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Artichokes were one of the few vegetables I would eat as a kid. Probably because of the garlic butter or other super fatty sauces. Still love them, but it’s only recently that I can eat canned or pickled artichoke hearts.

A few years back Cook’s Illustrated had an awesome roasted artichoke recipe (which I also believe is in the ATK Complete Vegetarian Cookbook too). It’s a really great way to cook artichokes. Adds nuttiness and a little bit of smokiness, but you do lose that fresh spring quality that is so nice in the early season. It’s really great in the fall though (or whenever, really, if you aren’t making an “OMG IT’S SPRING” type menu).

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A roundup of the last few things I’ve cooked:

Jerk Chicken and Onions from How to Cook Everything Fast, with some spiced white rice for a side. Basically you make a paste of the jerk spices and olive oil, manually rub it over chicken thighs and sliced onions, then broil it for 12-16 minutes. Pretty decent and the formula works with different spices for a very different flavor profile.

Pasta with Chorizo, Red Onions, Black Beans and Stock from the same book, a variant of Pasta with Fennel, White Beans and Stock. I’ve made this twice now and plan to do a third soon. It’s delicious and feeds me for most of a week at little cost. One of these days I’ll probably get around to the main version and/or the other two variants (Fennel etc with Sausage, or Pasta with Kale, Lima Beans and Stock). But chorizo is so good!

Hoppin’ John with Collard Greens, also from the same book. Another one I’ve repeated two or three times now. Basically, start some water going. Chop some bacon and onions and collard greens, adding them all to the pot as it heats, along with garlic and thyme and canned or cooked blackeyed peas. Once it’s boiling, add red pepper flakes, salt and pepper and the rice, then cook for 15-20 minutes, done. Easy peasy, yummy. There’s a variant with chickpeas, chipotle and chorizo that sounds awesome too.

And today, although I didn’t bother with a picture because you’ve all seen shredded meat, I slow cooked a 3 pound pork roast in a sauce made from ancho and chipotle chiles, pineapple juice, ground cloves, brown sugar, and cumin (maybe one or two other spices I’m forgetting); then shredded it. It will be going into burritos. The recipe is in Slow Cooker Revolution.

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Dang I love Hoppin’ John.

-xtien

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So I made a bunch of artichokes the other night, as I posted above. I was sort of tricked into buying an extra one by the folks waiting for dinner. They were messing with me as I texted from the store, and later assured me it would be eaten. It was not. So I put it in the fridge.

I’ve never made an extra, I don’t think, because I didn’t think on what you would do with an extra artichoke. They seem too immediate to me.

Tonight I pulled out the leftover artichoke, cut it in half, rubbed it with olive oil and garlic, and roasted it in the oven.

Damn. Now I know what to do with a leftover artichoke. So freaking good.

-xtien

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You get your biggest pot. Put a pop-up vegetable steamer in it. Put water in to the level of the steamer. Heat to boiling. Cut the stems off your artichokes and rinse them and put them in stem-side down. Cover the pot. Steam for 45 minutes (start checking at 40 minutes by tugging at the leaves; when they come out easily you’re done). Heat extra water in the microwave in case the water in the pot boils away. Add hot water as necessary.

If your artichokes are huge, as we sometimes have out here in California, use two pots.

That’s it. An artichoke for each person.

As a bonus, I set up my garlic butter in ramekins on a pan on the stovetop near the steaming pots. Over the course of cooking they melt down nicely due to proximity heat and I don’t have to monitor microwaving garlic butter.

-xtien

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Olive and and garlic work I’m sure, but artichokes are nature’s hollandaise sauce delivery systems.

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Wait, so what were the rest of you doing?

Anyway, having one for lunch today, with some lobster bisque to start.

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Imagine the person who discovered that artichokes are edible.

“I’m starving. Gotta eat something. But all I see are giant thistles. Oh well, it’s that or die.”

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I made some eggs benedict tonight using this crazy awesome method for 1 minute hollandaise sauce. My first try failed because I didn’t have the butter hot enough. Fixed that and the sauce was great and so much easier than the traditional way to make hollandaise.

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That’s interesting. It’s almost like making mayonaise.

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A friend of mine is running the Mummy’s Mask Pathfinder Adventure Path for his Wednesday night RPG group at the moment. One of the NPCs in the main city the campaign’s based out of, the desert jewel, Tephu, is supposedly the world’s greatest falafel maker. So, although I’m not in that particular campaign, he invited me out to cook a Mediterranean-inspired menu for his players.

