Chicken & Potato Florentine Soup

Not much to write about this week.  Last week at the boat was mostly leftovers.  We spent this weekend in Orlando, driving up on Friday, taking in Epcot on Saturday and driving home yesterday. Disney has a Florida Resident special package where you get 3 days/parks essentially for the price of one.  Earlier this year we did Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom in one marathon weekend.  This time we did the more adult Epcot.  LOTS of walking, beautiful flowers, and interesting rides like Soaring and the Epcot globe.  Special thanks to our new friend Christine, who is a real Disney-holic and arranged a great tour of all the best of the Flower and Garden Festival with its fabulous blooms and exquisite topiary of Disney movie characters.

We stayed with Sally's PharmD friend of many years, Melinda, and she gave me an interesting recipe for a soup she'd found that sounded wonderful to all of us. When we got home yesterday I thawed out a couple chicken breasts and dashed off to the megamart for a couple ingredients.

Chicken & Potato Florentine Soup

This came originally from an Olive Garden tm copycat recipe site. Of course, this is my simplified version of things with the essential flavors but not the complex original ingredient list. The copycat recipe, like the OG original, I'm sure, called for a ton of added salt (which I avoided, as you'll see).  Something you don't really need.  Sally declared this one of the best soups I've ever made.  It's only a moderately complicated recipe, as you do want to do things in three stages.

2 Chicken Breasts, boneless, skinless

16 oz low sodium Chicken Broth

2 tsp Italian Seasoning

1 Shallot, sliced

1/8 tsp fresh cracked Black Pepper

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2 cans Diced Tomatoes - Italian spiced or Garlic & Onion spiced, with juice

2 cans low sodium Great Northern Beans, rinsed & drained

6 oz Carrots, shredded or thin rounds (I used two 'snack packs' of mini carrots, cut into small disks)

3 Potatoes, medium  (I used half a dozen small white 'new potatoes')

2 cups water

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8 oz bag fresh Spinach

4 oz shredded Mozarella

4 oz Cream Cheese, onion & chive flavor, softened

Season the chicken with half of the Italian seasoning and pepper, and saute until browned slightly. Add the broth and sliced shallot, and simmer about 15 minutes until the chicken in barely pink inside. Remove meat, cut into pieces and return to the broth.

Add the rest of the Italian seasoning, tomatoes, beans, carrots and potatoes, and simmer 30 minutes or so until potatoes until the potatoes are just done. 

Add the spinach in a couple of handfuls, stirring and cooking until it is completely wilted. Add the cheeses, slowly, and stir-cook until they are combined in the liquid and not sticking to the bottom.  Ladle into bowls and serve with a lightly toasted slice of a black or kalamata olive bread.

Makes about 5 quarts

YYUUUUUMMMMM!

Falafal

While at Epcot, we ate a late lunch at the Tangerine Restaurant in the Moroccan 'village'. Sally and I got sampler sorts of plates, and she had never had Falafal. I'd had it before, but she'd didn't have any idea. When she first bit into that crispy croquet, she though it was 'mystery meat' -- unidentifiable ground lamb/pork/beef. Much to her surprise, I told her that it was essentially a ground chickpea/fava bean fritter. So next week or the week after, expect to see some explorations of falafal after I pick up some mix from the local health food market, or soak out some dried chickpeas and make my own 'fresh'.  I may opt for the mix as we don't have a food processor -- just a blender -- and working from a ground mix will be easier. If we're lucky I'll make something that looks as good as this:

Stay tuned....

Tamarind Gelato

Attention Norman Love Gelato Shops in Fort Myers!!

The other interesting food discovery of our trip came when we stopped at Mel's favorite gelato place for a cool after-Epcot treat. Among many interesting flavors, I discovered Tamarind gelato! Wow!! Tart-sweet and thirst quenching. My new favorite flavor of all time. Knocks my old favorite Baskin Robbins Daquiri Ice tm flavor right off the top of the list! Of course you have to like the unique tart-sweet flavor of tamarind, which Mel didn't, but Sally and I exclaimed over!  

Now if we can just get our favorite local gelato shop  -- Norman Love -- to make this flavor!!

