Comfort Food Party

Yesterday I was battling a case of the Monday blues due to an excessively raucous weekend. The cure could be found in my favorite comfort food of this winter season, grilled cheese and tomato soup. I've been working on my recipes so I can come up with one that I'm really proud of and I'm pretty sure I found it last night.

Gruyere Grilled Cheese
Ingredients:
Sourdough bread
Cremini Mushrooms
Gruyere cheese
Fontina Cheese
Fresh spinach
Butter
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

What you might notice about my ingredients list is that I haven't shown any quantities for any of the ingredients. The fun of making a grilled cheese is that you can make it as cheesy or buttery or (in this case) mushroom-ey as you want. There aren't any rules so don't be so anal.

First off, slice the mushrooms. Heat a pan until it's really hot and add a teaspoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of butter to the pan. Add mushrooms with salt and pepper and cover. Stir regularly. If the pan is really hot, the mushrooms will brown on the outside and have a really nice texture on the inside. You'll see that the mushrooms "drink" up most of the fat. It's ok, don't add more fat or you'll have greasy mushrooms. The mushrooms will release some of their delicious, earthy moisture after they've cooked for a few minutes.

I used a vegetable peeler to cut very thin slices of the gruyere. I think this helps the cheese to melt better. I basically tore the fontina into chunks. This cheese doesn't have any problem melting (which is part of why it's so great for grilled cheese).

Put the cheese, mushrooms, and spinach onto the sandwich and close. Add butter to the outside of the bread and cook in a saute pan or a sandwich press. (or, if you're like my awesome friend Lindsey, you'll use a waffle iron!)

After eating this sandwich, I don't think I'll ever be able to eat another grilled cheese unless it has gruyere and mushrooms. This grilled cheese will change the way feel about life.

Tomato Soup
Ingredients:
1.5 TBL butter or olive oil
2 Medium Onions
3 Stalks Celery
3 Carrots
5 Cloves Garlic
2-3 TBL Tomato Paste
1.5 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 - 28 oz. can san marzano tomatoes
1/4 cup heavy cream
15-20 fresh basil leaves

Heat the butter or oil in a dutch oven on medium-high heat. Add diced carrots, celery, and onion (also known as a mirepoix) to the fat along with salt and let it sweat for 8-10 minutes. Add garlic and cook for a minute. Add tomato paste and cook for another 5-7 minutes. This is the base for your soup.

Add the chicken broth and the can of tomatoes. Stir to break up the tomatoes then cover and cook for about 15-25 minutes depending on how much texture you want the vegetables to have.

This is the base that I like to use for all tomato soups. From here you can add chipotles, curry, fennel seeds, or many other flavors to make the soup take on whatever characteristic you would like.

For this soup (which I would call a standard tomato soup) you add the cream and basil. Use a stick blender to blend the soup until smooth (you could use a regular blender or a food processor).

Tomato soup is really easy to make, delicious to eat, and pretty good for you if you can go easy on the oil and cream. I'd recommend never buying it again.

Last time I made tomato soup and grilled cheese I was discussing the nature of comfort food. I think the point is to make your friends and family feel comfortable and comforted (a pretty noble cause when you enter the kitchen). I hope that sometime soon you can get in the kitchen to make something delicious and comforting for your friends and family.

xo,
Levi

Pigskin Party

Hello everybody. This weekend I had the pleasure of having over a whole mess of friends to watch my beloved Cowboys beat up on the Eagles. Thankfully, each of the dishes seemed to be a big hit with everyone! The meal included BBQ pulled pork sliders and potato salad. This is an extra long blog post so I'll get right to it.

The first recipe is a fantastic german potato salad. For those who haven't tried this dish, it is a potato salad that utilizes salt and vinegar flavors as opposed to mayonnaise and mustard. I really don't like mayonnaise at all but I love potatoes so it's just perfect for me.

German Potato Salad:
Ingredients:
6 lbs. red potatoes
7-9 strips bacon
1/2 cup minced onion
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
4 TBL flour
1.5 TBL sugar
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
2 tsp yellow mustard seeds
1 TBL celery seeds
1/4 cup fresh chopped Italian parsley
Salt and pepper

The above quantities made a ton of potato salad, so it's probably a good idea to cut this recipe in half if you aren't cooking for a crowd.

