Now That's I-talian. . .

I pulled some ground beef from the freezer yesterday before work with the whole intention of making my grandmother's lovely meatballs simmered in a spicy tomato sauce, but with the arrival of unexpected company yesterday, I decided to cook one of my all-time favorite preparations, ragù alla bolognese also known as spaghetti bolognesa.

A little explanation about ragù, which isn't just a pre-prepared sauce in a jar.  Ragù comes from the French word ragoût and in Italian cooking this is typically a slow simmered meat sauce served over pasta.  Bolognese sauce is usually a mixture of meats like veal, pork or beef and sometimes sausages, but in the following recipe I will stick with the Americanized version that I was taught by a good man, friend and nine-and-a-half fingered cook named Jose.  You may remember Jose from this story I wrote last year about Sancho.

Bolognese sauce is easy to prepare and the real key is the slow simmering which gives the meat a very soft and succulent texture.  Also, bolognese sauce has a secret ingredient that turns the final product from the average spaghetti sauce into something far more divine and satisfying.

Ragù alla Bolognese

3 Lbs. Ground Beef
2 medium onions, small dice
2 carrots, small dice
2 ribs celery, small dice
6 cloves garlic, minced
28 oz. crushed tomatoes
28 oz. tomato sauce
14.5 oz. diced tomatoes
56 oz. chicken or beef stock, or water
1 cup dry white wine or dry red wine
2 Tbsp. Italian Herbs (I used a McCormick brand which has basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram, savory and rosemary)
2 bay leaves
3 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup milk or 1/2 cup heavy cream
Salt and pepper, to taste
Olive oil, as necessary

In a large pot, heat to medium high heat and add sufficient olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan, add the meat in batches to brown and strain away the fat as the meat loses its pink color.

In the meantime cut your soffrito (same as the French mirepoix) into small dice and once all the meat has been browned, add a little more olive oil and the vegetables to the pan.

Cook this for 6 to 8 minutes, then add the garlic.  If you have a good crusty buildup of fond in the bottom of the pan as the photo below demostrates add a little water or stock and scrape the bottom to help lift it from the pan so that it becomes a beautiful part of your sauce instead of a useless scorched business forcing you to start over.

Add the garlic and saute a few minutes more, then delgaze with the white or red wine.

I have read and it was insisted upon by Jose that a white wine be used as is stated in most classic recipes, but I only had red (pinot noir) in the pantry so it will have to do.  Reduce this until the alcohol odor has been removed.  Also a note about tomato products:  Please do not use any products made by Heinz.  If you ask why, this is why.  Enough said?

Add the remainder of the ingredients: tomato products, herbs, sugar, salt and pepper, everything except for the milk.

Bring to a boil, skim the fat and reduce heat to a medium low simmer and cook for 1 to 1.5 hours, tasting occassionally for texture and seasonings.  Adjust salt and pepper and possibly the sugar to balance the acid as necessary.

Once this mixture has simmered for sufficient length, the meat should simply melt in the mouth, but not be some mushy goo that totally lacks texture, like a meat milkshake.  Here comes the secret ingredient. . .add a healthy cup of milk or 1/2 cup of heavy cream to help smooth the sauce out.

And for heaven's sake, please don't use any 2% or skim milk, if you do that you might as well be blowing bubbles with a straw into the sauce.  Useless.

Cook up your favorite pasta, the classic being spaghetti, but tagliatelle or ziti or really any long pasta of tube pasta will do, shave some aged parmesan or pecorino over the top, garnish with basil and a wedge of good, crusty Italian bread and you have a meal so satisfying that I dare you to keep your eyes open long after eating it.  I know I didn't.

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Innovation!

Last week or maybe it was this week, I wrote about the glories of cornbread and purple hull peas.  It remains one of my favorite Southern traditions and I can eat several helpings of both with a bottle of hot sauce, preferably Chipotle Tabasco or Trappey's Red Bull, until I am a bloated old goat.

