Poor man caviar

If you’re not in the 1% bracket and can’t afford caviar and toast points, I have a southern replacement. CORN BREAD AND PINTO BEANS! YEE HA! Ok, coming off my carb high… Cornbread has got to be one of the simplest “breads” to make. There’s no rise time involved. A few simple ingredients, a hot pan, a hot oven and 30 minutes later you have a “loaf”. I used Pioneer brand cornmeal. I tried using Bob’s course ground cornmeal, but I could never get it to incorporate the other ingredients in a recipe, so I went with a finer grind of cornmeal. I used the recipe that’s on the cornmeal bag, but unfortunately they don’t have it listed on their website.

Fresh out of the iron skillet that was greased with black forest bacon fat.

Not the best photo because I was hungry, but here’s how I like my cornbread-split, buttered, and smothered with pinto beans.

Justin! Put down that egg!

Some local pasture raised egg choices

These are too good to waste on the neighbors house. I’ve been studying up a bit on eggs. While “cage free” eggs are all the rage, the term cage free has no meaning. It’s not a regulated term like “certified organic” it’s more like the term “natural” which has no meaning either because it’s not regulated. While “pasture raised” as far as I can tell is not a regulated term, it does seem to have some industry protection in that true pasture egg producers would raise holy hell at an industrial commercial egg farm if they used the term.

Pasture raised eggs are those that are from chickens that are raised on smaller farms where the chickens are given a minimum of 108 square feet of rotated pasture space each to cluck and socialize, root for worms, grubs, bugs and peck. Birds from large commercial farms have their beaks trimmed so they don’t injure other birds in close quarters.

Note how deep orange the yoke is compared to a commercial factory egg.

One advantage to the pasture raised eggs is the additional protein the birds ingest from the bug buffet they are entitled to on a daily basis. The additional protein is transferred to the egg making it more nutritious. Also the egg just taste more “eggy”. Much like how a heirloom tomato tastes much more like a tomato than the bland tomatoes found in most stores.

Chickens will produce eggs on their own, but to make them more reliable layers, they need supplemental feed. I won’t go into all the details about the horrors included in some feed like PCB’s, mercury, etc. but the quality of the nutrition of the feed is obviously important as the feed is transferred eventually into the egg you buy in the store.

$6.99 a dozen seems to be about the price to pay for top of the line pasture raised, non GMO, organically fed eggs (price from my local Whole Foods). There are different classes of pasture raised eggs such as organic fed but may contain GMO feed, or non organic feed. The price declines with the decline in the quality of feed as non GMO, organic feed is the most expensive feed. The increase in price of pasture raised eggs is also due to the increased labor involved in pasture raising chickens as opposed to keeping them in small, stress inducing cages. Locally, Whole Foods has several brands of pasture eggs ranging from~$4.99-$6.99 a dozen. I also found them at this co-op for $4.99 a dozen for medium-size. You don’t have to be a member of the co-op to purchase the eggs. Pasture raised eggs are also available at Central Market and some Kroger’s. Many come from Vital Farms. If you want to check how your egg rates, here’s a list of many egg producers.

Ikea you with this! (or the clever cleaver)

This is a great tool in the kitchen. It’s not a meat cleaver but a vegetable cleaver. Clever? Yes. It has more heft than a chef’s knife, but not as heavy as a meat cleaver so those chopping jobs don’t get too tiring. It’s great for slicing vegetables and smashing garlic, or for slicing through that frozen chub of breakfast sausage or venison that a friend gives you (hint). And it’s $12.99 at Ikea. (Ikea has since updated the cleaver so this photo is not representative of the actual cleaver but I have bought the new style and it is just as good.)

Baron Mundi?

No, actually Barramundi. It’s a mild, almost buttery white fish that I see for sale occasionally. Low in fat and calories, high in protein, and omega 3 fatty acids. It is now my favorite fish. I usually prepare it in an iron skillet broiled (in a toaster oven!) in a little olive oil. Served with some pre-steamed carrot and green beans, sometimes brown rice that I pre-cook. To reheat the rice, I throw it on top of the steaming vegetables in the steamer, and the rice grains are large enough that they don’t fall through the steamer holes. When the preheated skillet is hot, I add the olive oil, fish, and toss the steamed vegetables and rice on top of the fish and throw it back in the broiler for 10 minutes. Takes about 15-20 minutes tops, uses just a pot, steamer and pan.

