Sweet Potatoes, again

Yesterday, I had the dilemma of wanting to bake a couple of sweet potatoes while also wanting to roast some chicken. I wondered what I could come up with on top of the stove for the sweet potatoes.

 Louisiana Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients:  2 sweet potatoes, 1 tablespoon butter, 2 tablespoons chopped onion, 2 fresh button mushrooms-sliced, ½ tablespoon flour, ½ cup chicken stock (or vegetable), 2 tablespoons chopped parsley, 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice.

Wash the sweet potatoes and leave the skins on. Place in pan of boiling salted water for 40 minutes, until a blade can go through them. Remove and let them cool slightly. Peel them and make large cubes.

Melt the butter in a skillet, add onions and cook till transparent. Sprinkle in the flour and stir till onion is coated. Pour on the stock and stir until it boils and thickens. Since there are amounts in the pan this will happen quickly, be prepared. Add sweet potato cubes, mushrooms, parsley and lemon juice. One heated spoon into bowl or serving dish. Garnish with parsley.

New to Artichokes?

One of my favorite food websites Recipe4Living has 14 terrific artichoke recipes. I happen to love artichokes and I know many people don’t know anything about them.  I first experienced them in Woodstock, NY at my friend’s house behind his farm stand called Sun Frost.

The artichoke was simply prepared.  It was simmered until soft, drained and cooled. Then we had a choice of bottled salad dressing or homemade butter with bread crumbs for dipping. I pulled a leaf out of the body, dipped the bottom of the leaf into a little ranch dressing and slid it over my bottom teeth removing the meat and deposited the leaf on a plate. I did it again and again until I got to the artichoke body. I removed the bottom hairs and dipped the body and plopped it into my mouth. It was delicious and new.  I had discovered a new and exciting vegetable that I had seen for years at the market.

Here is a similar simple recipe or you could try dipping it the way I just described.

Artichoke with Caviar

Ingredients:  2 or 3 artichokes, ½ cup sour cream, red salmon caviar, snipped fresh chives or chopped fresh Italian/flat leaf parsley.

Wash the artichokes thoroughly and remove/trim tough outer leaves.

Put the artichokes in a saucepan in about an inch of water and boil. Reduce heat and simmer for around 45 minutes or until tender. Remove them, drain them and let them cool.

Peel the leaves from the artichoke and position on a plate. Dip or plop the meaty part of the leaf into a little red caviar eggs, spoon on a little sour cream and garnish with parsley or chives. 

I mentioned that Recipe4Living has some terrific artichoke recipes, right? Here is their link to them.

http://www.recipe4living.com/articles/14_flavorful_artichoke_recipes_for_spring.htm

Saffron

What is it?

Cooking spice: The deep orange-colored stigmas of a type of crocus, sometimes ground to a powder.

Spice producing crocus: A crocus thought to have originated from the Greek island of Crete whose flowers produce saffron with bright orange-yellow color.

What do you do with it?

Saffron is commonly used to color and flavor dishes and rice.  There is the better expensive saffron and there is also the cheaper kind like I use. I buy Spanish saffron at Trader Joe’s for about $3.94 US and it comes in a small .035 oz (1g) jar.

I have a little trick to make the cheap saffron be effective.

I’ll take a few strands and let it steep with water or I prefer white wine. I mix the strands with about 6 tablespoons of white wine and just let it steep until it’s orange.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leek, tomato and potato soup with saffron

 Ingredients: 3 tablespoons butter, 1 cup diced potatoes, 4 cups halved and thinly sliced leeks (make sure they’re rinsed), 2 tablespoons wholewheat flour, 1 1/4 cups milk, 1 1/4 cups water, 2 generous pinches of saffron strands steeped in a little water or wine for 10 minutes or until orange, 1 cup coarsely chopped ripe tomatoes, salt, freshly ground pepper.

Melt the butter in a suacepan over gentle heat, then put in the potatoes and cook for 5 minutes without allowing them to brown.  Add the leeks and continue cooking for 10 minutes without allowing them to color. Stir the vegetables from time to to time – they should be gently ‘stewed’ in the butter rather than fried.  Now sprinkle in the flour and stir well, then pour on the milk and the water.  Bring the soup to a boil, stirring it frequently.  Add the saffron in it’s liquid, lower the heat and let the soup simmer for about 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, cook the tomatoes dow to a pulp over low heat, adding a little water if necessary.  Strain the pulp to remove the skin and seeds and keep the puree hot until the soup is read to serve.  Season the soup with salt and pepper and pour into bowls.  Swirl a little tomato puree into each bowl and serve.

http://www.myspicesage.com/saffron-spanish-superior-grade-p-216.html?s_kwcid=TC-8599-2498058657-b-216386173

Easy and sensational dessert for Easter.

