Cooking

(warning: pig carcass photos below) I just found photos from a pig roast & camping trip in Stanislaus National Forest organized by some friends last summer. It was everyone’s first time roasting a large whole pig, but the pork ended up delicious, moist, and not too greasy. Success! I wasn’t involved in the planning, and don’t really have a detailed “recipe”, but here’s the general approach: 1. Rub the whole pig with salt (there wasn’t really space or room to store a big tube of liquid brine) ...

A low-key Feb 14th– catching up at home after a few whirlwind weeks, and making a quick and tasty hash starting from a homemade “lambcetta” (like pancetta, but lamb, air-cured with salt) given to me by a friend who’s been going all-out on the butchering and meat-preserving front recently. It was delicious sliced thin on its own, and I don’t think it would kill me. But to make it last, I just used a bit of it, minced up and fried with minced shallots, and then coarser-cut onions, fennel (yes, I’m an addict), and carrots. ...

Okay, too much eating out, back to cooking (mostly from the Tuesday CSA). I meant to invite a few friends over but didn’t plan ahead. Red Kuri Squash, brushed with peanut oil, black pepper, and salt, baked about 30 minutes at 425F, until soft. No butter or sugar, and it was earthy and good with a dark belgian beer (St Bernardus Abt): Spigarello greens, which taste uncannily like broccoli, but not bitter (shredded and sauteed with about 8 cloves of crushed garlic until just starting to wilt). ...

Hat tip to SD, who shared this link. So just for the heck of it, I cooked a strip of bacon (mostly, not until crispy), used some of the bacon fat to grease a ramekin, cracked a raw egg into the “bacon cylinder”, added a little dried thyme, black pepper, and parmesan, and baked it in a “400F” (probably cooler) oven for 16 minutes, before sliding it out of the ramekin. ...

I have mixed luck with soup, but this weekend I made the best lentil soup I’ve had. And no, that’s not intended to be damning-with-faint-lentil-praise – it was delicious. I used The New Best Recipe for initial inspiration (their key insight being sweating the lentils first), but also made some changes: I cut two strips of bacon into pieces and cooked them until done but not crispy. I sauteed two minced shallots in the bacon fat (with the bacon still in) a few minutes until translucent, added 3 cloves of crushed garlic, 2 bay leaves, a crushed dried nora pepper from Tierra Farms, and about 1tsp of whole cardamom seed, turmeric, and cayenne powder, a little black pepper, and sauteed/toasted that for a few minutes. ...

This quick meal was unremarkable, and involved three pots to clean. The Brussles sprouts were pretty good: a strip of bacon fried, then drained, a minced shallot + thyme + a sliced apple sauteed in the bacon fat, brussels sprouts separately braised (in a covered pot w/ half a cup of water for 8 minutes), then added to the frying pan along with the drained bacon for a minute (perhaps it should have been longer – they were successfully not-overcooked-or-bitter, but also not as bacony as I’d hoped). ...

Using the new pressure cooker to try to make beans quickly: A mix of classy-looking anasazi beans and white navy beans from Tierra Farms, soaked for about 12 hours, drained, then combined with 3 cups water per cup beans, half an onion, two bay leaves, two dried guajillo chiles, a few garlic cloves. Pressure cooked for 15 minutes (from the time the steam started escaping), which it turns out was longer than needed– they were very soft by the end of this. ...

Arkansas Black apples in the CSA were beautiful– so while I rarely make dessert, it seemed time to make a crisp. A quick search for a Cooks Illustrated take on it turned up this recipe, which I followed the rough spirit of without measuring because I was running around making dinner at the last minute. Basically, I sliced four apples and tossed them in lemon juice, brown sugar, and grated nutmeg, then melted butter and a cup of hard cider in a skillet, tossed in the apples, and cooked them over medium covered until mostly cooked through– 10-15 minutes. I mixed some oats, flour, brown sugar, and a pinch of salt and cinnamon, sprinkled that over the apples, sliced 4 Tbsp of butter into thin squares over that, and put the whole skillet in a 350F oven for about 20 minutes, while we ate the rest of dinner. Not bad, with vanilla ice cream, of course. ...

