Malibu Farm

I am hot for you!!

First we made a zuni cafe style roast chicken and we added CHILIS to the bread salad.

Pretty hot.

Then we made a taco salad, hold the beef….with butternut squash and black beans and lazy man chili salad dressing.

Then what is better than sriracha?

Not much, so we made some malibu farm deviled eggs with sriracha mayo, and artichokes are totally in season so we grilled some up and served with the spicy mayo too.

On our honey carrots, we added what else, CHILI, and it was getting hot in here.

And then you know how much i like tone and tone colors…..

and so we did the black on black, or black is back or triple black, whatever you want to call it, which is black rice, black lentils, black sesame seeds…how hot is that?

We needed something cool in our hot class, so we baked some potatoes, and added pickled chili butter to it,

and why not make our own hot sauce?

and then we finished the class off with some chili walnut chocolate.

pretty HOT.

20/20/20 nothing chicken

alright, we are going to pretty much do nothing to our chicken.

We are not going to baste it in butter.

Or spray it with oil.

We are not going to stuff it with a lemon, or with herbs.

We are not going to truss it either.

All we are gonna to do is dry it, salt it, and forget about it.

However, we are going to buy the BEST chicken we can find.

I love SMART chicken, and no I am not on the smart payroll, just came across their birds one day, and as far as chicken brands available at an average market, this is by far my favorite brand.

Jidori chicken is totally awesome too, but not generally available retail.

Dry your pre-salted bird with paper towels, because wet skin, equals soggy skin, the dryer the skin, the crispier the skin.

Feeling a little OCD, about the do nothing bird?

Alright miss over achiever, you could blow dry the skin, to get it extra dry.

Or lazy man’s method, also works by leaving the bird on a plate uncovered for a few hours.

Or as I said, just blot with some paper towels.

Place the bird into a preheated HOT (because this class is all about HEAT…..) 450 degree oven.

And now apply the 20/20/20 nothing rule.

20 minutes breast up,

flip it over,

20 minutes breast down,

flip it over,

20 minutes breast up

= done!

Chili bread salad

country wheat bread, crust off, toasted in broiler or on bbq

1 basket cherry tomatoes, whole

1 leek, sliced thin, light green bottom 1/3 only

1 jalopeno pepper, sliced thin

Saute leek and jalopeno pepper in oil, until translucent.

Break the toasted bread into smaller cubes, toss tomatoes, and cooked leek, chili mix with the bread, and bake in a 400 degree, preheated oven for 20 minutes or until the tomatoes begin to bursts.

Yes, stirring every now and then, great idea.

While the bread is baking, pick some arugula in the yard.

Say what?

There is no arugula growing in you yard?

Plant some!

It’s sooo easy to grow, it is basically an edible weed, buying it, is just plain silly.

So sow the seed, then reap the feed.

Where was I?

Yes, so after you pick your arugula, wash it, and toss it with a red wine vinegar, (1/4) cup, 1 grated garlic clove, salt and a few tablespoons of olive oil.

Take the bread out of the oven, season with salt, ok, and then, optional but recommended, add some of the roasted chicken drippings to the bread salad, and then toss in the dressed arugula. Slice the cooked chicken and place on top.

Taco chili salad

wait, where is the beef?

I got no beef, with beef, but this salad is all about beans and squash.

add some lazy man salsa dressing, and it is taco -liscious.

1 small butternut squash, peeled and cubed: cook in butter + oil, on medium high heat, until it begins to brown.

Now give it a nice squeeze of agave or honey. Then seaason with salt, and add juice from 1 lemon

Black beans, cooked, or canned

yes. that is right, i am going to give you the go ahead for canned beans, drained and rinsed

cotija or feta cheese, 1/2 cup chopped

lettuce of your choice, chopped

tortilla strips, fried until crispy in vegetable oil

lazy man salsa dressing

we have made this before, as a salsa, now we are taking our salsa and adding some oil and therfor turning it into a dressing!!!

1 tomato

1/2 jalopeno chili, or to taste

2 table spoons red onion, shallot or yellow onion

few springs of cilantro

juice from one lime

salt and pepper

Add me in the blender, whirl, and done.

Taste for seasoning.

More salt?

More heat?

When to your satifsfaction, stir in some oil, olive or canola, and voila, salad dressing!

combine all salad ingredients, pour dressing on top and garnish with crispy tortilla strips.

pickle me chili, tickle my buds

suddenly last fall, i noticed i had tons and tons of red chili peppers ripe in the garden.

