Yeah we'be been lazy!

No we didn't forget about you!!!!! We've just been a tad bit lazy on the weekend and haven't taken the time to post some yummy meals. To make up for all the lost yummy food blogging we are going to put several recipes in one post (can you handle it?!) The next recipies will deal with two things we love: Football and chilly weather!!!

Enjoy!
Ben and Shelby

Homemade Tomato Ketchup

One Saturday morning Ben and I were watching Jamie Oliver on Food Network and we got really excited when he started to make homemade tomato ketchup. Now this is no ordinary ketchup, it has a few surprise ingredients such has chili peppers and hot sauce! Now you can make it as hot or mild as you want it but we were excited about having hot and spicy ketchup:)

The recipe was pretty easy. First you combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan and let the tomatoes break down
*Note: the recipe says to wait and put in the sugar and vinegar into the pan after pushing the tomatoes through a sieve. However, when watching the show Jamie Oliver put the sugar and vinegar into the pan after the tomatoes reduced by half. This seemed to be the trick to get smooth ketchup and not chunky ketchup:)

Now once the tomato mixture has reduced by half place the mixture into a blender in batches. Remember that the sauce is HOT so be sure to keep the plastic pour top off of the blender to let the heat out when blending. Otherwise you may burn yourself and/or have tomato sauce all over your kitchen.

After the tomato mixture is blended and pushed through a sieve, place your ketchup in sterilized jars and let cool. You will here the jars "pop" once the ketchup has cooled and the jars have sealed.
Once done this recipe made ~4cups of ketchup and it was super yummy! We hope you all try this b/c we had a GREAT time making our own ketchup.

Note: You can also use yellow and green tomatoes!

Update: recipe box 2.0

Hi Everyone!

It has been awhile since we've posted on our "foodie fun"; but we have been thinking of a way to better improve our site. One of the problems has been how to get the recipes we talk about to you. We have recently started a new site:

Recipes as featured on Mystery Meats and Other Treats

Therefore, when we talk about a recipe we will be putting it up on this site for you to view and use! We hope this format works a little better for everyone!!!!! If you would like to put on the "access" list for this webpage please e-mail Ben/shelby or leave a comment on here and we will make sure you can access our "recipe box"

Cheers!
Ben and Shelby

Nicoise Salad: a perfect summer salad

Ben's mom Ginny came to visit us at the end of July so we wanted to make sure we had some awesome meals planned for her stay. Ben and I were having a hard time coming up with meals that are suitable for 100 degree weather with a side of 90% humidity. We came across this awesome looking Nicoise salad with seared tuna from Fine Cooking (September 2008 issue). This meal is served cold (a plus for hot days) but is elegant enough for guests. A sort of "fancy" salad if you will. This recipe only took about 20min to make and is very refreshing. I think the salad dressing was the best part of this salad!

Enjoy!
Nicoise Salad
*Note: When buying the tuna make sure to ask if the tuna can be consumed raw. Just asking for sushi grade does not ensure it is safe to eat raw.

Ben and Ginny (his mom) plating the salads

The salads ready to be brought to the table

Nicoise Salad with a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc

Cheers!

Our favorite recipe!

Andy came to visit us last weekend and wanted us to make him a nice dinner. We asked him what he wanted and he requested Lamb. We both looked at each other and thought, our favorite recipe! Black cherry and black pepper lamb chops with mint pea risotto. Now we cannot remember the first time we made this (anniversary or valentines day; we have no idea) but we do know that we got it from the lovely people at Cooks Illustrated and it's wonderful! The dish is very rich and savory, because of the lamb, but the mint pea risotto has a nice cooling affect on your palate. This dish is perfect for a nice evening in and/or to impress friends and loved ones. Another plus, it also tastes like you spent hours slaving over a hot stove but actually only takes 45min from prep to finish.

Here is the recipe for you all to enjoy!
Black cherry and black pepper lamb chops with mint pea risotto

New Kitchen and a few too many spice jars!