A few photos from another round of making bagels, over Thanksgiving: [slideshow] Differences between this time and the last few times I’ve made them: I used the “6 cups all-purpose flour + 12 tsp vital wheat gluten” method of making high-gluten flour, since I didn’t have any special flour. This worked well, producing a chewy bagel. 3 tsp yeast (instead of the usual 2 1/4tsp packet), and it was mixed with a little of the malt syrup and lukewarm water a few minutes before adding it into the dough, to give it a head start, since proofing suggested this particular jar of yeast was on the old and lazy side. This seemed to work– the bagels rose slightly overnight (as expected, see the different in the 1st vs. 2nd photos) and puffed up nicely in the oven. I minced three cloves of garlic and toasted them (medium heat, dry skillet) until browned, then used them as a topping on some of them. I cooked in a different oven than normal, on a pizza stone. Unclear if this made a difference.

Helping a friend work through his CSA on a cold and somewhat gloomy evening: Soup of sauteed onions/garlic/carrots, kidney beans (white and black, half mashed), chicken broth, sage, parsley, and roasted garlic precooked sausage, simmered together for 10-15 minutes. Then a full head of shredded escarole was added for another 5 minutes (covered). And hey, the rest of the soup actually managed to keep the escarole in check and mask the bitterness. ...

Everything except the beans and spices came from today’s CSA: Improvising during a month of (mostly) working late: A minced onion and six(!) cloves of crushed garlic were sauteed with toasted cumin seeds and a little salt for about 10 minutes. Then black beans (one can), whole oyster mushrooms, the seeds of half a pomegranate, and a quarter of an Anchor Steam Christmas Ale were added, and cooked on medium-low for another 15 minutes or so. Hey, the result was surprisingly good– meaty, slightly spiced and sweet. ...

The CSA box this week was potatoes, onions, celery root, beets, sprouts, and kiwis, so continuing my CSA-inspired-dinner-with-one-or-more-friends Tuesdays: Shepherd’s Pie! Potatoes and celery root diced and boiled until soft, mashed with some butter, salt and white pepper and some cheese. Diced onions, garlic, and golden beets (since I had no carrots or celery) sauteed until soft, then ground lamb and some spices added to them, and a little red wine. The potatoes layered on top of the meat in the same cast iron skillet, topped with grated cheddar, and broiled in the oven a few minutes to brown the top. Pea shoots and broccoli on the side (with a sesame oil & sriracha sauce– nothing to do with the rest of the meal) I’ve always been a sucker for shepherd’s pie, and this was a very simple version, but it turned out especially well. The bits of diced beet were a nice touch. ...

Breakfast: Picking lettuce for a light lunch: Dinner (I made squash with crispy sage butter, and brussels sprouts with bacon and sauteed onions): Apple pie*, later: Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope your food and family or friends afternoons treat you well. \* Which included my first time making pie crust in quite a while, and perhaps my first-ever lattice top? Ahh, delicious geometry. I used a basic dough recipe modified to use 1/5th whole wheat flour, and 50/50 shortening and butter. ...

Apparently I’ve been on a steak-cooking kick-- three times in three weeks? I shopped at Olivier’s Butchery for the first time today, and picked up a grass-fed filet mignon. Sure, not cheap per pound… but $9 for what ended up being one of the better steaks of my life isn’t bad compared to going out… Prep counter: steak covered in black pepper and a little salt on both sides, green beans, baby broccoli, sunflower sprouts (all from the CSA box), and shallots. ...

CSA Week Two, a recent trip to City Beer, and a friend visiting from Boston inspired another little dinner party: Deviled eggs (perhaps the best variant I’ve made: hard boiled eggs, the yolks mashed with quite a bit of olive oil (and no mayo!) and a little mustard, salt, and pepper, sprinkled with smoked paprika, and topped with crispy-fried capers, a crowning touch inspired by this printer & piemaker post). ...