My dear friend and reader Jenny sent me an email a couple of days ago and suggested that while cornbread and peas eaten together is a fantastic and satisfying meal, why not put the peas in the cornbread?  Well hell I say, why didn't I think of that??

Here is her recipe, with lots of other tasty stuff cooked inside the perennial peasant food of the South.

Purple Hull Pea Cornbread

1 lb. bulk pork sausage (use the HOT sausage for some heat!)
1 onion, chopped
1 cup white cornmeal
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 4-oz. can chopped green chilies, drained
3/4 cup cream-style corn
2 cups grated Cheddar cheese
2 cups purple hull peas, cooked

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a 13-by-9-by-2 inch pan.

Cook sausage and onion in large skillet until sausage is browned. Drain and set aside.

Combine cornmeal, flour, salt, and soda in large bowl.

In another bowl, beat eggs, buttermilk, and oil together. Combine with dry ingredients using a few quick strokes (batter does not need to be blended until smooth.)

Add sausage, onion, chilies, corn, cheese and purple hull peas.

Pour into prepared pan and bake for 50 to 55 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool and cut in pieces.

Serves 8 to 12

I don't know about you, but I'm headed straight to Kroger tomorrow with my shopping list!  Thanks Jenny!

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Taters. . .

Everyone loves potatoes and they can be prepared in a number of delicious and satisfying styles, but here in the South at a bar-b-que you are more than likely to find potato salad.  I love potato salad.  I love to put lots of crunchy aromatics in the variety of versions that I like to prepare, but a few weeks ago I decided to ditch the mayonnaise (and scorn the Miracle Whip) in finding a new ways to prepare a common favorite.

During the recent heat wave we've been having, who wants gobs of emulsified egg yolk and oil sloshing around in the gut?

So here we go. . .

Red Bliss 'B' Potatoes in Vinaigette Piquant

2 Lbs. Red Bliss 'B' Potatoes, partially peeled
1 small white or red onion, medium dice
1/3 each red, yellow and green bell pepper, medium dice
1 stalk celery, medium dice
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. Olive Oil
2 Tbsp. Fish Sauce
1 1/2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 1/2 Tbsp. Red Wine Vinegar
1/2 Tbsp Sugar or 1 Tbsp. Honey
Salt and Pepper
Bay Leaf
1 Sprig of Thyme

Peel the potatoes along their circumference and place them in cold water.  Add a healthy pinch of salt.

Add the bay leaf and thyme and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat and simmer over medium heat until the potatoes have softened.  Check periodically with the tip of a sharp knife until they are tender, but do not overcook  Strain the water and allow the potatoes to cool in a colander.

While the potatoes are boiling, practice your knife skills on the onion, peppers and celery.  Combine these with the minced garlic and the liquid ingredients.  Let this mixture macerate until the potatoes are done.

Once the potatoes have cooled, place them in a sealed container with the vinaigrette and let marinate for several hours, turning the container often to evenly distribute the vinaigrette.

Should look something like this after a few hours.

Serve with your favorite grilled meat and don't forget to spoon a little of the flavorful marinade over your meat too.

Oh yeah, and fish sauce on potatoes?  Trust me folks.  I was once a professional and you ain't seen nothing yet!

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Shroomin'. . .

Mention mushrooms to a lot of people and watch them scurry for the shadows, adults and children alike.  And with all honesty, I was never a fan of mushrooms as a child and I had to "get all growed up" before I realized how wonderful these delightful little morsels of fungi truly are.

The diversity of mushrooms is as infinite as the mind's eye, but most of us are familiar with the common "button" mushroom or white mushroom as it is also known.  Other common varieties include wood ear, shiitake, enokitake, cloud, morel, chanterelle, cep and boletus.  Less common varieties and some that are most prized by crazy, dope-smoking, hippe mushroom hunters are ox tongue, Ceaser's mushroom, Giant Puffball, Dryad's Saddle and Sulfur Shelf.

