Correction: better in the plane than the #%^*^ing hotel.

Test: txting to blogspot to see if it a) shows up and b) gets passed on to FB. Internet access better in the #%^*^ing plane than hotel. O/w Acapulco is very nice.

Persian Spiced Cauliflower

This is adapted from a recipe for cauliflower kuku (and omelette kind of dish) from "New Food of Life", a persian-american cookbook by Najmieh Batmanglij. I was looking for just the cauliflower, so I just adapted it without the omelette part.

The cookbook was a christmas gift from my P.A., Sawra.

Persian Spiced Cauliflower

1 head cauliflower, broken down into florets
1 yellow onion, peeled, sliced thinly
2 cloves garlic, put through a garlic press or minced
1/2 tsp Turmeric
1/4 - 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, depending upon your heat tolerance
1/2 tsp Cumin (ground)
1/4 - 1/2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
Salt
2 tbsp olive oil

Heat the olive oil in a saute pan over medium to medium-high heat.

Add the cauliflower, onions and season with salt (probably 3/4 tsp). Dust with the spices (turmeric, cumin, cayenne, and black pepper) and stir/toss until they are well-distributed.

Let it cook mostly undisturbed so it gets nice caramelization on one side. Give it a stir when it's nice and brown on one side to get some color on the other side.

When you put the garlic in is optional. For a mellow garlic flavor, put it in with everything else in the beginning. For a sharper, more garlicky flavor, add after the first side is caramelized, or about 10 minutes before the end.

Drop Biscuits

I've been asked for the recipe for the drop biscuits I made in a fit of late evening hunger the other day, so here it is. It's pretty much from the Joy of Cooking (1997 edition, not the 75th anniversary piece of crap), except I use a bit more salt.




DROP BISCUITS

2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup milk (or buttermilk). May need up to 1.25 cups to get the right consistency
1 tsp salt
2.5 tsp baking powder (note change from above)
6 Tbsp cold butter, cut into chunks

1. Preheat oven to 450 (note temp increase from above)
   
   
2. Mix the flour, salt and baking powder.
   
   
3. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender until fairly coarse.
   
   
4. Stir in one cup of the milk. If it isn't fairly wet, use a bit more milk. It should be like a very thick batter, fairly wet and sticky.
   
   
5. Using 2 soup spoons, put blops of dough on the sheet about the size of a tangerine. Or a small tennis ball. Or a drop biscuit. You should get ~ 12 drop biscuits.
   
   
6. Bake for about 12 minutes or so until golden brown.

Walnut Caramel Shortbread Cookies

I'm not totally happy with these; I certainly could use a better caramel for the topping, but this one is quick and easy, and that's what I was looking for on holiday cookie day. The shortbread took something over 30 minutes to bake up to the right color.


Walnut Caramel Shortbread Cookies

SHORTBREAD
2 Cups Flour
½ Cup Sugar, powdered or granulated
1 Cup Butter
¾ tsp Salt

WALNUT TOPPING
14 oz Sweetened Condensed milk
½ Cup Whipping cream
1½ Cups Walnuts, chopped

CHOCOLATE DRIZZLE (optional)
½ Cup Chocolate chips
1 Tbsp Shortening

Shortbread

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Sift together flour and salt in a small bowl.

3. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium, cream butter until fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add sugar, and continue to beat until very light in color and fluffy, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary, about 2 minutes more.

4. Add flour mixture, and beat on low, scraping bowl if necessary, until flour is just incorporated and dough sticks together when squeezed.

5. Press firmly on bottom of 13x9-inch baking pan. Prick all over in even intervals with a wooden skewer or fork.

6. Bake until firm in the center and just starting to color, about 30-50 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack, and let cool completely.

Walnut Topping

1. In heavy saucepan, combine sweetened condensed milk, whipping cream and vanilla. Over medium-high heat, cook and stir until mixture comes to a boil. Reduce heat to medium; cook and stir until mixture thickens, 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in walnuts.

