Tzatziki Sauce - Τζατζίκι

So many times people tell me that they make the best tzatziki in the world but in reality their recipe spells disaster.

The yogurt and cucumber MUST be strained because they contain a lot of extra liquid that makes a soggy tzatziki sauce and has a strange feeling when you eat it. Pay attention and continue reading.

This recipe is authentic and easily made.

May I whine a little? Who was the ad wizard that created all these "Greek" yogurt products? They have NOTHING TO DO WITH GREECE AND GREEK YOGURT. These products taste terrible and they have nothing to do with Greek yogurt.

There is one problem with tzatziki sauce, though. It has garlic and I strongly suggest to stay away from it if you are planning on a hot date later on that day or meeting you boss for the first time after eating it.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup of plain yogurt
• one medium cucumber
• ONE medium garlic clove - if you are planing on a hot date (good luck)
• or TWO medium garlic cloves if you just don't give a hoot
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup of dill. 

Feel free to multiply these ingredients if you are planning for several side dishes.

Start with the plain yogurt...

Important: Strain the yogurt for 30 minutes...

Whore's Style Spaghetti - Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca

Leave it to the Italian prostitutes to come up with a crazy recipe name, Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca, which literally means Whore's Style Spaghetti. Some say it refers to the spicy aroma produced by its ingredients that enticed passing customers. Others claim that this dish was the easiest thing they could prepare between customers. We cook it today because it has a remarkable flavor, is easy, and is made of ingredients easily kept on hand.

I had heard about this recipe many years ago when I lived in Hellas and this is a modified Spaghetti Alla Puttanesca. You could also read more about the origin and history of this recipe from the web or wikipedia.

I had everything in the butler's pantry needed to make this dish:

• spaghetti in this case I used angel hair pasta because my wife and I love them, 
• about 20 olives, 
• 1/4 cup olive oil,
• 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes,
• 1/2 a can of 6oz tomato paste,
• I also added two tomatoes grated that if I didn't use them, I would have to throw them out the next day, 
• a handful of capers (I used a 3oz bottle), washed with cold water,
• about 10-12 anchovies,
• six cloves of garlic,
• oregano

I grabbed a small container of anchovies and washed them in the sink under cold running water. They are too oily and salty and by washing them you remove the oil and most of the salt. This time I used a garlic press to cream them and I set them aside. 

Chicken Stock - The Basics

Stock (beef, chicken, fish) is a flavored water preparation which forms the basis of many dishes, and in this case...I am making the base for chicken soup. When I make any stock at home I don't just make it on the spur of the moment. I plan for it for days or even weeks ahead of it. Every time I cook I save any vegetable or chicken parts. I don't save chicken liver, heart, and gizzards and I do throw them out. I do save the wings, back, and neck. I freeze them and take them out a few hours prior to using them.

This time, though, I didn't have any saved chicken parts and I went to our favorite supermarket, Adams Fairacre Farms, in Newburgh, NY and I bought two packages of chicken parts.

I have a plastic bag that I save the vegetable parts that I will use in my stock. For example, the top part of the leeks is a perfect example. Please think before throwing a piece of food in the garbage.

We do go to the supermarket twice a week and I always pay attention to the area in the vegetable section because they have an rack where they drastically reduce vegetables to get rid of them. So, I go there and grab whatever I can use, but always I have to use these vegetables the same day or the next.

Here are the ingredients:

• two table spoons of olive oil
• two medium onions
• tops from two leeks
• 3-4 carrots
• one pepper
• one zucchini
• parley
• three bay leaves

I also add:

• fresh ground pepper

The list is separated in two parts because after the first full boil you should skim the top of the pot and if you do that you will remove most of the pepper. For this reason I add the pepper after I skim the top.

Update to "Please Don't Grab!"

After someone challenged me to write some type of program/script to find the frequency of the word grab occurring in a webpage I have an update for you.

