Live from Maine

There are cooking blogs out in the blogosphere that have mostly high fat, high calorie recipes on their blogs, but not me. However, I do realize the value of a special occasion meal, and since last night was our wedding anniversary we did it up! Now over the years we would sometimes go out for our anniversary to a special restaurant. Most of the time we prefer to stay at home and have some sort of lobster dish. Last night I bought 3 live lobsters and brought them home for a feast. I decided I’d do lobster two ways. First was the old standby of Lobster Newburg, a wonderful preparation with lobster sauteed in clarified butter with minced onions and mushrooms. It is thickened with roux, then the milk and sherry are added. A touch of ground white pepper, and nutmeg finish it off perfectly. To this dish I then added butter poached lobster as a garnish. This is a way of cooking lobster I learned from the book “Soul of a Chef” where chef Thomas Keller took up about a third of the book, and was highlighted in his French Laundry restaurant. Wow, it was good! To round out the plate I steamed whole brussel sprouts, and made a nice rice pilaf with a touch of saffron for flavor and color. I also served a small dish of corn relish for a mini salad course. The Roederer Estate sparkling wine was a perfect match, for both the main dish and the store bought fruit tart and cherry tart. All in all I was very pleased and will remember the evening fondly. And that my friends is what special occasion meals are all about! Great food is part of our lives, and one of the things we remember from special occasions. So by all means enjoy the good stuff, just don’t eat like this every night if you want to be healthy and active.

Fast and Furious Newburg Sauce for Two

1/3 cup white mushrooms diced small

1/4 cup yellow onion diced small

1 tablespoon clarified butter

1 cup whole milk

dash of ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper

In a 1 quart pot saute the onions in the clarified butter on medium low for 3 minutes then add the mushrooms stirring often,(about every 30 seconds). Continue cooking for 8-10 minutes on medium low to cook out most of the moisture in the mushrooms stirring often. Add the flour to make a roux and cook 4 more minutes on low. Whisk in milk and turn heat up to medium stirring slowly but constantly until the sauce just starts to bubble and simmer. Add pepper, nutmeg and salt to taste. Remove from heat and cover until needed. Enough sauce for two servings, maybe even three.

Lobster Two ways,
butter poached and Newburg

For the lobsters.

I use an 8 quart pot to precook my lobsters in, but as long as you can get a lid on you can use a smaller pot for this step. Fill the pot about one third full of water, cover, and bring to a boil. When the water comes to a boil drop the lobster in head first, belly up. Cook for 3-4 minutes on high heat and remove to cold water to stop the cooking process. Repeat for each lobster. After lobsters cool , the meat should come out easily when the shells are cracked open. Cut lobster tail into bite sized pieces, and leave claws whole. Dry the lobster pieces with paper towels and saute in clarified butter in a medium sized saute pan on medium heat for 5-8 minutes. Drain lobster butter off into a bowl to save for bread dipping(yum!). Add Newburg Sauce to the pan and heat just until it starts to simmer. Pour into preheated baking dishes if you have them and serve with sliced French bagguette slices.

Serves two but is easily doubled.

Note:

* I used three 1 1/2 pound lobsters for this dish, and had a bit of lobster meat leftover for lobster hash the following morning.

Lobster Hash

You can’t please all of the people all of the time. I have heard this many times throughout my life, and believe it’s true. Take any favorite restaurant that you have been to and liked for years as an example. You might out of the goodness in your heart recommend that restaurant to a friend only to find out later that they didn’t think it was any good. It doesn’t matter that you have been there several times and always had a good meal there. We just don’t all enjoy the same food, movies, books, etc. Good thing there are options in the food world. While some restaurants may say on their menus,”No Substitutions Please”, I encourage substitutions. Take this standby of American, and Italian cuisine, Spaghetti with Meat Sauce. In this following recipe I encourage tweaking it. You could take the one pound of ground beef and replace it with:

1/2 pound ground beef, and 1/2 pound Italian Sausage

1 pound ground turkey

1 pound of sliced mushrooms

1 pound ground lamb

You could also take the 1 tablespoon of mixed Italian herbs and replace it with:

1 teaspoon dried basil, 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, and 1 teaspoon dried basil

1 tablespoon oregano

1 tablespoon basil

1 teaspoon fresh thyme, and 3 tablespoons fresh chopped basil in the last 5 minutes of cooking

3 tablespoons of fresh minced oregano, and 3 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley

The options are almost endless, and fun to play around with. That is the reason I put ingredient options with many of my recipes. I want you to have fun playing around with a recipe, and tweak to your taste. Many of my main dishes can be vegetarian, vegan or meaty. So please enjoy this classic comfort food by inserting or deleting ingredients until you find what works best for you and let me know how it turned out.

30 Minute Spaghetti With Meat Sauce

1 cup diced onion

2-4 cloves minced garlic

1 teaspoon oil

1 pound 85% or leaner ground beef

2 15 ounce cans diced tomatoes

1 15 ounce can tomato sauce

1 tablespoon dried Italian herb blend

1 bay leaf

1/2 teaspoon red pepper, optional

1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt

In a 2 quart pot saute onions and garlic for 5 minutes stirring or until soft on medium heat.

