The Joys of Marmite.

I was born in England and therefore raised on a certain savory spread called marmite as all properly brought up British children are. When my family brought me over to America, I became the weird one in school with marmite & cream cheese sandwiches instead of PB&J. Bad for my social life, excellent for my health!
It's a staple in most households in Britain and I for one still get panicky as soon as the jar is getting low. I had a problem finding it in grocery stores on Long Island, NY but happily found is was abundant in New York City where Dan & I work and play now. I bought the extra large 500 grams jar at an indian food store called "Goods of India next door to Kalustyans on Lexington Ave.

Marmite is simply yeast extract and a by-product of beer brewing. It looks like a thick dark brown syrup but is a salty almost tangy taste, vegan friendly and full of B vitamins and folic acid (very important for women). Apparantly, a 4g serving will give you 35.6% of your daily Niacin, 16.6% Thiamin, 17.5% Riboflavin, 60% B12 and 50% Folic acid intake of the day. Sold.
The original company producing it as its main product was started in 1902 and a similar version of it from Australia and New Zealand was developed called Vegemite. It seems to not be a taste most Americans enjoy, although they should because its delicious and nutritious and I'm writing this to hopefully change that.

Contrary to stereotypical belief, marmite does not solely have to be enjoyed on a crumpet *delicious! or on a piece of buttered toast with a pot of tea (although I highly recommend both of these). That's why I decided to do some research and blog for you some interesting things to do with marmite and different techniques to try. My goal is to convert at least one person out there into a marmite believer!

Drink it!
Marmite can be made into a hearty & low calorie drink just by adding hot water to however many teaspoonfuls you'd like to consume. A little goes a long way! This is especially good for the cold winter months or if you're home in bed with the flu. All the B vitamins will boost your immune system.

Grill it!
For dinner tonight you can make a marmite marinade for those boring chicken breasts! Completely cover the chicken in a mix of 3 tablespoons plain yogurt like Fage, 4 teaspoons of Marmite & half a lemon squeezed and blended well. Marinate chicken in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours or overnight. Grill chicken on a cast iron grill (about 10 minutes).

Spread it!
Cream cheese, cucumber and marmite on whole wheat bread sandwiches. Just trust me on this one.
If the cream cheese is too weird for you try slices of cheddar or white american, and tomato optional. Also delicious.

Mix it!
You can use marmite as a flavor booster and salt substitute for things like scrambled eggs that need a little kick. Think: soups, stews, stir-frys, meatloaf, gravies and cassaroles. Really anything you'd use beef broth or beef extract in try marmite instead. Voila! your new favorite secret ingredient.




A couple favorite recipes using Marmite from All Recipes.com:

Marmite Mince: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/marmite-mince/Detail.aspx
Marmite Fried Rice: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/fried-rice-with-marmite/Detail.aspx

Shoutout to St. James Healthcare's Art Therapy Interns!

In this very exciting (for us) post I'd like to share how many special ways food can be used as therapy, touching lives and bringing people together from different generations. I am a Creative Arts Therapist at a geriatric nursing facility and am lucky enough to always have amazing interns throughout the year. Recently as one of them approaches the end of her internship she had the very bright idea of cooking a goodbye meal with the residents she has worked with because cooking has meant so much to them in their lives. Because they are of Italian descent they decided on spaghetti and meatballs with homemade sauce and guess who's recipe they decided to follow!!

We couldn't be more proud! Here are some pictures that highlight their process:

Some pointers that came up during their cooking therapy group were:
-If the sauce looks pasty and thick, add a cup of water and let the steam boil off as it's slowly cooking on low heat.
-When forming your meatballs try to physically handle them as little as possible. The more theyre handled the chewier theyll be.
-For a sweeter sauce don't use salt pork and add a 1/2 cup of sugar. Ours is more meaty & savory.
-Because we were cooking in a healthcare facility we had to be extra careful with the raw meat. Make sure not to handle anything else once youve touched raw meat, and thoroughly disinfect any area where the raw meat touched.
-Prebake the meatballs in the oven or pan fry them before adding them to the sauce, just to make sure they're cooked through.

Everyone in the building smelled the meatballs and sauce and came running! It was a truly successful and beautiful therapy group to watch and we are so honored to be a part of it.

See original "Tomato Sauce" recipe post here:  http://couplesfoodtherapy.blogspot.com/2010/04/infamous-sauce-recipe.html

And For "Meatballs" here:
http://couplesfoodtherapy.blogspot.com/2010/04/meatballs-spaghetti-andsauce-recipe.html

Pizza Part 2

This is going to be the first video blog of I'm sure many to come. It was my first time editing with premier and adding an audio track over muted video so cut me some slack! It gets the point across but unfortunately I lost some footage at the end on how I dressed the pie for eating so it was described. Please do me a favor and comment and let me know what you guys think and something you may want me to add or change.

Pizza! Part 1



So, basically a common theme among friends is that no one quite knows how to make homemade pizza. Here's a little secret, it's super easy, it's super cheap and it's actually pretty quick. The whole process takes about 24 hours, but it is really only about 15-20 minutes worth of work. The following recipe is provided by Peter Reinhart, a bread teacher at Johnson and Wales. I'll give you three measurements for each ingredient; volume, weight in ounces and weight in grams. I recommend weight in grams because it is the most accurate however you can "kind of" get away with volume.

Dough:
4.5 Unbleached Bread Flour, chilled     (20.25 ounces or 574 grams)
1.75 t Kosher Salt                                (.44 ounces or 13 grams)
1 t Instant Yeast *see notes below*      (.11 ounces or 3 grams)
1.75 Cups Ice Water
.75 Cups Olive Oil                                (Optional)

Instant Yeast vs Active Dry vs Fresh Yeast
All three of these have different potency, meaning you need different amounts of each for the same rise. Instant yeast is sometimes called rapid rise. I recommend you get Instant SAF Yeast from Trader Joes or Whole Foods. If I recall correctly, the conversion is 100% - 40-50% - 33%   fresh - active dry - instant. This means that if a recipe calls for 10 ounces of fresh yeast you can use about 4.5 ounces of active yeast for the same rise or 3.3 ounces of instant for the same rise. Get it ?

Olive Oil or Canola Oil:
Oil, or fat basically, in a dough will cause it to be come more tender and chewy and less crisp. If you want a nice flat bread almost cracker crust no fat is your friend.

Building the Dough:
Combine the yeast, salt and flour in a work bowl, preferably a kitchen aid with the dough hook attachment. Mix on low speed until thoroughly combined.

Add the ice water and oil slowly. it may not take all of the water so put in about 85% and slowly add the rest as the dough calls for it. It should be slightly tacky and pull away from the walls of the bowl but ever so slightly stick to the bottom. Turn the speed up to medium and let it knead in the work bowl for 5-7 minutes. If you are doing it by hand combine all the ingredients and knead by hand for about 10 minutes on a floured work surface. Try not to over flour while working the dough by hand.

Remove the dough from the work bowl onto a floured surface and roughly shape into one piece. Weigh the dough and cut into whatever size you are looking for. I use 10 ounce portions for a home pizza stone size pizza. If you are making a pan pizza you will need to experiment a little. After cutting, perform the following:

This roughly shapes the dough into the correct size. After creating these shaped dough balls place them in a lightly oiled bowl top side down and swirl to coat, flip them over and coat the bottom and then cover with plastic wrap. Let these rest in a refrigerator over night. This entire process can take as little as 15 minutes.



