Pineapple Cashew Stir Fry

When I switched to a vegan-ist diet about seven weeks ago, I did so because of the purported health benefits.

As many recent books, documentaries and other bloggers have claimed, eliminating meat, dairy and processed food from your diet can reduce your chances of contracting chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. It can improve your overall daily health. And it has even been known to reverse certain medical conditions, including arthritis, high blood pressure and anemia.

I can personally attest that I have had more energy since going vegan-ist. I feel stronger, have suffered fewer minor injuries while running, and generally have a more optimistic outlook and less anxiety and stress. Given what I had read and seen prior to making the switch, I sort of expected — or at least hoped — that these things would happen.

What I didn’t expect, however, was for my sense of taste and smell to improve so much. Even with my usual summer allergies, I can smell things better than ever before, such as subtle aromas around our home or the different types of cooking smells I encounter while running through my neighborhood.

I’ve heard a lot of people say that food tastes better when you start eating clean, and it’s true! For one, you have to pay more attention to the selection and preparation of your food, so I think you naturally focus more on tasting it when you eat. And because you eat mostly fresh produce, grains, nuts and so on, the flavors aren’t buried under mounds of preservatives, pesticides, steroids, genetic modification, growth hormones and other fallout from modern processed food.

But because my sense of smell is more enhanced, the flavors of food are more dynamic.

Now, I know this all may be wishful thinking on my part. In fact, my mom and Sandi were joking the other day that I would be off vegan and on to some other obsession in a couple of months, like I always do.

Maybe so. But for the time being, I’m going to enjoy the explosive flavors of these amazing foods. If only for a little while.

Here’s a quick and easy Pineapple Cashew Stir Fry I have been making lately. As I’ve noted in an earlier blog, stir fry can be just about anything. But the sweet tartness of the fresh pineapple (perfectly in season right now) combined with the crunchiness of the cashews really made this one taste exceptionally delicious.

Pineapple Cashew Stir Fry

1 to 2 TBS Coconut Oil

2-1/5 cups White Rice, cooked

1/2 Red Onion, slivered

1/2 Red Bell Pepper, ribs and seeds removed, julienned

2 White Mushrooms, sliced thin

1/2 Zucchini, cut into medallions

3 Garlic Cloves, crushed

3/4 cup Fresh Pineapple, large dice

1/2 cup Baked Tofu (recipe below)

1/2 cup Cashews, roughly chopped

1/4 cup Soy Aminos (or Reduced Sodium Soy Sauce)

3/4 cup Water

1 TBS Corn Starch

Freshly Ground Black Pepper to taste

1. Place a large non-stick sauté pan or wok over a high flame. Leave it there for about a minute or two so it gets very hot. Add coconut oil. It will start to smoke in about 10 to 15 seconds. Add the onions and peppers and toss. Cook until slightly wilted, about 2 minutes, tossing frequently. Then add tofu, zucchini and pineapple. Toss/cook for about a minute.

2. Meanwhile, in a glass measuring cup, combine the soy aminos, water and corn starch and stir together. Set aside. Add garlic to the pan. When it becomes aromatic, about 10-20 seconds, add the liquid to the pan and stir. Within about a minute, it will turn into a glaze. At the last second, add the cashews and season with the freshly ground pepper. Given the sodium in the soy aminos or soy sauce, you won’t need to add any additional salt. Toss everything together, remove from heat and cover until ready to serve.

3. To plate, spoon about 3/4 cup of white rice onto on side of a pasta bowl, then spoon the stir fry onto the other side of the bowl. If you want to be really fancy, make it into a yin-yang pattern. Or press the rice into a small bowl and invert it into the top-center of the plate and arrange the stir fry around it. Garnish with additional cashews, sliced scallions, toasted sesame seeds or whatever you like.

Tofu is made from soybeans and is a handy ingredient to have lying around. It comes in a variety of forms, including silken, firm and extra firm. Silken is quite soft, doesn’t have to be refrigerated, and will fall apart when handled.

Firm tofu has a slightly tougher texture, but will still crumble quite easily. I like to use it in place of scrambled eggs sometimes.

Extra firm tofu will hold its structure, so it can be sliced and diced into any size you want.

Both firm and extra firm tofu come packed in water. You will want to gently squeeze some of the water out before you use it.

This recipe is very versatile. It can be kept in the refrigerator and used to add texture and additional protein to salads, stir fry, casseroles, chili, stews or practically any dish. I seasoned this one with Garam Masala, a mixture of Indian spices, but you could just as easily use chili powder and cumin, Italian seasoning and granulated garlic, simple salt and pepper, or nothing at all.

