Kitchen Conundrum

New Design and a Clean Slate

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StudioPress Premium WordPress Themes: Foodie Theme
 
Welcome to the newly redesigned Kitchen Conundrum!  As with many things, sometimes things happen. Some are intentional, while some are not, and sometimes you’ve just been thinking about something and then something occurs and that just jumpstarts the whole process.  That’s exactly what happened with this redesign.

I had full intentions of posting every day for NaBloPoMo. (Really!) That was until I tried to log in to the Dashboard after returning from Spain only to find that my password had been changed and my site hacked.  I had two kinds of security on my site too. WTH? How did this happen?

I may never know.  But I ended up having to pay GoDaddy to roll back my site as far as they could (just 30 days) because as luck would have it, my backups were corrupted as well.  Of course the roll back was not far enough back either and I ended up cleaning up a lot, A LOT! of bad code. After working into the wee hours many nights in a row and having to get up for work, I gave up and paid Sucuri to clean up the rest of the code and to monitor my site. They also provide several other services and if you’ve ever had your site hacked, they would be a good service to look into.  In addition, I added Wordfence Premium security, and implemented country blocking. Sorry, too many hacking attempts from IP addresses in certain countries that shall remain nameless.

So, it’s been four years since I started this blog and it has seen a few changes over the years but I thought it was time for a real facelift.  Not just a color change. So while I was working on the cleanup (which included removing a lot of old files from my hosting account too), I decided it was time to do just that.

I moved from my original Thesis theme, where every change took a long time with hooks and more HTML and CSS than should have been necessary to this new lighter framework, Genesis, which still requires a little bit of coding here and there but it’s not nearly as labor intensive.  I’ve incorporated a new, sleeker design (Foodie Pro by Shay Bocks) that boasts a lot less clutter both on the inside and on the outside.  I’ve worked on Genesis sites before and I really like how user friendly their framework is. It does still have some quirks but there are easy “workarounds” and they have excellent support.

The site is still a work in progress,  I hope to have the gallery page up and running this week and clean up any errant pages and posts that still may be a bit out of whack (like photos that didn’t transfer with posts). Over all though, it’s essentially done. A few tweaks here and there but nothing earth shattering or too time consuming.

But with all that out nearly of the way, the best part is that I have several posts coming up featuring some amazing cookbooks I’ve read this year and recipes I’ve created.  Not to mention, places I’ve been. It’s been quite a busy year! I hope you will stop back and catch up.

 

*These are affliate links. I only recommend them because I actually use them.

 

Feta-filled Zucchini Blossoms – French Fridays with Dorie with a nod to Aglaia Kremezi

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As luck would have it, last week I had a full garden of zucchini blossoms, but this week, I have only zucchini! Not that I am complaining of course! So my plans for making zucchini blossom anything fell apart. This French Fridays with Dorie, which was supposed to be Shrimp filled Zucchini Blossoms, but as I am not actually fond of shrimp, I had planned to make the Feta Filled Zucchini Blossoms that I learned how to make at Kea Artisanal in Greece. But since I was not able to get blossoms in time from the store, we’ll just revisit my time at Kea with Aglaia.

Aglaia Kremezi is a  food writer, journalist, and one of Greece’s foremost cooking authorities and she runs Kea Artisanal with her husband, Costas, on the island in the Cyclades archipelago in the Aegean Sea.  Kea is just an hour ferry ride from Lavrio, a port south of Athens.  

If you ever want to go on a culinary vacation to one of the most beautiful places on earth, and learn from someone who is truly able to pass along the techniques, history and traditions of Greek cooking, then you should visit Kea Artisanal. Their hospitality and their passion for teaching is exceptional. It was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. 

It was there that I was introduced to Zucchini Blossoms. I’d never had them before and the way we prepared them was so incredibly easy. Simply done, with a small piece of Feta cheese and a sprig of mint, then covered in a light batter and fried.  On the side, we made a zingy potato-garlic spread, Skordalia to dip them and some other vegetables in to- and it was phenomenal!

You can read the post about my Kea Artisanal trip and blossoms here.  See more photos here.

Here we dried out the centers with paper towels-

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Then we filled each blossom with a small piece of Feta cheese and a sprig of mint, twisting the ends slightly to close the blooms.

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A quick dip in a light batter and into the oil it goes.

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The finished vegetables, with flatbreads and Skordalia…..

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Aglaia

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So while my French Fridays with Dorie this week was not really French, and not really Dorie (although the batter is the same for both recipes!), it was great to relive my time on Kea and rekindle my fond memories of zucchini blossoms and Aglaia.

