Friends and Great Home Chefs!

Supper clubs are really catching on everywhere, and they are a great way for friends who normally don't get to spend much time together to connect regularly. Our club is very casual and we meet about every two months. The hosts choose the menu, recipes and assign duties. Then we all show up with our masterpieces, pour the wine and have a great evening together!

Our host last evening hit on a great resource for choosing menus, Cooking Light's Supper Club. The site is full of ready-made menus and recipes, suggestions and instructions to guide you through starting your own supper club. Join in the fun and organize your supper club!

Bon Appétit!
Chef Debbie

Winter's Dream

Need I say more?

Vacation Food

Do you have traditional foods that you eat while you are on vacation? Every year we plan a big fish dinner, but the last fish dinner we had was the year before the trout pond closed. We can't seem to catch fish unless they are penned up in a puddle. Not that we don't try, and that, too, is a lake house tradition. Maybe this year we'll get lucky. I'll let you know, but there's no Internet access or even cell signal there, so you might not get a report back till next Friday unless I drive down to the Microtel and sit in their lobby with my laptop.

These things have been on the menu at the lake house in the Great Smoky Mountains for as long as I can remember:

Moonpies (eaten with a Coca-Cola, the only time we make that combination!)
Pulled Pork BBQ
BBQ Chicken
Hamburgers & Hot Dogs
Potato Salad
Spaghetti with Meat Sauce
Pimiento Cheese
Fresh tomatoes, green beans, corn on the cob, and cantaloupe from the produce market

Do you have a list?

Bon Appétit!
Chef Debbie

Fresh Corn Macque Choux

Now is the time for us all to take advantage of our favorite veggies that are in season. If you can make it to your local farm market, that's great, but many grocery stores are carrying "local" (usually from the region, not necessarily from your community) produce.

What's in season? Corn, green beans, okra, tomatoes, eggplant and bell peppers are things you will find in beautiful abundance. Here is a recipe I made for a client yesterday. It's extremely fresh-tasting and delicious, heart-healthy, freezes well (so triple the recipe!) and is based on a recipe from Eating Well magazine.

Macque Choux

Serves 4

1 T. canola oil
1 medium onion, diced (about 3/4 c.)
1/2 med. red bell pepper, diced (about 1/4 c.)
2 tsps. garlic, minced
4 cups of fresh or frozen corn (fresh is best - depends on size but 1 medium ear will generally give you about 1/2 c. of corn.)
1/4 c. water
1 cup chopped ripe tomato
3 scallions, white and green parts, sliced
1/4 tsp. dried thyme or 1/2 tsp. fresh
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 - 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

Heat nonstick pan over medium-high heat for 2 minutes. Add oil. When oil is shimmering, add onion and sauté for 2 minutes. Add bell pepper and garlic and sauté, stirring frequently, about 2 minutes more. Add corn and water and cook, stirring, about 5 minutes until corn is tender-crisp. Remove from heat and stir in tomato, scallions, thyme, paprika and salt and cayenne. Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.

This is one of those recipes where you can consider the amounts "suggestions." Have fun and play with your food!

Bon Appétit!
Chef Debbie

Spike on Steak

There's a seasoning blend called "Spike" that one of my fellow personal chefs from another part of the country is always raving about, so when I finally found it in one of our local grocery stores the other day I picked up a jar. (If you can't find it where you live, you can order it from the manufacturer's website.)

Last night I sprinkled it on a couple of strip steaks and vacuum sealed them using my new Foodsaver and then marinated them at room temperature for 30 minutes. I heated the grill to screaming hot to char the steaks on the outside (that gives them great flavor even if there's no seasoning on them) and cooked them till they were our preferred warm red in the center.

Sorry I didn't get a picture of the steaks to show you, but we just couldn't wait to dig into them. The salty, spicy, herb blend gave them the flavors of the finest restaurant steak, and my husband (a connoisseur of steaks, restaurant and otherwise), exclaimed that this was one of the best steaks he'd ever had! This spice blend is definitely a keeper!

Ingredient Addition for Chinese Spaghetti & Meatballs

Isn't this picture beautiful? My daughter sent this to me yesterday. Maybe her future should be in food styling!

She also informed me that I had omitted an ingredient in the recipe for Chinese Spaghetti & Meatballs. Add 1/2 tsp. of Chinese Five Spice Powder to the meatball mixture, totally optional, but we think it's yummy!

Chef Debbie Talks about Salmonella

Jalapeno Madness????
FDA: Don't Eat Fresh Jalapenos!

Most of us associate salmonella with raw chicken, and many other farm animals naturally carry salmonella, as well. The problem for us is that sometimes people handling fresh meat and dairy, or who have been sick with salmonellosis can transfer this bacterium to fresh produce. If we eat that contaminated produce without cooking it, then we get sick, too.

This morning the FDA announced that it has found an example of the bacteria responsible for the latest infections on one of the thousands of pieces of produce it has tested and issued a warning to the general public not to eat fresh jalapeno peppers.

Now, I love jalapenos. LOVE them! The recipe I posted yesterday for Summer Rice & Mango Salad used jalapenos. I slide them into scrambled eggs in the morning, braise them with beef and pork, stuff them into chicken breasts and yes, I even eat them raw in a hundred different versions of salsa.

Am I going to stop using jalapenos? No, and you don't have to either if you cook them first by sauteing (as in my summer salad recipe from yesterday) or if they are cooked in a dish (such as my braised beef). If you are a healthy person and see that the risk of contamination is minimal, then it's up to you to decide whether to eat raw jalapenos. For extra precaution, wash your fresh jalapenos in water with a small amount of dish detergent or use vegetable sanitizing spray.

If you want more information about Salmonella or Salmonellosis, visit this FDA FAQ site.

If you are a jalapeno fan, too, enjoy Jalapeno Madness and let me know what YOUR favorite jalapeno recipe is!