Emily's Culinary Adventures

Sous Vide Pork Roast with Savory Fennel Bread Pudding

2011-12-14T09:21:00.006-05:00

Just when I came up with a new game plan to be able to cook a bit more, my life is going through some more upheaval. I'll write about that more as it happens, but for now one implication is that I need to start using up my stockpile of proteins in the chest freezer. To help me with this, I invited a couple friends over for a simple dinner the other night.
The original version of this bread pudding recipe was from Cooking Light, which is why you'll notice it uses stock instead of heavy cream. (I was going to make Thomas Keller's Leek Bread Pudding until I noticed that the recipe involved upwards of 400 grams of fat...) I had made this previously following fairly close to the Cooking Light directions, but this time I followed my instincts instead and it turned out even better, so I'll give you those quantities here.
The basic ingredients are pretty simple: 3 large bulbs of fennel, 2 to 2.5 large onions, 4 ounces good fontina cheese, and 15 ounces brioche (a definite upgrade from the Italian bread in the recipe...). Also, not pictured, is a quart of chicken stock that I replaced here with pork stock from the freezer, since I figured that would tie in nicely with the porkiness of the main dish. There can be a few cloves of garlic in there as well, but I was out of garlic so I omitted it this time and didn't miss it at all. I'll leave that one to your discretion. The fennel and onions are thinly sliced and thrown into a pan with a little oil. This is where the recipe is a lying liar, because you're supposed to "cook until golden brown (about 20 minutes)." HA!
Anyway, two hours later, I had my golden brown fennel and onions. I did this step almost entirely while sitting in my recliner, so it was no big deal that it took a long time, but I'm glad I decided to make this in advance rather than the original plan to prepare dinner with my friends when they arrived...
That's all the "hard work" of prep. The other ingredients then just need to be combined.The brioche is cut into rather large (approximately one inch) hunks...
And four ounces of the fontina is grated...
The stock is added to the pan with the caramelized onions and fennel, a little at first to deglaze, then the rest. After the mixture comes to a simmer, the bread chunks are gently folded in. I spooned about half of this bread and fennel mixture into the bottom of a silpat-lined 9" x 13" baking dish, sprinkled most of the fontina over the top in an even layer, then topped with the remaining bread cubes and stirred the remaining fontina through this top layer. A little (optional) Parmesan can be grated over the top for extra flavor and browning if you have it lying around, then the dish goes into a 350°F oven for about 75 minutes when you're ready for dinner. Look how pretty:
As for the pork, I used a pork loin roast rather than the tenderloin in the recipe, and varied the brine a little since I wouldn't be crusting it in fennel seeds to roast. I used the 8 cups of water, 1 cup sugar, and 1/4 cup kosher salt as the recipe calls for, but also added a a heaping tablespoon of fennel seeds and a tablespoon of black peppercorns. I left the pork in the brine overnight, and there was definitely a lovely fennel accent in the finished dish. The pork cooks sous vide at 140°F for 6.5 to 7 hours and is finished in a skillet to brown. (I aided the browning with my blow torch because it is fun.)
As always, the pork was perfectly cooked all the way through. Pork remains one of my very favorite ways to use the sous vide technique. The resulting meat is so absurdly juicy and tender, and by vacuum-sealing individual portions of leftovers to re-therm (as they say), every leftover portion is just as perfectly cooked as your first meal, which is impossible with any other method of reheating pork that I've ever tried...
There you have it. Sous Vide Pork Loin Roast with Savory Fennel Bread Pudding.
I guess this is a perfect example of a meal that technically takes a long time to cook (the bread pudding takes about 4 hours start to finish, the pork takes 7 hours not counting the 8 hours of brining time...) but almost none of that time actually requires you to be in the kitchen. I poked my head in 4 times to stir the caramelizing onions and fennel... Then just tossed the dish of bread pudding in the oven while I hung out in the living room with friends sipping martinis... Didn't need to monitor the pork at all while it did its thing.
Sometimes a great cold-weather meal practically cooks itself...

Mmmm... Leftovers...

2011-11-28T15:45:00.005-05:00

Quick post about the two best reasons for Thanksgiving: The Soup... and The Sandwich.
I was planning to bake bread for the sandwich, but followed one of my new rules: Cut yourself a break sometimes. Thus, when that seemed like it would require a lot of time in the kitchen, I realized my friend was making a run to Russo's for me that very day and sent her a quick e-mail to see if she could pick up a loaf of brioche for me while she was there. Problem solved. Also, it turns out that a turkey, cranberry, brie, and arugula sandwich tastes unbelievably delicious on toasted brioche. This may be my new favorite way to make it anyway... The Soup, of course, is a Turkey Pozole. Last year I used canned pozole, but this year I had some great dried stuff from the good folks at Purcell Mountain Farms.
A pound and a half of dry pozole went into my favorite pot with about 6 quarts of water and a head of garlic split in half (in a mesh thingy so I wouldn't have to fish it out later... also with a sliced up chile pepper just for fun...).
While I was pulling the meat off of the turkey legs to use in my soup, I went ahead and tossed the leg bones in the pot, too... because why not?
After about 4 hours of gentle simmering partially covered, during which time I added about a quart and a half of my turkey stock to keep the kernels covered with liquid, I added 5 minced jalapeño peppers and simmered for another hour or so...
I added two drained large cans of diced tomatoes and simmered for a while longer, then added the turkey meat and stirred until just warmed through and seasoned to taste with salt.
I like to garnish with a squeeze of lime, shredded cabbage, and thinly sliced radish slices. This time I also crisped up some turkey skin for fun and added some thin jalapeño slices. Mmmm...
I have enough to have this for lunch every day this week, and I cannot wait... I should definitely make this soup more than once a year.

A Low-Maintenance Thanksgiving

2011-11-28T14:15:00.008-05:00

Oh. Hello, there. Long time, no write. Things haven’t been so great around here, pain-wise, so it’s been hard to spend much time in the kitchen (or doing much of anything worth writing about, really). I have an idea of how I may be able to start posting here again, which I’ll write about this week, but first I managed to put together a Thanksgiving feast for myself with minimal time in the kitchen.My secret to making delicious food from my recliner lives in my laundry closet on top of my dryer:
That's right. It turns out that my chamber vacuum has made cooking sous vide even easier, and cooking sous vide is a gimpy girl's best friend since it does all of the work for you. (I'll explain that part in detail in a future post if the reasons aren't obvious...) This year I decided to do my turkey sous vide as a way to spare myself from spending too much time out of my chair/bed. I looked around for a fun brine on the interweb and was fascinated with a Michael Voltaggio recipe, but I wasn't sold on his spice blend, so I decided to combine his mix of citrus and brown sugar with the bay and thyme from Thomas Keller's chicken brine. I wrote down the two lists of brine ingredients to hang on my fridge with my favorite magnet (from a coworker) so I could combine as I saw fit...
Here's what I came up with (using the salt and herbs from Keller's with the citrus and sugar from Volt's, basically):
The grapefruits, lemons, limes, and oranges are juiced, then the rinds and juice are added to the brine after it has simmered for a minute. Everything is chilled before the turkey parts are added.
Speaking of turkey parts, one cool thing about doing your turkey this way is that you dismantle your turkey in advance. The split bone-in breasts and the legs go into the brine. The thighs and wings are reserved. (I vacuum-sealed them and the guts just for the sake of tidiness and freshness... Those are tubs of duck fat and turkey fat from the Bag of Inappropriate Fats that I keep in the freezer. I got them out to thaw for the next day.)
The parts in the brine need to soak in all that flavorful goodness overnight. For the thighs, the Volt recipe wants you to add thyme, sage, and garlic... but Thomas Keller doesn't like you to put herbs directly in contact with meat in a vacuum bag, so I did it up Keller-style in what he calls a sachet, which means wrapping them in plastic wrap with the ends cut off (one sachet per thigh)...
This way you get that flavor infusing through the bag, but not in direct contact with one spot on your meat...
So... Yeah. The next morning after rinsing off and drying brined parts, everything was packed into its own bag. Breasts and legs were packed with duck fat. Thighs were packed with slightly smokey turkey fat (see below) and the sachets from above, and wings were packed with lard, thyme sprigs, and craisins (just for fun). Hee hee. It's like a turkey, only deconstructed. The breast meat cooked for 3 hours at 145°F and was perfectly tender and juicy. The thigh meat went for 3 hours at 151°F and were also juicy and incredible. I went with 3 hours at 151°F on the legs, but next time will likely do them in more of a "braised" style like I did the wings, at 180°F for 14 hours, so the meat is falling of the bone and crazy-tender. The leg meat was all for my soup and was perfectly cooked in terms of doneness, but there's annoying connective tissue in there that I'd just as soon break down. I did the meat in batches (obviously, given the different temperatures), and it is immediately chilled in an ice bath when it comes out, then goes into the fridge until "go time." While the parts were brining, the rest of the bones could be roasted off in preparation for stock-making.
I actually had two turkeys, so I had lots of good bones for stock... and since I was under the weather and frequently retreating to bed to let my ankles recover from pain, where I happened to fall asleep while the bones were roasting... they got nice and dark and tasty. I saved the juices from the pan as well as the slightly smokey fat for making gravy as well as for use in some of the vacuum-sealed bags (as mentioned above).
Stock-making time! The bones go together with thigh bones (not roasted, but removed as a last-minute thought before vacuum-sealing), onions, parsley, celery, leek greens, carrots, and bay leaves...
I dumped this all into my favorite pot with three gallons of water and slowly brought it to a simmer over medium-high heat...
In several hours, I had some of the tastiest stock ever. Six quarts were pressure-canned. One quart went into gravy (much of which was frozen along with leftover stuffing), and the rest went to the fridge to be used in my turkey pozole, which I'll post about next. The side dishes were all pretty much the same as last year (only without my oven breaking...). I went simpler on mashed potatoes this year, though... just boiling some Yukon golds, running them through a food mill, and seasoning with Amish butter, sour cream, and sea salt. They were perfection. Why screw around with fancy ingredients when simple is so good? I made big batches in advance in short flurries of time so I could clean up my kitchen and spare my ankles, then when dinner time approached I just prepared a small ramekin of each side:
I brought a portion of thigh meat and a portion of breast meat (vacuum-sealed) up to 145°F for about 30 minutes when it was time to eat. I fried up some strips of skin to make a turkey version of cracklins' so as not to miss out on that part of the awesome bird... Oh, and cranberry sauce is straight from my freezer from last year...
I can't even tell you how juicy and delicious the meat was when it was cooked this way, and by doing the meal sous vide it was incredibly easy. It may sound like a lot of work, but it was in such small patches of time that I was able to stay off of my feet and out of the kitchen as much as I needed to. I even had time to throw together a Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake for dessert...
Next up, the whole point of Thanksgiving dinner: leftovers!

Cookbook Adventures: Momofuku Ramen

2011-07-29T13:55:00.008-04:00

A little over a year and a half after buying the book, I finally got around to making the dish I knew I had to make: Last night, I finally made Momofuku Ramen for dinner (fresh alkaline noodles and all).

The catalyst for this monumental event was the arrival of the first issue of Lucky Peach, which is the most amazing food journal EVER. It's the kind of thing that appeals to a very specific reader, but if you are the type of person who completely geeks out both Dave Eggers and David Chang, you need to subscribe to this thing immediately. I read Issue One, which is all about ramen, cover to cover, went back to re-read several bits already, cooked from one recipe, referenced a chart repeatedly, and will probably do all of those things again multiple times. Another super-cool thing about this issue is that it includes some updates to the Momofuku Ramen recipes. The one I made use of right away is a Harold McGee update on making alkaline noodles at home without ordering any special ingredients (the noodles in the Momofuku cookbook call for sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate, whereas the Lucky Peach noodles use your toaster oven to transform baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) into sodium carbonate by baking it). Awesome. The issue also included some updates from David Chang on the current versions of Ramen Broth and Tare that they are using in his restaurants. Since I had ramen broth in the freezer, I forged ahead, but his new version is more affordable, so I'll definitely try it out next time.

The noodle dough came together pretty easily, and I used my linguini-cutting attachment to cut it into beautiful strands.

These cooked up at the last minute, just before plating...

In case you've forgotten, the ramen broth came from all kinds of meaty pork bones and chicken bones and general deliciousness...Speaking of that broth that was in the freezer, almost this entire dish was prepared in advance. The pork belly was prepared during a previous dish using the Momofuku method,

and the pork shoulder was cooked sous vide at 185°F for 24 hours and then frozen in vacuum-sealed portions.

I prepped the bamboo shoots with a bit of light soy sauce, sesame oil, and pickled Thai chile as the book suggests, and sliced a bit of narutomaki fish cake... even if mine is the wrong color. (The fish cake should be white with a pink swirl, but for some reason H-Mart only had hot pink with a white swirl... I just went with it because it tasted great and in the end I decided it was actually kind of cute...)

The egg went into its 143.5°F water bath 75 minutes before service (it was going to be 60 minutes, but noodle-making took longer than anticipated and I had built in that 15 minute buffer in the timing) before I was ready to pull it out and, after resting 5 minutes or so, it was perfection.

Some fresh shelling peas (the recommended "seasonal vegetable" that doesn't appear in any of his pictures) and sliced scallions, and that's it... The broth (seasoned with tare to taste) is poured over the noodles, and then the garnishes are arranged over the top...

So freaking awesome... That weird looking stuff at the 3 o'clock position in the bowl is some dried seaweed, which I used in place of nori. (It seemed like it would integrate better into the dish...) This was absolutely fantastic. Do I even have to tell you that? Just look at it.

I'm very glad I have all of these components ready to be worked together into another bowl full of awesome for dinner tonight...

Will I Make This Again?: Yes. A million times, yes.

Was it Worth the Work?: The beauty of the work in this one is that it was spread out over several weeks. This would be a ton of work to do in one day (and would still be worth it), but if you spread out component prep over a few days/weeks/months, this is a pretty mellow dish to prepare and is totally reasonable to do even if, like me, you're limited in the amount of time you can spend in the kitchen in any single shot.

