Chocolate Rain

Today was the rainiest day I can remember. Well, maybe the second rainiest day I can remember. It could be argued that that time last year when our neighborhood was destroyed by a flood was slightly rainier. Also it may be the reason I am now scared when it rains.

I battled against my fears and spent most of the rainy morning out doing errands in a panic realizing the babies could pretty much come at any time now. My panic about babies almost overwhelmed my panic about rain.



Being cold and rainy I settled in to make something warm and nourishing for dinner. First, I started off by cleaning some local watercress and cilantro and mixing them together with lime, olive oil, and feta cheese with salt and pepper. I also made these rutabaga cakes with leftover rutabaga from when the babies were the size of rutabaga if you can remember back that far. I added some shredded Manchego and panko to the mashed rutabaga, coated them with more panko, then fried them in a pan. They were pretty tasty considering it was just an excuse to use up leftover rutabaga, Manchego, and panko.



I decided to make posole for our main course tonight. This was mostly because I still had some leftover pork from my dinner at The Breslin last week. I started by browning some garlic and onion then adding a little chopped jalapeno, leftover butternut squash, and chopped cabbage. I cooked this down a bit then added the leftover pork (skin and all), chopped tomato, dried thyme, dried oregano, cumin, and bay leaf. I let it cook on the stovetop for a while with some thawed out chicken stock and then added some hominy toward the end.



I served it up with shredded cheddar, fresh cilantro, sliced radish, chopped green onion, and sour cream. I would have had some sliced avocado too but unfortunately that wasn't to be. I went to one of our local stores this afternoon to grab some of these accompaniments and I asked the woman there (who half the store is named after) and she told me that the avocados were behind the counter. I found this a little strange but I collected the rest of my stuff, got the the register, then forgot to ask for an avocado. When I was getting ready to plate dinner and remembered about this I was furious. A geyser of curse words erupted in our kitchen, mostly directed at the strange security measures in place at our local store.

I then trekked back out into the rain to go to another local store who also sold avocados (in a more normal location) but sadly they were all rock hard and wouldn't be ripe for at least a few days.

It wasn't meant to be.



Jen liked the soup. Sort of. She claimed that the pork tasted of boar taint. It definitely did not but I think her pregnancy-induced sense of smell was picking up something from the pork. If it had been boar taint I would have noticed because we had a
very unfortunate boar taint experience this summer in France.




Since I was cooking a dish which dates back to the Aztecs I decided to pair it with a beer of roughly the same era and civilization, this Theobroma from Dogfish Head. This is based on a recipe found on an Aztec pot from 1200 B.C. Supposedly this drink was consumed for special occasions in Azetc society and is one of the earliest known uses for cocoa.

I had been expecting a "chocolate" beer to be much darker but generally the use of the word "chocolate" in the name of a beer denotes chocolate malt which is, of course, not chocolate at all but rather dark roasted malt. In this case actually cocoa was used and, therefore, the beer maintains a very light color like one would expect in a beer.



This beer also happens to be the subject of one of my favorite Sam Calgione videos where he claims he's getting ready to go on a fox hunt.

The beer had a very nice, but subtle, cocoa taste to it with a slightly spicy finish. I've been sitting on this bottle for a while in the beer cellar and it was nice to finally pair it with an appropriate meal. I'm often very hesitant to try to pair a beer or wine with soup but this beer actually went perfectly with the posole. This was merely a happy accident and had nothing to do with any sort of planning on my part.

After dinner we kept it authentic by watching the ancient Aztec sport of ice hockey.

Go Tenochtitlan Rangers!

Cincinnati Weekend (Part Two)

Last night I had a semi-authentic Cincinnati cheese coney. I'd never had Cincinnati chili before so I decided to try it in what might be it's most traditional form. Other than the fact that the hot dog, bun, cheese, and onion were all organic I'd say this was as traditional as possible as I could achieve here on the east coast.

