KESWICKIAN

Stromboli!

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 21:03:00 +0000

My sweetie is on a pizza kick. We've been eating a lot of pizza in the last few weeks and I decided to change it up a bit and make Stromboli. Note that some stromboli's are made with ham, but I love me some Italian sausage so we decided to go that route.

Since he was home and I was not, he made the sauce, playing with the Rhulman's 20 book (yes we've still got the book) and he also made the dough, using the whey from a ricotta that he had made instead of water. It was a very fragrant and elastic dough.

I asked for advice from my coworkers and they said I should add spinach, so here you see the sauce and mozzarella/parmesan mixture with some spinach sauteed in garlic and some raw sweet onion over it.

I had cooked the Italian Sausages already and sliced them very thin. Many many rounds of Italian sausage went on the stromboli. Then I topped that with more Parmesan/mozzarella mixture.

Flipped up the sauce side, pressing it down and folding the bottom edge over the top. I debated putting in a steam vent but left it alone.

It cooked in a lovely 425 degree oven for 15 minutes and came out golden brown perfection. Notice Elizabeth, I put the sprig of cilantro on it to add some green ;-)

The finished product, gooey, rich deliciousness. Perfect with a beer on a weeknight .

Mexican Night

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:46:00 +0000

We were in the mood for Mexican last night and didn't feel like going out. We love the Coyoacan market style fried quesadillas made at Fiesta Mexicana in Rosedale and I was in the mood for fresh veggies and since I had the day off on MLK Monday, I decided to play.
We love the smoky taste of chipotle peppers and I had a huge flank steak in the fridge that we were never going to eat in one meal, so I took some of that, seared it in olive oil, added some onions and sauteed them for a bit, then added garlic and a hot pepper, sauteed for a bit longer and added mexican oregano, a chipotle in adobo and some tomato sauce. I let this simmer for about 2.5 hours, shredded it and put it back in it's sauce, YUM! Deep, rich chile and tomato flavors. This would be stuffed into the quesadillas and fried.

At H-mart on Friday I saw some nopales which are paddle cactus. I've eaten them before at cookbook club but decided I'd try and use them again. I have the Elote Café Cookbook which I got when we were in Sedona and it has a wonderful recipe for a zucchini and tomato dish. I also found this recipe and decided to combine the two and take it a step further, adding a smoky depth by roasting a poblano and adding it.

My sweetie was nice enough to do the prickly work of scraping off all the spines and slicing and dicing the nopales, the zucchini, the garlic, onions, jalepeno, tomatoes and roasted poblano. I'll follow with the recipe below.

Here it is simmering away.

Then it was on to the quesadillas. I like playing with corn masa flour. I mixed it up, let it sit, then decided I'd make some fried tortilla chips as well as the yummy quesadillas.

I really need a tortilla press. I rolled the masa into balls then pressed them between plastic with the bottom of a heavy pot. I rolled them a bit thinner with the rolling pin and plopped the tortillas onto the hot tortilla pan. 50-60 seconds a side, and then you take them off. I'm not a fan of soft tortillas (gasp) so I fried them up, playing with shapes. I made one large tostada, then cut some into triangles for chips and some into strips. I like the chips best, they were great for scooping up the veggie dish.

Next I played with the Quesadillas. I took a ball, pressed it out again, then, leaving it on the plastic, put some fresh caseara cheese and some of the chipotle meat mixture and folded the plastic over it. I wanted to fry a few at a time so I made all 5 (believe me, five was plenty) and then fried them up. The picture isn't great, but here's what they looked like before I fried them. They were tasty and golden brown and delicious as you can see from the first photo.

Braised Mexican Vegetables

1/2 cup chopped onion 1/2 inch dice
2 nopales or cactus paddles stripped of spines, cleaned, and chopped in 1/2 inch dice
2 zucchini chopped in 1/2 inch dice
1 medium poblano pepper, roasted, seeded and cut into 1/2 inch dice.
Olive oil
Salt
2 garlic cloves minced
1/2 jalepeno minced
3 whole canned tomatoes
1/2 tsp mexican oregano
1/4 c chicken broth
2-3 tbsp heavy whipping cream
Cholula hot sauce to taste

Saute the chopped onion in 1-2 tbsp olive oil until golden. Add a pinch of salt and garlic and jalepeno. Saute 1 more minute. Add oregano and saute 30 seconds. Add nopales, zucchini, poblano and tomatoes and 1/2 tsp salt. Saute 2 min and add chicken broth. Let simmer until zucchini becomes translucent. Add whipping cream and bring back to a simmer for 1-2 min. Taste for salt and heat, adding cholula hot sauce and salt if necessary.

