Pork Meatballs with Chorizo Seasoning

Anybody out there had Chorizo before?  Well for those of you who have and know what I am talking about, you can buy a packet of seasoning called Chorizo Seasoning/Spices.  Usually on the 'quick pick' rack of various seasonings not on the spice aisle in your grocery store, but on the international or ethnic aisle.  In the Hispanic/Spanish section - usually right next to the severely limited 'Asian' section - in one of those 99 cents bags.

So an idea came to me to use it with some ground pork for meatballs.  My wife is allergic to beef so I use different meats to create meatballs when we get the urge for a good meatball sandwich, with spaghetti, or some other kind of way.

Basically, for one pound of ground pork, I used 1 Tablespoon Chorizo Seasoning, 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, salt & pepper, a few bread crumbs, and fennel seed I had toasted then ground.

(next time I would add a minced shallot!)

I cooked my meatballs on top of the stove browning them nicely then finishing them in a 350-degree oven.  Sauteing some thick sliced 'baby Bella' mushrooms and adding in a quick marinara (combined in a processor) with fire-roasted tomatoes, a little tomato paste, garlic, and roasted red bell peppers...Later adding only oregano, salt, and pepper.  Then add the meatballs back into the sauce.

We had the meatballs and sauce over farfalle (bowtie) pasta.  I served basil and sundried tomato dip (basil also courtesy of the box) made with cream cheese with the fresh carrots and broccoli from the 'Farm Fresh to You' box.

Did you know we have videos?

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Our goal is a weekly video post (or more) on simple "cookin" preparations for a variety of foods. We would love to hear from you! Email us at showtime@tyronebcookin.com

Farm Fresh To You

I recently found out about a service available to me here locally (Northern California - San Jose area) thanks to Brandi who enjoys good food as much as I do and of course us 'foodies' usually look out for each other.

Farm Fresh To You.  Here is a snippet from their site: 

Welcome To Farm Fresh To You

As people are becoming increasingly interested about where their food comes from and how it was grown, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is becoming a popular alternative for getting high quality food from a trusted local farm. Currently over 800 families are participating in our family farm's CSA, Farm Fresh To You. By joining our CSA these families are connecting directly to our farm and receiving regular deliveries of nutrient rich, mouth watering, organic produce delivered directly to their home or office. See how it works or why join Farm Fresh To You.

Some of the things I like about it is:

• I can cancel anytime


• Home delivery - choice of weekly, bi-weekly, monthly


• Customized your delivery


• Satisfaction guaranteed

Customer service seems to be 'on the ball' too...last night I emailed a request to have something added to my 'box' and received a reply first thing this morning!

We'll see how it goes and maybe take some pictures from 'the box'.  Produce changes as to what's available changes.  There are many choices for different types of boxes.

Did you know we have videos?

Please "LIKE" and SHARE our videos! (click on "thumbs up" under our videos)

Our goal is a weekly video post (or more) on simple "cookin" preparations for a variety of foods. We would love to hear from you! Email us at showtime@tyronebcookin.com

Ice Cream That Doesn't Melt?

Ice Cream That Doesn't Melt? - Restaurant News - QSR Magazine.

And it has Jello-O pudding flavors?

Cold Stone Creamery's Tastemaster, Ray Karam, has created a new form of ice cream, JELL-O® pudding ice cream.

What I don't like about this claim is supposedly when or if the ice cream melts at room temperature it turns into pudding.  To me, this seems like a gimmick.  When ice creams are made they are usually with dairy cream and/or  'custard type' base.  So why would it be a stretch to use pudding?  Pudding would be considered a 'fast food' cousin to the custard would it not?

So let's say I made some pudding, then used the pudding in my 'ice cream maker' to make ice cream...when my ice cream melts it will still be pudding right?

I'm not knocking the ice cream if it tastes good, but it's not exactly a new form of ice cream, is it?  The story says it was developed through "rigorous testing & tasting".  You be the judge.

Jalapeno Cheddar Bread

For this recipe, it would help to start by reading this post - Easy White Dough.

Then follow the pictorial by clicking on the first picture below, captions/directions will then show underneath!

