Corn and Poblano Rajas

  

  
Today is the 50th anniversary of Ted Williams' final game.  The greatest hitter of all time capped off his baseball career by hitting a home run in his final at-bat.  Charles McGrath in the New York Times helps us remember Ted Williams through the eyes of John Updike, who was there on that day and wrote his paean to Williams in Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu.   McGrath focuses on Updike's phrase, "For me, Williams is the classic ballplayer of the game on a hot August weekday, before a small crowd, when the only thing at stake is the tissue-thin difference between a thing done well and a thing done ill."  McGrath believes that Updike identified with Williams, both in their physical similarities, both were were tall and slender, but also as artists committed to their craft.  Updike found the hero in Williams as a "player who always care[s]; who care, that is to say, about themselves and their art."  Although, for McGrath, the difference of Williams "was not between a thing done well and a thing done ill, but between a thing done well and a thing done even better."
    
What does this have to do with a corn poblano cheese mixture recipe from a petite Mexican-American chef from Baja?  McGrath, Updike, Williams, and even Marcella Valladolid in Fresh Mexico all remind us that every day, whether on those hot August weekdays before a small crowd, or on those dark weekday evenings before no one, we have the opportunity to be better.  I took that opportunity, as I try to do regularly as reflected in this blog, to do better at a Sunday afternoon tailgating party.  As with the ancho tequila salsa featured yesterday, I tried to do better than just dogs and brats on the grill by featuring the last of these recipes I tried from Valladolid.  It makes a wonderful feeling for a quesadilla, or even just in a small soft taco shell.  A Mexican theme for the party was surely fun, and pulling off recipes fulfilling, but the combination of new and different made everything special.  The important thing, though, is to feel that feeling of being special, not just for and in front of a crowd, but when you are alone, and no one is looking.  That is the sign of someone devoted to a higher calling in pursuing their craft.  It is also the sign of someone who derives joy from practicing their craft.  None of us will ever be Ted Williams, and few of us will ever be a celebrity chef, but we can all be special to ourselves, and to those around us, because we care and choose to do things better.
    
Ingredients:
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cups corn kernels
6 poblano chiles, charred, peeled, seeded and sliced into long strips
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup Mexican crema or creme fraiche
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
tortillas
salt/pepper
     
Directions:
Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the onions and soften for 5 minutes.  Add the corn and and chile strips and cook for 5 minutes.  Add the heavy cream and and crema and cook for 8 minutes, gently simmering.  Add the cheese and stir until melted.  Season to taste the mixture with salt and pepper.  Serve with tortillas.
     

Ancho Tequila Salsa

  

  
I believe a life well lived is a life where we strive to do better.  Doing good is of course always important, and doing well is important to many, but doing better is important to making our lives more interesting, more entertaining, more enriching.  How much more fun is life, how much happier are we, how much better to do we and our friends feel when we take the time to do something a little more special, a little more interesting, a little more fun than the normal and original?
    
Food is definitely in that category.  We can always do the same, the routine, the normal.  Sometimes we must do quick and easy, but many more times we should do better.  For me, I try to think of what I am doing, and how I can make it more adventurous, more entertaining, more challenging.  Cooking from foreign destinations visited or waiting helps me bring adventure home.  Trying new and interesting cocktails and dishes is always a more fun and stimulating way to entertain.  And taking on the ingredients and techniques of a fine chef or restaurant challenges me intellectually and as a craftsman.
    
Take salsa for example.  How easy is it to put out a jar of salsa with whatever chip or taco dish you are contemplating?  But how much more boring and underperforming can you be?  Why not do something totally different than what you have ever done or what your guests have ever tasted?  This recipe from from Marcella Valladolid's Fresh Mexico may be something you've never encountered, and yet will not be too unfamiliar.  Ancho chiles go into into the adobo sauce that complements our now popular chipotles.  Tequila is familiar to all, at least in idea and style.  Garlic and orange juice, opposite in the taste spectrum - how can you get more familiar than that?  These ingredients go into a salsa that will have your guest talking and you smiling.  The best part?  It's really quick and easy.  Serve it with a feta type cheese if you like for dipping, or just spoon it straight onto pork, chicken or beef in mini soft tacos.  Makes about 1 cup.
    
