Depressing to think about, but I saw 4 brands of pumpkin beers show up at the supermarket this week. First of all - the pumpkin beer thing is out of control, there are only like 3 that are any good and get the balance of squash and spice right - that's beside the point.
It's too soon, I'm not ready for summer to end.
Now I have to make stock, render fat, can tomatoes...soon you won't be able to let the ingredients do all the work; you'll have to do something to make them better
At least it's not February, that's about as horrible as it gets; I'm fearing the winter, with all of the rutabega and potatoes that come with it. It's nice when those are an option in the late fall and early winter - but it's not funny anymore after three months of root vegetables and winter squash.
I guess it's just time to get ready for winter, while cramming as much corn, zucchini, eggplant as possible in to my feed hole. Soon we won't have the option until next July.
Was out of pie crust, and preparing to render out fresh lard, so I used the last of the lard in the freezer to put together a couple pie crusts.
Normally I use kind of a modified version of the Cooks Illustrated recipe, that uses vodka in place of some of the water to prevent gluten formation. I also use the technique they detail for cutting in the fat; where they really combine part of the flour with the fat well, and then pulse in the rest of the flour.
I start with the 3:2:1 ratio that everyone knows, use half lard, half butter for the fat, and half water, half vodka for the liquid part. Since lard has no water in it (that's part of the point of rendering it), you need to add a little more water. I just start at 1 part water/vodka, and add more until the dough just barely comes together.
In this case I didn't add any sugar (wanted a savory crust), so I'm not sure why I'm using any butter here. I guess for a quiche or some other creamy filling that butter would reinforce the richness; but I think for a mince or other meat pie all lard might be better. I guess I could use this for a fruit filling, and just make sure the filling is sweet enough, I've read some pastry chefs never add sugar to the crust.
By the way - when I know I'll be serving crust to a vegetarian, I'll go all butter, but lard really does make a huge difference. Nutritionally it's basically identical to butter in terms of those bad fats, so don't fear it.
Positive - Came together pretty well; whole process takes about 10 minutes. I'm pretty comfortable making pie doughs now; it's rolling it out and forming/blind baking that gets me in trouble.
Rendered Suet/Rendered Lard
When Suet showed up on the list of meat products from our meat CSA, I jumped at it. I'm not sure where it gets used besides a lot of British cooking (yorkshire pudding?) and bird feed; but it's worth a shot.
I render leaf lard once every few months - usually use it in pie crust and other baked goods; but a lot of people say it's the secret to great fried chicken. I haven't tried it yet; but really should.
Positive - Not much to do here - cut up the fat, put in a pan get it melting, put it in the oven at a low temperature and let it go.
Negative - The suet rendering got a little messed up when I moved the pan back to the stove top (needed the oven for bread); I turned up a burner and didn't notice it was too high. It seems okay, but if you brown the cracklings in the fat too much it can get a 'fried' taste; which sometimes you want, but since I was going to be trying it in a lot of different applications I wanted a neutral flavor.
The cracklings, in particular the pork cracklings, weren't very crispy. Cracklings are an amazing side product of rendering fat. When you read to add them to salads and omelets it's some of the best advise you can get. I snuck some pork cracklins into an omelet for Gretchen a while back; and she started raving about how it tasted great; so much better than normal. If I had asked her if she wanted them she would have said no, but now she's a cracklings convert.
'Sous Vide' Chicken Breast
I've messed around with low temperatue cooking a couple of times before. Most notably I made some top round steak (london broil-type cut) in a water bath on my stove top, packing the meat in one of those ziplock vacuum bags. I monitored the temp and turned on and off the heat as appropriate. It came out pretty well, and I've been meaning to come up with a better setup.
Luckily Joe had an extra temperature control that he didn't need for brewing anymore, and I still had a crock pot that I thought I brought to the salvation army, because I never used it (why wouldn't I just braise something in a dutch oven in my oven?). So after months of having the parts I gave it a try.
Positive - The setup worked great. The temperature wasn't probably even throughout the crock pot; but I don't think I could fit an aquarium bubbler in there, so that's the best this is getting. The chicken felt like it was the right doneness when I took it out of the bag after 45 minutes at 65 celcius.
