Browsing Category Dinner

It’s organic peach season in Boulder! I had no idea the organic peaches in Boulder would totally blow my taste buds. Since discovering and uncovering these specimen’ juicy sweet nectar I’ve been on a peach cooking frenzy.

Last night I made organic mango and peach chutney to pour over grilled chicken, sweet onions, and yellow peppers. I’ve never made chutney before I didn’t follow a recipe but this is what I did:

• Removed the skin from 2 peaches and a half of mango.  Diced into edible squares.
• Added one clove of garlic
• 2 tablespoons of fresh cilantro
• 1 tablespoon of safflower oil

I put the safflower oil into a small sauce pan and heated. Added all the ingredients from above brought to a slow boil and cooking it partly down.

Added as shown to grilled chicken, onions, peppers. It was delicious!

Next up Peach Pancakes. I got up early this morning to get the best of the best from the Boulder Farmers Market. The sun beat me this morning so I’ll have to try for 8 rather than 9 so that I can stay longer. I got my peaches!!

I hurried home so that I could make buckwheat peach pancakes.

I use Organic Arrowhead Mills Buckwheat Pancake mix and follow the instructions with some changes:

Instead of milk I use Rice Dream

Instead of honey I use Madhava Pure Organic Agave Nectar

All the other ingredients remain the same except I’m only making pancakes for one.

Sweet organic sliced peaches for the pancakes! So delicious!

I learned a lesson peaches don’t add well to grilling pancakes. The remaining peach slices I used to garnish the top of the pancake.

Next time I make peach pancakes I’ll be sure to try dicing the peaches and adding to the batter.

Despite lessons learned, my peach pancakes were delicious. Get to the Boulder Farmer’s Market for your peaches! Eat them as is,or cook, bake,  ice, or can them but try the peaches!

I love both coffee and tea. For me it all about the taste. Boulder is really big on both coffee and tea.  Boulder enjoys both coffee and tea houses equally. I find the tea is better than the coffee. My European heritage has lend me down a path of dark rich coffee that is highly acidic. Enough jolt to keep you up for days. And those were the days for me, all through undergrad I consumed lots of coffee. Back than I was so selective, but after my exposure to Europe’s French coffee it’s been hard.

What do you know history repeats itself but not in terms of coffee. I replaced dozen of cups of coffee with tea. Too much tea with tannins causes an issue with my stomach. My favorite place for tea.

Of course there is Celestial Seasonings, which is a 20 year favorite of mine. I went to visit this famous tea brand. Celestial Seasonings has a great tour that’s not to be missed.

My favorite tea bar is Atlas Purveyors – a very popular place to hang out especially with the Boulder tech community.

The Dushanbe Tea House which I mentioned once before, offers a variety of teas, serves lunch and dinner. They actually bring a tea menu. I love the lady earl grey.

At all there places you can get your tea with milk, soy, rice and in some cases almond milk.

I’ve been all over the world and finally settled in Boulder. The food in Boulder is known for being earth friendly. Meaning it’s organic and it’s natural.

Well, after about 20 years of sitting in my famous 3-ring binder “Pulitzer’s Cookbook,” I pulled out our beloved Cheese Enchilada recipe from “Country Folk” newspaper. After about two days and many trips to the grocery store, I finished them. Of course, I once again goofed on my measurements and put in 2 tablespoons of cayenne pepper instead of 2 tablespoons of chili powder. It was so hot I coughed and couldn’t take much other than a prickly sensation in my mouth. I diluted it by straining out 1/2 the sauce (preserving the onions) and then added another can of Campbell’s Tomato soup. I also substituted chicken instead of ground beef, as an effort to be healthier.

When my two girlfriends came over to indulge in these marathon creations, I forgot to serve the sour cream to help counter the hotness. Ooops.

Here is the chicken:

And the finished product:

Here is the famous recipe:

In July 2000 Shape Magazine had a recipe for “Black-Bean and Zucchini Pancakes” that I have been meaning to make. I finally did! And it was worth the wait. The only things that added time to the whole preparation was having to roast the garlic and I didn’t have salsa at home so I ended up making it from scratch. Both were worth is because they were super delicious. I will definitely make this recipe again–even the salsa!

