An Old Friend

Fall is a great time to dust off the cooking notes and revisit some old friends. High end cuisine is always fun to make at home, but sometimes you need a good old fashioned homestyle meal. For tonight we are going to leave all the Food Network candy colored mumbo jumbo behind. Let's revisit a classic... Let's make turkey tetrazzini!

There is no doubt about it, it is better to cook at home whenever, and as often as possible! For starters, it's cheaper and healthier than anything you can scrounge up in a restaurant. Second, it is better for society and your well being. It is more of a moral imperative that everyone should possess the knowledge to do, and do well. This latest post is one of those meals that you can make fairly quickly, and line the dinner table with happy faces! Let's get started!

Finding the right piece of turkey takes perseverance! You can settle for the Butterball, Sarah Lee or the all-impressive store brand. Like the farmers always say, "You reap what you sow!" It is truly an embalmed piece of protein that encompasses the worst of the food world. My advice, spend two to three dollars more on a legit turkey breast from an honorable source. If you don't have the means, please purchase what you have available.

I have a beautiful half turkey breast from Misty Knolls Farm. Here in Vermont, you can't get much better than this! High tolerance for quality, and sound practices make for an exceptional product! Start by rinsing the half breast, pat dry and season with salt, pepper and good olive oil.

This is the only time you will catch me using non stick pans. Place a large non stick over high heat until you are ready to call the fire department! Place the turkey breast skin side down and aggressively sear. You don't want to burn the turkey, just let it know who's boss! Ha!

Once the breast is flipped, preheat the oven to 350. After five more minutes of searing, cover the breast with parchment and roast for 35 minutes.

While the turkey is roasting, put a large sauce pot on to cook the pasta. This recipe calls for 12 ounces of pasta. You don't have to weigh it out, just cook one pound to avoid any frustration. Use any pasta you have available.... Get creative!

While the pasta is working, chop the vegetables you wish to use. For this dish, it is one large packet of mushrooms, one large red pepper, the turkey breast and two small red onions. These don't have to be perfect! You can just chop them however you wish! You're the boss!!

Using the same pan from the turkey, saute the onions and pepper for five minutes. As soon as the onions have a caramelized hue, add the mushrooms and turkey! Cook for another five minutes and add either one teaspoon of fresh chopped garlic, or 1/4 cup of pickled garlic, and simmer for two minutes.

Add two cups of heavy cream, 1 tablespoon paprika, 1 tablespoon onion powder, one tablespoon, chipotle powder, one teaspoon thyme and one more of oregano. This is the perfect base to this creamy casserole!

The topping can be anything of your choice! You can use anything from potato chips to wheat thins. I happen to love wheat thins, so that is what I use! Be very generous with the topping. This gives the dish the added crunch that makes it so memorable! This is definitely not a sexy dish by any stretch of the imagination. It is just good, solid, coma inducing dinner that can be a staple for any family!

This recipe is very versatile. You can use any number of different ingredients. Instead of turkey, you can use chicken, lamb, beef, pork or duck. Same goes for the vegetables. Brussel sprouts are a life changing ingredient with this!

Happy fall to everyone! Peace!

Ah! The Spice of Life!

Life, like cooking, has many ingredients and methods to bring out the right taste, textures and aromas of our beautiful surroundings. Last week, I came into some incredibly fresh banana peppers from my friend's greenhouse. They were a surreal fluorescent green, and struck my eye in such a way that I knew what their purpose was as soon as I saw them. The fresh pepper aroma filled my kitchen with late summer spendor. Pickled banana peppers are among the easiest to produce.

As stated in previous blog entries, heat your canner with the jars inside. In this case, I used pint- sized jars. Sterilize the lids in simmering water, and gather your ingredients.

The ingredients are so simple and clean for these peppers. For two ponds of peppers you will need ...

6 Cups, Cider Vinegar

2 Cups, Water

3 Garlic Cloves

Pack the peppers into the pint jars, and bring the above ingredients to a rolling boil. Cook the vinegar and garlic solution for five minutes, and after cooked, pour the hot vinegar to within one quarter inch of the top of the pickling jars. Seal the lids and process for ten minutes in a hot water canner. These are some of my favorite pickles for sandwiches, soups or snack!

