Hummus

Here's a quick recipe that I started making recently, proven to be just delicious.

Ingredients:

• 1lb canned chickpeas
• 1/2 cup Tahini paste
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1/4 cup EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
• 1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 3 minced garlic cloves

Drain and wash chickpeas in cold water, then add all ingredients to food processor (blender will not work for this), mix on medium high speed for few minutes. I recommend to have the chickpeas in fridge overnight prior to making this recipe as to not overheat the mix while processing in food processor. Otherwise, you can add few ice cubes while mixing it to keep temps down. You can also add a little amount to cold water. It will make it smooth but add in small amounts to avoid your hummus to become to watery (I made this mistake, by the way, the first time I make it).

Good thing about making your own it that you can add more garlic or other spices that you like, make it to your taste.

Server with EVOO and sprinkles of Summac for a typical Middle Eastern cuisine.

Ocean puddle stew

Rich stew with a variety of sea food ingredients.

Ingredients (serves two):

• 1lb sea food mix. Fresh or ready to cook, as seen below.

This one in particular tastes very fresh and has a good variety of ingredients, octopus, squid, cuttlefish, clams, shrimps.

• 1 tsp minced garlic.
• 2 TBS oil.
• 1/2 chopped onion.
• 1 TBS chopped parsley.
• 1 TBS copped cilantro.
• 1 TBS chopped green onions.
• 1/2 cup chopped green peppers.
• 1 cup chopped variety of red, yellow, orange peppers.
• 1/2 cup chopped carrots.
• 1 tsp Chipotle pepper sauce. Or more if you like to kick up heat a bit.
• salt to taste.
• juice from 1/2 lime.
• 1 tsp soy sauce.
• 1 tsp fish sauce.
• 4+ cups water.

Steps:

1. Whether fresh or previously frozen, squeeze juice form 1/2 lime and mix with seafood.
2. Add oil to pot, onions, cook until soft. Add garlic, cook on medium-low heat for a minute
3. Add the seafood ingredients, bring heat to high and fry for 1 min, mix often
4. Add water and rest of ingredients, simmer for 30 min. Test bite a piece of squid or octopus to check, if too hard, simmer for another 10 min.
5. Complete with water if needed, salt to taste.

Lamb Shank 2, the ultimate

This is a recipe for the ultimate grilled and slow cooked lamb shank that is one of the best dishes I have ever cooked. Just heaven delicious falling apart lamb meat with a mild nutty flavor.

All starts with the shank from my local grocery. These are usually imported from New Zealand or Australia, at least in the Pacific Northwest. Great quality, mild gamey flavor.

Seasoned with a dry rub mix as below, crushed on a mortar:
- 1 TBS each of black pepper, sea salt, paprika, garlic powder and onion powder
- 1 tsp each of anise seeds and coriander
- 4 bay leaves

Onto the natural lump charcoal grill to sear and develop that great smoky flavor.

Into the slow cooker, topped with bell peppers, onion, sea salt, 1/4 cup of each Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. Cooked on slow for 24h.

Just amazing

Mouth watering

Oatmeal raisin wholegrain cookies

Oatmeal raisin cinnamon cookies

Ingredients for 15 to 20 cookies, 3 in diameter:

·    1 ½ cup whole wheat flour

·    1 ½ cup brown sugar

·    ½ cup wheat bran

·    ½ cup flax seed meal

·    1 cup raisins

·    ¾ cups oat meal

·    1 table spoon cinnamon powder

·    ¼ cup warm milk

·    2 sticks softened unsalted butter

·    2 eggs

Mix all dry ingredients. Mix milk, eggs and butter, and then add to dry mix. Mix until combined.

Form dough balls with 1 ½ in diameter, set on tray 3 to 4in apart.

Bake at 350F for 15min.

Whole Wheat bread

Here's a recent recipe I used few times which yielded very soft and delicious bread loaves.
Ingredients for 4 bread loaves.

Part1:

• 8 cups whole wheat flour, sing Bob's Red Mill flour
• 1 cup gluten flour
• 2 Table spoons non-iodized salt
• 2 cups flax seed meal, using Bob's Red Mill
• 2 cups wheat bran, using Bob's Red Mill
• 1 table spoon dough conditioner (optional)

Part2:

• 1 cup honey

Part3:

• 6 cups lukewarm water
• 3 table spoons dry yeast
• 1 table spoon sugar
• 1 table spoon wheat flour (white or whole grain)

Using part3 ingredients, add yeast to water, whisk and let sit for 5min. Add sugar and wheat, which and set in warm place for 15min. If mix doesn't foam afetr 15min, your yeast is probably bad, discard and repeat with good yeast.

While proofing yeast, mix part1 ingredients in mixer for few minutes. Once yeast timing is completed, add yeast mix to mixer along with part2. Mix with spatula at low speed for dew seconds, switch to hook and mix at speed3(KitchenAid mixer) for 7 minutes.

