January 22, 2008

Why has no one ever told me about sunchokes?

I had sunchokes (Jerusalem Artichokes) for the first time at a Restaurant Week visit to Circle Bistro. They look like fat ginger root and taste like mild artichoke hearts. A and I located some at Central Markup. We tossed them in olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, sage and garlic powder and roasted them for ~30 minutes and they were delish. Turns out they're basically the root of a sunflower and grow like weeds in the Northeast; so I'll be adding them to my garden as soon as I can figure out when they should be planted (you can cut up a sunchoke and plant it like a potato.

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January 06, 2008

Pomegranante: Just a Good Idea

This week has been a week of adding pomegranate to things. Glazes, reductions, berry syrups. It's good. Thus far:

*A pinot noir/balsamic vinegar/pom glaze reduction with sauteed savory-spiced (salt, garlic salt, lemon) portabello mushroom slices (sautee the mushrooms with olive oil and spices until tender, then add some wine, vinegar, and pom glaze and reduce until damn yummy)

*Just plain pom glaze on fish

*added to orange or teriyaki-sh chicken

*1 tbsp each of wine, pom glaze, honey, sugar, and balsamic vinegar with ~8 mashed blackberries makes a really nice dessert topping for a lemon cake of vanilla ice cream.

Posted by griffjon at 09:54 PM | Comments (0)

November 14, 2007

Hot Hot Sauce

So... As I posted last week; I like hot hot sauce. Right? Right. If you know me in person you know I'm not afraid of mortal heat.

I found my match today; and it is MadDog MAgnum 357 sauce. It's supposed to be a one-drop-will-do-ya. Well, it glopped out onto my test chip at Pedro And Vinny's Burrito Cart (think FreeBird's in a cart, veg only, served by a friendly New Yorker in a big hurry); so I ate it, probably about a tablespoon in all.

Note that the "one drop" is one drop for an entire pot of chili, a whole hamburger, etc.

I teared up a bit on the way back to the office to enjoy my burrito laced with the much kinder, but very tasty Uncle Brutha's Fire Sauce No. 9 Chile Verde Garlic and Ginger . I was feeling a bit ill by the time I got back; then nauseous, and ended up in the bathroom preparing for Porcelain Goddess worship (I can't even remember the last time I had to pay homage for something I ingested). A few seconds later I woke up on the floor of the bathroom, sweating balls, and stumbled to our office's storage room and laid down to sweat, endure some GI burning pain, and contemplate my idiocy for a ~10 more minutes.

I'd say that the sauce needed a warning label, but probably the "Made with 6 million scoville unit extract" probably should've clued me in (the hottest variety of habanero, the red savina, comes in at around 500,000).

I'm feeling mostly normal now :)

I'd say that I've learned my lesson, but I probably haven't

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November 07, 2007

Salsa Recipe

I've updated my recipe for my homemade salsa.

http://griffjon.com/recipes/howtomakeSalsa.pdf

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July 31, 2007

Pepper Pain

So, I bought some poblano peppers at the farmer's market last weekend, and thought I'd make a quick-and-easy "chile relleno casserole" (roasted and skinned poblanos, sliced open, laid ontop of corn tortillas in a 9x9 bake pan with cheese and beaten eggs poured in, because I'm lazy and have not gotten the will to devote a full day to preparation like my Dad does).

I stand by my casserole plan. But next time I'll check the heat levels of the poblanos. They were hot like really good jalapenos or really mild habaneros. I was able to eat them, but not without crying.

Returning upstairs to clean my dishes, I tried to blow some hair out of my face, and my breath caused my eyes to burn and tear up again. Yowsas.

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June 25, 2007

Purpled Salmon

Also, I sat down to cook up some dinner. The goal: tame my basil plant that's turning into a small bush and occupying more and more of my not-that-big kitchen. So - pesto it is. But what to go with the pesto? Noodles seem to be too easy, heavy, and obvious. So some pesto-encrusted salmon. Also, I had some shitake mushrooms that needed cooking, and bought some fresh asparagus at the farmer's market this morning. I reduced some syrah with the mushrooms, because shitakes sauteed in wine = the shiznizzle. I poured the remaining reduction over the salmon, and wrapped the asparagus with some turkey bacon.

Damn.

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February 04, 2007

Drinker's Choice!

In Austin, there's this fantastic Turkish restaurant, Ararat - one of Austin's best kept restaurant secrets (that everyone knows). They have bellydancing all weekend and live bands during the week, and some of the best middle eastern food you'll find. Make reservations, as it's a small place that's always jam-packed.

Anyhow, Ararat has an appetizer, called "Drinker's Choice;" described as " Sesame blended with lemon and pomegranate creates a distinctive sweet and sour taste, complimenting almost any drink. " It's mindblowingly good. My problem is that I don't live in Austin anymore.

I undertook re-creating it, and have come close enough.

Mix equal 2 parts tahini and 2 parts plain yogurt with 1 part fresh lemon juice (bottled tastes funny), and 1 party honey. Add 1/4 -1/2 part salt (to taste, to enhance the flavor), and 1/2 part olive oil (for smoother texture). Put on top dried cranberries, chopped dried apricots and figs, and chopped nuts (almonds, cashews, and/or walnuts). Drizzle generous amounts of pomegranate syrup (available at Trader Joe's), eat with warm pita.

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