Food Rules

The following is taken directly from a Michael Pollan article posted in the New York Times Magazine. The article is written incredibly well and brings great light to a situation that obviously needs to change. To read the entire article, which I highly recommend you do please visit:

http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/

If you have any specific questions in reference to items mentioned please feel free to ask and I will explain them. I also recommend watching Food, Inc. in conjunction with this article. They play off each other very well. Now without further ado...

Michael Pollan

Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.
1. Eat food. Though in our current state of confusion, this is much easier said than done. So try this: Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. (Sorry, but at this point Moms are as confused as the rest of us, which is why we have to go back a couple of generations, to a time before the advent of modern food products.) There are a great many foodlike items in the supermarket your ancestors wouldn’t recognize as food (Go-Gurt? Breakfast-cereal bars? Nondairy creamer?); stay away from these.




2. Avoid even those food products that come bearing health claims. They’re apt to be heavily processed, and the claims are often dubious at best. Don’t forget that margarine, one of the first industrial foods to claim that it was more healthful than the traditional food it replaced, turned out to give people heart attacks. When Kellogg’s can boast about its Healthy Heart Strawberry Vanilla cereal bars, health claims have become hopelessly compromised. (The American Heart Association charges food makers for their endorsement.) Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign that they have nothing valuable to say about health.



3. Especially avoid food products containing ingredients that are a) unfamiliar, b) unpronounceable c) more than five in number — or that contain high-fructose corn syrup.None of these characteristics are necessarily harmful in and of themselves, but all of them are reliable markers for foods that have been highly processed.



4. Get out of the supermarket whenever possible. You won’t find any high-fructose corn syrup at the farmer’s market; you also won’t find food harvested long ago and far away. What you will find are fresh whole foods picked at the peak of nutritional quality. Precisely the kind of food your great-great-grandmother would have recognized as food.



5. Pay more, eat less. The American food system has for a century devoted its energies and policies to increasing quantity and reducing price, not to improving quality. There’s no escaping the fact that better food — measured by taste or nutritional quality (which often correspond) — costsmore, because it has been grown or raised less intensively and with more care. Not everyone can afford to eat well in America, which is shameful, but most of us can: Americans spend, on average, less than 10 percent of their income on food, down from 24 percent in 1947, and less than the citizens of any other nation. And those of us who can afford to eat well should. Paying more for food well grown in good soils — whether certified organic or not — will contribute not only to your health (by reducing exposure to pesticides) but also to the health of others who might not themselves be able to afford that sort of food: the people who grow it and the people who live downstream, and downwind, of the farms where it is grown.



”Eat less” is the most unwelcome advice of all, but in fact the scientific case for eating a lot less than we currently do is compelling. ”Calorie restriction” has repeatedly been shown to slow aging in animals, and many researchers (including Walter Willett, the Harvard epidemiologist) believe it offers the single strongest link between diet and cancer prevention. Food abundance is a problem, but culture has helped here, too, by promoting the idea of moderation. Once one of the longest-lived people on earth, the Okinawans practiced a principle they called ”Hara Hachi Bu”: eat until you are 80 percent full. To make the ”eat less” message a bit more palatable, consider that quality may have a bearing on quantity: I don’t know about you, but the better the quality of the food I eat, the less of it I need to feel satisfied. All tomatoes are not created equal.



6. Eat mostly plants, especially leaves. Scientists may disagree on what’s so good about plants — the antioxidants? Fiber? Omega-3s? — but they do agree that they’re probably really good for you and certainly can’t hurt. Also, by eating a plant-based diet, you’ll be consuming far fewer calories, since plant foods (except seeds) are typically less ”energy dense” than the other things you might eat. Vegetarians are healthier than carnivores, but near vegetarians (”flexitarians”) are as healthy as vegetarians. Thomas Jefferson was on to something when he advised treating meat more as a flavoring than a food.



7. Eat more like the French. Or the Japanese. Or the Italians. Or the Greeks. Confounding factors aside, people who eat according to the rules of a traditional food culture are generally healthier than we are. Any traditional diet will do: if it weren’t a healthy diet, the people who follow it wouldn’t still be around. True, food cultures are embedded in societies and economies and ecologies, and some of them travel better than others: Inuit not so well as Italian. In borrowing from a food culture, pay attention to how a culture eats, as well as to what it eats. In the case of the French paradox, it may not be the dietary nutrients that keep the French healthy (lots of saturated fat and alcohol?!) so much as the dietary habits: small portions, no seconds or snacking, communal meals — and the serious pleasure taken in eating. (Worrying about diet can’t possibly be good for you.) Let culture be your guide, not science.



8. Cook. And if you can, plant a garden. To take part in the intricate and endlessly interesting processes of providing for our sustenance is the surest way to escape the culture of fast food and the values implicit in it: that food should be cheap and easy; that food is fuel and not communion. The culture of the kitchen, as embodied in those enduring traditions we call cuisines, contains more wisdom about diet and health than you are apt to find in any nutrition journal or journalism. Plus, the food you grow yourself contributes to your health long before you sit down to eat it. So you might want to think about putting down this article now and picking up a spatula or hoe.



9. Eat like an omnivore. Try to add new species, not just new foods, to your diet. The greater the diversity of species you eat, the more likely you are to cover all your nutritional bases. That of course is an argument from nutritionism, but there is a better one, one that takes a broader view of ”health.” Biodiversity in the diet means less monoculture in the fields. What does that have to do with your health? Everything. The vast monocultures that now feed us require tremendous amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to keep from collapsing. Diversifying those fields will mean fewer chemicals, healthier soils, healthier plants and animals and, in turn, healthier people. It’s all connected, which is another way of saying that your health isn’t bordered by your body and that what’s good for the soil is probably good for you, too.

Chloe's Zucchini Coconut Loaf! (with cream cheese filling, mmm)

This is one of my favorite loaves along with pumpkin for the fall/harvest season. It might sound like a strange mix at first but trust me, your taste buds will thank you for such a delightful mixture and healthy(ier?) dessert option.
(Photos to come, I think Dan has my camera cord...grrr.)

What you will need:
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 and 1/2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup coconut flakes
1/2 package (4 oz) of cream cheese
1 cup grated unpeeled (but washed) zucchini
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 and 1/2 cups AP flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground whole nutmeg
1/2 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
 
Make your Batter:
In one bowl take 1 of your eggs and beat with 1 cup of sugar, vegetable oil, vanilla extract and grated unpeeled zucchini.
 
In another bowl combine your flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg (grated whole nutmeg adds much more flavor), coconut and optional walnuts for an extra crunch. Stir to combine thoroughly. Pour egg mixture over your dry ingredients and stir everything together til moist.
 
Make your filling:
In yet another bowl make your cream cheese filling by combining the half packet of room temperature cream cheese, egg and half cup of sugar. Stir til creamed.
 
Layer, Bake, Eat (Prayer and Love optional):
Pour 1/3 to half of your batter down in a greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pan. Drop spoonfuls of cream cheese filling in center and cover with remaining half of batter. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees F. for an hour to an hour, 15 mins. or check with a toothpick til it comes out clean. Great for sharing with your family & friends over the next football game, this years Thanksgiving meal, or just to enjoy on your own with your favorite beer like me. Tonight I decided to pair with UFO's Raspberry Hefeweizen.

