Chicken Fried Gourmet

Mini-Burgers, Steak and Birthdays

About two weeks ago we celebrated my daughter Candice's 12th birthday. I can't get over that I have a 12 year old,does anybody have a machine to stop time?

               

She is what every foodie would want in a child, she loves the finer things, open to try new foods like foie gras and oysters and this kid loves steak.

Funny story, about 6 years ago my mother took her to New Orleans to see my oldest sister. They went out to eat at an upscale restaurant and my mother just figured that she could give Candice a little bit of her entree and she would be fine. Well she was wrong, she ordered steak and Candice finished it all. My mother had to order another entree. Ever since the this child has been a regular carnivore.

For her birthday I prepared a  rosemary grilled filet mignon with an herbed potato foam and garlic cheddar scalloped potatoes. She cleaned the plate. For dessert all she wanted was strawberry shortcake so that is what the "birthday cake" is.

Also this same weekend we made mini burgers. These consist of half parts freshly ground sirloin and brisket. We cook them on a griddle and topped them with a special sauce, onion rings, pickles and cheddar cheese. I apologize for this post being so short and all over the place, Ann is in NOLA for a business trip and I am running ragged getting my son to take a bath and go to bed.

A contest for my readers and Ancho Bacon BBQ sauce

Well in honor of the new design, I would like to get some feedback/suggestions from my readers. This is how it will work - leave a comment on this post and tell me what you would like to see on this site( videos, contests,polls,etc). For the most original and unique idea I will reward one lucky reader with my homemade Ancho Bacon BBQ sauce. I don't normally do contests, I leave that up to BlakeMakes :)

The contest will close on Friday August 8th at 12pm CST.

                        

I look forward to what you all think and submit.

a small re-design

So I have been playing around with some design ideas over the past week or so, I still need to add my links to the blogs I read( btw does anyone know a simple way to do this other than manually typing it all in?)

Let me know what you think of the new "do", anything I am missing?

Chicken with red wine, linguine and mushrooms

Sometimes it is best to use old stand by recipes rather than try to ‘re-invent the wheel”. The other night I was craving some form of chicken and pasta so I picked up some linguine, mushrooms and chicken from the store. I decided to make a riff on chicken marsala. I started off by pounding out some chicken breasts to an even thickness and dusting them with some seasoned Wondra flour. I sautéed these in a  pan with some olive oil till golden on both sides. I used the same pan to sauté some diced baby bella mushrooms and fresh garlic. I deglazed this with red wine( Merlot – hence the riff on marsala) and then added some milk and set it to a simmer. I added the chicken back to the pan and let it finish cooking in the sauce.

Meanwhile I prepared the pasta by boiling water with chicken stock. Once the pasta was done I added about a cup of the pasta water to the mushrooms and chicken and let it simmer for about 2-3 minutes. I topped off the dish with freshly grated parmesan cheese and parsley.

I even included a shot of my “setup” when photographing food on the stove.

Figs in Louisiana

We have about three main fig trees in our backyard along with about 20 little ones which have sprouted at the base of each.

Over the past two weeks I have been collecting the fresh figs (in a constant battle with the birds) and vacuum sealing, then freezing. I am not sure what I am going to do with them yet ,although there are plenty of ideas out there on the web.

I don't want to do the normal fig jam and such. The Commander's Palace cookbook has a recipe for a fig bbq sauce which looks good, but I am undecided. One recipe I really want to try is this one.

Chicken & Grits "Waffles" with Sweet Potato and Rosemary Cane Syrup

Sometimes I like to cook the same things over and over and routinely change up one of the ingredients either by presentation, preparation or texture. I had wanted to do something with chicken and grits and thought I had the idea perfected. Instead of just making a pile of cheesy grits I would turn them into Grit Waffles. Crazy you say? Yes but the idea sounded really tasty, crispy on the outside but with cheesy gooey grits inside.

They sell chicken and waffles so why not make an “upscale” if you will version. I started by making the grits as usual – one part milk to one part chicken stock, add grits, cook ,add cheddar cheese and butter, salt and pepper to taste. For the chicken I chose boneless skinless breasts and marinated them with a mixture of beer, creole mustard, worchestire sauce, garlic, and cayenne pepper. I seared these on a flat top till cooked through.

Sauce wise I went with sweet potato. I juiced about three sweet potatoes and added this to about a cup of milk, crushed garlic and simmered for about 30 minutes. I strained the garlic out before serving. Why juice the sweet potatoes? No particular reason other than I had not done it before and I thought it would give me a lighter cleaner sauce. It did.

