Innovation in the Kitchen

May 16, 2013

The Ranting Chef Baking, Beef, Cheese, Lunch, Pork beef, cooking, dinner, food, Gourmet, lunch, mushroom, pork, postaday, recipe, recipes, spices, tomato 4 Comments

Some inventions are related to great need while others are inspiration in the middle of the night. This one was brought about by a minor annoyance.

I host a chili cook-off every year and my wife came up with a great idea several years ago to turn our upright freezer into a drink cooler for the party. It is in the area of the party, holds enough cans and bottles to serve the 40 or so attendees and keeps them cold. We just need to occasionally turn it on low and then turn it off after things are ice cold, so the drinks don’t become…uh…ice.

As a result of using the freezer this way, we need to move all frozen items into the freezer that is part of our refrigerator. Leading up to the party I’ll strive to use up as much as I can that is frozen, but there is always quite a bit we have to cram into the freezer compartment. Once everything is moved we defrost the freezer, dry it out and load it up with beverages.

This year I did not do a very good job of using up frozen items and when it came time to move the items, the freezer compartment was completely full. During the following couple of days whenever I would need something from the freezer, it often meant moving 4-5 items to get to what I wanted. After the third or fourth time of moving a frozen pie crust, a bag of meatballs, a box of puff pastry and a little bag of tomato paste (every recipe only needs 1 tablespoon but the smallest can is 6oz, so I’ve started freezing the remainder), I decided to make something so I wouldn’t have to touch them any more.

Meatball pie! It did not retain the pie shape when put on the plate, but tasted really good.

I added carrots, onion, green pepper, spaghetti sauce and cheese.

Dice and saute the veggies.

Meanwhile heat up the meatballs with some sauce and the paste. I thought the paste would help thicken things and hold the “pie” together a bit better than the sauce alone.

Add it all together.

Put it into the pie crust.

Cover with cheese.

Lay the puff pastry over it and trim.

After baking.

It was very good. My eldest son wants me to make it again. But that means I’d have to touch those items again!

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A Deep, Woody, Earthy and Unfortunately Crunchy Dish

March 26, 2013

The Ranting Chef Cheese, Kosher, Lunch, Recipes, Side Dish, Vegan, Vegetable, Vegetarian cheese, cooking, food, Gourmet, Kosher, mushroom, recipe, recipes, side dish, Vegan, vegetable, vegetarian 6 Comments

I find that I end up using the same words to describe flavor of different dishes. First off, there are only so many ways to describe food. Second, I, like all of you, am a creature of habit.

The blend of mushrooms, vegetable broth and barley brought the word “earthy” to mind immediately. In looking for alternatives, I found that the use of earthy to describe food is not as common as I thought. In fact, it is way down the list. What list might you ask?

I did a search on food adjectives and there is a whole lot out there. Lists abound. Some are for those creating menus. Many of those have cautions over the use of “Low calorie” or “grass-fed” or similar ones to make sure you are using them correctly and won’t get into trouble. Other lists are for food bloggers and restaurant reviewers. I looked at several extensive lists and only one had “earthy” on it.

Other than generic words for good or bad, there were a few on the list that describe this dish:

crunchy – this was unexpected and shouldn’t be there. When cooking the barley, I just didn’t see to put a lid on the pan. The barley just didn’t get done well enough, even with another 10 minutes with the cover on (after the initial cooking). I hope to not use that word in the future when I make this dish
woody – I take this very similar to earthy. Good down home flavor
deep – a flavor that sticks

While there is a lot of brown in this picture, it was a decent dish.

The sliced mushrooms at the edge of this picture snuck in. They were out for another dish and just had to find their way into the picture, but not the dish. I also didn’t have the enoki mushrooms here.

Cooking up the shallot.

Browning the barley.

With the broth….um….where is the lid???

Creamy mushroom and barley pilaf

Ingredients:

1 tbsp olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 cup pearl barley, rinsed
2 tbsp sherry
170 g pkg shiitake mushrooms, about 2 cups sliced
3 cups vegetable broth
170 g pkg enoki or beech mushrooms, about 1 1/2 cups trimmed
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
fresh thyme leaves (optional)

Directions:

Heat a medium saucepan over medium. Add olive oil, then shallot. Cook until it starts to soften, about 1 min. Add barley and stir until glossy, about 1 min. Add sherry and stir often until barley has absorbed all of the liquid, about 1 min. Add shiitakes and broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until barley is tender, 18 to 20 min.

Separate enokis and stir into pilaf. Cook for 2 more min. Stir in parmesan and season with pepper. Garnish with thyme.

