Austin Agrodolce

I Might Have Been Dreaming

2009-07-10T08:49:00.015-05:00

Suppose you were to walk into a room where I was napping (not all that unlikely in this weather, seriously) and you were to hear me mumbling in my sleep like so: "Republican, Trashy Trailer Park, Baja, Democrat, Dirty Sanchez...".You'd have every right to think I was commenting editorially in my semi-comatose state about recent political not so Appalachian Trail pecadillos or other various gubernatorial meltdowns, but you'd be dead wrong. If you did overhear me muttering to myself in such a way, you'd be listening to me sleep-talking about my second ever trip to Torchy's Tacos.

Ah, Torchy's, Torchy's. I have it as my goal, before I die, to eat everything on Torchy's menu at least once (don't judge - you formulate your list and I'll stay in charge of mine). So far I've had the Republican, the Trailer Park (trashy, thanks) and now have added the Fried Avocado (Chef Son's worthy favorite) and the Democrat to the "been there eaten that" category.Oddly enough in Torchy World I really really do like the Republican much better than the Democrat. I know, weeeeeeird.

I noted last time in that there are ever-changing monthly taco specials at Torchy's. I am still mulling on that particular twist to my challenge, knowing how unlikely it will be that I'll get there once a month. Maybe I'll have to officially narrow my quest to include trying everything on the "regular" menu and let it go at that. Sigh*...the sacrifices I make.....

And now a teensy apology to non-Austin readers out there. It often makes me itch when I read all about how fabulous some restaurant is someplace I don't live but then I console myself with the idea that someday I may visit that other wonderful spot and so now, when I do, I already have some idea of where I'll go to eat. If you do not live in Austin then get here soon as you can and when you do? Find a Torchy's and get started ordering. If you do live in Austin and haven't tried Torchy's yet? Wait no longer. OK. I'm done with Torchy's until next visit when I sense a damned fine surf and turf combo of a sort in my future.

In an unrelated Homeresque "D'oh!" moment, I recognized while listening to ChefSon wax poetic over a fabulous caprese salad he'd enjoyed recently that what our go-to Pomodori al Forni treats were missing (they didn't lack anything, OK - this is gilding the lily) was...... a bit of basil.

Usually I served the tomatoey bliss bites atop crostini schmeared with a little goat cheese. Good enough, you know?

But this last time out the gate I threw a basil leaf on top and et voila!

That one simple addition elevated what was already swoony good to something that reduces the eater to guttural moans of appreciation.

Really. Do not take my word for this.Try this recipe immediately if not sooner because this is summer in a bite.

Perfection on your palate.

Mmmmmmmmmm and then some.

As opposed to enjoying a taco from Torchy's which requires your presence in our fair city, Pomodori al forno can be yours.

Wherever you live, whenever you please.

And that, my friends, is heavenly. Sweet dreams!

Hooray for the red, white and full

2009-07-05T09:19:00.008-05:00

I hope you are having a great 4th of July weekend.

At one point I had to force myself to push away from my desk and turn my computer off. Everywhere I turned there were fantabulous lineups of pot luck picnic and family gathering type dish suggestions, taunting me with the idea that no matter what I had in mind to do for my family there would be something better on somebody else's blog that I simply hadn't found yet.

Which is just silliness. It is certainly not the case that we haven't been cooking or eating somewhat lavishly around the AustinAgrodolce abode.

Truth be told, with LawSchoolGirl around for a while this summer to provide encouragement and an extra pair of hands,we have been cooking up a storm. Which naturally means all good intentions to trim down aside, we have been eating up a storm as well.

Here are some recent forays into "yeah I know it isn't low calorie but this is IN SEASON and LOCAL, OK?" territory [with the occasional "wow - that looks good - let's try it" thrown in for good measure].

After seeing Elise post about her Dad making a Beef Wellington version on Simply Recipes, it occurred to me I hadn't ever tried to make my own Wellie, although I'd certainly enjoyed eating it whenever I had the chance. Since we're trying to only eat responsibly sourced protein and no appropriate beef roast was available, we decided to go to the Pork side of the force.We loosely adopted an Alton Brown recipe and were pleased to the point of smug with the results. I doubt this will be a regular in the lineup, but it is fun to have it checked off the "been there cooked that" list.

After snagging what ChefSon asserted was not a "real" souffle recipe but was called that nonetheless, we decided that, while we were foofing it up dinnerwise with the Wellington anyway, we'd take some local organic strawberries and tease them into a dessert high kick all their own. Strawberry (Velveteen)Souffle, here we go.I don't care what you call these. They were berry good (sorry - could not resist).

Several different blogs were featuring buttermilk dressing recipes lately, so I combined a couple and made some to have on hand. I took the last bit of our home grown cabbage, a half apple that had seen better days, dried cranberries and celery seed and combined them with a bit of sweetened dressing for a killer slaw for two.Speaking of home grown, our garden has been suffering from the high temperatures and lack of rain. We are only managing to get a handful of tomatoes and peppers so far to show for our efforts.Thankfully Wheatsville has had all sorts of fresh local produce available, so snagging a couple of pounds of organic Roma tomatoes meant I could reprise the amazing Pomidori al Forno for some summertime tomato delirium. The full recipe along with step by step photos is in an earlier post here.If this is something you meant to try but didn't? DO IT NOW. We love these sitting atop a schmear of Pure Luck goat cheese spread on toasted French. Crackers will most certainly do if you are flat out of bread.

Blueberries have been in abundance so after reading about how wonderful they were on TheBittenWord we obliged with our own attempt at CI's Best Blueberry Muffins. And Best they were.The lemon zest sugar sprinkles on top were inspired, well worth the price of admission all on their own, providing a perfect bright note to go with the berries.With a few berries left over, it was time to attempt a recasting of one of my favorite old Parents Magazine recipes (originally appearing in the June/July 1998 issue) for Berry Breakfast Bread. This simple recipe calls for strawberries and was good enough I never felt tempted to stray.

Aside:I loved recipes from Parent's Magazine back in the day, especially the ones geared towards cooking with your children helping out in the kitchen. Whether or not my kids wanted to "make something" varied according to some complex formula having to do with the ambient temperature multiplied by the television schedule subtracting the barometric pressure. I always liked cooking with them but I liked even more that the recipes geared towards my cooking with them were simple enough I could approach without intimidation.

This summer, fresh on the heels of muffin making mania with blueberries to spare, I was confident I could loaf them up in place of strawberries in this old go-to breakfast bread recipe.To follow is the recipe as originally printed. All I did was swap out sliced strawberries for an equal amount of blueberries and bump up the sugar a bit (maybe an extra 1/8th of a cup) to compensate.Berry Breakfast Bread - Yields one 9x5 inch loaf

Vegetable Spray
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups sliced strawberries
2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Coat a 9x5 inch loaf pan with vegetable spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, beat eggs until fluffy. Add oil and sugar and continue beating until light and airy. Add berries;stir and set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine remaining ingredients and stir well. Add dry mixture egg mixture until completely incorporated.

Spoon batter into pan and bake 50-60 minutes until a skewer stuck in the middle comes out clean.

Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and finish cooling on a rack.

And there you pretty much have it. We have been flagged, paraded, hot dogged and firecrackered for yet another year. Independence aside, we have eaten like kings and queens all along the way. However you celebrated the holiday weekend, I hope you offered- and got- the royal treatment. It's the American way to go!

Back to the Table

2009-06-27T10:09:00.024-05:00

Now that our children are adults, launched and out on their own, if we want to spend time with them we see if we can get them to share dinner with us. Which is only logical because except for sleeping in the same house, the times spent preparing and eating meals together represented by far the largest chunk of shared time in our family lives together. Those twin acts of eating and talking could be said to centrally represent who we are to each other.

So perhaps it is not so shocking to find it is typically in restaurants, ordering a meal, when I feel most keenly the huge shift my role as Mom to our two adult children has taken. It is there, seated at a table in public, when I am most forcefully reminded of who I am now as opposed to who I used to be. Faced with an identity crisis of that proportion, it is a silver plated wonder I ever get around to ordering.

How can I think about such trivia as whether or not I want soup or a salad as starter when I am so busy considering how I am no longer the sage my children turn to for hints as to what on the menu they might like? How much psychic energy to put into choosing an entreé while I am working so hard not to notice how my opinions are no longer sought out as to do I think they might substitute an ingredient or can I explain what a particular cooking term means?

My old pattern of scanning the menu quickly for items to suggest that might please the pickier palates in our group before considering what I would order for myself is no longer welcomed, much less required. I stubbornly scan anyway, secretly testing knowledge of my family's likes and dislikes to see if I can guess what my kids will order for themselves. When I guess incorrectly, which happens more and more often now, I am left to wonder: what does it mean when a mother don't really know what her kids would want to eat for dinner any more?

The same two children I was convinced would be forever living off of noodles coated with cheese powder from a blue box are now adventurous eaters. With a trained chef in our midst all eyes naturally pivot towards him when a question arises about terminology or the wisdom of combining certain ingredients. I don't even regularly order wine for us when we eat out any more. The wine I know most about (good but inexpensive) rarely appears in commercial cellars.

My adult children are now partial mysteries to me. Their preferences have changed, their philosophy shifts. How do we relate now that I am no longer the one with answers to their questions?

I don't have those answers for myself either. If I am no longer the person charged with making sure these two young people have that revolving list of "what you'll need today" ever handy, if it is not me who is reminding them to be sure to take their shin guards, water bottles, homework, art portfolio, diorama, trumpet, backpack, lunch, then who am I to them? If it is not my job to go about the grocery store spotting a new fruit for them to try or coming up with a way to prepare broccoli or green beans they will find more palatable, then what do I do now to support them and help them to grow?

And please don't dive into this paragraph thinking I will share any, much less wise answers to those questions here because I don't have any. Really. The honest fact is that I don't really know how to be a Mommy to two grown children. I couldn't find any instructions in the Golden Mommy Handbook and it seems to me that these young adults have moved all the bars, making a clean break from simply adjusting the timing of when they would fall in love, marry, have children and settle down to questioning if they ever will choose any of those old goals as the ones they wish to declare for their own lives.

Clueless, I let them lead. My two grown kids, ChefSon and LawSchoolGirl, both mostly tell me what they want from me now and what if anything I can do to help them out if help is what they need. Otherwise, my job has narrowed down to telling them how handsome/gorgeous they are and how proud I am of how fabulously they are both turning out. Which is pretty easy considering both are true. Oh - my new job description also occasionally includes accepting a gentle nudge back when I forget what year it is and begin acting like the Mommy they used to need.

Which leads us in an exceptionally roundabout way to this. We all ate out together for Father's Day (albeit the day after). We chose Olivia's, mostly because we liked the look of their menu which changes depending on what is fresh and good and available, but also because they state clearly they support local food producers and even grow some of their own produce. They name names. We agreed we all like it that way. Supporting local farms and ranchers, knowing where our proteins come from including how humanely they were treated is becoming non-negotiable. We are trying as best we can to get away from the practice of eating anonymous food.

The food at Olivia's was wonderful. We ordered all sorts of small plates to share. Their wine list is impressive and our waitress was well informed and patiently made a couple of extra trips to the kitchen to inquire as to whether or not a particular protein was local. Eating at Olivia's is definitely an experience we want to repeat.

So there we are, finally celebrating Dad with his special restaurant meal. Four adults. As we order, a discovery emerges. ChefSon now likes corn. A lot. I don't know how or why his palate is now pleased by corn when before it was not, and I suspect nobody else does either. But whenever tastes change in a way that adds in a food (as opposed to those times when somebody abruptly stops liking something) I try not to question the why. And hope that next time it counts, I will remember the change.

