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Pork Roll

February 6, 2013
cooking, frugal, pork, recipe
6 Comments

porky rollHai, I made a pork roll, and get this, the insides were tastier than the skin! I know, if I hadn’t made it, I would also have thought I were crazypants, too.
Pork rollI bought a whole pork belly and decided to try a stuffed pork roll. Stuffed it with some shallots and a carrot, I think.

Here’s what my slicing skeelz gave:
PORK PORK PORK

A 6-story pork high rise. All Belly The piece I used for the pork was just a smidge under a pound. So close. BEEEEERRR

Cracked open one of my noble Trappist ale home brews (you could use any Belgian beer), sliced the meat side up a bit, and poured the beer into a dish so it marinated the meat-side of the pork. Pork roll

After a few hours, I trussed it up with the stuffing ingredients and roasted it for a few more hours.

cooked pork rollDone! Now enjoy fatty-licious pork. Belgian-beer marinades go really, REALLY well with pork. So doing that again in the future.

Stuffed Grape Leaves

January 27, 2013
beef, cooking, crock pot, frugal, recipe
1 Comment

Grape leave

Roma smells amazing. Every time I’m in there I want to order one of every deli meat, all of the cheeses, and tons of olives. They have a bunch of Middle Eastern groceries, and I picked up 2 lbs of grape leaves for $5.25! Not too bad! This was about 75 or more leaves, some were bigger than others, but overall this was a great price. The supermarkets charge about the same for less grape leaves.

This time I decided I wanted to try making stuffed grape leaves in my crock pot. I put slices of lemon in between the layers, which added a different sort of bitterness to the grape leaves that made them interesting in addition to the tartness of the lemon juice. I shared a bunch of these with some  friends (well, those that I managed to wrangle out of Albany John’s clutches – hot damn, that man loves stuffed grape leaves, especially these), and the overall verdict was that they were quite tasty and more would be welcome at any time.

I added a bit of mint to the mix, too, which Roma also sells.

Make these vegetarian by leaving the meat out. I think I will do that the next time.

Stuffed grape leaves

Crock Pot Stuffed Grape Leaves Recipe:
1 C brown rice
3/4 lb ground meat (I used a combo of veal & beef)
2 onions, minced
Olive oil
2 T dried mint leaves
3-4 lemons
50 Grape leaves

Sautee minced onions in olive oil until firm but translucent. Remove & let cool in a bowl.

Once cooled, add rice, ground meat, and mint leaves.

Rinse the grape leaves well (until water runs clear). Put about 1-2 teaspoons of filling in each leaf and roll up like a little burrito.

Snugly fill a layer in your crock pot. Once full, cover that layer with grape leaves & lemon slices and juice of 1/2 lemon. Repeat until you are out of grape leaves! Pack them tightly – put a plate in the crock pot and weigh it down, then add another weight on top of the crock pot lid, otherwise the rice may expand and break the grape leaf skin. Cook 3-4 hours on low heat.

Last little bit of me dragging out my vacation

February 20, 2012
Chicken, fried, recipe, recommendations, restaurant, review, salad, travel
3 Comments

Ok, this is the last of the dead horse that is my vacation to Mississippi that you will read about. Albany John introduced my nephew to flying dics. The kid took to a liking to it quickly enough, but between you and me his aim is pretty weak.
My sis-in-law Margarita showed me how to make flour tortillas from a recipe she got from her grandmother. I miss cooking with her so much! This recipe was so simple, but makes delicious flour tortillas.
Knead dough.
Roll out.
Cut.
Roll into circles, then lightly rub with oil & let sit for 20 minutes.
Margarita says her grandmother’s generation really prides themselves on being able to make a flat and perfectly round tortilla by hand – we made our by pressing them on plates. Some of them came kind of close to being circular.
Cast iron pan + bubbles!
Flip. Nom. So delicious. I’ve made these a few times since coming back, and they don’t taste as good. :/ I need her guidance.
Albany John made beef stew. Mmm.
The next morning bro & Albany John found a discgolf location nearby called The Rez. Really nice layout.
And then we went for lunch at Two Sisters Kitchen in Jackson, MS. I’ve been lusting over this spot since my last visit two years ago and was psyched to finally make it. Southern home cooking on a small buffet.
This is a crappy picture, but it’s a lunch buffet for $12.50 per person (kids under 5 for free). Bro thought it was kind of high for the area, but being a New Yawkah I thought it was a steal. Plus this is the south, and there are some BIG appetites.
Fried chicken, fried okra & zucchini, cabbage, and collards. The collards might have been my only veggie while dining out – they were fabulously porky and salty.

