Pickles

The NY Times book section this week has a piece on cookbooks, and the first paragraph states, as can be said about a lot of things, most cookbooks are not very good. I think this is a pretty true statement, and while there are some obvious tactics to use (be very careful buying a Food Network star's cookbook, especially if their name rhymes with Schmemeril or Schmachel Shmay; as a rule, try to avoid big coffee table/food porn type cookbook, especially if they're related to a restaurant, etc.), there is one equally obvious way to find good cookbooks for free:
I like to check my cookbooks out from the library. I find that doing this is a good way to check out a cookbook before buying, since if at least a couple recipes don't pan out, then probably the money you'd spend on the book would be better spent on something else (like good cheese at Southern Season, or beer, or...).

Lately, I've read several cookbooks, both good and bad, so here are my quick takes on them:
1. Charcuterie, by Ruhlman, et al. - This is a cookbook I really want to like. The writing is great, the subject fascinating, and the two recipes I tried (cured salmon, and breakfast sausage) were tasty, and taught techniques that are interesting enough that I'd like to make variations. The problem, and it's a big one, is that sausage making is kind of like making beer. You have to buy a bunch of equipment that can be hard to find (like casings, pink salt, etc), and at the end of the day, you end up with an awful lot of the end product. Now, I like beer and sausage as much as the next person (ok, probably more than the next person), but there's something to be said for just buying it sometimes. The whole time I had the book out from the library, I felt a little guilty for not doing more with it. That said, I'll probably end up buying it sometime when I'm really motivated, and when the weather is cool, so that sausage making sounds fun. I'll give it B/B-.
2. Mark Bittman's Quick and Easy Recipes...,by Mark Bittman - I love the columns in the Times that Mark Bittman writes as "The Minimalist". I find them to be inspiring in their simplicity, and I love how they bring home how easy it is to make good food, especially when you choose the right ingredients. None of the recipes in this book are complicated, and I think any semi-competent cook could pull any of them together on a weeknight. So in that sense, it's a good book. But on the other hand, none of the recipes stand out as being "wow!" meals. In fact, to be honest, I really wouldn't make any of the recipes that I tried (and I made 3 or 4) again. To be fair, I did make a grilled shrimp for lunch today, and I got the idea for doing it from looking at a different recipe in the book. Regardless, though, it's a C at best.
3. Fresh Every Day, More Great Recipes From Foster's Market by Sara Foster: Apparently, Sara Foster is some lady that runs a market in Durham. It's supposed to be pretty good, but I've never been there, so I can't comment on that. What I can comment on is this cookbook, and I'll say it's a really good cookbook. All the recipes work, they all jibe with the way I like to cook (simply, using ingredients bought from the outside aisles of the grocery), and they're good enough that I got compliments when I served them to others. What more can I say? I liked it a lot, there was plenty of room for improvisation, and the writing just felt right. Definitely an A.

As for the title, I made these pickles out of the Foster's book:
Fridge Pickles
1 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp coarse salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
6 whole cloves
2 bay leaves
1 tsp red pepper flakes
4 -5 small kirby cucumbers
1 small onion, sliced.

Combine the vinegar and sugar in a bowl, and whisk until the sugar is dissolved. Add the next 5 ingredients, and put in a glass jar (I used a tall plastic container that probably held cole slaw or some other deli item at some point). Wash the cucumbers, and then peel the cucumbers in strips, so that you have alternating strips of green and white. Then slice thinly. Place the cucumbers and onions in alternating layers in the vinegar mixture, packing them in to cover all in the mixture. Cover and place in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours (preferably overnight). They should keep for a couple of weeks.

These pickles are pretty darn good. Like all the recipes in the Foster's book, they strike a nice balance of acid and sweet, and the red pepper flakes lend just the right amount of heat.
Very good pickles.

Me and my immersion blender

Several years ago, on some special occasion (which may or may not have been my wedding), I was given an immersion blender from my aunt.
In the years since, I have discovered how useful this fine piece of machinery is. All those late night commercials about "slicing, dicing, julienning" are pretty true when you talk about an immersion blender.
You can use them to make some very nice salad dressing, since the blender will emulsify your oil and vinegar much more completely than a whisk will (or at least better than my whisk will).
You can make blended soups (like cheese soup, or a single vegetable soup) quite easily, since you're not transferring the soup back and forth between a regular blender.
And, you can make a very fine breakfast smoothie, which is what prompted this post:

Dave's Breakfast Smoothie
2 cups milk (or vanilla soy milk)
1 banana, sliced
1/2c crushed pineapple
3/4c mixed frozen fruit, thawed

combine and blend until smooth.

The fruit amounts are approximate, and you can adjust them to taste or texture preference.

What you get is something like this:



In short, a tasty and light breakfast, that gives you at least a couple servings of fruit..

The Pillsbury Bake-off...

