Smile for Jamie

On Saturday, myself and many others said goodbye to a good friend and a great human being. It was a difficult day for us all, and I reached out to some of those who were closest to Jamie and invited them over for brunch. I am not going to make this a long post about food, but a simple quick post with a link for the recipe. I did change it a little bit - substituting regular onion for the green onion and poblano peppers for the mushrooms, but otherwise made it pretty much how it says in the recipe.

You can link to the recipe HERE.

Jamie will be remembered for many things, but one of those things was his smile and contagious happiness. He had the ability to bring the mood in the room up with a smile or a witty comment that few people have. I am not able to lighten a mood with my own smile, but I try to do it through my cooking and my food when I am able. So for me - to be able to put a smile on those whom I spent a few hours with eating with and spending time with - was my own way to remember him. I hope he would have enjoyed my food - I know he enjoyed our smiles.

#SmileforJamie

Kitchen Creativity

Last night I decided to make a dessert for a community meal that my family and I attend regularly. The community meal is the SUPPER tomorrow at the Church of St. Martin in the Fields in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. The homemade meal is provided free and families are welcome. I can say from attending for several years now that this is a fabulous ministry for this church.

The desserts are always provided as well, and they are usually centered around a theme. The theme for this week is Chocolate, Cocoa and Mocha. I wanted to do something outside the ordinary, and as usual the idea came from my wife who suggested chocolate and chili fudge. I was not sure how I was going to accomplish this task, so I watched an episode of Iron Chef America with these two ingredients as the secret ingredient to try to get some inspiration.

After watching the show last night I woke up this morning with some fresh inspiration on methods and ingredients, so I set to work.

Bridge to the chili side

Step 1: Decide on a bridge. Chocolate and Chili are two ends of the taste spectrum - spicy hot and sweet. Often foods with both of these suffer from a "taste gap" between the two. The chocolate (sweet) hits you first, and then there is a delay in sensation, then the spicy hits. What food needs is something to fill the gap. I decided on coffee to fill the gap, but my problem is this: how do I get coffee flavor in the mix without adding too much liquid? I tackled the problem on two fronts.

Grinding the beans by hand

First I decided to infuse some coffee flavor into some evaporated milk. I coarsely ground some coffee beans with my mortar and pestle and put a 12-oz can of evaporated milk in a mason jar with the coarse beans and stuck it in the fridge for several hours. This created a creamy cold-brewed style coffee flavored evaporated milk without adding any additional liquid.

Coffee-infused evaporated milk

Second, I took some coffee and brewed it extra strong (twice as many grounds as I would normally use for the amount of liquid) and then double brewed it. This meaning that once the water had gone through the brewing process, I put the hot coffee back into the coffee maker and ran it through again. Then I took the resulting brew and put it into a small saucepan and let it simmer over a low flame for several hours, evaporating more of the water and concentrating the flavor down.

Reducing the extra-strong coffee

Then I used the evaporated milk and a little bit of the extra strong coffee to create a coffee-flavored sweetened condensed milk. I strained the evaporated milk into a clean saucepan and added 1 1/2 cups of white sugar. I made sure that the sugar was all dissolved and then brought the mixture just to a boil (without letting it boil over) and then turned the heat off under the pan and moved it off of the hot burner. I allowed this to cool completely before starting in on my next step. Fudge.

Mmmmmmm. Chocolate.

Yes - I used the good stuff. Three bars of 60% Dark Cacao (12 ounces total weight) of good quality chocolate. I gave it a rough chop and then put it in a double boiler to melt it. Once it started melting I added 14 oz (or 1 3/4 cup) of the sweetened condensed milk (equal to one can purchased) and stirred gently to combine everything. If you are not familiar with the term "double boiler" it is a metal mixing bowl placed in a small saucepan with a small amount of simmering or boiling water in it. The point of the double boiler is to gently melt the contents but not expose them to direct heat. The heat coming off of the water is more even and gentle than the direct heat in a pan, and is conducive to things like melting and tempering chocolate, emulsifying sauces (like a hollandaise sauce) and other similar culinary pursuits. 

