Butternut Squash Lasagna
February 24, 2009
I married a lasagna genius. I’m not kidding. It was one of those things that won me over 18 years ago – the man can make a lasagna out of anything and it’s always amazing. (Not only has it always been amazing, but since in the beginning we lived together in this semi-legal loft space, he did it in a toaster oven from the 70s.) It takes everything we have + the knowledge that it will be better the next day to not to just gobble it down.
Recently, on a particularly cold and miserable day, Marv announced that he felt like cooking something and asked me what to make. I yelled, “LASAGNA!” He asked what should be in it and after thinking about it for a second I said, “butternut squash.” He informed me that I was crazy and wandered down his own road making a more traditional lasagna.
But I can not be deterred. On New Year’s Eve a friend of mine compared me to Letitia Cropley and I intend to live up to that! (Or, rather, just short of that.) Besides, I want butternut squash lasagna – substituting squash slices for pasta. First I was thinking gorgonzola for cheese – but I’m mellowing it to aged gouda.
I love a taqueria… and their tacos.
January 26, 2009
It’s one of those quirky things about me; I am just not capable of passing by a flea market that boasts that it’s the largest in Georgia. There is just no way to do it. And when at the end of that flea market you find a taqueria that sells lengua tacos… Oh my. I swoon.
So I present to you, my day at the flea market (with tacos + lengua and salsa recipes at the end!):
Oh, how could you possibly drive by this one a beautiful fall day?
Ah, look at it. Isn’t it just lovely? Granted the lengua one is a bit obscured by the steak taco, but you get the idea. (YUM! That’s the idea.)
Leftover Biscuit Pudding
December 8, 2008
It never happens. There are never leftover biscuits. Never. And yet there they are: stale biscuits. In my defense, I’ve been alone in the house, and really not home much so there were almost a dozen biscuits that went uneaten. I figured I’d just take them to my meetup group and something would happen to them then. But no. So they came back home with me. ”Screw it,” I thought to myself, “I’ll just make bread pudding with them.” By golly it was tasty.
It might even be worth, dare I say it, letting biscuits go stale. (Huh, lightning actually didn’t strike me dead just then.)
Biscuit Bread Pudding
9 small biscuits, broken up
1/3 c dried fruit – apricots, chopped or golden raisins (if you got them/want them)
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c cream
2 c milk
1 T vanilla
2 T brandy
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 cream
1 1/2 T sugar
maple syrup
Preheat oven to 325°f.
Put biscuits with dried fruit mixed in in a loaf pan. Mix together the rest of the ingredients in a bowl. Pour over the biscuits and dunk down the pieces that are sticking up. Place pan into a larger pan. Put into oven, pour enough water into the larger pan to make it half way up the bread pan.
Cook for 45 min to 1 hour, pudding is done when liquid stuff has solidified and looses it’s shine. When it’s done, take bread pan out of the water and place it on a wire rack. Let cool for 30 minutes to an hour. Whip cream and sugar together until the cream stands in hard peaks. Slice up slices of the pudding, drizzle with maple syrup and dollop with whipped cream. Enjoy!
Love always,
MrsMarv
Grilled Cheese Manifesto
November 30, 2008
I’ve been begging for a grilled cheese sandwich for a week now. Have I gotten one? Well, yeah. Finally. Seriously, you would think that I know enough people who cook that I could have gotten one in under a week. Instead I just got to hear stories about people’s favorite ways to make grilled cheese. So when I finally got to a place where I could make one, that I was forced to go for 5 different grilled cheese sandwiches. And then I tossed in a couple more.
Chi-Lake Special in happy little grilled cheese pan.
What is the perfect grilled cheese? I say the perfect grilled cheese always has buttery (using real butter*) browned bread slices, melted cheese, and something acidic, generally mustard – totally non-negotiable. The rest is wide open as the heavens with cheeses and breads for stars. (I really can’t help but get all poetic about melted cheese and bread.) You are limited by your imagination alone.
And perhaps your cooking skills. I still do a have a happy place in my culinary repertoire for grilled cheese sandwiches made from Velveeta and homepride wheat bread, yep, you guessed it, just like mom used to make. Processed cheeses and pre-sliced bread does offer expediency and the ability for the cook to not pay much attention to the ever important melting vs. browning times. However, you do miss out on a myriad of potential flavors. Really, all that’s necessary is to cook over medium heat and cover the pan so that harder cheeses will melt before the bread is burned.
So… breathe deep… think cheese. Hmmm. Lovely gooey melted cheese slowly seeping out between slices of bread. It’s time to move beyond cheddar. After you’re done limiting yourself – throw a party. Have yourself a grilled cheese and wine party. Mix, match and otherwise gorge yourself with a melted cheese and bread tasting. Yum.