I’ve not been into carbs lately, but I couldn’t get enough of these biscuits – cornbread on the left, and angel biscuit on the right. Cornbread was like polenta – so moist and crunchy on the outside. The angel biscuit, true to its name, was heavenly soft (and buttery).
Albany John loved their veggies as well.
For round two I had to have the chicken fried steak in gravy. And more collards and biscuits. So good! And while we made it for the last 30 minutes of service, they couldn’t have been more welcoming. Freshly fried chicken was coming out within the last 15 minutes of service.

Dessert is ordered at the table. Albany John got apple pie (way better than any I’ve had up north) and I got bread pudding with bourbon sauce.

That was my last meal in Mississippi – we went to the airport a little bit later. Sad to go, but so many more places to eat when we return.

Chili from Potbelly at Chicago airport.
And a vegetarian salad with loads of chickpeas. Mmmm.

Thanksgiving – Cooked and Raw Food style

November 29, 2011
baking, cooking, holiday, raw, recipe, turkey
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Happy Thanksgiving! This year I am thankful for many things. 18 years with the best furry Party Cat ever, is one of them. Were he still with us, he’d have been on that plate of turkey in no time. Glaring and chomping away.


As it was, we settled on a new tradition of dog fights and blood drawing (oddly enough not between any family members, and more the result of two big doggie ‘tudes in one small kitchen). This was joined with family traditions of yore, like my mom hosting Thanksgiving.

It’s been a heck of a year for the lass, and when she offered to host, we all happily accepted. My good in-laws also trekked over from Amherst for the holiday.
Ready. Set. Eat. My mom even made cranberry sauce from scratch – quite a step out in her culinary repertoire, and tasty, too. My sister’s raw feast can be seen in the background. She also ate some cooked vegan foods as well, which was quite nice for the family. No quibbling or teasing, everyone enjoying company of some sort.

Albany John brought some gluten-free bread (with dates, nuts, cranberries, and raisins). I helped him make dressing/stuffing (which means I prepped everything and made him do the assembly/seasoning).
The pooches post-fighting. Water under the bridge. Must be nice to have the memory of a dog, right? Funny part of the night – the little one ate more than the big one.
Dessert time! My sister made a raw apple pie (coz she ate the raw pie I made) on the left. I made the pumpkin swirl cheesecake at center, and Mama and Papa Amherst brought ice cream from Flayvors (Inez and Pumpkin, yum!).

Pumpkin cheesecake was stupid easy to make. Take some regular cheesecake batter, and mix it with pumpkin pulp. Then swirl in. Done! My cheesecake had three cracks, though. I was quite pouty. No perfect cheesecake for me. :/

Here is the raw pie I made that my sister ate. I only brought 3/4 of it. I had to sample it earlier, to make sure it was worthy of bringing. And then I had to sample a slice to my sister as well, to make sure it was truly acceptable to the person who most enjoys raw food. I mean, if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have made it in the first place, you know? I wouldn’t bring it if she thought it sucked.

What’s it made of?

Coconut cashew cream with pecans and cranberries, TYVM. On a sunflower seed chocolate crust.

Here’s what I like most about raw foods. You can pretty much wing it. No baking times means that many ingredients are flexible. A lot of raw crusts call for almonds, pecans, cashews, or other expensive nuts. I soaked sunflower seeds for the majority of this crust. Way more economical, and you can’t really tell it apart from any other soaked nut.

Chocolate Sunflower Crust Recipe:
1/4-1/3 C virgin coconut oil, melted (dehydrator, your hot little hands, hot oven, etc)
1 C sunflower seeds, soaked until soft (30-60 mins in hot water) then ground/minced
1/4 C cocoa powder
2 T liquid sweetener (I used maple syrup. I know it’s not really raw, but it’s what I had at home. Go for agave syrup if you’re gonna have a fit about it)
1/4 -1/3 C almond meal
Mix it all up, then press in a pan.

I liked lining my pan with plastic wrap. Made it easy to spread and take out to serve later.

Step two: filling. Coconut cashew cream. This is just plain awesome. You don’t need to like raw food to like this. I had a ton of filling left over, and boy did I enjoy each and every spoonful.

