Baby Needs Shoes

Sounds like modern times. . . (yes, these were my kid's shoes!)

 My bills are all due and the baby needs shoes and I'm busted
Cotton is down to a quarter a pound, but I'm busted
I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won't lay
A big stack of bills that gets bigger each day
The county's gonna haul my belongings away cause I'm busted.
I went to my brother to ask for a loan cause I was busted
I hate to beg like a dog without his bone, but I'm busted
My brother said there ain't a thing I can do,
My wife and my kids are all down with the flu,
And I was just thinking about calling on you 'cause I'm busted.
Well, I am no thief, but a man can go wrong when he's busted
The food that we canned last summer is gone and I'm busted
The fields are all bare and the cotton won't grow,
Me and my family got to pack up and go,
But I'll make a living, just where I don't know cause I'm busted.
I'm broke, no bread, I mean like nothing

(Ray Charles song)

Grape Jelly (or My Son is a Pothead)



I made grape jelly recently—something I do when I get my hands on at least 20 lbs of luscious Concord grapes.  The fruit guys from Follow the Harvest offered subscribers 20 lbs of grapes, and I snapped them up.  This enormous box arrived and it perfumed my house for days prior to the weekend when I would cook them up. 

They were beautiful, musky, shadowy tinged grapes.   Pop one in your mouth and the scent goes right up your nose even before you bite it.  Squeeze the skin off and slide that grape-y slimy pearl around your palate before a quick munch and swallow.  I had some loose ones rolling around on the bottom of the box and threw them to the turkeys.  They (birds, not grapes) were ecstatic.  The dogs were jealous, and they kept trying to steal them away from the turkeys.  

Grapes ready for steaming in the Weck.

My grape jelly recipe is the one on the pectin label (liquid or powdered—doesn’t make much difference in my experience).  I think the difference is in how I get the juice.  I don’t boil the grapes on the stove top.  I use a Weck Juice Extractor, which steams the grapes, roughly filters them and pasteurizes the juice in the process.  I think you could do this with any kettle steamer.

All steamed and smushed.

The key to sparkling jelly is making sure you have enough sugar and filtering out the sediment from the juice.  Sugar is easy—just follow the recipe.  Filtering is more difficult. 

Filtering the juice.

You will need several filters for this in order from largest to smallest screen:  a large colander, a wire mesh sieve, and a cheesecloth filter.  Each is done separately to remove the largest sedimentary elements.  Be patient.  It can take a long time (like an hour or more to strain it all). 



Whatever you do not use for the juice to make jelly, you can make into fresh grape juice (add sugar to taste) or freeze for future juice or jelly.

I made 30 pint jars of jelly and 3 quarts of grape juice from my 20 lbs of grapes.  I also had a lot of dregs, which I donated to the pigs.  (They loved it! Their little snouts were all purple.)

After my jars were filled and processing in the water bath, my teenage son (No. 1 Son) came in from outside and said it smelled good in the kitchen. He walked over to the large stock pot with leftover jelly in it and stuck his finger in it.  Sampling it, he asked, “Do you still need this stuff?”   Nope.  Up went the pot and it was gone in an instant. 




I guess my son is a pothead!

Vaquero Pork and Beans

Our Rotary club hosted an international friendship exchange this weekend with some Australian Rotarians.  One of our dinners was a BBQ potluck, and I volunteered to bring pork and beans.  Wanting to serve something representative of this side of the pond, I went for the west coast, Mexican cowboy version of pork and beans.  They actually were very good, and I promised my Aussie friends that I would post the recipe on my blog.  Sorry, no pictures!  Here's the recipe:

Serves 6-8

·         ½ yellow onion (sliced, diced or julienned—however you like it)

·         2 T bacon fat (or butter or peanut oil)

·         ½ lb of chorizo sausage

·        3    15 oz cans of black beans

·         1-2 t finely diced hot peppers (jalapenos, habeneros, serranos—whatever you like depending upon heat--I used jalapenos.)

