What I Had for Linner: Brooklyn's Chinatown

Hey there! There's an area of Manhattan called Chinatown, but the one I'm talking about is less knock-off purses and bootleg movies and more about serving the local population with food, ingredients and culture from home. I live in the middle of a neat vortex of flavor in Brooklyn ... just a few blocks below me is all South American food and culture, West is Greek, North is Middle Eastern and just past that, Italian, then to my East ... very appropriately, is Asian. I love it and these aren't hard lines, they all blur with other nationalities, so the shopping is great. There are probably several areas considered "Brooklyn's Chinatown" and I've even lived close to a miniature one, but the one I'm talking about is around the 8th Avenue area in the 50s-60s of Brooklyn. Asian specialty grocery shopping is the best there and there's nothing better than walking into a business where you are most-likely the only one that doesn't speak the language.

I usually tell people about my grocery shopping habits and they rang true on this neighborhood stroll. I rarely grocery shop with an intended list past the staples. So, I'll make a list for butter, garlic, milk and the basic stuff I need to stock my pantry and fridge, but when it comes to the produce and meat and such ... I just like to let the ingredients talk to me from the aisles. Kinda like looking at a menu with fresh eyes and reading every single description to see what pops out.

My recent trip to Brooklyn's Chinatown started with a quick bite at Popeye's so I wouldn't be too hungry while shopping, plus it's right across the street from the market, so that helped. Who am I kidding ... I LOVE POPEYE's lol and often call my visit to Chinatown, the "Popeye's Run". Ok, but that's not what was for linner (Lunch and Dinner together) ... Take a look at what was to offer and what I decided on ...
That's it right there, the Fei Long Market. It has aisles and aisles of Asian ingredients. Sometimes I give myself an allotment of 4 or 5 new ingredients and I just pick them randomly and play with them at home, but today was all about the seafood selection by the fish mongers. Look what you see when you round the corner from the side entrance ...
Want a close up? It's hard to find even in Manhattan, it's some geoduck clams hanging over the edge, some fish I've never seen before and some snail-like mollusks.
Just next to them, the razor clams and eels.
The eels were just some happy swimmers! Then you turn the corner and run into the fish monger station. I can't tell you how many different kinds of fresh fish they have and the case that the ice-chilled fish sits on is a huge aquarium and there are about a jillion fish in there just swimming away waiting on fillet time ... grim, I know, but I like fish.
Then, just for fun I walked around to the other side of the store to the freezer/fridge section and ran into some black chicken! I mean really, this is hard to find in NYC and I've only had it once in my life!!

Crazy exotic ingredients, huh? You should see the aisles! Wanna know what I ended up buying and making for dinner?? Take a look ...

Yes, the not so exotic ... mussels! I know ... pretty benign choice given my options. Sorry, this is the "after" and not the "before" picture, but it was good and I didn't think to take a picture until the massacre was over. I sat there filled with sopping bread and mussels trying to figure out how I went to such a familiar place given my options. I dunno, I guess I couldn't help myself when I saw them sitting in the netting. One look and I knew they were farmed and that's less cleaning, less grit and of course, no beard removal. That means easy! Easy is what I do!

If you want my recipe, it's on the newest episode of Cooking for Real this Saturday at noon, great coincidence because I actually pitched this show last year when I was going through a mussels phase and given my options at the grocery store, maybe the phase has revisited.

I titled this week's Cooking for Real "I Want Mussels" I blogged about it last year and I even called the blog I Want Mussels, give a look at the blog post and you'll get a preview of things to come on this weekend's show. I share my recipe for Mussels with Chorizo on the show as well as my version of sopping bread I appropriately call Sop-tastic Garlic Bread. To wash it all down and I toss in my Honeydew Tropic Freeze at the end. Hope you catch it and give the recipes a try! It's easy and mussels are pretty fast if you buy them like I did. Beards are for the birds.

Ok, don't forget ...

