Challenge Accepted! Make a trip to the farmer's market without looking up recipes ahead of time. Purchase meat that still has it's face in addition to a vegetable and a fruit that you have never eaten before. Prepare a meal from said purchases. This challenge was not extended to me, however I was invited along for the journey. The resulting meal was quite tasty, although I am not sure I will ever cook it the same way again.
Yet again I am lacking pictures of my culinary adventures. I sincerely apologize for that, but I should be able to make it up to you when my co-chef posts about his challenge.
We were smart enough to have the farmer's market friendly employees clean our fish and remove the head for us. Technically when we bought it the head was still on, just not when we took it out of the market. This left the very interesting task of filleting the fish to us. Dear reader, please hear me when I tell you that there is a reason the world has butchers. That reason is so that someone can do this task for you. I am glad that we undertook this assignment purely for the fact that I learned the lesson that just because you can do something does not mean that it is worth it. We found some youtube videos and other internet instructions for filleting a fish and tried to follow them. It is difficult work, especially if you do not have a boning knife. Once you get the fillets cut off of the fish, then you have the super fun task of pulling out all of the tiny little bones. I recommend needle nose pliers or tweezers for this task. Getting the fish ready is definitely labor intensive, get someone else to do it unless you plan on roasting the fish whole.
Once you do remove your fish meat from the bones, the fun can begin. We saute'd the fillets in a lemon chive butter. It cooks very quickly, but the resulting dish is tender and delicious. In addition to the trout we made ginger garlic bok choy. If you have never had bok choy then please please try this. It is like a cross between spinach and cabbage and the texture is wonderful. I got thess recipes from the food network, but I modified it slightly so that the flavor profile would meld together.
Lemon Chive Trout with Ginger Garlic Bok Choy
Ingredients
2 lemons
5 Cloves of Garlic
1.5 Inch of Ginger
Bunch of Chives
1 Scallion
1 Head of Bok Choy
4 Trout Fillets
4 Tablespoons of Butter
2 Tablespoons of soy sauce
Grate the ginger
Grate the garlic
Chop the chives
Dice the scallions
Zest the Lemons
Mix all of these togther and separate into two prep bowls. Into one prep bowl juice one of the lemons and then mix in 3 tablespoons of the butter, place this one in the fridge. Set the other one aside.
Roughly chop the bok choy, stopping about 2 inches from the core. Season the fish with salt and pepper. In a large skillet (we used a wok), heat a little bit of olive oil and then saute your ingredients in the set aside prep bowl. After 2 minutes add the bok choy and toss. Then add 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and let it cook while you prepare the fish. Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't burn. In another skillet place your remaining butter and a scoop of your combined butter (save some to top the cooked fish with). Cook the fish for about 3-4 minutes on each side. Flip with two spatulas, not tongs. When done transfer to aplate, top with dots of your combined butter and a squeeze of lemon from your extra lemon.
Happy Dining!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Stuffed Turkey Burgers
The idea to make burgers was put into my head by the show How I Met Your Mother. In one episode Marshall searches for the best burger in New York, and so I consequently wanted burgers. I am trying to be more mindful of my spending and I wanted to make the burgers instead of going to find a pricet burger. I have always been a fan of cheeseburgers, and I particularly love to up the cheese level of dishes. A while back I stumbled upon a stuffed cheeseburger where you put cheese inside the burger and on top. This definitely met my qualifications for upping the cheese level of a burger. I decided to take it a step further this time and went searching for stuffed burger recipes. I stumbled upon an awesome one by Sonny Anderson and after some modifications I achieved a delicious success. So delicious in fact that I only remembered to take a picture of these delightful things after I had consumed them all. To be fair to myself though, they weren't exactly pretty, just very very tasty.
Ingredients:
1 pound ground turkey
Pepper
Tony Cacheres (or salt, garlic powder and onion powder)
Hot Sauce
Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 Onion (Diced Finely)
1/2 Pint of Mushrooms (Diced Finely)
4 Strips of Bacon
Blue Cheese Crumbles
This will make 4 very larger burgers. Add the pepper, hot sauce, Cajun seasoning and Worcestershire sauce to the ground turkey and use your hands to mix it together. Don't work it too much, just enough to incorporate the ingredients. I didn't measure when I did this, I just eyeballed a good coating of seasoning and a few big splashes of the sauces. Let this mixture sit in the fridge for a while to let the flavors combine.
In a large skillet brown the bacon until it is crispy then remove it from the pan to a plate lined with paper towels to cool. Add the onions to the bacon grease and saute until the soften then add the mushrooms. Cook until the mushrooms are tender. Remove from the hear and crumble in the bacon. Allow the mixture to cool.
Take your turkey mixture from the fridge and cook a small piece to test your seasoning, add more salt (cajun seasoning) if needed. Divide the turkey into 4 equal portions and then divide each portion in half. On a large plate flatten one of your halves into a very thin pancake. Add a palm full of your bacon mix to the center of your pancake and then sprinkle on some blue cheese crumbles. Top with the other half of your turkey portion, I flattened them in my hand before topping them. Push the edges together to seal up the burger and then set aside. Repeat for the other three burgers. Grill the burgers for about 4 to 5 minutes on each side.
