Date-Macadamia Truffles

These easy vegan truffles come together in minutes and show off the naturally rich texture of fresh Medjool dates. These treats would be great on a long hike-they don't melt like chocolate and they provide a natural energy boost.  Your hippy mother would approve.

16 oz. Medjool dates, pits and caps removed
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
8 oz. roasted and salted macadamia nuts
2 teaspoons bourbon vanilla extract
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut

Puree the dates, cocoa, and vanilla in a food processor until smooth. Add the macadamias and pulse till nuts are rough chopped. Form mixture into 1-inch balls and press the coconut on as you roll.  Makes about 20 truffles.

Ginger Truffles

This truffle is an elegant finish to a meal, especially memorable for chocophiles and ginger-lovers, and most people are, really. You are not likely to hear a complaint about these. They are dense and rustic-looking and are best served at room temperature, to fully appreciate the nuances of flavor.

Making them is pretty fun too. One of my kitchen helpers yesterday, her hands covered with ganache and with a big chocolately smile, declared it the best day of her life.

1 pint heavy cream
2 lbs. of the finest bittersweet chocolate you can find, chopped
4 oz. butter
2 oz. ginger liquor (I used Stirrings)
1/2 cup minced uncrystalized candied ginger (I love the Trader Joe's brand)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup cocoa powder

Scald the cream and pour over the chocolate and butter into a metal bowl. Let stand a few minutes to melt, and whisk gently till smooth.  Whisk in the ginger liquor and the chopped ginger. Chill the mixture till firm (about an hour). Using a melon baller or a spoon, scoop about a tablespoon of the truffle mixture and roll in the powdered sugar. Finish with a roll in the cocoa.

My TJ's Top 30

With all the shopping I do for my cheffing jobs, I spend lots of time in grocery stores.  Over the last year, I have become enamored with many of the products at Trader Joe's, partly because they are phenomenal, and also because I am consistently shocked at how low the prices are for the quality.  It is so rare these days to have reverse sticker shock. From the bottom of my TJ-lovin heart, I offer this list of my favorite products.

Paneer Tikka Masala- 2.99 

This perfectly spiced Indian dish astounds my tastebuds. The sauce has incredibly balanced flavors. The spinach-flecked rice helps absorb the flavors of the curry and the cheese.  A great lunch or dinner for one.

Butter Chicken with Basmati Rice- $3.49 

After I tried their bracingly SPICY lamb vindaloo (whaaaaaa!!), I retreated to this much milder Indian chicken dish that has a lovely curry I can actually handle.

Pollo Asado Pizza- $1.99 

This is one of my favorites for lunch and I love to add a bit of fresh cilantro. It has a fabulous masa crust, pinto bean paste, chicken and cheese, and is filling but healthy.

Confetti Rice- $2.99 

Two microwavable packets of the most delicious rice you can imagine. Full of true Thai flavors-lemongrass, ginger, kaffir lime leaf, and baby corn and a perfect consistency.  Top with grilled fish, meat or tofu for a fabulous and fast feast.

Citrus Gumdrops- $1.99 

Gourmet flavors and pastel colors make these irresistible year-round.

Organic Carrot Juice- $3.99 

A staple in my fridge and the price is great.

All-In-One Facial Cleanser- $5.99 

A simple and effective beauty product that is gentle on my skin.

Organic Popcorn with Olive Oil- $1.99 

Popcorn perfection with no greasy fingers and no unpopped kernels!

Multigrain Pita Chips with Sesame Seeds- $1.99 

The perfect accompaniment for either hummus or their crazy good yogurt dip. 

Organic Virgin Coconut Oil- $5.99 

I love this for stirfrys and I use it in Thai dishes instead of canola or vegetable oil. Healthy and more flavorful!

Falafel- $3.69 

These are frozen and come close to the best homemade ones, full of parsley and garlic, with a crispy exterior.

Tzatziki- $3.49 

Essential on falafel, this dip/sauce is always in my fridge.

Tandoori Garlic Nan- $3.69 

For my beloved falafels, soft, chewy and delicious.

Tuscan Pane- $2.49 

A great sliced bread for french toast or tomato sandwiches.

Thai Lime and Chili Cashews- $6.99 

Snack like a Thai king.

