Oct 16

It’s Pumpkin Time – Stuffed Mini Pumpkins

At this time of year, throughout the US, there are pumpkins for sale everywhere. Outside supermarkets, at stalls at the side of the road, outside garden centres and on the lawns outside churches. They come in all shapes and sizes from the very small, to the one weighing well over 50lbs, and they are all very cheap. These very small pumpkins (Sweet Dumpling) caught my eye last week in the supermarket, and they looked just the right size for a individual portion.

Pumpkin varieties

Pumpkin varieties

Compared to other sources of carbohydrates such as potatoes, rice, etc, pumpkins are pretty low carb, but they can be a little low on the ‘more-ish’ scale, so you need a way to boost the flavour. The best way to do this is with flavourful stuffing, which is pretty easy to do with the smaller varieties of pumpkins. Another advantage of using the mini pumpkins is that the skin is very thin, so that once they are cooked, you can cut them with a knife and eat the skin as well for a slightly nuttier flavour. You can stuff these pumpkins with a variety of fillings including cooked rice, mushrooms, ground meat, etc. I made a sun-dried tomato, breadcrumb stuffing that goes really well with the pumpkin flavour.

Sweet Dumpling Mini Pumpkins

Sweet Dumpling Mini Pumpkins

Roasted Mini Pumpkins with Sun-Dried Tomato Stuffing

The stuffing is based on 1 mini pumpkin, e.g. ‘Sweet Dumpling’ per person

Ingredients

  • 1 mini pumpkin
  • 3 or 4 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 small clove of garlic, crushed
  • A small handful of breadcrumbs such as panko or crumbled stale bread
  • A small sprinkling of dried oregano or thyme
  • A large glug of olive oil
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

First clean the pumpkins. Using a small sharp knife, cut a circle around the top of the pumpkin and remove the lid. Using a spoon, scoop out the seeds, which you can discard or roast them for a tasty snack. Mix together the rest of the ingredients. Generously sprinkle some salt and pepper inside the hollowed out pumpkin, and then fill with the stuffing. Replace the lid and place onto a lightly greased baking tray. Cook in a 400F (200C) for about 35 to 40 minutes until the pumpkins are soft. Remove the pumpkins from the oven and serve by themselves as a starter or as a side dish.

Mini Pumpkins with Sun-Dried Tomato Stuffing

Mini Pumpkins with Sun-Dried Tomato Stuffing

Oct 15

Easy Italian Marinara Sauce: Today, Tomorrow, Next Week or Whenever

Recently while looking rooting around the freezer for additional ingredients to add to leftover frozen Red Clam Sauce, I realized that I was making life difficult for myself by not preparing a large batch of Italian Marinara Sauce and then freezing the sauce into portioned amounts for use at a later date.

Homemade Italian Red Sauce

Simmering Homemade Marinara

Just as important was the revelation that once the Marinara Sauce had been frozen in portions for use with one pound of pasta, I now have the basis for a wide range of pasta sauces using vegetables, sausage, chicken, seafood, shell fish, meatballs, not to mention all of the possible combinations of those ingredients. What could be simpler then defrosting a pre-measured amount of Marinara sauce and then adding the red Italian sauce to the ingredients that had been sautéed in a sauce pan? Instead of making a sauce for pasta from scratch each time, I now have the right amount of sauce for one pound of pasta and all that I need to do is add the ingredients. Not only are the total possible combinations endless, but the preparation time for any one meal has been dramatically reduced.

All you need is a couple of hours on a weekend, a large pot and one quart Ziploc bags and you are on your way to making enough Marinara sauce for seven meals?

Ingredients:

Whole Peeled Garlic

Two Bulbs of Whole Peeled Garlic in a Bowl

  • 6 x 26.46 Ounce / 750 Gram Boxes (6 x 28 Ounce Large Cans) of Pomi Strained Tomatoes (You can use any type of prepared tomatoes; strained, crushed, or diced, but I prefer strained)
  • 2 x Garlic Bulbs (remove the hard bottom from each clove, peel and keep whole)
  • 3/4 Cup of Olive Oil
  • 1 Tablespoon of Salt (I prefer to use Sea Salt)
  • 1/3 Cup of Grated Italian Cheese
  • 1 Cup of Red Wine
  • 2 Tablespoons of Sambal (A couple of hot chili peppers whole or Red Pepper Flakes also work well)
  • 1 Tablespoon of Italian Seasoning

Making the Marinara Sauce:

  1. In the large pot heat the Olive Oil and Salt of High and when hot add all of the Whole Garlic Cloves. Stir for about two minutes.

    Garlic, Olive Oil and Sea Salt in a Pot

    Whole Garlic Sauteing in a Pot with Olive Oil and Sea Salt

  2. Add the Sambal / Hot Peppers and stir for about another two minutes or until the garlic is golden brown.

    Garlic, Sambal, Sea Salt and Olive OIl

    Garlic and Sambal Sauteing in a Pot

  3. Then add the Red Wine and allowing the wine to boil off for about two minutes. Pour in all of the strained tomatoes. I always wash out the containers with a little bit of water and add this liquid to the pot.
  4. Add the Grated Italian Cheese and Italian Season and stir the contents of the pot.

