Growing up in a Lithuanian family, there was a small group of foods that I had to love to survive, since they constantly appeared on the dinner table: potatoes, cabbage, mushrooms, herring, and beets. Fortunately for me, I loved them all, despite my Mom’s desire to boil everything to death.
One of the many uses for beets, besides a cold summer soup and a hot winter soup, was pickling. Pickled beets are an excellent side dish for any hearty meat dish. (I love ’em with kielbasa!) Store-bought pickled beets pack way too much sugar in every jar, so it was time to make my own.
A real time saver is a product called Love Beets, which you can find in any supermarket. If you use them, you can skip the roasting and messy peeling of the beets altogether.
This recipe makes one large Mason jar’s worth of pickled veggies.
4 to 8 beets, scrubbed (your favorite variety) 1 cup apple cider vinegar 1 cup water 3 garlic cloves, crushed 3 tablespoons sugar 2 teaspoons whole black peppercorns 1 tablespoon Kosher salt 1 onion, sliced (or more, if you love ’em like I do!) cauliflower pieces (optional) fresh dill (optional)
Pre-heat the oven to 450. Wrap the beets in foil and roast them for about an hour, until tender. When they’re cool enough, carefully peel and quarter them. (If you’re using Love Beets, no cooking is necessary. Just open the package, and halve them, quarter them, or slice them…whatever is your preference.)
In a medium saucepan, combine the vinegar, water, garlic, sugar, peppercorns and salt. Bring it to a boil and simmer over moderately high heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Let the pickling liquid cool to warm, about 15 minutes.
In a heat-proof glass jar or container, layer the beets, onions, and optional cauliflower. Pack them down a bit so there’s not a lot of air between them. Pour the pickling liquid in the jar, covering the veggies. Seal the jar tightly. Let it stand at room temp for 2 hours, then place it in the fridge overnight.
They stay fresh for a week, but they won’t last that long!
I was in the supermarket the other day, and a pack of pork chops called to me as I walked by the meat department. I hadn’t had pork chops in ages, and it was time to try something new with them.
The balsamic vinegar used in this recipe is not the crazy expensive stuff. It’s the bottle you probably already have in your kitchen cabinet that costs about nine bucks.
This recipe works with thick or thin pork chops, your choice.
The cool thing about this recipe is that you make it all in one pan, and on the stovetop.
4 or 5 bone-in pork chops olive oil Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper 2 teaspoons dried thyme 1 large Spanish onion, diced 2 large cloves of garlic, minced 2 cups chicken broth (homemade is always best) 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard 5 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 6 tablespoons brown sugar 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Season the pork chops with the salt, pepper and thyme.
Add some olive oil to a large pan, and when it’s hot, sear the pork chops on both sides until they’re nice and brown.
Remove the pork chops from the pan and set them aside. Pour out the fat in the pan, add a touch of olive oil, and put it back on the heat. Add the onions, sautéing them for about 10 minutes until they’ve softened, and then add the garlic. Sauté a minute more.
Add the chicken broth, Dijon, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce. Stir to combine.
Return the pork chops back to the pan, nestling them down into the sauce. Add any of the juices that may have collected when you set the chops aside.
Bring the pan to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover the pan. Let it cook for 45 to 60 minutes. I like to flip the chops about halfway through the cooking process.
To serve, remove the chops from the pan, and smother them with the sauce! You may want to reduce or thicken the sauce a bit, but I like it just the way it is!
My family has made it pretty clear over the last half-dozen years or so that they’re tired of turkey on Thanksgiving. So when I saw a recipe in “Food and Wine” Magazine for a roasted turkey with Indian spices, I thought: “Why not try this with chicken?”
The recipe is from Food Network’s Maneet Chauhan, who is a regular on “Guy’s Grocery Games,” “Tournament of Champions,” etc. She’s got herself a restaurant empire in Nashville, of all places, and her knowledge of Indian food is pretty incredible. I knew I couldn’t go wrong using her recipe.
