My culinary and fabricy adventures

All this, and he can do Quality Assurance for AllClad?

This, amidst all the “Is he back to full fitness?” hype about a certain quarterback in New England on the sports stations, is what I pulled out of the box when I got a new saucepan this weekend.

I’m so proud of myself for being ahead on something!  Saturday (rainy, cool outside) was a great day to work on some sewing.  (Maybe on Sunday I will have some time to work on one of my own projects… Hmmmmm)

Blocks for C

Here is the pair of blocks I made for C’s Friendship Circle quilt this year.  The blocks are 9 1/2 inches square.  This was from a pattern in a magazine from 2002.  I’m not sure what it was, but C’s pictures showed that this block has some real potential.  I actually cut out enough for a third, but didn’t sew it together.  I think I will just add the blocks to an envelope when I give this to C, in case she wants to incorporate the colors in another block she’s working on.  (How’s THAT for re-marketing one’s laziness?  I’m just offering C more OPTIONS!)

This year’s Friendship Circle project is making blocks for each host.  Here’s the one we made for J.  The rules were to have a circle in the 12 inch (finished) block of a certain size, and she gave us one piece of batik fabric with lots of colors in it.  She said to make something sunflower-esque.  I had fun doing this, but it did take a lot more time than I thought it would.

Sunflower Block for J

It was important to me to not just have hand dyes and batiks in the block- I’m not really sure why.  And I like that it looks like a face.  Here’s hoping J likes it, too!

Little piratey slippers headed to Maine

As my first cousin E is about to give birth to the first little cutie in the maternal family since my nephew P was born (a bit more than a decade ago), and I won’t be able to make it to her shower party, I’m about to put these little cuties in the mail.  E’s going to have  a boy, unless the ultrasound was deceiving, and he’ll have his first Halloween and International Talk Like a Pirate Day long before he can talk.  So he’ll have two great occasions to wear these in his first month.  I hope his mum likes them.

I made them from a pattern that I got at Rather Bee Quilting in Lake City, MN when we went to buy fabric for the choir stoles project.  That’s where I got the fleece lined fake suede I used for the soles.  The pirate fabric came to me in some sort of exchange with the  quilt guild, I think.

I’m hoping that E has a good delivery, and that little cutie to be named later is healthy and happy.  I’m sure he’ll have enough personality to justify these, if he’s anything like his mum.

I got a lovely little email from Michael Ruhlman this week, in response to my entry in the BLT challenge.  It was only two words:

gorgeous pancetta!

I’m grinning from ear to ear.

I jumped on the bandwagon on Michael Ruhlman’s blog to join in on this summer’s BLT From Scratch Challenge, which was one to creatively make a BLT sandwich entirely from scratch, making the bread, the bacon, growing the tomato and lettuce, making the mayonnaise, and then sending in a writeup of the results.

Here is the basis for my entry, Panino del Po,  (Bacon Butty Italian Stylie, in Jamie Oliverese)

I made the  basic pancetta recipe from Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing with friends M and B some time ago.  Here is a picture of us with our lovely tied rolls of pork belly, ready to hang for curing.  As you can see, I was wearing the official Team Bacon t-shirt when we did it.

Pancetta, Rolled and tied, ready for cure

Here is what the results look like, sliced, before cooking.

Slices of cured goodness for the sandwiches

The tomatoes have been growing along, pretty slowly, but have changed to some lovely colors.  I think the micro climate near our driveway has been warmer than that of many others this year, despite our Minnesota locale.  I picked out two pretty tomatoes for the project.

A Jubilee and a Cuor di Bue

The one on the left is a Jubilee (I think).  The one on the right is a Cuor di Bue, which has taken over as one of my favorite tomato varieties.  You can see that it is shaped somewhat like the heart of an ox, which is the meaning behind its name.  Both of these varieties have dense “beefsteak” texture, and are juicy but not watery when you slice them. In the interest of giving credit where it’s due, I’d need to thank Whitewater Gardens for starting the seedlings, and my DH for helping with the watering of the plants.

