Citrus Rosemary Tea

I love this when I have a cold.

One slice of lemon.

One slice of lime

One four inch sprig of rosemary

Steep in a cup of boiling water for five minutes.

Add honey for taste.

Add a shot of rum for extra medicinal value.

BBQ Sauce I

Two medium onions finely chopped

Two stalks celery, finely chopped.

6 cloves of garlic, minced.

Saute the onion, celery and garlic until brown.

Add...

50oz canned diced tomatoes.

1c balsamic vinegar

1/3 cup red wine

1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce

2 cups brown sugar

3tbsp Dijon mustard

1tbsp chopped rosemary

2 bay leaves

lemon zest from half a lemon

lemon juice from half a lemon

2tsp salt.

Let simmer for an hour. Fish out the bay leaves. Take a stick blender to the rest.

Strain.

Chocolate Sauce

Very easy...

1 cup coco powder.

1.5 cups sugar.

mix the sugar and coco powder together.

Heat 1 cup water till just boiling. Add 2tbsp corn syrup to the hot water.

Slowly pour the hot water and syrup into the sugar and coco powder. Stir constantly. until well mixed and smooth. If the sugar crystals don't dissolve then microwave the mixture for 30 seconds and stir a little more.

Pizza Dough IV

Finally, I've made good pizza. It's the no-knead recipe from FoodWishes.com I wouldn't say it's the best pizza I've ever had, but with practice and the right ingredients, it could compete. As a friend said "This is the kind of recipe you could use for the rest of your life."

Ingredients...

1/4 tsp yeast
1 1/2 c tepid water
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 c wheat flour
2 1/2c bread flour

What follows is all basic stuff. That's where I went wrong. In the past my pizza turned out mediocre because I was trying too hard, being too fancy, doing what I thought a professional pizza man with a pizza pallet and a pizza stone would do.

Simplify to make great pizza...

Mix all the ingredients until smooth. They should form a sticky, but not runny dough. If the dough is runny, add a little more flour.

Don't knead the dough. Let the dough sit twelve hours in a warm (70F-ish) room.

Pour the dough out on a well floured board and flour both sides. Don't worry about using too much flour, you can always shake it off later.

Cut the dough into four equal pieces. Form each piece into a ball.

Roll each ball out into a pie about 9 inches in diameter. If the dough sticks then add a little more flour. You can use your hands to form the pie if you want, but a rolling pin is easier and the pizza is just as good.

Sprinkle corn meal on one side of the pizza. Gently press the corn meal into the pizza.

Flip the pizza over and onto a metal baking sheet, corn meal side down.

Brush a little olive oil on the dough to seal it and help it brown.

Dress your pizza up. Use your ingredients sparingly. This is not deep dish pizza. A tbsp of tomato sauce, a little cheese, maybe some sliced ham or other meat. A little goes a long way here.

Put the baking sheet into the oven. Forget about the pizza pallet.

The recipe calls for baking the pizza at 450F for about 10 minutes. My oven is a little on the cool side so I tried 475F. It still needed 12 minutes. Next time I'm going to try 500F for 10 minutes.

Meals that turn out well...

Linguini with peas and tomato sauce.

Cut four chicken thighs to bite sized pieces. Saute with a diced onion and two minced cloves of garlic.

Sprinkle 1tbsp flour over the chicken and onion. Stir the flour in and cloat the chicken and onion.

Add one 28oz can of diced tomatos and one 14oz can of chicken broth. Stir well. Wait till the mixture starts simmering.

Add salt, pepper, basil or other herbs to taste.

Add 16oz peas. I use a bag of frozen peas. Brussel spouts, or snow peas also work.

Boil the Linguini.

Serve up.

Frozen veggies

I generally only buy 'ingredients' when I grocery shop-- no prepared food and nothing with chemical additives. I'll make an exception for ice cream.

So convenience foods are few and far between. At meal time, everything has to be cleaned, prepared and then cooked. Nothing I can pour out of a bag, heat and serve.

Except for frozen veggies. This is a surprise discovery. I've stayed away from frozen foods my whole life. My mother did much freezing and canning when I was young. And while I appreciated her efforts, the results were always mushy and bland.

On impulse, I tried out a bag of frozen veggies-- a stir fry medley. I poured them over a chicken while it was roasting. The results were very, very good. The veggies roasted in the chicken fat making them extra tasty.

Fresh veggies in your grocery store are really several days old and bred to survive the shipping process. After purchase, they may lay around my fridge or on the counter for several days or even a week before I get around to serving them. By that time they are fresh in name only.

Frozen veggies on the other hand were flash frozen hours after being picked and if you handle them properly they will stay well frozen for weeks.

If you cook them properly, it would be very difficult to tell they were not fresh. The trick is to not let them thaw before cooking. Take them straight from freezer to the fire, so to speak. The quick temperature change prevents ice crystals from forming and damaging the cells.

