untitled.

"These pickled onions are the best things ever!"

"You're just saying that because they're pickled. You're biased towards anything pickled."

"-No, they're delicious!"

"You'd probably like pickled dirt."

Huevos Whatevers

We've been on a Mexican kick lately.

When that happens, you just know that certain stand-bys are going to pop up on the menu. One of those stand-bys is Huevos Whatevers. It's like Huevos Rancheros, but from a different part of Mexico, though I can never remember the name of the region it's actually from.

It's freaking incredible, and it uses three of our favorite staples.

(Not that kind of staples.)


Eggs, obviously, are a rather key ingredient. Without those you would just have Whatevers. Those are probably passably good (and more akin to a pre-Columbian Mexican dish), but it's just not the same without that little golden spot of yolk.

Under the egg is a crispy tortilla, and sandwiched between the two are black beans that have been mashed and cooked down with garlic until they resemble the texture of lumpy mashed potatoes, but taste more delicious than that sounds. Traditionally, pork fat is used in the cooking of the beans, which imparts a smokey, sophisticated saltiness. We rarely have that on hand, though, so usually we just use a good quality olive oil. (If you're going to make these, keep some liquid on hand to add to them as they cook, in case they start cooking down too quickly. I usually put some water in the can I poured them out of and slosh it around really well, so that as I add liquid I'm also adding more beany-ness. And don't salt them until you're ready to serve! Sometimes you don't need any salt at all.)

Over all of everything goes what is possibly the easiest-to-make sauce ever. Pour a 28-once can of crushed tomatoes in a pot. Split one or two serrano chiles length-wise and add them to the pot, as well. Simmer the two together (covered) for 30 minutes, and add a little salt "to taste." Tada! (For a thinner sauce, I use the same trick with the can as I do with the beans, above. Why just add water when you can add flavor?)

So, from the bottom up, the order goes: tostada (the crispy tortilla), beans, egg, sauce. End result:

Nirvana.

It all goes so great together - it's like all the disparate ingredients have found their polygamitic soul mates! You've got the crispness of the tostada, the creaminess of the beans, the spicy acidity of the sauce, all tied together by the richness of the still-runny yolk and the nicely bland white of the egg. (You can cook the egg for longer if you want, but that would mean you're crazy.)

Garnishes could include crumbled chorizo sausage, fresh cheese, or fried plantains. Ideally all three. Weirdly, we seem to only make this on a whim, so we usually only have fresh cheese (queso fresco). On this particular night, we didn't even have that, and it was still fantastic. We usually serve it with a bottle of hot sauce on the side - usually Tapatio or Cholula.

mwah!

Cracked.

As alluded to in a previous entry, an instigator has given me a recipe for crackers. I will not name any names, but her initials are Kina Reid. She is evil.

There's only so much yard work you can do in the rain (two blueberry bushes planted, ftw!), so I actually set about making these today. To my astonishment, the hardest part was rolling the dough to a consistent 1/8-inch thickness. Have you ever tried doing that in a poorly-lit kitchen? It's hard!

But somehow I got everything rolled out reasonably evenly, cut it into not-quite squarish shapes, shoved them in the oven, and ended up with some lovely rosemary-oat crackers.



These are absolutely fantastic when topped with some goat cheese, a drizzle of olive oil, and some freshly-cracked black pepper. You'll have to take my word that I actually did that, because my camera won't process a decent picture.


Recipe (from "Party Line with the Hearty Boys"):

Ingredients

* 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
* 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
* 1/2 teaspoon chopped rosemary leaves
* 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
* 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Put the oats into a food processor and pulse until finely chopped. Add flour, salt, pepper, rosemary, baking powder, and butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add milk and pulse until a dough forms about 15 seconds. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/8-inch thick (about a 13-inch round) and cut out about 60 square oatcakes. Arrange oatcakes on baking sheets 1-inch apart and bake in middle of oven 12 to 15 minutes, or until lightly brown on the bottom. Transfer oatcakes to a rack and cool completely.

Playing with Fire.

I am given to understand that most people do not have a hot sauce cabinet.

To this, I say: WHY NOT??

