Tag: Food

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Quince Paste Recipe

Quince Paste RecipeFine Dining Lovers share its favourite quince paste recipe to treat you this fall. Serve with cheese or simply enjoy as sweetmeats.
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Slow Cooker Spaghetti and Meatballs

Slow Cooker Spaghetti and Meatballs - This is the ONLY way to make this! Even the pasta gets cooked right in the crockpot! SO stinking easy, right?

This is the ONLY way to make this! Even the pasta gets cooked right in the crockpot! SO stinking easy, right?

Slow Cooker Spaghetti and Meatballs - This is the ONLY way to make this! Even the pasta gets cooked right in the crockpot! SO stinking easy, right?

I’m finally back home.

I went from Arkansas to Minneapolis to a two-day shoot in Los Angeles to Ecuador and then Big Sur. All in a span of 2 1/2 weeks.

Not to mention but we were actually delayed at the Monterey airport on Sunday for over 4 hours (this is the closest airport to Big Sur). And to give you some perspective, we could have driven back to LA from Monterey in 5 hr and 17 min.

It’s been rough to be away from home for so long to say the least.

Slow Cooker Spaghetti and Meatballs - This is the ONLY way to make this! Even the pasta gets cooked right in the crockpot! SO stinking easy, right?

But, I am home with Butters nonetheless. And this giant crockpot of spaghetti and meatballs.

It’s such a classic cozy dish, perfect for this time of year. And it’s even better because you can make this right in your crockpot.

Just let it simmer and cook low and slow for 7-8 hours, stirring in the pasta and letting that cook for another 30-40 minutes.

Yes, the pasta gets cooked right in the crockpot so it legit doesn’t get any easier.

Serve with extra crusty bread, and maybe a few more meatballs covered in fresh Parmesan. It’s simply perfection.

Slow Cooker Spaghetti and Meatballs - This is the ONLY way to make this! Even the pasta gets cooked right in the crockpot! SO stinking easy, right?

Slow Cooker Spaghetti and Meatballs

Yield: 6 servings

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 8 hours 45 minutes

Total Time: 9 hours 5 minutes

This is the ONLY way to make this! Even the pasta gets cooked right in the crockpot! SO stinking easy, right?

Print Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes
  • 1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes
  • 1 (15-ounce) can tomato sauce
  • 1 cup beef stock
  • 1/2 medium sweet onion, diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • 8 ounces spaghetti, broken in half
  • 1/3 cup chopped fresh basil leaves

For the meatballs

  • 1 pound lean ground beef
  • 1/2 pound Italian sausage, casing removed
  • 1/2 cup Panko
  • 1/4 cup whole milk
  • 1 large egg, lightly beaten
  • 3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan
  • 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:

  1. In a large bowl, combine ground beef, sausage, Panko, milk, egg, Parmesan, parsley and garlic; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Using a wooden spoon or clean hands, stir until well combined. Roll the mixture into 3/4-to-1-inch meatballs, forming about 32-35 meatballs.
  2. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add meatballs, in batches, and cook until all sides are browned, about 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate; set aside.
  3. Place crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, beef stock, onion, garlic and sugar into a 6-qt slow cooker. Stir in meatballs until well combined; season with salt and pepper, to taste.
  4. Cover and cook on low heat for 7-8 hours or high heat for 3-4 hours.
  5. Stir in pasta; cover and cook on low heat for an additional 30-40 minutes, or until pasta is tender, stirring once. Stir in basil.
  6. Serve immediately.

Did you Make This Recipe?

Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious.

The post Slow Cooker Spaghetti and Meatballs appeared first on Damn Delicious.

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Ghanaian Okra Stew

I am a huge fan of Okra thanks to my ajebutter and my dad. There’s no telling how many times I make it in one week. Even my son the gluten free ajebutter loves and prefers a meal of okra over anything else. Infact he calls the Nigerian stew and okra the red and green soup.

