Spirited Cooking: Keep Some Liquor In The Kitchen

At the moment, my liquor cabinet is a bit bare, having been depleted by the holiday cooking season. We had bourbon cake and rum balls, plum pudding and fondue — and let's not forget the eggnog. In addition to wine, I have some rum, vodka, Amaretto and Triple Sec left. But not long ago, the cabinet was packed with tequila, bourbon, Calvados, brandy, vermouth, Scotch and even more wine — all of it mostly dedicated to the pan and not the glass. In fact, I seldom drink anymore, but the various forms of spirits still have a prominent place in my cooking.

Read more...

Read more...

Kitchen Windows: Duck Famously Fatty, Simply Delicious

I don't recall when I first ate duck. I know it was a roasted duck, but I don't remember any of the details of its preparation. I was probably 13 or 14 and far too distracted with adolescence to pay attention to what my mother was experimenting with this time. However, I clearly remember loving its rich flavor and wonderful fattiness. I also recall the potatoes roasted in the duck fat in the roasting pan.

Read more here...

Technorati: Food | recipe collection | kevin d weeks | kitchen window | duck

Read more...

Kitchen Window:Coooking with Beer

The mouth of a perfectly contented man is filled with beer, according to an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription. Many of us would agree that after a hard set of tennis or an afternoon cutting firewood, there is little more satisfying than a cold, bubbly pint. Doubly agreeable is lifting a mug while eating food cooked with beer.

In fact, ancient Egyptian and Sumerian physicians considered cooking with beer a healthy practice.

I don't recall when I first cooked with beer, but I do recall what I cooked: Welsh rabbit. For years this was the only thing I cooked using beer, but eventually I began to experiment with other dishes. I figured, I regularly cook with wine, so why not beer? I started adding it to chili, including beer in my barbecue sauce and braising corned beef brisket in it.

Read article...

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | kitchen window | npr | beer

Read more...

Kitchen Window: A Passion for Peaches

Local peaches showed up at the farmers market here in Knoxville the last week of June. This is about two weeks earlier than usual, and because only one vendor had them, he may have been growing an early ripening cultivar. Whatever the explanation, their appearance posed a problem: Do I make peach ice cream or peach cobbler for the Fourth of July? Perhaps I should make peach shortbread.

Read the complete article here...

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | kitchen window | peaches

Read more...

Kitchen Window:Cooking with Herbs

It was an offer I couldn't refuse: Cook a fundraising luncheon for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, highlighting fresh herbs — the kind of cooking I like — for a good cause. It didn't stop there. Kathy Mihalczo, who owns Erin's Meadow Herb Farm in Oak Ridge, Tenn., would pay for all the food. All I had to do was feature her herbs.

I've been teaching classes on herb cookery at the herb farm for three years, and it's my favorite teaching venue. Mihalczo installed a kitchen in a greenhouse, and in the spring and fall, the kitchen is filled with natural light and open to air thick with the scent of fresh herbs. Read complete article...

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | kitchen window | herbs

Read more...

Kitchen Window:Cracking the Egg Code

Celebrations of spring – both religious and secular – almost always include eggs. These symbols of creation, fertility and rebirth are also extraordinary little nutrition packages, and present in many of the things we eat.

The average large chicken egg provides 75 calories and 6.3 grams of protein in addition to calcium, iron, potassium, phosphorus and zinc. There also are five grams of fat in an egg and 200 milligrams of cholesterol...

Read the complete article at NPR's Kitchen Window.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | kitchen window | eggs

Read more...

Kitchen Windows: Going with the Flow - Melted Cheese

Many moons ago (when I was younger, slimmer and married) my wife introduced me to her favorite snack: a dip made from melted Velveeta and Rotel tomatoes. I know, I know, Velveeta is a cheese purist's nightmare and frankly I agree, but I was young and in love and decided to go with the flow.

Even now, motivated by nostalgia, once a decade I'll buy a bag of Fritos, a can of Rotel tomatoes and a block of Velveeta. After three minutes in the microwave and with an Amazing Rhythm Aces album on the turntable I can recapture my 20s for a few minutes. And besides, abomination or not, it's still melted cheese.

You can read the complete article at NPR's Kitchen Window.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | kitchen window | cheese

Read more...

Kitchen Window:An Autumnal Feast

Fall is my favorite season — partly because, at long last, the summer's heat breaks, and I can turn off the air conditioner and open the windows. But mostly, it's my favorite cooking season.

