Honey, we need more cooking spray.

Welcome to my new blog.  Here’s what I do:

Banana bread is awesome.  We’ve found a great recipe for it online (let me see if I can find it….)

Flour’s Banana Bread Recipe

It’s a good thing that it doesn’t take too long to prepare, because one loaf lasts about an hour and a half at our house.  For a while I would buy two bunches of bananas at a time – one to eat and one to make bread with, because we’ve started making double recipes.  

Now, you know the part of the recipe that says “…lightly grease a loaf pan with shortening…”?  It is WAY easier to use cooking spray, let me tell you.  And it works just the same.  Except when it doesn’t.  

So I got to eat the first few bites out of the loaf pan with a fork.  It was still good.

Return of the Niners

I have a confession to make.  If I don’t make it now I’m sure my sister will point it out in the comments, thus shattering my credibility.  So here it is: I didn’t watch football this year.  Not a lot, anyway, and none during the regular season.  But neither did half the media descending on New Orleans this week for a company sponsored vacation masquerading as work.  (Hmm.  Some bitterness in that last statement.  I must make a note to edit it later.)  It doesn’t matter.  My Super Bowl predictions are never based on actual football anyway, but how well I prepare a certain dish from the region my chosen team calls home.  This time it is San Francisco because, well, the Ravens are evil.

So, after I spent a very long time describing an event in which nothing happened, I must make good food and post the results for the sake of the Bay area.  Wait.  Baltimore also has a bay.  Let’s hope the football gods don’t get confused with this one.

I mentioned somewhere in my last post that there are two San Francisco foods that I’ve always wanted to make but never have.  I still have not made sourdough.  But the other one is right up my alley: Cioppino.  See, it’s a soup (Or is it a stew?  It’s my blog, it’s a soup.) and I love soup.  I’ve never made a fish soup before.  Can you believe it?  What kind of food blogger am I?  Oh wait.  Never mind.

ANYWAY, this year I will be taking on the role of Colin Kaepernick, the renegade-but-very-inexperienced quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers.

WEEK OFF: The 49ers choose their strategy.
I saw two recipes for cioppino that I really liked, and in the end used a little from both.  They both called for many of the same ingredients but some were different, so I took a bit from each to make something I thought sounded good.  Honestly, with the fish it came down to what we could get here in central PA, and what we could afford.  Here be the recipes used for reference:

Cioppino from Saveur magazine

Cioppino from Epicurious

SUPER BOWL WEEK: The 49ers change their strategy.
See, here’s the deal.  Both recipes call for crab.  Dungeness crab, which I found out hails from the Pacific around the latitude of San Francisco Bay.  They also say any Pacific crab will do.  DO YOU KNOW HOW EXPENSIVE THAT STUFF IS IN PENNSYLVANIA?!?!?!?  I’m not doing it.  I live an hour and a half from Baltimore.  The only affordable crab I can get comes from the Chesapeake and, if you haven’t noticed, I really want the Ravens to lose.  So, no crab.  Got it?  Here’s the take from the local market:

Shrimps, clams, salmon, and scallops.  Thank you, this makes me happy.

SUPER BOWL WEEK: Lots of practice.  Lots of film study.
Making a fish soup, as it turns out, doesn’t take a lot of time.  Fish cook quickly.  The prep, however, does.  Cleaning and deveining the shrimp, cubing and skinning the salmon, and scrubbing and soaking the clams (YES I realize the clams also came from the Chesapeake, leave me alone.)  Also I had to prepare the vegetables. The results of all this prep are seen in the previous picture.  That picture is doing a lot of work.

GAME TIME!  FIRST QUARTER: The 49ers do what they do best, run the football.
I may not have seen a lot of football this year but I know that they run the ball well.  How can you not with Frank Gore?  So this is my equivalent of the 49ers’ running game.  Sweat the aromatics.  But here’s the twist: Epicurious called for onions and garlic, followed by green bell pepper.  Saveur called for more, and I used some but forgot other ingredients.  Wow, going back and reading now what is on their ingredients list I’m kind of sorry I forgot about the celery and carrots.  Anyway, some olive oil met some heat and in went onions, leeks, fennel bulb, garlic, green bell pepper, oregano, and bay leaf.  See?

SECOND QUARTER: The game becomes a defensive struggle, with neither offense doing anything interesting.
See, I added in the tomatoes, the stock, the clam juice, and the wine, and let it simmer for a half hour.  It may be interesting to me, and it’s certainly making the house smell good, but it’s not exactly playing with fire like last year.

