BBQ Ribs
♫ Summertime, and the livin' is easy... ♫
Finally a decent-weather day. Low 80s and low humidity. I could live with this. Alas, today is the only day we're getting good weather. Back to high humidity tonight.
Oh well... I enjoyed it while it was here.
And I enjoyed getting outside and grilling some ribs! But before I grilled ribs, I made pasta salad and Phoebe's Baked Beans.
The pasta salad was easy.
I cooked up a package of perline pasta (you could use mini-ravioli) and added 4oz of diced speck (use prosciutto) a small red onion, a yellow and a green zucchini, diced, some frozen peas, and some chopped sun-dried tomatoes. The dressing was a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Salt & pepper.
It was really simple and really good. A good pasta salad is a clean out the refrigerator salad. Seriously. Anything goes.
The beans were perfect - as always. This is just such a good recipe...
Phoebe's Baked Beans
- 1/2 cup minced shallots
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1/2 cup tomato puree (I use tomato paste – I never have puree in the house!)
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons molasses
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 chipotle chiles, canned in adobo sauce, seeded and chopped
- 2 (28-ounce) cans baked beans
Preheat oven to 300°.
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add shallots; sauté 4 minutes or until golden. Add cumin and garlic; sauté for 1 minute. Add tomato puree and oil, and cook for 2 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly. Add remaining ingredients (except beans.). Reduce heat; simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Combine beans and shallot mixture in a 2-quart baking dish. Bake at 300° for 1 hour or until thick and bubbly.
They seriously come out perfect every time.
And the ribs...
I did a dry rub of smoked paprika, chipotle powder, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, salt, and pepper. I put the ribs into a 250° oven for about 2 hours before putting them on the grill with BBQ sauce.
We went through lots of napkins.
And... I picked up more peaches, today. Another dessert coming up!
Farro Fawcett
Okay. I admit it. It's a cheap play on words. But as gay as I am, even I remember that poster! The girl was definitely hot! I had already reached the quarter-century mark when the poster came out and was living up at Lake Tahoe. I knew of Farrah - but had never heard of Farro. And probably wouldn't have been interested in either.
Well... not entirely true. I've always liked grains and I definitely could have used some hair tips...
Tahoe was a time of whole-grains-and-back-to-nature-in-a-'70s-pot-smoking way. Wheat berries were plentiful. Whole-grain brown rice was everywhere. Lots of sprouts. On everything. No boxes or mixes. It was back to nature at its finest. Granted, we moved from the little house in Tahoe Vista to the big house up above Kings Beach with the 20 foot ceiling and wall of glass overlooking the lake after leaving the little coffee shop and going to work for the glitzy hotel casino, but it was still The Mountains. We started off with a parachute for floor-to-ceiling drapes and ended up with a huge section of Christo's Fence, compliments of our new roommate, Susan.
Christo's Fence was a 24 1/2 mile long 18' tall fabric fence that ran through Sonoma and Marin before ending at the Pacific Ocean. It was pretty awesome to behold - and pretty cool to have in our living room.
But back to Farrah. Er... Farro...
I probably started reading about farro in Bon Appetit magazine in the '90s sometime. I honestly don't remember, but after getting out of the hotel business in 1989 and getting into health care, I started eating better, again, and I really started paying attention to what was in things. Aren't you glad?!?
One thing I did learn right away is farro is not spelt. There is still a lot of controversy over this but... farro is Triticum dicoccum and spelt is Triticum spelta. (Common bread wheat is Triticum aestivum.) They're all related - they're not all the same.
Botany lesson is over.
I picked up some farro a while back and decided last night it was time to cook it up - in a risotto! My first thought when I picked it up was for a wheat-berry-type salad. I'm glad I held out.
Unlike spelt, farro really needs to be soaked prior to cooking - 30 minutes to an hour usually suffices - so start thinking about this early in the day - not 30 minutes before you want to sit down to dinner. And it can soak longer - even overnight.
It probably took about 40 minutes to cook - and that meant a lot of stirring and attention - but the final result was worth it!
I served it with a lemon chicken breast. Really easy! I mixed 2 eggs with the juice and zest of 1 lemon, and a bit of salt and pepper. I then floured two chicken breasts and dipped them into the lemony-egg mixture and then quickly browned them in a skillet. The skillet then went into a 350° oven for about 20 minutes. I could have cooked the whole thing on the stove, but it was easier to pop them into the oven than to have to watch it while stirring the risotto.