First step is to cut the bacon into 1/2" pieces and saute in a dutch oven over medium heat until crispy and all the fat has rendered out. Remove bacon and reserve on paper towel.

Saute they onions with some salt in the bacon fat over medium heat. After 7-8 minutes the onions should smell sweet and delicious. This means they're ready.

In a separate bowl combine the mustard and celery seeds, sugar, and flour. This dry mixture will actually become a roux with the onions and bacon fat. Just keep the heat at medium and be sure to continuously stir when you add the dry to the fat and the onions. The mixture should turn into a paste.

Combine the vinegars (1 cup total) with 1 cup of water. Add this mixture to the roux a few tablespoons at a time until you've added all 2 cups of liquid. After each time you add liquid, stir the dressing until it's thickened and smooth.

Fold in potatoes that have been cut into cubes and boiled. If you stir in too violently, the potatoes will fall apart and you'll have salt and vinegar mashed potatoes instead of potato salad. Add the parsley and the reserved bacon pieces just before serving.

This recipe is really great. Try adjusting the amount of sugar and vinegar to get the balance that you like the most. Even though I had a bunch of leftovers, the potato salad was all gone after 24 hours!

Homemade Pickles
Ingredients:
5-6 Pickling Cucumbers (if you're in Dallas, you can find these at the Central Market on Lovers)
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup water
2 TBL salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 TBL Pickling Spice
1 tsp brown mustard seeds
2 tsp yellow mustard seeds
1 TBL black whole peppercorns
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp red pepper flakes
4 cloves garlic

This recipe is extremely easy. I recommend preparing at least 24 hrs ahead of time.

Take all ingredients except the cucumbers and put in a sauce pan and bring to a boil then simmer for about 5 minutes.

Pour liquid over sliced cucumbers in a mason jar. Put in the fridge for 24 hrs.

That's it. No, seriously, that's it. The fun part of making pickles is that you can change the recipe however you want. The general flavor has to do with the proportions of vinegar to water to salt to sugar. So adjust these amounts according the kind of pickles you want (i.e. more sugar for sweet, more vinegar for sour, etc.). I think next time I'll be adding onion slices and serranos or jalapenos so I'll have spicy pickles. Try different things until you find your very own ultimate pickle!

I made a pulled pork recipe using the rub and basting sauce from this Emeril Lagasse recipe (I made my own BBQ sauce, but I don't want to post it until I make it a few more times). I had a 9 lb pork shoulder that I roasted in the oven at 225 degrees for about 10 hours. I put the basting sauce in a spray bottle and I sprayed the shoulder about once an hour for the duration of the cooking.

The pork was tasty, but I think it's juicier when you cook it in a slow cooker as opposed to the oven. In a slow cooker, you can't really have a rub and a basting sauce so you want to put a bunch of aromatics (onions, garlic, celery, carrots, ginger, etc.) in the pot with the shoulder.

To be honest, I have a long way to go to start blogging about BBQ. It's serious business here in the south. I plan to get a smoker this summer. Once I start getting serious about BBQ, I'll blog more.


The party was a great success and everyone's bellies were full of some tasty food. More importantly, I got to spend quality time with some of my best friends! I love you guys and we'll do it again soon.

xo,
Levi

Let them eat STEAK!

Howdy folks. For those of you who know me, you know that I was born and raised in Texas. For those of you who know Texans, it's in our DNA to love steak. In the panhandle you will be challenged to eat 4.5 lbs of steak in under an hour. In El Paso you can eat a steak cut to order while gazing over thousands of acres of ranch land. Pardon my french, but in Texas, steak is a big f***ing deal.

The only problems are that steak is expensive (if you're buying something better than dog food) and if you regularly eat an entire steak, you're likely on your way to having a gut as big as the lone star state. If we look a little south of the border, we can find the solution to our weeknight steak cravings. TACOS! This is a great way to use one steak to feed several mouths.

Caribbean Jerk Steak Tacos
Ingredients:
1 New York Strip Steak for every 3 people (for the huge steak I got, that's only a few dollars/person)
Flour or corn Tortillas
1 Tomato
1 Avocado
1 tsp Sea Salt
1 tsp Brown Sugar
2-3 tsp Caribbean Jerk Seasoning (I buy mine from the store. One day I'll come up with a recipe)
1 TBL Olive Oil

Mix the jerk seasoning, salt, and sugar in a bowl. The sugar helps the outside of the steak to caramelize. The jerk seasoning is a secret to having great flavor (still can't believe how delicious this comes out every time). Mix these ingredients with a teaspoon of olive oil to make a paste.