Baked Tofu

2 tsp Garam Masala (or whatever spices you want)

14 oz package Extra Firm Tofu

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a baking sheet with pan spray.

2. Remove tofu from package and gently squeeze out excess water. Cut into 1/2 inch slices and place on baking sheet. Spray tofu with pan spray then sprinkle with half the spice mixture. Bake for 15 minutes.

3. Remove from oven. Use a spatula to gently turn each tofu slice, sprinkle with remaining spice mixture and return to oven for another 15 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.

4. When cool, cut tofu slices into cubes. These will keep in your refrigerator up to a wek. You can also freeze them for up to two months.

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Meat Free Mondays – Compound Salads

When I was attending culinary school full-time, I also worked full-time in a restaurant kitchen. Although it was stressful, it also was a great experience because I learned a thousand times more on the job than I did in the classroom or the school’s kitchen.

One of the most important lessons I learned was how to deal with different kinds of people. For example, the first chef I worked for was a guy named Chef Mark. To say he had a temper is like saying Donald Trump is a little immodest sometimes. Working for Chef Mark was like going to work inside an active volcano each day: You never knew when it was going to blow up. (He eventually got fired for throwing a back waiter into the salad station during a particularly hectic dinner service.)

Still, I learned a lot from Chef Mark, not just how to deal with somebody who could occasionally switch into Mr. Hyde, but also about cooking. Despite his flaws, Chef Mark knew a lot about food and how to transform it into something extraordinary.

“I’m not going to teach you how to cook according to a recipe,” he told me one day. “I’m going to teach you how to cook, period. You can throw away your recipe book.”

From Chef Mark, I learned how to balance and counteract flavors against each other for heightened effect: Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, unami, etc. Textures, colors and plating also could be assembled in different combinations to create something unique.

Most importantly, I learned how to take any ingredient and build a dish around it, complementing it with both the expected and unexpected in order to surprise and delight the diner.

Take compound salads, for example. A compound salad is any type of salad that is based on some sort of central ingredient, such as a particular vegetable (such as green beans, grilled vegetables, asparagus), a grain or legume (rice, lentils or any kind of beans), fruit or even a protein (tuna, chicken, eggs).

Broccoli salad, for instance, is centered on the crisp, crunchy and relatively neutral flavor of fresh broccoli. You can complement it with a dressing that has a tangy flavor and creamy texture, as well as garnish that builds on or contrasts its primary flavor, such as the smoky flavor of bacon, the sweetness of raisins, the sting of onions.

Or consider tuna salad. The dry, slightly fishy flavor of the tuna is given a bit of crunch with celery, sweetness and a little bite with onion, and it’s all balanced with the lemony, tart flavor of mayonnaise, then underscored with just the right amount of salt.

Once you start thinking about flavor profiles, you can create a compound salad out of practically anything. Just apply the four elements of any compound salad:

1. The main ingredient

2. The dressing

3. The garnish (whatever you add to the salad to complement the primary flavor)

4. The seasoning (salt, pepper, cayenne, Adobo, Tony Chachere’s, etc.)

When the weather gets warm, I often build cool, refreshing compound salads out of anything I find lying around. Compound salads are handy to have in your refrigerator because they make a great snack, are perfect for a quick lunch, and can even round out a dinner as an appetizer or side dish.

In this instance, I just happened to have some quinoa left over from something else, so I combined it with some black beans, added a garnish of red onions, carrot, celery, red bell pepper and scallion, dressed it with an nice little Greek Oregano Vinaigrette, add a touch of sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper, and I had wonderful compound salad that we enjoyed for a several days.

I’m not going to post a recipe because, really, there is no recipe. Plus, I want you to try it yourself. Find some ingredient you already have lying around, think about its flavor profile, then just build something new around it. You may surprise yourself with what you come up with.

While my time with Chef Mark may have been stormy, I came away from it a much better cook and a more versatile person.

Meat Free Mondays – Koshari

Okay, so I’ve been reading this book, “Dark Star Safari,” by Paul Theroux.

He’s one of my favorite travel writers because he goes to these out of the way places and has these wild experiences — such as kayaking from island to island in Polynesia (“The Happy Isles of Oceania”) or taking a train ride across China and Mongolia (“Riding the Iron Rooster”).

Theroux is such a skilled writer that he doesn’t need to rely on photos to bring the places alive. They aren’t traditional travelogues that describe only what tourists go to see, but instead focus on the everyday lives of the people who live in these exotic locales.

This book, which he wrote in 2002, chronicles his adventures traveling overland down the African continent, from Cairo to Cape Town. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s terrific.

