I don’t have the patience to boil Mason jars and lids and all that. But I love me my pickles, especially when this year’s garden cranks out so many cucumbers!
This is such an easy way to make great pickles, it’s almost unbelievable…and no water is needed! The salt extracts just enough moisture to make it work. This method works great if you want fresh pickles to eat immediately, but if you want to keep them for long periods of time, you’ll have to go back to the old tried-and-true methods.
Fortunately for me, I devour these pickles as soon as they’re ready!
I originally used a plastic bag for this, but a plastic container also works well. Use what you have.
fresh cucumbers sea salt or Kosher salt a handful of fresh dill a couple of cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
Cut the ends off the cucumbers and then slice them lengthwise, in half or in quarters. Lay them neatly next to each other in one layer in a container, or on a piece of plastic wrap, skin-side down. Sprinkle the salt over the cucumbers. Sprinkle some of the chopped garlic on top. Then, tear off some fresh dill and lay it to cover the pickles.
If using a container, you should be able to get a second row of pickles on top of the first, again sprinkling with the salt, garlic, and topping with dill.
Placing the lid on the container, squeeze out as much air out of the container as you can.
If using plastic wrap, roll it up tightly and place it inside a Ziploc bag, and seal it.
Put the container or bag in the fridge overnight. Making sure the lid is tightly sealed on the container, flip it over every few hours. (I always put a plate underneath it when it’s upside down in case it leaks a little.)
The plastic wrapped pickles don’t need to be flipped.
The pickles will be ready to eat the next day, but they’re even better after 48 hours.
I tried this one yesterday: pickles, sliced carrots, and even small onions in the same mix. Delicious!
I recently drove up to Maine to pick my daughter up from the Hardy Boat in New Harbor, a ferry that takes you to and from Monhegan Island, about 10 miles offshore. My daughter spent a week there with her mom, and we decided we’d take our time getting home, with a night in Portland and a night in Kennebunk.
Lunch was in Wiscassett, Maine, home of the famous and overrated and overpriced Red’s Eats, which always has a line down the street. We chose Water Street Kitchen and Bar for our lunch with my sister, who lives in the area, and it has a fun menu and great drinks. Lunch was simple: some oysters to start, followed by a beef burger for her and a salmon burger for me, but it was exactly what we were craving.
No food shots, but the drinks were wonderful!
Portland, Maine, is my favorite food town in New England, beating out my close-to-home Providence and even Boston. What makes Portland better is the walkability of the town. If your hotel is in town, once you park your car, you’re done. You can pretty much walk anywhere for food and drinks, and there are so many great small, eclectic restaurants to choose from. (We stayed at the Residence Inn, because I try to use my Marriott Bonvoy points, and we want to be near Commercial Street, on the water. But over the years, we’ve stayed at the Hampton Inn, Hilton Garden Inn, Holiday Inn, Westin, and Courtyard byMarriott. For us, it’s all about not having to drink and drive.)
For whatever reason, the choice of Asian restaurants in Portland is incredible. Some of our favorites over the years have been Crispy Gai, The Honey Paw, Boda, Miyake, and Jin Yan Tavern. We decided to try a newer one, Lucky Cheetah, serving dim sum and and other plates meant to be shared. We were not disappointed!
What a cool space! This is definitely a great date night out kind of place.
A beautiful bar, really cool decor, great food, and awesome cocktails.
I recently read an article about fat-washed vodka, where sesame oil is thoroughly mixed with vodka, then frozen. The oil hardens into a disc that is removed, but the tiniest droplets of the oil remain, infusing the vodka. They had it at Lucky Cheetah, and they served it with caviar-stuffed olives on the side.
It was weird, wild, intense, and strangely delicious.
Caviar stuffed olives.
Our dinner was a lot of fun, too.
Iberico pork soup dumplings, lobster dumplings with scallion sabayon and caviar.A refreshing plate of sichuan cucumbers.Mushroom and truffle dumplings.Fantastic broccolini and chicken cracklins.Sesame beef bao.
We chose not to have dessert at Lucky Cheetah, and instead decided to walk around town a bit. We landed at my favorite Italian restaurant in Portland: Solo. It was well past the dinner rush, so we found a couple of seats at the bar and ordered dessert.
