GardenFork – Eclectic DIY

Tag: Recipes

  • Balsamic Vinegar Dressing Recipe GF TV

    Balsamic Vinegar Dressing Recipe GF TV

    Here’s a simple balsamic vinegar dressing recipe that you can make in 10 seconds. And here’s a video to show you how to make salad dressing. This salad dressing recipe follows most others, except for a secret flavor boosting ingredient! Watch the salad dressing video to see what the ingredient is.

    Store bought salad dressings are usually too sweet, and are full of calories and cheap vegetable oil. We call it ‘glop’, because that’s what it looks like. Using simple ingredients, Eric’s oil and vinegar dressing blows away this store bought stuff.

    This salad dressing is a vinaigrette, an emulsion of oil and vinegar bound together with mustard. You can use deli, brown, or dijon mustard. You can also use ground mustard, but use less than you would of the wet mustard.

    I’m thinking we should do a series of videos about salad dressings. This balsamic vinaigrette is our mainstay, but I’d like to experiment with miso based dressings, and make one of those carrot ginger dressings, like the one at DoJo in New York City. I’ve bought jarred carrot ginger dressing, but it doesn’t taste the same as the stuff we get in the restaurant.

    Eric’s Version of the Balsamic Vinegar Dressing Recipe

    Ingredients
    •    1 tablespoon Brown or Dijon Mustard
    •    4 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
    •    1 tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar
    •    1 dash Worcestershire Sauce
    •    pinch salt & pepper
    Cooking Directions
    1. put the mustard in a large salad bowl, add the olive oil, vinegar, Worcestershire Sauce, salt and pepper.
    2. whisk the ingredients together with a fork or whisk.
    3. add salad greens to bowl and toss, then add additional salad items and toss again.
    4. serve in individual bowls.

    Mayonnaise Recipe Yum! How to make Mayonnaise

  • Easy Leftover Turkey Soup Recipe – GF Video

    Easy Leftover Turkey Soup Recipe – GF Video

    After making a deep fried turkey, make this easy leftover turkey soup recipe the next day. Watch our video to learn how.

    My turkey soup recipe, A few thoughts:

    • Use what you got, in other words, if you don’t have carrots, use potatoes.
    • Celery and Onion are key, and you should keep celery in the fridge anyway.
    • This cooks down in about an hour.

    Easy Turkey Soup Recipe

    I can’t say I invented this Thanksgiving leftovers recipe, but it seemed like an obvious thing to do the day after the big holiday meal. But you can do this anytime you deep fry a turkey, and I think we all should cook turkey a lot more. Its a huge amount of food for the price of a turkey. BTW, you can also roast a turkey in the oven, if that’s your thing. We did a video about that here.

    Easy Turkey Soup Recipe

    One GF fan suggested cooking down the soup in one of those pasta pots that have a strainer insert. You could cook the vegetables in the pot, then put in the strainer and add in the turkey parts. That way you could pull out all the bones at once, then separate the meat, and boom you are done.

    It helps to use an oversized pasta pot for this turkey soup recipe. The pot I used had turkey and stock up to the rim and it made it easy to spill. I have about 3 pasta pots in the basement, but I blanked on that when cooking this. Note to self.

    Keep in mind that if you put in a lot of celery, that flavor will be more pronounced after a night in the fridge. The second time we heated up the soup for dinner, you could really taste the celery above the carrots. But I love celery so that was ok with me.

    The videos I talked about this video:  How To Deep Fry A Turkey     Build a DIY Mini Greenhouse

    Easy Turkey Soup Recipe

     

  • How To Cook Grilled Steak – GF Video

    How To Cook Grilled Steak – GF Video

    Simplest recipe I’ve found for how to cook grilled steak is to cook steak directly on charcoal. Watch our how to video and get the recipe below.

     

    How to cook grilled steak directly on charcoal

    Key here is the steak you choose. I like the strip steak. Here they call them NY strip steaks, and the work best with the bone-in. I happen to get these on sale, which was a bonus. You will probably have to ask the butcher to cut you thick steaks. I rarely see thick steaks pre-packaged. These are 1 1/2″ thick. I think thin steaks will not work well with this. You can cook thicker steaks too. The NY Times suggests charring on both sides and then cooking them on a grill if you prefer.

    How To Cook Grilled Steak

    Ideally, you will coat the steaks in the dry rub and leave it on overnight or as long as you can. I did these the same day and they were fine, but planning ahead helps. As you know, I am not great at planning…

    How To Cook Grilled Steak

    Chunk Charcoal, aka hardwood charcoal is the only way to cook grilled steak, you don’t want to use charcoal briquettes. Not sure what briquettes have in them, but chunk charcoal is just wood. You will want two chimneys of wood charcoal. Be careful with the chimneys, I almost melted one of them, the charcoal got so hot.

    How To Cook Grilled Steak

    I found a baking pan worked much better than putting the coals in the bottom of a grill. Made it much easier to work the rig and check the temperature of the steak. When laying the steaks on the coals, plan ahead so you can flip the steak over onto fresh coals. This isn’t a must do thing, but I found it helpful. I was able to cook two strip steaks at a time in a 9×13 pan.

    How do you cook grilled steak? Let me know in the comments below.

