Here is a quick follow up about the beets after two days chilling in the fridge. I just tasted them and they are better than the first day! These are awesome! I hope you guys get a chance to make these beets! Woo hoo! Would I eat them on the first day and be happy? You bet! However, waiting for those flavors to really come together certainly didn’t hurt. 🙂

I have another post forthcoming, so stay tuned for that.

Thanks so much to all of you who are reading, commenting or using these recipes for your own! You make this blog so much fun for me! I am so grateful.

When the topic of pickling arises, it seems the first thing that most people think of is the large variety of pickles you might see on any store shelf. However, pickling has become much more than that and one where you can use the canvas of spices, seasonings, and vinegars to become a Picasso of Pickling.

For this post I want to talk about two simple, easy, but totally customizable ideas for expanding your pickling related palate. This is just the tip of the iceberg, pickling can go far beyond these two ingredients we are going to discuss. But, for now, we are going to start with red onions and some red beets.

First up, is a hybrid between pickled and candied red onions. By applying these techniques, we are going to really make these red onions stand out, as they are going to cook and reduce in the vinegar mixture. The reduction process gives them an unbelievable color and a rich syrup forms from the sugar and vinegar. Trust me, this is well worth it!
Next up, we are going to roast and pickle some beets. The beets are a little tart and bitter to start with so roasting them will help coax out the natural sugars. We will use some apple cider vinegar, a little oil, salt, pepper, and a bit of sugar to marinate the beets and help enhance the naturally sweet and tart flavors of the beets.  Keep in mind, you could use some red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar instead. You could even zest a little lemon or lime to give the beets some additional complexity. Again, you can customize this any way you choose, so don’t be afraid to get creative.

The best thing about both these recipes is each will be ready to consume in about an hour from start to finish. Unlike a lot of of recipes that require pickling and then waiting a number of days before the pickled item begins to really take on any of those flavors. I am not saying this is a bad approach, because that certainly works, but part of my mission for this blog is to make things approachable and simple so we can still enjoy the rest of our time outside the kitchen.

Ready to get started? Let’s do this!

Hybrid Red Onion Recipe:

¾ cup of red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons white sugar

½ teaspoon of kosher salt

Fresh ground pepper to taste

Red Pepper flakes to taste (optional)

1 medium red onion, peeled, halved, sliced into half moons, about a ¼ inch thick

To a small/medium sized sauce pot, add all the ingredients and bring to a simmer to combine. Reduce heat and cook on medium-low. If you don’t get bubbles from your simmer, that is okay too. Stir every 5 minutes until red wine vinegar mixture has evaporated and the onions are soft and tender, about 60 minutes or so. Even though this does take a little more hands on time, you will be rewarded for your time. Adjust seasoning as needed.

Here are the onions sliced into half moons.

Here are all ingredients together in a small sauce pot.

As you begin to apply heat, give everything a stir so it can begin to dissolve.

Within a few minutes you will start to notice that the onions begin to soften and take on some additional color.

After an hour and a little bit of patience, here is the finished product. The onions do have a little bit of crunch, but they have taken on all the characteristics from the seasonings we applied at the beginning. You can put these in tupperware or glassware and store in the fridge. These should last comfortably for more than a week.

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Coat beets lightly with oil, a pinch of salt, and a couple grinds of fresh ground pepper.
3. Wrap beets in aluminum foil, place on a baking sheet, and roast in the oven until cooked through and the beets can be easily pierced with fork, approx. 60 minutes.
4. Remove from the oven, let cool for 10 minutes, and then peel and slice into 1/4-inch thick slices.

While the beets are cooling, make the pickling liquid by combining the following:

• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
• Salt and pepper

In a bowl, combine the beets in the pickling liquid and stir gently to coat the beets. Let this hang out on the counter top for a 30 minutes at room temperature. Stir occasionally to make sure all the beets get a chance to absorb the liquid. Pour beets and mixture into a mason jar and store in the fridge. These will get better the longer they get a chance to hang out and meld together.

These beets have been washed and prepped for their first step of the transformation to deliciousness.

Okay, time to practice your foil origami! Wrap this up and place it on a baking sheet so you don’t add pretty colors to the inside of your oven.