Hmmmm, I thought, can’t feed them to the animals, spicy doesn’t seem to be their thing,

I love chilis, but not sure if could finish a few bushels full before they would mold,

but where there is heat, there is a solution….

PICKLES!!!!!

so sliced them as thin as I could, poured some basic pickling liquid on top, and just like that all the chilis were gone.

sliced red chilis

2 cups water

1 cup distilled vinegar

1/8 cup sugar

1/6 cup salt

dill, cilantro, parsley

Heat vinegar, water, sugar and salt until dissolved, pour over sliced chilies.

Wait…..wait a few days, enjoy!

Pickled chili buter

where you here?

when?

Valentines of course!

Well if you were here, you would have had our grilled lobsters with pickled chili butter, which was the last of the pickled chilis from my yard. If you were not here, then what can I say, other than, chili+butter+lobster= pretty sweet, i mean hot.

1 stick of softened butter

a few table spoons of pickled chilis

a few tablespoons of chopped cilantro

1 garlic clove, grated

Gently whirl together in a food processor until just combined.

We want to see streaks of chili and cilantro, so don’t blend it so long it turns into a brown mess.

Do nothing baked potatoes

I don’t like baked potatoes.

At all.

The Swede in me, has a love affaire with fingerling type taters only.

BUT, there is an exception to every rule, and my cryptonite is CHILI, because there is nothing i love more than:

something very bland + something very spicy, so bland baked potato+ something spicy= you got me at hello

So, our do nothing baked potatoes, goes as follows.

Do nothing.

Nope, not gonna wrap them in foil.

Not gonna rub them in oil.

Just gonna open the oven door, to the pre heated 450 degree oven, put them in and walk away.

1 hr later, we are going to return, then you can add chili butter, or plain butter, sour cream and/or a bottle of salsa on the side.

See, you don’t need to cook up a storm when you invite me over.

HOT SAUCE

cause if you know how to make it,

or how it is made,

then you can eat it.

so on that mission it was time to make our own tabasco!

all you need is chili+salt+vinegar+time= That’s hot.

So any chili of your choice, for a milder hot sauce add half a bell pepper, for a hotter sauce add habanero.

Remove the stems of your chilis and pulse with a few tablespoons of salt, in a food processor until a mash forms.

Place in a covered glass jar and let sit for two days, then add as much vinegar (distilled, rice, or any vinegar of your choice) as you have chilis. So if you have 1 cup of chilis, add 1 cup of vinegar, shake every now and then let sit for 3 to 5 days.

Then ready, set, eat some heat.

For a more liquid tabasco type sauce, strain out the seeds, chunky country style, leave the seeds in.

Black on black cause black is back

Black is always in, you can’t go wrong with black, and black on black, there is nothing wrong with that.

1 cup black rice, cooked per package instructions in broth

1 cup black lentils, cooked per package instructions, in broth, until al dente

1/3 cup black sesame seeds

Combine all above ingredients. Eat as is, or add a soy dressing.

1/2 cup seasoned rice vinegar

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 small jalopeno pepper sliced thin

cilantro or parsley chopped rough

Pour dressing ingredients over the black on black rice and lentil mix.

Carrots and asparagus with chili flakes

Here we are just going to build on our honey class, by adding chili to our carrots.

FIRST, a reminder ladies (and a few gentlemen) because somethings you have a hard time remembering….

STOP crowding your skillet or your pan, or your grill for that matter.

NOTHING is accomplished by doing that.

When you crowd your skillet or your pan,

by adding too much food at once,

the temperature of the skillet, or the water is going to fatally drop, and now you are:

steaming not sauteing,

soaking not frying,

sinking not boiling

So no matter what you are cooking, no matter what device you are using,

I am going to give you all a rule.

the 60/40 rule,

which is i want to see whatever cooking device you are using

60% EMPTY

and only 40% food.

So cut the carrots in half lengthwise, drizzle with oil, and place face down, either on a hot skillet, or on a sheet pan for oven cooking.

And saute or roast until the face is becoming lightly browned, now flip them over, drizzle with honey or agave and cook on the other side for a few minutes.

The mission here, is we want the carrots to brown while still retaining some bite.

We don’t want mushy carrots with no color.

That is called baby food.

And that happens when you insist of overcrowding your cooking device.