The next entry is a very obscure pickle! Years ago, I tried to pickle pineapple on the fly with disastrous results. The recipe in the Ball Blue Book turned out perfect, and even better, they're delicious!! I had two pineapples laying around that needed a new home.

Peel and core the pineapples. Cut them into spears, or just simply chop into one inch squares. As before, prepare your jars, lids and ingredients which are...

3 Cinnamon Sticks, Broken

.5 Teaspoon, Allspice

.25 Teaspoon, Cloves

2 Cups, Brown Sugar

1 Cup, Cider Vinegar

1 Cup, Pineapple Juice

Bring these ingredients to a boil for five minutes. While they are cooking, pack the two quart jars with your prepared pineapple.

As before, pour the hot liquid on top of the pineapple to within one quarter inch from the top. Seal the jars and process for ten minutes. Pineapple pickles are a show-stopper, and their sweet-and-sour spears have just a hint of spice, perfect for a cool fall afternoon!

Prep is finally over! Woo-Hoo!! Now is the time to have a nice glass of wine and begin thinking about dinner.

I have some amazing Coho salmon in the refrigerator. Hmmm..... How about Lentil Salad, Seared Salmon, Apple Fennel Slaw and Tomato Conserva Beurre Blanc! Perfect!!

Dice three carrots and one onion. This doesn't have to be perfect- you can just put them in the processor.

Heat a heavy bottom saute pan and cook until the onions are translucent. If there is any sticking, use a splash of white wine and scrape all the little brown bits from the bottom.

In a separate sauce pan, pour one cup of white wine and bring to a boil. Boil the wine vigorously until reduced to syrup. Be careful not to burn!

Add two tablespoons of tomato conserva. If you don't have any conserva, just use tomato paste. Chop one stick of butter into small pieces. One at a time, wisk the butter until a thick sauce develops. Be sure to keep the heat off for this, or the butter emulsion will break. If it breaks, don't sweat it!

Cook the lentils until they are just about done, about ten minutes or so. When they are done, add them to the carrot onion mix. I used smoked salt and fresh cracked pepper for the seasoning. Feel free to use whatever you think is appropriate! You be the judge!

Heat a heavy bottom saute pan until screaming hot! If you don't trust yourself, please use a non-stick pan to save yourself from any heartache!

Sear the salmon until medium rare! You can plate this however you wish. In your own kitchen, YOU ARE THE CHEF!! Spoon the sauce over the salmon and enjoy an early fall dinner!

Cheers!!

Tell me what you eat, I'll tell you who you are. ~Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

This is one of my favorite quotes for many reasons. Over the years, I have been fortunate to meet a vast number of people from every walk of life. The one trait we all have in common is our love of food. It doesn't matter if you are a carnivore, vegetarian, vegan or other. There is always something you believe in your heart to be special with absolute conviction.

During the last few weeks I have met a wonderful soul who has impeccable taste, razor sharp wit, and a vision of how food can change the world. These kinds of people are very hard to come by in todays "now" society. She understands the benefits of sustainable foods on a very local level, and tragic practices of the large scale corporate farming sprawl. I feel truly fortunate to know a true foodie. After all, great minds think alike!

The kitchen at home has been very happy and unbelievably busy! Each morning I wake up at sunrise, make my coffee which resembles mud, and gaze at the the joyful bounty which is my refrigerator! The pickling projects are mostly completed, and the meat fabrication was a success! Let's see, where to start....

OK! When my sister and I were growing up there was always something good on the table for dinner. In my family we appreciate the togetherness of having a family dinner. One of our mainstays was frank and bean casserole. My sister and I loved it because it was good, hot and plenty of it! Over time, the allure of the hot dog lost it's luster. Maybe Im getting older, but mass-produced hot dogs shouldn't be eaten by anyone! Hand-made all-beef franks reclaim the idea of what a hot dog should actually be!

