Tag: cooking

Bring on the Holidays (Holiday Series)

So Halloween is over and now it’s time to prepare for the big guns….Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s a time of family and friends and lots of food. So many make it a very nerve racking time of year and it doesn’t have to be. It’s all about planning and being prepared for anything. For the next couple of posts I will help get you ready for the holiday meals before you. I’ll take you from shopping lists, how to make the perfect gravy, un-canned cranberry sauce and even dessert. Hope it helps to ease your mind for this holiday season.

November 1, 2014
A Quickie…Potato Wedges

As you already know I am a football girl. To be more exact I am a New York Giants football girl. Unfortunately I now live in Atlanta Falcons territory. So when my Giants were scheduled to play dem dirty birds of course I had to hit the kitchen.

I wanted to keep it simple so I went with making a batch of loaded potato wedges. Pretty simple to do and you only need a few ingredients.

baking potatoes

thick cut bacon

green onion or chives

sour cream

cheddar cheese ( shredded)

olive oil

kosher salt

black pepper

Lay bacon strips on a baking sheet. Place in cold oven and adjust temperature to 400(by doing this you actually have strips that don’t curl up)should take 12-15 minutes. Split potatoes in half(cuts baking time down). Drizzle potatoes with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt & black pepper. Place potatoes cut side down on baking tray and place in oven, roughly 25-30 minutes. Check tenderness with a knife. Remove bacon from oven and place slices on paper towel to drain. While potatoes finish baking dice bacon and cut green onions. I like to thin my sour cream out with heavy cream to make it easier to drizzle(you can add thinned sour cream to a squeeze bottle for even easier drizzling). Remove potatoes from oven. You want to work with them while still hot. Place a couple of halves on a plate and slice into wedges. Sprinkle with cheese, bacon, drizzle sour cream and then top with green onion. Viola.

October 6, 2014
A Quickie. ….Flatout

I wanted to add something else to the pantry list, flatbread. I usually keep naan in my freezer. Naan or nan or khamiri is a leavened, oven-baked flatbread. It is typical of and popular in West, Central and South Asia. I keep them for times like today where i needed a quick fix for lunch.

On my last supermarket visit I decided to try Flatout’s Artisan Pizza Crust. I thawed one added sauce, spinach, mushrooms, bell peppers, garlic and cheese (all leftovers from yesterday’s frittata) placed it on a lightly greased baking sheet for about 10 minutes.

Voila. ….lunch. Cut & plated and added some wine. It’s all about the pantry baby.

September 22, 2014
What’s in Your Pantry?
At any given moment I can whip up something scrumptious in my kitchen. All because I keep what i consider staple items in my pantry. Things I feel with a little time and some effort can be transformed into a meal. So what do I consider staples?
- Pasta (1 long noodle i.e. spaghetti or fettuccine and 1 short noodle i.e. macaroni or rigatoni)
- Stock or broth ( I keep chicken. beef and vegetable in the 32 oz size)
- Flour (all-purpose & self-rising)
- Rice
- Oil (I like canola for frying & olive oil for sauteing)
- Canned tomatoes (diced and pureed)
- Canned beans ( black, pinto red or your favorite)
- Onions
- Bell peppers (I prefer colored to green ones)
- Assortment of frozen vegetables (i.e. broccoli, mixed vegetables,corn)
- Ground beef
- Boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- Butter
- Eggs
- Milk
With a combination of just a few of these items you can have a wonderful meal. For instance you can make a quick pasta e fagioli ( broth, short pasta, diced tomatoes, a can of beans) or maybe a vegetable fried rice( oil, cooked rice, frozen mixed vegetables, onions) or even chili ( ground beef, beans, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers). Once you have the basics or the items that you use repeatedly in cooking you will always be prepared to whip something great up.

