October 2007 Archives

We buy most of our meat from Skagit River Ranch. In addition to amazing beef, pork, and chicken, they also have pretty good recipes. We've had better than average luck with them. However, yesterday, I attempted to make BBQ-style beef brisket.  It was... OK. The beef was tender, the onions were melty, but the recipe just didn't grab us. It needed something.

Fast forward to tonight. John's working on a huge art project and I don't get home until 6:30. We need dinner. Preferably a decent dinner since I'm tired and he's stressed. So I do a quick web search and find a recipe for brisket chili recipe from Get Your Grill On, a blog we read often.

I've linked to it, but I really just improvised. Here's what I did. Oh, and John proclaimed the meal "excellent".

Ingredients

• Some decent amount of organic beef brisket from Skagit River Ranch
• A handful of dried organic purple cayenne peppers
• 1 dried organic cherry bomb pepper
• 1 large local and organic onion, cooked or raw
• 1 bottle beer
• Cumin
• Chili Powder
• 2 cans organic diced tomatoes

Directions

A word of advice... when you have a pound plus of cooked beef brisket in a solid piece that's leftover from a night of cooking, and you think you might want to use it the next day in something else, do NOT put it in the fridge expecting to shred it the next day. Take the extra few minutes and shred it that evening, when it's still warm. Trust me on this. Please.

So after I spent a good 20 minutes struggling to shred the brisket, I got to work.

We bought a bag of dried purple cayenne peppers at the farmers market last year. They've been in our cabinet for a while, just waiting for an opportunity. Tonight I took a generous handful of them and put them in my new immersion blender's food processing attachment and pulverized them. Then I threw them in a big pot and toasted them. Wow, that smelled good.

After about 5-7 minutes in the pot on medium heat, I added all of the onions I had leftover from the BBQ brisket recipe. I figure it was about a whole onion. Then I poured in a bottle of beer. Mmmmm, beer. I used a Kona Coffee brew, but any dark beer would have worked.

I turned the heat up to medium-high and cooked the onion-pepper-beer  mixture until the beer was just about gone and the onions were beautifully caramelized.

Then I added the beef and two cans of tomatoes. I put a generous helping of cumin and chili powder in a fry pan and toasted them together. The toasting really brings out the flavor and the aroma. I added the toasted spices to the pot and simmered the whole thing for about half an hour.

I had to run out to the store and get some cheese since this was an amazingly spicy dish, but a few tablespoons of Beecher's Flagship Cheddar and a good sized slice of bread  were the perfect mates to this dish.

Another day, another excuse to use my immersion blender. We bought some fennel at the farmers market last week, intending to make a fennel and shaved parmesan salad, but we just never got around to it. As the fennel lay wilting in our refrigerator. John dug up this recipe. I encourage you to read the whole post, as they go into a lot of information about fennel that I won't pretend to have thoroughly read.

So, after some chopping, boiling, blending, and some disastrous attempts at making parmesan cheese tubes, here's what we ended up with.

So in that picture, you've got two parmesan cheese tubes dunked in a bowl of soup with some diced apples and bacon thrown in for garnish.

Before I go any further, I should tell you what we thought.

The soup was good. It wasn't amazing, or knock-your-socks-off, or rich or the most flavorful that we've ever had, but it was good. It was light, and both sweet and tart. We both agreed that this was more of a summer soup than a winter soup and we even want to try it cold.

Now that I've possibly not convinced you to try this, I'll tell you how to make it.

Ingredients:

• 3 local and organic baby fennel bulbs
• 3 organic celery stalks
• 1 local and organic onion
• 2 cloves of local and organic garlic
• 1 tsugaru apple (local)
• Water
• Salt and pepper
• 3/4 cup organic heavy cream
• 3 slices bacon (optional)
• 1/2 tsugaru apple (optional)

Chop all of the vegetables and the apple in coarse chunks. You use the entire fennel bulb, from root to fern-like tip. Throw all of chopped ingredients in a soup pot and cover with water. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, covered, for 45 minutes.

Use your immersion blender to puree the soup. Add some heavy cream. The original recipe called for a cup, but since we're trying to watch our calorie intake, I used less than 3/4 of a cup. It just didn't seem to need any more. Stir and add salt and pepper to taste.