Individual Apple Pies, Bleu Tuna Melt and Brazilian Jaboticaba

It seems like we've skipped Spring and gone straight to Summer here in Southwest Florida, with temps (and humidities) in the mid-to-high 80s. I went down to the Farmer's Market the other day and met my friends from Pine Island Botanicals, who always seem to have something new and different to share. This week they had:

Jaboticaba

This southeastern Brazilian fruit is sometimes called the Brazilian Grape. But Jaboticaba don't grow in bunches, or even at the ends of twigs. They grow directly on the trunks and branches of the mature trees!

These large berries -- about the size of scuppernog grapes -- are purple-black in color with a firm skin and small seeds. Taste-wise they most closely (to me) resemble scuppernogs, too. But when you bit into one, an explosion of really much more complex flavors hits your tastebuds! Although I've yet to try it, I'll bet they make a really special jam, and I understand they are common as a juice drink as well. We enjoyed just eating them out of hand, and you will too, if you can find them.

Individual Apple Pies

This recipe is based on one I discovered years ago in a copy of the 1870 Willamette Farmer, the late 19th century agricultural newspaper of the Willamette Valley in Oregon; at the time the breadbasket wheat supplier to the eastern states. Back in the very late 1990s, I collected a large number of recipes from the first year the newspaper was in print, and published them as The Willamette Farmer Cookbook. If you can find a copy, you'll see some interestingly different recipes. I may re-release the book later this year as an e-book along with my second historical fiction novel set in 1880.

Like my culinary hero, Alton Brown, I'm not fond of uni-taskers.  But for this recipe, you really need an apple corer to do it right. Trying to quarter the apples and then re-assemble them is a LOT of work, and the $6 or $7 you spend on the corer well worth it, as you can later core pears as well. I'm still looking for other uses for the tool...

1 Apple per person -- I like Honeycrisp for this, or any sweet apple, not a Granny Smith or Red Delicious.

Pie Crust - make your own, or buy the frozen rolled up crusts and use about 1/2 crust for each apple

Brown Sugar -- a couple tablespoons per apple

Ground Cinnamon -- call it a 1/4 teaspoon per apple

Preheat the oven to 350.

Core the apples and set them aside. Mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon. Thaw and unroll the pie crust dough (or make and roll out your own).

Place the apples, small hole down, on a flat surface, and spoon the core holes full of cinnamon sugar. Pack it tight. Cut the dough into pieces that can be wrapped around each apple to completely cover it, without stretching to dough very thin. Wrap each apple in dough and set them on a silpat tm or non-stick baking sheet, and bake for 30-45 minutes. Serve. Try plating in a bowl with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or English Custard.

You could also do this with seeded half-apples. Spoon a 1/4" thick bed of cinnamon sugar onto the dough, set the apple cut face down on the sugar and pull the dough over to seal.

Bleu Tuna Melts

Sally had never heard of a Tuna Melt before she met me. It rapidly became perhaps her favorite sandwich. She prefers mustard in her tuna salad.  I preferred ordinary mayonnaise, until a few years ago when the fridge was bare of mayo, but there was a bottle of bleu cheese dressing... Try it, you'll like it.

Heat skillet or griddle to medium.  No oil, as the bread is buttered

1 or more cans Solid White Tuna (Not 'chunk'. Solid gives you more meat and less water per can.)

1/2 stick of celery per can of tuna.

'some' Bleu Cheese Dressing

Cheese - whatever you like. We prefer white cheddar

Bread - whatever you like. We like a nice multi-grain...

Butter

Make the tuna salad -- chop the celery, drain the tuna. Combine tuna and celery with the dressing as the binder. You know the drill. Slice the cheese about 1/8" thick.

Butter both sides of each slice of bread. Gently lay down the cheese and tuna salad, and top with the second slice of bread.

Transfer to the hot pan with a turner, and cook a few minutes until the bottom is GB&D. Gently, carefully flip the sandwich and repeat. Can be served with chips, a nice dill pickle slice, or several other possible sides like soup or beans.

