Journal

2011 - Week 43 Cooking

I suspect this week coming up I will be...lets just say busy.  For this reason there is going to be nothing too special or complicated this week.  Mostly simple things, since I suspect I will get home, be tired and have to immediately cook dinner.  Unlike normal, where I have a bit of time to unwind, maybe take a short "nap", before I have to think about making dinner.

2011 - Week 42 Cooking Results

Midnight Pasta with Prosciutto

Take a little bit more time, don't be so rushed and calm down and actually enjoy the cooking.  Pay attention a bit and it comes out a lot better.  Yes, this was quite a bit better then the way that it turned out last week, and even though it was better, last week was still pretty good.  Certainly a quick, savory meal.

Midnight Pasta with Prosciutto

Pork and Lemongrass Meatballs in Lettuce Cups

So I made the mini lamb burgers first, and I thought hey, I still have these mini buns, why not, since I couldn't find a lettuce I wanted to use for the cups, it made sense.  So they mixed up right, they tasted pretty good, and we passed the dipping bowl back and forth.  It was pretty tasty and a nice little change.

Pork and Lemongrass Burgers

Pork and Lemongrass Burgersdipping sauce for the pork and lemongrass burgers

Ham and Eggs

The first time around we did some ham, and duck egg sandwiches.  They were good, second time around I did some scrambled eggs with ham in them.  Both were good and pretty quick.  I do have to say that this is the very last of my Eden Farms Berkshire Pork ham.  It makes me sad.

Black Chicken Soup (I'm thinking ginger, lemongrass, red onions, small noodles and spices maybe an egg?)

So what do we do here.  I was convinced by Tai at Foxhollow to buy a Black Chicken (though I may have gotten in trouble for showing Shannon how cute they are).  So in looking for uses for it, it generally comes down to a soup.  Ginger?  I can do that, Wolfberries? and a bunch of other stuff I've never heard of and don't even know where to start looking for.  So I figure I can make a nice mixture of items to get a nice balanced flavor.  So here's the recipe as I remember it.

  • 1 Whole Black Chicken
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 1 red onion diced
  • 1 white onion diced
  • 1-2 teaspoon(s) of 5 spice powder
  • 1/3rd cup ginger diced
  • 2 serrano peppers diced
  • 4 cups low sodium chicken broth
  • 2 cups water
  • 1/4 cup fish sauce
  • 1-2 tablespoon(s) red wine vinegar
  • 2 teaspoons secret ingredient (mildly spicy Japanese sauce/paste)
  • 6 oz Chow Mien noodles

Cut up the chicken into pieces.  Add oil to large pot and heat until just starting to smoke.  Sauté the chicken in the pot. (6 minutes per side), set them aside to rest.

Add the diced onions and sauté on medium low.  Add the 5 spice powder.  After 5 minutes add the ginger, another few minutes add the ginger, another few minutes the serrano (can you tell I was cutting them then adding them).  Add the chicken broth and water and deglaze the pot.  Add the fish sauce, vinegar, and the paste.  Add the chicken back in and bring to a simmer and let it simmer for an hour.

Pull out the chicken.  Let it rest until you can handle it and piece off as much chicken as you can.  Add the chicken back to the pot

Add the noodles (they'll cook very quickly) and shortly serve.

It turned out pretty well, a nice tasty soup.  It may be justified to switch up the noodles with rice.

Black Chicken Soup

The Whole Process:

Tomato, Basil Feta and Bacon Pizza

This turned out really well.  How do you ask could I mess this up.  Well lets just put it this way.  I had a good sampling of whiskey before I started, while I was cooking...it had been a pretty bad week and a particularly bad day.  So What do I do?  I was thinking, I've been having problems with the tomato sauce being a little too liquidy, so to account for this I added, what I thought was mozzarella, but it turned out to be the parmesan.  So I decided I can't exactly scrape cheese off of pizza dough, so I added the 8oz of mozzarella.  I also cleared out the leftover tomato paste and added it to the sauce (making it a bit too think).  So then I added the normal toppings and went from there. With Butcher Crick tomatoes, Crooked Gap Bacon and Reichert's Dairy's Basil Feta, the mess that it could have been, turned into this very good pizza.  I did, however, get in trouble for not saving some leftovers for Shannon when she got home from work.

Tomato, Basil Feta and Bacon Pizza

Lamb Burgers

I saw these buns at Hy-Vee, and I thought hey, they're cute.  So with the onions, cheese, tomato and lamb burgers, it all turned out very well.  A delicious combination.  I added a little spicy mustard to finish mine up.

Mini Lamb Burgers

2011 - Week 41 Cooking Results

Midnight Pasta with Prosciutto

I'm pretty sure I didn't make this right.  But here's me, hook phone up to computer, start iOS updated, run upstairs, work on dinner, come back downstairs, restart upgrade, run upstairs, work on dinner (repeat).  It still tasted pretty good, but I wasn't fully paying attention to what I did, so I know that I missed a step or two.  So I think I'll make it again.

