Category: Recipes (Page 16 of 26)

I admit it, I’m prejudiced. Not prejudiced about everyone and everything, but definitely about some categories of people and things. For example, I’m prejudiced against cuisine from the American heartland, cuisine that includes processed ingredients (cream of mushroom soup, ketchup) as well as canned or frozen produce. While this recipe comes from Bon Appetit (courtesy of epicurious.com), I think it might best belong to the pages of Parade magazine (there again is my prejudice).
Still, it was a different recipe for short ribs (one that did not include celery, carrots or wine) and one that got amazing reviews on epicurious. With nice looking short ribs at $1.99lb at Lucky’s I had to try it. And, my non-existent God, I’m soooo glad I did. This may very well be the best recipe for short ribs I’ve made so far. I loved it because the flavors penetrated into the meat, making the sauce a nice addition but ultimately unnecessary. I also like sweet meats, this is definitely not for those adverse to fruity flavors on their beef.
I followed the recipe closely, but I did make some changes based on the reviews and convenience. I’d definitely would make it as I did – though I’d try to braise the meat the day before so I had time to cool and de-fat the sauce before serving it (for the life of me, I don’t understand how to use a fat separator). I served it with mashed potatoes, but I don’t think it was a good marriage. Next time I’d try couscous.
This recipe introduced me to Chili sauce, which, as far as I can tell, is a kind of ketchup, it definitely tastes like it. I doubt it has any chilis and it’s not in the least spicy.
Pineapple Short Ribs

• 4-5 lbs beef short ribs
• salt & pepper to taste
• flour for coating
• 1 Tbsp. olive oil
• 2 onions, quartered
• 1 8 1/4 oz can pineapple chunks with juice
• 2 cups beef broth
• 1/2 cup Heinz or similar chili sauce
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 4 garlic cloves, minced.

Preheat oven to 275F. Cut excessive fat from short ribs. Season to taste and lightly coat with flour. Heat oil in a dutch oven or another lidded oven-safe wide pot. Add the ribs and brown well on all sides. Add the onions, pineapple with juice, broth, chili sauce, honey, Worcestershire sauce and cloves. Mix well.
Cover the pot and place in the oven. Cook covered for 3 hours, then remove the lid and cook for another hour. Take out of the oven and carefully remove the short ribs, keep warm by covering them with a towel. Place the cooking pot on the stove and boil the remaining sauce until it reduces to about 1 1/2 cups. Strain and discard the vegetables. Serve short ribs accompanied by the sauce.

My kids, like all other American kids, love mac & cheese. They are usually not very discriminating, they’ll eat the Kraft stuff, the Safeway stuff, the Annie stuff, whatever we put in front of them. What they haven’t been willing to eat – until now – was homemade mac & cheese. Well, this is no longer the case. Mika, my 7-yo, has been begging me to make it again. Camila, my 4-yo, wasn’t as enthusiastic, but she really liked it as well. Alas, I’m not sure that nutritionally this recipe is any better than the regular mac & cheese (which now comes with whole-grain pasta). It’s definitely much less friendly to my pocket book. But I’m sure I’ll make it again.
The original recipe called for sharp cheddar but I used a mixture of pre-shredded Mexican mixture and home-shredded muenster, as that’s what I had at home.
Mac & Cheese

• 12 oz small elbow macaroni
• 4 tbsp. butter
• 2 slices bread, crumbled
• 4 tbsp. flour
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
• 4 green onions, thinly sliced
• 3 cups (packed) grated cheese
• salt & pepper to taste

Cook the pasta on salted boiling water until tender but firm. Drain and put in a 9″ x 13″ baking pan.

Meanwhile, pre-heat broiler.

Also meanwhile melt the butter in a medium-size saucepan. Put the breadcrumbs in a small bowl and mix in 1 Tbsp. butter. Set aside.

Add the flour to the butter in the saucepan and cook over medium heat for 2 minutes, whisking constantly. Gradually add the milk and broth, continuing whisking. Bring to a boil and add the green onions. Continue cooking and whisking for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and mix in the grated cheese. Stir until it’s completely incorporated.
Pour the cheese sauce onto the macaroni and mix well. Season with salt and pepper if necessary. Sprinkle the bread crumbs on top of it. Broil until the crumbs brown, about 2 minutes. Serve.
Marga’s Best Recipes

Chocolate fondue is SOOO extremely easy to make that I have to wonder why they sell “chocolate fondue” kits at the supermarket. You basically need only three ingredients: chocolate of some kind, cream of some kind (condensed milk also works if you use unsweetened chocolate) and alcohol of some sort. I think the key is to use good quality chocolate.

