John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar: Forced abortions and mass sterilization needed to save planet
http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/ ^ | 7/10/2009
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2290196/posts?page=187
<<<<<<<<<<
Yes, there has been in my opinion, a large out break of mental illness in Washington.
I am not educated in mental illnesses, but suspect this desire to kill unborn babies, comes under the illness known as a
“God Complex”.
Or is it that they are so cowardly, that they will not face a living person and expect to win.
People still do not see what I see when they talk of abortion, most see dead babies.
I see a wiped out Military, for they have surely killed many before birth, who would be here and in uniform, ready to fight for their country.
Another form of takeover.
>>>I see a wiped out Military, for they have surely killed many before birth, who would be here and in uniform, ready to fight for their country.<<<
WOW pretty large military - over 50 million strong...
I attribute most of it to the Liberals ‘ME’ generation... Damn the babies - I don’t want the inconvenience.
Then there is Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s admission that she thought what she supported in Roe vs. Wade was Government control of the reproduction of those we don’t want too many of... Never thought that I would hear it admitted to. (Of course Libs can get away with things like that and nobody seems to mind.)
Medtronic Paradigm Quick-Set Infusion Sets
Audience: Diabetes healthcare professionals, patients
Medtronic, Inc. and FDA notified healthcare professionals and patients of a recall of Quick-set infusion sets that are used with MiniMed Paradigm insulin pumps because the affected infusion sets may not allow the insulin pump to vent air pressure properly. This could potentially result in the device delivering too much or too little insulin and may lead to serious injury or death. An infusion set is a thin plastic tube used to deliver insulin from an insulin pump to a diabetes patient, and is typically replaced by the patient every three days. Affected infusion sets are reference numbers MMT-396, MMT-397, MMT-398 and MMT-399 with lot numbers starting with the number “8”. Patients should discontinue using “Lot 8” Quick-set infusion sets. The lot number (for example 8XXXXXX) is clearly marked on both the product box label, and on each individual infusion set package. Customers are being asked to return any affected infusion sets to the company.
Read the complete MedWatch Safety summary, including a link to the firm press release, at:
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm171630.htm
L A Weight Loss Recalls L A Hot Drinks Café Au Lait Because of Possible Health Risk
Company Contact:
Jesse Rivera
215-328-2073
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - HORSHAM, PA – July 10, 2009 – Weight Loss Services, LP of Horsham, PA is recalling 403 cases (16,120 selling units) of L A Hot Drinks Café Au Lait net weight 4.07oz, because one of the ingredients of the product has the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella. The ingredient, an instant non-fat dry milk product, was manufactured by Plainview Milk Products Cooperative of Plainview, MN. and further processed by Associated Brands LP, Medina, NY.
Salmonella is an organism, which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e. infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis. For more information on Salmonella, please visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Website at http://www.cdc.gov.
L A Hot Drinks Café Au Lait was distributed to Georgia, Illinois, and Washington. Consumers would have purchased this product through L A Weight Loss Centers.
The product is packaged in retail boxes with a UPC Code of 55958-00365 on the back panel. The front of the box is printed with “L A Hot Drinks Café Au Lait”. There are 7 envelopes per box. The top of the box is printed with a “BEST BY” lot code. We are only recalling the following lot codes (other lots are not involved):
BEST BY 08/13/29
BEST BY 08/14/09
BEST BY 11/28/09
BEST BY 01/30/10
BEST BT 01/31/10
No illnesses have been reported to date.
Consumers who have purchased this product are urged to return it to the place of purchase for a full refund. Consumers with questions may contact Weight Loss Service LP at 1-215-328-2073 Monday through Friday from 9am through 3pm EDT.
http://www.fbi.gov/page2/july09/oakley_071309.html
A DANGEROUS BETRAYAL
The Case of the Cash Hungry Contractor
07/13/09
The East Tennessee Technology Park. Courtesy of the Department of Energy.
The East Tennessee Technology Park. Courtesy of the Department of Energy.
Two hundred thousand dollars—not a huge sum of money in return for betraying one’s country. But that’s exactly how much money Roy Lynn Oakley asked for when he attempted to sell stolen parts of uranium enrichment equipment to someone he thought was an agent of a foreign government.
Oakley’s contact was an “agent” all right, but not from a foreign country—it was an undercover agent from the FBI.
How it all began. In January 2007, our Knoxville office learned that Oakley—an employee of the East Tennessee Technology Park in Oak Ridge—was trying to sell restricted U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) materials.
share.gif
The East Tennessee Technology Park was formerly known as the K-25 building, a DOE facility that opened during the 1940s and produced highly enriched uranium used in the manufacture of atomic weapons. DOE later shut down the facility and contracted with a company—Bechtel Jacobs—to dismantle and demolish the plant. Oakley was an employee of Bechtel Jacobs.
Working with DOE’s Office of Counterintelligence, we used sophisticated investigative techniques, interviews, and analysis of records to further pinpoint Oakley as a suspect.
The next phase. To catch Oakley in the act, we began an undercover operation. Our agent contacted Oakley and told him he was representing a foreign government and had heard that Oakley was offering to sell some classified materials. During recorded phone calls, Oakley said he had stolen parts of the uranium enrichment fuel rods and other related hardware items from his place of employment that he was willing to sell for $200,000.
Our undercover agent eventually agreed to the deal, and a face-to-face meeting was set up for January 26, 2007. Both parties showed up at the meeting place, money and classified components were exchanged, and Oakley was ultimately arrested and charged with violating the Atomic Energy Act of 1954.
Oakley’s confession. So why did he do it? Not because of any anti-U.S. ideology. Not because he was angry at his employer. No, he did it purely for the money. Oakley wanted to retire from Bechtel during 2007 but was deep in debt and needed cash.
He told us he took the materials home with him and kept them in a metal box…until he could find a buyer.
In January 2009, Oakley pled guilty to trying to sell these materials. He admitted that he knew the items were “restricted” and that they play a crucial role in the production of highly enriched uranium which is used for atomic weapons (through what’s called the gaseous diffusion process). In June, he was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Knoxville to six years in prison.
Upon Oakley’s sentencing, Knoxville Special Agent in Charge Rick Lambert said, “Bringing to justice the trusted insider who would betray America for private gain remains the FBI’s highest priority.”
Resources:
- Press release on Oakley’s sentencing
- Learn more about our counterintelligence initiatives and successes
Headline Archives home
Borage flowers attract pollinators to the garden
Once again Maria takes us up close to insects at the Compost Demonstration Garden.
In this video she captures honey bees drinking nectar from Borage
flowers.
Building Resilient Cities - UA Magazine no. 22
“Resilient cities are cities that can effectively operate and provide services under
conditions of distress. Resilient cities can better absorb the type of shocks and
stresses as identified above. Rather than focusing on vulnerability, a focus on
resilience means putting emphasis on what can be done by a city or a community itself,
building on existing natural, social, political, human, financial, and physical
capital, while at the same time strengthening its capacities.
“Urban agriculture can play a role in building more resilient cities. Growing food
in cities reduces the dependency on (rural) food supplies, which can easily be affected
by disrupted transport, armed conflicts, droughts or flooding and increasing food
prices.
Aphids on Fava Beans attract beneficial insects
Maria uses her macro lens to close in on our Fava Beans, which are covered in black
aphids. Instead of reporting a bad news story, she points out all the beneficial
insects dining on the aphids and shows us a bucket of ripe beans that survived
despite the pest attack. Later she turned the harvested beans into a delicious Fava
Bean humous.
Rosie Boycott’s grow-your-own food revolution - London, England
Rosie Boycott - career feminist, newspaper supremo and Mayor Boris Johnson’s “Food
Tsar” - is proof you can start gardening at any age.
She was 51 before she picked up a spade. “Six years ago, I’d never grown a single
vegetable,” she laughs.
Like many frazzled Londoners, she thought growing your own was some boring activity
reserved for dullards and oldies with nothing better to do.
Back then her life was
full of smart parties and TV appearances. The first female editor of The Independent
newspapers, she socialised with actors and politicians. In 1998 she became the editor
of the Daily Express. But then in 2001 she lost her job when the paper was acquired
by Richard Desmond.
Two Little Gardeners - 1951 children’s book
Her social circle included the famous and royalty. She dated the then Prince of
Spain, Juan Carlos, and was friends with John Barrymore and his one of wives, Michael
Strange. She was reputed to have had a long term affair with a prominent New York
attorney and with Michael Strang. Her Vinylhaven, Maine retreat was purchased to
be near the attorney, but it became legendary because of Margaret’s touches of
hospitality and humor.
Since there was no electricity on the property, her well served as a refrigerator.
Butter, milk and other perishables could be had simply by pulling up the appropriately
labled rope. She stored wine in the streams, strategically placing bottles to refresh
her guests on hikes around the property.
The Abundance Handbook - A guide to Urban Fruit Harvesting
Abundance harvests trees across the city on industrial waste sites, roadsides, the
grounds of mansions and back yards. We harvest a range of soft fruit, top fruit
and nuts. Over fifty volunteers of all ages and from many different backgrounds
harvest and process the fruit. Fruit is distributed to Surestarts, community groups,
community cafes and individuals across Sheffield.
We receive tip-offs by word of mouth, text and email as to where to find ripe fruit
trees. The greatest journey any fruit travels from tree to mouth is five miles often
by bike and trailer. We have found at least fifty varieties of apples and more than
twenty varieties of pears. We give away hundreds of fruits and lots of freshly pressed
juice. Tree owners are offered the first share of fresh fruit.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All these great stories can be found here.
City Farmer News [http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1102639564044&s=1304&e=0011TQfhDkr3gzkeKUloVnTW1cS2YhV7Q0xzooLFTXwztkGQvBZYwvZRB2qLfNM8BwCx597Bc8FP8XjVw5f34IgHKAZVuQIvI0vHESi-uxX1IlUJvc5chKRVg==]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael Levenston
City Farmer - Canada’s Office of Urban Agriculture
Fw: my stock broker’s advice
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 5:50 AM
From:
“BobT”
To:
Undisclosed-Recipient@yahoo.com
I called my stock broker this morning and asked him what I should be buying.
He said “Canned goods and ammunition”
Yeah, I know it is a junk mail forward, but it made me laugh, to see one of the many ways, the “stock up now” message is forwarding.
I can see my Mormon friends smile, as she hit ‘send’ on this one.
granny
http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm171780.htm
Brookstone Pharmaceuticals Issues a Voluntary Recall of All Lots of BrookstonePharmaceuticals’ Concentrated Acetaminophen Drops
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – July 13, 2009 – Brookstone Pharmaceuticals, LLC, Alpharetta, GA has initiated anationwide voluntary recall of all lots of Concentrated Acetaminophen Drops (NDC#42192-504-16) in 16 ounce (473 ml) bulk containers. This 16oz container is comparableto the size generally used to package regular strength acetaminophen liquid preparations.This aspect of the product coupled with the absence of an integrated dosage deliverydevice is a contributing factor to possible dosing errors, especially inadvertentoverdosing. Brookstone has distributed 344 bottles nationally and has donated 5301bottles to charity for international distribution.
Over dosage of acetaminophen may result in liver toxicity, kidney damage, and blooddisorders. FDA is aware of several medication error reports that document lifethreateningor fatal adverse events in children less than three years of age, due toconfusion associated with the concentrated versus regular strength acetaminophen liquid.Also, in a recent FDA advisory panel, it was recommended that one of the two strengthsof acetaminophen should be removed from the market due to possible confusion whichcould result in overdosing.
Brookstone’s concentrated acetaminophen contains acetaminophen 80 mg/0.8 mL.Regular strength acetaminophen elixir contains 160 mg/5 ml. The firm is recalling itsproduct to the consumer level as a cautionary measure to minimize any confusion andpotential risk to patients from dosing errors.
Brookstone Pharmaceuticals has notified customers that it has voluntarily stoppedmanufacturing and shipping Concentrated Acetaminophen Drops in bulk containers andhas also advised customers (wholesalers and hospitals) to quarantine and hold the productfor return to Brookstone Pharmaceuticals for a full refund. Customers with questionsabout the recall may contact Brookstone Pharmaceuticals, LLC at 1-800-541-4802,option 2. Brookstone has not received any adverse events associated with this product butdue to recent advisory panel concerns, Brookstone has taken voluntary action.
The recalled drops were manufactured by Pharmaceutical Associates, Inc. This recall isbeing conducted with the knowledge of the Food and Drug Administration.
Customers who have this product in their possession should stop using it immediately.Any adverse events that may be related to the use of this product should be reported tothe FDA’s MedWatch Program by phone at 1-800-FDA-1088 or by fax at 1-800-FDA-0178 or by mail at MedWatch, HF-2, FDA, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20852-9787.
