FRIED PICKLES!

Now, I know frying things isn't good for you; I truly do.  But as someone who recently decided to try and cut out most red meat, all processed meat, and make non-meat choices as frequently as possible (not for any particular moral or ethical reason, more for health reasons), it's baby steps.  So that means fried pickles.

You have to be a pickle lover here, but if you are, then you're in for a treat!  The recipe below has no measurements; I don't measure a thing for this, so i'm sorry if that's confusing. :)

First you need to blot dry your pickles.  I prefer chips, personally, but you can use thin slices of whole pickles or even the tiny gherkins.

For the batter:

In a bowl, put about a cup of buttermilk.  add salt, pepper, smoked paprika if you have it, and some tobasco.

In another bowl, mix some flower (um...maybe a cup? 2/3?), and I like to add some panko, too.  Salt, pepper, more smoked paprika, and anything here you'd like, really....garlic powder, parmesan cheese, any dry herb, etc.

While you're waiting for your oil to heat up and your pickles to get dried, make the dipping remoulade:
Mix it all together, and tweak it til it tastes right.

• some mayo (I make my own mayo for this but you can use regular store bought)
• garlic, minced really fine (I use a LOT)
• dijon mustard, or really any sauce like that that you have.  For example, i have a maple chipotle grilling glaze that i added to my mayo
• lemon juice to taste
• salt and pepper

dip your pickles in the buttermilk, then the flour mixture, then fry 'em up.  it's as easy as that. dip and enjoy!

it's been a while

it's been a while since I've written in here, and not much to report at the moment - babies do sad things to one's ability to create delicious meals.  We have started making our own baby food, which is awesome.  One breast of chicken makes enough food for almost 15 meals.  we cooked it in no fat, blended it until it was a paste, added some water, corn, and parsley, and voila - baby food!  Food processors are awesome.

I have a new favorite root vegetable: Japanese sweet potatoes.  Purple skin, creamy flesh, super dense but so delicious.  Slightly sweet, but not at all like a sweet potato or yam.  I've made mashed Japanese sweet potatoes with coconut but recently baked some fries out of two of them, and realized that most of the delicate sweetness from the coconut mashed came from the potatoes themselves, not the coconut milk inclusion.  I've only been able to find them at Asian grocery stores, but they did have them once at a Wegman's near my work.

I made beer battered asparagus for dinner last night, and fried some pickles with the left over batter.  we so infrequently fry things, but I wanted it so desperately, so...we did. and it was delicious.  made a dipping sauce from mayo (I know, Kimmy, you hate it - but you'd love this sauce!), garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, some dijon mustard, tarragon, salt, and pepper.  Delicious.

Another new favorite: Chobani Greek yogurt.  Oh. my. god.  Their honey non-fat yogurt is one of the most delicious things I've had, yogurt-wise.  Some ladies I work with said to avoid the honey, it's flavorless and gross, so of COURSE I had to buy it to see what it was all about, and it turns out it's my favorite.  You have to like the flavor or plain yogurt to enjoy it, but it's got this subtle bite of honey in the finish, just at the back of your tongue - I love it.  The nice thing about it is that it is filling enough to be breakfast on it's own.

Well, that's it for now.  nothing too interesting, but hopefully I'll have more soon!

Sometimes I even surprise myself- Pasta with Brussels Sprouts and Bacon

I'm not gonna lie. I'm a mediocre cook. I can put together a tasty meal most of the time, but it's nothing out of the ordinary. But sometimes I strike gold, and when that happens, I'm quite aware that it's pure luck.

This was one of those times. Tired from a full day of skiing followed by a 3 mile training run. Limited on ingredients, and trying to clean out the fridge at the same time. Consuming most of a bottle of white wine. Et voila. Out comes magic. This is why sometimes I find it hard to care too much about cooking, because its when I care the least that it works out the most. The more invested I am in it, the worse it turns out. Perhaps its just my poor luck. Or perhaps its that carefree mentality that allows my stress to be low and the recipe to work just perfectly. Either way, this one was a homerun.

Or maybe it was the white wine talking, but after a day full of activity, this was about as good as it gets.

And not to mention the fact that at the same time I was coaching my errant husband, via Skype, how to cook his first meal (curtesy of Ms Martha Stewart, whose recipes I may extol in a later entry).



Pasta with Brussels Sprouts and Bacon

12 oz. penne pasta
salt and pepper, to taste
2 slices of good thick bacon, not too lean, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1/2 onion (or 2-3 shallots), diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
8-10 brussles sprouts, halved and de-stemmed
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup chicken stock
Sharp dry cheese such as Romano or Parmigiano, shredded (optional)

Fill a large pot with water to 2/3 and bring to a boil over high heat. Add some salt to season and then add pasta. Cook as package specifies or until just al dente. Drain and reserve.



