Cucina Panucci

Milk Crafting 101

2011-10-09T00:18:00.000-07:00

I like making things and I've wanted to make my own cheese for years. But I've lacked courage to start on my own...it seems so much more than a recipe. Enter the Institute of Domestic Technology and their cheese making courses (and so much more). I came across their site last month and Raelene let me sign up for their 3 course milk-crafting series. The course is fantastic and I can't wait for my rennet to arrive in the mail...now I just need to find good milk.

Here's a little of what I learned, in pictures.
We started off with taste tests. I could tell the difference between raw whole cow's milk (6%) and store bought pasteurized, homogenized whole milk (3.25%). The latter is sweeter and the former heavier (because all its yummy cream is still there). I could only recognize the goat but couldn't tell them apart.

Then we made Paneer. It's an Indian cheese that uses lemon juice (instead of rennet). It only need to hang for a couple hours so you'll is actual batch below in the lunch pictures.

Yogurt and creme fraiche demonstrations.

Straining keifer

Keifer grains - made of rennet and yeast that have a nice symbiotic relationship.

Yogurt, keifer, and creme fraiche taste testing.

MAKING CHEVRE

Step 1: Get milk from a goat

This is Rue. We used her milk for several of our projects.

Milking station.

Step 1b. Don't get rammed while watching the chickens. This is one of those things you don't learn from a text book.

Step 2: Make curd

Prepare rennet. Use distilled water.

Let curd form

Test curd for clean break

Hang curd to achieve desired texture

Step 3: Salt the Chevre

Enjoy!

Off to lunch

Roasted red pepper soup with creme fraiche.

Best. Soup. Ever.

Cucumber salad with Paneer.

Making cottage cheese

Curd cutting

Curd testing

Curd cooling

Curd tasting (yellow is fresh, white is store bought)

- jmb

Sausage Making Begins

2011-10-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

All my supplies have arrived and I've got the casings soaking for the first batch when I get back from fromangering (neologism that I will use for cheese making. I may be a dork, but I'll be a trendsetting dork)

Yup, that's definitely a slippery intestine. I had to break out all my boy scout knot skills to untie 12 feet of this mess. Yummmmm.

- jmb

Tzatziki and souvlaki

2011-10-06T23:00:00.000-07:00

Feeling some Greek vibes tonight. I used the Williams-Sonoma mediterranean cookbook for these ones. I need some practice with the tat-the cucumbers seemed too wet, but still very good. As for the soul, my meat must not have been fatty enough because it didn't cook up at all like the picture, but that's the only lamb I could get, and it was still an enjoyable dinner.

We have a fan!

- jmb

Pizza Fail, Calzone Improv

2011-10-05T23:46:00.000-07:00

I've been making pizza a lot the past few weeks but a recent drop in temperature screwed up my rhythm and I started working the dough too soon and ruined it for pizza making. So I forced it into a calzone. Ugly, but mostly effective.

Pesto, red onion, goat cheese.

Not restaurant quality...

...but still yummy.

- jmb

Roasted Cauliflower

2011-10-04T23:40:00.000-07:00

Raelene is big on vegetables. Me, I'm not opposed. And I've been trying to work them into my cooking more since they are a more economical option than my carnivorous tendencies. So when I came across a tweet from Ruhlman showing his roasted cauliflower with brown butter I had to give it a try. The recipe is here, but knowing that the ingredients are cauliflower, butter and salt, you should be able to figure the rest out from the pictures. It's that deliciously easy.

Prepping.

High tech butter dispersment.

Basting.

Drooling.

I've never had cauliflower whole before but is quickly jumped onto my list of favorites and will be making frequent appearances.

- jmb

Happy Birthday Little Man

2011-10-04T23:29:00.000-07:00

Raelene's big into birthdays. My family never really was, but I'm down with the festivities. Here's her handiwork: (I made the buttercream frosting, which reminds me, if you're going to use butter, use good butter. We decided to use Costco unsalted butter to pinch a couple pennies. Ya it, like trying to cook on a budget, sucked. If you're going to do the work use the best ingredients. Rant over. Rainbow cake on)

Friends and family

Emeryck, contemplating the bubbly-bubbleness of bubbles.

Happy 4th Birthday Reagan

(do I get an award for most egregious [mis]use of parenthetical insertion following a parenthetical insertion following a semicolon?)

- jmb

Searching For Panna Cotta

2011-10-03T23:17:00.000-07:00

I've only ever made panna cotta with Giada DeLaurentis' recipe that uses honey as the sweetener. It's very good, but I wanted something new so I decided to try a version in the Bon Appetit dessert cookbook Raelene got for her birthday.

The BA method of incorporating the gelatin was much more convoluted methodologically speaking and without having samples of both panna cottas right in front of me I can't really tell any difference in outcome as far as texture is concered.

The BA panna cotta had a very subtle/weak taste and really depended on the berries. This may make it compliment the berry compote with which it is paired in the book but it only added texture and not flavor to the fresh berries. Not inspiring, so the search continues.

- jmb

Cheddar Jalapeño Bagels

2011-10-03T23:07:00.000-07:00

We have a bunch of left over cheddar from Raelene's recent batch of enchilada making and I was instructed to use it. My old standby is a quesadilla, but I figured I try something new and went for cheddar jalapeño bagels.