Ben and I are very excited about our new kitchen in our new apartment. Not only is the kitchen more up -to-date (by a good 10 years) it also is quite a bit larger. As Ben describes it, we have a two person or more kitchen! Those of you that have had the "pleasure" of observing us in our old kitchens know what a huge change this is. Although I am happy to say that we successfully cooked 2 large thanksgiving dinners in Ben's 1/2 person kitchen (a miracle perhaps).
One thing both Ben and I have learned while moving into our kitchen is that WE HAVE DOUBLE OF EVERYTHING!!!!!! Since we cooked at both of our places we had 2 fully stocked kitchens. It worked at the time but now it's a bit ridiculous! Although having two full sets of pots and pans as well as silverware is wonderful when having people over for dinner! Perhaps the most shocking thing of combining cookware was how many spice jars we have accumulated over 2 years! Ben and I had been very good (perhaps too good) at buying spices in bulk from wards and then buying our own spice jars ($.50 each) to fill. When we unpacked the spices we found that we had a FULL medium sized box containing our spice jars. We decided to just combine them all. However, we quickly found that one does not need two spice racks or 4 containers of ground cumin (for example). In short not only did we have double of spices but there were a "few" things we had 3-4 jars of. To give you an idea the picture below is of some of the spices we were combining (notice Ben's spice rack to the right, I had another one the same size). Here is a picture of the empty spice jars, this is only about half of what we got rid of.
So the moral of the story, no one needs that many spices!

Improvements

We wanted to update everyone to let them know of some new changes that have and will be made to our little foodie blog.  First, we added an RSS feed (see at bottom of page) if you would like to suscribe to the blog. Second, we will be changing how we blog.  We have been bad about blogging in a "timely" manner so we will be adding posts on sunday's now.  Third, we will be adding actual recipes to the blog so everyone can access the recipes we talk about. You will be able to print them as well!
*Thanks to Andy for this wonderful idea and Casie for the software suggestion to make this task a bit easier!

We hope all of you enjoy these little changes we've made and if you have any other suggestions please feel free to leave a comment!

Cheers!
Ben and Shelby

Local Strawberries

While at the farmers market we met the lovely people of Rogers Farm. Rogers Farm is where we got our strawberries for the strawberry bread. However, in mid-may we noticed that they were not selling strawberries anymore. We decided to ask them if they were going to have strawberries for purchase and learned that you can go pick strawberries at their farm on saturdays. So of course, we had to do this!!!! Below are some pictures from our afternoon out in the strawberry fields! We ended up getting 12 pounds of strawberries for 12 dollars!!!! Try finding a deal like that at the grocery store!!!!!!!!! Of course we couldn't eat all of these so we did store some in the freezer.

Strawberry fields!

Ben picking his first strawberry

I'm a little excited about the strawberries!

I just couldn't resist, I had to try one!

12 pounds of strawberries later

Ben going home with more strawberries then he could dream of!

Eat Local Challenge

Ok we have put this off for far too long! During the month of May we participated in the Eat Local Challenge. At first we thought this would be really difficult but since it was the start of summer the farmers market had a lot of variety to work with. Also, instead of just picking recipes on a whim we focused more on what was in the recipe and if we could purchase it at the farmers market. We are very lucky to have awesome family that has given the both of us cooking magazine subscriptions and cook books that also focus on eating in season. So in short, we had an awesome time doing the Eat local challenge and we made all of our meals 50% local or more. I would have to say that during the challenge the majority of our meals were around 85% local. Now we have taken the things we learned during the challenge and have made them a part of our "foodie" life. One of the things we found helpful was buying local meat. We are fortunate here at UF to have a meat processing center on campus. The prices are on average 1/2 the price/per pound then meat found at the grocery store. However, the UF meat center only sells beef and pork. We did find chicken that is semi-local (within a 100mi of our home) and fish (again, we're lucky we live by the gulf).

Since it took us awhile to write our recipes from the eat local challenge, we decided to just put the pictures up:) If any of the food looks yummy to you, feel free to e-mail us and we can e-mail it to you! Here's our yummy meals from the eat local challenge!

Flank Steak in a red wine and onion marinade (our first local meat purchase)


Homemade pizza (local sausage, dough, and tomato sauce)



Pork Ribs with an asian marinade (local ribs and they were oh so yummy!)

Some light reading...

Here are two wonderful articles from the NY Times that came out this week on eating healthier and organic (from your very own yard). Enjoy!

Organic garden
Meat

Did you miss us?

So we've been a "little" busy and have been slacking on posting about food and some of the favorite meals we've made recently. But don't worry we've might have been slacking on posting but not on cooking! Here are some things we will be posting on:

The Eat Local Challenge
Eating FRESH local meat
Strawberries-Hand picked!
Peaches- Hand picked!

The entire month of May has been so enjoyable! We participated in the Eat Local Challenge and learned how easy it is to buy foods locally. EVERYONE should not only try it but do it!!!!!! Its easy to find a local farmers market near you. Not only do you get wonderful FRESH food but you will also learn about the food you are buying and you might pick up a recipe or two along the way.

We look forward in sharing our Month of May food adventure with all of you soon!

