Inspiration: The Shaved Duck's BBQ Cheesy Fries

French fries are universally known as the world's perfect food.

Now, add some ribs.

And cheesy fondue-sauce.

And maybe some jalapenos. 

Do I even really need to describe how amazing these are?

Thanks to the Shaved Duck for this magnificent inspiration.

Ingredients

1 lb russet potatoes, peeled and cut into fry-shaped wedges

1 rack ribs
1.5 cups shredded white cheddar/monterey jack
 2 cups milk
1/2 cup pickled jalapenos
Salt, pepper
Oil for frying

Preparation

1. Make the ribs: season well with your favorite rub (ours is an ever-changing mix of Soulard Grill seasoning, cumin, paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper). Roast the ribs in a 400 degree oven for 2 hours or until they're fall-apart tender.

2. Meanwhile, make the cheese sauce: Melt some butter in a pan, add the same amount of flour (1:1 ratio) to make a roux. Slowly whisk in the milk. When it's thickened (about 5-7 minutes of simmering), add the cheese and let it melt in the sauce. Add salt, nutmeg, pepper, or any other seasoning to make it perfect for your taste.

3. Par boil the potatoes for 3-4 minutes. Drain and dry as much as possible. Fry them lightly in a pan until they're golden on all sides.

4. Assemble: Fries first, rib meat, cheese sauce, jalapenos. Optional, but recommended: Stretch pants.

-Katie

Cuban Sandwiches

You know that line in 27 Dresses when Katherine Heigl says "I feel like I just found out my favorite love song was written about a sandwich?"

I believe I have found that sandwich.

It deserves a love song. Justin made pulled pork that roasted for 15 hours, we pickled our own cucumbers, and toasted it all on crispy Italian bread.

I'm typically not a meat-on-meat sandwich kind of girl, but this has changed my tune.

It seems like everyone has their own pulled pork recipe, so I'm not going to go into too many details here. We cooked a pork shoulder (~3 lbs) low and slow at 225 degrees for 15 hours. Yep. Overnight.

One big tip I'd give for pulled pork is this spice rub: Soulard Grill's Spice rub from Soulard Market.

Soooooo good.

We also made our own pickles, which is surprisingly easy. Slice the pickling cucumber thin, and let it marinate for an hour in a combination of vinegar, sugar, peppercorns, and salt. We got the recipe from Tyler Florence. But we added jalapenos, because we're daring like that.

All assembled, these sandwiches were the best I've ever had.

Nope, no real recipe here. But be sure to get Italian bread, Virginia ham, Swiss cheese, make your own pickles, and use Dijon mustard. Holy moly.

We had avocado-tomato quinoa on the side with lemon/olive oil

Make sure you make this one this summer, readers. Promise me you will.

-Katie

Southwestern Wonton Tacos

For Erin's baby shower, I made these bad boys as an hors d'oeuvres, and they flew off the table. I originally got the recipe from somewhere on Pinterest, and if you do a basic Google image search they are everywhere online. These wonton tacos are perfect for a party because you can make pretty much everything in advance and it takes minutes to put them together. Plus, they are shamefully easy to make.

This recipe yields about 18-20 tacos.

{Printable Recipe}


Ingredients
1 package wonton wrappers (about 50 wrappers usually)
1 lb ground chicken
1 can black beans
2 tbsp Penzey's Arizona Dreamin' seasoning or 1 package taco seasoning
1 package Mexican-style shredded cheese
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 orange bell pepper, diced
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
handful of baby spinach

For the guacamole:
1 avocado
1/2 lemon
pinch salt
handful cilantro, chopped

Procedure

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Brown the ground chicken in a pan. When about halfway done, toss in the bell peppers and garlic. Cook on medium-low heat until the chicken is done and the peppers are slightly soft. Mix in the seasoning and a pinch of salt.

Drain the black beans, but don't rinse them. Toss them in the chicken mixture along with the baby spinach. Cook until the spinach is wilted. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool for five or ten minutes.

Meanwhile, make the guacamole: Smash the avocado with lemon juice and salt. Add a serrano pepper if you like things spicy.

Spray a muffin tin with some nonstick cooking spray, then line the tin with one wonton wrapper each.

Put in a spoonful of the chicken mixture.

Top with cheese.