Meanwhile, in a saute pan heated to medium-high heat, add the chopped bacon. Cook until bacon is just starting to get crispy (don't overcook!). Add the onions, brussels sprouts and garlic, and cook; stirring frequently until the sprounts are tender and the onions are translucent (see note). Don't let the garlic brown, if it starts to, add some water to the mix.

Add the white wine to the pan and cook until the wine has mostly cooked off and onions are just a bit liquidy, maybe 2-3 minutes. Add the stock, stir well and bring to a boil. Season with salt and pepper to taste, bringing the heat down so the pan is at a simmer.

Heat the empty pasta pot to medium heat, add the olive oil and then add the brussels sprouts mixture. After a moment, toss the drained pasta in with the vegetable sauce stirring frequently so that the pasta doesn't burn. Cook for 5-10 minutes, stirring and tossing frequently, or until the pasta has gotten fully coated with the sauce. I used to skip this step, but Top Chef has won me over, and I fully believe it's the best way to get a thin sauce to really coat every piece of pasta. Trust me, it's worth the extra five minutes.

Serve garnished with the cheese, if desired.

Note: I used leftover roasted brussels sprouts, so literally only added them to the pan long enough to heat them. If you use fresh, I'm not sure how long it would take to cook them through. you might have to cook them longer than my estimated time (10-15 minutes). I advise you to take this into account, or consider roasting them beforehand in some olive oil and salt and pepper for 45 minutes until they start to get crispy on the outside.

Citrus-Soy Sweet Potato Salad

It's funny, as I've learned to cook, I've started cooking more and more simply. You'd think I'd have started off that way, but I started off as a strictly-recipe cook, and the more ingredients and fancier the recipe, the more it challenged me and made me want to try my hand. But as I've gotten the basics of cooking down I find myself straying from recipes more and more, or even better, not being able to find the 'perfect' recipe and just deciding to wing it myself. Either way, the recipes and the ideas that attract me aren't the ultra-complex ones, but the very simplest. And during this time of year, with the short sunlight hours and frigid temps, I crave a simple hearty meal with a handful of ingredients that pull together quickly, so I can get back under that blanket on the couch.

Of course, simple recipes and limited ingredients also mean less time spent grocery shopping, which is typically a sideshow event around here with tourists constantly rolling in and trying to buy meals for their entire ski trip.

I think this recipe is equally good as a main dish, served over rice if you want to make it more filling, or a supporting dish to a piece of pork cooked asian style with similar ingredients.

Citrus-Soy Sweet Potato Salad

2 lbs. sweet potatoes, or desired amount, peeled and cut into cubes or spears or whatever shape you most desire (I cut mine into rounds because the sweets were the narrow squiggly kind)

2 Tbsp olive oil

s + p

2-3 green onions, cut diagonally into slices

1 tsp peanut oil

1-inch piece of garlic, peeled and cut into thin slices

2 cloves garlic, peeled and cut into thin slices

1/4 cup orange juice

1/4 cup soy sauce

juice of 1 lime

2 Tbsp rice vinegar

1 Tbsp mirin

Preheat the oven to 425F. Toss the cut sweets in the olive oil and desired amount of salt and pepper to season. Bake for 35-40 minutes, tur

ning them half way through. The potatoes should be fork tender but not completely mushy.

Meanwhile, on the stove top make the dressing in a small sauce pan.

Over medium-high heat, add the peanut oil, ginger and garlic, saute 1-2 minutes until fragrant but the garlic is not browned. Add the orange juice and the soy and bring to a boil, cooking for 5-10 minutes or until the sauce has started to reduce a bit. Add the juice of the lime, and the vinegar and mirin. Reduce the heat and cook until it doesn't taste overwhelmingly soy-like or vinegary. The flavors should all kind of meld.

In a bowl, toss the sweet potatoes and green onions, then pour the dressing over and toss to coat.

Note: I had problems getting my soy-orange juice mixture to reduce, in the future I might consider adding some brown sugar instead of the mirin for sweetness, which might help with thickening the sauce, or just cheat and use some corn starch.

I'm not German, but I can cook like one - PART 1

While my husband is figuring out his saurbraten recipe, which I will post later, I thought I'd post my recipe (stolen from my poppa) for German Potato Salad.  I love this salad because 1). while it does use fat in the form of a bacon dressing, there's no mayo or sour cream, so it can stand out longer without get funky, and 2). It's not sweet, like traditional mayo potato salad.  This is really one of those "taste it 'til it's right" recipes, so I recommend frequent samplings to make sure you've got the flavor you want!