After we got back home we were all still talking about how wonderful everything tasted. I began to smile, thinking about ChefSon and corn and all the times I'd urged him in vain to "just try some", hopeful every time, but he never did like it. And now he does. I was thinking about how much I loved fresh corn on the cob growing up and how nice it was to have something my Mom could fix and feel good about as a vegetable that I really enjoyed to eat. It was relaxing thinking about corn pleasantly, as opposed to regarding it as the root source of most processed evil industry food.

With corn already on my mind I recalled how last summer I found a great recipe for a grilled corn salad (details in this post). Bingo! Grilled corn salad was now on my short term "gonna fix it this week" menu. I knew I had everything I needed on hand. It would only be a matter of getting the grill going in the morning hours one day before the triple digits seeped into the house too much while my appetite seeped back out.The very next morning, bright and early, I fired up the grill top and started soaking the corn. I got out the lime, onion, olive oil, and the Queso Fresco.

Yelck. Since I used it last, the Queso Fresco had morphed into Queso GrossOut. I checked the refrigerator and found I did have some delicious Pure Luck Goat Cheese on hand. I could nearly taste the corn salad already. Goat cheese it was.

Goat cheese is much softer than Quesco Fresco. I was concerned it would simply "become" part of the dressing for the salad rather than stay a separate component. A quick stir in of an ounce or so confirmed my suspicion - this cheese was not going to give me a crumble that would stand up on its own. I reconciled myself to the idea that this version of the salad would feature a cheesy creamy dressing. I added in a bit more lime juice to keep it from getting too thick, and threw in a bit of finely chopped basil to keep the whole thing from becoming too tart.

Grilled Corn Salad
Printable version here

2 ears of corn, husks on
1 tablespoon olive oil
juice of one medium lime
3-4 ounces of crumbled cheese (Cotija, Queso Fresco or Goat Cheese)
1/4 cup finely chopped sweet onion
jalapeño pepper, seeded, membrane removed, minced
pinch sea salt, ground fresh black pepper to taste
4-5 leaves basil, finely chopped

Set your grill at the appropriate heat for roasting vegetables. Know your grill - if you are using an outdoor grill, medium heat is suggested. I used an indoor grill so I set it at the highest heat.

While the grill heats, soak your corn in water to wet the husks. This is important - thoroughly soaking the corn husks means the corn will steam during the first step.

Place the corn, husks on, on the grill and cook until they develop grill marks, turning every few minutes.

While corn is grilling, combine other ingredients in a medium sized bowl.

Remove corn from heat, peel back the husks, and return corn to the grill, cooking until a nice brown char develops all around.

Turn the corn every few minutes. Now I've prepared this a few times, I typically wrap the husks and silks in a bit of foil to keep them from catching fire and to make it easier to turn the cobs on the grill.

I leave my corn on the grill as long as it takes to develop a nice char. It is that grilled taste I am going for after all. This is what elevates this salad from good to swoon. This step can take 15-20 minutes depending on your grill. Keep an eye on it and use your best judgement.

Once your corn is nicely colored, remove from heat, let cool a bit, and remove the kernels from the cob.I stick the cobs into the center of a bundt pan and use a knife to scrape the kernels into the bowl of the pan. Works like a charm.

Toss the kernels with the other ingredients and serve chilled.

Serves 2-4

The results? Just as yummy and not all that different an eating experience with this version's creamy cheesy dressing from what I'd originally hoped for. As opposed to Mommying, once you begin to combine grilled corn, with lime juice, jalapeño, sweet onion and cheese, there are simply no wrong answers.

The Next Food Network (Lone) Star

2009-06-22T13:21:00.010-05:00

Had to happen sooner or later. The reality (and I use the term loosely) series The Next Food Network Star is coming to Austin to hold an open casting call for Season 6.

According to Alana Jemas the casting producer they are looking for people who are "full of life, passionate about cooking and knowledgeable about food to meet us in person at the open casting call. Anyone is welcome: chefs, line cooks, home cooks, caterers or culinary enthusiasts who might be interested in becoming the host of his or her own cooking show on Food Network!"

After reading a bit about the process and realizing Guy Fieri got his start on the show, I've actually been watching it this season as a gapstop measure to prevent the shaking jones while waiting for TopChef to begin again. Not like I enjoy watching Guy, I don't think I've sat through one entire episode of his show. But I do see he snagged a full fledged career out of this reality show process and that is something I find weirdly impressive. I mean, I can see how it can launch somebody. Now I want to see it launch somebody worthy.

Which may be where you come in.

So far the other television viewers in this house are not particularly impressed with the Next Food Network Star as a concept, with the contestants overall, or with me for wanting to stick it out for at least the rest of the season. I will agree - TNFNS is populated with a few decent contestants but also subjects viewers to what for me is a bit too much air time featuring inadvisable commentary and a couple of clearly out of their league cooks.I hate to seem disloyal, but Keller Texas Mom of 4 Melissa D'Arabian is not who I necessarily want representing "Texas Cooking". She clearly has a few chops in the kitchen and being a former MommyCook myownself I do not wish to be caught denigrating the millions of us out there generating good food for our families day in and day out. I most certainly do not.

However, when I tune in to a Food Network show I want to see somebody calm and collected. Somebody with more going on than I think I already have going on in the kitchen, quite honestly. I already have the internet for dinnertime food ideas, I want to be ENTERTAINED by a trained chef with personality and cool tricks up their sleeve when I take the time to watch a cooking show on television. I want pizazz, I want new techniques demonstrated, I want some articulate person who can tempt me into trying something new and daring. But that's just me. And I assure you, I am clearly not reliable.

All by way of which I yet want to say, look, Austin. There are scads of you out there who can cook up a storm, have loads of personality, and maybe even the presence of mind to bring that all together in front of cameras on a sound stage/kitchen. So here is more information on the open casting call to be held Friday, July 17th, 10am-4pm at the Hyatt Regency Downtown (208 Barton Springs Road).

What to Bring:
1. Two recent photos
2. A copy of your resume
3. A filled out application found here.

For more information or questions please e-mail them at: nfns6austin@yahoo.com. I can't help but think if we get a good mix of trained Texas chefs in the mix the show will move up to a whole new level. How could it not? The world may begin to understand why folks love food so much around these parts, enough to tolerate the summer weather. It could prove mighty entertaining. Y'all get to it!

Daddy's Day

2009-06-21T07:51:00.005-05:00

I will admit it. I am waaaaaay too cynical to get very excited about Mother's Day or Father's Day either one.

Once a child gets old enough to not be excited themselves to make a card or a git for Mommy or Daddy the whole thing just starts to feel forced. With that as my attitude, you can guess how excited our adult kids typically get at the prospect of celebrating these "arbitrary family appreciation" type holidays.

There are other contributing factors to our laid back attitudes.

We've already held a conversation I think occurs in many empty nest homes sooner or later. It occurs a few days prior to either Mother's Day or Father's Day with no children geographically or temporally available for celebrating and husband says to wife (or vice versa) "Honey, what do you want to do for Father's/Mother's Day?" and the sincere answer may be "Um nothing really. Why are you asking? You're not my Mother/Father?".

We are all of us in the same city this month, but both males have careers where holidays are just as often work days. Which happens to be the case for both this year. That leaves the idea of getting overly focused on a particular "date" a formula for additional frustration.

So we try to ease the idea of anything being too formal, too tied to the calendar, and hopefully we can all appreciate those spontaneous moments of family warmth when we get them.

Like last night. LawSchoolGirl prepared scallops for our dinner.In a family where Mom is obsessed with food and brother is a working Chef, it is not often or realistic you will find anybody else willing to take on meal provision that doesn't involve driving everybody to a restaurant or making a run through a take out window.

Last night however, LSG put together her version of Spiced Seared Scallops au jus with a Citrus Reduction Sauce. It was all kinds of wonderful. She hit the interweb looking at recipes to get general guidelines for proportions using ingredients I already had on hand, but past that launching point this delicious entreé was all hers.

Unfortunately ChefSon was working, so he couldn't be here to share the love or the delectable scallops.I know he would be proud of his little sister for her intelligent take on this classic technique as well as her plating. Not to mention her willingness to cook in somebody else's kitchen to prepare a meal for one of the other pickiest eaters in the universe (who I will not name but hint: he isn't me).

And even though the Hub had to haul in to the hospital to care for a toddler with a health care crisis before the plates were stacked in the sink afterwards, I know he was tickled eight shades of Daddy Proud to have been served up such a great dinner by his daughter.

The home cooked dinner was last night, there will be a couple of gifts today and hopefully a shared restaurant experience with all hands on deck in the days to come. We may not be gathering in organized classic calendrical configuration but we pretty much have the holiday surrounded. It will surrender to our efforts if it knows what is good for it.

I hope that however, whenever and with whoever you celebrate, yours will be a Happy Father's Day!

Summer Double Header

2009-06-16T10:29:00.009-05:00

It is hot here today. It was hot here yesterday and will be hot here tomorrow.

It is hot and it is going to stay hot until at least mid to late October.

Cooking becomes such a chore under these circumstances and yet, despite the heat, folks still keep getting hungry and demanding to be fed. This puts a morale whammy on the cook designate because motivation is difficult when every move you make seems to be sapping the little bit of energy you might have left at the end of yet another long hot day.

Right about now is when a few new recipes that yield surprisingly good results with delightfully little effort can really pay off. I was lucky enough to find two such recipes recently and naturally wanted to share them both with you.

First up to bat we have Elise at Simply Recipes offering us a wonderfully simple preparation for breaded and baked chicken.

We eat a lot of chicken so I am always on the lookout for another good recipe. Dinner here can feature chicken as the main protein up to three times a week. The only way I get away with that is to make certain I have significantly different presentations in the lineup so it doesn't get too boring.

The original recipe features chicken drumsticks, but since I am the only one around here who typically eats the drumstick, I decided to swap out for chicken thighs. I will let you grab the particulars from the original recipe on the website with the following words of encouragement.This is one of those especially good recipes, folks. You take 8 ingredients, spend roughly 40 minutes for prep and cooking time, dirty two bowls, one baking sheet, and end up with a delicious dinner entreé for 4-6 people. The chicken stays moist, the crumb topping is crunchy and flavorful, it browns nicely (especially if you run it up under the broiler for a couple of minutes at the end), and the components work together to give you something a lot more interesting than your garden variety baked chicken.The only switch up I made was to use thighs rather than drumsticks. If you have fans of both cuts in your household you could certainly mix and match. This is such a keeper. Easy, uses ingredients you have on hand, and really tasty. I can already tell this recipe will take pride of place in our regular rotation.

Next up was an old school quick bread loaf courtesy of a weekly feature on Eat Me Daily called Retro Recipes. Staff writer Stephanie Butler has been charged with cooking up various vintage recipes to sample and report on the types of foods our mothers and grandmothers would have considered cutting edge. This Peanut Bread 1953 caught my eye initially because it was in a cookbook that came out the year I was born.Yeah that's right. I am that old. Let's move on, shall we?

