Brown Roux

This is a staple of Cajun cooking.
Soon, we'll have a Crawfish Etoufee recipe. You'll first need to have some roux ready. Roux is a cooked combination of flour and fat (either butter or oil). Its used as a sauce base, flavoring, and a thickener. A traditional light roux has equal parts flour to oil, but a brown roux will use less fat/more flour due to the effects of longer cooking.

8oz Cake Flour
4fl oz Canola Oil

Preheat oil in a non-stick skillet a little hotter than medium. I set my electric stove on 6 for this. Pour flour in and CONSTANTLY stir with a silicone/rubber spatula. Cook for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 5 and cook 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 4 and cook 10 minutes. By this time the roux needs to be at least darker than peanut butter. If it isn't that dark, keep cooking and stirring until it is. The most important part of this is: NEVER STOP STIRRING. If any bit of it burns, it will ruin the whole batch of roux. Let cool and freeze for later.

Why cake flour? Because it has the lowest protein and highest starch, which are the properties needed for roux. All purpose flour will still work, but dont use bread flour.

Broccoli Quiche

BROCCOLI QUICHE
Serves 4

1 previously made pie dough
- I use Pillbury pie dough, found near canned biscuit dough at the grocery store
6 green onions, finely chopped (green and white parts)
1/2 lb broccoli florets, chopped small (less that 3/4 in square)
1/2 lb baby swiss cheese, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
4 cloves of garlic, minced
3 eggs
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp butter
1/2 tsp salt
pepper to taste (try 1 minced jalapeno if you are inclined)

Preheat oven to 450
press pie dough into pie pan, prick with a fork and bake for five minutes.
In a skillet, saute onions, garlic, and broccoli in the butter on medium heat (about 5 minutes).
After removing the crust from its 5 minute baking, evenly layer the cheese cubes along the bottom of the crust.
Pour out the sauteed vegetables over the cheese.
Beat eggs, milk, salt and pepper in a blender.
Pour egg mixture evenly over the veggies and cheese until the pan is full.

Bake for 15 minutes at 450, then reduce heat to 350, and bake another 30 minutes.
Check for doneness by sticking a toothpick or knife into the quiche. It should come out clean.

Black Bean Enchiladas

Makes 18 enchiladas.

Filling Ingredients:
½ Large Yellow Onion (appx 4oz)
1 TBSP Minced Garlic
1 TBSP Ground Cumin
2 TBSP Oil
15oz can Black Beans
15oz can Refried Black Beans

Remaining Ingredients:
18 Corn Tortillas
Pepper Jack Cheese, 14 prepackaged slices
(2 6oz packs will yield enough)
Cooking Spray
2 10oz cans Red Enchilada Sauce
1 bunch Green Onions (appx 3oz)
Cheddar Cheese, 4oz shredded small
Chili Powder (Mexene is preferred)

Preheat oil in skillet on Medium heat (5 out of 10).
Sauté Onions, Garlic and Cumin about 5 minutes until Onions are soft.
Pour in Beans and juice from the can of regular Black Beans (not the refried).
Stir until Beans and Onions are evenly mixed.
Wait for the mix to boil then add Refried Beans, stirring until smooth.
Raise heat to Medium High (8 out of 10).
Stir constantly for 5 to 8 minutes until mix is very thick.
Remove from heat. When mix cools enough, refrigerate to further stiffen for easier assembly of the enchiladas.

For assembly, microwave the tortillas to soften so they won’t break when rolled up.
Microwave 2 at a time for about 30 seconds or more. The only limit to this cooking time is that the tortillas should not be too hot to touch.

Apply cooking spray to a 9x13 inch baking pan.

Break or cut a piece of cheese into 4 equally sized strips. Place three cheese strips in a row on a tortilla starting at one edge and ending at the middle. Put 2 Tablespoons of the bean filling along the middle cheese strip. Roll tortilla tightly around the filling so that the cheese strips surround the filling, creating an enchilada.

Place the enchilada seam side down into the pan. As you repeat the process of rolling the enchiladas, form a row of 11 enchiladas along one edge. In the remaining space, add a row of 3 enchiladas in each corner, and fill the last space with one enchilada, folded into a square shape instead of rolled. Smaller openings may be filled in with tightly rolled tortillas without bean filling or cheese inside. Press the enchiladas down gently so they spread out and fill any space that may be between them. Spaces between enchiladas may allow sauce to leak away from the surface into the bottom.

