Dinner for One

So it's Monday and with every new week comes a new commitment that I will eat better than the week before. Honestly though, sometimes when you're only cooking for yourself you end up short changing yourself, or at least that happens to me more often than it probably should. Well remember last week when I told you I made some killer pork chops? Lovely thing about those is that they are just as easily made for 10 as they are for 1. So, as Mario would say, heerrreeee we go!

Dijon mustard, lime juice, cayenne, thyme, olive oil, salt, pepper. Done. I'll be honest, I'm not reinventing the wheel here, but these chops were mighty fine. First of all, I buy my pork chops with the bone in for a few reasons: (1) it's cheaper, (2) it helps keep whatever meat you're cooking moist, and (3) it's everyone's guilty pleasure - after most of the meat is gone, drawing the blinds and going to town on the bones (keep your mind out of the gutter). Anyway, as soon as I got in the door I mixed my little concoction together and brushed them onto the chops. Mix as much as you need - as with a lot of cooking and as I have said in the past - do. your. thing. If you like it hotter put in more cayenne. Or if you don't have cayenne, but you have paprika or turmeric or adobo or whatever else you might have in your pantry, same principles apply. You're the one eating it. I'm just (hopefully) giving you that nudge to indulge (I'm totally trademarking that phrase by the way so back off).

Ok, so if you have the time you can make this into a marinade (thin it out with more oil) and let it sit for a few hours. If you don't have the time (I did not), then just brush on the wet rub (less oil) with a pastry or BBQ brush and throw them on the grill. Side note: for the difference between a marinade and a rub think salad dressing versus wet BBQ ribs. I use the grill to just get those pretty marks on the meat and also impart some of that "grill" flavor. But after I've gotten marks on both sides I finish the chops on a rack in a 450° F oven. I find they end up juicier and cook more evenly that way, especially if you have a thicker cut of meat.

You're done (when the chops reach an internal temp of 155° F)! While they're in the oven, you can make yourself a side salad, some rice (or quinoa!), or some baked french fries. And there you've got yourself a fast, cheap, healthy, and most importantly, tasty meal. Enjoy!

Hey Babe, Take a Walk on the Wild Side

Today we took a walk on the exotic side. The dishes were fairly intricate - not stuff you would necessarily whip up for dinner. Perhaps something your private chef would be ordered to whip up for you? Let's see...

Sautéed Arctic Char with Citrus Vinaigrette, Mediterranean Salad & Fines Herbs Oil

What is arctic char, you ask? It's a fish in the salmon family - oily, pink colored flesh - that can live in both fresh and salt water. We left the skin on and scored it (thin cuts into the skin) to prevent it from curling up. What you want to do with a fish like this that has a lot of oil and fat in it is actually cook it like bacon. Start the heat off on the lower side and let the fat cook out a bit, then crisp it up. I am admittedly not a salmon lover so the arctic char was not my favorite, HOWEVER, the salad for this dish is really great: frisée, treviso, oranges, fennel, red onions, mint, and black olives mixed in with a vinaigrette of orange juice, lemon juice, lime juice, blood orange juice, and a touch of dijon mustard. Top it off with an herb oil (parsley, chives, chervil, and tarragon) - it was really nice.

Pan Roasted Quail with Sweetbread Gastrique, Sautéed Foie Gras Crouton, & Cranberry Reduction Sauce

This dish had a lot going on. First of all, quail. What are they? They are these pigeon-esque looking birds in the pheasant family and they're super tiny. We browned them in a pan on both sides and finished them in the oven for 10 minutes. Honestly... tastes like chicken. In all seriousness, it is slightly more gamey and similar to the dark meat of a chicken, but for all intents and purposes it tastes like chicken so don't be scared to eat it!