I had one sweet potato left over so for a different texture I peeled and cut it into chunks about half the size of a piece of dice. I seared these on the flat top as well with a little salt and pepper.

To cut the richness of the whole dish, I took about a ½ cup of cane syrup and heated it on the stove with about 5 sprigs of rosemary, a shot of worchestire and garlic. I probably heated it too much as when it hit the plate it immediately firmed up like a piece of caramel candy. It still served its purpose though.

Back to the “grit” waffles, they did not work out like I thought they would. Next time I think I will just incorporate a mixture of the finished grits with a waffle batter mixture.

To finish plating the dish I added a “streak” of creole mustard, added a scoop of cheesy grits, the chicken, some sweet potato bits, topped it with sweet potato cream and drizzled the rosemary cane syrup over everything.

For dessert, and please keep an open mind here, I took some french bread slices and toasted them. I then smeared these with Nutella, sprinkled some Maldon Sea Salt and topped with shredded fresh parmesan cheese. It just works......

4th of July with Peach BBQ Ribs, Fried Pickles, Black Bean Garlic Chicken Wings, Fireworks and Family

For the 4^th of July we kind of kept it low key. We joined our neighbors down the street for simple BBQ (Grilling for the BBQ purists) and fireworks. I had some baby back ribs in the freezer so the 4^th holiday would be as good as anytime to cook them.

I wanted to go with a peach based marinade and sauce for the ribs and was trying to find a peach based iced tea to incorporate into the marinade as well as the sauce. For convenience sake I just needed a bottled version but everywhere I went they were sold in packs of 12 or not at all. For a flavor I had never tried before and the fact that I do not drink tea I chose to go with another method. I marinated the ribs in peach nectar, bourbon, garlic and chicken stock. I made a quick BBQ sauce with peach nectar, bourbon, ketchup, red wine vinegar,honey and brown sugar. I added the usual seasonings and reduced it down to a sauce like consistency.

Other dishes I decided to make were Grilled Chicken wings with a black bean garlic sauce ( black bean garlic sauce from a Chinese market, honey, siracha, soy sauce and rice wine vinegar), a corn dish I saw on StarChefs.com and fried pickles with a bacon ranch sauce( I saw this item on Graham Elliot Bowle's new Chicago Restaurant menu).

Usually during holiday events like this I am cooking most of the day and do not get to relax, this day was different. Most of these items could be prepped and pre-cooked ahead of time so it left me more time for having fun and hanging out (plus more time to relax and enjoy beverages of the adult nature).

We lucked out and the forecasted rain never came our way so it turned out to be a good night for fireworks. The only downside of the night was when ,in my sheer stupidity, I attempted to light several sparklers at once in turn burning my thumb and index finger. Yes only I could get injured, not by real fireworks, but by sparklers. Oh and at one point, one of the kids accidentally knocked over several lit fireworks causing everybody to run for cover – I wish I could have gotten a picture of that,it was funny afterwords.

How did you spend your 4^th?

In the pursuit of perfect taste - Mushrooms

So sometimes in the pursuit of perfect taste, in making things "better"....

you can lose sight of the basics, like mushrooms and salt......

silly me seasoned the mushrooms with salt and pepper and thought " hey, I should vacuum seal these and let them marinate in the fridge"

well we all know what salt does to mushrooms, it draws out moisture.

This was not pleasant when I pulled it out of the fridge, you live and you learn :)

La Petit Grocery, Blake Makes and a trip to New Orleans

A few weeks ago we traveled to NOLA for the weekend. Our nephew, Noah(on Ann’s side) was having his 2^nd birthday and it was a chance for us to get together with family before Noah and his parents moved to North Carolina. We were not sure we would be able to go until basically the last minute. We both took off ½ day on Friday and drove down that afternoon( it is about a 5 hour drive from Shreveport).

We stayed at a hotel on Camp Street about two blocks off of Canal. It was not anything fancy but it was nice and paid for by her parents( thank you again). It was in a great location because you could pretty much walk to wherever downtown and parts of the warehouse district. The only thing that really bothered me was parking – seems like a rip-off if you ask me, shouldn’t that be included with the hotel rate???

