Browsing Tag

veggies

General Reference/Tutorial

Roasted Mango Ghost Pepper Barbecue Sauce

Ghost Peppers. Jolokia chiles. Hot. Very Hot. Apparently some of the hottest edible chiles around. I’d been talking with someone about a year back so when I saw starter seedlings at the garden shop this spring, I decided to buy some. Thing is though: I now have about 40 ghost peppers. I’ve drying most of them, to grind for chili (it anyone wants some dried, let me know), but I decided to make this BBQ sauce too. It’s not all that hot, balanced by the sweetness of the roasted mangoes, actually. Definitely more of a chicken or veggie glaze than ribs or steak. Very tasty and the spicy kick gets you at the end.
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Appetizers/Starters, Desserts, Lunch, Salads, Sides

Caesar Salad Dressing

October 19, 1999 is a date that will forever remain in my memory. Why, you say? What is so important about that very day? It is the day that I ate the most perfect Caesar Salad salad ever made in the history of Caesar salads.

Yes, I remember the date. I remember the place (it was a restaurant attached to a Holiday Inn between Sausalito and Mill Valley, CA) and I remember the salad as if I ate it yesterday and yet it is almost 17 years later. That is how good this salad was. Think that I am crazy now? Yes, I remember the date of a salad. 🙂 Ever since then, I have tried Caesar Salads often, in the hope that maybe, just maybe I could find one just as good. Either the dressing doesn’t taste quite right, or there is too much of it (nothing like dressing with a side of romaine [shudder]) or (more often than not) it is just bad.

This salad doesn’t come close to the 1999 Salad, but I have found this dressing to be pretty awesome. As you know, the base of Caesar salad is egg yolks, but dealing with raw egg yolks can be a little problematic at times, so I thought of what else I could use as a base and came up with mayonnaise, which is in essence … eggs! This dressing should stay fridge-stable for a couple of days, if you don’t end up using it all at once.
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Appetizers/Starters, Dinner, Lunch

Roasted Tomato Caprese Pie

I seem to have a crazy overabundance of cherry tomatoes and basil this year. My god, the basil! More on that some other time, today I was focused with doing something with the 2 pints of cherry tomatoes that I picked in the last few days. Seemed like an excuse to make this tomato pie. No, it isn’t a pizza, though I guess it might as well be. Sort of like a caprese salad, only warm and in a pie. Lunch was awesome! 🙂
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Dinner

Prosciutto-wrapped Baked Halibut with Italian Vegetables

While I spend a larger percentage of my time on this here site talking about my baking, I do actually cook as well. I’m just better at the baking, which is somewhat surprising because it is actually more complicated that cooking. Anyway…

Dinner tonight was halibut. I love fish but sometimes it is more of a hassle than it is worth for just one person. And I’ve done most of my fish recipes to death. So I decided to do something new: wrapping fish in prosciutto. It adds a nice salty, slightly earthy flavor. And add some italian style veg. Definitely a repeat meal in the making.
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