Fine Cooking, Good Eating

On Saturday, our morning's shopping resulted in us having so late a lunch that we ended up having only a light dinner of leftovers, as opposed to following our planned menu.  As a result, on Sunday night I ended up with not only some ribs I was planning to grill, but also the chicken I'd planned to prepare for dinner on Saturday.  Rather than freeze the chicken, I decided that since I was going to be grilling anyhow, I'd go ahead and cook the chicken, which would give us more leftovers for the work week.   This wouldn't be a problem, since one grills ribs with indirect heat but uses direct heat to grill up chicken breasts.

I'd been considering a couple different recipes for grilling the ribs, so I decided on one and then looked around for a chicken recipe that would complement the ribs while being different enough that each meat would stand on its own.  

The rib recipe I chose was one from a special issue of Fine Cooking that dealt specifically with grilling.  As it happens, I found a good chicken recipe in the same issue: Fine Cooking Grilling Magazine (95 Best Barbecue Recipes, 2010) .  So, with two recipes in hand, I was good to go.

The rib recipe I used was Grilled Spareribs with Maple-Chipotle Glaze.  First I applied a simple rub of sugar, cumin, chili powder, fresh-ground pepper and Kosher salt, then let the ribs sit while I got the grill going, complete with soaked cherry wood chips.  Once I had the ribs going on the grill, I started working on the second dish of the evening, Rum-and-Pineapple-Glazed Grilled Chicken Breasts.  By the time I'd made the rub, applied it to the chicken and prepared both sets of the glaze, it was time to glaze the ribs and to toss the chicken on the grill.   Juli, meanwhile, steamed some fresh green beans we'd picked up recently at a farmer's market.  Everything was done and on the table at approximately the same time, and then it was time for dinner.

Chicken and Ribs



Dinner is Served

The chicken and the ribs both turned out great.   The fruity glaze over the spicy, jerk-style rub sealed in all the juices of the chicken, resulting in perfectly-done chicken.  Meanwhile, the ribs, having been on the grill a lot longer, had taken on the flavor of the cherry wood smoke, and after more than 90 minutes on the grill, they were fall-off-the-bone good.  With a bit of butter and some fresh-ground pepper, the beans rounded out the meal.  All in all, we were very pleased with the results, and I expect we'll be making both of those grilled dishes again sometime.

Weekend Shopping

As we've previously mentioned, we did a fair bit of shopping last Saturday, and were in fact so busy with shopping that we ended up making lunch a lot later than planned.  Since our shopping was food-related, we thought we'd go ahead and share a bit about our shopping, and show off what we found.

First off we went to our local Saturday farmer's market.  It's fairly small, and we were unfortunately unable to get what we'd gone there to purchase that morning, as the lady that sells fresh eggs was sold out.  I did pick up some fine habanero peppers, though (something I'll use in some chili I'm planning to make in the near future).  We also got to see and listen to a local bluegrass band, and we met an a local-area artisan who makes and sells pottery.  Her name is Lisa Jontz, and this was her first time at this market.  We really liked her work, and we ended up picking up a serving bowl and two mugs.

You can see the bowl pictured above in one of my posts from Sunday (http://jeffreyandjulicook.blogspot.com/2010/09/squash-soup-lamb-curry-and-pudding-yum.html).  We used the bowl to serve up the lamb meatball curry. 

Lisa is currently preparing for a big arts and crafts show, but after that show, we're hoping to commission some larger bowls and other items from her.  Lisa is working on a website, and we plan to post a link once she's got it up and running.

Bluegrass at the Saturday morning farmer's market

After the farmer's market, we headed to Pella.  We went specifically to check out the local Wal-Mart, as the double boiler we were looking for had sold out at the local store.  While in Pella, though, we also stopped at some of the more distinctly local stores.

Pella was originally a Dutch immigrant community, and it maintains a strongly Dutch identity and image.  Pella is perhaps best known for the Tulip Festival held there every spring, but when we go there, we are usually more interested in the bakeries and butcher shops.  This time around we stopped at a quilt shop and at the deservedly famous Ulrich's Meat Market.  Check it out at http://www.ulrichsmeatmarket.com/history.php .  We picked up some delicious smoked cheddar brats, some tasty imported crackers to go with the cheesy sausage and some ham bones for some soup I plan to make in the near future.  

We did find the double-boiler (already shown here:  http://jeffreyandjulicook.blogspot.com/2010/09/new-to-kitchen-well-new-to-our-kitchen.html ), and while we were out and about we also picked up some apple brandy I needed for a recipe.  Although we were looking for Calvados, the liquor store we stopped at didn't carry that, but it did carry an apple brandy made by Cedar Ridge Vineyards, Winery and Distellery of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  Check them out at http://www.crwine.com/ . 

All in all, the shopping trip was successful, and it made for a pleasant Saturday morning.

