Ginger

I had big plans for some ginger. I was going to make this cool salad with spinach, carrots, pimentos, candied ginger, and a creamy lemon squash dressing. I made the candied ginger a few days before. you start by skinning, works best with a tablespoon, slice thinly. Then you need a non-reactive pot, like glass or stainless steel, add the ginger and fill with water, bring to a boil for ten minutes. Now your going to repeat this step, this time when its done boiling for 10 minutes you then add, 4 cups of sugar, and a pinch of salt. Turn the heat off and let it sit for at least two hours, I then strained all the juices into a bottle and then I sliced the ginger up julienne style and tossed it in a bunch of sugar in the raw. It was pretty tasty, and the simple syrup, I took that to work and we made a ginger mandarin martini with a little bit of Cantone, and ginger Manhattan, they were really good with some Pitch Pizza. Lets not talk about the salad. Have a drink instead. Thanks.

Tarragon.

Its actually part of the wormwood family, which is the hallucinogenic ingredient in Absinthe. Both delicious. I made a Lemon-Pepper and Tarragon pasta, with zucchini, squash, carrots, tomatoes, just in some olive oil. Boil your pasta. Then I sauteed the zucchini, squash and carrots in olive oil and lots of fresh cracked pepper and a few whole peppercorns, some fresh lemon zest and some tarragon, I used dried spices but I'm sure fresh ones would be much better. Oh! the carrots, they are great cooked in pasta dishes, they add a well balanced natural sweetness to your dish, and they're colorful. Then you add pasta, some more olive oil, and fresh tomatoes. The tomatoes add another great bright, sweet flavor. I made some Garlic Ciabatta bread, and a spinach salad (I miss my garden, bag spinach tastes like dirt.) Little bit of wine, Jilli's white was much better with this. A really flavorful, light, happy lunch. Thanks again!!

Presents.

For valentines day Jillian bought me a really sweet Nakiri Bocho knife! It's pretty awesome, it's sharp and heavy and shiny and it will cut many vegetables in its lifetime!

Vegetable Curry.

Ok so I decided to post the vegetable curry anyways for educational purposes. I used the Botan Calrose rice again cause its delicious, and hillary brought me back some spices from a market in London. One was "rice spice" it basically made it taste like rice pilaf without the almonds. Then I started the veggies, first heat up some olive oil, probably a lot less than I did. Curry is a side dish and a sauce its a compliment to your main, rice or meat or whatever, so by using to much oil it made my sauce separate and not be creamy. Fail. But anyways you cook the veggies to your liking and then I added curry paste that hillary uses and this english curry powder that she brought back from L-town. You wanna break it up and and mike it really good. This is the magic, while stirring pour about half a cup of evaporated milk into the mixture and mix it up really well. It turns a really great yellow color that was kind of unexpected for the color of the paste and spices. Pour it over your rice and فويلا ! I also made some hummus that I got from the Mediterranean store on 84th and Blondo but I ruined that too, I put too much lemon in it. So you could try this or just ask Hillary.

Can I have a free 'naner???

So Good!!!!

We made veggie curry the other day. I'm not very good at it yet, its too oily. So i haven't decided if I'm gonna post it. But the dessert I made afterwards was amazing. I put a spoonful of peanut butter and a couple of drops of some vanilla extract in the middle of the plate. A scoop of ice cream (chocolate chip to be exact.) Then I made some tempura batter and put a little bit of vanilla, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves in the batter. I then chopped a banana that was getting a little past its time, coated it in flour and the tempura. Fried them up. I put a few drops of honey and powdered sugar for a garnish. This seriously took me like 3 minutes to make and we all devoured it even though we were all full!!! Fried bananas will be a new staple in dessert someday! Thanks again everybody.

CucBerry Cous Cous.

