FEBRUARY 2013
Wednesday 2013.2.27
Applesauce
Who knew applesauce could be so easy, and fun, to make from scratch? I didn't. I was working on a recipe for pork chops with sugar snap peas when the idea of applesauce came to mind. My mother always put applesauce on the table when she served pork, either chops or a roast of pork.
Apples have a long history in cooking. In A History of Food by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat the apple figures prominently in cooking going back many centuries. As far back as the first century A.D. the acidity of apples was considered a digestive aid when eating fatty foods. Like mint jelly paired with lamb, applesauce is often served with pork.
I could have walked to the store to buy applesauce in a jar. That's what my mother served. But as this is a foodie web site and I have a cooking show on TV, making applesauce from scratch seemed appropriate. And so I did a little research for recipes. There are many out there. The one I chose used a little lemon juice to help "brighten" the flavor of the apples. That's an idea that appeals to me.
A neighbor here in the trailer park has a lemon tree on which the lemons usually go to waste. She doesn't use them. Eventually they fall to the ground and rot, then she complains about having to pick them up. The lemons are the drier variety. They are very large and yield a small amount of juice. But they're free, abundant, and the flavor is good. She told me to pick them whenever I want, even when she isn't home. As I write this I am sipping lemonade I made from juice I squeezed only moments ago.
The juice is good. I served a friend tea with lemon (I think she wanted my Bailey's Irish Cream instead, but I hadn't thought to offer it). Not only did I use the juice in the applesauce as it was cooking, I added a few strips of lemon zest, shaved off the surface of the lemons with a potato peeler.
After letting the cooked apples cool a while, I ran them through a potato ricer. Part of the batch went into the refrigerator, the rest was sealed in plastic pouches and frozen. Supposedly frozen applesauce can be kept in the freezer for up to a year.
That is one of the beauties I enjoy about living in Southern California. Here it is, still February, and I can go pick lemons off a tree (and my outdoor digital thermometer says it is currently 72.5°F (22.5°C) outside.) This morning I walked to the store without needing to wear a jacket.
Okay, enough about my leisure lifestyle. If I remember, I'll blog about the Pork Chops on Sunday.
Sunday 2013.2.24
Where's the Beef?
One food type that is seriously lacking on my web site and in my videos is beef. I have a history with beef, and not all of it is good.
I was raised Roman Catholic, which meant no meat on Fridays. Although I no longer remember, I believe chicken was also prohibited. Meatless Fridays were year round, not just during Lent as is the current custom. I do remember using "I ate meat on some Fridays" as one of the "sins" I made up in confessions at church on Saturdays. I certainly wasn't going to tell the priest the good stuff I got away with.
Sometimes Mom cooked fish on Fridays, especially during the summer months when we (either my father or myself) might go fishing. Salt water smelt ran in abundance for a few seasons and although a lot of work to clean, they were good for eating. Flounder was excellent too, as I lived on the East Coast where the fresh fish was better than here on the West Coast where I live now. They were easy to catch and we often filleted them on the boat, tossing the remnants overboard before the seagulls could harass us.
My mother being Italian, she would sometimes cook spaghetti or other pasta for Friday dinner. Mom never made her pasta from scratch; it was always purchased dry. Thankfully cheese wasn't prohibited and therefore some of those Friday meals included a little protein, although the "cheese" was the grated Parmesan that came in the green cylindrical can at the store.
On Saturdays we made up for lost time. Some Saturday dinners consisted of nothing more than a large steak on a platter and Worcestershire sauce. There were no vegetables or any other side dish. Just steak.
My mother, being budget conscious, often bought steaks when they were on sale at a reduced price. She would stack them in the freezer. On Friday morning the steaks would come out of the freezer and sit on the counter, all day, no matter the temperature. It could be the stifling hot days of July or August. You might say I learned about proper food handling the hard way. There were so many Sundays when I was doubled over in pain from food poisoning, I thought I was allergic to beef and gave up eating it altogether, except in burgers, which didn't affect me. For red meat, I preferred to cook with lamb.
Now, many decades later, I see no reason not to cook with beef again. A friend has been urging to me consider adding different preparations for steaks to my Recipe Archive. And so, for this next set of cooking projects, I am including at least three recipes for beef—New York strip steak, beef tenderloin, and filet mignon—all three of which I can purchase at the local warehouse store. I won't cook for six; I'll cook for one or two. If the warehouse packages include too many pieces, I'll freeze the extra for later and, unlike my mother did, I will thaw them a safe way.