THIRD QUARTER: The Ravens’ defense fails them.  San Francisco scores two unanswered touchdowns.
Well, the clams DID come from the Chesapeake, didn’t they?  Well, they got cooked first.  Shall I predict Ed Reed trying for an interception and instead giving up a touchdown?  Yes, I shall.  Goodbye, clams:

FOURTH QUARTER: Baltimore’s defense comes up big, but it’s too little, too late.
After the clams are cooked you have to take them out to make sure they are all good, and throw away any that aren’t opened.  In all I only had to discard two clams out of the whole batch so we were very pleased.

FINAL TWO MINUTES: San Francisco’s offense comes back on the field and puts the game out of reach.
Let’s see, Colin Kaepernick is the salmon, Frank Gore is the scallops, and Randy Moss is the shrimp (it’s funny because he’s really tall).  After removing the clams I put in the rest of the seafood to cook, for about 5 minutes, and when it was done the clams went back in.

FINAL: San Francisco 28, Baltimore 17.
You see that?  That’s goodness right there.  The clams, the salmon, the scallops and shrimp (and chopped basil added at the last minute) were all excellent.  Add in the tasty-but-ugly bread from my previous post and you have yourself a meal.  There were so many stars in the bowl it was hard to pick an MVP.  In the end, though, I’ll pick Randy Moss because he’s “old” (younger than me) and it would be kind of cool.

Also, Jerome Bettis will be elected to the Hall of Fame on Saturday.  Go Bus!

Prelude to a Super Bowl Post

Lately I’ve been fancying myself a baker.  I’m not sure why; the number of breads I consistently make successfully is three.  But those are really the only breads I make, so my self-confidence may have been a bit inflated.

When the NFL playoffs began and I saw that the San Francisco 49ers stood a good chance of making it all the way, I instantly began supporting them.  My mind instantly went to my blog, and the two things from the Bay area that I’ve always wanted to make but haven’t, for whatever reason.  And when they won the chance to play in the Super Bowl I knew I had to make both those things, not just one.

As I said before, I’ve been thinking a lot about bread lately.  So with San Fran in the playoffs I started thinking about sourdough.  I went to the greatest experts I could think of: Google and my sister in law (who doesn’t really make a whole lot of bread, I was just lonely I guess).  What I was searching for was an answer to a very (in my mind) good question: Can you make a sourdough starter in January?  Are the yeasts and things in the air in large enough quantities to collect in a bowl of flour and water and make bread with in little more than a week?

The answer to that question is no.  But in the spirit of my annual Super Bowl posts (or my annual blog posts, at this rate) I must tell you the story.  But it must have some bearing on the game, no?  Karen kept asking me “What metaphor works with this, exactly?”  Honestly I couldn’t think of a thing.  But I know this.  The quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII has only started 9 NFL games in his career.  Being so inexperienced and thrust into the world wide spotlight and a media intent on making this a big Ray Lewis retirement party, I imagine he might be getting some butterflies.  So I submit to you this, my approximation of a stress-induced nightmare as Colin Kaepernick imagines getting flattened by the Baltimore Ravens’ defense.

There are many places you can go if you want to learn about making a sourdough starter.  Usually for these Super Bowl posts I pick one from the internet that I can link to, but this time I didn’t.  The first of many bad decisions.  But there’s this guy.  He makes cookbooks that are so nice.  And the breads are so lovely.  And he says things like “Don’t worry; not much happens after one day.  It’s fine.  Add more flour and water.”  See how reassuring he can be?  His name is Peter Reinhart and he’s originally from PA farm country, so I felt a kindred spirit with the man.  So here’s step one of his sourdough starter, which he calls a seed culture.

It looked like, I don’t know, poo?  Yes, poo.  I left this in the plastic container and put it in the dining room so it would stay warm.  Later that evening Karen and Isaac were in there and she asked him “Did someone poo in a tupperware container?”  Mr. Reinhart says to use rye flour on day one of your seed culture because it makes the starter taste better, or something.  I never got that far.

Now there were specific instructions for what to do on day 2, day 3, day 4, etc.  And it usually involved discarding some of the starter and adding flour and water.  I did all this and I even took pictures to document the process.  It was all very exciting.  Except for one thing.  Nothing ever happened.  I’m being told “It should have risen by at least half” or “It should have doubled in size, at least.”  Um… no.  So I’d be happy to send you pictures of the next three days, but they all looked the same.  After day 4 I’m looking at this:

And I’m wondering “What does this mean for the Super Bowl?  Certainly I can’t predict that the 49ers will forfeit or a horrible accident will occur and the game gets cancelled.”  Except, this isn’t really a spectacular failure, since nothing is really happening.  So it can’t be a horrible accident.  It would have to go something like this:

BREAKING NEWS: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (BOOOOO!!!!!!!!!) has cancelled the Super Bowl because something better was on TV that night.