Hot dogs are perhaps the world's most widely known sausage. The homemade variety are so different from those sold in supermarkets that we have to question the name. First, you need to start with good wholesome ingredients. I had a six pound beef bottom round from LaPlatte, and four pounds of short ribs from the same location. Short ribs have a thick succulent fat cap that adds so much flavor to this sausage. Cut the round into small pieces,remove the bones from the ribs, and cut them in the same fashion.

Once the meat is cut and ready, place it in an accommodating dish, cover and refrigerate for thirty minutes. If you have the time, put it in the freezer for fifteen minutes longer. Bottom line, you want the cut beef as cold as possible.

While the meat is chillin, mise en place your spices! This amount required......

8 Cloves Garlic, Pickled and Minced

4 Tablespoons, Kosher Salt

1.5 Tablespoons, Cracked Black Pepper

1 Tablespoon, Smoked Paprika

1 Tablespoon, Ground Coriander

2 Teaspoons, Ground Mace

3 Cups, Cheap Beer

Sheep Casings

Grind the meat on the smallest die.

In a large bowl, or mixer, incorporate the spices and beer to the ground beef. Once it is properly mixed, cover and put in the freezer for fifteen minutes. During that fifteen minutes, rinse and prepare the sheep casings.

Set up your sausage maker. Whatever you do, never buy the sausage maker from a name brand "authority" on this. They will DEFINITELY RIP YOU OFF!! Go to Amazon.com before making a purchase just to be sure.

Thread the casings onto the extruder and fill the canister with the raw product. This is where you should take a step back, breathe and have a nice glass of wine. You can never be too relaxed in the kitchen. Gordon Ramsey has nothing on me!

Roll out the sausage until the filling has run out. At this point, decide on how you would like to present them. The world is your oyster! Foot-longs, short links, cocktail? You be the judge!!

This recipe will net you a lot of hot dogs! Wrap or freeze properly! If you have a vacuum sealer, well....

Just think, you got some dawgs to make any New Yorker proud!!

Hot dogs are all fine and dandy, but let's get into some pickles!

I have found over time that you can pickle just about anything. There are quite a few recipes that are borderline shady on the internet, but the Ball Blue Book on canning is my new favorite authority on the subject! These are tried and true concoctions for ANY home canner! You will be surprised at what you will find hidden inside this book.

Let's just say I have about 48 heads of peeled garlic. I know it sounds funny, but seriously.......

Have your garlic peeled and waiting! Rev up the canner and process your jars. In this case it is 1.5 gallons. Pickled garlic is extremely delectable and crazy precious! If you take anything away from this blog, this is it!! Besides 48 heads of peeled garlic , you will need.....

2.5 Cups, white Vinegar

1 Cup, White Wine

1 Tablespoon, Kosher Salt

1 Tablespoon, Sugar

1 Tablespoon, Oregano

Bring this to a boil in a large stock pot. Once it is boiling, add the garlic!

Fill the sterilized jars to .25" from the top! Process in a hot water canner for ten minutes.

These are the best garlic pickles ever!

Enough typing for today! There is so much more material it isn't even funny! Tomorrow we will cover pickled peppers and pineapple!! I need to eat food again! Prep is good fun, but making a meal is a whole different story!

~Cheers!

The Happy Kitchen!

These days I seem to have a lot to be happy for! Our season has come to an end at The Tyler Place and I have been catching up on all the little things that were left by the wayside. Upon my departure from work we were able to clean out the coolers and spice racks! I came home with an amazing amount of vegetables and dry goods. There is only one catch though! My daily home kitchen workload skyrocketed! There is a food game my friend Misha played when faced with a similar challenge. If she can find a way to preserve or cook the food in a proper amount of time, she wins! If the food spoils, well..... You know! Yesterdays project was set to include making strawberry jam, pickled onion (my favorite!), avocado ice cream and tomato soup. The first item seems to be everyones favorite.... Tomato soup!

When I left work there were so many tomatoes left over! Some didn't have long to live so I rescued them, and gave them a much better fate than a slow cooler death. First, take the stems off all the tomatoes and wash using cold water.

You can be very random with the next step. Some people have to meticulously cut perfect squares. There really is no need. Once the tomatoes are cooked you'll never know! Heat a heavy pot large enough to accommodate the tomatoes, and add a splash of good olive oil.