Let's talk about steak selection. Typically, one would use flank steak for tacos. Which is fine, but it doesn't really make me think "Texas Steak" for whatever reason. A New York Strip is easier to prepare, more tender, and it makes you feel like your eating a juicy steak rather than fajita meat.

Cover the outside of the steak with the paste (make more paste if necessary). Put a teaspoon or two of olive oil in a pan (preferably cast iron) and turn the heat to medium-high. Now let's cook our steak.

1. When it comes to cook times, it really depends on the thickness and the shape of the steak. If you have a steak that isn't uniform, then cut it into uniform pieces so they all cook in the same amount of time. The only way to tell when the meat is done is by measuring the internal temperature. So, get a meat thermometer (only $10). No, seriously, get one.
2. Put the meat in the ALREADY HEATED pan. You should hear a lot of sizzling.
3. If your steak is thin, it should cook in 4-5 minutes on either side.
4. If your steak is thick (like mine was) then you cook 4-5 minutes on either side then it goes into the oven at 450 degrees.
5. In the thick or the thin case, we are looking for 120-125 degrees (medium-rare) for the internal temperature. Always measure temperature by sticking the thermometer in the middle of the thickest part of the steak.
6. After the steak is done, let it rest for at least 5 minutes so all the juices can redistribute and stay in the meat.

Cut into slices and put on a tortilla with slices of avocado and fresh tomato.

I apologize for my sub par photography.

The spiciness of the steak is cut by the rich, creaminess of the avocado. The tomato adds some acid to even everything out. I hope you enjoy.

xo,
Levi

Happy New Year - I hope you ate your peas

Hello there. Welcome to food party. Here I will blog recipes for your information and your enjoyment (I hope).

It's a bit of a new years resolution to catalog recipes as I prepare them. I figured a good way to start is with a traditional New Years Day dish - Black Eyed Peas.

I made one of my first black eyed pea dishes this new years and I got excellent reviews from my guests and I really enjoyed them. Here goes:

ingredients:
11 oz package fresh black eyed peas (you could get frozen or dried...but it's worth it to get fresh, I promise)
2-3 strips bacon
1 green bell pepper
1 large onion
3-4 cloves garlic
2-3 stalks celery
3 cups chicken broth
1-2 TBL tomato paste
2-3 TBL fresh parsley
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (only if you like spicy)
1 tsp paprika
salt and pepper

First step (same as many of my soups or stews) is to cut the bacon into 1/2" pieces. This will help it brown faster and it's easier to stir. Put this in a dutch oven (big pot) and turn the heat to medium-high.

Secondly, go ahead and put the peas into some water and cook as directed on the package (since you took my advice and you're using fresh, you don't have to soak over night or defrost or anything).

Dice the onion, pepper, and celery into whatever size you want in the soup. Congratulations, you've just made the cajun trinity.

Once the bacon is crispy take it out of the pan but leave all that bacon-juice goodness in the bottom. Put the trinity (remember, that's onion, celery, and peppers) into the bacon fat with a little bit of salt so the veggies can sweat. after about 6 or 7 minutes, add the chopped garlic. this will burn in about a minute, so be ready for the next step.

Now that you have all your veggies and bacon goodness in the pot, you want to add the tomato paste. After you add the paste, you should stir regularly for about 5-10 minutes. The tomato paste should change from bright red to brick red.

After I cooked the peas as instructed on the package they were still a little underdone. I drained them and cooked them the rest of the way in the broth. Which brings us to our next step. Add peas, chicken broth, cayenne pepper, black pepper, paprika, and parsley and cook for about 10-15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, sprinkle the pieces of bacon over the top of a bowl of soup. If you still crave spice, I recommend adding some tabasco over the top as well.

When you eat you'll bite into the bean and it will be creamy and wonderful (because you used fresh beans, remember?) and the flavorful broth will cover your entire palette. After each bite you'll be hit with spice that will wake you up and make you want another bite!

Black-eyed peas (when consumed on the 1st) are said to bring you prosperity for the rest of the year. While I wish we could all be prosperous by eating some magical beans, for now I'll be satisfied with a delicious meal that can be enjoyed on any chilly day of the year, not just the first of January.

Happy New Year,
Levi