Ingredients:
8 dried ancho (sometimes called pasilla) chiles
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup golden tequila
1 garlic clove, minced
4 tbsp olive oil
salt/pepper
     
Directions:
Cut open lengthwise the chiles and scrape out the seeds.  Tear the chiles into pieces and put into a food processor along with the orange juice, tequila, garlic and 2 tbsp of oil.  Puree the salsa until smooth.  In a medium saute pan over high heat, warm the remaining oil.  Add the salsa and cook for a few minutes.  Season to taste with salt and pepper and let cool.  Serve.
      
  

Corned Beef Hash with Fried Eggs

  

  
I imagine that when a woman comes home late from a hard day at work, or if she's getting some alone time after spending all day with the kids, she is kicking off her shoes, maybe running a bath, pouring a glass of wine and soaking away her troubles.  Dinner on evenings like that might range from a bowl of ice cream to a plate of spinach, something easy, something quick, something thoughtless.  A guy will do the exact same thing, only in ways to which guys relate.  Instead of the tub it's the couch.  Instead of a glass of wine, it's a bottle of beer.  Instead of a People Magazine, it's Monday Night Football.  
    
For dinner, an exhausted or brain-dead man can eat a bowl of cereal standing over the sink, but for me at least, it's hard to drink beer with cereal.  Lucky Charms and Coors Light just doesn't work (yes, I do still find youthful joy in kids cereal).  However, I do like breakfast for dinner, both for its ease and its comfort factor.  I also find that eggs and bacon, with their savory and salty tastes, match well with a beer.  A higher form of breakfast comfort for me is corned beef hash.  Since this is a night for quick and easy, I'm not talking about some gourmet recipe where you might actually make the hash, or get creative with alternative ingredients.  I'm talking straight from the can, baby.  I also love to crack a couple of eggs in the hash and cook them right in there.  Cutting into the cooked hash you can get a little of the egg yolk to run out, helping to coat surrounding hash.  Now that's good eating.  So, while joy in the form of a simmer sauce can come from a jar, and happiness in the form a cold beer can come from a bottle, sometimes, especially in the case of hash, true love comes from a can.  Serves 2.
     
Ingredients:
1 can corned beef hash
4 eggs
    
Directions:
Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the corned beef hash, breaking it up into pieces and stirring occasionally.  When the hash starts to brown, make a couple of small voids in the hash and add the eggs to each.  Allow to cook a few minutes and then flip the portion of the hash with the eggs.  Cook a few minutes more to desired doneness, covering during the cooking if a harder yolk is desired.
    

Shrimp with Chipotle Cream Sauce

   

  
Can you guess where everyone walks around with a smile on their face?  It's not Indonesia, where they practice smiling with their liver, although my trip to Bali does confirm that there are a lot of people with good karma there.  Similarly, Thais love to flash a big grin, but they seem caught up in their political troubles at the moment.  India, the people who gave us the word "nirvana?"  No, I'm not think of that either.  I'm actually thinking of a travel destination closer to home, popular now, where the temperature and humidity is so ideal, so not hot, so not cold, so bright sunshine year round, that people can't help but walk around with a smile on their face.  San Diego is the place I'm feeling right now.  In part, because here in Washington we are in that ideal weather season of autumn when for about two months we have the weather of San Diego:  dry, warm, but not hot, little humidity.  Fall is not quite here.  It's not crisp, it's not sweater weather.  It's just perfect weather.

