Tag Archives: bobby flay

Ode to Butchers

Posted on June 12, 2015 | Leave a comment

I’m amazed at what butchers can do, both good and bad. Years ago I’d be sent three miles down the road to what amounted to a convenience store and there would be an entire deer lying on the table waiting to be broken down. Hopefully the hunter field-dressed it, and had a license and was in season.

A lot of cooking ideas are going on right now. My husband usually “mans” the grill and was inaugurating a new grill brush that does not leave metal shards in our food.

Pork tenderloins looked good so I got two. I also asked the beer/wine guy about a hard apple or pear cider. I arrived home with one bottle of local French-style apple cider. From the cupboard came a 2 qt. Pyrex cooker with lid. I salted and peppered the pork, arranged it, added fresh sage and rosemary and a bit of dried thyme then submerged it in the cider for a couple of hours on the counter, turning it once.

It was then patted dry, coated it with olive oil, a bit more seasoning and my husband placed it on his clean grill.

Now is the fun part. I bought a nest of Saturn (flat, funky) peaches yesterday, rinsed two of them and took them off the stone, skin went into the “recipe.” Into the food processor with 1/4 medium red onion and a couple tbsp. amber honey. Salt and pepper. Then I tasted it and finished with enough sriracha to give it a bit of heat. Perhaps some ancho chili powder at first but that wasn’t enough. Buzz it up and it was not a glaze, it was a sauce. It looks kind of like applesauce but thinner, which is also great with pork. Marinated in apple, finished with peach. Dad never liked fruit with meat. We do. If our butchers read this, I just made up this recipe yesterday, on the fly. I’m sure they can enhance it.

Dinner was served with a simple potato salad and a green salad. I’ve enough pork left over for lunch, and give a couple of slices to my butchers. Sauce will need to be made for them, but if they give me good protein, I can do great things with it. What better way to thank a provider than to provide, to bring cooked food into the grocery store to thank those who provided the inspiration. Dee

ps I forgot to thank the new grill brush for its inaugural efforts on our behalf.  Bobby Flay would be proud.

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Inspired Dinner

Posted on June 4, 2014 | Leave a comment

It was shared with others and well-liked so I’ll share it with you. Dinner a deux:

Two chicken breasts with bone and skin, prepare to roast (I can only turn my oven up to 375 lest I set off the smoke alarm)

Marinate in 1t each salt, pepper, sweet (or smoked) paprika and 1/4 tsp sugar mixed with juice of a lime and 1-2 T oil for at least an hour

I served that with a chimichurri sauce I made yesterday.

Also Israeli couscous with lime juice and cilantro

Also roasted heirloom colored carrots in olive oil with sprigs of fresh rosemary.

 

That was dinner. If I must say so myself it was very good. My husband came back for seconds on the couscous. I find it interesting that he hates the quick non-cooked couscous but loves the bigger “pearls.” Next I’ll have to introduce him to quinoa, as baked potatoes are not the only starch approachable to a Texan in our universe.

The stars are aligning in some fashion, I can feel it. I don’t know what yet but always know when it’s right. We wish you well and hope you’ll do the same. Keep reading and write in from time to time. Cheers! Dee

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Call Me Otis

Posted on May 15, 2014 | 3 comments

At 3:30 this morning Zoe the dog got me up by whining to get back up on the bed. So I’m up, I call it Otis-ing and I’m a master. And yes, she knows to come to my side of the bed and whine once and if I don’t get up right away she starts using her nails to scratch the wood on our bed. A half hour later she’ll have moved from the middle to my pillow. Usurper.

Fajitas. It’s one of our favorite meals. Yesterday I bought hand-made tortillas. I was concerned that avocados were quite hard but found the best one. I usually marinate raw chicken in lime juice, ancho chili powder and salt but a couple of days ago I roasted a large (4.25#) chicken on a bed of thyme and sage and that’s enough for at least three meals for us and one tasty chicken salad for lunch.

What made it was the salsa. With one barely ripe avocado I chose a ripe mango. Pit and peel both and mash in a bowl. Add one seeded jalapeno and large clove of garlic, both minced. I added a bit of salt and chipotle powder and juice of a lime and mixed. It was really good.

Toast the flour tortillas in a dry skillet and keep warm. Slice a pepper (color of your choice, yesterday I chose red) and one sweet onion and caramelize in oil in said skillet. I chunked the roasted chicken and added it to re-warm. For serving, have more limes ($.89 apiece now, I’m glad I’m not a Mexican restaurant), the salsa, some shredded cheese, sour cream and ranchero beans and let people serve themselves.

