White chocolate grapefruit brown butter cookies

Another random recipe that called to me, I love white chocolate, grapefruit, and cookies, how could I not try these? I had never had or made brown butter before. Fortunately I work at a bakery and was able to ask for help. Jill told me there was two things I needed to know about brown butter; all you do is put it on a medium-low and walk away, and that I would become addicted to it. I still Googled how to make it and was happy to see pictures so I knew what to look for when it was done.

The other thing I sprung for is a Microplane. The difference it makes in zesting compared to the zesting side of a cheese grater is amazing! Totally worth the $15 if you do any amount of zesting citrus, ginger, or garlic.

I don't own a mixer so I made these all by hand. Takes a little longer, but every bite made me happy that I made these.

I really like soft cookies so I recommend doing these on the shorter time. They will look a little soft but trust me, they will firm up as they cool down.

If you like cookies, make these! Recipe can be found here

Pork, Papaya, and Cashew stir-fry

I have not been very good at blogging. I have several recipes I need to post the problem is I just get going and forget to take any pictures, so I'll have to make them again, which I am ok with.

We have been watching all the James Bond movies in order with a friend. At some point we decided it would be fun to have food from the country that the movie takes place in or travels to. I don't really have the culinary cultural background to make food from all the places so I find a recipe that seems promising from either on-line or "The Best Recipes in The World" cookbook by Mark Bittman.

Tonight we watched "Tomorrow Never Dies" which partially takes place in China. I like to discover new things and turned to the Internet this time. The first recipe I looked at was translated from Chinese to English. It was a pig and papaya soup, sounded interesting. The recipe called for half a "catty pig." A Google search quickly revealed that catty pig is also guinea pig. I don't know that I could convince myself or my wife to eat it if I could even find it. Guinea pigs were some of the first domesticated animals and it was for food. I know lots of people in the world eat it, but it's not common where we live.

I liked the idea of papaya and pork, it's been cooling down lately and we have some snow so I thought soup would be a good option. My first Google search for a pork and papaya soup returned a recipe called "Green Papaya and Pork Rib soup, Big Breast Food" Um...OK, don't really think we need that, but if you think you do just Google it. I don't really think it will have that effect, I actually realized that we had had soup for two days in a row and wanted a change. Then I found the pork, papaya, and cashew stir fry.

 I have never done anything with papaya and don't recall that I've ever had it fresh. I think papaya is that weird unidentified pinkish fruit in cans of fruit salad people add marshmallows to and take to pot lucks. 

   I knew from researching how to purchase a good one, which some people say isn't possible in Montana, that the seeds inside would look like large caviar so I wasn't too surprised when the did. As I don't have a comparison, I was quite happy with my first papaya and the flavor it had.



The recipe calls for Chinese greens. The grocery store I went to only had napa cabbage. That is perfect since it originally comes from the Beijing region in China. This recipe goes together pretty quick and as with all stir-fries, prepare everything before you start cooking anything, trust me, you will burn something if you don't.

 
The first time I make a recipe I follow it pretty close to the instructions. The pork and papaya work together quite well. In fact, that's really the only way they worked in this recipe. A bite or pork without papaya was not bad, but sort of bland. A bite with the papaya was really good. Good enough that everybody went back for seconds. The overall consensus for the stir-fry was that it needed more vegetables and something to make the flavor pop. Everybody wants to try it again with water chestnuts, bamboo shoots, and snow peas.

 
 Here is a link to the recipe, stir-crazy-pork-and-papaya-280370. If you have a papaya recipe you'd like to share with me please do.

Chicken Yakitori

It's been a while since I've posted. I haven't really had the time to cook anything interesting or unique. I'm still trying to get a groove with my new job and having a split weekends. I had the day off and decided that I was going to grill. Initially it was going to be pesto pork pinwheels with grilled peaches because they are amazing, but when I was at the grocery store I realized I had done pork for two of the last three nights. While I love pork I also like variety, so Chicken Yakitori was my next option. Yakitori is a type of Japanese skewered chicken seasoned with a tare sauce. A tare sauce is a thickened soy sauce sauce that has been sweetened with sugar and flavored with vinegar and mirin.  If you don't have mirin you can replace it with sake and a little more sugar. Toward the end of grilling the chicken is either dipped into the sauce the put back on the grill or brushed onto the chicken while still on the grill. I use chicken thighs because they hold up better for grilling than breasts.

Japanese cucumber salad and a warm Asian potato salad are perfect sides for yakitori and a warm summer day. 

 

Not every yakitori recipe calls for togarashi seasoning. I was fortunate enough to find this at World Market for $1.98. It is a mixture of Chili pepper, orange peel, black and white sesame seed, Japanese pepper, ginger, and seaweed. Just sprinkle a little on before serving, it really adds a unique flavor. 

Japanese cucumber salad has become one of my favorites and it is super simple. The trick is cutting the cucumber thin. You can practice your knife skills, use a mandolin, or a potato peeler. This was the first time I used a peeler and I think I'll stick with the mandolin. A trick to keep your cucumbers from being bitter is to cut both the ends off before cutting or peeling. The only thing I add to the recipe is a few drops of sesame oil.

I neglected to take any pictures of the warm Asian salad but the link to the recipe has great ones. It has also become one of our favorites, but I leave out the minced chili pepper since my wife is still working on her heat tolerance. I prefer to leave the skin on and scrub potatoes, but these ones had been sitting around for a while so I decided to peel them just to make sure I could cut out the bad spots. If you don't have any parchment paper to put on the baking sheet I would not recommend aluminum foil. I have tried it twice and had to peel chunks of it off from the potatoes both times and I don't want to use an absurd amount of oil.

Here are links to the recipes I followed. They are all fairly easy to make. Cutting the cucumber is the biggest pain if you have one too large for a peeler, don't have a mandolin, and have to do it by hand.

I hope you enjoy trying these!

http://rasamalaysia.com/yakitori-recipe-japanese-grilled-skewered-chicken/2/

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/252108/japanese-cucumber-salad/

https://steamykitchen.com/21891-warm-asian-potato-salad-with-sesame-fresh-chile-dressing.html

Cantaloupe and Pancetta Cream Sauce for Pasta

One thing I have loved about summer ever since I can remember is cantaloupe. When the recipe for Cantaloupe and Pancetta Cream Sauce for Pasta showed up on Facebook I started counting down work days till I would have enough time to make it. One bite in and I immediately wanted to make more. My wife commented that it could immediately go into rotation and that I'd better not lose the recipe. While there may be a huge pot full of it on the stove, it won't be enough! How have I lived so long, loved cantaloupe so much, and never come across this? It is indeed a delicious discovery that you should make ASAP!

   
Pancetta is fairly expensive in Bozeman and my preferred grocery store doesn't carry it, so I used ham instead. Pancetta and ham come from the same cut of the pig. They are not treated the same, but the ham was a tasty substitute.

I decided to turn the whole night into a cantaloupe night. I made some grilled shrimp with cantaloupe lime salsa from Steamy Kitchen that I had been saving and waiting to make for a while. The closest I can compare it to is mango salsa, but it still isn't close. Cantaloupe salsa is a garnish, not a chip-dipping salsa, but very delicious. We felt that it would probably be better served with cocktail shrimp in it instead of grilled shrimp with it.

Opo squash curry

This is an Opo squash, which is actually a bottle gourd.

The opo squash was first cultivated over 10,000 years ago in Africa and is now common in Asia. It reminds me of a strange mixture of cucumber and cauliflower. Zucchini is actually the recommended substitute, but they are not the same.

One of my favorite apps I have downloaded is specialty produce. I saw the opo squash at the grocery store and looked it up in the app. The app has several sections: Description and Taste, Interesting Fact, Nutritional Value, Applications, Cultural Information, Geography, History, and Recipes, which has links for baked goods, appetizers, main dishes, side dishes, soup, and dessert depending on the produce you are looking up.

The recipe that piqued my interest and I purchased the squash for is actually a vegan recipe for bottle gourd curry. Here is the recipe from veganlovlie.com, and it is a delicious discovery that needs to be made again and again!

I needed two things for this recipe that I had never used before; fenugreek, and curry leaves. Fenugreek is commonly available I have just never used it. Curry leaves on the other hand are in fact quite rare. I looked for them at seven grocery stores and World Market and still came home empty handed. I was confused when the recipe called for curry leaves because the curry I know is a mixture of spices. Apparently there is a curry tree native to India and Sri Lanka. The leaves are used similar to a bay leaf and can be either put in for simmering then removed, or crushed/ground up fine enough that they are not a choking or digestive hazard and left in. A quick google search showed that there is no substitute for them and recommended either leaving them out all together or finding another recipe. I ordered them on amazon for a few dollars but they wouldn't be here in time, so we're going to see how the recipe is with and without them. I highly recommend this recipe even without the curry leaves and will give an update when I try it with them.

You'll notice some non-vegan protein in the photo. It is grilled tandoori chicken from chef Emeril Lagasse. It is delicious, though I have another marinated Indian chicken I prefer that is part of a Chicken Tikka Masala recipe.

Generaly I would make carrot rice and baked samosas with mango chutney to go with Indian food, but I simply didn't have time this time.

If you can find an opo squash definitely get one and try this recipe or another one. 

Mango Guacamole

That's right, mango guacamole! You could have seen this post half an hour sooner if I had self control and could stop eating it! But now I'm down to the bottom of the bag of chips and have to hold two or three fractions of chip together to get a decent scoop.

The only strange thing I usually add to my guacamole is diced celery. It gives a nice crunch and people always comment that it tastes fresh.

I had  two Ataúlfo mango's, also known as champagne mango's, laying on my counter and remembered that I had saved a mango guacamole recipe to my recipe app.

The recipe is slightly different than what I usually do for guacamole, but I'm all about trying new and different things and discovering something delicious. This was worth a shot, I'm in love with it!!!

