Scott Hutcheson

The Remarkable History of the Key Lime Pie

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of May 23, 2011

It was sometime around the turn of the century. Not the one marked by the worry of the Y2K bug but the one before that. A fisherman got a sweet tooth and used what he had on hand to whip up a tasty dessert. Sponge fishing was a booming new business in South Florida but the margins were slim so the rations were meager on his boat – some sugar, eggs, canned milk, soda crackers, some nuts, and citrus fruit.

There, under the stars, this fisherman made the very first Key Lime Pie.

Word spread quickly among the fisherman and the cool tart pie became a staple on those fishing trips. One of these men, maybe even the one who made that inaugural pie, shared the recipe with some woman folk, one in particular.

We don’t know much about “Aunt Sally,” not even a last name. We do know, however, that she had a job as the household cook for Florida’s very first self-made millionaire - William Curry, aka Rich Bill. Mr. Curry came to Florida as a penniless Bahamian immigrant and made his fortune in the ship salvage business. Mr. Curry also had a sweet tooth.

Aunt Sally’s Key Lime pies became a staple at the Curry mansion and were often on the menu when William would entertain great men of state and industry. The rest, as they say, is culinary history.

Part of this story is history but much is conjecture about the origins of this dessert but its popularity for over a century is fact indeed. There are variations on this pie – graham cracker crust, traditional crust; Key limes only or run-of-the-mill limes. Most South Floridians are firm in their insistence of using only Key limes. Type of crust seems to be less important.

Here is a recipe using a saltine cracker crust and pecans, which is probably pretty close to what that first fisherman might have made. Key limes are hard to find in most parts of the country but you can usually find it bottled and it works very well in this recipe.

The string of people and events that make up the history of Key lime pie is fascinating indeed so when making this pie for family and friends you can tell them the story of sponges and fisherman, of Aunt Sally and Mr. Curry, and enjoy a delicious taste of history.

Key Lime Pie

Saltine Crust

• 3 egg whites (reserve yolks)
• 1 cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 14 saltines, finely crushed
• ½ cup pecans, finely crushed

Preheat oven to 325'F. Butter a 9" pie plate. In a medium-size bowl beat the egg whites, slowly adding sugar. Continue beating stiff. Add the baking powder, saltines, and pecans, mixing to combine. Pour into pie plate and use a spatula to spread. Bake for 30 minutes and let cool on a wire rack.

Filling

• 3 egg yolks
• 2 teaspoons lime zest
• 1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
• 2/3 cup freshly squeezed or bottled Key lime juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In an electric mixer with the wire whisk attachment, beat the egg yolks and lime zest on high for about five minutes or until fluffy. Gradually add the condensed milk and continue to beat three to four minutes until the mixture is thickened. Raise the mixer and add the lime juice slowly folding the mixture with a rubber spatula just until the juice is incorporated add the lime juice. Pour the filling into the crust. Bake ten minutes, or until the filling has just set. Cool on a wire rack, then refrigerate. Freeze for 15 to 20 minutes before serving.

Topping

• 1 cup heavy or whipping cream chilled
• 2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar

Whip the cream and the confectioners' sugar until nearly stiff. Cut the pie into wedges and serve very cold, topping each wedge with a large dollop of whipped cream.

Pop's Tarts

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of April 24, 2011

When they were younger, my kids used to beg for Pop Tarts. If our grocery cart got within two isles of the breakfast foods section their pupils would dilate, their arms would reach out, and they would begin their attempts at parental manipulation. It’s funny how I had to remind them several times a day to say “please” and “thank you” yet when lobbying for something they really wanted, they quickly transform into little masters of manners.

When “please” didn’t work, they resorted to the movie-tie in tactic, trying to convince me that pastries with a Disney Pixar character on the box were somehow even more delicious than the run-of-the-mill tart. Sometimes I gave in, most of the time I didn’t.

I can’t blame them. I love them too. Pop Tarts and I grew up together, both born in 1964. I spent many a Saturday morning watching cartoons while washing down two pastries with a cold glass of milk. My children and I are certainly not alone in our love of Pop Tarts. Over 2.7 million Facebook users are fans of the tasty squares.

My wife and I make it a parenting priority to help our kids make good food choices. We aren’t militant about it but we try to be sure most meals feature lean proteins, complex carbohydrates, and plenty of fruits and vegetables. Like most busy families, however, occasional carry-out pizzas, drive-through burgers, and Pop Tarts are seemingly unavoidable.

