Dark Chicken Stock

I do a lot of cooking in stocks; I do this for two reasons both Dad and I are sodium sensitive and Dad is mostly a vegetarian. I say mostly because he has given up meat except around the holidays and he eats some fish. As long as I don't rub his nose in the fact I'm cooking with stock he doesn't comment on it. If you're trying to go light on salt stock brings a lot of flavor to the party.

I make three types of stock: turkey stock, and two chicken stocks. Alton Brown's recipe is fine for my standard chicken stock. I do have some modifications but they are mostly due to the number of people I cook for and my location. We eat a lot of broiler chickens, which are around 3 lbs, when I'm making stock I use a 5 quart soup pot that I put the chicken in, along with the vegetables, amount reduced appropriately. Then I cook the chicken until it's falling off the bone. I remove the chicken from the pot, pull all the meat off and return the bones to the pot to finish making the stock. I use the pulled chicken for things like chicken salad sandwiches. The other thing I do differently is I cook my stock with the lid on. I can do this and still have the stock form a gelatin because of the smaller pot size.

This requires watching the pot a little more attentively to make sure it never boils over. I go through this extra hassle because of heat and humidity. I live in Florida and right now, in December, when much of the North East is experience a "White Out," I'm sitting here in shorts. I know you are all rushing to get out your smallest fiddle. Not to worry, I'm not expecting sympathy I like the heat, if I didn't I know which direction to go to find the state line, but when you live in this much heat and humidity you should take the climate conditions into consideration when cooking. Cooking in an open pot takes longer over higher heat and the evaporation that occurs as a part of the cooking process adds moisture to the air. Trust me I don't need any extra moisture in the air in my house, it's sticky enough around here as it is.

The third type of stock I make, the second chicken stock, is a dark chicken stock. I collect all the gizzards, hearts and livers from the broiler chickens I use and put them in the freezer when I have the parts from four birds I make this stock.

This makes 4 quarts of stock.

• Gizzards, hearts and livers from 4 chickens
• Bones from 1 chicken
• 1 Smoked turkey wing (I know that turkey isn't chicken, but I like the smoky flavor)
• 1 Hot pepper halved (heat and flavor to your taste)
• 1 Ginger root cut into 1/2 inch pieces
• 1 Onion quartered
• 1 Green bell pepper quartered
• 1 Head of garlic separated
• 3 Lemon grass stalks
• 1 Lime halved (If you have access to Kaffir Lime leaves use 3 of them instead)
• 3 Cinnamon sticks
• 1 handful of cloves
• 10 peppercorns
• 1 handful of cilantro
• 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons of soy sauce

Put all the ingredients in a stock pot and add enough water to cover. Bring pot up to a boil then reduce to a simmer for 4 to 5 hours. Strain liquid and discard solids. Refrigerate stock overnight. Remove fat layer. Put stock into appropriate size containers and store in freezer until the stock is needed.

I use this stock for most of my Oriental and Indian dishes.

Caribbean Chicken

I was going through my Foodbuzz mini-feed the other day and I came across The Hungry Mouse's recipe and technique for Rosemary Scented Roast Broiler Chicken. I tried it and it was very good. For the basic technique I don't have anything to add but she suggested several variations for the flavor of the bird. I'd like to add one more.

One of the reasons I add this is that I have seen quite a few jerk rubs but none of them add soy sauce as an ingredient. In my time in South Florida I encountered a lot of Jamaican and Caribbean jerks and most did include soy sauce. There was an influx of Chinese in the late 1800's to the Caribbean and although they are a small minority they have made their influence felt in the preparation of Caribbean foods. There is actually a Jamaican soy sauce that can be bought in stores that specialize in Jamaican foods. Once you know the soy sauce is there, you can taste it in Caribbean fish and poultry dishes.

This is for rubbing one 4 lb chicken

• 1 1/2 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 2 teaspoon of minced garlic
• 1 teaspoon of grated ginger root
  
• zest of 1 1/2 limes
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 teaspoon of onion powder
• 1 or 2 dashes of red pepper flakes (depending on how hot you want your bird)
• 3 to 4 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Prepare the chicken per The Hungry Mouses instructions.

Stuff the chicken with crushed garlic and the limes that you have zested and juiced. Combine all the ingredients above and coat the chicken.

Cook at 450 degrees for 45 min.

