March Postmortem

My projects turned out okay (corned beef) and bad (all sausages), and by then end of the month my everyday cooking had become over-seasoned and repetitious.

Hopefully April is better - but I don't think I'll be doing much cooking.

Weekend Evaluation: Greatest of All Time (aka Stop Saying 'Low and Slow')

We went out for lunch on Saturday (Red Hook Lobster Pound....this was fine), and dinner on Sunday (Paulie Gee's - always good - my favorite crust texture).  So not a lot going on here in terms of volume. 

Finally tackled the goat shoulder in the freezer. Next up: rabbit, and another ham.

Gretchen decided goat is gross- although she pretty much eats anything else; which to me makes no sense.  First of all, I'm pretty sure she's had it when I've gotten it out - and I mean what's the difference really. 

In fact goat is the world's most consumed meat. Plus, it tastes pretty much like lamb or mutton - and she likes lamb in general.

So I had to come up with some way to break it into portions so I could handle eating it; but I still wanted to roast some of it.  It did take forever to cook; but that's my fault.

Last regular CSA of the year this week - on to all root vegetables all of the time.

Weekend Evaluation: This Guy's Got Like...a Plan

It seemed like a pretty relaxed weekend for cooking, even though I made sausage.  

That usually becomes a big production, but it seemed to go pretty well. It's all about working in steps; I try to find time before work or after dinner to season or grind/emulsify the meat mixture; not having to do everything all at once is the key to making it not seem like so much work.

Overall, the whole thing ran pretty efficiently; dinners weren't outstanding but okay.  How's that for a compelling read....6 out of 10....boring. 

Weekend Evaluation: 50% More Ingredients

It was another slow weekend from a cooking standpoint.  We ate at a friend's house on Saturday, where I was pretty interested to see the recent chicken pot pie recipe from Cook's Illustrated being made.  I have to say the crumble top was really good - a smart recipe, that was well executed.

Gretchen brought cake to dinner, so she was in the kitchen a bit too. The Hazelnut cake she made has been really successful both times she's made it.  My cooking this week - a little less successful.  I've been falling into a trap of too many things on the plate; and my rut of having everything stacked lately has been another rut, that's caused bad results.

Weekend Evaluation: I'd Already Rather Be Bow Hunting

I've been working on prepping a lot of things for the freezer - this weekend was more sausages.  As is typical, I totally got depressed about all of the projects on Sunday night, and went into my typical bullshit routine of  'I'll never be good at anything if I can't do it that often...why do I spend 50 hours a week at work when I could be doing something I care about' - like I'm the only person to ever think that they don't care about their job.  I made my office-working bed, now I have to lie in it.  Besides everybody knows food service workers don't get paid anything.

At least the CSA is starting to pick up again in volume - and the farm gave some explanation about what happened this summer.  I guess they lost zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers, lettuce, and green bean crops to disease and drought.  Last year the rain ruined everything, now it was drought.

Weekend Evaluation: This is Not Awesome

Maybe this should be an airing of grievances - but summer is the greatest time of the year; but it's also the most frustrating.  The produce is amazingly great, so you should cook at home all of the time, but it's so nice out you want to be out enjoying the weather.

I guess this is why people have grills.  Too bad we just bought tiny house and it doesn't even have any outdoor space.

On top of that, since everything looks great so I always buy too much at the farmer's market.  I don't want to miss out on a thing, especially in the early spring certain product comes and goes so fast.  You need to jump right on asparagus and favas since before you know it, they're gone.  So with this stuff on top of the regular CSA share I always have a slammed refrigerator every Saturday; and spend the weekend digging out of the mess. 

This week asparagus, rhubarb and scapes probably made their last appearance at the market, but cherries showed up, so I felt compelled to buy them with no real idea of what I was going to do.

Usually this means a lot of great food that's fairly easy to prepare and an opportunity to be creative; but not when you're not trying to prepare to move in less than a week and still get out and enjoy the 86 degree weather.  It becomes just one more thing you have to deal with, a chore...almost. 

This led to some rushed and sloppy cooking; pretty stupid.

Weekend Evaluation: I heard if you don't use it, you'll lose it

I was out all day on Saturday at a cooking demonstration and a party.  On Sunday we were at the Mets game; so I didn't get make a ton of stuff.  Also we're moving soon, so I've been trying to clear out the freezer.

Weekend Evaluation: An Unfortunate Turn of Events for the Home Team

I wasn't planning on being home to cook that much this weekend.  we were supposed to be out of town at a family party on Saturday.  Well, thanks to some squealing, grinding brakes we were unexpectedly home on Saturday, so I did some cooking but no real projects - and we went out to eat a lot.  Luckily with a bike you can still get to a lot of food.

Maybe I'll include a couple restaurants in the Weekend Evaluation.

Weekend Evaluation: Hear that Funny Sound? It's My Hooves!

When Gretchen bought me this t-shirt for my birthday a few years back I don't think she expected me to actually cook all of the parts that are delicious.

Weekend Evaluation: I Was Hot and I Was Hungry

Sometimes cooking is a great feeling.  There's an awareness and confidence that you can feel while cooking, it seems like you can't make a mistake. You know exactly what is happening and why - the cause and effect are completely linked.  Your evaluation of the ingredients, the plan you put in place, and the techniques you apply to achieve the final product is all are very clear.  

You feel in complete control of what's happening and everything works out exactly how you want with very little effort.  

This effortless feeling is why I cook.   

This weekend was not effortless.

Weekend Wrap-Up (May 15-16)

Sometimes things just don't go as smoothly as you'd like, even though you've planned for days to make sure everything goes ok. Sometimes you accidentally cut yourself when you're only washing the knife and not actually cutting. Sometimes you use the wrong ingredient. Sometimes the blade on your Kitchenaid food processor gets jammed, and no amount of hammering, drilling, pulling, heating, soaking or other form of destruction will get it off (seriously, why is this so hard to pry off?). Sometimes things just go wrong, and unfortunately this was one of those weekends in our kitchen. A lot of beer was consumed in the aftermath.

Here's what Tom made this weekend:

- Harissa (a North African hot chili sauce)
- Biscuits (for the bangers)
- Sausages - Merguez; Bangers (pork); Mint, Thyme, and White Wine Mutton Sausage
- Mutton Chop with Mint Spring Onion Burre Blanc, Potatoes a la Boulangere, and Sugar Snaps
- Sourdough Rhubarb Whole Wheat Coffee Cake
- Rolls (Kolsch, Pale Ale)
- Asparagus and Spring Onion Tart, with Carrot Top and Pea Pesto
- Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
- Roasted Radishes
- Hummus (for my lunch during the week)

And now for the problems: