GREATNESS BY ACCIDENT

Sometimes cooking something new doesn't go as planned.  Especially when you use your experiences from previous recipes and try coming up with your own creation.

A recipe that you followed and turned out excellent will inspire you to use similar methods to try making something different.  If it worked then, if should work now, right?  Not always.  And sometimes when things don't go as we thought it would, our natural reaction a lot of the time is to throw in the towel.

But just because your original idea didn't work, it doesn't mean that you were not on to something.

Sure, there are times when you substituted an ingredient for something similar and it turned out to be a disaster.  In the early stages of when I started taking my cooking a lot more seriously, I had made a homemade pasta sauce from a recipe I found and it turned out great.  It turned out so great that the following week I decided to make it again.  Unfortunately, none of the supermarkets near me had fresh basil, which the recipe called for.  So I turned to dried basil that you get in your typical spice aisle.  BIG mistake!  The sauce was ruined.

But there are also times when a dish is still salvageable.  You just need to change the game plan.

Previously made Pesto Pasta.  Perfection.

Last year, I had an idea to make a pesto dish using broccoli and cauliflower instead of pasta.  A pesto pasta recipe I made a few months prior turned out great and I figured replacing the pasta with broccoli and cauliflower would be simple enough.

I went back to the pasta recipe to remind myself of the ingredients I needed to make the pesto sauce and the basic instructions to make it.  The sauce called for cashews soaked for a few hours, some basil, garlic, lemon juice, grated Parmesan and extra virgin olive oil.

I bought the ingredients and started with soaking the cashews first.  I used more cashews than the pasta recipe called for, thinking I was going to make a large batch of pesto broccoli and cauliflower and therefore needed lots of sauce.

Once the cashews had soaked for a few hours to soften them up, It was time to put them in my food processor and periodically add everything else.  Unfortunately, the mixture was not creating any kind of smooth consistency.  It was becoming more like a ball of dough than anything else.  Adding a little extra olive oil wasn't helping.  I had made the mistake of using too many cashews, and if I wanted to get the mixture smooth, it would have meant adding a lot more olive oil which I didn't want to do.

When my attempt at a Pesto sauce for a Broccoli & Cauliflower dish didn't work, I came up
with Plan B: Operation Salvage.

I stopped the food processor and looked for a minute at what I had.  It looked more like a stuffing you would have with turkey than any kind of sauce.  I decided to give it a taste and it tasted excellent!

I decided that I needed to change my game plan as I had stumbled on to something.  I still had the broccoli and cauliflower, but I also had some grape tomatoes, half a brick of mozzarella and an extra red pepper leftover from the previous days' creation.

I roasted the red pepper, cut the grape tomatoes in half and grated the mozzarella.  I kept some grated mozzarella to the side and put everything else into a large bowl with the cauliflower, broccoli and cashew mixture.  Mixed it all up, put it in a baking tray, topped with the remaining mozzarella and some pepper.  Baked at about 400 degrees for 15 minutes and out came my Cheesy Baked Cauliflower and Broccoli with Pesto Stuffing!

Greatness by accident!

CHEESY BAKED CAULIFLOWER & BROCCOLI with PESTO STUFFING

INGREDIENTS

4 cups of raw natural cashews.

1/4 cup fresh chopped basil.

3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped.

1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice.

2 Tbsp grated parmesan.

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil.

4 cups broccoli florets.

4 cups cauliflower florets.

1 pint grape/cherry tomatoes (about 20 of them), sliced in half.

1 red bell pepper, roasted and chopped.

4 cups grated mozzarella.  Put aside 1 cup for topping.

1 tsp ground black pepper.

INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Soak cashews in water for about 3 hours.

2.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees after the cashews are done soaking.

3.  Mix cashews, basil, chopped garlic, lemon juice and parmesan in a food proccessor while slowly adding the olive oil during the mixing process.  Continue mixing until it has a stuffing texture throughout.  Process will take close to 10 minutes depending on how powerful your proccessor is.

4.  Put stuffing mixture in a large mixing bowl and add the broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, roasted red pepper, only THREE cups of the mozzarella and the ground pepper.  Mix and combine in the bowl.

5.  Put the entire mixture into a baking pan line with non-stick cooking spray.  Top with the remaining mozzarella.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Serve.