The thing about New Orleans (and what we love) is that when you arrive you feel an “energy” that you do not get with other cities, along with the “smell” of the city and the humidity. It’s hard to describe but if you have been there before you should understand. Its not just that it is so much bigger than where we live but I think it is the mix of culture, the people, the tourists and mostly the food. We often go to Dallas which is about 3 hours away from Shreveport and though it has its own energy it does not compare to how NOLA is.

Okay so one of the things I hastily arranged when we knew for certain that we were coming down to NOLA was to arrange a meeting with Blake from BlakeMakes.com. I have been conversing with Blake since early fall and we constantly trade food ideas, talk about living in Louisiana and brainstorming about turning food ideas into viable businesses. Its strange how much alike we think sometimes. We settled on meeting up for lunch at Cochon on Saturday. I had eaten there about a year ago when we were in NOLA for a weekend in August (which I never blogged about but have plenty of pictures). Much to my dismay Cochon is not open for lunch on Saturdays. I received a call from them stating this in response to my online reservation request as I was circling downtown New Orleans looking for a parking spot near the hotel – I was not too happy around this time. I texted Blake for other suggestions and he mentioned La Petit Grocery so that is where we settled on going. Our weekend was pretty planned out for the birthday celebration but luckily lunch was free time and Ann’s parents offered to take Ethan to the aquarium. On a side note, my family is aware of my blog but not all of them understand what I am trying to do with it. Do you know how odd it sounded when we were explaining what our lunch plans were? “Oh we are going to meet up with a guy I have been talking to online” , I definitely got some funny looks.

We got to La Petit first (or so I thought) and sat in the back at a large round table. The restaurant is what you would expect in terms of décor for Uptown New Orleans. It’s located on the corner of Magazine street and a street I cannot remember. We were there for about 5 minutes when a familiar faux hawk emerged from the bar area (there are high booths in the bar area shielding it from the rest of the restaurant). Blake and his wife Bridget had been there waiting on us already, they joined Ann, myself and Ann’s little sister Alex at the back table. We had a really good time eating lunch there and hanging out with the brains behind BlakeMakes.com LaPetit is known for their hamburger and it did not disappoint. Having never met Blake before or even speaking with him on the phone it was funny how much alike we were and how the conversation flowed like it was old friends catching up. Alex told us afterwards that sitting at the table and listening to the four of us talk all she could think of is “oh crap there are two of them (couples)”.

As a parting gift I had brought along some pork belly that I had cooked with Blake’s Peanut Butter Dulce de Leche and a bottle of my Ancho Bacon BBQ sauce. You can read about what he did with it HERE.

On a side note with La Petit: one of their owners – Joel Dondis- catered my oldest sister’s wedding and Joel’s sister was Blake and Bridget’s wedding photographer, small world.

We ended our trip to NOLA by parking uptown and taking a streetcar ride up and down St Charles. Ethan was amazed by this as this was his first time on one. We had brought him to NOLA back in the summer of 2004 but he was only 7 months old at the time.

All in all it was a very relaxing and enjoyable weekend and look for big things to come from our lunch with the BlakeMakes team.

a treat from the Blakery via Blake Makes

So today I come home and there is a package on my porch. I really wasn't expecting anything so my curiousity was piqued.

Inside this box was a "beta-tart" from Blake at BlakeMakes.com. He recently spoke about the launch of The Blakery on his site and about the "Beta Tarts", I have to say I am excited about getting one.

Although as tempting as it is right now to eat it I think I am going to wait a bit. I had a left a comment on his original post about pairing this with candied bacon strips......the kitchen and experimentation awaits.

Heirloom Tomatoes and why I hate birds

These damn birds (and squirrels) are killing me. Don't they know how much money I have spent on this tomato garden?

This past weekend I bought some bird netting to wrap around my garden, I constructed some supports for the "wall" BUT the netting left about a 4 ft hole on one side. I need to go back and get a second package of it. Until then they have claimed another victim........

Crawfish Season is almost over - have you had yours???

So here in Louisiana crawfish season is coming to a close. Although I do not eat crawfish(due to a bad reaction several years ago) I still enjoying cooking it and going to the annual Mudbug Madness crawfish festival we have here in Shreveport.

                

There are many different preperations you can do with this Louisiana delicacy. Although you can find them in any flooded ditch here in Louisiana, they are not the bottom of the food chain. Crawfish are very versatile and a good food to eat with beer, how the hell can you go wrong with that? Eating crawfish in Louisiana is a ritual and although I cannot consume them it is a practice that I enjoy being around.

Here are some different links to "How to" eat and prepare crawfish.

