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Extreme Grilling: 4th of July roundup

man grilling
The Grand Rapids Press has a list of several dozen beef, chicken vegetable and fish tips for your Independence Day bash. Try wrapping fish in prosciutto or bacon to prevent drying. And cook snapper and other delicate fish in foil or on a plank so it doesn't fall apart.

Hawaii's KGMB has a video of Tyler Florence making a grilled pork tenderloin for a big 4th of July cookout. He suggests stocking up at a wholesale club like Sam's to save when feeding a crowd.

BBQ.about.com has chicken, pork and beef brisket recipes, with ideas for kebabs, potato salads, ice tea, sangria, and something called 'flag fudge.'

Nashville's WSMV teaches you how to build a top notch grilling station, from grills to spatulas to thermometers to lighter fluid.

Kalyn's Kitchen has some cool 'think outside the burger' ideas special for the 4th: grilled shish kabobs with whole wheat pita and tzatziki, grilled salmon with maple syrup glaze, grilled chicken with tarragon mustard marinade, grilled tri-tip with salsa.

Epicurious has a bunch of burger ideas: Feta burgers with grilled red onions, jalapeno burgers, open face lamb burgers with mint yogurt sauce, buffalo burgers with pickled onions and smoky pepper sauce, sun-dried tomato burgers with balsamic-glazed onions, porcini-Gorgonzola burgers with veal demi-glace, tamarind-glazed turkey
burgers, sesame tuna burgers....

Also on Epicurious: A complete guide to grilling. Rubs and marinade recipes, technique tips, how to test for doneness, where to taste the best regional barbecue. With input from grill guru Steve Raichlen.

Martha Stewart has a very tasteful (naturally) Fourth of July menu. Check out the ribs.

Global Gourmet has another grilling guide. Check out its rundown of recipes from their favorite grilling cookbooks. Whoopi Goldberg's Big Bad Ass Beef Ribs, anyone?

Even vegetarians get in on the grilling action, at Vegetarians in Paradise, with recipes for Independence Day grilled tempeh steak, grilled veggie skewers, grilled red onions and grilled corn on the cob.

The New York Times Dining & Wine section in 60 seconds: Picnics, rooftops, jerks

picnic table
The Minimalist gives us 101 20-minute picnic ideas. Cold peanut noodles! Savory lentil salad! Cheese balls with fresh herbs! Thanks, Minimalist!

Jamaican jerk: an underrated form of barbecue. I agree.

Cold red wine? Eric Asimov says it's OK. So it must be OK.

Newsflash: rooftop dining is nice. But sometimes your napkins blow off the roof. Uh oh!

A book review of 'Beyond the Great Wall,' about Chinese dishes little known in the U.S.

Poor Jeff Varasano, lately of Atlanta, tries to answer the eternal question of why New York pizza is never good outside of New York. Godspeed, dude.

Fruit crisps: why are they never crisp? With recipe.

The Boston Globe in 60 seconds: Tomatoes, Tajikistan and true love


  • Need to whip up an impressive dinner to please your sweetie? The Globe's got you covered
  • Once and for all: what's the deal with tomatoes? Are they safe to eat, or not?
  • This teahouse is a little taste of Tajikistan in - where else? - Boulder, Colorado
  • A Dorchester gathering celebrates West Africa with signature dishes and plenty of tradition
  • Need a quick dessert? Try a Fast Blueberry Freeze - kind of like a blueberry slushy (and would work great with a splash of vodka or some triple sec)
  • The Green Dragon, the Japanese Plum Ginger, and The Forbidden Passion: the names say it all
  • These people aren't satisfied with just any old salad green - they go straight to the source

Ingredient Spotlight: Gooseberries

gooseberries
They may sound like something straight out of Willy Wonka, but I assure you, gooseberries are very real. These little round green berries (they also come in pink, though these are rarer) come from a bush native to Europe and North Africa, though they also grow wild in the northeaster U.S., California and Canada. They are a little bit difficult to find in the U.S., but when in season - June through August - those of us living near good produce markets may be in luck.

Gooseberries are usually too puckery to eat raw (though they're quite tasty dried), so you'll normally see them in pies and tarts. Epicurious has a recipe for gooseberry pie, using little more than sugar and a bit of tapioca. Or you could do as the English do an try a gooseberry fool - gooseberries cooked with sugar and layered with cream.

