When Dinner Becomes Breakfast

Last Friday, Sarah taught everyone how to make tamales at our weekly Potluck. Alex made some awesome Mexican rice with black beans and veggies to go with, or in, the tamales. At the end of the night, Alex and I scored a bunch of the left overs, that I used for breakfast the next morning! I took Sarah's tamale dough and added some masa and bacon grease to make tortillas. I reheated Alex's rice and bean deliciousness and made some scrambled eggs to go with it. This might be my new favorite breakfast!

Instant Sorbet!

Check it out! All I did was blend up frozen raspberries and huckleberries with a bit of honey! The raspberry seeds were the only drawback (this is why people normally cook fruit like raspberries and then strain the seeds out before making sorbet), otherwise it was absolutely delicious!

Curry and Chai

Last night I made a chicken curry for dinner. I didn't follow a recipe, so I have no idea what type of curry it is but here is what went into it:

Stokesberry chicken breasts, yellow and red onion, a bulb and a half of garlic and an equal amount of fresh-frozen ginger, peppers, carrots, broccoli, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, chicken stock, coriander, cinnamon, alspice, clove, tumeric, black pepper, paprika, cumin, ras al hanout, and salt.

Alex made some chai to go with it (it's a mix from Teahouse Kuan Yin).

I ended up mopping up the juice on my plate with cornbread, which gave me an idea: curry tamales!

Dreaming of somewhere south of here...

My friend, Sarah, has Mexican blood in her. She made tortillas by hand a few nights ago with nothing more than Masa glued together with a little bit of bacon grease, salt, and water. They were incredible, and she got me thinking about Southern and Mexican food, which is what inspired this dinner.

I bought some Masa, but decided not to do anything with it yet. Instead I made cornbread, following the recipe that Alex uses to make his heavenly cornbread. Mine was pretty good, but Alex's cornbread is the best. Then I decided to make some coleslaw since we have more cabbage than we know what to do with at the moment. I like my coleslaw chunky with all sorts of stuff in it; carrots, red onion, garlic, mortar&pestled mustard seeds, paprika, cayenne, black pepper, salt, cumin, apple cider vinegar, and mayo. Lastly I made some ground beef grub with onions, garlic, peppers (spicy and sweet), corn, tomato juice, molasses, paprika, cumin, and salt. Twas a delicious dinner indeed!

Recreating the Ham & Cheese Roll

There used to be a Vivace Cafe right next to Seattle Central Community College. When I was going to school there I pretty much lived at Vivace, not to mention spending an obscene portion my hard earned money on mochas and ham and cheese rolls. But damn, those ham and cheese rolls were the best thing to ever be served in a coffee shop, ever. They were not ham and cheese croissants, they were more bready than croissanty (thus the name ham and cheese roll). Anyway, I've been wanting to make my own ever since Vivace stopped selling them, and I've finally gotten around to it!

Here is the inspiration in it's native habitat (it's the thing on the plate behind the coffee):

I started out following Julia Child's recipe for plain-old white sandwich bread, and to my surprise my old yeast was still vibrantly alive! As the dough rose I sliced up a Skagit River Valley Ranch Ham Nugget and some Golden Glen Creamery Cheddar.

I rolled out the dough to about a 1/4inch thick and sprinkled the ham and cheese on top...

...and then rolled it up and sealed it shut with a bit of egg.

Then I just cut it into individual "rolls" and let those rise before baking them.

voila!

These were fantastic at room temperature, but even better heated up in a saute-pan with a little bit of bacon grease!

Proper Pasta

Throughout my culinary education one thing was continuously beaten into my head: Always cook pasta in a liberal amount of salted water! The water to pasta ratio should be as high as possible. Though recently cooking with my step-mom (who has an Italian heritage) shattered this pasta cooking concept. She cooked her pasta in as little liquid as possible, and not just water, she uses stock! It's so simple, and so brilliant. The pasta takes on the flavor of the stock, turning it into a meal of it's own, and not just another starchy vehicle for other foods. Also, I haven't observed any adverse effects of cooking pasta in a minimal amount of liquid -I've actually been trying to cook pasta in exactly enough liquid, so there's hardly any left in the pan by the time it's done cooking. When I saw my step-mom do this for the first time, I mentioned it must be her Italian heritage, because it's an Italian tradition (in some regions, at least), to cook pasta in a minimal amount of water and use the water as the base for the pasta sauce. My step-mom had never heard of this, so it's clearly just in her blood to do awesome things with pasta. And now, a picture of pasta in stock!:

Thanksgiving!

After a slight delay, here is the delicousness that was Thanksgiving. We got another Stokesberry Farm heritage turkey this year, though we were smart and got on the list about this time last year (which reminds me...we need to do that again!). This was the first year that I basically cooked the turkey all by myself, with a bit of prodding and assistance from Debbie. I slathered this glorious bird in plenty of butter, sprinkled it with salt and pepper, and filled the insides with mirepoix - just like a chicken, only bigger!

We made stock with giblets that I added to the pan drippings with some flour to create the most incredible gravy I've ever had. It was thick and dark and there was so much fat in it that it broke, but that didn't matter because it coated everything in rich, flavorful intensity.

Stoney Plains farm is officially the place to buy absolutely adorable mini vegetables. These red cabbages are my favorite:

I chopped them up along with a bunch of brussel sprouts, carrots, parsnips, and fried it all in bacon grease:

By this time, I must have been getting hungry, because I stopped taking pictures of individual dishes and just got one big picture of everything:

From top to bottom, here's what's going on: Debbie's delicious green beans, the turkey, Alex's classic roasted delicata squash, Debbie's legendary cranberry chutney, the gravy, my experimental cranberry mole, Debbie's famous cornbread stuffing (now with chanterelles!), the brussel sprouts, and two types of cheesy mashed potatoes so that Miya could have one bowl entirely to herself (hah!). We all accomplished at eating as much as we possibly could, and then there was desert, which consisted of super sticky pecan pie, apple crisp al la mode, and Miya's pumpkin pie (made from her very own pumpkin).

The day after Thanksgiving, a bunch of our friends got together and had a Thanksgiving-left-overs potluck. We made a buffet of everyones left-overs so that each person could make their own mixture of Thanksgiving stuff in aluminum foil, and then wrap it up and throw it into a roaring fire place to re-heat. This might be my new favorite way to eat Thanksgiving left-overs.

On Sunday, we went to our friend Justin's house for a second Thanksgiving. Justin had a Skagit River Valley Ranch turkey that gave some stiff competition for our Stokesberry bird! Besides turkey, Justin (plus a few people helping out) made a beef roast, cornbread-jalapeño-bacon-cheese muffins, roasted fennel and mandarin orange salad with a honey dressing, sweet stuffing made with raisin and walnut breads, mashed sweet potatoes, a hearty and complex vegetable soup...and I'm sure there is more I'm forgetting, but Justin always impresses me with his culinary magic!

...And now I don't think I'll have to eat again for a couple of days...