Found this on the Thermoworks website:

BAKED GOODS TEMPERATURE CHART

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Another new way to use rhubarb. 

A post from Carolyn. On Saturday last, New Year’s Day, I was alone at home, content to watch the Rose Parade with the fireplace blazing, warm and cozy inside. I decided it was an appropriate day to make a nice dinner for myself. I’d had some duck in the freezer for a really long time (I’m not even going to tell you how long . . .). It was a duck half, partially cooked already, vacuum sealed. It needed about 25 minutes of heating through in a 350°F oven and it was juicy and bubbling. Originally the duck came with a packet of sauce to go with it, but I couldn’t locate it in the freezer, so I glanced at a shelf nearby (in the freezer) and spotted rhubarb that I’d chopped up and frozen some months ago. And sure enough, I had a chutney recipe in my files.

The recipe actually had you make it all in the microwave, but I decided to just do it stovetop instead. I sweated some minced yellow onion in apple juice (I used frozen concentrate diluted 1-to-1, not 1-to-3 as the package instructed), then added garlic and red pepper flakes to the mixture. The rhubarb had a little bit of sugar sprinkled over it already and was still partially frozen, but the cooking defrosted it in short order, especially since rhubarb is made up of a lot of water – the heat and steam took care of that in a jiffy. Golden raisins were added – nothing else – not even more sugar, nor salt. It was perfect. I didn’t cook it long as I didn’t want the rhubarb to disintegrate. My mother used to make rhubarb sauce and cooked it way too long – I like to see some definition in the rhubarb pieces. So it was simmered for a bare 3-5 minutes and it was done. I let it sit with the lid on it for about half an hour to blend the flavors a bit, then cooled it and refrigerated it to serve later.

The night before I’d made a vegetarian entrée (fresh Portobello mushrooms chopped up, garlic, onion, zucchini, some little dabs of cream cheese and grated Grana Padano) and had leftovers of that. So my dinner was complete with the roasted duck, the rhubarb chutney and the mushroom side dish.

What’s GOOD: loved the sweet/sour taste of the chutney. Easy to make, and I’ll use the leftovers for something with chicken, probably. It would work even on my morning yogurt, for that matter.

What’s NOT: only that you need to procure rhubarb. I try to freeze some when rhubarb is in season so I can use it at a later date.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

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Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Listen up. You just gotta make this. I can’t praise this enough. If you like steak, this is your lucky day. The recipe was demonstrated on Milk Street, and Jim Hirsch, one of the producers, went to Argentina and his job, with the film crew, was to find out what makes Argentinian steak so special. Certainly steak is the signature dish of Argentina. They raise a LOT of beef cattle in the country. My granddaughter, Sabrina, spent 5 months in Argentina (not exactly a happy experience, I’m sorry to say, even though it was through her university college exchange program). But she told me she had steak similar to this when she was there.

Normally, in Argentina, steak is grilled outside, on a grill that has an adjustable grate level – in other words, you can lower it to be close to the coals, or way up high (more like 10-12 inches), away from the wood coals. Most restaurants make this steak with a 2-hour grilling. Can you imagine? Likely they do that to have a very precise control over the temperature.

Once the Milk Street crew returned to Boston, they began trying to recreate this steak (using American/different equipment) – and the chimichurri sauce. Speaking of the sauce, you may be familiar with green chimichurri sauce (that’s all I’d ever had prior to making this). This red sauce is a strange combination of things – 1/4 cup sweet paprika, 1/4 cup red pepper flakes (yes, really), and 1/4 cup dried oregano, and lastly 3/4 cup of neutral oil. Added later, garlic and balsamic vinegar. If you’ve ever watched Chris Kimball (he’s the guy who started Cook’s Illustrated, but was ousted some years ago and started Milk Street) you know that he does not like spicy heat. Not that he’s into bland food, but heat bothers his palate. So when they were making this in the test kitchen, when he was asked to add 1/4 CUP of red pepper flakes, he said oh-no, no, I won’t be able to eat this. The chef pleaded with him to follow the recipe and he might be surprised. And indeed he was, and so was I.

At left is the photo of the beautiful New York strip steak, 2” thick, with the rub on it (having rested in the frig for 24 hours), on a rack, before it went into the oven. One of these steaks will serve at least 2 people, maybe even 3 people.