A quick summer lunch of chilled pea pod soup

peapodsNow I know what I'm going to do with all the fresh peas I saw at the Santa Fe farmer's market this weekend. Clotilde at Chocolate and Zucchini has figured out a brilliant use for all those leftover pods when you're done shelling: Chilled pea pod soup. You saute the empty pods with some onion and garlic, deglaze white wine, toss in the blender and press through a food mill, add some nutmeg and chill. Voila, a cool, silky green soup the color of a summertime lake. How perfect would that be for a simple Sunday lunch, with a chunk of baguette and some good prosciutto?


Italian Knot cookies

Italian Knot Cookie
When other kids were salivating for chocolate chip cookies, I was nuts for Italian Knot cookies. They might not be as easy to make as grabbing some spoonfuls of dough, slopping it onto a pan, and baking, but they're delicious and worthy of the extra time it takes to make them.

The recipe that follows was handed down to me as a child, by an old friend of the family, Rosie. I've been making them ever since. What I particularly like about these cookies is that you can flavor them to fit your audience. The dough is always the same, but Italian Cookies aren't complete without the icing. If you want a soft and perfect match, go for a little anise extract in your icing. Or, you can try lemon, orange, or a myriad of other flavors. Personally, I'm anxious to find a day to sit down, whip up a batch, and pull out my coffee extract.

Check out the gallery below to see how to make them, and the recipe after the jump.

Gallery: Italian Knot Cookies

Chunk of DoughRoll Out the DoughMake KnotFinished KnotDough on Cookie Sheet

Continue reading Italian Knot cookies

Ginger shrimp wrap

ginger shrimp wrap
I never thought anything could beat the combination of garlic, butter, and shrimp in scampi. But really, that's more because garlic and butter make most things taste great, rather than the trio being the perfect flavor combination. When my tongue got a taste of ginger shrimp, however, I discovered a true pairing. The crisp, spicy-yet-light ginger flavor is just meant to go with shrimp, and together, they're unstoppable. Put it in a stir-fry, pasta, pizza, or a wrap like above.

Seeing that I still have some homemade mayonnaise, I decided to whip together a quick shrimp salad. Some frozen shrimp was quickly sauteed with ginger, cooled, and then mixed with mayo, onions, orange peppers, and a little salt and pepper. Spooned into a wrap with some diced Swedish vodka currant cheddar, and you've got a great twist on the usual seafood salad.

For another twist -- add the ginger shrimp to some egg salad.

Forester's Spicy Hot Dog Onion Sauce



For those of you who can't get Sabrett's onions for your dogs at home, or want a tastier version of the sauce, here's my recipe that I've been making since I was a teen.

Foresters Spicy Hot Dog Onion Sauce
This is a spicy version of the sauce. You can leave out some or all of the hot sauce if you like it milder, or add more for some real heat

1 large yellow or sweet onion, sliced and chopped
4 tbs of Heinz Ketchup or tomato sauce
1/4 cup of water
1-2 tbs of sugar
1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon of Sriracha sauce or chili garlic paste. I like the brand with the green rooster logo best.
2 tbs of vinegar
1/4 tsp of Worchestershire sauce
1/4 tsp of salt
1/4 tsp of black pepper
1/4 tsp of oregano

Place all ingredients in a saucepan, bring to a boil and lower to a simmer and reduce until a medium thick sauce. Remove from heat and let cool. The sauce will thicken more as it cools. Serve warm on hot dogs. You can keep it in the fridge for a week.

Here's a gallery of photos of making the sauce.

Gallery: Forester's Spicy Hot Dog Onion Sauce

The New York Times Dining & Wine section in 60 seconds: Summer drinks special

blenders
Special summer drinks guide: blender drinks. Do you know what goes into a 'Missionary's Downfall?'

Wine critic Eric Asimov goes virgin with a root beer review.

The Minimalist talks modern mixed drinks. Kamikaze, anyone?

The Croque-Monsiur, France's answer to the ham and cheese, is the perfect bar food.

Forget the kegerator. Real brewski lovers have beer cellars.


Cooking with retro hotties part 3: Balthazar Getty

Balthazar GettyThis dude isn't as known as the others. Balthazar Getty, part of the epic Getty family, first made waves as Ralph in Lord of the Flies, and later popped up in films like Lost Highway, and on television shows like Charmed. But he also cooks! At least, he did in the realms of teeny bopper mags. After Garlic-Fried Steak and Tacos, he's going for a good side -- one that would probably go really well with Luke Perry's steak.

