Season of the Beet

Filet of Beets

The garden is currently wealthy with beets, beets, glorious beets! Nature's food coloring, nothing quite as exciting and/or sometimes shocking as a trip to the WC the day after a beet eating festival. At least asparagus is obvious in announcing its presence. The beet makes you initially question your health. "Yikes! what the?!!   Ooooh, oh yeah, I ate a lot of beets yesterday..:

So, anyway...  there are beets in the garden.

there are also tomatoes and basil in the garden, plus the chickens.

They married and voila!

Beet Ratatouille with Poached eggs

Beet ratatouille and poached eggs

Ingredients:

from the garden
beets
variety of tomatoes
basil
beet greens

from the kitchen
garlic
shallots
salt
pepper
shredded coconut

in saucepan: melt butter and coconut oil, saute salt, pepper shallots until they begin to caramelize. add garlic, various tomatoes and beets, cover and let cook, then reduce on med high heat. add basil and beet greens, cook down and finally crack a couple of eggs, reduce heat and let poach in the ratatouille. let the dish cool to warm and serve.

The Mini Me Frozen Margarita- No Blender required

photo courtesy Tiffanie

Yes, I am a cocktail snob and here is a wonderful and easy non-cocktail cocktail for your summer enjoyment...

The Mini Me Frozen Margarita

ingredients:
3 oz petite glass
your favorite frozen fruit
tequila

-put fruit in glass, pour tequila over. sip on the porch and JOY!

The Persian Guy's Chicken

So I am craving a very specific chicken dish, the one that the Persian Guy makes. I could ask for the recipe and I think I will. Will ask the Persian Guy to be a guest on this blog and we can cook and write it up as we go.
   Now, yes, I would love to have this recipe for myself, but I can tell you I'd rather have Persian Guy make it. Cause you see, if I make it, it just won't be as fun or delicious. You know, you can get your mom's recipe for lasagna but it's always gonna taste better when she makes it, not because she cooks better than you, but because you're in the company of your mom.
   And so it goes with the Persian Guy's Chicken.
I can get the recipe but if he makes it, I get the bonus of Persian Guy company and hospitality.
   So, I imagine you're wondering, "what's this chicken like, what's it taste like?"
It's delicious. It's cooked a long time on  the stove (the longer the better in my book) Near as I can tell, he takes garlic, onions, salt, and saffron (the dish is very yellow), some sort of fat/oil, and broth and let's it cook covered in the pan for ages, until it's saturated in flavor and moistness. He lets all of the ingredients hang out on the heat of the stove for long long times.. On occasion he has forgotten about the chicken and it cooked down a little further than expected to the point of no water or broth in the pan. I can honestly tell you that it still is delicious! In fact, I kind of tend towards liking a dryer chicken anyway, so when this happens, I'm completely happy and satisfied.
   Enjoy this meal with none or all the fixins and a side sipper of cherry infused vodka, Persian style, yum yum!!!

Okay, it's on. I'm putting out the invite for the Persian Guy and we will rewrite this entry under the influence of yellow chicken dish and cherry infused vodka and Persian Guy laughter.

hurray for food fantasies!

Garden twist for your whisk

EEEEE!

For your whiskey!! I mean, bourbon, Bourbon people!

and now let's take a moment to hold our glasses up to toast the man, Elmer T. Lee, master distiller, who passed yesterday at the age of 93. Elmer T Lee is my favorite whiskey. It is just simply delicious and I don't need to explain why.

Last night in discussion of Elmer T Lee at Arcadium, Sean is telling us how Elmer T Lee introduced Blanton's to the world (in 1984). I mention that the distillery should come up with a 93 proof bourbon in Elmer's honor as Sean picks up the bottle of Blanton's and notices that Blanton's is actually 93 proof!! coincidence?!

Ok, so there was garden mentioned in the title of this post. It's summer, a lot of people switch to gin in the summer, which is great, gin is good. But that is no reason to forgo your bourbon just cause it's dark and seems more inclined to the cold of winter. Make it fresh, give it a little greenery!

to this, I scream, BASIL!!

easy peasy!
 Basil leaf, give it a twist and drop it in your bourbon neat. Delicious and subtle!

expand the concept!
Basil leaf
ginger beer
bourbon
club soda
tall glass and ice

tall glass and ice, twist a couple of basil leaves over the glass and drop in. pour bourbon over, add splash of spice ginger beer and fill remaining space in tall glass to 2/3rds full with club soda.

Add colorful straw

slurp!

MONGO, the baked potato from Columbia's

The 4th of July in Lexington, Ky. was a complete washout, rain-soaked wet t-shirt day. Leading the annual 4th of July parade, March Madness Marching Band was drenched in holiday patriotism, and literally drenched. Alcohol, namely some good beer was the after-party for these wet monkeys.

I met up with a small batch of celebrating monkeys (band member reference) at Lexington Beerworks and without hesitation took on Burton Baton from Dogfish on tap. You do not question your choice when this beer is offered on tap, you just order it.

Soon, the need for food is motivating all who are quaffing fancy beer. Two doors down, a monument to Lexington steakhouses, resides Columbia's. (Didn't John Mordock work there years ago?)
   ah, yes, food, give it to me. My order, the caesar salad and a loaded baked potato, just seems perfect for this darker than dark gray wet day in the caverns of the woody dark interior of Columbia's. Why do we need to eat steak surrounded by a lot of dark wood?

