What did I cook this weekend.....

You've made me get out Rulhman's charcuterie book Never done an emulsified sausage.

 

Of course you realize that using canned or boxed goods is sacrilege....

I remember reading an interview with an old gal who owned a diner in the Midwest and got 'discovered' by New York foodies. A professional food writer ghost-wrote a cookbook for her, and one of the recipes called for a can of green beans.

Of course, the editors were horrified.... so someone was assigned to write a recipe for homemade green beans. The original dish was amended to use those beans, 'see recipe on page 78' (or whatever page it was).

Apparently the old gal had a sense of humor; instead of getting offended she thought it was funny.

 

I love that book! I haven't made anything from it yet as we just started on this stuff - the bologna recipe actually came from the book "Mastering the Craft of Making Sausage" by Warren R. Anderson.

 

Whipped up some "greek" chicken (mustard, lemon, oregeno and olive oil marinade) on the grill with cucumber and home made pita bread. Nothing out of the ordinary there, but we tried grilled eggplant for the first time.
Give it a try people, grilled eggplant is delicious!

 

While olive loaf is not my cup of tea, I think it's awesome that you made your own. I'm curious as to this "pistachio loaf" you mentioned. Is it just like it sounds, the same basic loaf but with pistachio nuts instead of olives? If so, I gotta admit I'm curious, I like pistachios quite a bit. I'd use them in stir fries if I could find them unsalted, maybe unsalted & raw.
Regards, GF.

 

I figured, that's as "home made" as its gonna get when I got the flu. I would like to try it with everything from scratch, especially since it came out good. My MIL would have probably complained it wasn't "real", even if she liked it. She would never admit it. Lol.

 

Yes, same loaf, no olives, add pistachios instead. That's the next one up.

I can buy a bag of roasted shelled pistachios at Costco, which is probably what I'll use. I believe they're also salted, but that's OK with me.

 

Today's fun - homemade half & half yogurt. 36 4-oz. jelly jars and 1 half-pint jar, that one will be used to start the NEXT batch when it's time. This is the best yogurt I have ever eaten, which says something because I generally do NOT like yogurt. It's a texture thing. Well, this is rich and creamy and wonderful. The 4-oz. jars cause us to exercise portion control.

I like a bowl every night, sprinkled liberally with Vietnamese cinnamon, then drizzled with honey, then topped with sliced toasted almonds.

This picture shows it just loaded into my Excaliber dehydrator where it will incubate at about 110* for 8 hours, then into the fridge. It keeps at least 4 weeks - using the canning jars causes a slight vacuum on the lids as it cools so it's nicely sealed.

 

AAAAaaaaannnnd not to hog this thread but I'm on a roll today - just made a big pressure cooker full of lamb vindaloo. DANG it smells so good. Will try to snap a picture when I plate it up tonight or tomorrow night. It's always better the second day.

Now I've got a pound of ground pork and half a pound of ground beef to deal with (left over from the bologna making) - maybe I'll do some kung pao meatballs.

 

Mmmm ... Vindaloo.

 

I'm on a real big roll - now I'm gonna make kung pao meatballs with the ground pork and beef that didn't get used for the bologna!

 

white

MOAR PICTURES!

 

I will, I promise!

 

How did you do the emulsification? I've been wanting to make hot dogs, but I don't have a good enough food processor for it. Might buy one this weekend.

 

I have an 11-cup Cuisinart. Did half the batch at a time, per recipe instructions, processed with 1/2 cup crushed ice. Worked perfectly.

You can't beat a Cuisinart food processor - they're a real workhorse for me in the kitchen.

 

Kung Pao Meatballs

Gotta go get some scallions for the top though.

 

Dang! Temptd, if I wasn't already very happily married I might of had to look you up! Between you and Melana, you all have some Fabulous Cooking. So do the guys but I'm not as tempted to want to marry one of them, maybe a bit of Bromance!

