Sheets Culinary Feats

I think every family has a version of this that gets served, and everyone tends to get a little tired of it. But by using real cream, butter, and shallots I think you can really elevate this dish to some stardom. And if you really feel adventurous you can even french fry your own onions, but I think the store bought onions are just fine.

Green Bean Casserole - Serves 4

Prep time - 20 minutes

Cook time - 25 minutes

Ingredients:

2 Tablespoons of vegetable oil

3 large Schallots finely minced

4 ounces of button mushrooms washed and sliced.

1/4 cup cooking sherry

1 pint of heavy cream

1/2 pound of green beans, ends cut off and cut in half

1 can of french fried onions

Method of preparation:

1. Heat the vegetable oil in a saute pan with deep sides. Add in the schallots and cook until they just become translucent, about 3 minutes.
2. Add in the mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms begin to wilt and let loose their juices.
3. Deglaze the pan with the sherry and let it reduce slightly. Add in the heavy cream and the green beans. Let them all cook together until the beans are fully cooked but still firm to the tooth and the cream has thickened to a nice sauce.
4. Arrange the beans in a nice dish and top with the onions just before service so they stay crispy.

And on to recipe number 2! Just remember that despite all the confusion there is a difference between sweet potatoes and yams. Starting with the physical, in the United States most of the yams we see here have a brown skin with a white meat, sometimes though it will be a pinkish hue. As well, yams tend to have a more symmetrical look than sweet potatoes, being longer and straighter.

While Sweet Potatoes do resemble yams, they are shorter and much lumpier towards one end. The skin is generally more red with a distinctively orange flesh.

Baked Yams with Marshmallows - serves 4

Prep Time - 10 minutes

Cook time - 45 minutes to an hour

Ingredients:

2 pounds of Yams

1 Tablespoon Cinnamon

2 Teaspoons Nutmeg

2 teaspoons allspice

1 package Marshmallows

Method of Preparation:

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Wash and peel the yams ensure you are using a sturdy vegetable peeler as the skins can be rather tough. Lightly grease an 8″X8″ baking dish, I like glass for this. Place the yams in the dash and evenly coat each of the yams with the sweet spices.
2. Bake the yams until you can very easily stick a fork into them. Remove the pan from the oven.
3. Cover all the yams with the marshmallows, and replace it in the oven. Keep an eye on the dish and remove it when the marshmallows are melted and brown. Serve them hot

Because it’s a shortened week I’ll be posting 2 recipes today instead of the usual 1. These are some pretty classical dishes that most folks eat at thanksgiving, I know for me they represent a large portion of the comfort food for me. Again these recipes are fattening and delicious, and shouldn’t really be eaten every day, but it’s thanksgiving and we all know that calories are reduced to 0 on thanksgiving.

Garlic Mashed Potatoes - Serves 4

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time - 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 head of garlic

1 Tablespoon of vegetable oil

2 pounds of potatoes for boiling. Preferably red or russett potatoes.

2 Tablespoons kosher salt

1/4 cup butter

1 quart heavy cream

salt and pepper to taste

Method of preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Take the head of Garlic and cut the very top off, mostly just the point but you want to expose the cloves slightly. Take a piece of aluminum foil large enough to close around the head of garlic and form a small bowl. Place the oil in the bottom of the foil, then the head of garlic. Crimp the edges together to form a tight seal and place in the oven. Roast this until the scent of garlic drives you delirious from the aroma, around 1 hour. The cloves should be so soft they will spread like butter. Be careful when opening the foil as a lot of steam will come out.
2. Put on two quarts of water to boil, meanwhile clean your potatoes. I prefer my mashed potatoes to have the skins on them, but you can peal them if you desire. Cut the potatoes into 1 inch cubes and just before you add them to the boiling water, add the kosher salt to the water. Cook the potatoes until a fork easily slides into the largest potato pieces. Strain the water out. Return the potatoes to your pot.
3. Add roasted garlic to the potatoes, be sure to squeeze the garlic out of it’s paper like wrapper, and grab your potato masher. I like the masher cause it leaves chunks, but if you like a smoother product you can use a food mill. Add the butter, about half of the cream, and some salt and pepper to start. After mashing the mixture together taste potatoes and adjust for flavor and texture by adding more cream and salt and pepper as necessary. Be sure to add small amounts at first, it’s easier to add than take out.

This is a recipe that I developed myself, with a little inspiration from the bread pudding style bread we used to prepare up at the Stanley Hotel. I was trying to come up with a way to serve your traditional dressing with just a little more flare and add a different spin on the taste. The chef’s there never gave me the go ahead, so I made them on my own and they’ve been a hit every since.