Today we focus on the simple, but tasty and mildly delicate white mushroom.  We are going to pair this with spinach, a little cream, basil pesto and tomato straight from the garden out back.  This preparation is useful in that it can be used as a delicious side preparation and also as a sauce for a nice piece of sauteed fish or medium rare beef or even chicken or pork.  You can even slather it on your cat and watch the dog go berserk trying to lick it off.

Let's begin shall we, as we bastardize a French word in the process.

Ragoût of White Mushrooms and Baby Spinach in Basil Pesto Cream

1 pint of white mushrooms, sliced
1-6 oz pkg. baby spinach
1 medium onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 ripe tomato, large dice, or halved cherry tomatoes as a subsitute
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup chicken stock or water
1/2 Tbsp. basil pesto
1 Tbsp. butter
salt and pepper, to taste

Begin by sauteing the onion in butter over medium heat for five to eight minutes, stirring often.

In the meantime, slice the mushrooms thinly or not so thinly depending on the texture that you prefer and see if you can slice a pint of mushrooms in the amount of time it takes the onion to cook.  I like a challenge, don't you?

Add the mushrooms to the pan and cook over medium to medium high heat until the mushrooms give off their waters and this cooks away.  You should begin to hear a nice sizzle, which is what you want because we are going to caramelize the mixture to a nice golden point as shown below.  This should take about ten minutes.  Add the garlic and cook two minutes more, then add the juice of half a lemon to deglaze the pan.

At this point, add the spinach and saute to wilt the leaves.  Cook for two or three minutes and add the basil pesto, cream, chicken stock and salt and pepper.

Simmer this until the cream reduces slightly and thickens.  Add the tomato last and continue to simmer for not more than two minutes to heat through the tomato.  Ultimately, you want the tomato intact and bursting with it's natural juice to cut all of that beautiful dairy fat on the palate.  Cooking it to death will do you no good at all.  You'll end up with a mouthful of mushy, unidentifiable junk and who wants that?  Adjust your seasonings and apply to your mouth for an enjoyable and flavorful diversion from the norm.  This is a Beatrice favorite and mine too.  Enjoy!  And if you want to make it even more sublime, add a handful of grated aged pecorino at the end.

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The Counter-Attack. . .

Someone give me one good reason why General Electric should be hosting garbage like this on a website somewhere. Aren't they bleeding billions of dollars by the minute?

From a "GE Appliances email" suggesting quick and easy recipes:

Nasty Easy Broccoli Slaw

Ingredients

* 1 (16 ounce) package of broccoli slaw mix (wut??)
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
* 1/4 cup water
* 1 teaspoon mustard seed
* 1 teaspoon celery seed
* 1/4 teaspoon pepper

I'm surprised this doesn't start by saying, "open package."

Combine all ingredients except slaw in a microwaveable container (like the one that had the Kingsford lighter fluid in it, glass or plastic) and heat for two minutes in the microwave. Stir well, cook one minute longer.

Add to broccoli slaw (which probably tastes so delightful out of a bag), mix well, cover and leave in the broiling sun all afternoon refrigerate for four hours.

Enjoy!

What do you think Rodrigo?

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Yardbird Deluxe. . .

Remember that simple chicken recipe from last week? Here are some non-Jagermeister influenced photographs for the record.


Marinated:


Smoked:

Sauced:

Good!

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A Quick Recipe. . .

This weekend I cooked some chicken.

Why?

Well, because I had a freezer full of leg and thigh sections and I needed to make room for my bottle of Jagermeister and I knew that my folks with the Ubon's BBQ team needed some telepathic spirituality as they competed up in Whiskeyville at the Jack Daniel's World Championship Invitational. I'm working on getting the results as we speak, from the piggie's mouth of course.

