Hey, where’d everybody go?

Betsons, obviously. (If you ain’t from the Philly area, I’m certain this will hold no humor at all. Then again, it might not anyway.) Actually, here’s a clip:

Apparently I haven’t figured out how to get the blogging into my life on a regular basis yet. Let’s say the CSA is going well and we’re starting to cook more. The new grill helps quite a bit, as well.

Summer TV looks good. SYTYCD has started up and Lie to Me and Royal Pains are back with more coming in the next few weeks. Also have the finale of Top Chef: Masters this week and the start of The Next Food Network Star, as well, for us TV food junkies.

Back to your regularly-scheduled awkward silence.

Yup, it’s spring!

Just picked up and put away CSA week two. Weekly haul was: rhubarb, baby spinach, Swiss chard, sage, radishes, strawberries, romaine, butter lettuce, red-leaf lettuce, broccoli rabe, green onions, and asparagus. On top of this, sitting around the house from either last week or our weekly shopping trip we have red onions, Vidalia onions, garlic, a metric ton of avocados (I was supposed to make a variety of guacamoles for a party that never really happened), shallots, some apples, tomatoes, Yukon gold potatoes, bananas, sugar snap peas, cilantro, green peppers, poblano peppers, serrano peppers, yet more strawberries, limes, white grapes, pineapple, cantaloupe, watermelon, white mushrooms, tarragon, shredded carrot, and yet more green onions. Finally to the point where we need to do some menu planning or there’s no way the bulk of this is going to be used before it goes bad. So the Great Food Project is back on, at least in some form. Taking the approach that I have ingredients I’d otherwise never buy (rhubarb, Swiss chard, radishes, among others) and using them to drive me to new things.

Also have a few pictures from our culinary experiments from this past week, but I’ll post them up later. Off to forage for food ideas.

CSA Rundown

Picked up our first CSA delivery this Sunday from a small, little local farm. Everyone was very nice. The haul was a ton of spinach, some Bibb lettuce, some red-leaf lettuce, a small head of romaine, a bunch of radishes, a pint of strawberries, a bunch of cilantro (we chose that over the Italian parsley so we can make fajitas next weekend where my plan is to try making some tomatillo guacamole too), and a bunch of scallions. All in all, not bad. The Wednesday pickup received different things, so, as I expected, your pickup day does matter. On the bright side, I didn’t have to figure out what to do with kale (which they got on Wednesday) since we didn’t get any. Best I had for that was Portuguese Kale Soup, but I don’t have any good lines on nabbing some Linguica, so that was likely going to be a bit of a failure anyway.

Looks like the food bug is waking up again, so might have something interesting to say soon. I’ll likely have a This TV Season in Review type of post some time in the near future, as well, once things continue to wrap up. And, for those counting (I am), it’s 10 days until SYTYCD.

What? A Post?

Just a quick post to let y’all know I’m not dead. Not sure who y’all are anyway since I think I have like 2.5 readers, but thanks for reading if you happen to be one of them.

Life is starting to come together, so I might have something more to say in upcoming weeks. In the meantime, my CSA starts up in a week (which I’m hoping will prompt cooking again; we’ve been doing a lot of successful, local shopping on Saturdays as well). Other than that, we have the most boring American Idol season in history and there’s only 21 days until the next season of So You Think You Can Dance (which, if you haven’t heard about the changes for this season, some Google-fu should go on your to-do list). I probably should say something about 24 or Dancing with the Stars, but I really don’t have anything at the moment.

In other news, I’ve gone all “incognito” on Facebook because they’re evil. And the U.S. Senate is off their bloody, collective rockers. Oh, yeah, and offshore drilling is bad. And Flash still sucks (though I can’t knock Adobe completely because InDesign is still the best DTP app out there).

Back to your regularly-scheduled silence.

The Slow Track

I know I’ve been a touch slow on the blogging front recently. Just haven’t had the time or inclination to blog or to work on most of the projects I’ve been working on. The TV watching’s going OK, but the Great Cooking Project has stalled. Still, working on a new plan to eat healthier and locally and even joined a CSA for this coming season. I’ll have more on that later once all that gets going.

