Pickled Broccoli Stalks with Ginger & Red Onion

Some days, when I'm not feeling particularly flush, the price of fresh vegetables I buy just astounds me. I buy organic, for both my health, and because I feel we vote with our dollars even more than our actual votes. But the price of a head of organic broccoli set me back on my heels a bit last Saturday. OK, granted, it was at Whole Foods, and for whatever reason, their organic produce is more expensive, for the most part than it is at my local Wegmans, but I was there for something else, so I bought it. I was thoroughly wishing my garden was producing at top speed. 

After using the top third of the broccoli head in a recipe, I put the big stems back in the fridge, figuring at the price, I'd peel them for a stir-fry. Busy week, no stir fry. As I was cleaning the crisper out for a "Scrap Salad" for lunch, I figured, I should do something with the broccoli stems that would be good, really good. Love them pickled. But as I reached for my usual Mediterranean seasonings, I took a turn East.

There were more but I ate 4 pieces trying to take a picture...

Pickled Broccoli Stalks with Ginger  & Red Onion

Four (4) thick broccoli stems, florets used elsewhere
1/3 cup red onion, in  1/4" slices
3/4 cup rice wine vinegar
3/4 cup water
3T organic sugar
3 garlic cloves, minced
2" fresh garlic, peeled and minced
1T coriander seed
3T kosher salt
1 pinch red pepper flakes



Peel the broccoli stems and cut into 2" long x 14" thick sticks. Bring a small pot of hot water to the boil and blanch the broccoli stems for 3-4 minutes until just barely tender. Drain well, and place in a heat-proof bowl. Add the raw onion to the hot broccoli and stir.

Bring the remaining ingredients to a boil in a small saucepan, and stir until the salt and sugar have dissolves. Remove from the heat, cover and let stand for 5 minutes off the heat.

Pour the seasoned brine over the broccoli and onions, and let stand 15 -20 minutes until cooled to warm, and then cover and chill. Best served chilled, and even better each day late. keeps about a week, though you'll eat it all before that...for sure.

5 Delicious Things to Do with Your Homemade Crème Fraîche

Am trying to find some time to bury my toes in the sand. So please bear with a few reposts for the next couple of weeks. There will be some new material, but ...Happy Summer.

I know, I know. I've been banging the drum about making your own crème fraîche for months now, but honestly it's worth the 10 seconds (minus the sitting-on-the-counter-time) of actual work it takes you to make the glorious stuff. If you somehow missed the super-easy instructions I've posted before, you can find them here. But once you make it, you end up with a jar full, rather than the measly,  expensive little cupful you find in the market. A few of you have asked what you can do with such a bounty.

As far as I'm concerned, you can never have too much crème fraîche, just like you can never have too much chocolate. It's the sophisticated cousin of sour cream, and instead of a  sour tang, it has a nutty, full, more rounded flavor. And unlike one of it's parents, heavy cream, it keeps a long time. Mine will keep well up to a month in the coldest part of my fridge. If it lasts that long without having to start a fresh batch. I always start a fresh batch when I get down to my last half-cup or so.  Remember to keep a quarter cup or so to use as a starter with a bout 2 cups of single pasteurized heavy cream. Every day I can find a reason to dip into the jar of creamy goodness at least once.  God forbid I run out. Here's how I use mine (other than eating it right off a spoon):

Homemade crème fraîche.
For the record I did not eat the whole spoonful.

1.
As a topping for fruit, lightly sweetened or not.  I like it unsweetened, but taste it, and add a bit of sugar , honey, erythritol or stevia to your liking. Nothing is nicer than a bowl of sweet berries or peaches with a big ole spoonful of crème fraîche atop. All those ads showing strawberries with that fake-tasting frozen glop in a tub can't hold a candle to creamy crème fraîche. Or unsweetened as a topping for a baked potato, or better yet, a baked sweet potato. Nothing wrong with adding a sprinkle of blue cheese and some black pepper...

2.
Replace heavy cream with an equal amount of crème fraîche in baked goods. If your baking recipe calls for heavy cream, use your crème fraîche instead. It adds a depth of flavor you can't get from heavy cream. Cream pies, cakes, and ice creams are all seriously improved with crème fraîche.