Chef Nairby

THE SLOW COOK KING

I love my slow cooker!

I don't remember exactly how I obtained my first slow cooker.  I am tempted to say that an old friend of mine told me about them about 15 years ago and I decided to buy one and give it a try.  I still have that first one and one larger one which was a Christmas present a few years ago.

I was blown away the first time I used one.  I made a beef stew.  I believe I found a slow cooked beef stew recipe online and followed it.  I bought some stewing beef, potatoes, carrots, celery, corn, beef broth powder and some seasoning salt.  I chopped the stewing beef in cubes, seasoned them, chopped everything else up and threw it all into the slow cooker with the beef broth mixed with a cup of water.  Cook on low for 8 hours.

Fresh tomatoes, chopped and added to the mix for Slow Cooker Lasagna Soup!

As it was my first time, I could not help but check on the slow cooker every once in a while.  The world of slow cooking sounded too good to be true and my main concern was throwing everything in raw, including the beef, and letting it cook.  So I kept checking.

After almost two hours, it seemed like everything was cooking.  An hour so so later, it SMELLED like everything was cooking.  As the 8 hours started dwindling down, I grew more excited, not because of what I was seeing through the glass lid because the steam and condensation didn't leave much to see, but because of the smell.  And it was everywhere in my tiny one bedroom basement apartment.  My landlord came down to do laundry because the washer and dryer was in the basement, and she even acknowledged that it smelled really good down there and it could be smelled upstairs!

Building awesomeness!

Needless to say, I was beyond surprised with the results.  I was in love with my new slow cooker instantly and began searching online for more ideas, but in the beginning I would mostly stick to the beef stew, because I'm a man, and man love meat!

I love that, "set it and forget it" feel of the mighty slow cooker!  It wasn't until I recently took my cooking more seriously that I finally expanded my slow cooking world to more than beef stew.  I started relying less on searching online for ideas and more on simply picking up ingredients on instinct, prepping them and tossing them in.  And it has come out perfect every time.  It's like the slow cooker cannot go wrong.

Everything added and ready for a slow cookin'!

My slow cooker has never let me down.  I will still cruise the slow cooker aisle every now and then at department stores just to see what latest fancy functions have been added to newer models.  Despite the fact that I have two of them, I am always on the lookout for one with a built-in timer.  I have come close many times but then I stop myself as my oven has a built-in timer on it which I use.  But I still can't help but be tempted.  I sometimes fantasize about having at least 5 slow cookers going at once, but as a single guy, that's not really logical at the moment unless I'm cooking for others.  But I am always on the lookout for the next member of my slow cooker family.

Who knows.  Maybe it will be bigger than my big one.  Or maybe it will be one of the itty-bitty single portion ones which I have seen on shelves.  Have one nice slow cooker family in my collection!  That's not crazy, is it?

8 hours later!

Slow Cooker Lasagna Soup!

SLOW COOKER LASAGNA SOUP

INGREDIENTS

1 lb ground beef (or vegetarian crumble)

3 cups of beef broth (or vegetable broth to make vegetarian)

4-5 cloves of garlic, minced

1 TB dried parsley

1 TB dried basil

1/2 cup chopped onion

1, 28 oz can of diced tomatoes (I used fresh tomatoes because that's how Chef Nairby rolls!)

1, 6oz can of tomato paste

1 cup V8 (or any vegetable drink)

2 cups uncooked shell pasta

1/4 tsp pepper

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup of water

Optional topping- shredded cheese

INSTRUCTIONS

1. First mix together the can of tomatoes, and tomato paste in slow cooker.

2. Next add broth, beef, garlic, parsley, basil, onion, V8 and salt/pepper.

3. Cover and cook on LOW for 7-8 hours or on HIGH for 4-5 hours.

4. When 30 minutes are left of cook time, add in the 1 cup of water and noodles. Stir to combine. Put lid back on and continue cooking for 30 minutes.

Chef Nairby

MAKE YOUR OWN PASTA SAUCE

Quick!  You are going to make a basic pasta dish for dinner tonight.  What do you need?

Think about it for a second....

Did the term, "jar or can of pasta sauce" squeeze its way into your list of ingredients?  Why?  Convenience?  Do you know how easy it is to make your own sauce?  It is as simple as tomatoes, tomato paste and your imagination.  And this is not coming from a professional Chef.