Indian cuisine is still pretty new to me, though I’ve made classic dishes like butter chicken. There are many ingredients in this dish that the average person won’t have in their cupboard, (ginger-garlic paste, tandoori masala, garam masala, kasoori methi, ghee) and maybe not even in the local supermarket. So you might have to do what I did, and look these things up on line and buy them ahead of time. But I found it all to be a great learning process.
You can marinate the bird overnight, or prepare it right before cooking. I choose to marinate overnight, because you have more time to really flavor the meat.
1 6-to-7-lb. chicken (I used a Perdue Oven Stuffer Roaster) 1/2 cup whole milk yogurt 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro 1/4 cup cream cheese, softened 1/4 cup ginger-garlic paste 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice, plus 1 lemon sliced in quarters 2 1/2 tablespoons tandoori masala 2 teaspoons Kosher salt 1 1/2 teaspoons garam masala 1 1/2 teaspoons kasoori methi 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 cups water 1 large yellow onion, roughly chopped 1 large carrot, roughly chopped
Thaw the bird and remove the giblets. Save them for another time.
In a bowl, combine the yogurt, cilantro, cream cheese, ginger-garlic paste, lemon juice, tandoori masala, salt, garam masala, kasoori methi and black pepper.
Gently slide your fingers under the skin of the breast and thigh of the chicken to loosen it. Generously rub the yogurt marinade under the skin as far as you can reach without tearing it. Also spread some of the marinade inside the cavity of the bird. Take the lemon quarters and stuff them into the cavity of the bird as well. Tie the legs of the bird together to close the cavity.
Note: You don’t want the marinade on the outside of the skin until right before cooking! So save some of the marinade in the fridge for the next day.
Place the bird on a pan and in the fridge, uncovered, overnight.
The next day, pre-heat the oven to 425°. Remove the chicken from the fridge one hour before cooking, to bring it to room temperature. Rub the remaining marinade all over the bird in a thin layer.
To cook the bird, you want to place it in a roasting pan that elevates it off the bottom of the pan. In the bottom of the pan, pour in the water, and add the onion and carrot pieces. Place a rack on top of that, and put the chicken on top.
Bake the chicken at 425° for 35 minutes. Then drop the oven temperature to 350° and bake for 20 to 30 minutes more. Check the temperature of the bird by placing an instant-read thermometer in the inner thigh, being careful not to hit the bone. It should read 165°. Remove the bird from the roasting pan and place it on a plate. Cover it with foil to let it rest for 20 to 30 minutes.
While the chicken is resting, it’s time to make the gravy.
2 tablespoons ghee 1 teaspoon cumin seeds 1 teaspoon tandoori masala 2 tablespoons cornstarch 2 cups chicken stock pan drippings from roasting the chicken
Melt the ghee in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the cumin seeds and tandoori masala. Cook, stirring often, being careful not to burn them. Whisk in the cornstarch, mixing well to avoid lumps. Then slowly add the chicken stock. Pour in the drippings from roasting the chicken. (You don’t need the onion and carrot–they’ve done their job.) Bring it to a simmer, then reduce the heat, and cook, stirring constantly, until the gravy is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. To serve, pour the gravy through a wire-mesh strainer into a gravy boat.
There are a million apple pie recipes online, and people argue whether they should go with an all-shortening or all-butter crust, or even a crust with a combination of the two. I used to be a half-butter, half-shortening guy, myself. But over they years, I’ve become an all-butter guy, because quite frankly, shortening is nasty. And butter…is butter!
I choose to bake the pie the day before serving it. And I prepare the dough the day before that. That way, it has time to rest in the fridge overnight. When you’re ready to bake, remove the dough from the fridge and work with it as cold as you can. If you thaw it too much, you’ll lose the magic of the little butter chunks scattered through the dough.
