Category Archives: Recipes

Dining, Recipes

Deluxe Linguine in Garlic Clam Sauce

Made one of the best linguine dishes I’ve ever made last night. The smell of garlic and butter perfumed the entire house–and the food tasted fabulous. Luckily for us, I only made 12 ounces of pasta or the fiance and I would have gorged ourselves past full.

30-40 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4-1/3 cup butter
1/4 cup olive oil (I used a canola/extra virgin olive oil pre-mix)
1 whole head of broccoli, chopped into small florets
4 oz button mushrooms, sliced
2 6.5 oz cans chopped clams, juice retained
12 oz packaged linguine
1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes (or more, depending on your heat tolerance)
cracked black pepper
dash of salt
dash of garlic powder
shredded parmesan cheese

Boil linguine for 8-9 minutes, until al dente. Drain and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat up olive oil and butter in deep frying pan over medium heat. Don’t allow butter to burn. Add chopped garlic and let it infuse the oil for 10-15 minutes until lightly browned. Drain clams, reserving clam juice. Add clams to garlic butter mixture and heat through. Stir in clam juice, then increase heat to medium-high. Add broccoli florets and saute until tender. Add mushrooms, and season with red pepper, black pepper, salt and garlic powder. (Salt optional since I feel clam juice has enough salt in it.) Remove from heat, and add linguine and mix thoroughly, making sure that the pasta is coated. Divvy up portions for 2-3 people, lightly sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Dining, Recipes

Too much salt…

…can ruin a brisket. As I discovered when we chowed down on some moist, smoky brisket. The rub had too much salt…since I hadn’t had as much salt in the pantry in a long while. Which really wasn’t a big deal since we ended up removing the inedible rind and dug into some really good brisket.

Lessons learned: go easy on the salt and get a bigger cut of brisket next time. Bigger cuts also mean a lot more charcoal, so don’t forget to get more fuel.

Nothing like a brisket you smoked yourself.

Dining, Recipes

Smokin Saturday Brisket

Today is brisket day. While we were slowed down in getting a fire going, we finally got it down right after 2 hours of playing with the fire. The new Weber kettle is on the task for its first smoking assignment.

I had a 3.5 pound brisket that had thawed out overnight, which I then liberally coated in brown sugar, paprika, salt, and pepper. Sitting beneath it on the grill was a pan of apple juice.

With the cover slightly cracked to let the coals breathe…we were set for the 4 hour journey to brisket nirvana…

Dining, Recipes

Vinegar-brined Turkey pt 2

The turkey brined in vinegar for 14 hours bottom side first then another 12 hours breast side. On the morning before roasting, I also brined in a soy-water solution, which in my opinion didn’t really accomplish much. I then stuffed the cavity with garlic cloves and roasted the bird in the oven at 375 for 3 hours.

Suffice to say, the turkey turned out palatable, not out-of-this-world good. Next time I am going to stick to a salt brine for 18-24 hours, depending on the size of the turkey. Or even an apple juice/cider brine.

As for the rest of the Thanksgiving meal, it turned out that a roux is a great ally for thickening gravies and creamed corn. Two tablespoons of butter and two tablespoons of flour makes the fixins work out every time. Well, in the case of the creamed corn, perhaps a little too well, since the additional milk made the side dish incredibly thick.

Oh…and when will I learn that chopped turkey innards just don’t taste well in gravy? I had the fiance chop them up really fine but I still couldn’t appreciate the taste of it. At least adding a chile garlic sauce spiced up the gravy, giving it a good bite.

Mental note for next year: apparently the fiance doesn’t like garlic or cheese in his mashed potatoes. Not even rosemary! Nothing but plain, bland potatoes. Yuck.

Dining, Recipes

Vinegar-brined Turkey pt 1

My 12-pounder brined breast up in the fridge for the past 14 hours. I turned it breast-down for the next 12-14 hours. The vinegar brine I’m risking this year is an apple-cider vinegar brine, with chopped garlic, garlic powder, black powder and a little salt. It is generally the same brine I use for frying chicken. The difference here is that I’m roasting the turkey, instead of frying it, which will impart a different flavor to the meat altogether.

I’m concerned that the salt content of this brine will not be enough. I’m pondering putting the turkey in a second brine of just plain salt-sugar water. Depending on what I marinade the exterior with (leaning towards soy-sweet chile sauce), I may leave out the sugar.

I’m also thinking about stuffing the turkey cavity with garlic cloves, which I plan to use in mashed potatoes. I just have to make sure that the turkey is completely dried of vinegar brine so that the garlic won’t flavor the potatoes with vinegar.

Now what to do with those turkey innards…?