Wine Pairing: a widget to help!

Have you bought a good wine and want to match food with it? Bought or made some good food and want to match a good wine with it within your budget range? Natalie MacLean has a Drinks Matcher on her website that you can also use as a widget on your website! I was going to put her widget on my site to help other people out who may visit but I think its much better to visit her site and use the Drinks Matcher there: Nat Decants

Why? Great information. Good recipes. Straight talk about choosing and drinking wines. Demystifying and bringing wine drinking down to our level (the non-snobbish foodies who think wine people are being pretentious). Books, articles, podcasts, free newsletters…

Who is Natalie MacLean? Watch her video and read the rest of her bio here:

To fund her late-night vinous habits, Natalie MacLean holds down day jobs as a wine writer, speaker and judge. An accredited sommelier, she is a member of the National Capital Sommelier Guild, the Wine Writers Circle and several French wine societies with complicated and impressive names. Funny, brainy and unapologetically tipsy, her goal in life is to intimidate those crusty wine stewards at fine restaurants with her staggering knowledge.

Help with your Doughs and Batters

Do you know who Michael Ruhlman is? He writes about many subjects in magazines and newspapers, but mostly in books and mostly about food, chefs, and cooking—issues also covered in his blog. His most recent book,

Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking

as the title states – gives you many simple codes behind cooking. If you have no intentions of reading the book, or just want a sample of what knowing ratios can do, Michael has posted a PDF of the Doughs & Batters ratios that you can print and hang in your kitchen or put in your ‘cookbook’ to try your hand at…a word to the wise, the ratios are based on weight, so you need to have and know how to use a kitchen scale for this to be useful to you. But I promise you will become a better person by cooking/baking with a scale for precision.

Just click this link to his blog and look on the left hand side for the above picture and you can download his PDF for FREE! Black & White photos on the PDF are by his wife Donna, excellent!

[I don't link directly to the PDF because I think its fair that if he offers something for free, you can at least visit his site to get it...and of course permission, laws, and things of that nature tend to slow things down]

TX Smokehouse BBQ...in San Jose, CA?

I have tasted some BBQ here & there, of this and that...and it really just seems people want to cook meat any old kind of way and put some BBQ sauce on it, then call it BBQ.

At the Texas Smokehouse BBQ, it tasted like a real BBQ, which means the meat is cooked a certain way (at least to me, and I am from the South) and it's got to have an element of smoke or outdoor grill to it!

Here there is no valet parking, servers/waiters, reserved seating, or pretentiousness.

Nope, 2 parking spaces, 3 tables, and a fan outside to keep the 'smoke' from filling up the main restaurant area through the screen door.  Just the type 'Hole-n-Wall' place I love to check out.

Being in California this Texas BBQ place reminds me of back home...in Alabama.  So until I make it back home to visit in 'Sweet Home Alabama' I'll be stopping by to order, or call ahead to pick up my BBQ from here & any of the 'Down Home' style sides (that is, unless I am having/cooking my own BBQ).

You order you pay at the register, they are polite, and you WAIT if someone calls in order...they can only do so many things at once.  AND YES you are going to smell like smoke/a smoker if you are there for a while eating or waiting for your food.

Here is all the information and a copy of the menu: Texas Smokehouse BBQ

Comment and/or write about your favorite BBQ place, or let me know of another good one in the San Jose area.  I'll go check it out!

Thanks to Rudy R. for the photo!

Moroccan Style Sweet Potato Salad

Marius commented me on Facebook because I usually update about the food I am going to cook or am going to eat…

“Tyrone, I would be very interested in the Moroccan sweet potato recipe…”

or in this case the wonderful food my wifey made!

Ingredients

• 2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into cubes


• 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger (or more if you like)


• 1 teaspoon cinnamon


• 2 teaspoons harissa or chili garlic sauce (you may improvise w/cayenne)


• 1 lemon, juiced


• 2 teaspoons honey


• salt


• 2 tablespoons coriander


• 1/2 to 1 cup sliced black Kalamata olives (you can use just the plain black, but where’s the fun & taste in that?)


