Weekend Evaluations: 'All I Want to Do is Drink Beer for Breakfast'

Things at work are crazy - no time for long winded explanations; but it's bothering me that I'm not keeping track.  So here are the last two weeks in one post.

Got the first winter share, all root vegetables all the time.  The list of what's included looks short, but we always get a lot of everything.

Saison White Bread

The Saison yeast is way aromatic, but doesn't necessarily give a lot of flavor to the bread.  It was dry too, I don't think that's ever really happened before.  I just left it in the oven too long.

'Strogonoff' Sandwich

on Saison Bread

Cauliflower Salad, IPA Chips

Braised cuts of bottom round (bought since it was on sale at Lewis Waite) in Bluepoint Winter with pepper and mustard seed.  Tasted pretty good; but maybe a little dry.  Reduced braising liquid and added sour cream; served as a sandwich.

Cauliflower Salad was just blanched cauliflower with sliced red onion in a vinegrette - no beer here.

Soaked some potato slices in Cotrell IPA - then made chips.  I didn't think you could taste the beer, but I guess there was a tiny bit in there; Gretchen insisted you could taste it.

Sweet Potato Doughnuts

I really need to make more doughnuts - these turned out pretty good.  I could have used more spicing, but our cinnamon is so old it's not surprising that it doesn't taste like any thing.

Baked Sweet Potato

Sauteed Mustard Greens and Fresh Mozzarella 

This is now a weekly lunch thing- at least since we've been bombarded with sweet potatoes....they are pretty good this year.  

Fresh Mozzarella

I really need to work on this - plus I have to remember to buy better milk, the curd is a lot more solid with better quality milk.  I mean the super patriotic USA milk from the bodega might be fine for cereal but really need to have better than that for cheese.

Red Pepper Sausage and Fennel Pizza

Used the wild yeast starter - crust was not as puffy as I would have liked. Last of the red pepper sausage, and probably the last non-frozen tomatoes of the year (they have greenhouse tomatoes at the greenmarket)

Victory Village Chocolate Cake 

w/ Coffee Chocolate Icing

I helped Gretchen with this.  I had gotten this brown from Victory that has coffee in it; it's a pretty good beer but it tastes like smelling coffee beans, and not really like coffee or beer since there isn't much tannic or bitterness.  That makes it really drinkable, which is a decent change from other coffee beers. So I thought it would work in a cake since there wasn't a lot of bitterness.  We found a sour cream chocolate cake recipe in the Baked cookbook and swapped out the water for beer.

I made the frosting, reduced down some coffee and more or less made a ganache with chocolate chips.

The cake crumb was really good and with the icing it did bring out the coffee flavor from the beer.

WEEKEND 2

Buckwheat Sourdough Boule

Too tight of a crumb; didn't properly vent the top.  Had a blow out.

Rabbit

I've eaten rabbit several times, but never worked with it as a product; so when it showed up through our CSA's meat program I ordered one.  It kind of tastes like turkey to me; but less slimy than dark meat turkey; there's not much white meat on a rabbit, so you get more of the good stuff.

Breaking it down was slightly more difficult than chicken; but more so because the musculature is slightly different.

Saddle of Rabbit

mashed potato, roasted Broccoli

Red Wine vinaigrette

I rolled the saddle/loin into a roulade (surrounded by flap meat, tied it up, vacuumed, and sous vide the whole thing at 145 F.  Browned it on all sides in a hot pan, sliced it.  Tasted pretty good, but again, need to get better at the sous vide thing.  I think without a circulator it takes longer to cook things to the desired doneness since the water immediately surrounding the product is cooled down and not replaced as quickly as a circulated bath would be.  So the roulade was probably under before I browned it.

Overall the dish was decent.

Braised Rabbit Thighs

Mustard Sauce, Rutabaga, Carrot Puree

Braised the rabbit legs in Bluepoint Winter (again), with onion, thyme, marjoram, and fennel seed.

Used rabbit stock to braise the rutabaga; and sous vide the carrots at 182 F for the puree.

Again everything tasted fine here - nothing special really; I wish I had a more inspired braising liquid.

I think rutabaga has made it on the short list of foods I don't like; it's just kind of off putting to me, and has a tendency to stick on my palate.

I'm using the BP winter a lot because I know it's not going to mess anything up; it's pretty balanced and has some spicing that lends itself well to braised meats.....plus it's what I have on hand.

Buttermilk Buckwheat Banana Pancakes

One too many ingredient.

Rabbit Empanadas

Carrot 'dip'

Took the rest of the braised rabbit and folded into a dough made from masa, corn meal, flour and lard.  Deep fried them and it was a pretty tasty fried food to eat during football.

I had problems getting the dough to not crack, but with cornmeal and masa that's not a huge surprise since there's a lack of gluten.  I managed to patch them up, and it worked out okay; the dough may have been a bit thick.

Thinned the leftover carrot puree with some rabbit stock and it became a dip.  Gretchen finally caught on to the rabbit/carrot connection.

Buffalo Rabbit Legs/Deep Fried Kidneys and heart

All of these things tasted good.  The kidneys especially...they were really creamy, more like liver than kidney.

Stuffed Sweet Potato

Braised Kale, Shelburne Farms Cheddar

Romain, Carrot, Watermelon Radish Salad

Another appearance of the stuffed sweet potato.

Sweet Potato and Buttermilk Eclairs

My Pate a Choux failed to puff during my first attempt (I cooked one of the eggs as I was making the choux paste) so I had to do it again.  Cream puffs are pretty easy though.

I filled these with a pudding I made from buttermilk, sweet potato puree and brown sugar (thickened with cornstarch and gelatin)...I used both corn starch and gelatin because it just wasn't setting up....it never really did.

I don't think I really like the flavor, the tartness of the buttermilk was just overwhelming and again, not enough cinnamon.


CSA Winter Share
Sweet Potatoes
Russet Potatoes
Rutabaga
Watermelon Radish
Kohlrabi
Kale
Carrots