Wednesday 2013.2.20
Returning to the Routine
I took several weeks off from cooking for this web site and for the TV show. Mostly the reason why was because I felt so disheartened at the sight of my show. It left me discouraged. Now that I know the show is fine and my TV is to blame, I am enthusiastic again.
I am surprised at the number of weeks I went without producing anything. When I accomplish a lot I put as many as ten videos and recipes "in the vault" for future use. I was down to two—enough coverage to carry me through March 3. Yesterday I edited a video for Mediterranean Chicken Pie, which puts me three ahead. Having to cook for the brunch here in the trailer park, I videoed the process so that I could get a TV show out of it. They were recipes, however, that are already in the Recipe Archive on this site. So there was nothing new to put into the vault.
I don't even have much planning done either. I have half a dozen shows planned, but usually I put twice that many on my schedule of future projects. Today I'll finish editing the latest TV show and then I will sit down in earnest and finalize my schedule for the next dozen or so projects.
There is no end of potential recipes. Between restaurant trade journals, cookbooks, food magazines, and cooking TV shows, the flood of ideas and inspiration seem endless. In fact, there are so many possibilities for new ideas I easily become overwhelmed and can't decide what to do next. My only way to cope with this problem is to write a list.
To keep myself from feeling overwhelmed I follow a linear path. I sit down with my source ideas and a little stack of small note papers. On each page I write the name of the project and its source of inspiration. When I have 12 to 16 pages done, I sort them into some order that seems to make sense at the time. Then I transfer the information to my Future Projects schedule, a list that I keep attached to the wall above one of my computer desks.
That computer and desk are devoted solely to this web site and to my videos. The computer doesn't even have virus protection software on it because other than the moment or two when I upload my latest updates to my web site, the computer is kept disconnected from the Internet. I don't even upload my video from this computers; I use the other one, which is well armed with a firewall and virus software.
I should probably finish by mentioning Sunday's brunch, as there were so many blog entries leading up to it. The meal went well, although there was a little tension in the air from one of the participants. Something had been building and I was not surprised when I encountered it. I simply moved away and found a place to sit comfortably in the sun with some of my neighbors. It was a pleasant gathering and already the next one is in the planning stages. One idea is green food (either naturally or dyed with food coloring) for St. Patrick's Day. Another is something with an Easter theme. I suggested a typical pot luck rather than cooking on site. One advantage is that Daylight Saving Time begins on March 10. So we can plan a late afternoon if we want. We shall see.
Sunday 2013.2.17
TV
I received a very nice telephone call from a sweet lady at the cable TV company this week. They provided a digital decoder for my television, for free. Now I can see how my TV show is supposed to look. I watched it and it looks fantastic. And to think how disheartened and discouraged I was feeling a few weeks ago when my show looked awful on my TV.
The only explanation I can come up with is that, although the TV digital has the necessary tuner to receive the signal, it has an old decoder that is unable to read the signal properly. Why do the other shows look so good on the channel? Probably because they were originally shot in 720x480 standard definition. Mine is originally shot in 1920x1080 HD progressive and then must be encoded down to the TV station's specs. I use the latest version of a really good encoder and perhaps the TV doesn't have the latest decoder to read the signal properly.
Whatever the reason, the new decoder box installed on my TV works perfectly. The show looks vibrant and colorful, brilliant and clear. Other than the audio (I am experimenting with that), I am thoroughly satisfied.
The down side is that now I gets a gazillion additional channels. I can watch programs I was not able to see on that TV before. After the box was installed I spent the remainder of the day looking through channels, programming my favorites, and watching TV, and watching TV, and watching TV.
Normally, I rarely watch TV. I like the news, especially BBC World News. There are a few favorite shows, like Restaurant Impossible. However, if I want to watch something, like past seasons of Top Gear UK (I don't like the American version) or Doc Martin, I simply download them from my sources and watch them on my computer. Now, however, I have that program index thing that lists what's on at any time of day. The temptation is strong. However, it probably won't take long to realize that, even with a gazillion channels, there is still nothing good on TV. Okay, that might be a little too pessimistic.
Brunch
Today is the trailer park brunch I mentioned in an earlier blog. To be honest, I don't want to attend. I get weird vibes sometimes. The "trial run" I blogged about on February 3rd was the beginning of the warning signs. Unfortunately, our good events planner moved out of the park and into a rented house. No one can take her place. Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
Wednesday 2013.2.13
Surprise Outcome
For a possible TV show I made a loaf of Pain de Mie with the plan to also use the bread to make French toast for a gathering here in the trailer park. I made the mistake of storing the bread in the pullman pan in the refrigerator. The moisture from the bread caused rust spots in the bottom of the pan. They weren't large spots, but once rust starts it can be difficult to halt.