Midnight Pasta with Prosciutto

Lamb Sausage and Tomatoes Pizza

So after having the Lamb Sausage from Hedgeapple Farm.  I had several thoughts on it.  Now my favorite Itallian sausage (Graziano) is strongly spiced and quite delicious.  But when it comes down to it, you are not going to buy lamb sausage to do that.  If you are spending the money for lamb, you are going to want to actually taste the lamb.  So they have the right balance there.  It's got the spice, but it's not so overpowering that you can't taste the lamb.  It also stood up well to the rest of the ingredients (including the tomatoes from Butcher Crick Farms).  A good combination, though maybe a bit to many tomatoes (just happened to be what I sliced up).

Lamb Sausage and Tomatoes Pizza

Curried Chicken-Coconut Soup

So when I was setting up to do this recipe, I read the whole thing and noticed that it wanted to use a pressure cooker.  Being that I don't have a pressure cooker, I had to adjust and flow, so what I did was reorder the recipe so that it would normally follow.  I cooked the chicken first (to render some of the fat), took them out to rest, drained off some fat, then cooked the veggies and spices, and then added the liquids and finished cooking the chicken.  After a bit of cooking, removed the chicken, peeled off the skin, shredded the meat and then added it back to the soup and finished with the quick cooking elements (spinach on down).  It turned out pretty good, and I didn't need a pressure cooker which really only saved a few minutes.

Curried Chicken-Coconut Soup

Pork and Lemongrass Meatballs in Lettuce Cups

Plan Change, skipped until next week.

Sloppy Sammys

I never make this the same, but the general process is always the same.  Onions, spices (and peppers, if added), meat, tomato products (paste, ketchup, sauce, depending on what's around the house) and usually mustard.  I was actually afraid that these would end up being too spicy.  I used a hot pepper (I think habanero) from the Sullivan pepper farm.  So I tasted the pepper, and when I recovered, I hoped that it' chill out among the other stuff.  And It did.

Baked Potatoes

I used the leftover sloppy Sammy meat to add to the baked potatoes.  It was your standard, not so good for you, combination of things.  it made for a low effort meal, which was nice.

French Toast and Bacon

So in one of the last items for Joseph's baking class, they made challah.  For me challah or brioche usually means French toast.  So he brought it down and we made some French toast.  Joseph prepped the apples, put in some honey and cinnamon and a bit of apple juice (pretty close to cider).  I combined some sour cream, honey, cinnamon, eggs and whole milk. and then soaked the bread in it (no measurements).  I used some Crooked Gap bacon (great smoky smell, pre and post cooked) to round out the meal a bit.  So we all had a nice dinner.  The only drawback here is that his baking class is over, though I did say he clearly needs to practice more (so I can have more bread).

French Toast, Bacon and Stewed apples

2011 - Week 41 Cooking

We went to the World Food Festival for lunch on Saturday.  It was fun and we went early enough that we didn't have to wait in lines or etc.  There were some new things there and some old favorites, but I still wish there were less American food vendors and more other vendors.  While we were in the East Village, we stopped by Kitchen Collage and AllSpice to pick up a few things (juicer, peppercorns, cinnamon (ground and sticks)).  Afterwards we headed home and trimmed the hedges.  It was a nice day for it.  It actually has been pretty amazing.  I think it'd be just a bit nicer if it got a bit cooler at night, but what can you do?

At the market, I bought a whole chunk of lemongrass from Cleverly Farms, and now I'm figuring out what I want to do with it.  So I think I'm going to try lemongrass ice cream, but I'm also going to do cinnamon ice cream this week as well.

2011 - Week 40 Cooking Results

Tunisian Sweet Potato Stew, rice, Apples-and-Honey Ice Cream

One is a prime example of me following the directions and following everything very well and prepping well.  The other is me not paying attention to the recipe at all.  The Sweet Potato Stew was pretty good, I would've liked more spices and I'm thinking that it should have been spicier.  Beyond that, the spice mix went pretty well.  I had to make adjustments here and there (no cinnamon stick) but it worked pretty well.  Everyone seemed to like it.  I served it it with some Joseph made wheat bread.

mise en place for Tunisian Sweet Potato Stew

Tunisian Sweet Potato Stew is served

On the other hand, the ice cream was clearly a case of me not following directions.  I made the same custard base that I do for most ice creams, because the recipe's ice cream directions seemed a bit, well, odd.  So I headed off in another direction and basically ignored the recipe all together.  I thought it was odd using apples, but I suppose if I read it, I would have made a better ice cream.  The apples really turned into these very hard things, and the ice cream turned out to be very cinnamon ice cream with frozen apples in it.  I think the texture of the ice cream was a bit gritty, and would've been better if I had some cinnamon sticks to use (I could've sworn I had some somewhere, but I went shopping and now have some).  So I'm going to try a cinnamon ice cream and forget the whole apple thing.  Maybe for apple pie or tarts for Thanksgiving?