I hope you enjoyed these retro teen cookin', and if you happen to have any others, please share!

Balthazar Getty's Potato and Onion Cake

Continue reading Cooking with retro hotties part 3: Balthazar Getty

Cooking with retro hotties part 2: Jason Priestley

Jason PriestleyIf you've got Luke Perry sharing his recipes, you've also got to have Jason Priestley getting in on the action. Dylan was all about the fatty, Southern cookin' with steak, biscuits, and lard, but Brandon went for a different spin. Surprisingly, Jason wasn't getting into something Canadian, but rather, something classically Tex-mex. Oh, yes. Tacos -- not just any tacos, but ones that require you to have the crispy, envelope kind. If you don't, they tell you how to make 'em!

Jason Priestley's Tacos

Continue reading Cooking with retro hotties part 2: Jason Priestley

Cooking with retro hotties part 1: Luke Perry

Luke PerryI don't remember what magazine I got them from, but when I was a kid, I clipped out three recipes supposedly made by some of my favorite stars. Two of them were 90210 hotties, and one was a cute lord of the flies. I always wondered if these guys really made the recipes attributed to their names, or if the mag just arbitrarily stuck a recipe with each of the actors the teen rag was featuring. Either way, I never made them myself, but I could never part with them, because they were just too weird.

And now I'm sharing them with you.

Here is the first: Luke Perry's Garlic-Fried Steak.

Continue reading Cooking with retro hotties part 1: Luke Perry

Help! My mushrooms are about to go bad!

mushrooms
Mushrooms -- they add depth to many a recipe, but like many super-fresh foods, they have a short lifespan before they start turning and that smooth, creamy white finish (or brown for that matter), becomes something else entirely.

Since I only entered the fungal fold a few years ago, I don't have too many quickie mushroom recipes to use up the ailing caps, save a good fry in some spices and oil, until the mushrooms are small, brown, and super tasty. But then I found another quick mushroom trick, courtesy of BCmushrooms.

You can check out the exact recipe there, but basically, all you do is fry up some garlic, add in sliced mushrooms, let them cook for a few minutes. Then add wine and balsamic vinegar, which you let reduce into a tasty side that's great right away, or saved for future use on sandwiches, with eggs, or anything else that strikes your fancy. If you want a different flavor, try a different vinegar and oil combination. Next up, I'm going to try the uber-garlic route with garlic oil and garlic vinegar. What's your best quick-cook for old mushrooms?

Tasty vegan pesto

pesto
Pesto is one of those spreads that's a must-make when you have a food processor. For some minimal effort that includes throwing a collection of ingredients in and hitting pulse, you get a delicious spread that's cheaper than the store variety, and all the tastier.

However, it's not so friendly to the vegan population, with its healthy dose of parmesan cheese in the mix. Luckily, there's a no-cheese, wonderfully vegan variety that can elicit oohs and ahhs as well. (Courtesy of the Fresh cookbook!) But wait -- don't curl up your nose, anti-veganites -- no-cheese pesto serves another function: it allows you to make a tasty pesto that's cheaper, and perfect for those times when you've run out of parmesan.

In fact, the recipe after the jump is so versatile that it tasted pretty darned good even without the fresh spinach (which I didn't have). I just substituted extra basil from my rapidly growing herb garden. Dig in!

Continue reading Tasty vegan pesto

Food Video Finds: Easy Conch Chowder



After many years abiding to the rule that I would never eat what I couldn't look at in its real form, I succumbed to temptation and had a delicious bowl of Conch Chowder at the Nicola Seafood Restaurant at the Hyatt in Key West (a dish that is, sadly, no longer on the menu). While the conch might look all gooey out of the shell, it's ridiculously delicious and a must-eat when heading south.

And if you're lucky enough to live down south, or find yourself in a kitchen somewhere that conch is available, you've got to check out the quick video above. Bahama Breeze Chef Vern Thomas whips up a really easy Conch Chowder recipe. It's got all the basics -- onions, carrots, potatoes, plus a great tip about putting whole Scotch bonnet peppers into the mix -- to give the chowder flavor without the tear-inducing heat. If you want to learn more about conch as well, they've got a how-to here.

Next Page >

Tip of the Day

Buying ice each day for a road trip or camping journey can be such a pain. Consider (safely) using dry ice as an alternative.

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