One of the things that struck me was Theroux’s description of Egyptian street life in Cairo and other cities. On every corner, he writes, a street food called Koshari (or koshary, kosheri, kushari or كشرى ) can be found.

Koshari is a mixture of lentils and rice that are cooked together, topped with a spicy tomato sauce and fried onions. Although it’s usually vegetarian, sometimes meat is added in the form of sharwarma, or fried liver.

Originally a Moorish dish, koshari evolved as an “end of the month” dish that was consumed by workers in labor camps. People would gather together all the odds and ends they had left over and create a shared dish that could be prepared and enjoyed communally.

It’s now the national dish of Egypt and is available on practically every street corner, marketplace and stall in cities and towns throughout the country, according to Theroux.

That reminded me of Red Beans and Rice, which started out as a New Orleans Monday morning stew made with whatever was leftover from the weekend’s more formal dinners.

Anyway, I knew instantly I had to make it, especially since my cupboard has been overflowing with half-packages of rice and lentils, tins of tomato sauce and other odds and ends.

In fact, I already had everything on this recipe’s long list of ingredients with the exception of cardamom. So I simply substituted curry powder for the Bahārāt, which is Arabic for “spice mix”.

I subsequently discovered that my local supermarket carries a Garam Masala seasoning powder (hooray for multi-culturalism!), which has practically the same ingredients as Bahārāt. I will be using that next time.

Koshari is one of those “use every pot and pan you have” dishes

As it turns out Koshari is quite simple to make, but is one of those “use every pot and pan you have” dishes that is something of a chore to clean up after.

Having never made it before, I toned down the spices, especially the red pepper flake, because I wasn’t sure how strongly flavored it would be. It’s taste was delicious, but next time, I plan on bringing the bold, forward flavors this dish on full force.

Koshari

2 TBS olive oil

1 cup Medium Grain Rice

1 cup Brown Lentils

2 cups Macaroni, dry

2 cups Vegetable Stock

1 Garlic Clove, quartered

1 tsp Cumin

1 Bay Leaf

½ tsp Salt

2 TBS Olive Oil

2 large Onions, thinly sliced

Sea Salt to taste

For the Spicy Tomato Sauce

2 TBS Olive Oil

1 small Onion, diced finely

2 Garlic Cloves, finely minced

15 oz can Tomato Sauce

2 tsp Bahārāt spice mix (or Garam Masala or curry powder)

¼ tsp Red Chile Flakes

1 TBS Red Wine Vinegar

Sea Salt & Fresh Cracked Black Pepper to taste

For the Crispy Onion Garnish

2 Onions, finely sliced

Oil for deep-frying

15 oz can Garbanzo Beans

1. Heat 2 TBS of olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the rice and fry it for 2 minutes, then add the vegetable stock. Bring it to a boil, decrease the heat to low, cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until the rice is cooked.
2. Rinse the lentils under cold water and add them to another medium saucepan with 2 cups of water. Add the garlic, cumin and bay leaf and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes or until the lentils are tender. Once cooked, add the salt and stir to combine. Strain any excess liquid if necessary.
3. Cook the macaroni according to package instructions until al dente. (Note: Prepare the rice, macaroni and lentils while the sauce is simmering and leave them covered in the pots to keep warm.)
4. To make sauce, heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat and add the onion. Cook until soft and translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Add the garlic and saute until golden brown. Add the tomato sauce, Bahārāt, salt and pepper to taste, chile flakes and red wine vinegar. Bring it to a simmer, reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. To make the crispy onions, heat the oil in a skillet. Add the onions and fry until dark brown. Using a slotted spoon, remove them from the oil and place them on paper towels to drain and cool.
6. Add the rice, lentils and macaroni to a large bowl and toss to combine. Sprinkle a little Bahārāt over each portion and serve topped with some of the spicy tomato sauce. Top with garbanzo beans, the crispy onions and another sprinkle of Bahārāt. Serve warm.

Here’s the recipe for Bahārāt if you want to try making it yourself. You also can find premade Bahārāt at stores that feature Arabic foods.

Makes about 3/4 cup

2 TBS Black Peppercorns

2 TBS Coriander Seeds

2 TBS Cumin seeds

1 TBS Allspice berries

1 tsp Cardamom seeds

1/2 tsp Whole Cloves

4 (3-inch) Cassia or Cinnamon Sticks

2 TBS ground Sweet Paprika

1/2 tsp Nutmeg, freshly grated

Grind the whole spices using a mortar and pestle, spice mill, or coffee grinder. You may need to do it in several batches. Add the paprika and nutmeg and combine.

