How Not To Make Crabcakes

This was a bad attempt at making crabcakes.  First off the crabcake included some lump crab, spices and I believe it was some eggs and matzoh meal.  The issue was that the egg seemed to make the mixture a bit too liquidy.  Second I had no clue whether to pan fry or bake so I did both.  You can see the results of the pan frying - not so good.  Then I had to bake the thing to cook the insides of it...not so good either.  I decided to make grits because whenever you pair something with grits it always seems better.  The sauce on top is chick-fil-a sauce which you can't tell because it looks orange on the green plate. Bad choice.  Next time I'll stick to leaving it to the professionals.  Also if you know of a good place to get crabcakes in Atlanta, let me know.

Some Questionable Ravioli & The Virtues of Whole Grains

Recognize this sauce? Neither do I...

This is some sort of ravioli covered in a ricotta-tomato based sauce with canned green beans and some Parmesan cheese.  I honestly don't remember how good or bad this was, but it's not something you'd put in a food photography magazine for sure.  This is what happens when you try and get creative with boring food.  I think the ravioli was whole-wheat cheese filled. 

Now let's talk about whole-wheat, and whole grains really, and the pros and cons:

Pros: it's better for you, it's heartier, whole grains are healthy, they add texture and they fill you up more

Cons: the taste can be somewhat lacking at times, it's not a colorful item, microwaves as well as a Frisbee, doesn't make a good pizza crust, also not suitable for pie crust I'm guessing

Now, I have become a whole grain (wheat, rye, etc.) advocate this year.  Whole grains are better for your heart, cholesterol and is a great source of fiber.  Now some people I know like to get their whole grains via something we all enjoy called beer.  While beer is indeed a form of whole grains, the nutritional value is a notch above donuts and bacon.  Here's how can you get your whole grains everyday:

1. Whole-wheat bread.  It's better than white bread and holds up better under duress (i.e. condiments and the toaster). Plus it's a great source of fiber, while white bread is a great source of empty calories.

Translation: Turkey sandwich on wheat; not roast beef on white

2. Wild & brown rice.  Uncle Ben (or Ben's) has a brown rice microwaveable pouch which is pretty edible and takes 90 seconds to cook.  Substitute that for white rice and you'll be good to go.

Translation: grilled shrimp and wild & brown rice; not pepper steak over white rice

3. Whole-wheat flour.  Yep.  If you like the sweets, then substitute some whole-wheat flour.  It's good for cookies, cakes & other baked goods (sans pizza crusts).  A chocolate chip cookie with whole-wheat flour and dark chocolate chips is almost as good as your traditional slice and bake cookie from the tube.

Translation: homemade goodness; not processed sketchiness

So basically I've covered your lunch, dinner and dessert there with whole grains. 

Breakfast, you ask? Eat a banana.  Don't forget to eat your fruits and veggies (hint: it saves room for beer).

The Blog is Back! Plus Donuts and Soup...

OK, so I've been lazy, slack, forgetful, lazy, tired, lazy and other adjectives on why I haven't blogged in a month or so.  There's no excuse so here we go.  This entry focuses on two things I didn't cook and most likely don't go well together, donuts & soup.

First off the donuts....

This first donut is from July 3 and was brought to my office, so essentially it's a free donut.  This was a chocolate glazed original topped with red, white and blue sprinkles to commemorate July 4th obviously.  The best part of this donut is that it's from Krispy Kreme and not Dunkin Donuts.  Not to disparage a large and successful chain, but DD is not that good.  If you're only going to have one doughnut from a chain you should go to Krispy Kreme.  First of all it's southern so you know they're going to use the best ingredients (i.e. nothing low fat). Second of all they tell you when the donuts are ready.  I've never seen a "hot donuts now" sign outside of a DD.  All I see is them selling their coffee which I'm sure is alright (I don't touch the stuff).  So onto donut #2.

Residents of midtown Atlanta should recognize this one.  It's the A-town cream doughnut from Sublime Doughnuts on 10th street in Atlanta. Sublime Doughnuts are freshly made daily and worth the drive.  I've had Sublime twice and they never failed to disappoint.   The A-town cream is very light but with a great filling and really great chocolate outside.  You can probably down five of these if you're hungry and although that's not a way to intake your daily caloric intake, once a year would be passable.

http://sublimedoughnuts.com

Now to the soup.  Probably one of the best soups I've ever had.  I've heard rumors about soup places in Buckhead, food carts, etc.  Forget about it.  This isn't your grandmother's chicken soup but it comes very close on it's own.  Take a look...

