Turkey Tetrazzini

Turkey tetrazzini was something my family never really made growing up. One of my friend's mothers used to make it but I don't think I actually ever had it. I can just recall my friend speaking of it with a far-off look in his eye like he was speaking about some ancient religious relic from his people's past.

So it was that I gave a quick glance at a recipe and figured out that it's actually quite a simple dish. It's basically like making a creamy mushroom soup, adding pasta to it, and baking it in the oven.

Even I could do that!



Before I served up the dish I made this salad with kale, arugula, balsamic glaze, pears, Parmigiano-Reggiano, olive oil, salt, and pepper.



Supposedly turkey tetrazinni is named after an opera star named Luisa Tetrazinni though it is debatable whether it was invented in San Francisco or New York City. I'm going with New York City as that's where my allegiances lie.

What I did was caramelize some shallots and garlic in olive oil and butter then add crimini, shiitake, portobello, and chanterelle mushrooms. I also threw in a little dried thyme and sage and some duck stock I'd made a few nights ago after our roast duck from last week. Then I reduced this down, added skim milk, porcini dust, and finally thickened the mixture with a butter roux.

In another pan I cooked some red peppers which I'd forgotten to add initially. I then added them to the mixture with the frozen turkey meat from either Canadian or American Thanksgiving (I can't remember), a few glugs of dry sherry and a good amount of Parmigiano-Reggiano.



I then paused to take advantage of my brand new glasses with some of the sherry, even though I'm not a huge fan of the fortified wine.

After that I cooked some spaghetti, tossed it in with the sauce and some fresh peas, then topped it with bread crumbs before baking it in the oven for a bit. I did forget to add the almonds to the dish. While there's no real set standard for this dish they are usually an element. I had plenty of almonds but my forgetfulness got the best of me.



The result was pretty good but a little less saucy than I would have thought it would be. Also, I think I could have done without the turkey. Months old frozen turkey, it turns out, is not so much an additive to a pasta dish so much as it is a subtractive.



In an effort to clean out the fridge from the scores of individual beers I had the "Old Brown Dog" from Smuttynose. It was a very nice brown ale, though probably not the best accompaniment for a creamy pasta dish with mushrooms.

But, hey, sometimes you have to let old brown dogs lie.

(I'm sorry about that last line.)

En Papillote: A Personal Culinary Journey

En papillote. For some reason when I hear those words it conjures up disturbing images of culinary failure. I haven't really been able to pinpoint it until tonight but I guess I have some repressed memories of en papillote.

My first encounter with this cooking technique was in culinary school. I'd been assigned a project with some students and we met after class to experiment. The three of us managed to happen upon what had to be the sketchiest butcher shop in all of Providence where we purchased something the butcher claimed to be lamb. I'm not really sure why we thought doing lamb en papillote was good idea but I supposed that is irrelevant.

By the time we got back to the other student's apartment we determined, even with our lack of culinary knowledge, that this meat was either from a very different animal than a lamb -- perhaps from another solar system -- or from a very diseased and elderly lamb normally referred to as mutton. After smashing the "lamb" meat for about twenty minutes with all manner of object from the kitchen we were able to tenderize it to the point where it was almost chewable.



Tonight I started on better footing by laying out my parchment paper and getting started on tonight's papillotes. I laid down a bed of arugula, topped it with boiled, sliced Yukon Gold potatoes, and then a seasoned piece of tilapia. On top of that I laid out some thinly sliced zucchini and some Seggiano roasted tomatoes with the oil they were in. I also topped it with a few pats of butter, lemon zest, and a splash of white wine.



After that I wrapped it up and, for some reason, place the most poorly wrapped of the bunch up front for the photo.



For salad I tossed some kale with the remaining roasted tomatoes and their oil and threw in the leftover stilton and some toasted pecans along with lemon juice, salt, and pepper. The strong tomato flavor from the oil made up for the fact that there were only about three or four tiny tomatoes floating around in the salad.

I'm reminded of another en papillote experience. At my first post-college cooking gig I was working at a restaurant and the chef had made a special en papillote. I was the one he assigned to make them and, wouldn't you know, his parents came in for dinner that night. Then I mad them and they came into the kitchen to ask who the marvelous chef was who had prepared this for them. The chef told them it was me which gained me applause from all the kitchen staff. As I moved past the chef, tears in his eyes, and out of the kitchen I found that the entire dining room was filled with clapping patrons, those who were facing away had turned in their seats and I was given approving nods from the well-dressed clientele.