Maybe it is a price issue.  A jar or can of sauce is ready to go and cheaper than buying the ingredients, right?  Not exactly.  One jar of standard, simple pasta sauce can cost up to $4 or more.  And you're lucky if you get two servings out of it.  Meanwhile, buying fresh ingredients in bulk might cost a bit more, but you can create a sauce that not only blows anything from a jar or can away, but also yields enough to last several meals and is not filled with preservatives.

Homemade pasta sauce is all about the tomatoes and whatever else you choose to put into it.

A simple homemade pasta sauce does require extra effort and time to make, but the final product is worth it.  AND you can experiment with different ingredients and create your own signature sauce that your friends and family will go crazy for.  You can make that special homemade sauce that has people saying, "If I was on death row, I would want YOUR pasta sauce for my last meal!"

A homemade pasta sauce starts with the tomatoes.  Lots of tomatoes.  Whatever kind you choose.  Chop them up, throw them into a big pot, stir occasionally and watch as they become the base of your sauce.  Add your favorite chopped veggies, spices, red wine....THE SAUCE IS YOUR OYSTER!

Lots of tomatoes, some spice and veggies.  Add meat if you want!

Set a date aside for some homemade pasta sauce-making and experiment.  If you're like me, you will never go back to pre-made in a jar again!  If you're like me, you will soon realize that you have more time than you initially thought to experiment with cooking for REAL.

Effort and hard work are worth it.  You have a food artist locked inside of you that is aching to get out!  You will quickly start to enjoy the process of creating something of your own as you not only create food art, but memories as well.  Those are things you cannot get from a jar.

You cannot get this from a jar!

Check out another "How-to" video from Chef Nairby!  "Make Your Own Pasta Sauce", with special guest, Dr. Hannibal Lecter!  Music by Sergei Gavriliuk.

EASY HOMEMADE PASTA SAUCE

INGREDIENTS -Lots of tomatoes, chopped.  Base how many tomatoes you need on the size of the pot you will be making your pasta sauce in.  Use enough tomatoes that would almost fill the entire pot. -3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped. -2 medium sized cans, or one large can tomato paste. -4 cups of sliced mushrooms. -1/2 cup fresh chopped basil. -2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil.


INSTRUCTIONS 1.  Heat olive oil in your large pot.  Add chopped garlic and cook on medium heat for 5 minutes. 2.  Add mushrooms and stir.  Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Mushrooms will give off liquid.  Good! 3.  Add chopped tomatoes, tomato paste and chopped basil.  Stir.  Cover and cook on medium-high heat, stirring occasionally.  The tomatoes will turn into a thick sauce over time.  How thick you want your sauce depends on your liking, so use your eyes and nose to determine when sauce is ready.

**If you choose to add more vegetables to your sauce, such as celery, carrots, onion, etc, add them step 2.  If adding meat, such as ground beef, cook the ground beef in a separate pan and add AFTER the tomatoes, tomato paste and basil stage.

Pasta with homemade tomato and mushroom sauce.

Chef Nairby

CARAMELIZED TEARS OF JOY

Onions.  They are a key ingredient in a lot of our food.

We put them on our burgers, hot dogs, submarine sandwiches.  In our soups, stews and chilies.  So many uses.  Many different varieties.  And yet if you are like I USED to be, you either avoided cooking with them or did not get the usage out of them to justify the big 5 or 10 pound bag you bought, and if you were lucky, you threw them out before they grew those lovely tentacles.

I only recently discovered the awesomeness of perhaps the most versatile and longest lasting version of the mighty onion......the CARAMELIZED ONION!

One weekend recently, I made a very tasty tomato soup in a cheesy baked bread bowl.  I posted a picture of it, as I usually do, and mentioned how I was so blown away with how it turned out, that I had to try other cheesy bread bowl ideas.  An old school friend of mine had some suggestions, one of which being a soup with caramelized onions.

I had never made caramelized onions before, and if you were to ask me, I would have told you that along with a few onions, you also need some kind of sweetening ingredient, maybe some soy sauce for color and who knows what else.

Caramelized onions can be as simple as just two ingredients!

I took to Google and searched, "How to make caramelized onions".  Every result sang the praise of the caramelized onion.  I got a bit intimidated but clicked one of the first links and could not believe what I saw....

Caramelized Onions Ingredients:

Onions

"And???????" I thought to myself.