Chopped chocolate in a double boiler

If I have learned one thing, it is that heat for heat's sake is wasted. Hot spicy foods need a surrounding cast to allow them to shine. The coffee is the bridge, but along with the chili powder and ground chipotle chili I also included a little cinnamon and coriander. Personally I prefer the smoky taste of the chipotle pepper to an uncooked (or smoked) pepper like cayenne, but that's just me. They provide a deeper depth of flavor than just making stuff hot. I probably used about 2 1/2 tsp of the chili powder, 1 1/2 tsp of the chipotle powder, 1 tsp of roasted coriander and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. I didn't measure exactly so these are just guesses. I kept playing with it until it tasted right.

Some like it hot...

This mix went into a 8" x 8" pan lined with parchment paper, and then went into the fridge overnight. After it cooled some I took some milk, powdered sugar, a dash of vanilla extract, and some red food coloring together and put it into a bag and snipped off the corner. This gave me a kind of piping bag, and I made a fun design on the top. I used a large rubber band to hold the paper in place while the mixture set up. 

Finished and decorated and ready to set in the fridge

And to top it all off, my 6-year old came into the kitchen as I was celebrating getting the spice level just right and he wanted to know what the commotion was all about. I told him what I was working on, so I told him. He wanted to taste the chocolate, and didn't seem to mind that there would be some spicy associated with that, so I let him have a tiny taste. He loved it - and there was no one more surprised than me at this news. Not to be outdone, my nearly 2-year old also requested a taste, and he not only liked the tiny bit he had but he wanted more! So this dessert has the picky eater stamp of approval! 

If this made you hungry, feel free to come on out to the SUPPER on Wednesday June 8th at 6pm. Make sure to get in line for dessert early, because this fudge is not going to last long. Hope to see you all there!

How to get some more dough

As may remember from a previous post, I make pizza on Friday nights at our house. I make it entirely from scratch, dough and all - because it is the most cost-effective pizza I have found, and it is pretty darn tasty. Not to mention it's easy!

Here is the basic pizza dough recipe:

• 3 1/2 cups AP flour
• 2 1/4 tsp yeast (or one packet)
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 tbsp Olive Oil
• 1 1/2 cups water (warm, about 110 degrees)

Mix all of these ingredients together in a bowl using a wooden spoon or a mixer with a dough hook attachment. The dough should be moist, but not too sticky. If you see the dough is too wet, add some more AP flour a tbsp at a time. If the dough is too dry, add some more water, a tbsp at a time. When finished, the dough should look like this:

Pizza dough before it rises.

Cover the dough with a towel and let stand for at least one hour in a warm area. 

Risen pizza dough

When the dough has risen, remove the towel and dust a cutting board or other smooth surface with some flour, and knead the dough a little bit. 

Divide the dough into two equal portions, and knead them into round balls. Spread these balls onto greased or oiled pizza pans and mold into the pizza shape. You can also press them into squares or rectangles if you don't have any round pans. 

Dividing the pizza dough

Toppings. What can I say about toppings, except that I just kind of use whatever I have around. Peppers, onions, chicken, sausage, olives, broccoli, cauliflower, and roasted garlic are just some of the toppings I have used recently. I always make one plain pizza for the kids, and one with toppings for the parents. Tonight's parent's pizza was onions and red peppers.

Onion and Pepper Pizza pre-cook

I put my oven at 450 degrees for the pizza cook, and position my racks one at the bottom and one in the middle. I start the pizzas on the bottom rack for about 6 minutes and them move them up onto the top rack for about another 5-6 minutes, or until the cheese has melted and started to brown slightly. The time on the bottom rack crisps the bottom crust and prevents sticking, and the move to the center of the oven prevents overcooking. If you like your crust a little crispier, let it stay on the bottom rack a little longer.

Completed Onion and Pepper Pizza

I do tweak the recipe a little bit - as I normally do. I will use vegetable broth instead of water when I have it available to give the dough more flavor. I also will mix in Italian seasonings with the dough (basil, marjoram, oregano, thyme, garlic) to give it an additional flavor boost.

Pickled radishes

I ended up with a whole bunch of radishes left over from a salad I had made, and needed to use them up before the started to go bad. After doing a little searching on the internet, I decided to pickle them. 

