Pure Florida Food

FRESH From The Gulf Of Florida

2012-01-08T11:34:00.001-05:00

Grouper caught only hours earlier.

I like mine fried.

His.

She likes hers blackened.

Hers.

That side is mashed cauliflower.

(...shudder ....)

Southern Caviar: Eat Your Colors!

2011-12-27T09:20:00.000-05:00

Somehow, I had never heard of "Southern Caviar" until recently.
Not sure how that happened, but I am officially a fan.

Way better than the fishy alternative and good golly, it has to be so good for you.
(Okay, maybe the chip is not super good for you, but really, do you eat them 24/7 ?

Here's one of many recipes for Southern Caviar that exist on the internet:

http://www.food.com/recipe/southern-caviar-386559

Enjoy!

Beef Back Ribs

2010-12-19T10:56:00.002-05:00

Rubbed and ready.
We tend to do pork spare ribs around here much more than beef, but you do need a change every once in awhile.

I like a little crispy char, so my ribs get some direct heat time, but not too much when they first go on the grill. Just a little browning and searing before spending most of their grill time completely off the coals and over to the side, with the lid down.

During this time I will check on them occasionally and give them a spritz of vinegar from my BBQ spray bottle.

Near the end of their experience, I tent them with a little foil, sauce them, and let them finish up.

They usually turn out okay.
At least that's what I hear from the lucky munchers.

You could wrap them tighter for a fall off the bone rib, but I like a little chewiness, so I only tent mine and don't let them over cook.

Jerk Chicken Chili ... Go Buy Pam Anderson's Book

2010-10-17T13:51:00.002-05:00

Damn.

This stuff was excellent and so darn easy to make.

But, I digress, ... let us begin at the beginning.

A week or two ago, I was heading in to the SWAMP for my motorcycle class early in the morning.

NPR was on in the JEEP and the NPR gal was interviewing a chef about her new book, Perfect One Dish Dinners.

What caught my attention was the name of the author ... Pam Anderson.

The Bay Watch babe was a chef?

Hmmm, silicone is popular in the kitchen these days, perhaps she had found her niche.

But no, the author was not bouncy Pamela,

... it was P-A-M Anderson.

I listened as the miles rolled by, expecting NPR froufrouness, but I found myself agreeing with Ms. Anderson as she talked about cooking meals that tasted great, fed a crowd, and used minimal dishes.

When she got to the chorizo stuffed pork roast that cooks ABOVE black beans and rice in one roasting pan ..., well, she had me.

I popped in to Books-A-Million and grabbed a copy.

After motorcycle class, I hit Publix for the ingredients to "Jerk Chicken Chili" from the book. I made the chili that night.

It was so easy (uses a rotisserie chicken!) and the flavor ... Oh My Goodness, Oh My Goodness. Cinnamon, allspice, jalapenos, thyme, ... dark chocolate!

I hate to tell you how good this stuff was, and then not post the recipe, but I really do believe in copyright protection for authors, and this lady is trying to sell a book, so well, that wouldn't be right.

Let me just say the book is full of great recipe's and the pork roast with black beans will be the next one to fall here at PFHQ.

Here's a lesson about buying the book ... since I've teased you and not given you the recipe.

A few days later, my teacher pal Stacy and I were in a bookstore on our lunch hour. We had some training in Gainesville, so we had an actual HOUR to eat and since we are used to about 20 minutes, we had time to kill.

I had told her about the chili and the book, so we hit Barnes and Noble. She wanted to check it out.

Barnes had it for about the same price I paid, ...$32.

Stacy pulled it from the shelf, whipped out her Droid phone, and scanned the barcode ... WITH HER PHONE!

Up popped an Amazon page with the book at $17!

I felt like a caveman with my flip phone and my almost twice as expensive copy of this excellent book.

But you know what?

I don't care.

This is one great treasure trove of recipes.

I plan to try every one ... well, okay, not the lamb one, but the rest of them.

I don't do baby sheep.

I do love this book though.

