Author: ajeanneinthekitchen

Not long ago, we had a little baby bunny trapped in our basement window well. He was so cute, but very scared. We were prepared for a challenge when it came time to getting him out, but he just hopped right into the box we brought down, and we released him back to the wild. Easy-peasy. We were able to get a few pictures of him first.

Usually we see quite a lot of bunnies all around, but this year, we haven’t seen many at all.

Prairie dogs, on the other hand are quite prolific. We see them all around, everyday. I know some think of them as pests, but they are still cute and full of personality. I like seeing the prairie dogs.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

Low country boil. What is it? Where does it come from? These are great questions. They are also debatable. Some say a low country boil is Cajun or Acadian. Others say it comes from the “low country” of South Carolina or Georgia. Though it is hotly debated on where it originated, no one can dispute that it was influenced by many cultures that were prominent in the South during the early years of The United States. It has Spanish, French, Native American and African roots.

A low country boil is a one-pot meal with potatoes, vegetables, corn, Andouille sausage, seafood and whatever else could be caught. It was often enjoyed at large gatherings or celebrations and was a favorite food of the slaves. Today, it is enjoyed by all. It is a simple, poor man’s food and is meant to be fuss free. Everything is all cooked together in the one, large pot. Nothing else is needed, though it is often served with coleslaw, fried okra and/or corn bread. Shrimp is one of the main ingredients, and shrimp were most often found in the “low country” waters, hence the name, low country boil.

The name, low country boil, is just one of many names that this delicious one-pot meal goes by. It is also known as Beaufort Stew, Beaufort Boil, or Lowcountry Boil, though it is more commonly known as Frogmore Stew.

I made a low country boil last night and served it with fresh corn bread and honey butter on the side, with a glass or two of a cool, crisp Pinot Grigio. My Creole Aunt Gloria would have been so proud of the way it turned out. It was authentically Cajun/Creole/Acadian.

The differences in the three styles, Cajun, Creole and Acadian, are very subtle indeed, with a lot of crossover. The main differences are in the seasonings. For Acadian dishes, herbs and seasonings are used to bring out the full taste of the main ingredients, and not to highlight the tastes or characteristics of the seasonings. “If the flavor of any of the seasonings, herbs or spices stands out, the dish is considered a failure” (p. 8 -Cajun Cuisine, Authentic Cajun Recipes From Louisiana’s Bayou Country).

Low Country Boil

As with any dish that is popular in many regions and areas, there are always many variations. And that’s OK. But you have to have shrimp, Andouille sausage, corn and Cajun or Creole spices. Those are a must. Anything else is just a bonus. I added “the Holy Trinity”, which is green bell pepper, onion and celery, to mine as well as garlic and crab. I used the crab that was already packaged and taken out of the claw. It was much easier to eat, and MUCH cheaper. Because I used the crab that was already cleaned, I added it at the very end of the cooking process, right before serving it. If you want to use the crab legs, add it sooner to let it cook about 5-7 minutes longer.

When cooking authentic Cajun/Creole or Acadian foods, there is never any measuring involved. It all comes from feel and from sight. It comes from the heart, NOT the cookbook or by measurements.

Andouille sausage, sliced at an angle

red potatoes, cleaned and quartered

crab, either crab legs or crab that has already been cleaned from the shell

corn on the cob, cut or broken into large chunks

1 onion, diced

1 green bell pepper, diced

1 TBSP garlic

2 stalks celery, rinsed and sliced

Cajun/Creole seasonings generously to taste

salt to taste

Herbs de Provence, optional

water

oil

Get a very large pot very hot. Add just a little olive oil and saute the potatoes, peppers, onions, celery, garlic, sausage and seasonings for about 2 minutes.

Add 6-8 cups of water and bring to a full, rapid boil. Allow to boil for about 10 minutes. Then add the corn and boil again for an additional 5-7 minutes.

If you are using crab legs, add them at this point, and boil for an additional 5-7 minutes. Add the shrimp, with the shells and boil again for 3-5 minutes.

I used crab that was already taken out of the shell, so I added it right before serving. Serve in a large bowl to make sure you get as much of the flavorful broth as possible.

This dish is delicious, but MESSY. Have an extra bowl for the shells and corn cobs, and make sure to have LOTS of napkins on hand as well. Good eating is an art. Just like mastering any art or skill, it requires lots of practice. 🙂

Have a great and make everyday great. Stay safe, stay well and laissez le bontemps roulez. ‘Til next time.

