Journal

2011 - First Ice Cream of the Year

Mixing the strawberry custard base.

Finished ice cream with strawberry bits.I forgot how much I liked making ice cream.  The strawberries are from the farmer's market and taste so much better then the ones I've bought in the store.  I'm really looking forward to tasting this, but don't think I should stay up the extra couple of hours to when it's frozen enough.

2011 - Week 23 Cooking

I don't know what was going on with me yesterday.  I didn't want to get up to go to the farmer's market, but I did.  I certainly didn't feel like being around other people (with a few exceptions).  I didn't feel like playing video games, took a nap instead.  I didn't feel like going to the new X-men movie with my wife (it was pretty good).  I didn't even feel like cooking (that's a bad sign).  This morning, though I feel quite a bit better.

I think a lot of the stressors are getting back into line.  Maybe after I resolved a bunch of that on Saturday, I started to feel better.

Yesterday I saw the first strawberries of the season at the Farmer's Market.  So I picked up a few.  I will be making ice cream with it (Cook's Illustrated).

2011 - Week 22 Cooking Results

Spring Garlic Risotto

There was a mild garlic flavor to this, but I didn't have enough to added spring garlic at the end of cooking (should've bought 2 bunches, instead of 1).  But it turned out well, I think this will be the last risotto for a while.  I figure there's quite a bit of salt in there and I should take a break for a bit.

Spring Garlic Risotto

Boers Beef Sirloin Steak and herbed potatoes.

So did I make herbed potatoes?  No.  Did I cook the sirloin steak to the directions, yeah, but then I sliced it up and we had tacos (yes, twice in one week).  That is not, however, where this story ends.  So the initial baking when fine, the first round of broiling went fine, and the 2nd round, started my oven on fire.  So I'm guessing that the steak was perhaps a bit too close to the element.  So I grabbed a silicone heating pad, pulled it out of the oven and then blew out the fire (it wasn't a big fire).  It did smoke a lot, though, so it set off the alarm upstairs.  But I have to say, the steak turned out pretty good, even for being on fire for a bit.  I've been having a not so good string with broiling things.  I think with the combo of the pan and the rack being at the top of the oven, just puts it a little to close.  I will keep this in mind, though I think I will be taking a broiler break for a while.

Chili Seared chicken breast Tacos

So I used a rather large chicken breast from Foxhollow Poultry Farm, one of the 3 in the package, and using that I was able to make enough for tacos for both of us.  I used quite a bit of the chili powder from All Spice.

Think it has enough chili powder?And seared them off quickly in a pan.  I cut them down a bit smaller and then we made tacos.  It was a quick dinner after seeing the latest X-Men movie on Saturday.

Bison Burgers with Thousand Island Barbecue Dressing (p23 June/July 2011 Fine Cooking)

So I used a combo of Mayo, Russ and Frank's Fiery, Wickles Hoagie and Sub Relish, and Sriracha (their website is so ugly, I'm not going to link to it). and combined those made for a spicy and tasty "thousand island" dressing.  It made for some pretty good bison burgers.  Looking at the label, it looks like the bison was from Iowa, but at the shocking price, I don't know if I care.

2011 - Week 22 Cooking

Should I make a squee category?  Anyways, I was sitting down on Friday, flipping through my news feed on Google reader, on my day off.  Skimming through a Bon Appétit article, I see a picture, and I say, hey, I recognize that picture and then I see BA, quoting my site.  So after doing a bit of a squee check I honestly checked in another browser to make sure that I wasn't seeing things and then posted about it. Was most of what I wrote about, really about parmesan?  Sure, but it still provides me some sort of sense of validation and even though I'm not really the best writer, I do make, from time to time, visually appealing food.  Which is really all you can tell from looking at the pictures I take.  On the webmastery side of my life, all I can think about is, how many referral URLs will I get, and baring that, how much search engine validity does this provide me (like Google juice), but that really is the cold logical part of my brain working.  So I am curious how this traffic will play out (so far, there's been minor bump, but my thought is that it's mostly because it was posted on a Friday, where a ton of people where probably taking the day off).  Anyways, It's exciting to me.

Tonight I had leftover pizza, Shannon wasn't hungry.  Tomorrow we'll be having some brats (it's Memorial day, if that's not a grilling-type food day, what is?)

