What happens when a stove top smoker and a rack of ribs collide? The best ribs ever!!! O.K., malady so I may be biased, this but I can’t help it. We bought a stove top smoker last year because we wanted to go camping and the weather wasn’t cooperating. We searched high and low and found one that we liked and have been using it ever since. Last night we used it to smoke some ribs and they were so good we ate most of the rack in one sitting! We also made sweet and red potato mash with a cucumber, rx radish and tomato salad in a spicy red wine vinaigrette. For the ribs we used are Camerons smoker and apple wood chips to give it that smokey sweetness to balance out the dry rub we made. The potato mash is one sweet potato to four medium red potato’s and the dressing for the salad was red wine vinegar, olive oil and Tapatio hot sauce. Needless to say there was nothing left. So the next time you want that feeling of camping and can’t get there, remember you can always use a stove top smoker.
What did you do during Tropical storm Irene or Hurricane Sandy? If your like us, price you trekked to Chinatown and played the theme song to Gilligan’s Island at Dub Pies or trekked to Chinatown and performed at a un-ukuklele cabaret as Rocky Horror Picture Show and made kimchi. Chances are your not, story but lucky for you we actually braved both storms to make this fermented gold. Here are some pictures of our crazy adventures.
Look what you can get for $3 at the farmers market! We got 2 bags!! We made a cucumber salad, try added the carrots, treatment celery and some onion to our roast chicken, advice then with the leftover chicken, the veggies and drippings from the pan we made Chicken Pot Pies! The potato’s will go great in the morning with eggs and bacon. The parsnips and yellow beets we will roast with other root veggies later this week and the peppers we will probably stuff and make an appetizer out of them. So the next time you stop by your local farmer’s market and see a grab bag don’t walk away. With a little imagination you can make some really amazing dishes, and you’ll be supporting local businesses.
Here at houseofzeta.com we are often asked to cook a meal or make a dish for a party and we are always happy to oblige. This was the case a couple Sundays ago when I went to a friends house to watch the Emmy’s. O.K. so it was my idea, approved I had some new recipes and wanted to try them out. Also, order it’s a great excuse to see friends and dish about celebrities. Sounds like a win, win situation to me! I went shopping for the final ingredients, prepped what I could and made the trek to Williamsburg. As I unpacked the bags my friends were like, “did you bring the whole kitchen?” And on closer inspection, I kinda did! I hadn’t realized it till I started to pull everything out of the bags. I brought ingredients to make pork and kimchi dumplings, chicken satay, a cabbage and snap pea salad and beef with onion soup. Oops my bad! Like I said it was my idea so why not feed everyone, right?! As I got to work on the feast a friend brought some multicolored baby potato’s to add the the meal. It was perfect addition, we just boiled them and plated the with the rest of the meal. The unintentional star of the night was the Beef and Onion soup. It was hearty, rich and just the right dish to end our culinary trip around the world. Everyone was so pleased with the soup that they were like we need this recipe, put it on the blog! I was taken back a little, I was really proud of the satay and sauces, of course our dumplings are always a hit. But if the crowd wants beef and onion soup you give them beef and onion soup. So without further ado, here is the recipe enjoy!!!
Add meat, cook for about 10 minutes on medium heat or till done.
When done set aside.
Melt second tablespoon of butter.
Add onion and mushrooms.
Cook till onions are translucent, about 10-15 minutes.
Add stock and meat, red wine, salt and peeper.
Cook for 30-45 minutes.
The last 15 minutes add half of worcestershire.
Add the rest if you want more.
Notes
The wine and worcestershire are approximates because everyone's tastes are different. I put between ¼ and half a cup of wine and the whole tablespoon of worcestershire, but I like really bold flavors. Remember these ingredients can make or break a dish. They are very strong flavors so you don't want to go overboard cause there is no coming back if you do.
Coleslaw. The term “coleslaw” arose in the eighteenth century as an Anglicisation of the Dutch term “koolsla”, a shortening of “koolsalade”, which means “cabbage salad”. It was introduced to England from Ireland and was made at the end of the month from leftover vegetables and cream.
A word that says so much, and is so polarizing. You either love it or hate it , either way, chances are you have a strong opinion about it, and most likely your not alone. I was on the fence for many years. My only introduction as a kid had been KFC. Not the best, pretty much the worst. A watery, sweet and very ungreen version. Not to mention it is cut so small it may as well be mush. I have had others but they never really stuck with me. As I got older it actually became something I loathed. Sweet slaw was awful and no on seemed to get it right, the so called vinegar or savory slaws were either bad or just plain. I started to change my tune on a vacation to NYC many years ago. I was with a friend who insisted I have it on my burger. “It’s what you do on the east coast. It’s very New York”, she said. And who doesn’t want to be like a New Yorker when on vacation? It’s always fun to be taken as a local when traveling. So with some reservation I put it on my soon to be ruined burger. Or so I thought, but it didn’t. It actually was good, the slaw was not sweet or overpowering. Was it great, no. But it opened me up to other possibilities.
Years later, I was working at a gourmet Olive Oil shop, when it really turned around for me. Up until then it had been back to bad slaw and me being frustrated, but not enough to do anything about it yet. As I worked at the olive oil store I would bring home products to try and create recipes with. Unfortunately not many of the recipes survived, I wasn’t good at writing them down for myself. The customers really reaped the benefits as well as the company as they put out a cookbook of employee recipes. But a few stayed around rattling in my head, and I had started cooking and experimenting again. I had a wonderful roommate that was also game for experimenting and cooking. Our house became the place to eat. We often joked that our friends had radar and knew when we were cooking and managed to show up just in time to help us eat what we had made. It was around this time that I had a strange new product, sherry vinegar, it was smooth and potent at the same time. It sat in our shelf for a while, not knowing what to do with it so we left it alone. Our favorite was a walnut wine vinegar that was sending us over the moon and we put it in anything that would stand still. Unfortunately the company discontinued that vinegar. What was really disappointing was we used it in a coleslaw that had finally settled all my needs. It was not sweet but full of flavor and just the right amount of creaminess, tartness and a little woody. We had found/made a coleslaw that was good and even turned slaw haters like myself into slaw lovers. Disappointed and unsure of how to recreate this magical slaw, I reached for the sherry vinegar and said what the hell. We added a little less and gradually added more to the same amount we had used before. Low and behold it worked!! Not only did it work, but became the vinegar for the coleslaw. It turned a good slaw into an amazing hearty take charge slaw. One that could really stand up to a good meaty steak or pork chop. I’ve been making it to rave reviews ever since. I used to joke that it was so good you could eat it with filet mignon. While I don’t expect anyone to actually go out and buy a filet mignon and try my coleslaw with it, definitely make it to accompany a good piece of steak, pork or chicken the next time you bbq, or anytime you feel like it.
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