Here is my grilled pictorial. Join the revolution. Tell me your favorites. Throw a party to find more favorites. Viva the grilled cheese!
* There will be NO fake butter! I don’t care that it’s not as spreadable cold, heat it up!
Farmer, Blue Cheese, Basil & Red Wine, Balsamic Vinegar Reduction**
Take 1 1/4 c red wine and 1/4 c balsamic vinegar and bring to just boiling. Reduce heat and simmer until liquid is reduced by at least half around 1/2 – 2/3 c. Cool and store until needed.
Get yourself a rustic loaf of bread. Slice it into thin to medium slices. Roll some basil leaves together and slice 1/4 – 1/2″ slices.
Butter slices of bread top with slices of farmer cheese, sprinkle with blue cheese, basil and press down. Add top slice of bread and press down again. Cover pan and cook over medium heat, flip when bottom is browned. Cover and cook until the other side is browned.
Drizzle with reduction sauce and enjoy.
** another variation is Drunken Goat Cheese, Sauteed Onion, Oregano with Port Reduction Sauce
Roasted Cauliflower Soup with Chili Glazed Shrimp
October 25, 2008
This is for Kyndell because I like her.
1 head cauliflower
olive oil
3 yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
32oz chicken stock
1 onion
2 – 3 T cream
2 t balsamic or wine vinegar
1 t garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste
shrimps
chili sauce
1 T brown sugar
Preheat oven to 450°f. Cut cauliflower in 1″ slices. Put in a roasting pan, drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt & pepper. Cook for 45 minutes or until browned.
Put potato in a large soup pan and cover with water. Add in some salt, pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a low boil and boil until tender. Add in cauliflower and simmer for another 5 – 10 minutes. Use a stick blender or transfer to a blender to puree to a find consitancy. Reduce heat to warm.
In a saute pan, heat oil until shimmery. Add in shrimp and cook until it’s firm and pink on all sides. Turn off heat. Squirt on chili sauce and sprinkle on brown sugar. Toss until ingredients are combined and coated.
Serve soup in a large shallow bowl topped with the shrimp or cheese and croutons.
Jamnation: you too, can can.
October 10, 2008
I grew up in the age when Grandmas were magic.
You would travel great distances (any distance is great when you’re 4), then you get to play on tractors and sing to pigs (you were told to stay away from them because they were mean, so you would sing to them to try to make them happier so they wouldn’t be so mean) until cousins come to visit and made fun of you so you had to hide in the kitchen with Grandma. She’d give you a cookie or two in an empty bakelite powder case and you’d play a game of making up what magic potions could be in all the the different colored jars in the pantry and take little bites all the way around the cookie in a circle putting it back in the bakelite case after each bite all while humming to yourself and swinging your legs out as far as you could.
Well, maybe this was just me. Yeah, lets just say that was me. I sang to pigs. So…
Later, when I was a starving art student. I’d visit and as I was leaving Grandma’d grab me, take me down to the basement and load me up with frozen mini-loaves of quick breads and random other foods she had preserved and stashed away for later.
Putting up food. It’s such a good phrase. It means that starving art students get to eat. And frankly, bad economy or good, there’s few things cheerier in the middle of winter then opening up a can of something you made when there were big puffy clouds in a cyan blue sky. So yum!
Once again, sometimes the old ways are the best ways. It really just makes sense to make the most of the food you’ve grown yourself or bought locally from people who are growing really good stuff while it’s the best it can be. Enter the art of canning.
Canning – you probably have an opinion about it. Perhaps you love it. Or perhaps you think it’s too old fashioned, too much work or just too scary. Scary, it kinda is. If do something careless or are just plain old unlucky botulism can occur. Now to put those chances into perspective, Wikipedia says that in the US there is, “An average of 110 cases of botulism are reported each year in the United States. Of these, approximately, 72% are infant botulism, and 3% are wound botulism.” This means that there are 28 cases a year in adults who aren’t black tar heroin users. (I’m just going to assume you aren’t.) It goes on to say that the mortality rate is now down 2%. (It does have to be treated though, or you’re more likely to die than live.)
So, there are rules. There are always rules. It happens. Rule #1: pay attention to your ph level! Things that are higher in acid don’t need to be canned with as stringent resources as those that aren’t. (For a little fun fact, pumpkins vary in ph level from pumpkin to pumpkin so you won’t find people willing to tell you that you can can it safely.) Never fear, there is a guide, a book, promptly dubbed the ‘blue ball book’ in my house has a chart (I’m sure you can also find them online) of what foods have a higher ph level than others. Things like lemons, rhubarb and plums have a high ph level and need less help in keeping bad bacteria out.
Rule #2: practice safe can! Clean your cans and then submerge them in simmering water until you use them. This has the benefit of warming up cans so that a warm liquid won’t crack them and killing of little bacterium.