By mid-September, I begin to see signs of fall at the farmers markets. Hard winter squashes like Hubbard, butternut and acorn appear alongside the last of the summer squash. Homegrown cauliflower and Brussels sprouts come just after the end-of-season tomatoes. Baskets of apples with names such as Arkansas Black or Aunt Rachel replace peaches.

Read the complete article at NPR's Kitchen Window.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | kitchen window | fall menu

Read more...

Kitchen Window: The Art of Sandwich Making

In theory, a perfectly balanced meal includes some protein, but not too much; a vegetable or two; some fruit and a carbohydrate. Such a meal also should balance tastes — savory, a little sour or bitter maybe, perhaps some sweet and salt — and textures, from chewy to succulent to crisp. Let's go a step further and propose that this meal also can conveniently be eaten while playing cards.

Read the complete article at Kitchen Window.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | Kitchen Window | sandwiches

Read more...

Kitchen Window: Cooking for a Crowd

This is the season when home cooks become caterers, the time of year when the online cooking consulting company I work with is inundated with requests for help from people planning events. A typical question: "I'm cooking two, 5-pound pork roasts. Can I cook them at the same time?" or, the rather vague: "I'm planning a graduation party for 75. How much food do I need?"

Read the complete article at NPR's Kitchen Window.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | kitchen+window | catering

Read more...

Kitchen Window: Of Grits, Polenta, & Indian Pudding

I was in the third grade when my recipe collection began to grow — from one to two. I had mastered peanut butter candy the year before and now I was moving on to Indian pudding.

It was just before Thanksgiving, and my class was studying American Indians. We were given a recipe for traditional Indian pudding, which I brought home and got my mother to help me make. My early interest in cooking was, I suppose, a clue that I'd become a chef. My discovery of Indian pudding was certainly my awakening to the wonders of cornmeal.

Read the complete article at Kitchen Window.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | kitchen window | cornmeal| grits| polenta

Read more...

Kitchen Window:Revitalizing the Dried Bean

Mah'moud was a big man — about 6 feet 3 inches and 250 pounds — so people noticed when he walked down the street leading a turkey by a string around its neck. He was on his way to the backyard of our house in a suburb of Cairo, Egypt, where I lived the year I turned 18 and where he worked as our cook.

You can read the complete article at Kitchen Window.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | seriously good | kitchen window | beans

Read more...

Eggnog: A Potent Family Tradition

One of my earliest memories is of standing beside my father in the kitchen on the day after Thanksgiving as he made eggnog. I must have been 6 or 7 at the time, because I remember the silvery bowl was almost as big as I was. The bowl shrank over the years, but in the beginning it was huge.

I recall standing on a stool beside him as he added whiskey to the bowl in a slow stream as delicate as a chef making mayonnaise, the electric mixer going full speed beating a whining, rattling tattoo on the sides of the bowl. He was, and is, a gentle man, but he was also big and expansive and that was the most delicate and patient operation I have ever saw him perform.

You can read the complete article, with recipes, at NPR's Kitchen Window.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin d weeks | seriously good | holiday | egg nog | npr | kitchen window | christmas

Read more...

Kitchen Window: Building a Better Burger

Burgers are the ultimate American food. Not those stale, thin, tasteless patties found on every corner in every city. No, the true burger is thick, full of flavor, the meat just ground, the buns fresh.

A great burger offers simple but powerful flavors. It's hot and easy to chew, and the juices drip down your chin, sending an atavistic memory of primal feasts racing through your nerves.

You can read the complete article at NPR's Kitchen Window.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kevin weeks | seriously good | kitchen window | burgers | sandwiches

Read more...

Granitas

Granita by Any Name Would Taste as Sweet

During my childhood, one of my father's summer specialties was pineapple-buttermilk sherbet. Put aside thoughts of a creamy, citrus dessert combining a tart tropical taste with the refreshing cool of mountain snow: This was a pan of frozen buttermilk with rock-hard chunks of pineapple embedded in it.

You can read the complete article on Kitchen Window.

Technorati: Food | recipe | kitchen window | granita | dessert

Read more...

Chowders Lighten Up

Chowders Lighten Up

From its beginnings in New England, chowder spread westward across the continent, and was modified and adapted along the way. Potato chowder, corn chowder and potato-corn chowder are the most common variants, but chowders made of mixed vegetables, kale, and spinach have also popped up.

Read the complete article at NPR's Kitchen Window.

Technorati: Food | recipe | soup | chowder | kitchen window | npr

Read more...