Start.

And nothing.  I read the instructions and immediately wanted to kick myself.  Why did I not look this up before?!  I then took to Youtube to search for videos on making these things.  The search results were right.  Onions.  Pretty much.  You can add some salt, maybe some pepper and some Balsamic vinegar for flavor, but just onions.

Cover and cook on medium to high heat for 10 minutes.

I quickly went out and headed to the supermarket right across the street which has a produce section so pleasing to an aspiring Chef, that I will still go over there just to walk around and look at everything!  I picked up about 10 onions, as the recipe I chose to follow on Youtube stated that you need to get a good number of them when making these things because they shrink.  So I picked up about 10 sweet onions and some Balsamic vinegar.

After 10 minutes.  Keep uncovered
for the rest of the process while cooking, stirring every 10 minutes..

I should have picked up some goggles, too.  Chopping one or two onions can burn a bit.  Chopping about 10 of them can feel like a forest fire is happening in your eyes!  But is it worth it?  HECK YA!!!

20 minutes.

Caramelized onions take about an hour to make and they create a scent in your house that you just wish you can put in a can and use as an air freshener!  But maybe that's just me.

40 minutes.

When it comes to cooking, I enjoy the journey just as much, if not more than the destination.  I LOVE making caramelized onions!  LOVE IT!  The smell that builds up.  The slow changing of color and texture.  I love all of it!  I mentioned it in my very first Blog post....if I was a contestant on Hell's Kitchen, I would probably secretly throw some of the competitions just to stay behind and do prep work.  If I was on Hell's Kitchen and my team won a challenge where the losers had to chop and make caramelized onions in preparation for that night's dinner service, I would be very tempted to stay behind!  Maybe fake an injury.  Claim a fear of heights or a tummy ache.  I would.  Surely that would impress Chef Ramsay and not get me eliminated, right?  Screw my teammates!  I want to make some onion stuffs!

Chef Gordon Ramsay.
Courtesy, "Hell's Kitchen".

Caramelized onions can keep in the fridge for a very long time.  Some have even said that you can store them in the freezer for up to six months!

Buy a 10 pound bag of onions, caramelize them and you've got a special ingredient you can add to just about anything for a while.  Put some in your pasta sauce.  Add some extra awesomeness to a grilled cheese sandwich.  Top a salad with them.  Heck, eat them as they are!

50 minutes.  At this point, add 1-2 Tbsp of Balsamic Vinegar or whatever else
you planned to add for extra flavor.  Or just leave as is!  Still tastes great!

You can buy onions in bulk for a very reasonable price at any supermarket.  In my area, a 10 pound bag goes for $3-$4.  I can make two batches of caramelized onions with one of these bags and have that awesome extra ingredient to spoil myself for the next one year if the six months in the freezer thing is true.

Give them a shot.  All you need is onions!

1 hour!  Done and ready to be put to work!

Perfection!

SIMPLE CARAMELIZED ONIONS

INGREDIENTS

LOTS of onions, chopped!  I use half of a 10lb bag.  The onions shrink quite a bit during cooking.

2 Tbsp Extra virgin olive oil.

1-2 Tbsp Balsamic vinegar

DIRECTIONS

1.  Heat olive oil on slightly over medium heat in a large skillet (Preferably one that has a cover).

2.  Put all chopped onions into skillet and lightly stab at them a little bit to separate.  They will eventually get easier to separate as you cook them.

3.  Cover and let cook for 10 minutes.

4.  After 10 minutes, uncover and stir.  Leave the skillet uncovered for the remaining cooking time.

5.  Cook for another 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.  The onions will produce dark burnt looking pieces.  This is good!

6.  After 40 minutes (50 minutes total), add Balsamic vinegar and stir.  Cook for 10 more minutes, stir and serve or store in fridge or freezer.

My Research has shown that caramelized onions can stay good for up to 6 months in the freezer.  I haven't tried it yet, though.

Eat them as is.  Add them to salads as a great alternative to dressing.  Have a ball!

Grilled Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onion Sandwich.

Goat Cheese and Caramelized Onion Pizza with Grape Tomatoes and Fresh Dill.

Caramelized Onions in a Cheesy Baked Bread Bowl.

Chef Nairby

FOOD LOVE

I love food.  And even more, I love cooking food!