Tomato Tricks

Self admittedly, I have been quite lazy these past few weeks and haven't bothered to post anything of substance. In an effort to get back on track I'll leave you this evening with a simple cooking tip. It's a simple technique that adds only 4 or 5 minutes to your cooking times, but it is easy to accomplish and worth the investment.

When you cook tomatoes, especially stewing or braising, they tend to have thick skins that do not breakdown. Anyone who has made any type of fresh tomato sauce has inevitably seen the result of not seeding and peeling the tomato prior to cooking. Seeds are quite noticeable no matter how thick of a sauce you make and the skins tend to curl up into little cigarettes and can be chewy and uninviting. Skins and seeds also, obviously, effect the flavor of the dish generally in a direction I do not enjoy. So, to remove the skin and seeds from your tomatoes you can perform the following.

To Peel:
Bring a pot of water to a boil. Nothing crazy, just enough to cover the tomatoes or at least a few at a time if you want to work in batches. Do not salt the water.

Remove the core from the tomato, if you like, and at the opposite end make an X through the bottom no more than a 1/4 inch in depth. You can do it easily with a paring knife. Gently drop the tomatoes into the boiling water, return to a boil, and cook for about 3 minutes. You should see the skin just barely starting to curl back on itself.

Immediately remove the tomatoes and place them into an ice bath. An ice bath is simply just a bowl with ice and water. It will shock the tomatoes, stopping the cooking almost instantly and cooling them down to a temperature that is low enough so that you can hold them in your hands.

Once the tomatoes are cool enoughto handle, using the paring knife peel the remainder of the skin and discard.

To Seed:
At this point you can cook with them if you like or you can run them through a food mill to break them down and remove the remaining seeds. If you aren't lucky enough to have a food mill simply cut the tomatoes in half and squeeze them with your hand over a bowl. It will remove the seeds and gel from the interior of the tomato leaving you with just the tomato flesh. You can strain this gel and reduce it or add it back to your sauce. Keep enough of it and you can turn even turn it into ketchup. The seeds, go plant them...

Now obviously there are instances where this is completely unnecessary, however, any time you are going to cook the tomatoes into a dish, say ratatouille or a tomato sauce, I highly recommend using this technique first. Your finished product will easily reflect the extra step.

Mast Brothers Chocolate, Quite the Influence

http://www.http//www.mastbrotherschocolate.com/

The two of us visited an artisan chocolatier in Brooklyn yesterday. Rick and Michael Mast are self described craft chocolatiers, importing high quality raw cocao and transforming it into a delicate, subtle, delicious chocolate bar far and above that produced by companies like Nestle or Hershey. I will write another post going into more detail later when I have some pictures to post. What I do want to write about however is a chord struck by the older brother Rick from yesterdays tour. He simply stated, so many American's, not to mention billions of people around the world, regard chocolate as one of their loved foods. A large percentage of people when asked what their favorite thing is or what they could eat every day would respond with chocolate as an answer. Interestingly enough, not many people actually know where chocolate comes from, how its made, its intricacies and nuances. 

That started me thinking. As common as chocolate is in many of our diets something all of us eat daily and rarely think twice about is bread.

Bread comes in hundreds of varieties, flavors, textures, styles etc. Recipes are as unique to the baker as grandma's tomato sauce is to the Italian. It's history goes back hundreds and hundreds of years and is as complex as a rubik's cube. Yet, not many people really know anything about it other than we find it near the eggs in the supermarket and that it contains a bunch of awkwardly named chemicals so it can sit on our counters for weeks without going bad. If you have ever tasted a well baked bread you will understand it is so much more. The flavors are delicate and deep and infinitely versatile. From crunchy and tangy to soft and sweet the ratio of ingredients are endless constantly producing new flavors and textures. If you ever try to make bread from scratch it becomes even more evident how much of an art form bread baking is and it is one that has caught my eye like the Seurat in Chicago.

So for this reason over the past few weeks I have been reading as much as I can about bread making and will begin my experimentation into homemade bread. As I perfect the recipes I'll keep you updated and try and make it as accessible to the home cook as possible.  I've started with a focaccia recipe that is very versatile and after one attempt is promisingly simple. I'm going to follow this up with one of the many hearth breads, possibly a french baguette and then a simple white bread loaf. So, stay tuned and we really encourage you if you follow our blog to try to reproduce one or two of the recipes and let us know how it goes!

Bridal Shower White-Chocolate Oatmeal Craisin Cookies!

While Dan was recovering from his previously mentioned ER trip(S) I had to run away to attend my best friend's bridal shower, of which these were the table decorations/gift favors:

This is a cute idea for a shower gift for your guests and is also delicious.  The recipe is based off the back of a bag of Craisins, but modified to fit into a standard size jam jar.

Ingredients for jars:

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup white sugar
3/4 cups quick cooking oats
3/4 cups AP flour
1/3 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup dried cranberries

Other Ingredients required (which obviously can't be pre-mixed into jars):
1 egg
1/3 cup butter softened to room temperature
1/3 teaspoon vanilla extract

mmmmm!

Directions
Mix the butter, sugar and vanilla on medium speed until creamed. Be sure to scrape the bowl every 30 seconds or so. Add the egg and mix until well blended and smooth.

In a separate bowl, mix the remaining dry ingredients reserving only the cranberries and dry oats. Incorporate dry ingredients into the creamed mixture in a single batch. Mix on low until just blended. Don't over mix or it will toughen the gluten in the cookies and ruin the texture. Fold in the oats and cranberries. Place onto parchment paper and roll into a tube. Refrigerate the mixture to cool the butter and let the gluten settle before baking.

Slice and place on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350F until golden brown and delicious. Cool on a wire rack.

Warning:
So, if you are using the recipe as a party favor, it's quite difficult to complete the recipe as a recipient because the ingredients will mix somewhat in the jar. No big deal of course, you can obviously bypass the recipe and just mix wet and dry ingredients and go at it. The end outcome won't be quite the same but it will be good in its own right. We were discussing and came up with a few ideas that might be simple and cheap enough to stop the ingredients from mixing in the jar. You can cut parchment paper into rounds using an empty food can and place them between the ingredient layers, or you can bag each ingredient separately into a colored cheesecloth and place in a slightly larger jar. This way you get to have your ingredients and eat them too. If anyone out there is reading and tries out the recipe, do us a favor and let us know the end result.

I Went to Culinary School and All I Got Was This Stupid Inflamed Intestine

So, long story short, after a long weekend of eating various cuisines with my friend Logan, who is currently serving our country in Japan, I managed to develop some internal pain. After two trips to the ER this unfortunate turn of events has rendered me semi lifeless and pretty much stuck at home unable to eat solid foods for a few days. The unimportant are the details, the important is the food.

My cousin was gracious enough to make me some soup. It is a revitalized version of my grandfather's escarole and bean soup and very simple to make and quite delicious. I'm going to write her version because I ate it and it was great, and then give a couple of variations that sound like they might be pretty good.

Ingredients:
4oz onions, diced.
4 garlic cloves, peeled
2 heads of escarole, torn into bite size pieces
5 cans of vegetable stock
15 ounce can of cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
olive oil
Good quality parmigiano-reggiano

The time tested delicious version:
Heat the olive oil on medium high in a tall stockpot or marmite.
Brown the garlic cloves on oil sides till dark brown, but not black, and remove them from the pan. Now add the onions and cook until translucent. When nearly finished add the escarole. It will seem like a lot but will wilt down quickly and saute until fragrant and soft. Next comes the beans and vegetable stock. Simmer until flavors meld and season with salt and fresh cracked pepper. Do not oversalt the soup, the cheese is quite salty and will complete the rest of the seasoning of the dish.  Serve in a shallow bowl with crusty italian bread and freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano on top.

