I've never heard of or seen bok choy raab before last week, but I've been eating it nonstop since then. Alex loves it, too.
Poor Cheryl. Always in class, there's never any left over.
Pictured below with tonight's dinner of la-Z-boy polenta--more on that soon--and another shake and bake chicken. More on that soon, too. I received Alex's highest compliment on the meal tonight, "This is a do-over!"
For whatever reason, the farmers cut the shoots off the bok choy plant before the bok choy has a chance to grow.
It's extremely tender and lightly sweet. Don't waste any of these, because you know that a bok choy gave its life for each of these tender shoots.
I try to cook them as little as possible to let their vibrant green flavor and color come through. I just use my typical braising technique for greens but higher in the heat, shorter on the time.
Put a heavy bottom pot like a le creuset over high heat for about two minutes. Add 2 tbs evo and a few cloves of lightly smashed and peeled garlic. Stir briefly then add your bok choy raab about 2 quarts loosely packed. Stir and cook over high heat for about 1 minute. Then add about 1/2 cup chicken or veg stock. Reduce heat to medium and cover fr about 5 minutes. Finish with kosher salt and black pepper and a splash of evo.
Today I found some at Happy Boy at the Galleria farmer's market in Union Square. Last wee, I first found them at the Tuesday Ferry plaza market.
Our little girls are all grown up! Tweety and Feathers, our Plymouth Rock and Ameraucauna chickens have started laying, along with the older Buffy, L.C., and Gladys. The Ameraucana lays green eggs, so we always know when Tweety lays an egg.
We tried them for the first time today. Luckily, they aren't actually green inside. Instead, a beautiful, firm, orange yolk. Alex had this morning's green egg still warm out of the laying box, fried up with one from earlier this week. Yum!
If you're wondering what we do with our five-gallon batches of yogurt, it's all about the daily 6-cup smoothie. 2.5 cups of yogurt, 2 bananas, and orange, some frozen mango and berries, and a touch of honey. It's the perfect recovery drink and the perfect pre-workout fueling drink as well.
Yesterday I did a guest post on the Stanford Alumni blog site, Living Well. Check it out for more info on making smoothies.
Also check out yesterday's breakfast in progress in this video:
And now for a a word on blenders. The ultimate blender is the Vitamix 5200. It will spin your smoothie into a frenzy for at least seven years-- since that's how long the warranty is. It's got a large blade and a deep cavity in the blender container, so that that all of the frozen fruit in your smoothie will easily get sucked into the blade. Lots of power, to crush frozen fruit and even flax seeds. But it costs about $450, so you've really got to want it. Or, get the refurbished model for $380.
I'm currently using a $60 Centaur CEN50 semi-pro model. It's been working like a charm for the past two months, I'm hoping to keep it going for a few years. The 0.5 hp motor is plenty enough to churn through 2-inch chunks of frozen bananas and pulverize flax seeds. I got it on a promotion at Economy Restaurant Fixtures in San Francisco. You can also find them online. You do have to be careful with any of these professional models, as the warranty is typically only a year. Manufacturers assume that a restaurant will beat the life out of the blender pretty quickly, so they offer only a short warranty,
Some blenders I've broken in the past include: a Waring consumer model, a Kitchen Aid consumer, and the Waring MX-1000. Needless to say, I would avoid all of these, and any blenders like them. The consumer Waring (which they call a "Professional Bar Blender" on their web site) and Kitchen Aid have an under-powered motor. If you're making thick smoothies--and really those are the best kind--then you'll start to smell burning clutch, and then pretty soon, nothing. That is, nothing will happen when you turn the blender on. I've broken one of those each.The container on the Waring is also too skinny, so your blade will end up spinning while the solids are suspended untouched above. The KitchenAid model has various modes on it, like puree and ice crush, but none of these is powerful enough to smoothify a thick smoothie.
The Waring MX-1000 has the opposite problem. It has a 3 hp motor, enough to mow your lawn. But, if spins the blade so fast and with such torque, that when it hits a frozen chunk, the blade shaft breaks. After I broke two blade shafts, I just grave-yarded the whole assembly.
Also look for a blender with a one-piece polycarbonate container with a metal blade shaft bottom where it engages with the blender base and motor. I much prefer the polycarbonate because it is much lighter and won't break nearly as easily as a heavy glass container, like in the Waring consumer model. The metal blade shaft bottom is much more durable than a plastic or rubber coupling. You need the metal coupling if you've got a strong motor. Plus you won't keep getting gunk stuck in the rubber gasket for any removable container bottom.
I would either go for the Centaur or exercise the Williams Sonoma 100% satisfaction guaranteed policy, to see if there's any good consumer models out there. That's what I did with the Waring and Kitchen Aid models, returning two broken blenders to them in a month. Then I bought a Hamilton-Beach professional model, which is still going strong after 10 years of daily use. I'm using that for smoothies at the ski house.
Let us know what you think of your current or new blender. I'd love to get some feedback.
I'm usually scared to order risotto at a restaurant. They somehow manage to screw up this incredibly simple dish. Undercooking or overcooking the rice are common. Then there's the folks that feel the need to add cream to give the final dish a creamy texture. That is so wrong.
Of course, my favorite places like Acquerello and Delfina set the standard for risotto. There you will find firm, yet tender kernels of arborio rice, resting in a creamy sauce, full of flavor. The sauce gets its creaminess from the starches that have been coaxed from the rice, the reduction of the stock, and the finishing butter or oils.
Risotto is a super convenient thing to make at home, when you're like me and too lazy to go to the store. We've always keep a box or two of arborio rice on hand, some of those high-tech cartons of stock in the cupboard, and of course some onions and garlic. Bonus points if you have shallots lying around. Some extra virgin olive oil, a little unsalted butter, and a small chunk of parmigiano reggiano. Check.
