A Jeanne in the Kitchen

There were three egrets out on the lakes today. By their actions, two of them must have been males, with one female. She was just letting the boys do their thing, while they were actually going after each other. They were squawking and fighting. There were a lot of ruffled feathers all about. I don’t know if the ruffled feathers were because of a potential love triangle or because of the wind, since it was a very blustery day.

Tempers are flaring. You can see it in their eyes.

I think this one is the female. She was just sitting back watching the boys ruffle their feathers. She seemed to be enjoying the show. Doesn’t she look much calmer than the other two?

Finally one of the boys decided he had enough, and flew away.

Don’t get your feathers all ruffled. It’s not worth the bad hair day. Instead, just fly away.

Last night, Larry had an old friend from high school visit us and I wanted to cook up something that was a true Colorado meal. Larry’s friend Mark lives in Austin, TX so it was a bit challenging because Texas, like Colorado, is known for its beef and good Mexican and Southwestern foods. So I went with some wild game. I know, Texas has wild game too, but as far as I know, they don’t have elk. I decided on making some elk steaks with a port reduction sauce with mushrooms and peppers, roasted rosemary and garlic potatoes and grilled asparagus. I decided on making a true Colorado meal that focused on our natural wild side.

I marinated the elk steaks in red wine, big game spices and pepper all day. Then we grilled them up when we were ready to eat. Elk is very lean, so it doesn’t need long to cook. it is best when served medium rare. If you over cook it, it will become very tough very quickly.

As the steaks were grilling up, I made a port reduction sauce and added some mushrooms and red peppers as well.

Port Reduction Sauce

1 cup port

1 cup beef broth

1 shallot, minced fine

1/4 cup butter

salt & pepper to taste

Cook the shallots in the wine and cook until most of the liquid has evaporated. Be careful when adding the port to the pan though. There will be a big surge of flames that will last for about a minute when you add the port.

Once most of the liquid has evaporated, add the beef broth, and once again reduce it to about 1/3 of the liquid.

Then add the butter and incorporate it into the sauce.

You can easily leave it just like this if you want. Some chefs will strain it, but I like rich sauces with lots of stuff, so I left the minced shallots in the sauce and added some sliced mushrooms and peppers as well.

While my sauce was cooking I was also using my inside grill to grill up the asparagus. Before putting it on the grill, I tossed it in olive oil, salt & pepper and a dash of lemon balsamic vinegar. I grilled it for about 5-7 minutes, rotating it a couple of times to make sure it all cooked evenly.

Once everything was ready, I topped the elk steaks with the sauce and served it all along side a big bold red wine. It all came together beautifully. Mark was wowed and dinner was yet another big success.

A general rule of thumb for cooking wild game is to add big bold flavors that will compliment the meat. If you have soft delicate flavors, they will get lost with the boldness and gaminess of the meats. I was also taught that if you are serving wild game, think of things that would grow in the wild to serve with it. Don’t be afraid to walk on the wild side. Instead, embrace it.

Stay safe and stay well everyone. And every now and then, let your wild side come out. Let yourself roar every now and then. ‘Til next time.

Easter is quickly coming, and the animals know it too. This year, rather than looking for Easter eggs from the Easter Bunny, I have a duck who is looking for his own eggs. He knows he will be in BIG trouble with the Mrs. if he doesn’t find those eggs; and SOON!

I know they’re close.

HMMMM! They weren’t there. I’ll look over here.

Nope. Not there either.

Still looking.

Maybe she put them in the grass.

When I left poor Mr. Mallard, he was still searching for those eggs. I hope he found them, or there will be HELL to pay from Mrs. Mallard.

Once again it was time to go through the fridge and use up the leftovers. The Queen and I went Indian this time. I had some leftover tikka sauce Chicken Tikka Night that needed to be used, but of course I couldn’t serve it the same way I had served it before, so I came up with a different twist. I used it with shrimp and pasta. Once again, it was a big hit. So when you are making your own tikka sauce, now you know it goes very well with both shrimp and chicken.

