Chanterelle Mushroom Cornbread Stuffing with Fennel and Parsnip

Dressing is another one of things that everyone A) does differently and B) feels very strongly about when the holidays roll around. It’s a vehicle for ethnicity, for tradition, or for some, simply for gravy. For me, Thanksgiving / Christmas is about the turkey, and the dressing should serve to complement it by including all of the veggies and carbs you should need to round out the rest of the food groups as well as all of the flavors of the season that you can’t cram into a bird. While I’d love to regale you with tales of a grandmother’s secret recipe or something I stumbled upon on a vacation to some fantastic foreign land or domestic hole in the wall, I really just put together a bunch of flavors I like and borrowed the technique from a few different recipes.

I start with a great chicken stock – Ina Garten’s, to be exact. As you may have heard from advanced food snobs – the ones that sneer at the term ‘foodie’ and look down their nose at the Food Network – the Barefoot Contessa is probably the best purely cooking show on the ‘Network. She employs classic techniques and gives helpful shortcuts in plain language – someone you can actually learn from and be entertained by at the same time. However, as you can tell by her elaborately equipped kitchen and pricey ingredients, you sometimes have to make slight adjustments to make things affordable. Rather than whole chickens, I like to use chicken backs to make stock. Talk to a butcher / meat counter attendant and they’ll gladly give you a huge amount of them for very little money. I like to get them from the chicken purveyor at my local farmer’s market – the chickens are naturally raised and end up costing something like $20 for a pretty small bird. But, once the breasts and legs and other meaty parts are hacked away, the backs are left – and can be yours for $3 or so per pound. I make a huge pot full at a time – they’re called stock pots for a reason – and then freeze the end product. Big holiday meals are all about make-ahead shortcuts, and this is no exception. The basic flavors in this chicken stock are some of the foundational elements of French cooking. Onions, celery, and carrots comprise the French holy trinity – the mirepoix. Even if you don’t like one of those three vegetables, if you try chicken soup without one of them, you’ll feel like something is missing. The herbs in Ina’s stock are also classic – thyme, parsley, dill, bay leaf, and sage. Having made a batch of stock to use, I also use the same veggies and herbs in the stuffing.

Chanterelle mushrooms are one of my favorite fancy schmancy mushrooms. They’re the ones at Whole Foods that are yellowish in color right under the staggering $29.99 / lb price sticker. But, fear not – they’re pretty lightweight, so they’re not actually that expensive, especially relative to the ridiculous amount of flavor that they contain. You can roast them dry or sautee them in butter or olive oil, and the aroma that fills your kitchen will convince you of it. They’re in season in the Fall, generally between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. Sticking with seasonality for this dressing, parsnip adds a bit more earthy sweetness and fennel adds an oniony licorice flavor that really brings it all together

Ingredients

• 2 medium onions, diced
• 2 ribs of celery, diced
• 2 carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 parsnip, peeled and diced
• 1 fennel bulb, diced
• 1/2 lb of chanterelle mushrooms, cleaned and diced
• 1 1/2 lbs cornbread, cubed and dried (I buy a bag full at the grocery store as a shortcut)
• 1 quart chicken stock (I make it in advance as a shortcut)
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
• 2 tablespoons of fresh sage
• 1 tablespoon of fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon of fresh parsley
• 1 tablespoon of fresh dill
• 1 bay leaf
• 5 eggs

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. If you’re making this at the same time as you’re roasting a turkey, just keep it at the temperature that you need the oven at for the turkey
• Sautee the onions in a big frying pan or wok using a tablespoon or so of butter and a half cup of chicken stock. Once the onions are translucent, add in the celery and another tablespoon of butter and half cup of stock. Repeat with the fennel, celery, carrots, parsnip, fennel, and mushrooms.  Once everything is in the pan, add the garlic and herbs, reduce heat to low and let simmer while you prepare the pan
• Line a large baking pan with foil – it’ll make cleanup a lot easier. Spray the foil with cooking spray – this will keep the bottom from sticking and burning. Add in the cornbread cubes – they should almost fill the pan, leaving ½ inch or so of space at the top
• Remove the bay leaf from the simmering veggie/mushroom/butter/stock mixture and pour the mixture over the cornbread cubes. Use a wooden spoon to stir and mix it all together. You’ll probably need to add in more stock or water at this point – you want all of the bread to be moist. So, add in a cup of stock and a cup of water and repeat until it’s covered. Use your wooden spoon to press down on the mixture to help with this. Once you’re at this point, cover the pan with foil and stick it in the oven.
• After almost an hour has passed, beat the 5 eggs. You can add in a little milk if that’s how you like your scrambled eggs, which I certainly do. Take the pan of dressing out of the oven and remove the foil. Pour the eggs over the dressing and use a wooden spoon to quickly fold it into the mixture – if you go too slowly, the eggs will cook before having a chance to mix in with the dressing. (I like my dressing to be moist, but if you like yours on the drier side you can add the eggs in when you’re putting everything together before going into the oven.) Put the dressing back into the oven, uncovered, and crank the heat up to 400 degrees. If you’re making this at the same time as the turkey, time it such that you’re taking the turkey out to rest at this point. After half an hour, take the dressing out of the oven and you’re done. The smell alone will make everyone in your house go weak in the knees. It should be perfectly moist and flavorful – make sure everyone tries it WITHOUT gravy first – most of them will probably never let any gravy touch it after that