Coconut Cashew Cream Recipe
1 C cashews, soaked ~2 hours
1/2 of a fresh (dried) coconut. The brown kind of coconut that you have to crack.
1/4-1/2 C liquid sweetener
1/2 of liquid from coconut (as needed to blend)
1/2 C coconut oil

Blend together until it has a paste/pudding consistency. I put this in an electric blender for several minutes until it was smooth.
Then add in some chopped cranberries and pecans. You can add as many cranberries as you like. The richness from the coconut cashew cream will balance out the tartness. Go for about 1/4 -1/3 C to start.
All mixed together.
Then you just plop and freeze it all together. You can take it out of the freezer an hour or two before you want to serve it, or just serve it frozen. This holds up surprisingly well (when I brought a slice to my sister before Turkey Day, it kicked around in a tupperware in my car for a few hours with no ill effects or mis-shaping).

I wouldn’t say this is an extremely rich pie. If you’re used to cooked food, this is probably a fine and dandy pie on its own to you. If you’re trying to eat foods that are a little less refined, you will also like this pie. If you like creamy tasty fillings, oh holy moly, you will freaking LURVE this pie.

I’m most thankful my sister was chill about me using maple syrup in the pie and not freaking out about it being a form of sugar and not being raw. And she sneakily ate the remaining 3/4 of it on Thanksgiving while cooking, and sheepishly admitted to it while we were serving up dessert and I was like “Hey, where’d the rest of mah pie go?!” . Now I’m starting to believe we actually are related. Sneakily eating almost a whole pie, and being cute about eating it all? Happy Thanksgiving indeed.

Green Tea Macarons

November 2, 2011
cookies, dessert, gluten free, recipe
1 Comment

Green Tea Macarons!

These are so awesome, recipe goes first, blathering later!

Green Tea Macarons


90-100 g egg whites (3 eggs)
200 g powdered sugar
50 g granulated white sugar
110 g almond flour
20-30 g matcha powder

Whip whites to stiff peaks, adding the granulated sugar in slowly.

Almond flour with powdered sugar and matcha.

Bake at 300 F for not very much time at all. Check on them after 7-8 minutes.
Plops! Ploparons! This was before I let them rest. Word to the wise, matcha powder absorbs water differently than powdered sugar, so… you might want to go easy on it or else your mixture might be a little more magma-like in texture than you really want.

Fluffy whipped egg whites! So pure and fluffy. If you can flip the bowl upside down and nothing moves, you’re good to go.


This is what it looks like when you mix in everything else. It was a little more deflated than I wanted it to be. I also didn’t sift out the almond bits in the flour, so there was some coarseness. I was just too lazy to break out the food processor and get it all fine.

WTF is this?

It’s my fave method for piping things. A Ziploc baggie in a cup makes it easier to pour batter/icing into. And you can just throw it away when you’re done. Easy clean up. Yay!

Just make sure you use Ziploc baggies. Maybe Reynolds is okay, but Ziploc is one brand I’ve had that never bursts or distorts in any way when I need to use it for decorating, etc.
Tada! Keeps the air out, and now it’s all in one easy place! Just snip off a corner and you’re ready to pipe out the batter.
More unrested macaron plops.

They were pretty intense without any filling. Like, so bitter I thought I’d maybe overdone it. But with a white chocolate ganache they were quite good. Even though my ganache refused to set, so I had to add powdered sugar and almond meal to thicken it up.

Oh well. They still turned out pretty well. Kind of crackly and ugly, but good in the mouth. Hehe.

Coconut Flour Muffins

October 26, 2011
baking, breakfast, dessert, gluten free, recipe
2 Comments

Coconut flour is my new obsession. It smells so coconutty and good! And it’s got a ton of protein in it – 2 grams in 2 Tablespoons. It’s also about 80 calories in 2T, but it doesn’t work 1:1 in conventional wheat/all purpose flour recipes – it’s much less.
It’s gluten-free, stupid low-carb, and but best of all, it tastes and smells DELICIOUS. Right now the co-op has it on sale for $5.02 per pound. Okay, that sounds expensive for a flour, but like I said, it uses a lot less in a normal recipe than regular flour would. I made some frozen berry studded coconut flour muffins. So tasty!

Coconut Flour Muffins
1/2 C coconut flour
4 egg whites
1/4 – 1/2 t baking soda
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/4 c coconut milk (or yogurt, or whatevs you’d like)
pinch salt

Bake 350 F for 15-20 mins for cupcakes/muffins.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! You can mix them all together – trust me, it’s okay. There’s no gluten involved to complicate matters. The coconut flour will really absorb all of that liquid and look just like a normal batter. I made 11 muffins/cupcakes with these amounts.

