Creamy Winter Squash Soup

We just got back from vacation. As usual, I am starving for nourishing foods when I got home. Vacation food is delicious, but not always nutritious! I looked around the kitchen and this is what I came up with. Apparently it was good because Test Subject Bill devoured it!

KKF Creamy Winter Squash Soup

2 medium sized winter squashes, peeled and chopped into cubes

1 large onion, diced

3 T butter

6 cups chicken stock

1 can coconut milk

1 T garlic powder

1 T dried marjoram

1 1/2 T ground sage

salt and pepper to taste

Saute onions in butter until soft. Add cubed squash and stock. Simmer, partially covered, for about 20 minutes. Stir in seasonings and simmer covered for another 10 minutes. Cool for a bit, then puree in food processor, blender or using a stick blender. Return to heat, stir in coconut milk and adjust seasonings. I like lots of pepper. Enjoy!

Independence Day Egg Bash Part II

Grilled grass fed blade steak resting

In my opinion, grilling comes down to a) quality meats and b) proper technique. Although I still consider myself a real beginner at grilling, I am noticing that when I do the least I’m getting the best results. For example, the burgers I grilled today. Ground beef and a homemade rub. That’s it. Granted, the meat was super high quality, but preparation was quick and almost effortless. If you do it right, grilling should be easy.

Skewered chicken satay off the grill

Earlier this weekend I made steak and chicken satay on the grill. For the steak, it couldn’t have been easier. I took a dry aged blade steak from my local grass-based farmer and marinated it for 8-9 hours in plain old olive oil. Right before grilling, I salted and peppered. Then I threw it on my Egg at about a 450 degrees and closed the lid. A few minutes later, I opened and flipped it, and gave it another two minutes. I let it rest while I grilled my satay.

Steak, chicken satay with peanut sauce (even though it looks like ketchup in this pic...gross) and Italian green beans from the farmer's market

The chicken satay is a recipe I got from my Viking Cooking School Thai cooking class. Chicken breast strips are marinated in a coconut milk/garlic/cilantro mixture, then threaded onto skewers. I had them on a 450 degree egg for about 2-3 minutes per side and they came out soooo juicy, a real feat for chicken breast. The peanut sauce is a combination of coconut milk, red curry paste (use Mae Ploy brand), fish sauce, tamarind paste (make a visit to your local ethnic grocery store), garlic, a sweetner (I used sucanat), and of course, a few tablespoons of creamy peanut butter. So clearly, far more effort went into the sauce than the meat itself! It was worth it though…quite delicious.

The steak’s flavor was incredible for as little as I did to it. I’ve noticed that with quality meats. Portions of it were chewy and other portions were very tender. Lucky for me I like to pick up meat and gnaw on it so I got every part, chewy or tender I think next time I may marinade it even longer and see how that works out.

Hope everyone had a blessed and safe 4th of July holiday!

Independence Day Egg Bash

Grilling out is a sign of independence. Humans. Fire. Meat. Electricity optional. Maybe that’s why it’s so popular to have a cookout on the 4th of July. Maybe it’s because this style of cooking was very popular during the early years of the USA, as it’s easy to feed a large crowd. Whatever the reason, it’s a great idea. And since I’m still in the honeymoon period with my Big Green Egg, I’ve been giving it a workout this holiday weekend.

Today’s meal was the epitome of simplicity and was heavenly delicious. I formed burger patties (no filling or binder) out of some dry aged beef I picked up from my local farmer last month and used the rub from Sarah Fragoso’s Everyday Paleo
(a great cookbook and her website is also great, btw). I cut some red onions, rubbed them with olive oil and salt and pepper and skewered them on metal skewers (no more charred wooden skewers for me). Finally, I made a simple tomato salad (recipe below).

Everyday Paleo burger, KKF tomato salad, grilled red onions and a few of Bubbie's pickles for good measure!

The burgers were unbelievably delicious and moist. I’m going to do them this way from now on, whether it’s with Sarah’s rub or with another seasoning. I always thought hamburger mix had to have egg and/or breadcrumbs…forget about it. Oil your gril (I used spray coconut oil), rub on your rub and slap them on the grill. I cranked up the Egg to about 650, put on the burgers and closed the lid. After two minutes, I opened, flipped, closed and left it another two minutes. Burgers were perfect. Oh, and I was doing all this in a FRIGGIN RAIN STORM. Yes, about three minutes before my grill got to temperature it started pouring.

