Country Captain Soup (Serves 6)

Chez commemorated the Battle of Chickamauga from an all Southern perspective and for the brunch, Chez picked Country Captain Soup… a zesty soup that is based on a chicken and curry stew popular in the South. The origin of its name is unclear, but according to one account, it was brought to Savannah in the early 1800s by a sea captain who traveled the spice route from India. Give it a try but stick to the recipe. All of the ingredients are important and bring something to the dish, even the apple and the currants.

- Chez

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 4 garlic cloves, chopped
• 6 skinless boneless chicken thighs (about 1 1/4 pounds), cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon grated peeled fresh ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
• 4 cups (or more) canned chicken broth
• 2 cups canned diced peeled tomatoes with juices
• 1 large Granny Smith apple, peeled, coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup orzo (rice-shaped pasta; also called riso)
• 2 tablespoons dried currants
• Fresh cilantro
• Sour cream

Heat oil in heavy large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion, bell pepper and garlic; sauté until vegetables soften, about 5 minutes. Add chicken, curry powder, ginger and crushed red pepper; stir 2 minutes. Add 4 cups broth, tomatoes and apple and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate. Bring to simmer before continuing.)

Stir orzo and currants into soup and simmer until orzo is just cooked through, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Ladle soup into bowls. Garnish with cilantro and dollop of sour cream.

Sweet Potato Chips (8 Cups)

We had this on NFL Kick-Off Sunday for dinner and found these super-simple treasures to be a real 'keeper'. Unfortunately, we mated this with the wrong dip, but that doesn't decrease the Star Status of this dish! Give this one a try and see if you don't agree that this is a great alternative to to 'plain old potato chips'... and they're healthy too.

- Chez

What you'll need:

• 2 (about 1 3/4 pounds) sweet potatoes or yams scrubbed clean
• 2 quarts canola oil for deep-frying
• coarse salt to taste

How you'll use it:

With a mandolin or knife cut the potatoes into 1/16-inch slices and pat them dry with paper towels.

In a deep fryer or cast iron Dutch Oven. heat enough oil to measure 2-4 inches to 380°F and in it fry the potato slices in batches, turning them, until they are golden brown.

Transfer the chips with a slotted spoon to paper towels to drain and sprinkle them with the salt.

Carrabba’s Italian Grill of Canton, MI

Our last evening in Canton, MI brought us to Carrabba’s Italian Grill, conveniently located in our hotel parking lot (I do so love it when I don’t have to strain myself too much after a meal!) and while it is true that Carrabba’s is indeed a chain (and Chez tends to shun chains), it is also appropriate to note that Chez has done reviews of chains before… so the precedent does exist. On to the review!

We begin with what must be the most outstanding attribute of this particular establishment… namely the service. From the time we entered into this enterprise we were warmly welcome, made to feel at home and treated like an amalgamation of royalty and family. From our entrance and greeting by our hostess to our ‘adoption’ by the bartender (whom we later found out was the proprietor – Kim Janes, who mixes a mighty fine Dirty Martini, mind you) the ‘anticipation’ bar was set very high for the evening.

As already mentioned, Sheb once again chose the aforementioned martini, I went for the Vodka Tonic with lime and my daughter went for the Watermelon Martini. Sheb loved hers (I had no worries there), I found mine quite refreshing but Jenni thought that hers was a bit too sweet and way too ‘watermellon-esque’. Well, such is to be expected with frou-frou drinks. Stick to the old standards, is what I say.

Our dining started with the simple and the sublime. Carrabba's (well at least this Carrabba’s) has an excellent bread and oil herb dip. The bread, served warm, is a slightly dense white bread with a hard (but thin) crust. It a word, delicious! The herb mix with the oil was a great combination and while it was on the slightly salty side, the two complimented each other quite well.

Our appetizer course was the Antipasti Plate, composed of breaded and fried Calamari, Bruschette and Fried Mozzarella with Marinara. I found the calamari to be done quite well, with neither the excessive ‘breadiness’ nor the rubbery texture that I have been accustomed to. Great job on this one! The Fried Mozzarella was acceptable but I thought the marinara to be a bit bland… and as for the bruschette, well this one gets a big ‘thumbs down’, for it was far too oily for my tastes.

My dining partners then delved into the land of salads (a house salad for Sheb and a Caesar for Jenni) but I went forth and sampled the Tomato Basil Soup. The soup had a good tomato-tang, as I was expecting but what it didn’t have was that ‘basil punch’… in fact, I failed to note any basil at all, save a few flakes floating in the sea of red. In all, good… but not GREAT!