Mise en place for the pickled radishes

The recipe I found was simple - make a simple vinegar brine and soak the radishes. Not too bad - but it is important to read every recipe start to finish before you shop for any new recipe. Sometimes they throw curveball ingredients at you, and this can get you scrambling. Another thing I absoutely recommend is to start building a mise en place. This is French for "putting in place," and the idea is easy. read your recipe, and get out EVERYTHING you need to complete the dish, and put it in the same place. That way when you need to reach for a little more rice wine because you ended up with a little more radishes than you expected - as I did - you don't have to take time going back and searching the cabinet for it.

Pickled radishes

The pickled radishes came out great. The recipe that I found on Food.com was simple, easy, and tasty. The pungent flavor of the rice wine mixed with the sugar, salt, and radish flavors makes this a great addition to salads, sandwiches, and many other dishes.

Remember to read your recipes, and build your mise en place, and have fun in the kitchen!

Cold Brewed Coffee vs. Iced Coffee

Recently I posted about making iced coffee now that the weather has decided to act like summer is close rather than winter. I also posted about how I wanted to try doing a cold-brewed coffee as well. Well, the wait is over. Recently I did a taste testing of cold-brewed coffee against iced coffee to see which I liked better.

Firstly I wanted the playing field to be level. Cold brewed coffee needs a coarser grind than doing a drip brew, so I needed to grind my own beans. I pulsed some beans in my coffee grinder to make a coarse grind for the cold-brewed coffee, and then ground some other beans normally to use in the drip coffee maker. I used the same coffee for both brewing methods so that I could get a good baseline for the flavor of each method. The recipe for cold-brewed coffee recipe I used can be found HERE on www.food52.com.

Same coffee beans used for both methods

Once the coffees were together, I did add one tablespoon of white sugar to each 32 ounce container, because for me cold coffee needs a little bit of sugar, and this allowed me to keep the amount of sugar controlled. Then it was time to begin the taste-test.

First I tasted both of the brews with no milk added. Here, both coffees were similar tasting. The iced coffee tasted a little more bitter than the cold-brewed, likely because of the heat added to the beans in the brewing process. The cold-brewed coffee was not as bitter, and you got a better sense of the flavor of the beans.

Iced coffee on the left, cold-brewed on the right. 

When I added milk to the cups is when the differences really shone bright. Like with the sugar I used a controlled amount of whole milk (one tablespoon per cup) so as to not influence the taste one way or another. The iced coffee tasted a little muddy with the milk added - no flavor really came through, and it felt like it needed some more sugar or another flavor to make the brew seem complete. Not so with the cold-brewed coffee. The addition of the milk added a definitive smoothness to the cup, and did not overpower the coffee flavor - which remained strong despite the addition of the milk.

Overall, the victor here was cold-brewed coffee. It takes more time - a good 10-12 hours to get the brew strong enough. But if you are willing to put the time in, your efforts will be handsomely rewarded. The beverage is sufficiently strong to wake you up, but does not need much enhancement to be delicious and smooth.

Just what is a Squooshi anyway?

So I know that my 1-year old loves to eat food purees form pouches. They come in many different flavors and varieties, from many different manufacturers. I never really had any issue with any of the actual products, but the pouches the food comes in are not recyclable. I would buy them because he would eat them, and it was tough to find a way for him to eat fruits and veggies otherwise. So I would bite my tongue and buy them, even though I hated throwing them away all the time.

So I started looking for a produce that I knew must exist - reusable pouches for purees. I found several products that did what I was looking for, but the ones I purchased were from www.squooshi.com (purchased through Amazon.com). They come with some suggested recipes, but I use my own mixes. One that is popular around our house is apple-cauliflower.

Having a Squooshi

Purees are easy enough to make if you have the time to do it every few days. cook the fruit or veggies in a saucepan until they are fork-tender - soft enough that they cut and pull apart easily with a fork. Combine the produce with some water or juice in a blender - just enough to allow the food to blend well - and blend until smooth. You can cook up each part separate, or do it all together, but I tend to cook everything together since it will end up combined in the end.

