It is no secret that one of cornerstones to great cooking is the quality of ingredients. Much of what you learn stresses the importance of fresh and different ingredients. This in itself is not a myth. However, the fact that you have to spend a lot more to obtain these items could not be farther from the truth.

Professional chefs are no different than other artists out there. They are always trying to come up with something new, and for this reason you notice trends when it comes to ingredients. Years ago when you went to make chili, most of the recipes you found contained similar pepper arrangements. Today, if you counted all of the peppers in the top one hundred chili recipes, it would probably top three hundred different kinds of peppers.

For some reason, when people see others using exotic or hard to get ingredients, they feel their time tested recipes no longer match up. This simply is not true. In Italian cooking, many recipes have remained unchanged for hundreds of years yet you still find them being served in many of the new bleeding edge restaurants.

Now I am not saying that you should avoid quality ingredients. Of course not, but realize that you can still create great dishes using common ones.

Of course, you can also take the time to acquire these things on your own. I spoke with a – (More…)

Always on the lookout for new ways to prepare lamb, I found several that use lemon, a few that use lime, but not many that used both. I decided to take from many of these and combine a bit from this one, a bit from that one, to make something new.

This lemon lime recipe for lamb has a different taste. It is very similar to some of the lemon based lamb recipes but with the fresh cleanliness of lime. I have used it for both lamb chops (loin) and for shoulder chops. It was an instant hit here with the family.

The marinade:

8 cloves of garlic, minced (it seems like a lot, but in the end the flavor is remote).
1 large lemon.
1 lime.
1/2 sprig of rosemary, stem removed, lightly chopped.
1/4 teaspoon of fresh ground pepper.
2 tablespoons of mint, chopped.
1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil.

Add the juice of the lemon and lime to a small bowl. Mix in the rest of the ingredients. In a large plastic resealable bag, add your lamb chops. Pour the marinade over the chops.

BEFORE you put it all back in the refrigerator, let it marinate for a half an hour at room temperature turning once. You can marinade up to 24 hours, turning the meat on occasion.

Remove from marinade and discard marinade. Grill or broil the lamb chops at high heat so as to sear the meat – (More…)

As you can see, I am still playing with my new grill. I had a couple of pounds of ground beef ready for my meatloaf and I began to wonder what a smoked meatloaf might taste like. My thoughts turned to my grill and all of the smoking I have done with it the past week.

Now any grill can smoke, all you need is a small metal container for the chips. I use a really small metal loaf pan that fits right between the grill plate, and the burner. I soak some hickory wood chips I purchased at the hardware store for about an hour in the loaf pan. Then I drain them, and then put the loaf pan with the wet chips in the grill.

You should pre-heat the grill on high for about 15-20 minutes until the chips start smoking.

To make this meatloaf, follow my meatloaf recipe just like always, just omit the oven. Use a metal cookie sheet for the meatloaf since this will go in the grill.

For the potatoes, here is what you need:

1 bag small potatoes (about 20 potatoes).
3 cloves of garlic.
1 half sprig of rosemary, leaves stripped and lightly chopped (throw away the stem).
Salt and pepper.
Teaspoon (or so) of Herbs De Provence.
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil.

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl and toss the potatoes around. When the potatoes are – (More…)

I have a friend who has what is basically a small diner sized kitchen. It has a commercial oven and broiler along with a commercial vent hood above it. A small commercial gas deep fryer, two full size refrigerators, two prep counters, a small pizza oven, and numerous shelves, and stainless steel racks.

Talking with him he told me that he just didn’t have all the proper cookware, gadgets, etc., to cook properly. I looked at him with surprise and said that I could only wish to have a kitchen like that.

He was worried that his knives were not the best, his food processor was 10 years old, etc.. I asked him if he thought great cooking was invented after electricity. He got my point pretty quick after that.

There is nothing wrong with having all of the latest greatest equipment while you practice your art form, but it is not a prerequisite! For the longest time, for whatever reason, I never had a real bread knife. I just got so used to using an old beat up Ginsu knife left over from my college days, it never occurred to me. You know what? It did not affect the flavor, texture or size of my bread. When I did finally purchase one, the only difference was that cutting the bread was easier. The end result was the same.

I used to mince garlic – (More…)

I decided lately that instead of buying that pre-made pizza dough in the supermarket, that I would try making it at home. I never had much luck in the past making it, or at least making it good, but since I began making my own breads, I decided to give it another shot. Once I realized how easy it was, I started fooling with different pizza dishes.

One of my favorites is deep dish pizza and my recipe for it changes almost every time I make it. I find it fun trying different things with the sauce and the dough, in fact, lately it seems like I am making home made pizza twice a week. It really is a delight making it, and it is also a good dish to make with the kids. Instead of buying a deep pizza dish, I just use my cast iron skillet and it works great.

I think everyone should try this at least once so I figured I would write up my basic sauce and dough to get you started!

Sauce (make the dough shown below first):

1 large can crushed tomatoes (15 oz.).
1 pound hot Italian sausage removed from the casings.
3 cloves of garlic minced.
1 large carrot minced.
1 medium red onion or shallot, diced.
1/2 pound mushrooms (I use Crimini) sliced with stems removed.
2 tablespoons of olive oil.
2 tablespoons each chopped basil and chopped oregano.
Salt and pepper.

