Category: cooking

May 8, 2024 – It’s Not the Time…

May 8, 2024 /

In December, one of my culinary book club peers gave me a sourdough starter. He is a tremendous bread maker and everything that he has shared seems nearly perfect. He says that the starter is over forty years old. Clearly, his efforts are the result of years of effort.

I didn’t ask for it, so I suspect that my wife did. Because as far as I knew, it was unsolicited and therefore I felt a sense of duty to keep it alive. Since December, I have made probably ten or so loaves of bread. All of them pretty marginal if I say so myself.

Like many of the things I do, I push the boundaries. I also don’t like waste. About a year or so ago, I accidently purchased some whole wheat flour. People in my house refuse to use it for anything, so I have been doing a half bread flour and half whole wheat flour loaves. The thing about whole wheat is that it does not develop the same gluten reaction and it comes out dense.

As a result, I have been messing around with the rise variables. The problem with sourdough is that left too long, it becomes gummy and thin, not bread at all but pancake batter. If not allowed to rise enough, it is a rock. Neither are desired results.

Ideally, this loaf would be 50% larger. I didn’t have time to let it sit for extra days nor did I actually have time to bake it properly. Hence, chock it up to another failure. But for every failure knowledge is gained. In this case, I used the oven off function because we had a doctor’s appointment to go to. All the while, the oven wasn’t on it continued to slowly dry out. It wasn’t a total puck but a 1/4″, rock hard crust all the way around.

Now to my point about time. Looking at the recipe, the only time listed as the bake time. It needs to bake at 400 degrees for approximately an hour. But, bread by its nature is way more complicated than that. Let us look at the variables and conditions.

First there is proofing time. This has been what has mostly been burning me. I find that in the winter, the kitchen temperature is not warm enough for dough to rise properly over night. This in turn puts it in jeopardy before I get started with meal planning. I think commercial operations use a proofing device or room for more consistent results.

Baking time is pretty straight forward. Some variability is expected but it is more or less along the time of the recipe. Another thing that burns me is bread needs to be done at least an hour before dinner. You cant just take it straight out of the oven to the table. I think if you are planning to eat by 6:00, bread should be done by 4:30.

Working backward, to be done by 4:30 it needs to be in the oven by 3:30. And don forget that the oven needs time to heat, so that means the oven needs to be turned on by 3. This means that the bread has to be risen by 3. If you check your progress at 12:00 and you don’t have the proper proofing, you are likely out of time to make perfect bread. So, you need to know whether you are going to gamble or throw in the towel for another day.

End Your Programming Routine: Now that I have written this all down, it seems simple. Hopefully, I can get my timing down such that all I really need to be concerned about is the proof. I am still working on that too. It is a good thing that I have to waste sourdough starter every week and I still have five pounds of wheat flour. Maybe I will get this figured out.

May 7, 2024 – Will It Juice?

May 7, 2024 /

When you start to get some age on you, unfortunately some people we once new are no longer with us. Also some people that we know are also survivors. In this case, one of my wife’s friends is a cancer survivor and she said that juicing was a key part of her treatment process. The first couple of weeks she brought some juice by and then she bought my wife her own juicer.

This is a nice piece of equipment. It is Breville which means that it is pretty high dollar (and well made). My first thought is where is this going to be stored? Then looking at it a little more, how much of a pain in the butt is this going to be to clean? It is my opinion that a healthy life tips the balance more towards a diet of whole foods. I think juicing is a short cut in a sense, but it certainly must be better drinking things that came from a can or bottle.

Putting my reservations aside, my wife wanted to use it so I set out to find some recipes to try. I found two that were advertised as ‘Energy’ and ‘Anti-Cancer’ so that is what I set about to do. Will it juice?

These recipes are for one batch which seems to produce about a cup worth of juice. The first one is Energy.