·         1T finely diced garlic

·         Salt and pepper

·         2 t or more Chile powder

·         1 t ground Cinnamon

·         ½ C shredded Pepper Jack cheese (or other white melty cheese)

·         1 sliced jalapeno (or pickled jalapenos)

In a Dutch oven, sauté the onions in the bacon fat ‘til translucent.  Add chorizo and cook until just barely done.  Add the diced peppers and garlic and heat ‘til they smell great/cook through.  Add the beans, S&P, chile powder and cinnamon to taste.  Heat through.  Top with cheese and jalapeno slices.  Keep warm in the oven.  ( I transferred mine to a slow cooker prior to adding the cheese and jalapenos, then topped it with those.)

Alternate:  some people like to add 1 t cocoa powder in addition to the spices. 

Result: yum

Watch for my later posts:  What is Chorizo and Why Do I Like It Despite its Weird Ingredients?  and  Aniter and Jim: Our New Best Buds

Hasta la vista, amigos!

OR

That's all, mates!

A Little Cooking Music

Most of the time I don’t have any music in the kitchen when I’m cooking.  But awhile ago I uncovered No 1 daughter’s sound system that she left behind when she went off to college.  (Actually, she couldn’t have anything in her room at the USMA, so I guess I just sort of took it over.  Now if she reads this, she is sure to ask for it back! J)  Thinking to put it to good use in time for Christmas music, I set it up in the corner and pulled out some of my favorite CDs.  I had forgotten how much fun it was to cook with music in the background.  Here are 10 keepers that go great with anything you’re making and any mood you’re in.

1.      Pink Martini—Hang On Little Tomato

2.      Michael Hedges—Aerial Boundaries

3.      Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66—Greatest Hits

4.      Great Big Sea—The Hard and the Easy

5.      Dolly Parton—The Grass is Blue

6.      Electric Light Orchestra—Greatest Hits

7.      Aaron Copland—Appalachian Spring

8.      Huun-Huur-Tu—the Orphan’s Lament (Tuvan throat singing)

9.      Paul Winter Consort—Earthbeat

10.  Frank Sinatra—Greatest Hits

What are yours?

          

    

Whammo! Tom-Clam-O!

After passing through the grocery store aisles for years and eyeing the Clamato Juice cocktail with curiosity, I finally broke down and bought some.  I actually resisted buying it for a long time, since its ingredients included high fructose corn syrup and food coloring.  (Why high fructose corn syrup is bad.) It was also sort of a suspicious unnatural red color. 

However, I couldn’t stand it anymore.  One day I bought some.  The whole idea of clams and tomatoes together was actually very appealing.  Afterall, weren’t they the stars in my favorite Italian clams dish?

I have to say that I really loved the stuff.  It was/is the perfect morning jolt, with enough flavor and salty sweetness to get me moving.  I guess you could say I became addicted to Clamato.  Have a midnight craving?  Drink Clamato.  Thirsty after eating a bag of pork rinds while working on the computer?  Drink Clamato.  Happy?  Drink Clamato.  Mad?  Drink Clamato.  Pregnant?  But, at nearly $5 a bottle, it was more expensive than fricking orange juice.  I went through 2 bottles a week.

As much joy as it was giving me, I cringed every time I put a bottle into my grocery cart or took one out of my fridge.  Still high fructose corn syrup in there?  Yep.  Still strange coloring?  Yep.  Despite channeling subliminal requests (a la Richard Gere) to the Mott’s Company to amend their recipe, my favorite beverage was becoming a serious source of cognitive dissonance. 



Some of the basic ingredients.  Try to get Snow's brand clams.
They are the only ones I've found with US clams.