 

Aw shucks, what a nice compliment - thanks!

Yeah, KOTC is pretty dang happy with the food around here, not to mention that his SWMBO likes to brew beer right alongside him. We do have some fun!

 

My wife used to work for a very well-known and well-regarded cake designer. She used to use box cake mix with a little bit of secret ingredient added. Never seemed to impact her business!

I think the idea was that sure, she could make it from scratch. But the decoration was the most important part of these cakes, so why spend time making the mix from scratch when it might be at most barely better than what comes from the box plus her secret ingredient?

 

OK, so if your wife USED to work for this person - she can tell US what the secret ingredient is, right? We won't tell anyone else!

 

I made the filling for a cherry pie from scratch one time. It wasn't shockingly better than a canned filling, and it cost several times as much. Since then, I've focused on making nice lattice-work top crusts instead...

 

Just made a monster batch of tomatilla salsa. Man, I am going to get that food processor this weekend. The Magic Bullet isn't cutting it. We used to have a decent machine, but (my wife tells me) I broke it a while back.

 

I just made tortilla chips for nachos, does that count?

 

If you ground the corn it does!

 

I love tomatillas, I have a 11 cup Cuisinart also, it's been put through it's paces and still going strong.

 

It doesnt count then haha

 

I just asked, and I guess it wasn't one secret ingredient. Sometimes she'd add things like cream cheese or flavorings, sometimes she'd adjust the ratios of oil and eggs, etc.

I suppose it's not unlike what many brewers do... Buy a recipe kit, tweak a bit here or there on specialty grains, or hop schedule, etc.

She used the cake mix like we'd use extract, and build the rest around it to get what she wanted.

 

Sounds like the way I cook!

I've never met a recipe I didn't think I could improve with a little tweak here or there. Or everywhere.

 

Sadly there is no pic so no, it doesn't count!

 

KOTC and I just made 7.5 pounds of ground beef from some nice bone-in chuck roasts I got on sale. The bones and scraps, along with some baby carrots and an onion cut into 6ths, are roasting in the oven; then they'll go into the pressure cooker with some seasonings and some homebrew and some water to make a lovely beef stock, which I'll refrigerate overnight to skim off some of the fat, then we'll pressure can it tomorrow or the next day.

That extra half pound of ground beef went into a very tasty Joe's Scramble (onions, garlic, chopped fresh spinach, a small can diced Ortega chiles, eggs, cheese) for lunch.

 

Pizza night
I had some left over leaven from a Tartine bread I'm making and my SWMBO asked if I could make some pizza dough for pizza tonight.
I made an oven baked mushroom pizza and a grilled caramelized onion/ green pepper pizza. Both turned out great.


Dan6310

 

Tri-tip, asparagus, taters off the grill. Cooked the steak more than I wanted, but it was tasty nonetheless.

 

The asparagus was grilled in a pan with pastrami chunks, olive oil, and lime zest/juice.

 

Made some habanero blackberry salsa.

 

I need to taste that! Nice presentation, too, nothing less than I'd expect from you.

 

Yum!

 

Recipe:

14oz can of fire roasted diced tomatoes, drained
1/3 c. diced white onion
1 finely diced habanero
1/8 c. chopped pineapple
3oz diced blackberries
2 tsp. diced garlic
1 tsp. lime juice
1 tsp. honey
1 big handful cilantro
Salt, pepper, and cumin to taste

Give it all a spin in the food processor until you get the consistency you like.

 

"Star Ranch Angus" tri-tip seasoned and coming up to room temp before going on the grill for lunch.

My wife is sick of tri-tip, so I don't have to sous vide this one too make it ultra-tender. First time trying this brand of meat, so I want to see how tender it is with traditional cooking methods.

I asked my son (6 1/2) if he wanted "steak" for lunch, and he said "Every time you say 'steak', daddy, I think 'yes'."

I've taught him well.

 

D'oh! Forgot pic!