Page Last Updated: 07/14/2009
Intelligence Note
Prepared by the Internet Crime
Complaint Center (IC3)
July 7, 2009
Fraudsters Continue to Exploit Telecommunication Relay Services
The IC3 continues to receive complaints pertaining to scam
artists abusing Telecommunications Relay Services (TRS)
to defraud U.S. businesses and consumers. Under Title IV of the Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA),
all telephone companies must provide TRS for individuals with hearing impairments
or speech impairments.
This IC3 alert is to make the public aware of the continuing abuse of TRS to exploit
U.S. businesses. Recent reports indicate scam artists are
using TRS to exploit auto repair shops. The scam entails the fraudster using TRS
to request services for a vehicle. The fraudster claims the vehicle has to be shipped
to the auto repair business and requests the repairs and shipping fees be charged
to a credit card. Unbeknownst to the business, the credit card is fraudulent
or stolen; however, the charges initially go through without any complications.
The business is then directed to wire the money to the shipper to cover the shipping
costs. It is not until the shipper’s money is wired that the business is notified
of the fraudulent credit card; therefore, the business bears the loss.
A previous PSA titled “NOTORIOUS “RESHIPPER
SCAM” TRANSFORMS” was released on Feb. 9, 2004, covering this exploit.
To view the PSA in its entirety, please visit the following link,
http://www.ic3.gov/media/2004/040209.aspx.
Individuals who receive a communication, such as the one described above, are encouraged
to file a complaint at www.IC3.gov reporting the
incident.
http://www.ic3.gov/media/2009/090707.aspx
This message contains the following:
1. Energizer Wallplate Nightlights Recalled Due to Fire Hazard http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09272.html
2. Rossignol Recalls Cross-Country Boots Due to Fall Hazard http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09273.html
Free - Craft Related:
Frugal Hobbies:
Free samples, not checked out, some of the folks get interesting samples and make a hobby of it.
The best chili powder that I ever used, was a free sample from New Mexico, he sent a couple ounces....
Frugal dog and cat:
Frugal “make money””
Antiques and other useful items, bldg supply, fire wood:
Frugal articles and blogs:
Frugal and Fun:
Interesting:
http://solitaryroad.com/s815.html
[2001 prices, talk about only needing a short memory...granny]
So what are the inexpensive foods? Rice, oatmeal, beans, potatoes,
pasta and homemade bread (flour is cheap). What are the really
expensive foods? The red meats. What are the most healthy
foods? The cheap foods. What are the least healthy foods?
The most expensive foods.
Suppose one had a one cup serving of oatmeal for breakfast, a
peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich for lunch and a one cup
serving of rice, a one cup serving of beans and a one ounce
slice of sourdough bread for dinner every day for a year. What
would his food for the year cost him? Answer: 24 cents per day
or $87.60 per year. And if he thought this was still too much
and wanted to do better, how about the following? Three slices
of toast (i.e. three one-ounce slices of sourdough bread,
toasted) for breakfast, a one cup serving of oatmeal for lunch
and a one cup serving of rice, a one cup serving of beans, and
a large two ounce piece of sourdough bread for the evening meal
every day for a year. This would cost him 16 cents per day or
$58.40 per year. If you used whole wheat bread and brown rice
the diet might not be a bad one. It is probably as good as
many people in the third world live on. And in practice, of
course, you could do a little hunting and fishing, have a small
garden, and supplement it a little.
So how does one minimize the cost of eating? You maximize the
amount of inexpensive foods that you eat and minimize or
eliminate the amount of expensive foods that you eat. You
modify your eating habits, adapt to the cheap foods. You find
recipes that sound appealing that utilize the inexpensive
foods. You have to pay attention to the price of foods, watch
for sales, and buy in quantity at good prices. Most of the
food that my wife and I buy is purchased at a very good sale
price and in quantity. We often combine manufacturer’s coupons
with half price sales to get food at a third of the regular
price and less. Most people pay little attention to the cost
of food and buy whatever they like. They walk down the grocery
aisle and pick up whatever looks good to them, give everything
a try, and don’t worry about the price. The truth is most
packaged and canned foods are relatively expensive. Most junk
food is expensive -— if you want to minimize your cost of
eating stay away from it. Of course you must minimize or
eliminate your consumption of meat, especially red meat. And
it goes without saying that you must eat at home -— eating out
is out of the question.
Now if all this causes one to reflect on the possibility of a
vegetarian diet as a strategy for inexpensive, self-sufficient
living he might be interested in knowing that vegetarians tend
to live eight or ten years longer than meat eaters, have fewer
diseases and health problems, and are in general healthier.
Look into studies of the longevities of vegetarian Seventh Day
Adventists of Loma Linda, California for more information (do
an internet search).
NOTE. The per serving costs in the table above are based on the
following data:
Rice (white). Cost per pound, dry: $.20 One cup of dry rice
weighs 6.9 oz. One cup of dry rice (plus two cups of water)
yields 4 cups of cooked rice. Serving size: One quarter cup
of dry rice or 1 cup of cooked rice. Number of servings per
pound: 9.3 Cost per serving: $.021
Oatmeal (Quick Oats). Cost per 42 oz box: $1.29 (ALDI) Cost
per pound, dry: $.49. One cup of dry oatmeal weighs 2.8 oz.
One half cup of dry oatmeal (plus 1 cup of water) yields 1
cup of cooked oatmeal. Serving size: One half cup of dry
oatmeal or 1 cup of cooked oatmeal. Number of servings per
box: 30 Cost per serving: $.043
Beans (Pinto). Cost per 2 pound bag: $.79 (ALDI) Cost per
pound, dry: $.40 One cup of dry beans weighs 6.0 oz. One
cup of dry beans yields 2.4 cups of cooked beans. Serving
size: .42 cups of dry beans or 1 cup of cooked beans.
Number of servings per bag: 12.7 Cost per serving: $.064
Flour. Cost per 5 pound bag: $.79 (ALDI). Cost per pound:
$.158 One 5 lb bag contains 17.25 cups. Weight of 1 cup:
4.64 oz Cost per cup: $.0456 Serving size: .25 cups
Cost per serving: $.011
Sourdough Bread (homemade). 7.5 cups of flour plus 2.5 cups of
water yield approximately 57.8 ounces of bread. Cost per
pound: $.095. Serving size: 2 oz Cost per serving: $.012
Potatoes (white). Cost per pound: $.129 (ALDI). Serving size:
8 oz Cost per serving: $.065
Macaroni (elbow). Cost per pound, dry (ALDI): $.45 One cup
of dry macaroni weighs about 4 oz. Four ounces ( 1 cup) of
dry macaroni yields 11.6 ounces (or about 2.5 cups) of cooked
macaroni. Serving size: 2.76 oz of dry macaroni or 8 oz of
cooked macaroni. Number of servings per pound: 5.8 Cost
per serving: $.077
Spaghetti. Cost per pound: $.45 (ALDI). Four ounces of dry
spaghetti yields 11.6 ounces of cooked spaghetti. Serving
size: 2.75 oz of dry spaghetti or 8 oz of cooked spaghetti.
Number of servings per pound: 5.8 Cost per serving: $.077
Milk. Cost per gallon (ALDI): $2.19 Serving size: 1 cup
Cost per serving: $.137
Peanut Butter. Cost per 18 oz jar: $.99 Serving size: 2 tbsp
Number of servings in jar: 15 Cost per serving: $.066
Strawberry Jam. Cost per 32 oz jar: $2.29 Serving size: 1
tbsp Number of servings in jar: 45 Cost per serving:
$.051
Grape Jelly. Cost per 32 oz jar: $.99 Serving size: 1 tbsp
Number of servings in jar: 45 Cost per serving: $.022
Raspberry Preserves. Cost per 16 oz jar: $.99 (ALDI) Serving
size: 1 tbsp Number of servings in jar: 22 Cost per
serving: $.045
Bananas. Cost per pound: $.25 (ALDI). Serving size: 8 oz
Cost per serving: $.125
Carrots. Cost per 2 lb bag (ALDI): $.79 Cost per pound:
$.395 Serving size: 2 oz Cost per serving: $.049
Tuna (canned, chunk light). Cost per 6 oz can: $.33 Cost per
pound: $.88 Serving size: 2 oz Cost per serving: $.11
Turkey. Cost per pound (with bone in): $.38 Cost per pound
(no bone): $.76 Serving size: 8 oz Cost per serving: $.38
Chicken leg quarters. Cost per pound (with bone in): $.39
Cost per pound (no bone): $.78 Serving size: 8 oz Cost
per serving: $.39
Ham. Cost per pound (with bone in): $.99 Cost per pound (no
bone): $1.98 Serving size: 8 oz Cost per serving: $.99
Pork Chops. Cost per pound: $1.49 Serving size: 8 oz Cost
per serving: $.75
Ground beef. Cost per pound: $1.49 Serving size: 8 oz Cost
per serving: $.75
Beef roast. Cost per pound: $3.76 Serving size: 8 oz Cost
per serving: $1.88
Sirloin steak. Cost per pound: $4.98 Serving size: 8 oz
Cost per serving: $2.49
The prices used above correspond to the period around March
2001.
[Today, my prescription price was almost $100. more for the month, so we will now have frugal ideas....LOL, granny]
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/29/22137/6511
A lot of people seem to advocate rice as the cheap carb choice, but I find pasta and red sauce to be cheap. There are 5 lbs. boxes of pasta for $3.00 as well as a half gallon of Prego Mushroom for $3.00. That’s lunch for an entire week, for $6.00. Plus you can throw in some chicken or ground beef for a few extra bucks.
What’s good (but not so cheap) and easy to make is chicken and rice casserole. Buy the cheapest chicken thighs you can find (they’ll be frozen and have skin on them) as well as a can of cream of celery, cream of mushroom, and french onion soup (this is where it can get expensive, each of these can be ~$1.00-$1.50.
Now thaw the chicken and cut off the skin. In a bowl mix a cup of uncooked, washed rice along with the three cans of soup, and stir until they’re well mixed. Pour in about 2/3 of the rice/soup mixture into a 9x13 inch pan. Put ~8 thighs in there and dump on the rest of the soup/rice mixture. Sprinkle some paprika on top if you have it. Preheat the oven to 325 or so and let cook for 1.5 hours. Yummy! And enough for two people for two to three meals, depending on how hungry you are. :-)
Money is in some respects like fire; it is a very excellent servant but a terrible master.
PT Barnum
I went through an entire 4 months eating nothing but TotalTM cereal- seriously. 100% of every vitamin and mineral, so you don’t have to worry about buying any. If I got bored with that, I had a bottle of Tabasco sauce on hand and just dropped some on my tongue- it pretty much kills any desire to eat.
You don’t get to steal all the deficiency. I want some to.
-mrgoat
Am I weird or does this look more like two lunches rather than six?
Also, if you are on a budget, for god’s sake, pepper your own damn steak and debone your own chicken. It’s not rocket science.
I fry up some veggies and whatever in a pan add 2 cups of water when the water starts boiling I drop 2 blocks of the ramen in it and squish it down until it breaks up and keep stirring it around till there is no water left then add some sauce to it, that’s some killer stuff with the right sauce, spicy peanut or satay for example. You can live like a king on that ramen.
The Spanish markets around here have 20 pound bags of rice for $5 365 days a year after you add water that’s like I dunno 459 pounds of rice or something
you have $15 to buy stuff to add to the rice to cover the rest of your month right there. Oh wait this is $20 a week, what a joke! I once lived exclusively on dumpster dived donuts for 3 weeks! Well that and $3 bottles of wine, if “Cold Duck” is considered a wine.
You people are weak! I once experimented with boiled acorns to eat when I was low on funds as some kind of alternative to donuts and popcorn (a large bag of popcorn is also something fill up on unpopped I mean, that pops out to many cubic feet of corn) They were totally horrible btw even after boiling 3 times and draining off the water each time, I guess the indians were onto something with burying them in a basket for 6 months (I heard that somewhere)
Hey, find out if your local church has a pantry, you can get boxes of canned foods for free. It’s pretty easy getting on food stamps, too. $135 a month! I was buying Morningstar Corndogs and $4 loaves of Soynut bread and shit when I had that kinda cash to spend.
First off, you should not boil the water before putting in the rice :) Here are two ways that I cook mine - the first makes it tasty and light, the second makes it fluffy and not too sticky. Before each recipe, wash your rice by rinsing and draining it three times.
Pilaf Rice
Use Basmati or Thai long-grained rice. Makes one serving.