    Grilled Steak Dry Rub
    Author: Eric Rochow
    Prep time:
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    This dry rub recipe to cook grilled steak is based on an article from the NY Times by Matt and Ted Lee and Tim Byres of Smoke Restaurant in Dallas Texas.
    Ingredients
    • 2 TBSP of Pimenton Picante, a spanish smoked paprika
    • 2 TBSP Ground Cumin
    • 2 TBSP kosher salt
    • 1/4 cup brown sugar
    • 1/4 cup ground coffee – i used a medium roast set for drip coffee grind, use what you got
    Instructions
    1. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, break up the brown sugar with a fork or your hands.
    2. Put the steak on a flat dish and dust the both sides of the steak with the dry rub, patting it onto the steak with a spoon or flat metal spatula, use what you got.
    3. Turn the steak onto its sides and roll it to get the dry rub onto the edges of the steak.
    4. Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge overnight.
    5. Let the steak warm up before putting on grill.
    6. Its ok if you don’t do the overnight rub, you can put it on shortly before you grill the steaks also.
    7. This dry rub will coat about 3 steaks.

     

  • Carrot Salad Recipe with Sunflower Seeds – GF Video

    Carrot Salad Recipe with Sunflower Seeds – GF Video

    Here’s a carrot salad recipe that’s better than the usual one. No raisins, this one adds toasted sunflower or pumpkin seeds, which works great for me, and I wanted to share it with you.




    Many carrot recipes fail for me, they are too sweet and don’t have the best ingredients in them. This one climbs the ladder, and it should, considering the recipe came from a french bakery cookbook.

    A friend of mine works at the Rose Bakery in NYC, and I tried their carrot salad, and then bought their well done cookbook, Breakfast, Lunch, Tea. This a variation on their carrot salad recipe. They suggest olive oil or sunflower oil for the dressing, I opted for canola. I think olive oil would not work with this, but now that I am writing this, I am wondering if I should try it with olive oil.

    Time to grate some more carrots.

    And on grating carrots – use the food processor, not a box grater. The box grater I have only has large holes for grating, and I don’t like how the carrots look after going through the large holes of the grater. I use the smallest holes of the discs that came with my food processor, and whipped through a bunch of carrots in record time. In the video you can see just how fast and how nice the grated carrot looks.

    When adding the dressing to the carrots, you might want to drain off some of the dressing if it collects in the bottom of the bowl. I found I had too much dressing for the amount of carrots I grated. But this is all eye of the beholder stuff, if you like a lot of dressing, leave it in. I used sunflower seeds in this version, but pumpkin seeds will work also. The small pumpkin seeds, pepitas, are good. The large ones won’t work, I think.



    Carrot Salad Recipe with Sunflower Seeds
    Prep time:
    Total time:
    A nice summer picnic or BBQ side dish, this is adapted from the Rose Bakery cook book.
    Ingredients
    • 8 carrots finely grated in food processor
    • 1 cup pumpkin or sunflower seeds toasted
    • 1/2 cup chopped chives or scallion greens
    • 1/2 cup lemon juice – its ok to use bottled juice
    • 3 tablespoons canola oil
    • 1 tablespoon super fine sugar
    • salt & pepper for dressing
    Instructions
    1. Grate the carrots, and toast the seeds, combine carrots and seeds in a bowl with the chives.
    2. Whisk the lemon juice with the sugar and some salt and pepper. Its best if the lemon juice is warm, so the sugar dissolves well. Mix in the oil to complete the dressing.
    3. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss. If too much dressing collects in the bottom, you might want to pour off some of the dressing, saving it for some other food project.
    4. Taste and add salt and pepper to suite your taste. Be careful with the salt, you can’t undo too much salt.

     

  • Easy Maple Baked Beans Recipe Video

    Easy Maple Baked Beans Recipe Video

    We just finished the maple syrup season, so its time for our easy maple baked beans recipe. You can use canned beans for this or cook some beans in your pressure cooker. There aren’t a ton of ingredients to this, but the few ingredients combine to make this perfect for a BBQ side dish.

    A viewer suggested the other day that our homemade maple syrup evaporator could be used as a DIY meat smoker, and that provided the easy connection to make baked beans with maple syrup.

    I’ve been to plenty of BBQ places across the U.S.A., and some of the baked beans I’ve been served are not great. I want them to be slightly sweet with some baked tomato flavor, and not too soupy. I’ve seen and eaten a wide range of them, and my easy maple baked beans recipe reflects what I like in a baked bean recipe.

    A good potluck dinner recipe, these beans should be served on a paper plate in your friend’s backyard on one of those red stained wood picnic tables. Or at least one made out of pallets… ( more DIY pallet videos coming )

    easy maple baked beans recipe

    I baked these beans in a seasoned cast iron dutch oven. Learn how to season cast iron here. I think its the perfect vessel for this dish. Its got a nice carrying handle, and the thick walls keep the heat even. And drop that puppy on a potluck table and it looks so much better than those plastic food storage containers, right?

    A lot of recipes call for molasses or brown sugar, or both. I am not big on super sweet beans, and the maple syrup works well, I think. 1/2 cup of syrup does well for me. I would not suggest adding any more, but again, its a personal thing. The canned beans are cannelini beans, but any white bean works here – you could even use lima beans – which has now got me thinking about a lima bean baked dish.

