I Have Yum Yums!

The pain has really been taking a toll on me the past few months. It is very difficult to think about food when concentrating on just getting important things accomplished. Still, with all the lovely fresh tomatoes coming from my garden, and the wonderful surprise of beautiful carrots, I had no choice but to cook (and preserve) the bounty. So far, I have canned up salsas and tomatoes (cut up and as a plain sauce) and dehydrated a lot of zucchini and such, which is terrific (and will be blogged about another time), but the real treats have been the new recipes I have created to take care of some of the glut.

My first two recipes were created in tandem. I was whipping up some American Chop Suey and decided that, as will all foods, bacon would be a perfect boost to flavor. I could not bear to waste all that flavorful fat, so I sauteed onions in it for the dish, but realized that I made too much, so 1/2 a cup of the now cooked onions were set aside for the salad.
I also made a delicious pot roast last night. My son came by in the morning, and after poking around in the garden in the cool morning air, we walked (or I hobbled) to the local butcher to see what he had. There, I picked up five pounds of chicken backs for stock as well as 2 1/2 pounds of chuck roast. There was little fat on it, especially for a chuck roast, but it cooked up nicely in wine and dried tomatoes from last season.

I do not have pictures of everything, that tends to be one of the last things on the list to do, and as I mentioned, it has been rough these past weeks.

Without further ado, here we go.

Beef Pot Roast with Mushrooms and "Sun Dried" Tomatoes

Ingredients:

2 1/2 pounds beef chuck roast
1 cup dry red wine
1/2 cup dried tomatoes, not in oil (I used dried cherry tomatoes from last seasons garden)
1 onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, smashed and roughly chopped (I cut into quarters then slice them)
2 sprigs of rosemary
salt and pepper
3 large white potatoes, peeled and halved
1/2 pound or more of carrots (carrots have a strong flavor, so just enough to serve the number of folks eating) trimmed and scraped when necessary.
8 oz sliced mushrooms, roughly chopped if large
2 Tablespoons flower
2 Tablespoons butter

I use my slow cooker to make this, but it will work wonderfully on the stove top too. Just cook it on a very low simmer rather than use the slow cooking instructions. Alternative, you can use the oven on a low setting, but you will have to experiment as I have no oven to work with currently.

Since my slow cooker has an insert I can use on the stove top, I do that. Everyone else should use a heavy saute pan of some sort, just be sure it is non reactive as the wine can cause a reaction with some metals. Non reactive would be enameled cast iron, cast iron that is VERY WELL seasoned. My pans are well over a hundred years old, and I do not feel confident they are sealed enough, but that is me based on my having tried making tomato sauce in the darned things for years before figuring out why it tasted "off" all the time. Other pans to use are stainless steel or anything with a non stick surface, though the fond won't be as nice from non stick.

Salt the beef and sear in a pan on high heat using a touch of oil just to keep the sticking down a bit. The browned bits are full of flavor, so you don't need to keep it from sticking entirely, we just don't want burned bits rather than deep brown. Give it a really good sear, your patience will be rewarded (thank you Alton Brown).

Remove browned beef from the pan and add the onions. Keep an eye on it and stir until they start to get translucent. Add the garlic and cook until the smell of the garlic wafts up from the pan. Add the wine, starting with 1/2 cup to deglaze the pan. Continue adding the wine and let cook for a bit to help dull the alcohol flavor a bit. Add the beef back to the pan along with the dried tomatoes and set on high for one hour and turn to low for two more hours.

Prepare the vegetables. These are small carrots from my garden that were just gorgeous, so I left some of the stem and cleaned them very thoroughly, as well as scraping the skins off of the ones that were bumpy to be sure I removed all of the dirt. Peel the potatoes (I find the larger whites have tough skins, but if you are using younger white potatoes or red skinned types, you can leave the skin on)

Put the vegetables and rosemary in the pot, turn to high for one hour and then back to low until the vegetables are cooked through, another two hours.

To make the gravy, add the butter to a frying or saute pan and cook the mushrooms until the liquid escapes, dissipates, and the mushrooms start to brown. Season the mushrooms with salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle the flour over the mushrooms and cook for a few minutes to get the raw flavor of flour out. Strain the pan juices and slowly add to the pan until you reach your desired thickness. Remember to keep it a bit thin as it will thicken as soon as it starts to cool a little.

