Well, it’s November 1st and I survived another Halloween, which is getting more difficult as my daughter gets older and becomes more of a force to reckon with when she’s hopped up on massive quanitites of sugar. She turned 5 on Halloween (and yes, sometimes I think she truly is the spawn of the devil!) and I’m glad I wasn’t her teachers that day. She must have told me 20 times that morning that it was her birthday and that she was a big girl now. I can’t imagine how many times her teachers had to hear that line. More power to them, as a full day of that would have driven me crazy, and we all know that I’m on the edge as it is! But I’m not out of the woods just yet. We didn’t have time for her birthday party this past weekend so we are having it next weekend. That means 20 kids running around hopped up on cake, ice cream and soda. My only consolation is fact that I can then send them all home to unsuspecting parents who will then have to deal with the sugar crash. And yes, I know I’m evil! It’s part of my charm. Just ask my wife.

While we were out this weekend, we stopped by the farmer’s market here in town as it was the last one of the season. I wanted to make sure we stocked up on winter squashes as I love playing around with them, and they make great, hearty, Autumn time meals. I picked up a few Butternut squash perfect for soup making. Adding just a bit of curry powder to the mix gives the soup a nice complexity but doesn’t overpower the flavor of the squash.

There are many ways to garnish this soup; bacon is one garnish I use regularly, but today I wanted to change it up a bit. We had gotten a loaf of pumpernickel bread with our last CSA share of the season so I diced them up into 1/4 inch cubes and sauteed them slowly, in butter, over medium heat until crispy. I also peeled and diced an apple which I dusted with a mixture of 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon and 1/4 tsp. ground chipotle pepper, but plain diced apple works well also.

Curried Squash Soup
serve 8-10

2 medium Butternut squash (about 4-5 pounds)
2 ribs celery
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
1 cup half and half
1 tsp. curry powder
1 Tbl. honey
salt
pepper

Peel, seed and dice the squash. Chop the celery. Peel and chop the onion. Peel the garlic. Place all the vegetables in a large pot. Add the half and half and then add water to just barely cover the vegatables. Add the curry powder and honey and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for 25-30 minutes or until all the vegetables are tender. Puree the soup either in batches, in a blender, or in the pot using a stick (emersion) blender. Taste and adjust seasoning to taste. This version doesn’t have much sweetness which is the way I like it when using the curry powder. If you want it sweeter just add more honey. Garnish with your choice of toppings or see above for suggestions.

Okay, one more post about beets, and I promise I will be done for awhile. As a kid I wasn’t fond of beets, to say the least. The first time I really enjoyed beets is when I finally gave in and tried my parents pickled beets. They were a revelation. I couldn’t believe that I had disdained these bright red root vegetables for so long, although I don’t think at age 10 I actually used the word disdained. I doubt I even knew the definition of that word at the time. Well, for the first time in my life my parents did not have to force me to eat my beets. Since then, I’ve come a long way. I love beets, and find many ways in spring and fall to incorporate them into my cooking often.

Back in October 2009 I posted a recipe for Pickled Golden Beets. You can use the same exact recipe to pickle red beets if you want. The recipe I offer up today is almost the same as that older recipe with a few small changes. Use either recipe.

Pickled Beets
makes 1 quart

1 1/2 pounds Beets
1 cup Cider Vinegar
1/2 cup Water
1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
2 tsp. Canning Salt or Kosher Salt (do not use table salt)
1 each Cinnamon Stick
10 each Cloves, whole
1 1/2 tsp. Allspice, whole
1/2 tsp. Yellow Mustard Seed
2 each Bay Leaf
1 each Onion, small

Place beets in a deep baking dish. Add 1/4 cup of water, cover with aluminum foil and bake, at 375°F for 45-60 minutes or until just barely tender. Allow the beets to cool. Peel the beets and remove any stems. The skin should slip right off the beets. Slice or dice the beets to your liking. Personally I like to cut them into larger chunks about 3/4 – 1 inch in size. Peel and slice the onion into 1/4 inch rings. Toss with the beets and place into a sterilized glass canning jar. Meanwhile, combine the rest of the ingredients in a nonreactive sauce pot and simmer for 8-10 minutes. Strain, return to the pot and bring to a boil. Pour boiling liquid over beets and onions, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Top with sterilized lid and allow to cool to room temperature. Place in fridge and allow to mature for at least 2 weeks before eating.