P.S. My pantry list is a little longer than the one I have included because I have a pretty sized family and lots of friends who like stop by to eat)

P.S.S. This post is dedicated to my son, Akeem, the newly wed and apparently the chef in his new household
August 20, 2014
All That Glitters Ain’t Gold

So in appreciation of all the time energy and MONEY we spent on their marriage, my son and his wife invited us, the parents, to have brunch with them at the Georgian Terrace. I was overly excited,it has been somewhere I wanted to go since I moved to Georgia. The Georgian Terrace is on of Atlanta’s Historic sites first opening it’s doors in 1911. I knew we would be in for a treat…..but all that glitters ain’t gold.

The Up View of the lobby in the Georgian Terrace

We were to have lunch at their restaurant/bar …The Livingston. It was beautiful….historic with a modern flare

Table for Four with a view

But that was where all the glitter started to lose it’s shine. I still don’t know our waiters name but let’s just say he left a lot to be desired. I was excited to see on the menu ( view Menu)Sweet Potato Donuts ( anyone that knows me knows that anything with sweet potato as an ingredient is going to be on my radar). We placed an order for the donuts to start with our teas and coffee and then ordered our brunch. There were 2 orders of the Livingston Omelet, 1 for the Black Truffle Omelet, 1 Double Cheeseburger, 1 Mini Quiche Lorraine and 1 Chicken Monte Crisco.

Menu

Sweet Potato Donut

The Livingston Omelet with a side of breakfast potatoes

Mini Quiche Lorraine with a shaved salad

Double Cheese Burger with house made waffle potato chips

My meal for the afternoon….
Chicken Monte Cristo

Now the presentations were nice but the tastes fell short. The sweet potato donuts were okay as a yeast donut but wasn’t enough sweet potato for it to carry it as a main ingredient. The omelet that my husband and son had both tasted way too salty. My son’s father-in-law’s double cheeseburger was over cooked ( actually he said it was burned along the edges) and his mother-in-law felt her quiche was just “alright”. As for me and my Chicken Monte Cristo, well, let’s just say the brioche bread was the best thing about the sandwich. It came off pretty mediocre. We all agreed that their potato products were really good. The house made waffle chips, the breakfast potatoes and the french fries were well done and very enjoyable. I really had high hopes for the meal here but my feelings were dashed. I hope it was that the chef was having a bad day but i will never know cause I’m not moved to visit them again.

August 17, 2014
A Day Off??

So what does a retired chef, fashionista who has returned to the work force in retail do on her day off? Well I know most would say sleep….Hell I planned for SLEEP but that was not in my future for my day off. Apparently when it’s your day off you have to get everything you weren’t able to get done, done. ( had it really been that long since I’ve punched someone’s time clock?) All the things you are too tired to do after work needs to be accomplished. Like laundry, unless you don’t mind wearing dirty clothes (please don’t stand beside me if you do). I did over 3 loads not including sheets and towels. All for the sake of looking, smelling and feeling good.

At this point I am truly feeling sleepy but there was so much more for me to do. Time to prep dinner so that when I finally get that sleep in it’s one less thing I have to worry about. Steak & peppers it is or was . Sliced bell peppers, onions and seasoned my beef and stored them in the fridge until later.

Not quite what i did but you get the picture

Well since my mind was on food I decided to research my next food attempts. Do you know how easily you lose track of time while surfing the internet. Only to have it interrupted by the plea of a child that needs to be picked up from her La-cross game ( hey wasn’t Dad supposed to do that?) off I went to wait on her bus. Thank God the bus beat me there so it wasn’t a long wait.

Ok it’s only one kid but that’s how i was feeling at the time

On my way in I remembered that I was supposed to pick up something at he supermarket. Conveniently….I forgot the list. So I had to go off memory (not a good thing for those that know me). After getting everything I could remember I head to check out only to realize I didn’t have my wallet. Did I just waste time on my precious day off? Thank God that not only was my wallet in the car but they hadn’t put my groceries back. Winning (it’s the little things).

how I must’ve looked to the cashier

After unloading and putting away groceries I realized that I hadn’t cooked dinner. The whole getting some sleep was no where on the radar for me. Good thing I had already prepped. Whipped up some steamed rice with steak and peppers. And no there are no pics of it either. Have you not realized the trend in this post? None of the pictures are ones that I have taken. It was supposed to be my day off. Let’s just say I finally made it to bed that night after 12am.