Next - sweetbread. Ahh, but the name can be deceptive. Sweetbreads are the thymus glands of calves and/or lambs and they're those three little nuggets on the plate surrounding the quail. They are actually huge. Google them. I am not quite sure how they got their name; there are a few different stories floating around on the internet. They are very tender though and can be pretty tasty. Today we combined them with vinegar, wine, and sugar (gastrique), but if you have never had them I would recommend trying them sautéed or fried - it's probably the most benign way to have them. They're good, I promise! And quite expensive...

I'm not really even going to talk about the foie gras. It's the fattened liver of a duck or goose and, to be honest, (1) I'm not a huge fan of the taste and (2) I'm not really sure I agree with the whole force-feeding thing. Simply not my cup of tea.

Seared Venison Loin with Red Wine Reduction Sauce, Caramelized Chestnuts, Butternut Squash Puree, & Roasted Wild Mushrooms

Today, we ate Bambi. Or his mom. Whatever. Anyway, this was my favorite dish! Again, very similar to beef, but much leaner. And for those reasons, also much healthier for you than other cuts of red meat. The caramelized chestnuts were also very yummy: chestnuts, juniper berries (that we later removed), and equal parts red wine vinegar and sugar. Bring all of that to a boil and reduce it until it becomes a glaze. It's sweet, but when mixed with the red wine reduction and a piece of meat it has a really nice flavor. Plus, deer happen to also feed frequently off of juniper trees so it really is a nice pairing especially for venison. The mushrooms we simply cut, tossed with extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper, and thrown in the oven until they roasted and got crispy. They were very good, considering I almost completely botched them. How could you possibly screw that up, you ask? HA. It's ok - they came out just lovely.

Pretty Plates

And so began Module 3. The first week or so we are focusing on plating and design, which I loooove. Granted these pictures are taken through the lens of my iPhone, but they came out pretty well. Let's take a look...

Tuna Carpaccio with Micro-greens, Capers, 
& Horseradish Mayonnaise 

Carpaccio, a Venetian invention from Harry's Bar in the 1950s, is traditionally made by thinly pounding beef fillets, but in class today we used sushi grade tuna. We fried the capers and used the excess oil to make a fresh mayonnaise (with horseradish), and the micro-greens are simply dressed with a bit of salt, pepper, and olive oil.

 Seared Scallops with Parsnip Puree, Red Cabbage, 
& Potato Chips

What I want to point out here, oddly, are the homemade potato chips! We used a mandolin to slice the potatoes paper thin, put them in cold oil, and then turned the heat on to bring the oil up to temp and cook the chips. By using cold oil you're able to better control the moisture in the potato as well as the cooking process. As the oil heats, the potato essentially steams and looses moisture before it browns, making a perfectly crispy potato chip! Apparently we can try this with fries too - let me know if you get to it before I do.

Seared Halibut with a Warm Vinaigrette of Asparagus, Artichokes, Fennel, Tomatoes, & Potatoes

This is exactly what it sounds like. Very simple, clean, and healthy dish made by sautéing the artichoke hearts, fennel, and some shallots and then simmering them in chicken broth and lemon juice. We blanched the potatoes, tomatoes, and asparagus separately and then combined everything right before we plated.

And that is EXACTLY what I made today. Actually I also made some awesome pork chops for dinner, but I'll save that for another post.

Eat by Numbers

Module 2 is officially over! We had our practical this afternoon where we had to individually prepare a sautéed strip steak (medium rare), pommes persillade (fancy name for sautéed potatoes with garlic and parsley - we discussed a variation of this when we talked about butter), and haricots verts (aka string beans). All in all it went extremely well and I cannot believe we begin Module 3 next week, which is comprised of a survey of international cuisines. I have already skimmed through a few things and I am super excited (and you should be too because I'll be talking about them)!

As for this evening though, I am currently sitting here with a tall cool glass of lemon, cucumber, and basil water, enjoying the silence of my apartment, and frankly having no desire to cook. And that's ok! You know, when I began the program I said to myself, this will either drive me to obesity or make me sick of eating. I fear both. We shall see.

