Texas-Style Queso

The past few days, I've been quarrantined at home with the worst cold I've had in years - mainly because I actually haven't even gotten sick in almost 2 years. I knew once it happened it would knock me flat.

So when Josh asked for a "savory snack," my comfort food cravings immediately turned to thoughts of cheese. I whipped it up in minutes, but that's not to say it hadn't taken me several attempts over a few years to get it right the first time. I refused to use Velveeta. Heavy cream just made more of a macaroni and cheese-type sauce. One day I spotted the oft-ignored can of evaporated milk that had been hiding in the pantry since who knows when, and thought I'd give it a shot.

The secret all aloig was the evaporated milk. Who'd have guessed?

You will need:

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 teaspoons flour
1 tablespoon (or more, depending on taste) chopped green chiles
1 tablespoon chopped jalapeno pepper (seeded if desired)
2 tablespoons chopped white onions
1 small Roma tomato, seeded and chopped
6 ounces evaporated milk
4 ounces cheddar and/or Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
1 teaspoon chopped cilantro
Dash ground cumin
Dash cayenne pepper
Hot sauce to taste
Salt to taste

In a small saucepan, heat vegetable oil over medium-low heat. Once oil is shimmering, add chiles, jalapenos, cilantro and onions, and heat until soft but not browned. Whisk in flour to make a light roux, then pour in evaporated milk. Heat until bubbling, then remove from heat and stir in cheese. Add chopped tomatoes, cumin, cayenne pepper, hot sauce and salt. Serve immediately.

May Daring Cooks Challenge: Gumbo

As a (nearly) life long Southerner, I was ashamed to admit that I am certainly not a gumbo conoisseur, either in tasting or cooking. My roux could have cooked longer (I've heard stories of cooks standing over their roux for an hour plus), I used frozen okra (did you know that "gumbo" means "okra"?), and I did not serve my gumbo with rice, but corn bread. However, Josh brought the large crock pot full of gumbo to a work function the following morning and by the end of the day, the crock pot bowl was quite literally scraped clean.

Our May hostess, Denise of There’s a Newf in My Soup!, challenged The Daring Cooks to make Gumbo! She provided us with all the recipes we’d need from creole spices, homemade stock and Louisiana white rice, to Drew’s Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo and Seafood Gumbo from My New Orleans: The Cookbook, by John Besh.

You will need:

1 cup (240 ml) (230 gm) rendered chicken fat, duck fat, or canola oil

1 cup (240 ml) (140 gm) (5 oz) flour
2 large onions, diced
1 chicken (3 ½ to 4 lbs.), cut into 10 pieces
2 tablespoons (30 ml) (15 gm) (½ oz) store-bought Creole spice blend
2 pounds (2 kilograms) spicy smoked sausage, sliced ½ inch (15mm) thick
2 stalks celery, diced
2 green bell peppers (capsicum), seeded and diced
1 tomato, seeded and chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
Leaves from 2 sprigs of fresh thyme
3 quarts (3 liters) Basic Chicken Stock (recipe follows), or canned chicken stock
2 bay leaves
6 ounces (175 gm) andouille sausage, chopped
2 cups (480 ml) (320 gm) (11 oz) sliced fresh okra, ½ -inch (15mm) thick slices (or frozen, if fresh is not available)
1 tablespoon (15 ml) Worcestershire sauce
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Tabasco, to taste

Season the chicken pieces with about 2 tablespoons of the Creole Spices while you prepare the vegetables.

Make sure all of your vegetables are cut, diced, chopped, minced and ready to go before beginning the roux. You must stand at the stove and stir the roux continuously to prevent it from burning.

In a large cast-iron or heavy-bottomed pan, heat the chicken fat, duck fat, or canola oil over high heat. Whisk the flour into the hot oil – it will start to sizzle. Reduce the heat to moderate, and continue whisking until the roux becomes deep brown in color, about 15 minutes.

Add the onions. Switch to a wooden spoon and stir the onions into the roux. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Continue stirring until the roux becomes a glossy dark brown, about 10 minutes.

Add the chicken to the pot; raise the heat to moderate, and cook, turning the pieces until slightly browned, about 10 minutes.

Add the sliced smoked sausage and stir for about a minute.