Anyway, I had some chicken and I didn't want to put the full-on, kung-fu barbeque sauce on the bird, so I went with a lighter glaze instead. Here is the recipe for 8 leg/thigh pieces:

1 cup kectup, (Hunt's, not Heinz)
1/2 cup white rum (thankfully Beatrice isn't a lush like me and left me half a bottle)
1/2 cup lime juice (leftover from key lime pie recipe)
1/2 cup Mississippi clover honey
1/4 cup olive oil
1 red onion, coarsely chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp. ground chipotle pepper
2 Tbsp. Hungarian paprika
1 Tbsp. medium heat curry powder
salt and pepper, to taste

Mix all ingredients well, except for ketchup and add to chicken. Marinate for as long as you like, but at least 6 hours. Fire up your grill and have your mesquite chunks handy for some good smoke. Drain the marinade from the chicken well and reserve and as the chicken cooks, whisk in the ketchup into the marinade. Be careful with the fire. The marinade has plenty of sugar and will burn easily. Use medium indirect heat or medium-low direct heat if grill space is an issue.

When the chicken is about half-cooked, about 30 minutes or so, begin basting with the reserved marinade. The fire should be low enough that flare-ups shouldn't be an issue. Continue basting every so often until you are out of juice and in about 30 more minutes, you should be removing beautifully grilled, smoked and glazed chicken.

Serve with some homemade mac and cheese, black eyed peas and cornbread. Double yum!

Sorry that there is no picture, I think the Jagermeister had something to do with that. So instead, I'll provide you with a picture illustrating what life with Barack Obama as president will look like:


Empty.

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You Know. . .

. . .just the menu item Moons Over My Hammy is enough to make me amputate an appendage.

Fucking cholesterol.

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Sunday Recipe. . .

Today, we take a step beyond basic culinary skills to visit some intermediate techniques that are surely to impress at your next dinner party.

Introducing the "roulade".

A roulade is basically a piece of meat rolled around some type of filling. The finished product, if executed properly, can be a creation of delicious beauty to the eye and the palette, as it is often said that people eat with their eyes first. . .

Oven Roasted Pork Loin Roulade w/spinach, mushrooms, caramelized onions and water chestnuts

1-3# Pork Loin
3 medium onions, sliced
1# assorted mushrooms, sliced
3 bunches of fresh spinach, stems removed and chopped finely
1 can of water chestnuts, chopped coarsely
olive oil, as necessary
salt and pepper, to taste

Marinade

6 ounces olive oil
1 Tbsp. each rosemary, thyme and sage
juice of 1 lemon
juice of 1 minneola (tangerine/grapefruit hybrid) or orange juice

Begin by caramelizing the onions slowly over medium heat in olive oil. Add a pinch of salt. Be sure not to burn as you want the onions to develop a nice brown hue as the sugars in the onion cook. Remove and set aside.

To the same pan, add more olive oil and saute the mushrooms until they also are caramelized. Salt and pepper to taste. Set aside in a small colander so that we can reuse the juices later for the accompanying sauce.

In a clean pan, saute the spinach leaves and chopped stems for 1 minute in olive oil over medium high heat. Salt and pepper to taste, set aside in a colander, allow to drain and squeeze the leaves gently to remove excess moisture. Reserve this liquid also.

In a separate sauce pan, combine the olive oil, herbs, salt and pepper and heat over medium low heat until the herbs begin to bubble slightly. This will release the fragrant oils. Remove from the heat and cool. Add the citrus juices.

Now the fun part. . .



Here is our pork loin:

Begin by cutting along the lower third of the height of the loin in long, consistent strokes with a boning knife. Cut lengthwise, but also move horizontally through the meat, but not all the way through. Stop about a half inch from the opposite side.

Your loin will now fold open like a book and we have one more cut to make for a complete tri-fold butterfly. In the middle there should be a thick portion of the meat where we begin with the second cut. Try to guide the knife approximately half way up the height of the meat at this point, again cutting through to the 1/2 inch termination. This is the harder cut to make and be sure you are slow and careful. Any cut completely through the meat will yield a nice hole with the ingredients of the roulade slipping out.

Below, we see the loin completely butterflied, covered with plastic wrap and being pounded to produce a uniform height as well as providing some tenderizing of the meat. I was using a wine bottle, you can achieve better results with a meat mallet. Pound the meat until it is approximately 1/2 inch or more in thickness. Pounding the meat thinner will produce a nicer pinwheel effect, but I like it to be thicker in an effort to retain the juiciness of the cut. The loin section of pork is notorious for overcooking quickly and a thicker cut will not do so quite as easily.

