Pumpkin Turkey Chili - The Perfect Fall Dish

 Fall is time for Pumpkins and Chili

So why not 

Pumpkin Turkey Chili 

(Photo credit to Larissa Sklar)

Greg my youngest son and his wife Larissa called me late this afternoon and wanted to know how I made my Turkey Pumpkin Chili (picture above is their rendition of my recipe. I texted  it to them from memory)

Cut two pie pumpkins in half and clean them out reserving the seeds for later.

Spray or rub olive oil on the inside of the pumpkin.

Sprinkle with garlic salt, cumin, and cayenne pepper.

Place flat side down on cookie sheet and roast at 400 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes until soft.

When pumpkins are ready, brown one package of ground turkey meat with olive oil.

When browned add one chopped onion and a diced jalapeño to the turkey and continue browning.

Add more cumin, garlic salt, and cayenne pepper.

Scoop pumpkin meat into pot on medium to low heat.

Add a can of: cannellini beans, garbanzo beans, and stewed tomatoes.

Add one box of low sodium chicken broth

Simmer!!!

While simmering take the reserved pumpkin seeds and toast them in a pan with cumin and cayenne pepper.

To task the seed, clean them and pat dry them.  Heat a pan over high heat, and spay a little bit of olive oil on the seeds prior to placing them in the pan.  Place the seeds in the pan and lower heat to medium.  while cooking sprinkle cumin and cayenne pepper on the seeds.  Keep the seeds moving in the pan and you may have to spay a little more olive oil.

Once golden brown, chop the seeds and use them to garnish a over guacamole when serving the Turkey Pumpkin Chili.

(Larissa said she enjoyed the seeds on their own.  So make enough for future snacking)

(photo credit to Larissa Sklar)

Ingredients

Two Pie pumpkins

cumin

garlic salt

Cayenne pepper

1 box low sodium chicken broth

1 yellow onion

1 can cannellini beans

1 can garbanzo beans

1 can stewed tomatoes

1 jalapeño

Guacamole for topping

Olive oil 

olive oil spray

Scotch, Steak, and Cigars

(As I get ready to reignite FoodByDoug, I have found a few blogs that I wrote years ago and never published.  These are unedited, and not polished)

My intentions as a blogger are better than my blogging itself.  I take pictures, download them to my computer and write several blogs in my head -- but getting them actually on FoodbyDoug is another issue.

Lets start off with Scotch, Steaks, and Cigars.  Last year and again this year I auctioned a night of scotch tasting, steaks, and cigar off as an live auction item at the Okanogan Omak Rotary Wine and Cheese.  Jacque and I put similar night up for auction at the Loup Loup Taste of Three Valleys.  This

year I had the privilege of having my friend Chuck Ladouceur join me in the kitchen preparing and serving our guest.

Chuck and I started the night before with making three different Creme Brûlée's.  Knowing the number of course our guest were going to have, we opted to make them bite size using chines soup spoons-- this was an experiment that will return.

 We also did the grape leaves the night before.  We learned an important lesson that when using fresh grape leaves you want to pick them earlier in the season.

The grape eaves were on the table waiting for the guest as their foist course when they came up from enjoying appetizers and scotch downstairs by the wood-oven and fireplace.

 Scotch Gravlax is so incredibly simple to make, and is incredibly impressive.  To make Gravlas you place a salmon filet in  your freezer until it is stiff not frozen (this allows for thinner slicing).  You then drizzle a generous amount of the scotch of your choosing, some salt, sugar, and dill, as well as some lemon juice.  Let it sit for over night.  I will turn it over after several hours and repeat the above process.

The gravlax was served on top of a Latkah (potato pancake, a dollop of sour cream, and fresh chive for garnish)

Chuck created an incredible mac and cheese that we cooked in the wood-oven.  This was a last minute idea, but was one of the favorite appetizers of the night.  Knowing that the tasting was going to include 15 different scotches, we thought a little mac and cheese on empty stomachs might do well before dinner...we were right!

 Marmalade onion and gorgonzola pizza with balsamic reduction has become one of my favorite pizzas to serve.

The night was broken into four tastings, giving our guest the opportunity to enjoy appetizers and the fellowship of friends.

No celebration is complete with the sabering of a champagne bottle.  

For the main course after the grape leaves, pumpkin soup, gravlax on latkes,

our guest enjoyed steaks with port butter.

(Port butter has now become a required condiment in my household after making it for this dinner and having left-over butter.  In a future blog, I will have my friend Chuck share how he makes this great addition to any steak or prime rib.

The final course before dessert was a simple salad of charred hearts of romain

A Return to Safe Harbor: St. Elmo’s Revisited

I guess it was only appropriate that we returned to St. Elmo's in Indianapolis for a second shot at this award winning restaurant. After all, St. Elmo himself is the patron saint of sailors, and every sailor wishes for a safe return.  

