Fun at The Family Market

A new grocery store has opened in the Long Reach Village Center.  The Family Market gives the Columbia area a new great place to shop for produce, meats, Asian, and Latin Foods.  Thanks to HowChow for alerting me to this great new place.  It is a cross between the typical American grocery store and the typical Asian style groceries.  I have visited HMart in Catonsville several times and always loved buying produce and meats.  For those who a little overwhelmed by the vast selection of products that you can't identify at HMart, you should give The Family Market a try. 



I went to try out the grocery store today to find some fun things to make.  I will share some of the results in future posts.  The store was clean.  The employees were helpful and spoke English.  They had lots of great produce at fantastic prices.  In addition to the aisles of Asian food products, they also have aisles of Latin food products and traditional American products.  It is easy to identify most of the Asian products, with some English on the products.  Some of the roducts include large and small bags of rice, noodles, sauces, seaweed, oils, spices, and Asian snacks and candies. The Latin section featured a large array of dried beans and dried chilies of different types.  The Asian and Latin products were very well-priced, while the American products were slightly higher compared to your typical Giant or Safeway.     

Just to show you how great the produce prices were, I wanted to share with you my produce purchase. 

1.2 Pounds Red Seedless Grapes
1Yellow Pepper
1 Red Pepper
1 Green Pepper
1 Lemon
1 Jalapeno Pepper
2 Limes
3 Stalks Lemon Grass
Handful of Thai Red Chilies
0.9 Pounds Yams
1 Piece of Ginger
Pack of Dried Chilies
1 Bunch Carrots
4 Plum Tomatoes
1 Pack Sun dried Tomatoes
2 Pounds Baby Red Potatoes
1 Pound Shallots
2 Red Onions
1 Bunch Green Onions
2 Fuji Apples


Any guesses on the cost of this?  Drum roll please ....  $18.21. 

The meat section contains great cuts of beef, pork, chicken, duck, and an array of seafood.  In addition, I was able to buy a dozen cage-free eggs for only $1.29. 

Great fun exploring a new find in Columbia!

A New Experiment: Sous Vide Lamb Tagine

For Christmas, my wife and I got a sous vide appliance and vacuum bag sealer.  For Thanksgiving, I borrowed one from a friend to try it out.  Preparing food sous vide simply means that your food is vacuum sealed in a bag and cooked in a low temperature water bath.  This idea has always seemed a little strange to me.  I had seen chefs on a number of cooking shows try to cook food sous vide, but wasn't sure if it was really worth the effort.  The Thanksgiving experiment produced one awesome turkey and made me a believer.  So we decided that it would be a great addition to our kitchen.  After the food cooks in the vacuum sealed bag, it can be served immediately or you can take the food and apply another cooking technique like searing it, frying it, or cooking it with freshly sauteed vegetables. There are so many choices of things you can do.  In my first use of my new toy, I decided to try something out of the blue rather than follow a given recipe.  What could go wrong?  Well, things don't always turn out to be fantastic, but this one was in fact incredible, a super tender Moroccan lamb dish with a burst of flavors.

Sous Vide Lamb Tagine

Ingredients for the sous vide:
2 pounds of boneless leg of lamb, cubed
2 tablespoons of tagine spice blend
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon harissa spice
2 teaspoons ras el hanout spice blend
2 teaspoons onion powder
3 stalks of flat leaf parsley
3 stalks of cilantro
1/3 cup dried apricots
1/2 cup grape tomatoes
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Additional ingredients for cooking tagine:
1 tablespoon butter
2 teaspoons ras el hanout
1 teaspoon ground coriander
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon kosher salt
black pepper, to taste
1/3 cup half and half

Accompaniments:
1/3 cup almonds, toasted
3 shallots
1 tablespoon olive oil
Curried couscous, such as Near East brand
Cooked Peas

Cut the lamb into bit-sized pieces, trimming off the excess fat.  Melt the butter and add in the all of the sous vide spices.  Coat the lamb in the butter and spice mixture.  To the lamb, add in the dried apricots and tomatoes.  Place the lamb mixture in a sous vide bag.  Add in the stalks of parsley and cilantro.  Vacuum seal the bag and let sit in refrigerator overnight. 