Sweet Potato Risotto

I think I was watching Iron Chef America and Chef Mario Batali explained that risotto is a cooking method not a dish. He may have been explaining this as he served sweet potato risotto to the judges, I don't remember. That made me think and since then I've been playing around with starches that could make risotto. The primary reason for this is that I can't get Arborio rice in Chipley. Big surprise there, I really can't get any short grained rice. That left experimentation as my only alternative. I've seen other Sweet Potato Risotto recipes on the web but they use the sweet potatoes as an addition to the rice risotto not as the primary starch. My recipe uses the sweet potato as the risotto and the rice as the additive.

This recipe would also work with yams, cooking pumpkin or butternut squash. I'm using sweet potatoes because they have come in season and you can get them by the crate around here this time of year.

In this recipe I use Basmati and wild rice because it was the only white rice I had in the house. However, you can use any long grain white rice. No, you can't get Basmati rice in Chipley either. I picked it up on a trip to Atlanta. I do quite a bit of grocery shopping in Atlanta. I know that's quite a commute to go to the grocery store and sometimes it makes the green side of me feel guilty, but I can usually get over it.

This recipe makes 6 servings.

• 1/4 of a cup of long grained white rice
• 2 medium sweet potatoes peeled and cubed into 1/4 inch chunks
• 1/4 of an onion diced
• 1 cup of milk
• 1/2 of a cup of Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 teaspoon of Garam Masala
• 3 or 4 cups of chicken stock
• salt and pepper to taste

Sweet potatoes are a Southern staple but as a kid I didn't like them. The traditional way to serve them is to bake them and then add about half a stick of butter or margarine. There was no way I was going to add that much fat to anything I ate and without it sweet potatoes taste bland. At some point in my adult life my sister explained to me that it wasn't the butter that the sweet potato needed, it was the salt in the butter. I have been adding salt since then and enjoying my sweet potatoes. I've said all that to tell you when cooking this add the Parmesan cheese and then taste the risotto. You may need to add a lot of salt to keep the sweet potatoes from tasting bland.

Put your chicken stock on the back burner and bring it up to a simmer. While the stock is coming up to temperature put a little olive oil or butter in a skillet and sweat the onions until their almost translucent. Add the rice to the skillet and cook that until it begins to be pearly. Begin adding the chicken stock one ladle full at a time. The first time you add the chicken stock you will need to add two ladles full. Once you've done that stir the rice constantly until the stock is absorbed. After the stock is absorbed add another ladle full of stock and stir the rice until the stock is absorbed. Do this twice more until the rice begins to get tender then add the sweet potatoes. Continue adding stock one ladle full at a time and stirring until the stock is absorbed, adding the next ladle full of stock until the sweet potatoes turn soft. Add the cup of milk and the Parmesan cheese and stir the sweet potato until the milk is absorbed. The sweet potatoes should start to break down a little and form a cream with the milk. Salt to taste and serve.

I use plain low fat milk in this recipe, if you want to use half and half or heavy cream instead, then reduce the amount by half. Instead of using the milk as the last bit of liquid to form the cream of the risotto continue to add chicken stock until the sweet potatoes begin to cream then finish the risotto with the heavy cream.

Tomato and Okra

Okra is a Southern love not much shared by the rest of the USA, a fact that was brought home to me recently when I looked up okra on Nutrition Data a website dedicated to nutritional information about food. They only had six entries which isn't much if you stack it up against the carrot with 37 entries or French fries with 31 entries. In all of the cooked options they specify "drained," I've never heard of draining cooked okra. Still even drained, Nutrition Data gives boiled okra a completeness score of 90 in the nutrient balance data section. If you don't drain the okra and you add tomatoes I'll bet okra would rock the nutritional house.

Tomato and okra is a Southern classic, this recipe combines the traditional elements of the dish with some modern up-dates. A common Yankee compliant about okra is that it is slimy. I have never had slimy tomato and okra, something in the tomatoes deals with the slime in the okra, so if you're feeling adventurous give this recipe a try.

Traditionally this dish is made with pork fat and a little nutmeg and allspice. I come from an area of the south that is close to the coast so my recipe uses clam juice instead of pork. Clam juice can be bought in most grocery and big box stores in a jar. Nutmeg and allspice are expensive spices here in the South and tomato and okra are traditionally made with them when you're making the dish for company. I have the luxury of being able to consider them common every day spices but I have substituted them in this recipe with Garam Masala. You should be able to pick this up in the spice aisle if you don't have it. I can get it in Chipley, you should be able to get it.

