Jack & Ginger

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As by now cannot have escaped your notice, the recipes I post and post about here are not old standards.  They are not tried and true, they are not perfected, sometimes they do not even include measurements.  They are my fun and foibles in the kitchen and my reports about how they turn out.  Thus, when I get excited about a recipe or an experiment; excited enough that I take photos of the ingredients and careful note of the process, and the end result peters out a bit under my wild expectations, I am often struck with perturbation.  To post or not to post?  Usually I decide to share rather than not to share, but there is that lingering question.

The most recent dilemma rests with Thursday night’s dinner.  I was jazzed about this one.  My husband is a chicken and beef (and sometimes salmon) man, and yet he loves pulled pork.  More specifically, he loves Papa’s Soul Food Kitchen’s pulled pork.  With a side of mac and cheese and yams, most often.  But he seriously digs that stuff.  Naturally, then, I was excited to run across a recipe for pulled pork made in the crock pot, and decided to add some of my own alterations and give it a try.  We picked up a beautiful two pound pork butt from Long’s Meat Market, and on Thursday morning I chopped, dropped, plopped, and poured ingredients together in the slow cooker, and left.  Five hours later the house smelled like a BBQ restaurant.  Eight hours later I swear the dog had left drool marks all over the hardwood floors.

It came apart like butter.  It collapsed over itself in the crock pot as I tried to pull it out.  It dripped moisture and smelled like heaven and looked soft and fragrant and luscious.  My salivary glands went into overdrive.

And then we ate it.  And it was… good.  It wasn’t fabulous.  It certainly didn’t rival Papa’s platter.  It was a little watery, a little porky, and it didn’t have that saturation of BBQ sauce that pulled pork ought to have.  So I wondered, after spending all day (well, sort of) on a meal, after arranging the ingredients just so for a foodie fashion shot and thinking of a clever name and even taking mental notes about how much of each component went into that yawning, welcoming whiteness of my slow cooker, and then having it not be stellar, should I still post?

Clearly, the answer is yes.

Here’s how it went down, with thoughts on reparations for next time:

2 lb. Hunk ‘o pork butt

1 big red onion, frenched (cut in half end to end, then sliced into thin angled wedges) 

5-6 roughly chopped cloves of garlic

2-inch hunk of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped

1 cup ginger ale

1-2 shots Jack Daniels or other whiskey

1-2 cups BBQ sauce (any type you like)

Put the onion slices, garlic, and ginger in the bottom of your slow cooker.  Plop the pork butt on top and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Pour the whiskey, ginger ale, and sauce over the top of the pork.  Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.

At this point, I took the pork out of the slow cooker and used two forks to pull it into loose meaty strands.  Then, because there were potatoes that needed buttermilk, butter, and a good deal of mashing, I plunged my pulled pork back into the liquid that had collected in the bottom of the slow cooker.  This was a mistake.  Instead, I should have emptied the vessel, added an inch or two of BBQ sauce, and mixed in the pork.  It would have stayed drier, it would have collected the flavor of the sauce, and it would have been better prepared to hold together when we slopped it onto burger buns to transport to our eager mouths.

Tasting, we got the rich soupy porkiness of the meat, spice from the sauce, and maybe the barest hint of garlic and ginger.  I don’t know what the whiskey contributed, besides perhaps help in breaking down the muscles of the pork, but it was fun to be able to add it.  Maybe a slight tartness made its way into the meat, but that was all I sensed.

The other thing I missed, which can’t be helped because I used a crock pot, was the crusty crunchy hard edges of the pork that result from barbecue treatment.  The texture of the pulled pork is so lovely, but it is nice to have a bit now and then that puts up some resistance.  I have always thought searing the outsides of a piece of meat before putting it in the slow cooker defeated the purpose of a one-pot, easy meal, but I wonder whether that would help here as well.

So, certainly not a failure, but not the most resounding of success stories either.  Still, I do have that old family BBQ sauce recipe kicking around that I’ve never tried, and homemade sauce draped over luscious piggy goodness couldn’t be anything but an improvement…

Do you have a favorite BBQ sauce recipe?  What makes it special?

Gourmet

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On a warm, July day, when a person (and her husband) is unjustly required to spend the shining hours of the afternoon working, teaching, holding office hours, what better treat could there be than to come home and indulge in a little gourmet dinner?

As I’ve divulged previously, I like cannibalizing from restaurant menus.  Usually it’s not the dish I order, but another that was second or third on the list… or just barely missed the final, nervous, rushed decision as the server hovers above me… and I jot down the description on a slip of paper somewhere and try not to lose it in the subsequent weeks.

