Last Sunday afternoon was spent at the Farmer’s Market Sur La Table “Knife Cutting Essentials” class run by Martin Gilligan, former Executive Chef at the Kyoto Grand Hotel and Gardens in downtown Los Angeles. It was an education long overdue for me as my chopping, slicing and dicing skills up to this point have been self-taught and rather inefficient by my own admission.
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MG and I confronted two big questions today.
First… what do you make for dinner that will be satisfying and delicious, but super-easy because you started drinking champagne at four o’clock in the the afternoon and don’t have the energy to attempt anything even remotely ambitious?
Second… is it possible to eat a fantastic deep-fried tortilla loaded down with crab meat, jalapeño, avocado, tomato, onion, lime, and cotija cheese ONE-HANDED and NOT drop morsels onto the table?
The answer to the first question: Crab Tostadas.
The answer to the second question: No Fucking Way.
Coming home from producing our show’s Cinco de Mayo episode, I decided to celebrate all things queso!
There’s some serious cheese going on here, folks. You need to be warned… I mean truly warned. Take a good look at the photo below and ask yourself, “Do I have the fortitude to take on this recipe?” All of the cheese in the photo below was grated and melted into a mere 12 ounces of penne rigate to create the finished product. You’ve been told.
And it doesn’t stop there. There’s also butter! There’s also bacon! There’s also the fat from the bacon! There’s also white flour. There’s also fresh sage, parsley, oregano and rosemary. Some of that counts as vegetables, right?
Am I leaving anything out. Oh yeah! I accidentally doubled the amount of butter required by the recipe. Oops! I swear, it was unintentional. And guess what, it totally didn’t ruin the meal! Who’d have thought it?
I started preparing this at about 8:00 in the evening. I started eating it at about 9. By about 10, I was speaking in tongues and levitating three feet off the floor
The recipe can be found at StephenCooks.com, so send your thank you cards and/or the pants you are about to no longer be able to fit into his direction, not mine. I didn’t come up with this. I merely used it on a lonely Wednesday night to fill a hole in my heart. Cheese is really the best way to overcome such things, don’t you think?
So take a read below for how to get ‘er done, and then head to the store for the ingredients you’re missing, because if you have this much cheese just sitting around your house already, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be spending your time reading blog posts.
If you can’t go more than a week without a taco, you need to come by my place sometime.
Tacos usually hit my table at least every seven days, packed with well-seasoned chicken or turkey simmered for at least ninety minutes in a bath of chopped onion, jalapeno and bell peppers, garlic and cayenne pepper (sprinkled in sparingly if guests are coming, generously if it’s just MG and me, and enough to turn the entire pan crimson if it’s me alone)
Apartment 402 was the place to be this past Tuesday night as MG made for me a celebratory “back from San Fran” mountain of crunchy-tender-succulent happiness that nearly made my eyes pop out of my head like a wolf in a Tex Avery cartoon!
I’m leaving for a weekend in San Francisco in less than 24 hours. Very excited about it. Sadly, I picked the weekend of the Los Angeles Grilled Cheese International to leave town. Wish I could do both, but truthfully, I am a man who rarely wants for cheese. Witness this lovely dish that was cobbled together with leftovers and the perishables I’m racing to eradicate from my kitchen before I leave for the weekend. Kinda hard to look away from these pics, isn’t it?
Truth be told, the top pic is currently my desktop photo. You think it looks good 500 pixels wide? You should see it at 2500 pixels wide!
This dish is fantastic straight from the pan, or packed in a pita (consider it a Classy Hot Pocket). It also goes great over some slightly tosated sourdough or ciabatta bread lightly scraped with a garlic clove.
No, there is NO bobcat meat in this recipe.
The “bobcat” element of this burger is the “bobcat slaw,” an odd combination (to me, anyway) of cabbage, white vinegar, sugar, pepper, salt, celery seed and mustard. It gives this burger an awesome, crunchy vibrant kick that’s made even more zesty with the addition of some tangy feta.
OK, yeah, so MG and I made complete pigs out of ourselves with these burgers tonight.
ARE YOU LOOKING AT THEM? If so, you can hardly blame us.
MG threw me a culinary air kiss (fingers to puckered lips which then shoot off into my direction – is there a better name for that?) and declared this “one of your most satisfying meals yet!” He doesn’t just give these kinds of compliments out, people, so take a very good look at this burger. I don’t often pat myself on the back, but…
It didn’t hurt that I used ground bison instead of beef or lamb (if you follow me here, you know beef is almost non-existent in my diet, and lamb has recently surpassed turkey as favorite burger meat of choice).
Bison is new to my kitchen. A few of its merits: less fat, less calories, and more protein than a comparable serving of beef. Also, similar to lamb, it just breaks apart in you mouth like magic. In fact, you need to take extra care in the pan as well or it might just fall apart on you during a flip. No matter though… push it back together, or don’t. Scoop it out it pieces, melt a little cheese over it and eat it over the sink.
