Gardening update

The cherry tomato plant and my giant trees.

The gardening seems to be going pretty well so far. Still too soon for any harvest, except for some herbs, but the plants are growing and nothing has died yet . 

The challenge with the garden is the yard gets a lot of shade. As you can somewhat see in the picture to the left, I have two enormous maples trees in the back, which are great because it keeps the yard cooler, but makes the prospect of a successful garden a little iffy.

The plant that doesn't seem to care is the cherry tomatoes. That plant is growing like a weed and is probably already more than four-foot tall and flowering. The other four tomato plants are growing but not that big. One of them was flowering last week but then a storm came through and ripped a couple of limbs off. I also have green and yellow pepper plants that seem healthy but aren't getting that big. I don't know if I'm going to get anything out of them when it's all said and done.

The herbs are thriving on the deck though, everything is very healthy and I should have a nice big pot of basil soon. If the herbs keep up nice I may buy a grow light to keep fresh herbs year-round in the basement.  

If you look real close you can see a  tiny green pepper.

 

 

Cucumber seedlings continue to grow.

Gardening experiment 2011

Oregano doing well.

As I stated previously, Rory and I moved to the burbs almost a year ago and with the extra time and the help of my parents we put a small garden in this year and I once again am trying some fresh herbs in pots on our second floor deck. 

I'm growing rosemary, basil, thyme, oregano and sage in pots on the deck. We get a fair amount of sun up here and so far so good. Some of the plants have been going for a few weeks and seem to be thriving, the oregano especially.

The garden we have is about a 6X4 patch that had previously been dug up, probably used for the same purpose by the previous owners. We have two large trees in the back yard so sun may be a problem, but this one patch seems to get a fair amount. Only time will tell if it's successful.

We planted four regular tomato plants, one cherry tomato plant, a green bell pepper plant and some cucumber seeds. The garden was put in a week ago before we had a monsoon that flooded the entire back yard but everything seems to have survived, though I'll be curious to see if the cucumber seeds end up doing anything.

As had been previously documented, my gardening has not gone well in the past so I'm hoping for the best.

Yeah, I know

Since it's been ore than four months since my last post I won't bore you all with excuses, other than the fact that I have been tremendously busy, I still need to make time for this. I write better in my day job if I keep this up so I need to do it more.

I have been cooking, oh yes, I've been cooking and I have more than a few recipes to share including the one for the picture Mudslide cake.

It's been almost a year since Rory and I moved too and with that extra time I'm trying to grow a garden this year and hopefully before the end of the year I will be updating with tales of home brewing as well. Stay tuned as they say on TV.

Turducken V

Yes, that is bacon covering the turducken to keep it moist.

In December Rory and I hosted Turducken V. Those who have been in attendance for all Turducken events received a golden ticket which grandfathers them into all future Turducken's even if they miss a year. It's hard to believe we've been doing this for five years and we don't see any stopping.


It was nice having more space, we had 20+ people, can't remember the exact number since it was more than six weeks ago. I didn't feel on top of everybody there and even though we extended the dining room table with another six foot banquet table it worked out really well and wasn't too cramped.

On the food front, not much was new or different. The exception being that I deboned all the birds myself this year. The past couple of years I had Paulina Meat Market debone the turkey but I didn't feel like paying the premium this year or making the drive so I did it myself. The chicken is easy enough and I'm fairly sure I could do that with my eyes blindfolded, the duck is a little more challenging because it does have an unusual rib cage.

The turkey was like a big chicken, which made it easier to an extent, but getting underneath the back was a pain in the ass. After cleaning off the breasts, legs, thighs I had to take the kitchen shears to the rib cage just to make it easier to get around the back. It also helped that the turkey was a bit frozen, even after four days of sitting in the fridge, made it easier to work with.

Between Turducken and having my mom's family over we probably hosted close to 50 people in December. All said everything went well, there's something about cooking large pieces of meat that all can enjoy.

Mmmm, Ham

It's been entirely too long and I have no excuse other than apathy and while a deadline for the day job approaches there won't be much more coming. While I'm not a New Year's resolution guy maybe I should have resolved for a post a week, maybe I can make up for it a little coming up.

