Coffee

I saw this article and I had to comment. 

I love coffee. It's one of the things I treat myself with. I buy a good slightly more expensive than normal brand to brew at home normally.

I know that the coffee industry is huge and everyone is trying to put their brand at the forefront. We have Kona, and sumatra, and arabica just to name a few. And then we talk about the roasting, then the brewing process. Rubusto, espresso, city, full city, or french? Drip, perk, or french press?

Now they're adding what animal ate then excreted the beans before they were roasted - cat or elephant? This is horrifying. I don't feel I have the right to take away someone's choice on what to eat or drink. I do however have the right to tell you I think you're crazy. If you're willing to drink something that has been first eaten, then passed through the digestive system of an animal, go right ahead. I will not be joining you. I don't care how complex the flavors are I can't get past the idea that the bean my coffee was made with passed through an elephant.

Beyond the gross out factor I don't need complexity in my morning coffee. I'm not looking for the earthy fruity flavors. I want, as my friend says, "coffee flavored coffee". Dark, rich, and full of body.

The Apartment Husband raises an excellent question: who decided it was a good idea to go poking around in elephant poo for something to eat or make a drink? Gross.

What are your thoughts on this or its cousin in weird coffee - kopi luwak? Am I the only one who thinks this trend (if you can call it that) is just bizarre?

Pre-Thanksgiving Feast

Thanksgiving is a time of gathering your family close and remembering all that we have and how very blessed we are. And how much we as Americans love to eat.

This year, thanks to my sister running the Philly 1/2 marathon, we decided to gather the family a few days early to gorge ourselves on a non traditional feast of caprese salad, braised beef, carrots, green beans, sweet potato casserole, lush and breads. I figured everyone would be having turkey in a few days time so I didn't want to over do it. Sadly I forgot to take pictures in the rush to get everything to the table.

Normally I tell people to never make something that you've never tried before for a dinner party but I never follow my own rules and this was no exception. Luckily everything turned out well and I know why. Julia Child and Ruth, owner of Ruth's Chris Steak House (actually I'm sure it's not Ruth's recipe but some awesome chef who works or worked there).

Most of what we made was simple. The green beans were steamed and I poured butter over them. The carrots were braised in beef broth.I left the breads and lush to my mother-in-law and my sister.

The major challenge, as is with every meal, was the main course of braised beef.The only reason I didn't miss something was by reading the recipe 4 times. The meat marinated over night in red wine, onion, and spices. The major dilemma was the size. I had 10 lbs of meat to cook. 2 stock pots worked nicely, however my refrigerator was a tad over stuffed the evening before. Julia Child wrote her recipes without much regard for how long things take. Good food takes time, how much times appears to be a mystery. Had I not read the recipe almost obsessively I would have missed how long it takes to brown the meat, and not had the beef on the table in time. Or I might have missed the carrots and onions, which are actually not necessary, and she calls for WAY too much carrot. 2 lbs of carrots is a lot. Even for 20 people. Everything turned out great, the gravy made from the marinade was amazing.

Disclaimer: If you're not confident with your recipe reading and following abilities don't try this at home! Make the recipe once first to make sure you don't miss something. I like to live on the edge a little. And I know I can make Julia's recipes, I understand them; but they're not for the feint of heart.

The real winner of the day had to be the Sweet Potato Casserole. It was like eating dessert made with a vegetable. Really it could be passed off as a dessert.
I can't take any responsibility for this recipe. It was pulled from the internet.

Ruth's Chris Sweet Potato Casserole:

Sweet Potato Mix:
3 cups mashed sweet potatoes
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs (well beaten)
1/4 cup butter melted

Crust ingredients:
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 cup chopped nuts (pecans preferred)
1/2 cup butter (melted)

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Mix sweet potatoes, sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs, and butter.
3. Pour misture into a buttered baking dish (I used a 10 inch cast iron skillet)
4. Bake for 30 minutes.
5. While that bakes mix brown sugar, flour, chopped nuts and 1/2 cup butter together.
6. After 30 minutes sprinkle the surface of the sweet potato mixture with the crust mixture
7. Bake for 10 minutes.
8. Allow casserole to set for 30 minutes before serving.

If you want the casserole to be hot you can put it back in the oven right before you put it on the table for a minute or 2, but the cast iron should hold the heat pretty well.

Cooking classes - Chocolate!

I really should not have been allowed to take a class on chocolate. It is dangerous to society (and my waistline) for me to have any more information on how to make chocolate. But luckily for me and the husband it’s not illegal! We had a deliciously sugary afternoon tasting different type of chocolate, making caramel, truffles, and chocolate soufflé. 

Taking cooking classes has given me some very interesting insight into people. This class had a wide variety of people in it.

