Forking Easy Microwave Zucchini Chips

I already posted recipes for easy microwave potato chips and carrot chips so I wondered if I could make zucchini chips the same way and yes it works. They come out light as air and are tasty. They are very light and delicate. Not sturdy like the carrot and potato chips. Zucchini chips would be a great substitute to croutons on a salad.

For all of these microwave vegetable chip recipes I use a Corning Ware Bowl to cook them on.

Ingredients for two large servings

1 washed zucchini sliced thin on a mandolin

fresh cracked sea salt

non-stick cooking spray

Directions

Spread out your zucchini slices on a couple paper towels and blot dry.

Lightly spray your bowl with non-stick spray and blot it a little so it’s not too wet.

Now arrange your zucchini.

Depending on size of your zucchini and microwaves do very they might need three to four minutes to look like this.

Now remove the delicate zucchini slices onto a paper towel or plate and your bowl will be wet so you need to wipe the moister out. Now put your zucchini back in but on the other side and in 2 or 3 more minutes in the microwave you will have chips. I lightly salt them when they are done.

Forking Easy Microwave Zucchini Chips

Tasty and light as air. Easy to woof down.

The Forking Truth

Baba Ghanoush

This is a very healthy light eggplant dip that’s forking delicious. This will be among one of the best Baba Ghanoush Dips you ever tried.

Ingredients for about 4 servings

1 eggplant -(mine was on the large side)  peeled, roasted, broiled, , chilled and drained

3- Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 lemon (just the fresh squeezed juice)

1 teaspoon (heaping) tehini

1 teaspoon garlic confit (garlic cloves drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and roasted about an hour at 350 degrees F till soft and whip so it turns like a butter)

1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke

1/4 teaspoon cumin

1/2 cup water

fresh ground sea salt to taste

Aleppo Pepper to taste

optional teaspoon of sugar

This is an easy way to make great Baba Ghanoush the healthy and tasty eggplant dip. Just roast up a peeled and cubed eggplant covered with foil sprinkled with lemon juice and oil at 350 degrees until done. Then low broil the eggplant till charred. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate till cool or over night and drain liquids. The liquid is bitter and make sure you remove it. At this point you should recook the eggplant again but this time just put it in a microwave safe bowl covered with plastic wrap and microwave it about three minutes. Remove liquids again. Add remaining ingredients and blend to your liking and enjoy. You just might have the most delicious Baba Ghanoush you ever tried.

*****For SPECIAL Occasion Baba Ghanoush****

Heat up a charcoal BBQ and purchase WHITE EGGPLANTS that you peel and brush with olive oil.  Cut them in slices, BBQ, and make char marks. You won’t need the liquid smoke or the sugar. This will be delicious the absolute best ever. The white eggplant is the best tasting sweetest eggplant. You won’t need to do all the draining and recooking either if you use a white eggplant on a charcoal BBQ.

This is REALLY GREAT and that’s The Forking Truth

Grapefruit Salsa

This salsa is light, bright, fresh and crunchy. It’s sort of spicy and fruity. It’s something you might like to try when it’s hot outside because the citrus and mint will cool you down.

Ingredients for about 6 servings

4 medium grapefruit supreme

1 red bell pepper cored, seeded and chopped

1/4 sweet onion chopped

1 jalapeno chopped (small)

2 garlic cloves minced or finely shredded

1/4 cup scallions chopped

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup (loose) fresh mint chopped or torn

1 teaspoon salt (kosher or sea salt)

Easy directions just combine and mix. Chill and enjoy with fish or chicken or in a taco or quesadilla.

To supreme citrus.

Cut top and bottom off and then keep removing sides  down ward along the shape of the fruit.

When done.

Just cut the segments out.

The supreme segments are far sweeter and more delicious this way.

I only use red grapefruits because the others are too bitter for me.

A non-traditional healthy salsa you might go for once in a while.

Grapefruit Salsa

This is Good and that’s ….The Forking Truth!

Reduced Fat Pimiento Spread

Pimiento Cheese Spread is a common food that’s served in the Southern United States. The main ingredients in Pimiento Cheese are Pimiento Peppers that are also called Cherry Peppers. Some of the other common ingredients are sharp cheddar cheese and mayonnaise.

The pimiento peppers are also known as cherry peppers are the bigger heart shaped peppers that are more sweet and more aromatic than red bell peppers.  The cherry peppers I used are smaller jarred peppers that are sweet and spicy.

I didn’t want to make a traditional pimiento cheese spread that is extremely high in fat so I did a few things different but came out with a tasty spread that seems full fat.