Not for the faint of heart, these muffins are very rich, yet utterly delicious. The soft texture of bread pudding brought a bit more solid with the second baking combined with the flavors of stuffing really add to this dish. Hope you all enjoy.

Twice Baked Stuffing Muffins - Makes approximately 36 muffins

Prep time: up to 30 minutes

Cook time: 1-1 1/2 hours

Ingredients:

1 each loaf of white bread, preferably a week old so it is rather dry.

1 package of fresh poultry herbs. Sage, thyme, and rosemary

1 can low sodium chicken broth

1 pint pasteurized egg product

1 pint heavy cream

3 day old croissants

2 teaspoons ground anise

Method of Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. I prefer to cut the crusts off of the white bread before I cube it as we will be drying this out and I think the texture detracts from the final product. Cut the bread into 1/4″ cubes, about the same thickness of the slices. Chop the fresh herbs very finely, be sure to remove the stems from the thyme and the rosemary.
3. In a bowl combine the bread cubes, the fresh herbs and the chicken broth, coat the cubes well. Place on a baking sheet and cook past the normal doneness for dressing. We want the dressing to be very dry so that it will absorb the custard later on. This time will vary depending on how dry the bread is you are using and the moisture in the air. Keep an eye on them and carefully test the cubes with your fingers, when they’re dried out remove from the oven and let them cool.
4. While the dressing is cooling, in a mixer with the whisk attachment combine the egg product and the heavy cream. Beat until it becomes light and airy and roughly doubles in volume.
5. Cut the croissants into 1/4″ cubes. In a fresh bowl combine the stuffing and the croissants. Cover the mixture with the custard and add in the anise. Combine well and allow it to stand until the mixture thickens to a batter like consistency. Again this time will vary, but approximately 20 minutes.
6. I like to use the silicone muffin tins as they are already non-stick and I don’t need to use muffin wrappers or spray the pans heavily. Fill each muffin tin approximately half full with the bread pudding mixture and bake at 350 until the custard sets. Oven results vary. I’ve had the baking time take 30 minutes for the custard to set and up to an hour. So once again keep an eye on the muffins and when they are firm and a delicious looking golden brown pull them from the oven. Feel free to serve them hot or at room temperature with butter, they’re delicious!

So as I mentioned earlier, bison is a very wonderful exchange for beef…and thankfully it works both ways as I was unable to find any bison steaks this week. But the recipe works very well for steak as well as for bison, I decided on one of my favorite cuts of beef, the flat iron steak.

Everything else I stuck to the recipes and it turned out very delightfully. As we had already put our outdoor grills away for the winter I used my cast iron pan with ridges inside so I could get my grill marks.

For plating I took a small dish and heaped the chutney artfully up inside. Then stretched the butternut squash out along the back just slightly elevated on the dish and stood the steak straight up to get more height. I finished it off with a pan gravy that I made from the drippings from the steak and a simple roux (just add enough flour to the beef fat so that it looks like wet sand, and add stock to finish the sauce).

Here are some images from the final plating. Note to self, pick up some cloth tomorrow at Joann’s in order to hide the back drop. Hope you all enjoyed the menu this week, next week I’ll be doing the side dishes for thanks giving.

While not necessarily my favorite holiday during the year Thanksgiving always holds a special place in my heart. Most of the major holidays deal with food, but none quite so much as Thanksgiving, when we throw our diets out the window and indulge our souls in some good old fashioned comfort food.

The menu I’m proposing this week is certainly not one that I would recommend every week, or even once a month. It is all very fattening and indulgent, but presents the perfect (in my opinion) menu for a delicious Thanksgiving meal. Sure a lot of these ideas are the traditional, and rely heavily on carbs, but they’re my favorites, and even one of my secret appetizers that goes over wonderfully every year. This year I think I’m going to leave out the turkey, everyone has their favorite recipe. But next year I plan on buying a turkey fryer and trying out a few different recipes, so I’ll cover those.

Thanksgiving Menu:

Appetizer: Twice baked Stuffing Muffins

Starches: Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Baked Yams with Marshmallows

Vegetables: Green Bean Casserole

Bison is a wonderful meat, while it can be easy to overcook it and dry it out because it has a much lower fat content than beef. However, it has a lot more natural flavor than beef does, however some folks may not care for the gamier flavor. Because of the lower fat content Bison shouldn’t be prepared more than medium, but of course everyone has their own preferences, but care should be taken when cooking it to medium-well or well done.

If desired you can always substitute beef tenderloin steaks for this recipe.

Bison Steaks, yield 2 servings

Prep time: 5 minutes to mix ingredients, 8 hours to marinate

Cooking time: 6-8 minutes depending on doneness

Ingredients:

2 bison tenderloin steaks, about 6 oz each.

To taste Kosher salt and cracked black pepper.

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil.

3 cloves of garlic finely minced.