Serve!

Are they not gorgeous?

I have no pictures for the next two recipes. At least I do not right now, but it was so delicious I could not, not share.

American Chop Suey Michele Style

1 pound ground beef
6 slices good bacon
1 large onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 pounds of plum tomatoes, peeled and cut up
1 cup chicken stock (broth will work, but the gelatin in the stock makes this amazing)
2 cups shaped pasta (traditionally elbows, but I used campenelle which was perfect)

Cook the bacon until brown and just crispy. Do not over cook as it will taste "off". Remove the bacon to drain. Pour out the fat, leaving two tablespoons for cooking the onion. Add the onions and cook until translucent and just slightly starting to caramelize. Remove 1/2 cup of onion for use in salad. Add garlic to pan and cook until the smell of the garlic wafts from the pan to your face. Remove vegetables to a bowl.
Brown the ground beef. Leave some nice lumps, you want something to chew in this. Drain the beef and add the vegetables back in along with the tomatoes and stock, scraping up any bits from the bottom of the pan. Cover and simmer 10 minutes. Add pasta, cover and cook ten minutes more or until pasta is al dente. Add four slices of lightly crumbled bacon and stir. (the other two slices are for the salad)

Snow White Salad

I call this Snow White salad because that is the type of tomatoes I used and they are fabulous. Substitutions can be any sweet tasting tomato, preferably a cherry or grape variety.

Ingredients:

1-2 cups of Snow White cherry tomatoes, cut in halves.
2 big handfuls of baby spinach, well washed and trimmed
1/2 cup of onions cooked in bacon fat
2 slices cooked bacon, crumbled
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
Pinch of salt, if required (to taste)

This is easy, just toss it all together in a bowl. The onions should not be hot, but warm is fine. The amount of mayonnaise is a suggestion, there is no need to use a lot, just enough to make a light dressing with the juices from the tomatoes and the flavors from the bacon and onions. Serve immediately, this salad does not keep well, to my eternal sadness.

Stay tuned for my laundry detergent tests, making dishwasher discs, and other fun things I have been doing this season aside from gardening.

Really Good Buy

Since the weather will not be cool enough in my kitchen for pastries or candies any time soon, I am just posting this here without a recipe or anything to get the word out before these are gone.

This is a good sized (16x20) marble slab with feet that is 5/8 inch thick. I notice that it does slide on my cheapo countertops, but that is easily fixed. These marble slabs are also available (sans feet) at tiles at some hardware/tile type stores, but I have not been able to find anything of comparable size in the same price range. This link is an affiliate link and will take you to Amazon to purchase it. It is also available straight from Sur La Table and is not Prime eligible. It cost under 8 dollars to ship, which was still a deal for me.

Using Your Slow Cooker for Things that are not Dinner

The one thing that helps me get through quite a bit of the hot weather preserving and canning seasons is the use of my slow cooker. Notice that I did not say "Crockpot". The Crockpot name refers to a specific (and trademarked) slow cooker and has been around a very long time.

The "Crock" in "Crockpot"

There are basically two types of slow cookers. One type uses a ceramic or pottery insert for cooking. This is excellent for even cooking as it helps to disperse the heat coming from the coils inside. If you have ever cooked jam in a stainless steel pan and noticed that if you left it, the jam would scorch right were the heat hits the pan, but usually not elsewhere. That is a dispersion problem. Further on I have a trick for cooking jam in a steel pan which cuts down on this burning problem in a big way. Materials like cast iron and crockery will disperse the heat so that there are no hot spots which is what causes that round burning spot on the bottom of the pan.

That would suggest strongly that a ceramic cooker is generally better at even heat dispersion, which is very important when cooking things for a long time. I have had the famous "crockpot" and it does generally cook evenly for the most part.  If you are choosing to cook something for 8-10 hours, this is very important to accomplish, and why a slow oven is often recommended if a slow cooker is not available.