My daughter ordered a semifreddo.My dessert came in liquid form: the well-made house negroni.
Breakfast the next day was at Ocotillo, a cute place on the west side of Portland that serves Mexican-style brunch food. (The name means “little torch” in Spanish, referring to the bright red flower clusters that bloom at the tips of the ocotillo plant every spring.)
What great food and fun atmosphere!
I bet this place jams in the evening as well!
Breakfast was awesome, starting with a great cup of coffee!
Cowboy curds and gravy. Basically a breakfast poutine. It comes with a poached egg, which my daughter didn’t want, so……the extra egg made it to my incredible plate of smoke haddock benedict!When I saw they smoke their own brisket, I had to have a side plate of it! Really good!Oh, and something healthy.
We arrived in Kennebunk too early to check into our hotel, so we walked around town, the very busy and touristy Dock Square, where you cross into Kennebunkport.
Since we had that amazing breakfast, lunch was a quick but very tasty bite at KPORT Provisions, where we shared a ham and cheese sandwich on freshly baked bread, and a lobster roll. (We are in Maine, after all.)
My best friend, Lee, has a home in Kennebunk, so we met him and his family for dinner at Pedro’s, a most excellent Mexican restaurant, serving up great food and very tasty watermelon margaritas!
After dinner, cocktails at the Hurricane were recommended, an old-school restaurant that has been in Kennebunkport for over 30 years.
Our bartender was very sweet, and gave me a generous pour of Weller’s, my favorite bourbon!
The next morning, we opted for the continental breakfast at our hotel, because we knew we wanted to hit the road to get home to Rhode Island. (We stayed at the King’s Port Inn. Literally steps from Dock Square, so we walked everywhere. Clean rooms, great water pressure! What more do you need?)
We decided we were still craving Asian food, so for lunch, we made a stop in Portsmouth, NH (another great town you should explore) and enjoyed the food at Domo.
The sushi was fresh and delicious, but I didn’t realize just how huge the maki rolls were! I ate way more than I should have!
Domo’s Triple Three Roll and Sexy Girl Roll.Beef Yaki Udon.
A great food adventure!
But I think it goes without saying that yet another diet is in order!
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 and a squash!
Whatever you call it, use it! And make some delicious bread!
If the zucchini is really large, I slice it lengthwise, and remove the center section with all the seeds, because I don’t want that in my bread. But the smaller ones don’t have that problem. Then I grate the rest on a box grater. This recipe needs about 2 1/2 cups of grated zucchini, which is 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 all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon Kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
1 cup light brown sugar 1/2 cup white cane sugar 3/4 cup vegetable oil 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 1/2 cups (16 oz.) grated zucchini
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 still 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!
I recently cooked another batch of zucchini bread in a round pan. Worked great! And I experimented with substitutions: I replaced 1/2 cup of the all-purpose flour with corn meal to give it a more rustic taste. And I replaced the 1/2 cup white cane sugar with 1/4 cup of maple syrup. Delicious!
The inspiration for this incredibly easy to make cocktail is the famous Capital Grille Stoli Doli. I think I’ve done it one better with my Velvet Elvis.
A Stoli Doli is simply Stoli vodka that has been infused with fresh pineapple. If you sit at the bar at the Capital Grille, you won’t be able to miss the very large jar of freshly-cut pineapple pieces swimming in vodka. They literally pour it “from the tap,” and serve it straight up, like a martini, or on the rocks. It’s delicious, and I’ve certainly had my share of them.
I decided to make my own at home one day, to serve to my friends at an upcoming party. But to my disappointment, I didn’t have any Stoli vodka in the house. (An embarrassment to most Lithuanians.) But…I found a bottle of Stoli Vanilla, and it changed everything! I used that instead of regular Stoli and I came up with a sweeter, smoother drink that is now legendary among my friends.
Find a gallon-sized glass jar with a lid. Peel, core and slice the pineapples and drop the pieces in the jar. Pour the vodka in, mix well, and seal the jar. Keep it at room temperature for 7–10 days, giving it a gentle shake every day.
