Blue Deviled Eggs

We are off to Winston-Salem for the Duke at Wake Forest football game on Saturday. As there is generally a theme to each Almost Gold tailgate based on the day's opponent, I thought it would be appropriate to break out the 'Blue Deviled Eggs' once again.

This creation first appeared a few years ago when The Newtster semi-jokingly suggested it to Sally, who was hosting us at her house for the Duke at Wake Forest basketball game and needed some themed ideas. The appearance is..... interesting. It's sort of a cross between Play-Doh and a bad Smurf experiment.

Since deviled eggs are traditionally made with mayonnaise, I figured we should keep this recipe true to form as there will likely be quite a few people eating these things. Now, as anyone who knows The Newtster will tell you, I don't like mayonnaise. Nothing ruins a good sandwich or burger quite like seeing mayonnaise smeared all over it. I can however tolerate mayonnaise in small doses, such as in deviled eggs, since it's mixed in and I can't really detect it. I did make some deviled eggs earlier this year using a recipe that did not include mayonnaise but seemed to include just about everything else in the kitchen. They turned out fairly well.

Given my discomfort working with mayonnaise, I deferred to Julia in the preparation of the eggs. Earlier in the day I sought advice from Mimi, my grandmother, who is the best cook I know (sorry Mom). Mimi gave me her suggestions, which included mayonnaise, mustard (double drats Joe!), salt, pepper, sugar, and of course paprika. Here's what we actually wound up with in our finished product.

- 18 large eggs
- Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise
- Jack Daniel's Horseradish Mustard
- Worcestershire Sauce
- Salt and Pepper
- Blue Food Coloring
- Paprika

There is no right or wrong proportion here so you just have to do everything to taste. I was hoping to find a larger container of blue food dye, but it only came in an assorted pack in a very small amount. As a result the eggs are certainly blue, but not the darker blue I was aiming for. I haven't sprinkled the paprika on yet in this picture as I will wait until they are plated up for serving on Saturday morning. You'll also notice that for some reason some small pieces of the yolk mixture did not accept the food coloring. All in all though, I am satisfied with the finished product.

That's all for now. See you next week.

Updates

For dinner last night we continued to enjoy the pork tenderloin since we had an entire one left over from the night before. We reheated the tenderloin in the oven and Julia put together some delicious quesadillas with it. I am now declaring that they shall be known as 'Qaribbean Quesadillas'. They were excellent with just some cheese and the peach mango salsa.

The cilantro dipping sauce was actually much better after chilling in the fridge overnight. We served it straight from the fridge without heating it and the consistency was much thicker as a result, a desirable trait for a dipping sauce. Also, the salted plantain slices were much more enjoyable with it.

I would also like to clarify that between the first and second Dark 'n Stormy posts, Julia was using the computer for a portion of the time. It did not actually take me nearly 7 hours to come up with a coherent post, nor did I drink for that entire time either.

Finally, here's what the tree looked like yesterday, which was the first sunny day this week I think.

Dark N' Stormy - Part 2

The title of this post may seem like a bit of a misnomer when juxtaposed with the picture above, but you will get it in a minute. Before getting to the explanation, I would first like to state that this has easily been the most fun post to create so far, as evidenced by the fact that I somehow managed to publish a post with the originally intended title, only with no content. I think it had something to do with hitting the ENTER key instead of the TAB key. Rather than correct the botch, I thought it appropriate to leave it as is for all of my loyal readers to see and instead give this post the designation of 'Part 2'.

The picture at the beginning of this post, a personal favorite of mine, was taken from the front porch of The Crow's Nest Cottage at The Coral Beach and Tennis Club located in the Paget Parish of Bermuda. As you may recall I mentioned a trip with the Kyles to Bermuda in my 'Pork Tenderloin Straight From The Isles' post. This cottage was our residence during that trip.

At the time this was only my second trip outside of the United States and I learned a number of things on this trip, including but not limited to:

1) Bermuda is only a little over 2 hours from our home by air.
2) I am still able to place and receive phone calls on my Verizon Wireless cell phone in Bermuda.
3) Bermuda is not one island, but is actually comprised of over 100 individual islands, though I will refer to it as a singular island for the remainder of this post.
4) There is a distinct difference in flavor between grass fed and corn fed beef.