Every now and then, I attempt to make healthier, homemade versions of convenience-food favorites, like Pop Tarts. Making these foods at home allows me to control the ingredients that go into them and provides enough of a novelty factor, that they are almost always a hit with my boys. From a calorie perspective, my tarts are no better, I’m sure, than the grocery store version; but I feel better about using real sugar, real butter, and whole-wheat flour. There’s nothing in them that my kids can’t pronounce.

If you’ve got Pop Tart lovers in your house and an hour or so to spare, you might want to give this recipe a try and if there are kids around let them lend a hand.

Pop’s Tarts

Pastry:

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 3 tablespoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup spreadable fruit (I used strawberry)
• 1 egg yolk, beaten with two tablespoons milk

 Frosting:

• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk

Optional:

• Sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a food processor combine the butter and sugar then add the eggs, one at a time. Sift together flours and baking powder and add to the butter and sugar, pulsing until a soft dough ball forms. Chill for one hour. Turn the dough onto a large floured surface and roll to the thickness of a pie crust, about an eighth of an inch.

Use a knife to cut out rectangles that are about 6” x 5”, roughly the size of two Pop Tarts side by side. Spread about a tablespoon of fruit over 1/2 of each rectangle, staying way from the edges. Fold dough over the preserves, push down at the edges, and trim up the edges with your knife. Place tarts on a greased cookie sheet and brush w/the egg yolk milk mixture. Bake for about 25 minutes or until just beginning to brown.

Combine the powdered sugar and milk to make a thin frosting, Use a pastry brush to apply to each pastry. While the frosting is wet, you may also want to top with sprinkles. This will make about 16 tarts. Wrap in foil and store in refrigerator for up to a week or in the freezer for up to four months. When ready to eat, toast like you would the store-bought kind. Frozen tarts may need a little extra time.

Roasted Vegetable Frittata

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of April 17, 2011

If you have not yet finalized your Easter menu, consider adding this simple yet elegant Roasted Vegetable Frittata to your plans. This frittata is great for breakfast, brunch, or lunch.

Eggs, as a symbol of new life, are part of the Easter tradition in many countries. In Sweden, for instance, the tradition is to eat hardboiled eggs the evening before Easter. Other countries, like Greece and Portugal, make braided Easter bread with hardboiled eggs, shell and all, placed within the braids. In Italy, the frittata is often on the Easter menu.

If you are not familiar with frittata, it is similar to an omelet or crustless quiche and like these other dishes, can have a wide variety of fillings. This is a two-step recipe, and the vegetables can be roasted up to two days before you plan to make the frittata. At our house, we like roasted vegetables so much I’ll sometimes roast a large quantity using some in a frittata, and eating the rest as a side dish next night or even use them as a pizza topping. Roasted vegetables are versatile and simple to prepare. Roasting caramelizes the sugars in vegetables and results in an amazing sweet-savory taste combination. Those listed in this recipe are some of my favorites and these quantities will be just about right for the frittata.

Roasted Vegetables

• 4 medium-sized new potatoes
• 4 carrots or one and a half cups of baby carrots
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 yellow bell pepper
• 20 (approx.) asparagus spears

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. To prepare the vegetables, rinse the potatoes, peppers, asparagus, and carrots (if using whole carrots). There is no need to peel the potatoes, but remove any areas where the potatoes might have started to sprout. Peel the outer skin of the onion. Next, cut all the vegetables into bite-size chunks and place them in a large bowl. Drizzle the cut-up vegetables with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Using your hands, toss the vegetables until evenly coated with the oil, salt, and pepper.

Transfer the vegetables to a large cookie sheet, making sure that they are evenly distributed. Place the cookie sheet in the oven for approximately 45 minutes. At about the halfway point, use a spatula to move the vegetables around and turn them over. Continue roasting until they begin to brown evenly. Less dense vegetables, like the asparagus, may cook more quickly so remove them when they are done and let the other vegetables continue to cook. The roasted vegetables can be used immediately or stored refrigerated in an airtight container for up to two days.

Roasted Vegetable Frittata

• Roasted Vegetables
• 6 eggs
• Salt
• Pepper
• Olive Oil
• 1/4 Cup Parmesan cheese

Set the oven broiler on high and also heat to medium an oven-proof skillet (I use a well-seasoned cast iron skillet) on the stove top.