Bison Battle Sandwich Smackdown Entry

2010-08-23T12:17:00.003-05:00

Doggybloggy over at ChezWhat is hosting the current Culinary Smackdown, with the noble sandwich as the theme.

It was tight for me with school starting and a computer issue at home, but I did manage to create a simple, tasty sandwich with a native species tucked in between some French bread and garnished with a dose of Argentinian sauce.

My main ingredients were:

A small bison steak.
Fresh spinach
French bread
Portobello mushrooms
Chimichurra sauce

I grilled the steak in butter and olive oil in a hot cast iron skillet. The steak was only seasoned with black pepper and kosher salt prior to cooking.

While the steak was grilling, I sliced a loaf of fresh French bread, buttered each slice, and then toasted them on a hot griddle.

When the bison steak was almost ready, I added sliced mushrooms to the pan to saute in the bisony, buttery drippings.

The sandwich was assembled by setting a bed of fresh spinach and mushrooms on top of one slice of toasted French bread.

The bison steak was then sliced thinly, piled atop of the spinach, and drizzled with chimichurra sauce.

After assembly, it looked something like this!

Both taste testers pronounced it very good ... although two sandwiches were needed for verification purposes.

Cuban Pork Saute

2010-08-10T11:25:00.004-05:00

Here's an easy and really delicious dish from Cooks.com. You can find the recipe here.

So, what follows is not the detailed recipe, but a few shots and comments on the procedure.

You'll start with pork tenderloin. This was a 4 pound roast, so I cut it in two and put the unused portion in the freezer.
The recipe calls for a pound and a half, but a little extra is always good with my crew.

The pork gets cubed into bite-size pieces and then marinates for a day. I only marinated mine for about 6 hours, because I never think of things far enough ahead of time to do the full marinade.

The recipe calls for Italian dressing in the marinade, and since we don't do bottled dressings at PFHQ, I mixed up a batch our heirloom family Italian dressing and shared it between the marinade and the accompanying salad.

All the marinade ingredients get dumped in with the pork and then gooshed around prior to a long trip in the fridge while the meat soaks up all those flavors.

It looked like this and smelled wonderful when I took it out of the fridge to saute it.

Cooking this dish is ridiculously easy.

The marinated pork goes in to a good pan with a little hot oil and in no time it's done.

The recipe called for serving it on white rice, but we have left white rice behind for brown, so that's what it is resting on above.

Add some salad and some of my KILLER Cuban black beans with datil peppers infused throughout ... and you are talking Cuban food lover heaven.

I think even the captain of the Pilar would approve.

Jerk Chicken ... Minorcan Style

2010-07-09T07:34:00.004-05:00

The ingredient list is visually represented above.
Yowza.
There's a lot of stuff in this marinade!
I followed a recipe for jerk that I found in my favorite grilling cookbook, "HOW TO GRILL" by Steven Raichlen.
Great Book!

The ingredient list is so long, I'm not going to include it all in this post, but HERE is a very similar and very authentic recipe with photos ... direct from Jamaica.

It's almost the same as the one in my cookbook.

I could not find scotch bonnet peppers in our little town, so I substituted my own datil peppers from the backyard.
THAT is what makes my version, "Minorcan Style".

I seeded them as per the recipe, but having now made this dish, I would have left the seeds in.
I wanted this chicken to be fiery hot and it was only warm-hot.

So, the next time, I'll either use more whole datils or find the real scotch bonnets and use them.
My recipe said to use 6-12 scotch bonnet peppers ... 6-12 ?
That is a WIDE range ... it's not like saying 2 -3, five or six ... doubling something is a pretty dramatic change.
I just thought that was funny.

Here is the jerk marinade almost complete. This photo was taken before I remembered the brown sugar and cinnamon.

The chicken is supposed to marinate in it overnight, but I rushed this step since I was busy painting the house while I cooked,

Mine only got a few hours ... next time it's overnight baby!

I direct grilled them for a while to get a good seared grill flavored skin.

After a while, the birds went off to the side to slow cook and finish off. The recipe called for tossing Allspice berries on to the coals for flavored smoke and I did that step.

At the last minute, we tossed some ears of corn on the grill to cook a little. The picture above shows the finished chickens and the just barely cooked corn.

