jeffpaulsen

Last night we went out for dinner, and planned the next week's menus, roughly. We then turned this into a shopping list. This worked pretty well so far.

Tonight : roast beef hash, to use up last week's pot roast.
Thursday : turkey breast
Friday : sandwich night (Ula out of town)
Saturday : no dinner at home, doing other stuff
Sunday : stroganoff
Monday : broiled chicken
Tuesday : oven fried chicken

Eventually I'd like to get into more of a rhythm -- it's efficient to have things like Meatloaf Night once a week, or Leftover Night.

This process made it abundantly clear that N doesn't like vegetables any more than I do, and she doesn't have the deep reserve of stoicism that makes me eat them anyway. Broccoli, carrots, and salads are about all she'll do. She has a particular dislike of steamed veggies. I guess we'll just have to trial-and-error our way through a cookbook.

I made bread last night. I famously suck at baking, and it came out awesome anyway. Like bakery good. Here is the way of it:

Dutch Oven Bread
1/4 t dry yeast (yes, that's one quarter of a teaspoon)
1.5 C warm water
3 C flour
1.5 t salt (one and one half teaspoons)

1. Dissolve yeast in water. Add dry ingredients, mix into a sticky dough. Cover with plastic, and let rise in a warm place 12 hours or more.

2. When dough is all bubbly and spongelike, turn it out onto a floured surface. Dust with flour, and fold into thirds a couple of times. Cover with plastic again and let rest 15 mins.

3. Shape dough into a ball, and put it seam-side DOWN on a floured dishtowel. Dust with flour, cover with another towel. Let rise in a warm place 1 or 2 hours - until doubled in size basically.

4. Put a dutch oven (or similar massive lidded heat-retaining pot) into the oven, and preheat to 475F. Yes, that's almost five hundred degrees. When hot, turn the dough into the dutch oven, seam-side UP (although if you get this wrong it will still be bread). You can do this easily because it's on a floured towel. Put the lid back and bake covered for 30 minutes.

5. Remove lid, and bake uncovered 15 minutes or until you like the color

6. Remove bread from pot and place on a wire rack to cool for an hour or more.

I have no idea why you don't need to knead this bread. I can guess that the tiny quantity of yeast and the really long first rise go together, and that the fairly wet dough going into the super hot dutch oven gives the same effect as a steam injected baker's oven. Beyond that I am baffled, but that is normal for me and baking.

Roasted off some bone-in skin-on chicken breast. Made up a batch of mayo. From there it's no distance at all to chicken salad.

I made two kinds: a very traditional one with parsley, and a sweet curry one with cilantro, raisins, honey, and curry powder. They both have scallion, celery, lemon juice, salt, pepper. The secret is that parsley is important. Not enough parsley, and you can't make it taste right. Really. You can't add enough salt, lemon, mayo, or anything to make up for the lack of parsley.

We've been eating that all week. On crackers, on lettuce, on bread. Nobody's complained yet.

Also, I tested out caramelizing onions in a slow cooker. It works, and takes no labor, but the onions don't get the real full flavor they would get from stove top caramelizing. Might be worth doing if you really need a few cups of caramelized onions, have a slow cooker, can spare 18 hours for that as a background job, and can't spend 2-3 hours tending the same onions on the stove.

I think it's coming up on time for a braised meat in red wine kind of thing, a beef burgundy or coq au vin.

Every year people ask me to make this. I am happy to, but you can make your own by following these simple instructions. This recipe is courtesy of Johnny Mohawk and Ah Pook, the two best roommates a guy ever had.

Ingredients

1 lb	butter
2 lbs	dark brown sugar
1 Tablespoon	cinnamon
1 Tablespoon	ginger, ground
1 Tablespoon	allspice
1 teaspoon	cloves, ground
1 teaspoon	nutmeg, ground or grated
1 teaspoon	mace
1 Tablespoon	vanilla

Instructions

Blend thoroughly in a saucepan over low heat, package in your favorite white trash tupperware (small cottage cheese tub does nicely). No refrigeration required unless you mean to let it lie about for several months!

To use the batter, combine a large tablespoon with a healthy shot or two of rum in a mug, and fill with hot water.

I roasted a bone-on rib thing for Christmas dinner. I got a three-bone select-grade one, with the bones cut away but tied back on, for $28 and change. Choice-grade was about twice as much, and looked fantastic, but I didn't get that one. No prime-grade was available at my butcher, so I couldn't make a real no shit Prime Rib, not that I could have afforded to.