Farro Risotto
- 1 cup farro
- 6 cups chicken broth
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1 cup onion, chopped
- 4 oz mushrooms, sliced
- several florettes cauliflower, sliced
- 1/2 cup dry white wine
- 1/2 cup golden raisins
- 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
- 1/3 cup mustard seed and ale cheddar cheese
- 1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley
Soak farro in cold water at least 30 minutes. Drain.
Heat the broth in a small saucepan and keep warm.
In a large skillet or wide pan, heat the oil and butter over medium heat. Add the onion and mushrooms and cook until onions are wilted. Add the drained farro and cook, stirring constantly until toasted.
Add the wine and stir constantly until mostly absorbed. Add 1/2 cup of the hot broth and stir constantly until completely absorbed. Continue adding the remaining broth, 1/2 cup at a time, until the farro is creamy and cooked through, 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from heat and add the raisins, pine nuts, parsley, and cheese.
Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper, as desired.
I used cauliflower and a mustard ale cheddar because that's what I had in the house. A cup or so of just about any vegetable would work, as would just about any cheese. You don't need a lot - just enough to add a bit of creaminess. And obviously you can switch the chicken broth for vegetable broth to make it vegetarian, and omit the butter and cheese to make it vegan.
It promises to be good no matter how you do it!
Tortellini with Raw Asparagus Pesto
This was a surprise treat. Raw Asparagus Pesto. Who woulda thunk?!?
The latest issue of Fine Cooking magazine had 10 asparagus recipes in it - and the asparagus pesto really intrigued me. Between it and La Cucina Italiana, I've been on a bit of an asparagus kick. I love seeing those fat stalks of green goodness. And yes, I buy the fatter asparagus. For the longest time I always bought the thin pencil asparagus, but I've seen the light. The fatter asparagus definitely has more flavor and there's no need to peel it. Love it!
So... The recipe in the magazine gave me my starting point, but I didn't follow it. Like making traditional pesto, I just wing it.
Raw Asparagus Pesto
- 1 bunch asparagus (about 12 ounces)
- 1 cup shredded cheese (I used a combination of parmesan, fontina, and asiago)
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- 3/4 cup good olive oil
- salt and pepper, to taste
Chop asparagus into smaller pieces. Add everything but oil to food processor and process until chunky-smooth. Add olive oil and process until of desired consistency.
Cover and refrigerate until use.
I didn't use any garlic. Strange, I know... I must have just spaced it out, but it definitely wasn't lacking. I might add it next time. Or not.
I mixed the pesto with freshly-cooked spinach tortellini. It rocked! It was really fresh tasting. it had that earthy Spring flavor that just can't be beat.
I can see this on a sandwich - or a burger... It made a lot so we're going to have several opportunities to use it up!
Oh... and Flank steak with a red wine mushroom sauce. Can't forget that!
Rice Cakes and Lamb Chops
The lamb chops were a given for dinner tonight. i had picked them up Monday and actually planned to have them last night. The soup trumped the chops for one meal, but I don't like keeping raw meats in the 'fridge more than a day or two.
So lamb chops were a given. The side dish wasn't.
Staring blankly in the cupboard - hoping for inspiration or Divine Intervention - I saw five different kinds of rice. But plain ol' rice with grilled lamb chops just didn't seem right. The wheels started turning and the next thing I knew, Rice Cakes were being born!
I had thought of a risotto rice cake that I've made in the past and, not wanting to make risotto, just came up with a recipe on the fly. I used a whole grain mahogany rice but you can use what you like. I definitely had to refrigerate the rice balls before making them into patties. If I had used a stickier rice they probably wouldn't have been as fussy.
Rice Cakes
- 1 1/2 cups cooked rice, cooled
- 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 2 scallions, chopped
- 2 tbsp sour cream
- 1/4 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- sat and pepper, to taste
Mix all ingredients and scoop into equal-sized portions. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes.
Lightly press down to form patty. Carefully dredge in more panko bread crumbs and fry in skillet until browned. Carefully flip and continue cooking until browned and heated through.
I do have to admit that these were pretty good. They had a great crunch, the rice was creamy, and the walnuts gave another nice texture. The recipe made 8 cakes. I froze four of them for a later date.
The lamb chops were marinated in olive oil, garlic, red wine, and rosemary before being grilled.
A reasonably simple dinner.
Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes
Grilled steaks are good. Broccoli rabe is good. Twice-baked sweet potatoes are outstanding!
