The Art of The Pig

A BLT

ntsc — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:19:15 GMT

Sunday I decided to deviate from my wife's menu, which listed Sunday AM as Cold Cuts.

I decided I wanted a BLT instead.

This is the story of that BLT.

If we go back to April 14, 2008, the second picture in the blog post is a close up of a pork belly. The BLT came from a close relative that has been hiding in my freezer since then.

Now that pork belly and a twin have been in the garage refrigerator for about 10 days. One curing in maple syrup and the bacon cure from Charcuterie by Ruhlman and Polcyn. The other in the savory cure from the same source.

There are the two of them, relaxed, fit and ready.

Ready for the smoker, along with a few other things.

That is at the bottom five pounds of andouille, some pork skin, a pork loin cured for Canadian bacon and the two pork bellies.

Same stuff, ready for the smoker.

That is the north looking view (well NNW) from my back yard. I'm standing on a ridge at 860 feet looking at Harriman State Park, which is a watershed for my county at this point. There are houses in the hollow below me, as a matter of fact those of you who know Amy from the ATK BB, she used to live two miles to my south down that hollow.

Just in the smoker. Obviously the sun is at my back.

A different angle. I had to wait on the pork skin, but that is about 18 pounds of pork in there.

Sausage and one of the bacons, I think the maple.

That is the savory bacon. And yes, the pig skin from the bacon was removed, quartered and frozen. We were going to smoke sliced turkey leg for soups in the winter but forgot to pick it up. This should be at least as good for flavor.

That is half the maple bacon, my slicer can't deal with the whole piece of belly.

8 slices, 6 ounces.

Off the slicer, which you can see in the background.

Stacked for the food saver.

Frying.

Assembly.

Now I can bake my own bread, but didn't

Another view

And, again the results.

Kitchen renovation, Phase I, complete - almost

ntsc — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:06:49 GMT

Phase I is done. Well I didn't get the doors on the lower cabinets hung yet, but that may happen soon.

We started with 6 8' red oak 2x4. At $5/foot, one wants to be careful with this lumber. Gloss polyurethane on three sides, don't need anything on the 2" side on the floor. That is only three of them. The yellow sheets to the right are the unhung doors.

Here is what is left of another after being cut.

And here are the other two, with pull out drawer frames screwed down to ensure proper spacing. They won't stay here though, this is just for a future Phase III.

These are the same two frames, but on the other side of the table. The further one holding the flour bin, the closer the sugar bin. You can also see the first spice in the 21" spice drawer.

This is what the first side looked like this AM, liquor on the right, oils and hot sauce, carbonated beverages, rice, a snapping turtle and a rice cooker. Yes that thing sticking up between the rice and the cooker is the shell of a snapping turtle. You can see the back of the pull out shelves as well.

Bottom level of the pull outs. The one at the bottom, barely visable hold foils, ziplcks and the like, then noodles and beans, beyond that liquids. The fourth bottom pull out was damaged in installation and I'm awaiting new slides for it. Right now very tall jars just sit on the floor.

And the upper row, spices, more liquids, the sugar bin has other sugars around it and the flour bin other starches.

Pulled all the way out. That is what the oak frame is for, so these things don't tip. That flour bin takes almost 25 lbs and the sugar about the same.

Just a good shot of the whole spice drawer. The small bottles sit on a turntable on the prep table surface. The first three lower right are bay leaf, rosemary and thyme; the rest are in alphabetical order. Yes, those are bulk Penzy's bags in the rear left.

Hodgepodge

ntsc — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:30:22 GMT

This post is a bit of a mixture.

The kitchen remodel is going along, we will probably be over with this phase in mid August. I still need to replace the counter top, but that can wait.

Ten pounds of fresh local beets. I would have liked 15, but this was what they had.

10 pints of freshly canned beets. Three whole small beets and seven sliced. We aren't trying to can a years supply, we will buy fresh and we also freeze and do a little drying. I've tried to do beans and we just didn't like them.

Fresh Blueberry ice cream

And a strawberry blueberry yogurt.

And the drawers are back together, all that remains are the lower cabinet doors and those are in the basement being sanded.

We decided we liked the pull outs so much we would put them under the table as well. I'll put an oak framework down to fasten these two so they don't tip. These two will be at the other end with sugar in the near and flour in the far, but that is to much weight for just now. We will be putting a pair of 21 inch wide ones here, with all the spices in one of them.

