The Traveling Epicurean

Month: June 2016

CT Style Summer Kick Off!

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CT Style Summer Kick Off!

"The Bender Kitchen"
“The Bender Kitchen”

I was kicking off my seasonal summer dishes on the set of CT Style Morning Show in the Bender Kitchen this week! Doing the cooking segment on CT Style was so much fun, I thoroughly enjoyed every minute and everyone there was very welcoming. Besides presenting the “featured” recipe in the segment showing off some of my other high viewing YouTube shows was important to me so I began to organize and get the prep work done. These other recipe’s that I wanted to display in the segment were my homemade Caesar Salad, Buffalo Chicken Dip, Baked Asparagus Wrapped in Prosciutto, CrazyGood Candied Pecans and the Pavlova.  The other aspect of getting ready for CT Style was getting all my art work and photos in order with high resolution graphics and Steve at Gulla Design did a wonderful job helping me with this!

"Nat'l Selfie Day" too...w/Ben the Cameraman!
“Nat’l Selfie Day” too…w/Ben the Cameraman!

The actual featured recipe for the show was the cold cucumber & fennel soup topped with seared scallops. If you have never tried this yet you need to put this at the top of your list because the flavors here are out of this world! If you are not a big soup person you have to at least have the seared scallops with my green goddess sauce for another amazing duo!

The cold cucumber and fennel soup is the same soup I presented in the MasterChef Open Casting Call in NYC this past March. All the tasting judges had loved the soup! Although, for the MasterChef presentation I had topped the soup with Alaskan King Crab. For the CT Style segment I placed seared scallops in the center of the soup. Scallops are very tender when cooked properly, and have a mild flavor but can totally stand up to the bursting flavors of the soup without getting lost. Topping the soup with the scallops is definitely my favorite way to have this dish. The cold cucumber & fennel soup and seared scallop make for a perfect match!

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I hope you will enjoy my “CT Style Summer Kick Off” as much as I did! This cold cucumber & fennel soup with seared scallops may change your summer. Since we are talking about boosting your culinary summer, I’m going to keep on you about making your own BBQ Sauce until you get it done! Another great side dish for summer is my Zucchini Torta and a refreshing dessert of Fresh Berry Granita! And don’t forget the amazing Metaxa Mojito’s to kick off your get together! Enjoy 🙂

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Seared Scallops

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Seared Scallops

Seared scallops are so gosh darn delicious you really don’t need anything else to accompany them. They have a succulent and creamy texture that’s so tender they melt in your mouth when cooked correctly. All that is needed to sear sea scallop’s is a hot non-stick pan, a couple tablespoons of olive oil, butter for basting at the end, a squeeze of fresh lemon and violà, you have an amazing seafood dish in 4 minutes.

Butter is just one of additions to seafood that always seems to give one last flavor boost. That’s why I have you baste the scallops in the last few seconds in the show. Butter makes everything better, right? You can’t get any easier then making scallops in mere minutes. It is best to use a non-stick pan to sear these though because it will make for a smooth ride home and super easy to flip them over to get that golden sear on the other side of the scallop.

You really need to try my cold cucumber and fennel soup to go with your seared scallops. The flavors you will get from all the vegetables and herbs in the soup to the creamy scallops will put you over the top. The green goddess sauce II goes without saying when paired up with the seared scallops. If I’m serving the scallops for an appetizer I set a small bowl of green goddess sauce right in the middle of a platter for dunking and scallops placed all around…YUM!

You may want to add something hardy to compliment the fish so if you haven’t tried my family recipe for the best pasta fagioli you will ever have you should get on the ball. You could go the zucchini spaghetti route or even my amazing melt-a-away homemade gnocchi with a bolognese sauce, and who doesn’t love sticky buns with their coffee for dessert!