    The small can of tomato paste stands in for ketchup. I LOVE ketchup, especially on meatloaf, but these beans are better without it.
    Here are a variety of cast iron dutch ovens to check out:

     

    Easy Maple Baked Beans Recipe Video
    Author: Eric Rochow
    Prep time:
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    A perfect segue from the Maple Syrup season to the BBQ season, baked beans work in winter and summer, perfect potluck dinner recipe or just because you love baked beans like I do.
    Ingredients
    • 2 29 oz cans of white beans – northern, cannelini, small whites.
    • 1 6 oz can tomato paste
    • 1 medium onion chopped medium
    • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
    • 2 tablespoons brown or good deli mustard
    • 1/2 cup real maple syrup
    • 5 strips of bacon, thick cut is preferred
    Instructions
    1. Drain the liquid from one of the cans of cooked beans.
    2. Roughly chop the onion.
    3. Cut or Slice 3 of the bacon strips into 1/2″ pieces. Cook in a fry pan while preparing the dutch oven.
    4. Put about 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat or vegetable oil in the dutch oven on the stovetop.
    5. Add in the onion and cook, you want the onion to start to brown and be kinda clear.
    6. Put in the two cans of beans, reserving the drained liquid from one of the cans.
    7. Add the tomato paste, Worchestershire, mustard, maple syrup.
    8. Add in the cooked bacon and mix together the ingredients.
    9. At this point, see how much liquid is in the pot, the liquid should not be above the beans. The top layer of beans should be just above the liquid.
    10. Add more bean liquid if the liquid level is too low.
    11. Lay the remaining uncooked bacon across the top of the bean mix.
    12. Set the oven to 350F and cook covered for 30-40 minutes. Check at 30 minutes, if its not bubbling, cook a bit longer.
    13. Take the lid off the beans, turn on the oven broiler, and put the beans about 6″ below the broiler for 10 minutes, when the top starts to brown, its done.
  • Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges Recipe Video

    Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges Recipe Video

    This Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges recipe is one of those overlooked but super easy dishes that makes me realize how simple it is to cook with what’s already in the kitchen. These sweet potatoes are dusted with a bit of cinnamon to give them even more of a earthy warm flavor that offsets their natural sweetness. Watch our recipe video and then tell us your sweet potato recipes in the comments below.

    When I first made this recipe, I added too much cinnamon, so I dialed it back for the recipe. You can add more if you like, but I suggest starting with a small amount. I was surprised at how such a small amount of a spice can overwhelm something like a sweet potato, but it can, as I learned. And I’m always learning.

    The same thing goes for the  honey, less is a lot in this recipe, and too much and it will burn on the potato wedges. I’m repeating myself here, but please try to get local honey, or at least honey that is from the U.S. . Honey can be adulterated, like olive oil. If you don’t have honey, a bit of maple syrup works or brown sugar, or just leave out the sweetener and it will taste great.

    You may want to double this batch, as this recipe makes one sheet of roasted sweet potato wedges, and it depends on who you are feeding as to how much you should make. I like to line my cookie pan with foil, it makes clean up easier, but please recycle the foil, ok? Then we can use it again.

    Roasted Sweet Potato Recipe

    Roasted Sweet Potato Wedges Recipe

    2 large or 3 medium sweet potatoes, washed and skin on

    1-2 tablespoons of olive oil

    1/2 teaspoon salt

    4-5 grinds of black pepper

    1 tablespoon honey

    1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

    Cut the sweet potatoes in half lengthwise, from end to end, so the potatoes will lay flat on a cutting board.

    Cut the sweet potatoes into half circles about 1/4″ thick.

    Put in a bowl large enough toss them in. This bowl is larger than you think.

    Add in the oil, salt, pepper, honey, and cinnamon.

    Use a rubber spatula or similar tool to toss the ingredients together, scraping the sides of the bowl to get the seasonings onto the potatoes.

    Scatter the wedges on a foil covered baking sheet, its OK if the potatoes overlap a bit.

    Turn on the oven to 375F and roast the potatoes for about 45 min.

    They are done with a knife slides into the wedges easily.

    These are best served warm or hot, they aren’t great colder.

    Turn the oven on to 375F

  • Cabbage & Apples with Salmon Recipe – From The Fridge

    Cabbage & Apples with Salmon Recipe – From The Fridge

    I’m trying to cook more from the refrigerator, as I always have something in there I can cook with. If I was more organized I could plan dinners, but that happens rarely. Instead I keep a stock of stuff I like to cook with, and go from there. But the fridge was looking kinda empty and there was this half a cabbage in there with some apples that were going soft.

    cabbage-apples-with-salmon-2

    So I put some chopped onion into the pan and then added in the apple and cabbage. The apples will disappear in the mix, adding that applesauce kind of taste to the dish. I remembered from a Facebook conversation we had awhile ago, some people suggested caraway seed, and I had that from a bread baking experiment.

    cabbage apples recipe

    I first covered the pan of cabbage to let it steam and break down the leaves a bit. This also softened the  apples. And I could walk around doing other stuff, as the water that sweats out keeps the pan from burning. After the cabbage has broken down nicely you can remove the lid and let it start to brown.

    I read recently where you shouldn’t let cabbage cook too long or it will have a mustardy smell, I have not experienced that.

    cabbage-apples-with-salmon

    I always keep frozen salmon in the freezer. It defrosts quickly using our How To Defrost Meat Quickly video technique. I put it under the broiler for a few minutes. I am good at over-cooking salmon, so I have to focus, which can be a challenge.

     

    Cabbage With Apples Recipe

    1/2 head cabbage, chopped up

    2 apples, sliced with skin on, its OK if they are soft

    1 medium onion, roughly chopped up

    2 teaspoons caraway seeds.

     

    Put a few glugs of oil into your pan. You want the whole pan to be covered with about 1/8″ of oil.

    Drop in the onions and cook down a bit until you can they become kinda transparent.

    Add in the cabbage and the apples, scatter some salt on it,  mix it all up, and cover.

