Carnage du Jour - 26 June 2012

It started with a disappointment, as many great meals seem to do. The eggplant was past its prime.
(OK, the eggplant had probably been past its prime for almost a week, but let's not pick nits, eh?)
So, what to cook with the pork chops instead of the roasted eggplant and tomatoes that had been planned? Well, how about that rutabaga and purple cabbage sitting there in the vegetable drawer? Well, why not?

Next up, peeling the rutabaga (don't you love that wax?) and cubing it. With the oven preheated to 425F, a liberal sprinkling of kosher salt and freshly ground pepper were added, and in it went.
About 10 minutes in, the small head of red cabbage was shredded (coarsely) and popped into the skillet for a quick sauté in some canola oil. The cabbage was added to the rutabaga and popped back into the oven.
After another 8 minutes, the skillet was reheated and re-oiled to receive the chops. They had been given a treatment of a bit of beau monde, some salt, and some cumin. A quick sear on each side (the blood was just starting to leak from the marrow) was all it took before they joined the veggies and some button mushrooms in the roasting pan. They got about a cup of chicken stock and a very loose tenting of aluminum foil and finished in the oven for another 6 minutes.

Serving time was very fragrant (aromatic?), and each of the components was simply delicious. The rutabaga was just tender and had almost a golden beet flavour. The cabbage was just perfectly cooked down - still a bit of tooth to it, but tender and tasty. The chops were cooked just through - one could imagine pink, but not see it - and as juicy as one would ever want.

All in all, a great success!

Carnage du Jour - 09 June 2012

It's been a while since I've written about a good chicken meal, and this one was too good to skip. Granted, I've waited well over a week, but I can still remember it well, so it must be worth a post.

Manhattan Grilled Chicken Breasts.

Sounds interesting, no? Well, it's much more than that - it's delicious. Oh, and it has nothing to do with clam chowder or a style of cooking from the East Coast (as far as I know).

It's called Manhattan chicken because the marinade for the boneless, skinless breasts is simply a Manhattan cocktail with a bit of oil added in.
That's right - into a plastic bag I added a nice dose of Southern Comfort and some sweet vermouth (aha!) along with a dash of garlic juice and a bit of olive oil.
The chicken marinated in the marinade for almost an hour while the fire got ready in the Weber kettle in the back yard (it's charcoal only chez nous, mes amis). The fairly huge breasts cooked nicely over the fire, picking up some of that smoke flavour to go with the Manhattan that had soaked in, leaving a wonderfully juicy piece of meat.
I sliced them into about 1/4 inch slices, and added them to some pasta along with the juice that had accumulated on the platter. A dollop or so of quark made it creamy with a nice tang, and then a batch of spinach was stirred in with a few mushrooms to make a nice single-serving-dish meal.

Tasty, simple, elegant, and easy.
Try it, and enjoy!

How to Cook Corn on the Cob

This is another in a very occasional series of "how to" posts relating to food.

There are many good ways to cook corn on the cob (for those to whom corn is a fairly generic term, please understand that I speak here of maize), including grilling the ears directly on a grill (whether a grill pan or a barbecue grill) and roasting the water-soaked ears over a fire or in an oven.
Still, one tends to come back to the tried and true methods that resonate from one's youth.

Of course, there's no reason not to update and improve those methods, and that is precisely what I've done here.
Husking corn is one of those activities that just mean "Summer" to those of us fortunate enough to have grown up with access to fresh ears of corn. I still find that I'd rather take off the husk and silk from the raw corn than from a cooked ear. So ...

Start with husked and silk-free ears of corn.
Bring a fairly large amount of salted water to the boil.
Here's the secret:
To the boiling, salted water, add some sugar and some powdered chipotle pepper, then add the ears.
Boil for a few minutes, then simply cover the pot with the heat turned off while waiting for whatever else you're cooking to finish. The corn will finish cooking without the burner, and will stay hot in the water for quite a long time.

Given that I don't know how big a pot you're using, I can't give you exact measures here, but here's about what I think I did:
It was around 5 quarts of water with about 1/4 C of sugar and about 1 t of the chipotle powder.

We just had the corn last night, and it was spectacular.

Try it, and enjoy!

Carnage du Jour - 15 May 2012

Why does tilapia get so little respect? I find it to be among the most versatile of fish options. It works well fried, broiled, baked, poached ... and the flavour profiles it can handle are nearly limitless as well.


Let me give you but the latest example.
My normal crust for frying is a simple mix of cornmeal and whatever spices seem right at the time, often just a nice amount of Old Bay. This time I had noticed that the jar of pistachios was nearly empty, so I grabbed what was left and chopped them with a knife, probably ending up with a scant tablespoon or so.
I mixed that with the cornmeal and Old Bay, pressed the wet fish into it, and gave it a nice fry in some hot canola oil. It was delicious. There was absolutely no need for any sauce - the fish had plenty of flavour itself, and the crust held in the juices, so it was moist and flaky.

What went with? A beautiful salad of mixed greens (some of the nice spicy varieties along with the romaine-type lettuces) and another dish that turned out extremely well.

It turns out that, much as Hooterville had the perfect soil for growing rutabagas, College Grove has perfect soil for growing sweet potatoes (they may be yams - I'm not totally clear on the distinction, frankly), and so my sister grew far more than her family could consume.

We lucked into a bag of those sweet potatoes on our last trip back from Florida, so it seemed time to use them up.
A quick wash, peel, and cubing, then into the oven they went with a bit of salt, pepper, and curry powder to roast with some chopped onions. It smelled great, and tasted every bit as good.

Definitely one to repeat!

Missing Sydney

Today should have been a day of celebration.
Sydney Williams should have been blowing out more candles on a cake, but he was taken from us, and from the work he was still Joyfully pursuing for his Lord.

We miss you, Sydney, as do the people of the Avenue Church in Newton Abbot, and countless others in Africa and elsewhere who have been touched by your generosity and love.

I'll meet you on the mountain, my friend.

RIP Chuck Colson

If you ever wanted to see a life that proved the possibility of repentance and renewal, his was definitely one.

From White House "plumber" to prison minister and tree angel, Colson was a witness to the transformative power of the Gospel.

He will be greatly missed.

Carnage du Jour - 03 April 2012

Pork Chops. There aren't many words that go together better than those two.

Ah, but how to cook them, and what to serve up alongside?
First, a pot of rice cooked in a nice vegetable stock (sadly, it turned out a bit too salty).
Next, some nice steamed fresh broccoli.
Finally, cook the chops by searing them with a bit of beau monde and chipotle powder on each side, then topping them after turning with some artichoke hearts, olives, and just a bit of pomodoro vodka sauce.

It was quite delicious!