Oven Smoking

I love smoked meats, cheeses, you name it!  But I've never had a smoker, or for that matter one of those oven smoker pans int which you put chips and food. The other day I was at the mega-mart and found these heavy foil smoker bags, complete with chips, on the remainder table. For half price I decided to give them a try. 

 I thawed two chicken breasts, dusted them with a bit of Everglades tm Seasoning, tucked them in the bag and rolled up the end.

As I said, it's gotten hot around here lately, so I didn't want to fire up the oven. I used my electric skillet and set the temperature about 25F lower than the package recommendation for a conventional oven. I also cooked to temperature (using a meat thermometer at the recommended time to check for correct temperature). The result was very flavorful, not overpoweringly smokey, very moist chicken. I'll be using these again!

Pretty Cheesy!

Interesting week, but not particularly foodie.   I got a lot accomplished on the second steamboat historical fiction novel I'm writing, titled The Saw-Grass Steamboat. On Friday Sally and I went up to Land O Lakes, FL, east of Tampa, and spent the night at a nice AirBnB property.   If you get up that way, have dinner at Ukulele Brands, a waterside restaurant-bar there with a real Keys feel.  Great food, great price and huge quantities!

Saturday I competed in the Dulcimer division of the Florida State Old Time Music Championships over in Dade City, and won third place. Got home by about 4 PM and zonked out. Sunday, I was lazy.  Made breakfast omelets.  The only other thing I did was make the following lasagna and the cheese fritters.

Lasagna with no-cook noodles

Based on a Mueller's Pasta tm recipe. I've used the special no-boil noodles before, but this recipe uses ordinary (not extra expensive) noodles.  This was a little different process for me -- not cooking the sauce, but adding cooked meat and mushrooms to it; combining cheeses with beaten eggs. I've always kept sauce and meat separate and never added eggs. This is a really tasty and easy version.

As always I doctored things up. I used Paul Newman's Sockarooni tm and Italian Sausage tm sauces, with crimini mushrooms that I sauteed. We both like a little spinach in our lasagna, so I added a layer of that too.

12 oz (3/4 package) Mueller's Lasagna, uncooked

15 oz Ricotta cheese or 2 cups cottage cheese

2 cups Mozzarella cheese, divided

½ cup Parmesan cheese

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 28 oz jars of your favorite Pasta Sauce

1 lb 90/10 Ground Beef 

9 oz pkg of fresh spinach, wilted in microwave for  minute or two and drained

6 oz sliced Crimini Mushrooms, sauteed

Preheat oven to 350. 

Combine ricotta, 1 cup of mozzarella, parmesan, and eggs; mix well.  In another bowl, add browned meat and mushrooms to pasta sauce; mix well.

 

Spread 1 cup of the meat-sauce mixture in 9 x 13 pan. Put 1/3 of the uncooked lasagna noodles over sauce (I used 3 long ways and 1 across).  Spread 1/2 of the cheese mixture over noodles.  Top with 1/3 of meat-sauce mixture.   Repeat layering.  Top with noodles and lastly the meat-sauce mixture.  Make sure every bit of noodle gets covered, otherwise those bits will still be hard.

Cover with foil. Bake 55 minutes. Uncover, sprinkle with reserved Mozzarella cheese. Bake an additional 5 minutes uncovered, or until cheese is bubbly. Let stand 15 minutes before cutting and serving.

Apple & Cheese Snack Plate

Sally asked for a snack the other night "with apple and little bits of cheese". So here's what I made, and she devoured. Half of a filleted apple, and thin slices of her favorite English-style white cheddar cheese. Mine was pretty and tasty too.

Pimento Cheese Fritters

Remember the Pimento Cheese recipe I gave you a couple weeks back? We had just enough left from sandwiches and cracker dipping sessions to make a few of the fritters I talked about. These take 'fried cheese' to a whole new level! Pimento Cheese and panko bread crumbs, a griddle and some oil!

Anglo-Indian Dishes

For Easter Dinner we had a nice partial bone-in ham, sliced and served at room temperature, the way Sally and her Mum prefer it, boiled red potatoes and fried Brussels sprouts. Personally I like my ham heated, but majority rules, as they say.  Plenty of leftovers for dinner and sandwiches for the week.