Jarred hot/sweet cherry peppers were used. They are very flavorful, a little sweet and a little heat. They are  fruity delicious peppers. They give the spread zig and a little heat.

Instead of real cheddar cheese I went with fat free cheddar and saved a bunch of fat here. I do note you are welcome to substitute half or all full fat cheese if the fat content doesn’t bother you and your spread will taste better than mine. I also used Neufchatel Cheese that is 30% less fat than cream cheese. Only the most minimal amount of low fat mayonnaise was used.  Don’t worry I added enough spices and seasoning so you will not be missing a thing as the recipe is written.

You are welcome to convert some or all the fat free and reduced fat ingredients or use full fat  mayonnaise. The taste and mouth feel will be improved and I warn you that your butt and tummy might expand a bit as well.

My recipe is not an authentic Southern American Pimiento Spread. This recipe is a very reduced fat spread that has a similar taste to pimento cheese.

Ingredients makes about 16 servings

8oz fat free cheddar – shredded (I used a block I could shred) (This cheese can be purchased at Whole Foods and Sprouts)

12 hot/sweet jarred cherry peppers chopped + 2 Tablespoons of the brine from the cherry peppers (Sprouts and Trader Joes sells these peppers) (if your on the East Coast you won’t have any trouble finding these peppers)

1 garlic clove grated

8oz neufchâtel cheese (look for this cheese in the cream cheese section. I used the Philadelphia Brand)

2 Tablespoons dijon mustard

4 Tablespoons low fat mayonnaise

2 Tablespoons sugar

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 Tablespoons scallions chopped

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire Sauce

fresh ground sea salt to taste

fresh ground black pepper to taste

Directions

Just blend with your stick blender and your done. I note styles of pimento cheese differ and differ in texture. (you might like yours very chunky so you can mix in your shredded sharp cheddar cheese at the end)

People use this similar kind of cheese on burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches and with fried green tomatoes. I like this spread on vegetable crisps but I also admit this spread might be better rolled up on a tortilla and topped with a chunk of Chef Thomas Keller’s Favorite Blue Ribbon Pickles (recipe on site).

Forking Good and it won’t cause rapid butt and stomach growth!

This is forking tasty and that’s The Forking Truth

Tumbleweed Potato Chips

I had my fryer all fired up with canola oil so I thought I’d use my Paderno Spiralizer and Spiralize two russet potatoes. They fried up tasting like potato chips and looking like tumbleweeds so I’m calling these Tumbleweed Potato Chips. I had the oil set on 400 degrees F.  I had to drop the potatoes in about a quarter of the potato at a time because the oil bubbles up from the moisture in the potato and I have a very small fryer. Sprinkled the hot potatoes with fresh ground sea salt and black pepper. They are crispy and different. These Tumbleweed Potato Chips came out really delicious. They would also be awesome on top of a casserole or topped with a yummy cheese sauce, a creamy dip or just plain.

Ingredients for 4 large servings

2 large russet potatoes – spiralized

canola oil to fill your fryer

fresh ground sea salt to taste

fresh cracked black pepper to taste

Directions

I set my fryer at 400 degrees F. Carefully placed potatoes using tongs about 1/4 of one potato every partial minute till oil bubbles seized in two batches. When you pull out the tumbleweed you place it on a pan covered with paper towels and season the tumbleweed right away.

Something fun you might want to make once in a while.

It’s a Forking Potato of course it’s Yummy. The Forking Truth

Hummus with Spicy RED Skhug Sauce

One of my all-time most popular recipes on this site is my Spicy Green Skhug Sauce. Two whole forking years after I published it that recipe is still the most viewed. Basically Skhug sauce is a Yemenite Middle Eastern Hot Sauce made of hot peppers, garlic and spices. Skhug is used to zip things up. Skhug is also considered to add health benefits to food.

In case you don’t know skhug is also a “flavor bomb” It’s scorching hot, complex and flavorful. Since it;s a bomb a little goes a long way.

Skhug is made in three varieties, red -made with red peppers, green – with lots of cilantro, green peppers and parsley and brown with tomatoes, peppers and herbs.

Hummus with Spicy RED Skhug Sauce

In the past year or so I’m liking different fresh hot peppers that I can purchase here in Arizona.

At the moment the most flavorful pepper I’ve found is the banana pepper because they are not just very hot but have a lot of delicious flavor. I would convert most of my earlier recipes using hot peppers to include the banana pepper since the ones I buy here are hot and flavorful.

Banana Peppers

The banana pepper comes in a rainbow of colors and the ones sold in Arizona are extremely hot and flavorful unlike the banana peppers grown back the east cost where they are milder.