I know how to remove rust without a lot of sanding. Just apply a little toilet bowl cleaner, swish it around, and rinse. The rust is gone. However, it didn't do the coating any good. The pan had a thin gray coat that sort of looked like it was anodized, which I think is mostly for aluminum, not steel. The toilet bowl cleaner removed part of the coating to expose bare metal. Being made of steel, not stainless, the exposure would simply invite more rust. What to do?
Fortunately, I bought some unrefined flaxseed oil recently. A past issue of Cook's Illustrated magazine (Jan./Feb. 2011) included a column titled, "The Ultimate Way to Season Cast Iron." The only piece of cast iron cookware I own is a stove top griddle/grill. So far it looks okay, but it will need to be seasoned again eventually.
My pullman pan is rolled steel, not cast iron, but I know the process works well on carbon steel. So I started the seasoning, which usually involves six cycles of putting a very thin coating of flaxseed oil on the warmed surface, wiping off all the excess, heating the pan in a hot oven at it's highest temperature—mine goes to 550°F (288°C)—for one hour, then letting it cool in the oven for two hours before starting the next cycle. After only two cycles the inside of the pullman pan looked better than it did when it was new. Nonetheless, I kept going.
After four cycles I was satisfied. The pan, after all, is only rolled steel and not cast iron. It is for baking bread, not searing.
I could bore you with the science, but I won't. It has something to do with polymerization. There is a reason to use flaxseed oil as opposed to other plant oils. Not only is flaxseed oil high in omega-3 fatty acids, but it is 57% alpha-linolenic acid, the stuff that makes for a good coating on the iron pan. Okay. Enough science.
The down side is the oil itself. Don't look for it on the shelf with the salad oils and other vegetable oils. It is so perishable it needs to be kept in the refrigerator and protected from light by storing in a black bottle. The shelf life is estimated to be about six weeks, although the date stamp on my bottle says it should be good through the end of July of this year. The bottle claims it is triple filtered and it is clearly marked "unrefined" and "organic." The unrefined is the important part, which means it will have a lower smoke point. And it is expensive. If I remember correctly (I no longer have the receipt), the 8-ounce bottle cost about $13.
And so, after feeling more than a little disheartened that I might have ruined my beautiful and expensive pullman pan, it was pleasant to discover that I could restore it to a condition better than new by seasoning it properly with unrefined flaxseed oil.
Sunday 2013.2.10
New Ingredient Source
I stopped at a Food Co-Op market near where I used to work. It has been there for decades, but I never stepped inside. One of my friends here in the trailer park used to be the manager and he encouraged me to give the store a try because of the variety of bulk food items. I was hoping to find wild rice. No success. But I did buy some Madagascar pink rice and some Chinese forbidden black rice (evidently forbidden because at one time the rice was reserved solely for the emperor).
The pink rice looks like brown rice, only sort of pink, and I haven't yet thought of a good recipe that might use it. The black rice looks like small wild rice (which is really an edible grass seed and not rice at all), but really black. I plan to experiment with both rices this week, cooking and tasting them to see what might come to mind.
This week I edited a video and recipe for Duck with Three-Rice Stuffing. It will be uploaded here and to YouTube in coming weeks. I used brown rice, white rice, and wild rice, among other ingredients. I'm thinking the black rice, combined with wild rice, might make a really unusual combination. When I have more time, I'd like to browse the Food Co-Op store more thoroughly. It could be a useful source of ingredients for future recipes.
And now that I am feeling enthusiastic about my TV show again—see below—I will begin working on another season of videos this week. My first recipe is a savory pie. This one will be a Moroccan-Style Chicken Pie. I have a Moroccan cookbook and I don't see what there is particularly Moroccan about this chicken pie, but the recipe looks good; so I'll give it a go.
Latest Humiliation TV—NOT!
Wednesday evening I walked up to a friend's house here in the trailer park. BevMo is having their "Buy One and Get One for 5¢" wine sale. So I brought a 5¢ bottle of wine with me. Best nickel I ever spent. We watched my TV show on his 52-inch (132cm—I'm so used to doing metic equivalents in my recipes, I can't stop myself) flat screen TV. The video quality was beautiful, every bit as good as I thought it should be. My encoder really does an excellent job.
As to why my show looks so awful on my own TV, a smaller HD digital flat screen, I do not understand. The TV also might not have the proper decoder for that channel.
So, I'm back to feeling excited about my show again. I took some time off from cooking to get some home projects done. This week I'll start cooking again.
Wednesday 2013.2.6
Worst Trial Run
In Sunday's blog I mentioned I might tell you about the worst trial run I ever experienced. It was many years ago.