Peanut Bread won my heart as I licked the spoon and realized the batter tasted an awful lot like Tom's Peanut Butter Logs, a regional childhood candy favorite of mine. I substituted Splenda for half the brown sugar with no discernible loss of moisture, quality or flavor, in keeping with a truly optimistic attempt we are making around AustinAgrodolce to try and shed a few pounds over the summer. Here now the recipe:

Peanut Bread from The Modern Family Cookbook, 1953 edition
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk

Sift flour, measure and resift 3 times with soda and salt. Blend sugar into peanut butter. Stir in beaten egg and beat until smooth. Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternately, beating until smooth after each addition. Turn into buttered loaf pan, bake in a moderate oven (350) 1 hour or until well browned. Printable Version
Another simple recipe, using run of the mill pantry staples. This does call for sifting the dry ingredients three times which seemed to lead to a particularly light batter. All that sifting was kind of fun, really, although I'll admit to a bit more flour over drift than is usual.

Once I smelled it baking I didn't mind so much. Once I had a bite I could have cared less about a little extra flour on the counter tops. Or the floor. Or on me.This peanut bread is sweet but not overwhelmingly so. It would work equally well as part of a quick breakfast or would support any number of more decadent dessert presentations. You can use your own imagination there. Next time I make this I am going to try using chunky peanut butter just for fun.

My only regret is that I have not been making this Peanut Bread for my family all along. It is another one of those basic building blocks of a recipe that supports the kind of simple good eating I truly appreciate. I am sure I'd have baked this whenever company was staying over the weekend, for school holiday breakfasts, to share with friends, you name it.

Better late than never!

When is A Muffin Not Really a Muffin?

2009-06-10T08:12:00.012-05:00

You may already know the old saying attributed to Freud that goes "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!"?

Same goes in cooking apparently. This concoction, from 101 Cookbooks is called "Sun Dried Tomato Cottage Cheese Muffin Recipe".

Hey not the flashiest name perhaps but you read that and at least you know what you are getting in to. I think I like that better than calling this something like "Hot Flash Mini-Pies" because while whimsical, that name doesn't give you much of a clue as to what it might be all about. That said....

This recipe will give you what is more a crustless mini-quiche or soufflé type result than a muffin. So if the word "muffin!" conjures up sweet soft crumbly bites interspersed with little blue spherical orbs or a sugary buttery streusely top, then don't even go there, OK? This is not that.

What it is, is healthy and delicious. Taken from "Vegetarian Supercook" by Rose Eliott this recipe reportedly is representative of Elliott's ability to combine proteins, complex carbs, vegetables and good fats in just the right way to fill you up without simply moving that literal cottage cheese out of the container only to be conceptually reproduced by a fatty re-visualization on your own thighs. (OK if any guys are reading this and are grossing out then just skip down towards the end of the post where I describe the taste. Deal?)

I used my food processor to do all the heavy lifting in this recipe. This made the prep easier than I'd anticipated. Which I gotta say up front means I am sitting here while they bake having a hell of a time typing because I have my fingers crossed so tight these will turn out to be deliiiiiiiiicious, a new family favorite.

Maybe you are in fine shape but I could desperately use a breakfasty favorite to feature around here that is not all about bacon or syrup or time spent over a skillet doing ANYthing one at a time. Something healthy but tantalizing. Something with built in portion control.

Funny thing is, for a family of control freaks, we seem to have nearly no self control when it comes to portions. Without some strict guideline, we have a startling tendency to fill up our plates until there is no room left. Thanks so much "there are starving children in China!" Mommies. Conditioned by countless well meaning admonitions over the years we are just as likely to over fill our plates and then over eat to clean them after. And apparently, leading by example, we just about trained our kids to do the same.Enter the Miraculous Not Muffins.

In the past I have carefully avoided making anything featuring a load of ground nuts in place of most of the flour. I already confessed to being a World Class Avoider when it comes to trying new things. What made the difference this time? A muffin is a great running head start on portion control. Then, after reading the rest of the ingredient list my curiosity overcame my hesitancy. I took a deep breath and decided to boldly go.

As I've said before, I am trying to forge some new territory around here in the culinary arena to help support our eating healthy portions including a lot less animal protein without feeling all hair shirt about it. I wanted this whole "not so much meat" trip to be more about adding in, rather than simply taking away. So. Add in the Miraculous Not Muffins please!

A few notes. As I made these this morning I discovered two things. First while shopping for ingredients recently I apparently grabbed two hunks of shrink wrapped Romano rather than a hunk of Romano and a hunk of Parmiggiano-Reggiano as I'd intended. A bit later I found that, although I can count to ten without moving my lips or anything, my Miraculous Not Muffin batter batch yielded more than would fill 9 of the designated batter cups in my muffin tin.

A lot more.

So I pulled out my container of muffin papers, tucked 3 more into place and as it turned out, there was just enough batter to nicely fill all 12 muffin cups. So I did. My muffin pan apparently is more of a "small" than a "medium". It was nice to have things skewed towards the smaller rather than the larger for a change - but maybe that's just me.

I figured to check the Miraculous Not Muffins early, at 25 minutes, Just In Case. I took my slightly smaller Not Muffins out at 25 because they looked done but 5 more minutes wouldn't have ruined them. But enough about me. Here it is as featured on 101 Cookbooks:

Sun-dried Tomato Cottage Cheese Muffin Recipe

You can use the flour of your choice in this recipe. The original recipe calls for soy flour (great for people looking for a gluten-free option), I use white whole wheat flour - unbleached all-purpose flour will work as well. To grind the almonds I gave them a whirl in my food processor. You are looking for a flour-like consistency - be sure to stop short of turning them into an almond paste.

1 cup plain cottage cheese (low-fat is fine)
3/4 cup parmesan cheese, freshly grated
1/4 cup flour (see headnotes)
1 cup almonds, very finely ground
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes (in oil), finely chopped
1/4 cup basil, finely chopped
1/4 cup water
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 400F degrees. Line a muffin pan with medium-sized paper baking cups, you'll need nine of them.

Put the cottage cheese into a bowl with all but 1/4 cup of the Parmesan cheese, the flour, ground almonds, baking powder, sun-dried tomatoes, basil, water, and eggs, and season with salt, then mix all together.

Spoon the mixture into the muffing cups 3/4 full, scatter with the remaining Parmesan, and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until set, risen, and golden brown. Serve as hot or at room temperature.

Makes 9 muffins.
And here are my Miraculous Not Muffins. Before I tell you what they taste like to me, go back and scan the ingredient list and see if you can guess for yourself. Really. I'll wait and totally not use the time to eat another MNM. Or well, maybe I will, but only to make sure I have a fresh set of sensory references to report to you. I am so all about the science here.

OK. Ready with your guess? Did you guess Pizza? Because, you smart cookie you, that is exactly right. Whatever you want to call them, these tasted to me very much like pizza. A really moist on the inside, with a little crunch from the baked on cheese of the outside, tomatoey, cheesy Margherita style pizza.

Now maybe you are one of the 5-9 people in the United States who do not think that pizza is an acceptable breakfast food. If you are, avert your eyes for a few sentences because I am sitting here typing to tell you these Not Muffins are so evocative of eating pizza that I think any kiddo any age would be delighted to find these waiting on the breakfast or lunch table either one.

They would also de-foofify any bruncheon setting but in a totally stealthy way. They would look all properly grown up on a platter garnished with a few springs of basil and a sprinkling of edible flowers. Surrounded by the other typical offerings like fancy supremed fruit salad these Not Muffins would go WOWZA along with a mimosa or bloody mary for sure. Once everybody started to daintily bite in with their pinkies all elevated you just know these big grins would be breaking out on everbody's tastefully made up faces because here you've given them yummy moist healthy PIZZA flavored bites. Take that, Martha Stewart!

OK maybe Pizza is not one of your favorite food groups. Fair enough. You could play with the flavor profile a bit and swap in chard and some finely chopped thyme for the basil and take it a slightly different direction altogether. You could try a different grated cheese, but do take pains to avoid anything that will throw too much moisture into the mix. The original post on 101 Cookbooks lists a whole host of potential tweaks if tweaking is what you want.

I count these a total success even though along with some of those commenting on the 101 website I too noted these Not Muffins have a tenacious cling to the paper quality that has you turning aside from fellow diners so they don't necessarily have to watch you scraping the last bits off the paper with your teeth. (cue "eeeuwwwww" noise from studio audience)I am not sure how to address that problem really are you? What do you do about muffins that stick to the paper (or in this case Not Muffins)?

Any ideas out there? Spray the muffin paper with cooking oil prior to baking? Use free standing aluminum muffin cups rather than paper liners in a tin? Spray the muffin tin itself with oil and eschew the paper lining cups altogether? I figure on trying any/all of these options as quickly as I can justify the additional batches. If I happen upon some remedy I will be back with an update.

These are healthy, cute as a button and pull together in about a half hour, especially if you have a food processor to do your grinding/chopping/grating. Don't let a tenacious muffin paper or unreasonable fear of using nut flour get between you and your own batch.

Tzatziki Sauce!

2009-06-08T17:10:00.017-05:00

OVERPOWERING GARLIC ALERT/ADDENDUM!! CODE RED - SOUND THE ALARMS!!! The recipe that follows calls for what we here at AustinAgrodolce, in consultation with Significant Others Who Shall Remain Nameless have determined is too much garlic. WAY too much garlic.

So much garlic in fact that, if Sookie Stackhouse tried this recipe (it could happen!) her vampire boyfriend Bill would drop her like a silver cross. It is our considered opinion that you try this with one clove of garlic and add more only if you think you need to. This is supposed to be a cool sauce after all and the 4 cloves of garlic moved it over into hot garlicky territory. Not awful, just not tzatziki.

It was also agreed upon in further discussions that the "chop finely" instructions for the cucumber did not specify that the degree of teensiness desired from the chopping would be as if you ran the cukes through your food processor and stopped just when they were at risk of stopping being discretely tiny bits and becoming a cucumber mash. In other words - use your processor to chop the cucumbers very very finely. We clear on that now? Good. Proceed!

You know how sometimes trying something new completely gives you the heebie jeebies?

So much so that you find all sorts of reasons (appearing to rational outsiders as "excuses") not to ever actually try the recipe out?

These are those recipes, you know the ones, where you pretend you will try them only to actually read them and discover they involve two hours of something sitting dripping into a pan. Or they require a specific kind of vinegar or a special whisk or something, anything, so long as it is something you don't have or forgot to get, so you bail.

Over. And Over. Again.

This heebie-jeebizing is what has kept me from making tzatziki sauce for months now.

At first I didn't have plain yogurt in sufficient quantities and I was concerned cutting the recipe in half wouldn't yield a reasonable amount. I also didn't have a very sharp knife and it calls for a lot of finely chopped bits. The Hub often doesn't like tangy stuff much. LawSchoolGirl doesn't particularly care for mint.

So why, you might wonder, did I keep thinking I wanted to make tzatziki? Because, that's why. Because when I had the sauce with gyros in Salt Lake City Utah where we used to live 148 years ago I really really liked it.Because it is summer time and in summer time I like to eat cucumbers every possible way. Tzatziki sauce is, after all, at least partly about the chopped cucumbers.

Because everywhere I turn for the past two weeks; newsletters, Food Network shows, you name it, I have been bumping into lamb or other Greek style burger patties served with some version of a tzatziki sauce.Wheatsville's Gurus of Meat now offer seasoned lamb sausage patties that look scrumptious so I bought some. I wanted something authentic to serve with them and tzatziki sauce isn't just fun to type and fun to say it was screaming at me that it was JUST THE VERY THING TO SERVE WITH LAMB PATTIES FOR DINNER. IMMEDIATELY. IF NOT SOONER!

Of course I'd forgotten you have to let yogurt drip for at least two hours first so I bumped the lamb patties from dinner one night to dinner the next night to allow sufficient time over the bowl.