The other day I gave you some insight into the life of a chef from Chef Anthony Bourdain The Nasty Bits, Continuing My Journey With Anthony Bourdain. Today, I am offering some more insights into the culinary world, in the words of other chefs.

I see it all the time. So many young people go to culinary school thinking they are going to be the next “celebrity chef” not knowing what it really takes to get there. So many people don’t want to put in the time and effort needed to make it to the top.

I hate to admit this, but it is so true. I cringe when I see others cooking. Sometimes, I just have to walk away. 🙂

Do what you love.

This is the truest of all. Food is what brings people together and connects us all.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

It’s sunflower season right now. So many beautiful sunflowers of all kinds are in full bloom, displaying their bright, sunny colors. There are many different sunflower varieties too. Here are a few we have blooming right now.

This is one of many of my own sunflowers from my backyard. Our sunflowers are growing like crazy right now.

This one is not from my yard, but from one of my neighbors. I just think it is absolutely gorgeous. It stood well over 6′ tall.

Another big, tall sunflower. This one must be about 10′ tall.

The word Sunflower is from the Greek word Helianthus, Heli means sun, Anthus means flower. Sunflowers turn towards the sun and look like the sun. Ancient cultures worshiped them, and mythical stories called them Sunflowers. The reason why a sunflower’s young bud and bloom follow the sun is to gain as much energy from the sun as it can to grow big and strong. And when the bud has blossomed the sun warms the pollen to entice bees, butterflies, and other small beasties to pollinate it. Pollination is the main goal of sunflowers, pollination produces seeds. Thousands of years ago sunflower seeds were one of the main food sources for South Americans.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe, stay well, and stay sunny. ‘Til next time.

Asparagus has been around almost since the beginning of time, going back at least to the 1st century. As with all vegetables, the first asparagus was discovered in the wild. A wild asparagus has thin shoots, thinner than a pencil, and is much different than the asparagus that you find in the stores. There are records of it growing in ancient Greece and Rome. Egyptians over 2,000 years ago cultivated asparagus for medicinal reasons and legend has it that it was so revered they offered it up to gods in their rituals.

Asparagus gets its name from the Persian word “asparag” which means
shoot or stalk. In English speaking countries, at first it was called “sparagus” meaning sparrow grass. Asparagus comes in white, purple and green. In the United States, green is the most popular version. In the Mediterranean countries and other parts of Europe, white is the preferred choice. The white and green asparagus are the same plant only the white parts have been buried in about 6 inches of soil so the sun cannot turn it green. Purple is found mostly in Italy.

Asparagus is a favorite in our house. We eat it on a regular basis. It goes well with everything and can be prepared in many different ways. I prefer the thinner stalks to the fatter, chunkier stalks. I think they are a lot more tender, but then, maybe that is just me. It’s all a personal choice and preference. This time I roasted it in a lemon pepper sauce and topped it with cherry tomatoes and a little Parmigiano cheese. !Delicioso!

Lemon Pepper Asparagus and Tomatoes

Preheat the oven to 400* F or 205* C.

1 lb asparagus, ends trimmed

1-2 TBSP lemon juice

1 TBSP lemon balsamic vinegar

1-2 TBSP olive oil and/or lemon olive oil

1-2 tsp sugar

2 tsp garlic

1-2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

coarse salt to taste

1 cup mixed cherry tomatoes, cut in half

1/3 cup Parimigiano cheese

Combine the lemon juice, oil(s), vinegar, salt and garlic together. Gently toss the asparagus spears into the mixture, then spread out in a single layer on a baking pan.

Top with a few grinds of the black pepper and top with the tomato halves. Roast for about 10-12 minutes. I like using the mixed cherry tomatoes because it makes the dish very festive and colorful.

Top with the Parmigiano cheese and serve alongside your favorite entree. It’s simple, easy-peasy and delicious. It goes with everything too. I promise, you’re going to love it.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

We have Cassin’s Finches, Rosy Capped Brown Finches and House Finches that love to call our area home. They are all close cousins and look pretty similar, but do have some subtle differences, so I always have to double check which one is which. Because they all kind of change from year to year as well, it makes it even more challenging to know which one is which. But when in doubt, I always go back to my bird books to see which one I am looking at. Last night as we were eating dinner, dining al fresco on our deck, we were joined by a little Cassin’s Finch in one of our trees. He was just being friendly and wanted to say hi.