    Set on medium or low heat, depending on how your stove works. You want the dish to steam-cook, not burn.

    Give the dish a stir every 5 minutes or so, chopping up any hunks of cabbage.

    When the cabbage has broken down to your liking, take off the lid and brown the cabbage.

    Taste for salt, it may need more, and then you’re done.

     

  • Pressure Cooker Polenta Recipe – GF Video

    Pressure Cooker Polenta Recipe – GF Video

    Here’s our pressure cooker polenta recipe, and it couldn’t be easier, but that’s why we love the pressure cooker.
     

     
    Polenta doesn’t have to be hard to cook. So many people think to make polenta you have to stand over the stove and constantly stir the polenta in a sauce pan for hours and that’s not true. You can use your pressure cooker to make polenta quickly and easily and you don’t have to stir it.

    Our pressure cooker polenta recipe is based on one from Lorna Sass who has several pressure cooker cookbooks I have her Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure book and I like it

    This is a great example of how a pressure cooker can make things go much faster in the kitchen and they taste great of course polenta always taste really good with butter and cheese I especially like pecorino reminder cheese with the polenta

    pressure cooker polenta recipe

    I usually make a double batch of polenta because I like to take the leftover polenta and pour it into an oiled loaf pan to make grilled polenta slices the next day would you can fry up for breakfast lunch or dinner they taste great anytime do you have a favorite polenta recipe or do you use polenta in a dish that you make I like to hear about that in the comments below.

    Watch our Microwave and Stovetop Polenta Recipe Video here:

    polenta recipe video

    Grilled Polenta goes great with a simple tomato sauce, vegetables, or Braised Short Ribs.

    pressure cooker polenta recipe

     

    Pressure Cooker Polenta Recipe

    Quick polenta recipe that doesn’t require constant stirring that uses a pressure cooker. I’ve cooked polenta many ways and i think this pressure cooker recipe is the best and easiest way to do it.

    Ingredients

    • 1 cup
      Polenta or Corn Grits
    • 4 1/2 cups
      water
    • 1 teaspoon
      salt

    Cooking Directions

    1. Take your polenta, also called corn grits and put in the pressure cooker
    2. Add the 4 1/2 cups of water and salt.
    3. Close the pressure cooker and lock the lid.
    4. Bring up to high pressure, and then cook for 5 minutes.
    5. Take the pressure cooker off the heat and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes, allowing for a natural release
    6. When you open the pressure cooker, the polenta needs to be mixed together, best tool for that is a whisk.
    7. If you want to make polenta slices, pour the cooked polenta into an oiled loaf pan and cool overnight.

  • Lentils Recipe with Carrots and Coriander Video

    Lentils Recipe with Carrots and Coriander Video

    Here’s a lentils recipe we make often when its cold. I call it wow winter comfort food. I don’t remember the first time I had lentils but I’m pretty sure it was probably a can of Progresso lentil soup, which is not the worst thing, but again it wasn’t the greatest thing. But now you can make the greatest thing: a lentils recipe with carrots and coriander.

    I’m not a vegetarian, but this is a vegetarian and vegan recipe, and that doesn’t mean it doesn’t tast great. It tastes more than great. Wow winter comfort food. I’m pretty sure I read about the addition of coriander seeds first in the NY Times, Martha Rose Shulman has written about lentils there.

    There are many different kinds of lentils, for this recipe, I like to use the Goya Pardina lentils. You could also use French green lentils or just a regular round brown lentils. The brown lentils tend to break apart, but then, that’s what that kind of lentil is supposed to do. I recently went to an Indian food market, and there were shelves with all kinds of lentils. They are called Dal by the way, so don’t ask for lentils, just look for Dal, OK?

    Lentils Recipe

    Canada, interestingly enough, produces the most lentils in the world. India is the second biggest grower, understandably. Lentils are a great protein source and has good fiber, besides tasking great. Green lentils have more fiber than red lentils, FYI, according to Wikipedia.

    The secret to this dish is coriander seed coriander powder or ground coriander you want coriander seed would you contact might have to search all of it if you have a Indian grocery store or a light room foods grocery store coriander seed little later

    Coriander seeds are like little flavor bombs. This is one of those simple recipes where the sum is greater than the ingredients.

    Lentils Recipe with Carrots and Coriander

    Lentils Recipe with Carrots and Coriander Video
    Recipe Type: Vegetarian
    Prep time:
    Cook time:
    Total time:
    Serves: [url:1][img:1]
    Healthy lentils make a great weekday dinner.
    Ingredients
    • 1 cup pardino or green lentils, if possible
    • One medium onion, chopped as you like, not super fine.
    • 1 heaping tablespoon coriander seeds
    • One lb bag of carrots chopped into 1-2″ pieces
    Instructions
    1. Pour a few glugs of vegetable oil into a medium pot, you want to coat the bottom of the pot, and not a thin coat either.
    2. Drop in the chopped onions when the oil is hot.
    3. After about 5 minutes, add in the coriander
    4. Brown the onions until they are clear and the edges are getting the burn brown look to them.
    5. At the same time, in a medium small saucepan, bring 2 1/4 cups of water to a boil.
    6. Rinse the lentils, and when the water is boiling, add in the lentils.
    7. Set the lentils to simmer covered.
    8. When the onions are cooked down to your liking, add in the lentils and chopped carrots, and cover the pot and simmer for 20 minutes.
    9. Take off the lid of the pot, and allow the liquid to cook down a bit.
    10. Check the lentils, they should not be crunchy.
    11. Add salt, mustard, and vinegar to your taste.