    Italian Red Sauce with Grated Cheese being Added

    Homemade Marinara Sauce with Grated Cheese being Added

  5. Once the sauce has come to a boil, drop the temperature of the stove to Low and allow the sauce to simmer for at least two hours, stirring occasionally.

You will know when you have achieved the correct thickness for the sauce. If you have time to simmer the sauce for longer, then do so, but cover the pot to minimize evaporation. If the sauce has had too much evaporation, you can always add a little water. Another good indicator that the Marinara sauce has simmered long enough is that the whole peeled garlic is as soft as butter.

Freezing the Marinara Sauce:

Once you have allowed the sauce to cool, you are now ready to ladle the Italian Marinara Sauce into 1 Quart Ziploc Bags to be frozen and use at a later date. I have found that 5 – 6 ladles of sauce are the perfect amount for one pound of pasta.

Homemade Italian Red Sauce

Large Pot of Homemade Marinara Sauce

  1. The easiest way is to open a one quart Ziploc bag in a small bowl and insert a large mouth funnel.

    Preparing Marinara Sauce to be Frozen

    Preparing Ziploc Bag for Marinara Sauce

  2. Then add six ladles of sauce, remove the air and seal.

    Ziploc Bag Being Filled with Homemade Marinara Sauce

    Ziploc Bag Being Filled with Homemade Marinara Sauce

  3. Once you have finished, you place the bags of sauce in the freezer for use at a later date.

    Perfectly Portioned Bags of Marinara Sauce

    Ziploc Bags Filled with Marina Sauce Ready to be Frozen

Homemade Italian Marinara Sauce is so much better then anything purchased from the store and requires very little effort, time or hard to find ingredients. By making a large pot of sauce and then freezing portions for one pound of pasta, you guarantee yourself a easy to make meals when there is just not that much time, but you are really looking for a home cooked meal made from scratch.

 

 

Oct 14

Tip-top Tapenade

Though tapenade is best know as a dish from Provence, France, there exists very similar olive pastes throughout the Mediterranean. The word ‘tapenade’ hides a history in one of its ingredients, capers. In Provence, the caper plant is called ‘tapenei’, and capers used to be stored in vessels filled with olive oil. The capers were crushed into a type of pate and used in the same way as tapenade is today. So though tapenade is primarily a crushed olive paste, it’s name is derived from the capers which make up a lot smaller amount of the finished product.  You can find tapenade in many delis and supermarkets, but there is a satisfaction and a cost saving by making your own.

Tapenade Ingredients

Tapenade Ingredients

Tapenade is best simply topped onto thick slices of crusty bread, or it could be used as a crostini topping. It can also be used as a condiment for fish or chicken, or adding as an ingredient such rubbing over pork or chicken before cooking. You can use it as a salad dressing, use it instead of pesto in pasta, stuff mushrooms with it or use it as a sandwich paste on bread like foccacia or ciabatta.

Tapenade as a topping for chicken

Tapenade as a topping for chicken

You can also try adding some other ingredients to the basic tapenade such as some sun-dried tomatoes, dried figs, grated Parmesan cheese, roasted red peppers, cooked chopped mushrooms, crushed walnuts, different herbs such as rosemary, basil, thyme, oregan, or make it with a mixture of green and/or black olives. Experimentation is the key to finding your favourite tapenade.

How to make a basic Tapenade

Ingredients

  • One tin of pitted black olives
  • 1 clove of garlic, crushed
  • the juice of 1 lemon
  • 3 tbsp of capers, chopped
  • 5 or 6 anchovy fillets, chopped
  • A small handful of fresh parsley, chopped
  • 4 tbsp of virgin olive oil
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

Either roughly chop all the ingredients together to form a rough paste, or add them to a food processor and blitz them until smooth.

Tapenade

Tapenade

 

Oct 13

Southern Style Biscuits made by a Yankee Male, Such Sacrilege!

If I recall the first southern-style biscuit I ate was during college when I went to the Cracker Barrel in Christiansburg, VA. To a northerner such as me, biscuits were not just a part of the meals whether at home or in a restaurant regardless of the time of day. The closest thing to biscuits growing up was quick drop biscuits made my mom from Bisquik. Not exactly the same thing as southern biscuit made by hand.

Fresh Baked Homemade Southern Style Biscuit

Fresh Baked Homemade Southern Style Biscuit

Twenty plus years of living in the south, I have heard a variety of tales and stories about biscuits. There is intense discussion on the use of lard or vegetable shortening and even a few that dare to use butter. Likewise, there are claims that southern self-rising flour, which contains less gluten, is critical to a perfect light biscuit versus all-purpose flour. Then there is the gender prejudice that claims that because a male’s hands are warmer than a female; that a man cannot make good biscuits because the heat of his hands will melt the fat when mixing with the flour. The best story that I have heard was from a good old boy from the heart of Louisiana who would never eat a biscuit that was not made by one of the women in his family. His reasoning was steeped in superstition that if you ate a biscuit made by someone other than a woman of the family you would be cursed.

