It’s taken me a long time, but I’ve finally perfected gumbo. I’ve gone through countless over-complicated recipes over the years and have systematically thrown out the steps and ingredients that were superfluous. This recipe is what remained. It’s the best gumbo I’ve ever had.
I have a bunch of recipes that I’ve been meaning to blog for a while, and this is one of the better ones. I can’t remember where I originally got this idea; I think it was from some blogger’s variation that was a few degrees removed from an Ina Garten concoction. I’ve been roasting cauliflower for years, and I grill a lot of vegetables, but I think the best way to cook broccoli (and keep the meal healthy) is under the broiler.
I’ve tried a few times to make a beef variation of Mexican carnitas, which are typically made with pork shoulder. I’ve had some success, but the dish always lacked the depth and richness I had in mind. I found a recipe for Mexican Braised Beef that seemed like a decent starting point. This recipe came out pretty bland as written, so I changed it up a bit to get the kind of Jalisco flavor I was going for.
When most families get together for holidays and special occasions, everyone sits around a dining room table in Rockwellian fashion while the patriarch carves a roast beast. At my Italian family’s events, seventy-five people scarf down pounds of Italian sausage while the fraternal brotherhood of retirees complains in escalating fashion about the food not being ready yet. We have the typical American fixins’ like baked ham, deep-fried turkey, stuffing/dressing, potato salad, and mac and cheese, but there are also a couple of lasagnas, stuffed shells, fried eggplant, etc. One of the stars of the show is the stuffed artichokes. We haven’t seen them much at events since my grandmother died, so I decided to learn how to make them.
I wasn’t planning to make meatloaf, much less blog about it, but the wife forced my hand when I caught her putting ketchup on the shepherd’s pie I made over the weekend. Since that’s a sacrilege in my book, I decided to make her a real meatloaf that she could defile however she pleased. Ironically, the meatloaf I made was so delicious that she raved about the taste and balked at the notion of masking the flavor with a sugary condiment.
We had dinner with friends earlier this week and the hostess made shepherd’s pie. I haven’t eaten it in years and was reminded how much I enjoyed it. Since it’s a faux pas to go back for a third helping, I decided to just make my own version of the dish over the weekend.
Ever since I started making my own noodles, I’ve come to realize that pasta sauce should be more like a gravy than a soup. I’ve been experimenting with thinner sauces lately and this one came out really good. It’s cheap and easy, but you have to take your time or it’ll come out bland.
I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never really cared for the typical Southern version of cheese grits. The grits are tasteless, the cheese is lumpy, and the eggs dry everything out. When the casserole cools down, you have to cut a cube out of the solid yellow mass and smash it down with the back of your spoon. That’s about as unappetizing as it gets. My version makes a rich and creamy dish that actually tastes like cheesy grits instead of a corn-based custard.
After my successful experiment with homemade linguine noodles over the weekend, I decided to make some spaghetti. Over the years, I’ve learned to experiment incrementally to see what my flavor limitations are. Like with bread, pasta is 95% flour. That means that you’d have to add a lot of another ingredient to be able to taste it. I thought I’d roast some garlic and mix it with some olive oil in lieu of an egg in the basic dough recipe. I figured even if we couldn’t taste the garlic, the noodles would be healthier.
I’ve been trying to get some of my pan sauce recipes online lately so the wife can cook them when I’m not around. Chicken Marsala is her favorite.
