Well, Butter My Ears!

As I am sure you guessed, I did not reveal the full menu of my BBQ to you on the last post. Thought I would stretch it out a little. I didn't want overwhelm you with too much goodness in one post. OK, yeah I was being lazy! Busted!

Have you tried grilling corn on the cob? If you haven't you DEFINATELY should! Grilling really brings out the sweetness in the corn and a little char on it? ...yum! If you already grill your corn hold on. I have a recipe (if you use the term really loosely) for you that will Knock your socks off! Chilli Lime Butter! It takes about 30 seconds to make and takes corn on the cob to a new level. Of course you can put it on corn that you cook by any method but really, try grilling it.

I have seen this several times in different places. I always thought it sounded good but had just not got around to making. I didn't think my daughter would like it but her reaction was something like this "mmph butter ..mmmphf Good Mmph! Translation:Oh man! That butter is really good Mom! (said with her mouth full of corn)

Grilled Corn with Chilli Lime Butter

Corn still in husks ( 1 , no better make 2 for each person)
1/2 stick Butter room temperature (Enough for 8-10 pieces of corn)
Tsp Chilli powder
1 lime
1 tsp lime zest

Soak corn in water for 30 mins.

In a small bowl mix chilli powder with butter. Zest lime with fine grater (microplane works best) Cut lime in half and squeeze juice of one half of lime into butter. Mix well. Set aside. (can be made ahead and refrigerated but bring to room temperature before serving)

Place corn on hot grill for 15-20 mins turning 3-4 times. Husks will be blackened but corn (at most) will only have spots of browning and THAT is a VERY good thing!

Remove Corn from Grill and allow to cool for about 5 mins. Shuck corn and brush with butter. Serve immediately.

It's Lurking Everywhere

I have come across a new cooking challenge. My friend Evie, has recently been diagnosed with Celiac disease. For those of you not familar, people with Celiac cannot eat gluten. Gluten is found in... OHH, just about EVERYTHING! I am exaggerating of course but when you add on allergies to Eggs, Dairy and Soy to that (which many of those to include my friend, with Celiac are also allergic to) it really becomes quite exasperating.

I found this diagnosis appalling. I considered how devastated I would be if I received such a diagnosis. What it would mean to me, as a person whose very being revolves around food and cooking. Though this reaction definitely conveyed my deep felt empathy to my friend it was not one that was constructive or supportive and I was ashamed of myself. So, I set out to educate myself and to learn to feed my friend.

The information that I have taken in over the past couple of weeks has been immense and overwhelming. I have many times gotten excited about a recipe only to be shot down by a realization that a single over looked ingredient had an offending agent in it. Oh and don't forget "cross contamination"

This weekend we were celebrating her "White Coat" Ceremony from PA school. This is the point of PA school where you have finished the class room education, begin your real world education and actually begin treating Patients (under supervision). A pretty big deal and I was EXTREMELY happy for her. Of course celebration to me ... means food!

I spent the week planning a menu that was about 90% gluten, egg, soy, dairy free. I wish I could say it ALL was a great success.

The good news, People with Celiac can eat all Meat, fruit. veggies and rice. So that was not a problem.
I marinated both Chicken breasts and Skirt steak (separately of course) in a marinade that I have posted here in the past. It's a tasty marinade and though I didn't manage to get a picture of it. I will post the recipe for you again.

Margarita Chicken Marinade
("Perfect Party Food" cookbook)

1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup OJ
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup gold tequila
1/2tsp ground cumin
1canned chipotle chile in adobo sauce
1/4 cup fresh cilantro

Place all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Place chicken and marinade in ziplock bag and let marinate in Fridge for at least 4 hr. or overnight. Makes enough marinade for about 12 chicken breasts. Broil or grill chicken until juices run clear Garnish with fresh cilantro and slices of lemon, lime and orange.

My peach-mango Hemp milk "Ice cream" on the other hand ...ummm NOT such a success. It would not get thick even after spending a couple hours in the freezer. At best, it was sort of Peach smothie. Today when I took it out of the freezer it had finally froze ... SOLID! LIKE A BRICK! The flavor on the other hand wasn't all bad. My friend said it tasted sort of like peach cobbler. This one is going to take a little more experimentation.

