Here’s the thing.  The warmer the weather gets, the spicier I like my food.  for me a big pot of chili is a summertime affair, not something I’m looking for in the winter.  On the other hand, when the temperatures start to climb I also tend to crave lighter foods, not something that’s going to weigh me down.

Shrimp is the perfect balance in those situations.  It’s not a light meal, but the flavor is light and fresh. The sweetness of the meat plays well with spicy additions, but isn’t so subtly that it’s buried by them. If anything the heat enhances the flavor. The fact that you can eat them with your fingers and make a mess is just a plus.

While I can take all of the credit for this variation, the inspiration for this dish sprang from a conversation on twitter with the wonderful @oxfordfalls, who you should be following if you aren’t already. If you aren’t a fan of twitter, go visit their website and check out some cool food products.

If you aren’t a fan of the intensely spicy, or have someone in your group that isn’t a fan of sweat and tears, I’ve included an alternate spice mix to the recipe for good measure.

So which are you, mild or spicy?  Let us know in the comments.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

(From the archives: this is one of my earliest recipes and I noticed that it could use some polish and a bit of a facelift.  The recipe has ben rewritten to read more clearly, etc,  Enjoy!)

While chili (particularly “Texas Red”, and yes, that means no beans.) is the official state food of Texas, there is little doubt that the unofficial state food of Texas is the chicken fried steak.

I’ve known the wonderful delight of chicken fried steak all my life. While I grew up in California’s wine country, my family and many others were originally dust bowl immigrants from Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Southern cuisine was my staple as a boy, mixed with a strange variety of Italian, Mexican, Hungarian and Asian influences. The restaurants of Northern California don’t serve “country fried steak” they serve chicken fried steak, and that’s the way we like it.

I know that there are some Texans who will rail at me for even hinting that any Californian can produce a real chicken fried steak, but we do, at least it’s done well North of San Francisco, where the population is mostly rural. That being said, this is still a Texan tradition, and I’m passing it on as such, as is only fair, since it moved with our families from Texas, Texoma, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

If you’ve never had, or heard of chicken fried steak, you may wonder exactly what it is. In a nutshell, it’s a steak cooked in the same manner as Southern fried chicken. That is to say it’s breaded and fried in a cast iron skillet with plenty of oil (read Crisco, lard or perhaps, in rare cases, suet) until it’s crisp, juicy and delicious and slathered in gravy, either made from the pan drippings (not my preference, I just don’t like beef gravy) or in Southern White Gravy.

If served for breakfast or brunch, you’ll find it with a side of fried potatoes or hash browns. When served for dinner it will usually be found accompanied with mashed potatoes, also slathered in gravy, and some form of vegetable or other. (This is where your basic green bean or, better yet some fried okra comes into play.)

So, no matter where you hang your hat, kick your feet up, set a spell and make up a bit of Texas for supper tonight. You’ll be glad you did, I assure you.

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Popularity: 6% [?]

Before someone asks, the name of this dish was coined my wife. When I asked her what I should call it for the post, she answered immediately “Surprisingly Wonderful Broccoli Slaw with Sesame”, so there you have it.

But of course there’s a story leading up to that point:

Earlier today I asked my wife if she would like some stir fried broccoli slaw.  Her response was to raise an eyebrow, let loose a very well earned supportive sigh and mutter “Sure, Honey.  I’ll try some”. which is nearly equivalent to “Oh my goodness, he’s trying to kill me with food again”.

She’s earned the right to have these moments.  Not all of my ideas end up in something wonderful.  Some don’t even make it into the realm of edible, and for the past 5 years she has had to endure my lows along with my highs.  Yes, she has the right… And  to top it off,  she has apparently never met a broccoli slaw that she’s liked.

Until today, that is.

A few simple ingredients, a hot stir fry pan and a few minutes of your time can generate a product that is far more than the sum of its parts. It’s a perfect side for pork, fish or chicken and lends a wonderful texture to any meal.  It’s 100% vegetarian, so can be served at a mixed dinner party with no shame whatsoever. It’s amazing on its own as well, which makes it perfect for a nearly guilt free afternoon snack, which was how I presented it today.

do you have a favorite use for a store-bought salad or greens mix?  if so, let us know in the comments.  We’d love to hear about it.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup hazelnuts (aka filberts)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped dried apricots
• 24 ounces white chocolate
• 6 tbsp heavy cream

Method:

On a baking sheet, spread out 1 1/4 C hazelnuts. Bake at 350 F for 10 minutes, or until nuts are light brown and the dark skins are cracked. Remove as much of the skins as possible by rubbing nuts in a terry-cloth towel. Finely chop nuts in a food processor.

In a 1-quart glass container, combine 12 ounces imported white chocolate, cut up and 6 tbsp heavy cream. [Note:  I used the Nestle white chocolate chips that are available in my local supermarket.  It worked well, but I am sure it would be better if you use a good import instead.]

Microwave mixture on MEDIUM (70% power), 3 to 4 minutes, stirring twice, until chocolate is melted and smooth.  [You can do this step in a double-boiler if you don't have a microwave.]

Stir into melted chocolate 3/4 C of the chopped nuts and 1/4 C finely chopped dried apricots. Cover the mixture and refrigerate 1 to 2 hours, or until mixture is firm enough to hold its shape.  (If mixture gets too hard, let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes or so, until firm but soft enough to shape.)

