Why Beets are Wonderful

For the past few months I have been consciously trying to make "good" food choices. Not dieting, or eliminating any part of my diet (yes I still love pork)...but learning what a portion really is, and eating less 4 legged animals and less hard cheeses (difficult but I'm managing) and less dessert. I am not a salad fan but I've found that I'm in love with arugula, and nothing pairs better with arugula than beets.

Friends have told me that they have no idea how to make beets, and are intimidated by them. Beets are one of the most low maintenance vegetables around, and they are sweet, filling and delicious and a great source of natural fiber. I try to incorporate them into my diet at least 4 times a week...another wonderful thing about beets is that local beets are available at the farm (upstate) from June through the end of November, and at the farmers markets well into December...and they keep for weeks in the fridge...therefore you can really have local beets for 8-9 months out of the year. There are many varieties of beets, I think the dark purple are the sweetest and the best way to cook them is to simply roast them whole. Don't cut the beets before roasting them because the high temperature that you have to roast them will dry them out...after roasting them you can do various things to them. You can also saute the beet greens in a little garlic and onion.

Simple beet recipe:

Preheat the oven to 425F
Cut the stems and greens off of the beets
Place beets in the center of a large sheet of aluminum foil and bunch the foil around the beets to form a pouch. Then place beets in the center of the oven.
Let beets roast for at least an hour and 15 minutes (longer for larger beets) until a fork can easily pierce through without much give.
Remove the beets from the oven and let cool for 20 minutes
Peel the skin and cut as desired.
Refrigerate or serve.
You can also add red wine vinegar and red onion and salt and pepper to the beets and marinate for a few hours for a tasty beet salad.

Pork Palooza

As many of you who know me or read this blog have come to know, I'm obsessed with the pig! I have written numerous blog posts about pork because I truly believe that pork should be a food group. Sorry to all of you vegetarians, kosher abiding Jews and Muslims out there but blame it on my South Carolinian roots the pig should be enshrined! On my recent trip to South Carolina I think I might've overloaded on pork. In a 24 hour period I managed to eat pork in one shape and form or another at every single meal...but two dishes in particular absolutely blew my mind.

First the pork trotters with sunny side farm egg at Fig...this dish was pure heaven and so simple but so perfect. It was trotters (pigs feet) from a local farm pulled off of the bone and formed into a croquette with a perfectly cooked sunny side up egg perched on top. The plate was simply garnished with purple endive, pickles and a mustard vinaigrette. This dish was so rich, and creamy and salty and smooth and crunchy at the same time. The potency of the farm egg with it's rich, custardy, dark yellow yolk coupled with the salty and crunchy trotters and the bitter of the endive with the salt and crunch of the gherkin pickles. Brilliant...

Another moment of culinary brilliance was the pork chop (bone in of course, as there is no other way to have it) with fried oysters, hollandaise, and smoky bacon with a black eyed pea cassoulet at High Cotton. There was pork in every bite, the tender pork chop with the crispy salty bacon, and the sweet crisp but also smooth oysters and the silky hollandaise all at one time...OMG a party in my mouth, and how innovative to serve fried oysters on top of a pork chop (why didn't I think of that?). Then there was the sharpness of the green onion on top of the hollandaise and the crunch of the panko crumbs and bacon in the black eyed pea cassoulet. Simply amazing!

Another wonderful plus about both of these restaurants is that they support local, sustainable food...the produce and meat and seafood are local if at all possible which adds to the flavor of the dishes...once again (and I know I repeat this over and over) the culinary benefits of going local are showcased! If you go to Charleston these restaurants should be on your short list.

That Coconut Cake - Worth the Hype?

Charleston has gotten alot of press recently as being a "foodie" destination. It was featured by Tony Bourdain on No Reservations, featured by Tyler Florence and Bobby Flay on Throwdown. The Throwdown episode that featured Charleston was the Throwdown of Robert Carter's coconut cake at Peninsula Grill. Bobby Flay won, and Bobby is hardly a pastry chef, so I was determined to see what the hype was about and whether the cake was worth the hype and Bobby's winning was a fluke or if the cake wasn't as good as the attention it was getting.

