Aioli My version is quick, easy, delicious, flavorful, garlicky, creamy, smooth. 5 minutes and a few ingredients and you'll be delighted and hooked. Use it as a side for absolutely everything

Ah...Aioli, add it to any menu item and increase the cost of the dish by double.  You can hae chicken with mayonnaise and it's chicken salad... serve it with aioli and it's suddenly an "amuse bouche" moment with lightly poached chicken with garlic aioli (?) and herbs d'jour.  You'd pay way more for the second item!  OH and imagine when your friends come by, leftover potatoes and mayo? or Smashed roast new potatoes fried crispy in duck fat with homemade aioli dipping sauce.  MMM  I may not be able to continue with this post, I may have to go make that.  Oh and what is it? it's garlic mayonnaise.  Seeing "garlic aioli" on any menu drives me insane, sort of like "salt salt cod" ? really?  BUT, as per usual, I digress

I like ailo with seafood, meat, chicken, vegetables, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks.  I like to dip veggies (cooked or raw) or bread or chips or roasted potatoes in it.  I put it over risotto or pasta or anything.  Yeah, it's sort of the workhorse of all sauces but still maintains a fru fru status.

You can get it two ways (ok, you can do it a million ways but this is the short version)  You can either (a) buy mayonnaise, chop up garlic and add it with a little lemon.  Fabulous.  or you can (b) make a quick batch that is so much easier, more delicious and richer than you can imagine.  Oh and (b) takes the same amount of time as (a) so really, it's a no brainer. 

Ok, here we go, we're making my aioli.  Mine isn't traditional at all but I tell you what, I'll put it up against the fidgety versions any day of the week.  You can also use this as a jumping off point to take it any direction you like.  Add herbs, mustards, no garlic and have straight up mayo.  Use this as a base and get your creative on! 

TRACY'S AIOLI

1 egg *yep the whole egg
1 cup oil (I like 1/2 veggie, 1/2 olive oil but you can use all olive oil or all vegetable oil if you want)
2-6 garlic cloves, the garlicky you want it, the more you add
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper
1 Tblsp vinegar or lemon juice (I use lemon juice from a bottle ;))

Here we go, directions and pics: 

Obtain one Cuisinart food processor :)  Add the egg and whip like crazy
  
whip the egg like mad to get it a little foamy.  Add the salt and pepper and sugar and whip again.  Add the garlic cloves and pulse till they disintegrate.
  
With the machine running, drizzle the oil SLOWLY through the tube till about half is used up. I turn it off to add the lemon juice or vinegar down the tube then start it up again and continue with the rest of the oil.
   
OH look how thick and lovely that is! Transfer the aioli to jars and shove them in the fridge.  They last about a week.  FABULOUS
 



There you go, aioli in a minute and a half.  Better than anything store bought, cheaper and way more satisfying.  

I made mine today to dip the leaves of an artichoke I pressure cooked. :) I'm going to use some later tonight to top our shrimp pasta.  Yeah, it's good to be here today. 

/enjoy

LOCAL BOX, Sausage and Greens Pasta

This is part of my new LOCAL FARM BOX section of the blog.

This is some of what I cooked from the Greenling Local Farm Box I received today.

Sausage, greens, garlic and roast beets with Egg Noodles

There's probably not going to be formal measurement recipes in this section.  There will be play by plays of what I did with the food that got delivered to me that day.  

I WILL write a formal recipe upon request.

From today's basket: Mustard greens, beets

Skin your favorite sort of sausage.  These are medium Italian sausages.  Use your favorite
    

Ahh, here's the naked sausages the their casings... toss the casing. Heat a little bacon fat in your large fry pan, yeah, I'm a bacon fat sort of girl.  Break up the sausage as you drop it into the hot pan... shush it around and try to break it up even more as it cooks.

   

wow,s 5 sausages broken up makes a lot of sausage!  Fry it until it's beautiful, brown and with little crispy bits. yeah, you love this!
  
When it's cooked through and yummy looking, drop your handful of chopped greens on top. This is a mixture of mustard greens and beet greens.  Washed and dropped straight in, the water helps steam everything.  I just lifted it with fingers out of the water and straight onto the sausage.  Add a little salt and LOADS of fresh cracked pepper. I also grated some fresh nutmeg over it.  Greens love Nutmeg.
  
Fry it a moment and toss it around, look how fast it shrinks!!  Slice 2 large cloves of garlic into it, using my new favorite kitchen toy the Garlic Slicer from Pampered Chef.  Keep tossing over a few times. Then cover it.
   
After a minute or so, LOOK!  it's cooked down to nothing, the garlic, since it's paper thin is cooked and the liquid has made a VERY light broth/sauce.  Drop your cooked noodles onto the mixture and toss around.
 
After a few tosses, the pasta soaks up the liquid and becomes infused with the sausage and greens and garlic.  Seriously, how tasty does THIS look??
 
Serve it in BIG bowls, it's light and tasty and a lovely change from thick tomato or cream based sauces.  I sliced the roasted beets over it.  Then I grated some good, sharp, nutty, Parmesan over that!  OH, lovely!!
  
Here's just a couple, oooh la la shots

 
Box 1, meal 1, YES!