I made this recipe with red jalapeño peppers that were milder and fruity and that one red banana pepper. I also added roasted red bells peppers and the sweet liquid they gave off from roasting.

Skhug must have a good amount of garlic so I used my garlic confit that added refinement, a special sugary sweetness and a more delicious and more soft roasted garlic flavor. This hot sauce came out forking delicious.

I wasn’t in the mood for cilantro so I added a little fresh mint instead. I note that you are free to add cilantro for a more traditional taste.

Skhug is a very hot but delicious sauce. You might want to use it to flavor dressings, dips, sandwich spreads or hummus.

Traditional Skhug is  minced or relish like in texture. I choose to blend it because I didn’t want to get too much hot pepper in a bite.

Ingredients makes about 12 Servings

6 red jalapeno peppers – core and stem removed – pepper chopped

1 red banana pepper – core and stem removed – pepper chopped

2 roasted red bell peppers – core and steam removed chopped and include sweet liquid released from roasting

3-4 Tablespoons garlic confit – roast garlic cloves covered at 350 degrees F with sprinkle of extra virgin olive oil till soft 1-1 1/2 hour and whip till like butter

1/4 teaspoon cumin

1/4 teaspoon coriander

1/4 teaspoon cardamon

pinch cloves

1/4 teaspoon caraway

1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

1 lemon – just the fresh squeezed juice

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 Tablespoon fresh mint –  chopped

1 Tablespoon fresh parsley –  chopped

Directions

Blend and your ready to serve.

Enjoy

Hummus with Spicy RED Skhug Sauce

This is Great and that’s The Forking Truth

Biscotti

Biscotti is a sliced double baked cookie.

Biscotti is a loose term because true biscotti are free of butter and oil. Leaving out the butter or oil makes them very hard and crunchy and not the best for eating but wonderful for dunking in certain libations or coffee. Old world true biscotti are made with almonds and pine nuts and are free of butter or oil.

I liked one of Chef Giada De Laurentis’s recipes for biscotti and it a very good recipe but I tweaked it slightly. The biggest change might be using bread flour instead of regular all-purpose flour. I like the crispier texture that you get with the bread flour and I also double cooked the cookie longer. I also chose to change the flavor by not using chocolate chips and using anise seed as the flavor. These cookies aren’t too sweet and have half the butter in the recipe as a typical cookie. The texture is crisp but not too dry and wonderful for eating.

This recipe makes about 33 cookies they last for weeks in a sealed bag or container and they also freeze well too.

Ingredients to make about 33 cookies about 33 servings

2 cups bread flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

3/4 cup sugar

1 4oz. stick unsalted butter (at room temperature)

2 XL eggs beaten

1 teaspoon anise seeds

Directions

Set oven to 350 degrees F.

You will need a baking sheet and silicon mat. (I hand mix everything with a fork)

In a medium bowl mix the butter and sugar well. Add beaten eggs and mix well again.

Add all remaining ingredients and mix well.

Set in the refrigerator at least half an hour up to the next day.

Mold the dough into two logs on your silicon covered baking sheet.

Bake 25 minutes at 350 F

After 25 minutes they should look like this.

Pull them out of the oven and let them cool. (about a half hour)

Now get a bread knife and make 1/2 inch slices. (I think it’s easier if you are very gentle and lightly glide the knife threw in a sawing motion)

Lay the cookies going the same way in three rows on your baking sheet and turn your oven down to 300 degrees F.

Put the cookies in for 15 minutes.

Turn down the oven to 275 degrees F.

Take the cookies out and let them cool a little till you can handle them and turn them over to crisp the other side. Put the cookies in for another 15 minutes. Pull them out and enjoy!

Biscotti

These are forking great! I think every one will love them.

The Forking Truth

Stacked Ratatouille Inspired

Ratatouille is a French Stewed Vegetable dish that’s usually made of tomatoes, onions, zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers, garlic and herbs.  Each Vegetable is sautéed before layering in the dish. I thought I’d cook most of my vegetables separately because that is the idea about ratatouille. You want to bring out the best of each vegetable. To me squash taste the best broiled and charred. Condensing the tomatoes instead of making them into a sauce because removing the skin. Condensing the tomatoes really elevates them.  I also used tasty slightly spicy Anaheim chilies instead of bell peppers because I had a bunch of them and they also have more flavor than bell peppers with mild heat to cut threw the other vegetables. This recipe is very easy but also very time consuming.

Ingredients I used

Yellow Squash Broiled with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and fresh ground salt and pepper

Roasted Anaheim Chilies with most skin and cores removed. (I usually broil them ..just tried something different)

Eggplant, first salted and squeezed to release water and then lightly drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and then broiled on both sides.