The recipe calls for one mango, but I figured since the champagne mango's are smaller I'd use them both. If you don't like it spicy, use a jalapeno instead of a habanero, or just leave it out. Either way you will have something quite tasty!

I'm sure google will give you thousands of mango recipes to sift through, so here is the recipe from Food Network I used. Let me know if you make it.

Kung Pao Chicken with Black Vinegar and bacon cauliflower fried rice

I love vinegar, I can't explain why, but I do. Maybe it's the fifth flavor umami that can't really be explained but isn't sweet, sour, bitter or salty.  Vinegar adds an element to food that I think makes it delicious. Several years ago I saw black vinegar called for in a beef and broccoli stir-fry recipe, which I had never heard of at the time and was curious, so I set out to find some. Six grocery stores later I couldn't find any and settled with the balsamic vinegar substitute suggested in the notes. The recipe turned out fantastic, but left me curious as to how it would be with black vinegar. While grocery shopping a while ago at a local grocery store, I saw some! There are three of the same grocery store in town and I didn't previously check them all. I have since learned that they are all the same store, but separate entities and have different inventory.

According to The Bald Gourmet "Chinese black vinegar is an aged vinegar which is typically made from rice, but can also be made from wheat, millet, sorghum, or a combination of any of the four. It has a deep black color, similar to that of balsamic vinegar." The vinegar I picked up smells similar to molasses, is somewhat sweet, and quite black. Naturally I was excited to try this vinegar and settled on two recipes I wanted to try, the beef and broccoli mentioned above, and a Kung Pao chicken recipe I'd been eying for a while. Unable to decide, I asked my wife, and we decided to make Kung Pao chicken. I have enjoyed Kung Pao chicken on many occasions but never tried to make it. I forgot to pick up the dried red chilies, which is ok as my wife doesn't have a high spice threshold though we are working on it.

Still working on food photography

I decided to do a cauliflower fried rice with the chicken partially because I love it and can't get enough, and partially because I didn't take inventory of my rice supply until I was in the process of cooking and discovered I didn't have enough. I used this recipe for the Kung Pao chicken http://rasamalaysia.com/kung-pao-chicken/2/ I don't have the dark soy sauce and a google search informed me that I was probably using dark soy sauce it just wasn't labeled as such, so I used the same soy sauce instead of two separate ones. I also added a few dashes of chili oil since I didn't have the chilies.

The cauliflower fried rice came from skinnytaste I completely spaced eggs, but it still turned out amazing. In fact, the whole meal was amazing, there were no leftovers! I'll have to make it again.

Jamaican Rum Ribs by Chef Watson

I was going to make Chef Watson's garlic cake today, but I don't have a kitchen aid and the thought of standing and holding a mixer for 20 minutes is really unappealing to me. So instead I tried another Chef Watson recipe, Jamaican Dark Rum Ribs. The only criteria I put in for ingredients was pork ribs, the rest was a surprise. The recipes Watson generates have not been reviewed by a human and I was expecting it to be somewhat confusing and hard to follow. It wasn't. The recipe was actually straight forward and written better than many I have seen written by humans. I don't usually take pictures of my food, it'll take some work to get them pinterest quality. The ribs were not as dry as they look. 

The marinade included several ingredients that I have never combined or even thought about combining. Rum, ketchup, apricot preserves, ginger, lime, brown sugar, sesame oil, cumin, allspice, and vanilla. It's the combination sesame oil with vanilla that's new to me. I was skeptic, but it turned out delicious! "Tangy" was the word my wife used. Our consensus was that it should be made again but probably not put on a weekly rotation. 

One of my complaints about Watson is that where the recipes are generated on demand instead of held in a file in a server somewhere it is difficult to get the same recipe if you don't save it. I did not save the recipe, I was working from the browser on my phone. When I was done I closed the tab, now I can't find the recipe again. When I looked through the history, every IBM entry took me to the ingredient selection page. I tried the same search criteria and couldn't find it. On me desktop I can include up to four ingredients, and being more specific I still couldn't find it. I did however find a recipe with the same name and ingredient's close enough that substitutions would work and get similar results.

IBM Chef Watson

I like strange things. When I saw a recipe involving a jar of salsa, peanut butter, zucchini and sweet potatoes, I had to try it, and it was amazing! The recipe is for an African peanut soup. The Anthropologist in me wants to know what part of Africa, but the author of the recipe doesn't want me to. But nonetheless, it is tasty although probably not very authentic. When I learned about IBM's Chef Watson, I was very curious. The people at IBM and Bon Appetit decided to feed thousands of recipes in to Watson and see what it could learn. Watson is an artificial intelligence (AI), so rather than searching everything, it learns and recalls information fed into it. From all these recipes Watson has learned what flavor profiles go together. From IBM's Chef Watson website (https://www.ibmchefwatson.com/community) you can search for one or up to four ingredients and Watson will create a recipe based on those ingredients. You can adjust the results provided from normal to bizarre. I encourage you to check it out, play around, and get inspired. On my next day off, I'm going to try a garlic cake recipe from Watson. I have no idea what to expect.