As far as the remaining 10 percent of the menu ... well that went a little better. I have decided that pretty much ANYTHING wrapped in bacon will be loved. Honestly, I think that I could wrap cardboard in bacon and everyone (especially men) would gobble it down and beg me for the recipe. Evie's fiance John and my friend Ross were terribly disappointed when I told them we would NOT be having Sweet Chili Chicken Bites. but that disappointment was short lived when I served This....


I saw a version of this originally on Food Network. I think Bobby Flay did it but I could not find that recipe so I searched Recipezarr and found this one. I made some very minor adjustments in the preparation but not the ingredients. Prepping the peppers (try saying that 5 times fast) is a little tricky and time consuming but TOTALLY worth it. I would advise using gloves and for heavens sake DON'T touch your eyes or nose while prepping them.

Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Jalapenos
16 ounces cream cheese, room temp.
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup finely chopped sun-dried tomato
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt (to taste)
1 LB bacon
20 large jalapeno peppers (as large as possible)
About 40 toothpicks, soaked for about 15 minutes in water

Mix cream cheese, garlic, tomatoes, cilantro and salt together and place in a large ziplock bag with one corner snipped off (or in a pastry bag).
Make a T shaped incision in pepper severing the core at the top but not cutting off the stem. DO NOT cut pepper all the way through. With a small sharp knife (I actually used a grapefruit spoon which worked pretty well) scrape out seeds and membranes. The cleaner you make the inside of the peppers the more mild it will be. If you like a little heat then leave a bit of the membrane and seeds. If you like them FIREY the you could just loosen the membrane to allow room for the. filling (Removing/leaving some of the membranes and seeds gave them a nice little kick).

Pipe cream cheese mixture into each pepper. As tempting as it is DO NOT over fill You want the pepper to close up nicely without the cheese oozing out.

Starting at the top of the pepper wrap the bacon around it securing with a couple of tooth picks. Cover as much of the pepper as possible and sort of stretch the bacon to make it snug (room temperature bacon is easier to work with).

Place peppers on a hot grill for 10-15 min turning frequently until bacon begins to crisp and pepper is a bit charred.

Remove from grill and let cool for 5-10 min. These can also be served room temperature and the original recipe says they are good cold (no way that they would last that long with my friends)

Note: less expensive bacon works better than premium or center cut. Think thin and pliable.
These also could be placed in the oven at 450 degrees for about 10 min but I think the smokiness of the grill definitely adds to the flavor.

Flavor of the Week

I have a new favorite food! Next week I will probably have another new "favorite food" and likely another one soon after that. I just love to try new stuff! When I try something I like there is probably a pretty good chance I will eat it again very soon and I wouldn't be surprised if few days later (sometimes even the next day) I eat it a third time.

Some of the reasons that this is my new favorite food are:
1. It is healthy and pretty low in calories which means I can eat a LOT of it. (this always makes me happy).
2. It has bold spicy flavors.
3. It is really yummy! (the most important thing)

So this new obsession started about a week ago when I went to my favorite Thai Restaurant and ordered the Thai Beef Salad. One bite and I was in LOVE! (perhaps it was only lust, but regardless...) I asked the owner what was in the dressing and more importantly did it have much oil? She told me it had NO oil! OK, that just made it 10 times better!

Two days later I was craving Thai Beef salad again. I arranged my entire afternoon around picking up one on my way to work that night. But when I called the restaurant to place the order (perfectly timed to swing by on my way to work) they told me that there was an hour and 30 min wait for orders! WHAAAAT? You are kidding me? On a Thursday night? This did not make me happy! I tried again Fri night and was told that it would be 45 min. Still not fitting into my schedule.

It seems my favorite Thai Restaurant is suddenly lots of peoples favorite Thai restaurant. They have always been busy but never THIS busy! So, out of necessity and my cravings, I began a search for a recipe.

So the main elements of all the recipes was Lime juice, and spice. What I liked about this particular recipe was that you actually marinated the meat in some of the dressing. Many of the recipes didn't marinate the beef at all or had a different marinade for the beef. Does it taste like the restaurant? Well, not exactly and I am not quite sure what is different (I will have to eat it there again to figure it out) but it is still really good. One thing I do like better about making it at home is that (at the restaurant) it is made with just iceberg lettuce which is NOT my choice of lettuce. So making it at home give you the opportunity to use more flavorful (and more nutritious) greens.
If you have never had Thai food be warned, it is H-O-T! I used 2TBS of Sriracha (hot chili sauce) I have changed that in the recipe to 1TBS because my mouth and Lips were ON FIRE! Now, I am not a wimp when it comes to spicy stuff. I like things hotter than the average person so I would recommend judicious use of the Sriracha if you are not big on spice. (but you need some spice otherwise it will not be the same dish) You could also substitute chili paste or red pepper flakes if you can't locate Sriracha. This is great served with white rice (preferably the sticky kind like you get at Asian restaurants). The rice is also good for cooling down your mouth down!

