Daily Loaf

When life gives you these …

You really just have to make this …

I saw these stunning red bell peppers at the market a while back, and they stopped me in my tracks. Not only were they gorgeous, but they were HUGE and perfectly shaped! The minute I laid eyes on them, I knew that being stuffed and baked was their destiny. Read the rest of this entry »

We have a rule at my house: “She who cooks, does not clean”. Since I’m the only one who cooks around here, “she” is me! And, since my daughter is in the midst of that twilight zone that is teenagedom, she is indefinitely removed from the equation. (We’re just thankful that she resurfaces for meals once in a while!) Unfortunately for him, this means that my husband gets stuck with the dinner dishes most nights. He is a pretty good sport about it, though. (He takes out the garbage and irons his own shirts too!) I think he realizes that if I had to cook AND do all the dishes, the meals around here would be pretty sparse. In fact, you’d probably find a lot more empty take-out containers in our trash bins.

The only rub to this arrangement is that he only seems to manage to fit three things at a time in our dishwasher, which means that I have to constantly get in there and reorganize. He also splashes water everywhere and never wipes down the counters or dries up the floor afterward. (Hmmm. Maybe I don’t have such a good thing going after all!)

One evening not too long ago, I was crossing through the kitchen on my way to somewhere, when….. Read the rest of this entry »

You are an environmentally-minded individual.  You also enjoy consuming meat.  So yes, you have read the studies that show how livestock expel gas, and how said gas contributes to the greenhouse effect.  But at the same time, you just can’t bring yourself to give up eating McRibs. What is a carnivore to do? Read the rest of this entry »

I was in another Latin mood last week when I decided to make this recipe. I had a taste in my mouth for that combination of vinegar, olive oil, garlic and fresh herbs that chimichurri possesses and was simply looking for an excuse to make it, and a vehicle on which to consume it. Chimichurri is a traditional, uncooked condiment from Argentina that is used on grilled meats and fish. I could eat it on almost anything.

My inspiration for this came from a dish I’d eaten recently, grilled flank steak with chimichurri, at Cafe Dufrain in Harbour Island. Flank steak can be tough and needs to be marinated for a long time and I wanted a tender, thick and juicy hunk of meat, so I opted for a New York strip instead (my cut of choice). This cut of meat really doesn’t need to be marinated because it’s tender enough already, but I wanted to infuse a bit more flavor before throwing it on the grill. You can use any beer you’d like for the marinade (I used Dos Equis Amber) but I’d suggest a somewhat dark beer, like a Mexican amber beer or a medium ale, nothing too light or fruity. Read the rest of this entry »

Two years is probably long enough
to wait for the inevitable.

Two years of furtively locked eyes
during talk of their “open” relationship
wrote history through premonition.

Even the two years in between
couldn’t spoil the meat
that was stewing in our minds.

The next time our eyes met
that meat was as red
as the day it was slaughtered.

And the juices splattered on the inside
of the truck’s windows and ran down like
time itself Read the rest of this entry »

Bill Niman — the man who founded a meat company that brought sustainable, humane and natural meat to homes and restaurants acrosss the country — recently said that standards had changed so much at Niman Ranch that he no longer feels comfortable eating his former company’s meat. Admittedly, some of that may come more from sour grapes than tainted beef.

According to a comprehensive profile of Niman in the San Francisco Chronicle, Niman Ranch was never a profitable business over the thirty years it’s operated. Niman lost virtual control of the company in 2006, when investors came in to stem the losses that were around $3 million. Read the rest of this entry »

I need my meat!

To continue with last week’s theme of where to find local food, it’s time to look at the proteins available.

Vegetarians and vegans, you may want to stop here. My intention is not to offend your diet of choice, and I respect your decision, but I believe we are the caretakers for animals and should respect them for what they provide to us omnivores. I know that there is more available in these parts than what I’m describing here, but part of the fun of eating local is finding the ‘something’ that’s missing and enjoying it!

Today it’s all about the pig. Read the rest of this entry »

Mexican and Tex-Mex definitely top my list of favorite cuisines. Their use of spices elevate and enhance simple ingredients to create delicious, comforting dishes. One of my favorite Tex-Mex dishes is Tamale Pie, which is a casserole that is supposed to mimic the flavors of a traditional Mexican tamale: shredded or ground meat encased in a masa (cornmeal) mixture, wrapped in corn husks and then steamed.  Tamales are very time consuming to prepare, so I decided to take the easy road and make tamale pie.

The following is a recipe for tamale pie I “Katie-fied” from one I saw on “Simply Delicioso with Ingrid Hoffman” on Food Network. Most tamale pie recipes I’ve seen use ground beef, but you can use ground pork, chicken, turkey, boar, ostrich, whatever your heart desires. I don’t usually use canned items but I decided to in this one, just to make it easier for those of you at home to save time. Read the rest of this entry »

Argentina used to be one of the world’s final outposts of incredible beef, largely raised in the pampas grasslands and herded by those colorful gauchos. Not any more. Where have all the cowboys gone?

Like many South American countries, the rise in grain prices — particularly soybeans — due to bio-fuel demand, has caused Argentina to start converting it’s arable land into industrialized farms.

According to Reuters: Read the rest of this entry »

In the past, whenever you’ve seen “Naturally Raised” stamped on a shrink-wrapped pack of chicken breasts, it’s meant zilch. Thankfully, the USDA is here to protect American consumers with new guidelines for using that content-less term. Kinda.

Ethicurean sums it up: Read the rest of this entry »