Eat Local Challenge

The wonderful folks at Hogtown Homegrown have come up with a creative way to encourage people to start eating local foods. For the entire month of May, Ben and I will be participating in the Eat Local Challenge. This will not only help the environment but it will also help the local economy as well as one owns health. If you are in the Gainesville area we encourage you to join us in the Eat Local Challenge. Even if you are not in Gainesville you should try to eat locally wherever that might be. There are several websites that help you find local markets (yay google). We have been preparing all of April and have come up with new ways to make our meals almost entirely local. As always, we will be giving updates and tips on how to eat locally.

Romantic dinner for 2: Rack of Lamb with Fresh Mint relish and Cucumber, Fennel & roasted potato salad

As part of our Eat Local challenge, Shelby and I found out that the University of Florida, through the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, has a butcher program that sells local meat. They actually raise the cows across the street from my apartment. Starting last week, we included the UF butcher in our weekly local shopping trip. Of course, this post has nothing to do with the local meat because it's about lamb chops. But we have partaken of their meat and it's very good.
Anyway, the other weekend, we decided to make lamb chops from one of our recent Rachael Ray magazines. The chops included a pine nut and golden raisin relish and a dill yogurt sauce.
We got our chops from Fresh Market because none of the other grocery stores carry good lamb chops (and UF only butchers cows and pigs). As you can see, they came fairly well frenched (which was apparently how Fresh Market receives them) but if possible, ask the butcher to go easy on the frenching and leave some of the meat on the bone.

Little Bo-peep would not be happy...
The presentation...

Next time, a few more chops in slightly thicker cuts, but delicious nonetheless. A simple yet impressive meal, especially for date night!

Weekend meal: Mexican Pulled Pork (Carnitas)

Last weekend we made Mexican Pulled Pork from Cooks Illustrated. This recipe consisted of slow cooking ~4lbs of pork butt in a dutch oven for 2 hrs. This left the pork nice and tender.We cooked the pork in lime, lemon, and orange juices along with cumin, red onion, bay leaves, oregano and orange halves.
After cooking the pork in the oven for 2 hours we removed it from the juices and then broiled the pork cubes for another 5 min until they were nice and browned on the outside.
By slow cooking the pork it left the meat very tender and the lime, lemon and orange gave it a nice tropical taste. We then put the pork in tortillas with various toppings: sour cream, salsa, pepper jack cheese, etc. This dish made for a very yummy sunday meal!

Strawberry bread: Update!

As some of you may know, I decided to make strawberry bread as a fundraiser for the Relay for Life team (In association with the American Cancer Society) that I am on with a few of my friends. My goal was to to sell at least 10 breads for $5 each. The end result, I sold 26 breads and raised $130!!!! For those of you in the Gainesville area, the Relay for Life event will be April 25-26 (yes we will be walking for 18hrs b/c cancer never sleeps!) and our team will be selling Strawberry bread at the event for $5. We will also be selling other yummy treats! Everyone on the team is GREAT at cooking baked goods so its definitely worth your time to come out and help support the Fight Against Cancer! Thanks to everyone who purchased some strawberry bread and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as Ben and I did!

Strawberry bread

Mmm...strawberries... Little did you know that March is strawberry season in Florida. And let me tell you, they are huge! At first we just got a pint from the farmer's market but it was gone so quickly we decided we had to get more the next week. 2 pints still wasn't enough, so the following week we got half a flat (6 pints). While we were at the farmer's market, Shelby picked up a newsletter called Hogtown Homegrown that includes a couple of recipes submitted by readers. One of these was for Strawberry bread (think banana bread with strawberries). Since we didn't think we could eat all the strawberries before they went bad, we figured this was a good way to use them up (and keep them for later in the freezer). The recipe includes extra (natural) fiber supplements and flax seed for a healthy snack.
The recipe makes two loaves of bread but we only had one (glass) loaf pan so we had to get another. Since we got a nonstick metal one, we figured we'd compared the product. The outcome was predictably delicious but we decided to get another nonstick because it was so much easier to work with.

The contestants square off...
Juicing the strawberries (OJ and sugar)
The official weigh in

Shelby with the decision...A tie (in my tummy)!

Since making the bread, Shelby became a saleswoman. She's participating in Relay for Life to help raise money for the American Cancer Society and support cancer research. Since we enjoyed the bread so much we thought we'd share it with others. So Shelby decided to offer loaves for $5 per loaf. So far, she's got 14 orders and hoping for more!