This recipe calls for combining the onions with the tomatoes and okra without sautéing them first. This is a common Southern cooking technique not used as much in the rest of the country. Cooking the onions this way allows the "raw" onion flavor to be part of the dish. If you don't like this by all means saute them first. I recommend following the recipe "as is" the first time though, the tomatoes and okra can stand up to the onion no problem.

This is one of those recipes that has greatly benefited from modernization. One of the things I love about okra and the tomatoes I use in this recipe, cherry, is that I can grow both. I have a very black thumb so this makes me very happy. Unfortunately about the time the tomatoes and okra stop producing, clam season starts. Viola, flash freezing and canned clam juice to the rescue. This recipe also benefits greatly, in my opinion, from Garam Masala and anchovy paste two things that did not exist in my Mom's kitchen when I was growing up but I find indispensable in mine.

This recipe makes 6 servings.

• 1 16 oz bag of frozen okra or one pound of fresh
• 8 oz bottle of clam juice
• 1 pint of cherry tomatoes
• 4 oz of tomato paste
• 1/4 medium onion finely diced
• 1/4 teaspoon of Garam Masala, smell this before you add it. If it doesn't smell of allspice add another 1/8 of a teaspoon if it smells strongly of allspice subtract 1/8 of a teaspoon you can really overwhelm the dish with Garam Masala if you are not careful.
• 1 anchovy finely chopped or a dab of anchovy paste.
• a dash of red pepper flakes, you can use more if you like spicey, but the point of adding them is not to make the dish hot but to highlight the Garam Masala
• Salt and pepper to taste

I always go through my frozen okra and take out the tops. You can do this or not. If you are using fresh okra cut it into 1/2 inch pieces. Lots of people like to cut the okra lengthwise and leave it at that, I do not. I want a couple of pieces of okra and a couple of tomatoes on my spoon at the same time.

Recipes that call for 4 ounces of tomato paste used to aggravate me to no end. Cans of tomato paste start at 6 ounces. Once you have opened the can, what are you to do with the other two ounces? Freeze them. I now take a piece of wax paper and put the rest of the tomato paste on it in one ounce rounds then cover them with another piece of wax paper and flatten them. Then I put the wax paper in the freezer, once they are frozen I cut out the rounds, put them in a ziplock bag and return them to the freezer. You can get tomato paste in a squeeze tube now, but my way cost less.

Combine all the ingredients and cook covered until the cherry tomatoes burst.

Tonight I'm going to serve mine with Rosemary Scented Roast Chicken, thank you Hungry Mouse, and brown rice cooked in turkey stock.

Bread Day, Bread Day, Glorious Bread Day

I love making bread. The process has so many elements to it that I love. I love the precision. I love the chemistry. I love the smell when I'm done.

I use a bread machine to make most of my breads, so the recipes are geared for that. However, I have adapted many of them from non-bread machine recipes so they can be converted back if you wish. For all of you who read bread machine and think, "cheater, cheater pumpkin eater..." My response is, "So? Whoever has the freshest bread wins."

I don't have one of those really nice mixers with a bread hook attachment, because that is what bread makers use, nothing beats a bread hook for kneading. If anyone would like to give me one I will certainly put it to good use, but to be perfectly honest I would probably still use the bread machine for making bread. This is due to a personality flaw in me I will freely admit to, I am the Queen of too. Too much, too fast, too many, too everything if it can be over done than I can over do it. It is one of the things that took me a long time to overcome in cooking, when a recipe would call for something to be simmered over medium heat, I would crank the heat all the way up under the assumption that you could not have too much heat. The bread machine takes the kneading process out of my hands guaranteeing that I can't knead the dough too fast or too long. This is a very good thing.

I cook for my parents and we all have very different taste. Dad wants ultra healthy food, whole grains, no sugar, very little salt. Mom wants what she grew up with, white breads, super fluffy and rich. I want something I haven't had before. In every other aspect of cooking these very different tastes drive me crazy. In bread making it just means I get to make three different kinds of bread. Hooray, you can't have too much bread.

I've put the bread recipes below in separate post so that they can be looked up individually.