The spices used to run down the middle of this table and this frees up a lot of room.

My wife, in uniform at the CIA flanked by me on the left deep frying a turkey in a blizzard and on the right in the kitchens of the CIA.

Julia Child.

The chrome garbage can hold cat food. Very handy.

Oh Honey, why don't we ... II

ntsc — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:16:11 GMT

Well the kitchen enters the fifth week of disarray. First I had taken all the doors down, and pulled all the doors so the cabinets could be sanded and painted. That was here.

We did have to start putting stuff back in cabinets. This one had been full of crystal we never used, valuble but not used. Those got wrapped in paper and put in plastic bins for the basement. This shelf is now the spice backup space. And seldom used teas. The spices which get used are on the backup work table, these are things like garlic flakes which only get used when I do bagels.

It is starting to get there.

Things like the car key holder are back.

And my wife found these nice pull out drawers that screw into the lower cabinets. It lets us get better use of the space.

That one above, installed. It is a lid holder.

Roasting pans and Pyrex, although the glass bread pans go in the basement, the metal ones fit there though.

Another view.

Under the sink. That matt is a commercial kitchen mat, we've two more of them. The floor is ceramic, when wet it is slippery and the matts take care of that very well, but are a pain to clean.

She also found a holder, or two of them, for wine glasses.

And the doors are strarting to go back up. The drawer faces were removed and have been sanded. I put the drawers back until the faces are ready.

The spice cabinet.

I still have some work. The hinge changed the door position and there is a gap between the double doors, not a huge problem, but more work.

And I mentioned this had expanded to a second room? That is the closet in my wife's office. We used it as an equipment pantry with a set of shelves in each side. Those are now downstairs and those are the cooking magazines, well about 2/3 of them.

We will rearrange this room so it not only works as her office but as a TV room. I'm buying an HDTV which doubles as a computer monitor. It is the only room on the ground floor with a door, which means by putting a window AC in we don't need to run the house AC to cool the small space we actually occupy. We have a heater for it as well. Unless she is cooking my wife is in her office during the day.

More Meet the Meat

ntsc — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:36:11 GMT

We will get back to the 'Re-arrange the Kitchen Cabinets' which has now moved into a second room.

But first.

I may as well admit it, it was just sitting in the rack on Thursday when I went to get a pork loin, marked down $2/lb.

A nice 3 rib roast.

I couldn't help but bring it home.

Nice marbling as well.

But, that isn't going to end up as a roast, I've plans.

And what is good once, is good a half dozen times.

Three bone in, three boneless steaks. Although what I'm planning on grilling Friday, Weekly menu will probably be a fresh Costco T-bone.

These got 'food-saver-ed' and frozen.

It Started Out so Simple

ntsc — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:57:10 GMT

All we were going to do was put knobs on cabinet doors and use the same knob as the drawer pull for a bit better look on the kitchen cabinets.

The cabinets were a hardwood laminated over press board, cheap but not too bad looking, except the builders choose a pickled finish we didn't like. So we painted them, but the paint didn't work too well over the pickle.

And if I have to take each door down to put the handle on, well sanding them isn't that much work. And if I have them down sanding the cabinet carcass is easy. That was three weeks ago, like Topsy this project just sort of grew.

That is about the same shot as the first one, except all the cabinet doors are down, the cabinets are all empty, the upper ones are yellow not white, and a new exhaust fan has been installed. Oh yes, the stove is gone. Well not far, it is in the front hall waiting it's new home.

That is a bit closer and shows you the new range hood, upside down, waiting installation.

And that is the new stove, 30" 5 burners. One goes up to 18,000 BTU and 2 go down to 700 BTU. The oven is 2 degrees hot, I measured. And a warming drawer as well as a top gas element for the broiler and a second lower one for baking. It also has special Kosher settings, not important to me, but Home Depot did let you know about it.

So we now have 13 burners, two ovens and a warming drawer in the kitchen. Plus a microwave and a natural gas grill, which is on the deck. And both a hot and a cold smoker. We are prepared.

And that is the stove in place. The lower cabinets all got sanded before it went in.

Now that is the most finished area, you can see the yellow of the upper cabinet and what the door will look like, it is still white. You can also see the mustard of the lower cabinets. And that is the new refridgerator. We had a power failure and for a while I didn't think I was going to get the prior one to stop the power failure alarm.

