brisket pizza @ 4R whole foods cooking class
chip shop
I hadn’t had a free weekend in a while due to some extra things in the schedule at work and this weekend I was thrilled (and relieved) to have the whole weekend off. Saturday we kind of had a date sort of day where we didn’t have much of an agenda except that we had to be at a cooking class by 6pm. A request had been made earlier in the week to go to the Lego store to do a bit of browsing and I remembered that I had wanted to try the Cookes of Dublin chip shop at downtown Disneyfor a while so we made an afternoon of it. It is a quick service type of menu where you walk up to the counter and peruse the giant board of mostly deep fried Irish delights ranging from fish and chips (yes please) to deep fried candy bars and burgers. I ordered the fish and chips and a diet coke (I mean, really…) and Z ordered chicken tenders. They had several sauces on tap so we opted for those instead of purchasing the garlic or curry mayo at 3.50. They had two that interested me were the tartar sauce and a nice creamy mustard. The price had the standard Disney tax and lunch for two was about $25 including soft drinks but the fish, tenders and chips were all freshly made and actually really tasty with crunchy light batter and hand cut thick fries. We sat outside in the shade and watched the world go by before picking up our free sample at the Ghiradelli shop (chocolate filled with pumpkin creme) and entering the fray at the Lego store.
potato and asparagus tart
I don’t know where I come up with this stuff. Well, actually I do but I wonder what drives me to do complicated dishes on weeknights when I have been out all day. Ever since the Cooking Channel, self proclaimed edgy child of the Food Network went live, I have unwound briefly in the evening watching my favorite chef, Jamie Oliver. When I first embarked on the cooking hobby I watched him for various reasons including, but not limited to…
- he is a drummer in a band
- he skates, drives a scooter and VW van
- he had a great accent
- his perpetual bedhead
- he brought semi stodgy cookery back to hip with his Naked Chef series. (He wasn’t naked, just his food was)
He has stood the test of time, evolving and changing. Now he touts the Food Revolution, home grown veg and lately, flogs jam at Williams Sonoma. I still have a bit of a crush really.
The other night he was pulling asparagus out of his veg patch and made a potato and asparagus tart. Basically creamy, eggy mash with cheese and asparagus laid on top all nested in layers of phyllo. Nice.
smothered andouille grits and miles to go
I finished mile 12 of a figurative marathon I am running at work. Upon taking on the gift shop at work 6 months ago I found a jumbled warehouse, storeroom and overcrowded shop with an outdated and unkempt inventory. Yesterday at 3:30 I finished hand keying the inventory that remains after six months of cleaning and feverish sales. Whew. Now I need to organize and clean up the remains and think about the product mix going forward. And while I have a way to go I have also come a long way.
When I returned home last night I made super luscious creamy white stone ground grits with gravy smothered andouille for supper. Mind you we didn’t eat until 8pm but it was lovely and cozy for an October evening. I modified a recipe of Emeril‘s that I found on foodnetwork.com. I didn’t want to fuss with shrimp and cut the grits he called for by half. It definitely still serves 4. I could also have grits with a couple of fried eggs and a sprinkle of extra cheese and be a very happy girl.
This will easily take you and hour and a half to cook. But slow cooked stone ground grits are worth every minute.
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1/2 green bell pepper, diced
- 1 large spear of celery (1/2 cup?) diced
- Salt
- Cayenne pepper
- 1 package andouille sausage, sliced 1/4-inch thick(I used New Orleans Style Johnsonville precooked from the market)
- 2 1/2 cups chicken broth
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1/4 cup chopped green onions
- 1 recipe Creamy Stone Ground Grits, recipe follows
- We splashed a bit of Tabasco on top
Directions
In a saute pan, over medium heat, melt the butter. Stir in the flour and cook for 4 to 6 minutes for a medium brown roux, about the color of peanut butter. Add the onions, peppers, and celery. Season with salt and cayenne. Continue cooking until the vegetables are wilted, about 8 minutes. Add the sausage and continue to cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the broth and cream. Bring the liquid to a simmer and continue to cook for 8 to 10 minutes, until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. To serve, spoon the grits in the center of each serving bowl. Spoon the mixture over the grits. Garnish with green onions.
Creamy Stone Ground Grits:
2 1/2 cups water
2 1/2 cups milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons butter
3/4 cups stone ground white grits
1 cup grated white Cheddar
In a large saucepan, over medium heat, combine the water, milk, salt, pepper and the butter. Bring the liquid to a gentle boil. Stir in the grits. Turn way down and cook for 1 1/4 hours, stirring occasionally. (The grits will stick to the bottom of the pan, so make sure not to scrape the bottom of the pan. If the grits absorbed all of the water, add some hot water to thin out I had to add about an extra cup, I suppose it would depend on your grits to begin with.) Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the cheese. The grits can either be served immediately or prepared in advance and reheated.
If preparing in advance, grease a pan with a teaspoon of butter. Pour the grits into the pan and reheat in a 400 degree F for 15 minutes.
zucchini pizza
guy at work was like, zucchini? I am not sure why it appealed to me in the first place actually. Z has this site in his reader called Slick Deals which is some kind of aggregator of bargains and I end up being the recipient of five years worth of magazines fairly regularly. Reading cooking and decorating magazines is a pleasure I am guilty of. Recently I ended up with Everyday with Rachael Ray. She isn’t really my favorite, with her wierd combos and super thick (unappealingly so) burgers. But, I take it in the car on road trips and lounge with it on Saturdays when I am caught up on other things. There was an article with 5 ingredient dishes and zucchini pizza called my name. I picked up a lump of dough from the Publix bakery case. The pizza quickly came together as promised. We made a couple of savory additions seen below. It was good and passed the ‘Would we make it again?’ test easily.
- Preheat oven to 425 while you roll out the store bought lump of dough
- 1 1/2 pounds grated zucchini
- 1finely diced onion
- quickly saute onion and zucchini in a medium pan to wilt in a bit of olive oil
- roll out the dough to cover a huge sheet pan
- smear of pesto on the dough (we added this)
- cover dough with the warm zucchini mix
- drop on a few pepperoni (and this)
- drop on 1/2-1 cup of freshly grated parmesan and an equal amount of freshly grated asiago.
- Bake for 20 minutes
My Urban Pantry 