Tonight, however, I decided to make my own Cincinnati chili. I tried to follow an authentic recipe and cooked up some diced onion with a little Canola oil then added some grass fed ground beef, chili powder, cinnamon, cumin, allspice, clove, tomato sauce, cider vinegar, cayenne, and a bay leaf. I also put in a small amount of my chicken stock from the freezer and simmered the chili in the pot for an hour and a half. This seemed like a lot of time but if that's what they do in Cincinnati then I was determined to bring the same unnecessary cooking time to New York!



While the sauce simmered I made this salad with spinach, feta, sliced pear, chopped walnuts, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Why this combination of ingredients? Because that's what was lying around. It actually turns out that it was pretty delicious so that was a nice bonus.

The question as to whether this salad has anything to do with Cincinnati could be debated. I imagine if there is a common salad (or salad at all) that you would find in close proximity to a cheese coney it would likely feature large amounts of iceberg lettuce and shredded carrot.

Sorry, Cincinnati. I'm from Rhode Island. There the iceberg lettuce is also topped with corruption and joblessness.



Since I'd had the cheese coney last night, this evening I decided to do the second most popular way of serving. Or maybe it's the first most popular. I haven't actually researched this. This one time I did stop for gas in Ohio so I think I have a pretty good sense of what goes on there.

The second most popular way is, of course, the same as the hot dog except replace the hot dog, mustard and bun with a pile of spaghetti. The chili over the top, chopped onion, and shredded cheese remain the same.

This time, however, I used an aged cheddar, one without unnecessary annatto.

The dish was pretty good. I do like how shredding the cheese on the smallest part of the cheese grater allows it to melt evenly over hot chili creating a sort of cheese sauce. This pasta reminded me, slightly, of the pasta with meat sauce I always used to order at Vallee's, an Italian restaurant that we frequented in my childhood. Only it had less tomato, more spices, and less electric statues of Venus de Milo which lit up and pumped water down tiny Ionic columns.



I may have already stated that it is very difficult to find any beer from Ohio in the state of New York. Tonight, however, I was able to find this Frog's Hollow Double Pumpkin ale from Hoppin' Frog Brewery in Akron, Ohio. This wasn't exactly an appropriately seasonal beer. It was probably released exactly six months ago. It was important that it at least came from the same state as Cincinnati, albeit Akron is just about as far away from Cincinnati as you can get while still staying in Ohio.

This beer was much different than I expected. It did not really have any bitterness at all. It actually tasted more of banana than pumpkin and the spices blended well with the spices in the chili. Probably because they're pretty much the same spices.

On the back of the label it says that it clocks in at 7.3 IBUs. If you have to put a decimal in when you're measuring IBUs that's a pretty good sign that it's not going to be bitter at all.



For dessert I crafted another un-Ohian dish. It may not have been in the spirit of the great state of Ohio, but it was in the spirit of saving a bunch of money and using up some crap that was in the freezer.

I used a lot of the same ingredients from the salad. I had some pears that were just about ready to die in my vegetable bowl (where 'bowl' means an old Clementine box) so I chopped them up, tossed them with a little brown sugar, raisins, candied ginger, and chopped walnuts. Then I rolled them in some puff pastry dough before baking them in the oven.

I topped them with some ice cream, whipped cream, and reheated barleywine caramel sauce. The result was quite tasty and the beer actually worked very well with this course as well.



Everyone on Facebook today was talking about Wrestlemania, which I find odd because I don't remember anyone ever mentioning Wrestlemania (or Wrestling for that matter) on Facebook before. I have missed the last couple of Wrestlemanias. The last twenty-five to be precise. So I decided to watch the last one I saw: Wrestlemania III!



It's been a long, long time since I sat down and listened to Jesse "The Body" Ventura commentating on a wrestling match. It was a golden age of fake sports that is hard to duplicate. The bright primary colors of the 80's gave way to the tribal tattoos and general baddassery of the 90's 00's and 10's until we have whatever sort of thing is going on in wrestling nowadays. I can't really say as I've had my eye off the ball for roughly the past quarter century or so.