New episode of Cooking for Real is this Saturday @ noon/est!! Catch it or DVR it! :-)

What I Had for Linner: Electric Artists

Well, it's the holiday season, so there are many parties to attend and just last week I got an invitation to join some co-workers at a casual foodie affair, my kinda stuff. I love a holiday party because it means eating among friends, but even better when it's a relaxed event. This was thrown by Electric Artists and they had several food purveyors there with plenty of good stuff to eat. After I got something to drink I headed across the room towards the food. When the food is good, everyone is standing around it, that was the case here and on the way through the crowd guarding the food, I stopped to talk to some people and ran into Howie. Here we are ...
He came by to welcome me to the event and make an introduction. Howie is the SVP of Electric Artists and he's a foodie that watches Food Network. I told him about my blog and we snapped away, sorry it's blurry. Seconds after we took this picture some of my co-workers came by on the way to the food and I was reminded what I was there to do ... eat! I'd already done a bit of research on the way in and everyone was talking about the lobster roll from Bklyn Larder and it looked yummy ...
Can you see it? A side note, you know sometimes I take pictures at corny times in the hopes of sharing them here, tonight I wasn't going to take any and then I saw a press photog there and thought, well one more flash won't hurt :-). Anyway, I am also sharing because as I took that picture above, over my shoulder is what I would eventually have for Linner. It would also remind me to update you on one of my foodie journeys ...
I had a little something from Bark Hot Dogs. I got a Bark Dog, with sweet peppers, relish, mustard and onion. Here's Clarissa serving it up ...
She was working hard, and if you'll notice I said a little something, because like before ... the serving size was only part of a hot dog :-( . That's the thing. I guess you can't really stand there and eat a whole one in a cocktail setting, but boy did I want to. It was yummy! Really good pop when I bit into it, for the hot dog lovers out there. As soon as I polished it off, I was reminded of my last great hot dog and remembered that I forgot to share that here and intended to. I took a poll about hot dogs and shortly after that I took a trip to one of the cities I had yet to sample a local dog from and had a great experience. Stick around and I'll share some flicks from that trip ... and if you live close to this place, I'm jealous.

What I Had for Linner: Mystery Meal, FN Mag-Style

Hey there! So, I got word that Food Network Magazine wanted me to participate in one of it's features in the magazine, 'He Made, She Made'. Have you seen this in the mag? Well, basically two people are given the same subject and are asked to create their own ultimate recipe for it. I love the feature and a good challenge, so of course I agreed to participate. Now, I can't tell you what it is and I can't even tell you who the He is, but I can tell you some of the process. I immediately went into brainstorm mode. I made a mental list of ideas, recipe titles and ingredients then for a day tossed the ideas around. I was familiar with the subject, but wanted to make sure my definitive recipe reflected what I like most. Thing is, I change my mind from week to week as to my favorite thing sometimes, so I hope this recipe rings true longer than that.

Ok, after thinking and writing a couple of rough drafts of the recipe in my notebook, I made a list yesterday and checked it twice. Then I looked in my pantry to get an inventory and headed out to shop. That was about 9AM. Shopping is pretty fun in my 'hood because not one store has everything. I usually have to make a few stops and I like this because I get to look at new set ups and ingredients at each stop. Really keeps your mind open when you are constantly bombarded by new stuff. So, after a few stops my total for groceries was $60.47. This is pretty low considering I had enough for six or eight runs of the recipe and then some. I never feel like any recipe is complete though, they are all works in progress I continue to think about forever. Anyway, around 11AM yesterday I got to work in my kitchen and around 5:30PM I stepped out of the kitchen with the last and final run of the recipe. It was as good as it could get, as far as taste and ingredients. It only took me a few different variations before I was happy. This was something I make often, so really the trick was picking something unique to my point of view. Next, I recorded the changes in my starter recipes and typed up the final and sent it around 6ish via email to my peeps at Food Network Magazine. Since I ate this basically for lunch while I was working the recipe and I had plenty of ingredients left over, I remixed it and had it for dinner as well. Linner never tasted so good, work done and tummy full. Want to see pics of a few of the ingredients? I can't tell you what they turn into, but you can guess ... you have until April 2010 though, because that's the projected issue. I know ... long time, eh? That's how it works in mag-world. Here are the hints ...