Bread pudding with whiskey sauce

 Prep time: 15 minutes

Resting time: 1 hour

Cooking time 1 ¼ hours

Yield: 12 servings (maybe more)

 Pudding:

5 eggs

1 quart whipping cream

½ cup each: dark brown sugar, granulated sugar

3 tablespoons Irish whiskey

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 pound day-old French bread, cut into 1 inch cubes

2 cups white chocolate chips

1 ½ cups golden raisins

 Whiskey sauce:

1 stick (1/2) butter

½ cup each granulated sugar, brown sugar

1 1/3 cups whipping cream

3 tablespoons Irish Whiskey

 For pudding, whisk together eggs, cream, sugar, whiskey, vanilla and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl until sugar dissolves. Stir in bread, white chocolate chips and raisins. Set aside 1 hour, stirring twice.

Heat oven to 350F. Place bread mixture into a greased 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking pan; cover with foil. Bake 1 hour. Remove foil; bake until top is golden brown, 15 – 30 minutes. Let cool for 15 minutes.

 For sauce, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the sugars, whisking constantly, until dissolved. Whisk in the cream; heat to a boil. Remove from heat; stir in whiskey. Cut pudding into squares; top with the whiskey sauce

Salmon ceviche with pine nuts

Today, I thought I’d give a recipe for ceviche. Ceviche is a specialty in Central and South America. It is a simple method of quick-pickling fish. This technique will give a fresh tasting dish. .I recommend that it is eaten soon after it is prepared.

Ingredients:

3 shallots, thinly sliced, 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 8 garlic cloves – thinly sliced, 1 tablespoon pine nuts, 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro, 2 teaspoons chopped fresh basil, and 1/2 pound salmon.

Combine the shallots and lime juice in a bowl. Set aside for SIX (6) hours.

About a half an hour before serving the ceviche heat the olive oil in a pan, don’t let the oil smoke. Add the pine nuts and stir for 2 minutes, add the garlic for 1 minute or less and transfer to a bowl to cool.

Once cool stir cilantro and basil into the garlic/nut mixture. Then stir the shallots/lime juice into this cilantro/basil mixture.

Take a very, very sharp knife and thinly slice the salmon on an angle (diagonal) in little pieces of about 1/4 thick. Place the sliced salmon on a deep platter or bowl and pour the marinade over the top. Position this bowl inside a different larger bowl that has ice cubes in it and let the fish marinate for 20 minutes. You can also place the fish bowl inside a refrigerator. Let the salmon become slightly opaque.

Serve. You can leave the bowl on the ice cubes. Let your guests help themselves to the salmon and the juices.

If your store doesn’t carry pine nuts try this place.

http://www.nutsonline.com/nuts/pinenuts/

Alinea restaurant in Chicago, again.

Alinea is named the #6 restaurant in the world by London based Restaurant magazine. That means they are considered the #1 restaurant in North America.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/food/stew/chi-alinea-named-no-6-restaurant-in-the-world-20110418,0,1716145.story

Quantum restaurant in Chicago called Alinea.

I’m not sure what to think about this. I can see people appreciate it regardless of the price. When a restaurant alters the chemical makeup of a food and changes it into a cube or some unusual shape by freezing it using nitrogen or other process to alter it I have to wonder why?

http://www.alinea-restaurant.com/pages/gallery/gallery_cuis.html

I met some people that had eaten there that mentioned their check was $3500. Yes, there was wine for each course and dessert was spread out on the table like a painting. It was amazing and it was delicious. And, I wondered if dinner should ever cost that much for 6 people.

What do media people think of this restaurant?

http://www.alinea-restaurant.com/pages/press/press_print_main.html

Here is a menu for Alinea. There are other menu’s too. This menu is for $195.

http://www.alinea-restaurant.com/pages/menus/menu.html

Alinea is located

1723 North Halsted
Chicago Illinois
60614

312-867-0110

Alinea is open for dinner only, Wednesday through Sunday.
Our offices are open Monday through Friday from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm.

Are Yams and Sweet Potatoes the same thing?

Yams
Yams are closely related to lilies and grasses. Native to Africa and Asia, yams vary in size from that of a small potato to a record 130 pounds (as of 1999). There are over 600 varieties of yams and 95% of these crops are grown in Africa. Compared to sweet potatoes, yams are starchier and drier.

