Cooking with a Whineaux

I Have A New Home!

2009-05-11T21:16:00.003-04:00

Check out my new site ... I have upgraded to my own personal URL.

www.whineaux.com

I'll be venting over there from now on ... check it out!

Tony's Soon to Be World Famous Red Sauce

2009-04-21T20:51:00.013-04:00

The Sauce

This post is dedicated to Tony, a great cook and even better friend who shared his mother's recipe and methods with me.

Sauce, Gravy, Spaghetti Sauce, Red Sauce, Marinara call it anything you want, just please don't buy it in a jar. In fact, please join the Society For the Elimination of Sauce in a Jar on Facebook

Does the idea of potted meat gross you out as much as it does me? (it should!) Do you watch the "gourmet" cat food commercial and at the end think "you aren't fooling me, that's garbage meat with salt, chemicals and a couple peas thrown in." If so, you are right! If not, this may be the wrong blog for you. Things that come pre-cooked in jars are made with the cheapest ingredients available, including vegetables you would throw away. Then because the color isn't right (because the vegetables weren't good) they add dye. Next they add things to make it taste like sauce, but not herbs and spices; instead they use inexpensive chemicals and sugar. Now here's the fun part -- they charge you MORE for that jar of inferior sauce than you'd ever pay for making it yourself.

I can hear your thoughts. I can see the rigid posture, the wary stare you are giving me. "Fine, it tastes better and it may be a little less expensive, but how long is this going to take and is it really that good?" YES it's that much better and it won't take long. Sauce is my Sunday morning activity. It took me 17 minutes to get the ingredients into the pot and walk away. Then another 15 minutes tasting (oh such hard work) and dishing it up for storage. It simmered for 2 hours and made my house smell like heaven in a way no air freshener could. (Is it hard to believe I was the fat kid :)

Please; make the sauce. You'll be happy, your family will be happy, the sun will shine, birds will sing all will be right with the world.

A word about tomatoes. All tomatoes are not created equal. If you are lucky enough to have a garden where your tomatoes actually taste like tomatoes then making sauce is even more fun and you get to use a food mill! For the rest of us, skip the produce aisle. The tasteless "fresh" tomatoes available in the supermarket are picked green, gassed and allowed to turn red in a warehouse (I can't call that "ripening") In this case canned tomatoes are superior.

Not all canned tomatoes are created equal. Tomatoes need sun, dry climate and volcanic ash in order to taste good. The one place you find this trifecta of goodness is in Italy. Buy Italian tomatoes, preferably San Marzano. Don't buy "Italian Style" tomatoes, you are not getting what you pay for in flavor or quality. More of the manipulation by the food marketers ... but I digress. In my Publix, Cento Italian Plum tomatoes are available for about $2.60 per 28oz can. Other tomatoes are about $2.00 per 28oz can so we aren't talking about a huge extra expense by any stretch of the imagination. Recently at Costco, I was able to purchase 100oz cans of Nina brand San Marzano Tomatoes for $3.60 per can (making them less per ounce than the garbage tomatoes in the supermarket).

Italian tomatoes typically come with basil in the can. I went a little nutty in a quest to find them without the basil because I like to season my own sauce. In the end (read one year and two prescriptions later) I determined that a little basil in a large can is not like buying the diced tomatoes that are mixed with peppers or garlic (which are always over seasoned) There's very little basil flavor imparted in the sauce. I remove the gross basil when I open the can and add fresh from my garden.

THE SAUCE
Olive oil to coat the pan
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1 large white onion, sliced
4 carrots, peeled and chopped to 1/2 inch
8 - 10 whole cloves garlic *See Note
4T dried oregano
2 280z cans Italian Tomatoes
1/2 jar roasted red peppers (optional)
6T fresh chopped Italian parsley
6T fresh chopped basil
Generous dash Worcestershire sauce (measuring I'm going to say 4T but I don't measure)
Kosher salt to taste (at least 3T)
Fresh ground black pepper

Heat the pan over medium high. Put the pepper flakes into the cold oil. When they start to "dance" in the pan you know your oil is hot. Add the onions and carrots. Cook until the onions are getting some color and the carrots start to soften; -- about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and oregeno. Cook 3 - 4 minutes longer taking care to soften but not burn the garlic.

Add tomatoes and remaining ingredients to the pan. Bring to a simmer and let cook for at least 20 minutes cooking

longer won't hurt. Taste for seasoning. Stir to break down the tomatoes, you are just breaking them up, this isn't about consistency.

Let it simmer 20 minutes longer and taste it. At this point nobody knows what I'll do, sometimes I decide we need a splash of wine, sometimes I put some beef broth in, sometimes hot sauce. It's always hard to know, but exercise caution here. The Culinary Institute of America would likely cringe to hear me say this, but this is a "mother sauce." Make it taste good, but don't over flavor the sauce or it will lose its versatility -- more about that later.

Now that you are happy with the taste; here comes the fun part! You need to blend the sauce. For this volume, a stick blender doesn't work well (if you make a double batch a stick blender will work great and you won't have to transfer the sauce). You'll likely have to blend in batches, I filled the blender twice. After the first batch pour the pureed sauce into a bowl and add the remaining sauce from the pot. Then put it all back in the pot and stir and taste for seasoning again.

Now let it simmer another 20 - 40 minutes until it's at the thickness you want. Allow the sauce to cool and transfer to storage containers. I use 32oz containers that our local Chinese take-out place uses, I just wash and reuse them. This sauce freezes really well. I can't tell you how long it will last in the freezer because I think our record is 3 weeks. All you have to do is take it out of the freezer in the morning and warm it.

*Note on garlic. I was feeling a little lazy so I bought the pre- peeled garlic in a jar. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's not as potent as fresh garlic. I typically double the amount of garlic I'm adding to a recipe if it's the pre-peeled kind. If you put that much fresh garlic into the sauce you would absolutely not have any vampires around!

Mother Sauce - I use this sauce as a base. Reheat and add a splash of vodka and cream -- Penne alla Vodka. Brown some pork and beef, add a dash of cream at the end, Bologanese sauce, heat on the stove top and reduce it a bit -- pizza sauce. Add some croutons, maybe a splash of broth or cream, you'll have fantastic tomato basil soup.