Anyway, unsure of myself, I left it for one more day.  The book said that after 24 hours it should have doubled in size, but if it’s still sluggish leave it alone for up to another 24 hours.  So here, with a rubber band as reference, is proof that after 48 hours nothing has happened.

At this point I gave up.  Goodbye sourdough, see you in the summer.  I knew going in that a week was a bit of a stretch to get anything decent, and I’m told that the real flavor of the sourdough doesn’t peak until you’ve had it for 2-3 weeks, because the bacteria that makes the flavor grows more slowly than the yeast.  They obviously haven’t seen my yeast.  One thing I will note.  I thought it odd that everyone said to cover the container.  Peter Reinhart, bloggers, message boards, everyone said to cover your starter.  I thought we were trying to trap wild yeasts floating around in the air, and how are we to do that with a covered bin?  Then I saw on one of these message boards people explaining why you cover your starter: it keeps the flies out.  Yes, everyone else does this in the summer.

But for dinner we really wanted bread, so I went to a recipe that I’d used just a few days before and it was a hit.  King Arthur Flour calls it the easiest loaf of bread you’ll ever make.  Sounds perfect.  I made buns instead.  Here’s the recipe:

Hearth Bread from King Arthur Flour

It’s a very wet dough, but I’m becoming increasingly comfortable with that.  I’m not fond of getting ‘club hand’ while kneading, but the end product is worth it.  This time I made some changes to it though, and I’m not sure I liked them.  Here’s them heading to the oven:

This also looks like poo.  But when they came out of the oven it looked like bread.

This is one I’m still working on to get right.  One of the changes I made was to use a cup of whole wheat flour, and I’m not sure the bread was improved by that addition.  Also, I’m working with the cooking temperature for the oven.  With the first batch I used 400° because buns are smaller than loaves, but then they didn’t turn a nice dark brown like I wanted.  So the second batch I baked at 450° and it was a little better, but for some reason those buns turned out a little flatter.  I’m really starting to realize how important a cooking thermometer is when baking bread.  At first you’re all like “The bread is really brown and it’s only been 15 minutes!  HEEEEELLLLLLPPPP!”  And then you check the internal temperature and you’re like “Oh.  Wow.  Cool.  I hope nobody saw that and decided to blog about it.”

Okay, maybe it’s just me.  So Colin, if you’re reading (and I’m sure you’re not) I’m sorry about the night you’re going to have on Saturday.  Blame Roger Goodell for scheduling this game in February.

Late to the Party

“Wow, a food blog post about the Hunger Games.  How original.”  See how judgmental you can be?  Maybe you should come back later when you’re feeling better.

Some very good friends of ours just moved 3,000 miles away.  But before that they did something terrible.  They introduced me to the Hunger Games.  I’m not sure exactly why this trilogy of books has nailed me so completely, but I find myself going back every so often to reread certain passages (or the whole book).  What strikes me is that from the beginning this series is not so much about a fight to the death or action or violence, but survival.  From the very first page we find out that in the districts of Panem the main enemy is starvation.  Food is vitallly important in this story, and even in the arena Katniss notes “…how quickly the food disappears.”  So it’s no surprise that it’s inspired a cookbook and countless bloggers to take up the mantle and dedicate posts and recipes to the many meals described in detail in the book.  I may be late to this party but that’s what I do.

The very first food in The Hunger Games is so simple, yet it’s given star treatment.  A gift from her sister, Katniss receives a “…perfect little goat cheese wrapped in basil leaves.”  Spread across some special bakery bread, this breakfast is dubbed a feast.  It certainly made my mouth water to read it, so I thought it would make a perfect appetizer for our Hunger Games dinner (which you’ll find out about later).

I searched my favorite recipe site (Cooking Light) for “goat cheese basil” and this beauty showed up:

Fresh Herbed Heirloom Tomatoes and Goat Cheese Crostini

That’s quite a title, isn’t it?  For a recipe with no photo, just the list of ingredients made my mouth water.  But it’s not exactly what I was looking for so I made a slight adjustment.  And by slight adjustment I mean I put the bread on the bottom instead of the tomatoes.  Actually it was more than that, because we didn’t have lemons and I used limes.  But lime juice is very potent so I used half as much as they asked for; even so it was a bit limey for my taste but still very good.  We went to the bakery at our local butcher shop and got some Italian sun-dried tomato bread and toasted it up in the toaster oven.  On went the goat cheese, topped with the tomato slices and basil oil.