While I usually just make these and refrigerate them, these beets can be easily and safely canned for long term storage. Follow the same directions as above, but leave the beets slightly undercooked. Once you have covered the beets with the pickling liquid, place the lids on the jars and place in a boiling water bath and process for 15 minutes. Make sure the water covers the jars by at least 1 inch, and don’t start timing until the water returns to a boil. After 15 minutes remove the jars from the water and allow to cool to room temperature. Immediately refrigerate any jars on which the lids did not seal properly. Store the rest in a cool, dark place and they should last a year.

It’s been a long, hard couple of weeks the last few weeks. Work has been difficult as I’ve had supervisor out sick so I’ve been covering her shift, along with all of my work. It finally culminated on Friday when I had to let go of one of my supervisors. While normally I have no problems firing someone (because most often it has been because they weren’t doing the job and I have no tolerance for that kind of thing) this one was different as she had been doing a good job. Unfortunately, a drop in revenue made it necessary to eliminate a position. While the rational side of me knows I had no choice as I had to do what was best for the company, and for my remaining staff (if I didn’t lay off one then they would all have had to go to part time) the emotional side of me was wrecked over this difficult task. Unfortunately, this scenario has been playing out way too often in the recent years. Too many people I know have lost jobs due to downsizing or loss of revenue. I feel lucky that I still have a job, but my heart goes out to the many that have been unemployed for months and months. It is my hope that our elected officals can come together, put their petty partisan politics aside and come up with a solution to help the economy and the American people get back on their feet.

While I could go on and on about politics and the crappy weeks I’ve had, that’s not what you are here for so I should probably bring it back around to food. In my last post I promised a number of beet inspired dishes so today’s offering is a wonderful Autumn time side dish, Roasted Beets. Add to those beets some onion and a few cloves of garlic and you have a dish that delights both the sense of taste and smell.

While this recipe works well with red beets, I prefer to use golden, Chioggia, or candy stripe beets. These beets tend to bleed off less color than your standard red beets, keeping the onions and garlic from taking on a pinkish hue. If that doesn’t bother you or you can’t find anything other than red beets go ahead and use the red.

Roasted Beets with Garlic and Onions
serves 4

2 pounds beets (I used a mixture of golden and Chioggia beets)
1 large onion
8-12 cloves garlic
3-4 small sprigs rosemary
3 Tbl. extra virgin olive oil
salt
fresh ground black pepper

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Peel the beets and cut into 1-1 1/2 inch cubes. Place in a baking dish. Peel the cloves of garlic and place in a bowl. Peel the onion and cut into bite sized wedges and add to the garlic. Add the olive oil to the garlic and onions and toss to coat. Season with salt and pepper then pour over the beets. Add the sprigs of rosemary to the baking dish then cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake. After 45 minutes minutes remove the foil, increase the temperature to 400°F and continue to cook, stirring occasionally until the vegetables are tender and slightly browned (approximately another 20-30 minutes). Serve immediately.

It’s Fall and that means that our CSA box is starting to fill with root vegetables. Onions, potatoes, celery, and beets have all made appearances in recent weeks. Hopefully they will continue to show up in our boxes along with other root vegetables such as rutabagas, parsnips, and turnips. Take well to all sorts of cooking techniques, from frying and sauteing, to boiling, roasting, braising and pickling. Raw they can often have a sharp, but pleasant bite, but cooking them slowly oftentimes draws out their intrinsic sweetness, mellowing them and lending a deep, rich earthiness to many dishes.