All told, we’ve got from-scratch preparations of:

[ul]
[li]Falafels - Spiced with cumin, coriander, and cayenne[/li][li]Tzatziki Sauce - With mint and dill, because[/li][li]Tahini Sauce - With a hint of minced garlic[/li][li]Pickled Red Cabbage - Pickled with bay leaf, allspice, peppercorns, and celery seed, plus a touch of balsamic vinegar[/li][li]Two-Bean Lebanese Salad - With kidney beans and chickpeas, and heavy on the parsley and tomato[/li][li]Tabbouleh - Spiced up with a healthy dose of fresh mint[/li][li]Hummus - Topped with EVOO and paprika[/li][li]Pita Chips - Spiced up with garlic, oregano, basil, and black pepper[/li][li]Dipping Veggies - Carrots and Sliced Peppers[/li][li]Topping Veggies - Romaine Lettuce, Tomatoes, Red Onions, and Cucumbers[/li][/ul]

plus some salad dressing and crumbled feta from the store, and some fried frozen french fries off in back somewhere!

Probably took about 8 hours total across three nights (including freshly frying the falafels and fries night-of and doing the pickled veg a couple days ahead of time), but it was absolutely worth it. Fed 6 total, as the seventh dropped out last minute, and even got paid for the trouble!

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Armando, I hereby invite you to come cook me and my friends that amazing meal (or any other one of your choice).

Let me know if you need anything! :P

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I’ll be doing a “Greek Street Cart” feast at an upcoming cabin party in early May, but aside from that, schedule’s clear ;). Just gotta get me down to Florida!

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I’ve been experimenting with using a pressure cooker to make BBQ.

Now, don’t get me wrong. My smoker’s awesome (a weber smokey mountain), but smoking something is an all day affair. I need to do some serious planning, get up earlier than I would normally like on the weekend, etc. It’s always worth it, but it’s still not something which I do all the time.

Last year, during Amazon’s prime day, I found the only good deal of the whole event to be this pressure cooker. I’ve always been a fan of pressure cookers, as you can do all kinds of stuff with them which are impractical for other cooking techniques. Basically, you can get slow cooked effects, really fast.

That particular model has been really great. The fact it’s electric means it’s really portable, and can be taken to pot-lucks, etc. It doesn’t need to use a spot on the stove. But probably the best part about it is that you just push a button and it comes up to temperature fast, without getting too hot, or being too cold, so it always seals itself perfectly (sometimes if you don’t bring a pressure cooker up to temperature fast enough, it won’t build up enough pressure to seal itself right).

Anyway, so it’s cool. I’d recommend it if you can get a good deal on the cooker.

So I’ve been experimenting with BBQ in it. I cooked a pork shoulder, and it turned out reasonably well. However, I just made a brisket this week, and hit upon the secret that I had missed previously, which is liquid smoke. Adding two Tbsp of liquid smoke to the liquid in the pressure cooker gave the whole thing the smoky flavor/smell that was missing from previous attempts. I’ve actually never used liquid smoke for anything before.

Now, one thing to be aware of, is that while it was cooking it made my house smell kind of like hickory smoke. Not unpleasant, in that it wasn’t actually smoke. But it smelled kind of smokey.

Best thing though, is that the result was a BBQ brisket in an hour, with no prior marinade or prep, compared to like 15 hours on my smoker. Of course, it also only accomodates a small brisket instead of a huge packer cut, but the end result was that the brisket was nice and juicy. And seriously, an hour. ONE HOUR. Not too shabby.

Have you ever considered actually opening a food truck? I mean, you cook a lot of food that at least looks awesome. Seems like you could make a business out of it if you wanted.

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Liquid smoke is very literally magic. Like, I more or less understand how it’s made, but conceptually, it’s just Gandalf-fuckin-magic to me. I love it, though!

Any particular recipe or guidelines you followed for preparing it? I’m always hankering for even just-pretty-good brisket here in NC, where the local specialty is vinegar-heavy chopped or picked pork. Which–don’t get me wrong, I recently ate a huge portion of it at Grady’s while traveling for work and it was amazing, right down to the chunks of almost-crisp pork skin mixed into the meat–just ain’t my favorite kind of BBQ. Brisket’s a particular favorite of mine, and while the slices I had at Little Richard’s on another work trip just last week were good, I’d love to save and do it at home (and I have a manual pressure cooker already).

Have you ever considered actually opening a food truck? I mean, you cook a lot of food that at least looks awesome. Seems like you could make a business out of it if you wanted.

I have, actually, but three primary things stop me.

A) I don’t have any direct line-cook/restaurant experience, and I think there’s a lot of expertise you build up there that’s important to being able to prepare good meals quickly and reliably. Most of the recipes I devise or use are pretty fiddly/exacting, and trying to replicate that in 5 minutes or less–particularly for 3-4 people all at once–would be crazy. Knowing how to tweak or pre-prep them for food service work would be a must.

B) The cost is, of course, huge, and I don’t have much in the way of assets or credit to get a decent loan. Cheaper than opening a restaurant, but it’s a good idea to have a couple-hundred grand handy if you want to get into the game.

