Grilled Lamb Chops with Garlic and Rosemary

You can cook these  lamb chops with or without the bone.   Trim the excess fat from the chop and then cut around the bone to remove it. Once the bone is removed pull the chop into a round shape and use a rosemary sprig  as a skewer. Remove the leaves from most of the rosemary sprig leaving some leaves on the end. I used my instant read meat thermometer to make a hole in the chop and then inserted the sprig through the hole.

8 sprigs of rosemary
8 loin lamb chops
2 teaspoons pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt or to taste
2 cloves of crushed garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp balamic vinegar

Bone and skewer chops as described above.

Combine the salt, pepper, oil, vinegar and garlic and apply to both sides of the chops. Grill 3-5 minutes a side.

Gruyere and Tomato tart

I needed a quick dinner from ingredients  I had on hand the other night

Puff Pastry

Country Dijon Mustard

Pasta Sauce

Tomatoes

Gruyere Cheese

Salt and pepper



Preheat oven to 400 degrees



Defrost a puff pastry sheet on the counter for about 40 minutes. Unfold the pastry sheet on a lightly floured surface and roll to desired shape. Press the pastry sheet into a tart pan with a removable bottom. Run a rolling pin around the top edge of the pan to remove the excess pastry.

Prick the bottom of the pastry sheet with a fork every inch or so and then cover the pasty sheet with whole grain Dijon mustard.

Line the dough with aluminum foil and fill with beans or rice to weight it. Bake for 8- 10 minutes,and then remove the beans and lining. Let cool for 10 minutes.

Spoon pasta sauce into the pan and cover with grated gruyere cheese. Add sliced tomatoes, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle a little more cheese on top. Bake until bubbly .

This makes a delicious appetizer or simple meal with a salad or pasta on a hot summer night.

Orange Berry Muffins

(Source: Dorie Greenspan “Baking: From My Home to Yours)



Ingredients:

Grated zest and juice of 1 orange

About 3/4 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

3 Tablespoons honey

1 stick (8 Tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1/3 cup sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup blueberries – fresh, preferably, or frozen (not thawed)


 sugar, for topping (optional)





Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicone muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.



Pour the orange juice into a large glass measuring cup or a bowl and pour in enough buttermilk to make 1 cup. Whisk in the eggs, honey and melted butter.



In a large bowl, rub the sugar and orange zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and the fragrance of orange strong. Whisk in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough – the batter will be lumpy and bubbly, and that’s just the way it should be. Stir in the blueberries. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.



Bake for 22 to 25 minutes. If you want to top the muffins with decorating sugar, sprinkle on the sugar after the muffins have baked for 10 minutes. When fully baked, the tops of the muffins will be golden and springy to the touch and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins will come out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.



Note: my muffins were based upon the above recipe however I adapted them slightly. I used larger muffin tins and made just 9  muffins. (I filled the 3 empty tins with a little cold water.) I also used more blueberries than the recipe called for; a heaping cupful and then another handful of berries.... so about a cup and a half.



 Absolutely delicious.  Dorie Greenspan, you're my hero!

Perfect Barbecue Chicken

Cooking with Indirect Heat

The best way to make great barbecue chicken on the grill is to use indirect heat. Learning to use indirect heat is really just learning to control the temperature of your grill. Think of your grill as an oven. I cook on a gas grill but you can easily adapt this to charcoal. Once you learn to cook with indirect heat you’ll love it!

To cook over indirect heat, you heat one side of the grill and use the other side of the grill for the food. You place the chicken on the flameless side,  close the cover and you let the heat and smoke cook the food. While direct heat is great for grilling steaks, hamburgers and hot dogs, when it comes to barbecue chicken, indirect heat is the solution to perfectly cooked, moist and delicious chicken.

Let’s get started!

You need two things to cook using the indirect heat method on a gas grill: (1) more than one burner and (2) a cover for the grill.( ....and chicken, of course).

Turn all the burners of the grill on high, close the cover and let the grill get very hot.

Oil the grill so the chicken won’t stick.

Turn the burner(s) on one side of the grill completely off. Set the burner(s) on the other side to medium high.
(You are looking for a grill temperature of about 300-325 degrees.)

Place the seasoned chicken skin side up on the cooler side of the grill, close the cover and let cook for about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes turn the chicken over and continue to cook for another 20 minutes. (Do this for as long as it takes, you might need another 20 minutes depending upon the size of your chicken and the temperature of the grill)

You should have a beautiful crisped skin on your chicken at this point.