This recipe is a framework. If you like the flavored sauces at the store you can add those flavorings in the intensity you like. I never make this with roasted red peppers, but I had some around so I put them in. I liked it so much it may become a regular feature of the sauce. Try roasting the garlic before you add it to the sauce. (Just take a head of garlic, cut the top off, drizzle olive oil, wrap it in foil and put it in the oven when you are baking something else. It needs aobut 45 minutes at 350) I wouldn't put mushrooms in the base, if you like mushrooms in your sauce, sautee them, then add the sauce and reheat but they won't freeze very well. Mushrooms have such a high water content that freezing them changes the texture.

Tell me how you like this recipe! We like this best with plain old red table wine. The food is so good that we don't even try to be fancy with the wine. Cloud Line Pinot Noir is our "Fancy" choice, about $20 per bottle.

Ciao!
The Whineaux!

Go Wine in the kitchen! You can cook and wine and eat like royalty without paying the restaurant!

Pork Chops with Leeks in Mustard Sauce

2009-04-17T09:31:00.003-04:00

Last night I made this recipe, which is in this month's Bon Appetit, for Bill and I for dinner and it was amazing. It had the texture of having a lot more richness (meaning fat feel) than was really in the recipe. I think this is because the creme fraiche (I used Sour Cream) goes in at the last second so there's no opportunity for it to break down.

Instead of bacon I used pancetta and I added some white mushrooms to the sauce. I think next time I would cut the Sage by about a third, it was a little stronger than the other flavors. We had it with creamy instant polenta on the side and a nice mild (and inexpensive Merlot)

If you've never cooked with Leeks before, they are a great spring time treat. You'll want to trim the dark green tops off trim the roots and then cut them in half. Starting from what was the top run water through the inside. Leeks grow in sand and if you don't rinse them you'll end up with very gritty food. I usually rinse, cut and put them on a paper towel, or you can put them in a large bowl of water (after cutting them), agitate the water then let them rest and float to the top. Then put them in a salad spinner.

Try this recipe -- you'll love it!

Pork Chops with Leeks in Mustard Sauce

Antipasto Salad

2009-04-13T13:13:00.005-04:00

Antipasto Salad

Spring is upon us and Easter typically kicks off the "Potluck" season for me and my friends. Potluck season can be great fun, and also great competition and exhausting. I'm always looking for ideas for something different.

For our friends, Italian food reigns supreme. And I love a good red sauce (in fact some of my home made sauce is thawing on the counter right now getting ready for meat and perhaps a baked ziti with the fresh mozzarella I just made (yeah, I'm bragging, I made cheese!)

As much as I love red sauce I need alternatives. We fall into the antipasto, salad, meatballs and sauce rut too easily. Even though all of these items are hand made with recipes from the old country and taste amazing, I sometimes want change.

As it's often hot in Florida I also was looking for a cold dish, so I came up with an Antipasto Salad. The key to this salad is dressing the noodles as soon as they are drained, they won't stick together and they'll absorb the flavor even more.

Antipasto Salad
1 pound pasta shells
1 cup olive oil
2/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2T minced garlic (use the jarred garlic packed in oil)
Fresh ground pepper to taste
1 Cup Olives *see note
1 jar giardino mix (sold near the pickles, it typically has peppers, carrots, cauliflower and celery)
1/2 pound diced ham
1/2 pound diced salami
1/2 pound diced provolone
1/2 pound diced mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1/4 cup diced flat leaf parsley

Cook pasta according to directions and drain, while pasta is cooking whisk together olive oil, vinegar, garlic and pepper for dressing. Note, I intentionally omitted salt from this recipe, be sure to salt the pasta when cooking, but the olives, meats and cheese are all salty flavors adding salt to the dressing would likely be too much.

As soon as the pasta is drained, transfer to a large bowl and stir in the dressing.

Add remaining ingredients and toss, cover and refrigerate overnight.

For the olives, I always have open jars of olives around, there's no "wrong" olive to use, but I suggest a mix of green and dark olives like a queen, pimento stuffed Spanish olives, Kalamata olives. Make sure they are pitted, nobody wants to be surprised with an olive pit!

You can also switch the cheeses if you have others on hand or the meats.

Because of the dressing this will last about a week refrigerated. Due to the meats, don't leave this unrefrigerated for long.

Happy Pot-lucking!

Until next time, keep the wine glass close and the whiners at arms length!

Chilaquiles!

2009-04-09T12:33:00.001-04:00

Shh, I want to share a secret with you. This dinner is so easy you can teach the kids to do it and get a free night! They are going to love it and it impresses guests. Then again, you may want to keep this as our secret, then you can continue to be the rock star after spending roughly 15 minutes in the kitchen!

Last week we had a friend over for dinner when I asked if there was anything special they favored and they said Mexican, I nearly fell of my chair with glee. I'm in Florida by way of California. I LOVE Mexican food. What's not to love, amazing flavors, hearty food. YUM.

This time, I made the Chilaquiles with red sauce, it's also amazing with green sauce. This is typical Mexican style family food, simple, great flavors and people will come back for more. Best of all, it's cheap!

Chilaquiles recipes have been around since the late 1800's, the name of the dish has been translated roughly as broken sombrero. It's often served as breakfast with scrambled eggs (which is what we did with the leftovers mmmmm) and considered by many to be a hangover cure. There are regional variations that are based on green (tomatillo) salsa, red salsa or even a white sauce. So anyway you want to change up this recipe -- it's all yours.

Recipe:
2 links uncooked chorizo casing removed
1/2 white onion (you can also use red)
4 cups shredded cheese (go for the cheddar/Monterrey jack blend)
4 cups red enchilada sauce (best if you make it, but fine to buy a jar of sauce -- if you buy the sauce and chips this is a 10 minute meal)
24 corn tortillas cut into wedges and fried
1 1/2 pounds skinless chicken thighs, on the bone.

Black olives for garnish
Green onions sliced for garnish
Sour cream for garnish

Day ahead or earlier in the morning, bake the chicken and allow it to cool. shred it into a bowl and set aside until you are ready to assemble the Chilaquiles.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
Break up chorizo and place in a medium skillet to render the fat out. Set aside and drain, saute the onions in the chorizo fat (or if you wish vegetable oil, but I hate to waste the chorizo flavor)

put a layer of tortilla chips on the bottom of the pan and pat them down, add half of the shredded chicken, sprinkle half the chorizo, 2 cups sauce and 2 cups shredded cheese.