A feast indeed.  Karen mentioned that this could have been a meal in itself.  I agree.

Waiting for my book deal

How is it that my blog never got picked for a book deal or movie rights?  Oh yeah, because nobody reads it.  Their loss, this stuff is hysterical.  I was going to send this story in an email to my sister but it’s so awesome I’ve got to tell everybody.

The CSA started  back up a couple weeks ago and we’ve got turnips.  Not a whole lot, but there’s turnips.  Honestly I don’t know what to do with turnips at all, so I went hunting.  I found a few interesting recipes on Cooking Light, so I chose this one:

Turnip-Parsnip Gratin

We had no parsnips, so Karen went to the store and bought the sorriest looking parsnips I’ve ever seen.  You make do with what you’ve got, right?  So Sunday comes and it’s time for some barbecue.  We’re going to make some steaks, some chicken thighs, potatoes, and the gratin.  While the coals are heating up I get out the turnips and parsnips and begin peeling them.  Karen asks “What should I use to slice the veggies?”  and my answer should have been THE KNIFE.  But the recipe says to use the mandoline, and we’ve got a mandoline, and we haven’t used the mandoline for several years so I say “Use the Mandoline.”

What happens when someone uses a mandoline for the first time in three years?  They go to the emergency room, that’s what.  Almost immediately Karen slices off a large part of her thumb.  It’s still attached, but she needs stitches.  She needs to drive herself so I can stay home with the kids, reassuring them that Mommy’s okay.    So she goes into the bathroom to rinse her hand and get ready to go.  In the meantime I grab the parsnips and say to myself “I’ll finish the job, but I’ll be careful.  Not like Karen.”  Almost immediately I slice off a piece of the palm of my hand.  You know, the meaty part by your thumb?  Yeah, sliced it right off, no flap or anything.  I grab the towel recently put down by Karen and apply pressure.  It’s not bleeding too bad, unless I, you know, release the pressure.

At this point Karen comes out of the bathroom and sees me sitting there with a sheepish look on my face.  I show her the wound.  There is nothing to stitch; mine sliced clean off.  So Karen goes to the ER.  I have the presence of mind to tell her not to drive the new car, so she doesn’t drip blood all over it. From my first aid training and I know that you’re supposed to apply pressure to a wound to stop bleeding.  So I grab a rag and a ace bandage and wrap my thumb/hand/wrist as tight as I can and still move my fingers.

While Karen is gone I finish the gratin; it’s already cost us a pound of flesh, I’m making it for dinner dammit.  The potatoes were already in the oven and the coals were hot by this point so I put the steaks on the grill and finished making the gratin.  For the kids I ordered a pizza.  Karen came home with a very professional looking bandage.  Mine, not so much.

Karen told me “The doctor poked the flap with a needle to see if it was still viable.”  After several convulsions I asked her WHY DID YOU TELL ME THAT?

The gratin was excellent.  In case you’re wondering (and I know you are) we used fontanella cheese.

 

Haven’t we been here before?

Yes, we have.  The last time the Giants and Patriots played in the Super Bowl the Patriots were HUGE favorites, and the Giants won in the final minute, just like I said they would.  Don’t believe me?  Click here. (Shameless plug)

Blogging is fun; I should do it more often.  Picking a team this year was as easy as ever; go Giants.  (To New England fans: This is all meant in good fun; please disregard any statements I may make saying that the Patriots are evil and are coached by Satan.)  Since New York is my team I’m picking a New York dish, and if it turns out well then the Giants win.  Got it?

There are many dishes that are claimed to have been invented in New York.  But for my Super Bowl prediction I need a dish I’ve never made before.  I did a great deal of research in this area (I looked on Wikipedia), and there it was.  Steak Diane.  I’d heard of Steak Diane from (of all people) Gordon Ramsay on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.  Usually made table side, this dish has a sauce that includes brandy cooked flambé-style.  Beef filet plus the chance to burn the house down equals blog gold, people. I may be out of practice but you don’t forget the basics.  Let’s get to it, shall we?

GAME PREPARATION: The Giants bring in a suprise guest for the pep talk.

