With the US Open at Merion last weekend I made up some Arnold Palmer’s from scratch. I used the lemonade recipe I posted last week and then brewed some iced tea and mixed the two. It was delicious and refreshing and made for a nice change of pace in between beers while smoking the ribs we had for dinner. With summer officially starting this weekend mix some up and enjoy!
This post is short and sweet. My dad loves bacon, so for Father’s Day I made him candied bacon. The recipe is very simple and adds a nice sweet touch to salty flavor of the bacon. This works well as a side with breakfast or as a nice party appetizer. Enjoy!
So seafood took over this week on my blog and this is the last shellfish entry for this week I promise. Last weekend I picked up some incredible slab bacon form DiBruno Brothers in Philadelphia and wanted to work it into a dish. I chose scallops because they go so well with bacon. Instead of wrapping the scallops in bacon I slowly reduced the fat out of the bacon and used that to pan sear the scallops. Then made a maple bacon reduction to drizzle over the scallops. The dish turned out great. When cooking it just be sure to make sure you get the pan very hot before placing the scallops in the pan in order to get a good sear on them. Make these for your dad on Father’s Day he’ll enjoy them!
This week has unofficially turned into shellfish week. I was in the grocery store and saw littleneck clams for sale and figured I’d give them a go. This is my first time ever cooking littleneck clams. I was debating on whether to cook them on the grill but in the end I decided to steam them. I used beer, garlic, lemon, Old Bay, and parsley to make a broth then steamed the clams in this mixture. I was surprised at how easy the clams were to prepare. You just throw them into the pot then check to see when the shells have popped open. These clams would go great with a beer on a relaxing weekend. Enjoy!
Last night I decided to mess around and attempt to make one of my favorite appetizers, mussels marinara. Now I like my marinara sauce on the spicier side so I added jalapeno peppers to this batch. However if I were to make it again I would use Italian hot peppers instead of jalapenos. All in all the recipe was very simple to follow. Before cooking the mussels be sure to submerge them in ice water for a few minutes to get rid of any dead ones. After cooking them be sure to throw out any mussels that have not opened. You can serve this over pasta or use bread to dip into the sauce. Enjoy!
With the weather getting nicer and summer almost here I had the urge to make lemonade this past weekend. I first learned to make lemonade out of necessity when I lived in England. To the English lemonade is a lemon flavored soda and not the refreshing summer drink we know in America. This recipe is simple but takes a bit of work to juice the lemons. To make the job easier I would highly recommend buying a hand held lemon press. This drink is very refreshing and hits the spot on any warm summer day. Drink it by itself or mix it with some iced tea to make up a nice Arnold Palmer. Enjoy!
I decided to take a stab at some southern country style cooking earlier this week. We had breaded pork chops on Sunday and I decided to make a bacon gravy for them. In the end the gravy turned out pretty well. However while I was making it I was disappointed with how bland and plain it tasted. The slat and pepper helped but it just needed something else. I took a few spoonfuls out of the pan and experimented with a few additions. Mustard didn’t work well with the flavor of the gravy, Horseradish was too harsh, Finally I settled on chipotles in adobo sauce. The chipotles gave the gravy the subtle zing it needed. If you want you can use the gravy recipe as a base and substitute out the chipotles for whatever direction you want to take the gravy. I am also thinking about substituting the bacon with sausage the next time I make this to see how that works.
This is a very easy to make appetizer that is sure to impress. If the scallops you use are very large be sure to cut them in half so they all cook evenly. When picking scallops try to find dry packed, they cook better than wet packed scallops. Make sure to precook the bacon. by precooking the bacon you solve the problem of having either overcooked scallops and crispy bacon or perfectly cooked scallops and undercooked bacon. You can pair the bacon wrapped scallops with ginger BBQ sauce or a nice cocktail sauce. You will find the recipe’s for the scallops and the BBQ sauce below. Enjoy!
I haven’t cooked with Szechuan peppercorns in a while and decided to throw together a Szechuan style stir fry the other night. I marinated the chicken in a mixture of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, corn starch, water, and salt. I then put oil in a wok and heated it until it just started to smoke. I added the chicken in batches and cooked it until it was done. I then added the Szechuan peppercorns and dried chili peppers and sauteed them for 30 seconds to a minute. I then added a bit of chicken stock, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar. I reduced this mixture to thicken it a little. If I had uncooked veggies like snow peas or peppers I would have added them here to cook them. Since I was using steamed broccoli I added the cooked chicken and broccoli to the wok to coat it in the sauce. I then served the stir fry over brown rice.
The stir fry turned out good and the Szechuan peppercorns gave the dish a unique sensation when eating it. If you have never had them before they cause a tingling or slight numbing sensation in your mouth. They can be hard to find, I had to go on Amazon to find them.
I just finished up the Dinner with Robert Irvine event and I must say it went pretty well. While there were a few technical difficulties in the show overall it was a great experience. During the program we cooked two dishes with Chef Irvine, sauteed shrimp with strawberry salsa and spinach polenta and pork tenderloin with a mustard pan sauce and a potato peach hash. Both dishes were delicious but the shrimp and polenta was the stand out dish of the evening. I had never thought to use strawberries over shrimp, the flavor combination worked so well.
The pork tenderloin and hash was also delicious. The use of peaches in the hash was a surprise but again, much like the strawberries, just worked. This whole experience has changed the way I think of fruit. Now I do not view fruit as dessert or something that stands on its own and I will be experimenting with new uses of fruit in main dishes and appetizers.
The only critiques of the event I had were he could have slowed down a bit, at times Irvine went into full chef mode and was pushing out parts of the dish quite quickly. Also it would have been helpful if we received a full ingredient list with some directions for prep, ie chopped, diced, etc. Also a heads up about preheating the oven would have been a big help too However overall for the first time doing a show like this I thought it went very well and I learned a few new techniques and will definitely be making the shrimp dish again in the near future.
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