illdothedisheslater - Tumblr blog

illdothedisheslater · 5 years

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Goodbye Tumblr!

I'm as surprised as anyone to find out that I've been doing this blog for over five years! I can't remember sticking with anything for this long, aside from my marriage and my slow but steady weight gain. Regardless, it's with a light heart that I announce my move away from Tumblr to my very own website:

www.illdothedisheslater.com

Tumblr has made some interesting business decisions lately, and it's not like I just loooove pornography, but since it's now owned by Yahoo!, I'm pretty sure it will be out of business by the time I slap a period on the end of this sentence. This is old news, but now they're attempting to censor content, which... Yeah, I don't love pornography. I don't love censorship. And they have way worse problems (Nazi's, racism, hate speech) than “female presenting nipples” (their words, not mine; I call them hoo-has). Regardless of my personal views on nips and how they're presented, it was just time to move.

So please come visit me at www.illdothedisheslater.com – I make the following promises:

You will never be greeted by a pop-up asking you to join my newsletter. I don't even have a newsletter.

No female presenting nipples. Also, no male presenting nipples. My blog will remain nipple-free. Also, no hoo-has.

More posts! I'm really going to stop being so lazy about this thing, especially now that I'm paying for it.

No decrease in terrible photography – I'm still pointing and clicking away without a thought in the world for lighting, composition, or anything gross hanging out in the background. I promise you no improvement in the quality of my photography.

No pop-up informing you that my site uses cookies and you have to agree to it. These are the only cookies I care about:

So, in conclusion – no hard feelings Tumblr. Thanks for hosting me for 5+ years and I wish you all the best. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you over at www.illdothedisheslater.com

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illdothedisheslater · 5 years

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They are the Gummi Bears!

Hey Dishes – why aren't you blogging? It's been a couple months and nobody's even visiting your site anymore.

So here I am, with a weird and wonderful project. But first, I'm going to procrastinate by reciting the theme song to Disney's animated Gummi Bears cartoon, entirely from memory:

Dashing and daring, courageous and caring, Helpful and friendly with stories to share All through the forest they sing out in chorus Marching along as their song fills the air

Gummi Bears! Bouncing here and there and everywhere High adventure that's beyond compare They are the Gummi Bears

Magic and mystery are part of their history Along with the secret of Gummi Beary juice Their legend is growing, they feel pride in knowing They fight for what's right in whatever they do

Gummi Bears! Bouncing here and there and everywhere High adventure that's beyond compare They are the Gummi Bears They are the Gummi Bears!

I barely remember that show. I don't remember any of the characters' names, what the plot was, or anything. I have a vague recollection that they traveled by some sort of underground roller coaster, and that the Gummi Beary juice would make them bounce really high. And their bouncing was somehow weaponized against the villains. That's it. Why do I still remember the theme song almost word-perfect (confession – it's faithful and friendly, not helpful)? It's been off the air for 27 years. Well that's a mystery too. It's been taking up real estate in my brain where something practical could live, like maybe long division or how to change the oil in my car. Hopefully now that I've gotten it out, it will disappear and leave room for an important life skill.

Enough procrastinating! Here's what I did.

Homemade gummy bears? Why? Well I read an article on Buzzfeed (truly an inspirational site) called “I made homemade gummy bears because I lost control of my life”. Then I took a quiz telling me what pasta shape I am based on which Kardashian vegan millenial K-Pop meme pizza Twitter zodiac Amazon ad. Two prime days later I had my molds.

While I didn't make quite as many as the author, I still spent the better part of the weekend doing this for no reason. Oh, and I made them all alcohol based because why not? Boozy bears? Rummy bears? I don't have a clever name for them.

The formula, once you've played with it for a bit, becomes pretty easy to work with: two envelopes of clear gelatin to half a cup of your choice of liquid. And yes, I chose booze.

My first batch was screwdriver flavored – vodka, OJ, and clear gelatin. Yum. You just sprinkle the gelatin over the liquid and let it “bloom” for a minute or two. Then heat and whisk. Heat and whisk. (Yep, I pulled out my teeny tiny adorable whisk just for this. I actually never use it unless blogging.)

The molds kindly came with eyedroppers to help fill them, so here's the first batch ready to go into the fridge:

Then 10-15 minutes later:

Holy moly! I made gummy bears!

Then, as the Buzzfeed writer did, I lost my damn mind and kept making them. I bought a bag of odd liquor things – a wine cooler, some Sour Apple Pucker, Fireball, etc. My kitchen was starting to look like the set of To Catch a Predator. 48 hours later I'd made nine varieties:

But how do they taste? Oh gawd – like really bad. Some of them have, like a cloud of booze stench surrounding them. The texture isn't exactly like gummy bears – which can actually be quite hard and chewy. It's more like a really strong, powerful Jell-O. Like strong enough to support your body weight. Some of them taste like almost nothing. The margarita bears, in particular, have an extreme mezcal flavor. The smell of the mint julep bears will blow your hair back. (Kentucky, y’all!) I take them to work (where they are remarkably cool about occasional booze showing up), and they are sampled enthusiastically by several people. They don't enthusiastically ask for seconds, but that's fair. The most common question is how many would it take to get a buzz? Well there are maybe 4 ounces of alcohol in the strongest ones. Each batch made around 50 bears. So by my calculations (which are, of course, wrong) it would take at least 25 bears to equal not-quite one drink. That’s a whole lot of terrible gummy candy to choke down. And that's not accounting for some alcohol cooking off.

Again – why? Because. That’s why. And they are super cute. Suh kyoot. You could even make these with flavored Jell-O, fruit juice, or Kool-Aid and leave the alcohol out entirely. You could. If you’re boring.

(Note: The theme to Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears was written by Michael and Patty Silversher. I'm not sure how to direct proper credit, so I'll mention it here. They are also responsible for lot of Muppet songs and Disney sequel music, as well as the “Tale Spin Theme (Spin It!)” I’m equally sure that some of these alcohol names need trademarks, but I’m using a free open source word processor, so I can’t figure out how to do that.)

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illdothedisheslater · 6 years

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Buffalo Blue Cheese Chicken Meatball Fettuccine:

Is that a typo or an accidental copy/paste? No – I cooked all of these things at once. One of the harder things about food blogging (besides living in a constant state of guilt over procrastinating, and having to field questions like “Are you still doing your blog?” from people that you KNOW keep up with it), is food blogging as a picky eater. There are many, many dishes and ingredients you will never see show up here: fish, any kind of fish, seafood, lake food, pond food, river food, olives, cloves, pumpkin-anything, and many, many more. Including bleu cheese (or blue cheese, as we'll call it here in 'Murica. But mostly because I don't want to deal with autocorrect 25 times today.) (And hell – autocorrect doesn't like “autocorrect”. Suck it, autocorrect.

I digress. Again, as always. I'm like constantly digressing.

I'm also easily, easily distracted today. For example, from where I sit here at my computer, I saw a small child learning to ride a bike with his dad jogging behind. It was pretty damn cute.

Back to business. So yeah, I'm making this weirdo dish that I saw on a freaking YouTube comedy video called Something's Burning with Bert Kreischer. We watched his stand-up special recently, so his cooking show popped up in the recommendations and I ended up watching something like three hours worth this week. They are hit and miss, but this one was pretty good. It's just comedians cooking and making fun of each other. What's not to like? I mean besides Whitney Cummings?

