77. Doberge Cake

I've never made one before.

It's Mardi Gras, at least for a little while longer, and I lived in Houston, which is close enough to East Texas and Louisiana to have some spillover. I took French in high school, for instance, but it was Cajun French, taught by this old Cajun woman with dentures that clicked when she talked. The French was the same stuff you all learned in your fancy-dancy Parisian French classes, but you know, it's the little differences.

I know how to make a decent gumbo, having learned from Monique Ricard's dad on a Food Day at school. And the guy I dated most seriously in high school was not Cajun, but Czech (another sizable minority in Texas), but the other guy, well, there was some Cajun involved there.

I've eaten boudin (white only), I've had bowls full of strange things I wasn't sure about but ate anyway. Crawdads and other scummy little creatures and rice and beans and all that.

One Mardi Gras Mme. Mallet brought in a Kings Cake, which I wasn't the biggest fan of. I wanted to do something sweet and over the top for Mardi Gras this year, but I knew I didn't want to go that direction. And I didn't want to make one of my standards. So I googled for a doberge cake recipe, and found one that included the ganache for the top. And I made the damned thing.




Mine was only a six layer--and one of those layers was in pretty bad shape--but it was still filled with the chocolate custard and topped with chocolate buttercream icing. I cooked up the ganache and poured it over the whole thing--it took me several hours of standing up in my kitchen to create this, and by the time I was done, I wasn't waiting for it to chill further. So we ate it. The girls moaned from the living room: "Too much chocolate!"

I couldn't finish my piece. I started to feel dizzy.

It was perfect. Awesomely perfect. Just what Mardi Gras is supposed to be.

The thing is so tall, my aluminum cake saver was too short. So was my tupperware one, which has fit every other cake I've ever made (most fit into the aluminum). This thing was ridiculous. So we upturned my stock pot. The one I make tomato sauce and salsa verde in--the big one. Cleared off the milk and juice shelf in the fridge.

It looked like something exploded--something tasty, but still--in my kitchen. I started to clean up but then thought, no, tomorrow is Ash Wednesday. I can do this penance tomorrow.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif


Edited, for Jules, to add link to the recipe I used for said cake. It takes a lot of time. But it is very very good (and lasts forever--we got probably 18 pieces out of this thing).

74. Donuts

I made donuts today. I used a recipe in a reprinted cookbook, identical to an ancient (well, 1940s) one that sits in my parents' kitchen. It, in general, makes lousy cookies and some creepy things (there is a recipe for possum & stuffing, for instance), but it is the source of my waffle recipe and now my donut recipe.

Jake grew up making donuts. I have never made them. Like fried chicken, donuts were something you purchased, not made. We made other things (like waffles, for instance) but we didn't fry anything.
(note: glass milk bottle, aluminum pitcher, unbrushed hair: just a glimpse of life in Chez Kennedy)
I didn't use a deep fat fryer--we used to have one but it was purged long ago. After I made the soft light dough and cut the donuts with an upturned glass and an icing tip, also upside-down, I dropped them into 3 inches of oil in a 3 quart saucepan, with a meat thermometer attached to keep it between 350 and 365 degrees.
h(note: this is as clean as the stovetop ever is. Mark this down, red letter day)
I have an electric stove, and I know many cooks look down their noses at it, but I've never found it to be a problem (except when you want a large pot on the back burner, but that's the stove's design, not the fuel source). I turned the burner to medium high and if the oil got above 365, I eased it half-off the burner. That was it.

I made a cocoa icing from the same ancient cookbook. Cocoa powder, butter, confectioners sugar, vanilla, and coffee. Perfect.(note: the cookbook is next to the donuts. I didn't even realize I'd done that when I took the picture!)

Jake kept some plain, and shook some fresh from the oil in a container of cinnamon sugar. The other third or so got iced. I have leftover icing in the fridge. I might spread a bit on toast tomorrow morn.

This could quickly become a New Year's tradition.

70. Brussels Sprouts Kids Will Eat

Start with young Brussels Sprouts. What is up with the capitalized name for this vegetable? Is it named for Brussels, like, the capital of Belgium?

Anyway.

Start with young Brussels Sprouts. Cut in half.