Jen returns late tonight and I look forward to seeing her again despite the wild adventures I've had in her absence. You know, the kind of adventures that involve sitting around on a couch eating chili.

You know why? Because I'm a real American.

Leftovers and Tasmanians

Last night we returned to our mission to empty the freezer. This mission had been going so well, as it often does, until I foolishly bought and prepared an immense amount of food to add back to our limited freezer space. My goal for this week is to work once again at emptying our freezer so I can once again fill it with food we do not need.

It's the American way.



But first I started out with this Pleasant Ridge Reserve Uplands Cheese. It's made with raw, grass fed cow's milk and it was pretty tasty, though a tad expensive. And, get this: it's made in Wisconsin of all places! Who knew they made cheese in an obscure state such as Wisconsin? I mean, it didn't even achieve statehood until 1985!



To start off I made a salad with heirloom lettuce, grape tomatoes, feta cheese, blanched almonds, avocado, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I was wondering when I'd get a chance to use up that lettuce that was handed down to me from my great great grandmother.



I was able to clean out the freezer nicely with this pasta dish. I boiled two lobster tails, then removed them from the water and cooked some leftover dried linguine in the same water. This actually imparted a very nice lobster flavor to the dish, even better than I'd expected. In a pan I cooked some crushed garlic and shallot in butter and olive oil. To that I added some of the chopped up leftover pink peppercorn crusted pork tenderloin. Then I added some frozen peas and the chopped lobster tail before adding the cooked linguine along with some of the pasta water and salt.

Before serving I tossed in some chopped parsley and green onion.



To accompany this seafood dish I had this Tasman Red Red IPA from Samuel Adams. I'd received a recommendation on it and picked it up a while ago. At $4.99 it was an amazing deal and a very nicely made beer. I'm not a huge Sam Adams fan but this beer was a real winner. It had a nice molasses maltiness in conjunction with the hoppy character you'd expect from an IPA.

Plus it had an insane looking (presumably Tasmanian) man on the label, perhaps to honor the Tasmanian hops used in its brewing.

This beer is the first in Samuel Adams's "Small Batch Series" and if it's any indication of what direction they are headed with this series then I look forward to picking up some more from this line.

At $4.99 a bottle it seems like I can't afford not to try more of this series. However, what is the cost of Jen's anger when my beer collection continues to swell? My guess is: high.

Beer and Ravioli

I had a pretty good idea for dinner tonight. Then this happened instead.



I got home just in time to throw a pot of water on the stove to boil, and start cooking some sausages. While that was happening I made a salad using Jen's leftover dressing from the other night, feta cheese, sliced pear, and toasted pistachios.



For the main course I took a number of elements from the fridge, freezer, and pantry, and turned them into pumpkin ravioli with sweet Italian sausage, ricotta, and fried sage leaves. I also added a little grated nutmeg to the top. The result was far better than I'd anticipated given the cobble-together nature of the meal and the fact that I'd only had about twenty minutes to put it together.



I didn't really have anything that I thought would go well with this meal so I put the perfect beer in the fridge. After five minutes everything was ready and I took an educated guess that that beer was probably not quite chilled enough to serve. So I went with my second choice, this BPA (Belgian Pale Ale) from Ommegang.

It turns out that this ended up being an excellent accompaniment to pumpkin ravioli in cream sauce. It had a fizzy citrus taste that seemed to pair well with the cream sauce. The carbonation and acidity lifted the fat right off the tongue.

Sorry, I've been ready a lot of overwritten books about beer lately.

And I'm a ponce.

Beer: The Cure for the Common Stomach Ache

Today we got a giant new couch delivered and I spent much of the day organizing and rearranging the apartment to accommodate its bulk.



Okay, it doesn't look that big in the picture. Let me assure you that you could easily sleep two people on this couch. I'm sure most people reading this own a large house where they have one of those massive L-shaped couches that wrap the entire outside of their living room and have to communicate with others on the couch via walkie-talkie. If you are one of those people then just go easy on us. Allow us to think that this humble couch is excessively large and that we are living a decadent life similar to that of Roman nobility before the fall.



