every kid loves eggplant parm.  I must still be a kid.  two days in a row now.  I made this batch for my new clients.  I like slicing them long ways and about a 1/4 inch thick.  I like how the eggplant gets creamy at this thickness.  I don't really salt them anymore.  The eggplants I get are not really bitter and I have a hard time getting the saltiness out of the dish.  Smaller organic ones are the way to go.
I make a gluten free flour with tapioca flour and white rice flour, salt ground oregano, ground garlic and pepper.  I make an egg wash and do the dip.  If you have a hot oven and a sheet pan handy, do youself a favor.  Heat the sheet pan wit some oil on it.  Add the floured slices to the pan and bake on high heat with convection...  you can flip them half way.
For the sauce.  I love POMI.  It comes in a carton which is the best way, besides glass to get your tomatoes, cans leach due to the high acidity of tomatoes and can be linked to some stuff you want to stay away from health wise...  stuff like the big C.
I sauteed a half a big leek (white only) a small diced carrot, some garlic cloves and a half a stalk of celery in olive oil for a few minutes...  added some smoked sea salt and some dried oragano.  Then add the Pomi (I used two cartons).+ a little water and cook down a while (half hour or so) and yup you guessed it puree.  Right before pureeing I added some chopped fresh basil...  folks this is the finest sauce I have made in some time.  I write this in part so I do not forget.  The basil was a magic touch.  The leeks were softer classier than an onion.  It was sublime.
Ladle the finished sauce into the baking dish and place a slice of the crisp eggplant on the sauce, top with fresh grated parmesan, more sauce, then grated mozzarella, repeat.  Pictured is two layers...  I made a three layer one on the side for leftovers.  you make the call here.  Top with more mozzarella and bake at 350 with convection for 30 minutes.  Wait at least five or ten here before serving.

While I waited I made some gluten free pasta, a new brand...  I'll inform you of this brand soon.  I got it at central market, it was an italian brand, and it was really over priced at about 7 bucks.  And it was the best, closest thing to real deal I have tried.  While the pasta rolled in salted water (about seven minutes). I slow cooked chopped garlic in two TBS of butter, added a ladle or two of hot chicken stock and simmered.  I pulled the pasta a minute early and finished it in the stock, added chopped parsley and swirled it around with healthy handful of grated parmesan reggiano...  bababooie I'm ITALIAN!...  the kiddos ate it up and the simple buttered pasta was a star.  I was one of those kids.  I'm proud of these two simple dishes tonight.  There is a reason why some things become standards.  Why you will still hear Hogie Carmichael's "Stardust"(written in 1926) a hundred years from now.  Food reminds us of cherished memories.  And sometimes we create new ones.  Tonight was on the mark.

Asparagus soup...  Again, I love my new hand blender.   Easy and delicious.  I started this one with a giant leek and several garlic cloves in olive oil...  when soft I added a load of chicken stock (enough to just cover three bundles of asparagus).  I added the asparagus whole with the bottom tough part cut off.  The skinnier asparagus works better for this.  I let this simmer with a few sprigs of thyme for a good bit until they are really soft.  Remove the sprig and Add chopped fresh parsley and puree away.  Add a half a cup of heavy cream for depth.  Season and serve.  Simple and delicious. (looks like my cauliflower soup only green, huh?)

Cod Fish in Yellow Curry and Coconut Milk

Cod was on special for 4.99 a pound.  I couldn't resist.  Cray Cray loves cod and was craving the curry we had last week with the shrimp, I had some stock left in the fridge.  The yellow curry.