    Lentils Recipe With Carrots

     

  • Pressure Cooker Short Ribs Recipe – GF Video

    Pressure Cooker Short Ribs Recipe – GF Video



    This pressure cooker short ribs recipe really shows just how great a pressure cooker is. Pressure cookers are great for easy cooking and last-minute cooking – if you decide you want some short ribs at the last minute you can cook them up fairly quickly with a pressure cooker. If you were to cook short ribs in the oven or on your cook-top it would take quite a while. But with the pressure cooker, you toss your ingredients in the cooker close it up, bring it up to temperature, cook it happen hour and you’re done. And that my friends is amazing!
    For this pressure cooker short ribs recipe, I like bone-in short ribs you can also get boneless short ribs those short ribs will cook much faster in the pressure cooker but I think the bone adds flavor so that’s why I use bone in short ribs.

    pressure cooker short ribs recipe
    sear the short ribs, don’t cook them

    You want to make sure to cut big chunks of carrot. If you make the carrot pieces small I think they’re going to fall apart in the pressure cooker. They’re in there for half an hour if they are too small the pieces breakdown, maybe even like turn to mush. Which would be a bad thing.
    For this pressure cooker short ribs recipe I use half red wine and half water. I think if you use all wine for the braise it’s just too strong I use a medium bodied Malbec box wine. Good box wine is just fine. K?
    When cooking food in the pressure cooker, it’s actually better to under estimate the cooking time than to over estimate. If you overcook the ribs, they’re not as good. If you undercook them you can always close the lid back up and bring them up to pressure and cook them for a few more minutes. When you open the lid, some of the meat will be falling off the bone, some will still be sticking to the bone, but either way your friends are going to love this. My friends did. Let me know what you think in the comments below, do you make short ribs or do you have some good pressure cooker tips and recipes?

    Here is my pressure cooker review and purchase suggestions post.

    Pressure Cooker Short Ribs Recipe

    4 large pieces of bone-in short ribs

    1 medium – large sweet onion chopped coarsely

    1 lb carrots, chopped into 1″+ chunks

    1 cup medium body red wine, like a Malbec or Cote Du Rhone

    Sear the large sides of the meat in a few glugs of vegetable oil in the pressure cooker without the lid on. Just brown the meat, don’t cook it.

    When all the meat is browned and in the pot, add in the carrots and onions, and pour in 1 cup of wine and 1 cup of water.

    Attach the pressure cooker lid and lock it according to the manufacturers instructions.

    Cook on high pressure for 30 minutes.

    Turn off heat and let pressure cooker cool down for 10 minutes. Release any remaining steam per instructions and open the lid away from you.

    Gently pour the meat and vegetables into a colander and collect the braising liquid in a bowl. Use a fat separator or a glass container to pour off most of the fat in the braising liquid.

    Put the meat and veg into a serving bowl and pour the braise liquid over it. You could thicken the liquid if you wish with cornstarch.

  • Best Stove Top Pizza Recipe – GardenFork Video

    Most fry pan pizza ain’t great, but this stove top pizza recipe is truly the best. Why? Its a thin crust pizza with a nice snap, and it can be made in about 5 minutes, and you don’t have to make pizza dough the day before.

    The key ingredient to this pizza is tortillas. Who knew? I’ve seen many recipes that say to use a pita bread as the pizza crust, and its real underwhelming. The torilla is already thin, and it crisps up nicely in some oil in a cast iron pan. You can also use a Calphalon style pan, but it has to be oven proof.


    But where to get tortillas? In your grocery store. From what I can tell, they are now sold all over the country. Yes you can use those tortillas that you have to cook first, just cook the top side bit first, then flip it and add your sauce and toppings.

    The pan does not need a lot of oil, as the excess oil can smoke when you put this in the broiler. Learn from my experience. The ideal tortilla is one that covers the bottom of the fry pan, mine did not, but it wasn’t a big deal, it still tasted great.

    best-stove-top-pizza-recipe

    My tomato sauce is super simple. Quality pureed canned tomatoes are already cooked and only need some salt and I add a few tablespoons of italian seasoning mix. Done.

    For cheese, I used chopped up fresh mozzarella, and quality Pecorino Romano. Do not fill the whole crust with cheese, it will spread out nicely.

    For toppings, its really use what you got. I always keep a can of sundried tomatoes in the fridge, and I had some nice dry sausage that I chopped up.

    Best Stove Top Pizza Recipe

    1 can quality pureed tomatoes

    2 tablespoons italian seasoning mix

    1 bag tortillas that fit your fry pan

    1 chunk of pecorino romano

    1 ball of fresh mozzarella

    Few slices of quality dried sausage

    1 cup sun dried tomatoes

    Preheat the broiler

    Heat the cast iron fry pan on the stove top, add enough vegetable oil to coat the bottom of the pan. When it shimmers, drop on the tortilla.

    Spread the tomato sauce mixture lightly on the tortilla, and drop on chunks of mozzarella.

    Add dried tomatoes and sausage.

    Sprinkle romano cheese.

    By now the fry pan will be hot, so be careful. Take this pan and put it in the broiler, the closer the better to the broil element.

    Keep an eye on it, but in about 2-3 minutes, the top of the pizza will be melted and toasted.

    Pull out, let cool a bit, and cut into slices.

