新年快樂

新年快樂

Happy Chinese New Year! It seems that I've been saying Happy New Year wrong for the past whatever years. Or, at least, not entirely right... Gung Hay Fat Choy - is Cantonese for wishing someone a prosperous new year. Cantonese is the language of Hong Kong and the surrounding area, but Mandarin is the predominant language of the mainland. In Mandarin, one says Gong Xi Fa Cai. And, technically, neither are wishing someone Happy New Year as we occidentals mean it. That would be Xīn Nián Kuài Lè - pronounced sseen nee-ahn kwhy luh in Mandarin. One is never too old to learn something new about a different culture.

The first time I actually remember Gung Hay Fat Choy was in Hong Kong when I was there for Chinese New Year back in 1973. I probably saw and heard it plenty of times in my youth, but a guy I worked with - a Hawai'ian named Nick - just kept repeating it over and over while we were there. He was one of four of us who rented a room at The Excelsior Hotel- then Hong Kong's newest luxury hotel - for a week while we were in port. One of those indelible memories. I thought San Francisco had a wild Chinese New Year - it paled by comparison. Of course, I was 20 at the time. Thursday afternoons could be wild back in those days - and usually were if we were in port. And Hong Kong was definitely wild. Besides the obvious eating, drinking, and general debauchery, I had a set of gabardine dress blues made for me - talk about form-fitting. If I still had them, they wouldn't fit this form, today, but they were pretty slick back then.

As I have said many times, cooking Chinese food is not really intuitive for me. I can make a reasonably decent dish, but I'm not going to be hired at the local Chinese restaurant any time soon.

That doesn't stop me from making things, though - I just don't pretend they're even remotely authentic.

Like tonight's noodle dish.

We have a packet of Hong Kong Noodles - made in Hong Kong - and thought I'd do a noodle dish of sorts. I get confused with chow mein, lo mein, chow fun, et all. One is cooked noodles, one is noodles with sauce... rice noodles vs wheat noodles... It's all rather daunting.

I took ground pork - it's the Year of the Pig - and marinated it in hoisin sauce, sambal oelek, soy sauce, black vinegar, ginger, sesame oil, and rice wine.

I fried it up in a large skillet, and then added onions, red bell pepper, celery, carrots, water chestnuts, and green onions. I added a splash of chicken broth and a drizzle of rice wine, and then thickened it with cornstarch. Finally, I stirred in the cooked noodles and some bean sprouts.

On the side were pork pot stickers, pork shu mai, and chicken egg rolls with a dipping sauce of ketchup, soy sauce, sambal oelek, and sesame oil.

It was an occidental homage to an oriental celebration.

Not bad.

 

 

 

 


Chinese Chili

Chinese Chili

Okay... here's one for the fusion-folks - a mashup of cultures with a familiar look but an unexpected taste!

I was looking for a brisket recipe and stumbled upon this from the New York Times. I set my skepticism aside and decided to go for it. I'm rather glad I did. It's pretty good!

I did my own twist on things, of course... The original recipe calls for 2 large onions - I used one and added leeks and shallots. It then called for 2 jalapeños and 1 habanero pepper - I had hot peppers from the garden. I used a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale for the beer and added two jars of our home-canned beans - the recipe calls for serving it with black beans, fermented black beans, rice, and fried noodles. I thought that was a bit of overkill...

It also called for a tablespoon of rice vinegar at the end. I used black vinegar because I have black vinegar. It's kinda cool. The original recipe also called for a full tablespoon of the Chinese Five Spice. It can sometimes be a totally overwhelming spice, so I used half that amount - and I thought it was perfect.

Chinese Chili

adapted from Florence Fabricant / NY Times

  • 2 pounds lean brisket
  • ¼ cup soy sauce, more to taste
  • ¼ cup hoisin sauce
  • 1 large onion, finely chopped
  • 1 leek, finely chopped
  • 2 shallots, finely chopped
  • 1 large green bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped
  • 2 large hot peppers, minced - to taste
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and minced
  • 1 tablespoon Sichuan peppercorns, crushed in a mortar
  • 2-3 tsp five-spice powder - to taste
  • 12 ounces beer, preferably amber ale
  • 1 14-ounce can crushed tomatoes
  • 1 tablespoon black vinegar
  • 2 cans beans of choice

Cut the meat in 1/2-inch dice. Heat a tbsp of oil in a heavy-bottomed pot with tight-fitting lid.

