I had these campari tomatoes that I had to do something with so I thought I’d stuff them. I didn’t feel like the usual bread or rice stuffing so I stuffed them with Israeli Couscous. I like the texture of Israeli Couscous…..It almost pops in your mouth. It’s like pasta caviar. I also happened to have two extra roasted red peppers hanging around and had creamy mild (not tangy) Feta Cheese in my refrigerator so the recipe pretty much happened by it’s self. I do note that due to the size of your tomatoes you might have slightly extra or not enough filling. I had 16 tomatoes that weighed two pounds. I think for this recipe you will want to use small tomatoes that are campari sized. I also (before I hollowed them out.) made slightly more harissa vinaigrette than I needed…maybe a 1/3 of a cup extra.  But this harissa vinaigrette is pretty darn amazing. You will want to use it on eggs or slather it on bread maybe with some creamy mild feta cheese, or just use it over grilled meat that you might want to serve with these tomatoes. This dish can be served at room temperature or slightly warmed up.

Ingredients for about 4 servings

2 lbs campari tomatoes about (16 tomatoes) ((The campari tomato is a small sweet tomato but bigger than a cherry tomato) – slice the top off and hollow them out really well with a teaspoon

2 red bell peppers – roasted with stems, seeds, skin removed and rough chopped and include any roasted pepper juices

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

3 garlic cloves – grated

1 hot pepper – chopped fine ( I used a fried reddish serano pepper – chopped) ((I suggest to use any hot pepper you like and to use it to taste because they all run hotter sometimes than other times…you might want more or much less pepper))

1 lemon – just the fresh squeezed juice

2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 Tablespoons tomato paste

fresh ground sea salt to taste

fresh ground black pepper to taste

1/2 cup Israeli Couscous (I like the Tri Color one)

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

3/4 cup  vegetable stock

3 oz feta cheese – preferably the mild creamy kind without a strong tang or substitute a creamy goat cheese – crumbled

2 Tablespoons fresh parsley – chopped

Directions

Add one tablespoon olive oil to a small pot on medium high heat. Add the couscous and fry it a couple minutes or till slightly toasted. Add the vegetable broth and lightly cover and reduce to simmer. Cook till couscous is tender. (about ten minutes) Fluff couscous and set to the side.

In a small blender or with a blending wand blend up the roasted red peppers, cumin, caraway, 2 Tablespoon olive oil, garlic cloves, hot pepper, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, tomato paste. Blend till smooth. Add fresh ground sea salt and black pepper to taste.

Add at least half of the harissa vinaigrette to the couscous and mix well. Now add in the feta and parsley.

Scoop out the tomatoes really well if you didn’t already. (you want them to be like shells)

By now the couscous absorbed the harissa and you need to add more or it will be dry.

Stuff the tomatoes and serve at either room temperature or warmed up.

Tasty and different! Not the same old stuff! You will be pleasantly surprised! When I served these at dinner my husband made a face…..”what’s that?” I told him and then after he ate them he said, “you know that was really very good!”

 

 

 

 

 

This salad is made with lots of unusual ingredients. I used LEMON CUCUMBERS, Lemon Verbena, Preserved Lemon and Lemony Sumac. The lemon cucumbers do taste different than regular cucumbers.They are very crisp and sweet. I’ve never come across lemon cucumbers in the store and I only find them at Farmers Markets. The Lemon Cucumbers I’m using today I purchased at the Pinnacle Peak Farmers Market but I remember last year I purchased them from the Anthem Farmers Market. I also just came across Lemon Cucumbers at the Scottsdale Farmers Market. These Lemon Cucumbers go extremely well with honey crisp apples. Lemon Verbena, Preserved Lemon, Sumac, Urfa Pepper, Walnuts and Feta sort of gives this salad a Mediterranean Accent.

The salad is easy to prepare. I also used walnuts in this recipe. I heated the walnuts for a short time in the microwave with water to remove some bitterness from the walnuts. Then  put a little oil, sugar and salt and pepper on them and just ten minutes in the oven so they were nice and lightly seasoned.