No, that's not actually what happened.

Instead the dish got sent back because it was undercooked. This caused the chef to take the small paper sack from the waiter and throw it into the oven with such force that the partially eaten meal was planted against the back of the oven as he shut the door. He never said anything directly to me about it but the personal shame from the incident carries over to this day.



Hence, the difficult thing about en papillote: there's really no way to tell when it's done. That's why I cooked tonight's dinner until I was 100% positive that it was done.

Then I cooked it an additional 10 minutes.

I couldn't run the risk of Jen biting into partially cooked tilapia then storming off to the kitchen and throwing it back into the oven with all her might.

Those wounds run pretty deep.



When opened I found they were perfectly done. And quite tasty. After more than twelve years hiatus I had returned to the en papillote scene triumphant.



This afternoon we went to Ikea. That always seems like a good idea until you get there and have been there for several hours and realize that all the strength has left your body and you're only halfway through the store. To pay myself back for this trial I purchased some little tiny glasses for grappa. I hadn't intended to use them so soon but all of the old traumatic memories of en papillote failures had made me feel I needed a drink.

So it was that I wasn't sure if I was drinking this grappa to celebrate tonight's success or lament the failures of yesteryear.

One thing was sure though: my new grappa glasses are pretty awesome. The best $1.99 I ever spent.

Tapas Gear!

Last night I asked Jen if she'd like duck pasta or "weird tapas." She opted for the duck pasta so tonight she became nervous when she knew that the weird tapas were on their way. I tried to put her at ease by letting her know that they wouldn't be that weird, however they would consist only out of items we had lying around so they wouldn't be very inspired.

After eight-and-a-half years of largely edible meals she was still starts from a basis of zero trust each evening before dinner. I have to work to regain that trust every day.



For the first dish I removed the pits from some dates, stuffed them with Stilton cheese, wrapped them in bacon, and roasted them in the oven until crispy.



For the second dish I served up this salad with kale, pomegranate, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper.



The third dish was sunchokes which I boiled then tossed in the remaining horseradish cream from our ribeye dinner on Sunday night.



The fourth dish was potato cakes made with the leftover mashed potatoes from Sunday along with some chopped green onion, breaded with leftover New Year's Eve bread crumbs that Jen had made and pan fried. I served them up with some sour cream on the side.



The fifth dish was leftover broccoli (quite old leftover broccoli) tossed with some oven roasted tomatoes, olive oil, toasted pine nuts, and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano.



We did not seem to have any Spanish wine in our wine rack. In fact we're running a little low on wine in general. So I grabbed this bottle of Opala Vinho Verde from Portugal because, I figured, at least it was from the Iberian Peninsula. I would have preferred a red wine this evening but when I get a stupid idea in my head there is really no limit to how foolishly I will follow it.

You see tapas are, theoretically, Spanish. However, there was nothing particularly Spanish about any of the individual tapas that I created. Yet I still felt the need to force this Spanish Portuguese wine on us.

That being said, it was quite delicious.



The sixth dish were these little tarts I made. I found this dough in the freezer and I remembered making it and putting the leftovers in the freezer but I couldn't remember what it was. I knew it was either biscuit dough, pie crust, or tart dough. So I took a gamble, thawed it out, and topped it with blood orange slices and mandarin marmalade from the fridge.

All this while watching Top Gear which, if you haven't been able to tell, is our latest nightly television obsession. We're a bit late to the game in discovering the show. About thirty-four years late. But here we are. There is something truly mystifying about a car show that can endear itself to people who know and care so little about cars. In fact, I don't know anyone who likes Top Gear that knows or cares about cars at all.

Come to think of it, I don't know anyone who knows or cares about cars at all.

Sweet & Sour Duck Pasta (or The Fictional Duck Dilemma)

Hey! You should follow our blog! Now, on to the show . . .

For dinner tonight I wanted to use up the leftover duck. Jen has an innate repulsion for any sort of leftover poultry. She feels (incorrectly, I may add) that once a chicken, duck, or other piece of poultry has been cooked and refrigerated that the meat turns all "grey and greasy." I, on the other hand, have a more sensible approach. However, in order to get her to eat it I need to disguise leftover poultry so that she is tricked into looking past it's greyness and greasiness.

