I really, really miss having people over to dinner. I miss planning menus; I miss cooking big dishes, I miss the unexpected conversational pathways.
Since I can’t have real people over, I have been fantasizing about groups/pairs of guests I think would make for an interesting evening: sometimes the sparks might fly and other times mutual admiration might rule the night. Regardless, the entertainment value would be high.
I love caramelized onions, but cooking them on the stove takes a long time and constant stirring. Lately, I have been trying out recipes for doing them in the slow cooker:
5 very large onions, sliced thinly, a little butter, and salt
14 hours on low in the slow cooker,
Small, but delicious result:
I freeze them and then pop them out whenever needed.
You really must not mind the house smelling strongly of onions for a day or two!
Haven’t had much to write about. Like most of you, I am rarely out of the house. There are only so many pictures of my dog sleeping her day away that I feel I can post. Nevertheless, here’s another one of Brindy surrounded by her four “Big Blues”. These are the only toys she will have anything to do with.
The big fire in Cherry Valley in California is giving us smoky skies here. This was yesterday morning’s sunrise.
I did get a little bit ambitious over the weekend and made Praline Pull Apart Bread. Turned out quite well.
And here’s the Maple Pecan Twist I made a few weeks ago. It’s a good thing I have neighbors who are willing to help eat all these treats!
Nothing of any importance has been happening around here of late. Everyone is well. More games, puzzles, and reading are getting done. I’ve been doing some cooking, but, really, with just my mom and I to feed, I haven’t been that enthused. We’ve been using up things I had frozen. Now that I can begin to see the bottom of the freezer drawers, I’m starting to think about cooking again.
This means I’ve been looking through cookbooks. I love, LOVE, buying cookbooks and reading each recipe. I have persuaded myself that buying yet another tome is not that much of an indulgence: even if I just get one new dish out of the book, it will have been worth it’s price.
Today I finished skimming a 500+ recipe book that focused on one-dish meals, whether that dish is a skillet, an instant pot, a sheet pan, or a slow-cooker. While a lot of the recipes were a bit repetitious, I know there are at least a few real gems.
One ingredient that crops up in a lot of recipes is cilantro. I am not a cilantro fan. I know it is big in many cuisines, but given that in some ethnicities up to 20% of people think it tastes like soap, its use in so many dishes surprises me. I get that if I’m cooking Mexican or Indian it has a long history, but really, Cilantro Chicken Burgers? Béchamel Ground Meat Cilantro Pasta? If Julia Child and Ina Garten can do without it, so can I.
But the one item that comes up in recipe after recipe that I just don’t get is: green peppers. I mean, come on! I get that green peppers are usually cheaper than yellow or, better yet, red. But it’s nothing but a bitter, unripe fruit. Shell out a little more money and get something that’s ripe and actually tastes pleasant.
Now I’m sure there are a few dishes that can actually benefit from a touch of bitterness. I can’t think of any right off hand, but I’m sure they’re out there.
For me, however, there is an issue besides the bitter taste: if I eat something with green peppers, I do not just taste them while eating the dish. I keep “tasting” them for the next 24 hours and it’s not pleasant!
And now you know why neither cilantro nor green peppers are going to be on my grocery list any time soon.
Today I decided to cook up the black-eyed peas I had found in my pantry a few weeks ago. I also had mushrooms and an onion that I wanted to use up.
Cooked the black-eyed peas in the instant pot with chicken broth. Sautéed the mushrooms and sweated the onions. Combined them all with a little parmesan cheese.
OMG people. How is it that I have gone over 60 years without anyone telling me that black-eyed peas are FREAKING DELICIOUS?
As I imagine many of you are doing, I was foraging through my pantry Tuesday and came across a jar of white quinoa. Coincidentally, Monday night I had just watched an episode of Alton Brown’s ‘Good Eats’ where he used quinoa in a recipe that looked tempting: I mean, how could anything made with onions, mushrooms, broccoli, cheese, half and half, and mayonnaise not be tasty! (https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/quinoa-and-broccoli-casserole-7288418)
Made it yesterday. And, thankfully, it was, indeed, tasty. Good thing as it made enough for at least five meals for mom and I. I had just spent the last week clearing out some items from my freezer, it’s now full again.
Next up in my experiments with ingredients from the depths of my pantry: the black-eyed peas I saw when I was digging out the quinoa; I’ve never had those either.
I’ve finally gotten my act together and scanned in the menus for the foodie tour I took for my birthday. The restaurants were in either the Aria or the Cosmopolitan hotels on the Las Vegas Strip.
First up was Javier’s. It’s a beautiful place, Here, for instance is the Aztec inspired, chain-saw carved wood wall:
And here’s the menu:
Everything about the dishes was elevated; the chips were perfectly salted, the various sauces each delicious (my mouth is literally starting to water as I write this), and the enchiladas are well worth the return trip we are planning. Even the rice and beans were tastier than any others in memory.