The texture is very light and fluffy – almost like a ricotta dessert. Very moist, too. So tasty! What a nice surprise. I was expecting something dense, or coarse.
I hope you’ll try making these – they are so easy and tasty. I hear there are some sort of healthy aspects to coconut flour too, so if you’re one of those health nuts, these might be a sort of healthy alternative to breakfast muffins or cupcakes. I haven’t done much research on the matter, but I just love the way this stuff smells.

But who cares about that stuff – they taste so good, you’ll want to make them over and over again.

Chinese Meatballs

September 24, 2011
Chinese, cooking, pork, recipe
2 Comments

Chinese Meatballs! I’ve been craving meatballs lately. I don’t have much luck with Italian-style meatballs, so I thought I’d give the Chinese style a try. They are awesome. I also made friends with Albany John’s food processor during this cooking adventure.

So you guys know my deal with meat. I try to buy some meat that tastes… meaty. Usually that is meat that is of the “happier/natural/organic/wahtevs label” variety and not just whatever plastic-sealed package you get in the grocery store.

I picked up a pork shoulder roast at Roma in Latham. Sometimes they run specials, and I found this in their refrigerator case already wrapped up for $3.99 per lb! Not bad!

I’ve also become rather picky about my grind of meat, and find that many pre-ground meats are ground too fine for my liking, and take on an unpleasant grainy/mealy texture when cooked. Eff Tee Ess.

I cut up wee nubbins of pork meat and let them freeze for about 10 minutes before giving them a whir in the food processor until they were at my preferred texture (nice and chunky).

The Food Processor and I do not usually get along. Mr. Cuisinart likes Albany John, but I… have issues. But today, he was very nice to me and cut some foods up. Minced ginger and garlic together (lots o’ ginger) with lots of minced up water chestnuts (I love the texture – stays a little crunchy while cooking).
Crap, this picture of the grind is blurry, but I promise it has texture and doesn’t look like cat food pate. Toss some seasonings on top, ADD A BUNCH OF CHICKEN BROTH (this is the secret to make them so juicy and moist) mix it up, and then let it sit in the freezer for 20 minutes. Just in the bowl is fine.

Then take it out of the freezer, roll in some flour of your choice, and pan fry to brown them.

“Lion’s head meatballs” are a popular Chinese meatball. So in that way, I tried to make these meatballs quite large.
And then I made smaller meatballs.

Wedged them in a pan.

Made a sauce to cook them in (recipe below).
Covered said partially-cooked meatballs in sauce, covered the pan with tin foil, and let bake for 30 minutes at 350F.
While those were baking, I made a tray of meatballs to freeze and eat later. If you freeze them, you can just add them in a sauce later. No need to pan-fry.

I also put some scraps in a pan and cooked them up. Tasty like this, too! Are crisped meaty things ever bad?
All done! As you can see, there are some scallions and wood ear fungus/mushrooms in the sauce as well.

Recipe inspiration was from Use Real Butter. Totally read her post, especially the funny part about Jen’s dad and mom’s debating the size of Lion’s head meatballs, hehe. The sauce is all her


Actual recipe I cobbled up for Chinese Meatballs:
3/4 can of sliced water chestnuts, minced
5 cloves garlic
3″ ginger
1# 10 oz of pork shoulder, cubed, frozen, the processed to a coarse grind/dice
Soy sauce, sesame oil, vermouth
hoisin sauce
chicken broth (about 2 cups)
White pepper
Flour (for rolling)

Plus Jen’s sauce recipe. Click on the link to get her sauce recipe. You’ll wanna pour it over everything.


AWESOME. Pork was so moist and tender. Not grainy or too lean, but not uber fatty either.

Canadian Bacon

September 17, 2011
charcute, cooking, pork, recipe
2 Comments

Canadian Bacon! I’m a woman on a curing kick and I just can’t help myself. Picked up a pork loin at Roma for $3.99 per pound and mixed up a cure from Ruhlman’s blog.

30 g pink salt

70 g kosher salt
125 g sugar
2 bay leaves
some sage
5 crushed garlics
1/2 lemon

Add the above ingredients to 2 quarts of boiling water. Cook until the sugar & salts have dissolved, then let it cool down for a while.
2 lbs, 2 oz of pork loin. All mine for the curing!
And now the loin is combined with the brine in a Ziploc baggie (freezer, gallon sized).
It gets to sit for a few days to cure, then it gets a trip in the hot smoker.

It came out SO awesome!! Smoked it with maple wood chips for a few hours.

I’d say this is the best “value” smoking-wise. It ended up gaining weight from the liquid brine, and didn’t lose much during the smoking. Fattier cuts shed a LOT of weight while smoking, but it seems like hot smoking a leaner cut with a wet brine = way less weight loss.