This is an archive from the summer. When there was sun, and warmth, and fresh fruit and veggies, and fresh seafood. But besides the point. This was probably to date my favorite meal so far. I made a cup of tomato flavored cous cous (CC) and a cup of spinach flavored CC. Sauteed some Veggies I had in the garden last summer, some zucchini, spinach, and peppers. In the mean time I washed some black berries and cut the cucumber into little cubes. and put a light coating of sugar, let them freeze for 15 minutes take them out, shake them in some more sugar, freeze for like 5 more minutes and coat them with sugar one more time. Also in the meantime I grilled some fresh salmon filets that I got from my parents house. Mix the veggies and the CC, top it with a piece of the grilled salmon. Then again in smokin' hot olive oil toss the blackberries and the cucumbers oil and when they start to caramelize and get crispy a little just pour the surgery oil and fruit and veggie mix over the top. So insanely delicious I really encourage anybody to try and make this. You will love it!! Thanks again. DoniDNGR!

MeatFest!!! Part II

With the left over pork loin that we had the other night I sliced it up and made a little marinade with it. It was the ultimate fridge and condiment left over sauce, there was a little bit of BBQ sauce, a little bit of that schezwan sauce (I think i might be addicted,) some dijon, honey, soy sauce, ketchup (to make Jillian jealous, she addicted,) sugar, choice spices, a left over jalepeno, a carrot, half a yellow bell pepper, some garlic, and a little bit of olive oil!! That is a modge-podge of stuff! I mixed it up, covered it up really tightly and put it in the fridge to await Hillarys arrival. Jillian bought this fake-meat, pulled pork BBQ, so Jilli had FakeMeatFest!!! I tried it, it was really soft but kinda firm like imitation, and it was really sweet. Basically it sucked and she didn't even eat it. I heated everything up on the stove, and made some home made french fries. I got some take and bake ciabatta bread from HyVee and put it on those, they're really good. And then with the left over cabbage from the chinese food, I made some olive oil smokin' hot, a little salt, throw them around so their a little crispy (I wish I had a Wok.) But nonetheless it was a tasty sandwich.

MeatFest!!!

Hillary's mom took her grocery shopping and she got a pork loin mmmm.. except it had some hormel marinade that was onion garlic and it was pretty strong. We had MeatFest nonetheless. I made some asparagus, zucchini, and broccoli that turned out amazing. I just sauteed them in a little bit of super hot oil, with salt n pepper until they were crispy on the edges. And I made some Rosemary Mashed Potatoes with some yukon gold potatoes. Ciabatta crispy guy and a zorba roll crispy guy(I don't know, they looked good at HyVee. They are.) Ice Cold Butwiper. Good ol' fashioned home cookin'. DNGR!

P.S. MeatFest Part II in the fridge..........

It ain't easy bein' cheesy.

At Pitch everyones favorite special is the comte mac and cheese, Comte is a hard cheese with a nutty and sweet flavor. Jillian loves it. So I made my own fancy-mac. Any noodle with any kind of pocket of such is the best for mac-n-cheese for maximum cheesiness, I used spirals. After the noodles are done, strain the remaining water and put them back in the pot. Add about a cup of milk a few Tbsp. of butter and as much cheese as you would like. Process cheeses works the best when you need to melt them down. I used half a block of Velveta, some habanero process cheese, and a bunch of smoked gouda. The creamy, spicy, smokiness was awesome. A few choice spices. Viola!

Another thing Jillian loves, Fried pickles. When ever we go eat at a bar if they have fried pickles, we must get them. Jimi D's has great fried pickles. I used the same Tempura batter that I fried the fish in. We just got a jar of Vlasic pickles, they kinda sucked, I'm sure you could find some better brand pickles to make these even more delicious. An important part of making anything taste great is seasoning every step of the way. Salt n pepper in the flour. Spices in the batter. Quality oil to fry it in. You'll have a more well rounded bite. So you dust the pickles with some flour, dip them in the batter, and fry them until golden brown. For the dipping sauce I made a chipotle aioli kinda like Jimi D's, if you had it. Aioli is just a mayonnaise based sauce. So, a little Mayo, some chipotle flavored tobassco, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper and a few other spicy seasonings. Oh yeah and I threw in a little bit of the schezwan sauce from the chinese food to give it a little bite. Another successful meal. Thanks for checkin it out!! DNGR!