Chicken Fried Gourmet

my blog's little brother.......

I have started an accompanying blog on tumblr that allows me to revisit and post some small foodie things.

Here is the address  http://chickenfriedgourmet.tumblr.com/ Let me know what you think........

Rat - atouille

My garden, more specifically my tomatoes, always are invaded by creatures of the flying sort....birds. I have tried all thedifferent methods to persuade them to stay away from it but nothing ever seems to work 100% except for bird netting.  Bird netting is not the most attractive thing to have around your garden especially if it is quite visible. This year I have wrapped/draped the netting over the garden but I am in theprocess of building a frame for it so it will be more attractive and more accessible to retrieve the fruit of my labors. Yesterday I happened to check on the garden and found a rat that had infiltrated the garden fortress and in the process tangled his neck up in the netting. I assume he had been there a while because he had managed to tangle and twist the netting up pretty good. I ended up cutting the netting around him but there was no way I was going to clip the netting that was close to his neck. Once freed I tossed him onto the golf course behind our house ( I am not that well off, it is a public/city course).In the meantime I hope him or any of his friends do not come back anytime soon......

  

Cocoa Crusted Flat Iron Steak, french fry "onion rings",rosemary olive oil pudding with other stuff.....

This is what we had for Father's Day last weekend. I had the butcher at Kroger slice a Flat Iron steak thinly and then I combined it with Activa, rolled it up then marinated it with a mixture of cocoa, worchestire, garlic, olive oil and a few other things. I made french fry "onion rings" a rosemary olive oil pudding inspired by the Alinea cookbook and a reduced beef stock red wine jus. For an appetizer I made the Mango Soy Bonito dish from the Alinea cookbook as well. Since it calls for a piece of equipment that is obviously out of my range for purchasing - an Anti-Griddle- I improvised and used a sheet pan on top of a piece of dry ice. With the leftover dry ice I just threw it in the pool....cool...smoke :) The frozen mango puree is topped with soy sauce pudding and shaved/dried bonito ( I skipped the sesame oil). This was a really interesting flavor combination and one I would like to experiment with other flavors. For dessert we had fresh watermelon topped with tomato sorbet, reduced balsamic vinegar and a basil sweet syrup.

is growing a vegetable garden in your front yard against the law in Louisiana?

Okay so in my neighborhood there is a guy who has constructed two big planter boxes in his front yard, more specifically between the sidewalk and the street. He has planted rows of corn and it looks like squash/zucchini in the corners. Every day as i drive by his house I think to myself "well that is different and I really need to take some pictures of it". Well last night on the way home I noticed that about 60-70% of the corn had been cut down. This morning there was a sign up explaining why. Now I know that this aesthetically may not be for everyone but what is the difference is planting corn that grows 6-7 ft tall and a sunflower that gets even bigger in the same place?

 

 

 

 

 

 

just playing around.......Passionfruit Orange Black Pepper Gummi Bears

So I decided to try my hand at making gummi bears again last night and this is what I came out with. They were a little tougher than regular gummi bears so maybe next time I will use less gelatin. I used the cornstarch method from Chadzilla to make the molds using store bought gummi bears.

............in the midst of gardening

............in the midst of gardening, planted some new things this year at the new house : golden beets, kholrabi, corn salad, arugula, lemon thyme, sorrel, purple basil, several diffrent types of heirloom tomatoes, pimento peppers, ancho peppers, two types of radishes, garlic and micro-greens.

 

we'll see how this year goes........

Chicken Caesar Sandwich with Bacon, Parmesan and Granny Smith Apple

Tonight's dinner was leftover Caesar salad, grilled chicken, Bacon, sliced Granny Smith Apples, Parmesan shavings and toasted French baguette.

very tasty........

 

Toasted English Muffins with Butter and Blueberries

just a simple breakfast of English muffins topped with butter and fresh blueberries then toasted under the broiler.

Sunday night Lasagna

nothing special, just using up leftover meatballs and pasta sauce for lasagna on a drizzly Sunday evening

some random pics from Easter weekend

Here are some pictures from this past Easter weekend.

We had a couple of get togethers and family meals. We had mini burgers with fried green tomatoes on Saturday while we dyed Easter eggs, on Friday we had some snapper with steamed snow peas, passionfruit vinaigrette and balsamic syrup. I really wanted some texture with the fish dish, a crunch if you will. On the way over to my in-laws I stopped at a local convienence store looking for corn nuts. I wanted to grind up the corn nuts to give the fish some crunch, a sprinkling if you will after plating. For some reason this store did not carry corn nuts at all, bummer :(

Happy Easter everyone, hope everyone remembers the real meaning behind it.

Rosemary grilled beef tenderloin with mushroom ravioli & popcorn sunchoke puree

Just playing around in the kitchen with some new flavors/techniques......

New house, new baby, new kitchen..............

Again sorry for the lack of updates recently ( man I really should just post more so I can stop apologizing) but there have been a lot of changes recently in the past couples of months, some good some bad but the biggest and best things are we have bought/moved to a bigger (and better) house BECAUSE we are expecting another child. One of the benefits of the new home is the kitchen, a great place to cook for me considering what I had before. Below are some pictures of what little cooking I have been able to do recently in the new kitchen, there is also a b&w pic of the old kitchen (while making pasta) just so you can really appreciate it. Look for good things to come with this new setup.

