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June 23, 2008

My day as an Iron Chef

Today I got a newfound respect for people who cook completely without recipes. My cook date was supposed to be straightforward: a four-meal service for a long-term client. They get nine servings of each meal. Two of the meals were one dish meals, the other two meals consisted of two recipes each. So a total of six recipes to make. Of the six recipes, three were recipes that I had made many times. One was a recipe I had made twice, and two I'd be making for the first time. Should have been simple. But, I left my precious clipboard case that holds my shopping list, recipes, invoice, and labels in the cart when I loaded my groceries into my car. I discovered this after I got to the client's home and had unloaded all of my gear plus the groceries. There was a little bit of chaos at my client's this morning because she forgot I was coming and she was madly cleaning the kitchen when I arrived. When we determined that I didn't have my recipes, my client offered to go to the store to get them as soon as she could because she needed to run some errands after getting her two kids fed and dressed. OK, that should work. I can get started on some stuff in the meantime.

I'm cooking five days this week and all the menus were jumbled in my head. The first thing I did was to look over the pile of groceries and review what I was making. The menu for the day was Cowboy Casserole, Black Bean Burgers and Spicy Barbecued Edamame (these are the two recipes that I've never made), Paella Valencia (I've made this one twice, but that was over a month ago), Balsamic Rosemary Pork and Mashed Potatoes with Spinach. The good news is that I have all of the ingredients in front of me so I can piece together what I need to do. I've never been one to follow recipes to a T, but when faced with no recipes in front of me and a lot of different ingredients, I realized how much I rely on my recipes to know which ingredients to use. If you're cooking one or two recipes, it's no big deal, but when you are cooking more than that, not knowing what is supposed to be used for each recipe makes it a challenge.

I started with the Cowboy Casserole. This is a ground beef casserole that has onions, green bell peppers, and baked beans. The ground beef mixture is cooked on the stovetop, then poured into casserole pans, topped with cornbread batter and baked. I knew that it has ketchup, dry mustard, and Worcestershire sauce in the ground beef mixture and either molasses and brown sugar (I had both with me, but couldn't remember which one the recipe called for). I got the ground beef mixture cooked up, and decided to use the molasses. Although the amounts of the ingredients didn't match the recipe, it tasted right, so I mixed up some cornbread batter and popped it in the oven. One down. It turns out that the recipe calls for brown sugar. I think I like it better with molasses. I'll change that recipe.

While the Cowboy Casserole ground beef mixture was cooking, I peeled the potatoes and started cooking them. Wilted the spinach, chopped it, and set it aside. These potatoes are mashed with sour cream, seasoned with salt and pepper, then the chopped spinach and some grated cheese is stirred in. I haven't made these in a while, but I make mashed potatoes all the time. So this was no big deal. The mashed potatoes came out great. I usually chop the spinach before wilting it. This time I wilted the spinach, then chopped it. It was easier. Made a note to change that recipe.

The pork is marinated in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, chopped fresh rosemary, salt, and pepper. Hmm, does the marinade have garlic? Well, everything is better with garlic and this client loves garlic, so I minced a few cloves and added them to the marinade. Turns out that the marinade does not include garlic. Until now, because I'm also going to change that recipe.

OK, so now it is time to wander into the less known territory. My client isn't back from her errands with my clipboard case. What to do? I honestly have no idea how to make the black bean burgers and the edamame, so I decide to tackle the paella. I know that it has onions and garlic that need chopping. And that the shrimp is cooked first, then set aside. The chicken thighs are chopped and browned with chopped chorizo. I can get that started while waiting for my client to come home. Just as I finish all of that, my client arrives home with the clipboard. Yahoo, perfect timing. The paella is simmering on the stovetop in no time.

Now that I have the recipe, the black bean burgers go together very quickly and get popped in the oven to bake. On to the barbecue sauce for the edamame. Oh, this is where the molasses belong. First you make the barbecue sauce, then simmer the edamame in the sauce. Wow, both of these recipes were easy, as long as you have the recipe in front of you.

Today I learned a lot about how I cook and how I really use recipes. I don't use the recipe directions a lot, but I do use the ingredient lists. I don't follow the ingredient list exactly, but I also don't memorize them. Some things I just know how to make, but when faced with a giant pile of groceries, it isn't always easy to figure out how to combine them into the dish you want to make.

Rather than being stressful, this day was fun. If my client hadn't been home and hadn't offered to pick up my clipboard, I could have just driven home and printed the recipes. It is about 2 miles from the client's home to my home and about 4 miles from my client's home to the grocery store.

Tomorrow my client is about 20 minutes from the grocery store, so I'm considering using the secret agent trick of handcuffing my clipboard case to my wrist.

Posted June 23, 2008 5:35 PM in Cook Dates | Comments (6)

June 12, 2008

As eaten by Oprah: Mar-a-Lago Burger

I have no idea what Oprah eats, but one of my clients saw this Mar-a-Lago Turkey Burger recipe featured on an Oprah show and asked me if I could put it on the menu for her next cook date. Well that cook date was today.

I've always been a fan of traditional burgers, but have developed a recent fascination with other types of burgers. The Mar-a-Lago burger is made with ground turkey and is seasoned with diced Granny Smith apple, mango chutney, diced celery, scallions, chipotle tabasco sauce, lemon zest and juice, and chopped parsley. The recipe on the Oprah site calls for ground turkey breast, but I used ground turkey. I was making this for the first time for a client and I needed to ensure that the burger would be nice and juicy. Maybe I'll try it at home with ground turkey breast. The burgers were very juicy made with ground turkey. I'm not so sure about making it with ground turkey breast.