So how does that relate to food?  Because many times I eat what I feel.  I'm not talking about how much I eat given my mood, I mean what kind of food.  Sometimes my mind stimulates that with a yearning for travel.  Sometimes my emotions stimulate that with a desire for comfort food.  Either my mind or my emotions can stimulate a need to get spicy.  Sometimes it's a feeling conjured by an aroma, maybe lemon, or lavender, or oregano.  Menu ideas can even be spurred by a sense of feel, hot and sticky, or cool and crisp.  The San Diego weather outside makes me think of San Diego food.  While I'm not a big fish taco person, putting cole slaw on tacos or BBQ sandwiches is something I just haven't warmed to, I can still conjure feelings of Mexican seafood fusion in my mind.  A little fish or seafood, a little Mexican spices, a little lime and cilantro, that's what I'm talking about.  It helps that rising celebrity chef Marcella Vallodolid of Mexican Made Easy Fame does her shows from a kitchen with windows overlooking San Diego.  How can you not wish you were there sharing in the blue skies and fresh Mexican tastes? 

   

One of Marcella's signature dishes is a rosemary-skewered shrimp marinated in chipotle.  That is a great recipe, but I did a different recipe this evening from her Fresh Mexico cookbook.  Bobby Flay certainly introduced us to the world of chiles and the potential of chipotle.  While Bobby takes many of our American ingredients, and that adds the chili spiced layers, Marcella's recipes seem to start with a more Mexican set of ingredients that also utilize the chili flavors.  True or not, she has shown me how to use Mexican crema and cheeses in recipes.  This shrimp recipe with a chipotle cream sauce does that in spades.  It is fast, easy, flavorful in a Mexican chile way, but also has that tummy coated goodness you want from any sauce.  Try it and find out how.  Serves 2.

   

Ingredients:

1/2 cup flour

3 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 lb shrimp, peeled

3 tbsp butter

1/4 cup heavy cream

1 cup heavy cream

1 tbsp adobo sauce from a can of chipotle chiles, plus 1 tbsp of diced, seeded chipotle pepper if a hotter dish is desired

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 1/2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

   
Directions:
In a small bowl, mix the flour, 2 tbsp of cilantro, salt and pepper.  Add the shrimp and toss to coat.  Melt the butter in a large saute pan over medium-high heat.  Add the shrimp and saute until golden, 2-3 minutes per side.  Transfer the shrimp to a plate.  Add the wine and deglaze the pan.  Boil for 2 minutes and then add the cream, adobo sauce (and chipotle if desired), garlic and Worcestershire sauce.  Stir to mix and boil for 3 minutes to reduce slightly.  Return the shrimp to the pan and toss to coat with the sauce.  Season further with salt and pepper if desired.  Serve over rice and sprinkle with remaining cilantro.

    

Pork and Fennel Ragu

    
There is a wild boar running around my head.  The wiry haired kind, with sharp tusks, running along forest paths through the underbrush.  Although, really, it's a pig, the Spanish kind that snuffles up acorns, or digs through the ground to find truffles.  That pig, snorting, rooting, is really browning, braising and simmering.  It's not in my mind, it is in my stomach.  For with the cooler, crisper air of fall, my mind, my heart, my stomach, turns to ragus and all their wild, body-warming goodness.  That is where my soul is, but that really is not quite where my stomach is at the moment.  Food can reflect space, or where you would like to be, or travel to, but it can also reflect time, or the season in which you find yourself.  
   
Fall is perhaps my favorite season.  Golden leaves, crisp air, sweaters, football.  What better time for a wild boar ragu?  Unfortunately, we are not quite there yet.  Here in mid-September, the nights are a little cooler, but the day times temperatures are still warm.  The apples up in the cool-nighted valleys may be ready for picking, but the warm temperatures here keep sentiment for them away.  It is the end of summer, so the peaches and nectarines no longer feel natural.  It is much too soon for my boar ragu, or rabbit, or bolognese.  Even apples, ripening on their trees, are a couple of weeks away for me and where I am.  How to bridge this gap between summer and autumn?  
    