Really, cinnamon ice cream with some frozen apples in it.

Hedgeapple Farm Ground Lamb burgers, based on this

Did I mention that I love lamb?  It's so diverse and yet such a pain to find in a normal store.  I suppose since the sheep and lamb are cute little animals it makes them less desirable, however it really should be carried and promoted more.  It makes such wonderful things.  I didn't really base the recipe on that, even though it sounded good, I just made lamb patties and when from there.  Little lamb, some cheese and some fresh greens from the market, not a bad thing, not bad at all.

Ground Lamb Burgers

Hedgeapple Farm Lamb Frittata with diced tomatoes

So I wasn't feeling the frittata, so I just made some lamb sausage patties and then scrambled some eggs, which means I didn't use the tomatoes either.  But it turned out well.  The lamb sausage was lamby, but not too spiced, but nice all the same.  I guess you wouldn't really want to hide the lamb flavor behind a whole lot of spices.  I still have a bit left and so I'll have to use it for something...Maybe lamb sausage pizza?  I wonder how much is left.

Chicken Thighs and Roasted Potatoes

A few thighs from Foxhollow and some veggies (mix of farmers market and not (carrots the only not)).  So I though hey I can roast the veggies and I haven't done that in a while.  So I prep the potatoes, use a few cloves of garlic, chop the fennel (didn't have much by volume), and chop the carrots (leftover from another dish).  I tossed everything together and then put them in a baking dish, covered in foil and let it cook for a while (~ an hour).  In the second part of cooking I begun to prep the chicken and pan sear it.  I turned out to be a nice sit down dinner and I had a nice bottle of Bogle Petite Sirah (2007).  I actually had thought our (well really my) wine selection was down to just desert and odd wines (rhubarb, etc).  But this turned out really well and quite a bit more veggies then meat.  I probably will do this again.

Chicken Thigh and roasted vegetables

Pounded Chicken Sandwiches

So there was a single chicken breast left from Foxhollow.  So I figured hey, it would make itself into some sandwiches.  And it did, there's really nothing to this, the flattening of it reduces the cooking time and makes for a quick dinner.  I served this with oranges.

2011 - Week 39 Cooking Results

Ham and Duck Egg Sandwhiches

So the duck eggs are from my friends at Fox Hollow.  So here's the thing.  You know how you occasionally get a double yolked egg?  I've got more double yolked eggs from Fox Hollow then I have from any of the other eggs that I've bought, not just year over year, but year vs 5 year period.  It's quite amazing.  With that, we got a double yolked duck egg.  I will admit, that the duck egg was huge, and it's not surprising that two yolks were in there, but even with that, it is still kind of amazing.

Double Yolked duck egg on Ham, Cheddar and toastSo I have some of the last Berkshire pork that I have in the house (a ham) on there.  I do love their pork, but am still recovering from a lot of spending early in the year (on my health), and would like to order more from them, but that's just not going to work for now.

The open face sandwich was pretty good.  Shannon got the double yolk, and I got two eggs (well two open faced sandwiches).  I served them with some oranges.

Probably the last BLTs of the season

I used the leftover bacon from the chili making to do this.  And I have to say, by comparison, it's not eating bacon.  No don't get me wrong, generally bacon is good, it's really hard to make bacon bad, but when you compare really good bacon, to just mediocre bacon (and we've been having some really good bacon recently), mediocre bacon doesn't really shine as much in comparison.  It was stunning how disappointing it was, taste wise, compared to duroc pork bacon.

That being said, fresh tomatoes, bacon, mayo and spinach?  It made for a good meal.

Tacos! (with leftover chili)

Just a little preparation a little chili reheating and tada! meals done.  Just that easy.

Split Pea Soup

So I tried to spice this up a bit.  I added a tablespoon of smoked paprika.  All in all I don't think it really added much.  Though maybe a bit of smokiness, which you could certainly smell when the elements were combining together (before adding the chicken stock).  But it was a pretty easy thing to put together.  And ended up tasting pretty good.  And it marks off another one of those fall favorites off my list.

Split Pea Soup

Hamburgers

Credit where credit is due, again with the grass fed Coyote Run Farm ground beef to make for some delicious burgers.