This time it was that Americanized, fancified Italian food-of-the-common-man: pizza.

Several weeks ago N. and I celebrated Friday by meeting some friends to drinks and dinner.  We’d already eaten, so we swore to each other we would only drink one pint (for him), and one glass of wine (for me).  Then we went to Agate Alley with our friends and ordered a huge, gluttonously greasy, spicy, salty, decadent basket of onion rings.  I ate so many…

While we patted our fingertips on napkins to try and assuage our greasy shame, our friend S. ordered a personal size pizza topped with prosciutto, gorgonzola cheese, brandied figs, and a bright salad of fresh raw arugula, piled high right in the middle.  I had never thought of putting figs on a pizza before, but it seemed so inspired.  Though S. ate hers without the porky delights of prosciutto (one of those vegetarian types, you know), the idea of wafer-thin slices of cured pork-belly lingered in my mind when I recalled the recipe.

So I, so often operating as Dr. Frankenstein in the kitchen, decided a recreation was required.  This pizza would be a hybrid – a loving, daring combination of Agate Alley’s delectable pie and the prosciutto and caramelized onion darling Ree of The Pioneer Woman has developed.  With a hunk of gorgonzola languishing in my cheese drawer, it was just the right thing to do.

Ingredients (mostly approximated):

1 lump pizza dough (I shamelessly bought mine, pre-made, from Trader Joe’s fridge section)

1 medium to large sweet onion

2 TB brown sugar

4-6 oz. prosciutto

5-8 dried figs, sliced

1-2 oz. gorgonzola cheese, crumbled

1 cup (at least!) shredded mozzarella cheese

Big handful of arugula or basil

While my pizza stone heated in the oven, I caramelized my onions per the Pioneer Woman’s directions.  Then, while I prepped all my other ingredients (grating cheese, slicing figs, playing with the dough), I forgot about the onions for a little bit too long and the brown sugar started to burn.  But I decided to just call that “extra-caramelized” and be happy with it.

With the dough stretched, plunked onto the hot, cornmeal sprinkled stone and already starting to shrink back in on itself (it never wants to stay in a 12-inch circle; why not?), I quickly piled on the toppings: a drizzle of olive oil, evenly spread mounds of mozzarella, trailing slices of salty hammy goodness, cheese crumbles, figs, and dark, dark mahogany clumps of onion.

Into the oven at 450F it went, and about 12 minutes later, gasping, I edged it out and clunked it down on my stovetop.  Lacking arugula, I sprinkled baby leaves of basil atop the whole thing.

It looked glorious.  The crust was crunchy on the bottom, the cheese was golden and bubbling, the prosciutto had crinkled and crisped, and the figs were these dark, seeded pockets of mystery.

We ate.  We ate more.  The combination of salty and sweet has been hyped for years now, but that’s because it works.  The sweet onions and tangy, sugary figs balanced the rich creamy funk of the gorgonzola and the perfect saltiness of the prosciutto.  I would have preferred arugula to basil, because the licorice overtones of basil weren’t the perfect match, but the fresh greenness was definitely welcome.

I would never have thought of figs on pizza, but I would urge you to try them in this combination (or just figs and prosciutto, I won’t tell).  Sliced thin, they warmed in the oven and just started to create their own glassy brulée atop their honeyed interiors.  With chewy dough, creamy bubbling cheese, crisp-chewy ham, soft sweet onions, the crunch of the little seeds inside each slice of fig, popping between the teeth and tickling the taste buds, was the perfect final flavor of each bite.

This would be perfect enjoyed with a crisp, semi-dry white wine, though the beer we drank with it was just fine.  It is supposed to be simple fare, after all.

Re-envision Whirled Peas!

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Last week I wrote about an appetizer I made with pureed peas.  I wasn’t thrilled with it, but thought it was a good base for… something else.  This week I present you with the modified version, and one of my mottos for green produce of all kinds: when all else fails, make pesto.

I smashed, peeled, and blitzed three cloves of garlic in my food processor along with a handful each of basil and parsley.  Straight from the fridge, I scraped the leftover pea puree, now a humble new beginning, back into the food processor.  In went a few tablespoons of lime juice, a few heaping tablespoons of Parmesan cheese, and a judicious helping of freshly ground black pepper.

Whirl.

Taste.

It was tangy and herby, but still had the sweetness of peas and the cutting, intriguing coolness of spearmint from the original concoction.  I liked it.  If I hadn’t been feeling lazy, I might have added some toasted walnuts or even almonds.  But I was, and so alas, laziness ruled the day.

