to stay secure while he was on the carousel of flavor. I trussed, tied, knotted and cinched butchers string the carcass to the rotisserie rod, but once he became more and more cooked, the looser and looser it became. The meat, juices, cartilage and bones all worked against by effort to keep the thing securely tied to the stake, so I had to monitor it and add a bit of additional nooses now and then.
I also discovered I had to remove the grill grates and the mysterious "flave-o-bars" under them to have enough room for my whirling dervish of meat. I suspect a smaller bird may not need all of that stuff removed. I placed some type of wood chips in there but I doubt it did anything. A tray made out of foil or something is also needed to catch the juices, a bit tricky to get everything aligned so wing tips and such are not bonking into stuff. What I do remember is it cooked faster than I estimated. I think I had a 22 pounder and it seems it was done in 3 hours, almost too soon. But once you had it all set up it was nice to have an empty oven for all the other stuff.
This year was on the Traeger smoker/grill! I went with apple wood and with my fancy remote thermometer I can "set it and forget it". A very handy tool, about $35 with a metal probe and cable to stab into the thigh, run the cable out to a shelf on the bbq and plug in the transmitter. Then turn on the wireless LCD gage, select “turkey” and it starts reading the temp. Take it inside and set it on the counter and once it is up to the proper and safe cooked temperature and alarm goes of and you’re done.
Although we ordered a 22-24 pound bird, we ended up getting a 28 pounder!
Hey Mr. Blogger Man!
Yes, Billy…what is it now?
Will that thing even fit inside your bbq? HA!...I bet it didn't!
Well, if you must know, I asked the butcher to cut it in half…so now I essentially had two 14-pound birds and cooked them accordingly, gut side down.
Oh…well what about stuffing, huh?…bet you didn’t think of that huh? I bet it all fell out inside your bbq and made huge mess. Wish I saw that!
(I would like to stuff you) I normally do not stuff the birds, Billy...too mushy…I just used a little light olive oil and salt and pepper…and of course the apple wood. Oh, I think I hear your mother calling you.
What about the drippings huh?...how did you make gravy, huh?
Shut up, Billy…I already explained that on my last post.
I think it came out great. A little smoke flavor, not too much as I had it on “smoke” for an hour then turned it up to 375. I chose not to make stock out of the carcass as I thought the smokiness would be off putting in a stock.
A roux is a mixture of four and fat, usually butter or perhaps the fat from the protein you just cooked which thickens a sauce and can flavor it as well. You heat the fat and whisk in the flour until it becomes one over a moderate heat, just be sure not to burn the flour. As you stir it will change color and brown to a blond roux, and if you continue it becomes a peanut butter color and darker and darker. It depends on what you are using it for and what you are trying to accomplish in deciding when it's the right color. Think etouffee, gumbo and french "mother" sauces, they usually all use it. Those mother sauces are a sauce in themselves and a base for other sauces. Make a roux, add milk and you have a béchamel sauce...now add cheese and you have a mornay sauce as I explained here.
So, you can use a roux to thicken a sauce or you can use corn starch. Mix corn starch 1:1 with a cold liquid in a side bowl into a slurry. Some use 2:1, liquid over corn starch. Water works fine...I have also used wine and stock or broth, it just depends how you want it. However, by using a corn starch slurry, the liquid you are adding it to must be quite hot or it wont thicken properly. "So why can't I use that same method with flour, Mr. Blogger Man?" Well, Billy...you need to cook the flour and water solution to remove the raw flour taste...and didn't I tell you to stay out the kitchen?
There are many other methods to thicken a sauce. Arrowroot is one. Flour tends to make your gravy a bit cloudy which may be fine with you, corn starch a little less cloudy...but arrowroot will keep it clear and shiny. Use it the same as corn starch. Some say arrowroot makes meat sauces look fake and weird and does not re-heat well and will make dairy based sauces slimy. Tapioca is also popular, there's potato starch and whole bunch of other strange stuff to use.
Because I will tryout the Traeger smoker /grillfor the bird, I wont be using a roasting pan in the oven and catching all the wonderful yum-yums on the bottom of the pan for the gravy, I will need to use alternative #2 which I have used for the rotisserie method. That is to get some turkey wings and veggies and roast them up the weekend before...and start making my gravy ahead of time. How great is that!
Roasted up some turkey wings with a splash of olive oil and S & P, about 1/2 hour at 375.