 So tonight will be a "betcha didn't know that" post. Well, I hope most of my posts are like that for you, but this I find particularly interesting and we also recently discussed it in class. Most of us shop for produce by simply (1) seeing it and knowing what it is and/or (2) reading the sign that amusingly says, "Radicchio (Italy)" and then on the bottom in smaller print says "Made in Guatemala." We buy the produce, go home, rip off that annoying sticker (or if you're my brother forget about the sticker and mistakenly eat it), and do our thangs. REWIND. That annoying sticker, while granted may continue to be annoying, may also prove helpful. Here's why...

 If you see a 5-digit number beginning with a "9" on the sticker, that is an organic product. If you see a 4-digit number, that product is grown using pesticides. Now if you really want to eat some funky food look for a 5-digit number on the label beginning with the number "8" - those goodies are genetically modified. I found this nifty little website while I was writing this tonight where you can plug in the number and it tells you what you're eating, how it's grown, and what other varieties there are out there. Feel free to give it a go-around here.

As NBC always says, "The More You Know..." Well, they never actually finished that sentence, but you get the idea. I hope that was worth the quick read! I'm off to figure out how I am going to feed myself this evening.


Photos: Fruit (Kent Crockett's Devotionals); Orange with a sticker (The Good Stuff)

Don't Call It a Comeback

Sooo, I've been a tad tied up lately, but I won't even go there since we have a lot of catching up to do! In the last 2 weeks I have braised everything you could ever braise, stewed everything you could ever stew, grilled... I think you get it. Anyway, with the long holiday weekend ahead of us why don't we talk about some new stuff you all can try out?

 Let's talk burgers. America has been going gangbusters for burgers in the last few years with everyone jumping on the burger train. To name a few... DB Bistro (Daniel Boulud), Bobby Flay's Burger Palace, In-and-Out, Shake Shack, Burger Joint, and Five Guys are all carving their niches in the search for the perfect burger. What makes a perfect burger? That's a difficult question, but what we hear most commonly is (1) the meat to fat ratio and (2) the combination of various cuts of meat (both of which chefs like to keep to themselves). According to completely unauthorized and unofficial Google searches I've done, Shake Shack burgers have a 80:20 meat to fat ratio and are comprised of 50% chuck, 25% sirloin, and 25% brisket (if you need to brush up on cuts of meat you can look here).

Now... what do you do if you're not a burger fanatic or need to feed 20 hungry family members on a budget? Stuff the meat with some butter! We spoke many moons ago about the magic of butter, but I'm not even kidding. We did it with our burgers in class - cut up little cubes of butter and just mixed them into the meat cold. They come out so juicy, it really is a great trick. And let's be honest, I know half of you are thinking, "butter is making an already fatty thing unnecessarily more fatty." Perhaps. But let's remember that at the end of the day you're still eating a burger (maybe 2).. and fries.. maybe a hot dog.. some ribs? Get over it.

Now this is how you save yourself from putting the butter in the burger: quinoa. It's everyone's new favorite superfood so you might as well try and at least pretend that you're cool and make it. So what is it? If you've never had it before, essentially everything you can do with rice or couscous, you can do with quinoa. It looks like a grain, but it's actually in the beet and spinach family and it's an edible seed. Most noteworthy though, it's considered to be a complete protein as it's comprised of roughly 15% protein and has a balance of all eight essential amino acids. It's also low in sodium and high in fiber. All in all, it's awesome for you so just eat it. Here's a recipe we used in class that I really liked (yield is about 4 servings):

• 4 oz. of quinoa
• 12 fluid oz. of chicken stock
• 1 red pepper, small dice
• 1 scallion, finely chopped
• Salt and Pepper

The method to cooking it is exactly like rice. Bring the chicken stock to a boil, add the quinoa, reduce it to a simmer, cover it, and let it simmer until all the liquid soaks up. The only difference is that quinoa should be rinsed before you cook it because the seeds often have a bitter shell around them that a quick rinse should wash away. When they're done they should be translucent, but still a little firm. Then you can add the red pepper and the scallion (or whatever else you want to add). You can eat it just like that or make a vinaigrette to toss it in like we did in class. I'll give you an example here, which I thought was really yummy, but feel free to really do anything you want with this. Again - anything you can do with rice, you can do with quinoa.