Add meat and cook until it loses its redness. Transfer meat and any juices to a bowl. Toss with soy sauce and hoisin.

Reduce heat to low, add onions, bell pepper, peppers, garlic and ginger and cook until softened. Add Sichuan peppercorns and five spice, stir, then add beer. Bring to a simmer. Add tomatoes.

Return meat and juices to the pan. Cover and simmer an hour and a half, until the meat is tender.

Stir in vinegar. Add beans and heat through.

I did a drizzle of toasted sesame oil on top and then chopped scallions.

It came out surprisingly good and would make a great dish for a party.


Mexican-Inspired Potato Salad

I love it when recipes create themselves... No thought on my part - the ingredients just make it into the bowl on their own.

That's what happened today with my Mexican-Inspired Potato Salad. I knew I was going to make a potato salad - and I almost always just go for my standby - Mom's.

Today, though, I broke out the mandoline. I sliced the raw potatoes instead of cubing them, and as they went on to cook, I started slicing even more things on the mandoline. I had 4 radishes - pink, red, purple, and white - and I sliced them so thin you could literally see through them. Then it was a carrot - sliced just a tad thicker. Paper-thin red onion moons... And then I saw an avocado on the counter. That began my Mexican Inspiration!

With everything sliced instead of cubed, it wasn't going to be Mom's, no matter what, so into the cupboard I went and grabbed a can of diced green chiles. And the blender.

The chiles went into the salad along with celery and chopped pickles, and the avocado went into the blender - along with some mayonnaise, sour cream, heavy cream, Guajillo Pepper Adobo, and some homemade Hot Sauce. It all got mixed together and dinner was served.

The paper-thin vegetables played well with the thicker-sliced potatoes, and there was juuuuust enough heat to make it interesting. I now envision a few other ethnic makeovers...

Summertime produce and goodies from the yard!

The bacon-wrapped petit filet mignon came from Aldi. They're the perfect size - and inexpensive.

I think we may be back to salads, tomorrow...

We shall see...


Chicken, Chorizo, and Seafood Paella

In one week, we saw two different cooking shows on cooking paella. Not that I believe in omens or anything, but... It did put the thought in my mind. So much so, that I actually ordered authentic Calasparra rice from Spain. 2 kilos. I figured if I'm going to do this, I may as well do it right.

The Calasparra rice is a Denominación de Origen product, cultivated by hand in rice paddies along the banks of the Segura River. It's fun to know exactly where your food comes from. I just hope they aren't naming the individual grains...

It's a really small-grain rice but it can absorb something like twice as much liquid as other rice while still maintaining its integrity. It's not exorbitantly priced - about $8.00/kilo - and it's rice. It has a long shelf life.

The program that really caught my attention was Jacques Pepin cooking paella. What I seriously like about him is his attitude that you're making it - do what you want. Traditional foods have their place, but that doesn't mean you can't improvise. Paella, for example, was traditionally made with what was available at the time. It's been traditionally seafood - but it doesn't have to be.

He made his with chicken, chorizo, mussels, shrimp...  added salsa and a commercial Alcaparrado - a mixture of olives, pimientos strips and capers.

I've actually never made a real paella in my life, and, I guess, technically, I still haven't - but this is the closest I've come - and it was damned good! It didn't have the perfect socarrat - the crispy bottom that is prized by paella-eaters everywhere - but I also didn't make it in a traditional paella pan. Somehow, I doubt I'll be buying one, either. One, I'm just not buying another single-use kitchen item. The second is I'm totally leery of burning the bottom of the paella. It's walking a really fine line between crispy and carbon - and I've done enough carbon in my life. I just don't need to do any more.

Jacques' technique is not exactly traditional, either. He covers the pan for more uniform cooking. I did a bit of both - covered and uncovered - and I moved the pan around the flame every couple of minutes to get the bottom cooked more evenly. The end result was pretty good.

I really liked the rice. It's smaller than the carnaroli rice I usually use for risotto and has great texture and flavor. I'll bet it would make a great rice pudding, as well! And since I bought 2 kilos and only used about 200 grams, I have plenty left to play with!