I added 1/3rd of a cup of cheddar (small handful) and half a jalapeño to Reinhardt's bagel recipe I've been using and then let the dough rise. I'd go with a full jalapeño if I do it again, but the cheddar was just right.

The bagels cooked up nicely, but I should have boiled them after my plain ones to avoid floaty-contamination.

Also, the cheese I was using was pre-shredded, because that's what I was told to use up. Not ideal. The shred was too short, so the sides of the bagels didn't get good cheese coverage while the top middle was swimming in cheese, and the cheese was too dry. Long, fresh shreds would fix this problem.

Still a delicious first attempt by all means but, as always, there's room for improvement.

And on another note, I tried shaping with less water and the bagels looked good until I boiled them and then they all developed that flair you see above, so less water is not the answer to "how do you shape the perfect bagel?"

- jmb

Improvisation

2011-10-03T20:39:00.000-07:00

An entirely useless entry, but I got a good laugh out of having to engineer a weight that would hold down the corn without splashing water everywhere. A vegetarian meat tenderizer!

- jmb

Something Like A Backyard Garden

2011-10-02T22:32:00.000-07:00

We finally got our backyard sorted and planted our first couple garden specimens. I went with basil and sage, Reagan went with broccoli.

- jmb

More Pizza Making

2011-09-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

I fixed the soggy crust by placing more of the cheese on the perimeter of the pizza and cut the pieces into smaller chunks. Great pizza with Creminelli's piccante salami.

- jmb

Bagel Progress

2011-09-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

I just made a batch with my new high gluten flour. They still aren't quite right, but they still taste great and are looking great.

- jmb

Pizza Making

2011-09-28T21:40:00.000-07:00

My $1.38 satillo tile only lasted two times (and then cracked into 5 pieces) but the quality of my pizzas is definitely on the rise.

wild oregano, from Calabria - secret ingredient

- jmb

Someone Has Been In The Pudding

2011-09-28T21:23:00.000-07:00

- jmb

Egg Salad with Fennel

2011-09-27T21:16:00.000-07:00

We had some extra fennel and some hard-boiled eggs that were meant to be deviled, but I lacked the motivation, so we decided to make egg salad and I found the Egg Salad with Fennel and Lemon on Epicurious. Nice find, and I made only a couple small changes.

8 large eggs
1 garlic clove
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/2 fennel bulb, finely chopped

- jmb

Marinated Goat Cheese

2011-09-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

I did a little experiment with Anne Willan's marinated goat cheese recipe (Country Cooking of France) and used walnut oil for one batch and olive oil for the other.

The walnut oil had a subtler taste and a higher melting point so it didn't coagulate in the fridge like the olive oil kept doing, but I prefer the flavored olive oil to the walnut when making salads to accompany the cheese.

What a delicious experiment.

- jmb

Jerk

2011-09-21T21:00:00.000-07:00

My other brother and sister-in-law, also knowing that I like cooking, gave me a copy of Jerk from Jamaica for my birthday. I imagine that here is a hidden message in the prevalence of Jerk in the book, but I'll let it slide since the food looks so good. I read the whole book in one day and immediately wanted to start cooking. As jerk is a whole new world to me I had to get some new spices (and we still haven't stocked up since the move) and therefore chose a recipe which required the least hunting/gathering (busy week at work and I feel lazy).

I went with pork loin stuffed with plantains. The preparation is very simple - butterfly the loin, make a dry rub with the spices (I used my mortar and pestle, but all the spices can be bought pre-ground too), season the meat overnight, then stuff and cook.

This recipe gave me my first chance to tie a boneless roast, which didn't turn out half bad (thanks Ad Hoc at Home for the picture tutorial). My primary concern in cooking the loin was the temperature. I usually do 250 degrees for a couple hours, but this recipe called for 350 for just over an hour. I was concerned the pork would be dry, but it turned out great (maybe because of the plantains?).

For my taste, the meat was a bit over-seasoned (maybe I'll cut back on the ginger?) but everyone else liked it and it was definitely and exotic blend of flavors that I enjoyed and never would have mixed on my own. We rounded out the meal with some sweet potato fries (that use the same dry seasoning as the roast) and a salad. For the next adventure in Jerk, I'm firing up the grill.

- jmb

Happy Birthday to Me (and Raelene!)

2011-09-11T23:35:00.000-07:00

My birthday was yesterday and my brother and sister-in-law brought me a great gift (which contemporaneously is also a belated gift for Raelene's birthday). Apparently they walked into Williams-Sonoma and said "They like to cook. They have French and Italian on lock-down. Go!" And the folks at Williams-Sonoma came up with a Tunisian Tagine, a bottle of Apricot Tagine sauce, and a Mediterranean cookbook. I'd never heard of a tagine, but I've been craving curry and an expanded Mediterranean diet so I busted it out for dinner. Keller (courtesy of ad hoc) makes a 10-piece cut chicken look way easier than it was, but dinner turned out great. Thanks!

So good I want to go downstairs and get more right now.

-jmb

Pastrami Coma with a side of Bagel

2011-09-10T19:00:00.000-07:00

We recently discoved Weiss Deli via yelp and Raelene took me there for my birthday. They cure their own meat, make their own bagels, etc - sounds like my kind of place! The whitefish salad was a new experience for me, and save the last bite, which tasted way too fishy, was pretty good.