Saute in a hot pan with olive oil. Salt and pepper them lightly. They will turn brighter green and yellow at the center.

Take off the heat and powder them with Parmesan or Romano. Google wants to capitalize those words, too.

Serve hot. Fiona's comment: I wish we had more.

69. Salsa Verde Original Recipe and Changes

Here is the salsa verde recipe from Farmgirl:

Makes about 3 pints
Recipe may be doubled; increase cooking time by 10-15 minutes

2 lb. green tomatoes, cored and chopped
1 lb. white or yellow onions, chopped
3/4 lb. sweet red peppers, cored and chopped
1/2 lb. tart cooking apples, such as 'Granny Smith', cored and chopped
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 cup apple cider vinegar
1 Tablespoon kosher or sea salt
4 jalapeno peppers, cored, seeded if desired, and finely chopped
2 Tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon ground cumin (optional)

Combine the tomatoes, onions, peppers, apples, garlic, vinegar, and salt in a large,nonreactive saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about an hour.

Stir in the jalapenos, cilantro, and cumin and simmer for 5 more minutes. Carefully puree the mixture using a stick blender until still somewhat chunky.

If canning, return the pureed relish to a boil, then ladle the hot mixture into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch head space. Process 15 minutes in a boiling-water canner. Store in a cool, dark place.


And this is what I do if I'm not canning:

1. Throw all the green tomatoes in a huge pot.
2. Add enough vinegar and water to get them simmering.
3. Add whatever onions you have lying around. Garlic, maybe a handful of cloves? A few green apples. The tarter the better.
4. Chop a sweet pepper if you have one.
5. Dump in about 6 seeded and cored, chopped jalapenos. Maybe more?
6. When everything is mushy, stick-blender it (or pour it into the blender in batches).
7. Bring to a boil again, add lots and lots of cumin. Some salt. Some chili powder, maybe.
8. Simmer a while. Let it cool down. Pour it into freezer containers and hoard it away!

66. Learning to Can

Melinda came over yesterday. I don't know Melinda--she is a friend of Jen's across the street. They know each other from craft shows. Melinda wanted to learn how to can, how to "put up". She is part of a community organization for sustainable food and growing your own and all that. I told her to come on over.

Raspberries were cheap, the cheapest I've ever seen. I picked up plenty to make raspberry jam, something I would normally not waste raspberries on, frankly, because they get hoovered up at my house at an alarming rate. I pick them myself when I am able (the fall crop is coming in out at the farm where I usually pick, so Leo and I might head out early sometime this week).

She came over Sunday morning, and about 10 minutes before she was due to arrive, I realized I had no pectin. I always cheat. Always. Every jam I make has pectin in it. So much work goes into it, I don't want it to fail. So I had a mini panic, realizing I couldn't run to the store in time, and Mike was camping with the girls so I couldn't have him run out for me. By the time Melinda arrived I had shifted gears. Raspberry sauce, I told her. She was thrilled I was going to do a demonstration and not just a lecture.

Cut to the end: I used a Ball recipe for raspberry jam, warning her it probably wouldn't set. But it did. I followed Ball's recipe exactly and it set fine. It's definitely a homemade variety, it is runnier than store-bought, but it isn't just a sauce. It is jam.

But anyway, I went through the process with her and I realized that wow, I've been doing this for 12 years. Once again, not a novice anymore. And while the internet is probably not the best source for information, pretty much across the board, I'm going to do a few lessons about canning. Maybe it would be better to call them tips. It'll be a few days. I didn't take pictures of the whole process yesterday. I'll need to can something else. Salsa verde perhaps. Hmm.

65. Caprese Salad and Crostini

It is summer. August, specifically.

There have been many Augusts of Caprese salad. This year is no exception, although the tomatoes aren't coming from my yard this year, but from the CSA. Little candy-sweet sungold grape tomatoes. Romas. Big red lovelies for $1/pound because the farm that raises them doesn't consider them worthy of full price.

Mozzarella, the soft white kind, not the gummy string cheese kind. I found the latest batch at a local grocery chain, hormone free.

Basil from the yard. Handfuls of it. It's getting a little on the anise-ish side of basil this time of year (I've missed the perfect moment to make pesto but I'll still make it).