Gluten Free "pizza"

August 30, 2011
cooking, frugal, gluten free, pizza, recipe, veggies
2 Comments

Okay, so this isn’t legit NY style pizza. Or really even pizza per se, but for what it was, it was tasty, especially if you like cauliflower. And you can feed it to your celiac friends without worrying that you’re going to internally maim them. I haven’t really been feeling gluten-y carbs lately, so I based my recipe loosely off of this recipe I found from Sleep Love Eat.

Gluten-Free Cauliflower Pizza Ingredients:

Half a head of cauliflower, blanched/lightly boiled and then mashed/pureed

salt, pepper,
oregano
garlic powder, onion powder
romano/parmesan cheese

veggies, toppings as you see fit.


So, cook your cauliflower in some boiling water and mash/puree. If you like it chunkier, just mash it. If you like it smoother then puree it.


Add some seasonings to it. Whatever makes you think “pizza”. I liked oregano and garlic/onion powder with some salt and pepper. You can toss in some egg if you feel like it to bind, but it’s up to you.


Put some parchment paper over a baking/cookie sheet and smooth the cauliflower puree over it. Bake at 400F for 30 minutes until it starts sticking together and looking like a solid substance for pizza toppings. Then add some more toppings and bake for 20 more minutes. Or until it looks good to you. Whatever.


Here’s what the underside of the “pizza” should look like if you’ve cooked it long enough. I wanted to cook it long enough to get a good amount of char on the bottom so I could eat it like an actual pizza and not just “stuff on top of baked cauliflower paste”

Okay, so you might be like “Albany Jane, how can you call yourself a New Yorker and say this is pizza?!” and I’ll be all like “Whatever, it’s tasty. Call it a reeeaaallllyyyyy thin cauliflower gratin with toppings if you don’t like the ‘pizza’ moniker.”


If you want to lower the water content of the pizza, bake your tomato slices and whatever other veg has some water in it so it’s just a wee bit roasted, then slap it on the surface of your tasty cauliflower pizza type substance.


Project Baconage

August 28, 2011
cooking, pork, project, recipe, smoked
7 Comments



So. You might know that I am a spurious individual given to the occasional impulse purchase. In this case it was about 10 pounds of primo Kurobuta pork belly from Adventure in Food. Given that my significantly better half is from Western Mass, it’s pretty much local to me.



Also, quite a nice purchase at around $7.99 per pound. This bacon was cooked two ways. One with my stovetop hot smoker, and cold smoking with the help of one Chef Christopher Tanner.

I’ll get the math out of the way. The hot smoked bacon lost about 25% of its weight while smoking. So it was closer to $10.50 per pound for hot smoked bacon. I didn’t weigh the cold smoked bacon, but I don’t think it lost very much weight. Cold smoked and all. Next time I’ll try to be a bit better with my measurements so I can nerd out and create a graph on weight variances.

The hot smoked bacon is delicious and 100% cooked. 180-200F with maple wood chips until the bacon registers around 160 F and the meat looks pinky and good. Kind of like super delicious fatty ham. Just use Ruhlman’s cure and you’re set. A few weeks, 6 weeks…. it’s all good.

I enlisted The Profussor in this cholesterol laden drive. Parce que je suis égoïste et je voulais une autre personne à essayer ce lard.

Any way. Step 9723 of Project Bacon is to petition your chef friends to cold smoke your bacon out of the kindness of their hearts ‘coz they have cold smokers and you don’t. Pull out all the stops – compliments, pouty faces, promises of first born children. This is science, damnit! COLD SMOKED BACON THAT YOU CURED, HULLOO!

Your chef friend may explicitly tell you “You NEED to cook this. DON’T eat this raw. Whatever you do, don’t eat this raw. COOK IT.” Clearly, my reputation for putting things in my mouth precedes me. Okay, cause I might have just tried a wee slice of raw bacon. But I didn’t cause Tanner was all concerned about me eating raw pork. Sheesh.

So I just cooked the bacon. SO GOOD. Best part of making your own bacon is slicing pieces to your own desired thickness. THICK BACON!!

Here is what the bacon looked like raw. Huuuuge props to Chef Tanner for vacuum sealing it for me too!

Bacon lurve! So making your own bacon isn’t exactly easy, but oh man is it worthwhile. SO FREAKING GOOD.



But the down side is that it is so yummy you will want to eat tons of delicious bacon slices whenever you open the fridge and the bacon is just sitting there. Sitting there in the bag. Un eaten. Poor bacon, come to my belly.


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