Chadzilla - A New Orleans South Louisiana native living in Florida who recently returned home for a  vacation.

Passionate Eater - I just found this blog today by googling "crawfish season"

I leave you with some shots from this years annual festival, hope you enjoy.

Fun with Flickr

I got this from Boots in the Oven. What a great idea, if you do one, leave a link in the comments.

My creation, originally uploaded by chickenfriedgourmet.

My apologies to the original photogs, I neglected to copy the html credits but if you go HERE you can see them.

From Boots in the Oven :

It's a great idea I learned about through Paolaccio, who got it from Michelle at Bleeding Espresso.

It's a way to make a pretty representative mosaic using bits of your life and personality.  Here's how, if you want your own:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

b. Using only the first page, pick an image.

c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

Thanks to the original photographers for the use of their artwork in tiny, tiny form! 

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.

b. Using only the first page, pick an image.

c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

Thanks to the original photographers for the use of their artwork in tiny, tiny form! 

Why I love Pork Belly

Pork Belly - I know it sounds gross or weird but trust me it is not. Pork belly is basically uncured bacon. Its flavorful, very versatile and damn tasty. Its not healthy by any means but if you eat it in small portions you can convince yourself you are doing good on your diet. I have only discovered pork belly over the past year and I have used it in many different ways. I am not ordering the really good stuff online but rather have found it very accessible at my local Chinese grocery - like $ 4 accessible. So seriously go out and find some, experiment and enjoy that porky goodness..........

you will be glad you did :)

A weekend BBQ and a minor flood in Shreveport LA

This past weekend we had several opportunities to grill outside. On Saturday we went to one of the local lakes where they have a park and camping among other things. I had never been there but Ann had. Her brother was in town so we went with her parents and our 3 kids for an afternoon of hanging out at the lake and grilling burgers. For simplicity I really did not plan on grilling so I went and bought pre-made burger patties. All I did was grill these with some of my homemade ancho bacon bbqsauce. The lake was really nice and the kids had a fun time swimming. There was one thing about the lake that I did not enjoy , especially since I was grilling- I'll give you a hint....its the last picture in the slideshow. This "rule" was heavily enforced, park rangers came by about every 5-10 minutes on 4 wheelers to check on it. Other than that we had a good time, I just need to make friends with somebody who owns a house out there :)

Saturday night we grilled with our neighbors down the street. I brought some pork ribs I had previously cooked(sans bones) and some chicken wings. Robin(our neighbor) grilled some sirloins and mushrooms. He chopped up the sirloin and mushrooms once done and made sandwiches. These were so good, I might have to steal that recipe.

Sunday night I made a recipe from Bobby Flay's new book "Grill It". It is banana and Nutella sandwiches. It is a pretty simple recipe- grill some sliced french bread, top with sliced bananas, nutella and top with powdered sugar. Since I cannot leave well enough alone I added sea salt to the nutella ( TRUST ME ) and drizzled with some orange oil I made.

In other news we have had like 20 ft of rain over the past 24 hours, well really not that much but a lot. The whole city has experienced some kind of flooding and of course people are freaking out. They closed the schools today at noon. Of course by 1pm it was sunny and most of the water had gone down(typical Shreveport). We are supposed to get more tonight so we will see what happens.

Here are some pictures I took of the duck pond across the street from our house.

This is Sunday afternoon....

This is Wednesday afternoon, the water has already started to down from what it was...

Comfort food - shell pasta with fennel, pork and beef ragu

Some nights I want nothing more than to just make spaghetti and meat sauce. Usually if I am thinking about it I will make enough meatballs on a Sunday to feed us throughout the week. Now I am not talking about eating meatballs everyday, well I guess I am. What we usually do is have the traditional spaghetti and meatballs dish a few times and on other nights maybe a meatball sub or meatball sliders. They keep fairly well in the sauce and are easily reheated in whatever form we would like to use them in. Being in full spring mode now I find it difficult to sit down and cook like this at an early time when I could be outside enjoying the weather before it gets to the typical summer in Louisiana where it is 100 degrees and H U M I D.

An easy fix is meat sauce, not as labor intensive as meatballs and as close as you can get to a one pot meal. What I normally like to do is combine equal parts ground meat and ground pork, throw in some crushed fennell seeds, garlic, red pepper and saute away. Once browned I throw in some crushed tomatoes, tomato paste and chicken stock and simmer for about 30 minutes.