Chicken, Chorizo, and Seafood Paella

  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/4 lb Spanish chorizo, diced
  • 3small skinless chicken thighs, roughly chopped
  • 1 cup coarsely chopped onion
  • 1 tbsp coarsely chopped garlic
  • 1 1/4 cups Calasparra - or other short grained rice, such as arborio
  • 1/2 cup green pimento-stuffed olives
  • 3 tbsp capers
  • 1/2 cup chopped green pepper
  • 1/2 cup chopped red pepper
  • 2 tbsp hot sauce
  • 1 cup canned diced tomatoes in sauce
  • About 1 1/2 teaspoons saffron pistils
  • 1 1/2 cups chicken stock
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 pound assorted seafood

Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Add the chorizo and chicken and brown over high to medium heat for 5 minutes, turning to brown on all sides. Add the onion, and garlic, and cook for 1 minute.

Add the rice to the pan and mix well.

Stir in everything but the seafood. Mix well and bring to a boil.

Cover, reduce the heat to low, and cook for about 12 minutes.

Add the seafood, placing them on top of the rice without stirring them in. Cover, increase the heat to medium, and cook for an additional 8 minutes.

Enjoy.

Since, like risotto, paella is really more about technique than it is ingredients, I can see some fun variations on a theme. Victor said he once had a vegetable paella recipe that called for artichokes, among other things.

We shall see.....

 

 


Pollo brasato con olive e patate

Tonight's dinner is brought to you by Google Translate. It was a throw-together dinner and Pollo brasato con olive e patate sounds infinitely more fancy than Braised Chicken with Olives and Potatoes, right?!?

I knew dinner was going to consist of chicken and potatoes - I just wasn't sure what direction it was going to take. There's a lot of stuff one can do starting with those two ingredients, from fried and mashed to soups and stews.

I decided to go mildly ethnic...

I had been shopping earlier and spent a bit of time at the olive bar picking up a few goodies. Those goodies became the defining factor in tonight's meal.

Pollo brasato con olive e patate

  • 1/2 whole chicken
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 pint assorted olives, cippolini onions, and various olive bar items
  • 1 cup red wine
  • 1 can diced tomatoes
  • 3-4 potatoes, thickly-sliced
  • salt & pepper, to taste

Brown chicken on all sides in heavy-duty braising pan.  Add garlic and lightly cook. Add red wine and bring to a boil. Add tomatoes, bring back to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer until chicken is tender - a couple of hours.

Remove cooked chicken from pan and cool enough to handle. Shred chicken.

Add olives to pan and stir in chicken.

Add potatoes, stirring in well, cover, and simmer until potatoes are tender - another 30-45 minutes.

Check for seasoning and add salt & pepper, as desired.

This really is my favorite sort of throw-together meal. The olive bar items added all of the herbs, spices, and flavors i needed - I didn't need to add anything else.

I served it up with a couple of slices of last night's bread, and all is right with the world.

 

 

 


Ravioli

Thanksgiving is a week away. That means cleaning out the 'fridge so we can get more food in there. I'm finally getting better at holiday cooking amounts - I get that we really don't need 20 pounds of potatoes - but what screws me up is adding yet another dish to the menu.

There are just so many different foods out there screaming to be eaten and Thanksgiving is the perfect time to cook up 27 or 28 of them. And that's just the appetizers. Then there's the actual meal. There are so many ways to cook sweet potatoes that three of them would not be unheard of. And a couple different stuffings. I draw the line at green bean casserole, though. No green bean casserole on our table. No. Absolutely not.

But desserts... We really can't have too many desserts. Several pies, tarts, at least one cheese cake. I think a lemon ricotta cake will be made this year. There's a dozen different things I've been eyeing.  Let's face it - there just aren't a lot of days that are dedicated to unbridled gluttony. I have to take advantage of this.

We have one refrigerator/freezer. I actually refuse to get another because I would fill it up. I can't even imagine the havoc I would wreak with more freezer and refrigeration space. As it is, a couple of times a year I don't shop and force the use of stuff in the freezer. It can get interesting, but I just can't see letting things sit anywhere for years. Buy it and use it within a reasonable time. It's a great concept and sometimes I even follow it.

But back to Thanksgiving. In order to cook and store food for the holiday, I have to make sure there's room for everything. Clean-out-the-refrigerator-time. In years past, I've actually been able to leave things outside. This week will be in the 50s & 60s. Mother Nature doesn't always play nice.