3.
Whip it. You can whip it, and use it in either savory or sweet dishes. Mine usually whips more easily than regular cream, and if you stir a bit of curry paste into it before whipping it to dab on your crab cakes or spoon into your tomato soup, you won't be disappointed. Surprise your dining mates with savory whipped cream. They'll think you are a genius.

4.
Turn into a sauce or dressing. Just add your favorite seasonings,--- mine are currently Dijon mustard and anchovy paste, whisk in and the resulting sauce is perfect over grilled chicken, or over steamed vegetables like beets or green beans. To make into a dressing, you can do this, or simply mix with lemon juice, salt, pepper and a little minced fresh garlic. Need it lighter, use equal parts crème fraîche and plain fat-free Greek yogurt. A crème fraîche-yogurt salad dressing makes salad days seem a lot less penitential.

5.
Make cultured butter. If you have ever tasted cultured butter, you know why it costs so much over at Whole Paycheck. It's hard to go back to regular butter once you've had it or cooked with it. If you put a couple of cups of crème fraîche into a food processor or beat it with a hand mixer, just turn on the power, and keep going until it curdles up. Just takes a few minutes. Carefully, with a spatula, press out as much whey as you can, drain it off, and then add some cold water with an equal amount of ice to the curds and whirl again. Press out the water again with your spatula, and drain --keep going until it's all butter, and with the spatula, stir in a pinch or to of finely ground salt if you want salted butter. Go get some bread and eat. Don't share, it's that good.

Speedy Natural Microwave Ketchup No Added Sugar

Sometimes I'm just being so good about what I'm eating I can't stand myself; and then I find the cookies. Last night I had a nice grass-fed burger on one of my Funky Flax buns, with some smoked bacon on top and it was delicious. I also had this wonderful sweet, spicy ketchup and a pickle on it. Would have had red onion, but had none. I really do try to avoid grains,  sugar and its evil cousin, HFCS. Problem is even the organic ketchups, while they don't have HFCS in them, or even GMOs, they are full of sugar, and  not for me because I am not a modest ketchup user.  One serving? Hell, I just slather it on. I love the tangy flavor of homemade far more than the ubiquitous commercial stuff, although if that's what's available...

Now, last year I gave you a stove-cooked version of no sugar added ketchup, but when you are going to eat in an hour or so, it just won't be ready to eat in time. Hence this high speed version that you microwave for just 3 minutes. It's actually delicious still warm, but even better after it stands about an hour or longer.  Will keep about 2 weeks, covered in the fridge.

Oh, and I was so good about dinner last night, and then I DID find the cookies.

Speedy Natural Microwave Ketchup with No Added Sugar

Speedy Natural Microwave Ketchup with No Added Sugar

Note: if you can buy tomato products in glass containers, I highly recommend you do so as the linings of many cans still contain BPA. Read the label, it will usually tell you if the lining is BPA-free.

Makes about a cup.

6 oz. tomato paste
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
2T rice wine or cider vinegar
1teaspoon Cholula or other hot sauce
Liquid or powdered Stevia  (two servings worth depending on brand)
black pepper
1 tsp kosher salt

1. Mix all the ingredients in a 2-cup or larger microwave safe container.

2. Cove and microwave for 3 minutes. Remove and stir. Serve warm or chilled.

Quick & Easy Guinness Sauce For Beef or Pork

It is supposedly necessary to publish a seasonal recipe when there is any sort of major or minor holiday. It's in the Bloggers Code of Behavior, so I am offering you something for St. Patrick's Day. Every blah-g is loaded with beer laden main dishes, alcoholic desserts and pasty potato dishes. I'm giving you a Guinness sauce for meat. so i'm sadly right up there with the worst of them. It's good any time of the year, as is a pint of Guinness. Personally, the closest I've ever come to being Irish is having proudly bourne  a good Irish last name for a few years. But if I did have any Irish blood, I'd be insulted to have a holiday associated with my mother country reduced to a tawdry celebration of beer and potatoes. The Irish folk I've know have been kind, strong, intelligent, hardworking and generous. Far better things to celebrate, in my less than humble opinion.