There are a few steps to making this:

1. Make a rub of black pepper, freshly grated nutmeg (lots of it) and sugar. Put it on the 2” thick steak.

2. Place the steak on a rack, open, in the refrigerator, for 24 hours.

3. Put the steak in a 250°F oven for about 45 minutes. Remove it and let it rest for 30 minutes.

4. Make the sauce.

5. Grill the steak in a searing hot pan on the stove (or do this on your outdoor grill) to caramelize the two sides, then let it rest for 10 minutes. Get the rest of the meal ready.

6. Slice the steak across the grain, in 1/4” thick slices, plate it and drizzle the sauce on the ends and offer more sauce at the table.

The sauce takes no time, really, to make, but there are steps to making it also. In a skillet you combine the oil, paprika, red chili flakes and the oregano, and cook it over very low heat (never allowing it to boil) for 5-7 minutes. Then you add the garlic, and let it cool. Once cool, you add the balsamic vinegar and salt. The photo at right is before it even cooked – so you can see the ingredients.

When Chris Kimball tasted the sauce, he first barely touched his bite of steak with the oily part of the sauce, as he was not thinking he could eat it. He was surprised, and my friend Linda and I (when we made it) were also amazed that our mouths weren’t burning up. The guesswork is that the addition of 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar somehow tempers the spicy, fiery heat of 1/4 cup of red pepper flakes.

The only thing I’ll say is that you need a meat thermometer for this recipe – I eat my steak medium-rare, and you remove the steak from the oven when it reaches 110°F (about 10-15 degrees below that magic medium-rare temp). I did that, but during the resting time, the temp went up nearly 10 degrees, and once I seared it, it went up even more. We got it out of the pan at about 128°F, which is a few degrees higher than I wanted. So watch it carefully.

What’s GOOD: I absolutely LOVE-LOVED this steak and the sauce. Definitely well enough to make it again. You do need to plan ahead 24 hours, and make sure you have a whole pod of nutmeg for each steak. You do not taste nutmeg in the rub when eating it. It’s uncanny there could be so much nutmeg on the rub and you wouldn’t taste it in the finished steak (although I was able to taste it when I ate the leftovers, cold). And the sauce – oh my goodness. So good. Very easy – make it the day ahead to save time if you’d like. It’s also uncanny there is so much red pepper in the sauce and I could eat it. I won’t say I ate copious quantities, but I certainly ate some with every bite, and went back for more.

What’s NOT: only that the steak is expensive (do buy a good one, though I did choose choice, not prime beef); however, one steak will feed 2 people, maybe 3. You do have to visit a butcher, as the steak must be 2” thick. I don’t know of any grocery store that has pre-cut 2” steaks. The nearly one pound steak cost me $29. The recipe is for feeding 4, so twice that amount. And you do need to plan ahead, as I mentioned, so the steak can sit in the frig for 24 hours.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

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A caponata made with cranberries, you ask? Yup. What’s in it: cranberries, apples, capers, tomato, pine nuts, raisins and Kalamata olives. I know, sounds strange, but it’s not.

For many years I’ve had the nicest fellow, Dan, who installs and fixes my computer, network, router, wi-fi issues in my house. And he knows that I write a food blog, so every once in awhile, he sends me a link to some food related video or post about food. I can count on the fact that anything he sends me will be unusual. In this instance, he sent me to a youtube video link performed by Harper and Ava, a cute young married couple who live in Maine. He’s an American, and his wife is a native Italian (Calabria), with a semi-thick accent. In this particular video, Harper challenged his wife, Ava, to make a Thanksgiving dinner, but in her own Italian style. She was a teacher (in Italy) but she’s also a very good cook. Here’s the youtube link. If you develop an interest in them, there are lots of other videos, but the best one is the one where they share how they met and how the romance managed with her being in Italy and he in California. Then, how Covid interrupted their long-distance romance.

This dish is one that she fixed for Harper, her rendition of an Italian-American Thanksgiving. Caponata is a savory Italian appetizer, usually containing eggplant, maybe celery, onion, capers, pine nuts, olives, red bell peppers, tomato. So Ava came up with this version, using the cranberries instead of eggplant, I guess it is. She gave it a very Italian name, so I shortened it to Cranberry Caponata. And this is to be served with the turkey. Harper said it was his favorite thing about Ava’s version of Thanksgiving.

