Three Little Words: Fried Shrimp Ravioli

Man, this was a little bit of prep because I made the ravioli myself but it sure was worth it. The recipe was very simple. The ravioli was filled with one large piece of shrimp and sealed with an egg wash. Then I deep fried them in a small sauce pan with about an inch of vegetable oil in it. They were left to dry on a paper towel while I finished the lot. I did 3 at a time so I could babysit them.

Shave and a Chocolate

Merry Christmas! Here's more cookies, chocolate, lemon bars, peanut brittle, russian tea cakes, fruit cake, fruit bread, fruit bars and fruit baskets than one person can possibly consume! Okay. How do you make a dent in that pile of festivities? Well, eat the stuff that goes stale first. Freeze the russian tea cakes. Re-gift the fruitcake, everyone does. Okay. Now we are left with the fruit basket and some Swedish candy bar that is the favorite treat of, you forget who.

Meat and Potatoes

We rarely eat beef, but when we eat beef we eat beef rarely. This could be done with your favorite cut of the steak or whatever is on sale. I chose a filet and split it with my wife.

Put What, Where?

Take a bundle of asparagus, snap off the white ends, put it in a shallow casserole dish and coat it with just a little olive oil. Toss in some fresh cracked pepper and sea salt. The olive oil coats the vegetable and lets it accept the seasoning. Then place the stalks on a grill. Right. Thank you all the smart people in the back. Place them perpendicular to the grill rails. A little smoke is okay, that is the oil doing its thing. After a couple of minutes roll the asparagus over with your tongs and get the other side.

Stupid-Proof Chicken

For Christmas dinner, my cousin and I made a traditional goose. My aunt's recipe called for cranberry-stuffed grannie smith apples. I have a very simple chicken preparation that was waiting for an inspired accompaniment, and I think I found it.

Pardon my French

Once you have had great food it is easy to become an ingredient snob. You would rather spend the time and money picking out a few amazing ingredients than suffer through another meal of watery, hormoned, facsimiles. In France, I went to a corner produce stand. They had only heirloom tomatoes. They stocked only the finest Mediterranean olives. I bought some dried apricots. These apricots were amazing! They were plump, tender, and must have been sun-dried with cinnamon and vanilla beneath them. Eating $1.00 worth of dried apricots for lunch was just as luxurious and sensual as dropping a hundy, dining in the finest restaurant in San Francisco.

Italian Sausage Pasta

If you have company coming over, or you want to get ahead on your prep, try precooking and plating your ingredients for assembly later. We were having a group over for pasta. I grilled some Italian sausage and a red bell pepper and sauteed my onions. When the crowd finally assembled I threw my pasta in the water, warmed my tomatoes, meat and vegetables and assembled dinner fresh for the crew. The grilled flavor definitely came through and the pasta tasted amazingly fresh. But most importantly, I was able to enjoy my crowd, spending only 10 minutes in the kitchen. Its okay to put a big plate of comfort food in the middle of the table and apply liberally to the face.

This pasta featured Italian tomatoes canned with basil, grilled mild italian sausage, spinach, grilled red bell pepper, sauteed white onion and rigatoni pasta.

$3.00 per person. Well-rounded. Filling. Inexpensive. Flexible. Lots of good protein and vitamins. Eat the food that you enjoy, but make sure you can enjoy your company.

Dinner Out, But In...

It doesn't matter if the tuna is alive or a filet on your cutting board, the thing just wants to get out of the way of your knife. Watch your fingers! This is my tuna tartare. 4 oz of sashimi-grade tuna by weight, and 4 oz by volume of a mixture of vegetables. My vegetables were julienned carrots, shallots and purple potato as well as cut baby corn.

$3.00 Vacation

It takes as much time to assemble a great sandwich as it takes to assemble a ho-hum sandwich. In France, ham is not a food, it is an art form. They explore the nuances of curing times and moisture contents, quantity and exposure to smoke and air and sunshine. At breakfast alone, you have your choice of 3-5 artisan hams.

Too Much Whipped Cream

When you work in restaurants, your sense of proper portions gets polluted. That said, there is some physics behind the whipping of cream that only works with a certain minimum amount. I blamed both of these when I made too much orange whipped cream for my last dessert. The great thing about a gourmet food blog is the gourmet blog leftovers.

