Category: Pioneer Spirit

I’ve been making seafood chowder pretty much daily. Over the last couple weeks the recipe hasn’t changed. It is SO good! This will make two servings if you add sides (salad, garlic toast, fresh baked rolls, etc.) and choose to share. Otherwise, be a pig and eat it all yourself without sides. It’s worth it!

• 3-4 large uncooked shrimp split lengthwise and cut into 3/4″ lengths
• 1/4 lb Pacific cod cut into 3/4″ cubes
• 2 tomatillos (3 if they’re small, 1 if they’re large) Don’t leave these out. They add a necessary brightness to the dish
• Green and red pepper diced into 1/4″ pieces
• Green onion split lengthwise and cut into 1/4″ lengths
• Tomato, 1 thick slice cubed
• Broccoli, steamed and sliced fine, 1 cup
• Shiitake mushroom. This is a texture item. Cube or dice
• Bone or vegetable broth, 1 cup
• White wine, 1/4-1/3 cup
• Fish sauce, 2 tsp
• Cilantro, 1 tbsp
• Salt (the dish doesn’t need it but if you like salty stuff, add some!)
• Gochugaru (Korean red pepper), 1 tsp. Use less or more depending on your taste.
• Sour cream, 1/4 cup
• Garlic oil
• Butter

This is a bit fussy to make because things need to be added in the right order but is so awesome it’s totally worth it.

Clean and cut the broccoli into big pieces. Steam until not quite tender. I use my Instant Pot with a steamer basket. I set it for pressure cook, turn off the keep warm function and set the time to zero minutes. When the light goes off I release the pressure and remove the pot. I get the right tenderness every time. I can start the broccoli and prepare all the other veges while it’s coming up to pressure. By the time I’ve got them all chopped or diced and my pan started the broccoli is done.

I’m a huge fan of cast iron frying pans. I have a bunch. I use an 8″ deepish Lodge pan for this recipe. You could use a sauce pan or a bigger shallower pan . . . do what works for you.

Add butter and garlic oil to the pan. Once heated add all the veges except broccoli. Cook until nearly tender. If your pan starts to look a bit dry, add more butter. Add the broccoli. Cook until thoroughly warmed through. Add broth, wine, fish sauce, cilantro, gochugaru, salt to taste.

Once the mixture starts to simmer stir in the fish and shrimp. Adjust the temperature as necessary to keep the mixture at a very light simmer. Once the fish and shrimp is cooked through (be careful not to overcook) add the sour cream to the center of the pan (don’t stir it in yet) and turn the heat down to just below simmer.

Let sit about five minutes so the sour cream can come up to temperature. Stir the sour cream into the mix and serve.

 

 

When I make spareribs I marinate the ribs overnight in a rub made of spices and apple cider vinegar. I make the spice mix in bulk and add the vinegar to the spices just before using it as a rub. It’s a five or six to one mix, spice mix to vinegar.

Then the spareribs are cooked at 425º for an hour. This truly messes up my oven. It gets a coating of grease that’s truly unappealing to see or clean.

Yesterday I tried something different. I made a tent out of parchment paper with the edges sitting inside the pan to catch all the splatter. My oven stayed clean and the ribs came out perfect. I couldn’t be more pleased.

I love barbequed spare ribs but they’re a lot of fuss to fix. Clean the ribs, season the ribs, stick ’em in the fridge overnight, bake the ribs, make sauce for the ribs, coat the ribs and bake the sauce in. That’s a lot of steps for a meal that’s eaten and gone in 20 minutes. Add to that, a rack of spare ribs is too much food for the two of us.

By now you’ve figured I’ve got a plan . . . and I do! I don’t want to give up on spare ribs. They are so good and pair so well with so many sides. I’ve figured out a way to enjoy them without having excessive leftover while speeding the process along.

Clean two racks of pork spare ribs. Cut them into two-person sized servings. Prepare the rub, apply it generously and stick the whole mess in the fridge overnight. The next morning bake them according to the instruction. Let cool. Pack each 2-meal sized piece in a separate ziplock bag, stick those in a big ziplock bag and freeze.

Make a double batch of barbeque sauce. Cool and pour into ice cube trays (the silicone ones work awesomely well). Stick the trays in the freezer. When frozen, pop the cubes of barbeque sauce out of the trays and stick them into a ziplock bag and put that bag into the larger ziplock bag holding the seasoned and baked spare ribs.