  • 1 stalk celery
  • 1 apple
  • 1 lemon
  • 4 leaves of kale
  • 1/2 cucumber
  • 1 inch of peeled ginger

The second one is cancer fighting.

  • 2 carrots
  • 4 stalks celery
  • 1 lemon
  • 1/4 head of cabbage

This is the output of the second one. Once everything is stirred together it is a very vibrant orange. Left to its own devices, it will separate again in about a day. It appears that a very fine degree of solids is allowed to pass through the screen and those solids float to the top.

I tasted both of them. Neither were bad. I have to say that the green grass taste of the ‘Energy’ was less appealing, but not horrible. I could see having a glass of this every breakfast or something like that. I would probably want to try some other recipes to find what I really like. There were some recipes that contained rhubarb and that stuff grows like a weed from my plants. It seems like a good strategy when gardens start to become prolific.

I made a couple of batches with the thought that they might last the week. I have to say committing to this uses a lot of produce. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some might say it is the point of juicing. Just be prepared that finding a steady stream of vegetables are going to have a financial impact.

After trying things, there are still two downsides. The first is to find a home for this machine. I don’t want it living on the counter for the rest of my life. The second is cleaning. The catch barely holds a double batch and there are a lot of parts to wash. The filter screen has to be scrubbed because the fine fiber tends to plug the screen with each use. It definitely takes more time to clean than to use. Not ideal. There is a fair amount of waste generated. This makes excellent compost fodder or even chicken food. Since I have neither at the moment, I feel bad about throwing it out. But beware, you will have to deal with that as well.

End Your Programming Routine: Will I ever become a juicer? Probably not. I could definitely see making some custom Bloody Mary mix though. Think about it, the possibilities are almost endless. I am committed to making juice while my wife goes through treatment. I am going to sneak in a few things that I want to try while I am going through the effort to do this. I have to say that it is kind of fun and amazing to see the amount of water in celery.

March 19, 2024 – Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit…

March 19, 2024 /

I like beans. They are inexpensive and store well. They are culinarily versatile and bridge the gap between the omnivore and the vegetarian. So, what is not to like? The people that eat beans, know beans. The process is not hard but it can come with some hidden variables. Let me explain.

The thought of a good pot of beans and a hunk of bread makes a good thought for a winter’s dinner. The last couple I have made didn’t go so well. The reason being is that the beans were from old stock. After a standard amount of cooking, they were still hard. After double amount of cooking, they were still hard. After another day’s worth of cooking, they were edible, but still harder than I would like.

Dried beans are just that. They are shelled after the pod matures and then dried for later use. Old beans are more thoroughly dried. They don’t change materially, they just continue what is natural. My failures were the result of not knowing the status of my beans and mis-planning accordingly. When beans are part of the menu, you want to make sure they are done before your planned dinner.

For this reason, many of today’s cooks just go straight to canned beans. I can certainly understand the consistency factor, just heat. I find canned beans to be easily overly cooked. They also don’t take up the broth and can be a little lifeless as a result. For weeknights, canned beans can help alleviate planning problems. The place where I find the best use is when quantities are small.

In certain ethnic circles, beans are well known. It is not just for Latin and Texmex foods, but African and European foods use different beans as well. Asian foods tend to use the sprouted form because beans are seeds in reality. You are not going to do that with canned beans.

The thing I always think about is the phrase ‘beans, bullets and band-aids’ that refers preparedness minded people buying a bunch of beans for their potential future. It is true that they are inexpensive calories that store well and can be neatly packed. However, if they are not getting rotated, when that time comes to actually eat them a rude surprise is awaiting. This goes back to me saying, those who eat beans, know beans.

One technique that I wish to try is cooking beans using a pressure cooker. If I owned a pressure cooker, then I would. There are two techniques commonly used (on the hard beans, not lentils). One is soaking the beans overnight with a one-ish hour boil. Anecdotally, dump the soaking water the next morning. I swear that it reduces the amount of flatulence that comes with beans. The second is a hard boil followed by a rest and a second boil. I tend to use the first method because when I make beans, I usually use the crockpot. I have heard that the pressure cooker combines the steps into 15 minutes or so.