My favorite thing I learned on this trip though was just how much Bermuda means to my in-laws. Neither Julia or I had ever been to Bermuda before this trip and her parents loved showing us around the island, which had apparently been an escape for them when Julia and her brother were still very young. As I recall they had not been back there in at least 20 years before this trip and they clearly loved being able to share the island and their memories of it with their daughter and son-in-law, who could not have been more grateful for the opportunity to share in it. In an effort to show some of his gratitude, The Newtster commissioned a painting of the picture above from his great aunt, Bonnie Culler. The painting came out beautifully and is currently hanging in the guest room of the Kyles' home. I will try to remember to take a picture of it for comparison when we are there for Thanksgiving. Seeing it is always a nice bonus when we visit.

Now, since I owe you an explanation as to why the tropical looking picture would appear under the title 'Dark 'n Stormy', I present to you with my second favorite thing I learned about in Bermuda, namely the Dark 'n Stormy. The Dark 'n Stormy is reported to be "Bermuda's National Drink", though the Rum Swizzle can also lay claim to this designation in certain circles. The drink itself is very simple to prepare and its greatness lies in the ingredients that comprise it. Here's is my recommendation on the recipe:

- 1 Part Gosling's Black Seal Bermuda Dark Rum
- 3-4 Parts Ginger Beer
- Splash of lime

The Dark 'n Stormy is traditionally served over ice in a highball glass. It strikes me that for such a simple drink, there seems to be a wide range of opinions as to the ratio of rum to ginger beer, especially when you consider that the size of the recommended vessel for this drink is relatively fixed. Given that The Newtster stands at above average height, he generally likes to enjoy his Dark 'n Stormy in a bit of a taller glass, usually a pint glass. I just "eyeball" the amount of rum and then top off the rest of the glass with ginger beer to taste. Therefore it was a bit difficult for me to nail down a recipe as my eye for the proper amount of rum in a glass will undoubtedly differ from yours. After multiple attempts in different sized glasses (hence the errant post earlier and the lengthy delay between the two posts), I have determined that my ideal ratio is within the range listed above. I would guess that when served in a pint glass, I am usually using 3 oz. of rum (or roughly 2 shots) to one 12 oz. bottle of ginger beer.

Despite the differing ratios, let me be clear that a Dark 'n Stormy should not include any rum other than Gosling's Black Seal Bermuda Dark Rum. There's no way around that. Similarly, if you are in Bermuda, apparently Barritt's is the only brand of ginger beer you should choose. I don't know what brand we had in Bermuda as it was all from behind the bar, but I have not found Barritt's here at home. The best ginger beer I have found is Saranac. I have also tried Goya's offering and it was not good at all. Additionally, ginger ale will not work as the ginger flavor is not strong enough. If you cannot locate Saranac, then try anything other than Goya.

Enjoy responsibly and don't try to publish blog posts.

Dark 'n Stormy

Pork Tenderloin Straight From The Isles

Check that, straight from the aisles, as in the aisles of Whole Foods Market. Nevertheless, this dish is inspired by the flavors of the Caribbean. Since it has started to turn cold for the first time this season, I think it's about time for an escape

As a bit of background, Julia and I honeymooned at the Westin Casuarina in Grand Cayman and took an impromptu trip to The Somerset on Grace Bay in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands in 2007. This trip was the result of me growing tired of the winter in DC in mid-February and deciding to do something about it. The picture at the beginning of this post was taken at 'Da Conch Shack', also located in Providenciales. I know this limited travel experience to the Caribbean makes me sound a little bit like Michael Scott becoming an authority on it after visiting Sandals Jamaica on 'The Office', but I do love the region and would go down there at any opportunity.

Let me also note that we once took a beautiful trip to Bermuda with the Kyles, but since Bermuda is actually in the North Atlantic, I cannot group it with the islands of the Caribbean and will reserve a later post for my favorite takeaways from Bermuda.

For the tenderloin, I prepared a jerk marinade following this recipe, only I doubled it because I accidentally purchased 2 tenderloins packaged as one with a total weight of about 2 lbs. Just to cheat a little, I also added 1/2 tbsp in total of Jamaican Jerk Seasoning from The Spice House in Evanston, IL to the recipe. I poured the marinade over the tenderloins in a storage bag and refrigerated them for about 6 hours. After 6 hours, I placed the tenderloins in a baking dish, poured the marinade on top, and baked them at 350° for 40 minutes (20 minutes/pound).