Way Better than an Oreo

My inspiration for this desert was imagining; What if the Oreo had, like a rich uncle? I tasted the individual parts of this as it went together but I let my wife, a dancer, and her dancer friend demolish this after a performance. Upon tasting the rubble that was left behind, I wish I had put myself on the demolition crew.

Pumpkin Lobster Bisque

There are really two ways you could prepare this soup. The gourmand method or the convenience method.

If you have time and a free source for lobster shells (your local fish monger or grocery store), start by taking a pound or two of shells and put them in a large pot. Cover them with water and let that water reduce on medium heat until all you are left with is about 1/8th of the water you originally put in. Strain to remove shells and tissue, and keep your liquid. Take a pumpkin or butternut squash and cut it in half. Scoop out seeds and the stringy part of the flesh. Keep a few seeds on the side. Bake the pumpkin cut-side-up for about 90 minutes at 200 degrees. Scoop the cooked pumpkin flesh out of the skin and throw the rest away.

Vinegar and Ice Cream

It sounds as good as iced pepperoni cupcakes, doesn't it? Of course, it is dependent on the right vinegar. When I was a pastry chef we did a desert with sliced strawberries and a grocery-store balsamic vinegar over a cinnamon dough thing. It was an idea waiting for the right ingredients. Later, when I bought a $50.00 bottle of 15-year-old aged balsamic, I tried the strawberry and vinegar mixture again and spooned it over ice cream. The older a balsamic gets, the mellower and more complex it becomes. I was highly satisfied with the result. Then, on a trip to the Napa Valley, my parents discovered a black fig vinegar. This was darker and thicker and mellower than any balsamic I had tasted. Some recipes come to me in a flash. This one has been 10 years in the making.

Winter Pork Goodness

My wife is not a big fan of pork tenderloin, but she said I was allowed to make this every night. I took a packaged pork tenderloin from the grocery store, rinsed it and let it breath and rest on the counter for about a half an hour. I moistened it again, put it in a glass casserole, fat-side down, and dusted the top with ground thyme and parmesan cheese. I roasted the meat and vegetables together at 475 for the first 30 minutes and then at 400 for the next 60 minutes. The vegetables were organic carrots and shallots cut to equal thicknesses.

Scallops and Fall Vegetables

Weighing in at just under $5.00 per serving, Tinpot Gourmet’s most expensive dish yet: scallops and fall vegetables. I took a yukon gold potato and a purple potato, sliced them thick and then boiled them. Atop that, I placed some large scallops that I sauteed very simply in olive oil at medium-high heat, to a medium rare. Then I spooned a generous helping of tomatoes, garlic, sea salt and basil on top. To finish, I drizzled a line of an aged, black fig vinegar for visual contrast and a surprise on the pallet.

Bruschetta (broo-'ske-te)

Here is a great time to talk about one of my main governing principals. I call it, "Complex, not complicated." I would rather eat a dish with a few high-quality ingredients that are carefully apportioned than a bunch of cheap ingredients. Musicians, designers, artists, authors and chefs all struggle with this aspect of composition. The things I find most enjoyable and surprising are the simplest solutions.

Strong to the Finach

So, the simplest thing you can do for lunch is take a bed of spinach and put your favorite things on it. For me, this is the way I eat up the fruits and vegetables that are about to go bad. Remember that can of pears you bought for Mother's Day fruit salad that has been orphaned in your pantry? Open it, drain the pears and rinse them and throw them on your spinach. Now add something savory, like some goat cheese, layer it all on a special plate and you have yourself a gourmet lunch.

Two-Dollar Power Breakfast

My favorite power breakfast consists of bread, peanut butter and bananas. I like to use an all-natural peanut butter, whatever bread is lying around, like this ciabatta, and a nice, ripe banana. If all you have is green bananas, eat cereal. Especially if you have never had a peanut butter and banana sandwich before. Ugh. Green bananas are not sweet enough to play with the saltiness of the peanut butter. If you want to know just how grassy green bananas taste, make this sandwich with green bananas.