Lunch at Casa Don

It lives!

It’s been a while. Just for grins I thought I’d update this blog. Today’s lunch was pretty easy to assemble. I had a stack of corn tortillas that I decided to fresh fry crisp in moderately heated canola oil. I tend to overheat oil for frying, but I think I got it right this time. I had on hand some homemade chili (grass fed ground beef, red onion, crushed and minced garlic, chili powder, cumin seeds, tomato paste, catsup, Kosher salt, fresh ground black pepper, filtered water) and some homemade Pinto beans that were brined overnight in salted, filtered water (pintos, red onion, chili powder, cumin seeds, catsup {see a pattern?}. Topped it with mixed baby greens and some fresh cilantro and freshly grated sharp cheddar cheese and a drizzle of extra virgin Spanish olive oil.

Lunch at Chez Donald

Wild Yukon River Salmon, Wild Rice with sauteed Porcini mushrooms, mixed lettuce with Super Cherry tomatoes, mustard based cooked salad dressing.

Now that I have more free time on my hands (thank you Texas Legislature, et. al!) I’m cooking more at home. Whereas I usually ate lunch out, many days I now cook it at home. So, like it or not, I’m getting more time in the kitchen. Today’s lunch I got quite a deal at Central Market on the salmon, about a two foot fillet for $7.50. The wild rice cooks to a nice light purple and was on sale at Sunflower Market, and the dressing I made from a 1938 and a 1954 forest fire tower recipe book.

I’m really liking this old recipe book as the recipes are designed for simple provisions that would be stored in a forest fire tower and structured to feed one or two people. My latest successes are the salad dressing, a bread recipe and a biscuit recipe. My previous failures at baking were due to too hot an oven as falsely indicated by the oven dial, and not hand kneeding dough for a minimum of 10 minutes. Both these corrected, I’m happy with the results.

I never really liked the salads I made in the past as they seemed bland most likely because of the simple vinaigrette dressings I’d make to dress the salad. I shied away from store bought mainly because of calories and ingredient lists that looked like a manifest for a chemistry lab. The dressing is quite simple: butter, flour, milk, egg, salt, sugar, mustard, vinegar. I didn’t have any dry mustard on hand which I think the recipe calls for so I substituted yellow mustard and cut back on the vinegar. Takes about 10 minutes to make, and keeps in the fridge for days.

The bread recipe I tried was simple too: yeast, water, butter, flour, milk, salt, sugar. The biscuit recipe: water, butter, flour, baking soda milk, salt, sugar. Pretty much what most cooks would have in their pantry and fridge. The biscuits take about 20 minutes from start to finish, the bread about 2 hours. I highly recommend you take a look at how it was done in the great forests decades ago. I bet it smelled great in the pine forest with baking bread in the oven!

http://www.foresthistory.org/ASPNET/Publications/Cookbook/Lookout_Cookbook.aspx

The dough after 10 minutes of kneading by hand has obtained a silky texture. It will rest, covered in the baking pan for an hour to double in bulk.

The dough, having risen for an hour, is ready to be placed in a “moderate” oven.

The finished loaf fresh out of the oven after 40 minutes of baking. When properly baked it will emit a hollow sound when tapped.

A tip of the hat to Trader Joe’s

I was surfing the net and came upon Trader Joe’s web site. There’s a bit of excitement and speculation in foodie land Dallas, where people are anticipating the location and opening date of the first Trader Joe’s in Texas.
As I was perusing the site I stumbled upon their recipe link. As I was a bit famished from my morning walk I was ready to eat with little delay.

