September cooking classes forming.  Email me at inquiries@askyogimarlon.com for the latest info. Of course, the meals we’ll prepare will be healthy and delicious!

Marlon teaching on-camera

America’s Test Kitchen rated Cuisinart’s steak knives among the best in a product rating segment. I eat so little red meat, I couldn’t justify the expenditure, but yet I did want to own more than the 2 Henkle paring knives I do for better tabletop presentation. Alas, there’s nothing like a bargain to simulate the economy. I found a set of the Cuisinart knives at a Los Angeles Ross Dress For Less store for a fraction of the $42 list price I found here on the Cuisinart site

Ok, friends. Without further ado, as promised, here is the little miracle of a recipe from last weekend. I skewered these stuffed chicken bundles for easily handled picnic food at the Hollywood Bowl. With a little planning, this recipe also makes a fantastic road trip meal.  You can resist burning road time and ingesting processed food at a roadside burger joint on the day when seated in car for hours and not apt to burn a lot of calories. Come on, be a good co-pilot and feed that man!  Yes, with your fingers! Here ya go:

1 lb boneless chicken thighs

10 grape-sized tomatoes

3 oz feta cheese

1 small onion

2 small or 1 large basil leaves for each filet

1 cup shelled pistachios

1 ½ T cumin

1 t poppy seeds

2 T. olive oil

¼ cup salt

coarse ground pepper to taste

Heat a skillet or a griddle, add 1T olive oil and the onion which as been cut into ½” pieces. Salt the onions generously to encourage caramelizing. Stir occasionally until well browned. Remove from heat and reserve.

Boneless chicken pieces should to be no thicker than 1/2”. Filet or pound them to ½” if necessary. Place the chicken filet on a work surface, dry the top side and sprinkle with coarsely ground pepper. If you brined the chicken do not add more salt here. If you haven’t, sprinkle with salt to taste. Place a long spear of feta cheese crosswise at the narrow end of the filet. Add a few grape tomatoes and some of the reserved onions. Hold the stuffing inside as you roll into a tight bundle and secure with a piece of kitchen twine.

Grind into flour ½ cup pistachios. Combine with cumin, poppy seeds and black pepper in a shallow bowl. Roll the chicken bundles in the mixture to evenly coat on all sides.

Reheat the same skillet or griddle on low without washing it. Add the remaining 1 T olive oil. Place the bundles on the heated surface and cover loosely with a piece of foil to insulate some of the heat. Slow cook the chicken bundles on the first side until well browned. Resist the temptation to move them before they are very brown on one side, so they retain their rolled shape. Carefully stuff any cheese back in that oozes out the side. Turn the bundles over and brown the second side. If the bundles are very large, brown all sides to insure chicken is cooked through. Remove from the heat and carefully cut and remove the twine before serving.

See blog post: To Brine or Not To Brine; That Is the Question. Coming Soon!

Last night for our picnic dinner at the Hollywood Bowl, I made a new chicken dish for handsome Bowl-mate Derek and I, that really turned out fab. It starts out with Trader Joe’s boneless chicken thighs, which I stuffed with tiny grape tomatoes, feta cheese and caramelized onions. Then I tied the rolled bundles with twine and coated them with a mixture of ground pistachios (coffee grinder worked great), cumin and coarse black pepper. Covered with a sheet of tin foil and slow cooked on my iron griddle with just a tad of olive oil, these babies were succulent, juicy with just a little oozing cheese after approximately 8 minutes a side. The crust was truly unique. Oh, I did brine the chicken for a day in salt water, because, well, brining is just my new thing.

I’ll get this recipe up soon. I promise!!

Slice of Spinach Pie is flaky, cheesy and vibrant with fresh spinach.

This recipe has created a lot of talk amongst my friends! It’s a sure fire crowd pleaser, that you can make ahead if you are entertaining. The marvel is it’s great hot right out of the oven, room temp, as a cold leftover or reheated. The controversy amongst my Greek friends has been that it doesn’t use frozen, defrosted, wrung out spinach. Oh please!  Would the Enlightened Cook use such a thing? No, no, no. I use 2 heads of fresh spinach and not that stuff you get in a bag either. Manufacturers use gas to make the spinach resist decomposing as it should when packaged in plastic. I go for whole, fresh heads of spinach and carefully wash all the sand out myself.

So here you go!  Video and Recipe pdf:

If summer fare means eating lighter for you as it does for so many of us, you may have involuntarily ingested sodium tripolyphosphate. Many packaging plants “wash” shrimp and scallops in the harmful chemical before freezing. It gives the manufacturer the safety of killing every living bacteria (excuse me, but some of those are actually useful), so they’re not liable there. In the process, they’ve bleached away the delicate flavor those lovely crustaceans.

It seems the solution is often the same: shop in a health food market that understands you don’t want to ingest a industrial chemicals. There you are likely to pay more per pound, but in reality it probably works out just the same as purchasing untreated goods because the sodium tripolyphosphate makes foods retain water. If for instance Whole Foods is charging $8.99 for shrimp and more downscale market is charging $5.99, it could be without the additional water retention in the treated shrimp, you are getting just as much actual shrimp  spending $8.99 per pound.

Other sources of this harmful chemical with which you may come in contact are–are you ready for this— household cleaners.

Wikipedia says:

STPP is a solid inorganic compound used in a large variety of household cleaning products, mainly as a builder, but also in human foodstuffs, animal feeds, industrial cleaning processes and ceramics manufacture. STPP is widely used in regular and compact laundry detergents and automatic dishwashing detergents (in powder, liquid, gel and/or tablet form), toilet cleaners….

Food Applications: It is common in food production. In foods, STPP is used to retain moisture. Many governments regulate the quantities allowed in foods, as it can substantially increase the sale weight of seafood in particular.

Many people find STPP to add an unpleasant taste to food, particularly delicate seafood. The taste tends to be slightly sharp and soapy and is particularly detectable in mild-tasting foods. The increased water holding properties can also lead to a more diluted flavor in the food.

Toxitcokinetics and acute toxicity: Polyphosphates are hydrolyzed into smaller units (orthophosphates) in the gut before absorption, which may induce a metabolic acidosis^{[citation needed]}. The acute toxicity of polyphosphates is low, as the lowest LD50 after oral administration is > 1,000 mg/kg body weight

Another fabulous food photo from amazing photographer, Kevin Gregory. I’d like to wrestle with that one!

Tools ‹ The Enlightened Cook — WordPress.

Clams with Rice Noodles in a Spicy Seafood Broth

While I work on my cookbook, I’m offering cooking classes in Los Angeles. No experience required! All you need is the desire to create something wonderful in the kitchen (or on the BBQ grill), that tastes good and is good for you! Send a comment from the blog if you’d like to hone cooking skills. In just a few lessons, you’ll impress your friends and dazzle your palette!

First we’ll figure out if you’re at the how to boil water level or an experienced cook. Then we’ll figure out what kind of dishes you’d like to create. Focus on food for entertaining, increasing your low-fat, high protein intake, getting really creative with vegetables or fabulous desserts that won’t bust your calorie count. Group classes or private lessons welcome. Send a comment thru the blog for more information.