Cedar Planked Crappie

I was out on the water at Fish Lake near my home yesterday and caught a nice 11" Crappie so I thought I might experiment with cooking it on a cedar plank as is done commonly with Salmon.
I first soaked the plank for about 1 1/2 hours in water and while that was happening I marinated the Crappie in 1 Tablespoon of Olive oil, 1 Tablespoon of Soy sauce, 1 1/2 Tablespoons of Bourbon and 1 Tablespoon of Limoncello (lemon Liqueur). I heated the grill for several minutes, then set the plank on the grill to heat. as soon as it began to smoke, I laid the Crappie on the plank and let it cook for 5-6 minutes. There was a plethora of smoke and the time was about right for the size of the fish. It was just opaque at he 5 minute mark and it didn't need any more salt because of the Soy sauce in the marinade but I did add some fresh ground pepper. The result was interesting but frankly, I think the cedar deal works better on a fairly strong flavored fish like Salmon. It was a bit much for the mild flavored Crappie.
I guess this is how we learn what works and what doesn't. I did like the marinade flavor but next time I will grill it on a sheet of aluminum foil with a pat of butter along with the marinade and some pepper. I know that works very well from past experience with the mild flavored fish like Walleye and Crappie.
Go forth and cook!
Tim

Loaded Baked Potato Soup

This afternoon I have been working on adapting my Baked Potato soup recipe to accommodate the ingredients available at the Fruit of the Vine food shelf at my church, The Vineyard in Duluth, Mn. I am going to give some cooking demonstrations there on May 22nd to show the clients how to make some good stuff using what is available there. We are going to do 4 demos; the first at 9:30 which will be breakfast, featuring biscuits from scratch and sausage gravy to go with them. Next, at 10:30 we will make a snack of crostinis with some fun things on top and possibly flatbread pizzas. At 11:30 we will tackle a full roasted chicken dinner and show the various things you can do with a whole chicken. Among those ideas will be the dinner with rice pilaf, then what to do with the carcass. We will show how to make a great chicken stock for use in soups and almost anything you might need a stock for as well as using the leftover chicken meat for the soup, chicken salad, pot pies or just to snack on. we will also do a candied carrot recipe done in the oven for our vegetable side dish. At 12:30 we tackle dessert, creating a bread pudding with canned fruit and also my loaded baked potato soup. This post is dedicated to that soup. The recipe, which feeds 8-10 people:

3 Cups Instant Mashed Potato Flakes

4 Cups reconstituted non-fat dry milk

2 2/3 cups water

4 Tablespoons Butter

1 Cup chicken stock from home made, boullion cube or chicken base

1/2 Sweet Onion, grated

2 Slices Bacon, cut into 1/2" pieces

1 Pinch Salt

1/4 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper

1/2 teaspoon Ground White Pepper

1/2 cup Grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese

Chopped green onions and more cheese for garnish.

In a fry pan, cook the bacon until crisp and set aside on a plate lined with paper towels.

Grate the onion and melt the butter in a 3 1/2 qt saucepan. Add the onion and sweat over low heat for about 5-6 minutes until the onion is translucent.

Add the water, milk, stock, salt, pepper, cayenne, and simmer for 10-15 minutes over very low heat.

Add the potato flakes and stir them in, mixing thoroughly until fully combined.

Add the bacon, crumbling it as you add it.

Add the grated cheese and simmer for 3-4 minutes more over low heat.

Serve immediately and garnish with chopped green onions and more grated cheese.

As the title suggests, it tastes like a loaded baked potato

Bon Appetit!

Filet Mignon

Tonight I cooked a beef tenderloin medallion on the grill. My word, I like that stuff! Super One in Duluth had a sale a while back on beef tenderloin and I was $3.95/ lb. ; unbelievable! I bought two of them and cut them up into individual medallions and Chateaubriand-style roasts. Tonight I made the individual medallions and wrapped them in bacon and grilled them, searing for about 4 minutes per side, seasoned with Lawry's seasoned salt and fresh ground black pepper. Absolutely wonderful! The tenderloin needs extra seasoning because it doesn't have that much flavor, being so lean. It does make up for that in being unbelievably tender, however. I served it with a baked Russet potato, sour cream and butter. It was a lovely dinner.
Teresa and I have embarked on a weight loss deal with Weight Watchers ( not fun, by the way) and so I have to watch what I am cooking these days but it is necessary I suppose. Truth- be - told I don't want to do this but it is necessary and here we go. I am not willing, however to give up flavor for weight loss so this will have to be a compromise on those terms. We'll see how it goes.
Tim

Biscuit Gravy

Last night I continued my practice for the May 22 cooking demos at the Vineyard for the combo Medical Clinic and Food Shelf day. I did a recipe by my friend Steph Berguson for biscuit Gravy using the microwave. It calls for 1 stick of butter, a 1/4 cup of flour and 2 cups of Milk. I am working with powdered milk because that is what is available at the Fruit of the Vine food shelf. My mission is to cook the things available at the food shelf and make it taste good and fairly easy to do. The recipe calls for melting the butter in the microwave and then adding the flour and milk, whisking to combine, and microwaving for 2 minutes on high, then at 1 minute intervals until you reach the desired consistency. I added fresh ground black pepper to get the right seasoning for sausage gravy and it worked very well, even with the powdered milk. I think the extra butter compensates for the lack of butterfat in the milk and it is very tasty. I think this will be the recipe I use for the demo, but I will adapt it to the stove top in case some folks don't have a microwave. We will add breakfast sausage and serve it over biscuits made with the same powdered milk, which I am working on to get them to taste right.
Tim

