You say toMAYto, I say toMAHto

I think our friend, Traci, over at Mischief & Mayhem had her first fresh garden tomato over a week or two ago (she's in Seattle). I was so jealous but now it seems to be our turn. FINALLY!! Our big, fat green tomatoes are now turning into big, fat RED TOMATOES!! YAY! I am so excited because I am so not a very patient person. I want instant gratification, I want it now and I usually want it covered in chocolate! But the anticipation for these delicious, red bulbs of goodness made the wait all worthwhile. (hey, isn't there a song about that?)

J made us over sized BLTs for dinner tonight and cut huge slabs of this tomato on the left.

The flavor was just divine!!

These are Super Fantastics

These are our Heartlands. They'll be ready tomorrow.

Another Super Fantastic waiting to be plucked!

We have a bucketful of fresh basil so tomorrow I will make caprese salad for dinner and this weekend I will make fresh red sauce for spaghetti! Yum! We will have tomatoes coming our our ears! We also have groves of cherry tomato plants that we are having a hard time keeping up with harvesting! Most likely we will make salsa like we did last fall. We made so much that we still have a few jars left!

Ahhhh, the tomato. . .the gift that keeps on giving!

Bountiful Harvest

We went through the garden today after work and got quite a payload for dinner tonight. J made a fabulous dinner of steak Gorgonzola that rivaled any restaurant entree I've ordered. He also whipped up ratatouille of our own garden harvested zukes, onions and chili peppers and added a store bought tomato (ours aren't ripe yet). The fingerling potatoes were to DIE for and melted in our mouths. J slightly boiled then pan fried whole with a tiny bit of butter & salt. Wow. Superb!

There is something to be said about growing and eating your own food that makes it taste so much better!! Also something to be said about a spouse who is great at cooking said food we "growed"! Thank you, Honey! You are such an awesome chef! SMOOOOOOOCH!

A Valentine’s Day Crème Brûlée

Hey! That rhymes! Right on!

Valentine’s Day night was a perfect evening at home. J planned to prepare us a lovely surf -n- turf dinner. Fillet mignon and crab legs. Yum! Additionally, a few days ago we purchased all the ingredients for crème brûlée, but J had not got around to making it. On Valentine’s Day around 4 p.m. I got a wild hair and decided to take a crack at making the delectable dish myself. Yeah, that’s right, me “K”, the one who can’t cook to save her life! Well, guess what folks, *I* made it all by myself. No help from J except to eat it!

I must say that my expectations of successfully making the dish were extremely low. I mean, I’ve always believed crème brûlée was difficult to make. I don’t know why . . .maybe because the name of the dish sounds so upper crust and regal. Maybe because all my favorite chefs on the food network serve it in their 5-star restaurants. Or maybe my low expectations were just the accumulative result of still developing my confidence in the kitchen. Who knows why. What I’m saying right now is that crème brûlée was 10 times easier to make than I thought, that’s for sure. Too easy to be true actually. With only four simple ingredients - egg yolks, heavy whipping cream, sugar & vanilla – surely, the magic of crème brûlée HAD to be in the preparation. Surely*I* did not boast the talent to make this mystical dessert.

Yet, what I made was legendary! Legendary, I tell you!

No joke! I am somewhat of a crème brûlée connoisseur. I have tasted crème brûlée all over the U.S. in my various business travels and while living in a big city. I’ve had the creamy concoction in Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, Chicago, Washington D.C., Dallas, Houston, Orlando and even Cincinnati. I've had the dish in 4 and 5 star restaurants as well as in small mom&pop eateries. I can tell the difference between good brûlée and sucky brûlée. I am happy to report that, with my extensive experience in eating it, my first crème brûlée was not sucky at all! WOW! The texture and taste were both spot on! My dish rivaled that of my favorite crème brûlées made at The Brown Palace & at Le Central both located down in Denver. I was flabergasted to say the least.

Here are some pictures and a short film documenting the sugar carmelization process (the brûlée part) Oooooh, yeah, I used a TORCH!!! Yay! Fun! Harnessing the power of haracka (fire, fire, fire)!

Before:

Brûlée-ing

The finished product:

Next time I will get more adventurous and use vanilla bean instead of vanilla extract.

Ooooo, I can’t wait!

(This post is dedicated to my friend, Hollywood, a fellow lover of fine crème brûlée)

Attack of the Monster Omlette

Anyone who knows me knows my strengths are not in the kitchen. I have been slowly improving my cooking skills, expanding my recipe repertoire and honing my prep skillz (chopping, peeling, grating, etc). If I focus, I can make a fairly tasty dish now. My main problem is figuring out size, amount or per person quantities. While burning food seems to be a problem of the past, cooking for two is my new obstacle.

Here is the evidence. This morning I made J and myself this mammoth omlette that could have fed a family of 12:The innards consisted of an ostrich egg (not really 5 chicken eggs), the entire left-side of a pig, a small cheese factory and half of the produce section of Safeway.