I have a great new knife (thank you again from the bottom of my chopping block, chef son!) so the many finely chopped ingredients in tzatziki now represent a joyful aspect to the recipe prep rather than a challenge.

I have basil growing out back which I feel is a decent substitute for mint for my non-mint fan in the house.

I have a few Hawaiian sweet bread rolls on hand I need to use up, rolls that are foods of the gods and will serve as the perfect foil for a seasoned lamb pattie with a tangy sauce, sooooooo.........

Having knocked all my potential objections out of the way, tzatziki sauce time it is. I put the recipe elements together so they could rub shoulders and do the Vulcan Flavor Meld in the refrigerator all day.

It is nearly dinnertime now and I did a followup taste test an hour or so ago and noted the garlic was absolutely kicking ass. I did use one ginormous clove as two of the suggested four cloves and in so doing I may have inadvertently bumped up the garlickity quotient of the flavor profile by about 80 percent.

Hey - that is a risk I, as a committed garlic lover, am quite willing to take. Not much of a risk really as I think the flavor of the lamb can stand up to as much garlic tangyness we can throw at it honestly. Especially in combination with buttery couscous and a Hawaiian sweet roll.

Just at the moment I can barely type for my stomach growling in anticipation. My mouth is watering so much my keyboard is in jeopardy. For whatever reason, after months of playing with the idea and coming up with lame excuses not to? Now that I have finally made the daggum tzatziki sauce I am absolutely chafing to have it be dinner time already [!!!] so we can just eat some for heaven's sake.

Can anything live up to the hype my feverishly anticipatory brain is concocting? Man, I sure enough hope so.

I hate recipe letdown more than you can imagine.

At the moment however everything is all sweetness and light and Man I Can't WAITness. Dinner Tonight: Seasoned Lamb Patties from Wheatsville served with Tzatziki Sauce, Buttery CousCous, Hawaiian Sweet Bread Rolls and sliced fresh fruit. Yum yum yum yum yum. I think.Here is the recipe I used - Alton Brown's version from the Food Network. I let my yogurt drip overnight so may be slightly short the 1 1/2 cup mark but what I've got is pretty close. I've thrown other substitutions and notes in parens. In several other recipes I found they suggested at least a two hour resting period in the reefer so as previously noted I made mine this morning so it could sit.

TZATZIKI SAUCE
•16 ounces plain yogurt
•1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped
•Pinch kosher salt
•4 cloves garlic, finely minced (I used 3 because one of them was HUGELY large)
•1 tablespoon olive oil
•2 teaspoons red wine vinegar (I got a little splashy with this - may be closer to 3 tsp)
•5 to 6 mint leaves, finely minced (I subbed 5 large basil leaves from the garden)

Place the yogurt in a tea towel, gather up the edges, suspend over a bowl, and drain for 2 hours in the refrigerator. Place the chopped cucumber in a tea towel and squeeze to remove the liquid; discard liquid. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the drained yogurt, cucumber, salt, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, and mint. Serve as a sauce for gyros. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to a week.

Yield: 1 1/2 cups

And, drumroll please.....HOW did it turn out? Great, thanks! LawSchoolGirl noted most gyro sauces are more blended than chopped so I may give the sauce we have left a whirlygo in the food processor and use that in pita pocketed lunch versions of the leftover lamb. It was pretty durn garlic intensive but garlic is good for you, and we will happily be in Vampire Avoidant territory for a day or so as a result. Maybe mosquito repellent as well.I am not sure why I have such trouble learning and holding on to the lesson that trying a new recipe is more often fun than terrorizing, even if it does not turn out precisely as planned. There are areas in life where I consider myself to be a quick study, but learning to be more adventurous in the kitchen is not one of them, obviously. That said, Tzatziki sauce is no longer a stranger in this household so I look forward to many many more visits. Opa!

Sum Sum Summertime

2009-06-04T10:03:00.001-05:00

A blogger I admire asked her readers recently to list in the comments section what they loved about summertime. My list quickly grew so long I decided to punt and post instead.

Here, in no particular order, is my non-comprehensive list of What I Love About Summer:
My birthday happens
HummingbirdsSchool is out
Shooting off fireworks (legally! really! The PowersThatBe didn't care so much about us kiddos being safe or escaping becoming tragically disfigured or potentially lighting up city block-wide conflagrations - oh those were the days I tell you)
Floating with hot sun on my back and cool water underneath me
Dragonflies
Painted toenails
Snow Cones (red ones are my favorite followed by purple - you?)
Cicadas singing in daytime
Tree Frogs singing at night
The way little kids have to yell SO LOUDLY when they play in the water
CaladiumsThe way walking into air conditioning from a triple digit afternoon makes my glasses fog up for a minute
Eating icy cool crisp salad greens outside
The smell of swimming pools
Visiting someplace that is SO NOT Texas The smell of Coppertone sun screen
Home grown tomatoesIced tea
Eating ice cream cones outside fast before they melt too much and drip onto your hand
Neighborhood 4th of July Parades How everybody looks slightly more sophisticated in sunglasses
Sandals
Cool tile floors on bare feet
Hunting for sea shells and wave tumbled glass at the beach
Ripe melon
Flip flopsSuntans (yeah yeah I know totally "what-do-you-want-us-to-all-die" politically incorrect but this is MY list - go make your own)
Cucumber sandwiches
Blinking in summer sun after seeing a matinee
The way that first taste of really cold beer tastes like Life in a Bottle

That will do for today. Feel free to share in the comments section how you feel about summertime. Do you love it? Hate it? What is your favorite/least favorite aspect of summertime? I really want to know!

Cobbler Delay

2009-06-02T18:30:00.001-05:00

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, Texas Monthly ("the National Magazine of Texas") featured recipes on the last page of each issue.

While the series ran, I always turned to the back of the magazine first thing to see if what was there that issue would be anything I'd be interested in attempting. The recipes ran the gamut, from exquisite gourmet appetizer supplied by an up and coming chef to tried and true down home favorites, like a little beauty of a recipe for peach cobbler.

The Gourmet Gals' Hill Country Peach Cobbler recipe, which ran in the July/August 1989 issue, was a treasure that quickly became THE way this family would eat peach cobbler from that time forward. I nearly went crazy(er) waiting to try it, though.

The magazine with the recipe came out well past when it was easy to find peaches at my local grocery store. This being 1989 it predated the steady stream of peaches now available from around the country, much less around the world. Farmer's markets were scarcer than hen's teeth and roadside stands were all shuttered up for the season.

I had nearly a year long wait until local peaches were available again before I finally had my chance to reproduce the cobbler. That I held on to the recipe and managed not to lose it in the disorder that passes for my kitchen is testimony to how much I wanted that cobbler in my repertoire. As I dug the page torn from the magazine out of a pile of "important papers", unfolded it and carefully smoothed the creases out I remember thinking to myself, "this better be good...".

Was it ever. I've since prepared this peach cobbler recipe for friends, family, and fellow Lutheran church members in four different states over the course of the nearly twenty years since I first laid my hands on it. It is as good today as it was then, and the only difference between the way I fix it now and the way I fixed it then is that now I insist upon organic ingredients. Truth be told, since the peaches are peeled, I'd make it with conventionally farmed Texas peaches in a heartbeat rather than do without. It just isn't a proper start to summertime without a few batches of peach cobbler.Here is the recipe the way it was printed in the magazine.

Gourmet Gals Hill Country Peach Cobbler

1/4 cup flour
less than 1/8 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
3 cups sliced fresh peaches

Sift flour, salt and baking powder together. Mix with 1 1/2 cups sugar. Slowly stir in milk. Melt butter in 8x8x2 inch pan (a larger pan makes a thinner crust). Pour batter over butter, do not stir. Lay peaches on batter. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup sugar or less. Bake 1 hour at 350 degrees. Serves 6.

According to the description that precedes it, "From a small catering business in Amarillo to their present incarnation in Austin, where they've feted British Royalty (Prince Charles) and Texas common folk, Gourmet Gals are all over the map. This simple cobbler has an appealing, almost puddinglike consistency. "With the trends in Southwestern cuisine, we've kind of overlooked simplicity" says original Gal Betsy Nozick. "This recipe is so just-what-it-is." Gourmet Gals has since expanded, moved from their original Anderson Mill Road location and is now dba Gourmet Gals and Guys Catering and Events. Betsy Nozick and Tricia Henry have co-authored a book, "Texas Tuxedos to Tacos, The Mystique of Entertaining in Texas". Their newly expanded version has been recently released and is available from their website.

One note: I used unbleached unrefined cane sugar in this batch which is why mine has such a deep brown crust. I thought the additional layer of molasses-ish flavor in the unrefined sugar paired well with the brightness of the peaches, and to my great relief it worked out great. In all honesty that was luck, not skill. I used that sugar because it was what I had on hand.

I've told you I am not a patient woman. That first year I spent waiting to find peaches so I could try the recipe nearly killed me. That was all the waiting for cobbler I could stand. Once I'd made my mind up to have peach cobbler today I just went for broke rather than waiting until after a trip to the market. Me, wait for cobbler? No no no no no.

You may think you already have a peach cobbler recipe. I am here to set you straight. If you aren't making this peach cobbler, you might as well give me your peaches and let me show you how it is done. Or save us both the trouble and just make this peach cobbler. Right now. Go! The only hard part of this recipe is waiting an hour for it to bake.

Quick postscript: I contacted Tricia Henry to ask permission to share this cobbler recipe with you here. I'll admit when I heard back from her nearly immediately I was surprised. Folks, I gotta tell you she is about as gracious as a summer day is long. I suppose you don't have to be a generous and sweet person to create a great peach cobbler recipe, but in this case, that is sure enough the way it worked out.

Hot Stuff

2009-06-01T14:04:00.002-05:00

I may well be the very last person in Austin to do so, but I became a full on Torchy's convert last Friday night.

There isn't a location all that close to where I live, but the consistently positive things I've heard about Torchy's in combination with a daughter in the house for the summer who was craving them for dinner and requesting that I just "try them out - one time to see" meant a taco road trip was in the cards for this bunch.

I had the Trailer and the Republican as a starting point but I figure I might as well make it my quest to work all the way through the menu. I can't imagine why not. I won't tell you how good they are - you probably already know and if you don't then Ha-Ha! I am NOT the last person in town to try one after all. Yay me.

After noting a couple of days ago that one of our oldest largest jalapeño plants was leaning waaaaay over I went to investigate. It was not damaged per se, it was absolutely loaded down with a bumper crop of peppers. I harvested as many as I could hold and decided while doing so the time was ripe for a batch of home made jalapeño jam.

Now on the pectin paperwork this stuff is called Pepper Relish but that my friends is a misnomer. Any recipe calling for 4 cups of chopped peppers to be combined with 5 cups of sugar and 1 cup of cider vinegar is going to yield pepper jam, not anything I'd call relish.The recipe suggests using red and/or yellow bell peppers in mixture with the jalapeño peppers but I could not find any organic bells other than green. I do aspire to aesthetically pleasing results as much as the next gal, but when it comes to eating something that has been processed and sitting in a jar in the pantry for months at a time? I want that something to be as organic as I can get it. Rule of thumb, that has been my approach for all my jammy work. So far I have been able to secure organic everything except for pectin. Truth be told I simply haven't investigated that. Yet.