Poppy Seed Lemon Egg Bread

This is both a bread recipe and a book plug. This recipe is modified from The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook" by Beth Hensperger the link on the title will lead you to a well written review, to which I will add an Amen. You can buy it from Amazon if you don't already have it. One of the things I do that allows me to make as much bread as I want without having bread flow out my ears is I make rolls instead and freeze them. If you would like a whole loaf simply select the right bread type on your bread machine and let it go through to the finished product.

This makes about a dozen rolls.

• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 3 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon gluten
• 2 teaspoons poppy seeds
• zest of one lemon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Put the ingredients into the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacture. Set the machine to dough cycle.

Once the machine beeps, put the dough out on a lightly floured surface and knead once or twice to insure that it is knocked down. Pinch off 1/4 cup pieces of the dough, roll them smooth and put them on a pan lined with parchment paper. You must do this quickly because the egg in this recipe will make the dough rise quickly and if you don't hurry the dough will be double in size again. Once you have all your rolls put the pan in the freezer for two hours. After that you can transfer your rolls to a ziplock bag and store in the freezer.

When you're ready to cook them take the rolls out of the freezer and allow them to defrost and rise a second time. I often take my rolls out before I leave the house in the morning and they are ready to go when I get home.

Cook them for 15 min. at 400 degrees.

Sweet Potato Rolls

This is a recipe that I modified from a recipe I found on the web site The Fresh Loaf. What attracted me to it was the nice orange color of the rolls. This recipe will not give you orange rolls because I use whole wheat flour instead of all purpose but it is still very good.

This makes about a dozen rolls.

• 1 sweet potato, baked, skin removed
  
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 brown sugar
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons bread machine yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin spice

Put ingredients in the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacture. Set the machine to dough cycle.

Once the machine beeps, put the dough out on a lightly floured surface and knead once or twice to insure that it is knocked down. Pinch off 1/4 cup pieces of the dough, roll them smooth and put them on a pan lined with parchment paper. Once you have all your rolls put the pan in the freezer for two hours. After that you can transfer your rolls to a ziplock bag and store in the freezer.

When you're ready to cook them take the rolls out of the freezer and allow them to defrost and rise a second time.

Cook them for 15 min. at 400 degrees.

Using this method I can give Dad his whole wheat roll, Mom her fluffy white roll, and me any odd thing I like.

A Very American Walnut Whole Wheat French Bread

I was spelunking around on The Fresh Loaf the other day and found a picture of Dan Lepard's Walnut Bread I looked around for the recipe but couldn't find it. He probably wants you to buy his cookbook to get the recipe. Silly man, trying to make a living, the very idea. Since I couldn't find the recipe I fell back to my old friend "The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook" by Beth Hensperger where I found a recipe for French Whole Wheat Bread. From that and the information I read about Dan's recipe I used my imagination to come up with this.

There are a couple of important things to note in this recipe:

The first is that I use a mixture of grape juice, unfiltered apple cider vinegar and balsamic vinegar. I do this because I live in a "dry" county, for those of you who don't know what that means, you can't buy alcohol here. If you live some place where you can get wine use a sweet red instead. I could drive the hour necessary to buy wine myself, but I'm having fun with the vinegar and grape juice.

The second is that I call this a French bread because I use French bread making methods. Most of those I will outline here, but if you want a good explanation of the differences in French verses American bread techniques you should buy "The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook" (TBLBMCB) I have learned a lot from Beth Hensperger and I won't pretend that I can teach you as well as she can in her book.

• 1/2 cup grape juice
• 1/8 cup unfiltered apple cider vinegar
• 1/8 cup balsamic vinegar

Mix these ingredients in a resealable container and allow to set covered for two to three days. If the liquid sits for longer than that and starts to grow mold discard and start again.

This makes a 1 1/2 pound loaf of bread.

• 3/4 cup of sweet red wine or above mixture
• 1 cup of buttermilk
• 3 cups of whole wheat flour
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 tablespoon gluten
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Put the ingredients into the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacture. Set the machine to dough cycle. A note here most bread machine recipes call to add the nuts in after the dough has gone through the dough cycle. I ignore this, can you put too many ingredients into your bread machine? If you know that your bread machine isn't high power or if it starts walking off the counter, the next time you make this you probably want to add the nuts after the dough cycle.

Once the machine beeps, unplug it and knock down the dough. You will want to use a greased spatial for this as the dough will be very sticky. Allow the dough to rise another 30 minutes.

