culinary flights of fancy

Home Cooking Adventures in Berkeley Heights

Monthly Archives: July 2014


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Stuffed Portobello Mushroom with Tuscan Kale, Jersey Tomato, and Fresh Garlic

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I mess around in the kitchen an awful lot. Usually, I look at what we have in the refrigerator and try to come up with dishes that use what we have rather than buying specific ingredients for specific recipes. Sometimes, that approach works great and sometimes it’s a train wreck. This is one of those experiments and, luckily, is one of my favorites as it turns out great time and time again. I’ve made this basic dish a number of different ways with lots of different ingredients. This is a flexible dish in that you can use whatever vegetables you prefer or have on hand. You can also serve this in a variety of ways from an appetizer to side dish to a main course. Portobello mushrooms vary greatly in size, so depending on the size of the mushrooms and your game plan for the rest of the meal, you can certainly use this flexibility to your advantage by simply inserting it into whichever slot fits best for you that day.

For this specific dish, I used Tuscan kale, Portobello mushrooms, tomatoes, and fresh garlic that I found at the Summit farmer’s market. I lightly cooked the garlic and tomatoes, wilted the kale, and added some fresh breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, and homemade garlic mayonnaise to combine. Combine all the ingredients and roast until golden and you are there. If you want to lighten the dish a bit you could certainly substitute a bit of Dijon mustard and a drizzle of olive oil to bind everything in lieu of the mayonnaise. Also, if you don’t have homemade breadcrumbs, just skip the using them entirely. Store bought breadcrumbs will have the wrong texture. Really, as long as you use fresh vegetables that are in season, you can’t go wrong with this dish regardless of the direction you decide to go!  Recipe follows after the jump! Continue reading →


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Sweet Jersey Corn Fritters

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We received a number of ears of corn over a couple of different weeks from Just Farmed, and consequently, I’ve been searching for fresh corn recipes. I made a corn and coconut pudding recipe a couple weeks ago (recipe posted). With this latest round of corn, I toyed with a sweet corn gelato. However I’ve already made a Jersey blueberry gelato (recipe forthcoming) and I am sort of tired of desserts…I’ve made a lot of them lately (at least compared to what I normally cook). So, I thought of corn bread, but despite living in Texas for years, I really don’t love corn bread. I thought about making a slaw but I’ve already done that this year. I thought about just eating it plain either on the cob or simply pan seared with a shallot, etc. However, that seemed sort of boring as well and I sort of wanted to do something with it that I could include on the blog. I settled on corn fritters.

Corn fritters are very southern…as are most things that end in ‘fritter’. They are super simple, usually only comprised of a few ingredients and then fried until golden and crispy. I looked at a ton of recipes and there are a good number out there. Most recipes I looked at seemed to include a lot of flour and required deep frying in a large amount of oil. However, I settled on a basic recipe that involved very little flour, which allowed the actual fresh corn to shine. I shallow fried it, which I liked as it used a TON less oil than what you’d need for deep frying and it takes less time to heat the oil (obviously).

I made a jalapeno mayonnaise and mixed it with a good amount of Dijon mustard and a touch of honey to use as a dipping sauce. I thought the sauce went well with the corn fritters. However, my wife, though she liked the sauce, preferred the fritters just plain, without the sauce. The corn flavor certainly comes front and center if you forego the sauce. So…up to you. Tara thought that adding a bit of diced jalapeno into the corn batter would have been a good idea. I thought about that or about adding some finely diced shallot or onion but decided since this is the first time I made the recipe that I would go with pure corn, flavored only with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. You could certainly season it differently going in either a savory or a sweet direction. I can imagine either would work beautifully.

I used peanut oil for frying. I chose the oil as I knew it can withstand high heat frying. I also chose it as I sometimes watch Alton Brown’s Good Eats show and he said that frying in peanut oil has a neutral smell so you don’t get that ‘fried, oily’ smell throughout your kitchen and home. That’s a real bonus as I am not a fan of frying odors. AND he was correct…there was no odor at all.

