Penne for Your Thoughts!

Yesterday was my grandmother's birthday, so in her memory I cooked one of her favorites--breaded pork chops. My memories of Gram preparing this dish include her using bone-in chops, but I prefer them to be boneless and thinly sliced. Skipping the egg wash, I simply washed the porks under the faucet and then dredged them in my breadcrumbs-and-Green-Can-Cheese mixture. Into a pan with a couple tablespoons of vegetable oil gave the chops a nice crunch on one side, and I hoped to get the same results on the other side, but I became concerned about burning when I couldn't allow them enough cooking time to unstick from the pan. So I lost some coating on one side, but not all of it. No problem.

I also bought a few small yellow squash and zucchini to add to the penne pasta accompanying my pork chops. Dicey dice with the knifey knife and I sauted them in a little bit of olive oil. I also added Salt and Pepper and more Sandwich Sprinkle, which is a nice seasoning mix of which I have a good quantity. Meanwhile, as I allowed the squash to soften in the heat of the pan, I shredded about a cup of Parmigiano Reggiano. When the vegetables had cooked enough, I hit them with the juice of one lemon and a few grinds of pepper, and we ate. It was good. I love this combination of squash, pasta, and cheese. Feta is great, too, for this dish.

I stopped at a little market downtown yesterday afternoon to buy a dozen local eggs and a bit of chicken, and I allowed myself to be weaseled into buying two delicious desserts from an older guy named George—Jammin' George, more precisely—who was selling a variety of homemade items, such as hummus, assorted jams, cherry scones and date-and-walnut bars. I bought scones and bars, and they were quite good. George was, let me see, what is the best word for him—boisterous? But his pastries were as subtle as he was brash, so it all worked out, I think.

My lemon ricotta cheesecake experiment resulted in a most edible dessert, at least from my point of view. The wife was as vehement about not trying it as I was vehement about getting her to try it. I won, but she barely tasted it, stating the eggs were unappetizing and the texture was off. The whole point of cheesecakes, she said, is for the filling to be very smooth. I froze most of it, so now on occasion I will have a little taste of frozen-ricotta-lemon-pie-cake dessert if I want it. I don't think Granny Boots would have liked it, either.

Zitronenkuchen, sort of.

Well, last night we traveled to Ma and Pa White's for dinner, so I did not cook anything except for a kind of Zitronenkuchen or lemon cake. I was watching Iron Chef America, and their ingredient was Meyer lemon, so that's where the idea comes from. I also like the spiffy German word Zitronenkuchen, which I just learned. Of course, I have regular old lemons, but I guess now I'll have to find some Meyer lemons to find out what they're all about.

Last Christmas I made a few genoise cakes. I will not go into much detail about making the cakes, but suffice it to say that making one is a multi-step process. These cakes are thin and spongy, and they are generally rolled. I wanted to make a vanilla cake filled with lemon ricotta, but it did not work out for me. The filling has a nice lemony taste, but the texture is unappealing. However, my idea is to make a graham-cracker crust to bake the mixture into a sort of cheesecake. I think the texture will smooth as it cooks. I will soon find out if my theory holds water.

So instead of lemon ricotta filling in my cake, I made a simple glaze from confectioners' sugar as well as the juice and zest of one lemon. Most of the glaze soaked into the cake, and that was fine, but the glaze on the plate beside the cake firmed, so I scooped it up with a knife and spread it on the top of the cake, adding some small amount of texture to the cake as well as a fair amount of flavor.

I also whipped some cream to which I added small amounts of confectioners' sugar, lemon juice and zest. Spooned over the cake, and it was a decent dessert. Janet prepared salmon with fresh dill, Salt and Pepper, lemon juice and a pat of butter, and she and Ma White fixed latkes. Ma White also made a psychadelically iced strawberry cake, so we had a good group effort for our good-tasting dinner.

Earlier in the day I went to the HT for a minute, and they had a can of olive oil on sale for half off, and I bought it. Check it.

Chicken and Linguine with Chimichurra

Well, it is no surprise, with the types of rich foods I've been eating lately, that I am having a flare up of THE GOUT. THE GOUT, if you are fortunate never to have had it, is like having the devil in your foot, but more particularly the area from your big toe through the ball of the foot. It can be avoided by abstaining from eating foods that contain high levels of purines, such as red meat, beer, mushrooms, cream, etc. The list goes on and on.

