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I’m no expert, but you can see a few of the attempts I’ve made in here making home made dough/pizza and cooking it on some clay bricks. The transfer from peel to oven is the trickiest part. And every time I do it, I feel like I’m using/wasting way too much corn meal. But basically I put a little more than I think I need down on my surface, dough on top, take my time making the pizza, then clear away as much excess that isn’t under the pizza as I can. Then I lift up my surface and give it a shake to make sure the pizza can move freely. If it passes that test, then I move on to sliding it in the oven. You might just need to check for loose-ness before moving to the oven :)

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I roasted a chicken the other night and used the drippings for my first ever real deal gravy. Slathered that on some mashed potatoes and stuffing and it was awesome :D

No pics of the full meal but here’s a chicken shot if anyone cares:

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I CARES, I CARES VERY MUCH

I would be very happy to eat all of the white meat off of that chicken, Eric. I’d even nod appreciatively at the dark meat, before insisting that, no, of course you should have all of it.

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Rhubarb.

Have not had rhubarb for ages. Took my 3yo for a visit to see my Poppy on the weekend and Poppy furnished us with a dozen or so fresh stalks of rhubarb from his garden.

About 500 grams, cut into inch segments, 100-150 grams of brown sugar, 4 tbs of water and bring to the simmer until it begins breaking apart and is done your liking - 10-15 minutes.

Serve warm with vanilla ice-cream or youghurt.

Delicious and instant flashback to my being 12 years old again!

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Things I will never understand: why everyone feels the need to adulterate perfectly good rhubarb pies with strawberry. I mean, strawberries are good too. But you don’t need them!

3866

I cooked a thing.

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I say “a thing” because this was another case of me just kind of winging it. The basic idea is this, take a kind of macaroni and cheese recipe, then replace the macaroni with barley and farro.

I sauted some mushrooms, onions, and cubed ham (actually I think it was smoked pork shoulder… essentially ham… really old, from my freezer. I kind of forget what it was.), then added some diced turnip (because I saw some at the store, and they looked good, and I didn’t really know the last time I had turnip), and eventually some kale, because I really like kale. A bunch of spices, kind of on the african/indian side of things. Stuff like mustard seed, cumin, some berbere spice mix.

Ok, so that all sauteed up, and meanwhile I boiled some farro and barley until it was done.

Then I kind of pushed all the sauteed stuff to the sides of my pan (I was cooking in the giant enameled cast iron dutch oven I got a while back), and threw some butter and flour in the middle and made a roux.

Then I added in some milk, and a bunch of sharp cheddar cheese.Mixed it all up, then added in the barley and farro, mixed it up again, and then laid it out into a baking dish. Apparently my internal measurement cups worked, and it happened to fit perfectly into the dish, with no excess. I threw some panko on top of it, and then baked it at 350 for about half an hour.

The end result was what I guess is a casserole? I think maybe it could have used more cheese, as it didn’t taste particularly cheesy. But it was creamy, and very hearty. Good comfort food. A while back, while looking at Alton Brown make mac and cheese, I realized that the key to a solid casserole is a roux, which we’ve talked about here before. It really helps everything come together.

So, end result was pretty awesome. It would have been better if the ham hadn’t been super old and from the freezer, as it had that kind of “frozen meat funk” that meat gets. It’s not bad, but I think it’d have been better if the meat was fresh. Perhaps with chicken instead of ham. The experiment with grains instead of pasta worked though, so I’ll do this again.

Oh, and the turnips worked out well, I think. They make the flavor profile perhaps a little weird, with their slightly radishy kind of taste? But it worked well enough.

Oh, and looking at the pics, I added corn. Because I kind of always add corn to this kind of thing, because I like corn.

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Pies!

(Sorry for the low quality.) I’ve never made pies before, but some friends of ours decided we should all get together for a pre-Thanksgiving, and since:

  1. We’re going to my in-laws’ for real Thanksgiving,
  2. My wife and I are doing most of the cooking, since my mother-in-law is recovering from a surgery, and
  3. They’ve expressed a preference for non-pumpkin pies,

I figured I should get some practice in before game day. They turned out well. I used this recipe with a store-bought crust, since I’m not much of a baker and didn’t want to chance it.

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I forgot to take pictures, because I was getting hounded by an impatient wife and two year old, but I cooked a turkey yesterday. In fact spent most of the day cooking.

Turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy from the drippings. For dinner I boiled the bones to make turkey noodle soup.

Now it was good, but I’m here to share something for you all, about how to cook turkey. Normally it takes forever, and the bird comes our dried in parts, not done right in others.

1 hour 40 minutes, but could have been as low as an hour (I cooked at 375 to give time for other things, but this style could go 450 for an hour supposedly). Spatchcocking. Cut out the spine, break the breastbone, flatten, then baste with olive oil and seasonings. 1:40 and perfectly golden brown crispy skin, and juicy bird.

My seasoning mix was thyme, rosemary, tarragon, salt, pepper. mixed with about 1/3 cup olive oil, basted twice (once to start, once at an hour).

I will never cook a bird the ‘traditional’ way again. Since I started doing this two years ago, it has been the best.

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You know, I use my slow cooker a lot, but here are my thoughts on that. One, I don’t own a smoker. Doing a big pork shoulder on a normal grill is a pain in the ass to get low/slow enough to be of good use. Don’t get me started on smoking on a device not really made for it either. But, since slow cooking works well for me leaving it alone to do the magic while I go to work, it ends up being a preferred method. I find more often than not that the issue is not enough seasoning to the meats I put in. Typically I put in a LOT of meat into a slow cooker. And I think that just a few shakes or grinds of salt/pepper will work. In almost every case, that is the issue for me. I take things out and they taste bland, but it was my fault for not seasoning enough.

