4 posts tagged “cooking”

• Pork chops braised in tomatoes and onions and white wine
• Kale with sesame oil and garlic
• Fresh green beans with butter
• Cornbread from scratch
  
• Chocolate chip cookies from a tube
  

Brittney and I went to Red Wagon this morning for brunch. I don't think it counts as brunch unless you meet obnoxious friends there and drink too much and talk in crazy baby talk voices, so maybe we had breakfast. I had really nice eggs with mushrooms, spinach, red peppers, and goat cheese with a biscuit and potatoes, which looked soggy with grease but weren't. Kinda pricey but pretty much perfect food.

We then spent way too much at the Turnip Truck. We did skip the cruelty-free organic aluminum foil. We got some organic chicken, which we almost never buy, and I made dinner:

I split the chicken open and stuffed it with a mix of sage, butter, parma ham, sun dried tomatoes, and jack cheese. Salt and pepper outside, sauteed with butter and oil in cast iron for 4 minutes, turned over and finished in the oven for 9 minutes.

The asparagus was tossed with olive oil and sesame seeds and salt and pepper. The couscous used the water from rehydrating the sun-dried tomatoes and some chicken stock. The garbanzo beans (with yellow tomato, basil, olive oil, and balsamic) were left over from making hummus yesterday. I used dried beans rather than canned for the first time, and it was great. I used some freshly-ground cumin and limes rather than lemons.

If you could be on any reality TV show, which one would you pick and why?

Hell's Kitchen, easily. I hate most reality shows, unlike Brittney, who is looking forward to catching all of Season 1 of Laguna Beach as soon as I burn it to disc for her. Hell's Kitchen is dramatic and contrived like every other reality show, but in the best way. The contestants are competing for a restaurant and a job. They are working their asses off for the opportunity to work their asses off. Compare this to, say, Big Brother, which seems to be about a bunch of douchbags under house arrest.

For the most part, Chef Gordon Ramsay does a good job deciding which person to send home (and by that, I mean that he picks the person I would have picked). There aren't many people capable of making it through the whole season, and in both seasons, there have been some contestants who I wouldn't hire to cashier. They don't last long, and I kinda wonder how they ever got onto the show. In real life, Ramsay has a staff retention rate of something like 80% over the last 10 years, so he must be pretty good at identifying and hiring people with talent.

If you like cooking or food yelling, the show is really engaging. Brittney gets uptight when they are cooking and things go horribly wrong because she's been the server, having to apologize and see her tips go down in flames when the kitchen screws up. I get fired up when the yelling starts, probably because I spend many days at work biting my toungue.

Channel 4 across the pond had a very different show with Chef Ramsay called Kitchen Nightmares, which I've been watching on the laptop lately. It is even better. It is a sort of cross between Super Nanny and Extreme Home Makeover; he goes to a failing restaurant and watches the kitchen and tries some dishes, and then tells them what they are doing wrong and works with them for a week to fix it. In the ones I've seen, he's gone to a variety of places with very different problems, and his solutions vary, but usually involve doing more things from scratch, reducing prices, getting the owner to show some backbone, and shrinking the menu. It is quite a contrast to see him using very different approaches to teaching people and getting them to understand their situation better, as compared to the yelling that is the focus of Hell's Kitchen.

I would love to work for someone who yelled at me for doing stupid things, but he also listens to these poor lost restaurant owners and boosts their confidence while telling them that they've been serving crap. That's skillful.

I just found Chowhound.com yesterday, at the recommendation of this guy. Very nice.

I need to make some of this Baba Ghanouj with the eggplant that is all over the farmer's market:

Baba Ghanouj

1 medium eggplant
1/4 cup tahini
1/4 cup lemon juice
1-2 cloves garlic, squished
Salt to taste
Olive oil (optional)

Prick eggplant all over with a forkand either bake at 450o F (230o C), for about 1 hour, until blackened and soft. Or place the eggplant the barbecue, and cook, turning once or twice, until charred and soft. The barbecue method will produce a smokier taste.

Cut a slit down the length of the eggplant, scoop the mushy insides into a bowl and mash with a fork. Add all the rest of the ingredients, mixing well with a fork. This can be done in a food processor, if you prefer, but be careful not to overprocess the mixture - it should have a little texture.

Spoon the baba ghanouj into a bowl, drizzle olive oil over the top, if you like, and serve with pita bread.

Makes about 2 cups (500 mL).