Journal

2010 - Week 42 Cooking Results

Open faced sandwich with Pancetta Americana, heirloom tomatoes (Cleverly Farms), and an egg

So the first time I made this, I had intended to use some chèvre and to warm it up on the toasted bread.  I bought plain chèvre from Reichert's Dairy for this purpose.  However I forgot what I intended to do, not only that, I forgot the egg.  So here's the first try (with a side salad):

La Mie Ciabatta, heirloom tomato and pancetta americanaCertainly not how I intended this to work out.  Anyways I declared that I should do this again.  So for lunch on Saturday, I made lunch for my wife and I and I actually went through the whole process.  I could not, however, use the heirloom tomato from Cleverly farms or buy another at farmer's market (the are done for the season).  So I bought one from another vendor.  Though you can't really see it in there:

La Mie Ciabatta, chèvre, heirloom tomato, fired egg and pancetta americana

This turned out much better, the wonderful taste of the warm chèvre combined with the rest?  Delicious lunch.

Pumpkin Enchilada Casserole with Red Chile Sauce (p84 October/November 2010 Fine Cooking)

I had a whole lot of pumpkin already prepared, so I didn't have to break down another pumpkin.  So I started making this.  This required many pans.  It wanted me to use my blender (was currently washing in the dishwasher) and the cheese grater (also washing), so I petite diced the cheese and used the food processor to make the sauce.  I started making this around 4:30 and finished a little after 7.  This actually turned out well, but it called for optional roast turkey (or chicken) and frankly I think it would've been better with it.  It's not that it was missing something, it's that the filling just was a little lacking.  The top looked great (combo of sauce and cheese) but the bottom was...well..not exactly pretty.  Maybe I didn't let it cool enough (did wait the five minutes the recipe asked for), but it didn't come out fo the pan in nice little pieces.  Taste was it was good, but not so good that I'd go out of my way to make it again.

Pumpkin Soup with Sage and Gruyère Croutons (p83 October/November 2010 Fine Cooking)

After leaving work later then I should have (~6:30 PM) on a Friday, I rushed home, updated my iPod and started to prepare dinner.  Excluding the preparing of the pumpkin, this didn't take a whole lot of time to do.  But taking the big pumpkin, slicing it into manageable pieces, then cutting of the skin, then chopping it down smaller, I was able to get dinner done in an hour and a half or so.  The whole thing turned out pretty well, but the soup itself was a bit bland.  Should I have made sure that I had gotten a non-carving pumpkin?  Probably.  However with the Gruyere croutons, together they were quite good.  Weve got quite a bit of the soup left, but none of the gruyere left to make the croutons.  I have the feeling that the soup is going to end up going down the drain.Pumpkin soup with sage and gruyere crutons

Iowa Grass Fed Beef burgers

So I forget the name of this place, but they are a stall or two down from Juan O'Sullivan's Salsa, and I have bought beef from them before.  But the purpose here is to find a beef vendor.  These burgers turned out really well.  I was pretty happy.

Iowa Grass Fed Beef burger

Ground Chicken spiced up into a sort of sloppy joe type of thing.

I had intended this to be similar to something that I had recently...and it wasn't, but it was sloppy joes and it was still pretty good. 

2010 - Week 42 Cooking

So to enjoy the wonderful weather that we have been having lately, before it disappears for a few months, we decided to take a trip out to an orchard.  Since we really don't want go to one in town (no offense to the one I can think of in the city limits, we headed out to the Wills Family Orchard.  We got a few pumpkins some apple products (butter, wine, sauce, and actual apples).  It was nice to get out and take a small trip, even though I had thought that I kinda wanted to be lazy yesterday.  It worked out for the best.  At the market yesterday, I bought a ham.  I brought it home and tried to put it in the freezer and found that I had a problem.  So I reorganized the meat and the freezer part in general, to get it to fit in.  I doing that I found that I had quite the collection of meats, so, it's time to use some of what I was storing for winter (apparently) and use them.

2010 - Week 41 Cooking Results

Oven-Toasted Ham, Brie and Apple Sandwiches (lets try this again)

After eating a chorizo, pepper and Manchego sandwich at the Mattas (they said it was from the Next Iron Chef) which was fantastic, I was hoping this turned out well.  It sure did.  It made for a tasty meal.  It was a very balanced taste, with sweet, tart, salty...really quite good.