Bacon-Wrapped Turkey

Ah, the turkey. As much as it is a labor of love, it can be very nerve-wracking roasting a turkey. As is well documented in family cooking lore, magazine articles, and every morning talk show in November, the white meat cooks much more quickly than the dark meat. People try all sorts of tricks to get around this, from the traditional (tenting, frequent basting, brining), to the trendy quick fix (frying), to the complicated / desperate (splatching, separating the parts (and putting them back together with meat glue if you’re Wylie Dufresne)). My personal solution is a solution that a lot of people use for a lot of different problems: bacon.

Bacon serves 4 purposes here:

• It protects the outer layer of breast meat from drying out
• The fat renders and ‘bastes’ the turkey as it cooks
• The drippings mix with the turkey drippings and make for an amazing gravy
• It’s tasty

It also seems to act as an anti-depressant / inspiration to some people, but I’ll consider that an off-label benefit.

The act of producing this beast can be divided into 7 steps. Timing here is for a beast of a 20-lb turkey. The rule of thumb is 15 minutes per pound of meat, so that’s 5 hours in the oven for this bird. The basic steps are:

1. Brine the bird (24 hours pre-service)
2. Prep the bird (6 hours pre-service)
3. Get the bird in the oven (5 hours pre-service)
4. Baste every 30-45 minutes (from 4.5 hours pre-service up until 30 min pre-service)
5. Remove from the oven and let it rest (20 min pre-service)
6. Use the pan drippings to make gravy (right after you take the turkey out)
7. Carve (5 min pre-service) and serve!

So, here we go…

1. Brine the bird (24 hours pre-service)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of sea salt
• 1 cup of light brown sugar
• 1 apple, diced (don’t peel it or seed it or anything)
• 1 orange, diced (same idea)
• 1 T. peppercorns, whole
• 1 t. juniper berries, whole
• 1 dash of worcestershire sauce
• 1 dash of aged balsamic vinegar
• 1 sprig each of fresh thyme, sage, dill, and parsley
• 1 brining bag (large plastic zip lock bag that the turkey can fit in)

Method:

• Combine all ingredients with 6 cups of water in a medium saucepan and bring to a  boil
• Reduce heat to low and simmer for half an hour and then remove from heat
• Refrigerate mixture (the brine) until it’s cool (doesn’t have to be ice cold)
• Rinse and dry off the turkey. Take the giblets out of the cavity and put them in the fridge – you’ll need them for the gravy
• Place turkey in the brining bag and then pour in the brine on top of it, and then zip it up tightly while trying to get as much air out of the bag as possible
• Set the turkey in the fridge breast-side down so that the breast is soaking in the brine
• Early the next morning, flip the whole thing breast-side up
• An hour before getting the bird in the oven, remove the bird from the brine. Thoroughly rinse off all of the brine (including inside the cavity) and pat the bird dry with paper towels

2. Prep the bird (6 hours pre-service)

Ingredients:

• Handful of fresh thyme, sage, dill, and parsley – all washed, rubbed, picked, and minced
• 3 T. crushed black pepper
• 1 package of hickory smoked, uncured bacon (as natural as possible)
• 2 lemons, quartered
• 1 head of garlic, cut in half cross-wise (so that all cloves are cut in half)
• 1/2 stick of softened/melted butter

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees
• Prepare the fresh herbs. Rinse them all and dry them off  - they’re pretty dirty if you get them from the farmers’ market. The rub them between your fingers or hands – this releases more of the oils (flavors) that are in the leaves. Now remove the leaves from the stems – you only want the leaves, not the woody stems. Finally, mince all of them and combine them in a small bowl with 2 T. or so of crushed black pepper
• Find where the skin separates from the breast meat on the turkey. Stick your fingers in between the skin and the meat, and then plunge them into the space to lift the skin away from the breast meat all over. Make sure your hands are clean first! Then, take handfuls of the herb and pepper mixture and distribute it underneath the skin. This flavors the white meat and presents a much tastier option for those choosing to eat healthy/boring and skip the skin
• Quarter the lemons and halve the garlic. Roll the lemon slices in the rest of the crushed black pepper and then put the lemons and garlic in the cavity of the turkey. Then, close the legs and truss/tie them
• Now, the bacon. Lay it down in strips on top of the breast so that they cover it. Then, pin the strips in place with toothpicks – otherwise they’ll fall off when they crisp up
• Use the butter to pain the legs, thighs, wings, and any other part of the turkey not covered in bacon
• Proceed to the next step…

3. Get the bird in the oven (5 hours pre-service)

Ingredients:

• Giblets without the liver

Method:

• Wait until the oven is pre-heated to 425 degrees
• Place the triumphantly bacon-wrapped, butter-basted turkey on a roasting pan with a wire rack and put the whole thing in the oven
• After 30 min, lower the temperature to 325 degrees
• Put the giblets in a small sauce pan with enough water to barely cover them. Turn the heat on and set it to low – the giblets will simmer the whole time the turkey is roasting so that you get the maximum amount of flavor possible from the giblets

4. Baste the bird (from 4.5 hours pre-service up until 30 min pre-service)

Method:

• Wait until the oven is pre-heated to 425 degrees
• Place the triumphantly bacon-wrapped, butter-basted turkey on a roasting pan with a wire rack and put the whole thing in the oven
• After 30 min, lower the temperature to 325 degrees
• Baste the turkey every 30-45 min with the drippings in the pan (tilt the pan to make this easier). And yes, basting the turkey means basting the bacon. With its own fat + turkey fat. You can taste the America already
• Check the simmering giblets (which is pretty good name for a band) to make sure there is enough water such that they’re just barely submerged. If not, add hot water until they are

5. Remove the bird from the oven and let it rest (20 min pre-service)

Method:

• Take the bird out of the oven and set on a table
• Transfer the bird and the wire rack to a separate area

6. Use the pan drippings to make gravy (20 min pre-service)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. Maker’s Mark bourbon
• 1/4 c. honey
• Liver from the giblet pouch that you saved
• 1 c. Unflavored bread crumbs

Method:

• Pour the pan drippings into a fat separator, and pour the drippings (minus the fat) into a medium-size sauce pan. If you don’t have a fat separator, pour the drippings directly into the saucepan and use a big spoon to skim the fat off the top (save the fat if you want to use it to confit some leftover turkey dark meat, or use it to make sweet potato french fries, or anything else that would be great with turkey and bacon fat). Turn the heat up to medium low so that the drippings simmer
• Pour the bourbon into the roasting pan to deglaze it. This means taking a wooden spoon and scraping around to loosen up the burnt black bits from the bottom of the pan. Pour the remaining bourbon-and-black-bits mixture into the drippings
• Add in the honey and stir to combine
• Add in the liver and simmer for 5 minutes
• Use an immersion blender to puree the liver
• Gradually add in bread crumbs a tablespoon at a time and puree using the immersion blender until you have your desired thickness. You can thicken a gravy with a lot of things – a roux, corn starch, flour, potato – but breadcrumbs are the easiest. They don’t clump up, they require no prep, and they add a little flavor of their own. Anyway, remember that as the gravy cools, it will thicken slightly, so don’t add in too much bread crumbs or you’ll need a spoon to serve the gravy

7. Carve and serve ! (5 min pre-service)




Method:

• Start by first removing the legs and wings from the turkey and place on a large serving platter
• Then, use a carving knife to remove both breasts from the turkey – they’re much easier to carve once separated from the rest of the body. Then, use the carving knife to slice the breast and place on the serving platter
• Use a paring knife and a fork to pull the thigh meat, back, and shoulder meat from the turkey and place on a serving platter
• Enjoy!!!!

Shrimp and Grits with heirloom tomatoes and pimento peppers

My Dad grew up in Augusta, GA and I grew up in Maryland, which is technically (and definitively) below the Mason-Dixon line. So, I like to consider myself half-southern. My annual visits to Grandma’s house have built in me a deep-seated love for pulled pork barbecue (Georgia- / Carolina-style, of course), fried chicken, baked macaroni & cheese, and all the other things fried, slow-cooked, and/or loaded with butter/cream. Shrimp & Grits, however, can be miraculously healthy in comparison to the indulgences listed above. You can flavor it any way you want, using hot peppers or fruit or meat or even just extra butter.

The flavor in this version comes from hot peppers and Old Bay, a spice that you swear by if you’re from the DC area (or at least the mid-Atlantic), or, one you’ve never heard of if you’re not. For those not on the Acela route, it’s a spice you’d probably recognize as the main flavoring in crab cakes. In Maryland we throw it on all kinds of seafood as well as chicken, french fries, popcorn, potato chips, etc. Good stuff.

For those not familiar with grits, you may recognize them by their other name: polenta. Whatever you call it, it’s a thick, corn-based porridge that’s usually served with some kind of meat or egg or flavoring. Every culture in the world has some kind of starchy porridge that the poorer people (often the best, most creative cooks by necessity) eat with a scant amount of meat in order to make that meat go further – fufu in Africa, poi in Hawaii, etc. In the American south, it’s grits. You can buy the instant version, which are ready quicker, but they’re bleached and don’t turn out as creamy as the version that takes a little while longer (which I used here).