Jamie Oliver had a cool recipe in his book Cook with Jamie for Gorgeous slow-cooked duck pasta. Like all of Jamie's recipes this one was unnecessarily long in name. The only disappointment for me was that it wasn't something more distinctly English like Right Proper Duck Pasta or Best Bloke's Pasta. He does, however, mention in the instructions to let the sauce "blip away nicely" as one of the steps in the cooking process. So I'll give him a pass this time.

I was going to try to think of two fictional ducks do name this dish after. Donald, quite obviously, would be the sour duck but I was stumped when I tried to think of a fictional duck that was sweet in nature. Daffy? No. Howard? No. My only options were to go with some of Donald's nephews but I didn't want the ducks to be in the same universe. It was quite a dilemma.

Even this Wikipedia page which was a list of fictional ducks didn't really provide me with any options.



I changed up the recipe a bit and, of course, I didn't actually pay attention to the quantities for anything. That's just not my thing. That's why there are no recipes on this blog and, consequently, why no one reads it.

I rendered some bacon with a little olive oil then tossed in sliced garlic, chopped onion, celery, and carrots. After cooking them for a minute I threw in some chopped rosemary and a stick of cinnamon. A few minutes later I added some whole peeled tomatoes and red wine and simmered it for about twenty minutes before tossing in the pulled duck meat. After another half hour I added some toasted pine nuts and dried cherries. Mr. Oliver called for sultanas (which no one in America has) but we were also out of raisins from Jen's recent Pantry-Clearing Muffin Bakefest 2011.



I served it over "Calamari Rings" from Severino Pasta. They not, of course, actually calamari but rather a mixture of different colored pasta rings. If we had had this type of pasta when I was little I could have made way better pasta necklaces for my mom. Rigatoni is so played out.



For wine we had this cabernet from Concannon Vineyard. I'd used this in the sauce as well. It was probably not technically the best pairing for this dish but luckily since I don't believe in wine pairing with food it went well. Since the wine was delicious I didn't really care how it paired with anything other than my mouth. And with that it paired quite nicely.

Now that Jen's return home is complete it is time to move on to the task of continuing our grand pantry-fridge-freezer clean out. Not as much fun but more somewhat satisfying.

I suppose.

Les Organes de Canard sont Bruts!

In my quest for the elusive roast that Jen desired upon returning from Salt Lake City I also entertained the idea of doing a roast duck. Generally when someone says "a roast" I don't think of duck. I primarily envision beef with pork as a possible alternative. Even lamb doesn't usually seem like it would fall under the categorization of "a roast" but I think you could make a case for it.

Also, Jen just never wants to have duck. She always thinks she doesn't like it but after she has it she's usually glad that she did. It's kind of the same way she feels about watching Curb Your Enthusiasm or, for that matter, any movie ever made.



Needless to say, duck was on the menu this evening. Before the duck I made a salad with kale, segmented blood oranges, pomegranate, red onion, a little lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper.



For the duck I cooked it for about two hours in a roasting pan with half of a sweet potato (leftover from Jen's couscous last week) and the remaining red onion I hadn't used in the salad. I also quartered a blood orange and put it in the cavity of the duck.



In the past when I have made duck I've gone out of my way not to incorporate orange. My past self's snootiness lead him to believe that this was trite, overdone, played out. However, using my current theory of cooking, I figure that if it's done so often it must be for a reason. I wouldn't intentionally avoid pairing basil with tomato because I perceived it as hackneyed when the result would clearly be more favorable than omitting the ingredient all together!

It would be like not putting jelly on a peanut butter sandwich. Unless you are Jen who thinks that is an abomination. But that's because she has terrible taste in peanut butter sandwiches and is un-American.



I had tossed in the organ meats with some sweet potato and red onion and I served that whole mixture up on the side along with the blood oranges from inside the duck. The sad thing is I really don't like organ meat. I like the idea of organ meat but I just can never bring myself to actually eat it. Well, that's not entirely true. I have tried them on several occasions and each time I have found them to be less than enjoyable. However, the flavoring they can give in a nice one-pan roast such as this is very nice. So it was that we ate around the organs and discarded them when we were done.

Somewhere there is an elderly Frenchman who is filled with an indescribably horror and he doesn't quite know why.