Add another wonton wrapper and gently press the edges down so that it's tucked nice and snug into the bottom half of the taco. 

Repeat another layer of chicken mixture and cheese.

Bake for ten minutes or until golden brown and bubbly. Top with guacamole and sprinkle with cilantro.

-Katie

Meatball Stuffed Eggplant

Now that I'm done with school forever and ever, it's time to start thinking about getting a job. I'm experiencing some sort of weird mix between excitement and terror, especially with the somewhat grim outlook everyone seems to have on the economy.

My goal is to be employed by the end of the summer (fingers crossed), and so until then, between applying for positions, I'm going to enjoy my time cooking as much as possible.

This is one of those recipes that just sort of happened randomly as I was thinking about what to do with my time now that there's no more grad school lurking over my shoulder. And anyway, Justin needs a little extra TLC now that he's hunkering down to take his Step 1 boards (a major test in 2nd year med school to basically determine if you're going to move on).

{Printable Recipe}
Ingredients
1 eggplant, cut lengthwise
3/4 lb ground turkey
2 cups brown rice, cooked (or you can use quinoa)
1 egg
2 tbsp fresh basil + parsley, chopped
1/2 cup Pecorino Romano cheese
2 cups tomato sauce (I used the leftover sauce from chicken cacciatore)
2 cups shredded Italian cheese

Preparation

I made this healthy and used brown rice and ground turkey, but if you like you can go ahead and go whole hog! 

Cut the eggplant lengthwise. Scoop out the inside, leaving enough so that the eggplant doesn't just flop apart when you stuff it. Oil them down and salt them. They WILL turn brown, but that's ok.

Meanwhile, cook the ground turkey in some olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste.

Mix the cooked rice, turkey, Pecorino Romano, and a couple tablespoons of olive oil to moisten.

Add the egg in when it's cooled down a bit. Stuff the eggplant as much as you can (I had a bit left over)

Spoon the tomato sauce over the eggplant and top with cheese.

 Bake at 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until it's bubbly and the eggplant is soft.

-Katie

Braised Rabbit with Asparagus Risotto

This meal screams spring, with asparagus now being in season and rabbit being reminiscent of the warming atmosphere. If you've never tried rabbit, you can get it at Soulard Market like we did. It tastes kind of like chicken, but richer and just a touch gamey. I'm not into gamey flavor though, so don't be put off by it being a wild animal. 


If the thought of eating fluffy little bunnies bothers you, just know that at least they were wild and free before the hunter got them, unlike the caged conditions that many of our domesticated animals live in.


Plus, they're delicious. And very healthy, too!


{Printable Recipe}


Ingredients for Braised Rabbit
1 rabbit, cut into large pieces
Flour, cayenne, salt, pepper
1 egg, beaten
Dash soy sauce
Dash rice wine vinegar
3 cups chicken stock
Bunch fresh thyme

Ingredients for Risotto
1 cup arborio rice
2 tbsp bacon fat (or olive oil if you're being good)
6 cups chicken stock
1/2 lemon
1/2 onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
Handful thin asparagus, chopped
1 sprig thyme
red pepper flakes (pinch)
Salt
1.5 tbsp butter
2-3 tbsp Parmesan cheese

Procedure

For the rabbit:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

You'll probably need to cut the rabbit into large sections. Cut the legs from the rest of the body, and cut the torso into reasonable sizes.

I know, it looks kind of like alien meat. But I promise, it will look better once it's cooked.

Combine the flour, cayenne, salt and pepper. You'll need enough flour to coat the rabbit, probably a cup or two. The spices are to taste, so start out light.

Whisk the egg with a dash of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar.

Dunk the rabbit pieces into the egg and then dredge in the flour.

Sear the meat in some olive oil.  

Pour in the stock and thyme. Throw it in the oven to braise for 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes in the oven

For the risotto:

Saute the onion and garlic in some bacon fat (yes, we keep it in the fridge). Season with salt and red pepper flakes. Add the rice and let it toast in the pan for 5 minutes. Add thyme.

Meanwhile, heat up the stock with the lemon half.

To cook the rice, add 2 ladles of stock to the rice and stir. Let this slowly evaporate. When it's almost completely gone, add 2 more ladles of stock. You cook risotto this way, very slowly and in batches of stock. This lets the starch leech out and make the rice very creamy.

