May 1
Did you know chive blossoms are edible? Cut the stems and flower buds into 2 inch lengths and stir fry with garlic and a little soy. Yum
May 2
Email from student “Made the Moroccan chicken and couscous tonight for my family. They loved it! It was so delicious! Even my 7 and 11 year old boys ate it.
They gave it a 10 on a scale of 1-10. And they never give higher than 9.5!
Thanks!”
This is why I love teaching
May 3
Mint syrup
May 5
When cooking rice or other grains, dry toast them in the naked pan before adding water or stock. It’s a great way to add flavor without calories.
May 7
Hate it when 3/4 of that bunch of parsley or cilantro goes bad? Don’t fret. Chop up the whole bunch at once. Dry it well (really important part) & put the remainder in a bag or container. Store in the freezer. When you need more, take out what you need & immediately put back in the freezer so you don’t wind up with an herb ice cube.
May 12
Smell your herbs and spices before you use them. They should be fragrant. If not, they won’t add anything to your dish. Buy new from somewhere there is a high turnover of stock. Don’t store them near the stove or oven, the heat dissipates the fragrant oils
May 13
Making trout for dinner tonight. Boned filets, seasoned flour the skin side and sprinkle the flesh side with s,p, thyme. Sauté skin side down ( in bacon fat if available ) until flesh is opaque and skin is crispy. You don’t have to turn over. Serve with sautéed spinach. I’ll post a picture after I make it tonight.
May 15
Store tongs in empty foil cardboard rolls to keep them under control
May 16
If you spray the measuring spoon or cup with non stick cooking spray before you measure honey or agave, if will slide right out
May 17
What you don’t see is the nougat of melted truffle cheese in the middle
Picture of Truffled Mushroom Risotto Cake Stuffed with Italian Truffle Cheese
May 19
Slugs munching on your plants? Throw them a party. Save your leftover beer and put in a shallow container that’s buried an inch or so in your garden near the affected plants. Slugs will party to their doom. Most humane pest control ever.
May 22
Chopped, diced and minced. Coarsely chopped would be larger pieces. The recipe will usually tell you what size the dice should be, but it should be square shaped regardless. Now you know. Share this on your page so your friends know too!
May 24
Minced Garlic
Need to mince garlic for a recipe using your food processor? Turn on the empty processor and drop the peeled cloves in through the feed tube. Yay evenly minced garlic. Proceed with your recipe. One less thing to wash.
May 25th
Who’s going to be my 75th like?
May 27th
Peeling tomatoes
Now that you peeled the tomatoes, you may want to seed them too. Just cut them in half and squeeze the juices and seeds out. I strain the seeds out of the juice and use it as the liquid in a recipe or add a little vinegar and salt and drink it. Lots of vitamin C.
May 28th
Srircha addition
May 29th
Now that you’ve peeled and seeded your tomatoes, if you squish the tomato half, it makes it really easy to do a nice dice for bruschetta.
Lightly caramelized onions, thyme kissed mushrooms, garlic laced arugula, goat cheese and home smoked honey mustard cured salmon with mixed peppercorn, farm fresh eggs. A Breakfast beyond all.
May 31
Cold confit oil spreads very nicely
I didn’t really like making bruschetta toasts because anything that uses a pastry brush (not cleanable) or the lame silicone ones that don’t spread anything evenly just wasn’t fun. But now I take my garlic confit out of the fridge and lightly spread it on each side of the bread and toast. Parmesan on one side is nice.