I chose this recipe to reflect time in which I find myself.  It is is a ragu, so it is hinting at things to come.  It has hearty cremini mushrooms, tomato paste, and a red wine base.  It also features fennel, a summer if not spring vegetable, along with lemon for brightness.  The wine I chose is pinot noir.  Yes, a red, but lighter, still fruity.  In this way, I find harmony with my mood, with the season, with my current tastes.  Wild boar, you are still out there, but I will not hunt you tonight.  Serves 2.
    
Ingredients:
1/2 pound penne pasta
1/2 tsp chopped fennel seeds 
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 boneless pork loin chops sliced into 1/4" strips
2 tbsp flour
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup diced shallots
1 small fennel bulb, chopped
3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
2 tsp tomato paste
4 oz sliced cremini mushrooms
3/4 cup pinot noir wine
    
Directions:
Boil salted water in a medium pot and cook the pasta.  Drain when cooked.  Meanwhile, mix the fennel seeds, salt, pepper and lemon juice.  Add the pork and stir.  Add the flour and toss to coat.  Heat a deep skillet over medium-high heat and warm 2 tbsp of oil.  Brown the pork, in batches if needed, until brown on all sides, approximately 4 minutes.  Transfer the port to a plate and add 1 tbsp of oil to the skillet.  Add the shallots, fennel and 2 tbsp of parsley, reduce the heat, and cook to soften the vegetables, about 3 minutes.  Add the tomato paste, stir, and cook 3 minutes further.  Add the mushrooms, stir to mix, and then add the wine and 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking liquid.  Deglaze and scrape the browned bits off the skillet.  Bring the ragout to a boil, turn down the heat, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes.  Return the pork to the skillet and stir to reheat, about 2 minutes.  Boil down the sauce a little bit if a thicker sauce is desired.  Stir in the pasta and season.  Serve to bowls, topping with the remaining parsley and lemon zest.
    

Salsa Con Le Noci (Walnut Sauce)

  

  
Can you name the five towns of Cinque Terre?  Hiking the rugged coastline of this stretch of Liguria, part of the Italian Riviera, you can visit them all in a day.  The towns are noted for their beauty, a colorful kaleidoscope of Mediterranean pastels hugging the cliffside every mile or two.  The sea below is dotted with fisherman, who provide not only the region's bountiful seafood harvest, but many times the only real mode of transportation between the isolated villages.  Above the towns, terraced steps of vineyards and orchards add to the natural variety, producing not only grapes and olives, but also pine nuts that have made Ligurian pesto sauce world famous.  
   
While we all know and love basil pesto, another sauce popular in Liguria is walnut sauce.  However, it's hard to say there is a single Ligurian recipe for walnut sauce.  The Romans may claim that there is only one authentic Roman way to make their amatriciana sauce, but that is not the case for walnut sauce.  Perhaps it is the multiple and isolated coastal Ligurian towns that allow for different forms of creativity to blossom and prosper.  Each little village may have their own way of making a walnut sauce.  True or not, we have a variety of ways to make this savory, rich, cream based sauce with walnuts.  Some recipes call for soaking a slice of bread in milk to act as thickener, others for bread crumbs.  Some call for a bechamel sauce with a butter and flour roux and milk, while others call for reducing cream.  Many suggest adding parmesan cheese like a pesto, some call for topping with asiago or pecorino, others even for ricotta.  Historically, a Ligurian might have used prescinseua, as they call sour milk in their local dialect.  Modern recipes may try to recreate that with sour cream.  The recipe I suggest strives for that savory richness within an appropriate amount of time and effort.  No need to break out your mortise and pestle to hand grind the walnuts, or hunt for prescinseua at an Italian gourmet market.  Just a few basic ingredients, a turn in the food processor, and a little pasta cooking liquid if needed.  Enjoy and p.s. the five towns of Cinque Terre are Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore.  Serves 2.
    