Thai Beef Salad
1/2 cup fresh lime juice
1/4 cup choppedfresh cilantro
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
2 tablespoons Rice Vinegar
1 tablespoon Sriracha or chili paste
2 garlic cloves, minced

16 oz flank steak, trimmed

1 1/2 cups sliced red onions
4 plum tomatoes, each cut into 6 wedges
6 cups lettuce/greens
1 large cucumber peeled and cut into large chunks


Wisk together first 7 ingredients together to make dressing. Place steaks and 1/4 of dressing in a zipper type bag and let stand for 1 hr. Broil or grill steaks until med-rare. Let steaks rest for 5 mins and slice as thinly as possible. Arrange Greens, cucumbers, onions and tomatoes then top with beef slices. Pour remaining dressing over top. Toss before serving.

Serves 2 (with some left over steak unless you really pile it on)

Green is my Favorite color

I thought my basil obsession from last year had passed. Little did I know that planting 3 little plants could spark it again and low and behold all I can think about is BASIL. Unfortunately I am probably at least a month away from harvesting any. Let alone enough to make pesto, which is what I am craving. I have a little jar of store bought in my fridge but I wanted some pasta with pesto. But to buy enough basil to make pesto would cost a small fortune.
So, I decided to make spinach/basil pesto instead. Frozen spinach is much more economical especially since I wanted to make a big batch. Of course I researched the internet for traditional pesto and spinach pesto recipes. The ingredients for pesto are pretty standard so I decided to kind of wing it and here is what I came up with.

Creamy Spinach/Basil Pesto

16 oz package of Frozen spinach defrosted and sqeezed dry
1/4 cup losely packed fresh Basil leaves
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
4 TBS pine nuts
1 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 lemons (juice and zest)
4 cloves of garlic
2TBS olive oil
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup chicken stock

Place basil in food processor and process till finely chopped. Add pine nuts and garlic and continue processing and add spinach , pepper, salt, lemon, juice and zest one at a time Stream in olive oil cream and chicken stock.

I continued to thin down the pesto with milk until I got it to a little creamier consistancy. Placed about a quarter cup over a bed of fetticuinni and toped with some left over chicken breast that cubed.
The garlic was quite strong so if you are not into strong garlic flavor or have a hot date you may want to cut back a bit on the garlic.

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.

I have a confession to make. I don't make my own spaghetti sauce. That's right, I buy Jar sauce (Prego is my favorite) and then I add onions and peppers and spices to Doctor it up. Personally I think it is pretty good. My kids never complain in fact my son would just as soon I did not add the onions and peppers to it.
I have TRIED to make it several times before and the results were certainly acceptable. But the truth is, I just did not feel it was SO much better than the Jar sauce to make it worth my time.

So today while I was making my usual rounds on the food blogs I keep up with, One site had spaghetti sauce. It gave the recipe and a link to another blog site with a Sauce recipe. Certain things about each of them sounded yummy. I started thinking. "HMMM, maybe I should give it one more try.
NO, each time I start out with high expectations and am always disappointed!"
But I kept looking at more recipes and persuaded myself to take the leap of faith one more time.
Now most sauces have the same basic ingredients but everyone seems to have there own little twist. I probably looked at about a half dozen recipes and took the things from each that I thought sounded good. From my research it seems that one thing that I have not done in the past is cook it long enough. I am very impatient! Today however I am going to try my best!

1 1/2 hrs into sauce making. NOW I remember another reason that I don't make my own sauce. Have I mentioned that I am a messy cook????? What is it about tomato sauce that makes it cover the WHOLE stove top and half the kitchen? But the sauce looks good. It's thick and has lots of texture however. I burned my tongue when I tried to take a taste of it so honestly ...I can't say how good it is at this point.