And if that's all you have, then you're doing just fine. One night after skiing in Tahoe recently, Alex asked what kind of risotto we were having, to which I answered "Risotto-flavored risotto."
If you're making the risotto for a dinner party, you can pause the process after 1-2 rounds of ladling stock into your risotto, before the rice kernels have released much of their starch. Spread the risotto out in a 3/4-inch layer on sheet pans, so it can cool quickly. Put it in the refrigerator on the sheet pans if you have room. Once cooled, the risotto can then be put in a covered container until you're ready to resume the cooking, closer to serving time.
At some point, though, you're going to be needing to add stock and stir, add stock, and stir, you get the idea. For finishing your risotto, remember a few key things:
1. The rice will continue to cook after you plate it, especially if you're plating it into hot bowls, which you should definitely do, to keep it hot. So, you want to serve the risotto a bit more al dente than you want it when you take your first bite at the table. And, you need more liquid in the risotto on plating than you expect on the table, as the rice will continue to absorb liquid as it rests in your pot and then your hot bowls.
2. Finish with some good quality extra virgin olive oil or even better, some unsalted butter. You want the flavors of this fat to come through in your dish, so you want to add these at the very end, even after your cheese.
Using the basic technique in the videos below, you can make all different kinds of risotto. Gain inspiration and ideas from risotto recipes that you see in cooking magazines, and incorporate into this technique. Typically, you'll want to add your extra ingredients once your rice has finished cooking. Think of them more as a fold-in, which should be cooked separately to their own perfection. That's exactly what we do with the butternut squash in this recipe. Roasted till golden brown, already seasoned.
Don't you wish you had a cute little assistant to help bake some cookies? Thanks to Sarah Wolfe for being a star baker. She's a neat freak like her mom and dad--perfect!
Check out her chef's towel scarf.
Our goal, the ultimate dessert. Crispy chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream...ice cream sandwiches!
We used Cheryl's chocolate chip cookie recipe, featured in an October blog posting. Then at least 15 minutes prior to serving, scoop out your vanilla ice cream, put it on a flat surface like a small baking pan, and flatten with something like a bench knife. Return to the freezer so it freezes hard again. To serve, use a metal spatula or bench knife to lift the ice cream disc from the sheet pan, and place on some slightly warmed cookies. Yum.
I've been seeing some fresh, firm cauliflower at the markets recently, so that inspired me to get my spicy cauliflower dish going again.
I like this dish because the anchovy and breadcrumbs give some "meatiness" to the cauliflower. In a pinch, you can serve this with some pasta, and you've got a meal.
In the video, I added the breadcrumbs to the cauliflower over heat, before plating. I think it will be better to wait until after you've plated, and add the breadcrumbs over top, so that they don't get soggy, and you preserve that sheen and bit of sauciness from your stock reduction.
And finally, the recipe on Freebase, courtesy of Freebase TopicBlocks:
Also known as boeuf bourguignon. But this is not your typical dry beef overcooked in red wine, that shredded beef with soggy carrots and mealy potatoes.
No, no, this is melt-in-your-mouth morsels of beef on a bed of perfectly cooked vegetables, in a sauce of reduced beef stock and red wine with a complexity of flavors. Topped off with some crisped bacon, for even more flavor. Here you go... Pardon the funky green bowl--we had this for Christmas dinner at our cabin in Tahoe.
I like this recipe because it demonstrates some techniques that one can use for many other dishes. Making your own stock, cooking the meat on a bed of vegetables, and separately cooking the vegetables that ultimately show up in the stew. As you might expect, it's from the Bouchon cookbook.
I must admit that this recipe is a bit of work, but you can do it all days ahead of your dinner function. In fact, you're supposed to. The beef is supposed to rest covered in cold stock for one to three days, for the juices to fully integrate into the meat.
Here's some beautiful shortribs, courtesy of Chop and Stir readers Tom and Kristi Patterson, from the Patterson ranch in Montana. Thanks Tom and Kristi! I deboned them the night before I made the stew, to use the bones to make a beef stock.
I browned the meat in a touch of canola oil and a large cast iron pan to retain heat. You only need about 1 tablespoon of oil to start the browning process, because the ribs will throw off plenty of fat for cooking. Mmmm, look at that color!
Here's our meat, all nicely browned, resting on paper towels
I make a red wine reduction with a bunch of vegetable, reducing two bottles of red wine down to a glaze. This wine glaze and vegetables will become the bed upon which we will braise the short ribs. You'll end up tossing these vegetables after you'v extracted all the flavor from them anyway, so it's ok that they don't look pretty.
Wrap the shortribs in a piece of cheesecloth that is big enough to cover the pot. I like to have the cloth then cover the ribs, so that the stock doesn't envelop the ribs with loose vegetables.
The cheese cloth drapes over the shortribs, and there's enough stock to cover all of the meat.
I've created a mise en place of the cooked vegetables, all ready to be incorporated into the stew. The fingerling potatoes and carrots are cooked till just firm in water infused with thyme, bayleaf, and garlic.
The onions have been blanched and peeled, mushrooms are sauteed, and the bacon crisped on a sheet pan in the oven. You cook all of the vegetables individually and just to the right amount of doneness, so that when you add them to the stew, they will still have their flavor intact and won't be overcooked.
It wouldn't be Christmas at our house without chocolate covered peanut butter balls! Cheryl made a batch on Christmas morning, and here's all of her tempering secrets.
A demo of laryngitis Cheryl rolling the peanut butter mixture into balls:
Here's the trick to tempering chocolate:
And finally, she covers in chocolate and rolls in chopped peanuts:
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