Tinfoil Chef

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It wasn’t more than a year or two ago that the only thing I knew about herbs was that in spite of the spelling, it’s not talking about a guy named “Herb” and that it was something that you could put in food to affect the flavor. So it isn’t a big push to realize that there’s a lot of people that really don’t know that much about herbs and that if they did know a few tidbits here or there then they could add some zip to their meals.

With that in mind, I’m going to start out by talking a little bit about what herbs are and then I’m going to do entries talking about individual herbs, their qualities and a little bit about how to use them.

An herb is basically the leaves of certain plants that are used as flavorings. You can find them dried in bottles in the store, most larger stores carry some fresh herbs. You can also buy them growing in a pot so that you always have them fresh.

When buying herbs you want them to have good color and aroma. You do NOT want any that are limp, yellowing, or that have black spots on them. It’s better to buy herbs that are field grown as opposed to hothouse grown because they’ll typically have larger, stronger leaves that are more fragrant than their hothouse counterparts.

To store herbs spread them out and throw away any that are yellowing or slimy. If they still have roots cut them off to keep the tops from wilting. The roots can be saved and used in soups and sauces. Trim the excess stems and rinse the herbs by swishing vigorously in cold water, then spread them out on a paper towel to dry thoroughly before storing. You could also use a salad spinner to speed up the drying process.

Store them wrapped in paper towel in a zip top bag or in an airtight plastic container. In either case you want to avoid crushing them.

Technorati Tags: herbs, what+are+herbs, herb+preparation, herb+storage, buying+herbs

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Well, Not really, But it sounds good anyway. I’ve never actually been to San Fransisco, but you can get some good cookies there. With the approach of Christmas season the traditions of holiday goodies returns in full force. The candies, the fruitcakes that people have been joking about forever, and of course, let us never ever forget the Christmas Cookies. In this case I’m talking about cookies because I got an email telling me about a relative newcomer, The San Francisco Cookie Company.

They specialize in Gourmet Cookies. Right now they’ve got five varieties: milk chocolate chip, white chocolate toffee, oatmeal raisin, dark chocolate walnut and peanut butter. It wouldn’t surprise me to see this lineup expanded over time.

These All Natural Cookies are made from ingredients like whole wheat pastry flour, organic butter, rolled oats and organic eggs and Ghirardelli chocolate for cookies that are filled with old time basic quality that has won them the 2006 cookie of the year at the Annual North Beach Cookie Crawl.

I like the Keepsake Gift crate and the “Year of Cookies” is one of those gifts that works for the whole year by delivering a dozen cookies every month. Our shopping is (mostly.. I think) done for this year but there’s plenty of reason for me to keep ‘em bookmarked.

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One of the new additions to the “Cooking Blogs” section on the sidebar is a great blog called “Fun, Crafts and Recipes. It’s very appropriately named… loaded with all kinds of tasty looking gems like Crockpot Pizza (which as a pizza lover, I’ve got to give it a try.

Anybody that can write something like that definitely shows a lot of potential and is going to see me dropping by to keep tabs on the newest goodies being cooked up.

Technorati Tags: cooking+blogs, blogroll, pizza, crockpot, slow+cooker

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Sweet potatoes. They’re something that you generally see around thanksgiving and Christmas and usually only in the traditional dishes. While I love the traditional dishes as much as everybody else, I also think that sweet potatoes have a lot more potential. That’s why I was so glad to find a recipe for Scalloped Sweet Potatoes. This easy dish goes from start to serving in just over an hour without a whole bunch of trouble. The “stickiest” part is peeling and slicing the boiled sweet potatoes and that’s really not a big deal at all. It’s well worth it when everyone wants more.

This makes roughly six servings or so as a side dish

6 medium sweet potatoes
2 medium onions
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Start out by putting the un-peeled sweet potatoes in enough water to over and bring it to a boil. Then reduce the heat to low and cover. Simmer until sweet potatoes are just tender enough to stick a fork in them but before they get really soft. Drain them and cool them down until they’re easy to handle. (I put run cold water over them for a couple minutes.)

While the sweet potatoes are boiling, dice onions medium fine (roughly 1/4 inch or so). In a skillet or sauce pan over medium-high heat, in hot olive oil, cook onions and 1/4 teaspoon salt stirring frequently until they’re tender and starting to turn brown.

Grease 13″ by 9″ baking dish (I prefer to use a butter flavor non-stick cooking spray). Preheat oven to 375°F. Peel the sweet potatoes and cut into slices 1/4-inch thick. lay out roughly a third of the sweet potatoes, then spread out half of the onions. Put the second third of the sweet potatoes over the onion layer and then add the remaining onions. Finish by topping it with the remaining sweet potatoes.

For the sauce you need:
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 cups milk (or chicken broth)

Melt the butter over a medium heat. Stir in flour, ginger, pepper, and 1 teaspoon salt until thoroughly blended and cook 1 minute. Then while stirring constantly gradually add the milk (or chicken broth). Stir constantly until the sauce comes to a boil an thickens a little.