Nutritional Info:

calories protein carbohydrates fat fibre sodium

Source: http://www.chatelaine.com/recipe/vegetarian/creamy-mushroom-and-barley-pilaf/

Guest Editor: Passover Recipes

March 20, 2013

The Ranting Chef Kosher, Recipes Appetizer, baking, beef, breakfast, brunch, cheese, chicken, cooking, dessert, dinner, food, fruit, Gourmet, Kosher, low carb, lunch, mushroom, Passover, postaday, recipe, recipes, side dish, Snack, soup, spices, tomato, vegetable, vegetarian 6 Comments

We have a guest editor for a collection of Passover recipes. Naomi is a Rabbi and has been a guest blogger several times here on the blog. I’d asked for a few recipes from the list and she has produced this great post. Take a look and even if you do not celebrate Passover, there are some great recipes here.

The Ranting Chef thought it would be fun and helpful to have a post recommending recipes for the upcoming holiday of Passover (this year from the eve of March 25 – April 2). With over a year’s worth of posts, his blog has quite a few options that are able to be eaten with the Passover dietary laws or easily modified. As I’m beginning to prepare my kitchen for the holiday and plan meals, it seemed like perfect timing to go through the blog. (See below for my take on Passover and food.)

My basic advice for cooking for Passover is as follows:

- Don’t overuse prepackaged foods (no offense to Manishewitz and its factory in Cincinnati)

- Don’t eat or try to make what really can’t be made well

- Modify favorite dishes

- Be creative, innovate!

- Use fresh fruits, vegetables, and eggs (and for non-vegetarians, meat, fish, and poultry)

- Use the wonder-food quinoa as a substitute for rice or couscous

- Use spaghetti squash as a substitute for pasta

- Creatively use matzo or matzo meal as a flour substitute (best for breading an ingredient or creating a topping, not so much for baking)

Recipe Recommendations:

Here are the recipes I identified that can be made koksher for Passover and are a combination of traditional Jewish Ashkenazi (Eastern European) cuisine and new tastes.

Breakfast

Quinoa Eggbake

Appetizers:

Mushroom Dip

(use matzo meal instead of flour)

Pickled Herring

Soups:

Tomato Soup (either the awesome way I presented it in

Roasted Tomato Soup

or in the Ranting Chef’s modified version in

Spicy Roasted Tomato Soup)

Main Dishes:

Spicy BBQ Brisket

Matzo Meal Chicken Tenders

Quinoa Broccoli Casserole

(use matzo meal; Ashkenazi tradition would eliminate

the chickpeas and use another vegetable oil instead of sunflower oil)

Sides:

Brocolini w Matzo Crumble

Apple Sweet Potato Bake

Spaghetti Squash with Honey and Feta

(spaghetti squash can be used as a pasta substitute in numerous ways)

Desserts:

Matzo Toffee Cookies

Apple Crisp

(made with Matzo meal instead of flour)

Lemon Curd

Passover & It’s Elaborate Approach to Food

Passover is a holiday celebrated through eating. It is the Jewish holiday par excellence for infusing its cuisine with symbolic meaning. All for the purpose of telling the Biblical story of the exodus from slavery and for spiritually examining themes of bondage and freedom as they are experienced today, Vegetables are dipped in salt water for tasting the bitterness of slavery. Charoset (a mixture of crushed apples, cinnamon and red wine) is eaten to taste and feel the texture of the mortar slaves used for building. Passover is a family holiday in which it is incumbent upon parents to tell the story of the Exodus from slavery to their children and many of the traditions and food are playful and intended to prompt questioning from even the youngest child. One more extreme tradition for trying to connect with the themes of the holiday and to prompt questioning is a Persian Jewish custom of whacking one another with scallions at one point during the Seder (festive meal) to reenact slave drivers whipping their slaves.

More recent Passover Seder innovations have included placing an orange on the Seder Plate as a statement of advocacy for gay rights and the use of a Miriam’s Cup filled with water for women’s rights.The most well-known food is matzo, an unleavened bread usually made from water and flour (of any of the five major grains) that have been carefully tended from harvest through the baking process to make certain that they have no leaven in them. This flat bread symbolizes the bread of the escaping slaves who did not have time for their bread to rise. Mystical and psychological interpretations of the holiday encourage using this time to get rid of whatever “puffs up” our personalities – whether it is ego or arrogance. Matzo then symbolizes being more down to earth.

