The Art of The Pig

Missing in action

ntsc — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:21:00 GMT

I am still here and will post again, I have been photographing what I've been doing. Recently there have been marmalades, a fine winter project as it warms the kitchen to the balmy 70s.

I've also done both veal and chicken stocks, other things which are better done in winter than summer.

I've taken a temp, part time job with the government. Part time means right now 40 hours a week but it could drop. Temp means it will end, but possibly not until fall.

I'm entering data about job applicants and then hiring them as instructed. In the next 2 months we expect to hire over 1000 people, all short term temps. Of course everything is computerized and of course everything is done on paper. Is this what is meant by double entry?

In any case most of the photography is going on my wife's blog, and I hope to have photos up there on Saturday.

Thanksgiving 2009 minus day 4

ntsc — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 19:07:00 GMT

Sunday was simple, I had a short list.

Coffee
Feed the cat
Bagel with lox spread
Marylin's Toffee
Pralines
Smoke the bacon
Country Terrine
Duck Pate
Eat Dinner
Feed the cat

Some of those items I'm quite experienced at; coffee, bagel, feed the cat and the country terrine. I've even gotten Ruhlman to eat that terrine.

I've smoked a couple of sides of bacon in the past, but I have never attempted to bone a duck, especially with the added requirement that I not cut through the skin, just remove the duck from the intact skin.

I've never made either of the candys at all. My only attempt at candy have been chocolate truffles. OK I've burned a couple of things.

This then is the story of that list.

Now coffee is simple and you may note, to the cat's disgust it is above feeding the cat. And you don't need a picture of a cat dish with food.

So we start with Marylin's Toffee. The recipe can be found on the second page of this thread toward the bottom.

Above is the mise, 1 pound of butter, 2 cups of sugar, slivered almonds, 12 oz of semi-sweet chocolate, water, salt and 2 cups of pecans, which will be Cusinarted.

Toast the pecans first, a few minutes - until they start to release an aroma - in the oven at about 350.

Melt the butter over medium heat.

Slowly add the sugar, stiring contantly.

At the correct time add the pecans and bring to the hard crack 310-320 point.

Then pour onto buttered foil on a half sheet spread smooth, pour on the melted chocolate and add the almonds.

Wait until cool and break into bite sized pieces.

By the way, go look at the recipe, it has a lot more detail including the amount of water and sugar. I've had Marilyn's Toffee made personally by Marilyn, and it is good. I expect this to go over well with the younger crowd.

I don't have pictures of the pralines, essentially it is dark brown sugar and lots of pecans. Melt the sugar, add the pecans and bring to about 230. Pour on to buttered foil on half sheet. You can make nice sanddollar shaped candies, but I need this as an ingrediant for a cheese cake on day minus 2, so I didn't. Don't think this will be a problem with the left overs, do you?

Now on to the Country Terrine, first I need one large onion chopped.

The above isn't quite large enough, so I will to 3 halves.

Cut the onion in two, from pole to pole and trim off the stem end, leave the root end on it.

Cut the onion, not quite cutting into root end, from pole to pole, as if lines of longitude.

Now cut lines of latitude, starting at the stem end and working to the root end. The root holds the uncut part together, but each cut forms onion diced as finely as you would like.

(to be continued with pictures).

Thanksgiving 2009 minus day 12

ntsc — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:39:00 GMT

Now there is more than one breakfast planned, and if I have the bacon curing it is time to do the breakfast sausage. And as well I need sausage for the stuffing on the bird I will bone, stuff and truss: see here.

The top of the three is most of the mise, the middle whole pepper corns, the bottom, just freshly ground pepper.

Now not only am I doing breakfast sausage and the French Garlic, but I perfer doing three or four sausages at a time. So I will also do both hot and sweet Italian in casing. I've uncased of both in the freezer but for some things we want casings. The above is of the hot version as it is the only one of these four with basil. The breakfast sausage is CIA, the other three Charcuterie.

Pork shoulder, various spices and in the case of one, fresh basil and salt. I know what is in these sausages, no mystery meat here.

The last picture is a stack of the cook books to be used for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving minus day 13

ntsc — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:20:00 GMT

Thanksgiving morning we will serve breakfast, breakfast involving bacon. Home cured, home smoked bacon, from a pig who died happy.

So first we make the dry cure, salt, sugar and dry salt. This, as does the bacon recipe comes from Rhulman and Polcyn's Charcuterie, which I'm happy to report rumor has it is soon to be joined by a second work.

Then we mix the cure ingrediants well.

Then we pour some over the pork belly. We want it to stick to all six sides.

That is a five pound piece of fat back, on its way to being cured into Lardo, also from Charcuterie.

