Don't let winter give you the blues - hit back and cook with color

I don't know about the rest of you but most of us are getting a little tired of winter and here in New York its been the snowiest winter in a long, long time.

Time to get yourself out of that funk and get on the grill. There are plenty of bright and colorful vegetables available this time of year and nothing will make you feel better than a colorful plate. I have been saying it forever and I will say it again - I cook with color! This is a big fat grilled pork chop with some winter vegetables. I have a potato mash, a parsnip mash a little cabbage, apple and carrot slaw along with a little red pepper and some squash. It made my eyes dance and my tummy happy. I think you will agree that when you cook with color everybody wins.

Creative Cooking Crew Challenge - RICE

Rice is one of those things that you either make all the time or you don't - I make rice in all its forms all the time.

Forbidden rice pudding - this has coconut milk and toasted peanuts.

Risotto of all kinds all the time - this is a summer risotto with squash blossoms and baby zucchini.

I also just make rice that we have with stir fry - one is my take on General Tso's chicken and the other is a mix of chicken and shrimp.

Indian food is a popular favorite around here and this is my version of Madras chicken. So you can clearly see that rice is my friend. For this months challenge I didn't get too far out of my comfort zone of using rice as a side dish. I made chicken and rice.

I took some seasoned chicken breasts and some seasoned venison and some asparagus tips and I rolled them together with a little transglutaminase and then I vacuum sealed them and let them "rest" in the bags for about 40 minutes to seal everything up nice and tight.

I then took these sealed pouches and immersed them in a hot water bath for about 10 minutes at about 150F to tighten everything up all nice and cozy. While all this was happening I sautéed up some kabocha squash and I sliced up a pear and a beet that I had boiled earlier and let cool. I also made a blackberry gastric because everybody likes a little acidity wouldn't you say. As odd as this might sound I tried to imagine what the venison and the poultry would be consuming in a free range world and tried to match up my flavors based on that.

 

I took the simmered chicken, venison and asparagus rolls and first browned them in a pan whole then I sliced them into medallions and browned the bottoms to add a nice little caramelization to an already tasty dish. All of this went on to a plate with some black Thai sticky rice, and while this rice is usually used for dessert I found its subtle sweet flavor and nuttiness a nice addition with some puffed rice for crunch and here you have it - chicken and rice.

Here is my chicken and rice - for the Creative Cooking Crew Challenge - Rice. Check out all the others HERE - thanks Laz for organizing this!

Gotta Feed The Kid™

Many of you have probably seen me make this statement - Gotta Feed The Kid™ and then I post what I fed him that day - well there is a reason behind it and it is a multi-layered and complicated little entity. Gotta Feed The Kid™ is a domain name that I own that I have yet to start putting content into it mostly because I am a little too busy to devote the time necessary but this is the year I will and once I do - stand back. I am excited to share with you all the wonderful meals I prepare for my son that you could just as easily prepare for your families as well. While my son has been eating all kinds of unusual things his entire life he is just as much a fan of the simple things so I try and mix it up a bit to not only keep him excited about food but also not to take him so far out of the box that he becomes jaded.

We eat a lot of the same things for the most part as well - all I do is change up the preparation of the side dish and its a "tried and true" with a twist. This Chicken Madras is something I would make often as we are big fans of the Indian and West Indian flavors.

Eggs, we typically make Sunday brunch and its usually either eggs or pancakes or waffles or all three.

Southwestern food from my native New Mexico is always on the menu in some form or another. This is a stacked enchilada that just also happens to have eggs - you will find out soon enough that we like eggs. So I hope to have the website up soon and I hope to see you all there and believe it or not I will be posting recipes so you can recreate the dishes and share them with your families. I am psyched.

Mish mash, doo dads and gobble de gook -

Amazing how time flies - 2013 went by day by day to total 365 days and 2014 will do exactly the same thing - nothing revealing about that revelation but how do we fill those days - that is more a feat than anything else. I probably wasted a good number of those days and I would make myself crazy if I tried to get a tally on that so rather than inflict myself with any kind of burden I will simply say that however many days I wasted last year I will do my darndest to waste less this year. I wrote 12 posts for Char-Broil and I will write 12 or more for them again this year - in fact I have one up already. Salt to taste is demystified - sorta - go check it out.

I have lots of irons in the fire and hopefully this year those irons will do a little more than just get hot. My foray into molecular gastronomy got no further than simply ordering and receiving some things but very little in the way of learning new techniques, that will hopefully change this year.

 Everyone's diets are changing so I am going to embrace that with more vegan. vegetarian and gluten free alternatives.

I can never abandon my New Mexico roots so of course there will always be lots and lots of chile. It looks like I have my year cut out for me - how about you?

Potstickers - The simplest dumpling with the biggest following - CCC - Creative Cooking Crew Challenge Dumpling

When I knew about the January challenge for the Creative Cooking Crew back in December I thought about making the most complex and technically challenging dumpling known to man and then I thought - why, a dumpling is simple fare and doesn't need all kinds of 5 star treatment to shine.

My dumplings are just that - simple. I made a spinach dough and I stuffed them with a nicely 5 spiced roasted minced duck and I served them two ways - one in light and savory duck broth and as pot stickers with a soy/ponzu sauce and a little Sriracha - both were delicious. Check back for the link for my partners in this little dumplingfest.