Heat up your cooking pot (I use a small ceramic casserole) on medium-high heat. When hot, put in one tablespoon of olive oil (or whichever type you prefer). Add one cup of rice, cook about 1-2 minutes while stirring until rice grains get a translucent appearance. Add 1 1/4-2 cups water, as rice requires, reduce heat to medium and let simmer until water is absorbed. Stir from time to time, and halfway through, lower the heat again so that the rice won’t burn on the bottom once the water’s been absorbed. When absorbed, remove immediately from the stove.
Rice
Any type, I use short-grained rice. Makes one serving.
After rinsing and draining one cup of rice, add 1 1/4 cups water and place on medium heat. It will take a long time to boil, this is on purpose. Once boiling, if it’s a fast boil, turn down the heat a notch. Let simmer until water is absorbed.
For a variation, use milk, rice or soy milk in place of the water, and once it starts boiling, add 2-3 tablespoons sugar and stir. When finished, put a dash of cinnamon over the top - yummy warm rice dessert, or even a breakfast dish!
Tofu has a fundamental problem. It tastes terrible. Here is how to make it better.
1. Buy the firm stuff only. It should feel like firm rubber. Cut it into 1 cm thick slabs.
2. Squeeze out the water. Tofu is preserved in H2O. Tofu is like a sponge. Water tastes terrible. Squeeze out that water by placing slabs between 2 bread boards and squeezing real hard ... harder than you think ... you should almost destroy the tofu. Let the water run off so the ...
3. Marinate will soak in. Marinate in soy sauce at a minimum. A mixture of soy and sweet chilli sauce is better. Marinate for 2 Hrs at least (1 hr each side) then ...
(if making a stir fry this is where you add to stir fry ... after slicing slab into strips)
4. Deep fry ... kinda ... fry in a half centimeter of hot oil in your pan ... fry each side until it looks browned ... lay on paper towel to absorb oil ... alternately grill if you are a health freak who does not like oil (like my GF). I grill on a cast iron stove top griller (like a pan with ridges like VVVVVV so the tofu gets a blackened stripped look)
5. serve slab as is for a tofu steak (add peanut sauce) or slice thinly for use in soups, salads, on bread etc.
my apartment kitchen became infested with ants.
I know this is a cheap shot (please pardon the cheesy pun) but one of the least expensive routes you could have taken (albeit disgusting for some) would have been to eat the ants in your kitchen. They are very high in protein and they taste reasonably good with certain seasonings or sweeteners (So i have heard.) For your greens if you have grass in your yard, and if it’s spring and summer and or you have some dandelions nearby you could make a nice tossed salad or an interesting juice
Insects as Food for Humans
Grass as food
Srvival tip #6 Eating Dandelions is a good thing.
Just buy oriental noodles (preferably not ramen), random veggies (don’t miss the green onions under any circumstances), soy sauce, wasabi powder, and rooster hot sauce. Stick all except the noodles and green onions in boiling water, turn down and cover to make broth. boil noodles separately. Eat.
—em
OK - if we’re talking about living on a shoestring, think about looking in ur local supermarket’s dumpster. This may at first seem, like, totally gross and disgusting, but bear with me here... When a shop gets a new delivery of food, it has to put it on the shelves, and get rid of the old stock. Even if it’s not out of date and perfectly good. It’s the principle of turnover. A tremendous amount of food gets wasted in this way; when I was totally penniless for a couple of weeks I survived quite comfortably like this; one day we discovered about 20 kgs of ripe, but perfectly good strawberries on the top of the rubbish heap and proceeded to make jam for the next few months. Another time we found 4 huge cartons of chocolate biscuits, still well b4 their use-by date.
Bakeries, too, have to get rid of the bread they don’t sell at the end of the day; check out their rubbish bins for delicious fresh bread, or even better, befriend ur local baker and they may even give u their leftovers at the end of the day.
Also check out restaurants and delicatessens for gourmet delights.
Not only does dumpster diving get u food 4 free, it is helping to eliminate waste and break out of this consumption frenzy that is screwing over the planet.
An identity card is better that no identity at all
Why spend money on getting the chicken tenders? Go out and buy yourself a full chicken, preferably with giblets (usually, and rather unfortunately, found only in frozen chickens here in the UK)
Remove the giblets, then pop the chicken in the oven (covered with a little oil, salt and pepper) in a self baster (or just baste it yourself every 20 mins), cook it at about 190 C for about an hour and a half (for a medium sized chicken, but check cooking guidelines). Take it out when it’s done (Juices run clear in the wing joints when you force a knife in).
Ok, there’s enough meat on a chicken for a good five or six meals if you carve well. And it’s enough for the above recipe twice over. Brown it off if you want, but that might overcook it.
Now the important bit - Chicken stock. Don’t throw away the giblets, bones and skin. After you’ve got all meat off, break the bones up, and chuck them into a big pan. Put in an onion (halved or quartered), a couple of carrots (again halved or quartered), a few herbs to your taste (bayleaves, marjoram and thyme are my favs), and some salt/pepper. Cover with water, and bring the lot to the boil, then simmer for a couple of hours. Drain off the stock, only throwing away all the bits of carrot, bone etc.
You can then use this stock (watered down if you want to make it last a bit longer) as the basis for your food, and for soup. It will freeze, and keep well for a month or longer!).
Soup is easy to make when you’ve got a decent stock. Cube up whatever you’ve got you like (potato and carrots provide a good base), and stick it all in to a pan, with a little oil, and cook it for about 5 mins. Don’t add softer veg right now, as it’ll go all gooey. Slap in some of the Stock (less stock = thicker soup), and bring to the boil. Season, and add a little bit of parprika or chilli powder if you like. Cook for about 15/20 minutes until the veg is soft. Then blitz the lot with a blitzer (or whatever they’re called) to puree the veg. Serve.
My main point is that with a frozen chicken, costing about £4, you can get enough meat to last you ages, and the best tasting stock you can get, to include in any meal you cook. On a budget, this makes a lot more sense than buying cheap chicken joints.
As far as soups go, put in whatever you like in a soup, around the above recipe. It’s extremely simple to do, and is one of the most healthy things you can cook, easily and in bulk, and doesn’t cost much. You get to use up all that veg you might have lying around too, that you don’t think you’ll be able to use before it goes off.
Go and look for a neighborhood store, where Mexicans, Africans and South Americans buy their local food supplies. Buy a huge bag of rice. Buy huge bags of yellow corn meal, used to make instant polenta. Buy from Knorr (and not from anybody else, because they taste usually awful), cube of broth for chicken, fish, beaf and vegetables. Buy cans of pure tomato paste from an original Italian company, like Contadina and buy cans of crushed, pealed tomatoes in the can without any other ingredients. Then buy peanut butter, if possible without extra sugar or salt in it, peanut oil and hot, red pepper.
Buy onions, garlic, green peppers, mushrooms etc., bamboo sprouts the way you like it. If you have money left, get some chicken from a supplier who serves the immigrants from South America (they have better chickens) or catfish (seems to be the cheapest fish in the U.S.) fresh.
Make your daily rice portions in a rice cooker or your daily polenta portion (salt water, may be a bit of margerine or butter, pour corn meal, stir, ready in less of a minute) as your base.
Prepare a tomato (add fresh tomatoes if you can afford it) sauce with your onions, challottes, peppers etc. and cubes of broth of your choice, dependent on the meat or fish you want to add. If you like it hot, buy red pepper from an African supplier. If you have no fish or meat, add peanut butter to the sauce, especially if you like it hot, it’s a good mellow-down add-on with a lot of vitamins in it. If you have meat of fish, just fry it a little in oil and onions etc. and add to the sauce after that. Chicken goes well with peanuts and tomatoes, beef goes well with raw peanuts, cooked in water and then ccrushed (no roasting of peanuts here) and added to the sauce, fish goes well without peanuts, but add mussels, shrimps, crabs, if you are rich enough to afford them. Fish goes well with carrots and bamboo sprouts (or these other sprouts... ).
Enjoy. However poor you are you will never be malnourished if you eat rice or corn with tomatoes and peanut butter. It contains all you need. Add a couple of grapefruits and bananas at times and once in a while you can just eat spinach or other bitter, green leaves in a chicken broth with spices.
All you need are two pots (for those who can’t cook rice, use a rice cooker) and oil. You can cook it on any table-top electrical or gas cooker, cost around $ 30.00 or so. All you need is gas or electricity. If you are so poor that you don’t even have that, buy your gas in a cans. Your food don’t care how poor you are and in what fancy kitchen you can or can’t cook them. And, of course, if you have at least a balconi, grow some green salad there in plant containers (or even potatoes, though American seed potatoes are terrible).
One of the decadencies of American life is that houses have the largest and fanciest unused kitchens and gardens by default. Americans buy coffee in the morning at Starbucks or McDonalds and have breakfast in their cars, eat fast food or sandwiches from the next deli around the corner at work eat pizza or chinese deliveries in the evening and some drink pints of alcohol at night.
I just wonder what they need their kitchens and gardens for. That’s for those who make below $ 35,000.00, if you are in the upper brackets, you become a gourmet cook once a month and invite your friends to use your kitchen with them and show off your “french cuisine” skills... ahh, I should just shut up. And don’t forget spaghetti/pasta with some inexpensive, homemade sauces as well.
[LOL, a page with a few that made me smile, poor students that are surviving, at least some are in England....
There are many links and ideas on the page, I didn’t get them all......granny]
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/4/10/222954/151
Free food. I can now sniff it out from blocks away. Hear the murmur of distant small-talk? There must be “light snacks” nearby. But, what free food lacks in price, it also lacks in variety. Bagels, cookies, cold pizza... finishing off with Ramen when I get home at night. I sought a better way, and I found it.
Through introspection, I’ve found that I judge my food choices by just a few criteria:
* Calories per dollar
* Taste
* Nutritional value
* Preparation time
* Number of discernible ingredients
Noticeably, these are all met by an all-you-can-eat buffet (e.g., dining hall). But, we need an option for home.
Enter the pressure cooker: a popular cooking tool in much of the world, and even with our grandparents, but almost un-heard of by US’ian 20-somethings. It can cook meals in as little as 10% of the time of a normal cooking pot.
A pressure cooker is a strong tightly-enclosed pot with a regulated pressure-release valve. It cooks like a normal pot until the water starts to boil. Then, pressure builds up to a steady-state value of (usually) 15 psi (compared to the surrounding air), which is maintained by the pressure regulator (often, simply a weight placed on a hollow stem on the top of the pressure cooker, which is pushed up by pressure above 15 psi, releasing steam). This is the crucial point: at 15 PSI, water boils at 257 F (125 C), instead of the usual 212 F (100 C). Because most chemical reactions go exponentially with temperature, this small difference leads to drastically reduced cooking times.
There are many pressure cookers on the market. They perform very similarly. Some have weighted pressure regulators, while others are spring-regulated. Some are even electronic. I say: go with a cheap, simple, and reputable one. I got mine from walmart for around $25, and I’ve used it every ~4 days for 2 years. It holds about 6 quarts. You can always trade up from there.
To re-iterate: Here are the benefits of a pressure-cooker
A pressure cooker allows you to cook huge (6 quarts!) quantities of food (cheap food, e.g. bean soup or cheap beef) in a very short time (compared to a slow-cooker, grill, or saucepan). And, it tastes just as good in 1 hour as if you’d spent 8 hours cooking traditionally.
Overall approach, and common ingredients
Pressure cookers are versatile, but they excel at ingredients which are slow to cook. For instance, you could cook raw chicken in 3 minutes instead of 15 minutes, but that’s not my angle. My primary pressure-cooking ingredients are beans (see below), or cheap meats that tenderize upon long cooking: corned beef, beef brisket, and other cheap beef or pork cuts made for slow-cooking. These meats are fatty cuts that disintegrate into loose, tender morsels over time—perfect for pulled-pork sandwiches or juicy pot roasts (you can pour off the fat if it concerns you). As far as vegetables, I stay away from fragile plants like broccoli or peas—they’re better done in a steamer. But, the pressure cooker is great for long jobs like mashed potatoes or cabbage. Alternatively, if I roast a chicken, I’ll throw its remains in the pressure cooker and pulverize the hell out of it for an hour. Strain it, and it makes delicious soup stock. That would take you a day without a pressure cooker.
The approach is this: Add your ingredients, plus ~1/2 inch of water at the bottom (which will boil off). Hit it on “high” until the pressure cooker starts to make noise (first a hissing, then a “taht-taht-taht” rhythmic sound. Once you hear that sound, you are “pressure-cooking”; times in pressure cooking recipes refer to the length of time you hear that sound, not the time since you turned the stove on. Turn it down to medium-medium-low, and let it gently hiss until everything’s cooked. Run cold water over the pressure cooker to stop the cooking and release the pressure (the pressure is released when you hear an abrupt “gurgling” noise), and check for doneness. Most ingredients cook about 5x faster in a pressure cooker than in a simmering pot, though there is some variation.
