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I love porn, I mean food porn.

What?  All guys love porn, I mean food porn.  It's just something we can't help.  We eat, sleep, watch football and look at porn, I mean food porn. 

So now that I've stated the obvious, I thought I'd share with you some of my favorite porn, I mean food porn. These are all shots taken at the Space Downtown.  And speaking of which, I have some news for you guys.  Up until now we have been and private party venue only, but alas, that is about to change as will be popping up the Space for special events that we throw. 

Details to come,  I'm looking at September 10th as the first one, so keep that in mind while you enjoy the porn, I mean food porn.

Oh, and that up above is curried lobster salad, lobster bisque, and mango shooter ( with alcohol ).  This was a food and drink pairing we did last winter for a holiday party. Lots of fun.

Same event.  Short Rib lollipop, horseradish, and Knob Creek infused "After Glow" ( featured at Bang!)

Diver Scallop, Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Butternut squash confetti, pumpkin seed dust

Grouper, purple fingerlings, Kale puree, fennel salad, fennel flower

Walnut house smoked salmon, green olive cracker, vodka cream

Spring Pea Soup, Pea Risotto

Mini Creme Brulees'

Wild Boar Stew paired with Wild Boar Sausage, Farro

Local Dry Aged Ribeye, Purple Carrots, Spinach Puree, Tater Tots

Lemon Souffle, Olive Oil Ice Cream.

And finally the two trouble makers responsible for all this porn, I mean food porn.

Salute!

Fruit Salad with Mint

I did everything right.

I’m talking about this past spring’s garden prepreation. 

Till 30 by 20 swath to compliment my 10 raised beds.  Check

Add plenty of compost.  Check

Irrigate with the use of soaker hoses.  Check

Cover for weed control.  Check

Add beautiful mulch to enhance garden’s appearance. Check

It seems I forgot one thing. That was to install a large scale solar powered outdoor de-humidifier to compensate for the 40 day and 40 night deluge of rain we have had.  Nope, forgot about that one.  In a related story, I did come across this while in a Lowes parking lot the other day.

Thank god, huh? And to think Ford built such a thing.  I immediately tried to get in but found the doors to be locked.  How am I to begin to repopulate the world if I can’t even get in this ark?  And room for only five?  It looks like only two species are going to survive this calamity and that fifth being is probably going to become dinner and if I have any say in this it’s going to be a hog.   This ark did have a sunroof, so giraffes and llamas are still in play here. 

Speaking of my garden, the only thing flourishing right now is the string grass and mint.  Since I have no culinary need for the former, I have been picking the hell out my spearmint, chocolate, and grapefruit mint plants.  What for you might ask?  Well morning fruit salad.  Whereas my strawberry plants are a year away and my blackberries and raspberries are as pissed at all the rain as I am, I am resigned to buying the fruit like most every other schmuck. The mint is a nice touch.

This is a simple dish, folks.  I'll show you how to section a grapefruit just to complicate it some. 

 

1 large grapefruit

1 cup fresh raspberries

1 cup blueberries

6 strawberries

1 half fresh pineapple

1 cup fresh mint  

That's my cast of characters. Needless to say, you can play around with any combination you like. It's nice to have the grapefruit simply because  he will drop some nice juice to this beauty.  Let's get busy sectioning him for this cooking lesson.

Use a serrated knife ( aka good bread knife ) and cut the ends from the grapefruit. 

Now let's remove the outer skin. Using the same knife, cut in a concave motion trying ( hoping and praying ) not to remove too much flesh. 

Don't sweat it, tho its hot outside you will get better with practice. You should have something looking like this.

See the vertical membranes?  All we are going to do is cut on each side of them and release each grapefruit section. 

Doesn't that just beat the hell out of those grapefruit spoons?  Remember to hold the whole over the bowl to capture the juices while you cut.  Time to attack the pineapple.  Cut it in half and use the same serrated knife and cut more or less the same way you did for the grapefruit. 

 You want to cut those thorn looking guys out of the party here.  I tend to leave the last bit of remnants of them just because I hate losing the fruit and I can deal with a little bit. You choose. 

When you finished, it should look something like this.

Pretty handsome guy I would say. Head to your garden or back deck planter and pick some of this

That's my grapefruit mint coupled with the chocolate mint.  Looks likes they are getting it on.  Not really, it's just mint doing it's mint thing and growing!  So plant some, it's still not too late. This plant will be singing green while the others are gone so do this now if you haven't done so already. Pick some and chop finely like so

Add this to your bowl of fruit

Toss gently as we don't want to mash the berries. As good as this might look, there is no way to describe the taste of this freshness in the morning.  

This is a a good morning. 

Kale Soup

So I passed the big “5 Oh” without much ado.  I suppose the medicinal influences of New Orleans didn’t hurt.  Looked like I was free and clear of any emotional meltdown until I get this in the mail.

What a buzz kill.  What exactly does AARP stand for?  If its aging agitated retired people, than I'm halfway there.  Certainly not retired, I'm still dishing it out ( get it, dishing...nevermind). 

All this talk about aging has me thinking about Kale, the modern day super food.  Before you start hissing at me and calling me a band wagoner, know that I’ve been making this soup since early Metropolitain.  Back then I couldn’t give it away. 

Now it’s all the rage. Kale is more popular than the Flaming Lips.   The question is, should I  

join?  Not the rock band, AARP.  It’s only 16  bucks a year and I get a free tote bag.  You can’t buy a good tote bag for less than 25, so I’m thinking it’s a good deal.   They also give discounts on hotels, rental cars and bifocals.  

Since I’m feeling pretty good these days, I’m giving you two recipes, regular and unleaded.   It would help if you also had one of these bad boys lying around the kitchen.