Luckily the Egg works just fine in the rain. Test subject Bill was an excellent umbrella holder as I brought out meat and flipped and swapped. I think the struggle made my rain burgers taste even better.

KKF Too Easy Tomato Salad

1 pint farmer’s market fresh cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 small red onion, chopped

small bunch fresh basil, cut into thin strips

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

sea salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste

Mix everything together and let it marinate at room temperature while you’re preparing the rest of your meal. Deee-licious.

A Million Ways to Cook with an Egg

The KKF and the BGE

When you buy a Big Green Egg, it’s kind of like joining a cult. People who own a Green Egg (or “Eggheads”) become fanatical, notice other Eggheads when they drive or walk by their house, and dancing or jumping ensues just from seeing someone else’s Egg. This month, I joined the Egg Cult.

The first night after a laborous process of setting up our new large Egg, I had burgers ready to throw on and french fries ready to go in some piping hot tallow. I used Cheeseslave’s fry recipe and they were out of this world delicious! And the burgers…amazing. So delicious and moist.

That was enough to get me hooked, and within the first two weeks of owning the Egg I probably grilled six times. Gratuitous grill porn follows. Enjoy! (And yeah, if you don’t have one I strongly recommend picking up a Green Egg!)

The KKF and the BGE

Grass fed burger, fries fried in tallow and a naturally fermented pickle. The good life.

Fajita pork stuffed peppers, hot dogs and garlic pork brats

Fajita pork stuffed peppers: brown ground pork, stir in fajita seasoning to taste and grill to perfection.

Garlic pork bratwurst with carmelized vidalia onions and sweet peas.

Pork loin roast rubbed with a sweet and spicy rub and cooked on the Egg using indirect heat for about three hours.

Memorial Day Chicken Bacon Salad

Happy Salad

Just in time for your holiday weekend (if you’re in the US) a quick and delicious salad to accompany your burgers, steaks, etc. This is a great way to use leftover roast chicken and/or another use for that package of bacon you’re opening for bacon cheeseburgers this weekend. If your spouse permits, adding shallots, onions, or green onions would probably be a tasty addition to this salad. Everyone have a fun, safe and delicious weekend!

KKF Memorial Day Chicken Bacon Salad

4 oz cooked chicken

5 slices bacon (home made recommended)

1 avocado, cut into chunks

1/2 cup chopped fresh broccoli

6-8 lettuce leaves (romaine or other leafy lettuce – not iceberg), cut into bite-size pieces

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

1/3 cup mayonnaise (home made if you got it!)

1/2 tablespoon red wine vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

Cut your bacon up into little chunks and fry until crisp. Whisk together the mayo and the red wine vinegar to make the dressing. Combine chicken, bacon, avocado, broccoli, lettuce and garlic and pour dressing over mixture. Mix thoroughly and salt and pepper to taste.

Makes two large or four small servings.

Better Than Butter?

Shallot butter medallions, ready for duty.

What’s better than butter? Not much. But here’s a way to make butter better.

In a couple of my recent cooking classes we steamed fish in parchment paper. For one of them, we made this amazing shallot butter that steamed in with the fish and made it really flavorful. Lucky for everyone, it’s super easy to make this:

2 sticks (8 oz) of unsalted butter at room temperature

shallots (I used 4 medium shallots)

2 cups white wine (I used sauvignon blanc)

1/2 t sea salt

fresh ground pepper to taste

handful of minced fresh herbs (recipe called for parsley, but I had cilantro so I used cilantro)

Simmer the shallots and wine together in a saucepan until reduced to about a 1/4 cup or so and allow it to cool. (I stuck it in the fridge for a few minutes.) Mix your salt, pepper, herbs and shallot reduction into your butter.

Shallot butter log

To make a log out of it, spread the butter in long row on some plastic wrap, then fold the wrap over the top of it so the butter is surrounded with the wrap. Squeeze and form into a log. Twist the ends, then pick it up by the ends with both hands and spin it. That will squeeze it into a tight log and you’ll be left with twisted sealed ends on the wrap. Chill thoroughly before attempting to unwrap or cut.

To use, just pull back the wrap and cut medallions. Delicious on just about anything.