Pour the dough onto a floured surface and knead once or twice and form the dough into a flattened football. This will be tricky because the dough is so wet. There are techniques to do this the proper French way, you can read them in TBLBMCB, but I haven't mastered them yet so I stick with the standard kneading method and bread forming methods my Mom taught me.

Allow the bread to rise another hour.

Put baking rack on lowest rung and pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. snip 4 diagonal cuts into the top of the dough. Cook the bread about half an hour.

About a Potato

I was in the Big Box store the other day and saw the most amazing thing. Mashed Potatoes in a butter tub. Who would buy that? I understand the need for fast and easy but potatoes? Give me a break. I get powdered potatoes, you take the water out and they're lighter to carry which makes them good for camping or combat. Mashed Potatoes in a butter tub isn't lighter than a potato and they have probably added things to keep the potatoes from growing stuff.

To some extent I blame all the cooking shows for this. When you see them baking potatoes they always salt and oil the skin and stick the potato in the oven for 45 min. Why? Because it makes better TV. Don't do that, put your potato in the microwave and cook it for 5 min.

Ok, look, I'm all about "slow food," don't eat food like substances, stay green etc... I'm also all about don't throw the baby out with the bath water and all things in moderation. The microwave is a tool in your cooking arsenal use it wisely.

• Potatoes - Microwave cook time 5 min. Oven 45 min. at 400 degrees.
• Sweet Potatoes - Microwave cook time 5 min. Oven 45 min. at 400 degrees.
• Spaghetti Squash - Microwave cook time 7 min. Oven 45 min. at 400 degrees.
• Acorn Squash - Microwave cook time 10 min. Oven 30 min. at 350 degrees.
• Butternut Squash - Microwave cook time 20 min. Oven 1 hour at 400 degrees.

Do you know how hot cooking these items in the oven will make your kitchen. I live in the South this is important to me.

Time and energy cost money, why waste these precious resources when you have the microwave sitting right there on your counter. Potatoes cost about 80 cents a pound cooking them in the microwave cost another penny. Cutting them open scooping them out adding butter and milk cost about 5 minutes more. How could 45 min. in the oven, half an hour on the stove, or a store bought tub be better than that?

If your cooking sweet potatoes all you need to make a complete meal is to add a little protein and your done. Personally I like to top mine with grated mozzarella cheese. It's not possible to come up with a better one dish super meal, go on try it I dare you.

I recently listened to Michael Pollan's You Tube lecture on "In Defense of Food," if you haven't I recommend it. He points out a lot of things about how Americans look at food that makes you think. However, he said a few things that were wrong. He said that no fat sour cream doesn't have anything that looks like milk in it. I thought, "Really," and got up, walked into the kitchen, opened the frig, pulled out my tub of no fat sour cream and read the label. The top two ingredients are milk. My tub of no fat sour cream does have additives but I wonder if it has any more than regular sour cream. He also mentions great grandmothers and a tube of yogurt and would she think it was toothpaste. Well my Great Grandmother would not recognise plastic, never used toothpaste and probably didn't know what yogurt was. My kids great grandmother would know all these thing but not mine and I'm willing to bet not Michael's either. However, once again don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Just because he's not perfect doesn't mean you should completely ignore him.

The same thing goes for your microwave.

A Very Foodie Christmas Gift Idea

Are you wondering what to give the Foodies in your life for Christmas? I have an idea. To be perfectly honest more than anything this is what would make me happy for Christmas.

Bulk Dried goods.

Seriously, the price of everything is going up. The experts are telling us that the economy is going to get worse before it gets better. One of the things I cherish as a cook are the little packets of specialty items that you buy by the ounce and pay for through the nose. Like... Sun-dried Tomatoes, Dried Mangoes, Dried Mushrooms, Dried Cranberries etc...

You can buy these items in bulk on the Web for much less than you pay at the store, but what are you going to do with 5 lbs of Sun-dried Tomatoes or 5 lbs of Dried Apricots. Give them as gifts. It's great you get to keep a pound for yourself and you give the Foodies in your life a pound as well. It's an everybody wins kind of thing. You get dried this or that at a good price. You get to give your friends a present you know they will use and enjoy at a good price. If you tell your friends about this idea they may give you dried foods you can enjoy. If things work out perfectly you may get to enjoy some of the things your friends make with your gift. What could be better?

I know it's a little weird, but it's just a suggestion...

What did you do with your Turkey bones?

I made stock with mine.

