Doin' it and Doin' it and Doin' it Rice - S1E19

I'm a simple gal... ok, that's a lie, I wish I were simple but I have fancy tastes.  I like my coffee brewed just for me, my food organic and my chocolate dark.  So, making something as elegant as risotto was both exciting and scary.  I mean chefs have nightmares about making this stuff, so it's a daunting idea but wo does't like a challenge.  Also, Naris hadn't ever had risotto before so his expectations were low.

Sacre Bleu, It's Crepe Time! - S1E9

Picture this: You are strolling along the Champs-Elysee hand in hand with your love when you are struck suddenly by a smell... no it's an aroma, much classier than a smell. It is sweet, but not too sweet; doughy but not yeasty; buttery but not like a bad diner. You follow your nose, not able to concentrate until you find the source of this intoxicating aroma. You look left and see a bunch of tourists taking photos, right and see a swanky eatery whose prix-fix menu is more than your weekly salary, and finally you look straight ahead and the crowd parts to expose a street vendor peddling his delicious wares. You are mesmerized, you walk zombie like up to the man and ask in your broken high-school French: "Qu'est-ce que c'est? (What is that?)".  "Why a crepe my dear!" the kind man reply's, "would you like one?"  You ponder the list of possible filling he presents you with: butter/lemon/sugar, banana, nutella, whipped cream, preserves, ham & brie, the options continue...  You decide on a simple, decidedly French filling of butter/lemon/sugar, as they say "when in Rome."  As you continue your stroll, ignoring the hoards of people, the endless loop of cars and even the magnificent Arc De Triomphe, you realize the magic that can be brought forth with a bit of flour, sugar, butter, eggs and water.

Today ladies and gentlemen, we will attempt to bring this little bit of heavenly French cuisine stateside.  Please note that these crepes were not created by professionals and are smaller and thicker than their French counterparts.  If you'd like to bring a true little bit of France to your party, please contact a professional (I can gladly offer recommendations).

Flat is Beautiful - S8E3

Privyet (pree-vyet)!  That's "hello" in Russian.  Today's meal, chicken kiev is a popular Russian dish, though not originally Russian.  Chicken kiev, was invented by a Frenchman since the Empress of Russia at the time preferred French foods.  But the name "kiev" was actually coined by New York restaurant owners that were trying to please the many Russian immigrants.  It's very similar to chicken cordon bleu, but instead of ham and cheese wrapped inside chicken, it is compound butter on the inside.  Let's get started!

My Big Fat Greek Sandwich - S8E20

Hi Internet!  It's been a week since our last post, but don't worry, we've been busy cooking!

Here's a dish that I love to eat but would have never thought that I would be making it at home.  Plus, it was very easy to make and can serve all your friends or just yourselves for dinner and left overs for lunch.  It's the gyro (pronounced YEER-OH). The gyro is traditionally known to us Americans as roasted meat, generally lamb, wrapped in pita bread and garnished with tzatziki sauce and feta cheese.  Good Eats uses this same formula to create our gyro.

So lets get cooking!  Please note, the following ingredients list provided is suppose to serve 8 people.  We didn't want to create too much for fear of not liking it, so we only used a 1/2 pound of meat rather than the requested 2 lbs.  Along the same lines, we scaled the seasonings accordingly.  One last note, when we to purchase the ground lamb meat, the butcher had already started cleaning to close for the day and didn't want to put lamb stew meat in his just cleaned meat grinder.  Instead, he recommended ground goat which had already been ground and ready to go.  So this is our first time trying goat as well!

The F Word is here...

Hey y'all, don't worry the F Word I', talking about is FOOD!

So, in addition to watching Good Eats, Naris and I have been following a British show hosted by Chef Gordon Ramsay called "The F Word".  In the show Chef Ramsay cooks for a restaurant of 60 people using local and seasonal ingredients to make dishes you can replicate in your own kitchen.  During the course of the meal, there are vignettes featuring Chef Ramsay and his associates, one of the most controversial is a bit where Chef Ramsay encourages women Britons to get back in the kitchen!  To facilitate this, he visits the home of one woman each episode and helps her cook a meal for her family or friends.  While Chef Ramsay is often course in his demeanor and has been criticized heavily for his movement to get women back in the kitchen, I think that the tips, tricks and recipes he provides are useful to time crunch mean and women both.

The recipe for Crab Pasta was one of the recipes from series 1 of the show that really resonated with me as a quick and delicious dinner idea.  If you are a member of Amazon Prime, you can watch the episode online for free, otherwise it costs $1.99 to stream (or set your Tivo for BBC America and see if you can catch it).  You can catch the instructional for the recipe at 27 minutes.  Since there aren't many measurements quoted in the show and the recipe is no longer on the Channel 4 (UK) website,  here is the best approximation I could make.