POTS AND PANS CITY BLOG

• 2 small zucchini, cut in ½” chunks
• 2 cloves garlic, finely diced
• 1 large onion, cut in chunks
• 1 green pepper, seeded and cut in chunks
• 4 stalks of bok choy, cut in chunks
• 4-5 medium potatoes, cut in chunks
• 1 tsp. dried basil
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 2 TBSP. olive oil
• 1 TBSP butter
• 1 TBSP. soy sauce
• salt & pepper

  In a large bowl, combine all ingredients and mix together well.  Set out a large square of tin foil.  Place vegetable mixture in the middle, adding any liquid from the bowl.  Cover with another square of tin foil and seal edges together tightly to form a packet. (You can use two packets if the one is too big.)  Place packet on hot BBQ and let cook for approximately 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender.   Open packet cautiously as escaping steam will be very hot.

A Bit on Choosing Your Steak:

For barbequing, there are basically 3 types of steak that will produce the best results for you:  rib, short loin and sirloin.  The rib section contains cuts like the rib roast, rib-eye steak and back ribs.  The short loin section produces T-bones, top loin steak, tenderloin and porterhouse. The sirloin section produces the sirloin steak and top sirloin.  Other steaks like the chuck, round and flank steak tend to be tougher cuts of meats and will not produce the succulent results you want to achieve on the barbeque.  A New York steak is cut from the T-bone portion.

Marbling is an important factor when deciding on your steak choice.  Meat free of all fat with little or no marbling is leaner and often more tender, but not as flavourful.  The small streaks of fat running through the meat creates the flavour.  Your steak should be balanced for tenderness and taste through the marbling.  The tenderest cut will be the tenderloin, but the most flavourful for the barbeque will be the rib-eye, rib steak or sirloin.

To Barbeque Your Steak:

1. Make sure your steak is at room temperature before grilling.  This helps grill your steak faster and more evenly.Trim off excess fat from the edges.  Cut through any fat in the middle of the steak about every 1 ½ inches so that when the grilling shrinks the fat your steak does not curl up.
2. Season you steak with your choice of spices.  You may just want to lightly brush your steak with olive oil and add salt and pepper for that real barbeque steak flavour.
3. Preheat your barbeque to a HOT temperature.  Oil the grill so the steak does not stick.
4. Place your steak on the hot grill for one minute.  Turn the steak on the other side and grill for another minute.  With your tongs rotate the steak 45 degrees and cook for the remaining cooking time.  This gives you the cross-hatch grill marks you desire.
5. Remove your steak when you have achieved the desired doneness.  Press your steak with your index finger or the flat side of a grill-fork.  A rare steak will still be soft.  A steak cooked to medium will be firm but yielding.  A well done steak will be firm. 
6. Let your steak rest for about 5 minutes before serving so that all the juices can be re-absorbed into the meat.
7. If you choose to use barbeque sauce, brush the sauce over the steak lightly just before you feel it should be done and cook for about 1-2 minutes more.  If you add sauce too soon, it will burn.

• ½ medium eggplant, cut into large chunks
• 2 med-small zucchini, cut into large chunks
• 3 red peppers, cut into large pieces
• 1 tsp. Cajun spice
• 1 tsp. garlic powder
• Salt & pepper
• Red Leaf lettuce
• Romaine lettuce
• 10 olives cut in half
• ¼ cup feta cheese, crumbled

DRESSING:

• 3 TBSP. olive oil
• ½ tsp. dried basil
• ½ tsp. dried oregano
• ½ tsp. garlic powder
• 3 TBSP. Balsamic vinegar
• Salt & pepper, to taste

Place cut vegetable chunks on hot BBQ rack.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper & spices.  Grill vegetables over med-high heat on BBQ grill, turning to get those great grill marks (about 5-7 minutes per side) until vegetables are tender but still a little firm.  Vegetables should be tender when pierced with a fork, but not really soft. Remove and let cool.

In large bowl, tear up lettuces and add olives.  Add cooled b-b-q’d vegetables.  Mix together gently.

Place dressing ingredients in jar and shake together thoroughly.  Pour over salad.  Gently mix in feta cheese.

• 4 large bananas
• 2 cups miniature marshmallows
• 2 cups mini chocolate chips
• Ice cream (vanilla or butterscotch)

Peel bananas and cut in half lengthwise.  Place both halves of banana on a section of tin foil measuring approximately one foot long.  Spread marshmallows and chocolate chips around banana.  Fold up edges of tin foil to create a little package.  Seal tightly. 

Place banana dessert packages in 350? oven for about 10-15 minutes.

Remove dessert from oven and serve in their tin foil wraps on individual plates.  Open foil packets and serve with a scoop of ice cream on top of bananas.