Big Box of Produce

2011-07-22T12:58:00.016-04:00

I’m trying a new thing with produce delivery from Boston Organics. Every other week, I’ll receive the “Dogma Box” of locally sourced organic goodness, delivered to my door. For as long as I can handle it, I will be doing a Big Box of Produce post about what I do with the contents of my, um, big box of produce. Everything that came in this delivery was absolutely gorgeous. I say "for as long as I can handle it," because this bounty of awesomeness comes with a down-side: this quantity and variety of perishable goodness in my kitchen means a lot more cooking than usual. My typical MO is to do some one-off big batch cooking once or twice a week, so being in the kitchen cooking every night (even for short times) is a lot of extra pain (at least the way I was doing it this week). I’m going to see if I can do a better job with the next delivery, because this produce is so beautiful that it would break my heart to have to cancel delivery over pain management issues. We’ll see what happens… I basically have to do all of my cooking in 10-15 minute flurries, with no more than 2-3 flurries per day total (for both lunch and dinner). It's kind of a trip. I imagine this is similar to the soccer mom conundrum, except instead of kids I have nerve damage. Anyway, back to the happiness... In future posts I’ll open with a picture of everything in my box, but I forgot to take that picture this week amidst the chaos of the day, so we’ll just go through item by item as I used them. The packing list this week (with states of origin) was:

1 lb Baby Bok Choy (MA)
1 bunch Red Beets (MA)
1 bundle Calaloo Greens (MA)
1 bundle Collard Greens (MA)
1 Cucumber (MA)
1 head Green Leaf Lettuce (MA)
1 Hot House Tomato (Quebec)
1x Mint (MA)
1 lb Mixed Soft-Rind Squash (MA)
1 lb Shelling Peas (MA)

The first item I enjoyed (along with two items that I added on) was the tomato from Quebec.
I was skeptical about this, being a hot-house tomato from Quebec, but it was a damn tasty tomato and made a delicious lunch paired with some toasted whole wheat bread and raw milk cheddar.
The beets were listed as "bunched red beets,"so it was a fun to discover that they were actually candy cane beets. So pretty! Unfortunately, I didn't know what I was working with until I had already peeled and sliced them, so I lost the loveliness when I cooked them. They were still delicious, though, and next time I'll be prepared! This time, I cooked them sous vide and put them into a salad with cucumber, mint, sous vide chicken breast (143°F, 90 minutes), arugula, and a dressing made from balsamic, rice vinegar, and olive oil. The cucumber and mint were both from my Big Box of Produce as well.
Speaking of mint, this was sort of a craptastic week around here, and I was very happy that in addition to this mint I also happened to have some limes and rum sitting around the house. There was only one thing to be done...This is the classic Steph-and-Emmo Mojito. One serving is made with a small handful of mint leaves muddled with ~2T sugar and 3T lime juice, then shaken with 1/2 C rum and served on the rocks. (Some people would use 1/4 C rum and then finish with 1/4 C soda water, but we were not the type of people who kept soda water on hand, so we always just substituted rum for the soda water. It seemed like the only reasonable thing to do...)
Next up in the box is the head of lettuceI turned this into a lunch salad with the rest of the cucumber, anther sous vide chicken breast, and a store-bought all-natural yogurt dressing. I have to say, this lettuce was totally freaking delicious. I had no idea lettuce could taste so good. I mean... it's lettuce. LETTUCE. Who knew? Moving on... Zucchini! I had plans for this that involved chicken and complicated things, but they fell through after I had a giant salad for lunch and was utterly exhausted. I decided instead to do the ol' Vegetarian Epicure Baked Eggs in Zucchini with Hollandaise thing... but I didn't feel up to making (or eating) Hollandaise either... so this is what I came up with. I did the zucchini on my Japanese turning slicer, because it is way more fun than a mandoline...
Pretty!
Just like in the other recipe, the zucchini is salted, squeezed dry, then satéed with some chopped scallions. I divided the zucchini between three ramekins at this point and set aside.
Because I wasn't making a Hollandaise, I wanted my eggs to be perfect, so I went with a 143.5°F (60-minute) egg.
I toasted up some of that whole wheat bread above, too, and brushed it with a bit of (Amish) butter.
When you have the perfect balance of tender egg white, juicy zucchini, and gooey egg yolk, you really don't need a sauce...
This was the bomb... I'll make this dish this way from now on. (Well, at least 93% of the time... There is something to be said for a nice Hollandaise, after all...) Up next: baby bok choy. I cooked this up for just 5 minutes sous vide in a 185°F water bath (I didn't feel like steaming and already had the water bath heated from yogurt-making) and served with some oyster sauce, sesame oil, and a sliced marinated (sous vide) chicken breast.Wow. This post is epic. This is a really big box of produce... The next item is one I'd never even heard of before: callaloo greens. After some digging on the internet, a Caribbean preparation seemed most appropriate. I went with jerk chicken and a coconut-braised callaloo green with ginger and garlic.I got the jerk chicken marinade online,
then cooked a chicken leg sous vide (shocking!) at 148°F for around 5 hours (after 4 hours marinating) before chilling it for a day until I was ready to cook the greens.
While the greens were cooking, I re-warmed the chicken in my toaster oven, then blow-torched the skin to get all charred and yummy.
This was AWESOME. I don't think I would have been remotely inclined to make it if not for the callaloo greens appearing at my door, but I will totally make it again (and hopefully soon).
Getting to the bottom of the box. The collards (which I feed several pounds of to my rabbits every week but had never actually cooked with before) got a quick treatment sautéed up with some Chinese sausage for lunch...Finally, the last item in my box was the pound of shelling peas. At the last minute, I decided these would go with some homemade ricotta gnocchi with prosciutto... I made a batch of Zuni Café ricotta gnocchi with my homemade ricotta (they are not perfect, but they were absolutely delicious and I was very very very tired...)I brined the shelled peas for 10 minutes then blanched them sous vide. (Yes. I cook everything that way. Shut up.) They were then shocked in ice water and warmed in (Amish) butter just before serving...
This was incredibly delicious. Hardly any ingredients, but all of the ingredients present were super-awesome. Just how great food should be...
Sigh. That was my week in food with my first-ever Big Box of Produce. It was exhausting, educational, delicious, exhausting, fun, painful, and exhausting. I look forward to seeing what the next box has in store for me... but I'm glad I get a week off first.

UPDATE: OK, so this is on permanent hiatus at the moment. I will resume if my doctors can eventually figure out a way to get my pain under control. Currently, though, this is just more than I should put myself through on a regular basis.

Perfect-er Perfect Ricotta

2011-07-17T16:14:00.009-04:00

I've continued to make fresh ricotta pretty frequently using the sous vide method from Ideas in Food that I outlined in a previous post. This became even easier when I got my chamber vacuum, making it possible to vacuum-seal the bag of ingredients without messing around with having to seal a zip-top bag inside a vacuum bag. The one thing that was still bugging me was having to go through cheesecloth during production. Over the course of the past few months, I've come up with a (quite ghetto-looking) solution to this problem, so I figured I would share it here. The new method has taken my perfect ricotta and made it even perfecter...The one-time purchase necessary to make this happen is a ricotta basket. (The site I link to there is also where I like to get yogurt cultures and crème fraîche cultures.) Anyway, here's the new draining technique: When I pull the ricotta mixture from its water bath after 35 minutes to begin its 15 minutes of cooling, I hang it from my cabinets using a bag clip and some kitchen twine. The key is to make the kitchen twine long enough that the bottom of the bag is well below the top of your sink (This is VERY important. I cannot stress this enough.), but not touching the bottom of your sink.
As the mixture cools, it begins to separate more thoroughly as well.After 15 minutes or so, take a couple metal skewers (like you use for grilling kebabs) and puncture one of the bottom corners of your bag a bunch of times. This is where, if you didn't think things through in terms of string length, you find yourself with a spinning bag spraying burning-hot whey all over your kitchen. Not that this would ever happen to somebody as intelligent as me, of course, but, ahem, theoretically, um, it is not fun...This will take care of a good chunk of the draining for you. Most ricotta recipes want you to gently scoop the curds off of the whey, and this is my lazy-person equivalent of doing that. (In my original method, everything was dumped into the cheesecloth together, which didn't give the same effect. If you want the potentially-boring details of how much of a difference it makes, ask me in the comments... I spent a lot of time screwing around with this stuff.) Remember those two skewers you just punctured the bag with? They now come in handy to prop up your ricotta basket over a bowl for the next phase in draining.
Now that the bulk of the whey has drained off, take some scissors and cut off one of the bottom corners of the bag over your basket. The ingredients will dump down, ready for the next phase.
This is now at the point where the draining time depends on your desired final consistency. I've been making a tighter ricotta lately, so I drain for an hour or two at room temperature,
then leave the cheese in the basket in the refrigerator overnight before transferring to another container.As far as I'm concerned, this new version is perfection. The method is quick and easy. The only consumable is the 15-cent vacuum bag. (I reuse the kitchen twine and bag clip, now that I have perfected the twine length...) The final product is creamy, rich, and delicious. I am a happy camper.

A Short-Term House Guest

2011-07-03T14:24:00.004-04:00

I've got a 10-week old rescued angora bunny staying with me for a few days while it awaits transport to a shelter in Rhode Island, and it (indefinite pronouns since gender is unknown as of yet) is blowing my mind with its cuteness. I've temporarily named him/her "Trouble."The little dork can squeeze through the bars of an exercise pen, and will sprawl out to take a nap on your chest while you watch TV together. Good thing Charley hates Trouble, because I'm smitten...

Still My Favorite Way to Cook Corn...

2011-07-03T13:24:00.007-04:00

Corn was on sale $1.50 per 6-pack last time I ordered groceries, so I had no choice but to order lots of corn. I was originally thinking of doing a "creamed" corn with basil (which I mentioned, among other things, in this post), but then the first issue of Lucky Peach arrived at my door, and as David Chang wrote about ramen I remembered how awesome it was making his ramen broth, and then I remembered how I had ramen broth in the freezer... and remembered the dish for which I had made it... and I instantly knew (well, instantly once all that remembering was done) what I had to make with my giant pile of corn: Roasted Sweet Summer Corn with Miso Butter, Bacon, and Roasted Onions.When I made this dish for the first time, I noted "This is one of those recipes that is incredibly quick and easy... once you spend 12 hours making Ramen Broth and an hour or two caramelizing - Oh! Sorry, David Chang: 'roasting' - onions..." (I'm still baffled as to what David Chang thinks "roasting" means, but whatever...) This time I was able to take advantage of that fact. I had both the ramen broth and the "roasted"/caramelized onions in the freezer, and this dish came together in no time (plus, with scallions as the only item I had to buy after deciding what to do with my corn...).
The big bowl contains corn from 18 ears... I didn't measure it (or anything else) for this recipe, because I only make myself follow directions the first time I make a cookbook dish. Two thirds of the bacon was from my stash of homemade bacon (from the end bits that didn't slice up as lovely as the middle part...), which I think definitely contributed to the overall awesomeness of the dish. I bumped up the quantities on miso butter and caramelized onions, too, since I knew I had more than 4 cups of kernels...
God, I love fresh corn... Anyway, the bacon goes into the pan first and cooks until relatively crispy.
The bacon is removed from the pan. There was just over a tablespoon of bacon fat left, so I didn't bother draining it out and just used that in place of the oil the recipe calls for. You're supposed to cook the corn over high heat here, which I did... but I knew from last time that you aren't going to end up with any caramelization that way. Thus, I broke out my blow torch.
This was a really good idea. Aside from adding a pleasing aesthetic component, it also contributed a nice charred flavor... After the blow-torching, the rest of the ingredients (other than the scallions) go in. The dish cooks for a bit, letting the miso butter and ramen broth glaze the corn and spread all the yummy goodness throughout the pan. So good. The scallions are incorporated just before serving.That pork you see in the picture is from a perfectly-cooked pork loin roast. I brined the pork overnight using the pork brine recipe from Ad Hoc at Home (minus the rosemary, since I didn't have any on hand), then cooked it sous vide (vacuum-sealed with a couple tablespoons of lard, just in case) at 140°F for a little over 6 hours. I seared it off in a pan to get a nice crust before slicing.
As you may have noticed, I love cooking sous vide. Despite the joys of perfect ricotta, 48-hour skirt steaks, and absurdly tender and juicy 2-hour chicken breasts, I think pork loin is perhaps my favorite thing to cook this way. This lean cut of meat comes out tender and juicy, cooked to perfection, every time. No fussing around with thermometers or overcooking the outer pork while waiting for the interior to come up to temperature. I can't even tell you how happy I am that I have leftovers of this meal waiting in the fridge to be my dinner... Yay, summer!

Happy Birthday to Me!

2011-06-29T15:31:00.009-04:00

I turned 32 a few weeks ago, and had a dinner party with friends this past weekend to celebrate. Thanks to the total awesomeness of my friends, it was an incredibly fun evening. The food didn't turn out too shabby either. A few highlights below...

Despite the best efforts of my hoarder upstairs neighbors to ruin the ambiance, the table ended up looking really beautiful. (And how adorable are my appetizer dishes? I am totally enamored with them...) There was a trio of appetizers, as usual. On the left we have Shrimp Mosaic with Avocado, Compressed Melon, Jalapeño, Lime, and Cilantro. This was totally delicious, and compressing the melon added a nice intensity to it. In the middle are a couple Fava Bean Crostini with Preserved Lemon, made using cryo-blanched favas and homemade fresh ricotta... Mmmm... On the right are Vodka-Spiked Cherry Tomatoes, a light, tangy refreshing starter for a summer meal.
The soup course was a Chilled Summer Peach Soup from The Wine Lover's Cookbook. I didn't get a picture of it on my camera (still waiting for pictures from friends), but it looked a lot like the one in the linked post, except I garnished with minced crystallized ginger and a chiffonade of mint instead of raspberries and whole mint leaves. This was the one course that was hit-and-miss with my guests. The peaches weren't quite in season, which didn't help, and I think I will use curry powder next time instead of the five spice powder I used this time. I enjoyed it, but I think it could definitely be much better. The salad course was going to be this, but ended up being this (minus the chicken) as a last-minute substitution when it was discovered that the lettuce ice was... gross. (I think this is due to using mature spinach rather than more delicate baby spinach...) Blech. Moving on... I finally perfected that scallop course I had been playing with the other day.
The smoke made for a fun presentation, and the course was absolutely delicious. I made the improvement of using a bacon cream (basically just cream infused with bacon and reduced a bit... yum!) instead of the beurre blanc. It removed stability concerns and was the perfect contrast to the fresh veggies. At least one guest collected my other friends' plates to spoon up their last remaining drops of sauce, which is always a good sign. This is my new favorite way to make scallops...
The steak course had components I would do again (crispy potato ruffles!) and components I would tweak (I used boneless short-ribs for the 48-hour short rib component, and they weren't nearly as moist as my previous experiments with bone-in short ribs or with a 48-hour skirt steak, so I would replace the meat with one of those two next time... I would also use a thicker blue cheese crust, since this one was too thin to contribute to the flavor profile the way I would have liked...) Look how fun the potato ruffles are:
Finally, dessert was amazing. I made Strawberry Sorbet Shortcakes with Sweetened Crème Fraîche Sauce from The French Laundry Cookbook. They were hastily-plated as the clock was ticking down towards midnight and everyone had to go to work the next day (that is my excuse for not making perfect quenelles), but they were the perfect balance of sweet, fruity, and rich... The components were perfect together. I'll give these their own post later to show all of the awesomeness, but you can find the recipe online here and I highly recommend you try it at home. (The only tweak I made was cutting the amount of sugar in the sorbet in half, as I tend to do with almost all ice cream/sorbet recipes...)
The last couple years have been pretty rough, but hopefully Year 32 is a good one. At least it's off to a delicious start...

