Archives for July 2011

Green Tomato Chutney

July 29, 2011 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

This is a recipe I found last fall when I had an abundance of green tomatoes from my garden, and found a lot more at my local farmer's market that were practically being given away. At about the same time I made my batch of chutney, my friend Winnie at Healthy Green Kitchen posted a version of this very same chutney (what is it they say about great minds?), so I decided to hold mine back for a later date. When I saw a farmer selling a bunch of green tomatoes at Thursday's farmer's market (many farmers don't just sell green tomatoes at the end of the season), I was reminded of this tasty treat and wanted to get the recipe out to you.

Winnie adapted her awesome chutney by altering the spices and sugar some, mine is just as Tom Colicchio wrote the recipe in his great cookbook, Think Like a Chef . Try either recipe, or play doctor and come up with your own spin. Either way you go, you'll end up with a dead-simple recipe that will yield a delicious condiment that will enhance anything you serve it alongside. Really, this is good with beef, pork, lamb, poultry, seafood…you name it.

Enjoy – Steve

Basil-Vodka Gimlet

July 26, 2011 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

This is not a recipe I make with my kids, and no, I'm not encouraging you to whip up a pitcher of this elixer with your ankle biters either.

Let's be honest, our kids are going to try their hands at mixology soon enough, at ages we will likely find horrifying, they won't need any help from us here.

As a blog dedicated to sharing family friendly recipes you can make with your own young ones, we are not in the habit of posting tasty alcoholic treats, but if its half as hot where you are today as it is here, then you could probably use a refreshing adult beverage.

Aren't you glad you know me?

Kale Chips

July 23, 2011 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

I know, I'm about two years behind the craze with this dish.

I'm hoping though, because I'm SO late to the kale chip party, that by sharing them with you today I'll actually be introducing them to all you food blog readers who like me, missed the first wave of excitement over them when they were foodie's darlings a few years back.

I've seen so many recipes for these on-line that its clear there was a bit of a kale chip craze at one point, much like the "macaron" frenzy that seems to be in constant force on food blogs.

Now, having eaten more than my fair share of fabulous macarons during my time in France, I get how they can fuel a never ending obsession among foodies the world over.

But kale chips…..are you kidding me?

Chocolate-Caramel Slice

July 20, 2011 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

This little ditty is a treat my wife found recently and asked me to make to help feed the crowd that was joining us on the 4th of July. As it turns out, what with other goodies we had made along with treats that guests brought, we didn't even have to dip into these babies.

We're Back in Business!

July 19, 2011 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Hi gang –

I'm happy to share that the support crews at Typepad and Discus have finally isolated the issue that was causing my comment forms to FAIL. My guardian angel Colleen, at Typepad, has written a piece of code that provides a work around to a VERY quirky "requirement" of Discus' that kept their comment forum from working properly on some of my posts.

I've just reposted Momofukus' Fried Chicken, and Peyton's "Jean-Georges" Meal, and would encourage all of you to give them another look, and comment to your heart's desire!

Thanks for all your patience as we worked through this issue, we'll be back shortly with a great new post to share.

Cheers – Steve

Discus – Typepad Comment Trouble

July 17, 2011 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Hi all – Just a quick note to let you all know that we're experiencing some technical difficulties with Oui, Chef as of late. For the past week or so, the "Comment" forms at the end of each post have been malfunctioning, not allowing comments to be left after each entry. I'm working with both Typepad (my hosting company) and Discus (the company that provides the comment forum), but so far no fix, just a lot of finger pointing. Once the problem is fixed, I'll re-post the last few entries for comments.

Thanks to all of you who reached out to me through email or Twitter to inform me of the problems you were having leaving comments, your feedback really gave me a jump on identifying the problem.

All for now, hope to be back in full working order soon…….stay tuned.

Thanks for your patience – Steve

Momofuku’s Fried Chicken

July 15, 2011 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

What came first the chicken or the egg? Well, in this instance I can definitively say the egg came first.

Yes, it was Chef David Chang's slow poached egg that first made its way into the Oui, Chef kitchen to much acclaim from the whole gang here (and many of you out there that tried it). We had so much fun with his egg that I've been curious to try one of his other recipes, and what could make more sense after trying his egg, then to give his chicken a whirl. This recipe comes from his tremendous cookbook Momofuku , which is not just a fab collection of recipes, but a real glimpse behind the scenes to give the reader a sense of what makes Chang tick.

Peyton’s "Jean-Georges" Meal

July 12, 2011 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Today I lay down my pen (as it were) and camera, and hand over the reigns to Peyton who offered to write this guest post about an awesome meal she cooked just before heading off to summer camp. All the words and photos are hers, and she hopes very much that you enjoy them. Cheers – Steve

One of my earliest memories about Asian food was trying to use chopsticks. I struggled, and ended up using my fingers instead. Another I have is about going to a wonderful Japanese restaurant and eating at a hibachi table. The chef cooked with huge flames, made onion volcanoes, and tossed eggs into his hat. But what I remember most was his smile. He was enjoying the show as much as we were. Up until cooking with Steve, I hadn’t even dreamt of cooking Asian food. The techniques seemed so complicated and took years to master.

Not long ago I was looking through his many, many cookbooks for a recipe for lamb. I went into Jean-Georges Vongerichten's cookbook, Jean-Georges: Cooking At Home with a Four-Star Chef, and it jumped out at me. No, not the lamb dish that I was looking for, but rather a picture like what you see above. It was of a whole plate of his signature appetizers, and it looked delicious. Of course, it also looked like an intimidating challenge. If you knew me personally, then you'd know why I couldn't just turn another page. I had to make it!

Cherry Hand Pies

July 8, 2011 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

It seems that over the past year whenever we had guests that offered to make a pre-dinner nibble to have with cocktails, they decided to craft something using frozen puff pastry dough. Given that each of these folks brought a fresh box of pastry sheets with them, and used only half a box to make their appetizer, we recently discovered that we had 83 half used boxes of puff pastry in our freezer (no wonder we're running out of room there).

As I was starting to panic, wondering what the #@*& we were going to do with that many pastry sheets, my wife found this simple but delicious recipe in our latest issue of Bon Appetit. This recipe is for little cherry pies, using a combination of fresh and dried fruit, but any type of fruit would work. Beware though, if you're using a really juicy fruit you may need to up the amount of cornstarch used in order to guarantee a nice thick filling for your pies. I'm thinking fresh apples and dried cranberries would be lovely, or how about peanut butter with a fresh strawberry compote, or dare I say, Nutella with some orange marmalade? Oohhhh…..

Lamb Köfte with Yogurt Sauce and Muhammara

July 5, 2011 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Are your taste buds tired of the same old same old?

Looking to spice up your dinner menu a bit this week?

Good, because this dish is gonna transport you to a brave new culinary world, and will totally rock those bored buds of yours.

I stumbled across this recipe in Bon Appetit some time ago and it immediately caught my eye. It also made me think of my friend Joumana and her awesome blog, Taste of Beirut, because I couldn't help but think that this was the kind of food she grew up on…..lucky girl. Sadly, I never got around to making the dish and sort of forgot about it until Joumana recently posted her own recipe for muhammara, a Syrian red pepper sauce. Hers looked so good that I knew I had to go back and find this recipe and finally give it a try…I am SO GLAD I did.

Archives for July 2011

Footer