To be continued.

Adult Entertainment

ntsc — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:06:53 GMT

We will not be having dinner to night at Maxime's, however we will be at Bar Boulud where I will have Charcuterie and probably the Steak Frite.

Then we go across the street to The Metropolitan Opera where we will watch The American Ballet Theater perform Lehar's The Merry Widow.

Obviously photos would be inappropriate of such things, but this may be a video of the operetta..

Short Ribs

ntsc — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:26:26 GMT

1st mise the mop

2nd mise the rub

3rd mise the glaze

And the object all sublime, the ribs. Actually at this point they have been in the rub overnight and I remembered they needed to be cut in two.

Ready to go to the smoker for hours.

They are the Cinderella Short Ribs from the above book.

There, with the fatty end cut off, you can see the smoke ring.

The plate.

I have modified the recipe, having cut both the really hot peppers to 1/4 the amount called for. Both the chile powder and the cayenne, these were much better. The glaze, which is really good was served on the side.

Lime Marmalade

ntsc — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:42:03 GMT

Last week I took a gallon of sliced citrus fruit, with a minimum of 3 parts out of 8 lemons, added a gallon of water and soaked overnight. The next morning I added another gallon of water and 6 quarts of sugar, only instead of refrigerating overnight I added heat.

The result was documented, this is simply a few follow on pictures on the canning itself.

First we wash a lot of pint jars, these will need to boil for 10 minutes before being filled.

After boiling the empty pints we fill them with the hot, not quite boiling marmalade. Please wipe spills off the rim of the glass, as it can prevent a seal.

Put the first of the two piece lid on. The lids have been held in warm, not hot water, but follow the instruction on the lid box. NEVER USE A LID TWICE!

And then screw on the second piece of the lid. These can be used again, if not rusted, and should not be more than finger tight.

When the jars come out of the boiling hot water bath, 10 minutes for this recipe, they can simply be left to cool. You will here a 'ping' each time a jar seals. Test for a seal by pushing the center of the lid, if it clicks the jar isn't sealed, and it can take up to an hour. Once sealed the screw band can be removed or left in place, but don't tighten them. If you are going to show your jar at a fair, you will need to take the band off.

Enjoy. That recipe results in 16 pints of marmalade.

Marmalade

ntsc — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:00:23 GMT

Here and elsewhere I've mentioned that I can. This started several years ago when I had extra rasberry jam and decided to try and put it up.

Since then I've done a lot of marmalade, but recent batches while they taste fine, were all brown. I decided to experiment to see if I could improve the color.

First part of the mise

That is three pounds of lemons and five pounds of limes.

Which need to be cut up for the food processor.

And sliced with the 2 mm slicing disk.

And above is the whole 8 lbs.

It now gets a gallon of cold water added and left to sit overnight in the reefer.

Add 6 quarts of sugar and one more gallon of water.

And boil.

Now here I changed technique, once it got above 212 I seperated it into smaller pans and let each heat to 223 individually. I did get a light color and it did gel enough for me.

That is one cup. I did add one drop of green food coloring after I took this, but didn't like the color as much so didn't add any more. I don't think one drop in about 3 gallons will make much difference. Right now it is resting, but I will probably can it tomorrow.

Cleveland 2008

ntsc — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:12:01 GMT

'If none of you live here, why did you come to Cleveland?" M. Ruhlman

So maybe it isn't an exact quote, but it is close. He is to the left.

That is Josh (Fuzzy Chef) with his back to us, Chis his wife just barely visible and Darcie in orange.

Ten of us from the BB on America's Test Kitchen decided to go to Cleveland and do food. Josh (Fuzzy Chef), Chris, Kathy Henry, Kathy's Pete, Warner (NTSC), Virginia, Martha (Javafiend), Marylin, Darcie and Todd. We arrived Thursday or Wednesday and stayed at one of two Bed and Breakfasts, although the host at Stone Gables was more interested in a Bed and Brunch.

That is the Stone Gable B&B, our host to the left and my wife and Pete to the right.

Thursday was simply a reception, catered by us, in the common rooms of The Stone Gables.

That is the savory table and starting at about 9 o'clock we have home made prosciutto, and going counter clockwise, chicken liver parfait, horse-radish cured salmon, three plates of four dry cured sausage. Just above the salmon is roast killebassa, and to it's right a pepper tappas. Four jars of pickles, jalepenos, dilled green beans, scallions, and a fourth. Some breads and I'm not certain what is in the two cups near the top. I think one is an olive spread.

That is the sweets table, and except for the toffee on the right I've no idea what it is, other than good. This, by the way, served 10 people for dinner, plus being a part of lunch the next day.

Now our host wasn't about to be out done by us (trust is letting 10 foodies loose in your kitchen), and that is the Friday AM breakfast, with juice, coffee and fruit bowl.

The above, and the first picture are of the kitchen we used. The Wolf store in Cleveland, quite well set up for multiple demos. Multiple tops, plenty of counter space, ovens, refrigerators, lots of tools. We spent lots of time opening drawers. From left to right: Pete, Chris almost hidden, Kathy, Martha, Marylin, Darcie, Todd and Virginia. I've no idea where Josh is and I'm behind the camera.

Josh, Michael Ruhlman, Darcie, Chris and Virginia.

That is the start of the lunch set up: sausage and cheese, cured salmon, bread and a copy of the pate I demoed making at this event. More can be seen here.

The above is Darcies demo, we can hope she will blog about it.

About the time lunch started getting set up Michael Ruhlman arrived and spent two hours answering questions, signing books and eating our food.

More later

An Award

ntsc — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:07:56 GMT

First off this is the Arte Y Pico award. The Arte is an award which is for ‘creativity, design, interesting material and contribution to the blogging community’.

I received this from evil chef Mom, who I think may have been smoking something besides meat.
It won't replace my avatar, but I do feel good about it.

Now the rules, below, say I have to nominate five people. And I will, I even have a fair idea of who they are. However I'm trying to get work cleaned up as I'm on a business trip next week, and don't think I will have time to do this today. But I did want to acknowledge this.

The Winners

Bakin-n-bacon (Darcie) one of the two who got me started on blogging and who I expect to meet Thursday.

Porterhouse (Becca) The second of the two who got me started.

The New Cook (Andy) who is doing a most interesting blog on becoming a cook for the first time.

On the Kitchen Steps (Chris) who has kindly steped in to prevent me from doing a blog on every recipe in Charcuterie.

The Yummy Mummy Cooks (Kim Foster) who is hysterical.

Now of course I have to tell them, although perhaps as a test I should wait 24 hours and see if they find it them selves. I won't, but it is tempting. It will take some time though.

The Rules:

For the Arte...

1. Pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award with their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogger community, no matter what language.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog.

3. Each award-winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award.

4. Award-winners and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte y Pico" blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5. Display these rules on your blog.

Prosciutto duh Pomona

ntsc — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:27:27 GMT

Back in late 2006 I happened on a whole fresh ham in the super market for $.79/lb. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I bought it and dry cured it in the style from Ruhlman's and Polcyn's Charcuterie. Now I was able to let that hang for five months and while the flavor was fine, it was a little to tough to eat uncooked. I mean I wasn't risking much, the whole 18 lb ham and two boxes of Kosher salt and a piece of cheesecloth wasn't $20. Of the 12 pounds I netted, we have maybe 1 left.

Last October we drove to Dietrich's Meats where I had ordered another whole fresh ham. You've met some of his cousins here. Nobody would call that the other white meat, except for all that white stuff, fat.

As per instructions in the secret manual for do it yourself charcuterists, I poped the ham in the deep freeze for several weeks. This is as good as cooking it well done for killing off the probably non-existant trichanosis.

Just after Thanksgiving I took the 18 lb fresh ham, salted it well, and put a weight on top of it and parked it in the garage refrigerator for 18 days (Well it ended as 21). Periodically I would drain the liquid, check the salt and rotate the ham.

Taking it out of the fridge I coated the whole thing in lard, purchased at Dietrich's, and then covered the lard with a lot of pepper. Seems the insects don't like that.

There it is about to get wrapped in cheesecloth, and hung in my cold enough basement until the basement isn't cold enough any more. I was hoping for later in the summer, but the cold storage box isn't mice proof, and the mice proof box isn't up against the north basement wall low to the floor. So today was the day.

And that is the same ham almost 6 months later.

The first slice, the color couldn't be better. I didn't weigh it but I would guess about 12 lbs again, plus a very tasty bone.

That is what it looked like after getting cut up into useful sized pieces. Plus we saved a small piece to do something with for dinner tonight.

And we are meeting a bunch of foodie friends over the weekend, so I've got a nice one pound piece in the fridge waiting for them.

Beef Stock, Making and Canning

ntsc — Thu, 22 May 2008 17:18:32 GMT

As mentioned elsewhere on this blog I can things. This means putting food in glass jars, putting lids on them and heating them to either 212 F or 240 F.

First, if you don't already can don't follow my instructions. Go get the canning bible, The Ball Blue Book.

Once you get used to it's methods you can branch out. There are other good books out there.

The thing is safety, until you understand what you are doing, don't vary. Especially when doing pressure canning, which we will be doing today.

So there is the mise above, although the celery appears in the mise for the Danish. Beef ribs, left over beef, carrots, onions, celery, salt and pepper corns. Salting stock is optional, my wife prefers it salted so we salt.

This is going to be a dark stock so we will roast the bones. There is also a frozen roast that had a bit too much freezer burn.

Now this is going to be a dark stock, so we roast the bones. That is about 20% of the total, about 25 lbs all told.

That is the meat starting to go into the stock pot.

That is the stock pot, 40 qt. I could fit an 80 qt on that stove, but I can't lift a full 80 qt pot.

Now this is going to simmer for 6+ hours, not boil, a temperature of about 180-190 F. A bubble should rise to the top every now and then.

It will take a couple of hours to come up to temperature and you are going to get scum and fat rising to the top. This should be removed.

How much water? Well you can check a number of places for ratios of bones, water, vegetables, but I cover the bones plus a couple of inches. At the end of five hours of simering there will be room on the top for the vegetables.

That is about 4 lbs of onions, and two each of carrots and celery, salt to taste and add some pepper corns.

Now this is a stock we like, you may want more vegetables.

That is the meat and vegetables in a 20 qt stock pot. We aren't going to throw that away, instead we will cool it and refrigerate it over night. Tomorrow we will put it back in the big pot, fill with water, bring to temperature, simmer for five hours, add vegetables for an additional hour and we have 4 gallons more.

That is the hot liquid from the first batch or half of it.

And it needs to be cooled to about 40 F before it goes in the fridge. In winter it would go in a snowbank, but this is spring, so it goes in an ice bath. The ziplocks in the pot contain cold freezer-packs.

That is what it looks like the next morning. We will strain it, which removes all of that solid grease.

And a couple of dozen jars, plus a few more from the basement.

That is the first batch of jars, the stock is being brought back to boiling on the stove. The jars however are only dishwasher clean (or really by hand). They don't need to be sterile because of the length of time they will be in the pressure canner.

That is the canner. This canner can not be used on a burnner over 9,000 BTU. It will hold 16 pints at once.

And there are the first dozen jars, ready for the canner. Four more are in the fore-ground.

And here are the first eight with a rack put on top for the second layer. By the way there are 3 tablespoons of white vinegar already in that to prevent a white coat on the jars.

And there are the 32 pints from the first batch of stock. All but two of these jars sealed. The two that didn't will go directly into the freezer as these pints are also freezer safe.

I didn't give time or pressure as you need to get these from your recipe and instructions on your canner. And the pressure varies with your altitude.

For more about Putting up go here or here.

The Left-over Queen

ntsc — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:09:36 GMT

Now The Leftover Queen has commanded I mention The Foodie Blog Roll and it can also be found high on my left hand margin.

These are food blogs, and thereare requirements: A serious food blog with 80% of the postings on food, in existance for at least one month with at least five entries. You also have to put the code for The Blog Roll in your template.

I'll add more to this later, but at the moment am in a meeting of the Consumer Electronics Association, which is part of what I do to put pork butt on the table, so filling this out will have to wait.

A Danish Braid

ntsc — Mon, 19 May 2008 19:05:55 GMT

So we last left this bowl of stuff with lots of butter resting in the reefer.

Well we are going to roll and fold it. I'm lucky enough to have a large piece of granite built into my table, a handy little prep table.

Besides the stuff we got from the fridge we will need

1/2 pint lime marmalade
1/2 pint rasberry jam
1/2 pint almond paste (see below)
1 large egg white beaten
juice of one lime

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

sliced almonds and pearl sugar as optional garnish.

