In the Last Two Months...

picture courtesy of wikipedia

...I've been gone a bit longer than I'd like to admit. Fifth grade homework has not treated me well and hasn't left me with much time. Thank goodness I cook for the week on Monday's or we wouldn't be eating. Cooking on Monday's doesn't lead to too much creativity so I haven't had much to share. Two to six hours of homework a night led to an email to the teacher. We weren't the only ones overwhelmed and the homework has lessened.

What has happened in two months:

~My best friend (Kim) and culinary school roommate was in town with her husband (Rob) and four-year old daughter (Maddie). We had a blast.

~I cooked at Restaurant Iris for the chef collaboration brunch. It went so well and everyone cleaned their plates. I was truly honored. They are an impressive bunch of people.

~Finished out a 6th year of Dinner on Demand.

We took my best friend and her family to the zoo, Tom's Farm, The Peabody to see the ducks, and to The Rendevous.

The zoo in Memphis is awesome. We all loved it and the animals were really active. The monkey's were so loud it freaked out little Maddie.

The Rendevous was liked by a couple of us, but it just wasn't very good to me. I have to admit that I've been spoiled by Ernest's ribs (he's a friend of mine and makes the best ribs on the planet). While eating ribs at The Rendevous, our girls commented that, "they're not as good as Ernest's." They are sooo right!

I've been making these Salted Caramel Brownies a lot. You can find the recipe here. I added cayenne to these, but it's optional.

I made Jana's (friend and co-worker) French Dips this past weekend, so I'll be sharing that soon. Other than that, I haven't cooked anything new, but how about those Honeycrisp apples?! I'm addicted! I wish there were around all year!

More Veggies

In my quest to eat more veggies and less meat, I made myself the most gorgeous and delicious Greek Tuna Salad the other day. No, I'm not becoming a vegetarian. I'm trying to simply cut the meat portion size down and incorporate fresh veggies with every meal. My love affair with bacon or anything pork and a good, crispy pan-fried diner-style burger will forever prevent me from vegetarianism, and I'm okay with that. More than okay with that. Everyone can thank Mark Bittman's new cookbook, The Food Matters Cookbook, for this vegetable increase.

I think I love this cookbook because Mr. Bittman likes beans and I love beans. There are some really great recipes for cooking with beans of all sorts. This really has nothing to do with the Greek Tuna Salad, except that it does have garbanzo beans in it. I'm just really enjoying his new cookbook.

Greek Tuna Salad

Yield: 2 servings

1 can olive oil packed tuna, drained

1/2 cucumber peeled, seeded, and diced

1/2 red bell pepper, seeded and diced

1 green onion, chopped

1/4 cup sliced kalamata olives

1/2 cup drained garbanzo beans/chick peas

2 Tbsp. feta cheese, crumbled

2-4 handfuls chopped romaine lettuce

2 Tbsp. olive oil

1/2 lemon, juiced

Salt and pepper, to taste

Garlic Croutons, optional

Toss all the ingredients together except for the tuna. Season with salt and pepper and add the croutons, if using, and toss again. Portion the salad onto 2 plates and top each salad with equal amounts of the tuna.

ROASTED BANANA

I just made the most delicious Roasted Banana Paletas with Mexican Chocolate! I am so excited about these. I'm (hopefully) serving a mini version of this, minus the chocolate, with my Caramel Croissant Bread Pudding at Iris in October. The mixture was good just as a smoothie and almost didn't make it to the popsicle mold. Our next attempt is spicy watermelon and an apple pie a la mode.

Here's the menu I'm going to present to Chef Kelley at Iris. Of course I haven't spoken to him, so this is premature, but I've been dying to let everybody see it and give me their feedback.

• pimento cheese croquettes with red pepper jelly vinaigrette, crumbled bacon, and toasted pecans on mixed greens OR pimento cheese crostini with all the other stuff on top.