When you want barbequed spare ribs pull out a meal’s worth, 2-4 cubes of barbeque sauce and thaw. Coat and cook (I use an oven bag to ease cleanup) and you’re done! Meal prep in minutes instead of fussing all day. You’ve fussed just once for 6-10 meals.

I can’t seem to leave recipes alone. I’ve got to tweak and add and change and . . .

I’m fairly sure it’s a chronic thing. A perfectly fine pork stir fry morphs into something else. The seed is never lost as I do my best to document changes. It’s got to be excess creativity or boredom or something else.

I’ve changed my pork rub recipe. I’ve added ground cardamom and . . . and here’s why it’s so important to document. I cannot remember what the second thing I added is. I’ll have to make a trip to the kitchen and go through the spices to refresh my memory.

With food intolerances, it’s difficult to find processed meats that are worthy. Hempler’s meat products are definitely worthy. We eat their bacon, hotdogs, ground pork and more. Nothing they make (that we’ve tried) rates as high FODMAP. Everything we’ve tried has been gluten MSG and GMO free . . . all in all a truly awesome product line.

I love one dish meals. We don’t sit down together to eat unless we have company. We eat on totally different schedules. If Wadly’s eating fried chicken I’m usually having something totally different. Stir fried pork, tuna or egg salad . . . something that’s not fried chicken. When he has two hotdogs heated in the microwave (yeah, me too) I’ll cut up a hotdog and have it with broccoli, bacon, green onion, bone broth, red and green pepper . . . and it’s awesome. I’ve done the same thing with a can of green beans. Hotdog for the win.

I’m test driving a peanut butter custard recipe and it came out quite good. The recipe produces three servings.

• 3 eggs, separated
• 3 tbsp light brown sugar
• 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 cup organic plain yogurt
• 3/4 cup whole milk

Beat the egg whites to aerate them just a bit. Don’t beat them into a meringue, just give them a decent number of bubbles to lighten them a bit.

In a separate bowl mix egg yoke, peanut butter, brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and yogurt. Mix thoroughly. Add milk a little bit at a time mixing it in thoroughly.

Add egg whites to the egg yoke mixture and mix in without beating heavily.

Distribute equally to three buttered ½ pint canning jars or 1 cup ramekins. Sprinkle mini chocolate chips on the top if desired. Butterscotch chips would also be excellent!

Place on trivet in the Instant Pot with 1½ cups of water beneath. Pressure cook on high for 7 minutes. Immediately release pressure, undo and offset the lid to allow the jars to cool in place. Once the jars can be handled by a bare hand, remove them. Serve warm or cold, top with a drizzle of caramel, chocolate ganache or serve with an ice cream topper.

I’ve been making breakfast hoagies for Wadly and he raves over them. They’re simple to make but a bit fussy as it takes three pans. I like to cook so I don’t see it as a burden.

• sourdough hotdog bun or hoagie roll (hotdog bun is small, hoagie is big – adjust for your hunger level)
• fresh ground pork (I usually buy a 1 or 1½ pound package, mix in the appropriate amount of seasoning, separate it into serving sizes into zippered snack bags and stick it in a larger labeled bag into the freezer.)
• sausage seasoning (1½ tbsp/lb) (seasoning mix recipe is here)
• green onion
• butter
• egg
• 1½ tbsp sour cream

Mix the egg and sour cream.

Dice the green onion, add to egg mix.

Butter a HOT 5″ frying pan and dump the egg mix in. Reduce the heat and turn over when needed. Don’t overcook.

Place one slab of butter in a HOT pan under each side of the bun. Turn the heat down, watch carefully and rotate as needed. You want the hoagie to come out brown and crunchy, not burnt.

Shape the sausage into a size and shape that matches your bun. Cook this in a separate pan. Once it’s turned over, add a slice a cheese to the top. Wadly likes American, your tastes may align with cheddar or mozzarella or . . .

Once everything is done, assemble. While the order of assembly isn’t particularly significant, the taste is.

My awesome brother spun by months ago and gifted me with his breakfast sausage seasoning recipe. I introduced him to white pepper. He doesn’t like anything even remotely hot so white pepper was an awesome addition to his kitchen. I see this as a fairly fair trade.