Time tested and classic this dish is great and also vegetarian. Yummmm

For a few notches in the carnivorous belt you can:
-Start by sauteing some bacon lardons. I would use a bacon that isn't too smokey as to not overwhelm the other flavors. If you can't find any you can blanch the lardons a couple of times in boiling water to remove some of the smoky flavor.

-You can use homemade chicken stock or vegetable stock as well. Chicken stock is probably a little more authentic but the vegetable was great also.

-Another great thing is to make little meatballs of lamb, pork, veal, or beef and add them to the cooking liquid. Sausage would also work and you can add it to the recipe when you saute the lardons. If you add the sausage in the beginning, remove it after cooking and then reintroduce it at the end of the recipe so they don't dry out.

-For a more fresh presentation and to remove just a touch of bitterness from the escarole you can blanch the greens in boiling water for just a minute or two and shock them in cold water. This will lock in the bright green color and remove some of the bitterness. This can be used on all types of bitter greens.

 Hopefully someone will try out at least some version of this and let me know how it goes. My cousin was spot on and I burned through 2 quarts of this in a day. Delicious.

Bohn Mi Sandwich

Yesterday, for the second time, I was able to scarf down a delightful Bohm Mi sandwich from Pho Sure. It is consistent and quite delicious. The restaurant is located at 120 Christopher St between Bedford and Bleeker. The sandwich is a very reasonable six or so dollars and can quickly be prepared making it a great take out option. If my memory serves me correct it is a spread of pate, pork, pickled dikon and carrot, cilantro, and siracha on a delicious Vietnamese baoguette. The bread is one of the focal points of the sandwich, and deservingly so. It is not overstuffed with meat or seasoning and the flavor and texture of the bread is very important to the overall flavor profile of the sandwich. This particular baoguette had a very flaky texture with an almost sweet and not overly bearing yeast flavor. Perfectly complimenting the ingredients.

While waiting, I talked to the gentleman who took the order. Pleasant fellow with quite a thick Vietnamese accent. Despite the language barrier he was quite knowledgeable and accommodating and explained very well that Vietnam has a heavy French and Asian influence in it's cuisine. Techniques of Classic French cuisine is combined with both French and Asian flavors to create quite a flavor profile unmistakeable and unique. I mean honestly, where else do you spend six bucks on a sandwich and get pate as a condiment? Not McDonald's that's pho sure....get it...pho sure?

I highly recommend anyone who is in the Manhattan area take a trip out and test out the various sandwiches or Pho at Pho Sure. Quite delicious and a good deal none the less.

Retraction/Addition:

As per a recent conversation with whom we will call "Jack" it was brought to my attention that my prejudice against all things not properly called butter, (margerine, Smart Balance, etc) came as a little harsh. Although I still stand in my opinion of all things foux in food I figured I would post the following pictures as a representation of the source of my prejudice. To add, I do strictly disregard Smart Balance or the like as being edible. I also say, if you like spreadable butter there is no reason why you can't take butter and whip it until its airy and spreadable and then refridgerate. You can also mix it with a good olive oil, virgin or extra virgin depending on your pallete to make it more spreadable. Or of course, you can always let the butter sit out at room temperature for several hours or invest in a butter bell. (http://www.butterbell.com/) I simply say, if your butter has more than 2, or at most, 3 ingredients many of which you cannot pronounce, take a second look at what's available. If you can't eat butter for whatever reason, you should probably just being staying away from it all instead of investing in the fake stuff as a suitable replacement. Just read about margarine and its past or the infamous "diet soda" phenomonen which we all know is bull**** and yet we all fall for it.

Butter Ingredients:

Not so much butter....

Whipped Butter Recipe:
Place soft but not warm or room temperature butter in a stand mixer with a whisk attachment. Whip on low for about 30 seconds or until it begins to loosen up a bit. Kick the speed up to high and whip until airy. You can add a but of oil to help emulsify the air, just a touch. Just watch the consistancy rather follow a specific recipe. Refridgerate and spread away.

Na'cho Mama's Fish and Chips

So look. Fish is ugly, it can be slimey, it's intimidating but...it's just food after all. It's pretty cheap, if you buy right, and it tastes freakin delicious so get over it, find a good fish market, a sharp knive and get to work.

Buying whole fish can be quite economical. Once you learn to butcher the few types of fish you might come across, it becomes pretty simple and quite quick. I'm not saying you will be ready to work at Le Bernardin, but you will be more than capable to throw together a meal for a few guests. There are a few very simple rules to buying whole fish that can easily be memorized. Always, always, always start with the smell when picking out fish. It should not smell fishy. It should be on ice and not sitting in its own juices. The flesh should be firm and not very slimey. The eyes should be clear and round not flat and cloudy. Pay attention to the signs at fish markets also. They should tell you if the fish was previously frozen and where it comes from. Don't refreeze previously frozen fish and DO NOT be afraid to ask your fish monger questions or for help. That's what they are there for and that's what you are paying them for.

Anyways, on to the better stuff.
So, I was lucky enough to get a nice whole trout which I promptly took home, on ice, and took apart to cook for my lady. We had a nice "fish and chips", aka, Poisson et pommes frites. Sans malt vinegar, but we did throw in a semi decent burre blanc, butter sauce, and a very acidic lemon sauce to top. I'm not going into crazy specifics for the recipes right now but I'll briefly describe at least the techniques behind it. As for filleting the fish, just youtube how to filet a flounder or trout or red snapper or whatever fish tickles your fancy.

For the French Fries, Frites, Fried Potatoes: If your normal, French, or uber patriotic; respectively

French fries are generally a two step process. You cut your fries then dry them well. If they sit too long they will oxidize and turn brown so don't leave them on a sheat pan for an hour while your oil heats up.

Fry the potatoes at 300-320 degrees until tender all the way through. Shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes. Let them cool and drain well. Heat the oil up to around 375 and put the fries back in until golden brown. Remove from the oil and season immediately. The fries should be crispy on the outside and warm and soft on the inside. It takes a little bit of playing around when you're using a dutch oven as a deep fryer. The temperature will swing wildly in different directions so, one hand on the food, the other on the gas knob.

The Fish
The fish was incredibly simple. I filleted it into two pieces about 8 inches long and cut them both on a bias. The trout was about 2 lb's and was easily enough to feed two people. I left the skin on and dredged the skin side in a little bit of flour, although I'm told Wondra works a little better. I seared the skin on medium heat in a little butter and olive oil. Keep in mind how fatty and how thick the skin is, if it's a thick cut you don't want to sear it on too high heat or it won't render completely. Flip the fish after the skin is crisp and lightly browned and warm the bottom side through.

The buerre blanc sauce was a classic recipe that I got from cooking school. Nothing crazy and quite unimaginative but pretty good I suppose. I'll post the recipe another time.

At the end I took a little vinegar, sugar, lemon juice and supremed lemon. Tossed it in the drained pan that I pan seared the fish in. Let it warm up just a touch and spooned it on top of the fish.