• roasted butternut squash bisque with a cinnamon creme fraiche and a hidden surprise of olive & sinclair chili chocolate on the bottom


• roasted gorgonzola stuffed & prosciutto wrapped mission figs (if in season) with balsamic reduction drizzle


• tennessee white cheddar hoe cakes with sweet & sour collards, a poached egg, grilled shrimp, and brown butter hollandaise with a tempura fried black-eyed pea garnish


• classic monte cristo with raspberry jam for dipping and french fries


• sage seared pork tenderloin sliced and served with either a sweet potato mash with diced apple or a roasted sweet potato wedge, green veggie (haricovert?), and a dried berry demi.


• caramel croissant bread pudding with miniature roasted banana paleta


• peanut butter cake with Iris ice cream choice (vanilla, chocolate, or roasted banana paleta)


• featured cocktail: sassy lady (cuz i am)- st. germain, vodka, soda water, lemon juice, agave syrup, and a squeezed clementine wedge.


• table bread: miniature muffin or parker house rolls

I wanted to do all of my favorite things that I love to eat and cook (brown butter, balsamic reduction, collards, hoe cakes, pimento cheese, bacon and all things pork, paletas, anything cheese, and anything fried) using my favorite TN ingredients (Olive & Sinclair Chocolate, Sweetwater cheddar, Benton's bacon, etc.). This menu is composed of dishes or components of dishes that people always ask me about for their cooking class. I will be providing the recipes on this blog on 10/10/11.

Roasted Banana & Mexican Chocolate Paletas
Yield: 12 paletas

3 large bananas
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup half and half
1 cup skim milk
2 tsp. vanilla
2 Tbsp. crushed mexican chocolate, optional

Preheat the oven to 375. Slit the skin of the banana from end to end and place onto a foil lined baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes. Cool enough to handle, pour off the liquid, and remove the peeling. In a blender place the roasted banana flesh, brown sugar, half and half, milk, and vanilla. Puree until smooth. Distribute the crushed chocolate evenly into the paleta molds and pour in the roasted banana puree; cover with the slotted paleta mold's lid. Freeze for 2 hours and then insert the popsicle sticks 1/2 way in and freeze for another 4-6 hours, preferably overnight.

INSIDE

Stupid hot. That's all I have to say about this weeks weather. Staying indoors does allow for more cooking, and after the Nashville trip and eating out every single meal, home cooked meals were welcome.


I'm so thrilled our girls enjoy cooking. Now that they are older, it's cute to see how the oldest has started to really understand it and take matters into her own hands. Just this week she made her own French Toast, cheesy scrambled eggs, Caesar salad dressing, homemade marinara and chicken parmesan, and smitten kitchen's lime-yogurt cake with berry sauce. They also helped me with the hoe cakes.

I have to admit that the lime-yogurt cake was good straight out of the oven, but the next day it was inedible. It was tough. Not stale and dry but hard to get a fork through tough. That cake goes into the trash, along with the recipe. The flavor was great but I will just use lime juice and zest in my next sour cream pound cake.

The hoe cakes were the star of the week. We had them as part of our breakfast-for-dinner tradition with a swiss & bacon omelette and fruit. Make sure you get your griddle/pan really, really well preheated because you want the heat to blast that baking powder/soda in the flour & cornmeal mix to give you a really high rise. Just so you know, placing cheesy eggs or a fried egg and a slice of canadian bacon or ham between two hoe cakes makes a delicious breakfast sandwich.














Hoe Cakes
Yield: 14 (4-inch) cakes

1/2 cup self-rising flour
1/2 cup self-rising white or yellow cornmeal mix
1 egg
1/2-1 Tbsp. sugar or agave
1/4-1/3 cup buttermilk
2 Tbsp. water
2 Tbsp. oil or melted butter
Melted butter (for griddle)

Preheat the griddle to 375. Mix together the egg, sugar, buttermilk, water, and oil. Stir in the flour and cornmeal mix until smooth. Add more buttermilk if needed. The batter should look like a thick pancake batter. Melt some butter onto the griddle and place a small ice cream scoop of the hoe cake batter onto the griddle (about 1/4 cup or less). These should be about 3-4 inches in diameter. Cook for about 2-4 minutes on each side or until you start to see lots of bubbles form inside the hoe cake. Flip and cook for another 2-4 minutes. These should be crispy-crunchy and golden brown on both sides like a piece of toast. Serve with melted butter and maple syrup or with tomato marmalade and crumbled bacon or with whatever floats your boat.