Ok, the bad news, you can't actually see the soup.  The good news is that this soup costs like $3.50 at La Carreta in Marietta near the Big Chicken.  The soup - chicken tortilla - is a very light but flavorful broth with loads (I mean loads) of chicken along with veggies.  It comes with many sides.  Rice, avocados, tortilla strips and tortillas.  Basically you take a few sips of the soup from the top and then you add the rice, avocados and a few tortilla strips.  Then you can dunk in the fresh corn tortillas on the side.  Not pictured is their red mole hot sauce which you can add directly to the soup.  It's a bit thick but once you stir it in it will change to soup from a yellow to almost a rose color and I promise it will clear up anything in your sinuses and beyond.  I will say that this place was a hidden gem but if you're in the area and like great mexican food it is worth a visit.  Subtle hint: TRY THE FISH TACOS...
 

La Carreta

1252 Roswell Road

Marietta, GA 30062-3609

Shrimp Pomodoro With A Twist

yes, that's real shrimp

This was a great, great dish.  Basically linguine from a box, nothing special there of course...but add to it a great sauce made from fresh garlic, crushed tomatoes, sauteed shrimp and a twist.  After adding the usual seasonings I decided to change things.  Not garlic salt, fresh pepper or oregano..nope you're not even close. In fact, if I give you 30 guesses you're not going to get it.  I'll wait....


Waiting....

Nope....not it...

Ready?

Cocktail sauce!  Yes, cocktail sauce.  It added a great kick and to help firm up the sauce yet it didn't thin it out.  I'm not saying I'm Kevin Rathbun or anything, but this was a brilliant idea I gotta say.  The sauce turned out fantastic and overall this was a superb dish.

Dish created: 5/29/2011

Experiments With Flightless Birds-Part 2

So after the first chicken adventure I decided to shake things up a bit.  First change was to bed the chicken on top of some baby carrots.  This added a bit of sweetness to the bird.  Then we went at it.  Sea salt, parsley, cracked pepper, parsley, chopped garlic and raw garlic cloves were all part of the action.  Then I added a cup of vegetable broth to help baste the browned bird throughout the 90 minutes of cooking at 400 degrees.  What we got was a darn tasty bird from start to finish.  The chicken was extremely tender and juicy while the skin was crisp and tasty.  The only issue with the chicken quarters is that some parts cook faster than others so there is some unevenness in the end result.  My advice, go to KFC and steal their grilled chicken recipe, it's pretty tasty.

Experiments With Flightless Birds-Part 1

looks like I should have gone to Boston Market...

I mean I've never seen chickens fly, have you?  This was started when I saw some chicken leg quarters on sale at Publix so I decided to take a crack at it.  Basically you see a before and after shot of a bird who was not terribly seasoned properly before roasting in the oven.  What you see on the left are celery, onions, a ridiculous amount of paprika, parsley, salt, pepper and what I think is a poor execution of spreading rosemary evenly across the birds.  So after adding a small amount of water to the bottom,  I roasted it off at 400 degrees and it came out like you see on the right. The minor detail was that I forgot to baste the thing and the skin was pretty much crisp to a point where it had to be tossed.  Not burnt, but the spices came off so strong on the bird that it was best to serve without the skin.  I think it tasted alright; well after a dousing of Johnny Harris BBQ sauce, but this lead to another test which I will be sharing soon.

Dish created: 6/2/11

Stuffed Tilapia...yeah I know it looks like it was cut by a machine

There's not much I can say about the fish, I bought it at Publix and just stuck it in the oven.  It was stuffed with crabmeat and had some seasonings.  Your standard stuffed fish. But for a grocery store it was a good sized portion and tasted alright w/o having to add too much to it. Just some olive oil on top to brown it up a bit.

But the good news is that I created a mushroom and spinach sautee that turned out very well.  Really cook down the mushrooms in olive oil to get a nice dark color and bring out the flavor.  Outside of that I can't really say too much more.  Sometimes you can just do simple things well and turn around a flavorful and tasty meal. 

Orzo...Is It A Pasta? Rice? Grain? Tiny Magic Beans?

Well you can't really see the orzo (which is technically a pasta) because it's covered by sauteed shrimp in dill, sea salt, pepper and olive oil.  Served with mixed veggies and fresh sauteed spinach.  This was one of the healthier dishes out there you can make.  I wish I had more to write, but can't think what else to say.


Dish Created: 4/13/2011

Breakfast For Dinner?