Observing my predicament one day, Mr. Artifact suggested, “Why don’t you make your own?”  In fact, he even collected some ingredients at the grocery store for me.  I tried a number of recipes that I found on the web from souls as conflicted as mine.  But, they (the recipes) were weak approximations.  Clam juice was the recommended ingredient to get the clammy flavor into the juice, but it was not coming through once diluted in the tomato juice.  Mott’s appeared to use dried clams, which weren’t on my grocer’s shelves.  Again, Mr. Artifact came to the rescue and brought home a can of clams (Snow’s, a product of USA. Yay!).  These were liquefied in my trusty Oster Blender.  And viola!  This was a significant improvement, but still not kicky enough.  We finally settled on adding some fish sauce, a key ingredient in Southeast Asian cooking.  A few more improvements to get the tart, sweet and salty mixture resulted in the additions of Worcestershire Sauce, beef broth, catsup, vinegar, and lemon juice.

Mr. Artifact even made up an apt name and label:  Whammo! Tom-Clam-O!

So, I’m still addicted, just not conflicted.



Whammo! Tom-Clam-O! Recipe        Makes 8 Cups

(by Butternut Place blog)

·         6 C tomato juice

·         1C homemade beef broth/cooled (if you use bouillon, be warned that it may make the drink very salty)

·         6.5 oz. container chopped clams (in clam juice)

·         4 T lemon juice

·         2T red wine vinegar

·         2T natural catsup (no HFCS)

·         1 ½  T fish sauce

·         1  T Worcestershire Sauce

·         2t sugar

·         1t Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce or Tabasco (you may want less, so add only a little bit at a time and test in between)

Add clams (with juice from can) in blender and blend on high/liquefy for 40 seconds.  If you notice that your clams have not completely liquefied, blend a bit longer. Add 1 C of the tomato juice and all the remaining ingredients in a blender.  Blend until incorporated.  It may appear pinkish and cloudy due to all the air infused during blending.  Pour the mixture into a plastic or glass container/pitcher.  It will need to be about 8 cups or 64 oz in size. 

Add the remaining 5 C of tomato juice to your container with the mixture, and stir or shake to combine. 

Affix Tom-Clam-O! Label.

Taste, wait a moment for the kick to develop, widen your eyes, and with a big look of surprise exclaim “Whammo!”

 Chill and display prominently on top front shelf in refrigerator.

This drink will improve in flavor after several hours of (not to get all scientific with you, but) ‘infusing and entwining.’ It will become less opaque as the air bubbles diminish.

Winnie's Posole





Winnie and Santa.  Need I say more? 
Posole drained and ready to cook below.



During a recent visit to Number One Daughter and Favorite Son-in-Law in Tucson, we went to this cool food co-op (Food Conspiracy:  http://www.foodconspiracy.org/) , and I got some dried hominy and other goodies.  Poor Winnie (their Number Two dog, a chow chow) had to stay outside the store at a bistro table and entertain the Tucsonians.  Fortunately, her mom and dad like posole and might even give her some leftover pork.

First order of business:  how in the heck do you pronounce this stuff?  Po-SO-lay with the main emphasis on the middle syllable.  Just imagine you’re in England, where all the middle sylLAbles get the emPHAsis.





Second order of business:  what the heck is hominy? Hominy is the kernel of the corn with the bran and the germ removed through a process of soaking the kernel in a caustic medium, such as lye.  The kernel is then dried and used whole (for dishes like posole) or ground (for dishes like grits).  It originates from Native American food practices and is an especially good storage product.  If you want to know more, check out this information on Wikipedia.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hominy   Hominy looks like a corn nut and can be very chewy if not cooked thoroughly (which is why I had to serve it the next day when I tried to make the posole!).



The posole simmering away.



So, here’s to Winnie’s Posole!  Made from a Native American grain,  in a dish perfected by the Mexicans, enjoyed by anyone with a taste bud worth a peso, pronounced like a Brit, and endorsed by a Chinese dog.   Oy vez!  What a misbegotten food! (my Jewish/Pennsylvania Dutch sneaking in here). 

This recipe is for about four hungry people or six foodies pretending to be on a diet.  Imagine you just came in from cross country skiing and you are having this with a cerveza and a lime!  Or a nice glass of Cupcake Vineyard sauvignon blanc http://www.cupcakevineyard.com//index.cfm. 