Now, I know Emeril isn’t from New York.  He’s from New Orleans, but so is Eli Manning, so give me a break.  Emeril’s recipe from Delmonico looked very good, and it’s on the Food Network’s website, so you can go look at it by clicking here.

SUPER BOWL WEEK: Media day stinks, but in a good way.

I took the time to read the whole recipe before I began (I know!), so I noticed it called for some veal stock.  Karen was making beef vegetable soup this weekend anyway, so she also used Emeril’s recipe from the same page to make the stock.  The first step is always my favorite: roasting the beef bones.

If nothing else, this step makes your house smell AWESOME.

GAME TIME!  Nothing interesting happens in the first half.

This could also mean “The Patriots go up by three.”  Since we all want them to lose, this is drudgery.  The next steps are pretty boring, right?  Yada yada yada, trim the meat, slice into steaks, yada yada.

I know what you’re thinking, “Skip to the fire!”  I’m going as fast as I can, but I must include pictures for every step, it’s the law.

HALF TIME! A surprise guest makes an appearance at the half time show.  It’s actually great, but it runs longer than planned.

Who’s the half time performer this year?  Madonna?  I’m predicting that someone good shows up and upstages her.  Why, you ask?  Because while we were prepping everything for dinner a very dear friend of ours showed up for the Super Bowl party.  A week early.  I have the best friends ever.  The house was a nightmare, truly horrific, but they came in and we had a ball while we finished the prep work.  I also had time to dice up some red potatoes, toss them with some herbs and olive oil, and throw them in the oven.

THIRD QUARTER: Finally, the Giants offense starts scoring points.

Sear the meat on both sides in butter.  Chill out, this was dinner for four and I used a tablespoon of butter and 1/4 cup of cream.  This is health food.  Anyway, the steaks are doing nicely.

THIRD QUARTER: New York scores points in bunches.

Maybe a touchdown followed by a kickoff-fumble?  Sounds good to me.  I added the mushrooms, onions, and garlic.  I’m starting to get very happy right now, but still apprehensive about what is to come.

FOURTH QUARTER: With a lead, the Giants’ defense puts the pressure on Tom Brady, but it doesn’t work.

I knew the pan wasn’t hot enough.  I tried increasing the heat a little early, but the steaks were just right, the mushrooms were just right, and it was time to burn the house down.  I took all the necessary precautions.  I moved the pan to the kitchen table, away from the microwave above the range and the flammable wallpaper behind the stove (remember the burgers?).  I then added the brandy…

And lit the fire.

Not exactly the WHOOOM I was looking for.  I had Karen taking pictures for me, in case I needed to get the fire extinguisher (and for evidence to send to Allstate).  I try mixing things together and I’m able to manage this:

FOURTH QUARTER: The Giants pressure Brady again and it works.

Interception for a touchdown?  In the Super Bowl?  Tom Brady?  I can only dream.

Here’s what happened: The alcohol all burned off (or so I thought) so I put the pan back on the heat.

THAT, people, is flambé.  Apparently there’s a good deal of alcohol in brandy.  I’m screaming “TAKE A PICTURE!” and Karen is screaming “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”  So we have a bit of an action photo sequence.

Zoom!

Wisk!

You’re welcome.

FINAL TWO MINUTES: The Giants’ defense puts the game away.

After all that, I added the steaks back in to baste and finish cooking just a bit.

Served with herb roasted potatoes and steamed broccoli (I know, it’s boring, shut up), dinner was a smash hit.  Jonathan asked for seconds and then thirds, ensuring a big win for the G-Men.

FINAL MINUTE: The refs blow a big call, for the Giants.  But the game’s outcome isn’t affected.

Here’s the problem.  The final step just before serving is to add some chopped parsley to the sauce.  I bought the parsley, I washed the parsley, I chopped the parsley.  I even put it in a nice blue bowl for ease of use when adding it to the pan.  I just forgot.

Would it have been nice? Yes.  Oh well.  Dinner was great.  I predict that the largest margin of victory inflicted by the Patriots this year will be visited on them.  Final score Giants 55 Patriots 20.

Lucky numbers

See, in this year’s Super Bowl the Green Bay Packers are trying to win their 13th NFL championship, while the Pittsburgh Steelers are trying to win their 7th.  Get it?  Lucky Numbers?  Oh, never mind.

For reference, My previous Super Bowl picking posts (all correct) can be found by clicking here and here and here.  I will say thank you to my one fan, Jes, who asked me a couple weeks ago when I was going to be writing this post.