Crack the six eggs into a bowl, add salt and pepper to taste, and beat the eggs with a fork. Add to the skillet enough olive oil to cover the bottom and tilt the skillet so that the oil coats the sides. Next, add the roasted vegetables to the skillet. If the vegetables were prepared beforehand, allow them to warm up in the skillet then add the beaten eggs.

Shake the pan a bit to be sure the eggs settle all the way through to the bottom. Allow this to cook on the stovetop undisturbed until the eggs begin to set, about 5-7 minutes. Add the Parmesan cheese and transfer the skillet to the oven for 2 to 3 minutes until the eggs are completely set. Remove from the oven and use a spatula to loosen the sides. The frittata can be cut like a pie into six servings.

Looking Ahead to Easter (and recipes for a full Easter menu)

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of April 10, 2011

From a food-point-of-view, Easter is one of the big three events in the triple crown of holidays. There others being, of course, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thanksgiving menus, it seems, have much consistency from family to family. Most have turkey, some sort of stuffing or dressing, and a favorite version of sweet potatoes. Christmas food traditions vary some but usually feature some of the same hearty cooler-weather fare as Thanksgiving.

Easter, as a celebration of spring and new life, calls for some lighter flavors. Growing up, the Easter Ham was the ever-present entree at our Easter table and it’s most often what I now prepare for my family.

Our menu this year will include Fruit Salad, Deviled Eggs, Chantilly Potatoes, Peas with Mint, and a Lemonade Pie for dessert. As you look ahead to Easter, maybe you are looking for some new ideas, Hopefully you can find some here.

Regardless of what’s on your table next weekend or if you even observe Easter, I hope you can enjoy and celebrate the onset of spring with friends and family and that some of these recipes will fit with your plans.

Orange Glaze for Easter Ham

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 8 1/2 ounces orange marmalade
• 1/2 cup whole gain mustard Dijon mustard
• 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 orange, juiced and zested

In a small saucepan, melt the butter over moderate heat. Stir in the other ingredients and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Pour over ham and bake for the last hour of the ham's total baking time.

Chantilly Potatoes

• 8 whole Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and diced
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3 tablespoon fresh chives, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Boil potatoes until tender. Prepare as you would mashed potatoes (I used a ricer) adding butter, 1/2 cup of cream, 2 tablespoon chives, salt, and pepper. Put into an oven proof dish that will still leave you about an inch of room at the top. Whip the remaining 1/2 cup of cream and spread on top of potatoes. Add the grated cheese and place back in the oven for about 20 minutes or until the top is golden brown. Garnish with the remaining chopped chives.

Peas with Mint

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup finely diced onions
• 1-1/2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
• 16 ounces frozen baby peas
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoon fresh mint, chopped

Heat a medium saucepan on the low setting and add the butter. When it has melted add the onions and lemon zest. Turn up the heat a bit and cook gently until the onions are translucent but not browned, about five minutes. Add the peas and sir occasionally until they are heated through (about five minutes) then add the mint.

Lemonade Pie

• 1 prepared graham cracker crust (the kind in the aluminum pan)
• 1 small can frozen lemonade
• 1 can Eagle Brand condensed milk
• Juice of one lemon
• 2 cups of whipped cream
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest

To a large bowl add the lemonade, condensed milk, and lemonade and stir to combine. Fold in the whipped cream and then put into the pie shell. Let chill for several hours or overnight. Before serving garnish with lemon. 

Flirting with Spring (and recipe for BLT Soup)

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of March 27, 2011

There is a fine art to flirting and frankly I was never very good at it. The most effective arrow in my flirting quiver was that of humor. I could almost always make a girl laugh; but hey, so could Rodney Dangerfield.

Author Fran Greene wrote the book on flirting. Actually, she wrote the Bible. In The Flirting Bible she reveals all the flirting secrets: the smile, eye contact, maintaining a proper distance, body language, and the flirtatious touch with tips for both men and women. I could have used this book back in the day.

Springtime, it seems, is a time of year where flirting is at its peak and not just among humans. In my neck of the woods, the earth itself flirts with us during these early days of spring, teasing us a bit with a warm day here and there and giving us just a peek of color.

Warm spring days have me anticipating the bounty that will soon be growing out of our small backyard garden and a day in the 70s last week had be standing in the yard envisioning the tomatoes that will go into the ground in a few weeks. Unable to get tomatoes out of my mind, I settled for the next best thing to garden tomatoes, the canned versions at the grocery store.

One of my favorite ways to eat tomatoes is in a BLT but I will only eat them when tomatoes are in season. The produce-isle versions just don’t match up. Canned tomatoes, on the other hand, usually have great tomato flavor but you can’t exactly use them on a sandwich. I decided on a BLT soup instead, incorporating all the elements of the sandwich.

A conventional BLT is still a few months off but in these early days of spring, this soup fills the void.

 BLT Soup

• 6 strips of bacon
• 2 28-ounce cans of diced tomatoes
• Olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
• 2 stocks of celery, chopped
• 2 medium carrots, chopped
• 1 quart of canned chicken stock
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
• 8 thin slices of a baguette
• Arugula

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking pan with parchment paper and place a wire rack on the lined pan. Lay the slices of bacon on the rack and place in the oven to cook for 20 minutes or until the bacon is crisp. Remove the bacon and the rack. Once cooled, crumble the bacon and set aside. While the bacon is cooking open the two cans of tomatoes and pour of the juice, reserving it for later. Using the same baking pan and parchment used for the bacon, pour off all but about a tablespoon of the bacon fat (you may not have more than a tablespoon). Dump the diced tomatoes onto the parchment-lined sheet and spread out into a single layer. Add salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Place back into the 375-degree oven to roast for 30 minutes.

While the tomatoes are roasting, heat a Dutch oven to medium-high. Add a tablespoon of olive oil and sauté the chopped onion, carrots, and celery. Add salt and pepper and sauté until beginning to turn golden. Add the chicken stock and reserved tomato juice and bring to a boil then reduce to simmer. Once the tomatoes are done add them to the pot along with the tablespoon of sugar and the basil. Add additional salt and pepper if needed.

Use an emersion blender to puree the soup to a smooth consistency. Switch the oven to broil and place the bread slices on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, and broil until golden. When ready to serve ladle soup into bowls, top with one or two pieces of the toast, a few leaves of arugula, and crumbled bacon. Makes about six servings.

Games, Grub, & Gladiators (and recipe for Spanakopita)

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of March 20, 2011

It is in our nature to love a good story and most of us got an early introduction to storytelling because of some adult in our lives who read to us or spun yarns of their own. Often our play took the form of story, imagining ourselves as the hero in some epic tale playing out in our backyards.

As adults, stories still play a prominent role in our lives. We learn about what’s going on in the world through stories reported by news outlets, we entertain ourselves with television and movies that makes us laugh, cry, and jump out of our seats. Friends tell each other stories, about our weekend adventures, what’s going on with our kids.

This week we find ourselves in the middle of what’s called March Madness and when it comes down to it, it’s the stories we’re mad for. Without stories there’s just a ball going through a hoop.

At its essence, a sporting event is a story that unfolds over the course of a couple hours and the NCAA tournament packs a lot of stories into just a few days. We’ll get caught up in the tales of heroes and villains, decades-old rivalries, emotional highs and lows, unexpected twists and turns, victories and defeats.

Like for the Super Bowl and other big sports events, many of us will be gathering with family and friends around our living-room big screens to experience together the thrills of victory and agonies of defeat and of course you can’t have a crowd without feeding them.

Food, sports, and great stories go back for centuries, even to the days of the Roman Coliseum. The Roman’s loved great drama and stories quickly spread about the feats of gladiator bravery. Like a Saturday in March, these tournaments were all-day affairs and the people got hungry. One crowd favorite was sold by Coliseum vendors was a savory Roman pastry similar to what we know now as spanakopita.

Fortunately our sporting amusements are less barbaric than they used to be and fights to the death don’t usually occur even among the greatest of rivals. Still, however, there is a great deal that is Roman-esque about March Madness. New heroes emerge, former victors fall, spectators demand sustenance, and great stories are born right before our eyes. Maybe a taste of ancient Rome will should find a place among our game-time snacks.

Game-Time Spanakopita

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 large yellow onions, chopped
• 2 (10 ounce) packages frozen spinach thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 8 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
• 4 eggs, beaten
• Kosher salt and cracked pepper
• 1 24-ounce package phyllo dough
• 3 sticks of butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat a nonstick sauté pan to medium-high and add olive oil. Once the oil comes up to temperature sauté the onions until softened. Add the spinach, parsley, and flour and cook for ten minutes or until most of the moisture has evaporated. Remove from heat. In a mixing bowl combine the feta, eggs, and salt and pepper to taste then incorporate the spinach mix.

Unroll the phyllo on a flat surface and keep it covered with a damp towel so it doesn't dry out. Cut the phyllo lengthwise into 3-inch strips, and recover with the towel. Use a pastry brush to brush a strip with melted butter. Place a spoonful of filling an inch from one end of the pastry then fold the end over the filling to form a triangle. Continue folding up the strip in triangles, like folding up a flag. Repeat using all the strips and filling keeping the triangles covered with a damp towel until all are ready to bake.

Brush the triangles lightly with butter, then bake on a parchment-lined baking pan for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden and crisp. Serve hot. Makes about 60 triangles.

Another Biscuit Please, Dr. Pavlov (and recipe for Charleston-style Cream Cheese Biscuits)

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of March 14, 2011

You’ve heard, I’m sure of the Golden Age of Hollywood, the 1930s and 40s, in which movies really came into their own. I wasn’t around during that time but I was for another era of pop-culture significance, the Golden Age of Saturday-Morning Cartoons. In 1966, the year I turned two, all three of the major networks began a four-hour block of children’s program each Saturday morning.

This was before the days of 100s of cable channels, which now includes entire networks devoted to children’s programming. Many a Monday-morning conversation around elementary-school water fountains were about the antics of Bugs Bunny, the Road Runner, and the other characters that inhabited that colorful world.

During the 1980s other programming began to slip into Saturday mornings and soon the era came completely to an end. For those of us of a certain age, however, Saturday mornings will forever be associated with cartoons.

For me, the Saturday mornings of my formative years have another association – biscuits. My stepfather, a Baptist minister, made biscuits by the dozens to take to the weekly Men’s Prayer Breakfast. I have a photo or two of me, sleepy-eyed and footie pajama-ed, sitting atop the kitchen counter helping him cut out the doughy disks. He would leave a few for the family, and my mother would bake them and serve them with gravy or sometimes apples fried in a cast-iron skillet.

Somehow, in someway, it seems my mind got hardwired, like Pavlov’s dog, so that cartoons remind me of biscuits, and biscuits of cartoons. With the first whiff of a hot-buttered biscuits, I think of Scooby, Shaggy, and the gang, in the Mystery Machine, careening down a winding road to go solve a caper. It works the other way too. If I walk through the room while my children are watching Hong Kong Fuey on the retro channel, my first impulse is to head to the kitchen to preheat the oven.

As a result of my obsession with biscuits I’ve catalogued a great many variations, found all across the U.S – flaky and cakey, lard and butter, thin and thick, buttermilk and regular milk? I’m an equal opportunity biscuit lover, rarely encountered a freshly baked biscuit I don’t like. I won’t even turn my nose up and some canned biscuits. Don’t, however, try to fool me with some sort of pre-baked, then frozen version. 

Last week life took me to Charleston, South Carolina, where I discovered yet another variation, the cream cheese biscuit. The other ingredients and overall technique is not unlike most other biscuits except that cream cheese is substituted for some of the butter. The result is a light and cakey biscuit with a double-doze of tang coming from the buttermilk and cream cheese.

The little King Street café in which I ate these delicious biscuits, had a TV turned to CNN. I asked my waitress if they got the Cartoon Network and if she would mind changing the channel. They did and she obliged.  

 Charleston Cream Cheese Biscuits

• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1-1/2 cups cake flour
• 1-1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• ¾ tablespoon baking soda
• 4 ounces cream cheese, chilled and pinched into small pieces
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter cut into small pieces
• 1 cup cold buttermilk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and line a baking pan with parchment paper. In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients. Add the cream cheese and butter and use your fingertips to work it into the flour until it takes on a sandy look. Add the buttermilk and use a spatula to fold it into a dough. Turn dough out into a floured work surface and roll out to ¾ inch thick. Use a biscuit cutter to cut out biscuits, trying to use as much of the dough as possible. You can re-roll the scraps but the second batch will likely not rise as much as the first. Place the biscuits on the baking sheet and back for 12-14 minutes or until golden brown.

Wanted: An Irish Friend (and recipe for Irish Stew)

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of March 7, 2011

These last few weeks our family has spent a good deal of time going through all our stuff in an attempt to get our house ready to go on the real estate market. When my wife and I bought our two-bedroom, one-bath 1910 home it had plenty of room because it was just the two of us. We’re now a family of four and as our boys get bigger, the house seems smaller.

