Here is DELICIOUS Sazon Spiced Acorn Squash with Cilantro Chimichurri. You can buy Sazon (General Spanish and or Mexican Seasoning Salt) but here we mix our own because we already have the spices. These flavors annatto, garlic, cumin, and coriander are delicious on acorn squash and the cilantro chimichurri just elevates it even more. Acorn squash do differ greatly in size. The one squash I used was large for an acorn squash. For me it makes 4 smaller side servings.
Ingredients for around 4 side servings
1 large acorn squash – washed well, cut in half (stem to tip) seeds and seed membranes removed and then cut into one inch slices
1/2 teaspoon mild chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground annatto
1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 Tablespoons canola oil
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 1/2 oz cilantro leaves and fine stems – chopped
1 Tablespoon dried oregano
5 garlic cloves – ground to paste
1 small-medium onion (around 6 oz) chopped
2 small hot peppers – chopped (I used chili de arbols)
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 Tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon sea salt
optional – 2oz roasted salted pepitas (pumpkin seeds) for finishing
optional pickled red onions for serving
Directions
Set oven to 475 F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper
In a small mixing bowl combine the chili powder, annatto, granulated garlic, cumin, coriander, black pepper, salt, canola oil, and apple cider vinegar. Set squash slices in a single layer on parchment lined baking sheet. Paint the contents of the small bowl on the squash on both sides. Use up the whole mixture. Put the squash pan on an upper middle rack for 15 minutes. Flip the squash pieces over and cook another 15 minutes or until squash looks slightly charred.
While the squash is cooking make the cilantro chimichurri.
Blend together the cilantro, oregano, garlic, onion, hot peppers, oil, vinegar, salt and pepper.
SERVE squash with the chimichurri. Add optional roasted salted pepitas and pickled red onions if desired.
Sazon Spiced Acorn Squash with Cilantro Chimichurri
I got the idea in my head that romesco sauce made with roasted Anaheim peppers would be delicious and it is. Romesco sauce is a Spanish sauce that often is used on fish. It is usually made from roasted red peppers, tomatoes, almonds, sometimes thicken with bread and a few other ingredients. It’s a delicious easy sauce to make. Servings are difficult to judge because I don’t know if you are using only a little or a lot. This makes a good 4 servings.
Ingredients for around 4 servings.
6 small roasted Anaheim peppers – peeled, stems removed, seeds removed, chopped (my 6 small peppers were 200ml in my measuring cup)
3 garlic cloves – fine chopped
1/4 cup roasted salted almonds
1 Tablespoon sherry vinegar
1 lemon – the fresh squeezed juice
3 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
sea salt – to taste
ground black pepper to taste
Directions
Blend.
Anaheim Romesco Sauce Anaheim Romesco Sauce
I used it with smoked paprika roasted cauliflower, pickled onions and crisp apples.
Taco Boys is located in south Phoenix Arizona. They serve tacos al carbon. That translates to meat over fire. It’s actually mesquite charcoal fire.
Here is part of the actual grill inside Taco Boys
They keep bags of the mesquite charcoal under the counter that you order at.
They offer carne asada, pollo (chicken), tripe, cabeza (beef cheek), pastor (pork), barbacoa (beef). You pick well packed street sized tacos in either four or corn tortillas. They also offer vampiros (grilled crispy with cheese), burros, and quesadillas.
This isn’t a fancy place but you come for the food. You can see that they don’t have a cocktail bar here. Beverages offered are sodas, horchata (Mexican rice/milk cinnamon), beers, micheladas (Mexican beer cocktails), and bottled water.
Most of the seating is indoors but a few outside tables are on the side of the building by the parking lot.
A few tables are also to the left side of the front door.
It can get busy in a second here.
You order and try to find a table. They ask you to pay when you are done.
While you are waiting you can make a plate of toppings and sauces for your tacos.
Our order is ready.
Between us we tried all the tacos except for tripe. Everything is good and nothing lacks flavor or is dry so that is a win!
Here are the beef tacos that they offer.
Upper left is barbacoa. It’s flavored nicely and is tender and very succulent. It’s something like a stewed beef cube…
Upper right is the cabeza (beef cheek) This one is very tender with nice developed flavor.
Lower beef taco is the carne asada. It’s tender enough and does have a nice mesquite flavor to it. It is a very good taco.
The flour tortilla tacos are grilled to sort of crispy.
The corn tortilla tacos are best suited for the saucy meats and double shelled like in Mexico.