After pounding, I spooned two tablespoons of the infused citrus herb oil on the meat then added the layers of onions, mushrooms, spinach and finally the chestnuts. Alternatively, you could combine the three ingredients together or layer them individually as I have done. One could add bread crumbs to the ingredients, two beaten eggs and a little chicken stock to make a delicious stuffing as well. Also, you may substitute a variety of ingredients such as roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts, a tapenade of Niçoise olives and sun-dried tomatoes or various precooked winter greens such as chard or collards in place of the spinach. Only your imagination can hold you back.

Once the ingredients have been applied, starting at the thinest end, roll the meat up like a pinwheel and secure with butcher's twine as seen below. Salt and pepper the meat and spoon over the remainder of the infused oil. Let marinate for several hours in the fridge.

When you are ready to roast, preheat your oven to 450°F and place a rack in a roasting pan. On the stove heat a large sautuese or wide sautoir (something large enough to accommodate the loin) to medium high heat, add olive oil and sear the roast on all sides. Transfer to the roasting pan and put in the oven. Roast at 450 for about 30 to 40 minutes, basting with the juices from the marinade every 10 minutes or so. For the basting liquid I used the leftover marinade and one flavorful porter beer and this eventually became part of the final sauce. After 40 minutes reduce the heat to 350-375 and cook, basting occasionally until a meat thermometer indicates at least 155°F. Once removed from the oven the meat will carry over about 5 to 10 degrees, so undercooking slightly is preferable. Cook to 145 if you like a little pink still.

Remove the loin from the oven and let it rest for at least 15 minutes to let the juices redistribute in the meat. If you were to cut it now, the meat would look like Niagara Falls and taste like a rubber shoe.

While the meat is resting, remove the rack from the roasting pan and place the pan on a burner on the stove. When the pan is hot, add a half cup of the beer to deglaze the pan are lift all of the tasty bits in the bottom, strain this into a sauce pan. Add to this liquid the leftover spinach and mushroom juices and reduce by two thirds, all the while removing any fat which rises to the surface. To finish the sauce, remove the sauce from the heat and let it cool slightly.

Whisk in chunks of cold butter until the sauce increases in volume and has a thick shiny consistency. If you see tiny broken bits of white floating around your sauce and the sauce appears oily, then you have broken the butter. Butter sauces should never be heated above 140° as the solids will separate and you will lose the immense body created by emulsifying the butter into the liquid. Adjust the seasonings, add a bit of diced chestnut and some more fresh herbs, plate the meat, serve with your favorite starches and vegetables and look out world!! There is a shoemaker on the loose!!

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Bonus Sunday Recipe. . .

Since I'm feeling generous today, I will share with you my favorite bean recipe that is surely to leave you in a gas! Also, this will allow you to work with your new friend, chicken stock.


21 Bean Salute

1 pound of navy beans, soaked overnight
1 medium yellow onion, medium dice
1 carrot, sliced
1/3 each of red, green and yellow bell peppers, medium dice
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1-12 ounce can of stewed tomatoes
1/2 Tbsp. Hungarian Paprika
1/2 Tbsp. Chili Powder
chicken stock
thyme, sage and rosemary, minced
salt and pepper, to taste
olive oil

Saute the onion, carrot and bell pepper over medium high heat in olive oil until you get bored or about 8 minutes, whichever comes first. Add the garlic and saute for two more minutes. Add beans, tomatoes(juice included), paprika, chili powder and chicken stock. Simmer until beans are tender, about two hours. Add freshly minced herbs and salt and pepper to taste.

And for a really creamy experience and we all love those, puree about 1 cup of the bean mixture in a blender and add this back to the pot. Just divine!

A note about salting beans. If you desire tender little bursts of bean flavor, save the salt until the beans are thoroughly cooked. Some studies have shown that salting the beans at the beginning of the cooking process will toughen the skin of the bean. And through my own studies of beanology, I find this to be true.