As luck would have it I had almost everything this simple recipe required:
1 loaf TJ’s Crusty French Bread, torn into pieces
6 TJ’s Eggs
1/4 cup TJ’s Milk
1 cup TJ’s Spicy Italian Chicken Sausage (pre-cooked), sliced (or TJ’s Veg. Sausage-less Sausage)
1 cup TJ’s Monterey Jack Cheese, grated
TJ’s Spices (optional)

Well almost everything save for all the TJ brand ingredients. And of course I was making this for me and not a platoon that the recipe would feed. So I took some crusty bread from Central Market that was past its prime. I hate that I go and buy a beautiful loaf of bread and get about two slices off of it before it turns into concrete. I zapped it in the microwave for about 30 seconds to soften it so it doesn’t explode into shards when cut with a knife. It was still tough but I had a solution to that. I managed to cut two slices off the loaf and put them in my trusty #3 Wagner iron skillet. Then I poured a little fat free milk on the slices to soften them further. A half pat of butter on each slice and into a pre heated oven at 350 while I mixed the other ingredients. One egg for me please, along with some salt and fresh ground pepper, a little left over pre cooked spicy beef patty from Central Market crumbled into a small bowl along with some thin slivers of red onion and some “grated” sharp cheddar cheese and some more non fat milk. I used a bit of milk to stretch the egg mixture so it would cover the bread in the pan. Eggs have an incredible ability to absorb or incorporate a great deal of moisture or ingredients. I put “grated” in quotes because I didn’t use a cheese grater but a serrated edged bread knife that rendered the same result if you slice the cheese thin enough.
Popped it into the toaster oven, set the timer for 25 minutes, and out comes a cheap, relatively quick meal using that leftover bread.

As it came out of the oven. Not quite done yet!

Plated, ready to serve. I flipped it over and grated some sharp chedder using the knife shown and let the cheese melt on the hot dish.

The Accidental Recipe

I know it’s been some time since I last posted on this blog. Well, there’s a couple of reasons for that: time, motivation, and depression. The first two are self explanatory I think, but the last, depression, is due to my recent trip to Italy. The food was so good there that I knew whatever feeble attempts I tried in my kitchen would fall woefully short of the food I dined on in Italy, and I didn’t have the heart to face my rather large inadequacies in the culinary arts. That and it was summer in Dallas and who in their right mind wants to heat up the kitchen?

So with summer in it’s last stages and the memory of Italy a bit faded, I took up pan in hand and had at it. I threw caution to the wind for two reasons: I didn’t have a thing in the cupboard that was called for in the recipe, and therefore if my attempt failed, I had a reason to point to if my attempt was inedible.

So on my recent day off due to my birthday, I spent part of it at Central Market doing a little grocery shopping. I spied some Key West pink shrimp and ordered from the fish monger my usual amount-“grab a handful”.

That night I had an excellent birthday dinner with friends at Capital Grill which included among other delights a perfectly cooked (for me medium rare+) aged sirloin with a Kona coffee and cocoa rub. Melt in your mouth…so I decided to cook the shrimp the next evening. Pondering what direction I wanted to go with the shrimp- simple, sauteed in a little butter, or cooked with a tomato pasta sauce, or with a cream sauce. I opted for cream sauce, as I had some basics on hand, mainly milk and butter.

Looking through an old autographed cookbook that was mother’s, “Ann Clark’s Faboulous Fish”, I scanned for a cream sauce that would go with the shrimp and pasta I had pre set my taste buds on. I had almost nothing on hand the recipe required but I had what I thought were enough reasonable substitutes to make a daring and edible attempt.

Let’s see, the recipe called for:
a) 1 leek and 1 shallot…nope, I have some mild onion and some dried chives-close enough
b) butter…ok, got that
c) shrimp…ok, still good
d) dry white wine…how about a cheap sweet wine a co worker gave me last Christmas?
e) fresh basil…how ’bout dried?
f) heavy cream or creme fraiche…yeah, right, how about fat free milk and some butter
g) salt…sea salt (fancy! score one for me)
h) freshly ground white pepper…um, forgot to refill the pepper mill so with a nod to my mother who used lemon pepper in almost everything but ice cream, I used some of that
i) Moutarde de Meaux or other grainy prepared french mustard…Does an old jar of a grainy mustard that all the vinegar had evaporated out of work for ya?
j) freshly chopped chives, dill, tarragon…gunna use the dried chives again

Here’s the result simmering and thickening the sauce:

I boiled some water for the pasta, and while waiting for it to come to a boil that was enough time to make the sauce. I’ve gotten a bit lazy lately as I don’t even drain the pasta water anymore, I just scoop the pasta out of the pot to reserve the pasta water in case the sauce needs a little extra moisture.