This is what it looks like when it's ready for another ladle of stock

Continuously taste the rice to check for doneness. It'll take about 25 minutes and a good 5 or 6 additions of stock. When it's very close to being done and you only have one more addition of stock to go, add the asparagus.

When it's done, turn off the heat and add the butter and Parmesan to finish it off.

Spring on a plate.

-Katie

Classic Bolognese Lasagna

Happy Monday readers! This weekend I had the pleasure of babysitting my one-month-old nephew Jonathan for a few hours. He's a total cutie.

This pic is a little old because I didn't get a good one of me and him, but you get the idea.



While I cuddled with him, Justin got started on our dinner — classic bolognese lasagna.

We actually didn't know that this version was classic: we thought we were being really clever and original by pairing béchamel sauce with bolognese in a lasagna. No cheese at all. Later we found out that this is actually a very traditional way of making lasagna. Oh well.

We made ours with homemade pasta sheets, homemade béchamel and of course homemade bolognese. If you only make one thing from scratch here, make sure it's the bolognese. Or both sauces. Though if I'm going to push you, make the pasta too. It completely transforms lasagna.

Ingredients
{Printable Recipe}
For the béchamel:
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp flour
3/4 quart whole milk
3 tbsp Parmesan cheese
pinch nutmeg
Salt & Pepper

For the bolognese:
1 lb ground beef
1 cup white wine
1 cup stock (chicken, beef, or veggie)
1 large can San Marzano tomatoes (these are naturally sweet and not tinny, so you don't need sugar or a carrot to balance the acidity)
1 onion
1 clove garlic

Pasta sheets


Preparation:

Now I promise, this looks complicated, but it's all really simple, there are just a lot of steps involved.

For the béchamel, melt the butter in a pan.

When it's melted, add the flour and whisk it in. Let this cook for two minutes.

Slowly whisk in the milk. Let this simmer for ten minutes or so until it gets nice and thick. Add the Parmesan and the nutmeg.

You know it's ready when it coats the back of a spoon and you can run your finger through it without it running all over the place. Like this:

If it gets TOO thick, like really gloopy, just add more milk. 

If it looks too thin, just let it cook a while longer.

For the bolognese, brown the meat in a pan. Drain if you need to. Add stock and wine, let it reduce until it's a light sauce.

In a SEPARATE pan, cook the tomatoes, garlic, and onion in some olive oil for fifteen minutes. Blend in a food processor or blender until it's nice and smooth.

Then combine the two sauces. For some reason, this makes the most delicious bolognese ever. Something about not actually cooking the meat in the red sauce makes it more complex and lighter at the same time.

Meanwhile, par-boil your pasta sheets for one minute until they're just soft. Keep them on an oiled cookie sheet until you're ready to use them.

Now to assemble!

This isn't a science. Just layer the sauces with the pasta. No cheeses needed.

That's a LOT of lasagna.

This is it after we baked it at 350 for 45 minutes.

This lasagna is so light and delicious. We ate practically half of it in one sitting.

omg.

-Katie

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Perfect Roasted Chicken

Roasting a chicken is a basic skill that everyone should master in their culinary skills. This recipe came from one of Anthony Bourdain's specials on his favorite foods. The key to a perfect roasted chicken is high heat and dry — no oil, no butter, no basting. It sounds like that would make a terrible dry, rubbery chicken, but what it really does is make the skin super crispy and the meat unbelievably moist.

Plus, it's a no-brainer to make. Two ingredients: Chicken and salt. Then you just let the oven do the work for you.

Perfect Roast Chicken
{Printable Recipe}
1 4-5 pound whole chicken
2 tbsp salt

Special Equipment
kitchen twine

Preparation

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

Tie your chicken. You want to make sure the legs are tied tightly and that it's all one snug little package — this ensures even cooking. Here's a tutorial from Justin:

Once it's all trussed, you can stick on either flat on an oven-proof pan, or make this little contraption (below): it ensures the heat reaches all areas of the chicken. And we don't have a fancy roasting pan. Roast at 450 degrees for 1 hour (and change, if you need it).

Here's the final product:

Before...

After.

We had ours with a simple aioli: 

a couple tablespoons of mayo, a splash of lemon, salt, pepper, and lemon zest. 

-Katie

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