Prepare the sous vide machine with water and set the temperature to 155 degrees.  Place the vacuum sealed lamb in the water and cook for 9 hours.

Once the lamb has finished the sous vide cooking, open the sous vide bag and remove the parsley and cilantro as well as the apricots.  Heat the butter in a skillet and add in the lamb.  Cook at a low temperature and add the ras el hanout, coriander, salt, pepper, and lemon juice.  Cook for approximately 5 minutes.  Add in the half and half, and simmer slowly for 5 more minutes.

To prepare the other components, toast the almonds with a drizzle of olive oil.  Saute the shallots in a tablespoon of olive oil for about 8 minutes, until they are well-browned.  Cook the peas and couscous to serve with the lamb.  With my dish, I used frozen peas and the Near East curried couscous. 

To serve the meal, plate the couscous and lamb.  Sprinkle the lamb with the toasted almonds.  On the side, plate a spoonful of the caramelized shallots.  Hope you enjoy!

African Chicken Curry

One of my favorite products to buy at Williams-Sonoma is their collection of ground spices. They have so many varieties from regions all around the world. Recently, I wanted to experiment with the African Curry Powder that I bought. African curry powder is a mixture of a large number of different spices, including corriander, onion, cumin, tumeric, ginger, cardamom, curry leaves, fenugreek, cilantro, mustard, cinammon, and pepper. All of these combine together to produce an extraordinary taste experience. This spicy curry dish was the exciting result.

One half of a large onion, diced
One poblano pepper, diced
One jalepeno pepper, finely diced
One half cup of diced eggplant
One fourth cup of shredded coconut
Two tablespoons canola oil

Two boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Two tablespoons African curry powder
One half teaspoon corriander
One garlic clove, minced
One cup chicken broth
One half cup coconut milk
Two tablespoons half and half
One fourth cup golden raisins
One fourth cup chopped cilantro
Salt and Pepper

To begin, prepare the vegetables. Dice the onions, peppers, and eggplant. Heat one tablespoon of canola oil in the pan and cook the onions for 3 minutes. Add in the peppers, eggplant, and shredded coconut and cook for an additional 3 minutes. Dice the uncooked chicken breasts into small bite-sized pieces. Coat the chicken with the other tablespoon of canola oil and season with salt and pepper. Add the chicken to the vegetables to cook. Continue cooking the mixture until the chicken is cooked through. Add the coconut milk, chicken broth, diced garlic, African curry powder, and corriander. Season again with salt and pepper. Cover and let cook for approximately 15 minutes. Finally add in the half and half, golden raisins, and cilantro. Mix all ingredients together until they are well blended. Serve the curry over rice or couscous and garnish with fresh cilantro. Hope you enjoy!

Chickpea, Coconut, and Cilantro Burgers

Hello all. I am back to writing a new blog entry again. I had hopes of writing up several recipes from the summer, but plans don't always work out. One thing that I did do this summer was to go to a food festival in Cardiff, Wales. It was a fun day of trying food samples, attending cooking demos, and exploring the Cardiff Bay Area. There were many food booths set up to sell food to the masses of people there. Early in the day, I saw one booth that intrigued me, a booth from Greta's Wholefoodies.

I had a Curried Chickpea, Coconut, and Coriander Burger. It was so flavorful and delicious. I had never had a sandwich quite like it before. Later in the day, I wanted to get something else to eat. I had so many places to choose from, but I decided to go back for another one of these burgers. Ever since I have been home, I have wanted to recreate one of these burgers myself. This past weekend, I had a chance to experiment and was very happy how the result turned out. I see that Greta's website has a list of ingredients for their burgers. However, I was very happy that I tried to recreate it without seeing what their ingredients were.

So enjoy this great vegetarian sandwich.