Sorry for the not so typical post but I'm kind of scattered, have a lot to do and a bunch of stuff to read and not a lot of time to get it done so I'm kind of flying through this. Hope at least someone out there might at least try making the french fries. They are definitely worth the effort. Don't forget you can season fries with anything. Lately, my palate is enjoying onion powder, garlic powder, salt, black pepper and celery seed.

Beer Bread

If you're like us and a fan of beer (see Dan's previous blog entry for more information: http://chefdaniellouis.blogspot.com/2010/07/six-points-breweryridiculous.html) and who's NOT a fan of bread, I mean, seriously; then here's the recipe for you:

   

Beer bread!

It's sweet & cakey with just a hint of beer flavor and a great alternative for cornbread with a bowl of chili. It's even good toasted with honey and a cup of coffee in the morning.

How to make:

-3 cups AP flour
-2 tbs baking powder
-1 tsp salt
-1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tbs honey or your favorite nectar/syrup sweetener (I used Lyle's Golden Syrup )

- 2 tbs melted butter
-2 eggs slightly beaten
- Your favorite 12 ounce beer! (I usd Yuengling)


Thoroughly mix ingredients together (will be VERY sticky) and pour into a butter-greased 9x5x3 loaf pan and bake on 375 for about an hour, or until crust is nicely browned and a fork or tooth pick comes out clean.

Yum Yum Duck Breast

So, Miss Chloë visited me yesterday evening for some dinner. We just happened to have some mallard duck laying around, which I'm sure you all do. So we seared it off and put it on top of some nice lentils and a peach-apricot beurre blanc. How, you ask? Easy.

So, duck breast is very fatty, you can tell from the picture that even we didn't get the chance to render it down as well as we all might like, but it was still delicious. The actual meat is quite lean but since ducks swim in cold water there is a healthy layer of fat under the skin for insulation. To consume, it's best to render the fat the best you can, creating a nice crispy skin that is amazingly delicious. What you want to do first is rinse and dry your duck breast very well. take a sharp knife and score it at a 45 degree angle at a width of about 1/2 inch per score. You want to score the skin and fat as deep as possible without cutting the meat. After the first row of cuts rotate the breast and cut it at a 90 degree angle.

Start off a 10 inch saute pan with about 1/4 inch of canola oil, or preferably duck fat, on medium low heat. Give it about 5 minutes to warm before again, patting dry, salting and placing your breast into the pan. Let it sit, undisturbed for at least 5 minutes before giving the pan a nice little shake. The breast should loosen off the bottom and continue to render. You want to let this cook for between 20 and 25 minutes on medium-low to low heat. The fat will render very slowly and the point is to time the browning of the skin with the rendering of the fat. After the skin is rendered take the breast out and put the pan on high heat. Let it warm for a minute then place the breast in and cook for about 2 minutes. Don't overcook it at this point. You just want to sear the bottom and it should be just about cooked through already.  Finish cooking the breast and let it begin to rest and purge. (Notice the blood on the plate)

For the Sauce:

After searing the duck, drain as much fat as you can and place on medium-high heat. Add diced peaches and apricots. As you can see by the picture above, my dice was quite large. I would recommend half the size of that but it doesn't matter all that much. Once they are softened you can squish them with a fork and all is good. Cook until the fruit just starts to soften and add about a cup of duck stock. Mild chicken stock will work just as well. Reduce the stock by about 80 percent. There should be about 3 or 4 tablespoons of liquid in the stock. At this point you can adjust the acidity by adding some vinegar or whatever acid you like. I used about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and a tablespoon of sugar dissolved. Let this cook come to a simmer then remove from the heat and begin to whisk in about 5 ounces of very cold butter cut into small squares. Put in about 2 pieces and whisk until melted before adding two more etc. Keep moving the sauce back and forth from the heat but be warned, if the sauce comes back to a boil the butter will separate and your screwed. When adding the last piece of butter make sure the heat is completely off and the sauce has begun to cool down a bit. This will help it hold together and not break. Add the soft fruit to the soft and taste for seasoning. Yum.

The lentils I simply cooked in water with several pinches of salt. After they were done I drained them and stired in some vinegar to brighten them up.

The plating was easy and self described and although it wasn't good enough to be served at my future restaurant, Daniel Louis' it was pretty damn delicious.

Birthdays. Steak. & Leftovers.

We just got back from a quick weekend away to visit both of our moms who happened to both be celebrating their birthdays. Small world. A group of us went out to Morton's steakhouse and managed to go home with a doggy bag or two, or 4. What to do with delicous steak leftovers? How about some upscale grilled cheese steak sandwiches. Here's how to make 'em:

What you'll need:
- Steak from your favorite steak house.
(Mine happened to be cajun ribeye)
- Red onion (Sliced Very Thinly)
- Sliced tomatoes
- Sharp cheddar cheese
- Ciabatta bread
- Butter
- Mayonnaise
- Apple cider vinegar
- Garlic Powder
- Parsley
- Lemon Juice
- Salt
- Pepper

To make the sauce to spread on the ciabatta bread, whisk some mayo and apple cider vinegar together with salt and pepper to taste. Add the dried parsley and some garlic powder. Taste the seasoning and adjust the acidity with some lemon juice. Spread generously over sliced ciabatta. Grease a pan with butter, like real butter not that stupid spreadable goop, we prefer Land o'Lakes unsalted sweet cream butter. Or homemade for that matter. In thin layers, place steak, onions, tomatoes, salt, and cheese on the bread.

Here's Dan showing how to layer the sliced steak, onion, tomatoes and cheese all together before placing the sandwich into the frying pan.

Cook them as you would grilled cheese. Dan rendered some beef fat and added just a touch of butter to the pan and cooked them on medium low heat till golden brown and delish.

Dan says, "Some would argue that this is a panini, but it's not, and they are wrong."


Happy Birthday moms!

Parmigiana.

Some of you may have looked at the title of this blog and thought, ‘oooh something covered in cheese. I wonder if it’s chicken or veal.’ In reality, Parmigiana specifically refers to eggplant layered with cheese and tomato, usually baked. Whenever you see Parmigiana on a menu and it is not eggplant you should technically see a surname, like chicken Parmigiana or veal Parmigiana. Likewise, when you go to those off the wall restaurants and they spell it Veal Parmesan, they are literally saying veal with Parmigiano-Reggiano, which if you don’t know what that is you need to go to a specialty market and find out. So enough yapping and on to the recipe.

This recipe has 3 parts to it. You fry, simmer and bake. The object is to have everything done efficiently, so if you fry your eggplant before you start the sauce, you’ll be waiting an hour and a half before baking. However, if you start the sauce and then fry your eggplant, you will cut down on waiting time now won’t you?

Yield: 4-5 Servings

The Sauce:
1 - 28oz Can Tutturosso Crushed Tomatoes
1 – medium onion, Finely Diced
2 – good sized garlic cloves, minced
Olive Oil
1 T of dried oregano
1 T of dried parsley
1 T of dried basil
1 t of crushed red pepper flake
2 bay leaves

Add some olive oil to a medium saucepan and warm on medium heat while you dice your onions. Add the onions and a pinch of salt to draw out moisture. You want to sweat these onions, meaning you don’t really want any color, and you want to cook them until they are just beginning to turn soft and translucent. At that point you can add your minced garlic . Let it cook for another few minutes and add your crushed red pepper. Give the pepper just enough time to release its oils before adding the crushed tomatoes and bay leaves. I like to let this simmer for about an hour before adding the oregano, parsley, and basil and cooking for about another 30-45 minutes. I like to cook my sauce until the sugars in the tomatoes are beginning to cook out and the sauce as more of an unctuous flavor as opposed to a sweet flavor. To me, when sauces are sweet I taste more of the bitterness in the seeds and pulp. In other words, cook it as long as you want.