Since I was so busy, and feeling kind of queasy all day, I turned to the pantry where I found this quinoa blend from Wholesome Kitchen in Flushing, NY. It consisted of quinoa, dried potatoes, dried onion, dried Persian lemon, dried dill, dried parsley, dried cilantro, dried garlic, red chili flakes, and nigella seeds.

I don't know what nigella seeds are but I do know that this looked like a quick and tasty way to make a dinner that Jen would like and would also soothe my stomach. Jen enjoys any dinner made with small globe-shaped grains. It's a fact. Couscous, quinoa, you name it and she's all in.



For drink I felt like having a beer. Sometimes, when my stomach is upset, I often crave a small amount of beer to help settle it. I'm not sure if this is just my normal craving for beer telling me to stop my complaining or if it actually does have some sort of restorative property to it. At any rate something in the beer tends to settle my stomach. Maybe it's the bubbles, maybe it's the alcohol, maybe it's my general desire to have some beer for any reason whatsoever.

I picked this Amber from Abita only to find out that they're having a Boudin & Beer celebration on November 11, 2011. I'm wondering if it's too late for me and my dad to get tickets to go check it out. Odds are it's not.

Also, I should probably wait until I'm done with my stomach ache to partake in boudin.

Just a hunch.

Zucchini Rest Day

There's still a few pounds of zucchini in the fridge but we need a rest day. Just a day where we can regroup and hope that twenty-four hours is enough time off so that we can enjoy the vegetable again.

See? Getting a farm share is fun!



After marinating some mozzarella in remaining pesto I sliced up some of the farm tomatoes and red onion. I threw it all onto last week's lettuce which had held up remarkably well.



I had some honey balsamic dressing in the fridge so, the other day, I cut up a chicken and marinated it in the dressing. After 48 hours it was ready to grill. I marked it up then tossed it to the side of the grill to slowly cook while I picked up Jen from the train station.

To accompany it I made a slaw out of the farm cabbage, red onion, carrot, cider vinegar, whole grain mustard, hot sauce, salt, and pepper. I also used up the bag of cherries that has been in the fridge for over two weeks. Surprisingly not a single cherry had rotted, but in order to avoid that eventuality I turned them into a relish with some of the farm peaches, farm red onion, orange zest, balsamic vinegar, cayenne, salt, and cloves.



For beer we had this hefeweizen from Widmer Brothers Brewing in Portland, Oregon. This was a pretty good hefeweizen but I was a little bothered by the label. There is a quote on the label that reads:

"The brother of invention."

The thing is it's the Widmer Brothers not the Widmer Brother. Shouldn't the quote read the following?

"The brothers of invention."

For some reason this really bothers me. It bothers me to the point that I'm afraid I did not receive the full enjoyment out of this beer that I would have otherwise.

I revel in being annoyed by the lilliputian.

Late Night Grilled Swordfish

I don't really like swordfish. At least that's what I think. After a quick Google search it appears I've only made swordfish once in the past three years. I was surprised I even made it once. All I can think about when I think of swordfish we used to make at the first restaurant I worked at. We would grill it until it was completely dried out then put butter on it. It wasn't very good.

That's why tonight I decided to make some grilled swordfish!

Jen wan't going to be home until quite late again so I had plenty of time to grill up the items for tonight's dinner which I did not intend to serve piping hot. But first I made another salad cleaning yet another type of grain out of our cupboard.



This time I used the leftover forbidden rice from the pantry to make this salad with last week's normal cucumber, some crushed coriander seed, lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil, scallion, tomato, salt, and pepper. I put the whole marinated salad over some kale to serve.



Oh, and I made a separate cucumber-free version for me so that none of the cucumber nastiness touched my salad.



The next course came entirely from the grill. First I grilled some thinly sliced strips of squash which I'd marinated in lemon, olive oil, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. I also grilled some corn on the cob and tossed it all together with some additional lemon juice and chopped mint. I also grilled some ciabatta bread to serve along with the salad.