Repeat with another layer of chips, chorizo, chicken, sauce and cheese. Top with black olives and bake until bubbly -- about 30 minutes. Everything in the casserole is already cooked so much like the Shepherds pie recipe you are just heating it through.

Remove from oven and let stand for 5 minutes to cool and allow the sauce to absorb into the casserole.

Serve with sliced green onion, sour cream and if you want cilantro. This dish is often accompanied by refried beans, we had it with a salad and were more than satisfied. It was one of those nights when everyone at way too much!

I'd like to give you a wine recommendation to go with this meal, but I think it's best accompanied by a very crisp, very cold beer, Stella Artois is my choice.

Let me know if this recipe works for you!

Until next time, remember, don't whine, wine!

Fondly,
The Whineaux

Shepherd's Pie, a Nearly Free Dinner

2009-04-05T11:27:00.007-04:00

Shepheard's Pie, a Free Dinner -- Sort of.

I'm reading a book right now (well actually I liked it so much I'm immediately reading it for the second time) "The Making of a Chef" by Michael Ruhlman. It's about going to the Culinary Institute of America and how his thoughts on food progress. I also learned about a new position in the kitchen, the Garde Manager. Well, it's not a new positon, it's just new to me.

The Garde Manager is the person who can make or break a restaurant based on food cost. They are given what I conisider to be an especially tough challenge; to take what essentially amounts to leftovers and develop something creative from it. Nobody walks into a 4 star restaurant and wants to order the dish called "last night's special that didn't sell out." And I'm betting a plate of "forcemeats" may be a hard sell too. And I bet you've ordered both, because of the creativity of the chef in the Garde Manager role.

Forcemeat is cooked or raw meat ground or minced -- so sausage, charcuterie, terrines etc. And while the word forcemeat sends a shiver down my spine, they are delicious. Two leftover servings of protine such as duck can be turned into almost 20 appetizer servings that are wonderful and the food doesn't go to waste. If only our moms had known how to clevery hide leftovers in this manner there would have been a lot less whiny nights at the dinner table. Unless of course she called her creation "Forcemeat Night" LOL. It's all in the marketing.

I have to confess, I have a problem. I have a strange anxiety about not makeing enough food. I'd be a terrible portion control and food cost manager based on first dishes. It's only Bill and I at home yet when I make pasta sauce or soup or stew I do so in a 13qt dutch oven with enough yield to feed everyone on the floor of my building. (yes, I tried starting with a smaller pot, didn't work, just had to wash two pots) If I make cassarole -- I fill a 9 x 13 pan. I don't mean to, I start every meal with the best intentions but somehow end up cooking as if an entire infantry division is likely to just pop by. Obvioulsy this means we have a lot of leftovers. Some are easy sell for lunch the next day and maybe even a second dinner -- like spaghetti. You'd think I never make it because cold spaghetti with meat sauce is like gold currency around here. Other things are not so easy -- like half a steak. sure you can make steak and eggs or you can have a sandwhich, but more often than not it just sits in the back of the refrigerator staring at me, judging me for wasting the meat.

Pretty much every time we go out for steak They insist on serving a 12 oz portion as the smallest piece. Since I am not now, nor have I ever been a linebacker, I cannot now nor could I ever (even when I was at my heaviest) eat an entire 12 oz steak. Therefore, I dutifully take it home and in the past guiltily threw it away in a few days time.

To end the guilt, I decided to turn leftover steak into a new meal. I started wrapping it up and popping it in the freezer when I got home. I eventually decided that I could not wait to make that British Classic Shepherd's Pie. You can make Shepherd's pie with ground meat -- lamb is traditional, ground beef works well too if you don't care for lamb just start this recipe by browing the meat if you are going to use fresh meat. This isn's a recipe, it's a method. You could easily use cooked chicken and make a white sauce with white wine, chicken broth and cream and have a great meal.

The Recipe:
1 1/2 pounds left over beef sliced evenly
1 onion diced (roughly 1 cup)
1/2 cup diced carrot
1/2 cup diced celery
1 Clove Garlic
1 8ox package sliced cremini mushrooms (sometimes referred to as baby bella)
1 T butter
1T Olive Oil
4 T tomato paste
3 T flour
1 cup red wine
! Cup Beef Broth
1 Cup frozen peas
2 - 3 cups mashed potatos (take these out of the refirgerator right away, if they warm up a little they'll be easier to spread)
sprinkle of shredded cheddar cheese (or whatever you like, bleu cheese would be YUMMY here)
1/4 cup sliced green onion

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees

Start by sauteing the onion in the butter and olive oil over medium high heat (about 7 1/2 on an electric stove) about 4 minutes. Next add the carrots and celery and cook until they carmelize. Next add tomato paste cook while stirring until fragerent and you see the tomato paste go from red to rust and it will bind or "pinch" with the rest of the ingredients. Now, add the flour and cook 2 - 3 minutes longer to get the flour taste out. Add the garlic and stir for 1 - 2 minutes, Then deglaze the pan with the red wine by adding the wine and scraping up any bits that may have clung to the bottom, add the beef broth and stir until it boils. Add the meat to the pan. Check the thickness of the sauce. You want it to be saucy and thick but not like a paste if you need to add some water or beef broth to get it where you want it, now's the time. Add the peas.

You can either make one family size "pie" or individuals, if you make a family size it may take a little longer to bake -- you'll need an 8x8 pan for a family size. Put the meat base in the bottom of the dish, spread with a layer of mashed potatoes, about 2 inches worth is ideal but if you don't have that much potato you'll be fine. Top with shredded cheese and pop into the oven. A word of caution, there's a good chance that this will bubble over so put it on a sheet pan with a foil or parchment liner unless you just like to clean your oven. And if you enjoy cleaning ovens, please contact me so we can arrange some thing! About 15 - 20 minutes for individual servings and maybe 35 minutes for a family size portion. I ended up turning on the broiler for the last couple of minutes to brown the top. Sprinkle with green onions and serve

If you prefer to see this done on video -- We recorded another one. BOY do I feel like a dork. I'll get better at this and they'll become more fun to watch I promise!