Really now ... good sweet corn needs no cooking or butter, salt, etc.
Break that habit and just eat it you fools!

Why take something healthy and delicously sweet and glob it up with heart clogging butter?

Save the butter for a pound cake or something where it's actually needed!

Okay.

I'm off my corn crate soap box now.

I was too tired from a painting marathon day and cooking to make a salad, so uncharacteristically so ... there is no green on my plate.

I made my killer black beans, brown rice, corn, jerk chicken, and great progress painting the house ... so I figured that was enough for one day.

Post New Years

2010-01-09T05:08:00.001-05:00

New Year's Day was a BBQ bash here at PFHQ, and many friends and relatives were fed.
They came, they saw, they ate.
It was good, with really, too much variety in my opinion. As hosts, we often seem to overdo the menu, ignoring the tried and true KISS principle.

I'm going to remember that and lobby for that position the next time we host anything.
We could have scaled the offerings down by a third, and still had plenty of variety.

The next day, when even the overnight guests had gone home, there was an abundance of leftovers to choose from.
I narrowed my selection down to a very southern, very New Yearsy plate.

Turnip greens, black-eyed peas, rice, green beans, and a wee bit of BBQ chicken.

This week, Mrs. FC took a chunk of roast and made an amazing roast beef. I didn't make this, so sorry, no recipe here.
I did eat it though. It was tender with a rich dark brown, winey sauce, and a wonderful fresh basil-garlic coating across the top.

Oh my goodness, it was delicious ... and the whole house smelled amazing too.

There's my plate steaming and about to disappear.
... I think two plates actually disappeared with my help.

This was an experiment of hers. That filling is blackberry.

It was good, we thought it needed a little something ... maybe a higher fruit to dough ratio.
I enjoyed it with coffee ... it was reminescent of a scone ... only different.

That's a sampling of recent foodological events from the PFHQ kitchen.

What's your latest experiment?

Skillet Apple Pie

2009-12-06T09:18:00.004-05:00

Somewhere around Thanksgiving, I was listening to a story on NPR about unusual Thanksgiving foods when the subject of apple pie came up.

I am an applepieophile, so I listened with rapt attention. What made this apple pie unusual was how it was made, in a skillet. Not only did they discuss the recipe, they actually made it and had a taste.
From the post tasting commentary, it sounded like a good recipe to try ... so I did.
The recipe is at America's Test Kitchen, so I'm not posting it in detail here.

The general procedure starts with peeling and coring some tart apples. These get browned and carmelized in butter.

A mix of cider, maple syrup, cornstarch, cinnamon (optional according to the recipe ... AS IF!), and a little vanilla extract (not in recipe) goes into the skillet after the apples look like hashbrowns.

You stir that around to coat everything well and then take it off the heat.

The recipe for a pie crust was available, but I am male, so that was out of the question. A store bought ready to bake pie crust did just fine. I unwrapped it, unrolled it, and set it atop the deliciously smelling apple filling.
It then received a egg white paintjob and a sprinkle of sugar before scoring.

After that it went into a really hot (in my opinion) 500 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

Applas Shrugged. (too obscure?)

The slices really did stand up when cut, but as you can see, this slice could not handle the weight of my massive ala mode.

Who eats apple pie without real vanilla ice cream?
Heathens ...

So how did it taste?

I loved it.

The tartness of the granny smith apples came through the sweet of the maple syrup for a great blend of flavors.
There is no bottom crust of course, but I didn't miss it at all.

You could tell yourself this is a lower calorie pie since the bottom crust ain't there.

That's up to you.

Some Pure Florida Thanksgiving Pictures

2009-11-28T11:52:00.002-05:00

No idle hands at this table.

Katie made the mac and cheese this year and stressed appropriately over it, but it came out just fine. The dish in the back ground is a buttery, appley, cheesey, crumbly sorta thing.

Funny, I didn't remember deviled eggs on the table at all until I saw this picture.

I suppose that is because I don't do deviled eggs ... or egg yolks at all.

One of the turkey platters, all divided according to taste.

