Iron Chef Duet!

It has been ages, felt like eons, indeed so much time has passed that it almost faded into legend... but Iron Chef Mom and Iron Chef Grill have returned! (Huzzah! The villagers rejoice!)

Now that my mom is living nearby, we have an additional source for Secret Ingredient inspiration. So tonight, for the first time, the two Iron Chefs teamed up for a historical battle against... well... no one, really. Perhaps it was against the Secret Ingredient itself. For tonight's was truly unique. Not a usual part of the American diet, although it certainly should be. Tonight's ingredient was... chicken livers. Nutrient-dense and incredibly inexpensive, liver of all sorts should be restored to it's once-a-week spot on the menu.

We decided to go with a vaguely Cuban theme for the meal.

The menu:

Grilled skewers with veggies and bacon-wrapped chicken livers
Grilled green beans
Fried chicken livers with onions on herbed, buttered white rice and braised greens
Grilled Orange Bananas Dean (an Iron Chef Grill original)
The wine: MiBal Tinto 2006 Ribera del Duero, 100% Tempranillo

The skewers
Cherry tomatoes
Chopped green peppers
Marinated halved button mushrooms (marinated in Worcestershire sauce),
Bacon-wrapped chicken livers

The chicken livers were marinated in this:

1/2 cup soy sauce (tamari in this case)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp ground ginger
a few dashes salt and pepper

The green beans were tossed with olive oil and salt, then grilled.

The fried chicken livers followed, somewhat, the Julia Child recipe from The Way to Cook. I breaded with half cornmeal, after seeing that in a few online recipes, and hoping it would help them be more crisp. It didn't work. But, here's what I did:

About 1 pound of chicken livers, trimmed and cut into bite-sized pieces
Salt and freshly-ground pepper
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup white rice flour
several shakes each: chili powder, regular paprika, sweet paprika
3 tablespoons duck fat (leftover from our Christmas duck)
1/2 cup gently browned onions (recipe to follow)
1/4 cup dry vermouth
1/3 cup chicken stock

Season the chicken livers with salt and pepper, then dredge in mixture of flour, cornmeal, and seasonings. Fry in duck fat over medium-high heat, a couple minutes per side. Top the liver with the browned onions, pour in the stock and vermouth, raise the heat, and boil rapidly, basting the liver with the sauce. Scoop liver over herbed rice (recipe to follow) and garnish with parsley, if desired.

Browned Onions

Slowly saute 3 cups sliced onions in 2-3 tablespoons of butter, in a covered pan, stirring frequently, until the onions are very tender- 15 minutes or so. Uncover the pan, salt lightly, raise the heat to moderately high, and let the onions brown nicely, stirring frequently- 5 minutes or so. Can be made ahead of time.

Herbed Rice

Stir herbed butter (or butter and fresh oregano, parsley, and/or sage) into prepared rice, about 1 tablespoon butter per cup of rice. For this dish, make a ring of rice on a platter, place braised greens in the middle, and top with the fried chicken livers and onions, including the pan sauce. Garnish with parsley.

Grilled Orange Bananas Dean
(as opposed to Bananas Foster, where all the booze is cooked off...)

The booze is NOT cooked off here, and is quite tasty. The original recipe can be found here, but this time he used Amaretto for half the liquor, and I really like the change.


The Judge, my mama, really liked it all. She preferred the fried chicken livers... as did the Grill Geek. I was really surprised to like both (I'd never had chicken liver before.) The flavor of the bacon-wrapped was awesome, but the texture of the fried was better. I'm hoping to have them again soon, but in a marinara sauce. We didn't get done in an hour (it's amazing how fast that first 30 minutes goes!) but we all declared it a "win" anyway.

The Meat Tree

I love meat.

I generally chomp my way through life, with nary a care, eating the food that makes me feel healthy and good. Every now and then my carnivorous ways do make me feel guilty. I don't like the fact that something has to die. I will never willingly be a vegetarian, however. I need meat.