Fortunately, we’ve been pretty disciplined about not accumulating too much stuff. None of us are collectors. There are no porcelain figurines occupying every nook and we toss most of our children’s school papers each day, saving only a representative sampling. My respective childhood and adolescent belongings fill one small box that includes odds and ends as well as a few dozen baseball cards and few old Sports Illustrated magazines.

The one thing I do enjoy collecting is not something I can keep in the basement. Well, not unless I become some sort of sociopath. I like to collect people. Not just any people, but people who come from different places in the world.

Having a melting pot of friends has enriched my life in so many ways, my culinary life included. Back in graduate school I befriended a group of young women who shared my love of great food. They came from all over the globe – India, Korea, Turkey, Spain. For several weeks, we spent every Tuesday evening at one of their apartments cooking together. Those were great times.

Having done a bit of international traveling I’ve also picked a few friends along the way and would love to do more of that. On my bucket list is to spend a week in the French Countryside shopping the markets, and befriending the locals.

As we look ahead to St. Patrick’s Day next week, I’m reminded that I really need someone Irish to add to my collection of friends. Each year I experiment with an Irish dish like soda bread, champ, or corned beef, but I know I’m missing those hints, advice, and stories that only a true Irishman or Irishwoman could provide. 

In the mean time I’ll continue to make my versions of these dishes but make no claims to their authenticity. I’m Scottish but my people arrived in the new world was 300-plus years and although the Irish and the Scots are neighbors, neither want to be lumped together with the other.

So, here’s the recipe for the faux Irish Stew I’ll be making this year. It’s delicious and a favorite of my family, but I’ll be eating it half-heartedly hoping that by next St. Patrick’s Day, I will have made an Irish friend.

Irish Beef Stew

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 2 lbs beef stew meat
• 1 large yellow onion, peeled and chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 cup beef stock
• 1 cup Guinness Stout
• 2 cup baby carrots
• 2 medium peeled, chopped (about 1 inch square) potatoes
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees. On the stove, heat a six-quart Dutch oven or oven-proof pot to high heat and add the oil. Dust the stew meat with the kosher salt, black pepper, and garlic powder. Add the meat to the pot and brown on all sides. Reduce heat to medium-high and add the onion and crushed garlic. Cook until onions are clear.

Reduce the heat to low and add the bay leaves, thyme, rosemary, and flour. Stir with a wooden spoon for about a minute. Next, stir in the beef stock and. Keep stirring until the liquids begin to thicken. Add the carrots and potatoes.

Cover the oven or pot with a lid and place in oven for 90 minutes. Just before serving, add the chopped parsley.  

DIY in the Kitchen (and recipe for Whole Grain Mustard)

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of February 13, 2011

Over the last few months we’ve had some help around our house from problem-solver extraordinaire Bruce. To call him a handyman does not do Bruce justice. He’s got the brain of an engineer, the skilled hands of a carpenter, and the patience of Job.

We’ve lived in our now-103-year-old home for almost 12 years now. It is our first house and when we moved in I attacked each and every home improvement and repair with enthusiastic gusto. “We’re not hiring anyone to refinish those hardwoods,” I told my wife, “I can do that myself.” I gave it a shot, gave it my best actually, but failed miserably and ended up calling the professionals.

Even the seemingly simplest tasks, like hanging a light fixture, prove more challenging for me than most people. It’s like the part of my brain that can see things in three dimensions and perform the other mental functions necessary to execute such tasks, doesn’t work right. It’s like I have some sort of DIY dyslexia. A guy like me needs a guy like Bruce.

I got my first clue that I was not like other guys at 15 when I was hired to mow for our church. This task required a John Deere tractor, a push mower, and a weed whacker, all of which needed maintenance and repair on a regular basis. I learned early that a career in lawn care was not in my future.

Then came job number two: a cook in a restaurant. Within the first hour I knew I was in my element. Strangely many of the tasks were similar to those in the mowing business. I was still handling tools, some of which cold easily sever fingers, I still needed to maintain equipment and assemble machinery like the biggest food processor you have ever seen, yet it all made sense in the setting of a kitchen. Within a few days I was improvising on recipes and making suggestions for process improvements. I was richly rewarded for my good work getting a ten-cent an hour raise to $3.45.

So here I am now, a middle-aged man who tinkers in the kitchen instead of the garage; and while other dads are spending their weekends building bookshelves or laying new bathroom floors, a typical home project for me is to make a batch of demi glaze. As a result, my family eats well but may have to put up with a broken light switch until I can call Bruce.