Pour sauce over the sweet potatoes and then sprinkle with parsley. Bake this for 30 minutes or until the sauce is bubbly and it’s heated all the way through.

Technorati Tags: scalloped+sweet+potatoes, scallop, sweet+potato, onion, roux, side+dish, dinner, holiday

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A fun, family oriented approach to good home cooking can be found at “Feeding Time at the Zoo“. That fact that it’s got a name like that guarantees that there’s this ‘make yourself at home’ kind of feel for the whole site.

A good example is this Biscuit Recipe. Granted it’s a simple recipe, but there’s more to it than just a recipe, There’s the tips included to help the inexperienced learn to get the “feel” that’s sometimes needed to know when something is just plain right… Something you can’t always tell by measures and procedures.

It’s a good place to pick up recipes and tips. I know I’ll be stopping back by fairly often.

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I’ve added a “Cooking Blogs” section in the sidebar where I’m going to be listing other Cooking Blogs. As I add entries to it I plan to do a post or two about each one.. you know, looking at an item or three on them that I like.

I haven’t time to do that right now but I wanted to be sure to mention (and link to) the first four entries:

• Feeding Time at the Zoo
• Fun, Crafts and Recipes
• Start Cooking *
• Tinka-Bella.com

I’ve taken a quick look at them and all four look interesting. I’ll be certain to have a more in-depth look later.

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This dish is one that my wife first introduced me to several years ago. When she first told me about it I’d never heard of it and when she said “Scalloped Corn”, all I could picture was a dish of Scalloped Potatoes that was made with corn instead. Somehow that picture didn’t quite want to work for me at all. Then when she made it and I finally saw the difference. Since then it’s become another Thanksgiving Day favorite.

3 cans whole kernel corn (drained)
3 cans cream style corn
2 tubes crackers (crushed)
1 can evaporated milk

Mix everything to a thick, creamy consistency, pour into a 9×13 pan and bake at 350 F for 30 - 45 min. When it’s done it’ll be starting to turn golden brown on top and a toothpick or knife stuck into the middle of it should come out clean.

At first she made it with a half can of sweetened condensed milk and 1/4 cup of regular milk, and it turned out fairly sweet. Changing to evaporated milk and eliminating the regular milk cut down the sweetness of the taste and let the corn flavor come through better.

Technorati Tags: food, scalloped+corn, evaporated+milk, corn, cream+corn, thanksgiving, dinner

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In our family one of the standards that we have every year is a Green Bean Casserole that my wife makes. It may not sound like one of those super fancy dishes but it’s a good solid favorite at the holiday table. Thanksgiving dinner wouldn’t be the same without it.

Start out by cranking the oven to 350 degrees. Then add all this to a mixing bowl:

5 cans green beans (drained)
1 1/2 cans cream of mushroom soup
A “splash” of milk (about 1/4 cup or so)
2 cans French fried onions

Mix everything until it’s got a creamy consistency. Stir in 1 of the cans of French fried onions and pour it into a 9in(?) casserole dish and bake for about 40 - 50 minutes or so. You can tell it’s done when it’s bubbling around the sides. (It’s easiest to tell if you’re using a casserole made of glass or something else that you can see through.)

When nearly done, add a layer of French fried onions on top and bake uncovered another 5 minutes or until the French fried onions start to brown.

You could use frozen green beans instead of canned, though the cooking time will be longer and you could also add some bacon.

[Edited to fix a time error. Once you add the French fried onions to the top you do NOT want to bake another 30 - 50 minutes!! Unless of course you LIKE Carbon!]

Technorati Tags: thanksgiving, green bean casserole, casserole, recipe, french fried onions, holiday dinner

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One of the things that I learned from watching Rachael Ray is the concept of the garbage bowl. The idea is to have a good size mixing bowl on the table or counter top you’re doing prep on. One idea would be to use one of those empty plastic ice cream buckets that get saved because “maybe I’ll need it for something”.

Also, if you’re using one of your mixing bowls for this, take a few seconds and line it with one of those plastic grocery bags. That way when you’re done cleanup is super fast. You just lift out the bag, close it and toss it. Same goes for the ice cream bucket. (or, if you’ve been saving them forever and they’re getting in the way, just toss the whole bucket. After a while of doing this the problem will have taken care of itself and then you can think about re-using them)

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We had a couple of trips out of town recently, one to Jonesboro to pick up our niece who was coming home from college for the weekend and another trip was to West Plains, Mo for some shopping. I decided to talk about both of them here because on both trips we stopped at a Burger King.

To say the least, we were disappointed. My wife and I both remember BK for their “Flame Broiled” burgers and the fact that because they were done that way they had something of a unique taste. No more does this seem to be the case. The Whoppers we had in West Plains could have come off of the grill in any fast food place you can name.

In Jonesboro we tried the new Bacon Double Homestyle Melt. First off the sandwich didn’t look as good in real life as it did on the menu picture. The bacon strips were these teeny little things that weren’t anything like the full size strips that the poster looked like. Finally, the “Flame Broiled” taste just wasn’t there.

In both places, there was a noticeable slightly burned taste in fries indicating that it was very likely past time to change the oil in the fryer.

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