Girl In A Galley Loves Guy In The Closet

I totally ripped this idea off some guy in Canada who says he cooks in a kitchen that is the size of a closet. I just have this to say: dude you ain’t got shit on me, I cook in a galley that has less square footage than a boot box, and oh and by the way, I love you, your blog, and your recipes! Thanks for the brilliant idea. I'm calling mine: Jalapeno Cornbread with Caramelized Chipotle Onions and Smashed Black Beans.

Guy in the closet makes his own cornbread and soaks his beans overnight and he probably grew the onions. I’m sure his were way better than mine, but if mine would have been any better we couldn't have stood it. Another thing, mine came together rather quickly and I didn't even sour my own sour cream. I bought it that way!

Even The Big Guy, who looks disappointed when I put dinner on the table and there isn’t a hunk of bleeding meat on his plate, said that it was mighty fine for a vegetarian dish. It must have stuck with him because the next day I overheard him telling our first mate, Haney Buffet, yes Jimmy’s brother (who missed out) that he missed out.

Process the entire can of Chipotle peppers and they will 

store for months in an air-tight container in your refrigerator.

So if you want to make your own cornbread and soak your beans overnight go right ahead. The results will probably be wonderful. If not, follow my recipe and the results will probably be wonderful.  

You can make the bread, the beans and the onions ahead of time and then just grill your bread and put it all together when you are ready to serve. Think of it as a really cool, open-faced grilled cheese sandwich. Thanks,  guy in the closet, for the genius idea. Love you...mean it!

 

Go to the "Misc. Recipes" tab at the top of this page to view the reicpe.

The Tuber Tuesday Taste Test

The one thing the grocery stores here in the Virgin Islands are full of is strange, unidentifiable root vegetables. Most of them are hard, thick-skinned, lumpy, dirty and just plain weird looking.  

     The other day I decided to buy a few of the funny tubers so we could try them. You can only imagine The Big Guy's excitment when I said, “Guess what? Tonight's weird root vegetable night.” 

     He didn't say it, but I saw the obvious question forming in his brain, which was, “Why can’t we just have potatoes?”  Before it even left his lips I gave him my one raised eyebrow look…the one that said, “don’t make me hurt you on Tuber Tuesday.” He's such a good sport – when I put it that way!

I had three to sample: cassava, edos and tania.  The cassava had a thick skin with a waxy layer, which acts as a preservative, but makes it hard to peel unless you are using a machete. It also had a little happy trail running through it that my Google research said should be cut out. Alrighty then.

The edos were the easiest to peel of the three and were thinner skinned than the tania, which was a bit thinner skinned than the cassava.  Once I cut into them they all looked the same—bright white and dense.

 

I then cut them all into about the same size pieces and boiled them (separately) because that seemed to be the obvious way to cook them. The tania boiled up pretty fast, the edos turned a bit slimy and took on a grey tinge and the cassava took longer to boil than the other two.

     I mashed them without adding anything to them, just to check texture and taste. The cassava was hard to mash so I got out my little hand held stick blender and promptly turned it into bubble gum. It had a slightly sweet taste, but the texture was a definate turn off. 

Tania on the top; edos on the left and the ewww, bubblegum cassava on the right

     Moving right along to the tania…it was similar to cassava in appearance but unremarkable. Bland taste maybe a little bitter or off putting. The Big Guy was still making a face at this point.

     The edos were kind of slimy when peeled but they mashed up pretty moist and fluffy, not needing much liquid, but they tunred an odd grey/purple color and were slightly sweet with a dry smooth texture. Of the three I preferred them. The Big Guy would have preferred regular old mashed potatoes.

What I know for sure: There's a reason that there are an adundance of the weird tubers here. It's because THEY SUCK and no one buys them! I decided that when it comes to spuds I'll stick to what I know.

Then today at the Harbour Market I saw this weird fruit. “Hey, want to do a Freaky Fruit Friday?” I asked Big. He said something that sounded a lot like, “don't make me hurt you.”

 

On their way to the oven...

I make rosemary roasted potatoes a lot, like when I don't have cassava or edos on hand. 
Here they are 2 ways...baby reds roasted with fresh rosemary and sea salt, then smashed and tossed with butter and sour cream...
 

And on their way to the table...

