Tag Archives: #food #foodie

FORKING GREAT Blue-Cheese, Sriracha, Honey, Radish Appetizer Recipe

Forking Great Blue-Cheese, Sriracha, Honey Radish Appetizer

Forking Great Blue-Cheese, Sriracha, Honey Radish Appetizer

This appetizer is a bomb of favors in your mouth. It’s very easy to prepare and is delicious and very light. It does have a little heat to it but not too much heat unless you slip too much with the Sriracha. Use any kind of radish you like. I used a combination of one regular radish and one small watermelon radish. I do note the watermelon radish worked out slightly better because it was the perfect size to pick up. The brand of Sriracha I used was Ninja Squirrel (purchased from Whole Foods) because it’s mild and sort of sweet compared to Huy Fong. Ninja Squirrel Sriracha just seems to match the sweet twang of radish just right. I note Huy Fong will do in a pinch.

Ingredients to make around 25 appetizers it’s up to  5 servings because they are so light.

2 radishes (on the small side) – sliced thin but like a study potato chip

1/4 small sweet red onion – sliced thin

2 oz blue cheese – room temperature

2 Tablespoon unsalted butter – room temperature

1 Tablespoon pure real honey – Best from a squirt bottle-like them bear shaped honey bottles.

2 Tablespoon (scant) Sriracha – (I used the Ninja Squirrel brand because it’s on the sweet side and not too spicy)

Directions

Lay down your radish slices with two pieces of onion on a serving plate.

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Mix up your blue cheese and butter in a small bowl. Get a disposable pastry bag and snip off a small end. Flo down the end of the bag over your hand and spoon in the filling. Twist the end so the filling doesn’t fall out.

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Squirt out about a 1/4 teaspoon filling into the center of each radish.

Now dot each cheese center with a drop of honey. When completed add a small amount of Sriracha around the top of each cheese. (about a total of 2-3 drops)

They are really to be devoured.

Forking Great Blue-Cheese, Sriracha, Honey Radish Appetizer

Forking Great Blue-Cheese, Sriracha, Honey Radish Appetizer

Forking Great!

 Really Forking Tasty and that's The Forking Truth

Really Forking Tasty and that’s The Forking Truth

 

 

Forking Stacked Eggs – Something Different

Forking Stacked Eggs

Forking Stacked Eggs

Those three layers of eggs are only two eggs a serving and are mixed with a few toppings and sprinkled with a little bit of cheese between the layers.

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3 egg whites and a splash of water are in one bowl with scallions. 3 egg yolks and splash of water with some sautéed onions and peppers are in another bowl. The last bowl has one whole beaten egg with a splash of water and some bacon.

I put them all in shortened sheet pans coated with non stick spray.

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I cover the pans with aluminum foil and put them in a 375 degree F oven. The whole egg pan and the egg white pan are done in 10 minutes. The all yolk pan needs 5 more minutes. You can do these eggs the same way in a fry pan but the creamy all yolk pan will come out different and won’t be an even layer when you do it in a fry pan.

The whole egg layer should go on the bottom. (note I put one half layer on each plate- this is two servings)

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And top it with a sprinkle of cheese

Next should the creamy all yolk layer.

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Top that one with a light sprinkle of cheese.

Then top with the egg white layer.

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Serve them up. They are something different and you can customize the eggs as you like. What makes them extra special is that all yolk layer. It so creamy and rich you will be delighted. Something Forking different I came up with.

Forking Stacked Eggs

Forking Stacked Eggs

This is forking good and that's The Forking Truth

This is forking good and that’s The Forking Truth

 

Forking Yummy Poblano Potato Salad Recipe

Forking Yummy Poblano Potato Salad

Forking Yummy Poblano Potato Salad

This salad is mostly low fat and made with non fat Greek yogurt and low fat mayo as the base with lots of poblano peppers blended into the creamy base of the salad. I also boiled the potatoes with baking soda to break down the surface of the potatoes so the creamy base absorbs the potatoes and that potato flavor that seems to get concentrated from the baking soda magic. This salad for me came out a little spicy but not too spicy. The poblanos I used had a nice fruity flavor to them with only mild/medium heat so you might have to make adjustments to your liking because of your taste and the heat level of your chilies.

