imagination

Started out not knowing what to talk about this time...Some good friends (Chris and Lisa) came over again for a meal and it made me think about how much people who appreciate good cooking  enjoy different cooking methods and recipes. Both of them like good food and Chris, (who I suspect is a very good cook himself) asks a lot of questions about recipes, combinations, technique and setup. I know people who love to cook, love to talk about cooking....a great thing we had many a conversation about. There are so many levels and aspects to cooking that any imaginative cooking you do is FUN. Chris and Lisa may not know this, but it is because of them that I started this blog....It was intended for family and anyone who wanted to read it...I am flattered if you are either one...I cooked a meal for them one time...Salmon topped with grilled Red, green pepper, onion and spices that were blended in my mini Cuisinart....They were talking about the meal when Colin said "this could be a Tuesday, we eat like this all the time"....he was right, as I have said before....I use my family as Guinea Pigs and love to cook any and everything imagination has to offer. I decided to write about some of my dishes and experiences that we all have. Cooking does not have to be defined as levels of expertise....just cook and learn if you love to do it. I like to theme dishes and see how much I can blend/combine/marry ingredients in a course meal. Tonight I made a salad with roasted-caramelized walnuts, dried cranberries, bacon (everybody loves bacon), Gorgonzola cheese,  Bartlett Pear and Pink Lady apple chop and I made an Apple/yogurt dressing....decided to go southern with this dish....Red Beans and rice that I included onion, celery, Andouille Sausage, bacon (there it is again) and Cajun spices....simmered Collard Greens with Pork fat back (close to bacon) and onions with salt and Apple Cider Vinegar....now for the pork...made a hickory/bourbon/bbq glaze that I reduced into almost a paste..wet rub marinated the Pork for 4 hours...Cooked them over indirect heat and hickory smoke for 12 minutes to get that great smoke flavor....fired up the heat and put the BBQ glaze on them with great grill markings....made a sauteed reductions of pears and apples with the BBQ glaze/chix broth and Bourbon....let that reduce...finished Pork...let it set and topped with the pear/apple/BBQ/bourbon reduction....so.....smoked pork loin chops topped with reduction...collard greens...red beans and rice....nice southern touches and variations...oh yeah...used some imagination too......no matter what level of cooking you can do....DO IT...use your imagination....LEARN...be proud of what you do....if you love cooking...GO FOR IT! Share what you do. I love cooking....I am nothing more than a "wanna be" cook who loves cooking...oh...I forgot...My son colin made a bread pudding with bourbon sauce topped with vanilla yogurt for dessert...he is 17...It was LIGHTS OUT!!.....all homemade    he loves cooking..so do you.

Trick or Treat??

As many of you know we recently spent some time at Children's Hospital in Washington D.C....a trying time with the outcome being soooo much better than we could have hoped for..Violet had open heart surgery and the repairs have given her a 100% healthy heart...putting things in perspective...writing about food stuff pales to the life and happiness of your children ...we had a great experience to move all our lives forward...thanks to the support of friends and family and the excellence of Children's Hospital .....anyhow, now that she is GREAT...I've got some thoughts...How do they serve the food that they do in a place that professes health like a hospital??? because it is in demand and popular....Fried Chicken...mac n cheese..steak n cheese..eggs w/cheese..grits with butter..etc. You could search and find some health alternatives but the key word here is "search"..Byron, my mother in law who works at NRH (next to Children's), said the same food company works at her hospital as well...hmmmm...Sims and I lived at the hospital for 4 days and ate the hospital food for those same 4 days...It was very tasty....It was like the guy from "Supersize Me"....he knew it was killing him..but he loved every bite! This is dedicated to our knowledge of food that is not good for us and being smart about what we eat....your health is very important...look around..you mean a lot to a bunch of people...be smart with life choices and what you eat...you know the drill...veggies/fruit/lowfat/smart/exercise...a friend of mine once told me the best diet in the world in 3 steps...1)eat what you want 2) don't be stupid 3) exercise on a regular basis...most of us are born with healthy bodies...others need corrective surgery....be thankful for what you have...be smart with a healthy diet and exercise...  live a long and healthy life....Violet now has that same opportunity.