This is a Rosy-Capped Brown Finch. The beak and coloring is slightly different and so is the body shape.

And a House Finch.

See how similar they all look? This is why it is so confusing. As similar as they are, they are also all different too.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

Chicken is so versatile and easy to cook with, that it is delicious no matter how you prepare it. It goes with everything. We eat a lot of chicken, in so many different ways too. This time, I prepared it with an apricot honey mustard sauce.

Grilled Chicken with Apricot Honey Mustard Sauce

I have a wide collection of different olive oils and balsamic vinegars, that I use for everything. This time I used my apricot balsamic vinegar.

1 1/2-2 lbs chicken breast

3 TBSP apricot balsamic vinegar

1-2 tsp Dijon mustard

2 TBSP basil olive oil

1-2 TBSP honey

1 TBSP orange zest

1 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste

Whisk everything together and mix well, then use as both the marinade and the sauce for your chicken. It would go well with pork or shrimp too.

Marinate the chicken for at least 2-3 hours before cooking, then place it on a hot grill and cook until done. This time I used my inside grill that I just place over my burners.

I was cooking my chicken side by side with my pan-fried potatoes. I love the convenience of using the inside grill. It cooks the exact same way as an outside grill, only it is inside. It is a griddle on the other side, so it too is versatile and can be used for many things.

As you know I hate to waste food if I can help it, and marinades are also great to use as your sauce. You can either make extra marinade to use as your sauce to top the meats after they are cooked, or if you just boil it and reduce it after you have marinated the meat in it, and it will be fine too. It also thickens when you cook it down. Most of the time I just cook it down, but the choice is yours.

I served my chicken with the pan-fried potatoes, lemon pepper asparagus with cherry tomatoes and Parmigiano cheese and garlic bread. And of course a cool, crisp Chenin Blanc on the side to bring all the flavors together and make the meal complete. This is a perfect summer meal, but is also good anytime.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. Til next time.

We still have bright, pretty, colorful flowers, but they are not nearly as prevalent as they were just a few weeks ago. They are finishing up their season, and will soon be gone. So I thought I would share the pretty flowers with you while I still can.

The seasons are changing. Soon these bright colors will fade, but new colors will come. Every season has its beauty. Enjoy them all while you can.

I have purchased all of Anthony Bourdain’s books, and am reading them when I can. My latest adventure with him was through his book, The Nasty Bits.

Chef Bourdain continues to amuse and entertain me with his kitchen wisdom and wit. As I had said when I reviewed his book, Kitchen Confidential, Kitchen Confidential I agree with a lot of what he says, but of course not all. The kitchens I worked in were not nearly as chaotic as the ones he worked in or ran. Different times, different perspectives and different ideas I guess. The kitchens I worked in were certainly unruly, and definitely chaotic at times, but it was more of a controlled chaos and was not a constant.

I agree with Chef Bourdain, that in any kitchen, anywhere in the world, we all know, regardless of our rank, that “We are glorified servants, catering to to the whims of those usually wealthier than us, but we are tougher, meaner, stronger, and more reliable, and we are well aware of the fact that we can do something with our hands, our senses, the accumulation of 1000’s of meals served that they can’t. [We also] work harder, under more difficult situations” (p.19) than most people will ever know.

Professional kitchens are comprised of misfits that no one else fully understands, and truthfully, we don’t fully understand the non-misfits either. A professional kitchen is a different world, unknown to most. But somehow, we all come together as one in the kitchen. In the kitchen, we are all family.

Most of us who enter into the world of professional cooking all have our demons we are struggling with, and those demons all come with stories too. “And as the story of all great cooking is also the story of poverty, hardship, servitude and cruelty” (p. 20). My story was not as pronounced as the stories of many others, but it is not all that different either. My parents were blue collar, working class people that worked hard their whole lives, and made a lot of sacrifices in order to provide a better life for the three of us, and for me especially (I am an only child). I too learned the value of hard work, and had to work at a young age to help out. I worked all through high school and while in college, I worked a 40-hour work week while carrying a full load of 16 units for school. I had to work to get ahead, as we all do. My parents could not afford to send me to college on their own. I remember my first year of college, I was forced to decide between work and college, because I had asked for some time off to study for finals. When I told my boss I did not go to college to work in a restaurant, she fired me. Fortunately one of the other managers told me to come back after my finals were complete, and my job would still be there for me, and would still be mine. Through all my long hours of work and personal sacrifice, somehow, I still managed to graduate with very good grades too. Hard work and sacrifice define us, gives us character and makes us stronger.

