Some Meals We Have Enjoyed

07 Friday Jan 2022

Posted by Bob and Robin in Captain's Shack, Classic Cuisines, Classic Herb Blends, Cooking Styles, Dessert, Dinner At The Captains Shack, Dinner With Family, Egg Noodles, Ethnic Foods, Food - Make Your Own Meals, Food Photos, German Recipes, Herbs, Herbs and Spices, Housemade Soup, Idaho Beef, Main Dish, Morels, Mushrooms, Pasta, Photos By: Bob Young, Recipe - Soup, Recipe By: Captain's Shack, Recipe by: Robin and Bob Young, Recipes, Recipes - Bavarian, Recipes - Dessert, Recipes - Dinner, Recipes - Sauces, Sauces, Spices, What's For Dinner?

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beef, prime rib, soup

Sorry for the long delay in getting articles or recipes posted. It’s been a crappy Fall, but things are returning to normal now. I will create this post, as I have done in the past with all posts, with a good description of the dish and a link to the recipe that we have created. Most of the recipes, however, are original only to the point that we have altered the original recipe to fit our needs. Most of the recipes presented here and on this blog, have a note attached to them “Source: adapted from (some other recipe)“. At least then, you know where you can find the original recipe. Please, as in the past, feel free to use and try any recipe presented and let us know how it came out and if you liked it or not.

Let’s start with a great soup. Did you ever see the movie Tortilla Soup? Well here is the recipe for that soup, Tortilla Soup http://www.rockinrs.com/Tortilla-Soup.pdf. I’m sorry I don’t have a photo of it. This is fun to make – you can make it as spicy as you want – and great eating. We love it!

And to start the main course off, how about Roasted Prime Rib of Beef? Really easy to do, but be sure you follow the cooking directions exactly. Recipe – http://www.rockinrs.com/CS-Prime-Rib.pdf. This recipe calls for an herb butter and we used our Herb de Provence, http://www.rockinrs.com/CS-Herbs.pdf. Use it liberally and mix well with room temperature butter. I even went so far as to, after adding the herb butter and salt, to dry brine this in the refrigerator for 24 hours. Came out great!

And here is a great leftover prime rib dish, Leftover Prime Rib Beef Stroganoff. (recipe – http://www.rockinrs.com/Leftover-Beef-Stroganoff.pdf) The original recipe called for Baby Portabella mushrooms, but we had some dried Morel mushrooms collected this past Fall and I reconstituted them in a little vodka and used some of the liquid in the sauce.

Total time to make this dish is about 20 minutes, not counting preparing the egg noodles or rice. If you would prefer not to use noodles, you can always use rice. If you use rice, I would probably use Basmati or Jasmin. Either way, we loved this and will make it again. Delicious flavors and easy to do. I even had someone tell me they have made a similar stroganoff with leftover meat loaf.

For the last of the prime rib, you can also make a delicious and scrumptious Prime Rib Soup. This is almost a one pot meal. Hearty with the barley in it. Great on a cold winter day. Just takes some time to make, about 3 hours and 15 minutes. But well worth it. Great herb combination in it. Here is the recipe – http://www.rockinrs.com/Prime-Rib-Soup.pdf

It takes a little time, but well worth it. The barley is really a great addition. That pretty much uses up the prime rib leftovers. But, there are 3 different meals from this cut of beef.

The last dish is a very German entrée. It is a Spinach Spaetzle with Speck, a German bacon. You can find the recipe here – http://www.rockinrs.com/Spinach-Spaetzle.pdf. Enjoy!

This is a big, hearty meal that will satisfy most big appetites. The speck gives a wonderful flavor the the spaetzle a great texture. We used a store bought spaetzle because I don’t have a spaetzle maker. We bought the spaetzle and the speck from a German shop here in Boise.

But wait! That’s not all! What about dessert? How about some Pecan Shortbread Cookies? http://www.rockinrs.com/CS-Pecan-Shortbread-Cookies.pdf

A great shortbread treat full of toasted pecan bits, almond extract and a little rum, that is not in the recipe. I don’t usually do this, but our neighbor has a cookie business and they are good. Her business name is Crumb by devlyn and can be reached at (910) 405-4718 or emailed at crumbbydevlyncookies@gmail.com (No. I made the shortbread cookies!)