Eggplant:
1 – Large Eggplant
Sheet pan with cooling rack
Breadcrumbs, seasoned (ours were homemade)
Egg
Flour
Blended Olive Oil (50/50 Olive and Canola)

While the sauce is simmering you can now start preparing your eggplant. Skin your eggplant and slice into long strips, about 5 mm thick. Place your eggplant on a drying rack and lightly salt both sides. This is going to draw out moisture prior to cooking and will strengthen your flavors and make the final product less watery. Let the eggplant sit for about 10-15 minutes before you dab dry with a paper towel. While it is sitting, mix the ricotta filling. Set up your breading station. We used homemade breadcrumbs and seasoned them with some parsley, oregano, salt, pepper and parmigiano-reggiano. So the process for breading is, dip in flour, dip in egg, dip in breadcrumbs, fry. Got it? I’m not going to go into specifics so if you have questions email us or comment. After frying, let them cool on the baking tray rack. This will keep them up and out of oil soaked paper towels and keeps them crisp and non-greasy.

Ricotta Filling:
10 oz of Ricotta
1 Egg
Salt
1 t Parsley
1 t Oregano
1 t Garlic Powder
Parmigiano Reggiano

Mix the ingredients in a mixing bowl. I know it has raw egg BUT, I taste it for seasoning. I suppose you can taste it first and then add the egg but that would be logical. Kids and the elderly, do not try at home.

Parmigiana:
Prepared Sauce
Prepared Eggplant
1 9x9 baking vessel
Shredded Mozzarella Cheese, use as much as you like

Add a ladle of sauce to the bottom of the vessel and use it to “grease” the pan. Place a layer of eggplant, sauce, mozzarella, ricotta, shaved Parmigiano-reggiano, eggplant, sauce, mozzarella ricotta, shaved PM, eggplant etc etc….Just keep going until the vessel is full. You want the last three layers to be, eggplant, sauce, mozzarella. Throw this in a 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes until warmed through and lightly browned on top. Delicious. Chloe and I did a little multitasking on this one, while I was cutting she was setting up, while I was frying she was breading etc. Our own little kitchen assembly line. Plus we hadn’t seen each other in a week and it let us talk while avoiding the various walls in my apartment.

Once again, if you guys have any questions feel free to comment or email and don’t forget…recipes are guidelines, make your own changes and enjoy.

Snickerdoodles! Our First Guest Post

Today one of my best friends in the whole wide world is going to share her thoughts on baking and most importantly give us a snickerdoodle recipe! I will be bringing these to Dan after a long hard week (yea, right!) of culinary classes. I have known Heather since college where she inspired me with her already refined cooking skills, 7-layer dip perfections and weird healthy alternates like turkey burgers and tofu.

Thanks, Heather! These look delish...

"Like Chloe and Dan, I’ve had a love for food since before I can remember. I started receiving kitchen appliances in elementary school and attended Pampered Chef parties with my mom when other kids were playing dolls and riding their bikes. For the final assignment in my 7th grade home economics class (side note – do schools still do that? Am I dating myself?!) I made a pot roast while the other students made chocolate chip cookies. I also spent many summer days at my aunt’s bakery – frosting cookies, mixing icing, watching her do wonders with sugar, flour and butter. As you can tell, I love food and all things about it.

For the beginner chef, there’s a major difference between cooking and baking. Ever watched Top Chef? Choose dessert, and you’re going home. Cooking allows for creativity – view the recipe and then start your journey ad-libbing. Like something spicy? Use siracha instead of cayenne pepper sauce. Accidently add too much salt? Add a chunk of potato to draw the salt away. Baking, on the other hand, is an actual science. The measurements and ingredients are necessary for your cookies to look (and taste) like cookies. Sure, once you get the general idea of baking and the fundamentals that baking soda is not the same as baking powder, you can add your own special touch. But if it’s your first time making cookies not from slice and bake, do yourself a favor and follow the recipe.

In preparation of seeing my brother for the first time in eight months (and his wife and meeting my baby nephew for the first time!), I decided to make his favorite childhood cookie – Snickerdoodles! Recipe is my (other) favorite food blog: Annie’s Eats.

Snickerdoodles (Yields: about 30 cookies)

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups (11 1/4 oz.) unbleached all-purpose flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
12 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened but still cool
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 oz.) granulated sugar, plus 3 tbsp. for rolling dough
2 large eggs
1 tbsp. ground cinnamon, for rolling dough

To create:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine the first four dry ingredients in a small bowl. In a separate large bowl, add the butter, shortening and sugar and blend well.

Of all of the kitchen appliances I have, I’m still sans a Kitchen Aid (although on my registry…!) Annie recommends using your Kitchen Aid or another electric mixer, but there’s something powerful about creaming butter and sugar. To me, I’m enthralled watching two ingredients, one a fine grain and one a soft and sticky solid come together. Nothing you can’t do without a little elbow grease! It is important to make sure the butter is soft but cool as the recipe calls for. When working with butter and baking, if the butter is too warm or melted (watch out if you decide to nuke it in the microwave!), you run the risk of your cookies spreading too much and being flat and crisp instead of soft and chewy.

Anyways….once you creamed the butter, shortening and sugar, add your two eggs and mix together until well combined. Add the flour mixture in two batches and mix until you have dough consistency. If your dough looks sticky, put the dough in the fridge to let the butter set before making the cookies. This will help them stay soft.

Combine the sugar and cinnamon in small bowl. Using a spoon or your hands, grab some dough and roll it into a ball about 1 in to 1 ½ inches wide. Roll the dough ball in the cinnamon sugar mixture and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Repeat until your tray is full. Take a flat-bottom cup (or use the palm of your hand) and lightly press down on the cookies until they’re about 1 ½ inches wide. Do not over flatten as the cookies will spread during baking. Repeat until finished.
Bake the cookies on the middle rack for 9-11 minutes. If you’re doing more than one tray at once, make sure to rotate the trays to ensure even baking.

Properly cool the cookies on a cooling rack and enjoy! :)

Grilled Pork Chops with Cherry Compote

Today is a big day. Dan begins culinary school, thus embarking on the journey to becoming the world's best chef, restauranteur and ultimately taking over the world. Just kidding.

Last night I made pork chops because that's both our favorite meat and also because it was on sale at Whole Foods. Here's how to make the marinade and recipe:

-Place 2-4 pork chops in a flat baking dish with a 1/4 cup of soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and some slices of fresh ginger. Cover and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.

-For the cherry compote, start with a chopped vidalia onion fried in some oil until soft and browning. Add a grated clove of garlic, 1/4 tsp grated ginger and a 1/2 cup of sliced pitted cherries to frying pan. Continue browning the ingredients on medium heat for approximately 10 mins.

-While you're letting the compote cook and come together, fry up your marinated pork chops on a cast iron skillet, about 4 or 5 mins on each side.
I also made some mashed red potatoes as a side, with plenty of butter of course.

Once your pork chops are ready, serve with spoonfuls of cherry compote on top. I also added fried almonds as a topping. Mmmmm, the other white meat. Enjoy!

Meet Bazil, our basil plant.