I sauteed the shrimp in some of my leftover olive oil dipping sauce from our gnocchi night Making Gnocchi, which gave the shrimp a little extra flavor and pizzazz.

Then I added some green beans and campari tomatoes and served it all over linguini. It was definitely a little Indian and Italian fusion going on, but it all worked beautifully.

All that was needed to complete the meal was some warmed pita bread and a buttery chardonnay on the side. Delicious! I used up my leftovers, created something new, and it was a quick, easy-peasy kind of meal. That’s what I’m talking about. YEAH!!!!!

Be bold. Be adventurous. Walk on the wild side. Mix and match and make all kinds of new creations. You just never know what you’ll come up with. 🙂

Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

There were not a lot of ducks out today, but there were a lot of different kinds of ducks out. It was so fun to see so many different varieties out on the lakes all at once.

There were Mallards,

Common Goldeneyes and Ringnecks,

Buffleheads,

Barrow’s Goldeneyes,

And Hooded Mergansers.

It was most definitely a ducky kind of day. Make all your days just ducky and all will be good.

I am always trying to come up with fresh new ideas for my coffee cart. I try to give a wide range and variety of goodies every week. I also like to re-use and repurpose things as much as I possible too. I have been offering a lot of fruit as well as pastries for the past few weeks, but unfortunately, fruit does not have a long shelf life. So rather than throwing away fruits unnecessarily, I try my best to incorporate it into my pastries whenever I can. This week, I was re-using some grapes and made mini grape clafoutis. They were partnered with some mini brownies and donut holes too. By the end of the day, they were all gone. My platter was left with nothing but the flowers and and light dusting of powdered sugar when it was time to clean up after everyone had left for the day. I will take this as a very good sign indeed. I think they were a hit. Ironically, I almost didn’t use them because I was not happy with how they turned out. But what do I know? I was very pleasantly surprised to see they had all completely disappeared.

Clafoutis originated in a rural region in south-central France called Limousin. Its name comes from the Occitan word “clafir,” meaning “to fill.” So popular was it “to fill” a dish with fruit and batter, that by the 19th century, clafoutis’ renown had spread from Limousin to other regions of France and bordering countries.

Clafoutis is a baked French dessert of fruit, traditionally with black cherries arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a thick flan-like batter. When baked, the finished product is somewhere between a cake and a custard dessert. Purists will call this dessert a flaugnarde if it is made with any other type of fruit besides cherries, but for those of us who are less discerning, they are all clafoutis to us. You can make them with any kind of fruit. It is a great way to savor the flavors of the fruits and to savor the flavors of the season as well. So I say be creative. Make your best clafoutis with whatever type of fruits you like – cherries, blueberries, blackberries, peaches, pears, grapes, or whatever else tickles your fancy. One of our guests said they tasted like fruited German pancakes.

Mini Grape Clafoutis

1 lb grapes – I used red and green

1 3/4 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

4 eggs

1/4 cup melted butter

1 cup flour

1/3 cup sugar

powdered sugar for dusting when they are completely cooled

Preheat the oven to 375* F or 200* C.

I used my mini muffin pans, but you can use a springform cakepan too. Add a little of the melted butter to the bottom of the pan and coat the sides. Place the grapes all around the bottom. Since I used my mini muffin pans, I added one grape per section.

In either a blender or a food processor, blend all your remaining ingredients together until it makes a thin, batter.

Pour the batter over the grapes and bake for about 1 hour, or slightly less if making them as minis.

When the clafoutis are done, allow them to cool for a few minutes in the pan, then remove and allow to cool completely before dusting with powdered sugar and serving. As I mentioned above, these were a big hit and completely disappeared. Bon Appetit!

Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

I have been trying to get some good shots of the beautiful little black-capped chickadees for quite some time now, but every time I try, and just as I get them into focus, they fly away. But today, I got lucky. And I didn’t even have to leave the comfort of my own family room either. I got some great shots just by looking out of my big window. There were a couple of little chickadees that were having so much fun, and they allowed me to get some great shots of them too. FINALLY!

My moral of the story is to never give up. Good things come to you when you least expect them sometimes.

I just love cooking with friends. I think it is a real bonding experience. We talk, we laugh, and we eat delicious foods too. I highly recommend cooking with friends to everyone.

We had yet another fun evening with our gnocchi making class. Some of my friends from church all came over to learn how to make gnocchi and we all had a great time. We made two kinds – plain and pumpkin. Gnocchi are Italian potato dumplings. You can serve them with a wide variety of sauces, just like you would serve with pasta. After the gnocchi were made, we turned the class into a feast. The girls were in charge of the kitchen for the class, then we allowed the boys to join us once everything was cooked and we all feasted together.

Let the creations begin. My beautiful Sous Chefs are ready to go. We have from left to right, Priscilla, Wendy, Lauren and Amy.

There are many regions that lay claim to the origins of gnocchi. While they are generally associated with northern Italy, the truth is that these dumplings are found all over the peninsula and in many diverse forms, made with a variety of base ingredients depending on where they come from: flour, corn meal, semolina, bread, chestnut flour, ricotta, or vegetables—from pumpkin to spinach to the classic potato. Every region in Italy, especially in the north, has its own gnocchi variation and its own specific sauce or serving style. In Piedmont or Lombardy, you might find potato gnocchi tossed in a simple dressing of butter and Parmesan, or in a creamy, cheesy sauce passed under a grill to brown the top before serving. In Verona, potato gnocchi is traditionally served in a tomato sauce—it’s a dish associated with Carnival that goes as far back as the 1500s.

The word gnocchi is thought to come from nocca, which means knuckles, or from the Lombard word knohha, which means knot (such as wood knot) or walnut—all words that imply the small, tight, rounded shape of gnocchi that we know today.

The most famous potato gnocchi that are known and loved world-wide date back to the sixteenth or, more likely, seventeenth century—well after Spanish explorers brought potatoes from South America and introduced them to Italian kitchens.

Before everyone arrived, I made a big batch of mashed potatoes and chilled them in the fridge until we were ready to use them. The mashed potatoes were the base of our recipes. We mixed the mashed together with flour and eggs, and pumpkin. And that was it for the dumplings.

Amy is measuring out the flour.

Wendy and Lauren are mixing it all together.

Basic Gnocchi Recipe

1 1/2 cups cooked mashed potatoes

2 cups flour

1 egg

For the pumpkin gnocchi, we added 1 cup of pumpkin puree, and added about 1 more cup of flour as well. We also added about 1 TBSP of fresh chopped sage.

Combine everything together until it forms into a ball. Then break off equal portions and rollout into a log. Priscilla is making the gnocchi like her grandmother showed her.

Cut the dough into small pieces, about 1 inch in size. If you want to get fancy, you can shape the gnocchi with a gnocchi maker or a fork. This will give each piece little ridges that will help hold the sauce, to add more flavor. Priscilla brought her gnocchi maker and we shaped all the gnocchi.

Priscilla is shaping the gnocchi and Wendy is watching and learning in awe.

We let the gnocchi set while we made our sauce. I found a delicious recipe for a mushroom and bacon cream sauce. We all taste tested it and we all agreed it was a perfect choice and complimented our gnocchi very nicely. We made a lot of sauce because we had a lot of gnocchi.

Mushroom Bacon Cream Sauce

1/2 lb bacon, chopped

1 heaping TBSP garlic

1 small container of mushrooms, sliced

2 TBPS butter

salt & pepper tot taste

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1 TBSP fresh sage, chiffonade or cut into very thin strips

Cook the bacon first.

Wendy is having way to much fun with the bacon.