All of that said, I do like a glass of stout every now and again, and Guinness was the first one I ever tasted.  Let's face it, it's delicious. It also makes a wonderful base for a rich and tangy sauce to serve with a spice rubbed pork or beef roast. Our dinner tonight happened to be a small pork sirloin tip roast, which I just rubbed up with Stonewall Kitchen Chicken & Pork Rub and a bit of olive oil this morning, and roasted simply this evening. The Guinness stout makes a deep, dark sauce with a deep, dark flavor that tastes like you had to work on it for hours. I think my favorite Irishman would love it.

Quick & Easy Guinness Sauce For Beef or Pork.
Every blogger has to publish SOMETHING for St. Patrick's Day, right?

Quick & Easy Guinness Sauce For Beef or Pork

Makes about 1 scant cup

1 bottle of Guinness stout
1/4 cup beef stock, or water
1T blackstrap molasses
2T sugar or erythritol
1T balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp. of Stonewall Kitchen Chicken & Pork Rub ( or other favorite meat rub)
pan drippings from a small (under 3 lb.) pork or beef roast

Place everything but the pan drippings into a medium, preferably wide, saucepan, boil and reduce to about half. Stir in the drippings, taste and thin as needed with a bit of water if too intense. Serve hot with pork or beef.

5 Delicious Things to Do with Your Homemade Crème Fraîche

I know, I know. I've been banging the drum about making your own crème fraîche for months now, but honestly it's worth the 10 seconds (minus the sitting-on-the-counter-time) of actual work it takes you to make the glorious stuff. If you somehow missed the super-easy instructions I've posted before, you can find them here. But once you make it, you end up with a jar full, rather than the measly,  expensive little cupful you find in the market. A few of you have asked what you can do with such a bounty.

As far as I'm concerned, you can never have too much crème fraîche, just like you can never have too much chocolate. It's the sophisticated cousin of sour cream, and instead of a  sour tang, it has a nutty, full, more rounded flavor. And unlike one of it's parents, heavy cream, it keeps a long time. Mine will keep well up to a month in the coldest part of my fridge. If it lasts that long without having to start a fresh batch. I always start a fresh batch when I get down to my last half-cup or so.  Remember to keep a quarter cup or so to use as a starter with a bout 2 cups of single pasteurized heavy cream. Every day I can find a reason to dip into the jar of creamy goodness at least once.  God forbid I run out. Here's how I use mine (other than eating it right off a spoon):

Homemade crème fraîche.
For the record I did not eat the whole spoonful.

1.
As a topping for fruit, lightly sweetened or not.  I like it unsweetened, but taste it, and add a bit of sugar , honey, erythritol or stevia to your liking. Nothing is nicer than a bowl of sweet berries or peaches with a big ole spoonful of crème fraîche atop. All those ads showing strawberries with that fake-tasting frozen glop in a tub can't hold a candle to creamy crème fraîche. Or unsweetened as a topping for a baked potato, or better yet, a baked sweet potato. Nothing wrong with adding a sprinkle of blue cheese and some black pepper...

2.
Replace heavy cream with an equal amount of crème fraîche in baked goods. If your baking recipe calls for heavy cream, use your crème fraîche instead. It adds a depth of flavor you can't get from heavy cream. Cream pies, cakes, and ice creams are all seriously improved with crème fraîche.

3.
Whip it. You can whip it, and use it in either savory or sweet dishes. Mine usually whips more easily than regular cream, and if you stir a bit of curry paste into it before whipping it to dab on your crab cakes or spoon into your tomato soup, you won't be disappointed. Surprise your dining mates with savory whipped cream. They'll think you are a genius.

4.
Turn into a sauce or dressing. Just add your favorite seasonings,--- mine are currently Dijon mustard and anchovy paste, whisk in and the resulting sauce is perfect over grilled chicken, or over steamed vegetables like beets or green beans. To make into a dressing, you can do this, or simply mix with lemon juice, salt, pepper and a little minced fresh garlic. Need it lighter, use equal parts crème fraîche and plain fat-free Greek yogurt. A crème fraîche-yogurt salad dressing makes salad days seem a lot less penitential.