Ingredients:

• 1 lb Shrimp, shelled and de-veined
• 1 T. Old Bay seasoning
• 2-3 medium-sized tomatoes, diced (I used 3 different colors of heirloom tomato)
• 1 hot pepper, seeded and diced (I used a pimento in this one, but a jalapeno or serrano would work too)
• 1 medium-sized sweet onion, diced (I like Maui or Vidalia) or a few smaller ones (e.g., shallots)
• At least 1 T. butter, but you can easily use a whole stick
• 1 c. Grits
• 3 c. milk
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• Salt & pepper to taste

Recipe:

1. Rinse and pat dry the shrimp. Cover them in the Old Bay seasoning and put them back in the fridge
2. Prepare the grits according to the packaging (whether you got the Quick version of the real version), but use milk instead of water – it’s much creamier that way. I use skim milk, but any kind will do. This is basically the same way you cook rice on the stove – add the grits and water/milk, bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat to low and simmer until done. If you’d like, fold some more butter into the grits a tablespoon at a time
3. While the grits are simmering, melt the butter in a large frying pan and sautee the onion, garlic, and hot pepper. Once the onions are soft and translucent, throw in the shrimp and cook for 3-4 minutes or until they are opaque
4. Ladle the grits into bowls, top with the shrimp/onions/garlic/peppers and the fresh diced tomatoes and serve immediately with some salt & pepper and hot sauce on the side

Options:

• Let’s start with the obvious – bacon. Cut some up and then fry the pieces with the shrimp to give them a smoky, sweet, bacony twist, or add the bacon bits just before plating so that the shrimp aren’t overwhelmed by bacon grease
• Cheese! Shred some cheddar or smoked gouda (or anything else, really) over the finished product or mixed into the grits
• Add some corn and/or black beans to make it more southwestern, or skip the hot pepper to make it more southern
• My Dad likes his grits with an egg (barely) fried over easy, a practice I’m only now learning to appreciate after loving gently poached eggs in eggs benedict – same idea at a fraction of the cost. So, feel free to throw a fried egg on top of your shrimp and grits, or skip the shrimp altogether (especially if you’re a vegetarian that eats eggs)
• Add some greens – braised collard greens or kale would be the southern way to go, but you can also use spinach or chard
• Add a roasted veggie puree to the grits. When I made this dish, my friend Doug made some baked sweet potato fries that I ended up mashing into my grits after I’d finished my shrimp and it was amazing – definitely worth trying more deliberately some time

The Basics – Shrimp:

• When you buy shrimp, they’re classified by size according to how many fit in a pound. 51-60 are pretty small, 21-25 are jumbo, etc. The ones I used here are U15, meaning that there are less than 15 per pound
• If you’re buying them at the seafood counter of a grocery store, buy the ones that are untouched – unshelled, un-deveined, etc – and then have them shell and devein them. It’s free! If they’re shelled and deveined before you buy them (esp. before freezing), it probably happened a long time ago, which can mean less flavor and lame texture. Deveining removes the black/brown vein running along the top of the shrimp. This is actually the shrimp’s digestive tract… I don’t think I need to spell out why it’s black/brown. With smaller shrimp it’s less important to devein, but with the large ones you should definitely have it done at the store. It takes some complicated tools to devein without destroying the shrimp, but a paring knife will do in a pinch – if you’re a wiz with chopsticks, you can try using those too
• If you’re buying fresh shrimp, the shells should look almost clear. Use them within 24 hours of buying them if they’re fresh – seafood, especially shellfish, goes bad quickly. Shellfish in particular can pick up some pretty nasty bugs, even in just a day or two in the fridge
• When you’re grilling shrimp, you have to have something on them so they don’t burn or stick to the grill. Luckily, the shell will do just fine. If you hate shelling shrimp right before you eat them, you can give a peeled shrimp a coat of butter or olive oil. Alternatively, you can wrap it in something else that won’t burn or stick, like bacon or prosciutto – just remember to secure it with a toothpick or skewer first
• If you’re using toothpicks or wooden skewers, soak them in water before putting them on the grill so they don’t burn. If you do use skewers, slide all of the shrimp off of the skewer before eating them. It’s not corn on the cob
• Shrimp cook very quickly! They only need a minute or so per side on the grill, and they’ll keep cooking after being taken off the grill for a little bit. They also tend to cool down very quickly, so make sure the rest of the meal is ready to go when you put the shrimp on the heat
• No grill? Sautee / fry / boil em! Follow the same rules though – spray/brush/wrap them with something, don’t cook for more than a total of 3 or 4 minutes over high heat, and be ready to serve them immediately

Until recently, my only experiences with beets up until now were of the salad bar variety and the Doug variety. I saw these Italian heirloom beets at the farmers’ market though and decided to give them a shot. Beets are pretty sweet, but you have to coax it out of them by roasting them a bit – it concentrates the sugars. It also helps to cook them in something that has some sweetness to it to help it along.