Onion and celery are sautéed in EVOO, then you begin adding other ingredients, with the cranberries coming in last. Ava used much bigger pieces of apple than I did – maybe next time I’d do that as the apples were kind of lost in the mixture, and they’re certainly not a standard addition to caponata. Adding Kalamata olives intrigued me too (thank goodness I had some pitted ones in the refrigerator. Then there are pine nuts and raisins in there too, and the tomato paste adds a lot of good flavor. At the end you add in a little splash of balsamic vinegar. Genius!

What’s GOOD: loved the savory flavor – this is nothing like a sweet cranberry sauce. It would be great with a turkey, a roast chicken (what I did for my Thanksgiving dinner) and roast pork. Liked the texture – the pine nuts, the raisins, the olives.

What’s NOT: nothing comes to mind . . . if you’re looking for a sweet type side, this isn’t it, although you could make it so with more sugar.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook file (click link to open recipe)

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What is there not to like about a whole beef tenderloin?

For Christmas Day I offered to buy a whole beef tenderloin for the family celebration. Sara said “yes, please.” So off I went to Costco to buy an already-trimmed (of extra fat and silverskin) tenderloin. I cut it in half (easier handling in the oven), patted well with the spice combo (not herbs, but spices, which were a type of dry rub) then it was tightly tied with kitchen twine. They went into plastic bags (or wrap well in plastic wrap so it doesn’t leak) and I let them marinate in the refrigerator for almost 3 days. The recipe, from a class with Phillis Carey, calls for marinating the dry rubbed tenderloin for 4 days.

My cousin Gary and I drove to Sara’s and John’s (in Poway, CA) on Christmas Day and the meat went into the frig until about an hour before we wanted to begin cooking them.

After the dry marinating time, the two pieces were seared on all sides with EVOO, then placed on a rimmed baking sheet and into a 400°F oven. The recipe said 20 minutes, but ours took about another 3-4, I think, to reach 130°F. Actually both reached about 133°F when we got them out of the oven. In case you’ve never done one of these, let me just warn: the last 3-8 minutes are crucial – monitor the internal temp frequently. The internal temp rises quickly once the meat reaches about 120°. Be forewarned. The last thing you want is an overcooked tenderloin. Some in our group wanted more medium and we got that perfectly with the smaller piece.

A few days ahead I’d made the chutney, a kind of cooked relish of fresh cranberries, orange juice, sugar, dried mango chopped up and a tablespoon of freshly grated ginger.

So, there’s a photo of the finished pieces. Note one is larger – it went in the oven for about 5 minutes before we added the 2nd, smaller piece. So they both came out of the oven at the same time.

The meat was lightly tented with foil for 15 minutes, then carved in thin slices (recommended) and served. The recipe says to roast to 135°. I’m hesitant to go that high, so I took them out early. They continue to cook during the resting time anyway.

JUST WATCH THE TEMP CAREFULLY. When you pay $114 (that’s what this one was) for a hunk of good beef, you certainly don’t want to ruin it by overcooking. Just so you know, if you overcook beef, it gets tough.

What’s GOOD: loved the seasonings –  the beef was “hot” because of the quantity of pepper. If you’re sensitive to it, reduce the pepper from the mixture below. Loved the spices on it. AND loved the chutney. It’s perfect with a big hunk of beef. I had two small pieces, and after feeding 12, there was nothing but a small handful of beef tidbits left over. I think everyone went back for seconds, just about.

What’s NOT: if you’re sensitive to pepper, take it out of the recipe altogether, and if you are turned off by spices patted onto meat, reduce the quantity of the spices. Obviously, if cost is a factor, pass on this one as it’s an expensive entrée.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 15/16 file (click link to open recipe)

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A really simple salad to serve with a holiday meal – or more likely with Thanksgiving turkey.

As it happened, I was watching The Pioneer Woman last week, and she showed something similar to this salad above, that was her mother-in-law’s standard for Thanksgiving. Her MIL passed away recently, so Ree was making this salad in homage to Nan. It reminded me of a salad I had once upon a time, years and years ago and really liked, and never found out who made it, to acquire the recipe.

So, first off – if you follow the recipe – you need to find cranberry Jell-O. Well, that proved an impossible task in the days leading up to Thanksgiving. Supposedly Target has it, but perhaps it’s only available online. I gave up looking after visiting 3 grocery stores + Target. So I bought Black Cherry Jell-O and used that instead.