sauté Garlic cloves and onion in a pat of butter...  slowly.  Then add yellow curry powder a 1 TBS (or more if you love a strong curry),  I add a little cayenne here too.   When the onions are translucent and the house smells of curry add the stock, about a cup and a little more.   If you have the time, puree with the hand blender with a 1/4 cup of coconut milk..  you can use more but this is some rich and fattening stuff,  I opt to keep the calories and fat calories down when I cook for my little Cray Cray...  so you do what yer gunna do here.
I added yellow squash, a tomato, asparagus, small chopped potato and a celery stalk and cooked a little while to make sure the potato was soft before adding the cod and covering.
We still eat the low calorie shirataki noodles so I pulled a bag of those and cooked them up on the side to serve the curry with, I also topped it with the last little bit of basil we had.
This dish may have been too low calorie,  I was still a little hungry.  so I made my potato chips a coule of hours later, seasoned with truffle salt and vanilla pepper.  These chips coulda won an award.  Cod was good to.  I will serve the other pound of cod tonight simply prepared with a side of eggplant parm. We bought a lot of cod.

Shrimp and Bay Scallop, Scampi Style with heirloom tomatoes

I had a seafood soup on the mind but I got a special request for scampi (and scallops)... This went with the roasted cauliflower soup anyhow...  so I made a last minute left turn at the market and made my way toward a classic scampi.  I realized I had not made one of these in years so it would be fun.  And the jumbo 16-20 gulf shrimps were on sale and the fresh bay scallops were huge.  I got 2 lbs of shrimp and one of bay scallop.

When you clean the shrimp, reserve the shells for your stock.  either roast or sauté the shells in oil until you smell them and they are crispy but not burned.  Add water and to cover them and them go...   You could puree the shells after 20 minutes or so and let them go a bit longer before straining to extract all of the flavor.  Take the strained stock and set it aside to reduce to about a cup.

I seasoned the shrimp with my favorite smoke sea salt and a dash of papkrika, I always remembered paprika when making this dish.  I also zested a lemon and rubbed it on.  I juiced the entire large lemon and set aside.

Chop some fresh parsley and your heirloom tomato here and set aside. and start some jasmine rice on a  side burner.

In a large sauté pan I add the shrimp and just cooked both sides so they were pink but not cooked through, then the scallops and set aside.  They will bleed out some nice juice for later.

to the same pan I add some more oil and cook several chopped cloves of garlic and about a 1/4 of a yellow onion chopped plus a little chopped celery.  cook this for serval minutes without burning and add a half a cup of the nice light white wine you will be drinking with your meal, then add your lemon juice and your shrimp stock, reduce this by just about half then add a couple of TBS of good unsalted european butter, I like Plugra.  Add the shrimp and scallop and reserve juices and toss with the tomato and fresh parsley....  cover off the heat for a few minutes and start plating.   The tomato does not normally go in this dish.  It was an awesome tomato, and would have mad any dish proud...  so I did it.

Roasted Cauliflower Soup

I got real good at making a variety of soups for my clients in NYC.  I made a new soup with every meal for my clients.  They is a basic way to start every soup it seems, and the balance/ratio of is important but really is entirely up to your tastes.  How do you like your soup?
I had a super leek left over from the other night and used this and about a 1/4 of a small onion + a 1/2 stalk of celery to get this base going in some olive oil.  I got the olive oil going with several whole garlic cloves while I course chopped.
I have been seasoning almost exclusively with smoked sea salts...  I used alderwood in this.  It add's depth and I live a hint of smoke in all of my food.  I also got some Durango Hickory smoked salt I use on my meats...  I made a spice mix using piquin and habanero peppers that will make anybody's bloody mary sing.  Recipe coming soon.  I digress.
While the leeks were slow sweating I set the convection oven to high (about 400) and arranged the cut cauliflower (one head is enough) on a round pan and liberally covered it with olive oil and seasoned with my salt and pepper.
When you can smell it and it looks a little brown almost burned on the outside it is done.  There will be a bunch of juice left in the pan.  use it.
About 1/4 cup of nice white wine is nice when the leek mixture is sweated down...  I had some left over chicken stock, about a qt.  I and added that next, followed by my roasted cauliflower. The flavor changes tremendously compared to just cooking the raw cauliflower in the soup...  but that can be nice too.  The raw will make your soup white.  Roasted it had an off white color.
this cooks for another 20 minutes or so before getting out your hand blander and pureé away.  I like teh swiss made Bamix.  It's about 150 bucks from williams-sonoma.  I use this thing everyday.  It purees as good as any blender, quickly.  It's steel body will keep it from getting damaged in hot liquid and could rip up some shrimp shells which I need to do from time to time.  It's easy to clean too.
Just prior to the puree I add about a 1/4 cup of cream.  The soup is pretty much done here.  You want ot let it rest on a simmer for another 15 minutes and season to taste.  I added a touch of nutmeg here and before serving garnished with some scallions.
Like most soups, this soup is even better the next day.  