We were surprised that the Mexican Style beans are spicy and very soupy today. They lack whole beans today. They might have chorizo in them.
Superstition Meadery is a award wining producer of ancient honey wine called mead. The original location is in Prescott Arizona and they have a location in downtown Phoenix Arizona. The Phoenix location also offers chef crafted food parings of sharing boards, small plates and large plates. Parking is easy because they have their own parking lot.
They have the fanciest bike racks that I have ever seen.
When the weather is nice you can bring your furry best friend or friends on the patio.
The patio is much larger than the view I got. It goes down the whole side of the building.
Inside it looks like this.
At the end of the bar are big bottles of mead and maybe some ciders.
I’m not sure if I ever had mead before…..
We decided to share the flight of 12 for $24. (subject to change)
My favorite was the one called lemonade in retrograde. It was bright, refreshing and had a nice lemon zing and wasn’t too sweet. My least favorite was the one called Tahitian Honeymoon made with Tahitian Vanilla bean mead aged in oak…..
There were many sharing boards, small plates and large plates to pick from.
We started out by sharing the piri piri chicken small plate and the warm cannellini bean salad.
The piri piri chicken is spicy chicken breast covered with crushed peanuts and served with some sliced grilled baguette bread.
The warm cannellini bean salad is made up of beans, farro, spinach, Thai basil, and wood roasted onion dressing.
Our main was the gorgonzola & herbed butter skirt steak. Today it came with wood roasted shitshito peppers, radicchio (Italian chicory), mushrooms and arugula.
I thought we were done but the desert of the day sounded too interesting to turn down.
It was blondies with chocolate nibs with Marion berry mead sauce, caramel and whipped cream.
I thought we were done.
But I was wrong again.
They gave us complimentary cookies with the bill.
Everything was delicious and detailed nicely. Service was very attentive and helpful.
This is an outstanding recipe that I found in the internet by chef Ivan Tisdall-Downs for Broccoli Stalk with Confit Egg and Blue Cheese Recipe. This recipe has a lot of steps to it but nothing is too hard to do. I did change only a few things but maybe not enough to take any credit for this recipe. I wanted my broccoli cooked instead of raw so that was one change. I thought the broccoli puree needed chives so I added that. Instead of making blue cheese dressing I just added blue cheese because the creamy extra rich broccoli puree was enough richness for me. I also didn’t have kale so I substituted cabbage and crisped it up in the microwave but I do have to admit that when you use kale like YOU SHOULD that the kale crisp will turn out tastier than my microwaved crisp cabbage. Still even with the slight changes I made this is an exceptional recipe that taste FORKING AMAZING. I do note that this recipe is A LOT OF WORK for only 4 servings…..You make this recipe when you want to make something very special. This recipe is in metric. One thing that isn’t very clear when you read the recipe is how much broccoli to use. I used two very large heads of broccoli for the whole recipe.
Ingredients for 4 servings
4 egg yolks – confit eggs
250ml neutral oil – confit eggs
500g onions – finely sliced – onion jam
75g demerara sugar – onion jam
75ml cider vinegar – onion jam
50ml water – onion jam
1 dash vegetable oil – onion jam
285g broccoli washed and fine chopped – broccoli puree
200ml heavy cream – broccoli puree
100ml whole milk – broccoli puree
77g unsalted butter – broccoli puree
1g baking soda – broccoli puree
1 pinch sea salt – broccoli puree
2 Tablespoons chives – fine chopped – broccoli puree
115g blue cheese crumbled
1 bunch of kale (I used a small head of cabbage that I microwaved the leaves crisp but I do note that crispy kale chips would indeed be better)
1 Tbsp neutral oil – kale chips
1Tbsp sugar – kale chips
1 Tbsp salt – kale chips
180g flour (this batter recipe made maybe twice as much as I needed) tempura radish
1 Tablespoon baking powder – tempura radish
250ml ice water – tempura radish
1 pinch sea salt – tempura radish
12 radishes – tempura radish
neutral oil for frying – tempura radish
2 broccoli stalks only – broccoli stalks
1 teaspoon honey – broccoli stalks
10ml apple cider vinegar – broccoli stalks
1 knob butter – broccoli stalks
sea salt to taste – broccoli stalks
remaining broccoli cut in manageable pieces for eating
Directions
Make the confit eggs. Set sous vide to 63C and carefully add yolks to a small dish and cover the yolks with oil for around an hour. If you don’t have a sous vide you will slightly over cook the eggs in the oven. Confit eggs on the oven should be done at around 150 degrees F for around 30 minutes…Good LucK.