After an hour or so, here are these beauties. Remember, you should be able to pierce them easily with a knife or a fork to ensure the beets are cooked through.

After allowing them to cool for 10 minutes, cut them up into whatever configuration you want. These have been cut up into quarters for this post.

The beets have been marinating at room temperature for a while here. You can see that some of liquid has adhered to the beets since they are glistening and soaking those flavors.

Here is a finished photo of the beets in a mason jar ready for the fridge. Again, these will get better the longer they sit. You won’t be disappointed either way.

So, what can you do with these onions and beets? Heck the list is endless! Salads, sandwiches, soups, tacos, appetizer platters, roasts, by themselves — and the list goes on. Here is the basic idea, if you have something that is very rich, could be meat, a sauce, or just sour cream, you want something with a high level of acidity to help cut through that so you can have a good contrast of flavors.

We have just touched on two of the many things you can pickle. The list is endless and pickling is becoming a really big trend in the food world. I hope this has inspired you and you can take some of these concepts and apply them going forward.

It is a lot of of fun and you can totally put your own twist on anything that I have made here. I was talking to a friend of mine who is also a foodie and he reminded me that with any recipe or anything you cook, find a way to make it your own — because this helps us grow, learn, as well as become better cooks, and I believe, better people.

Let me know what you think of these recipes and I hope you enjoy them!

Salmon Steaks, a fun twist on the classic salmon fillet. You can season these with just about anything you want, and since this a rich, hearty fish you can season it pretty aggressively. As we did in “Taking my Teriyaki Back to you Babe,” you will cook the fish the same way to achieve salmon salvation.

Oh, did I mention teriyaki?  Yes, you can brush a little teriyaki sauce or marinade on both sides of the steak. Remember to taste before you apply so you can adjust if necessary.  How do I wake this plate up? Well, I think I will let this photo answer that question for you.

Boom! Yes, that is purple cauliflower and it really makes the dish stand out.

As far as how to apply heat to the salmon, you can either go with the grill or the oven. Again, the grill is going to be my first option since it makes the fish look really pretty and the grill marks actually aide in building the flavor. For example, the grill marks can give you a little caramelization and char that will help bring the flavor of the fish together.

In order to achieve perfect salmon, cook these about 3-4 minutes a side at 500 degrees if your steak is about one inch thick. I prefer to cook at a slightly lower temperature, around 450 degrees, which I will say takes about 12 minutes total. You want the fish to be pink and moist in the middle, so factor in carry-over heat as you cook these steaks.

Enjoy!

So, my mom used to make this recipe when I was a teenager and I loved to eat it, but wanted nothing to do with making it. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? I was about 14 when I remember my mom making this dish, but I hadn’t really been interested in cooking at that point in my life. Little did I know I would come to love cooking.

The recipe is a play on barbecued chicken with a sauce that was very tomato and vinegar forward, but it is balanced with some sweetness and a little garlic to really bring it together. The idea is that you bake the chicken and the sauce together, so as everything cooks together the sauce begins to thicken and adhere to the chicken. It is a really classic, simple barbecue sauce.

If you don’t believe me, here is what the dish looks like when finished. I decided to serve it with brussel sprouts (yes you can find that recipe on my blog) and a little rice to help soak up that great sauce. Here you go!

Yes, this is baked in the oven, and it tastes as good as it looks.

But wait, I mentioned a mystery didn’t I? Yup, I did. This recipe, while flavorful and rich, is written a bit like a “whodunit.” There is only one set of instructions related to cooking the whole dish that reads like this “Brown chicken 1 hour at 400 – 425 degrees, turning once. Pour sauce over browned meat, reduce oven temperature and roast til sauce is thick and/or nearly gone.”

If you cooked chicken as the instructions indicate above you will have overcooked and dry chicken. In my attempt to solve the mystery we used skin-on bone-in chicken thighs because the skin will turn out crispy and it looks beautiful with the sauce. So, now, we must piece together how this recipe would have been comprised when it first came to fruition 30 years ago — and perhaps how to work with it in the 21st century!