The steaks and the broccoli rabe were planned for dinner tonight, but I was originally thinking baked russet potatoes. And then I saw that one, rather large sweet potato in the basket. An idea started formulating!
A quick look in the 'fridge confirmed we still had a bit of Boursin. There was a package of diced pancetta in the freezer. I was set! The really fun thing about potatoes is you really can mix just about anything into them. And you can definitely top a baked potato with anything. Versatility, thy name is spud!
I baked a single large sweet potato at 400° for about 35 minutes. When it was done, I pulled it out and sliced it in half. Meanwhile, into a skillet went 2 cloves of minced garlic, 4 ounces of pancetta, and about a quarter of an onion, finely-diced. When it was all nicely-cooked, I put it into a bowl and added the innards of that lovely potato. When it was all mixed, I added about a third of a container of Boursin cheese. And a dash of salt and pepper.
I mixed it all really well, spooned it back into the potato shells, and baked it, again, for about 10 minutes.
Oh yum! Creamy, chunky, cheesy... It had it all.
I'm finally realizing that one potato really is enough for the two of us - regardless of how I cook it. Especially when there's Lemon Meringue Pie for dessert!
Fancy Baked Potatoes
I was perusing the latest issue of Cooking Light magazine the other day and saw several recipes with potatoes. Potatoes are fun, versatile, good for you... and I tend to cook them the same 4 ways all of the time. One in particular caught my eye - Cajun-Stuffed Potatoes. I had some andouille sausage in the 'fridge that needed cooking. Cajun potatoes was just the side I was looking for.
Of course I changed the recipe around completely, so, while it had its roots in Cooking Light, the end result was what I had at home. That's fairly typical of most of my cooking. I get an idea somewhere and then rework it according to what's in the 'fridge or cupboards - or what I'm in the mood for. With a few notable exceptions, I just don't follow recipes well.
Here's the Cooking Light recipe with my changes at the end...
Cooking Light Cajun-Stuffed Potatoes
Ingredients
- 6 medium Yukon gold or small baking potatoes (about 3 pounds)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion
- 3/4 cup chopped green bell pepper
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced celery
- 1 tablespoon minced fresh garlic
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 teaspoon Hungarian sweet paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
- 3/4 cup (6 ounces) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
- 2 tablespoons butter, softened
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano
- 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
- 1 1/2 pounds frozen cooked crawfish meat, thawed
Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 450°.
2. Pierce potatoes with a fork; brush with 1 teaspoon olive oil. Bake at 450° for 50 minutes or until tender. Remove potatoes from oven; cool slightly. Cut potatoes in half lengthwise, and scoop pulp out of skins, leaving a 1/4-inch-thick shell. Place pulp in a large bowl; coarsely mash pulp.
3. Preheat broiler to high.
4. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add remaining 5 teaspoons oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add onion, bell pepper, and celery to pan; sauté for 4 minutes. Add garlic and next 4 ingredients (through red pepper); sauté 1 minute. Remove from heat. Add cheese, butter, and herbs, stirring until smooth.
5. Stir cheese mixture and crawfish into potato pulp. Place 1/2 cup crawfish mixture in each potato shell. Arrange stuffed potatoes on a baking sheet. Broil for 5 minutes or until browned.
First thing was I only baked two potatoes, so I adjusted all of the ingredients, accordingly.
I used frozen, pre-cooked langostino in place of the crayfish and a combination of shredded cheddar and parmesan cheeses in place of the reduced fat cream cheese. I used red bell pepper instead of green, and omitted the onion powder and the oregano. I used cayenne pepper and only used a dash. A shot of Tabasco would have been good, in hindsight.
They really came out good! They were not overpowering in flavor, which was nice. They were rich and flavorful and complimented the andouille and chicken saute without competing with it.
The lesson, here, is that you don't need to have every single thing in a recipe or follow one exactly to have a great outcome.
I see a few more variations on a theme in our future...
Macaroni Salad
While I was working, today, Victor was home cooking. It's a great Saturday Tradition!
Today he created a pretty classic macaroni salad. Not a pasta salad. A macaroni salad.
There is a difference.
Pasta salad is made with anything other than elbow macaroni. Macaroni salad is made with elbow macaroni. (There is a product out there called "salad macaroni" that is just little tiny tubes, but I never buy it.)
The salad was classic in that it had a mayonnaise dressing. The rest was classic Victor.
