Have I Mentioned How Much I Love My Smoker?

I think I have. In fact I know I have. It's the greatest thing ever. I got the smoker kind of on a whim really. I have been doing Harris Polls online for years and years. I never win anything, but for every survey you complete, you get points. The points accumulate and you can trade them in for merchandise. Well I was at the highest number of points to trade in so I figured I'd go for it. My choices weren't all that great really. A shop vac (Nick wanted that, he wanted it bad!), the smoker, a watch, an Ipod docking station and a few other things. The smoker kept calling my name...Kathy, Kathy... chose me! So I did.

It's a process so you really have to make sure you don't have any plans. You need to prep the meat the night before. This time I was doing ribs so I didn't have much to do. Just clean them up a little, remove the membrane. I decided not to put a dry rub on this time.

In the morning I got my fire going. I use regular Kingsford charcoal and hickory chips. Let the charcoal burn for about 20-30 minutes. While the coals are doing their thing, soak the wood chips in water. Once the fire is ready, put the wood chips on top of the coals and then work fast!! Since my smoker is what's called a bullet smoker, I have a water pan that MUST have water in it. So... coals, wood, water pan, low rack, high rack. The ribs (with nothing but salt and pepper on them) went on the high rack. Then close the lid. To ensure not too much smoke will escape, I wrap between the lid and the smoker in foil. Once that lid is on and the foil is in place, the end! DO NOT OPEN THAT LID! You really have to trust that it's doing what it should be doing. It's hard, but the more you open the lid, the more smoke escapes and you won't get the flavor you want.

After 4 hours, we opened the lid to flip the meat. It was looking good, but was clear it needed more time. So we closed it back up (making sure the water level was still ok), packed the foil in it and left it alone for another 3 hours.

The ribs were done. They were perfect! SO incredibly delicious and tender. I had sauce but I never even used it. They didn't need it. The smoky flavor was enough to make these the best ribs I've had all summer. Look at all that color. That is all just from the smoker. No rub, no sauce.






And once again, that smoke ring that is so desired when you smoke something was present. If you enlarge this picture, you can see just how succulent and juicy these ribs are. Go, go now while they are probably on sale and get yourself a smoker! You won't regret it!

Antipasto Could Be Your Best Friend

Funny thing about being someone who loves to cook. When invited to a party, people almost expect you to bring something amazing. I wish I always could but sometimes there are not enough hours in the day. So when I find myself in that situation, I turn to my old friend, antipasto! It's easy, it's quick, everyone loves it, and you still look like a rock star for bringing it.

Such was the case recently when invited to a party and asked to bring a side dish. Well, technically antipasto is an appetizer, but that's besides the point. I headed out to DiVitis Market in Akron and loaded up!

Armed with pepperoni, provolone, artichoke hearts, olives, pepperoncini and some mild mixed picked veggies, a gorgeous antipasto is born.




So don't stress out. Get yourself a kick ass zebra striped platter, and throw together an antipasto and watch it disappear!

Hudson Tastes Good!

For the second year in a row, Nick and I decided to go to Taste of Hudson. We used to go to Taste of Cleveland, but it changed a lot over the years and basically turned into just another festival. They stopped having chef demos, which was our favorite part. We even saw Curtis Aikens there doing a demo one year. He was fantastic!

Taste of Hudson is fantastic. You have music, food, demos, food, vendors and even more food! Amazing restaurants set up booths for this two day event. Good luck finding a funnel cake. And the prices are great. Most things are not over $5.

We decided to hit as many of the demos as possible, but arriving around 1:15 pm on Sunday, the first one was already underway and all the tickets for the second one had been given out already. The ticket is free, you just need it to have a sample of the demo chefs creation. And believe me, you want a sample! So we had over an hour and a half to kill, walking around in the sun and waiting for the 3:00 pm demo so we decided to try something. Well I take that back, we decided we had to have the homemade potato chips from Hudson on the Green Restaurant. We had them last year and knew we had to have them again! Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of this wonderful creation so hopefully my description will suffice. They start out with crispy thin potatoes and top them with chopped tomatoes, scallions, bacon, Gorgonzola cheese and balsamic glaze. They are so incredibly savory and delicious. Nick and I don't even like Gorgonzola and we love them!