  • Easiest Best White Bean Soup in 30 Minutes

    Easiest Best White Bean Soup in 30 Minutes

    I didn’t really know what to make for dinner last night, and I had a bunch of onions in the refrigerator which I had bought at the Costco. So I thought okay, I’m going to chop up an onion and start cooking it and go from there. I took a large onion and I cut it in half and then cut it into half ring things.

    easiest-best-white-bean-soup

    I think you need to cook onions in more oil than people seem to think on the cooking shows, so I dumped a bunch of blogs of oil into a pot and dropped in the onions. I then just kinda looked around and I saw that I had just bought a can of small white beans from the grocery store. The Goya brand, which I like. I guess it’s a 28 ounce can or so of small white beans. I cooked down the onions and I threw in  two clothes of chopped up garlic. I first put the lid on and let the onions sweat and steam. Then I take the lid off and let them cook until they are almost burnt – by accident – because I walked away from the stove. I dropped in the white beans and a tablespoon of the Italian seasoning mix that I have. I went into the fridge and pulled out some Parmesan Reggiano cheese rinds that I had been saving and I threw those in. Heated it long enough to cook through, let the cheese rinds get kind of soft and boom done.

    That was the most amazing white bean soup I’ve ever made and it was like nothing to it. Of course we have some bean dinner videos here for you to check out. So what do you think, how do you make white bean soup? Let me know below:

     

    Easy White Bean Soup Recipe

    1 can medium size 28 oz or so small white beans. I used the Goya brand

    1 large onion, cut in half, then sliced into 1/4″ rings

    1 tablespoon italian seasoning mix

    2 cloves garlic chopped up

    Cheese rinds if you have them.

    In a medium sized pan, glug in vegetable oil. Don’t just skim the surface, glug enough.

    Heat this up till it shimmers, and drop in the onions. Stir around and cover the pan for a few minutes. You want to steam the onions a bit,

    Take off the cover, throw in the garlic and cook down the onions until golden, medium heat, but keep an eye on it. Kinda burnt is OK.

    When the onions are golden, add in the can of white beans and the cheese rinds.

    Top with the italian seasoning, stir in and warm up the mix to bubbling.

    Don’t over cook this, but let the cheese rinds soften, so some of their flavor moves into the beans.

    I had this with grilled cheese. nice.

  • Easy Spaghetti Meatballs Recipe – GF Cooks Video

    Easy Spaghetti Meatballs Recipe – GF Cooks Video

    What’s not to like about this easy spaghetti meatballs recipe? Bake the meatballs, cook the pan sauce, add pasta and eat. Simple and easy to do, and you could use this recipe to make meatballs sandwiches as well. Nice.

    Our simple recipe uses meatloaf mix and a bunch of italian seasonings. We buy about 1.5 pounds of meatloaf mix, which around us is half pork and half ground beef. The beef I bought for this project was 90% lean, and I’d rather have it around 80% lean. You could toss in a few tablespoons of bacon drippings or butter to amp this up a bit. It all works.

    A key thing here is to not over mix the meat mixture, it will make the meatballs tough. You can use your hands or a spoon to mix it all up, use what you got. Be sure to wash your hands after handling meat.

    This is different than in the video, but I have found out that I like the cheese to be coarse grated with the large holes of a box grater instead of the fine grating of the microplane. It just tastes better, and i think the cheese stands out more, you run across pieces of cheese in the meatballs, which I like.

    easy-spaghetti-meatballs-recipe-gf-cooks-video-2

    Easy Spaghetti Meatballs Recipe

    1.5 pounds of meatloaf mix, preferably 80% lean beef and pork

    4 tablespoons Italian seasoning herb mix

    3 ounces of tomato paste, half a small can

    1- 28 oz can of crushed or pureed tomatoes, buy a good quality brand.

    1 large yellow or sweet onion chopped up

    2-3  cloves of garlic

    2 slices of bread toasted and ground up in a mini chopper or similar gizmo

    1/2 cup milk

    2 eggs

    2 cups coarsely grated pecorino romano cheese

    Preheat the oven to 375F

    Boil up a pound of your favorite pasta.

    Put the onion in a large pan or pot with good slick of oil on the bottom of the pan. Its best to slow cook these onions, but do what you can. Golden color on the onions is best for flavor. Chop up the garlic and add in to toast for a few minutes at the end of the cooking.

    Add half the onion to a bowl with the meatloaf mix, 2 tablespoons Italian seasonings, eggs, ground up toast, milk, cheese, some salt and pepper.

    Add the can of tomatoes and paste and seasoning to the pan with the cooking onions and simmer the sauce while we make the meatballs. Halfway through the simmer, at about 15 min, add a half cup of water and some sugar to taste.

    Mix the meatball ingredients together, don’t overmix the meat!

    Roll the meatballs into about  1.5″ diameter balls and put in a baking pan or sheet. Put in the oven for about 20 minutes, check with a thermometer, 145F is done.

    In a perfect world, this all comes together at about the same time, so you an assemble the dish and sit down, but you can cover the meatballs with foil while prepping the other stuff.

     

     

  • Cherry Tomato Recipe: Make Pesto! – GF Video

    Cherry Tomato Recipe: Make Pesto! – GF Video

    A cherry tomato recipe that is a new one to me: Cherry Tomato Pesto. I heard about this from Lidia Bastianich, who was interviewed on ATK Radio and mentioned it. I was surprised at how well it turned out, never had I thought of making pesto this way before. What fun to have a new and unique cherry tomato recipe just in time for the tomato overflow from the garden.

    Another interesting ingredient in this pesto recipe is the use of almonds, which i had not thought of before but now seems so obvious. One thing I did learn while working on this recipe was that the almonds need to be ground up in the food processor before adding in the rest of the ingredients. Just dumping them in with the tomatoes doesn’t work, as the almonds are still pretty chunky when the rest of the ingredients have been mixed together.