Main courses for us were composed of Spaghetti with Meat Sauce (Sheb), Lobster Ravioli (Jenni) and Baked Manicotti with a side of Italian Sausage (Chez). Sheb greatly enjoyed her dish and the rich, robust flavor of the dish was offset by the al dente of the pasta. If there were a negative (and I am not saying there was) it would be the lack of artistry in the presentation of the dish.

Jenni’s choice of the Lobster Ravioli had both flavor as well as the aforementioned ‘missing artistry’ and was a joy to behold, both for the palette as well as the eye. You can’t go wrong with a creamy white wine sauce. The Baked Manicotti with Italian Sausage (my choice) was also flavorful but it too was missing a certain flair that would have garnered it more presentation-points on Iron Chef America. Suffice it to say that in the taste portion of this competition it scored very high and there were no left-overs.

As the dessert cart made its way to our table we asked ourselves, “Do we really need more?”
Well, as you might have guessed, the answer was in the affirmative!

For Jenni it was all about the Limóncello Bread Pudding; a baked Brioche bread pudding, topped with vanilla ice cream and drizzled with a Limóncello liqueur sauce. Jenni found it a bit too lemony and a bit too ‘boozy’ for her tastes. I can respect that point of view since Limóncello is an aperitif that one must tread softly with, since the line betwixed too much and not enough is a very thin one indeed and one should always err on the side of caution. In this case, the chef erred in the opposite direction and a lower rating was the result.

For Sheb and myself, we went with ‘the old standard’, Tiramisú. Having it presented to us freshly prepared and ‘homemade’ rather than recently thawed and store-bought was a most pleasant experience and the addition of dark rum rather than Marasla was an interesting albeit non-traditional presentation. Rather than the coffee/cocoa dusting, as is also traditional, Carrabba’s garnishes this dish with shavings of milk chocolate… which I at first scoffed at, but then came to enjoy.

The two criticisms of this dish (small ones that they are) would be that I did indeed miss that coffee-flavor and I wish it could have found its way into the dish more prominently. As for the chocolate… call me an elitist but I think that a very dark chocolate (70% cocoa) shaving rather than milk chocolate would have better served the dish.

In closing, the evening at Carrabba’s was a pleasing dining experience, made all the better by the personal touches provided by the staff. Our server (Emily) was engaging, interesting and personable, with a gift for conversation and an abundantly cheerful attitude. Emily, you are hereby forgiven for forgetting my lime!

So, would Chez go back? Most certainly!

- Chez

O'Sushi of Canton, MI

Another long weekend (this one in observance of Labor Day), and another opportunity to get out and explore our ‘options’… This time we went ‘East’ and ventured to Canton, Michigan to visit our youngest daughter and our oldest grand-daughter, delve into the world of the Michigan RenFaire and of course dine at a few local hot-spots.

Our journey began in the ‘culinary far-East’ with a trip to O’Sushi, an eatery of Japanese roots despite the somewhat Irish sounding name. As we entered the store front establishment I was surprised how cramped it was. To call it cozy is to take great liberty with that word and for any groups of four or more, well… seating is a bit more than problematic. Since our party was five adults and two children (high-chairs) I think we taxed the proprietor to her limit and our accommodations (despite our previous reservations and forewarning that out party consisted of seven) was a hastily assemblage of tables and chairs close to the door. This resulted in harried wait-staff and a poor first impression. Not a stellar first act but I am open-minded, so on to the feast!

We opened our flavor-excursion with the appetizer round, consisting of traditional Edamame, Agedashi Tofu – a fried tofu in Ginger Bonita sauce, and according to the menu an Ahi Tune Tartare. The edamame were good but it hardly rates high praise, the Agedashi was excellent with just enough ‘tang’ to keep it interesting and the tofu’s creamy inner texture was in perfect balance with its crunchy outer skin.

The tuna tartare on the other hand was a bit of a disappointment. To begin with it wasn’t a tartare at all but planks of tuna done up in a ceviche. It would have been marginal at best had it been what was ordered but it certainly wasn’t what was advertised and in truth… the quality of the tuna was lacking. It struck me that in this dish the proprietor had found a place to use the sushi tuna that was no longer at its prime.

Our sushi course was also composed of three parts; a traditional sushi sampler platter of sashimi and nigiri (but sadly no maki), a vegetarian sushi platter and an interesting assemblage called Sunday Morning Sushi – a tempura coated maki with a spicy sauce. All three dishes were good, with plenty to go around. The only negative on any of the dishes would have to be that the carrots on the vegetarian sushi were on the wilted side and not very palatable.

So… what is the final verdict? Well, O’Sushi is a fair, (not good & certainly not great) addition to our dietary repertoire, but I don’t think I would venture back.

- Chez