Seriously, what is wrong with you people? Take the plunge and start a hot sauce cabinet. Clear out some space and show some dedication. And don’t give me that, “I don’t like spicy things” excuse. If you don’t like spicy things, you obviously haven’t eaten enough spicy things. Keep trying them until you find something you like, find out what spices are in it, and start your collection there.

It’s that simple.

(Don’t give me any lip about tummy troubles, either. Spicy things are good for tummy troubles. Just ask any medical professional.)

Stock brokers will tell you that diversity is the key to success, and hot sauces aren't any different. What would happen, for example, if you wanted to add an herby, garlicky kick to your Chicken Kiev, and all you had in the house was some standard issue Tabasco? You’d be screwed! You’d have a lovely meal before you that someone – perhaps yourself – worked very hard to prepare, and you would be unable to eat it!

Keeping ten or twenty varieties on hand helps avoid that nightmare senario, and it looks pretty besides. So stop waffling and commit.

Hot sauce cabinet.

Do it.

ambition.

I had big plans this weekend. Among other things, I was going to plant things in the garden, make chicken stock, roast vegetables, make cheese, write an entry about parsnips, and make crackers.

Yes, crackers!!

What was I thinking?

I know myself well enough to know better. I'd be doing good just to get two of those things accomplished. In the end, I decided on planting things and making stock. Largely because all making stock involves is throwing stuff in a pot, covering it with water, and letting it simmer for four hours.

Here are some of the things I planted:

Oregano, thyme, sage, basil, and rosemary. There's more work involved here than meets the eye, actually - yesterday morning the only things in our side bed were roses, the occasional sticker weed, and some bare dirt. Now there's a nice brick border, hardwood mulch, and some yummy herbs (and some roses, out of frame to the right).

I also planted jalepeno, tomato, and eggplant. Which means Eggplant Parmesan will be on the menu in a month or so.

Maybe I'll make crackers tonight....

The Great Pickle Experiment.

Last Friday, a friend mentioned this rogue pickle concoction she'd experienced while working at a restaurant in her younger days: cucumber slices and blackened jalapenos (stripped of their skin), mixed with standard-issue white vinegar and ground black pepper, and left to marinate a few days.

She said it was outstanding.

We decided to each do a version with slightly upgraded ingredients and report the results. Photos are mandatory. Here we go:

I start with two cucumbers, cut for pretty.


Then blacken a (HUGE) jalapeno under a broiler (or on your grill, or on top of your gas stove), and wrap it in a dish towel for several minutes to help ease the skin off. I've never been entirely sure why you should remove the skin, but I suspect it's because it tastes like burning.


Peel off that skin and discard the top stem. Slice, if you want (I did).

The idea struck me to build on the smokey flavor, so I toasted 2 tablespoons of tellicherry black peppercorns over a medium heat until they were glistening and fragrant. Then I crushed them to death.


I layered everything in a jar - four layers (cucumbers, black pepper, jalapeno, repeat) - and topped with a simmered brine made from 1 cup rice vinegar, 3 tablespoons of miran, a crushed garlic clove, and 1 cup water to dilute. (let the jar cool to room temp before refrigerating)

I have to say, these pickles need to sit for two full days, at least. They are exciting right out of the pot, but very strong. When trying them the first time, I had to cut the acidity with other pickles. After two days, however, they have mellowed to a nice even heat and the miran has blended with the rice wine and other flavors to bring it all down a peg.

Nice.

"Diane, I hold in my hand a small box of chocolate bunnies."

Happy (slightly belated) 20th Anniversary "Twin Peaks"!!

Watched the pilot yesterday in celebration, and it's just as emotional, melodramatic, creepy, quirky, and funny as the first time out.

Here's to you guys: My favorite director, Special Agent Dale Cooper, Lucy and Andy, Killer Bob, doughnuts, cherry pie, and a damn fine cup of coffee (and hot)!

Thanks for changing my life. :-)

You say tomato, I say tomato.

Matt found this monsterous specimen at a farmer's market recently. Needless to say, it begged to be made into a caprese salad. Instead, I made it into a sauce for pasta.

What can I say - I have no fresh basil on hand. Sorry.