(For a really special treat for adults, spoon 1 TBSP. liqueur, such as Grand Marnier or Tia Maria, on top of ice cream/banana packet)

• 5 medium red peppers, cut lengthwise & seeded2 TBSP. olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped finely
• 1 large carrot, diced fine
• 2 small zucchini, diced
• ¼ cups breadcrumbs
• Dash of Worcestershire sauce
• ¼ cup parmesan cheese
• ½ cup cheddar cheese
• Salt & pepper
• ¼ tsp. garlic powder
• ¼ tsp. basil
• ¼ tsp. chili powder
• Dash of dry jerk seasoning (such as Grace’s Jerk seasoning-found in the international aisle at your grocery store.)

In medium saucepan, cook onion, carrots, zucchini, sauce, and spices until vegetables are soft.  Stir in breadcrumbs.  Spoon vegetable mixture into pepper boats.  Place on BBQ over medium-low heat and grill for approximately 7-10 minutes.  (Peppers should not be too soft.)  Top with combined cheeses.  Close lid on BBQ and heat boats just until the cheese melts.  Serve hot.

If your family has an iPad, it could be right up there with your sauce mop, spatula and tongs as one of your favorite BBQ tools.  Weber has announced that its Weber’s On the Grill application is now available for the iPad.

Besides 27 videos the Weber’s on the Grill app contains more than 250 recipes from Weber’s bestselling BBQ cookbook series.  There are instructions for 40 sauces, marinades and rubs.  Other features include the ability to bookmark favorite recipes, create and share master shopping lists that are generated from selected recipes, and the ability to make notes of your own on the included recipes.

Weber’s On the Grill is available at the iTunes Store for $4.99.

Another new cooking app for the iPad comes from Kraft Foods.  Big Fork, Little Fork is an app that provides parents with an interactive resource to help teach children valuable cooking knowledge, healthy eating habits and basic kitchen skills.

Besides 300 recipes Big Fork, Little Fork includes video and edutainment games and interactive features.  Available now at the iTunes Store for $1.99. 

Kraft also says that it will create additional chef-branded content packs for Big Fork, Little Fork beginning this fall with Top Chef Masters winner Marcus Samuelsson.

The Fantastic Institution of the Barbeque

Along with the warm scented breezes of a summer day, no one can resist the temptations of eating barbeque food.  Whether you are a seasoned meat eater, a vegetarian, or just love the taste of the smoky flavours, grilling food over a slow flame is irresistible.  And the great thing about barbequed food is that it tastes all the better when you eat it outside!

Barbequing is great for all types of meats—chicken, beef, lamb, pork or seafood and you can even use your barbeque to cook vegetables and desserts.  Barbequing can be done in summer to relieve the heat of cooking indoors, or can be done in winter to bring the flavours of summer to you in the coldest months.  It can even be done indoors on a stove-top or electric grill.  Barbequing is also considered to be a very healthful way of cooking. 

But, how did barbeque get its start anyways?  Of course, the first people to ‘barbeque’ there food were the hunter-gathers from prehistoric times.  Barbequing (or cooking food over a fire) was a means of self-preservation and satisfied their basic need for food. 

There are many different spellings of barbeque around the world—barbeque, BBQ, barb-a-que Bar-B-Que, (among others spellings).  The origin of the word barbeque however (no matter how you spell it) is often disputed.  The most widely accepted story suggests that "barbecue" is a derivative of the West Indian term "barbacoa," which refers to a method of slow-cooking meat over hot coals.  If you look in The Oxford English Dictionary, the word back is tracked back to Haiti.  Others claim that "barbeque" actually comes from a French expression "barbe a queue", which means "from head to tail" while another theory proposes that "barbecue" comes from a 19th century advertisement for a combination whiskey bar, beer hall, pool establishment and roast pig vendor which was known as the BAR-BEER-CUE-PIG.

The traditional Southern barbeque grew out of the celebration of slaughtering time where the entire community would be invited to share in the event. Barbequing the tough stringy meat (typically pork) prevalent in the old South helped to tenderize the meat.  In fact, in the 19th century, barbecue was a highlight at private parties, church picnics and political rallies. These popular gatherings offered an easy way for the classes to intermix because everyone could eat barbeque; it was not a class- specific food. Church barbecues became popular where roast pig supplemented the other dishes prepared by the ladies of the congregation.  This was the evolution of the traditional church picnic in many Southern communities.  Moving forward into the 20th century, barbecue pits and roadside stands where travelers could buy a cheap barbeque meal were established.

Although the barbeque in the South reflects its varied history and has become an emblem for Southern cooking, for the past seventy-five years, barbecue joints around the world have flourished.  Barbeque offers a juicy, luscious taste that few can resist.  With delicious sauces and that great smoky flavor barbeque is a favorite the world over.