How to Cook KKF Style

How to cook like Kitchen Kung Fu in four easy steps:

1) Find a great recipe

2) Make sure you have all the ingredients (well…the essential ones, anyway)

3) Carefully read all the instructions in advance (or at least know that there ARE instructions)

4) Go into the kitchen and do whatever the heck you want

KKF'd Jambalaya

Case in point. When I decided to try this jambalaya recipe, I made sure I had my chicken, andouille sausage, some ham, etc. Some things I knew I wouldn’t use (chicken boullion cube and green pepper, for example) and planned a substitute in advance. I started reading the recipe while I’m pulling stuff out of the fridge and then just kind of did as I pleased. Recipes are really just suggestions anyway (unless you’re baking, then playing fast and loose is generally a bad idea.) So this is how the recipe looked after I got done making my changes:

Kung Fu'ed recipe

The good news is, I didn’t screw it up. The soup was delicious. Whether you make it my way, or the way Linda originally intended for it to be, you will be happy. Even test subject Bill ate a few bowls as leftovers (a true measure of a quality dish – if he eats leftovers, it was good.)

I’d like to note that the Cajun seasoning I used is from Mill Creek Spice Company, a local (to me) company owned by a very nice man who grinds and mixes all his own spice blends using organic ingredients. I’ve tried a few of his mixes and really enjoyed them. You can find his quality products online at www.millcreekspice.com (he ships, as he recently did to the Kung Fu Mama – that’s my mammy – for mother’s day!) and I have also seen him at the Dahlonega Farmer’s Market at Rancho Alegre and the Suwanee Farmer’s Market if you live in the Gwinnett County area. If you don’t…well, visit the website

Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Dream

Since I’ve been trying to go gluten-free these days, I’m looking up recipes from the pioneers that have gone before me into the world of gluten free baking. I’ve been finding some really great recipes. One of those I tried tonight – chocolate chip cookies. Uh huh.

I used this recipe from over at the Tropical Traditions recipe site, www.freecoconutrecipes.com.  Since I’m also avoiding white sugar, I substituted the 1/2 cup sugar it called for with 1/3 cup honey. Everything else I followed to the letter (other than accidently adding too much salt – 1/2 tsp instead of 1/8 teaspoon, which made no difference that I could tell). From reading the reviews, I decided to use my small-ish melon baller to scoop the dough into 30 small balls, then used the fork I mixed everything with to smush them down a little bit. (This had the added benefit of adding nifty texture to the top of the cookies – reminds me of the peanut butter cookies I made back in the day with Mom.)

Sweet Dreams

I baked for 12 minutes. Ok, the first batch I baked for longer than 12 minutes and the bottoms got a little burned. So the next batch got 12 minutes and they were golden brown and delicious. I was really suprised at how much the honey flavor came through, even more than the coconut even though I used coconut oil, flour and flakes. I think I could even make these sans the chocolate chips for like a tea cookie. Aside from being a bit dry, these were really fantastic cookies. Test subject Bill approved, and said that he even liked the dryness and told me not to try to fix it!

As an added note, these cookies were ridiculously easy. I had cleaned up everything I dirtied while they baked and was sitting there, waiting with my camera and a spatula when they came out of the oven. Total time from finding recipe to eating cookie was probably 30 minutes.

Easter Celebration Feast

Easter is a time of true celebration. I mean, we are talking about the God of the universe loving us so much that He came down to Earth, suffered and died for our sins, and then to make sure everyone noticed He rose from the grave a few days later. Wow. And the best part, all we have to do is say “I do” to Jesus and we’re golden. What’s not to celebrate??

This year I decided to do something really special for Easter. Duck. As you may recall, I once helped process ducks in exchange for free duck (will work for food) but my roast duck was a bad call due to the age of the birds. (The crock pot duck, however, was fantastic!) This year though I proudly paid for a young duckling from Nature’s Harmony Farm, a good recipe and was ready to go.

All trussed up!

I pulled the roast duck recipe from Mark’s Daily Apple (yes, I’ve been hanging out with the primal crowd lately) and used the Spice Seasoning and the Orange Honey Sauce. After liberally seasoning, I trussed a duck for the first time (well, any fowl actually). For chickens it doesn’t seem to matter much to me but the duck legs were way out there so I decided to tie him up. It’s actually much easier than it looks. Into the oven the bird went and I focused on my other dishes.

