Not Lackin' on the Blackenin' Catfish

This is a really quick and easy recipe for blackened catfish. It's by Guy Fieri and you should be warned it is suuuuper spicy! I loved it!

the recipe:

The blackened spice mixture:

2 tbs paprika

1 tsp cayenne

1 tsp dried thyme

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp ground cumin

2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp freshly ground pepper

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4 catfish fillets

2 tbs canola oil

2 tbs butter

4 lemon wedges

All the ingredients are really easy to find so no horror stories here! :) I did double the recipe though because I was making twice the amount called for...it was enough to cover the fish plus enough extra to store for another batch later! On a random note: is it just me or does cumin smell like really bad body odor????

Step 1: dredge the fillets in the blackened spice mixture and set aside

Step 2: heat a large saute pan over high heat until white hot

Uuuummm, what is white hot? I looked all over the place but couldn't find a good definition! I decided it meant when the pan is really REALLY hot! I tested it by occasionally flicking water on it from my fingers...when it almost immediately evaporated I counted it as white hot.

Step 3: add oil to pan, when it starts to slightly smoke add fillets...in batches...don't crowd pan! Cook on each side for 2 to 3 minutes

step 4: top each fillet with 1/2 tbs of butter and serve with a lemon wedge!

Really easy and super good! Remember: It's really spicy!!!

I served this with the fried green tomatoes and black eyed peas (cooked with peppered bacon). Of course, because it is so spicy, I also served with a nice glass of sweet tea!

Fried Green Tomatoes

Ok...yeah, I know...I never told you about the great fried chicken disaster of 2010. I'm sorry, I just wasn't emotionally ready to relive that awful experience! Fear not, I really will tell you all about it. Just not this week! :)

This week we are gonna celebrate tomato season with a kick ass recipe for fried green tomatoes! Yay! I'm a southern boy so I was really into learning how to make these! This recipe is super easy and I must say they were delicious!!! Shout out to Diana Swenson-Siegel at allrecipes.com who I got the recipe from. Go girl! By the way, I made this as a serving for two...if you link to the original recipe it is for 4. This is my version exactly:

The Recipe:

2 large green tomatoes

1 egg

1/4 cup of milk

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup yellow cornmeal

1/4 cup garlic and herb bread crumbs

1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon of ground black pepper (I actually just ground the pepper mill about 5 times over everything instead of measuring it out)

2 cups canola oil

Easy ingredients! The hardest thing to find was the green tomatoes (I went to the farmer's market at union square).

Step 1: slice tomatoes in 1/4 to 1/2 inch slices and set aside. Discard the tops and bottoms.

Step 2: whisk the milk and egg together...on one plate pour the flour...on another plate mix the corn meal, bread crumbs, salt and pepper...heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat

Step 3: dredge the tomatoes in flour, dip in egg batter, then dredge in the cornmeal mixture

Step 4: place in skillet and deep fry until golden brown (about 4 minutes each side) don't crowd the tomatoes!!!

I had to cook them in three batches! Also, they will want to travel to the center of the skillet and touch sides...just don't let them!

Step 5: Drain on paper towels and then place on a cookie sheet in a preheated oven (200 degrees) until all the batches are done

These were awesome...I served them with a little organic chipotle ranch dressing (with a cute sprig of Italian parsley!) Sooo good!

Part 2

Oven-Roasted Vegetables

So this recipe is also from the Back to Basics book...it's pretty easy and ultra good!

The Recipe

2 small fennel bulbs (tops removed)

1 pound fingerling or small potatoes

1/3 cup good olive oil

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 pound French green beans (haricots verts), trimmed

1 bunch thin asparagus, ends removed, cut diagonally (3 inch pieces)

1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

All the ingredients were really easy to find. This time I shopped at the Food Emporium during my dinner break at work. I had to go with small potatoes instead of fingerlings. I was happy to find the green beans already packaged and trimmed! Yay! Less shit for me to do!

The only tragedy was that there was only one small fennel bulb. I ended up grabbing it and made due with a large one for my second bulb.