Apple Pie Jam

Recently I was listening to NPR and heard a great story about a blogger whose specialty is canning.  The best part about the story was listening to the sound jars make as they vacuum seal after their water bath.  That really brought back memories!  The blogger featured in the story  is Mrs. Wheelbarrow, and her blog was really interesting.  That set me off on an internet hunt for interesting or unusual jam recipes.  I found two I really wanted to try, one uses frozen unsweetened strawberries and fresh cranberries, and is called Christmas Jam, and the second was a creation called Apple Pie Jam.

Imagine my surprise when, within a few days of deciding to make apple pie jam, Mrs Wheelbarrow herself featured that recipe!  I had to make it!  We had apples aplenty from our trip to the Community Apple Orchard.  Last Saturday was a day crammed with lots of fun things, including a trip to Pella and to the local farmer's market- it went by so quickly, as most of my Saturdays do.  It's the one day I don't work at either of my jobs, and I try to make sure to spend just enough time to get the laundry done and do minimal housekeeping so I can have some play time.  Here's what we picked up Saturday:

We had a very late lunch, and then weren't very hungry for supper.  I had dinner in the crockpot anyway, so we decided to just let it continue to do its thing while we made the jam.  Halfway through, I realized that my grandma's ladle wasn't anywhere- Jeffrey had left it at a work potluck on Thursday (and now it's missing, which makes me very sad).  Jam also takes a lot of sugar, and if I wanted to make two batches, someone would have to go to the store.  Jefrey got elected, while I finished up the first batch and started peeling and chopping apples for batch #2.



I had everything ready by the time Jeffrey got back from the store with a new plastic (ICK!) ladle and 2 bags of sugar.  I put this batch into itty bitty gift jars.  Here are the results of our labor.  The color is very dark, because of the brown sugar and spices in the recipe. 

I had just enough  warm jam left over to pour over a little dish of vanilla ice cream for each of us.  Delicious!

New to the Kitchen (Well, New to Our Kitchen, Anyhow)

We've picked up some new cookware recently, and we're pretty happy about it.

It's been a long time since we had an electric skillet, and now that we've got a new one, we realize we really should have gotten one long ago.  Now, I've been told that a lot of cooking fanatics consider electric skillets to be ... I dunno.  Illegitimate, or low class or something.  Well, to anyone that feels that way, I say to heck with you.  We love ours. 

The one we have is the Presto 06852 16-Inch Electric Skillet with Glass Cover.  This thing is big - big enough to make five small pancakes at the same time -and it is sturdy and it cleans as easily as any non-stick pan I've ever owned, and better than most of them.  We did a fair bit of research before we bought, and we found this one had better reviews than any other model.  Now that we've tried it out, we can see why.

We also bought two Tramontina pans.  One is an 8-quart stainless steel multicooker stock pot with pasta insert and steamer basket.  See below.

This is a wonderful stock pot.  Good size, firmly-attached handles, sturdy bottom... really, the basic stock pot is everything you want a stock pot to be.  Juli's found it helpful for canning as well.  The pasta insert and steamer push it over into being an exceptional bit of equipment.  Note to those who like making soups: Using the pasta insert, you can let meat and veggies simmer to make a good stock, then lift out the insert and remove most of the meat and veggies without straining.  We've already used the steamer, too. We're really happy with this.

The companion to this one is the Tramontina 3-quart stainless steel steamer/double boiler stock pot.  We picked this up just yesterday, as we needed a double boiler to make the Coconut Pudding recipe we had for lunch yesterday.  It works like a charm.

We've been looking at Tramontina cookware for awhile now.  Although it's not a very expensive brand, it gets exceptionally high marks from most reviewers.  Cooks Illustrated rates many Tramontina products among their best buys, and the rank it along with the vastly more expensive All-Clad brand in terms of overall performance.  So, Porsche performance at a Honda price... we can dig that.

The pieces above are the first Tramontina cookware we've bought, but we've been happy with them, and they certainly won't be the last.

We also picked up a couple of Lodge Logic pans.  We'd been looking at a Lodge Logic enameled cast-iron Dutch oven for awhile now, and when we saw one at a better discount than any we've been able to find online, we jumped on it.  For awhile, we've been thinking of buying one of the Le Creuset enameled Dutch ovens, but they're pretty darn pricey.  Then we discovered that, once again, Cooks Illustrated identified a much more affordable brand that competes well with the upper-end champion... and in this case, the brand is Lodge Logic.  Some reviewers have rated it as slightly less durable than the Le Creuset models, but since we got ours for about 1/7 of what we would have paid for the comparable Le Creuset model, I think we'll live with that.  We love the look of the pan, including the nice red exterior finish.  Looks aren't the most important aspect of a piece of cookware, but it's not a bad thing.

We also picked up a Lodge Logic 10-inch cast-iron skillet.  Once again, this is a pan we'd been looking at for awhile now, and I'd been thinking of making some dishes that would work best with this sort of pan (Potatoes Anna or Country Cornbread, anyone?).  So, when we saw the great deal on the Dutch oven, we decided to go ahead and pick up the skillet at the same time.  I plan to use both in the very near future, and will let you know how they function in practice.