Ricotta is one of my favorite cheeses. It’s healthy, inexpensive, and quite tasty. Yes, cheese can be healthy! Ricotta is made from whey, which is a byproduct from the production of other cheeses, which means it’s generally pretty cheap. It also means it’s almost all protein – whey, after all, is the stuff most commonly used in protein powders. I use the hard version, ricotta salata, as my go-to cheese to shred and add to anything. It doesn’t melt very well since it doesn’t have much oil in it, but the health benefits are worth it for me. I use the soft version of ricotta in dishes like these – you might have used it in a lasagna or stuffed shells recipe before. It’s light, creamy, a little salty, and a little sweet – great for adding texture to something when you don’t want to dominate all the flavors around it – like this one…



Ingredients:

• 1 bunch of beets, peeled and sliced thin – a millimeter or two if you can manage that
• 1 pint of cherries
• 1 T. ginger, grated or minced
• 1 thai chili pepper, seeded and minced
• Juice and zest of one lemon
• Up to 1 T. honey (optional)
• 2 shots of Cabernet Sauvignon (can use Shiraz, Barolo, etc.)
• 1 shot of Meyers’s Dark rum (can use Goslins’s Black Rum, Bacardi Dark Reserve, etc.)
• 1 4 oz. container of fresh soft ricotta (can use chevre or unflavored Boursin)
• 1 t. fresh thyme or 1/3 t. dried thyme
• 1 t. aged balsamic vinegar (can use regular balsamic vinegar)
• Salt & pepper to taste

Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Wash, stem, and pit the cherries. They’re going to get pureed, so you can cut them before pitting them if it’s easier for you. I like to use a chopstick to put cherries – just hold them in one hand and poke a chopstick through the part where the pit is and it should poke out the other end! Anywhere, however you do it, add them to a small saucepan
3. Also add in the minced pepper, minced ginger, lemon juice, lemon zest, wine, and rum. Use an immersion blender to blend the ingredients (or throw everything in a real blender to do it). Place the saucepan over high heat to bring to a boil, and then reduce to low to simmer
4. While the sauce is reducing, peel and slice the beets. Use a mandoline to do the slicing if you have one – I don’t, so I just used my chef’s knife
5. Taste the sauce to see if it is sweet enough for your liking. If not, add honey until it is
6. Place the sliced beets in an oven-safe bowl. Pour the cherry sauce over the beets and stir them so that each beet is coated. Put the beets with sauce in the oven for 45-60 minutes, or until they’re soft
7. Put a few slices of beet on a fork. Add a dollop of ricotta, a drop or two of aged balsamic, and a few bits of thyme. Repeat! If you have friends around, I recommend forming an assembly line

Options:

• There are a couple different ways you can plate this. I did it here as single bites because it was for a dinner party, but you could also do it as a salad with some arugula
• The sauce can be made ahead of time – also try it on a pork loin roast or on biscuits or on basically anything
• The beets can be roasted ahead of time and refrigerated – they’re great cold too!

The Basics – Small Bites:

• If you’re having some friends over for dinner, small bites are fun way to entertain. It’s a great way to try out new flavors as a cook and as an eater, especially if you have something that is too delicate or too flavorful or just too expensive to make in larger quantities. It’s how fancy restaurants can serve a dozen (or two) courses – small bites, big flavors
• Make as much as possible ahead of time! Here I made made the sauce one day, sliced and roasted the beets another day, and then served them another day. Much easier!
• I like making soups and serving them as small bites – just use small bowls and small spoons. It’s a great way to make one modest-sized pot of soup and have 10 people try it
• If you’re serving individual bites and not just small plates, try plating them on spoons or forks (like I did here) or in shot glasses – something that is easy to use to eat instantly
• Another advantage to doing single bites like this is that you control exactly what someone tastes when they eat it. If you had a pile of beets, a scoop of soft cheese, and some random sprinkles of thyme and balsamic vinegar, the person eating it will be assembling bites using any or all of these at a time. When you put that one bite together, you control exactly what they’re getting!

Pork chops, grilled pineapple, fresh avocado, quinoa

I first made this dish after a 4-month business trip to South Africa – it was an amazing trip, but I missed my kitchen! It incorporates one of my favorite spice blends of all time – Jerk Spice. You can find it in most supermarkets, but you may have to ask for it. If not, you can always make your own.

Give this one a shot the next time you need to taste summer again, e.g., when you would have taken that Caribbean vacation back when people could afford Caribbean vacations. The difficult part of this one is the timing – you may want to have someone else handle the quinoa, grilled pineapple, avocado, and sauce for you the first time you try it so you can focus on the chops. But, even if you mess things up somehow, even a mistake made with these ingredients will be tasty!