Burger Ingredients

15 1/2 ounce can of chick peas
1/2 onion, small dice
1/3 cup carrot, small dice
1/2 cup coconut
1 tablespoon jalapeno, finely diced
1 teaspoon corriander seed
1 1/2 tablespoons madras curry powder
1 teaspoon garam marsala
1 egg
1/4 cup rice flour
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
3 tablespoons cooking oil, divided
salt and pepper

Slaw Ingredients

2 cups chopped red cabbage
1/2 cup carrots
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon corriander
1/2 teaspoon siracha
pinch of salt and pepper


Combine the coconut, curry powder, garam marsala, and coriander seed. Heat 1/2 tablespoon of cooking oil in a pan and cook the coconut and spice mixture over medium heat for about 3 minutes stirring occasianally to prevent burning. Drain and wash the chickpeas. Add the chickpeas to the coconut mixture and cook for an additional 2 minutes. Add a pinch of salt while it is cooking. Put the chickpea mixture into a food processor and blend until the chickpeas are just crushed and mixed with the spices.

Add the other 1/2 tablespoon of cooking oil to the pan and saute the onions, carrots, and jalapeno until slightly browned. Once done, combine with the chickpeas. Beat the egg and add to the mixture along with the rice flour. Mix well to form a dough. Add in the chopped cilantro and season with salt and pepper.

Roll the dough out on a cutting board. Form the burgers using a large biscuit cutter. Depending on how thick you like your burgers, the recipe should make between 4-8 patties. Once they are cut, place them on a plate or flat surface and freeze for at least 15 minutes. This will help the burgers stay together while cooking.

To cook the burgers, add a tablespoon of cooking oil to a nonstick skillet. When oil is hot, add burgers and cook on each side approximately 3-4 minutes until the patties start to brown. You could also try this on a grill surface, using care that the burgers do not fall apart. If you do this, I would recommend using a grill tray instead of putting them directly on the grates.

Prepare the slaw ingredients by combining all of the ingredients together. Serve the burgers on a regular bun, flatbread, pita, or no bread
with a serving of slaw on each.

If you don't cook all of the burgers, you could easily package them up, freeze them, and take them out as you need them. Enjoy!

Chopped Challenge

Our family likes to watch the TV show Chopped on the Food Network. For each episode, contestants are given a basket of indgredients to make appetizers, entrees, or desserts. Most of the time, the ingredient combinations are quite challenging because no one in their right mind would think of pairing such strange ingredients.

One night, I was having a craving to use a jar of Stonewall Kitchen's Dark Chocolate Caramel Sauce with Sea Salt in a dessert. I had been putting it on ice cream, but we were out of ice cream. So I decided to give myself my own Chopped Challenge. So my "mystery ingredients" were the chocolate caramel sauce, strawberries, and Keebler's sesame crackers. Ok, I concede that this combination is not nearly as strange as the something on the show. They would probably throw in something like leeks or jalapenos. I also didn't bother setting a timer, but I wanted something that could be prepared in less than 15 minutes.

My first task was to figure out what else I had in the fridge that would go with these three ingredients. I pulled out a tub of Cool whip, some butter, sugar, cinnamon, and balsamic vinegar. I was making a single portion since I had no idea if this creation was going to taste good or not.

First, I took the strawberries and diced them up into a pretty small bites. I used about 5 strawberries. Next, I topped them with about a teaspon of balsamic vinegar. I took about 1/2 cup of the cool whip and folded in the strawberries, and put the ingredients into the small serving bowl.

The next step was to prepare the topping. I melted butter in the pan and crumbled the sesame crackers into the butter. I sauted the crackers until slightly browned. Be very careful not to burn them like I did the first time. I had to throw that out and go on to a second attempt. While cooking the crackers, add in about 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and a teaspoon of sugar.

Heat the dark chocolate caramel sauce. Put the cracker crumble topping on to of the strawberry cream and finally add the chocolate sauce. You are done!

Unfortnately, I didn't make a picture of this creation. It was quite surprising how good it turned out to be. In retrospect, it would be even better if I had whipped up some heavy whipping cream in the Kitchen Aid mixer instead of using the Cool Whip.

It was a fun little challenge. I think this idea would be fun for party them. You could have a couple of cooks square off with ingredients picked by others at the party. Then everyone could sample and vote for their favorite. Might have to try this sometime.

