 I met Big Guy while attending college, so yes, I married my college sweetheart. As happens with all new couples, we started to get to know each other’s families as part of the dating process. In one of my first family meals with his family, pork steak was served as the main dish. Ok, what is that? I had never heard of it as I grew up in Michigan. Big Guy assured me I would like it, so I tried it. Yes, it was delicious, but I never fell in love with it like his family. The passage of time and losing his parents made pork steaks fall off the routine family meal. While shopping @legrandsmarket, Big Guy spied gorgeous pork steaks, and it was back on the table as our meal for the evening. We added baked beans and potato salad from their deli to round out our meal. Thanks to @legrandsmarket for bringing back a family memory and an easy summer meal!
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 Big Guy and I enjoy cooking, but we also enjoy letting someone else take care of us. Several years ago, we were enjoying an antipasto platter @charliegittosonthehill which included an eggplant antipasto. We were instantly hooked on the flavors and vowed to grow eggplant @carondeletgarden. It has become a favorite dish @carondeletkitchen, and I have @stanleytucci to thank for adding my favorite version of this caponata recipe in The Tucci Cookbook. The list of ingredients includes eggplant, onions, celery, whole plum tomatoes, capers, and pine nuts. The “secret” sauce is dissolving sugar with red wine vinegar which gives the mix a sweetness that complements the savory vegetables. We usually make a quick stop @parkerstable for a baguette and we have the perfect start to any meal. Perfetto!
 I became enamored with scones since a trip to New Harmony, Indiana. We found a lovely café that served cranberry scones. I could not wait to come home and find the perfect recipe. I am never disappointed with anything from @inagarten, but Big Guy suggested I look for a proper scone pan to elevate the “look” of the pastries. I not only found the perfect pan @kingarthurbaking, but they cleverly sold ready mixed scones ingredient in one box. I recently made a cran-raspberry and white chocolate mix which was outstanding. I added an icing made with powered sugar, heavy cream, vanilla, and salt to give it a WOW factor. I am so happy I have found this company and their outstanding products!  We were fortunate the spring hailstorm did not destroy our eggplants. We had a bumper crop leading me to wonder if you could make soup from them as I am always looking to add variety to what I freeze for the winter months. Thanks to @nytcooking, the answer is yes! I found a smoky eggplant soup which, despite my skepticism, became a beautiful and flavorful soup. I started by broiling the eggplants. Once they softened, I placed them into paper bags to cool. While the eggplants cooled, I sauteed the onions, garlic, cayenne, smoked paprika, and sweet paprika. Once the eggplants were cool, I removed the skins and roughly chopped the flesh of the eggplant. It was added to the pot along with chicken broth with the other ingredients and brought to a boil. I made sure to add salt and pepper for flavor at this stage. The only complicated part of this recipe was to puree the mixture with a @cuisinart and then strain through a fine meshed sieve. This step is worth the effort as you were rewarded with a very smooth broth that was brightened at the end with lemon juice and zest.
 Do you ever have a great idea that goes unsaid, but becomes the next remarkable thing? Big Guy and I were enjoying a breakfast sandwich from Chick-fil-A when I said aloud whether it would be an innovative idea to take the chicken filets and make a chicken parmesan. I used this “hack” for a quick meal after a long day while I was still working full-time. Then COVID hit and I noticed Chick-fil-A started to advertise they were carrying the ingredients to make this meal at home to elevate dinner, and our moods too! I still make this meal on occasion and recently made it for my niece, @abrandt1026. I did tell her my secret and she amazed after I convinced her I was not pranking her. I say anything that makes tasty food, and good memories, is a winner!  Do you ever find a recipe that is so good, but may not be good for you? I love making chile crisp fettucine alfredo with spinach that Big Guy found @nytcooking because it is delicious and extremely easy to make as a quick meal.
You begin with four tablespoons of butter and one to two tablespoons of chile crisp depending on your heat tolerance. Once you melt the butter and stir in the chile crisp, you add heavy cream and let it simmer while your noodles are cooking in a separate pot. At the end, you add spinach, parmesan cheese and your cooked noodles to your simmering sauce. Stir and serve. I like the basic sauce and have made variations on the recipe based on what I had on hand such as red peppers or asparagus. I led with a subtle hint that the recipe may not be good for you. Obviously, it is heavy on dairy products which may not fit into everyone’s diet. My other observation, and experience, is you need to be careful working with chile crisp. This recipe tempers the heat while you are eating it, but the chile crisp continues to “warm” your stomach and could create intolerance issues for sensitive tummies.  Pizza is the perfect food. You can change up the toppings and sauces and have a different pizza every day of the week. We have our fair share of takeout pizza, but we have been trying to make our own to add variety to what we cook @carondeletkitchen.
Our recent find has been @bredinbk whose baking roots go back to 1930. The third generation are working hard to bring to the world their beloved Brooklyn breads. It is the perfect crust for our ingredients. We added our homemade meatballs and vegetables from @carondeletgarden for the perfect weeknight meal.  My mom loved to look at cookbooks. Unfortunately, she was not a fan of cooking. She was too impatient to spend an afternoon following a recipe. The sad part is she would make attempts at cooking, which when she found a simple one-pot recipe, had success. One such example is croutons. She would round up any stale bread, add olive oil and seasoning, to quickly bake up toppings for her salads. Big Guy loves his bread, so I do not often make croutons. I had my chance when we did not finish a focaccia from @keycakesandco. You cannot ask for a finer leftover bread to make croutons. It made the perfect topping for my salad.   Summer has made me look toward Southern cooks for ways to cool down through food. I had heard about lemon icebox pie, but I never made it. It was so easy I am now ashamed it took me so long to come to this recipe. I should have known as it came from one of my oldest Southern cookbooks, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea. Martha Hall Foose, at the time of the publication of the book, was the executive chef of the Viking Cooking School, who taught her students Southern food with contemporary twists. I hope she would approve of my twist which was to purchase the graham cracker crust so I could limit the time my oven needed to be on. The consistency of the finished pie, made with condensed milk, egg yolks, lemon zest, and lemon juice, reminded me of my key lime pie recipe. The only difference is I baked this pie for ten minutes at 350 degrees whereas my key lime pie was reverse baked in a hot oven turned off as the pie went in. I have been looking for more of these types of recipes. Sweet tea pie may be on the horizon!   I married the Big Guy with the knowledge he only ate meat and potatoes. He would turn his nose up at anything that resembled a salad. I learned early that my creativity in the kitchen would take time for Big Guy to see adventure and acceptance as part of our meals. It seems time, and the enjoyment of tasty food, did open Big Guy’s eyes to terrific new recipes. Believe me when I say that having hummus in the @carondeletkitchen, would not have been acceptable early in our marriage. It is now a staple especially with the harvest coming out of @carondeletgarden. I mixed up my spicy red pepper hummus and we enjoyed it with cucumbers, peppers, and carrots from the garden. It is satisfying to eat fresh from the garden which makes me sad each time our vegetables peter out for the season!  |
AuthorJust a super cool old couple who love to cook and eat and drink in their Carondelet Kitchen in South Saint Louis, Missouri! Archives
December 2024
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