Week 3: Up from the lowest, Crab Louis (AKA Louie)... A Tearful Tale...

While I would love to say every recipe I make tastes awesome, this week has been one of angst and defeat...

The first run were Chicken and Fish enchiladas, they looked beautiful, however the taste?!? Yeah… My advice, beware of the cilantro, it can help and it can kill a dish, quickly… The sauce I made and use inside killed it - My buddy Dave suggested the enchiladas, good call, the web recommended the cilantro - should have stuck to Dave's idea alone - boo on me!

The close looser, I mean winner – Crab Louis… While I have never made my own thousand island dressing , I was quickly disappointed that this was what I was making – it was on sale for $1.50 at Ralphs and we spent $1.99 alone for the scallions – I’d figure epicurious would monitor the posts when a dish is rated 4 forks, and called “gourmet” guess not… Anyhow, almost 7 year old chef bailey opted for the remaining boiled eggs and apple slices, while Shawn and I powered through the 3 servings – it was good, just not “gourmet” – If some chef placed that in front of me and tried to charge me even $15 as an entrée, I’d laugh all the way to the complaint box….

The recipe can be found here - http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/reviews/Crab-Louis-106264?pg=2 – It has quite a few pricey ingredients to make a very inexpensive to buy pre-made dressing – just grab a bottle and toss in some chili powder/ crushed red pepper and you’ll have the same sauce – I wasn’t disgusted, I actually liked it, it just wasn’t what I had hoped it would be, but shame on me for not knowing what 1000 Island dressing is made of – now I know…

Hopefully next week will yield some more positive comments, but with all good, there is always some bad…

~Jeff

Week 2: What to do when you have a vegetarian MIL?

Aug. 21, 2010 10:32 pm
You do Portobello Mushrooms!!!

Have you ever eaten at "Islands"? They have a veggie Hawaiian Burger that is to die for! Tonight I attempted to create my own - It worked out well - photos of it are forthcoming!....

First off, I don't usually cook vegetarian, I made 1 mistake, my aioli sauce had eggs in it... DOH!!!! Fortunately for me, my MIL will eat eggs, I got lucky!!!

The problem you'll find with me and my recipes, I don't measure anything, usually....

Back an hour or so, I soaked the shrooms in a Teriyaki/Pineapple sauce , these things need to take on a flavor regardless of who you are serving them to, 1 hr + will yield the results you seek....

Meanwhile deep fry some yams/sweet potatoes - cut them to fry size and drop them in - they take a Looooooooong while to cook, I was surprised, be patient.... use some salt and the Aioli sauce you created to make a dipping sensation - while I prefer a whole wheat bun, w/ provolone some tomato and a slice of romaine, lets get get creative, you have time - the fries take about 15-20 min per batch... Once you have a batch of fries and a shroom per person, you are ready to go....

I need to make these again to detail the recipe as I did indulge in a few libations before, during and after and my notes were about as clear as mud, however here is the gist for 1 serving and some extra sauce:

The Burger:
Whole Wheat bun
1 Burger sized portobello mushroom cap
1 deli slice of provolone cheese
1 hot house tomato slice
1 slice pineapple
1 leaf romaine lettuce

The Fries:
1 julienned Yam ( McD's Fry size, you can do steak fry size but I imagine those will take forever!)

The Sauce - This is the one I need to re-make but the components are:
Make a mayo/aioli or just use mayo from the store
mix in some teriyaki, some pineapple juice, some garlic powder (i did fresh finely minced garlic, but powder would work too) - my teriyaki wasn't too salty and the sauce was too sweet so I added some Lawry’s seasoning to bring it back down a bit, just keep tasting it every 10-15 min to let the flavors meld and go to your taste - mine got a bit runny but since it was cold I used some corn starch to thicken it up, it was used on both the burgers as a dressing and as a dip for the fries...

Both my MIL and myself tried the burger w/ the wasabi honey sauce (from week 1) on the extra one and that was awesome too!!!

Happy Vegetarian cooking!!! I actually liked it!

~Jeff

Week 1, Part 3, The Final Dish- Shrimp. The winner..

The Shrimp Finalist of week 1 - Chris Avitia's recipe!!!
BBQ Bacon wrapped shrimp, Pineapple and Jalapeno on a skewer - the spice, sweetness and hardwood smoke mixed with the excreted salt taste phenomenal!!!



The recipe - it's a long one, get a pencil, ready???

For every shrimp your use 1 cube of pineapple and 1 fresh jalapeno slice - for every skewer you can use 1-2 strips of bacon - my skewers fit about 6 shrimp per skewer, the Jalapenos I purchased netted about 12 slices each and I got a whole container of Pineapple cubes, I could probably feed 20...

OK, Ok, I'll spell it out...