While my love of Italian flavors is influencing my overall product, good toast was an essential for my sandwiches.  My current favorite bread for toast and club sandwiches is Pain de Mie.

The prepared pan and risen dough

I used Nick Kindelsperger’s recipe from The Paupered Chef.  I had better luck with this recipe than I have had with others.  This is the first time I’ve had a perfectly even colored crust. Since it came out so well, I’m happy to say I’ve now checked #78 of the Cook’s 100 off my list.

Even shape and even browning

For the mayonnaise (or otherwise emulsified sauce, also #54 of the Cook’s 100),  I chose the basic recipe using one egg yolk from Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, also by Michael Ruhlman, but not without prior research in the works of Julia Child and Simone Beck.  The main tipping point was not that quoting Michael Ruhlman again might provide me with a better chance at a prize in the challenge, but for the simple reason that I didn’t need two and a half cups of mayonnaise for only two sandwiches.  Ruhlman’s recipe yields about a cup, which was more than enough.

Mise en place for arm-strong mayo

I decided to use the mayonnaise as my arm workout for today.  And I’m glad I did.  It’s very satisfying to improve one’s understanding of the egg and emulsion, as Julia Child might say.  Beating the 1 yolk, 1/2 tsp. salt, 2 tsp. lemon juice together with a teaspoon of water, then drizzling 1 cup of canola oil into it very very slowly while whisking constantly does, really, create a cup of mayonnaise.

After tasting the basic mayo, I flavored it with some balsamic vinegar (1-2 tsp.) to fit in with the other Italian flavors.

"Arm-strong" Mayonnaise

Finally, while Panino del Po was completely homemade, it does not contain lettuce, since we never got any lettuce planted.  Instead, to stay with the Italian flavor profile, and still use home grown ingredients, I used large basil leaves which we grew alongside our tomatoes in containers.

Sandwich fillings, ready while the bread is sliced and toasted

Here’s how the sandwich finally looked:

The end result, ready to eat

I’m no Donna Ruhlman, so the photos of this may not do the sandwich justice. This was a lot of fun to make and to eat.  It was well worth the effort.  This project entertained me several times.

Courgettes, or Zucchini and Summer Squash

Exhibit A: a normal sized courgette, green, with a medium sized yellow summer squash.  Both can also be referred to as zucchini.  Not pictured, lo zucchino grandissimo (THE HUGE ZUCCHINI, singular) which was utilized in the recipes referenced below.  Yes, that’s cakes plural, and it only reduced my zucchini count by 1.

It’s the time of year when the zucchini can get very large. In this season, in some cultures (Maine, for example), this is the single item where what is usually seen as generosity (the anonymous [or not] free donation of foodstuffs) can be considered an act of hostility.  We’re not kidding when we say that the only time that rural Mainers lock their cars is when zucchini is in its runaway stage.

I have found two very good zucchini cake recipes… one from the famous blog of Clotilde Dusoulier, Chocolate and Zucchini, for Chocolate Zucchini cake, and one (non-chocolate) from another recipe site, allrecipes.com.  Given the amount of zucchini around this time of year, it may be necessary to dig for my paternal grandmother’s recipe, and make one of those, too.

To prove that there is some originality in this content, there were modifications made in this episode. Due to the fact that we don’t have hazelnuts right now, we didn’t make the hazelnut topping for Clotilde’s cake, and we used a variation of the other recipe, to replace half the oil with applesauce, and to add more zucchini, which a recipe tester had said did not affect the result.  For us, however, it did.  This made for a much moister cake, which needed more time in the oven.

In the interest of journalistic integrity, we had perfect results with Clotilde’s recipe, as we have several times in the past. However, I must tell you that the classic zucchini cake came out VERY moist, (DUH, as I think in retrospect), but according to DH, it was not a failure because it tastes good.   My engineering-attention-to-detail self was not completely present this weekend.  Personally, I consider the result a bit embarrassing.