Add the celery, bell peppers, tomato, and garlic, and continue stirring for about 3 minutes.

Add the thyme, chicken stock, and bay leaves. Bring the gumbo to a boil, stirring occasionally.

Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, skimming off the fat from the surface of the gumbo every so often.

Add the chopped andouille, okra, and Worcestershire. Season with salt and pepper and Tabasco, all to taste.

Simmer for another 45 minutes, continuing to skim the fat from the surface of the gumbo. Remove the bay leaves and serve in bowls over rice.

Challenge post here.

Spicy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Man, has it been dull around here lately.

Not that there hasn't been plenty to do - birthday parties, Predators games, lunch dates and deadlines continue to punctuate everyday life - but dinner? It's not been much to write about. In fact, it's been downright sad.

For the last week and a half, Josh has been on a fruit and vegetable detox which allows minimal protein and no sugar (I say Josh has been on the detox, but I have been too - only I lasted 6 days and he's still trucking along). The cravings for so many bad things I never typically want were overwhelming and I had to get back to my normal way of eating. So here we are out of the gate with good, old fashioned chocolate chip cookies - only these cookies aren't as classic as they appear. Along with chocolate chips, they are studded with chopped sweet and spicy pecans from Trader Joe's and kicked up by cayenne and cinnamon in the batter.

The detox helped me lose 5 pounds, but these cookies helped me to feel normal again.

You will need:
 
2 sticks unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups bread flour
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup Trader Joe's sweet and spicy pecans, coarsely chopped

Melt butter, waching closely, until it begins to brown. Do not allow to burn! Add to mixing bowl. In another bowl combine flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and cayenne.

Add sugars to mixing bowl with butter. Cream butter and sugar on medium speed. While mixing on medium speed, add eggs, milk, and vanilla. Slowly add in flour until well incorporated.

Stir in chocolate chips and pecans with a wooden spoon.

Chill dough for at least 24 hours, up to 36 (trust me on this one).

The next day, preheat oven to 375° F. Grease your cookie sheets or line them with parchment paper. Place cookies about an inch apart on baking sheets, and bake each sheet 8-12 minutes or until golden and puffy.

Adapted from Alton Brown's "The Chewy."

Spicy Grouper Sandwiches and my Blog-o-versary!

Today marks one full year of blogging for me. In the last year, I have improved my writing skills (tremendously), my photography skills (slightly), made new friends, and pushed myself into sharing my kitchen stories both of triumph and of failure with the public. I've shared recipes and picked up new tricks and hints along the way, and I'm so happy to look back on the past year and wonder with excitement where things will go from here. I am making a point to blog more often, to find something special in everything I cook and share it with you. Until I have a new camera/a better lit kitchen, I ask you to bear with me when the pictures are less than gorgeous!

Just...thank you, thank you for sticking around for the last year.

On to the recipe! I was without dinner ideas tonight, so after an early dismissal from work (snow leaves Nashville debilitated), I slowly perused the grocery store waiting for the proverbial light bulb to go off. It happened at the fish counter - fresh grouper? Grouper sandwiches? Yes please!

I'm avoiding excessive calories/fried foods lately, so I simply sprinkled on a little panko for crunch before baking the fillets, and didn't miss the fry factor at all. Served up with a little lime-cilantro tartar sauce, and this was a quick, warming dinner for two on a snowy evening.

You will need:

2 grouper fillets
Cajun seasoning (I used Zatarain's)
2 tablespoons Panko bread crumbs
Rolls of your choice
Sliced tomatoes, red onions, lettuce - toppings of your choice

For the cilantro tartar sauce, you will need:

2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
1 green onion, chopped, white and light green parts only
1 clove garlic, grated
Zest of half a small lime
Juice of half a small lime
Pinch salt and pepper

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Season the fish with cajun seasoning, then sprinkle with a small amount of Panko on each side. Spray a roasting rack with nonstick cooking spray and place fish on rack. Cook without flipping 5 minutes, then turn on the broiler. Broil until Panko starts toasting, about a minute, before flipping and toasting Panko on the opposite side.

Combine all tartar sauce ingredients in a small bowl. To assemble sandwiches, spread tartar sauce on buns, add toppings and fish.

Jalapeno Hummus and Classic Hummus

Lord. Yeesh. This is some spicy stuff.

