Jon in Albany

Friday Night Dinner Art

2012-01-27T21:44:00.000-05:00

I call this series Black Weber Kettle Grill At Night as seen by my crappy phone.

Dinner is served.

A new look in the kitchen

2012-01-26T21:51:00.000-05:00

We are considering replacing the tile counter tops with this stone. You know, so the pictures of food that I take for this blog will look better.

And because we hate the tile. A lot.

Sausage from the trimmings

2012-01-25T22:35:00.000-05:00

I took the flap off the pork belly and a few other trimmings while making the bacon lat night. Tonight I groun the pork with salt, fennel and black pepper. The bowl of sausage will get made into sausage and broccoli with cavatelli tomorrow night.

The pouch of sausage will get frozen and come out to top my next attempt at pizza. Not sure when that will happen, but I've been catching my brick oven bug again. Summer in February is coming up so I'll get to play with a little fire and a BBQ pit. Maybe that will scratch the itch. A new tile floor is being installed in the lobby of the building I work in. I'd be lying if I told you I never entertained the idea of sneaking out of the building with the contractor's obscenely nice wet saw. The saw is actually an older model, but nicer than the one in the link. The water pan looks better. With the right blade, I know it would slice through fire brick without flinching. I've been a good boy though and just drool a little bit every time I walk past it...

Makin' Bacon Again

2012-01-24T23:41:00.000-05:00

The pork belly was a bit smaller than I was expecting. Instead of being closer to 13 pounds (which I thought was a bit big) this one was a little under 10 pounds. So instead of making bacon 3 ways, I dropped it down to two ways - Modernist Bacon and Pancetta. I didn't think the brisket flap would cure well so I sliced it off. With the trimmings, I'll get about a pound of sausage for some future dinners. Here's what I picked up at Adventure In Food on Monday afternoon. You can see my toes at the bottom of the pictures. I'm on my tip toes trying to get the whole belly to fit in the frame.

Here's the portion I cut off to make the Modernist bacon. This piece weighed in at 2767 grams (about 6 pounds). The Modernist recipe calls for a belly with the bones still attached. I'm not sure why. It wasn't an option.

Once I had the weight of the pork belly, I could measure out the rest of the ingredients. Some corriander got toasted before grinding.

With the exception of black pepper everything else went into a bowl that I just kept zeroing out on the scale. You've got salt, sugar, cure#1, Fermento, mace star anise, and sodium erythorbate.

The belly gets rubbed with most of the cure and sits for 10 minutes.

While it was sitting, I tried to get my new vacuum bags that are extra wide set up. These bags were the only real problem I had tonight. It's always something. Not sure I'm ready to give up on the bags yet. I think I figured out a few tricks that will help next time. I wouldn't recommend these bags yet either. Here it is all sealed up.

Once that was in the fridge, I weighed the belly piece set aside for the pancetta. It weighed 1048 grams (about 2.25 pounds). I was hoping for a little bit more but the pancetta is easy enough to make again. And making it smells so damn good. This is Jason Molinari's recipe. Here's the cure: Salt, pepper, brown sugar, cure#1, juniper berries, bay leaves, thyme and some garlic. The combination smells really good.

Here's the pancetta vacuumed up in a pre-made gallon bag. This was much easier. Worked on the first try.

So now we wait. In about a week or so, they'll both come out of the bags. I'll have to find a place to hang the pancetta but the bacon will spend another week in the fridge before smoking.

The weekend

2012-01-22T23:36:00.000-05:00

The big pork belly I want is not in my house yet. I was supposed to get a call on Thursday telling me to come get, but I have not heard from Adventures In Food. I'll give them a call tomorrow and hopefully they will have it. I've also been on a stew kick. The last one came out great. Instead of trying to duplicate it, I'm in the middle of trying something I saw Jacques Pepin cook. How bad could that be? In theory, we'll eat that on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the "we" in that statement is just me and the Missus. The kids refuse to eat anything stew-like.

On Friday, we went to Defazio's for pizza. I felt a little too self conscious to snap a picture because we were sitting in front of the register and Ray was constantly taking phone orders. I don't think you could find a calmer, friendlier guy to work the front end of a pizza shop. And he knows everybody. At 5:15, it was a 60 minute wait for pickup and all the tables were either full or reserved. The pizza was great. And the kids drank some root beer so they were thrilled. I've got to get there more often.

On Saturday, we braved the cold and went to a Girls Scouts Ice Skating Party at the Swineburne Skating Rink. That place is pretty cool. After several attempts Allison got some skates on and gave it a shot. She did pretty well. Casey couldn't find rentals that fit her and was sidelined. After the skating we stopped for a quick dinner at the Gateway Diner. Very friendly service, but the food was nothing special. To me, one of the non-breakfast tests of a diner is the turkey club with fries. Like I said, nothing special.

Sunday, we headed north to my in-laws, hung out, stacked some hay, and moved some grain. These steers are nothing like the last two. They would have ran into the field and not come back for 3 hours if they saw me (a stranger to them) in the barn. These two just looked at me curiously, ready to go if I moved toward them, but preferring not to run if they didn't have to. We drove back after dinner and Casey passed out in her car seat. It all starts up again tomorrow...I should probably go to bed.

If you have the time, Mr. Dave is looking for a comments war. Stop by and give him hell. I did, and it was fun.

Albany Distilling Company

2012-01-19T22:51:00.000-05:00

I saw on Table Hopping that the Albany Distillery just got their still. I'm kind of excited about this and looking forward to trying some of their stuff in a few months. I signed up for the newsletter too.

I hope they give tours. That would be a great reason to leave work early...like you really need one.

Grand Theft Ham at Price Chopper

2012-01-16T14:10:00.000-05:00

I was robbed. earlier today.

The Price Chopper in Latham has a little deli touch pad where you can place your deli order, go shopping and then come pack in 15-20 minutes and pick the order up. Usually, the system works great. Huge time saver. But twice, I have fallen victim the theft. A few months ago, someone walked off with my whole order. Just gone. Poof. I had to stand there another 20 minutes to get the order.

Earlier today, I was in the store, placed my deli order (quarter pound of hard salami, quarter pound of ham) and went shopping for the week. I was number 77. About 20 minutes after I placed the order, I heard "Deli order 77 is ready for pickup" over the PA and started walking my cart back to the deli. When I got there, easily within 5 minutes of the announcement, the salami was there but the ham was gone. Both the ham and salami were checked off with a Sharpie by the deli staffer that prepped the order. The two bags of cold cuts would have been loosely taped together. Someone freakin' stole it. When I brought it to a staffer's attention, their face had a "not again" apologetic look so it must happen pretty regularly.

Now, I will be able to work through this supermarket violation. Sure it will probably take a few therapist visits, but I'll get over it and feel safe in the supermarket once again. What I really want to know is where the line is for this kind supermarket thief. This is not your typical shoplifting. This particular thief knowingly stole something that someone else had ordered. So my questions for you Mr. or Mrs. Schmuck: I know you are guilty of deli theft, probably also guilty of bringing 30 things into the 15 items or less line before slowly writing a check and you probably live somewhere filled with office supplies that mysteriously vanished from your workplace. And my guess is that you rationalize this deli theft by telling yourself that you are paying the store for the cold cuts so you really aren't stealing. But you selfishly stole 10 minutes from me today. They must be valuable because you couldn't be bothered to waste them waiting for your own order. Not sure how many other people you delayed or stole time from at the counter. Where do you draw the line? Would you pick something out of another shopper's cart because you can't be bothered to find it yourself in the store? Would you lie about pre-ordering a turkey at Thanksgiving? What about a cake? Would you take an ordered cake? Are you doing this in front of your kids? What about at work - are you stealing lunch meat out of that fridge too?

Quit taking stuff that isn't yours.

Bone with saw, flesh with knife

2012-01-15T22:42:00.000-05:00

Awhile ago, I supported a successful Kickstarter project on butchery. The first video is out and it is on breaking down a pig. If you ever had any interest in seeing how it is done, you couldn't ask for a better video.

On The Anatomy Of Thrift: Side Butchery from farmrun on Vimeo.

http://www.farmsteadmeatsmith.com/

Just back from the Troy Farmer's Market

2012-01-14T12:06:00.000-05:00

I just like walking around the market. I wasn't sure what kind of time I have to play with food this weekend so I skipped the seafood stand. Allison enjoyed picking out a bunch of apples from Saratoga Apples and we split a waffle while I waited in line for a coffee from Spill the Beans. I'm a wimp and pretty much only drink decaf. But the waffle...holy crap those are good.

In other news, the Modernist Bacon project is currently on hold. Adventures In Food was unable to get me a pork belly this week. It is supposed to be coming in this Thursday. I've been reading American Pie, Peter Reinharts book on the search for a perfect pizza. Strangely, since I've started reading the book, I've been craving pizza. I believe the book was also the start of his Pizza Quest blog. There are some great web-isodes over there. I'll have to make a post with links someday. I think the web-isodes will eventually become a PBS series.

In other, other news...anyone want to buy some Girl Scout Cookies?

Boom goes the dynamite

2012-01-11T20:10:00.000-05:00

We were testing a few beams at work today. The beams were removed a bridge that is currently being replaced. Turns out if you center about 85,000 pounds on these beams, they break. It was pretty cool, but quieter than I thought it was going to be.

In Modernist bacon news, I have all the ingredients at the house now except pork belly. Tomorrow, I am supposed to get a call from Adventures In Food to let me know my pork belly is back in stock. I think it will weigh 12 to 13 pounds. My current plan (which is very subject to change) is to make 4 kinds of Modernist recipe bacon, 4 pounds or my typical bacon using the Modernist technique, and 4 pounds of pancetta. I am almost out of pancetta and that can't be allowed to happen.

Local Lettuce

2012-01-10T21:35:00.000-05:00

I saw this lettuce in Hannaford or the Fresh Market this weekend and bought it. A package of local, living lettuce complete with Steve's phone number on the label. I should have taken more pictures. There was a cool root bundle at the bottom.

I used the lettuce in a salad with dinner tonight. It's pretty good lettuce. If you were making some kind of lettuce wrap, these leaves would be perfect that. I'd get it again. Well done, Steve.

Showing my age

2012-01-08T14:20:00.000-05:00

Earlier today I was grocery shopping in Hannaford. As I pushed my cart around a corner I saw a display stand and for some reason my eye was drawn to a Taylor Swift picture. I thought, "Taylor Swift put out something on vinyl?!? And you can get her record at Hannaford?!?! That's crazy!"

Turns out it was crazy. Upon closer inspection, it was a calendar. Ouch.

Toxic Friends and Other Holiday Adventures

2012-01-03T23:06:00.000-05:00

Toxic Friends are the best and every New Years we head south to Maryland to see ours. When you are with a Toxic Friend, you eat too much, drink too much and have nothing but fun. Even when the kids are crabby. But before we traveled south for New Years, there was Christmas. The holiday gluttony started Christmas Eve at Aunt Carol's and Uncle Lou's house. A good portion of these perogies were fried up and were basically served "All you can eat" style with a complete ham dinner and a bottomless bowl of shrimp cocktail.

That's what I'm talkin' about...

After Christmas, we had one night at the house before we loaded up and headed to Connecticut to surprise my mother with a late birthday party. She was quite surprised to see everyone show up randomly at the Trader Joe's she frequents. I don't have any photos of the surprise dinner, but it was a unique pot luck smorgasbord of Trader Joe's items we picked up while we were there.

The next morning we set off for Maryland to visit Toxic Friends Joe and Adrienne and their kids Olivia and Nate. We arrived on Thursday the 29th and I was actually kind of hungry for dinner. We got take out from a place called Habib's. The store is part coffee shop with store made bagels and kabob joint with the most amazing tandoori bread. Approximately 5:00 PM on that Thursday was the last time I felt hungry until earlier today (the 3rd). Granted, the lack of hunger did not stop me from eating. The biggest feast of the weekend was the New Year's Eve dinner. The first stop was at a Cosco.

I have always like BJ's, but now I have been to a Costco. I have shopped in a Costco. BJ's, you're no Costco. You can get fresh buffalo milk mozzarella in there and lots of organic stuff. The selection of gadgets electronics, and bulk household type stuff is better too.

From Costco, we went to Frank's Seafood. This place is amazing and really might be the ultimate seafood market.

The place was packed with customers preparing for New Year's celebrations. I spoke with a few people and we were not the only ones that drove half an hour to shop here. Everything in the store is super fresh. Albany could really use a store like this.

After another quick stop in a Martin's Supermarket (yet another place that is nicer than what is currently available in the Albany area) we went back to the house to get cooking. Here are some of the appetizers. These shrimp kicked ass and I ate a lot of them. The bacon wrapped scallops didn't make it into the picture. I ate a lot of those too.

Here's Joe's new wine aerator thingy. You pour the wine through, it makes a cool sucking noise and gets some air into the wine.

Dinner is served, steak from our steers and roasted asparagus.

We also had some proschiutto wrapped asparagus.

A salad to add a slightly healthy look to the table.

Steamed lobster

A big pot of clams, mussels, scallops, and shrimp cooked in garlic, olive oil and white wine.

Look at that freakin' bowl of seafood. The broth was insanely good and there was plenty of bread to sop it up. The leftovers got turned into an excellent New Year's day soup.

John, Jen and their son Joshua joined us for the festivities. They brought a bread pudding for dessert (recipe by Emeril). It was excellent.

And when you topped the bread pudding with the bourbon cream sauce, it got better than excellent.

To make the sauce, you use a slurry of bourbon and cornstarch. I don't think it would have ever occurred to me to make a slurry using something other than water. Makes perfect sense. I also had a bunch of Bailey's during the trip. Hadn't had it in years. There's something delicious about a Bailey's on the rocks.

A superb toxic weekend. If you don't have Toxic Friends, I suggest you go out and make some immediately.

A Bacon Christmas Miracle

2011-12-22T20:15:00.000-05:00

With the help of the internet and a really nice librarian named Terry, I have in my possession the bacon recipe from Modernist Cuisine. If you are half as excited as I am about this, you are pretty damn excited my friend. Terry kindly found the page I wanted out the the 6 volumes (a mere 2500 pages), scanned it and then emailed it to me. Now I have to go ingredient hunting. The recipe calls for Fermento. I wish I knew that last week because I was in Buffalo and could have picked some up. Luckily I have a friend out there that will be able to hook me up so I can avoid shipping charges. The other ingredient I doubt I can find locally is sodium erythorbate. I'll just have to pick a store online and go from there. Everything else is just spices and Cure#1. I've got plenty of Cure#1.

Definitely going to get a whole Berkshire belly from Adventure in Food for this one. This is so awesome. I have been looking for this recipe off and on since the book came out.

Thank you, Terry.

Food & Whine

2011-12-20T21:57:00.000-05:00

The PTA and the Girl Scouts were both running magazine drives at the same time earlier this year. In an effort to pad the girls magazine sales, I ordered a 2 year subscription to Food and Wine. I had never looked at an issue before receiving one in the mail. Many years ago, I had a subscription to Bon Appetite. My first Food and Wine looked pretty much the same as those did. Seemed like every page had an ad and each issue could be counted on for 1 or 2 tidbits that were interesting.

The first issue I got had two "OK" articles, no recipes or techniques worth trying, and a crap-ton of ads. Even some of the articles were ads. You know the kind, write ups for $40 salad bowls you shouldn't have to live without. Typically, I save every food magazine I buy. This one went out in last weeks recycling. 'Nough said.

My second issue recently came. This one has some better articles and one recipe that I might actually try sometime. Jonathan Waxman gave a list of his top 10 obsessions. He also supplied a really good looking beef stroganoff recipe. This issue was also very Top Chef centric. They had their own little Top Chef magazine inside the larger magazine. Personally, I watch the show. If you don't, this issue would have been a waste of time.

One of the features in the Top Chef insert was a trivia quiz. I aced it, but the Just Desserts spinoff question was a lucky guess. Not sure if I should be proud of that. Multiple choice always helps. Phairhead...hope you studied....

