Pickled Grapes

This recipe came to be from 2 sources. I tasted them when my friend Jen brought them to a party. They are one of the most unusual treats I have experienced in a long time. They are just lightly pickled, and the grapes retain enough of their texture that they gently burst in your mouth when you bite down.

Of course, I had to ask for the recipe ! She sent me a link to an NPR site, but the orignator of the recipe was Mollie Wizenberg, and her blog is http://orangette.blogspot.com. And they are fairly simple to make, except for the trimming of the grapes. Even with that, it only took about a half hour to prepare. This might be a weekly treat for us....well, for awhile anyway!

Pickled Grapes

1 pound seedless red grapes (works best with smaller grapes)

1 cup white wine vinegar (I also used regular white vinegar and they were fine)

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon whole peppercorns

1 cinnamon stick

1/4 teaspoon salt

Rinse and dry the grapes, remove them from the stems. Cut just a small part of the top part off (where the stem was) to expose some of the "flesh". Place grapes into a glass bowl and set aside.

Combine the remaining ingredients in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, then immediately pour the mixture over the grapes. Stir the grapes well and let them come to room temperature.
Cover the bowl, or put the grapes in a jar with a tight fitting lid, and let them marinate at least 8 hours or overnight. Serve cold.

Asian Pepper Pot Bloody Mary Mix

This is the prizewinning recipe from the Minnesota Food Bloggers get together, held this afternoon at Toast Wine Bar in Minneapolis. I am giddy with delight, because this is the recipe I made up on the fly. My idea started with using wasabi instead of the traditional horseradish, and I just added ingredients from there. This is a truly unique bloody mary, and definitely not for the faint of stomach!

Asian Pepper Pot Bloody Mary Mix

3 14.5 ounce cans diced fire roasted tomatoes
2 Thai hot chiles
2 6 ounce cans tomato juice
1/3 cup ponzu
1/4 cup sriracha
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons wasabi powder
2 tablespoons Chinese mustard
1 tablespoon honey


Process tomatoes in a blender until smooth. Add chiles and blend until there are no pieces of chiles remaining. Stir in remaining ingredients. Serve over ice with your favorite vodka. Garnish with soy glazed water chestnut, pickled ginger and pickled baby corn.

Surf and Turf Bloody Mary Mix

The Minnesota Food Bloggers held a get together today at Toast Wine Bar, including a Bloody Mary battle. I created this recipe for the competition, and I have to say,I really like this mix. I combined two recipes I have used in the past, one that traditionally used Clamato juice (I know, it sounds strange), and one we used at a bar where I worked, which included steak sauce.

For your imbibing pleasure...

Surf and Turf Bloody Mary Mix

3 14.5 ounce cans diced fire roasted tomatoes
2 6 ounce cans tomato juice
1 8 ounce bottle clam juice
3 tablespoons horseradish
1/2 cup Tabasco brand steak sauce
1/3 cup green Tabasco sauce
1 tablespoon smoked salt
1 tablespoon cracked black pepper

Process tomatoes in blender until smooth. Mix together remaining ingredients and refrigerate overnight. Serve with a garnish of shrimp, a small piece of grilled steak and a marinated mushroom.

Pizza Crust with Spent Grain

So hello all you beer brewers! What the heck do you do with all that left over grain when you have finished brewing beer?

I was sent a recipe for this pizza crust, and we LOVE pizza. It is bready, and we added honey so it is a bit sweet. I am already thinking of all the amazing combinations I can come up with for this crust, and some amazing toppings(from http://brooklynbrewshop.com/themash/category/spentgrainchef).

Pizza Crust with Spent Grain

1 package active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup spent grain
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons honey
Olive oil


In a mixer bowl, combine yeast and water, and stir together gently. Let it rest for 5 minutes, until the yeast starts to bubble. Add the remaining ingredients, and use dough hook to knead for 8-1 minutes, or you can also knead by hand.Remove from bowl, and add a few drops of olive oil to the bowl. Place dough back into the bowl, and turn it in the oil to coat. Cover with a towel and let it rest for two hours. Punch the dough down, and let it rise again for 30 minutes. Preheat your oven to 475, remove dough from bowl and place it on a half sheet pan. Press dough into pan. Top with your favorite toppings, and bake for 20 minutes, until crust is golden.

Chilean Sea Bass with Polenta, Olives and Blood Orange

This is, admittedly, a bit fancier than I normally do. But heck, it was Valentine's Day, right ? I had been to the fish market this weekend and picked up some Chilean sea bass, it was so beautiful looking (and expensive), that I wanted to do something really special with it.I saw this recipe posted on another blog, http://sweetandsavorykitchens.com, using halibut. I knew I could make it work with this sea bass.