As I alluded above, not all items found in the bean isle are the same. Lentils, split pea, garbanzo and black eyed peas are some that do not require so much cooking. These are ones to be looked to for the weeknight or days that less planning has been done. Pinto, black, kidney, navy or white beans need that more aggressive and longer preparation. In fact, the former will turn to mush with too much cooking. So, you have to know your beans.

End Your Programming Routine: My black beans turned out great. I got lucky that they weren’t too old yet and had plenty of flavor to go with the tamales we bought from a fundraiser. I started them with four hours to spare, just in case. Learn to cook beans and it will open a whole culinary world.

March 6, 2024 – Did I Invent Something?

March 6, 2024 /

A couple weeks ago, we had our culinary book club dinner. I didn’t plan this on purpose, but I decided that I would bring some of my kim chi to share. It was kind of an easy out for me since I had already made it, I didn’t have to rush to cook before the meal. Predictably, people took a courtesy serving leaving me with a lot of leftover kim chi. I don’t mind, I want to get this superfood lifestyle anyway. It is why I made it after all.

My wife has had some interesting food cravings lately. One of them is that she wants to eat a lot of hotdogs. We bought a pack at Costco at the beginning of the month. She was off with her friends one night and so I decided that rather than investing a lot of time cooking, I would just heat some hotdogs for myself and my son.

I am a fan of lacto-fermented foods. I love sauerkraut on my hotdog. And being a practical person, I was going to take a healthy serving of kim chi because I am going to be the one that eats it all anyway. All of the sudden I got the idea that I would have a bite of hotdog with kim chi. Wow.

It is almost better than sauerkraut. It is not just acidic but has crunch and the chili adds a zing to it. I had never heard of kim chi on a hotdog and my mind started going. It is nearly perfect, but I think adding some kind of sweet plum sauce as well would be the perfect combination of sweet and sour balance.

I did a quick internet search and certainly there is something for anybody out there by now. The truth is, there is very little on the subject. That means that very few people have ever put this combination together. This is a perfect fusion/food truck idea. I know that sauerkraut is not for everyone. But for those that like it, I think this is a twist worthy of consideration. It is also worthy of some experimentation for perfection.

Mind you, my kim chi is a modified version. I didn’t add fish sauce nor did I add extra rice starch liquid. My plan was to dress those things later at the time of serving. I actually think this version is a better compliment for a condiment than the traditional version. Nobody likes a soggy bun and the fish sauce umami is un-needed. But again, those could be added at serving.

End Your Programming Routine: I often find that my best results are the repurposing of ingredients. The more I experiment, the more free my mind wanders. This is a perfect fusion of east and west. It doesn’t look like I invented it, but it sure appears to be unknown. Give it a try.

February 28, 2024 – Repurposing Super Bowl Leftovers

February 28, 2024 /

I hope that you don’t have leftovers from the Super Bowl still. It took me a while to get to this topic. But I wanted to put out mind opener. Let me cover what we had going here. I had a crab Rangoon dip with a bunch of raw crab, queso dip and spinach artichoke dip. So what can we do with this stuff other than eating a bunch of chips, crackers and dip for weeks?

First of all, I had wings on Monday and we did make nachos on the Tuesday after the super bowl. But we did have a lot of queso dip left after that. You have to use your brain here. What is in queso dip? The dip was evaporated milk, white American cheese and a can of green chiles. I found it to be really bland to begin with so why not repurpose this? After all, alfredo sauce is a cheese dispersed in milk.

To combat the slight, wrong cheese flavor, I heavily seasoned shrimp with Cajun seasoning with some to the sauce as well and thinned the whole thing down with cream. I served over fettuccini noodles. You would have never known that this started out as queso dip.