My father is the biggest coconut cake fan in the world, my mother makes a coconut cake for him every birthday and he's super critical. So I enlisted him in the challenge of critiquing the cake. We went to dinner (very well executed and formal southern food) and ordered the cake. It was huge, 12 layers and the presentation was lovely. Lovely presentation doesn't necessarily equal the best taste so I was skeptical at best. My father took the first bite and then I heard "quite good"...bite two "very good"...I then snatched the cake from him to get a bite before it disappeared before my eyes. It was very rich, and very moist but also oddly light. It was heavenly, creamy and crunchy at the same time; I ended up having three bites and I hate coconut cake! My grandfather who doesn't like sweets helped devour it, and my mom gave the nod of approval. It's worth the hype, the cake really is that good. But my father says it still isn't as good as my mothers.

Shrimp-n-Grits

I'm here in Charleston South Carolina - the SC Low Country and the originator of what has become a wildly popular dish nationwide; Shrimp and Grits.

My family comes from here, and on special occasions (such as Christmas morning as it's tradition) and once in awhile at our Bed and Breakfast Catskill Maison my mother will whip up possibly the best version of shrimp and grits in the world. She uses huge gulf or South Carolina coastal shrimp and the most flavorful andouille sausage. We have this dish featured on our Bed and Breakfast homepage, because it symbolizes so much where we are from and what we are about. Shrimp and grits recipes are sacred, and varied...and I'm extremely critical when I eat it in public. It simply never measures up anywhere close to my mother's so I've pretty much stopped ordering it at restaurants. Until last night.

Since Charleston is the birthplace of Shrimp and Grits and Hanks Seafood Restaurant is possibly the best seafood restaurant in Charleston I thought I'd take the risk and order the shrimp and grits...I'm so glad that I did. The shrimp were plump, moist and perfectly cooked (as we know one of my huge pet peeves is overdone shrimp). The sausage was flavorful and the roux wasn't too salty or spicy and the perfect consistency...they even used the green onion garnish perfectly. The Grits were stone ground, and creamy but not runny and had a solid consistency. Bravo! This dish was as close to my mother's as I've ever eaten. For those of you who've been fortunate enough to experience the shrimp and grits that we make at the Bed and Breakfast, and are disappointed elsewhere...or for anyone traveling to Charleston in general, the Shrimp and Grits at Hanks Seafood Restaurant gets the thumbs up and meets my approval!

Fresh Ham Cuban Style And More Pork Coming!

As some of you may know I have an on going love affair with the pig! Pork for me is one of the best things on earth and hands down should be a separate food group. I love pork so much that instead of just buying cuts of pork from the local farms in the Catskills (or Whole Foods in a pinch) for the past 2 years I have commissioned JJ Farber farm in Jewett NY (about a 5 mile drive from Catskill Maison B&B) who specializes in grass fed hormone/antibiotic beef and free range eggs to raise a hormone/antibiotic farm roaming pig for me. Every winter a pig is brought to the farm, and John (who runs the farm) handles the pig for me until May when it's big enough to be used for meat. This process is very important because I have complete knowledge of what the pig is eating and it's level of exercise and most importantly I can control how much of each type of meat I want. For the Bed and Breakfast I tend to want a lot of ham, bacon and breakfast sausage. But for myself I have a major affinity for roasted fresh ham/shoulder (ok and all of those parts that make most people squirm so I won't go into those parts for this blog post). This weekend I roasted the last leg of fresh ham so I could have room in anticipation of getting a new shipment of pork in about a month. I'm glad that I roasted the ham when I did because the new pork is being sent to the butcher today. Stay tuned for my blog post on how I broke down the cuts of meat for the pig...but for now enjoy the below recipe for fresh ham Cuban Style!