I tend to feel especially guilty when eating cute food. Cows I can generally handle... they're kinda cute, but not overwhelmingly so. Pigs ain't cute at all, once grown, but I'm told they're really smart. Rabbits... ack. I just don't enjoy rabbit. Can't forget how fuzzy-wuzzy they are. Goat is absolutely delicious, but they have such personality! And lamb... yikes. Lambs are really, really cute.

So, I've decided to believe in the Meat Tree. Acres and acres of orchards, some growing beef, some growing pork. Cute little lamb trees that flower in the spring. Yes. Meat trees make me feel much better about things.

My daughter thinks I'm ridiculous. Oh, well.

So, with that in mind, tonight's dinner (the last homemade meal for a week) was lamb burgers, fries, and some crazy thing I did with green beans and a half-ripe tomato. I think I've made lamb burgers before... but this time it worked.

A generous splash of Worcestershire, maybe about 1/4 teaspoon each of onion powder and garlic powder, perhaps a tablespoon of minced fresh oregano, a bit of salt and fresh pepper, and a pound of fresh-picked ground lamb, of course... magic.

See y'all in about a week, I'm off for a holiday road trip.

Shepherd's Pie

Tonight I made true Shepherd's Pie for the first time. As it turns out, us Yankees tend to call any meat-veggie blend topped with potatoes "Shepherd's Pie," when in fact it is Cottage Pie. Shepherd's Pie has lamb, specifically. Makes sense, huh? A Welsh friend pointed that out to me... thanks Shelly!

I wanted to finally use some of the ground lamb I have in the freezer. I know it's good for me... but I just never reach for it. I grew up in Kansas... my meats were beef, chicken, and fish sticks. Thanksgiving brought turkey, to jazz things up, but we didn't really even venture out into ham. So, lamb is rather new territory for me.

I almost made this Jamaican recipe, but didn't feel like I had the time to let the filling cool before assembling. (I planned to use Chebe bread for the pastry.)

So, despite the fact that it was 80 degrees today, which is not quite what I'd call Shepherd's Pie weather, that was the only other idea I liked. Happily, I stumbled upon a Simply Recipes recipe while googling. I love her stuff.
Oddly, her recipe calls for ground beef. Oh, well. Accuracy isn't for everyone. I made it, with lamb, and it tasted really good. Naturally, I tweaked it. I am, after all, pathologically incapable of following a recipe.
I used a lot less veggies- just two carrots- couldn't find the peas in my overstuffed freezer, added a parsnip in with the potatoes, and used chicken broth instead of beef broth. Yeah... just a few changes. LOL

Lamb Stuffed Peppers

I wanted something to do with ground lamb... not burgers, not meatloaf... something that felt more like warm-weather food. I think we hit 90 today, so meatloaf just isn't... it isn't right.

That said, the stuffed peppers take a whole hour in the oven, so really not that different from meatloaf. But, the recipe I found called them "tropical" and, well... I admit to being easily swayed. Stick an umbrella in something and I instantly must have it. I know me.

I love it when a meal comes together... when the things in the fridge magically match the mood and the recipes that I accidentally trip over online. Because that's what it is... accident. Well, perhaps serendipity. I am not a skilled googler, and especially when trawling through the thousands and thousands of possibilities netted from "ground lamb recipe." Very vague. Tonight it worked. I had a couple of red bell peppers languishing in the crisper (snatched up several at 79-cents per pound, and I never bother with green peppers... they aren't ripe and are nutritionally-devoid.) I had the lamb. I happened to have a pint of leftover crushed tomatoes. I saw the word "tropical." It was perfect.

Ingredients:
1 pound ground lamb
2 red bell peppers (mine were huge, you'll want more if they're small)
3 tablespoons butter/bacon fat
1/2 onion, minced
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cilantro
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cut off the tops of the peppers and scoop out the seeds. (I cut mine lengthwise because they were really long and skinny.)
Heat the butter/bacon fat and brown the onion the onion lightly. Add the lamb, garlic, and all the rest. Simmer 5-8 minutes, until the lamb is pretty-much cooked.
Fill the peppers with the lamb mixture and put in a baking dish. You want a bit of space around them, for the sauce. Pour the sauce in, and if you have a bit extra like I did, put some on top of the peppers. Why not? Looks pretty.
Bake for about an hour, until the peppers are soft. Check on them every now and then, to make sure they aren't drying out.