    Basil does play a role here, but you could also use parsley, both work well when paired with tomato. I imagine you have both growing in your garden somewhere near the cherry tomatoes, do a mix of the two if you like.

    And do not use cheap olive oil for a pesto recipe, use the best you can get, or almost the best. There are a lot of adulterated olive oils out there, you can check out Truth In Olive Oil for a list of good olive oils you can buy in your area.

    cherry-tomato-recipe-make-pesto-1

    Not your usual Cherry Tomato Recipe

    Cherry Tomato Pesto Recipe  based on Lidia Bastianich’s recipe

    • 1 pint cherry tomatoes, not the super sweet kind, a mix is good.
    • 3/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese, buy a wedge and grate it yourself
    • Approx 1 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
    • 3/4 cup raw almonds, not salted or roasted, but you could use the salt-roast kind in a pinch
    • 1 medium clove of garlic, smashed or minced
    • 1 small handful of basil leaves and young stems
    1. Mince of smash the garlic and let it sit out while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
    2. Put the almonds in a dry saute pan on the stove, and toast lightly. Be careful not to burn them. The almonds will click when its time to turn them.
    3. Grate the Pecorino Romano cheese with the large holes of a box grater.
    4. Pull the basil leaves and young stems from the woody older stems.
    5. Put the toasted almonds in the food process and break them down to small chunks and some powder
    6. Add the cherry tomatoes, cheese, garlic, basil.
    7. Turn on the food processor and mix this all together, be careful not to over process, you want this to have some texture.
    8. Slowly drizzle the olive oil into the food processor as it mixed the ingredients together. The pesto will thicken a bit.
    9. Test for salt, it may or may not need some.

    Do you have a favorite cherry tomato recipe? Let us know below!

     

  • Quick Coleslaw Recipe -GF Video

    Quick Coleslaw Recipe -GF Video

    Here’s a quick coleslaw recipe that takes no time to put together. This is a perfect addition to one of our pulled pork recipes. The pairing of BBQ and coleslaw is a given in the GardenFork world, so here we go!

    We use the grater disc on our food processor for this quick coleslaw recipe, you can also use a box grater or a mandolin, but it will take longer, hence, less quick. OK? We used a larger size grater hole for the carrots. I think big chunks of cabbage are unappealing, but I also don’t want the cabbage to look like sawdust. Just my thoughts here.

    You can use red cabbage for part or all of the cabbage in this recipe, but I’d suggest adding some red cabbage but not 100%. Its just too much, and i think red cabbage is a tougher chew when it is raw. We do have some great red cabbage recipe videos here, so check them out after make this coleslaw.

    Quick Coleslaw Recipe

    1 medium head of green cabbage

    4 good sized carrots, washed well but not peeled.

    2 teaspoons of caraway

    1 tablespoon deli or brown mustard

    1/2 cup virgin olive oil

    4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

    salt and pepper to taste

    Cut the cabbage into quarters and remove the core. Then cut into chunks that will fit into your food processor. Put on the grater blade and shred the cabbage.

    Change the blade to a coarser one and grate the carrots.

    In a large bowl add in the olive oil, vinegar, caraway, mustard, salt and pepper. Whisk this together. The mustard will bind it all together. Taste for salt, you may need to add more afterward.

    Add in the shredded cabbage and carrots, and toss well. This tastes best when put in the fridge overnight, I think, but you can serve it right away as well.

     

  • 2 Ingredient Cake Recipe – GF Video

    2 Ingredient Cake Recipe – GF Video

    Bake a simple cake with our 2 ingredient cake recipe. Yes, it works. Super simple cake recipe, just watch our video and follow along.

    This cake recipe succeeds because ice cream has the same ingredient as most cakes:

    • Eggs
    • Dairy – in this case cream and milk
    • Vanilla or some sort of flavoring


    The addition of self rising flour makes for a true 2 ingredient cake. I have found if you want to get a high rise, use a narrow loaf pan. And in true “use what you got”™ GardenFork style, we had some dried cranberries on hand, so we tossed those in. You could add in walnuts or raisinss, dates, etc.

    The choice of what kind of ice cream opens up all sorts of possiblities. Want to make pistachio cake? Buy pistachio ice cream. I think a chocolate chip mint ice cream cake sounds great. That and   cup of coffee makes dessert easy. I also like this style of simple cake recipe because it gets kids interested in cooking. I’m thinking they will be curious about how ice cream can become cake.

    I like to have ice cream along with most quick cakes, and our 2 ingredient cake work well with additional ice cream in its original form alongside the cake. Now i’m wondering if someone makes banana ice cream, and whether it would work , and how it would taste. With the endless flavors of ice cream available, you will busy with the cake recipe.

    If you like easy cakes, consider trying out our 5 minute microwave cake, decadent and done in 5 min. nice.

    2-ingredient-cake-recipe-gf-video

    If you don’t have self rising flour, you can make some. For each cup of self rising flour needed, add 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and a pinch of salt to one cup of all purpose flour

    2 Ingredient Cake Recipe
    Ingredients
    • 1 pint high quality ice cream, vanilla to start
    • 1 1/2 cups self rising flour
    • handful nuts, dried fruits, whatever you got
    Cooking Directions
    1. Preheat your oven to 350 F
    2. Oil and flour a 4 x 8 cake pan or similar loaf pan
    3. Put the ice cream on counter to melt.
    4. When its kinda thick but liquid-like, pour the ice cream into a bowl.
    5. Add the flour and mix, but don\’t over mix.
    6. Pour into cake pan
    7. Bake for 45 min, until knife comes out clean.

