Tag Archives: cooking

Never Forget that Key Ingredient in a Recipe Again

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Recipes

Recipes (Photo credit: pirate johnny)

Don’t you hate it when you are missing a key ingredient for a recipe that you had your heart set on making?  Here’s a tip that will keep your favorite recipes at your fingertips, especially when you are at the grocery store.  It also saves gas by eliminating extra trips to the store.

If you are like me, it often is hard to remember all the ingredients for a recipe from memory, especially when I am at the grocery store and decide, on the spur-of-the-moment, to cook something special for dinner that night because something is on sale or looks especially fresh or just came in to season.

Here is a tip that I use so my favorite recipes are always at my fingertips.  Many of you have smartphones, so this will work for you too.  I have been posting a number of my favorite recipes to this blog so that I can access them from my iphone no matter where I am.  Most of you won’t have a blog, but you could do the same thing with Facebook.  Here is a link to a recipe for Crinkle Top Cookies that I posted on a Garden Club Facebook page.  http://www.facebook.com/RedbudGardenClub#!/RedbudGardenClub/posts/297441007043200

Another variation of this is to use your smartphone to look up a recipe (in general through Google) just to doublecheck that you have the main ingredients covered.

Campfire Cooking – Foil Dinner

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No, it is not Jiffy Pop!  Bonnie, do you recognize these foil cooking bags? You left them for me to try.  They worked great.

The weather was so beautiful last week that we spent a lot of time out by the fire circle and got some great coals going so I decided to put them to good use and try to cook dinner on them.

Earlier in the morning, I had prepared the meal by throwing in a couple of chicken thighs ( I wanted a moist meat), some carrots, celery, green onions, sauerkraut (yes, it was in the refrigerator and I thought it would add some juice and flavor), sliced potatoes, a tomato, a little extra olive oil (so it wouldn’t burn) and spices.

The MINUTE I put it on the coals, it started to sizzle.  The whole experience was fun.  I had no idea how long to cook it, but the bag started to puff up, like you see in the picture, and after 35 minutes total, I figured it was done.

It turned out great.  Life is an Adventure.

 

Authentic Wood-Fired Pizza

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An Experience of a Lifetime

I love experiences and the other evening, Jim and I had the opportunity to attend an authentic wood-fired pizza party put on by some friends, Julie and Fred. It was an experience I will never forget because I actually got to help in every step of the process — including putting several pizzas into the hearth and baking them – to perfection, I might add :’)  I had a good teacher!

When we arrived, Fred had already started the fire in the outdoor hearth and it was blazing hot.  I later learned that the important thing is to get the ceramic bricks hot enough to hold the heat as the pizzas are placed directly on the floor of the oven!  I admit, I found this surprising.

These were no store-bought pizzas, let me tell  you.  I was able to help by taking the pizza dough and stretching it to fit the trays.  Julie then hardened the dough in the oven to give it a little body.  Then I brushed on olive oil and herbs and dressed the pizzas with the gourmet ingredients that she had mostly prepared.  Tonight’s menu included a BBQ chicken pizza, a fresh mozzarella, tomato, and basil pizza, a meat lover’s pizza, and a veggie pizza.

Once outside, Julie took a well-used brush to move the coals into the back of the oven – leaving enough room to place the pizza on the heated bricks.  Her technique to evenly brown the pizzas was to use her hands and grab the high-sided crusts and give the pizza a small turn.  She would observe the crust nearest the fire in the back to watch it rise from  the heat.  Turn, watch.  Turn, watch.  It was very labor intensive, but very satisfying.  The first pizza was sticking so she put a griddle in the larger hearth and hardened off the crusts of the remaining pizzas a little bit more.

The results were out of this world.  The crust was both crunchy and doughy – definitely cooked to perfection.  She said the sign of a good crust is that it holds its shape when you eat it – no forks needed here.

When I actually got to try it myself, I quickly learned the technique.  I can tell you that you just don’t learn this by watching.  You must get in and roll your sleeves up to learn all the fine nuances.  True about most things in life.  It was really, really fun.

All the pizzas came out beautifully, but I think the BBQ chicken pizza was my favorite because it was so different from anything I normally eat.  I definitely want the recipe for that.

Thank you Julie and Fred for a memorable evening. Life is an Adventure!

 

Brioche in Terra Cotta Flower Pots

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Brioche in Terra Cotta Pots

I caught an episode of Chef Herbert Keller’s “Secrets of a Chef” TV show this morning where he was showing how to make brioche in seasoned clay flower pots.  They are so cute.  It looked like so much fun that I am wanting to record it here so I can come back to it when I have time.

I’ve never made brioche.  It is a bread recipe that has butter and eggs in it.  I’ve since learned that it is used to make King Cake to celebrate Mardi Gras.   I’ve had that and it is a sweet bread that is somewhat cake-like but still gluteny.

English: King cake purchased from Rouses in Ho...

Traditional King Bread for Mardi Gras

Basically, you bake the brioche bread dough in actual clay flower pots.  He used the little mini ones, but you could use any size.  Of course you use new clay pots and season them before hand so that they do not stick. The real “secret” to seasoning the pots, shared by Chef Keller and passed down to him from his father, is to actually “deep fry” them in oil for 8-10 minutes.  You only need to do this once.

His website did not have the recipe, but I found this brioche flower pot recipe at CabinOrganic.  They have some nice photos also.

 

Raised Bed Garden Fever

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English: Baby swiss chard (seedlings).

Baby Swiss Chard

I’ve never been one to pour over seed catalogs in the spring.  Probably because I’ve never had a vegetable garden at our Ohio home — too much shade.  But it seems that all I can think about is putting in a raised bed garden at our Sharps Chapel, TN home so I can put in some vegetables!  I remember that my mother had a big garden in the 60′s and I have fond memories of that.

Fenouil

Fennel

Swiss Chard, heirloom tomatoes, leaf lettuce, parsley, cilantro, peppers — that should fit nicely into the 4×8′ space that I am limiting myself to until we move down here full time.  I don’t want to overwhelm myself so that it becomes a chore.  I already did that once when I tried a huge garden at my Dad’s place in Spring Valley — 15 minutes from home, and it got so full of weeds that I just gave up.  Downsize!  That is my strategy this time.

English: Fennel flower heads.

Fennel

We were at the Farmer’s Market today and that was just fuel for the fire. I saw fennel and was reminded of the Ming Tsai, Simply Ming episode I saw yesterday where he was hilighting the combination of coriander and fennel.  He used it in a Crispy Pita Chips with Fennel Fondue recipe and Chicken Sausage Meatballs on Fennel Rice recipe that I thought I would like to try.  I didn’t buy it because I couldn’t remember what else was in the recipe, at the time.  Now I know.

Also today, Jim and I researched board sizes and fasteners for the raised-bed garden at Menard’s.  2″x10″ seems like a good height.  That will allow me room to “grow” as I add mulch and soil amendments over the years.  I hope to approach our neighbor, Cecil, to see if I can borrow some cow manure.  I can’t wait.

Our main dilemma at this point is how to build a raised-bed garden on a slope, but this article I found should do the trick.   Life is an Adventure!

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