Before serving, crisp a slice or two of bacon and crumble in the bottom of the bowl. Dice half an apple and add some of that to the bowl as well. Top with soup and a parmesan cheese tube (see below).  

Parmesan Cheese Tubes

The original recipe showed these beautiful parmesan cheese tubes with large basil leaves wrapped up in them. We've tried shaping baked cheese before with horrible results. But I was game to try again.

My first attempt was a failure. The cheese circles, which were supposed to bake for 7-9 minutes, were smoking after 3. When I pulled them out of the smoking oven, they were more like lace than cheese. I tried to shape them and it just didn't take.

In hindsight, there were two issues. First, I used asiago instead of parmesan. Second, I used way too little cheese. My second attempt, however, was very nearly successful.

All you need to do is pile about a quarter cup of cheese on a silpat. This is important. Do not try to make these without a silpat.

Add some spices on top and place in a 350 oven for 7-9 minutes. When they are done, they should look very much like the picture here. Let the cheese cool for 2 minutes, and then roll into a tube.

Last week at the farmers market, John picked up some lamb sausage. We didn't know what we were going to do with it, but that never seems to stop us from shopping.

After a very quick web search, I found a recipe for Red Lentil, Potato, and Lamb Sausage soup. After a few edits, and about an hour, it looked like this.

We each ate two bowls.

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound local and organic lamb sausage from Sea Breeze Farms
• 1 local and organic onion
• 2 cloves of local and organic garlic
• 1 stalk of organic celery
• 1 cup of red lentil beans
• 1 cup of canned organic tomatoes
• 1 pound local and organic new potatoes from Olsen Farms
• 6 cups local, organic, homemade chicken stock
• Salt and pepper
• Cinnamon
• Cumin
• Cayenne
• Ginger

Directions

In a large soup pot, cook the sausage until well browned. With a slotted spoon, remove the sausage and reserve in a bowl. You should have a tablespoon or two of rendered fat left in the soup pot.

Mix the spices in a bowl. I used about half a teaspoon of each. Add the onion, garlic, celery, lentils, and spices. Stir frequently for about 6 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook until the mixture starts to bubble.

Add the potatoes and chicken stock and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.

Use an immersion blender and blend as much of the soup as you'd like. I left a few chunks of vegetables and it gave a nice texture to the mix. Add the sausage and heat through (about another 5-6 minutes).

I will definitely be making this again.

This month's diet goal is to add more fiber to our diet. Fajitas are great, since we can use high fiber tortillas and lots of veggies. It's also a good time of year for soups. So our first soup endeavor of the fall was Thai Carrot Soup from the Moosewood Restaurant New Classics cookbook.

This recipe is in two steps. The first requires you to make Lemongrass Stock.

Ingredients:

• 6 cups water
• 3 fresh lemongrass stalks, coarsely chopped
• 2 celery stalks (I skipped these)
• 1 onion, coarsely chopped
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 3 inch slice of fresh ginger, peeled
• Some peppercorns
• Some salt
• Some coriander seeds (optional)

The onion, carrot and ginger were local and organic.

Directions:

These couldn't be simpler. Put all of the ingredients in the pot and boil for 45 minutes. Done.

Now, onto the soup.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons Grapeseed Oil
• 2 cups chopped organic onions
• 2 minced organic garlic cloves
• 1 teaspoon grated organic ginger root
• 1 fresh organic chile (as hot as you want it)
• 2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 cup chopped organic fire roasted tomatoes
• 1 cup chopped organic red bell peppers
• 4 cups peeled and chopped organic carrots
• Pinch of salt
• Lemongrass Stock
• 14 ounces of coconut milk
• Chopped organic cilantro for garnish

Directions:

Heat the oil in a medium sized soup pot. Add the onions and saute them for 10 minutes. Add the garlic, ginger, chile, and coriander and cook for 1 minute.

Next, add the tomatoes, peppers, carrots, salt, and stock and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the coconut milk. Puree the soup (preferably with an immersion blender) and garnish with cilantro before serving.