Bread and Soup

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:13:00 +0000

We have had colds for the last few weeks. First it was my turn, while he took care of me, then his turn. Since I gave it to him my guilt level was high so I decided to make a big batch of chicken noodle soup. While i was not quite enough up to snuff to remember to take pictures, we did enjoy the soup.

Yesterday, since we had the long weekend I decided to make beer bread from the Bread Bible. I made it in the Cuisinart in about 3 min. I baked it this morning, giving it the extra overnight refrigerator proofing. Tasty with the last of the soup after a chilly walk in Stony Run park.

On Wisconsin!

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 18:26:00 +0000

I took the time to sneak home to Wisconsin to see my family in June. Hadn't been home for over a year so it was great to be with everyone.

I timed it to coincide with my brother Tony's birthday and we started downtown Milwaukee with some drinks, a walk on the Riverfront and what else, but BURGERS.

Headed down to Twin Lakes with my sister to see my godson Stevie, boy he just doesn't quit growing, then Jackie and I headed up to the Derse slice of heaven... Riley's Point in Door County.

One of the best things about Riley's Point is the fact that you can't move without bumping into a Derse relative. Growing up this kinda stunk as you couldn't get away with anything, but now, it's pretty great. My grandma is 91 now and that seems as good an excuse as any for starting cocktail hour at 3:30. Manhattens and Miller Lite here we come.

Grandma's cottage is right on the lake (so is everyone's on the Point) so here's Jackie, wading around in Lake Michigan trying to convince me that it's warm.

She did manage to suck me in for some crabbing (that's what we call crayfish catching) and we spent a few hours turning over rocks in the lake trying to find the buggers. I only got pinched by one of these guys twice so I figure the effort we put into the crabbing in the deliciously cool lake (nope it wasn't cold) was well worth it.

We were in the mood for frogs legs so we sauteed them in garlic butter, cooked up our crabs with some caraway seed (the old german way) and boiled some corn. Invite a wonderful brownie-bearing Grandma over and you've got a meal made in heaven.

Finish up the day with a sunset at Aunt Rita's watching the pelicans go by and you've got a little slice of heaven. If you're lucky you might even get ice cream!

Thanks to my whole family for a superior (oops I mean Lake Michican) vacation!!!

Springtime Ramps

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Mon, 09 May 2011 22:00:00 +0000

For weeks we have been wanting to get our hands on some fresh ramps and mentioning this to Chris and Pam the other night at their party, they blessed us with a copius spring bouquet of them. Now, what were we going to do with them...

We put them in the fridge and in the morning, even through the tupperware and the fridge door, the entire kitchen was redolent with ramps. We hied ourselves off to the market hoping for peas, (no such luck) and while there I managed to convince my sweetie to make us up a batch of fresh pasta.

All of the recipes I found called for blanching ramps, but they smelled so good I decided I would saute them with a bit of butter and olive oil instead. I had some sunflower seeds that needed eating and since this was a rare vegetarian meal, decided to add them into the mix.

We had picked up some pea shoots at the market as well, so my sweetie suggested we toss thos into the mixture, did that last minute as I wanted a bit of crunch to them. A bit of fleur de sel, some white pepper, a grating of parmesan and a Saturday lunch was ready to be eaten on the azelea blessed patio. It was the first time I had actually eaten ramps, I found them grassy yet nutty and sooo fresh and full of springtime flavor. Not an onion, not a chive, not garlic, but something in between with a hint of wild in it.

Here's to spring!

Le Creuset Envy No More

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Thu, 05 May 2011 16:49:00 +0000

For years I have been going to my friend Tam's to visit and take over her kitchen. She has the most enviable le Creuset collection of anyone I know. We were gone last week and when we got home there was a very heavy box from Tam. I had NO idea what it could be so opened it up and started unpacking.

I have been BLESSED! multiple old beautiful le Creuset pans that we immediately decided to put to good use.

First up, an excellent oval baker that Tam said she had no idea what to put in it. I am imagining many meals of scalloped potatoes, but it's spring, so we decided to have rainbow trout. We laid it on a bed of fresh fennel fronds from the garden and stuffed it with fresh sorrel from same. A splash of white wine, tin foil and a 400 degree oven yielded delicious results.

