Spinach Bacon Quiche

1 cup Swiss cheese
1/4 cup squeezed frozen spinach
1/2 c melted butter
3/4 c bisquick
3 eggs
1 1/2 c milk
1/4 c onion
1/2 c bacon
Blend in blender
350 45 min

ICaramelized-Honey Brûlée

Ingredients
SERVINGS: 8
* ¾ cup honey
* 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
* 3 cups heavy cream
* 1 cup whole milk
* ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
* 8 large egg yolks
* 3 tablespoons sugar
* Eight 6-oz. ramekins
* A kitchen torch
Preparation
* Preheat oven to 300°. Place honey in a medium saucepan and scrape in vanilla seeds; save pod for another use. Cook over medium-high, swirling pan occasionally, until honey darkens and smells almost burnt (don’t worry, this is what you’re going for!) and bubbling begins to slow, 5–8 minutes. Gradually add cream, then milk, to caramelized honey, stirring constantly until combined.

* Whisk salt into egg yolks in a medium bowl, then stream in honey-caramel mixture, whisking constantly. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a large measuring cup. Divide among ramekins.

* Place ramekins in a large baking dish lined with a dish towel (it will keep them from sliding around) and pour in boiling water around ramekins so it comes halfway up sides.

* Bake until edges of custards are set but centers still jiggle slightly, 65–75 minutes. Remove ramekins from water bath and let custards cool, about 1 hour. Chill until firm, at least 2 hours.

* Just before serving, sprinkle custards evenly with sugar and heat with torch until sugar is melted and caramelized to a deep amber color.

Brew Day

The Frenzys Left Coast Pale Ale Extract Kit.


Started 3 Gallon CGSpring Water in kettle with 8 oz Crystal 15 L and 12 oz Crystal 60 L steeping grains. Set timer for 30 mins and droppedk in probe. Water hit 170 at about 27 mins so turned off and let it steep for another 3-5 mins.

Removed grains and brought to a rolling boil, took about 13 minutes. Turned off water and added Ultralight extract, and returned to boil.

Dropped in 1 oz of Amarillo Hops and set the timer for 60 minutes.

At 15 mins left added 1 oz Amarillo

At 5 mins left added whirfloc

At 1 minute left added 1 oz Amarillo Aroma hops.

Began cooling in sink filled w/ice water at 4:30-5:10. Put sanitized lid on with sanitized mixing spoon resting inside. Stirred and swirled boil pot around to chill to 72 degrees and then transferred to plastic carboy sanitized with star San. Added 2 more gallons CG Spring water and 3/4-1 gallon of filtered fridge water to bring back to 5 gallons.

Pitched yeast at about 70 degrees and gave a good shake.

Put sanitized stopped and 3 piece airlock on, wrapped with a towel and put in 71 degree room. It's about 5:30pm

Target OG -- 1.050-1.055 Actual 1.053
Est. SRM -- 11-14
Est. IBU's -- 50-55
Est. ABV % -- 5-5.5

Yeast: WLP001 California Ale



$2.49 steeping grains
$5.62 hops
$ .26 Whirlfloc
$21.99 ultralight extract
4 ioz cane sugar
---------
=$30.36

Wash your hands. Seriously. It’s in the recipe

Wash your hands. Seriously. It’s in the recipe

Brian's Sweet and Spicy Nuts

Just in time for Christmas...

Ingredients
1 large egg white
2 cups unsalted pecan halves
2 cups unsalted roasted cashews
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon ground cumin
3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Kosher salt

Directions
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F. Beat the egg white with 1 tablespoon water in a large bowl until foamy. Add the nuts, sugar, cumin, cayenne, cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon salt and mix well. Spread the mixture on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake until the nuts are mostly dry but still slightly sticky, about 40 minutes.

Remove the nuts from the oven and stir. Reduce the temperature to 200 degrees F. Return the nuts to the oven and bake until crisp about 30 more minutes. Stir to loosen the nuts from the baking sheet; cool completely on the sheet.

Hollandaise Sauce

1 tablespoon lemon juice
Three egg yolks
One quarter stick butter cubed
Three quarters stick butter melted
Salt pepper cayenne pepper and tarragon to taste

Squeeze 1 tablespoon lemon juice into a metal mixing bowl whisk egg yolks and begin heating  over Simmering pot of water. As a yolks warm add in the quarter cubed butter. Once sauce begins to stiffen slowly add melted butter ice cream incorporating as you mix. Finish by seasoning with salt pepper cayenne pepper and tarragon to taste.

The Workhorse Loaf: Simple Crusty White Bread

This all-purpose bread recipe produces a crusty plain white loaf that's classic and delicious. The quantities given here yield two crusty hearth loaves with an open crumb, and is a great starting point for learning to bake bread at home.

