Archive for January, 2008

©2008 Harry Kenney

This recipe is so cut and dry that for once I’m not sure what even to write about. Of course, that’s not usually the case and this blog is set up to show the first two paragraphs and then “divide” so I have to write something here. I guess I’ll just say how nice it is to wander the earth from my desktop computer and from my kitchen and to see — and to taste — how different people’s do the same thing — like a salad — but do it their own way.

Californians, parts of Mexico and Spain all have salads that contain avacado, for instance. In Greece, it’s olives and feta that helps make it uniquely theirs, their “stamp” on things, or their contribution. You’ll notice two ingredients I say are option, I myself didn’t put into this salad, anchovies and hard-boiled eggs. Again two ingredients that make it more distinctly Mediterranean in nature. So, try it with one of the two Greek salad dressings I posted here yesterday if you want to keep it authentically Greek — or feel free to use your own favorite salad dressing. Your choice. Enjoy.

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©2008 Harry Kenney

Seems lately I’ve been doing some pairings. First the pesto then the pasta. Another day, a side and then a soup to go with it. Today, something similiar. I’ve made two Greek salad dressings and tomorrow or the next day I’ll put up the Greek salad that goes with it.

I told you I got into a bit of a “rut” doing a lot of Italian and Italian-American food. Well, rut is a negative word and I’m not pinning that in any way on the food, just the lack of variety. So you’ll also notice that I’m taking a more global walk on the wild side. Why? Pretty simple. I love all kinds of food. And fortunately seemingly every country, and often smaller regions of countries, have contributed major food items or at least nuances to the overall food tapestry of what we eat.

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©2008 Harry Kenney

Here’s the second homemade cookie recipe I promised I’d get up to the site that I did over the holidays. Applesauce cookies. Yum! And while this is a good one to eat all year round, it definitely has those fall - winter spices we’ve come to associate with the Holidays. Moms take note: with fruit, nuts and raisins in this it’s no doubt a higher than average nutritional cookie too.

There is one important baking item I want to touch on though, and I should have done this with the butter cookie recipe probably, and that is the whole discussion or school of thought about salted versus unsalted butter in baking and especially cooking recipes. Salted butter, even though most of us don’t taste the salt, is the most commonly found one at markets and convenience stores. And against popular thought, it’s the one I use.

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I said previously that I had made some cookies during the Christmas holidays but had forgotten to get them up here. Well here’s the first of two cookie recipes. This is one of those classic, basic cookies. The butter cookie.

Now there’s a variety of things you can do with butter cookie dough. This particular recipe is (mainly — you’ll see what I mean at the end) for use with a cookie press or cookie “gun”. If you’re a woman you probably say press. If you’re a guy, you probably call it a gun.

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©2008 Harry Kenney

Before I publish my recipes I like to do research. Especially those recipes that feature ingredients that are considered more unusual or less-known to the American palette. And definitely those that require a different technique of preparation and/or cooking. Regular visitors here already know that I want to present you with more than just a recipe but also with some knowledge and background to go with it.

I look around not only to compare the different styles of various recipes but also to determine what are the variations folks have come with as well as what are the classical, traditional components of a dish. For instance, for this vegetable tian, every recipe but one talked about slicing the veggies such that you had 1/4-inch thick disks of roughly the same size (as much as possible) laid out on it’s side and forming a single layer atop of a bed of onions.

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©2008 Harry Kenney

Have you ever gone to the market, brought something home and said now what am going to do with this? I’m sure we’ve all done that. I certainly have. I’d love to say I always shop with a plan. I would have to say I partly do. I often buy food with some recipe or some idea at least vaguely in my mind. But not for the entire shopping experience; the rest of the shopping goes by what I see, what’s on sale, what looks fresh, what looks not so fresh, and what just generally grabs my attention. And this time it was the on-sale bag of frozen bay scallops.

And then I got home and thought “now what?” You see, I know what to do with the larger scallops. You know the one’s I mean that are the size and shape of big marshmellows. Pretty much you sear them on one side, then the other, bang, they’re done. Well, you’re certainly not going to do the same with what amounts to 60 or 70 miniature marshmellow-sized scallops. We’re talking just slightly larger than pencil erasers after all. So, what to do?