Pour enchilada sauce evenly over the top of the enchiladas.
Add Green Onions (both the green and white parts finely chopped) evenly over the top.
Add the shredded Cheddar Cheese evenly over the top.
Shake Chili Powder generously over the surface.

Bake 20 minutes at 375 degrees.

Tikka Masala Sauce

Serve this on cooked paneer, Quorn, or a meaty fish

Oil 1 Tbsp
Ginger Garlic Paste 1/4 Cup
Onion Paste 1/2 Cup (recipe follows sauce recipe)
Tomato Sauce 15 oz

Coriander 1 Tablespoon
Cumin 1 teaspoon
Methi (dried fenugreek leaves) 1/2 teaspoon
Paprika 1 teaspoon
Garam Masala 1 teaspoon
Cayenne Pepper 1/4 teaspoon
Salt 1 teaspoon
Half & Half 1/2 Cup
Cilantro (chopped) 1/2 Cup

Heat oil on medium heat.
Fry Ginger Garlic Paste 1 to 2 min until cooked.
Add Onion Paste and stir thoroughly.
Add Tomato Sauce and stir thoroughly.
Stir in all spices, but not the cilantro.
Reduce heat to med-lo and simmer covered for 20 minutes.
Uncover, lower heat to 2 and wait a few minutes for the temperature to lower.
Stir in cream a little dribble at a time so it wont separate.
Add cilantro.

Meat or paneer should be cooked separately by grilling or sauteing.
Add it to the sauce and simmer 10 minutes before serving.



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Onion Paste Recipe
Oil (enough to submerge onion in a small skillet)
1/2 lb onion cut into thin slices
1 tsp minced garlic
1/4 cup plain yogurt

Deep fry onion slices and garlic on med-hi heat until golden.
The smaller pieces should be a bit shriveled before you finish.
Remove and place on paper towels.
Puree onions and garlic in a food processor until smooth.
Add yogurt and blend until smooth.

Please note the picture to see how dark to cook the onions, and how
finely to puree the paste.

You can filter and reuse the oil by pouring through a paper towel in a colander,
but it will add onion flavor to whatever you cook with it.

You can easily freeze the paste for later use if you arent making the tikka sauce right away.

Rosemary Roasted New Potatoes

Rosemary Roasted New Potatoes

2lb new potatoes (Get smaller potatoes for maximum skin)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 Tbsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 Tbsp garlic (minced)
1/2 Tbsp Fresh Rosemary (minced)
1/4 tsp dried thyme

A foot-long piece of fresh rosemary will yield close to the amount needed. Make sure to discard the stem.

Dice potatoes and put in a 9x13in glass pan.
Mix all other ingredients in a separate bowl and pour over potatoes.
Mix thoroughly.

Bake at 425F for 45 minutes. Stir 2 or 3 times during baking.

Oils: EVOO or OO?

There's a lot of talk these days about Extra Virgin Olive oil. Some people actually say "evoo". I think that's kind of silly. It is the premium version of olive oils, which is also reflected in the price. It is good stuff, and does taste different from regular olive oil, but here's something you must know:

It "loses its virginity" under heat.

It's unique flavors are lost, and it ends up tasting like regular olive oil.
Save the extra virgin for fresh salads and other unheated uses. Use regular olive oil for cooking, otherwise you are cooking away all the extra money you spent.

Caesar Salad Dressing

Here's a delicious, super easy recipe that beats
the pants off the store bought stuff.
You'll find Anchovy Paste in the Italian section
of the grocery store. It comes in a metal tube
in a thin cardboard box, like toothpaste.

1 garlic clove, minced
½ cup fat-free mayonnaise
3 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon anchovy paste
¼ teaspoon black pepper

Mix everything and serve. Refrigerate unused portion.

Grow your own rosemary

Rosemary is a very forgiving plant. Even the least experienced gardener can keep one without killing it. Be brave- pick up one at the garden center and put it outside (leave it in the pot). It can handle mild winters outside quite easily. Even in the hottest summer days, you'll just need to water it every day or two. In winter leave it in full sun, but in the summer only expose it to a half-day's sun so it wont get too dried out.