So be nice to your beans, salt them at the end, let them soak for about 30 minutes longer and you'll have delicious bean love every time!


Grill to medium rare two flat iron steaks (which is actually top blade from the chuck of a steer) and some zuchini, whip up some rice to serve with your beans(rice and beans make a complete protein) and you've got a grand meal!

Stick around here long enough and I'll learn you something good!

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Sunday Recipe. . .

One of the most useful ingredients to have on hand in the kitchen is chicken stock. A well-prepared stock can propel your cooking to heights rarely visited in the home kitchen. Chicken stock can be used in a myriad of preparations and instantly adds depth of flavor to sauces, soups and vegetables.



I hear people moaning already, "oh, I just don't have time time" or "it's so much easier the use chicken broth from a can" to which I retort, please kill yourself immediately.

Other than the initial preparation of the ingredients and maintaining vigil for the first fifteen minutes, more or less you can turn it on and forget it.

First we will add a new word to our vocabulary: mirepoix.

Mirepoix is a mixture of vegetables used to enhance the flavor of stocks and not just chicken. Mirepoix is used in vegetable stock (imagine that!), veal stock, beef stock, fish stock, shrimp stock, etc. Mirepoix is typically carrots, celery and onion, although one could add leeks (white part only) or mushrooms trimmings for additional flavor if desired. The proportion of mirepoix to bones is approximately 1 pound of mirepoix to 4 pounds of bones. And the proportioning of the mirepoix is usually 50% onion, 25% carrot, 25% celery. I usually go a little light on the carrot as it has a very strong flavor and can take over the characteristics of a stock very easily.

So we have our chicken bones and our mirepoix, now what?

To begin, we cover the bones with cold water and heat to just boiling then reduce to medium or medium low heat to simmer. Once the water begins to heat, the bones will release different and various proteins that will congeal into a nice funky froth at the stock's surface. This by far is the most imporatnt step. Never BOIL your stock becuase all of that lovely meat funk will end up microscopically dispersed throughout the stock and will render your stock a disgusting shade of cloud.

Anyway, once the scum rises to the top, it is imperative that you remove it with a ladle. The French call this "depouillage" and it's neat that they have a cool word for what we Americans call "skimming the scum". Gross. So, continue skimming until you have removed most of the froth and some of the fat. More fat will render as your stock simmers, so an occasional skim from time to time is necessary.

Once the initial skim has been made, then you may introduce your mirepoix into the stock. A few other ingredients used in most stocks are fresh thyme, toes of garlic, bay leaf, peppercorns and one or two whole cloves. These items may be added in with the mirepoix.

Now what? Well, go drink a beer or something and in 4 to 6 hours your stock will be finished. Strain the stock, refrigerate or freeze for later use. Congratulations! You're on your way to being an accomplished cook! You do want to be an accomplished cook don't you? It's every shoemaker's dream.

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Bet You Never Heard This As A Kid!

Eat your crosses like a good child!

What you see below are the blooms of my winter collard greens:



Numerous vegetables like collard and mustard greens, kale, cabbages, radishes, arugula, watercress, tatsoi, broccoli and cauliflower belong to the family known as Brassicaceae or Cruciferae or more simply Cruciferous. This, of course, was back when no one spoke American.

Cruciferous vegetables are called so because when blooming, they bear tiny flowers similar to crucifixes. Kinda neat, huh?

Just how neat these vegetables are is further enlightened by recent studies that show Cruciferous vegetables aid the body's immune system by providing an anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-cancer effect.

Now, I understand that a lot of people don't like these veggies because they believe them to taste foul, but I argue that usually the crappy taste is a by-product of poor cooking techniques. Most of these vegetables are loaded with rather disagreeable compounds that are released during the cooking process. Certain smelly chemical compounds. Imagine of a pot of boiling brussel sprouts. I agree, it smells nasty! This is where "blanching" comes in handy.