The CEO of Thanksgiving in our clan is passing the apron on after this year. We have finally convinced her to take it easy and let us do the preparing. Next year it's at our house and she can bring something or not, because we will be the cooking team.

It's up to her whether she lifts a finger or only her fork!

... I am NOT wearing that apron though.

Healthy Fast Food Part One

2009-11-21T18:20:00.004-05:00

In reality, fast food is probably the most healthy kind since when we cook quickly, we tend not to overcook and destroy nutrients.

The fast food found at your local burger joint has nothing to do with the kind of fast food I'm describing.

Tonight, I found myself alone with a small head of bok choy, an onion, and a few broccoli heads. A scavenging trip to the freezer revealed a tiny bag of lean steak that we had cut up and frozen "for stirfry".

Yes!

I browned the meat first in sesame oil with a chopped garlic clove and the onion. This was set aside for a few minutes.

I whacked up the veggies. Since it was dinner for one ... me, I left the pieces nice and big ... none of this dainty bite size nonsense for FC.

Once the veggies had been around the wok a few times, I added the meat back in. This was all tossed around together and then a half cup of sauce that consisted of Teriyaki sauce, tabasco, vinegar,wine, and a little cornstarch went in.

At that point, the heat is turned off and everything gets folded and flipflopped until it's all coated with the thickened sauce glaze.

Then you eat it.

Prep time under 30 minutes.

Cajun Pasta With Stir-fried Fresh Green Beans

2009-08-19T14:48:00.002-05:00

It was one of those nights where I needed something good, fast, and fresh. I had arrived home first (as usual) and it was, therefore, my job to make supper happen.

The fridge was looking pretty bare ... the freezer even worse.
There was an almost empty bag of frozen chicken breasts, ... but not enough for my crew. Three breast quarters was close, but a little skimpy for 4 people, one of whom would be arriving after 4 hours of football practice in the August sun.
He could eat 3 of those quarters without pausing to breathe.

Frustrated, but vowing NOT to run into town ... 20 mile round trip, ... I pressed on. Down in the bottom of the freezer were 2 lonely Cajun Boudin Sausage links.

NOW I had a plan.

I browned the cut up chicken and sausage in some EVO and seasoned it with a Cajun blackening mix plus some Tony CaChere seasoning. After it was nicely browned, I tossed in some chopped garlic and splashed some wine into the pan to bring the goodie off the pan bottom and make a sauce.

A dollop of lite sour cream went in next, followed by a can of chicken broth.

In the meantime, I had boiled some rotini and this was dumped into the cast iron pan with the chicken-sausage mixture and stirred around to thoroughly coat it all.
At this point, the heat was turned way down and the mixture rested.

While the pasta dish was resting, I took these beautiful fresh green beans snapped off the stems and stir-fried them in a little sesame oil. I let a few sit to get some searing and when they were almost done, I added a little Teriyaki sauce and whisked them all around in it.

They came off the heat at that point and it was eatin' time.

It all vanished pretty fast so I would say the verdict was a thumbs up.

A Pot Of Texas Red

2009-06-14T20:00:00.000-05:00

Here's the recipe.
Kitchen stained and faded ... typed on a real Smith Corona typewriter in the early '80's.

And here's the chili ...

I have had this recipe for real, Texas Red chili since the early '80's. I don't remember now if I found it in the newspaper or a magazine like Southern Living, but I do remember that it had won the Texas State Chili Cook Off the year before.

I fell in love with it the first time I made it. It was so different from the home-made chili I grew up with. That was very tasty, but so different as to almost be a separate dish, ... which it is I guess.

Duh.

In reality, there are beaucoup types of chili out there, but at the time I came across this recipe as a new college graduate, I had never entertained the idea that chili could wear so many different faces.

I was chili ignorant to be sure.

Looking back, I should have known there were other chili tribes , since I grew up eating both Mom's thin broth chili and the thick and spicy Key's Chili from Key's Chili Parlor in downtown Jacksonville.

The tasty chili Mom made with hamburger meat and kidney beans,was soupier ... no where near as thick as this Texas stuff with it's stew beef chunks and no beans.