2. Spread over top of cooled shortbread.

3. Cut into triangles.

Chocolate Drizzle

1. Melt chocolate chips and lard together. Drizzle over top of cookie triangles, or in the pan before cutting. First option is better.

Chili Recipe

OK, as promised, here's my basic chili recipe, with the base sauce and my own chili seasoning.

Chili American

2 Tbsp Vegetable oil
Aromatics and Seasonings

1 Large Onion, diced
1 Red bell pepper, diced
1 Green bell pepper, diced
1 poblano pepper, diced
1/4 Cup Chili Seasoning (Mark's)
1 Tbsp Cumin, ground
1 tsp Salt (or more...taste and adjust!)
6 cloves Garlic, minced

The Stuff

2 lb Ground beef
28 oz Canned diced tomatoes
2 15 oz cans Red kidney beans, drained
1 qt Chili Colorado sauce
12 oz Full bodied beer
2-4 Tbsp Chipotle puree (to desired heat level)

1. Heat vegetable oil on medium In a large heavy pot (Le Creuset is ideal),

2. Add onion, red and green bell pepper, chili seasoning, cumin, and salt, and cook until vegetables soften and give up some of their liquid, about 8 minutes.

3. Add garlic, mix, and cook for 30 seconds.

4. Add ground beef, and cook until no longer pink, about 10 minutes

5. Add diced tomatoes, Chili Colorado sauce, kidney beans, and beer. Stir well to combine.

6. Simmer for 30-45 minutes to reduce to appropriate thickness.

7. Cover, and cook on low heat (just bubbling/simmering) for 45 minutes.

8. Uncover, and simmer for about 30 minutes more.

---

Chile Colorado Sauce

A basic red chile sauce for use in Mexican style cooking.

2 Quarts chicken or vegetable stock
1.5 lb tomatoes, quartered
1.5 lb onions, quartered
8 cloves garlc, chopped
8 oz New Mexico chiles, dried
4 Guajillo chiles, dried
2 Chipotle chiles, dried
4 Ancho chiles, dried
1 Tbsp Salt

Make the "Soup"

1. Put stock, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and salt into a stock pot, bring to a boil, and boil for 15 minutes.

2. While mixture is boiling, remove stems from the chiles, and tear into pieces. They technically do not need to be seeded, as the seeds will be removed when put through the food mill. I tear them in half crosswise over the wastebasket and most of the seeds just fall out. But if you really want to do a more thorough job of it, knock yourself out, especially if you don't tolerate capsaicin heat. But if you don't, why are you making this sauce anyway?

3. Add chile pieces to the boiling mixture, cover, and remove from the heat. Let stand 30 - 60 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Pureeing and Straining

1. There are three methods from this point on, depending upon your equipment.

2. METHOD 1:
This is my preferred method, using a Kitchenaid mixer with a food strainer attachment. Set up the Kitchenaid, and process the "soup". Done. Q.E.D. Best method.

3. METHOD 2:
Puree mixture in food processor or blender (in batches)
Put mixture through food mill with finest disc to remove skins and seeds.

4. METHOD 3, the Extremely Primitive Method:
Puree the mixture however you can...blender, food processor, immersion blender, whatever. In batches, press through the finest mesh strainer you have...chinois, mesh strainer, whatever, pushing the puree through with a wooden spoon. This method is insanely labor intensive, and should only be used by Mexican grandmothers who can make it taste better than I ever could this way, or those who enjoy the Martha Stewart Paradigm [MSP for short. The MSP means that you are willing to expend 300% additional effort for a 3% improvement in the quality of the final product ].

5. Taste for seasoning; adjust as necessary

Servings: 8
Yield: 2 quarts

---

Mark's Chili Seasoning

Modification of Paul Kirk's basic chili powder recipe. Note what's not in it...salt. That's so salt can be added separately and the dish seasoned properly to taste. Commercial chili seasonings have salt in them, so don't use this as a recipe substitute without knowing there's no salt in it. One final note: It's labeled "chili seasoning" instead of "chili powder" so it's not confused with chilE powders, or the ground up dried pods of various chile peppers. Seasoning is a better term for a mix of spices and herbs. "Chile" is a pepper. "Chili" is the meat dish.