Bean Soup
This is standard 15-bean soup, great by itself, on crackers, or on toasted bread. Here are my ingedients (it’s flexible, based on what I forgot to get at the store, and what’s on sale.)
1 lb 15-bean soup (or similar).
8 oz bacon, cut to ½”x1/2” squares
~4 oz tomato paste
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 cube chicken boullion
2 large onions
Spices (salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic, thyme, “seasoning salt”)
Water
In pressure cooker, add the bean mix and tomato paste (the tomato paste helps to keep the beans whole while they cook; without it, they tend to split). Add water (~4 cups; I’ve never measured it. Just cover the beans, plus ~2 inches.) Bring to a boil, then cover with lid and pressure regulator, and cook for ~20 minutes.
In separate saucepan or skillet, sautee bacon, onions, and (optionally) garlic. Feel free to keep most of the grease—it’ll still be a pretty healthy meal.
After the beans are cooked for 20 minutes, add the bacon-onion-garlic mix, and add the can (or two) of diced tomatoes. Simmer, stirring well, and taste it. Add salt, pepper, etc., until you’re happy with it. Congrats: You now have an incredibly nutritious (depending on how you prepped it, it may be high in saturated fat, but it’s much better than your normal grad school diet) meal that will give you a good 8 servings, for under $10.
Don’t underestimate the nutrition of this meal: it has tons of vitamins, unbelievable amounts of fiber, a wide range of micronutrients, and (depending on how you deal with the bacon grease) it can be low in fat. Feel free to substitute ham for bacon, ignore the meat altogether, or add interesting new spices.
Cajun Red Beans and Rice
This is a classic Cajun meal, usually served on Mondays, although my preparation is a bit unorthodox (mostly due to the tomato):
1.5 lb small red beans
2 medium onions
1 green pepper
4 stalks celery
~ 1 lb bacon, ham, or other flavorful meat
1-2 cans diced tomatoes or 6 oz. tomato paste (the unconventional part)
Spices (traditionally: garlic, cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper, thyme, sage, rosemary)
6 cups cooked basmati rice (any rice is fine, but I love basmati)
Water
You could spend forever cooking this meal, but this is my method:
1) In the pressure cooker (uncovered), quickly fry the meat, garlic, celery, onions, and green pepper (all finely chopped) to bring out their flavor.
2) When the veggies are translucent and odorous, add the red beans (NOT THE TOMATOES), and water to cover the ingredients plus ~2 inches.
3) Pressure cook as long as you want; I usually go an hour or more. You want to cook the crap out of these ingredients; they will be almost indiscernible. Keep the heat low enough that the ingredients are cooked without burning (you want a bit of hissing, maybe a little gyration of the pressure regulator if it’s the weighted type, but nothing more).
4) When the cooking’s done, mash most of the hardly-recognizable red beans against the side of the pot with a whisk or large spoon. Continue cooking; the mixture will become pasty; mashing the beans gives you the nice pasty consistency, but for visual and textural reasons you’ll want some remaining whole beans.
5) Add the tomatoes, taste, and add seasoning. This dish needs to have some serious zing to it.
Serve on rice. I recommend Basmati—it’s a brilliant strain of rice. All of this dish’s ingredients are cheap, and to top it off, it’s served on rice (one of the cheapest source of calories, unless you’re going to eat cattle corn). But, it’s still very nutritious. I doubt that one could cook a decent stir-fry, no matter how expensive or elaborate, that is more nutritious than red beans and rice.
Other Meals
Mashed Potatoes: Proceed as usual (cut up potatoes into ~eighths, and cover in as much water as possible); but, instead of simmering for 1 to 1.5 hours, just pressure-cook for 20 minutes.
Corned beef: Cut beef brisket (perpendicularly to the grain) at ~1 inch intervals. Pressure cook (with ~ ½ inch water) for 45 minutes. Remove cover; add veggies (cabbage, carrots, potatoes, etc) and simmer for 30 minutes, or pressure cook for about 10 additional minutes.
Pulled pork: Pressure cook (with at least ½ inch water) the cheapest pork roast possible (remove the enclosing “net” if applicable; it’s hard to do afterwards) for about 1.5 hours. Let it cool down, and just massage the meat with your hands. Wash your hands, add a good amount of cheap honey barbecue sauce... you now pulled pork BBQ which will go great on a bun.
Conclusion, and Important Points
My pressure cooker has changed my culinary life—it’s made real, nutritious, great-tasting food possible for me, at nearly the price of Ramen noodles. Here are some final pointers:
* Just do it. Experiment. These meals are cheap enough and fast enough that you don’t need to worry about it.
* Add a splash of lemon juice (tip courtesy of Alton Brown) to recover some of the zest that’s lost with the high temperatures of pressure cooking.
* Don’t be afraid to stop cooking by putting the pressure cooker under cold water quite often, especially when you’re beginning. Better to undercook than overcook—you can cook more, but you can never go back.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2008/1/14/1044/84224
I have dry skin. Heating systems at home, school, and work all conspire with the general dryness of Zone 5 Winter to leave me with a flaky, sensitive epidermis that not only feels papery and prone but, in some areas, cracks or reddens. To combat this I began using, for the first time in my life, commercially available moisturizers like Aloe & Chamomile Advanced Therapy Lotion (St. Ives) and Norwegian Formula Body Moisturizer (Neutrogena). After becoming wary of their exotic additives and unpronounceables, I decided to try making my own in order to ascertain what’s really responsible for rehydrating my skin.
The recipe below is simple and forms the basis of most DIY skin moisturizers; it functions by shielding the skin from dehydrating agents and both attracting and trapping moisture within the skin. I created it after a few tries from some recipes I found online and in a local anarchist hippie zine called Motha Earrrth.
* 4 tbs. beeswax
* 8 tbs. coco butter
* 4 tbs. coconut oil
* 2 tsp. distilled water
Use either a simple double boiler or a Pyrex dish either in a pot of boiling water or on top of a hot plate.
1. Place beeswax in dish and allow it to melt to the consistency of water.
2. Add the distilled water and mix thoroughly.
3. Add the coconut oil and coco butter, stirring continuously until completely mixed with the beeswax and water.
4. Pour into a container and allow it to cool for about an hour before use.
Total time: Seven minutes.
The stark simplicity of this recipe contrasts quite obviously with commercial solutions as it lacks dyes, vitamins, and chemicals. The color of the finished product will be a light tan or beige color depending on the color of the products you used and it should smell vaguely tropical or like a legally-aged but still pubescent girl who just went tanning. I tried this recipe on my face, where it worked well as a lip balm too, and felt results in just a couple days.
After trying this recipe with other oils, I realized that skin moisturizers, lip balm, hair conditioner, and shoe polish all exist along a spectrum and tweaking the amounts and ingredients allow for products appropriate for many household and garden uses. For instance, adding a teaspoon of sesame oil and olive oil each and reducing the beeswax a bit results in an excellent hair care product that one can leave in and style with or rinse out in the shower. Women love to touch my hair.
Upon further experimentation with this basic recipe for skin care use, I decided to fancy it up so it was more like the expensive commercial brands, something I could gift and use to impress attractive lady-friends. This required the purchase of essential oils, which are about US $2-6 per 10mL; one adds just a few drops of the essential oil when mixing. The only guidelines here are the skinhacker’s personal tastes and allergies. I would recommend using garlic or valerian oil in a batch meant for gifting, for example.
My favorites so far have been a catnip/chamomile/lavender/St. John’s wort combo which is nice before bedtime, a chamomile/lemon/mint paste with honey which is an excellent pre-shower facial that leaves the skin full and smooth and smelling incredibly kissable, and a peppermint/ginger combo that mimics my preferred Tom’s of Maine toothpaste flavor and so is excellent for post-shower application. A three-to-one frankincense/sandalwood combination smells of success and sinecure; wear it to interviews and meetings.
Alongside more obvious scents, many skin products contain vitamins; Vitamin E compounds are especially common. Vitamins are of obvious benefit, but few are actually effective when applied externally. Vitamin A, for instance, is a magnitude more effective when taken internally, while the B vitamin complex has absolutely no benefit when applied to the skin. In researching I found that only one Vitamin E compound, alpha tocopherol, is effective topically. I purchase gel cap preparation from discount stores and pop and squeeze it in when mixing the other ingredients. It adds no odor or other side effects but I do feel as if my skin feels tighter and more resilient to inclemency than without.
Another benefit of these natural ingredients is that the product is edible assuming one has not added poisonous ingredients. This means that, if one is bored, one can eat their homemade skin care products. This lends to treating constipation, since coconut oil, among others, induces bowel movements in humans. One can ingest a good amount of moisturizer orally and enjoy its soothing benefits hours later. A batch with some anise oil and high beeswax content can be inserted into the rectum for results much gentler than over-the-counter suppositories.
Taking responsibility for your skin health not only benefits your skin but shows the world that you have invested in yourself, a person just as bright as their expression. Knowing the process behind doing so allows for a subtle, personal tweaking that manufactured skin products just don’t provide. Ordering a scent or cream for a looming romantic appointment is impractical and expensive, but making it at home takes only minutes and costs nothing after you’ve established a small cabinet of ingredients.
Eventually one will find novel uses for their personal products that will allow them to slowly wean themselves away from the horror of consumerist dependence, polishing their life—literally—in the process.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2008/9/28/1315/92538
Humans are omnivorous. Probably the reason we are is that we started out as scavengers before we were hunter/gatherers. Eating ancient and primeval ‘road kill’ must have been nasty enough that some bright ancestor found a pointed stick and jabbed something to death and we tasted fresh meat. That must have gotten old too and so someone else came along and figured out how to prepare and cook meat.
The technique of preparing the perfect steak is quite simple and uncomplicated. It’s an art that has almost been forgotten.
I have gone to the finest restaurant I could afford, spent close to $100 for a steak dinner and still haven’t eaten a steak as good as what follows. The best thing about it is ANYONE can do it, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper and it will be the best steak you ever had. Mastering this (even if you are a vegan) will score points and your guests will go home quite satisfied.
Getting the right cut
This is the most important part of the whole process. Unless the supermarket you shop at has a great meat department with full time butchers then find a butchery that the only thing they sell is meat. Make sure the store is neat, clean and smells good. If your nose doesn’t like it neither will your guts.
First, make sure you purchase Angus steak. My favorite cut is rib eye and if you don’t know anything about cuts of meat try this one first. Rib eye is a good first time choice for a number of reasons: It’s tender and very flavorful.
It is important that you get cuts that have lots of “marbling” and white flecks throughout the cut. This marbling is what gives it great flavor. Unfortunately, finding steak with this is not as easy as it used to be so you might need to shop around. Make sure the butcher cuts the rib eye no less than 1.5 inches thick. Two inch thick rib eye steaks are great.
Note: If you can purchase aged rib eye then you have a magnificent piece of meat. This will be more expensive but well worth the money.
Before you cook it
First a word about cleanliness.
As a general rule when cooking with meat of any kind, use bleach to clean your granite counter tops and just about anything that comes in contact with meat at anytime before you start. It doesn’t matter if it is steak or poultry or whatever. Just do it: Your ass and guts will thank you.
Before cooking your steak take it out of the refrigerator and let it warm up to room temperature. You DO NOT want to go directly from the refrigerator and into the pan. Many cooks do this but DON’T be tempted to do it. Warming the raw rib eye should take approx 20-30 minutes at the most. Make sure you keep it covered. If you do not do let the steaks warm up to room temperature, then you will have a ruined steak regardless.
After it has come up to room temperature you will need two things; your favorite cooking oil and pepper that you can hand grind. The cooking oil you want to use is grape seed oil. Something like olive oil will burn and impart an unpleasant flavor to the steak. Don’t use cheap shit.
Coat the steak on both sides with the oil and grind pepper to taste on both sides as well. Put the steak on a platter and get out your favorite stove top grill or cast iron pan...the bigger the better. Do not put any oil in the pan, put it on a burner and get it hot enough to start smoking but no hotter. This is important to do.
Once your pan starts smoking place your steak into the pan on one side. It should sizzle the second it touches the pan. If you don’t hear the sizzle you have screwed up somehow because the pan is not hot enough. What you are wanting to do here is to sear the steak on both sides about 1/8th to 1/4 inch deep on a 1 1/2 inch or thicker steak. In other words, not very deep at all. You want the outside of the steak to be a golden brown. I have done this enough times that I know when to turn the steak by the way it sounds while cooking in the pan. This will take about 10 to 15 minutes depending on your altitude.