Making a fresh tomato sauce is super easy, anyway. All you have to do is slice it into bite-sized pieces, throw it into a pan containing well-heated olive oil and chopped garlic, season to taste, and mash the hell out of it.

In this case, I seasoned with salt and pepper, dried basil (I know, I know), and a splash of vodka. Alcohol-soluable flavors, you know.

Of course, save the last bit of salt for the end, and rehydrate wih stock if necessary....

Add freshly-cooked pasta with a bit of its water and a little bit of grated cheese, and you end up with this:


Not too shabby.

To Pickle a Carrot.

Some people [see photo at right] would have the world think that I called in sick to work yesterday because I was out of pickles. This is not true. I called in sleepy to work because I was sleepy. I didn't remedy the pickle situation until after I woke up.

To pickle a carrot, you first need carrots. Peel them and cut them up into sticks, about 3 inches long by 1/3 inch thick. In addition to having a quick blanching time and being a good size for a pickled snack, they also make excellent practice Wolverine claws.

Blanch these carrot sticks in boiling, salted water for pretty much exactly one minute, then immediately drain and rinse very thoroughly with cold water (or put them in an ice bath) to stop the cooking.

Then you make the brine. (This is the most important part, obviously, because otherwise you'd just have blanched carrots.) You start by combining 1 and 1/4 cups of water with 1 cup of cider vinegar, which according to my measuring cup is equal to the volume of 1,000 kernels of sweet corn.

To that, you add 1/4 cup sugar, 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of kosher salt, 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of dill seed, and two lightly crushed cloves of garlic. Bring to a boil then simmer for 2 minutes.

When that's done, pour the brine over the carrot sticks (which should now be in a heat-proof container, by the way), and let them cool completely on the counter before fridging them in an air-tight container for at least 24 hours before enjoying.

Or, in my case, enjoy them straight out of the warm brine twenty minutes later.

Thanks for the tried and true recipe Gourmet Magazine!
I am happy. :-)

"Don't make pickles at midnight; it's creepy."

My pickle juice is sad. :-(

Where are my carrot sticks? Where have they gone?? Why aren't I full of yummy goodness?

And yet my cruel, vinegar-hating husband refuses to let me make more pickles with the carrots I just discovered in the refrigerator.

You know, we have five kinds of vinegar in the pantry; I'm not sure how heating it up and filling the house with fumes at ten-thirty at night is any different. Suck it up and suffer for the greater good.

Ooh! That brine has garlic cloves in it!

brb.

[edit: It turns out that barely-cooked garlic that has been used to flavor a pickling brine kinda sucks. Try at home if you want, but I would say don't bother. And now I'm gonna get off this machine before the next round of thunderstorms moves in for the kill.]

absent.

Right off, you'll probably notice that this entry has no pictures.
That's because I have nothing to show you.

Yesterday, after hemming and hawing about it for most of the evening, I decided to make some pickled onions. I went into the pantry to retrieve the sack of red pearl onions (which make perfect purple pickles) that I'd purchased specifically for that purpose.

And I found -

Nothing!

No onions!

Even though I distinctly remember getting them, even though I can't remember at what store!

Did I dream that?
Did I put them back after I'd already put them in my cart?
Why would I do that?
Am I losing my mind??

End Result: NO ONIONS!!

NO ONIONS = NO PICKLES!!!

How could this happen? This is a travesty!! And now I've finished my pickled carrots and have nothing to take their place!! What am I supposed to eat for my afternoon snack?? I can't just sit around eating cheese by itself!!!!

Actually, come to think of it, I guess I could...

Unseasonably Warm.

PICNIC!!!!!!!!

Friday the high temp reached the low 80's.
We had an impromptu picnic in our backyard at 8:00 pm.

In addition to the asian pear, gouda cheese, summer sausage, crusty country bread, and chianti featured above, we also had Ritz crackers, monster blackberries, some baked ricotta, and a whole stick of butter:

^ See?

It was a blast. We had candles to keep the mosquitoes away, and we managed to overlook the slowly thickening air until it was dark and there was dew on everything. Can't wait to do it again!!

I baked you a cake:

You're welcome!