I’m always trying to find ways to get some fresh greens into our diet. Fresh spinach is one thing that we all seem to enjoy and so to dress it up I roasted some onion and red bell pepper and made a warm balsamic vinaigrette. Adding the warm vegetables and dressing tends to wilt the spinach just a touch and makes this salad really delicious. And for my bacon lovers I added a little sprinkle of bacon bits to top it off.
Hockey is back!! After a long collective bargaining dispute between the NHL owners and players they have finally resolved their differences and on Saturday night my Detroit Red Wings will be back on the ice. Half a season was lost due to the dispute while fans were left out in the cold. Joe introduced me to hockey when we moved to Michigan in 1990 and I was immediately hooked. We were only in Michigan for 3 years but I’ve followed my beloved Red Wings throughout the years and celebrate the beginning of each season with a big platter of wings. They have become my traditional send off to my favorite team, “The Detroit Red Wings”! This year I’m going spicy with a Chipotle sauce with a tangy dipping sauce. I made a basting sauce from the homemade Chipotle Tabasco sauce which was thick and spicy. So enjoy the wings and watch some hockey!
My family, especially Joe and Josh splash a little Tabasco on everything. My pantry is full of Tabasco’s original sauce, green pepper sauce and chipotle sauce. It feels like I’m replacing bottles every other week so I decided to try my hand at making some sauce from scratch and see if it would pass the taste test of my most critical judges. I looked at the ingredients listed on the Chipotle Tabasco sauce bottle and started there. The amounts were up to me to decipher and as I kept measuring and tasting I finally came up with a pretty good match. It’s a little thicker and slightly less vinegary as the original but it’s hard to tell the difference when tasting them side by side. Continue reading
It’s been a crazy week, my youngest son Cameron is moving into his first apartment. My nest is almost empty again. Cameron knows how to cook but he doesn’t really enjoy it. His idea of cooking is heating something in the microwave or boiling water for ramen noodles. I cook special things for him because he’s so dang picky. One thing he loves is pesto. He loves any kind of pesto. He puts it in pasta and slathers it on flatbreads with cheese and his absolute favorite is in meatballs. So I am putting together a care package for him and I know pesto will go a long way. This sun dried pesto was inspired by “Closet Cooking’s” version. It is so fast and simple and tastes ever so good.
This week everyone will be giving thanks and enjoying the holiday with family and friends. And many will be gathering around the table for a feast of traditional turkey, dressing and all the trimmings. One of our favorite side dishes is the cranberry sauce. I have nothing against the cranberry sauce in a can, but I do love this homemade sauce that combines tart cranberries with citrus orange and lemon flavors. It’s sweetened to perfection and a perfect compliment to any holiday meal. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
Do you remember the series of “Beautiful Cookbooks”? I find myself flipping through the pages just to drool over the beautiful pictures, but I also find many recipes that I would love to try. I ran across this recipe in the “Southwest Beautiful Cookbook” and I was intrigued. The picture looked like a margarita in a jar and I wondered if it would taste as good as I imagined. As it turned out it was a sinfully sweet version of a classic margarita that I could spread on a cracker, biscuit or muffin.
My new favorite book “Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day” has changed the way I think about pizza. The master recipe makes a big batch of dough that can be made ahead of time and placed in the fridge for up to 2 weeks. Once the dough has been made you can take scissors and snip off just the amount of dough you need for any size pizza. The crust will taste fresh and crisp just like you taste in a pizzeria. I’ll admit I was a bit skeptical about working with cold dough out of the fridge, but honestly it was very easy and the results were amazing. The major differences in this dough is that you don’t knead it ahead of time, just incorporate all the flour into the wet ingredients and let it sit at room temperature to rise. Also the dough takes on that crispy crust by cooking on a pizza stone or a cast iron griddle at very high heat. Already having a stone and cast iron griddle, I invested in a pizza peel in order to transfer the pizza on and off the hot stone. With the master recipe I was able to make 5 pizza crusts although I probably could have squeezed out another one or two if I had made thinner crusts. It’s all in your preference of how thin or thick you like your crust.
I don’t know about you all but it sure is feeling like Fall around here in the Midwest. The morning air is crisp and cool and it’s so refreshing to be able to open up the doors and windows for some fresh air after a long hot summer. I’ve been thinking of fall baking and patiently waiting on my homemade Vanilla Extract and Vanilla Sugar which still need a few weeks for the fullest flavor to come through. I found another tip on that same holiday episode of “Kelsey’s Essentials” on how to make Salted Caramel Sauce which can be used in so many recipes. It looked so easy that I had to give it a try. My first attempt, I had a hiccup when I read the recipe too quickly and ended up with rock candy instead of caramel syrup. The key is patience and no stirring. My first batch I stirred furiously and when the liquid evaporated it was like a vacuum sucking the water out and the sugar crystallized in seconds. I was devastated at first wondering what I did wrong, so I looked at the the recipe again and there it was plain as day, it said NOT to stir once it begins to boil. Well, I gave it another go and this time I had the tastiest caramel sauce ever.
In just a few short month’s fall will be here and it’s time to get ready for fall baking. I’ve always been a fan of Vanilla Sugar but always hated paying for it. Recently I watched “Kelsey’s Essentials” on The Cooking Channel. She was getting ready for holiday baking and making some holiday treats that she used homemade vanilla extract and vanilla sugar in her recipes. So I started researching and found with just a little prep work I could make my own in about 2 month’s. That would put me at about the middle of October which is perfect, so I set off for Penzey’s to get some vanilla beans. The only other ingredients I needed was some sugar and some Vodka. So simple!
Fresh corn cakes are something of a summertime favorite. Corn cakes take me back to the farm when we would sit around the table with a pot of pinto beans and skillet cornbread. These corn cakes are made with fresh corn and paired with a honey butter spiked with cayenne. I took half the batter and added some diced roasted poblano which turned out great. We had fresh corn cakes alongside grilled veggies and sliced ripe tomatoes straight from the farmers market. It was so satisfying!
An Inspired Cook 