Tequila Commando Style

This is the drink of the summer at Lake Riviera.

Ingredients:

bottle of Sauza Hornitas tequila
1/4 or 1/2 lime


Instructions:

Pour tequila over ice in an old fashioned glass.
Squeeze lime over it.

Stephen's Shrimp and Edamame Risotto

Stephen's speciality is risotto and they are always different and always amazing.

If you are wondering how to incorporate edamame into your repertoire, here is your answer. For a primer on edamame, go to http://vegetarian.about.com/od/glossary/g/edamame.htm
Apparently you can get them frozen hulled at Trader Joe's http://www.traderjoes.com/  pr Whole Foods.

Ingredients:

olive oil
onion
mushrooms, biggish pieces
red pepper
edamame (frozen, hulled)

1 cup arborio rice

1-1/2 cups chicken broth, plus extra water if required

dried herbs (basil, rosemary)

package of frozen shrimp or fresh shrimp
1/4 cup wine
4 oz. any meltable mixed cheeses (blue, feta, brie, not mozzarella)

Instructions:

Chop the onion and red pepper.
In a frying pan, sauté in onion, red pepper, mushrooms, and edamame in olive oil.   Set aside.
Put some olive oil into a 2 quart sauce pan. Add the rice and bring to a sizzle, while stirring.
Add half the broth to the sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Keep the pot at a simmer, stir almost constantly, and keep adding broth (about 20 minutes).  
Add the wine and cook until absorbed.  The rice should be almost dry. The main secret is not to let the rice get too dry or too wet.
Add the dried herbs, shrimp, cheese, wine, and sautéed vegetables.
Stir until cheese is melted and shrimps are cooked.  Serve.

See also:
BC Spot Prawns

Stephen's Santa Rita Margaritas

Last April, I was the pampered guest of my friends Kim and Stephen in Arizona.  Our nightly drinks ritual featured Stephen's special fresh orange margheritas.  What a life.  You know you are doing it right, when you can drink every day and be at the edge.  (I know you are supposed to relax, but I prefer being tense.)

So on with the recipe.

Oh yes, it is nice to have margarita glasses.  They have a bubble at the stem for measuring the tequila.

The Blue Agave syrup can be sourced at Trader Joe's or Costco (I know ugly use of noun as verb). Another use for this syrup is for salad - 1 tsp. for a large salad bowl.

Santa Rita Margarita

Makes 1 drink (you make them one at a time).

Ingredients:

1 whole orange
Coarse salt
1 shot clear tequila
1/2 oz. triple sec or cointreau
4 drops Blue Agave syrup
Margarita Mix, lemon and lime



Instructions:

Squeeze the orange in one of those round reamers with a pouring dish.
Put some coarse salt on a small plate (big enough to dip the rim of the glass).
Wet the rim of the glass with a piece of the orange.
Dip the rim of the margarita glass into the salt.
In the margarita glass, add tequila, triple sec, and blue agave syrup.
Add the orange juice.
Fill the glass with Margarita Mix.
Add ice cubes carefully so as not to splash and wash the salt off the rim.
Stir.
Serve.

Molasses and Bourbon Glazed Chilliwhack Ham

I learned this recipe at one of Barbara-Jo's fabulous cooking classes/Sunday Suppers earlier this year.  www.bookstocooks.com for more information.

The  cookbook was Buttermilk: A Savor the South Cookbook by Debbie Moose.  

The guest hosts were Chef Glenys Morgan and Jim Wright (Director of the Vancouver Opera).

The hosts and diners discussed their memories of growing up in the southern US and the food and recipes their mothers made, which was wonderful. Their memories were mostly of the recipes being much plainer and the food being very fatty and a lot of it being generally unhealthy.  That certainly jibes with my memories of cooking 50 years ago, when the wide array of ingredients we have now was not available.  I remember that we burned off a lot of that fat walking to school through heavy snow, plus we ate a lot of fresh and preserved vegetables and fruit all year round. Nobody in our family had a weight problem and still don't and we all still love fatty food. Maybe it's the sugar and flour that are the deadly culprits, not the fat.

They used a lot more jars and cans in the mid-century period as I recall. Those were the days of Kraft, Jello, Freshie, Betty Crocker, and my mother's standby Bisquick which was a later invention. She made everything from traditional Mennonite bubbat to the new rage, pizza, out of that stuff.  She also made a lot of traditional recipes with very basic ingredients but she had perfected these recipes with technique.  Fried potatoes, hamburgers, and cabbage rolls  were amazing at our house.  Mum loved her shortcuts, whether it was using packaged food or her lazy version of traditional recipes (no knead bread, layered cabbage rolls).

One of my aims with my cooking research and this blog is to rediscover the older recipes, find authentic ingredients, and find the secrets to what really makes food  schmuck.  It is usually quite difficult to find good authentic ingredients and then to perfect the techniques because those old recipes had few ingredients and really relied on freshness and technique.