2011 - Week 39 Cooking

So for our 5th wedding anniversary we had a fun day.  First it was going to get some blood draws to partially qualify for health insurance the next year (yay, so exciting!).  Afterwards, we headed to a just opened this past week, Tartine in West Des Moines for a late brunch.  It was very nice.  I had my first cafe au lait and it was pretty good.  I really enjoyed it, we both enjoyed a our breakfast of pain au chocolat and Eggs Benedict.  We both enjoyed it. I guess the only thing I thought was missing was an espresso machine, but that's not really that French, is it.  Anyways nice place, really to bad it is all the way out there in West Des Moines.  On the Bright side, however, later this year when I'm doing a little training over there, it might make for a short trip to pick up some deliciousness.  Anyways, simple, relatively replicatable and franchisable (quick and upscale) comfortable concept, with really good food.

That night we headed to Baru 66 for the second dose of the Baruthio's work.  Now we have been there before, but it has been a while.  It was a wonderful dinner before.  We decided to go for the 6 course chef's tasting menu.  Now these were all delicious, but the two highlights for us was the fish course which was stunning and the cinnamon ice cream which, I don't know how he makes ice cream that is so good.  We also had 3 amuse bouche.  Anyways, great night, I would love to do this again, but we'll have to set aside some money again for this.

It was a great way to spend our anniversary (other then the blood draw).  Together and with good food (that I didn't have to make).  On to this week.

  • Ham and Duck Egg Sandwhiches
  • Probably the last BLTs of the season
  • Tacos! (with leftover chili)
  • Split Pea Soup
  • Hamburgers

2011 - Week 38 Cooking Results

Chili

So It was something I had been looking forward to all week long.  After a long trek, over a day of preparation it finally got done and we ended up serving 3 people with enough chili to feed a small army.  So I'm left with a bunch of leftovers.  It's pretty good, maybe a bit to spicy for Shannon.  I'm still working on it.

One of the changes this time around was adding some more peppers and also used a different chili powder.  And I'm thinking I should change that all together.  The one I used before was salt-free, this one has salt in it.  But I'm really thinking I should go down further and actually grind my own dried peppers into a combination  to use.  So kind of to rework the spice mixture as a whole.  We'll see.

Joseph was down doing laundry and so we finally broke out Ghost Pepper Salsa.  I had bought it because I was stunned at seeing it at a local grocery store (I'd mention who, but I'm kind of pissed at them right now).  So it has been in my cupboard for a while.  So after chili and a bit of booze for me, we had maybe a spoonful total each (a few dips, a couple of small scoops).  That was plenty.  It really lingered.  Now I am not sure what the amount that was in there.  It didn't totally incapacitate me like the Big Daddy's hot sauce, but it certainly didn't leave a pleasant feeling.

This was cute when I opened it.

Chili, crumbled corn chips, shredded cheddar and sour cream

Moroccan-Style Chicken Sandwich (p59 September 2011 Bon Appétit)

So I started to follow the recipe, and decided I didn't really want to do it, so I ended up making it into a chicken salad.  I mostly followed it, but swapped out some of the yogurt for some mayo and called it good.  It was a bit strange.  The slivered almonds really added some weirdness to the texture.  The currents were the same way.  It was nice to added to the flavor, but it was kind of odd.  That being said, the sauce I added, and the yogurt and mayo it ended up clearly to wet.  I finished it up today and it still had the same issue, too wet, slivered almonds, and odd tastes of currents (not sure if it is a good thing or not).

Pasta with Butcher Crick Tomatoes (sort of based on this) (actually going to go closer to this, this time)

So I had a a pile of tomatoes from Butcher Crick.  So I chopped them up.

A pile of delicious tomatoesSo one of the main points here is the wide varieties of flavors from tomato to tomato.  Some are sweeter, some are tarter, some are very acidic, some not as much.  It was interesting to have such a good examples side by side to each other.  All of these taste phenomenally better then anything that comes from the store.  And that's probably the amount of time between picking and cutting.  Anything in the store has been off the vine for a least a few days.  Anyways, I cooked a little garlic, pepper, salt and red pepper flakes in olive oil and then added the tomatoes and cooked them until they were nearly breaking apart.  Meanwhile the pasta was cooking in a pot and so I took the near finished pasta, and finished combining them in the pan.  Topped with a little parmesan (the real kind, not the awful stuff) and it was finished.

Fresh tomato pastaSimple and delicious.

Shepherds Pie

So it was sort of based on the Alton Brown recipe.  So, first off, I have to say that it shouldn't be as hard as it was to find extra lamb (bought 1 pound at the farmers market, bought the second at a store).  So this was after not finding any at my main store, going to the upscale store, visiting the local other chain, and then visiting the branch on Ingersoll (usually have lamb products).  I should of drained off a bit more of the lamb fat (there was a bit to much in there).  Plus the added problem of not having enough potatoes.  Anyways, the lamb kind of took over, but it was still delicious.  And I really have to say that it took care of the chapped lips that I had.  Clearly I am going to have to do this again, but this time around, I'm going to buy all the lamb I need from the market.

The whole Shepherds Pie (a bit of a mess)

The whole Shepherds Pie (a bit of a mess)Looks a bit better in the bowl