You'll see Raelene's Reuben in the background, but that's only because it was big enough to have its own gravitational field, which is quite an acheivement considering that I couldn't fit my sandwhich in my mouth it was so big. Last time that happend I was 5 (I think) and my Mamaw bought me a Big Mac instead of a Happy Meal. The pastrami was delicious (as were the pickles and bagels [and maybe I should use alternating caps and italics to express that deliciousness, but I have a moral opjection to such things, so I'll rely on the descriptiveness of deliciousness] - the pickled tomato was a little much, but that may be because I wasn't expecting it to be pickled) but I ate way too much.

Next time I'm going with the half sandwhich and soup combo, that way I can remain awake.

-jmb

The New Rotisserie

2011-09-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

Today was the inaugural use of the rotisserie. It's only taken me two months to get it attached but I finally made time for it and brined a chicken for the occasion.

I made up my own brine to use the extra fresh thyme I had on hand, using Ruhlman's salt to water ratio as my starting point (check out his Charcuterie - one of my favorite cook books).

Thyme Brine:
1 gallon water
1 cup kosher salt (I use Morton's)
1/2 cup torbado (raw cane sugar - regular sugar will work fine too, I just wanted to experiment)
1 clove of garlic (cut in half and crush a little)
1 lemon (cut in half and squeeze some juice into the water)
3T peppercorns (lightly crushed in mortar and pestle)
1/2oz. Fresh thyme (just toss the sprigs in whole).

To make the brine you add all the ingredients together, bring the water to a boil, and stir until the sugar and salt dissolve, then chill completely. Once the brine is cold you can add the chicken and return to the fridge. My chicken weighed 3.9 pounds and I brined it for 9 hours. After the chicken was done brining I rinsed it thoroughly and placed it, uncovered, on a drying rack and then back into the beer fridge in the garage (Newcastle!) to help the skin form a nice pellicle (this apparently makes the skin taste better).

I pulled the chicken out a couple hours before cooking so that it could assume room temperature and brushed it with clarified butter just before I put it on the rotisserie. I had the grill set to half power but the bird was still cooking too fast so I turned it down to its lowest setting after about 25 minutes. After 50 minutes the bird was registering 165 degrees so I took it off and, after letting it rest for 20 minutes cut it up. It was perfectly cooked.

Next time I will cook with the BBQ on its lowest setting, just to prolong the cooking process, but all in all I'm really happy with how this turned out. Now all I need is a big paper bag full of French fries and dinner will be complete (a pleasant memory from our times in Sicily)

- jmb

Je cherche une boulangerie -Vol. 2

2011-09-07T19:00:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I can be really dumb.

This is my second attempt making French bread. I again followed Reinhart's classic French bread recipe. I wasn't really happy with the taste last time so I let the dough sit in the fridge for three days instead of overnight (his recipe says you can do up to four). I also bought a couple towels just to use for shaping bread and that helped the loaves stay the right shape even though I still had the same difficulty shaping them.

The recipe requires a blast of steam as the loaves first enter the oven, and not having an extra metal pan on hand I decided to use an extra Pyrex casserole dish that promptly exploded in the oven when I started putting water in. I was smart enough to take safety precautions (thanks undergrad chemistry studies) but not smart enough to think that even though the water was near boiling that the temperature difference between the Pyrex and the water was nearly 250 degrees (another reason I switched from biochem to political philosophy). Needless to say, I freed up some space in the cupboard where that Pyrex used to be and ended up using a spray bottle to wet the loaves after I put them in (which was not an ineffective method - definitely somewhere between exploding glass and using a professional grade metal pan).

As for the bread, it's far from French, and I need to work on my scoring skills. It's too heavy to be a baguette and the crust is coming out too thick. But that doesn't mean it's bad - far from it. It's pretty close to the bread we had in Sicily, and with a little work and some sesame seeds I'm pretty sure I can use it to recreate the wonderful flavor of pane palermitano. But it's not French bread because the dough is just too dense, so I'll come back to this to try and make some pane palermitano but I'm going to have to find another recipe to try to sate my cravings for authentic baguettes.

- jmb

Fresh Pretzels, Going Fast

2011-09-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

I made pretzels for the first time today, courtesy of Reinhart's Artisan Bread Every Day.

I think I'd like to try something with some sourdough flavor, and a thicker crust, but all the same they are delicious with mustard and I'd be happy to make the recipe again. I definitely need to work on shaping and I'd stick with my sel gris or bourbon smoked sea salt as toppings.

-jmb

**useful note: the next morning we found that the pretzels were a bit gummy because we put them in a ziploc bag to keep them fresh. Apparently they do better just sitting out on the counter. Plus they are yummy and don't last long in the wild.

In search of a homemade bagel

2011-08-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

We are up on the ranch for the next couple weeks which means I get to cook. It's great because I get to cook; it's less great because conditions are primitive. That's not to say I dislike cooking somewhere where the nearest grocery store is 30 minutes away and doesn't carry fresh basil or even know what gorgonzola is - a freezer of grass fed beef (and moose, elk, goose, pig, salmon, chicken, etc.) makes up for that. It's more that the sharpest knife in the kitchen can't cut through salmon, there are three measuring cups, the teaspoons carbon date to the early 1900s and have no size markings, and there is one quart of yeast, all of it bad. So when I asked if they had yeast I should have asked if the had any from this decade. Needless to say, because the yeast was bad, so were my first batch of bagels - they couldn't past the float test so they ended up in the slop bucket (you're welcome porkers).