Store in an airtight container for up to 3 months.

Baked Buffalo Wings

Who doesn’t love Buffalo Wings? They go perfectly with watching football.

Baked Buffalo Wings

But they are something that usually are enjoyed at a restaurant because most people don’t have a deep fryer in their home kitchen.

Breaded and deep fried Buffalo Wings are super high in fat, so they are not something you should eat everyday.

But what if there a way to enjoy Buffalo Wings in your own home? And what if they had far less fat than the traditional sports bar appetizer, yet had all the great flavor?

That was the challenge I came up with for myself. The result were these delicious baked Buffalo Wings.

While chicken wings are still higher in fat than low-fat diet staples like boneless skinless chicken breast or ground turkey, because these Buffalo Wings are baked instead of submersed in hot cooking oil they have less fat and fewer calories than those found at Hooter’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, or your favorite watering hole.

Chicken wings are also some of the least expensive proteins you can buy. Usually, you can find them for $.99/lb or less.

Only a few decades ago, chicken wings were either thrown away or used to make chicken stock.

But back in the 1970s, a woman named Teressa Bellisimo – owner of the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York — invented them on the spot to feed a bunch of hungry college students her son Domonic brought home unexpectedly. She threw a bunch of wings in a deep fryer then tossed them in a mixture of cayenne pepper sauce and butter, then served them up with blue cheese dressing and celery sticks.

They quickly became a fixture on sports bar appetizer menus everywhere.

Franks Wing Sauce

My reduced fat recipe uses the same sauce — melted butter and Frank’s Buffalo Wing Sauce — but the wings are baked instead of fried, then tossed with bread crumbs and baked again.

The result is a delicious, reduced fat version of this classic appetizer. And just in time for the NFL playoffs!

Baked Buffalo Wings

1 lb. Chicken Wings (about 8 to 10 wings)

Sea Salt

Fresh Cracked Black Pepper

1/2 cup Unsalted Butter, melted

1/2 cup Franks Buffalo Wing Sauce

1 cup Bread Crumbs (I used Panko, Japanese-style breadcrumbs that are larger than traditional breadcrumbs)

Celery Stalks

Blue Cheese or Ranch Dressing

1/4 cup Blue Cheese Crumbles

1. Preheat oven to 375F. Separate wings  at the joint. If the wing tip is included, you can either save it for stock or discard it because it doesn’t have enough meat on it to make it worth keeping. Spray a baking sheet with pan spray and lay out the chicken wings. Season with S&P, flip over and season the other side. Bake for 20 minutes and remove from oven.

2. Combine melted butter and wing sauce in a mixing bowl. Add chicken wings and toss so that all are thoroughly coated. Add bread crumbs and toss again. Return wings to sheet pan and return to oven for another 10 minutes.

3. Remove from oven. Combine dressing and blue cheese crumbles. Serve on the side with celery stalks.

A question for my foreign readers: Are Buffalo Wings strictly an American phenomenon or are they popular elsewhere as well? I’m just curious!

Meat Free Mondays – Vegan Pizza

Veganism is something I think I could do, with one exception: Pizza.

My love for pizza is well-documented. I could eat pizza seven nights per week … and before I was married, I often did!

Vegan Pizza

Living in Chicago, we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to great pizza places. There are many world-class pizza places within delivery distance to my house: Palermo’s in Oak Lawn, Louise’s in Crestwood, Papa Joe’s in Oak Lawn, Lou Malnati’s, Vito and Nick’s (featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives), Home Run Inn, and Phil’s, to name a few.

Even the second-tier pizza places — Conte’s, Leonardo’s, Fox’s, Augustano’s, etc. — are far superior to the best pizza offerings in most cities. I’m not saying this to brag: It’s just the truth. Chicago is known for its great neighborhood pizza places.

Turning my back on pizza in Chicago would be like somebody in Indianapolis swearing off auto racing or somebody from Kansas City refusing to eat barbecue: It’s too hard because it’s what defines that city.

So when I found out that soy-based mozzarella “cheese” was an actual thing, my hopes that vegan pizza could be a reality were raised.

I found a place online called Food Fight Grocery where I could buy it — along with a lot of other cool vegan stuff — and placed my order. A few days later it arrived.

I have to admit that this tube of soy-based mozzarella sat in my refrigerator for a couple of weeks before I worked up the nerve to actually try it. I mean, what if it was really good? That would mean the final obstacle to my going completely vegan would be removed.

After all, the package stated that it tastes and melts just like real dairy-based mozzarella and that it even had the same stringy texture.