I used a large cast iron pan and fit four in at a time, so they were pretty large. You can make them larger like I did or keep them smaller. I tested the recipe using a small amount first and the small fritter turned out just as well as the larger one. I kept the oil between 350 and 375. If you don’t have a thermometer, frying is more difficult but you can do it by testing the oil at first by making a small fritter and then based on that test, adjusting the range temperature up or down as needed. You’ll need to keep a pretty constant eye on how fast the oil is cooking the fritters without the thermometer as cooking at too high a temperature will end up with burned fritters and too low will result in very soggy, oil logged fritters.

You can reuse the oil several different times, so be sure to reserve it and use it for anther recipe in the future!

For as long of an intro I made you plow through before we got to the recipe, the recipe is very, very short. Here goes…it follows after the jump! Continue reading →


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Products Worth Mentioning: My Paris Kitchen by David Lebovitz

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I’ve cooked a few things using this cookbook and I’ve found that the recipes here are easy to follow and quite good.  I also like the idea of an American chef living in Paris doing a cookbook on French food…an interesting perspective.  Beyond the recipes, one of the best things about this book are the anecdotes and advice.  I like the fact that the end of the book provides sourcing for the vast majority of ingredients used in the book.  If you are looking for a great introduction to French cuisine or if you, like me, look for French inspiration from time to time, the book is both a great starting point as well as a useful tool to learn and grow.

I made this French bread using a recipe from the book and it was great…it will definitely go into the bread rotation as a favorite of mine.  The bread uses whole wheat pastry flour, unbleached bread flour, pumpkin seeds and flax seeds among other things.  I’ll post the recipe in the coming days but here’s a picture of my final product.  I followed the recipe from the book pretty much exactly…well, not exactly as I omitted some seeds, but as close as I get to exactly.  That’s for sure!

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Brandied Cherries

Wondering what to do with all those cherries that are in season right now?  Well, hurry up and brandy them for cocktails, desserts, etc.  The cherry season only lasts for a little more time so now is the time if you are so inclined…

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I modified the spices just a bit but used the basic recipe here:  nourished kitchen.

I added allspice berries, star anise, cinnamon stick, vanilla bean, coriander, and black pepper to mine.  Some of these spices were suggested in the nourished kitchen post; some I improvised.  This is a pretty easy recipe and we plan on giving some of them for Christmas presents this year in addition to simply enjoying them ourselves.  They will last around a year, so if we give them as gifts during the holidays, they will last around six months as a gift.  I don’t plan on having the ones I made for us lasting nearly that long!


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Porcini Rubbed Ribeye with Veal Cognac Jus and Roasted Mushrooms and Onions

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Well this one is pretty easy.  I’m not going to write out a recipe but will give a brief summary of how to pull this together.  Just rub the ribeyes with dried porcini mushrooms that have been ground into powder with a spice grinder.  I added fine sea salt, freshly ground pepper, and red pepper flakes to the mushroom powder and then rubbed the mix on the ribeyes about  30 minutes prior to cooking.  In the mean time, I drizzled a bit of extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt, and pepper  over the mushrooms and onions and tossed them into a 375 degree oven and roasted them until caramelized and golden (around 30 minutes or so).  I then turned off the oven and let them sit in the warm oven until it was time to serve.

From there, I used a cast iron skillet and heated it on high for several minutes until it was super hot and placed the steaks in the pan- no oil.  Then I cooked the steaks for around 3 minutes per side (we like our steaks rare).  I removed them from the heat and let them rest.  I turned off the heat and placed about 1/4 cup of cognac into the pan and let it reduce (which happened quickly).  I then added about two cups of reduced veal stock ( you could use beef stock in lieu of the veal if you’d like) and let the whole thing reduce down until it was very thick-about 5 minutes or so.  I strained the sauce as there were scorched bits from the steak that surfaced.

From there, to serve I simply placed the steak on a plate, spooned the sauce over part of the steak and then around it.  I added the warm mushrooms and onion to the plate and simply tore a few Italian parsley leaves haphazardly over and around the plate.  I added a bit of flaky sea salt over the whole thing though I added too much and it ended up salty.  So, unlike me, I’d advise tasting it prior to adding more salt…rookie mistake but what can you do?  I wasn’t paying enough attention this time.  Otherwise I really liked this meal quite a bit.  If you want to make it and have questions, just let me know.  Enjoy!

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Duo of Fresh Cheeses

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Hot off the presses…This will appear in the Alternative Press tomorrow!