Buy spices at an Indian, Pakistani, or Halal market

I do a lot of Indian cooking, which requires special spices than can be hard to find.
Instead of dropping the big bucks at Whole Foods, check out a market that caters to people who use those spices almost everyday. You can get spices and beans in bigger bags than regular grocery stores and they are cheaper too. They also carry spices that are easy to find like cinnamon and cardamom, still cheaper. In case you are wondering, every service employee at the markets I've been to speaks English.

Cranberry Cake with Vanilla Sauce Topping

Here's a delicious festive cake I had during the holidays growing up.

Cranberry Cake with Vanilla Sauce Topping
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
Sift together the above ingredients

Add
1 cup milk
2 Tbsp melted unsalted butter
8oz or 2 cups fresh whole cranberries

Pour into a greased and floured 9x9 pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 min.

Topping

1 cup skim milk 1 cup whipping cream
or
2 cups whole milk

1 cup sugar
1 cup unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 Tbsp flour

In a double boiler melt butter. Add flour and sugar. Gradually add milk. Cook until thick. It is going to take awhile to thicken. Add vanilla. Pour hot topping over warm cake. The cake may be topped with a sugar cube soaked in lemon extract and then lit.

How big is an onion?

I'm a bit obsessive compulsive about this, which has earned me much teasing at home.

I've noticed a huge range of size in the onions at the grocery store. They seem to range anywhere from the size of a tennis ball to the size of a softball. When a
recipe called for "one onion" I would have a hard time figuring out just how much that was supposed to be.

After a bit of experimenting, I've decided that "one onion" is 8oz of onion.

After I came up with that and put it into practice I was able to stop obsessing about it and get back to cooking.

Smoked Salmon Mousse

Great addition to a brunch menu or for entertaining!

Smoked Salmon Mousse

4oz smoked salmon (Flat type works best. Remove plastic sheets from between slices)
8oz cream cheese
2 Tablespoons heavy cream (half & half may be substituted)
1 teaspoon dried dill weed
1 teaspoon lemon juice
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Place salmon, cream, dill, lemon juice, salt, and cayenne into a food processor.
Blend until smooth. Gradually add cream cheese and blend to desired consistency.
Serve with crackers (Rosemary flavor Triscuits are my favorite)

Why use a kitchen scale?

A kitchen scale is one of the easiest ways to be consistent with your ingredient measurements. It can help you avoid several types of preparation hassles:

Flour is supposed to be sifted before measuring in cups.
Brown sugar should be packed tightly in measuring spoons.
Did you chop your bell peppers the right size for your measuring cup?
Is your onion too big or small?

All of these issues can be completely avoided by using a scale. All ingredients will weigh the same regardless of sifting, packing or chopping.

The scale will really save you if you need to multiply the size of a recipe to serve a very large group. Lets say your recipe calls for one bell pepper, but you need to make three times the size of the original recipe. The volume of three large bell peppers is noticeably different from that of three small bell peppers. If you know the ingredient weight for the recipe then multiplying by three would absolutely solve your problem. You could buy three peppers that are all an average size, but that method will have you more concerned with the pepper's size rather than quality.

Unfortunately, not all recipes list ingredients by weight. My recommendation is to weigh ingredients after you measure them and write it on your recipe card or paper. If you like how it turned out, then use that measurement the next time you cook the recipe. If not, adjust.

Quorn

I've experimented quite a lot with this stuff. Quorn is a brand of meat substitute products. They make several types, but I almost always use what they call "naked chik'n cutlets". It is made from egg whites and a special strain of mushrooms.
It may seem pricy, but you can use half of what a recipe calls for that uses chicken since it doesn't shrink when cooked. Most health food stores carry it and some regular grocery stores have it now too. Pick up some and put it in the freezer for upcoming recipes.

Quorn Cacciatore with Acini di Pepe

I improvised this last night using Quorn Naked Chik'n Cutlets.
I know it isnt a true Cacciatore, but its the closest dish to
what I made for the sake of naming it.

click here to learn about Quorn

Serves 4-6

28oz can Crushed Tomatoes (Imported Italian)*
15oz can Diced Tomatoes
1 red bell pepper, chopped
8oz yellow onion, chopped
1 box Quorn Naked Chik'n Cutlets
4oz sliced mushrooms (about 1/4in thick, and no wider than 1 inch across)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 TBSP basil (dried)
2 TBSP oregano (dried)
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic
8oz Acini di Pepe pasta**
24oz water
1 TBSP butter (unsalted)
Olive Oil

You'll need a medium sized pot with lid for the pasta, large pot with lid for the sacue, and 10 or 12 inch skillet for sauteing.