Roasted Pork Shoulder or Fresh Ham

Ingredients:

8-10 lb Pork Picnic (shoulder) can substitute with Fresh Ham*

Marinade

Bottle of Sour Orange Juice or ½ cup of orange juice and ½ cup of lime juice

1/2 bottle of red wine

2 lemons or limes squeezed keeping the rinds

2 Heads of Garlic ( half of the garlic coarsely chopped and half finely chopped)

2 limes

Olive oil ¼ cup

½ cup of Vinegar

2 tbs of fresh oregano finely chopped or 1 tbs of Dried Oregano

1 sazon packet

1 tbs of Adobo

Salt and pepper to taste

Rub

2 tablespoons of fresh oregano and fresh garlic processed in the food processor, or 1 tablespoon of dried oregano

1 sazon packet

1 tbs of Adobo

1 tbs of onion powder

1 tbs of cumin

Salt

Pepper

Cut 1 inch slits into all areas of the meat. Stuff the coarsely chopped 6 cloves of garlic in the slits (not all slits have to be stuffed). Combine all marinade ingredients in a glass or plastic bowl or glass pan and place the pork into marinade and cover with saran wrap and let sit for 12 hours and then turn the meat over every 12 hours for 48 hours.

Preheat oven to 300 F for 20 minutes

Remove meat from marinade and shake off excess. (Reserve 1 cup of Marinade) Rub meat with olive oil, and combine all rub ingredients and then rub onto meat. Place meat in a pan and put the pan in the oven on top rack. Pour reserved marinade into the pan. Place another pan with water on bottom rack. After 1 and ½ hours baste meat with drippings, and then baste again after 3 hours. After four and a half or 5 hours or when a fork can easily go into the meat remove the water and keep roasting for a total of 6 hours…raise temperature to 450 for ½ hr to 45 min to crisp the outside. Pork is done when meat is falling off the bone and very tender. Do not cut for ½ an hour.

*If you use a fresh ham increase the time by 3 hours.

Knife Skills

I've been cooking for about 25 years and over the past 3 years have started cooking professionally. When you cook professionally nothing is more important than "prep" time. The day before or hours before the meal where you get together your ingredients and chop, dice and sort them. As I cook more and more I've come to realize the importance of good knife skills. I took a basic knife skills class from Chef Central and got some good pointers, and time savers; but the ultimate Knife Skills class is taught by Norman Weinstein at the Institute of Culinary Education . He is the knife skills guru, he even wrote a best selling book Mastering Knife Skills on the topic. His class sells out within 3 days of being posted on the ICE website, so when I got the newsletter and schedule of courses in the mail today the first thing I did was log onto the website to see if I made it in time to register for his class...Major Score! I did it! I finally was able to register for his coveted Knife Skills class! By Monday there will be no spaces available for any of his 20 classes for the summer and a wait list will be established. This was my 4th time attempting to register for one of his Knife Skills classes and you really have to strike while the iron is hot! If there is any advice that I can give regarding being an accomplished cook, master your knife skills because once that is mastered everything else comes easy. Stay tuned for my post in June about the details of what I learned.

The Connection Between Health Care Reform, Supporting Local Farms, and Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

With the passage of sweeping healthcare reform I can’t help but take a minute to think about what “preventive measures” I can take with regards to my overall health, and going a step further how in “reforming” healthcare maybe attention should be given to the easy and logical way to preventing so many of the illnesses that the reformers are trying to ensure that we get coverage for. In watching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution I’m so glad that the fact that America has as serious problem regarding food choices has finally hit prime time! American’s are accustomed to being in “fix it” mode…the reason why healthcare is so important (regardless of which side of the debate you are on) is partially because we don’t take responsibility for how to “prevent” what needs fixing. If you look at the causes of diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure etc…so much of it can be traced to bad food choices and a lack of exercise. But sometimes I wonder if the reason why so many Americans make such bad food choices is because Americans don’t embrace the concept of “buying local”. When a vegetable or fruit is bruised, or wilted, or tasteless you will not want to eat it regardless of how much it’s touted for having vitamins, nutrients and antioxidents. Farm produce really does taste different, it’s not just better and fresher, but often the taste itself is very different from what can be purchased in a local supermarket. For 8 months of the year we really can get local produce. I encourage you to go to your local farmers market if you can’t get directly to the farm. NYC and the surrounding suburbs are full of farmers markets. It’s incredible to think of how much we as a nation can save if we don’t have to run to the ER or the clinic or doctor for ways to “fix” the problems that can be solved so easily by eating properly. I advocate that the first step in reform is in education about making changes in the way we view food and how it relates to our health. Support your health and the economy of your community by buying your food locally whenever possible.