My original idea was to have this grilled summer squash be a bed for the swordfish. However, I decided that would just be a waste of some beautiful squash so I served the swordfish simply with some grilled corn, chopped tomato, butter, and basil. Swordfish is a favorite of neither of us but this swordfish was delicious. It almost makes me want to have it more often except for the fact that it's generally quite expensive.



Jen ended up coming home about two hours earlier than I'd expected (because I'm bad at remembering her schedule). This was fortunate because she had the great idea to have this sauvignon blanc with dinner. Left to my own devices I would have simply poured a beer, as I often do.

"Indaba" is the Zulu word for "a meeting of the minds," or a traditional gathering of tribal leaders for sharing ideas. If I'd read the label before dinner I would have invited the mayor over so we could discuss some important things going on in our community, like that guy who dresses up like a walking turd to disrupt city council meetings.

It was nice to be done dinner earlier than normal. Well, 9:30 PM. This left us plenty of time for a second glass of wine and a little Tour de France action.

And by action I mean slow moving discussion about sixteenth century French chateaus.

We Have a Lot of Vegetables

Wow. We have a lot of vegetables.

We didn't really use as much last week as we could have, that much I admit. After work today, before I picked up the share, I bought some odds and ends at the grocery store. When I came home I discovered that Jen must have gone shopping yesterday because now we have a lot of produce. Now that Jen has a car I need to take better stock before doing my own shopping. Along with last week's stragglers we need to use up a fresh batch of produce from the farm share and the excess that we've both purchased.

Also, if anyone has a recipe that uses fifteen limes please send it my way.



This week in the share we got: three pounds of squash, Pooa Kheera cucumbers (whatever the hell that is), red scallions (like regular scallions but the part that you don't eat is red instead of white), romaine lettuce, dill, radicchio, green beans, eggplant, peaches, and blueberries.



Last week I'd purchased some corn that we never used. It was the first real corn of the season from this farm in Connecticut so I foolishly bought it thinking I'd make it into something. Tonight, to avoid having to throw it away, I did just that by turning it into a salad with kale, onion, garlic, sweet potato, red and yellow pepper, tomato, black beans, scallion, lime juice, hot sauce, chili powder, cumin, pepper, salt, and celery salt. I'm not sure why I added the celery salt but after tasting it I thought that celery salt was what it was missing. It's odd because other than hot dogs (and maybe potato salad) I can't ever remember that happening before.



I had intended to grill some zucchini tonight but as I drove home -- for an hour and a half in the sticky 90 degree heat, pouring rain, unable to open by car windows, during a traffic jam, for an hour-and-a-half -- I decided that I didn't want to stand in the rain and grill.

I cooked up some garlic, onion, and ground beef from the freezer along with a mixture of squash from last week and this week, tomato, salt, and pepper. To accompany the stew I did the unthinkable and cooked the remainder of some brown rice and white rice together in a pot to get them out of the cupboard. We have a lot of assorted grains in the pantry that need to be used up in the coming weeks so this was a solid start.

It was a good stew but I think it could have done without the ground beef. Mostly because the ground beef had been frozen and I'm starting to thing that frozen ground beef is kind of nasty. This only hit me recently but I feel that going forward I'm going to only use fresh ground beef. There's just something about the texture and flavor of frozen ground beef that is unpleasant from me. I guess I'm just becoming even more of a jerk with every passing day.

Fantastic.



For beer I had a Liberator Dopplebock from Thomas Hooker. I bought it because it was $18.99 for a four pack so I figured it must be good. Besides, it was from Thomas Hooker whose beers generally always impress me.



As a dessert I used the rest of the quark which I served with fresh blueberries, lemon zest, lemon juice, and a drizzle of honey. I enjoyed this dessert quite a bit but Jen was not exactly sold on it. After dessert I felt satisfied enough to sit back and watch the Tour de France in peace. Jen, on the other hand, I think was rummaging around in our candy stash trying to find a bag of chocolate chips satisfy her dessert craving.