1/2 cup Ancho chili powder
1/4 cup Smoked paprika
2 Tbs Chipotle chili powder
4 tsp Cayenne powder
2 Tbs Garlic powder
2 tsp Onion powder
2 tsp Oregano. ground
1/4 cup Cumin, ground
2 Tbs Coriander, ground
2 Tbs Black pepper
1 tsp White pepper

1. Mix everything together.

Yield: 1.5 c


Tips
I'm not done with this one yet. I'll be trying the addition of unsweetened cocoa powder and espresso powder.

Duck

I've been off/on again trying to come up with a good approximation of the roast duck you can pick up in any asian grocery store (the first approximation is, I don't really mind if the head has been removed). I want to avoid the step of inflating under the skin with a pump a la Peking Duck*; I think that's ridiculous.

My latest try was Tyler Florence's recipe:
Tyler's Recipe

Didn't get the nice crispy skin; I think it's because (per his instructions), I "basted periodically with any remaining glaze" - I did so every 15 minutes. As a result, the skin was nicely colored but not crisp. I even had let it dry in the fridge over night, although that was for purposes of time. Also, using his chinese 5 spice based dry rub led to a mottled appearance, which I didn't care for.

It's still tasty, and I'm going to make some steam buns filled with the duck meat, some green onion, and plum or hoisin sauce tonight. But this sure isn't going to be my go-to recipe.

Next, I might try an amalgam of this technique except putting the spices in the steaming liquid and the glaze rather than a dry rub, and do the "5 hour roast duck method" ('Amazing' Five Hour Roast Duck) to see if that'll give me the crispy skin I want.

I'm starting to wonder if there's something goofy with my oven...everybody else who reviews these recipes says they're getting crispy skin.
---------------------------------------------------------------
* When I was in Beijing (formerly Peking) a few years ago, and had Peking Duck** there, I made the mistake of calling it...Peking Duck. In somewhat of a huff, the waiter explained to me that since the glorious people's revolution, there was no such thing as Peking Duck. Only Beijing Duck, and would I please not be so insulting for the rest of the meal.
---------------------------------------------------------------
** The dish, as opposed to the variety of bird.

Healthcare thoughts.

Someone asked my views about about universal healthcare, so here it is.
It's not really very nuanced, but I have a few basic bullet points.

• If you want to know what governmental health insurance will be like, look at Canada, or the programs our government already has in place: the VA hospitals/system, medicare, and medicaide. Not pretty. Underfunded, inefficient, basement quality medical care.

• I think that government should provide healthcare insurance for those who haven't or couldn't get it on their own, or for whom it is prohibitively expensive. For those who say 'everyone would go for the government package': 1) bullshit. See above. 2. If their healthcare cheapness and availability forced the insurance companies into digging into their obscene profits and lowering their prices to be competetive, that can only be a good thing.

• I think that laws should be written forcing insurance companies to insure everyone who wants insurance at a reasonable price, regardless of pre-existing conditions.

• Insurance companies should benefit patients, not their stockholders.

I'll post anything else if I think of it.

Spinach and Goat Cheese Souffles - Gordan Ramsay

Picked up a nice cookbook a couple weeks ago - Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Appetite

Last night, made his recipe for Spinach and Goat Cheese souffles. Here's the pix.

About 8 - 5 oz servings, or 6 - 6 oz servings. I did the latter.















Ingredients:

1 lb baby spinach
1 minced shallot (I was out, so I used minced onion)
1 clove garlic, pressed
Salt and pepper
4 large eggs, separated
7 oz goat cheese
1 cup lowfat milk
3 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 Tbsp finely grated parmesan cheese
Pinch (or to taste) Cayenne pepper (yeah, I use more than you would)


Bang up the oven to 400, and butter your 5 or 7 oz souffle dishes. Stick the souffle dishes in the fridge, pull them out when you have a moment later, and give the sides a second buttering. The souffles can't stick to the side, or they won't rise. Some of it seems like voodoo to me, but can't argue with a guy with more Michelin stars than Jay Leno has cars.