Many years ago (yes, many), my parents, uncle, cousin, her husband, and daughter drove up to my college town to celebrate my college graduation. We went to a local Italian restaurant for lunch. My cousin's daughter, who was all of 5 years old at the time, was a very picky eater. Her mother ordered plain pasta for her, but when the food came out, she turned her nose up at it. Why?

It wasn't white.

Fresh pasta, that hasn't been dried before cooking, isn't white. It's yellow.

Long story short, the restaurant found some dried pasta and brought it out for her.

But this is a cooking blog, not a family history blog, so I'll move on to the recipe. I've tried to make fresh pasta several times, usually with catastrophic results. This time, however, I was successful. Take a look at this.

Ingredients

• 3-4 cups Emmer flour (local, organic, and low carb)
• 4 eggs (local and organic)

Directions

Add 3 cups of flour to a large mixing bowl. Make a well in the center and crack in the eggs.

Mix well. That's it. When you're done, you'll have a round ball of dough. If the dough still feels a little bit tacky or sticky, mix in a little more flour. Let the dough rest, covered, for at least 30 minutes.

Here's where you can get creative.

We've watched a number of episodes of Iron Chef (the original). Iron Chef Morimoto is amazingly fast at making earlobe pasta. I however, was not so successful. My earlobe pasta looked... odd. So I whipped out my Kitchenaid mixer and pasta attachment and started making elbow macaroni.

When I had enough, I threw it in a pot of boiling, salted water for 4 minutes and dinner was served.

As I've mentioned previously, I don't have a long standing respect for vegetables. However, as part of our goal to improve our health, lose weight, and help control John's blood sugar, we're really trying to eat a wider variety of vegetables. As we were wandering the farmers market the other day, a friend picked up a Kabocha squash. We got to talking about my quest for vegetables and she referred to this squash as the 'squash for people who don't like squash'. Since I am easily influenced and happen to trust her food sense, I got in line right behind her with a squash of my very own.

Preparing this squash couldn't be simpler. John sliced it in half and I scooped out the seeds. I put the two halves cut side down in a glass baking dish and added an inch of water to the dish. I baked it for about 45 minutes at 325, until I could stick a fork in the rind and have it penetrate easily.

From there, I scooped the squash out, added a couple pats of butter and some brown sugar. That's it. Instant vegetable.

Roast chicken is tricky.

It isn't that it's particularly hard to cook, or even hard to find a recipe.

What's hard is waiting.  You don't just pull out a frozen bird from the freezer (well, ok, of course you do... you don't pull a frozen bird out of the washing machine... sheesh, you're as bad as I am, jumping on a poorly worded phrase before it's even done... which I should finish now..) and put it right in the oven.  It takes time.  For instance, our completely frozen chicken was still half frozen after a night in the fridge.  And was still frozen on the inside after a few hours on the counter.

You can't just get in the mood for a roast chicken and have it that night.  Not without external forces.  Or, y'know, going and buying one fresh (which should be considered 'external forces').

So, we knew we wanted a roast chicken, and we (mostly) got it defrosted in time... All that was needed was a recipe.

A leftover from the Anniversary meal, I still had a healthy amount of fresh thyme.  And I had hankering for balsamic.  So, to google!

I did a little search for 'balsamic roast chicken thyme' which led me to Roast Chicken and Potatoes with Balsamic-Black Pepper Sauce.

I'll lay out the recipe with pictures in a minute, but, first I want to talk about the results.

It wasn't bad.  It wasn't great.  I'd make the potatoes again, just cut them thinner so they'll crisp better.  And I'd make the gravy again.  The chicken was moist, but it just wasn't... it wasn't what I wanted.