The adventurous I can do it without instruction types. Why are you in a class if you can do the method already?

The I’m not sure how to ____(fill in the blank)types. I know you’re in a class to learn but for the love of food please just crack the damn egg.

The ask 1,000 questions type. Do you really need to know the exact temperature of the rainforest where the chocolate trees grow? (not a real question but you know what I mean)

The I’m here because I love to eat chocolate… I don’t care how it’s made types.

And the I’m here to learn something fancy and sophisticated types.

More than just the people in the class I have a few other thoughts:

Sur La Table should make knife skills a pre requisite for any class they offer. I saw some things that made me want to hide behind the ovens or have an ambulance on standby. Talking and pointing with knives is never a good idea. Nor is chopping with all wrist action (think of wagging your finger at a naughty little child, then put a knife in your hand and try to use the same motion to chop chocolate bits). 

The class should also be about half the size it was. We had about 16 people in the class and there were points where you felt that there were 30. When everyone wanted to crowd around and see what was happening in the pots cooking on the stove I really felt all of my height coming into play. I couldn’t see a darn thing.

Men: My husband was the only man taking the class. Really? On chocolate? What better way to make you wife, girlfriend, sister, mother, grandmother or whoever else happy than with homemade chocolate caramels? Or a fancy chocolate soufflé? Here’s my advice: Go take some classes, then for a birthday or anniversary make the woman in your life a delicious dinner followed by your very own chocolate. I’m swooning just thinking about it!

That’s all my thoughts for now… I’m going to make chocolate caramel!

An open leter to Alton Brown

Dear Mr. Brown,

I feel as though I need to thank you. I can’t say how often you’ve made me look good. From your sorbet recipe to your brined turkey I have found your recipes to be universally loved. Since I began brining my New Year’s Eve turkey it’s been perfect every year. This allows me to focus on other things, like last year’s balsamic reduction.

The best part is I have found your instructions clear and concise. It’s always a neat easy step by step guide through the maze that food prep can sometimes be.

Beyond your written recipes I find your insight into the science of food enlightening. I love that it’s not food science in the “how do I make a Twinkie last for 700 years” but the science of why certain things cook the way they do. Even when I’m not working from an “Alton Brown recipe” I find myself thinking about the science. Chocolate chip cookies are a favorite of mine but I’d never understood or thought about the balance of white to brown sugar or how important the ratio of baking powder is to the dough.  I think about an oil’s smoke point. I actually know about the smoke point of oil. I love that!

I don’t consider myself a “foodie”, I’m a cook and I appreciate your view of food and cooking. I want to make food that tastes good without having to search for a special African tree fruit to make the recipe “work”. I am grateful that most of your recipes are made from foods easily found in a regular grocery store, and if it’s not there you explain where you can find it. While your food may not be flashy or cutting edge I’d prefer solid flavorful dishes to French-Mexican-Canadian-South African Fusion.

In short thank you.

Chocolate cheesecake!

Along with the bourbon I’m also not so much a coinsurer of cheesecake. I usually go for chocolate cake or carrot cake for dessert. For some reason I decided chocolate cheesecake sounded like a great dessert to make for Easter. I’ve never made cheesecake. Not normal, not chocolate, nor any other type. I have a Hershey’s cookbook on the self in my kitchen. I’m pretty sure I’ve only opened it to drool, and never actually made anything from it so I had no idea if the recipe writer knew what they were doing or was just making things up. I decided to double check the internet to make sure that the recipe was at least close to other cheesecake recipes and I wasn’t being led astray or using some weird combination of cheeses. Fortunately the recipe was sound and off I went on my cheesecake adventure. The recipe is found here.

Lesson learned: allow the cream cheese to come to room temperature. It mixes better that way. Otherwise you need to whip it for a lot longer and continue to scrape down the sides of the bowl and the mixing blade.

The recipe called for instant espresso in the crust. I couldn’t find it at the grocery store. I’ve actually had a hard time finding it the only times I’ve looked for it, but I can always find it when I don’t need it. Go figure. I decided I could do without the espresso flavor. All it does it does is deepen the chocolate flavor, making it a little more like a bitter sweet chocolate crust. I rather enjoyed the sweeter chocolate flavor with the Nilla Wafer base. The complexity of flavor with the combination of chocolate and vanilla plus the ease of grinding up the Nilla Wafers was preferable to me over the alternative of using Oreo cookies as the crust. The issue I have there is that you need to scrape out the frosting in each sandwich. That’s a lot more work than throwing handfuls of Nilla Wafers into the food processor and grinding them to a fine powder and mixing that with powdered chocolate. 