The Problems

The first problem is confronting the idea that long cooking always means moist meat. Anyone who had long cooked a chicken and tried eating it without some sort of sauce can attest that is not the case.  Low temperature cooking is very cook at slowly melting the gelatin found in many cheap cuts of meat, so if it is low enough, the gelatin will coat the meat fibers leaving it sticky (or moist if you prefer) and delectable. This is not so much a function of cooking it forever, but happens at low temps until the meat is done (internal temperature desired for the type of meat being cooked). This means that cooking a low gelatin/fat product will produce a dry meat regardless of how long it cooks. With a good bodied sauce, those foods can still be delicious, but over cooking is over cooking regardless of the method used.

Another issue is that the slow cooking method, particularly when using a covered pot, sucks all the juices out of what you are cooking. Ever follow a pot roast recipe to the letter and found the pot completely full of liquid at the end of the cooking time? That is what is happening. The best way to circumvent this is to reduce the amount of liquid called for in the recipe, often drastically. When I do a pulled pork in the slow cooker, I use absolutely no additional liquid. The meat itself creates the juices which are now much more flavorful because no water was used. That also makes the juices easier to cook down if you want a more full flavored sauce.

There is one more problem that always irked me, and that is the problem of having to dirty other pans in order to create a flavorful meal, as so much flavor is created during the Milliard reaction (browning). That is why, when I purchased my slow cooker I threw out the idea of the "crock". My slow cooker allows for the insert to be heated on a burner so that you can brown your aromatics, seasonings and meat, all in the same pan! The trade off is the more even cooking, but since I now know that longer cooking is not necessarily better cooking, this wasn't such a problem. **for clarity, my slow cooker does not have a crockery insert, it is metal with a non stick coating.. please do not try using your crockery on direct heat as it can crack.

Why am I Telling You all This

The slow-cooker will save your sanity for many things during the canning season. I use it to caramelize onions, make stock, and even cook items like apples for apple sauce.  Today I am making pectin using granny smith apples. Over the next few months I will be posting information and tutorials on doing things other than pot roast or pulled pork in the slow cooker.  So far I have successfully made a large quantity of caramelized onions, many gallons of broth, applesauce for canning and of course, regular cooking.  The broth is one of my favorites because it simplifies cutting up whole birds. I just throw the scraps and bones directly into the pot, cover with water and turn on low for several hours. At the end of the cooking all that is needed is straining the broth and defatting. I generally do not add additional flavorings except a little salt when I make it in the slow cooker as some seasonings seem to taste "off" when simmered for such a long time. I prefer it as simply chicken broth, without any additional seasonings that may interfere with any dish it is being used it.

Stay tuned for the results, and if successful, a tutorial on making pectin in the slow cooker as well as using homemade pectin for strawberry jam.

New Look in the Kitchen

A little over two weeks ago I received news that my estranged father had passed away.  Lots of drama and strife of course, so in an effort to ignore all that for a bit, I decided to finally tackle refinishing my kitchen island.
About a year after we moved in to this house, a store called "The Mill Store" opened a little under a mile down the road. I loved roaming the aisles and smelling the fresh pine scent of all the unfinished furniture. At one point, we got a great deal (well under 200 dollars) on an unfinished wood kitchen island. That was over 15 years ago. Other than putting a few hooks on it and getting some  metal baskets for the shelves, I didn't nothing to personalize it.

This is what it looked like after using it for so long and not having it finished. There are also two wood slat shelves that sit underneath.

So, in a fit of despondency and a strong desire to get something accomplished, I decided to paint and refinish the butcher block top. Tip: if you have a butcher block top you may want to do a little wet sanding before you oil it next time. I am happy I did!

After sanding off the parts that the cats used as a scratching and rubbing post and painting it a nice old fashioned cream color, my husband and I created a copper hang rail for it and I painted the knobs for the drawers black. I am looking for some nice, small, glass knobs, but that can wait a bit.

Here is what it looks like now:

We are hoping to create a paper towel holder using more copper, but I love having it handy there. I don't use paper towels often, but when I do it is almost always right there at the island with goopy hands, so having it here is perfect. Those holes behind it were from the original wooden hooks, I will probably hand herbs from it during the summer to dry.

This side is the copper rail we put up. It is just 1/2 inch copper pipe and brackets from the plumbing section at the hardware store.