Dry Toasted Pignolias- $7.99 

Skip burning those pricy pine nuts while making pesto!

Cilantro and Chive Yogurt Dip- $3.69 

My new healthy addiction...a thick lowfat dip with loads of flavor and protein..get the pita chips to dip with or slice some fresh veggies.

Tahini Sauce- $2.69 

Another excellent falafel accoutrement.

Dark Chocolate Roasted Pistachio Toffee- $3.99 

Yummmmy....gourmet sugar high...TJ's has chocolate covered everything, but this is a real standout!

Spanish Cheese Tapas Sampler- $3.99 

(Manchego, Iberico, Cabra Al Vino) A perfectly selected and sliced variety for snacking or a appetizer spread with olives and crackers.

Shaved Parmesan Reggiano- $5.49 

The most luxurious convenience product..makes prepping a pasta dinner a breeze!

Vegetable Panang Curry- $2.99 

I was shocked to find myself admitting that this is as great as most of the curries I sampled in Thailand. This frozen meal with jasmine rice has just the right texture. 

Thai Vegetable Kao Soi- $2.99 

I am overjoyed that this noodle dish in a coconut curry exists at TJs! I loved this dish from my travels in Northern Thailand (Chiang Ri) and now I can buy a fabulous frozen version that is so authentic and made in Thailand too!

Shelf Stable Whipping Cream- $1.29  

I always find myself running out to a grocery for cream, mostly for my biscuit-making endeavors. But I also like to have it on hand for pureed vegetable soups and this one-cup container can sit in your pantry-very convenient.

Freeze-dried Mango- $2.69 

Of all their freeze-dried fruit, this one is the best for snacking and has the most bulk per package. The mangos are from Thailand (the best!) and the flavor is intense. The texture always takes me back to a childhood treat of freeze-dried ice cream from the Air and Space museum…just like the astronauts!

Pastures of Eden Feta- $5.99 

I bond with people over the love of this brand of Israeli sheep's cheese. It has a soft crumbly texture and just the right amount of saltiness. Prepare to fall hard for this feta.

Lemon-pepper Pappardelle- $2.29 

The most delicious dry pasta I've ever used..a flavor that is perfect with our sweet lowcountry shrimp.

Fried Onions Pieces- $2.29  

I mix these onions with bread crumbs, chopped parsley, lemon zest, and pepper for a coating for baked fish and sautéed chicken. Throw some on top of haricot vert with some garlic-basil butter for a fancy side dish.

Chudleighs Apple Blossoms- $1.99 

I really really love to bake from scratch, but if you don't, these are as scrumptious a dessert that can possibly come from any factory. They come in packs of two, to help you add fireworks to a small special meal for you and your beloved.

Fresh Mozzarella Cheese Sticks- $3.99

A grownup version of string cheese. The packaging also keeps the mozz from drying out if you just need a little bit for a salad or sandwich.

The Path to Cilantro Heaven

When I arrived in Thailand on my recent culinary journey, I expected to see cilantro in heavy rotation, but really, it was just one note in their huge spectrum of flavors, and not used as much as in Mexican cuisine or their landlocked neighboring country, Laos.

After one Pad Thai after another my first few days in Bangkok, I kept thinking, someone has got to be putting cilantro on this somewhere, but no. I would find out a week later in cooking school that indeed, chives or scallions are used in all Pad Thai over there, and not my beloved cilantro. How can this be?, I kept thinking. How could I have been making pad Thai all these years and loading it with cilantro to find that this is completely inauthentic! Shocker. Well, the good news is I now make an authentic and delicious Pad Thai and feel better about my chef cred. I taught my younger sister and her boyfriend how to make it recently and we used lowcountry shrimp but stayed true to the real Thai flavors and it was great.

So all through northern Thailand, I was encountering lots of holy basil, tons of scorching hot fresh chili (an accident waiting to happen if you don't eat carefully!) and a surprising amount of cashews. It turns out that cashews plantations abound on the Andaman coast, so naturally the cuisine celebrates the nut alongside the more often used dry-roasted peanut. I'm all about some cashew and holy basil stirfrys.