What to do with the over-moist cake?  I could still take it to work, since people there will eat any food that is put out on a certain table in the break room, with potential damage my reputation for very high quality output.  Perhaps if DH takes it to church today, the congregation will forgive and understand my failings?

Please let me know, readers, is it better to know that I produce sub-optimal results, and show my humanity, or are you reading this for America’s Test Kitchen quality with a less obsessive tone?  Or is it something else entirely?

OK, enough whining.  On to the evidence.  Let’s start with the chocolate cake, shall we?

Chocolate Batter

The method for the chocolate cake involves mixing the wet ingredients (eggs, butter, vanilla) with the sugar, then sifting the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, soda, salt, cocoa) together.  One half cup of the dry ingredients are reserved, to be tossed with the grated zucchini and chocolate chips, while the other dry ingredients are mixed with the wet ones, as shown above.  This is a very thick batter.

The grated zucchini and chocolate chips with the remaining dry ingredients

The two are folded together, and then put in the prepared (greased and “floured” with cocoa) baking pan.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake before baking

Clotilde uses a springform pan, but I like the Kugelhopf shape for presentation:

And After the Oven. MMMMM....

It’s not picture-perfect, but none of its issues are anything a pretty plate and a dusting of powdered sugar wouldn’t hide.  “Flouring” a Kugelhopf pan evenly takes some practice, whether you are using flour or cocoa.  DH and I are still perfecting our technique on this.

And now “Mom’s Zucchini Bread” as cake:

Half of Lo Zucchino Grandissimo... 4 generous cups, grated

Adding the dry ingredients before the veg

I should have suspected this would be overly moist…

Very thin batter this time

And finally, it DOES look like a cake:

The Basic Zucchini Cake, Completed

I really should have baked this longer.  But evidently the UU members appreciated it enough to eat most of it.

The Homemade Version, brushed with melted butter

Oh, how we took things for granted in our youth.  Those boring little everyday things like these.

I recently had leftover cooked lobsters, and decided the best way to serve the cold lobster meat was in Lobster Rolls.  Living as I do in Minnesota, it is not possible to purchase the appropriate rolls for lobster rolls.  And we all know that your basic bratwurst bun, while perfectly fine for bratwurst, is NOT a suitable vehicle for the lobster roll, as the sides have a crust, and cannot reach the appropriate texture of toastiness when buttered and grilled as the immortal New England style Split-Top bun.  Here is a photo of what I’m trying to explain.  Doesn’t that look DIVINE?

Jeffrey Steingarten, food writer for Vogue magazine,  in his book It Must Have Been Something I Ate, explains the importance of having the right kind of roll when you make a lobster roll, much like the folks at http://theslowcook.blogspot.com/ and http://www.rootsandgrubs.com/ do, with more eloquence than I could.

What’s a Mainer in Minnesota to do?  Make her own, of course.  The King Arthur Flour people have sold special pans for these in the past, but they go out of stock quickly, and I couldn’t get one before the lobster got devoured anyway.

So, I searched for a recipe to start from, and I found this one, so thanks to Sally the submitter, whomever she is.  I modified this slighty, and we made it with the KitchenAid, so my directions reflect that method.

