Jewbombs (Sunday, June 19, 2011)

The picture here is poor.  I was already drunk
enough not to care.

These are a hefty and spicy appetizer that I stole from my dad.  He just calls them bacon wrapped jalepenos but I call them "Jewbombs."  Why you say?  Well, they contain pork (bacon), shellfish (crab filling) and are obviously very spicy (hence the "-bomb" portion).  All you do is split and clean the jalepenos, fill them with a crab dip and wrap them in a half strip of bacon with a toothpick to hold it all together.  You can use plain cream cheese or any filling of your liking (most deli sections have "cajun crab dip").  The filling on this occasion contained cream cheese, crab meat, canned chipotle peppers and various spices.  Don't try to eat too many or it will spoil your dinner.  They are extremely filling.  Oh, and make sure to have a cold beer nearby.

Grilled Peach w/ Ice Cream (Sunday June 26, 2011)

For dessert, a white peach from the grill with ice cream.  Simply, I wrapped half a white peach in foil with butter and brown sugar and put it on the cool part of the grill while I cooked.  I then added a scoop of strawberry ice cream and a little bit of basil.  The ice cream is a standard rich vanilla ice cream (same recipe as usual, see "bacon ice cream") with sliced strawberries mixed in.  This is a fast and easy dessert for hot summer days.  You're guaranteed to have a corner of free space on the grill anyway, may as well put a peach there.  In fact, many fruits could substitute (i.e. apple, pear, apricot).

Pappardelle with Mushroom, Radish, Garlic and Lemon Cream Sauce (Monday, May 30, 2011)

I have about 2 dozen eggs in my fridge.  Erin left a dozen with me when she left town and I already had a dozen in the fridge.  I decided to make another batch of ice cream (requires 8 eggs) and some fresh pasta (requires 5 eggs).  I had some leftover heavy cream from making the ice cream.  I also had a handful of crimini mushrooms and some radishes picked from the garden this morning.  I made my pasta (5 eggs and 3.5 cups flour) and cut it into thick noodles (aka pappardelle).  While my water came to a boil I sauteed garlic in butter and olive oil along with my mushrooms.  After the mushrooms were tender I added my sliced radish to cook them lightly, preserving the crunch and flavor.  I then added about 1/2 cup of heavy cream, a squeeze of lemon, the cooked pasta and some grated Asiago Pepato (this is an asiago with whole peppercorns blended in, also donated from Erin's fridge).  I plated up and topped with more cheese.  A simple nap inducing lunch perfectly fit for a lazy Monday.  Goodnight.

The Garden (Sunday, May 29, 2011)

The entire plot from afar.  I have tried to make good use of space by going vertical.  These are 10 ft plastic rain gutters screwed to 2x3s with nylon netting behind them.  The gutters are about $5 apiece.  Wood of this size is pretty cheap.  The netting was a bit more, but allows for vining plants (beans, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, etc.) to climb up.  

Starting at the east side of the plot I have several varieties of tomatoes, peppers and eggplants.  There are also marigolds, and a spinach patch.  I harvest from the spinach patch about every two weeks at the moment by clipping the larger leaves.  It provides a lot of food, but I'm told spinach dies out when the heat arrives.  At that time, I will replace this area with something else, perhaps swiss chard.

Moving westward, we can still see the spinach, up close and blown over due to wind.  The peppers are behind the spinach.  There are also snap peas vining up the back, near the short stick in the ground.  Also, here you can see most of the herb garden which is full of goodies, with Snots the Snake standing guard (yellow).  There is also a prominent onion patch in which I have "Candy Apple Red" and "Spanish Yellow" onions planted.  The gutters above have some chives and scallions.

Here I have a cage that I built to protect small plants from the rabbits and birds.  Underneath is a rubber maid covering in "floating row cover" to keep out insides and maintain humidity.  Inside the rubber maid are several small pots in which I am growing seedlings for corn, edamame (soybean), broccoli, cauliflower, broccoli raab and a few melon varieties.  I will let these grow for awhile and transplant them later after harvesting other crops.  The open space here has not been designated yet.  It may be a good place for melon, which will take over a large area.