Ingredients:
1/2 lb pasta such as linguine, spaghetti or a cheese ravioli if preferred
3/4 cup of shelled walnuts
1 slice of bread
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
1/4 cup grated pecorino romano or parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped basil 
     
Directions:
In a medium pot of salted water, cook the pasta.  Meanwhile, toast the walnuts in a heated skillet, taking care not to allow to burn.  Soak the slice of bread in the heavy cream and drain off the excess.  Reserve 1/4 cup of the walnuts for a garnish and place the rest in a food processor, along with the bread, garlic, oil and salt and pepper to taste.  Process to form a paste.  Remove to a bowl and stir in the cheese and basil.  Add some of the cooking water if needed to loosen the sauce.  Drain the pasta and mix in just enough sauce to coat the pasta.  Serve and top with the reserved walnuts pieces.
     

Chicken Scaloppini with a Shiitake Sake Sauce and Crispy Noodle Cake

  

     
Last weekend, I read an essay in the Sunday New York Times by a woman breaking up with her boyfriend.  What made the article different, and likely attracted the attention of the editors, was that the woman was breaking up with a woman that was gender transitioning to a man.  This wasn't a surprise to the woman, indeed, she was helping her partner throughout the process.  But, in the end, the relationship did not survive and the author was left with regret, guilt and relief.  Such a story may be normal fare in New York City, but is not something that usually attracts my attention.  I was struck however by her honesty.  She wasn't advocating a position one way or the other, right or wrong on substance, she was just communicating her emotions, confused and contradicting as they were.
  
A similarly confused outlook can be found in some cooking.  Even eyebrow raising "transitioning" language can be found in recipes such as Tal Ronnen's chicken scaloppini with shiitake sauce.  He has a vegan cookbook entitled The Conscious Cook and celebrity fans from Ellen DeGeneres to Oprah Winfrey.  He suggests preparing meals with ingredients like faux chicken stock and Earth Balance, which apparently is a butter substitute favored by vegans who eschew eating animals or animal products.  Ironically, this leads them into troubling products like Earth Balance, which is made in part from palm oil.  Unfortunately, palm oil and the slash-and-burn produced palm plantations of southeast Asia are one of the prime threats to endangered species habitat destruction and climate threatening carbon emissions.  So, while vegans are trying to spare animals by not eating them, their product choices are encouraging the destruction of virgin rain forests and the Orangutans and other endangered species within them.  Sounds about as confused as life in New York City.  And if going not only to a vegetarian but all the way to a vegan diet is too much, then there are products like Gardein, "a great transitional food for meat-eaters" according to Ronnen.  I can certainly agree that a mixture of plant-based proteins with a meaty texture would take quite a transition to adopt, but I won't be facing such a choice or experience.
     
What does all this tell us about how to cook?  Certainly, cooking is honest.  It is an honest reflection of the ingredients we use and the techniques we employ.  The results can be simple or confused, but they are ours, an expression of who we are and the choices we make.  Cooking can also be delicious, even from cooks with friends like Oprah and Ellen.  I personally am all for real chicken, stock and butter.  But Ronnen's ideas of using a precooked asian noodle base and sake as the wine component of the shiitake sauce are terrific.  Thus, we shouldn't close our eyes to inspiration from even the most foreign sources, and we should always feel comfortable to make it our own, as I did here.  If you want the vegan version, Ronnen's cookbook is out there, but I'm sure you will like the more traditional and yet very tasty version here.  Serves 2.
    
Ingredients:
2 small nests of cellophane bean noodles
6 tbsp olive oil
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, halved lengthwise into thin scaloppini
1/4 cup flour
1 cup dry sake
3/4 cup chicken stock
1/2 lb shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
2 tbsp butter

1 garlic clove, minced

1 cup packed pea shoots

1 tbsp minced chives

salt/pepper

     