Fresh Ricotta and Farmer’s Cheese         

One of the most enjoyable culinary experiments I’ve delved into of late certainly is cheese making. The drawback to making most cheeses stems from the fact that you need chemicals such as rennet, citric acid, etc. to make most cheeses. There are also quite a few cheeses that need to be molded and aged, which takes more equipment and lots of time. However, ricotta and farmer’s cheese fall into a ‘fresh cheese’ category that simply require dairy and an acid and they are very easy to make. There are three components to both cheeses: dairy, acids such as vinegar and lemon juice, and fine sea salt. Once you make these easy cheeses, if you are like me, you will never buy them again…they are that much better than store-bought and, let’s face it, three ingredients are much better than the other stuff typically added to most store-bought cheese.

Like anything else, the overall taste of the cheese will be determined by the quality of the ingredients. So, use the best dairy products you can find and afford. This is especially true for cheese as the yield amounts can vary widely based on the quality of the ingredients. Of note for cheese making: stay away from dairy products that are ultra-pasteurized. I won’t get into technical and chemical issues with making cheese, but the high temperatures of ultra-pasteurization destroy chemicals in the dairy that are beneficial and necessary for making cheese. Nutrients are also destroyed during ultra-pasteurization. This typically means that most organic dairy products can’t be used. If you can get your hands on organic dairy that hasn’t been ultra-pasteurized, then great. However, I’ve looked all over the place and the best I’ve found is simply local dairy products that do not use antibiotics or growth hormones and are simply pasteurized at traditional temperatures. OK, enough of that!

In terms of equipment, you will need some cheese cloth or butter muslin for straining. You can find cheese cloth at most grocery stores or retailers that sell kitchen items. Butter muslin is more difficult to find but it might be worth looking for it if you plan to make these and other cheeses fairly often. It’s very fine and much thicker than typical cheese cloth.

I paired the ricotta with some roasted striped beets, golden raisins, and toasted pine nuts with a drizzle of olive oil and a pinch of red pepper flake. The farmer’s cheese is paired with crusty bread, pumpkin seed oil, and pumpkin seeds. I found the pumpkin seed oil at Kings. You can also find it on-line. I think rye bread goes great with farmer’s cheese, but you can use whatever suits your taste. These cheeses can obviously be used in a ton of different ways or enjoyed simply on their own.

A couple of parting thoughts: you can increase the recipes for both cheeses. For the ricotta, one cup of cream to three cups of whole milk is the ratio to go by. You can increase portion as long as you use that ratio and increase the amount of lemon juice in kind. The farmer’s cheese can be doubled, etc. as well. The yield amounts for the cheese will vary based on a number of factors including the type and quality of the dairy used. I was able to yield a couple cups of cheese out of each recipe.  Recipe follows after the jump. Continue reading →


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Garden of Eden Berkeley Heights- Closing again!

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Well…that was fast!  Garden of Eden, after agreeing to stay open last week after announcing they were closing, announced they are closing again on July 31st.  I think anyone who shopped there regularly and stopped by over the last week, definitely should have seen this coming as GoE didn’t really bother restocking much of their original merchandise.  Further, I tried to buy some produce there several times and found a lot of it was either moldy or on its way there quickly.   IF they were serious about staying open and giving it a go, they really didn’t do much to prove it.

I think it goes without saying (but I’m gonna say it anyway) that they have made several missteps here.  First, and foremost, remaining open for one week is not giving the market a fair shot!  I don’t even think they really ever really tried with this market and giving it less than a week after four months or so total time proves that point.  GoE squandered a great opportunity to drive business to the store with the festival that was held here in Berkeley Heights last week.  There was a ton more foot and drive-by traffic around the store over a five day period and they did nothing to encourage passers-by into coming into the store.  They did place a small sign advertising a few produce specials outside the store but they could have really capitalized on the festival and news that they were staying open with a modicum of effort.  Had they done anything such as extending hours, offering festival specials on prepared food, or anything at all, I think they would have been happy with the results of that effort.