Summer CSA Season Kicks Off

Today was the first day for picking up food from the Centennial CSA program which features fresh produce, eggs, and meat from the Zahradka Farm in Baltimore County. We get a medium share of food which includes 8 different fruit/vegetable items. Todays picks included strawberries, potatoes, asparagus, zucchini, yellow swiss chard, spring onions, spinach, and romaine lettuce. In addition, we get the bread option which features products from the Breadery, the speciality food item which was a jar of fruit spread from Infused Spreads of Baltimore, and a dozen eggs. You can see a picture of the bounty from this week. I also made dinner tonight using some of the asparagus, zucchini, and spinach. Very happy to get great farm fresh ingredients!

Penne with Spring Vegetables, Chicken, and Herbs

1 1/3 cups uncooked penne
1 boneless skinless chicken breast
10 stalks of asparagus. cut into 1 inch pieces
1 zucchini squash, cut into 1 inch strips
1/2 red pepper, cut into 1 inch strips
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped spinach
1 tablespoon, fresh chopped basil
1/2 tablespoon, fresh chopped parsley
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
salt and pepper

First, cook the penne in boiling salted water for approximately 11 minutes. Drain the pasta once it is done. In your pan, add a drizzle of olive oil and lightly toast the pine nuts and set aside. In the same pan, heat 1/2 tablespoon olive oil and add the chicken and lightly season with salt and pepper. Cook the chicken until it cooked through and set aside. After the veggies have been chopped, add 1/2 tablespoon olive oil to the pan and saute the asparagus, zucchini, and red pepper until they are slightly brown. Season the veggies with salt while they are cooking. Slice the chicken breast into thin slices and add it to the veggies. Add spinach and garlic and saute another minute. While still on the stove, stir in the herbs, cooked penne, and 1 tablespoon olive oil. You are now ready to eat!

Grilled Latin Spiced Pork Tenderloin with Corn Salsa

This past weekend, we went to our first summer cookout. This gave me a chance to try out a new recipe with some of the numerous spices from my pantry. I also wanted to use some fresh corn that I found last week at Frank's Produce in Elkridge. In addition to having some great produce, Frank's has several greenhouses of full of healthy, colorful plants at reasonable prices. Check it out if you have not been there. Now, back to the recipe. I decided on a Latin insired pork tenderloin with a corn and tomato salsa. The dish went over very well at the cookout. Hope you enjoy too!


Pork and Spice Rub Ingredients:
1-1.5 pound pork tenderloin
2 teaspoons ancho chili powder
1 teaspoon guajillo chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon corriander
1 tablespoon Mexican oregano
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon canola oil

Corn Salsa Ingredients:
1 small onion
1/3 red bell pepper
1/3 orange bell pepper
3 ears of fresh corn
1 tomato
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Salsa Dressing Ingredients:
1 tablespoon canola oil
juice of 1/2-3/4 of a lime
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon ancho chili powder
1 teaspoon salt

First, prepare the pork. Coat the pork tenderloin with the canola oil. Combine the spices together and then coat the pork all over with the spice rub. Place the pork in a sealed plastic bag and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.

Next, prepare the salsa. Boil the 3 ears of corn in salted water for about 15 minutes. While the corn in boiling, finely dice the onion, peppers, and tomato and combine in a mixing bowl. Finely chop the cilantro including the stems and set aside. Combine the remaining dressing ingredients. Once the corn is finished cooking, let cool for at least 10 minutes. Cut the corn off the cob and add it to the pepper and onions.

Finally, grill the pork. Heat your grill to a high temperature at first and get a good sear on the outside of the pork on both sides. Turn down the temperature to medium and cook until the meat reaches your desired internal temperature. The pork should reach 160 degrees before serving. Take the pork off the grill and allow to rest at least 5 minutes before cutting. Slice the pork into thin medallions for serving.

When you are ready to serve, combine the dressing, cilantro, and corn mixture together. Use the corn salsa as a base of your serving dish and place the pork medallions on top of the corn. Enjoy!

As a possible variation, you could grill the corn in the husks along with the peppers. This would add a more robust grill flavor to the dish. I had planned to do this when I started. However, I was having problems with my grill starting. So I resorted to cooking the corn on the stove and not roasting the peppers at all. Either way, I think it is a great dish.