Trifle

For dessert, Sally (the closet-gourmet) made her English family-style Trifle. I'd never seen one like this, and thought you should see it too. It's a bit time consuming, but well worth the effort! If you can't find Ladyfingers to purchase, you can certainly make or buy a spongecake, and slice it into strips about 3" long x 3/4" wide and 3/8" thick.

1 package Ladyfingers (sponge cake 'sticks')

2 packages Red Jello (she used Cherry and and Strawberry)

1 can Fruit Cocktail (find one without pineapple, mango or orange, or the Jello won't set)

Custard Powder to make a pint of custard.

Milk to make a pint of custard

Sugar to taste

Whipped Cream

First she separated the lady fingers and arranged them around the rim of the bowl. Then she made up one package of Jello let it start to set, then poured it slowly into the bowl, rearranging ladyfingers as necessary, to stand upright. Then off to the fridge to set completely.

Next a second batch of jello was made with the drained fruit cocktail incorporated, and that poured on top of the first batch. Off to the fridge again.

While the second jello was setting, it was time for the custard. We use the English Bird'stm Custard Powder available at your local megamart English/Ethnic section. Others will do, but it's just not the same. Don't use Jello or other brand pudding. It won't be the same at all -- apples and oranges kinda thing. Heat the milk and sugar, add the custard powder and stir. Cool slowly by stirring to prevent a 'skin' from forming on the custard. Pour the custard atop the set jello and spread to create a layer. Third time to the fridge to let the custard set up.

Lastly, spray or dollop a nice thick, yummy layer of whipped cream on top. Pause for the photo op:

Then devour!

Kala Chhole

'Kala Chhole' translates, more or less, as Black Chickpeas. Once again I was tasked to create a planned potluck, this time with a Bangladesh theme, for the original nationality of a departing doctor. At my nearby Indian market I found dried Kala Chana -- black Chickpeas or Garbanzos. Then I picked up a packet of Chhole Masala -- Chickpea Spice blend.

2 cups dry Chickpeas

1 Onion, diced

1 can Rotel with Green Chiles (or use fresh tomatoes and chiles)

1 tsp Chile powder

1 tsp Coriander powder

3/4" thumb of fresh ginger, minced

1 tsp to 1 Tbsp Chhole Masala -- depending on your heat tolerance

Many people soak dried legumes over night. But it has been proven that this does not decrease the cooking time, or increase tenderness or anything else except take up space in the fridge.

Cook the garbanzos at a low simmer for about an hour or until tender -- that is slightly chewy outside and creamy inside. If you have a pressure cooker, this is a good use for it, to cut down the time and energy. Reserve the Chana with the cooking liquid. 

Saute the onion until soft. Add the chile powder and coriander and cook another couple minutes. Add the chickpeas and liquid, ginger and tomatoes and cook again for a few minutes. Then add the Chhole Masala. Start with a teaspoon and work up, unless you really like hot Indian spices (then start with a tablespoon). Simmer until everything is infused, and the liquid is reduced to a thick gravy. Add a bit of cornstarch-water as thickener if necessary.

Makes a great side dish for a party or a variety of meals.  Serve warm with Nan or another bread.

GMO

I just don't undertand what all the fuss is about! We humans have been making and eating GMO foods for several thousand years. Long before Gregor Mendel did his thing with peas and added science to the process. Otherwise there would be no foot-long sweetcorn -- it would look like those tiny ears of corn in Chinese food. No big, juicy tomatoes. No broccoli or cauliflower, or Brussel sprouts etc. No large cucumbers, large tasty potatoes or dozens or varieties of beans. No subtle varieties of wine!  Not to mention no golden retrievers, shih tsu, miniature poodles, or dogs of any kind. No fluffy Maine coon cats, or Arabian stallions, or really wooly sheep. No beef cattle or milk cows.

Virtually all of our common produce, as well as our domestic animals, are the products of genetic modification. I don't see anyone saying get rid of them.

G.M.O. Gregor Mendel Object!!! Now I get it!!

Whether you do it one gene and generation at a time, or splice the little suckers together I don't see a difference. Granted, I don't want unethical science types splicing poisons or monkey elbows into my Green Giant peas...

