Ok, so the theory goes that you eat with your eyes first. I’m pretty sure that works when the food is presented, but in a real world, it’s the smell, scent, yummy aroma that hits you first. Today I am making this amazing concoction starting with simply put, ground beef. Well, not simple ground beef, organic Maui pasture fed ground beef. I pick this up at Whole Foods in Kahului and it feels good to get meat from right here at home. I have about 7 oz of ground beef to which I have added 1 medium Maui Onion roughly diced, 7 cloves of garlic chopped to perfection, a 2 inch piece of turmeric root – grated, 4 chopped roma tomatoes, and some marinara sauce. This is going to sit together for about an hour and then I will serve it over shredded cabbage. So satisfying and sooooo good for you!
Ok so here’s the deal. We went to a meeting tonight and skipped dinner. By the time we got home we needed a little snack but not a whole meal, so this is how it went down. I started out with my all time favorite bread that I get from Costco – “Alpine Valley” Natural Whole Grain Organic Multi Grain bread with Omega 3′s. Now I know that is a mouthful of whole grain goodness, but I still stand by the fact that it is My favorite store bought bread. This is the beginning of the best toasted cheese sandwich – ever. Slather one side of the bread with coconut oil and put oil side down in a preheated cast iron pan. Top with thickish (an official cooking term, I’m sure) amount of extra sharp cheddar cheese. To this we add another slice of bread that has coconut oil slathered on the top side. Brown the first side, flip and brown the second side. Oh, but it doesn’t stop there…open up this wonderful gooey delicacy and add avocado, lemon juice and spike seasoning. What a perfect late night snack, please enjoy your own version.
Well it has been a very busy week. We are hosting the class called “Flowers and Flavors” which combines photography of flower as well as food. Every day the students go out and enjoy flower farms as well as flowers out in the wild and at night we get to share a great meal together and get a new shot for my cookbook. It’s really been a lot of work but once I share some of my new images I think you will agree that it has been worth it. Here are a couple of images for you to see:
Fish with Papaya Salsa
Zucchini Boats
Randy and I took our weekly trip to Costco today. We have decided that the best time to hit Costco is as early as can be on a Saturday morning. It seems to fit in our schedule and although I don’t like being out in public before 10 am except on Sundays, I would rather not deal with the crowds that come at noon. While I was perusing through the seafood section, I came across a big bag of Cockles. Cockles are a form of clams and can be treated in the same way. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them, but if any of you have followed my blog at all you know that I am willing to try. Well try I did and this is the recipe that I came up with. I was really pleased with it and I hope you are too.
Cockles (or clams) in White Wine Sauce
5# Cockles, rinsed and scrubbed (yes, they are dirty)
12” skillet 2 1/2”deep with secure lid
3T olive oil
1/2 C finely chopped garlic (about 2 flowers)
1 C finely chopped tomatoes
2 T Basil Chiffonade (thin strips)
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1 sprinkle of red pepper flakes
3 T Unsalted Butter
2 T finely chopped fresh parsley for garnish
Heat skillet to medium and add olive oil and garlic. Saute for about 2-3 minutes, then add the tomato, basil and red pepper flakes, cooking for an additional 2-3 minutes. Open a bottle of white wine (Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay work well) and pour the entire bottle in the pan. Cook on high for about 2 minutes then add the clams (cockles), turn to medium and cook 3-5 minutes until all clams have opened. Discard any clams that do not open. Add the zest and juice of 1 lemon. With a slotted spoon, fish out all of the clams and put into a serving dish. Keep covered so as to not loose all the heat while you reduce the sauce on high for about 20-30 minutes. Once the sauce has reduced by at least one half, turn off the heat and add 3 T unsalted butter. Stir until melted, pour over clams, sprinkle with parsley and enjoy. This dish works great with a few slices of toasted bagette or some sort of sourdough bread.
We were doing our weekly Whole Foods shopping and they had just received some local Maui lamb. I usually only get the lamb chops, but Randy thought it would be fun to try the rack of lamb. I have never cooked a rack of lamb before, but I was willing to give it a shot. Needless to say it was a raving success and now Randy thinks I should fix this dish at least once a week!
Rack of Lamb
Allow 1 rack for each couple.