For the dough…
2 1/2 cups all-purpose organic flour (I like King Arthur) 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon sugar 1 cup butter, chilled and diced into cubes 1/2 cup very cold ice water
You can mix the dough ingredients by hand in a bowl, but I prefer a food processor.
Combine the flour, salt and sugar in the food processor and give it a quick pulse to mix. Drop the cubes of butter into the flour mixture, and then pulse the processor until the dough mixture resembles coarse crumbs, and the butter is reduced to pea-sized bits.
Add 1/4 cup of the water, and run the processor. Keep adding a little water at a time, and as soon as the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the processor bowl, stop! You don’t want to overwork the dough.
Remove the dough to a floured surface and knead it into a ball. Cut the ball in half, and roll each half into a thick, round pancake about an inch thick. wrap these tightly with plastic wrap and place them in the fridge until you’re ready to bake.
For the pie filling…
3 lbs. Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced into 1/4″ thick slices 1/2 cup butter 3 tablespoons all-purpose organic flour 1/3 cup apple cider 1/2 cup granulated sugar 1/2 cup light brown sugar 2 teaspoons real vanilla extract 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Preheat the oven to 425.
Remove the dough from the fridge. While it’s warming up, prepare the apples.
Peel and slice the apples into 1/4″ wide pieces. (I like to cut some a little thinner and some a little thicker, so I get different textures of apple when the pie has baked.) Place them in a large bowl.
Melt the butter in a saucepan, and add the flour. Whisk well to make a roux. Add the juice, both sugars, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. Bring it to a low boil, stirring constantly, then remove from the heat.
Pour the contents of the saucepan into the large bowl with the apples, saving about 1/4 cup butter-sugar sauce for later. Mix the sauce with the apples really well, making sure they’re completely coated.
Unwrap one of the dough pieces. On a lightly floured surface, roll it out large enough to fit the bottom and sides of a 9″ pie pan. Let it hang about a 1/2″ over the top edge of the pan, for crimping later.
Carefully transfer the apple mixture into the pie pan, making sure you get every little bit of that butter-sugar sauce in there. The apples will form a large mound. don’t worry…they’ll cook down.
Unwrap the other piece of dough and roll it out so that it fits over the top of the mound of apples. Tuck the excess edges of the upper crust under the overlapping bottom crust, pinching the two halves together, making as tight a seal around the pie as you can. (Don’t cut any of that crust away…use it! It’s delicious!) Cut several slots in the top of the crust to let steam out while the pie cooks.
Take that 1/4 cup of reserved butter-sugar sauce, add a little water to it, and brush it all over the top of the crust, brushing evenly over the entire crust.
Place the pie on a baking sheet and bake it at 425 for about 15 minutes. Then drop the oven temperature to 350 and bake for another 50 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and crisp. If it looks like the edges of your pie are browning too quickly, tent around the edges loosely with foil. Remember, ovens vary!
Let the pie cool completely. I prefer to let it cool overnight, to be served the next day. We like to serve it with good-quality vanilla ice cream.
Of course, apple pie and coffee is an excellent breakfast the next morning!
A few years ago, we were invited to a very cool retro summer party: cocktails and appetizers from the 60’s, and everyone contributed to the music by bringing in their favorite songs on vinyl.
We were also asked to contribute to the apps, so I brought waffle chips with clam dip.
2 8-oz. packages cream cheese, softened
3 6-oz. cans of chopped clams, drained, liquid reserved from one can
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Combine all the ingredients, except the clam liquid, in a bowl and mix them well with a fork.
Add 1 tablespoon of the clam liquid and mix well. Keep adding the clam liquid until the dip reaches a consistency you like.
I can’t get enough of chicken, and I cook it at least a couple of times a week. So I have to keep coming up with new flavors to challenge my taste buds as well as myself.
This recipe works with wings, but any other chicken parts you like will work.
Here’s a hint with fresh ginger: buy a nice looking root and keep it wrapped well and in the freezer. When you need some, simply grate the frozen root, skin and all, and then place it back in the freezer until next time. It will last a lot longer than in the fridge.