ANYWAY, back to the point – this dish is hopeful and celebratory, and will probably taste like spicy feet. One of my bosses, in two days, goes for his last round of chemo, EVER! (I hope!). He'll be out of commission the rest of the week and feeling like warmed-over ass, so to give him a last hurrah, I thought he'd love this oddball dish that includes fettuccine, chicken meatballs stuffed with blue cheese, and tossed with Buffalo sauce. It combines several of his favorite things, and since he has trouble digesting beef and pork due to a couple surgeries, the chicken meatball is the perfect sub. I mean, I guess. Chicken meatballs (like turkey bacon, turkey sausage, etc.) are a distant second as far as ideal, but they'll do.

I had to change the meatball recipe, because a) I halved it, b) it was going to be waaaayyy too wet to work with, and c) I'm baking these instead of frying them in $30 worth of olive oil like they did in the video. Oh, and d) I make chicken broth AAALLLL weekend, and saved the schmaltz, so they won't be as dry as ground poultry stuff often ends up. So here we have:

1 lb. Ground chicken 1 Egg ¾ Cup breadcrumbs 2 Tablespoons delicious homemade schmaltz ½ Teaspoon each of paprika, garlic powder, and shallot salt

(Why shallot salt? The recipe called for Onion Powder, which I do not have in the house, since I only bought it once like 8 years ago for the one time I made Chex Mix, and my aunt L sent me a loverly selection of mail-order spices that included a free sample. I'm really sorry guys. I keep going off on tangents. I'll try to stop. I'm out of practice.)

Combine all the ingredients, then realize it's too wet and mushy. I want moist, not wet. Add half a cup of flour. That works.

Here is where I get salmonella all over my camera trying to simultaneously assemble chicken meatballs, stuff them with blue cheese, and take pictures. I had to stop and wipe my camera down with Clorox Wipes and start over. Plus when I do messy meatball-type things, I like to wear gloves to keep meat out of my wedding ring (shout out to Mr. Dishes! Twelve years today! Woot woot!). If my hands showed up in the pictures, this blog would look like Cooking With Dexter or some kind of serial killer blog. And there I go again.

The balls get tossed in flour, sprinkled with more spices and black pepper, then go into a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.

They look pretty much the same when they come out. Maybe I should have fried just to take some of the pale off them, but too late now. I only bought the one pound of chicken. And only four of them leaked cheese!

Then I boil up a pound of fettuccine and toss it with 6 tablespoons of butter and half a bottle of Buffalo wing sauce. Then end.

Since it's our anniversary, Mr. Dishes kindly takes a bite, even though he's strict about not eating between meals (how did we end up together again?) and pretty much likes it. It tastes just a shade too feety for me – the force is strong with this cheese – but it's not terrible. The chicken meatball might be the best chicken meatball I've ever had even. Usually ground poultry has so much other stuff in it to distract you from noticing you're not eating the real thing, you can't taste the poultry at all. This tastes very chicken-y in a good way. The noodles taste exactly like noodles tossed in Buffalo sauce.

So. This post is weird and scattered and makes very little sense, much like its author, but I was just bound and determined to write something today. I didn’t even edit the pictures with flattering filters or alter the lighting. I'm sorry you had to read it.

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illdothedisheslater · 6 years

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Not-So Brave Brownies:

Q: Why don't you bake more?

A: Shut up. Why don't YOU bake more?

Follow up: Seriously. Mr. Dishes loves desserts. It's totally a thing that people who cook do. It would make him ever so happy. YOU like desserts too.

A: Because I suck at it okay? Happy now?

Reply: Delighted.

No, I am not much of a baker. I've made literally hundreds, maybe even thousands of chocolate chip cookies in my life – they all ranged from meh to fine. Not terrible – it's hard to screw them up that bad, but just not... Great. I'm not going to make some broad, sweeping statement about how there are only TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE – cooks and bakers, because that's not true, obviously. But 14 seasons of Top Chef taught me that the dessert people almost always go home early. And the non-dessert people always eff up the desserts and head home shortly thereafter. I'm a non-dessert person I guess. But I've always said that anyone who can read can cook (another blatant lie), so surely I can follow a recipe and bake some brownies for Mr. Dishes? Let's see.

Since I always wake up obscenely early for no good goddamn reason on the weekends, I first whip up two batches of boxed brownie mix just for funsies/I am a crazy person. They are Ghirardelli Caramel Turtle Brownies and Ghirardelli Triple Fudge Brownies. They are both delicious, easy to make, and generally pretty awesome. Everybody loves boxed brownie mixes right?

Q: You had to dig through the trash can to find the boxes and see what kind they were didn't you?

A: Yes of course.

I go to Serious Eats first and pick BraveTart's Glossy Fudge Brownies because they seem pretty basic – no weird or fanciful ingredients, just high quality regular ones. And I agree with Stella Parks that the crackly top is non-negotiable. The top must crackle. Also, it calls for three sticks of butter, so you know it's gonna be good. And also because I met Ms. Parks last year, when she stopped by my office to sign her new cookbook BraveTart for a charity auction, and graciously signed a book for me as well (okay, three, but I paid full retail for them, since I didn't have time to order them online.) Lastly, I know I use it an awful lot, but Serious Eats is great. I don't always love their recipes (pizza and pasta mostly - give it a rest with the damn onions and anchovies already), but the people there seem super nice – write them with a question or comment, and they always reply.

Instead of going step-by-step through the process, which is available on the website, and written much more concisely than I am capable of, I'll just hit the highlights.

The butter is browned then chocolate melted in.

The eggs are creamed until foamy with sugar, salt, instant espresso, and DAMMIT as I'm typing I realize I forgot the vanilla completely. There is a whole tray of brownies downstairs with no vanilla in them. I might not be the best food blogger out there, but by-God I'm honest. And profane.

(Action shot!)

If you've managed to avoid drinking the brown butter/chocolate concoction, add it to the eggs, then the dry ingredients (flour and cocoa). Mix, pour, and bake.

(Hey! KitchenAid! Check out this product placement! Send me some free stuff!)

(Just kidding.)

(But if you really want to, I mean, I guess that would be okay.)

Oh wait – there's a whole section about how important it is to use a 9x13 aluminum baking pan. Like very detailed reasons why, and also why a glass baking pan is for losers and will ruin your life, insult your grandmother, and rub blisters onto your pinky toes. Well my aluminum baking pan got thrown out two weeks ago. It was a nice one with squishy padded handles that, unfortunately, had reached the end of their lives and were starting to disintegrate. No amount of washing could get the sticky out. Fortunately I read the whole recipe beforehand, and was prepared with a brand new baking pan!

(Nelson Muntz laugh). I did not do that. I baked it in glass like a loser.

Anyway, after thirty excruciating minutes of letting them cool, here is the result:

Holy cow! That’s glossy and crackly!

They are, of course, delicious. Worth the extra time and trouble? Well... I mean... Sure why not? A little on the gooey side, but they are pretty damn good. Now I have to eat something like 53 brownies before they go stale. C'est la vie.

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illdothedisheslater · 6 years

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Contenders: The Great Alfredo Showdown

“I've been collecting Alfredos for a month or so.”

Question: Why are you doing this?

Answer: I don't know. It just struck my fancy. I'm medium-addicted to Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken from Sam's Club, and they won't tell me what sort of sauce it is. Alfredo is delicious, but it's a pain in the butt to make and has to be served immediately or it will break. I'm always looking for an easy weeknight meal. It's an excuse to have the girls over and day drink. So here we go.

