#featured / Principal Chef

Prik King (Green Beans with Thai Red Curry)

This is always one of my favorite dishes to order in Thai restaurants. Spicy red curry and green beans, mixed with some kind of protein. I got the recipe from the New York Times cooking site – it’s fantastic. You have to get red curry paste. While you can buy the Thai Kitchens brand in most grocery stores, I order the Maesri brand from Amazon. This can be a side dish or a main course.

Ingredients

Sauce Ingredients

3 tbsp Red Curry Paste(I prefer Maesri from Amazon, but there are many good ones)

2 tbsp Oyster Sauce

10 cloves Minced Garlic(Cut it in half if you're not a garlic fiend like I am)

2 tsp Corn Starch mixed well into 3/4 cup water

2 tsp Brown Sugar

½ tsp Salt

2 tsp Neutral Oil (Avocado, Canola)

Vegetables and Protein

12 oz Green Beans, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 lb Protein (Tofu, Chicken, and Shrimp all work well)Cut into bite size pieces. If using tofu, wrap in clean dish towel with a pan on top for 30 minutes to drain)

Last Minute

1 Zest of one Lime

3 Green onions, finely sliced

Directions

Making the Sauce

Saute the green beans in a little bit of neutral oil until they are the way you like them. I recommend at least five minutes, but basically you want to pull them off when you think they’re perfect. Remove from pan and set aside.

In a little bit of neutral oil, cook protein until browned and cooked through. You can add a little spice to it, but the sauce will more than spice these babies up. Remove from pan and set aside.

Saute garlic for 30 seconds in oil, then add curry paste, press and crush for 2 minutes, letting it toast a little. This may make the air a little spicy, so I recommend turning the fan on.

Add the remaining sauce ingredients into pan, stir frequently, and cook until you have a nice thick sauce.

Add vegetables and protein. All you need to do is mix the sauce so that all ingredients are coated with red curry sauce goodness, and so that all veggies and proteins are reheated properly.

Add lime zest and stir in for 30 seconds and turn heat off.

Serving

Serve with our without rice, sprinkle with green onions and you have a beautiful dish!

Coconut Fish

What a fantastic, fancy, and relatively easy recipe this is. It’s our new favorite. This is adapted from Yewande Komolafe’s New York Times recipe, and we just love this it. Sweet, mild, with a little spice. It works great with rice, which soaks up the extra delicious sauce. Crusty French bread would work well too. I hope you enjoy!

Ingredients

Marinade/Sauce

14 oz Coconut Milk (1 Full Can)

1 stick Ginger (2″ long or so, diced or cut into small matchsticks)

4 Garlic Cloves, peeled and chopped

1 tsp Tumeric

1 tsp Red Pepper Flakes

1 tbsp Honey

1.50 tsp Kosher Salt

1 Lime, Squeezed and Zested

½ cup Cilantro, stemmed and chopped

Fish

2 lbs White Fish (Chilean Sea Bass and Halibut both work beautifully)

3 cups Cherry Tomatoes

Directions

Mix all of the marinade ingredients together.

Add fish to the marinade, as fully submerged as possible, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or until ready to cook.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Have a center shelf for baking, and a top shelf if you want to broil it for color at the end.

Prepare a casserole dish. Remove fish from marinade, placing filets in the casserole dish, with at least 1″ of space between each filet. You want the fish to nearly fill up the dish.

Pour marinade over fish, leaving at least one half inch of the fish rising above the marinade.

Add tomatoes, filling in the spaces in between the filets.

Add dish to the oven. The length of time depends completely on the thickness of the fish. 8-10 minutes a good estimate. I am a big fan of using my Thermapen thermometer, and getting the fish to reach 135 to 145 degrees.

if you want a little more color, remove the fish when it is ready. Place the oven on low broil. After 5 minutes, place the fish on the top shelf and watch carefully. When the browning starts, it’s time to remove it. I don’t believe this step is necessary, but the NY Times loves what it does to the fish and tomatoes. I’ve done it both ways, and there is a little more show-stopping look with the broiler.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

“OK, OK. Quit wrinkling your nose. This is good stuff.” That’s what I wrote when I first published this recipe. Then, restaurants everywhere started serving really awesome brussels sprouts. They saw what I saw. They are a fantastic dish, royalty in fact, worthy of the Thanksgiving table and great for any meal. This is how we make them. We love them!