The crab Rangoon dip needed a little more delicate flair. This dip was made with crab, cream cheese, green onions, topped with some shredded cheddar cheese and sweet chili sauce. I love to use this kind of thing as omelet filler so that is what I did.

I purchase crab for the dip in a can. We only needed about half of it so we had probably a cup of crab. That got made into a seafood chowder. It wasn’t enough crab to call it a crab chowder so I supplemented by adding some canned clams. My point with this one is that you can still use up smaller quantities of leftovers by adding other items with them.

The spinach artichoke dip stayed just that. It is a whole lot easier to finish off one dip than three. I really didn’t apply much thought to repurposing this one but may some kind of soup? Maybe I could have even thrown it in with the chowder? Something to think about.

It didn’t hurt that I had nearly a half gallon of cream that was near the expiration point. I had to act quickly with all of these things or risk them going bad. I am pretty happy with my creations and those leftovers will become lunch portions that I will much more likely eat than a big container of dip.

End Your Programming Routine: Making all of these things was my wife’s brainchild. I would have probably made one thing and focused on the game. That being said, we both have our idiosyncrasies. So, it was my job to figure out what to do with the leftovers. Truth be told, I think the re-creations were better than the original. It comes with a second helping of satisfaction as well.

February 6, 2024 – What is Wrong With My Chex Mix?

February 6, 2024 /

We are getting very close to Super Bowl time. My mind is wandering to snack food. But then again, food is always in the background. This one has been simmering a little because I have attempted Chex Mix multiple times since the holidays.

My wife said that she had a hankering for Chex Mix before New Years. On one of my trips to the grocery store, I picked up three different varieties of Chex cereal. If you haven’t made this before, the recipe calls for the corn, rice and wheat varieties.

The official recipe is melt three quarters of a stick of butter. Add 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, 1 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt, 1/2 a teaspoon of both onion and garlic powder to 3 cups of each variety of Chex, and a cup each of nuts, pretzels and rye chips. You pour the butter over and the mixture and microwave for five minutes.

I should have known that any recipe that involves microwaving is already suspect. This mixture has been around for a long time and I don’t ever remember microwaving it. More so than that, I have made it twice and it is well under seasoned. I even left out the rye chips because I couldn’t find them so there should have been more seasoning per volume.

Over the years many of us have bought the bag of Chex mix. In my opinion it is OK, it doesn’t hold a candle to the home made version. I think it has to do with the butter and the Worcestershire sauce. Plus, I don’t remember nuts in the bag. The commercial version has all dry ingredients plus a soup of preservatives which is a poor substitute to the real tang.

Chex mix is one of my aunt’s staple snack dishes. Every time I have it, I think how I should make it more often. In reality, I should probably ask her for tips instead of complaining online about why mine is not living up to my expectations. Nevertheless, I repeated the recipe twice to verify that the published recipe is not right or at least not what I think it should be.

Honestly, I don’t really know what is wrong. Should I use margarine instead of butter? My gut says to double the seasoning and maybe even triple or quadruple the Worcestershire. I pop popcorn using an air popper all the time and a little butter and salt is plenty for the whole batch. But, that is a simple seasoning, not the tangy and fragrant snack.

What a first world problem; this could have been an episode of Seinfeld. The reason I bring this topic up is that now is the time to perfect your Super Bowl party recipes. I know that I am a risk taker and I often make dishes for the first time at big occasions. But, if you are not a confident as I am or maybe not as skilled, you might want to practice before the big show.

End Your Programming Routine: What I can say is that I wouldn’t serve this recipe at a party. It lacks a lot of pizazz. I will be trying this again with some variation and if I find the secret I will report back. There is an alternate preparation that uses the oven at 250 degrees that I think helps bake in the flavor rather than the microwave. I am looking forward to the testing process.