The Contenders (In no particular order):

Prego Homestyle Alfredo

Classico Creamy Alfredo

Buitoni Alfredo Sauce

Barilla Creamy Alfredo

Ragu Classic Alfredo

Bertolli Alfredo Sauce

Trader Giotto's Alfredo Pasta Sauce

Newman's Own Alfredo

The Judges:

Dishes herself, Misty-Dawn, Super Sprout, and Marsha (not their real names). Three of my wonderful girlfriends have agreed to come over and try these sauces, during which we will also chat, catch up, drink, bitch, etc. At the end of the day one sauce will emerge victorious. This will be a blind tasting, mostly. I'm just assigning numbers to the sauces, and the other tasters will have no idea what they're trying. I have a vague notion of which sauce is which, but will mostly not remember.

I have quite the set up. One of the major problems with Alfredo is keeping it hot without it breaking or developing a skin. I've got all eight sauces in numbered mason jars, warming in a roasting pan on the stove (pretty ingenious, right?).

The fettuccine is precooked, and will be heated in simmering water in my much-loved but seldom-used pasta basket – you know, just like they do at Sbarro!

Sorry about the glare. This was the best picture I could manage on a beautiful sunny day unless I sent Mr. Dishes outside with a parasol to block the window, and he fled in horror at the mention of cream sauces.

I fall down on pictures as we move on – this was an exhausting day of dishing up 32(!) small portions of noodles and sauce, overloading on carbs, and running back and forth between table and stove. And then there were dishes... Boy howdy were there dishes.

Without further ado, the winner is.... Buitoni! I'm not terribly surprised. Tasting notes follow, and we had quite a time tossing out professional-sounding phrases like “coats the pasta”, “mouthfeel”, and “gross aftertaste”. I'm including some nutritional info if that's your bag – obviously it's not mine or I wouldn't be eating eight different cream sauces on a Sunday afternoon. Serving sizes for all brands were ¼ cup, and all brands ranged from between two to four g. carbs per serving – no big variety there. Regular (not sale) prices on all brands range from $1.79 (Ragu) to $3.99 (Buitoni) so this isn't a game for big spenders. I went with (mostly) readily available grocery brands (if you have a Trader Joe's near you), and avoided the pricier, harder to find jars (that are probably better?)

Newman's Own Alfredo:

Creamy, bland in a good way, green-can cheese flavor.

Fun facts: This crunchy-granola-organic brand had the most ingredients out of the bunch, with over 20 items on the label.

The first three ingredients are water, cream, and “parmesan cheese blend”.

This tied (with Bertolli) for highest sodium (410mg).

Prego Homestyle Alfredo:

Thicker, bland, nice texture, heavy nutmeg flavors.

Fun facts: One of the only sauces to contain sugar.

The first three ingredients are water, cream, and butter.

This tied (with Barilla) for lowest fat (6g).

Bertolli Alfredo Sauce:

Cheesier, more complex, pronounced garlic and onion flavors, a little oily.

Fun facts: This came up most often in searches for “Best jarred Alfredo”

The first three ingredients are water, cream, and butter.

This tied (with Newman's Own) for highest sodium (410mg).

Buitoni Alfredo Sauce:

Bland in a good way, tastes like real cheese, buttery.

Fun facts: Only brand sold in refrigerated case; fewest ingredients (only 10!)

The first three ingredients are water, cream, and butter.

This brand was highest in fat (10g) and calories (150). By a lot.

Barilla Creamy Alfredo:

Smells nice, thinnest sauce, flavorful, bad aftertaste, gets worse with each bite.

Fun facts: One of only two sauces that has oil in the the top three ingredients.

The first three ingredients are water, sunflower oil, and cream.

Tied (with Prego) for lowest fat (6g).

Ragu Classic Alfredo:

Smells bad. Like cardboard. Burnt garlic. Worst.

Fun facts: Also has oil in the top three ingredients and was the only brand that no one finished. I mean I was serving little tiny bowls – maybe three or four bites in each.

The first three ingredients are water, soybean oil, and cream.

Trader Giotto's Alfredo Pasta Sauce:

Super bland, thickest sauce, weird aftertaste, a little sour maybe?

Fun facts: none really. This was just so, so bland.

The first three ingredients are water, cream, and parmesan cheese.

This brand had the lowest sodium (280mg).

Classico Creamy Alfredo:

Nicely bland, no bad aftertaste, would make a good base for a recipe, second favorite.

Fun facts: This one was in the lead for favorite before Buitoni came along.

First three ingredients are water, cream, and parmesan.

This brand has the lowest calories per serving (50! How do they do that?)

So to sum up, we're all feeling a little sickly at the moment. Eight sauces are too many to try in one day, and I just don't have the resources and manpower to present them all at the same time for comparison.

Winners: Buitoni and Classico

Losers: Ragu and Barilla

Coincidence?: Both losers had oil in the top three ingredients.

The rest were squarely in the middle.

All were bland.

Surprises: Classico – cheap and pretty good! Newman's – not great, highest sodium, and SO many ingredients. Trader Giotto's – expected better.

None were really good enough to eat on their own with just noodles. Most could have used some salt.

If anyone is worried about how extremely wasteful this seems, let me assure you the leftovers from the top two brands went into a casserole with the leftover pasta, some rotisserie chicken, and fresh chopped Italian Parsley and disappeared into the stomachs of my co-workers. I kept a middle of the road jar to sneak pills to my elderly dog for a few days, and the rest, right or wrong, went into the trash.

And since I completely blew it as far as pictures of the actual tasting, I started playing with photoshop and filters and found one called Burlesque, so I present to you eight sexy Alfredo sauces:

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illdothedisheslater · 6 years

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Deconstructed Lasagna:

Just a little tease for what I’m up to today:

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illdothedisheslater · 7 years

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Daydrink Believer - Bloody Mary Mix

Because I'm fairly (like totally a lot) immature for my age, I love to daydrink. Or rather, I love any excuse to daydrink – bridal showers = mimosas, tailgating = light beer, and vacation is basically a hall pass. The current political climate = bourbon for breakfast, brunch, lunch, snack, and dinner. But there's one drink I just don't get, and that's the Bloody Mary. I love vodka. I love tomatoes. Just not together. They look delicious, colorful, even healthy. But blech. Like a hot bowl of stew spiked with tequila or something.

So of course I'm making homemade Bloody Mary mix for no reason whatsoever. Probably because I've been jamming all summer and looking for something new to can? Regardless, ATK's Foolproof Preserving has a recipe, and I have 10 pounds of beautiful summer tomatoes and a new tomato press to play with.

This was my treat to myself on vacation – on clearance at the Williams Sonoma outlet. I saw it and thought to myself, “Now that looks impossible to pack.” So how does it work?

The instructions are unclear, but I manage to get it going – and it's great! The juice and pulp squoosh out into a bowl while the seeds and peels squoosh out the other side. Juice spatters out the top, the sides, and somehow through the handle. It gets on the windows, counters, floors, and all over the front of my shirt. It's carefully designed so as to not allow two bowls to sit side-by-side and catch everything. The garbage bowl goes into a one gallon paint strainer bag, which gives up an alarming amount of more juice.

Within an hour I have three quarts of fresh tomato juice and what looks like a Dexteresque crime scene in my kitchen. But look! Not a single seed! This is way easier (and messier) than pushing tomatoes through a sieve.

