Cooking For Allergies

Today I had a great cook date for a new client. She contacted me after receiving results from her ALCAT test, showing what foods to avoid because of allergic reactions. The results sheet shows all the intolerances, but also gives a recommend 4-day rotation diet with a list for each day of food items that can be incorporated.

Each day has a column of foods, oils and spices that should be eaten for a particular day. So I set about developing menus, two meals for each day. Today I prepared for her eight meals, with two servings of each meal.

This was a fun and interesting challenge, kind of like being on Chopped! Each day's food could only use certain oils and spices, and each day had a limited number of proteins to choose from. For example, one day's choice was pork, and the spice choices included coffee and cocoa. So, I made a rub with coffee and cocoa and it was great!

I had to make a "recipe" for each meal to make sure I kept it all straight. Granted, some of the recipes had only three ingredients, given the restrictions. But all in all, the food turned out great. The thought came to me more than once that great food doesn't have to be complicated, just use high quality ingredients and a little creativity!

Here are some pics from today:

Pecan Roasted Salmon with White Rice

Basil Chicken with Wild Rice

Buffalo Meatballs with Roasted White Potatoes

August, Where Did You Go?

Time really does fly when you're having fun. And August has been an especially fun month for me. Busy with really great dinner parties with repeat clients and some new clients. New weekly meal clients have come on board, and I'm loving every minute of it!

August started out with a trip to Washington, DC for the national conference of the United States Personal Chef Association. I took some really good classes and met terrific new chef friends.

One of the classes was a garnishing skills class where we took ordinary foods and turned them into art. Well, our instructors turned them in to art, and we tried.

Fish From A Lemon

Leaves From Squash

And our Atlanta Chapter won Chapter Of The Year!

The last night, I had the most amazing meal at a restaurant called Jaleo with some fellow personal chefs. If you go to DC, try it! We had the chef's tasting menu, 18 courses of small plates, each more scrumptious than the last. Delicious!

And August is not over....still lots on the schedule for the remaining days.Yay!

Lexington Barbecue

On a recent trip to Greensboro, North Carolina, my husband and I knew we wanted to have barbecue on the way home. I've had the Lexington style barbecue many times in Greensboro at a place called Stamey's, but I pushed to try barbecue in Lexington, North Carolina since it would be on our route home.

We went to a place called Lexington Barbecue in Lexington, North Carolina. This would give us the Lexington style barbecue for sure. If you're not familiar, this style of barbecue uses only the pork shoulder and has a very, very thin sauce made of ketchup, vinegar, pepper and probably water. It's very, very thin. There are no ribs, your only choice of meat is chopped, sliced, or roughly chopped.

The slaw I'm convinced is made of simply finely chopped cabbage that's left to sit in this same sauce until the cabbage is soft. And when you have a barbecue sandwich, you put the slaw on top of the meat. That's just how it's done.

With Slaw

The menu also of course had Cheerwine, and the sandwiches and almost everything included the slaw. The food was really good, our waitress was extremely friendly. The hush puppies were excellent! I had to request unsweetened tea (of course, sweet tea was the norm).

Lexington Barbecue is on Business I-85 which branches off Interstate 85. I would definitely recommend it as a place to try authentic Lexington style barbecue.

Cheerwine

6X12 Bundle Of Joy

Who knew I would enjoy my little garden so much? Not me. And now I think I'm addicted. It really doesn't require that much time out of my week, just watering when it's needed and occasional weeding.  I do walk out there every morning, just to see what's happening. And there's always something to pick. Right now it's green beans, butterbeans and tomatoes.

I planted black eyed peas about three weeks ago....they're going crazy. Not blooming yet, but we should have a lot of peas from just this one row.

Black-Eyed Peas

Okra

About a week and a half ago, I planted a row of okra and a small section of cucumbers called Lemon Cucumbers. Don't ask me why I planted them in an "X" configuration. I think I thought it would be easier to force them to grow up a trellis....we'll see.

Lemon Cucumber

We have five tomato plants and they all produce really well. We had to put netting over them because the birds were having a feast! The bell peppers are supposed to be red and yellow. So far, they're gorgeous, but I'm leaving them to see if they turn the color they're supposed to be. As for the carrots, well I think I need to leave them in the ground a little longer! But we did taste these minis and they tasted great!

Cooking Party: Southern Style

Last weekend was another installment of a monthly client in-home cooking party. The theme this week was cooking Southern style.  There were 12 guests and everyone was eager to learn how to cook something new.

I made a couple of appetizers to get us started: Butterbean Hummus and Pimento Cheese. Both were a big hit and gone by the time dinner was ready.

The menu for the meal: Homemade Chicken and Dumplings, Sauteed Collards and Spinach, and a Black Eyed Pea and Fennel Mix. The sauces you see on the plate are a tomato jam and an onion and pepper jam I made that were both really good with the peas and the collards.

Dessert was Peach Cobbler.

All the food was completely made from scratch. Everyone who came participated in cooking at least one dish and the food was great! Such a fun way to get people together for a night of learning and enjoying good food.

Grilled Romaine Salad

Last month, I hosted the May meeting of the Atlanta Chapter of USPCA (US Personal Chef Association). We cooked on the Big Green Egg and one of our chefs made a grilled romaine salad. I had never had it before and it was delicious! And now I can't get enough of it.

Admittedly, I had never prepared this myself, it always just sounded a little odd to me. Lesson learned: don't knock something until you try it. Sometimes now I crave it!

Here's how to do it: Get your grill hot, slice an entire romaine lettuce lengthwise, brush lightly with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill until slightly charred.

Add homemade bleu cheese dressing (recipe follows), crumbled bacon, and tomato. I found Maytag Bleu Cheese at the Buford Highway Farmer's Market....look for it!

Dinner this night was grilled pork chops and assorted vegetables. Simple and delicious.  Here's the recipe for the dressing:

Homemade Bleu Cheese Dressing
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sour cream
1/8 cup milk, more as needed
2-3 ounces Bleu Cheese, crumbled
3/4 tbsp shallot, finely grated
1 garlic clove, finely grated
1/2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Combine all ingredients. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. Thin with milk if needed.

Enjoy!

Great Week!

I've had a busy week, cooking for clients and also knit night Wednesday and Book Club on Thursday. And all were filled with trying to use up all the fresh and wonderful vegetables coming my way.

I picked up my CSA box on Thursday and I can't tell you how thrilled I am with this CSA!

This week's box from Dillwood Farms included blueberries, fennel, cucumbers, zucchini, green beans, carrots, basil, kale and radishes. Everything is so lovely and I can't wait to cook up some great food this weekend.

From our own garden, I've picked a lot of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and green beans. I planted the small French style green beans from seed. Just when I thought they were done, the plants are blooming again and it looks like I'll have another round of green beans.

I'll probably include a stop by the Brookhaven Farmer's Market on Saturday morning, just to see what's new....enjoy your weekend!