My desire of mixing different ingredients together came one fateful morning when I was about 7 years old and my brother had used up the last of the milk for cereal.  I cannot recall whether I was angry or not, but what sticks out the most about that situation is that I chose to improvise.

I had no milk for my Froot Loops.  Froot Loops is a fruit flavored cereal.  Low and behold, we had GRAPE JUICE!  Surely it would work, if not be better than using milk, right?  Wrong!  But why didn't it work?  Froot Loops taste good on their own.  Grape juice tastes good.  Why didn't they taste good as one?

Young Chef Nairby.  Christmas morning, about 10 years old.

Then came 7th grade at John McCrae Junior High.  For the first time in my educational voyage, a cooking class became part of the curriculum!  I was stoked, especially when walking in to the huge cooking classroom for the first time.  It had to have been the size of at least three average classrooms.  One third of the space had about 7 large round tables for the students to sit in groups at.  The next larger area was the home about about 6 fully equipped kitchens with stove, sink, counter space and mini-fridge.  And a final smaller area which housed the cooking ingredients.  At least I think that was the layout.  Its been a while.

We were put into groups of about 5.  Each student took turns doing a different job each class.  There was the head chef, backup chef, hosts/hostesses and waiter/waitress.  We were to rotate over time so students had a chance to do each position.  I was lucky enough to be put into a group where I was the only one who really wanted the head chef job.  The other kids in my group preferred the hosts and waiting jobs as it allowed them to mingle and socialize.  So as a favor to me, whenever it was someone else's turn to be head chef, the others in my group would sneak the duties over to me, and I gladly took it!  Unfortunately, the cooking class was only for 1/4 of the school year.  It would then change to sewing class, which I hated, followed by metal shop (meh) and then wood shop (fun but nothing like cooking class).

8th Grade graduation.  No more cooking classes :(

Unfortunately, cooking class was only a part of my 7th and 8th grade periods.  High school had home economics, but it was mostly about discussing family, raising an egg like it was a real baby and all of that nonsense.  Boooo!

But my passion for food, both cooking and especially eating it, never went away.  It was more left sitting idle for many years.  Days would come when I would venture out a little from the norm and try something new.  Baked taco shells dipped in pasta sauce.  Cereal with CHOCOLATE milk (never did the grape juice thing again and never will except as a dare!).  Potato chip sandwiches.  Nothing spectacular, really.

I eventually moved out on my own when I was 22 and it was all up to me to feed myself.  Unfortunately there is only so much to experiment with when we move out on our own for the first time and have bills to pay.  So I would be relegated to instant noodles, boxed mac and cheese, bologna and cheese sandwiches and so on.  Every now and then I would try to spruce it up a bit and add canned tuna to the mac and cheese.  Drop a bit of all spice into the instant noodles.  It was nothing to write home about, except for the mac and cheese with tuna which I still get tempted to make sometimes even to this day.

Chef Nairby, 2015.  Making pasta with a homemade tomato and mushroom sauce for my mom.
Rockin' the Hell's Kitchen apron!

Then one weekend, I had a desire to try relighting my cooking spark.  I was sitting at work and had the idea to make a chili as chili from a can was one of the many things I was eating on my budget.  None of the canned chili tasted as good as I thought they could.  I stopped by the nearby grocery store after work and picked up ingredients I figured I would need.  Some ground beef, celery, kidney beans, corn, green pepper and chili powder.  But I knew I would need something else as I didn't see how what I had already picked out would give the chili that sauce base it needed.  So I tossed in a jar of pasta sauce.

I cooked away the next day, made a mess of my hotplate as I was living in a tiny basement apartment with a bedroom too small for even my twin sized bed, so my living room also acted as my bedroom.  My kitchen was barely bigger than a walk-in closet and came with a mini-fridge and hot plate with two burners.  I had to eventually buy a toaster oven to act as an oven and eventually a microwave.  The setup was very primitive, but you have to work with what you have.

My chili turned out quite good, but not great.  I knew it had tons of potential, though.  A lot better than the chili someone in the family makes which is simply ground beef, overcooked and burned with that delightful (sarcasm) burnt flavor, kidney beans, pepper and chili powder.  Crap!  If the person responsible for that so-called chili ever reads this, or someone they know reads this......YOUR CHILI SUCKS!!!

