Its Good Stew Weather...

I've eaten a few bowls of our Vegetable Stew latey. I originally came up with the recipe. This last batch was made by my wife, Gina. Now maybe it was just that I didn't have to cook it, but I liked hers better than my own...it seemed subtly different. The weather has been gray and rainy of late. Today, the rain has been steady, and harder than the usual PNW drizzle. A good time for a bowl of something warm and filling. I'm going to make my own interpretation of Hopkins County Chicken Stew: a big pot of chicken, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, and corn, seasoned with chili powder. So that the chicken meat doesn't dry it from all that simmering, I'm going to coat it with chili powder and cook it in the rotisserie, chop it, then add it at the least moment. I'll just use some good strong chicken stock to encourage the chickeny flavor. The potatoes are from the garden. The tomatoes are crushed, and some of the corn is in the form of creamed corn. Its supposed to be a perennial hit in East Texas. We'll top it with grated sharp cheddar cheese. Gina and our son have been making a lot of homemade bread lately. Tonight I'll make skillet cornbread. We like the first recipe in Crescent Dragonwagon's The Cornbread Gospels. Iced tea is a must. I really should throw together something in the way of a dessert, too. Hmmm...maybe some peach cobbler. Yeah...

French Toast from Heaven...

Gina, and our son, Matt, have been using the bread machine these last few days, making several loaves of some delightful white bread (heavy with a nice, fine crumb, ever so slightly sweet), and one of cinnamon raisin bread. Both of us being tired, I suggested French toast, made with the homemade bread, for dinner. I sliced it about 3/4 of an inch thick and dipped it in a mix of eggs, milk, vanilla extract, freshly ground nutmeg and Saigon cinnamon, then fried them in oil on our electric skillet. Butter and a little syrup to finish. OMG good! Better even than the English muffin bread we normally prefer for French toast.

Tomorrow, I'm going to make what I'm calling "West Indies Bean and Pumpkin Soup". It'll be a thick, filling soup of white beans, cubed pumpkin (from our own garden), and spinach flavored with a sofrito of onions, carrot, celery, bell pepper, garlic, ginger root, and jalapeno, as well as some allspice, cumin, black pepper and thyme - typical Caribbean seasonings. Some coconut milk, scallions and flat-leaf parsley will finish things off.

Yum...

I made teriyaki chicken bowls tonight for dinner. I made a simple (and more authentic) sauce from mirin and sake (had to substitute Chinese shaoxing wine for the sake), soy sauce and sugar, thickened with a bit of cornstarch, while I coated a couple of big chicken breasts with a basic rub of black pepper(lots!), salt, paprika, onion and garlic powders, and just a bit of smoked paprika and cooked them in the rotisserie. I ate mine with a bunch of pickled ginger, for some zing. Gina loved it...thought it was the best she'd had. It was mighty tasty, though I'm fonder of the spicy chicken available at some of the teriyaki places in the PNW. I chopped up the chicken after it rested for a few minutes, put it on top of some sticky short-grained rice, and poured some sauce over the top...

I've Been Bad...

...at least as a blogger. I just burned out for awhile, on the issue of writing here. Been busy, had plenty of stressful things going on at times. I let the cooking contests slide to the wayside, too.

Things are calming down enough that I'm looking at the contests again. We are laying down plans for entries in the Build a Better Burger Contest, and the Scharffenberger Chocolate contest. There will be more besides those.

I've been doing a lot of cooking, at times, but just haven't taken the time to jot things down. Night before last we had breakfast for dinner, and we used some of our homegrown Kennebec potatoes to make hashbrowns, along with grated onions, seasoned salt, and lots of freshly ground black pepper. I pan-fry them until they build up a nice brown crust on both sides. The Kennebecs were great, and so tender in the middle. Gina likes hers with a bunch of melted sharp cheddar on 'em, while I like mine with chile ketchup (ketchup + Sriracha hot sauce...lol).

I've taken an interest in the food of Central Asia, especially Uzbek and Uighur-influenced food. For lunch, I made some noodles...somewhere between lagman and chow mein. I stir-fried some chicken tossed with a Central Asian-influenced spice mix (black cumin, black and Sichuan peppercorns, crushed Sichuan chilies, powdered garlic and ginger, and a couple other things), and some fresh aromatics (garlic, ginger and scallions), lots of onions, green beans, sweet red peppers and carrots. The sauce was flavored with dark soy sauce, rice wine and some smoky black rice vinegar. I used the fresh, thick, yellow Chinese wheat noodles, boiled briefly and added to the chicken and veggies at the last minute. Good stuff. Ideally, there should have been little bowls of fresh cilantro and scallions, chilies, vinegar, fried garlic and chopped peanuts for the diners to add to the noodles, but I just made it as a quick lunch dish. Still quite tasty. Different from regular Chinese food, because of the spicing.

Last night was Gina's request: my Swedish-style meatballs with gravy, garlicky mashed potatoes (more of the fresh Kennebecs from the garden), and quick-pickled sliced cucumbers (again, from our garden) flavored with dill. These meatballs are one of her favorites. I like fixing her things she enjoys so much. And between yesterday's dinner and lunch, I have some pretty good eating here at work today...lol.

Nova Scotia and Iberia...

I've been very bad about blogging for months now. Haven't tried competing in any contests, either. I've been occupied with other things. Trying to get back to writing now.