1. On Top Chef, Season 4, Spike Mendelsohn was told to pack his knives after using what ingredient?
   a. canned peas
   b. frozen scallops
   c. freeze dried ice cream
   d. smoked salmon

2. On Top Chef Just Desserts, Season 1, which cheftestants were members of Team Diva? (I dunno)
   a. Zac, Yigit, Heather H
   b. Erika, Tim, Eric
   c. Morgan, Heather C, Yigit
   d. Seth, Maleka, Zac

3. On the Top Chef Season 8 Finale, Mike Isabella made _______, which the judges went nuts over.
   a. noodle kugel
   b. pepperoni sauce
   c. stuffed peppers
   d. fish tacos

4. On Top Chef Season 5, cheftestants cooked the dishes for Gail Simmon's _______.
   a. birthday party
   b. book release party
   c. bachelorette party
   d. bridal shower

5. On Top Chef Season 7, Alex Reznik was accused of stealing Ed Cotton's ______.
   a. pea puree
   b. chicken stock (seriously? no reason to steal his box of Swanson's)
   c. whipped cream
   d. watch

6. Who was the first-ever guest judge to appear on Top Chef Season 1, Episode 1?
   a. Ozzy Osbourne
   b. Big Bird
   c. Hubert Keller
   d. Jacques Pepin

7. What celebrity did the cheftestants cook vegan dishes for on Top Chef Season 6?
   a. Natalie Portman
   b. Alicia Silverstone
   c. Beyonce
   d. Moby

8. What flavor of ice cream did Richard Blais serve on the Top Chef Season 8 finale?
a. froot loop
b. foie gras
c. chocolate chip
d. cheddar cheese

Pencils down, hands up. You aced it, didn't you?

Only 22 more issues of my subscription, but who's counting?

Meat The Competition

2011-12-10T12:27:00.001-05:00

It is nice to be included on the list of people that completed all of the Charcutepalooza challenges. While I have no aspirations of actually winning the grand prize (some of my fellow contestants went all out and took beautiful pictures while they did it), it is nice to be on the list.

The Charcute-paloozers

Micky on the rocks

2011-12-09T22:59:00.000-05:00

Well not rocks, ice. Once again, I shouldn't have an opinion about this. We saw Micky and Minnie's Magical Journey (on ice) tonight. Maybe I was just tired and grumpy, but the show didn't do anything for me. Nice sets, good skating but the stories and music weren't anything special. Granted, I'm not exactly in the target demographic and the kids did enjoy the show. I hate to name drop, but Woody and Buzz Lightyear in last year's Toy Story 3 on ice were significantly better. That show was actually entertaining.

This was a few Disney stories introduced by Micky, Minnie, Donald, Daisy and Goofy. The first half was a Lion King summary, a Little Mermaid summary and Lilo and Stich summary. I'm assuming it was a Lilo and Stitch summary because I know nothing about the story. The second half was Peter Pan. Casey was very concerned about Tinkerbell, clapped hard and was quite relieved to see Tinkerbell come back to life.

I snapped a picture of my favorite thing to hit the ice tonight.

There is something strangely hypnotic about one of these things. Plus the envy and jealousy of every man in the arena is palpable. We all want to drive it. We all really, really want to drive it. Please let me drive it.

A Charcutepalooza Good-bye Dish

2011-12-06T00:01:00.000-05:00

Utica Inspired Greens

Tomorrow night, Charcutepalooza comes to and end. I've had some ups and some downs, but overall I have enjoyed the ride. I did some things I had been meaning to get around to trying and the deadlines and goals set by the Charcutepalooza got them done. I thought I'd say good bye to Charcutepalooza with one last dish. These are Utica Inspired Greens so don yell at me for not being exactly traditional. If you want exactly traditional, as near as I can tell you should do this:

I'm more of a kinda make it up as I go cook with dishes like. The more you make them, the more they evolve. I made them once before and this time around they were significantly better. In my mind, the reason why is homemade pancetta. Homemade pancetta is pretty easy to make and significantly better than anything I have tasted bought from a store.

First thing I did was grate some Parmigiano cheese (yes I know that is Romano, but I like it). I usually by pieces of Parmigiano and grate it myself. A microplane really makes quick and beautiful work of it.

Beautiful and pillowy, right? Then I was a head of escarole.

The escarole goes into salted, boiling water until it is tender. I cooked it for about 4 minutes.

Meanwhile, start browning some diced homemade pancetta. I didn't weigh how much I used. I don't think you can use too much of it.

On the right is the boiled escarole with a quick chop to it. On the left are 4 or 5 pepperoncini that were cut and rinsed. I was going to use a hot pepper, but they looked like crap in the store. I had a bottle of these at home and I think they worked pretty well.

The pepperoncini get added to the pancetta fat for a quick saute.

Then come the breadcrumbs. These were left over from Thanksgiving stuffing. I added a good handful and stirred. Then I added some chicken stock. This is another place where homemade stock will elevate your cooking.

Mixed in a bunch of the grated cheese...

Topped it with some more breadcrumbs and grated cheese...

Then it goes in the broiled to get a top crust. A few minutes later you have a pan full of really good eating.

The key ingredient here is the pancetta. It totally made the dish. And you can't but this ingredient. Which is a shame. If you'd like to try some, let me know and I'll share. I'm starting to get low myself and that is unacceptable. There is another batch somewhere off in the near future.

So long Charcutepalooza. It has been a fun year. I look forward to taking the skills I learned in your challenges and honing them over the years to come. I picked up some more sausage casings today at Price Chopper. What to make...what to make...

Charcutepalooza

2011-11-26T16:16:00.002-05:00

Projects 11 & 12 and Thanksgiving Wrap-up

Project 11 was a dry cure and I went with a Tuscan Salami recipe. After the salami had lost just over 30% of its starting weight, I put them into vacuum bag, sealed them and put them in the fridge. Then I traveled for work. About a week before Thanksgiving, I opened some of the vacuum bags and tasted. It was good, but a little more drying would help. So I wrapped the salami in parchment paper and put them back in the fridge. A week in the fridge improved them significantly. I sliced a few of them up for a Thanksgiving appetizer. I plan to bring a bunch to the curling club on Monday night.

The final Charcutpalooza project was to celebrate the skills learned at a meal. I thought Thanksgiving would be the perfect opportunity to share some of the Charcutepalooza experience. The goal was to have at least 3 Charcutepalooza inspired items at a meal. The first at Thanksgiving was the salami. The second was the grilled vegetable and goat cheese terrine. I did my best to slice it so it looked pretty. It tasted better than it looked. I will chalk this up to being one of those "now that you have done it once, the next time will be better" experiences. Now I know what to expect.

Next up was the turkey. After the dry rub and rinsing, I smoked the turkey. This is that offset smoker that recently made the trip from my sister-in-laws house to mine. Behind it are the trusty Webers. That 18" one on the left has been with me since 1997. The 22" on the right was a father's day gift 6 years ago.

If I had to guess, the turkey wasn't fully thawed. I thought it was but I don't think so. The bird went into the smoker before 11 AM. By 3:30 (the time I was hoping to take it off to rest), the temperature of the thigh was 120 degrees. I took it from the smoker and went to the oven and named the process smo-roasting. While it came out late, the turkey looked pretty and tasted pretty good too. And through the power of beer, wine and some North Carolina moonshine my brother brought, I was the only one that cared about the delay with dinner.

The fourth and final Charcutepalooza inspired dish was the string beans. I cooked up some homemade pancetta. I added some garlic and a dash of vinegar to the pan and the reheated the blanched beans. It came out pretty good. Not too many beans were left and that pancetta is delicious.

All in all, it was a good Thanksgiving.

And last night there were leftovers. This is one of my favorite sandwiches. You've got good bread, turkey, stuffing and gravy in there. Something about bread in bread is delicious. While I was taking this picture I was asked, "Daddy, why are you taking pictures of your dinner?" Probably because I'm a little crazy.

Thanksgiving prep continues

2011-11-23T22:28:00.000-05:00

Had a busy, but reasonably paced day. I'm typing at 9:50 and haven't really done any work for a few hours. That is light years ahead of last year. All that is left on today's list is to make a schedule for tomorrow. I started making up an ideal timeline. You have to be flexible with it, but it gives you a good idea of when the gravy needs to get made in relation to when the potatoes needs to get boiled. This year, there is no fried turkey. Not because William Shatner made it seem like I was risking my life, but because what you get in relation to the cost doesn't seem worth it. I mean frying makes a good turkey, but is it worth $30 or more of oil? This year I answered I went with "No." There will be one, larger smoked turkey this year. Thanksgiving gets easier if the turkey is cooked outside. It frees up the whole kitchen. I think I might have said this already...anyhow, here's how the day went.

Got the kids off to school, came home and got going with the final shopping. Got home a little after 9 and put the sweet potatoes into the oven, started making applesauce from frozen apples we picked in September, made a roux for the gravy, and blanched some string beans for the vegetable.

Sweet potatoes ready for baking.

The frozen apples go into a pot and thaw/cook slowly for the next 90 minutes or so.

I trimmed all the end off about a pound and a half of beans. Small batches of greens were blanched in heavily salted water. The idea is not to lose the boil when adding beans. Why? Because Thomas Keller said so and while I have never eaten his food, you just got to give him the benefit of the doubt.

From the boiling water, the beans get dropped into an ice bath. The next fridge is totally going to have an ice maker.

When the apples looked done, I mashed them with a potato masher and then added some cinnamon.

It was still a little too chunky, so I hit it with the stick blender.

While all that was going on, I was also tending to a roux for the gravy. I cook the roux until it looks like peanut butter.

The sweet potatoes got peeled and put into the stand mixer. They get mashed up with butter, salt, cream, little bit of brown sugar and some maple syrup. When they taste good, I add an egg. Then I just put the mixture in a buttered Pyrex dish to get heated tomorrow.

Once all that got cleaned up, I went over to the elementary school and ran a center in my daughter's kindergarten class. The class gets divided into four groups. The head teacher works with one group, a speech specialists works with a seconds group, a third group eats a snack and the fourth group was with me. Each station is 15 minutes long. The hour goes by pretty quick. At my station we colored pictures and made pilgrim hats. When I got back to the house, my parents had arrived. I quickly put them to work making toast for stuffing. They prepped two loaves of Mastrianni bread. That saves me a ton of time. While they did that, I sauteed some pancetta to go with the string beans and prepped all of the onions and celery to get cooked for the stuffing.

That's my new allegedly "green" non stick pan. It worked very well today. Time will tell how it holds up. I can say that new out of the box, this non stick coating is much better than a non stick Calphalon pan and another no-name brand pan were out of their boxes. Once the pancetta was crispy (it was very hard to not eat it all) and the celery and onions were cut up, it was time to go to the bus stop. My parents were done with the toasting mission and played with the kids and I cooked up the stuffing mix.

This gets mixed with sage and thyme. Tomorrow it gets combined with the bread and chicken stock. There is also a smaller vegetarian bowl of stuffing to be made. Once it was all cleaned up, my wife got home and we set out all the platters. Then we went out to dinner. A full day, but paced and never really stressful. I'm off to go make my timeline for game day tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody.

T-Day Prep continues

2011-11-22T23:41:00.000-05:00

Last night I made a Charcutepalooz-ish appetizer. It is a bunch of grilled vegetables wrapped around some goat cheese. I think it will taste good. Might not end up looking pretty or slicing well, but it should taste good. First up, prep the vegetables. Sliced some eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. The red pepper gets roasted whole. Then I made a vinaigrette with the stick blender. Stick blenders are fantastic and everyone should have one.

Lit up a chimney of coals and roasted the pepper first. Then I grilled the rest of the sliced vegetables. It was kind of chilly out last night, but surprisingly comfortable next to the grill.

I bloomed some gelatin and added that to the vinaigrette. I put it in a warm water bath so it would set up too fast.

I lined a little loaf pan with plastic wrap and started layering. Each layer got brushed with the vinaigrette.

On top of the squash, I put in the red pepper and then goat cheese. I ended up with goat cheese all over my hands so the next picture is what it looked like when I put it in the fridge.

We'll see what it looks like on Thursday. Tonight is make the gluten free cheesecake night. Seven (yes 7, VII, siete, sept) blocks of Philly cream cheese go in this bad boy. I start by preparing the crust. The gluten free crust is just pulverized gluten free cookies. Depending on the cookie, the crumbs may need a little sugar or butter. This time I went with Liz Lovely snickerdoodles I found in the health food store. They pressed together pretty well. Hopefully the cinnamon isn't overpowering. Plus, the name made me think of Liz Lemon and that show is great. Le crust:

The obscene amount of cream cheese is whipped with sugar and vanilla.

Then 4 eggs go in one at a time. After each addition, the bowl gets scrapped down to make sure everything is combined.

This is egg 3 going in...

Once the eggs are combined, some sour cream gets gently stirred in.

Here it is just before going into the oven . The foil is my work around for not having a lover walled roasting pan. If the cheesecake pan walls are lower than the roasting pan walls, stem will screw up the top of the cheesecake. I make a foil sling that keeps the steam from hitting the top of the cheesecake.

After about 1:45 in the oven, I put the broiler on for about a minute, and voila:

Only 1 small crack that no one will see. The other news from tonight, I gave the kids some of the Tuscan Salami and they inhaled it. So much for making the same thing twice. It is pretty good, but nothing like the last batch. Maybe next time...

Still in "piece of cake" mode. I'm even taking some time out to go into my daughter's kindergarten class tomorrow. I guess we'll see how confident I am at this time tomorrow.

Have you not heard?

2011-11-20T23:05:00.000-05:00

Well uh bird bird bird. Bird is the word.is the word.

I changed plans today and picked up the turkey. I thought I'd give a Fresh Market turkey a try this year. While the turkey looks great, smells great and will hopefully taste great, I am glad I got it today for two reasons. The first is a change in my pre-cooking method. I have brined birds and also skipped brining in favor of a kosher turkey (both fresh and frozen). Earlier today I remembered that last year I read about a dry rub combination of salt and sugar. You can also read about the method at the LA Times and probably a few other places as well. Takes a few days though and I would needed to start tonight to be ready for Thursday.

The second reason I'm glad I got the turkey today is that the giblets and neck were frozen solid. It took a little bit of work to get them out as well as some ice stuck to the ribs. So much for fresh. According to a Good Eats episode I saw awhile ago, fresh turkeys can be stored at temperatures below freezing. For the center of the turkey to be this solid, this turkey had to be frozen solid. I dodged a bullet here. I doubt the center would have completely thawed in the cold storage at the store by Wednesday and if I had first seen this ice at 9 AM Thursday morning, I would have freaked. Shame on you, Fresh Market. I think I'm going to call and complain tomorrow.

Back to more fun Thanksgiving stuff. Based on some of the discussion over at the Hunger Artist, I stuck to the ratios per 1000 grams of turkey - 14 grams of salt and 7 grams of sugar. The sticker on the turkey said 19.25 pounds. I weighed what I took out of the turkey: giblets, neck, some fat, plastic pop up timer, plastic thing holding the legs and some ice. This brought my weight down to 18 pounds or about 8200 grams. So I weighed out 115 grams (8.2x14) of salt. There was some discussion on fine salt versus kosher salt. I split the difference and used half kosher and half fine sea salt. Then I added 57 grams of sugar (8.2*7). Here's the bird washed and dried.

I covered it inside and out with the salt/sugar mixture.

This turkey wasn't going to fit in any bag I had, so I covered my new super awesome huge stainless steel bowl with plastic wrap. Put the turkey in the bowl and finish the see through mummification with a little more wrap. That should do it.

If I have some time tomorrow, I might make something charcutepalooza-ish. Most of the Thanksgiving shopping is done. House is mostly clean. Very much on pace. Still in "piece of cake" mode.

I love a parade

2011-11-19T22:24:00.000-05:00

After a day of cleaning the house so it is nice and neat before we trash it later this week, we took in the Schenectady parade. I had never been before. Smurf-ette coming at you....

We got there just after the parade started and State Street was packed. I was pretty surprised how many people showed up. This was the original view from a kids perspective:

Pretty crappy. After a little roaming we found a decent spot near the Subway next door to Proctor's. I got the girls up onto a traffic signal cabinet. The girls were much happier.

We only got a few dirty looks from "The Man" for being up there but no one said anything. Seriously, the place was packed.

All in all, a very nice night. We had a good time. Well done, Schenectady.

And now a PSA for Albany Jane: Target has Hello Kitty gloves. The kind of gloves that have a little flap (in this case a Hello Kitty) that can expose your finger tips. Casey loves hers and was very excited to pose for you. Hope they have your size.

And so it begins

2011-11-16T23:09:00.000-05:00

If I am counting correctly, this is the 10th year we are hosting some Thanksgiving festivities. Last year, I fell behind in the prep work and never really caught up. This year is going to be different. I've already looked and updated the all powerful Thanksgiving spreadsheet. Still have a few tweaks, but the preparations have already begun. First thing on the prep list was making more stock. I hit the Asian Market on Central up for two packages of chicken feet. Let them simmer in some water for 3 hours or so then I added onion and a lot of carrots.