Shortly after the first attempt, I tried making the chili again but used a different method when it came to seasoning with the chili powder.  The outcome was, without a doubt, the greatest chili ever made!  My cooking spark had returned and my homemade chili had officially become my signature dish.

Ingredients for Puffcakes.

Since then, I have made alterations to my chili to make it even better, such as adding canned tomatoes which eventually led to using fresh tomatoes instead of jarred pasta sauce.  (Blog about how to make my chili is coming soon!)

Over the last two years I have taken my cooking quite seriously.  It started out as a way to attract attention from ladies since I was starting to take my health seriously and getting into shape and I figured fanning the flame of my cooking passion and becoming better in the kitchen would be an added bonus.  Since then my passion for cooking has overtaken my desire to attract the opposite sex.  There is a lot more to that part of the story but this blog is not exactly the place for it.

I try to cook something special or new once a week.  Sometimes I will get really ambitious and make two to three things as I love the process of making a dish just as much, if not more than eating it.  Cooking is an art form, in my opinion.  I was once standoffish about trying more advanced methods but am now all for it, especially after realizing that a lot of different dishes and methods are nowhere nears a complicated as I had once thought.

In a perfect world, cooking would be a full time job for me, but who knows what the future holds.

By the way, happy Valentine's Day!

Puffcakes!

INGREDIENTS

Pancake mix

Red food coloring

Powdered sugar

Syrup

INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Preheat oven to 400 F.

2.  Mix pancake mix according to package instructions.  Add 2-3 drops of red food coloring and mix again.

3.  Pour mixture into small heart-shaped baking pans sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.  I found these at my local dollar store around Valentine's day.

4.  Bake in oven 5-10 minutes.  KEEP AN EYE ON THEM AS THEY BAKE!

5.  Once Puffcakes have puffed and look done, remove from oven.  Top with desired amount of powders sugar and syrup.  Serve.

Chef Nairby

ROAST THEM PEPPERS

Bell peppers are an ingredient that I have used in a lot of my cooking for several years.  They come in a variety of colors and have a bold flavor.

Up until last year, I would simply chop them up and toss them in raw to whatever I was making that day and let them cook along with everything else.  For me, using bell peppers, main red and green, was more about adding color to a dish than anything else.  I am of the opinion that food that looks good manages to taste even better.

One of the methods for cooking with peppers that I had heard about for several years were roasted peppers, in particular, roasted red peppers.  But I would always steer clear of roasting red peppers as I always assumed that the process would add an unneeded amount of cooking time to a dish.

When I started taking my cooking more seriously in 2014 and was adamant about, "cooking for real", as I call it, I started to progress further into the culinary world and that meant trying new cooking methods that I had never tried before.

A Facebook friend posted a recipe with pictures for a pull apart pizza bread and it looked great and simple enough to make.  The recipe called for the most common pizza ingredients:  pizza dough, mozzarella and pepperoni.  I made the bread and it turned out phenomenal!  As per my norm, I posted the pictures and people gawked in amazement.  It turned out so perfect that I wanted to try again but with different ingredients.  That is when it was suggested to me to try one with goat cheese, spinach and roasted red peppers.

Red Peppers de-innarded and ready for broiling.

"Sounds like a great combination", I thought to myself.  "But ROASTED red peppers?  Do I go there?"  My hesitation was very brief as I was deep enough into my advancing culinary journey that I was more encouraged than discouraged to try new things.

I quickly went on Youtube and did a search for how to roast red peppers and not surprisingly, a great number of results came up.  I clicked on the first link, opened Wordpad as I assumed it would be a lengthy process and watched the lady in the video.

Four minutes later, the tutorial was over and my Wordpad document was blank.  Once again, I thought a certain cooking process was more complicated than it actually was.  There was nothing to note down.

After 15 minutes of broiling.  Looking good!  The charred black skin is what we want!

I quickly put on my shoes and ran to the supermarket across the street and bought the two best looking red peppers I could find.  I rushed home, watched the Youtube video one more time and made me some roasted red peppers!

I quickly realized that I had been missing out on some great flavors when I would simply cook with red peppers in their raw form.  Roasted red peppers are an entirely different world!  A lot more flavor and still colorful.  One week later, I made the pull apart pizza bread with goat cheese, spinach and roasted red peppers and to no surprise, it ROCKED!  Not only because of the roasted red peppers, but because I ended up discovering the awesomeness of another amazing new ingredient.....Goat Cheese!  (A lot more on goat cheese in the near future!)