If we're ever on some sort of marriage-based game show and I'm asked what Jen's least favorite type of German fresh cheese curd is I'm going to clean up.

Clean up!

The Poor Man's Cobb Salad

I don't think I've ever made Cobb salad at home before. I would even say that after tonight's dinner I still have never made Cobb salad at home. What I made tonight was something of an affront to all that is holy and sacred about this Hollywood Brown Derby creation.



I'm sure there are many purists out there that will argue about exactly what does and does not go on top of a Cobb salad. For the purposes of not shopping and cleaning out our pantry I am going to define a Cobb salad as a salad with toppings that are neatly lined up in rows. Most of what I put on top of this salad would be considered atypical.

From left to right we have: hearts of palm, green onion, shallots, mixed olives, crushed macadamia nuts, bacon, shrimp, and artichoke hearts. I also made a dressing with sour cream, mayonnaise, whole grain mustard, honey mustard, hot sauce, Worchestershire sauce, salt, and pepper. I made way too much of this dressing so I'm probably going to end up throwing half of it away. Since the sour cream was going to spoil anyway I suppose it doesn't matter.

This salad was pretty delicious but I discovered the problem with Cobb salad: it looks beautiful but there's one ingredient missing from every Cobb salad . . .



A bowl to mix it in!



After tossing it together with the dressing it loses a little visual appeal but it sure makes it a heck of a lot easier and tastier to eat. I guess that's just technology for you. When the Cobb salad was invented in the 1930s they probably hadn't discovered mixing bowls yet.



Cobb salad, I guess, should probably be a main course. For some reason I had it in my head that since it was a salad I should make a main course to go with it. An unnecessary main course. I guess it's been longer than I thought since I've made a Cobb salad.

For this pasta dish I used a little remaining bacon, shallot, garlic, butter, and cream to make a sauce. After I cooked it down for a bit I tossed in some cooked penne and the summer spinach from the week's share along with some freshly grated nutmeg. Even with all the heavy items in the sauce I used so little that it ended up being lighter than you would think, even when topped with some grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.



To accompany these dishes I had another summery weissebeer, this time from Butternuts Beer & Ale in Garrattsville, New York. They brag on their website that this weissebeer tastes better than German Weissebeer because it has to travel about 5,000 miles less to get to your mouth. I have to admit that it was pretty good but the German weissebeer I had the other night tasted pretty damn good too.

Phew. Made it through another night. Taking tomorrow off but Sunday's dinner may be a bit of a challenge. It may be some stale bread with a jar of pasta sauce.

Jen thinks we should go out for dinner. She's probably right but at this point it's just a matter of pride. If we go out for dinner then the terrorists win.

They hate us for our freedom.

Mexitalian Fusion Cooking (Well, Not Exactly)

Tonight we had an uncharacteristically early dinner in that we were done eating by 7:30 PM, about two full hours before our normal schedule. You'd think that with all this extra time I may have cooked something extra nice! Not the case. Instead I simply used tonight as an opportunity to clean out the fridge, one of my favorite pass times. Besides, we'll need the space tomorrow when we inevitably get a bunch more lettuce from the farm share.



For a warm up I took the remaining salsa from last night's opah and served it with tortilla chips. Having a day to marinate the salsa was potentially even better today.



I got some amazing lobster tails and immediately had a plan to make some sort of rice dish with them. When I got home I discovered that I only had about six grains of rice left in the bag after last night's macadamia nut rice. After scouring the pantry I discovered that I also had a good amount of polenta as well.

What I did was brown some crushed garlic in butter and olive oil, toss in red onion, red and yellow peppers, a little jalapeno, and the remainder of a piece of chorizo. When this had cooked down nicely I tossed in some polenta, vegetable stock, milk, water, salt, and pepper then cooked it down for about ten minutes before throwing in some chopped cilantro.