Make the onion jam. Put a sauce pan on medium heat. Add oil and when it’s hot add the onions and cook till soft and golden. Add sugar and cook till sugar turns to caramel and then deglaze with the vinegar. Add water and cook till jam consistency.
Make broccoli puree. Melt butter in the pan and add the milk and cream. Take off heat and add the baking soda. This mixture with the broccoli gets blended till as smooth as possible. Add chives and blend some more. Add seasoning to taste.
Set your oven to 400 degrees F or 200C. Make the kale chips. Spread leaves on baking sheet and drizzle with oil. Set another tray on the top of the kale and cook it for 5 minutes. Then season with the salt and sugar. (I note that I didn’t do this step and just microwaved cabbage leaves in a lightly non stick sprayed microwavable safe bowl for 5 minutes on one side. Blotted leaves dry and turned them over and around another 5 minutes and they were crispy…They do burn easy and I did accidentally burn some)
Peel the broccoli stalks. Slice in half long ways and boil for 8 minutes (I added sea salt and cut in chunks) Then shook in ice water.
Either set up a fryer with oil to 180C or a pot on the stove with neutral oil for frying at around medium heat. Make batter. Flour, pinch salt and ice water till smooth. Batter up those radishes and fry till golden. Drain on cooling rack…Or pan lined with paper towels. Season with salt.
Get a sauce pan with a knob of butter and cook till butter turns brown on medium high heat. Add the broccoli stalks and cook till caramelized. Add the honey cook around 2 minutes and deglaze with vinegar.
While you are doing the broccoli stalks blanch broccoli crown tops in salted water till tender crisp (around 3 minutes and then shock in ice water. Season with salt and pepper.
Put this all together and sprinkle with blue cheese.
Broccoli Three Ways with Confit Egg, Onion Jam, Blue Cheese, Crispy Cabbage and Tempura Radish
When I served this with dinner mine looked more like this.
This REALLY IS a FORKING AWSOME RECIPE!
A SPECIAL THANKS!!!!!!! To Chef Ivan Tisdall-Downs for his FORKING AMAZING Recipe so I could make this.
I came across a recipe for a Maharashtra Indian Style chicken recipe from Milk Street Magazine that I want to try sometime. I read that this type of Indian style is always very deeply flavored. I had plenty of grilled and sous vide meats prepared and only had boring cauliflower around so I figured out on how to convert this recipe for cauliflower. I didn’t make it with the creamy yogurt that this dish should contain…Instead I changed it up a little more and put jack cheese and the sauce on my roasted cauliflower and it was MIGHTY FORKING TASTY and DELICIOUS. This comes out very hot but not too hot if you eat at South Indian Restaurants. My husband said that this taste just like it came from a very good Indian Restaurant. I think this sauce makes around 6 servings. I used it on cauliflower at least 4 times and on grilled chicken twice….maybe I used it more I forget? I wanted to write down how I made it before I forget how the heck I made it.
Ingredients for 6 (or more) servings
1 – 14 oz can Italian diced tomatoes
1 large onion fine chopped
1 Tablespoon canola oil
8 cloves garlic – fine chopped
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (fresh is better but I didn’t have any)
1 1/2 Tablespoons paprika
1 1/2 Tablespoons cayenne pepper (We thought that this was delicious but you might want to use less)
1 teaspoon sea salt
3 Tablespoons cumin seeds (you need a spice grinder to grind them but these don’t go in to the end)
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves (some tender stems ok)
Directions
In a sauce pot and medium high heat add the oil. When hot add the onions and cook until clear. Now add the tomatoes. Stir occasionally. Now add garlic, ginger, paprika, cayenne, and salt. Bring to simmer. Cook until you are satisfied with the way the tomatoes taste.Before you are finished add the ground cumin seeds. Finish your dish with fresh cilantro leaves.
Sorry I didn’t get a better picture for you.
Spicy HOT Delicious Indian Style Red Sauce
This is pretty simple but very delicious. Would be a great for Indian pizza too!
A special THANKS to Milk Street Magazine for this inspiration.