Say what??

As a self-proclaimed "Chopped" champion (see last blog "Master of Disguise") I am a big fan of all the cooking shows. I constantly hear chefs using terms that I sometimes do a double take and yell..."say what????" You know the terms....hericot verts, compote, tapenade, bechamel, arugala, and so on....you get the picture. Now some of you may know what the previous terms meant but....it took some effort to learn them. Don't be intimidated by terms chefs use...bechamel sauce is basically roux (hope you know that one) with milk and nutmeg. A great sauce used in a lot of recipes. Hericot Verts....actually string beans are a very close cousin, arugala is an aromatic salad green (love the stuff). If you are cooking and see a recipe or hear one you like but there is a term you are not familiar with and are intimidated by.....look it up...it is easier than you think. One lady who knew none of these terms was my Grandmother...we all have eaten or seen a recipe that is just "lights out"...and I will bet Grandma is the answer for a lot of you....well, my Grandmother was the greatest cook I have ever seen....to make it even better..I'm not sure she ever used any measuring device in all of her delectable creations. Her best was her homemade chicken pot pie. Not sure if any two were ever the same but they were pretty damn close every time. That has been one of my lifetime challenges...to duplicate her Chicken Pot Pie....I will tell you how I tried this time....I will give you the short version cuz it is basically stew with a lid. First make your crust...flour, s&p, cheese, butter and shortening...mix ingredients together...add ice water...flatten it on parchment paper and chill for 2-3 hours.For the stew part,  I put in rotisserie chicken, apple sausage, onion, rosemary, celery, carrots, a bunch of mushrooms and cream....OK...saute chopped veggies in butter till tender....add flour to make roux (got that one yet?) when mixed...add heavy cream and chix broth...let simmer till it reduces...add some white wine for body....reduce again....when it gets to be the thickness of a pot pie, pour it into a casserole dish...flavor to taste (you don't have to measure  :-)  ) and preheat your oven to 400 ish....you are only going to cook the crust and this is a quick cook pastry. Work your crust so the edges will flop over the casserole dish...make it look pretty and bake about 1/2 hour.....voila ..homemade chicken pot pie.....no fancy words...just Grandma's Pot Pie....so come on all you Epicureans..cook without intimidation....  Next blog.....Hospital Food.....???

Master of disguise

There are a lot of challenges I love watching on t.v....the four items in the chopped basket, the taste challenge on Hell's Kitchen, trying to anticipate ingredients in certain dishes to get that "perfect balance" but nothing compares to hiding healthy seafood from my wife, Sims. I love fish, and the tastes that go along with a great fish dish. But tonight I imagined I was on the "Chopped" challenge and I reach in the basket and pull out my four ingredients...they are...1)Fresh Tuna, and 3 notes that say..."OK Oilcan , 2)now hide that flavor from your wife...3)and she has to eat the whole thing.....4)and LOVE IT!!  AHA!!! you lose!!!...now that was the ultimate challenge basket I had in front of me tonight...We had swordfish the other night that I put over Quinoa and topped the fish with sauteed zucchini and eggplant and fresh tomatoes...served grilled corn and peas on the side. I guess she saw right through the disguise. Swordfish is a steaklike fish that shouldn't be too hard to disguise..I thought sneaking that by her would have been as easy as sneaking beer into a concert in the 80's. She said it was good, but I could tell she tasted F I S H....oh well...made tonight more of a challenge...so, here I was with my basket with my four items (see above for 1-4)...so I go to my imaginary pantry for more ingredients...how do you cover/mask Tuna and still make it delicious????? hmmmm.....I've got it!!!!   BACON!!!!!!!!   So.....here we go... took two tuna fillets...sliced hers in half so it would cook to MW-WELL and mine would still be MR-MED...pan fried extra thick slices of BACON in a seperate saute pan...meanwhile, heated up some potato gnocchi (potato dumplings) in a saucepan with boiling water...ok, follow along....when the bacon was cooked put the bacon grease over the tuna in the other pan...left some BACON grease in the other pan to saute red peppers and Vidalia onion....put green beans in the boiling water that was just vacated by the gnocchi....chopped up the BACON and added it to the pepper/onion mix.....added olive tapenade (she loves that flavor) and some fresh tomatoes....finished with some Marsala wine...let that reduce....So....BACON  infused Tuna topped...make that smothered.... with the onion/BACON/pepper/tapenade/tomato mixture served with browned gnocchi (with sauteed garlic and onion) and the green beans......OK, the healthy Tuna became equal to a triple whopper with all that BACON, but I just chalk that up as collateral damage....because my friends...tonight I am a chopped champion!!!!! With a smile on her face she joined the "clean plate club".Yahoo!!! I guess tomorrow will have to be something under 2 grams of fat and about 40 calories.....but tonight.....HAPPY....thank you BACON....sigh