So, let me just say, Columbia's has the most ultra- American sized mutant baked potatoes! Whoa! and yes, I was able to get 3 meals out of this one baked potato! So, meal number 1 was basically me eating the insides out of ...uh, we will call him MONGO. Meals number 2 and 3 were potato retrofittings in my efficient apartment kitchen.

I will focus on meal #2 here.

The reanimation of MONGO, the baked potato from Columbia's...

...starts in my every day pan. I already told you I start almost all my meals in a saute pan.

Ingredients:
Butter (i'm currently into the large log of Amish Rolled butter)
salt
shallots
garlic
shredded coconut
chopped nuts (almonds, cashews, peanuts) *optional
crushed red pepper
*special note- if I had frozen peas, I would totally add them to this mix. but, i didn't have any.

ok, so simple enough.. melt the butter, chop the shallots, carmelize in the butter, add garlic, pepper, salt, coconut and the optional nuts, (peas would go here, but remember, I didn't have any).. let this all get coated in delicious butter and add chopped MONGO. (i only used half of him, cause he was just that big. The 2nd half made it to meal 3,)

Characteristics of MONGO
   He was a loaded baked potato, so he had cheddar cheese, bacon, butter and sour cream on him initially. I mentioned that I had eaten his insides out at Columbia's, but I will say there were traces of his "loadedness" clinging to his skin, as well as bits of starchy potato.

so a chopped MONGO is added to the pan and left to fry. I like to let my foods deal with themselves while I have another shot of espresso or cocktail, depending on the time of day. I will occasionally visit to make sure everyone is getting along and that we're not drying out or whatever. I think I probably added more butter to the party at some point.

the party really got cooking and the smells were fantastic! after a couple shots of espresso MONGO AND FRIENDS are now crisp and golden brown. perfect!!! They will accompany my fried eggs this morning. yum! Don't ever doubt what a little bit of shredded coconut can do for your dish. You don't need much and sometimes it's the perfect addition. I think especially with reanimated potatoes.

nom nom nom...and the eat goes on.

I ate it before I took a picture

If you were to say you know me, you may know that I rarely eat leftovers. The dish has got to be something really special or one that gets better with age like chili, lasagna...(most casseroles and curries and italian food) in order to make me visit it twice. This is not to say that I don't utilize leftovers. If I bring something home from a restaurant, it typically means that I sense potential in the making. The leftovers become an ingredient for another dish that will be birthed later.
   Case in point, French Lentil Tomato Curried Stew. Wordy title, but this was a mouthful of a reanimated dish.
   I'm house sitting for friends and so have a whole new palette to work with because they stock different items in their kitchen that I do. Also, they have a very useful vegetable garden out back.

Ingredients:

Leftover to be reanimated:
Chandra's French Lentil Soup- (lentils, greens, cabbage, mushroom, onion...near as I can tell, maybe some wine. french, you know)

*note- this soup was good. there was just so much of it. I had to turn it into something else in order to have another meal of it.

Add-ons:

from the kitchen:

Reanimated and captured on film for the 2nd time

garlic
shallots
olive oil
crushed red pepper
Cholura hot sauce
sherry wine
black pepper
salt
braggs
chili powder
random bits of salty meats
2 eggs

another leftover:
gazpacho soup

from the garden
basil
curry leaves
fresh tomatoes

I told you a mouthful.
   So yeah, I just start grabbing things that I think may work together. This is how my process works. I look at the main leftover I'll be working with. I think about what it tastes like and imagine what I could do with what it has to offer in the flavor department. I may be contemplating this throughout the day, so when I get home, I can just get to work on creating the new dish. I've decide I want something tomato-y since it's summer and the tomatoes are just starting to turn red. From the garden I take the ripen ones. I know I have some gazpacho from the other day that I can add to what ripe tomatoes are present to create a good tomato base.

Fire up the stove:
  I almost always start with the saute pan. I've got olive oil. shallots, garlic, and the above spices that i start browning in the pan. This part has got to taste great or the rest of your dish will turn out...just eh. Why waste the time in the kitchen if you're not gonna make something delicious?
Once I'm satisfied with the flavor base I've created I add the tomatoes, the gazpacho, and the french lentil soup to the pan and let everything get acquainted. I also add a few bits of some salty meats (i don't know, I think there was some pastrami, maybe prosciutto..anything will do and for those who want total vegetarian approach , dash a bit of sesame oil in the mix) Once everybody has met and co-mingled, we turn up the heat and let things get sexy. Cover the pan for privacy and let everybody reduce into something different and delicious.

So, I'm an eye-baller.. I can't tell you how long I cooked this or that. I just look at it and taste it when necessary to see how everything is getting on. So at some point when I see that the dish has in fact reduced and thickened. I give it a taste. Hmmm....it's gooood (said in a questioning accent) something's missing, it could be better.

Back to the Garden!
BASIL!!
   There's not much that fresh basil can't cure and this dish needed the rescue of this wonderful plant. And then I remembered the curry leaf plant on the front porch! Oh my gawd, I love this plant. The smell, the taste. I think my favorite element of South Indian cuisine.

So fresh basil and curry leaf it is! These leafy treats are added to the stew. At this point I crack 2 eggs on top of the mixture and let poach... cook cook cook, a little more.. then turn off the stove and let it sit.

Have yourself another glass of wine and let the stew cool to warm, not hot. You want to be able to taste the subtleties of all your work. If it's too hot, you'll miss out. I am someone who almost always prefers my ingestables at room temperature.

So yeah, that is French Lentil Tomato Curried Stew. I think I have enough ingredients still in the leftover department to attempt this dish again. And if I do, I promise to take a picture,  but I will probably do something even different with it the next time.

Bon Appetit!