I had never tried making fava beans before and we ran into them shopping at Wegmans. I didn't buy nearly enough, but enough to give them a try in a teeny tiny le Creuset that Tam sent. Parboiled, then sauteed with a bit of butter and mint for a couple of minutes... YUM!

Voila the finished dinner, Green Basmati Rice from the Sunday Suppers at Lucques cookbook which has become our favorite, the Trout, the Favas and I made a lovely sorrel bechamel sauce to accompany. Dinner à deux.

More Thomas Keller - Cookbook Club

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:14:00 +0000

We had a beautiful French Laundry Charm City Cookbook Club last week to finish off the week of Thomas Keller. Go to the the Charm City site and check out my Blogpost.

Friday night fun with salt

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 16:42:00 +0000

It was gorgeous out yesterday. I got to pick up Evan from the bus and we came home and made chocolate chip cookies for dessert. I don't know who was luckier, me, cuz I got to spend time with Evan, or him, cuz he got to lick the beaters. He certainly looked happy with his mouth covered in chocolate (sorry peeps, no picture).

Chris and Pam came over with a big slab of Himalayan pink salt to bake on and Chris tried it out last night on our grill. Isn't it beautiful? The kids were playing with the croquet set and the dulcet tones of their laughter, with good food and great friends made for a very enjoyable, relaxing evening.

You have to warm the salt block up for 1/2 hour to 45 minutes before you can use it, so we sat and talked and relaxed outside on the patio, the first beautiful evening of the year. Chris made shrimp, lobster and scallops, they were all verrry salty. Since we're all saltaholics, this worked out well, the scallops were almost too salty though. We're thinking a steak would be perfectly salted on the slab.

I made a huuuuge stir fry with the leftover Thai vegetables and herbs from Renee's brother Christopher's Thai cooking night on Monday. Sorry about the bad picture, I'll replace it when I get the other ones up.

We started with warm cookies, we ended with cold cookies and warming nut liquor (yes Chris) while the kids were very adorably snuggled up in my bed.

Thanks guys for a great evening!

Ad Hoc - In Evergreen

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 21:39:00 +0000

It's a Thomas Keller kind of week. I'm hosting Charm City Cookbooking this week and decided to go a bit on the adventurous side and choose the French Laundry. I don't actually own any Keller books but in order to make up my mind I decided to borrow F/L from my friend Chris. He burdened me with Ad Hoc at Home as well so I was set for a Keller bonanza.

Choosing recipes from Keller's books is not easy. You have to consider time, availability of ingredients, and the level of patience for the recipe. My sweetie, paging through Ad Hoc, decided he was in the mood for spare ribs. He looooves him some ribs and we've decided that we prefer the spare ribs to baby backs as you get more meat from them. We needed to actually pair it with something and so in order to avoid my mundane habit of always wanting potatoes, I chose a celery root dish with melted onions and off we went.

We got a beautiful 5 lb rack of spare ribs and he got up early on Saturday and cut the ribs into sets of two. He mixed up the brown sugar rub to rub all over the ribs. The spice mixture used cayenne, chili powder, garlic powder and a few other things along with a cup of light brown sugar. He smeared this all over the ribs, noting that he'd never used so much rub in his life. There was a lot of rub. They marinated for 6 hours and then he grilled them with a bit of pear and hickory smoke for 2 hours.

The celery root dish was sooo good and sooo buttery. First you had to make the onions which he calls melted. Basically you saute them with a bouquet garni and lots of butter for about 30 minutes.

We had to make a paper cone so that they would steam but some steam woul d come out. I see this in both the Keller books that I'm working with this week. Look at the cute paper cone.

Celery root is bizarre looking stuff, but Keller has very specific instructions on how to cut it up. you cut off the ends and basically carve it down the sides. One of these years I'll get a mandoline, (I like Elizabeth's cheap one better than Chris' expensive one) but I needed to cut my celery root by hand for this exercise.

I had to sauté these in lots of butter with some fresh thyme, it took me about the same amount of time to cut and sauté these as it did to make the melted onions, which my sweetie took care of. The dinner was quite delightfully tasty.

BAKE!!! with Nick Malgieri

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 20:40:00 +0000

Finally went to my first actual Baltimore Blogger event. This event, a cookbook publicity event for Bake! by Nick Malgieri was hosted in Julie's wonderful kitchen which is always a treat and put together by Dara of Dining Dish. She had quite the load to organize as she made sure everyone provided a delicious dish and there were wines donated from a few of the area vineyards.