Fortunately, laziness did not keep me from slipping a log of goat cheese into the freezer, a box of curlicue pasta into a pot of violently boiling water, and a few slices of sourdough, nicely oiled, salted, and peppered, under the broiler.

It’s summer here, but the smells of this Franken-pesto as it hit the steaming hot curls of chewy-soft pasta were the kind of April and May I wish we’d had.  Warm, fresh, sharp but sweet.

We grated the chilly goat cheese over the top – when it’s almost frozen, it becomes like any other hard cheese – and as a coup de grace, added chopped snap peas to the top.  Pinched from the plant, rinsed, sliced on a bias.  Almost carelessly thrown onto the mound of snowy cheese and grassy sauce.  Another garden.

Yum.  Welcome, summer.  I embrace your call for simplicity, for freshness, for inventive dishes.  I will try to do you justice.

Envision whirled peas. And weddings.

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There are two stories to be told here.  One is the story of a wedding.  Well, a wedding reception.  Well, a backyard barbeque eight months after the wedding that was my way of providing the couple with a reception.  The other is the story of a van.  Both occur in mid-July.  Let’s start with the latter.

I had completed my first year as a bona fide college student and was, like any bona fide college student, enjoying the summer in between shifts at my first job.  I was changing into a tank top in the back of my friend’s car at the Santa Clara beach boardwalk before heading out to the beach when I saw a van parked a few spots down.  Okay, so it wasn’t a van, it was a vintage old style VW bus, complete with tie-dye paint job, beads in the window, and Grateful Dead stickers everywhere.  But there was, as I discovered after straightening myself out and exiting my friend’s car, only one bumper sticker.  It read “Envision Whirled Peas.”  Read out loud, of course, it emerged as the hippie/peacenik/ flower child ultimate mantra.  Peace + food + word play = my day was made.  Maybe my week.

But back to the wedding story.  Ah, weddings.
The love, the beauty, the glowing smiles…

On the eve of my own wedding anniversary, a hot, beautiful day three years ago, I bring you a tableau of another.  A reception, at least, where my role was slightly different:
The heat of the kitchen, the stress of catering, the need for perfection…
I’m being overdramatic.  I’ve never catered a wedding before, and I still haven’t.  I simply cooked for our dear friends K. and T. this weekend.  I made a whole collection of things (full list is here), but I want to tell you about the crostini.
Thanks to A. and her delectable food sense, I made a pea, lemon, and mint puree to spread on crostini.  She called it “whirled peas.”

I defrosted one 16 oz. bag of petite peas and jangled them into the food processor.
Joining them: the zest of about ¾ of a lemon (one spot didn’t look so nice),
the juice of half that lemon,
probably ¼ cup of mint leaves,
coarse salt,
freshly ground black pepper.
This fragrant mixture received an ample dose of olive oil (½ cup or so?  I didn’t measure) as I whirled it in the food processor for a good minute or two.  I wanted it as smooth as possible, but I still wanted it to be impossibly bright green.

As the time for the party approached (our first guest’s feet were practically climbing the front steps!), I sliced a slim sourdough baguette on an angle and, shielding each slice with a glug of olive oil, broiled them until they turned golden and crisp.  While the little toasts cooled, the lovely and accommodating K. helped me pick some nasturtiums from our front garden to top our creation.  Even a simple backyard barbeque needs a fancy-pants appetizer option!
I spread a generous helping of minty, citrus-y bright “whirled peas” onto each crostini before gently pressing the calyx of each flower gently into the emerald spread.  They looked like flower arrangements – miniature edible gardens that looked and smelled of springtime and fresh birth.

K. and T. loved them (and seemed to love everything about the evening – a hostess-and-wanna-be-caterer’s dream!), but I was a bit nonplussed.  The flavor was minty and fresh, but seemed to be missing something.  Perhaps tang.  Peas are naturally sweet, and mint paired with some sweetness reads as more sweetness.  I wanted something to tell my tastebuds this was a savory bite.  The pepperiness of the nasturtium was too mild to do the job.
Because I have plenty of leftovers, I am considering adding some lime juice, perhaps some basil and a zinging shaving of Parmesan, and turning this into something more like a pesto.  Whirled peas pesto.  Say it out loud with me… “world peace” pesto?

Envision it: One little crostini, two happy people, global cooperation and betterment.

Aren’t weddings fun?!

Stay tuned for results and additions!