Bring the water to a boil in the medium pot. Pour in the pasta. Stir and cover. Reduce heat to medium-low (3 on my electric stove) and cook for 15 minutes. Stir a couple of times during cooking so the pasta doesn't stick to itself. After removing from heat, drain any remaining water and stir butter into the pasta. Cover and hold for service.

Pour both cans of tomatoes, and all dry seasonings into the large pot. Stir, cover, and set the heat on medium.

Heat 1 TBSP oil in skillet between medium and medium-hi. (7 on my stove)

The following procedure gives the veggies a nice tasty browning which wont happen
if they only simmer in the sauce. They are sauteed separately to help promote the browning, which doesn't work well if the skillet is crowded.

Saute Onions and garlic until the onions start to brown. (about 5 min)
Stir onions and garlic into the sauce. Remember to keep the sauce covered so it wont splatter.
Saute bell peppers until starting to brown. Add to sauce.
Saute mushrooms until starting to brown. Add to sauce.
Add 1 tsp of oil to skillet.
Saute Quorn until golden brown on all sides. Add to sauce.

Remove sauce from heat and serve over the pasta, or stir pasta into the sauce before serving.


*Italian tomatoes are more acidic which gives them a very bright flavor. This is the key ingredient to a delicious sauce that is noticeably better than store bought sauce. I keep a can of this in the pantry at all times. I use Cento brand. Find it in the Italian section of your grocery store.

** Acini de Pepe is one of the tiniest pastas. It's small size gives maximum surface area to release its dusty starch coating into a wonderful texture that is not too different from risotto. Never pre-rinse it. Find it in the Italian section of your grocery store.

Substitute for bacon in a recipe

A lot of flavor comes from bacon. That's why its used as a source of cooking fat in many recipes. Its true much flavor comes from the animal fat, but it also comes from how it is cured, i.e. smoking.
My favorite clam chowder recipe says to chop up a slice of bacon and fry it to render the fat for frying up onions. I didn't want to miss out on the flavor so I came up with an alternative that is functional and yields tasty results.

If your recipe calls for a slice of bacon, instead use a Tablespoon of olive oil and a teaspoon of liquid smoke (hickory, not mesquite) for each replaced bacon slice. Don't worry that the liquid smoke smells to strong at first. It settles in cooking and works quite well.

Cheese Grits

Serves 1 to 2

1 Cup water
¼ Cup dry grits (instant style)
½ TBSP unsalted “sweet” butter
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/8 tsp paprika
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1 oz sharp cheddar cheese (a piece sized appx ½”x 1”x 2”)
1 oz monterey jack cheese (a piece sized appx ½”x 1”x 2”)
½ oz parmesan cheese (a piece sized appx ¼” x 1” x 1”)

Chop all cheese into small pieces (about ¼ inch)
In small pot (about 5 or 6 inches wide) bring water, butter, salt and spices to a boil on high heat.
Reduce heat to medium, and slowly stir in grits. Cover, reduce to medium-low (the heat you would simmer rice at) and cook 5 minutes. Stir a couple of times during the 5 minutes to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the pot.
Add chopped cheese. Stir until cheese is fully melted. Serve hot.

Day One

The term pescetarian is not widely known, even by those who practice it. Usually a pescetarian will say "I'm a vegetarian, but I'll eat fish", a phrase most people can understand although not entirely correct as a true vegetarian may be quick to explain.

I'll eat just about anything, but my wife is a pescetarian and I do most of the cooking at home. Over the past few years I have been developing a repertoire of recipes that is tasty to me as an omnivore and my wife's liking of vegetarian and fish dishes.

I'm writing this blog mostly for people like me- an omnivore who must cook for others and leave out the meat. The most important thing is that it should still taste good to the meat eater.

To summarize- the recipes I'll share will not include meat or byproducts of land or air animals, but they will feature all manner of fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, dairy, eggs, fish, shellfish, and plenty of spices. There will be some actual vegetarian recipes, and even a few vegan recipes. I also will feature some meat-substitute products as well.

Preheat those ovens and lets get started!