As another accompaniment I took some of Jen's cranberry bread from the freezer. She really disliked this bread because it had come out too savory and not sweet enough. Well, using the technique I employed earlier to save her ill-fated buttermilk bread I griddled some slices of this bread up and served them.

I used the notion that cranberries are also a good accompaniment for duck. Of course I learned most of what I know about cooking in the 1990's when cranberries were considered a good accompaniment for just about everything.

For more information watch the following video:





For beer I had yet another Belgian-style beer. This one was from Cisco Warning: their website will alert you that it has adult content. I guess some information about beer is what they're talking about. Don't be alarmed.

This beer was quite good (as are all Cisco's beers) and I learned that it's named after the nickname for Nantucket because it is often covered in fog. Funny, I grew up in Rhode Island and we always just called it Nantucket.

Then again, we also referred to milkshakes as 'cabinets' so we are not to be trusted.

-3 Degrees and the Welcome Home Roast

I usually take special requests from Jen when she is due to come back from a long trip. Nothing could be better than returning home from a long trip to just the right meal. This is because I like to think I'm the world's greatest husband.

Jen said that she'd like to return to a nice roast though she was short on details about what said roasted item should be. I looked around for a good thing to roast but instead I found this great-looking bone-in ribeye which was on special. Technically I could roast that in the oven. Jen was on the plane so I couldn't call her to verify this is what she had in mind.

This is because I'm not actually the world's greatest husband.



I did, however, pick up a 6-pack of Shock Top. Every so often I find a beer that I think that Jen will like and I get it for her. Here's my simple formula for narrowing down whether or not Jen is going to like a beer. The more questions you answer "yes" to the more likely she is to like it.

1. Is it Belgian-style but not actually from Belgium?
   
2. Is it, in fact, from a major American beer producer?
   
3. Is it often served in bars with a slice of orange?
   
4. Does the word "wheat" appear on the label?
   
5. Does it have fewer than 20 IBUs?
   
6. Does it contain less than 5.5% alcohol?
   
7. Does the word "spices" appear anywhere on the label?
   

I thought this beer would be a slam dunk in that, on the label, it had a picture of an orange with a mohawk made out of stalks of wheat. That seemed like a rather gratuitous bonus on their part. While Jen did enjoy the beer I think she would have preferred a Blue Moon. So it is that I'm going to add the following question to my list:

Is it Blue Moon?

For salad I tossed kale with sliced sunchokes, and salted peanuts. I dressed it with the juice of a Minneola (because there happened to be one on the counter), sherry vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. This is a variation on one of Jen's favorite salads as well. How did I do so far? I think I made up for the upcoming lack of roast. For myself I got this Blond from Affligem. This beer caught my eye because I noted that the brewery was established in 1074. This was a little bit of a bummer because I prefer my breweries to have been established before the Battle of Hastings. However, I figured if they'd been at this for 937 years that I would give them a try. Ten years ago I'm not so sure I would have trusted them. I picked this beer for myself based on my criteria for whether or not I am going to love a beer. The same rules apply: the more questions I answer "yes" to the more likely I am to like the beer.

1. Is this beer brewed by monks?
   
2. Is the brewery at least 400 years old?
   
3. Is their website a terrible Flash-based website at a .BE domain name?
   
4. Does their website feature music of chanting monks that causes you to search around for the button to click to turn it off?
   
5. Do half the things on their website lead to "Coming Soon" pages or "Content Not Available" messages?
   
6. Is it likely that this brewery is far more interested in making good beers than in designing a website that is any way helpful or informative?
   
7. Is it a beer I have never heard of before?
   
8. Do you have to search around for the English version of their website?
   
9. Is the alcohol content somewhere between 6.5 and 9.0%?
   
10. Have I likely been mispronouncing the name of the brewery?
    

In the background you can also note a somewhat failed loaf of bread. I think my yeast had given up the ghost. Or thousands of tiny ghosts. At any rate it didn't rise at all. I lightly seasoned the ribeye, seared it well on both sides, then roasted it in the oven until it was a perfect medium rare. I don't mean that to imply that I am great at this by any means, it just happened that it came out perfectly. After I took the ribeye out of the oven to let it rest I rendered some bacon in the same pan, threw in some diced onion and then finally tossed in the peas with a little salt and pepper. I served the peas over the ribeye with some mashed potatoes. I realized that I never make mashed potatoes other than on Thanksgiving and that is just wrong. Using skim milk and just a little butter I have a pretty good technique for making them where they aren't the worst thing in the world to consume. They're certainly less dangerous than the heavy cream version with European high-fat butter I learned to make in my restaurant days. This whole meal, beer included, was a great welcome home dinner. Along with some new episodes of Top Gear (new to us anyway) it was the perfect dinner for a night of -3 degrees fahrenheit (-19 celsius).

