Live the Live ™

Cauliflower seems to be the “it” veggie these days. You’ll find it riced to take the place of rice or mashed potatoes, in a crust for pizza, and now, the dish du jour is a cauliflower steak. All you need to do is to slice the cauliflower into thick, steak-like pieces, and then bake them. The thicker cut gives the cauliflower a more meaty texture. Of course, with a meat sauce, I’m using cauliflower as a pasta substitute in this dish.

 

The marinade I use for the cauliflower is pretty simple, with my favorite Italian flavors. I use fresh herbs when I can, but you can use dry as well.

 

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cups chopped scallions
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
chopped fresh parsley and oregano to taste
salt and pepper

Combine these ingredients in a bowl.

Slice the head of cauliflower across the whole head into 1 1/2-inch steak-like pieces. Place them on a baking pan covered with non-stick aluminum foil. Brush the cauliflower on both sides with the marinade. Use it all up!

Place the baking pan in a pre-heated 400-degree oven and bake it for about an hour, until the cauliflower is golden brown on the edges. Flip the cauliflower steaks over after the first 30 minutes.

 

 

This meat sauce I use is one that I make all the time with simple ingredients…

 

1 lb. grass-fed ground beef
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 28-oz. can of whole San Marzano tomatoes
dried oregano, basil and parsley
granulated garlic
extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper

 

Heat the olive oil in a pan and add the onions. Sauté them until they’re translucent, then add the ground beef. Cook the beef until it has browned completely. Add the can of tomatoes, chopping the whole tomatoes up with a spatula (or squeezing them with your hands), breaking up the big pieces into smaller chunks. (I like my sauce a little chunky.) Add the oregano, basil, parsley, garlic, salt and pepper to taste.

 

Let the sauce cook down until it has thickened.

 

When the cauliflower steaks are ready, place them on a plate and pour the awesome meat sauce on them. Garnish with some freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano.

Every once in a while, my daughter finds an interesting recipe that we decide to try on our own.

A fatayer is a Middle Eastern savory pastry, usually made into the size of a hand pie. Trying to be efficient (and also being a bit lazy), I went the route of one large fatayer (basically a pizza) instead of 10 hand pies, which is what the recipe called for.

Our large fatayer, though not traditional, was still absolutely delicious, and the use of olive oil in the dough (a lot of it) and an egg wash on the crust gave a softeners and chewiness not unlike the best pretzel you’ve ever had! Really delicious!

The nice thing about my recipe is that you can use store-bought pizza dough. You don’t have to make the dough from scratch. I’m sure the crust would be even lighter if you did, but this system worked well for me…and I didn’t want to work as hard!

2 packages of ready-made pizza dough
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 cups freshly grated mozzarella (loosely packed)
1 1/4 cups crumbled feta cheese
a handful of chopped fresh parsley

Extra freshly grated mozzarella for stuffing into the dough

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/4 teaspoon Kosher salt

1 egg
2 tablespoons water

 

 

If the dough you’re using is frozen, let it come to room temperature and rise according to package instructions. This could take up to 6 hours or more.

While the dough is rising, make the cheese mixture, combining the mozzarella, feta and parsley in a bowl. Set it aside in the fridge.

Also set aside the extra grated mozzarella in the fridge separately.

Make the garlic butter mixture, combing the butter, garlic and salt in a bowl. Set it aside.

Make the egg mixture, whisking the egg in a bowl with the water. Set it aside.

Once the dough has risen properly, pre-heat the oven to 425.

Place the dough in a stand mixer and add the olive oil. Mix slowly at first, slowly increasing the speed, for about 5 minutes, until the dough and the olive oil have mixed together well.

It’s a messy process, but you need to knead the dough by hand on a clean surface for about 5 minutes, so dust the surface with all-purpose flour, and carefully remove the oily dough from the mixing bowl. It will be greasy and messy, but knead it as best you can, adding flour to the dough until it’s no longer an oily mess and becomes a nice, soft dough. Use as little flour as possible to make this happen. The less you use the lighter the baked crust will be.

Get a large baking sheet and cover it with parchment paper. Place the dough on the sheet, and spread it out evenly with your fingertips to the full size of the baking sheet.

Take the extra grated mozzarella and sprinkle it around the edges of the dough, and then fold the edges of the dough over it, basically making a “stuffed crust.” The crust will be higher than the center, which will hold in all the tasty goodies inside.

Brush the center of the dough with all the garlic butter mixture. Don’t worry…it’s not too much!

Now add the cheese mixture evenly in the center of the dough as well, all the way up to, but not on, the crust.

Brush the crust with the egg wash mixture.