Tonight's clean-out was ravioli, ground pork, and pancetta. I decided we needed something a bit different, so I made a creamy cheese sauce for the ravioli instead of opening a jar of Victor's sauce. The sauce is downstairs in the basement with all the other canned foods from this summer so it doesn't count against the refrigerator and kitchen cabinet clean-outs. My house. My rules.

There wasn't really a recipe... these meals are generally wing-it because odds are they'll never be replicated - but the concept was pretty straightforward.

I sauteed a small chopped onion with 4 oz of diced pancetta. I added a pound of ground pork and cooked it all through. Then a splash of white wine - because it was right by the stove - and about 2 cups of chicken broth that was opened in the 'fridge and also needed using up.

About a half-cup of heavy cream, a hefty pinch of herbes de Provence, maybe a half-cup of grated parmesan, and a bit of cornstarch to thicken, and dinner was served.

Things should be more or less emptied, washed, and ready for refilling this weekend. The other upside, is the shelves all get a good cleaning - not that they need it. Much.

 

 

 


新年好 - Gung Hay Fat Choy

Okay... you've heard it all before, but I'm gonna tell it, again... I got to spend Chinese New Year in Hong Kong in 1973, courtesy of Uncle Sam's Yacht Club. What a total blast.

Three of us got a room for a week at the brand-new Excelsior Hotel - it had only been open about 2 months - and we lived the life of luxury. I can't even begin to describe the place back then. It had a disco in the basement, a rooftop cocktail lounge overlooking Causeway Bay, one of the fanciest restaurants I had ever seen - and unparalleled service. The hotel is now a Mandarin-Oriental property - and a lot more expensive than the HKD119/night we paid. (Their best rate right now is HKD1,680/night - excluding taxes and fees.)

excelsior-exterior-12

We started having fun the moment we arrived. I had form-fitting gaberdine's made for my 6' 150 pound 20-year-old body. I wouldn't be able to get a foot into them if I still had them - no idea what ever happened to my seabag - but I was definitely stud material. Well... in my mind, anyway. They really were cool.

The food. OMG. The food. We ate like kings for nothing. Impossible amounts of food for pennies. And every bit of it delicious. Stuff I had never seen before and will probably never see, again. But dayum, was it good.

One of the neatest things we did was go out to the Red China border. This was 1973. Nixon had started the talks with Mao and the ice was thawing. We could now actually buy Red Chinese goods - just not with American dollars. I bought a harmonica that rivaled any Hohner harmonica I ever owned. And a dozen copies of Mao's Little Red Book.

One thing we wanted to do was go out to see the Red China Border. The concierge at the hotel said we should take a guided tour - we said we wanted go out there on our own, and after they realized we weren't going to take a tour, they reluctantly wrote us out directions and off we went.

hong-kong-6

What an adventure. Catching the Star Ferry, buying train tickets - we were only allowed to travel First Class - and then catching a local bus... The bus was totally surreal. It was the epitome of what you think of as rural transportation with chickens on the roof and the whole bit. The highlight on the bus was an elderly couple giving up their seats for us.

We got onto the crowded bus and an elderly man and woman stood up and motioned for us to take their seats. I immediately said no - for them to sit. They were both crestfallen with heads bent low and looking very sad. Finally, it dawned on us that they were offering us the one thing they had to give - so we sat. They beamed the entire trip just smiling and shaking their heads up and down. I cannot tell you how uncomfortable I was - but they were happy. It was a bit of a cultural learning experience for me.

It was obvious anywhere we went that we were American Servicemen but people treated us good. 1, they wanted our money, but I think more than anything else, people were able to differentiate between the GI and The Government. They all knew we didn't want to be over there, either.

hong-kong-5

The people were fantastic, the food was fantastic, the nightlife fantastic, and the drugs... fantastic.

hong-kong-8

I do have to admit that I smoked some pure heroin when I was there. The method was to empty out a bit of tobacco from a cigarette, put a bit of heroin in the cigarette, add some tobacco back, light it up and inhale.

Holy Shit, Batman!

Not one of my wisest decisions I ever made by a long shot. It was so good it scared the bejezus out of me. Just thinking about it sends shivers down my spine. I sure as hell never did it, again. But WOW!