2 hrs into sauce making. Ok ..hmmm it should cook at least one more hour ...but I COULD cook up a little spaghetti and "test" it while it continues to cook! Yea...cause then I can see if it needs more spices and salt ...YEA ... I NEED to ...no I HAVE to test it!!!

2 1/4 hrs into sauce making. So far so good! I usually don't like my spaghetti sauce without meat but this has enough texture to be good without it. I do know however that in the end I will probably puree it because my son has a thing about textures and ummm VEGETABLES. I think it needs a bit more garlic and Italian seasonings. Perhaps a TOUCH more wine too. I am glad I tested it. By the way, the wine is excellent!

3 hrs Sauce is DONE. Now for the verdict. The sauce is Great! I am really proud of it. It is the best sauce I have ever made! It is sweet and thick and hearty!Has none of the thin flavor of my past attempts.
I am going to be honest though, it's likely that I am going to still use Jar sauce most of the time. Though this IS better. I would say that it is not 3 1/2 hours better than Jar sauce. I WILL make it again though, probably for special occasions. I think that sauce is best made in big batches that you can or freeze. Likely this is only enough sauce for maybe 2 meals in my house. Perhaps THAT is the secret I missed!

Sindy's Special Sauce
2TBS Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 cup finely chopped Carrots
1 small to med, sweet yellow onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 rib diced celery(with leaves)
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1/4 cup chopped shitake mushrooms (more to taste ..again, picky son)
1/2 cup Red wine (I used a shriaz/merlot blend)
2 Bay leaves

1Tbs dried oregano
28 oz can Diced tomatoes (with juice)
28 oz can pureed Tomatoes
2 Tbs Tomato paste
1TBS Truffle oil (optional)

Heat oil in large heavy skillet. Add carrots, onions and celery. Cook med/high for about 10 mins until tender and beginning to brown. Add garlic and green pepper. Remove and place in large heavy bottomed pot.(a dutch oven works well) Add a little more olive oil to skillet if dry and sautee mushrooms until they give off their water and begin to brown. Add wine to skillet and scrape bottom of pan. Add wine and mushrooms to vegetables. Add remaining ingredients except truffle oil. Bring up to a boil stirring constantly. Reduce heat to simmer. Simmer for about 3 hours stirring every 10-15 mins. If sauce becomes too thick( starts sounding and looking like a volcano instead of smaller bubbling) add a small amount of water (up to 1/4 cup). When the sauce is done it will be a deeper brownish red. At the end of cooking stir in Truffle oil. This gives the sauce and great earthy flavor !

NOTE:Tune in later for the disaster that follows!!!!!

DO YOU LIME?

I love creamy, decadent foods. Who doesn't? But I have noticed that in my day to day cooking I really swing the other way. Especially in the summer time. I crave things that are light and fresh tasting. This is why I love fresh herbs! My other love is citrus, lemon and lime especially. My absolute favorite dessert is Key Lime Pie. Depending on the recipe this can be creamy and decadent too, but the lime just gives that fresh, light burst of flavor that to me, is heaven! I was browsing through some recipes and came across a simple recipe for a marinade. It was specifically for pork chops but after tasting it I think it would be wonderful on chicken also. Of course, I can't ever make a recipe EXACTLY how I find it so had to tweak it up a bit by adding the lime zest and rice wine vinegar (actually it called for more lime juice than I had which was the real reason for the vinegar). The zest in citrus is where all that intense flavor lives and it's my personal opinion (for what THAT is worth) that it is simply a waste to not use it. I was in a hurry and did not marinate the pork chops as long as it called for and I broiled them. Let me just say they were delish! I think left to marinate all day or overnight and tossed on the grill would make them even better. BOTH of my children complimented them ..that is a miracle in itself!!!!!!

HONEY -LIME MARINADE
zest of one lime
1/4 cup fresh sqeezed lime juice
2Tbs honey
1/2 cup soy sauce (reduced sodium)
2 cloves of garlic,minced
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar (milder than regular)


Place ingredients in a large ziplock bag add pork or chicken, give a shake and let marinate for at least 4 hours. Remove meat from marinade. Discard marinade ( if you want to baste meat reserve a little marinade BEFORE adding meat). Grill or broil meat until done.
I served this with a lemon-grass and ginger rice (yes, I cheated! It was from a box) and a salad of fresh spring greens. Perfect summer dinner!