Thanks to the variety and convenience I'm adding them to everything. I've easily doubled my intake of vegetables. Pasta sauce with with peas and Brussels sprouts was good as was roast Boeuf bourguignon with roasted veggies.

Of course they do have their limits. They will never replace a fresh green salad and they tend to be a bit wet which means they don't brown well in a saute or stir fry. But when I look at my fridge, at the things that have molded, gone soft or just plain rotted and when I think over the times I wanted to eat more veggies but didn't because they were too much work to prepare, frozen veggies now have a well deserved place in my kitchen.

Pan fried roasts

Boeuf bourguignon do it. Cornish game hen's do it too. The result is tasty and tender meat.

The idea is that you brown your mean in a fry pan before you roast it. Some recipies say it's to 'seal in the juicies.' That's not true. Browning meat just makes it taste better.

Pre-heat your oven to 400F

Heat up a good cast iron skillet to medium heat with some oil or butter.

Dry off your meat. It won't brown properly if it's wet. Also, make sure your meat is cut so that it can properly brown on all sides. This means splitting a game hen into two.

Brown your meat on all sides-- two to five minutes a side. While you are browning, throw in some onions and spices.

The recipies for the B.B. and the game hen diverge here. With the BB you add a simple sauce with flour and butter to the beef.

Finally, put your meat (The B.B. or the game hen) into the oven and roast for an hour.

For extra goodness, pour a bag of frozen veggies over your roast. before you put it into the oven.

Mastering the Art of French Cooking

I'm enjoying Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I'll admit I won't make many of the recipes-- calf brains anyone? But the chapter on sauces is excellent.

I'm pleased with how easy vinaigrette are. I will never use plain ol' olive oil and vinegar again. The trick is to use a little ground mustard to emulsify the oil and vinegar.

Till now, I sprinkled my salads with separate oil and vinegar-- simple and tasty but this has problems. Vinegar won't cling to leaves. It pours off the salad and pools on the plate. A vinaigrette on the other hand, stays nicely on the leaves.

For a good vinaigrette, use a ratio of two to one oil to vinegar. Add one eighth a teaspoon of ground mustard for every tablespoon of vinegar. Shake the ingredients in a bottle until combined.

Use any salad-worthy oil. As for the vinegar, you could substitute wine or lemon juice. Olive oil and white wine vinegar make a traditional vinaigrette. I substitute in balsamic and have no regrets.

The Forbidden Zone

The Forbidden Zone... The Forbidden Zone... Who recommended that I watch the Forbidden Zone? Step forward and get your spanking.

As a movie, Forbidden Zone is bad. It succeeds as a musical, or as an act of unrestrained creativity. The music is very good. The screen is full of the bizarre and original. This is what happens when very talented, very creative people get together and make a movie with no budget and no script. As I watched Forbidden Zone, my jaw dropped and I constantly thought "What the Hell!" But, I never wanted to stop looking. It's endlessly inventive.

I finished watching the included documentary about the Forbidden Zone. It makes a little more sense now. The Forbidden Zone is a series of musical numbers and performance art pieces. The plot was added afterwards.

Mark and I saw the Forbidden Zone through Netflix which recommends movies based on your ratings. We couldn't decide what to rate Forbidden Zone. Should it be one star, or five? Five stars because it is distinct, original and endlessly watchable. One star because it is a piece of crap. It's like watching an accident that doesn't end. You know that what you are watching isn't good, but you can't look away.

Roger Ebert likes to give great trash two and a half stars. The idea being that great movies come along so rarely that there must be room for great trash. In that spirit RO and I gave Forbidden Zone three stars.

Tomato Sauce

I finally bought "Mastering the Art of French Cooking." It's a great reference on technique and tricks as much as it is for recipes.

Case in point... tomato sauce. My old recipe is good, but the sauce is dark and more liquid than I'd like. I've always assumed that premade sauce from the store could be light and thick because they use industrial food additivies.

Skimming through MAFC, I ran into a tomato sauce recipe. What's different about this recipe is that it calls for sweating the veggies, not sauting and for the addition of some flour. These two changes seem to have lightened and thickened my sauce. I double checked with the "Joy of Cooking" No mention of adding flour.

Good job Julia.

Meals that turn out very well...

Pan sered salmon with roast asparagus, onions and mushrooms, served with quinoa or brown rice.

Prepare the quinoa, or brown rice.

Clean and trim the asparagus. drizzle with oil, salt & pepper. Broil for 10 minutes, turning after 5.

Saute the onions and mushrooms for 5 minutes. Mix with the asparagus under the broiler for the last five minutes.

Pan seer the salmon for 90 seconds a side.

If your timing is good, everything should be ready at the same time. Serve with a sprinkle of parsley and enjoy.