January 31, 2024 – Risotto, As Easy As 3.141592653589793

January 31, 2024 /

Of course I am being facetious. Risotto has a stigma of being on the menu of fancy restaurants, therefore it has to be complicated or difficult. Not so, and I am going to tell you how. First of all, we have to understand Risotto itself. It is a specific variety of rice that is grown in Italy, not as it is sometimes described as a pasta.

Risotto itself is the name of the dish, you start with Arborio rice. This is part of the confusion. When you go to the store you don’t find anything named risotto and you certainly don’t find it with the pasta noodles. As rice goes, a little goes a long way. I only see it in small packages.

The basic formula is aromatics, Arborio rice, chicken broth and parmesan cheese. Everything after that is optional. I am making shrimp risotto today.

In my opinion, the most important thing with risotto is mis en place. Because technique is really the only thing that makes the dish, everything needs to be prepared and in place so that you can focus on the cooking. It is not like you cannot look away but you better be close and paying attention if you want good risotto. I release the flavor in the shallot.

Put in the rice and brown it up a bit. So far, it is just like Rice-A-Roni. Now, to make risotto, add 1/2 cup of chicken broth and stir it in. Keep the mixture boiling until it is almost gone and repeat. Keep doing this until the rice is cooked. How do you know it is cooked? Taste it. As a guide, this 1 1/2 cup of rice used about 4 cups of liquid.

Proper risotto is slightly al dente, just like pasta. However, my wife prefers that all gone. I am fine either way so I try to go her way. Make it how you like. When the rice is cooked, I added cream and cheese and turned off the heat. I want it to be hot but I don’t want a lot of extra mixing after I add the dairy. That is it, you have made risotto.

End Your Programming Routine: Chef Keith Snow says that risotto is a secret restaurant joke. The patrons think that it is exotic dish that turns out to be premade and reheated rice. Sometimes we get disappointed because when order it, the dish doesn’t deliver as in your head. The nice thing about making at home is that you can make it how you want it. See, it wasn’t hard.

January 10, 2024 – Kim Chi Me

January 10, 2024 /

This is the inaugural fermentation. I picked Kim Chi because I have a large container of the Korean pepper gochutgaru lying around. My wife loves to buy me spicy things and yet many people do not have the same affinity to spicy things as I do, so I do have a backlog of spicy stuff hanging out.

Lactofermentation is very easy. Keep the stuff in an anaerobic environment and it takes care of itself. To do that, add salt and a weight. The salt brings out the liquid from the vegetables and the weight keeps them under the liquid level (created by adding salt). That is it.

If you want the probiotic lifestyle (that is to say benefits), then you need to keep the ferment raw. Canning or cooking will kill those beneficial microbes. The good news is that it can be served directly from the very container it is made in and as long as the end product stays under water, no harm will ever come. Discard anything that molds, that is not anaerobic anymore.

Sauerkraut by contrast is very simple, cabbage and salt. Kim chi has a few more ingredients but not terrible they are as follows.

  1. 4#, Napa cabbage
  2. 1#, Daikon radish
  3. 2, carrots
  4. 1 bunch, green onion
  5. 4 cloves, garlic
  6. 1 inch ginger
  7. 1/4 cup, korean pepper
  8. 4 tablespoons salt

I looked at a number of recipes and it does appear that official kim chi has some sugar and fish sauce as well as a rice flour type gravy. I figure I can add this after the ferment or adjust things later if I choose to so I didn’t add it.

The trick is to layer the cabbage and salt. I have a special tamper that is used to press the salt into the cabbage which helps get the water out quicker. I also used it to mix the different components around as I added them. It is kind of like a tenderizer for meat. It is really not necessary, I have made sauerkraut without it.

Once everything is in good contact, I put the weights in and the lid on. Keep the crock at room temperature while it is fermenting. All that is to do is to wait. You can see on the last picture that there is already a complete layer of liquid. This was only after an hour and a half.