Step 1: preheat the oven to 450 degrees...(while this is going on you can cut your veggies)

Don't forget to use your oven thermometer!

Step 2: cut the fennel into 6 wedges each (cutting through core to keep wedges in tact); Place on sheet pan. Cut the potatoes in half lengthwise and place on pan with fennel. Drizzle the olive oil over vegetables, then sprinkle 2 teaspoons of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper. Toss with your hands.

I had to cut the large bulb into 8 wedges. I ended up cutting the small potatoes into 4 pieces lengthwise. The rest was easy! Why can't everything be as easy as drizzling and sprinkling?

Step 3: Roast the veggies for 25 to 30 minutes (till potatoes are tender), tossing once while cooking.

I put aluminum foil over the sheet pan before I started this whole thing...I soooo regretted it when it became time to "toss once"! I ripped that damned foil so fast it would make your head spin! Note to self: don't be lazy just because you want your clean up to be easier. In the long run, it would have been easier to clean the roasty pan! The other thing was that I had to let it cook for an extra 5 minutes because my potatoes weren't tender!

Step 4: Toss the string beans and asparagus with the roasted veggies. Roast for another 15 to 20 minutes, until the green veggies are tender.

This was pretty easy. Once again I had to cook it another 5 minutes (past the 20).

Step 5: Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over all and roast a few more minutes until the cheese melts. sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve hot.

I am lactose intolerant so the cheese just wasn't an option. After talking with some friends at work I chose to sprinkle it with garlic and herb bread crumbs and roast an extra 5 minutes. It was so good and eliminated the extra salt and pepper at the end!

All in all it was also a wonderful side dish. I loved the way it tasted! It's a good thing too because the chicken (next blog entry) was kind of a hot mess. I can't believe I screwed up Padma's Krispy Chicken again! What the hell!?!? It's the most depressing thing ever! This is how I'm starting off my week!?!? Daaaaamn!

Krispy Fried Chicken with Confetti Corn and Roasted Vegetables

Part 1

Confetti Corn

Anyone who knows me knows that I despise corn. I don't like the texture, flavor orthe way it digests. That being said, I have to admit that Confetti Corn rocked my effin' socks off! It was so awesome I could barely stop eating it!

This recipe comes from Ina Garten's book Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics. Lady Boss felt I was jumping into the deep end a little too quickly. She thought it might serve me well to work with a less complicated book for a hot second. Since I was bound and determined to try Padma's recipe for fried chicken again (I screwed it up a few weeks ago) I thought I would pair it with sides from the Back to Basics book.

The Recipe

2 tbs of good Olive Oil

1/2 cup chopped red onion

1 small orange bell pepper 1/2 inch diced

2 tbs unsalted butter

kernels cut from 5 ears of yellow or white corn (4 cups)

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

2 tbs julienned fresh basil, minced fresh chives, and/or minced fresh parsley

The ingredients were easy for this but I had no idea how to properly chop, dice, mince or julienne anything! Thank God for YouTube! I can now say I know how to do all of those things! I'm still a little clumsy with a knife but I'm getting a hell of a lot better! A note to those of you that are as ignorant as me: be careful when you slice the kernels from the cob. They go everywhere! I think I'm gonna be picking up kernels off my kitchen floor for years! Oh! I also learned if you keep a little of the root of the onion still attached while chopping it up it stays together better and you don't cry as much!

Step 1: Heat olive oil over med heat in a large saute' pan Add onions and saute' for 5 minutes, until the onions are soft.

I think that sentence should have said "or until onions are soft". I think I may have cooked them a little too long!

Step 2: Stir in Bell Pepper and saute' for 2 more minutes

This is another place where I wondered if I may have screwed up...the pic in the book shows the orange peppers looking all vibrant and colorful. After about a minute MY peppers started loosing a little bit of their vibrance. What the hell? I hope it was because the pic was adjusted in photoshop or something...they tasted great by the way.

Step 3: Add butter to pan and let it melt. Over medium heat add corn, salt and pepper and cook stirring occasionally, for 5 to 7 minutes, until the corn looses it's starchiness.

