Food for thought

We heard a few cool food stories on NPR's The Splendid Table on our drive to Chili's Weidner Park for disc golf this afternoon.

The first story we heard was about making food with Stout beer. You can't go wrong there. In addition to suggesting adding it to brownies or chocolate cake, they shared this recipe for a glaze that goes great with pork. Sounds like something some of my home brewing friends might like to try.

Stout-Citrus Glaze

September 25, 2010

(Makes about 1/4 cup)

This glaze is great on grilled or sauted lamb or pork chops, pork tenderloin, or even leg of lamb. Simply brush the meat lightly with the glaze once it's browned, brush the meat again when you turn it, then pass the remaining glaze along with the meat. This recipe is easily doubled, and will keep, covered and refrigerated, for at least 2 weeks.

1 cup stout of your choice
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Pinch salt

Combine all ingredients in a small, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium and simmer vigorously until reduced to about 1/4 cup, 20 to 25 minutes. The liquid will be very syrupy.

There was another story about a bakery that grows its own wheat...Waves of Grain in Cannon Beach Oregon. The bakery was one of the places mentioned in Jane and Michael Stern's book 500 Things to Eat Before It's Too Late: and the very best places to eat them. It seemed like something I should add to my book list.

Market-inspired cooking

This is a great dish for the weekend, and especially if you are paying a visit to the Rochester Public Market tomorrow morning. I created this for Valentine's Day, hence the heart shaped raviolis. While you won't be able to score those delicious four-cheese ravs tomorrow, the heart of this dish (pun intended) is the homemade ravioli's you can get for $8-9 per dozen at the Public Market inside the fish building. There are tons of variety flavors to chose from.

Once you pick out your pasta, then stop by one of the oh-so-great smelling fish stands and pick up some of the biggest shrimp they have...a dozen should suffice if you're feeding two people. When you get them home, you'll have to peel and de-vein them. When I cook the shrimp, I coat them in blackening season which I get from The Spice Guy at the market.

For the sauce I buy a jar of store-bought sun-dried tomato alfredo sauce. I doctor it up by adding some shallots, garlic, a can of fire-roasted tomatoes (they aren't hot...fire roasted just means they have been roasted over a fire), some heavy cream, and shredded asiago or any kind of Italian cheese. You can add some pepper as well.

Hope this inspires you at the market tomorrow.

Where's the beef?

Tonight I made one of my favorites, Taco Salad. My favorite part of it is making it with Bocca Soy Crumbles, which are vegetarian, fat free, and almost guaranteed to fool any meat-eater when made this way. I cook the crumbles with corn, cut fresh off the cob, and a can of black beans drained. I add a packet of taco seasoning, which for this recipe I used Chipotle flavored seasoning plus a pinch of Dinosaur BBQ Cajun Seasoning.

You can buy the same crispy tortilla shells you would get in a restaurant in the ethnic section at Wegmans. I fill the bowls with a mixture of Wegmans' brand mixed greens with herbs and chopped romaine, and then I top the salads with fresh chopped tomatoes, chives, shredded pepperjack cheese, and fresh sliced avocado. For dressing, I used spicy Hidden Valley ranch dressing. It's quick, easy, healthy, as I said, you can fool any meat-eater out of wondering "Where's the Beef?"

Too much mayonnaise in the tuna?

Welcome to my newest blog about something near and dear to my heart....cooking! As many of you already know, I've been cooking in restaurants for close to 15 years now and I'm just as passionate about whipping up culinary creations in my own kitchen at home. I am hoping this blog will help to educate, inspire, and get people talking about food. I hope you'll join as a follower of the blog and interact frequently.



I will start off with something simple. For lunch today I made the good old stand-by, a tuna melt. Coming fresh off a Niche show this weekend, I had the song "There's too much mayonnaise in the tuna" stuck in my head. So my question is, how much mayonnaise is too much mayonnaise when it comes to tuna. As far as I'm concerned (and my old roommate Maggie is concerned), the more mayo the better. Of course, you don't want there to be more mayo than tuna. I'd say I put a little less than two tablespoons of mayo in with my 6 oz. can of Wegmans brand Solid White Albacore Tuna in water. I don't know about you, but I never really got into tuna soaked in oil. I could never figure out how to drain all the oil out of it. But anyways, at first it may seem like a big too much mayo, but once you really start mashing the chunks up, it really soaks up the mayo.


I usually put one and a half slices of white american cheese on the sandwich before I grill it. Today I used Wegmans Honey Apple Oat Bread with apple bits and honey and cinnamon in it. You might thing this is a strange combination, but it's actually quite good and helps take away the fishiness of the tuna. Things can get a little sloppy once the tuna and cheese start heating up and getting all melty, but that's just how I like it. What's your preference? And have you ever tried the mayonnaise made with olive oil? What's your opinion? Can you really taste the difference?

On another note, I have to say, one of my favorite cooking accessories is my bright orange Le Creuset dutch oven. I just checked out Le Creuset's website and wasn't I surprised to see the exact same one I have is the first image on the page. It's enamled cast iron, and as pretty as it is functional. I don't use it as often as I'd like to, which may be a sign I'm not cooking as much as I used to, but when I do use it, I am reminded that sometimes it's worth it to spend the extra money on cooking gadgets because you get what you pay for. I'm actually lucky that it was a gift seeing as though it costs around $250. I'm not sure why the photo only uploads sideways but you get the picture. What's the one cooking gadget you couldn't live without?