Tuesday, March 11, 2008

St. Patrick's Day Menu!

We will be having my mom over for a St. Patrick's Day meal on Sunday. This is our menu:

Corned Beef
(cooked with a bit of water and the spices that come with it in the crock pot)

Braised Root Vegetables
2 tablespoons butter
1 pound packaged baby carrots
1 rutabaga, peeled and diced
1 onion, diced
Salt and pepper
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

Heat a skillet with a cover over medium to medium high heat. Add butter, carrots, rutabaga and onion. Cook veggies 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add broth or stock, bring to a simmer, and reduce heat and cover. Cook vegetables 15 minutes or until fork tender. Remove from heat and set aside.

Colcannon
4 medium to large all-purpose potatoes, such as Russet, peeled and cut into chunks
Coarse salt, for boiling water
2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 head dark curly kale, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup whole milk, eyeball it
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, fresh or grated
1 teaspoon ground thyme
2 scallions, sliced
A handful of fresh parsley, chopped

Boil potatoes for 15 minutes in salted water. Drain potatoes and return them to the hot pot and mash.

Heat stock or broth to a simmer. Chop kale tops, discarding tough stems. Add kale to broth and cover. Simmer 10 to 12 minutes.

In a large skillet over moderate heat melt butter and add milk. Season with nutmeg and thyme and add scallions to the pan. Remove kale from cooking liquid to the milk and butter mixture using a slotted spoon. Stir in 1/2 cup of cooking liquid. Add mashed potatoes to milk and kale and stir until combined and creamy, 1 or 2 minutes. Stir in parsley and season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Both the Braised Root Vegetable and Colcannon recipes are from Rachael Ray.

Irish Soda Bread
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/3 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup butter, melted

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.


Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt and baking soda. Blend egg and buttermilk together, and add all at once to the flour mixture. Mix just until moistened. Stir in butter. Pour into prepared pan.


Bake for 65 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the bread comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack. Wrap in foil for several hours, or overnight, for best flavor.

Chocolate Guinness Stout Cake
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 cup Guinness stout
1 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup low-fat buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place rack in middle of oven. Grease and lightly flour 9-inch cake pan.

In a small saucepan, combine cocoa powder and stout and heat over low-moderate heat until smooth. Set aside to cool.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
In a large bowl with an electric mixer on low-medium speed, beat butter until creamy. Gradually add sugar and beat until pale yellow in color. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and vanilla.

Stir buttermilk into cooled cocoa and stout mixture.

With the mixer on low, slowly add one-third of buttermilk mixture into creamed butter until incorporated. Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the remaining two parts of the buttermilk and ending with the flour. Batter will look grainy or appear to be breaking up.

Pour batter into cake pan and bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove to wire rack with parchment or waxed paper beneath it. Allow cake to cool in pan for 10 minutes, then slide knife around the edge of pan and invert to release cake, bottom side up, onto wire rack. When cool, use a fork to poke holes generously into bottom side of cake.

Makes one 9-inch cake.

Chocolate Guinness Sauce
1/4 cup Guinness draught stout
4 tablespoons light or dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Mix ingredients in small saucepan and heat over low heat until smooth. Allow to cool. Spoon 3/4 of the sauce over bottom of the cake, allowing sauce to seep into cake. Invert cake right side up onto serving platter. Poke holes in top of cake and spoon remainder of sauce on top of cake.
Chocolate Ganache Glaze
10 ounces (11/4 cups) heavy whipping cream
10 ounces semisweet dark chocolate, chips or bar broken into small pieces

Bring cream to a simmer in a small saucepot. Turn off heat and stir in chocolate pieces until sauce is smooth and creamy. Pour onto finished cake, smoothing ganache atop and along sides of cake. Ganache will pool at bottom of cake and can be removed with a knife.

If desired, spoon extra ganache into ziplock bag, snip corner and squeeze atop cake in zigzag lines or decorative pattern. If ganache is too runny allow to thicken in bag until stiff. Or, reserve extra ganache in refrigerator to spoon over ice cream or form into truffles.

Recipe from sous chef Carol Light, Kells Restaurant and Pub, Portland, Ore.

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Monday, March 10, 2008

My Goals

Since Fenrirwulf has shared his goals, I suppose I should share mine.

  • I want a job that allows me to express my creativity versus a boring desk job.
  • I want to live somewhere that is peaceful and quiet so that I can explore that creativity (please note, as I write this at 10:00PM EDT that my next door neighbors are shooting off firecrackers and disturbing the concentration I'd normally use on my writing).
  • I want to raise as much of our own food as possible for our own health. I want to know where our food comes from, what it was fed, how it was treated and that there were no hormones or unnecessary chemicals used before it was slaughtered and processed.
  • I want to find a group of like-minded people with whom to spend time and further explore my chosen religious path.
  • I want to be closer to my family and learn some of the knowledge of my grandparents' generation before it is lost to my generation forever.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Cooking Thoughts


Our drive towards cooking with basic ingredients is more difficult than I first would have guessed.

Growing up, I had always had home cooked meals provided by my Mom; eating out was a rare treat. I also learned to cook at a pretty young age, around the 13-16 range, but it was always cooking for myself. Mom never really wanted anyone in her kitchen and, honestly, it never crossed my teenage mind that she would want me to cook something for her and the rest of the family.

Once I moved out, I continued cooking at home and dining out on occasion. When my bro and I, along with a friend from high school, moved to our own place in Greenville, we had communal groceries and each night one roomy was responsible for a home cooked dinner for the house, so the habit continued.

It was not until I started going out with Chandler that most of my food didn't come out of my own kitchen. Not that I am blaming her, it was more along the lines that we were living off credit anyway, so why cut corners. By dining out, not only was I able to learn to like a great variety of foods but, I also was able to avoid washing dishes for weeks.

Once we were married and carpooling, it was always much easier to stop and grab a bite to eat while we let the worst of the rush hour traffic go by. This went on for years and I developed a pretty eclectic pallet. She made the mistake of taking me to my first Mexican restaurant, something I am sure she regrets considering the amount of times I suggested we go visit one. If it were completely up to me, and money nor any long-term well-being was a factor, I think I would never stray from the grand triumvirate of Chinese, Mexican, and Deli foods.

Cooking at home is much more difficult than just stopping in at whatever dining facility you happen to crave at the moment, but it is a lot cheaper and healthier.

Currently we plan our menu two weeks at a time revolving around Grocery Day which is the Wednesday following payday. (We hold out until Wednesday so that we can take advantage of whatever sales the grocery stores just started). Planning a two-week menu is no 'piece of cake' either. You have to try to balance a variety of dishes to tickle your taste buds around the ingredients you have on hand and the time you have available to prepare said ingredients.

As I said, we try to cook big meals on the weekend that will both provide us with lunch throughout the week, and provide dinner for at least Mon and Tues. Dinners towards the end of the week usually consist of crock-pot meals. After eating the same meal for 2-3 nights, not only do you want another dish, but I also like to rotate the kind of meat we have. I try to work in fish every now and again but considering the cost is a rarity. I am usually rotating through beef, pork, and chicken. As you can guess, trying to figure out what you will be interested in eating next Tuesday is hard enough, but given the other restrictions, menu planning can be difficult.

As with all things, I expect it will get easier with practice.