Torta di Mandorle

Last night I made this for dessert: Torta di Mandorle, which is an almond torte with chocolate chips. Who can go wrong with that? It is DELICIOUS (and of course a little home made whipped cream to top it off doesn't hurt either). You can find this recipe in Lidia Bastianich's "Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy" in the section on recipes from Liguria.

Nature's Alphabet - Elizabeth's Designs

I finally had a stitching finish this year! For a long time this year I lost my stitching mojo. Over the summer I picked up the needle again, and had been working on L&L's Angel of the New Dawn... but then I hit the 1x1 on the face and lost interest (for now anyway). I wanted something I could tick off the WIP list, so I picked up a piece I started many years ago. It actually only took me about  1.5 weeks to finish it, so without further ado... the pictures: 

Shooting

And now without further ado... a video of us off shooting from a few weeks ago! What fun!

THE Birthday Cake

I know. Its been a while. AND I made my husband a birthday cake that I just had to share with you! As always, hubby requested a traditional Black Forest Cake. It is laden with whipped cream, sour cherry preserves, and kirsche (this is a Cherry Brandy that merely enhances the overall cherry flavor... you otherwise have no idea it is there). The sponge is a dense chocolate torte, and it is a delight to the taste buds! I've always used Gourmet Mag's recipe, and wanted to link to it on Epicurious but they don't have it there, so I won't be providing the recipe for copyright concerns. However, you can find it on page 746 of The Gourmet Cookbook Bible by Houghton Mifflin. Everything is from scratch and as such it is a true labor of love (it takes about 4 hours from start to finish, and uses about every big mixing bowl I have) but the end result is incredibly worthwhile. In lieu of a recipe, observe in various stages of completion:

This is the chocolate and butter melted together:

This is the egg whites beaten to medium peaks:

This is the egg yolk, almonds, and other small dry ingredients whipped into the egg yolks:

This is after the chocolate mixture gets whipped into the egg yolk mixture:

This is before it goes into the Springform pan, when the flour has been added to the above chocolate yolk mixture, and then the whites have been gently folded in: 

Et Voila! (Yes, that is fresh whipped cream)

YUM!!

Barbecue Pork Sandwiches with Blue Cheese Coleslaw

By popular outcry, here are the recipes for the barbecue pork sandwiches and the Blue Cheese Coleslaw.

First the pork:

Dry rub:

• 2 tablespoons salt
• 2 tablespoons black pepper
• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons paprika
• 1/2 tablespoon cayenne
• 4 pound shoulder pork roast 

Wet Ingredients:

• 2 cup apple juice
• 1 cup apple cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire
• 1/2 tablespoon liquid smoke
• 1/2 tablespoon garlic powder 

Accessories:

• 6 soft hamburger buns with seeds
• Bbq sauce
• Cole slaw

Directions

Mix the dry rub ingredients in small bowl. Sprinkle dry rub all over the pork roast, pressing into the pork. Cover with plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

When two hours have passed, preheat your oven to 325.


Combine liquid ingredients and the garlic powder in a medium bowl and pour into a large Dutch oven or Le Creuset style pot. Place pork in the pot and tightly cover with aluminum foil then lid. Roast for 4 hours or until fork tender and shreds easily. Brush the roast with cooking liquid every hour.

Remove from oven and let stand until cool enough to handle. Shred the pork with a fork or tongs into bite size pieces.

Serve on hamburger buns topped with BBQ sauce and Cole Slaw.

Next, the Cole Slaw:

Ingredients

• 1/2 small head green cabbage
• 1/2 small head red cabbage
• 4 large carrots, scrubbed or peeled (optional)
• 2 cups (16 ounces) good mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons whole grain mustard
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon celery salt
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) crumbled Roquefort blue cheese

Cut the cabbages in half and then in quarters and cut out the cores. Sliver your cabbage by running your knife from the outside of the cabbage towards the core (it is easier to lay it on one of the cut sides while shaving the cabbage. Likewise you can always use a food processor to do this faster). Repeat with carrots. Transfer into a large bowl, discarding any very large pieces. Before you pour the dressing on the salad, save a handful of the grated vegetables to decorate for serving. Transfer to bowl with the cabbages. In a medium bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, both mustards, vinegar, celery salt, kosher salt, and pepper. Pour enough mayonnaise dressing over the grated vegetables and toss to moisten well. Add crumbled blue cheese and toss together. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours to allow the flavors to meld. Serve cold or at room temperature

Corned Beef!