Steve and Tim's Inaugural brew and some soup

I want to report on the tasting day festivities. I was a little nervous as Steve, Kathy, Teresa and I popped the top on our first Irish Red Ale. As the opener started to release the seal I saw bubbles on the edge of the bottle neck. That told us the carbonation phase was also a success.
We had placed 4 mugs in the freezer for the frosty mug effect and as Steve poured the first bottle in the mug it developed a nice head; very exciting! He handed the mug to me to taste and it was excellent! Total and complete success! We were thrilled! Our first attempt at brewing had turned out very well.
We went on to make some grilled burgers to go along with the new brew and it was a very nice evening of good food and good beer. We decided to allow the remainder of the bottles to sit for another 2 weeks to allow the carbonation to fully develop as it was a bit less than a commercial beer might have been. I just cracked the next one tonight after another week of sitting and it was very good. It has another week to go but it is well on the way to a total success. I think we'll wait another month or so to begin our next batch. We need to empty some of our bottles to allow for the next batch to be bottled and not have to buy more.
Next on the agenda tonight is a soup I just made using "refrigerator sweepings". I had some ham leftovers, some asparagus, some ham braising liquid in the freezer( I save all braising liquids, stocks and sauces for use in other dishes than they were originally intended).
I started with some onion, celery, garlic and shallot in about 3 T unsalted butter in an 8 qt stock pot. meanwhile I soaked 1 lb. of Great Northern beans in a saucepan with enough water to cover them by about 1 inch for about 6 hours.
I sweated the veggies for about 10 mins. in the butter and a little olive oil. Next, I added 4 cups water and the leftover braising liquid which was very concentrated, and the leftover ham bone. I added 4 cups of chicken stock and about 3/4 lb. of chopped asparagus. This simmered for 20 mins. and then I pureed the whole thing with a hand blender until it was very smooth. Next I added the ham chunks from the leftovers and 2 Cajun Smoked Sausages sliced into 1/4" slices and simmered these for a few minutes.
The beans were simmered for about 1 1/2 hours in a separate pot and then about 1/2 of them poured into the soup pot. Next, I pureed the remainder of the beans in the saucepan with the hand blender until they were very smooth and poured them into the soup. The seasoning was about right because of the saltiness of the ham, braising liquid, and bones but I added several grinds of pepper and tasted it. It was very nice.
I don't think I will ever duplicate this exactly again, but it does show the possibilities of using whatever is in the refrigerator at a particular time.
Sweep out the refrig and have some fun!
Tim

Irish Red Tasting Day

Tomorrow is tasting day for Steve and Tim's Inaugural Brew. We have been waiting now for about 5 weeks for this day to see if the process has yielded success or not. The brew has fermented and been bottled and has been in boxes taped shut in case of explosions ( of which there were none!). Steve has, as I am writing this, placed 4 bottles in the refrigerator for tomorrow night's festivities and I hope to report tomorrow that the stuff is awesome. So far the process has gone very well with each step doing just what it was supposed to so all should be well.
Steve wants to make a Dopple Bock for our next attempt so we'll begin studying the process for that one now and on my next trip to Northern Brewer in St Paul I'll pick up the kit and any extra equipment we might need.
This is short post, I know, but it's late.
Tim

Lisa's Carrot Souffle

My friend Lisa sent me the recipe for the Carrot Souffle she made at our last dinner group gathering. It was really extraordinary and I'll share it with you. She told me it was originally from the website Simple Recipes and she tweaked it using ingredients she had on hand and it was an amazing success. I haven't looked up the original recipe because this one is very good as it is.

2 lbs carrots, peeled, sliced into 1/2" rounds

salt for salting the cooking water

1 Cup Heavy Cream

1 Cup Cinnamon Graham crackers processed in a food processor to fine crumbs

3/4 Cup grated Sharp Cheddar Cheese

1/3 Cup finely chopped onion

1 Tbsp room temp Unsalted Butter

1 teaspoon Kosher Salt

1/4 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper

1/4 teaspoon Black Pepper

3 Large Eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 2 Qt. baking dish and set aside.

2. Place carrots in a saucepan and cover with an inch of water. add about a teaspoon of salt to the water. Bring to a boil and cook for about 10 minutes, or until tender. Strain and puree them in a food processor or with an immersion blender until very smooth.

3.Place the carrot puree in a large bowl. slowly add in the cream, a little at a time, whisking after each addition so the mixture is not lumpy. Mix in the cracker crumbs, grated cheese, onion, butter, Kosher salt, Cayenne, and black pepper.

4. In a separate bowl, whip up the eggs until frothy, then whisk them into the carrot puree.

5. Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking dish and bake for 40-45 minutes, until puffed up a bit and lightly golden.

Serves 8

Enjoy!

Tim