Enjoy these dishes. They are all good and worth a try. gutes Essen in German or biadh math is Gaelic. That covers my heritage.

Question – What is sriracha?

20 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by Bob and Robin in Chef Michael Symon, Chicken, Condiments, Special Information, Spice Blends, Spices, Spices of Thailand, Spicy Food, Sriracha Chili Sauce, What's For Dinner?

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Michael Symon, sriracha, sriracha chicken

Actually, a very good question and I thank Wendy Haight Scribner, on FaceBook, for asking, “What is “sriracha” and how do you use it when you cook??I just saw a video for pork chops and I’m wondering what this is made of?”
Well, Wendy and others, generally speaking sriracha is a red, spicy sauce a lot like hot sauce, but not as hot as jalapeno or tobasco sauce, at least in my opinion. It really is a good one and we keep a jar in the refrigerator all the time. I’ll get you a better definition. Inquiring minds need to know, so from Wikipedia we learn,

Sriracha (Thai: ศรีราชา, Thai pronunciation: [sǐː rāː.t͡ɕʰāː]; English /sᵻˈrɑːtʃə/) is a type of hot sauce or chili sauce made from a paste of chili peppers, distilled vinegar, garlic, sugar, and salt. It is named after the coastal city of Si Racha, in Chonburi Province of eastern Thailand, where it may have been first produced for dishes served at local seafood restaurants.
Sriraja Paniche
Sriracha “Rooster Sauce”
Sriraja Panich chili sauce by Thai Theparos Food Products and Tương Ớt Sriracha (“Rooster Sauce”) by Huy Fong Foods.
In Thailand, sriracha is frequently used as a dipping sauce, particularly for seafood. In Vietnamese cuisine, sriracha appears as a condiment for phở, fried noodles, a topping for spring rolls (chả giò), and in sauces.
Sriracha is also eaten in soup, on eggs and burgers. Jams, lollipops, and cocktails have all been made using the sauce. and sriracha-flavored potato chips have been marketed.

Matt Bush, on FaceBook, tells us,

Amazing story of a Vietnamese refugee who fled South Vietnam when the communist took over. Became one of the boat people. Was rescued and picked up buy a Chinese ship named Huy Fong…He named his company after the ship that saved him. He and his family eventually made their way towards LA and started making his sauce for the local Asian market. He established a factory near Bakersfield. A truly great success story. I love the sauce, although spicy, it is really flavorful.

And from thrillist.com, more lessons on sriracha to contemplate,

1. You’re pronouncing it wrong
See-rotch-ah. Sriracha
2. Sriracha is the type of sauce; Huy Fong is the brand name
Accept no substitutes, even if they’re emblazoned with dragons.
3. It’s actually significantly less hot than a jalapeño
According to the benchmark of all things spicy, the Scoville scale, Sriracha scores 2,200 points. The red jalapeño peppers used in the sauce lose nearly half of their spiciness in processing, which puts the sauce on par with Fresno and Anaheim peppers — both of which are about as hot as their namesake cities.
4. They’re not just cocky
The rooster is the Chinese zodiac sign of the sauce’s founder.
5. Some dumbass drank 3lbs of the stuff
Spoiler alert: this video ends in a bathroom.
5a. Spice stack: Sriracha Pringles do not disappoint
6. The brand name comes from the ship that carried Huy Fong’s founder to the US
The founder, who was of Chinese descent, made the original version of Sriracha in Gerber baby food jars before immigrating to the US aboard the Huy Fong and restarting the business. (Yes, there is a Sriracha Cookbook!)
7. You can cook really good food with it. Bon Appetit came up with 25 delicious recipes, including Sriracha fried chicken. And there’s also a cookbook dedicated entirely to the condiment.
8. They produce over a ton of it every hour
The assembly line cranks out 3,000 bottles an hour, 24 hours a day, six days a week. That’s roughly 200 tons per week. They sell about 20 million bottles a year.
9. It totally got Lay’d
The rooster took an honorable mention in a Lay’s flavor design contest. Pringles and Kettle chips have also rolled out their own Sriracha flavors, and you can grab a Sriracha Quesarito from Taco Bell.
9a. Taste-Test: Sriracha Kettle chips
10. There is a documentary. No thanks to you. But luckily, 1,315 other people shelled out the money for a film via Kickstarter.
11. A hot sauce by any other name would smell as sweet
The name comes from the small coastal Thailand town Si Racha, population 19,221.
12. It is ranked the #1 hot sauce in the entire universe!