Our second trip to this James Beard award winner was nothing short of phenomenal.  On this visit our son Greg and his girlfriend Larissa  accompanied us.  Our 8:00 reservations allowed time to enjoy a pre-dinner glass of wine at the Conrad Hilton with it being just a five-minute walk away, and the relaxing stroll to the restaurant set the stage for a delightful evening to come.

Our waiter was Vladimir, a young Serbian who has worked at St Elmo's for eight years and has his level one-sommelier designation.  Vladimir will go down in history as the first waiter and/or sommelier to not only be given my new value and price wine challenge, but to have passed it with flying colors. The value price challenge is to explain to the waiter that you recognize the difference between value being what something is worth, and price being what you pay.  Furthermore, the challenge conveys that you also recognize that one need not spend a small fortune on a truly enjoyable bottle of wine.  With that said, the question becomes what is the sleeper on the wine list or hidden wine in their cellar which is a phenomenal value for the price?  I told him that he did not have to answer the question right away, but to let me know what he would recommend.  His immediate recommendation was a Frank Family Vineyards 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon.  The official tasting notes say:

Frank Family Vineyards 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon has an enticing nose of blackberries, bay leaf and graphite; on the palate the wine is full bodied, and reminisce of cocoa-dusted dark chocolate truffles, cloves and blackberries.

This wine has also earned a 91 by Robert Parker rating, and true to the question, my research indicates the mark-up was less then what I would normally expect from a restaurant - A+ to Vladimir.

Jacque, Larissa, and Greg all started off with the only appetizer on the menu, their world famous shrimp cocktails.  Kudos to Jacque and Larissa for manning up to the challenge of the nostril clearing horseradish-laced cocktail sauce.  With eyes watering and nostrils clearing, they both claimed the pain to be almost addicting.

For our soup and salad course Jacque had the new to the menu Lobster Bisque, which was a marriage of sweet creaminess with an abundance of large chunks of lobster.  Greg and Larissa shared the Chopped BLT.  I really appreciate a restaurant that splits a salad before it comes to the table when they know it is being shared, as St. Elmo’s did for us this night.  I had to have the Sliced Tomatoes and Onions in a House Vinaigrette with Gorgonzola Cheese.  The vinaigrette was awesome and they did not spare any of the Gorgonzola…this has to be one of my all-time favorite salads, and this one has to be one of the best I’ve ever had.

For our main courses, both Larissa and Greg went for the smaller of the Filets offered, while I had the 60 day Dry Aged New York, and Jacque had a half order of the Lobster Tails – two eight ounce tails is a lot of food!  The kids really enjoyed their steaks done to a perfect medium rare.  Greg had the baked potato as his side and it reminded me of the time a friend of mine sent me a 50lb box of the most perfect Idaho potatoes.  The spud on Greg’s plate was the perfect shape, perfect color brown, and was loaded with just about everything you could imagine putting on a potato.  Fantastic!

Jacque also had a baked potato as her side, and Larissa and I both went for the Green Beans Sautéed with Peppers and Onions.  I also ordered a side of Mushrooms and Spinach for the table to share.  When we return to St. Elmo’s - (which will be on May 14^th to celebrate Greg’s graduation from Wabash) - I am ordering the spinach as my side – it was awesome!

My 60-Day Dry Aged New York was great!  I have been toying with dry-aging beef at home using the Umai bags, and have fallen in love with the flavor of dry-aged meat. I personally prefer the meat to stand alone, especially when it has been dry-aged, but to St. Elmo’s credit they served me an awesome steak at a price less than you would normally pay for dry-aged steaks.  A special thanks again to Vladimir for saving me from eating the whole thing and bagging it up before I regretted it!

For dessert it was Sugar Pie and Crème Brulee with plenty of spoons for sharing.  Sugar Pie goes by several other names like Hoosier Sugar Cream Pie, Indiana Cream Pie, and Tarte au Sucre, but no matter what you call it the basic ingredients are flour, butter, vanilla, and cream…gee, where is the Lipitor?!

Dinner was great, but what made this night extra special, besides getting to share it with our son Greg and his girlfriend Larissa, was the tour Vladimir gave us after dinner.  We are reserved to have Greg’s graduation party at St. Elmo’s on Sunday May 14^th, the evening of his graduation from Wabash College.  We have the Wine Cellar reserved for our festivities, and I requested that Vladimir let us take a quick peek.  Prior to the peek in the wine cellar private dining room, Vladimir brought us into the true wine cellar where they keep the vast inventory of fine wines that St. Elmo’s offers on their wine list.  As a wine lover, it was exhilarating just to look around and be surrounded by so many great bottles of the fruit of the vine.

It was only after our wine tour, that Vladimir inquired if we knew about the lounge on the top floor.  I thought he was referring to the bar when you entered the restaurant, but it was then that he informed us that there is a lounge that has the feel of a speak-easy.  It is called the 1933 Lounge, and was the perfect cap off to a great evening.  We all enjoyed another beverage while enjoying some local music.

Thank you again St. Elmo’s, and thank you Vladimir for a great evening…looking forward to our return in May!

The Joys of the Empty Nest

The Joys of the Empty Nest

(photo from Google search) 

“Hey…you want to take a drive up to Canada and have dinner?”