Spaghetti Squash- this time for real!

Since we never know exactly what will be in our weekly vegetable box from Foxfire Acres, we bought a for-real spaghetti squash.  We were taking no chances......

So we bought a labelled squash!  I like making labels for various things in the kitchen, but really...this takes things a bit far.  Still, we had outside confirmation that this was really, truly a spaghetti squash.

It was a little easier to cut the steam slits into this squash as compared with the Not-Spaghetti Squash, but not by much.  This picture shows what it looked like when the microwaving was done

It made real spaghetti strands!

I have to say, though, that I prefer Not-Spaghetti Squash.  Real Spaghetti Squash (RSS) isn't as sweet or tender as Not-Spaghetti Squash.  Now that we have two more RSS to eat, we'll probably try a different recipe. :)

Breakfast Leftovers

Yesterday I made multigrain pancakes for breakfast.  I followed the recipe as written, and as a result ended up with enough pancakes for 5 people - way more than Juli and I could finish for one breakfast. 

Yesterday's Pancakes

I wasn't about to let them go to waste, though.  They had a firm enough texture that I was pretty sure they'd warm up well, so I stacked them in a bowl, covered them with foil and stowed them in the kitchen for this morning.

To warm them up, I sprayed the pan with a good layer of cooking spray and heated it on medium-high for a few minutes before adding the pancakes.  As soon as they hit the oil and started sizzling, I knew I'd been right about them warming up well.

I fried them on each side for about 3 minutes, enough for them to get dark without burning.   Then I added some syrup and tried them out. 

They were excellent.  Frying them on such high heat made them crispy on the outside while still moist and soft on the inside.  The flavor of the little bits of dried fruit from the granola I'd ground and mixed into the flour seemed more intense than yesterday... carmelization of the fruits, I suppose .  Likewise, the cakes themselves tasted a bit sweeter, which I suppose reflects carmelization of the sugars in the batter. 

Either way, we've still got some left over, and I'm looking forward to another warmed-over-but-tasty breakfast tomorrow morning.

Squash Soup, Lamb Curry and Pudding... Yum!

We did a fair bit of shopping - grocery and otherwise - yesterday morning, and as a result, we ended up having a pretty late lunch.  It was very good, though.

Today's lunch consisted of Curried Butternut Squash Soup with Cilantro, Malai Kofta (lamb and chili pepper meatballs in a spicy, creamy curry gravy), naan bread and, for dessert, another recipe from The Iowa Housewife (http://iowasue.blogspot.com/).  A few days ago, she featured a recipe for Old Fashioned Coconut Pudding, and as soon as I saw that, I knew I wanted to make it.  As was, though, Juli made that while I was busy with the other two recipes.  She also ended up doing a lot of the work to get the soup finished.

The recipe for the butternut soup came from The Best Recipe Soups and Stews.  This cookbook, by the Cooks Illustrated editors, is out of print, appaerntly having been replaced by Cook's Illustrated Soups, Stews & Chilis.  I'm not sure how different the two books are, but I'd be surprised if they dropped the butternut squash soup recipes.  In any case, it is a fairly basic, yet uncommonly good, butternut squash soup with some curry and other Indian touches added.  Juli and I both give this recipe 5 stars.  It was incredibly good.  What really made the soup excellent was the yogurt sauce you can see in the picture below, just to the left of the bread.

The sauce is made of yogurt, chopped cilantro and lime juice.  After ladling out a bowl of soup, you drop in a dollop of the sauce, then use a fork to spread it in the soup without stirring it in, as shown in the picture below.  The result when one takes a spoonfull of soup with a bit of the sauce in it is a delicious contrast of the hot, rich, sweet soup and the cool tanginess of the yogurt sauce.  The soup would have been good without the sauce, but adding it transformed what would have been a good dish into a wonderful one.

The Malai Kofta is another recipe from Easy Indian Cookbook: The Step-by-Step Guide to Deliciously Easy Indian Food at Home, which I reviewed a couple days ago. (http://jeffreyandjulicook.blogspot.com/2010/09/this-book-got-me-started.html)  I'm glad I finally got around to making this one, because it was very, very good, and because its spiciness made for a nice contrast with the relative sweetness of the butternut soup.

And Iowa Sue's Old Fashioned Coconut Pudding?  It's just plain excellent... creamy, smooth and tasty.  I sprinkled a bit of cinnamon over the top of mine.  It provided a great ending to the meal.  I highly recommend you check it out. 

The naan we made today was a frozen one we buy at Maria Grocery, the Indian market Juli mentioned in a post a few days ago.  They come come in packages of five, are quick to heat up in the oven and taste great.  Though I prefer to make my own when I have time, these frozen ones are a good alternative when we're pressed for time.