Grapefruit//Pamplemousse

This is only a test…

Thanksgiving dinner turned out great this year. I took a bunch of pictures and hope to have a post up about what I made soon. In the meantime, here’s what I did with some of my leftovers. I was inspired by seeing this on television, but I didn’t actually refer to the recipe at all.

Turkey Chipotle Corn Chowder

Serves 8-10

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 strips bacon
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 chipotle peppers in adobo, minced
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp flour
• 8 cups turkey stock
• 5 medium potatoes, cubed
• 6 cups corn kernels
• 3 cups cubed cooked turkey
• 2 tbsp corn starch
• ¼ cup half & half
• 2 cups leftover mashed potatoes
• Salt
• Pepper

METHOD:

Cook the bacon slowly. Once crisp, remove the bacon and crumble, then set aside.

In the bacon drippings, sauté the chopped onion and garlic with a little salt until translucent and softened. Add chipotles and butter.

Once the butter is melted, add flour and stir often until the flour turns a little brown, about five minutes. Slowly add the turkey stock, stirring. Add the cubed potatoes and simmer until the potatoes are tender.

Add corn and turkey. Bring to a boil. Meanwhile, combine corn starch with a little bit of water and mix to form a slurry. Once the soup is boiling, slowly add the corn starch slurry, stirring constantly. Boil for two minutes until the soup thickens.

Add mashed potatoes and half & half. Bring to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper and serve. Garnish with crumbled bacon.

Photo credits: Giandomenico Pozzi

Lifehacker posted a great article last week by Tony Gebely about tea, one of my favorite things. (Looks like the original was posted by Tony here.)

Some highlights of the article:

• All tea comes from the camellia sinensis plant. If you are drinking something that did not come from this plant (chamomile, mint, tulsi, rooibos, etc) it is not tea.
• Tea contains L-theanine, an amino acid that promotes mental acuity. The combination of L-theanine and caffeine creates a sense of “mindful awareness.”
• The more oxidized the tea leaves are, the hotter the water temperature should be when steeping.
• Tea bags suck

Here’s a table I find myself searching for all the time:

Some of my favorite sources for tea or tea info:

• Harney & Sons
• Fairway
• Greenport Tea Company
• Kevin Rose’s Tea Twitter Feed

Good-looking Links from Tony:

• Chicago Tea Garden
• Tony’s Blog (World of Tea)
• Tea Blog Bundle for Google Reader

Photo credits: World of Tea

I was asked to make a very unusual recipe, something way outside of my normal repertoire.  I knew the taste would be okay, but the combination of ingredients is, well, strange.  Let me just list them first, and you be the judge:

• sweet potato
• cinnamon
• chili powder
• sugar
• peanut butter
• sriracha
• cream cheese
• soy sauce
• pasta

Yeah, exactly.  Far from the run-of-the-mill pasta dish.  The source recipe, which I’ve modified somewhat, comes from Better Homes and Gardens (subscription required).  Notice how I’m giving credit to the party from which I got this recipe idea?  Not everyone out there does this, but everyone should give credit where credit is due.  Sorry for this diversion.  Back to the dish at hand!

I keep thinking about Indonesia, Thailand, and Africa with this flavor combination.  I was not opposed to cooking and eating something different, and this recipe turned out to be pretty tasty.  With a few tweaks, it would be super delicious.

I started by preheating the oven to 450°F.  I then cubed a sweet potato and tossed it with olive oil, sugar, cinnamon, chili powder, and some cayenne.  I put the potatoes on a baking sheet covered with foil and sprayed with Pam.  Into the oven they go!  I was a little worried about this high heat with sugar-and-oil coated sweet potato cubes, but I had faith!

While the potatoes roasted, I started a pound of rotini pasta and I made the sauce.  In a large nonstick skillet (large enough to toss a pound of pasta), I added ricotta, sriracha, soy sauce, and peanut butter.

I put it over low heat so that I could mix it all together.  It’s darn near impossible to mix anything with peanut butter if it’s not warm.  So heat it up!  When the pasta was almost done, I added some pasta water three separate times.  My goal was to add a little, get everything combined, add a little more and mix it in, rinse, repeat.  Well, maybe don’t rinse.  I’m pretty sure that if I added all the water at once, I wouldn’t be able to mix it in as thoroughly, and considering I didn’t know how much water to add, the sauce would inevitably been too thin or too thick.  I thinned the sauce out to a heavy cream consistency, tossed in the pasta, and then the browned sweet potatoes.

As you can see, everything was kind of, well, brown.  The source recipe called for green onions, but since they are, by far, one of my least favorite foods, I skipped them.  Instead, I added the juice of half a lime to brighten the flavors and cut through the richness of the peanut butter and cheese.  If I had some cilantro, I would have added a huge handful.  It would add an incredible citrus freshness, and fresh herbs make life better.

The end result was pretty good and definitely different, at least for me.  Like I said above, I’d love, love, love this with some cilantro.  I also had a hankering for some crispy vegetables in here, like some julienned red bell peppers or some carrots.  I guess I was thinking about this recipe.

Spicy Pasta with Sweet Potatoes
Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens

Serves 6-8

INGREDIENTS:

• 1-2 large sweet potatoes
• 1 tbsp olive or canola oil
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp cayenne
• nonstick cooking spray such as Pam
• 4 tsp sriracha
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 6 oz ricotta (by weight)
• 2/3 cup peanut butter
• 1 lb rotini pasta
• juice of half a lime
• fresh cilantro

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 450°F.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with Pam.

Peel and cube sweet potatoes into 1/2 inch pieces.  Toss with olive oil, salt, chili powder, sugar, cinnamon, and cayenne.  Put in the oven and bake for twenty minutes, turning halfway through.

Meanwhile, set a large pot of water over high heat and bring to the boil.  Once it boils, add a few tablespoons of kosher salt and the pasta.  Cook according to directions on package.

In a large nonstick skillet, combine the sriracha, soy sauce, ricotta, and peanut butter.  Thin out with pasta water, 1/4 to 1/2 cup at a time.  Thin to the consistency of heavy cream.  Add pasta to sauce, along with sweet potatoes.  Toss and add more pasta water if necessary.  Add lime juice and cilantro to taste.

I am currently working very hard to convert this project fully to WordPress. Of course, that means mastering php, wordpress, and css. So that’s what I am doing! I’m excited to fully launch.