Sweet Potatoes
The many varieties of sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) are members of the morning glory family, Convolvulacea. The skin color can range from white to yellow, red, purple or brown. The flesh also ranges in color from white to yellow, orange, or orange-red. Sweet potato varieties are classified as either ‘firm’ or ‘soft’. When cooked, those in the ‘firm’ category remain firm, while ‘soft’ varieties become soft and moist. It is the ‘soft’ varieties that are often labeled as yams in the United States.

Why the confusion?
In the United States, firm varieties of sweet potatoes were produced before soft varieties. When soft varieties were first grown commercially, there was a need to differentiate between the two. African slaves had already been calling the ‘soft’ sweet potatoes ‘yams’ because they resembled the yams in Africa. Thus, ‘soft’ sweet potatoes were referred to as ‘yams’ to distinguish them from the ‘firm’ varieties.

Today the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires labels with the term ‘yam’ to be accompanied by the term ‘sweet potato.’ Unless you specifically search for yams, which are usually found in an international market, you are probably eating sweet potatoes!

Recipe:

Very easy. Clean the sweet potato/yam and dry. Lightly cover the entire potato with olive oil/cannola oil and wrap in foil. Bake at 400F for an hour. Remove and make a cut lengthwise down the middle. If you wish, garnish with butter or whatever you’d like. The sweet potato will be delicious without a garnish as well.

I watched Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution TV show last night.

Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution TV show was on last night . He was prepared to give tons of money and classes to schools or at least one school in the LA School District.  He also met a low priced independent fast food restaurant owner and tried to get the man to consider other food possibilities. The restaurant owner talked with Oliver but he wouldn’t and simply couldn’t do it since the trash he sells is what makes him money. He did admit that he wouldn’t serve the same food or milk shakes to his family. What?

You know, I’ve personally had this type of wall of stupidity in several cities while attempting to write and publish magazines. I’ve had problems with Chambers of Commerce. I’ve had problems with mayors. They acted as if they were monarchy and I was not one of We The People.

 Thing is, they all think you will take money from them. They don’t care if something better might happen. At the independent fast food restaurant Jamie made a double Angus burger and the restaurant owner made his own double burger. They showed both being eaten by a customer. The customer liked Jamie’s double burger but preferred the existing burger because of the price. It was 2.65 instead of the 4.80 that Jamie’s would have cost.  Jamie’s point is, what is inside the meat that anyone eats at a school cafeteria or a restaurant?

 Jamie gave a demonstration of how a cow is carved up by a butcher. They cut and snip and slice and at the end they’ve cut off gristle, fat and nothing edible. This gristle over the years was sold to pet food companies that worked with it and turned it into pet food. Then the food companies decided they had the technology to turn this waste and goop into food. Oliver showed they needed to control possible E Coli or salmonella and they’d take this gristle, fat and goop and rinse it with ammonia and water. Then it was processed more pushing the goop through meat grinders. At the end this goop kind of looked like red ground beef. This is what the LA schools are serving to their children as hamburgers or chili. Yummy, huh?

 It’s ironic to me that Jamie, certainly a well known celebrity chef that knows his food looks down on the way American’s eat. England has never been known as a place with good food. Yet, Jamie pointed out that in England and all over Europe kids in schools drink white milk. While here in the states, apparently kids normally are given flavored milk. Chocolate! 

Jamie called it a candy bar in each glass of milk. The kids must drink one glass of milk a day and they give them flavored milk.

The LA school district representatives would not openly talk to him. They were not interested in having somebody attempt to make the food they serve their kids healthier. Sure, it would probably cost more. I think this school board isn’t just closed minded about food and flavored milk. They are as big of a problem with all other aspects of that school system.

What a head shaking disappointment.

Over the years the first thing most American schools cut was art and music classes. Then came the gym classes. That was after most schools had stopped allowing kids to shower after a gym class. It seems it had turned into a perverted harassment time in some schools. People with fat or ugly bodies were bullied or laughed at or groped. These kids complained and so showers ended.

I never heard of a nutrition class until I went to college. And, I didn’t take one such class. I didn’t take one such class and I’m not aware of any at Thornridge, the high school I attended anyway.

A friend pointed out that England has obesity problems too. He said he saw photos of people that are obese and have bad teeth.  Some photos make some English people look bad – it reminds me of propaganda photos that we got from Russia that showed fat and old women with babushkas looking horrible. If a photographer wants to make people look bad it’s not hard to get those types of photos. They can also make people look good if they wanted.