Imagine a raw bagel.
Now imagine it at the bottom of a bowl of water.
Now you understand why a picture was unnecessary.

It was a useful exercise in shaping however. Reinhart (see page 74 of artisan breads every day for the bagel recipe I'm using) gives two suggestions for shaping: first is to roll the dough in a ball and then punch your thumbs through to make e bagel shape; second is to roll the dough out into a rope and then wet the ends and work the seam together. The first method is much easier, but the second produces nicer looking shapes (even though I need more practice), so I'll be sticking with method number 2 for future attempts.

method #1

method #2

- jmb

Je cherche une boulangerie - Vol. 1

2011-07-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

I've recently decided to take up the ambitious task of teaching myself to bake. Save brownies in Italy and some heavy, heavy, heavy wheat bread my mom had me make as a kid, I've never had much success at baking (I imagine my kneading technique needs a lot of work too). But I'm prepared to sacrifice innumerable lumps of dough on the altar of progress to be able to make a good baguette. I was spoiled by our month in Paris and the boulangerie just up the street, and the one around the corner, and that other one...you get the idea.

I purchased a couple books off amazon ( now that's something I'm good at) and the first one I'm going to try is Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day (see page 49 for his classic French bread recipe).

As you can see from the pictures below, my first attempt was far from successful. One of his instructions is to "cover the shaped dough loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate it overnight, away from anything that might fall on it or restrict it from growing.". I did this and the shapes ended up expanding flat, so next time I'll have to get a towel and use it to direct the bread's growth without restricting it.

The other part of the recipe I had difficulty with was shaping the loaf without degassing it. It looks like I still got asymmetrical air bubbles, which means I didn't completely overwork the dough, but the loaves obviously need to be tighter.

Oh well, butter and sel gris hide a multitude of sins so the bread was good while it was still warm. Not bad for a first attempt.

- jmb

Barolo Salami

2011-03-19T16:00:00.000-07:00

Yum. My untrained palate doesn't have much else to say by way of distinction. Just yum yum yum.

CITP - Vintage Irish Cheddar with Porter

2011-03-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

Oh, how I love Irish cheese! And it's fun to take cheese out of wax. It reminds me of when I was first explaining the heaven that is Irish butter to my brother. He'd never heard of Irish butter so his first reaction was, "What's Irish butter? Do they put whiskey in it?" Ha! I wish!

In any case this is a soft cheese that looks like a wedge but in reality is a bunch of delicious curds pressed together in some kind of Porter glue - half of the slices broke apart on me as I cut it apart. It has a rich flavor but the beer doesn't dominate at all, for the most part just blendning into the backgrounds of the curds.

CITP - Dubliner White Cheddar

2011-03-16T16:00:00.000-07:00

We fell in love with this cheese last summer in Cork. Here in the State we can only find the white (the red is also great if you can find it). This cheddar is is harder than the American variety, more flavorful, and has a grainy texture. It also melts well - mmmm, grilled cheese. We use it in the place of American cheddar most of the time, e.g. in sandwiches, sometimes crumbled on top of salads, etc. And of course it's a solid addition to the cheese plate.

Charcutepalooza - March Brining Challenge

2011-03-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

Thanks mrswheelbarrow kitchen!

I made the garlic-sage brine (minus juniper berries, which I couldn't find) from Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie.

Um, I forgot to take a picture of the meal (yum yum yum),

but the beauty of the brine gives you a clue of how good it was.

This was the apprentice challenge for March, and it was delicious. Since we are moving soon I used a couple pork chops from the freezer and guessed on the brine time (the recipe is for 1.5 inch pork chops) and I think I under-brined the chops a little...alas, I am but a apprentice. I think next time I will buy a fresh center cut rack of pork, brine it for longer, then cut up the individual chops...not sure if that will make it better, but that's what this is all about eh?

I used a measuring cup filled with brine to weight the chops.

ps. for my other March Charcutepalooza posts you'll have to check the tag, as the March 15th ruhl was not conducive to a St. Patrick's day corned beef party.

Wild Boar Salami

2011-03-14T18:00:00.000-07:00

Be jealous. This was an excellent salami that was earthy and gamy in all the good senses of those words, and none of the bad. We might have eaten this one a little too fast - ha!

Cheese Platter

2011-03-13T18:00:00.000-07:00

We had a friend drop by as we were having lunch (see the cheese platter below). "That is so foreign," was his reaction. Ha, indeed it is, but we really absorbed the European eating culture last summer and are tyring not to lose it in the bustle. It's well worth the effort.

Grilled onions

2011-03-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

I've been experimenting with grilled onions a bit lately. I slice them about 1/4 inch thick, put at least two toothpicks in them (so they don't fall apart on the grill - much better than a grill basket), and then add olive oil, balsamic, fresh herbs, and some kosher salt. Below is a red onion with rosemary, but a yellow onion with thyme is my current favorite. Let the onions sit in the oil and vinegar for about 20-30 minutes so the liquid can get inside the rings, then grill it up to your preferred blackness. It's a delicious contorno - enjoy.