So after reading all of this, would you like to try Chef Michael Symon’s (The Chew) recipe for Twice Fried Chicken with Sriracha Honey? Aw be brave. The link is highlighted.

From Our Kitchen To Yours!

18 Wednesday May 2016

Posted by Bob and Robin in Acme Bake Shop Breads, Alley Gardens, Appetizers, Apricots, Arugula, Avocado, Backyard Garden, Bacon, Baking, Basque Bread, BFM, Boise Area Food Adventures, Boise Farmers Market, Breakfast At The Captains Shack, Brussels Sprouts, Buy Idaho, Cabbage, Captain's Shack, Comfort Food, Crab Cakes, Dessert, Dinner At The Captains Shack, Eggs, Greek Food, Green Salad, Healthy Eating, Herbs, Herbs and Spices, Ice Cream, Idaho Chicken, Idaho Dairy, Idaho Eggs, Idaho Greens, Idaho Lamb, Idaho Vegetables, Local Markets, Meadowlark Farms, Ohana Micro Greens, Omelet, Photos By: Bob Young, Rice Family Farms, Salads, Sausage, Scallops, Seafood, Spice Blends, Spices, Spring Greens, True Roots Produce, What's For Dinner?

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BFM, Buy Local, herb chart, spice chart

It could be anything! But hopefully, it’s always pretty good. Mostly healthy and always has a local product element. Local. That’s what we try to feature always! Beef, pork, lamb, seafood, greens, fruit, vegetables, eggs, mushrooms, sprouts. You get the idea. And what’s even more fun – sometimes … most times – is preparing the meals. Here are a few photos of some of the dishes we have made recently. If there is a recipe for the item, it may be in the recipe file as listed above or you can look for it by Clicking Here.
We were going to make Greek kabobs and I wanted to find a good Greek herb blend. There is a really good Greek restaurant near us, Mazzah Mediterrean and every time I walk by it, I get this wonderfully awesome aroma of Greek spices. So I found this chart of cultural Spice Blends. We used the Greek Spice and added Sumac and Marjoram. If you are looking for a particular blend, this may help. Save the image and print it out if you need to.

I recently saw an article where folks were planting vegetables and herbs in their front yards, instead of grass! Talk about local and fresh! But we have been doing this for years. Our front lawns, as small as it might be, is our herb garden. Pretty blooms. Great smells and absolutely fresh herbs. Something to think about.

I recently saw an article where folks were planting vegetables and herbs in their front yard, instead of grass! Talk about local and fresh! But we have been doing this for years. Our front lawns, as small as it might be, is our herb garden. Pretty blooms. Great smells and absolutely fresh herbs. Something to think about.

Lamb Kabobs with Greek Spices
From the spice chart above. Local lamb and vegetables.

Greek 5-Cheese Filo on Spinach Bed
Local spinach! No we didn’t make the filo.

Vanila Ice Cream
It was super. Local dairy products.

Bacon and Cheese Omelet
Apricots
Toasted Basque Bread
Local eggs, bacon and Basque bread.

Creamed Spinach Popovers
Local spinach and dairy

Braised Scallops on Shredded Napa Cabbage Strawberries

Braised Scallops
on
Shredded Napa Cabbage
Sliced Strawberries and Kiwi
Strawberries are local.

Braised Scallops on Crab Rice
Green Salad with Carrot Strings and Micro Greens
Greens and carrots for the salad are all local.

Crab Rice and Shredded Napa Cabbage

Sunnyside Up Eggs
on
Spinach and 5 Greek Cheese Filo

Sausage Links
Apricot Chunks
Local eggs, sausage and spinach.

Mushroom Omelet
Sausage
Pineapple
Toasted Basque Bread
Everything but the pineapple is local!

