A Note on Wine

I heard a story on the "Freakonomics" segment on Marketplace about wine, and I'd like to share it.

If you'd like more information on wine, check out Wine for the Confused, hosted by Monty Python's John Cleese.

Pre-Holiday Mediterranean Chicken…. And the chicken pot pie which ensued

A word on the title of this post:

A) If you’ve lived in the United States that the retail world seemed to think the “holiday season” begins roughly after (or before) Halloween. I sometimes I resist getting festive before Thanksgiving, but yesterday I found myself singing “For unto us a child is born” from Handel’s Messiah. This is an inspiring soundtrack for your cooking.

B) “Mediterranean” here is not a euphemism for Arab or Middle Eastern, as it sometimes used in the US . I’m referring to the variety of ingredients and flavors I’ve experienced living in France, Spain and Morocco.

Ingredients:

1 whole Chicken

Almond oil

1 large or 2 small sweet potatoes

1 onion

1 large or 2 small eggplants

Parsley

Dill

Garlic cloves

White Wine

Peaches

1 apple

1 orange

Almond slivers

Celery

Beer

Butter

Sage

Fresh ground pepper

Sea Salt

Directions

Rinse the chicken; remove excess fat from underneath the skin and around cavity openings.

In a food processor, blend a handful of dill and a handful or parsley with a few cloves of garlic into a paste. Slide this paste under the skin of the chicken, breast-side up. Apply some salt and pepper

Stuffing: ½ of an onion diced up, peach slices amounting to a few cups, 2-3 stalks of celery chopped, ½ cup of almond slices, and a splash of white wine. Stuff the main opening with these ingredients. You may need to close the main cavity with a few toothpicks. ( I would make this differently if I were to make it again… sautéing the onions and celery and adding an egg and bread…so a more traditional recipe)

In a large roasting pan, line the bottom with almond oil. Place the stuffed bird in the pan.

Peel sweet potatoes, the apple and the eggplants. Slice the apple and stuff the opposite end of the bird with it as best you can. Cut the sweet potato and eggplant into medium pieces. Arrange them in the pan around the chicken.

Peel the orange and slice into thin rounds. Arrange the rounds on top of the chicken. Slice the other ½ of the onion into rounds ad arrange on and around the chicken.

Sauce: In a food process, blend a small peach, ½ cup of beer, ½ stick of melted butter and a few sage leaves. Pour sauce over chicken.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Roast at 350 F; (20 minutes per pound), periodically, basting the chicken.

*[ Option: In a small crock pot on low heat, cook sweet breads (aka the stuff from inside the bird) in beer, garlic, sage, almond oil, salt and pepper)]

This dinner got mixed reviews from the familial food critics:

Mom didn’t like the oranges, Dad didn’t like the dill. They liked the idea of stuffing the herbs under the skin and the vegetables, especially the sweet potatoes. You too may find there are too many flavors vying for attention. Pick and choose as you see fit.

With the leftovers, I made a pot pie using:

Ingredients

2 pie crusts

left over chicken + *stock and sweet potatoes

liquid from sweet breads

frozen peas

Method

Pre heat the oven to about 425 F/ 218 C.

I precooked the bottom crust.

Add filling

Add top crust

Pinch the two crusts together, scalloping with your fingertips

Cook until the crust browns and the sauce bubbles from the sides of the crust

* Make sure you add enough stock. I thought the pie would be too liquidy but it ended up being too dry and I had to supplement it with additional gravy.

Sugar-free Pumpkin Pie and Holiday Coffee

Pumpkin pie is one of my favorites and it is a dessert that is easy to make sugar-free.

A) Simply substituting sugar for Splenda does not change the texture or flavor.

B) Prepare some homemade whipped cream with whipping cream, vanilla and Splenda

C) For a crustless version, bake the pie custard in small ramekins. You can put butter and sugar-free maple syrup in the bottom for a flan effect.

Raspberries make a perfect garnish and the tartness compliments the spicy sweetness of the pumpkin.

For holiday coffee, reminiscent of pie, put crushed cinnamon sticks and ground cloves in with the coffee in the Moka... I've also tried cocoa powder. Other ideas; vanilla bean, hazelnuts, almonds, pistachios, allspice, nutmeg, coconut, etc.

A note on Scrambled Eggs...

Yes, yes, everyone knows how to make eggs. Even people who "can't cook" can make eggs, right? Well, I've been to cooking school in France and yet, my scrambled eggs pretty much sucked until now;

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Scrambled-Eggs-40038

The secret: use water (not milk).