Ingredients makes about 8 servings

2 lbs. potatoes pealed and cut about in half

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 Tablespoon kosher salt

fresh ground sea salt

fresh ground black pepper

6 small/medium sized poblano peppers (roasted, seeded and stem removed chopped small) (5 get blended into dressing for salad save one for adding with potatoes because this salad is about the poblanos) (I do note my poblanos were on the mild side and were small sized so if yours have more heat you might want to add them one at a time till your liking0

1 jalapeno chopped fine

1/2 c. low fat mayonnaise

1/2 c. non fat Greek yogurt

1 teaspoon garlic confit or fresh roasted garlic

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 c. lime juice (fresh squeezed)

1/2 c scallion whites chopped

1/2 c. scallion greens chopped

1/2 c. extra sharp aged cheddar cheese shredded

1/2 large red bell pepper chopped small

Directions

To a large sauce pot add chilled water a little more than half way up. Add baking soda, one T. salt and your potatoes. Bring to boil and cook till fork tender with very soft ends. (about 15 minutes)

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Drain potatoes in a colander and place back in your pot so you don’t have to clean another forking bowl.  Add poblano pepper, scallion whites, cheddar and red bell pepper. Set to side.

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Blend your poblano peppers (all but one), jalapeño, mayonnaise, yogurt, garlic,1/2 t. black pepper,1 t.  salt, lime juice, together till smooth.

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Add to potatoes and mix gently. Top with scallion greens.

 

Serve either warm or chilled.

Forking Yummy Poblano Potato Salad Recipe

Forking Yummy Poblano Potato Salad Recipe

For a delicious South West Style variation just add some Fresh Charred Corn, avocado and cilantro I think would be delicious!

It's Forking Great and that's The Forking Truth

It’s Forking Great and that’s The Forking Truth

 

 

Sometimes You Just Forking Want to “Kick” the Cook

 

I went into possibly the most forking adorable looking restaurant in Glendale AZ. I saw old fashioned cabinets stuffed with all kinds of antiques  and nick knacks. Lots of baskets and cute serving ware everywhere. This place even has a spacious dog friendly patio with a DOGGY Dining Menu. I was hoping that this restaurant would be my new favorite spot.

They started us off with fresh hot from the oven mini muffins. It was really forking nice that the muffins were hot and fresh but they just tasted like two flavors of cheap box mix. I thought one flavor might be corn bread but it was vanilla cake with added chocolate chips and the other was spiced muffins with too many added spices. I have no idea what the forking butter was for.

Kiss the Cook Restaurant Glendale AZ

Kiss the Cook Restaurant Glendale AZ

While we were waiting for our order I saw a busboy cleaning up a used table next to us. He only wiped down the half of the table where people were sitting and the other forking half didn’t get wiped. I hope nobody forking sneezed on that half because it didn’t get wiped.

Soon my cajun chicken caesar salad arrives.

Kiss The Cook Restaurant Glendale AZ

Kiss The Cook Restaurant Glendale AZ

The Greens were fresh and crisp and the garlic parmesan bread stick that was suppose to come with my salad looked a lot more like forking toast than a bread stick. I tasted the chicken and it taste very salty and over marinated like processed chicken you might taste at a Costco demo demonstration. The forking chicken might have been teriyaki flavored and topped with too much forking salt. The taste of the chicken with the salad upset my forking stomach. I think the toasted cheesy toast was suppose to be a forking grilled cheese sandwich that the cook screwed up and just tossed on my plate. It was crispy grilled cheese and actually tasted pretty forking good. It was the one thing we tried at this place that was good. They should put crispy grilled cheese on the menu. I had to share the crispy cheese bread with my husband because he encountered some forking issues with his meal.