So all green peppers it was. The results seem to be slightly less colorful but no less flavorful than I'd hoped. My jalapeño peppers are not particularly hot (I must not have been angry when I planted them). I decided not to leave any seeds in this go round to turn the heat up any. I can try that next go-round once I get a feel for how it will turn out. I do think the jam will heat up as it ages a bit but that will be fine by me.

Once again the fruity bits all floated up to the top. I don't fret over that (so much) any more at least. This time I waited until the jam had cooled and then shook the jars to redistribute the pepper bits. Hopefully that won't interfere with the jam setting and hopefully the redistribution will stick. If not, I'll simply stir the stuff up once I've opened a jar and let it go at that.

I'm hopeful to make a batch of peach cobbler this weekend. If I do I'll share the recipe because it is amaaaaaazing. Like Torchy's Tacos. Seriously, if you are the last person (after me) in Austin to give them a try don't wait any longer. You can say I sent you.

Just Don't Talk with Your Mouth Full

2009-05-30T06:24:00.005-05:00

{click on image for larger version}

Easily Delicious

2009-05-26T11:38:00.008-05:00

If you are like me (and maybe you only like me and aren't like me at all, or don't even like me but then WHY are you reading this?) you always end up with left over buttermilk.

I don't keep buttermilk around all the time. I tend to buy it specifically for a recipe and even have some Magic Buttermilk Powder in the refrigerator that, when I remember I've got it, transforms water to buttermilk. Poof. Just.. Like... That!

When I do buy buttermilk, I can never find it in a usefully small carton, like heavy cream or half and half usually come in. This is clearly a conspiracy of some sort by the PanGalactic Buttermilk Council to coerce people into buying Too Much Buttermilk. And it works.

So there I typically find myself, with a full quart of buttermilk minus the two tablespoons or whatever I used for a recipe, and I simply can not throw it out. I am psychically prohibited.

My Mom grew up poor during the Depression Era and she imprinted upon me a thriftiness that is often times more binding than helpful. This inability to dispense with miniscule portions of "perfectly good" food remnants that aren't useful in other recipes, and don't suffice as a meal or even combine easily to make a dish all their own means I have a refrigerator filled to the brim with tidbits.

These leftovers just sit there, taunting me. Laughing because they know nobody else in this house will eat them. I will potentially be forced to eat them all myself, explaining my need for buying clothes with elastic waistbands and/or scouting for styles touting "generous fit".Snickering because they realize Hub will reach his breaking point, refusing to spend fully 4 1/2 minutes unpacking then repacking the tottering towers of unlabeled repurposed sour cream and olive tubs, only ever wanting to get to his pitcher of iced tea. Knowing he only reasonably wants to reach in and take something out without triggering a potentially floor fouling cascade of loosely covered remnants.

I haven't bought Cool Whip for over a year. I can't throw out a "perfectly good" resuable container, either.

Hub will say Something. I will reluctantly clear the three bites of 14 different foods out, resulting in a clearer refrigerator but a cloudy conscience. I will either over eat or face carrying the recurrent psychic weight of ThereAreStarvingChildrenInChina guilt. Thank you, Mother!

Occasionally a recipe comes riding along to the rescue. This recipe, for Buttermilk Pudding from Elise and Company writing at the wondrously useful Simply Recipes is a case in point.

This recipe uses 2 cups of buttermilk. Two. Cups. Further, this recipe hits all the marks for a true Keeper.It has a short ingredient list that allows for generous substitutions. It uses items typically already in even a scantily stocked pantry. It doesn't take any special equipment or use any rarified techniques and best of all? It tastes sublime. All by itself good. Top it with seasonal fruit or jam? Exquisite.

I had in mind to make this when I still had a substantial amount of buttermilk left over from I don't even remember what. Then I stumbled upon the Broccoli Slaw recipe with its buttermilk dressing. As luck and the PanGalactic Buttermilk Council would have it, when I finally got around to making the pudding, I actually only had one cup of the buttermilk on hand.

Sure, I could have gone and bought another quart of buttermilk, but that would have put me squarely back in the "too much buttermilk" fix I was trying to amend. So riffing off the comments on Elise's blog stating others had made this using sour cream rather than buttermilk I simply mixed and matched. The results were no less phenomenal.

I used a cup of buttermilk, nearly a cup of left over sour cream, threw in some sitting around half and half which brought it all up to the two cup mark. I whisked a bit to make sure everything was evenly distributed, and ended up with 6 ramekins of Wow.We enjoyed our first round topped with sliced up strawberries and peaches. For our off season repeat visits there will be strawberry and peach jam ready in the cabinet.

One other tidbit - I found that the Knox unflavored gelatin packets at my large chain grocer's weigh in at 2 teaspoons each. Other brands might vary so do measure before using. Otherwise - proceed without refrigerator cluttering fearfulness to buy buttermilk now, my people! Garrett McCord via Elise has given us the power. Onward!

Long Weekend

2009-05-22T11:48:00.010-05:00

Happy Memorial Day Weekend. In anticipation of lots of folks picnicking, this fabulous Venn diagram of multi-purpose cutlery. Can't go wrong with a splayd, now can you?Honestly we are not doing all that much around here to actively celebrate Memorial Day. The flag will go out. That is about it.

I like it that way though. Quiet. Low key.

We will indeed prepare food and eat it. Lots of it. However, none of it may be blog-worthy.

To tide you over (because everybody needs a blog fix when they need it, weekend or no,) I share these random tidbits with you. A mini-buffet if you will.First up? Peaches. I haven't seen Texas peaches in the stores much, a late freeze took most of them out. But these beauties from Mexico, organic to boot, are the real deal and the next best thingI made a batch of jam already, and have plans for cobbler this weekend.

Check this out. I gave one of the women I walk with regularly a jar of peach jam. She puts up with all my yammering very good naturedly - it is the least I can do. Another woman who just started up with us then asked, innocently, "Oh! So do you grow peaches?". And for whatever reason, somehow I felt stupid for having to reply "No - I just bought some and made jam.". What is up with that I am wondering? I don't think the woman meant anything negative about the comment so why can't I just let it go? Still pondering on that one.These uglies have been congregating on our Shasta Daisies the past few days. They will take down a tomato plant so I am happy they are staying away from our struggling tomatoes AND pleased that plunging them in soapy water seems to be keeping them under control. So far.

Additionally, when I first posted about my garden being invaded by these I had linked to an article in the local paper garden blog, using a photo from the post (credited) only to hear that the newspaper has copyrighted their blogger's materials so you can link, but you ought not use. I was relieved the blog author gave me a polite heads up about it promptly and I switched the photos out rapidamente. I am not out to snag anybody's copyrighted stuff, no ways no days. You must be careful with the internet. Some stuff (like all of mine) is out there for the taking while other stuff is tightly controlled. I was duly reminded to be more careful not to blur the lines.I do heart peaches. I really really do. I kept the peach pits and maybe I will just try to grow my own peach tree after all.

Here is a hats off to everyone who serves in the military and to all their family and friends who do without them while they serve us all. You honor us with your service, all of you. Please be careful and return home safely to the one who love you.

I hope you have good peaches where you live and can have some soon. Whether or not you grow them or simply enjoy them. Have a lovely looonnnng weekend, won't you? Enjoy the extra day, have a nice meal where you go to a little extra trouble just because you can, and I will see you all next week!

Carvey

2009-05-20T09:27:00.015-05:00

[A word from our sponsor (aka:me). I realize I write a lot about meaty topics. By that I do not mean I write serious thoughtful pieces, but rather about meat. Cooking and eating meat. I also realize there are many out there who do not eat meat for their own reasons. I respect that and I respect them. I too eschew meat at times. But I am not only cooking for myself in this lifetime so my vegetarian meal opportunities are few and far in between. That said, the following would make a lovely entrée served up with some nice chewy artisanal bread and lovely glass of wine (if you allow a bit of egg and dairy). What? You don't drink alcohol? Have a glass of iced tea. No caffeine either? Oh just read, for heavens sake and you can serve this up any way you like.]

This all started May 11th, 2009.

I had two heads of beautiful organic broccoli in the refrigerator that wanted to become some sort of fabulous broccoli salad when they grew up.

I had the remnants of a carton of buttermilk, purchased to prepare something I don't even remember (I'm sure it was delicious?).

I had an even more beautiful knife, a real knife, a true chef's tool, which was a Mother's Day gift from ChefSon.

I saw this post from SmittenKitchen and it was Crave-at-First-Sight.

Then why did it take me nearly two weeks to get around to making it? I don't know, honestly. I do this all the time, see something that looks delicious and I have ingredients on hand or readily obtainable and I print the recipe out and at times even start talking about it as something I am "going" to do, and then I don't.

I have no reasonable explanation. Strike that, I have no explanation at all, reasonable or otherwise.All that is moot at the moment because this morning, I drew a deep breath, got my workspace ready, assembled my ingredients and the necessary tools and made Broccoli Slaw.

I followed Smitten's recipe exactly. I too used the stems as well as the flowrets because broccoli is broccoli folks and if you like the way one end of the stalk tastes there is no reason to believe you won't like the other. Plus it all gets chopped up, so there is not a hugely appreciable difference once you start to munch.I originally thought to myself I'd prep this with the amounts called for and then throw in more everything-that-wasn't-broccoli. What could be wrong with more onion or more dried cranberries or more toasted almonds? I'll tell you what - nothing. Only once I'd tasted it (just to, you know, "correct" the seasonings. Three times. Silly seasonings.), this slaw wowed my taste buds as hitting pretty much close to the perfection mark at the proportions as called for in the recipe. I left well enough alone. [Score:One for the recovering perfectionist, vs. a gazillion for the universe]

This supposedly keeps up to a week in the refrigerator if, as Smitten Kitchen adorably notes, you do not have any pregnant woman nearby. I'd like to expand that caveat slightly. I am well at the opposite end of the reproduction curve and I will be shocked if this broccoli crack lasts more than 3-4 days around here. You don't have to be riding the pregnant hormone horse to appreciate this wonderfully crisp, slightly freshly greenly sweet amazingly crunchy combination. You only need to like broccoli, appreciate crunchy foods, and have working mouth parts.

I've read on a couple other food blogs where people are suggesting recipes be rated, rather than every blogger writing that every recipe is "fantastic!" every time. I tend not to blog about recipes that don't turn out very well although I did tell y'all about the braised rabbit dish that wasn't awful - it just didn't live up to my expectations. That was more the pasta's fault than the rabbit's I'd say and I don't want anybody to be discouraged from trying rabbit.On the other hand, if I were to rate this broccoli slaw recipe, I would give it 438 stars out of a possible 5. Truly. I have been craving broccoli salad of some sort for weeks now - you can ask the ladies I walk with for exercise. We spent the better portion of a half hour last week dissecting the reasons I might not have found a recipe yet to make a broccoli salad at home that I like as much as I typically like the ones I've gotten at restaurants or from the deli counter at my food co-op.

I like everything about this broccoli slaw. I like the way it looks. I think it is GORGEOUS. I like the buttermilk dressing in combination with the other flavors. I like the crunch. I like how fresh it tastes.I like that I got a red onion that was strong but in a good sweetly insistent onionly way, rather than the obnoxious red onions I get occasionally that remind me of why I used to never like uncooked onion in anything.

You can see, comparing Smitten's photograph to mine, that her salad is a leetle less chopped than mine is..

Above is mine.

And here is Smitten's. Please note - I am asking you to focus on the size of the pieces and not the fact that her photography skills are forty times better than mine. Let's just stay on topic, shall we?