Here’s the final plating with the wine and the yellowed cookbook that paved the way.

It turned out pretty good. I thankfully used only half the mustard called for in the recipe as the mustard was evident in the sauce, but not overwhelming. More of a “what’s that flavor?” as opposed to “wow, that’s some spicy mustard”.

Roma!

I’ll post some quick comments about my recent Italy trip. I took notes on the go, on trains or in hotel rooms. I’ll probably edit these heavily unless there is a hue and cry to post my notes in a fuller form, as most of my notes were not necessarily about food and wine.

Been up for 38 hours straight. Connecting flight delayed 2+ hours for hydrolic leak to landing gear. A hard piece of luggage fell on my head from the overhead and my head is still sore!
All very tired but in good spirits. Had a nice Margarita pizza and 1/2 carafe of red house wine at a pizzeria near Porgeza hotel in Roma for € 15,50, not bad. Sat outside, nice and cool at night.  Very good, just what we needed to end a long day. The house wine in most of these places is quite good.

A James Bond breakfast

If you’ve ever read any of Ian Fleming’s James Bond thrillers, you know of his attention to detail. From the type of cotton in 007’s shirts (Sea Island cotton) to the camera equipment (“an M3 Leica, an MC exposure meter, a K2 filter and a flash holder.”) he used to entrap Auric Goldfinger cheating at Gin Rummy.

Also the food James Bond dines on is noted with detail: “When in London, Bond maintains a simple routine. Sitting down to The Times, he breakfasts on two large cups of “very strong coffee, from De Bry in New Oxford Street, brewed in an American Chemex” and an egg served in a dark blue egg cup with a gold ring round the top, boiled for three and a third minutes. There is also wholewheat toast, Jersey butter and a choice of Tiptree ‘Little Scarlet’ strawberry jam, Cooper’s Vintage Oxford marmalade and Norwegen Heather Honey from Fortnum and Mason, served on blue Minton china. Breakfast is prepared by May, his Scottish housekeeper, whose friend supplies the speckled brown eggs from French Marans hens.”

Cooper’s Vintage Oxford marmalade, Tiptree ‘Little Scarlet’ strawberry jam, Bay’s English muffin, small “bangers”, (sausages), and an egg cooked over medium dusted with fresh ground black pepper and sea salt.

I will most likely never drive an Aston Martin DB5, but I can sure have the same brand of jam and marmalade 007 dines on! On a whim, I purchased a jar each of  Tiptree ‘Little Scarlet’ strawberry jam and Cooper’s Vintage Oxford marmalade. I should stifle my whims in the future. Neither of these condiments are available domestically so I had to purchase them from British suppliers along with the subsequent shipping costs (uh oh). The Little Scarlet Strawberry jam is a limited run, as there is a limited supply of the type of strawberries used in this jam. The strawberries are one fifth the size of regular strawberries. The jam is not as cloyingly sweet as the regular strawberry jams you find at the grocery store. Not tart, but a nice balance of sweetness.

The Cooper’s Vintage Oxford marmalade is tart, and has none of the sweetness that domestic orange marmalade exhibit. In the marmalade are very large strips or chunks of orange rind that impart the tartness to this toast topping.

When duplicating my breakfast of an international spy, instead of whole wheat toast, I used as a base for the jam and marmalade a Bay’s English muffin (shown in background of photo). If you like English muffins I urge you to try this brand found in your grocers refrigerator section. I believe they are unparalleled in taste and texture. Much larger nooks and crannies in these muffins to hold melted butter or the condiment of your choice.