Second, and maybe worse, they attempted to rebrand themselves as a store that can support ‘one stop shopping’.  They mentioned this over and over again in their emails and communication with customers after they announced they were giving it another go.  This simply isn’t and wasn’t the case.  GoE does not have the inventory to compete with or even approach the variety of items found at Stop N Shop, Kings, Target, Costco, etc.  Did they have some paper towels and some baggies?  Yes, they did and that’s great for convenience in a pinch.  However, who is really going to buy one package of two paper towel rolls here in the suburbs?  Who, in the suburbs, doesn’t buy multiple roll packs or purchase in bulk at Costco or Target?  They simply can’t compete on that level and they were kidding themselves if they thought they could or, worse, they were kidding their customers by saying they could offer that! They are a gourmet grocery store that sells gourmet prepared foods as well.  C’on GoE, embrace who you are!

At any rate, last week I was disappointed they were closing.  This time around, I’m over it!  I’ll gladly go back to shopping  at Stop N Shop, Kings, the Farmer’s markets, and the meat markets around the area and augment all of that with the occasional on-line order.  They are offering 20% off everything right now.  Who knows if they will offer deeper discounts as the days pass.  I’m unsure I’ll go back to find out…


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Pasta with Homemade Ricotta, Swiss Chard, Spring Onions, and Homemade Breadcrumbs

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Berkeley Heights and the surrounding area has a LOT of Italian restaurants. So, I haven’t posted a lot of pasta or Italian inspired recipes because there’s so much to try at local restaurants. This one is very easy to do and is very good…and good for you. If you haven’t made ricotta from scratch, it’s quite easy and only involves a few ingredients and steps. It’s quite tasty and if you are like me, you won’t really ever buy ricotta again. All the ingredients except the pasta were either purchased fresh at the Summit Farmer’s market or obtained through Just Farmed. You can switch the types of greens and add or subtract other veggies as you like. I really like the added homemade breadcrumbs as it adds some body to the sauce and some crunch to the texture. If you don’t happen to have day old bread, don’t substitute breadcrumbs from the grocery store. They have the wrong consistency and will make the texture soggy rather than crunchy. If you don’t have the homemade breadcrumbs, I’d suggest foregoing the breadcrumbs and either just going with the rest of the ingredients as is or adding something like toasted pine nuts. Hope you enjoy the dish!  Recipe follows after the jump… Continue reading →


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Jersey Corn and Coconut Pudding

Have a lot of corn at this point in your life?  Me too.  Just Farmed has supplied a ton of it to us the last couple of weeks and from what I understand we have more coming!  So, I was looking for something to do with it and ran across this recipe.  I gave my wife a number of options as to how we would use the corn and she requested that I make this.  So, I made it last weekend and it turned out great.  Both the corn and the coconut flavors came through.  Scented with a bit of cinnamon on top, it turned out to be a great dessert, though a bit sweet for my taste overall. I followed the recipe verbatim…something I almost NEVER do.   It didn’t take very long to make and it certainly isn’t a complicated recipe to follow or execute.  Anyway, if you try it, I hope you enjoy it!

Corn and Coconut Pudding:

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Products Worth Mentioning: Pimenton

 

 

I think I might have mentioned it here before but I can’t exactly remember.  Of late, I have definitely enjoyed delving into cooking Spanish food and exploring that cuisine.  My last recipe I did for Alternative Press, which I also posted here on the blog, featured a Spanish pepper stuffed with a white bean and fennel sofrito.  The one spice featured in the sofrito was Pimenton, Spanish paprika.  It can be sweet (Dulce, pictured above) or it can be spicy/hot (pictured below).  The best Pimenton generally is “De La Vera” which comes from a specific region in Spain, so if you buy it, look for that on the label.  I have a tin of sweet and a tin of spicy.  They last quite a while as the spice is quite strong and pungent.  I love it…it imparts a ton of flavor and color to anything I add it to.  I’ve used it in everything from slow cooked beans to roasted chicken to simply adding a dash or two to veggies.  I have looked high and low for Pimenton locally and have come up empty.  So, my advice, if you are interested in buying some is to either look in NYC or order it on-line.  Amazon sells it.  There’s also a great little website called La Tienda, which features all sorts of Spanish specialty food items and recipes and they sell it as well.  At any rate, you’ll have to do some digging beyond simply picking it up at the grocery store.  However, in my opinion, it’s definitely worth the effort!

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