In any profession there is continuing education. Sometimes it is required, other times it is inspired. Inspiration to learn something…just because. I often have these moments of inspiration in the kitchen. Sometimes I immerse myself in a unique cuisine or an underutilized ingredient. But I recently had a very unexpected inspiration to educate myself. There were a couple interactions that inspired me…
My husband came home from work a few weeks ago and told me about a colleague who has been replacing his meals with a nutritionally packed drink instead of food. Soylent. Have you heard of this stuff? I will let you do your own research and make your own judgements. His colleague’s take was that consuming this cylinder bottle of “liquid food” increased his productivity in the office. What? He voluntarily consumes this stuff?
Another friend shared with me his morning breakfast. A fruit and vegetable packed smoothie – which sounded delicious – until he threw in the 24g protein packed scoop of snickerdoodle flavored whey protein. Stop there!
And finally, a girlfriend who is constantly on the run with five kids. She is a self-described “clean” eater. A go to protein for her might be boneless, skinless chicken breast cooked with olive oil cooking spray and no salt. Bad idea for so many reasons. When I saw her last she gave me a cute little “protein ball.” Protein balls are her thing. Just pop a bunch of nutritionally balanced ingredients in a food processor, pulse away, roll into balls, and you have an on-the-go nutritional snack. Quick, easy and no baking. Generally speaking I like the idea of these “protein balls”. Finally, we are using “real” food – not engineered liquid food or snickerdoodle flavored powder. But, how can we make them taste better, have better texture? Hence, my inspiration for continuing education!
I spent a Saturday afternoon educating myself. My challenge was to develop a nutritional high protein convenience snack made with “real” food that tasted good. I needed variation in texture and depth in flavor. I tried sweet, I tried savory. I tried TVP – that’s where I drew the line. TVP, textured vegetable protein. This is the main ingredient in dishes like vegan “chicken nuggets” and vegan “beef tacos.” It provides the protein and texture without the meat. Uh, really? Not sure this qualifies as “real” food.
After many trials and an entire pantry of ingredients utilized, I finally landed on a snack I was pleased with. High protein, lactose-free, and no refined sugar mini muffin bites. Nice texture and good flavor. I sampled them to a few of my best critics. Thumbs up all around. Most importantly, my girlfriend with five kids loved them. Then she asked if she could leave out the egg and throw all the ingredients in a food processor to make them into “protein balls.” Nooooooo! Enough with the protein balls!
My self-written course on high protein convenience snacks began and ended on that Saturday afternoon. I will make the mini muffins again, they were good. But until I get around to it, my go-to high protein snack will be a simple and nostalgic one: a fresh cut apple with a couple tablespoons of peanut butter.
- 1 ripe banana, mashed
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- 1/2 cup peanut butter
- 4 tablespoons ghee, plus more for preparing muffin pan (can substitute butter, but will no longer be lactose-free)
- 2 tablespoons coconut sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup teff flour (look for Bob’s Red Mill brand)
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, ground
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
- 1/3 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
- 1/3 cup dried blueberries
- Lightly grease mini muffin tin wells with ghee, set aside. Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat to 350 degrees.
- In a large bowl stir to combine banana, egg, peanut butter, four tablespoons ghee, coconut sugar and vanilla extract. In separate medium bowl whisk together teff flour, oats, cinnamon, salt and baking powder.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Fold in walnuts, flaked coconut and blueberries. Batter will be quite dense.
- Using spring loaded portion scoop or tablespoon fill each muffin well with 1.5 tablespoons of batter. Push down in to well slightly with back of tablespoon.
- Bake for 13-15 minutes, until puffed, golden, and cooked through.
- 3 mini muffins have 9 grams of protein. need more protein? eat more muffins.
I’m freshly back and still unpacking from two glorious weeks in Florence and Tuscany. What an amazing destination for someone that loves wine and food!