Ingredients for about 8 servings

8 lemon cucumbers – skin removed, sliced up and cut in halves

1 cup assorted bell pepper slices

1 large honey crisp apple cut in slices

1 celery rib – cut in thin slices on an angle

1/4 cup sweet onion sliced very thin

12 dates (preferably local Arizona Grown) – pits removed and chopped

1 preserved lemon – fruit and white on skin scraped out well and rind chopped

3 sprigs lemon verbena (about 100 leaves) – chopped

1 cup apple cider vinegar

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon course sea salt

1/2 teaspoon sumac

1/2 teaspoon urfa red pepper

1 cup walnuts – slightly broken

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 Tablespoon sugar

fresh ground sea salt to taste

fresh ground black pepper to taste

4 oz sheep’s milk feta cheese crumbled (preferably the mild and creamy kind without tang) to top salad with

Directions

Turn oven on to 350 degrees F.

Put the walnuts in a microwavable bowl and add one cup of water. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and microwave for 3 minutes. You will see a lot of brown water that is very bitter. You’ve just removed much of the bitterness from the walnuts. Drain the walnuts well and put in a small mixing bowl and add I tablespoon olive oil, I Tablespoon sugar and fresh ground sea salt and black pepper to taste. Spread walnuts on a baking sheet and place in a 350 degree F oven for 10 minutes. Then set to the side. Top salad with walnuts and feta cheese when it’s ready to be served.

Get a large bowl and everything left expect the cheese gets mixed together.

When ready to serve top with walnuts and cheese.

I know it’s pretty darn tasty and I also was told that this was really good!

Enjoy!

 

If there is a place in your heart for potatoes then there should be a place in your stomach for Duchess Potatoes. You ask, “What are Duchess Potatoes?’ Duchess potatoes are a level up from a mashed potato. They are a slightly richer due to egg yolks and are presented in a more elaborate way. Fine dining restaurants used to serve Duchess Potatoes on the menu. They were usually served with something like Chateaubriand (savory tenderloin filets with bernaise  sauce) that is usually served table side. It’s very rare these days to see Duchess Potatoes on any menu anywhere. Actually it’s very rare to come across any table side food anymore like Fish en Papillote, Steak Diane, Baked Alaska and so on. Sadly classic fine dining has gone out of style.Gone are the days when dining out was a big deal and people would dress their best to go out. I am lucky that I have experienced classic fine dining before it went out of style. One dish I really loved was Duchess Potatoes.I always looked forward to Duchess Potatoes when I had a fine meal out. These are the potatoes you wouldn’t normally prepare at home because THEY ARE A LOT OF WORK FOR WHAT THEY ARE. You WANT to dine out and have these potatoes. Here is what might be considered a lost recipe. Duchess Potatoes….Perfect for a special occasion! Not your everyday potato. These potatoes freeze very well so you can use what you need and freeze the rest and pull them out when you need.

Ingredients for about 16 servings.

3 lbs potatoes – peeled and cut in half – covered well with cold water in a sauce pot

1/2 onion – to boil with potatoes and discard afterwards

1 carrot – to boil with potatoes and discard afterwards

1 celery rib – to boil with potatoes and discard afterwards

2 garlic cloves – to boil with potatoes and discard afterwards

2 Tablespoons kosher salt – to boil potatoes

8 oz unsalted butter – 4oz to put into potatoes and 4 oz to finish potatoes

1 1/2 teaspoon course sea salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon white ground pepper

1/8 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg

3 large egg yolks (just the yolks) – slightly beaten

16 pinches piment d”espelette

2 Tablespoons fresh either parsley, thyme or celery leaves finely chopped

non stick spray

Directions

Set oven to 400 degrees F and spray baking sheet(s) with non stick spray. Set to the side.

In a sauce pot add the potatoes, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, kosher salt and medium boil till potatoes are fork tender. About 15 minutes.

When the potatoes are fork tender drain the water and throw out the onion, garlic, celery and carrot.

At this point you should rice the potatoes…….

After all these are special occasion potatoes so you SHOULD rice the potatoes for the fluffiest potatoes….but you can mash them only if you have a very good masher that looks like a disk with holes in it. It’s almost as good as a ricer. So either rice or mash if you can but don’t get mad at me if you mash and have lumps later from mashing that screw you up.

Hand mix the butter in now while potatoes are still hot or warm.

Hand mix in the sea salt, black pepper, white pepper, fresh grated nutmeg.