But then I'm anti-monopoly anyway, and thus ethically opposed to government supported mega-agri businesses like Monsanto (One grain to rule them all, one grain to bind them...), Tyson (forced chicken growth farms), Smithfield (sold out their pork product business to the Chinese), Hershey (stop trying to prevent compeition from Cadbury), General Foods (artifically sweetened cereals, overly salted canned goods), or factory farms of any kind who are trying to (and succeeding) at controlling the regional or world production of basic foods.   

Southern Goodies

Three recipes from here in the South.  No rebel flags, no Daughters of the Confederacy, just great food.  

Pimento Cheese Balls

For a fascinating history of this quintessential Southern sandwich spread -- Pimento Cheese -- check out

 http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/09/history-southern-food-pimento-cheese.html.

It turns out Pimento Cheese was invented in the North!

I learned to eat this as a sandwich and cracker spread, but it can be so much more -- the cheese part of mac & cheese, omelet stuffing, hotdog or hamburger topping, and a great grilled cheese, just to name a few...

There are two major schools of Pimento Cheese -- with and without Cream Cheese. I belong to the 'without' school mostly, but admit you get a more spreadable version with at least some cream cheese. Folks also add all sorts of bizarre extra ingredients these days, as you'll see if you go searching for other recipes.

Basic Pimento Cheese

1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
1 (4-oz.) jar diced pimiento, drained
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. finely grated onion
1/4 tsp. ground red pepper
1 (8-oz.) block extra-sharp Cheddar cheese, finely shredded
1 (8-oz.) block sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded

Stir together first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; stir in the cheese. Store in the fridge up to a week.

Jazzed Up Pimento Cheese

1/2 cup Cream Cheese

3 (4-oz.) jars Diced Pimiento, drained

1/4 cup sliced Green Onions

1 tablespoon dry Mustard 

1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1 1/2 teaspoons Hot sauce

3/4 teaspoon Celery seeds

3/4 teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar

1/4 teaspoon Salt 

1/4 teaspoon Pepper 

1 lb freshly grated White Cheddar Cheese

Pimento Cheese Balls

This past week Sally and I spent a few days in Alexandria, VA and Washington DC with Sally's daughter, who lives and works there. One of the places we went out to eat was the Southside 815 Restaurant on the outskirts of Old Town Alexandria.

Featured on the menu was an appetizer of Pimento Cheese Balls, which sounded fascinating. None of the others at the table had ever had Pimento Cheese, and I figured this would be a good introduction for them.

The balls were made from more of the 'with cream cheese' style of Pimento Cheese, formed into balls, rolled in Panko or other bread crumbs, and then gently deep fried until just golden. They were served with Alabama style White BBQ Sauce as a dipping sauce. Fabulous! Another dish to try replicating at home. Since we don't have a deep fryer, I'll probably make them as small patties and pan fry them.

Other "must go" places to eat in Alexandria includes Bilbo Baggins Global Restaurant, with its interesting, eclectic international menu (go for Sunday Brunch -- the stuffed French Toast is killer, and they also offered Chilaquiles!);  Bertucci's for good classic Italian American fare, and the Asian Bistro for pan-Asian dishes.

Alabama White BBQ Sauce

Back in 1925, Bob Gibson of Decatur, AL started serving BBQ from plank tables nailed to trees in his yard.   Along the way he is credited with inventing this mayonnaise-based White BBQ sauce which has been a north Alabama tradition for over 75 years.   

2 cups mayonnaise1 cup distilled white vinegar1/2 cup apple juice2 tsp prepared horseradish2 tsp ground black pepper2 tsp fresh lemon juice1 tsp salt1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Take the ingredients for a spin in your blender or food processor.  Store in the fridge for upwards of two weeks.

Spicy Grapefruit Grouper

Our friend from Orlando, Melinda, asked me for a grouper recipe that didn't use mango. This is what I came up with.

4-6 Grouper filets - about a pound

1 large Grapefruit - pink is best, but white works well too

1/4 cup diced Red Onion

2 Tbsp Brown Sugar

1 Tbsp fresh minced Ginger

1/2 tsp Sriracha Chili sauce, to taste (less is better -- don't over power the fish)

Zest the grapefruit to get 2-3 teaspoons of zest. Curls are nice but julienned is OK. Peel the fruit and pull it apart into segments. Don't be overly neat but don't waste any juice or meat, either.

