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United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.

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Sunday, September 08, 2002

Tired now, Ratatouille was ROY G (tomatoes, pepper, squash, zucchini) but no BIV (Eggplant coulda helped me out there, but the color went off-greenish in the stew, no blue, indigo, no violet). Nice to look at anyway. A slice of crusty bread with butter, another pan-fried strip steak, maybe I'll catch 60 Minutes on the tube. The peanuts are not as hot as you'd think from 5 habaneros, but they did catch enough smoke to taste that. I used a fork to feed the laggard smoke bisquettes onto the heating element of the Bradley Smoker. Better than taking them out later and wondering what they're good for. Say goodnight, Gracie. 6:59:03 PM    comment []

Needed brown sugar to cure the baby backs, so I had to make a  trip across the street to Food Lion (I picked up a extra slab earlier today for two, never know when a spare rib will come in handy). I used a whole box of dark brown sugar, a little less than a half cup kosher salt, and a level teaspoon of the curing salts. Packed both sides of both slabs, put them back to belly and wrapped them in parchment before vacuum sealing. They can sit in the fridge until next weekend when they'll be ready to smoke (here, the alarm on the wireless pager for the smoker themometer went off at 170F, so I raised the alarm temp to 200F...fantastic aromas coming from those peanuts). I only really care about meats, produce, herbs & spices, basic cooking stuff like flour and appliances, so when the Food Lion flyer has Special K Red Berries on special (they do, buy one get one free) it doesn't start my engine. Hass Avocados do (at 89 cents per) and Green or Gold (!!!) Kiwi fruit (4 to the dollar) do too. Maybe some of the latter will make their way into the Mehu-Liisa steam juicer next weekend while the ribs smoke. A friend at work wondered about the Mehu-Liisa, asked if it could make carrot juice. I reckon it could, but it would be slow. This is desinitely a job for a juice extractor. I told him I'd give him a coupon that came from LNT that would save him 20 bucks, since I don't plan to use it. I tested the Waring on carrots just a minute ago and got 3/4 cup of juice from 4 carrots. Tasty stuff, that is. Wish there were a good way to filter things at home, a vacuum-based one, maybe an attachment for the FoodSaver (right now, listening to Splendid Table's Lynne Rossetto Kasper say "don't waste your money on Romas!" and I have to agree, the roasted Romas shrunk to practically nothing and still have little flavor, the beefsteaks from The Farmers' Market cost twice as much but reduced to more than twice as much and better flavor too - you get what you pay for, so far the "sale" tomatoes I've roasted have been pretty lame). I suppose a wine filter would work, but they're kinda pricey. Stuff just runs too slowly through seives or strainers and the stuff being filtered out (the stuff that makes it through is the "filtrate", what do you call the stuff you're trying to get rid of?) gums it up and makes it run slower and slower until you just give up. This is especially bothersome with the juice from homemade sauerkraut, I suppose the yeast that makes it cloudy is good for you, like it is in homebrewed beer, but there is something aesthetically displeasing about it when it becomes sediment after canning. I was hoping the juice extractor could double up and do this, but it can't. Progressive filtering, going through gradually smaller holes, is just a waste of time because you still clog up when you get down to the stuff that produces cloudiness. Stuff coming out of the juice ectractor, especially fruit juice, would be great for jellies if you could just filter it. 1:08:18 PM    comment []