I have had this recipe numerous times before while I was growing up, but had never seen the recipe on paper.  As you can tell, the recipe left me with more questions than answers when it came time to making this myself. I knew the chicken was already deceased and I wasn’t prepared to kill it again. So, in order to avoid the same fate, I knew I would have to pay attention to some clues I had learned along the way.

While I will help you solve the mystery, this case isn’t open and shut and I will need to revisit this in order to work out the wrinkles. So, below is my file on how to crack this case.

In a baking dish, place 6 chicken thighs skin side up and season with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and cook the chicken for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, turn up the broiler for 3 minutes on high until the skin starts to get crispy like the photo below.

While you are letting the chicken cook for those 20 minutes, combine the following ingredients in a sauce pot and bring to a simmer. Make sure to stir this occasionally while the sauce comes together.

1 15 oz. can tomato sauce

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons Worcestershire Sauce

2-4 cloves garlic, finely diced

A couple of pinches of kosher salt

Fresh ground black pepper

Pour the sauce over the chicken, so you have something that looks like this.

Next, cook the chicken for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Then, cook for 20 minutes at 375 degrees.

That’s it. You are done, and you will end up with a beautiful play on barbecued chicken. If you take the chicken out and you want the sauce to be a little thicker, just take the chicken out of the baking dish and return the pan to the oven with just the sauce.  Check your sauce every 3-5 minutes until it has reached the desired thickness.

Remember, pork is cooked through at 140 degrees internal temperature. You just want these tender and cooked through. The cooking time will totally vary depending on your oven temperature and the thickness of the meat.

Not interested in meat at all, but want a fantastic, basic barbecue sauce for any application? Seriously, just make the sauce until it has reached the desired thickness and flavor profile that suits you. Put this sauce in a container of your liking and store in the fridge.

Want to wake up this sauce a little more? Okay, add a couple of ounces of your favorite whiskey, bourbon, or tequila. This sauce won’t keep you from driving, but will help fortify some of those great flavors. Like wine, taste before you add to the sauce as you will be concentrating those flavors. Also, you could add some ground ginger, ground cinnamon, or cardamom (if you can find it) to make the sauce extra special. Remember, those spices are full flavors so add in small amounts or you will overpower the sauce.

So, for now, case closed! Rest assured, together, we will continue to bring this recipe it’s long, overdue justice.

Enjoy!

As some of you may know, I have dabbled in magic throughout the course of my life. I consider food and magic to have a few similarities that really speak to me. For one, you can tell a story with them both of time, place, history, adventure, and so on. Also, you can transform simple, unassuming ingredients into stunning, inexplicable, and flavorful magic.

The mango embodies this idea for me in a poetic way. The mango doesn’t look like much, it harbors a fearsome nemesis, but contains some of the most versatile fruit flesh around. Think about it, you can use it for salads, soups, marinades, smoothies, and breakfast to name a few applications.

One of my favorite uses of mango is to make mango salsa. To me, this salsa, is magic with mango, red onion, jalapeno, cilantro, salt, pepper, and a little lime juice. All pretty standard ingredients, right? Yes, without a doubt, but it is the gift that keeps on giving. It is sweet, spicy, fresh, and bright with the lime and the bit of tartness of the mango.

Enough talk, how about a picture?

Making this salsa is simple just dice up a couple of tablespoons red onion, cilantro, jalapeno (start with less as you can always add more), a couple of teaspoons of lime juice, a pinch of salt and pepper, and boom, you are done.

The only real challenge here is unlocking the mango from it’s skin and the pit. Oh, this is the nemesis I was referring to earlier. The pit is oddly shaped and takes up a lot of space. Hopefully some of the information below you will find useful.

First, most importantly, get a sharp knife so you can handle this easily. Next, stand the mango up with the tapered end towards you. Take your knife and make an incision about a quarter of an inch from the outside edge of the mango. Letting the knife do the work (and it will with most ripe mangoes), cut all the way until you have one piece of it off the side of the pit. If you encounter resistance, don’t force the knife down. This is your sign that you are likely trying to cut into the pit, which sits just under the edge of the flesh. Slide your knife over a little bit to one side or the other from where you working. 

You should end up with something that looks like the top half of the photo.