Ummm...what the hell does "until the corn looses it's starchiness" mean??? How the hell am I supposed to know that? I just decided that starchiness equals obvious stiffness. I think I was pretty much right because in the end the corn was still crunchy but not raw! It tasted good too!

Step 4: season to taste, gently stir in the basil and green herbs and serve hot!

I have to tell you seasoning wasn't needed at all...especially after you add the herbs. You can taste every single thing you put in this dish and it all works together beautifully! It's really pretty too. I just wish my orange peppers looked like hers!

The Finished Product!

So four hours later here is the finished product:

It's not as pretty as Padma's, but I think that will come with time. I was sad to see the bacon fall away from the brisket as soon as I took the kitchen string off. Oh Yeah! Note to self: please try not to wrap the next brisket up so much that it looks like it belongs in a Tim Burton movie.

The boy friend gives the meal an enthusiastic thumbs up. I ended up serving it with smashed new potatoes and cresent rolls. It was good! I only wish I had cooked it a little longer....it wasn't as tender as I thought it would be...of course the boy friend strongly disagrees. He says it was just about as tender as it could get. Who knows?

Stay tuned to see what next weeks meal will be!

Beef Brisket Braised in Red Wine, Wrapped in Bacon

I know, I know...why would I cook a Brisket in the middle of a hot New York summer? Well, the only answer I can honestly give is that I wanted to use my new Dutch Oven and I kinda chose the recipe randomly! I live for Padma Lakshmi! This recipe is from her book Tangy Tart

Hot & Sweet. I also didn't really know that Brisket is a fall/winter food until my boss (Lady Boss) told me at work the other day.

As I am typing this the experimental Brisket is cooking in the oven...it smells pretty good and I have flipped it once! So far so good!

The Recipe:

3 Pounds beef Brisket

1 bottle of Chianti or Barolo red wine

6 to 8 bay leaves

12 strips of center cut bacon

2 teaspoons fresh thyme

4 tablespoons butter

1 red onion, cut into 4-6 wedges

4 carrots scraped and cut diagonally into 3 inch pieces

2 fennel bulbs quartered

6 whole celery stalks cut into 4 inch pieces including all leaves and hearts

8 cloves of garlic

Now lets talk about these ingredients for a hot second! What the hell is a fennel bulb??? What's a celery heart??? Well I certainly didn't know the answers to these questions at all! Being the type of boy that isn't afraid to ask questions I found out the follo

wing things:

A fennel bulb looks like this:

From what I gather Fennel has three parts that can be used for cooking...the bulb, the seeds, and the foliage. I only want the bulbs for this recipe so I will focus on that part. I freaked a little when I read I would need it because I had no idea where to look for it. Luckily Lady Boss went to Whole Foods and was kind enough to surprise me with 2 happy shiny bulbs at work the day after she explained what the hell it was! Yay! One ingredient down!

After work on Sunday I decided I would go to Whole Foods myself and buy the rest of the

goods. Ok maybe not by myself, I took my trusty boyfriend with me and gave him the butcher stuff...wait that didn't sound quite right...what I meant to say was he dealt with the butcher.

When we got to Whole Foods at Union Square I kinda wanted to throw up a little bit. It can be very overwhelming if you don't know exactly where everything is! After my first minor freak out I decided to center myself and just buy the stuff on my list. Why on earth is the produce in two different parts of the store? It would have made my shopping experiance a lot more pleasant if I could have picked up the celery, carrots, and the thyme in one section! Just a suggestion Whole Foods guys!

Just as I was starting to really feel like I had my shit together the b

oy friend came up to me with bad news: THERE WAS NO BRISKET!!!! WHAAAAAAT!?!?

I asked if he got the center cut bacon and he said no because he wanted to get them together. I

told him "Fuck the bacon...I will deal with it...run over to Food Emporium and see if they have the brisket! If they don't have it, go across the street from them to Trader Joe's!" He ran off and I went about getting the rest of the stuff!