From Javier’s it was on to Estiatorio Milos which more than lived up to its reputation as one of North America’s finest Greek restaurants. They are known for sourcing only the highest quality ingredients, and, wow, does it show.
I don’t particularly like tomatoes on their own, but I could have made a meal of these (and probably would have if I wasn’t trying to pace myself for what was to come).
The next plate was the octopus. It was incredible: soft and smoky. It was not just the best octopus I’ve ever had, it’s the best seafood I’ve ever had!
Hard to imagine how anything could compare to these first two dishes, but the third was also spectacular. Even with a mandolin, I’m not sure I could even come close to achieving the thinness of the vegetables.
We finished off every plate at Milos which left us all rather full and we were only halfway through the tour.
Our third stop was Momofuku. The food here was very well presented; it just didn’t happen to be to my taste. I’m not a cucumber fan as I dislike tasting them for the next 24 hours after I’ve eaten them. And the ramen was just a touch too spicy for me. The buns were very good, however.
Our last stop was Wolfgang Puck’s Cucina. By this point we were all stuffed and wondering how we could eat any more. Somehow, though, we all found room for a little desert.
I couldn’t eat everything on the plate, so it’s just as well the tiramisu was too coffee flavored for me. The brownie was my favorite, but the limoncello was a very close second.
The people we book these tours with are LipSmacking Foodie Tours and we had the guide all to ourselves this time. Nice, because we got to talk to him a lot more about the restaurants and the food and the history of the Strip. One of our group has a birthday in May and we’re hoping to take another tour with them of the Arts District downtown.
Usually I make people take me out for a great steak or something on my birthday. This year I decided I would cook dinner for a few friends instead. (I am, however, being taken out for an afternoon “foodie” tour on The Strip later this week.)
Dinner was a Wagyu chuck roast done for just over 26 hours with my sous vide machine. $8.98 a pound, more than a regular chuck roast would have been, but way, way less than the tenderloin I was originally considering. Oh my, was it ever delicious!
Also had baked potatoes. I tried a new technique: you roll the potatoes around in heavily salted water before you put them in the oven (2 tablespoons of salt in 1/2 cup of water). Otherwise cooked them up pretty much as usual. The salt adds just enough flavor to the skins to make them extra delicious.
As for the vegetable, mom swears she doesn’t like Brussel Sprouts. Then whenever I fix them, she decides that mine are ok. Last night they went way beyond ok; they were the best I’ve ever made and mom took seconds!
Here’s how to do them, courtesy of America’s Test Kitchen:
Skillet-Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Mustard and Brown Sugar
1 pound small (1 to 1 1/2 inches in diameter) Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 1 tablespoon packed brown sugar 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar Pepper (I used a little Aleppo) to taste Salt
BEFORE YOU BEGIN Look for Brussels sprouts that are similar in size, with small, tight heads that are no more than 1 1/2 inches in diameter, as they’re likely to be sweeter and more tender than larger sprouts.
INSTRUCTIONS Arrange Brussels sprouts in single layer, cut sides down, in 12-inch nonstick skillet. Drizzle oil evenly over sprouts. Cover skillet, place over medium-high heat, and cook until sprouts are bright green and cut sides have started to brown, about 5 minutes.
Uncover and continue to cook until cut sides of sprouts are deeply and evenly browned and paring knife slides in with little to no resistance, 2 to 3 minutes longer, adjusting heat and moving sprouts as necessary to prevent them from overbrowning. While sprouts cook, combine remaining ingredients except salt in small bowl.
Off heat, add mustard mixture to skillet and stir to evenly coat sprouts. Season with salt to taste. Transfer sprouts to large plate. I added a few pomegranate seeds to mine just to add some color.
You could use lots of other combinations of sauces and seasonings, of course, but I have never used a more fool proof or delicious cooking method.
As for desert: I usually make a yellow cake with fudge frosting for my birthday. Last year, however, I made a chocolate caramel cake for a friend and it was decadently delicious. It is called “Gooey Chocolate Caramel Cake” and it is hard for me to decide whether it is more cake or brownie or pudding or what. It is a layer of cake, covered with chocolate chips, covered with the best caramel I’ve ever made, and topped with more cake. To say that it is “gooey” does not begin to describe its lusciousness.
Hope the new year is starting off for all of you as well as it is for me!
Had a few people over for dinner on Halloween and it was my first chance to try out my Trager as a smoker. It worked wonderfully well: flat iron steak smoked for 45 minutes and then finished off at high temp on the grill. You can see the smoke ring on these slices. Delicious!
I was unfamiliar with this kind of smoker, but ran across them when looking for some kind of an electric grill as we are not allowed to have charcoal or gas grills. My little Trager uses electricity to fire up and feed wood pellets, so no electricity, no fire. It does not get as hot as my previous gas grill, but I am willing to trade that for the low temperature smoking capability.
Tuples and Attributes 