Experimentation

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N. and I rarely finish an entire loaf of bread.  Oh we try, but invariably those loaves of whole wheat, and sliced sourdough, and the occasional rye, end up shoved to the back of the freezer or refrigerator with only a slice or two left in them.  Then they just sit there.  For months, sometimes.  The same, as of late, is true of bagels.  In spurts of enthusiasm toward the noble meal that is breakfast, we buy half-dozens and dozens of bagels from various bakeries and munch our way through four or five before the lonely outcast remainder is slowly pushed behind Tupperware containers and plastic-wrapped leftovers.

Well no more.  I have been meaning to make bread pudding for some time now, in an effort to put to use the heels and scraps of bread that litter our freezer shelves, but I couldn’t find a recipe I liked and, in one of my odd and unfounded deductions, had somehow decided it was a difficult thing to make.  Yesterday, with no experience and only a handful of recipe ideas from the internet (google: “bagel bread pudding”; you’ll be surprised by the number of people who have tried it!), I liberated our stash of lonely, forgotten, individually bagged cinnamon raisin bagels and invited them to a custard party.

Here’s what you need:

3 cinnamon raisin bagels

3 eggs

3 cups milk

½ – 1 cup sugar, depending on how sweet you want it.  I wanted dessert AND breakfast, so I only added about ½ cup.

½ tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1-2 TB spiced rum (optional)

Here’s what you do:

Tear or cut the bagels into bite-sized chunks (or a little bigger), and settle them in a single layer in a square glass baking dish (8×8 or 9×9).

In a medium bowl, mix all remaining ingredients together and whisk well to blend.  This is the custard.

Pour custard mixture over the bagel pieces, top with a plate or pan (something to push the bagel pieces down into the custard), and refrigerate for at least an hour.

After at least an hour of chilling under pressure, move the pan to a preheated 350F oven and bake for around 45 minutes, or until the tops of the bagel pieces are browned and slightly crisp.

Thanks to the cinnamon, the pumpkin pie spice, and the rum, after about twenty minutes our house filled with that holiday-season smell.  You know what I mean.  After 45 minutes, I peeked in the oven and saw that the top pieces, the edges that poked out over the custard, were dark brown and crispy, and when I touched them lightly the whole beautiful pudding jiggled slightly and then sprang back into shape after my touch.  The top had puffed up as the eggs cooked and expanded, and when I took it out of the oven I could hear it hissing and whining softly as air released.

I couldn’t wait very long before digging in… so I did.  Bagels exiled to the back recesses of our freezer will never go to waste again.  The custard was soft and sweet, but the real stars were the bagel chunks.  They had soaked up a lot of liquid and had the consistency of very firm, chewy French toast.  They were moist and soft but still had pleasing texture, and I could have eaten the whole casserole dishful right there in the kitchen, leaning over our petite table.  But I resisted.  Because I wanted some for breakfast this morning too…

Menu planning

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I have a bad habit.  Well, let’s not lie, I have many.  But pertaining to food, I have one particular potentially disastrous practice: I like to make food for company that I’ve never made before.  I have experimented with risotto, fancy baked pastas, doughnuts, all for company for the first time.  I have tried to diagnose this habit, and I can’t be sure where it comes from.  Maybe I think that once I’ve made it before, it becomes simple and easy and not adequately fancy.  I like to be fancy.  Maybe I want to show off a little.  Maybe I just get excited about trying new recipes.  Who knows?

Oddly, I noticed that the menu I currently have planned for the “Belated Reception” party N. and I are throwing contains almost no unattempted recipes.  Despite permission, no, encouragement even, from K. (one of our guests of honor) to use this gathering as an opportunity to try out fancy new dishes, the ideas I immediately gravitated toward were tried and true. With guests bringing their own grillable mains, K. and I will be making a series of sides.

Here’s a preview of the intended menu:

Marinated tofu skewers, grilled.

Grilled corn, cilantro, and lime salad

Grilled garlic bread (seeing a pattern here?)

Fresh tomato bruschetta

Pea and mint puree on crostini, topped with nasturtiums

German or red potato salad

Pasta salad with tomatoes, mozzarella, olives, and sundried tomato vinaigrette.

(Chips, salsa, guacamole, etc.)

For dessert, I’ll make two types of cake for folks to try, both drenched in alcohol (because that’s just the kind of hostess I am):

A reprisal of my terrifically successful Chocolate “tiramisu” cake (featured here).

Pink champagne cake (N. and I had champagne cake with strawberries at our wedding, and I’d like to return the favor).

In addition to wine, beer, and the usual party beverages, I will also make a Champagne-rum punch, a deadly recipe because it is fizzy and sweet and delicious, making you forget the two kinds of alcohol it contains as it fizzes right into your bloodstream.

Ah, summer living.