Form 28 smooth 1 1/4-inch diameter balls, either by using a 1 1/4-inch automatic-release ice cream scoop, or by rolling 1 tbsp of the mixture between your (clean!) hands.

Place on a wax paper-lined cookie sheet and refrigerate until firm, 1 hour or longer.

(makes 28 truffles)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Ingredients:

• 1 package microwave popcorn; popped
• 8 ounces vanilla flavor candy coating
• 1/2 cup pecan halves

Method:

Place popped popcorn in large bowl. Put candy coating in 1 quart glass measure; microwave on HIGH for 1 to 1-1/2 minutes or until shiny; stir to melt completely. Stir in pecans. Add to popcorn; stir well to coat. Spread on cookie sheet and allow to cool completely.

Popularity: 1% [?]

A little tomato, a little wine, a little seafood.  That’s really all it takes to make me happy, at least in this instance.  The fact that my oldest son helped me devour the dish shown above is nothing short or a five-star bonus.  I would have eaten it myself had he not enjoyed it.

(I may have secretly hoped that he didn’t…)

All I can really say about this is that it was sublime.  I’ve spent days staring at the screen trying to find a way to describe it, but words have failed me this time, so I’m just going to get straight to the recipe before I waste any more time.  You guys deserve to have this in your card index, database or PDA.  It’s good.

Really good.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

Ingredients:

• 1 c Chocolate chips
• 1 c Heavy cream
• 1 Egg
• Whipped cream
• 1 tsp. Vanilla

Method:

Place chocolate, egg, and flavoring in blender and chop. Heat cream until small bubbles appear at edge. Do not boil. With machine running, pour in hot cream. Blend until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Pour into dessert dishes and cover with plastic and chill. Serve with whipped cream dollops.

Popularity: 1% [?]

If you’re looking for something a bit different, completely savory and sumptuous and more than a bit over the top, this is the meal for you.  Preperation is relatively simple and the flavors are something that most only experience in high-end establishments, thinking that something of this calibur could never be prepared in a home kitchen.  While there is a bit of long-term preparation involved the process really isn’t all that hard, it’s just the big fancy name that makes it sound daunting.

To quote the Grand Dame of the American Culinary Revolution:

“Noncooks think it’s silly to invest two hours’ work in two minutes’ enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet.” ~ Julia Child

For most people, confit automatically brings to mind images of something cooked in duck or goose fat.  While this is the current trend, confit is actually a much simpler premise than that.  The definition of confit is quite simple:

Confit: [kohn-FEE] A meat slow cooked in its own fat with spices. Or a jam-like sweet spread.

In using this definition, anything cooked in its own fat is a confit, and to be tied to only using duck or goose fat would be a crying shame, since chicken confit is probably the simplest of all to make with just ingredients from your local BigScaryMegaMart, namely chicken leg quarters.

You know the ones.  You’ve seen them before.  They sit in the poultry section in a forlorn ten pound sack, partially packed in an impotent brine. These are the byproducts of the American love of the boneless-skinless chicken breast, cast off to obscurity because someone convinced an entire nation that white meat was the best meat.  In this case their loss is our gain.

The chicken sold in bulk bags is mostly from roasting chickens.  Roasting chicken are larger birds with a higher fat to body mass ratio and because of this have become less popular in todays marketplace.  Bulk chicken is also not trimmed for excess fat, it’s just sold by weight, meaning that the producers are not interested in making it look pretty.  It’s perfect for confit and it usually costs around $4.00 for 10 lbs of chicken!  The rest is almost blissfully simple.

So step out of your comfort zone for a moment and take a journey with me to the land of gourmet, where with just a bit of time and effort the most humble ingredients transform themselves into something more than you could have ever imagined where flavors and aromas transcend the parts that make up the whole and become something entirely wonderful.  The experience may only last a few moments, but it is very much worth the effort.

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Popularity: 4% [?]

“What am I going to make with all these leftovers?“

It’s a pretty common phrase used during the holidays, especially after Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. The refrigerator is overflowing with half-full serving dishes or packed storage containers of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and half-a-dozen desserts still grace trays on the counter tops.

Rather than going for the “same-old-same-old” reheated plates and turkey sandwiches, I prefer to use the leftovers as creatively as possibly. This dish has been one of my favorites over the years and I still go back to it on a regular basis.

The concept is simple. Take all the flavors that were at the table for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, mix them all together and add a little of this or that to freshen them up a bit. It’s a truly comforting meal that you wouldn’t peg for a leftover dish if you didn’t know that it was.

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Popularity: 7% [?]

What do you do with a lonely little piece of leftover chuck roast? You can always make a barbecue beef sammich, or just nibble it to death as a snack, but why not give it a bit of pride in its demise and turn it into something completely different and absolutely fabulous!…

But what would that be?

In this case, the inspiration came from my sister, who sent me a wonderful birthday gift, including plum sauce, sea salt, black bean garlic sauce, a couple sea salt grinders, the cutest outfit for Mr. seat of his Diaper, and a jar of oriental barbecue sauce.

A quick look in the crisper showed half of a bag of Italian salad greens, some arugula, shredded carrots, and my course was set. That lonely lil’ piece of leftover roast beef had a new destiny, and it was going Asian.

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Popularity: 1% [?]