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From Kevin D. Weeks.,
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Poll: Who Are You?

The Cooking for Two site is three months old this week and I thought it would be a good time to find out a little something about you folks. So I put together this poll.

I want Cooking for Two to meet your needs and so the more I know about you readers the better a job I can do. Unfortuately, About.com polls are limited to 10 questions. So fill in the poll, then go to the forum and tell us more. Do you prefer quick recipes or slow recipes? Easy recipes or hard recipes? Mediterranean cuisine or Nordic? Cooking in advance for multiple meals or do you hate leftoevers?

And of course the question we all really want to know is: "What are you guilty food pleasures?"

Tuesday May 13, 2008 | permalink | comments (0)

Tip: Bacon & Sausage

Click for larger image.As much as I love sausage and bacon, eating a pound of either at a single meal seems a tad excessive. But sausage and bacon are typically sold in one pound packages. So when I buy buy bulk breakfast sausage, I cut it into patties, wrap each individually, and then freeze the lot. An advantage to this is I can buy the expensive but supremely good local Benton's sausage and have just a patty or two when I want it. (And by the way, some of the frozen biscuits now available are pretty good and also enable you to only cook a few at a time.)

As for bacon, when I buy a package I roll up each individual strip and then wrap the roll in plastic. Again, these individual rolls go in labeled freezer bag in the freezer. Then I can pull out two or three strips as needed.

Note: In both cases these will thaw on the counter in an hour and because of the limited time in the danger zone (between 40 and 140 degrees Farenheit) they are safe to thaw on the counter if provided you cook as soon as they're thawed.

Monday May 12, 2008 | permalink | comments (0)

Smoked Salmon Pimiento: Tangy, Smoky, Savory

Click for larger image.This is a particularly fortuitous combination. Spanish paprika brings a delightful initial smoky note to the salmon. The lime adds a perfect edge to the rich fattiness of the salmon, and the garlic fills in the corners. Then, using a grill or stove-top smoker, you take the smoky note almost over the top. This is delicious as is, but the addition of a dollop of either Romesco sauce or Roasted Garlic and Paprika Mayonnaise settles it back down and makes it a genuinely rich and satisfying meal. Recipe here...
Saturday May 10, 2008 | permalink | comments (0)

Asparagus Soup

Click to view larger image.As a major asaparagus fan, I won't eat it unless it's fresh and locally grown. That means I have about a three week window each year when asparagus appears on my plate. This recipe for asparagus soup is my last hurrah each season. When I snap off the woody ends of asparagus for one dish or another I collect the ends in a plastic bag and freeze them. At the end of the season I make soup using the woody ends to make stock. Recipe here...
Thursday May 8, 2008 | permalink | comments (0)

Spice Quiz

Do you know your spices? I found this fun quiz on identifying spices on AOL. There's also a quiz on identifying pasta shapes and candy bars. Take the quiz, then come join us in the forum and let us know what your score was.
Wednesday May 7, 2008 | permalink | comments (0)

Review: Cameron Stove-top Smoker

SmokerSeveral years ago my mother gave me a Cameron Stove-top Smoker for Christmas. I dutifully thanked her, stuck it in the back of a closet, and promptly forgot about it. At the time I owned a house in Sacramento, California. I had two grills and a dome smoker and using them year-round was practical. Then my life took a turn and I ended up moving back to Tennessee and living first in an apartment that didn't permit charcoal grills, and then purchased this third-floor condo. Grilling and smoking became a thing of the past.

I pulled out the stove-top smoker and gave it a shot. Not bad, not bad at all. At this point I've cooked pork tenderloins, salmon, chicken breasts, duck breasts, steaks, tomatoes, potatoes, and even used it to make my own bacon. It has done all of these things beautifully. Read review...

Tuesday May 6, 2008 | permalink | comments (0)

Tip: Cooking with Vermouth

Trout with Lemon Cream SauceThe rule is you should never cook with a wine you wouldn't drink, which rules out anything with the word "cooking" in the name. (Try a swallow of that stuff sometime and you'll see what I mean.) Nevertheless, I cook with wine 6 to 8 times a month, using it primarily in quick pan sauces but also in marinades, braises, soups, and simmered sauces.

The problem I face, and likely you do too, is that I don't always want to open a bottle of wine when I only need, say, half a cup in a sauce and I don't always want to drink a whole bottle. Admittedly an open bottle will keep for up to a week in the fridge, but after a day or so it's too stale for drinking.

My solution to the white wine problem is vermouth. Vermouth is a fortified dry white wine flavored with herbs that I've found works in almost any recipe calling for white wine. Best of all, vermouth will keep without going stale for at least two months so I can use what I need as I use it.

Monday May 5, 2008 | permalink | comments (0)

Marinated Greek Burger: Enjoying Burg Med

Click for larger image.These Greek burgers aren't really Greek, but they are infused with the flavors of Greece to create an excellent change-of-pace from the standard grilled ground-round on a soft bun. The burgers have a deep, robust flavor highlighted with Greek herbs and spices. I like serving them on Kaiser rolls with a slice of red onion, sliced cucumbers, and tzatziki sauce. Serves 2.
Saturday May 3, 2008 | permalink | comments (0)

Strawberry Shortcake: A Notch Higher

There was a large patch of gravel in front of the rickety, boarded-up roadside stand, a plywood structure smaller than my closet that it seemed would fall apart if you looked at it closely. I drove by it each day going to and from work when I lived in California and never gave it much thought – just part of the landscape. Then spring arrived and one day I noticed the stand was open. There was no sign indicating what they sold, but there was someone in the shadows of the hut, so I pulled in to see what they had.

Click to view larger image.Inside there was an old oriental man somewhere between 40 and 104 years old and a woman somewhere between 18 and 40. In front of them were trays of strawberries. Small berries, the size of the end of my thumb, perfectly ruby red and ripe. And now that I could look, I noticed that the field behind the stand – perhaps two acres in size – was filled with strawberry plants. I bought a container and, back in the car and headed home, ate a berry, then another, then a third. They were the sweetest, most intense strawberries I'd ever had in my life. Unbelievably good. I had plain strawberries for dinner that night. But the next day I bought more berries and made strawberry shortcake. Recipe here...

Thursday May 1, 2008 | permalink | comments (0)

Oh, Mommm...

Click for larger image.

I sometimes find cooking for my mother, uhm, difficult. She always says, quite convincingly, that she likes what I fix — and usually she does — but sometimes, like last night, I learn that something she said she liked when I served it she really didn't. Then I have to rewind what I thought would please her and integrate this new knowledge of her tastes. Nevertheless, she loves trying new things so every year I try to come up with something new for her birthday and then Mothers' Day.

I first made this dish of crab and asparagus in puff pastry for Mothers' Day three years ago and she asked me for the recipe nine months later. Success! As I think most of the best recipes are: it's simple, easy, delicious, and beautiful. Add a green salad on the side and some strawberries on pound cake with cream for dessert and you have a special meal with almost no labor. Recipe here...

Tuesday April 29, 2008 | permalink | comments (1)

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