  • Quick Cherry Tomato Recipe

    Quick Cherry Tomato Recipe

    An easy cherry tomato recipe for last minute dinner.

    You’re tired, and not sure what’s in the fridge, and you need to make dinner: this is me all the time. I saw some cherry tomatoes on the counter and thought about our roast cherry tomato recipe video. So in go the cherry tomatoes under the broiler and the pasta on the stove top.

    quick-cherry-tomato-recipe

    I debated in my head, should I put some Italian seasoning on cherry tomatoes before they go in the broiler? I figured the broiler would just burn the oregano and all, so I didn’t.

    I didn’t time the tomatoes, I just waited for them to start popping. I didn’t want them all popped and deflated, just starting to crack and the juices to be hot. So when that all started happening I pulled them out of the broiler. 2 servings of this fits nicely into a 8 x 8 pan, btw.

    I like this kind of thing because it makes you look like a genius but is wicked simple. Olive oil certainly helps make you look like the genius you are… Olive and salt on the cherry tomatoes before they go in the broiler mix with the tomato juices in the broiler to make a nice sauce for the pasta. And of course some more simple magic, good cheese, makes this work too.

    Don’t cheap out on Romano or Parmesan cheese, OK? I bought some inexpensive parmesan at the store the other day, because that’s the only thing they had , and it tasted like soap mixed with cream cheese. Not good.

    Cherry tomatoes are pretty forgiving, they last a while on the countertop. The fresher ones pop more in the broiler, the off-season cherries have a tougher skin, but they still work for this just fine. Not sure why some stores put cherry tomatoes in a cooler, I think it affects their texture.

    So this works for me, its easy to make and then you’re done. What works for you? let us know below

    Quick Cherry Tomato Pasta Recipe
    Ingredients
    •    1 pint Cherry Tomatoes
    •    1 tablespoon Italian seasonings, oregano, marjoram, etc.
    •    4 glugs Olive Oil
    •    1/2 lb pasta of you choice
    •    1 chunk Parmesan or Pecorino Cheese
    Cooking Directions
    1. Start the pasta to cook. Be sure to add salt to the pasta water.
    2. Turn on the broiler
    3. Wash the cherry tomatoes and place in a 8 x 8 baking pan
    4. Drizzle the olive oil over the cherry tomatoes and put under the broiler
    5. When the tomatoes start to pop, pull them out of the broiler
    6. Scatter the Italian seasonings over the tomatoes and mix the whole thing while still in the baking pan.
    7. Portion the cooked pasta onto two plates and pour the tomatoes over the pasta.
    8. Grate cheese over the pasta, salt and pepper to your taste.

    quick-cherry-tomato-recipe-2

  • Dog Treat Recipe Sweet Potato Dog Biscuits GF Video

    Dog Treat Recipe Sweet Potato Dog Biscuits GF Video

    Homemade Dog Treat Recipe! These dog treats are easy to make, and our dogs love these dog biscuits. I’m wondering if there’s a difference between dog treats and dog biscuits, maybe dog treats is a more general term and dog biscuits refer to baked dog treats like these sweet potato dog treats we made for the Labradors.

    While working on this recipe, I found the amount of milk you add varies depending on how large and how moist the sweet potato is. You want the dough to be kinda dry, like pie crust dough, not wet. I’ve reduced the amount of milk in the dog treat recipe here, after mixing in the dry ingredients, you can add more milk or water if the dough is too dry to work with a rolling pin.

    dog-treat-recipe-sweet-potato-dog-biscuits-2

    You also might consider adding in brewer’s yeast or powdered garlic to these dog treats, if you’ve found those ingredients help your dog’s health, or flax seed perhaps? What do you think?

    I add flax seed oil to our Labrador’s breakfast to supplement their omega 3,6,9 intake. Keep flax seed oil in the fridge, btw. If you want to buy flax seed oil, its usually kept in the fridge case of the health food store.

    If you don’t  have a dog biscuit cookie cutter, you can use a glass or tuna can to cut out round dog treats, but its fun for kids to make dog bone style treats.

    Here are some dog treat cookbooks you might want to check out, and let us know your dog treat recipes below:


    Sweet Potato Dog Treat Recipe : GardenFork.TV
    Ingredients
    •    1 Medium sweet potato
    •    2 cups whole wheat flour
    •    1 cup whole oats
    •    2 eggs
    •    3/4 cup milk
    Cooking Directions
    1. preheat oven to 350F
    2. poke 4-5 fork holes into sweet potato, microwave for about 8 minutes, or use the \”bake potato\” setting on your microwave. let the potato cool before handling it!
    3. mix the two eggs together in a small bowl, set aside
    4. remove the sweet potato from the skin and mash with a fork
    5. add the dry ingredients together with the mashed sweet potato
    6. add in then eggs and milk. you want a thick dough that isn\’t sticky, you may have to adjust the amount of milk.
    7. flour a board and roll out the dough, you don\’t want a sticky dough
    8. roll out to 1/2\” or 1/4\”
    9. cut out dog treats with cookie cutters or a glass or a tuna can or just use a knife to cut out whatever shape you like.
    10. grease a sheet pan with cooking spray, butter etc. put the dog treats on the pan
    11. pick up the leftover rolled out dough and form it into a ball again, and roll it out into a sheet, and cut more dog biscuits
    12. bake for 30 minutes or until slightly browned on top.