Oui, Chef - Part 9

Peach and Blueberry Cobbler

August 12, 2014 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

This past week I committed the cardinal sin of food shopping, the very thing I urge all of my "Cooking Matters" students to avoid.

I went shopping while hungry. Starving actually, if I'm to be totally honest with you all.

While racing from point A to point B last Thursday, I zipped into my farmer's market (with my stomach at full growl) to grab some fresh produce to tide me over for a few days. A sample of a fresh from the tree local peach sent me into full craving mode and rather than buy a single 3 pound box for eating fresh, I decided to pick up two. Like I said, NEVER shop hungry!

Scallops with Parsnip Puree a la Sorella

August 5, 2014 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Sex sells.

I know, sort of an odd way to start a food blog post, but there….I've said it.

More specifically, "sexy" is what sold me on my latest cookbook acquisition (I know I didn't NEED another cookbook….don't judge me!). It took all of two minutes spent flipping through the pages of Sorella: Recipes, cocktails & true stories from our New York restaurant while I was waiting to check out of Williams-Sonoma the other day for sexy to work it's magic on me, and buy the book I did.

Brownie and Dulce de Leche Ice Cream Sandwiches

August 1, 2014 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

These little darlings were inspired by a post I saw on Deb Perelman's awesome blog, Smitten Kitchen. The technique I employed is basically the same as hers, but I added a few extra steps by making my own ice cream, then not able to leave well enough alone, a batch of pressure cooker dulce de leche to kick these babies into the stratosphere.

Pressure Cooker Dulce de Leche

July 29, 2014 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

A quick shout-out to my ex mum-in-law, Carol, who recently sent me a link to a blog post by The Tough Cookie all about the various ways you can make dulce de leche at home. Thanks, Mimi!

If you haven't had the pleasure, dulce de leche which literally translates as "jam of milk", is basically a sauce made by slowly cooking milk and sugar until it caramelizes….YUM! There are a number of different ways to accomplish this at home, the most elementary of which requires slowly cooking milk, sugar, and maybe some vanilla over a low heat until most of the water has evaporated from the milk leaving milk solids, fat, and sugar to caramelize. I bet the end result is great, but I'll never know because even though I REALLY love to cook, the thought of spending half a day nailed to my stove observing this slow-motion alchemy is a killer. I'd rather be outside watching my grass grow.

Bran and Blueberry Muffins

July 25, 2014 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

When the dust had settled on the July 4th weekend a few weeks back and people had packed their bags and left town, I took a few moments to peruse my fridge and various coolers for left-overs that had to be put to use. It turns out that I did pretty well packing up goodies for everyone to take with so that I wasn't left with too much to plow through here. Big slabs of cake, containers of carnitas, and various cheeses, dips and spreads all got wrapped up for road trips. One thing we missed however, was a single crisper drawer just loaded with fresh fruit.

Guanciale and Roasted Tomato Pasta

July 22, 2014 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

Once a year, whether it needs it or not (who am I kidding….it ALWAYS needs it), I spend some time totally emptying my freezer to assess its contents and craft a plan for how I'll eventually move all the goodies stored therein from the deep freeze to my belly.

Today was not that day.

The Mean Shandy

July 18, 2014 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

I'm not in the habit of sharing many drink recipes here, but every now and again I come across one that I like so much that I can't resist sharing it with you all. For the most part I'm a wine and beer drinker, though in the cold winter months I can occasionally be found sipping a small batch bourbon, and when summer rolls around I'm always on the hunt for the latest seasonal drink.

Potato Poppers

July 15, 2014 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

I've always been a freak for twice baked potatoes (really…it's embarrassing), so when I saw this twist on the classic in my latest Cooking Light Magazine, I couldn't resist. I had a bunch of baby potatoes in my crisper left-over from a potato salad I made for the the 4th and everything else I needed on-hand as well, so these were a breeze to pull together.

Flour's Chunky Lola Cookies

July 8, 2014 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

As I was with Sarabeth's "Chocolate Chubbies" that I posted here some time ago, I am grateful for the quirky name that Flour Bakery adopted for these cookies. Having the word chunky in the name helps me to keep my intake of these dandies in-check as it is a constant reminder of the risks inherent in letting yourself go with a tin full of these on the counter. Enough said.

Chocolate Pecan Brookies

July 4, 2014 By Steve Dunn Leave a Comment

A brookie….what the hell is a "brookie", I can hear you asking?

Well, in my parlance, a brookie is a cookie with the texture of a brownie.

Get it?

I decided to whip these up the other day because I needed a BUNCH of cookies in a hurry for an event I was hosting at my home. Rather than cook up multiple batches of much larger cookies, I decided to pull out my #70 portion scoop (about 1/2 ounce, 1 tablespoon) and cranked out about 4 dozen of these gorgeous little "brookies" in no time.

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