-1/2 lb semi-sweet chocolate (shredded, chopped or chocolate chips)
-1/2 lb milk chocolate (shredded, chopped or chocolate chips)
-1/2 cup heavy cream
-Chocolate Liqueur, Kalhua and Bailey’s to taste.

Heat the cream in the fondue pot. Add the chocolate and stir until it’s all melted. Add more cream if necessary to get the right consistency. Add the liqueurs, take to the table and serve.

Serve with cubed cheese cake, cubed pound cake (Sara Lee’s), sliced bananas and mixed berries, or anything else you like.

Note, you can used the cooled chocolate fondue as a great filling for cakes and other pastries.

I am a bad mother. There is no denying it. Today I helped Mika make peanut butter cookies from the Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook that I got at the library sale yesterday. But despite the fact that the nutritional information was displayed quite prominently on the top of the page, I failed to read it until now. And holy shit! Each regular-size cookie had 247 calories and 14 grams of fat. WTH? Who in their right mind can feed that to a child? And how am I now going to prevent her from eating them (the recipe made 60 cookies)? Well, I’m taking them to a tea today, so hopefully I can abandon any leftovers there 🙂
As for the cookies, they are quite good, a bit dry but tasty. I’d make them again had I not looked at the nutritional info.

I made this epicurious.com recipe for Chicken with Black-Pepper Maple Sauce for dinner tonight. It was awesome. Or rather, the sauce was awesome. The chicken was OK, the skin was great, of course, but not much flavor penetrated into the flesh. But the sauce was incredible, even though I forgot to add the two tablespoons of butter needed to finish the sauce. As Mike put it “I’d eat anything dipped in that sauce”.
I followed the recipe pretty closely but I used a 5.5 lb chicken instead of a 3-3.5 lb one. I’m sorry, but it’s unrealistic to feed a family of 4 (and we were one more tonight) with just 3.5 lbs of meat. The 5.5 pounder fed the five of us well, and we have a couple of leftover pieces. The problem, however, is that it took longer for the chicken to cook (about half an hour longer), and the breasts overcooked a bit. Next time I’d use chicken pieces instead of a whole chicken, and I’d remove each part when it is ready. I increased the sauce ingredients by one-half to accommodate the larger chicken, but if I was going to make it again, I’d at least double the sauce recipe. It’s that good.
I served the chicken with couscous and green beans. The sauce went incredibly well with the couscous and I’d recommend the pairing.
I should note that I only used about 1/2 Tbsp of peppercorns, rather than the required 1 1/2 Tbsp. As it was, the sauce wasn’t in the least spicy, so next time I might increase the amount.

I’ve had pretty bad luck with pesto sauces – to the point that I was wondering if the problem was my basil. But yesterday I made one that I actually liked. Here is the recipe (based on this recipe at allrecipe.com).
Pesto

• 1 1/2 cups fresh basil leaves, chopped
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 4 small garlic cloves
• 1/4 tsp. chili powder

Put basil and 1 Tbsp. in a mini chopper, and chop/grind until the basil is finely cut. Add the pine nuts, Parmesan cheese, garlic, chili powder and remaining oil. Process until smooth.

My fresh oregano and thyme have passed on to a better life – but here I’ll post recipes I find that use both or either and that I can make again when I get some new herbs:
Grilled Lamb Chops with Salmoriglio Sauce

I’ve never been to Eccolo, the restaurant that replaced Ginger Island on 4th Street in Berkeley. Though it was started by former Chez Panisse sous chef Christopher Lee, but its reviews were always mixed, making some people happy and other furious. With very limited restaurant money, I never was too tempted to take the chance and try it.
I just found out that it recently closed through a very interesting article by Eccolo sous chef Samin Nosrat on the Food section of today’s San Francisco Chronicle (another business that is likely to fail in the near future). Nosrat explains how the business went under – basically, the economy put them in a position of either significantly downgrading their ingredients or significantly increasing their clientele. Despite a series of gimmicks (happy hour, more comfort food, etc.), they were not able to do the latter and they refused to do the former further, so their only choice was to close down. I’m sure that most restaurants nowadays are facing similar issues, and I wonder how many are choosing to downgrade their ingredients to stay alive.
The impact may be particularly bad for “nice” restaurants in the high end of the price scale (i.e. with entrees in the twenties). Even people who can still afford to go out to eat semi-regularly seem to be downgrading their restaurant choices. Indeed, many of the new restaurants that are arising (and yes, new restaurants are still opening in this economy) are pricing their dishes in the teens. The question is whether they can survive on that.
All this said, I’ve always thought that foreign/ethnic cuisines (Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Ethiopian) often offer tastier dishes than Californian restaurants at significantly lower prices (of course, we rather not think much as to the quality of the ingredients they use), so hopefully they’ll do better.
But all in all, I think/hope that the restaurants that will survive are those that offer good food and have consistent good reviews.