But first it must be skinned.

Then salted.

And bagged. All in all that is 3 pieces of soon to be bacon and one of fat back, 20 pounds all told. It is comfortable in the fridge, getting flipped, and long about Saturday will go in the smoker.

I will slice up and freeze two of the slabs of belly, the lardo will hang in cheese cloth in the basement. The third bacon will be left whole, to be sliced just before being fried on Thanksgiving morning.

And none for the starving cat.

Thanksgiving 2009 day -14

ntsc — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:54:00 GMT

Thankgiving 2009, minus 14 days the prep

OK, the beans are for a lunch a bit later in the week, but the meat is for meatballs. It does have to be ground, so we cut it into pieces small enough for the grinder.

Starting into the grinder above. Veal and pork, frozen, not solid, but below 32 F for sure.

And coming out of the grinder, bowl set in ice.

Above the meat balls, two half sheets of them, then into the freezer and the next morning into baggies.

Above phylo triangles being filled. These also have been frozen and await cooking.

Pickles III a

ntsc — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:23:00 GMT

This is my second attempt at this post, in doing it the first time I managed to create some replicating HTML code which I could not remove. So I deleted the entire post and started over.

The good news, however, is I finally went to the trouble of figuring out how to post pictures directly in HTML and avoid the stupid and slow controls this blog system has.
This means I may blog more.

Now back to the pickles

Above is a Ball(r) canning or Mason one pint jar.

Here it is again with a trimmed to proper length cuke standing in it. That is our calibrated pickle(pre) from which all other pickles will be measured. sort of like the platinum-iridium 1 meter standard kept in France, from which all other measures or length are derived, including the inch, which is exactly 0.0254 meters

We will refer to our standard length as the cP(P).

Five pounds of cukes trimmed to length via the cP(P). We don't need the cP(P) for regular slices but will for sandwich slices.

Two views of a mandoline a ver useful tool for ensuring all slices are the same width. You can just make out a gap between the plate and the blade, about half way down this. That gap is adjustable, there is also a wavy blade and blades that cause it to cut vertically as well as horizontally simultaneously.

This device is, as are knives in general, totally indifferent as to whether it is cutting the flesh of vegetable or you. So be very careful with it. Above it is pictured with the safety holder. Use it. I personally will nt use this until my fingers are within two inches of the blade. I also have decades of using power saws and can concentrate on both safety and accuracy. This does take practice.

Sandwich slices, simply cut the standard length cuke on the vertical axis not the horizontal.

See our standard length cucumber fits nicely.

Again safety is important.

We will need garlic and I forgot to pick up peeled cloves.

One of the pickling liquids.

Jars with sandwich slices, garlic, dill and I think clove. Definitely Bay leaf.

Works for slices too.

Do not put mandolines in dishwashers, that is a special imported mandoline washing machine.

Cucumber up against the cP(P) about to be trimmed, note both ends of the cP(P) are gone.

Standard lengths quartered.

The mandoline washing machine also does dishes.

Cucumbers in liquid being brought to temp.

Ready to be put in the jar.

Apres Pickle.

I will publish this now and add the titles and sources of the pickles I made later today or tomorrow.

Added on Nov. 1, 2009
In the first pickle post there were two watermelon pickles:

watermelon pickles from Putting Food By page 310, I think the 3rd not the fourth edition.

watermelon pickles from Small Batch Preserving pp 159

The second post was the Traditional Dill Pickles from Charcuterie pp 71
increased to 10 pounds.

The third post was turned into the following pickles, 5 lbs each:

short brine slices and spears - Putting Food By page 312

Dill Sandwich Slices Ball's - Complete Book of Home Preserving page 302
--also 5 lbs done as chips or horizontal slices.

Traditional Garlic Dill - Small Batch Preserving page 132

Sweet Garlic Dills - Small Batch Preserving page 134

Curry Pickle Slices - Small Batch Preserving pp 136

Sweet Pickles - Putting Food By page 306

Pickles II

ntsc — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:40:00 GMT

A Traditional Dill Pickle - Charcuterie pp 71

Now I mentioned that I have 46 pounds of Kirby cucumbers.

When I met Michaell Ruhlman May of 2008, in Cleveland May 2008, we served him lunch. I had brought a pate, the one featured in the blog top photo, several other dry cured sausages (recipes to be found in Charcuterie as is that for the proscuitto) and some pickles, from fall 2007. Michael asked if any were natural, as in the one on page 71 of the book. No, was my answer.

Well this is my first attempt at that pickle, and as described in the book, worked quite well. I don't know what the preserving method has done to it, but will blog on that when I open the jars. I've still five of the pickles in the garage reefer in brine.