No beans ... ahem ...

Well, that's where the Texans and I differ. I like a few in my chili, but never, ever kidney beans. I always use pintos, and not too many ... I want to hit a few once in awhile, but this is NOT a pot of beans.

It's chili.

Give this recipe a whirl and see if you agree.

Brownie Pillows

2009-06-07T13:54:00.005-05:00

We made these "Brownie Pillows" the day the Southern Living Magazine arrived with the recipe on the throw-a-way cover.

They were delicious!

I posted about them on my primary blog, Pure Florida, but I saved the recipe for Pure Florida Food.

Of course, after you eat a cookie this big with a brownie stuffed inside it, you are gonna be too lazy to type up the recipe, so I just photographed it.

Enjoy!

Chicken Noodle Soup and Greens

2009-01-27T15:24:00.001-05:00

Simple Fair.

Microwave Corn On The Cob

2007-07-13T13:10:00.000-05:00

So, I'm sure I'm the last one on the planet to realize this, but you can microwave corn on the cob in the husk and it's very good.

I had a hamburger ready to eat ( mustard, pickle, and onion) when I remembered the ears of corn in the fridge. No time to boil water, so I turned to the microwave oven.

I snapped off the long stalk end, snipped off the silk and scraggily leaves and tossed an ear in for an experimental 3 minutes and it came out amazing.

Of course that may be because it was Pure Florida corn from Zellwood.

Chicken Pilau Recipe

2007-07-07T09:20:00.001-05:00

This is real Minorcan style St. Augustine chicken pilau from a real St. Augustine Minorcan ...

me.

Blueberry Man Cake

2007-07-07T09:14:00.000-05:00

Cake so simple, a man can make it.

Balance?

2007-01-07T12:42:00.000-05:00

Confession: I love a good hot dog.

The best one I ever had was in Seattle at a bayside stand called Frankfurters back in 1982. I'm not sure if it was the cool Pacific mist, my cute traveling companion, the actual cooking method, or a combination of the three, but that was the tastiest hot dog ever.

These days I limit hot dogs to rare treats. I'm a sucker for the hot dogs at Sam's and have been known to schedule a shopping trip there to coincide with lunch time.

That said, I probably eat no more than 10 hotdogs in a year's time.

Self discipline.

When I do enjoy one at home, I try and balance out the plate with some healthy goodies to counteract all the negative aspects of a tube steak.

It may or may not equal out, but I do enjoy the hot dog more.

Cooking Collards

2007-01-02T13:15:00.000-05:00

Collard greens have to be one of the healthiest foods we eat.

From the University Of Illinois:
"Collards are fibrous, tough, mild-flavored greens that require long cooking. Hiding under the green chlorophyll pigment is an excellent source of beta carotene and some vitamin C and calcium. The darker the leaf the more beta carotene provided. Like broccoli and cabbage, the antioxidants and phytochemicals in collards may help to reduce the risk of some forms of cancer and heart disease. Collards contain very small amounts of fat and sodium. "
Nutrition Facts (1/2 cup cooked collard greens)
Calories 56

Protein 1 gram

Dietary fiber 2.9 grams

Carbohydrates 2.5 mg

Calcium 74 mg

Vitamin A 2,109 IU

Vitamin C 9 mg

They are also one of the easiest side dishes to make requiring little more than the ability to boil water. The basic process for cooking collard greens is to wash the greens carefully, removing all traces of dirt and sand. Tear the greens into bite size pieces. In a large pot, bring a small amount of water to boil. The amount of water depends on the amount of greens you want to cook, but generally, use as little as you can get away with.

In Florida and the rest of the south, we like to season almost everything with bacon or salt pork, especially greens. Having grown up in that tradition, collards just don't taste right to me unless they've been seasoned with some kind of cured pork. These days, I use the leanest ham I can find so that I still get that good smoky ham flavor, but without all the fat of good ol'fashioned bacon.

If you're using ham or bacon, you should cook it a little before adding the water, and then follow that with the greens. Salt and pepper to taste.