While the carrots are cooking, slice your aspargus in half lengthwise if thick, otherwise leave as is, and saute, again in batches, high heat, until just browned, but still is crunchy. Over cooked asparagus, is really pretty gross.

Season lightly with salt and pepper.

Make a dressing by adding: juice from 1 lime, 1 grated garlic clove, splash of oil, all the chili you can take and chopped herb of your choice. Pour over your cooked carrots and asparagus.

Artichoke with sriracha mayo

Because the simple joys of sriracha, shall never be under estimated, add to mayo, and seriously does life get better than that?

Start with 1 cup mayo in a bowl, then stir in sriracha to taste.

Artichokes very easy to grow, and they are now sprouting all over the yard.

Really love them raw, slice super thin with some parmesan cheese and some arugula, nothing better than that.

But we did that last year.

So now we are going to grill them, which we also did last year, so some of you have been taking this class for too long…..

first, we have to prep a pot of water with lemon juice or vinegar in it, otherwise they will turn brown.

We will chop off the top 1/3, cause there is nothing there to eat.

Then we are going to cut them into quarters or halves depending on the size, clean out the fuzzy core, and then cook them in salted water for about 15 minutes.

Then drain, and transfer to a grill and cooked until charred all around, then drizzle with a basic lemon vinaigrette:

juice from one lemon, 1 grated garlic clove, splash of vinegar, and season with salt.

Then either serve with a lemon aioli, or mayo mixed with sriracha to taste.

Malibu Farm deviled eggs

there are many methods of making hard boiled eggs, but only three things that makes a difference.

1. don’t use a super fresh egg, cause those are impossible to peel

2. always start your eggs in cold water

3. always finish your eggs in cold water

You can boil them for 1o minutes,

or bring the pot to boil, then cover and let sit for 12 minutes,

however you like to do it, I am staying out of your egg business,

as long as you start them in cold water, and then when they are done, move them to cold water and crack them slightly all over.

I don’t care for the yolk that much, so when we did the deviled eggs in mustard we used quail eggs, because a small egg goes a long way in my book.

When i make deviled eggs of regular size eggs, I am going to make them as small as I can, and use a minimal amount of yolk, if you are yolk-aholic, or find yolks yolk-ilicious, then you can yolk it all the way.

First, cut the egg in half, I usually cut it across the width and not the length, because this makes it seem smaller.

Then cut off the tip ends to make it stand up without tipping over.

Now remove the yolk entirely, and add a nice dollop of sriracha mayo (see artichoke recipe above), now top with a small piece of yolk (or as much yolk as you find yolk-ilisicious), then top with some thinly sliced cooked bacon* and some julienne arugula.

*where does your bacon live?

Always in the freezer.

Always.

But why does the bacon live in the freezer?

Because when the bacon is super chilled it can be easily sliced into very thin julienne slices, which is the only way bacon should be eaten.

There is no reason to ever eat an entire slice.

There just isn’t.

Chili chocolate

And then we were at the sweet end. Which was hot.

1 cup sugar

1 cup walnuts.

Start by melting the sugar in a heavy bottom skillet.

Please make sure the pan is totally dry before adding the sugar.

Turn on the burner to medium high heat and step away.

Do not stir the sugar, or shake the pan.

Just step away until the sugar begins to melt around the edges, then you can gently shake the melting sugar or stir with a DRY fork, even a drop of liquid will cause the sugar to crystalize, however, you want to prevent the edges of the sugar from burning before the center becomes melted. Once the sugar is melted into a caramel toss in your walnuts until coated, and pour out onto a heat proof surface. Once cool, and please don’t touch until totally cool, cause caramel is seriously hot and if you play with fire you will get burned. So once the caramel walnuts are totally cooled, chop them fine.

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

bittersweet chocolate chips to taste

flaky sea salt

alleppo chili peppers to taste

Over a double boiler, or kick it old skool, by adding a metal bowl over a pan of simmering water, add 1 cup (or more) of semi sweet chocolate chips. Once melted, start adding the bittersweet chocolate chips to taste. You want your chocolate to not be too sweet, maybe this is 50/50 or 70/30, this is your chocolate, so you decide when it is just right for you.

Then stir in half of the walnuts, and pour the mixture onto a buttered sheet pan, and spread as thin as possible, then sprinkle the rest of the walnuts, sea salt and chili peppers to taste over it. Chill and break into chunks to eat.

BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB FUNDRAISER

Hold the date…..June 23 and 24

Spicy chili peppers

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