INGREDIENTS
* 1000 grams all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
* 700 grams room-temperature water, divided if using active dry yeast
* 22 grams salt
* 4 grams instant yeast, 5 grams active dry yeast, or 10 grams fresh yeast (see note above)
* Vegetable, canola, or other neutral oil, for greasing
DIRECTIONS
1.
If using instant or fresh yeast, combine flour and all of the water in a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. If using active dry yeast, combine flour with 650 grams water and combine yeast with 50 grams warm water; let yeast stand until foamy. Mix flour and water at low speed until they are fully incorporated and form a uniform dough. Alternatively, combine flour and water in a mixing bowl and mix using a dough spatula until dough forms. Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel or plastic wrap and let the dough rest for at least 15 minutes and up to 1 hour.
2.
Add salt, along with either the instant yeast, fresh yeast, or the active-dry yeast solution, and mix at low speed or by hand until salt and yeast are fully incorporated and dough is smooth.
3.
Turn stand mixer up to medium-high speed and mix until the dough feels elastic and bounces partway back when indented with your thumb, about 3-5 minutes. If mixing by hand, skip this step.
4.
Working with oiled hands, gently transfer dough, being careful not to tear its surface, to a lightly oiled mixing bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let dough stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Uncover dough and fold it in half, being careful not to compress it too much. Re-cover with plastic wrap and let stand until dough has increased in volume by half, about 1 hour 30 minutes longer.
5.
Transfer dough in one piece to a lightly floured work surface. Using a bench knife, divide dough in half and shape each portion into a ball. Dust the tops of the dough balls with flour, cover with a towel, and let rest for 15 minutes.
6.
Shape the dough into rounds once again, folding the dough under itself to create a smooth surface with a seam on the bottom. Let dough rest on the work surface, seam-side down, for 5 minutes. Transfer each dough ball, seam-side up, to a bowl or basket lined with a lightly floured linen cloth or plain, not-fuzzy kitchen towel. Refrigerate dough balls or store in a cool place until dough has nearly doubled in size, about 1 hour to 1 hour 30 minutes.
7.
Meanwhile, set a Dutch oven on the oven's bottom rack and preheat oven to 500°F (if your oven has a convection setting, do not use it).
8.
Remove 1 loaf from the refrigerator and gently turn it out, seam-side down, into the preheated Dutch oven. With a razor or paring knife, score the full surface of the dough with 2 parallel lines roughly 3 inches apart. With a spray bottle filled with water, lightly spritz the surface of the dough. Cover and bake for 15 minutes. Lower oven temperature to 450°F and bake for 15 minutes longer. Uncover and bake until crust is dark brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.
9.
Transfer loaf to a wire rack. Allow to cool for at least 1 hour before slicing. Return Dutch oven to oven, and reheat at 500°F for 10 minutes. Then repeat with the remaining ball of dough.

Onions: Living the Sweet Life

We’re peeling back the onion this week to see why this ancient vegetable with a 5,000-year run of popularity is still a favorite on the chopping block. Considered medicinal and life-sustaining in its early days, the onion is still magical, needing only a frying pan and a patient chef to transform its flavor from sharp and tangy to an extraordinary caramelized sweetness. Even Julia Child was moved to say “It would be hard to imagine civilization without onions.” Read on for a tear-less look at this remarkable root…

Onion worship. Thriving for thousands of years in a variety of soils and climates, onions were prized for attributes well beyond flavor. They prevented thirst, and could be dried and preserved for later consumption when food might be scarce. In Egypt, they were literally objects of worship, symbolizing eternity because of the circle-within-a-circle structure. The Greeks fortified athletes before the Olympic Games with onions – to eat, drink and rub on their bodies (can’t imagine that locker room odor today!). Pliny the Elder recorded the Romans’ beliefs that the onion was a cure all, inducing sleep, and healing mouth sores, dog bites, toothaches, dysentery and lumbago. The Pilgrims brought onions with them on the Mayflower, only to find that Native Americans already grew and used a strain of wild onions, eating them raw or cooked, as a seasoning or as a vegetable. During the Revolutionary War, General Ulysses S. Grant was quoted as saying, “I will not move my army without onions!” and proceeded to wait for three cartloads of them – good rations for the troops, yes, but the juice from the bulbs was also used as a salve for wounds. After the war, growers started adapting varieties to different American climates, with globe onions in cooler New England and Mid-Atlantic climates, and Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian-derived onions in the south, according to Food and Drink in America.  And here’s a fun fact from 1000 Places to See Before You Die to try on your foodie friends: New York was originally dubbed the Big Onion because you could remove endless layers without reaching the city’s core.

