Your Dreams Coming True In The Kitchen

Mafaldine Napoletane Al Tonno In Bianco S anto Cielo! (Holy Heaven!)  I had one heck of a pasta lunch yesterday like it's been a really long time since I've had pasta....Oh Ok I had it before yesterday!! what a memory...But it wasn't Italian style. In bianco (meaning white without tomato). Made a soffritto of onion, garlic, hot chilies, lots of olive oil, salt, pepper and kept stir-frying on medium heat while waiting for the water for the Mafaldine Napolitane to boil. Of course you know that continuous stir-frying keeps the temperature at a lower level than if you just leave it without stirring,  and so neither the onion nor the garlic and the chilies burn. When the water boiled the heat under the sofrito was turned off for the 8 or 9 minutes needed for the pasta to cook, drained, put the sofrito in the pasta pot, heated it, added the dill, stirred then added the pasta. All this is done very quickly. Then by tossing the pasta distributed the sofrito with the dil

F urther my previous post regarding "Condiment Oil" of July 22nd 2011.  Today I used the rosemary oil and the chilies in garlic and oil  to marinate the pork chops. These oils are perfect because they had all the time to absorb the flavors between each other. If anybody from you guys made these condiment oils with hot Greek chilies inside or without, no problem, will know what I am talking about. Smeared with honey on each chop as well as two cap-fulls of liquid Hickory smoke, salt, pepper and a twig of rosemary on each...The outcome was...

G ood morning everybody and Happy Thanksgiving. Today is a big and long day for most Families in the United States and abroad serving their country or working there. The greater part of the day will be spent in the kitchen preparing all those goodies and I come in to remind you of those condiment oils we prepared together on July 22nd 2011. I had put mine in the fridge, forgot about them and hadn't used any since. Well last night I opened them and the aroma from the oil from each was fantastic. You can use the rosemary olive oil for your salad today, or fill a lidded serving cup with the hot olive oil and chilies or use your basil oil in any of your preparations. So you have all these delicious oils, you can use in your cooking today and to spice up your pallets all through the holidays. Happy Holiday Season. Yey!!!! Stelio.

T ruth being said I have never cooked Thai food before and have never eaten it either. Today I would like to share with you something I am making up according to my experience in taste. Trust me.... I know it will be good....and perfectly vegetarian...

A curried rice is always welcome whether you are having beef stew, lentils, or chicken. It is very easy and it goes like this....

T he Orient, the Middle East, Near East, India, Pakistan all these beautiful countries with history, culture, and spices come to make our lives more interesting in a somewhat sensuous romantic way to drive us away from the problems of everyday life. This is the main reason we enjoy the Holiday season so much. The more the problems the more we want to enjoy the Holidays to make us forget. Then comes January 2nd when we hit reality because on January 1rst we are still under the spell of December 31rst... Plus the fact that  we have to prepare for the New Years day festive table. It is therefore correct to say that these days we should "Spice" up our lives and we are going to do just that !...

D uring the Holiday Season of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and Epifani and all those name days in between we tend to light many candles at home. Due to the danger of having naked flames burning it is wise to put them in candle holders or lanterns in or out of your home so the flame is somehow protected. One very useful trick I learned from a friend is......

T his my friends is not a comestible recipe but a recipe to render your life and that of your visitors at home more pleasant. As I am not a smoker myself, having quit 30 years ago except for an occasional Cuban cigar after a really good meal, the other day I learned something very interesting from the shop-keeper who sells very tasteful little and big gifts, candles, and general decorative things for a home. This is where I bought my 1940 looking big white enameled colander....

Pacific Wilde Pink Salmon From Alaska. A s we have already mentioned in my previous posts on salmon, wild salmon is leaner than the that obtained from  aquaculture. The wild salmon has ocean as its habitat with lots of exercise while the other has a limited space crammed with other salmon and does nothing except eat and swim around lazily in its confined space. A leaner salmon means a salmon whose fat does not nauseate you. By eating more fat does not mean ingesting more Omega 3. Pacific Salmon is pink by nature and does not have this strong orange color as that of the Atlantic fisheries which sometime even add dye to make them "appear appetizing". In conclusion whenever we can find Pink Pacific Salmon from Alaska we buy it and is at a fraction of the price of the other one. Today I wold like to share with you plain saute salmon with lemon,butter,sage sauce....

F or us the week end is for special food.  Roast lamb with potatoes is one of our favorites! So got out our "tsoukali" as we would say it in Greek which is basically an earth ware clay casserole which holds the marks of decades of cooking . All people around the world have such earth ware which is a sign that in pre- historic days, after the invention of the wheel, people knew what they were doing. I personally love to cook in this casserole. I just throw everything in there and let it cook slowly for hours adding a little water every once in a while so that the food does not get too dehydrated. So...back to our lamb...