Finally, I tried it. Using my standard vegetarian pizza recipe — including the homemade whole wheat dough I always use —  I put together my pie.

The first sign that something wasn’t right with this “cheese” was that you couldn’t grate it like you can fresh mozzarella. It wouldn’t hold together well enough to withstand the grater. It was too watery. So instead I had to cut it into discs.

Then, when I cooked the pizza, the cheese only melted slightly and wouldn’t get brown and bubbly, not even when I turned on the broiler for a couple of minutes. It stubbornly stayed the same white color.

Finally, it came time to taste it. The flavor, while mozzarella-esque, lacked the buttery undertones that real, fresh mozzarella has. In fact, it didn’t have much flavor at all.

The texture was similar to mozzarella, but despite what the packaging claimed, it didn’t have the stringiness and gooey texture we’ve come to associate with high-quality dairy-based mozzarella. While it wasn’t exactly like putting tofu on pizza and calling it cheese, it was close enough that I don’t think I’ll try it again.

In a way, I’m relieved because I don’t think I’m ready to commit 100% to vegan — or even vegetarian — lifestyle. Still, I enjoy cooking vegan much more frequently than ever before and am continually seeking out new recipes — especially on such great blogs as Becky’s at VegHotPot — so that I can cut down drastically on the amount of animal protein I consume.

But nothing will ever take the place of my Chicago pizza.

Thank God!

Seafood Fridays – Lobster Ravioli

Market price.

It’s enough to scare away all but the very wealthiest of diners. Usually, when lobster is offered on a restaurant’s menu, it’s accompanied by these two intimidating words.

They essentially say, “If you have to ask how much the lobster is, you can’t afford it.”

Occasionally, however, lobster will show up in the local supermarket at much more reasonable price. This was the case this week, when our local mega-chain grocery store advertised whole lobsters for only $4.99/each.

Granted, they turned out to be tiny farm-raised, previously cooked and frozen. Each whole lobster weighed less than a pound, so that meant they would yield only about 8 oz of lobster meat or less.

Still, it was enough of a bargain to get me thinking of how to turn very little lobster into a very flavorful dish.

“I’ve got it!” I thought. “Lobster ravioli!”

Lobster ravioli — or any ravioli for that matter — allows you to infuse the flavor of the main ingredient into the dish without having to spend a lot of money on food cost. This is especially helpful when it comes to high-cost items, such as truffles, foie gras and, yes, lobsters.

In restaurants, we used to use the claw meat from whole lobsters for ravioli — and lobster bisque — while the meatier tails were steamed and served with drawn butter for, you guessed it, market price, which was usually about $24.99 and up.

Of course, we used live, wild-caught lobsters that weighed at least two pounds each.

Apparently, even the cost of wild-caught lobsters is coming down thanks to a lobster glut. Lobstermen in Maine reportedly have been opting to keep their boats in port rather than harvesting lobsters that sell for less in the open market.

Lobster ravioli is a way of having your lobster and eating it, too. That’s because it only requires a very small amount of lobster meat that gets mixed with other ingredients — in this case ricotta cheese, sauteed onions, garlic and parsley — to give you a much higher yield.

I used homemade raviolis, but you could just as easily buy fresh or frozen wonton wrappers. Even pierogi dough would work pretty well.

I served mine with a spicy tomato cream sauce and garnished it with some fresh chopped parsley.

Lobster Ravioli

1 TBS Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1/2 White Onion, small dice

1 Garlic Clove, crushed

2 TBS Fresh Parsley, chopped (Plus more for garnish)

Sea Salt

Fresh Cracked Black Pepper

4 to 6 oz Lobster Meat, cooked

3/4 cup Fresh Low-Fat Ricotta Cheese (or cottage cheese)

Dash Worchestershire Sauce

Dash Hot Sauce

1 lb Fresh Pasta Dough (or fresh or frozen Wonton Wrappers or Pierogi dough)

1. Place a medium cast iron skillet over a medium heat. When hot, add EVOO. When smoking, add onioin and cook until slightly carmelized, about five minutes, stirring frequently. Add garlic and cook just until fragrant, about one minute. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Lobster Ravioli Filling

2. Place onion mixture, lobster, ricotta and parsley in a food processor. Season with salt and pepper, Worchestershire and hot sauce and pulse until a chunky paste. Tranfser to a mixing bowl and refrigerate until ready to use.