First you make the underneath gelatin part – adding 2 cans of whole cranberry sauce and a 6-ounce can of crushed pineapple (drained). I also added about 2/3 cup of chopped walnuts (my addition to the recipe because walnuts were in the salad I remember from long ago). That was chilled until set (overnight in my case). Then, I started on the topping. Ree said to add 1 1/4 cups of milk to an 8-ounce package of cream cheese. That seems like too much to me, so I added just 1/2 cup and spread that all over the top of the chilled Jell-O. Then I microplaned some fresh orange zest on top (in Ree’s recipe). I covered it with plastic wrap (elevated above the cream cheese) and chilled that until we were ready to eat.

Was it up to my expectations? Absolutely. I loved it. And I shouldn’t have had any of it (not on my no-sugar, no-carb diet) but I ate it anyway. AND, I had a serving of it the next day when we had leftovers. By then it was nearly gone.

What’s GOOD: love-loved it in every way possible. Sweet, tart, piquant, satisfying, easy. What more could you want?

What’s NOT: really nothing. It was a great addition to the Thanksgiving table.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 15/16 file (click link to open recipe)

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A lovely relish (or kind of like a salsa) to serve with grilled meat.

Presuming you read my post from yesterday, about the BBQ Chicken, South African Style, then you already know this relish is supposed to be served with that chicken. It came from a cooking show with Sarah Graham, who’s from South Africa. This side/relish is just so different – when I watched the show a couple of years ago I was intrigued with the ingredients . . .

It has some very standard things you’d expect in a relish – onion, a chile pepper, a bell pepper, garlic, even tomatoes. But a bit more unusual is a bunch of grated carrots, some chutney (I used apricot jam), a jot of ketchup. But this one also has a little bit of curry powder (but not really enough to taste it), AND it has a small can of BAKED BEANS in it.

Here’s what wikipedia has to say about it:

Chakalaka is a South African vegetable relish, usually spicy, that is traditionally served with bread, pap, samp, stews, or curries. Chakalaka may have originated in the townships of Johannesburg or on the gold mines surrounding Johannesburg, when Mozambican mineworkers coming off shift cooked tinned produce (tomatoes, beans) with chili to produce a spicy relish with a Portuguese flair to accompany pap. The many variations on how to make Chakalaka often depend on region and family tradition. Some versions include beans, cabbage and butternut. For example, a tin of baked beans, tin of tomatoes, onion, garlic, and some curry paste can be used to make the dish.

In case you’re interested, pap is a kind of cornmeal porridge, and samp is another kind of dried corn variant where the corn kernel shells are removed and then the inner meat made into a porridge type dish. Reading about the history of this dish, it makes so much sense that mine workers had to use canned foods and they discovered a way to make a spicy relish/side from canned tomatoes and baked beans.

The onion, chile, bell pepper and carrots are cooked a little bit (I cooked them VERY little as I wanted crunch) with the onions getting the most amount of cooking time, then you merely add in all the other ingredients. Since I made it I’ve had it alongside the leftover chicken, also some grilled sausages, and some fish. All good with it. I made part of mine without the beans (cuz I’m not eating beans on this diet I’m on), but I DID taste it, and thought the addition of the beans was really good. I was expecting it to not taste good, but it was. I gave away all of the bean relish and kept the part without beans and enjoyed it for a week or so afterwards.

What’s GOOD: it’s unusual, that’s for sure. Liked all the lively flavors in it – because I was having guests I used the lesser quantity of curry powder – I’d likely add more next time. Make ahead is fine, and it keeps for at least a week.

What’s NOT: nothing really . . . it was a really good addition to my potluck dinner to serve with the chicken.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 15/16 file (click link to open recipe)

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Isn’t that the cutest thing?

As I mention frequently, soup is a common theme here at my house. I eat soup year ‘round. Recently my best bud, Cherrie gave me one of these things. She’d won it a a Bunko night and didn’t think she’d use it. I loved it so much I ordered the larger size too.