Ingredients
Potatoes - we make large batches of this, so we use about ten red potatoes.  You can certainly use any kind you'd like; I'd shoot for around 2 pounds or so, more or less depending on your need.  I like the red, though, because they're less mealy and stay firm longer.
Dill pickle - Dill relish works perfectly here, and I usually use this.  If you don't want to, I'd suggest non-kosher dill pickle chips.  I always get chips, because they're easier to chop.  If you can't find non-kosher chips, any will do, really.
bacon - again, this depends on how much bacon flavor you want.  Typically, for two pounds of potatoes I'll use between 1/2 and 2/3 of a pound of bacon (1/2 or 2/3 of the pack).  This is one of those situations where really expensive, lean bacon is NOT what you want.  Because the fat is a key ingredient in the salad dressing, you need to make sure you have a bacon that has enough fat to generate some liquid.  Also, I tend to leave my bacon in the freezer until shortly before I am going to use it; this way, it's MUCH easier to chop into pieces!
vinegar - I always use apple cider.  I probably wouldn't deviate here, but if you had to in a pinch, I'd definitely go with the white distilled and avoid red wine or balsamic!
brown sugar - light or dark brown will do, and this will really be to taste; probably less than a cup

salt, pepper

Cube your potatoes into bite size pieces and place in a pot with water.  Place this pot on the stove under med/high heat and cook until the potatoes are fork tender but not falling apart.  Honestly, even if they do go a little to far your product will be delicious; it'll just be a little bit more mushy, which is still yummy!  When these are finished, simply set them aside.

In a pan, place the bacon and place over heat.  Cook the bacon until it is rendered but not crispy!  Again, if you like your bacon crispy, awesome; feel free.  I tend to prefer my bacon not quite that well done for this salad.

Once the bacon is finished, remove the meat and leave the bacon fat in the pan.  You are going to be making a dressing by adding vinegar here, so depending on how big your salad is going to be, use your judgement; if you need to remove some of the fat, just dump some.Then, add your vinegar and brown sugar.  This is usually about a 2:1 recipe, vinegar to fat, and you need to add as much sugar as you'd like until it tastes slightly vinegary with a hint of bacon. Add the bacon pieces back to this dressing. 

Salt this dressing to taste and set aside.

If you're not using relish, chop your pickles.  I usually use about half the jar, but again, this can be to taste.  I tend to chop the pickle chips pretty small.  Place the pickles into the potato mixture and stir.  Then, add the dressing and stir it all together.

Here is where you will have to do some tasting!  You may need to add more salt or more brown sugar depending on what it needs.  

The great thing about this recipe is you can eat this hot,cold, and everything in between.  It's great right away, or after sitting for a few hours.  It's a great addition to a summer BBQ because there's no mayo to get all yuckers!

Tequila Lime Shrimp

The thing I'm beginning to learn here, at least when I'm in Breckenridge (altitude, 9600ft), is that the quicker the recipe the better. Cooking anything takes time, here. And patience. I typically run short on both. So we eat at 8:30 at night, and I've still yet to cook a perfect pot of pasta up here. But I'm getting closer. The other night, I made rice and it actually turned out, although dinner was a bit later than hoped for.

See, it's cooking with liquid that is difficult up here. Which is pretty much everything I cook with the exception of some roasting I do.

1) Its super dry up here. I'm talking lip-splitting, skin-cracking, wake up at 3 in the morning feeling like you just drank the better part of a case of red wine dry up here. So therefore, when things boil or simmer, the liquid just gets sucked into the dry air even quicker than usual. So, we love our pots and pans with lids up here.

2) Atmospheric pressure. I won't get into the details, mostly because I sucked at physics. But basically, because of how high we are, there is way less atmospheric pressure. Which means that water boils at a much lower temperature (212 degrees Farenheit at sea level, maybe 185 up here... I didn't do the math, this is just an estimation). Which means that anything cooked in boiling water is being cooked at a much lower temperature than at sea level, so therefore we have to cook it longer. In the case of Breckenridge, much longer. I probably would be able to boil an egg in maybe 20 minutes? Which is pretty ridiculous, if you're from sea level.

So here lies my problem, and I'm sure I'll be moaning more about this in the future. Coming up here is like learning to cook all over again. I mean, I know what I want to do, but I have no way of determining how to get it done in a timely manner, and not be stuck chewing on uncooked pasta.