Today we will take a trip to Ghana. Ghanaians and Nigerians do have a lot in common; especially when it comes to food. Apart from Egusi, Jollof rice and suya, we do share similarities in how we make our okra and to them it’s called Okra stew. Maybe because of how it’s made with a tomato base. Not forgetting that the Yoruba’s do call theirs Okra stew too.

My ajebutter had to get some allergy shots and with him crying “mommy mommy” I had to make something quick. And what better recipe to make than one with okra. It’s quick it’s easy and it’s damn delicious! 

I have seen some of my Ghanaian neighbors eat this soup with banku. A fufu mix of corn and cassava. Although I didn’t make mine with banku, we enjoyed it with yellow garri. As in the garri dey draw like pounded yam kaiiii!

With what I saw online; and what I’ve seen my neighbors prepare, this stew is usually made to look quite soupy, but mba; not for me o. I couldn’t enjoy any soupy stew. It has to be a little thick for me. When it’s not pepper soup 

To get this recipe, I had to talk to none other than @Kesskravings on instagram.  She does African recipes with a very modern twist. I enjoy looking at her photos; which makes my foodie soul happy. Oh you might also want to check her app; Kravings out on iTunes. The pictures alone are to die for or as the Warri people say “na die!”

You need to see the way my Ghanaian neighbors eat this stew: like it’s the last thing on earth. Nigerians also love Okra soup too. I only met a few who did not like okra. But before I leave you the recipe, I’ll leave you with this question to ponder. In the words of my friend Mike “Ghana again? After contesting jollof with us(Nigerians), they now have their own okro?” I also want to ask “abeg na okro or okra?”

Abeg Mike help me ask them oh. But the stew sweet sha.

Here is my take on Kess’s recipe 

Ghanaian Okra Stew
 

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Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Serves: 8
Ingredients
  • 1lb meats
  • 4 salmon steaks(season with pepper and salt and cook in the oven or grill then cut into chunks. Optional process)(Any fish works)
  • crabs
  • 1 hand full dry whole crayfish
  • 2½ cups okra(chopped, grated or roughly blended)
  • a handful spinach or kale
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 4 plum tomatoes(chopped or roughly blended)
  • 2 crushed habanero peppers *(ata-rodo)
  • 1 medium onion
  • 2 garlic cloves(rushed)
  • ½ inch ginger (grated)
  • 4 tsps dry pepper
  • 2½ tsps. black pepper
  • ¼ cup crayfish
  • Palm oil(about 100ml would work, but I added more sha)
  • bouillon
  • salt to taste
Instructions
  1. season meat with the garlic, salt, half of the onion, ginger, 1 tsp black pepper, 1 tsp dry pepper and bouillon. Rub the seasonings into the meats, pour water to the level of the meats and cook until tender. Drain the meats from the stock and set aside
  2. Heat the palm oil, but not to bleach. chop in the onion; sauté until almost translucent; then add the crayfish and bay leaves and fry for a few seconds to prevent burning. Add the meats and cook for a few minutes. Add the tomatoes and crushed habaneros. once the tomatoes is almost reduced, add the meat water(please eye ball how much you use). Bring to a boil; then add the crabs. Bring to another boil; then add the okra and reduce the heat. Add the remaining black pepper, salmon and whole crayfish and dry pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 5 minutes(do not cover). Add the vegetables and set aside. Serve with any side

 

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2018 New York Wine Experience: Wine Stars Jon Bon Jovi and Jesse Bongiovi (Wine Spectator)

When singer-songwriter-vintner Sting serenaded attendees at the 2016 New York Wine Experience, expectations for the event’s entertainment quotient were raised. This year’s Friday lineup did not disappoint.

And like Sting and Trudie Styler’s Il Palagio, the Bon Jovi team’s wine project is more than a lark. “This is not a celebrity wine. This is a fine wine, made with love and created with family,” singer Jon Bon Jovi told the crowd as he presented the HW Wine Company Languedoc Rosé Diving into Hampton Water 2017 (90 points, $25). It all started when his son Jesse Bongiovi joked that rosé was in fact the water of the Hamptons, where the family has a home.