With the chicken still on the cooler side of the grill raise the temperature a little and liberally apply sauce to both sides of the chicken basting a few times  and let cook until your sauce develops a beautiful caramelization ( 15 minutes or so) Remove from the heat and let the chicken rest for ten minutes. Serve with additional sauce on the side.


Your chicken is perfectly cooked. Moist, delicious, sticky beautiful barbecued chicken!

 Finger lickin good.

adapted from everyday food

Vegetable oil, for grates
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
Chicken (about 3 pounds)
Simple Barbecue Sauce




Directions

Prepare the grill as described above. In a small bowl, combine chili powder, 1 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper; sprinkle over chicken. Reserve  at least 1 cup barbecue sauce in a bowl for serving.( I had leftovers) Keep remaining sauce in another bowl for basting.

Grill chicken, as descibed above and serve with  additional sauce on the side.



Sauce

Makes 3 1/2 Cups


1 bottle (24 ounces) ketchup (about 3 cups)

1 cup cider vinegar

1/2 cup unsulfured molasses

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1 cup water

1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 tablespoon mustard powder

1 tablespoon  garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4  teaspoon cayenne pepper

Directions

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium, and simmer until sauce is thickened and reduced by a third, about 30 minutes. Let cool to room temperature before using. (To store, refrigerate, up to 2 weeks.)

Johnny Garlic's Cedar Plank Salmon

This is Guy Fieri's recipe and it's one of my favorite ways to prepare salmon. It's certainly wonderful just as written. If however, you just want an delicious, easy meal or don't have a cedar plank you can just bake the salmon and then apply the warm sauce immediately before serving. I bake it at 350 degrees for approximately 20 minutes and then apply the sauce.


4ea - 6oz Salmon Filet, skinned and deboned

2 t Sea Salt

1 t Pepper, black fresh

4ea - Rosemary sprig, 3” fresh

2ea - Jalapeno, seeded, diced

1 T Garlic, minced

1 c Apricot preserves

1/2 c White wine

3 T Mustard, whole grain

4 pc Parchment paper, 4X4

4 pc Cedar plank, food service quality

1 Lemon, for zesting



Preheat oven to 400 degrees.



In a small sauté pan over medium heat add oil, when oil is hot add jalapenos and sauté until caramelized. Add garlic, before it begins to brown, deglaze pan with white wine. Next add mustard and apricot preserves, simmer over low heat for 20 minutes. Let cool.



Place parchment paper on planks, add salmon, lightly salt and pepper, place rosemary sprig on filet, and liberally apply cooled apricot mixture.



Place cedar plank on gas burner and begin to set wood on fire. When plank has begun to smoke, place in oven.

Cook salmon until medium rare, remove from oven and let sit for 2 to 3 minutes before serving, Garnish with lemon zest.

Yum!

Banana Bread

Use  very ripe bananas for this bread. If your bananas aren't ripe put them in a brown paper bag for a day or so and they'll ripen faster. I used  large bananas for this bread; if yours are small add an extra banana.

Your house is going to smell heavenly.


• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

• 2 large eggs

• 3 ripe bananas

• 1 tablespoon milk

• 1 teaspoon vanilla

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 teaspoon baking powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan.

Cream the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a separate bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Mix in the milk, cinnamon and vanilla.

Add the banana mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until combined.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add dry ingredients, to the banana mixture and mix just until flour disappears

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake approximately 1 hour, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set aside to cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove bread from pan, invert onto rack and cool completely before slicing

Moist, delicious, simple.

Blondies

White chocolate, dark chocolate, pecans, walnuts or macadamia nuts; it’s up to you. Use 1 cup of nuts and 1 cup of chocolate in any combination.

Adapted from Cooks

Cooking spray

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

12 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1 cup pecans, toasted and coarsely chopped

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 11 3/4 X 7 1/2-inch baking dish with 2 pieces of foil or parchment paper.  Coat the lined pan with vegetable cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter and brown sugar together until combined. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well. Using a rubber spatula, fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture until just combined. Do not overmix.

Fold in the semisweet and white chocolate chips and the nuts, and turn the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with a rubber spatula.

Bake until the top is shiny and cracked and feels firm to the touch, for about25 minutes. Place the pan on a rack and let cool completely



Ridiculous.