Every time I've tried to be precise and use an accent mark or degree symbol (that's just twice), I've lost all my work. This time is was trying to put an accent over the O in Orale.  I went to fonts in Control Panel, didn't like what I saw, hit the "back" button and the whole desktop shut down. Latex Gloves. They're great when you want to use your hands for mixing, but they are not always necessary when dealing with hot peppers. I just cored 5 habaneros sans latex. Just cut off the cap and use a short paring knife to separate the seedy core and membranes, pushing down to the pepper's tip while holding the pepper by the waxy outside with the other hand. This probably won't work with longer pepper that you have to slice to seed. Also, don't run the discarded parts down the disposal unless you have a gas mask. Water hits this stuff and releases a gas that'll make you sneeze, make you weep, and you'll need coolin'. I keep a fan blowing just in case. Once, my sink backed up running hab seeds down the disposal and I had to resort to a plumber's friend. Incapacitating. Now I recommend using a throwaway plsatic bag from the grocery store, and placing it carefully into the trash. Once burned = twice smarter. The Orale! (with an accent) from Lisy Corp. product I'm using is Achiote Molido, or just ground annato. This stuff isn't hot, but it imparts a red color for a clue that the food is spicy/hot. This is also the stuff used to color cheddar cheese, which isn't hot, but somebody musta decided it looked better than white cheddar. I used two tablespoons of it with the juice of two limes, pureed in the blender with the 5 habs. I'll put on the latex gloves to toss all that with a "Family Pack" (reminds me of, ugh, Soylent Green) of Planter's Cocktail peanuts. Of course, the lime juice will make the peanuts soggy, so I've heated up the smoker to dry them out again. Yes, they will be smoked too...using an in-sink strainer to keep them under control, they'll get about an hour of hickory after they are crunchy again. Lime + hot = good, lime + hot + hickory = heaven. 11:16:43 AM    comment []

A taste of Neese's scrapple before a nap, fried in a pan. It's better than Dietz and Watson, but it's still scrapple and not generally liked outside Pennsylvania. The Neese's was good enough to save the rest of the brick, sealed up in a FoodSaver bag. Same for the Dairy Crest Cheshire cheese, a bit crumbly but tangy - label says "the oldest British cheese", though this sample had only been in the fridge a week. The scrapple, vacuum-sealed, had been there longer and had reached "eat or toss" time. It's a keeper. Crumbly cheese and hog offal, the wine selection is Chateau Souverain Sauvignon Blanc, a good Sunday Morning flavor... 4:25:28 AM    comment []

A foodie friend aimed me at Arthur Avenue today and I thank him! Recipe of the week is the feature he recommended, this week it's Bread and Mushroom Gnocchi! Guess the latest pizza brought him visions of Little Italy. It became pizza when it crossed the line of simplicity. I re-used the olive oil from yesterday's roasted Romas to roast today's beefsteaks. That oil, the liquor from the drained roasted tomatoes, and the liquid from a can of ripe olives went into an oil decanter. Most of the "watery" stuff went into the dough, along with dried basil, oregano, and most of the black olives sliced up. The rest of the olives, 5 smushed garlic cloves, and a handful of Spanish capers joined the roasted tomatoes in the "sauce", which was closer to a paste. The surface of the dough got painted with the leftover roasting oil (some went into the dough) and sprinkled with grated parmesan cheese. The dough itself had a red tint from the tomato juice and, because of the acid, rose slowly, but steadily. Dough baked 24 minutes at 300F on the pan, rotated a quarter turn at 6-minute intervals. Kicked the oven up to 400F and peeled the dough onto the ceramic stones at the bottom shelf of the oven for another 6 minutes, took it out, put on the roasted tomato sauce and a sprinkle of mozzarella, then back on the stones for another 6 minutes and out, cool, slice. It was then taken out for a beer and a nice reunion with a friend who tried to hike the Appalachian Trail and has been flat on his back with sciatica for two months. On the way to the watering hole, I stopped at the mailbox and picked up the latest issue of Fine Cooking. I don't remember subscribing, but it's good food porn. The Potato Galette, which I woulda called scalloped potatoes, caught my eye right away. Slices of Yukon Golds layered with Parmagiano Reggiano, Gruyere, shallots and thyme, baked to a rich golden crust - these are uptown scalloped potatoes! There's also a recipe for Moroccan chicken with olives and preserved lemons, with an insert on how to make preserved lemons - a good thing to do when lemons are cheap, 4 to the dollar or better. 2:55:12 AM    comment []