Purines accumulate in the joints of my big toe. Last time, it was my right foot. This time, it is my left foot. Purines that have not had the opportunity to be flushed out of the body will form into sharp crystals, so if you can imagine the devil with a thousand tiny daggers stabbing you inside your toe to the ball of the foot, that is THE GOUT. But it is my own fault. For the next few days, my diet must change to accommodate lower levels of purines.

Today I made chimichurri sauce for the first time. An Argentinean condiment, it is initially built like the unimpressive cilantro oil I made awhile back, but chimichurri is much improved. As I was researching, I discovered that chimichurri (say it out loud—it's fun) is usually made of parsley, but it is another dish that is wide open to interpretation. I used cilantro since I had a beautiful, fresh head of it in the fridge from which I removed most of the large stems, and then I threw it into the processor with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, several tiny cloves of garlic, Salt and Pepper, a bit of cumin, the juice of one lemon, and Penzey's Pasta Sprinkle. Wow, it is good. I tried a dollop of it on crostini (cooking vocabularly is a hoot) with a little slice of Parm, and I was happy about it. The wife was excited to know what it was going to be served with, and she was happy when I said pasta—linguine, in fact—with halved cherry tomatoes, capers, Black Pepper, and Parmigiano Reggiano.

Also on the menu is baked chicken breast. Simply seasoned with Salt and Pepper, the chicken will also be marinated in a little bit of chimichurri sauce, which kind of brings the dinner all together nicely. But I also made a loaf of bread. For Christmas, Janet gifted me with a Dutch Oven. A wonderful kitchen implement it is, and the very first thing I made in it was Dutch Oven Bread. It takes time, this recipe, but it is so simple you really don't have to do anything but mix the ingredients and push the dough down onced or twiced, as some people might say.

Into the bowl went flour and Penzey's Sandwich Sprinkle (garlic, coarse salt, basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, marjoram, black pepper.) These seasonings complement the flour well and provide some nice flavors. Also, one packet of yeast that I activated with very warm water and honey. Once the yeast foamed and bloomed aromatically, I poured it into the flour and added more water to make my dough ball. Place in a bowl to rise and develop bubbles; after a couple hours push down the dough and let it rise again. Push down the dough once more, and it is ready to go into the preheated Dutch Oven. No kneading is required for this recipe, but rather you must allow the dough time to develop bubbles which will create holes in the interior of the bread as it bakes. The actual recipe states to allow the dough to sit for at least eight hours or overnight to develop the most bubbles, but I have been known to cut down the time and it still works well. This bread is rustic and delicious, with a chewy crust, and to eat a warm slice of it with a little butter as it comes from the Dutch Oven is a treat.

Tortillas de Harina

Tacos are good. Tortillas are good. Today I decided to make both. I have never attempted making tortillas, but after conducting a little research, I concluded that the process was not too confounding. I have made dough several times, and it has required practicing to learn the best ways to manipulate the dough. Each time is the same, and each time is a little different; this time hopefully easier and more efficient than the last.

Many recipes call for different kinds of flour. I use one kind of flour for everything: King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose flour. As the name states, it can be used for all purposes. Splendid. So I mixed flour, baking powder, salt, shortening and hot water together to make my big dough ball. I let that rest for a while, and then I cut the dough into chunks to be rolled into ping-pong-sized balls. After balling, I used a cast-iron skillet atop a piece of floured wax paper to squish them flat. I could roll the balls pretty well using this method, as I was rotating the pan around the edges of the dough, much like driving erratically might look. But to get them thinner, I had to twist harder and push harder with the skillet and this action was ripping the paper and causing the dough to stick to the skillet.

I had to get the dough rolled thinner since, through trial and error, I determined that quite thinly rolled dough cooked into a better tortilla, for my taste. So I broke out the rolling pin and rolled them not quite paper thin, but almost. Much better, yes.

To cook the tortillas, I placed them in a dry, heated skillet. Unfortunately, I did not dust the extra flour from my tortillas, and it burned onto the pan. I am still working to remove it. Reminds me of the time I told a student to use some elbow grease. The student promptly stood up and rubbed her elbow vigorously on the table.

These tortillas turned out pretty good for a first effort. I will make them again. But I also cooked taco meat for the tortillas. I started with my mirepoix, to which I administered the immersion blender after it cooked some. Then I added the ground beef and some chicken stock. Letting this cook, I gathered my spices: salt, pepper, chili powder, cumin, cinnamon and cocoa. I thought I might have gone overboard with the cocoa powder, but adding a bit more chicken stock provided the needed balance. I scooped a bit of meat with my tortilla, and it was quite tasty. Later I'll make tacos with meat, cheese, cilantro, and more of the hot sauce I made yesterday.