5.
Make cultured butter. If you have ever tasted cultured butter, you know why it costs so much over at Whole Paycheck. It's hard to go back to regular butter once you've had it or cooked with it. If you put a couple of cups of crème fraîche into a food processor or beat it with a hand mixer, just turn on the power, and keep going until it curdles up. Just takes a few minutes. Carefully, with a spatula, press out as much whey as you can, drain it off, and then add some cold water with an equal amount of ice to the curds and whirl again. Press out the water again with your spatula, and drain --keep going until it's all butter, and with the spatula, stir in a pinch or to of finely ground salt if you want salted butter. Go get some bread and eat. Don't share, it's that good.

ToFaux Mayonnaise: Light, Vegan & Tasty

In my last lifetime, a just few members of my household were vegetarian. The rest were firmly entrenched in the carnivore camp. Generally it worked out fine, as there are a lot vegetarian dishes that the carnivores were happy to eat --like vegetarian chili, spinach lasagna, or felafel. And luckily for me, the chief cook and bottle-washer, there were no vegans --not that I couldn't have accommodated them, but omitting dairy, eggs and cheese would have made it so much harder to please the whole family. Back in the 1990's, there weren't so many vegan or  even vegetarian choices in the market. No overhead signs pointing to a plethora of frozen vegetarian choices in the freezer case. Because there weren't any, except for a few sad veggie burgers.

Every now and again, though, a couple of American friends, Dale and Sue, who lived most of the year in an ashram would come home to visit family and friends. Vegans. One year they came at the height of garden tomato season, and we were wallowing in tomato sandwiches... some of us with bacon, some with cheese, all slathered in homemade mayonnaise. Rich with eggs and olive oil. Hoo boy.  Since I had already been pureeing tofu into things to sub for cream to save a few calories, I figured, why not try pureeing it, and seasoning it the way I would my homemade mayo? It worked, and beautifully. Tomato sandwiches with grilled onions and Tofaux mayonnaise with basil. A hit!

It's a wonderful vegan substitute for traditional mayonnaise, except where you need the egg to thicken, because while tofu does emulsify a bit, it's not the same as a regular old chicken egg. Also grain free and gluten free, and if you cut the oil back to a couple of teaspoons, very low in calories. Great if you are allergic to eggs. Otherwise, its good in egg salad, chicken salad, tuna salad and in dressings, too. It's also MUCH cheaper than the vegetarian/vegan mayonnaises in the store.

Note: This is really delicious with fresh herbs, like basil, chives or tarragon added, or a smidge of crushed garlic. Just be aware that adding any fresh, raw ingredients will greatly shorten the time it will keep in the fridge. My solution is to add the herbs to just what I'm using for each meal. My prefernce is for safflower oil, olive oil has an assertive flavor, which depending on how you want to use it, may be great or not so wonderful. If you choose canola oil, please only buy organic. Regular canola is made from genetically modified seed.

Tofaux Mayonnaise.
Vegan, egg free, dairy free, gluten free, delish.

ToFaux Mayonnaise

Approx. 12 servings 

Ingredients:

1 (12.3 oz) block extra firm or firm silken lite tofu 

1 T. Dijon mustard 

1 T. lemon juice 

1/2 tsp. salt 

1 tsp. Sugar or sweetener of choice  

2 T.- 4T.  Safflower, organic Canola or extra virgin olive oil 

Instructions:

1. Place tofu, mustard, lemon juice and salt in a food processor or blender. 

2. Blend or process until smooth. 

3. Drizzle in oil with motor running. 

Keeps about 2 weeks refrigerated. 

Burger Night: A Not So Secret Sauce

My husband loves hamburgers. LOVES hamburgers. So much that every Tuesday night is Burger Night at our house. This is true. I love them too, but don't feel the necessity of having them on a regular day. I think I actually like the toppings as much as the burger. Maybe more. Cheese, onions and bacon...wonderful, sautéed mushrooms ups the yum factor even more.  If you are a purist, then its just ketchup, if you are a little odd or from another planet or country, mustard. For me, ketchup is good, but a sauce with mayo in it is the best.