Ingredients

1 ½ C hominy (dried) (if using canned, omit the soaking and long 2-4 hour simmer)  Hint: while it sounds so romantic to use the dried corn, it is a major deal to cook it long enough, so I would not be ashamed to use canned—I will next time!)

1 ½  lb pork butt (shoulder)

4-6 C chicken or beef broth

1 small onion, diced

½ tomato, diced

3 cloves garlic, diced

2 T bacon grease or olive oil

2 bay leaves

½ diced chipotle pepper plus one teaspoon adobo from the can (from canned Embasa brand chipotle pepper in adobe sauce)  This stuff is hot so proceed gradually with caution!

SPICES—crush in a mortar (or use ground)

1 t cumin seeds

½ t anise seeds

1 t coriander seeds (1/2  t if ground)

3 whole cloves (a pinch if ground)

3 whole allspice (a pinch if ground)

1 t Mexican oregano

2 t salt

Garnishes ready for the table.  Garnishes por las mesa.

GARNISHES

4 sliced radishes

3 diced green onions

1 lemon or lime in wedges

1 C shredded green cabbage

1 tomato diced

1 avocado sliced

SERVE WITH

Warm corn tortillas

Directions

The day before: 

Brown pork butt, add salt and pepper and then bake covered in 325 oven for 3-5 hours until it shreds away in tender pieces.  When done, set aside/refrigerate.

Overnight soak the hominy in water to cover.  Drain, then cook for 2-3 hours until chewy. You could do this at the same time your pork butt is cooking.  If you are using canned hominy, skip this step and decrease hominy cook time below to 30 minutes.

To make:

Sauté onions, garlic, tomatoes and chipotle/and sauce in bacon grease.  Add spices and some salt to taste when onions are translucent.  Add more chipotle if you want it  hotter.  Add hominy and coat with fat.  Add chicken broth, bay leaves and bring to simmer for 2-4 hours or until hominy is tender (if you use canned hominy reduce cook time to 20 min).  Don’t rush it!  If not tender, keep cooking and plan for it as the next day meal. This is too good to screw up.  Number One Son actually likes it kind of chewy.

Once tender, add pork (shred it and dump it in).  Simmer for another 30 minutes or more until all the flavors combine.  Important:  don’t add the pre-cooked pork until your hominy is done.

Serve:

In a large bowl and allow diners to garnish as they like. 





WTF

What The Furikake?

My friend Jean recounted a wonderful dinner party she had with her family and salmon furikake.   It sounded like they had such a good time, and I know Jean to be a down-to-earth eater whose father supplied Alice Waters with mulberries.  What better foodie recommendation could I have to try this Japanese seasoning? 

But, “What in the world is fuikake?”, you ask--as did I.  Furikake is a Japanese rice seasoning.  The usual predominant ingredient is bonito (tuna) flakes, but it also has seaweed and sesame (and some sugar).  Different variations exist.

I went on a shopping bonanza in “town” (Spokane) at one of the 3 Asian markets over Christmas and was ecstatic to see Furikake in the dry goods sections.   I must have been jumping up and down in delight, as Mr. Artifact and Number One Son rounded the aisle wondering if I needed assistance.  I bought Noritamago Furikaki (sesame, wheat, dried yolk powder, sugar, salt, shave bonito, and seaweed) and Katsuo Fumi Furikaki (shaved bonito, sesame seed, sugar, salt, soy sauce, seaweed).

Here is what I have done with them so far:

Katsuo:  sprinkled over grilled fish and served with a pho broth (with noodles, green onions, green chiles,  sautéed garlic, and shredded Daikon and carrot)

Noritamgo: sprinkled on homemade mayonnaise that topped some salmon baked in black bean curd sauce and served with rice

Both were pretty yummy.  I think they would also be great sprinkled on rice—as is their advertised purpose.

This was a tasty new addition to my pantry.

Here’s a cool recipe for Furitaki Chex Mix   that I am really excited to try. What do you think?