Any guesses?

What I Had for LINNER: Pork n Greens

Hey there! It's been a sec since I've posted some linner pics. I started this just to kinda give you some insight to my recipe development process as well as show you what I'm eating at home during that period between lunch and dinner. I've actually never given some follow up to these posts, but these are usually what I end up submitting for menus on Cooking for Real. Before I go in to tape, I'm charged with submitting more menus than needed for the amount of shows we'll tape. Then during the pre-production process menus or recipes are removed from those I submitted due to so many different reasons. Many times the number one reason is seasonality, we often tape out of season and that creates a slight dilemma. We also try not to overlap proteins too much within the shows we tape. I can't do 13 beef episodes in a row, not that I don't like beef, but variety of recipes is the best ... like the spice of life :-). It's how I eat. I like to bake and roast and saute and fry and blitz and blend and knead and all that stuff ... pretty much everything, so we also try to make sure we have times where I'm able to do different processes throughout the shows. Other things to take into consideration are 'stunt weeks'. These are best described as usually holidays or special eating holidays to be exact. Summer grilling, Thanksgiving, Christmas and others are episodes we plan and usually tape months in advance. 

Anyway, just a peek inside and now, before I give you a look at what I had for Linner ... take a look at some previous Linner posts that ended up eventually on Cooking for Real.

I'm No Shepherd became Shepherd's Pie with Mushroom Onion Gravy

and ...

Wings 3 Ways turned into Wings 3 Ways

Ok, my linner the other day after a trip to the meat counter was pork loin. I bought two because they were on sale and then while I was walking home I saw some greens in the window of a grocery store and stopped to turn around and buy them. It reminded me of seeing a cute puppy in a window, I couldn't keep walking by I had to go in and buy it. Ick, nasty example to talk about around food, but that's how it felt. The greens looked so good.  That's what I do ... I shop and sometimes buy things in a romantic thought from the past. A great meal, childhood memory or even the fact that it looks good, anything can make me buy something and then when I get home it's all about using it all before it goes bad. Especially fruits and veggies, I'm a sucker for clean or healthy looking produce. I love to eat and I love to cook. The best thing is the internal dialogue while eating. So I decided to use both of my good buys that same day, along with some pineapple that was just sitting on my counter for days. It's almost like reading a really good book ... it can take you places. So, I decided to go to Hawaii, by way of the south. 

I rubbed then seared the pork and made a bed of pineapple, greens, broth and more. Turned out pretty darn yummy and I liked the idea of having it all in one dish in the oven. The greens wilted nicely and things were sweetened by the pineapple and spicy from the seasonings. It went fast. If things go well, it's a future Cooking for Real recipe. I've just submitted it as part of a menu for the next shows I start taping soon. :-). Thanks so much for the support and for watching, if you've caught the show, if not and you've found my blog another way ... I invite you to catch the show. Cooking for Real airs Saturdays at noon (new episodes), Sundays at 9 or 9:30AM and weekdays at 4PM, all eastern standard time. Check here for the full schedule and local listings. Take care and I hope you are enjoying the week!

What I Had For LINNER: I'm No Shepherd, But I Like Pie!

So, yesterday I was about to make soup when I decided to make Shepherd's Pie. Someone brought it up a few weeks ago and then someone else brought it up very close to that ... then it just stuck in my head. We used to kill it growing up, but barely repeated meals so when we did have it for dinner, boy was it a treat. Anyway, I ran out and got a coupla veggies that weren't in my fridge and I went to work. I'm a one pan type person, so I browned the beef layer, then sauteed the veggie layer in the same pan. But once I was done there was so much love left in my work-horse pan by way of bits of veggies and beef flavored stuff, that I decided to go left and use up some mushrooms I had in the fridge and made an onion, garlic, mushroom and red wine gravy. The red wine was leftover too, so it made me happy to clear out some stuff. That's what I put on the bottom of the plate before I scooped out the pie, so even though this may look hectic, boy was it yummy.