Besides the foods eaten with intentional symbolism, religious Jews also observe a food restrictions throughout the 8 days of the holiday. (In the State of Israel and in the Reform Movement, 7 days are observed; the Bible calls for 7 days and rabbinic Judaism added an additional day). One can think of it as a spiritual version of Chopped (or Diced!). The basic food restriction is to avoid foods or drinks made by five grains – wheat, rye, barley, oats, and spelt – unless they have been prepared according to specific guidelines. Except for the wheat in matzo and matzo meal, most Jews avoid these ingredients altogether.

Ashkenazic Jews (who trace their ancestry and customs to Eastern Europe) additionally follow a custom of also not eating rice, corn, peanuts, or other vegetables in the pea family, treating them as hametz (leven) because these products swell when cooked and so resemble a leavening process. Middle Eastern and Sephardic Jews (who trace their ancestry and traditions to Spain and Portugal] allow these products to be eaten.

DICED! A Ranting Chef Competition – Call for Entrants

February 18, 2013

The Ranting Chef Recipes Appetizer, bacon, baking, breakfast, brunch, cheese, chicken, chinese, chocolate, contest, cooking, dessert, dinner, food, fruit, frying, Gourmet, italian, Kosher, low carb, lunch, mexican, mushroom, noodles, party, pasta, pork, postaday, recipe, recipes, salad, seafood, side dish, slow cooker, Snack, soup, spices, tomato, tools, turkey, Vegan, vegetable, vegetarian, wine 36 Comments

Calling all cooks:

I am announcing the first Ranting Chef cooking competition. In homage to, and in separation from a certain Food Network cooking show, I am announcing a call for entrants to a cooking competition: DICED! The competition works as follows:

Entrants will be given a list of a few ingredients. With that they must create (or find) a recipe that contains and features those ingredients. They then must make the recipe, document it with a blog post, and take pictures of it. All writing and photography MUST be their own, even if they use a recipe they find elsewhere. Entrants will have a two week period from receiving the ingredient list to submit their post. I will post each blog on consecutive days
I will provide instructions to the readers of the blog to “like” the post as a vote. They will be asked to vote based on the use of the ingredients, desirability of the recipe, quality of the writing and great looking photos. The readers will vote on the one they like the best with the number of “likes”. The number the posts receives within one week of their posting date will count toward their total. Once a week goes by I will record the number of “likes” as their total. Readers can, and probably will, like more than one recipe.
Blog entries will be edited only for grammar, spelling mistakes and to add measurements typical to a US audience (if originally given in metric). Posts will go up in a random order.
Ingredients will be ones that I can obtain in my local grocery store and while I cannot guarantee you will be able to find them, I will not choose anything that I suspect to be obscure.
The first round will be posts about appetizer, soup or salad and will have five entrants. The top four will move on to the next round.
The second round will be post about a main course and relevant sides and will have four entrants. The top three will move on to the final round.
The final round will be a post about a dessert and will have three entrants.
In the event of a tie, the Ranting Chef will choose the winners of the tie.

Your prize will be the pride of winning and acclaim on this blog to readers around the world. I am working to see if I can get a sponsored prize or two, and if I do there will be something more tangible to win.

If you would like to compete and can fulfill the requirements stated above, send me an email at rantingchef@yahoo.com no later than midnight on February 28, 2013. I need your name, email address and a sentence or two about why you should be chosen. Those not selected for the first contest may be selected for future ones (if this goes well). For this first competition, I cannot guarantee any specific diet can be observed (gluten free, vegetarian, kosher).

This Recipe is Golden!

December 30, 2012

The Ranting Chef Baking, Beef, English, Kosher, Low Carb, Recipes, Steakhouse baking, beef, cooking, dinner, food, Gourmet, Kosher, low carb, mushroom, postaday, recipe, recipes 9 Comments

Some dishes just look much more impressive than others. People who see them believe you spent much more time than other dishes you make. You could spend hours performing intricate steps in a dish, but if it doesn’t look like it, it is just not as impressive. To put it plainly, those recipes are often too much hassle.

Other recipes, work the other way and are golden! This Beef Wellington recipe is like that. It looks like it took hours to work on and in reality, it is a little sautéing and then folding the pastry dough over the meat. When you bring it to the table, you get “ooohs” and “ahhhhs”.

It was delicious. Tender meat, delicious mushrooms and flaky pastry – what’s not to love?

Such a simple recipe.

I used a different cut than the tenderloin, but it worked as well.

Frying up the veggies.

I rolled out the pastry dough and basted it with the egg.

Spreading out the veggies.

Folding it all up. The dough was probably spread a little too big.

Looks great!

So tasty!