Thanksgiving was over and I was way tired of looking at that big bird taking up space in the frig. So, Mom carved all the meat from the bones, she is better at that than I am. I stuck what was left in my stock pot and cooked it and cooked it until all the goodness was out.

You might think in these tight economic times that's a good way to get the most out of your turkey purchase. That may be true but I would have made turkey stock even without the economic squeeze.

Turkey stock has a unique flavor profile that can't be duplicated with something out of a can. It's rich hardiness lends itself to combinations with the more rustic whole grains such as brown rice and quinoa that overwhelm chicken stock. Substituting a cup of turkey stock to soup recipes that call for chicken stock will add a soulfulness to the soup that's the essence of comfort food.

If your left with the impression that I really like turkey stock, you're right. Once you start cooking with turkey stock there's no going back.

This is a simple recipe that makes about 20 cups of stock.

• The bones of one turkey, no giblets I've put those in the freezer to save for another purpose
• 3 carrots
• 2 celery stalks
• 2 onions
• 1 head of garlic
• 1 handful of peppercorns
• 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
• 1 handful of dried oregano
• 1/2 handful of cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 handful of dried sage
• 2 tablespoons of vinegar

Put turkey in a 16 quart stock pot, cut carrots, celery and onions into big chunks that will fit in the pot add enough water to cover the turkey. Put the pot on high heat and add the rest of the ingredients. Bring pot to a boil then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook for 3 1/2 to 4 hours. Cook with the lid on until the last hour then remove the lid for the last hour of cooking. Remove turkey, carrots, celery and onions. Strain stock through a colander into storage containers. Allow to cool then refrigerate overnight. Remove the congealed turkey fat before storing the stock in the freezer.

If the refrigerated turkey stock has not geltinized then return it to the stock pot and cook without a lid for another half hour and repeat the cooling process.

Cranberry Mango Relish

This is a quick Cranberry relish I used today for Thanksgiving. It's a great way to make a canned relish seem like your own.

• 1 can of whole berry cranberry sauce
• 1 mango cut into cubes
• 1 tsp of fresh ginger zest
• 1 handful of chopped cilantro
• zest from half a lime
• juice from half a lime

Combine all the ingredients in a pot. Heat over medium high stove until the sauce begins to boil. Remove from the heat and allow to cool before serving.

Cheap and Easy Lemon Salmon Burgers

This is an inexpensive way to have a nice meal and get those Omega 3's into your diet. When you look at my ingredient list you will see quite a few fresh herbs on the list and you may think to yourself, "Inexpensive, who is she kidding fresh herbs are as high as a cat's back." See my previous blog for tips to make fresh herbs more affordable.

This recipe makes 4 patties.

• 1 can of salmon
• 1/4 cup of oatmeal
• 1 teaspoon of lemon zest
• 1/2 of a medium white onion finely diced
• 1 handful of cilantro
  
• 3 sprigs of fresh thyme
• 2 sprigs of rosemary
• 1 teaspoon of ground tarragon
• 2 egg
• salt and pepper to taste

In a blender combine the rosemary and cilantro and process to get a paste. In a small bowl whisk one egg and set aside as a wash. In a bowl separate the salmon from the bone. Combine the herb paste, salmon, the remaining egg and the rest of the ingredients. Use your hands to mix all the ingredients until the egg is well incorporated. Form the salmon mixture into four patties, dipping each patty in the egg wash as their completed.

Spray a nonstick cooking pan with a little cooking spray and bring the pan to a medium high heat before adding patties. Brown patties on each side about 5 minutes per side.

I like to serve these as burgers. To jazz the burgers up I like to combine Mayonnaise with a little more cilantro paste, a squirt of lemon juice and a touch of horseradish.

Inexpensive Fresh Herbs

I come from one of those Southern families that seasoned everything with bacon fat and that's it. When I moved out of Mom & Dad's and started cooking on my own, one of the first things I discovered in the grocery store was the spice aisle. To me it is a magical place with little bottles that hold the secret to great flavor. With a pinch of this and a dab of that you can make plain dishes so much better. I also discovered why my Mom didn't cook with them; at three to four bucks an ounce those little bottles where pure gold. As a struggling college student sticking to cooking with bacon fat made a lot of sense to my budget. However, being young and daring, ignoring my budget and going for it was the course I took. I built up my dried herb collection slowly buying one or two a month. I began cooking with them slowly, often finding my way to the taste combinations that chefs use by trial and error and having a grand time doing it.