Blueberry Goodness

2011-06-29T15:16:00.005-04:00

I've been on a blueberry kick lately, pretty much ever since they were on sale at a too-good-to-pass-up price and I was reminded how awesome they are. While I enjoy just eating them on their own, my favorite thing to do with them is to make Blueberry Clafouti. The first recipe I tried was the one here, and it never gave me any reason to move on to experimenting with any other... I like to rewarm them to have with my morning coffee, or to serve with a soup of vanilla frozen yogurt as dessert. Simple, quick, and totally delicious.I've made these with whole milk, light cream, and heavy cream (when I didn't have any other dairy in the house... darn...). Guess which one is by far the tastiest? For normal eating, I stick with whole milk, but if I wanted to impress a guest, I may whip up the heavy cream version again... I'll include pictures of both so you can see the difference. Most recently, I scored a huge flat of blueberries at Costco for about $3, so I used almost twice as many as usual in this batch. The blueberries go into the bottom of buttered ramekins...
While the oven preheats to 350°F, three eggs and a third of a cup of sugar are beaten together.
To this, a cup of milk/cream, 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt are added. The custardy mixture is then distributed among the ramekins. Here's the milk version:
and the cream version:
These go into that 350°F oven for 30-35 minutes. The soufflé up a bit, but will deflate by the time you serve them. Here's the milk version, where the berries float up and are mixed with the custard:
and the cream version, where the custard puffs up above a base of blueberry goodness:
If you have some vanilla crème fraiche lying around, it's not a bad way to top your finished clafouti.
Give it a try next time you get your hands on a pint of blueberries. You can thank me later...

Playing with a New Toy: Applewood-Smoked Scallops with Spring "Succotash" and Bacon Beurre Blanc

2011-06-19T14:27:00.007-04:00

After months on my mental wish list, a cool new toy arrived at my door for my birthday: The Smoking Gun. I knew I wanted to play with smoking a scallop first... and thought about pairing bacon with the smokiness... and also using gorgeous spring favas and asparagus... This is what I came up with:
The Bacon Beurre Blanc broke under the heat of the smoke (I'll be tweaking that component today... update to follow), but the flavors of this dish were amazing. It was almost as though I am a genius... I decided to go with cryo-blanching to "cook" the favas and asparagus. Both started out with a 10-minute brine in salt water...
... before being vacuum-sealed, frozen, and thawed.
I rough-chopped the favas (I'll do a nicer job next time) and sliced the asparagus into coins, then set aside until it was time to finish the dish.
I'm not going to include pictures of the beurre blanc process since it sort of failed... To dress the veggies, though, I sautéed some bacon and shallots with a bit of (Amish) butter...
Just before plating, I tossed in the veggies for just long enough to warm them through.
Meanwhile, it was scallop time. I am still doing the Ideas in Food twice-cooked method. (Brined, cooked sous vide for 30 minutes at 50°C, chilled, sautéed...) Here are the scallops post-sous-vide but pre-sautée.
The scallops are seasoned with salt, seared on one side in oil, then turned, after which (Amish) butter is added to the pan. This was my most successful use of this method yet. As you'll see in the finished pictures, I got a lovely golden-brown sear in the butter. Awesome.
So, yeah... My new toy. This is the Smoking Gun. Isn't it cute?
After plating up all components of the dish, I generated some applewood smoke and trapped it under a glass dome with the dish for about 3 minutes. (I will do a bit longer next time just to make it extra-intense, but this gave a really beautiful smoky accent to the scallops... Mmmm...)
When the dome is removed (which is fun to have your guests do at the table), you have your finished dish with bonus smoky goodness...
I finished each plate with prosciutto powder, which was the perfect finishing touch. This is my new all-time favorite scallop dish... and just one more reason to be obsessed with fava beans...

Bunnies!

2011-06-18T20:54:00.006-04:00

My bunnies are the cutest bunnies in the history of the world. When Charley comes outside with me on his own, he runs all over the place and goes off to binky in the grass. When he comes out with his brothers, he doesn't want to go anywhere. Bunny love is the best.

A few videos... mostly of lots and lots of grooming going on. Love.

Cookbook Adventures: Ricotta-Stuffed Chicken with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

2011-06-18T20:02:00.009-04:00

So, here's the thing: I've had this cookbook for years, but on the back flap is a photo of the author. Every time I see that photo, I think to myself "Um... I don't think this is going to turn out well..."In spite of this (understandable, yeah?) trepidation, I tried his Caesar Salad recipe a few weeks back with Mindy and it rocked, so I decided to forge ahead and try another recipe that sounded great to me: Ricotta-Stuffed Chicken with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce.
It's a bit on the rustic-looking side, but it's so delicious that I don't really care. I'll admit to not following his recipe 100% (I mean... look at him! Plus, I have a sous vide obsession...), but this dish was fantastic and I will definitely make it many many many more times.I've gotten really into ricotta ever since (a) I started having amazing milk delivered by a milk man every week and (b) I learned I could make it sous vide (now even easier with my chamber vacuum!), and I suspect that fact combined with my love of roasted red peppers to make me decide I should make this dish. (The recipe is reproduced here, if you would like to make it yourself but are scared to buy the weird man's book...) A look at the ingredients for the ricotta stuffing make it clear that this isn't going to suck:
Fresh ricotta, sun-dried tomatoes, shallot, thyme, chives, and basil...
Awesome. I seasoned this up with salt and a bit of cayenne pepper, because I am really into cayenne pepper lately...
I cut a slit in my chicken breasts and seasoned inside and out with salt and cayenne. (The recipe calls for crushed red pepper flakes instead of cayenne here, but I feel like you risk a distracting texture with the red pepper flakes... plus I'm really into cayenne lately...) Stuffing goes in, and then the breast is wrapped in plastic wrap to maintain its shape...
... before being vacuum sealed. (There may or may not be a risk of ricotta filling smooshing out without the plastic wrap... I decided to play it safe.)
The stuffed chicken breasts went into a 143°F water bath for around 90 minutes, then all but the about-to-be-eaten portion went into an ice bath to chill and be refrigerated until I was ready for them. The sauce was simple and actually pretty healthy. You start with some garlic (plus, in my modified version, shallots) sautéed until soft.
A bit of tomato paste is added and cooked briefly...
Meanwhile, the red bell peppers I'd roasted (mmmm....) are roughly chopped, as are some basil and fresh oregano...
The recipe calls for sherry and chicken stock at this point. I was going to use water instead of chicken stock, but I also didn't have any sherry... You're supposed to use red wine instead if you want to do a red wine pairing, but I also didn't own any reds that were affordable enough to feel OK about chucking in a sauce. What I ended up doing (and will do again next time) is deglazing with a couple glugs of cognac, then adding about a cup of white wine (along with the bell peppers and herbs).
This reduces a bit, and is then puréed into a smooth, flavorful, totally kick-ass sauce.
That's it for the work. Plating time. The chicken was perfectly cooked after its sous vide treatment. These breasts came from a well-endowed chicken, and it rocked to be able to just know that things were perfectly cooked. (I hate baking chicken breasts... especially if they're filled with a soft stuffing, so you can't use pressure to test for doneness...)
The night that I made this, I just chucked the still-warm stuffed chicken breast in the middle of a pile of sauce and put it under the broiler for a minute or two to color the top. (Look how huge these breasts were! Yeesh.)
You can see the yumminess oozing out, but for company I would recommend slicing the stuffed breast while it's still cold from the ice bath, then plating up in whatever way works for you and heating afterward.I was very sad when I finished the last of the 4 servings I made of this dish. It will definitely have to enter the rotation of easy, delicious, not-ridiculously-bad-for-you dishes... Turns out you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover... or by the really weird-looking guy featured on that cover.

Compressed Melon and a Gorgeous Summer Salad

2011-06-15T13:07:00.006-04:00

When I was ordering groceries last week, sale prices dictated that I had no choice but to order a watermelon. While this fruit is delicious and refreshing on its own, it also presented a fun opportunity to play with compressing fruit using my new favorite toy...The watermelon on the left is freshly cut, while that on the right has been compressed. Nothing added but pressure. Pretty cool, yeah? Which would you rather put on your fresh, beautiful summer salad?My new favorite toy is, of course, a chamber vacuum. The top of my dryer in my laundry closet has now become Sous Vide Central.Here's my watermelon...
The packet in the back is darker because the watermelon was brushed with a bit of balsamic vinegar... (The salad was dressed with balsamic and olive oil, so this seemed like a good call.)The resulting watermelon is bright, fresh, and concentrated, without any of that pesky air getting in the way. Below is a video of the end of the vacuum-sealing process, where you can see the color change as the air leaves the chamber. (Pardon the noise... I had a load of laundry in the dryer...)

Cryo-Blanching to Improve a Classic

2011-05-31T15:29:00.008-04:00

If you know me at all, you have probably noticed that I have an obsession with fava beans. I can't explain it. I just love them beyond all reason. I eagerly anticipate the approach of fava bean season every year, buy a big pile of them almost every weekend when they are in season, and then mourn for a while when the season cruelly and inevitably ends...

Typically I fully peel them (including the inner shell), blanch them briefly in salted water, and then make fava bean crostini by combining them with toasted baguette slices, fresh ricotta, sea salt, and a squeeze of lemon. Simple. Easy. Delicious.
I was re-reading my Ideas in Food cookbook the other day, though, and was reminded that I wanted to try cryo-blanching. Turns out it's super-easy and brilliant, with the added bonus of not increasing the humidity of my kitchen on a hot day by boiling a big pot of water. After I finished peeling the fava beans (see picture above), I brined them in salt water for 10 minutes...
... then vacuum-sealed...
... and tossed in the freezer overnight.
The bag is cut open and placed in the fridge to thaw, and what you end up with are ridiculously fresh-tasting favas that feel cooked even though they aren't. The texture was perfection, and there was an accent of a flavor akin to fresh peas that I didn't know fava beans had in them. These were, in short, the best fava beans that I have ever eaten, and I have eaten a lot of fava beans in my day.
I (of course) used them to make fava bean crostini, but decided to put a twist on the dish this time. I used my fresh homemade sous vide ricotta, and decided to make two variations with components in my fridge. The first replaced the (messy) squeeze of lemon juice with a brunoise of preserved lemon peel. This was genius. Genius, I tell you...
The second option employed the previous day's prosciutto powder to offer a savory contrast to the super-fresh taste of the fava beans rather than a citrus one. So awesome. Can't wait for next weekend's big pile o' favas...

FYI: Prosciutto Powder is Awesome

2011-05-31T15:09:00.005-04:00

I was screwing around in the kitchen last weekend, trying to think of more fun things to do with scallops... and fava beans. I wanted to incorporate a ham-y flavor, and I had been reading a few posts of people making the ham powder from the Alinea cookbook... but I didn't have any ham. I did, however, have some prosciutto in the freezer, so I decided to see if I could make it work. Turns out it does work... And it's awesome.This starts either using a big hunk of prosciutto or doing what I did and rolling up the sliced prosciutto you have. (This is discount, domestic prosciutto, not the good stuff. I didn't want to gamble with the good stuff until I was sure it would work, but the cheap stuff turned out amazing enough that I think I'll use it again next time...) The roll is wrapped up and tossed in the freezer. Once it's frozen solid, you can break out your microplane and grate it nice and fine. (My roll started to soften a bit halfway through, so I had to toss it back in the freezer before continuing...)
This is supposed to go on parchment or something, but I have a non-stick thingy that came with my food dehydrator that is apparently for making fruit roll-ups(?) and it did the trick.
The grated prosciutto goes into the dehydrator for a couple hours or until crispy. This should ideally be done at 170°F according to the Alinea recipe, but my dehydrator only goes up to 160°F, so that's what I used. The benefit of using ham would be that it would be completely dry when it's done, whereas there's a little melted pork fat hanging around when you use prosciutto... but the benefit of using prosciutto is that the finished product is insanely delicious. You can decide which you prefer.
I've used this on a couple things so far and am already thinking I need to make some more, but the first thing I tried it on was a seared diver scallop with mint, fava bean pesto, and preserved lemon.
Not the prettiest thing ever, but damned tasty. (There's a layer of crushed bacon in the middle of that round of fava bean pesto...) I'll show you another use in my next post...

By the way...

2011-05-25T20:10:00.002-04:00

... The bunnies are still in love. If you click to embiggen the top picture, you can catch a glimpse of Charley's little tongue as he grooms Rico... The bottom picture was taken after Rico left to eat some hay and Pedro took his place so he could start grooming Charley...
All three of my guys seem way happier ever since they starting being a trio (rather than a duo of toothless lops and a solitary Rico...).

A Good Use for Extra Strawberries

2011-05-25T19:38:00.005-04:00

I found myself with a bit of a dilemma this week: I have a policy that if I buy produce and it goes bad before I eat it, I put myself on produce-buying probation (with respect to that item) for several months. (I'm pretty much not allowed to buy peaches or grapefruit ever again unless I have an immediate use planned.) Strawberries had been on sale half-price during my last grocery order, and have been so delicious lately that I ordered more than I could possibly consume. I enjoyed them on their own at breakfast and sliced up on top of Crescent Ridge vanilla frozen yogurt for dessert... and then forgot about them in the fridge until it was almost too late and I feared that I was going to end up on strawberry-buying probation. Luckily, smittenkitchen posted a recipe for Strawberry Summer Cake just as I sat down to figure out what to do with the last of my strawberries.
The ingredients were all (approximately) things I had on hand: flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, vanilla, butter, eggs, milk, and strawberries. When I sorted through my strawberries to discard flawed areas, I ended up with only about 10 ounces of sliced strawberries but decided to go ahead with the recipe anyway. I was also out of milk, too, but decided to use reconstituted powdered milk since it seems to work fine in baking.
Butter and sugar are beaten together, then wet ingredients are incorporated, then the dry... Your typical cake-baking situation. The recipe suggested a 9-inch cake dish, but I went with a springform pan since I hate getting cakes out of non-springform pans. I also clamped a reusable non-stick thingy over the base of the pan for ease of clean-up and cake-removal.
The strawberries are arranged on top of the cake in as close to a single layer as you can manage. Next time there will be more of them, but this was just enough to form a single layer. You're supposed to top this with 2 tablespoons of sugar, but I went with just one since even that seemed like a lot. (Next time I will try reducing the sugar in the cake itself, too, because I'm not a big sugar person...)
This goes into a 350°F oven for 10 minutes, then the temperature is dropped to 325°F and it bakes for another ~50 minutes. It comes out looking very, very yummy...
The cake on smittenkitchen looks more berry-licious than mine, probably both because I used less berries than it called for and because I accidentally used my 8.5-inch springform pan instead of my 9-inch one. Nonetheless, not too shabby for pantry ingredients and minimal work:
(That's Crescent Ridge frozen yogurt on the side.) This tasted really bright and fresh, even if it was a bit sweeter than my preference. Best of all, I'm not on strawberry-buying probation! (I'll have more to enjoy when my next grocery delivery arrives on Friday...)

Some Fun (and Yumminess) in the Kitchen...