For anyone following my other RPG-related blog, OpenRoleplaying.org, I’ve actually put that on hold and am stepping away from following online gaming blogs for the foreseeable future. Just getting burned out of certain aspects of Internet culture and don’t have the heart or the time to devote to it at the moment.

More to come in the future. For now, working on priorities and getting life on track.

Musings of the Day

The Great Cooking Project‘s stalled a little (we haven’t been cooking much), but we have been working on reviewing and organizing the recipes I’ve been collecting from various sources. A large plasma TV witha  VGA port helped there quite a bit.

Idol‘s finally started up (for real) again. So far, been utterly underwhelmed by the performances. I watched them and, for the most part wondered if any of the contestants ever watched the show before and if they learned what not to do from it. At least no one’s attempted any of the Artists You Don’t Try To Emulate yet.

Still have a few months for SYTYCD and DWTS, so nothing to say there, though looking for the new DWTS pairings this coming Monday. Sadly, will be missing (a fav around here) Dmitry, but lots of other favorites sticking around, so that’s good.

The Olympics, so far, have also been underwhelming. I think it has something to do with NBC’s abysmal coverage. C’mon guys, you have a 24/7 Curling Network, but you can’t show some of the other events? And really, USA vs. Canada on MSNBC? Srsly? Been a few high points, though, but mostly, prime time has gone to Idol this week, which I guess says something, DVR or no.

I’d comment about TNA‘s move to Monday nights, but the professional wrestling Monday Night Wars are pretty much a non-starter these days, TNA kinda dropped the ball after the amazing 1/4 Monday night special (and weak Genesis PPV), and I still won’t be able to DVR iMPACT anyway on Mondays.

And then there’s this Google Buzz thing. OK, that’s all I can say about it at this point. Until we get RSS feeds of our Buzz timeline and/or clients that can interact directly, it’s just not useful to me. Google, you need to get on that. Well, it also needs better filtering, better per-post security, a way to do more than one Twitter association (with proper handling of RT’s, please!), and a way to stop making us double up on Google Reader shared items. Initially, I was going to treat Buzz as Facebook, but for the people I actually talk to, but so far it’s not working for me. I’m actually considering turning it off despite having now funneled all my personal e-mail into GMail. So I did have something to say on it after all.

And I guess last, but not least, I’ve 99% gone over to Mac at this point and have given up Windows for Lent (if, say, Lent was something I cared about and it lasted forever). Well, you get the point.

That’s about all I have. Mostly working from home and waiting for Snowpocalypse III: White Out to start for real.

The Great Cooking Project: 2/5/2010-2/6/2010

The great cooking project has finally started. Got off to a slow start with life getting in the way of my plans (and a minor lack of menu inspiration). This weekend, with Snowpocalypse 2010 bearing down on us, it felt like a good time to get things started. With menu and recipes in hand, cooking ensued.

Friday, February 5, 2010

The menu was herb-roasted orange chicken, roasted fingerling potatoes, and a salad made from “artisan” lettuces. The chicken was the “new” item based on a Mark Bittman recipe.

The chicken was purchased pre-cut into parts. Then, oven-roasted in butter, fresh parsley, fresh thyme, fresh rosemary, fresh oregano, diced shallots, kosher salt, freshly-ground black pepper, and some halves of Cara Cara orange which were squeezed over the chicken before serving. The goal was a herby, citrus flavor. I had never roasted chicken using this particular method which is why I wanted to try it. Verdict: We really liked the overall flavor of the herbs, but it could’ve been a touch more well-done (it was cooked, but it could’ve gone longer), we should have used Italian rather than curly parsley, and the oranges weren’t a strong enough citrus flavor (lemons might have been better). How much of this result was the recipe needing some more adjustment or how much was my fault is unknown, but we want to try it again. We’re thinking cilantro-lime as a flavor profile, though.