Equipment:

• Electric mixer with dough hook
• scale
• dry measuring cups
• measuring spoons
• pastry cloth/board
• rolling pin
• liquid measuring cup
• mixing bowl, large
• baking pan(s) (9×13 is OK, but  I think 2 7×11 pans would be better)
• oven
• instant read thermometer
• pastry brush (optional)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup butter  (or 1/2 stick, in the USA) , plus some (optional)
• 23 oz. all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading, rolling, and shaping
• 0.85 oz. sugar (2 Tbsp)
• 0.25 oz instant yeast (1 envelope, or approx. 1 tsp.)
• 0.17 oz  table salt (5 grams, or 1 tsp)
• 1 egg

Procedure:

1. Melt the butter. (I used the microwave, and a large Pyrex measuring cup.) Add the milk and water.  Take temperature of the liquid.  If 120 degrees F (50 degrees C),  you’re ready to go.  If not, heat until you reach a temperature between 110F and 120F, but not over. (Hotter will kill the yeast.)
2. Mix 8.75 oz (1 3/4 cups) of flour, yeast, sugar, salt together in the large mixing bowl.  Add the milk/butter mixture, and beat together using the paddle attachment on your mixer. Add the egg, and beat it in.  Beat in the remaining flour, 2.5 oz. (1/2 cup) at a time, beating well between additions.  When the dough has pulled together, switch to the dough hook, and let it knead for 8 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic.
3. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Divide the dough into 12 pieces, (3.5 to 3.75 oz).  Roll each piece into a 6 x 4 inch rectangle.  Roll them up along the longer side, and pinch the ends together to seal them.  Place them seam side down in the greased baking pan, close together, so you will get the fluffy sides when you separate them.
4. Let them rise 20-25 minutes in the pan before baking.  Bake 10-14 minutes, or until golden brown.  Brush top crusts with melted butter (optional) for that lovely shine.
5. Remove from pan and let cool completely before separating and slicing.
6. To make the top slice, separate a single bun at a time from the “loaf”. Slice vertically through the center top crust, until 3/4 through the bun.

Some photographic evidence of the process is below.  Thanks to DH for taking the photos.

Making the dough balls for each roll

Using the scale to get reasonably even sized pieces

Rolling, rolling, rolling

Forming the hotdog bun shape

Formed Rolls in Pan

Here to the right you can see the lovely lobster that I’d removed from the shells, and was rinsing and drying before refrigerating, for the eventual lobster rolls. And YES, they were delicious!

Baked Hotdog Buns

I think I’d make these in a narrower pan next time, so they’d be a little shorter and wider.  I think a 7 x 11 brownie pan would be the right width.   This is a remarkably delicate and tasty roll, however, and I’m going to make them again, soon.  Might have to make sausages to put in them this time. Or maybe some other kind of filling that would be good with the grilled sides.

The best blue food

After my parter in canning, C, had an adventure picking blueberries, and gave me some, I needed to make some blueberry pie.  This is not just because  a double crust pie is on the Cook’s 100.  As a Mainer, it’s important for me to have some Maine regional specialties every summer, and blueberry pie is a common Maine summer dessert.  The fact that I’m making them to coincide with my annual lobster dinner (I know it’s tough, but I as a Mainer, I MUST) this Saturday is just a happy coincidence.

As I had never made a blueberry pie before (though I’ve made many two crust pies), I sought the advice of those other New Englanders and cheffy types, the folks at America’s Test Kitchen. (That link will get you the recipe.  On their site you should be able to see a video of them making this pie, too.)

This recipe has two great culinary revelations, one in the crust, and the other in the filling.  The crust revelation is that they use vodka as some of the liquid in the crust, and the alcohol prevents the creation of gluten (as more water would), but evaporates away in the cooking.  This means that the dough is easy to roll out, but still comes out flaky.

The filling revelation is the use of an apple for added pectin for thickening, to help out the minute tapioca, as well as some tart flavor notes. You squeeze out most of the moisture from the apple (as in the kohlrabi recipe previously seen here on Slow and Sew), but the pectin remains.

I’m particularly proud of us for making these pies (I had the help of DH) on a weeknight after work. , and it’s a great reason to pull out the good tools:

It's not just for lefse, ladies and gents!

Once the pie crust is mixed up, and chilled, you roll it out.   Chris Kimball has a different shaped rolling pin, and rotates the  dough a quarter turn each time.  I think I’d need to really practice that method to get good at it.

