Muhammara- Roasted Red Bell Pepper Dip

         

Think you like hummus? Wait until you try Muhammara, a decadent dip originating from Syria that will make your world explode with creamy, comforting goodness.

Prior to the nightmare that has been Covid-19, I loved frequenting the Peacock Lounge at the Proper Hotel here in Austin, where I first discovered this outstanding treat. Served with warm pita and a zesty cocktail or shrub, this is hands down my favorite appetizer or mezze to enjoy while lounging in the colorful middle eastern inspired lounge lobby with friends. And then, just like that, the entire world was turned upside down due to a virus that literally made society come to a screeching halt, and along with it, entertaining, dining out, bountiful grocery store visits. The pandemic proved the terrifying reality that these great United States was woefully under-prepared to handle the wave of illness headed its way. And so we all did our part and took shelter for what we thought would be a fortnight and stretched in to two months. I was blessed to be able to work from home, despite my worries for my team who stayed working the front lines with the public at my office. They adapted beautifully, and I did my best to pray for them and send food to nourish them and send them my love from afar. It has been the strangest and most unsettling and surreal of times. Not a war, but in a way still a battle, only with an invisible killer.

My anxieties hit a peak when we had to take one of our beloved pugs and put him to sleep- socially distanced as I tearfully soothed him with my voice. I lost my appetite and with it, five pounds shed from worry. And then I began to learn and practice daily meditation and slowly felt my limbs and my breath relax and return to life, and with it, my love of cooking. We made some tremendous meals throughout the sheltering and I was thankful I have learned to be resourceful and stock a pantry, as supplies were at one point very limited in our formerly abundant stores. There are just the two of us, so we have no back up freezer as the majority in our area have. They were the fortunate and dare I say, greedy ones, who stockpiled all the shelves at our local store. They ate well, so did we, but with much planning and frugality. My Depression era father thankfully taught me how to stretch out a meal and get creative.

I was craving my favorite treat from the Peacock, so I googled muhammara recipes and with the staples I had on hand, made a rather good knock off which was a huge hit with my husband. He could dip handfuls of homemade pita into the creamy dip. Being gluten free, I enjoyed it with crudites or Simple Mills almond flour Rosemary and sea salt crackers. The recipe calls for Pomegranate molasses, of which I did not have, so I made due with pomegranate juice in the back of the fridge. I scored some fresh seeds from a Whole Foods delivery on the rare, and lucky day they had a slot open after weeks of none. They even had some chicken that day! I realize I still had many blessings to count as so many around the globe have lost their jobs and all sense of normality and security.

Things were looking up, until our refrigerator and freezer broke. The Russian repairman who spoke but a few words of broken English, typed in his google translator that our fridge was beyond repair. We hurriedly went to the home improvement store to find another one. A rush delivery would be six days out. I felt deflated and despaired that the small amount of food we managed to procure would all go to waste. Somehow, by a miracle, the freezer held it's temps until the new fridge came. It was quite the relief and I was so grateful my prayers were answered. This dip, while not quite as good as the one I enjoy at the Peacock, will always hold a bittersweet memory for me as we embrace the new way of life.

INGREDIENTS

1 12 oz jar of Roasted Red Bell Peppers, drained and rinsed

1/2 cup creamy almond butter

2 roasted cloves of garlic (I smoked mine in the Big Green Egg)

2 teaspoons allepo or cayenne pepper

2 teaspoons sea salt

4 tablespoons or pomegranate juice and 1 pinch of sugar

Olive oil, pistachios and pomegranate seeds to garnish

Blend all the ingredients except for the garnish until smooth and creamy. Add a little water if it is too thick.

Drizzle with olive oil, garnish and serve at room temperature with crudites, warm pita or crackers.

Stays sealed in a container in fridge for a week.

"Beer Can" Chicken on the Big Green Egg

Sadly our egg got a crack in the fire box, but luckily the Big Green Egg has a lifetime warranty, so they replaced the parts free of charge. This warranted a trip to BBQ Outfitters, where we picked up the new parts and their ceramic "Sittin' Chicken" stand, which emulates beer can chicken without the bad paint chemicals leaching into my organic, happily raised, free-roaming chook. This was hands down the VERY BEST chicken we have EVER EATEN. EVER!!!!!

Glorious. Thank you sweet little chook.

Here's how it went down...

Brine the chicken in 1/4 cup fine grain sea salt, 2 quarts water, a sliced lemon, 4 bay leaves, 2 garlic cloves, 2 tbs onion powder, fresh thyme for 8 hours. Rinse. Pat dry and let it air chill in the fridge for an hour. Crack some fresh pepper all over the chicken plus some garlic and onion powder. We stuffed some sinful truffle butter under the skin of the breast for good measure.