The fingerlings were Blue Denim, simply left alone or cut into equal-sized parts, tossed in olive oil and a generous amount of kosher salt (mostly because we couldn’t find our coarse sea salt, but it didn’t really affect anything). Just roasted them in the oven on the lower rack with the chicken until the outside was crispy and the inside soft. Verdict: Nothing new here, but they were delicious (we didn’t have any left at the end of the meal). The textures of the crisp outside, soft inside, and the salt worked beautifully and well with the chicken. We think baby Dutch potatoes would work even better in the future to give the insides a more buttery texture and flavor.

With this we made a salad from “artisan” petite lettuces: petite tango, petite gem, and petite oak. Not sure which was which, but one is leafy and buttery, one spicy and frisée like, and the other red. Added some chopped “heirloom” tomato (read: one of those mass-produced heirloom-looking varieties), fresh grated Pecorino and Reggiano, and a quick balsamic vinaigrette I whipped up with some 12-year balsamic, extra virgin olive oil, some dry Italian herbs, salt, pepper, and a bit of country Dijon mustard. Verdict: Nothing new here either other than the lettuces. The salad also didn’t leave behind leftovers, but it’s hard to fail on salad preparation, I think.

Overall, relatively successful. Not perfect, but not a bad start.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

The Snowpocalypse menu consisted of pan-seared and -simmered boneless pork chops, herbed long-grain brown rice with mushrooms, sauteed broccolini, and a quick fresh mozzarella and tomato salad. The “new” item were the pork chops which used a cooking method I hadn’t tried before (again based on a Mark Bittman recipe).

The chops were sprinkled with kosher salt and fresh-ground black pepper and browned quickly in a hot pan with extra virgin olive oil. Then I added some white wine we already had open (I think it was Cabernet) along with some minced garlic and some diced shallots (we’re into shallots, apparently). After the wine had evaporated, added some chicken stock and simmered the pork until done. The chops were removed to a serving dish and then reduced the pan juices, scraping the goodness from the bottom of the pan, and finished off with a dash of extra virgin olive oil, freshly-squeezed lemon juice (the lemons were really nice which is another reason we should’ve used them with the chicken, above), some Dijon mustard, and dash or two of Worcestershire. The reduction was poured over the chops and finished with some freshly-chopped parsley. Verdict: Not as good as my expectations. The chops were a touch overcooked and there was way too much juice for the reduction (which is also the reason there aren’t any pictures since it came out kind of soupy). This is mostly my fault; I made twice the number of chops for the recipe and the ingredients and time aren’t quite a true double. In retrospect, this would probably have worked better for a smaller meal. Additionally, definitely not a fan of curly parsley, but that’s what we had the supply of from the night before. Additionally, country Dijon would have been less harsh, or I should’ve used less. And while our current stove is better than ones we’ve had previously, it’s still not quite able to keep up with a doubled recipe the way it needs to (and this isn’t a method that works well with batching because of the simmering piece). Regardless, we ate quite a bit so it wasn’t a total failure.

(Now, of course, I did set my pot-holder on fire twice while preparing the pork chops, so something had to go wrong. I didn’t expect the first thing I’d burn was that, but I guess it could’ve been worse. In other news, a Williams-Sonoma oven mitt comes highly recommended for its fire retardant properties. And the other lesson learned is that I should cook something like this using a pan with a long(-er) handle.)

The rice was something we’ve made before, so I’m not going to talk about that much. Mostly tried to go with a lighter flavor profile knowing that we’d have the mustard reduction from the pork to add flavor to it. We have a lot of rice left, which is good, since it will go well with the remaining chops and the chicken from the night before. Also not much to say for the mozzarella and tomato salad. We had some fresh mozzarella from a Caprese salad we made previously and the remaining “heirloom” tomatoes from the salad made with the chicken (above) and just tossed that with some of the remaining balsamic vinaigrette and a touch of freshly-grated Reggiano to add some flavor and saltiness.