Parsnip and cauliflower simmering in water

As you can see from this above photo, they wind up a little bigger than the store-bought pouches, but that is because of the zip seal closure on the bottom that allows them to be refillable. They came as a set of 8 pouches, which is enough to hold about 3 cups of puree or so. They clean very easily with a bottle brush, and are very easy to refill. For any of you looking for a way to get their toddler to consume fruits and veggies, I would highly recommend this product.

(This is not a paid advertisement - this is how I really feel about these things. )

Bagels and Bacon and Eggs..Oh My!

Yesterday I tried a new recipe for an egg strata from Rachael Ray. The recipe that I made was in the June 2016 issue of her Rachael Ray Every Day magazine that was given to me by a friend. This recipe caught my eye because of the way it was combining some fairly regular ingredients in a new and interesting way.

This strata recipe combined chunks of onion bagel, onions, eggs, swiss cheese, and pancetta into one single casserole. As I was putting the dish together it reminded me of some kind of combination between a egg bake and a french toast. By far my favorite part of prepping the dish was cooking down the onions. The onions were cooked down in butter and the pan drippings from the pancetta, and any time you get to cook in bacon/pancetta fat it's a fabulous thing. If it weren't so expensive and unhealthy I would eat bacon with every meal.

Onions cooking in butter and bacon fat

Once the dish was all put together, it sat for 10 minutes, and then baked for about 40 minutes. The directions say to bake for about 45 minutes, and since our oven tends to run hot I checked after 40 minutes and everything looked perfect. 

Finished onion bagel strata

I did make some changes to the recipe for my household: I didn't want to spend tons of money on pancetta, so I used some thick cut bacon instead, and everything turned out just fine. Similarly, I didn't want to spring for the expensive gruyere, so I used a nice swiss. It ended up being a little sweet, and really full of great onion flavor. Ultimately, the dish came out probably much similar to how it would without the substitutions, and I doubt that unless you were trying to make a REALLY good impression you wouldn't care on a day-to-day basis.

If you would like to try your hand at making Rachael Ray's Onion bagel strata, you can find the recipe on her website HERE. Happy cooking!

Ramen Reconsidered

Ramen. When most people think of ramen noodles, they think of poor college students heating water in the the tiny microwaves above their micro-fridges and slurping the noodles and broth like it was going out of style. I did too - until I starting thinking about how those noodles act as a perfect blank slate for any number of creative food tastes and pairings. So I started using my imagination and created, and this is what I have come up with: my ramen bowl.

Ramen reconsidered

This is ramen noodles cooked in lightly salted water (none of that super-salty broth) and drained, sprinkled with some sharp cheddar cheese, layered with with minced onions and red peppers, fried egg, and some chopped scallions. A few splashes of hot sauce round out the dish. When you cut into the fried egg, the runny yolk mixes in with the melty cheddar to make a sauce, while the egg white and veggies provide some body to the meal, and the noodles act as a medium for it all to be consumed.

Breaking open the fried egg

This is one of my favorite go-to meals to make for myself anytime I feel like I need something substantial for lunch. The great thing about this dish is that it is highly customizable. The veggies I used here can be swapped out for other veggies, the cheese can be whatever cheese you have on hand, and you can even add meat such as ham or cooked chicken to up the flavor also. If you don;t like eggs, you can omit the egg and just use some of the cooking liquid from the noodles to help make the sauce.

Share in the comments what your "ideal" ramen bowl would contain. Remember - use your imagination, and reconsider this versatile and inexpensive noodle.

So, you're grilling, right?

Yesterday, we went to my sister's house for a birthday party for my niece. After we had been there a while my sister came up to me and asked "Has my husband talked to you about cooking the hot dogs yet?" 

"No..." I replied. 

She called him over. "Hey, have you asked Nate about grilling yet?" 

"No, I just assumed he would be up for it."

I confirmed that I would indeed be up for it and that it was not a problem. Of course I would cook the hot dogs for my niece on her birthday as I did the year before, and just as I had cooked the BBQ chicken and the hot dogs the year before that. I guess it's one of the things about being a good cook - everyone always expects asks you to cook at parties. The other thing about it is - I really don't mind. 