How do you know when it is done? When it tastes to your liking. Expect three days to a week in general. To slow the process, chill.

How will it be stored? It can be served directly out of the crock or it can moved to another container.

How long will it keep? It can easily last over the until the next growing season. Use your eyes and nose as guides

End Your Programming Routine: My three gallon crock is significantly too large for this size batch. So, I plan on moving it into a 1 gallon (or 1/2 gallon or even quart) jar and put in the refrigerator when done. I plan on making a nice batch of pickles later in the spring when cucumbers actually start producing. And I am definitely going to load up with sauerkraut in the late summer. What I am saying is that this is a great size to make a lot of stuff but not as great to store and serve. More experimenting to come.

January 4, 2024 – Did You Get Anything Cool For Christmas, I Did

January 4, 2024 /

As you know, I am not a fan of Christmas. I am not a great gift giver and most of the things that I want are very expensive. Gifts are often a disappointment. It is not that I don’t appreciate a nice, new flannel. In fact I was thinking of buying one as I was wrapping up our Christmas shopping. I didn’t want to spend the extra money at the time, but it is just not fun.

I have wanted a fermenting crock for many years. The older I get, the more I appreciate sour and bitter flavors. In fact, I have made my own sauerkraut before. They are not terribly expensive, about fortyish dollars and I almost bought a handmade one at the state fair this year. I meant to, I just didn’t want to carry it all night and then I forgot by the time we left.

Honestly, this one is a little large. It is three gallons. That is a lot of fermented vegetables. They are meant to be out on the counter. If you think about it, how many pickles are you going to eat in one setting? You take one out each day and this is a way to get those beneficial probiotics. I think a more practical size is one gallon for that purpose. I would call this more of a production size.

Probably like all things, it is one of those things that one is not enough. In reality, you want one fermenting while eating out of one. So, maybe in the future, I will get a one gallon size for that reason. As I said, they are not that expensive. I also have been saying, start where you are. It doesn’t matter how many things you have if you don’t use them.

Sauerkraut, kimchi and pickles are definitely on the agenda. This time of year, there is not a lot of surplus, so I will start with store bought vegetables and small. As much as I like this stuff, it will be hard for me to get everyone onboard meal after meal. Start slowly and see how it goes.

What is nice about a store bought fermenting crock is the accessories. It has a properly sized weight for the vessel and an appropriately fitting lid. This can be done in a pot or a bucket, I have done both. This process is not about the tools, it is more about the acceptability of your spouse. Having a vessel that is approved to stay out on the counter makes it much more likely that it is going to bet used.

End Your Programming Routine: This quarter’s Backwoods Home magazine is all about fermenting. I am looking forward to reading that. It will be inspiration for my new element of fermenting. I would like my first project to be pickles, but I think it is probably going to be kimchi instead.

December 20, 2023 – First Action Movie

December 20, 2023 /

A friend recently gave me a sourdough starter. Actually, he gave it to my wife because she often makes comments to be polite. Well he did it and when I gave it to my wife, she said “He gave me a gift for you?” Anyway, this is one of those things that I find very heartfelt. Now, I have to really take care of it to do the gift justice.

https://youtu.be/nHkYDpDGOTU

I was listening to Keith Snow the other day (“Harvest Eating Podcast”) and he was talking about pandemic fads. Sourdough was one of them. I hear that this particular starter has been around for over thirty years. Don’t be fooled, it is not the starter that makes the bread good but the technique.

I am trying to scale back carbohydrates in our house. I want to get to the point that we can have bread but we need to make it. I know that will significantly limit our consumption. I also believe that the sourdough fermentation is a better starch conversion for those sensitive. I suspect that my family is.

End Your Programming Routine: The best part about sourdough is that when the world collapses, you can eliminate a need. As long as you have flour and water, then you will always have yeast. With a baker in the house, I am surprised at how fast a jar goes when used routinely. Oh, it tastes good too.