Parsley Salad
with
Shaved Radish and Fresh Miners Lettuce
All local from the Boise Farmers Market (I’m there every week!)

So there you have it. Not 100% local, but darn close. And this time of year with the Boise Farmers Market being open, it gets easier to buy those local products. Plus, our herb gardens are in full swing – bloom! Enjoy.

Fish Sticks – Not Mrs. Pauls!

13 Friday Jun 2014

Posted by Bob and Robin in Beer and Food, Boise Farmers Market, Captain's Shack, Carrots, Cheese, Dinner At The Captains Shack, Dinner With Robin, Garlic, Herbs and Spices, Italian Food, Local Farmers Markets, Local Harvests, Local Markets, Main Dish, Photos By: Bob Young, Recipes, Salad, Salmon, Seafood, Spices, Vegetables, What's For Dinner?

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Beer, Carrot Threads, copper river salmon, Fish Sticks, salmon, sweet potato

In fact, these are made from some fresh salmon. Breading is totally different from the store bought “things”. The recipe follows the photo. Enjoy! We did. This is an awesome way to make salmon.

Housemade Salmon Fish Sticks

Special Dipping Sauce

Fanned Baked Sweet Potato
with
garlic butter

Fresh Green Garden Salad
with
carrot threads and “peachy” peach vinaigrette

Full Sail LTD Lager

And the recipe for both the salmon and the dipping sauce.

Parmesan Fish Sticks and Special Dipping Sauce

Recipe courtesy of Giada De Laurentiis

Total Time: 21 min Prep: 4 min Cook: 17 min Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Level: Easy

Ingredients:
1 (18-ounce) center-cut Salmon Fillet, about 9 by 4 inches, skinned
1/2 c All-Purpose Flour
1/2 t fine Sea Salt
1/4 t freshly ground Black Pepper
3 Egg Whites
1 c grated Parmesan
1 c seasoned Bread Crumbs
Olive oil, for drizzling
1/3 c Mayonnaise
1/3 c Plain Yogurt
1 T Dijon Mustard
1 T chopped fresh Parsley or Chives

Directions: For the Fish Sticks:
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Rinse the salmon fillet and pat dry with paper towels. Cut the fish in half to make 2 fillets each about 4 by 4 1/2-inches in size. Starting on the longest edge, slice the fillets into 1/2-inch pieces. Lay the widest pieces, from the center, cut side down, and slice in half lengthways so all the pieces are equally about 1/2 by 1/2 by 4 1/2-inches in size.

Place the flour in a medium bowl and season with the salt and pepper. Place the egg whites in another bowl and beat until frothy, about 30 seconds. Combine the Parmesan and bread crumbs in a third bowl.

Coat the salmon pieces in the seasoned flour and pat to remove any excess flour. Dip the floured salmon in the egg whites and then into the Parmesan mixture, gently pressing the mixture into the fish. Place the breaded salmon pieces on a liberally oiled baking sheet. Drizzle lightly with the olive oil. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown.

Directions: Dipping Sauce:
Mix the mayonnaise, yogurt, Dijon mustard, and parsley (or chives, if using) in a small dipping bowl.
Arrange the fish sticks on a serving platter and serve with the dipping sauce.

Herbs and Wine at The Buzz

14 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by Bob and Robin in Appetizers, Dinner With Friends, Food Photos, Herbs, Herbs and Spices, Housemade Soup, Photos By: Bob Young, Salads, Special Dinners, Spices, Sriracha Chili Sauce, What's For Dinner?, Wine and Food, Wine Dinners

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Buzz Coffee & Wine Events, Wine, Wine Dinners

I would be remiss if I did not send our condolences to Tommy and his family for his loss over the weekend.

We had a very quiet and intimate wine tasting at the Buzz last night – Herbs and Wine was the topic. Great topic and job, Cristi! Your choices of topics is what makes these Wine Dinners so very interesting. If you live in Boise, or the surrounding area and you missed this event, you can redeem yourself tonight as the program is repeated. The program starts at 6:30pm and costs $20.00 per person for a 5 Course dinner and at least 6 wines. Here is what we had and the wines to go with dinner. Cheers!