After I graduated from college and began to make a little money, the fresh foods section of the grocery store beckoned me and I discovered packaged fresh herbs. When I first noticed them I also noticed the price around $2.50 a package. I thought, "That's crazy I'll stick to the dried, thank you very much." But they called and my more reckless nature won out. I tried fresh rosemary and sage; I was hooked. There is no comparison dried herbs don't even come close to the fresh stuff. I still think that dried herbs have their place, but when it comes to most of my cooking I'd always rather use the fresh stuff. The price is a problem though and keeping herbs fresh in the frig is also an issue. I've found that they go bad quickly. The solution to both of these problems: grow your own.

Go to your local plant nursery and buy Thyme and Rosemary plants. Pick up Parsley, Cilantro and Basil seeds at your local grocer or feed store and plant them. No really, it's that simple. What I've found is that most herbs are weeds that taste good. They don't take a lot of effort to grow. The hardest part is finding a sunny spot in your house or yard to grow them. If I can do it you can do it too. Trust me I have the biggest, black thumb you ever saw. It's actually reassuring, I've found something even I can't kill. Just stick them in a pot, water them now and again and watch them grow. I have fresh herbs at my finger tips all the time and green things around the house.

Basil and Cilantro are annuals, so I do have to plant them each spring, but once they get going they produce more leaves than I can keep up with in my cooking. So at the end of summer I pick my plants clean, put the leaves into the blender and make paste from them. I put the paste into little ice trays and freeze them. Then I have fresh Basil and Cilantro all year round for the price of a package of seeds.

Another Oyster Dressing for the Holidays

Oyster dressing is a Southern classic and there are as many recipes as there are people who make it. This is my recipe and, of course, I think it's the best. This is an offshoot of a recipe I learned from one of my Aunts. Oddly enough she doesn't like oysters but she loves oyster dressing. The secrete to this recipe is not letting the oysters overwhelm the rest of the ingredients. This is hard to do because the oysters really want to take over. I will tell you how to keep them in check.

Many of the ingredients I use for this recipe are prepackaged items. Before you turn away in horror because of my betrayal of fresh ingredients, please read my reasons why. One it's quicker and time is at a premium around the holidays. Two it tastes better, well unless you saute everything in butter, but I'll get to that in a minute. Three it's "greener" and more "slow food movement."

You'll probably argue with the last and that's fine. I'd love to hear it, but let's examine one of the premixed packaged products. I use as an example PictSweet Seasoning Blend. It has green and red bell peppers in it. Do you really think that the bell peppers in your supermarket are locally grown in November or are they shipped from some place like Florida? Well I live in Florida and we aren't growing bell peppers in November where I am. You have to go to South Florida to find where they're growing summer vegetables in November and that's 550 miles or 8 1/2 hours from my house. Odds are they aren't any closer to you. Think about it. What is less expensive and uses less fuel: freezing and trucking 80 tons of bell peppers or trucking 20 tons of "fresh" bell peppers and throwing away half when the truck arrives because of spoilage? It makes a lot of sense, trucking those veggies all the way to your town just to throw them in your landfill - not really. Buy the flash frozen packages of veggies, not with the cheese sauce obviously. Use effectively the good technologies we have available to us.

About the butter. Several years ago my Dad had quintuple bypass surgery. Never heard of quintuple bypasses? Well it's when they replace every artery going into and out of the heart and the artery that feeds the heart. He was a bacon and beef couch potato man before the heart attack and he's a vegetarian now. Something about looking death in the eye changes your outlook on life. You might say well, he didn't exercise and ate bad for you stuff so what do you expect? I eat healthier and exercise so that won't happen to me. Well maybe, but my Dad's cousin, who's hobby is hiking, who has in fact hiked Mount Kilimanjaro, and who runs up and down the steps of The Swamp in Gainesville, Florida several times a week, guess what he had - a heart attack. Do you exercise as much as a guy who walked up and down Mount Kilimanjaro? On top of being a stark warning to me about the hazards of cholesterol these two heart attacks suggest to me that there is something to the genetic links to heart disease. Trust me, these two men may look alike and they may both live in Florida, but that's where their similarities end. That tells me I should mind my P's and Q's and save my cholesterol intake for things I really like.

This recipe makes 1 12"x8" tray of dressing which is approximately 12 1/2 cup servings.