At the time I was a member of a religion that would occasionally invite ministers from other congregations to visit and deliver the Sunday sermon. The tradition among many congregations was for someone to host the visiting speaker and his family for a meal that day. I can cook and I therefore wished I could host a speaker, but I lived in an old mobile home in a storage lot where it was impossible to host anyone. At best, I could invite one friend for a visit. (I was working as a security guard at the time.)
One day I spoke with someone in the congregation, asking if I might host a speaker at her house. I would provide the meal; she would provide the home. It seemed simple enough, but she wanted to do a trial run.
A trial run? Why was that necessary? Cook, eat. What could go wrong? Nonetheless, she insisted on the trial run.
Okay, so we chose a day and a menu for the trial run. The menu appeared to be a little extravagant, but she seemed to know what she was doing. She also wanted to see how all the food was prepared; so I brought all the ingredients over to her home and during the afternoon I prepared all the food, way more food than was necessary to feed the speaker and his family. I hoped she would realize that when she saw everything and simplify the menu. No. Instead, she said, "Come on. Help me load all this into my car."
Into her car? Now what? I was way too trusting—naïve—at the time. I have since learned to regard people with way too much skepticism, even if I know them well. Anyone can have an ulterior motive, even the most kind and loving person. Never offer to do anything, and have an excuse ready in case they should ask.
After loading everything into her car, I followed her in my car as she brought all the food to her sister's house. There were about 20 people assembled there, all waiting to eat dinner at my expense. Of course, she was the beneficent hostess of the feast. I was merely the cook. Needless to say, I was furious.
Host a speaker? It never happened. I never forgave her.
Latest Humiliation TV
Week three: The TV station started broadcasting the second show. I received a nice email response to my message informing the station I wanted to pull out because my show looked and sounded nothing like the high quality MPEG2 files I submitted. The Executive Assistant assured me she had watched this week's broadcast, Miniature Egg Rolls, and the show looked excellent. I hadn't seen that episode yet. When it aired on yesterday morning it looked and sounded just as horrid as the previous one. Other shows on the channel look okay. I responded to her email and she wrote back immediately. She said she was watching the show at the same time and it looked better than most shows on their channel.
What I don't know is whether she was watching via a direct link from the broadcast equipment there at the station, or if it was a regular broadcast over standard cable TV.
This evening I will watch the show again at a friend's house. He has a large, 52-inch, flat screen TV. Another friend, who saw the broadcast in my home and agreed it was terrible, will also watch on his TV down in the city. We shall see....
Sunday 2013.2.3
SoCal Living
I love living in Southern California. I grew up in New England and I couldn't wait to get out of there. College was my ticket.
New England is a beautiful part of the country. Trees everywhere. I joke about Southern California. They put two trees together and call it a forest. No. In New England we had trees. Great rolling hills of them. Taking the car for a joy ride usually included driving along country roads under archways of tree branches that at times completely blocked out the sky.
My biggest complaint about New England was the weather. My father hated the humidity. I hated the cold. My father drove to work. I had to stand at the side of the road, wrapped in a heavy coat, scarf, hat, gloves, boots and thick socks, watching my breath escape in clouds of moisture, waiting the school bus to take me away.
Here it is February in Southern California and I can walk to the store in the afternoon wearing a shirt. I enjoyed lunch with a friend on Thursday and I walked to the restaurant without needing to wear a jacket. I have warm winter coats, just in case, but I haven't worn them in years.
Even putting out the trash can be a glorious expedition. Friday morning it was exactly 72.0°F (22.2°C) outside when I rolled the trash and recycling bins to the curb for pickup. A neighbor, John, was walking by and he stopped to say hello. We both agreed how wonderful Southern California weather is. And this is February!!!
I bring all this up because this month we are planning another outdoor gathering here in the trailer park. It will occur the weekend after St. Valentine's Day. A hot brunch is the theme. One of the residents has a large camp stove. He borrowed a grill top from a friend. Eggs, bacon, sausages, pancakes, French toast—you get the idea.
I am doing the French toast, for which I will bake a loaf of Pain de Mie. If you're not familiar with it, the bread is baked inside an enclosed metal box, which keeps the bread dense, perfect for French toast. I'll bring fresh strawberries, whipped cream, and powdered sugar. I also volunteered to prepare a Smoked Salmon Quiche because I have the salmon in the freezer.
A "trial run" is planned the weekend before the event. I don't like trial runs. Just do the event and skip the trial run. Cook, eat. What can go wrong? Maybe in Wednesday's blog I'll tell you about the worst trial run ever perpetrated on me.