Contemplating pepper poppers, multicookers, honey
Good morning faithful readers – actually, you occasional readers are every bit as welcome. We have a request from Lucie Poire for monkfish wrapped in bacon and baked “or any other fish, for that matter. I was served a delicious rolled filet of monkfish stuffed and then wrapped in bacon. Would like to experiment with different stuffings for baked fish, too. Especially wrapped in bacon.”
Ms. Poire would also like some ideas for using finishing salts of various kinds, “and tell me where they may be bought locally. They are delicious, just a few flecks on the top of any dish almost.” (See her cookie recommendation in Just a Dash below.)
And there also is a repeat request for details of the “sous vide” method of cooking.
PEPPY PEPPERS
From Ringgold, Ga., Suzanne Rice sent a favorite recipe for stuffed jalapeno peppers, advising that they are “especially delicious when cooked on the grill.”
Stuffed Jalapeno Peppers
8 jalapeno peppers, cut in half longways and most seeds and all the
veins scooped out 8 ounces cream cheese Turkey bacon Toothpicks
Fill each half of matching pieces of jalapeno peppers with cream cheese, using a butter knife.
Put halves together and wrap in 1 slice of turkey bacon. Put a toothpick through bacon to fix it in place. Cook on the grill until bacon is cooked and jalapenos are tender. Or you can put them in a casserole dish lightly sprayed with spray cooking oil and bake for about 45 minutes in a 350to 375-degree oven.
Warning: Wear gloves while working with the jalapenos. Wash your hands in cold water after pulling off the gloves.
A variation on this theme arrived in a missive from David Lacy, who wrote, “My wife, a Mexican, now a U.S. citizen, stuffs poblano chilies with Monterey Jack cheese or cream cheese and cooks on the stove top in either a cream or tomato sauce with onions.”
If you would like more details, watch for them in this space soon.
MULTICOOKERS
Vivian Chaij found more information about the new multicookers from the experts at “Cooks Illustrated”:
“Maybe you’ve heard the buzz surrounding multicookers, that new appliance that promises to do everything your skillet, slow cooker, pressure cooker and rice cooker can do. Buy one of these, the reasoning goes, and you have no use for any other appliance. To find out if the buzz is justified, we purchased machines priced from $99.99 to $249.95 and tested them against our equipment. We slow-cooked pot roast and chicken in sauce, cooked dried beans and a meaty tomato sauce, made white and brown rice and sautéed onions. In the end, none of the multicookers produced food that was as good as the food cooked in our winning appliances [examples of which are given above] and in several cases the result was awful. What’s more, many of the machines had confusing (and sometimes annoying) instructions and controls, further pushing them out of our good graces. We love the idea of multicookers and will monitor the market in hopes the performance will one day catch up to their promise.
“We can recommend one model — but with reservations: The Fagor Lux Multicooker ($159.95), which is intuitive to use and performed the best at cooking white and brown rice, but it faltered with pressure cooking and sautéing.”
SANDWICHES
Carolyn Fox noted on Feb.y 22, “You had some delicious recipes again today. The rye sandwich recipe sounded like one my mother gave me years ago; however hers had a sprinkle of curry powder in it. You might want to try that.”
And so we will pass on this suggestion to the rest of you.
In the cookbook “Cooking with Grainger County Tomatoes” shared by Barbara Smith, here is another sandwich, this time a hot bruschetta.
Double Tomato Bruschetta
2 to 3 Grainger County
tomatoes, chopped ½ cup sundried tomatoes,
packed in oil
3 cloves minced garlic ¼ cup olive oil 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
¼ cup fresh basil ¼ teaspoon salt ¼ teaspoon pepper 1 French baguette
2 cups mozzarella cheese,
shredded
Heat oven on broiler setting. In a large bowl, combine chopped tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, basil, salt and pepper. Allow to sit for 10 minutes.
Cut the baguette into ¾-inch slices. On a baking sheet, arrange the slices in a single layer. Broil for 1 to 2 minutes until slightly brown. Divide the tomato mixture evenly over the slices. Top with mozzarella and broil for 5 minutes on the low rack or until cheese is melted.
HONEY
John Echerd of Ooltewah reminisced about the virtues of sourwood honey, noting that there is honey and then there is PURE honey. “Pure honey will NOT crystallize.” If honey crystallizes, it is a result of diluting it, usually with sugar syrup. He remembers his sourwood-honey-loving grandfather, who during the Depression bought a 5-gallon bucket of what was sold as pure sourwood. But then it crystallized, “and that was the only time I ever saw my grandfather really mad.”
Honey lovers, tell us your favorites, and tell us your honey stories.
BUTTER
Linda Leake gives you today a recipe for Shrimp Butter, “used as a dip or a spread on crackers or breads. It came from a cousin in Florida.”
Shrimp Butter
1 pound chopped, cooked
shrimp
¼ cup minced onion ½ stick butter
8 ounces cream cheese 4 tablespoons
mayonnaise ½ teaspoon garlic salt ½ teaspoon parsley Juice of 1 small lemon
In a bowl, mix the chopped cooked shrimp and onion. In another bowl, beat into a paste the butter, cream cheese, mayonnaise, garlic salt, parsley and lemon juice. Stir in shrimp and onion. Serve as a dip or a spread on crackers or bread.
JUST A DASH
From Lucie Poire, here is a dessert that is very easy and can accommodate gluten-free guests without any losses to the gluten-full crowd.
“We buy Immaculate Cookie Company’s gluten-free peanut butter cookies in the refrigerator section. Immaculate also has double chocolate and chocolate chip gluten-free, but we have not tried them. Bake them according to package directions, being very careful not to overcook. They will continue to cook a little after they are taken out of the oven, and are nice and thick. As soon as they are out of the oven sprinkle very lightly with your favorite flecks of finishing salt. We like the contrast of black finishing salt on this cookie. Serve warm; a glass of milk doesn’t hurt.”
Now, you come back, y’all, you hear?