The sauce: (I totally made this up, so it's vague)
about 1/4 onion, finely chopped and browned in ghee (or butter, oil, whatever)
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 knob (inch or so) ginger, grated (works fab to use frozen, peeled ginger on a microplane grater)
About 2 cups crushed/diced tomatoes
Salt and paprika, to taste

Combine. Simmer a bit to meld flavors.

It ended up being a lot less spicy than I expected, but I used yellow curry powder instead of red. I highly suggest kicking it up a notch or two, with garlic Tabasco or whatever spicy goodness you prefer.

Get Yer Goat!

I am now converted... I love goat.

The Grill Geek had some sort of goat years ago, at a Jamaican restaurant. He loved it. I was a bit more leery, but... as we've been eating all sorts of weird things lately, decided we'd get some as soon as we could. On a recent trip to the farmer's market in Austin, the opportunity arose. They were out of ground meat, so we opted for steaks. They were called something else, but looked like itty bitty t-bones. I handed them over to the Grill Geek as a totally-not-surprising Iron Chef Grill ingredient.
He worked wonders.



Pandering to the judge is always welcome, so he wrapped things in bacon. The bottom left of the photo shows unidentifiable blobs that I will tell you are bacon-wrapped tomatoes . He thickly-sliced some fresh, local (greenhouse) tomatoes, wrapped them in bacon, and grilled away. They looked like a bit of a pain in the arse, but they tasted FABULOUS. Anyway, back to the rest... hot dogs at top left, "for the kids", smallish pieces of goat in the middle, fat green onions, then bigger pieces of goat.
He also grilled some asparagus (simply toss with oil and salt and it becomes pure joy.)


The joke was on us. Both children devoured every scrap of goat we were willing to toss their way. No one got enough. The hot dogs were utterly ignored. The tomatoes were melty-juicy-tart inside crisp-salty... wow. Goat tastes like buttery bambi-beef. So juicy. So meaty. So good.

Soup, Salad, and Bread

The fridge was full of leftovers, my energy meter was low (thanks to accidental ingestion of coconut oil during lunch... in case any one is wondering, yes I am still pouting about that allergy.)
So, dinner needed to be easy. What was on the menu? "Iron Chef Mom." Nope, wasn't going to happen. Nuh-uh, save it for a better night.

Instead, leftover Leftover Leg of Lamb Stew, salad with balsamic vinaigrette, and some fresh soda bread. Not a typo, it was double-leftover stew. I saved the bone and chopped all the meat that was leftover (from Irish Heritage Day) into bite-size pieces, and stuck it in the freezer. Earlier this week, it became dinner with some onions, red potatoes, carrots, peas, and tomatoes. It seems to be a neverending soup, as we've still got some left. That leg of lamb was expensive, but... wow... it just keeps going.

I still love the soda bread. It's marvelous. This time I used traditional currants instead of raisins. Delish.

And... folks... if any of you are still buying bottled salad dressing, made with toxic canola and soy oils... I have to ask WHY?? Seriously, please leave a comment and tell me why on earth you do that to yourselves. Homemade dressing is so easy! You don't need to whisk things, you don't have to get all snooty French about it... buy some of those itty bitty Gladware containers. The ones with the blue lid that hold less than half a cup. (For what it's worth, the screw-top Ziploc containers that are a bit bigger suck. They are NOT liquid-tight!) Then you can just shake up your dressing, pour what you need on your salad, and stick the leftovers in the fridge for another day.
Here's how to make super-easy balsamic dressing:

Squirt a generous dab of Dijon mustard into your container. 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon, start with less and see how you like it.
Add 1-2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
Add a splash of apple cider vinegar or rice vinegar, to tone it down a bit, if you think that'd be good.
Add about twice as much olive oil... eyeball it... it's not rocket science.
Slap the lid on and shake it up.
Taste it. Too tart? More oil. Not tart enough? More vinegar.
Add salt and pepper, some fresh thyme or parsley if you've got it. A pinch of dried herb- any herb pretty much- is nice too.