Toss some aromatics in a big pot...an onion, 2 celery ribs, 4 carrots, which will help by also coloring the stock, fresh parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme...they should make a song like that...a few peppercorns and head of garlic cut around it's equator. Some S & P. Stir them around in EVOO until they start to caramelize. No need to peel the onions and such as this will all be strained.
The toss in the wings and pan juices, deglaze the roasting pan as well to get the goodies that stuck, then cover with cold water...simmer for about 2 hours. I will make the roux and finish the gravy on turkey day.
If you are doing this to make and save for later, a cleaver way to do this is to pour 1 cup of the strained stock into a muffin tin and carefully set level in your freezer. Once frozen, warm the bottom a bit to loosen each one and toss in a freezer bag. You now have convenient, homemade stock at the ready in 1 cup portions.
Many people come to me and say…”Hey!…how can I be a cool, suave and debonair food blogger like you?”
Well, I say to them as I chuckle…you can, but only in you’re dreams! That always gets me. But if you really want to know, there are a few hard fast rules to follow:
First you have to look the part. No jeans and t-shirts in our clique. No way, man. One thing is your shoes must match your belt…always, such as white belt, white shoes...which I have three sets of. Red is also good.
Make sure your hair is well past your collar and because of proper hygiene required in the kitchen, comb it all back with a little dab of whatever to hold it in place. And speaking of hygiene, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make sure you have plenty of aftershave on hand. Aqua-Velvet and Old Spice are my favorites…it should be applied hourly.
Pants and shirts should be very, very well fitted. Polyester, of course….and no boxers or briefs…commando is they way to go…a treat for you ladies out there!
You will next need a bitchin’, swinging kitchen…olive or mustard colors are a must for the stove, refer, dishwasher, microwave, Kitchenaid, blender, toaster, coffee pot, crock pot, electric fry pan.
Dishes? Corelle…need I say more?
Linens, towels, toaster cozies, oven mits and general decoration, bric-a-brac and knitknacks should all have either owls or mushrooms on them.
And when are not cooking or blogging, we usually hang out at the hot spots for inspiration, such as the local Holiday Inn lounge or a lounge at a Dennys.
I have to admit...I got most of my help and direction from my brothers.
I don’t know if I sound angry…or my t-y-p-i-n-g is angry but…boy, today…actually all week, my youngest kid keeps coming up to me and saying, “Hey Dad, can I have some food?” WHAT!? I said to him, “Hey, I work for a living,! Do you know who I am? A world famous celebrity food blogger! I don’t have time to buy food for you!” The nerve of him.
Geez! Some people.
I do want to tell you about an incredible new food I found in the ethnic isle of the store, near all the Mexican stuff…”Manteca de cerdo” they call it. I am not sure what it is but, you have to try this stuff!...it's sooo good! It’s great on cereal, toast, watermelon, chocolate bars, crackers, in your coffee, you can even melt it and eat it like soup…heck anything, I even just eat it straight out of a bowl with some chocolate sauce over it! I go though 3 to 4 buckets of this stuff a week!
Here's a couple of tips I thought I would pass along...something I personally can attest to.
A kitchen tip #1: I have found out this to be very helpful in the kitchen…when slicing through avocados, onions, radishes, cheese, peas, hacking through frozen meat…place it on a cutting surface, DO NOT hold it in the palm of your hand when you slice it all the way through.
Kitchen tip #2: Another thing I found out to remember:…when cooking with scotch bonnet or habanero peppers…DO NOT pop one in your mouth to munch on.
I hate to end on a sad note, but I am going to have to...I have to end a certain project I have been working on. For over three years I have been trying to train my cat to help me out in the kitchen...you know be my kitchen bitch...a prep monkey. I have been trying to train my cat to help out like measuring pasta or opening cans...a taste tester of boiling liquids (something he particularly disliked)...but it just isn't working out. Some of us are just not "foodies". The only task that has been a borderline success that he has shown some hope and aptitude is shredding meat. It's so cute, he likes to practice on my arms and face.
Music to Blog By? "Wives and Lovers" by Jack Jones
I found this mushroom-olive mix in the deli section by the olive bar and thought it would work well in a pasta (it looked better than this picture shows!). It was like a chunky tapenade.
I had some homemade spaghetti in the freezer I could use. If you go through the effort to make homemade pasta...which it is not hard, just a bit time consuming..make plenty and freeze it portioned amounts.
Once I heated the deli mix and garlic through, I tossed the pasta in salted, boiling water...just needs about 4 minutes then right into the pan with the mix. 