Hollandaise sauce is delicious but it is basically mostly melted butter and egg yolks made into an emulsified sauce. Often this sauce is served with asparagus, fish, eggs, and steaks. I got the idea to do Miso Hollandaise Sauce for my bok choy today but I don’t want to use mostly just melted butter and just egg yolks because that is too unhealthy to enjoy at home. For my research on something slightly lighter I read a healthy style hollandaise recipe from someone else who used buttermilk and corn starch to cut the amount of egg yolks and butter……..That might be a very good recipe but I started to think why don’t I just use the egg white instead of buttermilk and corn starch. After all egg whites are a very healthy lean food. I just don’t see a reason NOT to use the egg whites. Somehow I guessed the flavors perfect but I had to make this recipe twice. First time around I did the recipe in a sauce pan and I accidentally over cooked the sauce slightly (still useable but not nice enough to photo so I tried again). The second time I just microwaved the butter ….Then I added the hot butter to my beaten whole egg, blended them together with my stick blender, and microwaved that for 30 seconds. Then I blended it again with the miso. Added the rest and I was done. It was almost instant and came out perfect. The serving size is hard to give you because I don’t know how much that you want to use. This recipe is for one very large portion (like enough to drown a sandwich) or what I really think is two proper sized portions ( like two dollops). (for my taste it didn’t need salt because my miso was salty enough but you might want salt) I also need to note that I used a stick blender. It might be hazardous to prepare this with a regular blender because it the hot liquids that you are messing with.
Ingredients for two servings
1 1/2 oz unsalted butter
1 1/2 oz white miso
1 whole egg
pinch ground white pepper
small dab garlic confit or a very small or 1/2 a garlic clove ground to paste (I usually make garlic confit when I buy bags of garlic because it taste so much better for sauces and certain things….To make garlic confit take garlic heads and cut across and drizzle well with olive oil and cover and place in a 350 degree F oven till soft and roasted (around an hour) pop out the cloves when cool enough to handle and blend till smooth. It keeps for a very long time refrigerated)
1/2 lemon – just the fresh squeezed juice
optional finish with chives or scallions
Directions
Melt the butter in a microwaveable dish (mine took 30 seconds).
In a small microwavable dish add egg and beat it. Now add the hot melted butter and blend. This blend of egg and butter are not cooked yet. This goes in the microwave another 30 seconds and gets blended till smooth.
The miso, garlic, white pepper. some chives if using…rest of chives will look nice on the top.
The Miracle Mile Delicatessen is located in Phoenix Arizona. This is a cafeteria style deli that is family owned and ran since 1949. The well known dishes here are hot pastrami, corned beef, beef brisket, stuffed cabbage, and turkey dinners. Lesser known dishes are the baked cod with puffy cheese and the honey dijon veggie wrap of avocado. peppers, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, crispy onion strings with honey dijon dressing in a spinach tortilla. You order while walking threw the line, pay and seat yourself indoors or outdoors.
corned beef and pastrami
Here are the sides that you can pick for your sandwich. There’s fresh fruit, apple sauce, carrot and raisin salad, Cole slaw, macaroni salad, potato salad, Not sure but I think the one on the end looks like pasta salad.
They also offer desserts. The bread pudding is made in house.
main dining areaWhat would Bernie get here?
We shared a pastrami sandwich and a corned beef sandwich on marble rye bread.
pastrami sandwichcorned beef sandwich
The sandwiches come with very good pickles.
They both are Arizona style sandwiches. Well we are in Arizona so that is what I should expect……….The bread and taste of the meats does differ from East Coast Style. (east coast bread is crusty and usually thin and toasted while AZ rye bread is soft, thick and cold) (east coast pastrami taste smoked and has a peppery rub…we don’t taste much of that here) (east coast corned beef is seasoned more than AZ corned beef) Everything was fresh tasting and the restaurant seemed clean. Plates were cleared quickly.
Parking is easy because they have their own parking lot. Service is speedy because you go threw the line quickly, you pay and seat yourself.
That was a Little Taste of The Miracle Mile Delicatessen in Phoenix AZ.
Campo Italian Bistro is located in Scottsdale Arizona. This restaurant is by Genuine Concepts Group that also has at least five other restaurants or bars in metro Phoenix. This is a casual restaurant that does differ from other Italian restaurants in atmosphere and on the menu.
They offer patio dining.
They also offer a variety of indoor dining.
There is seating at the bar and several high top tables.
There are two mini living room type areas.
Here is the main dining area.
The menu has lots of small plates and many of the small plates feature amazing cheeses. They also offer salads, pasta, pizza, panini, and a few entrees. It’s hard to pass on stracchino cheese when you see it on a menu so we started with that.