Shepherd's Pie - Free Dinner Using Leftovers from Dawn Brister on Vimeo.

If you have a leftover that you want my ideas on, or want to share what you do with lefovers, please leave a comment!

Until next time, don't whine, wine!

Dinner Impossible!

2009-03-30T08:57:00.003-04:00

So there I was, it was Friday night. I glass of wine in hand warming my soul, friends around me warming my heart and I was making dinner for them (Chicken Vesuvio). As an extra special treat I was in my friend's kitchen which is like cook's nirvana. All was good.

The last couple arrived and we were off to a great evening. Then the question came -- "Hey Dawn, how busy are you tomorrow?" If you spend much time with us you learn never to give a direct answer to any question. Answering "yes" to "Hey Dawn, do you like the color blue" Could land you painting a house blue.

So I replied with our standard -- "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I have about 20 people coming over tomorrow for a party and I was wondering if you would cook for them."

First I was Very flattered that my friends would want me to cook for their friends and secondly I don't really know how to say "No." So there I was, Friday night, head full of wine, no game plan and a need to have dinner for 20 delivered to her house by 3:30 the next day.

I didn't sleep much that night because I kept waking up wondering what the menu would be. We'd talked about baked Ziti -- so that was easy -- except I had to make the sauce which needed to simmer. But what else ... I wanted to make sure everyone would be able to find something they wanted to eat. I ended up with a big green salad, roasted squash, Baked Ziti, Garlic Bread and Chicken Marsala. I also threw in a banana cake that I had just read the recipe for a few days ago on another blog I follow "Fridge Full of Food and Nothing to Eat"

I got up in the morning, sipped some coffee, went to the store , came home, turned down the AC so I wouldn't die and started cooking. That kitchen was humming. I was truly surprised at how much fun I had. It was like having a dinner party, but not having to clean up! Again, guess who forgot to take a picture!

Everything turned out great! You have to try this banana cake -- MMMMMMM

As we drove off -- My dear husband said -- you are just like that Dinner Impossible guy -- without the tatoos!

I finally Did, I Made Pasta

2009-03-30T08:09:00.005-04:00

On Christmas Morning, I gleefully opened a heavy box that I knew was my coveted pasta maker I had asked for repeatedly. Later that day in putting away my new treasures, the pasta maker made its way to the floor in my bedroom -- where it stayed. At first it sat there happily enough, knowing that I would come for it. As the weeks clicked by it became a little panicked, it didn't trust that I was coming. Then it knew the truth, I was afraid I couldn't make the pasta and I was avoiding my poor little pasta maker. The fantasies of home made pasta were overtaken by fear of failure. What if it was too hard to make, what if I just ended up making lumps of dough? I began to avoid even looking at the pasta maker on the floor because I knew it was mocking me.

Yesterday that all changed. We had our first rainy Sunday of the season. I had some home made sauce left over from a catering job I did on Saturday and some Italian Sausage. PERFECT for dinner!

I should point out this is the second time I've made pasta dough and run it through the machine -- but the first time you run dough through the machine you have to throw it away because it picks up bits of metal.

The first time I made it by hand, piling the flour on the cutting board, making a well for the eggs and bringing it all together with my fingers. I had researched many recipes, but found the info on the King Arthur Flour site to be the best. This was messy, but satisfying for some reason it just smelled like cooking -- the unique transformation of base ingredients into something special.

The second time I made dough I used the Kitchen Aid Recipe and the standing mixer. The dough was not as soft. I've heard people talk about over working dough and making it tough -- I never understood what that meant until yesterday. The dough resisted being kneaded -- it had attitude. That said, it rolled out nicely using the attachments and made very tender pasta.

I'm looking forward to another rainy day soon where I can make pasta. Which I will mix by hand. I wish I had taken a picture of the finished plate, but we forgot this time ... Next time!

Dawn

Arroz Con Pollo -- Our Fave!

2009-03-17T13:05:00.005-04:00

Chicken and Rice -- The ultimate comfort food.

I'm still on my quest to design menus that will keep our food bill under $100 per week. I'm doing pretty good though we did have a Rib Eye splurge that was $16 in meat paired with $1.00 worth of peas, I still think we came in at a very good price for the meal.

Chicken and Rice is the ultimate budget meal that includes meat. I make it Cuban style -- Arroz con Pollo with yellow rice and it was heaven! It's also Bill's favorite -- and it's SO easy that people request it. I must give the credit for this to Bill's mother who taught me to make it.

The budget for roughly 3 portions

Chicken Legs 3.33
Rice 1.00
Bell Pepper 1.00
Olives 2.00
Chicken Stock FREE
Vino Secco 0.50
Flour 0.20
Olive Oil 0.30

Total 8.33

So about $2.10 per portion. We do frequently order this in a local Spanish Restaurant and it's $17.99 per order! So I'm very much in the midst of patting myself on the back for my frugality.

Here's how to make it

1 1/2 pounds dark chicken meat on the bone, skin removed.
1 cup flour
1 Red Bell Pepper seeds removed, sliced
1 large white onion diced
4 cloves minced garlic
1 cup vino seco blanco cooking wine * see note
1 cup chicken stock
1 package Viggo Yellow Rice* Note
1 cup sliced green olives with pimentos
salt and pepper to taste

Heat a Dutch Oven with olive oil over medium heat.

Remove skin from chicken legs, rinse and pat dry. Dredge the chicken in flour and season, brown on all sides in the dutch oven and transfer to a plate.

Saute the onion and bell pepper until soft, add the garlic and cook for 1 - 2 minutes more. Add the rice and stir to coat the rice with the fat. Return chicken to pot and add liquids. Place a lid on the pot and cook over medium low for 20 minutes until rice is done and chicken is cooked through.

This can be a little salty but .... YUMMMY

A couple of notes, I typically suggest that you cook with wine you would drink -- in this dish I make an exception, the cooking wine has an acidic note to it that makes the flavor of this dish. You can use any wine you have but it will obviously change the final flavor.

Also -- I'm not big on pre mixed things. However this yellow rice mix has nice seasonings I like the way it turns out so I make the exception here because otherwise I would have to buy a lot of spices that I really don't want to keep on hand because I won't use them before they go bad.