The next challenge was what to serve on the side, and for some reason, polenta made sense to me. The original recipe recommended potatoes, but I wanted to make it my own. It was a really beautiful plate. And surprisingly easy! Pictures don't lie, it was impressive.

Chilean Sea Bass with Polenta, Olives and Blood Orange

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

1 fennel bulb thinly sliced

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

3/4 cup sauvignon blanc (or any dry white wine)

1/2 cup orange juice

6 pieces orange peel, about 1-inch square

2-6 ounce Chilean sea bass filets

1 blood orange

1/2 cup large, mild green olives, pitted

4-5 bay leaves

Polenta (see recipe below)

In a large, oven proof saute pan, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Saute the fennel until it begins to soften. Add the garlic and saute 1-2 more minutes, making sure not to brown the garlic. Add the wine and boil for 1 minute, then add the orange juice and peel, simmer 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and remove from the heat.

Season the fish with salt and pepper and place on top of the fennel mixture. Drizzle the fish with a little of the olive oil. Remove skin and pith from the blood orange, then slice cross-wise in 1/3-inch slices. Add the orange slices, olives and bay leaves to the pan, on top of and around the fish.

Roast, uncovered, in the oven until the fish is opaque, 15-25 minutes depending on thickness of the fish. To plate, put a large spoonful of polenta in the center of the plate. Place sea bass filet on top of the polenta, then surround with fennel, olives, blood orange and sauce, being careful not to scoop up any of the bay leaves or orange peel. Garnish with fennel fronds.

Creamy Oven Baked Polenta

I wanted to make polenta for our Valentine's Day dinner, but I needed it to be something I could set aside while I prepped the main dish. I have never made polenta before, but being an avid food TV watcher, I have seen it done many times, and it always seemed to require a lot of stirring. Short of asking Ray to cook his own dinner (which kind of takes away from the "gift" part of the evening), I had to find another way.

So, off to the internet I went, and found an oven-based recipe, courtesy of Alton Brown. I doubted the wisdom of this preparation, as the mixture seemed a bit sticky as I placed it in the oven, but it all came together in the end, with the addition of the butter and cheese (I added extra cheese, because, well, I like cheese). You will see the picture of the finished product in the recipe above. But here is the polenta:

Creamy Oven Baked Polenta
1 small onion, diced
2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 quart chicken stock
1 cup coarsely ground corn meal
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 350. In a dutch oven, saute onion in olive oil until just translucent, then add garlic, and saute for 1-2 minutes longer, being careful not to brown. Add chicken stock and bring to a boil. Slowly whisk in the corn meal, being careful not to cause any lumps. When corn meal is completely combined, cover the dutch oven and place in the oven. Stir every 10 minutes for 30-40 minutes until the mixture is creamy. Remove from oven, and add butter, cheese, salt and pepper.

Goat Curry in the Crockpot

I wanted to plan something I could leave in the crockpot all day while I attended a brew date with the Bitches Brew Crew. I had to make a stop to South Minneapolis, which of course means a stop to the Global Market ! Ray wanted to try goat, so I picked some up at the Holy Land deli, and set about crafting a recipe to use it.

The meat was supposed to be "tenderloin", but quite honestly it was all kinds of cuts, and a lot of silver skin and ligaments, and I was worried about how tender it would be. I decided a long, slow stew would be best. Goat curry sounded smart to me, and we love the flavors of Indian cuisine. I was, however, a little disappointed when looking for a recipe, as most of them called for curry powder, and I know from previous recipes that very little actual "curry powder" is used when making curries. So, I made up my own combination, combining recipes for tikka masala and vindaloo.

Goat Curry in the Crock Pot

Make a paste of:

4 tablespoons chopped garlic
4 tablespoons chopped ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon canola oil


For the curry:
1 1/2 pounds goat (you could also use lamb or venison)
1 cup greek yogurt
4 cups chopped tomatoes
1 large red onion, diced
2 large red chiles, diced
2 tablespoons chile powder
4 tablespoons coriander
1 tablespoon cumin
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon Hungarian paprika
1 teaspoon garam masala
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

The night before, start to marinate the goat in 1/2 of the garlic ginger paste and 1/2 cup of the yogurt. In the morning, combine all of the other ingredients except the yogurt in the crockpot, and set on low. Cook for 6-8 hours, until meat is tender. Just before serving, stir in the remaining yogurt. Serve over basmati rice.