2011-05-19T20:29:00.015-04:00

Things are non-ideal in La Casa de Emmo lately, but awesome friends and yummy food are always a great distraction from pain and other badness. My friends Mindy and Joe came by last weekend for dinner and playing-with-chemicals and were the perfect mood-lifter.Things didn't go exactly as planned... but when do they ever? The catalyst for getting together was to do some experiments with chemicals, and I was envisioning a trio of peanut butter and jelly for dessert. We made components for this, but by the time we finished dinner it was impossible to think about dessert and we ended up just plating one... but I'll get to that later. Since I was trying things out for the first time and the probability of failure was high (I even managed to accidentally make grape fruit roll-ups!), I made a batch of guava-alginate mixture and a calcium chloride bath before Mindy and Joe arrived so that we'd have at least one thing that worked: guava spheres to make a dressed-up vodka-tonic (pictured above). We prepped dessert components before dinner, but I'd actually started prepping dinner 46 hours earlier... The inspiration for our meal was my desire to do something fun with the skirt steak I had randomly purchased...
I've cooked skirt steak from Blood Farm in the past to unbelievably delicious results, but the skirt steaks from my local grocery were thinner and less gorgeous than those from Blood Farm (shocking, I know...) so I didn't feel like that was going to work out. As I do so often with so many ingredients lately, I decided that cooking them sous vide would be the way to go. There's a recipe in Thomas Keller's Bouchon Cookbook for Skirt Steak with Caramelized Shallots and Red Wine Jus that I referred to for my flavor profile (and my jus). It involved thyme and butter, and there was a potato side dish I planned on making with these same two components, so I decided my sous vide skirt steak better include those as well. I added cubes of (Amish) butter and some thyme leaves to my vacuum bags along with the skirt steak and seasoned (timidly) with a bit of sea salt.
The (Amish) butter melts while the steaks cook, and allows the thyme and sea salt to spread their yumminess throughout. These bags went into a 131°F water bath for a total of 48 hours. We'll come back to them in a bit. Meanwhile, I had caramelized onions vacuum-sealed in the freezer and decided I couldn't be bothered to purchase and caramelize a bunch of shallots, too. That meant that the Red Wine Jus and the potato side dish were all that remained to be prepped. (There was going to be a salad, too, but when the time came we, again, couldn't be bothered...) I chopped and sliced the veggies for the jus...
then tossed them in a pot with a bottle of red wine and some thyme, parsley, bay leaves, garlic, and black peppercorns. After this reduced to a glaze, 5 cups of "veal stock" are added and it reduced some more... This component will show up later, although I will mention here that I would probably reduce it even further than Thomas Keller recommends next time. (Not that he isn't always right, but I accidentally reduced the jus quite a bit the other day while preparing some leftovers for dinner, and it was fantastic.) On to the side dish. This is essentially a smittenkitchen recipe that I used different tools for and cooked individually. I liked this method because it's easy to do with a single potato (which is my usual need) or for a group.
Rather than using my handy-dandy mandolin, I decided to take an even easier route and "slice" my potatoes with my Japanese turning slicer. I also used this awesome doohicky on the shallots to get them sliced super-thin (with no effort) before running a knife through them for the next step.
We slid shallots in between potato layers while re-assembling each spiral-cut potato into its original shape. (I take less pictures when I have friends with me...) After adding a bit of (Amish) butter and olive oil to the bottom of a ramekin, we fanned out the potato-shallot stacks and topped with more (Amish) butter and a bit of salt and cayenne. (I substitute cayenne for the crushed pepper flakes in the original recipe because I'm sort of in love with cayenne these days...) After ~35 minutes in a 375°F oven, some plucked thyme leaves are sprinkled over the top,
and the ramekins go back in for 15 minutes more (or however long it takes you to remember that you have potatoes in the oven... ahem...) to finish baking and turning a lovely toasty brown on top. From here it's go-time. I used my new (awesome) blow torch to add a bit of char to the outside of the skirt steak when it came out of the water bath, heated the caramelized onions from my freezer in some (Amish) butter and thyme, and it was time to plate.Dinner ended up looking not-too-shabby for something that involved very little hands-on work:
The 48-hour skirt steak? Holy crap, that is an awesome steak. Again, sous vide allows you to cook a tough (but super-flavorful) cut of meat long enough to make it tender but while keeping it medium-rare throughout.
(Look how cute those potatoes are, by the way...) So. Effing. Good. I will never cook skirt steak any other way again. As an added bonus, this method is totally stress-free, which is extra-nice when you have friends over (especially compared to trying to get a very thin cut of tough steak perfectly cooked on the grill...). Mmmm....
Finally, I'll toss in a silly video of some jelly noodle-extruding. This is basically the exact same technique as for the arugula noodles that I made before, but with a different mix of chemicals and a much better consistency to the resulting product. Noodles made just using agar agar are obnoxiously brittle, whereas if you use a combination of agar agar, xanthan gum, and locust bean gum, you end up with sturdy-yet-totally-flexible noodles that are so much easier to work with and to plate. I was super-glad we had a dude around to do the extruding. It was the hardest task of the evening by far.

(The noodles extruded when we weren't recording made hilarious, extended "noodle-fart" noises (well, hilarious if you never matured past the age of about 8...), but this one isn't quite as cool... Apologies...) The grape jelly noodles were plated up with some peanut butter powder (made using the same method as when I made Nutella powder), and looked pretty cool if you ask me.I'm looking forward to playing with some fun recipes in the kitchen this weekend... if I can manage to make myself stop dreaming about those 48-hour skirt steaks...

Human Again

2011-05-12T12:44:00.001-04:00

So, I had my cyborg parts removed on May 3. It was oddly sudden. I had spoken to the administrative assistant of Dr. Awesome (my neurosurgeon), and she said that he could see me on June 29 and we could start planning the surgery afterward. I e-mailed Dr. Awesome that Friday and he was like "I'm so glad you e-mailed. We can do the surgery on Tuesday if you'd like." Sweet . These things?

Not a part of me anymore. The recovery from surgery was my best-ever. The surgery was at 1pm, and I was ready to leave at 7pm when my awesome friends came to pick me up. We hung out at my apartment afterward with some pizza and wine. Best surgery day ever.

Despite some early promise, the cyborg parts just weren't able to help me the way I had hoped they could. I discovered around Christmas that my underlying pain was getting worse and worse whenever the stimulator was on, even as it was masking pain (up to about a 5 on the pain scale) in the meantime. I stopped using the spinal stimulator after that, but my pain continued to be fairly out of control. My adorable programmer tried several new programs, but all of them were causing additional pain when they were on. My hope was that the sharp increase in pain over the last 7 months was due to the presence of my cyborg parts, rather than to some permanent side-effect of their presence.

So far, there's no indication that the surgery is helping my ankle pain, but I'm still glad to be 100% human again. The pulse generator in my hip was a nuisance (it would get caught on the back of my cooking stool whenever I stood up, and I would snag it with my hand when tucking in my shirt...) and I love having it gone. If it couldn't help anymore, there was no reason to leave it there.

In the meantime, things remain fairly shitty. I can't work anymore. I can't drive more than a couple miles without adding some serious bonus pain. I can seldom leave my apartment (about once every 2 weeks seems to be my limit in terms of the amount of pain I can handle gracefully). I went to a super-fun Scotch-pairing dinner down the street last night, and my ankles are making me pay for it today. (I went in my wheelchair, so it's not as if I did anything crazy like walking or standing... It's fairly exasperating at this point.) I'll be starting with a new pain clinic soon (one where Dr. Ass-face is not the head of the department), and I figure there's about a 1% chance that we can find something to improve my situation. Trying to keep hope alive, but that's not always so easy at this point.

I'll be back in the kitchen this weekend with some Chemistry Adventures and a modified Thomas Keller recipe... Should be good times...

Everyday Yumminess: Mini Shrimp Cheesecakes

2011-04-28T11:14:00.012-04:00

Alright. Let's go ahead and get the shameful part of this out of the way at the start: This is an Emeril Lagasse recipe. For me, he eventually came to represent everything that went horribly wrong with The Food Network... but back in his Essence of Emeril days (before "BAM!") he wasn't so bad. And the fact that this Shrimp Cheesecake is absurdly delicious has forced me to come to terms with the fact that even obnoxious TV chefs can still write some kick-ass recipes. Without further ado, let's talk about Shrimp Cheesecake.

As you can see, I made two sizes: one for a full meal and one for an appetizer. Not to sound like a broken record, but this is another dish that is perfect for mini cheesecake pans. I have no idea what I would do with an entire shrimp cheesecake, but the smaller versions are great for one serving and freeze well for future deliciousness. I first made this many years ago when I was calculating nutritional information for everything I made. Knowing what I know, I would not recommend making this as a regular-sized cheesecake unless you have 11 guests or are feeling dangerously under-weight. Even with guests, I really enjoy the look of a single cheesecake for each person rather than a thin slice... Anyway. The first ingredient to prep was the cooked shrimp. Buying cooked shrimp never made sense to me (they're typically over-cooked and you can't add any flavor of your own...), so I took some raw shrimp and cooked them sous vide to make sure they came out perfectly cooked.

I diced up some (Amish) butter to vacuum seal along with the shrimp, the idea being that the butter melts as the shrimp cook in their water bath so that you are essentially poaching the shrimp in (Amish) butter.

After about 12-15 minutes at 138°F, the shrimp were perfectly cooked. I tossed them into an ice bath and then into the fridge so they didn't carry-over cook past where I wanted them. When the time came to make the filling, I chopped them into relatively small pieces.I made this recipe in a few stages because I was having kind of a rough day. In the morning I made the shrimp and the crust, after lunch I made the filling, and I baked the cakes off an hour before I wanted to eat dinner. The crust is equal parts bread crumbs and grated Parmesan...

... held together with some melted (Amish) butter.

I pressed this into the bases of my cheesecake pans and tossed it in the fridge until I was ready to do more...

Next up is the yummy, yummy filling. I used half full-fat cream cheese and half 1/3-less-fat cream cheese to make it a little less insane. The cream cheese is beaten together with eggs until smooth and creamy.

The vegetables (healthy!) in the filling are red bell pepper, finely diced carrot, and onion.

The veggies are sautéed off and cooled slightly in preparation to add to the filling. The last filling ingredient is grated smoked Gouda. Mmm....

These components (and the shrimp) all go into the cream cheese mixture and are beaten to combine.
Next came the time to season with salt and pepper, but I decided to season with salt and cayenne instead. I used about this much:

The cayenne is absolutely perfect in this. It adds interest and depth to each bite, without adding any real palate-destroying heat. After these seasonings are mixed in, the filling is ready to go into the crusts that I prepared that morning.
The recipe calls for 75 minutes at 350°F when you make a full cheesecake. I usually do about half the recommended full cheesecake cooking time when I do the appetizer-sized cheesecakes and around 60% for the larger mini-cheesecakes. The appetizer size were looking good at 35 minutes...

... and the larger batch was ready to pull from the oven 10 minutes later.

I decided to serve this with a big salad (healthy!) rather than the sauce/dressing in the recipe that involves 1/2 cup mayonnaise... I made my go-to shallot-dijon-vinegar-olive oil dressing, but used champagne vinegar this time instead of my usual cider vinegar. (I use about equal parts vinegar and oil because I like my dressing nice and tangy...) I dressed up my greens with some shredded scallion and sliced radish.

And... that's it. Not much work, and super-easy overall...

As always happens to me, these souffléed up and then fell, so the sides look a little janky. This problem can be fixed by plating your cheesecake in the bed of greens, as I did for the appetizer portions.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, these are amazing. I had one for dinner on a couple nights and, even though I was looking forward to how delicious they would be, I still found myself being surprised that they were even more delicious than I had remembered. (That cayenne was brilliant, I tell ya...) I am very happy to have more in the freezer waiting for a day when I want something a little special for dinner without having to do anything more than re-heating and tossing together a salad.

Everyday Yumminess: Soft Polenta Integrale with Wild Mushroom Ragout

2011-04-27T17:18:00.011-04:00

I remember the first time I read through the Momofuku cookbook that David Chang says there's basically no point making polenta if you're not going to get your polenta from Anson Mills. In the next few weeks, I read several other chefs and authors saying the exact same thing, so I knew I'd better give it a try. The other day I was poking around their recipe pages and saw something that I really wanted to eat right now. Thus, it was on.The finished dish may not have been much to look at, but I already can't wait to make it again...
What you'll notice with all of the types of polenta and grits from Anson Mills is that they do not resemble the cheap polenta you see in your local supermarket. At all.
The Integrale is a rustic polenta, so the grind is fairly coarse and the resulting polenta has a great texture. I was very glad that I had a slow cooker, since the recipe page tells you "If you’ve got one, use it. If you don’t have one, get one. That’s how impressed we are with the slow cooker for grits and polenta. It is the simplest, most straightforward and gentlest method on the planet." Sold. The polenta and water go into a slow cooker for 90 minutes. When it's done, Parmesan, (Amish) butter, salt, and pepper are mixed in. That's it. Way better than sitting around stirring.
When I think mushrooms, I tend to think pork. And when I think pork anymore, I tend to think "brine" and "sous vide." I made a version of the pork brine from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home (using ingredients I had on-hand, since I forgot about making the brine when I was making my grocery list...).
The pork loin roast went in for... I wanna say 6 hours? I made this a couple weeks ago and am not the greatest at writing down what I do. Anyway, do it however Thomas Keller tells you to and it will be perfect.
When the brining process was done, I rinsed off the pork and vacuum-sealed it, ready to be cooked sous vide at around 140°F for around 5 hours. This turned out perfectly, but I realize now that I don't have any pictures of it. I was very tired by the time it finished cooking, and couldn't be bothered to do any more than slice it and put it on my plate with the rest of my meal...
The stars of the show are mushrooms. Delicious, delicious mushrooms. The recipe calls for 2 parts creminis to 1 part assorted wild mushrooms.
I'm a bit house-bound at the moment, so my wonderful friend Beth (who picks up greens for the rabbits almost every weekend) was in charge of picking up my "assorted wild mushrooms" at Russo's. She sent pictures from her phone and I was like "Ooh! Those!" Not the most efficient process, I suppose, but I ended up with a really nice pile of mushrooms as a result. (Thanks, Beth!)
The creminis go into the pan to brown first...
Followed by shallot, garlic, and the wild mushrooms.
Meanwhile, you've started on the liquid component.
The cream is simmered until reduced by about half, then the Parmesan, nutmeg, and thyme are stirred in.
When the mushrooms are ready, the cream mixture is added..
Mmmm... Mushroom ragout... Also meanwhile, I blanched off some broccoli rabe. When the ragout, polenta, and pork were all ready, I sautéed it with a little garlic and crushed red pepper flakes, then chucked everything on the plate. (As I mentioned above, I didn't take a picture of the pork's perfection on it's own, so you'll just have to trust me that it is perfectly cooked under that yummy, yummy sauce.
So, as I suppose suits rustic polenta, this is a pretty rustic-looking dish... but it tastes un-freaking-believable. The tender pork, the mushrooms and thyme, the perfect polenta... The combination was total heaven. As a bonus, I was reminded how much I love broccoli rabe (which, honestly, I only bought so the plate wouldn't just be a vision in brown...). This will definitely be a winter/fall staple around here... at least for those days when the amount of cream involved doesn't scare me away... Judging from their picture, you could totally get away with using only creminis for a more budget-friendly version. It also looks like they reduced the cream further than I did, but I enjoyed having the ragout a little looser so I could get some on every bite of pork...