I know. It's a lazy picture. That being said, the great thing about the corned beef project last month is that it was so hands off. I've been working a ton of overtime, and have had little energy to do much of anything.

The corned beef is delicious, and my husband has been making corned beef sandwiches with homemade Carroway Beer Mustard (also from the Charcuterie book), and a lovely pile of Emmenthaler on top. He cannot get enough of it. It's definitely the best corned beed I've ever had, with little exception. I just wish I had a meat slicer so I could slice it a little easier.

I didn't do anything creative with it, and we still have a ton of it left. I may freeze it so we don't get sick of it and waste it... but so far we are going on a week strong of corned beef sandwiches. Yum!

Next project is hot smoking. I'm not a huge fan of Canadian Bacon, (maybe I've just never had a good one), but Tom is begging me to choose it over Taso Ham. I suppose we will just have to stay tuned to see what happens in the kitchen. :-)

Pancetta and Carbonara

Yeah, I know. Crappy picture. Wah.

My pancetta finished a week ago, but, due to my work schedule and various things going on, was only able to use it today. I decided that the best way to use it was in a carbonara, of sorts. And by the way? I was a little nervous about my Pancetta. Since we are in Utah, and the air is so dry, I was worried that it would be Pancetta Jerky instead. Although my edges were a wee bit dry, it was gloriously red and beautiful once I cut into it. I was so excited and really, quite proud of my charcuterie accomplishment!

Back when we were living in Virginia, just outside of DC, one of our favorite places to eat was Brio at Tyson's Corner (after they added on the extra wing). They always made a great Carbonara, and we would always get it with their chopped salad. Carbonara seemed like the perfect vehicle for my home made Wild Boar Pancetta for challenge two of Charcutepalooza.

Since I didn't have access to anything large (pork belly-wise), I secured a lovely wild boar pork belly from Caputo's in downton SLC. A little less than 2 lbs., so I thought too small to roll and tie. I decided to just wrap it in cheese cloth and hang it flat. The edges got a little too dried out, but the inside was just too divine, as you can see from the mediocre picture above. The curing process was quite simple. I really must invest in a wine refridgerator to control the humidity until we buy our dream old home with a root/wine cellar that will do double duty. In any event, using the wild boar made it a bit richer than typical pork, but oh! How could you go wrong??

In any event, like I said, Carbonara! I spent a week researching various methods of Carbonara. Cream? Stock? Which is better? I determined that the best first method would be the authentic stock version. If worse came to worse, we still have lots of pancetta to try the cream version, right? (I may still do that just for experimentation purposes, even though it isn't quite authentic).

So, I wasn't much in the mood to make my own pasta tonight (that is reserved for tomorrow wherin I will make Duck Breast Prosciutto Ravioli), but I got this lovely tri-colore bowtie pasta by Rao's (in NYC!!) . Salted the pasta water exceptionally well, and set it to boil. Pre-heate a sautee pan over a medium high heat. Prepped three eggs, separated (froze the whites for macaroons or whatever...nothing goes to waste), whisking the yolks gently for use in a prep dish or small mixing bowl. Cube about a cup of pancetta (in about a 1/4" dice), and once your water for pasta is near boiling, add your pancetta to the sautee pan. Since pancetta is a high fat cut of meat, it will render quite a bit of fat. Yum! In this case, don't drain it. It's a great seasoning agent, and really helps everything come together. Measure out 1 1/2 cups of stock. Once your pancetta has cooked for a few minutes and rendered quite a bit of fat *AND* you know your pasta is al dente,  add your stock to the sautee pan and bring to boil, which will come together quite quickly. Transfer your pasta directly to that sautee pan using a spider, stirring well to combine. Remove from heat immediately, and add your three egg yolks. (The heat from the pasta will cook your yolks, but if you are pregnant, elderly, or of ill health, please excercise caution and coddle your eggs briefly in hot water or the stock before adding them to the pasta). Immediately add two large hand-fulls of fresh grated parmesan cheese (don't use the crap from the green can or the whole thing will be ruined), and stir until melted and combined. Serve immediately.

I used fresh eggs and fresh cheese, and stock that I made last weekend. The pork belly turned into pancetta was humanely and locally raised. It makes all the difference in the world!

Duck Prosciutto

Again, apologies for the crappy picture.