In today’s world, barbeque is not just simply roasting meat over hot coals. Barbequing has become an art.  The true barbeque chef would consider that merely grilling the food.  Barbeque should be done in particular way with the meat slowly cooking over low heat.  That is what really creates the succulence and enhances the smokiness.  Barbeque sauce can be considered to create a different taste in some instances, it is not always necessary to enhance the flavor of the meat.

Different methods of cooking on the barbeque consist of using wood, charcoal or propane.  The type of wood being burned results in different flavors infusing the meat being cooked.  Typical and popular wood types used on barbeques include mesquite, hickory, maple, pecan, apple and oak. Coniferous woods should never be used for barbequing because they contain tar and resins which can create undesirable flavors and unwanted chemicals can permeate into the food. 
Charcoal barbequing usually consists of setting fire to a commercially bought bag of charcoal briquettes, or alternatively lump charcoal.  Charcoal barbequing is often thought to be preferable the gas or propane method because it creates a more authentic smoky flavor.

In recent years, gas or propane barbequing has become the more popular method for barbeque cooking.  Using a gas or propane barbeque is believed to be easier to light, the heat easier to control and the outcome more predictable than with the wood or charcoal methods. In short, it is more convenient for today’s average backyard barbequer. The smoky wood flavor can be added to food cooked on gas barbeques with the use of a ‘smoker box’ or by a simple perforated foil pouch in which soaked wood chips grill alongside the meat on the barbeque.  Sometimes the sauce can provide the smoky flavor.

You can also get a taste of barbeque flavor by using the relatively new method of the indoor grill.  The invention of grills like the George Foreman Grill (although there are other brands available) makes obtaining that real barbeque meat flavor easy for indoor cooks.  The meat is still seared on both sides and the juice and barbeque flavor is retained with a high-heat, quick cooking method.

Whichever method you use to barbeque or however you spell it, barbeque has always been one of the great flavorful ways of cooking food.  Meat cooked on a barbeque always seems more succulent, vegetables have more taste and potatoes are fluffier. Everything just seems to taste better when you barbeque it. So sit back in your backyard haven, light up your barbeque, have a cool drink standing by and go to it.  The all you have to do is enjoy the results!

Blueberry Pie is one of those summer delights that everyone waits for each year.  The sweet flavor of the mature berries combines well within a flakey pie crust and is ambrosia for the taste buds.  Serving blueberry pie hot with whipped cream or ice cream adds an extra dimension of extravagance.

Blueberries are one of the healthiest foods available, as well as being great tasting. They are one of the richest sources of antioxidants of all the fruits and vegetables studied.  Antioxidants help fight cell damaging free radicals, which are unstable substances that our body produces as it gets older.  Free radicals damage human cells and DNA.  The antioxidants in blueberries help to slow your ageing processes and reduce the risk of various forms of cancer.  The antioxidants found in blueberries are contained in ‘Anthocyanins’ (which comes from the Greek word meaning ‘plant’ and ‘blue’) and are the reason why blueberries are blue in color.

Blueberry bushes bear fruit from May through October, but the season peaks in July in the Northern Hemisphere.  In fact July is National Blueberry Month in Canada and the United States. 

In Canada, British Columbia is the largest producer of the Northern Highbush Blueberry, which is the most common cultivated variety.  The British Columbia region is the most productive blueberry region in the world and yields about 63 million pounds a year.  Another variety of blueberry, the Lowbush Blueberry, is found in the Atlantic Provinces through to Quebec and Northern Ontario. 

The United States also contributes greatly to the blueberry yield, with New Jersey being a leading producer of the Highbush Blueberry.  Other significant areas of Highbush Blueberries are in the southern states of Florida, Georgia and North Carolina.  Maine produces approximately 25% of all the Lowbush Blueberries in North America.

Blueberry pie is one of the easiest pies to make.  You don’t have to do any chopping or cutting up fruit.  You simply have to wash the fruit, make sure there are not stems still attached, mix the fruit with the sugar, seasonings and corn starch, and throw it in the pie crust.  The addition of lemon brings out the flavor of the berries and adds a brighter taste to the overall pie.

The correct ratio of sugar to get the desired level of sweetness required for a blueberry pie is about an amount of sugar equal to one-fifth of the number of cups of blueberries. 

Blueberry Pie

PASTRY:

• 2 ½ cups flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 1/3 cup butter

FILLING:

• 3 pints blueberries, washed and cleaned
• Juice of ½ lemon
• 2/3 cup sugar
• ¼ cup flour
• ¼ cup cold butter
• 1 egg, beaten with a small amount of water
• 2 TBSP. sugar

Measure all pastry ingredients into food processor.  Blend until just mixed together (do not over-blend or pastry will be tough.)  Pieces of dough should be about the size of small peas. 