The diced apple has a lot of moisture and the recipe instructs you to refrigerate the burgers for two hours before cooking. It also uses 4 pounds of ground turkey to make eight 8-ounce burgers. At my store, ground turkey comes in 1 1/4 pound packages, so I used three packages for a total of 3 3/4 pounds of ground turkey. Using 3 3/4 pounds of ground turkey, I made 10 enormous burgers. I mixed and formed the burgers shortly after I arrived at my client's home and set them in the refrigerator to chill. They probably chilled for three hours.

I cooked them on the stovetop rather than grilling them on a charcoal or gas grill.

The Oprah site has a recipe for Mar-a-Lago Pear Chutney to serve with them, but I opted to skip that and just use some of the Major Grey's chutney that is mixed in with the burger. Hmm, mango chutney has been making a lot of appearances in my cooking.

This is a tasty burger. The green apple adds moisture and little bit of tartness, the mango chutney adds a little heat and a little sweetness. As Tom would say "it's a keeper."

After I made these, I started wondering about using cilantro instead of parsley. Next time!

Continue reading "As eaten by Oprah: Mar-a-Lago Burger" »

Posted June 12, 2008 9:27 PM in Cook Dates, Recipes, Test Kitchen | Comments (0)

June 10, 2008

Broiled Salmon Fillets with Curried Chutney Sauce

I selected this recipe for Salmon with Curried Chutney Sauce so I could use up the mango chutney that was leftover from last week's Black Rice Curried Meatloaf.

Wow, this dish was so quick and easy to make and it was delicious. Tom raved about it and it will be a big hit with some of my clients.

I didn't get a picture of the salmon because it was almost 9pm by the time we had dinner (but my kitchen sink no longer drips, thanks Tom!) and we were both starving. I didn't remember about taking a picture until after we started eating. So here's the picture from Cooking Light.

picture from CookingLight.com

I made some very minor changes to the original recipe. Instead of sprinkling the salmon with just salt and pepper, I used salt, pepper, and a teaspoon of curry powder. I used Penzey's Sweet Curry Powder. I sprinkled the curry powder on the fish, then lightly rubbed it into the flesh. It gave the cooked salmon a little more flavor and a lovely yellow color from the turmeric in the curry powder. I also baked the salmon rather than broiling it. I wanted to serve this with garlicky roasted green beans and I wanted the oven on for as briefly as possible, so I roasted the green beans and salmon at the same time.

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Posted June 10, 2008 11:15 AM in Gluten-Free, Recipes, Test Kitchen | Comments (2)

June 8, 2008

Making music with vegetables

I thought vegetables were for eating, but today I discovered that they are also for making music. Check out the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra. They make instruments from vegetables and play concerts. I love that some of the leftover vegetables that are used to make the instruments are used to make vegetable soup that is served to the audience after the concert.

Posted June 8, 2008 7:25 PM in Miscellaneous | Comments (1)

June 5, 2008

Test Kitchen: Black Rice Curried Meatloaf

I've been on a meatloaf kick. We love a traditional meatloaf, but lately I've been attracted to nontraditional meatloaves. My latest meatloaf is a Black Rice Curried Meatloaf from the March/April 2008 issue of EatingWell magazine. One reason this recipe caught my eye is that I had some black rice in the pantry that I wanted to use. Also, one of my clients enjoys curry dishes and I thought this would be a good recipe for them.

Meatloaf isn't very photogenic, but here it is. You can see the specs of black rice in the meatloaf.

The original recipe calls for cooking the rice using the absorption method where you bring the rice and water to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until the water is absorbed and rice is tender. I rarely use the absorption method to cook rice. I mostly cook brown or whole grain rices and use either the pasta method or oven method. In this case, I cooked the black rice using the pasta method. The original recipe calls for chopping the cooled rice into small bits, but I didn't do this because cooked rice is pretty small to start with, and I envisioned bits of rice dancing all over my kitchen as I tried to chop them.

The meatloaf is packed with veggies, which flavor the meatloaf and help keep it moist. It has a shredded zucchini, onion, and celery. First you saute some ginger and garlic, then add the zucchini, onion, and celery to the pan and saute them until they are soft. That takes about 5 minutes. You add curry powder and Worcestershire sauce, then let that mixture cool. I used Penzey's Sweet Curry Powder. Next time, I'll try it with Hot Curry Powder. Or maybe a combination of Sweet and Hot Curry Powders.

Next the rice and veggies are combined, then mixed with ground beef and an egg until just combined. Form a free-form meatloaf, I do this on a broiler pan that is sprayed with olive oil spray. Spread mango chutney on the meatloaf. And bake the meatloaf at 350°F until the internal temperature is 165°F. I use a probe thermometer to monitor the internal temperature.

So how did it taste? I immediately declared it a winner, but Tom was more skeptical. He enjoyed it, but commented that he didn't want it to replace his favorite traditional meatloaf. I assured him that it was not my plan for this to be "THE" meatloaf, just a variation of meatloaf. Tom took leftover meatloaf for lunch the next day and that evening he told me that it really was a keeper.

As promised by the recipe, the black rice curried meatloaf was moist and flavorful. The mango chutney glaze adds a bit sweetness that goes perfectly with the curry-flavored meatloaf. I'll definitely make it again.

Oh and that client that I wanted to make it for, I put it on their menu, but they opted for a traditional meatloaf. I made Fine Cooking's Bacon-Wrapped Meatloaf for them. It was good, but a bit too rich for me.

Continue reading "Test Kitchen: Black Rice Curried Meatloaf" »

Posted June 5, 2008 9:31 PM in Test Kitchen | Comments (1)

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