Method of Preparation:

1. Coat each steak with kosher salt and cracked black pepper. Place into a resealable plastic bag.
2. Add the olive oil and garlic and coat each steak well. Place in the refrigerator and allow to marinate for at least 8 hours.
3. Preheat your grill to 400 degrees.
4. To get beautiful grill marks you will want to place the steaks on your preheated grill with one tip pointing to the 10 o’clock position, let it sear for at least a minute and a half. In order to decrease the cook time turn the steaks over to the uncooked side leaving them pointed at 10 o’clock. Again let it sear for at least a minute and a half and then turn the steaks to the 2 o’clock position. After another minute and a half turn the steaks back over to the other side left at the 2 o’clock position and you will see the beautiful diamond grill mark paterns on your steak. After these 6 minutes your steak should be about medium rare, if you desire it to be more well done you can leave them longer on each side so that no one side becomes over done.

This recipe for butternut squash is amazingly simple and one of my favorites ever.

Simple Butternut Squash, Yield 2 servings

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 30-45 minutes

Ingredients:

1 medium sized butternut squash

2 Tablespoons butter (not margarine), divided

2 Tablespoons brown sugar, divided

Method of preparation:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Wash any dirt or grit off of the outside of the butternut squash.
2. Using a heavy and sharp chef’s knife cut the stem end off of the squash. Depending on how much you want to serve you can cut the top off down to the bulb, or leave it intact. There is a fair amount of meat in the top part of the stem, but it may be easier for some to only eat the rounded bulb. Next with the squash standing straight up and down, cut it in half. Be extremely careful as the squash tends to be very tough and it can be easy to lose control of the knife. Then remove any seeds with a large spoon from the inside of the bulb, leaving a rounded indentation.
3. Place one tablespoon of both butter and brown sugar into the indentation of the squash and place on a backing sheet line with foil, cut side up. Bake in the oven until a paring knife goes into the flesh easily.

As I mentioned yesterday this is the season for canning and chutneys to be canned and stored for the winter time. I found this recipe on about.com, it’s a great use of the seasonal apples and onions.

Orchard Apple Chutney, yield 2 cups

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups rice vinegar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 large red bell pepper, diced

2 large Jalapeno peppers, seeded and diced

2 tablespoons diced yellow onion

3 tart firm apples; peeled, cored, and diced

Juice of 1 lemon

Method of preperation:

1. Sterilize 2 half-pint canning jars and keep them hot.
2. Bring the vinegar and sugar to a boil in a large saucepan. Stir to dissolve the sugar completely. Add the Bell pepper, jalapenos, and onion and continue to boil for 8 minutes. Add the apples, reduce the heat and simmer until the apples are tender, about 10 minutes more. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice.
3. Spoon or ladle the chutney into the jars. Cap according to the manufacturer’s directions. Process for 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath. Let cool and then test for the seal. Stored in a cool, dry, dark place the chutney will last indefinitely.

Variation: If you do not want to process and can the chutney, spoon or ladle it into sterilized lidded jars. Let them cool slightly and refrigerate. This will keep for 2 weeks in the refrigerator.

I know that I promised to discuss some of the other goals that I have for this site, and while it’s been a tad I fully intend to have this discussion now.

Colorado cuisine:

One of the biggest problems I’ve always seen with Colorado is that it has no real sense of itself when it comes to food. When you think of places like New England you think clam chowder, or Maine Lobster comes to mind. Alaska dreams of spawning salmon cross, or even New Mexico where the spicy twist on tex mex are imprinted on our minds.

Colorado finds itself not having much of an identity, but instead borrowing from so many other regions. There are very few restaurants that claim to be truly Colorado cuisine.

I think that this problem stems from the climate of Colorado itself. With some of the extremes that are seen because we are semi-arid, but yet hot and cold seeing all those extremes during all of our seasons it takes a hardy crop to actually be able to survive here.

So what does grow well here? Corn and wheat are two of our major exports to the rest of the country. As well as squash, potatoes, onions, and apples. But I think our major industry, following suit with Wyoming is in ranching. With the wide open spaces, Colorado has always been a great place for cattle, sheep, and buffalo.

With that being said I plan to start focusing on meals and recipes that reflect a much more Colorado feel. This may be a bit hard starting in the fall, but we have a large number of wonderful fall produce that is available to us. Now is the season for canning, so I’ll bring up some chutneys, recipes for canning and make use of the delicious squashes that are available.

 Cooking demos:

I’ve been working a little with my videographer and we’re going to start meeting to discuss the taping of a weekly cooking demo that we would then post up on youtube. We’ve already got several ideas for some episodes to tape. However we’d love to have some ideas, feel free to respond here and tell me what demonstrations you’d like to see.