Captain Dapper Loves Farmer's Fridge: A Fresh Take on Fast Food

Captain Dapper is a big fan of fresh, healthy foods. I try my damnedest to avoid fast foods and choose vegetarian options whenever possible. When I first learned about Farmer's Fridge, a new concept in fast healthy food, I was intrigued. Now that I've finally come across one of the company's kiosks, I'm sold!

I've been spending a fair amount of time travelling between Chicago and Iowa recently. The route I take to and from Iowa takes me on the I-94 tollway and the Lake Forest Oasis is always one of my first stops. Every time I've walked into the Oasis, I'm shake my head in disappointment over the food options. It's pretty dismal with a choice of McDonald's, KFC/Taco Bell, Panda Express and Subway. None of these options are anything I would remotely consider eating. On a recent trip back from Iowa, however, I was pleased to discover that the Lake Forest Oasis is one of two sites chosen for the launch of Farmer's Fridge.

I had first read about Farmer's Fridge on Huffington Post a few weeks ago and was immediately smitten with the concept. Luke Saunders, the man behind the fridge, is trying to introduce fresh, locally grown food via his vending machine concept. Each morning the cute little refrigerated machines, which are cleverly covered in reclaimed wood, are stocked with fresh salads, snacks and other all-natural goodies. The food is packaged in reusable plastic containers that are also recyclable. But, seriously, the jars are adorable and I can think of at least 100 ways I could reuse them.

There are currently only two Farmer's Fridge kiosks - one in downtown Chicago (201 N Clark Street) and the one that I encountered at the Lake Forest Oasis on I-94. Mr. Saunders has done a fantastic job of getting some early press for his launch, including pieces in Fast Company and Business Insider, so I expect the concept to take off quickly. In fact, rumor has it that more kiosks will be popping up around Chicago in the coming months. To lobby for one of the wood-sided fridges in your building, there's even a kiosk request form on the company's website.

MORE INFORMATION: Farmer's Fridge

MORE FARMER'S FRIDGE FROM AROUND THE WEB:

• Farmer's Fridge Vending Machines Dispense Jars Of Fresh, Wholesome Foods on Vending Times
• Get Fast, Healthy Food At Farmer's Fridge from Chicagoist
• Farmer’s Fridge Makes Fast Food a Fresh Concept from Daily Candy
• Farmer's Fridge Dispenses Healthy Salads & Snacks from a Reclaimed Wood Vending Machine from Inhabitat
• Salad from a Vending Machine? Farmer's Fridge Might Convince You from Treehugger

Images: 1. Jason Loper, 2. Farmer's Fridge

Chicken (Or Veggie!) Broth So Easy You'll Never Buy Canned Again

I really mean it with the title of this post. Making chicken or veggie broth is so easy that I'm ashamed I've every used canned broth or those little bouillon cubes. Seriously, if you can boil water and chop some veggies, you can make broth.

Basically, all you have to do is throw a bunch of vegetables and leftover bones into a pot, fill it with water and simmer over heat for an hour. Yup, that's it. After everything has simmered, strain out the solids and you have broth.

And when I say throw a bunch of veggies in, I mean any ol' random veggies. In the pot that's shown above, there are the green tops of two leeks, a handful of radishes, some past their prime mushrooms, a green pepper and a yellow pepper, along with the bones from a roasted chicken. Making broth is a good way to make use of older vegetables or, as with the leeks, the parts of vegetables that you don't eat. It's also a way to get a little more use out of a chicken, pot roast and other bones.

To keep broth on hand for quick use, freeze it in one- or two-cup servings.

Image: Jason Loper

Captain Dapper Loves Logan Square's Bang Bang Pie Shop

I have distinct memories of watching my grandmother roll pie crusts and biscuits on her flour dusted kitchen table. I would try to sneak little bites of raw dough, but she'd slap my hand away. If there was any leftover dough, my grandma would make little cinnamon rolls for me. To say I have a weakness for biscuits and pie would be an understatement. No food brings back childhood memories quite like baked goods - especially pies and biscuits. So when I learned that there's an entire cafe devoted to pie and biscuits, I knew I had to experience it.