CITP - Fiore Sardo

2011-03-11T22:15:00.000-08:00

Thank you cheese cave! I walked in looking for a cheese to pair with our salami, and this fine specimen just jumped out of the case at me. Fiore Sardo is a sheep's milk semi-hard cheese from Sardegna with a beautiful black rind.

It packs more bite than peccorino romano, so it may be a bit much grated on a pasta if it's not the flavor you're trying to showcase, but it's excellent on its own or paired with salami (we had it with wild boar and barolo).

Bacon Jam: mortar of the food pyramid

2011-03-10T21:43:00.000-08:00

My wife told me about skillet food bacon jam last year before Thanksgiving (apparently it had been popping up on several of her regular blogs). I thought it was a joke, then I saw it was serious, then I bought some...as a joke. I thought it would make the perfect Christmas gift for one of my friends who considers bacon to be the mortar of the food pyramid. It was the perfect gift (and she's now on her third jar...eating it straight with crackers), so I decided to try some myself. It smells great and looks weird (ergo no photo of inside the jar), but all that doesn't matter because it tastes great. Seriously. We made some excellent bruschetta with bacon jam and ricotta a while back, and I just had my friends over for gourmet burgers, homemade sweet potato chips, and some arugula salad (to assuage the conscious - ha!).

I made the burgers with 2T Worcestershire sauce, 2T whole grain Dijon mustard, and a large pinch of sel gris per pound of 80/20 ground beef. Then I added bacon jam, Dubliner Irish Cheddar, arugula, and some mayonnaise (I forgot to get tomatoes at Sprouts). The chips are just thinly sliced sweet potatoes, canola oil, and kosher salt. They are addictive, but I need to devise a better way of getting the oil off before I salt them; gravity is cardiovascularly insufficient! It's not an everday meal, but it was nice treat so load that baby up with more bacon jam.

Gourmet oils and Balsamic Vinegar

2011-03-09T19:42:00.000-08:00

We found Bistro Blends at Claremont's Annual Village Venture last year, and now that we're reaching the bottom of our bottles and I've been reminded that I should share. Best balsamic ever. The heirloom balsamic and fig are our favorites - the former makes out of this world brussel sprouts (now there's a recipe I should past) and the latter is the perfect salad dressing (a little oil, some fig balsamic, a sprinkle of kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper, and some fresh greens - a go to salad staple at our house). Both have a syrupy texture without being too sweet (try them on vanilla bean ice cream for a real treat). We also have the blackberry balsamic; it's more like a store-bought balsamic in it's runny consistency, and while it is great on it's own, the fig is soooo good that we often end up passing the poor little guy over.

I also recommend their truffle oil as it has a better flavor than any other oil I've found at our local Claremont store - it's great with gnocchi. The one product we were initially disappointed with was the bread dip - it was terrible - but then we tried it out as a marinade and it makes some of the best grilled chicken we've had. In any case, they're certainly more expensive than most grocery store comparables, but their taste is well worth it - we're certainly not looking back.

Sunday Afternoon? Cookie time!

2011-03-06T20:22:00.000-08:00

Nothing like making cookies with my oldest son on a Sunday afternoon. I told him he could pick from any ingredients out of the cupboard...he chose yellow and green. That's butterscotch and mint for the uninitiated. But I persuaded him that chocolate chip, butterscotch, and walnut would be better, and indeed they were.

CITP - Rosemary Cheddar

2011-03-04T17:20:00.000-08:00

Another goodie from the Cheese Cave - Rosemary Cheddar. This cheese is from Oregon and has a great balance to it - you definitely taste the Rosemary but it's not herby at all.

I must admit that I did the cheese a bit of an injustice though. I decided to try it on a sandwich and I masked its flavor too much...not to say that the sandwich wasn't great, but the cheese is better served with plain bread or a minimum of other competing flavors. So all in all it doesn't sound like an adventurous cheese - poor cheddar has gotten a bad rap from American cheese - but it rewards the taste buds and that's all that matters.

Planting Sauerkraut Seeds

2011-03-03T11:00:00.000-08:00

I planted sauerkraut seeds today: cabbage, brine, a two week vacation in my pantry, and hopefully we'll have some rocking homemade sauerkraut to go with my first ever attempt at making corned beef from the brisket up.

I used cheesecloth and ziploc bags filled with brine (thanks mrswheelbarrow.com for that great idea) to weigh down the cabbage. Maybe I could have sliced the cabbage thinner too, but that's what I get for trying to do it all by hand on my first try. We'll see how it turns out in a couple weeks.

CITP - Brindisi

2011-02-28T18:04:00.000-08:00

Another cheese courtesy of the Cheese Cave (we're trying to eat them all before we have to move!). This is a Brindisi Fontina-style cheese from a cheesemaker in Oregon that we got to pair with our salami. It's a semi-hard cow's milk cheese, which is a range we feel pretty at home with. It has little holes throughout (not sure why, I need to learn more about the cheese-making process I imagine), has a sharp pasture taste at first and leaves a nice, mellow aftertaste in the back of your throat. I think I'm going to try it on some bruschetta-esque appetizers next.

CITP - Cana de Oveja

2011-02-27T18:37:00.000-08:00

CITP, by the way, is shorthand for Cheese of the Indeterminate Time Period. It just has the right ring to it, so I'm settled. Now on to the cheese.