You Won't See This On Rachel Ray

2009-03-14T22:02:00.007-04:00

Tonight I made one of our all time favorite dinners -- Chicken Vesuvio. Bill and I love it. The flavor is completely amazing. It's a mesmerizing blend of chicken, thyme, oregano, garlic and white whine. It's noting short of intoxicating.

Bill wanted to tape me making dinner -- because video is so much better than the written word for explaining. I agreed.

10 seconds in as I heated a pan the top fell off my oil bottle into the pan. Two minutes in I sent my prep bowl of thyme flying as I smacked a clove of garlic to peel it.

These things don't typically happen to me. The top has NEVER fallen off my oil bottle, I honestly can't remember ever sending a prep dish of herbs flying -- but, I've never cooked with a camera rolling ...

The best moment, in my mind, was moving the dish from stove top to oven.

Here I must digress, the ONLY time I have seriously burned myself was by not using pot holders. I had put a pan in a 450 degree oven to finish a dish, I wisely used potholders to remove it and put it on the stove top. I turned my back to do something and then turned back to see the handle on the skillet was pointing out. My brain to hand connection failed and I grabbed that handle with my bare hand. First I heard the sizzle, then I smelled my cooking hand, then I said "Oh, why did I do that." Next I felt the worst pain of my life. Today, I have a scar to remind me. Seriously I beg of you if you don't like me and want to do me in, go for it but PLEASE DO NOT BURN ME.

So, after that and countless other "minor" burns that left a "mark," you would think I learned. Nope, camera rolling (so I thought) with bare hands, I grabbed both handles of the dutch oven that had been on the stove to transfer it to the oven.

*MOM STOP READING* (if you are offended by F-bomb's, here's your warning, stop with Mom)

FUCKING HELL! That hurt. Stupid! OUCH OUCH OUCH!

[In my mind swearing has its perfectly legitimate place. This is it. So if I offended you, I sincerely apologize]

In spite of my pain, the dinner turned out wonderful. We may or may not have audio for the video. If we do, you'll see the oil bottle lid fall into the pan. You'll see me send my prep bowl flying, you won't see or hear me shout my F-bombs. But just know when you are watching the "Next Food Network Star" or "Top Chef" thinking that you would have done it differently; I bet they would have too. But the camera wasn't there when they had their best thought out response prepared. The camera was there when the oil bottle top fell off into the pan and they sent their prep dishes flying. If they were lucky, the camera was shut off when they started swearing ....

Lot's of Love,
The Whineaux

Chicken Vesuvio from Dawn Brister on Vimeo. This video is about 20 minutes.

The recipe:
4 skinless bone-in chicken thighs
1 cup flour
3 T olive oil
2T Fresh Thyme
4 cloves garlic minced (or crushed in a garlic press)
1/2 to 1 pound Red potatoes cut in half
3/4 cup white whine
3/4 cup chicken stock
2 9 oz packages frozen artichoke hearts -- thawed
2T butter.

Pre-Heat Oven to 450 degrees

Heat an oven proof dutch with oven over medium high heat.

Rinse the chicken breasts and pat dry, dredge with flour and brown in the pan. (olive oil is ready when it starts to shimmer, or a little sprinkle of flour sizzles when it hits the oil)

Remove chicken from pan, set aside. Brown the potatoes. Return the chicken to the pan and add the chicken stock and wine. Put a lid on it and place in preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Remove pan from oven, check chicken for done-ness -- you are looking for 160 degrees in the meat or clear juices running from the meat.

Return pan to stove top over medium heat. Place the chicken and potatoes on a serving platter.

Add artichokes and butter to the pan and gently stir until artichokes are heated through. Pour the sauce over your chicken and voila! Chicken Vesuvio.

Too Much Like the Food Replicator for Me

2009-03-10T10:07:00.008-04:00

I fondly remember watching Star Trek with Captain Kirk and later with Captain Jean Luc Picard. Those guys knew how to travel! As much as I wanted someone to "beam me up" I wanted a food replicator even more.

These were the days before I knew how to cook. Cooking was certainly not my mother's favorite activity; so when I wanted to eat something exotic or time consuming the answer was rarely yes. A food replicator would been a dream come true. I could walk up to the device (which looks suspiciously like a microwave) and ask for anything, anything at all, and it would appear.

At some point I wondered, how do they stock all the ingredients to make this happen? I mean they travel all over space; they rarely dock; and they are so busy fighting for the triumph of good over evil that when they do visit a planet that there's little time for stocking up on supplies. So where did the ingredients for Vulcan pie and chicken Kiev come from? Now I know; Soy!! It wasn't real food, it was soy food.

I've recently realized that the soy movement is an evil plot to replace real food with fake food. I am about to use all caps because this is important. SOY IS SOY, IT IS NOT CHEESE, IT IS NOT TURKEY, IT IS NOT A HOTDOG, IT IS SOY. It's actually a bean.

Soy can be a wonderful addition to your diet, it's inexpensive, low in fat and high in protein. It has many health benefits. But it's soy and I wish the soy evangelists would stop trying to make everyone else feel like monsters for eating real food.

I just read this article on childhood obesity and efforts to cure it. I was appalled at the phrase "mock egg salad" which is being suggested for school menus. (soy based egg replication) Eggs are not the enemy! Fake Food got us into this mess, new Fake Food is only going to create new health problems.

Healthier school lunches are indeed the place to begin. People no longer grasp nutrition and even if they know they need 5 servings of fruit and vegetable they don't know how to serve it because the art of cooking is becoming something of a historical novelty in many families. And these days, rare is the school cafeteria that actually cooks vs. reheats food.

My grandmother worked in the school cafeteria when I was growing up. She was the baker. I fondly remember visiting her at work and she would be making bread dough from flour milk eggs yeast etc. From raw ingredients. The smell was heavenly! I remember visiting her some years later and she was very excited -- a pre-measured bag of dry ingredients had arrived; she didn't have to measure anymore. Later, as I was about to start high school, they eliminated actual baking in her kitchen. She was now reheating french toast for the school breakfasts, reheating chicken globs (nuggets) for lunch -- all she was doing was re-heating. She quit the next year because the joy in the job was gone. More disturbing though; we didn't realize it; was that the nutrition was gone from the food. That's what happens when you create Fake Food.