(my food is reppin' brooklyn :-P )

I boiled the potatoes in salted water with a few cloves of garlic and mashed it all up with lots of butter and cream ... very very baaaad cook teeheehee. I just love the crunch the mash gets when cooked on top of everything in the oven. I may use this recipe on one of the 13 shows I have to tape in the near future, but I think the gravy may be taken out because it isn't really traditional and it's a bit of food overkill. Then again, it may make the cut, who knows until I get closer to planning the episodes with the producers. The best thing is we actually try to capture how I really eat and cook at home, so this is really an easy process.

 
Ok, I have some work to do today, just wanted to say hi and wish you a good weekend. My bf (blog friend) Food Network Addict, has some dates on Thanksgiving specials on Food Network posted, if you are a Tivo/DVR person, head on over and take a look so you can make plans to spend the holidays with us.
Have a great weekend!

What I Had For LINNER: A Texas Chili Dog!!

Ok, so this past weekend me and my dude went out searching for home stuff. You know, rugs and furniture and knick knacks. Even though I live in Brooklyn, there's something to be said for New Jersey's lower sales tax, so when making big purchases, the $10 trip over the Vary-Vary, that's what I call the Verrazano Bridge, is worth it. It was Sunday, so we did our best to leave early to catch the full abbreviated shopping day, which meant skipping breakfast. Why, I dunno. What I do know is my smile decreases as the hours increase with no food intake, same with my dude. So, we agreed to not get short with each other while shopping if we felt hunger pains come on. Here we are hungry, but not so much that we'd eat over shopping and right when we pulled into our destination in Vauxhall, NJ, I saw what was for lunch! I have never heard of this place before, but the outdoor sign said "Manny's Texas Weiners", there's no website, but another location has one. Now, just in case you don't know ... anytime you are in a Texas-style place, there's no beans in the chili. I haven't been able to get over-the-counter chili without beans since my days eating at Coney Island Restaurants in Detroit. In fact, in a new run of shows I did my bean less chili recipe and gave love to both Texas and Detroit during the show. All I could think about while shopping was, 'I know it said Texas dogs, but I wonder if the chili is made without beans?'.

When we could take the shopping no more, we crossed the street and headed inside to be greeted with the most overwhelming menu I've ever seen other than the Cheesecake Factory (what is up with the 1000 menu items??) Take a look ....


Luckily, we sat down and got a hand-held menu that was less overwhelming, but still crazy packed. I asked our waitress and was very pleased to find out the chili was bean less, so I ordered a chili-dog with onions and mustard, fries, a side of chili and shared onion rings with my dude. He had fries, half the onion rings and a burger he kept commenting on after each bite, good stuff. Said it tasted like a cookout burger. The onion rings aren't seen here because after we thought for a second, we ordered them and they arrived a bit after everything else. They were real onion rings, which made the former Sonic worker in me happy. I gotta go here again take a look at how dark and non-tomato-ey the chili was ...
My hot dog had a great pop from the casing, which is totally a love/hate thing for some hot dog lovers. Needless to say, it was my one and only meal Sunday. We got back home and neither of us got hungry the rest of the day which is so true to the word Linner, our Texas meal was lunch and dinner combined ... even breakfast ... what would that word be?

Hope you are having a good day so far ... I just came back from the city. Finished up a voiceover for Dear FN, a holiday series that begins airing I think next month??? It was plenty of fun, so when I get word on the actual air dates, you know I'll share :-) ...

What I Had For LINNER: Beef on flavored skewers

Hey hey hey! It's faaaaaat Sunny!!! And I'm gonna sing a song for youuuuuuu .... I've been cooped up eatin' a thing or two-ooooo.