I thought that I should call this dish corn grits since I was using cilantro but instead I referred to it as polenta. Polenta with cilantro? Mama mia!

I'm a risk taker.



For a drink I poured this summer ale from Otter Creek Otter Creek. I didn't think I'd had this beer before until I tasted it and realized that it was actually just the same beer I'd had last year with a new label. This beer gets pretty lousy ratings on BeerAdvocate but I found it to be a nice match for this meal. Then again, I'm easily impressed.

We rounded out the weekend with a showing of Airplane II: The Sequel to round out our Abrahams and Zucker weekend. I'm not sure how Jen enjoyed this weekend's movie lineup but I had a good time. To pay her back I'm going to have to watch a bunch of Bones with her.

Actually, that's a lie. I can't friggin' stand Bones.

Cinco de NAFTA

Americans are great at having holidays where they celebrate other nationalities. This is generally done by making foods that natives of that particular country have probably never heard of and by consuming mass quantities of that country's one large beer import. In some cases this may involve a spirit or cocktail. Also it is not uncommon to see Americans dressing up like members of that particular nationality.

It's very hard to tell the difference between when Americans celebrate a nationality and when they're just mocking it.

After my insult to all that is Polish with last night's sauerkraut soup, I decided to take on Mexico tonight! After all it is Cinco de Mayo!

Since Mexicans everywhere are probably feeling full of embarrassment from all the Tostitos and Coronas being consumed today I decided to go in a slightly different direction.



I had this veal shoulder from Provitello Farms in upstate New York so I opted to turn that into something vaguely Mexican. I rubbed it with olive oil, smoked paprika, chili powder, cinnamon, oregano, cumin, salt, and pepper. In a pan I cooked some crushed garlic, spring onions, carrots, and celery. After the vegetables had softened slightly I browned the veal, covered with half chicken stock and half milk, and braised it in the oven for a little over two hours.



I'd never braised meat in milk before tonight. I think that's a very French thing to do (I'm not actually sure). It turns out that it is quite tasty. Imagine that. The French figured something out about cooking!



For side dishes I fire roasted some poblano chilies, and roasted some sweet potato with chili and cumin. I also made a quick salad out of avocado, lime, red onion, grape tomato, cilantro, salt, and pepper. Just for good measure I also made some lime and cilantro rice. That last part is what I like to call a little Tyler-Florence-Mex but it went nicely with everything else prepared.



I was in no mood for Corona or Dos Equis or even Negra Modelo. Besides, we'd just returned from Canada with a huge amount of beer so I opted to try yet another beer. To pair with this meal I cracked open a Rickards Dark.

As I savored the beer I smiled in smug self-satisfaction at the fact that I'd made a Cinco de Mayo meal without the use of sour cream, salsa, gaucamole, tortillas, or any sort of Mexican beer. Strangely, this was probably a more

However, this meal did not only represent Mexico, it represented all of North America. We had veal from upstate New York, vaguely Mexican preparation, and beer from Canada. I can't think of anything better than celebrating the unity of North America in such a fashion. The only thing that could make next year's Cinco de Mayo more festive would be if we defeated the French Army.

That would be the greatest Cinco de Mayo of all.

Kapusniak-ak-ak-ak-ak-ak, You Oughta Know By Now

This week may take the record for the least amount spent on groceries. Somehow I've just been flying through all the backed up items in the fridge. The unfortunate side effect of that is that toward the middle of the week the meals start getting a little uninspired or just plain weird.

There were a number of things I could have made tonight. I opted to go with an eastern European theme. A Polish theme, more specifically. Well, it's only one dish so I'm not sure if that can be technically called a theme at all.

I don't know anything about eastern European cooking, Polish or otherwise. Nothing. Whenever I try to make anything from any of these countries I always feel like I'm being jerk and insulting many nationalities. Kind of the way tourists from Mexico must feel when they go to a Chili's.



Tonight I opted to make Polish Kapusniak for dinner. Kapusniak is Polish for sauerkraut soup. The word also reminds me of the oafish friend of Parker Lewis in the classic TV show Parker Lewis Can't Lose. Those are both facts but the latter (I'm pretty sure) is exclusive to this blog!