Half a bushel of Kirbys. I'll use 10 pounds, the Charcuterie recipe calls for 10 cucumbers, about a pound. This does scale quite nicely however.

I have decided that this is the pickling spice described on page 70 of Charcuterie and not for the watermelon pickles. I will use it in a number of recipes for pickles this weekend.

The spice mixed with salt for the brine, Kosher salt.

The cucumbers, or some of them at the bottom of a food safe 5 gallon plastic container, they will live there for three weeks.

Mise en place for the pickling spice, the Knob Creek is for apres pickle.

Jars, 46 pounds is a lot of pickles, 2-3 year supply in most flavors. Note that most are filled with pickles. Yes that is over 7 dozen pint jars of pickles.

Those are the pickles after three weeks in brine.

A single pickle.

Sliced

And what won't be canned, six more pickles.

Cut to length for the jar, before being quartered.

Jars of the traditional dill before being processed. I also processed spears.

I could not find a processing recipe using only brine, but did find one using brine and vinegar (5%), 50% each so I used that as instructed for 10 minutes.

I don't know what the processing will do to the taste texture, but if I want these to last for more than a few months it need be done. Perhaps it won't be repeated. I will report back.

Pickles

ntsc — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:35:00 GMT

In September I pickled. Cucumbers and watermelon.

Watermelon rind made up two different recipes, one from Putting Food By, 4th edition revised, page 310; the other from Small Batch Preserving page 159. Both appreciated.

First start with a watermelon, actually we used two.

Halve, then quarter, then eight, then slice the eights into 3 pieces each. This gives you something the size above. Then remove the meat, as we are pickling the rind. Today's watermelon has no rind, so these pickles are thin. These pieces are a good size to then remove the skin from.

And cut into bite sized pieces.

Two different views of the process. I don't know what to do with the meat. There are frozen deserts that will use it, I tried jelly but with no sucess at all.

I'm not certain if that is used in the watermelon or with the bushel of cukes. You can just see the box in the lower right corner. A bushel of cucumbers is not quite 50 pounds.

Then the pieces are cooked, you want to retain some crispness through the hot water bath process, but if they arent precooked the will be too crisp. Two pots, two recipes.

Cloves, cinamon sticks and sliced lime for one of the batches.

The actual liquor one batch will be processed in. This is what fills the jar of watermelon rind pieces.

Just before lids, rings and 10 minutes in the bath.

Peter, for whom the pickles were made and one variant is named Rocky Watermelon Pickles for.

Next up: Traditional Dill Pickles from Ruhlman's and Polcyn's Charcuterie with instructions on how to can them.

Remember I've got 46 pounds of cucumbers to do something with, besides 10 pounds devoted to the above Traditional Dills, there will be Short Brine, Dill Sandwich Slices, Sweet Garlic, Curry Pickle Slices, Sweet and Traditional Garlic Dill. Some of these will be put up in a double batch with two different shapes, spears, slices and sandwich slices being the shape variations. Do come back for more.

The Pickle Prince of Pomona (which is how my wife insists on labeling my pickles.

Fabrication, butterflied leg of lamb

ntsc — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:26:00 GMT

In the spring, my local supermarket Shoprite has specials on leg of lamb from New Zealand. My wife and I buy as many as we can, well 4-6 anyway, and with the trusty hacksaw, I cut them in to halves or thirds. The above is such, fabricated last spring. Plain old hacksaw, with pipe blade, used for nothing else and goes in the dishwasher after. It should be a bone saw, maybe next year.

You want a knife with a decent length blade and very sharp. I use this boning knife, this is a Henckels, probably a 31024-140.

Starting at the top, slice down to the bone for the full length of the bone.

Then start carefully working your way around the bone, to dissect it out.

That is the leg of lamb sans bone. Notice how the right is about 3 times as thick as the left? We will get to that.

The bone, saved for lamb stock. Why not lamb stock? We have trout, lobster, vegetable, chicken, pork, veal and dark beef already.

Stuffing ingredients. You can find where the recipe is from Saturday PM, here. That web site has instructions on decoding WSSSP 129.

Chopped fine.

What we did with the thick portion of the leg, was to slice it the thickness of the thin portion, until about 3/4" from slicing all the way through. Roll the still thick upper portion over to the right and repeat. As you can see we now have a wide, moderately thin and even piece of lamb.

Stuffing on top.

Roll tight and tie.

Wrap in plastic until needed.

Dinner, more pictures at the above link.

Nice meal on a day like this.

The Foodie Blog Roll

ntsc — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:46:00 GMT

Today I showed up as one of the five random entries on The Foodie Blog Roll, thanks to all who came to visit.