Seafood Sunday

So....thinking about seafood when I went shopping for dinner, I always tell my kids.."start with the protein and go backwards....with the protein being the foundation of the meal, it is easier to marry other dishes with your initial concept...anyhow....You can always find a bargain while making a great meal. I found some Cod that was 1/2 price as well as some large shrimp that too was 1/2 price. You gotta use it right away, especially with seafood. (take your trash out that night with any residual seafood you might put in there) So...here we go...I decided to make a crab/shrimp imperial that I stuffed in the Cod...I saved 9 Shrimp...Broiled them and made that as a topping/garnish for the Cod...I thought of a Hollandaise (pain in the ass to make) but thought that would overwhelm the taste of the seafood. OK....remember the Basmati rice that I had from last night?? well....I had some leftover and added pearl onions and peas to it and put baby asparagus on the other side of the meal (love me some asparagus. I didn't want to get to fancy as you can "overdo" a dish and take away the natural flavors...as they say.."sometimes, less is more" I didn't ask for a rating on this dish as I think the kids are getting wise to my reactions to their ratings (I really have to learn that they all won't be a 10 in their eyes) Anyhow.....Stuffed Cod instead of something like a Flounder was yummy and easy. Cod is a very easy fish to marry a lot of ingredients with...not too expensive either...especially when it is half price. Gonna try to figure out how to put pics of these dishes on this blog as well....till next time......

First Blog

I love to cook and use my family as Guinea Pigs...sorry guys...didn't mean to put the word Pig in there..but I love seeing you Pig out on the food I cook for you....oops used that Pig reference again. Anyhow...I cooked a stuffed pork loin (bartlett pears, spinach, Vidalia onion, feta cheese and mushrooms) and broiled it on the grill. Made a sauce from Pinot Noir wine, blackberry preserves, and a finer chop of the stuffing. Just to put the dish a little off balance...served it with cheddar cheese and potato stuffed Perogies. Grilled Corn on the cob and grilled zucchini finished off the dish....that was last night...tonight we had a bit of an Indian flavor...simmered boneless, skinless chicken thigh in Tahini-Curry, chicken stock sauce for about 5 hours. The chicken shredded wonderfully and the simmered sauce developed a perfect consistency to compliment the chicken. Ok....cooked an Indian style of Basmati rice (seasonings) and nuts to put the chicken on. So....Rice, Chicken (with a bit of the sauce), A greek yogurt/cucumber sauce with similiar seasonings and topped with fresh (farmers market) chopped tomatoes. garnished with a sprinkle of Feta Cheese (leftover from Friday) Grilled big ass pieces of marinated eggplant and served it with toasted homemade Italian bread to sop up any leftover sauce....got the bread at the farmers market too. Both dishes turned out pretty welll...my family gave them both 9 3/4 (thats out of 10)...the nerve...it's Hamburger Helper for your ass tomorrow...Just kidding, this goober don't do HH....cooking is too much fun...and besides...the best part....THE KIDS DO THE DISHES! Anyhow...I think this will be fun...More tomorrow...hmmmm...Seafood sounds like fun...let's see what happens....