I did quite a bit of cooking over the holidays. We had Turducken (pics to follow) with more than 20 people and then we had my mom's family over for the holidays with about 24 people attending. Above is a picture of my first ham, a 25+ pound spectacular example of smoked pork goodness. I did very little to it, just adding some cloves and a brown sugar/mustard glaze for the last hour.

But this is an example of the product being great. My dad has been getting these has from "Bert's" a place at Green and Lake streets in Chicago. They only sell commercially a couple of weeks a year and we make sure to always get one for Christmas.

I also did a potato gratin for that party and found an interesting recipe that worked out quite well. I used half gruyère and half swiss to save some money and it turned out quite well. I also doubled (tripled?) the recipe for the crowd we had.

Pies

The pies I made for Thanksgiving turned out really well. The black bottom bourbon pecan pie was a hit and the other one seemed to tp be well received too. I didn't use that pie crust recipe and I used dark chocolate for the bottom.

Now I'm trying to figure out what cookies to make for turducken. My traditional chocolate chip are a given and I'm probably going to do a rolled sugar cookie since Rory gave me one of my Christmas presents early. But I would like one more and am stuck. Any ideas?

Turducken V

Turducken V is this weekend. It kinda snuck up on me with Thanksgiving this past weekend, even though Rory and I decorated the house and put a tree up.

I'm making my prep list and figuring out all what I have to do this week. Today I'm heading out and buying the turkey and duck. I figure both will be frozen and the turkey will live in the first all week and I'll put the duck in the fridge Wednesday or so.

I've made my own turducken the last two years and plan on doing it again this year with one change, I'm deboning the turkey myself. I had the fine folks at Paulina meat market do this in the past but now that we moved it's too far to go. It also makes it more economical, while I love the Paulina meat market so, charged a bit more for the turkey than the traditional supermarket. I've also gotten pretty good with the knife and am confident it'll go smoothly.

Pictures and updates throughout the week.

Thanksgiving

It may be cliche, but I do love Thanksgiving. Hanging out, eating and drinking, no expectations about gifts, just a good time. We head to the in laws and my family is also invited, which is great because we don't have to split up the holiday.

I'm doing something different this year, pies and bread. I'll be doing a black bottom pecan pie, a regular pecan pie, corn bread and some dinner rolls. The last couple of years I had been making a cauliflower gratin but I wasn't happy with it last year.


This year's recipes are a stretch for me, I've made one pie before in my life and have only made bread once before too, though I do have a bit of experience with pizza dough.

I'm planning on doing most of the prep tomorrow. I'll blind bake the pie shells, make the dough for the rolls and do everything with the cornbread.

The one point of contention is what to use for the pie crust, shortening or butter. There seems to be two camps on this so I'm splitting  the difference and using half butter and half shortening.

Thursday morning I'll make the fillings for the pies and bake them off. I'll have the rolls on sheet pans ready to go in the oven before dinner is served so they're nice and piping hot too.

Hopefully I'll remember to take pictures to post later. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

To do: Tiramisu cupcakes

Far and away, my favorite dessert is tiramisu. I have made a version of it a couple of times and an ice cream version, which is pretty awesome. Rory today sent me this link to tiramisu cupcakes. One day I will make them and they will be awesome.

Pumpkin turtle bread

An awesome sounding recipe, but again, poorly written. I really might have to try this one though.

A site I like

Need to give props to another cooking site that's does a good job: Food Babies. If you don't know what a food baby is go to urban dictionary.

They do a nice job and give a good mix of cooking and eating out. I made their banana bread recipe yesterday and it was the best I've ever had (sorry mom). I did the naughty recipe and added some chocolate chips. Really, really good.

Notes on poor recipe writing

I can't believe it's been seven weeks since I've posted, time flies when you're on deadline. Sadly I won't be getting any better the next couple of weeks.

I have been cooking but nothing too exciting. The main reason for this post is annoyance. I've been in a cooking rut lately and when I had a few minutes I was looking through the Savuer site to see if there's anything new and exciting when I saw the recipe for a chocolate truffle cake.

A post on my to do list has been my eternal search for a good chocolate cake recipe so this one intrigued me. So I was sad to find it horribly written. But maybe you guys can help me be the judge, maybe I'm n a bad mood or feeling the deadline pressure but I found this recipe really though to get through.