My husband went with the breakfast special.

Kiss The Cook Glendale AZ

Kiss The Cook Glendale AZ

His plate came out missing the tomatoes and green onions the waiter promised so I don’t know if the waiter screwed up or the cook just didn’t forking feel like adding them. The poached eggs were fine but they were on top of pork that lacked flavor and seasoning. Under the pork were soggy muffins that might have been tastier if they were forking toasted enough.

Kiss The Cook Glendale AZ

Kiss The Cook Glendale AZ

Lastly the cook forgot to fry the potatoes. It seemed like someone took a baked potato, cut it in chunks and just threw it in the oven. This action made the potatoes very dry like forking chalk. (potatoes are much drier than they appear in the forking photo)

Kiss The Cook Glendale AZ

Kiss The Cook Glendale AZ

This was a forking mediocre meal.

Not Worth a FORK!

Not Worth a FORK!

Sometimes you just forking want to “Kick” the Cook!

 The Forking Truth

The Forking Truth

 

Hot Dogs, Frankfurters and Wieners Oh My They are Something you might Relish

 

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July is officially Hot Dog Month and the adopted German Sausage is as American as Apple Pie and Baseball these days. In doing research of who invented the hot dog my conclusion is that the forking truth is that nobody forking knows who invented the hot dog. Most likely it was someone of German Decent. Only according to FoodNetwork Magazine and no where else that I can find they claim the inventor of the hot dog was a German Immigrant named Charles Dachshund.

According to multiple sources including Wikipedia, at one time some people called hot dogs dachshund sausages and some but not all sites some say that “dog” might have been ground  in…”WOOF”……Dam Dog Gone it!…EEK…(a forking eeeeeek and YUK from me)

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Sometime latter dachshund sausages became hot dogs because a vender selling them couldn’t spell dachshund for their sign. (Forking cool I can’t spell doxie either) The little sausages were hot from the spices as they originally were spicy and also hot in temperature from the boiling hot water they were heated up in and were soon called hot dogs. (or you can forking spell it hotdog both spellings are correct)

Hot Dogs, Frankfurters or Wieners are seasoned pre-cooked sausages. Frankfurters tend to be more seasoned and are usually beef. Wieners tend to taste more bland than hot dogs or frankfurters and are usually made with pork.

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Not all but many hot dogs are stuffed into a natural casing made from sheep’s small intestine and those are the hot dogs with snap. Not all but many hot dogs are made skinless these days.

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Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog’s aren’t the original hot dog but were credited to being invented in 1916 by a Polish Immigrant Nathan Handwerker.  Some sources say Handwerker’s Wife Ida actually invented the recipe..?   On the Nathan’s Website they claim a bunch of drop naming celebrities and famous people like Al Capone, Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante and Cary Grant were regular customers. Some of them were singing waiters from where Natan Handwerker worked before he started his restaurant, at a German Hot Dog Place before he started his business……  Some say he copied their style but sold the hot dogs at half the price with many lookalike doctors and nurses eating the hot dogs to make them seem like a wholesome food. They also say President Franklin Delano Roosevelt served Nathan’s Famous hot dogs to King and the Queen of England in 1939 and much more yada yada yada……go forking read it…..if you care too…..who the fork knows..if it’s all really true…..It’s ancient history at this point.

The Forking Truth is that’s Nathan’s holds an annual 4th of July Hot Dog eating contest. The first winner was Jason Schechter who ate 14 hot dogs in three and a half minutes in 1972. His prize was a certificate for 40 hot dogs. Things have changed a bunch since then.

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The 2015 hot dog eating champion was Matt Stonie who ate 62 hot dogs in 10 minutes and won $10,000.00 Dethroning the official record breaking champion Joey Chestnut who officially ate 69 hot dogs in 2013 in 10 minutes but only did 60 in 2015 and it was not enough to beat Matt Stonie since he forking ate 62 dogs.