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees F.  Bring a medium pot of water almost to a boil and then turn off the heat.  Add the noodles and allow to soak for ten minutes.  Remove the noodles to a strainer and press to drain any extra moisture.  In a large saute pan over medium-high heat, add 2 tbsp of oil.  Place two 3" round ring molds in the pan and when the oil is heated add noodles to each to form a little cake.  Fry until browned and crisp on both sides, about 3 minutes per side.  Remove to a paper towel lined plate and put in the oven to keep warm.
Wipe out the oil used for the noodle cakes and add 2 more tbsp of oil.  Season the chicken scaloppini with salt and pepper and dredge through the flour.  Cook the chicken, browning on both sides, about 3 minutes per side.  Remove the chicken to a plate in the oven.  Add the mushrooms to the pan, along with more olive oil if needed.  Saute the mushrooms until softened and lightly browned, about 4 minutes.  Add the sake and deglaze the pan, scraping up any browned bits.  Simmer down the sake until it is reduced by half.  Add 1/2 cup of the chicken stock and simmer for 2 more minutes.  Turn the heat down to low to keep the sauce warm and whisk in the butter.  Adjust the seasoning as desired.  In a small pan over medium-high heat add 1 tbsp of oil.  When hot, add the garlic and release the flavors for 30 seconds.  Add the remaining 1/4 cup of chicken stock and the pea shoots.  Saute for 3 minutes.  Meanwhile, return the chicken to the sake sauce to reheat.  Plate the noodle cakes, top each with half of the pea shoots, and then the chicken, and then the mushrooms spooned out on top.  Add sauce in a desired amount and sprinkle with chives.  Serve.
     

Beef Rendang

  

      

"The purpose of life is the expansion of happiness."  So says Deepak Chopra in The Ultimate Happiness Prescription:  7 Keys to Joy and Enlightenment.  Through chapters guiding us how to Be Aware of Your Body, Find True Self-Esteem, and Give Up Being Right we learn that happiness is the goal of every other goal.  Chopra sees most people believing that happiness comes from becoming successful, accumulating wealth, being healthy and having good relationships.  He believes this is a mistake.  "Success, wealth, good health, and nurturing relationships are byproducts of happiness," says Chophra "not the cause."

    

Is Chopra right?  He wouldn't be able to say so since he suggests giving up being right.  However, he must certainly be a really happy guy, since he is reaping the byproducts of success and wealth.  What lessons do I take from Chopra?  One is that if I can get happiness from opening a book, I can get joy from opening a jar.  That is a modern home cook's dilemma, isn't it?  Are we semi-homemade, or are we intrepid culinary explorers?  Although for me, it's less about fear of the journey's path or destination, than fear of the time it will take to get there.  Of course, Chopra would probably say something like life is a journey that must be traveled.  But, at the end of a long kid-filled day with errands and grocery shopping, trips to the park and birthday parties, self-esteem is put aside for the body weary awareness that enlightenment, this evening anyway, will come from a jar of pre-prepared simmer sauce.

   

If there is ever a recipe to thank for coming pre-made, Rendang sauce is one.  While originating in Indonesia, Beef Rendang is favored by Malays in Malaysia and Singapore.  It is a rich coconut beef stew with a complex mix of southeast Asian spices.  It is often served at ceremonial occasions and to honored guests.  They should feel honored because it takes 3 hours to make, simmering cinnamon, cloves, star anise, cardamon, lemon grass, tamarind and palm sugar in coconut milk.  Time I want to take on some school nights?  20 minutes, or about the time it takes to cook the rice.  Still need convincing to put occasionally aside your inner chef?  As Chopra would say, "If you want to reach a state of bliss, then go beyond your ego and the internal dialogue."  So, some nights, quiet that internal dialogue, supress your ego, and find joy in a jar.  Serves 2.

      

Ingredients:

1 tbsp canola oil

1 lb beef appropriate for stir fry, cut into strips

salt/pepper

12 basil leaves, shredded

1 jar simmer sauce

     

Description:

Heat the oil in a wok or other fry pan over medium-high heat.  Add the beef and and brown for 4 minutes.  Add the simmer sauce and stir to mix.  Turn the heat to low and simmer gently uncovered for 15 to 20 minutes.   Meanwhile, prepare the rice.  Plate the beef stew with the shredded basil on top.  Serve with the cooked rice.