Ingredients:
For Crust:
1/2 C Italian Bread Crumbs
4 T Minced Garlic
1 T Finely Chopped Rosemary
Zest of 1 Lemon
1 T Dijon Mustard
2 T Olive Oil
Mix together and set aside.
For Lamb:
1 – 7 bone Rack of Lamb, frenched
Olive oil
Kosher Salt
Coarse Pepper
Directions:
Start gas grill warming – our goal is to reach a temperature of 450 degrees. If you don’t have a barbeque you can cook this in your oven at 450 degrees.
Mix together crust ingredients and set aside.
Cover rack of lamb with olive oil, salt and pepper. Heat up cast iron skillet and sear all searable sides (bones curve the wrong direction so you cannot sear that side).
Let cool 5 minutes.
Slather crust mixture on lamb, then put on top rack in BBQ, bone side down.
Cook for 15 minutes or until instant read thermometer reads your desired doneness.
Remove from heat, cover with foil and let rest 10-15 minutes.
Carve between the ribs and serve.
Memorial Day…Really? Well, I am glad that we don’t leave until tomorrow. The day started out with…hmmmm…well, let’s just say that I didn’t even wake up today until 5am! That’s right, none of that what can I do between 1 and 4am, just oh gee, it’s 5 and time to get up. Did the usual early morning routine – coffee, newspaper, crosswords…then Randy reminded me that we were going down to Sprecklesville to shoot the coastline. We had a little Mars/Venus moment as he said, “Let’s shoot pictures at the beach” and I thought “The beach is sandy…” hmmmm. Turns out he was thinking of going left at the parking area and I was thinking right. Who knew that right was sandy and left was rocky. Well, we did take the “road” less traveled. Unfortunately, since in my mind we were going to a sandy beach, I wore slippers instead of tennis shoes. Note to self, “When husband wants to shoot pictures on beach, AND said husband dons his tennie runners, take heed, the terrain is built for shoes, not slippahs”.
I did know how long one quick picture takes so I made a quick quesadilla for each of us as well as some ice water to take to the beach. When we did finish the shoot, I was really hungry. I wish I liked going out to breakfast because then I would have talked Randy into taking me out. When we were done it was only about 9:30 or so and I didn’t think the Saigon Cafe was open yet. Maybe I just wasn’t ready for Vietnamese. The only thing that would have made sense to go out for was green papaya salad and roll your own burritos. Soooooo, I remembered that we had a little eggplant leftover from the other night and voila, there was our breakfast. By the time we were about done with breakfast, Melissa woke up and decided to make waffles. Therefore, it was eggplant for breakfast and waffles for dessert.
Since we are leaving tomorrow for a conference in San Carlos so today it is prep day. Need to get a couple of loads of laundry done, as well as balancing the checkbooks and ironing shirts. We thawed out some boneless pork chops and had our favorite Josh Barut pork with pepper dipping sauce. We served it with cole slaw and garlic green beans. Time for a quick nap and then some more work.
For dinner, we thawed out a portion of pizza dough and I made a tomato basil pizza on the barbecue to go along with our soup. If all this garlic today doesn’t keep away those vampires I don’t know what will! I think I have used about 4 flowers of garlic in the last two days.
Sunday again. I think Sunday is my favorite day of the week. I never feel guilty about hanging out chilling. Melissa sold 1 more loaf of sunflower seed bread than I had so I needed to make another batch of bread this morning. Woke up at about 3:30 and knew that if I got up now I could get the bread done before church. Started getting the ingredients ready and realized that…I don’t have enough milk, the only sunflower seeds I have are salted and roasted (recipe calls for raw) and I’m just about out of honey. So now it’s time to work on what substitutes I can use. For the shortage of milk, I had some heavy cream in the fridge and added enough water to get the right amount of liquid. I drained the honey out of the honey bear and had to scoop a little more out of the jar that had a little left in it. Because the sunflower seeds were salted, I cut down the amount of salt added to the dough then also added some raw pepitas (pumpkin seeds). Well the bread turned out great and since Melissa only needed one loaf (of which I made 6), we enjoyed one for breakfast along with some sausages and scrambled eggs. Now we’re off to church
It’s our anniversary Sunday today and it is so good so see so many extension pastors joining us from all over the globe. After church we had to make a quick stop at Lowe’s for some lights that had burnt out and Costco for a couple of last minute things as well as some fish for lunch. We had planned on doing a barbecue with the neighbors, but since they are leaving for Singapore on Tuesday and we are leaving to Northern California on the same day, we opted to nix the barbee. I did pick up some fresh Mahi Mahi and today we are jonesing for some coconut crusted fish with a lemon caper butter sauce.
