Category: recipe

I came up with this recipe for the 2017 Georgia Organics conference. It’s a great meal idea for meatless Mondays, and a perfect way to showcase some of Georgia’s fine winter produce.

Produce from the farmers market tends to have so much flavor! A couple of things to keep in mind:

• The smaller the leaves on a bunch of collard greens, the better the collards. Small bunches are usually what’s sold at a local market. They will take less time to cook because they are more tender, and they won’t be bitter!
• Also, fingerling sweet potatoes from a local farm shouldn’t even be in the same category flavor-wise as a store bought sweet potato. Try it once and you’ll agree.

Sweet Potato, Quinoa and Collard Green Grain Bowl

yields 4 servings

Place the quinoa, veggie stock and sesame oil in a medium saucepot . Add a little salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Cover with a lid and continue to cook until all the liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes.

Heat the fry oil to 350 degrees in a medium sauce pot. In a small bowl mix together all ingredients for the sauce. Set aside.

In the meantime, heat a large cast iron skillet on medium heat and add 1 tbs of butter. Once hot, add the sliced sweet potatoes, season with salt and pepper and cook without stirring for 4 minutes. If the potatoes are nice and golden brown, flip them over and continue to cook without stirring for another 4 minutes, cooking until they are golden brown and tender all the way through.

Place 2 tbs of butter in a medium sized dutch oven on medium heat. Add the diced onion and garlic and saute until tender and translucent, about 4 minutes. Add the chopped collard greens, along with the tamari, chili paste, and sweet garlic chili sauce. Cook until tender, adding as much veggie stock as needed. Season with salt and pepper. Young collards should take about 10 minutes to cook, older ones take longer because they are tough and fibrous.

Combine the tahini with about 1/2 a cup of water, whisking vigorously until the consistency is that of egg wash. Dip the cauliflower in the tahini mixture and then coat with the rice flour. Fry until golden brown and cooked through, about 4 minutes. Drizzle with the garlic/ginger sauce.

To assemble, divide the quinoa between 4 bowls, then assemble the sweet potatoes, collard greens and fried cauliflower on top of the quinoa in separate piles. Sprinkle with green onions and peanuts.

Wild rice soup is a relatively new obsession for me. It’s beyond satisfying and a great cold weather staple. Be careful with store bought versions if you are gluten free because a lot of them add flour!

But why flour? Doesn’t it make sense to thicken a rice soup with RICE? I’m pretty sure the only reason why most people add flour is because it’s more readily available than sweet rice flour. I order my sweet rice flour and my Minnesota wild rice online.

Here’s an exciting bit of news for you. You can use sweet rice flour as a one to one substitute anytime a recipe calls for a roux, which is a thickener made of equal parts flour and butter. Yes, this means you can easily make a gravy without adding weird ingredients like xantham gum!

Here’s what your rice should look like once it’s absorbed enough liquid.

Wild Rice Soup

8 tbs butter

1 cup pancetta, small diced

1 cup yellow onion, small diced

1 cup carrots, small diced

1 tbs garlic

½ cup sweet rice flour

6 cups chicken stock, hot

5 dry shiitake mushrooms

1 1/2 cups wild rice

4 tbs slivered almonds, chopped

1 cup heavy cream

4 tbs dry sherry

Fresh chopped parsley or chives for garnish (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

Place the wild rice and 4 cups of water in a pot, season with a little salt and pepper. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer. Cook until the rice is very tender, the grain should look like it burst open, showing the tender inside. This will take about 35 minutes.

Heat your chicken stock in a sauce pot.

Melt the butter in a medium sized dutch oven or heavy bottomed sauce pot. Add the pancetta, and cook on medium heat for 8 minutes. Pancetta should be starting to get crispy at this point. Now add the onions, carrots and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally until the onions start to become translucent, about 6 minutes.

Add the sweet rice flour and stir to combine with the ingredients in the pot. Add the hot chicken stock and dry shiitake mushrooms to the soup pot. Allow to come to a boil, stirring occasionally. Once it has boiled it will thicken. Pull the re-hydrated shiitakes out of the soup, let them cool and then slice them thinly. Add them back to the pot. Then add the rice, almonds, cream and sherry. Stir to combine, season with salt and pepper and serve.

I adapted this recipe from one I learned when I worked at the Ritz-Carlton Dining Room. I have to admit I’ve spotted this tart on a lot of menus around Atlanta since then. The original recipe has probably been circulated around so much because it is the best. Chef Bruno Menard came up with it, and his father is a very well respected chocolatier in France, and from what I could tell from working with him, a love for chocolate ran in the family.

I had two little problems with his recipe. The first problem was, it called for glucose. Not the worst of the inverted sugars, honestly, but I still wanted to try to avoid it. Maple syrup was the substitute I settled on, and I like it because instead of being an empty sugar, maple syrup provides vitamins and minerals such as calcium, magnesium and b6. On to problem number 2: it needed a crust. Originally, this dessert was “composed,” meaning it had an ice cream quinelle, a cocoa nib tuile, a wafer, and a small stick of tempered chocolate complete with a little piece of gold leaf waving like a flag off the end of it. Beautiful in the settings of a five star five diamond dining room, but I wanted something a little more rustic. So I developed a nut based crust not only for nutritive value, but because I think it stands up better than a flour crust could to the intense richness of that chocolate ganache filling.

Caramel Chocolate Tart with Pecan Crust

Crust:

¾ cup raw pecans

¾ cup almond flour

½ cup unsweetened shredded coconut

3 tbs soft butter

2 tbs maple syrup

pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 325*.

Pulse the pecans in a food processor until they reach a fine crumb consistency. Combine the ground pecans, almond flour, unsweetened coconut and salt in a large bowl. Add the soft butter and maple syrup, and mix until combined using a rubber spatula.

Line a 9 inch tart pan with the crust mixture, making sure it’s an even thickness all around. Bake until golden brown, about 10 to 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow the crust to cool completely before filling it.

Chocolate Tart:

3/4 cup sugar

2 tbs water

1 lemon wedge

1 cup heavy cream

1 tbs maple syrup

1 tsp of sea salt

1 ¼ cup dark chocolate, chopped

2 1/2 oz butter, diced

First make a caramel by placing the sugar in a small sauce pot with the water. Squeeze the lemon juice into the sugar (this will prevent the caramel from crystalizing).  Melt the sugar over medium heat and continue to cook until it turns a rich golden brown color. It will be extremely hot, do not touch it with your fingers. Add the heavy cream, cane syrup and pinch of salt. Stir until combined.

Place the chopped chocolate in a mixing bowl. Pour the caramel cream over the chocolate and gently stir. Once the chocolate and cream are combined add the butter, one chunk at a time. Pour into the prepared tart mold and refrigerate. Once chilled it is ready to serve.