Nick was great. He spent the evening in small private chats with people, talking about his experiences in the baking world, then did a talk on what it was like to be a pastry chef. Questions were asked on different things within the food world including the world of cookbook publishing and how he comes up with recipes. Nick made a fantastic bourbon chocolate cake (though he cheated and used rye instead) that is in the cookbook and gave us a sneak peek at some new biscotti. Looking forward to making that one.

The book BAKE! is a pretty book with a diverse set of baking recipes from breads to simple recipes for cookies to tips on making a perfect buttercream. I'm especially looking forward to trying out the puff pastry recipe.

Thanks Dara, Julie and Nick for a memorable evening.

Thyme for a January warm-up

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 17:36:00 +0000

I love having fresh herbs. I have fresh rosemary that I can take from my bush outside any time I like (though it's covered with 8 inches of snow right now). I needed thyme for a recipe and actually had to buy thyme as I used all the stuff in my garden up. So I found myself with a large package of fresh thyme that needed to be used or dried. Usually I'm too lazy to dry my fresh herbs so I've been putting thyme in everything.

We have decided that winter, because the oven needs to be on for so long, is the very best time to make a long, slow roast. We had a Roseda top round in the freezer so I decided I wanted to make an herb-crusted roast. There are two options when making a top round rare roast beef. You can use the fancy method where you put it in a very hot oven for 20 minutes and then turn the oven off, or you can keep the kitchen nice and toasty for 2-3 hours at 300 degrees, just like Mom did when I was growing up. I went for option B.

First I coated the roast in a mixture of rosemary, thyme, 3 cloves of garlic, sea salt and pepper, ground up in the food processor with about 2 tbsp olive oil. I smeared this all over the roast, put it in the baking pan and popped it in the oven. DONE!

I'm on a fruits and vegetables kick. Understand, I don't necessairly admit to enjoying eating these things (meat and potatoes girl from Wisconsin you know ;-) but I bought the zucchini so I had to figure out what to do with it. My sweetie said roasted, I interpreted that to be gratin and found a lovely zucchini-basil gratin suggested in my Herbfarm cookbook. Since it's January, and my basil plants are definitely not out there in my herb garden, I change the gratin to a Zucchini-Thyme gratin, followed the recipe and popped it in next to the roast.

Now that the kitchen was all toasty warm, we decided to use some of the homemade bow-tie pasta that we had made over Christmas to go with it. We've been experimenting with homemade pastas for the last month. Lasagna, tagliatelle, raviolis, and now bows. We made so many bow-ties that we dried some. I decided to use them but found that I only had about 3oz, so we mixed them with egg noodles. I went for peas (more vegetables) as I had some fresh snow peas and a package of frozen peas so I decided to use those. I cut up a shallott and fried it up in some bacon grease and butter (yes I keep a thing of bacon grease in my fridge) and then added some thyme and a little bit of dried mint from last year's stash. Added the peas and snow peas cut up into 3/4 inch slices and then put in the cooked pasta. Drizzle with olive oil and voila!

As you can see, the plate turned out very tasty. The gratin with the parmesan on top was delciously salty, the meat tender and the pasta refreshing (yes even with three fats).

In order to complete the dinner we needed dessert. Luckily, I had frozen chocolate buttercream left over from the buche de noel this Christmas, and I had frozen a sugar tart crust so I took those out, baked up a couple of tart shells, smeared on the chocolate buttercream, some Door County Cherry preserves that I had brought home from WI last summer and sprinkled it with toasted almonds. YUM!

Redesign for Motivation

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 20:01:00 +0000

So it's been just about six months since I posted here. Between traveling, my road bike accident, getting the house done, school, and life in general I have become a lackluster blogger.

To get back into the spirit of things, here are a few photos from my last few months. We went to France and Spain in August. My first time in Spain and it was absolutely delightful.

Marquis de Riscal Vineyards and Baserri Maitea Restaurant.

I had my accident in September, I refuse to post a picture of my woeful bike that is beyond repair.

We did go to Vermont and California in October though. Each lovely and completely different:

Elephant seals at Ano Nuevo:

Hiking the redwoods.

Look for more posts soon....

