Bringing inspiration and ideas to better manage your home kitchen
If you live in an area that grows local strawberries, make sure to take full advantage! They’re not cheap, by any means, so you may not save money by making jams and turning it into every preservable item. But this is a bounty to enjoy …
Week 3 of this 5-week burger series brings us to the roasted red pepper and goat cheese burger, with arugula. There’s a story behind this burger. I first had it at the pub at Campbell’s Resort on Lake Chelan. A group of my gals and …
A quality margarita has to be one of the toughest drinks to find in a restaurant or bar. Why is that? It must be one of the more popular cocktails. And yet at any given Mexican restaurant or bar – good ones for that matter – you’ll find a margarita made with a pre-made mix that tastes something like a sugary lemon lime Gatorade. It’s not that hard to make fresh, although if you’re making a lot of them behind the bar, I can see the draw to use a mix. There’s no excuse for that at home though.
This recipe is adapted from Jeffrey Morgenthaler, a well-known bartender in Portland, OR. I love his approach and the things that he deems important behind the bar. He’s a craftsman. If you’re interested in finding a bartending “cookbook,” I have and really enjoy “The Bar Book: Elements of Cocktail Technique.” Not only will it provide you with excellent recipes, you’ll learn the fundamentals of good cocktails.
A few notes on equipment and ingredients that you’ll want for this recipe and future cocktails:
Tequila: I’ve heard (and said myself) many times “don’t use good alcohol for mixing.” After experimenting with different tequilas in this recipe, I no longer subscribe to that mantra. Maybe it’s true if you’re drinking whiskey and coke, but it’s not true in a good margarita – the quality of the tequila greatly impacts the taste of the margarita. I’d prefer quality over quantity. I like the flavor of reposado or anejo varieties and some of my favorite tequila splurges are Casamigos and Roca Patron (not Patron, although I’m sure that’s good too). These two tequilas are excellent for sipping neat or on the rocks as well. They’re also expensive. Just buy the best tequila you can afford – even if it’s the premium Jose Cuervo.
Jigger: Bartending is not like cooking; bartending is like baking. You need to measure and measure accurately – it’s the difference between a great cocktail every time and an inconsistent cocktail. So do yourself a favor and get a proper jigger to measure with and take it seriously.
Simple syrup: You’ll need simple syrup in your fridge for this and other cocktails. The good news is it keeps for a long time. So, find a good squeeze bottle and make a batch of 2:1, meaning two parts sugar to one part water. This is the most common ratio of simple syrup. Buying simple syrup is like buying a sourdough starter – there’s no need for it. It’s just sugar and water!
This is the only margarita recipe you'll need. Quantities are precise and perfect. You can use this as a basis to modify citrus (grapefruit, orange, etc.).
Rim the lip of a low-ball glass with salt (flaked salt works best, in my opinion), and then fill the glass with ice. Using a shot glass or jigger with various measuring marks, combine the tequila, Cointreau, lime juice, and simple syrup together in a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes. Shake vigorously for about 20 seconds and then strain the contents into your glass.
Inspired by: Jeffrey Morgenthaler
Ever grab your towel after enjoying a hot shower and be surprised by a freshly laundered towel that smells more like a dirty, sweaty t-shirt? Not pleasant. It turns out, towels can get a build up of detergent, oils, and other residue that creates that …
Week 2 of this 5-week burger series brings us to the roasted pablano and swiss burger. Like red bell peppers, pablanos are another pepper worth roasting. They can vary in heat – some very mild, and some with a subtle heat. The pepper has a …
Gardening is such a great option. It allows you to grow things that you enjoy eating and harvest them at the peak of their ripeness. And it gives you a past time that is rejuvenating. Often, after a hard day working with my mind, I’ll tell Mike that “I’m going outside to get my hands dirty.” There’s something about touching the earth, pulling weeds, caring for a garden, that grounds you in a way that’s hard to replicate watching TV or reading a book. It’s such a welcome mental break after a day of thinking and problem solving.
There’s not much like a fresh tomato from the garden. It can’t compare to anything you’d find even in a high-end grocery store. It’s picked at the peak of ripeness and is sweetened by the sun. Tomatoes are a great gardening choice. They’re easy to grow, yield plenty of fruit, taste better than what you can buy, and are expensive to buy at the store. You can grow everything, but you can’t grow a lot of everything if you’re limited in time and space. I try to focus on what we like to eat, what has the largest quality gap between grown and bought, and what is expensive to buy. Tomatoes hit the top of my list. Imagine if you could grow all the tomatoes that you’d use in a year, pick them at the peak of their sweetened, ripe state, and process them to use throughout the year. This is my goal. My only qualm with tomatoes, is that they’re usually ready to be harvested in big numbers in early to mid September. September is one of the best months of the year, and I want to be gone in September. Gone on fishing/floating trips, gone hunting, gone exploring the fall colors in the mountains of the West.
If you’re interested in starting small, I’d recommend hearty perennial herbs be the first thing you grow. Herbs like thyme, oregano, rosemary, sage, chives, etc. These herbs will survive the winter year after year and only require some pruning so that this year’s growth is new, tender, and fresh growth. Other herbs like basil and cilantro are annual herbs and won’t survive the winter and need to be planted new each year. Herbs such as basil only like warm weather too – so they need a little coddling. Start with the perennial varieties – they’re forgiving, and they’ll provide fresh aromatics for your kitchen. When you buy 3-4 stems of thyme, rosemary, sage, or oregano from the grocery store, they’ll cost you $2-4 each. Perennial herbs, without much effort, will give you savings in your grocery budget, increase the availability of fresh herbs you always have on hand, and you can dry them so that you don’ have to spend $3-7/bottle on dried herbs that are old and sometimes lacking flavor when you buy them.
Our dear family friend, Carolynn was the caterer for our wedding. We had an intimate wedding during the pandemic that ended up being our wedding party and immediate family only. Carolynn was kind enough to be a one woman show for around 25 guests. As …
Sometimes fried rice just fits the bill. It gives you that takeout flavor with all the carbs of the rice – so satisfying! This is a great fried rice recipe. Unfortunately, I don’t have a wok yet, but was able to cook this in a …
Granola is one of those staples that can save you considerable money to make versus buy and it always tastes better when you do. I should do a future post focusing on make vs. buy. This would obviously be unique to everyone because we all have different priorities. When I look at granola, it ranges anywhere from $6-9/lb for those little 11 oz. packages you’d find in the cereal aisle. As with most anything, you’ll find better prices when buying in bulk. But $6-9/lb is far more expensive that many proteins – including chicken – which is a scam when you consider most of it is made of oats which are usually $1/lb.
This recipe is usually what I make when I make granola at home. I cut it out of an issue of Bon Appetit long ago and have tweaked it a bit to my liking. And that’s the beautiful thing about granola – you can adjust the ingredients to include just what you like. I like to have a 1 gallon mason jar of it in the pantry. When it’s gone, I’ll make another batch. I find it’s great on yogurt with berries, but you could eat it in many ways.
Preheat oven to 300F.
In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients until thoroughly coated with the maple syrup and olive oil. Spread out on a rimmed baking sheet lined with parchment. Bake granola for 45 minutes until golden brown, being sure to stir every 15 minutes. Let the granola cool on the baking sheet. Once it's cool, store in an airtight container at room temperature.
Inspired by: Bon Appetit, Jenny Rosenstrach
It’s Memorial Day Weekend! Which, in my book, is the kick-off to summer. So we are kicking off summer with a 5-week series on all things burgers. We’ll cover meat, toppings, buns, and sides. A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to visit a …