4 lbs. chicken wings
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons sesame oil
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper sauce (I like Frank’s Red Hot)
1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, minced
1/4 cup onion, minced
1 tablespoon garlic, minced
1 cup chicken stock, preferably homemade
Thaw chicken wings and place in a Ziploc bag.
In a separate bowl, whisk together all the other ingredients, except chicken stock, to make a marinade. Pour this marinade into the Ziploc with the chicken and seal, squeezing the air out of the bag. Squish the bag around so that the marinade thoroughly covers all the chicken wings. Place the bag in the fridge to marinate for at least 4 hours, but overnight is even better. Place the bag in a bowl to prevent accidental leakage in your fridge.
Pre-heat the oven to 325.
Carefully pour the marinade out of the Ziploc bag into a saucepan, adding the chicken stock, and reduce until it becomes a thick, gooey glaze. Be careful not to burn the sugars in the honey. Honey can also foam up and overflow if you’re not watching it.
Remove the chicken pieces from the bag and place them on a baking sheet covered with non-stick aluminum foil. Bake for about 30 minutes.
The reduced marinade glaze should be ready right around the time the chicken has cooked for 30 minutes or so. Brush the glaze on to the chicken, and place back in the oven to cook 15 more minutes.
With Thanksgiving around the corner, I’m sharing my favorite holiday dishes I post every year around this time.
My Mom loved that nasty, gooey cranberry log that oozes out of the can. It would hit the bowl with a splurt and would wiggle for about an hour. I’m more than happy to avoid that and make this delicious side dish, which has become a staple at our Thanksgiving table every year…
1 medium-sized butternut squash, washed and peeled with the seeds removed
Olive oil
Salt
1 cup fresh cranberries
¼ cup sunflower seeds
¼ cup pumpkin seeds or pepitas
¼ cup sesame seeds
¼ cup maple syrup, more if you like it really sweet
Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.
Once you’ve washed, peeled and seeded the butternut squash, cut it into ½” cubes. Sprinkle a little olive oil and salt on them and toss them to coat. Then spread the squash cubes in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake them for about 30 minutes or until they’re golden on the edges.
Remove the squash from the oven and pour the cranberries into the hot tray. Mix gently. Pour the squash/cranberry mix into a smaller, deeper baking pan.
Increase the oven temperature to 425.
In a separate bowl, combine the sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds. Sprinkle the seeds evenly over the squash/cranberry mixture. Drizzle the maple syrup over everything and place the baking pan in the oven. Cook for another 20 minutes, until the seeds have roasted.
Drizzle a bit of maple syrup over the top just before bringing the pan to the table.
Generally speaking, I’m not a fan of many gluten-free desserts or snacks. Gluten-free food isn’t any healthier than a food that contains wheat. It’s just that some people are allergic to gluten–it’s as simple as that.
That being said, this brownie/cake combo is full of great flavor, thanks to ground hazelnuts.
When buying hazelnuts, remember that you want raw nuts. Try to get the best quality you can find. No surprise: Amazon is a great source for that.
9 oz. ground hazelnuts
5 1/2 oz. (2/3 cup) sugar
4 oz. (1 stick) unsalted butter
4 eggs
1 oz. cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking powder
A double-batch bakes a bundt pan perfectly. Make extra: it freezes well!
Pre-heat the oven to 350.
Pour the hazelnuts into a food processor and grind them as fine as you can. It won’t be powdery, like flour, but like tiny particles. Dump them into a separate bowl.
Back in the food processor bowl, add the sugar and butter and pulse until combined. Crack the eggs in a separate bowl, and add them slowly to the sugar and butter, pulsing to mix in between each addition.
Pour the ground hazelnuts into the mixture a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. Add the cocoa powder and baking powder, straining them through a sieve to keep out lumps, and pulse again. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and give it all one last mix.