Peas in a Pan

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 20:34:00 +0000

We went to the market last weekend for fresh peas. Now understand, that in Baltimore, fresh peas only last for 3-4 weekend markets and you have to get there EARLY in order to get your stash. We walked out of the house at 7am and our neighbor Ben says "where are you guys off too so early?" We informed him that we were on our way to get peas. He assured us he and his wife would be right behind us.

We hurried off, bought our asparagus for cookbook club on Monday, then turned to look for the pea/bean guy. He'd moved! We didn't see him but we did see a long line snaking from one of the stalls. I sidled up to someone in the line and asked what he was in line for and he said PEAS!!! I jumped in line (20 or so people in front of me now) and soon Ben showed up 2 people behind me. We assured him that we would get the end of the peas as it was now 7:25 and the pea cooler was looking mighty empty. Three people in front of us the lovely pea lady dumped another cooler full of peas into the cooler, SAFE!!!!

We proceeded home with our 2lbs of peas.

My sweetie got a beautiful new pan for a present (thanks Renee) and we decided we would make the peas and onions in that pan. I got some small pearl onions. We cut one end off and boiled them for one minute, put them in ice water and POP they slid right out of their skins.

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I caramelized them in some olive oil and then added the peas, a knob of butter and a splash of white wine and cooked that for about 5-7 minutes. Look at those brilliant green peas.

I added some shrimp and cooked them for about 2 minutes, turning often. Look at that beautiful pan!!!

The peas and shrimp were absolutely delicious.

Who says you need to live in Door County or Washington State....

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:39:00 +0000

We picked cherries last night. YUM! These look a bit battered from the scoot to work but they are Tasty!!! More blogposts to come soon.

A critique of Baltimore eggs

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 19:57:00 +0000

We love eggs. I like mine sunny-side up, steamed lightly, with the cover on and the edges just starting to brown. He likes his "pleated", the yolk broken and stirred once or twice (not scrambled) and quickly flipped over in a hot pan. Both of us like them cooked in a combination of olive oil and butter to give it just the right consistency. Luckily we are blessed this week with the beautiful eggs from Tam's farm in Vermont. Breakfast was delicious.

The problem with Baltimore eggs is they seem to lack je ne sais quoi compared with the farm raised eggs that we've eaten on both the Ranch in Wyoming and Tam's eggs from Vermont. We have tried eggs from three different vendors at the farmer's market in Waverly and they are all sadly lacking. Renee brought us some lovely eggs from a secret farm near Frederick, but those are not easy to get either.

I think the secret must be compost. The local farms are commercial where as, at the ranch and the farm in VT, they don't have a lot of birds thus they can feed them a very diverse diet of kitchen scraps, feed and their free range bugs. I've heard rumors of people in Baltimore starting to raise their own chickens, one is the neighbor of a friend of ours. I just have to wonder, with a yard that is 30x30, how well the birds are getting along with my friend's dog. And do they have a rooster?

At any rate, I think I'm going back to Trader Joe after this as the ones at the market are pretty much comparable for twice the price.

Chicken Corn Chowder

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:26:00 +0000

It was so cold and rainy last night that I decided to say no to the leftover gyros that I had made Wednesday night and make soup instead. Since I didn't want to go to the store I gave some long thought to what I had in the house and came up with the idea to make chicken corn chowder. I had some leftover butternut squash so I wanted to add that. Spinning off of an Epicurious recipe, I cut it down and used frozen chicken breast instead of the already been cooked chicken. I also pureed the squash seperately, lifting it out and blending it and then adding it back in. This made for a very creamy soup without having to add cream or more than the 2 tbsp bacon fat that I started with. I finally used the beautiful red chili pepper Chris gave me last month (yes it was still good) and pulled out some of that Singleton's store bacon.

Recipe:

3 slices bacon
1 medium onion
1 fresh chili
4 c chicken broth
2 medium potatoes 3/4 in cubes
1.5 cups butternut squash 3/4 in cubes
2 c. milk (I used 1%)
1 tsp dried thyme
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste
3 c frozen corn
1 chicken breast, 1/2 frozen, very thinly sliced

Cook bacon until crisp and remove from pan, let cool and chop into bits (reserve). Leaving 2 tbsp bacon grease, saute onion and chili until onion is almost translucent, add butternut squash and potatoes and saute 2-3 minutes more. Add broth and milk, thyme and bay leaf. Cook until squash is soft. Carefully remove squash and some liquid from the soup and puree in blender. If you do not want potato chunks you can use an immersion blender and puree everything. Return squash to pan, bring to a simmer and add corn. Simmer 5 minutes. Add chicken and cook until chicken is cooked through. Taste for salt and pepper. Serve with bacon sprinkled over the top. You can also top with cilantro. Warm and comforting on a rainy, cold night.