Ideally, I should have marinated the tenderloins overnight, but I didn't put it all together until this morning. I have used this recipe before to marinate pork chops as suggested by the author, but I cooked them in the slow cooker and then shredded them to make jerk pork sandwiches. The flavor of the marinade was not very strong after being in the slow cooker so we added some Lawry's Caribbean Jerk Marinade, which has a super strong flavor. I'm hoping the flavor of the homemade marinade will be a little more concentrated with baking.

In keeping with the Caribbean theme, I decided we should have some plantain chips along with the tenderloin. I tried to make some baked plantains recently following this recipe and it didn't turn out very well as the plantains were not ripe enough. For this reason, as well as the fact that we don't own a mandoline, I decided against attempting to make my own. Instead, I purchased some De La Sierra Plantain Slices at Whole Foods in both the Salted and Sweet varieties.

Much to Julia's delight, when we have chips it usually means she gets to enjoy one of her favorite things in the world, dips. I thought that a mango chutney would work well with the plantains, but I wasn't sold on the effort it would take to prepare the recipes I found. Instead, I purchased some 365™ Peach Mango Salsa, which is the Whole Foods brand.

Not one to leave well enough alone, I decided that I WOULD try a recipe I found for a Warm Cilantro Dipping Sauce. Since we had some fresh cilantro left over from a recent Mexican night, I was already part of the way there anyway. A number of people that reviewed the recipe suggested dialing back the olive oil to 1/3 cup, which I decided to do with the idea that I can always add more later if needed.

So let's start with the report on the store bought products. When it comes to the plantain slices, the sweet variety is better than the salted, but both are acceptable. I think I would buy the sweet ones again, but probably not the salted ones. I really liked the 365™ Peach Mango Salsa though, especially with the sweet plantain slices. The salsa has a nice little kick to it to go along with the sweetness from the peach and mango.

As for the homemade Cilantro Dipping Sauce, it turned out OK. I wasn't really sold on the sauce because it tasted too much like it was just olive oil to me, even though I only used 1/3 cup. I decided that instead of wasting time heating the oil on the stove, I would just throw it in the microwave to heat it. After all, I wasn't cooking any of the other ingredients in it so what difference would the method make? Perhaps more even heat from the stove would have changed the flavor, but I'm not so sure. Julia actually liked the flavor of the dipping sauce and even drizzled some over the tenderloin.

Which brings me to the tenderloin and marinade. The marinade turned out really well and The Newtster is pleased. In hindsight though, I should have cooked the tenderloin at 450° for 40 minutes, which was my first inclination. Just to check myself though I searched the internet and found a lot of people recommending 350°. I wound up having to put the tenderloin back in the oven for almost another 30 minutes, which I think dried it out a bit. The quicker the better with tenderloin I suppose. The marinade however was full of flavor and was a very nice complement to the pork. I will definitely make it again. And by the way, green onions smell fantastic.

Links Fixed

A note to all of my loyal readers. I have now fixed all of the links and photos so that they will open in a new tab/window. This ensures that you are not prematurely navigated away from your favorite site. So click away without fear.

Rice, It's Ingrained In Me

So the response to my 'Red Chicken' post has been overwhelming. Everybody wants to know more. Not about the chicken though, about the rice!!! It seems I spent all of my time talking about the delicious chicken dish, but completely neglected to talk about my rice. Everyone is clamoring, "How do you do it Newtster?"

Well, I'm ashamed to admit that it's actually nothing more than Minute® Brown Rice. I know it's shocking to learn that I use an instant rice, but The Newtster grew up eating Minute® White Rice and I prefer Minute® to any other brand, with the caveat that rice was not meant to be boiled in a bag, regardless of the brand name on the box.

My meal of choice before swim meets when I was younger was a big bowl of rice with butter and A1 Steak Sauce, and it should be noted that I had the 14th best time in the Greater Richmond Aquatic League's 11-12 year old Junior Varsity Level 50 yard breast stroke in 1991. And for those of you who may doubt this claim, look no further than all of the records my brother Berkeley still holds at our pool, the Tuckahoe Village Recreation Association's TVRA Typhoons. It's a fact that all Newtons can swim fast.

