Thanksgiving is Right Around the Corner... Its Time to be Grateful

There is always plenty to be grateful for. This year, Tamy and I started our life together. Created this awesome project which has just taken our life into a completely unknown direction. Professionally we are doing fantastic. And to top it all off, as some of you might or might not know, my father put up a great fight to cancer, lung cancer to be exact. It was very tough on him and the family, but he stuck to it and beat it. Thank God he was smart... due to regular check-ups, the cancer was discovered early on and did not metastasize anywhere else. This is indeed a very important Thanksgiving for the entire family.

It is for this reason, that this year we have decided to do something very special. It is time that we help out much more to those who have not been as lucky as us, to those who have not been able to put up the fight that my father did. Tamy and I will be flying to Mexico on a very special Thursday at Worth Street for a charity dinner with my family and friends. We will be supporting a very poor hospital in the city of Queretaro (about two hours outside of Mexico City) that helps out children with cancer. These kids never had the same chance that my father did, but with our help, we can at least give them a fighting chance.

The hospital is called AMANC Queretaro and we feel very fortunate to be able to help them in any way possible!

At this point I reach out to all of you. If you want to help out in anyway please reach out to us. We also have a PayPal account setup to receive any donations anyone might want to give. Please send us an email to worthkitchen@gmail.com with any comments, ideas, suggestions or anything you would like to share.

We will keep all of you all up-to-date on our progress and on the very special event.

Help us by saying FUCK CANCER! (sorry for the language but its the true emotion that the disease brings out!)

After a sweet victory, the celebration!

The dinner was, once again, a huge success! For me it has been a great exercise to work the creative mind as well as practice in the kitchen. Every week gets better and better, and this time I really feel as if I am coming into my own.

Let me cut to the chase and share with you what I consider delicious yet very easy to do recipes. Please enjoy and PLEASE leave comments if you want to share anything or give feedback.

Tuna Tartar

1 tuna filet
¼ cup of fresh mint chopped
¼ cup of diced watermelon
½ lime (squeezed juice)
3 tb spoons of soy sauce
3 tb spoons of sesame oil
4 tb spoons of toasted sesame seed

This recipe is very simple. Cut the tuna into small pieces and mix all the ingredients with the exception of the toasted sesame seeds. The plate is ready to serve, or you could let it sit in the fridge for 30. Add sesame seeds at the moment of serving.

Salmon Tartar

1 salmon filet (3/4 lb)
4 tb spoons of sesame oil
4 tb spoons of soy sauce

Cut salmon into small thin slices. Add sauces and mix together Very simple.

Esquite

1 bag of frozen corn (or 3 fresh corn on the cobs)
¼ cup of mayonnaise
½ cup of queso fresco shredded
¼ cup of grated parmesan cheese
2 tb spoons of lime juice
2 tb spoons of chili powder

If cooking frozen corn, cook per the instructions on the package (most likely boil salt ½ cup of salted water add corn and cook for 5 minutes). Place corn kennels in a mixing bowl add mayonnaise & lime juice and mix together. Mix in both types of cheese and serve. Add chili powder on top.

Chipotle Quinoa with Asparagus and Avocado

1 cup of quinoa
12 chopped asparagus
1 avocado chopped
2 cups of chicken broth
1 chipotle chili with adobe sauce
½ yellow onion
½ cup of heavy cream
½ cup of white wine
2 tb of butter

Previous to cooking the quinoa, rinse the quinoa thoroughly with water. Once clean, place quinoa in the pot under medium heat, add some salt and pepper. Begin by adding ¾ of a cup of chicken broth into quinoa and let it absorb the liquid. Continue to add more broth until the quinoa has slowly risen and absorbed all the liquid. Approximately 20 minutes.

Prepare the sauce separately, with melted butter and onions in a saucepan. Then add the chopped chipotle chili into the mix and stir. Add the wine and 5 minutes later the cream. Sauce might be a bit spicy, but remember it is going to be added to all the quinoa. Pour sauce into the quinoa and stir it in.

Cut the asparagus into small pieces and cook in a pan with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Once cooked (5 mn) add to quinoa. Add the avocado and mix all together. Quinoa is the ready to serve.

Scallops with Cilantro sauce

20 large sea scallops
1 tb butter
1 cup of finely chopped cilantro
¼ cup of olive oil
1 garlic clove
2 tb spoons of mustard
4 tb spoons of heavy cream

Sauce:
Add cilantro, olive oil, garlic, mustard and cream into a food processor and sop it all up nicely. Cilantro will feel a bit chunky, that is the way you want to present it. Once all ingredients are properly mixed, pass to saucepan and cook lightly for 2 minutes just before serving.

To prepare the scallops, salt and pepper them before cooking. Melt butter in skillet then add all scallops. They should take about 3 minutes to cook on each side with a medium high flame. Serve scallops and then add sauce on top of each one, drizzling a bit around the plate for more presence.

A Touch of Mexico

Wow! This week came with a rush. We found ourselves on Wednesday night almost 10:30 and we still didn’t have a complete menu. Time definitely flies when you are doing something you love. Between this project and the World Cup, time has become an abstract notion which its existence to me is non-reality. Unfortunately, to the outside world, time is still very much a reality and this is how we find ourselves on Wednesday trying to create a menu for the three new visitors that will join us the next day.

We actually already had one dish in mind, due to the fact that we had half of a tuna fillet left over from the night before along with some watermelon and mint. Now we had to retrofit a theme into this plate and create from the vastness of our imagination two new plates that would connect perfectly. Luckily the idea came roaring out from Tamy’s creative mind. Seeing as how the next day Mexico played a very important game against France, why not dedicate a night to the country that has given both of us so much. However, we had to be very careful because if Mexico lost the idea of a Mexican centric menu would be lost in defeat. So what we created was a menu focused primarily on seafood but with a touch of Mexican.

Every plate we created had something that would tie it to Mexico, a certain subtlety within the dish. Obviously we had to check before hand what level of spicy our friends would tolerate, but the menu was coming together with ease and flow. The first dish would be a tuna and a salmon tartar garnished with an esquite (Mexican corn dish). The main dish, scallops with a cilantro sauce and a special quinoa. The dessert was one that Tamy would create.

As the reality of time began to fade once again we had a final menu set in stone, all we needed now was a beautiful performance from Mexico the next day and a win!