If you notice, I'm a bit behind on my magazines, if I feel like it, I may state why.
So I find myself after Thanksgiving, with a number of cheeses left, but not enough to make mac and cheese (and that would be a very super excessive mac and cheese), so I thought that would work too. I also had some of the La Quercia Speck Americano and Tamworth Prosciutto. So what better to do then to combine the two to make a sandwich. My original thought was to have the Shropshire Blue in the mix, but, I uh, ate it all, so I picked up a bit more at the Cheese Shop.
I cut up some of the Shropshire Blue, Rupert and 4 year old Boerenkaas Gouda. Combined it with a pile of both kinds of prosciutto, and grilled them off in a pan (was going to try the oven method talked about in Bon Appetit, but didn't).
This was an absolute stunner. The combination of the savory flavors, a bit of the unmelted cheese with some of the crystals left and the sharpness of the blue and the complete meaty savoriness of the Prosciutto. I wonder if it would be better on some bread that is better then just decent.
The soup was pretty good too, though it made a lot, though paired with the method of doing large amounts of grilled cheese, does make sense. Took a while, but better then Campbells any day of the week.
So the recipe says use 1 to 2 teaspoons of red pepper flakes (2 if you want it hotter). This was great for me, but way to hot for Shannon. It came together in the time that the rice took to cook. Which was perfect. I skipped the mushrooms. I found black mushrooms, but not the mushrooms that were mentioned in the recipe. So after soaking them, tasting them, I well, didn't use them. We've had a bad experience or two with mushrooms recently, so this seemed like the choice to make.
Shannon ended up having some peanut butter on english muffins. I finished off her plate.
I has just enough buttermilk left to make the pancakes. It worked, I added some cream to the mix (was about to expire) and we ate them.
You take a big ole chunk of flank steak, spice it a bit, sear it off, slice it up, eat it up. This was a nice combination on ciabatta roles, the steak, Some of the last of my Spinach from Larry. Good stuffs.
So I intended to use the last of the gravy from Thanksgiving for the mashed potatoes, that didn't work out (some got used, some got dumped out). But it was pretty good, the ham tasted pretty good and had a nice sear, and the mashed potatoes had a nice flavor too.
Never the same twice, used a lot of the spices I bought for chili to try to bring out some of that fresh pepper taste that is in the non-smoked dried peppers. It worked out pretty well. I thought Shannon would complain about the heat about on this...but to my surprise, she didn't. Good stuffs.
Pretty, good, nice and simple. Easy meal after a long day.
Skipped, doing next week.
again, simple, following up.
So I planned to make turkey soup on Friday, but after the work day, I didn't. So the Bones and leftover meat on the carcass slowly simmered for a couple of days. It created a nice stock. Flavored with some of the left over spices from the meat. I added water to as it steamed out. To make the soup I added a red onion, a couple of white onions (diced), some carrots (chopped), celery (chopped), some spices (salt, pepper, szechuan pepper, dried jalapeno), some peppers some ground turkey (didn't have a ton of actual turkey left) and some turkey. It turned out pretty well.
So things turned out well, I was generally happy. The sweet potatoes ended up being more of a roasted dish, I forgot I was using brandy, and used the bourbon instead. I over did the roasted carrots, which was a shame, the really smelled good. But I had forgotten to make the gravy and in my haste to get that done, the carrots spent a little to much time in the oven. I really liked the biscuit dressing. The orange cranberry sauce was perhaps a bit to orangey. I was only a little late (2:30, dinner was supposed to be served at 2) but I didn't have to stay up til 3:AM. The cheese was a nice mixture, if I do say so myself, and I think the most eaten was the 4 year old gouda (which was fantastic). I finished off the Shropshire Blue. The mixture was:
It was easier to cook for 7, but putting in that much work, it is always nice to have more around to enjoy.
Cornichons, carrots, celery
Cheese and Meat plate (include Rush Creek Reserve, other undecided at this time)
Crackers
Honey Butter (Tuesday)
La Mie Bread (Pickup Wednesday or Thursday morning depending on their hours)
Orange Maple Cranberry Sauce (p31 Fine Cooking October / November 2012) (Tuesday)
Green Beans with Almonds and Garlic (p45 Fine Cooking October / November 2012) (Thursday)
Maple Roasted Carrots (p46 Fine Cooking October / November 2012) (Thursday)
Sweet Potatoes with Apples, Apple Brandy, and Maple (based on Sweet Potatoes with Bourbon and Maple) (Thursday)
Mashed Potatoes based on The Fluffiest Mashed Potatoes (p32 Bon Appétit, November 2011) (Thursday)
Super Moist Roast Turkey (p5 Cook's Country October / November 2012) (Wednesday Brine, Thursday cooking)
Biscuit Dressing (p6 Cook's Country October / November 2012) (Wednesday, reheat Thursday)
Pumpkin Bourbon Cheesecake (p397-398 Baking Illustrated (Wednesday)
Pumpkin Puree (Sunday, Monday or Tuesday)
Apple Pie (pick up Wednesday)
Whipped Cream (Thursday)
Vanilla Ice Cream (Pick up Sunday)
Wine (Shannon's Uncle)
Mixed Drinks (if time) Maybe a wine punch?
Keeping it simple this week, lots of work to do in not a lot of days.