After 7–10 days (don’t worry…a little longer won’t hurt anything), strain it, squeezing the pineapple pieces to get every bit of liquid out. Discard the pineapple pieces. (As much as you might think they would be fun to munch, they’ve given up all their flavor to the cocktail, and taste terrible!)
Keep the Velvet Elvis refrigerated. Serve with rocks (or 1 big rock!), or shaken and poured into a martini glass.
I grill year-round. I’ll stand in 3 feet of snow to get smoked ribs just right, if I have to. Through years of tireless experimentation, I’ve come up with a barbecue sauce that I can be proud of. I prefer a slightly sweet and tangy barbecue sauce, and it works really well with pork or chicken.
What makes this sauce special is the citrus. I originally used lemon juice for this recipe and it was good. Lime juice was better. Adding lime zest: even better than that. I tried orange juice and zest, even Meyer lemon. But the Big Daddy of ’em all was grapefruit. I was craving my barbecue sauce one day and only had a grapefruit in the fridge. I thought: how bad could this be? Turned out to be the perfect foil to the sweetness of the brown sugar and ketchup.
Try this sauce on your next rack of ribs, batch of chicken wings, or even a whole bird. Cook the bird almost all the way through, brushing the sauce on for the last 20 minutes so that the sugars don’t burn. Then just try to stop eating it!
GRAPEFRUIT BARBECUE SAUCE
1 cup ketchup
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
Juice and zest of 1 grapefruit
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon granulated onion
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper sauce, like Frank’s Red Hot
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
(no salt)
Combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan. Bring it to a boil and then simmer for about 20 minutes on low, until it’s slightly thickened.
If you like a less sweet, more vinegary style to your barbecue sauce, this is the one. How could a sauce that’s inspired by what most people claim to be the best barbecue joint in the USA, Franklin’s Barbecue in Austin, Texas, be bad? People line up early in the morning and wait as much as four hours for a slab of brisket from this place. I’ll get there one day. In the meantime, I have the sauce.
use this sauce on chicken, pork, or beef. The vinegar really cuts through the fat.
2 cups ketchup
3/4 cup water
6 tablespoons cider vinegar
6 tablespoons white vinegar
6 tablespoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon chili powder
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
Mix all the ingredients in a saucepan and simmer until the flavors have blended, about 20 minutes. Remove it from heat and cool to room temp. If you store it in an airtight container in the fridge, it’ll stay good for a couple of months.
Ever since I had char-grilled oysters in New Orleans, I’ve been obsessed. I’ve made them at least once a month since I’ve been back. But the other day, I went to my local seafood store and I saw some beautiful clams, and I thought: Why not try those on the grill?
I had some friends over a couple of days ago, and I made my Oysters Rock-a-Fellow recipe for them, and I had some leftover gooey cheesy stuffing that goes on top of the oyster. I thought: Why not use it on the clams and then put them on the grill?
A hybrid recipe of two previous recipes, and it really worked!
The first step is to make the gooey cheesy stuffing mix ahead of time.
1/4 cup unsalted butter 1 small onion, finely chopped 1 garlic clove, finely chopped 1/4 cup low-fat milk salt and pepper 3 cups (tightly packed) fresh arugula, finely chopped, about a 5 oz. container 6 oz. mild cheddar cheese (the white one), grated 6 oz. mozzarella, grated Fine bread crumbs (Using GF breadcrumbs will keep this dish gluten-free)
Melt the butter in a pan and add the onion and garlic. Sauté until translucent, then add the milk, salt and pepper, and the arugula. Sauté for a few minutes, stirring, so that all of the arugula wilts down. Slowly add the cheddar until it all melts, then add the mozzarella, stirring slowly, until you have one big gooey mass of goodness in the pan.
Pour the gooey cheese mix into a shallow pan and place it in the fridge for a few hours. It will firm up and you will be able to cut it easily into cubes that you will then place on top of the clams.
Once the cheese mixture has firmed up, and it’s time to cook, start a hardwood charcoal fire in your grill.
Open the clams and put them on a tray, topping each clam with a cube of the firm cheese and arugula stuffing mix.