The skin was crispy, but, all it is is salt and peppered.  I wanted, I guess, something more glazed, which, in retrospect, I really should have added to the Google search and I might have found this.  But I can just do that next time.  Lets look at the ingredients:

9 tablespoons olive oil - Organic
3/4 cup chopped shallots - Organic, Local
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried - Fresh, Organic, Local
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
3 1/2 cups chicken stock or canned low-salt chicken broth - Organic, Local, Home Made[1]
1 3/4 cups beef stock or canned beef broth - Organic, Local, Home Made[1]
2 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar - Organic
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 pounds large red potatoes (about 6), each cut lengthwise into 1-inch wedges - Organic, Local

1 1/2 tablespoons chopped garlic - Organic, Local
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary - Semi-Organic, Very Local[4]

1 5- to 5 1/4-pound fryer chicken, halved lengthwise, backbone removed - Organic, Local

Now, first, let me just say... 'backbone removed' is a lot harder than it sounds.  It sounded super easy to me.  Until I tried.  Part of it might very easily be the knife.  A meat cleaver will likely work alot better than my extreeeeemely sharp chef's knife[5], but still..

What's really sort of fun about this recipe is how all over the place you feel as you make it, but it all just comes together in the end.

First, heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a large saucepan on medium high and cook the shallots and thyme until the shallots start to cook down. 

Add the flour and stir for a minute.

Gradually whisk in the stocks.  Let me tell you, when the majority of your stock is in popsicle form, there isn't a 'gradually' involved, so, much like a gas pump says to 'quickly' remove your card, it isn't a necessity.

Boil it until it is reduced to 1.5 cups, stirring occasionally.  The recipe says 20 minutes.  I kept mine going the entire time I did the rest of the recipe and it looked fine.  At the end, add the balsamic and pepper.  You can make the sauce ahead of time, cover it and refrigerate it, if you want.

Put a rack in the upper third and a rack in the lower third of your oven.  Preheat it to 375F.  Toss the potatoes, 1 tablespoon of oil, the garlic and the rosemary in a large bowl.  Put them on a sheet, rounded side down, sprinkle with salt and pepper, set aside. 

I think it's so pretty, it calls for an extreme close up.

EXTREME POTATO CLOSE UP!!!!!!!!

That's pretty.

But see?  Just doing all this stuff that seems to be completely and totally unrelated... But it's all downhill from here.

Salt and pepper the chicken.  Throw it in an oven proof skillet with the rest of the oil.  And, if you have a skillet big enough to hold two chicken halves flat *and* fit in your oven... wow.  I'm amazed.  I had to use two cast iron pans, and even then, they both didn't quite fit in the oven directly on the rack.  I had to lift them an inch so they'd not get stuck on the raised lip at the back of the rack.  But anyways, where was I?  Chicken + Oil -> Skillet/medium high heat (that would be chicken and oil in skillet, over medium high heat), skin side down.  Cook until very brown (some 15 minutes), flip and cook for 5 more minutes. 

Put the potatoes on the top rack, put the skillet(s) on the bottom rack, cook for 45 minutes or so.  Rewarm the sauce if need be (theoretically, you could *start* your sauce now and have it all come together at the end, assume you ever get a boil reduction to work as quick as recipes say they should) and cut the chicken in half yet again (if you want, we didn't).  Why don't you do that *before* cooking?  Beats me.

Arrange chicken on a platter with potatoes, serve with sauce on the side.

And again, it's tasty, but it could be so much better.  I recommend doing something with maybe throwing some carrots and other root veggies in the pan with the chicken.  Maybe a little rub or sauce on the chicken too.

Heck, I bet you could find a way to cook the potatoes *in* the cast iron skillets, with the chicken all cut into pieces already and throw those on the table and have an ultra-rustic, super pretty food service.

[1] Yes, really.  We make our own stocks.  Don't you[2]?  =)  I highly recommend Ball's Plastic Freezer Jars.  They make a 16oz version too, so, you may want to get some of each.  You might want to get some of the really small Ziploc containers too, so that you can have 1 cup, 2 cup and 1/2 cup frozen stock-sicles handy for all your cooking needs.

[2]  You have any recipes to share?  Wait, you mean you don't make your own stock[3]?

[3]  You don't?  Would you like to?  We have two or three excellent stock recipes to share. 

[4] As in 'I pulled it off the plant outside the back door.'

[5] No human blood was spilled in the making of this recipe.

Two years, two pounds of M and Ms.  I knew Patricia would be eating a bit of chocolate at work, a nice mix of almond, peanut butter and the good old fashioned chocolate, so I figured I'd make a nice little dinner for her as a congratulations.