As a kid I hated beets, and even as an adult they were probably the last root vegetable for me to imbrace, but now that I have I love them and look forward to both the Spring and Fall crops when beets can be found fresh, locally. Luckily for me, our CSA farm did produce both a Spring crop which was quickly used up and a Fall crop which has been showing up in our boxes the last couple of weeks. The first week was a nice large bunch of typical red beets, but the other week saw a mix of golden and Chioggia (red and white striped) beets.

Hopefully, you like beets as much as I do. If not, your out of luck as the next 3-5 posts will all be revolving around beets. I hope you enjoy these brightly colored, gifts of nature as much as I do.

Beet and Blue Cheese Spread
adapted from Cooking Light Feb. 2008

1 pound beets, medium sized
2 apples (any tart variety will work well)
1/3 cup blue cheese, crumbled (I used Gorgonzola)
1 1/2 Tbl. horseradish

Trim beets of any greens, rinse well, removing all dirt and place in a baking dish. Add 1/4 cup of water, cover with foil and bake at 350°F for 1 hour, or until the beets feel tender when pricked with a knife. Allow to cool then trim off root and stem ends and peel. Roughly chop and place in a food processor. Peel, core and chop the apples, placing them in the processor along with the blue cheese and horseradish. Process until well blended and somewhat smooth. Serve with crackers or toasted pita chips.

Well, I’m finally back up and running. What a pain that was. If you read my previous post you know that my computer got hit with a major virus that left me without a computer for the past few weeks. Unfortunately, this little nasty buried itself in my root directory which means that even though they would get it cleaned up each time the computer was rebooted the virus reinstalled itself. This meant a complete wipe of my hard drive and a reinstall of my operating system. This in turn meant reinstalling all my programs, finding all my data on the backup they created and basically reconfiguring everything the way I had. But everything is good now…I hope. I’m sure there will be more work to do, but at least I have enough done to get a new post up.

I was really excited about this recipe when I first made it. Unfortunately it is now a bit past both peach and corn season although you can still find them in the stores and markets. And with the new round of warm weather we’re having here in Wisconsin this dish feels right at home.

Peach Salsa

2 peaches
1/4 cup onion, finely diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and finely diced
2 Tbl. cilantro, minced
1/2 lime, juiced
1/2 Tbl. sugar
salt

Peel the peach by cutting a shallow “X” in the blossom end of the peach, dipping it in boiling water for 30 seconds then plunging it into an ice bath. Once it cools down the skin should slip right off. Pit the peach and cut it into a small dice. Combine with remaining ingredients and stir to mix. Set aside.

Corn Fritters
serves 4 as a first course

2 cups corn, cut fresh from the cob (frozen will work also if you can’t get fresh)
1/3 cup red pepper, finely diced
1/4 cup green onion, minced
3 slices bacon, thick cut
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 Tbl. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup milk

Chop and fry the bacon, reserving rendered fat in skillet. In a large bowl combine the bacon with the corn, pepper, and onion. In another bowl combine the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Add the egg and milk and mix to form a batter. Add batter to the corn mixture. There should be just enough to bind all the ingredients with not too much batter.

Add a couple of tablespoons of oil to the bacon fat in the skillet and reheat. Make fritters by placing a scant 1/4 cup of batter into the hot oil, spreading it slightly.

Fry for 1-2 minutes or until starting to brown around the edges. Flip and fry another 2-3 minutes.

Drain briefly on paper towel and serve, topping with peach salsa.

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As you can tell, it has been awhile since I have posted anything on here. I apologize, but my computer got hit with a really nasty Trojan virus that my anti-virus software didn’t catch. Unfortunately, this thing caused major havoc with my system. Needless to say, my computer has been in the shop for quite some time now. To fully eradicate this nasty little bug they needed to do a complete wipe of my hard drive and build everything back up, including re-installing Windows. If I am lucky, I’ll have the computer back tomorrow or by the end of the week. But then I have the massive job of re-installing many of my programs, reconfiguring databases, and making sure everything is back up and running.