People no longer cook at home. If they eat at home, mostly they rehea. They rely on prepared meals, either frozen or dried/canned; food in a box. Food in a box is Fake Food, it's the closest thing we have to a food replicator. Fake food is convenient and shelf stable. Honestly I do love a box of mac and cheese now and again; but as the exception, not the rule. Fake Food will fill you up, but it won't provide much nutrition. It is however likely provide about 5 times the sodium you should eat, and the manufacturers add chemical coatings to keep things crisp, flavor stabilizers, sugar and lots of other stuff you can't pronounce. You get to eat all of that as an added bonus. The same is true of frozen meals, in order to make the sauces microwave without breaking they use food additives (marketing speak for chemicals, but it sounds better the other way). In order to retain flavor they use fixers. (*note -- frozen vegetables without sauce don't fit into this category)

The causes of childhood obesity are clear. Kids have XBox, PlayStation, IM, Internet and about 500 other things that didn't exist when we were kids. They no longer go outside and play, they stay in the house on the couch. This coupled with the fact that nobody cooks anymore -- at school or at home so the foods are stuffed with sugar and chemicals causes obesity (in adults and children). Restaurants with a drive-thru serve the cheapest forms of meat possible -- typically the fattiest. Meals at home are reheated from the freezer or prepared out of a box with the addition of water and butter -- FAKE FOOD. Fake Food = Health problems.

FAKE FOOD is filled with things your body does not want or need. When you eat this junk, you get more than you bargain for. Dyes, preservatives, fixers. TRASH. All of this stuff is added to replicate the flavors achieved through actual cooking with fresh ingredients.

Fake food isn't necessarily cheap -- though that's the perception. I remember a recent meal I made for Bill and I -- I wanted Golden Arches because I didn't want to cook or clean. He HATES the arches. So, I ended up buying a sirloin steak and some spinach. Our meal was less than the cost of two "value meals" and we had good quality food. (and it took about 15 minutes to make -- less time than driving to The Arches)

Eating meat is not the central cause of obesity, lack of exercise and FAKE FOOD is the cause of obesity.

We've already relied on Fake Food to create a huge set of health problems likely to plague an entire generation. Why are we trying this again? Who knows what the side effects of this well intentioned movement will be.....

Mediterranean Braised Chicken

2009-03-09T18:37:00.006-04:00

I love the flavors of the Mediterranean and I love braising.

I've seen several recipes lately that were some combination of tomato, kalamata olives and slow cooking. I'm a believer in signs; when I see the same advice in multiple spots I take it. I feel like it's a sign for me to try this kind of recipe.

I'm also on a mission this week to keep our grocery bill (wine excluded) under $100 per week. So chicken is my protein of choice. I bought a package of frozen chicken thighs at Costco for $12, it has 8 individual compartments with 4 thighs each. By my math that's $1.50 per "compartment" which is two meals for Bill and I -- so I have GOOD protein for about 40 cents per plate. We served it over couscous which soaked up all the yummy sauce. This recipe is easily 4 servings here's my cost estimate:

Chicken .38
Flour .10 (I really don't even know how to price this, I used about 1 cup for dredging)
Olive Oil .20
Tomato Paste .25
Garlic .20
White Wine .25 (since it went into the recipe I feel I have to count it)
Diced Tomato .65*
Sun Dried Tomato .30
Kalamatta Olives .20
Capers .20
Chicken Stock **FREE
Couscous .43

Total per serving: $2.91
Restaurant cost: $13.00 roughly, I would guess it would be more.

All of these costs are my rough estimates, but I was really surprised at how inexpensive the chicken was compared to some of the ingredients I typically think of as "cheap." Thank you Costco!

*I splurged on Italian tomatoes. If you use domestic tomatoes you could cut this in half, but with such a deal on the protein I felt I could splurge, and Italian tomatoes DO have more flavor.

**Chicken Stock is free for me because I make my own, I used about 1 cup which would be 1/4 of a box which sells for about $2.60

Enough on cheap -- Here's the recipe

4 skinless bone-in chicken thighs
1 cup flour
3T olive oil
3T Tomato Paste
4 cloves garlic minced
1/2 cup white wine
1 28oz can diced tomatoes drained
1/4 cup kalamatta olives sliced
1 tsp capers
1 cup chicken stock
salt and pepper to taste

2 servings plain couscous cook per package directions.

Pat chicken thighs dry, dredge in flour and brown in olive oil over medium high heat. Transfer to a slow cooker (crock pot).

Add tomato paste to the pan and brown until it's nearly a rust color, add garlic and stir until fragrant. Deglaze the pan with white wine and reduce by half. Add to slow cooker.

Add remaining ingredients and cook on low for about 5 hours.

Serve over couscous.

I tried to serve this with a chardonnay -- it was a terrible clash. It was a "apple-y" wine vs. buttery or oak-y. It was a terrible clash. My friend Vicky F who is a Sommelier suggested a dry Riesling. I'll try that next time, and there will be a next time because this was really tasty -- and even better today as lunch.

Until next time!

Spring is in the Air -- But I like Winter.

2009-03-07T05:14:00.005-05:00

Spring is in the air. Most of the cooking magazines have moved well past braises and are into light vegetarian meals, pasta, or roasted spring lamb.

I am just not there yet. This is the time of year I hang onto my winter recipes like a drug addict hanging onto a fix.

My favorite meal this week was Beef Stroganoff. I fell in love with this dish in my 20s when I worked at a place called the "Coffee Tree." If you lived in California and had occasion to drive Interstate 80 from the Bay Area to Sacramento you may remember it. It had a huge gold roof and it was legendary. It was the kind of place where the staff wore HORRIBLE polyester uniforms straight from the 70's, just like everything else about the place including the decor and menu. The food was nostalgic and fantastic. People made it a point to stop there during their road trip and many had been stopping there since they were kids. The Coffee Tree is gone now, but I remember it.

Beef Stroganoff at the Coffee Tree was not the traditional recipe. It was thick, rich and full of tomatoes. It was incredible. Every time I've tried to make it in the memory of the Coffee Tree I've used diced tomatoes as they did and the finished dish has ended up tasting like tin. Too much acid.