My sibling’s seasoning recipe got a bit of a tweak to suit my palate (I don’t mind a bit of hot as long as Wadly can handle it) and I’ve been using the adjusted recipe ever since.

Dosing is at 1½ tablespoons per pound of freshly ground pork . . . or more depending on your tastes.

• 3 tbsp rubbed/ground sage
• 2 tsp salt (I’m not a huge fan of salt so try this amount and add as needed)
• 1 tsp white pepper (I agree with my brother on this, black pepper is a bit too bold)
• 1 tsp marjoram
• 3 tbsp brown sugar – I make my own, 1 tsp organic molasses to 1 cup organic cane sugar, store in a jar with a moisture proof lid.

I give this mix a whirl or two in my spice grinder to blend it and get the kosher salt reduced and distributed. Then I stick it in a ½ cup jelly jar for later use. The mouth of the jar is big enough for a tablespoon to fit in easily, the lid is nice and flat for writing the name of the spice combination and they stack neatly.

My cod/shrimp chowder thing is continuing to improve. Today’s effort is particularly good. Added . . . mushroom and cooked broccoli. OMGosh. SO good.

Here’s the guide when cooking for one.

All the veges are equal amounts with red and green pepper counting as one veg. I cut all the veges (except cooked broccoli – sliced, zucchini – sticks and mushrooms halved and sliced) into 1/4″ cubes. In total that’s about 1/8 cup each of cooked broccoli, mushrooms, peppers, zucchini, spinach and green onion.

Heat a cast iron skillet (my pan of choice) adding butter, garlic oil and sesame oil (twice as much butter as each oil). Add green onion, peppers, mushroom and saute’ for a bit. Add zucchini, spinach and broccoli and sautee for a bit.

Add seafood. This really can be anything. I used cubed cod (1/4 lb. pacific) and 4 medium shrimp diced into four pieces each.

Add bone broth (about 2/3 cup), sour cream (1/2 cup), clam broth (1 tbsp), fish sauce (1/2 tsp), cilantro (1/2 tsp) and Korean red pepper (gochugaru, 1/2 tsp).

Stir to incorporate everything and let simmer until the fish is done.

This is SO good!

I’m still playing with cod/shrimp dishes. My latest is really pretty good!

Green onion
Green pepper
Red pepper
Tomatillos
Zucchini
Garlic oil
Toasted sesame oil
Butter
Cod
Shrimp
Sour cream
Fish sauce
Bone broth
Clam juice
Korean red pepper (gochugaru)
Cilantro

Dice up the veges. Saute’ everything but the zucchini in butter, garlic oil, sesame oil. After those veges are al dente add the zucchini. Once the zucchini has started to soften add the seafood. Add everything else. Simmer until the fish is done.

Yup, it really is that simple. There’s lots of stuff but it’s totally uncomplicated.

I’m fighting an antibiotic resistant infection . . . and winning. One of the protocols is to avoid red meat. Anyone who follows my blog knows I adore red meat. Beef is my favorite meat, hands down, but as the daughter of a fisherman I also love seafood. I love fresh salmon, canned tuna, shellfish and . . . Pacific cod. If you’ve had cod and have been singularly unimpressed, I don’t blame you. Not all cod is created equal. My absolute favorite cod is a little recognized fish – orange roughy, a truly fabulously tasty fish. Sadly, orange roughy isn’t widely available outside of fishing port towns.

A close second to my taste buds is Pacific cod. Not Alaskan cod (relatively tasteless but widely available) or any variation thereof. Pacific cod is it’s own class of cod. It’s flavorful in a way that makes it delightful to cook with. Tonight I had cod and shrimp in a white sauce and it was heavenly. Here’s what I did.

Saute sliced mushroom (I used shiitake), grated zucchini and diced green onion in garlic oil and butter. Sprinkle thyme, gochugaru and salt over the sauteing vegetables. Once the veges are al dente, lift them out with a slotted spoon. Add thawed cod and shrimp (and more butter) to the pan. Turn the seafood, cooking on both sides. Spoon the seafood out. Add milk. As the milk is coming up to temperature mix a bit of milk with a bit of corn starch and a bit of the warmed milk from the pan. Stir that into the pan. Continue to stir as it thickens. Once it’s thickened add the seafood and vegetables back to the pan and let it simmer just a little bit longer.