Tomatoes and peppers from the garden, hard-cooked eggs, celery, onion, and a can of tuna!
It really was good. Every flavor was there individually and collectively. Sometimes the best things are the simplest.
I had brought home a couple of chicken breasts to grill but after tasting the salad decided to grill them and then top them with bacon, sliced tomatoes, and melted cheese.
It was the perfect accompaniment to the perfect salad.
And since I had so little to do with dinner I made coconut rice pudding for dessert. Victor claimed it was the best rice pudding I have ever made.
More on that later...
Fresh Peach Salad
Tonight's dinner has been brought to you by another box of peaches.
I've been on a peach kick all month long... they have been beyond good. (I wish I could say the same for plums and apricots - they've both been pretty sad.) But the peaches?!? Spectacular.
So with another 4 pounds of them rapidly ripening in the kitchen, it was time to think outside the (peach) box.
And that's where Peach Salad was born.
Sweet and savory are a favorite flavor combination of mine and sweet peaches with sharp cheese and onions just seemed a perfect blend of flavors. A drizzle of raspberry vinegar and some chopped fresh basil brought it all together.
It really was that simple! I sliced 4 peaches and thinly-sliced a quarter of a red onion. I drizzled them with raspberry vinegar and put it in the 'fridge. Right before serving I added basil and ribbons of a really sharp, aged asiago cheese I sliced using a potato peeler.
Rounding out the plate was a nice medium-rare roast beef with pan gravy and Israeli couscous.
To stay on the peach theme, Victor made iced tea and steeped 2 sliced peaches with the tea to make a really nice peach tea. I usually eschew flavored beverages but this one was really good.
And tomorrow I'm thinking I need to make another peach dessert.
Time to start thinking...
Boursin Mashed Potatoes
Tonight's dinner was all about the mashed potatoes. Boursin Mashed Potatoes.
Boursin is a soft, creamy cheese that hails from France, but is also manufactured right here in the good ol' USofA. Besides the obvious crackers and bread, it mixes well into sauces and is especially good mixed into mashed potatoes. Really especially good.
I don't remember when I first had Boursin. It was years (and years and years) ago. Maybe Tahoe in the '70s? We were all pretty adventurous cooks back then. Boursin would have been just the thing to liven up one of those pot-smoking-and-wine-drinking evenings with the roommates on Canterbury Drive... Ah yes... the good old days... 20' ceiling, wall of windows, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, loft... We paid $400/mo rent - split 4 ways. I'd move back into that house in a heartbeat. Serious good times were had by all!
But I digress...
The concept/recipe is pretty basic - just add some cheese to your favorite mashed potato recipe. Simple but oh, so flavorful! It really takes the spuds to the next level. There are quite a few varieties out there but my favorite remains garlic and herb.
The rest of the dinner was steamed wax beans and grilled burgers with a wild mushroom sauce.
I picked up some 90/10 ground beef because it was on sale for slightly less than my normal 80/20 and am sorry I did. The burgers just lacked flavor and were dry. What I saved in a couple grams of fat I totally lost in flavor and enjoyment. Back to the 80/20 next shopping trip.
Dessert will make up for it, though... A variation on my Aunt Kathleen's and Cousin Kate's Malt Shoppe Pie!
Turkey Soup
Lobster one day, soup the next. It's just the way of things around here.
But hi-brow or low-brow, it's always fun.
Tomight's dinner came completely out of the freezer. Well, almost. The carrots were fresh.
I had a small container of turkey soup from Thanksgiving, a small container of turkey gravy - also from Thanksgiving, and a container of chicken stock from whenever.
All three went into a big pot. I let it come to a boil, added some shell macaroni and a couple of sliced carrots.
I warmed up the bread from a couple of days ago and dinner was served.
It was the perfect for the weather - getting cold outside, again - and the perfect meal to balance the food-a-thon we had yesterday.
Oh. And there's more cheesecake for dessert.
New Year's Eve 2011
2011. It's hard to grasp.
I remember as a little kid figuring how old I was going to be in the year 2000. Not just old. Ancient. I couldn't quite fathom being almost as old as my grandparents.
And here it is, 11 years after that.
I do know that that little boy in San Francisco never imagined his life would be what it is today. I don't think I even knew where Pennsylvania was, let alone thinking that I would actually be living here.
And I certainly didn't imagine going to war, working in hotels all over the United States, or actually settling down and getting married to the greatest guy in the world after a rather wild and somewhat misspent youth.