Might be time to take the 20 percent coupon to the nearest Blood Bath and Beyond and get one.  You could also use an immersible blender.

Here’s the recipe.

2 bunches of Kale, stemmed and washed

6 strips of bacon

1 cups leeks, sliced

1 T garlic pasted

2 cups chopped potatoes

Chicken Stock

1 cup heavy cream

If you want a vegetarian version, omit the bacon and replace the stock with vegetable stock.  And if you want the no fat version, lose the heavy cream.  It’s all good. Since it's just me and my daughter for dinner tonight (vegetarian), I'll be making the latter version.

Cook the bacon until it renders some fat.  Alternately, use olive oil here.  Then add the leeks and garlic and sweat them on medium heat for a minute or two.

Next add the potatoes, then enough stock to cover.

  This is important.  Too much stock will make a runny soup.  The Kale has a lot of water too, so do as I say here. Let it simmer until the potatoes are cooked.  

 A knife easily cuts through a cooked potato. Then and only then, add the Kale. 

It's literally coming out of the pot.  That's good.  It's going to wilt

 And wilt. It's still dropping liquid so no panicking here. Here is the key. We want to cook the Kale at the precise point where it still has a vibrant green color (and flavor), and yet will puree properly.  So you need to stand over the pot, stirring and saying nice things to your soup.  Don’t laugh, I do it all the time.

 See that?  Deep green and ready for the blender.   Take it off the heat and ladle into your brand new Vitamix until half full.  By the way, don't do this with a cheap blender.  Just don't.  Imagine a green volcano.  It's not a good site.

 Flip the switch and go check your twitter account. This should take 30-45 seconds.

                                                           

 Green Goddess me oh my.  

I served mine with so croutons and goat's cheese.  

Enjoy!

Gumbo

Lester taught me how to make Gumbo.

During my first try at running a small kitchen, (Blue Bird Café, circa 1990), a scrawny, loud mouthed, burned out character who weighed a buck twenty holding a sack of quarters was washing dishes while I prepped.  I paid him little mind.  Why should I?  The average tenure of a dishwasher back then was two weeks (pay day to pay day).

“You need some halp, chief?”  Lester insisted he knew a thing or two about cooking, and was relentless with his nagging, so I gave him a chore.

“Cut me a mirepoix.” 

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it means two part onion, one part celery and carrot cut into quarter inch dice.  And yes ladies, size does matter. A perfectly cut mirepoix makes the dish you are cooking, better.

So I was shocked when Lester handed me a bowl of the most gorgeous mirepoix I had ever seen.

“What is your deal?”  I asked.  It turned out; Lester had done some serious time in some serious restaurants in New Orleans, including K-Paul’s.  We got to chatting about all foods Cajun and he promised to teach me how to make Gumbo the next day.  That he did.  Lester was a no show the day after payday, though he did phone me that night, apologizing through his slurred words he was sorry he couldn’t make it in.  It would be my only lesson this chef got from his dishwasher.

According to Lester’s scripture, it was all about the roux. A dark roux that is.  One needing the time and attention you would give a two month old.  Let’s make some Lester Gumbo.

For the roux:

2 cups flour

1 ½ cup canola or peanut oil

½ cup  Cajun Spice

1/3 of the Trinity ( see below )

For the Gumbo

2 medium onions (cut like Lester would)

1 ½ red pepper ( same )

4 stalks of celery ( you guessed it )

If this looks like a mirepoix, its New Orleans version called the Trinity.  They substitute peppers for carrots since they won’t grow there.

For the rest of the Gumbo

6 slices bacon, cut into strips

1 T garlic pasted

2 cans diced tomato

1 cup okra ( optional )

1 jalapeno, sliced

1 quart chicken stock or water with 4 bullion cubes

This is more roux than you need for this amount of gumbo.  Use what you need and freeze the rest.  It will make the next batch of gumbo a breeze.  Pour the oil into a pan and get it as hot as you are comfortable with.  If you like skydiving and other adrenaline sports, take it to the smoking point.  Be careful, no updating facebook cover shots here, a hot roux can burn a hole in your hand.

Carefully add your flour and whisk to incorporate.  Get comfy because you are going to be stirring for a spell. You’ll soon understand why I had you make a double batch.

Your welcome.

Here is the roux blonde. 

By the way, how do you sink a submarine full of blonde rouxs?   You knock on the door.

Here is the roux getting darker.

And darker

And we have arrived at our destination. Thanks for flying Delta. Now turn off the heat and add one third of the Trinity and the spices.  Four things are going on right now. One, the roux just got flavored, the Trinity is getting cooked, we’re trying to cool the roux, and you are thinking, “holy hell this lava is hot”.  

Relax, keep it stirring and ask your assistant to hand you a baking sheet.  I like to transfer the roux to a sheet because it will cool faster.  Place it aside.

Inevitably, someone in the household will come by and mistake this for something sweet and chocolatey.  Let them do it, the expression is priceless.

The hard part is done.  In a pot, sweat the bacon until it gives up a little fat.  Add the rest of the Trinity, garlic, okra, and let it cook a little.  Then add the tomatoes, the stock and bring to a simmer and cook for 30 minutes.

Feel free to use whatever combination of meats you see fit.  Just make sure it includes some Andouille Sausage.  After that, I like chicken and shrimp.  If you have cooked chicken, add everything at the end just to warm a cook the shrimp through. If you are using raw chicken, add it now and simmer until it’s cooked.

It’s time to add the roux. This will thicken the Gumbo once it hits the boiling point.

Once you have the desired consistency, add the sausage and shrimp and cook until they are ready. 

  Here it is just after I added the shrimp and sausage. Look at that deep mahogany color. Beauty. 

Serve this gumbo over rice, with some cornbread, and just enjoy.

Thanks Lester, wherever you are.