Add ground beef and turn up heat to medium high stirring every 30 seconds or so.

Turn off heat and drain the fat. Return to stove on medium high heat and add the rest of the ingredients. When it starts to simmer turn down heat to medium low and simmer for 20 minutes stirring every 5 minutes.

Note:

*Ground beef can be omitted, and substituted with ground turkey, ground bison, mushrooms quartered or sliced, or even ground pork.

*Fresh herbs can be used, but be sure to add them towards the last 5 minutes so the delicate flavor doesn’t cook out of them. I like fresh oregano, thyme and basil for this type of recipe using about 2 teaspoons of each basil and oregano, but only 1 teaspoon of thyme.

*Diced green or red bell peppers are a nice addition. Just saute with the onions and garlic.

*This is a quick recipe. Be sure to have your water starting to heat up at the same time you start the sauce. You can cook this longer and more flavor will develop, but it’s plenty good in just 30 minutes.

*2-4 tablespoons of tomato paste can be added for a thicker sauce.

30 Minute Spaghetti Sauce

This was fun to create today after reading a piece by mynutritionist.com about the many good and interesting qualities of chocolate. Who knew beans loved chocolate? Well they do! Try this recipe if you are brave in the kitchen. It’s really not a weird tasting dish at all. See alternate fast method using canned beans instead of dried beans in the notes. This fast method takes about 20 minutes instead of 2-3 hours.

Chili Molé Beans

1 cup dry beans, kidney or christmas pole limas

6-8 cups of water

1/2 yellow onion chopped, about 2/3 cup

1 clove garlic minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

1 15 oz can diced tomatoes

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 to 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Cook onion in 6 cups of boiling water for 5 minutes then add beans,salt, cumin, chili powder and cayenne. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and cook for 2 hours. Add tomatoes, and cocoa powder and continue cooking on low until beans are soft.

Note:

*Molé is pronounced mo lay.

*A bit of steamed brown rice goes well with this dish, and makes it a meal.

*Faster and Furious method is to use canned beans:

1/2 onion chopped, about 2/3 cup

1 clove garlic minced

1 15 ounce can black beans

1 15 ounce can of kidney beans

1/2 teaspoon salt

1tablespoon cocoa powder

1 15 ounce can diced tomatoes

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Cook onion and garlic on medium heat in a 1 1/2 quart pot with just enough water to cover for about 7 minutes, or until soft. Add rest of ingredients, increase heat to high, then reduce heat and cook simmering for 10 minutes and serve. It’s better if you can let it simmer 20 minutes.

Chili Molé Beans

It’s snowing, and blowing outside today. On my morning walk with my dog Miss Vixen at 6:45 am the snow covered the ground in a weird grayish white color almost the same as the color of the sky. It had an odd crunch to it like walking in styrofoam beads. Even now as I write it’s not quite a white colored snow. Nothing like the snows of my past life in Colorado. There is no doubt that this winter in Baltimore is much different than last year when it was so mild my parsley, cilantro, thyme, oregano, and rosemary made it through into spring to burst forth in tremendous growth. Now all I have left is the rosemary bush outside in my raised garden beds and one thyme plant that I ripped out and put in the garage in a pot by the window. These are two of my favorite herbs, and I’m glad to have them hang on a bit longer. Last night I put together a roast chicken with rosemary, carrots, onions and celery. For a starch I tossed in 5 golf ball sized organic Yukon Gold potatoes. While this is not a quick cooking dish it is perfect for a late afternoon when you have ten minutes to put it together, and want the leftovers it provides for the next days salad or sandwiches. I really like that I could walk away from it for an hour and a half, then come back and steam some broccoli to go along with it for an almost perfect meal. Tossing the steamed broccoli with sauteed button mushrooms added a nice touch to a great winters meal. Here is the simple recipe.

1 frying or roasting chicken 4-6 lbs

oil for rubbing the exposed topside of the chicken, or spray oil

2 tablespoons dried or fresh rosemary

2 carrots peeled and sliced in 1/2 inch rounds

2 stalks celery sliced in 1/2 pieces

1 small yellow onion cut into 1/2 inch pieces

4 cloves of fresh garlic cut into slivers

salt and pepper

Rinse the chicken under cold water then dry. Set on top of onions, celery, and carrots in a roasting pan. Cut little slits in top side of chicken and insert garlic cloves. Rub or spray oil on chicken and then sprinkle rosemary salt and pepper. Place potatoes around chicken. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour and forty five minutes to 2 hours. Or until a fast read thermometer reaches 165 when inserted in the thickest part of the thigh.

Serves 4-6

Note: If your potatoes are bigger than golf ball size either parboil them for about 7-10 minutes then add to the roasting pan, or cut them into smaller pieces. I like the look of a whole potato with this dish.