Finding the stuff was no biggie...I got lovely veggies and even grabbed some plums for a granita

I plan on making today also! Yay! Then I got the call....no Brisket at either of the other stores! WHAT THE HELL???? Well I wasn't going to take no for an answer at this point so I decided I

was going to find this brisket if I had to find the damned cow and cut it myself!

I put a quick text in to Lady Boss and started to head to the big Whole Foods on the corner of

Bowery and Houstan. She told me not to panic and if there really was no brisket to just try to find something that was as close as possible. Luckily I didn't have to do that at all. The big Whole Foods totally had it and I went off on the looooong ass trek back to Bushwick.

Before we move on: Did you know that you shouldn't buy a Chianti unless it has DOC or DOCG

on the label? It stands for "Denominazione di Origine controllata e garantita" . I believe it is the region the wine comes from in Italy. Good to know!

STEP 1: "marinade brisket in wine and bay leaves for 8 to 10 hours in fridge"

The first thing you do is marinade the Brisket in the wine with the bay leaves. Totally easy! I love cooking already! You are supposed to marinade it for 8 to 10 hours. I don't know if you can marinade longer than that and to be honest I didn't want to fuck with Padma's recipe so I timed it so that I could start cooking it around noonish the next day.

STEP 2: " Cook bacon over medium heat in a skillet...don't overcook it--it shouldn't be crispy. Remove bacon and save the fat in the skillet."

I woke up at around 10 am on Monday and started to clean and cut the veggies and such. When I was done I took them put them all in a big bowl and stored them in the fridge.

After that I started to cook the bacon in a skillet. That's when I ran into my first problem. Those little strips of bacon were not gonna wrap around that big ass brisket! HUH!?!? Is this a normal problem? I used my mama's old bacon press to keep them as flat as possible...but they were still really short compared to the brisket. Fuck it. I decided to trust that my instincts would kick in when I had to deal with that and I moved on.

STEP 3: "remove Brisket from wine (save the marinade) and sear it for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes on each side...in the bacon fat..."

I made sure to turn the heat up to high and I held the brisket with my tongs while I timed each side at 2 minutes because it was so big. Alright for a run on sentence! I was surprised that the brisket smelled so weird when it came out of the wine....I hope it doesn't smell like that all day. Ugh.

STEP 4: "place seared beef in your dutch oven to let it cool for a few minutes...sprinkle thyme on both sides of brisket...wrap bacon around brisket and secure with kitchen string"

Ok...so now I am faced with the problem. These damned strips of bacon aren't gonna wrap around the brisket. DAAAMN! I decided that I would lay the strips on each side of the brisket and then sort of wrapped the string around so that it looked like a poorly wrapped christmas present. I'm hoping that the whole point is for the bacon to flavor the brisket a bit more. If it is supposed to stay attached to the brisket as an outer layer then I totally fucked up already.

STEP4: "pre heat oven to 300 degrees"

I started preheating my oven waaaay early (back when I was cooking the bacon). I'm glad that I did because my thermometer told me that the oven heat wasn't matching the dial. It turns out my dial may read 300 but the oven only heated up to 250. After a little experimenting I finally got the right temp. Well, as close as I think I was gonna get!

STEP 5: " In the same skillet, melt the butter and saute the veggies in the bacon and brisket fat. for about 4 to 5 minutes to awaken the flavors...pour them (and the remaining fat) into the dutch oven with the brisket then pour the remaining marinade over all"

This was harder than it sounds...I had to do 3 skillets full of veggies before I had them all done. After that was over I did the rest of the step and now was ready for the slow cooking process to begin!

STEP 6: " Bake the Brisket for 3 1/2 to 4 hours. Every 30 minutes, remove the brisket and turn it, stirring the veggies...when done, the brisket should be so tender you can cut it with a spoon. Remove the kitchen string and bay leaves, spoon the veggies over the meat and serve."

This is where I am now. I'm going on hour 2 and my only concern is that every time I turn the brisket a piece of bacon tears. I hope this is normal! I will do a post after it is officially done! Wish me luck!

On a fun note:

Did you know you could buy kitties at my local bodega?