Or, as I like to refer to it, the **********-ing Pillsbury Bake-off.
Clearly, I have a little hostility towards it. Why, you ask?
I present to you the winning recipe for this year's bake-off:
"Double-delight peanut butter cookies"

INGREDIENTS

1/4	cup Fisher® Dry Roasted Peanuts, finely chopped
1/4	cup Domino® or C&H® Granulated Sugar
1/2	teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2	cup JIF® Creamy Peanut Butter
1/2	cup Domino® or C&H® Confectioners Powdered Sugar
1	roll (16.5 oz) Pillsbury® Create ‘n Bake® refrigerated peanut butter cookies, well chilled

DIRECTIONS

1.	Heat oven to 375°F. In small bowl, mix chopped peanuts, granulated sugar and cinnamon; set aside.
2.	In another small bowl, stir peanut butter and powdered sugar until completely blended. Shape mixture into 24 (1-inch) balls.
3.	Cut roll of cookie dough into 12 slices. Cut each slice in half crosswise to make 24 pieces; flatten slightly. Shape 1 cookie dough piece around 1 peanut butter ball, covering completely. Repeat with remaining dough and balls.
4.	Roll each covered ball in peanut mixture; gently pat mixture completely onto balls. On ungreased large cookie sheets, place balls 2 inches apart. Spray bottom of drinking glass with CRISCO® Original No-Stick Cooking Spray; press into remaining peanut mixture. Flatten each ball to 1/2-inch thickness with bottom of glass. Sprinkle any remaining peanut mixture evenly on tops of cookies; gently press into dough.
5.	Bake 7 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets to cooling rack. Store tightly covered.

I'm sorry, but when the winning recipe has prepackaged cookie dough as one of the ingredients, the contest immediately loses all legitimacy and becomes "**********-ing".

Been a long time....

It's getting to be a habit, starting every post with some variant of "gee, it's been a long time".
I promise to blog more frequently in the future.
So what have I been up to? Not much, sad to say. I'm trying to find a motorcycle to buy, I've cooked some good food lately, and other than that, precious little that's exciting to any one but family.

Foodwise, I've checked out "Charcuterie" by Michael Ruhlman, from the library, and I'm making an honest effort to get a handle on this fascinating subject. If you're not familiar with the term, charcuterie covers a range of meat products. Essentially, anything smoked, ground, cured, or otherwise preserved. Think "ham", "sausage", "pate", etc.
I got the book on Sunday, and I immediately cured some salmon I'd had sitting in the freezer. I'm not sure how well it will turn out, but so far, my salmon looks like you'd expect gravlax or lox to look like. Considering all I did was mix up salt, sugar, brown sugar, coriander, pepper, and 5-spice powder, it could taste like fish sticks and I think I'd be ahead of the game.
I'll post pics tomorrow when it's done curing, and I'll also try and post about my empenada experience.

Meat salad

Meat salad -- mmm.

Doesn't that just sound good? Well, it is. One of our family favorites is this recipe that I got out of Bruce Aidells' excellent Complete Meat Cookbook. If you're in the market for a meat cookbook and you don't seriously consider this one, you're missing out. I bought this book ten years ago (or thereabouts) when I lived in California, and I can honestly say it's one of the 5 best cookbooks I own. None of the recipes have been duds, and a good number have been flat out winners, like this recipe for "Tostada Salad", which in our house just gets called "Meat Salad".

Our version is slightly different from the version in the cookbook (I use less avocado and tomato, mostly because avocados are a little pricey, and often neither the avocados or the tomatoes are worth the gamble, and you're supposed to add green chiles, but I always forget to buy them at the store)
I made it tonight with some left over top round that I grilled over the weekend, along with:

• 2 heads of lettuce (1 green-leaf, 1 red-leaf)


• 1 bunch cilantro


• 1 yellow pepper


• 2 tomatoes


• 1/2 red onion


• 1 avocado

After washing all the salad ingredients, I tore up the lettuce and the cilantro, tossing it together in a bowl like so:

Then I cut up the pepper:


The tomatoes:

The onion:

and then I sliced the meat, and put it over the salad.

I then moved on to the dressing, which goes like:

• 2 tbsp cider vinegar


• 1 tbsp tarragon wine vinegar


• 2 tsp salt


• 1 tsp paprika


• 1 tsp dry mustard


• 1 tbsp sugar


• 3/4 c olive oil

I combined the dry ingredients:


And then the vinegars:


and finally the oil, whisked together in an emulsion.

And in the end, what you end up with is....

Darn fine salad.
Like I said in the beginning, you owe to yourself to check out Bruce Aidells' Complete Meat Cookbook.

Resetting the blog...

Since I seem to be petering out on writing solely about brewing (and I'm concerned about the consequences to my liver if I threw myself wholeheartedly into beer), I'm going to refocus my blog. Instead of writing only about beer, I'm going to add food to my list of subjects.
I've long loved to cook, and hopefully this is a chance for me to share my interest in something that I care deeply about.

Gone too long...

Wow, hard to believe it's been well over a month since my last post.
In the intervening time, I've done what seems like a lot of stuff (went skiing, my parents came to visit, etc), but what I haven't done is anything beer related.
As a matter of fact, I quit drinking for the month of January(!).
Sadly, my last batch of beer still sits in my closet, waiting for me to get around to bottling it.
My beer goal this week will be very modest, and is only to get my current batch bottled. Once I get that done, I will set another goal, and go from there.