Next, (and this is important) take the cooked steaks out of the pan, don’t turn off the burner and place it on a clean platter and let it “rest”. During its resting period it will “bleed” its juices. Let it rest for 5 minutes or less. Then take the those juices that have left the steak and pour them into the pan and mix it with a small amount of balsamic vinegar. Cook this for a minute or so and then pour this over the steak.
Serve the steak!
Sure, you can serve the rib eye with a mung bean or alfalfa sprout salad but for me I serve it with the best burgundy I can find, a baked potato with sour cream and minced green onions. A two inch thick steak with a baked white rose potato is a hearty meal.
Congratulations, you have just cooked the best steak you can eat.
http://www.seriouseats.com/talk/2009/01/eating-well-and-cheaply-any-more-ideas-out-there.html
Eating Well and Cheaply: Any More Ideas Out There?
* Check out Asian and/or Mexican markets in your area. Especially, for rice, beans, noodles and grains.
* Read your supermarket circulars. I found that coupons pertain, for the most part, to processed foods that I don’t buy anyway, but weekly circulars are significantly more helpful because you may find some really good deals there — like a large tin of extra virgin olive oil for $9.99, etc.
* Definitely stay away from “convenience” foods, like @julie said.
If you eat meat, buy and use whole chickens. Much less expensive per pound and if you carefully pick over the carcass after you cook and eat from it the first time you’ll likely end up with enough leftover meat for another application. And, of course, you can make a simple stock from the carcass as well. For two people, a whole chicken can be two full dinner from the basic pieces (two breasts, legs, thighs and wings). Add the stock and the meat you can pick from the carcass and you might get enough soup (once you add some other things) for a third meal for two.
Also, research has shown that if you do the bulk of your shopping around the perimeter of grocery store (produce/dairy/meats) and stay away from the inner aisles (jarred/bagged/canned/cereals/prepared foods) you will save money.
Pretzels are a cheaper snack than chips.
Frozen/concentrated juices are much cheaper than “not from concentrates”. Granted, not as tasty all the time, but if you are on a budget, one of the first things that may have to go is your morning OJ...very expensive!
WHENEVER YOU CAN, buy the store brand; for instance, who needs the expensive aluminum foil when the store brand will work just as well? Or who needs Ziploc baggies when the store brand will work just as well? It’s true, for certain items you may be brand-specific, say for instance, peanut butter or yogurt maybe (it’s personal for everyone)....there are certain things where the more expensive brand name simply tastes better...but if it makes little or no difference, buy the store brand. I find this is true with things like rice, dried pasta, dried beans, flour, sugar, etc.
I am pasting my response to the same question from another forum:
- Lots of frozen veggies. I keep on looking for $1 sales at Safeway and Giant (local grocery chains), but I haven’t found any so I’ve been getting stuff at Trader Joe’s.
- Veggies from the discount bin. You have to use it right away, but you can save a lot. I also sales shop. I bought 3 pounds of onions for a $1 yesterday.
- Cheap veggies. For fresh stuff, I get kale (.79 cents a pound) or cabbage (.59 cents a pound). Potatoes, sweet potatoes, and winter squash are also really cheap. I try not to buy any veggies over .99 cents a pound.
- Fruit. I don’t eat very much fresh fruit anymore, but apples, bananas and (for now) oranges are reasonable.
- Bulk bins. Buy dried grains and beans, they’re incredibly cheap. I have lots of spices to keep things interesting.
- Look for gift card deals. Pharmacies and grocery store pharmacies sometimes will give you cash back or gift cards if you transfer prescriptions. Last week, I transferred a $15 dollar prescription and got a $25 dollar Giant gift card, so I ended up with free grocery money.
- Lose the little luxuries. I only drink coffee outside of home if I have a gift card. I don’t eat out, except for special occasions.
- Cook from scratch. I make my own seitan and soy yogurt and don’t buy too much processed stuff, although I admit to a weakness for tempeh and fake cheese. I eat oatmeal instead of boxed cereal and halve my dinners so I can eat them at lunch, too. Stews and soups are easy and really economical. I also do many variations on beans and rice (or any other grain).
Oh, and for all of you looking for bang/buck, I recommend quinoa, millet or groats instead of brown rice. Those grains have great nutritional profiles and can change things up once in a while. An added bonus, you can use them for breakfast, like oats.
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/
Blueberry Pie
- makes one 9-inch pie -
Adapted from Mrs. Rowe’s Little Book of Southern Pies by Mollie Cox Bryan.
Ingredients
1 recipe Vinegar Pie Crust (recipe follows)
6 cups fresh blueberries, fresh or frozen (thawed if frozen)
2 tablespoons lime juice
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon milk, for egg wash
Procedure
1. Line a 9-inch pie plate with 1 rolled out crust and place in the refrigerator to chill.
2. Put the blueberries in a bowl, add the lemon juice, and stir to coat. Separately, combine the sugar, flour, and cinnamon, mix thoroughly, and then stir into the blueberries. Spread the filling in the crust, and scatter the butter over the top. Brush the rim of the crust with the egg wash, cover with the second rolled-out crust, and seal and crimp or flute the edges.
3. Put the pie in the refrigerator to chill until firm, about 30 minutes. Store the remaining egg wash in the refrigerator too. Preheat the oven to 425°F.
4. Brush the top crust with egg wash, then score the top with 2 perpendicular cuts for steam vents. Bake for 20 minutes, then lower the oven temperature to 350°F and bake for another 30 to 40 minutes, until the juices are bubbling and the crust is golden brown. Cool on a wire rack for at least 2 hours before slicing, then chill in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Serve chilled or warm.
Vinegar Pie Crust
- makes two 9-inch crusts -
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon vegetable shortening
1 1/2 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
1 egg, lightly beaten
4 to 6 tablespoons ice water
Procedure
1. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Cut in the shortening with a pastry blender until it is the size of small peas. Add the vinegar, egg, and just enough ice water to moisten the dry ingredients.
2. Form the dough into 2 equal balls, then flatten into disks. Roll out the crusts right right away, or wrap the dough tightly and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks. On a lightly floured surface, roll out each ball to a thickness of 1/8 inch.
3. To prebake an empty crust, preheat the oven to 400°F. Press 1 rolled-out crust into a 9- or 10-inch pie plate. Line with parchment paper and weight the crust down with dry beans or weights to keep the crust from bubbling or shrinking. Bake for 10 minutes, until firm and lightly browned. To parbake the crust, remove it from the oven after 10 to 20 minutes, when you first see a golden hue to the crust.
I LOVE cinnamon with blueberries! Not a lot, just a pinch or two. A whisper of nutmeg works beautifully, too.
To get the best of both worlds, use half butter and half shortening. A cup of butter has 1-2 tablespoons of water in it (European and “gourmet” butters have less than commercial types), so you will need commensurately less ice water.
Simple Cherry Pie
- makes one 9-inch pie -
Adapted from Mrs. Rowe’s Little Book of Southern Pies by Mollie Cox Bryan.
Ingredients
1/2 recipe Plain Pie Pastry (recipe follows)
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup water
1 (16-ounce) can cherries, tart or sweet, or fresh cherries
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Procedure
1. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a 9-inch pie plate with 1 rolled out crust.
2. Mix the cornstarch with 1/4 cup of the water to form a smooth paste. Put the cherries in a saucepan over medium-high heat, stir in the sugar and the remaining 1/4 cup water, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to medium, stir in the cornstarch, and cook, stirring constantly, until thick, about 5 minutes.
3. Sprinkle the flour in the bottom of the prepared pie crust, then pour in the cherry filling and spread it out evenly.
4. Bake for 45 minutes, until the crust is golden brown. Cool on a wire rack for about 2 hours before slicing. Serve at room temperature.
Plain Pie Pastry
- makes two 9-inch crusts -
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup vegetable shortening
5 to 7 tablespoons cold milk
Procedure
1. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Cut the shortening with a pastry blender until it is the size of small peas. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of the milk over part of the flour mixture. Gently toss with a fork and push to one side of the bowl. Sprinkle another tablespoon over another dry part, toss with a fork and push to another side of the bowl. Repeat with the remaining milk until all of the flour is moistened.
2. Press the dough together to form 2 equal balls, then flatten into disks. Roll out the crusts right away. or wrap the dough tightly, smoothing out any little wrinkles or air pockets, and refrigerate for up to two weeks. On a lightly floured surface, roll out each ball to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Use a light touch and handle the dough as little as possible.
3. To prebake an empty crust, preheat the oven to 400° F. Press 1 rolled-out crust into a 9- or 10-inch pie plate. Line with parchment paper and weigh the crust down with dry beans or pie weights to keep the crust from bubbling or shrinking. Bake for 10 minutes, until firm and lightly browned. To parbake the crust, remove it from the oven after about 10 to 20 minutes, when you first see a golden hue to the crust.
For folks struggling with extra pounds, salsas are a fantastic addition to a diet. Usually made entirely of fruit and vegetables, they add huge flavor to food, often with negligible calories and fat. Plus, since most Americans associate them with chips, they feel like a treat.
There’s no set formula for salsas, though you’ll frequently see a base produce (tomatoes, mangos, etc.), chili peppers (jalapeño, serrano, etc.), herbs (cilantro, etc.), and onions. I’ll eat any kind, but with blueberry season in full swing, I thought I’d try a sweet version using the fruit. Y’know. For kicks.
This recipe is an adaptation of one I found on a blog called My Own Sweet Thyme. It was good as written, but to give it a little more heft and sweetness, I doubled the berries. Also, for some reason, there are no serrano peppers in my neighborhood, so I substituted the more universal jalapeño and upped the quantity.
The result was a balanced, pleasant salsa that would go equally well on chips or chicken. Or, you could eat it straight from the spoon. Either way, your waistline won’t mind.
Blueberry Salsa
- serves 4 to 6 -
Adapted from My Own Sweet Thyme.
Ingredients
2 cups fresh blueberries, coarsely chopped
1 medium shallot, finely chopped
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro, chopped
1 tablespoon lime juice
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced
1/4 teaspoon salt
Procedure
1. Combine ingredients in a small bowl and let sit for twenty to thirty minutes for flavors to blend.
2. Serve with tortilla chips or over grilled meat as a relish.
Too often, sesame noodles in American-Chinese restaurants are wan and clumpy. “Pasta with peanut butter,” Sam Sifton calls them—“fridge-flavored nostalgia.” It’s unfortunate, because the dish has such promise. More than that, it has history: For as long as there have been noodles, the Chinese have been warding off heat stroke by chilling and serving them, with a smattering of slivered goodies, in pools of sesame and chili oils.
Admittedly, my version of the dish is not strictly faithful to that history—but then it doesn’t clump, either. I start with the Shanghai cold noodles I grew up with, eliminating a good part of the oil. Then I pilfer a few toppings from the Japanese variant, hiyashi chuka—which itself translates as “chilled Chinese-style [noodles],” so perhaps I’m merely reappropriating. Finally, I toss it all in a lightened version of the PB-rich paste that coats the American takeout classic.
The pan-Asian result calls for nothing that you wouldn’t find in a typical American grocery store. (That said, you can considerably reduce the total cost of the dish by stocking up on noodles at an Asian supermarket.) It has richness, brightness, and crunch.
The dish is wonderfully flexible, too. I’ve made it with buckwheat soba, Italian capellini, and, in a pinch, the noodle block from a 50¢ packet of instant ramen, flavor pouch discarded. But I draw the line at rice-based noodles, which tend to seize up when chilled. Hulking strands of udon are no good here, either.
I’ve suggested some inexpensive toppings to get you started, but the recipe can easily accommodate slivered roast pork, shredded duck, chopped shrimp, or whatever leftovers lurk in your fridge. Just make sure to provide a range of colors and textures.
The only constant is the glossy, emulsified sauce of nut butter, vinegar and soy, and even that can be sweetened or sharpened to your liking.
20090713cold_noodles_ingredients.jpg
Shanghai-ish Cold Noodles
- serves 2 -
Ingredients
12 ounces ramen, soba, or egg noodles
1/4-1/2 cup each of at least 3 or 4 of the following toppings:
Carrots, julienned and blanched for 30 seconds
Corn kernels, fresh (blanched for 1 minute) or canned
Mung bean sprouts, blanched for 1 minute
Cucumbers, de-seeded and julienned
Plain omelet, sliced in strips
Extra-firm tofu, in 1/2-inch cubes
Ham, sliced in strips
Cooked chicken, shredded
Sesame dressing (recipe follows)
Sesame seeds or crushed peanuts (optional)
Procedure
1. Assemble desired toppings and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving.
Time-saving tip: Blanch all of your vegetables in the same pot of water. Load one vegetable into a sieve or wire basket that rests comfortably on the rim of the pot, and plunge into boiling water. When vegetable is done, remove the sieve from the pot and transfer contents to a bowl of ice water. Repeat with remaining vegetables.