Tomorrow: Even colder temperatures and my backup roast idea gets put into play!

Combining the Best of Jamaica, Louisiana, and Belgium (The Ultimate Fusion!)

Some people might say that if you're making soup it would be best to use meats that have had the bones removed. To those people I say, "To heck with that!"



I cooked up a little red bell pepper, celery, and okra with some Old Bay seasoning until they were tender then I added the remainder of the oxtail that I made last week. I also added a generous amount of water as I remembered it being quite spicy.

In another pan I made a very dark roux then I thickened the concoction to make this makeshift gumbo. I also made some jasmine rice.

Leaving the bones in was an odd choice. For some reason I felt leaving the bones in would be more interesting, kind of like last year when I turned leftover osso bucco into osso bucco pie. The result was very good, but far spicier than I remember the original dish being, even despite cutting it with a lot water.



One of the bones reminded me of something so I zoomed in for a closer look. Then it hit me.



It looked just like the food that Link needs to buy in Legend of Zelda. Except instead of using this tasty little bit to bribe a Moblin into letting me pass I was able to eat it myself. I found this to be preferable.



For beer I was enticed to try this Stone Cali-Belgique IPA (or Stone Cali-België IPA) depending on if you believe the text on the bottle or the text on the website. Stone Brewing Co.'s website describes this as using a Belgian yeast to make an IPA.

I was intrigued by this beer because I generally don't like IPAs and I generally like Belgian beers. I was intrigued by how I could combine my least favorite and most favorite beer types into one beer. The result was extremely interesting and quite good.

If you ever turn Jamaican food into Louisiana cuisine I recommend pairing with Belgian beer. But you probably already know this. It's pretty common knowledge.

Chicken Thalad

Tonight, with Jen enjoying all the fine cuisine of Salt Lake City hotels, I returned home to a fridge full of odds and ends and leftovers.



I put together this chicken salad with the remaining beer can chicken, broccoli, peppadews, salted lime cashews, and Maille whole grain mustard. I've gotta say that this was far tastier than I'd imagined when I was hastily throwing it together for a quick dinner.



For beer I had Estrella Damm from Barcelona. This prompted me to walk around my apartment, all by myself, repeatedly muttering: "Barthelona." This is one of those rare occasions I've found that it's possible to annoy myself.

Beer Advocate only gives this a 'C' rating. This is surprising because I found this beer to be quite enjoyable. Of course, the type of people who would register on Beer Advocate and review a beer are bound to find fault in most things in life. Beer is only one of those things.

It's for that reason that I've joined Beer Advocate to review beers! Of course I kind of despise the review and grading system of any food or beverage, but this is more of a way for be to more easily catalog the beers that I've had.

If there's one thing I like it's the needless cataloging of events in my life. It's like mother's milk to me.

Beer Can Chicken

I've never made beer can chicken. That is until tonight. Beer can chicken is something I've always heard about and kind of wondered what the big deal was. So you stick a beer can inside a chicken and cook it. So what? Besides I never really knew how you did it? Did you leave the can full of beer? That didn't sound right, surely it would explode in the oven. Did you empty it? Then if you did that what was the point, couldn't it just as easily be regular roast chicken?



I learned that you were supposed to leave the can of beer half full. That, paired with the fact that I just picked up some canned beer that I wanted to try, sounded rather enticing. So I stood up a chicken on a half-emptied can of beer and seasoned it generously with cumin seeds, celery seeds, smoked paprika, chili powder, brown sugar, salt, pepper, and olive oil. I ground the spices together with a mortar and pestle before adding it to some olive oil generously rubbing the chicken inside and out.



The result was, as anticipated, a roast chicken.



The beer that I used was Elm City Lager from New England Brewing Co. in Woodbridge, Connecticut. So what better to enjoy with the chicken? I guess it's more traditional to use Budweiser or something but I just couldn't allow that to happen.



Overall this was pretty tasty. I can now see why it is popular. Cooking vertically shouldn't really add much but it does produce a slightly different chicken. The beer in the can helps to steam the inside of the chicken and the breast meat in particular was extremely moist.