We began the day with a tour of Florence’s Mercato Centrale, a feast for the senses, filled with scents, a riot of color and every imaginable cheese, meat and vegetable possible. We purchased the ingredients for our class and then returned to the restaurant where I worked alongside Sharon, one on one, to prepare a delicious lunch which we shared with my partner Michael and our friend Lynn, washed down with bottles of white and red Italian wine.
The culinary traditions in Tuscany run deep. We tasted the traditional Florentine dish peposo in several restaurants. The rich history of this dish goes back to the construction of the Duomo. Workers at the kilns in Imprunetta were producing the terra cotta tiles that cover the beautiful dome. Hunger was satiated with a hearty stew made from inexpensive cuts of beef that had been heavily peppered for preservation, thus the name peposo, derived from “pepe” or pepper. More pepper was added to help keep the stew even longer. The stew was cooked in massive clay pots in the same furnaces that produced the tiles. The labors ate the stew with plenty of bread and washed it all down with watered-down red wine.
In Florence and Tuscany today, peposo is served in virtually every restaurant. Rather than inexpensive beef, it is now prepared with much more luxurious cuts like beef short ribs or veal cheek, aromatic vegetables and plenty of good Chianti wine, served with a large bowl of Tuscan white beans and olive oil.
With the first chill of fall in the morning air, twelve or so other food adventurers and I boarded a small tour bus yesterday morning – courtesy of Marche – for the drive to Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery in Champaign.
We toured their busy, working farm, got up-close-and-personal with the goats, and were served a lovely lunch under the trees with foods that were grown, harvested and created within yards of where we sat. Pretty freaking cool.
I’ve taught many classes at Marcel’s that feature Marche cheese in every course. The next class, celebrating autumn flavors is running October 10 (shameless plug, a few seats are still available!) Honoring small farmers and producers who respect our planet, and bringing attention to their efforts is a one of the most important things a chef can do. All you need to do to try some of Prairie Farm’s product is pop into Marche!
I love working with onions – the most common aromatic and essential ingredient that adds depth and flavor to so many dishes. The onion family includes bulb or globe onions, pearl onions, cipollini, shallots, leeks, scallions, chives and their cousin – garlic. Collectively they belong to a plant species called alliums.
I can guarantee this will yield uniform shaped pieces for even cooking, but I can’t guarantee you won’t be crying at the end. Cutting onions can cause watery eyes or even crocodile tears so guests also love this tip: Freeze the onion for 20 minutes before chopping – it helps contain the sulfuric compounds that make our eyes water.
I just returned from a week with extended family at my parent’s house in Michigan. With 90-degree heat, we minimized our use of the oven during meal prep for the 25 of us. Most of our cooking was done on the grill except for the enchiladas I had pre-made and frozen ahead of time. We were all happy that enchiladas cook in just 20 minutes! But the heat in the kitchen generated from the enchiladas was well worth it. These vegetarian enchiladas- made with shredded sweet potato and lentils- were enjoyed by all. It is a recipe I was refining for the Cooking for College Students class that I am teaching on July 18 at 6:30pm. Marcel’s College Cooking class is a perfect opportunity for young adults to learn together in the kitchen; it is always a lot of fun! Marcel’s hosts a college cooking class twice a year and this is the first vegetarian one we have offered. It has an amazing menu: Black Bean Avocado Mango Salad, Mexican Creamed Corn, Enchilada Casserole with Sweet Potato, and Coconut Rice Pudding. Please don’t miss it! 
Just like the cooking strategy my family and I had in Michigan, summer is always the ideal time to economize oven use. This Baked Honey Chicken is a recipe for success: cook once, eat twice. Essentially, use the oven once to produce two delicious meals. The chicken marinates for 1-4 hours before it’s baked for just 30 minutes. Half of this cooked chicken is then saved in the refrigerator for the next night’s dinner, 
When you sit down with someone and share their food, you are sharing their story. People are telling you something about themselves with each bite, each sip, each serving. No matter how small the size of the offering, the gesture is large, and the moment is magic.