     

Lamb Stew with Onion and Egg from Abruzzo

    

To be the American in Abruzzo is to be exposed.  Stone hewed hill towns perch isolated over open plains.  Wide open expanses allowing the Apennine mountain air to crisp and crackle, whether in the sound of a stone underneath on a cobble walk or a rustling grass carpeting the distance.  Traveling to this rural region of Italy in the mountains east of Rome you can find a small room in an ancient castle town, or a secret bend in the river in a national park, but you cannot hide.  At some point, you must come out into the sparseness, the loneliness that pervades a stark and rustic existence.  
     
Similarly, you cannot hide when you cook.  The food will always reveal whether you used the freshest ingredients, the proper techniques or are trying to hide behind presentation or distraction.  Abrezzesse food is simple and hearty, but more importantly it is pure, wholly reflecting the ingredients.  No butter and cheese dolloped in, no truffles sprinkled, no fried breading coated, just wild game of the countryside, cooked in wine of the hillside, with herbs of the mountainside.  These are the feelings and images that resonate as the air turns cool and the dry fall winds start to blow.  Try this recipe to fortify yourself against the coming chill.  Serves 2.

    

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, sliced

2 strips of bacon, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced 

1/4 dried thyme

1/4 tsp dried oregano

1/4 cup flour

1 lb lamb leg or shoulder, cut into 1 inch cubes

1/2 cup dry white wine

1/2 cup chicken stock

1 egg, beaten

1 tsp lemon juice

1/4 cup parsley, chopped

salt/pepper

      

Directions:

In a heavy dutch oven or other enameled cast iron pot, heat the oil over medium heat and saute the onion and bacon 4 minutes.  Add the garlic and herbs and cook a further minute. Season the lamb with salt and pepper and dredge through the flour.  Add to the pot and brown on all sides.  Turn the heat up to medium-high and add the wine, scraping the bits off the bottom of the pot to deglaze.  When the wine is simmering, add the chicken stock and bring to a simmer.  Turn down the heat and cover, continuing to simmer for up to an hour.  Remove the lamb and onion mixture to a bowl, retaining the liquid in the pot.  Whisk in the egg and lemon juice and heat without allowing to boil.  Return the lamb mixture to the pot and stir to coat.  Adjust seasoning to taste.  Plate the lamb stew and sprinkle with parsley if desired.  

    

Caribbean Citrus and Spice Marinade

  

Stepping off the dock, the hills above are jet black against an indigo sky.  It is past sunset, but nighttime has not yet fully taken the sky.  Gallows Bay is calm as sleeping sailboats now replace their pirate ship predecessors.  However, there is energy across the water.  Fires on the beach of Protestant Cay are not from marauders, but merrymakers welcoming the night.  The breeze on the ride across the water finally breaks the daytime heat.  It is a feeling of calm joy, release, anticipation for what waits on the other side.  Moko Jumbie stilt walkers high step to a calypso beat, dancing, jumping, pumping.  Fingers of fire in the torches and cauldrons jump and flicker to the beat, the conch shell sellers shout their prices to the beat, everyone is moving to the beat.  Even the cooks passing out the food from their giant long grills and their big pots.  Rice, Caribbean style, and chicken and seafood in a Caribbean marinade.  The kind that combines tropical citrus, garlic, spices, and honey.  Yes, it must be sweet, but also fiery.  This is the tropics, but it is not a time to be languid.  It is a time to get up, stand up, and move to the rhythm.  Food fuels those passions, but it also fires those passions.  That is the feeling I want again as I remember my trip to the Caribbean.  Cooking will release those smells, release those tastes, release those memories.  Cook yourself to the Caribbean with this recipe.  Just watch out for those Moko Jumbies.  Serves 2.  
    
Ingredients:
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp dried thyme leaves
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp minced ginger root
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp hot sauce
2 green onions, sliced
    
Directions:
Mix together all of the marinade ingredients.  Combine with shrimp or chicken in a ziploc bag and seal, allowing to marinate 30 minutes for shrimp or 2 hours for chicken.  Grill.