I hope to be back blogging within the next week, but that remains to be seen. So, just in case you were wondering, I am still here and hope to be back up and running soon. Hopefully, you’ll stick with me and will continue to enjoy the recipes that I promise to continue to share with you.
Thanks!!
Peter Martin

Back in Feburary 2010 I posted a recipe for one of my favorite Mexican dishes, Carnitas. You can find the post here. While I was happy with the recipe I posted, I am always looking for ways to improve my dishes or do them differently. One of the problems with the recipe is that it cooked on the stove top for quite awhile. This meant that since both my wife and I work, the only time I could make these was on the weekend or on a day that I was off. I decided to do the initial cooking in the slow cooker, allowing us to have carnitas any day of the week as most of the cooking was done while we were working.

It’s been awhile since I spoke of my love of the slow cooker, AKA Crock Pot. In my early days as a chef, I used to look down on these gadgets, associating them with bad casseroles and 1970′s cooking. I quickly changed my tune though when I started playing with them and realized what great vessels they were for slowly braising all sorts of meats and dishes. It allows me to start a dish in the morning, before work, making for a quick but tasty dinner soon after I get home.

While you do most of the cooking, for this dish, in the slow cooker, it does need to be finished on the stove top to evaporate the remaining liquid and fry the meat in its rendered fat. Luckily this doesn’t take too long, just about the time it will take you to get the condiments together and heat up the tortillas.

Forget the bottled salsa with these tacos. I prefer the standard accompaniment of finely diced onion, jalapeno and cilanto, and a squeeze of fresh lime juice.

Slow Cooker Carnitas
serves 6-8 people

5 pounds pork roast (I used a shoulder roast, whatever you use it should have plenty of fat in it as you need the fat to finish the dish)
1 can Rotel (original flavor)*
1 Tbl. chili powder
2 tsp. ground cumin
salt
black pepper

Start your preparations in the morning, before work. Pour the Rotel into your slow cooker. Fill the can 3/4′s of way with water and add that also. Place the pork roast in the slow cooker and sprinkle with the chili powder and cumin. Generously season the meat with plenty of salt and pepper. Turn the slow cooker to “low,” cover and allow to cook while you’re at work.

When you get home, 8 hours later, the pork should be fully cooked and quite tender. Break up the pork into large pieces (2-3 bites each) and transfer the meat, along with all the juices and fat to a large nonreactive pot. Place over high heat and cook until all the liquid has evaporated, leaving just the pork and the rendered fat in the pan. Allow the pork to fry in its own fat until it starts to brown around the edges and crisp up slightly. Stir occasionally as it will want to stick at this point. By this time the pork should have broken down into small, bite sized pieces or smaller. If not break it up a bit more.

Serve with corn tortillas that have been briefly grilled to warm then through. Top with a mixture of finely diced onion, jalapeno and cilantro, and finally, with a squeeze of fresh lime.

*Note: For those of you not familiar with Rotel, you can find it in the store with all the other canned tomato products. It’s a mix of diced tomato and green chiles. While I don’t advocate too many canned products, my house is never without at least of cans around at all times.

I don’t know why I don’t make crepes more often. They are relatively simple to make, don’t take a whole lot of time, and my wife loves them. Besides, like so many of the things I like to cook, they are quite versatile and are easily customized to your own tastes by adding any variety of fillings from savory to sweet.

This week I am looking for some different ways to use up the awesomely sweet corn we have been receiving in our CSA box. Don’t get me wrong, in summer there is nothing better than super sweet corn on the cob, slathered in butter and sprinkled with salt and pepper, or prepared the Hispanic way; coated in mayo, grated cheese, and cayenne pepper. But doing that would make for a rather boring blog.

Today’s post contains 3 recipes, 2 of which many people seem to think are beyond the skills of regular home cooks. As you should know by now I don’t think many recipes are beyond the realm of home cooks. First are crepes. For some reason people have come to believe that making crepes is a difficult process, but if you can make pancakes you can make crepes. Trust me, crepes are really easy to make and should be in every cook’s pantheon of recipes. The second one, butter sauce, AKA Beurre Blanc, is a little more difficult to make. It can be a bit more difficult to make but, all it really requires is a close eye while making the sauce, and even then, if you break the sauce it can be redeemed so there is no reason not to learn this technique. Once you learn to make a standard butter sauce you open up a whole world of variations to compliment just about any dish imaginable.