5 servings

30 Large Peeled and De veined Shrimp, uncooked...
1 Large can/bottle of Pineapple Chunks, In Pineapple juice (Not water, don't be cheap, water based sucks!!!!) - (you need about 30 pieces)
3 good sized Jalapeno Peppers
5 THICK slices of bacon (or 10 if you want to double wrap)
BBQ Sauce - enough to line, coat, garnish etc. I prefer "Sweet Baby Ray's" "Original"
5-6 Bamboo Skewers (Or metal ones, whatever you have)

If using wood based skewers soak for 1 hour - submerge them with something that is safe food compliant, a clean fork works well

Heat up/clean grill - coat w/ oil, PAM etc... non-stick is good!!!

place 5-6 shrimp running skewer tail to head alternating pineapple, shrimp, jalapeno, till the skewer is almost full, pierce the bacon on the meatiest point (red, not white) and wrap back to the tail of skewer (as shown in photo, good luck if you are wrapping on a metal one, start with the bacon then and F^(# off for not realizing you cant end the skewer w/ Bacon that way!!!)...

Cook over med heat, if you bought Large shrimp like I suggested they should pink up about the same time as the bacon becomes edible, if you're cheap (I am) cook the bacon a little first in a saute pan, then wrap it...

At this point where things are coming together baste the shrimp w/ the BBQ sauce...

You're done when the bacon is crispy and the shrimp is reddish/pink...

Shrimp can/will be overcooked easily, this isn't an easy grilled meal, watch it closely, I can do it in 5 min and I can do it in 30 min, depends on the need/timeline - get to know your grille - heat all food to 170*+F and you can kiss Salmonella goodbye - Pork and Fish will cook differently, figure it out, don't put all your shrimp on your first skewer - I've wasted about 15 shrimp perfecting this, be patient and watch it closely...

My Best to Chris and his lovely wife Karah and kids... - we miss our BBQ's w/ you!!!

Happy Cooking,

Jeff

Week 1 - Part 2... Shrimp Cont...

Second Place goes to my own creation - Portobello Mushroom stuffed w/ a White wine, garlic shrimp reduction sauce in Van D'Kamp hot dog bun/ Garlic Sauteed Shrimp stuffing covered in a Wasabi, Crushed Red Pepper, Mayo and a squeez of lemon sauce - lemon wedge and cilantro as garnish - the sauce kicked A$$, made everything taste perfect...

Week 1 - Shrimp... Last Place...

I may try to only do 52 new recepies, however each visit to the market, be it a farmers, meat or deli I can get overloaded - in two days I got two different style shrimp from the same local market and I got 3 different recipes - I had to try them all - first up an internet based Orange, garlic, cilantro and cyanne pepper based marinade - Not so good - plated beautifuly but tasted much too tangy...

In The Begining there was my Mom, Cecilia...

Hello all and welcome to my new Foodie blog...

For those of you who know me, know I LOVE to cook, while recently I focused on grilling anything and everything, I've decided to expand my culinary skills.

While I DVR shows like Hells Kitchen, Master Chef and the F-Word, it is my desire one day to surpass Gordon Ramsay and be able to tell him to F^(# off... 12 Michelin Stars is gonna be hard to beat...

My cooking adventure began when I was pretty young, My Mom (Cecilia) was a great instructor, while my father was a pretty standard menu man, she taught me the basics as well as some of the fun stuff that would never make his plate... She could cook anything and everything simultaneously - I hope that her graces and skills rain down on me while I take on this challenge...

I'm not only trained by my Mom, unfortunately, I worked for Marriott Food Services as well, starting as a short order chef on the grill to being a show "Wok" artist creating meals off of a stir fry cart with my colleague and fraternity brother CJ Curtis "MEAT" - we were good and we were requested every night we weren't on shift...

Since then I went through bachelorhood, yet, I could cook - I was fortunate enough to have the best looking woman accept my proposal of marriage, 10 years later I have an 8 year old son who has been diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome (A mild form of very high functioning autism) - he is routine, hot dogs, "Daddy's Steak" and Mac 'n Cheese... My Daughter on the other hand, will try and like anything! She'll be like me, her Papa, My Father always said I was the only "market priced" child he had - what goes around comes around, my 6, soon to be 7, year old peanut of a daughter will either work for Epicurious, be a Model or become a Chef...

Anyway, long story short, I love to cook and I'm going Gourmet for 1 day per week for an entire year... I forgot to mention above where I detailed my family, my wife is a pro photographer, she's new too food shoots but she has already made a few of my dishes look better than they tasted - all photos will be from her - she can be found by clicking on Photography by Shawnanne.

I plan to accompany each dish with a recipe, it's origin and some photos - I'll include notes as well, as Chef Ramsay said "Smokin' Hot" and I ended up with charcoal topped raw scallops the first time (I'm sure this was a mis-credit, he knows smoke is no good in a pan)... I make each dish in 3 separate servings, so each time it becomes better and better, I get the first, my wife takes the second and my daughter gets the third, my son loves the Mac n' Cheese I make, LOL...

Anyway, my quest is starting soon - be prepared - please, if you re-create anything and find a better taste, comment, I'm not perfect, many of my recipes lack something, if you come up with something let us know, we'll either praise or say get the F^(# out of my kitchen :-)~

Happy Cooking!

Jeff