In a blender or food processor combine the grapefruit, onion, sugar, ginger and chili sauce. Take everything for a spin until you get a not-quite-smooth puree. Taste and adjust for the balance of heat, sweet and spice as desired.

Bring a skillet to medium heat and add the grapefruit sauce. Bring the sauce to a simmer and add the grouper filets. Cover and cook the fillets 6 minutes or so per side, until they just start to flake. Plate on a pool of the sauce, and garnish with pinches of grapefruit zest.

Mojo Chicken, Corned Beef, and Leftovers

An interesting combination of foods this week.  Hope you like them.  

Mojo Pulled Chicken Dinner

This is a really good "taste of the islands" kinda dish.  If you can't find Mojo (that's mo-hoe not mo-joe) sauce locally, you can easily make your own (see below)

8 skinless, bone-in Chicken Thighs

1 ea 20 oz bottle Mojo Sauce (I like Badia tm brand) -- or make your own (see below)

1 cup Jasmine Rice

1 Sazon Tropical packet (Badia tm) or a teaspoon of a Latin seasoning blend plus 1/4 tsp Turmeric

Marinate the chicken in the mojo sauce for at least 6 hours, overnight if you can. Then transfer chicken and sauce to a slow cooker or to an oven proof dish. If using the oven, bake the saucy chicken for at least an hour, until it is shred-able. It's hard to overcook thighs, so more cooking is better. I did mine in our Saladmaster tm 12" electric skillet set to 325F.

When the chicken is done, save the sauce, and pull the meat off of the bones, discarding bones and gristle. Add some of the sauce back into the bowl of shredded meat and give it a toss.

I served the Mojo Chicken with Aroz Amarillo made with a Sazon Tropical packet and Jasmine rice, and a helping of frozen peas and carrots. There are other Yellow Rice packets out there (Vigo tm Brand comes immediately to mind) that can be doctored with a bit of minced red bell pepper if you like.

This meal is between 300 and 400 calories.

Make Your Own Mojo Sauce (from Three Guys From Miami tm):

3 heads garlic

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

1 1/2 cups sour orange juice (In a pinch, use two parts orange to one part lemon and one part lime)

1 cup minced onion

2 teaspoons oregano

1 cup good olive oil, but not EVOO

Mash the garlic, salt, and peppercorns into a paste, using a mortar and pestle (if you're traditional) or a food processor. Stir in the sour orange juice, onion, and oregano. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes or longer.

In a saucepan, heat olive oil to medium hot (~220 F) and remove from heat. Carefully whisk in the garlic-orange juice mixture until well blended.

My Wild non-Irish Dinner

Truth be told, this is not traditional Irish fare. If anything, this would have been an English-overlord-in-Ireland kind of meal. The native Irish mostly couldn't afford beef (or meat for that matter) even corned (pickled) beef.

Still and all it makes a tasty meal. There are two cuts of corned beef brisket -- the flat, and the point. I chose the point as it is usually better marbled and comes out really tender.

This started as a 3 lb corned beef brisket.

The most important part is to not overcook the cabbage as so many generations of Americans have done. It does not need boiling or simmering for even an hour! I steamed the quartered cabbage for 12 minutes to keep the flavor, color and nutrients. Or boil it for about the 8-10 minutes total.

The combination of "smashed" potatoes and turnips -- a.k.a Tatties and Neeps -- gives an ordinarily bland potato dish a nice kick of flavor. Just add a bit of black pepper after boiling the chunk-cut pieces to fork tender.

Serves 3

3 lb Corned Beef

1 head Cabbage, quartered thru the stem, leave the stem butt to hold the leaves together during cooking

2 Red Potatoes, quartered or eighthed

1 Turnip, quartered or eighthed

Black Pepper

In a crockpot or electric skillet cook the corned beef, with the included spice packet, about an hour per pound. In the last half hour of cooking, bring the potato/turnip water to a boil and cook them about 15-20 minutes, until fork tender. At about the same time start the water to steam or boil the cabbage.