In recent years though, The Newtster's allegiance shifted to another brand of rice, namely River® Enriched White Rice. This product is found locally in the Greater Washington, DC area at Shoppers Food & Pharmacy, formerly (and still as far as I'm concerned) known as Shoppers Food Warehouse. I first started buying this rice in the year before I was married because it yielded more than the instant rice, had a stickier consistency, and most importantly was cheaper. As I have recently gotten on a health kick, I decided to make a move to brown rice, and predictably landed on my old favorite Minute® brand's offering.

There is no mystery in preparing instant rice, as you simply follow the instructions on the box. The only thing I do differently as far as the recipe is concerned is add a little margarine and sea salt to the water before bringing it to a boil. If I'm feeling like it, I will substitute a little bit of soy sauce for some of the water. I think it adds a nice touch of flavor when it is cooked into the rice.

So, unless otherwise specified, you can assume that going forward any meal featuring rice as a side was prepared to my exacting standards with Minute® Brown Rice.

Red Chicken

I'm not one to disappoint my fans and with three posts so far, none of which feature chicken and rice, I figure it's about time to start the counter. I decided to make a Newton family favorite tonight called 'Red Chicken'. As far as I can remember, my mother started making 'Red Chicken' sometime during my middle school or high school years. I never knew what went into it until moving out on my own after college, when it became one of the first recipes I requested. As luck would have it, it's super easy to prepare.

Before getting to the actual recipe, I will enchant you with a tale (because that's what blogs are for anyway, right?) about my pursuit of one of the key ingredients today, Russian Dressing. In my recent experience, Russian Dressing has become harder and harder to locate in the grocery store. I have always used Wish-Bone Russian Dressing, but it seems as if it's no longer available anywhere in my area (this gives me a great idea for a future post about stuff I used to love but can't find any longer). In fact, the only brand I can find is Ken's Steakhouse Russian. If you look at those two products, you will notice a distinct difference in color. I have used the Ken's brand once with acceptable results but I would prefer the Wish-Bone as The Newtster is a creature of habit.

With the apparent scarcity of the dressing in mind as well an interest in appearing authentic for my internet audience, I figured I would stop by the Russian Gourmet store at the end of my street and pick up some "authentic" Russian dressing. I had never been in the store before and have struggled to figure out where the big demand for it is in Old Town Alexandria.

Inside, the store looks a lot like the Sundry Shop near Polo and Student Apartments on campus at Wake Forest. It certainly has all the ambiance of it, yet somehow none of the charm. Who would have guessed a Russian store might appear cold, utilitarian, and uninviting? Luckily the two employees, an older Russian woman who did not speak English and a middle aged Russian man with blond hair in a pony tail that did, were pleasant. I walked around the store on my own at first to see if I could find what I was looking for. It should come as no surprise that there are no products labeled "Russian Dressing" in a Russian store, or if there are I could not find them because all of the labels are of course written in Russian. So I broke down and asked if they had any Russian salad dressing, at which point the man looked baffled and the woman continued to smile pleasantly, not knowing what I said. I further explained that it is a red dressing that is hard to find in the grocery store. The man said something to the woman in Russian and they came out from behind the counter and picked this product off the shelf.

He asked what I planned to use it for and when I informed him it was for a chicken marinade, he said it should work just fine. I paid and left, feeling great that I was about to get authenticity all up in this dish. Just in case it was not exactly what I was looking for, I decided to buy some "Americanized" Russian dressing at the grocery store along with the other ingredients.

Upon returning home, I conducted a taste test to see if the "authentic" stuff tasted like the Ken's stuff. Not really. So I decided to check the Interwebs to see 1) if other people were having trouble locating the dressing and 2) what Russian Dressing really is as I believe Catalina might be a close approximation, at least based on appearance. I never really got much beyond search number one as I found that people are indeed having trouble finding the dressing, which made me even more satisfied with my "authentic" purchase. I decided to seek out the history behind Russian Dressing as that may shed some light on it's new found scarcity. Much to my chagrin, I discovered on Wikipedia that Russian Dressing is actually an American tomato-based creation that dates back to perhaps the early 1900's. During the Cold War era, Russian Dressing was apparently given the "Freedom-Fry Treatment" and renamed "Sweet Tomato Dressing". Some also theorize that it is the precursor to Thousand Island Dressing (drats Joe!), though the origins of both are a bit unclear and based on my limited research, they appear to be contemporaries more than anything. It should be noted for Joe's sake that none of the dressings I have used include mayonnaise, so it's safe.