Now you have a few different choices of how technical you would like to get in your canning. You can refrigerate, freeze or seal your cans. If you refrigerate, just stick your stuff in a prepared can (you really should clean and simmer) seal them up – your jam should last a few weeks. Freezer jam is just what you think it is, fill up a container and stick it in the freezer, when you want to use it just defrost it.
For more information on canning just go to freshpreserving.com and they’ll hook you up.
That’s about it. The only other technical thing you need to know (for jams only) is about pectin (as well as the whole canning process thing.) Pectin is a naturally occurring chemical in most plants. It’s a fibrous part of the cell walls which helps bind cells together and regulate water. Most commercially available pectins are derived from orange peels and apple skins. You can find pectin in the canning section of grocery stores. I’m still playing with pectin in my jam recipes to figure out just how solid I want to make the, hence the pectin I’m saying to put in is super subjective and you might want to play on your own.
Spring & Fall Applesauce
Wildpepper Salsa 3 ways
September 7, 2008
Harvest time around here means that it’s the perfect time to make up some Wildpepper salsa. We use it in a bunch of different ways – and since it is so perfect for harvest time I figure I may as well share with you. (Aren’t you glad you’re you? If you were anyone else, I totally wouldn’t do it!)
I’ll warn you straight off, I don’t really remember what was in the original recipe. Which is to say – that this salsa has become such a staple in our house that I can’t be sure where it started (nor can I seem to find it on my computer – but I’m sure you could find it online.) I do know it was a recipe posted by Jim Campbell of Mild to Wild Pepper and Herb company. If you’ve never tried his bbq or hot sauces I highly recommend them. They’re really good and he seems like a really good guy.
Salsa
6 tomatillos
4 roma tomatoes
4 jalepeno peppers
3 aniheim peppers
2 yellow onions, quartered
2 ears corn
juice from 1 lime
1 bunch cilantro, coarsely chopped
salt to taste
Put all ingredients except lime, cilantro and salt on the smoker or grill. Grill over medium heat until veggies are tender, pulling them off the heat as they’re done. Deseeded remove stems and outer skins of all veggies. Put all veggies except corn in the blender. Blend until they’re the consistency you want. Cut kernals off corn. Put in a large container. Add in the blended veggies. Add in lime, cilantro and salt.
Confetti Nachos
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Pork part 3: Chorizo
August 10, 2008
“Just because it can kill you doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Just feed it to your spouse… You can always get a new one.” The love of my life says, with a smirk. (His eyes, at this point, are a stormy blue, but when we go back outside they will turn back to sage green. He’s lucky for those eyes, keeps me from smacking him when he says things like this. I’m not that frickin’ replaceable.)
Then again, there’s the subject matter. He was talking about making chorizo for me. That’s a seriously beautiful thing. How many people have made you chorizo? I thought so. Besides, he’s a good guy. I trust him with my life.
I re-fell in love with chorizo while we were in Portugal. It was a beautiful thing to be able to walk into grocery stores that were filled with cured sausages and artisanal cheeses. I continually had to keep myself from doing happy dances as we gathered up both to pair with fresh baked bread and cold beer for our impromptu picnics. When we got home Marv decided that it was time for him to start playing with cold cured and fermented meats.
Cold curing is basically meat or fish that’s been cured with salt rather than heat and that’s more often than not smoked. Wikipedia says:
Salt inhibits the growth of spoilage, killing microorganisms by drawing water out of microbial cells through osmosis. As the unwanted bacterial population decreases, other beneficial bacteria, primarily of the Lactobacillus genus, come to the fore and generate an acidic environment (around 4.5 pH). The sugar included in the cure is used as food by the lactobacilli; generally dextrose is preferred over sucrose, or table sugar, because it seems to be more thoroughly consumed by the bacteria. This process is in fact a form of fermentation, and, in addition to reducing further the ability of the spoilage bacteria to grow, accounts for the tangy flavor of some cured products. Concentrations of salt up to 20% are required to kill most species of unwanted bacteria.
You can probably see where this all could go wrong. But really, it’s pretty simple; salt draws the water out of the cells, which the bad bacteria needs to live and grow, therefore killing them off. Then they get replaced by good bacteria which likes to eat sugar and leave behind a bit of an acidic taste.
Happily, my boy is brilliant, so it didn’t go wrong. Could have been a bit spicier (particularly if he had listened to me) but it was really good. He did his research and then decided to (mostly) follow a recipe for Cold Smoked Chorizo from Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Rhulman and Brian Polcyn. Tis a good book, explains a lot without getting overly techie for those of us who don’t really care about the life and mating habits of lactobacilli. I mean, I’d like to know enough not to kill folks, but I also have enough common sense to know when meat doesn’t look or smell right. As well as enough common sense to not eat it.