    













OR fingerlings skewered on rosemary sprigs and roasted.  Either way, BELIEVE me when I tell you that they are better than the ones from the Tuber Tuesday Taste Test.

I found these rosemary skewers at a little gourmet shop and they were perfect for this dish!

 Go to the “Soups-Salads-Sides” tab at the top of this page to get the reicpe.

The Bon Appetit Throwdown: Round 2

Baked, broiled or fried...admit it, we all look better with a tan.

 

I’m pathetic, I know this…I sometimes like to call myself a chef and then I get all queasy over a chicken. The truth is raw chicken has a YUCK factor that triggers my gag reflex and I’d rather chew tinfoil than handle that pimply-looking bird. 

But hey, it’s only chicken and Bon Appetit is calling so I’m all in. June, my CA cousin offered up some chicken cuttin' advice so I was feeling pretty confident going into this.  

     The Big Guy sharpened my knife and I thought I did a pretty good job of cutting that first leg off, especailly since I had my eyes closed.  He thought otherwise because he said a bunch of stuff that sounded like, "cheesean’rice you can’t cut a chicken leg like that; look how big it is; does that look like a chicken leg to you?" 

Mine is the big leg. Looks pretty good, huh?

So when he reached for the knife I gladly forked it over. He went to work on it like his old grandma had taken over his body. I was impressed. He’s obviously been keeping this talent from me.

     When he had it in about 10 pieces I took over to clean the gross stuff off it. That didn’t work out for me. I then spent the next several minutes dry heaving into the garbage, so Big stepped in and handled that part for me too.  I did put it in a bowl and rub it down with the seasonings and then I put it to bed in the refrigerator, so it’s not like I was completely worthless. Jeez.

I bought a cast iron skillet on St. Croix and had $21 worth of peanut oil so the next evening we were ready to put the old bird in the hot tub.

     I followed the recipe exactly as written and found that I only used about half of the flour and buttermilk mixtures, which gave it a nice even tan.

My BEAUTIFULLY bronzed leg

The Lowdown on the Throwdown: 

It WAS damn good chicken! The goodness was in the crust, which was perfectly crispy and was just the right proportion of crust to meat.

     I think the overnight seasoning of it really helped to keep it moist because it was just as juicy as if I had brined it.  There was no mistaking the cayenne pepper, which personally was a bit too spicy for me, ( I'm a wimp, I admit) but The Big Guy liked the boldness of it. 

    The Best Fried Chicken EVER as Bon Appetit claims? "Almost as good as my grandma's," says Big, and he knows his chicken.

Will I make it again? I won't ever attempt to cut up a whole bird unless there is a new car or something of equal value dangled in front of me, but I will fry up some chicken again using the buttermilk/flour combo of this recipe. 
                              ~          ~          ~          ~          ~          ~          ~          ~        

My friend Karen, who is a great cook made this recipe too. Hers looks pretty perfect and she said her taste testers loved it. I asked her if it was better than that of the Parkman Bar, who makes dang good fried chicken, so say the chicken eaters and she said: I doubled the seasoning, especially the cayenne pepper so I thought the flavor was great, had a little bite and very juicy. So Bon Appetit wins!

There you have it. Bring on Round 3 BA!

The Gentile Chicken

There are some things in life that I take for granted. Peanut oil happens to be one of them.  But man, not anymore.  Uh,uh,uh…

     This week I’ve been working up the courage to cut up a chicken. I’m not practically fond of chicken, it tends to gross me out and I usually only eat chicken that I have cooked because I know all those nasty veins have been removed and the icky yellow chicken fat has been trimmed and the slimy film has been washed off.

     Buuuutt….I’m doing this Bon Appetit throwdown thing and this months cover recipe calls for, and I quote, a chicken (not kosher), cut into 10 pieces, backbone and wing tips removed, so I’m going to buck up and stick a knife in one.  Can anybody explain to me why I can’t use a “kosher” chicken? I mean, I didn’t even know there was such a thing and I had no idea  that chickens follow different religious practices, but now I want to know why you’re only supposed to fry the Gentile and not the Jewish ones.  

     And I’m supposed to remove their wing tips? Huh? I didn’t even know they wore them. 

     I can see this is going to be a lot harder than I thought. Where's that fussy dessert when I need it?

Does "All Natural" mean "Not Kosher" in chicken talk?