You'd think I'd have guessed that, given that Josh found the recipe on jalapenomadness.com, but it seemed like a good recipe for our first attempt at homemade hummus. After all, we both like spicy food.

No. This stuff was off the charts, dangerously close to "not even tasty" territory... after a few dips, I was just not enjoying it anymore.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, because the bones were there - it was creamy and certainly had that distinct hummus taste, so it was more or less a success. If you're into that crazy-spicy hummus sort of thing, then try out the original recipe. If not, I'm listing my omissions and adaptations right off the bat to turn the jalapeno hummus into the more classic hummus, with only a hint of garlic flavor and a lot less like a punch to the mouth.

In order of importance:

• Zero jalapenos. Adding a third of a cup of pickled/jarred jalapenos, as the recipe calls for, is insanity.
• No curry powder. I believe it was the turmeric in the curry I used that transformed my hummus into mustardy, nuclear hummus. Ick.
• Not 3, but 2 cloves of garlic. Next time, I'll roast them first.
• No crushed red pepper.
• Add about 1/2 a tablespoon of olive oil to the food processor at the end.
• Maybe a teeny tiny touch of salt at the end as well.

Anyway, here's the original.

You will need:

1 cup garbanzo beans (chick peas), drained and rinsed

1/3 cup canned jalapeno pepper slices
3 tablespoons tahini
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
Crushed red pepper to taste

In a blender or food processor, mix the garbanzo beans, jalapeno peppers, tahini, garlic, and lemon juice. Season with cumin, curry powder, and crushed red pepper. Blend until smooth.

Drunken Citrus Chicken

Sticking to the rules of marinating (acid/oil/herbs), these skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs bathe in silver tequila (100% agave is always preferred), Meyer lemon juice, orange juice, lime juice, cilantro, jalapenos and green onions for 2-4 hours before cooking entirely under the broiler. Don't fear the broiler!


You will need:

4 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
Cayenne pepper
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Lime juice - the equivalent of two fresh-squeezed limes (about 3 tablespoons)
Juice of two Meyer lemons (if available - optional)
1/4 cup orange juice
Three green onions, white and light green parts only, chopped
2 jalapenos, roughly chopped, seeds and ribs intact
Handful cilantro
1 cup tequila (any kind)

Rinse chicken and pat dry. Season liberally with salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, garlic powder and onion powder. Set aside in a medium-sized bowl.

In another bowl, combine tequila, citrus juices, green onions, jalapenos, cilantro and citrus rinds. Add a pinch of salt and pour over the chicken. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2-4 hours, or overnight if possible. Remove the citrus rinds, cilantro and jalapenos before cooking!

Cover the bottom of a roasting pan with aluminum foil and place a roasting rack in the pan. Spray the rack and the bottom of the pan with cooking spray. Adjust the top rack of your oven to approximately 8 inches from the broiler; set broiler to low if possible. Keeping the door of the oven partially ajar, broil chicken thighs until they start to crisp, about 3 minutes. Flip and broil the other side until crispy, about another 3 minutes. Continue flipping chicken every 3-4 minutes, basting on occasion with leftover marinade, until an instant-read thermometer reads 165-170 degrees.

I set my smoke detector off approximately 87 times throughout the broiling and flipping process, but again, please don't fear the broiler! It's a misconception that food won't cook properly if cooked under the broiler, as it basically emulates an outdoor grill. As long as your chicken is far enough away from the broiler, and you pay close enough attention to the chicken as it's broiling, you can obtain a crispy (but not burnt) skin and fully-cooked meat. Crispy skin, juicy meat...what's so frightening?

Smoky-Spicy Beer-Cheese-Sausage Soup

Josh and I spent 21 hours in Chattanooga last Friday/Saturday. It was a whirlwind trip of good people, great sightseeing, and suffice it to say, phenomenal food. I certainly wouldn't have guessed that Chattanooga was such a foodie destination, but the numerous local/organic/sustainable restaurants and grocery stores prove otherwise. I’ll have a list of recommendations at the end of this post if you ever find yourself in Chattanooga.