After enjoying our chips, it was finally time for our first demo with chef Frank Zifer of Virtues Restaurant. Although we've never eaten there, Nick and I were rather familiar with this restaurant. It's located inside Akron City hospital and Nick's mother was a patient there for quite some time last year. We walked past the restaurant almost every day when we were visiting her and always said, "we should eat there sometime."




Chef Zifer's demo started the day off right! He made penne pasta with grilled chicken, arugula, peppers, artichokes, mushrooms and tomatoes in a roma tomato cream sauce and topped with Romano cheese. It was simple, the ingredients were delicious and fresh (he couldn't find any good arugula so used spinach instead - and in the end he totally forgot to use it at all, proving that even the best of chefs can make those little mistakes). The recipe was very versatile. If you don't like artichokes, leave them out or use vegetables you do like. He sauteed the vegetables together in a pan with very little olive oil, added salt and pepper and a little stock then tossed in the already cooked penne and some of the sauce. When he served he put grilled chicken on top and a sprinkling of cheese. It was amazing!




Next up at 4:00 pm was Rick Carson of Vue. Vue is a in the First and Main area of Hudson, which is where this event took place.




His dish was wild mushroom crostini. Chef Carson loves his mushrooms. He spoke so passionately about them and his "crazy mushroom guy" in Oregon where he gets a lot of his mushrooms from. His enthusiasm was intoxicating! He used a generous mixture of many different mushrooms from cremini, to chanterelle, to morel, to maitake all sauteed together with a small amount of oil and then finished off with some spinach and some cream. Then he put that mixture over a crispy slice of crostini and topped it with manchego cheese. It was incredibly delicious.




Our 5:00 pm demo was with Don Bitter of the Old Whedon Grill. The restaurant is family owned and operated. That is something we love to hear. They also make most everything from scratch. Also something we love to hear!


The demo was for spinach and artichoke dip with tortilla chips. The recipe was simple and straight forward.. saute onions and garlic in butter until soft, add some flour to form a roux, stir in some half and half (you could use cream on the fat end or skim milk on the lower fat end), then sour cream, then frozen chopped spinach and chopped artichoke hearts. Stir in the mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses at the end. The mixture cooks on the stove for about an hour, although I would probably put it in a baking dish and bake it instead.




Since it didn't have that time to cook, and really only cooked for all of 5 minutes or so, the taste wasn't really there. It just tasted like cream and spinach. It could also use some seasonings, which I don't recall him adding. The chips were very nice. We loved the mixture of the different types of corn and he did say that they fry them at the restaurant. Nice touch.

Our last demo of the day was 6:00 pm with Chef Roger Thomas of Piatto Novo. The restaurant is located in the Sheraton Hotel in Cuyahoga Falls.




Chef Thomas was making Chicken Involtini (with asparagus, Parmesan and lemon sauce). Involtini literally means a thin slice of meat with stuffing. I'd been looking forward to this one all day! He started out by showing us a pounded out chicken breast. It wasn't as flat as you want it for a cutlet, but still flattened out some. Then he put a chunk of Parmesan and several springs of blanched asparagus in the chicken and rolled it up, tying it together with kitchen twine. From there he put it in a saute pan with a little olive oil to brown, then added some white wine and chicken stock, salt and pepper. At the end of the cooking, he squeezed in some lemon juice and it was ready to serve.




I cannot even begin to describe how much flavor this little piece of chicken had. The cheese completely melts down into the meat and the asparagus was tender as the chicken! I love asparagus, but for me it's not really practical to buy this time of year. I would love to try this with maybe zucchini in the middle. But come spring and the abundance of asparagus, oh yes, I'll be trying it his way!

All the chefs were very willing to give out their recipes. They were all fun to watch but Chef Thomas, he was the rock star. Everyone was in awe of him and wanted to see him. He definitely had a bolder presence. Hmmm... maybe we'll see him someday on Iron Chef taking on Cleveland's rock star chef Michael Symon!

