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March 31, 2008

It's a jungle in here

It's been a long time since I posted about my AeroGarden. I'm using the Master Gardener kit to grow Italian basil, Thai basil, cilantro, and parsley. The Master Gardener kit has everything that you need to create your seed pods using your own seeds. I planted these on January 12.

Posted March 31, 2008 10:48 PM in Kitchen Garden/Farmstand | Comments (0)

March 25, 2008

Baking for Jayne: Gluten-Free and Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies

Jayne has Celiac disease, is allergic to soy and eggs and is sensitive to dairy. All of the food that I prepare for her and her family is gluten-free, soy-free, egg-free, and uses limited dairy. Lately, I've been making a dessert or other treat for Jayne. Today, thanks to Karina of Karina's Kitchen, I made gluten-free and vegan chocolate chip cookies for Jayne. I've tried a few gluten-free chocolate chip cookie recipes and Karina's recipe beats all of them.

The first test was the cookie dough. Of course, I had to try the unbaked dough. One good thing about vegan cookie dough is that you don't have to concern yourself with the food safety issue of raw eggs in the dough. Yum, this dough is delicious. It wasn't grainy/gritty like many gluten-free recipes.

The dough is chilled for one hour before you make the cookies. You roll the dough into balls, then flatten them slightly before baking. I used a heaping tablespoon of dough to form the cookies.

After 12-15 minutes, you have beautiful and delicious cookies. The cookies came out of the oven right after my client came home for lunch. We all tried them and everyone loved them. At one point, Jayne's mother asked me to move the cookies away from her so she wouldn't eat them all.

Don't you just love how the third cookie from the left in the second row from the bottom has a face?

Karina's recipe is delicious. If you know someone who is gluten-free and doesn't eat eggs, be sure to make these cookies for them.

Posted March 25, 2008 9:43 PM in Gluten-Free, Recipes, Test Kitchen | Comments (1)

March 23, 2008

Crispy Potato Cakes Revisited

Back in September, I posted this recipe for Crispy Potato Cakes. This is an updated version of that recipe. The original recipe called for grating potatoes, soaking them in water, squeezing them dry, then mixing with cornstarch, green onions, and seasoning. I've done some Cooks Illustrated-style experimenting with the recipe because I wanted to see if could find a faster way to make these without affecting the quality. To me, the changes are an improvement. They take less time to make and I like the new potato cakes even better.

Test 1: Break out the food processor -- My first experiment was to shred the potatoes using the food processor. The comments for the original recipe warned not to use the food processor to grate the potatoes, but rules were meant to be broken, so I pulled out the food processor and shredded my potatoes. Boy, did that make quick work of shredding the potatoes. And no threat of grated knuckles. That's the only change I made for this version. I didn't notice any difference in the results when I used potatoes shredded with the food processor. The second time I made them with potatoes shredded in the food processor, I decided to lower the temperature from 475F to 425F because at 475F, the edges of the potato cakes had a tendency to burn. The potato cakes cooked more evenly at the lower temperature. I increased the cooking time by 5 minutes. No burnt edges!

Test 2: Frozen Hashed Browns -- Since shredding the potatoes in the food processor worked so well, I decided to try using frozen hashed brown potatoes. I used Alexia Foods Organic Hashed Browns. To defrost the potatoes, I simply opened the bags and spread the potatoes out on a baking sheet and let them sit at room temperature for 1/2 hour. The defrosted potatoes didn't have very much moisture in them, so I decided to skip the soaking and squeezing steps. I tossed the defrosted potatoes with the cornstarch, scallions, and spices. This time, I also experimenting with forming the potato cakes freehand. I filled the measuring cup with 1/2 cup of potatoes and tipped the cup over onto the foil-lined baking sheet. I found that I didn't really need the 3-inch ring to form the potato cakes. The potatoes are moist enough to hold together. I pressed them lightly to slightly flatten them. Eliminating the ring saves a little bit of time. These were baked at 425F for 20 minutes, then flipped and baked for 15 minutes longer. They weren't quite crispy enough after 15 minutes, so I baked them for five more minutes. Ultimately, the baking time depends on how crispy you like them. The potato cakes made using the frozen hashed browns were delicious and took significantly less time to make. This method is the winner in my book.

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Posted March 23, 2008 7:05 PM in Gluten-Free, Recipes, Techniques | Comments (3)

March 19, 2008

Hit of the Day: Sweet Orange Salmon

Of the dishes that I made today, my favorite was Sweet Orange Salmon. The salmon is rubbed with a mixture of brown sugar, chili powder, orange zest, cumin, paprika, coriander, and black pepper. I let the salmon "marinate" with the rub for 30 minutes before broiling it. The sweet and spicy rub caramelized beautifully under the broiler. I paired the salmon with roasted sesame zucchini and yellow squash.

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Posted March 19, 2008 9:50 PM in Cook Dates, Recipes | Comments (0)

March 10, 2008

A Day in the Life ...

Have you ever wondered what my work days are like? Here's a diary of a recent cook date.

I start smiling as soon as I opened my car door. In spite of the house being all buttoned up, I can hear Poe, my client's bird, singing up a storm. As soon as he hears the car pull in the driveway, he starts singing. I always talk to him as I bring in my gear and the groceries. He rewards me by singing to me. I can't remember what type of bird Poe is, but this is what he looks like.

Poe

After unpacking the groceries, the first thing I do is to use painter's tape to tape the menu and the recipes to the cupboards so that I can see them at the same time. I use Mastercook to plan my cook dates. It's a huge time saver. I store all of my recipes in Mastercook, then I can add recipes to menus and print shopping lists from menus.

Poe

Next I wash all the veggies. When I wash the veggies, I give Poe a snack of greens. Today he got cilantro.

I'm cooking five entrees without side dishes. This client selects their dishes from my menu. Here's what they selected:

Mustard-Thyme Lamb Chops
Rioja Chicken (a Spanish chicken stew)
Lavender, Thyme, and Rosemary Chicken Breasts
Haddock with Cilantro Butter
Sloppy Joes

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Posted March 10, 2008 12:30 PM in Cook Dates | Comments (13)

March 8, 2008

My New Go-To Shrimp Cocktail

Fine Cooking does it again with a scrumptious recipe for shrimp cocktail. Every time I've made this Garlic-Roasted Shrimp Cocktail, it's been gobbled up and I've had requests for the recipe. While it's tempting to start with precooked shrimp for shrimp cocktail, if you do, you'll save some time, but you'll sacrifice taste and texture.

Traditionally, the shrimp for shrimp cocktail are poached. In this version, the shrimp are roasted. To me, it's easier than poaching and produces tastier shrimp. The shrimp are peeled and tossed with some salt, pepper, olive oil, and minced garlic. They are quickly roasted at 450ºF. That's it. The cocktail sauce is spiked with red onion, minced jalepeno, and horseradish.

This is so easy and so delicous. Try it the next time you serve shrimp cocktail.

garlic roasted shrimp cocktail

Continue reading "My New Go-To Shrimp Cocktail" »

Posted March 8, 2008 10:35 AM in Recipes | Comments (1)

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