So there was something about those mushrooms. They were very strong tasting. So much so that even the mixture of turkey and mushrooms never tasted right. And Inconsistant too. My burger was fine, while Shannon's was overpoweringly mushroomy. I don't know if it was because of how I cooked it, or that it was to many mushrooms or etc, but you would think that using the food processor to mix everything together would make for a good consistant mixture.
So I ignored the recipe.
I figured, hey, If I mix more meat in, I can use the leftover turkey and mushroom mixture from the burgers. So I combine in the pork and the beef and turkey mixture and go from there. Putting together the standard meatloaf. Cover it in the thick bacon. Bake it, no problems?
Nope there were still segments of the meat loaf that were distinctly mushroomy. Far to much so. The only plus here was that it was here and there and not everywhere., so you may get a bit of to strong flavor and then evens out on the next bite.
I didn't end up frying, but I did end up using the meat loaf.
So we have the mushroom problem still, but I'm in a hurry and need to get dinner out (home late from work, again). We were almost out of bread and I didn't want to use all the oil to fry. So I just seared 'em off.
This was the touch they needed to turn out right. With the thin slices, the sear just created the crust and a very good taste. Was it worth all the hassle of the two other meals? Probably not, but after two problematic meals, having a win, felt good.
skipped, probably doing it later.
I do love me some leaks. Combining the two together did work out pretty well. I did add more spices a long the way, and I decided to (wrongly) add bread crumbs to the cheese. When broiling, I let it go a bit to long and because of that I had to scrape off a bit of burnt bread crumbs. But after that, it was all right. Not spectacular, but could probably be made better. I think the issue here might have been the cheese I used. The Machego was a bit more aged, then I think the recipe was taking into account for a younger moister cheese and because of that, it ended up a bit dry.
I did grate my thumb a bit, which hasn't happened in a while.
This turned out pretty well. I used some La Quercia pancetta, and vaguely followed the recipe It was quite tasty.
I remain busy, here I thought things would settle down a bit. I'm having a bit of anxiety because I haven't even started to think about Thanksgiving (other then reserving my turkey). I'm trimming down the complexity and options this year. I won't have help (which was very nice last year), and we'll have less people. So I am expecting to continue to be busy for the next week at least, but need to have an idea of what I'm going to do before next weekend's winter market, so I can get what I need there for Thanksgiving.
Tonight we will head over to Grinnell to try out Carly Groben's new place, The Prairie Canary. It should be fun, and hopefully, very delicious.
After forgetting what Shannon wanted after a ridiculous day of work. I promised I would make her some. I figured this would mean trying to find some lobster substitute, or canned lobster or something, then I see that lobster tails were on "sale" at Whole Foods, so we took a trip over to get them. I have bought lobster meat from the Waterfront before (quite expensive, though understandably so), but I figured I would save a bit of money. It really didn't. Yes I spent less, but when I buy two pounds of lobster meat, I'm not exactly going to use that all in one session. So I skimmed around the internet, and decided to steam the lobster tails. I think this is probably the 3rd time I've used the steaming insert on one of my large pots.
It was pretty amazing as the time counted down, the 3 lobster tails got a brighter and brighter shade of red. I took them out with tongs, spread and split them with and older (blade nicked cause I dropped it long ago) chef's knife. I then picked out the meat with my less then heat sensitive fingers (years of cooking abuse).
Side note here, we took my little brother Joseph out to eat at A Dong (Vietnamese) for his birthday, we're both having the fresh out of the fryer appetizers, while Shannon can't handle them cause they are to hot. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but it does come in handy from time to time.
While that was happening I made the rest of the mac and cheese. I made modifications to the recipe because of the comment on it that it was a bit bland. I added more spices, I topped it with more Parmigiano Reggiano. And it turned out pretty well, after the modifications. If i didn't make those modifications, I would imagine that it would be bland.
Everyone liked it. I had fulfilled my promise and covered my mistake.
I like tuna, I like casseroles, but this was bland. There's not enough spicing along the way. Yes it says season to taste at the end, but usually that's what you do after you have your seasoning in there to a certain extent. I tried to save it as best I could, but really without dashing some table sauce or etc on it, which I just happened to run out of. It still looked pretty, but that is only part of what makes a good dish.
So this ended up being a empty out the fridge pasta. I used tomato paste, the leftover turkey and beans from the burgers, spinach and tomatoes and the sausage. It turned out very well, considering the randomness of it. The leftovers didn't make it through the next day.
So I headed over to the Cheese Shop and asked for some advice, I was advice to go with a combination of Neal's Yard Dairy's Berkswell (raw sheep's milk) (~0.25 pounds) for a bit more of the savoriness, and some Avalanche Cheese Company's Cabra Blanca (raw Goat's) (~0.5 or so pounds) (for the meltiness) and fresh chèvre (Reichert's) (~0.25 pounds). It turnend out very well, though we do have concerns about the younger palettes may not like the chèvre in there. Certainly a good start.
These were nice. Didn't take to long, a good use of turkey and a nice change up. I spiced it up a bit (not to much), and it was well received.
On this past friday, I was running a bit late, was kind of exhausted so I went to pick up food at Gateway. This is what I was told to get for my wife:
And by the time I drove to Gateway, I ended up getting a lobster shrimp roll. Now to be fair they had a shrimp po-boy as a special, I was tired, etc etc. Even so I should've been able to accomplish that task, so we are having Lobster Mac & Cheese, because I felt pretty bad about not getting that right, not even close. Also, wanting to have a pizza party for some who are cow milk intolerant, so I need to figure out good options to use.
