Step 1.  Cut into cubes or chunks your hardened and dried/crusty bread

Step 2.  Dice tomatoes, cheese (I prefer mozzarella), herbs, veggies, etc

Step 3.  I throw it all into a bowl and coat with olive oil and balsamic vinegar and add salt and pepper

Step 4.  Add any lettuces, arugula, spinach etc.

Step 5.  I added my swiss chard pesto

Step 6.  Add herbs, garlic, nuts etc to taste

Step 7.  Toss it all together with the bread and let sit until bread becomes soft and close to soggy.

You can add the oil and vinegar as you wish to the texture that you want.

Finished Panzanella or bread salad is below.

Have you ever wondered what to do with all the greens you get from your local CSA like La Nay Ferme?

Well I have the answer. Make pesto! Whether its spinach, Swiss chard, arugula, parsley, cilantro or kale, pesto tastes good every time and seriously anyone can make it. Oh, pesto is healthy too.  Here is a link to a Kale Pesto I did last year

Though ill share my recipe in a moment here is a simple do it yourself explanation that will work every time.

You just throw greens, garlic, hard cheese, nuts, an acid and an oil into a blender or food processor and turn it on. Seriously that’s all there is to it.

Here is my recipe I threw together today.

Place in blender in this order.
1. Half cup grated Parmesan cheese.
2. 1 cup walnuts
3. 4 garlic cloves
4. Packed greens to the top. I’d guess 20-30 leaves of chard.
5. Salt and pepper
6. Just under 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
7. Cup of olive oil. I used a little habañero oil and extra virgin.

Turn on blender. Once blending you will slowly drizzle in more oil (very slowly) while it all blends up to the consistency you want. The more oil you pour in the less thick the pesto will be. Use olive oil only.

A fresh and good pesto will be bright green and full of flavor. All the ingredients above can be swapped out with similar ingredients.

Greens of all sorts as mentioned above.
Acids: lemon, lime, or vinegars
Nuts: peanuts, cashews, pine nuts, almonds etc
Any kind of olive oils.
You can add herbs, onions, peppers etc too. Have fun and experiment.

I love Pesto on pizza, sandwiches, chicken, eggs, pasta, crackers etc. I have even used it as a salad dressing.

Here is to hoping you’ll love your pesto!

For the past couple of years my wife and I have kept a very cool secret, and have only revealed the truth of such secret to a few people.  I am not going to reveal the secret here either but contact me if you want to try to get the info from me.

We have had a sushi chef named Mogi, who is in our opinion the coolest and best sushi chef in Utah, come to our home and make amazing sushi for our friends and us and he charges much less than you would be charged for going out to an amazing sushi bar.

I normally share recipes and techniques on this blog, but today want to just showcase some of his amazing talents.  I have taken sushi classes and actually really love rolling my own sushi and making my very own twists on sushi.  I will share some info and a small recipe at the end.

The picture above is what he said was called butter fish and he is quickly charring it with a brulee torch.  This stuff was so wonderful it literally melted in your mouth.  Mogi is great because he does not just do rolls, but has all sorts of fresh fish and will do whatever you want.

Nigiri, which is shown in the last two photos, is when you take a rice ball and top it with raw fish.  Normally there is a pinch of wasabi beneath the fish but you can ask for it without, if you are not into wasabi.  Nigiri is not the same as sashimi, sashimi is just the raw fish that sits on top and would be served with no rice.  Just some quick info in case you wondered.

One of the trademark rolls that Mogi makes is when he combines sweet and hot or spicy.  It is great when he adds fresh jalapeno to the roll like you see above.  Normally he will also top the roll once cut, with eel sauce.  Eel sauce is very easy to make and you will see has absolutely no eel in it.  If you are not sure if you have ever had eel sauce, it is the dark sweet and sticky sauce many sushi chefs put on rolls.

To make eel sauce all you need is soy sauce and Mirin or japanese cooking wine and sugar.  As always you can make your own spin on this but here is how I make it.

Recipe for Eel Sauce

1 cup soy sauce to 1 cup sugar (just do equal parts)

1/4 cup or 1/4 the amount used above of Mirin

bring to a fast boil and reduce heat and cook down until thick as a syrup.  That is it, cool and enjoy on many asian foods.