Nate working the grill

I love cooking, I love when people get to eat my food, and when I can cook for an entire party full of people, I do it. Even if all I am cooking are the hot dogs. Because I will make sure those hot dogs are the best hot dogs I can cook, and that everyone who eats a hot dog has a smile on their face. Because in my mind - I put that smile there. I made that smile happen. That's why I love doing what I do, and why I will always be up for working the grill. Or the griddle. Or the stove. 

Tasty hot dogs!

As we were leaving and saying our goodbyes to friends and families, my sister's mother-in-law says to me "We're inviting you to our next party." You can probably guess why - and by now you know my answer. 

Yes. 

Why DUDE?

So you may be reading this and figuring that DUDE just makes sense. I'm a guy, starting a blog, of course I'm going to refer to myself as a dude, right? Well there is more to it than just that. Yes, the term "dude" does bring a certain "cool" factor, but there is also the matter of my employment. I stay at home with my two boys - something that is becoming more and more common these days. They even have a term for these guys: "Stay At Home Dad", and this is often shortened to SAHD. The acronym, while fitting, is rather...well....sahd. No one wants to go around introducing themselves as a "SAHD". We stay-at-home Dads deserve a better acronym.

All of those Dads who are staying home with kids, managing schedules and changing diapers deserve a better acronym than SAHD. The people over at Fatherly.com did some thinking and came up with a list of better acronyms for those men who are also domestic fathers. For some of the options they came up with 15 you can read about here.  After reading these and deciding that none of them really fit me all that well, I went on ahead and developed my own.

Daddy

Under
Domestic
Employment

Now while it might be slightly misleading to think that I actually have some kind of job outside the duties and responsibilities of my Dad-dom, any person who has done this will tell you straight up that raising kids is a job. It just depends on your life situation as to whether that is your ONLY job or not. Based on my business card, my job duties currently include, but are not limited to:

• Chauffeur
• Nurse
• Dragon Rider
• Executive Chef
• Tech Support
• Sanitation Engineer
• Life Coach
• Handyman
• Batting Practice Pitcher
• Head Landscaper
• Chief Conflict Resolver
• Homework Tutor
• Entertainment Coordinatior
• Jedi Knight

Go ahead and read the article, and leave your thoughts in the comments section. What is the best acronym for those dads who take the primary role in keeping the house and raising their children? And if you're interested in my shirt - which was recently featured on Huffington Post and a number of other websites - it can be purchased in T-shirt (men's and women's sizes) and sweatshirt form, from the National At-Home Dad Network

About Me

My name is Nathan Hill. I started cooking when I first moved out of my parents' house, and at the time I could barely make boxed macaroni and cheese without screwing it up somehow. At the time I didn't have much of a choice, so I started to teach myself to cook. I watched The Food Network CONSTANTLY, and kept trying new things. Slowly, eventually, I developed into a decent cook. Then I became a really good one - at least according to my friends and family. I find that I really enjoy making things from scratch whenever I can, as it often saves money and increases the quality of the food by quite a bit.

I get joy from cooking something new, and from having my friends and family enjoy my cooking. I like seeing their faces when I get a dish just right. For me cooking is an artistic outlet, as much as the finished product as in the process. I use spices like an artist uses splashes of color, not by any recipe but in bits and guesses. No two dishes are ever exactly the same with me, even when I use the same recipe. I am constantly testing and trying new things, and finding ways to create food from scratch. 

A lot of the "from scratch" cooking started when I left my corporate job and began staying at home with my two boys, who are 6 and 1. My wife loves coming home from her day of work to find dinner cooking, and she is constantly coming up with new ideas for me to try. She is often the inspiration behind many of my new dishes, mostly because she will say "How about you make this," or "How could you combine this and that. She is my first taste-tester and quality control, and throughout our 11 years of marriage I have been the primary cook in the household. 

One of my #lifegoals is to go back to school and take some culinary classes. Not necessarily to work in food service, but just to expand my knowledge and skills. I want to be able to more expertly apply food science and different cooking techniques to my own kitchen and my own meals.