For three years I’ve correctly picked the winner of the Super Bowl merely by cooking a dish from that city.  Manhattan clam chowder predicted the Giants to beat the Patriots, Jambalaya produced a win for New Orleans last year, and in Super Bowl XLIII Tandoori chicken was the difference with my Pittsburgh Steelers.  Only that’s not really Pittsburgh food, is it?  Sadly, no (although it would be nice).  Thankfully the Black and Gold have seen fit to offer me a second chance, and I shall take up the mantle with pride.

The rules for these posts are simple.  I pick a dish I’ve never made before based solely on what I feel like cooking.  I assume the role of my chosen city’s star player, and as it goes for my dish it goes for their team.  And when all else fails I never pick against the Steelers.  Honestly I could have made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for this post and said “Wow!  That was great!  Steelers win.”  But that’s not as much fun.  Instead, I shall be making pierogies.

In bold letters you will find the progress of the game based upon the progress of the meal.  Following this is the explanation of my cooking, step by step.  And lots of pictures.  This year I will be taking the role of coach Mike Tomlin, since he is by far my favorite person on the Rooney’s payroll.  Besides, we’re the same age and, yes, I wish I was him sometimes.

WEEK OFF: The coaches do their research, studying their opponent looking for a weakness.
I searched extensively for a recipe (I googled it), and I found a food blogger from Pittsburgh (Hooray!) who had a recipe and great photos of its results.  Go visit the Brown Eyed Baker and tell Michelle I said hello.  Here’s a link to the recipe:

Homemade Pierogi from the Brown Eyed Baker

SUPER BOWL WEEK: The Steelers arrive in Dallas and get worked over by the press.  They hold together, but it’s ugly.
It’s my blog, I pick the metaphors, got it?  Anyway, step one was to mix the dough.  It was a multi-step process but the longest part (and the hardest to know if I was doing it right) was “working the dough until it loses most of it stickiness.”  I have no idea what that means, but here it is:

Karen asked me “Is it supposed to be that dry?”  How should I know?  I’ve never made a dough remotely like this before.  I put it in the fridge and let it sit overnight.

GAME TIME!  The Steelers win the coin toss and kick off.  They feature a strong running game on offense.
See, I was going to cook this meal on Sunday like I normally do, but Karen was already making something.  I decide Monday is best.  Besides, Karen wanted me to make some chicken-corn soup on Monday anyway and I thought it would go great with my pierogies.  I am also very good at making soup.

FIRST QUARTER: The Defense shows up big.  The whole team rallies.  Tomlin tweaks the game plan.
This was too easy.  The bacon is Casey Hampton.  It was actually between him and Flozell Adams.  From everything I’ve read you can put as many embellishments as you want in the filling, so although it wasn’t in the recipe I know very well that bacon makes everything better.

And if Casey Hampton is the Bacon then James Harrison is the onions.  This was my first deviation from the recipe.  It calls to saute the onions in butter, but all that wonderful bacon grease was already in the pan, so I used that instead.  I’m a genius.

FIRST QUARTER: The offense moves the ball at will against the Packers’ defense, but it’s still not pretty.
Shredding the cheese.  This I couldn’t pass up.  And yes, it’s a terrible metaphor but I don’t care.  When I was at the store I saw this beautiful Wisconsin Colby-Jack and exclaimed “MWUAHAHAHAHA!”  But as it turns out, this step isn’t really negotiable anyway.  You do want delicious pierogies, right?

After shredding the cheese and boiling the potatoes I mash everything together.  Also, I forgot to mention that I chopped up some chives for the filling as well.  Karen didn’t think I should post a picture of the filling at this stage because it didn’t look very appetizing in this state.  Whatever.

SECOND QUARTER: A substitute makes a huge difference in the game, but the Packers’ defense holds.
I took the dough out of the fridge, rolled it out, and cut out the rounds.  At this point Jonathan came in the kitchen and asked to help.  So I put the filling on each round and showed him how to moisten the edges and fold them in half.  It actually makes the work go faster so I was happy.  Jonathan will therefore play the part of Doug Legursky, playing center for the Steelers due to the injury to the usual starter, Maurkice Pouncey.

At this point I started worrying about my metaphors.  The filling was smelling very good, and I knew it was because of the cheese.  If the cheese was the best part of the pierogies, and they were a success, does that mean that the Packers actually win the game?

THIRD QUARTER: The Steelers finally start looking good, but then lose their lustre quickly.
After the pierogies were formed they looked pretty good.  I was starting to get excited.