I skipped the celery this time around. I was recently flipping through the French Laundry cookbook (which by the way is full of things I would love to eat but will never cook for myself), and Thomas Keller thinks the celery adds bitterness to the stock. It could be the lack of celery or it could be the overload of carrots and I suppose it could be both, but this stock was very sweet. Although it is probably closer to an aspic than a stock. Once it chilled it was chicken flavored jello.

I could have held this bowl upside down and nothing would have happened. The chicken jello was scooped into 2 bags and frozen. The larger bag is for gravy and the smaller bag will get a little water added to it before going in the dressing. Tomorrow, I have to try the Tuscan Salami and Saturday I'll hit the Troy Farmer's Market. I think I might want to try and smoke a chicken in the smoker before I do the turkey. Or at least fire it up and try to manage the heat. This year's cooker is different than in years past. I bought this one with the winning from a good day at the track.The last time I used this smoker...it was before I hosted a Thanksgiving. It has been resting in a garage in Rotterdam for over a decade. Through the magic of my brother-in-laws pickup truck, it made the trip to our house.

I also have to come up with one more dish featuring Chacutepalooza techniques. The final challenge is to host a meal featuring at least 3 of the techniques practiced during Charcutepalooza. I've got the smoked turkey and Tuscan Salami lined up. I've got to come up with one more. Right now, I'm leaning towards a grilled kielbasa appetizer. I'm going to think that one over. A week is still plenty of time. Plenty.

For now, I am enjoying the euphoric, totally ready for preparing Thanksgiving buzz. I am seriously so far ahead of last year it is sick. I'll let you know how I feel Wednesday night. But for right now, piece of cake.

Pierogi Making

2011-11-11T22:29:00.000-05:00

The fall pierogi making seems to happen on Veteran's Day each year. At about 10, we show up at Aunt Carol & Uncle Lou's house. Then we eat a little something. Around 10:30 the filling gets made - Farmer's cheese, eggs, cottage cheese, scallions(green part only), salt, pepper and garlic powder. Then the first batch of dough gets made - flour, salt, oil, water and garlic powder.

The batches of dough get rolled out and circles get cut with and old can that has been cutting circles for pierogi for decades. The rolling and cutting is my job. The circles get filled with the cheese mixture and pinched shut. This goes on until there is no more filling. The pierogi get boiled in batches until they float. When they float, they are put on racks to dry. Later in the day, Carol wraps packages of 6 pierogi in wax paper and then re-wraps the bundle with aluminum foil. From here, the bundles are frozen until Christmas Eve when they are fried to a golden brown and inhaled by the family.

I didn't get any pictures of the process this year, but I snapped a few of the end result.

But wait, there are more....

I counted 125 pierogi made today. Not too shabby. When we were done, there was pizza for lunch. This is turning into a very nice Veteran's Day tradition. And if you have enough hands, these are pretty easy to make. We should probably do it more often.

Mc Rib - a tasting

2011-11-10T20:06:00.000-05:00

Before Tuesday, I had never had a McRib from McDonald's. The people that like them, love them. Really love them and look forward to limited McRib times of the year - which coincidentally correspond to dips in pork prices. I was on the road for work this week. My co-worker and I were supposed to meet another group of engineers in Salamaca (a 325 mile ride from Albany). But while we were cruising down I-88, one of our tires blew out. By the time that was taken care of, we were running pretty late. For a quick lunch we stopped at a McDonald's in Elmira. I gave the menu a once over, debated about trying the McRib sandwich but decided I'd be good and went back out to our truck and and a Balance bar I had brought and just keep drinking my seltzer. Well, my partner had told the cashier that I had never tried a McRib and was on the fence about trying one. She gave him one for free so I could taste one. I was already driving when I found this out. I handed him my phone so I could document my McRib tasting. Here it is in all it's glory:

He cut me off about a third of the sandwich. I didn't like it. The bun was kind of soggy. The actual rib portion was a steamed, salty but flavorless crappy sausage patty. The barbecue sauce was not good. I thought the pickle chip was the best part. About 10 minutes after eating it I had a stomach ache that went away pretty quickly. Granted I'm not the biggest McDonald's fan, but I have no idea how someone could eat the whole thing. In terms of the McRib, I'm one and done. Well, one third and done. The quick lunch on the way back was at a mom and pop sub shop in Vestal. Much better.

Charcutepalooza Project #11

2011-11-02T22:33:00.000-04:00

Curing

Well, the Charcutepalooza Challenge is winding down. And this isn't a project you can finish at the last minute so when I had a little time, I got started. Normally, I grind and stuff sausage on the same night. Unfortunately, I usually start these projects at 9 after everyone has gone to bed. The grinding and stuffing don't take that long. It's the cleaning up that is really the pain in the ass. And with this project you have to add making all kinds of bastardized knots. Sure the knots probably aren't supposed to be bastardized versions of real knots, but I was never in the scouts. I excel at shoe laces and if the situation called for it, I think I could remember how to tie off a line to a cleat on a sailboat. That's about it. Instead of grinding, stuffing and than playing with twine on the same evening (which in the past has ended close to 2 am), I split the work up. On Saturday, I cut up the pork butt I purchased from Sweet Tree Farm and mixed it with all the Tuscan Salami ingredients. On Sunday, I ground the meat and mixed everything together. On Monday, after my trick or treaters were passed out in their sugar induced comas, I stuff the salami, tied it all up and hung it in the basement. Here's the play by play.

I brought out the pork butt and cut up the meat. The ratio of pork to fat looked good to me so I didn't supplement the mix with any back fat.

Once the meat/fat was cut up, it was weighed (1711 grams for those of you keeping score at home).

This particular formulation was created by Chef Bob del Gross over at the Hunger Artist. For the record, I am not sucking up to a judge. Instead of trying something new, I wanted to try and repeat a previous success. As far as curing salami goes, I have always tried something new and had success as well as a few failures. Therefore, in a roundabout faulty logic kind of way, I am trying something new by attempting to repeat previous results. That's my rationalization and I'm sticking to it.

Armed with this weight, I was able to calculate how much of the rest of the ingredients I needed. Starting from the top left corner and working clockwise you have: a glass with a little over 3 grams of Bactoferm F-RM-52 dispersed 28 grams of distilled water, a bowl with 37 grams of Kosher salt and 5 grams of Instacure #2, a bowl with 23 grams of dextrose, a bow with 9 grams of toasted fennel (left half of bowl) and 9 grams of coarsely cracked black pepper (right half of bowl), a small glass bowl with 6 grams of minced garlic, and finally 137 grams of red wine.

Every thing got mixed together and went back into the fridge for a good soak. Then I drank the remaining 600 or so grams of wine. Pretty tasty. See, the metric system can be fun. That was all on Saturday.

On Sunday, I ran everything through the grinder.

Once the meat was ground, I mixed in any remaining liquid (kind of in the left of the photo) and stirred to combine. Here's what went into the fridge on Sunday.

After Halloween came to an end on Monday, I put the meat into hog casings. This isn't the easiest thing to photograph when working by yourself. As a general rule, my wife prefers our digital camera to remain sausage free. Here's the set up. I put the canister of the vertical stuffer in the freezer for a while to get cold. That's why it is frosty.

Got the casings ready to go and the meat in the stuffer.

A few minutes later, all of the salami are stuffed and ready to be tied.

With a new episode of Beavis and Butthead on in the background, I sat down at the table and began to tie up the salami. The show had a few smiles but it was funnier in 1995 when drinking a beer 1:30 in the morning with your roommates while winding down from finishing an engineering assignment in college. When Beavis and Butthead was over I turned on an episode of Community and kept making knots. The lesson I took away from this 45 minutes or so of playing with twine: next time, turn on the radio. Here are the salami in bondage.

Each string of salami was weighed so I can keep track of moisture loss. The weight was written on a piece of masking tape and stuck to the bottom. The ambient humidity in the basement is pretty much right in the salami's wheelhouse. The humidity, measure by the little white box at the top/center of the picture moves between 60 and 65%. The air temperature is also in the low 60s. I took down the plastic drop cloth I have used in the past and I'm just going to let the salami hang out down there. They will probably come down in another week or so. I hope they taste as good as they currently smell.

Time to carve the pumpkins

2011-10-30T21:44:00.000-04:00

I don't know why I like carving pumpkins, but I do. Traditionally each year I carve a face called "Boofus" into a pumpkin. Between school field trips, travel for work, and my general cheapness (had some opportunities to buy convenient but over priced pumpkins and cheaped out) there will be no Boofus this year. But the kids picked pumpkins and tonight they each came up with their design. First up was Casey's pumpkin. She went with what she called "scary."

The pumpkin she picked out of a patch in Burnt Hills was the hardest pumpkin I have ever carved. This thing was solid. I could not open it with a knife. I ended up using a hacksaw. I had trouble with the hack saw. This thing was an orange rock. The beastly pumpkin broke two carving saws and several times I thought I was going to be in the market for a new paring knife. It became personal. It was me against the pumpkin. In the end, the pumpkin lost.

That freakin rock of a pumpkin took well over an hour to carve. Next up was Allison. She did not go the scary route.

I feared having to carve another pumpkin from hell. These came out of the same patch, not too far from each other. Luck was on my side and this pumpkin carved like a non-evil pumpkin. She hasn't seen it yet, I spent so much time on the first pumpkin that bedtime came before I could finish. I think I captured her vision and hope she'll be happy with it.

Happy Halloween!

First snowfall of the season

2011-10-27T22:37:00.000-04:00

and I did what everyone should do during the first snow fall of the season...lit a chimney full of coals and grilled dinner. The view when I got home:

Thawed some of our ground beef and made burgers.

Put them on the grill with a few hot dogs that were leftover in the freezer.

Dinner was good.

Upcoming Charcutepalooza Challenge

2011-10-26T23:42:00.000-04:00

This month the challenge is to cure something. I'm going to go back to one of the first things I cured and try to improve it a little. The recipe is a formulation by Chef Bob del Grosso and the only time I made it, I loved it. I shared some of the finished prodect, but I ate a lot of it myself. I am hoping lightening strikes twice.

Since I can't just make it again, there will be two changes. First, I'm using a different wine. This one was recommended by a staff member at Empire earlier today. For the second change, I'm going to try and use that "good mold" starter culture again. If I didn't already have it in the freezer, I'd probably skip it.

I just put the pork but in the fridge to start thawing. I picked it up at the Sweet Tree Farm stand at the Troy Farmer's Market a few weeks ago. I asked the gentleman running the stand if the pork had been frozen for more than three weeks. He got a little bit of an unhappy look on his face. I think he thought I wouldn't buy it if it had been frozen longer than three weeks. I explained that I was planing to cure the pork and that's why I wanted to know. He looked relieved to have his sale back and told me the meat had been frozen for a little over two months. He then added, "You don't have to worry about trichinosis with this meat. I don't feed them crap."

I have been curing meat off and on for a few years. Probably more off than on, but I have purchased frozen pork 6 or 7 times and asked about freezer time. This was the first time the person I asked knew why I was asking. An impressive surprise.

Charcutepalooza Project #10

2011-10-15T22:17:00.000-04:00

Duck Confit

For this project, I made duck confit. I've never had it but have been curious about it for awhile. The only problem of making it at home without any prior experience with confit is judging the outcome. I have nothing to compare it with. Plus, this past month has been crazy - school is in full swing, the girls are in a handful outside school activities, open houses, two trips to Buffalo, curling season is starting, the list goes on...And that is why this project just came out of the oven about two and a half hours before the deadline.

It all started with buying a duck yesterday. I got out of a big truck that I just drove back from Buffalo, got in my car and headed to the Asian Market on Central. It was the only place I could think of that would have a thawed duck ready to go. I didn't realize it until I got it out of the package, but the head was still on. Being so used to American headless chickens, the head kind of caught me off guard.

Although that experience with chickens paid off and I was able to break down the duck pretty quickly. There are three main piles on the cutting board. In the upper left corner of the board are the wing tips, feet and neck. Just below them on the left are the wings - each cut into two pieced. The two breast are centered up top. Just below them are the leg/thigh pieces. An the carcass is all the way to the right. The breasts got frozen for another time, the wing pieces and leg/thighs are going into the confit. The wing tips, feet are carcass are going to be made into duck stock as soon as I get to the store for some celery.

Following Melissa Clark's recipe (From the New York Times) I coated the duck meat with salt, pepper, thyme and a bay leaf. Then it went into the fridge for a little under 24 hours.

Earlier tonight, I put the duck in a skillet and started to render the fat. I added a little olive oil so that there was about a quarter inch depth of oil/duck in the pan. This was a misstep and I should have seen it coming. I started the duck in a cold pan without any oil because I was expect a lot of pat to come out of the legs. I should have preheated the pan, then added a little oil, then added the duck. The skin stuck to the pan. Oops. I just carried on and pretended it didn't happen.

At this point, the house smelled really good. The pan got covered with foil and put in a 375 degree oven. A few hours later, I took it out and this is what I had.

Luckily, 4 out of 5 dieticians recommend inhaling a few pieces of duck braised in fat as an after dinner snack. I've already eaten all of the wing pieces. Damn, they are good. The skin is really, really good. This is a technique that is definitely worth exploring. I have a few other duck confit recipes that I will have to try. I'm going to save the leg/thigh pieces but I don't think they are going to be around on Monday. And all done with a hour and 45 minutes to spare...piece of cake.

Stay Classy, Troy.

2011-10-14T21:20:00.000-04:00

Saw this sign in Troy...

Moooo!

2011-10-10T22:55:00.000-04:00

We went up to my inlaw's house this weekend to get ready for the arrival of some new steers. We had spent the summer cattle-free. Moved some stuff around the barn, set up a bunch of gates and did a handful of odds and ends. The larger project was rebuilding a broken hay bale feeder. Ours is essentially some circular pieces of steel held apart by smaller pieces of steel. It keeps the hay bunched up. Versions larger than the one we built are actually for sale. But what is truly unique about this hay bale feeder is that I actually made two thirds of the welds on the frame. I should probably see if it lasts through the month before I start bragging or quit my day job. However, it should be noted that welding is super cool.

And her she is with a bottom plate ready to go next to the corral.

Later that afternoon, two calves were delivered from a nearby farm. Apparently, these calves were being pastures in Schoharie during Irene. One got swept away by rising waters and turned out to be a pretty good swimmer. Welcome to the farm, guys.

Apple Pie

2011-10-08T15:12:00.000-04:00

Apple pie fresh from the oven. The apples were picked at Indian Ladder. A bunch of apples got peeled and frozen to be used for applesauce at Thanksgiving. The house smells good.

Another Birthday

2011-09-30T23:40:00.000-04:00

This time it was my sister-in-law. We loaded up 2 families and headed over to Bombers in Schenectady to try the place out and drink a really big, free margarita. I really wanted to like Bombers, but the meal was just so-so. I had the Red Stripe jerk pork burrito. It was OK, but nothing special. It was a bigger version of a chain restaurant burrito. And the chips that came with it were cold and greasy. They might have been better warm from the fryer but I would argue Moe's has better chips than these. They don't skimp on the booze. The margarita was strong, we probably should have stirred it up a little more. Very nice presentation with a birthday sparkler going when it hits the table.

The space was nice. Service was very friendly. And they didn't balk at a large party including 4 kids early on a Friday night. We were gone before 7. Like I said, I really wanted to like the restaurant but was a bit underwhelmed by the food. I could definitely see how eating here as a college student late at night would be fantastic. Near UCONN, there was a legendary breakfast spot was great at 3 in the morning, but a little less impressive at 9. I'm sure at some point I will give it another try.

And I learned that my daughter 5 year old doesn't know how to hold her booze.

I'm kidding, Mom. She had a soda. My mother stops by from time to time. Happy Birthday Manders...

Cooking From Lucky Peach

2011-09-28T22:03:00.000-04:00

I picked up a subscription to Lucky Peach, a new quarterly food magazine. I enjoyed the interviews and learned quite a bit about Ramen. There were a few things that made me laugh and a few others that I thought were very creative. A recipe written in 3 haikus - that's just creative and funny. And the recipe sounds pretty tasty too.

Near the back of the issue, there was a section on sous vide eggs that included a temperature chart describing how the textures of the yolk and white change as the temperature increases. I had some farmer's market eggs, a new egg cooking technique to try and I had to shoot for a 62.5 degrees Celsius egg. That is Chef Andoni Aduriz's favorite temperature.

You get a big pot, fill it with water. Put a bowl you can boil in it to keep the eggs off the bottom of the pot. A smaller boil-able bowl to keep the eggs in place goes inside the bigger bowl. Use some thermometers and the temperature control to keep the water temperature as close to 62.5 degrees C. Place the eggs in the water and keep an eye on the temperature for 40 minutes. Then you're ready to eat.