For details on creating these recipes, check out the FFWD site and see others who are also cooking the book-

You can also buy the book here:

greenspan

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Samsung’s Club des Chefs Dinner with Christopher Kostow

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This past month, Samsung introduced their Club de Chefs collaboration with chef Daniel Boulud. Best known for his Michelin three-star restaurant DANIEL, Boulud is a French-born chef and restaurateur with restaurants in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Singapore.

“We are honored to have Daniel Boulud join our distinguished team. Club des Chefs is a great example of how Samsung taps into insights – in this case, from professional chefs – to develop kitchen products with an unmatched level of innovation, performance and premium style,” said Boo-Keun Yoon, President and CEO of Consumer Electronics at Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. “Samsung’s Club des Chefs program was designed to bridge consumers to insights from the masters of the culinary world. With the involvement of Daniel Boulud and our roster of chefs, we are taking the premium home appliance category to a new level.”

In addition to Boulud, Samsung Club des Chefs includes:

  • Michel Troisgros, the third-generation owner of a three Michelin star restaurant since 1968, La Maison Troisgros in Roanne, France. He serves as president of Samsung Club des Chefs;
  • Christopher Kostow, the second American-born and the third youngest chef ever to receive three Michelin stars for Meadowood in Napa Valley, California;
  • Eric Trochon, winner of Meilleurs Ouvriers de France 2011, one of the most difficult national cooking contests in France, and renowned chef, food stylist and professor at the Ferrandi Culinary School in Paris;
  • Éric Fréchon, three-star Michelin chef and executive chef of the restaurant Épicure at the Hôtel Le Bristol in Paris;
  • Davide Oldani, the owner and chef of the restaurant D.O. in Milan, and a rising culinary star in Italy.

For the past year, Club des Chefs members have shared their culinary expertise and insights with Samsung’s own team of product development experts to help develop, test and bring to market new products. Now available at retail, the new Samsung Chef Collection suite of kitchen appliances was designed to offer an awe-inspiring level of innovation, performance and premium style to meet the needs and wants of the most discerning home cook.

The new Samsung Chef Collection features:

The Samsung Chef Collection 4-Door Refrigerator which includes several chef insight-driven features focused on temperature. Chef Mode minimizes temperature fluctuation to preserve the texture and flavor of food. By setting an overall refrigerator temperature of 36°F, it automatically adjusts the temperature of other compartments which store ingredients which are more fresh and fragile, like the Chef Pantry. The Triple Cooling System provides temperature and humidity control in all three zones of the refrigerator, while a stainless steel Metal Cooling plate in the rear wall reduces the loss of cold air when the door is opened. The Fridge-In-Freezer, a bottom right door that can be converted from refrigerator to freezer, offers maximum flexibility with four temperature settings: Fridge (41ºF), Chilled (40ºF), Soft Freezer (23ºf) and Frozen (-9º – 1ºF).

The Samsung Chef Collection Dishwasher with WaterWall Technology which features a sweeping wall of water to deliver never before seen cleaning versus conventional circular water jets.

The Samsung Chef Collection Slide In Range which is now available in electric, induction and gas versions and includes sophisticated oven control levels and precise temperature regulation. A premium built-in finish makes this an attractive addition to any kitchen.

The Samsung Chef Collection Over-The-Range (OTR) Microwave which allows home cooks to simply place their dish in the oven and choose the desired dish and weight option settings from the auto cook menu. Sensor cooking technology ensures optimal cooking time and temperature.

I had the opportunity to preview these amazing appliances and more at the Samsung Living Atelier, a pop up shop in lower Manhattan, and experience a delightful dinner created by Michelin star chef, Christopher Kostow of The Restaurant at Meadowood in Napa.

Here’s a glimpse of our evening with Chef Kostow-

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Of course everything was just brilliantly created and delicious! Isn’t the pickled sunflower center just a lovely shade of purple?  And the lamb cooked in clay was very tender. Of course, dessert and the frozen chocolate bites were heavenly! Everything prepared with the assistance of Samsung appliances.

We were also shown Samsung’s latest in-store display technology, a large, interactive screen where you can preview life size appliances in actual “room” settings. Although, it doesn’t make choosing the appliance you want any easier-there are so many useful features in each model!

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All in all, it was a wonderful evening and my list of appliances for my kitchen remodel just keeps getting longer and more difficult to choose from! For more information, you can see the whole collection here.