Sitting on a stretch of California Avenue between Armitage and Milwaukee, Bang Bang Pie Shop is housed in a tiny little wedge shaped storefront. (Doesn't it seem totally fitting that a pie shop should be wedge shaped? I wonder if that was intentional?) From a tiny little kitchen lined with subway tile, the folks at Bang Bang serve up a menu devoted solely to pie and biscuits. If that seems limited, think again. You can dress up your biscuit with butter and jam, butternut strata or, of course, gravy. (I chose the latter. You can take the Captain out of Southern Indiana but you can't take the Southern Indiana out of the Captain.) Bang Bang also serves up breakfast biscuits that are dressed up with meat and eggs, as well as dinner biscuits, with the likes of bacon, collards, pow pow sauce and poached eggs.

The biscuit with gravy and egg was delicious. I inhaled every crumble out of my little white bowl while grooving to 1960's soul tunes. While the dining room is small, with three 4-top tables and two 2-tops, it's a very congenial atmosphere. Outfitted with vintage table, colorful red chairs and worn wood floors, it's a comfortable little space that makes you want to dig in and order biscuit after biscuit. While the weather is still mild, there's also an outdoor seating area that's outfitted with heat lamps and picnic tables.

I think the sign posted in the kitchen of Bang Bang Pie Shop says it all. "Before machines took over," it says, "pie shells were made by hand with lard and love and people were happy." True that!

More about Bang Bang Pie Shop from around the web:

• Bang Bang Pie Shop Serving Brunch and Lunch; Dinner Coming Soon via Eater
• Bang Bang Pie Shop on Metromix
• Bang Bang Pie Shop Announces Apple Pie Contest via Chicagoist

Check out the cafe for yourself - they're open seven days a week - or contact them to order your holiday pies.

Bang Bang Pie Shop
2051 North California
Chicago 60647
773.276.8888

Images: Jason Loper

Dapper Kitchen: Roasting a Chicken May Get You Laid

Even if you have no desire to become the next Top Chef, it's handy to have a few signature dishes in your repertoire. And one of those signature dishes should be roast chicken. I've always said that there's no better way to a man's heart than through his gizzard. In fact, I'm certain that the pork chop dinner I made The Mister on our second date was what won him over. (Well, that and my charm!) So trust me when I say that cooking your date dinner is almost certain to get you laid.

I know what you're thinking. But Captain Dapper, why the hell would I want to know how to roast a chicken? Isn't that why they sell their rotisserie birds at the grocery store? And isn't a date more likely to be impressed by an expensive meal from a restaurant?

I hear where you're coming from, dear reader. But imagine this scenario. You're trying to woo that special guy or gal. You've been out on a date and you think you're smitten. He/she, however, still needs a little convincing. On your first date you were smooshed between a bunch of other noisy diners in a busy (and expensive) restaurant. You spent most of the meal trying to hear one another but you know you actually missed half of the conversation because you couldn't hear a damned thing.

So you call up your potential new boy/girlfriend and you say, "Hey, I feel like we barely got to know each other on our first date. How about another go? This time, I'll cook for you."

Your date agrees. I mean, who would turn down a home cooked meal? An hour or two before your date arrives, you throw a chicken in the oven (using the recipe below, of course) and by the time he/she arrives your home will smell enticingly delicious. Your date will think you spent the entire day prepping the meal (you don't have to admit that it only took twenty minutes of prep time) and will be powerless against your charms. The best part, of course, is that after dinner there's no need for that whole "my place or yours" decision. You're already at your place!

Captain Dapper's Easy Roast Chicken and Vegetables Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 whole roasting chicken (2-4 pounds)
• 2-3 tablespoons softened butter
• Carrots
• Potatoes
• Salt, pepper and other seasonings

Instructions:
First, you'll want to unwrap the chicken and rinse it thoroughly, inside and out, under warm water. Then pat the bird dry with paper towels and place it in a roasting pan, breast side up. Next, brush the entire bird with softened butter. Sprinkle the buttered bird with salt, pepper and any other seasonings you might like. As you can see in the photo at the top, I stuffed my bird with a bunch of sage. I also shoved a couple cloves of garlic and bit chunk of fresh ginger inside the bird. Now, prep your veggies by washing them and them chopping them into a uniform size. To save time, you can pick up prepared veggies at most grocery stores. I used small potatoes and carrots for my roast but you can use any root vegetable you like - beets, parsnips, sweet potatoes, etc. Arrange the vegetables around the chicken in the pan. If you have any white wine or vermouth sitting around, add about half a cup to the pan. This might also be a good opportunity to make yourself a little cocktail as well. Hey, if the bird gets to soak in booze, you should get to drink a little!