Place the sheet pan in the center of the oven and bake for 20 — 30 minutes, until the cheese is bubbly and the crust is golden brown.

Remove the fatayer from the oven and let it cool a few minutes before slicing.

I love my cocktails, and I feel the quality of the ice is as important as any other ingredient in my glass. After all, if the ice cubes are made from nasty water, it’s going to affect the taste of the drink.

And from a visual standpoint, a large, beautiful, clear ice cube really makes any cocktail look pretty darn impressive.

Since the tapwater at my house has chlorine and fluoride in it, I use a reverse osmosis filter to try to get as much of the bad stuff out. And I’ve been using that to make my own fancy cocktail ice cubes. But they were cloudy, so I was willing to try this new gadget.

 

Once I bought the Ice.Made.Clear system, and I read the instructions, I realized that, much like the ice cubes they promised, a problem became very clear: they recommend using water right from the tap– – hot tap water, in fact. Their reasoning was that the chilling process from hot to freezing, and the minerals in the tapwater, aid in the clarity process. (Also, warmer water holds fewer air bubbles, which causes the cloudiness in the ice later on.)

But I don’t want chlorine and fluoride in my ice cubes! So for me, tap water was out of the question.

As an alternative, they suggested buying spring water, claiming that using reverse osmosis filtered water would remove too many of the necessary minerals needed for the process to work. 

So I bought a gallon jug of Poland Spring to try this thing out, and it actually worked really well. But the problem was, it wasted a lot of water. Once the ice cubes are made, the container can’t be reused until you melt all the ice in it, empty it out, and start all over again. I wound up using almost an entire gallon of spring water to make six large ice cubes. That’s ridiculous. 

So, despite the fact that they recommend using tap water or spring water, I went back to my filtered water, because it’s cheap and plentiful. I heat it up a bit in a saucepan (not to the point of boiling, but warm) and then pour it into the Ice.Made.Clear system. The cubes aren’t as clear as they might be, but I know the water quality is the best it could be. And I still get pretty darn clear ice.

So here are the pros and cons of the Ice.Made.Clear system:

The Pros:
It really does make clear ice.
It’s not a big unit, so it fits in most freezers.
The whole system cost under 100 bucks, so it’s not outrageous in price.


The Cons:
It wastes a lot of water.
If you don’t have clean tapwater, buying water gets really expensive just to make a handful of ice cubes.
If you’ve got guests coming over, you better start making your cubes weeks ahead of time, because it’s a slow process.

 

I posted a way to make homemade clear ice cubes in a previous blog. I will repost it soon. It works really well, gives you plenty of rustic large ice cubes at once, and doesn’t cost a lot.

After all is said and done, if pretty ice cubes don’t matter to you at all, go down to your local convenience store and buy a bag of ice for two bucks, and you’re all set.

Some of my favorite recipes happen when I’ve got a few leftover ingredients in the fridge that I really want to use up. The challenge is to make them work together.

Burgers are easy solutions to this dilemma, because, let’s face it: just about anything can go on a burger!

My thoughts behind this recipe went to a combination of things: a little garlic bread, a little Caprese salad, and, of course, a burger.

I had some burrata in the fridge. If you thought you couldn’t improve on mozzarella cheese, get yourself some burrata. The outer shell of the burrata is mozzarella, while the inside generally contains stracciatella and cream. It can be made from milk, or if it’s really decadent: Italian buffalo milk.

I use burrata instead of mozzarella when I make my Caprese salads…a combination of the cheese, fresh basil, and ripe tomatoes, drizzle with a high-quality balsamic vinegar.

I had kaiser rolls in the freezer. I wanted to go one step further, so I slathered them with my garlic bread smear, and toasted them.

And my burgers are always grass-fed beef, seasoned with salt and pepper, and pan-seared before finishing them in the oven.

I started with the garlic bread spread first.

Pre-heat the oven to 350.

1 stick (4 oz.) unsalted butter, softened
1 large clove garlic, squeezed through a press
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon parsley

I combined these ingredients in a bowl, mixing well, then smeared them on my kaiser roll halves, toasting them in the oven.

I got a pan very hot on the stovetop (cast iron is always best) and added a little fat. I use bacon grease if I have it. Otherwise I go with a high smoke point oil like avocado oil.

I seasoned the burger with salt and pepper, and placed it in the hot pan, searing it on one side, then flipping it to the other. I just want to sear the meat. I don’t want to cook the burger in the pan or it will overcook when I place it in the oven to finish.

I cut the burrata in half (it gets a little messy), and placed half of it (cut-side-down) onto the burger.

I placed the pan in the oven to finish cooking the burger and to melt the cheese. (If your pan isn’t oven-proof, get a tray that is, and just move the burger onto it and into the oven.)

