Welcome to the Cooking with C.C. Blog. I will be discussing all things food and travel related. Be sure to join me for information from recipes, cookbooks, restaurants and places to visit. I look forward to hearing from you!
The Source of All Truth
Well, when it comes to food that is..... There is nothing like a great reference book when you are working on a recipe or trying to figure out what went wrong with the "well-tested" recipe you got off the Internet. These are books I have on my bookshelf and are my "go-to" sources when I need information about a particular ingredient, process of why something works, or more often - why it didn't. If you want to learn more about the food world around you, these are great sources you should have on your shelf! The two books I reference more than any other were written by my friend Shirley Corriher. Shirley is an amazing lady and a walking treasure trove of all information culinary. Her two books, Cookwise and Bakewise take the approach of explaining a particular aspect of cooking, whether it be an ingredient or method and then provide recipes that demonstrate the concepts. (Don't miss the Take-Your-Breath-Away Lemon Pound Cake on Page 25!) Bakewise has been a great resource for me - as many of you know, baking is more of a science and there is a balance between the liquid, flour, sugar, eggs and other ingredients.…
Stuffed Mushrooms
I'm always looking for great appetizers to serve when I have people over for dinner. I love stuffed mushrooms! I've made many varieties from very simple stuffing with Italian Sausage to ones where the stuffing has a bit more going on. This recipe is a bit more involved as you have to prepare and pre-cook the stuffing for the mushrooms, but it is worth the time and effort. I start with a base of ground pork, but you could change that up to something else if you prefer. On the simpler versions, you stuff them and roast them in the oven. While this tastes great and is easy, if you want a little more elegant appetizer, then I like to cook them in a saute pan. For this particular recipe, we add red wine towards the end which the mushrooms soak up and it makes a nice pan sauce to go with the mushrooms. Give this one a try - it's not really that difficult - you can see exactly how to do it in the video. You can take some shortcuts like I do in the video. Try this out and let me know how you enjoy it!
Baked Black Beans
I was asked to help with a fund raiser for "300" people by an old friend, Bill Neiland, for the His Way fundraiser. (His Way is a residential recovery program for men with drug and alcohol addiction.) The theme we came up with was a take off of a Brazilian Steakhouse (Rodizio). Bill and I have eaten at several of these around the country when we worked together at a previous employer. Bill thought it would be a good idea to do something a little different for this event. The headliners for the event were the Alley Cats. And so - Fogo de Chow - a Brazillian Steakhouse with a Southern Flair was hatched. (If you want to see Tom Reynolds - His Way Director on stage with the Alley Cats - check the video at the bottom....) If you aren't familiar with this dining concept - you generally have an area with salads and sides that you serve yourself and then the come through the dining room with different meat options and you select what you would like to have. For our event, we would have to put the salads and sides on each table and then come around…
“Penguin” Brownies
Carly and I enjoy cooking together – Carly especially enjoys anything sweet with chocolate! We had tried a bunch of brownie recipes until we finally tried this recipe from Alice Medrich’s book. Now, whenever we make brownies, this is now the go-to recipe. (The recipe is called “Steve Ritual Brownies” in the book, but since they go into ice water and Carly is crazy about penguins, she renamed it “Penguin” brownies.) Be sure and check out the video to see Carly make the brownies.