Well there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for that at least. New Knife! It took all my self control to stop chopping while the food was still large enough to see without a microscope. I won't apologize. When you have a sharp knife, as I now do for the first time in years, chopping is fun, people!I strongly suggest you do yourself a large favor and make this slaw. Proceed without caution to SmittenKitchen to get the recipe and get started. Stat! Stop reading and go go go!!!

I'll show you mine if.....

2009-05-19T08:15:00.016-05:00

To coldly go....

One of local food columnist/blogger Addie Broyle's most popular features on her Relish Austin site is "What's in Your Fridge Friday", where she offers up a profile combined with a photograph of the inside that person's refrigerator. Broyles asks a series of questions of each person profiled, such as "What three things are always in your fridge?". While this is not exactly groundbreaking journalism, for me this feature has been a harmless way to indulge my inner voyeur, a chance to get a peek inside other people's typically private spaces.

Here's a recent example, showing the interior of local chef Josh Watkins' refrigerator. Most of the photos are taken by the person profiled so they are what they are.Taking a similar concept all the way to the "art" setting on the dial, award winning San Antonio based photographer Mark Menjivar offers up a fascinating look inside the refrigerator in a series I recently spotted (thank you Eat Me Daily). Thoughtfully considering what it reveals when we look inside this simultaneously private and public space found in nearly every home, he has assembled a series of portraits from across the country.

From his website"You Are What You Eat" where Menjivar writes:

For three years I traveled around the country exploring the issue of hunger. The more time I spent speaking and listening to individual stories, the more I began to think about the foods we consume and the effects they have on us as individuals and communities. An intense curiosity and questions about stewardship led me to begin to make these unconventional portraits.

A refrigerator is both a private and a shared space. One person likened the question, "May I photograph the interior of your fridge?" to asking someone to pose nude for the camera. Each fridge is photographed "as is." Nothing added, nothing taken away.

These are portraits of the rich and the poor. Vegetarians, Republicans, members of the NRA, those left out, the under appreciated, former soldiers in Hitler’s SS, dreamers, and so much more. We never know the full story of one's life.

My hope is that we will think deeply about how we care. How we care for our bodies. How we care for others. And how we care for the land."

Here's an appetizer:Midwife/Middle School Science Teacher | San Antonio, TX | 3-Person Household (including dog) | First week after deciding to eat locally grown vegetables. | 2008

When visiting his site allow yourself time and be sure to let your mouse linger over each photo to pull up a description of how many in the household, along with a few personal details I think you'll find fascinating. [I want this to be easy for you. Go here. Click on "portfolio", click again on "you are what you eat" then click one last time on "images".]

To be fair, here's a wider shot inside the freezer here at AustinAgrodolce. We currently have three people living here along with two cats, and will soon reach our one year anniversary of having shifted most of our food dollars to a local food co-op that emphasizes local organic sustainable food options whenever possible.I think you can tell two things at a glance: 1) how organized I am (not) and 2) nobody will go hungry here any time soon.

What would happen if a photographer showed up today and asked to see what was inside your refrigerator? Would you feel comfortable sharing what's behind those closed doors with the wider world? Does the food you have in your refrigerator say anything about you people wouldn't otherwise guess? Would a snapshot of your refrigerator project a portrait you are comfortable with?

Listing

2009-05-16T09:03:00.010-05:00

Do you ever get recurrent themes surfacing in your life?
I seem to be bumping into lists everywhere I turn.

Orangette wrote an evocative piece recently about how she makes a list of the "Crap I Like To Eat" (CILTE) when feeling uninspired to cook meals. The list is supposed to function as a creative Juiceman, resulting in "an arsenal of inspiration" to help move you from "eye clawing" to hungry and ready to cook.

Her post clearly struck a chord with readers. At the end where Orangette asked folks to share what would go on their own CILTE list, there were 147 comments when last I checked.

Elsewhere, on The Sister Project, folks were allowed to read and share their "List That Helps With Loss". Making the list grew out of a writing workshop prompt meant to facilitate a memoir. It shares with CILTE the idea of being a kick start. Recording some of the mundane hurdles we all are forced to clear even when facing loss, provides a starting point.

The original suggestion was to make a list of thoughts related to the event of what was a final visit with a friend. The response included three lists chronicling a young woman's visit to say goodbye to her best friend, dying from cancer. She wrote "What I Brought", "What I Heard", and "What I Said".

When is a list more than a list? Read the piece yourself and you'll soon discover list making is a simple act, and so much more.

I will cop to being a list maker myownself. I enjoy every aspect of it, start to finish.

I like making a list because it helps me procrastinate from the actual work beginning.
Questioner: "How's it going?"
Me: "..."
Q: "Have you started yet?".
Me: "Give me a minute, I'm making my list!".

While I am in the act of making my lists I appreciate how they can help get my monkeybrain better organized. Occasionally I will realize, secondary to listmaking, that some crucial element to my plan is missing. At times, especially when creating a shopping list, making the list itself demands that I physically check on ingredients. This can be crucial.

I apparently have a fantasy pantry, one that exists in an alternate universe where I know everything I've got, how much I have on hand and exactly where I put it. Then there is our actual pantry, which mysteriously fails to produce essential ingredients, notably recently, organic sugar in quantities sufficient for making home made jam. My Actual Pantry is inexplicably the domain where there was no physical evidence of the remnants of a bag of dried cranberries I had to move out of my way umpty hundred times only to have vanished once I needed those berries to add to a salad I had all the other ingredients out to prepare. This morning.

I would have sworn to you those berries were in there. I would have pledged to you on the lives of my family, without a moment's hesitation, that is how secure I was in the knowledge those berries, in their folded over bag with a wooden clothespin in place to hold it shut, were sitting in there ready for me to use in that salad. Only they weren't.

The act of recording items on a list helps me remember. There are enough times I dash out the door and leave my shopping list at home on the counter, or the fewer times I leave the list in my car, for me to know if I have previously written it out, I can rely upon my memory. If the list is not too long, I have a track record of getting around 96 percent of what I needed based upon recall power alone. My memory is spotty enough and my background fear of Alzheimer's prevalent enough that I maintain the practice of having to actively reconstruct a list in my head, is probably a good thing.

[Yes, that does ignore the idea of having "forgotten" the list in the first place but this is me in Coping Mode. You just shoo with your nagging and pointing out how illogical that is.]

Best of all perhaps, is the delicious process of crossing items off a list. This doesn't apply to shopping lists, there is enough activity loading a basket to keep both hands busy there. When running errands or doing chores however, crossing a completed item off a to-do list is blissful.

This is especially true if when I have procrastinated. That is the list equivalent of true nirvana. For me, the measure of dread and foreboding experienced at the prospect of any particularly loathsome chore is precisely matched, if not exceeded, by my level of glee bordering on gloating at having gotten it out of my way. Get thee behind me, dastardly deed! Thou art done!

[Why my glee takes that medieval tone I have no idea. That might be a great topic to explore in therapy if I ever get any. Moving on.]

It is my contention a well placed list can save a relationship.

For years I was plagued by family members seeking me out at variously inopportune moments. They were driven by a burning desire to let me know that, as the Designated Family Shopper, they had a need only I, with my Superior Shopping Powers, could possibly meet.

These requests tended to come 14 1/2 minutes after I had stretched out on my bed.
Inconsiderate Family Member: "Are you asleep?"
Me: "......"
IFM: "You don't look asleep. Sleeping people don't scowl."
Me: "......!!"
IFM: "You told me to tell you when I was running out of Liquid Paper."
Me: "....."
IFM: "Well, I am almost out."
Me: "...."
IFM: In pleased with self tone, "You told me to tell you, so I am".

The other time a need could magically manifest was whenever I started to take a shower.
Hub: Honey!
Me: "what!"
Hub: "We need mumbledly"
Me: "What?!"
Hub: MUMBLEDLY
Me: "I'm in the shower." (points taken off for stating the obvious) "I can't HEAR you!"
Hub: mumbledly mumbledly
Me: "WHAT!?!?!?!?"
Hub: Opens bathroom door letting all the precious warm air out. "I said never mind. I'll tell you later." Brightly, "Have a nice shower!" Fails to completely close door.
Me: "!!!!!!"

I began to keep a magnetized pad on the refrigerator door. It holds a running list of "what we need from the/any store". Now whenever anybody randomly comments to me, "we are out of X", or "I used the last of the Y", I simply reply "put it on the list" and we are done. I hardly ever even snap the words out (any more). This has saved us from much heartache and potential bloodshed I am certain. A list in time saves my family.

I decided I won't bore you with a shopping list, and a List that Helps with Loss would deserve its own post. I will share my own CILTE list with you, just for fun.

Crap I Like to Eat:
A fried egg served over:
Sauteéd cabbagge with Sriracha and soy sauce
Ginger Fried Rice
Corned Beef Hash
Another Fried Egg
Pizza
Roasted chicken
Caesar Salad
Fettucine with Alfredo sauce
Guacamole
Anything in a Quesadilla
Lasagna

There. It worked. I am hungry and ready to hit the kitchen and cook something. If I have what I need in my actual pantry, I mean. How about you? Are you a list maker? Would making a CILTE list help get your creative juices flowing? We're all nice people around here - feel free to share in the comments section.

What's Up, Doc?

2009-05-13T15:48:00.009-05:00

I have a long and somewhat complicated history with rabbits.

I cannot distinctly recall if I asked for this costume or if this was a result of a late trip to the Ben Franklin meaning the cool costumes were already sold out in my size.This photo was obviously taken before we left and I was determined to make the most of what I had. I mean, look at those perky ears! They almost overshadow the slightly wan smile, right? Right?

I do remember that I got a lot of lame, falsely bright "Oooh- would you rather have a carrot!?" comments the year I wore this trick or treating. As opposed to keeping and playing dress-up in the Bugs costume for weeks after Halloween as I usually did, I am pretty certain I disgustedly tossed this one in the trash as soon as I got home.

That would be scar enough but then there was my first experience with a live specimen.

A good childhood friend had a rabbit for a pet and I was allowed to feed and water this oh so desirable to me creature while they were on vacation one weekend. As instructed, I dutifully folded and placed lettuce leaves, Rabbit Chow, and filled and refilled the water bowl all without ever opening the cage. My reward, upon their return, was to get to hold said bunny in my lap.

The rabbit peed on me and then scraped near-lethal holes in both my thighs as it attempted to jump into the next county. I was impressed, but not in that good way.

Fast forward, um, years. Lots of them. I'd grown up with limited protein options. My Mom was not an adventurous cook or eater either one and frankly, there were not that many choices available at the local grocer's back in the day.

All by way of which to explain that yesterday, I cooked my first ever rabbit. To eat. For dinner.ChefSon was around and helped demonstrate the lay of the land, or carcass rather, and as I'd been more in a dither about it than I needed to be, it was sort of anti-climatic once I got it plated up and served.Don't get me wrong - the rabbit was tasty enough. I decided, since I'd had it holding frozen for longer than I meant to, to brown the meat, braise it, shred it, and serve it over pasta.Easy peasy, right?

I'd unfortunately purchased a fresh pasta that was not thoughtfully made. It purported to be a jalapeño fettucine that would take 3-4 minutes to cook, but was actually ropy and gluey and did not cook well after twice that long.

It was way way too thick, monstrously so, and that really dragged the dish down. Also I bought an organic parmesan to sprinkle over, which as you can see by the photo, looked extruded. It tasted equally uninspiring. That is a big ol' "no thank you!".Fortunately I saved most of the meat and the braise sauce separately and will try it again in some other format.