If you grew up eating burgers at various venues in your neighborhood, the chances are, one of them had a sauce on it that you really, really liked. I know I did, and it was at a local chain called Gino's which disappeared for a while but now is back or rather reinvented in a more updated upscale version. Chuck and I grabbed lunch at the Gino's in King of Prussia, and the sauce tasted just the same as I remembered. Delicious. I have my own sauce I like to make that raises the bar on our homemade burgers, and while it is mayonnaise-based, it's not actually a copy of a fast food sauce. It's more of a grown-up, revved up version. It's equally good on beef, turkey, seafood or vegetarian burgers, even on a grilled portobello. And don't forget grilled chicken or fish filet. Schmear it on everything! French fries...chips... Actually, I could probably eat packing peanuts with this stuff on it...well maybe not, but almost. My burger is waiting.

I'm starving, so this is the best picture you'll get tonight.
Sorry, I'm not sharing anything but the recipe.

The Not So Secret Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 cup mayonnaise (homemade or commercial)
2T ketchup (homemade or commercial)
2 tsp. anchovy paste
1 small garlic clove, minced or pressed
3 T grated or finely minced onion
1 teas. hot pepper sauce ( homemade, Cholula, or what you have...)
2 tsp. honey or 1T of sugar or spoonable sugar substitute
(2 tsp. capers or dill pickles minced)
2T minced roasted red bell pepper
salt and pepper to taste


Instructions:

Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl. Refrigerate for at least two hours or up to 1 day before serving.

The Freezer from Hell Returns: Use It Up Quick Pickles

I have been accused of not having any actual, ready to eat food in my fridge or freezer. Just ingredients. That's pretty close to right. Ingredients, and spur-of-the-moment purchases. Upon inspection on Saturday morning, I found that my basement freezer looked like a wall of food. There was a jigsaw puzzle around a few years back, of an open fridge door showing the crammed-in contents. I think the fridge model for that shot is in my basement.

So far this week has yielded a few odds and ends that I would normally just toss in the freezer, but this past summer it seems to have made that impossible. There is no choice but to cook and eat from the freezer and fridge for a few weeks to make room for inevitable stash of holiday foods that'll start to appear. This is a mini lesson in making do. Use what you have.

Today's lasagna started with 3 big bags of frozen plum tomatoes. From last summer. You can freeze them whole if you are short on time, and if you rinse the still-frozen tomatoes in warm water, the skins practically fall off. Problem is that when you freeze them this way, they take up a lot of valuable freezer real estate. So into a pot they went. There was also a bag of plain Ikea meatballs, bought in June during a fit of nostalgia. And a lost, vacuum sealed bag of swiss chard from 2011. Also a package of Wegmans whole wheat fresh lasagna sheets. Popped into the freezer God knows when. With garlic and basil from the garden, and a long, all day cook, the meatballs and tomatoes made a great base for our lasagna tonight. I only had 1 container of ricotta, so I mixed in a container of cottage cheese, some Romano and garlic, and the chard, thawed and well squeezed out and ...we had a really tasty lasagna for dinner.

There is no recipe for this, but I didn't have to visit any kind of store for ingredients. There is always cheese in my refrigerator, more than there should be. But I have substituted crumbled tofu for ricotta on occasion, or left it out entirely, and made a thick, cheesy béchamel to layer with meat and sauce. Think out of the recipe box every now and then, and using what's there is a good exercise. There are a few homemade pie shells in there, and that chard could have been combined with the cottage cheese, some eggs, milk and bacon for a quiche-like filling for one of those shells. Or a few of those frozen pork chops could have made it into the sauce.

On Friday, I showed you the lovely and killer hot sauce I made from fermenting a batch of red, ripe jalapeño peppers. I nearly choked my boss, Matt, but he's the one who insisted on tasting it straight. Sorry.  Hahaha! Anyway, Remember I told you to keep the leftover brine that didn't get used up in the sauce? It's salty and hot, and the perfect thing to use to make a quick pickle. It's also taking up space in the fridge. You'll also need some cider vinegar, some honey, and some hard vegetables. I had carrots and turnips leftover from that pot roast we made together last weekend, so those got cut into appropriate pieces, including one slice of turnip, about 1/4" thick, and larger than the mouth of the jar. Pack a clean quart canning jar with your vegetables. You can use whatever you like--green beans, onions, cukes, daikon... but use some carrot, since the sweet carrot is a great foil for the hot and salty brine. Obviously this is vegetarian, gluten free and grain free.