A moment for mise en place ('meez un plahss'): When making a recipe that's more complicated than putting milk on cereal, get your ducks in a row. Chop, peel, mince, dice, and measure everything out first. Then, you can follow the recipe without @#@&ing it up. Here's all my stuff ready to rock.

Also: I'm not going to tell you when and how much seasoning (salt and pepper) to use. My method? Season (salt) every step along the way when something is cooking, enough so you think it'd taste right by itself.



Wilt the baby spinach leaves over medium high heat until cooked down, but still bright green. Drain it in a colander, then squeeze it out even more in a dish towel to get rid of as much moisture as possible. Then mince it up, and set it aside.









































Olive oil into a medium saute/fry pan...nonstick if you got it, medium heat. Shallots and garlic into the pool, and sweat them out for a few minutes until translucent.

Turn down the heat to LOW, add the flour and cayenne pepper and cook it for 3 - 4 minutes. If it's a pasty mess, add a wee bit more olive oil to loosen it up. Yeah, it's kinda like a blonde roux, only low heat.

Add the milk and whisk it up. No, those aren't lumps, they're shallot pieces. Bring up the heat, simmer it until it thickens, and tip it into a nice big bowl, spreading it up on the sides to cool.









Toss in the goat cheese, parmesan cheese, the spinach, egg yolks, and a bit of salt and stir it up.





















Beat the egg whites into firm peaks. An electric mixer works best, although if you're a masochist, you can whip them with a whisk; a sadist, with a baseball bat.



















Fold the spinach mixture into the beaten egg whites, divide amongst the ramekins equally. Be careful not to leave air pockets. Slide a knife around the edge (more voodoo, I think, but I'm not gonna argue with GR). Time to go in the oven.

Here they are, about to get nice and warm and poofy and happy. 13-15 minutes, or until they look like the last picture below, golden brown on top.













Ready to come out of the oven.
















Here they are. Serve right away.
















While I was puttering around with the souffles, Flo was making the lamb marinade, grilling the corn and the rack of lamb, and making the salad. Jessi and Stephi helped a wee bit as well.

The salad stuff is all from the garden, except for the tomatoes.

Quick Asian Style Refridgerator Pickles

Just a quickie here, and probably not very new or exciting, but here it is anyhow. This my adaption of Vietnamese-style fresh pickles from a pickling book I have, the title escapes me at the moment. Asian tables often have fresh pickles; carrot and daikon are common ingredients. They use a combination of sugar and vinegar, but we're not huge fans of a lot of added sugar here at Casa del Que-Sawyer. I've used just carrots for the last couple batches, but will do some cauliflower today. Here's the basic recipe using just carrots. Super simple, tasty, and healthy.

~ 6 medium carrots
0.5 - 4 tsp Sriracha (depending upon your heat enjoyment/tolerance level)
1 tsp chili garlic sauce
1.5 tsp salt
1 qt container with cover
Vinegar (I just use distilled, as I have large quantities around, but you could use rice wine vinegar as well)

Peel the carrots, and slice into coins about 1/4" thick. I make them thicker as I get to the narrow end of the carrot.

Place the carrots in the container, sprinkle the salt over them, and let rest for 10 minutes or so.

Rinse off the salt.

Cover the carrots with vinegar. Mix in the sriracha and chili garlic sauce.

They're ready to go. Keep refridgerated when you're not eating them. You could add some sugar if you're into the sweet/sour thing, or it's too vinegary for your taste, but this is how we like 'em.

Cool...

Apparently, I can import my blog into facebook. Excellent...I'll test it out now.