And that's it - the bird is prepped and ready to go. Cover the pan loosely with foil and bake in a 425 degree oven for 25 minutes. Then, remove the pan from the oven, brush butter on the chicken, turn the temperature down to 350 and roast for additional 1 to 1 1/2 hours. You'll want to brush the bird with butter or drippings every twenty minutes or so to keep it from drying out. You may also want to remove the foil for the final thirty minutes of cooking to help the get nicely browned. You can use a meat thermometer to help you gauge when the chicken is ready. You can also pierce the chicken at the thickest part of the breast to make sure the meat is no longer bloody.

Remove the chicken from the oven and let it rest for 15 - 20 minutes. Place the vegetables and chicken on a platter and be prepared to impress your date. (Note: If you're not familiar with carving a bird, you may want to do so in the kitchen away from your date. Nothing ruins a romantic mood faster than the cook dropping f-bombs while trying to carve up the main dish!)

Bon appetit and happy boning!

Images: Jason Loper

Dapper Kitchen: Impromptu Beet Soup Put On Your Babushka and Make Some Borscht!

I found myself staring into a refrigerator filled with plastic bags of vegetable odds and ends collected from our CSA shares over the past few weeks. There was a bag full of beets, some leeks and onions and a couple of small heads of cabbage. As my stomach growled, I had a moment of inspiration. Borscht! I exclaimed. Sadly, only the cat was home to hear me. Since this dish doesn't involve a single ounce of tuna, the cat was totally unimpressed.

Impromptu Beet Soup (Borscht)
2 chopped small leeks (white part only)
1 chopped small onion
1 chopped green pepper
3 chopped carrots,
5 chopped small beets
1/2 small head of chopped or shredded cabbage
2 - 3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
Salt, pepper and herbs to taste
Sour cream or plain yogurt to taste

(After I chopped the beets it looked like I had murdered something.)

First, I sauteed the leeks, onion and pepper in about two tablespoons of butter. I don't always use butter for my soups. I usually use olive oil when I'm sauteing veggies for a soup. As I pulling together all of my ingredients for this soup, however, I discovered I only had about a cup of broth. Knowing I'd have to stretch that broth with a lot of water, I wanted the little extra fat from butter. I also added a generous shake of salt to the onion mixture while they cooked. After the onions started to turn clear, I added the carrots and beets. I mixed them in well with the onions and also stirred in the cabbage. I let the whole veggie mixture cook for about five minutes and then stirred in the broth and water. I also stirred in some fresh parsley and spicy oregano. Again, I'm not working with much broth here so I thought a little extra flavor would be appreciated.

I let the whole mix cook over medium heat for about thirty minutes. By that time the root vegetables had softened. I removed the pot from the heat and used my immersion blender to puree the mixture. I left the soup a little chunky because, well, that's just how I roll.

When serving the soup, I added a dollop of sour cream. I like my sour cream mixed in with my soup but sometimes The Mister likes to leave his floating in the middle. It was delicious served hot last night but I'm sure this borscht will be even better when I eat it chilled for lunch.

Images: Jason Loper

Dapper Stuff: 5 Immersion Blenders Under $100

When I pulled out my immersion blender for last night's impromptu beet soup, I wondered how I had ever lived without it. I'm a big fan of blended soups, especially as autumn brings in cooler temperatures and an abundance of veggies, and the immersion blender is the best way to achieve it. Back in my early cooking days, I experienced one too many hot messes (I'm using that phrase literally here) when I tried to blend soup in a regular blender. I'm far too impatient to blend the hot liquid in small batches so of course I would overfill the blender and the soup would shoot off the lid and burn my hands. Yes, I did that more than once.

With an immersion blender I can blend the soup right in the big stock pot. Easy peasy. I also use my immersion blender and Mason jar to blend my smoothies and other beverages.

If you don't have an immersion blender, get one immediately! It's a relatively small investment and it'll make your life in the kitchen 100% easier.