This is the western end of the plot where I have all of my Brassicas planted.  Brassicas are things like cabbage, broccoli and all the other things kids don't like.  They require lots of nutrients from the soil and are highly nutritious as a result.  I have one row of broccoli (left most) a row of white cabbage, a row of asian cabbage, a row of kale and 2 rows of brussel sprouts.  Underneath all of this foliage are some radishes which take little space and time to mature.   They can be planted around other plants before they are large.  I have planted radishes and carrots all around the garden surrounding other plants, namely my tomatoes.  The tomatoes grow up, not out like these brassicas and will allow the carrots and radishes to receive a good bit of sun through the summer.  In the back  here there are leeks, beans and cucumbers.  In the gutters are various types of lettuce, bok choi and flowers.

Braised Oxtail (Wednesday, May 25, 2011)

Along with my other spoils from the Asian market I bought some oxtail.  Oxtail is surprisingly expensive.  I got about 4 pieces of oxtail for $8.  Though, I'm not sure of the weight, it wasn't much more than a pound. Considering the high price, I had high expectations.  I decided to braise them with some beef stock and wine.  First I cooked them in some olive oil on med/high heat to give some nice color, turning them every few minutes. Then, I added some chopped garlic, onion, celery and tomato.  When the veggies were softened I poured in some red wine (pictured) and some beef stock.  I spiced with caraway, fennel, sage and rosemary.  I thought those flavors went well with the wine.  I let this simmer on low heat, covered, for about 90 minutes.  I then used some of the liquid to make a pan gravy.  To do this, I mixed some flour with cold water and added it to the cooking liquid, whisking constantly to avoid clumps.  While the oxtail was cooking I also whipped up some classic mashed potatoes and some roasted brussel sprouts. The oxtails were good, not great.  For the most part, it was the same as a pot roast.  There may be a bit more fat included, and I'm sure this lent some nice flavor to my gravy.  There are also small bits of cartilage that offer some different texture, if you can stomach it (I can).  Navigating the bones to get little morsels was not worth the work.  I think I know why all the recipes I saw were for soups.  The fat on the tail would provide lots of flavor and when stewed for long enough the meat should fall right off the bones.  I'm for using all parts of the animal, and if I ever butcher my own animals I'll be sure to use even the tail, but at the price people are asking for oxtail, I think I'll pass from now on.

Baked Oysters (Monday, May 23, 2011)

I've been meaning to go to the Asian market for more than a month to get some things.  If an ingredient is used in Asian cooking, you can probably get it much cheaper at an Asian market.  For instance, ginger is $1 a pound and your slightly more exotic mushrooms (shitake, crimini and oyster) are about a third of the price of a regular grocery store.  Additionally, if you want fresh seafood of any kind, you have much more selection and better prices at an Asian market.  Oh!  And, we can forget about all those extra animal parts!  I bought a handful of snacks that some coworkers introduced me to, including sichuan peanuts and tofu snacks (essentially tofu jerky).  I also bought some spices, vinegars, various noodles and some oxtail (which I will feature later).  In the seafood aisle I did numerous passes by some oysters.  I really wanted to buy them but I was worried about it.  I trust an oyster bar, but not myself.  I attempted to ask the guy working at the seafood counter if I could eat them raw, but he didn't understand.  I tilted my head back making a slurping sound while pantomiming eating a raw oyster.  He shook his head "yes" and repeated my motions.  I still wasn't quite convinced.  I went ahead and bought 8 of them anyway at 80 cents a piece.  These things were huge, and I made sure to pick out the biggest in the bunch, considering the "per piece" pricing.  After some Googling about determining freshness of oysters I was pretty sure mine were fresh.  They didn't smell foul, they were closed and were on ice when I bought them.  Not only were they closed, but they were a bitch to open.  One gave me particular trouble so I hammered it a while to produce an opening for my butter knife shucking tool.  Anyway, I decided not to eat them raw and instead started making a stuffing with the ultimate hope of producing baked oysters.