2011 - Week 21 Cooking Results

Boers Beef Hamburgers (Black Angus or Black Angus X, combo of pasture grazing and corn finishing, beef is 85-90%)

This turned out pretty well, I think, the beef tasted pretty good.  I was certainly more satisfied with it, perhaps there is some justification with everyone and their grandmother switching to Black Angus.  I don't know if i my search is done though.  They told me the age their meat, which is good.  I'll keep looking.  But this was a positive finding.

Ground Goat Burgers

I've been buying from La Ventosa Ranch off and on for several times.  For this I thought that the strong taste of the goat meat could work well with the strong, but tasty flavor for the Milton Prairie Dawn and it really did.  It was a very good combination.  Is in describing how I thought this would taste, I tweeted, "You have this which is rarr and that which is rarr and you put em together and they are RARR!!".

Penne Alla Vodka (RC June/July 2011 Cook's Country)

This came together well.  A nice tasty simple recipe.  Rarely do the Cook's people fail to impress though.

Penna Alla Vodka

Deviled Chicken Thighs

The chicken was from Foxhollow Poultry Farm, which I failed to mention.  It made for a good quick meal, but proved without a doubt that I need a vent fan (in theory, there is a chimney, but I have my doubts that it works at all).  Simple, though I did have to adjust mustard a bit, because, well, I ran out of Dijon (though it took less then a day for me to replace it).  I supplemented some yellow mustard (maybe 1/4th of the mustard required)  It was a bit messy to eat (as thighs can be).

Fried Ham, Eggs and Cheese Sandwiches

What to do with leftover ham?  Besides the lunch sandwiches I had almost every day?  Fry it up and put eggs on it!  A favorite of mine.  I love ham, or at least good ham.

For Saturday I ended up making two pizzas for ourselves and the Mattas while they were our guests.  I did one with pepperoni and one with a nice pepperoni, Italian sausage, and smoked mozzarella.  Nathan helped out quite a bit by making the sauce and the putting things together.  It certainly made it go a lot faster.  It was  nice meal after a day at the zoo.  I did forget to take a picture of the less kid friendly pizza, but it still looked good.

The next morning I made a "small" breakfast with rhubarb compote, sliced strawberries, pancakes, bacon and sausages.  I was pretty happy with the way that the rhubarb compote turned out, and seeing that it was that wickedly easy to make, I will to be making more compote as time goes on.  We feasted and then headed over to the Science Center of Iowa.  We ate a late lunch at Gateway and they headed home and we did a little shopping and headed back to our house.  Good weekend.

2011 - Week 20 Cooking Results

Chive Blossom Risotto

While this was good, and it did look very nice, and I used a whole lot of chive blossoms, but they really didn't stand up to the rest of the risotto.  So I put some blossoms in the stock that I used, I added them while cooking, and finished them off with chive blossoms.  But the chive blossoms have such a delicate flavor, they really didn't stand up to everything else.  It made me sad.  And it's not like I can try it again, since all by say 5 or 6 blossoms are picked and distributed (some for me, some for someone else).  Even with all that, it was still risotto and still delicious.

Chive Blossom Risotto

Eden Farms Hot Dogs

After mixed news on my favorite pork producer (they will no longer be coming to the Des Moines Farmer's Market, but when they deliver to Des Moines, would be willing to deliver to me), they do have their hot dogs and bacon at the grocery store that I go to most, so, in seeing these, I was happy.  And they were very good, like they always are, but I'm still not thrilled.

Eden Farms Ham (mashed potatoes, etc)

Bought a ham at winter market, figured I'd do a chive blossom dinner this year, but well, we've spent quite a bit of our spare money on my medical bills.  But I wanted ham, and to have a nice dinner on Saturday.  So cooked up half of the ham (there are still lots of leftovers), some mashed potatoes with parmesan and red pepper flakes, peas and some La Mie multi-grain bread.  It made for a good dinner, not a whole lot of prep (cause well most of it was just waiting).  Which is good for a lazy Saturday, while waiting for the end of the world in vain.

Foxhollow Poultry Farm chicken breasts (fresh, not frozen and I'll figure it out the night of)

So there were 4 chicken breasts, I used the first two I pounded out and sauteed, cut up and made some nice sandwiches out of.  The second time around, I sent Shannon out to pick up some extra things for tacos and sauteed them up, cut them in small pieces and we had some tacos.  Both times they turned out very well.  When I shared the results with the Foxhollow people, they mentioned Hula Chicken, which sounds odd to me, but I won't pass judgement on it, unless I make it.  though in browsing around a bit, I'm really not finding the graham cracker using recipe that she described.