And here you have two slow poached eggs on top of mixed greens that were tossed with a quick vinaigrette and a little bit of bacon. It was pretty tasty. The only thing I'd change would be to bring the eggs closer to room temperature before cooking. Dinner is served.

You Say It's Your Birthday

2011-09-27T22:44:00.000-04:00

It's my birthday too, yeah!

It's Google's birthday today too.

Google is just a kid at 13. Meatloaf gets to blow out some candles today too. I think he's 64. I fall in the middle. I turned 40 today. I started exercising a few months ago with the hopes of weighing less when this day came. And it kind of worked. Dr. Oz would be so proud.

When I began exercising, I weighed 243.4 pounds on the scale in the bedroom. This morning, I weighed in at 220.4 pounds. I've been hanging at about 221 pounds for awhile now. Not bad. I am little surprised and slightly impressed with myself. Although I'll probably weigh more tomorrow because I hade pizza from Defazzio's for dinner. Totally worth it.

I was tempted to go after one of Matt Baumgartner's T-shirts, but fought the urge. Maybe next year...

Happy Birthday, eat birdseed. Happy birthday to you!

Travel for Work

2011-09-24T15:45:00.000-04:00

I spent some time in Buffalo and Rochester this week for work. One of the highlights of the trip was roaming around the industrial park behind the Holiday Inn on Jefferson Road outside Rochester. I had just finished working out in the hotel gym and decided to go for a walk to cool down. I found a really nice health food store. It kind of reminded me of the Honest Weight Co-Op. Wide variety of products and a pretty big gluten free section. Plus, the place just felt nice. Never met her, but I bet Lori is good people.

Then, in the building right next door was a restaurant supply store. The woman working there was very nice. Her son started the business with a friend and they have just moved to this location. Nice selection of restaurant tools, take out containers, and even an nice grinder that caught my eye. The picture was taken with my phone. I should have gotten closer.

Just off to the side of the restaurant supply store there was a new Korean restaurant. It looked interesting but I didn't have a chance to check it out. But across the small parking area to the left of the Korean restaurant was a place called Palmer's.

The back part of the building wasn't open to the public. It looked like a higher end Sysco with food for restaurants. The front part was open to the public and it is a cross between a gourmet market and catering company. Want to buy good seafood and bring it home to cook, no problem. Want to pick out the same seafood and have it cooked for you, no problem. They had a nice seating area or I guess you could get it to go.

They also had a counter where you could get your choice of steaks grilled to order, all kinds of sides and some good looking desserts. To use older Albany references to describe Palmer's, I'd say it was Deleah's crossed with Cowan & Lobel.

It was a nice walk. After I cleaned up, I headed back to Palmer's to pick up a bag of lump charcoal I had never heard of before. Probably the nicest industrial park I have ever visited, although I 'm not really a connoisseur of industrial parks. And good to know that a unique set of stores can exist right next to the "Everytown, USA" generic strip of box stores that is Jefferson Road.

We went out to dinner at a little Italian restaurant the clerk at the hotel recommended. The food wasn't very good. The place was probably great 20 years ago when "Noni" and "Papa" were at the helm. We asked if there was a movie theater nearby. The waitress directed us to a theater less than a mile away. It turned out to be a second run movie theater. Which was perfect because they were showing Super 8 and I had wanted to see it. The theater is a nicer version of the Cine-10 (I miss that place) with $2 tickets. On Monday's, if you bring you family of three of more, the ticket price is 75 cents. My partner in crime and I saw a Wednesday night showing of Super 8 with 3 other people. Not sure how it can stay in business, but I hope it does.

Large Book Stores Are Running Themselves Out of Business

2011-09-19T19:24:00.000-04:00

There's a book I want. I looked it up online at Barnes and Noble because I have a gift certificate for the store. Online the price is $27 with tax and free shipping included. I work near Colonie Center so I figured I'd walk over there at lunchtime and pick the book up. I find it on the shelf in the food section (where else?) and there are about 5 copies. I look it over, read the flaps and start to walk over to the sales counter when the price on the book catches my eye. It's $40 in the store. I ask the guy behind the counter about the price difference and he says, "We can't do an online price."

"But it's your online price," I responded.

"Yeah, we can't do online prices," was the reply.

So the book went back onto the shelf and I came home and ordered it from them online. If this is the case with all of the books that cost $25 or more, I don't see how a store like that will ever be anything more than a place to go and browse. This is probably why Borders is gone from the area. They probably couldn't compete with themselves either.

Charcutepalooza Project #9

2011-09-15T22:49:00.000-04:00

The Wrath of Pate

Last month, the project was "Binding." I misread the challenge and made something out of the same chapter and the cummy pate should have been more of a mousseline. My bad. This month's challenge was to make a pate. Whoops. I took the mistake as an opportunity to try again. Since I really didn't like the flavor components of the first pate, I decided to look for a different recipe. I went through all the cookbooks I have and read some more recipes online. For my second attempt at pate, I decided to follow Jacques Pepin's recipe in La Technique. For those of you keeping score at home, Pate Maison is Technique 112 which includes flashbacks to earlier techniques including 2, 23 and 39 (garlic prep, preparing lard leaves, and aspic). If you haven't had the chance to flip through La Technique, it is a pretty cool read.

Making the aspic and pate were going on at the same time. When I make chicken stock in the crock pot, I usually plug it in in the garage or on the deck. I usually end up making it at night and my wife doesn't like the smell when she is going to bed. If it is being made on the stove or in the oven, I just have her close the door and she's a little out of luck. Sorry. This time, when I was at the Asian Market on Central to get pork liver (I haven't seen it anywhere else in Albany) there were packages of chicken feet. Really cheap. I put the feet in the crockpot, covered them with water and set it on high when I came home from work (about 5:15). A little while later I added a few carrots, some celery and an onion.

Next up was thinly slicing fatback to line a loaf pan. That didn't go so well. The knives are getting sharpened soon. I hadn't realized how dull they were. I didn't have a large piece of fatback so I cut lots of small pieces and lined the pan. I also cut extra to place on top. Once that was in the fridge, the pate was put on hold for tooth brushing and stories.

I tried to get a mise together and counter space was a little lacking because the kitchen has been permanently trashed for about 2 months. Spices when into a coffee grinder for a whirl. It worked pretty well.

I weighed out the pork, fat (yes there is more fat), and liver. I minced the pork in a food processor. The minced the fat but it was still a little frozen and didn't mince as well as I had hoped. The liver gets liquified next. All of this meat handling made pictures a little hard to snap. So here is everything - pork, pork fat, liver, egg, wine, garlic, shallot and spices (bay, thyme, pepper and salt) - all mushed together.

And covered with some more fat in the loaf pan.

The loaf gets covered with foil and the roasting pan gets filled with water. Then into the oven it goes.

A little while before the pate came out of the oven, I took the stock out of the crock pot. It looked and smelled good. The feet were a little weird to look at.

The idea is that you pour some of the aspic (gelled stock) into the loaf pan. The fat floats out over the side and gets replaces with aspic that gels when cooled. It was a good theory, but didn't actually work. I think some of the problem was that the fat back lining the pan was cut too thick.

It all went in the fridge to chill for a a day or two. And the results...a significant improvement of the first effort but not quite there yet. Next time I'd run the fat through the grinder instead of the food processor. I had never chopped meat in the processor and I'd try to get the pork a little coarser. But the flavor is there. Kids didn't like, but what do they know anyhow?

And the rest of the aspic/stock is in the freezer for future sauces and stews. I used a cup of it as a sauce for some cavatelli with sausage and broccoli last night. Check out the level of gelatin.

Project Runway

2011-08-31T22:21:00.001-04:00

Set your DVR. Thursday, September 1, 9 PM, Lifetime. Watch it.

"The Art of the Matter" The seamsters union try to make the grade as pupils when they join forces with art students to create artwork that will lend inspiration to garments.

Normally, I wouldn't write about Project Runway. Or really even consider watching it. I gave it a try last week weeks ago to get a little background for this Thursday's episode and couldn't sit through 10 minutes of it. So why would I recommend this Thursday's episode? My cousin's step daughter will be one of the young artists working with a designer. Her name is AJ. I have no idea what she has done on the show, but I'm pretty confident you'll be impressed by her. I can't say the same for the designers participating in the contest. But watch out for AJ. She'll be taking over the world in 10 to 15 years.

UPDATE: AJ was on the show for all of 11 seconds. The designer she was teamed with fell somewhere in the middle of the pack. As for the rest of the show...Project Runway, you're out.

Live Free Or Die

2011-08-23T00:40:00.000-04:00

Spent last week in New Hampshire. We shared a house with three other families. I went to high school with the father in each family. This is the squalor I had to live in for a week.

Somehow, we managed. Here's the view from the deck. It was a littl foggy this particular morning. The view is better than the picture.

On the ride out to Lake Winnipesaukee, there was no good time to stop for lunch since the kids were taking turns sleeping. By about 1:45, everyone was getting hungry, but the signs on the highway were not very helpful. We had to get off I-89 in a few more miles and decided we'd stop at the first place we saw.

That place turned out to be The Flying Goose Brew Pub. We got a table, the wife and I started looking over the menu and the kids got busy coloring on their place mats. Off to my left I heard a voice say, "Jon and Amy?!?!" It was Jeanie and her kids. Jeanie was in our dorm freshman year at Northeastern. They were also heading to Lake Winnipesaukee for the week. Holy Small World, Batman! We exchanged cell phone numbers and managed to get together on the following Friday. Made for a very nice day.
The kids loved the trip. I think the adults had a pretty good time too. Here's the group photo of the vacation house taken just before heading home.

Charcutepalooza Project #8

2011-08-12T23:10:00.001-04:00

Going to get this one in a little early. We leave for a week in New Hampshire tomorrow. Been a little crazy around here but I managed some time to get this made. The project is country style pate (I don't know how to get the proper accents in type). I had always wanted to make my own for Thanksgiving and this was a good opportunity to give it a whirl before showday.

Made a stop at Dean's Whole Foods on Central to get the spices. Their bulk spices rule. Fresh Market only had veal liver but I was able to find some pork liver at the Asian Market on Central. Grabbed some pork at Roma's and picked up a itty bitty bottle of cognac at Newton Wines. The rest of the ingredients were pretty basic. And away we went...

Made a batch of the Charcuterie Pate Spice. It smelled pretty good which surprised me a little since it has cloves in it and I don't really like cloves.

I started weighing out the ingredients. Isn't that the cutest bottle of cognac?

Got the panade ingredients together...

Little bowl of spices. I bought these little bowls the one time I was in an Ikea. The kids still use them, but once they are in bed, the bowls work great for mis-en-place.

You run the pork through the coarse grinder with the coarse disk. Then combine onions, parsley, the spices and the liver with about a third of the ground pork and push that through the finer grinder disk. I was well on my way to making to truly spectacular mess in the kitchen.

Everything goes into the bowl and gets whipped up with the paddle attachment.

Then, I put the mixture into two small loaf pans. Pressed it all in. Put it in a water bath and off to a 300 degree oven. After about 40 minutes, I got a temperature reading on 150. I put the loaf pans on a rack and weighted the pate down with small pieces of scrap steel. Once the pate was at room temperature, I moved the pate to a fridge and added two cans of soda for additional weight.

The next day, I had a baguette and small yet over priced cornichons ready to go. I cut into the pate and....

failure. This is the second loaf, the first one actually looked better but I didn't take a picture. It was a little pinker than I thought it would be in the middle. Kind of medium rare. And the cooked outer portion was pretty unattractive. But I knew I had seen a internal temperature of 150 degrees, with carryover heat it should have gone a little higher and that is a safe temperature to eat pork. So I had a taste. I did say failure, didn't I? Not good. Having already disliked the appearance, I was able to add disliking the texture and taste to the list. It was inedible, it just wasn't good. Never even opened that overprice bottle of cornichons.

If this wasn't part of a yearlong project, I doubt this post would exist. Plenty could have gone wrong - I made half a recipe. I used small loaf pans. Keeping everything so cold and going directly into the oven could be the cause of the nasty gray exterior. I was a little rushed, could have screwed something up too. The real problem is that I didn't like the flavor combinations.Someday, I'll try again...If you ever find yourself in Zabar's, their pate is significantly better than this. At least it was about 10 years.

Vacation and other randomness

2011-07-23T22:52:00.000-04:00

The first of two summer vacations starts with an early morning with a flight to Tampa. Alarm clocks should not be able to go off at 5 AM. It's just wrong. Once we get to Tampa, we are getting on a boat (that is apparently as long as the street we live on and more than 12 stories tall) and hitting some spots in the western Caribbean. We have some snorkeling planned, a trip to a Mayan pyramid (really want to see that), and an island tour featuring big turtles. Try explaining to a 5 year old that we won't have a kitchen or fridge but can get food whenever we want. "Even after bedtime?" Her eyes lit up when I told her there was a 24 hour pizza place. "Even in the middle of the night?" I can be prone to answering questions with a questions, "Why are you worried about eating in your sleep?" Although according to the cruise brochure, calories consumed at late night buffets don't count. This morning I was down almost 20 pounds from my starting weight, hopefully the cruise won't set me back too far.

When we get back, I've got a pate or terrine to make for Charcutepalooza. Not sure which direction I'll go with this one. There is a recipe for a grilled vegetable terrine that sounds really good, but I have always been a sucker for pate. I need to get back to a farmer's market too. Haven't had a chance on weekends lately.

And since it is so hot this week, here's a temperature related kid quote from the same girl that wants to go on a 4 AM pizza bender. Whenever Casey's legs get hot, she says "my knee pits are sweaty."

I went to The Book Barn in Latham to pick up a few paperbacks for the trip. The clerk was very helpful and pointed out a few selections the wife and I might like. Sadly, I don't think I have read a book that isn't food or work related in a year or too. Got a few super spy espionage type books. I'd give you more details, but they are packed and I don't remember the names. The kids picked out a few books too. A few years ago, I picked up "Roasting" by Barbara Kafka for $5. This time around I spied "The Art of Charcuterie" by Jane Grigson published in 1968. It is interesting to flip through. The recipes would need a little updating (the cures often call for "A pinch of saltpeter.") I paid $5.95 for it. Back in 1968 when there was no Amazon.com, the list price was $7.95. If you find yourself in the area and like books, the shop is worth stopping by. I got this cookbook, two barely read paperbacks, and 5 kids books for just under $18. The address is 200 Troy-Schenectady Road, right across the street from the K-mart.

Kipu Falls

2011-07-20T23:28:00.000-04:00

Eleven years ago, almost to the day, I was enjoying my honeymoon on the island of Kauai. If you ever get the chance to go to Hawaii, take it. I was entrenched in the mindset "put it on the credit card and we'll deal with it later." The trip was awesome.

We were directed to a swimming hole by a guide book. I believe it was "The Insider's Guide to Kauai." The place sounded great. A freshwater waterfall and swimming hole. You have to find it and do a little bit of trespassing to find it. With the help of a man that barely spoke English, we found the gate we had to hop. You could pretty much walk around it. There was no actually attempt to secure the field on the other side of the gate. We followed a path and heard some voices and the waterfall. We followed the sound to a stream and a spot I would call paradise. It was beautiful. (the video in the yahoo report doesn't do it justice)

The water fall looked 25 to 30 feet high. People were jumping off and having the time of their lives. There was a rope that would take you off a cliff into the water below. Usually, I am not that adventurous. I had to jump. For some reason, I felt like not jumping would be something I regretted the rest of my life. I took the leap off of the rock making sure I pushed off to put some distance between me an the falls. The amount of time in free fall was long enough for you to think, "Hey, I've been falling awhile. I should probably be hitting the water soon. Where's the" SPLAAAASH. And then you go deep into the water. I never touched the bottom. I kicked my way up and swam to a rope hanging aver the water so you could hold it and catch your breath. It was exhilarating. My wife jumped too. We talked about it the rest of the trip. In 20/20 hindsight, we were glad it happened toward the end of the trip because everything else would have had to live up to Kipu Falls. The next day we bought a water color painting of the falls and had it framed in local koa wood. The picture is in our front hall. It was fantastic. A memory to last a lifetime.

I did a double take when I saw the headline "Popular Kauai Swimming Hole Gets Deadly Reputation" on Yahoo today. Could it be? Yes, it can. Turns out that people get injured there regularly and 5 have died in the last 5 years. I guess I'll stop telling people planning a Hawaiian vacation to go there.