Teeheehee ... a lil ode to Fat Albert. I've been cooking all weekend just getting some recipes together and then of course feeding myself. So, here's what I decided on for linner ... I marinated some beef chunks in balsamic with garlic, olive oil, cilantro, lime, salt, pepper and a tap of cayenne. Then well, you can kinda see the rest, some jalapenos, red bell pepper, pineapple and red onion. I got the flavored grill sticks from my local cooking store ... real neat. I actually wasn't trusting the infusing of the flavors promise on the package, but out of the two flavors I used I could really taste one of them. I used the Honey Bourbon and the Citrus Rosemary. I could really taste the latter, the other not so much. I think my marinade could have over powered the honey bourbon, but all was still yummy. On the side I made some orzo with a light cream sauce, broccoli and parm. That's it ... and I'm back to work on some palmiers. Hope you are having a great weekend, I can't wait to watch NFNS tonight. The weather in NYC is crazy this weekend, sunshine, then rain, then thunder, then more rain. Can't wait to start the week. Check in tomorrow and I hopefully will have some news one various places I'll pop up in the next week or so to promote the new shows. I'm so excited! Ok, if you catch NFNS tonight, check the website for the FN Dish viewing party with me and Adam Roberts. Again ... Linner for a recipe developin' chick on a Sunday early evening ....

What I Had For LINNER: Wings 3 ways

So, this started out as a wing purchase to go with the NBA finals on Sunday. Then, I made such a big lunch, that by the time dinner rolled around, the wings were put off for another day ... which was yesterday. Different day, same dish plan. I just got back from Hawaii and while I was there I did two neat things, harvest cacao pods and pull bee hives for processing. This is all in connection with the new prime time show for Food Network I have on the way called "How'd That Get On My Plate?". I follow ingredients from the rawest form to the finished product. More on that later ... 

One of the finished products I went to Hawaii for was honey.

I packed up 4 jars of the honey we packaged at the plant and brought them home ... 1 for me and 3 for friends. The one I kept was a more honey spread consistency. That is unique to the type of nectar the flower gave off for the bees to extract. Anyway, I just wanted a honey that looked different and the Macadamia Nut Honey I harvested looked like the regular typical honey. I like to play with food and new undiscovered food is even more fun! For honey that came straight from the hive just last week, I guess you'd think I should use it in an intelligent dish teeheehee, and I'm sure I will in the next coupla days, but for now let's dumb it down with some wangs! :-) Gooooooo (your nba fave here)!! I don't care much who wins, I just like game-time eats! Ok ...

For the wings, I prepped them like I usually prep, but I finished them off different. The first set were like I did on Emeril a few years back, my standby recipe. I used fresh oregano this time cuz it was in the fridge, but dry oregano is good too. The second set of wings was a mix of lemon and lime zest, plus salt and pepper ... I sprinkled it on right after pulling the wings from the oil and they were pretty yummy. And the 3rd set of wings were coated with a new recipe I put together for Honey BBQ sauce courtesy of my Hawaiian honey harvest!!! Some ketchup, lots of garlic, dark brown sugar, some ill spices (i'll give up the recipe/blend soon, but turmeric ... it's in there) and the very honey I brought back from Hawaii. It turned out yummy and really, they were just wings, but breaking up the 24 wings into 3rds made it seeeeem fancy ... neat home cookin' trick lol. I also made a gorgonzola dipping sauce, with just lemon, sour cream, buttermilk, lots of gorgonzola and salt n pep. That was some yummy stuff too ... so much so, this is all I have left from the meal ... I present ...

The Honey BBQ Plate ....