Not sure what the trend will be for the future of hot dogs. According to the 2015 Hot Dog and Sausage Council in Washington DC they indicate the kosher hot dog sales are growing at TWICE the rate  as any other dog in other categories. The kosher dogs are more expensive and are made with higher quality cuts of meat with all ingredients listed processed in a kosher way.

Sadly Sara Lee that purchased the “BEST” brand kosher hot dogs somewhere around 2009 discontinued the very delicious scrumptious “Best” (brand) Kosher Hot Dogs that were possibly the best commercial hot dogs in all the land.

The “Best” Brand hot dogs always made a profit for Sara Lee but it wasn’t high enough  to suite them at that time. I can tell you those where my favorite by very far and personally  it’s hard for me to eat a hot dog now. When you ate one of them “Best Dogs”  hotdogs from the Costco Grill and or market and also from your home grill it was the beefiest juiciest and tastiest hot dog you ever had. I know it was the best commercial hot dog I ever had.

I won’t tell tell you what toppings I liked….Just add your own.

Hot Dogs Frankfurters and Wieners Oh My……. they are something you might relish!

 The Forking Truth

The Forking Truth

 

 

Forking Dinner Idea………Twin Pizza Calzone

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On TV I saw Andrew Zimmern in Italy on the travel channel and they visited this little popular pizza place that makes these trendy pizzas that are 1/2 and 1/2  pizzas with the forking end rolled up into a calzone. The pizzas had very different dough than traditional American Pizza’s and had very thin cracker-like crust. I liked the novel idea of this forking kind of pizza.

This is the first time I didn’t make my own forking dough. But this dough I used was gluten free and was on sale for $1.00 so I said to my WTFork! It will be great for a cracker like dough and a little forking  healthier too!

So I rolled it out very thin on a paddle with a little corn meal on both sides.

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I decided I’d stuff the calzone side with spaghetti squash mixed with some home made sauce and some cheese

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Then it got calzone shaped.

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Then I slid the dough off onto a preheated oven stone at the suggested temperature for the dough (400 degrees) till the dough looked crispy and done. (about 15 minutes)

I smeared a tangy cow’s milk cheese called stracchino on one half.

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Then topped that with arugula, a small amount of crushed almonds, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, black pepper and shredded parmesan cheese.

The remaining half was based with roasted red pepper pesto and shaved fioro sardo hard cheese made from whole sheep’s milk cheese.

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It was something fun and different.

Calzone Twin Pizza

Twin Pizza Calzone

It's Forking Good and that's The Forking Truth!

It’s Forking Good and that’s The Forking Truth!

Korean Style Fried Chicken from Bink’s Midtown was The BEST I ever Tried! UPDATE******CLOSED FOR BUSINESS

Bink's Midtown Phoenix AZ Korean Style Fried Chicken

Bink’s Midtown Phoenix AZ Korean Style Fried Chicken

UPDATE>>>JUST A MEMORY******CLOSED FOR BUSINESS

To me fried chicken can be tasty. It’s usually moist and usually had a tasty crusty coating. Sometimes it might be greasy and sometimes the skin is mushy and gross. It might be tasty at best and usually isn’t my favorite food.

I recently tried Korean Style Fried Chicken from Bink’s Midtown in Phoenix AZ and it was truly FORKING AMAZING and completely unlike any fried chicken I had before.

The skin was crispy thin and crackly. It was not greasy one bit and was spicy, sweet, vinegary with other flavors that seemed very balanced. The interior was also very flavorful, juicy and delicious.

This was the FORKING Best Fried Chicken I ever had.

The Forking Truth

The Forking Truth

 

 

Stop #4 The Search for Lox in Metro Phoenix AZ …Mission Complete

The Smoked Fish Supreme Platter from Scott's Generations Restaurant Phoenix AZ

The Smoked Fish Supreme Platter from Scott’s Generations Restaurant Phoenix AZ

I had to forking eat my way threw three other delis (* see the other searches Stop #1, #2 & #3 The Search for Lox if you forking care too) until I just discovered Scott’s Generations in Phoenix AZ. My forking goal was to find a deli that had very good lox and tasty pastrami that’s seasoned in a similar way to what I used to eat back east.