Should be getting back to stocks, sausage and smoking real soon now.

The Managment

Plum jam

ntsc — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 17:31:00 GMT

We frequent the Orchards of Conklin, a local 200 year old farm. The last time there I found these

That was about 4 pounds and ran $10.

They also had these

About the same amount, the same price.

Cut up, seed and apply gentle heat.

Add sugar

Stir.

Glorious, isn't it. I added a bag of powdered pectin and brought to a temp of 222 F.

In the hot water bath

Out of the bath.

And ready to go down cellar until use.

8 cups pitted fruit
1/2 cup water (which I didn't use)
8 cups sugar
1 package pectin

Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving pp 31

Vegetable Cocktail

ntsc — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:01:00 GMT

V-8 (tm) it's not, but when you add the garlic, basil and pepper corns maybe v7 and salt.

The other vegetables.

The tomatoes

A cllean well lit pot. 20 quarts in this case.

These are tomatoes not good enough to be put out today and sold in bulk by the half bushel. Still tasty, locally grown, mostly organic from a 200 year old farm.

Quarter, actually I'll eighth the useful part.

A few tomatoes, these have already had the first trim and only need to be stemmed.

Lots of eighths.

Scrape the carrot well, most peeler work just as well on an upstroke as a downstroke by the way, makes peeling go faster.

Almost full stock pot, actually there is also a 16 quart equally full.

That has been run through the blender after about 4 hours of cooking, strong simmer or very low boil. It is now being iced, as it won't cool overnight in the fridge.

Sunset

Next day, cocktail is brought back to a low boil for hot packing in quarts. It is not necessary to sterilize these jars as they will be at 240 F for 45 minutes. And if they are real jars meant for canning, they don't need to be hot, the boiling liquid will not break them. Or at least I've never had it happen. I do check the jars for nicks and scratches, that can cause a break.

The seven out of the canner, still bubbling at the top.

29 quarts, more than a year is my guess.

That rack holds more tomato sauce, stocks and various jams.

These are more stocks, more tomato products and pickles.

Vegetable Variations:

From the USDA Manual on canning vegetables, my underline.

which is to be found here.

Selecting, Preparing and Canning Vegetables

Mixed Vegetables

6 cups sliced carrots
6 cups cut, whole kernel sweet corn
6 cups cut green beans
6 cups shelled lima beans
4 cups whole or crushed tomatoes
4 cups diced zucchini

Optional mix – You may change the suggested proportions or substitute other favorite vegetables except leafy greens, dried beans, cream-style corn, winter squash and sweet potatoes.

This then gets pressure canned for 90 minutes for quarts.

and

From 'Putting Food By' 4th edition - revised, Minnesota Tomato Mixture, pp 179.

"But it cannot be stressed too strongly that the proportion of green pepper, onion, and celery to tomatoes CANNOT BE INCREASED -- unless the mixture is to be Pressure-processed for the full time required to deal with the vegetable with the lowest amount of acid."

My underline, capitalization as in original.

You will hear much discussion on how you may not use a recipe that has not been tested, yet I have not been able to discover just what this testing is, and I have looked.

Yet here are two of the most trusted sources in home pressure canning describing how to create your own recipes, within explict guidelines. No, the Ball Blue Book doesn't describe this, but the Blue Book is a primer and makes no claim to be more. The Blue Book, by the way, often does offer variations in it's recipes. Do not post a comment saying because it is not mentioned in the Blue Book it may not be done, the comment will be given short shrift.

The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving does give instructions on pressure canning some of those items the USDA excludes.

Great caution must be taken here, obviously. There are things that can't be canned at all, but vegetables that may be canned, may be mixed, to your recipe, if one of those two rules is followed.

If you are canning onions at 45 minutes the quart for pressure canning and you add tomatoes to the onions you have made it more acidic, safer. What you may not do is reduce the 45 minutes of time simply because you know it is safer. You have no way of knowing how much safer.

The problem with these processing times is texture, I only use this for juice so there isn't a texture problem.

The first two years of pressure canning I would suggest picking one book and using it as your primer, don't use two or three. Get used to one. Joy of Cooking (most edtions cover this), Putting Food By or the Ball Blue Book. I used the Blue Book and studied others.

Acording to: http://www.botulismblog.com/2009/06/articles/botulism-information/mmwr-says-botulism-was-responsible-for-one-of-11-outbreak-deaths-in-2006/

"In “Surveillance for Foodborne Disease Outbreaks --- United States, 2006;” CDC looks at all 1,270 Food-borne Disease Outbreak (FBDOs) that were reported during that year, resulting in 27,634 confirmed illnesses and 11 deaths.