This is my first experiment with Charcuterie at home. I'm so pleased! I was really concerned with how the dry air of Utah would affect the outcome, and as you can see the bottom side did dry out a little more than I think it was supposed to. Also, I was really nervous to eat this. I know I know - a week of a full salt cure took care of any risk of botulism, but I still thought that I might put it in my mouth, seize up, and collapse on the floor, much like you see in the old Looney Tunes cartoons... even with "x" for eyes.

Nevertheless, we are still here. We only have half of the breast left! My husband couldn't get enough of it! It really is incredibly flavorful, and has a delicate saltiness to it. I actually chiffonade-d a bunch of it and threw it into a baked mac and cheese dish. I thought it would go well with the three cheeses I used - a local sheep's milk blue cheese from Snowy Mountain Sheep Creamery, Promontory Cheddar from Beehive Cheese Co., and a french Gruyere. Yum! We pretty much ate a lot of it the moment we brought it in. I think I will definitely pick up more duck breast from Nels on Saturday at the locavore market.

So this Year of Meat. Charcutepalooza. What am I doing this for? Well, I've always been a science nerd. My favorite part of science was always lab. I see cooking as a giant, and tasty, extension of lab. Except there is no chance of explosion... generally speaking. I'm looking to expand my cooking chops in new ways that push my comfort levels a little. I also know I could just buy most of this in the store, but it's really expensive to do that, and you don't always know what its provenance is. Part of this is in an effort to learn conservation. I have discovered that when you are really invested in every step of the process of cooking, you are far less likely to create food waste. I also like the idea of being as self-sustaining as possible, and being able to turn the most basic of ingredients into a finished item. You don't *need* to go buy ricotta... you can make it with milk, cream and vinegar. You don't *need* to buy bread or bagels or pasta... you can make it with flour, eggs, water, a little salt and sometimes yeast (of course other things if you are making more than the basics). I get a great sense of accomplishment to say that I made this, and the taste difference shows. Lastly, a lot of this is just because I really like to eat these things. Not gonna lie. I like meat. (But only good meat!)

Anyway, enough rambling. My Wild Boar Belly has cured for the last week, and was just set to hang in the closet. I didn't roll it - it was just too small - so I just wrapped it in cheesecloth, and it will hang for 5-7 days. Yum!

Challah Bread from Scratch

So my husband and I have this joke. When I am out of the house and I call him, when he picks up I say "Challah!" (Pronouced Holla) and he replies "bread". Get the joke?! Yeah, we're nerds. We always laugh, even if you don't.

Per Michael Ruhlman's month of bread, I just tried the recipe posted for Challah. It was so easy to make, AND so rewarding in the taste department.

For those of you who don't know what it is, Challah is a bread made by those in the Jewish faith (normally, although anyone can make or eat it) for holy days, and it has very specific religious symbolism. In NYC it is everywhere. When you go to Ben's, there is a basket of Challah placed on the table. When you pass Zabar's in Penn Station, there are fresh loaves in the cases. When you go to any diner (ANY diner) a basket of challah is put on the table. It is a sweet and eggy bread. Eat it with butter and jam, make french toast with it... pure decadence however you like it.

Like I said, it's not even time consuming. You make the dough, knead it a little, rise it over night, and then the next day you separate it out, braid it, and bake it. Done! If you do go about making this, when you set it to rise overnight in the fridge, do make sure to put it in your largest mixing bowl. The dough really rises - it almost eclipsed my 5 QT mixing bowl! It's like the dough that ate New York! I advise making this on a weekend - dough on Friday night, bake on Saturday, French toast on Sunday (if it lasts that long). This recipe does yield two large loaves, or four smaller loaves.

Enjoy!

Why We Should Eat Local

I'm pretty pleased. My work schedule, for the first time in a long time, has become  "normal", as in I have  my weekends free. Caputo's hosts a locavore market during the winters (I think it runs until March) wherein local farmers bring their wares downtown, and we shop gleefully. :-)

Since my schedule just shifted to "normal", albeit temporarily, my first order of business was to attend the locavore market.

As an aside I have to say that I am really suspicious of any supermarket meat - even Sunflower, much as I love them - because they just can't seem to tell me where their meat comes from. I've seen way too many documentaries about how places like Perdue, and other no-name brands pump their birds so full of god-knows-what that their legs cannot support their bodies and they collapse under their own weight, eventually either eating their own shit and being laden with bacteria and antibiotics, or their waste and bugs and decomposing bodies being eaten later on by cows which meat is *also* commonly sold in most every 24 hour supermarket, and then washed with Ammonia to prevent eColi or Salmonella. No joke. Ugh. A long time of eating disorders has made me uber-controlling about what goes into my mouth. But then, regardless of eating disorders, why would you want to eat meat treated with ammonia? Or from an animal who eats its or other animal's waste?