Trust me, this is fabulous!

It’s 97 in the shade. Let me tell you firsthand, when our normal high is 80, 97 truly sucks. Wadly, in his grocery foray yesterday, got a two-pack of rib steak, my absolute favorite cut of beef. Last night was a really plain undecorated fry in butter and garlic oil. It was good but nothing compared to the innovation of tonight.

Usually the rib steaks we get are thicker than 1″. I put them in the toaster over for 30 minutes at 200 degrees, then sear them in butter/garlic oil. Good. Plenty good. Up until tonight this has been our standard.

This time there were two steaks that were about 3/4″ thick, not the norm for us. Simply frying was good but . . . OMGosh, the innovation tonight is really better..

I put the steak in the toaster oven (200deg for 20 min) and while it was preparing for a reverse sear, I put a couple tablespoons of red wine, a tablespoon of garlic oil, a tablespoon of Worcestershire Sauce and a dash of salt in a flat dish. To prepare the pan I ground a 1/4 teaspoon of hing (asofoetida) and added that, butter and garlic oil in the (hot) pan, sloshing it around to ensure the flavor is well distributed. Quickly, so the butter wouldn’t burn (HOT pan) I gave the wine/Worcestershire/salt/garlic oil a quick stir, drop the steak on it and flip it over to coat both sides and then dumped the steak into the frying pan to sear on both sides . . . OMGosh! I’m thinking this is a new favorite.

I’ve got a new breakfast food love, a frittata with a hash brown hat. It’s so good!

This requires breakfast sausage. I make my own with fresh ground pork (store bought, Hempler and Smithfield both rock) with a seasoning mix my brother gave me. The rest is eggs and fresh veges and it’s very good!

We have farm grown eggs. Some of our hens are banty cross descendents which gives us big eggs from our new girls and bitty little eggs from our banty cross hens. I can do this frittata with one big egg or two little eggs. Much of my baking calls for big eggs so I’m perfectly happy to use the small eggs for my breakfast.

Dice green onion, mushrooms (I use shittake) and red and green pepper. Grate half a baked russet. I always have baked russet on hand. I use them for hash browns, fries and as a meal with chili, sour cream, butter and chives for a special occasion dinner. Using cold baked potatoes speeds the cooking and improves the flavor.

Cook the grated russet in butter, stirring fairly often. The goal is to lightly dehydrate and brown the individual gratings rather than turn it into one mass of hash browns.

In a separate pan cook the green onion, peppers and mushroom. When they’re close to fully cooked add the sausage. Stir the sausage in thoroughly breaking up any lumps.

In a separate bowl whisk the egg with a tablespoon of cream cheese, sour cream or yogurt. Add the cooked veges/sausage. Pour into a hot buttered pan (I use a small 6″ skillet). Arrange the hash browns over the top. Cover and turn the heat down to low. Once the egg sets it’s done. Serve with diced tomato.

So good!

I had a craving for chili. It needed to be flavorful without being hot and totally low FODMAP. And like just about everything I make, it had to use up stuff I had on hand. I’m out of red and green peppers or you know I would have added them as well.

• 1 pound hamburger
• 1/2 pound ground sausage (home made, really super mild)
• butter
• tomatillos (small, about a dozen) – watch the big ones, they can be bitter.
• tomato (1/4 large tomato)
• green onion (3-5 depending on size)
• garlic oil
• red wine
• bone broth
• coriander
• cayenne
• paprika
• cumin
• cilantro
• salt
• 1.5 cups nacho beans (instant pot cooked beans with gorugachu chili flakes, bacon and salt) – soak/rinse/soak/rinse the beans before cooking to make them low FODMAP
• lactose free sour cream
• tortilla chips

Add a couple tablespoons of butter to a frying pan. Add a bit of garlic oil. Add chopped green onion. Once the green onion softens add the meat. Once the meat is browned add diced tomatoes and tomatillos. Add seasoning (1/2 tsp cumin, 1 tsp each of coriander, paprika, cilantro, chili powder (cayenne), dry mustard, salt, 1+ cup bone broth and a dash of red wine and a sprinkle or Worcestershire sauce.

Simmer until the tomatillos break down. Serve with a dollop of sour cream and tortilla chips.

It’s really good! It’s flavorful and super mild. AND it’s low FODMAP.