3. Use a pasta machine to roll pasta dough out into thin sheets. Place on a ravioli mold, use plastic peice to make indentations, then fill each with about 1 tsp of the lobster mixture. Place a second pasta sheet over the top and roll a rolling pin over to cut into individual raviolis. Lay out on a floured sheet pan, refrigerate and let air dry for one hour. Then flip each ravioli over and dry the other side for another hour. At this point, the ravioli can be frozen for later use.

4. Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Add ravioli one at a time, return to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for approximately 8 minutes. Remove ravioli, drain and toss lightly with butter, salt and pepper. Serve immediately with either a storebought tomato sauce, browned butter or simply olive oil.

For my tomato cream sauce, I simply sauteed some onions, green pepper and mushrooms until soft, hit it with about 1 cup of canned chopped tomatoes, 1 tsp sugar, S&P, 1/2 tsp fennel seed and a pinch of red pepper flake.

I let it cook down until the sugars started to carmelize a little then transferred the mixture to the food processor, pureed it, passed it through a sieve back into a sauce pan and put it back on the fire.

Finally, I whisked in about 1/4 cup fat-free half and half and balanced it with S&P. Just before serving, I finished it by whisking in about 1 TBS whole butter, then drizzled it over the ravioli.

Just like downtown!

Meat Free Mondays – Homemade Pierogi

Back in the late 1970s, the parish I grew up in commissioned a family photo book. Every St. Catherine of Alexandria family was invited to show up at the school at an appointed time to have their portrait taken by a professional photographer.

When my family arrived, we were hustled into a makeshift photo studio set up in an empty classroom and posed by the photographer in front of a screen. Apparently, we were too dour, so he tried to lighten things up by making us laugh.

“How many Polish people does it take to ….”

My father stopped him right there. “A word of warning,” he said, channelling his best  Dirty Harry. “You probably don’t want to be telling Polish jokes in this parish, pal. It’s mostly Polish people.”

The photographer promptly shut up and snapped the picture.

It’s easy to take for granted how engrained Polish culture is in our community. Although we weren’t Polish — the McCulloughs are most definitely Irish — there are neighborhoods and even entire towns around my house where some of the signs on businesses and storefronts are in both English and Polish — and the rest are in just Polish.

Enter any number of stores around here and it’s like walking into a business in downtown Krakow or Warsaw. All the products are imported from Poland, Polish is the spoken language, and all the signs and prices are in Polish.

When I was a younger man, I married a Polish girl. My daughter is half-Polish. One of my favorite memories from that marriage was when my ex-wife’s relatives would come over to our apartment laden with bags and boxes of wonderful, steaming Polish foods they had just bought from stores on Milwaukee Avenue, the heart of Chicago’s Polish community.

Like corned beef for the Irish or pasta for the Italians, if  it’s not the national dish, pierogi is at least the food that best represents the cultural identity of Chicago Poles. Pierogi from various Polish delicatesans are compared, contrasted and debated as if they were United Nations resolutions rather than stuffed dumplings.

Everybody has their favorite place for pierogi, and they are willing to argue vehemently for hours as to why their choice is the best.

And that’s just the beginning of the debate. There’s the various stuffings to consider: Potato, sauerkraut, cheese, fruit and an infinite variety of others. And the personalized topping preferences: Sour cream, applesauce, browned butter.

Frozen Pierogi are sold in every grocery store in Chicago, but it would be scandalous to serve them. Not when there are so many excellent places to buy handmade pierogi. That would sort of be like serving frozen pizza to somebody from Chicago. It’s simply not done.

An even better option is to make your own pierogi. They are supremely simple to make and the end result is fresher and often even better than anything you can buy.

Pierogi can be stuffed with anything, making them perfect for burning out leftovers. They freeze really well, so you can make a big batch and throw them in the freezer, taking out only a few at a time as you need them.

Here’s my simple, quick pierogi recipe. Although by no means authentic — my first marriage didn’t last long enough for me to be admitted to that secret society — it is a reasonable facsimile.

At least for an Irishman.

Pierogi

2 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

1/2 tsp Salt

1 large Egg

1/2 cup Sour Cream

1/4 cup Unsalted Butter, room temperature

1. To make the dough, in a medium mixing bowl, mix together the flour and salt. Add the egg to the flour and stir together with a fork. The dough will be quite clumpy at this stage. Work in the sour cream and soft butter until the dough comes together in a slightly rough, slightly sticky ball. Using just your fingertips, knead and fold the dough without adding additional flour until the dough becomes less sticky but still quite moist. Wrap the dough well in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 to 60 minutes, or up to 48 hours.

