Category — tips

Asparagus is one of my family’s favorite vegetables. I generally make Parmesan Roasted Asparagus, but it’s been too hot and humid this past week to even think of turning on the oven, so we’re back to basics. Not only with the recipe but also with the technique.

What technique? Trimming and peeling the stalks, that’s what!

At the market, choose asparagus with tightly closed tips. The stalks should be bright green and firm. If you aren’t cooking the asparagus that day; stand the bundled stalks in a tall glass or vase with about an inch of water, as you would fresh flowers, and refrigerate.

Asparagus comes in all different thicknesses, from pencil-thin to nearly an inch in diameter. The bottom woody inch or two of any asparagus should be discarded. Whether or not you peel the stalks depends upon their thickness. If you were to peel the pencil-thin size, you would have nothing left. I generally peel if the stalks are 1/2-inch in diameter or thicker.

Begin by snapping off the bottom end of each asparagus stalk. It will naturally break at the spot where it is tender. Cutting the ends off with a knife makes it impossible to estimate just how much to take off since tenderness varies from one stalk to the next.

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A happy coincidence, meant to be, just by chance, lucky, a fluke, a quirk, or a twist of fate… whatever you call it, I like it! And I love that word, happenstance, awesome word! What, by chance, was the fateful occasion for me?

I had about 1/2 head each of green and orange cauliflower from the Colorful Cauliflower Purées of 5 days ago and was trying to decide what to do with it. Of course, I could just make a vegetable side dish or purée and freeze it for later use, but that felt mundane. I was leaning toward cauliflower soup, but it’s so dang hot outside. Instead of pondering it any longer, I decided to waste time on Facebook and, as luck would have it, there staring me in the eye was a recipe for a frittata using cauliflower, delivered directly to my home page from my Facebook friend, Food & Wine! Problem solved, and proof that perusing Facebook isn’t always a waste of time.

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Who are your culinary heroes? I have several; Julia Child, of course, and Jacques Pépin to name only two. Then there is my friend and mentor, Barbara Fenzl.

Another is Alice Waters, the owner of the world-renowned Berkeley, California restaurant, Chez Panisse. Ms. Waters opened Chez Panisse in 1971 when she was only 27 years old. Since that time it has become one of the most awarded restaurants in the world and she has been cited as the most influential culinary person in the past 50 years and is considered the mother of American food. Add to that the fact that Ms. Waters has been a leading proponent of the local and the organic food movements for more than 40 years, long before you could find organic produce in just about every grocery store. Before I go on, please know that the picture above of Alice Waters is not how she typically dresses, she is innovative, but not necessarily eccentric! The photo is her Halloween costume at a 2008 benefit at which she was honored for her amazing works.

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I admit, that title is a little misleading, but it is catchy! If you read yesterday’s post, you already know what I am thinking though. One day you cook a large piece of meat and then use that meat all week to make quick-shortcut meals on busy weeknights. Today I shall give you the recipe for the perfect roast chicken. You’ll actually roast 2 chickens and from there you’ll have several options.

The first choice is to cut off 4 pieces of the roasted chicken (preferably 1/2 breast, 1 thigh, and 2 legs) and use those for the first dinner of the week, along with sides of your choice. Maybe mashed potatoes and green beans would be nice. The meat from the remaining 1 1/2 chickens will then be shredded, refrigerated, and used for meals for the rest of the week.

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After putting up the cocktail recipe on Sunday, then posting it on the LPG Facebook fan page, I found that my “followers” want and need more cocktail recipes. I am here to serve!

We have a built-in 50-bottle wine refrigerator in the kitchen. It is generally stocked about half full with every day, drinkable, and reasonably priced bottles. My favorite summer wine is rosé. I find it to be the perfect “cool me down” hot-weather choice. For some unknown reason, my dad figures that if I like rosé, I must love Riesling and Gewürztraminer. I despise both! In fact, I find them so cloyingly sweet that I can not bring myself to serve them to others either. So what to do with the three bottles I have? Yup, that’s right, it took me three weeks to tell my dad, that I do not like these wines – and yes, it hurt his feelings. A girl’s gotta do what a girl has gotta do to stop receiving bad “gifts”! What I’ve decided to do is make lemonade out of lemons, or in this case, sour up overly sweet wine with a bit of acid.