More Kickstarter

2011-07-18T21:25:00.000-04:00

Here's one of the food related Kickstarter projects I am backing. I like the idea, the people look nicer than nice, and their creativity and love of what they do really shows in their pitch video.

Kickstarter

2011-07-17T21:51:00.000-04:00

Ever hear of Kickstarter? It is a very neat idea. Basically people pitch ideas that need a little starter money to get off the ground. If you like the idea you can help "kickstart" the project by pledging a donation. If the project's goal is not met, the money you have pledged does not get donated. If the project goal is met, you make the donation and usually receive something from the project. Typically, what you receive varies based on the amount of your donation. Hopefully, that makes sense.

I first heard about the website a few months ago when I read about a old school grain mill trying to get up and running. Since then, I've bumped into a few Kickstart projects here and there. My interests typically lie in the food category, but a friend of mine recently put up a project. He has created a magnetic gadget mount system. It looks pretty cool. And if there is a better way to set up my GPS in the car, I want it.

If you are interested in my buddy Geoff's invention, you can check it out here and make a pledge. He is trying to raise $7000 by August 1st.

Charcutepalooza Project #7

2011-07-15T00:16:00.000-04:00

Blending

For the blending project I thought I give hot dogs another chance. I tried a long time ago (pretty sure it was pre-blog) and it was a disappointment. I had bought casings just for hot dogs, used some of our own beef, tried to keep everything as cold as possible, put in a lot of effort and ended up with a mediocre hot dog at best. Time to try again.

The earlier editions of Charcuterie had a sightly different version than later editions. The two recipes are similar. The newer version calls for the meat and fat off of short ribs. The earlier version just calls for beef and beef fat. The seasonings are pretty much the same. To make my life simpler, I used our home grown ground beef. The first grind was already done and if I partially thawed the ground beef, if would stay cold during the next grind. I was good to go.

The first snag: I had all the spices and just needed to pick up some corn syrup. The only corn syrup I found had vanilla in it. Price Chopper, Hannafords, Fresh Market and 2 health food stores turned up only vanilla flavored corn syrup. I probably shouldn't knock it 'till I try it, vanilla seems wrong in hot dogs. I have no idea why the corn syrup is in there. I decided to skip the corn syrup but I think I had 2 hours lost in the search.

The plan was to make the hot dogs on Monday, then smoke and poach them on Tuesday. I had pulled a package of ground beef to start thawing in the morning. It was still partially frozen, but I knew I could cut it with a knife. I had almost exactly 3 pounds of ground beef. The recipe was 2 pounds. Scaling up, I weighed the spices. Then it was time bed time for the kids. I put some sheep casings in some water and was off to read stories.

After storytime, I went back to work. Cut the the ground beef into cubes...

Weighed out the right amount of ice and fed it into the Magic Hostess Ice Crusher. I love this thing. Wish you could hear it hum...

Got the Kitchen Aid mixing bowl set in an ice bath...

Mixed the ice, salt and pink salt with the ground beef cubes and ground...

Dextrose, garlic, Coleman's ground mustard, paprika, coriander and white pepper got added to the mix. The grinder attachment came off and the paddle went on. [Grinding attachment note: if you take the little black screw thing that holds the grinder in place completely off the mixer, the grinder attachment comes off easily. Only loosening the screw doesn't work very well. Ask me how I know.] Once the spices were in, I held a flexible gel pack against the bowl for a little extra cold. The mixer went on and there was a blur or meat-in-motion.

Everything stayed cold...

This is where I hit the next snag. All the sheep casings in the bowl of water were tangled. So I hunched over the sink and untangled them. Then I go to flush them. No problem there. Then I go to put them on the stuffer. They won't open to get on the tube. When they finally do open, they tear. I cut it back. Won't open again. Then tears. This goes on for awhile. I finally get a length of casing on the stuffer and get going. Sheep casings are much smaller than hog casings. Think hot dog diameter vs. Italian sausage diameter. The casing fills up pretty quickly. I begin another 20 minute battle to get a casing on the stuffer. That one fills up but also burst in one spot. I finally devised a method to get the casings on the stuffer in under 5 minutes. If the casing is still full of water, it went on easier. Opened up without breaking and actually slid on. Lesson learned. This was the first time I had wished for the stuffer to be empty. Here's a picture of the casings going on. You can see where the previous casing had burst.

I had a few more mini bursts twisting the casings into links. The casing battle was ugly. In the middle of the fight my wife asked if she could help. I wasn't sure how she could help so I muttered, "No," while thinking "Yes, go back in time and talk me out of making hot dogs."After she went to bed, this is what I had to show for the effort.

At this point, I pounded that beer I mentioned in the last post. Took a break and then spent half an hour cleaning up my mess. Tuesday's work was easy in comparison. I cleaned out the grill and set up the cold smoker with about 2 hours worth of sawdust.

Got the sawdust lit and loaded the grill. I tried the Weber kettle this time. I think the vertical smoker worked a little better. Puts a little more distance between the meat and the smoldering sawdust.

After two hours, I had run out of sawdust.

I brought the hot dogs inside and put them in a 165 degree pot of water.

About 10 minutes later, the dogs were fully cooked and got dropped into an ice bath. The ice bath is in my new super-awesome huge stainless steel bowl I bout at that restaurant supply shop on Broadway in Schenectady.

Tah-dah...finished hot dogs.

I grilled a few tonight, the rest got frozen. A significant improvement over first try. I thought they came out pretty good. Nice flavor. Good snap. The next Charcutepalooza challenge has to be easier, right?

Homemade Hot Dogs

2011-07-11T22:48:00.000-04:00

I spent the past 3 hours fighting sheep casings. I think they may have won. I just pounded a beer. I feel a little better.

4th of July Pizza Pilgramage

2011-07-04T22:57:00.000-04:00

I finally made the time to get to the Fairfield, Connecticut post of Pepe's. Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana to be a little more formal. The original store in New Haven opened in the 20's. Relatively recently, they have opened a few more restaurants. The menu consists of pizza and a salad. That's it.

The restaurant walls are decorated with pictures showing off the restaurant's history.

Personally, I have very vivid memories of a white clam and bacon pizza and that's what I wanted. We ordered a large. We also got a medium cheese pizza for the kids and my parents got a tomato, onion and spinach pizza, hold the cheese. First out was the cheese pizza.

My daughter Casey ate more of this pizza than I have ever seen her eat. Ever. My wife said, "This could be the best cheese pizza I've ever had in my life." It is really good. My parents' veggie pie came out next. Still steaming from the oven.

I didn't get taste this one. I was too focused on the white clam and bacon pie that was the last to arrive at the table.

I thought it was delicious, but not quite as super-oh-my-god-fantastic as I remembered it. Don't get me wrong, this is delicious pizza. Maybe it is a little different in New Haven shop. A mystery I would not mid investigating. Still really, really good and I wish it was closer to Albany. Take a look at this slice. Look at the freakin' clams on this!

I ate so much pizza for lunch, I didn't really eat again on Saturday. On the way out, I came out of my pizza coma long enough to snap a picture of the oven. They were restocking the coal supply. Check out the handles on the pizza peels. Crazy long.

Depending on when you time your visit to Pepe's, you may have quite a wait. We got there at noon on Saturday and walked right in. We weren't alone in there though. I don't know if that's a good time or the Holiday weekend slowed business down. I think this might become a standard stop when we visit Connecticut.

Summer Vacation

2011-06-30T00:01:00.000-04:00

Planning for our two summer trips is in full swing. In a few weeks, we are going to pack up, fly to Tampa and go on a cruise. I've been on one cruise before. Much smaller boat and more adult oriented. It was a blast. I am hoping the kids like it too. If they don't, well they are stuck for a few more days because there's no turning back once we set sail. We spent a better part of the evening arranging plane tickets. All that's left is to pick a hotel for one night. That's tomorrow night's project.

On Friday, we head to Connecticut for the long weekend. If I can sneak out of my parents house, I think I want to try and make a Pepe's run. It has been years. They have opened a number of satellite restaurants and one is pretty close to my parents place.

The August trip is a week in Lake Winnipesaukee. We are sharing a house with 3 other families. There will be 8 adults and 9 kids (ranging in age from 1 to 10) in the house. At some point we got outnumbered. That might be more of an adventure than a vacation.

I missed the latest Albany Eats pot luck for a birthday party. Hard to believe she is 7 already. If for some reason you want to take 15 first graders bowling, I highly recommend having Jake at Spare Time bowling run your event. He's da man.

At some point, I'll have to make some hot dogs too.

Whole Foods Rap

2011-06-19T08:25:00.000-04:00

Saw this and thought it was funny. Didn't see a way to embed it here.

Whole Foods Parking Lot Rap

My favorite verse:

Now I'm on this inside, looking at my list
Organic chicken, Kale Salad and a Lemon Twist.
Some girl in yoga pants is lookin at me funny
I'm just trying to find a decent Pinot Noir for under twenty!

Charcutepalooza Project #6 - Continued

2011-06-17T22:54:00.000-04:00

I kind of feel like I am handing in a homework assignment three days late...maybe I'll just think of this as extra credit since the Italian Sausage was made on time.

I tried the chicken sausage out of Charcuterie with a few changes. I cut back on the pork fat since it seemed like too much. It is a 30% meat/fat ratio but I didn't think the chicken thighs needed that much help. I skipped adding the wine, olive oil and vinegar. I had tried something similar with the original Italian sausage recipe and didn't like it. I also skipped the remixing after the grind. I prefer the coarser grind in the final sausage. All that being said, here's what happened in the kitchen:

Got all the ingredients out. I was thankful for the mise en place routine earlier in the week when I realized I had no sun dried tomatoes. Here the re-hydrated sun dried tomatoes and basil.

Chicken thighs and back fat. Would you believe I am actually starting to run low on back fat?

Diced, seeded tomatoes with minced garlic on the left and the salt/pepper on the right.

Mix it all up then grind.

Into the stuffer and out come sausage. The chicken stuffs easier than pork. I ran out of rinsed casings at the end. Just meant a larger late night snack for the cook.

One thing that is more noticeable with the chicken sausage is that the flavors change significantly as the sausage ages. I'd argue it improved with some time. I tasted a little bit before stuffing to see how the seasonings were. I thought it tasted pretty good, maybe a little heavy on the salt, and the sun dried tomato flavor was pretty strong. After the stuffing, I fried up the leftovers. The sun dried tomato flavor was not as strong and it seemed a little less salty. A definite improvement from the original taste. Tonight, I grilled up a bunch of the sausages and froze the rest.

The wife was surprised that this is what I had made the night before. Got her rating "best chicken sausage she's had." The older daughter liked them too. The younger daughter was not impressed. She's not that into dinner in general and the sausage was no competition for the diced cantaloupe that was also on the table. Two out of three ain't bad. This will have to be made again. I'd cut back even more on the pork fat and reduce the salt a bit, but definitely a very tasty sausage.

Next month's challenge is blending. I haven't had the best luck with emulsified sausage. I blame my lack of ice maker. I guess it could be operator error too. I thinking about trying hot dogs but I've got to go through a few books before I start cooking.

Charcutepalooza Project #6

2011-06-14T22:49:00.000-04:00

Stuffing

This was actually a pretty timely challenge because Albany Jane had kindly invited me to a potluck get together for those that follow her blog and really enjoy food in the Albany area. Kind of fun way to kick off summer - meet people you have only virtually spoken to and eat. Everyone there was crazy-nice and the food was really good too. And since stuffing was the challenge of the month, I thought I'd bring some homemade grilled Italian sausage with roasted peppers and onions. Unfortunately, there will be some missing pictures to the story. While I was grilling sausages and at the potluck, the rest of the family was at my niece's baseball game with the camera.

I once tried the recipe for sweet Italian sausages as it is written in Charcuterie. I liked it, but I prefer a simpler version. I use the same meat/fat/salt proportions as the book, but I only season with salt, pepper and toasted fennel seeds. And here are the ingredients...

I toss everything together and make sure it is cold. In this case, there was still a partial freeze on the Boston Butt I was using. The combined ingredients go through the small die on the Kitchen Aid grinder.

The casings, which can be bought locally is small tubs at Price chopper and in smaller, but slightly more expensive packs at Roma in Latham and Pellegrino's on Central. I rinse the salt off and then soak in room temperature water for awhile (at least 30 minutes). I also flush the casings. Here's a shot of the casing filled with water.

Now waaaaaay back in the day...like 2 or 3 years ago for me - longer for my wife's grandfather...people used to use this kind of sausage stuffer. It is a very simple design. Kind of a horn shape that narrows to a tube and a plunger connected to a lever arm forces the sausage through and into the casing. It would have worked better for me if the stuffer was bolted down to something. It used to be on a piece of wood the got c-clamped to a table. But that piece of wood is gone and the few times I made sausage with this stuffer, the balancing act would probably have been quite a sight. Now, the poor thing is stuck in the basement with an old parrot from my tailgating days looking over it.

And the way the stuffer sets up is pretty slick too. Two bolts with the little pins in them are the connection to the lever arm.

The drawbacks to this kind of stuffer: 1-You'd be surprised how hard you have to push on that lever. 2-It can't hold that much at once. 3-You are left with a good amount of bulk sausage when you are done. The plunger can't push everything into casing. With the vertical stuffer, all that is left is a nice "job well done" snack for the chef. The main pro, is that you can get it really cold. The stuffer is pretty heavy and all metal. A few hours in the freezer and that bad boy is chilled. The vertical stuffer is significantly faster. This batch was about 5 pounds. Once I was ready to start filling casings, I don't think it took 5 minutes. Clean-up is about the same for both.

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of the grilling or the pot-luck, which in case I forgot to mention was awesome. Albany Jane, DerryX, and Lillimonster posted pictures and descriptions of the gathering. There's another one coming up but my daughter is turning 7 that weekend so I will be missing it. I hope I can make the one after that. I already have an idea of what I'd like to bring - a little teaser so I get invited again :)

I was planning on making some chicken sausage tonight and writing all of this tomorrow to meet the 15th deadline. As I started to figure out the proportions of ingredients, I realized I had forgotten one of them. Probably tough to make chicken with basil and tomato sausage without the tomato. I'll pick some up tomorrow and try again tomorrow night.

What happens in Utica, stays in Utica...

2011-06-10T16:24:00.000-04:00

I went to conference in Utica this week. I had a list of recommended places to try, but I only manged to get to one of them. The first night of the conference, there was a welcoming party at the F.X. Matt Brewery. I'm told Utica's version of Live at Five is in that area too. They close off the street and have a weekly block party. Sounds like a great time. The appetizers at the opening party were much better than the meal. There was a ton of tomato pie and various Stromboli.

We also got to take a tour of the brewery. Pretty neat place with a lot of history. The rooms at the beginning of the tour looked like the rooms at the Tower of Terror ride in Florida. Very old time.

Big copper kettles that can boil a lot of water in 15 minutes...

Random control panel that reminded me of Homer Simpson's work area

Room with lots of aging tanks. There are several rooms like this at the brewery.

These are barrels that once aged Jack Daniels. Not sure what they have aging inside them now, but they are working on a new beer.

The bottling area is just like the opening credits to Laverne and Shirley. It wasn't running while we were there. There was some maintenance going on.

They go through a lot of bottles.

One of the places recommended for Utica Greens was Georgio's. I went for lunch one afternoon. This huge portion of Utica greens was under $7 and they were pretty tasty. I haven't had many versions Utica greens. Three come to mind and they were all very different. I really enjoyed these. I ate the whole plate...and then didn't eat again until lunch the next day. I was stuffed.

Every night back at the hotel, there was a hospitality room. The one thing you can say about this conference with certainty: it is all you can drink. Every function was open bar and the hospitality room ran until 2. The last night of the conference, there was a formal reception at Mohawk Valley Community College. We had the idea of having a poker game in the hospitality room, but didn't have cards or chips. When we left Mohawk Valley, we looked up Walmart in the GPS and off we went. If you want every want people to do double takes and stare at you, I recommend walking in to the Utica Walmart at about 10 pm on a Thursday wearing a suit and tie. The greater was basically laughing when he saw us. It was fantastic. I am not typically a Walmart shopper - once every few years - but I think I will try to be wearing a suit whenever I go for now on. What's even better, it that I pretty much won enough money to cover the cost of the poker set.

I also brought home some conference swag. Got a Saranac travel cup, also got a Saranac pint glass(not in the picture), a Utica Club wall mount bottle opener, an umbrella, and a neat little 6-pack cooler for toting beer bottle around. Isn't that a cute little cooler?