Sorry I haven’t mastered the photo layout yet, but just wanted you to “get the picture”. The photo in the middle shows the fish in the pan, the one on the left is after I turned it and the one on the right is the final product.
Time for a nap and a Sunday afternoon movie. After a little rest, I decided that I wanted some blue cheese and crackers for dessert. Yummy! Next up is a soak in the jacuzzi and some coconut curry soup. Tonight I think we will add some shrimp to it. The shrimp doesn’t take long to thaw out, and once you cut it into bite sized pieces, it only takes about 5 minutes to poach in the hot soup.
Well this is the day for the fundraiser. I still have 2 batches of bread to bake so I get one started even before my coffee. Now that’s devotion. All this bread making has made me want to try some so I think I will have some cinnamon swirl bread with breakfast. Along with that we will have some scrambled eggs and kielbasa sausage and I’m good to go.
I’m not feeling nearly so motivated today, which is kind of a drag because since we cooked all day yesterday, we need to do the house cleaning today. I just don’t feel the motivation for house cleaning. Sometimes we just have to do what we don’t want to do so we can get done what needs to get done. Started with clearing off all the piles that were on the counters. Okay, so I didn’t really take care of all of the stuff, I just hid it in another room for another time, but at least the counters were clear. I have to admit that the work does go a lot faster when you have help and Melissa was a big help today.
We have a little piece of salmon to cook for lunch and I found a container with some brown sweet rice in it and thought that fish and stirfry rice would be good. Melissa is out pressure washing the back lanai so I won’t be using the outdoor grill for the fish. Fortunately, my stove has an indoor grill. The only problem with it is if the fish drips oil, it will smoke and the smoke alarm goes off. I have to keep a broom handy to swish the air in front of the alarm to get it to turn off. Well that only happened twice today while the salmon was cooking…not too bad. Spent a good deal of time prepping all the veggies for the stir fry. I found some garlic, ginger, turmeric, onions, bell peppers, carrots, celery, tomatoes and zucchini to throw into the rice. I also added some red curry paste. What a delightful combination.
After lunch and a power nap, it was time to get prepared for tonight. I had to run up to Morihara’s to pick up a bag of ice for the juice and water in the cooler. Set. Now all I have to do is cut up the ham rolls and cook the other stuff. Thank goodness we had a day of prep yesterday or I never would have gotten it all done. Thank you Melissa and Faith for all your wonderful help!
Today is prep day for the big fund raiser for Melissa. That means cinnamon bread, sunflower seed bread, mini cheesecakes, spinach dip, ham rolls, etc, etc. Well, we started out with a coconut and a walk. I had picked up some fresh Mahi Mahi from Costco yesterday and Randy thought we should mix it up and have it for breakfast. So that’s just what we did. I put a little olive oil, salt and pepper on it and grilled it for 10 minutes. Let it sit while we steamed some zucchini. Randy seasoned the zucchini with ghee, salt and pepper.
Now it’s time to get to work! Faith Berry came over from next door and helped us get all our work done. We made ham rolls, cheesecakes, cinnamon bread, sunflower bread, spinach dip and bacon wrapped dates. I will need to make another batch of cinnamon bread and sunflower seed bread tomorrow – it takes time to make bread. About 2:00 Randy had to run some errands and thought I should have lunch ready, but alas I was still making goodies. I did start working on a meal. We have eggplant and I am making a meatball sauce to cook on the eggplant. My favorite easy meatballs – take some mild italian sausage, squeeze it out of the casing and roll into meatballs. EASY!!! Brown them in a pan with olive oil, add 6 chopped Roma tomatoes, a flower of garlic, chopped, some onion, mushrooms and spaghetti sauce and water. Add 2 bay leaves and simmer for several hours. To this I will add a roasted red pepper sauce that I make by roasting a red bell pepper, cleaning it, put it in a blender with garlic, oregano, basil and a can of tomato sauce. Once blended I add it to the meat sauce and we are ready to rock and roll.