I was really exited when I crossed the border into Laos (the biggest craziest ordeal of ridiculous proportions) and bought a cheese and vegetable sandwich that featured a real baguette! and came stuffed with cilantro. My eyes rolled back a little. I hadn't had cheese in a few weeks so that one triangle of "Laughing Bull" cheese was looking real good on the sammie too. As I got familiar with Laos cuisine over the next week, I came to find that this indeed is the country that gives cilantro it's proper due. It is in their most famous national dish, laab, a delicious and healthy spiced, chopped meat and herb mix that you scoop up with raw morning glory and cabbage leaves.

The people of Vietnam also love their cilantro and a million other raw herbs and greens. They actually get 50% of their daily calories from vegetables and would scoff at a meal without some greens. Well, they might be too polite to scoff, but they would tell us that eating greens and herbs is like preventative medicine, and I believe that. I also believe that eating a Bahn Mi stuffed with cilantro, on the street in Hoi An, is one of the greatest culinary experiences of my life thus far.

Cambodia was also hospitable to a cilantro lover like me. Their national dish, Fish Amok, is cooked and topped with the fancifully-shaped leaf. Khmer cuisine is wonderfully complex and much milder than Thai and Laos cuisine and I highly enjoyed their curries and noodle dishes.

So if want to visit cilantro heaven, but not actually have to die first, check out Laos and its distinctive cuisine. There are no tropical beaches in Laos, but a chef on a quest must go where she needs to go on her way to nirvana.

More Chile, More Sexy

Setting my tastebuds on fire at fine cooking schools in Thailand and Vietnam

View From Morning Glory's teaching kitchen

I had a personal mission on my trip to spend at least a few days in cooking schools, learning the cuisine and pounding curries in the countryside with a mighty pestil. The country farm settings were huge added bonuses to this luxury learning experience. I had heard the culinary and cultural capital of northern Thailand, Chiang Mai, was a great place for classes so I spent two days in two different schools there, both which I loved with vigor and can't even choose a favorite.

The first was Smart Cook, which had a nice journey element: a short pretty train ride through verdant tropical countryside then a bike ride to the farm to get to class. It was here that I got the definitive answer about pad thai and whether or not it is ever served with cilantro in Thailand. It is not. Only scallions, to my surprise. During class, I was struck by how organized our stations were, set up in a lovely, covered garden kitchen and how fully immersed we were in getting to prepare our dishes. I really loved the vistas from the farm and their garden tour where we picked kaffir limes and leaves. Our group was fun too, full of interesting people from all over the world. I met my first of several Blackberry employees here.

The second school I went to was the Thai Farm Cooking School. We did another market tour particularly notable because a guy in my class decided to film imself eating every fried bug at the market, to my delight/disgust.The faces he made while doing this were priceless and I was snapping away with my camera.Lots of people snack on bugs in Asia but it definitely creeps me out. I'll stick to tapioca worms in coconut milk

 I learn something new each time at a market, tasting a new fruit, smelling pungent shrimp paste, tasting yet another coconut milk-tapioca combination, watching how women peel the pinapples to get every bit of the skin off. Our teacher at this school was so hilarious I was laughing the whole time as she was throwing out one-liners like "To burn, or not to burn." And every long bean came with sexual innuendo.

This was a busy school with many classes going on at one time but run so smoothly, it was quiet and relaxing even. I had time to walk around their lotus pond marvelling at one perfect heart-shaped lotus that also stood out among the others for being smaller and purplish. All the food was incredible and again, the interaction among the worldly students while at luch or while cooking, made it that much better. I happened to discover that two of my classmates were from Charleston. It's a small small world, especially in Chaing Mai, where culture lovers cross paths all day every day in the travelsphere.

Mrs. Vy and her badass self

I was wildly excited about the fervor for mint and cilantro (and countless other herbs and greens) that was evident right when I hit Vietnam. My first meal in Vietnam was a fabulous dinner in Hanoi of make-your-own fish springrolls with gobs of greens. And the chili fervor is well tamped down here, in favor of complex flavors that emphasize the outright deliciousness of fresh vegetables and herbs.

Hoi An is to Vietnam what Chaing Mai is to Thailand, in a culinary sense, at least. These are true culinary hotspots with both a local and national cuisine to shout from a mountaintop about. These two towns also appealed to me for the truly memorable street food (Bahn Mi!!) and lively mix of inexpensive fusion restaurants.