After the demos, we walked around some more and tried to figure out what we really wanted to eat. Nick decided on Otani's in Hudson. He had beef teriyaki, a spring roll and edamame. I decided on Luchita's and had a spinach and potato empanada and a taquito. Again, I somehow forgot to take pictures of the food we bought. But it was all delicious! We then bought some cupcakes from 3foodies and some baklava from I can't remember where. Both to take home because dessert had to be Cold Stone Creamery! I had Peanut Butter Cup Perfection and Nick had Apple Pie Ala Cold Stone. What a great topper to a great day!

Ahh Summer Tomatoes and Panzanella Salad!

The tomatoes are abundant! This year I grew seven different varieties of heirloom... Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, Pink Caspian, Black Sea Man, Green Zebra, Red Zebra, and Pruden's Purple. Well it turned out my Pruden's Purple plant is actually another Brandywine, but that's OK.

My usual tomato salad consists of tomatoes, cucumbers (from someones garden if I have them, if not, the English variety) and my own basil or mint. Nick and I have discovered that we like mint in our tomato salad just a touch more than we like the basil. But both are delicious. Then a sprinkling of extra virgin olive oil, a sprinkling of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste and enjoy! We have this every day when our tomatoes are ripe.

But yesterday, I decided to make a Panzanella Salad. It's a salad I love, and cannot find in too many restaurants. The dearly departed Serpico's on State Rd in Cuyahoga Falls had it on their menu and made it exactly how I wanted it. Not many restaurants will do that for you.

My Panzanella consisted of a big juicy Brandywine tomato, chopped fresh Mozzarella cheese, chopped fresh basil and cut up chunks of a delicious Ciabatta bread (Northeast Ohio folks, keep your eyes on that Orlando "Oops" rack in Marc's stores - I've gotten delicious Ciabatta loaves, french breads and OMG out of this world Asiago loaves!).





If I had to guess on proportions of the dressing I would say 2 Tablespoons of balsamic and 3 Tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. But honestly I just pour. Salt and pepper as you wish and toss. Once the salad is mixed, let it sit for a few minutes so the juices of the tomato combine with the dressing. Before serving, toss in your bread chunks. The dressing soaks into the bread and oh so delish! Don't do this too much before serving or you run the risk of soggy bread. It's still yummy, don't get me wrong. But it's better if it's still a little firm, I think so anyway.




Unfortunately my finished product picture came out blurry. I but hopefully you can still get the idea of it's juicy fresh deliciousness.

Raisins, Two for the Price of One

My father in law has asked me from time to time to make him rice pudding. He said no one ever makes it anymore and he loves it. I've never made it before, but I thought I would give it a try. I found some recipes, and as I usually do, took the things I liked out of several to create my own. I started out with a short grain white rice, arborio is good. One of the recipes said to bring 4 cups of water to a boil and then add 1 cup rice and cook for two minutes. I decided to give that a try and it worked out well. Blanching the rice seems like the way to go here.




Once that is done, or while it's cooking actually, heat up 4 cups of milk. I suggest you use whole milk for this. I don't know how it would turn out if you used a lower fat content of milk. You do not want the milk to boil at this point, just warm it. The the milk add the flavorings of your choice. My choice was vanilla extract, a little cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg.




When the rice is done blanching, turn the heat up on the milk some and let it get to a very light boil, then add the rice to the milk. Cover and simmer on a very low heat for 30-45 minutes. If you have a gas stove, as I do, you may want to check on the rice several times and give it a stir. I can never seem to get my flame low enough no matter how low it is!

After 40 minutes or so (it should be thick and creamy), add half a cup of sugar and stir well. Then turn off the heat. Add 3 Tablespoons of unsalted butter and stir to incorporate completely. After the butter is mixed in, add 2 egg yolks, one at a time, mixing each one into the rice completely. Then add in your raisins. I used about 3/4 cup.




This really isn't pretty too look at, but it tasted absolutely delicious! Nick and I were both very pleasantly surprised by how yummy it was.