Lay the corned beef out to rest a few minutes before slicing against the grain to ensure tender bites. You're not going to have anywhere near 3 pounds of meat from a 3 pound brisket. Roughly smash the potatoes and turnips and dust with black pepper. Cut the butts off the cabbage as you plate it.

I've not done it, but "they" say that making your own corned beef is easy. Next time I see a sale on beef brisket, I'm going to try Alton Brown's recipe for myself. His sure looks a lot better than the $4+ per pound packaged corned beef I looked at (and bought) in the megamart the other day:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/corned-beef-recipe.html

Mango Brulee Dessert

serves 4

2 Mangos

4 tsp Brown Sugar

1/2 tsp powdered Ginger and Cinnamon

1/4 tsp fresh ground Nutmeg or Allspice

1 Lime cut into wedges

Preheat the broiler.

Slice 'fillets' off the sides of mangos. Leave the skin on each fillet. Make diamond slashes in the surfaces. Dust each fillet with a bit of ground ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. Sprinkle a teaspoon of brown sugar over each mango filet. Optionally then drizzle each one with 1 teaspoon rum.

Set mango halves on a broiler pan or baking sheet, propping with wrinkles of tinfoil to keep them flat. Broil until tops are light golden, 5 to 7 minutes. Serve with lime wedges.

Leftovers

We love leftovers. You get some really interesting flavor combinations! With the leftover Tatties & Neeps, I made Bubble & Squeak for Sally, and Corned Beef Hash for myself. To each plate I added a serving of the leftover Mojo Chicken for a complete dinner. The tangy-ness of the chicken went well with the richness of the other two dishes.

Bubble & Squeak

This is a classic Brit 'leftover' made from cooked potatoes and cabbage, and any other bits of veg. To both of my dishes I added a small handful of thawed frozen peas & carrots for color and flavor.

Roughly chop and mash everything together into a sort of patty, and fry in some oil, letting the patty almost burn on the bottom before flipping and flattening. Repeat until you get enough browned bits.

Corned Beef Hash

At least one ancestor of Corned Beef Hash is Bubble and Squeak (which can include bits of minced meat). The origins of both dishes dates to the food rationing of WWII and the postwar years in Britain. Cans of corned beef and roast beef were imported from Argentina and Australia. Either version of canned beef was preferred by many to highly salted canned ham (Spam tm and its imitators).  

Dieter's Delight and Other Healthy Eats

We try to eat right.  But both Sally and I need to lose a few pounds.  So we've started a concerted effort to eat even healthier, with more portion control.  

Eating healthy does not mean eating bland flavor-less 'diet food'.  I'm a chef -- adding herbs and spices to good tasting ingredients is what I do. The healthy recipes I give you are gonna taste great and look great as well as be great for you. 

Balancing what you eat. One thing I believe about eating is that not every meal has to be 'balanced' between carbs, proteins etc. to have a balanced diet.  IMHO internally we are our many-time-removed hunter-gatherer ancestors.  Our digestive tract works best if given half a dozen or so "handfuls" of food rather than "three (large) square meals" a day.  That's how hunter-gatherers fed -- a handful of berries here, some legumes there, leftover lion kill a bit later, and dug up roots when you could find them.  

They also gorged to exclusivity on berries or roots or the result of a bison hunt when they were available.  Don't worry about trying to balance every meal, everyday.  It's OK to have an almost all protein meal, or day's worth of meals; as long as in the "medium run" (say a week) you average out your intake by having equivalent meals or days of meals of vegetables, starches, etc.  

The other thing to note is that our ancestors ate "close to the wild".  They didn't make exotically flavored rich sauces (well maybe).  They certainly didn't eat "artifically cheese-flavored food substitutes", or other "better living through chemistry" combinations of things they couldn't pronounce.  

Stay away from massively processed foods, folks.  Fresh veggies, or frozen -- not canned.  Whole meats and fish, not processed nuggets, patties, sticks or grain-filled sausage.  If you must eat sausage (and I love good sausage), make your own lower-fat versions with good ground beef or pork, without added fat, and spices.  The recipes are out there.