Oh, and if you're feeling adventurous, use an egg yolk instead of mustard... but don't plan on keeping it in the fridge more than a few days.

Easter Dinner

I love the idea of "dinner" being in the middle of the day. That way it's not hanging over my head all day, nor do I have a giant bunch of food to digest while I'm sleeping. Which I guess is good.

I've spent too long already getting distracted from posting this. So, without further attempt at wit... some before and after pics, with necessary description.

To the right, a sort of Sidedish, but with leeks, to be fancy. And because we got them in our weekly Greenling delivery.


Menu:
Appetizers: Spicy Pecans, olives, cute little gummy berries
Bacon Wrapped Asparagus
That potato-and-leek thing
Grilled lamb chops
And, because they were so itty bitty, grilled pork chops as well.
Dessert was Even More Candy

Yeah... I'll eat that.

The potatoes and leeks got charry-caramelized, the pork chops were juicy, the lamb was silky, and the bacon-wrapped asparagus is now on my menu for Last Meal Ever. And I barely did any work at all, because I made the Grill-Geek cook it outside. Fabulous.

Irish Heritage Day

I refuse to give the murderer of so many innocents his own special day, so instead I will honor the spirit of the day. I have no problem whatsoever in celebrating Irish culture!

We did not dye our beer green, but we did eat green food for lunch.


Green salad with shamrock-looking kohlrabi sprouts, celery, greenish dip for said celery (put parsley in it) and green olives. We aren't rabbits, though, so we needed something more, and it wasn't really green. It was, however, Irish-ish.

Salmon patties. With dill and fresh parsley... for green.

Then dinner was more classic...


Roast leg of lamb (not the entire leg... we're a small family), potatoes, onions, and garlic roasted in the lamb drippings, braised cabbage and leeks with butter and lemon, and gluten-free soda bread. The lamb looks pretty much raw in this shot, and it wasn't. I took it's temperature and everything, it was supposedly medium-rare. It was definitely delicious. I think the soda bread stole the show, though, it was beyond fabulous. The sorghum flour I ordered wasn't here yet, so I used amaranth instead. And, thanks to experience and knowledge about what I don't like, I used a very scant one TEAspoon of caraway, instead of a tablespoon. Oh, and she cooks at high altitude. My bread was done more than 5 minutes early.

Duck and Winter Vegetables

I swear I fed the family today.

Twice, before dinner, plus snacks. Constant snacks, in the case of the Little Guy.

And, yet... we set upon that duck like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat.

There were also roasted turnips and carrots, and braised turnip and mustard greens. Nothing managed to get photographed. I blame the duck.

We couldn't carve it! We both tried. (This is why I really want an electric knife!) We aren't weaklings, but I guess this duck still had a little quack in it. After 5 minutes of smelling it's roasty, crinkly-skinned goodness and whacking away on it, while it slid on the platter now-greased with delicious duck fat... we gave up and agreed to just rip the flesh off it's bones with our forks.
And that's what we did.

Therefore, there was no plating. So, I completely forgot to take pictures.

It truly was gorgeous. So brown and crispy. My second attempt at mustard greens was successful... thanks to the addition of a bit of honey, to counteract the bitterness. But none survived the gorging. Our Little Guy didn't waste any time on his greens, which is unusual for him. No... he demanded duck. And more duck. And "more duck, Mom?" Yeah. He digs duck. I can see why. I now have it in my stock pot, with a couple of bay leaves and a few peppercorns. I want every last bit of goodness!

And even the roasted turnips were good. I have horrible memories of turnips from my childhood. As probably all kids my age were... I was forced (by my grandparents, not my mom) to clean my plate. That plate often included "icky" things like boiled turnips, microwaved squash, or onions. Now, of course, I like all those things... but prepared my way!