Hong Kong was a city of contrasts. We were staying in a luxury hotel and watching little old ladies climbing scaffolding carrying bricks.

hong-kong-4

There was a building boom going on and the old was being torn down and high-rises were going up. It didn't dawn on me at the time that those were homes being torn down for office buildings and tourists like me. But it was fabulous to witness bamboo scaffolding 30 stories in the air!

hong-kong-9

The lights, the lights, the lights! It was neon-overload. During the day it was just kinda dingy away from the water. But at night, it was pure magic. The Wan Chai district - Lockhart Road - was the main bar district where the GI's and the hookers all hung out. It was pretty seedy. I didn't spend a lot of time down there, but definitely had to see it!

Hong Kong was a place out of time - and a place I would never recognize, today. It's an island with a finite border. The only thing they could do is go up. And up they have gone. I'm glad I was able to see it when I did.

And I wouldn't mind going back to see it, again. And that HKD1,680.00 Excelsior Hotel room is still less than a mediocre hotel room in New York.

Hmm... air fare...

 


Bastille Day

07-14-14-bastille

It's difficult to believe it's been 10 years since we were last in Paris. That's a long time to be away from such a beautiful place... I think it may be time to head back for a visit.

We were there for the 60th Anniversary of D-Day. I'd love to be there For Bastille Day! D-Day was a very somber and moving experience. I imagine Bastille Day to be a bit more raucous!

The Bastille...

It was torn down 225 years ago, but the very name evokes the pride and power of the French people as they rose against the King and the ruling classes.

07-14-14-eiffel-tower

Paris really is a beautiful city. Parisians get a really bad rap but they are really nothing more than New Yorkers who speak French. They don't suffer fools but can be extremity helpful and friendly if treated with just a little bit of courtesy. I went armed with two simple phrases "Pardonnez-moi, parlez-vous anglais?" and "Je suis désolé, je ne parle pas Français." and folks went out of their way to help us. It really would be nice to make another trip over there...

In the meantime, I get to relive the trip and think of where I'd like to go, again... Maybe see inside Versailles... the workers were on strike when we were there and we only got to see the grounds. I can imagine Louis XVI sitting on a veranda while the Bastille was being ransacked and the gunpowder being taken to fuel the revolution.

But I digress...

Bastille Day 2014 and I didn't think of cooking anything special until it was almost time to start cooking dinner. I was actually thinking breakfast for dinner, tonight, so I rearranged things and made quiche!  C'est très Français!

07-14-14--quiche

I went crustless because I was feeling just a tad lazy, but a couple of eggs, milk, bacon, spinach, cheese, and French herbs sent me dreaming for a little cafe in the Marais where I could have a real one.

I'm going to have to start thinking about how we could pull this off...

 

 

 


Chicken Cacciatore

06-07-13-chicken-cacciatore

 

It was a year ago that we were getting ready for our first trek to Italy. 15 glorious days in Rome, Florence, and Venice. 15 days of the most fabulous food, sights, and people. And the purchase of hand-made-and-hand-painted-just-for-us dinnerware. It's rainy and gloomy outside, so it was the perfect excuse to break out the Italian dishes.

Not that we need an excuse, mind you... We have a lot of different china and dinnerware and we use it all all of the time, but there really is something special about this stuff. It perks me up right away every time I look at it.

I decided I needed something vaguely Italian to go into it, tonight, so I went with a clean-out-the-refrigerator Chicken Cacciatore.  Day Five of fresh produce is starting to push a few things. Time to make use of it. And a dish like cacciatore can handle any number of additions.

I started with onions, garlic, and two bone-in chicken breasts. When the chicken was browned and the onions wilted, I added about a cup of red wine to start things off. Then, sliced bell pepper, green beans, a sliced fennel bulb, and about 6 tomatoes I sliced up. And then about a cup of chicken broth.

I let it all simmer and stew for about an hour. I added some S&P, Greek oregano, basil, and a pinch of marjoram, and let it continue to simmer...  I pulled the chicken out and let it cool so I could easily get it off the bone.

Cooked pasta in the bowl and chunked chicken on top. Sauce on top of that, and grated cheese on top of that.

It may be raining outside, but it's a sunny day in Florence, in here.