• All-Clad Immersion Blender from Williams-Sonoma ($99.95) Simple, classic All-Clad.
• De’Longhi Triblade Immersion Blender  from Sur La Table ($99.95) With all of the attachments, this is an immersion blender and a food processor combined. 
• Hamilton Beach Turbo Twister from Best Buy ($24.99) Despite its low price, this immersion blender received an A- rating from Good Housekeeping. 
• Cuisinart 2-Speed Smart Stick Hand Blender from Crate & Barrel ($59.99) This is a great price for  a blender and a couple of chopping attachments. 
• Breville Premium Plastic Immersion Blender from Casa.com ($69.96) This simple blender comes with a mixing jug. 

Images: Linked above.

Dapper Kitchen: Easy Cheddar Herb Biscuits & Refrigerator Peach Jam

Captain Dapper is enjoying the tastes of summer.

I invited a couple of friends to Captain Dapper HQ yesterday for a little summer evening nosh and drink. This being a lazy summer Sunday, I wanted to make food that would be easy and casual. I also wanted to use what I had on hand, saving myself from the dreaded weekend grocery store visit. What I came up with was a little spread that included a tomato and mozzarella salad, grilled sausages and, because life is never complete without a little bread, cheddar rosemary biscuits. Inspired by an interview with Bridget Lancaster and Jack Bishop from America's Test Kitchen that I heard on Fresh Air last week, I also made a small batch of peach jam to go along with the biscuits and sausage.

Read on for my biscuit and jam recipes:

Cheddar Rosemary Biscuits
1/2 cup coconut oil
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/c cup milk
1/2 cup finely shredded cheddar cheese
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh rosemary

Cut the coconut oil into the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt using a pastry blender until mixture looks like crumbs. Stir in milk, shredded cheese and rosemary. Form balls of down and press lightly between hands. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake in a preheated 450 degree oven for 10 minutes.

Making a quick jam is actually quite easy. The most time consuming part of the recipe is prepping the fruit. If you're in a big rush you can place the peach in boiling water for a quick second and then, when you remove it, the peel will slide off the fruit easily. I chose to go the old fashioned route: paring knife at the kitchen counter, peeling the peaches and eating a few slices as I went along.

Refrigerator Peach Jam
6 to 8 ripe peaches
1 cup sugar

Peel and slice peaches. Place peaches in medium size pot and heat over medium-high heat until the fruit is soft and has produced plenty of liquid. Add sugar, mix well and bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 to 45 minutes, stirring frequently. When jam has reached desired consistency, remove from heat and place in small containers. Can be stored in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks.

The peach jam was equally good spread on the herb biscuits and with the sausages. You'll notice in the photo above that I chopped the sausages and served them as hors d'oeuvres. I realized at the last minute that I didn't have enough meat to go around so I grilled the sausages and then sliced them, stuck them with toothpicks and served them as finger food. This helped stretch what I had and also made the sausage easy to eat while standing around drinking and talking.

Images: Jason Loper

Dapper Kitchen: Easy Blueberry (& Other Summer Fruit) Muffins

Captain Dapper wants you to enjoy the fruits of summer.

It's the peak of summer and that means the farmers markets and grocery stores are full of fresh summer fruit. While I'd like to think I can sit down and eat quart after quart of blueberries and peaches, I usually end up with a bowl of fruit a little past its prime. These muffins are a perfect use of that overripe fruit. Over the 4th of July weekend I made what I called a bi-berry batch, with a mix of strawberries and blueberries, and they were a hit. This week, I used a mix of blueberries and sliced peaches in my muffins with equally delicious results. You could even skip the berries and drop some chocolate chips into these muffins to satisfy a sweet tooth. Or go savory by adding corn and peppers. Check out the recipe below.

Summer Fruit Muffins
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup fresh or frozen fruit (blueberries, strawberries, peaches, etc.)
Streusel topping (below)

In a large bowl, stir together dry ingredients. Make a well in the center. Combine egg, milk and oil. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened. Add fruit and continue to stir -- but don't stir too much! You still want the batter to be a bit lumpy. Pour batter into greased or lined muffin pans. Set aside and create topping.

Streusel Topping
2 tablespoons firm stick butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Cut butter into flour, brown sugar and cinnamon using a pastry blender until crumbly.

Add Streusel topping to tops of muffin batter. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for 20 - 25 minutes. This recipe will make 6 large or 12 small muffins.

Brew a pot of coffee and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Yeah, sorry, I couldn't resist that pun.

Images: Jason Loper