Leslie Bartosh, CEC, AAC, FMP

Fish Tacos The other evening, these fish tacos showed up for supper.   I am glad they did!    Riverence Rainbow Trout seasoned with lemon pepper and griddled.     Spicy slaw flavored with Louisiana Pepper Exchange chipotle pepper pur é e.     The tacos were topped with pickled red onion, cilantro and jalapeno.     The perfect accompaniment:  Watermelon salad with the usual suspects:   feta cheese, mint, kalamata olives and pepperoncini peppers.  #LifeLongLearning #LifeLongTeaching #FamilyFood #FishTacos #RiverenceUSA #LouisianaPepperExchange As always, your comments or questions are welcome. Until next time, Bon Appetit Y'all! Leslie Bartosh

Mung Bean Sprout Salad One of the joys of cooking, for me, is discovering a new way to satisfactorily prepare an item.   Such is the case with this mung bean sprout salad.   I wanted to serve the sprouts with a meal of kalua pig and cabbage.   So, I needed a dressing for the sprouts that would stand up to the smoked pork.   I also wanted it to counter the natural wateriness of the sprouts. As I thought about the sprout salad and the dressing, I remembered we had a meal of poke a couple of days earlier.   The sprouts that were a part of the meal went pretty well with the poke. This made me wonder: Will the poke dressing work as a dressing on the sprouts?   I am glad to report it worked very well! The sprouts in this salad marinated for approximately 30 minutes in the refrigerator.   This corresponded with the time I needed for the other components of the meal.   You will need to play with the timing to suit your tastes.   The sprouts I had were not the best.   The perils of

Choucroute Garnie A deep dive in the freezer yielded a one-pound piece of pork belly.   This was left over from a demo, on making bacon. Definitely, this was not enough to cure for bacon.   Normally, making bacon is what I do with pork belly. A one-pound piece of pork belly is not enough to justify the time involved in making bacon.   So, I decided to smoke it without it being cured. This decision was facilitated by my having recently finished a new batch of sauerkraut.   Choucroute Garnie came to mind. Normally Choucroute Garnie contains sausages with other cured and smoked meats.   In this case, I did not have any sausage on hand.   But I did have some house made Canadian Bacon. The pork belly was seasoned with my pork rub.   I used apple and mesquite pellets for flavor and lump mesquite charcoal for heat.   The result was delightful! To make the dish, I simmered some of the fresh sauerkraut with white wine and juniper berries.   After about thirty minutes, I added the