The 21^st century onion. Now the third largest fresh vegetable industry in the US, according to the National Onion Council, Americans consume an average of 20 pounds each year. Onions are in the mix more than ever, with consumption up 70% in the last two decades, in no small part due to their healthy dose of quercetin - a type of antioxidant compound with anti-inflammatory, anti-cholesterol and anticancer properties.  But the main reason for their soaring popularity is sheer versatility: from raw to caramelized, marinated to roasted, onions are an integral part of recipes at every meal time and nearly every ethnic cuisine. Restaurants buy truckloads of onions for rings, blooms, appetizers, soups, sandwiches, salads and pizza. There’s the yellow onion, with a tangy sweet flavor, good raw or caramelized; red, the fast casual favorite, good for grilling, charbroiling and roasting; and white, the classic ingredient for Mexican cooking.  Caramelized onions are one of the 2000s sweetest success stories, stirring up not just the traditional French onion soup, but dishes such as:

·        Wild Mushroom Onion Melange: caramelized onions and garlic complement the earthy flavor of Cremini, Shiitaki and wild mushrooms in this classic dish that can be served with grilled or roasted beef, pork, veal, poultry or game or as an accompaniment for pasta, polenta, grains or roasted vegetables.

·        Caramelized Onion, Gruyère, and Bacon Spread

·        Scrambled Eggs with Caramelized Onions

·        Green Beans with Caramelized Onions and Walnuts

·        Caramelized Onion Burgers

·        Kale and Caramelized Onion Grilled Cheese

·        Roasted Asparagus, Mushroom, and Onion Pizza 

AVOCADO UPDATE

The market continues to stabilize . Growers have reacted to the low prices on small fruit and have started size picking in the field; this should even out the size curve as well as the prices on small fruit.

Good supplies of 40s and smaller continue to arrive from Mexico.  32/36ct remain limited as they currently make up a small percentage of the harvest.

Ripe programs are on track, and consumers are finding ripe avocados on the shelves so this should spur movement.  There are strong Mexican avocado promotions ramping up which should also strengthen the avocado demand.  

Expect stabilizing markets and good supplies through the remainder of the November and December.  We anticipate a short gap in supply in mid-January, following no-harvest Christmas holidays.  Calavo will prepare to the best of our ability for this foreseen gap. 

Breadsticks Rising: Pile Up an Endless Supply

Soft, warm, chewy, with just the right touch of butter and garlic…is there a carb delight more appreciated than the breadstick? Food for Thought stops munching long enough to dig into the legend, the lore and lusciousness that goes well beyond the breadbasket.

Well bread. The original Italian bread sticks, grissini, originated in the Piedmont region of Italy, but exactly when is open to question, according to The Nibble. One legend says a physician in 1675 invented grissini to feed the very ill nine-year-old duke of the House of Savoy, who was suffering from food poisoning from bread polluted by pathogenic intestinal germs. The good doctor asked the court’s baker to take the dough from the normal ghersa bread, cut it into narrow pieces, then stretch the dough until it was a long thin strip, and bake it until it was crispy. The grissini diet worked wonders, and not only did the young duke’s health improve, but he grew up to be a healthy adult, becoming the first Piedmont king in 1713. According to this version, that’s why grissini became the preferred bread in the Savoia household, known by all visiting royalty and aristocrats of the time. But…it may not be completely accurate. Historical records indicate that in 1634, a Florentine abbot found a novelty bread “with a bizarre shape, that is a bread loaf an arm long and thin like dead bones” in a town outside of Turin – a strange but recognizable description of a breadstick. And even further back in culinary history is a reference to a dish called pane (bread) barotellatus (stick). Whenever or whoever invented it, one of the grissini’s greatest fans was Napoleon Bonaparte, who founded a stagecoach service at the beginning of the 19^th century, mostly dedicated to delivering ‘les petits batons de Turin’ or ‘little sticks of Turin.’

There’s more than the breadbasket in store for these rising stars. Prosciutto-wrapped breadsticks are on Giada De Laurentiis’ appetizer tray for good reason…they’re easily prepared and swiftly consumed. More? Make a cheesy breadstick pizza or try Southern Living’s haystick breadsticks - sprinkle dry ranch dressing mix before baking, tie in little bundles, and enjoy with a marinara sauce dip. Go healthy with James Beard award-winning author Martha Rose Shulman’s whole wheat and rosemary, rye caraway or seeded semolina and rice flour breadsticks. Or take a cue from the breadstick king, Olive Garden (more to come on that), which last year rolled out the breadstick crostini and a breadstick sandwich to diners who couldn’t get enough of even endless portions of the ridiculously addictive bread.