And I still don't like okra.

Presidents Day fun

We like to play with our food. And we think Presidents Day should be no exception. So, our dinner tonight reflects the respect we have toward that most-powerful office... or at least the people who have held it.

Duck and Pork Sausage (Lame duck, get it? The pork part should be obvious.)
Grilled imPeaches (hee hee)
Waffles (har har)
Fresh-roasted Peanuts (tip o' the hat to Jimmy)

NO cherries! We adamantly refuse to have cherries. It's too cliche... I would have loved to have a sweet potato custard, straight from one of Jefferson's personal recipes, but no one else here would have eaten any.


The sausages were out-of-this world delicious, and the whole meal had a very French feel. Appropriately, since we wouldn't have won our independence without help from the French. We piled the grilled peaches on top of the waffles, tossed on some peanuts, drizzled with a dark sugar and rum sauce, and then sprinkled with a touch of salt (since the peanuts were unsalted.)
It was surprisingly savory, and really good.

1st Weekly Iron Chef Mom

KYO NO TEMA... shichimenchou!


So... I recently posted about feeling rather Iron Cheffish after making dinner from crazy leftovers. The Grill Geek thought it'd be fun to take it a step further. Tonight was the first of (hopefully) many Iron Chef Mom episodes, pitting my against the timer and the children. I had beginner's luck- the Little Guy fell asleep on the couch for the whole thing.

First, a brief run-down of the rules:
1) Must be an original recipe that features the "secret ingredient" in some way.
2) Must accept help from any and all "sous chefs" (aka children/husband) or else it wouldn't be Iron Chef MOM, now would it?
3) First attempt is given 90 minutes, second attempt gets 80, and so on. By your fourth episode, you ought to have the hang of it and be able to pull it off in 60 minutes thereafter.
4) Must be a complete, nutritionally-balanced meal. Unlike the TV show, we're not going for total number of entrees. This is real life. Must include something your kids will eat, but the secret ingredient needn't be involved in that.
5) For style points, the kitchen needs to not be utterly trashed when your time is up. That's another Mom element... clean up as you go. At least a little bit.

The Grill Geek got back from the store around 11 am, so I knew my secret ingredient for 8 hours before showtime. I looked up basic preparation techniques, then went through my stash of recipes on the computer (didn't spend hours pouring over actual cookbooks.) I found a recipe for Moroccan Chicken Stew and completely changed it. I think the only ingredient left the same was... um... the cumin. That's what I mean by an "original" recipe. Base it on something else, sure... but make it your own.

Once I knew that my secret ingredient was bone-in split turkey breast, I started getting the idea of a New World theme to the meal. So... this is where that eventually led me:

Getting ready to cook

Bekki's Iron Chef Turkey

Ingredients:

1 Tbsp coconut oil

1 Tbsp bacon fat

1 Tbsp cornstarch

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

½ tsp paprika

2 tsp chili powder

1 split, bone-in turkey breast

1 small onion, sliced thin

3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed

1 cup chicken stock

1 tsp salt

¼ - ½ cup white rum

½ cup salsa

½ cup corn kernels (frozen are ok)

1 cup cooked pinto beans

blue corn chips

1 fresh heirloom tomato, sliced

prepared collard greens

1. Put cornstarch and spices into a large plastic bag, along with turkey breast, and shake to coat. ("It's Shake N Bake, and I hey-alped!") Get the collards goin'.

2. Heat large dutch oven, add fats, and brown turkey breast on both sides.
Remove turkey, add more oil, if necessary, and sauté onion over medium heat until almost-translucent. Add garlic and stir for 1 minute. Add chicken stock, rum, and salt. Bring to boil and stir in salsa, pintos, and corn. Reduce heat to low, add turkey, cover and simmer for 45 minutes. Remove turkey breast and slice. Stir additional cornstarch into bean mixture, if needed.

3. Arrange cooked collards on plates along with sliced tomato, and bean mixture; arrange turkey on top. Garnish with blue corn chips, serve with a glass of sotol (or bourbon.)