I know, Bobby Flay would have put honey in the salsa….. is there a bee lobbying group that pays him on the side? The mango was my “sweet” and the salsa was very tasty.

My next challenge is an American hors d’oeuvre for a Swedish dinner on Friday. A new Swedish neighbor is having us over for dinner to reciprocate for a meal I cooked for him. His father flew in from the old country to see him and we’ll take them to see two flight museums on Saturday, for fun.

Much of my cooking is inspired by other countries. One gent told me yesterday to make my authentic version of true Texas Pedernales chili, Lady Bird Johnson’s version served to 5,000 guests including JFK in the summer of 1962 as an “amuse.” I must say it was refreshing that in over fifty years on this planet I actually heard a non-gay man refer to an amuse bouche! Guess I don’t hang out with enough chefs.

I’m thinking of slicing and toasting a baguette and making a chicken liver mousse with sweet onion, a Jazz apple cored and peeled, toasted walnuts and a bit of cream cheese. All the veg are minced or food-processed, sauteed. Container of chicken livers, cleaned, is added, sauteed and flamed with cognac, then the entire mess, which at this point looks like baby vomit, goes into the processor and the walnuts are added in the last few seconds and pulsed. Salt and pepper, of course. Place in ramekins, cover and refrigerate for at least two hours to set. Serve on toasts.

Then in addition to a bottle of wine, we may also bring a local delicacy for the Swedes to taste, perhaps en route to the air museums. Remember the “mastitis blanket?” Look it up on this site. Our state is famous for its dairies and m-i-l has given me a wooden picnic basket with cows on it and I may just do lunch for Saturday.

My husband’s parents had a dairy for 30 years and sent the cows along to younger folk a decade ago and started a cattle ranch. But when dairy cows had mastitis they needed treatment so over the years they built up points and cousin Val the Vet got a mastitis blanket and I got the mastitis picnic basket.

Well, the basket has cows on it and even our coffee mugs have cows. First time I went to meet the parents I got up pre-dawn to use the facilities and mistakenly turned on the light. What did I see? Nine pair of bull’s eyes staring at me from about 15′ away. Freaky for a mostly city gal. They thought I was Jim’s father getting ready to feed them. I think my error awakened the household earlier than intended for a Thanksgiving weekend.

Where there is milk there is cheese so I’ll check that out for lunch on Saturday, a picnic if the weather ever clears. There is so much rain that parking garages are partially flooded. But it would be local and American and not what I cook from France, Italy, Greece, Mexico or elsewhere. Ciao, ta ta, Dee

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Inside The Lines

Posted on May 1, 2014 | Leave a comment

As a kid, every year I received the same present at my birthday party from one guest. It was a coloring book, eight Crayola crayons and a vial of dime store perfume.

While I never used the scent, I did color and was always instructed by Mom that I was old enough to draw inside the lines and I always did. There’s a drawing I did around age five from scratch (no coloring book) of The Wizard of Oz. I framed it this year and with all I’ve framed over the years this is my husband’s favorite work and I’ll always keep it for him.

It took until my late twenties until I let myself begin the struggle to draw outside the lines, think outside the box. Some of my greatest ideas come to me at three in the morning and I rush to write them down. My art never amounted to anything, I’m better at designing the framing and taking photos, but the deconstruction and re-construction of ideas is my forte. Oh, I cook as well. And write.

Perhaps being a child of the late fifties, I was raised to be educated, well-bred, with good manners and a knowledge of opera, dance, music. I thought it was foisted upon me but now know that my parents didn’t have that luxury. My dad was the first in his family to ever graduate from college and he has a PhD. Mom was second in her family but only because she had four kids and my parents helped my aunt go to school before Mom went and of course, graduated cum laude the same year I did.

I had to walk around the house with a huge dictionary on my head for posture and take ballet, tap, piano and violin. I was the eldest and had to set an example for my younger siblings.

Even when I was “on my own” at college I never missed a class unless I was in the infirmary once with the flu. Don’t worry, my friends busted me out and I got to go to the concert that night.

To a shy reader, you’re me. Sometimes you have to stop and say “that’s enough.” Leave it at that or fight whatever is bothering you whether it may be bullies at school or a mean boss. Speak your mind. Make your words work for you.