And then – here comes another recipe pet peeve – you have to boil the juice and reduce it until it's down by a third. The book recommends 10-30 minutes, so of course it takes over an hour. I don't know what sort of magical reducing stoves these writers use, but I don't have one. I boil and boil. Eventually it looks a little lower in the pot, so I add:

2/3 cup lemon juice

2 ½ tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons prepared horseradish

1 tablespoon hot sauce

Salt & pepper

Then it gets canned and processed for 40 minutes.

And now the taste test. I look around. If this is terrible Bloody Mary Mix, it will taste weird and gross to me. If it's the best Mix the world has ever seen, it will taste weird and gross to me. I need a volunteer. I ask around at work, and find only one single co-worker who actually likes them – not just in an every-once-in-awhile-on-vacation kind of way. He gets a jar with a free celery stick, and I rope my friend Susafrass (not her real name) into coming over to try it.

The verdict? Susafrass loves it, though she admits she's a “slut for fresh tomato juice”. (I really hope I got that quote right.) Co-worker asks if there is clam juice in it and found it a bit watery (frownie face). Me? I think it's weird and a little bit gross. So success?

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illdothedisheslater · 7 years

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One Pot Failure

I’m writing this on the fly - I’m not even editing. (Instead of my usual five-minute spell-check and addition of countless pointless personal details.) I know I haven’t posted in awhile, but I’ve been busy. Sorry. Today I attempted to make my own one-pot pasta recipe, and it didn’t go great. I even took a lot of pretty pictures!

But it’s a fail. The dish is nice, but not what I wanted. I had a gorgeous gelatinous chicken stock I made yesterday that took three trips through my pressure cooker.

Yeah, I know that’s kind of gross - chicken jello! - but it’s magnificent.

I mandolined zucchini, cooked the pasta perfectly, and even the garlic didn’t overwhelm or turn bitter, but the fact is this dish is soupy and weird and perfectly average. It does not taste bad. That’s something.

The objective was a one-pot pasta with fettuccini, chicken, zucchini, tomatoes, a lot of heat, and a broth thickened with grated parmigiano-reggiano. The good stuff. The expensive stuff.

I’m really sorry guys. This isn’t much of a post, but I’ve been in a cooking rut, a work rut, and had out of town company, and a million other excuses. I made a pretty, bland dish that isn’t really anything like what I wanted. BUT I have a block of Raclette in the fridge, so I promise to do something more interesting next time.

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illdothedisheslater · 7 years

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Mason Jar Kentucky Hot Browns

When you whisk in some cheese Just as fast as you please That's a Mornay!

(I apologize for that.)

Today I'm trying out Mason Jar Kentucky Hot Browns, because it's 92 degrees today, so I thought I'd fire up the broiler. And I'm in Kentucky. And I love doing Hot Brown things - mini filo shell Hot Browns, Hot Brown pizza, etc. Many, many words have been written about the history of the Hot Brown, the Brown Hotel in Louisville, etc., so I'm not going to rehash it all. A Kentucky Hot Brown is a golden fiery phoenix/unicorn unholy hybrid monster of a dish full of everything bad for you: butter, heavy cream, cheese, bacon, extra cheese, bread, and then a tomato which most people just pick off and set to the side. No one eats this for their health. As a matter of fact if you ever order a full-size Hot Brown, it's best to make sure you don't have anything important to do for the rest of the day. The siren song of the couch will be impossible to resist. That's why I like to miniaturize them whenever possible. This recipe will make between 12-20 little Hot Browns, depending on the size of your jars.

Ingredients: 6 oz. butter 8 tblsp. flour 2 oz. parmesan cheese, grated 2 oz. white cheddar, grated 4 oz. sharp yellow cheddar, grated 2 pints heavy cream 4 slices of sandwich bread 1 lb. bacon, cooked and roughly chopped 1/2 lb. turkey, diced MORE CHEESE BECAUSE CHEESE IS GOOD 2-3 roma tomatoes, sliced Salt & Pepper to taste Parsley to garnish

I'll try not to ramble too much today. I line up fourteen jars (eight 4 oz. and six 8 oz.) and get started. Four slices of sandwich bread get lightly toasted, cubed, and distributed among the jars, just covering the bottoms. I even use two slices of wheat bread, because - you know - healthy.

Top with a layer of turkey. This is just regular Boar's Head deli turkey, sliced quite thick. Actually Kroger's new dedication to customer service (in lieu of quality meat. Ahem.) means the deli counter people will always offer you a sample of the meat you're buying. When I specified the thickness, she hacked off a monster slab and passed it to me as my "sample". It was probably close to a quarter pound of meat and as large as my face. I spent the rest of my grocery trip trying to choke down what can only be described as a cold turkey steak served on a thin piece of paper.

Make a Mornay sauce by whisking flour into melted butter to make a roux. Keep whisking until it starts to turn golden. Add the heavy cream, whisking all the while. Get it up to a hot simmer, then start whisking in the cheese, and some salt and pepper to taste. It might not be a very authentic way to make a traditional French sauce, but I used my immersion blender and it worked like gangbusters. No lumps or bits of unmelted cheese. Ladle generously over the turkey and bread.

Then add some more grated cheddar, because why the hell not? What do we have to live for anyway? And then, yeah, I put a whole freaking pound of bacon on them. I'm going to kill you today.

Top with a slice of tomato, a little more S&P, and some parsley, so you can tell yourself you ate something green, and are not committing suicide by dairy. (Why am I getting so dark and murdery? I've had a lovely, productive weekend, done a variety of good deeds, and am in a great mood. Sorry I keep vaguely threatening you, dear readers.)

Fire up the broiler to high. Put on the top oven rack until they start to bubble and crisp on top. Remove (carefully, they are molten) and serve hot.

Did I buy tiny forks for a photo opportunity? Maybe.

These are. So. Good.

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illdothedisheslater · 7 years

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A Day In The Life

I leaned against my coworker's door frame and posed this question: "Cherry-rhubarb or strawberry-balsamic?" My co-worker, Wally the Bunny (her chosen nom de plume) picked cherry rhubarb, knowing I was talking about jam. After experimenting with pastas, pizzas, cheeses, and all manner of other nonsense, I may have landed on my true passion, which is sterilizing jars and making dozens and dozens of jams, pickles, and salsas during the summer months. Not the most interesting thing to write about, so I won't bore you every week with another adventure in jar-boiling, but yesterday I was completely insane which you may find entertaining. Wally had work to do, so I didn't bore her with the details of what fruit was on sale and where, and how I didn't want to go to more than one grocery, since I also needed beer and blah blah blah. I agreed to make her chosen jam and headed off to shop.

Of course I then went to THREE grocery stores and decided to make three jams in one day - an unprecedented act of true bonkers-ness. I came home with two pounds of cherries, one and a half of rhubarb, four pounds of strawberries, some fresh thyme, five pounds of sugar, and two pounds of red peppers. (And beer, of course).

What follows is a day in the life of a crazy person.

7:30 a.m. - Fill up stockpot and start boiling water for jars. Sterilize many, many jars for all this jam.

8:30 - wash and chop three large red peppers. They have to be pureed, and I don't want to deal with the food processor and the 19 extra dishes it creates. I try to use my stick blender, which fails spectacularly. I lug out all the parts of the food processor, including a new non-lethal blade acquired after my campaign of shock-and-awe against the company who issued a recall for over eight million faulty parts, promptly closed the factory for a month, then told me it could be up to eight months before I got a replacement part. Not cool. So I immaturely started harassing them via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Three weeks of acting like an asshole got this squeaky wheel some grease, and they sent me my blade early to shut me up. Success!