Pour the batter into a buttered pan and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. The brownies will rise as they bake, so make sure your pan is deep enough to accommodate the dough rising as it cooks. Otherwise, you’ll get a brownie overflow!
With Thanksgiving on everyone’s mind, I’d like to share my recipe for what I consider to be the perfect turkey.
I often get asked if I deep-fry my turkey for Thanksgiving. I think it’s way too messy and time-consuming for nothing better than an “OK-tasting” bird. I lived in the South for a few years, and my friends fried a turkey on several occasions. I wasn’t that impressed.
When frying, you need to find a safe spot in the yard to blast the propane-fueled fryer so you don’t burn your house down. Then you need to stand outside and freeze your butt off while it fries, while your friends and family are all indoors having cocktails. Then you need to get rid of gallons of used oil, and clean up a huge mess at the end of it all. And through all this, you need to make sure the oil is at the right temperature so you don’t get a scorched turkey on the outside and a raw turkey on the inside.
No, thanks.
I get great results by cooking my turkey in my Weber grill. I’ve cooked it this way every Thanksgiving for about 30 years. The standard Weber allows me to cook up to a 15 lb. bird–big enough for my purposes–and it comes out crispy, smoky and delicious. If you’re afraid to try this for the first time at Thanksgiving when it really matters, I understand. That’s how I did it years ago, and I never looked back.
The charcoal chimney with hot coals awaits.
Although I’ve stopped using charcoal briquettes for basic grilling a long time ago, and now strictly use natural hardwood charcoal, this recipe works best with Kingsford briquettes. They burn slowly and evenly. I never use lighter fluid…I always start my fire with a few pieces of crumbled newspaper under a charcoal chimney.
The tools you need:
A Weber grill, with the dome top Kingsford charcoal briquettes (don’t t use Match Lite or other pre-soaked briquettes)
A charcoal chimney, easily found at Home Depot or Lowe’s
A heavy-duty disposable aluminum pan
Ingredients:
Whole turkey, up to 15 lbs., thawed and brined (see my previous blog about brining a turkey)
Olive oil (to rub on the turkey)
2 yellow onions, chopped
4 stalks of celery, chopped
½ lb. (2 sticks) of unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon granulated garlic
1 tablespoon granulated onion
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon pepper
Spreading the coals away from the center of the grill.
If you want stuffing, it’s always wise to make it separately and cook it separately.
Light 8 to 10 lbs. of charcoal in the grill…depending on the size of the turkey and how cold it is outside.
If you brined the turkey first, you’ve already removed the giblets. If you’re not brining, go ahead remove the giblets from the thawed bird now. Place the turkey in the aluminum pan.
In a small bowl, mix the granulated garlic, granulated onion, salt, and pepper. (Add any other seasonings you might like.)
Coarsely chop the onions and celery. Place them in a another bowl. Mix them with the melted butter and 1/3 of the garlic/onion/salt/pepper mixture.
Place a small handful of this onion and celery “stuffing” mixture in the neck cavity of the turkey. Place the rest in the body cavity (where the stuffing would usually go.) You can fasten the bird with turkey skewers if you like. This “stuffing” is strictly to flavor the turkey…you don’t eat it!
The rubbed, stuffed and seasoned bird.
Rub the outside of the entire turkey with the olive oil and sprinkle the rest of the garlic/onion/salt/pepper mixture on the outside of the bird. Make sure you get the bird on the bottom as well.
When the coals in the grill have ashed over, spread them to the outside edges of the Weber grill equally. Put the cooking grill rack in place. Place the aluminum pan with the turkey in the center of the grill, keeping it away from the direct heat of the coals. If you’re using a meat thermometer, insert the probe into the thickest part of the breast, being careful not to hit the bone. Place the lid on the grill. (You may need to bend your aluminum pan a bit.) Open the vents on the bottom of the Weber as well as the vents on the lid. It’s important to get air circulating!
My old-school meat thermometer calls me from as far as 100 feet away! (Newer thermometers are wireless and talk to your smart phone.) Time to join family and friends for a cocktail!