And, no I didn't learn this from Bon Appetit Magazine, but my grandmother. She makes them as they describe and they are the best. I would also recommend adding cream cheese and chives; that's the way they sometimes serve them where I used to work, at Andrea's Troy Bumpas Inn Bed & Breakfast in Greensboro, NC.

Black Bean (Turkey Chili) Soup

My lovely friend Mary made a request for something made in a crock-pot and suggested a black bean soup. Well, Mary, here you go. Crock-pots are wonderfully useful; you can make slow-cooked, simmered dishes without the hassle of constantly monitoring the stove or oven. This is nice on a cold rainy day or for a belated Day of the Dead celebration.

Ingredients:

2 onions (I used Peru Onions)

*1 jalapeño

Tomatoes

2 cans of black beans (You could buy them raw and soak them, but save yourself the time.)

1 pound or so of ground lean turkey

A few cloves of garlic

Vegetable oil (I used grape seed but canola is good)

Fresh ground pepper

*Pimentón (La Vera)

**Achiote (aka Annato)

Cumin

Fresh Cilantro

Fresh green onion greens

Sea Salt

Garnish:

Queso Fresco, Salsa Valentina, Lime

* If you don’t have jalapeños or Pimentón you can replace both ingredients with Chipotle powder

** You can get Achiote in the Hispanic food section of many grocery stores or any Latino market.

Directions:

Prepare the jalapeño by making one incision length wise and removing the seeds (unless you want fiery soup…). Remove outer skin from the onions and cut into quarters. Cut two small tomatoes in quarters. Blend these ingredients into a puree with a food processor or a blender. Add to the Crock-pot with the black beans. Add the cumin to taste; about 2 teaspoons. Turn Crock-pot on to low heat.

In a medium frying pan, simmer some oil. Crush the garlic cloves with a garlic press into the oil. Grind some pepper. Let the garlic infuse into the oil a bit. Add the ground turkey, keep the heat at medium and stir the turkey into the garlic-pepper oil. Sprinkle a generous dusting of Pimentón into the turkey mixture. Let the turkey simmer on low to medium heat as some excess liquid evaporates and the turkey absorbs the spices. Add to crock-pot. Do not discard pan.

Slice up 3-4 more tomatoes perhaps amounting to 1-2 cups. Put the pan back on low-medium heat and add the tomatoes. You may add a bit more oil if there is not much left from the turkey mixture. Dust in some Achiote. This gives a warm, sweet, peppery flavor and will enhance the other spices. It is a key ingredient in Latin American cuisine. While the tomatoes are simmering, dice up very finely some fresh cilantro and the greens from a green onion. [This is an accent, and should not overpower the other flavors (garlic, jalapeño, Pimentón- smokey); it also makes for a nice color combination- red tomatoes, black beans and a hint of green…yes aesthetics in the culinary experience is key.] Add cilantro and green onions to the tomatoes, stir for a minute, then put this all into the crock-pot.

Add sea salt to taste. Let the soup cook on low heat for the afternoon.

Serve with Queso Fresco, salsa valentina and lime slices.

Giant Peach Turnover

This is basically a reinvention of the Giant Apple Turnover but with peaches…and pictures.

Ingredients:

1 uncooked pie crust or rolled out pie dough
3-4 peaches pitted and sliced
almond slivers (a few handfuls)

Orange blossom water (to taste)
room temperature butter
nutmeg
cinnamon
ginger

allspice

ground cloves
honey


Directions:

Mix peaches, almonds and orange blossom water together in a bowl and let them sit overnight.

Preheat oven to 385 F/ 196 C

On parchment paper (baking not documents) on a cookie sheet, unroll or roll out the crust.

With a butter knife, spread some butter on the dough, mostly in the middle.

Sprinkle a good dash of each spice; nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice.

Add the peach mixture

Add a tab or so of butter

Drizzle on the honey. (a liberal drizzle but don’t get carried away)

Fold (turn over) the dough in half so as to seal the dough. Pinch the dough around the semi-circle. It should look a bit like a calzone.

Bake in the oven.

When/if juice begins to leak or ooze out of the dough, especially around the edges, use a pastry brush to apply the juice to the top of the turnover glazing the dough

Bake until brown.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.

And now for the photo montage…

How to Seed a Pomegranate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qfQ3_N7S6Y