Notes for next Thanksgiving:

Turkey brining and cooking is fine the way I already do it - no changes needed.
Gravy - six cups of gravy can't be adequately flavored by the usual method.
Make sure to brown the tailpiece separately next time, and use it as part of the gravy equation.
The giblet and neck stock that forms the veloute base doesn't need any goddamn thyme or parsley.
Stuffing needs smaller bread cubes
Stuffing needs more moisture
Stuffing needs more time to soak flavorful liquids into dry breads
Stuffing can be pre-made the night before
Stuffing: 400F, 25 mins covered + 15 mins uncovered. cover w/ buttered foil. add a little broth & dot w/ butter right before baking.
We should do a creamed vegetable thing
A salad wouldn't hurt
make up some mayo in advance
make our own whipped cream, and not with a nitrous canister thing - whip cream needs a little vanilla and sugar, and spoonability
root vegetables!

Yesterday we had 14 people in attendance. Brenna and Vincent brought tables from the shop (B Sharp Fabric, specializing in the re-enactor's fabric and notional needs). Ula rented two 60" half-rounds. Xigi and I moved furniture, particularly the mega-heavy front room sleeper sofa.

We made:

• turkey, 18lbs, roasted
• stuffing, (caramelized onion, bacon, and sage)
• stuffing, (apricot, sausage, and pecan) [somewhat overcooked]
• gravy [I give myself a 6/10 for flavor, and 10/10 for texture and quantity. A bit disappointing, but nobody complained. I didn't have enough flavor in the stock, so not enough flavor in the veloute. I deglazed the hell out of the roasting pan & used all the non-liver giblets, which helped a lot, but in the end I added a lot of salt, pepper, and my best smoked Hungarian paprika to save it. If we hadn't had MSG-averse guests, I would have thrown in some of that.]
• cranberry chutney with black pepper and shallots
• cranberry gin & tonic
• steamed cranberry pudding

people brought:

• pecan pie
• pumpkin pie
• scalloped sweet potatoes with praline topping
• green beans
• vegetable tray

present, but not anything you call "cooked":

• pickles of several kinds
• crackers
• cheeses
• curry-cream cheese dip

It went well.

these are things Ula and I have done for Thanksgiving already, cooking-wise.

tuesday

• Turkey

1. prepare brining container
2. rinse turkey
3. make brine (salt brown sugar water ice)
4. start brining

• stuffing

1. slice bread
2. start drying

• drinks

1. prepare cranberry syrup for cran-G&T's

• relishes

1. make black pepper and cranberry chutney

wednesday

• stuffing

1. cube bread
2. measure bread
3. continue drying bread
4. toast pecans
5. mince dried apricots

• steamed pudding

1. make bread crumbs
2. make cranberry glaze

• gravy

1. make improvised turkey stock
2. shred and chop giblets and neck
3. discard liver
4. chill stock and skim fat

Our national day of feasting approaches. What's everybody doing for food? Specifically, how are you doing your turkey?

We've ordered a nice organic bird, which we will brine and roast. I like to turn the bird a few times, so that it roasts evenly all around.

Tonight I will harvest the beets before the damned gophers eat them all. I will shred them and cook them and make of them a soup and serve it to anyone who comes over.

My borscht recipe includes a couple of hot dogs. This seems a little odd, but works really well. I think it simulates some kind of fine-textured Russki sausage. I might also throw in an oxtail or something depending on availability and timing. Beef shin would be best.

Early this week I made up a pan of grapefruit and Campari granita, which ula1066 doesn't care for. Now that I have the skill "make granita", I should theoretically be able to do it for arbitrary flavors. Not sure how much alcohol I can work in, though - Campari is low-proof, and there's only about 4 oz of it in my one-quart granita. Too much would prevent good freezing probably.

ABSURDLY EASY cheddar chive popovers

Preheat oven to 375 - rack near bottom.

2 eggs
1 C milk
1 T butter, melted
3/4 C + 2 T flour
1/2 t salt
some chives

Whisk together - leave lumpy

Butter the hell out of some muffin tins. pour 1/2 batter into tins. Add a little bit of shredded cheddar to each one. Add remaining batter. Maybe bit more cheese on top, not much though.

Bake 45 mins. use sharp knife to let steam out of popovers. Bake maybe 10 minutes more to let the insides dry out a bit.

Serve hot.

You can probably replace the cheddar / chive combination with parm / garlic, or do without the extra flavoring altogether. Haven't tried doing them sweet, but plain + jam would be nice.