2. Cook noodles according to package directions. Drain and shock in ice water or rinse under a cold tap until cool to the touch. Drain.
3. Place noodles into individual serving bowls. Arrange toppings over noodles and sprinkle, if desired, with sesame seeds or crushed peanuts. Just before serving, drizzle with Sesame Dressing and toss to coat.
20090713cold_noodles_sauce.jpg
Sesame Dressing
Ingredients
3 tablespoons peanut butter or tahini
2 teaspoons white sugar
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice, wine or cider vinegar
1 tablespoon dark (Asian) sesame oil
2 tablespoons water
1 medium clove garlic, minced (optional)
Chili powder or hot sauce (optional, to taste)
Procedure
Puree all ingredients in blender until smooth.
If mixing by hand, place tahini or peanut butter and sugar in a medium bowl and gradually whisk in wet ingredients until mixture is creamy and uniform. If desired, stir in garlic and hot sauce or chili powder to taste.
About the author: Michele Humes is a resident of Brooklyn and a native of Hong Kong. She writes Georgia On My Thighs.
http://www.lime.com/blog/elizas/2009/07/13/favorite_summer_foods
Published on LIME.com (http://www.lime.com)
Favorite Summer Foods
Welcome to LIME’s brand new Organic [0] Living blog, where organic [0] lifestyle expert Eliza Sarasohn — author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Organic Living [1] — tackles your questions on the ins and outs of living la vida organica. This week, Sarasohn shares a few of her favorite dishes for easy summer meals.
Summer is the season for easy organic [1] cooking. Whipping up a healthy, tasty dinner is often as simple as heading down to the local farmer’s market to see what’s fresh. Here are a couple of quick recipes that showcase some of the freshest tastes of July (no oven required).
Summer Squash Hummus Dip
Zucchini adds an interesting vegetable twist to this classic dip. It’s also a great substitute for traditional chickpea-based hummus for those who have difficulties digesting beans.
Yield: 2 cups
Prep time: 15 to 20 minutes
Servings: ½ to 1 cup
Cook time: none
Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic
1 zucchini, peeled
2 cups sunflower seeds (pre-soaked for 2 to 4 hours)
1/2 cup raw tahini (or 1/2 cup raw sesame seeds, pre-soaked for 3 to 4 hours)
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup extra virgin cold-pressed olive oil
2 tsp. Celtic sea salt
Blend garlic, zucchini, sunflower seeds, tahini or sesame seeds, water, olive oil, and sea salt in food processor until creamy. Spread on lettuce leaves and wrap or place on celery sticks and serve.
(Note: Sesame seeds are very high in calcium. If using raw sesame seeds try to find black ones — they have the highest calcium content).
Heirloom Tomato Salad with Market Basil, Cucumber, and Grilled Sourdough
Captures the brilliant flavors of organic summer produce in a bowl.
6 heirloom tomatoes (such as German Zebra or Purple Cherokees) cut into 2-inch cubes.
2 cucumbers, peeled, cut lengthwise, and sliced
1 red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
12 market basil leaves, cut into thin strips
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely minced
1 loaf sourdough bread
1/8 to 1/4 tsp. red pepper flakes
2 oz. red wine vinegar
6 oz. olive oil
Salt and pepper
Cut sourdough bread into 1-inch thick slices and drizzle with 1 ounce of olive oil. Toast the bread in the toaster oven, or throw it on the grill if you’re having a barbecue, approximately 2 minutes per side. Remove and cool.
Combine tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, basil, and garlic and mix well.
Cut toasted bread into 1-inch cubes. Add to tomato mixture. Add pepper flakes.
Combine vinegar and olive oil in a small cup or bowl with a lid (a disposable coffee cup and lid works great). Shake vigorously to combine. Add to salad mixture.
Season with salt and pepper and allow salad to marinate for about 1 hour before eating. It gets better with time. Serve in bowls with a little drizzle of olive oil to finish.
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Organic Living [2] by Eliza Sarasohn with Sonia Weiss.
Source URL:
http://www.lime.com/blog/elizas/2009/07/13/favorite_summer_foods
Links:
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Organic-Living/dp/1592578381
[2] http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Idiots-Guide-Organic-Living/dp/1592578381
Delicious Summer Pud receipe
by deni4041 on July 13, 2009 - 11:35pm
1 large mixing bowl; cut white bread to fit up the sides and across the bottom.
Fill with raspberries, strawberries, blackberries [any type of berry]
Put a small plate that fits snugly on top, and put a weight on it; leave it overnight in the fridge.
Next day, turn everything out. The bread will have ‘disappeared’ and you are left with a gorgeous plum coloured pud. Add some cream and serve.
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/06/28-week/
Serious Eats: Recipes
Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Corn-Bacon Relish
Posted by Ed Levine, July 5, 2009
If, after the long holiday weekend, you’ve still got coal or propane and the energy to cook out, I’ve got one last grilling recipe for you. It’s from perhaps my favorite grilling book of all time, Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby’s The Thrill of the Grill. This grilled pork tenderloin dish features grilled corn kernels glazed with maple syrup that go into a relish featuring three diced slices of your favorite bacon. C’mon, you have to admit it, that sounds seriously delicious. And it is. Praise the lard, serious eaters. Praise the lard.
Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Corn-Bacon Relish
- serves 4 -
Ingredients
3 ears of corn, shucked
4 tablespoons maple syrup
3 slices of bacon, diced small
1 large onion, diced small
1 teaspoon chopped fresh sage
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
3 pork tenderloins (10 to 12 ounces each)
Procedure
1. Cook the corn in boiling water for 4 minutes. Remove it and allow to cool to room temperature.
2. Over a medium fire, grill the corn 2 to 3 minutes, or until lightly brown. Brush on the maple syrup and continue to grill for an additional 2 to 3 minutes, or until the syrup begins to caramelize (it will turn golden brown). Remove the corn from the grill and cool.
3. With a sharp knife, remove the kernels from the cob.
4. In a saute pan cook the bacon over medium heat until crisp. about 5 minutes. Add the onion and cook an additional 4 to 5 minutes, or until the onion is clear. Add the corn and cook 2 minutes more.
5. Remove the corn mixture from the heat, add the sage, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir well and set aside.
6. Rub the tenderloins with salt and pepper to taste and grill them over a medium fire for 12 to 15 minutes, rolling them every 3 to 4 minutes to ensure even cooking. I like my pork pink, but if you don’t leave it on the fire an additional 4 to 5 minutes. If you’re using a meat thermometer take the meat off when it’s 160 degrees.
7. Remove the tenderloins from the grill, allow them to stand for 5 minutes, then carve each in 1/2-inch slices. Spoon some relish over each portion of the sliced pork and serve.
Printed from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/07/4th-of-july-weekend-special-grilled-pork-tend.html
© Serious Eats
Cook the Book: Catalan Potatoes Bravas
Posted by Caroline Russock, July 7, 2009
20090706barcelona.jpgWhenever I see patatas bravas on the menu of a tapas place, I smile. My rudimentary knowledge of Spanish immediately translates this dish to “brave potatoes,” and images of heroic, life-saving potatoes come to mind—handsome firefighting russets and dashing life guarding Yukon Golds. I guess it’s a little silly.
According to Sasa Mahr-Batuz and Andy Pforzheimer, authors of The Barcelona Cookbook, this classic tapa is more fierce than brave. The potatoes are made fierce by the addition of a slightly spicy and tangy tomato sauce that accompanies them, and a garlicky aioli is usually served as well. While mealy potatoes such as russets are used to make the fries that we are familiar with, waxy potatoes work best in this recipe.
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Catalan Potatoes Bravas
- serves 4 -
Adapted from The Barcelona Cookbook by Sasa Mahr-Batuz and Andy Pforzheimer.
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds waxy potatoes, such as Yukon Gold, red-skin, or fingerling potatoes
Kosher salt
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 large Spanish onions, thinly sliced
6 cloves garlic, chopped
2 teaspoons sweet smoked paprika (pimentón de la vera dulce)
1 teaspoon hot smoked paprika (pimentón de la vera picante)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
Freshly ground black pepper
One 35-ounce can plum tomatoes
1 1/2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
1 cup olive oil
Sea salt, for garnish
Barcelona Aioli (recipe follows), for serving
Procedure
1. Preheat the oven to 450° F.
2. Put the potatoes in a large pot and add enough cold water to cover by an inch. Add 4 tablespoons of salt and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat slightly and simmer for about 20 minutes, or until just fork tender. Drain the potatoes and set aside to cool. When cool, cut the potatoes into wedges or, if using fingerling potatoes, cut them in half lengthwise.
3. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, heat the extra virgin olive oil over medium heat. Add the onions and cook for about 10 minutes, or until they soften but have not colored. Add the garlic and cook gently for 6 to 8 minutes, or until the garlic is tender and aromatic. Stir in both paprikas, the cumin, and the cayenne. Season to taste with pepper.
4. Put the tomatoes and their juice in a bowl, and using your hands, crush the tomatoes slightly. Add the tomatoes, their juice, and the vinegar to the saucepan and season to taste with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and cook for about 20 minutes, or until the sauce is heated through.
5. Let the tomato sauce cool a little and then, working in batches, puree it in a blender until smooth. As one batch is pureed, transfer it to a bowl or a container with a tight-fitting lid. Use the tomato sauce right away or refrigerate for up to 3 days.
6. In a large bowl, toss the cooled potatoes with the 1 cup of olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper. Spread the potatoes and the oil in a shallow baking pan and roast for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the potatoes are nicely browned on one side. Rotate the pan and turn the potatoes over. Roast for 8 to 10 minutes longer, or until browned and crisp on the other side.
7. Spoon a liberal amount of cooled tomato sauce in the center of each of 4 serving plates. Mound the potatoes on top of the sauce and garnish with sea salt. Serve with the aioli on the side.
Note: If you prefer fried potatoes, heat about 10 cups of canola or another vegetable oil in a deep, heavy pot until it registers 375° F on a deep-fat thermometer. If you don’t have a thermometer, drop a small piece of potato into the oil, and if it bubbles around the edges of the potato, it’s hot enough.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 250° F and line a baking sheet with several layers of paper towels.
Fry the potatoes in batches so that you don’t crowd the pan. Carefully submerge them in the hot oil and let them cook for 4 to 6 minutes, or until crispy and browned. Lift the potatoes from the oil with a slotted spoon and let them drain on the paper towels. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and keep warm in the oven while you fry the remaining potatoes.
Barcelona Aioli
- makes about 1 1/4 cups -
Ingredients
6 cloves garlic
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 cup mayonnaise
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Procedure
1. In a small saucepan, combine the garlic cloves and 1/2 cup of the olive oil and bring to a simmer over medium heat. Cook for 5 to 7 minutes, or until the garlic is tender and honey gold. Watch the garlic carefully so that it does not overcook. Lift the garlic cloves from the oil with a slotted spoon and set aside on paper towels to cool. Discard the oil.
2. In a food processor fitted with the metal blade, puree the garlic cloves, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and remaining tablespoon of olive oil until smooth. Taste, season with salt and pepper, and pulse to mix.
3. Scrape the aioli into a lidded storage container and chill for up to 3 days.
Printed from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/07/cook-the-book-catalan-potatoes-bravas.html
© Serious Eats
Zucchini, Black Bean and Chicken Burritos on the Grill
Posted by Tara Mataraza Desmond, July 7, 2009
Editor’s note: Philadelphia food writers Joy Manning and Tara Mataraza Desmond drop by each week with Meat Lite, which celebrates meat in moderation. Meat Lite was inspired by their book, Almost Meatless.
20090706zucchinichickenburrito.JPGThere’s plenty of real estate on those grill grates for more than just burgers and giant slabs of meat. In the summer, the grill comes in handy for direct open-flame cooking, for simulating roasting, and for reheating or gently heating all kinds of ingredients. This recipe is fast and cooked completely on the grill, keeping things cool in the kitchen and clean up easy. One 1-pound chicken breast fills out the marinated zucchini and black bean mixture that becomes the filling for the burrito.
Grilling chicken with the skin on and bone in helps keep the meat tender and juicy. You can peel the skin away before serving if you prefer, and you’ll cut the meat from the bone to serve. It takes a little longer to cook chicken through when the bone is in, but it will prevent the stiff, flavorless results so commonly endured with grilled boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
If you’re eating with vegetarian family or friends, don’t mix the chicken in with the veggies and beans before serving, and make this a meat-optional meal.