 

 


Cinco de Mayo

05-05-13-cinco-de-mayo

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

What started out as a slightly obscure holiday out west commemorating a Mexican victory over French forces back in 1862 has blossomed into a nation-wide holiday celebrating Mexican culture and heritage. The day is not Mexican Independence Day as many seem to believe, and, like St Patrick's day, is celebrated more in the US than it is in Mexico, but it really is a great reason to celebrate our neighbors to the south.

Growing up out west, I really don't recall not celebrating Cinco de Mayo and the parades in the Mission district in San Francisco were always a wild time, but a couple of my most memorable holidays were when I lived at Lake Tahoe in the '70s.

When I worked at the Hyatt, pretty much the entire dishwashing and kitchen-cleaning crew was Mexican. Most of the crew also only spoke Mexican - and if one spoke English, he was promptly made a supervisor. The majority of the crew lived in Truckee, CA and the hotel ran a shuttle to bring them back and forth to work and home.  It was a less-complicated time and no one was screaming that immigrants were stealing American jobs or were getting preferential treatment. They were a hard-working group who took pride in a job well done. The kitchen shone and the Washoe County Health Department could come in at any time and not find a problem.

I took over the department in '78 or '79 and I learned a lot. One of the first things I learned was that the lowest-paid employee of a place can make or break you. It's about dignity and respect. Simply treating people fairly and honestly could work wonders. And I learned that the more I could communicate in their mother tongue, the more the crew would communicate to me in mine. I had a bit of a background in Spanish from school, so the language wasn't entirely foreign to me, but  ¿Cómo se dice...? came out of my mouth often. By the same token, the crew would ask me "How you say...?" and we'd share laughs over our ridiculous accents and pronunciations. As I said, it was a less-complicated time.

Pretty much the senior member of the group was a man named José Ayala. José was easily 20 years older than me and he was my experience in managing someone old enough to be my father. He was opinionated and pigheaded and almost always had a better way of doing something. (Sound like anyone you know?!?)  One of the best lessons I learned was to trust him. We all had the same goal but we didn't have to take the same path to get there. And he never let me down.

Which brings us back to Cinco de Mayo.

Truckee is a small town in the Sierras and in the '70s, had a small but significant Mexican population. And they had a great Cinco de Mayo parade. Every year, José would lead the parade carrying a huge Mexican flag. He took his position seriously and while other celebrants and participants would have a bit of liquid libation before - or during - the parade, he wouldn't touch a drop. It wouldn't be dignified for the bearer of the Mexican flag to be borracho!

After the parade, of course, was a different story.

I got muy borracho with José a couple of times - most notably at parties at our house. When Michael, Susan, Clare, and I lived together, we had more than a few parties... and our house was really set up for them! I can't believe the house we paid $425/mo now rents for $175/night.  Granted, they've cleaned it up a bit, but... It really was a great house. It started out with me, Steve, Dusty, and Keith. I lived there for most of four years... That huge window was once covered with a huge piece of Christo's Fence we made into a drape with about a mile of nylon rope.

But I digress...

One party in particular had well over a hundred people, live music, Mexican Mariachi guitars and rock and roll US guitars playing back and forth with liquor and drugs and all sorts of debauchery going on. To see a 24 year old kid playing guitar with a 50 year old Mexican guy with limited English is something everyone should experience. Ethnicity and age didn't matter - it was all about the music. I don't think that particular party was the time I tried to step off the loft and walk across the heads of the crowd down below, but our parties always had vastly different groups of people together and everyone always had a blast. That was the whole point - to have fun. The food and drink were legendary - we never - ever - use paper and plastic - and never had problems with breakage. Even in huge, diverse crowds, people behaved better with china and glassware. And when the Truckee Contingent arrived with trays of tamales and other homemade treats, it only got better.

So we move forward about 35 years and I now sit here and reminisce about parties-past and smile at all the sweet indiscretions of youth while cooking my Americanized version of tacos, refried beans, and rice.

The taco filling was ground beef, onions, a can of tomato sauce, green chiles, chipotle powder, cumin, Mexican oregano, salt, pepper, and a splash of Tabasco. And then there was shredded lettuce, shredded cheese, diced tomatoes, sliced olives, diced onions, pickled hot peppers,  salsa, and guacamole - home made, of course. I fried corn tortillas for myself, and gave Victor his flour tortillas. He's a buritto-boy. Nonna just ate the fillings without tortillas.