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It’s been nearly two months since I promised this recipe would be posted here. I can not believe how quickly the summer goes by!  In the last week of May, we finished the third and final step for homemade limoncello liqueur. Then I gave you a wonderful recipe for lemon-limoncello meringue pie and said another limoncello dessert recipe was forthcoming. It has arrived in the form of these amazingly creamy, yet not too sweet, cheesecake squares. This recipe comes courtesy of the talented and lovely Giada De Laurentiis. Not only am I surprised how long it has taken me to finally make these but I am shocked to realize that this is the first cheesecake recipe posted here. And since it’s not made in a springform pan, it’s not even an actual cheesecake.  Shocking, because I love cheesecake, which is by far one of my favorite desserts. Not only that but I can honestly say that I am a master at making them; The Cheesecake Factory has nothing on me!  I’m not bragging, just stating the facts and I’m going to share with you three of the most important tricks of the trade to making creamy and crack-free cheesecakes of your own.

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There really is nothing more refreshing in the heat of the summer than tropical fruit. A couple of days ago it was mango, today pineapple. The directions for cutting, peeling, and coring a fresh pineapple are at the bottom. But first, you shall find a recipe for a wonderful and seasonally bright salad. To make it more of a main course salad, just add grilled chicken or pork.

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Before I begin telling you more than you may ever want to know about tomatoes, their seeds, “seeding” them, and tomato water… I have much more intriguing and interesting information to pass along. I added a new name to the Blogroll over there on the right. It is called “Linger” and is listed under the “Super Non-Cooking Stuff” category, directly below “Larry Fitzgerald”.  Which actually is appropriate. Since I met and began teaching Larry to cook, more than five years ago, I sometimes consider him to be just like a 3rd kid. And “Linger” is the new blog of one of my actual kids – Marissa, my gorgeous and talented daughter. (BTW, moms are totally permitted to brag and say things like that – especially when it is true!) Marissa recently graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in Journalism and a creative writing minor… so it is natural for her to have a blog – she’s a writer!  Please check her out when you have a second, she just got the site up about a week ago and it’s already looking great!

Now on to the task at hand… tomatoes…

You may think that the reason recipes call for tomatoes to be seeded is to… well, remove the seeds. While the seeds may bother some people, the real benefit of seeding tomatoes is to get rid of the water liquid/juice found along with the seeds in the tomato’s interior chambers. Excess liquid makes some dishes soggy, such as salsas and pizzas, and other dishes gummy, such as pasta salads, especially if they sit for a while before being served.

You can choose to either discard the seeds and liquids after seeding the tomatoes, or you may want to save the juices and use them in a chilled soup or even a cocktail. Click here for an article from Bon Appetit about doing just that.

To seed a tomato; cut the tomato in half around its equator. If saving the juice, place a sieve or strainer over a bowl. If discarding the seeds and juice don’t bother to use the strainer. Grasp a tomato half in one hand and gently squeeze it over the strainer/bowl to remove the seeds and the juices. Then slice or dice as directed in the recipe.

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I would estimate that I receive between 2-5 requests each week, throughout the year, to provide birthday party cooking classes. Honestly, I could do that full time and have a real business…that is until those requesting find out the cost of such a party.

The real problem with the cost is not that a cooking class is about $50 per person. Most parents are fine with paying $50 for their child to participate in a 2 to 2  1/2 hour cooking class. But when they realize that they will not just be paying $50 for their child, but for at least 9 of their child’s “closest” friends, to the tune, of at least, $500 (the minimum for a private class is 10 students – or party-goers, in this case). Now that is a different story… trust me, I understand!  Four hundred and fifty dollars is a heck of a lot to pay for a birthday party.  But, if you are willing and happy to pay that amount, I will happily work with you to find a mutually agreeable date, put together a menu, and get your party on my calendar. Or… if you, like me, think that’s too much – then I have some helpful ideas on how to “Host a Cooking Birthday Party” of your own, with some “ crafts help” from Family Fun Magazine. Major Disclaimer: I am not crafty – so even I was to do your party for you, well, the crafts – you are on your own – I am a cooking teacher, not an art teacher – not by a long stretch!

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This may look like one of the longest and most complicated cupcake recipes ever, but honestly, it is super easy – so easy, in fact, that you use a boxed cake mix.  So why all the long explanations and endless paragraphs? Well, 272 of the 373 words in the direction portion of the recipe are explaining how to get the fruit out of the peel and away from the seed/stone of a mango. So that means the recipe itself is really only about 100 words, and not at all complicated. In fact – it is “easy-breezy”.

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