Strawberry bread recipe courtesy of Hogtown Homegrown
*note: this one is free:)

Calzones

The other day, Mack, one of the other students in my lab, asked me what we'd had for dinner. I told him calzones and he commented that we seemed to make a lot of Italian meals. I thought about this, then said yes, we did. I guess Italian is often easy, quick, and delicious. Case in point, calzones. Using sweet onions we got at the local farmer's market, and a tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes, we made calzones that could rival, well, a really good calzone maker. We included hot turkey sausage, mushrooms with the onions, and both mozzarella and parmegiano cheeses. Oh, and I had some turkey pepperoni in mine too. They were delicious, with some olive oil and kosher salt to top. We got a ball of pizza dough at Publix and each had a calzone the size of our plates. Yet, we were able to finish them and not feel bloated but good and satisfied. I guess that's what you get when you eat freshly made meals.


Air holes to vent the steam and let the gremlins out.
I actually finished this...and the wine too

Homemade calzones and red wine..a wonderful romantic dinner for two!

Weekend Meal: Spice-Rubbed and Sear-Roasted Salmon

We were super excited this week when we got our new Fine Cooking in the mail. We decided to make Spice-Rubbed and Sear-Roasted Salmon with Honey-Glazed Fennel.
This dish was really simple and light! It had just the right amount of sweetness but was also savory. We decided to pair the salmon with some rice (*we cooked the rice with vegetable broth, instead of chicken broth, and it was oh so yummy!) The dish would be perfect for a romantic dinner! It lends itself to an elegant presentation (as you can see in the picture below)

In Season: Sweet Onions

Over the past few weeks onions have slowly been coming into season. A few months ago it was scallions and now sweet onions are in full bloom. We cook a lot of dishes with onions so at the farmers market today we bought some rather "large" sweet onions.In an attempt to find a recipe for the onion "fronds" (green stems on the onion), we found this interesting website about Sweet onions

Helpful Tip: Leafy Greens

Ben and I love to buy lettuce, Kale and other greens when we go to the farmers market; however, we found that when you just throw it into the fridge the greens go band in 2-3 days. After some experimentation we found that if you place a damp paper towel in a plastic bag with the greens (make sure the bag is shut tight) the life of your greens is extended to at least one week! Basically it forms a moisture rich environment to keep your greens nice and fresh!

Steak and Potatoes: Ben and Shelby style

Last Friday, Ben and I decided to grill steak since the weather has been super nice lately. We needed a side dish to go with our steak so of course we chose potatoes! Now this was no ordinary steak and potato dish. We recently purchased Strawberry Fire Jam from our local farmers market. This "fire"jam is made with strawberries and jalapeno peppers! We decided that this would be a perfect glaze for our steak. So we marinated the steak in a balsalmic vinegar marinade (balsalmic vinegar, olive oil, garlic, onion, salt and pepper) for ~2 hours. We then put the steak on the grill and brushed our "fire" glaze (1/2 cup of jam, 1/4tsp cycanne pepper, 1/4tsp pepper) onto the steak. For our potato dish we made Leek and Potato gratin (from the Italian cookbook warren got ben). *if you want the recipe I can send it to you! In short, our dinner was both sweet and savory with a little kick! Just the perfect meal for a friday night!
*the picture doesn't do the dinner justice, I downloaded it from my phone*

Vanilla update

And now for an update. The extract is definitely darkening, as you can see. However, since the internet doesn't include code for tasting pictures, you'll have to take my word that the extract is not exactly extracted yet. It's still a little raw (but smells great!). However, that didn't stop us from using it!
Prepping the vanilla for use. Since it was brand new and homemade, we had to instruct it on how it was supposed to flavor the cookies.
Clearly the extract figured it out because Shelby got into the cookie dough before they were even made. Here she is making sure the finished product tasted just as good.

Clearly our spooning technique needs a little work. Also, making cookies in an electric oven is really quite difficult. Apparently the Fahrenheit scale doesn't apply to electric ovens. Nevertheless, we overcame the oven and the cookies turned out great. Unfortunately, Ghirardelli neglected to mention that the recipe was for drop cookies rather than traditional chocolate chip cookies. From now on, we're sticking to the Nestle recipe! We'll continue to use the extract and update on its flavor and aroma.

Cooking Tip: Cast Iron Cookware

Ben and I have been in the market for a Dutch Oven since we somehow ruined our other one. We purchased a cast iron dutch oven from Target (recommended by Cooks Illustrated). However, after several washings we found that the "coating" started to rust. We didn't use any harsh cleaning products on it, so I blamed it on the Florida humidity (my favorite scapegoat). Today I came across this article on how to take care of your Cast Iron Cookware. Please take a look at this! It is very helpful and may prevent you from having to go out and find a new cast iron dutch oven:)

Spoonman!

