Friday, January 28, 2011

Mac-n-cheese

I haven't actually been cooking a whole lot lately.  We've been eating out a lot, which...  we probably shouldn't be doing.  It's convenient, especially when I'm too tired to cook.  But last night I did cook, and spent the majority of the night in the kitchen working on this mac-n-cheese.

Not the best picture in the world, but that's a crispy tomato on top...

 This recipe comes from a great book my mom picked up for me a couple years ago: Garlic, Garlic, Garlic: More than 200 Exceptional Recipes for the World's Most Indispensable Ingredient (wow that's a long title).  I had to add some bacon to it because the wife requested some kind of meat...  go figure...  I married a vegan and now she has me adding bacon to things.  I also didn't have enough cheddar so I just started adding whatever cheese I had until I got to 1.5 lbs.  So it's got cheddar, gouda, muenster, and fontina, as well as a sprinkling of parmigiano reggiano and some spanish hard cheese I can't remember the name of.  Lots of cheese.

1 lb elbow macaroni
1/2 lb bacon, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup parmigiano reggiano (or any hard, salty cheese)
3 Tablespoons flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
4 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, chopped
3 hefty cloves of garlic, minced
1 habanero, minced
3 Tablespoons flour
3 cups whole milk, warmed
1.5 lbs (24oz) of cheese...  cheddar works well, but feel free to experiment...  cubed to allow for easy melting
1 Tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped
2 Tablespoons chives, chopped
2 decent sized tomatoes, cut into thick slices
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375.

Boil your macaroni for 2 minutes less than the package indicates and set aside.  Meanwhile, fry your bacon pieces in a large skillet until you've rendered a good  amount of bacon fat and your bacon pieces are dark and crispy.  Remove the bacon from the skillet.  Add a little extra cooking oil (butter, canola, peanut, olive...  whatever) and drop in your onion, garlic, and habanero.  Cook them until their translucent but not brown...  5-ish minutes.  Set aside.

In a large pot melt 4 tablespoons of butter.  To it, whisk in your flour.  Slowly whisk in your milk.  Bring to a light simmer but not boil.  Don't burn the milk!  Drop in your cheese and slowly melt until it's thick and creamy.  Drop in your bacon, onions, garlic, and habanero.  Add your thyme, chives, and 1 Tablespoon of parsley.  Add salt and pepper to taste, then add your macaroni.  Pour everything into a greased casserole and top with sliced tomato.   

In a bowl mix together your parmigiano reggiano, panko, and the rest of your parsley.  Sprinkle it over the casserole and pop that sucker in the oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the panko is browned.  I ended up blowtorching the tomatoes a little bit to get them nice and dark, but that's optional.  Serve it hot.

Ok, I know...  this is like a Paula Dean recipe on crack.  Bacon, cheese, butter, white carbs...  There's no denying that if you ate this every day you would die.  But man... is it good.

-CJ

Friday, January 21, 2011

Smoothies

Smoothies have been kind of a passion of mine for a couple of months.  During the summer months I pretty much made them every day and the wife and I would drink them for breakfast.  A fruit smoothie and a cup of coffee is a great way to kick start the day, and with a little preparation they're really pretty easy to make.  But through trial and error I've come to learn there are a couple of rules to making an amazing smoothie.  And as long as you stick to these rules you can't screw up:

Rule #1.  Banana.  Banana goes in every smoothie.  Without it, your smoothie will taste flat, boring, and uninteresting.  I can't explain why, but I've never made a good fruit smoothie without a banana. 

Rule #2.  Honey.  Get local honey if you can.  Honey is fantastic for allergies as long as its local.  The bees go around and collect all the local pollen and concentrate it into their honey.  So when you ingest it your body creates antibodies for the allergens in the air.  But if you're eating honey made in St. Louis it's not going to do you a whole lot of good unless you live in St. Louis.  I've tried a lot of different sweeteners in my smoothies from agave to powdered sugar, and nothing lends itself to fruit better than honey.  It adds richness and depth. 