Only one of the 11 deaths was from Clostridium botulinum or botulism. That fatality was attributed to the C. botulinum toxin being transmitted by carrot juice."

It is a rare poisoning, caution will keep it that way.

Canned tomato sauce

ntsc — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:09:00 GMT

So I go out Tuesday morning and clean the local farmer's market out of tomatoes unfit for naught but sale in bulk. That is 10 pounds and there a couple with spots, since we will be making sauce, we can simply cut them out.

By the way I actually bought 25 pounds, but 10 is all my scale holds.

This is Thursday and this morning I went out and did it again but all they had was 10 pounds. My wife went there for some basil for the meat loaf tonight, and the juice we are turning the 10 pounds into and bought a lot more bulk tomatoes. $4.98 a half bushel, about 30 pounds.

Above is 48 clean wide mouthed pint Ball jars, suitable for canning.

Four dozen tops for the two piece lids, these can not be reused, reuse may kill you it did during a shortage in the 70s. These will be held in warm water, not to hot for my hands, over a pilot light.

Pressure canner and white vinegar, a little vinegar goes in prior to each batch to keep the jars clean, about 3 table spoons.

16 jars lined up with funnel and ladle. The 20 quart stock pot goes on the trivet.

That is my fourth cup of high test, it is about 10 AM.

I start filling the row further from the pot, spill likely will end up in the empty jars.

Stacking the jars in the canner, it takes two levels of pints, 16 of them. Then boiling water, see canner instructions, gets poured in.

The stock pot less 16 pints.

The second stock pot. I used an ice bath to chill those, to about 60 before going in fridge. If I put them in at 180 or so they would still be over 60 in the morning.

That little thing sticking up is the safety interlock, with it up the lid can not be removed. Once it pops up the instructions will tell you how long to let the canner vent before putting the black weight on.

And done. After 30 minutes at 12 psi. I only need 11, but if it drops below 11 I have to start my 30 minutes again.

16 pints and what do you get,
another day older and deeper in debt.

Except I will do 41 and I don't think Tennessee Ernie Ford ever sang about 41.

The Rant:

The goal of boiling water bath canning is to reach a specific internal temperature. The goal of pressure canning is to reach a much higher but again specific internal temperature. At all points in the food. If the altitude you are working at is taken into account, air pressure variations due to weather fall in the safety margins.

I keep hearing from people that I don't follow the proper ritual. That there must be a lid on the boiling water bath, that I must use a 'canner' not a stock pot, that I must have a rack in the 'canner'. Why I ask? Because, I get told. The last time I accepted 'Because' as a reason was from a person whose first name was Drill and last name was Sargent.

Now I am an engineer, a top level one, engineers are at the least quasi-scientists. We go looking for why.

Why a lid? Because a pot will boil faster if the top isn't open. But a high end semi-pro range has so much more power than the 6000 BTU burners most canners are expecting, they will boil the water faster without a lid than the canner will over that little burner with one. You use the 35,000 BTU/burner beomoth I cook on and the lid is just one more hot object in the way.

Why a canner? There is no good reason, except 'Mom' did that. Most canners are too shallow to can quarts, to can quarts you have to use a stock pot.

Why a rack, well it probably isn't a bad idea, but extra jar bands on the bottom of the stock pot work just as well or a dish towel. The rack is to keep the jars from bouncing on the bottom as steam forms under them. But guess what, a proper canning jar in good shape, won't break if it bounces. I own near a 1000 jars, I've been canning for close to a decade. I have yet to have a single jar fail in the bath, although the garbage disposal did eat one. Dropping them on ceramic tile flooring isn't a good idea either. The rack is really to keep mayonnaise and other thin jars salvaged from groceries from breaking when used for canning. The lids used to match in size, may still do, but the jars are plastic now. Checked after first posting, a standard Ball two piece fits the mayonnaise jar in the recyling bin. DON'T DO IT.

I do use a rack in a pressure canner.

Rant to be continued in next post when we talk about vegetable cocktail, safety and recipes.

The Movie

ntsc — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:53:00 GMT

About to go see it, will it replace Ratatouie as my favorite food movie, check back later. Certainly hope the cinematographer is better than the photographer who took the above.

This and that

ntsc — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:48:00 GMT

Have just not been doing anything with food lately. Some grilling and we defrosted and inventoried the two big and one of the small freezers.

Haven't done much on the deck lately. Most of the floor is down, the next step has to be cutting up the old decking and putting it in the trash, but it has been raining so much I won't use electric power tools outdoors. I have tripped current fault breakers which is a good sign to stop. I could haul it into the garage, let it dry and cut it up there, and I will have to soon, but I really don't want to.