Bon appetite!

Dieter's Delight Chopped Salad

Had a revelation the other day. Sally asked me to make a batch of my signature Chopped Salad for her lunches this week. For diet purposes I decided to calculate the nutrition data using my favorite on-line recipe and ingredient nutrition program -- www.nutritiondata.self.com.   I've used it, and earlier iterations, for many years to create Nutrition Data Labels and calculate the values for a wide variety of recipes.

Then I used our Saladmastertm chopper on my standard ingredients and measured out a cup of each raw vegetable.

Zucchini -- one medium

Yellow Summer Squash -- one medium

Jicama -- one medium (Can't find jicama?  Use a turnip.)

Daikon -- about 4" of 3" diameter root (Can't find daikon?  Use regular red radishes)

Sugar Snap Peas -- two good handfuls

Carrot -- two 8" average carrots

Red Bell Pepper -- one each, diced

Apple -- one each, filleted and chopped

Turns out the amounts above come out to almost exactly two pounds of chopped salad. It has everything even 'manly men' could want in a salad -- crunch, sweet, tangy, and tart.

Then I used my old standby nutrition analysis program, www.NutritionData.Self.Com plugged in the ingredients and amounts, and pressed Analyze.

Here's the amazing bit. That two pounds of veggies has a whopping 300 calories in it!! Yeah, that's right, 300 total calories in two pounds of veggies. This is a dieter's delight! A cup of this salad is only 50 calories. And a cup of salad, plus a couple tablespoons of a favorite dressing, combined with a hunk of crusty bread (150 calories) or a chicken breast (250 calories) makes a pretty darn tasty -- and pretty darn filling lo-cal meal.

Speaking of dressings, our new favorites are the Bolthouse tm brand dressings found in the Produce chiller section of your local megamart. They feature yogurt instead of cream, and have many fewer calories than popular brands.  The Ranch is very nice, and I like the Mango-Chipotle for an interesting combination of slightly sweet and tangy.

Of course you can doctor this salad as you like. Three of my favorite tweaks are a cup of sliced Crimini mushrooms, a cup of whole cherry tomatoes, and a dozen large black olives chopped; which brings the total to about 400 calories for the batch (70 calories for a cup).

Panko Fish and Eggplant Stack

Here's another simple, healthy, pretty low cal dinner for you. We've been getting bags of 4-6 oz fillets of frozen Icelandic cod from Costco. Great value for the price. I dredge one fillet per person in masa flour or corn meal, then dip them in egg, and dredge them in Panko breadcrumbs before pan frying in a couple tablespoons of EVOO.  This also wsorks well with Tilapia, a great mild-tasting white fish.

An Eggplant Stack is a flavorful accompaniment to the fish. That's an eggplant sliced into 1" thick rounds. The rounds are sprinkled with a few drops of EVOO before being broiled for 3-5 minutes per side, until golden brown. I stack a couple rounds on each plate, with a spoonful or two of pasta sauce in each layer. In the picture the 'pink' sauce made from half red and half white Paul Newmantm sauces.

Chicken & Mushroom Alfredo

This one isn't bad in the healthy eats department either. This is my take on a Publix Apronstm recipe that called for Italian sausage. I used chicken instead. The Publix recipe nutrition data called this a 400 calorie meal, my chicken version may be a bit lighter -- just don't smother the pasta in the sauce.

4 oz fresh pre-sliced Baby Portabella (Crimini) mushrooms

1 large Leek, sliced into rounds

2 Chicken Breasts

2 oz Monterey Jack cheese

1/3 box Rigatoni pasta

1/2 jar (15-oz) roasted garlic Alfredo sauce

1/2 cup White Wine

Start the water for the pasta. While that's coming to a boil, cook the Chicken breasts with a bit of Cavender's seasoning or an Italian spice blend and a splash of olive oil. When done cooking, cool in your freezer for a few minutes so you can handle them easily.

Cut the meat into bite-sized pieces or slices. In the same skillet, cook the leek until it starts to soften, then return the chicken to the pan. Add the Alfredo sauce, cheese and wine and stir to combine. Heat everything through, then serve over the pasta.