Take the big piece of turnip or carrot and wedge it into the shoulders of the jar so it will hold all the other vegetables under the liquid. Pour in the leftover hot pepper brine, add 2T of honey, and fill the jar to the top with cider vinegar. If you have a lot of brine, then just fill the jar 3/4 of the way with the brine and top it up with the vinegar. Let it sit at room temp for about 12 hours, and then chill. In 3 days or so, the most wonderful pickles, from leftovers.

Quick Pickle with Leftover Fermenting Brine

Look Ma, No Added Sugar: Mild Chile-Lime BBQ Sauce

This Chile-Lime BBQ Sauce is good on anything. Really.

Until recently, the house pulled pork wasn’t traditional BBQ. It was really a delicious pork shoulder, braised in BBQ sauce until it fell apart. Good, but in my book, not the real thing. I had made quite a few in my BBQ pit prior to marrying Chuck. But a smoky shoulder, unadorned, wasn't his favorite.  So I just stuck to my briskets, turkey breasts, bacon, ribs and chickens and left the pork shoulder with Chuck, in the house, in the oven, simmering away under a blanket of BBQ sauce. I prefer the long-smoked kind because it features the smoked pork as the main flavor, with the BBQ sauce as a condiment. With the braised kind, it depends totally on how good the sauce is; the pork itself is only secondary.

So, imagine my surprise, when he says he wants to make a pork shoulder in the Big Green Egg. I was so happy I’d have run to the store, barefoot, to buy one. It’s been cooking all day, at a nice solid 250ºF. Not one refill of charcoal needed, in the Egg, either. Totally amazing. I’d have been practically chained to the old pit for a long cook like this to keep it steadily fueled. 

Today I ran  errands, did some pickling, and even made a really good, naturally sugar-free BBQ sauce to have with our real pulled pork sandwiches tonight. 
BBQ sauce is a condiment;  but when you use a lot of it, it becomes for some people, a food group, like vegetables. That’s all well and good, if, like ketchup, it wasn’t full of sugar, or worse, high fructose corn syrup. Plus, they are usually so darn syrupy sweet. I've fixed all that in this recipe though. While I made this intending it to be used on a BBQ'd pulled pork sandwich, its perfect as the braising sauce for pork, too. 

Mild Chile-Lime is a spunky sauce. Not so much heat, though as spunk; kids like it too. There is enough here to braise a pork shoulder (or chops, chicken, etc.)This one isn’t loaded with chiles, but it has a little spice, and a decent punch of lime. It also has natural erythritol and stevia as the sweetener, and a single tablespoon of blackstrap molasses in it for the deep, rich, brown sugar flavor. It’s lower in carbs, diabetic friendly, as a condiment and if you use an anchovy-free Worcestershire sauce, it’ll be vegetarian, too. This recipe makes a lot, about 3-1/2 cups, enough to serve with a whole pulled BBQ pork shoulder. I can, and have eaten this Mild Chile-Lime BBQ sauce with a spoon. It’s that good.

Note: You can substitute 1/2 cup plus 2 teaspoons of Spoonable Truvia or Z-Sweet for the erythritol and stevia. Add the optional jalapeño, if you like a serious tingle in you BBQ sauce.

Mild Chile-Lime BBQ Sauce (No Added Sugar)

Ingredients:

1 29 oz. can tomato puree
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1T blackstrap molasses
1/2 cup granular erythritol
1/8 tsp. powdered stevia extract
1 tsp. garlic powder
3T minced dried onions
2 T prepared yellow mustard
1T Worcestershire sauce
2T mild chili powder
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
pinch of ground cloves
2 tsp. Cholula chile sauce
1 tsp. ancho chile powder
1 lime, halved
Optional: 1 small red jalapeño, left whole

Instructions:

In a large saucepan, whisk everything through the ancho chile powder together until well blended.  Squeeze in the lime juice, and drop in the two halves. Add the jalapeño, if using. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and then lower to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally until the sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon, about  20 minutes. Cover and turn the heat to the lowest possible temperature and let set on the heat for another 15 minutes. remove and discard the lime halves and jalapeño before serving. Makes a scant quart.