Linner & a Jean Georges Double Play Day

Ok, another week where I'm trying to figure out where my days went. Somewhere in there I had a birthday! That reminds me, I have an ice cream cake in the freezer I need to polish off! :-) I had this Linner liiiiiike Tues? I just never posted it. It was pretty simple. I called em Diner Burgers. Really because the goal was sloppy, but neat and crispy meat. lol, that rhymes! I seasoned then made the patties tiny, like a bit above a big meatball. Then used 2 per burger. I julienned some Jalapenos, thin sliced some onions ... the usual suspects. Nothing special here but seasoning the meat properly and cooking technique ... I did the bacon first and then used that fat to fry the burger patties, very yummy. Then some tomato slices with salt and pepper, equally simple and equally good. How about I died and went to Jean Georges yesterday??? I had a day of lunch, drinks, then dinner. I haven't had a day like that ever. Ever. I mean I did middays on the air and then afternoons for about a year, so going out to eat 3 times in one day??? I don't think I could have fit it into my schedule then, but somehow now I have. Lunch was at The Spotted Pig. This is a restaurant I found while just tooling around online looking at food sites early last year. I loved it from the first time I went and went back I think about 4 times that week to finish the menu. It's a small menu and it changes with the season, something I love. Everything is excellent, my faves are the liver any way they prep it and the gnuddi if you ever go. No reservations are taken and even if it's super packed, they will serve you at the few little free-standing-bar-on-a-column things they have upstairs. Then, for drinks I went to Jean Georges' Spice Market!! My exec producer and I thought we'd catch up, he's super busy working on other shows. I had the Lychee-Raspberry Bellini, two of them which is my drink maximum these days. We also got appetizers at the bar. Shared 3: Salmon Sashimi with Golden Garlic, Lemon and Soy, Spiced Chicken Samosas with a crazy bangin cilantro-lime dip, and Shrimp Tod Mon Pla, which is best described as a crab cake made of shrimp, accompanied by a cucumber, peanut relish that was UNBELIEVABLE, but try eating a crabcake with a chopstick and get back to me. Heck even the bar nuts at Spice Market were good. Took a sec to get refills on drinks, but the food made up for it, duh. Then, I went straight from there to meet up with friends at The Mercer Kitchen for dinner, another Jean Georges restaurant (really, have I gone and died?teeheehee). There we had prosecco to toast my birthday and just life in general, then we ordered 3 types of oysters on the half shell and Crunchy Squid with a Chili-Lime sauce for starters. For the entree I ordered the Salmon and it was cooked perfectly and arrived with the skin removed perched aside the salmon. It was soooooooo good, tasted like pork skin! I shared half with the table it was so yummy. I love a good crispy salmon skin. Then I shared dessert with my guy and really only had one bite and with held my urge to eat his whole plate for the next agonizing 10 minutes it took him to eat it. lol, he is gonna laugh when he reads this and tell me I just should've taken it, but I tried my skinny jeans this week and they said no. lol, just 1-inch difference and they said uh-heh. So, to the Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Bar with sugary-crushed peanut garnish and shiny chocolate ganache and a scoop of dark chocolate ice cream stayed on his plate and not in my bellllllay! (think austin powers) Look, the meal was crazy and it now seems wack to give you my sowwy wittle Diner Burger close up that was just so yummy and juicy, but here goes ...

Linner: Garlic Overloaded Pasta

Ok, so this is leftovers I reheated just a minute ago. I'm working online today and thought I had a meeting in the city, so I scrambled early to get some things out of the way and low-n-behold, how 'bout a cancelled meeting!? So, I put on the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie I DVRd, began my secondary online search for my blog gig, and let the microwave do the rest. Why cook Linner when there are leftovers? Alright, this is Spinach Fettuccini (bought fresh, I didn't make this time :-) ) with shiitake mushrooms, grilled chicken and roasted garlic in just a bit of an asiago cream sauce. I had my dude grate the cheese :-), it's a hard cheese and my muscles were tired. All in all, this was fast when I initially made it because I cut the chicken into thin strips from the breast and put the garlic in the oven while I boiled the pasta. Fresh pasta can really speed up the process, give it a try. Felt like 15 minutes. Here are my pics, and then the last one after I get the pepper on! I bought a new grinder yesterday, I LOVE fresh ground pepper, super coarse is super great!