Ready for the Onslaught of the Rolling Pin

I rolled out the two bottom crusts, put them in their pans, and set them in the fridge to stay cold (That’s Rose Levy Berenbaum’s biggest secret to great pie crust.  Keep those ingredients COLD.  Use your freezer, too.)

Keeping it Cold

Look- I’m even letting you see the inside of our refrigerator.  I knew you’d be thrilled.

With the shells chilling and ready for filling, it was time to address the filling portion of the recipe…   Time to cook down a portion of the blueberries into a jam, to cook out the moisture that would bubble out, or spill when cutting the pies.  This is accomplished with the saucepan, potato masher for squishing berries, and heat.

We're really cooking here.

Of course, the wooden spatula is now permanently navy blue and tan, but it was worth it.  After cooking half the berries down, then mixing the minute tapioca, sugar, and lemon zest with the remaining berries, and adding the hot and not hot berry mixtures, we had the filling.

Doling out tooth-staining goodness to the shells

Then, it’s back to the rolling action for the lid crusts.

With pretty little holes so the berries can breathe, and not explode

And then, to my best Bridget Lancaster impersonation, crimping the crust edges.

Seal 'er up, and get her in the oven! Egg wash Optional.

And finally, after baking in a 400F oven for 30 mins, and 30 mins more at 350F, here’s our result:

Aren't these pretty? I can't wait to cut into them!

This is a recipe posting for L, my “Local Mom”.  I’m sorry I don’t have a picture of these tasty little things.  I found the recipe in Farmer John’s Cookbook, The Real Dirt on Vegetables, by Farmer John Peterson and Angelic Organics.  It was also passed along in our CSA newsletter, with citation, of course.

In all my time in New England, I’d never seen a kohlrabi.  Not many kohlrabis were running around the Denver metro area when I was there, either.  But boy, did I start to see kohlrabi when I moved here!  I assumed it was another of those Asian vegetables that someone knew what to do with.  So, I was quite intimidated when they started piling up in the CSA box.  So what did I do?  Save them for a night when people were coming over for dinner!   I saw this recipe, and wow, they sound kind of like latkes… those are tasty, right?

These turned out to be a bit more savory, but the six of us had no trouble polishing off all of them, as part of our many dish dinner.  I’d say we had 1.5 times this recipe. The recipe says it serves 4 to 5.

Equipment

• large skillet
• grater or food processor
• chef’s knife
• cutting board
• large mixing bowl
• spoon for mixing
• sturdy spatula for flipping
• measuring spoons
• liquid measuring cup
• dish towel

Ingredients

• 4 medium kohlrabi bulbs, peeled (about 1 pound)
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 small onion, chopped (1/3 cup)
• 2 Tbs. dried bread crumbs
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. dried red pepper flakes
• pepper
• 2 Tbs. olive oil
• 2 Tbs. butter
• plain yogurt or sour cream, for garnish (optional)

Process

1. Grate the kohlrabi and wrap it in the dish towel.  Squeeze out as much moisture as possible.
2. Combine kohlrabi, eggs, onion, bread crumbs, salt, ginger, red pepper in a large bowl.  Add pepper to taste.
3. Heat the oil and butter in the large, heavy skillet.  Add a spoonful of the kohlrabi mixture to the hot fat, and press down on it firmly with the sturdy spatula. (don’t stir fry)  Let the kohlrabi cake cook until brown, about 7 minutes.  Carefully flip with the spatula, and press down again firmly with the spatula, and brown for another 5-7 minutes.  You can make the hash brown patty any size you want, but keep it to 1/4 inch thick.  (Mine were about the size of an English Muffin).  Drain on paper towels.   (I kept a platter in a 200 degree oven so they’d stay crisp while I fried them in batches.)
4. Serve with sour cream or yogurt (Optional)

These are good for what ails you.  And besides, one can only eat so many raw sticks of kohlrabi with dip.