Throw in some pasta and you have dinner. It is easily reheated for lunch as the pictures below attest.

In other news my tomato garden is coming along pretty well.

       

Patton ave Block party with Pork belly and Mini-Burgers

This past weekend our street had its annual Block Party. We moved in here about two months before Ethan was born and he is now four years old. Over this time we have never been able to make it to one of these parties for one reason or another. This year was different. At first we started to get worried because usually we receive a flyer about a week before but eventually one made its way to our door.

For this party, you are asked to bring whatever it is you want to eat plus stuff to share. They say grills will be provided but I, like most people, prefer to grill on their own. You can also chip in $10 and get some crawfish as well. I am not sure where they got them but there is a place at the edge of our neighborhood in an old gas station that sells them. On a windy day, even though I can no longer eat crawfish(long story), the smell in the air is intoxicating.

I wanted to do something that would show off my culinary skills a well as be approachable and finger food. I decided on pork belly (surprise) with ancho bacon bbq sauce and a play on corn on the cob. I also cooked mini burgers from a recipe I found HERE that is basically 50% sirloin and 50% untrimmed brisket. People, go out and buy a meat grinder, you will N E V E R buy ground meat again. Trust me on this.

For the play on the corn on the cob, I pureed fresh and grilled corn with garlic, butter and heavy cream. I strained this mixture, seasoned it then put it in a ISI foamer. It is the consistency of a very light whip cream with all the taste of corn on the cob. It was served on spoons. The picture I had to do at home does not look appetizing - I know but it tasted damn good.

Some of the pictures had to be recreated at home due to a number of factors - lack of table space, getting dark, the amount of beer consumed etc......

Anyway my two neighbors on our end of the street brought their grills as well. They both cooked chicken and it was great. I did not get a picture of the chicken that Teddy made (SORRY) but it was really good as were the stuffed mushrooms.

The rest of the offerings are pretty self explanatory from the pictures.

All in all we had a great time and made some new friends, I look forward to future get togethers and hope I am not labeled the "freak down the street who does weird things with his food" :)

Tomato Garden

Yesterday I was feeling great, my mind was constantly processing thoughts on new food ideas and such and I felt very creative. Today not so much, I woke up and felt sick. I stayed at home all day and basically just slept and watched crappy movies on TV. My food mojo was dead, I didn't even feel like watching my TIVO'ed food shows.

Over the past few weekends I have been steadily getting my tomato garden ready for planting. Over the past few years I have been planting in some old whiskey barrels but this year I decided to build a raised bed. It is 8 feet by 4 feet and is filled with organic potting soil designed specifically for tomatoes and herbs. Right now there are about 25 or so different varieties of tomatoes,herbs and peppers. Every time I go to the local Wal-Mart/Lowes or garden store I add a plant or two. I may need to build another box.

BTW the 2x4's sticking above the ground around the box are strictly for support/level while the box "settles".

My birthday, Canon SLR, Mini Burgers and Honeydew Melon Margaritas

I apologize for the time between posts. It seems like everything is going so fast and there is not much time to just sit down and just type out my thoughts. Although I have not posted frequently, I am still cooking on a daily basis and hope to document everything soon.

A couple of things are going to be happening soon. I have been working on a project that “some” of you may already know about. It will be a big thing for me, as well as for this site, I will let everyone know once the details get nailed down. It is something I have wanted to do for a long time and with the help of a few friends "I Think" it is going to happen.

I also just received a new camera for my birthday. In the past I have used a digital point and shoot but have just acquired a Canon SLR that I think will bring a new quality to the pictures for this site. Until I can sit down and start formulating more posts here is a ‘snapshot” from this weekend.

Now on to the food, we made mini-burgers/sliders this past weekend. I came across a recipe for making your own ground beef using 50% top sirloin and 50% untrimmed brisket. This mixture worked out pretty well and yielded a very juicy burger. I topped mine with onions sautéed with beer and added blue cheese. We forgot to get potatoes for the fries so I found a bag of tater tots in the freezer – bad choice. The tots suffered from a bad case of freezer burn so I just ate extra burgers to compensate. We also made honeydew melon margaritas.

There is also a new tomato garden, that I am still working on, in my backyard.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Kiroli Park West Monroe LA (not food related)

This past weekend my 8 year old clone had a cub scout event at Kiroli park in West Monroe. This park is an oasis in the middle of the city(kinda). Here are some photos from our weekend in West Monroe.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.