• 1/4 cup capers (to taste)

Directions

1. Boil the sweet potatoes in just enough water to cover.


2. Stir in the ginger, cinnamon, harissa, lemon, honey, and salt and boil for about 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are cooked but not falling apart.


3. The sauce should be thick, almost syrup-like.


4. If it isn’t, lift out the potatoes and boil the sauce until it is thicker. (sometimes this takes a long time)


5. When the sauce is done, mix in the coriander, olives, and capers (and sweet potatoes if you had to separate them to thicken the sauce).


6. Cool and serve.

Tips/Opts:

• heat up/pan roast your coriander first to create a more in-depth flavor, if its whole coriander grind in a coffee grinder, spice mill, or beat it in a Ziploc bag with a small skillet!  If its ground coriander keep tossing it about till it smells like its cooking, looks like its smoking, & starts to get darker


• If you just want to concentrate on making the sauce without worrying about how mushy the potatoes are going to cook or fall apart, then bake the sweet potatoes whole a day or two before *(350 degrees for about 40 to 60 minutes, depends how big you bought them, poke them with a knife to check…pull them out as soon as they are real close), let them chill and get hard in the refrigerator then peel and cube and pour hot sauce over it and toss gently…this will help cool the dish down to room temp quicker too!

How about a  ‘regular’ potato salad made with sweet potatoes?  Anyone have some good recipes for that?  Keep the mail & comments coming…

Smartpower Duet...not a good Idea!

Since I am just like many of you and feel the tight crunch of getting the most out of every penny I went to Costco to get some items for the kitchen.  While I was there I found this combi blender mini-processor unit by Cuisinart and I thought, "I'll buy this to get by for a while plus it makes sense since I have such a small kitchen right now...".

Nope, never got around to trying out the mini processor because I could never get the blender to even make a frozen coffee drink.  The glass pitcher is too wide with little to NO taper, and once it does QUICKLY narrow into a smaller bowl the blades seem to sit halfway in this small 'bowl' area that the oversize plastic piece screws on to the bottom.  The blades just kicked the ice around like it was a never-ending game of dice.  If you ask me, terrible design.

Do you have one of these, does it work well for you?  It seemed like a good idea and price at the time...I took it back and just used the money to buy my favorite blender, the food processor will have to wait!  (I gave away everything I had in 2007-again!- before I went back to West Africa to work in 2008)

Restocking the 'choice' appliances has not been cheap.  But I expected as much and have the patience to wait for a 'sale' or two.

Free yourself, cook with confidence.

Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking: Michael Ruhlman

I am currently reading this book.  I have read all the other books (that are NOT cookbooks) about Chefs that he has written about...that is a recommendation.

For me, it's a reminder of how I started cooking long ago and trying to train myself to be independent of recipes.  It is important to have consistency - so I still develop recipes for personal, commercial, and business use.

If you have any talent for cooking this book can help free you to move beyond the cookbook and experiment.  It can free you to be spontaneous in the kitchen, on the grill, or in any cooking experience that might bog you down looking for a recipe.

If you don't, won't, or can't read thru the big books of Larousse Gastronomique and/or The Professional Chef buy the Elements of Cooking and Ratios by Michael Ruhlman, this should get you started with a pleasurable education to get you cooking daily like a pro in your own kitchen.

Mondavi wine history is enjoyable.

The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty

Being out here in California on a permanent level I wanted to find a few books that combine the area that I am living in and a 'foodie' aspect that would appeal to me.  I found a non-fiction work called 'The House of Mondavi - The rise and fall of an American wine dynasty'.  A very intriguing story of the Mondavi's start in America which later moved to Napa Valley, the rise of the 'empire', the split, and the success and failures that happened along the way.  Heard of Robert Mondavi Reserve, Opus One, Woodbridge, or Charles Krug wines?  All Mondavi family owned at one time.  I thought it was an excellent read and showed that Robert or the 'family' truly pioneered some of the wine tastings and chef oriented open houses which furthered the progress of the California wine culture that thrives today.

Food on the home front...

While I continue my rigorous hunt for a job it hasn't stopped me from having fun in the kitchen.  Ill give you a few meals (maybe not all in the same post) we have eaten at home lately to maybe give you a few ideas...