My first and most heartily-recommended spot would be the Terminal Brewhouse, on 14th street (next to the Choo-Choo Hotel), the inspiration from which today’s recipe comes. When we find ourselves out of town, we generally try to order whatever appears to be the most special item on the menu, judging by clues in the item’s description or title (look for words such as “house-made” or “best-seller” in the description). Josh landed on a mind-blowing soup entitled simply, “The Soup.”

“The Soup” is your traditional beer-cheese soup, kicked up with the addition of smoked Polish sausage, chipotles and jalapenos. It was creamy, smoky and too spicy, but otherwise perfect. I had to know the secret…I had to have it in my kitchen. I’d say we got pretty darn close, if not dead-on aside from a significant decrease in spice.

You will need:

1 pound smoked sausage, preferably Kielbasa, chopped
1 large onion, diced finely
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 stalks celery, diced finely
1 medium jalapeno, diced finely
2 small chipotle peppers, canned in adobo sauce (I rinsed the sauce off to control the heat), chopped
2 12-ounce bottles dark beer (I used a combination of Porter and Bock - both Michelob)
2 ½ cups chicken broth
1 ½ cups plus 3 tablespoons heavy cream, divided
1 8-ounce block sharp cheddar cheese, grated
Salt to taste
Black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon corn starch

Heat a large heavy-bottomed pot and add chopped sausage. Cook until sausage starts to brown and remove to a plate; reserve grease.

Add onions, garlic, jalapeno, chipotle and celery to pot and cook in sausage grease until soft. Add the sausage back to the pot, and stir to combine over medium heat.

Pour in one bottle of beer (I started with the Bock, but I can’t imagine it makes much of a difference what goes in first). Allow to simmer for 5-7 minutes, until the liquid reduces slightly as the alcohol cooks out. Stir and add chicken broth and salt. Simmer again for 10 minutes until the liquid reduces a little more. Reduce heat and add another bottle of beer (in my case it was the Porter). Simmer for a few moments and adjust seasonings again before turning heat to low and adding 1½ cups heavy cream. Simmer the soup for a good 20 minutes after adding the cream.

In a small bowl, add 3 tablespoons cream to one tablespoon of corn starch, and mix until a smooth slurry forms. Pour into soup and stir.

Once the vegetables are softened, the broth thickened, the alcohol cooked out and the soup is a uniform creaminess (you will know when there’s very little orange grease floating on top of the soup), turn off the heat and move the pot to a cool burner. Add the cheese and stir until melted (do not add cheese over a hot burner; cheddar gets gritty). Serve immediately.

Chattanooga Recommendations:

The Terminal Brewhouse
Aretha Frankenstein's - home to one of the best biscuits I've ever had.
Rembrandt's Coffee Shop - try the chocolate cappuccino cup, Italian soda and sweet tea.
Bluff View Bakery - I couldn't help but deviate from Atkins for this one. Asiago Cheese Boule. Oy.

Sweet and Spicy Award-Wining Chili

With swimsuit season looming, and butterscotch blondies in my not so distant past, I have delved hardcore back into Atkins. I feel good, but I'm not on a mission to make this into a low-carb blog, so I've decided against posting the majority of what I've cooked this week. The only exception would be the unBELIEVABLE German Chocolate cake we baked for Josh's mom's birthday, of which I totally forgot to take pictures. Guess that means I'll just have to make it again someday soon...5 pounds from now.

Anyway, tonight's meal was an honest-to-goodness award winning Sweet and Spicy Chili. Really. It won my family's annual chili cookoff award last Christmas. Say what you want, but that was some pretty steep competition. I'd never felt simultaneously bummed and satisfied in one moment until I saw my brother's face after it was annouced I beat him by precisely one vote.

That was my trophy, by the way. Rather appropriate for a chili cookoff, wouldn't you say?

I wish I could remember where the original recipe came from, but whoever dreamed it up is a genius. The flavors in this chili are out of this world, but of course the trick here is to let the chili cook long and slow to allow all the different flavors to meld. What's even more amazing is that even as they combine, you can just barely pick out everything individually: coffee, brown sugar and dark porter beer (Guinness is preferred) are unexpected but oh so welcome.

It's a good thing this stuff freezes so well, because it makes more than we could ever hope to eat in a week. I've already eaten it three times since Monday night.

