That's What Bob's Cooking: July 2013

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Gazpacho

For those of you who know me, know that tomatoes are not exactly my favorite food. I have tried and tried to like fresh tomatoes, but there’s just something about them that I just don’t care for.

That being said, I love tomato products, and a cooked tomato is in my opinion a great basic ingredient!

So when a friend of our invited us to her house, a few years ago, to tour her garden and have an afternoon lunch, what I remember the most about the meal was the delicious Gazpacho Soup, a cold tomato based soup, packed full of garden fresh vegetable.

This is a great recipe for those of you who have a garden or like to visit farmers markets which are “in season” right now. It's late July and in the Northwest we'd normally be 20 days into summer, and with the warm weather we are experiencing, this is a great cool down dinner. The longer it sits the better it gets.

Gazpacho

      2 chopped tomatoes (I used purple heirloom cherry tomatoes)
      1 chopped green pepper
      1 chopped red pepper
      4 chopped celery stalks, with leaves
      1/2 of a English cucumber, chopped
      1 cup chopped onion (I used red onion)
      1/2 cup chopped green onion (only the green part)
      3 minced garlic cloves
      1/2 of a sprig of cilantro, chopped
      2 tbsp parsley
      3 tbsp red wine vinegar
      2 tbsp olive oil
      1 tsp Worcestershire
      1 tsp tabasco
      2 cups tomato juice
      pepper

Place all chopped vegetables in large bowl. Wisk together vinegar, oil, worcestershire, tabasco, pepper and tomato juice and pour over vegetables. Let sit overnight in fridge and adjust seasoning in morning.

I like to add additional Worcestershire and tabasco for a bit more spice.

Chef's note: I DON'T measure, so the amount are the original amounts, I altered, as using 1/2 a cucumber, just doesn't work for me, I used the whole one!

Oh, and yeah I served it with our California Grilled Chicken Sandwich. YUMMY!

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Greek Spiced Chicken Burgers

Some people don’t like to cook during any heat, well for me, I just love to cook. You find me in my kitchen making a coconut cake on a 95°F day. (BTW we don’t have A/C, so imagine making a cake in a 350°F with just a fan!)

Last week, I was on Pinterest looking for ideas, and came across a recipe from aapplemint.com, and was inspired to revamp this recipe from is Euro roots. Even Craig liked it…..

Greek Spiced Chicken Burgers
with Dilled Greek Lemon Yogurt

1 ½lb Ground Chicken

3 Red Chilies' (Anaheim) seeds removed (leave em' in if you like heat!!)

3 cloves Garlic, Chopped

1 Red Onion, Finely chopped

Handful Cilantro, Chopped

1 tsp Red Chili powder

2 tsp Cumin powder

2 tsp Kabob spice

Salt to taste

½ English cucumber sliced with skin on

8 oz Greek Yogurt

Juice of ½ lemon

1/2 small cucumber, thinly sliced and chopped

1 tablespoon of fresh garlic

Dill weed, Chopped

Slices of fresh tomato

Few leaves of fresh crunchy lettuce

For making the Chicken burger, bring together in a mixing bowl, the chicken, spices, cilantro, chilies, garlic and onion. Mix it well with your hand and form flat patties, chill until ready to grill. Grill, until completely cooked. (180°F)

Meanwhile whip together the Greek yogurt, Dill, Lemon juice and some salt. Warm the pita bread slightly. Spread inside of pita with Greek yogurt, place the lettuce right at the bottom, then place the burger and top it up with a few slices of the cucumber or tomato. Enjoy!

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Skinny Chicken Chow Mein

If you’ve been following for a while you’ll know that my family came for a visit a few months ago. When they were here I made a few things that made my sister think of me when she found a few websites, mainly skinnykitchen.com, where I found “Skinny Chow Mein”. From there, I developed the following recipe. When I first made it, we only had enough for Craig and my lunch the next day. We both said WOW, this was amazing, and even better the next day. So I made it again, and this time….even better.

Skinny Chicken Chow Mein

Ingredients:

16 ounces refrigerated yakisoba
2 cups celery, sliced on the diagonally
2 cups onion, diced
5 cups cabbage, shredded
8 oz Shredded Carrots
5 oz Snow Peas, chopped
1½ cups cooked chicken breast, diced
Cooking spray
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Ingredients for Sauce:  

⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon reduced-sodium soy sauce (6 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons garlic chili sauce
2 tablespoons water
2 cloves garlic, mined
2 teaspoons ginger (from a jar),
Fresh ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions

1. Cook the noodles for about 2-3 minutes just until soft. Do not over cook.

2. In the meantime, prep all vegetables and dice the chicken. Set aside.

3. In a small bowl, add all sauce ingredients and mix until well blended. Set aside.

4. Coat a large nonstick wok or pan with cooking spray. Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in pan.

Add celery and onions and sauté over medium-high heat for several minutes until onions become soft. Add cabbage, carrots and peas and chicken.