Cream of Swiss Chard Soup

I made some mashed potatoes to please my sweetie, threw together a salad with shallots and red wine vinegar, and got some sugar snap peas ready for a quick saute (sauteed them in bacon fat – heck yeah!) I had some swiss chard from my CSA hanging out in the crisper that had gone pretty wilty on me, so I decided to try a cream of swiss chard soup. Since it turned out really well (test subject Bill even ate the leftovers!) I thought I’d post what I did here:

1/2 onion, chopped

1 big bunch swiss chard, stems removed and chopped

3 cups chicken stock

2 T butter

1/2 c half and half or heavy cream (I used half and half only because I was sadly out of cream)

salt and pepper to taste

Saute onion and chard stems in the butter until soft, then add about 1/2 cup of the stock, cover the pot and simmer until everything is nice and soft. I was busy doing other things, so I probably left mine for 30 to 40 minutes. Add the leaves of the chard and the rest of the stock, and simmer for about 15 minutes. Use a stick blender to puree the soup well, then return to heat and stir in the cream or half and half. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

It didn’t look so attractive, but turned out quite tasty. It doesn’t require a lot of work so it was a good starter course to let simmer while I was handling other important kitchen tasks, like picking out a nice pinot to accompany the duck. Also, I sprinkled some shredded parmesan on the leftovers and that made it even better.

Roast Easter Duck

Back to the duck. I had a three pound duck so I shaved some cooking time off of the recipe, which uses a 4 pounder. When I was ready to take its temperature, I discovered that my probe thermometer was broken. Great! So I used a grilling fork that has a thermometer built in that someone gave us once. It said it was 10 degrees short of done, so I stuck the bird back in for a while, pulled it and measured again. 3 degrees short. At this point I am convinced the hand-me-down grilling fork had a reason for being given away, because this duck is DONE.

Crispy local veggie salad with red wine vinaigrette

I let the duck rest, finished prepping everything else and set the table. For everything I did (5 dishes) it was two hours from pulling stuff out of the fridge to table service. Not bad for a celebration feast! The duck did end up a tad overdone due to my faulty thermometers so I went online and bought this one yesterday since I pitched the useless probe thermometer immediately.

Seasoned roast duck with orange honey sauce, sauteed local peas, buttery mashed spuds

Everything turned out well, the orange sauce was delicious on the flavorful duck, and I spent a nice meal at the table (wow!) with my sweetie. Reasons to celebrate abound!

KKF Gets Schooled: Thai

My latest Viking cooking class covered some classic Thai cuisine. I have a favorite Thai place by my house and I have to say…the stuff we made was BETTER. Here’s the menu:

Thai Spring Rolls with Sweet n’ Sour Dipping Sauce

Chicken Satay with Peanut Dipping Sauce

Banana Leaf Wrapped Snapper (with Red Curry Sauce)

We also got to sample Thai Cucumber Salad and Thai Roasted Coconut Cashew Nuts. (Both delish!)

The roasted cashew dish is a cinch. Pretty much all you do is heat a tablespoon of oil in a wok (I would use coconut oil), stir in a few tablespoons of honey, toss in a few cups of cashews and a few cups of unsweetened shredded coconut (the kind that looks like shavings) and toast them. At the end, toss in a few seeded, finely chopped fresh red chilies and salt and pepper to taste. Wok it a few more minutes until everything is as you please. Nice party dish!

Spring rolls. Check me out. I did the stylish plate arrangement myself!

The spring rolls were UH-maze-ing. Sure, it takes some time to do all the chopping, etc., but once you get everything rolled up…guess what? You don’t have to deep fry. I’m serious. We pan fried these spring rolls, just rolling them around in a pan with some oil (again, I’d use coconut oil, but we use canola oil in class which I try to avoid) and they turned out fantastic. Next time you’re on a roll try a pan fry (and make sure you’re using spring roll wrappers, not egg roll wrappers).

Chicken Satay

The chicken satay was good but I’ve gotten so accustomed to the deep flavor of the dark meat on a pasture raised chicken that they seemed really dry to me. I would definitely try them at home along with their dipping sauce but I’d use thighs from a free range bird.

Snapper in banana leaf

The snapper dish was really interesting. We made the curry sauce first (which tasted almost exactly like the red curry I get from my favorite Thai place – wow!) and let it cool while we prepared the fish. We cut banana leaves into strips, then crossed them, added the fish and some sauce and wrapped them up. Using kitchen twine, we tied them up and into the oven they went for a steam. The fish turned out really delicate and moist.

Snapper unwrapped!

I have to say this was probably my favorite class. The dishes and techniques were excellent, and the instructor was very enthusiastic. So exciting to see someone else get worked up over quality ingredients! Thanks for a great class Chef Sandra!