Nice tip. Do you let it rise at room temp?
I did something super simple last night, but it worked nicely. My girlfriend’s son has been requesting corn on the cob. I usually prefer to do it on the grill, or in the microwave, but neither of those were possibilities last night, so I did it in the oven for the first time. Just 350 for about thirty minutes, then wrapped in a kitchen towel for a few minutes to let it steam a bit and stay warm.
Simple. Easy. And so delicious. Best of all, he loved it and ate three ears.
It feels so good when people like your food.
-xtien
Yup. The recipe says the fridge works overnight, but I haven’t tried that one.
Doesn’t it? That’s one of the reasons I pulled the trigger on the smoker when I did. Got one kid in Cali and now the other is transferring down there too. I know one or both are liable to wind up staying down there even after college, because of their fields. My evil plan is to make awesome food so they always want to come home when they can to get some.
I fully support this plan!
There’s this great feeling that happens when somebody, a kid especially, says he’d rather have the chicken you make instead of going to a restaurant.
-xtien
Yeah. My son told my wife the other day, “I love it when dad cooks.” Totally makes the effort worth it.
Ha. My first like. I forgot Tom was doing that.
-xtien
So we bought a tiny pre cooked ham for just the two of us. I made a glaze with:
Brown sugar
Brown mustard
Mustard powder
Apple cider vinegar
Powdered cloves
Nutmeg
Bourbon
It was tasty in the bowl. Eating now.
I rarely miss eating bread these days, but that gets awfully close
I made some baked beans from scratch.
Not something I’ve made, but an observation. Just recently back from a cool vacation in Italy, and the gelato over there is fantastic. And it’s everywhere. Italians apparently need to stop and buy gelato on every single block, based on all the retail fronts that sell it.
So back in the States now and trying to recapture some instant nostalgia from our trip, we’ve tried gelato in several places here and it just doesn’t taste the same. It can’t be that hard to make. What’s the deal? Is it a state of mind thing? I’m in Italy so I expect everything to be better, so it is?
In Rome we stayed just a few blocks from the Colosseum and we’d walk down towards it and there was this gelato place where they made crepes too. Fried the crepe right there, lined it with nutella, then put some fresh-made gelato in it along with fresh strawberries, folded it up an smothered it with whipped cream. My god that was good. And then you sat outside on a wall and gazed at the Roman Antiquities as you enjoyed it. That probably made things taste better.
So, I’ve spent the last couple of nights prepping everything I needed to make Pork Arepas!
Tonight! It all came together :-D
Browning pork with a little smoke-infused bourbon brown sugar from a friend in my Lodge, followed by a quick flambe with some rye whiskey before removing. Cooked onions, garlic, and roasted jalapenos in next, cooked down, mixed in some chicken stock, salt, pepper, and bay leaves along with the reserved pork, and them simmered, covered, for 2 hours. . .
Followed by shredding while the liquid/veggies reduced into a thick slurry in the pot. I broiled the pork (the split is due to the layout of my broiler coils) before mixing in the thickened sauce.
In the meanwhile, I prepared some frijoles negros (cooked in bacon fat with onion, garlic, and diced red bell pepper, flavored with cumin, bay leaf, and black pepper) and arroz amarillo (cooked finely minced onion and red peppers in olive oil, then tossed in some Sazon with saffron, then the rice, then poured in boiling water with two chicken-and-tomato bullion pellets dissolved in it. Simmered till fluffy!).
Test batch! The arepas are simple enough–masarepa (which is pre-cooked, re-dried cornmeal), water, and salt, fashioned into a pliable dough and pressed out into discs, then griddled in a little oil. Once cooked through and crispy, split em with a knife like English muffins and stuff. In this case, rice, beans, pork, shredded mozzarella, and a healthy dose of Valentina :-D
These were good, but more was to come. . .
Today, I didn’t have time to make more arepas for lunch, so instead, I just had a little plate of my ingredients, with more cheese and Valentina (plus some decidedly unphotogenic dried chives):
Then then came the night, wherein I prepped some guacamole (with avocado, lime, tomato, onion, jalapeno, and cilantro) and pico de gallo (just lime, tomato, onion, jalapeno, and cilantro–no garlic this time around. Too stinky). Then it was time to make arepas. . . for real.
Started well, with the new batch crisping up brown on the outside without drying out our cracking. They split pretty cleanly, too. . . making it very easy to layer on the rice, beans, and cheese.
Next came the pork and a healthy portion of pico de gallo for extra flavor and a little acidity to cut the rich, fattiness of the pork and beans (and hell, the rice, too–there was almost 2 tbsp of olive oil in it with the recipe I was using. . . ).
Finally, the plate was ready to serve with a large dollop of guacamole and some On the Border-brand tortilla chips :-D
Dinner was served! (and delicious)
Now, let’s ignore how I just blew two nights of my week on this shit instead of prepping for a big meeting I’m having with my Semi Organized Play Organizer friends tomorrow night. . .
?
:P
So the local RPG Meetup group, RTR, hosts “Semi Organized Play” gaming, where 4-5 cooperating GMs run 3 tables every other week for 3 months to tell a single cohesive story; players are allowed to move from table to table, week to week, or drop in and out, so long as their characters don’t die or become incapacitated.
I’m an Organizer of the next one, starting in July, using the Exalted 3rd Edition rules, so I’ll be GMing it, along with three other guys. We’re having a big meeting tomorrow to go over characters for a test campaign we’re running to practice the system, and uh, I’m still not ready >.>
Tonight, additional cookery!
Some basic Mexican-seasoned chicken (a friend went to Mexico recently and brought back a local sea salt-and-herb blend), sauteed in olive oil and butter till nicely browned, then chopped up for arepa-ing, plus tostones, using said friend’s Puerto Rican mom’s tried-and-true recipe. Tostones are basically sliced, seasoned plantains that are fried, smashed, and re-fried until crisp. You should ideally use fairly green ones, but I took forever to get around to cooking them and mine ripened to entirely yellow, so they were sweeter and stickier than is ideal, but they were still pretty tasty!