Vermont Bacon-off

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:29:00 +0000

Each year we pack up enough beer (Brewers Art Resurrection) for four people for four days and head to the mountains of Vermont to stuff our faces and sit on the sofa of our friends on their little hill farm in Stowe. Below is Tadcaster the ATV pup sporting his doggles on a run to the mailbox.

We were warned this year to expect a new addition to the household, as besides the sheep, chickens, dogs and cats , we now have angora fur bunnies and a house bunny that hangs out next to the wood stove eating raisins (5, no more, no less).

The foliage was beautiful, just past peak so it was raining golden leaves. My sweetie and I took a lovely ride over Smuggler's Notch to go in search of the 2 gallons of maple syrup that we need to get us through the winter. While investigating the possibilities in Jeffersonville, we came across a sign for smoked meat at Hanley's Market. We went in to take a look and bacon looked and smelled glorious!! Asking them what they smoked it over resulted in the correct answer.... cob smoked, bingo.

Now, it must be said that most years we get our bacon from Singleton's Store in Proctorsville, VT. We have an arrangement with friends that anyone in the vicinity must pick up bacon. This is a 2.5 hour ride each way from Stowe. After the 9 hour drive, we were not in the mood for more driving, so finding a cob-smoked bacon 1/2 hour from Stowe was quite exciting and required a taste test. Our friends were definitely not opposed.

Luckily our friends had some of the Singleton's bacon in the freezer, so we popped that open, popped open the Hanley's bacon and proceeded to have a bacon-off. I cooked them up in separate pans as you can see so I didn't "sully" the taste of one with the other. They all believe that bacon should be cooked until it is dead, I, for one, believe it should be slightly undercooked. They go their way, very dark bacon. On the left, the bacon from Singleton's, on the right, bacon from Hanleys.
I wasn't up to eating bacon all by itself so I whipped up some pancakes, Tam made pumpkin muffins in her new leaf muffin pan and we sat down to our taste test.

The verdict.... Delicious! Both brands of bacon were tasty, but you could tell the Singletons had been frozen as it was slightly acidic and a bit more dry than the other. The Hanley's store bacon was crispy and smoky and altogether a VERY acceptable substitute for the Singleton's store bacon. Next year we shall stock up, as of right now, Josh just stocked us up with Singletons so we have four pounds in the freezer. Brunch anyone?

Cookbook Club Moved

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:36:00 +0000

Renee hosted Charm City Cookbook Club Friday night with Patrick O'Connell's Inn at Little Washington cookbooks. We've decided to move the blog to Wordpress from blogger so check out the posts from Friday's CBC by clicking on the link above. P.S. I stole Elizabeth's beautiful picture of her appetizer.

OMG October Tomatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:40:00 +0000

Saturday night after Cookbook Club on Friday we just needed a chill out dinner menu. I've been picking 2 tomatoes per day and the yellow one finally was ripe so we decided on burgers and a caprese salad.

We pulled out a couple of Roseda burgers and I ran to Cerellio for some of their fresh mozzerella. They make it fresh every day and it's soooo good. The picture turned out so good with the cornichons and picholine olives in the middle I had to blog it.

Oh by the way. Cookbook club has changed it's blog as you can see from the link above.

October Daring Cooks Challenge - Vietnamese Pho

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:36:00 +0000

This is my first Daring Cook's challenge. I decided to sign up because Elizabeth was so excited about the Daring Baker's challenge and I thought it would get me out of my cooking rut more than for my once a month Cookbook Club.

The challenge sign-up process is a bit confusing. I actually signed up in August but too late for the September challenge so I had to wait for the October challenge. At first I thought I was going to be cooking Vegan Indian (not my thing at all) but it turns out that was September's challenge. (confusing as I said) and I opened up the new challenge to find Vietnamese Pho.

I love Vietnamese food, especally Pho. I went through a Southeast Asian phase a few years back after we got back from Thailand. We cooked everything we could get our hands on. We have a number of Pho places in Baltimore and not having made Pho before I thought it would be fun to give this one a try.