Ingredients:

• 2 center-cut pork chops, ~ 1/2 lb. each
• 1 pineapple, 1/2 of it chopped and 1/2 of it sliced (use fresh if at all possible!)
• 1 T ginger, grated (can use minced)
• 1/3 of a serrano pepper, seeded and minced
• 1 c chopped cipollini onions (can use shallots)
• 1 T jerk spice
• Juice and zest of 3 key limes (can use 1 medium-sized lime)
• 1 avocado
• 1 cup quinoa (can use cous cous, brown rice, wild rice, etc.)
• 1 spring onion
• 2 bottles of Red Stripe beer (can use Pacifico, Negro Modelo, etc.)
• 2 shots of Myers’s Dark Rum (can use Goslins’s Black Rum, Bacardi Dark Reserve, etc.)
• Salt & pepper to taste

Recipe:

1. Rinse pork chops and pat dry. Apply dry rub of jerk spike at least half an hour in advance (overnight is much better) and refrigerate
2. Prepare quinoa in a rice cooker (can use water, chicken stock, or a blend of both)
3. Using a blender, combine chopped pineapple, cipollini onions, serrano pepper, ginger, lime juice, lime zest. You don’t want to puree everything – you want it to be a little chunky, so use the ‘Pulse’ feature on the blender or just turn it on only for half a second at a time.
4. Coat the pork chops in pineapple mixture and sear in a hot, deep skillet for a minute on both sides. Use half of the mixture to do this, and put the rest into a sauce pan with a shot of Myers’s. Put the sauce pan over low heat, uncovered, and let simmer
5. Add a shot of the Myers’s to the skillet, and then add enough Red Stripe to just barely cover the chops. Bring almost to a boil – to the point where you’re just starting to see bubble rise up. Then cover the skillet (ideally with a glass lid) and reduce heat to low (to the point where the heat stays constant with the bubble barely coming up). Let the chops braise for 10-12 minutes or so depending on the thickness of the cut – you don’t want to overdo them
6. Meanwhile, while the chops are cooking, coat pineapple slices in jerk spice and grill them for 2 minutes per side (depending on thickness – ideally 1/3″ or so). If you don’t have a grill, you can use a grill pan – either way, make sure and spray whatever surface you’re using before throwing the pineapple on there or they’ll stick. Slice an avocado and coat slices with a little bit of lime juice so they don’t brown
7. Add salt, pepper, and chopped green part of the spring onion to the quinoa and add to plates
8. When the pork chops are done braising, remove them from the liquid, slice them, and place on top of the quinoa along with the pineapple and avocado slices
9. Pour remaining liquid into the saucepan with the reduced pineapple mixture. Drizzle combined mixture over the pork chops, pineapple, and avocado
10. Open up a few more Red Stripes and enjoy immediately

Options:

• If you like it spicier, add the whole serrano – including the seeds, if you’re really itching for it. But, don’t crank up the heat without trying it first – you’ll miss the sweetness of the pineapple and the tang of the ginger
• If you accidentally make it too spicy for your liking, add in some honey or sugar

The Basics – Braising:

• Braising is a fancy cooking word that basically means cooking with liquid at a relatively low temperature for a relatively long time. If you’ve ever seen someone make a pot roast, that’s braising. The possibilities are endless
• When you braise meat, you have to sear it first to lock in the juices and prevent contamination from raw meat. Searing, sometimes called browning, means briefly cooking over high heat – for a thick pork chop or steak or chicken breast, that’s a minute or so on each side. When you sear, make sure and rinse and dry the meat first or it won’t turn out quite right. After searing the meat, it’s put in a pot or pan and liquid is added until barely covering it (although some people say the meat should be 3/4 submerged). I like to use chicken stock (or whatever stock I have on hand) and wine (white or red depending on the meat)
• When you braise vegetables, there is no need to sear anything first, just toss them into the liquid. It turns nearly inedible hard veggies into soft, tasty morsels that are full of the flavor of the braising liquid. Root veggies (like rutabagas or carrots)  are great for braising, especially this time of year. Brussels sprouts are another unlikely hero when braised in enough malbec and lamb stock (or anything else)
• Braising is what Crock Pots were born to do, but you can do it just as well with a large pot on the stove or a baking dish in the oven
• When you’re done braising something, save the liquid! It can easily become a sauce for whatever you just cooked. Once you remove the meat/veggies from the pot, reduce the liquid by simmering over medium heat. Reducing means to evaporate some of the water, which makes the resulting liquid thicker. You can also add flour or corn starch to help with the thickening if you’d like. Or, if there were potatoes or leeks in the braise, you can leave them in and use an immersion blender to puree them with the liquid
• If you braise meat, the juices will start running out of it immediately after you slice it. So, if you have to slice/carve it before plating, don’t do it until the last minute

When I have Kim Chee in my fridge, it tends to find its way into a lot of meals – including breakfast. It’s a Korean creation that is basically spicy pickled cabbage. So, it’s like a healthier version of dumping hot sauce on your plate – you’re getting some veggies! Thanks to the Koji truck, hungry, inebriated people stumbling out of bars all over LA have discovered the joys of Korean-Mexican fusion in a big way. If that sounds weird, please give it a try. It’s amazing – it’s like deciding between two kinds of take-out and then just getting both.