The broccolini was new for me. I’ve never been a big broccoli fan (most people cook it too much and destroy the flavor, and even then, it’s not a flavor that calls to me most of the time). Broccolini, I thought, is reminiscent of broccoli, and has a bit of asparagus flavor in it (asparagus being a favorite around here). Since we had a lack of burners, I took a shortcut and quick-steamed them in the microwave (originally, I wanted to blanch them). Then, as things cleared out on the stove, did a quick sauté in extra virgin olive oil (that’s long to type, but I’ll be caught dead before I use “EVOO” in context) and some minced garlic. Verdict: I should’ve steamed the broccolini a bit longer; it was a touch raw and crunchy. This had the side effect of browning the garlic a little too trying to get it done. Nevertheless, there wasn’t any left and the flavor was good–raw, fresh, crunchy, a bit sweet, and garlicky. Definitely worth another attempt.

I consider attempt two a bit of a fail, but I think I had such high hopes for the meal that it couldn’t meet expectations unless I did things perfectly. Still, we all ate to total fullness and all my diners seemed to like it, so it couldn’t be a total fail.

Learning the Old Fashioned Way

Sometime in the last six months I realized that I had lots of ideas for food and didn’t have the technical ability and/or the food knowledge to put it all together. I also wanted to expand our food repertoire a bit. Initially, I was considering taking some cooking classes. The problem, however, was that I’m not a novice at this and finding things that were a) convenient and b) hands-on was difficult at best. Still, decided to pursue that; but, life having intervened in those plans, I was left with finding an alternative.

Recently, I was reading an article about the overall usefulness of culinary school and it dawned on me that you don’t need to learn techniques and food knowledge from a class. You can do it the “old fashioned way.” For a chef, this means you’d get yourself jobs at restaurants and learn on the line. For a home cook, this means finding ways to pick up new techniques (ones you otherwise wouldn’t try, think about, or know about) and a greater breadth of food knowledge (such as trying foods you didn’t think you liked or have been wanting to try, etc.). The trick was finding a source of inspiration to draw from.

Last week, the wife and I were talking about things and it initially occurred to us that a way to learn things was to pick up a cookbook and cook your way through it. That wasn’t a bad idea, but it’s difficult to put a meal together when you don’t know what you want to make. Then we realized they make recipe-a-day calendars which seemed a more perfect solution. With these you get a recipe right in front of you and the goal is to, when you have the time to cook, take the recipe for that day and make it. Depending what the recipe of the day is, the goal is to create a full meal around it using existing recipes or staples or a recipe from a previous day that fits.

Now, I’m not really a recipe guy. I usually use them for specifics (“so, how do you make X?” or “what herbs go with Y?”) and tend to go off on my own from there. With these new calendars, my goal is to stick to the recipe for technique, food choice, and flavors as much as possible. At least the first time through.

With all this comes two caveats. First, we need to edit our food choices to avoid food allergies (where we need to avoid certain types of red wine, coconut, and a few other things). Second, we need to skip over foods that one or both of us finds totally appalling or we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, we won’t eat. For me, this involves anything with hard boiled eggs, canned tuna, and bleu cheese, among others.

Additionally, there’s another thing I need to learn. Sometimes, I’m going to mess things up. Sometimes, the food won’t turn out right or it won’t meet expectations. Recently, I wanted to try a new technique and dry sauté some mushrooms. I never gave them a chance since I thought they would burn, probably right about the time it was really starting to work. I need to learn to give the techniques a chance and accept that it might not turn out.

Don’t know how it’s going to go yet, but I’ll keep y’all informed with text and pictures (as I always do).

(For those wondering, we picked up the following two calendars: Bon Apétit Fast Easy Fresh Cookbook 2010 Daily Calendar and How to Cook Everything: Simple Recipes for Great Food: 2010 Day-to-Day Calendar. The Bittman calendar (the second one) is actually a really nice product–hard box, magnetized closure, separate cards for each day. The Bon Apétit calendar is more standard in construction, but it has a nice variety of recipes and each Monday’s entry is devoted to techniques for the week’s recipes which is well-suited to this exercise.)

Random Musings

It dawns on me that I spend most of my time blogging about food, so I’ll hold that for the end of the post.

American Idol, Season 9

Not much to say about this yet, mostly because we’ve only seen Boston and Atlanta. A few prospects for the Top 24/10 that I can see, but Hollywood Week can destroy the most promising prospect easily. Guest judges, so far, have been OK, but I can do without Posh Beckham in my future, thanks. She just looks…odd in that I-can’t-quite-put-my-finger-on-what’s-so-disturbing kind of way. Mary J turned out OK as a judge, though she couldn’t keep a straight face through the bad auditions. Mostly, at this point, looking forward to NPH.