5# fatty pork shoulder
2.5 T salt
3/4 – 1 t pink salt
1 t pepper
2 T cumin
3 T chili powder
1/2 c milk powder
1/4 c apple jack brandy
3/4 c green onions, thinly sliced mostly white parts
sausage casings
Combine the dry ingredients and set aside.
Grind the meat in a grinder set with large die. Add in the spices, brandy and onions and mix until liquid is absorbed. Saute up a small patty for tasting. Taste. Adjust spices as needed. (At the time I said it needed more heat, again, he’s not so big on the listening.) Stuff the sausage into casings and tie off into links.
Refrigerate uncovered over night.
And now we get to the other bit of silliness; the smoking. For under $15 in parts Marv made himself a ghetto cold smoker.
Ghetto Cold Smoker
Wikipedia says, “Smoking adds chemicals to the surface of an item which affect the ability of bacteria to grow, inhibit oxidation (and thus rancidity), and improve flavor.”
Since summer is midway though summer stuff is on sale en masse. He picked himself up a hibachi for $8 and some heating duct parts. He removed the handle, popped off the little slidey vent cover and bent a duct wall connector to fit the hibachi and rivited it on. Then he took a duct that was the right size to fit to the wall connector and voila; a place to make the smoke. The other side of the duct then fits on his upright smoker’s vent and voila; a place to hang the sausage to be smoked.
Smoke for 2 – 4 hours, until they’re deeply colored.
Hang your sausage up in a cool, dry place for 3 – 5 days until the casings are a deep redish-brown color and have sunken in.
This is about 2 days in. You can see how they’re starting to get bumpy from sinking in.
Just as an aside here, thus far this sausage isn’t cooked. While it’s probably safe, you may as well cook it before consuming it just to be sure. Will last in the refrigerator for quite awhile, and in your freezer for longer. (How was that for a specific timeframe?)
Have fun. Eat meat.
Grilling Up Pizza
July 28, 2008
A couple of days ago I hosted my first cooking Meetup. About a month ago, on a whim, I took over the What’s Cookin’ Minnesota? group. I decided for an ice breaker we should make pizzas on the grill and pair that with a beer tasting. I provided the crust dough, roasted tomato sauce and carmelized onions. Just to make things more Minnesotan, I asked people to source some local ingredients for toppings.
Of course, after inviting a bunch of strangers to my yard, then I had to learn how to make pizzas on a grill. I’m always really happy with the results of the pizza dough I photographed and wrote about in January, so I knew that would be the recipe I would use. It was pretty much just a matter of figuring out how to make it work for the grill. Turned out that two key bits for success were cooking both sides of the crust (rather than cooking it like you would in an oven) and moving it around quite a bit so that it wouldn’t get burned my grill’s hot spots.
The only other thing is to not loading up the crusts too much. (Although, this does become a bit difficult when people bring lots of tasty toppings.)
(Go ahead, take a bite.)
Pork Part 2: Tamales
July 27, 2008
I’m probably about the worst person in the world to be writing about making tamales. I’ve never had one prepared by anyone other than Marv or myself that I’ve liked. Seems like every time I get them made by someone else, they’re either too wet, too dry, lacking flavor or just generally lackluster.
And yet, when Marv started making them at home several years ago, I loved them. Of course, Marv was playing with making sauces from smoked and dried chilies. He’s insanely good at these things. (He is also a lasagna genius. Two excellent reasons to marry a person, in my opinion.) The only problem is that once he figures out how to do something really well, he stops. It’s very unfortunate. But there’s not challenge for him, so he’s just done.
Then I have to take over. Oh well. I decided to do a little research. Turns out tamales aren’t even called that, they’re tamals, but we’ll go with it. The gist is they’re little sandwiches. Fillings can change, be different kinds of meat or veg, or they can go sweet filled with nuts and raisins. (I’m psyched to try this.) Seems war parties used to carry them a road food. I’ll have to remember this for our next road trip. (Hopefully, this won’t make me attack statues of war heroes. Oh, me and my warmongering ways.)
Anyhoo. Back to the tragic loss of my tamale maker. I am not he. I don’t feel the need to grind up re-hydrated chiles and whatnot. I opted for chile gravy more or less making a roux with powdered spices instead. Then I just cooked the meat over low heat for a couple of hours until it was falling apart. Rather than actually pulling it apart, I then chopped it up with a cleaver.
The only other thing that I do that may (or may not) raise eyebrows is that I really like the taste that comes from steaming the tamales in banana leaves rather than corn husks. They seem a bit brighter in flavor for some reason. Banana leaves are super cheap and you can get them frozen at Asian markets.
Pork Tamales
Filling
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Feed me! 