Zucchini, Black Bean and Chicken Burritos
-Serves 4-
Ingredients
2 medium zucchini (about 2 pounds), cut into 1/4-inch pieces
1 1/2 cups cooked black beans (or 1 15-ounce can)
1 small red onion, sliced thin
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced thin
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teasppon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound bone in, skin on chicken breast (1 split chicken breast)
Fresh cilantro leaves for garnish
4 burrito size flour tortillas
Sour cream (optional)
Shredded cheese (optional)
1. Combine the zucchini, black beans, red onion, garlic, vinegar, olive oil, cumin, salt and pepper in a large mixing bowl. Cover and let marinate for about 30 minutes.
2. Preheat the grill to medium-high.
3. Season the chicken breast with salt and pepper, and baste with about 1 teaspoon of oil.
4. Put the marinated veggies and beans on a sizeable piece of foil (about 24 inches long) and arrange the mixture in a long thin pile. Pull the long sides of the foil up over the pile and tuck the edges together to enclose the mixture. Fold the ends in to seal the foil vessel.
5. Put the veggie package and the chicken breast on the hot grill grates and grill 15-20 minutes, until the chicken is done and the vegetables are hot and just tender. Turn the chicken once while it cooks.
6. Let the chicken rest about 5 minutes before slicing into thin strips. While the chicken rests, put the tortillas directly on the hot grill grates and grill about 1 minute per side, until hot and slightly scorched.
7. Toss the grilled chicken strips with the veggies and beans. Put several heaping spoonfuls of the mixture in the middle of each tortilla, top with cilantro, sour cream and cheese and fold into a burrito.
About the author:Tara Mataraza Desmond writes about, cooks, and eats food for a living. She blogs about food and life through words and pictures at Crumbs On My Keyboard.
Printed from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/07/zucchini-black-bean-chicken-burritos-recipe-meat-lite.html
© Serious Eats
Dinner Tonight: Egg Salad with Fennel
Posted by Blake Royer, July 7, 2009
20090707-dt-eggsalad.jpg
While I always appreciate the straightforwardness of a classic recipe, new ideas are welcome, too. I’ll admit, though, that it wasn’t easy to convince myself that egg salad needed to be messed with. The recipe I posted some months ago has always done me well. And since I don’t crave egg salad all that often, why change when that time comes? Well. Curiosity.
Even though that post garnered a storm of comments of personal recipes (relish, capers, mustard, and Old Bay seasoning all made appearances), none of them mentioned the key ingredient in this recipe, which is fennel. Every egg salad needs that crucial crunch, a role often played by celery; fennel makes a nice alternative with its unique flavor. A little lemon zest is next, since it pairs so well with fennel, and minced garlic adds a savory note.
It make lack the sublime simplicity of my go-to recipe, but it’s definitely going in my picnic repertoire.
Egg Salad with Fennel
-serves 4-
Adapted from Gourmet magazine
Ingredients
8 large eggs
1 garlic clove
1/2 cup mayonnaise, preferably homemade
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 fennel bulb, finely chopped, plus 1 Tbsp finely chopped fronds
1. Place eggs in a medium pan and cover with cold water. Bring to a gentle boil and simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Drain water and run eggs under cold water until no longer hot. Peel and chop the eggs.
2. Mince garlic clove and smash with a pinch of salt into a paste. Whisk into the mayonnaise along with the lemon juice, zest, mustard, and fresh black pepper. Season to taste.
3. Stir chopped fennel into the dressing, then gently stir in the eggs. Serve on toast with the fennel fronds sprinkled over the top.
Printed from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/07/dinner-tonight-egg-salad-with-fennel-recipe.html
© Serious Eats
Dinner Tonight: Kale and White Bean Pasta
Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, July 8, 2009
dt-kaleandwhitebeanpasta20.jpg
The holiday weekend meant a round full of cookouts, resulting in eating more than my fair share of meat: steak, grilled chicken, and a hamburger or two. Luckily, my mom sent me back to Chicago with a bag full of kale from her own garden. I wanted a good vegetarian recipe to utilize the bounty and hopefully atone for what I ate previously. I found this recipe for Tuscan kale and white bean pasta from Care2 and figured it would be a good first step.
The kale becomes incredibly tender, and the beans add some much needed heft to each bite. The slight kick of red pepper flakes is balanced by the acidity of the tomatoes. If you happen to have everything around, it’s an easy and remarkably healthy dinner—the recipe’s author suggests using a whole wheat pasta to make things even healthier. I felt awfully good about myself after this. That said, there is something definitely missing from this recipe and I’d bet a hundred dollars that bacon would make everything right.
About the author: Nick Kindelsperger is a freelance writer in Chicago and the co-founder of The Paupered Chef.
Kale and White Bean Pasta
- serves 2-3 -
Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup diced onion
1 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 1/4 pounds kale, chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 cup canned tomatoes, chopped
3/4 cup vegetable broth
Salt and black pepper
1 cup canned white cannellini beans, rinsed
1/2 pound pasta
Parmesan cheese (optional)
Procedure
1. Pour the oil into a skillet set over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft. Then add the garlic, pepper flakes, and half of the kale. Cook for an additional 2 minutes.
2. Dump in the tomatoes and the rest of the kale. Season with a pinch of salt. Cover the skillet and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium, and cook for 15 minutes.
3. Add the beans and cook until warmed.
4. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook for one minute less than the directions on the packaging. When done, drain the pasta and toss it into the pan with the kale. Turn the heat to high and cook for an additional minute.
5. Season with salt and pepper to taste, sprinkle with Parmesan if using, and serve.
Printed from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/07/dinner-tonight-kale-and-white-bean-pasta-recipe.html
© Serious Eats
Seriously Italian: Breadcrumb-Stuffed Vegetables
Posted by Gina DePalma, July 9, 2009
“Besides being cheap and accessible, breadcrumbs are truly a blank canvas for individual creativity.”
20090709-stuffedvegetables.jpg
Verdure Ripieni, or stuffed vegetables, are popular in many of Italy’s regions, with varying nods to local ingredients and traditions. Through the ages Italians have always relied on breadcrumbs as an economical and easy way to stretch a few ingredients into something tasty and belly-filling. Although these beauties make a terrific side dish for grilled or roasted meats, they’re hearty enough to be a meal on their own.
Besides being cheap and accessible, breadcrumbs are truly a blank canvas for individual creativity. Remember this golden rule for seemingly simple dishes: when working with only a few ingredients, make sure they are top notch, and treat them with the utmost care. There is far less room for error when a dish has only two or three elements.
Homemade breadcrumbs are best, and most Italians insist on making their own. I picked up a small sourdough boule at the farmer’s market last weekend for mine. I trimmed the crust just a tiny bit and cut the bread into even-sized cubes, leaving them uncovered for about a day to dry them out, then toasted the cubes until they were slightly brown. After a few batches in the food processor, I had a huge pile of tasty crumbs of variegated gold. If you can’t make your own, breadcrumbs from the local bakery are the next best bet. I don’t trust supermarket breadcrumbs. Where did they come from, and when were they made?
I could have used full-sized vegetables, but I found some miniature tomatoes and sweet peppers at the farmers’ market that inspired a diminutive theme. I cut zucchini into thick rounds, and wedged some sweet Vidalia onions. With a small paring knife, I cut the core out of the onions to create a crater to hold the crumbs. I cut the peppers in half and removed the ribs and seeds, cored the halved tomatoes, and made little cavities in the center of the zucchini rounds.
To finish the vegetable prep, generously grease a baking dish that will snugly hold all the vegetables with extra-virgin olive oil, then arrange the vegetables inside, brushing them with more of the oil and seasoning with salt and pepper. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
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To season 3/4 of a cup of breadcrumbs, I heated three tablespoons of olive oil in a pan. I had some ‘nduja from Boccalone in the refrigerator, so I melted about an ounce of that into the oil; you can infuse the oil with minced garlic, or a squirt of anchovy paste, or render some finely chopped pancetta, prosciutto or guanciale in the oil to enrich the crumbs.
I mixed the crumbs with oil, and added a handful of minced, chopped herbs: I used parsley, marjoram, basil and mint from our garden. I also added three minced scallions and a few spoonfuls of grated Pecorino Romano; grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Grana Padano works too. A few squirts of fresh lemon juice ties all the flavors together.
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Cram the crumbs into all the nooks and crannies of the vegetables, and create little mounds on top. It isn’t necessary to be neat and fussy since the crumbs that fall between are going to make a delicious “sauce” when it is all done. Store any leftover crumbs in an airtight container in the refrigerator for the next use; they are delicious tossed with al dente pasta and olive oil.
Drizzle over more olive oil over the top, and pour a splash of white wine and enough water into the bottom of the pan to come up about one-third of the depth of the vegetables. Cover the pan with tin foil and bake the vegetables for about 25 to 30 minutes. Remove the foil and add a little more water if necessary, and bake for an additional 15 to 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender and the breadcrumbs are toasty on top.
We decided to make a meal out of our verdure ripieni, serving them with herbed rice and a simple salad—a colorful, economical and nutrition-packed meal.
About the author: Gina DePalma is the pastry chef at Mario Batali’s Babbo restaurant in New York City and the author of Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen. She is currently in Rome researching her next book and further exploring her passions for Italian food.
Printed from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/07/seriously-italian-breadcrumb-stuffed-vegetables-recipe.html
© Serious Eats
Cook the Book: Crepas Salguero
Posted by Caroline Russock, July 9, 2009
20090706barcelona.jpgI’ve alway thought of making dulce le leche at home as a bit of molecular gastonomy. It’s pretty easy, just simmer a can of sweetened condensed milk on your stove top for a few hours and the contents of the can transforms itself from sticky insipid condensed milk into sweet and caramelly delicious dulce de leche. Latin American home cooks have been doing this for years, but every time I accomplish this feat at home, I feel as though there was a bit of magic or at least some complicated science involved. (I must warn you that making dulce de leche at home requires a bit of attention. Monitoring the water level over the cans is imperative, they must be completely covered by at least 1 inch of water at all times throughout the cooking process.)
These Crepas Salguero from Sasa Mahr-Batuz and Andy Pforzheimer’s The Barcelona Cookbook are a take on the pancakes de dulce de leche that are served all over Uruguay. The traditional preparation is French-style crepes filled with whipped cream and dulce de leche. Sounds pretty amazing, right? These are embellished with a bittersweet chocolate sauce infused with coffee and served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The recipe sounds incredible as it is, but I wonder what would happen if I replaced the vanilla with dulce de leche ice cream, or even better salted caramel ice cream...
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Crepas Salguero
- serves 4 -
Adapted from The Barcelona Cookbook by Sasa Mahr-Batuz and Andy Pforzheimer.
Ingredients
Crepes
Two 12-ounce cans condensed milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 large egg
1 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar
Chocolate Sauce
1 pound semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped, or 1 pound semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup brewed coffee
2 cups whipped cream, sweetened if desired, for serving
2 pints vanilla ice cream, for serving
Procedure
1. To make the dulce de leche: Remove the labels from the cans of condensed milk and submerge them in a large pot filled with water. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce to a rapid simmer for about 4 hours. Add water as needed. Check often to make sure that the can are always covered with water by at least 1 inch; otherwise they could explode. Remove the cans from the water and let them cool.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix together the flour, milk, ware, egg, and melted butter. Whisk by hand for about 2 minutes. Add the sugar and whisk for 2 minutes longer. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl and let the crepe batter rest for about 20 minutes.
3. To make the chocolate sauce: Put the chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 2 1/2 to 3 minutes, or until softened and shiny. The chocolate will not melt completely. Add the cream and coffee and stir until smooth. Set aside at room temperature.
4. Heat 2 9-inch nonstick pans over low heat. If you have seasoned 9-inch crepe pans, use them. Spray lightly with vegetable oil spray and ladle 3 tablespoons of crepe batter into the pans. Tip and roll the pans to spread the batter evenly over the bottom of the pans and cook for about 2 minutes. Using a spatula, flip the crepes and cook for 2 minutes longer, or until lightly browned. Lift the crepes from the pans and stack on a plate. These crepes do not stick to one another. Continue cooking the crepes until you have 16. Expect to throw out the first crepe in each pan; this is typical, as anyone who has made crepes knows. The first one never works, and after it has flopped, the pan is seasoned appropriately so that the rest are prefect.