Ingredients

2 lbs Brussels Sprouts, washed, ends cut off, and split

2 tbsp Olive Oil

½ tsp Salt, Pepper, Herbes de Provence (1/2 tsp of each)Don't be shy with salt. It is underrated.

Directions

Preheat oven to 400. (375 Convection)

Place washed, cut, and split sprouts in large bowl. Add Olive Oil, toss, and coat.

Spread on baking sheet. Sprinkle spices over them.

Bake for 20 minutes or until browned. Turn at least once while baking. Taste for salt to see if you need more. (I treat the sprouts like french fries – they’re pretty darn good with a good dose of salt).

If you want to increase taste while reducing healthiness, take your perfectly cooked brussels sprouts, and sauté them in a butter/garlic/capers sauce. 4 ounces of butter, 4 garlic cloves (crushed), and 1 Tbsp of capers. I recommend it!

Cheese Grits

Growing up in the South, you didn’t ask for grits at a breakfast restaurant. They just came with the bacon and eggs. They are a cheap and filling food, and have just been part of southern menus for a long time. I do not crave grits. But cheese grits, that’s a different story. My mom always made cheese grits. They’re way better than just grits, far beyond ordinary, and deserving of a special place at the table.

Using non-instant grits is critical. If you are an oatmeal fan, then you should not be a fan of instant oatmeal. Instant oatmeal is a bunch of nothing. Steel cut or the whole grain oatmeal, the stuff that takes at least 10 minutes to cook, is the way to go. Same thing with grits. Get yourself some good stone ground grits (my favorite brand is Bob’s Red Mill), and you are ready to go. We serve this for dinners, pot lucks, and it’s even a staple on our Thanksgiving table.

Ingredients

1.50 cups Stone Ground Grits*We love Bob's Red Mill brand for all of our grains. See amount note in the directions. You want the right amount of grits to mix into six cups of water.

6 cups Boiling Water with 1 tsp saltYou can use a vegetable or chicken stock if you want more flavor.

4 cups Sharp Cheddar Cheese, grated

3 Eggs, beaten

8 tbsp Butter (1 stick)

2 tsp Kosher Salt

2 tsp Pepper, Black

1 tbsp Chili Garlic Sauce (Optional)

Directions

Cook the grits in boiling water until they reach a consistency where they won’t run off your plate and turn off heat.

Note: different grits have different measurements. Choose the right amount of grits to cook in 6 cups of water. Use some Common Core math skills here!

Add butter, and stir in until it is melted and blended.

Beat eggs in a small bowl, then spoon in some of the hot grits into the eggs and mix together (this keeps the eggs from cooking into scrambled eggs). Add back to grits and stir.

Mix in all but one cup of the shredded cheese.

Stir in salt, pepper, and if you want some spice (and you should!), the chili-garlic Sauce or your favorite hot sauce.

Prepare a nice casserole dish. A 13″ x 9″ size (3 quarts) is right. If you are using a deeper dish, you will need to bake a little longer. Use some butter or cooking spray and you’re set.

Pour the grits into the dish. You can refrigerate overnight at this point, or just go right to the next step.

When you are ready to bake, sprinkle cheese on the top. Bake at 350 degrees (325 convection) for 1 hour and 15 minutes, until just barely browned and the grits are set. 75 Minutes

Chocolate Pecan Pie

This is one of my all time favorites, combining southern pecan pie and chocolate. How bad can that be? It is really, really rich, and I like it best served a little warm with some whipped cream.

Ingredients

2 tbsp Butter

3 oz Unsweetened Chocolate

2 tbsp Flour

½ tsp Salt

3 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla

¾ cup Sugar (White)

2 cups Pecan Halves

1 cup Dark Karo Syrup

Directions

Prepare the crust. To make it easy on yourself, you can use refrigerated crusts, which are a distant but still good second. To make a great homemade crust, use Martha Stewart’s awesome recipe .

Spray cooking spray in a pyrex measuring cup or microwave safe bowl. Microwave chocolate squares for 3 minutes or until they are melted. Watch the microwave carefully. Don’t let it keep going after it melts.

Add butter to melted chocolate. It can melt by itself or you can microwave it another 15 seconds.

In separate large bowl, mix sugar, salt, and flour. Stir in eggs and Karo syrup. Add Chocolate/Butter Mixture. Add Vanilla and Pecans and mix together.