Buray got a new job

I started working for a real nice family today.  I will be cooking four dinners a week and packing fresh food in the fridge for lunch.  I have been doing the family chef thing for year now.  After a good break I found that I still dig it.  It will never make me rich but dang it's sure is fun.   I get to shape he palate of three cool kiddos youngest is five and the oldest is nine.  It's good to be on the steady gig again.  It's the dishwashing that I really get paid for...  Cooking the food is a joy.
I'll post some stuff.
Tonight I made a shrimp salad for them for tomorrow...  I roasted the shells and made a stock...  reduced it and added some saffron.  I made the fresh tomato sauce and added the shrimp saffron and it was delightful.  I topped it with seared halibut steaks and a sprig of fennel frong.  They dug.  I made a healthy portion of tortilla soup, enough for leftovers.  and a prettly little sad of beets, goat cheese, fennel, frissee, candied pecans, dried cherries and blanched baby carrots.
tomorrow I'm thinking pesto gnocchi and a couple of T-Bones.  some kinda pureed soup and a wedge salad with blue cheese and bacon.

curry coconut milk soup with shrimp and vegetables

I found more head on shrimp and made another stock yesterday...  Cray Cray had some curry he other day and I remembered I had some I had been meaning to use...  So I went after this pretty simple but fully satisfying curry soup.
I added ginger and onion and garlic and celery to the stock and let them heads roll for  good hour and a half...  hand blender, strain and reduceI sweated a half an onion and garlic in some grape seed oil and sprinkled about a TBS of curry in with the sweating onion...  add stock to this and transfer to a mixing bowl and puree with the mixer again along withe the rest of the stock and a 1/4 cup of coconut milk.in the same skillet I added more grape seed oil and sauteed the shrimp which got a curry rub before sauté.  when there were just colored but and still rare I pulled them to the side....  and added the puree back to the skillet.  add salt and cayenne to taste...  then added carrot, baby blue potato, tomato, okra, and fresh shucked corn...  when the potato was tender I added the shrimp and any juice that accumulated.  topped with cilantro and we were eating good.  The left overs were unreal.  I'm eating them as I type this.  Is this indian?  Is this thai?  either or both I suppose...  try this.  the curry was subtle and the crazy veggy combo really works here.  It's also all about the amazing shrimp stock.  You could do this so easily with chicken stock but go the extra mile for that special someone.
I'm starting to realize the hand blender and the strainer are right up there next to knife and cutting board, my most important kitchen tools.  Everyone should have one.

At first Cray Cray wanted to go out tonight for dinner...  but we are both thinking it's gunna be good for the blog and good for our bellies to stay in and celebrate Valentino day here at home...  that way I can get drunk and chase her around the house a bit...  spin some favorite records. and relax.