One of my recent DIY projects was tackling an item that is a constant presence in my refrigerator but one that I new little about – mustard. After doing a little research I learned that this ancient condiment is surprisingly easy to make and thanks to some of the properties of these tiny seed, will last pretty much forever without spoiling. I started out with a basic whole grain version but have plans to experiment with some of the endless variations. Depending on what sort of liquid used – vinegars, wine, beer; other flavoring agents like fruiy and level of sweetness you want, you can literally make a different mustard each month for the rest of your life and never run out of possibilities.

Whether you are a do-it-yourselfer around the rest of the house or not, I urge you to try making your own mustard and see what happens. As for me, I’m going to continue to call Bruce, but next time he comes over I might to make him a sandwich with some of my homemade mustard.

 Whole Grain Mustard

• 1/3 cup brown mustard seeds
• 1/3 cup yellow mustard seeds
• Apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup ground yellow mustard
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar

Place the brown and yellow mustard seeds in a jar with a lid and add vinegar so that it is about ½ inch above the top of the seeds. Put lid on and let sit over night. Dump this mixture into a food processor, add the other ingredients, and pulse a few times. Add water if it is too think. Return to the jar and store in fridge for just about forever!

In the Pink for Valentine's Day (and Recipe for Filet Mignon Pink Peppercorn au Poivre)

Originally published in quality newspapers the week of February 6, 2011

Let’s face it. Valentine’s Day is pretty much a chick’s holiday. I mean no disrespect with my use of the term “chick.” In professional settings I try to avoid gender-specific terms. What were once “councilmen"  are now “councilpersons” and when have to refer specifically to a group of adult females I would never use a phrase like the “girls in the office.” But when it comes to February 14^th, “chick” is what works as in it’s a chick’s rather than a dude’s holiday.

February 14 could come and go, as far as I’m concerned, and if I didn’t get a single card, or a piece of chocolate, I would not lose even a single wink of sleep over it and most of the other men I talk with feel the same. For me, and most of my fellow men, Valentine’s Day is more about giving than receiving and data from the National Retail Federation supports that suspicion noting that men’s expenditures are twice that of women’s with cards, jewelry, flowers, candy, and clothing as big-ticket items. I suspect, however, that much of that “clothing” might be worn by the women but really for the men.

As you might imagine, my Valentine’s Day presents yet another opportunity to get into the kitchen and prepare a dinner my Valentine will enjoy. I’m hearing from my male friends that an increasing number of them are also planning to cook this year for the women in their lives.

One benefit of talking the helm in the kitchen is that you can design a menu that you both will enjoy. This year I’m planning on making something very dude-friendly – red meat, with a special girly twist – a pink peppercorn cream sauce. Pink peppercorns, unlike their black, white, and green counterparts, have no piperine, which gives pepper its heat. Instead, they have sweet, spicy, citrus quality to them and their color turns the cream sauce a light pink.

Whether you are male or female, if you are planning to cook dinner at home this year, you may want to consider this dish. Serve it with some potatoes, a green salad, and something chocolate for dessert and it could be a very special Valentine’s dinner. And dudes even if you are cooking, you’ll probably still be on the hook for card, flowers, candy, and/or jewelry.

Filet Mignon Pink Peppercorn au Poivre

• 2 filet mignon steaks, about 1-1/2 inches thick
• Kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons whole pink peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 1 teaspoon olive oil extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup Cognac,
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream

Bring steaks to room temperature and season both sides with the kosher salt. from the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes and up to 1 hour prior to cooking. Use a mortar and pestle or zip-top bag and mallet to coarsely crush the peppercorns. Spreads two-thirds of the crushed peppercorns evenly on a small plate and press each side of the steaks into the pepper.

Heat a nonstick pan to medium-high heat and add the butter and oil. When hot, place the steaks in the pan. Cook about five minutes on each side for medium (less or more depending on how done you want them. Remove steaks from pan and pour off any of the oil and butter remaining.

Keep the pan off heat and add the Cognac to the pan. Carefully place pan back on the burner (it may flame) and let reduce by half then add the cream. Bring the mixture to a boil and whisk until the sauce coats the back of a spoon, approximately five minutes. Whisk in the remaining cracked peppercorns and taste to see if additional salt is needed. Place steaks back to the pan, spoon the sauce over, and serve.