While I was soc/psych I’m not in the field so don’t presume to “treat” anyone but I believe in my heart that many of these school shootings and bombings over the years could have been prevented with a good family environment, mentors, coping skills and just plain love.

When I finally came out of my emotional shell and found my voice, literally and on paper, I had and still have friends to help direct my energies. I’ve raised two dogs in succession, ten years each right now with the second on my pillow as I write this and have worked with animals since I was a kid, and with shelter pets for over 20 years.

Finding one’s voice is tougher as a girl, especially when I grew up. I was supposed to make the boy always win at sports and always feel smarter yet S and I were reading years above our grade level in second grade so were set aside to work together. I was feisty at ten, though, told the school I wanted to take shop rather than home ec. I was denied, of course so as team leader the team decided that everything we were assigned would have chocolate in it. Don’t I wish Bobby Flay was around then and that chilis were available in the store. Cheers! Dee

 

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Chili Throwdown

Posted on November 13, 2012 | 2 comments

Our new neighbor Jeff and I have agreed to a chili throwdown.

Bobby Flay, I need you! I limited myself to Lady Bird Johnson’s Pedernales chili she had made for thousands of guests and President Kennedy over 50 years ago.

Apparently http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/faqs/recipes/chili.asp I’m OK here. I’m better at cooking than tech.

Bobby, I’ve never made this before. Don’t tell me to add beans because in Texas there are no beans and my husband was born and grew up in Texas.

I figure I’ve some wiggle room in the chile powder (ancho?) and have a KitchenAid 5 qt stand mixer so can grind my own meat if I know the combination.

I also have a spice grinder and a Penzey’s nearby so can get cumin seeds and grind them.

Our neighbor Jeff gets to do whatever he wants while I do an homage to two dead presidents and their wives. He’ll probably do a souped-up buffalo chili, probably with beans.

Margie, Nanny, we need to import some Texans to judge this feast! We’ll try to go to the community room for a tasting and judging but Jeff is from here and I have my hands tied as a newbie with an old Texas recipe I’ve never tried.

Miriam, Stephanie (s), I need you to weigh in as well. Help! I know Jeff will win because I boxed myself in but did that purposefully.

Now I’m researching a blog on responsible pet guardianship including spay/neuter, checking out no-kill shelters and funding for no-kill shelters. Unfortunately no-kill shelters don’t pick up the phone even if you call the development office (no pickup, no $$$). So I’m going through vets and rescue organizations.

Beats packing for Thanksgiving, finding frozen dog food en route and making chili. Cheers and thanks, everyone! Dee

 

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Opportunity Knocks

Posted on August 15, 2010 | Leave a comment

New colleagues have an eight year-old daughter who would love to sit for our dog while we go on vacation. They came by this afternoon, toured the art fair, tried to see the red foxes at their den and actually saw the cranes (the family) this evening.

We bought sodas et al. Also ground beef, hamburger rolls and chipotle sweet potato fries. Everything else we had on hand. First I made a jicama salad with Meyer lemon and olive oil dressing with parsley and green onion slices.

The menu included cheeseburgers with hand-made patties and slices of havarti and emmenthaler cheeses. Whole wheat rolls, grilled. Grilled radicchio with olive oil s&p, iceberg lettuce wedges with yogurt Thousand Island dressing, and grilled peaches with butter, sugar and cinnamon.

Thank you, Bobby Flay for grilling this morning while my husband was asleep as those peaches were fantastic. Everything else just came naturally and easily to me and there were just a lot of dishes to wash and tea towels but that’s easy.

This lovely girl enjoys our dog enough to take good care of her for a few days when we’re away. Our dog is a very happy and excited dog, also very demanding. Both sides were seen tonight, but Zoe was showing off as she usually does for guests.

I guess I try to show off for guests too, but it’s just something I like to do, prepared things I had on hand quickly and tastily and had time to enjoy our dinner. No great French flair, all simple dishes that just require good ingredients. Now I feel guilty. They went to the art fair while I prepped and for a walk after dinner when I cleaned up. My husband went with them, as did the dog on the evening walk. I hope they don’t think I’m anti-social, as I wanted them to have a pleasant evening and have everything prepared at both ends of the meal.

In the end we are thrilled that our young potential sitter enjoys her charge. She’s a smart gal and will be able to negotiate Zoe’s mind games. Plus, she tried a few things I made tonight and disliked most, but did enjoy the grilled peaches even though she didn’t want to like them at all. Cheers! Keep trying new things for your kids, and make them taste before telling them what’s in it. It will change their world. Dee

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