I reviewed dozen or so recipes on-line and with only a minor amount of variation, they all said basically said the same thing; use cold shortening / lard, only mix in the wet ingredients right before baking and do not over mix. Based upon all that I read, the following is the list of ingredients and amounts that I chose for this first batch of homemade biscuits.

 Ingredients:

  • 2 Cups of Flour, Sifted
  • 3 Teaspoons of Baking Powder, Sifted
  • ½ Teaspoon of Table Salt, Sifted
  • 4 Tablespoons of Vegetable Shortening
  • ¾ Cup of Buttermilk

Preparation:

  1. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together.

    Flour, Baking Powder, Salt and Vegetable Shortening for Homemade Biscuits

    Flour, Baking Powder, Salt and Vegetable Shortening for Homemade Biscuits

  2. Add the shortening and cut in until the mixture looks like loose crumbles. I used a spatula since I figured I had less chance of failure then using my hot hands.

    Shortening Cut Into the Dry Ingredients for Homemade Biscuits

    Shortening Cut Into the Dry Ingredients for Homemade Biscuits

  3. Make a small hole in the mixture and pour in the buttermilk and with a fork, lightly mix all of the ingredients together.

    With a Fork, Mix the Buttermilk with the Dry Ingredients and Shortening

    With a Fork, Mix the Buttermilk with the Dry Ingredients and Shortening

  4. On a lightly floured counter top / board dump the mixture and lightly knead for about 30 seconds.

    On a Lightly Floured Counter Top or Board, Lightly Knead the Dough for 30 Seconds

    On a Lightly Floured Counter Top or Board, Lightly Knead the Dough for 30 Seconds

  5. Lightly flatten out until the mixture is about a half inch thick.

    Flatten Homemade Biscuit Dough to a 1/2 Inch Thick

    Flatten Homemade Biscuit Dough to a 1/2 Inch Thick

  6. Cut out the biscuits using the rim of a glass (works really well).

    With the Rim of a Glass Cut Out the Biscuits

    With the Rim of a Glass Cut Out the Biscuits

  7. Place the biscuits on a sheet of parchment paper and bake in a preheated oven at 450 degrees for 12 – 15 minutes.

    Homemade Biscuits Ready To Be Baked on Parchment Paper

    Homemade Biscuits Ready To Be Baked on Parchment Paper

I had no idea if the biscuits were going to come out good or not, but 14 minutes later the tops were golden brown and the biscuits had risen nicely. For this first batch we had them with Chicken a la King, but then for dessert I also enjoyed a biscuit with homemade peach jam. They were really good and far better than any biscuit that came out of a can or was frozen baked from a large bakery. What was even more surprising was how simple it was to make these southern style homemade buttermilk biscuits.

Fresh Baked Homemade Southern Style Biscuits Fresh Out of the Oven

Fresh Baked Homemade Southern Style Biscuits Fresh Out of the Oven

As with most tales and folklore there is an element to truth that the right ingredients and techniques will help makes a better biscuit. With that being said, for my first attempt at southern biscuits, I am quite pleased with the results. Yes, there is room for improvement, but the true lesson learned is that it is possible to make homemade biscuits at home regardless of where you live and your gender for there are some things that just go better with homemade southern style biscuits.

 

Oct 12

Save Money and Marinate your own Olives

The mountains of glistening olives that you see in supermarket deli bars sure look tempting and they are hard to resist, but they can make quite a dent in your wallet. With a couple of ingredients, you can make your own at home, for a fraction of the cost and enjoy this little treat more often. Decadence for half the price.

Simple bowl of marinated olives

Marinated olives

The main ingredients you will need for basic marinated olives is a tin of olives, or a mixture of green and black olives, some olive oil (extra virgin if you have it) and some lemon juice or vinegar. That’s it. Simple. In addition to the basic marinade there is a list of optional flavourings that you can add for an extra boost that include, crushed or chopped garlic, fresh or dried herbs, crushed red pepper flakes, lemon zest, anchovy fillets, cheese, shallots, capers, balsamic vinegar, curry powder, etc, as well as using flavoured oils and vinegars. You could also mix together roasted red peppers, artichoke hearts with the olives. Note: don’t by the cheapest olives, make sure that they are decent to eat by themselves.

Marinated Olives

Ingredients

  • A tin of olives, drained ~ 6oz (170g)  or a mixture of green and black olives
  • 0.25 cup (60ml) of extra virgin olive oil
  • The juice of 1 lemon or 1 tbsp of vinegar such as white wine or balsamic
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • Some optional flavouring ideas
    • A small handful of chopped parsley and 1 crushed garlic clove
    • 1tsp of crushed red pepper flakes and 1tsp dried thyme
    • Lemon zest and 1 anchovy fillet, chopped
    • Some thinly sliced fennel, 1 crushed garlic clove and a small handful of chopped fresh basil leaves

Method

Mix all of the ingredients together and leave for at least 1 hour to marinate before eating. Leaving the olives to marinate overnight or for a couple of days will improve the flavour enormously. Enjoy.

Homemade marinated olives

Homemade marinated olives