First up in Hoi An was the Thuan Tinh Island "Cooking Tour". This one involved two types of boat travel and drinking passionflower juice all day, so it came with extras.  This was a full day starting with a bustling market tour with our chef choosing ingredients and handing them to us to carry in the provided baskets, boat ride to the island, garden tour and second boat ride through the coconut palms and rice paddies..all before we cooked a thing.  The cooking was done in the most gorgeous setting by the water and we did our four courses while enjoying nature at its finest and sippin on the bottomless juice (and they were really on top of this)! We got a nice parting gift here as well- long chopsticks we used for stirring..very sweet.

my favorite-wide rice noodles

Morning Glory in Hoi An might have been my favorite school overall, because the teacher, Mrs. Vy is so cool. She is the town's culinary superstar with American TV credits, a gorgeous cookbook and four restaurants. Her dry wit amused me and her depth of knowledge about herbs and cooking techniques impressed me.  She has been working in restaurants for 30 years but looks as delicate as a princess and was slightly younger than me at age 40. Again, the food we made was shockingly good, the mis en place was so smooth and made it such a pleasure to cook. And the camaraderie at our group table was again a bonus.  I loved that we got a gift of a mango peeler with our recipes. I have already put that peeler to good use in the two weeks that I have been back in SC.

One might ask, well, what did I learn? A lot. Enough for a whole other post and to whet my appetite for even more international travel.  Myanmar and Malaysia anyone?

Farro Salad with Roasted Vegetables and Black Garlic

I've been big into farro this year so I was intent on making a great spring salad with it for a healthy side to go with beef tenderloin at a recent family celebration. I often linger in the produce aisle of Whole Foods, checking out any new produce they might have. Expanding my repertoire is part of being a good chef. I've never seen nor heard of black garlic until last week so I decided to buy a package. This garlic has been fermented for three weeks and the end result is a sweet and raisiny soft bulb that you can squeeze out like roasted garlic. It is not a strong and pronounced flavor, more of a nuance. I love it. Basil sprigs, lemon wedges and fennel fronds make a nice garnish for this pretty dish.

4 cups uncooked farro
1 head of black garlic
1 bunch purple spring onions (or 1 purple onion)
2 carrots
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 bulb fennel
2 yellow squash
2 zucchini
1 cup mixed sliced mushrooms (cremini, baby bella, and oyster mushrooms are my favorites)
1 bunch asparagus
1 T chopped fresh oregano
1 T chopped fresh basil
1 T chopped fresh Italian parsley
juice of one lemon
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Chop all the vegetables into bite-sized pieces and place on a large baking pan. Squeeze the cloves out of the bulb of black garlic and break into pieces. Add the garlic to the vegetables with a drizzle of the olive oil, some salt and pepper. Roast at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or just until cooked. Meanwhile, soak the farro for 20 minutes, drain, and cover again with water in a stockpot. Boil for 20 minutes on medium or until the farro is chewy but still firm. Drain the farro and toss with the roasted vegetables, fresh herbs, lemon juice and olive oil. Toss gently and then salt and pepper again to taste.

- DeeDee Arthur / Charleston, SC

Mt. Pleasant Farmers Market - Spring's Bounty

The first Mt. Pleasant Farmers Market of spring brought out the locavores en mass. Farm-fresh veggies, hand-made fresh pasta, YesUmay cookies, local pickles and the coolest ice cream cart around, Roots, made the first of many appearances.

I was particularly excited to taste some fresh pea tendrils. They can be used much like spinach, sauteed or eaten raw in a salad. I would use them to garnish a dish in a heartbeat. They are a sculptural delight.

Giddy Goat, our fab local chevre, rolled out their sampler pack of four flavors, perfect for a little wine and cheese get-together.

Purple spring onions made a special appearance. They are just gorgeous and are fabulous roasted.

Green garlic looks just like a scallion but with a kicky garlic punch. Chefs have been using green garlic heads to infuse wine for deglazing.

I'll pass on the turnips, but they're really nice to photograph.

Spring means local asparagus. They can't get any fresher or more beautiful. I'm planning to pickle some soon.

Local author/cooking diva Nathalie Dupree was doing a demo and cookbook signing. When I asked to take her picture with her latest book, she obliged and on the count of three said "Sex" (also one of my grandmother's favorite lines for producing great smiles).

- DeeDee Arthur / Charleston, SC