No basting is necessary.
Now here’s the tough part: DO NOT OPEN THE GRILL TO CHECK ON THE TURKEY! (If you must look, shine a flashlight into the vent holes on the lid to take a peek at the pop-up timer, if there is one.) The whole point is to keep the heat inside the kettle. You’ll know your turkey is done when no more smoke or heat rises from the grill, and the turkey inside stops making sizzling noises. The internal meat temperature should be around 165 degrees.
And believe it or not, a 15-lb. turkey will be cooked in about 2 hours!
If you’re using a meat thermometer (recommended), remove the turkey when it hits about 155 degrees, wrap it in foil, leaving the thermometer still in the bird, and let it rest at least 20 minutes. The temperature will go up a bit to 165 or even a little higher, before it starts going down.
I get requests to publish my holiday recipes every year, so, with Turkey Day on everyone’s mind, let’s get it started…
I have to admit, I’m not a big fan of turkey. All things being equal, a roasted chicken is, in my opinion, a lot tastier. So turkey needs help. And one great way to give it lots of flavor is to brine it. No matter what method you prefer to cook your bird, brining it beforehand will make it so much tastier and juicier. It’s easy to do.
It’s basic high school science: the brine has a greater concentration of salt and water than the molecules of the protein (in this case, a turkey) that is soaking in it. By simple diffusion, the protein molecules suck up the salty water and keep it. When you cook the meat, some of the water evaporates, but the meat still has far more moisture in it than it would have without the brine soaking, and you get a moister, more flavorful bird.
Some people use giant syringes to inject their turkeys with crazy solutions, but I think that the old way is still the best when it comes to brining. Get a big pot, fill it with the brine, and soak the bird in it. Done.
Here’s my tried-and-true turkey brining recipe. Once the brining is done, you can cook the turkey whatever way you like best. I use a method where I grill it inside a Weber grill with charcoal. It comes out smoky and absolutely amazing. I’ll have that info in my next blog.
You must thaw the bird before brining, so use your favorite method to thaw your turkey so that it’s ready on Thanksgiving morning. Brining can take 4 to 6 hours, so start early!
For this recipe, you’ll need a large pot to boil the brine ingredients, and then a larger pot to hold the turkey submerged in the brine. I use a turkey no bigger than 15 lbs. for two main reasons: there are only 3 people in our family, and the Weber grill I will later use can’t handle anything bigger.
1 gallon of water
2 onions
3 carrots
3 stalks celery
1 cup Kosher salt (I use Diamond Crystal…see below)
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons whole allspice
4 bay leaves
1 gallon of ice water
14–15 lb. turkey, thawed
Pour the first gallon of water in a large pot. Quarter the onions, carrots and celery (no need to peel them) and add them to the water. Add the salt, black peppercorns, brown sugar, allspice, and bay leaves. (I specify Diamond Crystal Kosher salt because all Kosher salt does not weigh the same! For example, Morton Kosher salt is much heavier for the same 1-cup measurement, so the brine will be saltier.)
Let the pot come to a boil for a few minutes. Remove it from the heat and let the brine cool down to room temperature.
Remove the giblets from the thawed turkey and place the bird in a container just big enough to hold it and 2 gallons of liquid.
Pour the now-cooled brine over the turkey, then pour in the gallon of ice water.
Make sure the turkey doesn’t float up by placing a plate on top. Put the turkey container in the fridge (or a cold garage or basement) for 4 to 6 hours, flipping the turkey over in the container halfway through.
After 4 to 6 hours, drain the turkey, rinsing off any spices that stuck to it, then pat it dry with paper towels. Now it’s ready to cook, using your favorite recipe.
If I’m brining a turkey for Thanksgiving, I do the brining in the morning and the turkey is ready to cook by early afternoon. And grilling it on a Weber grill only takes a couple of hours. It’s fast, requires no basting, and is absolutely delicious! That’s next time!
Live the Live ™ 