broiled lobster tail and wilted spinach

I saw some decent sized lobster tails on special at the local market today.  I was also gently reminded that I met Cray Cray eight months ago just before I left the house.  As a kid my mom and her man, Jim celebrate milestones and anniversaries with lobster.  So why not?   I love lobster.  So does Cray Cray.  I surprised her.  She did say this "How come I have to eat all of my surprises and gifts?"
Cuz yer lucky girl, Cray Cray and I dig the hell out of you.  Thats why.  (Not sure I said it just like that but I meant to).
in order to get a good broil on you need to get the meat out of the shell.  I snipped the bottom rings so it would not curl and cut the top shell.  I par boiled or more like steamed the lobster in a skillet in a small amount of water.  Pulled the meat out and put a pat of butter on them before putting under the broiler on hi setting, all in the same skillet.  When they had color they were done.  I placed them on the plate and mixed the left over juice with more drawn butter for dipping.  In that flavorful skillet I dropped some fresh spinach and wilted it...  and we had a nice meal.  more like a snack.  We had already sat down to a half wedge of iceberg, tomato, cucumber, and bacon salad with a side of baked sweet potato shoe string fries I made from fresh sweet potato.
A couple of strawberry vodka soda's to wash it down.  Light meal.  But tasty.
I cooked some fresh strawberry's in water and a little honey, pureed, then strained and cooled in the fridge.  We added this to the vodka soda with a squeeze of lime.  And Cray Cray got me a camera so I can post better photos from here on out.   My blackberry camera just aint cutting it. 

New Mexico Red Chile Enchiladas

I am in love with New Mexico and that love deepens every time I go.  This new years I went with Cray Cray and made a point to come back with as much culinary memory as possible...  by far the biggest score was the decorative rostra that I am carving up at an alarming rate....  need to send for more chile's soon.

I have been making the red sauce for a couple of weeks now and have settled in on a recipe that suits me.
Soak a dozen or so chiles in warm water for a half our or so...  deseed and stem and add to about 4 cups of chicken stock and cook on med low for 30 mins or so...  the chile's will be bright red,  puree and strain.

i use a about 1 TBS of butter and cook two chopped cloves of garlic on low careful not to burn.  Sprinkle 1 TBS of white rice flour and begin a bit of a roux before adding the strained chile.  I add a pinch of mexican oregano here, a pinch of cumin and two whole cloves...  and you can salt here too.
you don't want this sauce to be too thick...  not like a gravy.
The color is incredible, the heat is there but the flavor is so incredible you cant stop eating it.
Now for the stacked enchilada's.  If I have some chicken around which I did this day, I dice it small and same for some yellow onion.  In cast iron skillet I cook six tortilla's in a little olive oil on high heat to crisp and bring out the maize flavor and set aside.

in same skillet I add some sauce and top with two tortilla's, more sauce, chicken cheese, onion, more sauce, repeat and the top tortilla gets more sauce and a sprinkling of cheese...  they will eat this for breakfast and top it with a sunny side up egg.  I sometimes add this to my lunch or dinner enchilada, garnished with lettuce, avocado, diced tomato, sour cream or greek strained yogurt.

I could put this sauce on everything.  I have some left over for my steak tonight.  First bite and I'm in right back in Santa fe with the smell of piñon and the crisp mountain air.  A truly magical land i will continue to visit and celebrate with culinary memories from here on out...  I have tried the powders to make red chile...  good in a pinch, the central market has a good pecos red...  but it never gets that velvety and is not as sweet, certainly not as hot, seems to get a little darker too for some reason.  The ones off the ristra get bright red.  My camera does not pic up the brightness of the sauce.  Just trust me on this one.

seafood soup - sopa de mariscos

I made a stock out of the shrimp shells and the shells of some snow crab cluster.   made up the rest of the recipe out of what we had in the fridge....   I sweated garlic then added 1/4 of a chopped onion and small celery stalk.  Then 3 chopped vine ripened tomatoes, white wine, and then the stock.
I had some nice button mushrooms and some fresh TX okra that needed to be eaten...  so I threw a handful of each chopped up in there and some chopped cilantro.
I season here with seasoning blend I made using alderwood smoked sea salt, TX pequins, oregano, cumin and chipotle powder,  Its smokey hot and friggin delicious.  I used a ton of this stuff this week....  need to make more and I will post all about it...
When Cray Cray came home from work I added a few mussels, 1/4 lbs squid bodies, 1/4 lbs fresh bay scallops, and full pound of white gulf shrimp.  5 minutes here before serving.  I garnished with the pulled snow crab and a squeeze of lime, chopped scallion and fresh cilantro.
we had two servings each and my left overs the next day were so full of flavor, seafoody tremendous yum...
posting a second pic here so you can see all the pretty mussels

sopa de camarones

I found some fresh gulf shrimp yesterday head on!  don't overlook these puppies.  no way to beat the flavor of the heads and shells.  I roast or saute them in little olive oil and get them smelling right and get a little color on them.  then they are ready for the extraction of flavor.