Chopped and ready!  Add them to a dish or eat them as is.

Checkout this video on how to make roasted red peppers with Chef Nairby!  Educational and entertainmental!

Of course if you'd rather not watch the awesomeness of how to make roasted red peppers with Chef Nairby, you can follow these instructions:

WHAT YOU NEED

Red Bell Peppers.

Baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and sprayed with non-stick cooking spray or  glazed with a little bit of olive oil.

Plastic sandwich bag.

INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Cut off the top and bottom of the red peppers.  Clean the insides out.

2.  Slice the peppers in half so you have two pieces.  Place them SKIN SIDE UP on baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and non-stick cooking spray or olive oil.

3.  Put tray on the top rack in the oven and BROIL for 15 minutes.  **Broiling is a lot like toasting bread in a toaster.  No pre-heating required as the heating grill starts heating right away.

4.  After 15 minutes, remove peppers from the oven.  If the skin is black, GOOD!  That's what you want.

5.  Put peppers in a sealed sandwich bag and store in fridge for 30 minutes to cool.  The peppers will marinate in the bag.  They will also get pretty slimy.  That's ok.

6.  Remove from fridge after 30 minutes and remove the skin.  The skin will peel off quite easily.  Chop and serve.

Grilled Goat Cheese And Roasted Red Pepper Sandwich with Fresh Chopped Dill!

Chef Nairby

THE MIGHTY TOMATO

Based on my own experiences, most people seem to dislike tomatoes.  They are fine with ketchup.  They have no problem with basic pasta sauce.  But for a lot of people, and I used to be the same way for many years, they will completely stay clear from tomatoes in general or only eat them if they're buried in a burger of submarine sandwich with sauces, lettuce, meats and bread.

"What About Bob?"-Courtesy of Touchstone Pictures

I was one of those people who would only eat tomatoes when they were buried with other ingredients in a burger or sub.  I would remove them from my salads.  I would not even touch tomato soup or tomato juice.  I had some smart-alick tomato fan every now and then ask me why I liked ketchup but not tomatoes.  Ketchup is just tomatoes, after all, right?  I would reply they the next time they want ketchup they should just toss a tomato in a blender.  That pretty much shut them up.

I was very anti-tomato.  They had this flat taste that just didn't seem right.  I even remember a time when I was a kid and I was given a grape tomato which I believed was a gumball.  I put it in my mouth, but down, it exploded with juices in my mouth and I immediately spit it all out.  I only knew of your basic tennis ball sized tomatoes back then, so little baby grape tomatoes were foreign to me.

You can't beat locally grown produce!  The colors and flavors!  Mwah!!

That was my opinion on tomatoes until the beginning of 2014.

On January 2nd, 2014, after a crazy incident happened in my life that sunk my world the prior December, I started on a journey to get in shape.  This obviously meant eating healthier.  Everything I needed for a better diet was at the supermarket across the street from me.  Eating better, of course, meant more veggies.  Salads.  And that meant sucking it up and giving the mighty tomato a fair shot.

I started by putting sliced grape tomatoes in my daily salads but making sure I covered them in dressing.  In no time at all, I became accustomed to the grape tomato with it tangy flavor.  So I bought more and more for my salads, and it didn't hurt that the market was selling pints of locally grown grape tomatoes for very cheap.

Perfect looking Cherry Tomatoes I found, Imported from Italy.
Sometimes it's worth buying imported!  Superb!

As I kept to my workout and diet routine, I quickly eliminated breads and other no-so-good food from my options.  I started getting more serious about improving my culinary skills and would eventually look up recipe ideas using healthy ingredients like the tomato, cauliflower, broccoli and more.

I started making my own pasta sauce using lots of tomatoes for the base, and I can honestly say that what you buy in a jar or can cannot compare to making a fresh homemade tomato sauce.  And contrary to popular opinion, the pre-made stuff is NOT cheaper than going fresh and making it yourself.  I got into that more, or WILL get into that more in my Blog about making your own pasta sauce (as of this word right *HERE*, that Blog and several more are already written and ready to go, it's just a matter of deciding when to post them and how frequently).