Vinaigrette:

• 1/2 fluid oz. of lime juice
• 2 fluid oz. extra virgin olive oil
• Ginger (to taste, but we did about 1/4-1/2 tsp.)
• Cilantro (same as ginger)
• Salt and Pepper

So when the quinoa had cooled off a bit, we mixed in the vinaigrette and dug in. Eat it warm, eat it at room temperature, doesn't matter. Simply enjoy!

Hope you all have a great weekend! I'm sure I'll be seeing most of you. Oh and, Happy Birthday to my favorite boyfriend, Matt, who turned 24 yesterday! Ciao!

Photos: Burger (Bronx Banter); Quinoa (Online Pastry Chef)

Veggie Tales

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride - vegetables are no longer the red-headed step children of your favorite dishes. We have been braising and roasting and, while we've made some pretty awesome meats, the vegetables are putting up quite the fight.

But before we get into various recipes for roasted and braised vegetables, you may or may not be wondering what it means to braise. Braising is a combination of moist and dry heat, which typically requires searing/browning (dry heat) a piece of protein on the stove, adding a liquid like wine or stock (moist heat) and then simmering it in the oven for a prolonged period of time. Usually tougher cuts of meats are used to braise, like the lamb shanks we braised today or veal shanks we will be braising tomorrow when we make Osso Buco. We also braised chicken thighs and monkfish and, as a result of all of these dishes, ended up with an extremely flavorful sauce that we reduced and finished off with a bit of butter and/or cream. Today was definitely a satisfying day.

So onto some of the recipes we did in class that I think/hope you'll enjoy...

Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Sage and Orange Zest

Actually - hold up. Let's talk for a second about the difference between a sweet potato and a yam since there appears to be some general confusion. The orange-fleshed "yam" that we buy in supermarkets is actually a variety of the sweet potato. In the picture to your left, the one on the right is a true yam and the one on the left is a true sweet potato. The two are only distantly related and they're botanically not even potatoes - they're tubers. Mind blow, I know. In all seriousness, the only difference that (I think) you should really know is that sweet potatoes are a nutritionally dense food: they have a ton of vitamin A and anti-inflammatory nutrients, they're low on the glycemic scale (good for diabeetus) and, relative to yams, have twice the amount of protein per serving. Yams tend to be higher in Omega 3s, whereas sweet potatoes are higher in Omega 6s (the differences of which we've talked about), but overall I still think sweet potatoes are the better bet.

Ok, so here is how to make them yummy:

• 2 sweet potatoes, diced
• The zest of 1 orange
• 1/4 cup of chopped fresh sage leaves
• Olive oil
• Salt/Pepper

Pre-heat your oven to 400°F. Toss the sweet potatoes in with light olive oil (you can also use canola or clarified butter) and season. The length of time is going to vary depending on the oven you use and the size you cut your potatoes, but try and toss them every 15-20 minutes or so. You'll know obviously when they're close to being done and they should, ideally, get a little brown around the edges. About 5 minutes before you think they're good to go, toss them with the orange zest and sage, and you're done. If you add the zest and/or herbs too soon they'll burn. This was one of my favorite veggies to make in class so far. 