And we had this package of crostinis from the CSA. Crunchy, tasty, perfect with a slice of mozzarella, a basil leaf, a little orange tomato.

We've had it for dinner, just this and maybe some chicken strips from the freezer for the kids, for 2 nights this week. I'm out of mozzarella but that will be remedied tomorrow.

61. Harvest

*Just a handful of potatoes. Enough for a big potato salad, or for two dinner side dishes. Mystery why they didn't work. I'm just starting them over for the first time so I have years ahead of me to figure out. Plus, besides the work, they were free, so I'm not too upset.

*Carrots. Oh my goodness why didn't anyone tell me about homegrown carrots? Like tomatoes, they are amazingly better than store-bought (in comparison, basil is the same either way, just cheaper at home; cucumbers just taste like cucumbers but in more volume, etc). These carrots are little ones, purposefully, although I picked some of them early and they were teeny. But all of them are so so good. They are now the fridge snack for the week. And I'm planting more tomorrow.

*First of the sweet peppers. I've never been great at growing sweet peppers but I have two little ones in the harvest bowl in the fridge. Hmm.

*First of the beans. A handful, but I wanted them to keep producing. I may freeze them...or I'll throw them into tomorrow's deer stew. I don't know yet.

*Basil and parsley ongoing--just bits here and there in the cooking.

*Garlic. Heh. I've talked garlic before. My crops are self-propagating at this point. I have three main areas where they grow: inside the "tomato cage", right outside the cage, and along the back fence. I picked the cage bulbs tonight, and a few outside the cage. Their stems were dead and dry so it was time. The cage harvest was huge (cutting the scapes does do something after all). The ones I could tell were first year growth I scattered in the beds for next year but put the rest on the table on the back deck. I'm freezing it this year. I tried dehydrating chopped bulbs but they lost more flavor than I hoped. I know they'll stay good in the freezer. And if the cucumber harvest goes well, I'll have plenty of bulbs for garlic dills.

*Other growing things: the tomatoes have blossoms and I've picked all the suckers. The lettuce remnants are removed and the areas where they grew are ready for something else (more carrots and beans?). Cucumbers are growing and there are teeny blossoms. Jalapenos. And the 3 watermelon plants I took a chance on because Maeve begged? They're wandering around the west side of the yard. Blooming. I may hand-pollinate to be sure.

60. Daylilies

I fried daylilies last night. I picked a bunch of blossoms and a few unopened buds. I dipped them in a tempura batter:

1 c flour
1 c water
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt

And I fried them. I didn't have enough canola, and so I had to resort to some olive oil, and therefore they weren't as crispy as I would have liked, but they were yummy. So weird.

The buds were the best. I may try them again in other ways. And I hear the tubers are potato-esque. The daylilies in my alleyway are weeds. I like to eat weeds.

58. Last of the Radishes, First of the Potatoes

Two of my 12 potato plants up and died. I don't know if I hurt them as I hilled them up, or if they got too dry (a few others looked sickly yesterday and I saved them by watering the heck out of them--that wet spring spoiled me!). So I dumped out their containers and found enough potatoes to serve as a side dish for dinner. I love yukon golds. Especially new potatoes that are yukon golds. Especially new potatoes that are yukon golds that were planted for free and hilled up with grass clippings and compost and cost me nothing but time (and only recently that, frankly). The radishes got chopped into a salad, but the greens were cooked down in a bit of bacon grease and served as well. Radish greens are not Daisy's favorites. That's ok, though, because they happen almost never. More radishes in the fall, but for now they are done.

57. Radishes

We planted a ton of radishes in the garden this year just to get something going out there before I could plant the things I really like (cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers). They grew. I had never grown more than 3 or 4 before, in a window box, to show Sophia the miracle of plant life back when I was going to homeschool her. I'm just not a big enough fan of radishes to waste precious garden space on them. But this year I decided, through research and gambling, to plant in succession many things one after another. And so the radishes had a place again. We harvested several times, large bunches. There's still a few out there.

And this salad, until I added a few hothouse tomatoes from the CSA, was all from our garden.

54. Easter Eggs

The blue is dyed overnight soaked in vinegar and red cabbage. The yellow took just an hour or so in tumeric and vinegar. Both substances were boiled first before the soaking.