Lunch and Linner

This week is very busy for me. Cooking for Real starts this Sunday so I've been running around doing some things in the city. The weather here is so crazy. It was 60 degrees yesterday and very in-betweeny teeheehee. New word. I was between hot and cold and really depending on the side of the street you walked on, you were improperly dressed. Kinda funny, I had lunch with a friend and we practiced unconscious walking based on the shadow/sun side of the street. We ate at Houston's on Park Ave. in Manhattan, haven't been there in years, I usually stick to the local owned-businesses because there are sooooo many to go through in NYC and I aim to accomplish a good majority of the menus in my lifetime! About Houston's though, I really like the lighting in there. I got the "Sashimi Tuna Salad: pan seared ahi with cilantro-ginger vinaigrette, mixed greens, avocado & mango" and after hesitating twice, an order of fries and a 7&7 to drink. I remembered faintly thinking the fries were great with a steak I had there years ago and was happy when they arrived. Just as I remembered. I like plenty types of fries. I'm not a skinny or fat freak, I'm more into the texture, the doneness(another new word) and the seasoning. So these are thin, long, some skin on a tip here or there and the right amount of salt. The drink at lunch right? I know you are still thinking it, I know I am teeheehee ... well, look what can I say, I had a teeny headache and didn't wanna take a pill and wait for hours. Had a few sips and was self medicated. I'm so wrong, but it worked. :-) ... The salad was yummy, mango and avocado really were perfect yesterday. Refreshing and cool. Gonna have to work something out this weekend with the two, I'm inspired a bit. Ok, here's my Linner from yesterday ... finally finished off the ravioli I made last week. Took them out of the freezer and turned Italian into the world's original pasta, Asian food. I fried some, then steamed some and had them with a soy sauce mixture I make and some jasmine rice. When I was in Korea, they served the fried version on a stick and they were called yaki-mandu ....sooooo yummy, street food at it's finest. Of course, these were filled with beef and sage and asiago, because I intended them for ravioli last week, but the flavors really blended well. Real yummy .... ok, here are the pics ...

Take 2: Respectful Linner Pics

Ok, after I wrote last night's Linner post, I couldn't get off my brain how the pasta really couldn't be seen. When I buy a cook book, the first thing I look for is pictures of every single dish. I really dislike it when you are left on your own to know if your recipe product looks like the recipe writer intended. Sometimes I make an exception, really only for vintage cook book sales or garage sales. So, anyway .... I wouldn't wanna make pasta looking at the pics I posted last night, I'd want to make sauce lol!!! And I just wanted to inspire some pasta makin' ... wonton style, it's easy ...look into it ... and now, my attempt to give the ravioli I made some respect take a look ... other than that I just did an interview that should appear in USA Today soon, I'll let ya know when it drops. I told the guy I have a hole in my bottom lip and make a mess when I eat ... he actually thought I meant a piercing or a stud ... I was like, nah maaaaaan you know, a hole? The food drips through?? teeheehee ... he said he just didn't know what I meant cuz people talk strange these days, and he's right, they do. Almost need a new dictionary ... anyway, thought it was actually an old saying, the whole hole in the lip thing ... who knows, had fun talking to the interviewer. He has a love for New Orleans just like I do, so it was a good love fest on the phone. Glad I do a show on my love of New Orleans, even better it's the debut episode .... alright, here's the pics I was tryin' to leave before I got on a tangent ...