Two young engineering students from a small village outside of Beijing invited us to their apartment to make dumplings. Multi-generational, mom and grandmother were visiting and deftly rolling out dumplings with the speed of a twelve-person assembly line. Every dumpling is the exact shape and size. Once all the dough was ready, it was time to fill. Their dumplings were perfect, beautifully shaped, properly proportioned. Ours, overstuffed and unable to close. With direction, “the dumpling is the purse, the meat filling the money. Don’t let the money fall out of the purse.” An “ah ha” moment for sure; our dumpling skills improved. The meal was set out on two card tables, served on paper plates, with lots of chairs crammed around the tables. Make room for what’s important, worry less about what’s not.
We invited some new tenants, a lovely Hispanic couple, over to teach us how to make tamales. We spoke with our hands, so we could understand one another. When I was about to add water in with the masa, my hand was tapped, and an index finger waved no-no. She pointed to the pot where the pork had slow cooked and then back to the masa bowl. Yes, of course! Water tastes like water, but pork juice tastes delicious!! We followed the leader and tied the husks. We counted hands and realized twelve hands make a hundred tamales easier than two. Share the work and it doesn’t feel like work.
May your purse hold money, your coffee cup never completely full, may you talk and taste with an open mouth, and eyes, with an open heart and mind. I know you’ll never leave hungry.
I haven’t always been so smart. For years, my wife Rondi and I would invite people over for dinner and brush off their “what can we bring?” with an immediate “Nothing! Just bring yourselves” response. Those four little words invariably led to four (or more) days of planning, prepping and preparing. 
The guest list eventually rose to 20 people, and as each guest was added to my growing list I simply asked them to bring their specialty. Marcie brought two fabulous flatbreads as our appetizer. Mindy was quick to claim the smoked ham. My sister Sarah brought her famous “Party Potatoes” (yes, that’s a real thing), Kay brought the lamb cake, and Nikki rounded out the party with Mimosa and Bloody Mary fixings.
As a chef instructor writing and testing recipes is one of the more tedious yet rewarding parts of my job. I don’t recall ever writing a recipe perfectly the first time. There is almost always a re-write, or two…or five. And, depending on the mood I am in or the recipe I am testing, sometimes the test is done on a controlled group of one (me!) or a large cackle of friends.
And although the recipe successes have outnumbered the failures…failures have existed. “I like the flavor, but the texture kind of makes me want to vomit.” That response is probably my favorite – that was definitely a “back to the drawing board” moment. Shout out to the “honesty”…but man that was a shot to the ego!
Maison is beautiful French word that, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, translates to “house, household, home.” It is the perfect word to embody the wonderful addition to the Marcel’s and Marché family. 
On event day the chef and staff arrive early to load in, unpack, set up and complete prep and cooking. Staff also assist with table setting, wine chilling, cocktail mixing and creating beautiful platters for passed appetizers. Guests arrive, cocktails and appetizers flow, dinner and wine are served and dessert is presented. At the end of the evening the chef and staff roll up their sleeves for final clean up before saying their goodbyes. 
I’m not sure how I could have a friendship that has withstood forty years and a marriage of nearly thirty, and I couldn’t figure out how to have a relationship with yeast. Sometimes, getting better at something starts with one move, deciding to do so. Whatever material you built the wall from to mentally stop you from doing it, is usually not made of kryptonite and usually crumbles once you make the decision to take action. Even doing nothing is doing something.
I embraced this new skill with gusto. Soon I was baking six or seven loaves of bread a week and had multiple varieties of sourdough starter feasting. I purchased proofing baskets, lames, linen couches, and cast iron loaf pans. My countertops continually had something rising at different stages and I asked my husband if he could build me a proofing box. It was at this point, I got the look. The look you get after nearly thirty years of marriage, the one that requires no words. This look, in my world, usually translates to “perhaps we are taking this bread thing a bit too far;” grab some reins, apply the brakes.