But I digress, this is a cooking blog, and so I will move on to cooking. As I mentioned, I made rice the other day, and it turned out fairly well. It was sort of mexican inspired rice, mostly because I had some canned tomatoes and chiles on hand. I'm big on using everything in my fridge, and so when I was figuring out my meal for tonight I focused on using that leftover rice. But after a day of skiing, what cooks fast and fairly easily? The answer (almost always to me) is shrimp. Which is kind of weird because I'm not a huge shrimp fan, but the ease of keeping a bag of frozen raw shrimp in my freezer and pulling out a handful makes a favorite meal solution of mine, especially when I'm cooking for myself. Just pull out however many frozen shrimp you want, place in a bowl of tap water for an hour or so, and they are thawed and you're set to go.

This recipe was kind of a concoction of my own, although I'm sure there are tons of others like it out there. Overall, it certainly hit the spot on a cold night.

Tequila Lime Shrimp

1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 onion, chopped (or substitie 2 large shallots if you like)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup tequila
1/2 cup chicken stock
juice of 1 lime
salt and pepper to taste
8-10 shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 avocado (optional)
2 Tbsp minced cilantro (optional)





In a large pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat until it covers the bottom of the pan. Add the onion and garlic and saute until translucent.  Add the tequila and let simmer until reduced to about half the volume. Add the chicken stock and juice of 1 lime, and season with salt and pepper. Once the mixture is heated, add the shrimp and cook until pink. Taste the sauce and season more if necessary.

Serve several shrimp and some of the sauce over a bowl of rice. Top with avocado or cilantro if you like.

Notes:
-This recipe benefits from a little heat, to balance the sweetness of the tequila and the tartness of the lime. I served this with spicy tomato rice, but if you're serving with plain white rice, consider adding a minced jalapeno (of desired spiciness) along with the onion and garlic at the beginning of the recipe.
-I would recommend using a decent tequila because what you're left with after the alcohol cooks off is the taste of the liquor itself. A good anejo has a sweet taste that cheaper version don't have.  
-The avocado and cilantro are optional, however I highly recommend using them. The fattiness of the avocado really lends itself to this dish, and I can't think of southwestern style cooking without the addition of cilantro. Of course, if you dislike the taste of cilantro, feel free to omit.

Yummers

So we have this amazing Asian grocery store near us (well, thirty minutes away) that has the most amazing protein and produce around.  Everything is super fresh, and the last time we were there (yesterday!) we purchased:

PRODUCE

Japanese sweet potatoes

Baby Bok Choy

asparagus

onions, red

onions, yellow

onions, white

shallots

garlic, fresh

red potatoes

lemons

limes

tangerines

cherries

PROTEIN

octopus, fresh

shark

salmon, sashimi grade

tilapia

flounder

Chilean Sea Bass

chicken thighs

chicken breasts

stir fry steak, cut super thin

We're going to make some kick-butt paella for a game night coming up soon, but the last two nights have been yummy.  Tonight, we had some delicious tilapia with asparagus and a modified puttanesca penne.

TILAPIA with BALSAMIC BUTTER SAUCE

Pat dry the tilapia and set aside.  In a small saucepan, heat on medium 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar with one crushed clove or garlic and some salt to taste until it has reduced about half and has thickened enough to coat a spoon.  Let cool slightly, then add 3/4 of a stick of butter (no one said this was a low fat recipe!) to the vinegar, setting it back on the heat, low.  Let this melt together and then take off the heat.

Simply salt and pepper the tilapia and add some lemon juice (I always squeeze on a bit).  We cook our tilapia in a pan with olive oil, about four minutes a side.

ASPARAGUS, ROASTED

We used about fifteen-twenty pieces of asparagus.  Take off the woody parts and set the asparagus aside.  In a small bowl, combine minced pork (bacon, ham, pancetta, etc.), a shallot, some parmesan cheese (the shaker kind's fine) and some lemon juice with olive oil.  toss the asparagus to coat, and then place the asparagus on a cookie sheet coated with olive oil.  Roast however you'd like (we convection-roasted it at 390 degrees for about ten - fifteen minutes).

PENNE with (sort of) PUTTANESCA SAUCE

Make penne however you want to.

For the sauce, in a pot combine two tablespoons of olive oil, about a tablespoon of smashed capers, a tablespoon of finely minced olives of your choice, and a little bit of butter with a dash of balsamic vinegar.  Once the pot's warm, add 28 oz. of canned Italian tomatoes.  I used the peeled plum in a can, and squeezed them into the pan, then added about 1/2 the remaining liquid from the can.  I also added about a 1/4 cup of powdered parmesan to thicken and add some flavor.  I didn't have any anchovy, however if I had I would have melted a 1/2 a finely minced anchovy into the sauce.

When the penne is done and the sauce has bubbled a bit, combine and enjoy!