The wasabe-ginger aioli here is optional on this breakfast burrito, but in the same way that enchilada sauce is on a real burrito: once you’ve had it, it’s an option you want every time. Aioli is basically just a fancy mayonnaise – so, if you don’t have olive oil and an egg, feel free to mix the wasabe and ginger with some mayo. You can use whatever kind of sausage you like – I prefer chicken chorizo for this one.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Kim Chee
• 2 Eggs (can use the equivalent amount of egg whites)
• 2 T. milk
• 1 Sausage, diced (whatever kind you like or have on hand – I’d go for turkey chorizo)
• Sprouts
• Pinto beans
• Wild rice
• 1 t. Soy sauce (can also add 1 t. sake, 1 t. mirin, 1/2 t. rice vinegar, and 1/2 t. sesame oil if you have them)
• 1 cup Olive oil
• 1 Egg yolk
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 1 t. Ginger, grated or minced
• 1 t. Wasabe
• 1 Tortilla
• Salt & pepper to taste

Recipe:

1. To make things easier, make the wasabe-ginger aioli ahead of time or have someone else make it while you’re making the burritos. In a food processor, combine the egg yolk, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt. Turn it on and slowly, gradually pour in the olive oil. If you don’t have a food processor, whisk it all together quickly in a bowl while someone else adds in the olive oil. Once it’s whipped up, add pepper and more salt if necessary and put it in the fridge. It has raw egg in it, so try and remember that it only lasts in the fridge for one day
2. Spray and heat up a non-stick frying pan. Add the kim chee, cooked sausage, sprouts, beans and cook over high heat for 2-4 minutes. Add in the soy sauce and sake/mirin/rice vinegar/sesame oil if you have them. If you don’t have both mirin and rice vinegar, don’t use either – otherwise it will be too sweet or acidic. Turn the heat down to low and simmer, uncovered, until you’re done making the eggs.
3. Put the tortilla on a cookie sheet / baking pan and into the oven and set the oven to 300 degrees. It should be ready by the time you’re done making the eggs.
4. Use the 2 eggs (or more or less if you feel like) and the milk to make scrambled eggs. Go on to the next step in the recipe if that’s enough for you to know how to do so.  So, I like to use milk because it makes the eggs more fluffy, but you can do them however you like. I like to scramble them using an immersion blender, which REALLY fluffs them up. But, however you do yours, don’t overcook them! Spray the pan beforehand and let it heat up before adding the egg mixture. Then, fry them over medium eat, constantly pushing them around in the pan with spatula, and turning off the heat while they still look a little wet. If you’re using a non-stick  pan, don’t use a metal spatula or you’ll end up eating flakes of non-stick in your eggs and getting cancer. Or something like that.
5. Once you’re done with the eggs, pull the tortilla out of the oven and top it with the eggs, the kim chee / sausage stir fry, and some of the aioli. Wrap it up and enjoy!

Options:

• Yes, this burrito needed some cheddar cheese, but I didn’t have any on hand
• If you want to amp up the Mexican flavors, add cilantro and/or salsa
• If you want to amp up the Korean flavors, add sesame seeds and/or some more soy sauce
• If you need more heat but not more kim chee, use Sriracha or more wasabe
• If you want to be a little healthier, skip the tortilla and enjoy this as a scramble. If you want to go in the other direction, leave the egg yolks in and/or use pork chorizo

The Basics – Chicken/Turkey Sausage:

• I always try and have a few varieties of chicken/turkey sausage on hand. It’s available at most grocery stores these days over by the meat counter and comes in a stunning variety of flavors. Those flavors are great short cuts to flavoring whatever you’re making – in this case, the spices from the chorizo pack a ton of Spanish/Mexican flavors that would otherwise require a lot more ingredients. My favorites are roasted red pepper, chorizo, andouille, and spicy Italian
• The brands of chicken/turkey sausage I get are pre-cooked, which makes a lot of my hurried weeknight meals possible. You can grill them whole, chop them up and sautee them, microwave them, or just eat them cold in you’re really short on time / motivation. I keep one or two packs of them in fridge and a few more in the freezer (stock up when they’re on sale, or head to Costco and try and find them). Don’t just leave the opened packages in the fridge though – throw them in a ziploc bag first
• Chicken/turkey sausage is healthier than beef/pork sausage too – much lower in saturated fat and sodium, depending on the brand you get
• So! These things are flavorful, healthy, and quick to prepare – perfect for when you get home from work at 9 PM and don’t want to subject yourself to another bland boneless skinless chicken breast, food coma-inducing burrito, or something that you won’t be done cooking and eating until midnight

Carrot-Ginger Soup with Greek Yogurt Dollop and Pimento-Harissa Drizzle and Grilled Shrimp

I have always loved carrots. The crunch, the sweetness, the color – definitely one of the best vegetables out there. Like most suburban kids, I grew up with a handful of the ‘baby’ version in my X-Men lunch box every weekday, but it wasn’t until I tried the farmer’s market variety that I really appreciated them – misshapen, dirty, and topped with an unnecessary amount of greens. Once you get them trimmed and cleaned up though, they’re much sweeter and earthier than the lunch box variety. I’ve been on a big ginger kick lately, which is a great counter to carrots. Voila, soup!