And, regardless of Pants on the Ground trending on Twitter for being this year’s insane-o viral hit, I still have a spot in my heart for We’re Brothers Forever from Renaldo Lapuz back in season seven.

Food Network and Related

As always, I continue to watch too much Food Network (and likewise, I’m happy I’m not a Cablevision customer). Was kind of let down by the “greatest night in culinary history” but the overall battle was pretty good even with the awkward I’m-not-really-an-Iron-Chef-anymore Mario Batali moments. Very much looking forward to Jose Garces’ premiere as an Iron Chef this weekend. Already planning a trip to one of his restaurants, or so I’ve been told.

Aside from that, I’m totally amused by the “battle” between Tyler Florence and Rick Bayless on Twitter attempting to be #1 in the Shorty Awards in the food category. All in good jest, but rooting for the underdog here (Bayless has a mere fraction of Florence’s supporters).

Wrasslin’

TNA has finally made professional wrestling watchable again, or so I hope. People complain that it’s a lot of old wrestlers wasting our screen time, and that might be true, but I was a WCW fan back in the day and was sad to see it eaten up by the McMahon monster. Still, WWE programming has become boring and predictable without real competition. And glad to see more Ring of Honor (and other small fed) wrestlers joining up. I’m hoping that they’ll use all the buzz from these old school guys to help build up a new cadre of new school guys. We shall see. But, I need to ask this: TNA, I know you have an odd taping schedule, but not putting a new Impact on the Thursday after you go live and head-to-head against Raw was a huge mistake.

OK, Food!

So, the wife picked up these beautiful buffalo steaks and decided it was my night to cook. I tried to get super-creative, but the inspiration wasn’t coming to me and I couldn’t find appropriate ingredients in our local market (either because the market’s not that good or because it’s just out of season for the summery menu I had in mind). Either way, here’s the meal:

The mushrooms were sauteed in wine, butter, and a little stock, nothing fancy. The steak lightly seasoned and pan-grilled. The Caprese is “heirloom” tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil (plant’s still growing in the kitchen), and some 12-year balsamic vinegar (and some salt and cracked black pepper). So, nothing fancy. I was originally going to try out dry sauteing the mushrooms, but I chickened out too soon and went with the sauce. The oven “fries” aren’t anything special–just some red potato wedges with some olive oil, garlic powder, paprika, salt, pepper, and a dash of cayenne.

Holiday Food Tour

Never managed to get around to blogging about anything over the holidays, but I have a bunch of pictures of some of our food, so I wanted to share. These are in no particular order:

That was from Christmas dinner. We made another version of it (no picture, I’m afraid) that was a mix of butternut and sweet potatoes for New Year’s. The second one turned out a bit better–we sweetened them up slightly and upped the cinnamon.

Also from Christmas. These turned out beautiful and much better than expected. We had a similar batch from New Year’s, but we did it with fresh green beans rather than asparagus.

This was a 7-lb standing rib roast from Christmas. Turned out really nicely. We did another (12-lb) one (sadly, no picture for this one) for New Year’s, which was horseradish-crusted and very flavorful, based on this recipe from Tyler Florence. We also made a wonderful red-wine mushroom reduction/gravy from the drippings (no picture, again).

These were the vegetables from the rib roast, above. There was also another batch of mushrooms along with the butternut-sweet potato mix I mentioned above.

We made this the weekend of New Year’s. It’s a boneless pork roast with a fresh herb mixture smeared all over. Other than it being a touch dry (might’ve worked better with a tenderloin), it was beautiful and made great leftovers for lunch.

And, finally, with the pork roast I concocted a salad consisting of organic romaine hearts, organic arugula, freshly-chopped fennel bulb, fresh strawberries, and some huge pecans. Topped this with some store-bought strawberry-balsamic dressing. Flavors worked better than I expected, though when I make it again, I’ll probably make my own dressing and, if there’s time, candy the pecans a little.

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