I loved working in restaurants. I loved everything about them, but after many, many years, I started to get resentful. “When our customers play, we work. When our customers sleep, we play”. (p. 19) We work nights, weekends and holidays, all the time. After a while, it begins to take a large toll on us. “Cooking professionally is hard on us. It ravages the mind and body”. (pps. 128-129)

I laugh at all these young kids, full of hopes and dreams of becoming “a celebrity chef”. They have NO idea what it really takes to make it in our world. Most people can’t cut it. ” In our business, you’d better have a sense of humor. We flirt with disaster everyday, particularly during busy dinner rushes, when one screw-up, one mistake, one broken piece of equipment or ill prepared cook can send the whole night’s service careening into nightmare. … We know the sheer terror of running out of food, of being short-handed, and if we can’t laugh about it when it happens, afterward, we will eat ourselves alive”. (p. 100)

We also take a lot of pride in our work and what we do. We are artists of our trade. And we NEED to be in control of what goes on in our kitchens and our world. We are Type A personalities. We have to be in order to be successful. We NEED to control our chaos or soon it will control us. “Cooking professionally is a dominant act, at all times about control”. (p. 194) The only time we get to be out of control are the times, though very rarely, are the times we are eating well. “Eating well, is about submission. It’s about giving up all our vestiges of control, about entrusting your fate entirely to someone else”. (p. 194). Giving up control is NOT something we do easily or readily. It is VERY difficult for us indeed.

If you really want to know all about the ins and outs of what it’s really like inside a professional kitchen, I suggest reading any or all of Anthony Bourdain’s books. He doesn’t pull any punches, and he tells you the good, the bad AND the ugly. And believe me, there are many ugly parts in the back of the house, but there are also a lot of good parts too.

I will leave you with this. You all know how I tell you to play with your food and make it how you like. I say this all the time. This is just inherent in the chef’s DNA and makeup. It’s who we are. We ALL do it, all the time. “Chefs at the very least ‘tweak’ all that passes through their kitchens, no matter how classic the dish, essentially making it with the addition or subtraction of odd ingredients, somehow their own”. (p. 227). I have “tweaked” recipes my whole life and will continue to do so for as long as I continue to cook. I will never forget the words of my favorite chef instructor, Chef Averseng, “No, no, no Jeanne (pronounced by him as gee-nee), dis is not right,” which was always followed by “Oh, dis is good”. If you want to stand out, you have to put your own personality into something and make it your own.

No matter what you do, always have fun, but especially have fun in the kitchen. Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe and stay well. ‘Til next time.

We had a fun and busy day. Larry and Mike played golf in the morning. While they were out playing, Lauren and I went playing too. We visited a local street and artisan fair, where one of our friends had a booth and was doing face paintings for kids of all ages. Lauren and I arrived early, just as it was opening up, so it was still a little quiet at first, but as we were leaving, more and more people started arriving.

Our friend Katie getting ready to paint.

Lauren and I were just strolling through the booths and enjoying the sunshine and each other’s company.

There was a guitar player playing his music, serenading the crowd.

Neither of us had eaten anything, and there was a taco truck calling out to us. So we ordered four different tacos, and each had two.

The tacos were very tasty too.

After the street fair, Lauren dropped me off at home, since Larry and I were going to a wine fest later on at our favorite winery, InVINtions, A Toast to InVINtions!

We always have fun at InVINtions. This time was no exception. There was a blues band playing, new wines to be tried and a BBQ. It was a members only party. Larry and I have been members for about 12-13 years. At first it was raining a bit, then it came down harder, so most people were inside. But after the rain stopped, everyone started coming outside to listen to the music and then there was dancing in the streets. Larry and I, and another couple we just met, had been outside the whole time, protected from the rain by the awning we were sitting under. We got to enjoy the music the whole time.

Before the event started, we were all welcomed with a Woo Woo punch, that was a wine cocktail.

Then we got to try the three new wines that were unveiled at the event.

The band was playing.

And there was dancing in the streets.

Yes, I was out there dancing too. I was also having fun with the staff, many of whom we have known and become friends with for years.

We always try our best to enjoy all that life has to offer. I’d say we do a pretty good job of it too. Life is good.

Have a great day and make everyday great. Stay safe, stay well, and dance in the rain sometimes. ‘Til next time.