Popeye called, he wants his spinach back

Breakfast for dinner?  Sure, why not.  Breakfast is the most important meal of the day because if you don't eat it you'll be irritable by noon and will overeat at the local drive thru (done and done).  This is your vegetable omelet gone wild.  Three eggs, fresh spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, mushrooms and a mess of feta cheese all thrown together in (a must...) a non-stick pan.  I lacked a bit of salt but the feta made up for it.  I probably should do more than this.  Eggs are ridiculously cheap and pretty good for you in moderation.  It's amazing how healthy things can be when you take out the smoked pork products and a pound of processed/shredded cheese.

Dish created: 4/5/11

I Mean What's The Deal With Gyros?

no this meat is not from a cone

Who doesn't like gyros?  Well vegetarians I guess.  This was a first crack at lamb gyros.  I mean it's the Mediterranean diet right?  So to start we've got lamb meat that was cooked like a meatloaf then cut and sauteed in a pan.  It's stuffed in a gyro along with cucumbers and tzatziki sauce made from scratch.  The pitas are whole wheat and were laced with olive oil and baked at 400 degrees for 10 minutes keeping them toasty and hot (but not burnt at all). Overall this meal was a friggin great success.

Dish created: 4/10/2011

That's a spicy (turkey) meatball!

Or so I think.  Memory serve me correct at times, so I'm going to garner that these are turkey meatballs from scratch.  What we have here is ground turkey, eggs, panko (of course), salt, pepper, onion salt and other things.  Served over linguini with mixed veggies (frozen & horrid) topped with some semi-fresh parm. 

What's semi-fresh? It's parm that's not in a can but not by using a cheese knife either.  The parm at Publix is very good and keeps fresh for a long period of time as long as you don't leave out on the counter or in the freezer (frozen parm isn't good for much at all).

Dish created: 3/30/11

More Panko Experiments (aka the broccoli wheel)

be sure to inflate your broccoli wheel to desired PSI

So what is this?  I believe we have another poor attempt at using panko.  First we have panko "crusted" shrimp.  The crust was more of a gloppy mess which you then saw that I put on top of some leftover chicken.  Why panko?  Well it's better than regular bread crumbs and more natural and lighter at times.  Supposedly its healthier, but then again people add strawberry syrup to three scoops of chocolate ice cream and call it a serving of fruit.  The broccoli is pretty easy to make. Not many people screw up broccoli except steakhouses where they believe that broccoli requires a steak knife and compound butter.  The potatoes were one of those frozen things from Green Giant.  Needless to say it wasn't a repeated buy. The lesson here, start using an egg wash and find bigger shrimp to bread.

Dish created: 3/29/11

Tilapia...The Tofu Of Fish

 
White and tasteless...no not the dairy creamer you use to turn that coffee into a 400 calorie caffiene boost, but no we're talking tilapia.  Tilapia, the fish that takes on all flavors and characteristics.  Flavors to avoid: coffee, amaretto, pickle and nutmeg. So what we have here is grilled tilapia with green onions, grilled zucchini and brown/wild rice.  What can I tell you?  The tilapia was pretty solid.  The zucchini was firm but not tough and the brown rice was from the microwave.  Nobody makes rice from scratch anymore.

Dish created: 3/22/11

Shrimp...an underrated creature?

 

You gotta love shrimp.  It's very versatile, just don't cook it too look or it tastes like rubber.  What we have is shrimp cooked with olive oil and some green onions served over Basmatti rice with a side of mixed vegetables that looks as bland as the paint in my office. The shrimp was solid though.

Dish created: 3/20/11

Dinner 1...and a bad picture

So here's dinner #1.  Notice the poor quailty from my phone.  Not on purpose, turns out the white balance on the phone was on "cloudy."  So we've got some roasted chicken thighs, a poor attempt at panko-crusted red potatoes and sauteed spinach in garlic topped with panko.  I think the chicken was cooked well.  The potatoes were not good and the spinach was fine.  Hard to screw up spinach unless you don't know how to use a pot or pan.

Dish created: 03/16/11

A new attempt at a new blog

So here we go again. Starting a new blog about something that everything likes. Not sports, dancing, traveling or work...but food. It seems that people are so enthralled about food that it's reached greater heights now with this internet thing. I am not a professional cook but a good one I'd say for having modest equipment and no formal training (although my mom taught me some things very well). I'll follow up with a slew of pictures and new posts within the next day or two. Enjoy and ask questions that I'll try and answer with a somewhat intelligent response.

Happy eating.

- Josh (aka Bernie)