2. You can fill your pierogi with whatever you like. I used leftover mashed sweet potato that had been mixed with a little butter, salt and pepper. Fill the pierogi by rolling half the dough 1/8″ thick. Use a 2″ round cutter — I actually used an inverted drinking glass — to cut circles of dough. Repeat with the other half of the dough. Save the scraps: These can be snipped into small pieces and added to simmering soups.

3. Place 2 tsp of filling on each round of dough. Gently fold the dough over, forming a pocket around the filling. Pinch the edges of the pierogi to seal, then seal again with the tines of a fork.

4. Fill a large stockpot with salted water and bring to a boil. Drop about 10 pierogi at a time into the pot so they have room to float without sticking. When the pierogi float after about 10 minutes, they’re done. Remove them to side plate. Once they are cooled, you can tranfer them to freezer bags and place them in the freezer for another time, or cook them right away.

5. To finish the pierogis, place a saute pan over a medium heat and drop about a TBS of whole butter into it. When it reaches the foaming stage, sauté a few dieced shallots or onions in the butter then add the drained pierogi . Cook until browned and crisped. Serve hot with sour cream, applesauce, browned butter or any other condiment you like.

Stuffed Green Peppers

Funny story. I’m not allowed to make stuffed green peppers in my house.

And it’s not because of anything I did (for a change). It’s because when my wife, Sandi, was growing up her mother would serve stuffed green peppers at least once per week.

That’s because Sandi’s mom was, let’s just say, not terrifically skilled in the kitchen and stuffed green peppers was one of the few things she could make.

According to Sandi, her mom would make enormous batches of stuffed green peppers every few weeks then wrap them individually in recycled Wonder Bread bags and throw them in the freezer.

Whenever she was too busy to make dinner or didn’t feel like cooking — which apparently was quite often — out would come the Wonder Bread bags and Sandi and her sister would be served stuffed green peppers.

It was pretty much an unstated condition of our marriage that I would never make stuffed green peppers for Sandi ever, ever again.

And yet here we are.

Although I empathize with Sandi for her mother’s limited kitchen skills, I can also sympathize with her mom because stuffed green peppers are one of the simplest, most versatile and affordable dishes you can make. Especially when you have a couple of green bell pepper plants in your garden — like we did this summer — which produced more than a bushel of peppers each.

Plus, green peppers can be stuffed with almost anything. I usually use a rice and meat stuffing, and the meat could be ground beef, ground turkey or even leftover pork or chicken. But you could just as easily make a vegetarian version by using mushrooms or additional vegetables.

For this recipe I used a couple of hot Italian sausages I had in my freezer leftover from some pasta we had some time ago. Stuffed green peppers are fast, simple and delicious.

Sadly, it’s not something I can make anymore. At least not without invoking the wrath of Sandi.

Stuffed Green Peppers

4 Green Bell Peppers

3 cups Cooked Rice

1 TBS  Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1/2 White Onion, medium dice

1 or 2 Jalapenos, ribs and seeds removed, small dice

1 Garlic Clove, crushed

1 lb Ground Beef, Turkey, Italian Sausage or almost any other protein (optional)

2-6 oz cans Tomato Sauce

1/4 cup Grated Parmesan, plus additional for garnish

Sea Salt

Fresh Cracked Black Pepper

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, cut off tops of peppers, remove ribs, seeds and stems. Dice up the pepper tops and set aside. Drop peppers into boiling water and blanch for 2 minutes. Use a tongs to remove to a plate, pour out water, return peppers to pot and cover with cold water to stop cooking process.

2. Preheat oven to 350F. Place cast iron pan over a medium heat. When hot, add EVOO. When smoking, add onions, diced green pepper and jalapeno. Saute until onions are translucent, about 2 minutes, tossing frequently. Cut sausage from casings and add to pan, using a wooden spoon to break up into small peices and cook until browned, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until aromatic, about a minute. Remove from heat.

3. In a mixing bowl, combine rice, sausage mixture, tomato sauce — reserving about half of one can for garnish — and parmesan. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Use a teaspoon to stuff each pepper with the mixture generously.

4. Spray a round or square 8″ casserole dish with pan spray. Place any leftover rice and meat mixture on the bottom of the casserole dish, then place the stuffed green peppers top side up in the dish. Garnish the tops with remaining tomato sauce and a little parmesan. Cover with foil and cook for 30. Remove foil and cook for another 10 minutes to crisp up the tops a little.

Stuffed green peppers are delicious, economical and easy to make. Just not in my house.

Holiday Cookies – Magic Bars

This recipe started with a book I wrote recently about cookies. While conducting research, I came across this recipe for Magic Bars.