So I have been a slacker lately, having not contributed to the blog.  The other week we had winter in Florida.  That's right..the other week.  Not a couple weeks, not even a month.  Just a week.  More like a few days, really.  Anyway, it was long enough to justify making hearty meals, like homemade soups.  And, as luck would have it, the Fine Cooking we had just received contained a number of homemade soups - specifically tomato soups.  
Shelby decided to take charge of the soups and became a soup-making machine.  She started first with the traditional classic tomato (of which I never got a taste!) but then moved on to heartier soups like Southwestern tomato and leek and tomato soup.  After awhile (homemade soup lasts a surprisingly long time) we had to move onto something else - like kale!
Kale's been in season lately and although it usually has a fairly bitter taste, when boiled into soup it becomes surprisingly sweet and rich.  Made with pork or sausage and other vegetables, it provides a very hearty, heartwarming meal for those cold nights in the dead of winter (especially Florida's winter...).  


P.S. Vanilla update - it's definitely looking like vanilla extract.  One more week until taste test!

Weekend Meal: Hearty Risotto

Ben and I love Risotto! (If you couldn't tell) and this weekend we made this very yummy and very hearty risotto with Scallops, Pancetta, and Spinach (Fine Cooking). This recipe was so easy! Just make risotto like you normally would and add the scallops (sear first), spinach, and panchetta (you should cook the panchetta like bacon before you add it to the risotto).

This recipe was perfect for a "date night" or just to warm up by the fire (which we don't have in Florida). Be sure to get "dry" scallops for this recipe. Most stores carry only dry scallops but be sure to ask just in case :) Most people think that risotto is very hard to make but it is no harder then making any other rice and it tastes better! We like to use chicken broth instead of cream mainly because its healthier. Also, use low sodium chicken broth because the parmesan cheese will add a nice nutty, salty taste to the risotto.


Note: The Fine Cooking website has many FREE risotto recipes. Just type "risotto" into their recipe search engine and you'll find a risotto for every occasion!

Eating In Season: January

One of our goals for this year is to not only eat in season but to eat local foods from farmers markets. Here is a list of what is in season (here in florida); this list might vary depending on what region of the United States you are in!

• Beans
• Broccoli and cauliflower
• Citrus
  
• Cucumbers
  
• Eggplant
  
• Garlic
  
• Greens
  
• Herbs
  
• Honey
• Lettuce
• Onions
• Pecans
• Peppers
• Potatoes
• Radishes
• Squash
• Tomatoes

This list adapted from Hogtown HomeGrown

Here are two recipes for this edition of eating in season:
Citrus Risotto
This recipe can be used with blood red navel oranges because true blood red oranges come from California and are very hard to find. Also, you can use 1 cup of arborio rice with 8 cups of chicken stock. This makes enough for 4 servings. This recipe goes well with tuna fillets (or any light fish) and chicken.

Note: If you have not made risotto, the key to making a good risotto is to not stir too often. Also, when adding the liquid make sure the liquid is completely absorbed before adding the next 1/2 cup of liquid. Like any rice, trust its going to cook better without you messing with it often:)

Meyer Lemon Martini
I put this one in for a little fun:) Casie and I made these last night and they were awesome! They are great for parties, girls night, or just whenever!

Making Vanilla Extract: Part 1

Thanks Warren for this awesome idea!

Why make vanilla extract when you can buy it in the store?! By making your own vanilla its cheaper (per volume), you can make large quantities of extract and you can choose what type of vanilla bean you can make your extract from. Here is the step by step process: Vanilla extract recipe . This is from the Instructables website (you can find the link in our favorite links section of our blog).

The first step is to pick your vanilla bean from which your extract will be made. We decided to go with the Cobra Vanilla Bean (Beanilla.com) mainly because it was one of the cheaper beans ( 4oz. for $10). For our first attempt at this we didn't want to invest all our money and not have it work out. It took about 1 week for our beans to arrive.
Note: To make 1 cup of extract you need 6 vanilla beans.
The second step is to pick the bottles you will make the extract in as well as the Vodka you'll use to make the extract. Be sure to use 70-80 proof vodka. We decided to use the "picnic" wine bottles because they hold exactly one cup of liquid. To prepare the bottles, place them (with the tops on) in a pot of boiling water for 30min. You also want to include the knives you will use in this pot of boiling water. Let the bottles cool before use.
Note: do not use knives with plastic handles!

The third step is to remove the caviar from the bean. We found it easier to cut the bean in half and then extract the caviar. Place the caviar in the bottle first and then put all six beans in the bottle. Add the 1 cup of vodka, close the lid and shake.

You want to place the bottles in a cool, dark and dry place. We labeled our bottles, like the good scientists we are, with the date we made the extract. Now we just wait for a few weeks before we can taste the extract. STAY TUNED.........