However I really can't put the railing up until I can use that saw outdoors. I'm not about to buy a 18v hand saw, just for this job.

There have been two good signs lately however.

I signed a consulting contract. I've been told that I can expect a week of work a month or so, or rather a project a month with most projects taking a week some longer. The rate is a little lower than I would like, even if it is more hourly than my salary was, but if there is travel, they will pay at the same rate for travel time, and have no objection to driving or paying for the extra time it takes, within limits.

The work should be fun and would seem to be right up my line. For years a greater and greater portion of my time has been taken up with the writing of technical standards for various Standards Development Organizations. This is something that is just on the legal edge of anti-trust. So there are explicit procedures which must be followed. I would be auditing some of these SDOs to ensure that they have been following proper procedure.

The other is that I got a call back from H&R Block on tax preparation training. The fact that I may not be able to make the first training session is not a problem. So they will be sending me further information, forms to sign and the like. I do have to promise to not 'hurt' their computers, so no food porn from there.

Drunken Fig Jam

ntsc — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 14:55:00 GMT

The link to the recipe is here Drunken Fig Jam.

We were at Arthur Ave in the Bronx on July, 11 and one of the things at the market were vendors selling figs for $10/box. Figs are good, so when we got home my wife checked online for something to do with them. In the sense of jam.

That is the mise below, figs, cognac, sugar, salt and lemon peel.

Lemons peeled and white pith removed.

Cut up int very small rectangles.

The recipe is from Epicurious.com - Drunken Fig Jam.

Add the sugar, salt and cognac and let sit for an hour.

Place over medium high heat for 35 minutes. Acutally I went for a temp of 222 F and it took 37 at a boil, not a hard boil though.

Use a potato masher for the big pieces of fig. I'm sure an imersion blender would work as well, but I don't have one.

And the color change was real.

10 minutes with in a boiling water bath to process and seal. While the jars should be hot, put them in the water as it comes to a boil, since the processing time is 10 minutes or more, the jars don't need to be boiled for any length of time. Just bring the temperature up.

6 half pints.

Random Food

ntsc — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:08:00 GMT

This is a sort of random blog, the pictures were in the camera and, still not having finished the deck, I don't want to blog on it. Soon.

Below is a piece of home cured/hung pancetta (Deitrich's - which we have now found mentioned in two cookbooks), later this month or perhaps next I'll be doing bacon, lardo and pastrami (you saw the turkeys being butchered. I've two more turkey on the schedule to bone, as soon as they go on sale again. The pork isn't, but the turkey and beef are factory food. I've a rant on factory food coming up, no I don't really approve, but I also like to eat meat. It is both what I can find and what I can afford. Real meat gets used in dry cure, the rest I only wish.

More of the same, this probably hung too long, on some pieces the center needed to be cut out.

Local supermarket had a loss leader on fillet, New Zealand. Having different last names, we have two different shopping cardas with them, we bought two.

No bones here so it really is just cutting it up. However you do want to remove that shinny stuff. Silverskin.

I don't know if it was genetics or poor butchering, but this one had two mostly seperate pieces, the small piece go chunked, the upper piece of meat. Stroganoff when it turns cool again. I think the AC will be on today.

You may be able to free one end and simply pull the worst of the silver skin off.

This photo should be above the last, but I'm too lazy to bother, edit in your head.
You can see the free piece of silver skin I'm going to pull. You don't need tools or gloves, clean hands will do fine.

Pull

Each of those pieces is 8+ ounces, more than enough for the two of us. I am going to freeze all but one of the pieces, and don't want more surface area than necessay. They will get sliced in two at time of use. Probably see it in the photo for this Friday dinner (july 6 on my wif'es blog., Possibly be up by the time you see this, or that afternoon.

Food saver, useful tool. If I think the meat will be frozen for more than about 8 weeks I use it, else I use ziplock (what Costco sells)

And that is the piece that didn't get frozen. And yes we have wine with dinner. Usually the white is a Yellow Tail Chardonay, 1.5 liter bottle and the red is a 3 liter box of Hardys Shiraz. Holidays and guests I do better, but both are decent. It used to be a box of Hardys Chardonay as well, but my liquor store stopped carrying it.

379 8th St, Brooklyn, NY 1978-1996

ntsc — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:09:00 GMT

In 1978 I bought a Brooklyn brownstone, really a brickface, built in 1881. Fortunately I was a single dad, since no woman in her right mind would willing have lived in the squalor and the 30 month old boy couldn't have cared less. In the first two months I owned it I dumped 40 cu yards of debris.

Even as it was, when I met my wife in 1980, her comment was something like it was lovely, if it only had ceilings, floors or walls.