Spaghetti and Meatballs (p84 October 2010 Bon Appétit)

I made this on Saturday.  It took a while to make, but turned out pretty well.  I started at a little after 4:PM and finished around 6:30 PM.  I found out that the immersion blender that I bought for this *cough* doesn't like being washed in the dishwasher and the blender attachment was, well, broken (I could've sworn I saw dishwasher safe somewhere).  So anyways, a little chunky sauce and braising the meatballs in the for a while and you come out with a wonderful dish of pasta.  Put on the side with some garlic toast and we're good to go.  Would I make it again?  The sauce was ok, but the meatballs were fantastic.  To the recipe writer:  Really?  Discard the onions?  Why?

Spaghetti and Meatballs with Garlic toast

Pork Chops with Bourbon-Apple pan sauce (RC October/November 2010 Cook's Country)

Some Blue Gate Farm Apple Butter, a bit of Cedar Ridge Distillery Iowa Bourbon and some lovely chops from Eden Farms.  How could it go wrong?  It can't.  It was a fantastic meal with a nice salad with a bit of my favorite feta on it and some corn on the side.  It turned out great.  The only thing I wished I did, was make a dressing for a salad..  I kind of wish I had the forethought to actually take a picture of the meal.

Pasta with Turkey Bolognese (p54 October/November 2010 Fine Cooking)

Since I had some ground chicken in the freezer, I used this to make the Bolognese.  I should've started earlier, but I fell a sleep on the couch, so when Shannon got home, I had to go up to make dinner.  Anyways, It turned out pretty well.  I liked the taste, I would like to actually make it with Turkey though.  I sort of rearranged how it was cooked, since I wanted to cook the raw ground chicken after the veggies and with them, so it was adjusted to meet those needs.

Turkey and Corn Quesadillas with Guacamole (p26 October/November 2010 Fine Cooking)

I used a roasted chicken (chipotle) from Gateway instead of the turkey.  And of course it turn out well.  How can you mess up Quesadillas?  Anyways, quick meal, the addition of the corn was nice.

Buttermilk Pancakes

So the thought was this week was either we wouldn't have enough time to cook dinner from coming back to Cedar Rapids, or we'd go out to La Mie, which is once again open for dinner.  Being that we're a bit behind on the budget, so the visit to La Mie for dinner, is getting delayed...again.  Anyways, I had some leftover buttermilk, so I whipped up some pancakes.  Quick meal.  However, if I read it right, which it is entirely possible that I did not, it did not have enough levener, which lead to very dense pancakes.

2010 - Week 40 Cooking Results

We went to the World Food Festival last night and visited many booths and ate many things.  It doesn't seem like it grew from the last time I was there, but it was fun. 

Chicken Cutlets with lemons and capers (RC October/November 2010 Cook's Country)

I kind or sort of followed the recipes, but not really.  These ended up as sandwiches.  Shannon didn't like the fried capers, and I wasn't a huge fan of them either.

Hamburgers or Pork Burgers (haven't decided yet)

Goat!  It was what we had for dinner.  Nom nom.

Buttermilk Cornmeal Pancakes

If, say, I had to have pancakes every day, I would eat this pancakes as a change of pace.  However, since I don't these were, I don't know...different but not in a great way.  They weren't bad, but I prefer buttermilk without the cornmeal.

Oven-Toasted Ham, Brie and Apple Sandwiches

Keith asked me to go see Atmosphere, and after asking if it was OK with Shannon, I took my wife out to dinner, instead of making this, and spent the rest of the evening realizing I'm not as young as I'm used to be.  I also enjoyed Blueprint and Grieves & Budo. I'm glad I went but the combination of standing for 3+ hours, the volcano heat of the venue (seriously get better ventilation), I had to take a break and drink down some water in the backstage bar, sit my fat-ass down and take a break.  After being in the thick of it for most of the show, we stood off to the side (near the not really in use bar) for the last third of the Atmosphere set and the encore.  Blueprint and Grieves will be added to my music collection here eventually.  Though I will restate, I felt old, not only cause my body was hurting, but because I was clearly older nearly everyone there.  The only saving grace is that Keith is older then me, so I knew I wasn't the oldest.

2010 - Week 40 Cooking

It'll be a short week of cooking this week.  Having the "pleasure" of working tomorrow, plus the World Food Festival (part of the World Food Prize) and then we'll visiting the Mattas to celebrate 10/10/10 in a rather odd way.  Now unlike last week, where most of the meals were fairly time consuming, This week...well I suppose we'll find out.