Taste for seasoning ….make any adjustments you want but it’s pretty close to perfect if you measured correctly.

Hand mix in the egg yolks.

Get out a #6 Ateco Star tip and a disposable pastry bag. Snip the end off the bag to insert tip. Fold the bag half way down and add potato mixture.

Twist end to hold in potatoes.

The bag is easy to use now.

If you aren’t used to piping do a practice swirl in the pot with potatoes. You just swirl.

Get out your sprayed baking sheet(s)

Now pipe out swirls well spaced like this.

20 minutes later …….

Melt the extra butter you have left and finish the potatoes with your choice of fresh herb and pinches of Piment D’ Espelette pepper.

Everybody will FORKING LOVE THIS! Man and Beast!

“DANG!” “THOSE ARE FORKING GREAT POTATOES!”

“Make any day a Special Occassion with Duchess Potatoes!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

This recipe is a variation of Rocco DiSpirito’s recipe for 90 second Bread in a Mug from his latest cook book. I saw Chef Rocco make this kind of bread on the Rachel Ray TV Show so I thought I had to give it a try. I can’t do his recipe as written because it was based with Buckwheat Flour and my husband is allergic to buckwheat so I don’t use anything with buckwheat. The other ingredient that I swapped out was light coconut milk because I had light soy milk in my pantry and needed to use it. So I really did Rocco’s Recipe but I used Whole Wheat Graham Flour and Soy milk instead of buckwheat flour and light coconut milk . I also added some seeds to the bread for flavor. This is a Fun Recipe that is easy and quick. You can play around with it like I did. Thank you Rocco for a really fun and really easy recipe.

Ingredients for 4 servings

2/3 cup graham flour (Rocco’s recipe calls for buckwheat flour)

1 teaspoon sesame seeds (no seeds in Rocco’s)

1 teaspoon caraway seeds (no seeds in Rocco’s)

1 teaspoon poppy seeds (no seeds in Rocco’s)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 pinch course sea salt

1/4 cup plain low fat soy milk (Rocco’s recipe calls for light coconut milk here)

2 large eggs

non stick spray

Directions

Spray two coffee mugs with non stick spray.

Put all the ingredients in a small bowl and mix with your fork.

Spoon the mixture into the sprayed coffee mugs.

 

Microwave about 90 seconds.

Pop the breads out.

It’s not bad….just slightly dry.  It taste better than it looks. I think this would be good for little cocktail sandwiches. Chef Rocco DiSpirito made breakfast sandwiches with his Buckwheat and Coconut Milk Breads that looked good!

I don’t know if every flour and every milk out there will work with this recipe or not…You just have to give it a try if you care too.

Thank You! Rocco DiSpirito for sharing your 90 second Microwave Bread in a Mug Recipe.

 

 

This is a light and refreshing slaw with many Mexican Food flavors. Some of the ingredients are harder to find like fresh epazote. You should purchase fresh epazote from your closest Mexican grocery and keep some in your freezer because epazote freezes well. It also is a very strong flavor so you always use very little but it’s that flavor in Mexican Food that’s gives the food a closer to authentic taste. The recipe has lots of different kinds of pepper in the recipe but the slaw isn’t fiery hot it’s just on the spicy side. DO NOT USE GROCERY STORE pickled peppers….because they have an awful taste to them and your slaw won’t come out tasting  good. You can almost always find pickled jalapeños at farmers markets and Mexican grocery stores.

Ingredients for 6 small servings

1/2 head of cabbage – sliced very thin on a mandolin

2 carrots – thinly shredded

1/2 small sweet onion – very thinly sliced

1/4 cup pickled jalapeños (preferably my recipe or house made by someone) chopped small

1 pickled serrano (preferably mine or a house made one) chopped fine

1 garlic clove ground to paste

1/4 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

2 Tablespoons canola oil

2 Tablespoons lime juice  (fresh squeezed)

2 Tablespoons cilantro

1/4 cup scallions (chopped)

1/4 teaspoon fresh epazote

Directions

In a large bowl combine cabbage, onions, carrots, salt and sugar and mix well.

Let sit about 1/2 hour.

Add all the remaining ingredients and mix well.

Chill and serve.

It you enjoy Mexican Style Food you should enjoy this slaw.