My point being, and I am pretty sure I had one, don't wait to try rabbit. Don't be leery. It is tasty, it is similar to preparing poultry in terms of cutting up and serving, and the flavor is its own, true, but not at all overwhelming or gamy.Rabbit is not particularly expensive, and I think it will become more readily available as small local food producers hit their stride in a flailing economy. It would be a shame to skip trying rabbit just because you didn't grow up eating any. I didn't have lamb, goat, fresh seafood or artichokes growing up either, and I once I'd tried them I was SOLD.

I am checking "rabbit" off my "I'd cook and eat that but haven't yet" list. How about you? Anything you think you'd be fine trying out but haven't yet? Anything you tried and thought, "whoa - that is not for me!"? What is off limits for you? Fess up!

Get Your Tweezers Ready

2009-05-11T12:18:00.008-05:00

Here comes Misses Splintery Splinter!

Yeah, you heard me. Whether or not you secretly know yourself to hold amazing (potentially unappreciated) powers, The Hero Factory is a chance to play just a little with the concept, in private, and limited only by your imagination (and the parameters of the program)...

Here I am in all my nerdish glory:You will note the au courant thigh high boots please. Being a super heroine does not mean being out of style. Non non non!

I couldn't capture the salt and pepper hair quite, and they shockingly had no provision to add a middle aged paunch, but other than that, this looks EXACTLY like me. Pinky swear. Well, except for the no features bit. I'm not sure if I just missed that prompt but will settle for what I got.

You know, protect my anonymity from arch villains, etc. etc....

Have fun!

Smells like...

2009-05-08T09:46:00.006-05:00

I was frazzled earlier this week.

Canning jam can do that.

Trying to pull off more than I am used to can do that.Defending caterpillars against the Hub's insistence they "look" like they'd eat tomato plants, only to discover after losing track of where they went that yes, indeed, these sphinx moth larvae will potentially eat tomato plants, can do that.

Putting together ingredients for chicken stock that look old and tired and done for trusting that every chef I've ever read who says that is precisely what these "past their prime" ingredients are good for, can do that.

But now?

The jam set. In a few minutes I will toast bread and enjoy the first taste of the results of a few hours spent in the kitchen that will continue to provide rewards for a year or so.Despite some fretting I am happy to have provided what seemed to be a positive celebratory experience for what many consider a milestone birthday for my son who has not had an entirely smooth past couple of months.

I found and relocated the two largest of the three potential tomato eating caterpillars far away from my pepper and tomato plants. I successfully identified the plant they were munching on. Euphorbia dentata.

I suck at identification so to have discovered what type of caterpillar and what type of plant is a true victory for me. I submitted photos to the website that helped me ID the caterpillars and helped them expand the host plant listing and that felt good.Most importantly I realized, finally, that this is precisely what we had been hoping would happen in the back garden beds.

We have been seeding in butterfly attracting and native wildflower plants for several seasons running and...it worked! We now have moths nectaring in the back area and laying eggs as the three sphinx moth caterpillars spotted yesterday prove. We actually do have a wildlife habitat establishing itself, by golly. Sidebar: they never label the flower seeds as Moth Attracting because we, myself included, are typically such speciesists. Moths are important too only not so acceptably gorgeous. I am a little ashamed to admit I feel that way but there you have it.

The chicken stock smells amazing. It is making my mouth water and has me thinking with excitement about what I will cook for us over the next few days. It has been a while since I was excited about cooking anything, well, except for the carnitas, and I put more pressure on myself for that than I should.

"It is just dinner" you might say and you'd be right. Only every time I try something new and assure others in my family that "this will be great!" I feel as though I am setting up a test. If I somehow fail that test, well I don't know what exactly would be so awful about that, but I know I don't want that. To fail. At anything. Ever.

Everything is not perfect today but for me, that is what makes these moments of contentment so rich and rare. Perfection, the elusive bar I struggle not to consistently set for myself, has nothing to do with the way I feel just now.

So. Today. Just for a bit. I am feeling, well, successful. I have jam made. I have chicken stock cooking.I have garden beds that are feeding insects and people's physical bodies as well as their spirits, their sense of beauty. I let my son know in a hundred different ways that I love him and support him and am proud of him. Same goes for Law School Girl who survived her first year, finals, and will soon be driving back cross country, coming home to us for the summer.

It feels good just to write the words. Home for the summer.

I have a loving family and I will get to see them each over the summer without it being a big deal. What could make for a happier Mother's Day weekend than knowing that to be true? Over at A Season for Everything I posted a poem for Mother's Day. You'll find it here if you are interested. Otherwise, won't you stop and smell the stock cooking, and together let us mull over how lovely these small victories of life can really be.

¡Carnitas! Finally we EAT

2009-05-07T07:33:00.000-05:00

Last night we celebrated and we had a lot to be happy about. First and foremost we celebrated ChefSon's birthday. He turns mumblety on Mother's Day this year and I was thinking back to how far we have all come since that first Mother's Day cough! decades ago which was actually the day we first brought him home from the hospital.

We lived in Salt Lake City then and I remember sitting in the car, one hand on that precious car seat, looking around (when I could tear my eyes off this most beautiful baby in the universe) at people taking Mom/G'mom out to brunch etc. wondering how they could possibly be going about their normal lives in light of the earth shattering event we'd just been privy to. We'd just had our first child! Didn't they get it?

Fast forward a couple of weeks. A hundred or so dirty diapers and sleepless nights later I began to understand a little better how yes, yes, maybe they did get it after all. Having a baby is that big and that little.

The birth of a child absolutely changes the universe for the folks immediately involved and yet the rest of the world keeps right on turning. Which is why we need to be aware of who we are and how we live, all the time. We want to be keeping this world in respectable shape so when any Mommy brings another World's Most Special Baby into it, we can all be happy about our mutual prospects.Back to last night. We were also celebrating Cinco de Mayo:Swine Revenge. This was the night we prepared and ate Carnitas.

Faithful readers, these were not just good - they were freaking aaaaaawesome.

Porky goodness plus. All the recipe notes were right - you can make them day of, braise ahead and broil later, it matters not. Next go-round I might get adventuresome adding a few herbs or spices to the mix but maybe not. The Niman pork was just so very PORKY and that was why we were there. To celebrate the Swine Divine.

Gorgeous!

I cranked my broiler up to the "smelt" setting, moved the rack to the next to the top position, and started checking the shredded, reduced braising sauce covered pork at about 3 minutes. It took about 4-5 minutes over all but I'd advise you to watch it carefully. This one step of the recipe deserves your full attention.

We had the carnitas Self-Assembly Style. I offered a choice of flour and corn tortillas (most of us double layered one inside the other), arugula, crumbled queso fresco, caramelized onions, guacamole and some chipotle salsa (a blended type) from the Wheatsville Deli folk.

I'd prepped about 2 pounds of pork butt for the 3 of us and we had enough left for maybe 1 more serving. Save-the-world impulses aside, it was hard to resist throwing a LOT of that pork into each taco, it tasted that good. Self conscious types loading their tacos in front of witnesses might pile them a little more lightly thereby stretching how far the meat would go. When it comes to Us eating in front of other family members? Fuggedaboudit.

There's no shortage of places to read up on carnitas recipe experiences. Here is a smattering gathered just for you - all of them from cooking/food blogs I believe deserve your ongoing attention:
I used a version of this for our carnitas....the recipe from Cooks Illustrated

Eggs on Sunday
The Bitten Word
Diana Kennedy Adaptation courtesy of the Homesick Texan
A Crockpot Version courtesy of Married with Dinner

Housekeeping: The strawberry/loquat jam seems to have set. Mostly. There are typically a couple of jars in each batch that seem to take a little longer than the rest. Maybe the last group I put in the hot water bath are the ones not quite there- again I am mostly clueless as to the "whys" I can only share the "whats" with you.

We haven't finished all the loquat jam from last year yet. I made three batches and was hesitant to give it away until we'd survived eating it and uniformly agreed it was "good". We did, and it was, but by then we were well past most traditional gifting opps so I have two or three jars on the shelf. Note that I am not complaining.

I only made one batch of the strawberry-loquat jam. It is in small jars so it looks like more. I discovered mid-prep last year only the leetlest jars will be covered by the boiling water as recommended by the canning instructions when I use the stock pot I have on hand. So far I have resisted buying any special equipment for canning. Again, after we have eaten some, survived that, and pronounced it "good" I will share.

Today is the first day this week I have no major plans for canning or cooking or shopping or celebrating or yard work. This has been a Big Busy Week for me which is to say it was like most other people's normally hectic lives.

I have made a lot of alterations in the way I conduct my life over the past few years, beginning with retiring from the "works outside the home too many hours a week" milieu several years ago, followed by retiring from the "behaves as if she is single handedly responsible for the advancement of every cause she supports" milieu just this past year.

It has been different and at times difficult to separate my sense of "who I am" from "what I do". I think I am mostly "there" now, wherever there is. Honestly, I am not finding a lot of company on this Isle of Non-Doing. It is quiet here however, and I appreciate that more and more.

I hope you are having a lovely week however that plays out in your life. Do try the carnitas when you can. My only regret is that I went so very many years without having carnitas in my repertoire.

Do have a Happy Mother's Day however you wish that to play out. If you do not have celebrating Mother's Day on your personal calendar, then I hope you will simply have a lovely day in your own way.

And please, whether it takes the form of jam, or a hug and a smile, do remember to share, won't you? Thanks. That is all!

Comedy of Terrors

2009-05-06T11:00:00.005-05:00

Boil...boil...toil and trouble....

I have a love/hate relationship with making jam at home.

I love having it to eat and to share.

I hate (hate hate!) making it.

The instructions are so precise - measure "exactly" this and "exactly" that, cook it for "exactly" this much time. I wondered if there was an inside joke at the pectin company to see how many times "exact" or "exactly" could be worked into the instructions and still pass institutional muster.

My Mom was apparently scared enough she kept a wide berth from home canning and home canned goods. When neighbors gave us anything in a mason jar she'd as often as not taste a teensy bit, pronounce it suspect and dump it out.

She was a registered nurse and somewhere along the line somebody scared her half to death about the potential for killing off beloved family and friends alike with botulism. As fears go, this one was a doozy and she nearly passed it along to me.

I say nearly not because I am not afraid of killing somebody with my semi-casual home canning attempts, I totally am. However I am not so afraid that it stops me.

That nagging fear does make me edgy as all hell until I get the stuff safely done and jar lids have made their popping noise and refuse to bounce back after the appropriate amount of time. It is well after the jam seems to have set in its jarry home and I have refrigerated, opened up, and sampled some with no ill effects before I begin to relax and casually inform friends of my foray into Little House on the Prairie/Suburb territory. My relief will be so great I will obnoxiously be working that announcement into conversation at every turn.

"Sure, I'd read about that school closing for a week. You are right, parents must be freaking out. Say, speaking of home canning...."

Last year when I made loquat jam for the first (and second) time I think I quintuple checked that each batch had set, rotating the jars so often it was a small miracle I didn't drop and smash one on the tile floor in the kitchen (and not that I am superstitious but now I have written this what are the odds I won't do precisely that in the next week or so. Hmmm? Bets anybody?)

Last year's loquat jam.

This year I was slow getting to the tree with the larger loquats. They come in two sizes in our back yard. I have no clue why - both trees were planted at the same time. I ended up with mostly the teensy variety and knew I wouldn't have enough for an entire batch of jam. Feeling insecure about trying to figure out fractions of a pectin package I thought I'd combine whatever loquats I could get with some local organic strawberries.