Corn Crepes with Curried Chicken and Kale
serves 4

Corn Crepes
2 cups corn, freshly cut off the cob (frozen will work if you can’t find fresh)
2 cup flour
1 cup milk
4 eggs
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper

In a food processor process the corn until somewhat smooth. Add the eggs, milk and butter, pulsing to combine. Add the flour salt and pepper. Again, pulse just to combine. Pour batter into a bowl and allow to rest for at least 1 hour. Heat an 8″ nonstick saute pan over medium heat. Add a scant 1/4 cup of crepe batter, tilting and swirling the pan to cover the bottom of the pan uniformly.

Allow to cook for about 1 minute or until the top starts to look dry. Use a fork to gently lift up an edge of the crepe, then using your hand pull the crepe from the pan and flip it over. Cook 30 seconds longer the remove to a rack to cool. Repeat the process, using up all the batter. Makes 14-16 crepes. Once cooled stack, with wax paper in between and wrap in plasic is not using right away. Store in the fridge for up to 3 days.

Ginger Butter Sauce
2/3 cup white wine
1 shallot, peeled and chopped
2 inch fresh ginger, chopped
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, diced and chilled

Combine the wine, shallot and ginger in a nonreactive sauce sauce pan. Place over high heat and reduce until only 2 tablespoons of liquid remain. Reduce heat to low. Grabbing 2-3 tablespoons of butter at a time, add to the saucepan, whisking constantly to keep creamy. Once that first addition of butter is fully incorporated add the next, continuing until all the butter is used up.

Add salt to taste. Keep warm, at the back of the stove. IF the sauce gets too hot or too cold it will break. Also if you add too much butter at any one time the sauce will break. Don’t worry, all is not lost. If that happens, in a clean pan reduce 1/2 cup of white wine and 1/3 cup of heavy cream to 1-2 tablespoons. Slowly drizzle in the broken butter sauce, whisking vigorously to re emulsify the sauce. For a bit of added insurance you can always add 1/3 cup of cream to the original recipe during the first step, before you make your reduction. This makes the process a little more forgiving, although I urge you to try it without the cream first.

Curried Chicken and Kale Filling
1 small onion, peeled and finely diced
2 Tbl. vegetable oil
1 Tbl. fresh ginger, peeled and minced
3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, diced
1 bunch kale, stems removed and julienned
2 tsp. curry powder
1/2 cup water
1/2 lemon
1 container (6oz) greek style yogurt
salt
pepper

Heat a saute pan over high heat. Add the oil and the onion, cooking until the onion is slightly browned. Add the ginger and cook for 1 minute. Add the chicken breasts and cook until browned. Add the curry powder and cook for 1 minute. Add the kale and continue to saute for 3 minutes. Add the water and squeeze of lemon juice. Cover and cook for 4 minutes. Remove from heat. Remove lid and stir in 2 tablespoons of the yogurt. Add the remaining yogurt and season with salt and pepper.

To Assemble
Place 2 crepes on each of 4 plates. Equally divide the filling between the 8 crepes, placing in a line along the center of each crepe. Loosely roll each crepe around the filling and place side by side. Drizzle with about 1/4 cup of the Ginger Butter Sauce and garnish with fresh herbs; either chives or parsley.

Meet Genevieve, AKA Gigi, Munchkin, Baby Girl, Cheeks, and Bugaboo. She’s my 4 (almost 5) year old daughter and she has shown up on the blog a couple of times, in pictures, usually helping Dad stir something or making quick work of beater that had been used to mix a cake batter. She also was the inspiration for this post, written about 2 1/2 years ago.