BMI

2011-06-06T00:08:00.000-04:00

As winter became spring, I began to notice the extra weight I put on over the winter. And that made me look at how much weight I had put on since 1998 when I moved from construction inspection to a desk. The pay was a lot better, but moving a few hundred 30 pound concrete cylinders daily had gotten me into a little bit of shape. I was always on the heavy side. My fascination with food hasn't helped.

My heaviest was in high school. I topped out around 260. I had a "Body by Bud" poster of a heavyset guy sitting on a keg drinking a beer. The bumper sticker on the keg read "No Pain, No Pain." They were words I lived by. In college, I had a co-op job that didn't really factor in any time for eating. I was pretty much only eating dinner. I lost sever inches around the waist there. Hated the job though. I was in Boston and took the T to South Station every morning. On my way out of the station I walked past a large bank of pay phones. This was 1991 - there were still pay phones. Every morning as I walked past those phones I thought, "There's still time to call in sick." Needless to say, I did not go into that business. I was miserable, but lost several pants sizes. Probably not the way 4 out of 5 doctors recommend doing it though.

Then there was more college and then the construction inspection job. I weighed about 200 pounds then. Which apparently was still too much according to the body mass index. From there I moved to a desk. When I started it was actually a desk. I have a cube now. Since taking a desk job in 1998, I have slowly and steadily put on 43 pounds. When I entered my 243, 6'1" numbers the output reads "Obese." Ouch.

In an effort to be able to chase my kids around, I decided to do something. Turning 40 later this year probably has something to do with it too. As luck would have it, while I was looking through the recently acquired cookbooks at the library (641s for those of you into the Dewey Decimal System), I saw a beginners guide to running. This guy was recommending a walk/run. Walk a bit, jog a bit, repeat until you've had enough exercise for the day. He got a little more into it that that. There were schedules and charts and enough repetition and words of encouragement to fill a book. About 3 weeks ago, I started exercising. And while a coinciding Rapture was predicted, the world didn't end.

Night is the only time I get a chance. Everyone goes to bed, I grab some shorts and running shoes and off I go. I've got a 2 mile loop around the neighborhood. It is kind of peaceful. I'm usually the only one out. I have heard a few couples arguing through open windows. I scared a raccoon too. Lately the night skies have been nice. Pretty cool crescent moon tonight. Yesterday, I was walking while my youngest rode her bike. She was quite surprised that I could keep up with her. She pedaled faster, I ran faster. We got to the end of the street at the same time. No way that could have happened in April. I would have passed out. I cut waaaayyy back on the booze too. I drank a lot this winter. And for some reason, I started eating salads for lunch.

This morning I weighed in at 237. Still obese. If I can manage to lose 3 more pounds, I'll step down to overweight on the index. Baby steps....

Memorial Day Weekend

2011-05-30T23:38:00.000-04:00

I wasn't really anticipating that great a weekend. There was work to be done, but most of it got done on Saturday. So a 3 day project turned into a 1 day project followed by several little projects with some fun mixed in for good measure. Looking back with 20/20 hindsight, I really enjoyed the weekend.

The big project was digging out a basement door, putting in a drainage pipe, putting lots of stone in and then leveling everything off again. Now, I don't know if you know anyone with a tractor, but I highly recommend making friends with someone that has one if you are going to be digging a 7 foot deep trench. They really help.

Against my better judgment, I was actually down in that hole. The excavation and the stone placement and back filling took up most of Saturday. Thankfully, the kids pretty much occupied themselves during the construction. But digging this hole meant removing a lot of roots to be dealt with on Sunday.

Two very exciting buckets of these roots. Exciting roots = Fresh horseradish. A quick scrub...

A lot of peeling...

Another rinse and some drying...

Then shredding and grinding...

Quick little not on the the food processor: if you were withing 3 feet of that thing when the lid came off, your sinuses were instantly cleaned and occasionally temporary blindness was experienced. It's one of those "hurts so good" things. A lot of the ground horseradish was packed in bottles, topped with distilled vinegar and frozen. A bunch got sealed into vacuum bags too. I kept some unfrozen to go into a mustard when I get a chance.

After the horseradish, brakes got put on my sister-in-law's car. Now my brother-in-law and I put brakes on one of my cars last weekend. Under the watchful eye of someone that actually knows what they are doing, of course. Now having successfully put on those brakes, we were actually looking forward to putting on these brakes. Same year, similar model. Piece of cake. We were on the case. I didn't actually get to participate (I did lunch for all the kids), but our automotive expertise was no match for this car. The rotors were totally rusted on. I would have had no idea what to do. And the clips were different, everything was different. I am still not a mechanic. Just some guy that knows how to get himself into trouble with cars. We spent some time at the lake in the afternoon. Had steak for dinner (a porterhouse, 2 rib eyes, and a sirloin). I like a steak dinner like that - it compares a bunch of cuts side-by-side.

On Monday morning, we helped put in a large part of my father-in-law's garden. I forgot to get a picture of it. There are a bunch of tomatoes, a few kinds of peppers, the fence for the cukes to climb on and a few rows of corn so far. Then, we were off to the lake. We brought down all the stuff that stays out for the summer. Felt good to set it up. It means that summer is just around the corner.

There's that grill I love and the lake front pit on the left. The last project of the weekend was fixing a board on the dock. Once that was fixed, the dock got wheeled into the lake. Once again, the tractor came in handy. The water is still pretty high so the first 10 feet or so of water was a little cloudy.

Robo-Pancake

2011-05-26T22:55:00.000-04:00

Just got back from being on the road this week. One hotel I was in had a free breakfast buffet. Most of the offerings were standard free breakfast items. Bagels, muffins, cereals, yogurt, bananas...that kind of stuff. But they also had a bizzaro pancake machine.

You press that big yellow button next to the screen and about a minute later, pancakes come out the side and drop onto a plate. Even kind of flips them so the prettier side is up.

Granted, these were not fantastic pancakes. But I wonder if they could be if a decent batter was used. Neat machine. Think I could teach the kids to use it and sleep in on Sundays?

Charcutepalooza Project #5

2011-05-15T00:28:00.001-04:00

The Grind

This month's challenge was to pay attention to the grind. I kind of took the easier path and made some bulk breakfast and sweet Italian sausage. It was actually kind of nice to take a break from putting sausage into a casing. But really I mean it was nice to take a break from cleaning the stuffer at midnight since I start these projects after everyone has gone to bed because there is something wrong with me.

I happened to be in the Schenectady/Rotterdam area and I stopped in at Sal's. I hadn't been in awhile. I used to live nearby about 10 years ago. Very old school take a number Italian meat market. I picked up a 5 pound butt with the plan being 3 pounds for breakfast sausage and two pounds for sweet Italian sausage.

Here it is proportioned in two bowls. On the left, the pork has been seasoned with salt, pepper and fennel. The bowl on the right got seasoned with sage, Herbes de Provence, parley, fresh thyme leave salt and pepper. I followed Mrs. Wheelbarrow's recipe.

Both bowls went into the fridge until after dinner. I ground the sweet Italian first while the breakfast sausage got colder in the freezer. Everything was pretty cold so I skipped the bowl of ice water around the bowl catching the ground sausage. As the weather gets hotter, I don't think I'll be able to keep skipping that step. I knew I should have gotten a fridge with an ice maker...

I cooked up a little piece, liked the seasoning and split the sausage into two bags for the freezer.

The sweet Italian sausage will most like get used in a cavatelli with broccoli and sausage. Fairly quick, decent mid week meal. And for some reason the kids don't fight about broccoli. Next up, breakfast sausage.

I also cooked up a small piece of the breakfast sausage. The Herbes de Provence really came through and added a lot of delicious flavor. My first impression of this sausage was that it was screaming for a runny egg yolk. Almost as if the recipe was designed to be accompanied by a runny egg. I thought it might need a little more salt, but decided I could always add a little when cooking it. The breakfast sausage got split into 4 bags.

But wait....that's not all. There was much more grinding this weekend. The steers that were slaughtered two weeks ago were butchered this weekend. Here's a shot of the pork and beef aging in the meat locker.

To borrow a scene from Crocodile Dundee:

That's not a grinder.

That's a grinder.

It has it's own fuse box. Once the beef goes through the grinder twice, it gets placed into a very large sausage stuffer.

No cranks on this bad boy. Everything is motorized and it can hold 55 pounds of meat. It is operated by a hip-switch. Lean into it, and meat gets pushed out. It has been outfitted with a custom tube for filling plastic storage casings.

The butcher can fill these faster than we can close them and label them.

Here's my case of ground beef.

In a rut...

2011-05-04T23:30:00.000-04:00

Not too much going on lately. Kind of unmotivated lately. "The MAN" took away my online poker. It was getting really fun too. I was meeting up with my brothers and the three of us were playing at the same table. We hardly ever get to see each other, but we could meet up at a virtual poker table, play cards and harass each other. Going "all in" and losing to your older brother is slightly humbling. On the flip side, taking all your brother's chips is really fun.

I haven't even been following wood oven builds lately. That isn't like me. Maybe it is the stress of beginning Battle 2011: me versus the lawn. Spring is full of optimism and I've got a shot at a decent organic lawn. By mid June, the dream is usually crushed and I have to be satisfied with mostly green in front of the house. I did, however, start following a wood oven related blog. Peter Reinhart's Pizza Quest. It is part of the Forno Bravo site I visit for wood oven dreams.They have some nice web-isodes visiting different pizza places.

This month's Charcutepalooza Challenge is working on the grind. I haven't really started anything for it. I should decide and get going on that soon. The steers are dry aging now. I was not around for the slaughter, we went to Connecticut for a family thing. The butchering will be on May 13 and 14.

But the thing that got me off my duff to write a blog post was Mother's Day cards. I was in a CVS earlier tonight looking for a card. This year's crop of Mother's Day cards is not very good. Mixed in with a bunch of "trying to be funny but not quite getting there" cards were a few that had a gift card already attached. So, here is the "Happy Mother's Day, Ma. We're eatin' good in the neighborhood" card:

And my favorite-"It's your day. Eat Fresh, Ma."

I wonder if there is a local market for this type of card. Maybe a local salon and card shop could get together. Or local restaurant. Something better.

And just for a smile, Scotty found this a while ago. Every time I see it, I can't help but smile. Thank you to whoever forgot the commas.

Steers - 2011

2011-04-22T23:31:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow afternoon, our two steers will be slaughtered. I'm not the best writer or communicator (just ask my wife) so it is difficult to express how I feel about it. I wholeheartedly believe my participation in raising these animals has changed the way I look at food and the way I cook. I would argue the experience has improved both. And even though I have already participated in slaughtering steers, it is still...the anticipation is really strange.

UPDATE: The weather has postponed the slaughter to a date still to be determined.

Gas V. Charcoal

2011-04-18T22:10:00.000-04:00

Earlier today there was a giveaway at the Table Hopping blog for a grilling book. As usual, Steve Barnes asked a question to be answered for entry into the giveaway. Today's question : "Gas or charcoal? Why?" There were 83 comments left as entries to win a grilling cookbook. Being a nerd and a charcoal guy, I had to see how the votes fell. Some people didn't fully commit and reported using both and others said they used gas but preferred charcoal. In the end, about 55% use gas, 40% use charcoal, and 5% use both or didn't really state a preference.

I was surprised that 40% use charcoal. I didn't expect that many pro-charcoal responses. I was thinking more in the 25% range. Well done Capital Region. Here are a few things that might help convert a few more people to lump charcoal.

A chimney full of lit coals is screaming hot. The Ove Glove or welding gloves help out.

Wondering if the brand of lump charcoal you saw in the store is any good? These guys have probably tested and rated it. They have also compiled user ratings as well.

And finally, if you are like me and don't really care for the lump charcoal sold at Home Depot or Lowes (usually Cowboy brand), you can order Royal Oak lump charcoal from Do It Best and it can be shipped to a local hardware store for free. The Phillips Hardware store on Central has handled this for me several times. Very nice people there and it is a good hardware store too.

Now invite someone that uses gas over in the middle of the week and show them how easy it is to use charcoal.

Charcutepalooza Project #4 - wrap up

2011-04-15T00:34:00.000-04:00

I am off to spend the weekend in Boston. Should be fun. Good friends, good food, no kids (my mother in law is a Saint). How bad could it be? Before I go, I'm going to wrap up Project #4 - Smoke. The kielbasa was just below eh.

I grilled a bunch of it and it was way too salty. I tried simmering the rest in water to remove some salt, but it didn't work. The other issue was the texture. It was strangely spongy. Didn't really work for me. I had a similar problem the one time I tried to make my own hot dogs, so it is possible that the texture issue is operator error.

The summer sausage, on the other hand, was a hit. Kids liked it. I liked it. Wife like it. Neighbors liked it. A success. I thought it was better at room temperature than cold. It also took nicely to Dijon mustard. I might add a little more smoke next time and I will be making this one again sometime. I ordered some more sawdust for the little cold smoker. I didn't realize it earlier, but that got shipped from Olean, NY. Which is one town over from my favorite bartender and her spit cup. Small world.

Chef's are cool

2011-04-11T20:18:00.000-04:00

I saw this video today over at Ruhlman's blog. It is a Grant Achatz describing the origins of a dish. I just love the way chef's think. Very impressive. There are a bunch of other videos featuring Chef Achatz and his restaurants over on youtube.

Charcutepalooza Project #4 - Smoke

2011-04-06T23:02:00.000-04:00

This month's Charcutepalooza challenge is smoke. The suggested projects are hot smoking salmon, making Canadian bacon, a spiced pork loin or tasso. Well, I hadn't seen any salmon that looked good lately although I saw some wild salmon that looked pretty good at the Fresh Market yesterday. I've made Canadian bacon and while the spiced loin and tasso look good, I think they would be a hard sell to the family and I'd end up eating it all. I had some beef I wanted to use before getting fresh beef next month so I went with a smoked kielbasa and some summer sausage - both ripped from the Charcuterie cookbook.

I started Sunday after everyone went to bed. Not my best move since this ended up taking a little longer than I had anticipated. The summer sausage cures for a few days. I prepped that first. You've got beef from a top round roast on the left. The pinkish powder is pink salt, dextrose, and salt. The yellowish powder is Coleman's dry mustard and dry milk (the recipe calls for "Fermento" but I'm not in Buffalo right now so that wasn't handy). The seasonings in the little green cup are coriander, granulated garlic. Then on the right is some left over pork belly from the bacon project and pork fat.

The meat got a coarse grind:

Then the spices got mixed in, the fat was diced and mixed in and it all went to the fridge. See you on Tuesday, Summer Sausage.

In kind of a stupid move, I cleaned up and moved onto the kielbasa. I have made the fresh kielbasa in the book before (it's really good). In this recipe, the meat is closer to being emulsified before stuffing. The other great thing about this recipe is that it call for some chipped ice. That means I get to break out the Magic Hostess and I love the Magic Hostess. My parents have been married for 51 years. They got this as a wedding gift.

I should mention that you need to keep everything cold while doing this. Most of the meat still had a partial freeze while being ground so I didn't always use the recommended ice bath. Beef and pork fat back were coarsely ground onto a cookie sheet and then put back into the freezer while the spices were weighed and the ice was crushed.

When you first turn on the Magic Hostess, there is a little whir. The grows and the there is a hum. Once it is done humming, it settle into a low sounding wubba wubbba wubba. It is then ready for ice. Ice goes in the trap door up top...

A mild wood chipper noise is made and crushed ice comes out in a little tray at the bottom. So cool.

The crushed ice, salt, pink salt and dextrose get mixed with the coarsely ground meat before going through the fine grind.

It gets stuffed into hog casings, tied up, and refrigerated on a rack to dry over night.

By the time this was all done, it was 1 AM. I had a beer on the couch and Anchorman was on TV. There are some really funny parts to that movie. Crashed around 1:30. I had a meeting on Monday night, but I left early to watch the basketball game. Just before tip off, I lit my new smoking toy and hung the kielbasa on this old skewer I have (also a hand me down from my parents). The new smoking toy is basically a square with a winding path through it. You fill it with sawdust and lit it with a tea candle. Once it start smoldering, you remove the tea candle and you have relatively cold smoke. Filled, this thing can allegedly last for 10 hours. I just filled it to where some photos online said the ashes were after 2 hours. I don't have a very good method of controlled hot smoking yet. The plan was to cold smoke for 2 hours and then put the kielbasa in a low oven to cook. Worked pretty well. Here's the gadget.

And here it is after 2 hours.

Then I put the kielbasa in a 180 degree oven to finish cooking.