OK, so a few things:

I just ordered a monstrous paella pan, which should arrive today or tomorrow. 32" wide. I'm going to have to build it's own fire pit, which I'll do with the same type of cinder blocks I used to build my pig roasting pit. I was inspired by Rick Bayless' show making a paella for about 30 guests. Someone took the trouble to write out the recipe, which is nice, because I didn't. There is, obviously, going to be a party soon with about 30 guests.

The Annual Sawyer Que Pig Roast is set for July 25th, 2009. Mark your calendars, fast the day before, and be there.

I have become strangely fascinated with slide rules, and just bought a watch with one on the bezel. I am currently trying to figure out how to use it with the help of the interwebs. I am cruising ebay for more of them. This could become a problem.

Last night, I started curing my first homemade prosciutto from a pig I largely butchered myself (had the butcher behead it, bisect the rest and divide into shoulder, loin, and pelvic parts...I did the rest). Also started another batch of homemade bacon, and put Mark's Butt Rub on the pork butts I'm smoking tomorrow for Stephi's graduation.

David Kessler's new book, 'The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite' is packed with revelations. I'm not a fan of psychology, generally speaking, but I loved this book, and learned more about how my brain is wired than I ever thought possible. Get it. Read it. It's awesome.

Not uncoincidentally, I have embarked on a quest to get into the best shape of my life.

Random things that are pissing me off today:

1. Wells Fargo has payday advances. For a 10% fee, they will allow you with a single mouseclick to borrow against your next paycheck. Of course, the only people who will do this are the ones that can't really afford to, lining Wells Fargo's greedy pockets so they can announce another profitable quarter at the expense of the poor.
2. Evolution has wired our brains with some mechanisms that are maladaptive in the modern world (see David Kessler's book above), especially when food marketers are doing their damnedest to leverage that into encouraging people to eat more food even if it's not in our best interest. Look around you. Take a quick mental poll on what proportion of people around you are overweight, or even obese? Here in MN, it's quite high. Flo thinks that food marketers ought to have far more stringent advertising rules like there are for tobacco, booze, etc. I agree. Plus get penalized on their taxes if Kessler thinks there products are bad for you.
   

A few random things that make me happy today: Flo, Stephi's graduating, Dom has a second job now, Jessi's jewelry business is going very well, prosciutto (see above), boat going to its' slip in Wabasha today.

Homemade bacon

Honey-cured hickory smoked. Awesome flavor.

Paella!!

Flo made some awesome paella (I was just the sous chef. Here it is, bubbling away.

Home honey cured, hickory-smoked bacon

...a particularly fat slice.

New Year's Eve

Quick shot of the spread for New Year's eve...

Homemade pancetta, about 4 weeks dry after curing.

Home cured pancetta; 4 weeks drying time at 40F. Looks nice, haven't tried it yet. I'm experimenting with various apps to blog photos directly from my iPhone; hopefully, this will improve the flow from pic to blog.

Testing...

Wow...that's pretty much all I'll say about the iPhone.

Wow.

I'm testing a blogwriter app here on my iPhone; this lite version is text only, so no food pix today.

If it works well, I'll buy the full version, take my food pix with the iPhone, and just post right from the phone too.

// mark

Weinerschnitzel and garden goods

Well, I've decided to start posting my stuff on a 'real' blog rather than on myspace so it's easier for people in my family and others who don't 'myspace' to see what's going on at home, in our garden, kitchen, etc.

I figured a nice place to start would be a recent meal where everything on our plates except for the weinerschnitzel was from our garden.

The pictures are in a funky order; I'm still learning how to get things the way I want on blogger.


At left, some stuff from the garden...rainbow swiss chard, a genovese squash (italian zucchini type), some tomatoes.

















Cooking chard, early in the process.













Here are some heirloom tomatoes from our garden - lemon boy, Mr. Ugly, Russian Black Krim, some cherry tomatoes, basil, and a small cucumber. It's a pickling type, but we didn't really get enough to pickle this year. I mixed up some spicy Thai fresh pickling liquid to use on these for a quick pickle with meals.

Tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella.












Cooking weinerschnitzel.













Cooking chard, later in the process.

Welcome

Am I here yet?