It's more traditional to do this inside a barbecue but with sheets of rain and ice plummeting from the sky I just couldn't get myself psyched to use the grill this evening. While it was good with a baked potato and some steamed broccoli I think I will recreate this one in the warmer months (or at least the drier days of the colder months) and serve it with some nice fresh tomatoes and grilled corn.

This used up absolutely nothing from the pantry, freezer, or fridge. Everything was purchased specifically for this meal including the beer. That's okay though, it's Jen's last night in town before shipping out to Salt Lake City. Generally she likes nothing more than a roast chicken.

I will need to work extra hard in her absence to move through all of these leftovers and get back to tackling our swelling pantry.

These are a Few of my Favorite Things (and One of my Least Favorite)

On Sunday, while I was at work, Jen did an admirable job of using up items from the fridge and freezer.



She made this tasty-looking quinoa with cashews, edamame, sweet potato, and I can only assume peaches. I didn't get to try it. When Jen cooks and I am not around I usually only find out when I download pictures from the camera and see them. It's like a fun game where at the end I get a picture of something I won't be able to taste.

For dinner tonight I picked up some tilapia because it was on sale. I don't really like tilapia. I never have. One thing I do like, however, is a great bargain. There's also a little more bargain that I threw into the freezer.



I also like something that can use up yet more leftovers. I used this tilapia along with some diced tomatoes, garlic, and onion to use up the remaining kalamata olives and sardines. I simmered this with the tilapia fillets for a bit and served it with a loaf of sourdough bread for dipping.

The only thing I like more than bargains and using up leftovers is using only one pan to cook dinner. It looks like this was my lucky night.



The only problem with this dish, other than it not really using up much, is the photography. With all the extra accessories I've gotten for my camera I think my pictures have actually gotten worse. Perhaps it's just too much power. It could also have something to do with the fact that I've taken no action in the past two years to improve my photography in any way. I still essentially use my camera as a point and shoot.

Maybe I should take a class or read a book or watch some tutorials online. But I probably won't. No, I think my current technique of doing nothing and hoping that one day a guru will wander into my apartment at dinner time to start teaching me is going just fine.

It's only a matter of time.

Healthy Soups, Inebriated Monks

The battle for healthy healthier meals and the war against our pantry excess continues!



Thursday night I put together most of the leftover carrots and potatoes along with the remaining turkey stock from Canadian Thanksgiving to make this potato kale soup. I cooked some garlic and onion with carrots, potato, and dried thyme before adding the turkey stock and finally the kale.

On Friday we returned to our normal routine whereby I come home and must rush to prepare dinner before Jen returns to work. For Friday the plan was to use up the sardines and pizza sauce in the pantry. I chose to do this in the form of pizza. Unfortunately this meant I needed to buy additional ingredients but, I figured, as long as I don't have any leftover after the recipe I could break even.



I tried to completely cook the pizza before I left to pick up Jen at the train station. This was a little risky as this meant I had to be done precisely at 8:50 PM to be able to get there by 8:54 PM. The pizza was done at 8:50 PM but it did not have the brownness on the cheese that I would have liked to see. That is when I took the pizza and put it underneath in the broiler to brown it up quickly so I could still get to the train on time.



You can't really tell by this photo but the result was that it was a little too close to the broiler which wound up scraping off a top layer of cheese and burning the crust. Not my finest pizza moment. On the plus side the pizza was delicious once I cut off the small burnt pieces of crust and reapplied the melted cheese.



For beer I had the Merry Monks from Weyerbacher. Unfortunately Weyerbacher tricked me by not putting on the bottle that this was 9.3% alcohol. Had I known that I would not have made this my second beer of the evening. Once I discovered the alcohol content I extended it over two hours and I was able to not feel the effects.

No I understand why they interpret the monks as being merry. I think they were more sozzled than merry.