Then I boiled them.  It’s funny.  The recipe said that they float to the top when they’re done.  It also said it would take 8-10 minutes.  Mine took no more than five.  But after they were done boiling they looked odd.  I rinsed them off just like it told me to, but there was still a pretty thick layer of starch on the outside.  I was hoping for a big finish in the skillet.

FOURTH QUARTER: Troy Polumalu  scores a defensive touchdown.
All this time I was also making the chicken-corn soup, and at this point Karen came home from work and finished it off.  I was very grateful.  Yes, Karen is now playing the part of Troy.  She is the superstar in our kitchen.  Plus, she’s got beautiful hair.

FINAL TWO MINUTES:  The Steelers’ defense puts the game away, led by James Harrison.
Well, he was the onions, was he not?  The final step in the process is to saute some sliced onions in butter, and when they were soft add the pierogies and pan fry until crisp.  At this point even Karen was looking optimistic.

GAME OVER!  The Steelers win.  James Harrison is named MVP.
Even Karen said they were great.  The best part was the crispy outside, and guess what else?  The soup was GOLD!  How cool is that?  Thanks to some saffron, which was actually in the recipe.  I wish I’d had some black beans to serve on the side.  But no matter, this dinner was awesome.

MY PICK: Steelers 24, Packers 20.

Doing the impossible

My annual Super Bowl post is coming very soon.  For an opening act I thought I’d showcase once again why this blog is called Mark Ruins Dinner.

If you’re like me (and why wouldn’t you be?) you purchase convenience food at the grocery store because it’s quick and impossible to ruin.  You may have even asked yourself “How could you possibly wreck a frozen pizza?”  Here’s your answer.

The boys had some friends over so I thought getting a couple frozen pizzas would be an easy dinner that everyone would eat.  So I got one cheese and one pepperoni and put them in the oven at the same time.  After 17 minutes we checked on them.  At this point Karen said to me “Why did you put one right above the other?  You’re supposed to stagger them so the crusts cook properly.”  She couldn’t have told me that at the beginning.  Besides, I’m the homemade pizza guy now.  Anyway, we moved them apart so that the top pizza crust would cook, but it wasn’t that easy.  You see, the crust on the top one had started sagging through the oven rack.  But we did our best and moved it over.  But then Karen decided it would be a good idea to turn it, so that it would stop sagging.  In the process she ripped a hole in the middle of the pizza:

That’s the cheese dripping through the middle of the pizza.  I quickly got it out before it opened up like a black hole.  We had a heck of a time getting it out of the oven, but the boys ate it just fine.  Karen said it looked like a belly button.  I don’t think that’s a good thing for a pizza.

This doesn’t bode well for my Super Bowl pick.

So THAT’S why your blog is called that….

I get asked a lot “Your cooking looks really good, why is your blog called Mark Ruins Dinner?”  Here’s your answer.

I apologize for the lack of pictures in this post.  There are barely any words to describe what happened today, let alone pictures.  I shall do my best.

We’ve been busy lately.  Like, too busy to cook.  So Karen’s been going crazy on the weekends to make enough food for us to eat all week.  This weekend she asked if I would help her out on Sunday morning while she got caught up at work.  I obliged, of course, for who in the world can mess up a pot roast?

Karen even gave me a recipe as a starting point.  “This looks really good,” she says.  “Just follow the instructions and it will be great!”  I admit, it looked like a great meal.  A sirloin tip roast braised slowly in the Crock-Pot.  Some nice root veggies in there and everything.  And Guinness.

I gotta be honest.  We’re not beer drinkers.  We don’t have any Guinness in the house.  We still had a Coors Light in our cupboards from two Thanksgivings ago, when we had company.  We still had some Miller Light from last Thanksgiving.  Karen had bought a six-pack of Bud this summer to make beer can chicken with.  That’s all we had in the house.

The recipe was called Beef and Guinness Stew and it’s from Cooking Light magazine.  I think.  Karen told me all about it, but I guess I wasn’t listening.  She left it on her computer and I glanced at it, but only to look at the list of ingredients.  I did look briefly at the instructions, but only to see when to add the beer, and how much.  How about I just go through the instructions and tell you what I did instead?

Step 1: Cut the beef into 1-inch cubes. Wow.  I never even saw this bit.  I ignored it completely, leaving the roast as one big lump of meat.

Step 2: Use 1 bottle of Guinness Draught. As stated before, we didn’t have any.  In fact, I even forgot about the Budweiser and used the year-old Miller Light instead.