Prep time today was approximately one hour, but measuring time in die Kuche is irrelevant. It is, as they say, time well spent.

I Went to Juarez One Time...

I love Mexican food: Tacos. Burritos. Chimichangas! Chiles Rellenos. Chiles Rellenos is a tasty dish, but creating it takes some doing, just like everything else that's worth anything, I suppose. The wife loves them since poblano peppers are very low on the heat index while still being quite flavorful. I love stuffed chiles because the ingredients are hard not to love.

To begin, I roasted four poblano chiles in the oven. Most recipes say to roast the peppers until the skin blackens; then put them in a bag to steam, thus facilitating the peeling of the skin. But I just turn off the oven after they've roasted awhile and let them sit in there since I am not going to peel the skin anyway. Poblano skin (and the roasted capsicum flesh underneath) is very delicate and in my experience not unpleasant to eat if it's not blackened, so I just leave it on.

As the peppers roasted, I prepared the stuffing mixture. Into my bowl went my remaining chopped cilantro, shredded mozzarella, an egg, a bit of Green-Can cheese, half of an onion that I diced and sauted slowly, and Salt and Pepper. I mixed that with my own bare hands, and it was ready to use.

Most of the time when you order rellenos, they are still in the form of the poblano pepper. Since I am not a professional, I simply open the pepper to remove the stems and seeds and lay it as flat as possible. Then I take just enough of the cheese mixture and wrap the pepper around it, burrito style. I have found that this method enables the pepper to stay stuffed, especially with the beer batter around it, but you have to rein yourself in from heaping too much mixture. That will cause the peppers to burst.

The beer batter is simple: beer, flour, and some of that Essence mixture I made about a week or so ago. I poured about a cup of flour in the bowl and added a bottle of Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale to it. Dogfish Head brews very tasty and often strong beer, which I like. Whisk, whisk, whisk until it is the right consistency, adding more flour if needed. Then I placed a stuffed pepper on a slotted spoon and dunked it into the batter. I have some oil in the pan, and I drop the battered stuffed pepper down gently into that hot oil. Let them brown and turn them over. Place them on a paper towel to drain, and they are nearly ready to eat.

I also had some sauce left from making meatballs, so I wanted to use it to make a little bit of spicy enchilada-type sauce. I added some chicken stock and some water, as well as chili powder, cumin, and about a teaspoon of the remaining pepper flakes. A few years ago, I found an immersion blender brand new in the box at a yard sale, and occasionally I get to put it to use. I blended that sauce until it was smooth and over the peppers and rice it went. Even though it was way too hot for her usual taste, the wife even suffered a few spoonsful of the sauce. She said she could taste the beer in the dish, but I was obliviously lost in melted cheese and spicy sauce.

Beef Wellington Smith

Wellington Smith is my favorite player on this year's stellar WVU basketball team. I refer to him as Beef Wellington Smith, and in his honor, I decided to make Beef Wellington for dinner last evening.

About 10 years ago, I had a part time job as a bartender at a very small, very private club in the mountains of western Pennsylvania. The job was all right, but it was not quite what I was looking for so I did not spend a whole lot of time there. On the bright side, the club's stereotypically surly chef was quite adept, and he opened my eyes to several dishes, Beef Wellington being one of them.

Wellingtons begin with beef, of course, in the form of two chunks of filet mignon that I purchased at the downtown Curb Market. This beef is top-notch, local beef from Climax, NC, fed on grass for its meaningful life. The flavor was outstanding. I liberally Salted and Peppered the beef, and then I seared it in my skillet. So far so good. As the boeuf rested, I began the duxelle, a cooking term that was new to me, which consisted mostly of white mushrooms with a couple trumpets and shiitakes thrown in for good measure.

I processorized the mushrooms and then squeezed the water out of them through a kitchen towel. Into the pan they went, and here's where I made a mistake: I did not let the remaining water cook out of the mushrooms, but instead added butter and began sauteing. I think the duxelle is supposed to be a little bit dry, and mine was not, as I also added some Chardonnay and more butter. Salt and Pepper and a little bit of cream, and it is becoming something good. I let it cook for a while to get some more of the moisture out.

Next I unfolded a sheet of puff pastry and cut a few flaps to accommodate wrapping the beef and duxelle. I mounded the duxelle in the center of the pastry and placed a filet on top. Then I
wrapped, using a bit of egg wash to bind the dough together. Into the oven they went for about 40 minutes. The pastry browned nicely, but the beef cooked well. That is fine with me as this meat would never have the opportunity to be too dry or flavorless. But the conventional wisdom, which I do not always find to be so wise, states that medium is always better. Whatever.