Inventory Update

Freezer

• ground beef
  
• chopped turkey from Canadian Thanksgiving
  
• flour tortillas
  
• coconut cookies
  
• macaroni & cheese from Canadian Thanksgiving
  
• turkey stock from Canadian Thanksgiving
  
• turkey stock from American Thanksgiving
  
• part of a baguette
  
• lemon bread
  
• Antiguan run fruitcake
  
• cranberry bread
  
• fudge
  
• Japanese noodles
  
• buttermilk bread
  
• stuffing from Canadian Thanksgiving
  
• bacon
  
• oxtail
  
• homemade bread crumbs
  
• edamame
  
• turkey curry
  
• rye bagel
  
• shortbread cookies
  
• puff pastry dough
  

Pantry

• pumpernickel bread
  
• panko
  
• cellophane noodles
  
• raisins
  
• dried cherries
  
• dried cranberries
  
• dried apricots
  
• dried chilies
  
• garbanzo beans
  
• canellini beans
  
• sardines
  
• anchovies
  
• sesame seeds
  
• cashews
  
• pistachios
  
• shredded coconut
  
• walnuts
  
• pecans
  
• semolina flour
  
• goldenberries
  
• forbidden rice
  
• candied cherries
  
• powdered dried porcini
  
• couscous
  
• Jamaican jerk sauce
  
• Jamaican rum cakes
  
• Jamaican hot sauce
  
• nori
  
• quinoa
  
• sherry vinegar
  
• purple basil vinegar
  
• red wine vinegar
  
• apple cider vinegar
  
• champagne vinegar
  
• rice
  
• assored dried pastas
  
• lasagna noodles
  
• tomato paste
  
• balsamic dressing/marinade
  
• relish
  
• chopped clams
  
• clam juice
  
• piccalilli
  
• fajita sauce
  
• cherry jellies for barbecue
  
• canned pumpkin
  
• pasta sauce
  
• croutons
  
• assorted flours for making brown bread
  
• pickled beets
  
• seafood stock
  
• beef stock
  
• basil pesto
  
• jarred roasted tomatoes
  
• smoked salmon
  
• stuffed olives
  
• Grand Marnier mustard
  
• Coco Haze spread
  
• twelve jars of grapefruit marmalade
  
• black cherry marmalade
  
• fancy plum jam
  
• Captain Redbeard's hot sauce
  
• salted lime cashews
  

Fridge

• eggs
  
• korma sauce
  
• sauerkraut
  
• dates
  
• shallots
  
• miso paste
  
• cranberries
  
• pickled beets (made by Jen's dad)
  
• white sweet potato
  
• potatoes
  
• carrots
  
• celery
  
• heavy cream
  
• cream cheese
  
• goat cheese
  
• cocktail sauce
  
• red pepper tapenade
  
• sauces, marinades, and condiments too numerous to list
  
• a million assorted beers
  

The Return to Island Time

Tonight, in the wake of Snowmageddonizzardpocalypse 2011, we made the choice to eat out of our food reserves rather than purchasing anything extra. Truth be told, that's what we've been doing throughout January and actually had very little to do with the snow at all. We did not have to rush out to the store to make any auxiliary purchases prior to the storm because we probably have enough frozen, refrigerated, and pantry items to sustain us for about six months.

In the late afternoon we did go out for a walk after the roads were cleared and picked up a baguette and some fava beans. You know, the essentials.

After our trip to Jamaica last October I've been interested in doing a Jamaican theme night. The challenge in this is that I don't have any experience with Caribbean cooking of any sort. However, we did return with an assortment of jerk sauces, rums, and Jamaican hot sauces so I was pretty confident that I could put something together.



I also returned with this cookbook by Enid Donaldson. While I am not one for following recipes I do enjoy a good authoritative cookbook on a subject I know little about. Usually what I do is flip through and read the methods of preparation and ingredients and then converge them with what I would normally do so that I have some sort of hybrid bastard child recipe that only resembles its traditional form.



I started by making a dark and stormy for Jen with the ginger syrup that I've had in the fridge for the past few months. I'm worried that this syrup may be a little past its prime. Jen didn't seem to mind.



I had a Foreign Extra by Guinness. Red Stripe would have been the obvious choice for this meal and while I like Red Stripe I think I can go without it for a while after spending five days in Jamaica. I may be good to stay off of Red Stripe for another year or so.

The Foreign Extra was pretty good. It's not Jamaican but I saw it for the first time when I was in Jamaica. At the airport, actually. I'd never seen this before in the States but, of course, I saw it about two weeks after returning home and picked it up. I think I enjoyed this beer more than regular Guinness. I guess they save their best stuff for foreigners.



I marinated some chicken wings in some jerk sauce then cooked them in the oven and served them up with lime slices and chopped ginger. I was worried that these would be too spicy but they were perfect.