8:45 - begin boiling red peppers, vinegar, and sugar for jam #1 - Spicy Red Pepper Jelly. It is very sticky.

9:15 - fill jars and process in water bath. One down, three to go.

10:00 - Stem, then learn how to pit cherries. I try a toothpick, paperclip, etc. as recommended online. Nothing works. I think about getting a cherry pitter, but I'm afraid if I brought one more kitchen gadget into the house, it would collapse into a sinkhole and I'd drown in a sea of spatulas and garlic peelers. Also, Mr. Dishes will divorce me. Finally I discover my usually useless 1/8 tsp. measuring spoon acts as a perfect little pit-sized scoop and I more or less get the pits out without destroying the fruit too much. My neck starts to ache.

10:12 - Now I have to chop the cherries, so why the hell did I have to remove the pits so carefully?

10:15 - dice rhubarb in front of the TV, so I can catch the season finale of Grey's Anatomy. Yes, I still watch it. Yes, I know you gave up in season five when everything got weird with the ghost sex storyline. Nevertheless, I persisted, because Kevin McKidd makes it all worthwhile. Also I just want to sit down.

10:45 - cherries and rhubarb need to macerate in sugar for an hour or so - rhubarb (or "pie plant", in the Little House books) is sour and stringy unless treated properly. I don't really know how to treat it properly, so I just throw sugar at it. My feet hurt.

11:45 - boil up jam #2: Cherry-Rhubarb, fill jars, process in the water bath. The kitchen is decidedly sticky now, and constant steam from the boiling stockpot has not done anything kind to my hair. I don't frizz - I flop. But my pores are open, probably. I'm hungry. I drag my stringy hair and sore feet to the grocery, and intentionally avoid the produce section. I can't do anymore. I just can't. Not today. My legs are getting sore.

1:00 - wash and hull four pounds of strawberries for jam #3 - Strawberry Balsamic with Thyme from Serious Eats. (The other two recipes were clumped together from a bunch of ones I found online, so no credit given.) Also have to sterilize a few more jars, just in case.

1:04 - I go to the bathroom. There is a cherry stem on the floor. Why? How?

1:05 - I wash my hands. I'm not a monster, people.

1:15 - Mr. Dishes wanders in. He's been wisely avoiding me all day, probably with his fingers crossed that I don't have a panic attack/temper tantrum in the middle of all this, leaving him with a sink full of dishes, several boiling pots of nonsense, and a sticky, crying wife on the floor. He spends five minutes helping me crush strawberries with a potato masher. He does it wrong.

1:30 - I double the balsamic vinegar to make it more of a savory jam, since the balsamic-fig is such a big hit. I boil. I pluck tiny thyme leaves off the stem. I mix and boil. My back hurts.

1:45 - I arrange a photoshoot for www.harvestandhoney.com (a much better, prettier blog than this one) tomorrow at my BFF's farm, where there are picturesque peonies, bee hives, peacocks, etc. I check the forecast - rain, rain, rain. Great.

2:15 - I text Ms. Harvestandhoney "I just put my last batch of ham in the bath to process." She was like, "Damn." I explain the auto-correct and assure her I'm not slaughtering animals in the backyard and processing meat in the bathroom. Yet.

2:18 - I realize I'm kind of a ridiculous person. I'm okay with that.

2:30 - I'm done. For once I did dishes as I went along (approximately 397 dishes, if I counted right), so I can sit some more. Sitting feels nice.

3:00 - I attempt a picturesque shot of my jams in the sunlight on the back deck. I can't get the little satellite dish out of the shot - the old homeowners left it when they moved, so it just stays on the garage, until one day it will fall and kill a small animal. Whatever.

3:30 - I open a beer. Yes, it's a little early but I earned it. I watch Netflix and relax. 6:30 - I drag my sore neck, back, legs, and feet out to dinner. As I limp through the parking lot, Mr. Dishes forbids me from making anymore jam this weekend. I have to agree. But I will check the Sunday ads to see what fruit is on sale...

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illdothedisheslater · 7 years

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Back In The Kitchen - Canning Salsa

Where ya been, Dishes?

(Excuses, work, life, more excuses, one or two valid reasons, blah blah.)

The point is, I'm back! With serious work deadlines behind me I hope to update more frequently than just quarterly. (Sad face.) But as I'm out of the habit now, this post might be a little topsy-turvy, and not the elegant purple prose you're used to. Bear with me. Or bare with me, if that's your thing. It's your life. Writing isn't easy, despite what Steve Martin has to say on the subject. I can't just start a story about a red guy like he does and make it brilliant. I ran across these particularly terrible pieces of food writing the other day. (I don't feel bad about reposting without credit, as it was a spammer who was posting plagiarized photos on a food website to promote their weirdo site, by posing as a baker.):

"They can be decorated in a way that will make them far more beautiful than they would be otherwise." "You can make a coconut cake for everyone who comes to your house because they will enjoy its amazing flavour." "If you are one of the cookers who needs better and new dessert ideas for every meal, you can find online all the information you need."

See what I mean? At least do better than that (oh I hope! I hope!) - even if I overuse punctuation...

Anyhoo, after recent traumatic work days, I go to my happy place, which is canning. Are y'all sick of hearing about me boiling jars? Well you're in luck because I read about a new (to me) technique wherein you can sterilize clean jars in the oven (225 for 20 minutes!) (Edit, like a year later. Don’t do this. It isn’t safe. The jars aren’t made to withstand constant dry heat. The more I learn about canning, the more I realize what an effing idiot I was at the beginning of this love affair.) Isn't that more exciting than boiling? No, I know it's not. Oh well.

Today's project is homemade salsa, or just kinda-homemade. I'm using Mrs. Wages Hot Salsa mix, which isn't exactly cooking from scratch, but I'm still new to this canning game. Homemade recipes tend to call for garlic, which tends to turn almost immediately into botulism. I'm spooked - one of my major cooking goals is to totally not kill anybody. I have a lot more research to do (and possibly to buy a pressure canner!) before I'm completely comfy taking risks like that. Plus I think fine lines and wrinkles show character.

Walmart unexpectedly had some pretty decent tomatoes last week, so I got six pounds and a packet of mix. I also decided to add some fresh cilantro and a little diced onion. (Edit #2 - Don’t do this either. Gawd, I’m lucky I didn’t kill someone. Don’t mess with the recipes, as that will mess with the pH.) The mix has dehydrated onions, peppers, and garlic as well as herbs, but at least this is a little more like scratch cooking.

The bulk of the work is in prepping the tomatoes - washing, coring, blanching, shocking, and peeling. This takes forever, creates a hundred dishes, and makes a huge mess. Fun!

They look sad, and sort of vulnerable, don’t they? Then they get smooshed (squish! squish!), the mix gets added with half a cup of (no particular brand, just whatever the cheapest 5% acidity) white vinegar. I also add my onions and cilantro. Confession: I am one of those cilantro people. It tastes like nothing but awful dish soap to me, and I now find that even the smell is horrifying and offensive. It kind of smells like soap, but it's soap you know is going to get in your mouth at some point and you won't be able to stop it. My brother also has this gene, though Mr. Dishes and mom just love it.

Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes or so. Ladle into prepared, hot jars and process in boiling water for 40 minutes, during which time the windows steam up and I worry the paint will peel off the walls.

But when I fed some to Mr. Dishes, these were his comments:

"Mm." "Mmm!" "Okay, yeah. This is way better than the grocery store stuff."

Just a note - these can also be made with canned tomatoes - Costco has industrial-sized cans for like three bucks, they don't have seeds, and save a lot of mess and trouble.

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illdothedisheslater · 7 years

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Sold on Sous Vide? Beef Tenderloin:

Drama!

Through a complicated holiday bonus system at work, I ended up with an Anova Sous Vide Precision Cooking System, which has been on my radar for years. I also purchased a 12-quart water bath with a custom-made lid.

And instead of working my way up, I decided to throw the most expensive cut of meat possible into it and see what happened. This required some amateur butchery.

(That weird spoon-thing is supposed to act as a stylus for a phone or tablet while you cook. It doesn’t work.)

Despite watching several YouTube videos, and having my copy of Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques at the ready, my whole beef tenderloin resembled nothing like what the videos showed. Maybe because I get the smaller ones? I don't know. But luckily I'm not too squicky about raw meat. I sharpened my knives, washed my hands, and started hacking.

While the end product looks pretty good, it's not quite what was supposed to happen. Regardless, I have three vacuum packed parcels to start my sous vide (the head part of the tenderloin was supposed to stay attached), and I cut the "chain" into tips.

(Here's a tip if you ever want to feel like a damn fool - watch videos on how to tie a butcher's knot. You WILL fail. You WILL get angry. You WILL realize it's some sort of witchcraft. I mean I taught myself how to knit with a pamphlet. I can't do this.)

I got too excited when the actual loin part turned out loin-shaped and vacuumed it up before I even considered seasoning it, but the head got some salt, pepper, and thyme. The tips were also salted and peppered, then I added some bouillon and an ice cube (for which I consider myself kind of brilliant.) You can't use the food saver bags with liquid and I needed a bit of a broth to develop. Ice cube. Genius.

Since this machine/device/magic wand came with almost no set-up or operating instructions, I used my superior intellect and several visits to Serious Eats, and bumbled through downloading the app, setting up the tub, and getting a time and temperature set. So without further ado, here are my three cuts cooking to 126 degrees for three hours.

(I checked this picture ten times to make sure there was nothing embarrassing in the background. I think it’s clean.)

What's cool about sous vide is the science, the precision, and the reduced danger of overcooking and farting up an expensive slab of beef. What's not cool? Or interesting? Watching it steadily maintain its temperature, while the bags of meat gently bob around. This does not make for edge-of-your-seat blogging, folks.

But it works. A mere ninety minutes later, All the meat is cooked to perfectly rare. And it is extremely unattractive.

The pink that looks so good when you cut into a steak isn't quite the same when it's the whole darn piece of meat. So now we sear it - you need a screaming hot pan with vegetable oil (or other high-heat oil - do NOT use olive oil - the smoke point is too low, everything will burn and smell and taste rancid). This has to be performed quickly so you don't cook the meat too much. (Also I was frantically throwing seasonings at the loin, since I forgot to pre-season.)

The beauty of this system is instead of a well-done exterior, gradually turning rare in the middle, you end up with a loin that's perfectly pink all the way through. But the sear is necessary for color and flavor. The internal temperature gets to up around 132 during the sear, but you avoid the gray ring around the edges of the meat. This turns out just-past rare, which is where I like it. Good beefy taste, but no unpleasant raw chew.

Et voila!

OMG you guys. (And I don’t use the term “OMG” lightly. Usually I use it sarcastically.) Doesn't that look awesome? I got 30 likes on Facebook just posting this picture with no caption. It's amazing. I have to admit a little more seasoning could help, but this sous vide thing has potential. A couple weeks later I try it with chicken breasts and make a batch of chicken salad. Is it possible for chicken to be too juicy? It almost doesn't work, except it does. I can't wait until pork butts go on sale and I can try pulled pork.

Now this weekend I've vacuum sealed, sous-vided, dragged out my KitchenAid mixer, AND the pressure cooker. Last weekend I used my immersion blender. Next weekend maybe my new pasta maker. No one can accuse me of filling up the house with gadgets I never use. No one. Especially not Mr. Dishes.

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illdothedisheslater · 7 years

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Egg Nog Jell-O Shots (a.k.a. don’t eat yellow snow)

Happy New Year!

(Or is it New Years? New Year’s? Not 100% sure on that one.)

Busy holiday times means lots of cooking, but sadly few new projects, or anything interesting to discuss. But I wanted to get one more little post in for the year, so I’ll share these Egg Nog Jell-O Shots from the Serious Eats recipe (of course). Time restraints called for store-bought nog for my first go-round, as I wanted to try these out before I took them to the Family Christmas Eve Italian Extravaganza of food drink, and friendly gift-theft. (Our dirty Santa game gets gleefully evil, then afterwards people generally give their gifts to the people who really wanted them.)

And of course it’s not a fun blog post unless I get to shop for a single-use, nonsense piece of kitchen equipment, so I decide to do a fun Christmas shape and get a silicone snowman mold. I grate nutmeg over the mold first, to make sure every bite has nutmeg, or Mr. Dishes will be able to tell. Regular bloodhound for nutmeg, he is.

12 ounces of nog get divided in half. One half goes into a bowl with 4 ounces of your choice of liquor. SE recommends rum, but I use bourbon, because: Kentucky. The other half gets heated until simmering, then sprinkled with two packets of unflavored gelatin. (That’s a lot.) (For some reason I still find the idea of making plain, clear, flavorless Jell-O hilarious. I don’t know why. Maybe that will be an April Fools Day post.) Let the gelatin bloom and set for 5 minutes or so, then whisk everything together vigorously until well blended, and there are no little solid bits floating around.

Pour into the molds. Very carefully. And slowly. And this is tedious. But at least I had to foresight to rest the mold in a cookie sheet so I didn’t have try to lift a floppy rubbery mold full of goo. Place in the fridge for anywhere from 6 hours to overnight. The longer they set, the better.

(Later)

Tada! And woo hoo! It worked and they are adorable. An army of happy little guys.

Just a few reservations: First I realize that maybe snowmen weren’t quite the right shape for this beige project. There is something a little unappetizing about them. The other thing is this recipe removes all of the good things about egg nog - creamy, frothy, rich - and just compresses the bland flavor into a, well, a gelatin. You have to chew them a little. The bourbon flavor doesn’t get lost, but I can’t really describe these as “good”.

And then it occurs to me that there will be a lot of little hands at the Christmas party, and maybe jolly snowmen chock-full of stealth booze isn’t exactly a safe thing to put out on the appetizer table among the little’uns. So back to Michael’s Crafts I go, dragging Mr. Dishes with me to get another mold in a different shape, so I can make a non-alcoholic batch for the kiddies. (“There were only twelve people in line!” I told him gleefully.) I even add some green food coloring so the little ones can eat green Christmas trees while the adults enjoy the drunken, light brown snowmen.

Then when the big day finally comes, the following things happen:

I do not let the gelatin bloom long enough, so there are little chewy bits in every bite.

The booze snowmen will not come out of their molds. They fall apart in chunks, and look like victims of a zombie attack. Oh well, I’ll take the Kidz Bop version with me anyway.

The kids will not touch them. One beautiful little cousin deigns to poke one gently, pronounces it “yuck”, and goes back to the sliding-down-the-stairs game that is all the rage.

