The Return to Island Time

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

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

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



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



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



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

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



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



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

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



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

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

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

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

Inventory Update

Freezer

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

Pantry

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

Fridge

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

The Valiant Fight Against Pantry Excess Continues

As of tonight we still have our Christmas tree up. With Blizzardocalypseageddon 2011 in full swing it made for a nice backdrop to enjoying our last night with the tree up.

We've faced a bit of a setback in the battle against our food inventory. In taking down the Christmas tree we are forced to add the following stocking stuffers to our list:

• basil pesto
  
• jarred roasted tomatoes
  
• about eleven thousand chocolate covered cherries
  
• forty-seven thousand additional chocolates and candies
  
• smoked salmon
  
• stuffed olives
  
• Grand Marnier mustard
  
• Coco Haze spread
  
• twelve jars of grapefruit marmalade
  
• black cherry marmalade
  
• fancy plum jam
  
• Captain Redbeard's hot sauce
  
• salted lime cashews
  

On Sunday Jen fulfilled her six month scheme by combining her various flours together to make some brown bread. I came home from work early with a touch of some surprise illness and for dinner had a toasted slice with melted butter. Even in my sickened state I found it to be quite wonderful. Before dinner I made these crostini with the baguette from the freezer, the red pepper tapenade in the fridge and the remaining goat cheese. For dinner tonight I chopped up the remaining frozen bacon and divided it into two equal parts. The first part of the bacon I used as a topping for the leftover macaroni and cheese from the freezer and baked it in the oven. The second half I cooked with some sliced shallots and garlic. I then added some chopped kale and cooked it down a bit. I ground up the remaining cashews in the pantry and added it to the kale with a little milk, cream, and grated nutmeg and cooked it down a bit. This was a pretty delicious item for a nice cold night. For beer I opened the large bottle of Gouden Carolus Noël. The brewery responsible for this beer has been in operation for 642 years so I think they've had a good amount of time to get their act together. That being said, I was not a huge fan of this beer. The Corsendonk Christmas beer was one of my favorite beers in a while but the Gouden Carolus was a little too much for me. At 10% alcohol with all sorts of spices and action going on it tasted more like a syrupy booze than a beer to me. Perhaps someone with a better palate for such things would get more appreciation out of this beer. However, I did get a chance to use my new Champagne stopper to keep the bottle fresh. Unfortunately I don't know if I'm going to rush back to finish it anytime except maybe out of guilt. Okay, here's where we're at with our inventory clean up progress so for for 2011:

Inventory Update

Freezer

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

Pantry

• pumpernickel bread
  
• panko
  
• cellophane noodles
  
• raisins
  
• dried cherries
  
• dried cranberries
  
• dried apricots
  
• dried chilies
  
• garbanzo beans
  
• canellini beans
  
• sardines
  
• anchovies
  
• sesame seeds
  
• cashews
  
• pistachios
  
• shredded coconut
  
• walnuts
  
• pecans
  
• semolina flour
  
• goldenberries
  
• forbidden rice
  
• candied cherries
  
• powdered dried porcini
  
• couscous
  
• nori
  
• quinoa
  
• sherry vinegar
  
• purple basil vinegar
  
• red wine vinegar
  
• apple cider vinegar
  
• champagne vinegar
  
• rice
  
• assored dried pastas
  
• lasagna noodles
  
• tomato paste
  
• relish
  
• chopped clams
  
• clam juice
  
• piccalilli
  
• fajita sauce
  
• cherry jellies for barbecue
  
• canned pumpkin
  
• pasta sauce
  
• croutons
  
• assorted flours for making brown bread
  
• pickled beets
  
• seafood stock
  
• beef stock
  

Fridge

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

Christmas

• basil pesto
  
• jarred roasted tomatoes
  
• about eleven thousand chocolate covered cherries
  
• forty-seven thousand additional chocolates and candies
  
• smoked salmon
  
• stuffed olives
  
• Grand Marnier mustard
  
• Coco Haze spread
  
• twelve jars of grapefruit marmalade
  
• black cherry marmalade
  
• fancy plum jam
  
• Captain Redbeard's hot sauce
  
• salted lime cashews
  

Chilly Night, Hot Chili

The problem with cleaning out the freezer, pantry, and fridge, is that you generally have to make additional purchases to put together any sort of coherent dinner. The real trick is in trying to use up 100% of your purchases when you make them so you aren't just adding to the inventory in those three locations.