I like making soups creamy without using cream. To pull off this oxymoronic feat, I use leeks (but you could also use potatoes). It’s healthier, the flavors are clearer, and you don’t have to remember to buy cream at the store (or, really, you don’t have to judge just how spoiled the half-finished carton in your fridge happens to be). I do like having some element of clean, refreshing, cool dairy so I like to add a dollop to veggie puree soups. Creme fraiche is the classic one to use, but sour cream will do. I like using fat-free Greek yogurt – I buy it in large quantities for eating with granola and dried fruit, so I always seem to have some around.

Once I have the soup and the dollop, I like to take things one step further and add a drizzle. Yes – soups can have sauces, too! I like using them to balance the flavors in the soup – if it’s a sweet soup, I add a spicy drizzle. If it’s a tart soup, I add a sweet drizzle. It’s also a good way to let people customize how a soup tastes. We all have that one friend that can eat a dozen jalapeños without blinking, and we all have that one friend that can’t look at a picture of a jalapeño without cringing. Instead of making one soup that tries to please everyone, let people add the right amount of spice for themselves!

In this case, carrot soup tends to be pretty sweet, so I wanted to add some heat to it. I had a pimento left over from something else I had made earlier in the week, so that was definitely going to be part of this drizzle. I’ve also been itching to find some good uses for harissa, which is a North African chili paste. It has a deep, spicy, almost mysterious taste that adds a lot of depth (and heat) to anything it touches. Pimento and harissa would be too hot on their own, so I added a red bell pepper to round out the pepper taste with a little bit of sweetness, and adding some char by throwing the peppers on the grill would add to the smokiness of the harissa. All of this added up to a great sauce – also perfect for glazing shrimp to throw on the grill!

Ingredients:

• 1 lb. carrots, trimmed and cleaned and chopped
• 2 leeks, washed and chopped (discard the green parts)
• 2 shallots, peeled and chopped
• 2 T. butter
• 2 T. olive oil
• 1 T. ginger
• 2 c. chicken stock
• 1 pimento, cut in half and seeded
• 1 red bell pepper, cut in half and seeded
• 1 t. harissa
• 2 skewers’ worth of shrimp
• 2 pinches of rosemary
• Salt & pepper to taste

Recipe:

• Heat up 1 T. butter and 1 T. olive oil in a medium saucepan over high heat. I like to use both kinds of fat because the olive oil keeps the butter from burning, and the combination is smoother than either on their own. Once it’s hot, add the ginger and stir for a minute, careful not to let the ginger burn. Then, add one of the chopped shallots and stir every now and then until they’re translucent.
• Add the chopped carrots and leeks (white parts only) to the saucepan. Add enough chicken stock to cover everything. Bring to a boil and reduce the heat to low, letting it simmer
• In a separate, smaller saucepan, add the other tablespoons of butter and olive oil and melt them over high heat. Add the shallot and reduce the heat to low
• Heat up a grill or grill pan on high heat. Throw the seeded, halved peppers on the grill skin-side down. Let them cook until they’re a little charred – somewhat burnt, but still recognizable. At that point, take them off the grill and add them to the small saucepan
• Add just enough water to the small saucepan to cover the peppers. Add in the harissa and stir until dissolved. Bring the mixture to a boil and let half of the water boil off. Use an immersion blender (or food processor or blender) to puree the peppers, and the drizzle / shrimp glaze is done!
• Rinse off your immersion blender and turn your focus to the carrot / leek saucepan. Use the blender to start to puree the veggies. It will be pretty thick, so gradually add more chicken stock to the mix and keep pureeing as you go. Use an extra cup of chicken stock if you like your soup a little thinner. Add salt and pepper to taste, and  the soup is done!
• Put half of the drizzle / glaze in a small bowl and add the shrimp to it, making sure each one is coated. Spear them on skewers and throw them on a hot grill, turning after a minute or so depending on the size of the shrimp. When you’re done cooking them, put them on a plate and cover with foil so they don’t get cold
• Put the soup in bowls, add dollops of greek yogurt, add the drizzle, and finish with some chopped rosemary. Serve with the shrimp, and enjoy!

Options:

• Use a root vegetable other than carrots, like celery root or turnip
• Use different hot peppers, like serrano or habanero
• Use fish or chicken instead of shrimp
• Grill some red peppers or onions instead of or in addition to the meat

The Basics – Leeks:

• Leeks are part of the same family of vegetables as onions and garlic. So, they have a similar sort of taste, but much milder
• A great thing about leeks is that you can use the whole plantYou can sautee or braise the greens much like you would with any leafy green, e.g., spinach, kale, or chard
• The white part (the bulb) doesn’t have much flavor but it does have a soft texture, which makes it perfect for thickening soups and sauces. Just chop up the bulb and throw the pieces in some chicken stock and simmer for 10-15 minutes, puree, and you can a great base a lot of different soups or sauces – with the subtle savory/sweet onion-y flavor and without the saturated fat of cream
• Leeks tend to have a lot of sand and/or dirt in them between the leaves, so make sure you thoroughly wash yours before using them