Braised Leeks

• 4 leeks, trim the greens and the nub off and slice them lengthwise in half down the stem, then again in quarters ALMOST down to the bottom. You want to split them down the middle, but not actually break the connection at the base of them.
• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 5 tbs. of whole butter
• 3 tbs. of parsley
• 1 large onion, sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup of white wine
• 1/2 cup of heavy cream (optional)
• Salt/Pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 400°F. In a pan, sweat the onions and garlic in about 2 tbs. of the butter until softened. I usually add some salt here because it helps extract moisture from the onions and develop flavor. Transfer the onions and garlic to a baking dish and add the leeks on top. Pour in the wine and chicken stock until it comes about half-way up the side of the leeks. You don't want them completely submerged, but you also don't want them to dry out and burn - adjust the liquid content if necessary. Dot the top of the leeks with another 2 tbs. of the whole butter, season, cover the pan with a lid or foil, and put in the oven. Again, the time is going to vary, but they should be very tender (almost melting) and it will probably take you around 30 minutes. When they're done in the oven you can eat them like that or, which is what our group did in class, you can reserve the cooking liquid in another pan and reduce it to around 1/2 - 1/3 of what it was, add some cream, adjust the seasoning, finish it off with 1 tbs. of butter, and toss with the leeks. Garnish with the parsley on top and this is honestly one of the best vegetable dishes I have ever had. I even got Matt to have some!

And that's all she wrote. I know some of my classmates got a whiff of the blog on Facebook so I hope I'm doing justice to our kitchen adventures! Happy eating!

UPDATED: For you, Mommy!

Roasted Beets

• 1 lb. of beets, washed and trimmed
• Light olive oil
• 1 sprig of rosemary
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar

Pre-heat your oven to 400°F. Toss the beets in the light olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and put them in a pan with the rosemary sprig. Cover the pan with foil and poke a few holes in the top to let some steam out. Roast the beets until tender - your knife should be able to go through them easily. When they're done, leave the foil on to let them cool because it will make it easier to peel the skins. When they're cool enough to handle, rub the skins off and dress them with some extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar to taste.

Photo: Yam vs. Sweet Potato (Gonzo Gastronomy)

A Little Bit of Butter Makes it All a Lot Better

Today we started grilling (as you can see from the picture to your right)! Chicken, rib eye steak, flank steak, and a bunch of veggies. You name it, I can grill it (and make it look pretty too). But I don't really want to talk about grilling today because I spoke about meat temperatures in yesterday's post and chimichurri (which we used to marinate the flank steaks) in an earlier post. What I DO want to talk about is compound butter (not to be confused with clarified butter)! I know you might think I'm getting unnecessarily excited about butter, but see that little dollop of creamy goodness on my steak in the picture? That is some tasty butter.

Compound butter is essentially flavorings (herbs, garlic, shallots, lemon juice, etc.) mixed with butter. I usually have a bunch of fresh herbs in the apartment that I'm not always able to use so, instead of throwing them out, compound butter is a great way to use them. Basically, take butter at room temperature, throw it in the food processor, and add any garnishes you like (you can also do it with a fork as long as you finely mince everything). Take it out, roll it into a log using parchment paper or plastic wrap, and freeze. Once it's solid you can store it in the refrigerator along with your regular butter and it should last you for a good amount of time (although if you love it as much as I do it will fly by). I use it to finish off stuff like steak, chicken, lamb, pork, sautéed potatoes, and sometimes even crostini.

For the proteins, as soon as you take them off the heat, cut yourself a slice of the butter and let it just melt over the top. It creates this creamy little sauce that works especially well with grilled foods that aren't always the most exciting items to eat.

For the potatoes: par boil diced potatoes, drain and dry them, and then sauté them until golden brown. Drain off any excess fat and take the pan off of the heat. Add the butter, swirl it around until it melts, and dump the potatoes out onto a paper towel to absorb any of the residual butter.

For the crostini: toast your bread either on the grill, broiler or toaster and spread the butter on just like you would normally. Think garlic butter!

Ok I'm making myself hungry just talking about all of this so let me give you a simple recipe for compound butter and then I'm going to go eat!

• Butter
• Parsley
• Lemon Juice
• Garlic
• Salt / Pepper

(Note: all of these ingredients are to your taste. Try not to get too hung up on measurements - or even ingredients for that matter. Start out conservative and add as you go. Worst case scenario and you add too much lemon juice for your liking, just add more butter. No worries! Have fun experimenting!)