Step 3: Use 4 cups of beef broth. Really?  Where did this come from?  I just saw that right now for the first time.  Maybe I didn’t look at the ingredients as well as I’d thought.

Stop laughing.

Step 4: After sautéing the onions, stir in the tomato paste. I knew this was coming, I just plum forgot about it.  You ever have one of those days?  Yeah, my mind really was somewhere else this morning.

At this point I chopped up some celery, carrots, and potatoes and put everything into the Crock-Pot.  I switched it on, blew it a kiss, and went about my day.  Later that evening I’m at the store and I get a call from Karen.  “Did you reduce the heat on the Crock-Pot to Warm just now?”

No.  I hadn’t.  I had put everything in the slow cooker and turned the dial one click to the left.  Once again, I wasn’t paying attention.  Now, from my food handling class all those years ago I am aware that for 8 hours my beef roast had been lovingly kept at just the right temperature to encourage bacteria to grow.  I didn’t put dinner in the slow cooker; I put an agar in an incubator.  So yeah, after 8 hours it was still raw.  Karen told me “I tasted it, so why don’t we wait until tomorrow and see if I get sick before we throw it away?”

Uh huh.

The best part is this.  It was a pot roast.  That’s dinner for three days in our house.  So I didn’t just ruin dinner.  I ruined dinner for the week.

So, after a lengthy hiatus, it’s good to be back.

CSA Cooking: fennel, garlic, and basil

It’s been a long time and the summer is halfway over already.  And guess what, I was right about something.  Blogging the CSA every week is hard.  But don’t think that the season is halfway over.  On the contrary, it’s hardly begun.  The CSA runs from early May through Thanksgiving.  So far the take each week has been small but once August hits we will hear the call of all-you-can-pick tomatoes.

I do have some other things to post from the last two months of farm fresh vegetables, but I also have a trip to Trinidad to post about.  Oh yeah, the food is still good.

So this week at the farm what greeted me was potatoes, carrots, lettuce, fennel (bulb, stalk, and leaves), garlic, basil, parsley, and cucumbers.  My thoughts immediately went to the fennel.  It’s the kind of thing you need to plan the whole meal around, you know?  It doesn’t really go with everything.  I thought of lamb, and Karen mentioned that we had some lamb shanks in the freezer.  It was on epicurious that we saw this recipe:

Braised lamb shanks recipe

Okay, there’s fennel seeds listed there, but not exactly what I’ve got.  That’s okay, we put it in anyway.  We didn’t have any star anise, but that tastes like fennel so I cubed up the bulb and sauteed it with the onion, and I chopped the stalk and put it in with the celery.  I was even planning on using the leaves as garnish.  Oh yeah, I’m getting my Top Chef on.  We also used the carrots and garlic from the CSA in the braise.  The reviews for the recipe said that it goes great with polenta, so I decided to make some as well.  I’ve never made polenta before, so this was a very big adventure for me.

We did, however, make some substitutions in the recipe.  It calls for 3 cups of port, which you are to reduce down to 2/3 cup.  I had some red wine and I poured out whatever was left in the bottle, which was about a cup and a half.  I reduced it down, don’t ask how much.  Then it calls for a quart of beef stock and a quart of chicken stock, and you are to reduce this down to a cooking liquid of 3 cups.  You know what?  I really don’t have that kind of time, so I put in a quart of chicken stock and brought it to a boil but didn’t reduce it at all.  So there.

Once that was braising in the oven I thought of the polenta.  I saw this recipe on the Food Network’s website and it seemed like a good, basic recipe.  But it made way too much, so I cut it in half.  Well, I cut almost everything in half.  I cut the water, cornmeal, cream, and parmesan in half.  But I had a moment of weakness, a moment where I had one too many things in my head and something fell out.  I didn’t halve the salt.  “What’s the worry?  It’s only an extra teaspoon.  Of salt.”  What are you going to do, start over?  All over a little too much salt?  Whatever.

So the polenta was barely edible; the addition of the cream helped a bit, but wow.  I ate my entire portion anyway.  I had to, since we forced the kids to eat theirs.

That was when Karen upstaged me.  She came home from work and asked me what vegetable we were having with dinner.  I hadn’t thought of that.  So she made a sauteed ratatouille with zucchini from the CSA and eggplant from our garden.  It was the highlight of the meal.

So the vegetables were good and the lamb was delicious, as were the carrots, onions, and everything else in the braise.  And I’m sure there was some sort of nutritional value or something in the polenta.  But in all it was a success.  And later in the week we did finish off everything else from the farm.