“We really wanted to create a wine that not only had a catchy name, and a label that stood out, but also had the complexity and structure to be taken seriously by the wine community,” said Bongiovi. So they sought the winemaking talent of Gérard Bertrand, himself a star, first on the rugby field and now as a trailblazing vintner in France’s Languedoc region. “He understands that wine, like a good song, can bring people together,” said Bon Jovi.

The wine is a blend of Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault and Mourvèdre, with 25 percent aged in new French oak, which is unusual for rosé, lending a fuller body and more structure than some pinks, added Bongiovi. As guests sipped on “Hampton water,” Bon Jovi slung a guitar over his shoulder and performed an acoustic version of “You Give Love a Bad Name,” in the same room in which, nine years earlier, he’d been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Read Gillian Sciaretta’s interview with Jon Bon Jovi and Jesse Bongiovi about their Hampton Water project in Wine Spectator‘s June 30, 2018, issue.

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2018 New York Wine Experience: Burgundy Grands Crus—Four Expressions of Corton (Wine Spectator)

“Our focus this morning is on the red wines made on the Corton hill in Burgundy,” said senior editor Bruce Sanderson, introducing a lineup of four grands crus. “The wines are influenced by the different characteristics of each vineyard, but if you take a little time to get to know the various terroirs and producers, you will be rewarded.”

Each of the panelists represented a family-run domaine, some of which have been passed down for centuries. The range of vintages showcased how Corton wines age; at 10 years, these Pinot Noirs are just getting started.

Nathalie Tollot, co-owner of Tollot-Beaut, which owns a plot in Corton-Bressandes, noted how crucial the vineyard’s position is: “What makes it quite different to other grands crus is that Corton-Bressandes lies on the east side of the hill, which is facing the rising sun, which dries off the humidity from the night and keeps it warm during the day.”

The 2016 (not yet rated) she poured was young, bottled just in January. “It’s presenting quite well … it’s full of fruit because of a nice cool vintage,” Tollot said. “In Burgundy, we don’t like too-warm vintages. We prefer to have cool ones to preserve the aromas.”

Stepping back a few years for the next wine, Bouchard Père & Fils technical director Philippe Prost shared Le Corton Domaine 2014 (93 points, $125), from a vineyard the house converted to organic farming. The reward is in the glass. Although the 2014 vintage was on the rainier and cooler side, he said, they had “exceptional fruit, a top year for this location. It gives marvelous expression, we can say without a doubt, so the fruit could rise to the top, but there’s still very nice acidity.”

The Domaine Faiveley Corton Clos des Cortons Faiveley 2009 (95, $200 on release), picking up notes of leather and truffle, is unusual in that the grand cru designation includes the owner’s name. Erwan Faiveley’s family bought the vineyard in 1874. “In the 1930s, the appellation organization asked us to stop using the name Clos des Cortons because there were many clos around Corton,” he explained. “Eventually we went to court. The judge decided that to avoid confusion it would be called Clos des Cortons Faiveley. We said, ‘Thank you.’”

“With that wine, you can really start to see the complexity” that comes from aging nearly a decade, Sanderson said, “and now we’re going to step back another 10 years.”

That meant 1999—“one of best vintages of the last 25 to 30 years,” said Louis-Fabrice Latour, as the Louis Latour Corton Château Corton Grancey (not rated) was poured. “Perhaps one of the best vintages ever in Burgundy. We were able to make a vintage that is full-bodied, nicely structured, the color is still there, and great focus.”

As the 11th-generation steward of the house (which still has some 1865s in the cellar), Latour has the long view on how Burgundy character changes with age: “We say that the vintage is more important than the terroir; as time goes by, the terroir seems more important.”