However this was an upper West Side girl who thought you needed shots and a visa to visit Brooklyn. Now the pictures that follow were taken over a period of 16 years.

That is the front stoop and door, when I bought it. Somebody had painted the brick. It is the 2nd in a row of four identical houses, sharing a wall with the house on either side. The lot was 18'9"x100', inside it was 18'x42' and we occupied the upper two floors. I rented the basement and had a shop in the cellar. The basement entrance led to a common hall. We got on so well with the only tenant we had, that we never locked the doors between us. Believe me, we locked the outside doors.

At somepoint my wife had new double doors made for the entrance.

What would be the master bath, the only seperate space on the entire top floor. That is actually a floor tile, as the counter is also the entrance to the roof. For a couple of years there was a steep stair to get up there, but that came down in the late 80s when we stopped gardening up there. All of the bath was home done work, I did the framing, sheetrock, electrical, plumbing (which included a gas dryer) and tile, my wife cleaned and grouted the tile.

The below is a shot up the stairs from the parlor (2nd) floor to the ceiling. The aluminum foil looking stuff is 9 inches of insulation. And yes that is a floor to ceiling book case. The lower of the two shots gives you a look at the 3rd floor joists. When I got it, all of the detail work and most of the plaster had been pulled down and left in a pile on the floor. The owners didn't know how much work it was to rebuild or what material cost.

The underside of the stairs, after having been beefed up for a renovation.

That corner of floor represents my share of the stair renovation, along with the beef up above. My wife had the stairs done by a pro and we then had a party for them. One friend brought the stairs a gift, a slinky, which I still have.

Stair decorations going down are Ulyssess a neighborhood Tom who moved in for a while, Alexander Wollcot, also known as Mom-cat and her daughter George Kaufman, somebody did ask if the father was Gertrude Stein. The cat at the bottom, who is the only one still alive when we moved here is Adlai Stevenson, he who vetoed the Illinois cat leash law.

Note there is no railing yet. That stair did not have a railing from 78 until summer of 85, when my wife had a 2x4 installed before I came home from the hospital.

Holiday decorations.

That door is home made and the wood came from the wall studs of the house, about 3" thick of century old pine, grooves dadoed in the edges and wood glued in the dados to join one piece to the next. The was a full shop in the basement, bench saw and a radial arm saw with 8' run off tables on both sides.

Having the paint removed, probably about 1990, we put AC units in the windows about 93.

Same guys that removed the paint but a couple of years later, finally ceilings. He is standing on the sleeping loft, or crouching.

Oak flooring, I had this floor done, but I did the flooring on the parlor floor my self.

Bottom photo of the parlor floor wainscotting going in, another home project.

Parlor floor dining room.

Parlor floor entry. The two sky-scapes are by a favorite aunt.

The sleeping loft and one sitting area, more floor to ceiling book shelves. I can walk under that loft.

More shots of the main seating area, I took the plaster off the brick in 78 and 79, sanded, sealed and 3 coats of high gloss polyurethane. In 78 and 79 this was a wood shop, while I rebuilt the basement (1st floor) and parlor floors.

The stair's top.

The top is a long shot of the small seating area, with TV and bathroom door open.

Adlai again.

The bathroom, and yes that is a washer dryer, much more convient than in the basement.

The flowers in the lower picture were home grown and if those are peonys in the top, so are they. The front and back yards were tiny, but productive.

Front yard, what looks like a hole in the back of the bottom photo is a grate, which can be lifted, into the celler.

My first grill, natural gas, the other side of that window is the kitchen and the pipe up to the dryer in the bath. Note the row of houses. The entire block was cheek to jowl houses, many with common walls, yet the center of the block was this mass of green. My neighbor and I agreed to not put the fence back up. This is actually the second deck, the first was identical, but I had to replace much of the wood. We used this space, it is also off the parlor floor and 12 feet in the air, there is a bed-room shed below it.

Lots of growing things.

It wasn't here when I moved in, one of my first things was to bolt a 4x8 the entirie width of the back of the house. It was four or five years before the deck got there. The benches were meant to be benches, but the got used as planters, there are planters at the 3 foot level of the railing.

The back yard, probably early spring. The lawn furniture was used when a freind gave it to me, I left it with the neighbor I shared a yard with.

No that isn't the neighbor, that fence came down, we both paid for the replacement, he put it in and I took down the old. The second picture shows the bedroom shed and the deck underpinnings. My deck here is much closer to the ground. Putting in the concrete footings and the foundation for the shed was a pain, that is hand mixed concrete and 36" down.

The stairs from deck to garden.

A groundlevel seating area later in the year, the garden apartment tennant had use of the seating area, but could not garden, but were welcome to tomatoes.