Magic bars are one of those things I know I must have had at some point, but don’t specifically remember when or where. Still the combination of such great flavors — a Graham cracker crust, chocolate and butterscotch chips, and coconut — sounded, well, magical.

The minute I read it, I knew I had to make it. Then, like most things that inspire me, I completely forgot about it.

Until this weekend, when Sandi and I found ourselves at Trader Joe’s doing some holiday shopping. TJ’s has a surprisingly diverse and affordable wine offering and this year’s gift giving is all about wine.

I came across a package of coconut flakes and instantly recalled that I wanted to make Magic Bars.

Flash forward to later that afternoon, and these temptingly delicious and easy-to-make cookies were cooling on my stovetop.

It’s a testament to how delicious these Magic Bars were that Sandi made sure I gave them away as quickly as possible. I don’t think she wanted the temptation of of these super-sweet cookie bars hanging around for a moment longer than they had to.

For the remainder of the weekend, Sandi was recommending people who would really like these cookies. She herself admitted that they were pretty darn good, even though she “doesn’t like coconut.”

Coconut is one of those divisive ingredients that turns the world into a black and white place. There are those people who like coconut and those who don’t.

In other words, you are either an Almond Joy person or a Mounds person.

Personally, I don’t like coconut, either. I would always choose Ho-Hos over Snowballs, and I don’t like Pina Coladas (or getting caught in the rain, for that matter).

But coconut tasted incredible on these cookies, possibly because it was toasted during the baking process. More likely, however, it was because the coconut was swimming in the sickeningly sweet condensed milk.

By Sunday night, nearly all of the Magic Bars had magically disappeared, having been packed off with anybody and everybody who showed even the slightest interest in them.

Magic Bars

1-1/2 cups Graham Cracker Crumbs

1/2 cup (1 stick) Unsalted Butter, melted

14 oz can Sweetened Condensed Milk

1 cup Butterscotch Chips

1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

1-1/3 cup Coconut Flakes

1 cup Walnuts, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 13″x9″ baking pan with aluminum foil, including the sides. Spray the foil with pay spray.

2. Combine the melted butter with the Graham crackers and mix well then press into the bottom of the baking pan. Sprinkle the chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, nuts and coconut even over the crust. Pour the condensed milk even over the top of everything.

3. Bake 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool completely in the pan. Life up the edges of the foil to remove the Magic Bars from the pan. Cut into squares and lift each cookie off the foil.

By Monday morning, they were all gone!

Holiday Cookies – Pecan Sandies

Well, my intention was to start a new series featuring different holiday cookie recipes. But seeing as that it’s already less than two weeks until Christmas, that idea is pretty much shot. At least for this year.

Unfortunately, my ambition got ahead of my common sense, so my cupboard is stuffed with cookie ingredients such as butterscotch chips, different kinds of nuts and sprinkles.

My enthusiasm also was dampened after one of my experiments failed: I thought I would make those peanut butter cookies that have the Hershey kiss stuck in the middle, but all I had were those red and white swirled candy cane flavored kisses.

Take my advice: Don’t ever try this. Peanut butter and candy canes don’t go together! Plus, the candy cane kisses have much lower melting temperature than the chocolate kisses, so it ended up being kind of a red and white striped blob.

Every year, I forget how busy December gets. There are so many things going: Holiday shopping, parties, other obligations. Plus, work always seems to pick up just when you the other parts of your life require more attention.

That’s why many people set aside one day or a weekend to cook all of their holiday cookies, rather than making a batch here and a batch there. I should try that next year.

At least this recipe for pecan sandies has the benefit of  being fast and easy. It’s basically a butter cookie recipe with chopped pecans added in. And I stuck an uncut pecan peice in the middle for decoration.

Unlike the peppermint kisses disaster, they were delicious.

Pecan Sandies

1 stick unsalted butter

1/3 cup Powdered Sugar

2 TBS Light Brown Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla

3/8 tsp Sea Salt

1 cup plus 2 TBS All-Purpose Flour

1/2 cup Toasted Pecans, chopped medium fine

Plus a few Pecan peices for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 325F. Using a Kitchen Aid or hand blender, cream the butter and sugars together until smooth. Mix in the vanilla and salt. Then slowly add the flour and pecans and mix on low until a stiff dough is formed.

2. Using a melon baller or just two teaspoons, scoop the dough into a ball and place on an greased baking pan.

3. Dip the bottom of a glass in flour then use it to flatten out the cookies. Stick the pecan garnish in the middle of each cookie and bake about 15 minutes or until the cookies are set and just starting to brown on the sides.

Cool the cookies completely on wire racks. Store in an airtight container. This recipe makes about 24 cookies.