Oh well. Sometimes you just have to try. Happy Holidays to all my readers! I leave you with a picture I received from my Secret Santa, which she insists is a vintage Santa, and which I insist is Nicholas Cage.

Saint Nicholas Cage?

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illdothedisheslater · 7 years

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Ciao Time #14 - Low Carb Pizza (What?)

Remember when to lose weight you had to eat less and exercise more? Ha ha. No, that's crazy talk. But remember when you counted calories? And then fat grams? And remember when everybody became lactose intolerant for awhile? Because dairy was bad? And eggs were bad and then fat became good, margarine was better than butter, then butter made a come-back? And superfoods went from bananas to cranberries to blueberries to acai to chia seeds? And remember kale? Remember quinoa? Remember when every disease to ever afflict humankind was caused by gluten? And the cure for all that ails you was apple cider vinegar? And then coconut oil? Remember Atkins and South Beach and the Mediterranean Diet and the cabbage soup diet and Susan Powter and Weight Watchers and detoxes and cleanses and Paleo and AIP foods and acidic/alkaline diets... Guh.

Currently two of my coworkers are figuratively starving themselves to death by cutting carbs - the worst of all the diets (worst for me, who cannot stop with the pastas, breads, potatoes, etc.) Their food makes me sad. They eat cucumbers for snacks. A tablespoon of peanut butter is a treat and a cheat. Our receptionist dutifully eats eggs baked in ham cups for breakfast every morning. An accountant has omelets for dinner every night. I'm not making fun of them - I admire the determination, dedication, and sacrifice - all of which I am completely unwilling to try for myself. So this is for them - I decided to make them a pizza. Accountant says it's the food he misses most, and receptionist lit up like a damn Christmas tree when I suggested it. Only for others will I forgo my beloved gluten.

But first, some numbers: Yay! Everyone loves numbers and reads food blogs for all that rich, mathy goodness. I visited the websites of three large national pizza chains to see what their carb count looks like - coworkers are limited to 20 g. carbs a day or less. Or less. (Will to live fading... fading...) One slice of regular old pepperoni pizza from a chain has between 24 and 28 g. carbs. One slice! Thin crust isn't much better, and the ones who offer gluten-free still manage to cram 16-18 g. carbs into a slice of pizza (that probably tastes like sauce and cardboard box).

Pictured above is Almond Flour, and I'm going to be using a recipe called Fat Head Pizza Crust, which the internet assures me is the very best, most bread-like product you can make without wheat flour, and because the nutritional information is easy to find. Oh - there are gluten-free recipes all over the dang World Wide Web, but for low-carb, this looks like the best one.

But first I need to get to know my ingredient. I've never used almond flour - pretty much just almonds crushed to a powdery consistency, but with more moisture than flour-flour would have. I make crackers from a recipe on the back of the bag, after a harrowing and frantic search for my fluted pastry wheel (which turned up in the same drawer it always lives in, but only after I'd checked twice already.)

They are... Edible. They couldn't possibly be described as "good", but they aren't awful. They taste like some sort of post-apocalyptic subsistence cracker-ration the alien overlords might give us to keep us from dying while we toil in the mines. Not an auspicious beginning.

The Fat Head recipe for dough is this: 6 oz. grated mozzarella cheese 3 oz. almond flour 2 tablespoons cream cheese One egg (beaten) 1/2 teaspoon salt Seasonings (Penzey's Pizza Seasoning, don't ya know. About half a tablespoon.) The seasonings go in the crust, because I assume it will otherwise taste like a paperback book. I do not have high hopes for low-carb cooking.

(I'd love to give credit where credit is due, but I can't seem to figure out the origin of this recipe - it's everywhere on Pinterest, paleo-blogs, keto-blogs, diabetic food sites, etc.)

Mix the cheeses and almond flour in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high for one minute. Stir, then microwave for 30 more seconds. Add the egg and the rest of the ingredients. Mix quickly with your hands - it has to blend while it's warm, and also not be so hot the egg cooks. It's a strange dough - really more melted cheese-feeling than anything else. Because it's mostly melted cheese, I guess.

The instructions say to roll it into a circle between two pieces of parchment paper, but instead I divide it in two halves and sort of pat it into a roundish shape (on parchment on a cookie sheet). It seems easier.

These rounds go into a 425 oven for 12-15 minutes, or until they start to brown. Flip them carefully and give them 5 more minutes in the oven. I missed an important step in which you prick the dough with a fork to keep it from puffing up like pita bread, so mine kind of puff up like pita bread, but I'll be damned - that kind of looks like bread.

These get topped with my customary toppings - a simple sauce of crushed tomato and seasonings, mozz and parm, and pepperoni.

(More quick numbers - I'll keep it short this time - each little 12 inch pizza contains only 14 g. carbs TOTAL.)

The verdict? Joy, disbelief, awe, praise, gratitude. Pretty much a big win. Coworkers who described the crackers as “okay" and "edible” were thrilled with their pizzas. While it doesn't taste like bread, exactly, it has a bread-like consistency and a cheesy tanginess. It could probably stand up to stronger toppings, like spicy Italian sausage or green peppers if you hate life.

So if you absolutely have to avoid carbs, which I don't recommend unless it's life-or-death, then this is actually a reasonable substitution.

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illdothedisheslater · 7 years

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Just Shoot Me - Shooter Sandwiches

Serious Eats did an article about Shooter Sandwiches, in which they used the best ingredients, the best prep to make the most of the ingredients, and lovingly created a gorgeous sandwich, which they determined was not worth the effort. Basically they believe the secret to a great sandwich is that it becomes greater than the sum of its parts. Bacon? Good. Mayo? Good. Tomato? Good. BLT - great. But of course I tuned out immediately after reading the word "effort", and decided that I have to try it. Because, well you know me by now. Plus I like steak. Instead of my usual 16,000 word essay on every slice and step, I'll try to keep it short today so I can maybe throw a Halloween post up before the weekend is over.

First you bake a loaf of bread - I used Jim Lahey's no-knead recipe from the New York Times, since I had to start with a boule shape. I used AP flour instead of bread flour, which was a good move:

The next weekend I made two loaves with the two types of flour just out of curiosity. Because that’s what I do on the weekends. Because I’m weird like that. You can see that the AP flour (right) makes a much prettier loaf.

It kills me to destroy such a beautiful bread. I made this bread! Now I have to gut it, by slicing off the top and scooping out the insides. (Which I then eat, literally by the handful.)

Gawd, that’s some beautiful bread.

I cook some strip steaks to medium rare, and saute mushrooms and shallots in butter with a splash of balsamic vinegar until they're soft and almost like a paste.

First you spread delicious meat juices around the bottom of the bread bowl.

Then a layer of mushrooms and shallots, then Dijon mustard.

Then tuck the steaks in. When I trimmed the excess fat, they got a little smaller than I'd hoped, but you get the gist.

Sorry. It looks gross. I assure you it was not. As previously mentioned, I am a terrible photographer.

More mushrooms, more shallots, and a heaping tablespoon of horseradish goes over everything. Put the lid back on the bread.

This is fun and weird - wrap the whole thing in foil - twice. Then you put a bunch of heavy stuff on it and let it squoosh until it gets as flat as it can. You're supposed to leave it overnight, but I just let it sit for around six hours so that I could eat it.

Cut into slices and enjoy.