44. Ribs

I smoked ribs today. I started yesterday:

about 5 1/2 pounds spare ribs
dry rub (I used Penzey's Ozark Seasoning)
wrapped tightly in foil and stuck in the fridge for 24 hours

Today:
I soaked about 4 cups of wood chips (I had mesquite) in water for 30 minutes
I started a small to medium fire on the grill, over to one side for indirect heat
I took my roasting pan's rack and turned it upside down on my grill, and then put the ribs on top of it.
Then I dumped about a cup of wet but not dripping wood chips onto the fire and closed the lid.

I repeated this process whenever I checked it and the smoke wasn't smoky enough. I used all the chips by the time I was done. I never had to stoke the fire. I added a sauce, a sort of Kansas City style, to one side of the ribs but I did not soak them in it.

I smoked them, total, about 2 1/2 hours. Which may have been a bit of overkill. But they were lovely. Better than lovely. I plan to sneak down there in a minute and eat leftovers...

42. Pumpkin Muffins

Hooray for frozen pureed pumpkin (or perhaps butternut, which technically is a pumpkin after all). Here's my recipe, which is actually a recipe, as opposed to my usual guidelines or lists.

Oven 350

2 1/2 c all purpose flour
1 c whole wheat flour (sometimes I ease up on the flour ratio)
1 c honey
1 c sugar
1 T cinnamon
1 t nutmeg
2 t baking soda
1 1/2 t salt

combine in large bowl, mix until large crumbs. In a separate bowl:

4 eggs, beaten
2/3 c water
1 c oil
2 c pumpkin puree (that's about 1 can but I have mine frozen from last fall)

Pour wet into dry, mix until incorporated. Add 1 c chopped pecans. Fill muffin tin cups (I line with paper) 3/4 way full. Add sprinkles if desired (I did some of mine with sprinkles).

Bake, depending on size of muffin tin cups, 20 minutes. A knife inserted comes out completely clean when they're done. Cool on wire rack but really, eat them hot so they burn your mouth. They're the best pumpkin quick bread thingy I have made.

41. Cassoulet

I made cassoulet this evening. What is cassoulet? It is a French peasant dish made from white beans and meat (usually pork, according to Wikipedia, and that's how I've had it in the past but tonight I used chicken). Here's what I did.

Overnight, soak 1 pound white beans.

In the morning, cook in crock pot on high for an hour and then on low until done. Drain, leave in pot.

Two hours before dinner:
Sweat holy trinity (bell pepper, onion, celery),
Cut up and brown 1 chicken breast,
I also added about 1/4 cup of diced volpi pepperoni. Just cuz.

This all gets combined with the beans in the pot.

Add 2 cans of diced tomatoes and about 1/8 cup of thyme. Salt to taste (or salt at the table).

Cook on high in crock pot for about an hour and a half to 2 hours. Serve with crusty bread and a field green salad and perfection.

34. Pie Crust

There is nothing like leftovers gussied up with homemade pie crust. We had leftover stew transformed into a meat pie tonight. I drained off a lot of liquid first, of course, and pre-baked the bottom crust.

On a side note, the stew started with a deer roast. Mike made parallel slices in the top of the roast about 2 inches deep and inserted bacon into the slices ("like bread into a toaster") and then wrapped the whole thing in bacon--this was good, but the next step of pot roast was even better. More veggies and it became a stew. It is ending its life as a meat pie. Four meals from one roast (and root veggies and peas to stretch).

But pie crust.

I used to suck at pie crust. Completely. It was a flat rock at the bottom of a pie. I tried to follow all the rules--act quickly, stay cold, use two knives or some sort of special cutter--and I was a loser. But I liked pie and detested frozen pie crust. I had to improve.

I started using a food processor.

I make good pie crust now.

My recipe for double crust.:
2 cups flour (either whole wheat pastry or white)
1/2 t salt
2/3 c butter (I know many folks use shortening but it's not part of my culture)
ice water

I put ice water in a measuring cup, set aside. Combine dry ingredients in the food processor. Stir. Add chunks of butter, process some more until combined fully. Then I turn the processor on and slowly pour water in (it's several tablespoons but I don't know how many). When dust becomes thick crumbs, I slow down. When thick crumbs congeal, I stop and let the processor do the work. If it looks too dry, I add a bit more. Otherwise, I'm done. Cold, well mixed, not overworked.

