Jeff, the A.D.D. Chef

Marinate: Marinate means to coat or immerse foods in an acidic-based liquid or dry rub, to tenderize and flavor before cooking. Food is marinated in a marinade.

Marinade: The liquid foods marinate in. Marinades always contain some acidic liquid like lemon juice or vinegar to tenderize the foods, and may contain spices or herbs to add flavor.

Ziploc® Bags: A popular brand of plastic bag characterized by its distinctive method for closing the bag, essentially zipping it like a zipper.

Zip It: Spoken by Doctor Evil.

Now that we’ve differentiated marinate from marinade, Ziploc® bags from Zip It, we can speak intelligently about this oh-so-simple method for marinating your foods. Simply stated, use a Ziploc® bag.

How to Zip It (your food, that is):

1. Mix marinade in a container.
2. Place food to be marinaded in the Ziploc® bag.
3. Pour marinade into Ziploc® bag.
4. Gently squeeze out some of the air in the bag and then seal the bag.
5. Toss and turn the bag a few times to swish around the food and the marinade.
6. Place bag in refrigerator.

Some of the Reasons to Use this Method are:

• The marinade is more evenly distributed around the food.
• It’s easy to store in the refrigerator.
• You don’t have to search your cabinets for a container and matching lid.

Chicken marinating in balsamic vinegar

Here are Other Ziploc® Bag Ideas:

1. Before you go on your camping trip, premix ingredients you need for your morning pancakes and put it in a Ziploc®. See Zip-lock Bag Ideas for Outdoor Cooking. (And go here for health and nutrition information on chocolate chip pancakes.)
2. Here is a list of twenty five other uses for Ziploc® bags, like kneading dough, storing your pantyhose¹ and using one to create an instant funnel.²
3. And be sure to visit Ziploc® Central at http://www.ziploc.com/.

1. This tip does not apply to most men. [↩]
2. Hint: cut a small corner of the bag. [↩]

“A what?” That was my reaction the first time I read a list of ingredients that included a seeded cucumber. A seeded cucumber is a cucumber that had its seeds removed. Why would you do that? First, for aesthetic reasons. Raw seeded cucumbers just “look interesting” sitting next to the other raw vegetables on your appetizer tray.¹ The second and more important reason for seeding a cucumber is for creating Tzatziki sauce which is usually served with souvlaki and gyros. It also makes a great dip for raw vegetables.

THE METHOD

1. Start with a peeled cucumber.
   
2. Slice the cucumber in half.
   
3. Take a melon baller (a tablespoon would work too) and gently scrape out the seeds. If you use a melon baller, use the smallest amount of pressure as you scrape out the seeds so that you don’t accidentally split the cucumber.
   
4. Your seeded cucumber should look something like this:
   
5. It’s really that simple. When we get to the Chicken Souvlaki with Tzatziki sauce, then you’ll know why you need to remove the cucumber seeds.

Tzatziki and Cucumber Trivia

1. Wikipedia on Tzatziki
2. Making Tzatziki
3. Wikipedia on Cucumbers
4. A (very small) tribute to my last homegrown cucumber for 2007

1. It also shows you may have too much time on your hands if you are removing seeds from your cucumbers. [↩]

Check back soon for the recipe for Chicken Souvlaki.

When the weather turns cold I start thinking about soup, the “magical” food that needs only a handful ingredients and water. For the A.D.D.er, soup is another one of those cook-it-and-forget-it dishes. You can’t hurt the soup by leaving it on the stove for too long.

One note about the photo above. When people think of French Onion Soup they think of a bowl of soup with a one inch thick layer of cheese on top. If you need to control your intake of dairy products there is no harm in using just a few slices of cheese. This fulfills the basic French Onion Soup requirement needed for flavor and cheese stringiness. However, if you are still 20 or more years away from clogged arteries then you can create a thick layer of cheese by filling the bowl with broth till it is very close to the top and then placing enough layers of cheese across the top till you’ve sealed it up. But before you can add all that cheese…let’s first make the soup.

INGREDIENTS

Quantities below make enough for about three bowls of soup.

• 1/4 cup of butter or margarine
• 1 large yellow onion
• 32 oz beef broth
• 3/4 cup white wine¹
• 1 1/2 cups of water
• 2 or 3 Beef bouillon cubes (optional)²
• At least 4 oz of Gruyère cheese
• 1 baguette (in a pinch…use Italian bread)

DIRECTIONS

1. Slice up the entire onion into long pieces. (See Slicing Onions)
2. Melt 1/4 cup of butter (or margarine) in a large saucepan (3 or 4 quart size).
3. Saute the onions until they are limp and translucent.
   
4. Add the beef broth, water and wine. If you want a stronger flavor, add the bouillon cubes. (I skip the cubes in order to keep the total salt content down. The beef broth itself has a high sodium content.)
   
5. Simmer for 45 minutes.
6. Place a 1/2 inch thick slice of bread in the bottom of an oven-proof crock or deep bowl (these bowls are not expensive and have other handy uses…like for chicken soup. See Set of 4 Onion Soup Bowls.).
7. Ladle the soup into the bowl. The bread will rise to the top. When the soup is near the top…stop.
8. Cut at least four thin slice of cheese and lay them on top of the soup (the floating bread will help to keep them up).
9. Place the crocks in an oven heated to 350 F degrees and wait till the cheese melts (7-10 minutes). Alternately you can place the crocks under a broiler so you get a restaurant-like melted and brown cheese “seal” on top.

VARIATIONS

1. Add a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce.
2. Skip the cheese altogether. The soup is great all by itself.
3. Use grated Gruyère cheese. This will give you the cheese flavor and may help you to cut down on the quantity of cheese.
4. Toast the bread prior to placing in the bottom of the crock.

Here is a brief histoire of le French Onion Soup.

1. Chardonnay or a Pinot is fine. I’ve learned to avoid “cooking” wine because salt is added to it. [↩]
2. They have a very high salt content and the flavor is fine without it. [↩]

This post is for the onion-challenged. Yes, you know who you are. You try to slice up an onion and when it completely falls apart only then do you realize that you’ve sliced it the wrong way. One way to slice it so it doesn’t fall apart is to slice it in half along its “equator,” then in half again along its north/south axis, then flip it and again cut it along its “equator.” This sounds worse than it really is and the photos below should help you to understand the gyrations of the onion.

Let’s start with a peeled onion¹ with the black line representing the north/south axis and the gray line representing the “equator.”

The first cut (see image below) is along the equator.

The second cut is along the north/south axis. In the photo below, I cut in half the bottom half of the onion. Notice the light brown “nib” indicating the north/south axis (the black line in the very first photo).

Take one of the halves and flop it onto its side (see photo below) and start cutting.

The slices are made on what is left of the “equator.”

If needed, you can cut these semi-circles into smaller pieces.

A note about the color of the photos: Photographing an onion, which is almost translucent, against the background of a white cutting board turned out to be a formidable task.² Therefore, the images have been manipulated to enhance their contrast. Despite noticeable visible differences from one image to the next, I certify that it is the same onion used in all of the photos. The differences are a result of digital manipulation. Additionally, I certify that no onions were hurt during the making of these photos.

1. Peeling is really no more than removing the outer brown layer. If you don’t like the way that layer looks, remove another layer. As Shrek once said, what’s under an onion layer but yet another layer. [↩]
2. Formidable when you using an ordinary digital camera with no special lighting. [↩]