Cookbook Adventures: Marrow Beans with Merguez, Pistachios, and Honey

2011-04-27T16:01:00.011-04:00

When I got my heirloom bean cookbook, the first recipe that jumped out at me was Marrow Beans with Merguez, Pistachios, and Honey. I had some homemade Merguez in the freezer and all of the ingredients sounded like my kind of thing...... but in the end (and this is something I almost never say) there seemed to be too much going on. I thought my homemade Merguez tasted fantastic, but everything else seemed to detract from it... It's a shame, because I had high hopes for this recipe... but I remain cautiously optimistic about the book, Heirloom Beans by the folks at Rancho Gordo (who, conveniently, sell heirloom beans...).
Rancho Gordo wasn't selling marrow beans when I decided to make this, so I went to my other go-to heirloom bean source (who also sell totally awesome granola), Purcell Mountain Farms. Here are my pretty marrow beans before I started soaking them for 4 hours:
The spice mix for the beans involves cumin and coriander seeds (toasted and then ground) and Aleppo pepper, which I randomly had in my spice drawer and had never actually used until now.
The veggie base to be added to the beans is just onion, garlic, and celery.
The first step in all of this is to cook off the Merguez so you can use some of the flavorful rendered fat for cooking those vegetables. I had just a pound of this yummy sausage left in the freezer, which turned out to be what the recipe calls for.
This was cooked off (ignore how ghetto my casing looks when they're cooking...) and set aside in the fridge until serving time (which would be in a couple hours).
Honestly, this picture below served with some polenta and greens would have made me a happy camper. Mmmm... Merguez...
Anyway. Most of the fat is drained off and the veggies go in to cook until softened.
Then all that yumminess is added to the beans (which you were bringing to a boil in their soaking liquid in the meantime) along with the cumin, coriander, and Aleppo pepper.
After somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes, the beans are done (and delicious).
Now we get to all of the other ingredients... Swiss chard is cut into ribbons. (The rabbits got the leftovers, but were like "What the heck is this? Where are my collard greens?")
The greens go into the beans and are cooked for a few minutes, until starting to wilt nicely.The final seasonings to go into the bean mixture are parsley, lemon juice, lemon zest, and harissa paste. I'm not in a good place health-wise to be spending extra time in the kitchen, so I punked out used store-bought harissa rather than making my own. Sorry.
The Merguez is gently warmed, and when it's ready you can add the above seasoning to your bean mixture. Doesn't that look delicious? Somehow it wasn't quite... Speaking of delicious, here is my Merguez...The Merguez is sliced into half-moons and distributed on top of the beans. Afterwards, chopped pistachios are sprinkled over the top, followed by a drizzle of honey (as seen in the picture at the top of the post).
So, yeah. This was sort of a fail. Every component (other than honey and parsley, which I am indifferent to) was a flavor/ingredient I really love, but somehow (for my palate, at least) the whole was less than the sum of its parts. I decided to post anyway because it builds character to admit to failure. At least the next couple things I cooked were absolutely fantastic (posts coming soon), so I didn't have to stay grouchy about this one for too long... Also, I am now reminded of how much I love making sausage, so I'll have to throw that in the recipe queue again sooner rather than later...

Will I Make This Again?: Nope. I think the beans would need a massive overhaul to earn the right to be served with my next batch of Merguez.

Was it Worth the Work?: There wasn't much in the way of "work," just time (and mostly unattended simmering time). Honestly, I'd just as soon make some simple risotto or polenta with yummy green veggies to serve with Merguez. The sausage has such a beautiful, complex flavor that it doesn't need an intensely-flavored accompaniment. So, I guess the answer is "no," even though there wasn't much work to speak of...

Bunnies!

2011-04-27T13:41:00.006-04:00

Hi there. It has apparently been almost a month since last I posted, so I figured I'd ease back in with some bunnies. My computer broke, and I lost some great pictures of the guys there... but they've been doing some pretty cute things to try to make up for that. First up, isn't Pedro the sweetest little angel ever, taking a nap on/hugging Rico's butt?
I encourage you to click on that picture to embiggen it. His little face is so sweet. They weren't locked in the cage in that picture, but they have been more often lately (once a week for half a day, typically). Sometimes I just need that room to be clean, and Rico and Charley are still feeling territorial enough to be constantly marking. Jerks. They don't really seem to mind when they're locked in the cage. They use the time to do some awesome three-bunny snuggles.
Outside of the cage, I have a step stool that I leave in their pen (they also lost the privilege of running around my entire kitchen until they show that they can use their litter boxes a bit better). Rico used to love it and consider it his personal cave... then Charley found it and decided there was room for two... Now Rico seldom gets it to himself and often finds himself squeezed out by his brothers.
They often sit in there and groom him while he's on the outside (as in the picture above), so he doesn't seem to take it too personally. Speaking of the things Rico puts up with, I've mentioned before that Pedro likes to stand on him... but apparently Charley has picked up that habit, too:
Poor Rico. I often find myself apologizing to him (even though I know he can't understand) for making him live with a bunny as crazy as Charley... At least they mostly love each other.

Cookbook "Adventures": Salmon and Wasabi Ravioli with Kaffir Lime Cream

2011-03-30T09:23:00.009-04:00

I have to be honest that this isn't much of an "adventure," since I've been making this recipe for almost a decade... but it is from a book by an author who was one of my very favorites when I first started cooking: Donna Hay. As soon as I read this recipe title, my reaction was "Well, obviously I'm going to have to make that..."One of the best things about Donna Hay books is the food styling and photography by Petrina Tinslay. Every recipe in every book features a full-color, absolutely gorgeous picture. The New Cook is no exception...
The filling for these ravioli (which, size-wise, are probably more appropriately called raviolo...) is basically a collection of some of my favorite things.
Beautiful fresh salmon, wasabi, dill, homemade ricotta, and crème fraîche (homemade from a culture, just for fun...). Initially it may seem strange to combine traditionally Italian and traditionally Japanese ingredients, but this flavor profile is something I find myself craving. As soon as I chopped the dill and the smell combined with that of the wasabi, I was looking forward to dinner.
This is actually a super-simple recipe, and you could use wonton wrappers instead of making pasta if you wanted to make it that much easier. I have some defect where I can't bring myself to do that, though, so I made some basic pasta dough (eggs, flour, sea salt).
I'll be honest that I maybe would have wimped out on making the pasta myself if I didn't have a pasta roller attachment for my KitchenAid. I was in no mood for hand-cranking the evening when I threw this pasta together.
The recipe actually calls for quite large ravioli, but I went ahead and over-stuffed even beyond that. I did this because (a) the filling makes me super-happy and (b) that would mean a smaller number of individual ravioli to deal with.
I used the back end of a cookie cutter to shape the edge of the pasta around the filling...
The recipe calls for cutting the pasta into squares, but I find that the pasta-to-filling ratio isn't quite right for a kid like me when I do that, so this time I decided to cut the pasta into circles using my handy-dandy set of cookie cutters.
Aren't they pretty?
The sauce is basically just cream and a little stock infused with lime leaves and reduced. The night I made the pasta, I made this sauce using leaves from my kaffir lime tree...
... but the flavor wasn't right. Not sure what happened there. The rest of the ravioli went into the freezer that night, and I broke them out last night to try again, this time with store-bought lime leaves, and everything went smoothly.
The ravioli are cooked up and placed in a bowl... (with a glass of wine at the ready...)
... then sauced with the lime leaf-infused cream.
This was great, as always, and part of that greatness probably comes from the fact that this is one of those "comfort foods" that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy and nostalgic. I've played with the sauce over the years (healthifying it and whatnot), and I still think that (even though it's delicious as-is) a little experimentation could take it to another level. That's going towards the top of my mental To Do queue... For now, though, I'm just happy knowing that I have more ravioli stashed away in my freezer...

Bunnies!

2011-03-30T09:05:00.005-04:00

Lots of random bunny snuggles to post today. The guys are all totally in love, and seem to get more and more affectionate with each other every day.
I think Pedro is the happiest about living with two other bunnies. He loves grooming his brothers (and standing on them). I think he may be the happiest blind, toothless, glaucoma-ridden, brain-damaged bunny ever.
The boys all went to the dentist last week. Rico had a fantastic time, since we found out that he didn't have to have his molars fixed just yet, so he just got to hang out and offer moral support. Pedro got his molars done and proceeded to look completely stoned for the next two days. The bad news was that Charley had a tooth root abscess that had to be removed. Being Charley, though, he was acting like nothing had happened by the next morning. Here he is with his new best friend the morning after his surgery...
Rico's little feet never stop amusing me... They're even crossed in that picture! Awesome. Here Charley smooshed himself in between Rico and Pedro when he felt like he needed a good snuggle.
I've had to give him two medications, do 10 minutes of hot compresses, and then inject honey into the gaping hole in his chin twice a day since his surgery. It's pretty much torture for him (he is a giant drama queen about these things), and it breaks my heart because, when he needs a break for some comfort, I'm the one he turns to (even though I'm also the one administering the torture). He stands on my lap with his paws on my chest, looking at me as if to say "You would not believe what some horrible person has been doing to me! Thank god you're here..." Fingers crossed that the abscess is gone and stays away... Since Rico sometimes doesn't get enough pictures around here, I'll close with a few of him... Here he is enjoying some time outside.
Stretched out showing off his cute little feet (again)...
And lounging in his private cave (which Charley sometimes steals lately, much to his dismay). This can't be comfortable (it looks like the stool is strangling him), but he lounges in this position a lot. Weirdo.

Everyday Yumminess: Perfect Ricotta

2011-03-19T16:08:00.012-04:00

So, I am about to blow your mind by telling you how to make the world's easiest, most delicious fresh ricotta... while spending a total of about 5 minutes in the kitchen. Best. Recipe. Ever.
Having been not-super-impressed with ricotta I've made in the past using lemon juice or buttermilk, I decided to go with a citric acid recipe this time. I actually stumbled upon this method for the first time last weekend. I needed to make ricotta, but I was in too much pain to think about doing the standard sitting-and-stirring-forever-while-staring-at-a-thermometer routine. Also, I really hate sitting and stirring forever while staring at thermometers. I opened Ideas in Food to get a handle on just how much time I would have to spend doing this stupid task, when I saw a magical sentence.
The authors told me that I could sit and stir and stare until the mixture came to 195°F... OR I could vacuum-seal the ingredients and toss them in a 195°F water bath for 30 minutes. My response to this (edited for my more sensitive readers), was essentially to exclaim "Holy freaking crap! That's awesome!!!" Turns out, this is the best ricotta I've ever tasted, and it's absurdly easy to make. I can't picture myself every using store-bought ricotta again.
One of the reasons this ricotta tastes so amazing is the fact that I have amazing milk. A few weeks back I started thinking about how much better my homemade yogurt and future homemade cheese would be with really good milk. My friend R grew up with a milk delivery from Crescent Ridge Dairy, and couldn't stop raving about the awesomeness of their products. Within a couple days, I had my own milk man and have been getting fantastic milk delivered every Thursday ever since. Anyway... The awesome milk is combined with salt, heavy cream, and citric acid. (You may find, as I have, that using super-awesome milk can require 2-3x more citric acid than the recipe calls for in order to get proper curd formation.) All of the ingredients go into a zip-top bag.
(I'm showing all the steps, since there really is nothing to this recipe...) You seal the bag while pushing as much air out as possible. (A skill I am getting much better at... because I don't have a chamber vacuum... grumble grumble...)
Next just vacuum-seal the zip-top bag.
Into your sous vide apparatus (in my case the SousVide Supreme, which is rapidly becoming one of my most-used kitchen toys) for 30 minutes at 195°F...
When you pull the bag out, you should see the milk mixture separated into curds and whey. Let this rest for 10 minutes before moving on to the next step.
While you're waiting, line a strainer with cheesecloth...
... then pour in the mixture to strain. The longer you strain, the tighter your final ricotta will be. Check back every 10 minutes or so if you want a nice loose ricotta, or let strain for an hour or more if you want something firmer.
That's it! You now have some of the best ricotta you've ever tasted.
When I'd made ricotta in the past with the sit-stir-stare method I found myself thinking that, even if it had been the best ricotta ever, I couldn't see myself making it all that often. (I reserve my sit-stir-stare time for yogurt-making... although I'm experimenting with switching that over to this sous vide method as well...) It was just too much of a hassle. Now that I can make ricotta with no effort whatsoever and also have it taste this amazing, there's no turning back. I also think the milk heats more evenly with this method, so you don't have some parts overheating by the time your thermometer reaches the desired temperature. Price-wise, I got about 1.4 pounds of amazing ricotta for the price of a half-gallon of awesome milk ($3.19) and a cup of cream ($1.25), so it comes to around $3.25 per pound. I consider that a fantastic deal for a product this high-quality. Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for fava beans to come back in season... (Hurry, fava beans! Hurry!)

UPDATE: Since it was asked in the comments, my (approximate) quantities on ingredients (I hate keeping track of quantities of ingredients, so I often fail to list them) were a half gallon of whole milk, about a cup of cream, a little over a half teaspoon of sea salt, and around 3/4 teaspoon citric acid. I've made this three times now, and it's been super-delicious and creamy and world-rocking every time.

The first time, I followed the recipe in the book and I didn't get curds forming, which is when I increased the citric acid. As soon as I stirred in the additional citric acid, curds started forming in the already-hot milk mixture and I cooked for another 10 minutes before the cooling and the straining. From then on, I've just started with increased citric acid and it works perfectly. I imagine it varies for the quality/style of your milk. If you have a favorite ricotta recipe that you know works using buttermilk or lemon juice, the same heating technique should work for those, as well. I've just had the best luck with citric acid so far...

Everyday Yumminess: Grilled Chicken with Lemon Fregula

2011-03-14T16:40:00.007-04:00

I'm on a mission to start using the cool ingredients in my pantry rather than just looking at them. This weekend the pantry item I decided to play with was fregula, a toasted Sardinian pasta. Turns out it's absolutely delicious...The star of the show was the fregula. I used the "medium" size, but I also have a smaller version at my disposal.This is basically a modification on a Donna Hay recipe. You just melt some (Amish) butter in a skillet, then add yummy things (in this case sage, almonds, capers, and lemon zest) and cook until things like almonds start to brown and the room smells amazing.The fregula is cooked in boiling water and drained...
... and is then added to the skillet to be tossed with the yumminess you've been building there.
Chicken is tossed on the grill along with some lemon halves...
Slice the chicken, and you're good to go. Easy as that. I've been making this dish with couscous for years, and it's always delicious, but the toasty fregula is absolutely fantastic.
I thoroughly enjoyed this meal, especially given how ridiculously easy it is to make. It somehow manages to be light and refreshing while at the same time feeling totally comforting. I'm definitely going to have to stock up on fergula and use it more in the future. Yay for new ingredients!

Bunnies!

2011-03-14T15:25:00.009-04:00

More shots of Rico and his friend Charley this week... After watching them fight for over a year, it still makes me chuckle to see them so happy together. Whether they're snacking on some carrot tops that a nice lady brought them...
or practicing their synchronized lounging...(I had the wrong lens on my camera when I lot of this was happening, so pardon the blur/focus issues.) Here's Rico grooming Charley in the cave while Charley slowly starts to doze off...Snuggles in the cave:Charley grooming Rico out in the middle of the kitchen:And Charley hanging out on top of Rico's private cave (moving too fast for the camera to capture him sharply), just to be a brat:Rico is having a great time being social, but perhaps his favorite moments are when he discovers a special treat before his brothers do...
Pedro still get snuggles from Charley and Rico as well. Here he is hanging out with a lounging Rico. (I giggle whenever I see Rico's silly little feet all stretched out...)
Finally, all three together in the cave... Check out Pedro's sweet little closed eyes. Rico is going back and forth between grooming Pedro and grooming Charley in this picture... because he's awesome.