All of that aside, I decided to keep it "authentic" and use the stuff from the Russian store, which brings me back to the task at hand, the meal. The recipe goes:

- 3 -4 chicken breasts
- Russian Dressing (8 oz.)
- Apricot preserves (6 oz.)
- 1 envelope of Lipton Onion Soup Mix
- 1/4 cup of water

Preheat oven to 350°. Combine the dressing, preserves, soup, and water in a saucepan and cook over low/medium heat until the preserves break down and the mixture is smooth. This takes 10 minutes or less. Place the chicken breasts in a baking dish and pour the sauce over top. Make sure to spoon some on top of the breasts before covering and baking for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove the dish and spoon more of the sauce on top of the breasts, then cover and bake for another 30 minutes. (Note: I suppose you can skip the second saucing and just leave it in the oven for an hour, but it doesn't hurt to do it if your are up for it). That's it. Make sure to put some of the sauce on top of your rice as well as it is super tasty.

The presentation here is essentially a "his and hers". Please note that The Newtster did not prepare the broccoli and corn as seen on Julia's plate. These were frozen goods that Julia microwaved and added to her plate, which she frequently does. And the verdict on the authentic Russian stuff? It was pretty good. I did not tell Julia about my adventure today so she will be reading about it for the first time along with you. I told her that I did something different and she said it smelled a bit sweeter, but the taste was the same. I would agree that the taste was the same if not better. The sauce seemed to stick to the chicken a little better as well, which is good.

Looking back on the day, it strikes me that in my endeavor to look "authentic", I should have first sought out recipes for how to make Russian dressing at home. I would have discovered the origin and not wasted my time looking like a typical American in the Russian store (Uhhhh, it's red...). However, this blunder did yield a nice change of pace in the recipe, which I will probably repeat in the future if the Russian store is still there and continues to carry the authentic stuff. After all, I suppose there's no real point in attempting to make this thing homemade since I'm using all pre-packaged items otherwise, which makes that pursuit about frivolous as one of Sandra Lee's "creations".

Add one to the chicken and rice counter.

Lookin' Out My Back Door

So we don't really have a back door, but here is the current view out of our kitchen window (look past the dirty window screen).I can't get enough of the fall colors, especially when I am not responsible for raking leaves. It is of course a bit late in the season at this point, but this still makes for a beautiful scene while washing some chicken and pulling some water to boil for rice (foreshadowing)..... Here's one final view (of our parking lot) out of the other window in the back.

Pasta and Meatballs

I have developed a new go-to meal over the past few months after catching an episode of Good Eats on The Food Network entitled 'Meatballs For All'. The recipe is for baked meatballs. The only changes I make to the recipe are to use a package of low fat ground turkey (1.3 lbs.) and 1/4 lb. of lean ground beef and to act as if spinach had never been mentioned anywhere near a meatball. That is of course unless we are talking about Campbell's Italian-Style Wedding Soup, in which case the spinach is quite literally swimming in deliciousness and is therefore completely acceptable given that I can't actually taste it. But I digress.

The meatballs cook up quite deliciously and I add a side of pasta to go with them. I had been making an olive oil and garlic pasta with some diced tomatoes (full documentation will inevitably follow in a future post). However, this past week I decided to prepare a "homemade" pasta sauce as detailed in our Joy of Cooking cookbook. I'll spare you all the details, but essentially it is just combining an onion, carrots, garlic, tomatoes (I use a 28 oz. can of whole tomatoes), sugar, and a couple herbs and spices and running it all through a food processor once it has cooked down a bit. Very simple but quite delicious. I have been using Barilla Plus pastas of late and have found that the elbow variety is very good.

Here's the finished product. The poor quality of the pictures defy how good the meal really is.

Wedding Cake!!!

After 5+ years of marriage, we decided it was time to thaw out our wedding cake. That's right. While some wedded couples perform this sacred rite on their 1st anniversary, the Newton's reserved it for that special 5 year, 2 month, and 19th day anniversary. The thawing process began quite some time ago and as a result our freezer has never looked bigger!! We finally got up the courage to take it out of the fridge and see what it looked like... surprisingly not too bad all things considered. We were of course very reluctant to eat a 5 year old cake but the bit that we did was edible.