The oxtail, on the other hand, was pretty spicy. I browned them in a pan and then tossed in some finely chopped onion, garlic, dried chilies, and salt before adding some of my turkey stock and water and throwing it in the oven for a few hours. It turned out a bit spicy from the dried chilies. Normally I cook oxtail using the same method I use for osso bucco so it was interesting to try a new take. At the end I threw in the broad beans I'd purchased that afternoon after I'd peeled, blanched, and peeled them again.

As an accompaniment I made my take on traditional Jamaican rice and peas. Of course I didn't have any peas so I substituted edamame. It was a little weird but it worked really well. I cooked the rice in coconut milk and salt then threw in the edamame right before it was done.



For dessert I made this bread pudding with the baguette we picked up and used up the leftover heavy cream and eggs from the holidays that we had in the fridge. I put in molasses, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon. Next time I think I'd cut back a bit on the molasses and allspice. Other than that it came out pretty good. I didn't look at any sort of recipe beforehand and, perhaps, that may have helped.

We also picked up some vanilla ice cream from Ronnybrook Farm Ancramdale, NY mostly because it was so cheap. Ronnybrook makes great stuff and when you can get any of their products at a reduced price from the alternatives you are very lucky indeed.

Well, I'd hoped we'd be able to incorporate a few more traditional Jamaican dishes in this night we did a good job of using up a lot of our food reserves and for that I'm happy.

Now if only we had goat and ackee in the freezer!

Inventory Update

Freezer

• ground beef
  
• chopped turkey from Canadian Thanksgiving
  
• flour tortillas
  
• coconut cookies
  
• macaroni & cheese from Canadian Thanksgiving
  
• turkey stock from Canadian Thanksgiving
  
• turkey stock from American Thanksgiving
  
• part of a baguette
  
• lemon bread
  
• Antiguan run fruitcake
  
• cranberry bread
  
• fudge
  
• Japanese noodles
  
• buttermilk bread
  
• stuffing from Canadian Thanksgiving
  
• bacon
  
• oxtail
  
• homemade bread crumbs
  
• edamame
  
• turkey curry
  
• rye bagel
  
• shortbread cookies
  
• puff pastry dough
  

Pantry

• pumpernickel bread
  
• panko
  
• cellophane noodles
  
• raisins
  
• dried cherries
  
• dried cranberries
  
• dried apricots
  
• dried chilies
  
• garbanzo beans
  
• canellini beans
  
• sardines
  
• anchovies
  
• sesame seeds
  
• cashews
  
• pistachios
  
• shredded coconut
  
• walnuts
  
• pecans
  
• semolina flour
  
• goldenberries
  
• forbidden rice
  
• candied cherries
  
• powdered dried porcini
  
• couscous
  
• Jamaican jerk sauce
  
• Jamaican rum cakes
  
• Jamaican hot sauce
  
• nori
  
• quinoa
  
• sherry vinegar
  
• purple basil vinegar
  
• red wine vinegar
  
• apple cider vinegar
  
• champagne vinegar
  
• rice
  
• assored dried pastas
  
• lasagna noodles
  
• tomato paste
  
• balsamic dressing/marinade
  
• relish
  
• chopped clams
  
• clam juice
  
• piccalilli
  
• fajita sauce
  
• cherry jellies for barbecue
  
• canned pumpkin
  
• pasta sauce
  
• croutons
  
• assorted flours for making brown bread
  
• pickled beets
  
• seafood stock
  
• beef stock
  
• basil pesto
  
• jarred roasted tomatoes
  
• smoked salmon
  
• stuffed olives
  
• Grand Marnier mustard
  
• Coco Haze spread
  
• twelve jars of grapefruit marmalade
  
• black cherry marmalade
  
• fancy plum jam
  
• Captain Redbeard's hot sauce
  
• salted lime cashews
  

Fridge

• eggs
  
• korma sauce
  
• sauerkraut
  
• dates
  
• shallots
  
• miso paste
  
• cranberries
  
• pickled beets (made by Jen's dad)
  
• white sweet potato
  
• potatoes
  
• carrots
  
• celery
  
• heavy cream
  
• cream cheese
  
• goat cheese
  
• cocktail sauce
  
• red pepper tapenade
  
• sauces, marinades, and condiments too numerous to list
  
• a million assorted beers