I'm still going to try and make it but come on, writing a recipe isn't that difficult.

Photos

Pork top loin roast with Mediterranean spices.

I've been taking more picture of the food I've been cooking and have been very happy with how they have turned out. It's a combination of better lighting-- a lot of the pics I've taken have been outside and the lighting in my old kitchen was horrible--and that I've been taking them all with my new 4G iPhone.

The camera on the new device is really great. I had the 3G iPhone previously and the pictures always seemed grainy and you had to hold it very still. I don't know if they put some new image stabilization software in it or what, but I've been very happy with the pictures that I've taken with it. Also, there's no shutter lag, you can hit the button and it takes another shot almost instantly, much better than my point-and-click Canon.

I know this may seem like a shameless plug for Apple--and it kind of is--but I'm happy that I've been able to get more pictures and witht he quality. I might do a video demo in the future using the iPhone to see how that works too. I did a video of our new puppy this week and it turned out great.

Couple of slabs or ribs smoked for five hours with some potatoes in the aluminum foil.

Pasta with fresh tomatoes

It's August, which sadly means that summer is winding down, but it also means that tomatoes are in season. My topsy-turvy hasn't produced anymore than the two tomatoes I previously mentioned, but some of our new neighbors--thanks Dave and Monica--have been keeping us in a supply of fresh cherry tomatoes.

They brought the first batch over during the pig roast and I decided to do a fresh tomato sauce with some whole wheat pasta. They probably brought over 20 to 30 cherry tomatoes, which I halved and the through into a skillet that already had some olive oil. I added some salt and pepper, about a tablespoon of sugar and about four cloves of diced garlic.

I cooked the pasta to just about al dente, drained and through it in with the tomatoes to finish cooking. I topped with some Parmesan.

Easy, simple and healthy meal and didn't take much longer than 20 minutes. You can make some additions to this too, I was just working with what was handy, you could add a little diced shallot or onion and some basil too. You could also strain to get some of the tomato seeds out to if you so desire.

Pig roast pics (some not for the squeamish)

The cooker box.

Pig in the brine before roasting. My intent was to get a headless pig but they gave to to me anyway.

Pig on the rack along with the two shoulders.

Pig in the box before putting coals on

After a couple of hours before we flipped it.

Post flip before the skin was crisped.

My dad and I cutting up the beast. 

Part of the crowd

Anniversary pig roast

Needed to make sure people knew what house to go to.

Rory and I celebrated one year of wedded bliss Sunday and to recognize that along with show appreciation for our parents who were so generous with the wedding the previous year we threw a pig roast to celebrate all our anniversaries, which fall in August. My parents are celebrating 40 years in a couple of weeks and Rory's parents celebrated 35 years a week ago.

This party was a long time in the making but last week was hectic to say the least. Everyday there was some prep that had to be done, make the marinara for the backed mostacholi, make the base for the ice cream, churn the ice cream, make the ginger snaps, assemble the ice cream sandwiches, etc., etc.

And then there was the pig. We were using the La Caja China cooking box for the beast. My buddy JR owns one (see here for previous posts) and was kind enough to come over early and help prep and get the beast and get it in the cooker.

I had some issues getting a pig, I could only get 70-pounds or smaller because of the size of the box. One place that I call all last week kept telling me to call back and then on Thursday said they couldn't guarantee anything for me the following day.

I went with another place and ended up paying entirely too much for a much smaller pig than I wanted but I'm writing it off as a learning experience. Since the pig was only around 58 pounds I bought a couple of pork shoulders, about 20 pounds total, and cooked those with the pig.

Since I have a cooler that I could use to bury a small man I decided that I would brine the pig and the shoulders, I uses Ruhlman's 20-1 liquid to salt ratio. I the also added about a pound a half of garlic, 30 bay leaves, 1/4 cup of peppercorns, a gallon of orange juice, half a gallon of pineapple juice and a bunch of cut up lemons and limes. I brined it for about 16 hours.

The cooker box works great. You place the pig in this rack and just let it cook, adding charcoal every hour. Once it hits 160 degrees you flip it over to crisp up the skin. All told it took a little more than three hours to cook all the food and it turned out great. The meat was moist and tasted good, but I wasn't getting a whole lot of citrus. I cut out the tenderloins and sliced them up and they were like butter, literally feels like it was melting in your mouth. I don't know if there's another way I would cook a pig other than using the La Caja China.