Meh. Serious Eats was right. It's fine. It's okay. But I'd rather eat a steak and a loaf of bread. Nothin’ special, despite all the effort.

So - not my best post, but I'm getting lazy about blogging and want to keep putting stuff on here, lest I abandon it completely. Difficult recipe, lots of time and effort, with a so-so product at the end. My kind of cooking! The fellows at work enjoyed it the next day, even if Mr. Dishes and I were not so enthusiastic.

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illdothedisheslater · 8 years

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Purple Carrots Look Like Bacon: Ham & Vegetable Ribbon Quiche

Where ya been Dishes? Woo boy. Where haven’t I been?

There’s been a lot going on this summer. Some highlights: four weddings in five weeks, a small fire that required weeks of clean-up, making upwards of ninety jars of jam, general laziness (of course), and a family visit/road trip. Hopefully life will calm down a bit now. The fire weren’t really no thang - I got very, very lucky in that I did not destroy my entire house, all my belongings, my dog, or any of the same for the neighbors. The downside is weeks of smoke-smell and a fortnight-long cleaning jag that unearthed (among other things), a hornet’s nest, a small plastic turtle that used to live on my stove, and evidence that Mr. Dishes and I are uniquely unsuited for the task of being adults and not living like garbage people/trolls under bridges/those beetles that roll balls of shit into (Google:) “breeding chambers”. (Shudder.)

Great food blog, Dishes. I’m sure that all your fans who have missed you so much over the last couple months were really wondering about your thoughts on dung beetles.

Dung Beetles! That’s it! I was calling them Shit Beetles.

Enough of the vulgarity. At this point the only person reading this nonsense is your mom, and she’s not a fan of your potty mouth. Get back to work. Since you started writing this, you’ve gotten distracted with the following things: washing two sets of curtains, going through pockets looking for change, going down to get a drink, making a grocery list, getting obsessed with removing a light fixture to change the bulb even though the bolt is rusty and won’t turn, locating WD-40, discussing Mr. Dishes’s career goals, Weeds Season 8, and facebooking a picture of a hornet’s nest.

Okay. Excuses over. I’ll just write some stuff. After all the crap I’ve been through (put myself through) I needed a win. I wanted something pretty. And Trader Joe’s had bags of different colored carrots I’ve been searching for forever. Once upon a time I saw another blog (whose name escapes me - apologies to the writer) where the most beautiful tart was made of thin ribbons of vegetables rolled into a giant spiral with strips of ham and filled with custard to be baked like a quiche. Or a tart. Whatever. I’ve never made anything quite so lovely, so instead of my usual slab of meat or bucket of sawce (as a food-friend calls it), I thought I’d give it a try.

(Yes, I cheated with a frozen crust. I’m sorry, but this is too much work already to add homemade pastry. I can do crust - puh-leeze. It’s a snap, but I just didn’t feel like it. Here we have:

Purple, yellow, and orange carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, and Black Forest ham. Amounts may vary. My much-loved, little-used mandolin slicer makes short work of the zucchini and squash, and I use a manual peeler on the carrots to make thin ribbons. Purple carrots look like bacon when all is said and done. Or more like fak-on, or vegan bacon, or those baconish dog treats. The ham gets cut into strips also.

I blanch the vegetables in salty water for a few minutes to soften them, then lay them out in pinteresting piles for a photo-op.

This is where it gets tricky: the rolling. Do you think it’s easy rolling wet, limp ribbons of carrots into a neat rosette, then adding greasy ham? It is not, let me tell you. It takes a few tries, and I get the hang of it, with the aid of some toothpicks.

It gets bigger. And bigger.

Until it’s done!

I left the squash out entirely, as the seeds made the slices to ragged too work with. I note with despair that I have more than enough ingredients leftover for a second tart, so I roll again.

Quiche custard is super-easy (thanks to Michael Ruhlman’s excellent book Ratio). One part egg to two parts liquid - in this case half-and-half. I add a quarter cup of grated parmesan (not the real stuff), a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, and a little salt and pepper. In this case, two eggs and one cup of half-and-half makes exactly enough custard to fill in both spirals.

Bake at 325 for 50-55 minutes and voila!

It’s just gorgeous. I’m thrilled. When you cut a slice (very, very carefully), you get to see all the beautiful layers.

Full disclosure, it mostly tastes like ham'n'carrot. If you like ham'n'carrot quiche, then do I have a recipe for you! But still - I’m happy. I made something pretty. Now back to that light fixture…

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illdothedisheslater · 8 years

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I'm on to you, Mrs. Wages - Kosher Dill Pickles

“I need you to eat a small pickle in the interest of science.”

This is the kind of crazy shit your pickle-hating husband has to deal with when you spend your time the way I do. I mean - there are certainly worse things in a marriage than coerced pickle-eating. Secret credit cards, adultery, workaholism, Duke basketball fans, people who say “An historical..”, flat-brim baseball cap wearers, those who leave the bathroom door open… I could be way worse. So he has to eat a pickle from time to time. And I hide canning jars under large pieces of furniture. And there’s a mystery box downstairs delivered from a restaurant supply warehouse full of things I definitely do not need. He’s generally kind enough to ignore these small marital infractions. He ate the pickle, is what I’m saying.

Why pickles? Why not? I like pickles. And a grocery here had pickling cucumbers on sale, which you almost never see for sale, much less on sale. Instead of winging it, I went for the easy option and purchased Mrs. Wages Kosher Dill Refrigerator Pickle Mix - canning made easy! Pickling also afforded me an opportunity to purchase more canning jars - I needed the wide mouth jars for this - and I love buying canning jars. Weird little thing that makes me happy. It’s the little things in life, really. The package calls for 2 lbs. of pickling (or salad) cucumbers, one pouch of pickling mix, 2 cups of water, and ¾ cups of Mrs. Wages White Distilled Vinegar. Easy enough. I heft a gallon jug of Mrs. Wages White Distilled Vinegar into my cart.

Hang on.

Three-fourths of a cup? And you only sell gallon jugs. You aren’t fooling me Mrs. Wages. Back on the shelf you go. Regular old white vinegar for $.99 is good enough for me.

This is pretty easy actually - the hardest part is figuring out which end of the cuke is the blossom end, which needs to be trimmed off. And thanks to the internet, that’s done in a jiffy.

The blossom end is the brownish and smaller. The stem end is whitish and larger.

Trim the blossom end off and cut your cukes into spears (or slices - it’s your life. I do both.) The spears have to be short enough to fit in the jar, not touch the top, and get covered with the brine.

Mrs. Wages instructs me to boil her packet of mix with the vinegar and water. I do this.

The cucumbers get packed into the prepared jars (nobody wants to watch me boil jars again do they? I find it relaxing and almost therapeutic, but it doesn’t make for good blogging.) Note: I do not pack them tightly enough, but learned something for next time. You need to pack them in so they don’t float to the top, leaving precious millimeters of cucumber out of the brine, resulting in flaccid, under-seasoned pickles. Tragedy! The jars are supposed to be hot while you do this, which makes for some quick and tricky work. Luckily as I’ve mentioned before, my hands are made of iron and practically impervious to heat.

Pour the hot brine into the hot jars. Mrs. W advises that her mix makes four pints of delicious pickles. I eke out three - barely.

One week later the verdict from Mr. Dishes?

“They taste like pickles.”

He’s right - they’re pretty good. Mrs. Wages may be a greedy-guts vinegar empire billionaire, but she seems to know her pickles.

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