The easiest way to remove the fruit is to make a tic tac pattern through the flesh and then turn it inside out and you will get the bottom part of the photo. Be careful, as a sharp knife will easily punch through the skin of the fruit and could leave your hand a little worse for the wear.

Here is one last photo of both sides cut into the tic tac pattern

Finally,  holding the flesh of the mango with your fingertips, and pushing down, start to work the knife back and forth between the skin and flesh until your little squares of mango begin to come free. Don’t worry, if you end up with pieces of mango that still have flesh on them, just trim them with a knife.

There you have it. Simple, flavorful, and magical mango salsa. Make sure to taste and check your seasoning, as sometimes the mango can be a little sweeter or a little more tart depending on how ripe it is.

So, enjoy!

I was looking in the fridge the other day and noticed a very sad, depressed looking chicken carcass tucked away on the bottom shelf. There was only one way to make this right, time to take stock in making stock. Stock can be used for so many things such as soup, stews. roasts, roasting, and dressings or stuffing applications if you prefer. Not only that, but I believe you get better flavor when its homemade, it is a lot better for you, and it is rather simple to make. The only thing you really need is a little time as making stock can take 4 hours, but most of that time is spent letting this magical concoction bubble and simmer away to get every bit of flavor out of the bones or scraps you can.

The application is simple. Throw a bunch of vegetables in a pot with a few seasonings, add the chicken carcass, a few dried herbs, and cover with liquid. Then, bring the cauldron to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and before long you will be left with a flavorful, rich liquid that will add to flavor to any dish or help bring some comfort when fighting a cold or flu.

Alright, let’s get after it!

Here is the base for any good stock. Carrots, onion, celery, peeled garlic, salt, dried basil, dried oregano, dried thyme, and whole peppercorns. For stocks, you want to use dried herbs as opposed to fresh herbs. Why, you ask? Dried herbs stand up better in long, slow cooking applications unless you are using something very hearty like rosemary, which you can apply in either circumstance. So, if you want to use fresh basil or cilantro, for example, finish with those at the last second to get maximum flavor from the herb.

Everyone in the pot including 3 tbsp of salt, a couple of teaspoons each of the dried herbs and the whole peppercorns. Oh, why whole peppercorns? We want to draw as much of the flavor out of the peppercorns as we can, so leaving them whole will allow us to do that. If you grind the pepper, you lose all that flavor and you won’t get the maximum affect over a long cook time. We will finish with ground pepper later.

Pour in enough water to cover, you can add a little chicken stock from a can or container if you have some around, but you will get plenty of flavor out of the water if you have seasoned it well. Also, I have tossed in a few chicken backs and necks to help fortify the flavor. You can find these frozen or sometimes fresh from your local butcher. Just ask nicely and you will probably get what you need. Bring your stockpot, I think mine is about 6 quarts, to a boil and reduce to a gentle simmer.

Okay, now comes the painstaking and easy part. Just stir the stock every 15 to 20 minutes and let the mixture reduce. This can take between 3-4 hours, but you will start to notice the stock start to take on color and characteristics of a proper chicken stock. Here is a photo below for you.

After that time and a few sample spoonfuls to test the flavor, you should get something that looks like this.

 

In the wake of Mother’s Day, and my mother visiting, I have been a little bit behind in posting any thing new. Why you ask? I have been cooking up a storm all Mother’s Day weekend! So, what has been on the menu?

Dinner on Friday:

* Lime Marinated Sea Bass

*Mango Salsa
Roasted Carrots

*We will cover the sea bass and mango salsa in some future posts.

Saturday:

Breakfast: Hash with over-easy and sunny-side-up eggs

Lunch: (We fended for ourselves so as to reduce the need for cooking)

Dinner: We kept it super easy and did take-out in order to enjoy some quality time together. Take-out is great for when you want to take a break and relax, but I certainly prefer to cook at home if I can.

Sunday: Mother’s Day

Breakfast: French toast with some fresh pineapple chunks, watermelon, strawberries, and blueberries.

Lunch: (We again fended for ourselves as we prepared to provide a delicious homemade dinner later that day).