The goop left on the stirring spoon tastes like fruity sugar sure enough. I am currently using my not for canning stock pot and not for canning tongs to gently maneuver the jars into their boiling baths, four at a time, and keeping my fingers crossed we will end up with a year's worth of jam and not a year's worth of fruity syrup.

They look pretty, sure enough.

This year's strawberry/loquat jam (I hope!)

But it won't be until tomorrow if I know if everything went well bath wise and later than that to see if it all sets up the way it is supposed to.

I hate waiting. I hate the slightly terrified totally frazzled way I feel when I do this. I love the jam (so far anyway) and the way I feel when I can give somebody a jar of organic home prepped goodness.

I am hearing the requisite reassuring "plink" of the jar lids sealing as they are cooling. Maybe three is the charm and next year I will feel all relaxed and wonderful when I try my hand at jammin'. Maybe.....

Jarring

2009-05-05T09:07:00.011-05:00

I fixed us a pretty nice dinner last night.

Line caught wild cod, organic broccoli, organic fingerling potatoes dressed with from the farm butter combined with chopped chives from the garden. It was tasty, nutritious, and didn't take me over 40 minutes, start to table. As a matter of fact, it took us less time to eat the food than it took me to fix it. Much less time.

I'll admit, that bothers me. It is my unscientific theory that years of bolting down less than tempting public school cafeteria food has resulted in rushed eating habits that are very difficult to overcome. I am embarrassed to admit it but if we order the types of dishes that are mostly already cooked in a restaurant and they aren't busy, we can swoop in, order, eat, and be walking back out to the parked car again in a little over an hour.

Even though we are fast eaters, I still try to go with a slow food approach to procuring and preparing ingredients for our meals. My other unscientific theory being that we are what we eat, that our palates are developed enough to enjoy, however briefly, the food we snarf, and in the end our bodies benefit whether or not we bolt the stuff down. I go to the trouble because it is worth it. We can slow down and eat at a reasonable pace any time we want to.

You know, because we are in control. We are after all intelligent, experienced human beings. Not animals. We are not sophisticated perhaps but fast eaters or not, we certainly can tell shit from shoe polish.

Or could we..........According to a study reported in a working paper* for the American Association of Wine Economists (yes, yes the AAWE!) posing the eternally burning question of "Can People Distinguish Paté from Dog Food?", the answer is a humiliating........no.

(*Working Paper #36 if you want to download it in toto).

Really. This does leave me wondering why, if we are going to mostly throw our food into our mouths as quickly as we can around here, I continue to bother trying to diversify our menu, worry about securing the freshest ingredients and so on.

To the study humans' credit they did rank the dog food as the "worst tasting" of the blended meat products they were asked to sample, but when asked to single out the dog food, they just couldn't suss that out with regularity.

I wrestle what kind of person would agree in advance to taste a series of products if they knew one of them was going to be dog food. Others have raised the issue of why the folks wouldn't have logically assumed the worst tasting product was the dog food just on general principles.I don't know. Maybe they ate it too fast.

Here I am worrying if the water I washed the jars in is hot enough and if it will be OK if I mix loquats from our yard with organic strawberries because I didn't get enough and I wanted us to have a steady supply of healthy jam this coming year.

Do they make jam for dogs or cats?I may never eat paté again.

Are you convinced you could tell the difference? Does knowing this have any impact on how much you will spend on food? On what choices you will make in terms of what you will eat in future? Feel free to weigh in with a comment. I'd enjoy hearing what you think!

¡Puerco de Mayo! The End To Our Happy Tail (Porcine Saga Part 2)

2009-05-03T20:00:00.000-05:00

Our hapless neighbor to the South has taken a lot of hits lately, most of them undeserved. Mexico has endured earthquakes, economic woes all their own, a loss of tourism dollars due to fears of drug gang violence, and now this whole swine flu mess has been splashed all over their zapatos.To my way of thinking the best possible response to all the mayhem is a Cinco de Mayo celebration, saluting Mexico's historical fortitude in resisting the last army invading the Americas from another continent. I intend to do just that by preparing carnitas and serving Micheladas alongside, in hopes this current viral invasion will be similarly overcome.

I started looking around for carnitas recipes and found plenty of them, each using a slightly different methodology but all of them reassuring, with forgiving ingredient lists and nods to other cooking techniques in the comments added, typically something along the lines of "don't worry - they'll still be delicious!".

I do so like it when I'm told not to worry by people who blog like they know what they are doing. The only type of recipe I am currently attracted to is of the "you can not mess this up" variety. A blogger friend calls this low fuckupability factor. I think that term pretty much sums up the only kind of cooking I'm interested in.

Back to our carnitas. I hodge-podged together a recipe, deciding to braise the pork in the oven ahead of time and then figure out how I will brown/crisp the meat when the time comes to serve the tacos.I must confess. It smelled so damned good at the end of this first hour I could barely resist the temptation to test drive a taco (or 4) ahead of time to, um, ~~pig out on my own~~ see what other ingredients I'd want to have on hand to make our Cinco de Mayo experience mas bueno. Right. That.

Here's what I did.

¡CARNITAS!

2 pounds pork butt cut (roughly) into 3 inch by 1 inch strips
salt and pepper
1 small 1015 onion peeled and halved
2 bay leaves
juice of 1 lime
2 cups water
1 medium orange, halved and juiced, (seeds removed)

Heat oven to 300 degrees. Salt and pepper your pork strips and add the meat, onion, bay leaves, juices, water and orange halves to a Dutch oven.Bring this to a simmer on the stove top, then cover and place into the heated oven.

After an hour in the oven, turn the meat and continue cooking for one additional hour.Remove pork from the dutch oven (it should be tender and falling apart) and reserve in a bowl. Remove the bay leaves, onion and orange rinds from the liquid. On the stove top bring the liquid to a brisk boil and reduce to approximately 1 cup. (I plan to do this the day of our dinner.)

Check reduced liquid for seasoning adding salt and pepper to taste. Pour liquid over pork in bowl. Pull each strip of meat into two pieces using two forks and place on racks over a baking sheet. Broil meat well away from the heat source for several minutes (5-7) on each side until well browned and crisped on the exterior. Watch carefully to prevent charring.

Serve immediately in tortillas with additional elements to suit.

To keep this as organic and local as is possible, I plan on using Tecolote Farms arugula, caramelized local organic 1015 onion strips from Wheatsville and queso fresco.

I'll also offer Micheladas, a seasoned Mexican beer cocktail. Or Negro Modelo plain, for those who like their beer untampered.

I haven't quite decided what else to serve. It has been so toasty warm in the evenings here I want to keep it easy and light. Perhaps some guacamole. Maybe local vendor Amy's Dulche de Leche ice cream for dinner. If I come up with something blogworthy, you all will be the next to know!I've posted ahead in case you were needing some Cinco de Mayo inspiration all your own. I'll come back with followup notes and photos of the finished product. I'll also be sure to share if anything comes up that didn't go according to plan. Meanwhile...

¡Olé, y'all! ¡Viva Niman Pork! ¡Viva Wheatsville! ¡Viva Bryan! ¡Viva Tecolote Farms! ¡Viva Micheladas! ¡Viva Mexico!

Puerco de Mayo Anyone? Snout What You Think (Porcine Saga Part 1)

2009-05-02T13:07:00.020-05:00

Recently I watched a PBS Frontline special called Poisoned Waters which made many points about why our water is not safe to drink (or swim in or eat fish from).

One issue raised was how the practice of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) yields two problems. The first problem is a meat product that is questionably safe to eat (cruelty issues aside).

The second problem with CAFOs is the massive amount of toxic animal waste containing residues of whatever the animals were fed (or treated with) that is created. That byproduct, a staggering quantity of waste soup, mostly ends up in the watershed.

The conclusion reached is as clear as the contaminated water is cloudy. CAFO meat is bad. Bad for the animal, bad for the environment, bad for the people buying and eating the meat.

I was already anti-CAFO, I'll admit my bias. Earlier this year I read an opinion piece in the NYT about the overwhelming evidence linking the development of MRSA to CAFO pig farming practices. Their conclusion? CAFOs are a proven breeding ground for bacterial strains that pose a deadly threat to humans.

Today I read an article reporting there is a pig CAFO operating in the midst of the small town in Mexico where Patient Zero, a four year old boy, lives.

Although Smithfield and the other owners of the CAFO insist there is no connection between the proximity of the pig operation runoff and the viral outbreak, Mexican authorities are investigating, trying to pin down what exactly happened in La Gloria to ignite the flu.

I'll go ahead and hop to my own conclusion. Whatever the official report will read, in my mind there is little doubt that the presence of the CAFO and the virus moving from animals to humans is linked. CAFOs are dangerous for animals and humans alike.

What is a concerned carnivore to do? According to a 2008 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, although they comprise only about 5 percent of all US animal operations, CAFOs now produce more than 50 percent of our food animals and approximately 9,900 US CAFOs are currently in operation producing hogs, dairy cows, beef cows, broiler chickens, or laying hens.

How do I avoid supporting CAFOs? Do I have to give up meat?

This will come as sad news to some, but no, consumers do not have to give up meat. There are other choices. It is finding a store that offers those choices that may prove problematic.

There are all sorts of suppliers responsibly raising animals so I can safely buy and eat meat. Some are small local farmers like the Pedersons, others are national outfits like Niman, but what they all have in common is a commitment to humanely treating, raising, feeding, and slaughtering food animals so those of us who are confirmed carnivores can buy our meat and eat it too.

Is this meat produced this way more expensive to buy? You betcha. Is it safer and more nutritious? Yup. Is my peace of mind and health worth it? Yes. Every single penny. So where can I find this safer source of protein? Major chains often don't carry non-CAFO alternatives. In order to get the meat you deserve, you may have to do some hunting around.

I am lucky. Here in Austin there is Wheatsville Coop. Offering me consistent sources of transparent and responsibly obtained proteins like that from Niman Ranch and Pederson Family Farms is just one of many reasons I choose to spend my food dollars at the Wheatsville Co-op. There are loads of other reasons, such as their commitment to supporting local organic growers like Katie and David Pitrie's Tecolote Farms.

I've come to depend upon W'ville's friendly and accommodating staff. Such as the star of this two part saga - Bryan the Meat Guy.

I don't know Bryan's title at Wheatsville. If I knew it I would probably forget that too. For me Bryan will always be "the Meat Guy".Today I told Bryan I needed a 3-4 pound pork butt and he disappeared into that mysterious realm known as "the back" and re-emerged with just the thing.

He cheerfully special cut me a four pound Niman pork roast and then cut it in half again just because I needed to make sure I could handle it and/or get it into my Dutch oven. This Niman beauty of a roast is certified humane, bad-thing free, delicious, nutritious, and as far as I am concerned, the closest thing to guilt free protein there will ever be until and unless I start to grow and slaughter my own animals.

Bryan the Meat Guy saved the day. Having that Niman pork meant I could proceed full pig ahead with my Holiday Swine Flu Viral Invasion Revenge Meal as previously planned."Holiday?" you may well wonder. "Did you mean Mother's Day?". No, gentle readers. No I did not.

I got so annoyingly sidetracked by my porcine CAFO diatribe I nearly forgot to tell you. Before arriving at Mother's Day, we here in Texas have another Very Important Holiday to observe. Cinco de Mayo is on the horizon.

I had big plans to make Carnitas for Cinco. Without Bryan the Meat Guy I'd have been clean out of luck (and pork roast). Thanks to Bryan you can all stay tuned and I'll be back tomorrow with recipes and further details...