We made our second trip to the Cheese Cave in Claremont this week. We love it; we want our own cheese cave. We were looking for a soft cheese to pair with our Creminelli salami, and they recommended the Cana de Oveja.

A new addition to our cheese-tasting adventures

The Cana is a soft sheep's milk cheese with three distinct layers...a brie-esque (for lack of a more precise term) rind, then a creamy ring, then a more chalky center. The center doesn't taste dry, but it certainly has the dry texture, and as the cheese ages this chalky center gets smaller. Our specimen was aged about 3-4 weeks. It was a great cheese to pair with our salami and French honey balsamic mustard. My favorite thing about it was how the three layers combined to give you three variations on the same flavor as you ate it.

Whipped Cream

2011-02-25T22:32:00.000-08:00

So funny story. When Raelene and I first got married she was making whipped cream and I asked what she was doing. "Making whipped cream." "Hmpf. How do you make whipped cream?" "Uh, by whipping the cream." This may all seem rather intuitive, but I would like to think that the complexities of the English language and the fact that in my whole life I'd only ever had whipped cream from a can would excuse me. But in reality, I was an idiot. In any case, I've learned my lesson now and proper whipped cream is heavenly. We had some fresh strawberries, some cream left over from making ice cream, and suddenly - breakfast!

somebody has been eating my whipped cream!

Whipped Cream:
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons powdered sugar

Start whipping the cream in your Kitchenaid or other blender. Once it begins to set up an get fluffy, add the vanilla and sugar. Don't put the sugar in too early or it won't set up...and be careful - if you whip it too long, you'll end up with vanilla butter (hey, I should try that). I would never drink a cup of heavy cream, but eating it like this is sooooo easy, and yummy. Enjoy.

In Case of Emergency - Parisian Moutarde

2011-02-24T23:12:00.000-08:00

Last summer, as we were wrapping up our month in Paris, we stock-piled some goodies to break out when we got home. We've been waiting to break into our multi-flavored mustard collection for a variety of reasons, but now that we're truely homesick for France, it's time. Tonight we opened the Moutarde de Dijon au Miel et Vinaigre Balsamique (Dijon Mustard with honey and balsamic vinegar); Raelene immediatley started throwing out French words faster than I could keep up - it was that good. Sweet, with a stronger than subtle mustard burn in the back of your throat. mmmmmmmm. I'll post more as we work through each of these mouthwatering little jars of mustard gold.

Salami al Tartufo - Truffle Salami

2011-02-23T19:25:00.000-08:00

I like truffles. Not the chocolate kind, the wake-up-the-pig-and-root-through-the-forest-for-'em kind. The truffle taste in this salami isn't strong, but the aroma is just right - just enough to tease your senses and fill your nose without losing the taste of the salami.

Desserts Under Construction

2011-02-22T20:40:00.000-08:00

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (courtesy of Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc) and Chocolate/Hazelnut Bombe (literally bombs, but more like fritters...but not quite fritelle) (adapted from Mario Batali's Molto Italiano). I'm practicing basic ice cream bases so I can start experimenting, and practicing different dough recipes to find the right mix for a gianduia dessert I have in mind (I'm still not getting the dough as fluffy as I'm imagining). No matter - the imperfections are still delicious!

Apple Rosemary Honey Turnovers

2011-02-21T12:01:00.000-08:00

Here's another gem from Sara Kate at the Kitchn (follow the link for the recipe). She puts my "I made it with what I had lying around" skills to shame. Her recipe only says "apple," so I made two batches, one with a Golden Delicious and another with a Granny Smith. I figured the Granny Smith would be too tart to work with the rosemary, but instead it turned out perfect. The Golden Delicious actually came out a little bitter, so I think in the future I'll either add more sugar to see if that compensates, or go in a caramel-apple turnover direction instead. In any case, these are great and you should give them a try.

Charcutepalooza? I'm in.

2011-02-20T23:39:00.000-08:00

I just stumbled across this last week and I think I'm going to be ambitious and go for the main challenge and skip the apprentice stuff (I've actually done it before). Here goes nothing!

http://www.mrswheelbarrow.com/2011/02/charcutepalooza-march-challenge-brining/

Blueberry Pancakes

2011-02-20T16:33:00.000-08:00

Raelene recently introduced me to Sara Kate Gillingham-Ryan at thekitchn. Well, more precisely, she introduced me to her weekly emails. I'm now completely jealous, and more importantly, excited to try some of her recipes. The most recent comes from a kitchen tour of Chef Laurent Tourondel's country house - check out the full kitchen tour here.

Sara Kate raved about the pancakes they ate - "the best pancakes of my life" - so I figured I'd give our bag of Krusteaz mix a break and try out her recipe. I make some mean crepes from scratch, but I've never made pancakes from scratch before.

My 3 year old son was cooking with me and didn't see me flip
the pancakes. Once he saw them he yelled, in his panicked little
voice, "OH NO DADDY, all the blueberries disappeared!"