As far as dinner was concerned, I had been telling my mom about the pasta bolognese I sometimes make for quite some time, so that was what she decided she wanted to have for Mother’s Day dinner.

The best thing about this menu is we have covered most of the recipes in the blog up to this point. Yes, we haven’t previously discussed sea bass, but I want to make sure you always have something new as your next show stopping dish.

The beauty of this weekend menu is that it can be managed pretty easily while still leaving ample time to enjoy the company of your guests. What things could you do to to make this easier to manage? I would say chop and prep what you can ahead of when you to plan to cook. Although this seems obvious, it can leave more time to laugh and top off your beverage of choice.

Also, try to have everything you need at hand so you don’t have to spend time hunting around for this ingredient or that. Once I have done all the chopping and prep, I place all my onions, potatoes, peppers, etc. into little dishes so I can I just dump the ingredient into my pan or cooking vessel and move on.

Until now, I have been talking about a lot of individual recipes on my blog, with a few plates containing some sides to go along with a main course. But I wanted to share how you might think about bringing some of these recipes together to create a weekend of culinary adventures. The big takeaways here are be creative, have fun, learn, and try to make sure the menu befits your guests or  whomever you might be sharing your table fare with.

So, enjoy!

Well, it is official, I have submitted a recipe for a recipe contest for a local restaurant group. As you will see below it has gone through a number of versions and a few elements just didn’t come together the way I planned. As I mentioned, recipe testing is tough and has it’s ebbs and flows. However, it is a great opportunity to create and explore in the world of food.

So, what did we end up making? I talked about it in my “Recipe Test Launch” post, but lets review.

The dish started off as roasted red pepper basil pasta with sausage, spinach, and arugula. My twist on the roasted red pepper sauce was to add to fresh basil to give the sauce a nice floral, herbaceous aroma. It made sense and I knew the flavors would meld together nicely, but finding the balance presented a few challenges. I have listed a few notes below so you can understand the progression of the life of the sauce.

Sauce #1 had good color, but sorely lacked seasoning and flavor profile I wanted.
Sauce #2 had good flavor, but had one glaring issue. The color. The color was something a lot of parents with infants can relate to.and that is not how stay in the running to win a recipe contest. I will leave it at that so we don’t have to think about it anymore.
Sauce #3 was seasoned very well. Even on the first try the sauce was on the edge of being to heavily seasoned with salt and pepper, but was surprisingly deceptive. It became a little Jekyll and Hyde — as when we first tasted it the sauce it was flavorful, rich. However, after dinner I tasted the sauce again, and this time, it was totally different!! I was stumped that the complexity of the sauce had changed so quickly. Such a shame!

After thinking through the sauce complexity and using what remaining hours I had left to ponder how to make the sauce work, I created a fourth version of sauce. I made a few more adjustments, which I based off of Sauce #3, and settled on a solid version. Yes, the sauce still passed quality control after it had sat and had a chance to come together.  So, without further adieu, I will now present the recipe for this amazing, flavorful sauce.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup Roasted Red Peppers
1/2 cup Reserved Liquid from Roasted Peppers
1/2 cup Half and Half
3/4 cup Fresh Basil
1/2 tsp Kosher Salt
1/2 tsp Ground Pepper

8 oz of Fettuccine

Bring 6 qts of water to boil, add 3 tablespoons of kosher salt, and cook pasta until al dente.
While the pasta is cooking, add the first 7 ingredients into a food processor or blender to prepare the red pepper sauce. Process the ingredients for about 2-3 minutes until the sauce is smooth and everything is incorporated.

Once the sauce is prepared add it and the pasta into a saute pan, and turn to medium ot medium low heat. Stir the pasta through with the sauce until the noodles are coated and the sauce is warmed through.

Add 1/2 cup of spinach and 1/2 cup of arugula to the pan, combining the greens with the pasta in the warm saute pan until the greens begin to wilt, this should take about 90 seconds or so. Place the noodles and greens in a bowl or on a plate, and serve with freshly grated Parmesan cheese on top.

We have covered how to roast red peppers in a previous post. Remember the liquid that settles at the bottom of the bowl while the peppers steam are what you are going to use as the reserved liquid.