I made out my grocery list…two islands and six grocery stores later I have managed to round up the ten ingredients, the last one being peanut oil, which I swear on a stack of Bibles that I will never take for granted again.  At home I buy peanut oil by the gallon, like five gallons at a time around Thanksgiving. But these are the islands mon and instant gratification can not be found at the marina market.  When I did get it ran down at store #6, the bottles were little and they were expensive. I bought three of them at $6.99 a pop and am hoping that it will be enough to fry my bird, which by the way cost less than one bottle of oil. 

12 measly ounces in that bottle

The Big Guy mentioned that when he was a kid he used to see his grandma cut up a chicken every Sunday so I told him that that more than qualified him to be the chicken cutter-upper in this family. He’s trying to get out it. Says it wouldn’t be kosher if I didn’t cut up my own chicken. Humpf, we'll see.

The Gentile chicken that's about to land in the peanut pool.

 

Bon Appetit ~ Round 2: I Ain't Chicken

I've been anxiously awaiting for the February issue of Bon Appetit to come out so I could see what I'm cookin' this month, and guess what? It's chicken! Phew, I was dreading a fussy dessert. How hard can chicken be?

Confession to make: I have actually never cut up a whole chicken because in my family we all go for the breast meat. Since that's pretty much the only meat that Hates Everything will eat, I can say that I have cooked a lot of chicken. 

Hates Everything, being forced to taste my Thai Coconut-Lime Soup with Chicken

Just because I haven't ever cut one up a whole chicken doesn't mean I can't do it, right? I mean, I can juggle...but I've never done it while riding a unicycle but that doesn't mean I can't do that either. Ya with me?
     At home I have a real "Chicken Pan." It's a beautifully seasoned, cast iron skillet that actually has "Chicken Pan" stamped on the bottom of it and was handed down to me from my dad. I'm really wishing I had it with me about now. I did consider trying to bring it to the boat  because I love cooking out of that pan, but besides the fact it weighs a ton I was afraid it wouldn't make it through airport security. TSA would probably have tried to confiscate it from me as a possible weapon and then I would have had to possibly use it as a weapon and then the vicious cycle would have begun, again. I'm not about to check something that is so valuable to me so I'll make this "Best Fried Chicken Ever" in one of my crappy boat pans unless I find an old cast iron pan in one of the antique shops around here.

I'm sure there must be some good chicken cutter-uppers out there so any tips would be greatly appreciated. If you want to make the recipe with me, send me your picture and your review and I'll post it with mine.

You chicken?  I ain't chicken! 

Results to follow soon!

The Mafia, Vampires and Us

The Big Guy and I have plenty of time for people watching and we’ve become quite talented, we think, at analyzing people from our vantage point…a beach bar stool.  

Recent conversations have went something like this:

     “See that couple over there?  She’s a Wall Street exec.”

     “Or maybe a doctor,” Big interjects.

     “He doesn’t work, he’s Mr. Mom,” I say. “See the fanny pack he’s wearing?  Animal crackers and Ritalin are in there. And those two kids…they are adopted.”

     “How can you tell that? Big asks me. 

     “Because biological parents do not put that much sunscreen on their own kids,” I say. 

He nods in agreement, recalling that he never once doped up our own kids with sunscreen.

      “See that girl?" he asks me. “She's a vampire. Nobody is that white and she's all shaded up under that big hat and dark sunglasses.”  
     “Ahhh, and see her drink, it's red. I bet she's drinking the V,” I surmise.

This is how a lot of our afternoon conversations go and lordy did we hit the jackpot the other day!

     We were chillin’ at the Pirates Bight on Norman Island and were watching 2 or 3 young people in matching khakis and white shirts which all said Lady Britt on them, bustin’ a hump to wait on 8 or 9 people who were lying around on beach chairs. Fluff a towel here, fill the chip bowl there, rearrange kicked off flip flops. You get the picture. 

     I notice an older gentleman kind of standing back and taking it all in. He was wearing shoes, really nice shoes…on the beach.

     “See that guy,” I whisper to Big, “he’s in the mafia.”

     “How do you know?” Big asks me.

     “Slicked back hair, Ralph Lauren Polo shirt, Italian leather loafers, chain smoking.”

     “How do you know they are Italian leather?” Big wants to know.