Shape dough into a ball and flatten.  Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 450º. 

Remove dough from fridge and unwrap.  Cut dough in half and roll out one half on floured board.  Line pie plate with dough.  Add blueberries into pie dough and top with lemon juice.  Sprinkle flour and sugar over top, and dot with cold butter pieces.  Roll out remaining dough and top the pie.  Brush beaten egg over top of pie and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 450º for 10 minutes.  Lower oven heat to 350º and bake for 40 minutes longer (until crust is golden brown.)

There is nothing so sweet as a juicy peach when they are in season.  Biting into a ripe fuzzy peach, with the juice running down your chin, is surely one of the freshest and tastiest treats you can find.  That is the food stuff that is made for the gods.  Then when you translate that sweet juicy goodness into a pie it is truly a bit of heaven.

Peaches are the second largest commercial fruit crop grown in the United States today, with apples being the largest.  Major peach producers outside of the States include Italy, China and Greece.  In fact, peaches actually originated in China and have been cultivated there since very early in the Chinese culture.  You can find references to peaches mentioned in 19th century Chinese writings and were considered a favored fruit of the emperors.

Peaches were brought to America in the 16th century by Spanish explorers.  It was not until the 17th century that peaches were introduced into England and French cultures.  In Queen Victoria’s court, no meal was deemed to be complete without the addition of a fresh peach.

Peaches are not only a great tasting fruit, but also a very healthy one.  They contain antioxidants that help protect your body from daily cell damage and many chronic diseases, including certain types of cancer.  Peaches also contain beta-carotene (Vitamin A), Vitamin C and Vitamin E. The red-pigmented Beta-carotene, responsible for the peachy color, transforms into Vitamin A in the body.
Vitamin A helps maintain the skin, internally and externally, and also protects the eyes, helps build strong teeth and bones and helps maintain healthy hair.  Recent Vitamin A research has been linked to reduced rates of cancer and heart disease. 

Vitamin C helps boost your immune system and promotes healing.  It also helps prevent cancer, heart disease and stroke.
A significant amount of Vitamin E is found in peaches.  Vitamin E has been found to be particularly effective in preventing heart disease and breast cancer.

Since peaches are such a healthy, tasty food, it is not surprising that they are used in many recipes—especially in desserts.  Their sweet juiciness provides a delicious way to get many of the vitamins your body needs.
Peach pie has long since been a favorite in many family homes, as well as being a major contender at many county fair competitions.  Peach pie can be made with tinned peaches, but the best ones always use fresh peaches.  Although you can get peaches from May until October, the height of the peach season is in August.

Here is a peach pie recipe that you may want to try when peach season arrives this year:

PASTRY:

• 2 ½ cups flour
• 2 TBSP. white sugar
• 2/3 cup vegetable shortening
• 1 tsp. salt
• 5 TBSP. very cold water (approximately)

FILLING:

• ¾ lb. fresh ripe peaches
• ½ cup white sugar
• 2 TBSP. corn starch
• Juice from ½ lemon

Egg wash (made up of one beaten egg plus a small amount of water)
Sugar to sprinkle on top of pie

Measure all pastry ingredients, except water into food processor.  Pulse a few times until mixture is the size of small peas.  Through top, add just enough cold water until dough forms a ball.  (Do not over-blend or pastry will be tough.)  Shape dough into a flattened ball and refrigerate for about an hour.

Preheat oven to 450?F.

Remove dough from fridge and unwrap.  Cut dough in approximately thirds- two-thirds will be used for the bottom crust, and one-third for top.  Roll out two-thirds of dough on lightly floured surface and line a pie plated with dough.  Peel peaches and slice in wedges.  Place in pie crust.  Sprinkle lemon juice and then corn starch over fruit, then white sugar.  Roll out dough for top crust and spread over pie.
Crimp edges to seal.  Brush egg wash over top crust and sprinkle with a little white sugar.  Cut vent holes in top of crust with a sharp knife.
Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes.

Amazon is currently offering a free Kindle ebook – Living Organized: Proven Steps for a Clutter-Free and Beautiful Home by Sandra Felton – which may be of interest.  This is a promotion by the publisher, so no telling how long this ebook will be available at this price. 

If you don’t have a Kindle ebook reader you can also read ebooks from the Kindle Store on the free downloadable ereading applications for the PC, Mac, iPhone, BlackBerry, and iPad.

The Kindle Store is also a great resource for cookbooks.  Currently there are almost 1700 cookbooks available for the Kindle ereader.