This week when I made it I had the best result ever (Or I was really hungry, I'm not sure)

Here's the recipe:

2T olive oil
1/2 red onion diced
8 oz sliced cremini mushrooms
1 1/2 pounds beef sirloin cut into half inch pieces
2 cloves garlic diced
3T tomato paste
1/2 cup red wine
2 cups beef broth
2T softened butter
2T flour
Salt and Pepper to taste
Egg Noodles
Sour Cream

Saute the onions and mushrooms over medium heat until they are caramelized. You want to bring out the flavor here but not burn so be patient. Season them with salt and pepper. Once caramelized, remove from pan and place in a separate bowl.

Bring heat up to medium high and working in batches brown the beef (season in the pan with salt and pepper) Remove from pan and set aside with the mushrooms and onions.

Saute the tomato paste and garlic in the pan. Cook until the tomato paste goes from red to a deep rust color.

Deglaze the pan with the red wine and reduce it by half. Add the beef broth and return the beef, mushrooms and onions to the pan.

Bring to a simmer for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small dish combine the flour and butter until it's a smooth paste. You want this to have a moment to rest before you need it so do this as soon as you put everything back into the pan.

Add one tablespoon of the flour and butter mixture at a time to the sauce until it's the thickness you desire. A note here -- because the sauce is boiling it will thicken quickly, but you have to let it cook a a little (2 - 3 minutes) to see where you are going to end up. If you over thicken you can add beef broth, wine or water but you'll end up diluting your flavor. Once you have the thickness you want let it cook for about 5 minutes longer. This is not an exact science this is where your grandma tells you to "cook it until it's done." You'll have to taste the sauce, stir it and decide what your are looking for. I LOVE thickening sauce this way as opposed to starting with a roux because it allows me to instantly see the thickness and avoid over or under thickening but it's something you have to do and play with to get it right.

Serve over buttered egg noodles (or rice if you prefer) with a garnish of sour cream. A hearty red wine such as a Zinfandel or Cabernet will go great with this meal!

Sanitation Nation

2009-03-05T23:15:00.002-05:00

I like to cook. I like to eat. I like to write about cooking and eating with the hope someone will read it.

I like clean. I really like clean. I'm the person nobody wants to cook with because I will wash the spoon that you were stirring sauce with the second you turn your back on me. I (honestly) sanitize my kitchen counters at least once a day but realistically 2 to 3 times a day. DH says I'm crazy. I say -- perhaps, but I'm the crazy person you know who doesn't die of food poisoning.

I have two kinds of anti-bacterial soap in the kitchen AND hand sanitizer. I wash my hands when I start cooking and (honestly) after every time I touch raw meat. This typically amounts to 4 - 5 hand washings during meal prep.

Sometimes I wake up at night thinking about Gordon Ramsay yelling "Dirty Plate! Dirty Plate" or worse, the hellish things he finds in a restaurant kitchen, rotten food, unclean food prep surfaces, general grossness.

Crazy?? You be the judge. But if you are invited to my house for dinner I can't promise you will like everything you are served, but I can promise that there will be no cross contamination between raw meat and other foods. I am certain that you will not get sick because I didn't have a clean kitchen routine.

While I will admit to being a little nuts, today, I must blog about sanitation stupidity.

I'm unclear as to when as a society we gained a love affair with food prep professionals wearing latex gloves. To be certain, it beats the days of Upton Sinclair and "into the hopper" (for those of you who do not know what I'm talking about, Google it, you'll never eat sausage again).

I've worked in restaurants ranging from humble drive-through to prestigious four star. I would never pretend that eating out is cleaner than your own kitchen (or even as clean). Therefore, I heartily applaud efforts to make eating out cleaner, whether you have dinner from Taco Bell, or the highest end of fine dining establishments. But I'm still fuzzy about how it came to pass that latex gloves are considered cleaner than bare skin.

To be certain, if you have a cut you should have the proper protection. But if you have basic concern for cleanliness, your hands are as clean or cleaner than the gloves. How many times have you gone to a sandwich shop and had the person take your money while wearing gloves. If they would not wash their hands between touching money and food, what makes anyone think they would change their gloves?

The gloves are only as clean as the last thing that the person wearing them touched.

You may ask yourself, Why is Whineaux ranting about this?

Today DH drove me to Target. We needed an orange, milk and a prescription. $100 later (another rant for another time) we were in the car on the way home. @icejunkies (that's his Twitter if you want to follow the man who lives with the certified whacko) and I live near Disney World. Going to the market means we have to drive along the horrible tourist corridor known by locals as "192". It's a mix of cheap souvenir shops, crappy hotels and even crappier eating establishments.

On the way home from Target we were passing a "Las Vegas Style" buffet (for the record that's their phrase not mine) which recently began serving crab legs. To advertise this they were placing signs out by the street. You know the kind; they are typically seen during political campaigns and are one color on a metal stick. The person placing these signs obviously works in the kitchen judging by the all black clothing, apron and hair net. In addition, he was wearing; yes you guessed, latex gloves!

If he didn't bother to remove them to place the signs then I'm pretty confident he didn't change them when he went back in the kitchen.

Why can't he just wash his hands?

So next time you are at the sandwich counter ask yourself this, what else did they do wearing those gloves? Just go ahead, ask them to change their gloves before making your food. After all, would you let your dentist put his hands in your mouth wearing soiled gloves?

Big Bowl of Love and Comfort

2009-03-02T21:25:00.001-05:00

I’m back in the kitchen today – well, actually I’ve been back in the kitchen all week trying to recover from the disappointment of the pork chop.

One of my friends is in the hospital in pretty tough shape following emergency heart surgery. I wish I was one of those people who always says exactly the right thing to make my friends feel better. I am not. I always say the wrong thing – my heart means the right thing, but my brain to mouth connection is askew. When my heart is saying, “I know you are hurting, go ahead and hurt I am here for you. But know it will get better”; my mouth says “quit whining this will blow over.”

So … when things are rough I cook. I know my friend is not eating. She’s barely coming home and getting a shower. Tonight I am taking her beef vegetable soup. To me, there’s nothing more comforting than a bowl of soup. It’s a little cold tonight (By Florida standards, roughly 55 degrees) and soup can warm your body and soul. I’ve been reading the America’s Test Kitchen cookbook and there is a great article on “quicker” beef vegetable soup which I used as my base. A couple tricks I really liked:

Use Sirloin, it will cook tender in about an hour.
Marinade the Sirloin with Soy Sauce for about 15 minutes prior to cooking.
Use Cremini Mushrooms, tomato paste and red wine to build flavor.