Tomatoes that were peeled, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and then condensed. (250 degrees about 6 hours)

Peeled and Concentrated Tomato

Zucchini  drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and broiled on both sides. Fresh ground salt and pepper.

Slowly cooked thinly sliced sweet onions- roasted in a 350 degree F oven for over an hour loosely covered and drizzled with extra virgin olive oil when ready sprinkled with fresh ground salt and pepper.

Fresh thyme was sprinkled over the zucchini and yellow squash.

Fresh marjoram was sprinkled over the tomatoes.

For all the vegetables I had I grated two garlic cloves over all the pans and now assembled stacks of vegetables.

Depending of the size and shape of your vegetables you might want to stack them different. I went on bottom yellow squash in an x then chili, eggplant, tomato, zucchini and then sprinkled a little more fresh marjoram on the top.

I froze my leftovers and if they are too soggy then I can turn them into a more traditional Ratatouille Stew. The fresh marjoram and fresh thyme really are delicious with these vegetables.   It would be a crime to use dried herbs here. This combination of vegetables and fresh herbs are really forking delicious!

  This is delicious and that’s The Forking Truth

Classic Boule

I got this recipe from the Tasting Table. This recipe is adapted from Adam Leonti of the Brooklyn Bread Lab. You only need an oven, a baking stone, water, active dry yeast, salt and bread flour. This bread is very easy to make but you have to start it maybe 4-5 hours before you go to bed and then leave it covered in the refrigerator for 12 hours. It makes a very tasty flavorful bread.

The Forking Truth is that I had some trouble with the recipe. I don’t know if some of the directions were omitted or if there was some sort of typo. It is a possibility that I had an oven problem ?(because my oven is a GE Monogram ((The Corvair of Appliances to me in search box search Monogram for my Story if Interested) and it’s always possible that it  was just an Arizona Climate related problem because good bread is seldom found in Arizona. Is it the water? The Climate? The elevation? Or did I run into trouble for using off the shelf bread flour instead of the recommended  Hayden Mills Flour?…….I don’t forking know!

Well anyways after one failed batch of bread that was raw in the middle I made another batch and simply made two loaves instead of the one loaf that the Tasting Table says this recipe makes.

First batch after 30 minutes (the recipe says it’s done in 25 minutes)

FIRST FORKING BATCH after 30 minutes in oven

I figured that if I made two loaves the recipe would work out and it did.

Ingredients for two loaves.

6 1/2 cups bread flour – Hayden  Mills is recommended but the Brooklyn Bread Lab grinds their own flour.

2 1/2 Tablespoons salt

3 1/2 cups water

1 Tablespoon active dry yeast

Directions

In a large bowl add your dry ingredients and slowly add the water mixing. Mix for about 4-5 minutes until the dough is like elastic.

Transfer to a floured surface and let it sit at room temperature covered for four hours.

Punch down and shape dough into a ball. Dusting as needed and place dough in a heavily floured bowl then cover a refrigerate twelve hours. The next day I punched it down after it warmed up and let it rise again and shaped the dough into two round loaves.

Preheat oven with a stone on middle shelf at 500 degrees F. Make slits in the bread about 1/8 inch deep.

I went a little deeper than the 1/8 an inch

Bake until golden on a pre-heated stone. this is after 20 minutes from my oven. (500 degrees F on a stone)

My second try at the Boule came out Forking Good!

The Forking Truth

Peeled and Concentrated Tomato

Peeling a tomato is very easy and anyone can do this quickly. Concentrating a tomato is also easy but it takes all day.

Anyone can make peeled tomatoes- Put a sauce pot on and bring it up to boil.

Drop your tomato or tomatoes in the boiling water. No matter what size the tomatoes are they will need very little time in the boiling water. About 1/2 a minute or a little less is all any tomato will take. Be careful not to cook them too long or the tomatoes can get mushy. Remove the tomato(s) with a slotted spoon and put them in an ice-bath.

Cut a not too deep “X” on the bottom of your tomato and also remove the core.

After the ice bath the skin comes off very easily.

Now you might have a bunch of peeled tomatoes.

Many dishes would be elevated if you concentrate the tomatoes.

To concentrate tomatoes –

Cut the tomatoes into thirds, place the tomato slices on sheet trays and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. (unless you want to stop and de-seed first)

Put in a 250 degree oven F . The time will vary with the size and moisture of your tomatoes. They usually take 5-7 hours.

The above 4 quarter pans of tomatoes cooked down to 2 quarter pans when I was finished.

These are great for many of your recipes and fish.

The Forking Truth