Tag Archives: recipe

To recipe or not to recipe, that is the question……

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I just finished cooking for a workshop of hungry actor’s who were training at a month long intensive in Shakespeare.  Sunday night, as I was sitting at the bar soaking in the end of our time together, I was approached by one of the participants who said “I find it fascinating that you didn’t use any recipes during the workshop.”  I’ll tell all my blog readers a secret.  I don’t believe in recipes.  It’s not that I don’t believe in them but I have the voice of many culinary instructors in the back of my mind saying “A recipe is just a guideline.”

Truly, a recipe is a guideline or a map, if you will.  I will often google a recipe to get a basis for how I want to make something and then make it my own.  When you see recipe’s on this website that’s mainly for your benefit.  Often, when testing a recipe for you all, I have to stop what I’m doing, write it down and it makes the process much longer.  Working without recipes and creating something by tasting it and changing it is what creates the magic that I love in the kitchen.

That being said baking is completely different.  When you make you have to use a recipe because the measurements are so precise.  So in this new year I urge you all to be a little more free with your cooking.  Add something sweet to a salty recipe.  Find something in the fridge that needs to be used up and create a recipe around it.  Cooking can be as much fun or as much of a chore as you want.

Belgian Waffle with Peanut Butter

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Tuesday is the off day at work, for the workshop I’m currently cooking for. That means that I serve a
brunch instead of the normal lunch. People think it’s simple but actually it can be more difficult because it starts a lot earlier than the typical lunch.

I digress, again. Last year I bought a fancy two waffle at the same time maker for a valentines day brunch I was catering. I like to make use of it as much as I can. So typically we
serve waffles on Tuesday, today was no exception.

At the end of the meal today my sous chef went to make himself a waffle and told me that he likes to put peanut butter on his waffle. I laughed him off. Then immediately made myself a waffle and tried it. It was mind altering. It tasted like a Reese pieces candy. My all time favorite candy in the world. Of course, I felt like crap afterwards but it was worth it! I recommend you give it a try! Two more weeks to go and I’ll have more time to blog, record videos etc.

Be well everyone!

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Sweet Potato Corned Beef Hash

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I can’t remember the last time I ate a regular white potato.  As I’ve gotten older they just seem to have gone out of fashion.  Maybe it’s the years of being told not to eat anything white, sounds racist to me, white bread, white potatoes, white flour, etc.  My housemate is out of town for the holidays, I’m not happy about this at all, wink.  I’ve been enjoying some down time having the house to myself.  The reason I bring her up is because she is not much of a meat eater, actually she will only eat fish.  So I went to the grocery store the other day and perused the meat section knowing that I could cook as much meat as I wanted without a scented candle being lit to hide the smell from her.  I noticed some corned beef and decided to get it.  I cooked it Sunday evening and then when I woke up on Monday I had this incredible urge for corned beef hash and poached eggs.  I didn’t have any regular idaho potatoes, which is what I would usually use, but I did have a sweet potato so with reckless abandon I decided to go for it.

I got a huge yellow onion, cut about a quarter of it away and put the rest back.  I sliced it and then put it in a sauté pan with some olive oil.  

My goal was to caramelize the onions, which I do by two methods.  One, you can turn the heat on high and make sure you stir or shake the pan constantly.  Two, you can turn the heat on low and cook them for a long time.  I often go with number one but the trick is that you have to keep moving the pan around because if you don’t your onions will burn.

Then I diced one whole sweet potato and added it to the pan, I turned the heat down to a lower temperature and then covered the pan to let the sweet potatoes steam for a little while.  They didn’t take as long to cook as I thought they would.  While they were cooking I diced up about 3/4 cup of corned beef.  Once the sweet potatoes were cooked I added the corned beef and a little tiny dash of balsamic vinegar and dried thyme leaves.  The corned beef seemed very salty to me, saltier than usual, so I thought the acid would counter balance that.  That’s it!

 

 

I poached some eggs and put them on top.  Nothing like eggs and corned beef hash!  I almost wish that I had fried them but I only have one sauté pan!

 

 

Ron’s Sweet Potato Corned Beef Hash

Serves 2

1/4 Large Yellow Onion, sliced

1 Sweet Potato, Diced

3/4 cup diced corned beef

Thyme Leaves

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

1.  Slice onion, put in sauté pan with olive oil and slightly caramelize

2.  Dice potato and add to pan, cover and cook until tender.

3.  Add diced corned beef to the pan.  Cover again and cook until corned beef is warmed through.  Add a dash of balsamic vinegar, thyme leaves and taste.  Add more salt and pepper if needed.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for soup!

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It’s gotten really cold outside.  I mean so cold that the other day as I was leaving the house and I had to actually think about whether my hair was dry or not.  Nothing like a frozen head in the morning!  Anyway, I digress.  When it gets this cold I love nothing more than a warm cup of soup.  It serves many purposes.  First, it’s tasty.  Second, it’s a good hand warmer when you’re sitting at your desk at work and it feels like the heat isn’t on.

So how do you make a soup?  Well, first, you start off with a soup base, preferably something you’ve made from scratch.  There are many different kinds of stocks, fish, beef, chicken, vegetable.  At work I mainly make a vegetable stock for a couple of reasons.  First, there are always veggie scraps laying around.  Second, I’m usually serving a decent portion of people on vegetarian and vegan diets.  I’ve found that if you just go with a veggie stock in most everything you’re safe.  Of course, stock can be used for many different things.  You can cook your rice with it.  You can add it to a dish if you need more liquid.  You could steam your veggies with it, think asparagus or broccoli.

Here is a pot of veggie stock that I made earlier this week.  I used it as a base for a butternut squash soup. I ate the soup all week long and even shared it with friends.   On top of making that soup I made a chicken and barley soup that I froze so I could just take it out and bring it to work on days I’m not in the kitchen.

Above is a picture of the chicken stock that I made as a base for the chicken barley soup.  Sure, there are more refined ways and recipes for stock but basically what I do is take the chicken carcass add some veggies like onions, carrots, celery and aromatics like thyme, bay leaves etc. and simmer for a few hours.  Then you drain it and you’re all set!

In the coming months, weeks, etc. I’ll try to write down the recipes and then post them here for my soups.  Honestly, I’ve become the king of making anything out of soup, even vegetable lasagna!  It’s a great way to use things up and not waste anything.  Below is my chicken soup cooking away with the veggie stock!  Have a great day everyone!