BTW the shrimp on the grill are outside, no inside grill :(........yet

Guinness and Happy St Patrick's Day

I had this idea to make a dinner around a few Irish ingredients, okay really just potatoes and Guinness beer. I went to the store and picked up some oxtails (google it) and a 4 pack of Guinness Draught beer in a can.  I planned on making a ravioli filled with Guinness braised oxtails, a Guinness brown butter sauce and diced potatoes cooked in duck fat. Nice concept right? Well after cooking the oxtails in my slow cooker I realized that the weather outside was very "springy" and thus this dish seemed really heavy and more suited for colder weather. I will figure out something else for this Guinness braised beef but in the meantime I need to take care of the rest of the "ingredients" so they do not go to waste ;) My name is O'Boyle isn't it........

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recent stuff I have been cooking

Sorry for my lack of posting recently, I have had a ton of distractions that I am currently working through.  To tide you over here are some recent pictures of some of my latest cooking.

 

Jumbo Pasta Shells stuffed with Meatball sauce and creamy Mushrooms

 

Making fresh pasta

 

Homemamde Pappardelle with Bolognese sauce

 

Flat Iron Steak ala Chadzilla with Mushroom Ravioli

 

Making Crawfish Stock for the F E A S T Dinner at Columbia Cafe

  

BBQ Chicken Thighs,charred Corn, Blue Cheese, Arugula salad with creamy Lemon vinaigrette 

 

Making a Shrimp sauce

 

Shrimp & Grits

 

Chicken and Proscuitto Ravioli with Arugula, Tomato vinaigrette and reduced Balsamic syrup

Coming in April 2009

                        

 

Piquillo Pork Tenderloin with Manchego Cheese Potatoes and Piquillo sauce

So this will be a quick post. This is something I did a few weeks ago - a piquillo pepper marinated pork tenderloin, grilled then sliced over a manchego cheese potato au gratin and served over a piquillo pepper and honey sauce. I have been on the hunt for authentic jarred piquillo peppers for some time and have had no luck finding them in the different upscale grocery stores in Dallas. I finally came across them in Whole Foods in Baton Rouge when we were there for an LSU game back in November. Here you go, enjoy......

         

RSS Feed etc

Okay it has come to my attention that my feed was not working correctly, pease go the the link on the right side and sign up again just to make sure you are getting the correct settings. Let me know if you have any trouble.

Porcini Crusted Chicken with Blueberries and Polenta ala Marc Vetri

I know what you are thinking...blueberries seriously ??? But really this works on all sorts of levels and isn't this why you come here, to see al the culinary wacko stuff I try to pull off?

This is an adaptation of a recipe from Marc Vetri's new cookbookthat pairs blueberries with Porcini Crusted Halibut. Chef Vetri has a restaurant in Philadelphia that I would love to try if I ever make it that way. Philly seems to be giving NYC and Chicago some play for a progressive foodie town from what I am seeing.

As I am not the biggest fan of fish I substituted chicken breast. The basics of this recipe are to finely grind dried porcini mushrooms use this powder to crust your protein and sear/cook in a non stick skillet (to keep the porcini powder from burning). The sauce is prepared by simmering blueberries in sugar, water and some champagne vinegar (I used white wine vinegar). I felt like the end product of the sauce needed something so I added some freshly ground black pepper as well as some fresh blueberries. The recipe does not call for polenta but hey, polenta goes with everything as does it's southern cousin, grits. I added some Romano cheese to the polenta as well.

                

This turned out really well. The blueberries cut into the earthiness of the mushroom crusted chicken as well as the creaminess of the polenta, a very nice balance. Marc's cookbook also has a recipe for a free form lasagna with blueberries and porcini that I will need to try in the future after tasting this combination.

If you want a different type of Italian cookbook then look no further than Marc Vetri.

Alinea Cookbook - Blackberry Tobacco Cream Smoked Salt

I pretty much read thru the Alinea Cookbook on a daily basis. Not only are the recipes creative and challenging but they also stimulate you to think of food in different ways. Yesterday I decided to try the Blackberry and Tobacco cream recipe in the book. It is meant to be a bridge between a savory entree course and a dessert. Its one of the more straight forward and simpler recipes in the book. Some other food bloggers out there are attempting to recreate ALL the recipes from the book and Martin at Alineaphile seems to be going pretty strong on it.

                  

This was an interesting "one bite" dish, nobody could really put their finger on that extra taste till I told them it was the tobacco infused cream and then there was that "aha" moment. The recipe called for bee balm but I was unable to find any ( hello this is Shreveport after all ) so it did say you could substitute mint instead. After sampling quality controla few I found the mint to be pretty overpowering so I used only a tiny little sliver on each. The recipe also called for Danish smoked salt but I had some Alderwood Smoked Sea Salt that I had gotten from the salt bar at Central Market in Dallas (best place in the world for food for this area). The smoked salt was pretty strong as well so I mixed it with some Maldon Sea Salt to tone it down a little. This is a recipe that I will need to play around with and use as a bridge for one of my dinners soon.

                  

Our dog Copper

Last night our dog Copper passed away from complications due to surgery. On Friday afternoon he was not eating which is HIGHLY unusual for him. We took him to the vet immediately and they had to perform surgery on him. He had a mass blockage in his intestines due to him eating sticks ( I know he wasn't the smartest but he was ours). He survived the surgery but it was wait and see for the next couple of days. We were able to see him Saturday and Sunday at the Vet's office for a short time and we thought he was getting better and responding well to the surgery. We got the call this morning that he passed away last night. This was our 4 year olds 1st dog that he picked out.......it has been a rough day. We only had him for a little less than two years.

                  

We miss you buddy................................