Broth Pageant #1

This weekend I made another batch of broth, something I do every 2-3 weeks.  I was out of leftover chicken/turkey carcasses and only had a ham bone from a relic of a spiral sliced ham we had around Christmas. So, I was faced with buying some bones.  My local market regularly has these.  Imagine my surprise to find that they are no longer cheap or free!  After paying $1.90/lb for 4 lbs of bones (most of which appeared to be upper femurs and pelvises from young cows) I trundled home along with the rest of my groceries.

To get the best flavor, you need to roast the bones.  I wacked mine with some olive oil and salt and stuck them in the oven at 350 for about an hour.  They did smell delicious and rendered off a nice bit of fat (that I gave to the chickens). 

Then, they and my old ham bone went into the stock pot with the usual suspects:  onion, garlic (fresh and some leftover roasted garlic), celery, carrots, fennel, star anise, allspice, cinnamon, cloves, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, tarragon, rosemary, bay leaves, a quarter of a lemon, sea salt and pepper corns.  After 4 hours simmering, it was ready to be strained and filtered. Then I gave it another hour to reduce.  It was a pretty brown, but I wanted it darker and sweeter, so I added a tablespoon of Kitchen Bouquet (shhh. . . don’t tell anyone!) and a tablespoon of sugar.  Owing to the all the marrow, the broth was/is really rich.

It yielded 20 cups of shimmery and gelatinous, mahogany broth.  But I forgot to take a picture!

But, have no fear; I have pictures of many other broth adventures.  You know, some people take pictures of sunsets or cats, but I take pictures of broth . . . well, at least some of the time. 

So, here is my first installment of the Broth Pageant!

p.s.  I gave the leftover meat/cartilage bits, carrots, celery and garlic to the dogs.  No wonder they hang around the kitchen! (Sorry, no cooked bones or onions for dogs!—a different post.)



All the goodies at the start of something great!





Looks like lots of carrots in this beef broth.



Love the herbs, star anise, cinnamon and garlic!  Very picturesque.



Yeah, that's a payday!





Broth Tips

With the roaring popularity of the Broth Importantly post (all 250,000 of you who read it—thank you), I wanted to add some information to address questions you may have now and in the future.

Q:  My mom always stuck the cloves into the onions in the broth. Do I need to do this or is it OK to just drop the cloves in?

A:  First of all, your hanging preposition is forgiven.  You can impale the onions or not—your choice.  Sticking the cloves into the onion has the benefit of preventing the cloves and the onion skins from floating loose all over your pot.  This step probably won’t matter anyway if you are adding all the other spices, though.  It has no effect on the taste. (Don’t tell your mom.)   But, it is kind of fun to do, and when your husband is watching you do this, he will think you are really smart.

Q:  After I strained out my vegetables and meat, I tasted my broth prior to reducing.  It was definitely bitter.  Why did this happen, and can this broth be saved?

A:   You have a two part question!  We only allow one part questions.  I am sorry, but an answer cannot be provided.  Oh, what the heck:

Several factors contribute to sour or bitter broth: 

·         Burned bones or vegetables (if you pre-roasted them)

·         Overabundance of bitter vegetables, herbs or spices (celery, parsley, rosemary, cilantro, cilantro seed, cloves, allspice, black peppercorns)

·         Too much citrus for too long (something I really like, but have now learned is best added the last hour of simmering.  Add a half a lemon for some nice zing during the end of simmering.)

·         Impatience in general (you’re not done yet, so don’t give up)

·         Impatience with dried mushrooms (if you used dried mushrooms—a super addition for beef and veal broth—not so great with chicken broth.  Rehydrate them next time prior to adding to the broth.  If you did not, you’ll just have to let them have more time.)

·         Alcohol (not good at the start of any broth.   Wait til it’s almost done before you start drinking next time.)   

Saving the broth—between each of these cures, you must taste.  If fixed, proceed no further!  These cures assume you have a pot of about 10 cups of broth.