Roll that dough into a 16 inch square, I show two rolling pins, the tapered one is the better for this.

Fold this into thirds, like a letter. Turn it so the open fold it to your right, but really always put the same fold, open or closed, in the same direction.

Roll it to a rectangular 16x20 inches

Fold it in thirds again.

And roll it out to a 20 inch square.

Fold it in thirds again, roll it into a 10x24 inch rectangle, and fold in thirds once more.

Now cut in two and wrap both pieces tightly in plastic.

And refrigerate one of them. The other got put in a Ziplock and frozen.

Now for the almond paste.

1 cp blanced toasted almonds (I used slices)
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temp
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 large egg white, lightly beaten.

Toasting

Put butter, almonds and sugar in the FP and blend. Add the extract and two tablespoons of the beaten egg. Mix it again and refrigerate until needed.

Juice the lime

Strain two or three tablespoons of warmed marmalade into the lime juice and add confectioner's sugar to thicken. Put this in a ziplock, which we will snip a tiny piece of the corner to make a make-shift piping bag for later, refrigerate.

Take your refrigerated pastry dough and put it on a lightly floured surface. This isn't wide enough, it should be 10 inches, and it isn't long enough either.

OK we got there.

It should be on parchment, but I didn't have any, so I used foil, which is not a good substitute, but worked.

Lay down the rasberry jam with the almond paste on top of it.

Slice the uncovered pastry 10-12 times on each side, both slices on an angle, the same dirrection. And fold one slice over it's partner.

For an experienced baker this would be a lot more even, but it will do. Brush with the egg white and garnish if you choose to.

Bake in 400 F oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden,

Glaze with the lime marmalade, let cool.

And offer piece to wife.

Lilac, which has nothing to do with the post, but it is pretty, a dark purple flower, edged in a pale lavender.

Lime Marmalade Glazed - Raspberry/Almond Danish

ntsc — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:40:48 GMT

The Left Over Queen is running her food joust. This is a monthly event with postings and recipes here.

Well this month (due June 1st) the ingredients are lime, raspberries and almonds. Make something with them, edible. Last year I had done some experimentation with Baking with Julia. Including the Danish by Beatrice Ojakangas. My wife tended to put her foot down about this, but not until after trying it. So I've a little experience with this recipe. Because of this interest I had put up several kinds of preserves to use for Danish. By the way I'm 2nd generation Danish (mostly) so this should be in my blood.

I also always have a bunch of marmalade on hand.

Now the first collection happens to include raspberry jam.

4 parts raspberries, 3 parts sugar (adjust sugar a little to taste), stir and heat until 222 F, hot water bath can. And that is volume measure not weight.

And the second collection includes lime marmalade.

2.5 lbs limes
1.5 lbs lemons

slice very thin with food processor slicing blade.

Soak in
2 quarts of water
over night in the fridge.

Add
2 quarts of water
3 qts of sugar

Heat until 222 F, hot water bath can.

That means I only have to do the braid and the almond paste and both recipes are in Baking with Julia.

The mise above. Actually the celery is not part of the mise, but I'm also making beef stock and the celery wasn't around for the mise shot of that endeavor and I didn't want the celery to feel left out. This is a two day recipe, by the way, but the second day is real fast. Well so was the first.

The Braid.

1/4 cup warm water (105 F - 115 F)
2-1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 cup whole milk at room temperature
1 large egg at room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
12 oz unbleached all purpose flour
8 oz cold unsalted butter

The water goes into a large bowl, that one is far too small. And sprinkle the yeast over it.

Add the milk, sugar, salt. That is with the milk in the bowl.

Add the egg.

Whisk.

Assuming you get your butter in 1/4 lb sticks, cut the sticks into 1/4 thick pieces.

Put the flour and the butter in the food processor with a metal blade. Pulse it several times, you want the butter to end up in pieces about 1/2 inch each.

Add flour/butter to the bowl of other ingredients, and note that the bowl has grown.

Using a flexible spatula gently mix the flour. The green and blue tape on the spatula mean that tool has been to college, specifically the CIA. If you take your own tools, mark them so you can find them.

That is what you end up with. You can still see the butter pieces, which you want. When that butter melts when baking you end up with little pockets in the pastry.

Cover in plastic wrap.

And put in the fridge over night. Notice the beer already trying to pick up the dough? It can stay there for up to four days. And then we will come back to it. Mean while, I've four gallons of beef stock on the stove that needs attention.