As I walked into Scott’s I noticed the decor is a little dated and so were most of the help but they had a current grade “A” health inspection so that was forking OK with me.

The menu is very large and they offered far more fish items than I’ve ever seen on any deli menu before. I also noticed that they offer both the belly lox and the nova.

I went with the smoked fish supreme platter with a choice of three of the many fish they offer. I did ask for belly lox but they were out of it so I went with the nova.

I received fresh hand carved Nova Scotia Lox of very good quality. (Bingo) The white fish was outstanding and the sturgeon was good. I think anyone would like the meaty sturgeon even if you don’t usually eat fish. I don’t know how the sturgeon compares to other places because I haven’t eaten much sturgeon since it can run $70.00 a forken pound. The pickles were fresh crisp and garlicy. The potato salad and cole were nicely flavored and fresh but a little drippy. The everything bagel was unusual but good. It was more like a very oniony bagel with a little everything topping. My platter was very large and I took enough home for another meal.

My husband had The #5 “Harvey” Triple Decker.

#5 "Harvey" Triple Decker from Scott's Generations Phoenix AZ

#5 “Harvey” Triple Decker from Scott’s Generations Phoenix AZ

All three meats Turkey, Corned Beef & Pastrami seemed freshly prepared. The turkey tasted like fresh carved turkey, The corned beef was good. The Pastrami was very good and tasted like regular pastrami you’d get back east. It’s not the hand sliced kind but this pastrami from Scott’s is very good and the most authentic tasting I had in a long time. The sandwich platter came with a forking mountain of what seemed like fresh cut red potato fries, crispy zesty pickles and fresh cole slaw.

I recently seen the new movie called “Deli Man” and after that had a very strong desire for deli food.

Deli Food is made by people who are preserving history. “The cuisine of the Delicatessen comes from a world that no longer exists” (from the movie “Deli Man”)…

Scott’s is the best East Coast Style Deli in the Metro Phoenix Area to me at this forking moment.

 Worth a Fork!

Worth a Fork!

Forking Truth

Forking Truth

 

 

Thomas Keller’s Chocolate Bouchons Recipe

Thomas Keller's Chocolate Bouchon made by me

Thomas Keller’s Chocolate Bouchon made by me

I wanted to make something new and something forking chocolate for someone’s birthday.

So I googled Thomas Keller Chocolate and found this forking easy recipe called Chocolate Bounchons so I thought it was worth doing.  They are come out very chocolatey, rich and moist with chocolate chips that melt into the batter. I thought this recipe would be good since it’s satisfying without forking frosting that can be too sweet for some people who really don’t like sweets. I measured everything exact to the recipe but didn’t use the high quality 55% Chocolate Chips and could only find 45%. Timbale molds are suggested but I think a cupcake pan or molds would be fine.

This recipe is courtesy of Bouchon Bakery

Servings 12 set oven to 350 degrees and Butter and Flour your Molds

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Ingredients

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

12 oz. (3 sticks) melted slightly warm butter

6oz. 55% semisweet broken down into chip size

10x sugar for dusting the Bouchons

Directions

Sift flour, cocoa, and salt in a bowl and set a side.

In a large bowl mix eggs and sugar until pale in color.

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Then mix in vanilla, add about 1/3 of dry ingredients and then about 1/3 of butter and back and forth till mixed. Add chips and combine.

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Get mixture into molds and bake for 20-25 minutes.

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Let cool and dust with confectioners sugar. A suggestion is to serve with ice cream.

Thomas Keller's Chocolate Bouchon made by me

Thomas Keller’s Chocolate Bouchon made by me

OMG! these are FORKING AWESOME! This recipe doesn’t need a tweak anywhere. It so rich, moist and deep with chocolate flavor. It’s FORKING better than nearly every dessert I’ve eaten out.

Forking Good

Forking Good