Ohhhh it’s so good! It’s finished with olive oil, peppercorns and fresh herbs. It goes amazingly well with the delicious lavosh crackers. It was bigger than I expected it to be since it was only $6 (subject to change…and it might!)
There were many other small plates that we wanted to try but found it impossible to turn down the artisan cheese plate.
This was also bigger than I expected it to be and we had to take a bunch of it home. BUT HOLY CHEEZUS….WOW was this FORKING Great! Some of the cheeses were robiola, taleggio, and pecorino. One cheese had truffles in it….The taleggio with the honey comb was BOMB! This also came with grilled Noble Bread.
I couldn’t try all the cheese that Campo Italian Bistro offers but they also offer a handmade mozzarella.
The special tonight was also cheesy and I might have ordered it if I wasn’t trying so many cheeses already. The special was wild mushroom mascarpone pasta…(wow that sounds good!) and the pizza of the day was zucchini, pancetta, pesto, pistachio, and caciccavalo cheese.
My husband went with the creste pasta.
They use pasta that is locally made. This dish came with locally made Schriener’s sausage, broccolini, roasted peppers and feta cheese. This came out a little too dry for our taste…but the crispy salmon was outstanding.
The salmon is crispy on both sides and stayed crispy. The flesh was moist, succulent and medium cooked. It rested over creamy beans with kale and tomato butter and was topped with herby greens. WOW! It was a really great salmon dish.. If you don’t think you like salmon then maybe it might be because you never had really good salmon…THIS was REALLY GREAT Salmon.
We enjoyed the cheeses and I enjoyed the salmon.
That was a little taste if Campo Italian Bistro in Scottsdale.
www.CampoItalian.com
Everything is subject to change and it usually eventually does change.
I got this recipe off the internet and had to edit it, simplify it, change some ingredients and change the amounts of the ingredients to make it work. I wound up with something that is this that is FORKING delicious. The original recipe was originally in metric. So I continued fixing the recipe in metric. I do like cooking in metric…..metric is perfection…and the measuring is so easy. This recipe makes 6 brownies and around 12 meringues.
Ingredients for 6 servings
1 medium/large beet – skin removed – beet grated – split into two bowls. Slightly larger amount of beet to go into the brownie mix. – brownie (smaller 1/2 is for caramel)
60g 100% chocolate grated – brownie
50g unsalted butter – melted – brownie
100g sugar – brownie
1 egg – beaten – brownie
15g cocoa powder – brownie
15g flour – brownie
neutral non stick spray – brownie
1 egg white – meringue
50g sugar – meringue
1 Tablespoon beet powder (or juice from a beet) – meringue
110g sugar – beet coconut carmel
45g water – beet coconut caramel
150ml coconut milk – beet coconut caramel
1/2 reserved shredded beet – beet coconut caramel
Directions
Set oven to 250 degrees F or 121 C
Make meringues.
Whip egg white till stiff. Fold in sugar and beet powder. Get a pastry bag with a large star tip and squirt them out on a parchment covered baking sheet. Put them in the pre-heated oven for an hour. Then shut oven off and let them cool down and harden.
Make the beet coconut caramel.
In a sauce pan add the sugar and the water on medium high heat. DON’T STIR. This will eventually boil and you want it to turn brown. When it turns brown then take it off the heat and add the coconut milk and the reserved shredded beets and stir. BE CAREFUL because this will foam up. Keep to the side.
Make the brownies.
Set the oven to 350 degrees F or 180C . Get your muffin pan and spray 6 of the muffin cups with non stick spray. In a large mixing bowl combine the beetroot, chocolate, butter, sugar, egg, cocoa powder, flour and mix well. Evenly fill the 6 spots for muffins in the pan. This needs to stay in the middle rack of the oven till cooked. All ovens do differ. In my oven at 15 minutes mine were almost done but I could feel the center was ever so slightly wet so I put them back. In my oven mine were done in 18 minutes. At 18 minutes my kitchen smelled like chocolate and I knew they were done. After I tasted one I knew it was perfect.
I made a drizzle real fast that I never measure. I had a handful of white chocolate chips, a small knob of butter and the end of my 100% unsweetened chocolate (around 60g) and I carefully melted hit in my microwave and drizzled it all over the brownies.
Put the brownies together and enjoy.
Chocolaty Beet Brownies with Beet Caramel, Beet Meringues