     “I know this. I’ve seen Italian leather loafers.  Dr. Lexus has some, and he’s practically mafia.  But I’m not so sure about that watch,” I say. “It look like a Swiss Army Victorinox, which is about 1200 bucks, not a flashy, mobster worthy Rolex.”

     “Maybe he’s just a shoe salesman,” Big says.

I say, “No he’s too shifty, see the gold chain, probably has a cross on it, he’s definitely Catholic so I’m pretty sure he’s a hit man.”

Aristotle Onassis

Authors Note: He kind of looked like this guy,  only without the smile and the neck tie. Now that I think about it, maybe he was a Greek shipping tycoon and not a mobster. 

Naaahhh, I going with mobster...

     









The rest of the conversation went like this:    
     “See that girl?” Big says. “She has a Chanel bag.”  Wow, I’m impressed that he knows that.

     “Knock off?” I ask, looking for it.

     “No, it says Chanel on it…she’s bought something at Chanel.”

     “Good eye.” I reply.

     “All those girls are sisters,” he says. I disagree.  

     “That one is blond and too skinny and the other two are dark. Cute swimsuit though, looks European.”

     “Dye job and anorexic, and that big bow on her suit looks dumb.” he says. I nod in agreement.

We nurse our Painkiller (him) and Carib (me) and watch as three more Lady Britt boys appear with three Seabobs, which are little rocket looking things that you hang on to and they propel you through the water. You can even dive down to about 120 feet with them.
     A couple of the bored looking Greek/Italian mobster kids get up from the loungers and go for a spin on them.

     “We have got to get us two of those,” I say!

     “Ok,” says Big, “Google them and find out what they cost.”

Lady Britt ~ She's just a wee bit grander than Pisces

That evening back on the boat we see Lady Britt pulling out. She’s a big beautiful mega yacht, which explains the uniformed stewards.  I Google Lady Britt, and see that she is a (2010) 206’ Feadship, has a crew of 17, and she takes 12 guests to heaven and back, all for $567K per week. Yes, you heard me right...THOUSAND!  $567,000.00 USD per week. We choke on our cheap wine.

     “Told you they were mafia,” I say. “That old guy was chain smoking because he’s the one writing the check for this little vacation.”

Big tells me to Google Seabob. We find that they go for about $16,000 EACH.
 

     “I have two pretty good kidneys,” I say. “I’d be willing to part with one so we could have a Seabob. We could probably coerce one of the kids into giving up one too.”

     “Ok, which one should we ask?” The Dad who has never applied sunscreen, proving he doesn’t have a favorite daughter, asks me.
     “Hmmm, will flip em for it.” I say.

I set our dinner on the table.

     “Looks good,” The Big Guys says.

     “I’ll bet they aren’t getting spaghetti tonight on Lady Britt,” I say.

Poor bastards.

We smile and clink our wine glasses.

Ahhh, life is good.

I've already posted a recipe for Spaghetti and Meatballs with Marinara Sauce (check it out on the "Pasta" page) so I'll share one that just may even be hoity-toity enough for the poor people on Lady Britt. I made this one up the other night to take to a little party on board Free Ingwe.  

New potatoes with Chive Pesto, Bacon-Blue Cheese Creme & Lemon Zest

(NOTE: Substitute cheddar cheese for blue cheese, if you want.)  
Go to the "Appetizer" page to see the recipe.

Not Yo Momma's French Toast

Here is a great weekend breakfast for you to try; Caramel Apple French Toast.

   

My good friend Risa, the one who always has the squash, is a BIG caramel junkie, so I came up with this recipe while planning my menu for her and Captain Stephen, who will be on the boat with us next week.

     It's decadent and indulgent and worth every single calorie and I'm pretty sure it's counts as healthy since it has apples in it.

 I know she would prefer it without the bread and apples, since they are really just the vehicle for the caramel.

     I've made it twice this week, the first time I served it with some warm maple-honey, which is just equal parts maple syrup and honey. It was really good but The Big Guy and I both decided that it didn't really need it, the caramel sauce was double by-pass worthy enough; no sense going in for the tripe by-pass.

The first day I made it I used a French baguette, (pictured directly above) which made for the small pieces so that one apple slice fit perfectly. The second time I used a French bread, cut on the diagonal. Same taste, just different look. For something different substitute bananas for apples and spunk it up with a little rum and call it Bananas Foster French toast!  