All love for Olive Garden. If you want to recreate this enduring chain’s famous bottomless basket of scrumptious, warm breadsticks, we have the Top Secret recipe from ‘food hacker’ Todd Wilbur, who proudly claims he’s been creating original clone recipes of America’s favorite foods since 1987. He guesses, most accurately, that the breadsticks are proofed and sent to each restaurant, where they are baked golden brown, brushed with butter and sprinkled with garlic salt. Wilbur also reveals that he experimented with the yeast and flour before settling on what you’ll see listed below. The crucial step, according to Wilbur, is the two-stage rising process. Here’s how:

What’s inside.

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon warm

water (105 to 115 degrees F)

16 ounces bread flour (3 cups)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened

What’s on top. 

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

Instructions. Dissolve the sugar and yeast in the warm water in a small bowl or measuring cup and let the mixture sit for 5 minutes, or until it becomes foamy on top.  Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Use the paddle attachment on a stand mixer to mix the softened butter into the flour. When the yeast mixture is foamy, pour it into the flour mixture and use a dough hook to combine the ingredients and knead the dough for approximately 10 minutes. Place the dough in a covered container and let it sit for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until it doubles in size. Measure out 2-ounce portions and roll the dough between your hands or on a countertop to form sticks that are 7 inches long. Place the dough on parchment paper-lined baking sheets, cover and set aside for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until the dough doubles in size once again. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Bake the breadsticks for 12 minutes, or until golden brown. Brush each one with melted butter and sprinkle with a little garlic salt as soon as they come out of the oven…be assured they won’t last long!

From Ocean to Table: Yellowfin Tuna Swims Swiftly to the Top

Called “the Michael Phelps of the fish world” for its fast-swimming ways, the yellowfin is a star of Olympic proportions among tuna. This week, Food for Thought gets its long lines ready to reel in this much-valued catch of the day…don’t let this be the one that got away!

Making a splash in Vietnam. To meet the rising global demand for tuna, the Vietnam yellowfin tuna fishery has put more than 2,000 fishing vessels to work, racking up nearly $370 million in export value in 2014. Now the most important wild-capture export product in Vietnam and the #2 exporter to the US, the yellowfin tuna fishery is focused on achieving MSC certification.

The lean (but not mean) swimming machine. Thunnus albacares, better known as yellowfin tuna, are considered the fastest and strongest of all big game tunas, according to the Seafood Choices Alliance. The need for lots of oxygen to power its muscles is what makes the yellowfin’s flesh pinkish red – the result of a protein called myoglobin that stores the vital oxygen and serves as a pigment, reports The Salt. This colorful fish has a dark metallic blue body, silver belly, and of course, the distinctive yellow on its dorsal fins, finlets and a strip on its side. The maximum weight reported for a yellowfin tuna is 880 pounds, but you won’t find many of those big boys…most weigh in at a more manageable but still sizeable 388 pounds. For all their heft, they are an excellent source of healthy, extra lean protein, low in saturated fat and sodium, and rich in niacin, vitamin B6, vitamin B12, phosphorus, selenium, magnesium and the all-important omega-3 fatty acids.

A rare treat. Mild tasting, with a firm texture, yellowfin is more flavorful than albacore. Grilling or searing brings out its best qualities…but be careful not to overcook, or your prized fish will become tough, tasteless and cardboard-like. There’s virtually no prep you can’t use with the adaptable yellowfin – broil, deep fry, poach, saute, smoke, steam or blacken. Try baking tuna steaks with a squeeze of lemon over the top, a light application of olive oil and a sprinkle of herbs and spices for a taste of simple deliciousness.

Looking for more ways to hook diners on this popular powerhouse? Everyone from Emeril to Bobby Flay has taken the bait, see below for some of the tastiest takes:
• Grilled yellowfin tuna with sun-dried tomatoes and corn, or mango salsa
• Grilled citrus fresh tuna steaks with orange, lime and grapefruit juices, dry sherry and cayenne pepper
• Grilled yellowfin tuna teriyaki (soy sauce, ginger and honey)
• Yellowfin tuna steaks glazed with balsamic vinegar, brown sugar and soy sauce
• Seared sesame-crusted yellowfin tuna with a side of wasabi mashed potatoes
• Pain bagnat, a specialty of the Provence region of France, featuring whole wheat bread encircling a classic Salad Nicoise (raw tuna, raw vegetables, hard boiled eggs, anchovies and olive oil)
• Soy marinated tuna rice bowl, with traditional slices of nori and omelette
• Smoked yellowfin tuna dip
• Spicy yellowfin tuna tacos
• Yellowfin tuna and macaroni salad
• Satay yellowfin tuna (onions, garlic, capsicum, peanut sauce and coconut milk)

For more information please click here.

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