Here’s a way I make a dish that tastes a little better though, Easy Carnitas (easy because it’s via a slow cooker for most of the work):

1 pork shoulder rubbed with any decent pork rub and left to sit in the fridge for several hours. Really all the rub needs is a good amount of salt/pepper, and you can add cumin, garlic powder, and dried oregano.

Then:

1 yellow onion slivered on the bottom of the slow cooker
1 orange, juiced into the slow cooker, then the halves thrown in the bottom
1 lime, juiced into the slow cooker, then the halves thrown in the bottom
1 tablespoon of decent liquid smoke added to the bottom of the slow cooker
1 tablespoon of minced garlic added to the bottom of the slow cooker
1/2 can of chipotles in adobo sauce in the bottom of the slow cooker
OR
2 diced jalapenos added to the bottom of the slow cooker
Add pork shoulder on top
Cook on low for 8 hours

Remove pork shoulder to a separate container and roughly shred.
Remove lime halves from remaining liquid, put all liquid in a pan and reduce by about half the volume. You can stick blend if you want it liquidy, or leave it, it doesn’t matter that much. But, check the seasoning of the liquid and add salt/pepper as needed.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Line a baking sheet with foil.
Spread a layer of the pork onto the sheet.
Liberally drizzle the pork with reduced liquid.
Bake until top starts to brown and crisp, stir, and repeat until crisped again. (I like crispy ends on carnitas, so I get them pretty toasty in the oven.)

Remove from oven and add to warmed corn tortillas with fresh toppings as desired.
As a suggestion, top with some diced onion, cilantro, and diced tomatoes, and some guacamole or queso fresco to top with. Have some lime wedges as well to squeeze on a bit of lime juice kick.

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My brain will always go straight from Rhubard Pie to Prairie Home Companion, i.e.:

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Other than the fact that Craig failed to explain why he was cooking a turkey dinner a week early, this is as good a time as any to talk turkey.

First - stuffing. Er, dressing?, because none of it goes inside the bird. I’ve been using the Test Kitchen cheat for the past few years. Hearty white sandwich bread plus whatever you want (I go with sausage and dried cherries plus the usual suspects). All in a pan, with the trick part being turkey wings on top (poke a bunch of holes in the skin and brown in a hot skillet 4-5 minutes per side first). The wings drip into the bread throughout the baking, and it comes out about as close as possible to tasting like it was inside a roasting bird. And you can make literally as much as you want.

Craig’s approach to the turkey is also partway to the Test Kitchen’s version of Julia Child’s technique. I did that last year and will do it again Thursday. The difference? Craig didn’t mention the thighs/legs. Before dismantling the torso, remove the legs and de-bone the thighs. That isn’t as much work as it sounds. Fill the space with thyme, sage, salt, pepper and sew it closed (wood skewers+twine).

Not my photo - stolen from ATK:

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My wife likes to make rhubarb pie. I actually think apples would be a much better addition than strawberry if you wanted to add anything,

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Great tips on the dressing. I’m not making it this year but will remember it for next time.

All I have to add here is a tidbit on the turkey itself. After using Kenji’s recommended dry brine and spatchcock method, I will never do anything else.

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After the barbecue I’ve been making, I’m totally a dry brine believer. Heading to Costco to buy a brisket today. Will dry brine tomorrow night and start smoking Wednesday around dinner time. Brisket is going to be our new thanksgiving tradition and I’m thinking pulled pork for New Year’s.

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The last two years I’ve done Cornish game hens, since we’ve only got a couple of meat eaters. I miss the turkey, but the hens have worked nicely.

I need to jazz them up a bit this year, I think. If anybody has any ideas I’d appreciate them.

-xtien

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Find some very small lemons!

http://i.imgur.com/2UTIr0F

Thanksgiving is weird this year. Not driving home to see the family, or having them visit me. Instead, going to a friend’s place for Friendsgiving. I figured hey, this is gonna be way easier than an 8-or-9-dish Thanksgiving feast with the fam! Plus, the host is the dude who GMed an awesome D&D 4E campaign for a couple of years I got to play in, and every session, he’d cook up an awesome main dish (and I’d usually bring along a side or three). He’s worked as a professional cook for years, including an ongoing stint at the single best Grilled Cheese truck in the state as their Food Truck Viking:

http://www.americanmeltdown.org/

So, you know, dude’s cool, and apparently going all out with a 16lb bird, stuffing, gravy (and his gf’s providing mashed potatoes, a butterscortch-and-cashew cream pie, and cider mimosas). The other couple elected to bring a winter panzanella, which sounds great, but is definitively not something my gf will eat (nor is stuffing, and she’s not wild about the pie selection, either). Since the last couple on the invite list bowed out, things were looking pretty scarce.

So now I’m on lock for my ludicrous bacon-mac-n-cheese, green beans almondine, cheddar-and-herb beer bread, and maybe cranberry-walnut-white-chocolate cookies? I mean, I don’t wanna be that guy, but A) the selection’s honestly pretty sparse as-is, and B) my gf’s gonna kill me if she doesn’t get some of her Tgiving faves out of the way.

So much for a nice, lazy, easy Thanksgiving >.>

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Mac-n-cheese is a good idea. Hadn’t thought of that. I can’t do a bacon mac though, because vegetarians.

Mainly our tradition is that Thanksgiving is pie day. So I’m trying to decide on which pies.

-xtien

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Wish I had ideas for your game hens. I love them but I’ve never cooked them myself.

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So I live in biscuit land, but firmly belong to New England.