I place them in a pot of hot water and use the hot water to get all the bits up from the bottom of the pan.  you can do this all in the same pan, but I want to get every shrimp browned properly so I use a larger skillet for this.  Drop a whole dried chipotle pepper in here and onion ends, a garlic clove, bay leaf, a half a celery stalk or carrot.  and simmer for an hour.  The trick for maximum flavor is this ---> get out your hand blander and whip it up good.  let it steep a little longer if you have time and then strain....  it is pure shrimp flavor with a hint of heat and smoke from the chipotle.

This part is ready now
When Cray Cray gets home for dinner I plan to start the soup with sweated celery, onion and garlic then add one or maybe two chopped fresh tomato. do I have any white wine?  that would be great here.  then the stock.  Season with salt to taste here.  Maybe a touch of oregano and some chile pequins if I need more heat.
Poach the peeled fresh shrimp in this just before serving and garnish with fresh cilantro and a squeeze of lime.

more pics of the completed dish to come later...

I ate a few shrimpies before I remember to snap a pic!  So good I invested in a few more pounds of head on shrimp to repeat this dish this sometime week.

baked potato chips make a nice snack

Russet potato make a nice crisp chip and if you wanna stay away from fying try this.  Make thin slices long ways and lightly brush each side with olive oil.  Place on a sheet pan and bake at 350 until they start to brown around the edges, flip them and continue to bake until they are brown throughout.  I sprinkled mine with some of that new mexico green chili powder and some salish (alderwood smoked sea salt).  and dipped in some olive oil mayo.

1 small potato =  130 calories
1/2 tsp = 20 calories
1/2 TBS = 250

total - 170 cal

if you wanna skip the mayo I can dig it.  But i needed the calories.  all I had to eat today was the garnish in my bloody mary.

lamb meat balls in greek yogurt sauce - Ahmad's style

It's weird how dishes come back around in my life when I need them.  Or am in need of some feeling I had that I miss or a misplaced.  There is no escaping.  i remember my first bite of Lombardi's pizza with Joe Cheskin before I moved to NYC.  My first bite of Jacquimo's fried chicken in New Orleans when I decided I should never try and be a vegetarian again, my first gumbo that same night, biting into my aunt Chi's homemade vietnamese spring rolls, the smell of home made Pho in her kitchen.  These senses are strong remimders of who we are and where we come from, who loves us, and who we love.

While in Beirut a couple of summers ago with my friend, Ahmad I got accustomed to his style of cooking and the roots of it were in Lebanon.  I don't see him much these days since moving my operations to Austin, but these flavors have stayed with me and probably will forever.  I wrote about that simple red tomato sauce the other day and I started thinking about some other smells and flavors that I wanted to recreate from that hang.  I make lamb kebobs and a tzatziki ever since that summer.   They called it kofta and it was my favorite. I could eat it everyday.  Food reminds me of people and sometime people remind me of food.
The lamb meatball is similar.  They eat raw lamb there dipped in whipped garlic, stewed lamb, gilled lamb.  It is the predominant meat I saw on the table... next to chicken?  I pick lamb everytime.   I'll confess ate the testicles one night and they were incredible, like sweetbreads but better.  I digress.

there is one way they season lamb that is correct on all senses.  It crushes me.  leaves me so satisfied I could eat it everyday.   They got it down.  The quick trick is chinese five spice powder (star anise, clove, ginger, cinnamon, and fennel seed)+ cayenne + cumin + corriander +garlic powder or minced garlic...   this is to taste, it is strong stuff but I suppose I try to have at least a full tsp of this blend total (always heavy on the cayenne)...  if you have some of these you are good all of these you are doing great.  Break off a nug and cook it to test for flavor and salt.  Adjust.  After a while you just use the force with this stuff.  I just eyball it and it comes out great everytime.  About a half a teaspoon or so of salt and minced half onion + one egg and some bread crumb or in my case rice bread crumbs.  mix well and start rolling balls on a sheetpan and put in the ven at 350 or 375 for 20 or 30 mins...  test 'em.

