Kitchen Guy’s Chicken, Olive and Roasted Red Pepper Tart Recipe
Servings: 6

Ingredients
1 puff pastry, frozen sheet
1 large egg, beaten
1 cup chicken breast, cooked, shredded
1 cup chicken leg quarter, shredded
1/2 cup Kalamata olive, chopped
1 tablespoon tarragon, fresh, or 2 tsp. dried
1 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
1 teaspoon black pepper, freshly cracked
1 cup roasted red pepper, sliced

Method
Preheat oven to 400. Thaw puff pastry completely and unfold. Slice in half lengthwise to make two long rectangles. Place on a large parchment covered baking sheet, leaving at least an inch of space between rectangles. Use two baking sheets if you have to in order to avoid overcrowding. With a paring knife, score a 1/2–inch border around each rectangle to allow the edge of the pastry to rise. Brush both sheets of pastry with beaten egg. Arrange chicken, peppers, olives and tarragon on the pastry, keeping toppings inside the border. Sprinkle with cheese and black pepper. Place in the oven and bake for 15 minutes, until edges of pastry are golden brown and cheese is melted. Cut each rectangle into 3 pieces and serve hot.

Kitchen Guy’s Smokin’ Chili Recipe

Ingredients
2 pounds ground chuck
1/2 pound ground pork sausage
1 medium red onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 28 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 15 oz. can tomato sauce
1 1/2 Tbsp. cumin
2 Tbsp. chili powder
1 1/2 Tbsp. Mexican oregano*
2 tsp. Tabasco sauce
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
4 large chipotle chiles, rinsed
2 cups Cheddar cheese
*Italian oregano is okay, too.

Method
Heat a large stockpot with oil. Saute the onions and garlic. Add the ground chuck and pork sausage and cook until meat is browned and onions and garlic are soft.

Add the diced tomatoes and stir. Add seasonings. Then add tomato sauce and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer.

Add the chipotle chiles, taking care not to break them open. Let the mixture simmer over medium low heat for about 30 minutes. Remove the chipotle.

Serve with cheddar cheese and sour cream.

For me, the official end of summer never happens until the harvest and my joy at seeing farm stands bursting with color.  The season and whole new year for me as a Jew starts during this season and at Rosh Hashana.  The holiday’s food is sweet - to remind us that this will be a good new year with nothing bitter or sour.  Honey is the favored dipping sauce for bread (the challah) and apples. This year I have so much to be thankful for, especially having my family close. We will be celebrating Rosh Hashana with one big meal and I will prepare the kinds of dishes that make the most of the sweeter, traditional flavors including seasonal ingredients.

Rosh Hashana 2008
Round challah with seven seeds
Vegetable Chopped Liver
Moroccan Carrot Salad
Georgian Chicken in Pomegranate and Tamarind Sauce
The Best Honey Cake Yet

The simple and delicious way to make a complicated dessert in no time.

With the approach of colder weather, hearty dishes and hot soups will be making their way back to the dinner table.  The uniquely warm and comforting experience of eating a perfect one pot dish is made possible by the earthy flavors of vegetables and meats which are gently extracted from great seasonal ingredients. An essential ingredient for your fall and winter cooking is homemade stock.

While most home chefs purchase stocks or broths from the market, those products are almost never as good as the homemade kind, and just plain cost too much. Restaurant chefs make their own stocks from scratch for two reasons: because stocks are the foundation of all good soups and sauces (the French word for stock is fond, meaning “foundation”), and because stocks make good use of food scraps that would otherwise be thrown away. So let’s start keeping our eyes on the sale rack at the grocery and stock up on what we’ll need to make what is also an EASY foundation for many of your upcoming home cooked meals.

There are many different types of stock- vegetable stock, chicken or poultry stock, “white” beef stock, “brown” beef stock (bones are browned in an oven prior to being added), fish stock,
and other specialty meat stocks like ham, lamb, game, etc.

Here are 11 tips to keep in mind when preparing stock for your kitchen:

1. For a mellow and quick vegetable stock, “sweat” the vegetable in an oiled pan prior to adding to water.
2. Stock should be clear, not cloudy. Skim the foam or scum that floats to the surface of the stock occasionally with a large spoon to remove impurities and keep the stock clear. Optionally, beef, chicken and lamb bones can be blanched to remove impurities that cause the stock to become cloudy (fish bones cook too quickly to bother with blanching). For fish, just put the bones into a pot of cold water, bring to a boil, and rinse.
3. Once your water and ingredients are brought to an initial boil, reduce the heat so that the stock maintains a low simmer.
4. Keep the water level just covering / above the other stock ingredients. If it reduces to a below the top pieces, add more water.
5. Introduce mirepoix: 1/2 lb onions, 1/4 lb carrots and 1/4 lb celery, all very coarsely chopped. A “white mirepoix” can be made replacing the carrots with mushroom stems.You may substitute half the onions in any mirepoix with leeks.
6. Simmer beef, veal and lamb bones 6-8 hours, chicken and poultry bones 3-4 hours, and fish bones only up to about 45 minutes.
7. Common effective aromatics for the flavor sachet (usually a cheesecloth pouch, but you can also just bundle items with twine, which is called a bouquet garni) include, but are not limited to: thyme, bay leaves, peppercorns, parsley stems, whole cloves, and whole garlic cloves. Use all in extreme moderation to avoid overpowering flavor.
8. Avoid salt, or use extremely moderately, since salt will be added later to the soups and sauces the stock is used to prepare.
9. Other vegetable can be added, as desired, but avoid strongly flavored and bitter vegetables, as well as starchy vegetables, and try to use vegetables that are relevant to the stock being made and the purposes of the stock.
10. Tomato products are often added to brown stocks, or wine (most commonly white wine to fish stocks), to add elements of acidity and flavor.
11. When finished, cool the stock quickly by running cold water around the outside of the pot or by transferring the stock to smaller containers, to ensure food safety.
12. Store the stock in airtight plastic containers in the freezer until ready to use. Any fats and impurities remaining will become solid pieces at the surface of the frozen stock, and will be easy to remove.

ChefsLine has a variety of stock recipes available online. And should you want to learn how to make great stocks like the chefs, also consider a ChefsLine cooking class. Our chefs will coach you every step of the way and you will learn the best techniques for stock making and a skill that will keep your dishes inspired for years to come.

Shrimp are very tasty and relatively cheap, and generally as easy to cook as seafood gets. The most challenging aspect of cooking shellfish is usually peeling and deveining them, so many home chefs skip those steps and purchase shrimp already peeled and deveined. But in doing so, they lose a major flavor component: the shell. If you buy whole shrimp still in the shell and take a little time to peel them, you have a wonderful opportunity to make a simple ‘shell stock’, which will multiply the flavor of any shrimp or seafood dish exponentially. As for deveining, some chefs actually view the step as unnecessary.

Watch a video of one of Chef Jim Gray’s favorite recipes: Shrimp Bisque, and see for yourself how easily you can enjoy the full ocean-infused flavor of shrimp.

Kitchen Guy’s Shrimp Bisque Recipe

Ingredients

1 1/4 pounds shrimp, shelled and deveined, shells reserved

1/4 cup butter, unsalted

1/2 cup white wine

2 quarts water

1 bay leaf, preferably Turkish

3 medium carrots, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped

2 tablespoons rice, long grain and wild

2 tablespoons tomato paste

3/4 teaspoon cayenne

2 teaspoons salt

1/3 cup heavy cream

lemon juice

Method

Cook shrimp shells in 1 tablespoon butter in a 4-quart pot over moderately high heat, stirring frequently, until golden. Add white wine and boil, stirring frequently, until most of the liquid has evaporated. Add water and bay leaf and simmer, uncovered for 20 minutes. Pour shrimp stock through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing on shells and then discarding them. While stock is simmering, cook shrimp in 1 tablespoon butter in a 6 quart heavy pot over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until just cooked through, about 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer with a slotted spoon to a bowl. Add remaining butter to pot, and then cook carrots, celery and onion over moderate heat until softened. Stir in rice, tomato paste, cayenne, salt and shrimp stock and simmer, covered until rice is tender, about 20 minutes. Set aside 12 shrimp and stir remainder into bisque. Puree bisque in batches in a blender, using caution when blending hot liquids, then pour through a strainer into another pot. Stir in cream and cook over low heat until heated through, taking care not to let the soup boil. Stir in lemon juice and salt to taste. Cut reserved shrimp into 1/4-inch dice and use as part of garnish for bisque along with fresh chopped chives.

Book a private cooking session with me on ChefsLine.

Enjoy this recipe for Blueberry Plum Tartlets. It calls for a traditional pie crust, but you may also substitute this Almond Shortbread Crust recipe for an even more elegant treat. And consider making this Bourbon Whipped Cream as an accompaniment.

But another beverage that has real health benefits and is also yummy, but which gets less recognition, is homemade ginger ale. It’s easy to make:
Ginger Water (prepared ahead)
5 cups water
2 cups fresh ginger (finely chopped)
Boil the water, add the ginger, and reduce the heat. Let it simmer for a few minutes, then remove the mixture from the heat and let it cool for about 15-25 minutes. Pour the ginger water through a fine mesh strainer and discard the boiled ginger.

Simple Syrup (prepared ahead)
2 cups water
2 cups sugar
Simmer until clear and transparent.

Ginger Ale, by the glass
Ginger Water
Simple Syrup
Club Soda
Lemon Wedges
Fill each glass 2/3 full with ice, and add 1/2 cup of ginger water, 1/2 cup of club soda, and 1/4 of simple syrup (or more to taste). Garnish with lemon wedges.

And if it’s a cool summer cocktail that beckons you, you can always add a bit of quality whiskey, vodka or rum to the ginger ale, or you can add the ginger ale’s components (namely the ginger water, or even a ginger simple syrup) to champagne, a martini, or a mojito.