Playing With My Food ~
A journal about food, thought, travel, and life; by Chef & Raconteur Chaz French.

Eating Well: Red Russian Kale Frittata

Russian Kale Frittata (Quick note: I don’t use non-stick cookware, so frittatas take a bit more oil, I’ve noted where you can leave out 2tbsp if using non-stick). Rinse your kale well, the cut off the tough end bits of the stem, then finely chop kale and stem.  In a saute pan melt half the […]

Baked Sundays: Brown Butter Shortbread With Saffron

I am in fact, slightly evil.  To make it worse, I didn’t just make an addictive brown butter shortbread, I added saffron as a mood enhancer. Brown Butter Shortbread With Saffron Yeild: 64 2″ x o.5″ baton cookies  Time: 40 minutes, plus 8 hours chilling. Ingredients: 1 stick (4oz) butter 1/8 teaspoon ground saffron 3/4 […]

Eating Well: Tuna Radicchio Salad

So, “Eating Well For One On A Budget” is way too long to put in most post titles, and EWFOOAB is an ugly shortening, so, we’re just going to call the series “Eating Well” from here out so the dish name can be in the title too. First, yes this is a full and filling […]

Baked Sundays: Buttermilk Lasagna

Oh, hi there! I hope you didn’t think that Baked Sundays was all about cakes, cookies and sweet decadence.  It’s most certainly also about savory decadence! What you’re looking at is a lasagna made with a buttermilk bechamel, layers of baby spinach, mushroom, emmentaler , chevre, leek and garlic.  The noodles were made by my […]

Salsa Verde With Roasted Tomatillo

  This is a fast easy recipe for a salsa verde that is bright and flavorful. Salsa Verde – Time 30 minutes, Yield aprrox 2 cups. Ingredients: 1 pound tomatillos 2 teaspooons olive oil 1/4 cup red onion, minced 2 cloves of garlic, minced 1/3 bunch of cilantro, finely chopped 1 jalapeno or 1/2 an […]

Oxtail tacos with cuitlacoche, goat cheese, and salsa verde

Cuitlacoche is a fungus that grows on corn, in the United States, the FDA has gone to great lengths to eliminate this blight known as “Corn Smut,” in parts of Mexico they intentionally inoculate corn with the spores that deform the kernels and grow these fungal tumors.  They are intensely delicious, and they’re now being […]

Beer Braised Oxtails

Ingredients: 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed or 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh, chopped 1 tablespoon dried parsley 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 2 dashes cayenne 1, two inch piece of green chili, minced (polbano,or other mild-medium chili) 3 cloves of garlic, minced 1/4 cup ruby red grapefruit juice 1 bottle (12ounces) Lagunitas IPA 1 1/2 to […]

Healthier Eggplant Parmesan

So you love Eggplant Parmesan, but you’re on a diet… Or you can’t have fried foods because of your blood pressure, cholesterol or other Doctor restricted $(#*%#()_ food groups. Here’s an eggplant parmesan that omits the breading and frying, replaces it with herbs and roasting, and adds some spinach for extra vitamins. It’s a healthier […]

Tomato Sauce Revisited

Every cook changes their recipes, a little tweak here, a pinch of something new there, and before you know it, you’ve rewritten an entire recipe. I first committed my tomato sauce recipe to paper about 6 years ago, published it online a couple of years after that, and when this site went up it was […]

Lamb burger with roasted lemon and Tzatziki

The other day at the store I noticed they had some ground lamb and decided to grab some, figuring I’d make a burger of some sort. I let the idea bubble in my head as I went through the store and decided I would most definitely want some slices of roasted lemon to go with […]