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©2008 Harry Kenney

When you think of pesto you think of — I’m willing to bet — three things. In no particular order they are: Basil, Italian and green sauce. Ok, seemingly not a revelation right? More like something that comes outta the mouth of “Captain Obvious”. Generally I agree with you. That’s exactly how it seems.

… Until you discover that while sure, pesto is usually made from basil, it doesn’t have to be. Or that when you think of pesto as “green sauce” turns out there’s another totally different sauce known as salsa verde that is actually Italian green sauce. Or that here in America when you say salsa verde, we think of Mexican, not Italian. Aha! Suddenly not everything seems so black and white — or rather, green — now, does it?

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Just added a new section here called Menus which you can find the link to at the top left under “Pages”. Click on the general Menus link for a quick explanation. As for the three menus added, no doubt you’ll find the one on Super Bowl Party Food to be of most current interest.

Also, I’m always shopping around the web for something, and at this point I either get so many newsletters or just end up on enough sites that I stumble once in a while across great deals. For instance I was not going to buy an ice cream machine. But then four months ago I found one that was normally $160 for $40, not a refurbished just a close-out. Would that have been of any interest to anyone? I’m thinking such items might be so that could be another section in the future too.

©2008 Harry Kenney

This recipe was actually going to go in two different directions from where it ended up. Recipes happen that way sometime. It was originally going to be pure vegetarian. Visits to two supermarkets and failing to find vegetable stock at either (as well my being too “lazy” or not that interested in making it myself) meant I ended up using the more traditional chicken broth as base. Also, once I got past that, I decided bacon would definitely give this a more interesting taste.

So, for those of you looking for vegetarian dishes that are robust and stand-alone and not merely “sides”, you can oh so easily alter this recipe and make it so. To make it vegetarian (as mentioned above) simply substitute vegetable stock for chicken stock. Don’t use bacon. Then either leave the rest of the recipe exactly as is, or you add still more vegetables in the form of finely diced zucchini and/or yellow squash. Also black and/or white cabbage would be nice and is often used in some parts of Italy in one of the many variants of this recipe.

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©2008 Harry Kenney

Chefs are funny people. Normally they’re drawn to foods that are inherently flavorful. Sometimes, as a challenge I think, they are also drawn to things not so flavorful, but which if cooked a certain way can be made tasty and tender. Meats that are very lean such as rabbit or venison which need long time cooking and often a fat added to them come to mind.

Then there are these foods such as couscous and polenta which basically are, well, by themselves quite bland — and in recent years top chefs go nuts over it. Apparently because they can infuse taste to them. I sorta get it and I sorta don’t …. depends upon the food, the technique, the time it takes and my mood for that day. All of that said, of course this polenta is indeed tasty. For me the taste infusion comes from the long roast, browning and carmalization, and adding cheese that does it.

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©2008 Harry Kenney

Alright I know what I said before. And I’ve changed my mind. I’m allowed to do that. I said when it came to making waffles it has to be from scratch — and that still holds true. But for pancakes I said get lazy and usually just grab the pre-made mix with the big “B” on the yellow box. Well, I’ve changed my mind.

You see, here I am baking cookies around the Holidays time — rats, I’ll have to remember to get those recipes up here. Where was I? Ah, the cookies and cakes like the lava cake, cave-in cake and the banana Boston cream pie and puffed pastries too … after that how can I justify saving myself a mere 3.5 seconds by grabbing a premade mix instead of just making my hotcakes from scratch? So I played around a bit then came up with the mixture I like best.

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©2008 Harry Kenney

Wolfgang is Back!

… with his show simply called Wolfgang Puck. Now I have to admit I missed the first few of the new shows already. Because, quite candidly, not watching too much Fine Living (FL) channel, I see only a few of their commercials. In short I had no idea it existed until several days into it’s run.

Ok, wait, this isn’t a knock on the FL channel as I do watch several of their shows, it’s just fewer shows than the Food Network (FN) as FL does a variety of programming, most of which I’m not as interested in. That said, their take on food and beverage, the shows they’ve come up with often show even more innovation than FN does. Let me save this for later below and get back to “Wolfy”.

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