Rule #3.  Yogurt.  Yogurt is what brings it all together.  You don't really need a whole lot.  Just a few tablespoons worth.  It mellows out the tartness of the other ingredients and brings all the flavors together.  Now, I tend to stay away from anything but plain yogurt.  I've used vanilla in a pinch, but the vanilla muddles things up.  But as far as low fat vs. nonfat, I can't really tell a difference.  I do like to use Greek style when I can, but it tends to get expensive.  Most of the time I just use plain Dannon yogurt. 

Rule #4.  Salt.  Just trust me on this rule...  and it's an important rule.  When I started adding salt to my smoothies they went from good to wow.  Salt brightens everything up and really allows you to taste all the flavors.

With those four basic rules, you can pretty much put any kind of fruit into a blender and it'll turn out amazing.  I promise.  So without further ado, this is the smoothie I made tonight:

1/4 pineapple, roughly chopped
1 blood orange
1/2 cup strawberries
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 cup frozen blackberries
1 banana
a splash of orange juice
2 tablespoons yogurt
2 tablespoons honey
1-2 teaspoons sea salt

Throw in a blender.  Puree on the highest setting for a few minutes.  

Holy crap.  Look at this smoothie:


Just look at the color.  It's almost a wine color.  I promise.  Try this once and you'll never spend another dime on a Naked Juice or Odwala every again. 

-CJ

Monday, January 17, 2011

Duck

My friend Billie approached me about a week ago with a proposition.  She had acquired a plethora of duck breasts and offered to share them with me.  Being duck season here in Tennessee, and having never prepared duck before, I jumped at the chance.  So last Sunday before the SnOMG 2011 hit Memphis, I headed over to her house.  I was thinking I would be getting 4-6 breasts, but she loaded me up a whopping 12!  Already dressed and cleaned and frozen!!  For free!!!  Holy crap!  So I spent a week thinking about what I should do with them.  I was worried that because they were wild duck breasts that they would be gamey and unpleasant.  I had planned on brining them to get rid of the game flavor, but when they thawed I was pleasantly surprised to find that they had absolutely no smell what-so-ever.  They were extremely fresh!  Another score!  So what I ended up doing was I let them come to room temperature and then soaked them in a bath of balsamic vinegar.  Then I heated up a large skillet with equal parts butter and olive oil and seared them for about 4-5 minutes on each side, making them just shy of medium rare, still a little red on the inside.  There was no gamey taste to speak of.  I served them with Ina Garten's Saffron Risotto with Butternut Squash, minus the saffron (I'm broke, bitch...  I can't afford no saffron...) plus some sauteed Porcini mushrooms.  The risotto alone would have been an amazing meal, but as a side to a rare duck breast...  incredible.  See:


I did, however end up crunching into some buckshot in my breast, but that's the price you pay for fresh, wild duck I guess.

So tonight I had a ton of duck breast left over.  I've been craving salad for a little while, and my grocery store happened to have some really good looking Asian pears...  so here's what I ended up doing:

Duck Salad with Orange Balsamic Dressing

~8oz. Baby Sprig Mix (something including arugala, baby spinach, and other yummy things)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 Asian pears, cut into thin slices
11oz plain, good quality goat cheese, crumbled
zest of 1 large, naval orange

Combine everything in a large mixing bowl and mix with clean hands.  To make the dressing, juice your orange through your hand so as to avoid any seeds, pulp, etc.  Mix together equal parts orange juice, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil, whisking while doing so.  Cut pan seared duck breast (see above) into very thin slices and arrange atop the salad.  Drizzle with dressing.


It didn't occur to me until later that I should have waited until after I'd assembled the whole salad to add the orange zest.  That would have made it much more visually stunning, but oh well...  The end result was the same.  Totally freaking the best effing salad ever made.  No kidding.  Serve with a Blue Moon (too bad I didn't have any) or a glass of fruity red wine (I like Syrah, but some say that's too bold for duck...  to them I say :P).

The End

-CJ