/get fresh veggies... make this... 

Pressure Cooker Chili

Chili, in the pressure cooker.  It's what pressure cookers were made for.  Really, quick, easy, delicious, food.  

Pressure cooker chili doesn't take many ingredients and you can get the 'cook all day' flavor from a little chopping, a little frying and 15 minutes of pressurized cooking.  It takes about 10 minutes to come up to pressure, even with that added time, this is a quick, rich, rib sticking bowlful of goodness that will make you happy.

You can spend time having a glass of wine, listening to your friends good news or you can draw and play with your new watercolors.  That's what I did. 

This is what I did while I waited on the meat to cook...I'm no artist but it makes me happy to play around with various mediums and it's not that I CAN do it it just that I DO do it.  

Apparently I was thinking about flowers today.

    

IN any event, you didn't come by to see my little doodles, you came to see this: 

TRACY'S (basic but yummy) PRESSURE COOKER CHILI

1 1/2 lbs ground beef (or chopped chuck)

bacon fat or oil

1 large carrot, diced

1 onion, diced

1 celery, diced

3 garlic cloves (sliced!)

3/4 can tomato paste

1 can chopped tomatoes with green chilies (Rotel)

1 cup chicken stock or water or beef stock (or more or less depending on how thick you like it)

taco seasoning (to taste or not)

salt/pepper

3-4 Tablespoons chili powder

2 Tablespoons cumin

1 Tablespoon cocoa powder

bay leaf

any other spice that makes you happy to add

OPTIONAL:  add a little cornmeal dusted over the chili before you lock and load.  Stir it in so you don't get dough ball lumps and it'll thicken the chili while adding a nice background flavor and it adds body to the chili as well, you should try it.  Alternatively, you can add it after you've pressure cooked the chili and boil it a minute or so for the same affect.

QUICKIE instructions: 

Brown meat in (a little bacon fat) in pressure cooker. 

Add veggies and tomato paste and fry until softened.

Add spices and fry for a moment to bloom flavor.

Add garlic, tomatoes, stock, seasonings to taste. 

Add stock/water and bay leaf.

Pressure cook on HIGH for 15 minutes, release pressure naturally or leave on warm until you're ready to eat. 

EAT in big bowls, topped with whatever makes you happy.

Long winded, loads of pictures and commentary instructions: 

I love my new ORANGE Cuisinart mini chopper, I'm looking for things to chop so in this recipe, today, the veggies were chopped and the tomatoes were pureed.  I have a new toy, I will play with it!  

My OTHER new toy, a most fantastic new toy is a Pampered Chef Garlic Slicer given to me by my forever friend, Cindy.  She's been a victim of my cooking for years since she lives 2 blocks away from me.  She's had to sample all my kitchen alchemy and so far, has lived to tell!  She found this most marvelous of gadgets and bought me one for Christmas.  She's a keeper.  

Oh sure, I agree with you, that a garlic slicer sounds stupid.  WELL, it's NOT!  It's AMAZING!  Seriously, go now and log onto the site and order yourself one, call your local distributor and get one, these things are crazy.  There's 3 pieces that come apart easily, go in the dishwasher or just rinse out, easily!  The blades are super sharp and you can get 36 slices of garlic from one clove... oh ok maybe not 36 but you can get loads and they are paper thin.  I don't gush over much but this is definitely gush-worthy.
   

Lift the hopper thingy and drop your peeled garlic inside. Push the plunger down and twist and LOOK at the see-through sliced garlic, it's amazing and super and I highly recommend it!
  
I also whirred (in the cuisinart mini chop) the carrots, celery and onion.  I put the beef in the pressure cooker on the BROWN setting and fried up my beef.  When it was brown, I added the chopped up veggies.
  
After the veggies fried up a bit, I put in the tomato paste and a healthy amount of chili powder, cumin, pepper, and some taco seasoning, yeah yeah don't even say anything.  I don't like the stuff on it's own but it adds a nice flavor to the chili and it's a combination of spices anyway so that's how I justify it in my own head.  I also added the cocoa powder here and fried it all up until the color changed from that ghastly bright red to a dark brick.
   
Now is when I add the paper thin garlic slices, seriously, look at this! I also took a can of Rotel tomatoes with chili and whirred it in the mini processor too
  
Add the pureed tomatoes, some stock... Lock and Load, 15 minutes.  Go have a glass of wine or paint something.
  
After the pressure comes down naturally, because I was busy and there's no hurry on this.  If it's thinner than you like, boil it a minute or so to tighten it up, if it's too thick, add a little stock.  I have been known to add a little corn meal to the chili when it's done, it adds a nice flavor and a little body to it.  Stir it up and serve in gigantic bowls with cheese, rice, avocado, sour cream, tortilla chips, whatever you like on your chili
  

Random beauty shots:

   

It's fast, it's easy, it's cheap, it's a great Thursday night 'what on earth should we have for dinner' meal.  Have a salad on the side and it's complete.  

You'll notice there are no beans in this chili.  I live in Texas and adding beans to chili is an impeachable offense.  Sometimes, however, when no one is looking, I add black beans.  You can add anything else you like to the pressure cooker before the lock and load...  I won't tell ;) 

Go make this, it's yummy. 

/enjoy