You can add green onion or other flavors while boiling down if you want to enhance the flavor.

First of all I need to start this post by giving full credit to my wife Hailey who made the compound butter that is in the pictures and to be honest has made any and all compound butters we have had in the home over the years!

There really is nothing more simple than compound butter, but it tastes great and gives the impression that you are a master chef.  In simple terms, all compound butter is, is taking store bought butter, softening it up and flavoring it with whatever you really want, then rolling it up and chiiling it so it becomes hard again.  You can use it on whatever you want.

This summer we have had 3 different occassions where we have had some kind of compund butter on our corn on the cob.  If memory serves me right the flavors were: jalapeno, cilantro lime and garlic and chive.

Have fun making up your own flavors and recipes and comment below of what you have found to be the best.  In addition to topping corn on the cob you could use compund butters on pancakes and waffles, steaks, baked potatoes, breads and dinner rolls, pastas etc.

Suggestion Recipes to get your mind started:

Butter, chives, shallots, garlic, salt and pepper

brown sugar, maple syrup, lemon juice, cinnamon

cilantro, lime, jalapeno, tomato

basil, dried oregona, parmesan cheese

So a few weeks ago Hailey and I attended a cooking class hosted by The Vintage Mixer and SLC Foodie.  The two chefs teaching the class were Raw Melissa and Jen of Delightful Delicacies.  The class was really good but the part I liked best was the part on grilling pizzas!  If you know me you know how much I love to grill.  The thought of grilling pizza was not new, but the awesome and local ingredients they were using was certainly new to me.

So ever since that class we have wanted to host our own grilled pizza night and we invited over some good friends, the Baileys, who attended the class with us.    I am not going to really share specific recipes here, but rather some delicious pictures and some ideas to get your mind started on your own unique pizza options!

I would suggest store-bought already-prepared pizza dough, though there are tons of good recipes online.  In our class they introduced us to a local and healthy brand you can buy at good earth.  I know Caputos deli and Harmons also sell prepared pizza dough.  Other than the pizza dough, we made everything else.  Well we didn’t make like the cheese and stuff, but you get the point.  Oh, I did make my own pizza sauce!

The pizza sauce was pretty simple.  I just boiled for about 5 minutes a bunch of tomatoes and then gave them a fast ice bath.  After doing this you can peel them very easily and then I added the peeled tomatoes to a blender with garlic, onions, fresh thyme, fresh basil, and fresh oregano.  I blended it all up and then slow cooked it on the stove, covered for about 2.5 hrs.

Some hints that I may share to make your learning curve a bit less steep would be:

• put foil under the pizza if you do not like the charred lines or smokier taste.  I actually prefer it, but it was nice to have some with foil under and some without.
• roll your dough on the foil (oiled or buttered foil) and it will make it much easier to move to the grill, you can simply slide the foil and pizza right onto the grill.
• If your pizza is not perfectly round or if it kind of falls apart when moving to the grill, DO NOT WORRY, it all looks great in the end, just straighten it up once it is on the grill.
•  I like to add my basil after the pizza is cooked, it just keeps that fresh basil taste so much better.

So we made 6 pizzas, the Bailey’s made 3 and we made 3.  Here they are in no particular order or chef.  By the way, I may not remember all the ingredients, but again, have fun and experiment with your pizzas, you really cannot mess them up.

Margherita Pizza- tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, caramelized onions, fresh herbs, heirloom tomatoes

Roasted Root Veggie Pizza- beats, butternut squash, sweet potato, parsnips, carrots, smoked gouda cheese.  Slow roasted all veggies in olive oil and salt and pepper until caramelized and soft.

Pesto Chicken Pizza- kale pesto, pre-cooked chicken, roasted peppers, mozzarella cheese.

Zucchini Pizza- Grilled  zucchini, fontina cheese, mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce. This tastes like a lasagna, I loved it.

Cauliflower, Potato and Fennel Pizza- Steamed cauliflower in tiny almost fine chunks, steamed potatoes, dried fennel, fresh herbs, mozzarella cheese, and fresh tomatoes. To get that nice brown cheese as seen above, Brian broiled the pizza after drizzling with olive oil after it came off the grill, he broiled it on the top rack for about 5 minutes.  A great touch!