No. That little boy couldn't have imagined half of it.
A computer?!? The World Wide Web?!? Transistor radios were the hot new thing and television was in black and white. Annette was the most popular Mouseketeer, but Cubby was secretly my favorite.
A long time ago.
And not such a long time ago, I don't think I imagined this being my 999th blog post. How fitting that New Year's Eve should be the last post before I hit 1000.
1000 posts! What will I cook? What will I say? We have been planning having Linda and David over on Sunday. I never did plan anything for New Year's Day, itself.
In typical Tim fashion, I'll just have to wing it.
Like I did with dinner tonight.....
I knew I was doing veal chops and I knew I was going to serve them on a bed of arugula, but that was about it. I found a recipe from Gourmet with radicchio and white beans that gave me the idea for endive, tomatoes, and white beans.
Veal Chops
- veal chops, 1" thick
- olive oil
- rosemary
- garlic, minced
- tomato, diced
- 1 can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- Belgian endive, roughly chopped
- arugula
- red wine vinegar
- chicken broth
- cornstarch
- salt and pepper
For 2 chops, mince 1 clove garlic and mix with 1/4 teaspoon rosemary and about a quarter-cup of olive oil. Marinate the chops for about an hour, turning a couple of times.
In a hot skillet, sear the chops and then place in a 375° oven for about 20 minutes.
A couple of minutes before the chops are done, quickly saute arugula in a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper. Arrange on plate.
Place chops atop arugula.
In chop pan, add endive and diced tomato. Add 2-3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar (or vinegar of your choice.) When vinegar has reduced a bit, add beans and about 1 cup of chicken broth mixed with a tablespoon of cornstarch.
Cook until lightly thickened, check for seasoning, and spoon over chops.
That chop was way too much even for me, but I gave it that old college try. Cybil will be eating well for the next couple of days!
The flavors all worked well together. The vinegar was just sharp enough, but also diluted by the chicken broth so as not to be overpowering. The tomato added sweetness, the beans a comforting smoothness. The endive added a nice bitterness and a good crunch. The chops themselves were excellent. And the peppery goodness of the arugula played off everything else.
In other words, it was a perfect meal to end the first decade of the second millennium.
And post 999.
Chicken and Cranberries
While shopping yesterday I picked up a bag of fresh cranberries. It seems a bit late in the season for cranberries to still be so plentiful. I don't know if I just haven't been paying attention or I'm noticing them more because everything else is looking so bad. Weather in Florida and California is really wreaking havoc on produce right now - and I'm sure prices are going to be reflecting it soon.
But I digress...
I picked up cranberries with the thought of making a cranberry sauce for some chicken breasts and leftovers for ham sandwiches. Love hose versatile sauces!
Cranberry sauce really is the easiest thing in the world to make. Really. I had sparkling cranberry juice and dried cranberries in the house so I made a really simple triple cranberry sauce.
Triple Cranberry Sauce
- 1 cup sparkling cranberry juice
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 12 oz fresh cranberries
Mix cranberry juice and sugar in medium saucepan. Heat and stir until sugar dissolves. Add both cranberries and cook until cranberries pop and sauce begins to thicken a bit - about 10 minutes.
Cool and chill.
As I said - easy.
The chicken was a simple boneless, skinless breast that I sauteed in a bit of butter and then finished off in the oven. The only thing I did was add salt and pepper. No other seasonings. I didn't want anything to compete with the cranberry sauce tonight.
Green and yellow Italian beans - salt, pepper, butter - and plain white rice finished the plate. The simple rice also worked well capturing the runaway cranberry sauce.
It was one of those meals with really simple flavors but also one where every flavor was noticed. I like moving back and forth between using every spice in the cabinet and showing restraint. I mean... restraint is not a word that is often associated with me. It's fun to step outside of the box now and again.
I'm also thinking that the sauce can be reworked into a dipping sauce for some hors d'oeuvre or another on Sunday. We have a biannual dinner with dear friends and while the main dish (a lobster pasta) and dessert (a big ol' cheesecake) are already planned, the hors d'oeuvres are not chiseled in stone. But as I sit here, I think a mini-fritter of sorts with a spicy cranberry dipping sauce may be fun. I really love that deep fryer!
I made the cheesecake when I got home today because it really needs to set for a few days. Not an easy thing to allow to happen, but it's for a special occasion. We'll deal with it.
And I need to figure out what to do with the veal chops for our New Year's Eve dinner tomorrow night.
The stress.