Chemistry Adventures: Arugula Noodles

2011-03-07T09:16:00.006-05:00

This was a quick and easy little chemistry adventure that ended up being pretty awesome. I saw the recipe over at one of my favorite places to get molecular gastronomy guidance, and instantly knew I had to give it a go.
Today's Chemical:

Agar Agar

I got some larger syringes and some tubing from a fun online store a few months ago, and was glad to get to put them to use.
Arugula goes into a blender with some shallot and water...
After that's all puréed, it's time for the agar agar.
Agar agar is dissolved in the arugula purée, then the mixture is brought to a boil, whisking constantly. That's it for prep. Now the mixture is injected into the tubing using a syringe.
The tubing is immediately submerged in ice water to set.
There was a bit of a learning curve to getting the noodles out of the tubing. At one point I sent a noodle flying across the room when I applied too much pressure with the syringe. Oops. Once I got a handle on the technique, though, I was able to get some nice, bright green noodles.
To serve, I put some noodles on a plate with a slice of tomato and a slice of some homemade mozzarella (I'll post about that next time I make it... but it was pretty easy and quite tasty). I had also made some fresh pesto, so I placed a round of that on top... The pesto added a necessary flavor component, but looked kind of silly...
My solution was to top/hide the pesto with a couple leaves of baby arugula, and I thought it turned out fairly awesome-looking. (I also painted a stripe of reduced balsamic along one side of the plate just for fun.)
I wasn't super-impressed with my first taste of the noodles on their own. (The raw shallot flavor was a bit strong for my taste...) But when I combined some noodle with a bite of tomato, mozzarella, and pesto? Fantastic. The flavors all complemented each other beautifully and made me regret that I'd only prepared one little serving. This is another one of those dishes that could be an impressive appetizer at a dinner party with minimal work. I will definitely be making more weird noodles in the future...

Bunnies al Fresco(-ish)!

2011-03-06T17:47:00.005-05:00

So, there are still a couple feet of snow covering the yard, but I decided to get the bunnies some fresh air today. I set up a litter box and a rug on the porch, sat down in my reclining patio chair, and observed the cuteness. Perhaps the most adorable moment I captured was after I had gone in to fetch a hoodie (55°F only felt warm enough for a T-shirt until the wind kicked up):
My sweet, sweet Charley immediately stole my chair (and was not particularly happy to give it back to me) and had his eyes on the prize. His single-minded pursuit of treats is incredibly charming. When he gave up on the raisins, he decided to look out on his brothers...
Rico is never quite as happy about new places as Charley. When he felt safe, he hopped around a bit...
...and showed off his cute white belly while washing his face.
When these five minutes of fun became too overwhelming, he went back to the mat and took an (adorable) nap.
As I only realized during a bonding experiment a while back, my guys like to have one of their litter boxes around, even if they're free to poo wherever they'd like. This ended up being the setting for some of their cutest moments. Here's Charley grooming Pedro like there's no tomorrow (while Rico naps adorably):
And Pedro, after that grooming session, completely blissed out and disheveled:
Rico snagged the litter box when it was empty, but soon Pedro hopped in behind him and Charley tried to squeeze in as well. Poor Rico...
I love the progression on Rico's face from "Grumble grumble..." to "Can you believe what I have to put up with?!?" to "Seriously? I'm the one who has to move now?" Soon he was kicked out of his very nice napping spot entirely...
As time wore on, Charley went into his running-around-maniacally-and-repeatedly-leaping-over-Rico persona, which soon prompted Rico and Pedro to snuggle in a relatively safe-from-the-crazy-bunny space...
Can't wait for the snow to clear so they can all frolic in the grass again. I still can't get over how amazing it is to see the three of them so happy together. I realize now that, for the 14 months I was working on bonding them, they had become a source of stress. I was constantly trying to figure out ways to get Charley and Rico to stop trying to kill each other. Now that they can coexist so peacefully together, it feels fantastic to just sit back and see the bunny love in action...

Bunnies!

2011-03-02T19:32:00.007-05:00

Quick update on the bunnies. Everyone is happy and healthy and adorably in love with one another. Charley and Rico have a weird bond that cracks me up while warming the cockles of my cold cold heart.
The bunnies snuggle in all possible combinations during the day, but they seem to have a routine at night. During the middle of the night, Rico sprawls out in the middle of the kitchen floor. Charley either snuggles him, grooms him, or stands guard for him (typically all three at varying times). During this time, Pedro naps in the cage.
Rico's little feet kill me... Pardon the mess in that last one. It was puppy-pad-changing day. (We've still got some territorial poo being carefully distributed by Rico and Charley.) At other times, the guys just lounge on their own... Here's sleepy nap-time Pedro... rudely awakened by the sound of my camera turning on.
Silly Rico (again on puppy-pad-changing day) stretching just one leg way back...
And exhausted little Charley. I love how his hind legs are stretched super-long. Sweetheart. He seems to be suffering from ennui.
Finally, one of my favorite Pedro quirks: He likes to put himself in "time out":
His nose is seriously smooshed into that corner. My theory is that, because he's blind, he likes to have his nose pressed on something when he falls asleep so he can kind of get his bearings when he wakes up. Or, maybe he's just crazy... and ridiculously cute.

Chemistry & Cookbook Adventures: Shrimp Mosaic with Avocado-Melon Salsa

2011-03-02T19:11:00.007-05:00

As I've mentioned, I'm playing with meat glue these days, but I can't really explain why I made this dish. I had some shrimp. I had some meat glue. I read a recipe in Ideas in Food where you glue a bunch of shrimp together. Seemed like the universe really wanted me to try it. Who am I to blow against the wind?

So... Super-easy recipe. You take some shrimp and toss with cayenne and sea salt, then combine with meat glue (about 1% by weight).
This now goes into a 10" x 12" vacuum bag. I made a double batch, so I divided the mixture between two such bags.
Next, you gently flatten the shrimp mixture with a meat mallet (or, if you don't have a meat mallet and are feeling hostile, you can beat the crap out of it with a marble rolling pin), then spread it out into an even layer in the bag.
Here is one of the bags held up to the light. Mmmm... Smooshed, glued-together shrimp!
The next day, this cooks in a 55°C water bath for 20 minutes.
Done:
The bag then goes into an ice bath to chill, and can hang out overnight in the fridge until you're ready to start slicing.
I will be honest that I didn't really think this dish through. I just decided that gluing a bunch of shrimp together and smashing them with a marble rolling pin seemed kinda fun... but what to do with my new glued-together mass of smooshed shrimp? I decided to fall back on one of my favorite seafood accompaniments: a simple avocado-melon salsa. The problem here was that I was having pain issues and wasn't going to be able to do any serious chopping in the kitchen that day, so I decided to be "creative" and do most of the prep in a comfy chair with a mini-melon baller.
I tossed the melon balls with lime juice, sea salt, and finely minced red onion, then gently combined with little balls of avocado... This went on top of the shrimp "mosaic" that I had cut to fit my plate, and I tend to think it looks kind of cool...
This was fun (and delicious!) and all, but would be unwieldy to serve at a dinner party. I decided to slice up some smaller rectangles for appetizer portions. They turned out kind of cute, and I liked the improved avocado-to-shrimp ratio...
This was definitely a fun meat glue experiment. I started out wondering why the heck I was gluing a random food together, but now I have about 20 different ideas for how to use this technique in other cool presentations. What you basically end up with is well-seasoned, perfectly cooked shrimp, but in thin sheets that are easy to work with in so many different presentations. Why did I never think to glue a bunch of shrimp together before?!?

Chemistry Adventures: Bacon-Wrapped Scallops with Celery Root Cream

2011-03-02T18:41:00.005-05:00

This isn't much of a post, I suppose. I made an awesome celery root cream the other day while learning how to perfectly cook scallops. I also made my first-ever home-cured bacon, using meat glue for the first time in the process. The only natural next step was to glue some bacon to some scallops, cook to perfection, then serve with that sauce...
This is probably the second-most boring thing you can do with meat glue (after just gluing two hunks of meat together to make a bigger hunk of meat): gluing bacon to a scallop. Can you get any more clichéd? But I suppose cliché food combinations would never become cliché if they didn't taste so damned good.
So, I took a thin-sliced piece of home-cured bacon and a gorgeous diver scallop. I brushed some transglutaminase slurry onto both items and wrapped the bacon around the scallop.
This was tightly wrapped in cling film and then vacuum sealed so the glue could set overnight.
The next day, this vacuum-sealed bundle was treated just like the bundle of brined scallops the day before: sous vide cooking for a half hour, then pan-seared in butter and olive oil. I served it up with the same sauce and added a little super-finely-diced bacon to the finely-diced celery for garnish.
So, yeah. This was completely delicious. (How could it not be?) Nonetheless, I think I prefer the simplicity of the brined, non-bacon-wrapped scallop... maybe? I'm torn. I guess I'll just have to keep cooking both until one fully wins my heart...

Cookbook & Chemistry Adventures: Homemade Fresh Bacon

2011-02-28T18:20:00.008-05:00

I ordered some transglutaminase (aka Meat Glue) a few weeks back, and started to play with it recently. My first experiment with meat glue was the most boring thing you can imagine: gluing two pieces of meat together to make one (bigger) piece of meat. Nonetheless, it was kind of awesome, and prompted me to make my first ever batch of home-cured bacon.
The recipe, of course, came from Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie, a book that has yet to lead me astray...
So, I'd never really thought about making my own bacon, since Blood Farm sells absurdly good bacon and there are so many other fun things to do with pork belly... The bacon-making, in this case, was prompted by the meat glue acquisition. You see, when I blindly bought paper-wrapped frozen pork belly at Blood Farm a while back, I made the soul-crushing discovery that most of this belly was too thin to use for any cool applications. I portioned it out and vacuum-sealed it to sit in my chest freezer until a use came to mind... and the day my meat glue arrived I had a revelation: I could turn too-thin pork belly into appropriately-thick pork belly! Thus, this became my first experiment. I glued together two sets of two pieces, and turned one into bacon. Look at this useless piece of meat:
I glued it to this slightly-less-useless-but-still-largely-useless piece of meat:
There's nothing to using meat glue. I have the GS, which allows you to make a slurry that is active for up to 24 hours. I brushed this slurry onto the pork pieces, shoved one on top of the other...
... then vacuum-sealed my new, bigger, piece of pork belly to set overnight (with pressure applied, as well). Things were going so well the next day (The meat! It was glued together! Amazing!) that I forgot to take any pictures until I started curing. I used the "more savory" option on Ruhlman's basic cure, which incorporates bay leaves, black peppercorns, and garlic with the standard salt, sugar, and curing salt.
This was vacuum-sealed (again) and tossed in the fridge for 7-9 days, turning every other day for even distribution of the cure.
Things were much more liquid-y when it came out:
Everything is rinsed off, and it's time to cook. The bacon-to-be goes into a 200°F oven until an internal temperature of 150°F is reached (about 90 minutes).
The bacon is cooled to room temperature, then chilled in the fridge until slicing time. I made the first slice with a knife. Look how pretty:
I sliced several more slices using my meat slicer, going for relatively thin pieces that I will then glue to other meats...
It's fairly lean bacon relative to what you see in stores, and it tastes fan-freaking-tastic. It's definitely the most flavorful bacon I've ever had, with the garlic, bay, and pepper combining beautifully with sugar and salt. I'm in love. Suddenly, instead of seeing no reason to home-cure bacon, I can't wait to make my next batch...

Mmmm... Scallops...

2011-02-28T13:59:00.010-05:00

I have long maintained that scallops are my favorite "luxury" food item. (Lobster runs a close second, but it's so affordable and easy to find around here that I am spoiled enough to not really think of it as a "luxury" item anymore... Yay, New England!) I grew up on frozen scallops from Costco and thought I loved scallops then. My first fresh diver scallop (from the mussels lady at the Santa Barbara Farmers Market, sold fresh in the shell) made me realize what a fool I'd been. Since that day, I've been obsessed with high-quality dry-packed diver scallops... and I finally found a great way to always have them on hand and the perfect way to cook them.

So, this was going to be a cookbook adventure from Michel Richard's (awesome) Happy in the Kitchen (a book that I thoroughly love), but then I read in Ideas in Food about this new way to cook scallops and ended up going off on a tangent... The sauce was inspired by Michel Richard's "Celery Root Cream" (which doesn't contain any cream but is creamy and delicious). I am a huge fan of celery root, and I learned back in the day when my brother introduced me to those awesome scallops at BlueHour that celery root and scallops are a match made in heaven. You start out by peeling the celery root and cutting it into a julienne.
The four cups I needed only took one celery root. (I am horrible at estimating how many whole things are required to create a given quantity of chopped things...) The celery root is then simmered in water (or chicken stock) and a couple pinches of nutmeg...
Whole milk is added, and the whole thing goes into a blender to purée until smooth.
Why did we have to painstakingly julienne that celery root just so we could purée it, you might ask? Only Michel Richard knows... Anyway, I puréed until very smooth as instructed, and was then supposed to separate the liquid from the purée... but the entire mixture went easily through my finest mesh strainer. I guess my "very smooth" was too smooth, but I went with it. To finish the sauce I put one serving portion of the celery root purée into a pan to heat, then added a squeeze of lemon juice (brilliant!) and mounted the sauce with a tablespoon of butter just before plating. I wouldn't change a thing.
Back to the scallops! I've been having a lot of pain management issues lately, and one of the consequences is not being able to go out and do crazy grocery shopping when I want to. Thus, driving out to Wellesley to buy scallops from my usual purveyor was out of the question. After about four hours of googling, I finally found a place that could ship me fresh or IQF (individually quick-frozen) dry-pack scallops for a reasonable price. It turns out the real problem with frozen scallops you see in stores is that they're pretty much always wet-packed (treated with sodium tripolyphosphate and water), which is done to keep them nice and white and big (thanks to added water weight), and makes them impossible to get a nice sear on since they're constantly shedding water into the pan. The scallops I got were frozen, but dry-packed... and it turns out that's a pretty darn good solution if you want to have scallops on-hand on a whim and can't drive far away to get them when that whim strikes. Look how pretty:
The Ideas in Food method is a "Twice-Cooked Scallop." You start out by brining the scallops in salt solution for 10 minutes. From there the scallops are stacked end-to-end and wrapped in plastic wrap...
... then vacuum-sealed, ready to be cooked sous vide. (Ignore that packet in the front. I'll get to that one in a later post...)
After 30 minutes at 50°C, the scallops are chilled in an ice bath, ready to finish cooking any time in the next day or so. I sprinkled lightly with sea salt just before adding to the pan.
During the 30 minutes of initial cooking, I also took a few minutes to prep garnishes (as inspired by the picture in Happy in the Kitchen) of finely diced celery and fried celery leaves.
Oil is heated in a pan, then the once-cooked scallops are added and cooked over medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes (depending on pan heat) to develop a nice sear. (I did 2 1/2 minutes, and will probably do 3 minutes next time...)
Then the scallops are flipped and some (Amish) butter goes into the pan. The butter is used to baste the scallops as they finish cooking. Mmmm...
The scallops came out looking just about perfect, and serve as proof that a frozen scallop can be a beautiful thing as long as it starts out as a high-quality dry-packed scallop that is quick-frozen while super-fresh.On to plating. I added some sauce to the bowl and placed a (gorgeous) scallop in the center...
Then sprinkled with fine-diced celery and topped with the celery leaves. Pretty, no?
This would be a great portion as part of a multi-course meal, but since it was going to be my whole lunch, I shifted the plating to be a more realistic portion. (It's not as if I could just leave that second perfect scallop sitting there uneaten...)
This was absolutely amazing. The celery root purée was the perfect complement to the scallops, yet was mild enough not to stand in the way of appreciating how awesome the scallops taste on their own. This cooking method is by far my favorite way that I've ever prepared scallops. One of the things "they" talk about when you're pondering buying a Sous Vide Supreme is that in a few (dozen) years it will be a situation where people have a toaster oven, a microwave oven, and a water oven. Techniques like the twice-cooked scallop (nothing fussy, just perfection...) make me see how much it's integrated itself into my list of must-have kitchen appliances. It's worth noting, too, that (assuming you have the right equipment) this is an absurdly simple meal to prepare and also can be largely done ahead of time, with just the final searing of the scallops and the mounting of the sauce left for the last minute. I already can't wait to make this again... (and I do have that extra celery root sitting in my pantry... Hmmm...)