RICE PUDDING

4 cups whole milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. cinnamon
dash nutmeg
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup short grain rice (like arborio)
3 Tbsp. unsalted butter
2 egg yolks

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil, add rice and cook for 2 minutes, drain. In the meantime, heat 4 cups of whole milk with the vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg. When rice is drained, turn up the heat and bring milk to a very light boil. Add rice and stir. Cover and simmer on a very low heat for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

After 30-40 minutes, stir in sugar until completely incorporated. Turn off the heat and stir in the butter until completely melted. Then add one egg yolk at a time and stir completely after each yolk. Serve warm.


And since I had to buy raisins for the rice pudding, I decided to make some oatmeal raisin cookies too. I did not have enough butter to make the recipe I usually make so I had to search. I found a great recipe on the Simple Recipes blog that used all shortening, no butter. I wouldn't usually make a recipe that is all shortening since I prefer butter but in this case I made the exception. The blog was so great, and reminded me so much of the recipes I have that are handwritten by my own Grandmother.

This recipe is SO simple it's not even funny! Start out by creaming the shortening with brown and white sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well.




Sift the dry ingredients together... flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon.




Add to the creamed shortening and sugar mixture and mix well. Then add your raisins and nuts if desired. I used pecans because I had them on hand. Then add the oats last, mixing them in by hand.


Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls or with a tablespoon cookie scoop, and place on greased baking sheets. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. Leave on sheet for about 2 minutes after they come out of the oven, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy!




Grandma's Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
3 cups oats (you can use quick or old fashioned, but not instant!)
3/4 cups chopped walnuts
1 cup raisins

Cream shortening and sugars, add eggs and vanilla and beat well.

Sift flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon. Add to first mixture and mix well. Add raisins and nuts. Add oats last, stirring in by hand.

Spoon by rounded tablespoonfuls on to a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Leave on sheet for 2 minutes after coming out of the oven, then remove to a wire rack and cool completely.

Stromboli? Calzone? Call it what you will!

Do I call this Stomboli? Or Calzone? Or sausage bread? Or fold over pizza? I don't know. I guess it could be called any of those things. I just call it yummy! Looking around at what I had in the house yesterday I decided I had to make use of some zucchini my in laws had given me, the sausage I made with my Grandma and Mom a few months ago, and whatever else I could find in the house or in the garden.

I decided I wanted to make a dough and wrap all these amazing ingredients up in it. So I made my Grandma's delicious pizza dough.

1 1/2 teaspoons of dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 1/2 - 3 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons olive oil

Proof the yeast by placing it in the bowl of your mixture with 1/2 cup of warm water and let sit for about 10 minutes.

After that time, add the other cup of warm water and combine well. Add 3 cups of flour, salt and olive oil and mix with a dough hook.



When all combine, and the dough comes off the sides of the mixing bowl (you may need to add more flour), put in a well oiled bowl and let rise for 2 hours. This dough is enough for two pizzas.

So, while the dough is rising now is the time to put together everything else. I've got the sausage... sadly, the last of the sausage. I have the zucchini that I decided to shred.




What else? I went out to the garden and picked the leek I had been growing as well as some tomatoes and herbs.




What we have here (tomatoes - front to back) is a Black Sea Man, a Red Zebra and a Caspian Pink. Also we have mint, sweet basil and opal basil. And behind all that is the leek I guess I left in the ground too long! It was huge!!!

So, I crumbled the sausage and sauteed it with the shredded zucchini and chopped leek, with a little pepper. I do not add salt to this because the sausage has plenty of salt in it. You need to cook this until all the water that comes out of the zucchini cooks out.




For the second one, I again crumbled the sausage and sauteed it with chopped leek and spinach. The spinach was bought, but I had it and it needed to be used up. Again, you need to cook this until all the water that comes out of the spinach cooks out. You don't want soggy bread!



With both fillings done, and the dough nicely risen, it was time to stuff! Oh my, this is getting exciting! I spread the dough out on a lightly oiled baking sheet and then put the filling on and sprinkled with some basil from the garden and little mozzarella cheese.