Negative - I went to crisp the skin in a super hot pan and, not only did I almost start a grease fire in the kitchen, but it took too long to crisp and brought the chicken past where I wanted it cooked.
It was juicier than normal roasted chicken, but still had that grainy texture - when you get sous vide chicken in a restaurant it's amazing because it's so creamy. This was not. I'll give it another shot sooner.
Rye Sourdough Boule
Positive - I did the full 3 day process (feed starter, build soaker, make dough), and the bread actually tastes really good; too bad it had all sorts of structural problems.
Negative - This dough was too slack and lacked a tight crumb. Also stuck to my peel when I moved it to the oven and the shape was all weird. I'm all out of practice.
Honey/lemon Glazed Country style Ribs,
Oven Braised Potatoes, Chard, Corn
Positive - Braised the pork with fennel, onions and white wine - as well as herbs - thyme, bay, fennel seed, coriander. Was actually cooked pretty well; not completely falling apart but still tender and not dried out. I know people say that you can't really overcook a braise, but it's not true; if you get up there around boiling for too long the moisture is going to come out of the meat.
I reduced the braising fluid with honey and a little lemon juice for a glaze. I thought that the glaze tasted a little off, but Gretchen like it.
Chard was fine; nothing special; braised it with some of the braising fluid from the pork
Negative - The potatoes were salty; I was having serious overseasoning problems the past week. Chard was kind of boring, it looked good at the market, but really didn't taste like anything.
The glaze didn't brown up enough, was kind of hoping for a crispy glaze, but it was more just syrupy.
I don't think you could taste the braising fluid in anything, I don't know whole thing was kind of boring for the amount of ingredients in there.
Corn Soup
with Okra Corn Fritters
I'm all about frying stuff lately; it something I've seen improvement in lately, so I think that's why I'm drawn to it. I'm cramming as much corn in my stomach as I can before it goes away -this year has been amazing for corn. Had this for dinner with salad.
Positive - The consistency of the soup was very good, and the corn tasted really good The fritters tasted pretty good, the okra was pretty good too.
Negative - I ate way too many fritters, they probably could have been more browned; maybe needed to be cooked at a higher temp. They weren't heavy, but they just weren't crunchy.
Doughnut Bread Pudding
Gretchen came home with a half dozen bad farmers market cider donuts that we really dry. Further proof that not everything at the farmers market is good. I ate one and decided that it was a waste to eat them as is.
Positive - Took something not so good and found another use for it - they were at least a little more moist.
Negative - Was a little dense - probably packed too much donut in each ramekin.
Buttermilk Corn Pancakes
I had a ton of corn, and saw a recent article in the NY Times about corn pancakes that reminded me how good sweet corn bread/pancakes are. They work with savory or sweet breakfast toppings. Throw an egg on there - tastes good; top with maple syrup - tastes good; top with egg, bacon and maple - even better.
Positive - I had a tomato that got damaged on the way home from the market, so I chopped that up with cilantro and topped it with that; Gretchen had it with maple.
Also used up some of the corn meal that's been in the freezer for a while.
Negative - Not really confident with doneness with this new pancake recipe; but they were pretty good.
Bacon Egg and Cheese Biscuit
Positive - This was the last of the smoked maple bacon - it's too bad, tasted really good.
Negative - The cheddar was a little mild compared to the rest of the flavors.
Tomato Sauce
Prepping for Eggplant parm later in the week
Positive - Not sure if this is that great. At first I thought this tasted of too much anchovy paste, but it calmed down.
Negative - I used too much mirepoix compared to tomato - tasted a little bit too much like tomato soup. Didn't get the wine taste as much as I wanted.
Watermelon Pudding
I know this seems weird - but was reading a Saveur from last year (I like to go back every month to previous years' issues to get more ideas) and they had an italian recipe for a corn starch thickened watermelon pudding. I had bought one (yellow crimson) that wasn't getting eaten fast enough, so decided to give it a shot.
Positive - Worked ok; tasted really watermelon-y
Negative - Got thinner everyday; and we didn't even eat it the day I made it; so didn't keep very well.
CSA
Cilantro
Colored Bell
Long Peppers
Cherry Tomatoes
Red / Plum Tomatoes
Garlic
Salad Mix
No comments:
Post a Comment