Blanching a vegetable means simply to cook a vegetable partially in boiling water, then "shocking" it in ice water to stop the cooking. This technique has a multi-fold purpose in a professional kitchen.

First, it releases the aforementioned, undesirable gases. Secondly, it breaks down particular enzymes that can accelerate the natural ripening or eventual breakdown of the vegetable. It is imperitive to stop these enzymes by blanching prior to freezing vegetables. Your veggies will love you for it. Thirdly, it prepares your vegetable for it's eventual marriage with other delightful ingredients, such as sauces or simple garnishes such as herbs or other blanched vegetables.

The process is simple and is desirable for the harder vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower. Bitter greens like mustard and turnip greens can be blanched prior to cooking to remove some of the bitter qualities from them before cooking them to death with a piece of fatback as we do here in the South. Obviously, you wouldn't want to blanch something like watercress because it cooks in a flash. And horseradish? Well, don't be an idiot.

So, immerse the veggie in boiling water and when it is still undercooked or cooked to "a point", remove the vegetable and submerge in immediately into an ice-water bath to "set" the color. This undercooking will allow you to reheat the vegetable completely without overcooking it.

Afterwards, you could saute your cauliflower for example, with butter, garlic, a bit of fresh thyme salt and fresh cracked pepper for an easy, fresh and tasty side dish. Add an ounce or two of white wine, reduce, a 1/4 cup a cream, reduce and finish with some grated pecorino cheese and flat leaf parsley. You are moving into flavors unknown to most.

Take your lowly brussel sprout, blanched, of course. Saute those with some fine diced onion, garlic, add some cannelini beans, diced tomato, diced tasso ham, tarragon and a small squirt of lemon juice and a half cup of vegetable stock and reduce for a couple of minutes. Man, somebody will put a jihad on your brussel sprouts!

Enjoy and by all means experiment!! Don't be afraid of broccoli romanesco because it looks like genital warts. It has a flavor so sublime falling somewhere between broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus and artichokes. Outstanding!

And if it still tastes like shit then find a new hobby. I hear stamp collecting is great fun.

This has been a public service announcement from Burning Toast. Now back to the regular programming of cute kitty pictures, vulgar rants and just general being pissed off at the ignorance of the world and other random madness.

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Sunday Recipe. . .

You know those beets you wouldn't eat as a child? We here is a fresh and simple way to prepare them now that you are all grown up. You are grown up, right? Hey, stop picking your nose!!

Beet Salad with Lemon and Thyme

4 medium beets, cooked, peeled, large dice
1 stalk celery, sliced
1/2 medium yellow onion, small dice
1 green onion, sliced
1/4 - 1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese
1/2 cup low fat sour cream
1/2 tsp. fresh thyme, chopped
2 TBS. parsley, chopped
juice of one lemon
salt and pepper, to taste

Combine all ingredients and refrigerate. It'll be so much better tomorrow.

Serve cold or room temperature over fresh lettuces or field greens. Or just eat it alone like I do.

All ingredients before mixing.

Chef's Note: If you scrub the beets well prior to boiling, you can then strain the cooking liquid through several layers of cheesecloth to reserve the beet essence for sauce making. I usually add a tablespoon of rice wine vinegar to the boiling beets to help maintain the color of the beet juice while cooking.

Reduce some red wine, add the beet juice, a bit of chopped celery, carrot, thyme and a bay leaf, reduce by two-thirds. Finish by whisking in cold butter, then strain for a nice sauce for fish or meat. Works really well with salmon.

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Good On Your Meat. . .

Gingered Anjou Pear and Tomato Relish

1 medium tomato, seeded, small dice
1/2 anjou pear, peeled, bias cut
celery, sliced thinly, to taste
white onion, fine brunoise, to taste

olive oil, 2 Tbs.
ginger, minced, to taste
soy sauce, 5 to 10 drops
seasame oil, to taste
cilantro, rough chop
flat leaf parsley, rough chop

Mix it all together and it looks something like this:



Eat it with grilled meats or toss it with some fresh, crisp arugula. Be creative. ¡Buen provecho!

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