Ahh Sleep

Thank God I had another day off…. back to back…wait I forgot I booked a jewelry show. There goes that day off…..too

April 3, 2014
Gettysburger….

If you’re a “Scandal” fan, of which I am, you have heard on several occasions them mention the infamous burger joint Gettysburger, Well you can only imagine the shock and awe that came across my face when I found out that Gettysburger did not exist. How was I gonna replicate one of their burgers, for the mid-season premier, if they didn’t really exist. In my mind I had already planned this post detailing how I went about gathering ingredients, prepping and then preparing my wonderful version of a Gettysburger burger. what would I do now?

I did the next best thing. I created a burger I felt would exist on the menu at Gettysburger. I created the Insde-Out Bacon Cheddar Cheeseburger with a side of Garlic Parmesan Steak Fries. I went as far to make the pickles from scratch and a chipotle mayo for the buns. I mean if you gonna go with something that doesn’t exist why not go all out.

I used half of an English cucumber cut on the bias. I then brined the slices in a heated mixture of salt, sugar, a crushed garlic clove, a few red pepper flakes, fresh dill, a bay leaf and vinegar.

Viola …..Pickles….. well they became pickles once the liquid cooled.

Then for the burger I did what my Mom taught me to do oh so many years ago. A package of onion-mushroom soup mix, black pepper, worcestershire sauce, an egg and a handful of breadcrumbs. Once combined I made a thin patty and placed a slice of cheddar cheese that I folded in half along the center of the patty. Then I made another patty and placed that on top of the first sealing the cheese in the middle.

Now all I had to do was cook them. I am about the slow and go when cooking a good burger. Medium heat and I never flatten the patty while cooking ( your squeezing all the luscious juices out…who wants a dry burger?). Haven’t you been told to not play with you food? Well don’t fiddle with your burger while it’s cooking let it do what it has to……that’s cook. I only turn my burger ONCE during cooking.

Besides the pickles and the burgers I also made a quick spread for my burger buns, Chipotle Mayo. I took a 1/4 cup of mayo and added 2 teaspoons of chipolte salsa ( you can find it in a can in the international section of your supermarket) and mixed. Depending on how spicy you like it you can add more or less of the chipotle salsa.

As for the Garlic Parmesan Steak Fries it was simple ( no I didn’t make the fries from scratch) I prepared a bag of steak fries in the oven ( I try to avoid frying as much as possible). I sprinkled them with some olive oil to help crisp them up in the oven and dusted them with a mixture of kosher salt and black pepper. About 5 minutes before they were to finished in the oven I heated a 1/4 cup of olive oil and 1 1/2 tablespoons of minced garlic. I pulled the fries from the oven dumped them in a bow,l added the heated olive oil along with a handful of shredded Parmesan and minced parsley. Then I tossed everything together making sure the fries were well coated. This was the end result of my hard work ( not that hard )

Yeah if I were running the Infamously Fictitious Gettysburger this would be on the menu.

March 1, 2014
And so it begins……

I’ve been wanting to start a blog for some time now…..Hell I’ve been told I should start one by way too many people, if I should be totally honest about it. So here it is…..The Chef In Pearls. I think that title embodies so much of who I am today. I take great pleasure in creating food and sharing it with people, especially the ones I love. And well as for the pearls ( one of my favorite accessories I own) I love …love ….love… fashion. I think my Mom created that little demon inside me way back when. I grew up wanting to own the clothing and accessories my mother had. Fighting my younger sister over which pieces we’d play dress-up with next. We knew what it was to have custom made clothing as well as shop in large department stores. We lived life as fashionistas without ever really knowing it. It was just apart of growing up. I owe my love of cooking to my Mom, too. She was the epitome of a host. Always coking and panning the next get together. I don’t know how she did half the things she pulled off but she did it. And she’s still doing it at age 70. I am thankful for these experiences because they helped to shape….The Chef in Pearls.

February 11, 2014