We ate these without buns because I don't eat buns, but I think that if you can handle the carbs then a bun definitely will help this feel more like a burger. I topped mine with a slice of cheddar cause I am weird like that, and I loved it. The blue cheese really pops out of every bite and the bacon is subtle but present in the background. I served these with oven baked zucchini chips (coat zucchini slices in egg wash and then Parmesan bread crumb mix and bake at 350 for 30 minutes).
Happy Dining!
Ingredients:
1 pound ground turkey
Pepper
Tony Cacheres (or salt, garlic powder and onion powder)
Hot Sauce
Worcestershire Sauce
1/2 Onion (Diced Finely)
1/2 Pint of Mushrooms (Diced Finely)
4 Strips of Bacon
Blue Cheese Crumbles
This will make 4 very larger burgers. Add the pepper, hot sauce, Cajun seasoning and Worcestershire sauce to the ground turkey and use your hands to mix it together. Don't work it too much, just enough to incorporate the ingredients. I didn't measure when I did this, I just eyeballed a good coating of seasoning and a few big splashes of the sauces. Let this mixture sit in the fridge for a while to let the flavors combine.
In a large skillet brown the bacon until it is crispy then remove it from the pan to a plate lined with paper towels to cool. Add the onions to the bacon grease and saute until the soften then add the mushrooms. Cook until the mushrooms are tender. Remove from the hear and crumble in the bacon. Allow the mixture to cool.
Take your turkey mixture from the fridge and cook a small piece to test your seasoning, add more salt (cajun seasoning) if needed. Divide the turkey into 4 equal portions and then divide each portion in half. On a large plate flatten one of your halves into a very thin pancake. Add a palm full of your bacon mix to the center of your pancake and then sprinkle on some blue cheese crumbles. Top with the other half of your turkey portion, I flattened them in my hand before topping them. Push the edges together to seal up the burger and then set aside. Repeat for the other three burgers. Grill the burgers for about 4 to 5 minutes on each side.
We ate these without buns because I don't eat buns, but I think that if you can handle the carbs then a bun definitely will help this feel more like a burger. I topped mine with a slice of cheddar cause I am weird like that, and I loved it. The blue cheese really pops out of every bite and the bacon is subtle but present in the background. I served these with oven baked zucchini chips (coat zucchini slices in egg wash and then Parmesan bread crumb mix and bake at 350 for 30 minutes).
Happy Dining!
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
I was skeptical about this latest installment of the Mission Impossible tome. The second and third movies were what I would call good not great. They highly overused the masks that can make someone look identically to other people, when you have no way of knowing if the person on the screen is actually who they are pretending to be you definitely lose something in the film.
The premise of the Ghost Protocol follows the formula that Mission Impossible movies know and love. A mission goes terribly awry and everyone is disavowed, then the real mission begins. In this case the gang has to break in to the Kremlin in order to extract information about a terrorist. While there the mission is sabatoged and they are blamed for an explosion and labeled as terrorists. This is not new territory for the MI crew but it always makes for an interesting story.
All in all I would definitely recommend this movie as a weekend distraction. The action is exciting, the movie is pretty fast paced. Cruise does a pretty good job once again reprising his roll as Ethan Hunt, but Jeremy Renner and Simon Pegg steal the show. Pegg's computer man turned field agent is remarkably funny as he strikes an almost Mr. Bean-esque quality without taking it so far that you can't believe he was ever allowed to be a spy. Renner plays an analyst who gets swept up into the mission, and he does so very well. It is an MI film so you can expect Tom Cruise to dangle precariously from a high building, someone to hang from a wire dangerously close to the ground and someone to have a secret that the team does not know about.
If you are looking for an escape movie where things blow up and there are lots of hot people, then this film is for you.
Happy Viewing!
The premise of the Ghost Protocol follows the formula that Mission Impossible movies know and love. A mission goes terribly awry and everyone is disavowed, then the real mission begins. In this case the gang has to break in to the Kremlin in order to extract information about a terrorist. While there the mission is sabatoged and they are blamed for an explosion and labeled as terrorists. This is not new territory for the MI crew but it always makes for an interesting story.
All in all I would definitely recommend this movie as a weekend distraction. The action is exciting, the movie is pretty fast paced. Cruise does a pretty good job once again reprising his roll as Ethan Hunt, but Jeremy Renner and Simon Pegg steal the show. Pegg's computer man turned field agent is remarkably funny as he strikes an almost Mr. Bean-esque quality without taking it so far that you can't believe he was ever allowed to be a spy. Renner plays an analyst who gets swept up into the mission, and he does so very well. It is an MI film so you can expect Tom Cruise to dangle precariously from a high building, someone to hang from a wire dangerously close to the ground and someone to have a secret that the team does not know about.
If you are looking for an escape movie where things blow up and there are lots of hot people, then this film is for you.
Happy Viewing!
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