Herbed Quiche
2012 Wente Chardonnay
13.5% alc.a wonderful chardonnay with this quiche. [19]

Herbed Zucchini Soup 2012 Monte Fresco 13% alc. good choice with the spice in the soup. great soup

Herbed Zucchini Soup
2012 Monte Fresco
13% alc. good choice with the spice in the soup. Awesome soup! [17]

Spiced Grape Salad
2012 Zolo Bonardo
13.8% alc. great paring with the salad. big enough to go with the radish [19]

Herbed Chicken
Broccoli
Saffron Tomato Rice
2012 Fernandez Gomez Rioja
14% alc. superb match. went very well with the broccoli. [19]

Lavender Cupcake with Honey Frosting
2012 Tranche
13.2% alc. I thought the balance was a little off on this one. The cupcake, however, was awesome! [17]

May Events at The Buzz

07 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by Bob and Robin in Appetizers, Herbs, Herbs and Spices, Miner's Lettuce, Party Time, Photos By: Bob Young, Special Dinners, Special Events, Spices, Things To Do, What's For Dinner?, Wine and Food, Wine Dinners, Wine Tasting

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Buzz Coffee, Buzz Coffee & Wine Events, The Buzz Coffee and Wine, wine dinner, Wine Dinner Buzz Bistro

I just received this from Cristi and Tommy at The Buzz here in Boise. We will be at the monthly dinners – they are fantastic and loads of fun! – and I hope we see you there, too! Remember, to participate in some of these events (Monthly dinner and Quarterly Dinners), you will need to make reservations!
(208) 344-4321

Buzz Coffee & Wine Events

Hello. Hope everyone is enjoying the rollercoaster weather that we call Spring here in Boise. We have some fun events coming up and would love to see you at any or all of them.

Thanks to everyone’s support during our families loss last month. We appreciate the prayers and well wishes, and are terriby sorry for having to cancel the wine dinner with such short notice. Again thanks for understanding.

Cristi and Tom Takeda
Buzz Coffee and Wine

Wine Club Dinner: We will be discussing Herbs and Spices.
Join us at 6:30 on May 13 or 14 for a Five Course Dinner, Wine – pared with the food and included in the dinner price -, and a discussion of herbs and spices. Only $20 a person. Reservations required buzzwine@cableone.net or 344-4321.

Music in May

May 9th Carter Freeman
May 16th Jean Cardena
May 23rd Blaze and Kelly
May 30th Pat Foulkner

Music from 7-9 with free wine tasting, dinner and dessert specials. Come join us. No reservations needed

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Lets Talk Hot Peppers

07 Thursday Nov 2013

Posted by Bob and Robin in Bhut Jolokia chili peppers, Ethnic Foods, Flying Pie Pizza, Hard To Find Foods, Herbs, Herbs and Spices, Party Time, Special Information, Spices, Spices of India, What's For Dinner?

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bhut jolokia, Flying Pie Habenero Pizza, Scoville Scale, Trinidad Scorpion

Yes, Hot! And probably one of the hottest is the Bhut Jolokia from India. I lived in India – in the state of Rajasthan in a town called Pilani – for a year in 1955 and don’t remember this spice. There might be a reason for that. Left-Click this graphic to see the Scoville Scale. And look for the Trinidad Scorpion. It is THE hottest pepper known to Chiliheads!

‘Bhut Jolokia’
The hottest pepper on the planet, ‘Bhut Jolokia’ measures a breath-robbing 1,001,304 SHU! Hailing from India, the “ghost chile” is tough to grow. “‘Bhut Jolokia’ peppers are stubborn and not for the novice grower,” says Coon. “They are an interspecific hybrid—meaning they are a cross between two different species, which doesn’t happen very often. That’s what makes this one unique and probably contributes to its crazy hotness.” Joe Arditi says, “This is the pepper than can send you to the emergency room.” [Organic Gardening]

The bhut jolokia is a hundred and fifty times hotter than a jalapeño. Gastromasochists have likened it to molten lava, burning needles, and “the tip of my tongue being branded by a fine point of heated steel.” Yet, at more than a million Scoville heat units—the Scoville scale, developed by the pharmacist Wilbur Scoville in 1912, measures the pungency of foods—the bhut jolokia is at least 462,400 SHU short of being the world’s hottest chili pepper. [The New Yorker]

There are several good sources for information on hot, spicy peppers, Organic Gardening as quoted above, and The New Yorker and an article called Dept. of Agriculture Fire-Eaters The search for the hottest chilli in the November 2013 issue. But before we go much further, just where did the chilli pepper come from?