The October 2009 Daring Cooks’ challenge was brought to us by Jaden of the blog Steamy Kitchen. The recipes are from her new cookbook, The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook. The recipe for Jaden's Vietnamese Pho: Beef Noodle Soup can be found here http://steamykitchen.com/271-vietnamese-beef-noodle-soup-pho.html

I started by gathering all of the ingredients. It turned out the only things I needed to buy were the ginger and the bean sprouts. I have a fetish for the H-Mart asian market which is about 1/2 hour from my house. They have so many neat things there that I usually end up picking up many of them. We get our beef from a local producer called Roseda so I used the beef from there. And yes, I even had the rock sugar tucked away in the back of the cabinet.

Broiling the onions and ginger took longer than the 10 minutes and my rack was a bit higher than Steamy Kitchen's so the skins fried, but I felt that the broiling and burnt parts gave it a great flavor.

I boiled the bones for 10 minutes first like she suggested, I'm thinking this made my broth much clearer, as much of the foam was already boiled off when I drained and refilled the pot for the cooking of the stock.

The seasoning packet was lovely, and sent wonderful smells coursing through the house all morning. I prepared the vegetable tray, adding fresh cucumber and completely forgetting to pick the cinnamon basil I had meant to put on the tray. The pho was lovely and the combination of the rare and well done meats along with the crunch of the bean sprouts and the cucumbers made it delightful.

So my sweetie was at the neighborhood party and was telling people I was making Pho and Carol and Ben from across the street said "oh we know the best Pho!!" Sure enough, the next day they showed up with pho from Pho Heip Hoa in Wheaton, MD.

Renee and I did a taste test. We found the pho from the restaurant to be a lighter clearer, more citrusy broth (yes I strained mine), while mine had a meatier and more anisette flavor. They were both delicious and the pork that Carol's pho had in it helped as well. I didn't want to deviate from the recipe or mine would have had pork too. I think it could have used it.
I froze the rest of the pho so we should have tasty dinner one night when I really don't feel like cooking in the near future. All in all a very successful first Daring Cooks Challenge.

If you're not going camping...

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:40:00 +0000

Four couples, 3 children and one dog were scheduled to go camping this weekend. We wimped out due to busy schedules, rain, and health care demonstrations, but decided that instead we would all get together for an island themed dinner.

Jake, being the person who spends the most time in the islands, was put in charge of "island drinks" and mixed us up a beautiful punch bowl full of hurricanes to start the night. Each couple was assigned courses and my sweetie and I provided the PIG!

This was our first foray into suckling pig. We purchased him from Treuths in Catonsville and boy was he beautiful. Since this was island themed we decided that a lime mojo marinade was in order. We soaked Mr. Pig in vinegar and water (2/3 cup vinegar and water to cover) for 3 hours and then made up the marinade.

Lime Oregano Mojo

1 pig (ours was 21 lbs)
Juice of 12 limes
2/3 cup orange juice
juice of 2 lemons (I ran out of limes)
1/2 cup chopped cuban oregano (also called spanish thyme)
6 tbsp kosher salt
lots of grated pepper
2 heads (not cloves) heads of garlic, chopped.

We mixed the marinade together and poured into a trash bag. We marinated him overnight flipping twice. Our pig just fit in the oven. We preheated the oven to 425 and put him in for 15 minutes. Then we reduced the temp to 300 and cooked him for another 5 hours or so, basting with the marinade every 1/2 hour. The last hour was on convection and we slathered him in butter to crisp the skin.

Along with the pig Josh and Joanie made an island pumpkin casserole that was delish and a lovely green salad with papaya and avocado. Mandi made sweet potato and black bean cakes with a lime sour cream dipping sauce that I just finished for dinner now, tasty!! We also made an adobo sauce and garlic rice to go with.

Chris came through with the beautiful 6 foot banana leaves from his garden and we ate right on the leaves. Clean up was a cinch (Thanks Pam).

Chris also made mangos and sticky rice for dessert. Two types of sticky rice, black and white made for a fetching background to the orange mangos with the white coconut sauce. Sorry to say, I had one too many hurricanes at that point so we did not get a good picture but you can see the sticky rice waiting to be cut.

I do have a picture of Jake mixing up the rum cream/vanilla vodka drinks that were part of the dessert mix. As you can see, they contained many types of delicious island liqueurs.

All in all a delicious substitute for camping.