Meanwhile, light the grill and bring it to 400 degrees.

Pour a bottle of beer in the stand (As an homage to my Belgian heritage we used a delicious Belgian beer called Blanche de Bruxelles). We added fresh rosemary, another bay leaf, a celery stick and a few sprigs fresh thyme to the beer. Stuck the stand in the chook's bum and roasted it about an hour until the skin was crisp and the chicken was cooked through. We let it rest under a tent of foil for 20 minutes before carving and reduced the remainder of the beer/chicken juice over low heat in a pot with a dash of sherry vinegar until reduced by half.

Drizzled the sauce over the chook and garnished with fresh tarragon and a fresh tomato salad. THIS is what summer is all about. 

Pugs reflecting on the perfect summer dinner and dreaming of chicken bites.

 

Passport to France at Central Market

Mais oui!!! Of course I have to write something about Central Market's Passport to France! J'adore la cuisine francaise!! So imagine my excitement when I stopped in to buy things for dinner and saw my Central Market all decked out like France! I nearly wept with joy. I wish I had bypassed the $500 waste of money I spent on the failure that was the Austin Food & Wine Fest and saved the cash to splurge on all things French for sale at CM for the next two weeks. I'm still boiling about the complete disappointment that was the Austin Food & Wine Fest. What an expensive, dusty, disorganized waste of time and money that was. But I digress...

Here are a few picture I snapped with my little old iphone

Beautiful little radishes and beans (the photo is a little fuzzy, I was shaking with excitement here).

A cute little marche setup with Le Creuset wares for sale

I picked up an Herbes de Provence pork tenderloin and roasted it in my rotisserie with a nice little pan sauce and rosemary roasted potatoes. It was fabulous. I didn't take pictures sadly.

I may be partial, but I still think Lay's taste better.

Aside from ravioli, crepes may be my second favorite food. It was a tradition that on snow days my mother would make me fresh crepes with Nutella and bananas. This nice man made me a crepe with cream cheese, figs and candied ginger. It was terrific.

I'm so lucky to live in a city that has such fantastic grocery stores and I'm even more excited because Whole Foods is opening less than a mile from my house, so I can ride my bike with my cute little basket to pick up my groceries from now on. Very French, non?

Savory Cheddar Beer Biscuits

In my previous post on fried chicken I mentioned an easy Bisquick recipe, but frankly, these are almost just as easy to make, taste way better and only takes about 10 minutes more to prepare. I adapted a recipe I found on the epicurious site. But my recipe tweaks made them better IMHO.

Here's how it all went down...

INGREDIENTS

Pre heat oven to 450 degrees.

2 1/4 cup flour (use all purpose or a flour with low protien content such as a cake flour or White Lilly brand if you can find it- makes for a fluffier biscuit).

2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 tbs sugar

1 tsp salt

3/4 stick of butter cut into cubes and pop in the freezer for 10 minutes with 2 tbs shortening

1 1/2  cups shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

1 tbs garlic powder

pinch of cayenne pepper

(optional) 2 tbs chopped chives or scallions

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup beer such as a lager

In a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients, add the chilled butter and shortening and mix between your fingers until it resembles course meal. There will be some visible chunks of butter and shortening. They key is to not soften the butter too much- so don't overwork it.

Then add the cheeses, seasonings and stir in the buttermilk and beer. Again, be sure to give it a light stir as to not overwork it or the biscuits will come out hard.

Using a tablespooon as a scoop, drop the dough on a parchment paper lined baking sheet with each biscuit about two inches apart. They make about 16 biscuits, so I used two trays and placed in the upper 2/3 part of the oven. Check on them after 15 minutes. Mine are cooked in my oven in about 17 minutes. Enjoy!!

CoCoNut Porter Pulled Pork Sliders

On a recent trip to Maui we discovered the insanely delicious CoCoNut porter at the Maui Brewing Company. It is rich, chocolatey, coconutty, toasty and makes a fabulous marinade and baste for pulled pork.

INGREDIENTS

1 Bone in Boston Butt

1 can Maui Brewing Company CoCoNut Porter

2 bottles Mexican Coke

3 cloves of peeled garlic, lightly crushed

3 tbs hoisin sauce

1 whole clove

2 whole allspice

1/2 tsp grated giner

salt to taste

Place all ingredients in a 2 gallon Ziploc Bag and marinade overnight.

We fired up the Big Green Egg to 200 degrees, placed the marinade and pork in a foil pan, covered with foil and let it cook of 8 hours, flipping the pork every hour, and basting it.

Once it was falling off the bone tender, we shredded it to make sliders with finely diced onions, shredded cheddar and our Bourbon-Hoisin Catsup.