A few weeks back, at the gym, I was watching the Today Show.  Not by choice, just enforced by what's on the wall.  They had a chef on whom I had never heard of named Jonathan Waxman making Turkey Milanese.  Well, hey, I thought, I could make that for her.

Then I actually read the recipe.

Ok, so, that's out.  Too hard for me.  Tho the whole 'beating a piece of meat flat' (hey, you, stop sniggering) appealed to me, so, I decided on a fried chicken.

But I still needed sides.  We had some potato parmesan bread, so bread was taken care of.  We had some left over potatoes, so I went for the old smashed potato stand-by.

I wanted to make more, and not just stuff I've made before.

Well, there was this brown buttered corn I saw over on Orangette.  I wasn't entirely sure I would be able to do it, but... what the heck.

So, long story short, I made this:

Now, short story long....

Over there at 9 o'clock, you have the potato parmesan bread, and at 3 o'clock, the roasted smashed potatoes.

Lets talk a little bit about the corn at 6 o'clock, and then we can get to the main course, that gorgeous hunk of meat.

The corn was a beautifully simple recipe, which you already know if you looked at the recipe.

Basically, chop the kernels off three ears of corn, and milk the cob a bit.  

Brown some butter with a few sprigs of thyme (lemon thyme was recommended, but I couldn't find any).  This was the part I had a problem with.  I wasn't sure I could actually brown butter.  I mean, it sounds easy enough, melt it, and then cook it.  But the pan I used was big enough that 4 tablespoons of butter just sorta covered the bottom, not to much depth.  

Then, once it's browned, throw the corn in and some coarse salt, mix it up, and cover.  Says to cook it at medium low, but it was barely cooking..  So I cranked it up a bit. 

Once it's tender, pull out the sprigs and you're done.

What would I do differently?

Well, first, a smaller pot.

Next, a couple tablespoons more butter.  Admittedly, the smaller pan might make it better.

After that, I won't cut so close to the cob.  I got some of the tough cob-tastic bits with the corn.  That also cut down on the amount of milk the cob produced.

And lastly, I'll actually put in the salt.  Dummy that I am, I forgot that step.   I didn't do the parsley garnish either, but, I'm not a garnishy sorta guy.

Now, lets pull the ingredient list:

Corn, 3 ears.  Local, non-organic. 

Butter, 4 Tblspn.  Non-Local,, organic.

Thyme, 3 sprigs.  Local, organic.

Not bad, if I do say so myself.

And now... the main event.

Buttermilk Pan-Fried Chicken Milanese

Milanese means flat, right?  Right?  No?  Well.. fine.

Buttermilk Pan-Fried Chicken A-Cup

I'll be honest, I was flying solo on this.  No real recipe.

I got two large chicken breasts and proceeded to flatten them.  Personally I put it between some wax paper and banged it with a rolling pin until it was flat. I'm not sure it was the right way to do it, but it worked.  More or less.

Salt and pepper both sides.

Pour some buttermilk into a Pyrex pan.  Salt and pepper that and lay in one of the flattened breasts.  Pour in more buttermilk to cover.  Put in second breast.  Pour in more buttermilk to cover.  Throw in fridge for... well, lets say two or three hours.  At least, that's what I did.

While that's going, it's time to mix up some dredge stuff.  I went a little hog-wild.

I threw in some panko with some italian seasoned bread crumbs to fill it out.  Then, I added smoked paprika, chili powder, mexican oregan, a little dash of garlic granules and, for some odd reason, Stubb's Rosemary Ginger Spice Rub.

Pull the chicken out, dredge in the mix.

Olive oil up a big, flat pan, and throw in the breast, one at a time (unless you have a *really* big pan).

I could have cooked it for about 30 seconds less.  The chicken was done, it was, to a point, juicy, but the coating was a little burned.

But it was tasty.  It was probably a little too much, I should have stuck to one major flavor, with a little kick of something spicy, but, what is important.... I liked it.  She liked it.  And, we had enough for two meals.  I'd try to write up this one's ingredients, but, honestly, I winged it too much to actually know what I did.