What I Had For LINNER: Climbing Out of Easter Leftovers

Well, I thought, what better way to get out of leftovers, than with some glorified leftovers? So, that's what I did. I sometimes can't let things sit in the freezer, then other things sit forever, like my break-in-case-of-meat-emergency veggie crumbles (I go vegetarian here n there, nothing serious, lacto/ovo style. it's the Master Cleanse's fault), I also tend to always have frozen candy bars and of course vodka. For some reason though, most things I freeze of the protein or meal status, get's cooked within about a week. So anyway, I decided to have some of my ravioli I made last week. Mostly because one more day in an airtight container and the meaty non-vodka sauce I made would've been far past it's love date in the fridge. I just can't have waste. Can't do it. My dude picks on me for making a snack package out of say, a few bites left on a plate at dinner. I'll package up those 2 bites and eat em as a snack later ... really holds the weight down too, cuz if I didn't have 5-6 lil snack containers in my fridge for the meal between meals, I might do full meals every time I get hungry. So anyway, again, my plating is wack. I've covered the most beautiful part ... the ravioli. Here's a close up, you can jussssssst make out my wonton wrapper handy work. They looked prettier in the freezer.



The sauce is prolly best described really as a Meaty Tomato Cream Sauce ... didn't put much cream cuz I didn't want to open another carton of heavy cream, kinda like breakin a $20 bill, it would've been gone! My brain would have worked the remaining cream into something over the weekend and I knew I was already in for the calories at Easter. A little self restraint. Okay, here's some more show descriptions and one final look at Linner ... and btw, did you see the Cook dude on American Idol last night kill Jacko's Billie Jean?? Amazing. And I don't just like him for his name teeheehee, it was a great rendition. My 1st ever iTunes download, waiting on it to arrive, it has a release date, wow ....

RE0104: NOSHIN’ N’AWLINS STYLE- PREMIERE EPISODE
Premieres: Sunday, April 6th at 10:30AM ET/PT
With a nod to New Orleans Sunny Anderson gets things jazzed up with a spicy yet sweet Shrimp Pot Pie, a sweet note of French Toast with Caramelized Pecans, Strawberries and Cream and a Sazarak Cocktail. Let the good times roll!

RE0101: CAROLINA ON MY MIND
Premieres: Sunday, April 13th at 10:30AM ET/PT
Thinking about some good southern style flavors? Sunny Anderson serves it up with her Apple and Onion-Stuffed Pork Chops, Vegetarian "Southern Style" Collard Greens, and a sweet treat of Blueberry Peach Cobbler.

RE0103: MEXIN-IT UP
Premieres: Sunday, April 20that 10:30AM ET/PT
Some of the best Tex-Mex street food happens right in your own kitchen when Sunny Anderson whips up her Huevos Rancheros with Homemade Black Bean Puree, Mexican Street Corn, and Homemade Churros with a hint of lime

What I Had For "LINNER" (lunch+dinner) aka brunch's cuzo

So this was easy and a quickie before i vacuum packed up some beef and chorizo today. it's rustic and simple. i always buy meat on like mondays or tues and then know the bulk of it won't get eaten until my dude comes to hang out for the weekend. so i froze most of the protien and i kept 2 chorizo links out.

all i did was chunk up some sweet onion, 1 roma tomato(prolly coulda used two, but i was a bit lazy), about 6 fingerling potatoes sliced in half, 3 shitake mushroom caps-sliced (again, coulda used more, i was in a choppin hurry), 1 jalapeno-sliced, 1 garlic clove-chopped, 3 sprigs of thyme, salt, pepper, garlic salt, butter, oil, and a bit of water, put the links sans casing on top and covered it up with good ol mr. reynold's and did a 350 degree oven for about 30, then uncovered for a bit more ... wish i would've put in one of those par-baked rolls towards the end, i bought em last week and keep forgetting to throw em in the oven. argh! would've sopped up the juices real nice ....

ever get a really good chorizo? i miss the chorizo in Texas ... i mean i've found some good places in nyc, but if anyone can tell me where to get some tex-mex chorizo ... you know with the orange grease???? i think i'd make a chorizo celebration cake teeheehee ... yeah, i gotta tell you about celebration cake one day. and i know chorizo is traditionally breakfast for some, but really, why are there rules for when i can eat something tasty? ok, enjoy Linner ... 2moro, i'm gonna post some behind the scenes flicks from my show and give ya a preview of the kitchen :-) ...