Over the past few months, Dan and I have been growing our own herbs including parsley, basil, dill and chives. This is fairly easy to do and creates a really fresh flavor to your sauces, meals and garnishes.
We start with seeds or seedlings and then transplant them to bigger pots when they're about 5 inches tall. They can grow right on your window sill indoors if you get enough sunlight. Of course, growing them outside is optimal, but if you can't, there's always grow lamps. We also use Daconil fungicide to keep the brown spots away, and Miracle-Gro, Organic Choice plant food. They also make a good garden soil for your pots.

Here's some baby basils we grew from seeds packets, courtesy of Geico (I know, didn't make any sense to me either when I got them in the mail but i'll take it!)

And once they get big enough, they will grow fairly large. Here's our pride and joy, Bazil the basil!
He needs a lot of water, almost daily, and plenty of sunshine. We keep him outside in full sunlight. Beautiful!

Buffalo Chicken Wings

If you think a restaurant is the only place you can get good buffalo wings you are poorly informed. I would even venture to guess that most restaurants don't even get them right and what you "think" are good chicken wings, are actually mediocre. The only way you'll be able to find out what good chicken wings are will be to taste them. Once you do that you'll understand what I've meant by the above. For good Chicken wings visit:

Amici (Mount Sinai, New York on route 347)
Mandalay Beach Bar (Clearwater Beach, Florida)
The Anchor Bar (Buffalo, New York)

So, when you think of the chicken wing, you should think of four things, and ranch dressing should not be one of them by the way. You've got wings, to and include, drumettes and winglets, the "sauce", blue cheese dressing, and celery. Now this is another one of those "no place to hide" recipes, as I call it. There isn't much going on so if you skimp out and get crappy ingredients, they won't knock your socks off. Lets start at the top....

Chicken wings, in their growing popularity conjoined with our ever effective capitalistic economy unfortunately inevitably yields one resort. Higher demand = Higher Prices. So, the best way around this is to buy the least processed chicken wing you can get. What do I mean by processed? I mean, buy the drummette and the little wing attached together. Cutting them apart takes a little bit of knowhow and maybe 15 minutes, but if you are making enough for a party or at least 4 people, you can definitely save some bucks. So, by your chicken from your local market. Do your best to get wings that aren't completely covered in gelatines fat and you have to make sure that they are fresh. When you get them home, rinse them under some cold water and set them on a racked baking sheet to dry. Go get your sharpest chef's knife and a poultry cutting board and take hold of one wing. Place it with the V of the drummette and wing facing away from you. If you rub your finger on the joint between those two parts you will feel a knuckle. There are a 100 different ways to actually seperate these two but basically you need to place your knife in the center of the knuckle and push down with some vigor. If you need help, call me. I'll explain in detail. Anyways....

The Sauce:
Listen, it's nice when people say, yeah I made my own bbq sauce, oooohhh I made homemade ketchup try it... But look, someone, somewhere, already figured out the best buffalo sauce recipe. There is no point in trying to duplicate it's magic, it's impossible and will probably cost you a lot of money on imported peppers. This sauce is the one and only Frank's Red Hot. It was the original sauce back in Buffalo, NY and in my opinion (and probably more than half of the rest of the countries) it makes the best wing. All you do is heat it gently in a pan and stir in cold butter until you get the desired heat level. That's it. Thats the sauce. No garlic powder, no salt, no cumin and smoked hungarian paprika. None of it. As Alton would say, all that's another post.

Blue Cheese:
I'm a big fan of making my own blue cheese. It's terribly easy and it lets you control the blue cheese you have in the dressing. I get the brown labeled store brand blue cheese from whole foods and it works excellently. Just search until you find one you like. The recipe is simple. Add a little half and half to mayonnaise until it looks like a loose chowdah. If you want a cup of dressing then it's about 1/3 cup mayo and 1/3 cup half and half. Add a little salt and garlic powder and pour in the blue cheese. I can't say how much, it just needs to be "enough." Let this sit in the fridge for at least an hour. Overnight is better but you should use it within 5 days or so.

My computer battery is running out of power and I need to wrap this up.

The best way to do the wings is:

Make sure they dry very well on the rack, you can pat them with papertowels if you get anxious. Salt them about 5 minutes prior to cooking. Heat up Canola, Peanut, Safflower etc oil to 350 degrees in a medium to small saucepan. The idea is you are going mimick deep frying (like in our hamburger recipe) for about 10-12 minutes or until they are golden brown and cooked through. Do them in batches, so you don't crowd the oil and drop the tempereture too low. That will make for a soft wing. After the wing is cooked you simply add it to the hot sauce and toss till coated. Put them right in the serving dish and repeat until all the wings are completed. They are amazing, the blue cheese is a great compliment. Need to wrap it up but I'll elaborate and re-write some stuff later.

Shepherd's Pie

What do you do with leftover ground beef from your baked ziti (see previous post) and a bag of potatoes in your cupboard that are threatening to be ready for planting? Add in a healthy vegetable of course: I chose carrots, and Voila! You have the ingredients for Shepherd's Pie.



Boil water in a 4 qt. pan and peel 5 large potatoes. Let cook for approx 10-15 minutes until just soft enough but not too soft. Mash in a separate bowl with 3 tablespoons butter, 1/3 cup of milk and a tablespoon salt. Grate a half cup of cheddar cheese into potatoes for cheesey potato topping.

Next, oil a frying pan and start browning a chopped onion with 1 tsp paprika. Add ½ pound ground beef, salt to taste, tsp dried sage, tsp parsley and 1/2 tsp celery seed. Drain excess fat from beef, then add 3/4 cup of beef broth to mixture.

Boil more water. Peel and fine chop 3 carrots. Bring to boil and add them to beef mixture. Adjust paprika and salt to taste. Now you're ready to layer the beef mixture in a casserole dish. Spread the mashed potatoes over the top. Top with grated cheese and/or paprika to finish. Bake in a 400 oven for 25 minutes or until browned. Mmmm. Enjoy!

Baked Ziti

So, it's been weeks since the last time we posted. I (Dan) have been working towards going to culinary school and while working full time, this have been quite hectic. So, we've got some leftovers and limited time and we are going to throw together a delicious baked ziti.

Baked ziti, along with half the other Italian-American meals, has only four or five central ingredients and is pretty easy to throw together. Make sure the quality of your ingredients are good, there is no room to hide.

First things first, fill a 4 quart saucepan with water and put on the range to boil.

Now the Sauce:

I started with a 28 ounce can of San Marzano Tomatoes, Crushed. Heated a couple of tbsp of olive oil in a saucepan and added 4 cloves of garlic until browned. Remove the garlic and add the tomatoes. Cooking time will depend on how you like your sauces. I like mine with a deeper cooked tomato flavor, rather than a sweet/bitter raw tomato flavor. I cooked the sauce for about 20 minutes on medium and the raw flavor was more or less cooked out. I turned the heat to low and added a tsp each of basil, red pepper flake and oregano. Stir it will and let it simmer on low for about 5 minutes. Remove it from the heat and stir in a tabelspoon of roughly chopped fresh parsely.

Add 1 pound of pasta to the water, which should now be boiling. Don't forget to salt your water as well. Cook it until it is a little less than al dente. If you fully cook it, the pasta will over cook in the oven.