Chemistry Adventures: Make-Ahead Eggs Benedict

2011-02-22T11:58:00.009-05:00

As I've probably mentioned countless times before, a well-made Eggs Benedict is one of my favorite meals... Breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner... Any time of day is a good time for Eggs Benedict. The drawback of making this dish is all of the work that has to be done last-minute. The eggs must be perfectly poached. The hollandaise must be made and carefully kept warm (without breaking the sauce and ruining everything...). It's a hassle, and usually leaves the kitchen a mess from all of the last-minute chaos. I thought this was a necessary evil, until I was flipping through one of my new favorite cookbooks and discovered that there is, in fact, a better way...
The book that made this meal possible, and that I am currently totally in love with, is Ideas in Food by Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot.
Many things in this book had me smiling and thinking to myself, "Wow. I have to try that!" but it was the combination of the words "Reheatable" and "Hollandaise" that blew my mind. Maybe I'm just a weirdo, but this was pretty much a dream come true. All it takes is a batch of hollandaise and one very cool chemical.

Today's Chemicals:

Methocel LV

To stick with what's in the book, I made a Brown Butter Hollandaise. This recipe is pretty much your standard blender hollandaise (which I am a huge fan of), except using brown butter and with the addition of some lime pickle to add spice and interest. I used store-bought lime pickle because I'm still not up to the task of spending a long time in the kitchen, and I only used half of the suggested amount since I was unsure about how the store-bought compared to the lime pickle recipe in the book.
Everything but the butter goes into the blender until well-combined, and the butter is browned on the stove top. After cooling for a couple minutes, the brown butter is drizzled into the blender with the motor running on low, and you have yourself some tasty Brown Butter Hollandaise. You can use this straight-away, or you can continue on to make it reheatable and use it a couple hours or a couple days later.
Methocel LV (1% by weight relative to the total weight of all other ingredients) is dissolved in boiling water, then drizzled into the hollandaise while the blender is running at low speed. That's it. Now the sauce is cooled over an ice bath to a temperature of 50°F, then chills in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.
When the time comes, simply reheat over low heat, whisking occasionally and never allowing the sauce to come to a boil. (Side note: I totally let my sauce come to a boil because my eggs were done and caused me to turn my back at just the wrong moment... Turns out a little vigorous whisking off the heat gets this sauce back to a creamy, awesome consistency no problem... Much more forgiving than a normal hollandaise, which is pretty much forever broken once it breaks...)
Speaking of eggs, I have been trying for a while now to achieve the perfect slow-cooked egg. I've done the Momofuku method and a few others (standard protocol is 63-64°C for 50-60 minutes), but the finished product has never been perfect. That all changed today with help (again) from Ideas in Food. The authors bump up the temperature to 75°C and drop the cooking time to 13 minutes. These eggs can be made ahead, chilled in an ice bath, and rewarmed when it is time to serve.
For the first time, I finally met the perfect egg. Check it out:
My previous slow-cooked eggs featured a very runny yolk that was almost raw. I like a runny yolk, but raw yolk isn't my favorite. This yolk, as you can see above, features an oozy, custardy texture that totally rocked my world. Never before has an egg made me so happy. It's just... Wow. So, I prepped the sauce and eggs in the morning (and had a couple perfect eggs for breakfast to reward myself for the hard work...), got everything cleaned up and put away, then had only to reheat the eggs and the hollandaise and toast an English muffin to produce a fantastic Eggs Benedict meal with no hassle.
This is the best consistency I've had on a hollandaise, and I love that you can get it nice and hot without risk of breaking it. (I made this batch of Eggs Benedict with (Costco) crab cakes instead of Canadian bacon because I was feeling festive, in case you're wondering what's in the picture.) Imagine making hollandaise and prepping eggs the day before you wanted to savor a nice brunch, then being able to roll out of bed and have this kick-ass meal on the table in the time it takes to make your morning espresso. Perfect.

Will I Make This Again?: Yes. Over and over and over again.
Was it Worth the Work?: Totally. A little prep in advance has a huge payoff when mealtime rolls around. I think Methocel LV may be my new favorite chemical... at least until I play with the next one...

Everyday Yumminess: Lemon Pudding Cake

2011-02-21T11:51:00.006-05:00

I bought this bag of lemons at Costco a while back, and then a change in menu plans left me with 5 pounds of lemons in the fridge and no plans to use them. Luckily, lemons make me think of one of my all-time favorite (and healthy, too!) desserts: Lemon Pudding Cake.
From the time I first saw this recipe while flipping through a Gourmet magazine in grad school, I never ceased to be amazed by how easy and satisfying this dish is. The only changes I made are: (1) using slightly less sugar than the recipe calls for, (2) replacing the milk with dry milk and water, since I was out of milk when I decided to make this, and (3) I bake the servings in individual ramekins and adjust cooking times accordingly (30 minutes instead of 45-50).
Simple ingredients: eggs, milk, lemons, flour, sugar.
The eggs are separated, and yolks are combined with sugar, milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Flour and salt are whisked together, then combined with the wet ingredients, while egg whites are whipped to soft peaks.
Fold the contents of these two bowls together, divide among ramekins, and you're ready for the oven.
The recipe calls for cooking in a water bath...
... and the cakes are done when they're starting to be a lovely golden brown on top.
From the outside, this appears to be just your average soufflé, but it's much more than that...
When you cut into the cake with a spoon, you see that this airy top layer hides an oozy, delicious pudding layer.
It had been a few years since last I baked this... for reasons that I cannot fathom. So easy. So delicious. What's not to love?

Nobody Knows the Snuggles I've Seen...

2011-02-12T11:28:00.004-05:00

Man. The Trio are having a great big snuggle-fest these days. The level of cuteness is pretty much unbearable. They don't typically like me to take pictures of this, but here are a few (and a couple videos) that I snuck:
Here Charley is grooming Pedro and Pedro is grooming Rico. (Pardon Rico's unflattering pose. I promise he's not that fat...)Here everyone was fighting over who would be grooming who...
And classic Pedro-and-Charley cuteness...
The videos are just your standard grooming. Between the first and second video, Pedro stole Charley's lounging spot, after which both Rico and Charley started grooming him... After the video, Charley got annoyed and stole the spot back, which made Pedro decide he'd had enough of Charley for now... Heh.

One last picture. This is the cave I set up for Rico. Charley liked to join him in there and now likes to hang out in there on his own, too. Here he is doing one of his Charley things, where he rests his paws on something while he grooms them so he doesn't have to go to the trouble of standing on his hind legs. Lazy little cutie...

A Bit of a Hiatus... I Guess...

2011-02-04T19:53:00.008-05:00

As has most likely become obvious over the last couple months, the culinary adventures around here are few and far between lately. With Tampa's NFL season over, this means the blog is very much in danger of just becoming a blog about my (awesome) bunnies... so I figured I owe an explanation. Basically, things lately have been not-good. Extremely not-good, in fact. It seems that my cyborg parts have turned against me, and I am having difficulty dealing with the aftermath.(Perhaps the picture is over-dramatic. Heh.) My pain started rapidly getting out of control in mid-November. For assorted reasons, and after taking several data points, it became clear when I was in Portland at Christmas that this rapid escalation in pain was due (at least in part) to my cyborg parts. While they were able to mask pain up to about a 6 on the pain scale, they were simultaneously making the underlying pain worse and worse... such that it was typically more than the cyborg parts could mask. I hoped that by leaving them turned off things would shift back to a more manageable level, but that hasn't really happened. The last few weeks have been some of the worst... ever. I plan fun things to cook but, when it comes down to it, two of the last three weekends I haven't been able to leave my apartment to go to the grocery store (and the one time I went resulted in my pain level spiking and many regrets about not just asking for help). Luckily I have awesome friends who have been willing to go buy veggies for the bunnies when I can't... but I'm still left without my usual ability to buy great ingredients and in too much pain to spend any real time in the kitchen.

I honestly don't know what's happening (and, unfortunately, neither do my doctors). The pain has never been this intense for this long in the past. If this is a permanent situation then I'll have to find a way to deal, but I'm holding on to a tiny shred of hope that that's not the case. It's a bit scary right now... and it's extremely frustrating that 3 surgeries and 5 months of excruciating back pain were either (a) all for nothing or (b) responsible for making things much, much worse... possibly permanently.

Anyway, the bunnies make me happy, and I will continue to post about them because that's often the only fun thing that's going on around here... and I'll post about fun cooking whenever I can. I've got a huge queue of awesome things I can't wait to make... Speaking of bunnies, let's end this post with an old picture of happy springtime Charley, because it always puts a smile on my face to see my little Mr. Crazy-Pants frolicking...

One More Bunnies(!) Post...

2011-02-03T14:47:00.009-05:00

Sorry to be so bunny-centric lately. Things were so exciting, then depressing, and now... fairly peaceful. One gift Dennis left me with was the way he magically helped Rico, Charley, and Pedro become a bonded trio. I moved The Trio from the cramped hallway (which was their preferred home, probably because their brains are so little) into the more spacious kitchen this week. Rico was uncertain at first, so I gave him a private cave where he could hide when he was nervous. He didn't like to leave his cave at first, but today he's just hanging out with his friends and doesn't seem to need that safety net. Here are a few shots of my guys being friends. Only took 14 months and some help from a truly awesome bunny to make it happen...

Charley probably wouldn't be Charley if he didn't try to hump another bunny every time he got worried (because snacks are taking too long to be delivered or are being delivered to someone else first... because breakfast isn't served the moment I enter the room... because there's a human standing near raisins and not dispensing them...). This is not Rico's favorite thing about Charley, but luckily he's decided to be his friend anyway... (Finally.)

Extremely Bad News

2011-01-31T08:13:00.003-05:00

The incomparable, awesome Dennis died last night. He had been acting strange during the day, hiding in weird places. He hadn't been under the recliner in weeks, but I always open and close the chair slowly so he has time to move if he snuck under there when I wasn't looking. In the past he would always come hopping right out when the chair started to move. Last night, for whatever reason, he didn't come out. A few seconds later I heard his front paws scratching and I knelt down and saw that his hind legs weren't working. As I held him his front paws stopped working, too, and I knew this wasn't something he would be recovering from. I held him and stroked his fur and told him what a good bunny he was as he died in my arms. I feel absolutely terrible, and my heart is broken. He was such an amazing bunny. It's hard to believe he's really gone.

Snow Bunnies!

2011-01-28T15:28:00.006-05:00

This started as a post about Charley in the snow, but then Dennis got in on the fun and it became a more general Snow Bunnies! post...(How ridiculously handsome is Dennis?) Charley is a huge fan of the snow on the porch. Whenever I leave or come home he rushes to try to get out the door. I usually don't have my camera on hand while he's doing the majority of his binkying, digging, and snow-eating... but trust me when I tell you that it's incredibly adorable. Here he is in a few of his calmer moments in the snow. My little Mr. Crazy-Pants... I have pretty much no choice but to spoil him rotten every chance I get...

Best (crazy) bunny ever... Here's a video, which missed the binkys but caught some of the happiness...

Aside from the picture at the start of this post and the one below, I mostly have videos of Dennis. In the picture below he's cleaning up after playing in the snow... Gotta stay handsome, you know... (Rico is the same way.)
Here he is being adorable. Note how adorably his ears twitch around and how he loves to rub his chin on everything... In the last video I had to stop early because Charley wouldn't stop batting at my lens cap...

I still don't know why they enjoy the snow, but who am I to stop them?

Bunnies!

2011-01-25T19:21:00.006-05:00

Just a quick update on the guys. I basically have two combinations of three bonded rabbits right now. Rico and Pedro are in love again, and both Charley and Dennis love them but not each other. Look at this guy:How could anyone not love that face? Not a ton of pictures, since everyone seems to be hanging out in the hallway and there aren't many good angles in there. Basically, Pedro spends a lot of his time snuggling with Rico in the hallway. Charley sometimes joins in, sometimes runs around like a maniac, and sometimes goes back to the big cage in the kitchen to rest without having to worry about Dennis. Look at this terrifying beast!Sometimes Pedro comes back to the big cage to snuggle Charley, too... because Pedro is the sweetest bunny ever. I've taken to doing family meals in the hallway. Dennis is out there (or ramming his way into my room) most mornings, so he will eat breakfast with Rico and Pedro no matter where I put their food (and no matter how much food is in his own cage). Pardon all the poo on the puppy pads in the picture. This corner is pretty much Bonding Central, so a lot of territory is constantly being marked. (Thanks, guys!) Charley can't handle being around Dennis during meals, so I give him his own pile of food where he doesn't have to worry about anyone else eating it:Sometimes Dennis is with me in the den at dinner time, so I serve him dinner in his cage and Charley joins Pedro and Rico for family supper... Sometimes Dennis is out chilling with his new brothers (minus Charley) at dinner time, so he eats with them and Charley eats on his own. I really think we're getting there. Dennis is a very good sport about Charley's insanity, and I know Charley will eventually calm down... or, at least, I hope he will... eventually...

UPDATE: We've had a four-bunny family breakfast going on sporadically for the last two mornings. Is there any more handsome pair of bunnies than Rico and Dennis? I doubt it...