A small amount of sauce in the pan composed of a little more Chardonnay and Worcestershire initially. I reduced that a lot and then mounted it with butter just before I was ready to eat. Regarding this sauce, I was moved enough to exclaim loudly to no one but The Walrus, “Dangit, boy!” or something similar.

Awhile back, the HT was selling 10-pound bags of carrots cheap, so I bought a bag. Ten pounds of carrots is a lot of carrots, so I decided to make use of them--carrot frites, and I must say it was a good idea. Of course, carrot frites require a lot of carrot chopping, but it's worth it, so I made at least a thousand carrot sticks and parfried them in the deep fryer. Right before I was ready to eat, I finished frying the carrots. When they came out of the hot oil, I dusted them with a mixture of salt, brown sugar, powdered ginger, cinnamon, and a little chili powder. Good, good, good.

In retrospect, the next time I make Beef Wellington, I will roll the dough a bit thinner than it is out of the box and halve the beef to make smaller Wellingtons. The facade was great, but the interior was just a little too moist. I think a thinner pastry and a drier duxelle will make this dish slightly better, even though the result this time was very acceptable and very tasty.

Pasta with Red Sauce, Meatballs and Bread

Fartfalle. I don't mean to soil the decorum of this blog, but part of me will always be a child who likes fart jokes. “Better out than it is in,” is what Granny Boots might have said.

Farfalle is not my favorite of the pastas—rigatoni is—but regular old spaghetti is not far behind. Penne is good, too, and I have a variety of pastas in the pantry as a result of a good sale awhile back, but last night I felt the tug of the farfalle and the pull of the meatballs again.

Before I started getting into cooking and learning about cooking cleanly (thank you, Kimberly) I was still preparing food products that I bought in boxes at the store. I probably would have purchased a jar of sauce and plopped that into the pan. Very uninspiring in flavor and effort. Now since I've had a bit more experience, I does it like this:

First I dice the onion and get it sauteing in olive oil. I peel a few cloves of garlic and toss that into the oil, too. Cutting garlic is something I don't do anymore. It will still impart its flavor if I just squash it a bit and throw it into the pan with some salt.

Last night, I diced the onions extra small to get them cooked down quickly. Next I added my meatballs to the skillet and allowed them to cook a bit with the onions and garlic. We're getting a seriously good smell in the kitchen by now.

I had some good quality ground beef that Ma White presented me, so we had beef meatballs! If I have sausage, I add a pound of sausage to the meatballs, as well. Two eggs, Salt and Pepper, Pasta Sprinkle, some Green-Can Cheese, and a few breadcrumbs now sat in the bowl. I took off my ring and started squishing the ingredients through my hands, which I washed, of course. Meatballs must be made by hand. I like my meatballs about the size of a ping-pong ball, so that's about how big they were. I have made them bigger, but that was only because I was too lazy to roll them any smaller.

After those balls browned a bit, I added a big can of crushed tomatoes and a big can of diced tomatoes. I like the chunk of the diced tomatoes; they add a bit of texture to the sauce. If I have fresh basil, I like to add it, but it seems that I rarely have fresh herbs, especially during this time of the year. So I add a fair amount of Penzey's Pasta Sprinkle (sweet basil, Turkish oregano, thyme and garlic), a product that enhances the flavor of this sauce quite a lot.

Salt and Pepper and she's ready to cook awhile, maybe half an hour to get those spices rehydrated some. But earlier, I decided to make bread, so I had to get some dough rising with a simple, simple recipe: flour, yeast, honey, and salt. This yeast was the most active I have ever seen. I stirred it with the honey and about a half cup of water, and when I came back, it had foamed itself in a frenzy. I could smell its yeasty pleasantness immediately.

I knead my dough by squeezing it in both of my hands and turning it over in the air. To me, it makes better sense than kneading it on a counter. Air kneading is more ergonomic. I do not have to bend, and I do not have to strain my wrists against the counter. Not to mention the rigorous workout hands and forearms receive with this method.

After I kneaded enough, I let it rise. Then I punched it down. Then I let it rise. Then I formed it into loaves. Then they rose. By now several hours have passed, and I am ready. I slit the tops, and I brushed the loaves very lightly with ale. I have some grey salt, and I sprinkled a few of the huge crystals atop the bread. In the oven she developed a crusty brown exterior and I knew it was time. I sliced off the heel, and it was perfect bread. It's warm and chewy and wonderful. Then I spread some fresh butter and cheese on it and toasted it in the oven, and dinner was served.