Drain the pasta well and mix in 6 ounces of Ricotta cheese, 4 ounces of shredded mozzarella, 3 tbsp of freshly grated parmegiana regiana, and enough sauce to coat. Mix everything well and top with some shredded mozzarella. Cover well with tin foil and bake for 35 minutes at 350. Remove the tin foil and raise the temperate to 400 until the cheese begins to brown. Yum!

More to come soon.

Muffins! Inspired by, Muffins!

This certainly has been a busy month. Between weddings, apartment hunting, birthdays, baptisms and filing police reports for lost or stolen items we’ve gotten a little off track. You’ll be relieved to know we have not stopped cooking or eating for that matter. At times like this a simple salad, pasta recipe or quick and easy homemade “sloppy joes” has been the cuisine du jour. Look out for Dan’s post on that later!

Here’s a fun and healthy, slightly overboard breakfast muffin recipe:

Chloe’s “Chocolate chip Cran-Banana Barley Flaxmeal Muffins!”
Makes 1 dozen large muffins.

Dry ingredients:
1 cup AP flour
1 cup flaxmeal
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 cup Godiva semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup dried sweetened cranberries
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. nutmeg
3 tbs. cinnamon
2 tbs. grated orange peel

Wet ingredients:
1 egg
2 mashed bananas
½ cup cooked cracked barley
½ cup olive oil
½ Golden syrup (you can find this in your international British/Irish foods section) OR Agave nectar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine wet to dry and mix thoroughly. Bake in oven at 375 for 25 mins.

Hey There

It's been a while since we've been able to write anything. Chloe has been working hard and I've always got a ton on my plate. (I suppose it's a fault of my personality) At the end of the last post we mentioned frying chips in oil. I mentioned briefly types of oils that can be used, but what I didn't mention is what to do with the oil when you are done.

I'm on a budget. I don't know about you, but I don't like throwing money down my sink. Just the same, pouring a quart of oil down the drain after I used it to fry 50 potato chips is a little extravagant. Especially since some genius decided ethanol was something we should use as alternative energy, but that's neither here nor there.

After you use your oil, you will most likely see some small bits of flour and other food particles that have sunk to the bottom of the pan and turned dark brown or maybe black. In order to save the oil, all we need to do is filter the oil to remove those bits.

Doing so is not so much rocket science. If you have a very fine meshed sieve you can simply wait for the oil to cool to room temperature and then run the oil through the sieve into a container with a pour spout. Most of us don't have scieve's laying around that will stop all the particles in the oil. (Although we should) So, another viable alternative is to buy some cheesecloth. You can get it at ALMOST any megamart these days and you can definitely order it online. Just fold it over and on itself once or twice, like you are folding paper towels so they don't tear. Place it on top of a strainer (or any scieve you have) and filter the oil that way. It may be appropriate to make 2 or 3 passes through the filter to get out as many particles as you can. Once you've filtered the oil, using the pour spout, pour the oil into a container with a tight fitting lid, preferibly the one it came in. Fill it as close to the top as you can. This will eliminate air inside and help to prevent spoiling. If you are paranoid you can take a small piece of plastic wrap, place it over the hole and then screw the top on for a better seal. Put the oil in the refridgerator, or in a dark cool place in your cupboard. You can reuse this oil 5 or 6 times, generally, before it will degrade too far but use your judgement if you think it's not good. Temperature, type of oil, the amount of food fried etc all effect how long your oil will last. Bad oil will usually smell rancid and it will taste bitter and burnt. Yes, you should taste the oil before frying. Just a wee bit, and don't wait till it's 350 degrees to dip a spoon in. In my opinion, I don't like keeping the oil around for more than a few months before starting a new batch.

TRICK:
After your oil is spent, as in bad, don't just throw it out. When using a new batch of oil, use about 90 percent new oil and 10 percent old oil. There are actual particles in used oil that help food brown correctly. That's why when you pan fry the first few pieces come out light brown and the more you cook in the same pan the darker and more delicious your food gets.

Just A Great Burger

So, have you ever gone to a great restaurant and asked yourself why their burger's taste so much better than the charbroiled hockey pucks you cook at home?

It's honestly not that difficult. There are only a few basic rules to abide by and the rest will fall into place.

RULE # 1

-Fresh Beef (buy it the same day, don't freeze it if you can help it)
Always buy your meat from a reputable source. If the cornerstore butcher is sketchy, don't even bother. It's cheap enough that you can get it from a reputable vendor and still pay pennies on the dollar compared to other cuts of meat. Also, to be honest, you can still make a great burger with frozen ground beef that you defrost. It won't be the best, but it will be "good enough". It pains me to say that.

RULE # 2

-Season the Meat Well
The standard seasoning I use is 2 parts Salt, 1 part fresh ground pepper, 1 part garlic powder and 1 part onion powder. This is commonly known as "house seasoning." You can typically use about 1 tsp of seasoning per pound of beef, but obviously adjust the amount to your tastes. Also, I always put worcestershire sauce in my hamburgers. At least a couple teaspoons per pound adds a little depth of flavor.

RULE #3
-Be aware of texture
Probably the biggest killer of a burger is bad texture. If you have stale bread and you like your hamburger cooked well, taking a bite will be like eating two pieces of cardboard filled with sawdust. Instead, maybe add something smooth and creamy (avocado) and something crunchy (well rendered bacon). Or, get creative, crisp up some canadian bacon and top the burger with hollandaise sauce, call it hamburgers benedict. (I didn't say burgers were healthy) At the same time, if you are using very soft brioche buns, consider something crunchy on the inside to balance the soft outside. TEXTURE, TEXTURE, TEXTURE.

That's my only three rules. Other than that, the sky is the absolute limit. The picture above is (delicious yes) the following

A Grilled Pancetta, Avocado, Crispy Onion and Swiss Cheese Burger on a Brioche Roll. (with a side of homemade sweet potato chips) also known as, the amazing burger.

Recipe: Homemade Sweet Potato Chips

This recipe is quite difficult without a mandolin. You can try to cut the potatoes by hand, however, it's not recommended. You can also use a good cheese grater if you have one with the right depth blade or you can try to use a vegetable peeler to shave the pieces down. They may look funny, but they will taste just as good.

Ingredients:
Sweet Potato (2 Large sweet potatoes are easily enough for 4 people)
House Seasoning
Oil for Frying (Canola or vegetable is fine but "frying peanut oil" is preffered)
A large bowl or baking sheet
a spider (a tool to use when deep frying)
Paper Towels

Heat the oil to 300 degrees in at least a 1 quart Saucepan filled to about 1 inch below the top. The bigger the pot you can afford to use the better, but don't overfill it. When you add the food the oil level will rise which is especially terrible on a gas stove if it decides to overflow.

Slice the potatoes as thin as possible using any method you can.

Line the bowl or sheet pan with paper towels.

once the oil comes to temperature, drop in each slice of potato one at a time. They will sink and then quickly rise to the surface. Cook them until the bubbling slowly begins to dissipate. If they begin to turn grey or dark brown they are over done. Once finished, using either a slotted spoon or the spider, remove the chips and place onto the flat sheet pan or the bowl and immediately season with house seasoning. Continue this process until all the chips are cooked. Season each layer as you go on. If you begin stacking chips on top of chips you may want to put another layer of paper towels in order to whick away the extra oil so none of the chips get soggy.

Thats it! Toss and enjoy. Amazing, simple, and once you eat them you will ask yourself, 'seriously, that's it? Why doesn't anyone make fresh potato chips anymore'

P.S. Don't forget to shut your oil when you're done frying.