While I don’t want to turn this into a “personal” blog, occasionally Genevieve comes up with something that I feel needs to be shared with my readers. After you read this short exchange her and I had a few weeks ago, hopefully you will feel the same.

Not long ago I picked Genevieve up at day care. She was excited and I could see that she really wanted to tell me something. “So, what did you do today, Gigi?” I asked.
“They let us make our own plates for supper!” she replied excitedly.
“That’s great! What did you have?”
“Well, I put on Spaghetti, sauce and bread” she exclaimed proudly.
“What about vegetables?” I asked, not wanting to deflate her ego, but wanting to continue to instill in her the need for a balanced meal.
“Oh…I forgot.”
“Well,honey, you need to eat your veggies. They make you grow up big and strong!”
“I thought that was candy.”
“No honey. Eating candy makes you short and fat.”
Genevieve paused for a long moment. Looked at me very seriously, and said, “Daddy you eat a lot of candy, don’t you!”

I’m a bachelor this weekend. The wife and daughter decided to head down to Grandma house since I had to work. That means a nice, quite house with just me, the dogs, the cats and the fish. It’s Labor Day weekend so for many it’s the last big BBQ of the season. Seeing as I’m solo there’ll be no big BBQ spread. Besides, I’m a year round griller. I don’t understand those people that pull the grill out on Memorial Day and put it away on Labor Day. Any day is a good day to grill, whether it is 80° outside or 30°. The grill did see some action though. I popped a few burgers on it for my dinner tonight, but that is about the only grilling I will be doing this weekend. That’s the bad news. The good news is this gives me a chance to post a recipe I made not too long ago, but haven’t had the time, energy or desire to post yet. Yes, I’m being a slacker, but I’ve been hooked on Stumbleupon recently and my computer productivity has dropped. I’ll get bored soon and be back to posting more regularly, I’m sure.

This is a great late summer, early fall pasta dish. Slightly caramelizing the cabbage brings a wonderful depth of flavor to the dish, but it still is light enough to not slow you down when it is still warm outside. It’s not the quickest pasta to make, but neither will you have to spend lots of time in the kitchen preparing this.

Pasta with Caramelized Cabbage
serves 4

2 cups coarse rye breadcrumbs (light rye works best)*
4 Tbl. butter
2 cloves garlic, finely minced

4 slices bacon, chopped (I prefer thick cut bacon)
1 small head cabbage, coarsely shredded
1 medium onion
8 Tbl. butter

1 pound long skinny pasta (spaghetti, angel hair, linguine, etc.)

In a large saute pan melt the first amount of butter. Add the garlic and saute 30 seconds. Add the breadcrumbs and toss making sure all the crumbs are well coated with butter. Continue to cook, stirring regularly until the breadcrumbs get crispy and have become lightly brown. Remove from saute pan and set aside.

Wipe out the saute pan then add the chopped bacon. Cook over medium high heat until crisp. Remove the bacon, leaving the bacon fat in the pan. Add the onions and saute for 3-4 minutes. Add the cabbage and season with salt and pepper. Allow to cook for 4-5 minutes before stirring, then stir a bit to redistribute the cabbage and allow to cook another 3-5 minutes. Continuing to cook until the cabbage is tender. The goal is to allow the cabbage to start to caramelize. Let it start to brown before stirring, but be careful not to let it burn. While the cabbage is cooking bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Once the cabbage is 3/4s of the way done go ahead and cook the pasta according the the directions. When the pasta is done strain the pasta reserving 1/4 cup of the pasta liquid. Toss drained pasta in with the cabbage, adding the remaining butter also. Toss to mix, adding the reserved pasta water, a tablespoon at a time, if the pasta seems a little dry. Season with salt and pepper. Divide between 4 plates. Sprinkle the bacon evenly of the plates of pasta then garnish with a very generous portion of the rye bread crumbs.

*Note: To make the rye bread crumbs place fresh rye bread, sliced, into a food processor and pulse until you have pieces just smaller than a pea. You will end up with a mix of fine breadcrumbs and the coarser ones. This is what you are looking for.