This goes great with a Pinot Noir if you like red wines or a Chardonnay if whites are to your liking.

Ready to eat!

Roasted Delicata Squash and Vegies

So there I was, out and about running errands before lunch wondering about eating out or at home. Since I am leaving on a nine day vacation to Ecuador in two days I thought it was best to use up stuff in the fridge. I hate throwing any food away that is still useable so I peered into the fridge and what did I see? There was cut up Delicata Squash, a sweet potato hanging on from a grocery trip long ago in a far away place, one part of an onion in one of those onion storage devices that looks like an onion, four little garlic cloves in olive oil, and last but not least there was a beautiful red bell pepper. Now to live up to my name fast and furious cook this had to be quick. I searched my memory for any such combination with no results, and formulated a new recipe in my head. Since I had some Andouille Chicken sausage in the freezer I grabbed one and sliced it frozen, and thus began this recipe.

1 cup Delicata squash cut into one inch cubes

1 cup sweet potato cut into one inch cubes

1 red bell pepper cut into one inch cubes

1/3 cup of yellow onion chopped

1 tablespoon garlic infused oil

4 roasted garlic cloves

1-2 Andouille sausage links sliced in 1/2 inch rounds

1 teaspoon Italian herb blend

salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Toss all ingredients in a mixing bowl then in the upper third of the oven broil for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 and bake until soft, about 15-20 minutes.

This is hearty enough for a main dish, or leave out the sausage and serve as a vegetable dish. Serves two, but easily doubled.

I love making popcorn on the stove at home. There’s no chemicals added and you create its special flavor by adding the seasonings you like. Here is my favorite recipe that I have shared with many lucky guests.

Fast and Furious popcorn

1/3 cup popcorn

2-3 tablespoons coconut oil

1/2 teaspoon Spike Seasoning Salt

1/2 teaspoon jalapeno powder, optional

In a 4-5 quart cast iron or enamel cast iron pot with a lid heat oil until just about smoking. Add popcorn and put lid on loosely. With hot mitts or hot pads grasp the pot by the handles and shake occasionally while the popcorn is popping. You need the lid to be loose, not tight fitting or the steam will turn the popcorn tough. Once the popcorn is popping well, about 1-2 minutes turn down the heat to about medium and take off the stove when popping slows to a few seconds between audible pops. Dump into a big bowl and sprinkle half of the Spike and half of the jalapeno powder and stir. Repeat with the rest of the Spike and jalapeno powder. You can pour 1 tablespoon of melted coconut oil over it at this point if desired,(I do).

Note: It takes just a bit of practice to do this without burning the popcorn. It’s best to give it a few tries until you master the uniqueness of your stove, and pot. It’s worth it in the end. Jalapeno powder can be purchased at Penzey’s Spices Stores or online at penzeys.com or my favorite spice store Market Spice in Seattle and www.marketspice.com You can also use ground black pepper, ground white pepper, Lawrey’s Seasoning Salt, or many other seasonings you might like to try. Be creative!

tomato sauce meets eggplant

I eat eggplant just about any time and any  way I can get it. I like eggplant parmesan but wanted it without the flour and egg so I jumped right in and developed this recipe in the Fast and Furious Test Kitchen. I hope you like it.

Flourless Eggless Eggplant Parmesan

1 medium sized eggplant

1 1/4 cups diced tomatoes

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1/3 cup minced onion

1 clove garlic minced

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon Italian herbs, I used an  Italian Seasoning blend

1/2 teaspoon salt

ground black pepper to taste

6 oz shredded mozzerela

1 cup shaved or shredded Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

In a saute pan cook onion and garlic on medium low heat in 1 tablespoon of oil until soft, about 5 minutes. Add canned tomatoes, and Italian Seasoning. Cook for 10 minutes stirring occasionally.

While tomato sauce is cooking peel eggplant and cut into slices no smaller than 1/4 inch and no bigger than 1/2 inch. Try to get them all the same size. If you can grill these outside that is great. If not use either an indoor grill pan or just a saute pan.

Add tomato paste to sauce and salt. continue to cook on low until ready to add to casserole dish.

Brush each slice of eggplant on both sides with the 2 tablespoons of remaining oil and cook on medium to medium high heat until just a bit browned or marked with grill lines. About 3 minutes per side. Don’t burn! Place one layer of eggplant in a casserole dish or 9×9 dish that has been lightly sprayed with cooking oil. Spoon half of the sauce over the eggplant.

Add half the mozzerella and parmigiano cheeses. Repeat. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 25 minutes covered. Uncover and bake another 10-20 minutes until eggplant is soft but not mushy.

Top with chopped fresh parsley if you like and serve with steamed broccoli for a great vegetarian meal. Serves four

Ready to eat!

Note:

Depending on how thick you cut your eggplant and how much you cook it when browning it you might need 35 minutes or 45 minutes to cook the eggplant. Even if it is a bit under done or over done this dish can handle it so don’t worry.

If you want meat in this add cooked sliced Italian sausage after the tomato sauce layer.