The following two lines get the job done: 

$str = file_get_contents('URL'); //gets the contents of the webpage

print_r(array_count_values(str_word_count(strip_tags(strtolower($str)), 1))); //prints a list of all words found

The second line:

•  converts all words to lower case using strtolower
•  then it uses strip_tags to remove the html tags
• str_word_count returns information about words used in a string
• and array_count_values counts the values of the array

I copied and pasted a few URLs from the Pioneer Woman's website and ran the script to produce the following:

Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/08/fried-round-steak/ found 1 occurrence
Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/08/homemade-cinnamon-bread/ found 1 occurrence
Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/07/16-minute-meal-3-mini-meatball-sandwiches/ found 4 occurrences
Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/04/the-right-way-and-the-wrong-way-to-make-cinnamon-toast/ found 2 occurrences
Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/04/sloppy-joes/ found 0 occurrences
Link http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/02/homemade-glazed-doughnuts/ found 2 occurrences
Link http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/01/homemade-chicken-and-noodles/ found 2 occurrences
Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/01/perfect-potatoes-au-gratin/ found 1 occurrence
Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/10/simple-pan-fried-pork-chops found 1 occurrence
Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/10/simple-pan-fried-pork-chops/ found 1 occurrence
Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/07/vanilla-bean-ice-cream/ found 1 occurrence
Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/07/edna-maes-escalloped-cabbage-recipe/ found 0 occurrencesLink: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/05/perfect-pancakes/ found 1 occurrence
Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/04/creamed-spinach-to-die-for/ found 1 occurrence
Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/04/macaroni-cheese/ found 0 occurrences
Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/03/bbq-meatballs-comfort-food-to-the-max/ found 1 occurrence
Link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/02/spreads-my-brothers-favorite-cookie/ found 3 occurrences

 These 17 URLs found a total of 22 occurrences of the word grab.

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Please Don't Grab!

Because English is my Second Language, ESL, I often make mistakes when I speak and write. I always have to proofread what I write and always the first draft is hideous, the second is marginal, the third is acceptable and... well, you get my point.

As a novice cook I like to browse the Internet for ideas and recipes and I watch certain TV shows and channels on a regular basis for the same reason. There are some TV personalities that use certain words and phrases over and over and over.

For example you can catch Guy Fiery say things like:

• out-of-the-park,
• mega-super,
• outta-bounds

If you watch Rachael Ray
you will notice that she uses the word grab constantly:

• she goes to the refrigerator to "grab some milk,"
• "I'll grab the spoon," etc.

I went to google.com and searched for the word grab within the rachaelray.com domain name. It's a little tricky but you have to go to google.com, enter the search term, the word grab in this case, then you will either press the search button or press the enter key for google to do the search. After google return the results, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click on the Advanced search link. In the Advance search options look for the site or domain area and enter the domain, rachaelray.com in my case, and press the Advanced Search button. Google will then go to rachaelray.com and return all pages containing the word grab. Google reported the word grab was found in 133 pages in rachaelray.com. Here are some links and excerpts:

• In www.rachaelray.com/food/collections/lwra/index.php?section=amazing
  

  "...snack to grab on the go or to throw into smoothies. When it's not in season, it's perfectly fine to grab a bag..."

  "...by grabbing bacteria and carrying..."

   
• Also in www.rachaelray.com/blogs/index.php/author/rosemary/page/10/
  

  "I would grab whatever I..."

  "I’d make toast, grab crackers, whatever was in sight..."

Then I listened to the the TV show The Pioneer Woman on the Food channel and she too "grabs" every chance she gets. I went to her website, thepioneerwoman.com, and there too she uses the word grab VERY often, much more than Rachael Ray. A google advanced search shows that grab appears in 5,250 pages! Wow! Pioneer Girl, slow down!

I Want my Baby Back, Baby Back, Baby Back Ribs

This past weekend I decided to bbq baby back ribs. So, I went to Adams Fair Acre Farms in Newburgh and immediately I was drawn to their wonderful meat department where I found the baby back ribs. They were on sale, lucky me, but I had to scrutinize the quality of them and the only way to do this was by carefully examining the contents of each package. I want the ribs to be in the full rack and not cut in small chunks. Also, baby back ribs must weigh less than 1-3/4 pounds per slab.

I picked up each package and made sure each slab was intact, the meat on ribs in not bruised and, generally speaking, the ribs look healthy.

I bought four slabs and here they are at home on the counter top still in the shopping bag. 

I took them out of the shopping bag and the packages. Gave them a quick wash in the sink, dried them and got ready to process them.

First I had to remove the membrane that is found under the rack. It is almost invisible but you can pull it away from the rack if use a kitchen paper towel and begin by pinching it. Here I show you the membrane after I've pulled it a little.

After pulling each membrane I placed the four racks in a bowl. As you can see I have my trusted knife sharpener ready.