Bacon, Sausage and Squash Pizza- Thick cooked bacon, spicy italian sausage, tomato sauce, grilled squash, fresh tomatoes, basil, mozzarella cheese.

If you do your own pizzas in the oven or on the grill, try something unique and different; you will be surprised how good it tastes.  I promise you it is almost impossible to mess any pizza up.

Heirloom tomatoes, cucumber, prosciutto, avocado, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Ya I made this on some good old store bought grandma sycamores bread, but it hit the spot!

There is nothing better to eat outdoors with friends, especially in the summer, than grilled steaks!  I have eaten steaks my entire life.  The cool thing is my kids now love steaks and I continue loving to grill them.

What I really like about steak is that there are all sorts of cuts, and all sorts of ways to prepare them.  I want to share what I feel is the best way to prepare, grill and finish steaks.

Best preparation.  It is important to bring the steaks out of the fridge about 15-30 minutes prior to wanting to grill them.  You do not want to grill a cold steak.  Just use coarse kosher salt and course fresh ground pepper.  Do not use olive oil, do not use garlic salt, or garlic pepper.  Look I use this sometimes, but keeping it simple is the key to a great steak.  Use more salt than you feel might be safe (do not go overboard, but get it on there)  also get quite a bit of the pepper on there too.  You want to apply it to both sides and make sure to rub it into the meat.

How to grill them.

You want to heat your grill on its highest setting and close the lid.  Let it get as hot as you can without killing yourself or harming others.  Once the grill is very hot, place the steaks diagonally on the grill grates.  The diagonal step will make your steaks look the best when done.  Now let them sit on the hot grill, with the lid open for about 2-3 minutes per side.  You are doing this to sear in the flavor!  Searing the meat is key.  So when you are ready to flip it over, flip it diagonally and sear the other side too.

Once searing has been done on both sides, reduce heat to low or medium and flip again but cross the meat diagonally the other way now to make the grill grate marks crisscross.  You will now cook again for 2-5 minutes per side or until your steak is done.  Maybe another time I will explain how to tell it is done, that is a tough one and takes some time.  For beginners, just slice into it when you think it is where it needs to be.

Finishing the steaks.

You need to let the steaks rest a bit before serving them.  If you cut them up right after removing from the grill you will lose all the tasty juices and ruin them.  Ok they wont be ruined but they will not be as good.  Let them sit for 3-7 minutes.  They even continue to cook a bit during this wait.

You can finish the steaks with a slice of butter.  Try a compound butter of herbs, chives and garlic if you wish.  The steaks in this photo are finished with goat cheese, caramelized onions and thyme.  I love topping my steaks with pebre too!  Pebre may be the best topping ever for a steak.  Be creative, the star here is the steak, but you can top with a cool arugala salad, a peach or mango salsa, etc etc.

I fee the absolute best cut of steak for grilling is the ribeye due to all the marbling and taste.  Marbling is the amount of fat in the meat and fat is tasty!  Happy Grilling

notice how it looks like fallen leaves in the fall?

In keeping with the kale theme, I thought I would take just a moment to post how I do my baked kale.  I really do not see any possible way to mess this up, but here is how I have done it.

Wash your kale and then spin it dry or pat dry with paper towels.  cut off the leaves and get rid of the thick vein down the middle.  I would suggest leaving the leaves as large as possible as they will be easier to eat once baked.

Take the leaves and toss them liberally with olive oil.  Sprinkle with whatever seasoning you desire.  Like potato chips, the kale chips will take the taste of anything you put on them.  I do kosher salt, pepper and garlic powder. 

Grease your pan with a spray or a olive oil brush.  You do not want the kale to stick or it will ruin it when you go to remove it from the cookie sheet.

Bake in your oven at 350 degrees for about 8-15 minutes.  I have done this 3 times now and have not used a timer and have never stopped to look at how long it takes, but you will know they are done by the change in color, they will go from a glossy wet look to a dryer and crispy look.  If you are not sure, get a thin spatula and slide it under them.  If it feels like a fall leaf dried on the gound, you are done!

My kids absolutely love these and I am sure it is because they think they are little animals eating leaves.  They always tell me, “dad, can you make those leaf chips?”  They devour them.  What more could you ask for? 

Please give these a try, kale is hearty, cheap and readily available at all local farmers markets or your local CSA.