Tomato halves, topped with grated Mozzarella, Cheddar, Mushrooms and more, ready for the oven!
Better, cheaper and healthier than any pizza!

I will never speak badly of the glorious tomato again!  And I encourage any Tomater-haters to give them a shot.  They are worth it.  Heck, I even eat tomato soup and drink tomato juice now!

Give them a chance and stay tuned for more Tomato Tuesday's posted bi-weekly.  Buy local if you can.  The redder, the better.  They are inexpensive in the long run and can yield a large amount of MMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!

Baked Tomatoes with Cheese ready to eat.  The choice
of toppings is only limited to your imagination!

CHEESY BAKED TOMATOES

INGREDIENTS

4 tomatoes, sliced in half.

4 Tsp Extra virgin olive oil.

2 cups grated cheddar.

2 cups grated mozzarella.

½ cup chopped oregano.

½ cup chopped green onion.

1 cup sliced mushrooms

1 Tbsp garlic powder.

Ground black pepper to taste.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 450 F.

2. Place tomatoes cut-side up on baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

3. Top each tomato with mozzarella, cheddar, onion and mushrooms.  Sprinkle with black pepper and garlic powder.  Drizzle with olive oil.

4. Bake until tomatoes are tender, about 10 minutes.  Serve.

Goat Cheese, chopped Dill and pepper!

Experiment with toppings.  Use goat cheese, fresh chopped dill, basil, green pepper…whatever you can think of!  Cheesy baked tomatoes are a tasty and healthy alternative to pizza!

Chef Nairby

Cooking Times May Vary

COOKING TIMES MAY VARY

First attempt at Skittle Doodle Fudge did not go as planned.

It happens to us all.

We try a new recipe for the first time.  We follow instructions to a tee.  And the final product does not come out looking like it does in the picture.  What do you do?

In the past, I would give up and give the recipe a HUGE thumbs down.   Curse the world.  Curse the person who provided the recipe.  Slam cupboard doors.  Slam every pot, pan, bowl, measuring cup and utensil I used to make the darn thing during the clean-up.

Ingredients for Skittle Doodle Fudge

If you get discouraged, you could miss out on something truly amazing.  I use my first attempt at Skittle Doodle Fudge as my own example.

I found a recipe for Skittles Rainbow Fudge, which I later renamed Skittle Doodle Fudge.  I was looking for fudge recipes, fudge being one of the things I had not yet made at the time, and Skittle Rainbow (Doodle) Fudge popped up.

The recipe called for only four ingredients and seemed so easy to make, it could be done in your sleep.  Unfortunately, the results were less than spectacular.

Try not to look directly at it!

As you can see, the final product looked like a nightmare.  It tasted great, but a key to great food is also in the visual appeal.  I still posted the picture on my Instagram and even made the excuse that, "I like the way it looks!"  I was lying.  I was ticked off.  But since it TASTED good, I wanted to get it right.

The problem with my first attempt was that I did not leave the fudge in the freezer long enough to harden.  As a result, well, you see the results.  The sharpest knife would not have done any better.  I left it in the freezer for the amount of time that I thought was appropriate, but it wasn't long enough.  And when it came time to cut the brick into squares, it was like trying to cut firm pudding.

But there is always that disclaimer you see on many recipes that goes something like, "Cooking times may vary."

Second attempt.  Perfection!

I had bought enough ingredients to give it another go the next day.  This time, I left the fudge in the freezer until CHEF NAIRBY said it was ready to be cut into squares!  As you can see, perseverance pays off.

Cooking times may vary.  If it doesn't come out looking right the first time, try again!  If it doesn't look like it's done, despite following instructions, give it as long as you think it still needs and go with your senses.  Does it look, smell, feel, taste and even sound ready?  Go with your senses.  Don't get discouraged.  You could be missing out.

Skittle Doodle Fudge

INGREDIENTS

3 cups white chocolate chips

1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk

¾ cups Skittles

food coloring

INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Combine white chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk in a small saucepan.

2.  Melt over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture is smooth and completely melted.

3.  Stir in Skittles.

4.  Pour into an 8-inch square pan lined with parchment paper.

5.  Squirt one drop of each color food coloring in a different corner of the pan; use a knife to create swirls of color.

6.  Refrigerate or freeze until firm.  (**I put the slab in the freezer for about 3 hours until it was quite hard**)

Chef Nairby