Collards are very fibrous and need to cook just long enough to become tender. This only takes 15- 20 minutes, but in my opinion, they'll taste even better if they get a chance to sit and soak in the "pot likker" for a while, so start them early.

Collards ... what could be easier, or better for you?

Cinnamon Glazed Pecans

2006-12-27T19:09:00.000-05:00

These glazed pecans were a smashing success with my pecan lovers. (By the way, I'm from the south, but I say P-can, not Puhcahn ... so there!)

The recipe came from Cooks.com and was simple and easy ... perfect for doing with kids.

CINNAMON GLAZED PECANS

2 egg whites1 lb. pecans3/4 c. sugar2 tsp. cinnamon
Beat egg whites until stiff. Stir in pecans. Add sugar and cinnamon. Spread on cookie sheet on cake pan. Bake 1 hour at 200 degrees, stirring every 15 minutes.

My daughter Emma, and I made these as a Christmas gift for her Mom. They are came out delicious and Emma learned how to beat egg whites properly.

Have one ... ya' know ya' want it!

How To Boil Shrimp

2006-12-24T10:18:00.000-05:00

Florida is blessed with an abundance of seafood, but if I had to pick my favorite, it would be these little crustaceans ... hands down.

There's as many ways to prepare shrimp as there are beaches in Florida. Some recipes are pretty complicated and I confess I avoid these. Please don't drown our delicately flavored shrimp in creamy goo. The idea is to actually taste the shrimp ... at least, that's always my plan.

The simplest way to eat shrimp ,short of sushi, is boiling or steaming. Boiled shrimp is an incredibly quick to prepare dish and so fun to eat.

Here's all there is to it:

Bring a large pot of water to a vigoruous boil.

Add your favorite spices (or nothing at all, they will still taste wonderful).

I usually add some Tony Cachere's cajun seasoning and a bay leaf to the water, but it's more from habit then neccesity.

Your shrimp should be headless, but no other prep is needed. Each diner gets to peel their own which is part of the fun.

Once the water is boiling like a witch's cauldron, add the shrimp and note the time. The most important thing with cooking shrimp is DO NOT OVERCOOK THEM!

In 3 minutes they should be pink and completely done. Talk about fast food!!

That's all there is too it.

Serve them with a cold drink, your favorite seafood sauce, and a huge tossed salad and you are in shrimpy heaven.

I like (require) real Florida datil pepper sauce with my seafood. Pictured above is a dish of my Mom's homemade datil pepper sauce. That's a recipe to come here on Pure Florida Food, but in the meantime, Dat'l Do-it sauce from my hometown of St. Augustine is a tastey substitute alternative if you're not on my Mom's sauce list.

My Pal Bubba

2006-12-23T09:27:00.000-05:00

This is BUBBA. He is my constant companion.This Bubba Keg is absolutely the most amazing insulated mug I have ever come across and believe me, I've been through a lot of them. I wore out a half dozen of the plastic insulated mugs before I discoverd the Bubba Keg.

The Bubba Keg is tough which is a major plus with me, because I have been known to set a mug on the JEEP bumper and absent mindedly drive off. Do that with a plastic mug and it's usually toast, but the Bubba has taken several spills with no damage. I use it at work, in the yard, in the boat, in the car. It has a nice wide (fat) footprint so it's not easily tipped over. It's so stable that I usually don't bother using the lid, I like to make full contact with my ice water and drinking through a hole is not my preferred method.

The really amazing thing about the Bubba Keg is how long it can keep cold things cold. (I imagine it is equally good at keeping hot things hot, but I only use mine for cold drinks)

The Bubba Keg company claims the 52 ounce Bubba can keep cold things cold for 12 hours and they are not exaggerating. I've left my Bubba full of ice and water in an enclosed car for an entire workday (On a Florida summer day) and still had ice and ice cold water in it when my 8 hour day was over. Amazing.

The only drawback (to nonBubba owners) may be it's enormous volume. When I fill it with ice tea, it drains the pitcher which requires my son to make more ... making the family ice tea is one of his kitchen duties.

The Bubba Keg ... don't leave home without it.