These are going to get grilled this weekend. Between cooking these and talking on the phone with my brother about being National Champs, it was another late night. Onto Tuesday. I had originally thought about stuffing and cooking the summer sausage in one night. That was just silly. The plan quickly changed to grinding and stuffing on Tuesday, smoking on Wednesday. Here's the meat after two days in the fridge.

This goes through the fine plate of the grinder.

Insert your own casing/condom joke here:

Not sure if it was me or the sausage stuffer, but these was not as easy as it usually is. Casings broke a few times and the handle was sticking. Everything seems to be working again but I was glad I wasn't staying up even later to smoke these on Tuesday.

Once again, it was time for sausage in bondage. I had an old Family Guy on in the background to help pass the time. I really need to learn how to tie a knot.

I finally smartened up and started the smoking when I came home from work. The 2 hour smoke started at 5:00 tonight instead of after dark. I used up the rest of my saw dust sample. I have to order some more. This saw dust is much finer that what I have been able to find locally.

Had to use two skewers this time around.

After a few hours of smoke, these went into a low oven too. And here they are coming to room temp.

Not sure if I am done smoking stuff for this month's challenge. I'll have to see what kind of time I have this weekend. I am also thinking about curing and smoking the Easter ham. That will be after the 15th deadline though. Got my Charcutepalooza homework and taxes done before the 15th. What were the odds on that?

GO HUSKIES!

2011-04-04T18:10:00.000-04:00

My brother and I both graduated from UCONN. The first time they won the national championship was against duke (lowercase to show contempt - my brother calls them dookie). Anyhow, after they won that game, my brother and I spoke on the phone every Monday night that year. "And how is week 17 of being national champions treating you?"

Tonight, the men's basjetball team is playing for the national title. The women face off tomorrow. If they both win, it will be the second time that a school has won both tournaments. UCONN has done it once before. I have a meeting to go to but plan to be home for the game. The plan is for my first of this month's Charcutepalooza projects of the month to be cold smoking during the game.

GO HUSKIES!

Update: Since I wrote this, the double isn't happening. Still a shot for men's team.

Trip to the Troy Farmer's Market

2011-03-27T23:19:00.000-04:00

I learned something this weekend. Turns out that if I walk into the Troy Farmer's Market with $60, I won't have a hard time leaving with two dollars and change. Sure, I'll have some very good stuff, but I was a little surprised how quickly the $60 disappeared. I better start saving for summer markets.

First things first, I had the kids in tow so we made a bee line to the Saratoga Apple Farm table. I don't fully understand how they are able to do what they do, but they have close to just picked apples all year round. Apparently it has to do with controlled levels of oxygen. Could be made up, but that is the way it was once explained to me. Different apples are stored in cold rooms with the appropriate oxygen level for a specific type of apple. Once out, they don't have the shelf life of supermarket apples, but they are so much better than super market apples you won't need to worry about shelf life. I think I bought 10 apples yesterday, tonight 3 remain in the fruit bowl. A little over $5 got us the apples and a small bottle of cider.

Next we headed upstairs. For $3.50, we buy a chocolate and custard filled pastry from the Mrs. London's table. We got the last one. While upstairs, I had to check out the pickle guy. I think they were mentioned recently at Table Hopping, they were in this weekends Times Union and recently on All Over Albany. The owner working the stand could not have been nicer or more enthusiastic about his products. He's even wearing a ribbon his pickles won in a competition. I tried the the habanero pickles and the half sours. Both samples were very good, but I went with the half sours for the kids. The older daughter wasn't interested in having a pickle with her lunch and they younger daughter was more interested in making faces than actually trying the pickle on her plate. So, I ate half the jar. Forget them, next time I'm going for the habanero. A bottle of pickles was a steep $10, but they were hand packed and I went to the market looking to buy some.

We headed back downstairs to our usual eat the pastry/drink cider spot on a bench near the fountain.Once we were done snacking and some coins were tossed into the fountain, I wanted to stop by the Borndt Farms table. I had spoken with the owner before, seems really nice. I wanted to pick up a pork butt to make Sausicon Sec out of the Charcuterie book. The salami is just pork seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic. It was another item that was on the "to buy" list before I left the house and I didn't balk at the $32 for an almost 5 pound pork butt. Now I just have to find some time to make the salami.

The last table I really wanted to check out was the Pura Vida Fisheries booth. I still can't believe you can get fresh seafood at the farmer's market. Running out of cash, I grabbed half a pound of scallops for $7. Bringing the grand total to $57 and change. I was going to cold smoke the scallops with my new toy, but then I decided to just cook them to see how good they were. They are really good. Really, Really good. Wow, I enjoyed eating them.

I had seen a pan seared scallop recipe on America's Test Kitchen and I had wanted to try it because it uses a technique I saw in one of the Key Ingredient videos over at Sky Full Of Bacon. Apparently, chef's baste something in a fry pan with melted butter all the time. No wonder restaurant food is so good.

The recipe starts by making the sauce. Since the scallops cook quickly, the sauce is made and kept warm. About a tablespoon of butter is melted in a pot. Once you have brown butter, add in some chopped shallot, chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Take it off the heat and cover to keep warm. Dry the scallops on paper towel. In a non stick skillet heat some oil until it is almost smoking. Add all the scallops but don't overcrowd the pan. Cook until the one side has a nice crust.

Flip the scallops over and add some butter to the pan. Once the butter melts, use a spoon and baste the scallops.

Once the scallops are done, put them on a plate and top with the brown butter sauce.

I took this picture, then sauced the scallops. Then I ate one. It was fantastic. I offered one to my brother-in-law, then my wife and sister-in-law had one and then they were gone. I'll see if I can get a finished picture next time. If you are at the market - definitely try some of the Pura Vida scallops.

Canadian Bacon & Eggs

2011-03-25T22:35:00.000-04:00

A little while ago, I made some Canadian style bacon. This week, one of dinners was "Breakfast for Dinner." Kids love it and I actually prefer breakfast foods a little later in the day. I got around to making some of the egg/bacon/bowl-type things I had planned to make back when I cured the pork loin.

Spray a little cooking spray in the muffin cups you are going to use. This helps with the clean up significantly. Put in the Canadian bacon - I went with 2 pieces in each up. Then put an egg on top of the bacon.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes and you'll have essentially a poached egg in a bacon cup. I had a few other things going on and these went a little longer. These are more of a soft to medium boiled egg in a bacon cup. I'd prefer the poached stage and would shoot for that next time.

They actually came out pretty good. Currently, this is my favorite way to eat this style of bacon. The bacon seems to come out dry other ways. Will definitely do it again.

Key Ingredient

2011-03-21T22:51:00.000-04:00

I mentioned these shorts over at Sky Full of Bacon before, but I liked this one so I thought I'd bring it up again. It is a series called Key Ingredient where local chefs challenge each other by picking an obscure and/or difficult ingredient to center a dish around. This particular chef is asked to use was red bean paste. The chef uses it in a very interesting cure for bacon. To me, the most impressive part of these videos is seeing the thought process of creating the dish. Makes me want to go to Chicago to eat.

Here's the link to the Red Bean Paste Key Ingredient Video over at Sky Full of Bacon.

In other news, I just order this really cool looking cold smoking tool.

Charcutepalooza Project #3 - continued

2011-03-15T21:57:00.000-04:00

First a flashback to Project 2 - that pancetta is the best I have ever made. Fantastic stuff.

Returning to Project 3 - We had corned beef sandwiches for dinner last night. I thought it came out pretty good. There are probably a few things I would change. First, I think I'd cut back on the red pepper flakes. I was surprised how easy it was to feel their heat. It was good, just not something I was expecting in corned beef. Corned beef is supposed to be salty but I thought this was a little too salty. I'm going to blame that on not enough water in my cooking method. Here's how the corned beef went:

I rinsed the cured brisket and put into my slow cooker and filled it with water. Added 2 more tablespoons of the pickling spice and put it on low to simmer.

Here's what it looked like when it came out.

My younger daughter wasn't too into it. My older daughter liked it, but then I think some of the heat from the red pepper caught up to her. All in all, I thought the project was a success. It's all gone...Next time I would scale back some of the red pepper (maybe only use it in either the brine or the cooking liquid but not both). I'd also try to cook the beef in more water. I have a few bottom round roasts that I have never had success cooking. I think I might try to turn them into corned beef and see how they turn out.

Just under the wire, I thought I could get a chicken into the poultry brine and roast it for dinner tonight. Back to back brine projects. Started with weighing out salt and sugar in the white bowl next to the lemons. The rest of the ingredients, except some peppercorns are on the plate. There's parsley, tarragon, garlic, onion and some bay leaves. They all went into half a gallon of boiling water.

Once the salt ans sugar were dissolved, I poured the half gallon of brine into a bowl with a half gallon block of ice to cool.

The chicken ( a 4 pound bird) went into a ziplock bag and then got filled with the completely cooled brine. This went into the fridge for about 15 hours. The chicken got rinsed this morning and went back into the fridge uncovered to dry.

I put the chicken in the oven and waited. When I thought it was done (i was getting good temperature readings in the breast and thigh), I put the broiler on to crisp and brown the skin a little more. I took it out and let it rest. Then I cut it up. The thigh joint was still a little pink. I finished breaking down the bird and put it back in the oven. Dinner was now officially late. The breast meat was very juicy, tender and had a very nice flavor. The dark meat seemed to be a little more flavored by the brine. The tarragon flavor was much stronger. Lesson learned: I'm not really a tarragon fan. I also need a better roasting pan. This one kind of sucks.

Challenge Number 4 is out: Hot smoking. I've got to get started on that because I think I'm going to be busy around the 15th of April. No time for last minute charcuterie.

Charcutepalooza Project #3 - Continued

2011-03-10T22:37:00.000-05:00

This has been a very busy couple of weeks and my Charcutepalooza plans didn't go quite as planned. There have been 2 birthdays, a weekend in Connecticut, a weekend at my in-laws and a bunch of curling just before the season ends. Plus, my brothers and I have started meeting up online to play poker together. I've probably spent more time with them in the past two weeks online than I did last year. The power of the internet. Throw in doctor's appointments, kindergarten screening, kids at the dentist and fighting snow and the past few weeks have been downright crazy. Luckily, I've given up sleeping.

I had such great plans, the corned beef, the tongues and maybe a chicken or something else...Not going to get to the tongues right now. No time and the wife made it clear that she didn't want to eat it. Everyone has there lines. Muscle that makes of porterhouse - good, muscle that makes up tongue - not so much. So far only the corned beef has started. It is currently curing in the fridge. I'll cook it on Sunday or Monday. Here's how it's going so far:

Stopped by Dean's on Central and picked up some spices. I pretty much followed the recipe out of Charcuterie but I left out the cloves. Only because I really hate cloves. The smell reminds me of the dentist office I went to as a kid. The very same office that made me afraid of dentists. I am the Anti-Dentite out of Seinfeld. I try to cook my food with love and omit the childhood trauma so - no cloves.

I started by making a small batch of the pickling spice. Here are the peppercorns, mustard seeds and coriander getting weighed out.

Then they get toasted. Nicely toasted.

The rest of the pickling spice is weighed out. You've got red pepper flakes, allspice, mace, a cinnamon stick, bay leaves and ground ginger in there.

Everything gets smashed together. About half is going into the brine, the other half gets cooked with the corned beef.

HEre are the brine ingredients: salt, sugar, cure#1, and pickling spice.

Few cloves of garlic too.

It all got dumped into a half gallon of boiling water. I had the other half gallon mostly frozen to cool it down. It didn't cool it enough and the brine got chilled overnight.

Personally, I thought the brine smelled pretty good. I was told the next morning that the smell was not exactly conducive to falling asleep. Sorry, hon. The brisket and gallon of brine are resting comfortably in the fridge. I'm looking forward to cooking it.

I shouldn't have an opinion about this

2011-02-26T16:45:00.000-05:00

If seven year's ago you asked me, "Jon, if you had to pick just one...would you go to a Sesame Street production or something put on by Disney?" I would have looked at you like like I had just found extra terrestial life and then tried to quickly come up with a smart ass reply.

Turns out I have a preference. The music, storys, costumes, sound, lighting and any other performace value you can think of are better at......wait for it...... Disney. We braved the remains of Friday's snow storm to go see Elmo at the Palace last night. While it was mostly empty due to the weather, it was also thouroughly under-whelming. When compared to similar shows put on by Disney that have come to the area (Toy Story 3 on Ice and some morning TV stage show for example), the Disney shows are actually impressive. There was one song/dance number that was impressive enough to make you wonder how they were physically doing that on stage. Elmo...not so much.

And while I handing out opinions I shouldn't have, Yo Gabba Gabba freaks me out.

Charcutepalooza Project #3

2011-02-15T22:37:00.000-05:00

Brine

Earlier today this month's assignment was handed out. This month were are working with brines. I've brined turkeys and pork tenderloins before with good results. On the docket this month: a brisket to be turned into corned beef or pastrami. I think I will also try beef tongue. Both will be from our cows. My brisket is a little on the small side, but I refuse to buy any beef. It will have to do. I took the tongues when we slaughtered the cows because they were going to get thrown out. Wanting as little as possible to go to waste, I froze them for a "one of these days" cooking project. I've never cooked it before. Don't even remember having eaten it before. Guess I've got a little reading to do...

Charcutepalooza Project #2 - Continued

2011-02-14T00:04:00.000-05:00

Bacon Explosion! 4 out of 5 cardiologists surveyed do not recommend this.

Way back in January of 2009, I read this article in the New York Times food section and knew that one day I would definitely make my own Bacon Explosion. What is a Bacon Explosion? On the outside, there is a bacon weave. Yes a bacon weave. Think lattice pie crust but bacon (a tutorial on how to make the nicest bacon weave I have ever seen is here). The weave is covering a mass of sausage. And pinwheeled inside this mass of sausage is some cooked bacon. This is the kind of meal that would be served in that Saturday Night Live sketch with the guys talking about "Da Bears" and drinking beer to work through their heart attacks.

Quick disclosure: My homemade bacon was not long enough to make the weave. I was bummed, but still moved forward. The cooked bacon on the inside is part of the Carcutepalooza project and I made the sausage. But the bacon for the weave was purchased.

First thing, make some sweet Italian sausage. My recipe is pretty straight forward -combine pork and fat, salt, pepper, and fennel. Grind. If you cut the pork into strips, the grinder grabs it and pulls it through by itself.

Then I fired up some homemade bacon. Couldn't resist a taste. It's good.

I made a weave out of the store bought bacon. As you can see, the pork belly I purchased to cure did not compare in size with what I picked up at the Fresh Market. I dusted the weave with some homemade rub. I left the salt out of the rub since there would be plenty in the bacon and the sausage.

Laid out the sausage in a rectangle, dusted it with rub and topped with chopped fried bacon. Seriously, how bad could this taste?

Time to make a log. I didn't end up going diagonally like Cowgirl. Maybe next time. I have never made anything like this so there was a little bit of a learning curve.I think I could have made the wave a little bigger and used less sausage. And the weave could have been tighter. In the bacon giddiness I was experiencing, I forgot to start the weave in the middle. Still, looking good though.

Dinner was going to be at my brother and sister-in-laws house. We fired up the Weber kettle with the coals on one side And set up a little foil baffle to cut down on the direct heat of the coals.

I flipped it wound twice and after about an hour and a half the inside temp was 160 degrees. I put the Explosion on a plate tented with foil to rest.

Dinner is served....

I thought it was pretty good. There was some room for improvement. Didn't get as much of a pinwheel effect as I wanted, but overall not a bad first effort. At times, I can be my own worst critic but a kid will always tell you like it is. My niece Abby has been a fan of my homemade sausage in the past. Tonight, she was at the kids table when she took her first bite. "Wow, the sausage is REALLY yummy! Allison (her cousin sitting next to her) have you tried the sausage?" Couldn't help to puff up with a little pride after overhearing that.

The pancetta is still drying out in the chamber. Probably will be done a few days ofter the 15th Chacutepalooza deadline, but it is on the way. Looks and smells good.

Charcutepalooza Project #2 - Continued

2011-02-09T00:30:00.000-05:00

Super Sunday-

Not a typical Super Sunday here. Last night water started coming into the basement. Typically, we don't get water coming in under the living room floor. I'm not even sure how the water could get there. It is clearly leaking in from some sort of ice dam on the roof, but the path the water took to the basement is very confusing. Luckily, there is no visible damage inside the house. After a lot of roof shoveling (some by a contractor and a lot by us), the influx of water seems to have stopped.