“Chili pepper” is a confusing term, another of Christopher Columbus’s deathless misnomers. (Columbus and his men classified the spicy plant they had heard being referred to in Hispaniola as aji—farther north, in Mexico, it was known by the Nahuatl word chilli—as a relative of black pepper.) Chilis belong to Capsicum, a genus of the nightshade family. Horticulturists consider them fruits, and grocers stock them near the limes and cilantro. Most chilis contain capsaicin, an alkaloid compound that binds to pain receptors on the tongue, producing a sensation of burning. Sweet banana peppers are usually neutral. Pepperoncini (approximately 300 SHU) produce just a flicker of heat, while cayennes (40,000) are to Scotch bonnets (200,000) as matches are to blowtorches. Capsaicin is meant to deter predators, but for humans it can be too little of a bad thing. Because capsaicin causes the body to release endorphins, acting as a sort of neural fire hose, many people experience chilis as the ideal fulcrum of pain and pleasure.

In February of 2011, Guinness confirmed that the Infinity chili, grown in Lincolnshire, England, by a former R.A.F. security guard, had surpassed the bhut jolokia by more than sixty-five thousand SHU. Only two weeks later, a Cumbrian farmer named Gerald Fowler introduced the Naga Viper. At 1,382,118 SHU, it was, Fowler said, “hot enough to strip paint.” He told reporters, “We’re absolutely, absolutely chuffed. Everyone complains about the weather and rain here in Cumbria, but we think it helped us breed the hottest chili.” He posed for the Daily Mail wearing a sombrero. [The New Yorker]

There is more about the “lowly” chilli. Lots more! Read the entire article in The New Yorker about Fire-Eaters the search for the hottest chili. You will be surprised. Maybe Flying Pie Pizza here in Boise will extinguish their Habanero Pizza and have an Indian Bhut Jolokia Pizza or for the brave, maybe a Trinidad Scorpion Pizza. Maybe. I won’t eat it. Guaranteed! But I bet there are some here in town that may want to try.

Turmeric – The “Poor Man’s Saffron “

11 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by Bob and Robin in East Indian Food, Interesting Information, Moroccan Spices, Photos, Special Information, Spices, Spices of India, What's For Dinner?

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food, middle eastern cuisines, moroccan cuisine, spice in indian cuisine

Here is another fascinating “spice” article from Malaysian Delacacies on Facebook. (If you look, Facebook does have some interesting posts. But only some.)

Turmeric is named as the ’Golden Spice of Life’.The botanical name is Curcuma longa, and the plant is a member of Zingiberaceae or ginger family. Turmeric has color similar to that of sunlight. Therefore, it is considered to be sacred in India as in ancient times such natural forces were believed to have supernatural powers. It is used in auspicious ceremonies and rituals.

Studies have shown that two teaspoons of turmeric contain 1.88 milligrams of iron, 0.08 milligrams of vitamin B, 0.96 grams of dietary fiber, 114.48 milligrams of potassium and 0.36 grams of manganese.

Turmeric is an essential spice in Indian cuisine. This warm and aromatic spice with bitter undertones is also used extensively in Southeast Asian and Middle-Eastern cuisines. In Indian cuisine turmeric is added to nearly every dish, be it non- vegetarian or vegetarian. Its bright yellow color imparts an orange yellow hue to curries. It is widely used in Moroccan cuisine to spice meat, particularly lamb, and vegetables. It is also used in spice blends in the Caribbean, North Africa, the Middle East, and Indonesia. Turmeric is also used to give a yellow color to some prepared mustards; it gives ballpark mustard its bright yellow color.

Listed above on the graphic, are the benefits of Turmeric. Left-Click to see enlarged.