·         Reduce and add salt (this may improve the flavor—some sea salt is actually somewhat sweet)

·         Add a cup or two of carrots, sweet potatoes, apples, or parsnips, or a combo of them, to your strained broth and simmer for 25 minutes (you’ll have to strain again, though)

·         Once reduced, if still bitter, add a teaspoon of brown sugar or raw cane sugar at a time (be very sparing with this—you are not making teriyaki and you do not want a sweet taste)

·         Once reduced, if still bitter, add 2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar or ¼ C of apple cider

·         If beef or veal stock:  once reduced, add a teaspoon of soy sauce at a time (teriyaki warning above)

·         If beef or veal stock:  once reduced, add 2 teaspoons of Kitchen Bouquet (frankly, this works nicely even if there is not a problem.)

·         Get desperate and put some raw ground beef or raw poultry chopped fine (8 oz or less) and mixed with an egg white (depending   upon whether you have beef or poultry stock) back into the broth.  Let it float to top and do NOT disturb the raft of meat.  Simmer very low and do NOT stir to avoid breaking up the raft.  After 40 minutes on very low, skim off the raft and strain your stock/broth again.  Frankly, this last step is so pathetic, you might as well start over again and use the meat you will likely waste in your new stock.

·         Alcohol  (If all else fails, pour another glass of wine and drink it.  Dump the broth out for the dogs. They’ll really like it.  Gravy Train!   Chock up the experience to one of life’s little lessons.)

Q:  What items in a broth make it sweet? Which bitter?

A:  Carrots, garlic and parsnips add sweetness the broth.  Parsley and celery are more bitter.  Failure is also bitter, but not if you ask the dogs after they’ve enjoyed your failed experiment.

Q:  What is the best container and method to store my awesome broth?

A:  If you are using it within the next 2 days, put it in the fridge.  However, you’ll make so much that you’ll likely want to freeze it.  I like leftover Parmesan cheese or salsa plastic containers from the grocery store. (Question from Mr. Artifact:  “What do those poor Parmesians know about broth anyway?”)  They are each about 2 cups, which is a great size for your individual use and for stacking in the freezer.  If you really won’t use more than a ¼ C at a time, you can freeze it in ice cube trays, then unmold and put into baggies in the freezer.  It will last about 6 months, but you will be unlikely to ever have any that long.  I find that I have to make broth every 1-2 weeks.  Once you have it, you will find it will become indispensible to you.

Q:  How in the world do you use up so much broth in a typical week?

A:  Here are uses in our household over the last week or so that used approximately 8 cups of broth:

·         deglazed pan, reduced juices, and made a nifty sauce with butter to lap stuffed leg of lamb and mashed turnips and potatoes

·         substituted broth for half of water in recipe for fennel and bean soup

·         cooked rice pilaf in broth instead of water

·         made gravy for chicken and apple sausage stuffing dumplings

And, if you make pho (excellent Vietnamese noodle soup), you’ll use up 8-10 cups with that recipe alone!

Q:  My broth is cloudy and murky.  Why?

A:  There are several explanations for this:

·         Chemistry:  Murky broth is caused by particulate matter in the liquid suspension.

·         Sloth:  You were too lazy to cut the fat off your meat, it melted and then your pot boiled, creating this mess.

·         Incompetence:  You forgot that you are not supposed to boil your broth after the initial boil.

·         Cheapness:  You won’t buy the cheesecloth to strain the broth because it is too expensive.

Whatever your reason, if you are not out to impress people, the cloudiness of the broth shouldn’t affect the taste.  It is nice to have a clear broth if you are going to make soups, aspics or light sauces, though.  And it will have a cleaner “mouth feel” if more of the fat is out.

Cures can be performed in any order, but first let the broth cool—even chill—and take off the fat that forms at the top.

·         Double or triple strain it through multiple layers of cheesecloth, and finally if necessary through a coffee filter (which will take a very long time—you should be able to listen to an entire Pink Martini CD during this process!).

·         Add a couple eggs shells (don’t wash them out—the leftover whites will help to pick up the impurities) and slowly warm.  Strain afterwards.