Everyday Yumminess: Perfect Reubens

2011-01-25T18:30:00.005-05:00

I'm mentioned before that the Reuben (particularly the bastardized Emily-Style Reuben) is one of my very favorite sandwiches on the planet. A big sticking point for me with the traditional Reuben was the rye bread, since I find the presence of caraway seeds in my food to be somewhat traumatizing. When Stanley was here I ordered a Reuben at the sports bar, opting to let them go ahead and make it on rye bread so as not to seem overly-high-maintenance (and because my friend Max had told me I was crazy to never give rye bread a chance)... and it was the best Reuben I've ever had. The rye bread didn't have any evil caraway seeds, and the combination of flavors was perfection. I knew then that I would have to make my own proper Reuben someday... and that day came this weekend.
The one ingredient I had to prepare that didn't get its own post was the Russian dressing. This started with a fresh batch of homemade mayo, combined with chili sauce (Who has chili sauce around these days? That seems very old-school...), Worcestershire sauce, prepared horseradish, and minced onion (for which I substituted minced shallot, since I forgot to buy an onion...).
Stir it all together, and you wonder why you were ever foolish enough to use store-bought dressing. This stuff is good.
Alrighty. Let's get to the ingredients.
Because there's not much to say about making a sandwich, I'll go ahead and look at each ingredient individually... First up was fresh-baked rye bread, which was already rocking my world before I assembled the sandwich...
Next is that homemade Russian dressing I mentioned above... Mmmmmm....
My one shame with this sandwich is that I didn't make my own sauerkraut. I was too impatient (I wanted my perfect Reuben NOW!), but next time I'll plan ahead and give it a go. One improvement I made with this batch of Reubens was pre-warming the kraut so that it didn't chill the other ingredients while the sandwich cooked. Not sure why that never occurred to me before...
Max also told me I was an idiot (I'm paraphrasing) for using extra-sharp white cheddar on Emily-Style Reubens rather than using Swiss. Yet again, Max was right. I went with a fantastic Comté on this, and the flavor profile blended perfectly with the other components...
Finally, my beloved corned beef. So good... (And another reason I totally needed that meat slicer I bought last year!)
That's it. The sandwich is assembled...
... then pan-fried in a little (Amish) butter...
So pretty...
I sliced the sandwich, plated it up, and was soon completely content.
Seriously, people. This sandwich rocked my world. I was thinking about it pretty much from the moment I finished it last night until right now, when I am about to go make myself another one for dinner. Love.

Will I Make This Again?: You're damn right I will...
Was it Worth the Work?: Super-fast and super-easy (if you use store-bought ingredients, that is...). If this is too much work for you, then you really hate cooking... Even if you decide to make it an epic task with homemade ingredients, still totally, totally worth it... Totally.

Cookbook Adventures: Corned Beef Brisket

2011-01-25T18:15:00.004-05:00

My plan this weekend was a (mostly) from-scratch Reuben. (Next time I will make my own sauerkraut, too...) The key ingredient here (other than the rye bread) was the corned beef. I had picked up a nice hunk of brisket at Blood Farm when I was out there with Stanley getting ingredients for the world's greatest hamburgers, so all that was left was to find the perfect recipe.
The obvious source for my recipe was Charcuterie, which has yet to lead me astray...
The first step is to make the pickling spice, which contains (from right to left... ignoring the pink salt, which comes in later) bay leaves, black peppercorns, crushed red pepper flakes, mustard seeds, coriander seeds, whole cloves, whole allspice berries, ground ginger, cinnamon sticks, and ground mace. I didn't feel like spending $7 on a bottle of ground mace that I will never need again, so I substituted some fresh-grated nutmeg. The end result was delicious, so I have no regrets.
Bay leaves and cinnamon sticks are broken up, while coriander seeds, black peppercorns, and mustard seeds are toasted and then smashed to release the flavors...
Now that the pickling spice is ready, we can move on to the corning process. This combines kosher salt, pink (curing) salt, sugar, pickling spice, garlic, and a gallon of water. The mix is heated on a stove until all of the salt and sugar are dissolved, then allowed to chill before the beef is added.
The beef goes in, and five days later you're in business...
I refuse to boil meat, so I like to roast my corned beef in a low oven rather than boiling it. I coated it with the pickling spice that was supposed to go into the pot with the boiling water, then put the brisket into a 275°F oven for around 3 hours...
The result is a gorgeous, ready-to-slice, ridiculously delicious hunk of corned beef...
Given how easy this is, I don't envision myself buying store-corned beef in the future (barring emergency Reuben cravings). This tastes so great that I don't think I'd change a single thing next time. Awesome.

Will I Make This Again? Abso-freaking-lutely
Was it Worth the Work? Not too much work and a great result, so definitely a "YES!"

Cookbook Adventures: Fresh-Baked Rye Bread

2011-01-25T18:05:00.002-05:00

A key component in my plan to make Reubens this weekend was a nice fresh loaf of rye bread without any (evil) caraway seeds in it... I realized a few months ago that rye bread isn't my enemy, only caraway seeds are. Turns out rye bread can be absolutely delicious... Who knew?
The recipe I turned to for my first-ever loaf of rye was Rose Levy Beranbaum's Bread Bible.
A year ago, the sugar and water would be the only ingredients I had on hand but, thanks to all the cooking during this last year, instant yeast and bread flour are now pantry staples. Rye flour was easy to track down, and the malt powder (which can be replaced with honey or sugar) was easy to order from one of my favorite spice purveyors online.
These ingredients are combined with water in a stand mixer, whisking to incorporate air, before a mixture of bread flour, salt, and more instant yeast is distributed over the top. (This is the mixture that would contain the caraway seeds, if you're a weirdo who likes that kind of thing...)
Ideally I would have liked to use the option of letting the dough rise for an hour then refrigerating overnight... but I was having pain issues the night before, so I had to do this all in one day. Unfortunately it was a day when my heat stopped working and outdoor temperatures were below 10°F, which was non-ideal for dough-rising. I gave the dough about 5 hours, and it looked like this:
After kneading in the KitchenAid for 10 minutes, the dough was shaped into a ball and allowed to rise for another 90 - 120 minutes, until doubled in size.
From here, you implement a "business letter fold." This involves stretching the dough into a rectangle and folding one third over the middle, then the other third on top of that...
The dough is then turned 90 degrees and the fold is repeated. The folded dough goes into an oiled bowl and rises for about 45 minutes.
After this rise, the dough is shaped into something resembling its final shape and allowed to rise for another 75 minutes...
Finally, slashes are cut into the top and the dough is ready for the oven.
After 15 minutes at 450°F, the temperature is dropped to 400°F and the bread bakes for another 30-40 minutes. The result is kinda gorgeous:
I finished baking this loaf at around 1am... which wasn't exactly in line with my original start-the-day-before plan. Oh, well. It was ready for me to have a couple delicious slices as toast in the morning, so I can't really complain...
Will I Make This Again? Totally.
Was it Worth the Work? Next time I'll start the night before to avoid the 1am finish-time, but it was totally worth it even when it kept me up half the night...

Everyday Yumminess: Chorizo con Huevos

2011-01-17T11:19:00.006-05:00

I've been re-organizing my chest freezer lately, trying to make sure that I actually use everything that's in there at some point. To this end, I set my sights on the homemade Mexican Chorizo that I'd vacuum-sealed and frozen a while back... (I have lots of ideas for Spanish Chorizo, but was having trouble getting creative with the Mexican version...) I'm going to go ahead and say that this is one of the best pulled-together-from-stuff-in-the-freezer-and-pantry meals I've ever made for myself...
OK, so the Pico de Gallo ingredients required a trip to the store... but I had the Mexican Chorizo and some delicious homemade Refried Beans in the freezer, plus eggs, masa for tortillas, and sour cream that I thinned to imitate Mexican Crema.
I figured that, while using up the Chorizo, I could also start playing with slow-cooked eggs until I achieved perfection, since I hadn't made them again after I got my Sous Vide Supreme.
For this round I went with 62.5°C for 50 minutes. They were almost perfect, but I think I'll try 63.5°C tonight. I dig how the yolk gets kind of custard-y instead of just runny. I'll try to remember to take a picture of how cool the eggs are this time...Meanwhile, I squeezed the chorizo out of its casing and smooshed it into a single layer in a skillet.
After one side browned, I flipped it to cook the other side. When it was almost done, I added a scoop of refried beans to warm and pick up some of that chorizo-y goodness from the pan.
While that was going on, I also made a batch of fresh corn tortillas. (As always, I used Rick Bayless's recipe from Mexico, One Plate at a Time.) I'm a huge fan of flatbreads, and my favorite flatbreads are the ones that puff up when you do things just right...
So, that's it. All of the prep was done while the eggs slow-cooked, everything was mounded on a plate, faux-crema and tortillas were set out, and I had a totally awesome feast in front of me.
Not bad for a last-minute idea as I tried to clear out the freezer for another trip to Blood Farm... Glad I have enough ingredients to do this again tonight.

Bunny News!

2011-01-17T11:16:00.004-05:00

The original trio has bonded! It's kind of amazing. There was some solid three-bunny snuggles yesterday, and the three of them are living together now as if there was never any animosity between them. (No photographic evidence yet... Charley is too hyper to keep hanging with Rico once he sees me and my camera.) Getting Charley to bond with Dennis is still a work in progress, but seeing him be friends with Rico is making me pretty damn happy. Woohoo!

UPDATE: OK. Here are two blurry pictures for proof. The first one I took without them seeing me. Rico is grooming Charley's nose... The second one shows what happens when I go over near them and my camera flashes ... Charley and Rico are like "Do you mind? We were trying to snuggle over here..."

Bunnies! (Another Dennis Edition)

2011-01-12T14:15:00.009-05:00

So, it's official: Dennis is part of my household. The bonding process has a ways to go, but I realized that I love him and there was no way I could let him go. He's so awesome, I never really stood a chance...
There are no more bunny gates up in the house. (Dennis chewed through the wooden step-over gate in the door to his room in about 20 minutes, at which point I decided to just let him be in charge of bonding...) Yesterday morning I came in and found all four bunnies in the hallway, not fighting. Progress! Charley still runs Dennis off from the kitchen (if I'm not distracting him with food) and gets a little worked up sometimes, but Rico seems to be coming around to the idea of living with Dennis. Here Dennis is debating whether to go play with the other bunnies or just hang out in his room with me... I'll finish this post with more pictures of Dennis... mostly washing up and showing off his cute little white belly... (Yes, that is the New Kids' "Hangin' Tough" VHS in the background behind him, next to my Bucs Super Bowl DVD and the complete Buffy collection...)

Oh, Hi...

2011-01-12T13:48:00.004-05:00

It's been a while since I've posted on here. When things have been good I've been too busy to post, and then when things have been crappy I haven't felt like posting. I'm snowed in today, so it seemed like a good time to catch up...
(That's my car over on the right there...) Anyway, first things first: After a seriously unfortunate overtime loss to the stupid Lions, Tampa finished strong at a strong 10-6, first with a romp at home against Seattle and then in a satisfying victory at New Orleans. Sadly, 10-6 was not enough to make the playoffs this year, but it's still a huge turnaround from 3-13. Can't wait to see what these guys do next season (if there is a 2011-12 season...).
Haven't been doing much crazy cooking lately, but I've got some fun things in the queue for the next couple weeks. I also have some bunny news... but I'll put that in another post so Stanley can pretend it never happened. Hmm... Oh, yeah. I remember now that the other reason I haven't been posting is because I haven't had anything fun and exciting to report...

Year-End List: My Eleven Favorite Things I Cooked in 2010

2011-01-01T16:29:00.009-05:00

It's that time of year when list-making seems like the thing to do, so I figured I'd join the fun. This was my first year doing the ol' Cookbook Adventure thing, and I've been really pleased with the number of totally awesome recipes I discovered in my cookbook collection. Some were extraordinarily time-consuming, others were more straightforward. Some were gorgeous on the plate, others were relatively rustic. Below are my Top Eleven, all of which made me smile and long to be eating them again when I looked back at the posts. (I'm going to defy convention and start with my very favorite, rather than building suspense by counting down from 11...)

1. Peas and Carrots (Thomas Keller, The French Laundry Cookbook)
Thomas Keller's "Peas and Carrots" was an easy pick for this Best of 2010 list since it's absolutely my favorite thing I've ever cooked in my life. I still get a little weak in the knees remembering that ginger-carrot emulsion. There are no words for the awesomeness of this dish. It was perfection.

2. Pork Columbo with Roti (Norman Van Aken, New World Kitchen)
Were it not for the brilliance of Peas and Carrots, this dish could easily have been on top of my list. It's one of the more rustic-looking dishes on the list, but that's really the perfect presentation for comfort food like this. As I mentioned in the original post, I had no idea what to expect from this dish before I made it, but after one bite I knew it was exactly what I'd been craving my entire life... I'm going to have to make another batch of this one very very soon.

3. Perfect Carnitas (Modified from Bruce Aidell, Complete Book of Pork)
Amazing carnitas are the main thing I missed when I moved away from access to high-quality trashy Mexican food. After I made this version at home, I knew I could happily live in New England forever despite the absence of restaurants serving one of my favorite foods. The perfect refried beans and Mexican rice from Diana Kennedy's The Essential Cuisines of Mexico and homemade corn tortillas, pico de gallo, and guac turned these carnitas into a perfect Carnitas Plate. So very good... It ain't fancy, but it's what I love.

4. Ridiculously Awesome Lobster Burgers (Michel Richard, Happy in the Kitchen)
I love lobster, as do all good-hearted people, and this was a really cool way to eat it. I love the playfulness of Michel Richard's recipes, and every component of this dish was a bit of a revelation. Love.

5. Amazing Gyros (Michael Psilakis, How to Roast a Lamb)
This is probably the ugliest dish on this list, but is also one of the tastiest. I am a huge fan of gyros but had never tried to make them at home until I found the recipe in Michael Psilakis's awesome book. Every component was good, but the combination was mind-blowingly delicious. Well worth the effort.

6. Brazilian Grilled Skirt Steak with Chimichurri Rojo and Cebollas Fritas (Norman Van Aken, New World Kitchen)
From one of the ugliest to one of the prettiest. This dish was super-easy and super-awesome. The flavor profiles were gorgeous together, and it ended up looking fairly impressive on the plate, too. Topping the steak with fried onions topped with melted Manchego was a genius move. Awesome.

7. Sautéed Atlantic Salmon with Leeks and Beurre Blanc (Thomas Keller, Bouchon)
This is a dish that I thought was too unimpressive to serve to guests... until I made it as a "low-key" dinner for my mom when she came to visit. Turns out that the herbed Beurre Blanc will rock your world, and those damn melted leeks (which Keller insists you make by discarding 3/4 of every leek) are the prefect complement. As always, Mr. Keller knows what he's talking about.

8. Momofuku Pork Buns (David Chang, Momofuku)
These were a favorite for me not only because they were so delicious but because they turned out just like I'd hoped. I was quite proud of myself for making the perfect little steamed bread pockets and the perfectly cooked pork belly. Yay!

9. English Muffins with Bay Leaf Butter (David Chang, Momofuku)
This is another one that is a favorite in part because I was feeling so impressed with myself by the time I finished making these. Sure, they were the best English muffins I've every had... and, sure, the Bay Leaf Butter was insane... but they were also really fun to make. As my kitchen filled with the amazing smell of (Amish) butter while the muffins cooked on a griddle, I knew these were a great idea...

10. Perfect Burgers (Thomas Keller, Ad Hoc at Home)
A perfect burger is a beautiful thing, and I've never tasted one more perfect than the burger that results from Thomas Keller's recipe. With a freshly ground patty made from a combination of brisket, sirloin, and chuck, this thing taught me how moist and flavorful a burger could truly be. I will never make burgers another way again.

11. 48-Hour Short Ribs (David Chang, Momofuku)
This was the recipe that convinced me once and for all of the brilliance of sous vide cooking. These short ribs are cooked for 48 hours until perfectly tender, but at a low enough temperature that the flesh remains medium-rare throughout. Brilliant.

So, that's the list. Thomas Keller and David Chang led the pack with 3 recipes each, and Norman Van Aken was a surprise, coming in next with 2 recipes. (I only made two recipes from New World Kitchen this year, but both were on this list because they were that good...) Can't wait to see what comes out of my kitchen (and my cookbooks) in the new year...