Usually what I like to do is take the kids to a nicer than average restaurant for dinner. Gives them a good restaurant experience, but the restaurant is close to empty because everyone else is watching the Super Bowl. I had my eye on The Epicurian this year. Maybe a little too fancy but I checked out the website and they don't have Sunday hours. So then I was thinking Wine N Diner, but this year the Steelers are in the Super Bowl. Personally, means nothing to me. I don't get football and not getting it has really freed up a lot of Sundays over the years. My brother-in-law is a huge Steelers fan so the family went to a party he arranged. It was a very nice time and I ate way too much including a very unique and addicting kind of warm dip. It had shredded chicken, melted cheese and Frank's Red Hot. It was like cheesy buffalo wing on a chip. Strangely addicting. We left pretty early to get the kids home and to bed.

Between the shoveling and the party, there was no real time to make bacon. It looks like it is back to my nocturnal chicanery.

After spending a large part of the day shoveling snow off a roof, it was time to shovel something a little more fun. I thought I'd be able to get the smoker out, but that wasn't going to happen without breaking it.

One slab of bacon, rinsed and air dried in the fridge for a day.

Got a chimney of charcoal going.

And this is what it looks like without a flash.

Dumped the charcoal into the smoker, put on two handfuls of apple chips, got the slab in there and wen inside. WE ignored the Super Bowl and watched something we had recorded. When the show was over, Here's what I had:

Part of me wants to slice it thick and freeze it, but part of me wants to slice it a little thinner and use it all this weekend. There's something I've always wanted to make with a boatload of bacon. I'm leaning toward boatload of bacon.

The pancetta is hanging in the makeshift chamber. The humidity is holding in the low 60s. I can't seem to increase it. I think I might have to move the chamber. There is a strange shaped closet under the stairs in the basement. I might end up refurbishing that in the near future. The space definitely has potential.

Here is the pancetta before a rinse. I gave it a dusting of black pepper before hanging it up to dry. It smells really good. I didn't roll the pancetta. I did once and it came out OK. I thought it was more work than necessary. Rolling the slab makes for a beautiful presentation, but I typically dice the pancetta so the presentation value is lost.

Charcutepalooza Project #2 - Continued

2011-01-28T23:28:00.000-05:00

Makin' Bacon. It's still fun to say.

Making 2 kinds of bacon. I eventually found a pork belly. Not quite 10 pounds. The more square end will be smoked bacon. And the tapered end will be pancetta. I'll also have some trimmings for some sausage for the upcoming Rib & Pierogie Day. Unfortunately a number of conflicts are forcing a schedule change for that event. It won't happen this weekend but it will get rescheduled.

I started with pancetta. I didn't follow the recipe out of Charcuterie. I made a slight variation of this recipe (I skipped the nutmeg) used by one of my Salami Making Heroes, Jason Molinari. One thing that is great about Molinari's recipe is how it is presented. Everything is a percentage of the meat. This method is perfect for cooking with a scale. Just multiply each percentage by the weight of meat and start weighing. And if you are a nerd like me and put everything in a spreadsheet, just type the weight of the meat in the right spot, and the spreadsheet sets it all up for you. This is the method I use to keep track of all my sausage/salami adventures.

Starts with weigh the pork being cured.

This piece weighed in at 1022 grams. Into the mini chopper accessory to a stick blender (stick blenders rule), I added the spices. In went peppercorns, juniper berries, bay leaves, thyme, garlic, and brown sugar. This went for a whirl.

Then I added the salts, kosher and Cure#2. Cure#2 is a variation from the Ruhlman recipe. With the exception of previously made pancetta, anything I have hung in to dry had Cure#2. Using it makes sense to me but I should add that had I not been following a successful recipe from a good source, I doubt I would make the switch on my own.

It all went for another whirl to distribute everything. I really liked using the mini chopper to make a cure rub. It smelled great and I think it is better than just mixing everything up with a spoon.

Time to rub it all over the belly, both sides got coated. Still smelled really good.

Then into a 2 gallon bag for curing. I bought a bunch of bags with a slide to seal the bag. The slide is useless. So I fold the bag over itself, usually have a clip to keep it sealed and then put it on a cookie sheet just in case something leaks.

Once that was done, I moved onto the bacon. Again, being a nerd, a spreadsheet was used. The basic salt cure in Charcuterie makes well over a pound of cure (725 grams). I needed less than a cup. So using similar handy-dandy ratios I combined kosher salt, Cure#1, and sugar to make 100 g of cure. I should mention that any weights shown in the photos are useless - I used the tare a lot and I'm pretty sure this picture is showing the weight of the spoon.

Here's the piece of pork belly ready for the cure and the trimmings waiting to be packaged for the freezer.

Another 2 gallon bag was used for the bacon and both packages were off to the basement fridge for curing. Next weekend, I'll smoke the bacon and hang the pancetta. The bacon will make the mid-month challenge deadline, but the pancetta and lemons will be a little late.

Speaking of Charcutepalooza, there have been a few developments. Those that complete all the projects are eligible for a pretty big prize. Judges include Chef Bob Del Grosso and Michael Ruhlman. Participants will also get a discount on meat from D'artagnan. If you care to read all the details you can do that here and here. Plus, the entire thing was written up in this week's Washington Post food section (Wednesday, January 26th). Very cool.

Charcutepalooza Project #2

2011-01-23T23:08:00.000-05:00

The Salt Cure-

This month I am planning to make bacon, pancetta and lemon confit. I am still having problems finding a pork belly. Struck out at the farmer's market. Found some heritage pork belly for $15 a pound (ouch). I ended up ordering some from a butcher in Clifton Park. They were supposed to call me back and haven't yet. I'll call Monday to see where we stand. If that falls through, I should be able to get one from Rolf's later in the week. Time is running out to get these into cures and have a finished product by Valentine's Day. I think the pancetta will be coming in a few days late.

I got some lemons and manged to get them into salt on Friday night. Two Meyer lemons and one traditional. It is a moment like this that really sets this blog apart from may other blogs. These blogs I am referring to have stunning, well lit photographs of beautiful food. Here-not so much. Earlier in the day on Friday, I donated blood. Then after everyone went to bed, I was on the couch watching Top Chef eating a bag of Original Flavor Goldfish. I thought, what could go better with Top Chef and Goldfish? The answer: mmmm, beer. Completely forgetting I gave blood, I opened a beer. It was very tasty. So I had another. And now I'm watching TV and starting to feel a little loopy. Show's over, lets get those lemons into some salt. I put a bunch of salt into dish that has a lid. Cut the lemons in half and buried them in salt. Looking at this bowl filled with salt, it occured to me that I should have taken a picture. Oops.

Here I give you 3 halved salt covered lemons in a white bowl on a white counter lit by overhead kitchen lights. The first example showcasing my photography skills completly washes out my subject with a flash. I had enough sense to turn the flash off and get another shot. If I ever get a pork belly, I'll try to take better pictures.

Breath taking, right? The bowl got covered and put in the basement. In theory, I will remember they are there sometime in late March. If not, I definitely remember in November because until now, the sole reason for that bowl to be in the house is to serve stuffing at Thanksgiving.

The Week

2011-01-19T22:54:00.000-05:00

I recently took 2 books out of the library. The first was Harold McGee's Keys to Good Cooking: A Guide to Making the Best of Foods and Recipes. I wanted to love the book, but I couldn't get into it. The format is a little weird, choppy paragraphs and one line thoughts. Just couldn't get into it.

The other book I took out makes me want to cook. A lot. It is Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day. I've got to make something out of this. Tonight I am going to make my a starter that will eventually turn into a mother which will eventually turn into bread. There is also a pizza dough that is a must try. One of these days... but the starter will begin tonight. I think I'm going to have to buy this one.

The recent snow, constant trolling of Craigslist for my dream brick saw and all this daydream of bread have brought back my brick oven dreams. I started drawing. And drawing. And drawing. If I can't make it work in a picture, how the hell can I build it? I learned a lot making many variations of these pictures. Visualizing how certain bricks would get cut. How to make things fit so the dimensions work out. Figuring out how to get a running bond so joints don't line up. There are still plenty of things to draw, but here are some recent drafts for a 39" diameter brick oven. Someday....a work in progress though.

No luck finding a pork belly yet. None to be had at the Troy Farmer's Market this weekend. Found a local farmer that had some, but at $15 a pound. Way too steep. I wonder what the whole pig would cost at that rate? None to be had at Adam's down in Newburgh (more come on Friday but I won't be back that way for 2 weeks). My Adam's disappointment came too late for me to have one put aside at Rolph's. So I am left with 2 options that I know about: The Asian Market on Central or a special order from The Meat House. They dropped the ball on my last order, maybe they would come through now. I could try Henry's in Waterford. I'm pretty sure they make their own bacon.

And the stars have aligned. This year's Summer in Winter aka Rib and Pierogi Day is set for January 30th. Starting to drool already.

Charcutepalooza Project #1 - wrap up & look ahead

2011-01-15T13:31:00.000-05:00

I've tasted the second breast and it was actually a little different. The scoring had definitely impacted the flavor in a good direction. I would score any future duck breast that I cure. I really want to try one of those ducks from Garden of Spices. I bet that would have a positive impact to the flavor too. The other thing I think I would try is the addition of other flavors. These ideas sound delicious. Maybe more along the lines of a duck pancetta than prosciutto. Either way isn't traditional, but it sounds good.

The new challenge has been issued. I think I will take on bacon, pancetta and cured lemon this month. I am out of bacon and pancetta (tragic, I know) and the lemons sound good. First step is to source a pig belly. I walked around the Troy Farmer's Market and none were to be found. The problem is that making bacon is not difficult and a farmer can increase his profits significantly for a few hours of time. Not a lot of sustainably raised pork bellies to go around. I'll be in Newburgh later this week. Maybe I will try one of the bellies offered at Adam's.

While the challenge doesn't require smoking, I have roasted bacon before and preferred the the hint of smoke. I think I'll have to try both to compare. My oldest daughter will be the judge. The younger daughter likes food. The older daughter LIKES food. I think I'll need to get the shovel out.

Charcutepalooza Project #1 - continued

2011-01-13T23:58:00.000-05:00

So after a few days in the makeshift chamber, I thought I'd give the wine cooler another shot. Currently the ambient humidity in the basement is very low and keeping the humidity in the chamber a little low too. The humidity in the wine cooler is controlled 2 ways. First, by having a bowl of water at the bottom to boost the humidity and second, by cracking the door to let out some humidity. Monitoring with the indoor/outdoor sensor I got on the cheap a Lowes, I was able to switch between the two. Here are the breasts in the cooler.

I had planned to try the duck breast for the first time on Friday night, but I was asked to help out at the curling club. So I pulled the smaller breast out tonight. It had a nice smell and nice flavor. The flavor, however, was not something I would compare to prosciutto. In my opinion, the original is better but...comparing something that ages a week to something that ages a year is not exactly a fair comparison. The addition of herbs would be interesting to try in the future. I'm also curious to see how much impact a higher quality duck breast has. I bet it is significant. I am going to let the larger breast hang at least one more day and see how that one tastes. All-in-all, an enjoyable project an I look forward to to cooking with my cured duck meat. Don't know what's next, my guess is bacon or pancetta. We'll find out on Saturday.

Charcutepalooza Project #1 - continued

2011-01-07T23:04:00.000-05:00

Last night I went curling. It was a lot of fun even though we lost. We kept fighting back, but then kept letting the game get away from us...we'll get 'em next time. I got home it was about 12:30 and the duck needed to come out of the the salt and get hung up. Friday morning was going to come early.

I pulled the duck breasts out of the salt, washed them and patted them dry with paper towels. This is going to sound funny, but the breasts were noticeably firmer.I weighed them and they had each lost about 25 grams of weight. I sprinkled on some white pepper and wrapped them up in cheesecloth. Then I went to town with my bastardized knot tying. I couldn't help but think that there are pros out there that would get a good laugh at this.

The wine cooler had a not good smell to it when I opened the door. Which sucked because I had cleaned it and it was holding at an ideal temperature and humidity. So I fired up my drop-cloth-humidifier chamber and hung the breasts in there. I'm going to clean out the fridge again and hope to get the breasts in there soon. The basement is very dry right now and I can't get the humidity near the breasts above 60%. I was shooting for 70 to 75%.

Also, Michael Ruhlman mentioned this project on his blog. Turns out there are 54 like minded crazies at the beginning of the project. I'm proud to be counted as one of them. I expect more to join as the word gets out. You can find the start of this project here and here. The duck project started here.

Charcutepalooza Project #1

2011-01-06T19:21:00.000-05:00

Duck Breast Prosciutto:

So much for the original plan. The Co-Op only had frozen duck and they were clearly duck that was fresh last week. They were also very lightly wrapped and ice crystals had formed. I was tempted to buy one anyway, but they just looked to have lost too much quality. The meat manager wasn't there so I left her a voice mail asking when the next fresh ducks would arrive. She promptly returned my call and gave me the bad news. The Christmas ducks were the last round of fresh duck until June. Makes sense - snow covered ground, migration, blah, blah, blah. Time to formulate a new plan.

The last time I was at the Asian Market on Central, the ducks look a little old. Plus they were never as gorgeous as the ones at the Co-Op last week. The Troy Farmers Market was out since it was going to be too late for me to make a January 15th deadline. I ended up with frozen breasts from Roma in Latham. I scored one breast and not the other to see if it made a difference. Then I weighed the two breasts and jotted down the pre-cure weight on a piece of paper that I stole from one of my daughters (hope you like it, Jane!) and put them in the salt. They will get weighed again and hung up to dry later tonight.

Putting Together A Duck Plan

2010-12-26T22:27:00.000-05:00

I believe I have found the duck of my dreams at the Honest Weight Coop. Not sure exactly what kind of duck it is. It was just labeled "Duck." But it is fresh, local and organic. The Coop had a handful of ducks from Garden Of Spices Poultry in Greenwich. They have very favorable write ups on Serious Eats. Apparently, most of their ducks go to Chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns. From what I have read about him, I can say with certainty that his standards are higher than mine. If these ducks are good enough for Chef Barber...I think I'll be happy with them too.

We will be traveling for New Years to a town outside of Baltimore to visit friends. Since I won't be around to babysit the duck breast while they cure, I am going to start my project on January 3rd. Cure the breasts for about 24 to 36 hours and then hang them in a wine cooler. I'm not sure what the humidity will be in there. The duck meat will be shedding water, but that water will be trapped in the wine fridge. I'll either need to add some humidity, or crack the door and let some moisture out. Like I said, babysit.

Buying a whole duck means I'll also have 2 wings, 2 drumsticks, and 2 thighs. The wings will either get cooked up for me to eat or go into a stock with the rest of the bones. The legs and thighs are probably going to get a pseudo confit treatment once described in a New York Times food article with this recipe. If there is a ton of fat for me to render, I might try a more traditional confit like the recipe in the Charcuterie book.

Charcutepalooza! Challenge accepted.

2010-12-22T01:17:00.000-05:00

It is almost time to start 2011. Turns out 2011 will be the Year of Charcuterie. Who knew?

Charcutepalooza to be exact. And I'm in. This is the motivation I have been needing. I hope this is like having a personal charuterie trainer cheering me on to start the next cure.

First up, duck breast prosciutto. I have seen some nice duck at the Asian market on Central. I don't remember what breed though. My original plan, that I have procrastinated over a year on, was to buy 2 ducks. Once broken down, I'd have 2 breasts for duck breast prosciutto, 2 breasts for cooking (probably on a grill), 4 legs and 4 thighs for confit, some fat for the confit, and some bones for a duck stock. And have I done it? No. Haven't even come close. But I've agreed to do this and now there is a deadline.

I'll be traveling for Christmas and then again for New Years so the cure will have to be scheduled around those trips. But this is freakin' awesome. I feel like a kid with charcuterie homework. At least it isn't a diarama in a shoe box. My duck breast prosciutto project is due on the 15th of January. It's on, baby. Please join me (and hopefully a lot of others) in this year long pursuit of cured meat.

Chef's are cool

2010-12-19T22:33:00.000-05:00

The Chicago Reader along with Sky Full Of Bacon are doing a series of articles and videos of Chicago chefs. The idea is awesome. And the chefs seem to embrace the idea and make something special.

It starts with on chef getting the "key ingredient." The chefs cooks something with the ingredient then chooses the next key ingredient to get passed onto the next chef. I think what I like about the idea so much is that it gives you a real glimpse into the thought process of a chef. I thought about forwarding the idea to Steve Barnes to use with Capital Region chefs, but since Steve doing anything with the idea would essentially be plagiarism, I didn't.

Interesting articles and videos if you have the time.