I adapted the recipe slightly (I didn't have orange blossom water to mix with the maple syrup, and I didn't use the 3 tablespoons of butter for cooking as some minuscule silly health-conscience assuaging concession.) I found that the recipe itself had enough butter in it to cook without any problems, though the few I cooked with some butter to see the difference did spread out a little flatter and gained a nice, crispy texture. You can see the whole blueberry pancake recipe here, but the most important part is not to overmix the batter as you add the wet ingredients to the dry. I didn't understand what she meant when she warned, "[b]e careful not to overmix or the batter will break," but you'll see as it comes together. This batter won't look like normal pancake batter, but I had no problems mixing it at all. Here's the recipe:

1 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons baking powder
4 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
6 oz. blueberries
Makes 12 pancakes

Here are Sara Kate's directions: "Whisk the milk, eggs, and oil in a medium bowl to blend. Slowly whisk in the melted butter, making sure not to cook the eggs. Whisk the our, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk the egg mixture into the our until just combined. Be careful not to overmix or the batter will break.

"Heat a griddle or large nonstick pan over medium heat and brush the surface with 1 tablespoon of the softened butter. Using 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake, ladle the batter onto the griddle. Cook for 2 minutes. Sprinkle some of the blueberries evenly over the pancakes, then flip the pancakes over.

"Cook until the pancakes are brown on the bottom and cooked through, about 2 minutes. Repeat with the remaining butter, batter, and blueberries."

They were very delicious pancakes and they'll definitely be making encore appearances.

A Messy Kitchen is a Happy Kitchen

2011-02-17T20:37:00.000-08:00

bwahahahahahaha!

Fritatte di Pere e di Mele

2011-02-09T20:25:00.000-08:00

I was experimenting with some different fritter recipes trying to find the perfect one and these turned out quite nice. Still not perfect, but I was only able to get a picture of these four before they, like their predecessors, were devoured. Once I get the batter right I'll post my recipe.

Casalingo Salami and Gruyere

2011-02-06T20:04:00.000-08:00

Snack time done right.

The casalingo salami has a robust traditional flavor and the perfect texture (casalingo means "down-home," domestic, or homemade), and rightly so, as the Creminelli website says it's their family specialty. The gruyere, our cheese of the indeterminate time period, is an outstanding compliment. This particular edition was aged over 150 days and was sweet and buttery. The more aged versions are less sweet, which I often prefer, but here it was the perfect snack.

If you're looking for big name cheeses, like this gruyere, or brie, parmaggiano, pecorino, etc, then Costco is a good place to look as they often have quality imports. Also, it's been quite sometime since I had proper salami (excluding the one we had in Paris, six years or so) and I forgot that it's much easier to peel it before you slice it than afterwards. So score the section you are going to slice up (we usually do 1/3 at a time), peel it, then slice it. You'll enjoy your delicious meatiness much more.

Risotto ai Funghi and Salsiccia ai Porcini

2011-02-05T20:28:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention that I also bought several pounds of porcini sausage while I was impulse shopping the Creminelli website. I made some risotto with porchini and shitake mushrooms to compliment the sausage and it was a very good meal. The sausage was packed with flavor and very moist. I'm still working on the risotto recipe though, so nothing else to share right now.

Soy Milk Pudding?

2011-02-03T20:00:00.000-08:00

In short, no. Raelene has been having some on-and-off dairy issues over the years and we're back into an on again, time to drink soy milk period. She was craving pudding so we tried to make some with her Silk soy milk and it just wouldn't set up and frankly got more nasty the longer we left it (I'm talking hours, not days). So let's hope our learning experience saves you from some terrible pudding.

Meat Heaven

2011-02-02T20:00:00.000-08:00

I love meat. Growing up that love found it's form in blow-your-mind-family-recipe flank steak and rebelling against my mother's vegetable lasagna. While living in Italy that love found many new objects of affection - oh Italian deli cases! The cured meats there were simply amazing, but unfortunately I failed to find any parallel here in the States (save some imported prosciutto crudo) and salami, et al remained my lost European tastebud lovers. Until now - I hope.

a mouth-watering Italian deli - source: Creminelli fb photos

I came across a Creminelli fine meats ad on facebook the other day and was very intrigued (as a small business owner my primary interest in ads is seeing others' marketing techniques and wondering how much it cost...I can't remember the last time I bought something because of an ad). And after visiting their site I couldn't resist, so I bought some (the Traditional Artisan and Gourmet Artisan packages). Fast shipping, classy packaging, and the closest thing to authentic salami I've seen in the States.

I'm in meat heaven, and I'll do some more posts as I eat my way out.

Schiacciata - Take 1

2011-02-01T12:51:00.000-08:00

I took my first crack at schiacciata with rosemary and sage last night (actually over the last two days) and while it wasn't amazing, it wasn't inedible, which for bread and me is progress. I just ordered a couple bread books off of amazon so hopefully I'll be able to report some serious progress over the next couple months.

Cheese of the Week - Asiago with Rosemary and Olive Oil

2011-01-31T16:37:00.000-08:00

So Cheese of the Week might be a little ambitious. After all, there are only three of us that eat cheese now and you can only eat so much at a time. But you must admit, it sounds better than Cheese of the Indeterminate Time Period Between When We Bought This One and Finished the Last One (I don't know, cheese of the indeterminate time period has a nice ring to it). And I need some little feature to house our exploration of cheese. We've tried a lot in the past, but now I'm going to start keeping track.

We picked up this fine specimen at Trader Joes -
one of our go-to spots for new cheeses.