2010 - Week 39 Cooking Results

Cider Braised Pork Chops (p23 Fall 2010 Entertaining)

I made this on Thursday, I started at 7...it requires an hour and a half braise...needless to say we ate late.  On the positive side we snacked on the cheese that we bought at Marion Street Cheese Market. Both were quite good.  The Cowgirl Creamery Mt Tam, which was absolutely fantastic and the Pleasant Ridge Reserve Cheese, which was also wonderful.  It made for a nice snack to tide us over to around 9:PM or so when we finally got around to eating.  The dinner itself was pretty good, though a lot of wait for the pork.

Speedy Guinness Beef Stew (RC October/November 2010 Cook's Country)

Some times I've made a Guinness stew and it was too boozy for the wife.  But this was a nice and certainly didn't take a ton of time to do.  It made for a nice break as I finished it off for lunch the next day (rather then eating chili).

Skillet Meatballs and Noodles in Creamy Herb Sauce (RC October/November 2010 Cook's Country)

I kinda made this wrong (didn't read all the way through) but it still turned out pretty well.  It was good enough that I didn't eat the leftovers and they disappeared!

Roast Chicken Pita Panini with cucumber-olive salad (RC October/November 2010 Cook's Country)

Quick!  Well after a bit of prep it was quick.  Shannon didn't like the salad (doesn't like olives) but the panini itself was pretty good.  I was pretty happy with how this turned out.

Potato Sausage Popover Casserole (p34 Fall 2010 Entertaining)

This was good!  And turned out pretty well.  The intention with the magazine is to have it as a Sunday brunch and it would make a good one at that.  Pretty easy to make to.  Though I suspect since I used the Graziano spicy sausage, it was a bit spicier then they intended.  I would totally make this again.

Potato Sausage Popover Casserole

2010 - Week 39 Cooking

  • Cider Braised Pork Chops (p23 Fall 2010 Entertaining)
  • Speedy Guinness Beef Stew (RC October/November 2010 Cook's Country)
  • Skillet Meatballs and Noodles in Creamy Herb Sauce (RC October/November 2010 Cook's Country)
  • Roast Chicken Pita Panini with cucumber-olive salad (RC October/November 2010 Cook's Country)
  • Potato Sausage Popover Casserole (p34 Fall 2010 Entertaining)

2010 - Week 38 Cooking Results

Bison Joes

We got home very late on Sunday, I didn't have time to menu plan, so I did that Monday after work.  The fridge was mostly bare, and the cupboards lean, and tried my best to throw this together.  This was basically a combination of a bunch of things that I had in the kitchen already.  Some Ketchup, mustard, BBQ sauce, a bit of tomato paste.  Yeah it was a "I thought I had X, but I don't" moment.  It still turned out ok, though I wish I would've had some of the things that I thought I did, like onions, or tomatoes...

Chicken Pot Pie with Savory Crumble Topping (p15 September/October 2010 Cook's Illustrated)

I made this for movie night.  Though it did make me feel a bit guilty.  Being that one guest is vegetarian and one is gluten intolerant.  But it looked so good, and relatively easy to prepare.  So there I went.  I think it turned out really well.  I nice sauce, nice topping and a good flavor.  I left work later then I wanted to, and so by the time I got home, I basically started cooking and getting things ready to go.  The timing worked out pretty well, being that it was finished just a little bit late for dinner service at 7:PM, though not too late.  Certainly worth making agin.

Eggs prepared some way with bacon

Asked Shannon how she wanted her eggs, she said scrambled, so there I went.  There have been times where the texture just isn't right when I make them, but I am growing more patient with my scrambled eggs (breaking long traditions of myself making it as fast as possible) and it turns out much better.  I was very happy with how this turned out.  I fried up some bacon, and saved the fat for:

Chili

The last time I made chili (my own recipe), I wasn't totally happy with how it turned out (not enough of the chili flavor came through), however, this time was much better.  I started on Friday (took the day off to spend with the wife to celebrate our 4th anniversary) with prepping a lot of veggies, but then started cooking on Saturday morning.  This included cooking down the onions for 1-1.5 hours until they were nearly all broken down.  Going on from there.  I'm pretty happy, but I think it needs some more refinement before I'm totally happy with it.  The chili was deeply colored, and well, apparently I didn't take a final cooked picture of it.  There are lots of leftovers.  For game night, Holly brought a Veggie-Chili (pretty good) and Jimmy brought a venison, pork and beef chili (bright flavors).  So we had lots of chili to feed people.