From my research -- upwards of 15 seconds -- I gather that Kapusniak is sort of like a Polish version of bouillabaisse. It's loaded with all manner of stewed vegetables, pork items, and sauerkraut. I was careful not to tell Jen what this was until after she'd had some as I was certain that 'sauerkraut soup' would be rejected outright.

I browned some crushed garlic in olive oil and butter then threw in the remainder of the tasso from the freezer and some diced bacon. After that had rendered I added spring onion, celery, carrot, and diced Yukon Gold and Red Bliss potatoes, salt, and pepper. Then I threw in the remaining sauerkraut leftover from St. Patrick's Day, a bay leaf, chicken stock, the remaining kidney beans from last night, and water. I also tossed in the remaining roast chicken, bones and all, to stew with everything all together.

You can see now why my grocery bill is so low this week.



I served the soup with some thick slices of pumpernickel bread and butter. That's something that maybe they might do in Poland. It's possible. If they don't they should give it a try because it's pretty tasty even if the only bakery near you that sells pumpernickel has only loaves with raisins which is a little weird with this soup.



I'm not a big fan of having beer with soup but I am a big fan of having beer so that usually wins over. On tonight's menu, another from our Montreal trip: the Noire De Chambly from Unibroue. This beer is named after my ancestors who wore black musketeer hats and fought against the Iroquois on the orders of King Louis XIV. There's nothing quite like drinking a beer to remind you of the shameful actions of your ancestors.

Putting aside the beer's namesake I figured that a darker beer might be a welcome accompaniment to a hot soup on a cold, rainy night. It turns out I was right! Not only am I a master of eastern European cuisine but I'm also the world's foremost beer expert.

With great fake power comes great fake responsibility.

Quattro Carciofi

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Each spring I like to attempt, again, to do something with artichokes. I purchased a couple of artichokes for Easter then forgot I had them until I discovered them in the crisper last night. They were a little past their prime so I was forced to do something with them this evening.

The first time I ever really learned about how to prepare an artichoke was from Jacques Pepin. He had a show on PBS when I was in culinary school and my mother used to watch it all the time.



I don't think this is the actual video I saw as it is undated but it was something very similar to this. Artichokes always worried me so this video gave me the kick in the pants to try preparing them. I never really got the hang of it and every time I make artichokes I always imagine Jacques Pepin's ghost hovering over me and shaking his head in disappointment.

This is very unusual especially considering the fact that Jacques Pepin is still alive.



I took out all the items in my fridge that I was tired of looking at and decided, after steaming the cleaned artichokes, that I would prepare each halved artichoke in a different way. This would maximize the amount of ingredients I was able to clear out of the fridge, freezer, and pantry.

The first artichoke I made with some leftover tasso, cornbread, and cotija cheese with a little melted butter and smoked paprika. This was Jen's favorite as it incorporated cornbread in a stuffing form which is one of her greatest culinary pleasures.

For the second artichoke I used the remaining pesto from last night, some roast chicken from Sunday's dinner, sliced grape tomato, toasted and crumbled rosemary bread, and shaved Robusto cheese.

The third artichoke was filled with rice, kidney beans, cilantro, smoked paprika, cumin, feta, and a little lime juice.

I served the last artichoke simply with a poached egg, a drizzle of lemon juice, some cracked black pepper, and truffle salt. I gave this one to Jen first to get it out of the way since she has a strong dislike for eggs, particularly of the poached variety.



To wash down this odd collections of poorly-prepared artichokes I selected the blonde beer from Boréale that's we'd picked up on our weekend jaunt to Montreal. I don't know what the prescribed beer pairing for artichokes generally is but since there was no real theme tying these artichokes together it worked out just fine.

What thing will we clear out of our fridge next? What Canadian beer will we pair with it? Tune in tomorrow, or maybe the next day, or maybe next week, to find out!