The meat also really absorbs whatever flavors you pack into the pre-cooked patties.
And while you might feel the need to slather it in BBQ sauce as you would a beef burger, DON’T.
In fact, to be honest, I would have enjoyed it just as much with no BBQ sauce and maybe a fresh slice of avocado in its place. Bacon is most certainly a welcome addition as well.
Dare I go the route next time of cheese, avocado, bacon AND BBQ sauce?
If you were here, you would see the angel and the devil that have magically just appeared on my shoulders and have begun fighting for control of my soul.
Bison, people… BISON!
This recipe comes from a new friend named Katie and has travelled all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to meet you. Katie’s blog, Thyme for Cooking has been entertaining foodies since 2006, and is not only full of stories about Katie’s life and cooking overseas, but also boasts a sister site with an extensive section of kitchen tips I go to regularly, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes just to learn a new kitchen factoid and tuck away for future use.
If you ever need guidance on soup bases, how to pit an avocado, freeze an egg, or store a pumpkin, you couldn’t do better than starting with Katie!
And then there’s her puff pastry pizza with prosciutto.
My Fried Chickpeas and Chorizo went over like gangbusters last week (ask MG if you are a non-believer), but I still had about half of my chorizo left behind, waiting to be swept into another recipe, so I added a few twists to a favotire meal of my mom’s – one that she would make for us growing up.
All you really need for this is chorizo and a couple eggs along with a little pepper, but as usual, the clock was ticking on a number of my more perishable items in my refriegerator, so in they went, and it proved to be a very good idea. The chorizo adds a hearty element to to proceedings, making this is a great, quick, satisfying meal any time of day (except maybe just before bedime… that could be problematic).
And if you’ve got some toasted sourdough and warmed tortillas to add in, by all means!
Chorizo and Eggs
Heat the olive oil in a pan. Once heated (don’t let it get too hot, no smoking pans!), add in the chorizo, and let brown on medium heat, breaking it up into smaller pieces every few minutes. Whisk eggs and milk together and add into the chorizo. Reduce heat and add in all vegetables (except the garlic) and the crushed red pepper. Slowly stir and continue to do so until the mixture comes together. Remove from pan.
Place pan back on heat and add the spinach and the minced garlic. If you’re oilve oil has cooked off, add in a replacement teaspoon worth. Keep an eye on it and stir constantly as there’s a lot of moisture and it will cook down quickly. Once it cooks down, add back in the egg-chorizo-vegetable mixture and cover with the shredded cheese, salt and pepper. Place it in the broiler for 5-8 minutes. Broiler heat ranges widely so just keep an eye on it. Once that cheese really starts to melt, the colors all around it will pop, and you’ll now you’re good to go. Top with your favorite hot sauce, if you like it super hot the way I do, and enjoy!
Where I was waking up at the crack of dawn over the weekend, I’ve been sleeping 10-12 hours a night since then. Maybe it’s the cornbread. Heavy, cheesy and satisfying, this was a fantastic addition not only to the turkey chili I slow-cooked alongside it, but also with breakfasts, lunches and dinners through the following week.
I discovered that cornbread goes well with just about everything. Cornbread goes well with coffee. Cornbread goes well with pork chops, cornbread goes well with reruns of Knots Landing, What’s My Line? and Alias. Cornbread goes well with Smitten Kitchen perusing. Cornbread goes well with watching Qucik Wits live in the booth. Cornbread goes well with watching DIY Network or Gay Porn? with Marc Bartolomeo and Jason Cameron. Cornbread goes good with The Joy Behar Show. Cornbread goes good with an extra slice of cornbread!
What did I do before cornbread? Yet another recipe I originally feared but eventually mastered. Took a bit of the day, but well worth it. By contrast, the turkey chili recipe is pretty minimal, but I just scored a recipe for a more complicated “Cincinnati Chili” from my freind Eric that I hope to tackle this weekend. There’s nothing better for Valentine’s Day that a crock pot full of heartburn! Recipes follow after the jump!
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My name is Gary Green. I am a writer and television producer living in Los Angeles, California.
I have been cooking with a serious desire to learn since fall of 2009. My goal is to make up for all the years of my adult life I spent eating meals that could be microwaved, pulled out of a paper box or delivered to my door in cardboard.
My emphasis is constantly changing... soups, gourmet burgers, chicken, dips, desserts. I am especially fond of the jalapeno pepper and use it in everything I can.
My kitchen is slowly piling up with new gadgets and utensils, and one goal is to learn how to make anything and everything without the majority of them.
Please enjoy my site and feel free to look around. I welcome recommendations, suggestions, tips, pictures, and questions always. If you'd like to contact me or suggest a new link for my blog roll, you can e-mail me at TvFoodAndDrink@gmail.com.
I look forward to hearing from you.