Sprinkle the breadcrumbs on top of each clam.
When your charcoal grill fire is hot, place the clams on the grill and cook until the cheesy topping melts and the clams have a nice char to them.
They will be lava hot when they come off the grill, so give them a few minutes before eating!
It’s that time of year when friends are coming over, and you want to make one drink you can serve everyone, rather than playing bartender all night. This one hits the spot.
There’s only one thing better than a freshly made mojito…and that’s a pitcher of freshly made mojitos! Organic raspberries and blueberries are in the markets right now, and my mint plants are taking over the yard! All the ingredients for a great mojito!
Very often, I’ll use raspberries or blueberries alone, but mojitos are even better when you combine them! I stock up on organic berries, rinsing them and placing them in plastic bags that go in the freezer until I’m ready to make my mojitos. I always go organic with berries. Pesticides should never be a cocktail ingredient! Pay a little extra and get the good stuff…it makes a difference!
Once you make mojitos by the pitcher, you’ll never have them any other way. (Even if you’re drinking alone!)
Make ahead of time…
1 1/2 cups fresh squeezed lime juice (don’t use the bottled stuff!)
1 1/3 cups turbinado sugar (Sugar in the Raw is a common brand)
Mix both ingredients together, letting it stand at room temperature for a few minutes. I like to combine them in a Mason jar, then shake really hard until the sugar has dissolved. I keep it in the fridge, and it’s good for up to 3 weeks…ready to use any time. Shake it well again before using.
For the Mojitos…
1 cup sugar/lime mixture
1 cup mint leaves, packed
1/2 pint blueberries (fresh or frozen)
1/2 pint raspberries (fresh or frozen)
3 or 4 cups white rum (I use Don Q Cristal rum)
3 or 4 cups seltzer (or club soda)
Combine the mint leaves and 1/2 cup of the sugar/lime mixture in bottom of a pitcher. Muddle the mint up very well to release mint oils.
Add the remaining sugar/lime mixture, rum and berries. Mix well. Just before serving, add the club soda and ice. Stir. Pour into tall glasses.
Or…for drinks one at a time, I put in a shot (1 oz.) of the sugar/lime mixture into a tall glass. I throw in about 8 mint leaves and muddle them for a minute. Then I add 2 shots of rum, and a few berries. I add ice, and I top it with the seltzer, stirring well. I garnish with a mint leaf.
Fourth of July weekend means it’s time to do some serious barbecue!
When I smoke my brisket low-and-slow in my smoker, I use a coffee steak rub that I developed a couple of years ago. It gives a deep, rich crust to the meat that is just fantastic.
Low and slow is the way to go! Deliciously smokey and juicy.
Depending on the size of the brisket, you might need to double the recipe. This is for a brisket that weighs about 9 pounds.
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon Kosher salt
1 tablespoon ground coffee (use your favorite)
1 teaspoon granulated garlic
1 teaspoon granulated onion
1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder
If the brisket is frozen, I like to thaw it a couple of days ahead of cooking it, rubbing it down with the coffee rub, and placing it in the fridge for about 24 hours to rest. I bring it out about an hour before smoking, to let the meat come back to room temperature, and then I place it in the smoker for about 12 hours at 225 degrees, smoking it with hickory wood.
When it’s done, I remove it from the smoker, and wrap in foil and let it rest at least 30 minutes before slicing. If I’m not serving it right away, I place the wrapped brisket in the oven at the lowest setting, about 150 degrees, just to keep it warm.
When I’m ready to serve, I always slice the brisket on the bias, against the grain of the meat.
I find little or no difference between the stove in my kitchen and an outdoor gas grill…so I don’t own one. I can make a perfectly delicious steak by searing it in a cast iron pan on the stovetop, then finishing it in a hot oven. So, for me, if the real reason for outdoor grilling is flavor, nothing can replace a hardwood charcoal grill.
Besides the quality and source of my beef, wood and smoke are what make the difference between a good steak and a great steak.
I know the #1 argument for going with gas over hardwood charcoal is time. “It takes too long to start a charcoal grill.” That’s completely untrue. It takes no more time to light a charcoal fire than it does to start up a gas grill.