I began with onion, celery and garlic in a pan with butter.  Along the way I added some chopped shitake and spinach (recently picked from my garden).  When everything was cooked I added some bread crumbs and a handful of romano cheese (Sheep's milk of course, leftover from months ago).  After shucking and separating the oysters, I placed them on a pan, using wads of foil to help them stand when needed.  I added a good helping of my filling to each and topped them with more romano, parmesan, panko bread crumbs and a drizzle of olive oil.  These went into a 350 degree oven for about 12 minutes until the tops were golden brown.

I could only manage to eat 5 of them.  These things were seriously monstrous.  I didn't get sick and now I'm more confident of buying oysters, though it would be nice to be able to talk to someone who speaks English and knows exactly how fresh the oysters are.  Maybe I'll make a trip to a nice grocery store to compare prices and ask some questions.  After my belly was full, I was able to settle in for the rest of Game 4 of the NBA Western Conference Finals (Dallas Mavericks at Oklahoma City Thunder) in which the Mavericks overcame a 15 point deficit with 5 minutes left in the game to tie and eventually win in overtime taking a 3-1 series lead.  GO MAVS!

Fish Tacos with Cilantro Mayo (Saturday, May 14, 2011)

It's weird how one little ingredient can take you on a culinary adventure.  I bought some French Breakfast Radish at the Tower Grove Farmer's market in an attempt to force myself to learn more about cooking with radishes.  I have several varieties growing in the garden and they can be grown in small bits of space while other larger plants mature.  So as the season progresses I will be inter-planting radish among all of my other vegetables to make use of all the space.  Considering I rarely eat radishes and never cook with them, some experience was needed.  In my search around the web for ideas, I ran across two recipes by Martha Stewart (known mostly for her excellent investing tactics, but she also cooks).  One recipe was for some fish tacos that had some sort of radish salad on them with a salsa verde.  Another was a recipe for quick pickled radishes.  I opted to make pickled radishes but considering the vast amount of tilapia fillets in the freezer I thought they could be worked into a fish taco that would supersede Martha's.  I was also inspired by the new plethora of "Baja Taco" joints in the Dallas area, two of which I visited when I was there last.  These are small tacos, usually with some purple cabbage rather than lettuce and queso fresco.  But, what makes them addictive is the sauce, which is a garlic cream sauce that gives the tacos supernatural powers.

I began by thinly slicing my radishes along with some onion and pickling them in rice wine vinegar, sugar and salt.  That's as much care as I took with the radishes. Which, might I remind you, "Pickled Radish" was the first domino to fall in the sequence of inspirational thought.  Meanwhile, I marinated my tilapia fillets in olive oil, lime juice, salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder and chopped garlic.  When these had marinated about 30 minutes I broiled them in the oven for just a few minutes on each side.  For other toppings, I shredded some cucumber for a fresh crunch, coarsely chopped some cilantro, julienned some spicy peppers and crumbled some feta cheese (I would have used queso fresco if it was available at the store).  The key to the addictiveness of these tacos was the "mayonesa de cilantro."  I made a fresh mayo consisting of  one egg, a cup of canola oil, garlic, onion, lime juice, cumin, salt and of course a large handful of cilantro.  First, everything but half of the oil and the lime juice was blended.  Then, while blending, the lime juice and remainder of the oil was added slowly.  To top it all off I went the extra mile and gave the corn tortillas a little extra crunch by brushing one side with olive oil and toasting them in a pan.

This recipe is one that I would add to the menu at my hypothetical future restaurant.  It's a customizable crowd pleaser.  Although there are many components each one only took minimal effort and the total cook time was short.  The fish only takes about 6 minutes under a broiler.  I absolutely loved these tacos.  Erin did too.  She said "I think you just redefined taco night."  I'd have to agree.  The toppings were all non-traditional, but I still think this dish is accessible. Even kids would love these.  The acidic crunch of the radish, coolness of the cucumber and the creamy spice of the mayo made these so full of flavor I can't wait to eat the leftovers.  I was also happy with the feta cheese rather than queso fresco. Feta cheese has that little tartness to it that really went well with the raw garlic flavor and finished off the bite very nicely.  Let me recommend that everyone get a little more creative on taco night and do something a little less normal.  Tacos are a great way to make use of many of the ingredients you have around, you just have to be creative in how you use them.  And that's what's cooking!