• 1 12oz package of frozen PictSweet Seasoning Blend
• 1 4oz jar of sliced pimentos
• 1 cup of grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 16 oz package of corn bread stuffing
• 3 cups of chicken stock
• 1 pint of oysters
• 1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
• 2 teaspoons of coarsely ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons of paprika
  

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F

Cut off the foot of the oysters. Then cut the oysters in half or quarters and saute them on the stove for about 5 minutes. Drain the juice, and put the oysters in your stuffing pan. Draining the liquid is crucial. If you don't, all your stuffing will taste like an oyster. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix. Put the pan in the oven and bake for 30 minutes.

Serve hot or cold.

I'll bet you thought it would be harder than that.

Simple Light Pumpkin Cheesecake

It's getting to be Thanksgiving season and that means food, food and more food. If you want to watch your calories and are concerned about things like cholesterol, bellow is a simple cheesecake recipe that is nearly guilt free. Traditional cheesecake is baked in a springform pan and as the baker you have to worry about the cake falling before it's done, cracking during baking and worst of all removing the springform after the cake cools. I simplify this recipe by baking this "cake" in pie crust. I use store bought graham cracker pie crust to shorten the cooking time but feel free to make your own. One of the ways I keep this recipe guilt free is that I use fat free cream cheese. I've found that fat free cream cheese has as much flavor as regular cream cheese; however when your cooking with it be careful that the recipe isn't relying on the cream cheese to provide the fat/oil needed for the finished product, because it won't. This recipe doesn't need the fat of the cream cheese just the flavor so the fat free cream cheese works great.

This recipe makes 2 cakes.

• 2 graham cracker pie crust
• 2 packages of fat free cream cheese at room temperature
• 1 package of 1/3 less fat cream cheese at room temperature
• 1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix)
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 cup fat free sour cream
• 3/4 cup Altern sugar substitute
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin spice
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Using a mixer on low combine the cream cheese, pumpkin puree, eggs and sour cream until well combined and creamy. Add the Altern, brown sugar, pumpkin spice and vanilla and continue to mix until all the ingredients are incorporated. Increase the speed of the mixer slowly to high and add the flour.

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the pie crusts on baking sheets and pour in the cake batter, each pie crust should be just full. Once the oven is heated put the baking sheets side by side on the middle rack. Pour water into each baking sheet until they are full. Bake for 50-60 minutes.

Allow the cheesecake to cool completely before serving. This cheesecake doesn't need anything else but if you are feeling like you deserve a reward for being so good by cooking with fat free cream cheese and sugar substitute than topping this with caramel sauce, pecans and whip cream is really good.

Breakfast Bran Muffins

Breakfast has always been an issue for me. Either I've staid up to late the night before and I want to lay in bed as long as I can to get some extra sleep therefor I'm rushing out the door or I've gotten up early to get some things done and time flies away from me and I'm rushing out the door. In both cases I'm in a hurry and don't have time to stop for a proper breakfast. I've found these muffins to be a tasty and good for you solution to my breakfast dilemma.

This recipe makes 12 muffins.

• 1/2 cup nut pieces either pecan or walnut
  
• 1/3 cup sugar
  
• 1 cup extra-fiber bran cereal
  
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup low-fat buttermilk
  
• 5 ounces baby food pureed prunes
  
• 1/2 cup dried fruit either raisins or dried cranberries
  
• 2 eggs
  
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
  
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
  
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
  
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
  
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne powder
  
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix the bran cereal, eggs and baby food together to allow the bran cereal to begin to break down. Most recipes at this point will call for mixing the dry ingredients in a different bowl and than combining the wet and dry ingredients as a last step. This is to prevent the gluten in the flour from forming which is a good thing but I don't like to use two bowls. One I don't want to clean two bowls and two it takes up counter space so I don't use the traditional method. To avoid having the gluten forming what I do instead is add the other ingredients except the flour and buttermilk to the cereal. Last I add the flour and the buttermilk.

Spoon the batter into muffin tins. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

Once you have the basic recipe down there are some variations that I like to do with this recipe.

Add:

• 1/4 cup of flax seed flour
  
• 2 bananas mashed

When I do this I add half of the buttermilk and mix to see what the thickness of the batter is. The batter should be thick so that it barely runs off the spoon but not so thick that you need an ice cream scoop to get it into the muffin tins.

The other thing I do is use a finely diced apple or fresh blueberries instead of the dried fruit when I have them.