And she surprised me, again. She went back for seconds of the spicy taco filling. It was especially funny because when she came into the kitchen I said we were having tacos and she said "Tacos?!?" and gave Victor a WTF? look that was priceless.

Feliz Cinco de Mayo, indeed!


Ravioli

04-17-13-ravioli

 

When Nonna sat down and looked at her plate last night, the first thing out of her mouth was "Who's going to eat all those ravioli?"

Would you believe she did? She started slowly, but kept going and literally cleaned her plate. She doesn't ask for or eat a lot during the day but always seems to enjoy - and finish - any little treats or things we bring out to her during the day. Cybil got most of the meatball - what a surprise there. That dog is going to weigh 400 pounds.

The sauce was from the big batch I made Sunday. I have several containers in the freezer - because we all know my opinion of jarred sauce. And it was just a simple cheese ravioli with a bit more cheese on top.

And just because, I made a loaf of beer bread. Actually, I have quite a few bottles of beer in the 'fridge that need to be used for something. Time to figure out some fun recipes...

Beer bread really is the easiest thing in the world to make. I usually make it with self-rising flour, but I haven't bought any, lately, so I improvised...

 

Beer Bread

  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp sugar
  • 1 12oz bottle beer
  • 2 oz melted butter

Preheat oven to 350°.

Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Stir in beer. Place batter in buttered loaf pan. Pour melted butter over top.

Place in preheated oven and bake about 1 hour.

The bread is great and can be tweaked to suit your meal or your ingredients at home. Add any beer - each one will impart its own flavor. Add herbs or spices. Top with caraway seeds or sesame... poppy seeds, cumin seeds... Add chipotle peppers. You get the drift...


Mardi Gras

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About a dozen years ago, the company Victor worked for tried to get him to transfer to New Orleans. They flew us down there first class, put us up at The Fairmont (now a Waldorf Astoria,) wined and dined us, and, generally, did everything they could to convince us that Victor should take the job.

We arrived the week after Mardi Gras - just in time for St Joseph's Day. It seems that they do the parade-and-bead-thing down there all the time. Mardi Gras is just the one that gets all the attention.

New Orleans is a fun town - I spent a couple of weeks down there when I worked for Hyatt - but New Orleans at 25 and New Orleans at 45 are two different cities. When we looked at the neighborhoods we could afford, it was more Ninth Ward than it was Garden District. And outside of the French Quarter, I saw too many rebel flags and Ol Miss sweatshirts. This Liberal Yankee Gay Boy just wasn't going to fit in.

Victor turned down the job, but our love of Creole and Cajun food hasn't diminished. One food item I always have in the house in andouille sausage. Always. I really don't recall the first time I had it, but it has been a staple for years. Love it.

I decided we needed a bit of Jambalaya to get the Mardi Gras juices flowing...

Jambalaya at it's core is a Creole paella. Chicken, sausage, seafood, tomatoes, peppers, rice...  It's a one-pot meal with a punch.

I had the ingredients in the house - chicken left from the pumpkin soup and andouille in the freezer. I was set.

Jambalaya

  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 bell pepper, chopped
  • 4 stalks celery, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 6 oz andouille sausage, sliced
  • 2 cups cooked chicken, cubed
  • 4 oz langostino
  • 1 can diced tomatoes with juice
  • 1 cup rice
  • 3 cups broth
  • 1 tsp thyme
  • Tabasco sauce
  • Salt & pepper

Saute onion, celery, and pepper. Add garlic and saute. Add andouille and brown.

Add rice, tomatoes, broth, thyme, a few healthy shots of Tabasco, and a pinch of S&P. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and let simmer about 15 minutes.

Stir everything well, and add chicken and langostino. Cover, again, and cook another 10 to 15 minutes or until rice is cooked.

Add a few more healthy shots of Tabasco and enjoy.

It really is an easy one-dish meal that is sure to please. And I am surely pleased we did not move to New Orleans. I am relatively certain that had we been living in New Orleans when Katrina hit, we would have stayed. Even with lots of ex-in-laws and a couple of good friends we could have stayed with, I think I might have been stupid enough to think I was invincible. You would have seen us on TV at the Super Dome.