All told we probably had more than 60 people here, probably close to 70. While the food was great and while I'm not ruling out another pig roast I doubt we'll be doing a party of that magnitude again. It was stressful ... two days later I still feel like I'm recovering.

I'll be doing future posts on some of the sides and hopefully posting some pictures later in the week as well.

Thanks to my parents and sister for all the help as well as Rory's parents and brothers for their assistance as well and another shout out to JR for all the help with the piggy. For all those who attended thanks for coming and bringing food and making it a great time.

Roasted pepper and corn salsa/relish

Since the move to the burbs I have been taking advantage of the Skokie farmer's market. I never really got to any in the city because Rory and I were never up early enough to hit them.

The Skokie market is pretty small, I was hoping they would have someone selling fresh eggs and locally-produced meats but no dice. The produce options are pretty great though. A couple of weeks ago Rory's family came over and I cooked some corn on the grill and made a fresh blueberry cobbler. This week my folks are coming over and I bought some Red Haven peaches for peach cobbler.

I also wanted to try and make my own salsa so I bought just about everything for it at the farmer's market Sunday and was very happy with how it turned out.

6 ears of corn husked
2-red bell peppers
1-orange bell pepper
1/2-large red onion diced
Juice from two limes
1-TBLSP olive oil
1-TSP ancho chili pepper
Salt and black pepper to taste

Prepare your grill for medium low heat.

Roast peppers on the grill over direct heat until they start to turn black and blister. After black and peeling place the pepper in a brown paper back and let rest for 10-20 minutes.

Meanwhile take husked corn and place directly over the heat. Watch the corn carefully, a little color is a good thing but you don't want the corn to get too black. It took me a good 10-15 minutes to get the corn where I wanted but the charcoal was pretty low heat. I was being cautious because I hadn't cooked corn on the grill like this before.

After the corn is done set aside and start working on the pepper, peeling the skin off and then removing the seeds and dicing with the red onion. Place the corn on an end in a shallow bowl and remove the kernels with a sharp knife. I used a technique similar to what was described here.

Add the corn to the pepper and onion along with the lime juice and ancho pepper. Taste and salt and pepper to your taste.

I had purchased some tomatoes to put in here too but they weren't quite ripe enough so I didn't use them. This is probably more of a relish than a salsa but it turned out great. The fresh ingredients really popped and I couldn't have been happier with how it turned out. I could have added a little more heat to it but that would have been about it. And there's always next time. Also, everything except for the limes were purchased at the farmer's market using locally produced ingredients.

Gardening update

Well, the basil has germinated and is starting to peak through the soil. Sadly, I haven't had the same luck with the chives and oregano, nothing peaking through and I feel it might be a lost cause.

On the tomato front my first one is ready for harvest. I'm hoping to get enough for a batch of marinara, they're plum tomatoes, so we'll see how it goes.

Still grillin'

Earlier this week I smoked some more ribs. I was able to control the heat a little better and they had a much more smokey flavor, even with just three hours on the grill. They probably could have gone another hour or so. They had a good bite but it could have been better.

I also used my own rub on these, a combination of cumin, coriander, brown sugar, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne and smoked paprika. This time around I didn't keep track of the proportions for the rub, just kinda threw it together and tasted it until I thought it was good. I'll try to be better next time.

I'm trying to figure out what to cook this weekend. Nothing jumps to mind. Any suggestions?

Herb Garden Part Deux

Basil, chives and oregano (from left to right)

Because I truly am a glutton for punishment I am making another attempt at an herb garden. It's been more than two years since my last debacle and I am bound and determined to grow some fresh herbs.

Rory gave me this very nice herb garden for Christmas and I just planted everything. I haven't grown anything from seed since I was in grade school so that has me a little concerned, but I'm going to give these a week or so before I go out and buy some plants.

Next year I hope to plant something of a real garden with a couple of tomato plants and other things, we just got into the place a little late this year. Though I do have a topsy turvy going right now, which my parents started, and it's got a few little tomatoes coming in.