Since my father in law passed away this fall my husband and I have talked alot about where we would like to land, geographically. He inherited a sizeable gun collection, and we've often talked about the practicality of hunting, and living in a place where this is an option. We're both huge animal rights peeps, and my husband has often said that, although he would love to hunt for our food, he's not sure how he would feel about killing an animal.

There are a few points I would like to make.

First, where my parents live in upstate NY, there is a huge hunting community. Someone pointed out to my mom that a big reason they hunt has to do with humanity (I'm sure you are all wondering how that works out) and the point made to my mom was that the herd needs to be thinned. If we did not hunt, many of the herd would die of starvation. How is it humane to let an animal die of starvation? Let it serve a purpose!

Secondly, I've been reading Glen Beck's book "Broke" (please don't judge me... he makes some great points). One of the points he makes that has resonated the most with me is how in "olden days", which is to say 100+ years ago in this country, for those of us whose ancestors have been here that long, there were no food stamps or welfare. We came together as a community to take care of one another, supporting those who were in need while we were caring for ourselves.

I feel like this second point is a lesson that I really need to focus on this year. I have found this message repeated to me in at least three different manners so far this year, and we are only going into our third week of the year (the first being from "Broke", the second being from "Lark Rise to Candleford", and the third being from my charcuterie project, in terms or learning how to use every part of every animal).

Back to the locavore market...

So this morning we went to the locavore market, and there was local poultry farmer. I was so excited about their product! They had duck! And they were just so friendly and so accomodating! In true Nicole fashion, when we got home I jumped online to see what more I could learn about this farm. I found this compelling article from the SL Tribune about their story. Honestly, I wish I had known they were going to be there... I would have waited to buy my duck breasts for my charcutepalooza makeup assignment. My hubby and I were both so excited that they had duck. Both of us are native East Coasters, and grew up eating duck relatively frequently. The only time we can ever get duck here in the Mountain West is when the local supermarkets get it from Canada, frozen, and pumped with God-knows-what. The farmer, Nels, was so excited that WE were so excited about duck! Whatever we wanted he would be able to provide... duck breasts, thighs and legs for confit, whole birds, chickens... special orders even! Fresh! When I looked at his profile on Slow Food Utah we found out that he also sells Rabbit and Pheasant, in addition to his chicken, turkey, and duck... YUM!!!

After I read the article on SL Tribune, I was reminded of why it is important to support each other. Our governmental forefathers did not intend to have extensive involvement in our lives. They believed in limited government, and set up the Constitution to reflect that. Welfare, Food Stamps... these are expensive and new govenment programs, none of which are altruistic. Wouldn't it just be better if we got back to our basics of learning how to support not only ourselves - but also those around us? I suppose I mean to say that, yes - buying from a local farmer is a little more expensive than buying from Smith's or Harmon's or - God Forbid - Walmart... but you know that you are not only supporting another person just like yourself trying to make ends meet, and getting amazing quality at the same time. When I began roasting our duck tonight, I smelled everything that duck was. The apartment was filled with aromas of fresh fields and grass and every good thing that it was fed. Not only can you smell it, but you can taste it in every bite. You can't get that anywhere else.

Segue... my husband and I were talking on the way home from the locavore market about hunting again. I said to him that it is a big decision to either hunt or buy local. By buying local we are taking our lives out of the hands of places like Con Agra, Perdue, and other nefarious major meat producers, and taking control. I said, wouldn't you rather know, as an animal rights person, that the animal you are eating led a happy life and was treated humanely? Or would you rather eat an animal that was just another dollar sign and did not lead a happy life, packed like sardines into a pen where their bodies, in an effort to increase revenue, were pumped full of crappy things? Does the dollar or two that you save buying that shit (and it really is shit) really make that much difference in your day-to-day life? Research has already proven that additives in your meat really do create health issues. Doesn't it feel good to know that, in sustaining yourself you are also helping to sustain another?

That is why you should buy local.

To contact Nels Anderson and family (and please do if you are local - his poultry is amazing):
Heritage Valley Poultry
12025 North 10800 West
Tremonton, Utah 84337
(435)770-2365
mbanca@nebonet.com

They are going to be at the locavore market again on Feb 5th, and they will take special orders. They also do CSA shares (full and half). Please support your local farmers, wherever you are.