Tonight was one of those nights. Jen decided that chili would be a good idea. With another snow storm set to start any minute I went to the corner store to purchase a few items so we could get started.



I have not always been a huge fan of chili. In fact, I have an instinctive negative feeling when I even think of chili or even hear the word spoken. I think it's because my earliest memory of chili is that scene from Mr. Mom where Michael Keaton feeds his baby chili with predictable results. So I have long associated the dish with a baby's gastrointestinal distress which can ruin you on a food quite early in life, perhaps before you've ever eaten it.

However, much time has passed since seeing Mr. Mom and I am able to have the dish on occasion after I shake off the initial feeling.



Jen brewed some coffee and soaked rehydrated some dried chilies while I cooked up some garlic and red onion with bay leaf, cinnamon, cumin, smoked paprika, and oregano. Then I cooked down some ground beef from the freezer, added a can of diced tomatoes, chopped green pepper, some of the coffee, and the cannelini beans and let it simmer for about thirty minutes. It was quite good but like all dishes of this nature will probably be better tomorrow than it was today.



A while back Jen made this buttermilk bread after we'd had at Grace restaurant in Portland, Maine. It's been in the freezer for a short while so I sliced it up, buttered it, and griddled it in a pan. This was a technique I learned from a place near where I grew up in Rhode Island that used to offer the option of grilling a muffin if you ordered one. It turns out that the only thing better than a muffin is a muffin cut in half, slathered in butter, and browned on a griddle.

The buttermilk bread was no different, though Jen grew tired of me talking about how I'd griddled it. But I did! I did griddle it!



For beer I had the Dog Soldier Golden Ale from Cavalry Brewing. Apparently this particular beer is named after someone in the Iraq war who expressed his disdain for those running the war to a reporter. This is the first beer under 7.0% alcohol that I've had in a long time. I won't be expressing my disdain about that to anyone. To be able to have more than one beer is truly a treat except for the fact that I only bought this single bottle.

Beer is another thing I've accumulated too much of in the fridge. There must be a dozen individual bottles of beer that I need to try and, like usual, the seasonal brews have taken over. It will be well into the spring before I'm able to catch up.

Let clean up month continue!

Alternate History Bomb Shelter Cooking

Each year, as we enter January, I tend to focus on the following: 1.) Trying to recover from the immense number of buttery baked items consumed in the month of December, and 2.) Attempting to save a little money after the frivolous spending related to the holiday.

The third item I tend to focus on is clearing out the majority of our food reserves that have built up over the past few months. It seems quite plausible that I could buy little to no groceries over the remainder of January and we would be able to eat quite well. However, we would need to somewhat surrender to the will of our freezer and pantry.

So it is that I have decided I will spend as little money as possible on new food and try to dig us out of the ridiculous inventory we have accumulated. In order to make things more interesting I'm going to pretend that we are living in an alternate history where the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in global thermonuclear war at some point in the mid 1980's and we are forced to live out of whatever we have in our bomb shelter.

Avenge me!



After returning to New York on Wednesday I started by using the remaining tagliatelle and frozen shrimp and scallops in the freezer. I also used up some fresh tarragon, leftover green pepper, shallots, and the terrible white wine I opened last week.



I didn't exactly break any new ground with this salad but, hey, balsamic vinegar, beets, and goat cheese just taste good together. Add some pistachios into the mix and it's even better.



Tonight I used the remaining pork tenderloin from Jen's New Year's Eve dinner which I cut into medallions and seared. Then I added it together with some bacon, stewed onion, garlic, kale, carrot, white sweet potato, apple cider vinegar, and whole grain mustard.