You will need:

2 tbsp. vegetable oil
16 oz. coarse ground beef
12 oz. sirloin (prime grade is best), cubed into 1/4 in. chunks
1 large yellow onion, chopped into 1/4 in. dice
1 shallot, diced finely
4 cloves finely chopped garlic
1 red bell pepper, diced 1/4 in.
1 green bell pepper, diced 1/4 in.
3 jalapeno peppers, chopped with seeds and ribs intact
1 1/2 cups tomato paste (2 6-ounce cans)
1 1/2 tsp. fine-ground instant espresso
Scant 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
3 tbsp. chili powder
1 tbsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. ground cayenne
1/4 tsp. paprika
2 tsp. salt (may find you need more - I kept it to about 3 1/2 teaspoons)
3 15 oz. cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed
2 cups beef stock
1 28 oz. can peeled plum tomatoes, chopped (drained)
12 oz. dark beer (Guinness recommended)

Heat oil in a large heavy-bottomed stock pot over medium heat. Add onion, shallot, garlic, red and green bell peppers and jalapeno peppers and saute for 5 minutes until vegetables are translucent.

In the meantime, heat a separate skillet and cook ground beef and sirloin until no longer pink. Drain excess fat and add beef to vegetables. Stir to combine. Sautee for a couple of minutes, then add tomato paste, espresso, sugar and all seasonings, including salt.

After 10 minutes, add beans, stock, tomatoes and beer. Stir well and reduce heat to medium-low; simmer for about an hour.

This is not traditional chili, nor is it Texas chili (my apologies to my homeland). It is, however, very unique and a must-try for the foodies out there. You can still serve it up traditionally with sour cream, cheese and green onions, and cornbread crackers if you can get your hands on them. If you try this one, please report back!

Shrimp with Black Pepper and Sesame Chili Oil

Simple. Spicy. Inexpensive.

These are some of my favorite adjectives when discussing food. This recipe is the epitome of all three, plus delcious and very satisfying. I use frozen, pre-cooked, tail-on fish, which work quite well, but I'm sure the deliciousness could be cranked up by replacing with raw jumbo or tiger shrimp. Using cooked shrimp saves money (mine were less than $4 a bag at Aldi), and though shrimp are quick cookers anyway, saves time. Cooked shrimp will produce nice grill marks in less than 30 seconds on a hot grill.

A note about sesame chili oil

Josh and I stopped in at the Asian market on the way home from work last night. What a find! Between frozen fish and fresh herbs, not to mention, of course, the rows and rows of spices and sauces, I'll be changing the way I shop for groceries from here on in. Very surprisingly though, I couldn't find sesame chili oil (surprising as I have easily found it in the past at Target), so I bought both chili oil and sesame oil, figuring I could just mix them in an empty bottle one to one. I poured the chili oil over the shrimp without tasting it first, and as an afterthought poured a little on my finger for a taste.

It was the taste of pure evil.

My eyes watered as my tongue burst into flames, and I flailed frantically around the kitchen for something to squelch the heat. Luckily my side dish for the evening called for fresh bread crumbs, so I had a slice of bread within easy reach. I digress. The point is, I had to add sesame oil to the shrimp I'd already splashed with chili oil, hoping the whole time that it wouldn't turn out too oily. There was just no way I could serve it undiluted.

Bottling my own chili sesame oil, I wound up using a two to one mixture in favor of sesame oil. Pure Asian chili oil is simply too hot for a one to one ratio with sesame oil. Trust me.

On with the recipe! You will need:

Bamboo or metal skewers for grilling
One bag frozen cooked/raw shrimp, thawed, or one pound raw shrimp from the seafood counter (about 25 count), peeled and deveined
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons black pepper
3 tablespoons chili sesame oil (bottled, or mixed at home as previously mentioned)
1 tsp lime zest or lime juice, optional

Soak skewers in water while preparing if using wooden skewers, to prevent scorching on the grill.

Place shrimp in a mixing bowl. Toss with garlic, salt and pepper. If using cooked shrimp, taste one to check seasonings and adjust as per your preference. Toss with oil, add lime zest or juice if using, and set in the refrigerator to marinate for 30 minutes to an hour. No worries if you don't have time to marinate; it will still be plenty flavorful.

Thread 4-5 shrimp on a skewer and cook on a preheated grill for 30-45 seconds per side for cooked shrimp, or for 1-2 minutes for raw shrimp.