Last night my wife and I had a green curry with jasmine rice and pan-seared sole.  A couple of thoughts on that:

• Sole is a great fresh fish fillet, although I only recommend thin filets and pan FRYING or deep FRYING it if you're like me, because if you're like me sole can taste mushy in the mouth.  Without giving it that crisp crunchy texture on the outside its not so palatable to me. (feel free to disagree)


• A lot of time a green curry (with coconut milk, lemongrass, ginger, stuff of that nature...) or a massaman style has potatoes in it.  BUT I found some acorn squash.  SO I split and seeded them, and cooked them in the oven for about an hour at 350.  Later after letting them cool, I peeled and cubed them, then sauteed them in a pan(in an attempt to 'seal' them to a form before mushing into nothing).  Then added them to the curry, later it was delicious to eat the curry and rice with the heat steadily building in my mouth only to hit a junk of sweet roasted acorn squash to counter the heat.


• The acorn squash also helped to thicken the sauce as it cooked(because of course some of it did break down into the sauce).  I say the taste was great, DO IT!

I have not had the pleasure of experiencing the 99 Ranch Market or Ranch Market till moving to California.  Love it!  Its about a five-minute walk from where I live and I am one of the only Caucasians I ever see in there...but HECK, that place is loaded with all the stuff I always wish I had to do food right, but couldn't find in a regular grocery store.  Mostly considered Asian products with far-reaching 'hands' into India, West Africa, some Spain, Caribbean...probably a few more cross-culturally crossing over each other!  And the produce, meat, rice, noodles & condiment sections put the other grocers to shame!

The Sole my wife had in Thinkers Village, Liberia (in West Africa) will always be the 'unforgettable' fish dinner to my wife Stephanie who had it on our Anniversary last year (possibly with the many fresh fish and sashimi meals we had in Cancun on honeymoon too!).  Delicious!

The Dish, Zao Noodle Bar, Cooking at home...

That's right, time for me to get back in the swing of blogging what I like most...food and fun times with my wife (no it's not necessarily in that order, calm down Stephanie).

So out here in Cali there is like a gazillion places to walk or hike (or swim,  or bike, or yada yada - you get the picture).  But Tuesday we went to Palo Alto CA where Stanford University really takes up most of the town/city and we went to The Dish, aptly named for several large satellite dishes.  There is a course up there that is about 3.7 miles in a loop with hills and valleys.  If you come park on the Alpine Roadside (Pier Lane) it's an additional 1.3 miles of walking, so you get a full 5-mile walk...which wore us out!  But it was a nice area in the hills with local 'wildlife' like students, cows, and ground squirrels(that was meant to be funny).  And the animals couldn't be bothered by you, so you don't see them moving along when you come by!

Later we went downtown to one of Stephanie's favorite places that I have never been to called Zao Noodle Bar and I loved it!  Great pick Stephanie!

Stephanie had:

KUNG PAO CHICKEN: Crispy chicken breast, red bell pepper, green onions, and peanuts in a sweet-tart kung pao sauce with a spicy kick! Served with jasmine rice.

I had:

THAI GREEN CURRY CHICKEN: Chicken, bamboo shoots, green peas, galanga, kaffir lime leaf, ginger-garlic-lemongrass, and green curry sauce with jasmine rice.

Then we headed on over to Peets Coffee & Tea for a Caramel Freddo (Frappuccino)...yeah baby!

Later that evening I kicked out a little supper.  I had some olive bread (baguette style) - I made out of Italian herbs, marinated green Spanish olives, and black kalamata olives - that I used to make pizza.  Cut the bread in half, flipped it over, used some sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, pepperoni, shallots, garlic...broiled it off in the oven till the mozzarella cheese, cheddar, and jalapeno jack mix were bubbling like hot lava on top.  Stephanie was leaving to meet up with her friends but since I stayed home and was not driving, I had a glass of red wine with mine.  Delicious!

It was a good day, heck it was a wonderful day!  Thanks, Stephanie for coming up with the plans!  (one of the many reasons I love my wife)

Enjoy a few pictures, although I don't have any of the food we had at home...shucks, I will have to start remembering that!