5. Open the cans of boiled condensed milk. The milk will be caramel brown and thick.
6. Lay the crepes out on a work surface. Spread a thick stripe - about 2 tablespoons - of the dulce de leche (the boiled condensed milk) down the center of each crepe. Top the dulce de leche with an equal-sized stripe of whipped cream. Roll the crepes like a cigar and put 2 crepes on each plate.
7. Ladle about 3 tablespoons of the chocolate sauce over the crepes and serve with ice cream.
Printed from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/07/cook-the-book-crepas-salguero.html
© Serious Eats
Serious Salsa: (Not Exactly) My Uncle’s Salsa
Posted by homesicktexan, July 9, 2009
Note: You may know Lisa Fain as the Homesick Texan. We (along with many other people) have been fans of her work for quite some time now. She’ll be joining us each week this summer with a refreshing salsa recipe for you to try. Take a gander. And now, andale, Lisa, andale!
“I must have done something right because the bowl was soon empty.”
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I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t a salsa within my reach. From the stone bowls of fiery red and green salsas on the table at my favorite Mexican restaurants to the slender bottles of pepper vinegar used to liven up fried catfish, salsas are my condiment of choice.
Of course, I’m not alone in this love. It’s been widely reported that Mexican-style salsas now outsell ketchup in this country. And while there are many fine bottled salsas on the market, you haven’t really had salsa until you’ve made it yourself.
You can make salsas year-round, but I think the summer months are the best time for salsas, as most of the ingredients needed are in season and fresh. Everything from raspberries to radishes, peaches to corn—all are an excellent foundation for a vibrant, piquant salsa.
The first homemade salsa I ever made was my uncle’s—a simple tomato-based affair, made with tomatoes, jalapeños, onions, and cilantro. He also throws in a generous dose of chili powder, his secret ingredient that gives it a Tex-Mex kick.
It’s an old family favorite that we slather on everything—from turkey leftovers at Thanksgiving to hamburgers on the Fourth of July. And naturally, it’s a fine dipping sauce for tortilla chips, too.
When I first moved to New York, I was missing this salsa something fierce. I asked my uncle for the recipe, but he admitted that he didn’t have one; if I wanted to figure out how to make it, I’d just have to watch and learn.
I took diligent notes, but when I presented him with my interpretation he took a bite, shook his head, and said, “This is nothing like my salsa! What have you done?”
But I chose to ignore him—he’s prone to exaggeration, after all. And I must have done something right because the bowl was soon empty.
So even though this salsa may not be exactly like my uncle’s, it’s still bright, spicy, and refreshing. And that’s the beauty of salsa—it’s flexible enough that when you make it you can make it your own.
(Not Exactly) My Uncle’s Salsa
Ingredients
1 can tomatoes (28-ounce; or about a pound of fresh Roma tomatoes, peeled and chopped)
2 Serrano peppers, diced (or you can substitute 2 jalapeños, which are milder.) Be sure and either wear gloves or wash your hands immediately after chopping the peppers so you don’t burn other parts of yourself.
1 cup of cilantro leaves
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup diced onion
2 tablespoons of chili powder (add more to taste, if you like)
Salt to taste
A dash of sugar
Juice from 1/2 lime
Procedure
Put all ingredients in the blender and blend until smooth. Taste and adjust spices if needed.
About the author: Lisa Fain is a seventh-generation Texan who now hangs her hat in New York City. To keep in touch with her roots, she writes and photographs the food blog Homesick Texan.
Printed from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/07/serrano-pepper-cilantro-tex-mex-salsa-recipe.html
© Serious Eats
Très Bien Ensemble
The soon-to-be newlyweds both love steak and olives; I ate a lot of both at Cottage, though I rarely ate them together. For this recipe, I tried them in a pas de deux, and its success is a testament to the coupling of two seemingly different, but ultimately complementary forces. I blend a chunky, briny, tapenade Provençale from both black and green olives, and spoon it onto a seared, sliced strip steak. The meat, with its crisp, tender, mellow bite is brightened by the piquancy of the bubbling, herbaceous tapenade. Lauren and Jason, I’m not sure which of you is the steak and which is the olives, but I hope you’ll agree that the two go very well together—that they are très bien ensemble.
About the author: Kerry Saretsky is the creator of French Revolution Food, where she reinvents her family’s classic French recipes in a fresh, chic, modern way. She also writes the The Secret Ingredient series for Serious Eats.
Sliced Steak with Chunky Two-Olive Tapenade
-serves 2 to 4-
Steak Ingredients
2 12-ounce New York strip steaks
2 tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper
Herbes de Provence
Steak Procedure
1. Season the steaks with the olive oil, and a liberal amount of salt, pepper, and herbes de Provence.
2. Heat a heavy-bottomed skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Sear the steaks 6-7 minutes per side, then allow to rest for 10 minutes.
3. Slice, and serve with the two-olive tapenade (recipe follows).
Chunky Two-Olive Tapenade Ingredients
1 clove garlic
2 cups mixed pitted nicoise and picholine olives (or any black and green olives you like)
Leaves from 5 stems of fresh thyme
1/2 tablespoon anchovy paste
1 tablespoon fresh flat leaf parsley
1 1/2 tablespoons capers
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt and pepper
Chunky Two-Olive Tapenade Procedure
1. Demolish the garlic clove in the food processor. Then add in all the rest of the ingredients and pulse until you are left with an olive rubble.
2. Spoon over the hot sliced steak, and serve extra on the side with baguette. If you have extra tapenade, you can serve it with anything: baguette sandwiches, crudités, chicken, fish. You may want to double the recipe, just to have it on hand.
Printed from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/07/french-in-a-flash-sliced-steak-with-olive-tapenade-recipe.html
© Serious Eats
Cook the Book: Roasted Olives
Posted by Caroline Russock, July 10, 2009
20090706barcelona.jpgEach time that I find myself grocery shopping for a dinner party, I make sure to pick up a few snacks for cocktail hour. Being a creature of habit, my pre-dinner nibbles are inevitably Marcona almonds and olives. The almonds are easy, but the olives are another story; no jars or sub-par olives at my house.
I am fortunate to have a few go-to olive purveyors that sell the tastiest and meatiest olives in town. But if you’re not as lucky, there is no need to fret: You, too, can have fantastically flavorful olives at home. Olives are preserved, but that doesn’t mean that you cannot doctor them up up. A simple roast with a few aromatic herbs and a bit of acid changes their flavor completely. This recipe for roasted olives from Sasa Mahr-Batu and Andy Pforzheimer’s The Barcelona Cookbook infuses a mix of olives with roasted red pepper, herbs, orange zest, and two types of vinegar. Citrus zest is a wonderful addition to olives, but the possibilities are endless. I’d recommend experimenting with fresh or dried chiles and some peppercorns. Home-roasted olives, still warm from the oven, will beat the pants off of your supermarket olive bar.
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Roasted Olives
- serves 4 to 6 -
Adapted from The Barcelona Cookbook by Sasa Mahr-Batuz and Andy Pforzheimer.
Ingredients
1 red bell pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cup assorted olives with pits (such as kalamata, Niçoise, Arbequina, Cerignola, picholine, and oil-cured black olives), drained and patted dry
7 sprigs fresh thyme, quartered
4 sprigs fresh rosemary, quartered
6 whole cloves garlic, peeled
Julienned zest of one orange
1/4 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup sherry vinegar
3/4 extra-virgin olive oil
Procedure
1. Preheat the oven to 450° F.
2. Rub the bell pepper with the tablespoon of olive oil. Lay the pepper on a baking sheet and roast for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the side of the pepper resting on the baking sheet is wrinkled and almost black. Turn the pepper over and continue roasting for 7 to 8 minutes longer, or until the pepper is nicely charred on all sides.
3. Transfer the pepper to a small bowl and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let the pepper steam as it cools in the bowl for about 10 minutes. Remove from the bowl, rub off the charred skin, open the pepper, and scrape out the seeds and membranes. Cut the pepper into very thin strips (about 1/8 inch thick).
4. Reduce the oven heat to 425° F.
5. In a large mixing bowl, mix together the olives, julienned red pepper, thyme, rosemary, garlic, orange zest, and red pepper flakes. Toss well. Add the red wine vinegar and sherry vinegar to the olives and stir to distribute evenly.
6. Spread the olives on a jelly roll or shallow roasting pan. Roast for about 35 minutes, stirring frequently, or until the olives are tender. To test for doneness, taste an olive to see if the meat separates easily from the pit. If so, the olives are done.
7. Let the olives cool in the pan. When cool, drizzle with the extra-virgin olive oil and stir to mix. Serve right away or refrigerate in a container with a tight-fitting lid for up to 5 days.
8. Remove the olives from the refrigerator at least 2 hours before serving to let them reach room temperature. Stir well before serving.
Printed from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/07/cook-the-book-roasted-olives-barcelona-tapas-recipe.html
© Serious Eats
Dinner Tonight: Leftover Chili Dogs
Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, July 10, 2009
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I can’t be the only one in America that just happened to have both ground beef and hot dogs left over from the July Fourth weekend. The staples of the national cookout could have made for a couple of fine indoor lunches—but what if they could be combined into something new? It didn’t take long for chili dogs to start dancing in my head. A properly made chili dog, like the ones I snarfed down at a Skyline Chili in Cincinnati when I was young, are a delicious thing to behold.
Of course, I didn’t have much time or, really, access to many ingredients to create something truly authentic. I’m still living on friends’ couches at the moment, and don’t have access to a wide variety of spices. That’s why I gravitated towards Tyler Florence’s version of the chili dog. Not only was it quick, but it could basically be completed with the same condiments used for the cookout. Ketchup and mustard serve as the base, with only a little chili powder added for heat. This might as well be called the cookout-leftover Chili Dog.
I knew that I was not creating an authentic version of a chili dog before I began, but I probably still should have read the comments first. Nearly everyone mentioned that it was too sweet and didn’t have enough heat. They were right. The ketchup makes the “chili” way too sweet. I tried to correct this by adding some hot sauce and much more chili powder than was originally called for. I’d also recommend adding crushed tomatoes instead of ketchup. It will never be perfect. This is more of an oddity than a perfect recipe. But for a bunch of leftovers from the July 4th weekend, it was rather interesting.
Leftover Chili Dogs
-Serves 4-
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 pound ground beef
2 1/2 cups ketchup
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 tablespoons yellow mustard
Salt and pepper
4 hot dogs
4 hot dog buns
1/2 cup grated Cheddar
Hot sauce, to taste
Procedure:
1. Pour the oil into a skillet set over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic, and cook for about 5 minutes, or until the onion is soft. Dump in the ground beef and cook, breaking up the chunks with a spatula, for ten minutes. You want the meat to be well browned, but not burned.
2. Add the ketchup, chili powder, and mustard. Stir until combined, and then reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 15 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and hot sauce to taste.
3. Meanwhile, grill the hot dogs, or saute them in a pan until warm.
4. Toss the dogs in the hot dog buns, and then top with a spoonful of the chili. Sprinkle with a little of the grated cheddar cheese. Add more hot sauce if needed.
Printed from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/07/dinner-tonight-leftover-chili-dogs.html
© Serious Eats
Sunday Brunch: Cheese and Chive Hash Brown Potato Cakes
Posted by Ed Levine, July 12, 2009
I just can’t seem to resist any new hash brown recipe I come across. That’s especially true if the recipe is called a hash brown potato cake. I just love the way those words sound strung together: hash-brown-potato-cake. I’ve adapted this recipe from the terrific book, Gale Gand’s Brunch!. Gand calls for goat cheese, but using cheddar will produce equally delicious results. You can serve these bad boys with softly scrambled or fried eggs. And a few slices of bacon wouldn’t hurt either.
Cheese and Chive Hash Brown Cakes
- serves 4 -
Ingredients
3 large potatoes, preferably Yukon Gold
2 large egg white
1/2 cup rice flour
1/2 cup crumbled fresh goat cheese or shredded cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Canola oil, for frying
Procedure
1. Grate the potatoes in a food processor, and then rinse them in a colander until the water runs clear. Squeeze them dry, first with your hands and then in a kitchen towel. Put them in a large bowl and stir in the egg whites, rice flour, cheese, chives, salt, and pepper.
2. Heat 3 tablespoons canola oil in a large nonstick saute pan on medium-high heat. Scoop 1/2 cup of the potato mixture into the pan and flatten it with the bottom of the measuring cup (or whatever you use to scoop). Repeat, spacing out the cakes but filling the pan as much as possible.
3. Fry the cakes on one side until golden brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Then flip them and fry on the other side until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove them from the pan and drain on paper towels. Keep the cakes warm in a 200-degree oven while you fry with the remaining potato mixture. Serve hot.
Printed from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2009/07/sunday-brunch-cheese-and-chive-hash-brown-pot.html
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