Slice up the eggplant lengthwise in even numbers. I can usually get 6 slices out of each eggplant. Cover with olive oil, salt and pepper, then grill until tender. Put some sauce in the bottom of a 13×19 glass pan, put in eggplant sandwiches and cover with remaining sauce. For the eggplant sandwiches, mix together chopped kale, ricotta cheese, garlic, oregano and basil, then layer between 2 slices of grilled eggplant. And of coarse since lunch didn’t get served until about 4:30, you guessed it, There will be no need for dinner.
The only thing that’s bad about getting a really good massage is that if you don’t drink enough water afterward, your body will suffer. I think that Randy didn’t get his fair share of water because today he is feeling a little under.
I love the pork breakfast sausages from Whole Foods. What we usually do is buy 12 sausages, then freeze them 3 each in a ziplock. They stay fresh and it only takes a little while to thaw them out. I do the same thing with bacon and freeze it 4 slices at a time. Now I know that if you have a family, you would need to increase the amount in each package, but for us “empty nesters” it works real well. I guess the beginning of this week is pamper Becky days. Monday I got a massage and Tuesday I got my hair cut. I feel so spoiled to have people “work” on me. Well, I need to be downtown by 10am so that means breakfast must not wait until 10:30. Got some paperwork done before breakfast. Then it was sausages, scrambled eggs and toast.
After breakfast I hurried off to my hair appointment as I had some ink to deliver before going in. Got my hair done (just wash and trim), now I’m off to Kihei to pick up some jewelry that Randy needs to shoot. Made it to the jewelry store, but the jeweler was still working on one of the pieces so I had to wait 40 minutes before picking it up. That really put me behind and I still need to do some shopping before going home. Looks like I will be eating lunch out. I don’t want to wait until 3:00 for lunch and it just isn’t a good idea to go grocery shopping hungry. I went to Pinata’s for lunch. I really wanted to have taquitos which they sometimes have and sometimes do not. They weren’t actually on the menu today, but the cook made me up a batch anyway. That’s what I call customer service.
Now that I have a full tummy, it’s time to pick up the last minute things I need for Melissa’s fund raiser on Thursday. Also, we are having cornish game hens for dinner and I am all out of curry powder and apples. That just won’t do. I like getting my curry powder from Down to Earth in their bulk spice section. It has a really nice balance of flavors. I think I will get a bunch of junk food at Costco so I am not making everything from scratch. Shopping is done and I head back up the hill. That’s when I remembered that I need to get a few things that are only in a regular grocery store so that means one more stop at Foodland in Pukalani. The gas gauge on the Mini has decided to stop working again. I knew that Randy had just filled up, but when I was on the way downtown it registered zero nun pooey. It was very fickle the whole trip, sometimes registering nothing and sometimes showing nearly full and everything in between.
Got home and put away the groceries and it’s already after three so I guess I need to start thinking about prepping the birds. First, I peeled one garlic flower. Then chopped the cloves up fine and put them in a bowl. Took a little trip out to the herb garden and picked some basil, oregano and rosemary. Chopped the herbs and put them in another bowl. In the third bowl went about 1/4 C of rock salt and in the forth bowl went the curry powder. The last thing I need to do is core the apple and cut into slices. I use one of those apple corer things which gives me 8 perfect slices. I rub the seasonings inside and out starting with the cavity. First the salt, then the curry powder, some garlic and herbs and finally 4 slices of apple. Rub all the seasonings on the outside, then wrap in foil. I wrap the hens in two layers of foil so that all those good juices stay next to the bird until I am ready to release them. I will be cooking these on the top rack of my barbecue at 400 degrees F for about 30-45 minutes, turning every 5 minutes. After this initial cooking is complete, I unwrap all the foil, drizzle ghee on the outside and brown the skin. For this, I turn up the heat and cook it on the bottom rack. After all is said and done, the birds come off of the heat, get covered in foil again, and take a cat nap (about 7-10 minutes). Meat should always rest after coming off the heat so that you don’t lose all those wonderful juices. After the nap is over, I cut the birds in half and serve complete with the apples that have baked inside. It’s almost like serving the birds with applesauce, but it’s not the applesauce Grandma used to make. This one has curry and herbs and garlic as well as the hen juices all incorporated in it. So then we did a quick steam to some asparagus, added a little fresh squeezed garlic, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses and called it a day.
by rebecca
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