I cooked the burger until it was medium-rare and the cheese had melted.

I placed the burger on the toasted roll and added a nice slice of farm-fresh heirloom tomato. (Fresh basil is optional.) And I drizzled over the top with some good balsamic.

That took a cheeseburger to a whole new level!

I’m pretty good at keeping the zucchinis in my garden harvested on a regular basis, so they don’t get too big. But once in a while, I miss one, and it gets to be huge. That’s when it’s time to make zucchini bread.

 

 

I was recently told that zucchinis are green…summer squash is yellow.  I use the word “zucchini” interchangeably, but technically, the variety I grow is, in, fact, a zucchini…or both, depending how you look at it!

 

 

Whatever you call it, use it! And make some delicious bread!

I slice the zucchini lengthwise, and remove the center section with all the seeds, because I don’t want that in my bread. Then I grate the rest. This recipe needs about 2 1/2 cups of grated zucchini, about 16 ounces.

When it comes to baking, I use my small kitchen scale to make most of the crucial measurements, because accuracy counts. It’s much more accurate than going by volume. But this recipe has both measurements, so you can try either method.

Substituting gluten-free flour for the basic all-purpose flour, will make this recipe gluten-free. I like to use the all-purpose GF flour by Cup4Cup.

And I like using olive oil as my vegetable oil, because I love the flavor and its health benefits. But feel free to use whatever vegetable oil you like.

 

2 cups (227g) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, optional

1 cup (213g) light brown sugar
1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
scant 3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 1/2 cups grated zucchini (about 16 oz.)

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Grease an 8 x 8“ or 5″ x 10″ loaf pan with some of the vegetable oil. Then line it with parchment paper…it makes it easier to remove later.

In a bowl, mix together the first five ingredients.

In a separate bowl, combine the remaining ingredients except the zucchini.

Add the grated zucchini to the bowl with the flour mixture and toss it around to coat.

 

Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture and stir until it’s combined.

 

 

Pour it into the pan. 

 

 

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 45 to 60 minutes…but it could be even longer. Every oven is different, and different zucchini can have different moisture levels, so you may need to cook yours longer, depending on your situation. Even with all the high-tech thermometers I have, I find the good old-fashioned toothpick method works best.

 

 

Remove the baking pan from the oven and let it cool for 15 minutes. Then turn it over on a wire rack, removing the pan, and let the zucchini bread cool completely to room temperature before slicing.

This bread is so good, I just might let the zucchini overgrow more often!

Chimichurri, as I mentioned in a previous blog, is a garlicky, herby green sauce usually used with grilled meats. This pesto-like condiment originated in Argentina and is also commonly used in Nicaragua and Uruguay. Though some recipes include cilantro, many people insist the original is made only with parsley. It also makes an excellent marinade for grilled meats.

 

 

 

When I posted that blog, my friend, Brenda, asked me if I’ve ever used basil in my chimichurri. I had not…and that sounded like a great idea, especially since I had an overload of basil still growing in my garden. Technically, I guess I couldn’t call it chimichurri anymore, but that’s okay. What I got was a real flavor bomb that worked beautifully as a marinade, on grilled meats, and in other applications.

 

 

 

1 large handful of fresh basil leaves, about 4 cups, loosely packed
1/4 cup water
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
3–4 tablespoons fresh oregano, leaves only (or 1 tablespoon dry)
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon crushed bay leaf
1 tablespoon coarse sea salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
pinch red pepper flakes
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

Place all the basil and the water in a food processor and begin to chop, pulsing for a second at a time. When the basil is in small pieces, stop pulsing and add the remaining ingredients, except the vinegar and olive oil. Start the processor on a full run now, and slowly pour in the vinegar, then the olive oil. Try not to make it too smooth…leave some tasty bits. Allow it to rest for at least 30 minutes, but overnight in a sealed container in the fridge is best.

 

I used this new basil “chimi” on chicken. (The recipe is in a future blog.) But I could also see how awesome it would be tossed in a salad, especially a Caprese-style tomato and mozzarella salad, where the chimi would take the place of fresh basil leaves.

 

But my garden was also overflowing with shishito peppers, so rather than throwing them in a pan with olive oil and simply blistering them the way I usually do, I took a few spoons of the “chimi” and melted it in the pan, adding the shishitos, and tossing them around in it until they were blistered. The “chimi” actually blackened a bit, but in a good way, bringing out the herby flavors like a blackened Cajun dish might, and a sprinkle of finishing salt was all it needed before serving.

 

 

There are many other ways to use this new “chimi,” and I’ll be trying them all!