Pour into pie shell. Bake at 350 for 60-70 minutes, until it slightly browned on top and a knife comes out clean.

Smoked Turkey

It’s easier than ever to add smoking to your outdoor cooking abilities. And with the right equipment, you don’t have to devote a whole day to the effort. I used to have to tend my $100 offset smoker every 30 minutes. It was tricky to keep the temperature right and the results were inconsistent. If you know this site, you know that I love my XL Big Green Egg. It holds the temperature like a champ, but it takes a little work to get it going, but once you do, it’s a rock and needs little to no attention. And the results are fantastic. But there are easier versions – the Traeger and its copycats are even easier. Plug it in, flip a switch, and you’re smoking. If you like smoke flavor, find your right fit and make it happen.

This is just like the Roasted Turkey recipe, but better. A real smoker is just like an oven. A lot of people believe in “low and slow,” where the temperature is 225 or 250, and it takes a long time. That’s a great strategy, but I like to smoke a turkey just like I do it in the oven. Same temp, same time, but a way different flavor.

Ingredients

Everything from the Roasted Turkey Page Make sure the turkey will fit in your smoker!

1 cup BBQ Rub. Choose your favorite or go with my Arkibu Rub .

Directions

Instead of dry brining the turkey, rub the turkey with the BBQ rub. There’s plenty of salt in that to do the work. Let sit for 24 hours.

Instead of preparing the oven, prepare the smoker. For me – it’s the Big Green Egg. Use the same temp as the Roasted Turkey Recipe – 320 degrees. Apple wood chips are outstanding.

Add apple wood chips, and Smoke until the breast temperature reaches 165. There’s no basting.

Spicy Cranberry Sauce

I started working on a spicy cranberry sauce back in 2010, and I really like this recipe that is an amalgamation of many ideas. It’s a hit on Thanksgiving and great with leftovers, and it just takes a little time. It’s not that spicy, and it tames with time. I hope you like it!

Ingredients

12 oz Fresh Cranberries

14.50 oz Can, Whole Berry Cranberry Sauce

12 oz Orange Marmalade

1 Onion, Small, diced

1 Apple, peeled and diced

1 Green Pepper, Cored, and Diced

2 diced jalapeños (2 peppers)

1 lime, juiced and zested

Directions

Mix it all together in a saucepan over medium heat.

Cook for for two to three hours, until the consistency starts to feel a little thick and the cranberries have cracked open. 120 Minutes

Refrigerate overnight and you are set!

Granny Catlett’s Dressing

Granny Catlett was my cousins’ grandmother. I would see her quite often, as we lived just two doors down from our cousins, Kathy, James, Joe, and Helen. My brothers and sister (there were four of us too) were always at their house getting into some kind of mischief. Granny Catlett was kind and wonderful, always quick to smile, and she was a great cook. This recipe came out every Thanksgiving. Actually, there were two versions – this one, and the one with oysters mixed in. It was a bad day when you chose poorly. Everyone in my family who cooks uses this recipe – and this recipe makes no mention of oysters.

I think this is one of the many powers of cooking for people. These recipes are way more than chemistry. They are stories, they are memories of friends and loved ones, and they make us slow down and remember. That, my friends, is a good way to live.

Ingredients

7 cups Cornbread (Make the night before if you want)

7 cups White Bread, slightly toasted

1 Bunch of Celery

1 Onion (Small – Use half if you’re not a big onion person)

4 cups Organic Chicken Broth

½ cup Butter (1 Stick)

4 tsp Salt

2 tsp Pepper

1 tsp Poultry Seasoning

2 tbsp Sage

2 Eggs (Beaten)

1 cup Milk

Directions

Make cornbread the night before. Crumble 7 cups of cornbread and place into large bowl.

Slightly toast 1/2 loaf of white bread. I use my oven for this. Just put the bread right on the racks and heat for 3 minutes at 350. This dries it out. Crumble 7 cups (just break and tear) and add to large bowl.

Sauté chopped Celery and Onion in the butter. Get it nice and soft.

Add all of the seasonings. Give the whole mixture a few gentle stirs to mix it up.

Add onion and celery, and everything else into the large bowl! It should be thick, pouring in large globs. Add broth if it’s too thick. Add cornbread if it’s too runny.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, or until it’s slightly brown on the top and a little crispy.

Note: You can prepare this the day before (no baking) and refrigerate it overnight. Take out of the fridge one hour before baking.