Of course, it starts with the grill itself. The classic Weber is still an awesome choice. For larger cooking needs, I also have a Primo ceramic grill.
Then I get a bag of hardwood charcoal. I’m not talking charcoal briquets, like Kingsford, that have a ton of additives in them. And I’m definitely not talking about Match Light. I’m talking pure hardwood charcoal, easily found in supermarkets and home stores.
Next, a charcoal chimney. It’s a metal tube with a handle and a grate at the bottom. I crumble a couple of sheets of newspaper into the bottom, pour charcoal into the top, light it, and I have hot coals in 10 minutes without lighter fluid.
And I NEVER use lighter fluid! Why spend good money on a great steak only to make it taste like gasoline?
The variety of wood chips available for smoking is another flavor factor when it comes to grilling with charcoal. My personal favorite is hickory, especially when I’m cooking pork or chicken. But apple, cherry, oak, mesquite: they all impart their own unique flavors. And they’re all available in most home stores where you find all the other barbecue gear.
Although I have an electric smoker for those low-and-slow jobs, like a big ol’ brisket or pork shoulder, I don’t need it when grilling a steak. I simply soak some wood chips in water for about a 1/2 hour before grilling (I’ve found that hot water speeds the process up), drain the water, and then sprinkle the moist chips on the hot coals in my grill. I throw the meat on the grill, close the lid (opening the vents, of course) and off we go.
So now, in 10 minutes, I’ve got a grill that’s ready to cook a steak with…about the same time as gas.
If you say: “I don’t cook with charcoal because it’s so messy!” …I honestly don’t know if you and I can be friends.
Because I’m using a small amount of hardwood charcoal for the average dinner, I don’t have to clean out my grill every time I use it. After a while, yes, some ashes pile up in the bottom of my grill and I have to dump them. But because they’re pure wood ashes, I can dump mine into my strawberry or raspberry patch. They love the stuff.
You still have to clean a gas grill after a while, and it always runs out of propane halfway through cooking when you have guests over for dinner. So where’s the convenience in that?
Charcoal grills give you everything you could ask for: low maintenance, ease of use–no propane tanks, valves and igniters–real wood flavor, not lava rocks, and the thrill of cooking meat over a real fire, bonding with the caveman in you. Grab a beer–or even better: a bourbon on the rocks–and start grilling!
Back from a trip to Poland and Lithuania with my daughter, where I literally ate my weight in herring.
I know a lot of folks aren’t as crazy about herring as I am. But I was raised in a Lithuanian home, and it was everywhere. Growing up on Long Island, outside of New York City, there were dozens of great Jewish delis that served herring in white cream sauce, one of my favorite ways to enjoy it.
These days, I don’t need to go home for it when the craving hits me. Instead, I go to my herring hack.
I buy a jar of Blue Hill Bay herring in wine sauce, available at Whole Foods. Blue Hill Bay is distributed by what I consider the best salmon/herring/smoked fish company in the country: Brooklyn’s own AcmeSmoked Fish.
I grab a couple of sweet onions, like Vidalias, and I peel them and slice them as thinly as possible.
I take a quart-sized container with a lid, and I line the bottom with some of the onions. I then pour some of the contents of the jar of herring into the container. I then take a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream (gotta be Breakstone’s–I’m a New Yorker) and place it on top. Then I keep working in layers: onions, herring, sour cream…until it’s all gone and jammed into the container.
I place the lid on the container and shake it vigorously to combine the ingredients. Then I place it upside-down in a dish (in case of spills) and put it in the fridge.
A few hours later, I’ll turn the container right side-up and let it sit in the fridge some more.
The wine sauce will blend with the sour cream to make a delicious cream sauce, and the onions will slowly break down and soften.
Of course, you can combine everything in a large bowl and then move it to a container, but it gets messy. My layering method avoids the need for clean-up.
After a few hours–if I can wait that long–it’s time to eat! A slab of bread is always good on the side.
I have to say my herring hack is good. Maybe not New York Jewish deli good. But good enough to satisfy my craving!
Live the Live ™ 