Here are the potatoes for eight that was served along side:

Not shown is the toast which could've served 4 people. We ate breakfast at 9:30 a.m. It's 6:00 p.m. and I am still full.

Been Caught Pimpin'

One of our favorite Websites is Pimp That Snack the premise of which is quite simple: readers of the site, if they choose to complete a mission, can make, photograph, document and submit a super-sized version of their favorite snack. Go poke around the site for awhile, it’s tres cool.

J decided he wanted to pimp a Rice Krispies Treat. Original pictured here: There are many versions of this tasty snack on the Pimp site, but J insisted on doing his own version. Since the hospital cafeteria makes the snack everyday anyway to cut up in individual pieces to sell; J thought that pimping this snack not only would be fun, but would be very practical for work. Now that’s thinking!!

To start this Pimp-event, first, start with the ingredients. Of course, the items must be more than quadrupled in amount for the pimp-o-fied version.

3 - 96-oz bags of Rice Krispies cereal
2 - 1 lb portions of margarine
6 - 1 lb bags of marshmallows

Swimming in a sea of cereal :
Melt the marshmallows & margarine in a gigantic vat:
Mix the two thoroughly:
Mold and voila! A pimped out, tricked out version of an old favorite for one very gigantic person or lots of regular sized people.

Dimensions: 2 feet long, 16 inches wide, 4 inches thick.

The end.

Salsa Lessons

Ha! I bet you thought there would be some footage of J and me fumbling all over each other at some community college dance class, huh? Well not here, no way! This is all about the luscious, fresh red food when we're talking SALSA here on JAKL.

Last weekend, J, being the multi-talented person in the kitchen that he is, decided he wanted to make homemade salsa for our pantry so we didn't have to buy it all winter. Fine with me. I consider chips & salsa to be a food group all it's own alone capable of sustaining life for years. The fact is scientifically proven -- just ask any college student or single person living in a big city -- they can live off this for 4 years minimum.

Today will be YOUR salsa lesson! Lucky YOU! And like with the dance, your lesson will be taught to you step-by-step. Pictures included so you know just what to do and where to go (wink, wink) without steppin' on anyone's toes.

So to start this lesson off, first sautee onions & garlic then add chopped fresh tomatoes and cilantro to a big vat:

Next, put some jalapenos in a food processor to chop 'em up into itty, bitty pieces:

Add the jalapenos to pot as well as some water. We put in the remaining Spicy V-8 left over in the fridge from the cioppino. Very resourceful are we. Also, add the lemon or lime juice and vinegar essential for canning tomatoes. Let the then pot simmer. . .

Simmer some more. . .

Add fun extra stuff like black beans & corn! Don't forget to taste the mixture all along the way. Simmer some more. . .

Meanwhile, sanitize a crap-load of canning jars to put the salsa mixture into. Oh, and grab a funnel. . .this is most vital for the job, believe you me.

Insert said vital funnel into canning jar and slowly fill. . .

Add a little more. . .

And a little more til the salsa is almost but not quite to the top. . .

Lather, Rinse, Repeat until all sanitized canning jars are filled with the salsa mixture.

Not pictured here . . .put canning lids on and finger-tighten the rings on top. Put the jars with the hot salsa in another vat of water and boil for 20 minutes or so. Pull the jars out and wait for the tops to vacuum close down. . .you know, so that button on the top doesn't move.

After sufficient cooling and vacuum process complete, don't forget to mark the lids esp. if you make different batches with various heat levels. For us M = Mild, X = Hot . . .

Lastly, but not leastly, sample your finished product and be proud of your accomplishment!!

And THAT, my dear readers, is your Salsa Lesson for the day!

Ta-DA!

Ci-ci-ci-cioppino

Just when I think there’s nothing in the house to cook, J pulls a brilliant meal together that’s not only tasty but also uses up all the items in the frig and freezer that need using before they become the latest science project. On Friday night date night, J took freezer/frig/pantry inventory and came up with a tasty version of cioppino otherwise known as fish stew and traditionally served over spaghetti. The French call theirs bouillabaisse cooked with a long boil time, white wine & saffron; in Cajun country it’s called gumbo and served over rice. J’s version encapsulated a mixture of all three. Here is the picture documentary of the stages:

First sauté onions, garlic, carrots in a fine olive oil. Remember the carrots in the The Great Harvest post from a couple weeks ago? Well, these are those carrots!




Next, he added the tomato base for the broth. In this case we used Spicy V-8 from the pantry. At this point, plenty of seasoning was added. . . Old Bay, salt, pepper, oregano. . .etc. and big meaty chunks of white fish and andouille sausage. We had halibut in the freezer we needed to use.

Lastly, he added the salmon and let it simmer for a long while. Notice how the roux changed from red to a nice orangey yumminess. At the very end, he added the shrimp and mussels (not pictured here). He served it over rice and we ate it with flat bread!

I am so lucky.