Bagels?

All the anxiety over the virus is stressing even me out!

So of course my thoughts turn to comfort food and not necessarily new things but things I may not have done before. Distractions.

For example, I just happen to have a half pound of chicken livers and eggs. So I'll make some chopped liver this week. I've never had chopped liver!

I've had deviled ham but I'd never made deviled ham before. Couple of days I made deviled ham! Spun some cooked ham cubes in a food processor, added some mayonnaise, mustard, lemon juice, chopped garlic, onions and celery, hot sauce, Worcestershire sauce and sweet paprika. No recipe really, just a little this and a little that. I should have taken a picture! It was crazy good. I was going to fork it on to some crackers with a bowl of soup...but...it was so good I had to make a loaf of sandwich bread to make a real sandwich. I'll never have deviled ham from a can ever again.

And...bagels? I made bagels!

Poppy seed. Sesame seed.
I used this recipe. I used 100% white whole wheat flour. The recipe scaled easily I just divided everything by 4. They were very good bagels and I'll do that again. I don't know where I got the idea bagels were hard to make. These were so easy.

Cookies!

Well I am just positively tickled.

You see, I don't really bake. I make brownies out of a box. Cupcakes from a mix. I made a cake once. I made Tollhouse cookies once. I think baking can be a little "fussy" sometimes. I always have a mess left when I bake. But mostly? I live alone - I cook for one. I'm quite good at that. Baking for one? That's a challenge. It's not like I'm going to eat a couple of dozen cookies while they're still fresh!

I like fresh baked things as much as the next guy. Maybe more so. But I mostly go without. Oh, the bakery has perfectly good things but for some reason cookies just have to be fresh and homemade. I can't recall buying a really good cookie. Ever. Couple of months ago I had a serious itching for oatmeal cookies. I love oatmeal cookies. I hadn't had a good oatmeal cookie in ages. And I recalled reading how people have formed their dough into cookies, frozen and bagged them to bake off a couple at a time on demand. So I decided I'd try that.

Frozen oatmeal cookie dough
I used this recipe. I used 100% whole wheat flour.

And...they bake beautifully!

Baked (from frozen) oatmeal cookies
So yesterday I did the same with peanut butter cookies. I haven't had peanut butter cookies since I was a kid.

Peanut butter cookies
I used the Simply Recipes recipe. I used 100% whole wheat flour. Yes I use 100% whole wheat flour in *everything*. Bread. Pizza. White sauce. Breading. Chowders. The one and only thing I've found that whole wheat flour doesn't work with is a baguette. Use whole wheat flour. It's good for you.

I also spun about a tablespoon of plain dry roasted unsalted peanuts in a spice grinder and added the powdery peanuts to the mix.

And they baked beautifully!

This is the "chewy" baking method

This is the recommended baking method
Both baking methods made awesome cookies. Very peanutty!

So here's what you do.

Put parchment paper on a half sheet pan and put it in the freezer. Make your cookie dough. Form cookies on to the frozen half sheet pan and put it in the freezer. The cookies will freeze quickly enough. When the cookies are frozen, bag them and keep them in the freezer.

Then you can just bake off the frozen cookies whenever you want a fresh cookie. Bake them frozen. Follow the recommended baking temperature and time, you don't need to compensate for the frozen dough.

I don't imagine this will work for lemon squares or cupcakes but it works really well with cookies.

If I can do this...

Anyone can do this!

Blueberry Pie
I know. My crimp needs a little work. But I'm showing *some* promise.

I have a lot of favorite things. Gin and tonic in the summertime. Manhattans in the wintertime. Martinis anytime. Hmmm...

Nevermind that pattern. An enduring most favorite thing for as long as I can remember is blueberry pie. I haven't been making blueberry pies for a long time. I finally read the ingredients on supermarket pie dough packages and they all have trans fat. Most puff pastry dough does too.

So last year I made a pie crust. Whole wheat. First pie crust ever! It was actually pretty good. But I made a *huge* mess. Mostly because the top popped off my food processor. You can imagine. So I was discouraged. Being desperate for a pie however made me give it another go.

And I done good.

Nice Flaky Crust
Here's what I used for one crust:

• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 7 tbs (cold) butter, cut into small cubes
• ice water

I put the dry ingredients in a food processor and whirred them while I dropped in the cold butter cubes. When the butter was broken up and "grainy" I added ice water, a tablespoon at a time until the dough balled around the blade. It took about 4 tablespoons and while it didn't really ball very well I could tell it was done.

I put that in a plastic bag and refrigerated it for about 10 minutes. Then I rolled it out with a wine bottle between a couple of pieces of waxed paper. I think parchment paper would have worked better.

I did a standard berry filling. 32 ounces of frozen wild Maine blueberries with a pinch of cinnamon, a splash of lemon juice, a couple tablespoons of honey and 3 tablespoons of tapioca starch. I dotted some butter around the top of it after I filled the pie.

Put the pie in a 425 °F oven for 10 minutes, reduce the oven to 350 and it's done in 35 to 40 minutes .

I was really thrilled with this pie crust.

Comfort Food Favorite

Of course! It's...

Macaroni and Cheese
Far as I'm concerned macaroni and cheese belongs in the Hall of Fame. This recipe is an all time favorite. This isn't a baked macaroni and cheese although it easily could be. Fact is I love Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and therefore favor something in a saucepan on the stovetop.

My good friend C gave me this recipe years ago and I've only fiddled with it a little bit. It starts with...

White Sauce
Cooking tip

I almost never use milk in anything. So I really *hate* buying a quart, or a half gallon of milk, only to use a third of a cup and throw the rest away. A couple of years ago America's Test Kitchen came to the rescue! According to America's Test Kitchen, nonfat powdered milk is a perfectly good thing to cook with. Not to bake with, mind you, but to cook with. I tried it and...who knew?! That rich, thick, luscious white sauce there? I used powdered milk! I always use nonfat dry milk for white sauce now. I use a heaping tablespoon of nonfat dry milk in each quarter cup of water.

Cook with nonfat dry milk. Really.
This recipe has everything going for it. It's easy. It's all about the ingredients. The result is absolutely delicious.

For two servings:

• Prepare 2 cups of macaroni
• Make a white sauce:
  • 1 Tablespoon of butter
  • 1 Tablespoon of flour
  Melt the butter. Add the flour (I sift it) and make a smooth roux, cook it down for a couple of minutes. Add a half cup of milk (two heaping tablespoons of powdered milk in a half cup of water). Cook it while stirring until it's smooth and creamy. Normally I'd add a pinch of salt too but here the cheese has enough salt.
• Add to the white sauce:
  • 4 ounces of sliced up white American Cheese
  • 4 ounces grated white sharp cheddar
  • Two teaspoons - up to a tablespoon or so of smooth Dijon mustard
• When the macaroni is done mix it with the cheese sauce

Don't let it get really hot after you add the cheese.

I like to scatter some parsley over it on the plate. Have a Cabernet Sauvignon with it.

There are endless variations. You can use orange American Cheese and Colby. You can use Monterey Jack. You can add some chopped jalapeño. The American Cheese helps make it smooth and creamy and be careful not to use a really old dry cheddar.

By the way, this is basically the same recipe I use for Fettucine Alfredo only I use Romano and Parmesan cheese. With fettucine of course. I always thought of Fettucine Alfredo as sort of a Roman macaroni and cheese anyway.

For something really out there try a little bit of Gorgonzola in your Alfredo sauce. If you like blue cheese it's just delicious!

Just a coincidence..

I swear. Really!

I'm braising lamb shanks.

And I see last year, just about to the day, I was...braising lamb shanks.

There must just be something about this time of year that has me needing a serious comfort food fix and braised lamb shanks has always been a favorite.

I used my standard braising liquid recipe and my own Tuscan herb blend. I mix equal parts of dried basil, thyme, rosemary and sage. Well. A little more sage. And with the rosemary I take the dried leaves and run them through a coffee grinder. It's the rosemary and sage that make it a "Tuscan" blend.

Anyone can do a really nice braise.

The most important thing really is to sear your meat. Nice and brown with some chunky well done bits left behind in the pan. I use a well seasoned cast iron dutch oven.

Searing the lamb shanks
The bones will bring a ton of flavor to the dish.

Take the shanks out and put them on a plate. Add a little more olive oil if you need to and sauté chopped celery, carrots and onion until they're soft and reduced in volume. Maybe 6 or 7 minutes. Then add some chopped garlic. Turn the heat on high and in a minute or two add some dry red wine. When the wine is reduced add chopped tomatoes, stock, some Worcestershire and the shanks. Bring it all to a rolling boil, reduce the heat and cover. Keep a vigorous simmer going for 2 and a half to 3 hours.

Then I take about 2/3 of the braising liquid and put it in a blender. Be sure and put a towel over the top of the blender! I've done this I don't know how many times and *this* time the top popped off. Good thing I had a towel over the lid. That's only happened to me once before.

I return that to the dutch oven, add in some fresh carrots and I like purple top turnip, and let it go for another 20 minutes or so.

Bordeaux goes really well with lamb. Here I just found out Bordeaux are generally various blends of Merlot and Cabernet. I had no idea.

Here. Just look at this!

I did something a little different here - serving it over rice. I usually have this over mashed potatoes or polenta. It was very good over rice.

You can do pot roast this way, you can do short ribs this way, you can do all kinds of things exactly this way and it's delicious every time.

My first time

Look!

First waffle ever!
A year or so ago I decided I wanted to make waffles. So ever since then I've been shopping around for a waffle iron. I live in a shoebox and I swear I hardly have room for one more pan never mind a waffle maker, so I didn't want an electric waffle maker.

So I find cast iron waffle irons. Camp cookware, basically. But I like the looks of them. I *love* cast iron. Nothing cooks like cast iron. But the cast iron waffle irons are surprisingly expensive. So I've been waiting for a bargain. I finally decided one of these days I'm gonna drop dead without having made a waffle trying to save 3 bucks.

So I got a waffle iron off the web.

Rome's #1100 Old Fashioned Waffle Maker
This is a basic 6 inch cast iron waffle iron. It doesn't come pre-seasoned. Because of the obvious way in which batter will stick here I was very careful to season it well.

How do you season cast iron?

I scrubbed it good with soapy hot water. Twice. Then I dried it thoroughly. Then I heated it up on the stove top just a little bit. Then I painted it liberally all over with canola oil. I let the excess drip off and put it in a 350 degree oven for an hour. I turned the oven off and took it out the next day.

Seasoned waffle iron
I based my batter on this recipe. I used half all purpose flour and half whole wheat flour, I used canola oil instead of butter and I used powdered buttermilk instead of milk.

I had no idea how to evenly heat both sides of my waffle iron. I decided to put it in a 400 degree oven. When it was well heated I painted the cooking surfaces with canola oil and used maybe a cup of batter. I lightly oiled it every other waffle.

• Cast iron tip: oil a hot pan. Always wait until your cast iron is hot before oiling it.
• Another cast iron tip: oil the food. When I do steaks, chops or fish I usually rub the food lightly with some oil before I season it. Then I put it in a hot dry pan.

I baked it for about 7 minutes and got good waffles. I'm sure butter would have made better waffles! Butter makes everything better. And nothing came close to sticking. I got 5 waffles from that recipe. They freeze really well.

Ready for Winter
Product review: Love the waffle iron!

More snow?!

Of course it's all about the snow. Real snow - not just a few minutes of flurries.

Saturday 29 October 4:05 pm
And it's accumulating...

4:10 pm
What a most perfect night for soup. I *love* pea soup!

Pea soup on the stove
Thanks a million to my friend M for that bone! Everybody knows I want their bones.

From a lifetime of fiddling I have the most perfect pea soup recipe:

• 1 Ham bone
  
• Water
  
• 1 bag of split peas
  

Put the ham bone in a stock pot. Cover it with water. Bring the water to a boil. Add the split peas, reduce to a vigorous simmer, cover it. When the bone falls apart it's done. That's usually about an hour and a half.

That's it. No onions, no carrots, no salt, no nothing. I have messed with pea soup recipes for years. Decades. And as far as I'm concerned I just wasted perfectly good bones. Skim the fat off the top before serving and maybe, just maybe, for something really special, add some chopped fresh mint leaves when serving it. I don't know how well this soup keeps or freezes. It's so good I always eat it all.

---

It was all over Sunday morning.

Sunday 30 October 7:20 am
Well. The storm was all over. Of course we had no power. It was pretty enough but it would have been prettier if I didn't have to drive over to the next town for a cup of coffee.

I can't really complain. I spent the morning reading cook books and we got power back later in the day. There are people that *still* don't have power and a little old lady froze to death in her bed without power Thursday night. What a sad thing. Apparently every time trees fall down now we could be without power for a week or two.

As much as I hate the cold and the snow and everything the barn property was really pretty and the horses enjoyed their first good snow roll of the season.

Run in shed
The barn was without power for most of the week. We melted snow in the sun to fill water buckets and when the clean snow ran out the fire department filled a tank for us. They were very good about that.

And remember this? Here's the same place on Sunday afternoon.

30 October 2011
I wanted to ride in the worst way Sunday afternoon but the wind was just awful. It was cold biting wind as bad as any we have in January.

North wind!
Such an unusual sight. The corn stalks are usually long gone by the time there's any snow. The wind hardly ever blows from the north here. When it does it's always bad no matter what the time of year.

Tree Tops

Ok I admit it. Striking and dramatic. Yes, it's pretty:

3 February 2011
The parking lot where I work at lunchtime. That is just plain crazy!

This time of year I'm usually thinking "Phoenix". I've never been to Phoenix. But I think I'd probably like it. Everything is hard this time of year. New England on the Fourth of July is just about as beautiful a place as there is anywhere but on the fourth of February? I think I'd rather live in Death Valley.

Hopefully it will be Spring before we know it. And this stuff will be a distant memory!

---

Boston Baked Beans!

The single most important ingredient for Boston Baked Beans is...

A Beanpot
It's cracked. It's been cracked a very a long time and doesn't matter much. I think I've had that beanpot for almost 25 years now. I have another one that's older. It does a good job but it doesn't really have handles. So I like this one. I've tried "crock pots" and casserole dishes and pottery bowls and found you will not make Boston Baked Beans without a beanpot. Really. Don't even try.

If I recall correctly, this is the Durgin Park recipe verbatim:

Soak 2 pounds of navy beans overnight in plenty of water.

Boil the beans for 10 minutes with a teaspoon of baking soda. I always discard the water the beans have been soaking in and use fresh water for this, I don't know if that makes any difference. The beans will foam like crazy when they boil - be ready to scoop the foam off. I just bring the saucepan over to the sink and push the foam off into the sink with the handle of a wooden spoon. After the 3rd or 4th time you do this they stop foaming.

Mix, in a cup of hot water:

• 2/3 cup molasses
  
• 1/2 cup sugar
  
• 2 teaspoons dry mustard
  
• 4 teaspoons salt
  
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
  

Put 1/2 pound of diced salt pork in the bottom of a bean pot with a chopped medium yellow onion. Put the beans in and cover with the mixture. Take and put another 1/2 pound of diced salt pork over the top. Put in a 275 to 300 degree oven for 6 hours. Check them along the way and don't let them dry out - just add water to cover them, don't flood them.

Over the years I've changed that recipe.

• One package of beans is fine, I think that's 20 ounces, you'll get 6 to 8 servings from a 20 ounce package of beans and baked beans freeze really well.
  
• I use less salt, about 2 teaspoons
  
• I use a lot of coarsely ground black pepper. Maybe a tablespoon.
  
• I don't use sugar. You know you can freely substitute honey or maple syrup for sugar, approximately 2 to 1, right? I use maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of a cup of grade B dark maple syrup instead of sugar. You can get grade B maple syrup over the web and I'm told Trader Joe's sells grade B. Don't be fooled. Grade B is the good stuff.
  
• I don't use salt pork. I've always used bacon. But one time I couldn't find any bacon in the house. So I used pancetta. I've used pancetta ever since. Just about 1/4 pound, cubed, in the bottom of the pot. It's excellent!
  
• I quarter a medium onion and put in the bottom of the bean pot. I love the big pieces of onion.
  
• I do them in a 300+ degree oven and they're always done in about 5 hours or so.
  

Have brown bread with beans and hot dogs.

Or have some fish cakes with beans!

Enough snow

If this doesn't say "Winter" I don't know what does:

29 January 2011
We've had worse winters but not for a while. I think we have enough snow thanks. There's another storm in the forecast and I guess the end of it is supposed to be ice. An ice storm on top of this stuff will be just great.

It's not hard to keep a training program going when it gets like this. It's impossible.

L is as strong as an ox and all kinds of willing. Although there were some stains in the snow. Behind where my car was. And they were just...just...well, wrong. Showing my sweety these stains were harmless was an unexpected challenge! She wasn't being bad. She was really frightened. That's what happens when you ride hardly a couple of times in a couple of months. But like I've said a hundred times I know she really does have the heart of a lion and we pressed on!

There's snow *everywhere*
I can feel her working really hard getting through snow almost up to her belly!

We did about a half mile through this stuff and that was quite enough.

I can practically drag my feet in the snow in some places!

We worked the driveway a little but we have to be careful of the ice where it's been plowed. There really isn't any way to have a program without indoor facilities this time of year. I just try to get us out enough so we don't completely fall apart!

---

Here's a plan that's working! Yes, soup really is helping make Winter a little more bearable!

Minestrone:

My standard soup base is equal parts of finely chopped celery, carrots and yellow onions. About 1/3 of a cup each. For an Italian inspired soup I add a clove or two of finely chopped garlic, a generous pinch of Italian Seasoning, and some red pepper flakes. I sweat that mixture for 6 to 8 minutes with a pinch of salt in some olive oil.

Then I add a 14 1/2 oz. can of diced tomatoes.

In this case, for minestrone, I added 2 cups beef broth and let it simmer for about 40 minutes. Then I turned off the heat and added a half cup each of cannelini beans, corn and green beans and let it sit for 10 or 15 minutes. I would have put some noodles or rice in it too but I was having pasta for dinner so I didn't.

This was delicious soup and the cold and snow didn't seem so bad.

Crab Risotto

In the running for one of the best things I've ever eaten:

Crab Risotto
So I better get it down before I forget what I did. I made it up!

I researched crab risotto recipes and every single one of them used chicken stock. Well. I really wanted *crab*. I wanted to get hit right between the eyes with seafood flavor. So I used a quality seafood stock:

I used a 6 oz. foil pack of lump crab. I put it in a bowl and I squeezed a half a lemon over it.

Put the stock in a sauce pan and heat it to near boiling. I covered it to keep it from reducing. I sautéd 1/4 cup of chopped onions in some olive oil with a tiny pinch of salt until they were soft. I cranked the heat up and added about 1/2 cup of arborio rice. Think Rice-A-Roni when you do this. Coat all the rice with oil and let the rice toast a little. When I see the skillet start to smoke I let it go another minute or two and...

Then add 3/4 cup of white wine. I used pinot grigio. By coincidence this was *perfect*. I'd never had it before. I just like pinot grigio and crab.

When the wine boils away start adding the stock a ladle at a time. And stir. Often. As the stock boils away and is absorbed by the rice, add more. It's roughly 3 to 1. Three parts stock to 1 part rice. So for 1/2 cup of rice have a cup and a half of stock at a near boil. And put some water on too in case you need it.

And here's the hard part. Do it until it "feels" done. You'll know. It can take 15 or 20 minutes and it's worth the trouble.

Taste it when you think it's near done. For flavor and texture. I like creamy rice that's a little al dente. I didn't need any more salt in this.

When it's done turn off the heat and add the crab. Mix thoroughly. I then sprinkled maybe a tablespoon and a half of fluffy freshly grated parmesan cheese over it and chopped chiffonade of fresh sage, maybe a tablespoon.

Finally when I served it I sprinkled on some Old Bay. I didn't cook the Old Bay into it because I thought it might turn pink.

This was absolutely delicious.

And whoa look here! A fine dessert! I love espresso and it goes with everything.

Officially Miserable

There goes the heating bill.

23 January 2011 7:00 am

Bring. Me. In.
This time of year it seems I do an awful lot of this...

We did ride yesterday but we weren't gone long. We got whacked pretty good by that last storm.

L is strong and she's fit but she is off her peak. It's hard to keep your training on track without indoor facilities this time of year. I could really feel her working in the deep snow and she stumbled on a berm left behind by a plow. A nice enough ride as it was but much more and it would have been more work than fun. Which is ok when it's necessary but when it isn't? Not so much.

So of course comfort food comes immediately to mind when it's cold and snowy. This is a classic comfort food favorite! Creamed salmon with peas on toast.

Here's some interesting trivia! This recipe was first published in The Lookout Cookbook (pdf) in 1938 by the US Forest Service. It's on page 14. I'm partial to rustic food and this is about as rustic as it gets.

Basically, you make a white sauce, add canned salmon, mushy peas, and serve it over toast.

I have messed with the recipe. I've used fresh grilled salmon, I've used fresh poached salmon, I've added mushrooms, pearl onions, I've used frozen baby peas, I've used fresh peas, I've added dill, and cilantro, and parsley, and *nothing* beats the original recipe. Except for a pinch of salt it's all right here:

Make a white sauce. Use equal parts butter and flour. Melt the butter in a skillet, whisk in the flour, and when it's all pasty, add whole milk, about a half cup for each tablespoon of butter.

The canned salmon works best. And the mushy peas from a can. I make a somewhat thick white sauce and I thin it out with the liquid from the peas. Canned salmon has bones so open the can into a bowl and pick the bones out. The last thing I do I add the peas to the sauce. You just want them warmed and you don't want them to get all beat up.

Use a really nice rustic crusty bread for your toast.

This is right up there with meatloaf, macaroni and cheese and pot roast when it comes to the ultimate in comfort food.

And remember! Brandy is a fine dessert any time!