Go to the "Misc. Recipes" tab at the top of this page to see the recipe.

They Are Called Tree Frogs, NOT Boat Frogs

My mornings don’t typically start with a Puerto Rican tree frog dipping his toes into my cup of joe, nor do I spend part of the morning with my big butt perched on 3 inches of a sink counter top that is clearly not designed for butts, but that was how this particular morning started out.

I had just poured our coffee, the bacon was frying and I was unloading the dish drainer from the previous nights dishes. The Big Guy was checking the Wind Guru when a frog sprang out my dish drainer. It was big...about the size of Kim Kardashian's engagement diamond.  

     After skimming the edge of my coffee cup he launched himself off the counter and was on the move. It scared the bejesus right out of me and I screamed like a girl and scared the wind guru right out of Big.

     “What? What? What’s wrong?” he asked.

     “There’s a huge frog on the boat!”  I shrieked.

Puerto Rican tree frog or "Coqui" (some people say they are endangered, I say..."oops"

)

Ok, so we don’t call The Big Guy "Captain Obvious" for nothing... “well we have to find him and get him off he said.”  (I’m pretty sure there is a joke in there somewhere…Know how to get a frog off?  Nevermind.)

Next question: “Where’d he go?” Big asked me.

I say, “I don’t know, I can’t see him, I don’t have my far eyes in yet,” and so I go in search of my glasses as Big attempts to be the boss of me by hollering, “get your glasses on and help me find him!”

    Ahhh, now I see him and he has stuck himself to the side of the wall under the table. He hops up on to our new pillows. The dogs hop down. 

     This is when I hand Big a broom and tell him not to hurt him, to just shoo him out. I take my perch on the narrow sink ledge and watch while the frog herding begins. (I think of another joke...How many truck drivers does it take to herd a frog? Nevermind)

It should be noted here that a full sized kitchen broom is WAY to long to be swinging around in a small galley. It should also be noted that a tree frog can hop at least 10’4” straight up into the air, which means that unless you have baton-twirlling credentials you should not be trying to kill, I mean shoo a frog with a broom in a boat salon.  It’s like trying to stir a pot of soup with a scoop shovel.

The frog and pony show commences…dogs scatter, broom handle is constantly stuck up, under or against any and all surfaces, the frog is going ape-shit and the Big Guy is making little girl noises. It occurs to me that I need to get my camera because I see a blog forming.

Editors note: If you have ever been called a bleeding heart, have ever been accused of being oversensitive or if you are just plain squeamish, you should stop reading now. 
It's not to late.  
You've been warned.

“Wait, don’t kill him….let me get my camera and get some shots,” I say. Big gives me that look—the one that says I have two heads but only one brain. Then he backs off for a second and says, “I think he’s dead.” 
Don't be fooled by the picture above, he is NOT dead! Immediately after I snapped that picture he came out of his broom induced frog coma and hopped out into the cockpit. 

This is when I realize that he is only about half the size of the spider from a few weeks ago and that the big broom is overkill, so I hand over the little whisk broom and dust pan from under the sink I'm still sitting on and tell Big to escort him off the boat and into the nearest tree.
   

See the big broom? Over kill, don't you think?

So now the show has moved out to the cockpit and from my vantage point on the sink I see The Big Guy finally gets him scooped up. He says a few words that have "God" and some other religious connotations in them before giving him a proper burial at sea. Did I say burial at sea? I meant before setting him free, errr, umm, I mean putting him in a tree. 

 
"Frog bully," I say.

Question: How long does it take to get a frog off? 

Answer:  Just a little bit longer than it takes to cook bacon.

Yep, in all the excitement I burned the turkey bacon.

There will be no "Frog" recipes here, but I will share the one that I made that night; Orange-Maple & Balsamic Glazed Salmon.

My friend Melissa, on Free Ingwe has a Holland America cookbook that she got while on an Alaskan cruise and I did a variation of one of their recipes for Salmon with Maple Balsamic glaze.  I say "variation" because as usual I was short about 1/2 the ingredients, but I did have some orange marmalade that Mel had also given me, so I went a little wild with that.  I served it with Candied Ginger Couscous. It was lip-smakin' good ~ and we ate the whole thing!
     Go to the "Seafood" tab at the top of this page to get the recipe.