Back to Sunday Supper, for cocktails, we had a (rye) whisky drink, which I wrote down, and hope I can find at some point. It was good though. We drank, ate canapés and walked around the store, chatting and looking at books. 

The ham is another thing to search out. Probably takes a trip to a butcher or two to find the source of it.

Menu
Roasted Sweet Onion and Garlic Dip/whisky
Butternut Squash Soup with Lemongrass and Ginger
Molasses and Bourbon Glazed Ham
Potato Salad with ButterMilk Chive Dressing
Tex Mex Corn Pudding
Chocolate Hazelnut Ice Cream

The ham recipe was outstanding and the rest of the recipes needed adjustments in my opinion. Keep in mind that the chef was cooking them exactly as set out in the cookbook and for the first time.

Molasses and Bourbon Glazed Ham

Ingredients
Chilliwhack Smokehouse ham (see note above)
1/2 cup dry mustard
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 Tb. each of fennel seed, coriander, black peppers
3/4 cup bourbon
1 cup molasses

Instructions:
Score the ham in a diamond pattern.
Grind the spices, mix with mustard and sugar and put into the grooves.
Mix the other bourbon and molasses and use to baste the ham.

Pickled Herring and Sardine Lunch

Patrick's most recent visit, and our usual routine of visiting familiar and new foodie haunts, resulted in this incredible meal.   After lunch at Save On Meats cafe on Hastings, a walk around Gourmet Warehouse, also on Hastings, and an exploration of False Creek, we focussed on a buying food.  We started out with a vague seafood theme, stopping first at Finest at Sea. We picked up sockeye salmon (previously frozen and unfortunately texture destroyed) for dinner and some of their smoked oysters.  Hoping for anchovies (none), we opted for sardines in oil, and some of their own boconcini.   Then to Kerrisdale to the butcher for pickled herring.   These were done with vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, juniper berries, and onion.   At Stongs we found a selection of marvellous cheeses (Lady Jane from Quebec was exquisite), sour cream and Terra's olive bread.   Then to Youngs on Broadway for Pink Lady apples, red onion, sour cream, tomatoes, and basil (also asparagus, mixed greens to accompany the salmon).   We had the oysters and the cheeses, and olive bread with pro secco to start the evening, then salmon, salad (greens, basil, honey mustard dressing) and asparagus for dinner.  On a walk the next morning, we picked a ciabatta from Mix and then made the following departure day lunch.

Ingredients:
Pickled herring
Sardines in oil
Pink Lady apple
Red onion
Sour cream
1 large boconcini
1 ripe tomato
Olive Oil
Fresh Basil
Ciabatta

Instructions:
Apple Salad:
Slice half an apple very thin.
Slice some red onion very thin.
Mix apple and onion in a small bowl with sour cream.  
Caprese Salad:
On two dinner plates, slice the tomato into 1/4-inch slices.   Slice the boconcini in 1/4-inch slices and place on each tomato slice.  Drizzle with olive oil.  Salt and pepper.   Chiffonade about 5 basil leaves and toss on the top.
The Plate:
Arrange the herring and sardines artfully on the plate.
Add the apple salad to the plates, slice some bread, and serve.

Sean's Spagetti Sauce

I am not a spagetti sauce fan.   They always taste pretty boring to me.   However, Sean aced it with this recipe, cooked at the cottage at Falcon Lake, Manitoba, summer of 2012.

Sean has the mother of all cast iron frying pans, about 3 feet in diameter.

The better the ingredients, the better the sauce.   Try to use good bacon and ground beef.

Ingredients:
bacon
onions
dried herbs (oregano, basil, etc.)
2 garlic heads
wine
peppers
ground beef
balsamic vinegar
2 cans Roma tomatoes

Instructions:
Put several garlic heads into the oven to roast.   Extrude the garlic from the outer wrappings.
Roast (blacken) some whole peppers in the oven.  Remove from the oven carefully and place in a bowl to preserve the liquid.  Remove the skin, stem and seeds, keep the liquid, and chop up the peppers.
Cut up the bacon and fry to render the fat.   Set aside bacon and leave the fat in the pan.
Slice the onions into fine strips and fry in the bacon fat until carmelized (about 1 hour).
Add dried herbs to the pan to toast.
Add some good wine to deglaze.
Remove the onions from the pan and set aside.
Add the ground beef and brown.
Add the garlic, peppers, bacon, onions, to the pan.
Add some balsamic vinegar
Chop the tomatoes and add.
Simmer until everything is cooked.

Better the next day.

Cedes' Cinnamon Applesauce

My niece Mercedes, age 9, wrote this one out for me.   We had it with waffles and it was wonderful.   I had no idea you could use so much cinnamon.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup cinnamon (ground)
2 apples cut in small bites
stir around in the bowl
pinch of brown sugar
stir and now it's ready to eat

Actually, I am not sure of the portions, so you will have to use the basta policy, but put enough cinnamon in to make the sauce dark brown, and cook on the stove until soft (also add some butter).