Roger Grimsby, because he looked like he had a buzz on. Roger as with all the cats, except the one born in the house, was a stray who wandered in and liked the ambiance. Bottom picture taken on a Sunday.

Adlai, his idea, he would go up and down stairs riding my shoulder and did his computer commenting sitting there.

A simple omlette

ntsc — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:26:00 GMT

The same pictures appear on my wife's blog, but without the text.

Below is the result.

On the 15th we had a Julia Child lobster dish, Lobster with Madeira and Cream over Angel Hair Pasta.

As always with lobster we had left over lobster, again on the 4th yum!. We are not going to throw it away, not in a household that freezes the shells for stock, and it is much too good for the cat, regardless of her opinion in the matter.

That is Julia Child by the way, her partner James Beard had to be put down earlier this month, sad but necessary. We decided to remain a one cat household.

First you gather your mise.

Three eggs, twice, with some sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, about 1 o'clock is the lobster, not long out of the reefer, the salt and pepper down the right, next to some fine herbs, some fresh chive - just off the deck, and in the middle about 6 oz of shrimp in pieces. Yes the cat got one.

Mix the eggs well and pour into a hot well lubricated pan, even with non-stick I use something, in this house PAM works fine in most cases.

Then the shrimp pieces go in a row. The shrimp goes in first as it needs to cook, and can use the extra few seconds.

The lobster gets added on top of the shrimp, you can see the egg solidifying in the center and around the edge.

Using the spatchula role about 1/3 of the omelet on top of the center. It tore a little at the top.

Continue rolling in the same direction, I'm right handed to it gets rolled from right to left, the omelet is loose enough in the pan that I use a second spatchula to hold it in place while I flip it.

It is out of focus, but the only one I've got, so I use it. I then move the omelet back to the center, highest heat point, to continue cooking. How long? I like a dry omelet but go entirely by sight on this.

Plated.

It won't work with an omelet with chunks of stuff this big, but on finely chopped additions, such as ham or onion, it is perfectly proper to stir the omelet, in the pan, with a fork. Saw this in a breakfast line at CIA one morning, and when I got back from BBQ Boot Camp check Larousse, yes it is proper technique.

Coming up soon, will be posts on more sausage, boning roast joints, my opinions on The River Cottage Meat book, and my deck. The deck is coming along well, the underpinings got finished yesterday. This involved low crawling under it with tools and I am more than a little stiff today and will spend it blogging. The won't get published today, but should be published by the end of July - perhaps weekly from now to then.

Trout!

ntsc — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 11:35:00 GMT

Was out the other day emulating Hank, and caught the beauties below.

OK, I was out at the local supermarket, I haven't picked up a rod since I was 12 or so, perhaps I should. Do follow that link, he talks of making lardo - which I will be doing soon.

Anyway, Rainbow Trout, gutted and headless at $3.99 a pound. That was all they had.

Tail off.

Now let me point out that I do not know what I am doing in the next few pictures. If somebody who does can point a better way, please comment.

I want two fillets off each body. Somehow out of 7 fish I ended up with 15 fillets, not totally certain how I managed that trick.

Because I'm right handed I put the spine to my right, this picture is tail up, but head up works better. That knife (Henckels 31021-310) is longer than the trout and sharp. It isn't under the fish in the above picture but cutting into it.

That is about half way through removing the first fillet, some how the first fillet was always the best. Did I mention that the knife is very sharp?

The first fillet above.

What is left, I leave too much flesh, but I haven't done this since Costco stopped carrying trout and that was a few years ago.

Not pretty, but the best I can do.

Mise

Trout

Text, that is the CIA syllabus on smoked trout. That binder is the collection of CIA courses (one day) that my wife and I have taken. Their courses and boot camps are real and are hands on. Well worth the price.

Mise mixed.

The trout, it will rest for about an hour (in the reefer).

Washed off and drying. Right now that shelf has about 50 pounds of pork shoulder on it, the frozen to be sausage, the non frozen to be cubed and frozen. I plan on making 20 or 25 pounds of sausage this week and the supermarket had a shoulder sale.

I think the charcoal starter is on it's last legs.

Oak soaking.

The next property and mine are divided by a fairly wild copse, with flowers.

That is further back on the lot, which extends beyond the trees in the far back. I can't get down there, the drop is that steep. The only time I tried I broke two bones.

On a clear day I can see Mahwah NJ, that is mostly park and watershed.

Going well. soon

Smoking

Nirvana

But I'm not quite done. All of those fish had bones and tails, can't let that go to waste.

Trout stock.

Three quarts of trout stock.

Happy freezer, very full happy freezer.

And enough of the deck is done that I can use the grill.