Archive for the ‘Appetizers’ Category
Asparagus and Melted Brie’s 15 Seconds
Ok, enough lobster talk. Who says decadent has to be hard work and fancy ingredients? I wouldn’t say I need to toil and experiment with the fancier ingredients, but I do enjoy trying something different. But then there are days when I’m tired of searching for the hard to find stuff, when I just want the simple ingredients ton stand on their own, when you want give the most basic of items their due as something whole and delicious unto themselves. You want to give them their 15 seconds of fame if you will.
Divorcee Vacay: Cocktail Hour With Coconut Mojitos
Editor’s Note: Please give a warm welcome to AMF’s good friends and newest contributors, Sparkles (Allison) and Master P (Paula). Being the wine drinking, sunloving, danceaholics that they are, I’m really pleased to have them share their culinary adventures and cocktail making hotness.
To be clear, we are not divorced (from each other or otherwise). Excluded from a college boys weekend, unable to convince two other bffs to join us and desperate to leave our respective cities (DC and NYC), we are vacationing just the two of us on the small, quaint island of Anna Maria, Florida. Hence, we feel like divorcees and intend to drink, eat and sun bathe accordingly. 
Once you get on the island, it’s hard to leave (and not a good idea after wine in the afternoon) so we make sure to shop for the whole trip. Brilliantly, we acquire ingredients that can be re-used in innovative ways (ie if you buy enough different cheeses, you are pretty much set for days.)
Cocktail Hour Menu:
Libation – Mojitos with pineapple infused rum and coconut water
Appetizer – Grilled, halved peaches with honey vanilla ricotta
We begin our late afternoon with a cocktail “project.” Located in the fruit aisle, next to the peaches, we found coconuts, silly, fury little guys, just begging to be taken home (despite the obvious question: what does one do with a whole coconut?) Before we do anything, we slice up pineapple and throw it in a bowl and cover it with rum to let the rum seep in. (Snacking on rum soaked pineapple is pretty fantastic, as well.) We then take our coconut into the garage and discover a power drill! We hold the coconut over a bowl and drill! until we pierce through the shell, then add another hole for air flow and drain the coconut juice into a bowl to be thrown into a mojito with rum soaked pineapple, fresh crushed mint, more rum, simple syrup and a little club soda. Perfection!
Onto the appetizers! We preheat the grill on medium heat, then take a peach and half it, pulling out the pit and coat each half in olive oil, then throw them face down on the grill and close the cover. We mix ricotta with honey and a little vanilla while we wait. Once grill marks appear on the peaches, after about 10 minutes, we brush balsamic vinegar on them and then add copious amounts of the ricotta mixture and devour with a fork and knife. The result is as warm and delish as peach cobbler without as much guilt. (It is just the appetizer, after all.)
Cocktail Hour Recipes
Mojitos:
2 parts chunks of pineapple
1 healthy pinch mint leaves
1 part simple syrup (1 cup water to 1 cup sugar)
1 part rum
1 part coconut water
Splash club soda
Peaches:
1 peach (pitted)
1 cup ricotta cheese
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon vanilla
Balsamic vinegar mixed with honey for drizzling
Olive oil for brushing
Soon to come: Chorizo and BlueCheese Brandy Burgers..
Mussels to Die/Risk Severe Food Poisoning For..
There’s something about having a not so sober conversation with the old school, neighborhood lush about the quality and freshness of your local seafood that’s both amusing and troubling. On the one hand you’re thinking maybe this guy knows a thing or two and I should heed his advice; on the other (and this is coming from years of bartending experience) you want to just write the guy off and chalk it up to drunk banter. “No, I get it, check the eyes, yes I understood the first 37 times you mentioned it.”
Either way, it did get me thinking, there’s a few ingredients out there you do really need to be careful about when purchasing and storing. Fish: clean eyes and fresh smell = good. Crustaceans: moving around and smell fresh = good. Other major meats are fairly obvious as well, but clams and mussels. That’s a bit trickier. Freshness with those guys is very much necessary simply because a dead one can lead to a horrible world of pain and the red flags aren’t as obvious.
But have no fear mussel lovers! A little prep when coming home with fresh mussels means you can eat well and safe all week long. Top things you need to know about buying and storing mussels:
- Check your mussels, they should be tightly closed! If cracked or stay open after tapping them, that’s a deal breaker ladies.
- Mussels need to breath, so if wrapped in a plastic bag they will suffocate. The good stuff is in a mesh bag, rinsed with water and ideally displayed up front and not in a back room out of eye shot.
- If you’re not cooking your mussels immediately, place them in a bowl with a layer of aluminum foil and wet paper towel or newspaper on the bottom, as well as another paper towel on top and they’ll keep in your fridge for about 5 days. ALWAYS check them again before using to discard the opened, dead ones.
Tomatoes Provençal Your Mother Would Love
Well, actually that may not necessarily be accurate. My mom loves tomatoes so I know any dish with tomatoes as the centerpiece is going to be a hit. I myself am not a big tomato fan, but I must admit the Provençal variation is pretty damn tasty. And it pairs brilliantly with roasted read meat or a simple white fish. Snazzy, simple and dare I say.. elegant? All you really need to Provençal anything are the trifecta: tomatoes, garlic and olive oil so tinker with these ingredients. What follows are the classic stuffed variety, but there’s no reason why the mix can’t contribute to other dishes if your looking to add a little acidity and garlic.
Guacamole for Beginners
There’s a lot of dishes out there, and it’s hard for your average home cook to become familiar with the basic or master recipe of such a wide variety of cuisine. So I try to make a point of learning at least one basic recipe for as many different dishes as possible, just to familiarize myself with the process and technique. Hence the realization that I really had no idea how to make guacamole. Sure you peel the avocado and add some lime juice and salt/pepper, but it’s just not something that really attracted my attention. Maybe it’s because I grew up loving cheesy nachos with only salsa or maybe it’s because [gasp] I’m not that huge of a fan of avocado. So once I got a few requests to do a good guacamole recipe I figured it was time to get this dip down pat.
Starting with a little research, I settled on an America’s Test Kitchen recipe that included some bacon, spices, and a few veggies. Nothing fancy, but definitely worth a try. What I was really intrigued by was not so much how the various ingredients worked together, but how important the seasoning and lime juice played in making the guac really tasty. I think I get it now, guacamole really is kinda brilliant in it’s simplicity. And with a few little techniques on how to remove the avocado flesh, it was an easy and enjoyable little dip to throw together.
A Good Reason to Practice Making Risotto
Balls. Yup, just balls. Only reason you’ll need. So after a few attempts with the risotto recipe, you may have found it doesn’t always come out so brilliantly. But you don’t want to waste your ingredients. The rice is a little too crunchy, or the final product was a thick and heavy blob of cement. These things happen, at least they happened to me more than a few times. So when I found out that I could turn my fuckup into a really tasty drunk munchie I was more than a little pleased.