When the bacon is mostly cooked, add the butter, mushrooms, cream, salt & pepper and fresh sage and combine well. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Amy says the mushrooms are ready. I think Wendy is excited about that. 🙂

We all took turns cooking and doing our part.

Now it is time to start cooking the gnocchi. We started out by sauteeing them in butter and oil for just a couple of minutes. We did these in batches to make sure they were not overcrowded or sticking together.

Once we let the gnocchi cook for a bit in the butter, it was time to start the boil. We carefully removed all the gnocchi from the pan and placed them on a cookie sheet. Then we filled the pot with water and brought it to a full, rapid boil. Once the water was boiling, we added the gnocchi in small batches. The boil only takes a few minutes. The uncooked gnocchi will sink, and then will rise to the surface once they are cooked and ready to be removed. Continue until all the gnocchi are cooked.

Once the gnocchi are cooked, add the sauce. You can toss it all together or you can serve it with the sauce on top. We chose to serve the sauce on top, then added Parmigiano cheese and fresh chopped parsley. We tossed up a simple salad and made a balsamic vinaigrette, grilled some chicken and sausage and warmed up some garlic rosemary bread and made some dipping sauce. And our simple, rustic Italian feast was ready. !Mangia!

We invited the boys to join us and we all dined outside, al fresco on the deck, since the weather was so beautiful.

After a fun day in the kitchen, we decided we needed a good picture of the Chef and her Sous Chefs. We all had so much fun and are already working on another fun cooking class for another time.

Good fun, good food and great friends. It doesn’t get much better than this. Life is definitely good.

Stay safe and stay well Everyone. Have as much fun as you can make the most of all your days. ‘Til next time.

With the warmer weather finally making its appearance, it is now time to start lightening up the meals a bit. Warmer weather calls for lighter meals. It means a lot more salads and a lot more vegetables, although we always eat a lot of vegetables any way, so it is kind of challenging to eat even more than we already do. I think we eat a much more varied amount of vegetables daily than a lot of vegans and vegetarians do.

Once again, my alter ego and friend in the kitchen, The Queen, came to pay me a visit. This time she donned her crown in Mediterranean fashion and this is the dish we created – Chicken Mediterranean.

As usual, I had little bits of this and that all needing to be used, as well some leftover Costco rotisserie chicken. I waved my magic wooden spoon a few times, and voila! Dinner was created.

I had a few red onions, a little spinach, about 1/2 a rotisserie chicken and some rosemary vinaigrette that were my base of things I needed to get used, and then I added mushrooms, artichoke hearts, and tomatoes for the rest. Count them – 6 different vegetables. But this is normal for us. I love all kinds of vegetables, especially in the warmer weather.

I started off by cooking the heartier vegetables first in some lemon olive oil; the onions, pepper, mushrooms and garlic. Then added the rest a few minutes later.

The spinach was next along with the seasonings, cooking for just a few minutes longer. For seasonings, I kept it simple, with just salt, pepper and lemon pepper.

Last came the drained artichoke hearts and chopped tomatoes and the rosemary vinaigrette.

I cooked it all just long enough to heat it all up thoroughly before layering it all up on a bed of pearl couscous. Couscous first, then the chicken (heated in the microwave), followed by the vegetables, with warmed pita bread on the side. And of course there was wine! I added a cool, crisp Verdicchio, the latest wine that we just made. A Lot of Wine, A Lot of Fun YUM! A quick and easy-peasy Mediterranean dinner is served. My kind of meal!

Stay safe and stay well Everyone. ‘Til next time.

The lakes are still pretty quiet at the moment. I barely saw any life on them. However, there was one Bufflehead duck who was thoroughly enjoying himself. He was pretty far away, and was kind of shy once he knew I was there, but I still managed to get some good shots of him.

He looks black and white.

But as the sun hits him, you see he is actually purple, black and white, which makes him even more handsome.

He’s a very handsome duck , and he knows it too. 🙂

No matter what, try to make all your days just ducky. 🙂