I roll half out on a piece of marble, dusted with flour. Fold in half and pick it up--line the pie plate and continue with the recipe. Then I roll out the other half and finish. Bake as directed in the pie recipe (or for meat pie, 300 degrees until done and hot (less than an hour or so).

28. Happy Pi Day

Pi Day: March 13 (3/14, or 3.14).

I made a pie for Pi Day, of course. I have pretty often in the past as well. I went with something new: a cooked custard pie. Since Sophia is a fan of chocolate pie and few other desserts that are not ice cream (which she gave up for Lent), I gave that a whirl. Note, in these photos? My stove top is gross. That is the disadvantage of having a stove top that is a drawer--I can push it in and forget it until next time. I do this more than I want to admit. But I do clean it. Really I do. First, into a medium saucepan, combine 3/4 c sugar, 1/4 c cornstarch, 1/4 t salt, and 3 cups of milk.

Warm it over medium heat, stirring. While it warms, separate 3 eggs--you keep the yolks and not the whites, but get rid of as much white as possible. Put this bowl to the side.

Then add a cup of chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli milk chocolate) to the milk and sugar mixture as it warms up. Stir this in and let it come to a boil eventually and stir it for 2 minutes while it bubbles.

Drop a quarter cup or so of the thickening milk mixture into your egg yolks to accustom them to the temperature (I assume?). Then dump the egg mixture into the saucepan and stir while it combines fully and thickens up.
Off the heat it comes, and stir in 2 T butter. Once that is incorporated/melted, dump it all into a pre-cooked pie shell. Chill for 3 hours. Top with whipped cream or cool whip if you're too lazy (I was tonight)It is awesome. Next time I will work more diligently to pull out the yolks completely, because egg whites in a custard create lumps. Not too many lumps, but Sophia was totally turned off by the lumps and had only a few bites. More pie for me. Maeve and Leo didn't seem to notice (but you can see a few there on the slice I photographed).

It makes me happy. I will perfect this one.

26. St. Patrick's Day Potatoes

The old wives tale is to get your potatoes in the ground by St. Patrick's Day. That, of course, is a week away, so I'm hurrying outside to get things ready. I'm going to grow them in containers this year, and since potatoes grown in containers are not the prettiest creatures, I'm planting them back by the compost heap.

This sounds like a good plan, except that due to various factors (babies, hypothyroidism being the biggest two), my yard has totally gone to seed. Literally. My trifecta of weeds is: (1) wild violets, (2) morning glory, and (3) Indian (wild) strawberry. An "also ran" in that race would be English Ivy, although when I'm diligent, I can keep that in check and it isn't as ugly as the other three.

My compost heap is in the back corner of my yard. To make this make some sense, here is a quick drawing. The top of the drawing is north. Our house is south. Don't ask me why the former owners built the parking pad this way with the two skinny strips of land on each side. One side is closed in like a chicken yard, which is where we grow crops that squirrels desire (mostly tomatoes). The other skinny strip of land is fallow. At the end is our compost heap. Just north of it was this huge 100 year old mulberry tree that we took down Fall '08. Now it is a 4 foot tall stump, but it's on the other side of the fence.

ANYWAY. That whole strip of land was all English ivy and morning glory vines. Plus some other unidentified weeds and compost bits that the girls didn't get to the compost heap all the way (our compost heap is open, and is made of a 4x4 and 2x4 frame with chicken wire holding it in).

So I spent two hours this morning clearing out that crap. Then I put down all the containers that will become potatoes. After lunch, I'm going back out to fill the pots.

I have high hopes for my yard. I am a different person than three years ago when I stopped paying attention because I felt too bad. I'm planting greens today, too, in the closed in garden. So here's hoping for a good growing summer and that all goes well enough for me and the kids to pay attention.

18. Universal Beans

I soak beans overnight. There is a quick method in "More With Less" but I don't like the way my kitchen smells when I boil beans on the stove. So I soak them.

In the morning, I turn the crock pot on. They've soaked in the crock pot and then I just turn it on. I don't switch the water. Whatever.