You will need some – (More…)

While still on my grilling kick, I went a little overboard and cooked a pork shoulder on the grills rotisserie; a TEN POUND fresh shoulder. Seeing as how there is only four of us (two adults, two children), it was just slightly overkill.

As delicious as the roast was, there was a ton of leftover meat. So I packed it all into a piece of Tupperware, and let it stew on my mind overnight. What was I going to do with all this meat? It is the beginning of the week and we do not eat that many sandwiches!

I looked around the net to get some ideas and someone mentioned using it to make a Shepard’s pie. This seemed perfect and in the end it was. Now I just whipped this together so don’t hold me to exact measurements here. This is the kind of dish where just about anything goes so don’t be afraid if you change little things.

Leftover pork shoulder or butt, cut into bite size pieces. Probably about a pound or two.
1 small onion chopped.
1 – 1 1/2 carrots chopped.
I used a half can each of corn, peas, and green beans, but feel free to use what you want. I used a total of about 1 1/2 cups.
2-3 tablespoons oil (I used canola).
2-3 tablespoons flour (depending on how much oil you use).
About 2 cups of chicken stock.
3/4 tablespoon – (More…)

The warm spring and summer months starts up the grilling. The other day I wanted to grill something on my new grill and started going through the fridge. The loin lamb chops that were on the meat shelf screamed out loud “Grill Me!”

I then started going through the vegetable drawer trying to find something else I could cook up with the lamb at the same time and came across the parsnips. I prepared all of this ahead of time and so can you.

Parsnips:

3-4 pounds of parsnips cut in half lengthwise.
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil.
1 teaspoon of smoked paprika.
About a tablespoon lightly chopped sage.
Salt and Pepper.

Place the parsnips in a large pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil for about 5-6 minutes until almost done. Cool.

Mix the rest of the ingredients (salt and pepper to taste) and toss with the parsnips in a suitable container. Refrigerate.

Lamb Chops:

10 loin lamb chops.
1 long sprig of rosemary.
3 cloves of garlic, minced.
1/4 cup of olive oil.
The juice of one lemon.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Strip the leaves from the rosemary and lightly chop. Combine with the rest of the ingredients and pour over the lamb chops in a suitable container and refrigerate.

Let the chops and parsnips marinate for at least an hour and up to 24 hours.

Preheat your grill on high and cook the parsnips and lamb chops together, placing the parsnips on – (More…)

So the wife decided it was time I got a present. She bought me a new gas grill. The Charmglow 810-7420-S 4 burner grill was delivered the other day. Now my old grill was in a sorry state. The burners has basically rusted apart and when I dissembled it, they fell away into dust. My grilling of course was just horrible because the flame setup was just all over the place and there was no even heating.

We were looking over grills for the last couple months and I saw this Charmglow at the Home Depot website. The grill is only available through them. What I liked about it is that it had a double hood (see pic below). Each hood covers two burners. This means that you do not need to light all the burners if your just cooking up say, a London broil.

This can really save on propane when you are cooking. Another plus is that you can cook two different things on the grill at different temperatures. Each hood has a separate temperature gauge so you can monitor the heat. I am a bit skeptical about the gauges themselves and am going to test them against a thermometer soon. When I first fired it up, they heated so quickly, I found it a bit hard to believe. They were basically at 700 degrees in – (More…)

So it was a pretty crazy week. Spring is finally here and I have been pretty busy getting the herbs outside and planted. There is also the fact that kids have been having half days at school this week. Basically things have been non-stop.

This of course does not relinquish me from my cooking duties (unless I am feeling reckless and let my wife cook ). I had some chicken that really needed to get cooked and originally my plan was to fire up the grill and barbecue it with my normal recipe. There just wasn’t enough time to cook all of that and have it on the table at dinner time.

So I decided to whip up this barbecue sauce from scratch and just tasted it as I went along. It came out wonderful and I cannot wait to try it on the grill, but this recipe and technique is for the busy person who really only has time to cook it in the oven (and stove).

Sauce:

1 cup of ketchup
1/4 cup of Grey Poupon or other such Dijon mustard.
1 heaping tablespoon brown sugar.
1 small red onion (or shallot), chopped fine.
2 cloves of garlic, minced.
2 tablespoons of Canola oil.
Pinch salt & pepper.

Put the oil in a large skillet and heat to medium. Cooke the garlic and onion until the onion is clear. Cool on a plate (discarding oil) for about 10 minutes.

Add the – (More…)

I am always trying different things when it comes to leg of lamb. Sometimes it can be hard to find just the right taste with such a flavorful cut of meat. Many of the recipes you find for leg of lamb involve some sort of mint spice, but recently I decided to try something a little different.

I have read about people using Juniper berries with lamb but I am one of the few who does not care for that particular berry so I decided to go with cranberries instead. I use a well trimmed leg that has had most of the shank removed but still has the bone in higher up.

1 leg of lamb 4-6 pounds.
1 can of Guinness.
1 can of cranberry sauce (the whole berry version).
3 tablespoons honey.
Canola oil.
4 bay leaves.
2 sprigs of rosemary whole.
1 medium yellow onion, quartered.
5 cloves of garlic minced.
Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper.

Preheat oven to 250.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the beer and honey. It will take a couple minutes if the beer is cold as the honey will temporarily harden. It will be easier if the beer is room temperature. Add 3/4 of the can of cranberries to the mixture. Set aside.

Liberally salt and pepper the leg of lamb. In a medium skillet, add enough canola oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Heat to medium high and when the – (More…)