They’re on etsy.com – here’s the link to Mary Egan’s website called “Just 2 Dang Cute”:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/just2dangcute

In the event you want the larger ones, here’s a picture of both sizes:

May I make a suggestion – these would make a great gift – for a birthday, or a housewarming gift, or a Christmas gift (maybe buy 2 matching ones). Or a Bunko prize! I heat soup with the cozy in the microwave and then I take the whole thing to the table and leave it on. You can pull the soup bowl out and off, but it’s just as easy to leave it. Mary makes them with all kinds of sports teams fabric, and plenty of collectible kind of designs. She makes other things too – obviously she’s an accomplished seamstress! I think these bowl cozies are just the most adorable thing! I use mine several times a week.

Mary has kindly emailed me saying that if you order anything from her during August, 2018, and write in BLOG ON THE COZY she will refund the shipping. SUCH A DEAL! Thanks, Mary.

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Little did I know – there is comeback sauce, and then there is comeback sauce. Of course there could be riffs, and maybe that’s all this is. A riff with comeback sauce for fish, not meat or poultry. Or every other kind of food thing on the planet.

Seems like I read, or heard, that comeback sauce is a condiment almost as ubiquitous as salt and pepper on the dining tables of the South . Not that it could live there (out on the table) – no – because it has mayo in it. But it can live in the frig for quite awhile and be used for all variety of things over the course of many meals.

So I read, Comeback sauce was originally used on fish and shellfish, but since it’s been around a loooong time, it’s kind of morphed into something that can be universally  used as a condiment on just about anything. At least I think that’s the case – if I have any Southern readers, please correct me in the comments below!

I suppose this could be more like a tartar sauce, but it’s with more of the comeback additions. I wrote about Comeback Sauce awhile back. That one has more tomato type ingredients (jarred chili sauce and ketchup) than this one, though both are mayo based first.

Wanting to try this one, I made it to go with some shrimp I had left over from a restaurant meal. And I liked the recipe because it contained capers (love them), cornichons, and it had a bit of minced celery – which gives the sauce some lovely crunch. It took but a few minutes to prepare – I made a green salad and some fresh veggies to go with it, and there I had a lovely meal. I think, since I’ve been a widow (4 years now) I’ve become more inventive with making a full meal with stuff – left overs from various things I’ve made.

When I made this, I had only one recipe/post in the queue for posting here. Gracious! I needed to get busy. But then I went to a cooking class which created a whole raft of new recipes to write about, and I totally forgot I’d made this. As I write this, I still have the sauce in the frig, and it still tastes great. I’ll give it another week, and if I haven’t used it up, I’d best toss it out. The celery is about the only thing that could go “off.” Otherwise, I would think this would keep for a month. The recipe I used said it could be made 3 days ahead. Well . . . mine’s a whole lot older than that, and it still tastes as good as the day I made it. Amazingly, the celery still has crunch.

The making of this is so easy – grab a small bowl and start adding the ingredients. Stir, chill for a little bit to let the flavors meld, and you’re good to go.

What’s GOOD: as I mentioned, this is a kind of a universal sauce for lots of things, but this one lends itself better to fish (with the capers, cornichons and lemon), but I’ll tell you right off, since I made it I’ve used it to dip leftover chicken into, and even some asparagus. It was lovely. AND, I’ve used it instead of mustard or mayo on a sandwich.

What’s NOT: really nothing – it’s a great basic sauce to serve for fish, but don’t let that limit you to using it on other things.

printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 15/16 file (click link to open recipe)

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As you know if you’ve been reading my blog for the last 4-5 months, you’ve seen several sheetpan dinners. I make them often, and often I just wing-it on some weeknights – looking to see what I have in my refrigerator, and what kind of protein (if any) I might use with it.

Every time I’d wing-it, though, I’d have to go hunt for information about how much time each vegetable takes. So, I’ve written up a chart. And a separate row for the meat. As best I know, this chart is accurate, although depending on how big you chunk up some of them, you may find your Brussels sprouts might not be done in x minutes, but x + 2 minutes, for instance. Sheetpan dinners aren’t an exact science.

And if you use chicken breasts, I explain here (on the chart) that sometimes they’re problematical as some are thinner than others. I opt, always, to cut chicken breast meat into larger sizes because I definitely do not want to overcook them. Test the meat more frequently with an instant read thermometer and remove the meat if it’s reached temp. Ideally, use chicken thigh meat as it’s more forgiving.

HERE’s the PDF you can stick inside your kitchen cupboard (that’s where mine is now).

Carolyn’s CheatSheet on SheetPan Dinners (this is a pdf)

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