Turn the heat up to medium/high and add the tomato.

I used twelve cups of chopped tomato for this recipe. We need to build onto this flavor by adding four cups of diced white onion,fourteen cloves and two cups of water.

When you hear the tomato water start to boil gently stir the mixture to incorporate all the flavors.

After about twenty minutes go by the rough tomato soup should be almost complete. Turn the heat off and run the mixture batch by batch through a food mill. If you don't have a mill you can use a colander or just shove the whole thing in a blender. But what fun is that?

At this point the soup is vegan friendly! You can stop there if you wish, or you can intensify the flavor a little more and improve the consistency by adding roux and spices.

Roux is equal parts butter and flour. For a batch this size I used one stick of butter and one-half cup of flour. Melt the butter in the same pot you were cooking the tomato in. When the butter is completely melted add the flour.

Cook the roux over medium heat for only a few minutes. When you're set, add about one quarter of the hot tomato soup. Whisk this pretty fast so it won't clump together.

Add the remaining soup and bring to a slow simmer for five minutes. Remember to whisk vigorously. If the soup is a little clumpy don't worry! To finish the soup add two teaspoons of salt and sugar. Put the soup into your favorite container or throw it into a bowl with some popcorn on top!

The flavors are so fresh and the texture is velvety smooth! This is the perfect fall soup! Store bought canned soup has nothing on this! This is a very simple recipe and it is very precious.

Whew! I won round one! Ian- 1 Food- 0! The next project is a little more tricky, but I feel confident! After all, who doesn't like strawberry jam? There were two whole cases of strawberries in the cooler at work that were way past their prime. You want to pick through the strawberries to ensure there are no rotten or fuzzy berries going into the mix.

For a 2.5 quart batch I used twelve cups of strawberries, six cups of sugar, six tablespoons of lemon juice and 58 grams of pectin. Once you have all of your ingredients scaled out and ready, prepare your preserving jars and lids. I place the jars inside the canner while heating to sterilize them. After I take the lids and put them in a small sauce pot and bring to a simmer.

When the water starts to boil in the canner, add all of the ingredients for the jam in a large pot over medium heat.

While this is heating be sure to stir so the bottom doesn't scorch. Bring the whole mixture up to a hard boil. Be careful, boiling sugar can be very dangerous! I can't tell you how many times I have gotten burned by molten sugar. It's one of those burns that you remember for a long time!

Boil for about five minutes, then turn off the heat. Remove the jars from the canner and dump the water back into the pot. Place the jars on a padded surface and begin filling the jars until there is .25" headspace. Be sure not to overfill.

With a damp towel wipe the rims of the jars and set the lids on top. When tightening the bans, do it ever so gently. Put them in the canner and process for ten minutes. If the water isn't boiling when you put them in, don't worry. Start the timer when it boils. After the time is up carefully remove the jam and place on a towel to rest. That's it!! This is much better than the store bought jam. The best part is, you know exactly what went into it! Nothing shady!

Since there were a few extra sterilized jars laying around it was time to make my all-time favorite! Pickled onions! While the strawberries were processing I grabbed my Japanese mandolin and sliced ten cups of red onion, scaled out four cups of red wine vinegar and sliced three cloves of garlic.

Put the red wine vinegar and garlic in a large pot and bring to a heavy boil! Be careful, this time of year fruit flies will be lining up outside trying to get in! They go crazy for my pickled onions!

After it been boiling for a few minutes add the onions and cook for five minutes.

This recipe is enough for 1.5 quarts of goodness! Fill the jars the same way you did the strawberries and put them in the canner.

This was definitely a happy day in the kitchen. I just looked at the scoreboard and it was a total blowout! Ian- 3 Food- 0 It is very satisfying to preserve your own veggies and jam. This will give you months of good wholesome food. There is so much more I can type right now! I have been at it now for a little while. Tomorrow I will give you the scoop on the avocado ice cream! Tomorrow comes sooner than you know it! The list consists of pickled habaneros, jalapenos, red and yellow peppers and sauerkraut! Stay Tuned!!

Cheers!!