Archive for January, 2015

Everybody loves Cauliflower! OK, not everybody – but you’ll love *this* cauliflower

January 21, 2015 at 11:32 am · Filed under Cauliflower, Comfort Food, Experiential cooking, Families, Italian Cuisine, Sauces ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Who wouldn't love this cute little cauliflower head?

Who wouldn’t love this cute little cauliflower head?

Cauliflower is a tricksie beast.

Some of us love it – some of us (shudder) even eat it raw. With relish. We like it roasted, we like it boiled, we like it sauteed. Some of us are indifferent to cauliflower’s taste, but eat it because the truth is, cauliflower is a nutritional powerhouse.

But some of us Don’t Like Cauliflower. There is nothing that can be done to this mild-mannered crucifer to make it lovable and delicious to us – even its tempting nutritional characteristics are not enough.

Until now.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment

Super hot, super easy, super delicious – quick pickled peppers

January 18, 2015 at 2:41 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

Hot peppers with lemon

Hot peppers with lemon

Are you a hot pepper fanatic or can you do without? Me, I love hot foods. Hot peppers? Bring ’em!! The hotter the better.

While I love hot peppers, I am not fond of concentrated hot pepper resins. Sure, they are searingly hot, but there is *so* much more to hot peppers than simple pucker-your-lips-up-and-weep-like-a-baby heat.

Although, as you can see from this video, for some folks, it’s the heat. And – just maybe – the teeniest hint of masochism, or possibly, exhibitionism. . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb-QVfwCmYg

But there’s more than pain to hot peppers. Much more. There’s flavor, rich, deep and intense. And, even better, there’s aroma, smoky, fruity, and complex.

Me, I prefer to get my heat the old fashioned way – from a real hot pepper, not from a laboratory attempting to cash in on the current hot pepper craze by weaponizing our condiments.

In August, I packed fresh, ultra-hot, beautiful Naga Jolokia peppers (Ghost Peppers) with a fragrant blend of fresh bay, peppercorn, juniper berry, lemon zest, whole coriander, allspice berry, yellow mustard seed and whole cinnamon. Sea salt and cider vinegar finished off the mix.

Last night, with our son, daughter in law and grandson in attendance, I opened one of the jars of hot peppers and found – these (see bottom of post!). Read the rest of this entry »

Comments (1)

A Way of Thinking about Cooking – Stories, Ideas, and Recipes

January 12, 2015 at 2:34 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

I don’t recommend a lot of cookbooks on my site, but I feel you must know about this one – it’s a beautiful gem by Tamar Adler, journalist, Slow Food person, personal chef, and a real successor – in my view – to the mantle of the late MFK Fisher.

Her book is subtitled “Cooking with Economy and Grace”. I’ve learned more from it than any 10 other cookbooks. I recommend you check it out – here’s a link to the hardback edition, there are other editions and e-book versions available.

Here’s the link: http://amzn.to/1xVJpiA – check it out!

 

Leave a Comment

You’re so cheeky! Tacos con carne mejillas – respect for your ingredients

January 8, 2015 at 4:01 pm · Filed under Beef, Cabbage, Comfort Food, Mexican cuisine, Street Food ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

A few sprigs of cilantro garnish your taco

A few sprigs of cilantro garnish your taco

Today, cooking is often filled with one-upmanship. Better – or more unusual – spicings. Less common, more technical or just plain cooler preparation methods. Exotic ingredients. Recipes that read like a novel.

Know what I mean?

And that’s. . .OK! I love seeing all the different things brilliant, creative chefs come up with to transform simple ingredients into astonishing dishes.

But sometimes, just cooking a great ingredient simply, with a lot of respect and maybe even a little love,  is all you need to do to create an amazing dish. So it was with my beef cheeks.

I had about 2 lbs. of beautiful beef cheek – a bit of ultra lean muscle from a grass fed organically raised cow.  Beef cheeks are a pretty unusual cut for your average American supermarket, so I didn’t try to get them there. I found them at our local Farmers’ Market, straight from a happy, grass-fed mostly-organic cow. You can also find them – or order them – at most butcher shops.

When confronted by an unusual ingredient or a cut that’s not often used, chefs often succumb to the urge to tart things up a bit. With beef cheeks, you can marinate them. Dry rub and refrigerate them overnight in plastic wrap. Or without plastic wrap. Create an exotic sauce with multiple dried peppers that’s also a marinade. Cook them sous vide with a ton of spices and aromatics. Sear them, slice them, poach them – the methods are endless.

All these things – don’t get me wrong – are good and some of them are very good indeed. When great chefs get creative, they can fashion extraordinary dishes from simple ingredients.

But I wanted to go for a simple preparation method as well. Something that wasn’t fussy, but that was as good as anything you could get by fussing.

Here’s what I came up with – a method that blends utter simplicity and foolproof cookery with a few reasonable seasonings for a rich, totally delicious  dish that will disappear so fast it’ll make your head spin. Read on for recipe and a bonus recipe too. Here at Calorie Factory, we aim to please! Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a Comment