If you have brought all the components together in concert with each other, then you will have something that will look this photo below.

 

Caprese, a classic, flavorful, and super simple salad. This one of my favorite summertime dishes and I always find myself wanting more. Caprese is comprised of tomatoes, fresh mozzarella,  fresh basil, salt, pepper, olive oil, and a splash of balsamic vinegar to finish.

The real trick to caprese is cutting the fresh mozzarella and the tomatoes the same thickness. First, a sharp knife will help alleviate most of those issues right away. If you are having trouble with a straight edged knife when you are cutting tomatoes, grab your serrated bread knife and that will help keep the tomatoes from exploding and your kitchen looking like a scene out of a bad horror movie.

Try to keep the tomatoes and mozzarella thin, you don’t want them to fall apart, but they should have enough structure where the tomato can support the mozzarella too. If you want them thicker, that is totally okay, but the idea here is that you can have something that isn’t super heavy and doesn’t weigh you down.

Alright, lets look a few photos. I have included a couple of photos so you can see how it might look before and after you have dressed the salad.

Here is one layout. Again, to finish just dress with a few drops of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and some salt and pepper. If you are trying to figure out how much oil you need, I might suggest that you pour some oil into a small bowl and use a spoon to let some oil stream off the tip of the spoon. The goal is to have a little bit of the dressing with each bite. If you have spots that aren’t dressed that is okay, just make sure there is some on a bite near by so each bit is properly seasoned.

Above you see a plate of dressed caprese salad. This makes for a really flavorful but light lunch, a special occasion appetizer or dinner salad, and it is an excellent choice for anything from a potluck to a backyard BBQ. I have used it for all these applications and not only is it a crowd-pleaser, but it also looks beautiful when plated and dressed.

Looking to wake this up a little more? Pair with a nice wine — you could go with a chilled white or a bold red, personal preference is key here. Also, go to your local bakery or favorite grocery store bakery and grab a nice french or sourdough baguette. Slice a few pieces on the bias and you can serve up one stack of the salad on top of the bread. If you are looking for a little crunch, you can also toast the bread in a pan or on the grill.

Again, I promise, this will be another dish that you reach for anytime you are looking for something a little out of ordinary. Enjoy!

While deciding what to make for dinner, we were faced with the greatest kitchen villain of all time.

Me: “What sounds good to you?”
Her: “I’m not sure, what sounds good to you?”
Me: “I am not sure either, does anything sound appealing to you?”

Of course, anyone would be weary of this cycle after a few minutes. After a few more rounds, we were hoping to find a protein that would be a little different than what we had before. In passing I had mentioned we should give lamb a shot. We had made it before, with fair results, but wasn’t something we came back to that often. So, after circling the meat counter at our local butcher shop more times than I care to count, I selected lamb blade steaks. I did this for a couple of of reasons: It cooks like beef as far the cooking application goes and has plenty of flavor. Granted, both in texture and taste lamb is different than anything else, but the flavor isn’t unpleasant in anyway.

So, I seasoned the steaks with olive oil, salt and pepper and they went onto the grill on medium high heat. Like steak or any other meat, once it hits the grill, leave it alone. After about 5-7 minutes on each side with a few turns you need to pull the lamb off so it can rest.

Lamb, even more than beef, doesn’t do well if it is overcooked. So, you want to shot for medium rare at most by the meat has rested. If you have applied heat correctly, you could have something that looks like this photo below.

Lets talk about the good shall we? First, the lamb was perfectly medium rare and moist. Also, the steaks were well seasoned and weren’t “gamey” as sometimes lamb may be described. However, the lamb was lack luster and underwhelming. In order to keep the meat moist that does mean that you may not be able to get the same color on it or get that delicious crispiness on the outer edges as one can do with pork or beef. In addition, the texture of meat, although cooked perfectly, can be a little chewy and make the experience of eating lamb not as enjoyable.

Takeaways? I think choice of meat is really the issue that comes front and center here. Perhaps a different cut, something that could have been cooked slower (a different cut of lamb) or perhaps a slow cooker application would do nicely for the shoulder blade steaks we had this evening. I think lamb will be something that I come back to, but next time, rethink the cut of meat before we apply the heat.