One thing they suggested I didn’t like was to use unflavored gelatin to thicken the soup at the last minute. I didn’t like this for two reasons, the first reason is that while I love soup, there’s no way Bill and I are going to consume an entire recipe in one evening. I like to make a pot and have it around, gelatin gets gloppy and ugly in the refrigerator. It will reheat to the right consistency, but after I see the soup all “glopped up” I’m not as interested in it. And also, this is soup, not stew. I want a broth like consistency. I put some potatoes in to thicken it a little but not too much.

Here's my recipe:

1 ½ pound sirloin meat cut into ½ inch cubes
3 tsp soy sauce
2T vegetable oil (or other high smoke point such as peanut)
1 Onion
1 package (8oz) cremini mushrooms
4 cloves minced garlic
3T tomato paste
1 cup red wine
32 oz beef broth
8 oz chicken broth
1 cup minced celery hearts with leaves
1 cup diced carrots
3 Bay leaves
3 Sprigs thyme leaves removed
3T Tamari

Marinade the sirloin in the soy sauce for about 15 minutes.

Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven.

Brown the onions and mushrooms, when golden and liquid has evaporated remove them from the pan and put them in a bowl.

Brown the sirloin and let the liquid evaporate.

Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook about three minutes more. Deglaze the pan with red wine. Reduce the wine by half.

Add broth and remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Taste for seasoning and then let the soup simmer for about 45 minutes.

I was about to take a photo of this beautiful soup which really does have a rich broth and great color when the phone rang. After I hung up, I was suddenly in cleaning mode and I had put it into storage containers and in the fridge before I realized what I had done. This blog WILL have a photo soon. Perhaps tomorrow I can take a pic of the soup in the bowl. Tonight I’m too tired.

Night all – keep wine-ing!

Just when you think you can cook ...

2009-02-25T20:09:00.008-05:00

Yesterday, full of inspiration, hope, and the aroma of my kick-ass (there's really no other way to say it) Ropa Vieja I decided to start a blog. I've been reading lots of blogs and felt I too could inspire and perhaps even help those learning to cook at home. And if not that, maybe I could make some people laugh. I needed help from DH to launch it, so I didn't get to writing until today.

Had I written this post yesterday I would have been brimming with confidence. But today is another day. Yesterday I put a meal on the table worthy of any restaurant, what I lack in food styling I own in flavor. Tonight, I assaulted pork chops in a manner so deplorable that I should be incarcerated.

I want to tell you about both of these meals. But my first post is going to be about my horrible desecration of a cut of meat that an animal graciously died for. (a cute animal I might add, I love pigs, if only they looked like a scorpion I would not eat them so what does that say about me? I only eat cute animals!)

There are so many cooking shows and blogs dedicated to marvelous menus; the adaptation of a recipe; the savoring of the meal; that it's easy to be intimidated into thinking that if you can't always deliver a perfect result, you can't cook. I fondly remember the finale of Hell's Kitchen Season 4, Christina yelling "perfect food every time" the entire episode. It quickly became my mantra, my standard for myself. I demand perfect food when I am paying someone else to cook for me. But the honest truth is that I can't always deliver it (I would argue nobody can).

Bill, my DH and chief taste tester tells me I'm crazy, tonight's meal was great -- he dutifully had seconds. I'm convinced that act of kindness was only be to make me feel better.

Since you are following a Whineaux -- may I suggest you go get a glass of wine now. This may be a mistake for my first blog post, but I'm on a roll and I have some things to say. I'll wait for you to come back.

So, did you get red or white? For me, it's almost always red -- tonight we are enjoying a good but garden variety Cab Sav.

Back to the topic at hand:

Tonight started with big expectations. I had four beautiful bone-in pork chops waiting for me to dazzle them with my creative brilliance. The problem was, I've had a rotten day and my creativity wasn't there. Suddenly, inspiration hit! I wanted to go "old school" memories of buttery, golden rice pilaf inspired my meal. We'd have the rice pilaf and I wanted to bred and fry the pork chops and make a Marsala and mushroom sauce.

I floured the pork chops (the flour was nicely seasoned with garlic powder, pepper, salt and some paprika) and let them rest. Then I started the pilaf. The smell of sauteed onion and garlic wafted through the kitchen. I was off to a good start.

Then, I heated a saute pan and dipped the pork chops in egg wash and then a second coating of breading, the secret to a good crispy coating. Anticipation flowed.

Once the oil heated, I cooked the pork chops in batches so not to crowd the pan and cool the oil (a carnal sin when frying). Then, I removed excess oil, and cooked some onions and mushrooms in the pan -- I was working on a pan sauce. I deglazed with Marsala wine and then added some home made beef stock to the sauce. At the very end I hit it with a small dash of cream.

Doesn't this sound good?

Sadly, it was a greasy mess. The pork chops were by far greasier than anything I've ever had in a diner, the sauce broke. The plate was so ugly that I refused to allow it to be photographed.

I sat at my plate and ate it wondering what I did wrong. I told my husband not to help with the dishes; I deserved punishment for what I did to the pork chops and I needed time to think. "What did I do, where did I go wrong?" I had all the right flavors, a great tasting (though UGLY sauce) why were they greasy?

Then it hit me. You can pan fry thin cutlets because they'll cook quickly. I should have browned the chops and finished them in the oven. the reduced time in the oil would have kept them from getting greasy and the oven would have finished them evenly.

I tell you this story so you don't repeat my mistake. Another day I'll tell you about my perfect Ropa Vieja (It's a Cuban Beef Stew). Tonight I wanted to tell you that sometimes dinner doesn't turn out the way you envisioned it, but it's OK, you'll cook another day and it will be amazing.

I wish more people would talk about their disasters -- we'd all learn more.

Until next time, don't "whine" just "wine".

P.S. I read this post to my DH and when I got to the part about him taking seconds, he gave me this inspiring quote; "That's not true, I was starving. I would have eaten an old shoe!"