C) I sort of invariably wind up resenting whatever I do for work, because I know–deep down–it’s the thing keeping me from being homeless/not being able to provide for my family/etc. One big enough screw-up, and the whole house of cards that is my occasionally comfortable life comes tumbling down. I love cooking so much, a part of me doesn’t want to “ruin it” by making it my primary source of income.

If I ever end up old and rich somehow, I’d do it as a retirement gig, though. For now, I’m content to cook for friends and family, and they seem content to keep asking me to do so :)

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Any particular recipe or guidelines you followed for preparing it? I’m always hankering for even just-pretty-good brisket here in NC, where the local specialty is vinegar-heavy chopped or picked pork. Which–don’t get me wrong, I recently ate a huge portion of it at Grady’s while traveling for work and it was amazing, right down to the chunks of almost-crisp pork skin mixed into the meat–just ain’t my favorite kind of BBQ. Brisket’s a particular favorite of mine, and while the slices I had at Little Richard’s on another work trip just last week were good, I’d love to save and do it at home (and I have a manual pressure cooker already).

I used this as a starting point… but I’m not really sure how useful that is, since probably the only thing it gave me in terms of ideas was “Some water and BBQ sauce, and liquid smoke”. This is generally how I always use recipes, unless I find one which is really super awesome and I don’t fully grasp the concepts that are playing into it.

Now, this does bring up an important point though. The end result of pressure cooker BBQ is saucy BBQ. Which is actually not what I normally make in my smoker. Normally, I just use a dry rub, and maybe serve some sauce on the side. But because of the pressure cooker, it’s more in line with the results of a wet rub, and works well served with a bunch of sauce.

It’s not the best BBQ I’ve made (although honestly, brisket’s hard to smoke anyway), but it definitely fulfills the role of, as you say, “just-pretty-good”. Because BBQ’s one of those things that is like pizza. If it’s even mediocre, it’s still gonna be good food. And the ability to make it in an hour is amazing.

A) I don’t have any direct line-cook/restaurant experience, and I think there’s a lot of expertise you build up there that’s important to being able to prepare good meals quickly and reliably. Most of the recipes I devise or use are pretty fiddly/exacting, and trying to replicate that in 5 minutes or less–particularly for 3-4 people all at once–would be crazy. Knowing how to tweak or pre-prep them for food service work would be a must.

For a lot of the stuff you make, you’d want to focus on stuff that you could make ahead of time and have sit. Then you just plate it for folks. I’m pretty sure that this would work well for some of the stuff you’ve made.

B) The cost is, of course, huge, and I don’t have much in the way of assets or credit to get a decent loan. Cheaper than opening a restaurant, but it’s a good idea to have a couple-hundred grand handy if you want to get into the game.

Ya, you’d need to find investment somehow. You might even be able to leverage something like kickstarter. I know folks have funded things like food trucks in the past. Or you find some rich dude, and get him to eat your food, and convince him that you can actually make it in a truck. You need to have a real business plan to get someone like that to buy into it. But honestly, you need to have a business plan for the thing to succeed anyway.

C) I sort of invariably wind up resenting whatever I do for work, because I know–deep down–it’s the thing keeping me from being homeless/not being able to provide for my family/etc. One big enough screw-up, and the whole house of cards that is my occasionally comfortable life comes tumbling down. I love cooking so much, a part of me doesn’t want to “ruin it” by making it my primary source of income.

This is a valid reason I guess.

On one hand, it’d be awesome to do what you love as a job… But I know folks who have run restaurants, even successful ones, and the industry is just freaking brutal. I’ve always been amazed at how much is out of your control as the owner, and how much planning needs to be done for things that I would normally consider unplannable. Like, “ok, well this week we’ll probably sell like… 300 of this dish, so I’m going to need X pounds of this fish” But the fish is gonna get crappy, so if you over-order then you’re either gonna have to freeze it (and then it’s gonna be crappy later) or you waste it… I’m like, “How the hell do you know you’re gonna sell that many?” And the answer is just “I just do. I dunno.” I think it’s a big part of why many restaurants fail, in that some folks are good at that kind of thing, and others aren’t. And it’s apparently just black magic.

A food truck is a bit more flexible, so you can adjust more on the fly. But ya, there’s gonna be stress. A case of self-employment has extra stress, since it all ends up being on you.

A retirement gig isn’t a bad idea though.

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There was a Slate Working podcast episode about someone who was making a living as a freelance chef - she sometimes cooked for events, sometimes for people in their homes. That seems like a pretty cool gig for someone who loves cooking. You don’t have the pressures of serving a variable and time-sensitive crowd, you aren’t the one providing space, you don’t always have to do huge batch assembly line cooking…

No idea how practical that is outside of DC though.

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This is banana bread that is on its way to Spain right now.

5k7fHSV.jpg3264×2448

-xtien

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…why Spain?

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Also, made Singapore-Style Noodles with Chicken, Peppers and Basil from How to Cook Everything Fast (really more Chicken with Noodles than the other way around, imho):