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Ingredients:

Directions:

  1. Heat non-stick pan to high heat
  2. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste on both side of the scallops
  3. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil and begin to add scallops
  4. If you have a medium size pan you will have to do this in 2 batches
  5. Sear scallops about 2 minutes on each side until golden
  6. Optional: add 1 tbsp butter and baste scallops in the last 20 seconds
  7. Take off the heat and squeeze 1/2 lemon over scallops
  8. Remove scallops immediately from hot pan to a serving dish
  9. Plate each dish with a sautéed spinach in the center, top with scallops and drizzle with green goddess sauce around outer edge of the plate…enjoy!
  10. OR top cold cucumber & fennel soup with seared scallops!

 

BBQ Sauce – BEST Homemade Sweet & Tangy!

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BBQ Sauce – BEST Homemade Sweet & Tangy!

It’s like BBQ sauce candy! My Homemade BBQ Sauce is the perfect balance of sweet, tangy and a little spicy! This recipe is one of my versions of a classic “Kansas City” style sauce, meaning it is a tomato based sauce with a sweetener and a vinegar. Ketchup, dark Molasses, brown sugar, cider vinegar and spices are the core ingredient’s that make up this delicious blend of barbecue sauciness. It’s not too sweet or too tangy and it has just a pinch of heat to remind you that it’s a BBQ sauce. It really can’t get any easier to make BBQ sauce then this here recipe. It will definitely make it hard for you to go back to the bottle stuff with the high fructose corn syrup. In fact, I guarantee that you will find yourself dipping that spoon back into the pot to get one more lick of this homemade sassy sauce!

One of my favorite things to do with this sauce is adding a couple tablespoons of bourbon in the last 5 minutes of simmering.  Everyone will be asking you for the recipe for sure! If you have a mix of adults and children spilt the sauce into 2 portions, keeping one with bourbon and one with out.

Using the liquid smoke, which is simple to find at your local grocer now a days, is ideal for emulating that smokiness you would get with outdoor barbecuing. I have you adding in chipolte chile powder and a Spanish smoked paprika too which gives off a delicate flavor to the sauce without being too overbearing.

The 3 basic BBQ sauce type’s out there are a tomato based, a vinegar based and a mustard based. Believe it or not, there actually is a mayo based as well. The “Kansas City” style is the tomato based and probably the most popular through out the U.S. There’s a “Memphis” style similar to Kansas City with the tomato base but a thinner, more vinegar type sauce. The actual vinegar and mustard type sauce’s are quintessential to the Carolina’s. South Carolina being partial to the mustard type sauce and North Carolina to the vinegar type sauce. Then there’s that white BBQ sauce that’s mayo based, a signature sauce of Big Bob Gibson out of Alabama.

Once you see how easy it is to make your own delicious, sassy BBQ sauce I have a feeling there will be no stopping you! Enjoy your summer with this introductory BBQ sauce recipe! You might want to tag team all this barbecuing with some crab cakes, zucchini spaghetti, or spanakopita, and end with my amazing blueberry pie made with my perfect pie crust in 5 minutes!!

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Ingredients:

  • 2 cups Ketchup
  • 2/3 cup light brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup dark molasses
  • 1/2 cup cider vinegar
  • 2 tbsp canola oil
  • 2 tsp liquid smoke
  • 1/2 tsp garlic granules
  • 1/2 tsp onion granules
  • 1/2 tsp chipolte chile powder (If you can’t find “chipolte” chile powder just use chile powder it will still be wonderful)
  • 1/2 tsp Spanish smoked paprika
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp finely ground black pepper
  • 2 dashes of Wocestershire sauce
  • 2 tbsp of Bourbon – If you are a party of adults …it’s AMAZING!

Directions:

  1. Put all above ingredients into medium sauce pan and whisk to combine
  2. Bring to a low simmer 20 minutes
  3. The sauce will be delicious in only 5 minutes – delvelops more depth of flavor by simmering longer!
  4. Basting your grilling meats in the last 3-5 minutes with BBQ is deal so as not to burn and oven cooking meats in the last 10 minutes (the sugars in the BBQ Sauce will burn if you put it on too early)