Sauté another few minutes until soft. Turn down to medium heat, add noodles and soy sauce mixture. Stir-fry for about 2 minutes or until noodles are heated through. Stir constantly to blend everything.

Store any leftovers in the fridge for a few days.

Makes 5 servings (each serving, 1½ cups)

My Complete Profile

I was born and raised on the East side of Portland Oregon, by two native and second generation, Oregonians, my Mom and Dad (Jack and Joan). Oregon, and the Northwest are deep in my blood. That being said, I have always had an interest in cooking. I would love to add a warm loving story here about how my Mom nurtured my love of cooking by setting me up on or near the counter top to help with whatever she was cooking. Well, that's not exactly the case.

Being a child of the 70's and 80's, I had a great exposure to classic foods like Spam, Tang, Rice-a-Roni and Hamburger Helper. While many of these premade, sodium roller coaster, treats where regulars on our table, my Mom would have to hold the title as "casserole queen". Casseroles are her favorite and her specialty. Whereas, my Dad was more of a spur of the moment kind of cook. His creations included many of the items from our makeshift pantry. Sometimes, i think he was thinking, "the more ingredients, the better it'll be!". I think my first attempt at cooking would have to have been making cookies, either peanut butter (with the criss-cross fork tine print on top), or chocolate chip cookies. Over the years I have made so many of both of these recipes, I have surely lost count.

During middle school, my Mom encouraged me to take Home Economics, thinking that all kids, boy or girl, should know how to cook out in this world. This sparked a growing interest in cooking. So when I entered my junior year of High School, at David Douglas, I enrolled in the culinary arts program, we called it Food Services I. This was a class that had been offered many years before, where the students ran a restaurant, The Kilt, during the lunch periods. Unfortunately, since the class had not been offered in several years, so we didn’t have enough students to open the restaurant, that year. Within the first few weeks of this class, my instructor asked if I'd like to be involved in an outside "club" (kind of like a version of Eagle Scouts) that was mentored by local business owners. It sounded interesting so I joined (not to mention it got me out of the first 2 periods of the day).

At our first meeting I was approached by Sylvia Poesdel, the owner of the Portland landmark restaurant, Sylvia's Italian Restaurant & Dinner Theatre. She asked me if I would be interested in an afterschool job, coming to work for her to learn the cooking/chef trade on the job. I jumped at the chance and started in October of 1985. During my senior year I rejoined the culinary arts program (Food Services II) and this year we were able to reopened the restaurant, which the rest of the students voted me to manage. I just absolutely loved it! I worked at Sylvia's until after I graduated, in 1989. I learned a lot about the restaurant industry, and I would have to say it would be one of just a few life altering jobs I have had throughout my career.

After high school, while I was working at Sylvia's, I applied to culinary arts school. The Two things kept me from continuing my career in culinary arts, were financial and having worked out in the field, I saw so many negative attributes to being a chef, I decided that since I love to cook, I wanted it to be a hobby, and not a drag to go work each day.

When I left Sylvia's, I worked at a hotel, then Safeway. From there I joined Fred Meyer in the Service Deli, and was quickly promoted to a manager. During the next 8 years, I worked throughout the Portland and Southern Oregon areas. In 1998, I earned a promotion to the regional specialist position (District Manager) in Seattle. During this career move, I learned so much about the Food Service industry. I was charged to develop a new service salad case program, as well as work on a new catering program. I had the opportunity to work with manufacturers to develop these new programs.

In 2000, I met the love of my life, Craig. I also, moved from the food service program to the grocery department as an assistant manager. In the capacity I learned to develop my management skills as well as managing inventory. By being the best in my category, I earned the position of manager, where I moved from store to store cleaning up and reorganizing as I went. I also was entrusted with training future Food managers for the region. At which point I was pursued by another company to run a store for them, and enter back into the restaurant industry. During these 3 years, I learned the Restaurant Supplier side of the business. While I enjoyed the time I spent in this opportunity, I yearned to go back to the Grocery industry, and spend more time with my first love, cooking, and writing about my adventures….in the kitchen!