For beer I had one of the winter ales from Smuttynose. I like it because it has and old timey woman from the 50's on the label. That's something I look for in a beer.



For dessert I thawed out some of Jen's fantastic lemon bread and rum fruitcake.

So, in winding down, here's a snapshot of most of the items I need to use up from the fridge in the coming month. But let's face it, if I can use them up by the end of 2011 I'll be happy. I left a lot of incidentals out of this list.

Freezer

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

Pantry

• pumpernickel bread
  
• panko
  
• cellophane noodles
  
• raisins
  
• dried cherries
  
• dried cranberries
  
• dried apricots
  
• garbanzo beans
  
• canellini beans
  
• sardines
  
• anchovies
  
• sesame seeds
  
• pistachios
  
• shredded coconut
  
• walnuts
  
• pecans
  
• semolina flour
  
• goldenberries
  
• forbidden rice
  
• candied cherries
  
• powdered dried porcini
  
• couscous
  
• nori
  
• quinoa
  
• sherry vinegar
  
• purple basil vinegar
  
• red wine vinegar
  
• apple cider vinegar
  
• champagne vinegar
  
• rice
  
• assored dried pastas
  
• lasagna noodles
  
• tomato paste
  
• relish
  
• chopped clams
  
• clam juice
  
• piccalilli
  
• cherry jellies for barbecue
  
• canned pumpkin
  
• pasta sauce
  
• croutons
  
• assorted flours for making brown bread
  
• pickled beets
  
• seafood stock
  
• beef stock
  

Fridge

• eggs
  
• korma sauce
  
• sauerkraut
  
• dates
  
• miso paste
  
• cranberries
  
• pickled beets (made by Jen's dad)
  
• white sweet potato
  
• carrots
  
• celery
  
• cream cheese
  
• cocktail sauce
  
• sauces, marinades, and condiments too numerous to list
  

Maybe a target date of 2013 would be more realistic.

Ringing in 1996 2011

I had to work this New Year's Eve. That is a mixed bag. On one hand I have to work but on the other hand it means that Jen has to do 100% of the cooking. While I enjoy cooking it's nice to get the occasional night off.



When I returned home Jen was watching something on television that had Gary Sinise and Claire Forlani in it. I immediately stumbled outside and ran to the town common, reached in the trash and pulled out today's newspaper. It said December 31, 2010. Phew. I could have sworn I'd slipped backward in time to 1996. For a moment I was scared that I'd turn on the radio and have to hear a Bush song again.



Jen started off by making this crostini with goat cheese and blood orange marmalade.



Jen opened a bottle of champagne only to find out that it was actually kind of gross. I'm not sure where it came from. It looked like a nice bottle, it was actual champagne, made in France, but it just tasted like disappointment. So, instead of the traditional bubbly for the holiday I made some Old Fashioneds. Is that how you pluralize Old Fashioned?

I used the Bourbon I'd purchased this summer at Tuthilltown Spirits along with some local artisanal homemade seltzer water (meaning that Jen made it with our tap water in her Sodastream).



For salad Jen made a blood orange and grapefruit vinaigrette and served it with mixed greens, avocado, sliced shallot, and pistachios.



The pasta was tagliatelle with scallops and shrimp in a champagne beurre blanc. She asked me if she could use beurre blanc as a pasta sauce. I told her it was untraditional but worth a try. It ended up working really well even if it did cause a great deal of anxiety for her as she prepared it.



The final course was breaded pork loin medallions with a mustard cream sauce and creamed spinach. Apparently this was Berkshire pork from our local butcher. It was quite tasty and the mustard sauce is similar to a recipe I used to make quite frequently at one of the restaurants I worked at.

Sadly we had to watch some of the [INSERT NAME HERE] New Year's Eve Bash which was pretty dreadful and had to expose me to a bunch of terrible performers, bands, and celebrities I'd never heard of before. Also we got to hear the host brag about how the next seven minutes were commercial free. An entire seven minutes with no commercials! Brought to you by Nicorette Gum and some cell phone company whose name I forget.

Luckily I have 364 days to forget about all of that. Happy New Year!