To make the catsup, reduce 1/4 cup bourbon with 1 tsp brown sugar until thickened and syrupy. Add 4 tbs organic tomato catsup, 2 tbs hoisin and a pinch of garlic powder. Stir until thickened and warm and drizzle over sliders.

Mahalo!

Spring time in Austin means more Jerk Chicken!!!

I wasn't lying when I said I love Jamaica and Jamaican Jerk Chicken. Our friends the Huffs are also the proud owners of a Big Green Egg and are responsible for making us decide to get one. We kicked off the spring with a Jerk Chicken fest at their house down the road and decided it was too pretty and tasty to not post!!

For the recipe go back to my post from October 2011.

 It was a beautiful day when we sparked up the BGE

 Fun times on the patio waiting for dinner...

 Gorgeous Austin Sunset!

 Another stunning sunset shot. Our house is located where you see the lights to the left on the hill.

 Sparks were literally flying of this burning hot chook!

 This is the money shot.

And it's time to eat!!!

Post dinner cocktails :-)

Tiropita - Greek Cheese Phyllo Triangles

Another fabulous Christmas in Austin, Texas!!  My mother in law is a fantastic cook and kindly shared with us her family recipe for tiropites, which are buttery, chesse filled filo triangles. You may have heard of the more popular Spanakopita, which is basically the same thing, but with chopped spinach added. But we prefer plain old cheese filling and have jazzed it up before with ground greek meatballs, lump crab meat, leeks. It's now become an annual holiday tradition for us to roll up the sleeves and make dozens of these terrific little treats. they freeze great for up to 4 months and make super holiday gifts.

Happy New Year!!

Let's start with the ingredients...
We typically prefer using only organic ingredients except for the phyllo dough. The organic dough is dry and not flaky enough. We prefer Fillo Factory brand phyllo dough or Athens brand. And always buy a few extra packs as sometimes they are dry and crackly and a nightmare to work with. Thaw them in the fridge for 24 hours before assembly.

6 eggs
1 large white onion
1 bunch green onions, ends of bulbs snipped off
1 bunch of Italian parsley (about 1.5 cups)
12 oz Cottage Cheese
12 oz crumbled Feta
8 oz whipped cream cheese (My husband Michael added this - makes it super creamy and rich)
4 sticks of clarified melted salted butter in a double boiler
4 packs phyllo dough, thawed.
pepper to taste

In a food processor, combine all ingredients except the cheeses and blend until finely minced.

Then in a large bowl combine cheeses and crack some fresh pepper...

 

 Add the onion and egg mixture...

Since we're dealing with highly perishable ingredients here, be sure to place the filling bowl in another bowl filled with ice. And if you need to take a break or want to go to bed and continue the next day, be sure to cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and store in the fridge.

On a clean work surface, cut phyllo dough into 3 inch strips. Keep a slightly damp towel on the remainder of the phyllo pack to keep it from drying out.

Place a strip of dough on the surface and with a pastry brush dipped in butter, paint the strip. Cover it with another strip of dough and paint that with butter too.

Then place a tablespoon of filling at the bottom of the strip...

Fold the bottom corner over the filling...

 Then fold it over again, just like a flag! Man, Michael sure has some nice looking hands! He should have been a hand model like George Costanza!

And because butter is so fabulous (and makes great hand cream), butter the rolled triangle to seal the edges...

We "cure" the tiropites in a large tupperware in a single file, with layers of wax paper in between. Then once they are frozen we place them in sous vide ziploc freezer bags for later use and to keep them fresh.

To cook them, preheat an oven to 350 degrees, place the tiropites in a single layer and bake for about 25-30 minutes until golden brown. your house is going to smell AMAZING!!!!  These will be smoking hot, so be sure to let them have a little rest for about 10 minutes before devouring.

flaky, buttery goodness!!

We enjoyed them for Christmas dinner with some fresh Wagyu beef filet from Morgan Ranch and veal demi glace we made from our Thomas Keller's Bouchon cookbook. This awesome blogger shows how it's done HERE. Oh and we made sinfully delicious butter poached Australian lobster tails as an hommage to my birthplace. And then promptly passed out from gluttony (and champagne) by the fire...

The pugs also enjoyed the beef bones we roasted for them for their Christmas present :-)

Here's to a Fabulous 2012!! Happy Cooking!!

Roasted Pancetta and Patate Arrosto

My gorgeous and smart friend Michelle suggested we attend a Tuscan cooking class at our local Central Market taught by renowned chef Gina Stipo and of course I had to make this dish as soon as possible. We were also served an insanely delicious chesnut soup and calamari braised in marinara, which I will soon cook and post here.