on the stove top, slow and low cook some whole garlic in olive oil, add any left over onions...  let onions get translucent and pour in the greek strained yogurt.  I had a little more than half a medium sized tub.  Two single serving yogurts should do the trick..  When the balls are done pour into the yogurt sauce.  I have seen a cup or more of really good white wine go in there and reduce, but I had a lemon for my acid and it was wonderful and sour, bitter with the aromatics and juices of the lamb blended in.   I think you should drink the wine and add the lemon.... Unless the wine is flowing then what the hell.
Funny thing, I thought I was going to Beirut to make a record or something like that, I ended up with a first class culinary education.  Hats off to Ahmad where ever you are, probably making dinner for some nice folks.  I'm sure the lamb meat balls are on the menu.  A classic and a hit every time.  I made that record and am gunna name it...  tomorrow.

gnocchi (with hatch green chili powder) + rosemary garlic brown butter

I bought a sack of potato's for hash browns and been waiting for me to do something exiting with them.  And tonight I just thought....  Gnocchi.  It was my Great Uncle Red's favorite dish.   It seemed if we went to an italian restaurant it was almost assumed that Red would order the Gnocchi (he called it nocky).  I have made it a few times but mostly I as a ricotta gnocchi guy not a master of the potato dumpling...  the spinach ricotta was a favorite for a while, delicate dumplings in a sage brown butter sauce.  But back to good potato Gnocchi.  It should be soft with just a little chew.  I try to make mine more delicate like the ricotta one's I used to make.  But firm enough to hold together.  First tip, bake the potato unwrapped for about an hour or so depending on how big the potato.   don't boil.   you want this dry and flakey not mushy.  I've heard of chefs roasting them in a bed of salt to draw even more moisture out.  I don't know if this is necessary but it can't hurt I guess.  

I had three small/med potato's - when the potato's are done you can half them and scrape them with a fork and get the flake to fall into a sieve (unless you have a potato ricer then go for it here).  I didn't.  so I forked it into the sieve and mashed it into a bowl creating even fluffier potato.  Let this cool a good bit.  In a separate bowl add about a tsp of salt and whip one egg, right here I got freaky,  I added some ultra fine dry new mexico green hatch chili powder.  enough to get a good file gumbo color going in the egg and mixed this with the cool potato.  Then sift in up to 2/3 of a cup of flour, I used a blend of tapioca flour and white rice flour.  It held quite well.  I try to use less flour and get the dough firm but not too hard as get a gummy chewy result, and don't over mix.  You can use less flour to get them softer, the risk is too delicate and it will break.  I try and keep happy balance here.  Roll out cylinders and cut into pieces with a knife and roll with your thumb on the edge of a fork to make it like the old italian ladies do with ridges.  I do this, but you could just have little balls too.  The dimples hold sauce better though.  do this then drop in boiling water, but don't let it roll back up to boil.  They boil up and float in minutes and they pretty much are done right then...  I let em hang out just a about  minute longer.  rescue them with a slotted spoon and right into a sauce...  today I dressed them butter with zested of garlic slow cooking with rosemary until just crispy and crunchy, not burned.  Topped with parmesan and I loved it.  I will do it again tomorrow (left overs) with a different sauce.  not sure what yet.

I love this classic.  It's easy fun and cheap as hell.  i just takes a little time and might made a small mess...  no biggy?  Cooking like this soothes me.  I can just let my hands work and think.  Today I thought a lot.  I need to name my record which I finished on Monday.  done and done.  It is getting mastered and I am working on artwork next.  I do not take this lightly.  These are the kind of things that things come to me when I am in the kitchen cooking and thoughts flow around the back of my mind settling into a comfy place...  and I find a decision.

not yet tho...  so I cooked another dish on it's heals. --->