First Charm City CBC Post

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:51:00 +0000

Just posted my first post to the Charm City Cookbook Club blog. We're really jazzed to have a communal blog for our CBC posts after almost 2 years. Strawberries is almost done with her post as well.

Here we are cooking away in my kitchen. In light of the shrimp and sangria levels, this was very early in the evening...

Really bored with yellow

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:33:00 +0000

I got tired of the same old yellow blog so I changed it over to green. Back from vacation and hope to be posting again soon. I've joined the Daring Kitchen cooking (not the baking the new cooking) challenge which should start midway though next month and won't be posted until October 14th, ah well. Strawberries in Paris motivated me. The rules are quite strict, you must cook 8 out of 12 a year and you have to let them know that you're not posting the months that you don't. So my challenge to me is, can I keep it up for a year. Did Charm City Cookbook Club without breaking for a year so why not? Let's hope I post before October 14th now......

Kitchen Garden - Broiled Fish and Pasta with Summer Vegetables

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:22:00 +0000

My garden is growing! (the thumbnail is blurry, click on the photo to see the garden) The first tomato is ripe and the herbs are going crazy. I needed to use some swiss chard as it was getting big so my sweetie and I decided to make dinner together. First let me say that my S/O came home with a gift for me. I'd been wanting one for a while but look what I got!!!
My S/O as Guest Blogger:

This called for fish. We have Renee's copy of Fish without a Doubt at home. Apart from some delicious recipes, the book featured a very simple but, as it turned out, very effective way of cooking fish. A cast iron griddle is heated under a broiler (top level for a thin fillet, 2nd level for a thicker piece) for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the fish. We used 1" thick mahi-mahi fillets. They were dipped in melted butter, and coated on one side with a mixture of garden herbs - basil, parsley, rosemary, and oregano - salt and white pepper, and lime zest. Panko was sprinkled over the herbs and a drizzle of melted butter finished the preparation. The fillets were slipped on top of the griddle and cooked for about 3 minutes under the broiler. Depending on thickness, the element can be turned off and the fish can finish cooking if slightly underdone. What this technique achieves is beautiful carmelization of the underside of the fish, intensifying its flavours. A dash of lime juice gave contrast, and, more importantly, allowed Joanne to use her new press.

Back to me:

I wanted to use swiss chard from the garden so I found a pasta and kale recipe online. I modified it to fit with my swiss chard, reducing the peppers and adding onion. It was beautifully colorful.

Pasta Shells with Swiss Chard, Peppers and Feta

1 (8 ounce) package uncooked large pasta shells

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium red or yellow bell pepper, chopped

1/2 onion chopped

1 cup roughly chopped swiss chard

2 cloves garlic, chopped

4-5 leaves fresh basil
1 pinch ground cayenne pepper

salt and ground black pepper to taste

6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente; drain. Meanwhile, heat oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in pepper, onion, swiss chard and garlic. Season with basil, salt and black pepper. Cook until vegetables are tender. In a large bowl, toss cooked pasta with skillet mixture. Sprinkle with feta cheese to serve.

Thinks to do with many many raspberries

noreply@blogger.com (Keswickian) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:37:00 +0000

Having 10 quarts of raspberries in your refrigerator can be a major motivator for making dessert. As you can see, Chris and I did some good work. Chris started off by making a beautiful raspberry pie. He uses a vodka crust that is just wonderful and he remembered to put holes in it to let the steam out, unlike the cherry pie we made last month.

I made a chocolate/Almond souffle tart that I didn't take a picture of for Tiffany's birthday. Topped it with a layer of raspberries, a layer of pastry cream and then another layer of raspberries. Tasty!!!

I was debating whether to make sorbet or Ice Cream with raspberries and I settled on something in between. Gelato. It turned out really well made with some tuiles and a chocolate ganache sauce. H&D seemed to like it. Recipe at the bottom.

This morning I used up the last of the berries making small tarts. I sprinkled the berries with sugar and a bit of nutmeg and put them in the premade crust (unfortunately, not Chris's crust) and baked them at 400 for about 40 minutes. I was surprised at how long it took.

Raspberry Gelato

1lb 12 oz of fresh raspberries (this made 2 cups raspberry juice)
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 cup simple syrup

Blend raspberries in blender, strain off seeds through a food mill or a chinoise. You should have ~2 cups raspberry liquid. Combine that with the simple syrup and the heavy whipping cream. Chill well. Put in ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer directions.