Well, if you have six minutes to spare, you will see a drawn-out episode of me cooking some Macaroni & Cheese with Cauliflower. PS. There are some of my classic kitchen gaffes.

My first stop was lunch at Feast. Ok so Feast wasn’t on the list and didn’t even know Chicago’s Restaurant Week was happening. I wanted to try Feast out and this was a place Joe Kutchera recommended…he also joined me there for afternoon lunch.

The Salmon Teriyaki Spinach, orange, cucumber, and red onion salad over soba noodles was very good! I especially liked the flavor to the teriyaki sauce which enhanced the soba noodles and spinach salad.

Joe had Steak Tortilla Salad skirt steak, grilled onions, lettuce, avocado, grape tomatoes, crispy tortilla strips and cilantro herb dressing. I was invited to nibble on some of Joe’s salad which was also very good.

Feast- Gold Coast
25 E. Delaware
Chicago, IL 60611
312-337-4001

For my entrée the only way I could describe it was an East Asian style lamb with glazed vegetable and almonds. The sauce had a rich plum taste. I really enjoyed tough the lamb was a bit fatty which probably brought more flavor to this dish.

Jen had the grilled pork tenderloin braised savvy cabbage, medjool dates and red wine reduction. The red wine reduction and grilled pork made a perfect combination.

Wave did not want their customers to walk away with just dessert so they provided us with two desserts to taste. The roasted apple almond tart with cinnamon gelato and caramel sauce which the perfect ending to a great meal, but there’s more…we also tried the two combination that I thought would never play nice in the sandbox: dark chocolate Cremeux vanilla-lime tapioca — opposites do attract is I how I would describe it.

Wave
644 N. Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, IL 60611
312-255-4460

I was disappointed with sole though the roasted baby artichokes and potatoes were great. I did not understand why there was a roasted pepper sauce it did not go well with the sole. 

Perhaps it was busy the Saturday night, salmon was not available, that this portion of my restaurant week experience wasn’t up to my standards.

Bice Restaurant
158 E. Ontario
Chicago IL 60611
312-664-1474

Restaurant Week Chicago should be thought of more for the quality of food and atmosphere rather than a savings in a meal. There was so many other restaurants that I wanted to try I’ll either have to wait until next year or venture in on my own.

Last week I went through two 3-ring binders of recipes. These “Pulitzer’s Cookbooks” were started in 1983 and there are some recipes in there I still haven’t made! Going through them inspired me to start cooking again! Most of the recipes are from the The New York Times. Some are from Country Folks newspaper, with a hearty dose of recipes full of full-fat, lots of butter and cooking “like they used to.”

The Wiener Backhandl was from The New York Times magazine, back in the early 80s.

It was a lot easier than I thought…I’ll definitely add it to my repertoire. It is served with some parsley and lemon on top. You have the option to drizzle melted butter on top, but I figured with frying it in 1/4 cup of cooking oil and 6 tablespoons of butter, that was enough! My side dish was rice with green lentils and diced cherry tomatoes. Once again, I devoured about half of the dish before I thought to snap a photo!

Well, my first few attempts at Quinoa were not very good, but I think I’ve mastered a good recipe! I figured out how to cook it properly and then I add carrots, string beans, mix in some lemon, olive oil, salt, pepper and parsley. It’s my new favorite salad!

My friend, artist, Alphonse vanWoerkom, emailed me the other day with this delicious recipe he had a dream about:

It was true, I dreamed this recipe and decided to make it the next day. My friend Anton, he of the silver tongue, called me the” Martin Luther King of the kitchen”, due to the fact that “I had a dream”.

Halibut is one of the rarer fish, stocks are gone because of overfishing in the areas were it was once plentiful. The recipe did call for Halibut, dream or no dream… Citirella had it at $34 a pound!!! Got it anyway.

I gently soaked inner grape leaves for a minute or two in broth. Then I wrapped the steamed Halibut in grape leaves with a dab of Dijon mustard. Then gently tied the Halibut grape leaf package with strings of leek. I served my dream fish with little red potatoes with rosemary, and Ellen‘s favorite, sweet peas.

Here is a photo/ Love Alphonse Oh, yes mustard sauce over the Halibut package.

Alphonse this looks amazing! I heard is tastes a great as it looks.