The bonus of making cheesecake: I got to use both my spring form pan and my tamper. I have owned a tamper for years, from when I had an espresso maker (a crappy little thing that made terrible espresso; no pressure pump = bad espresso). It’s been sitting in my utensil drawer for ages with not apparent purpose. Now it has a use! I was able to even out the crust without getting my hands terribly dirty and the crust would be far more even than my finger press method could make it. 

This particular recipe makes a fairly dense cheesecake with a decadently rich chocolate flavor. I may try another type of cheese next time, possibly a mascarpone cheesecake. I’ll need to do some more research. I also need to figure out how to make a cheesecake that will not crack. When it finished cooking it was beautiful and smooth on the top, when it had cooled it cracked, not just right down the middle but in an ugly “Y” shape. I’ve read that a water bath may fix that. I’ll have to find out next time I make cheesecake, which may be a while. Not because it was bad but because my waist line does not need all that sugar and cheesy goodness.

I believe I have now used everything my wonderful family and friends gave us as wedding and shower gifts and I have found I love everything we requested. Thank you all for your love and support. To all my future brides and grooms: Be very careful what you wish for on your registry. People will buy you all of it. That doughnut maker, and the deep fryer, yep you’ll get them. And probably never use them. We were so picky about what we put on our registry, we really tried to choose things we thought we’d actually use on a regular basis.

Bourbon Glazed Ham

I don’t know anything about bourbon. At all. I don’t like the taste, I don’t like the smell. And I’ve never used it for cooking… until now. As you know yesterday was Easter. I hosted my very first family holiday (New Year’s Eve is what I call a “friends holiday”). For me the traditional Easter food is ham. And boy to I love ham. But I wanted to do something special, something different than the normal honey glaze from the packet that comes with the ham. In a moment of inspiration my husband suggested bourbon. Sure, why not. I don’t even know if we have it in the house but I’ll go get some and look up recipes. I soon found myself standing in the liquor store in the bourbon/whiskey isle with no idea what I was looking at other than price. Which is exactly how I ended up choosing the bottle I did. I was actually a little skittish about the particular bottle I chose because there was no information on the back. No history of the distillery or the “distinct notes of whatever” I was supposed to be able to taste, just a line drawn picture of what I can only assume is supposed to be Thomas Jefferson, but with no information I can’t be sure because it certainly doesn’t look like him. Maybe it was some other Jefferson, possibly the 1^st owner. I’ll have to do some research for you. I decided to take a chance on this unknown bottle of bourbon. It was a mid-range price, about $25 for a 750 mL bottle, which was actually on sale. It had been $30 something. Jefferson Straight Bourbon Wisky (I did spell that right I promise, that’s what’s on the bottle). It turns out my method of choosing Bourbon was pretty awesome.

We decided to try it before cooking with it, following our rule of “try it before you mix it”. It was surprisingly smooth. The only other bourbon I’ve had is Jim Beam and I’ve always felt it tasted like liquefied wood mixed with lighter fluid. Jefferson was not that at all. It had all the heady aroma of bourbon but the alcohol burn lasted only a second before the flavor smoothed out the a pleasingly masculine pallet. It tasted like good cologne smells if that makes any sense.

My recipe came from Jim Beam, I felt a little like a trader because I didn’t use Beam but it worked out. See the recipe here. The only derivation for me was the cooking method. Instead of microwaving the honey and molasses I decided to put the whole thing in a pot on the stove. I mixed up the honey and molasses and let that simmer for a few minutes before adding the orange juice, bourbon, and mustard. I let the whole thing simmer for another minute or two before I took it off the heat and let it rest until the ham was ready for it. The only changes I think I would make is next time I don’t think I’ll buy a pre-sliced ham. I felt that the edges got a little dry because the ham was not sealed together and the heat could get to the edges of the meat.  I know this will involve a little more work on the back end but I’m ok with that. Plus I’ll be able to decide the size of the slices when I cut it myself.

The flavor of the meat after glazing was slightly sweet and slightly tangy with the molasses and honey being toned down a bit by the bourbon, orange juice, and mustard. The smokey flavor of the ham also paired really well with the rich flavor of the bourbon. I will say the OJ was a surprise. I didn’t think about how well the acid of the OJ would work with the ham. Usually people put pineapples but I think I’m going with orange for that high acid note on ham from now on. My only complaint, if you can call it one, I’d like the glaze a little thicker. I might cut down on the orange and cook the mix a little longer to make it a little more syrupy.

I would like to note that it’s probably not the best idea to test new recipes or new ingredients on family dinners. It is a little cruel to use your family as test subjects for all your culinary adventures but sometimes it works out for the best. This time I was lucky both my 1^st time recipes worked out. Come back Friday for more information about the 2^nd 1^st of Easter, chocolate cheesecake, otherwise known as decadence on a plate.