Take dough to a greased bowl and let rise in warm location for 30min. Dump on table, press dough down with both palms to compact it. Form a ball and let rise again for 30min. Devide dough in 4 parts, roll each to 1 to 3/4in thick, form bread and lay in trays, let rise for 1h30m. Dough should raise at least 1in above trays edge. This timing will depend directly on the temperature, recommended 90F.

Bake for 20min, let cool before slicing.

 

Paella

First time cooking this Spanish dish. Lots of online research which indicated the recipe can vary widely across different areas of Spain. Anyways, collected as much info as possible and built my own recipe.
-1 lb deboned chicken thighs, chopped
-1 lb chopped pork tenderloin
-1 lb home made chorizo, chopped
-1 lb blood home made chorizo, chopped
-1 lb large prawns
-1 lb fresh mussels
-2 fresh pimentos
-1/2 yellow bell pepper
-1/2 red bell pepper
-1 cup green peas
-1 cup green beans, chopped
-2 cups fresh chopped tomatoes
-1 cup tomato sauce
-1 qt chicken broth
-2 Table Spoon paprika
-1 Table spoon ground black pepper
-1 tea spoon ground thyme
-1 cup Chardonnay
-4 cups short grain rice
-3 cloves of garlic, minced
-3 Table Spoons olive oil
-1 large onion, chopped
-1 cup chopped fresh parsley
-0.2 grams real saffron
-3 bay leaves
-Salt to taste

Basic sequence of preparation is shown in the photos below.

Smoked Turducken

Recipe corrected at 12/11/14

Sharing the recipe for this interesting dish which I have seen around for a while but now got the chance to give it a try for the 2014 thanksgiving meal.
Here are few basic personal touches to this recipe, after reading a ton of online info:
1)Used a setup to expose the inside to hot air. This had two objectives, to reduce cooking time since my overall weight was over 20lb, second to allow extra flavor to develop inside out.
2)Extra flavor by slow smokinf for 5 hours at 275F.
3)Left birds in brine and spices for 24h before assembly
4)Developed my own stuffing recipe

Here's are the ingredients. This dish could easily feed 20 adults

1. Brine:

• 3gals cold tap water
• 1 cup chicken flavor boullion (Knorr)
• 1 TBS ground black pepper
• 2 TBS garlic powder
• 2 TBS onion powder
• few rosemary bushes, blended with a cup of water

1. 2 Meats

• 20lb turkey
• 4lb duck
• 2lb chicken

1. 3 Filling

• 10 cups (about 13oz) unflavored croutons
• 4 cups chopped small semi cooked carrots
• 2 cup raisins
• 2 cups semi cooked chopped green beans
• 2 cups chopped green onions
• 1 cup chopped real Parmesan cheese
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 1 TBS salt
• 3 egg yolks
• 2 TBS wheat flour 
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream

Preparation starts at least a day earlier, when all birds needs to be deboned.  Remember that these birds are usually found frozen, so several days are required to thaw it properly before any work can start. With that in mind, deboning starts with a good knife, so get yourself the proper tool. Start with the chicken, then duck and turkey for last. The idea is that you learn your way through with the meats that doesn't need much precision, so you master on the turkey later on, which needs to retain shape and is the face of your dish. Knowing a little bit of a bird anatomy would help to get around the bones easier, but start from either back or front of the chicken and duck. In my case, I decided to follow an advice to remove the fatty duck skin and use only the breasts, thighs and legs. I later melted the duck skin to collect the fat for future use, about a cup of fat out of one duck :-).
Deboning the turkey should start from the back, working your way, leaving the legs and wings untouched. Search online videos for guidance. The objective is to rebuild the turkey with the other birds inside so it looks whole. Of course some method of tying everything together is required. You can use food grade liners, skewers, etc. I used raw pig sausage casing to sew it, which is eatable and don't need to be removed afterwards.
Here are few photos of debone action"

Chicken

Turkey

Once your birds are deboned, place in brine and leave in fridge for 24h before proceed.

Take the birds from brine, dry with paper towel. Prepare the filling next.
Melt butter and mix all filling ingredients thoroughly. 
Lay turkey flat with skin facing down. Add stuffing to fill empty areas where bones have been removed. Add duck meat, also filling gaps as much as possible. If using the duck as a whole with skin, set skin facing down.
At last, lay the chicken with skin facing up, so it get's exposed to heat and turn crispy (One of the benefits of leaving a open hole core). Add filling as needed in between layers. There will be filling left which I roasted separated on a rectangular pan and added around the final dish before serving.

Photos of process below

After 5h smoking at 275F

Trouble removing the inner rack. Will use a stainless pipe with few holes next time so it can be removed, allowing cutting slices that will reveal all meat layers.

Looks and tastes great. Let's hear from folks that actually tried it, anyone?