Veggie Pizza (want to try this again)

And I still want to do this again.  I either had to many veggies on the pizza or to many in the pan, but either way I didn't get rid of enough liquid.  On top of that, I'm thinking adding the 3 tablespoons of Frank's hot sauce, does really help in the desire to get rid of liquid, so I may have to change how I add heat to the sauce.  I'm sure I have some spices in my drawer to add some heat without adding liquid.  Anyways, I'll try again.

Spicy Veggie Pizza, still not quite right

Pasta al Pomodoro (p142 May 2011 Bon Appétit)

Bland.  Maybe it was the way I made it, or the tomatoes I used (not the ones I normally use), but this was very bland.  I did take it for lunch and finish it off, but I added some Frank's Hot Sauce to it to bring it up to flavor.

2011 - Week 19 Cooking Results

Chicken Alfredo

Shannon loves herself the Alfredo, a bit to much.  It's so easy to make that I'll make it from time to time for her.  I figured since I had leftover cream, it would make for a good dinner.  I turned out well, as one would expect.  I did have a minor issue because I didn't start boiling the water early enough.  So the chicken and the sauce were done and the water was still coming to a boil.  Oh well it still worked.

Chicken Fettuccini Alfredo

Bacon Tuskegee (replicating the dish from La Mie)

I have loved this combination of flavors for a long time.  Who would've ever thought Dijon mustard, peanut butter, egg (runny yolk), and red onion on toast would work so well together.  Certainly something that I can make on my own, but I still find myself buying it from time to time.

Bacon Tuskegee

Gemelli pasta with Sausage, Onions and tomatoes (pasta from Lucca)

So my dad was on his way back from visiting some of my siblings and nieces and nephews, as he likes to do, so he dropped by for some dinner.  I was able to whip up this pretty quick, it was meant to be a quick meal anyways.  Quickly added a salad and then we had a dinner.  I didn't have enough pasta for the amount of sausage that I had, and I really should have cooked some garlic with the onion, but over all it still turned out pretty well.  Shannon helped me clean the arugula for the simple salad

Hamburger (from Ebersole Cattle Company, first time for me buying from them, it is of the Maine-Anjou breed)

I wasn't overly impressed with the ground beef (could have just been the way I prepared, I may buy some more sometime).  I suppose it was ground for a general purpose.  But it didn't, to me, seem like it had enough fat in it and the grind was to small.  I really am looking for a beef vendor that I can count on for high quality, tasty, grass fed (sometimes corn finished) quality beef that doesn't necessarily have to be organic, but the animals do have to be treated well, even in slaughter.  If you have any ideas, let me know.

Chorizo Tacos

I had a bit of leftover chorizo and what better to have some fresh tacos with?  So it worked up fast, the only disappointing thing was the avocado.  It was not pleasant once it was opened.  But a simpel combination of the chorizo, onions, beans and tomatoes made for a good simple taco.

Molasses Cookies

For game night, I made some Molasses Cookies.  They turned out vey well, though they were big.  But I suppose I could've made them smaller (but didn't want to toy with the cooking time).

Molasses Cookies

2011 - Week 19 Cooking

The hole that was missing in my life of the farmers market is back.  It feels good to get going back down there.  This week I had 3 in tow (Shannon, and the Mattas) and we went down there after a nice morning relatively lazy morning (I woke up before my alarm, and I think my shower woke others up) and wondered around.  There was a bit of confusion on my part, because there is some construction and vendors have moved around and there are a bunch of new vendors.  I was able to turn in several glass jars that I had empty over the long season.  I got a few new things this year.  I got a new bacon (haven't tried it yet), some pasta from Bagni di Lucca and several other things.  We ate some, we bought some and a little while later my money was gone.  We then headed over to La Mie and had a nice brunch.  Shortly after the Mattas headed home.  It was a nice weekend with a couple of surprises.

  • Chicken Alfredo
  • Bacon Tuskegee (replicating the dish from La Mie)
  • Gemelli pasta with Sausage, Onions and tomatoes (pasta from Lucca)
  • Hamburger (from Ebersole Cattle Company, first time for me buying from them, it is of the Maine-Anjou breed)
  • Chorizo Tacos