But a sneak preview of what the end result will be tomorrow morning.

And hey, the wisteria is in bloom.

Upgrade

ntsc — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:27:03 GMT

I am doing an upgrade to the site. That you can see it means most of the work has been acomplished. I will return the various missing links, hopefully tomorrow.

Canned

ntsc — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:40:28 GMT

I can things.

I seem to have started in 2004 or possibly the year before. I made too much of a jam and wanted to preserve it so I bought a box of small, 4 oz, Ball Jars and followed instructions.

From humble begining things grow.

Above are the jams, jellies and marmlades, well there is also tomato juice, some stock and a couple of pickles there as well. Those blue boxes stacked up are empty ball jar boxes.

That is mostly pickles.

And that is more from the tomato's point of view.

And those jars above are mustards.

These are hard to read, but
Rocky Watermelon Pickles
Cantalope Pickles Watermelon Pickles

I've a nephew named Peter who really likes my watermelon pickles so he has his own brand.

Now those are the relishes, the one on top is a sweet pickle relish, the bottom right is corn and the other two are piccali relishes.

Mustards

Ketchup

and Pickles. The bottom left is scallion pickles but the rest are all cucumber.

Marmalades, in no order, lemon, lime, orange, clementine, spicy orange, three fruit, four fruit and tangerine. The top is a red rasberry and there is cranberry sauce in there as well.

And of course tomato products, the outside jars are four different sauces, and the middle is our version of V-8. We put about 36 quarts of that up each fall.

You can almost read that.

The bottom is red currant jelly, blueberry jam and sour cherry jelly. Then rasberry and a duplicate (I'm doing something else in the back ground which I'll post a link to soon and though I might need two). The top is Jersey Peach.

The top is vegetable stock and the bottom row is dark beef, chicken and veal.

Now the other thing I've got going in the back ground is 30 lbs of beef bones slowly simmering away. But that is another day.

Now Pixie at You say tomahto, you say tomayto with the help of Rosie from Rosie bakes a peace of Cake is running a contest. I will admit I didn't quite read the instructions correctly, plus I'm not that happy with the quality of the pictures. So I will get a few better ones in the next day or two and post here as well as post my marmalade recipe, but I wanted to get this up.

Smoked Butt

ntsc — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:05:00 GMT

I smoke things, although these days I stick to the non controlled substances and avoid tobacco as well.

The last Sunday in April it was raining a little bit, but since the shoulder

had been in the rub overnight it needed to be smoked.

Now that isn't cooked, just the rub - from the five ingredients in the picture above. That is an 11 lb shoulder.

I used a recipe from Smoke & Spice which I've done before. About page 52.

The remote readout thermometer is added.

The offset smoker is ready.

The extension is for the starter, I couldn't find the chimney, put it some place 'safe' last fall (Look in the smoker). And the hose is for safety. The orange bucket nearest is soaking wood.

I've now opened the smoker, discovered the chimney which can be seen on the bottom right.

I use Kingsford, but don't use lighter fluid or easy light briquettes. I will probably hear from some fellow bloggers who make their own charcoal.

The trees are just coming into leaf.

This is about 7 am by the way, dinner is at 8 pm.

We have smoke, which will continue for the next 12 hours.

Better think about the mop.

The liquid is cider vineagar and those are the ingrediants called for by the book.

Now lets mop.

The smoker was an assemble your self job from Home Depot and is about four years old.
The zip lock holds the thermometer, it is raining a bit.

Now I wasn't sitting around those hours while the pork smoked. Wood needed to be added, as did charcoal from time to time. And if you look at the previous post you will see two pates, one of which included smoked chicken livers. You guessed it, it was a busy Sunday.

The above is Jasper White's Cole Slaw and below is Potato Salad with Haricots Verts and Roquefort

Beer seemed appropriate with this, and the sauce was vinegar based.

You can just make out the sauce in the upper left corner. While this was supposed to be pulled pork sandwichs, the pork just wouldn't pull so I sliced it.

That pink on the outer edge is the smoke rim or ring.

It is nice out today, my wife's jury only sat an hour (but she has to be in at 8 AM in the morning) so she will stop at the ShopRite on the way home from looting the garden centers of Westchester and buy a rack of ribs for me to grill. Probably a Chinese based sauce.