The crock pot never burns them. Sometimes they stick to the one hot spot on the bottom right corner, but nothing stinky. I cook them on low all day. I test them for doneness, and when they are soft but still firm enough to hold their shape, I drain off the water.

I pour in a jar of salsa. Or a freezer container of salsa verde. Or whatever salsa-ish concoction we've received from the CSA. Sometimes I add chopped onion and garlic. Sometimes canned tomatoes. Rarely do I add meat, and then, only leftover chicken or beef bits (sometimes the second night of beans gets stretched with deer meat, but not on the first night).

Cumin. Cumin is not optional in my house.

Salt, pepper, chili powder. Put it all in the crock pot, whichever bits seem right that day. Cover and let it cook another hour or so.

Serve with shredded cheese and/or sour cream. It isn't complete without one of those--it is missing a layer of flavor alone. But with it, it is the best thing, any time of year.

Leftovers go in lunches or Jake eats for breakfast. If there's enough (if I've done more than a pound of beans to begin with), I brown deer meat on the stove (chunks or ground) and throw the leftovers in the pan. I usually add more onion and tomato as well. Chili again, or rolled up in tortillas.

13. Bacon Grease

We occasionally have bacon in our house. It is often an ingredient, but sometimes we make it for dinner (BLTs) or a weekend brunch. I will not feel guilty about bacon. Just sayin.

We pour off the grease into a can, unless I'm truly lazy and let it congeal in the pan and then scrape it into the trash instead. This can sits on the counter by the sink. This can is gross.

I decided over Christmas--it's a convoluted story that involves listening to Pandora radio on my phone plugged into the car on a station I created out of classic and jazzy Christmas music and then there's Bing telling me to save grease to help support the troops in the 1940s--that I wouldn't just throw bacon grease away. As an added bonus, it would also no longer grace my kitchen counter.

Last night was our first bacon since Christmas. We poured the grease off into a can and let it cool in the sink. Stuck it in the fridge, where my parents used to keep a similar jar of grease. I'm sure Jake's parents did too. Or do.

I'm not sure what to do with bacon grease, really. I feel thrifty for saving it in the fridge, but then what?

Lucky for me, there is the internet. Google "uses for bacon grease" and there you go. The best answer I got was "anytime I need to cook something in oil or butter I think, 'will bacon grease do?'"

Probably not the healthiest choice, but a little bit of bacon flavor goes a long way. I'll report back my findings. I'm thinking most of it will wind up on greens this spring, frankly.

10. My Faux Risotto

Risotto is a rice dish, cooked slowly over high heat, adding liquid as need be, stirring constantly. It takes arborio rice, but we have Missouri CSA rice, so that's what I use. Hence, faux risotto. Here's the plan (not a recipe because recipes are for baking, where cooking is a science. All other cooking techniques that I use have plans or skeleton recipes to fill in what I need). I make a mushroom risotto with chicken stock--I am well aware of other very very lovely options but this is my favorite homemade.

Take 5 cups of chicken stock. If you're using dried mushrooms, soak them in the stock to soften.

In a large pan, heat about 4 T olive oil and saute a chopped onion and a few cloves of garlic.

Once the onion is clear, add 2 cups of rice and stir to mix and coat. Once the rice starts to look a bit clear as opposed to dried-rice-opaque, add about a half cup of the chicken stock and the mushrooms (if I'm using fresh, it's about the equivalent of a blue styrofoam package of mushrooms--like 8 ounces?). Stir until liquid is absorbed.

Then it's like the side of the shampoo bottle: lather, rinse, repeat. Only in this case it's a half cup of stock, stir until absorbed, repeat.

Test the rice every so often to see how it is progressing. It may take more than 5 cups of liquid--I use a bit of white wine then, or water. Once the rice gets tender, I dump on herbs--fresh or dry depending on the season--usually in the thyme/parsley/basil family. Salt and pepper--I don't salt my stock so I definitely add some. Keep adding liquid until the rice starts looking creamy and is "done".

I dump in a cup of shredded Italian-friendly cheese at this point (parmesan or romano or whatever CSA equivalent of hard mildish white cheese I have). If I don't have cheese on hand (rare) or the right kind (colby just isn't the same), I put the blasphemous can of parmesan cheese on the table and let my family make their own choices.

Nom.