"Asiago (pronounced /ɑːsiˈɑːɡoʊ/) is an Italian cow's milk cheese that can assume different textures, according to its aging, from smooth for the fresh Asiago (Asiago Pressato) to a crumbly texture for the aged cheese (Asiago d'allevo) of which the flavour is reminiscent of Parmesan."¹

This Asiago was right in the middle, had a delicious buttery texture with a stronger rind, and the hint of flavouring was perfect. We ate the whole wedge on a cheese plate over the course of a couple nights at dinner, but it'd be great with pasta bianco or on a sandwich. It was a great compliment to our Creminelli salami.

1. wikipedia (Anyone can add anything so you know you're getting the best information in the world)

Bruschetta

2011-01-30T21:16:00.000-08:00

Raelene was feeling a bit peckish (that's Irish for snackishly hungry) after lunch today, so I whipped up some bruschetta. That's brew-sket-tah, not brew-shet-ta, by the way.

In any case, I just took a demi-baguette out of the freezer, defrosted and sliced it, then added olive oil, mozzerella frescha, finely diced onions, diced tomatoes (I used canned tomatoes because we were out of fresh ones, and they performed admirably), fresh basil, and some kosher salt. Then I popped them in the oven at 350F for 10 minutes and we had ourselves a delicious little snack with minimal effort.

There are tons of variations to this simple recipe, but the most important element to making a good bruschetta is making sure you don't overburden the bread with ingredients.

Pasta con Uova e Formaggio or Egg Pasta

2010-05-17T14:09:00.000-07:00

I know, it has been forever since I shared a recipe, but I just finished my M.A. and have a little more time for some hobbies like cooking. So without further ado, here's the recipe for what we call Egg Pasta.

This recipe is very versatile, takes less than 20 minutes to prepare, and holds up well to experimentation. Here are the basics:

1/2 lbs. of small pasta (small maccheroni, elbows, small shells, stars, etc. all work great)

2 eggs, beaten to mostly uniform consistency

6-8 leaves of fresh basil, ripped or diced

1/4 cup grated parmigiano reggiano cheese

2 T olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Boil water with a medium amount of salt. Cook pasta until it is a little harder than al dente, or about 2 minutes shorter than its normal cooking time. Drain the water slowly from the pot using the lid, leaving enough water so that the water still barely covers the top of the pasta. Pour in the eggs and cheese. Stir until the eggs are thoroughly mixed in (about 30 seconds). Then add basil, olive oil, and salt and pepper. And now you're ready to eat.

Variations:

You can change the feel of this dish a lot by using different types of pasta, leaving extra water for a more soupy texture, changing the cheese (pecorino romano and gruyère are excellent alternatives), changing the pepper (black pepper is nice, but I prefer crushed red pepper), substitute rosemary for basil, and last but certainly not least, adding extra greens such as spinich, kale, or arugula. If you want to add the greens, add them after the eggs and before the cheese, which will give them time to cook down some before serving. Enjoy!

pictured above with spinach, parmigiano, and black pepper

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

2009-10-31T11:39:00.000-07:00

So is it "portobello" or "portabella"? I guess it's one of those "tomato" or "tomato" things. In either case, these mushrooms are delicious. For this recipe I use "baby bellas" so they can double as an antipasto, or a nice contorno to accent your main dish. You can also use the same stuffing with larger portobellos to make a hearty, yet healthy, substitution for meat in your main dish.

Ingredients:

1 package of baby bella mushrooms, stems removed
3 cloves of garlic, finely diced
2 shallots, finely chopped
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
Coarse sea salt
Crushed red pepper flakes, or freshly ground black pepper (your preference)
Balsamic vinegar, for drizzling
Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling

Preparation:

Place the mushrooms bottom up on a plate. Finely chop the garlic, shallots, and basil and stuff into the mushrooms. They will be overflowing, but it will cook down. Drizzle the mushrooms with balsamic and olive oil, then sprinkle with sea salt and the pepper of your choosing. Let marinate for about half an hour, then place the mushrooms, bottom up, on the hottest part of your grill for five minutes. Remove and enjoy.

Grilling the mushrooms is my favorite way of preparing these, but baking at high heat, or using a broiler works great too.

Apple Gorgonzola Salad

2009-10-12T22:56:00.000-07:00

This is a personal favorite - and great for big groups. My wife perfected this one (Thanks dear!).

Ingredients:

1 head of Romaine (de-ribbed), or a bag of mixed greens, or both.

Adjust according to how many people will be eating. (TIP - once the dressing is applied the salad doesn't keep very well, so it is best to eat it all at once. The extra dressing will keep for at least a week so you can make more later, and it'll be fresh)

1 cup coarsely chopped, glazed walnuts (pecans work too if you prefer)

to make the glaze, melt 2 to 3 tablespoons of butter on a light heat. Increase heat slightly once butter is melted. Toss in nuts to coat, then add 1/4 cup of brown sugar. Stir until the sugar has melted and created a coarse glaze on the nuts.

1 Granny Smith apple, chopped

1/2 cup crumbled gorgonzola

Red Wine Vinaigrette (usually makes enough for two salads)

1/3 cup red wine vinegar
3/4 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. dry mustard
1 tsp. salt
1 pinch black pepper
2 tbsp. red onion, chopped fine
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil (a splash more if you are making a larger salad)
Combine ingredients in a mason jar and shake to emulsify