This was the beginning of a great evening and a wonderful dining experience.  Jacque had just returned from dropping Greg off in Spokane for his return to Wabash College, and we had our empty nest back.  Some couples find this challenging, but for Jacque and me, while we love, and adore our two boys and couldn’t be prouder of them, we relish the life and relationship we have together.

Living just 40 miles south of the Okanagan Valley, Canada’s premier wine growing area, we have become very familiar with several of the wineries in what is referred to as the “Palm Springs of Canada”.  The wineries, or at least the associates at several of the wineries, have also become familiar with us. (Not sure it is a good thing when a local food server recognizes us from her other job at one of our favorite wineries “Church and State”.)

                                 

                                          (Remember the Canadian Dollar Discount)

With temperatures hitting almost triple digits, we opted for Terrafina, (http://www.terrafinarestaurant.com), which is situated on the west side of the valley and has a patio protected by grape vines, making it a nice cool setting even on the hottest of days. 

                                                            (photo from Google search)

We started off with the Wagyu Beef Carpaccio with chipotle caper aioli, carrot chips, sprouts arugula, crispy capers, and parmesan.  Awesome dish! The Wagyu beef was great, but I really enjoyed and could not get enough of the carrot chips and crispy capers.

For our main courses, Jacque opted for the Prawn and Manila Clam Pasta, with chorizo - (yes chorizo, the Mexican sausage) - basil pesto cream, asiago arugula, and baby zucchini.   The chorizo gave the dish an interesting amount of heat and flavor, truly knocking up this dish to level 10.

I opted for the special which was Okanagan Summer Vegetable Insalata, passing on the other special of the night - a 40 ounce bone in rib eye which the waitress had suggested was designed to be shared.  This nice summery dish was the perfect combination of confit garlic emulsion, oyster mushrooms, baby zucchini, shallots, tomato, fennel, carrots, and cukes.  Jacque was a little surprised when I ordered this, but the real surprise was on me in how much I enjoyed this as my meal…though it left me still a little hungry.

Wanting to not ruin the theme of my nice healthy meal, I suggested that Jacque and I share the dessert cheese platter.  The cheeses were a real treat, but it was not the typical European idea of cheese for dessert.  It was more of an appetizer cheese platter as it was garnished with olives and pickled carrots.  Again we enjoyed the cheeses, but for a dessert cheese platter, I would expect maybe some chutney or jams, possibly some dried fruits, or freshly sliced Okanagan apples.  With that said, it was a great finish to our meal. 

We capped the evening off with a glass each of the Hester Creek Late Harvest, and then I had the perfect espresso before the drive home.  An additional treat was the approximate 23% discount we got on the bill due to the current exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the Canadian dollar – everything in Canada is on sale right now!

It is no wonder that Terrafina is listed for the South Okanagan as the “Best Winery Restaurant” according to Okanagan Life magazine. We will be back!

I highly recommend Terrafina at Hester Creek Winery in Oliver.  We have enjoyed many meals there in the past and look forward to great experiences in the future.

Is this Potato Soup...No it is Cauliflower!

A while back I discovered an incredibly simple and versatile cauliflower soup that you can make in under thirty minutes…tonight’s dinner was yet another rendition of a favorite healthy standby.

The soup itself is simple:

1 head cauliflower broken into florets. Use the whole head except for the greens

3-4 cloves garlic

¼ cup olive oil

1 sweet onion -sliced

1 tablespoon Herbs de Provence and or fresh herbs 

Salt and pepper to taste

1 32oz box of Chicken or Vegetable broth

1 cup dry white wine (optional – I skipped it tonight)

 

Place the onion and garlic in soup pot and cook onion until soft and translucent.  Then add the cauliflower and cook with onions and garlic for a few minutes before adding the broth.  You can use either chicken or vegetable, I prefer Safeway store organic generic brand.  Once you add the broth cook at medium with herbs in a covered pot until the cauliflower is soft – not mushy. 

Move soup to blender in and puree until smooth and creamy – don’t try to do it all at one time.  Return the soup to your pot and put on simmer.  Add salt (garlic or celery salt can add variety to the taste) and pepper to taste.

Now this is where you can start having fun.  In the past I have added everything from bay shrimp and chimichurri sauce, croutons and shredded cheddar cheese, smoked turkey, crumbled bacon, shredded chicken and diced chilies, a drizzle of truffle oil to really dress it up.  You can let your imagination and taste buds run wild or you can have the soup as is.

 

Tonight I browned some ground turkey with paprika, cumin, herbs provenience, garlic salt, and pepper.  I placed a spoonful or so in the middle the ladled soup and garnished with fresh hot and spicy oregano from my herb garden.  Jacque added a little Parmesan cheese to hers, and I added my new favorite hot sauce – Trader Joe’s Green Dragon Sauce.

This is a super fun, versatile soup that some might mistake as potato soup.  The big positive is, it is just as filling but lacks the calories. 

Note: I have also served this a chilled soup.