Jamie Oliver and I are of the same cloth. We can cook and have a better understanding of what’s good and what’s not.  Jamie grew up in the restaurant business. I had to wait until college to be awakened up to cooking but I got into it and turned it into a major hobby. For me the Food Network has been terrific. It’s been like going to classes. I’ve really learned a lot watching a lot of them and I feel I can cook as well as many of them. I also know that I definitely am not an “iron chef.” I am a scratch cook and baker.

I was turned on to healthy cooking with friends in Woodstock, NY. A very close friend was instrumental in introducing me to “gourmet” food preparation. I went through that entire produce season in Woodstock from April to December. The man and woman that owned Sun Frost produce stand prepared lots of vegetarian food for me. Lots! It was 1981 and I had already been cooking for around 10 years but I cooked like a “mom” not a Food Network cook. It was fabulous to learn about using the vegetables and fruits that were in season instead of doing it the way I had. Everyone that I worked with in Woodstock were better cooks than me at that time.

I think Oliver can make a profit from his attempts to get into the LA school district. I just watched his show about failing to get in. So, he sold this documentary of his experiences in LA and geez, it was a story about failing to do what he set out to do. As a friend pointed out, he had said on a talk show last week that he felt the superintendant wanted a payoff on top of what Oliver was already going to spend. So, he moved the whole concept to Virginia.

I think Oliver’s program last night also demonstrates what’s wrong with the school systems in general. How or why does any parent or taxpayer living in LA want those closed minded and stupid opportunists as a school board? Apparently school boards are voted in or I suppose some are given their jobs by a mayor or somebody like that. But, if these blatant close minded jerks in LA won’t listen to a person/celebrity/Oliver when he’s bringing tons of money and free classes then what hope does anybody else have that doesn’t have that amount of money? 

I think it just shows what’s wrong with the USA in general. It’s not just the LA school board that acts like that. It’s all of the school boards, all of the Chamber of Commerce’s, and all of the politicians in every state in the union. None of them are open to change. They all want to do it their way only. And, their way has failed everyone.

Somehow these jerks still won’t accept that as this country continues its slide down the drain.

How to make a “best” tequila margarita.

I happened to read a story today about eliminating “best of” lists for items that don’t have much complexity. For example how much different can a steak be prepared. You add this spice or that but it really comes down to the quality of the steak. Some people think adding A-1 makes a steak better. It’s subjective and everyone is right with how they like it. But, to have a regular top 10 list of the best steaks in a particular city seems redundant at best.

Another product mentioned was margaritas. In some parts of the world tequila is a rare liquid. In my part, namely Chicago, USA tequila is very available. And, so the lists for the “best” pop up all the time.

Well, automatically you can’t have a “best” margarita when you use a generic mix. Those are the worst margaritas not the best.

When you make a margarita from scratch it’s not that different. Whether you stir it or blend it – it’s just a margarita.

The recipe that I know and that I couldn’t ever forget from my bartending school days in ’75 are the letters T N T.  Tequila and Triple Sec.  You simply mix that with lemon juice. The juice can be already sweetened and if not you’d add a little sugar. That’s all there is to it.

A better drink would be using fresh lemon juice instead of concentrate. Another version would be to use fresh lime juice and no lemon juice since lemons are hard to come by in tequila land/Mexico. Or, you can mix a little lemon juice with a little lime juice with the TNT.

That’s all there is to it. You can switch from Triple Sec to the more expensive orange aperitif Cointreau. That’s what I usually did.

Yes, you can make a simple syrup and add that to lemon concentrate. Most bars/restaurants just use pre-sweetened lemon juice.  The better places will try the fresh juice until they decide the effort isn’t worth it. And, the concentrate is cheaper.

You can alter the recipe but it’s always based on one part tequila, one part triple sec or cointreau and two parts juice. Take a piece of lime or lemon and rim your glass to make it wet. Lower the top of the glass onto a plate of salt (most common) or sugar if you prefer.  You can rim the glass with salt or with sugar or nothing at all.

Why create constant best of lists for items that are not that different? People decide they like this or that anyway. 

One thing is for sure.  Buying a 2 liter bottle of pre-mixed margaritas may be OK but it’s can’t be on a list of best 10. You’ve gotta make it from scratch and geez, it’s super easy. If you want the best – you must use fresh lemon or lime juice. Period!  The more expensive tequilas are smoother than the cheap Jose Cuervo and that level of tequila. The more expensive tequilas are better for straight sipping or shots. The cheaper stuff is fine when you essentially hide the tequila with the juice and the orange liqueur.

Recipe.

1 oz tequila

1 oz Triple sec or Cointreau

2 oz fresh lemon or lime juice

Crushed ice 

Put all ingredients into a blender and mix.