Then I folded up the dough and vented it a little on top and brushed with a little olive oil.




It then goes into a 425 degree oven. And comes out looking like this!!




I served it with the rest of my garden treasures... the tomatoes, a cucumber from my brother's garden, and my mint with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar.




If you want you can make a marinara dipping sauce for the bread, but quite frankly, it didn't seem necessary to us. The bread was absolutely delicious!

Martha does me proud with peanut butter ice cream

Martha Stewart's recipes don't always turn out how she says they should. I don't know why that is, but it is. Not this time though. When I saw the recipe for Peanut Butter Ice Cream in the July issue of Living, I knew I would have to make this for Nick. The man is a peanut butter freak. But if you decide to make this recipe, be prepared because it's a bit of a process. And do not forget to freeze your ice cream maker insert!

You start out by heating the cream and the milk with a cup of cocktail peanuts. As you can see from the photo, I used Spanish peanuts because that was what I had on hand.



Once bubbles start to form, remove the pan from the heat, cover and let steep for 3 hours at room temperature. Or if you prefer, you can do this part the day before and let it sit overnight in the fridge.

After it has steeped (or the next day), reheat the mixture until it's hot, but not boiling. In the meantime, in a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks, sugar and salt together.




When the peanut mixture is hot, remove from the heat and slowly and steadily whisk it into the eggs and sugar in a steady stream. If you don't have someone available to help you either do the whisking or the pouring, you can do what I did and put a kitchen towel under the bowl so it doesn't move while you pour and whisk at the same time. Who knew I was so coordinated! I sure didn't. When the peanut mixture is all incorporated into the egg mixture, return it to the saucepan and put the heat back on.




Stir constantly over medium heat. You do not want to let this come to a simmer but you do want it to thicken up just enough to coat the back of a spoon.




Now that it's thickened, strain out all the solids with a very fine sieve and pour into a bowl. It seems like a sin to discard all those nuts, but that's what you have to do with them. And quite honestly, when you see how soggy and gross they look, you won't mind tossing them out anymore. Place the bowl in an ice water bath. All that means is to get a bowl bigger than the one your mixture is in and fill it half way with ice and water. Then set the whole bowl with the ice cream mixture into the bowl with the ice water. Stir in the vanilla and then stir occasionally until the mixture is cold. This should take about 20 minutes or so.




From here, follow the instructions on your ice cream maker. Mine is Cuisinart and it only took about 20 minutes to get to the consistency needed, which is of very soft ice cream. Once it gets to this stage, fold in a cup of your favorite peanut butter. It could be smoothy or chunky but the recipe recommends that you not use natural peanut butter because the texture doesn't work as well. I'm very glad it said that in the recipe because I love my natural peanut butter and probably would have used it. Then I'd be blaming Martha again for steering me wrong!

You can dig in right then if you like your ice cream kind of melty. But I transferred mine to one of those handy dandy plastic won ton soup containers I love so much and froze it for a little while. It makes about a quart and a half. The peanut flavor of the ice cream is wonderful and the peanut butter swirled inside the ice cream just makes it that much better. Enjoy!




Peanut Butter Ice Cream

2 cups heavy cream
2 cups whole milk
1 cup salted cocktail peanuts
6 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup peanut butter

Heat cream, milk and peanuts in a medium saucepan over medium heat until bubbles begin to form around the edges. Remove from heat, cover and let steep at room temperature for 3 hours (or refrigerate overnight).

Prepare and ice-water bath. Uncover cream mixture, and reheat until hot but not boiling. Whisk yolks, sguar and salt in a large bowl. Add cream mixture in a slow, steady stream, whisking constantly until well combined. Return mixture to saucepan, and stir constantly over medium heat until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon (about 8 minutes). Do not let the mixture come to a simmer.

Strain through a fine sieve into a bowl. Discard solids. Set the blow in the ice water bath. Stir in vanilla and let cool, stirring occasionally, until cold, about 20 minutes.

Freeze mixture in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's directions. Transfer to a large bowl and fold in peanut butter until ice cream is swirled. Use immediately or freeze for up to 1 week.