But really, what's not to love about pork cooked in BACON?? Since uncured pancetta is impossible to find here in austin, I substituted uncured Applegate Farms Sunday Bacon. My husband devoured half of the 2 pound roast if that tells you anything...

Ingredients

Raw pancetta or 1 package uncured bacon (I use Applegate Farms or Niman Ranch)

1 pork loin

fresh rosemary from two sprigs

4 leaves fresh sage

1 tsp ground fennel seeds, or fennel pollen

3 garlic cloves

salt to taste

2 cups dry white wine

Directions

In a food processor, make a paste of 1 tbs olive oil, sage, fennel, rosemary and garlic.

Salt both sides of pork loin and rub paste on top of the loin. Layer the loin with bacon strips and tie it with string to secure.

Place in a roasting pan and add about 2 cups of white wine to generously coat the bottom. Place it in a preheated oven at 450 degrees for about an hour until the middle reads 150 degrees. Let it rest 15 minutes before thinly slicing. Reduce pan juices on stove top with a bit more wine, strain fat and drizzle. garnish with parsley and serve with Roasted potatoes (Patate Arrosto).

Patate Arrosto

4 large Yukon potatoes peeled and cut into large chunks about an inch cubed.

1/2 cup olive oil

1 tbs chopped fresh rosemary

1 tbs chopped fresh sage

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 tsp sea salt

Mix ingredients together and line in a large baking dish and cook along side the pork about 45 minutes to one hour so they are golden brown and cooked through. Finish with a little more salt if needed.

Fantastico!!!!!!

Jerk Chicken-Jamaican Me Hungry!!

Irie times cooking up some jerk chicken on the BGE. For those who know me, know I ADORE Jamaica and all things Jamaican, especially Jamaican food. I've been going to Jamaica since I was 9 years old, and with no television and three weeks idling away each summer, I picked up some cooking tips from our housekeepers, Beverly and Ulalee. These women could cook like no one's business and left quite an impression on my life. So whenever I have a yearning for my favorite island, I make some Jamaican food and it's like a mini vacation in my mouth. To think I used to complain that I was bored! Spoiled brat! What I wouldn't give to have three weeks a year to bum around in Montego Bay now days. I digress... Here's our hotter than hell Jerk chicken recipe...

Mixed grill with Jerk Flap Steak.... Caribbean fajitas!!

Jamaican Jerk Chicken

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, cut into pieces

in a food processor, blend the following into a paste...
 6 sliced Scotch Bonnet peppers (1 habanero pepper may be used if scotch bonnet peppers are unavailable)
 2 Tbsp. dried  thyme
 2 Tbsp. ground allspice

1 clove, ground

  8 Cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 large onion chopped

3 scallions
2 Tbsp. turbinado brown sugar
2 Tbsp. salt
2 Tsp. ground black pepper

1 tsp fresh ginger

1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
Juice of one lime
1 cup fresh squeezed orange juice and reserved peel

  1/2 cup white vinegar

Marinade in a large ziploc for 24 hours. Then throw it on the big Green egg at 250 degrees for 3.5 hours or until the thickest part of the thigh meat reads 170 (jerk tastes better a little dry for some reason).Serve with Seasoned Rice and Peas (pigeon peas, but black beans are tasty too) KITCHEN HACK: True jerk is cooked over pimento wood (from the tree that makes allspice berries) Soak a 1/2 cup allspice berries in water for 2 hours, wrap in foil with a little water and place indirectly on the grill for an authentic flavor).

Rice and Peas

2 cups basmati rice
1 can pigeon peas or red beans

2 cups coconut milk

2 cups spring water

2 cloves minced garlic

1 scallion

1 tsp tumeric

1 tsp dried ginger

1 tbs butter

bay leaf

salt to taste

Bring rice and ingredients to a boil, cover and reduce to a low simmer until done according to package. Remove scallion and bayleaf, stir in a can of rinsed and drained beans and serve. Add a little more butter, because butter is so d*mn tasty!

Ya Mon!!! Respect!!!!

Eggscellent Pizza on the Big Green EGG

After tasting some amazing food from our friends the Huff's Big Green Egg, we decided it was time to welcome one to our family.

We kicked it off with homemade poolside pizza. I've never made pizza from scratch before, but my trusty A16 cookbook taught me the tricks. 24 hours later and my bubbly, crispy, oozey, chewy pizza was "hatched" from the firey cavern of the EGG.

We topped this one with leftovers such as pineapple, sugar cured Niman Ranch bacon, Greek Meatballs, fresh mozzarella, basil and shaved garlic. Drizzle with the super tasty olive oil given to us as a gift of the Huffs from Tuscany.