I have been cooking. We had doughnuts this afternoon, homemade, for the first time in ages. They were a simple, but sublime, creation. They are what plain cake doughnuts aspire to be, but do not normally achieve. Gina and I found the recipe, entitled "Sour Cream Doughnuts", in a spiral-bound cookbook we found at a thrift store, entitled "Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens". They are a basic doughnut, made of eggs, buttermilk and sour cream, sugar, flour, with a hint of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. After the dough idled in the fridge for awhile I rolled it out thin, cut it in modest rectangles, and tossed the doughnuts into some hot oil. They fried up into airy pillows, tender, delicately spiced, only a little sweet...delightful. A little powdered sugar on top is acceptable. More might be gilding the lily. Gina declared them the best she's ever eaten. I might still hold out for the buttermilk doughnuts I used to pick up on the way to work in San Antonio, at the H.E.B. bakery counter, still warm...mmmmmmmm.

Dinner was a dish inspired by the Andalusia Garbanzos con Chorizo in Clifford A. Wright's "A Mediterranean Feast". In this case, we cooked up a thick, stick-to-your-ribs stew of nutty chickpeas, ample quantities of Portuguese linguica sausage, onions, green bell peppers, tomatoes, seasoned with garlic, paprika, saffron, black pepper and a little white wine, finished with a handful of flat-leaf parsley fresh from the garden. A hunk of sourdough bread to mop up the sauce was all it needed. We stuck to the style of his dish...just fancified it a touch with the garlic, wine and parsley...and substituted the sausage we had on hand. Very, very nice, and my wife and son blessed off on it, to my son's initial surprise. I'm not easy on his autistic desire for the 'same-o, same-o' all the time...lol.

Recent Culinary Forays...

We haven't been doing too much in the way of fancy cooking lately. Our daughters left for Montana and California recently, and we've just kind of heaved a big sigh and rested.

We had French toast and bacon earlier this week...always a fav of ours.

Last night was bacon sandwiches and coleslaw. Along with nice, thick bacon, we had seared Walla Walla sweet onions and tomatoes, sharp cheddar cheese, and for me, pepperoncinis, all between slices of grilled English muffin bread.

Tonight. Tonight was dinner cooked outdoors. We had a salad of tender romaine lettuce fresh out of the garden; chicken breast rubbed with ground Ancho chile, ras el hanout, and onion powder, then grilled; dried Mission figs; grilled sweet onions; and crumbled feta cheese. The dressing was a mix of extra-virgin olive oil, figs, white balsamic vinegar, orange blossom water and fresh ginger. We grilled up some corn-on-the-cob and ciabatta bread that we had brushed with some of the Lebanese olive oil-lemon juice-garlic mix. OMG. Dinner was sweetspicysaltysoursavory...and we are very pleasantly full.

Mexican Soul Food...

Today, we harvested the second item from our garden - three large plants of Goldgelber purslane, an improved version of the well-known and common weed, and an excellent source of Omega 3 oil. With them, I cooked up a pot of Verdolagas con Carne de Puerco, or pork and purslane stew, a popular Mexican dish. Again, none of us were sure how it would go...but it turned out very tasty indeed. Its a stew of cubed pork, pureed onions, garlic (lots!) and tomatillos, mild green chilies and handfuls of purslane, seasoned with freshly ground black pepper, Mexican oregano and cumin. For a personal touch, I added some chicken stock and a little golden tequila. It really was a sort of Mexican approach to the universal soul food...braised pork and greens. Good stuff, and I've got more purslane growing. We'll be having this again...

A Humble Weed...

We've made tacos with greens, caramelized onions and queso seco cheese for a few years now. The recipe, tacos de quelites, comes from Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen, and we've really enjoyed them. Even our autistic son likes them (he of the hot dogs, canned chili and ketchup...lol). Tonight, however, was the first time that we've made them with the greens they use down in Toluca, Mexico...quelites, the unprepossessing lambs' quarters(Chenopodium berlandieri), a weed common to sidewalk cracks, empty lots and the edges of roads and fields all across America. Rick Bayless recommended Swiss chard if lambs' quarters are unavailable, but considers it inferior to them. Still, there was some trepidation in my home as I prepared them. They are good! Gina and I agree with him. They are the better choice. The next step for authenticity would be to get some blue corn tortillas...

We had a couple of plants growing in our garden plot. The majority were growing wild in the untended portions of the community garden, so I just picked the larger plants, 'til I had enough for dinner. Thankfully, I kinda' overshot the mark, so we have a healthy batch of leftovers!

Some quick nutritional facts about lambs' quarters: a 180g serving of boiled and drained lambs' quarters contained 281% of the USRDA for Vitamin A, 111% of the USRDA for Vitamin C, 46% of the USRDA for calcium, 6g of protein and 4g of fiber, its inflammation factor is 351 (strongly anti-inflammatory) and its estimated glycemic load is a whopping...5. They are also a good source of Vitamin E, Thiamine, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Magnesium, Potassium, Copper and Manganese. A serving has a whopping 58 calories. Instead of spraying these weeds with Roundup, we should all be gathering them and eating them...they're a damn superfood!

Oh...and here is a good guide to Mexican herbs...

Recent Dinners...

Yesterday, I put some glowing hardwood charcoal in the bbq, tossed a double batch of water-soaked hickory chips and dried yerba santa leaves on top, and put an 8lb. pork shoulder (coated in a rub of ancho chile, paprika, onion and garlic powders, Mexican oregano, marjoram, thyme, and a little allspice) in there for a couple of hours to smoke.

For some reason (coals too close together? wood chips too wet/numerous? or...?), the coals stalled and failed to completely burn, so the pork hadn't developed quite as planned. Luckily, when I poked at the coals and spread 'em out, they proved to still have a lot of heat at their core, and immediately started smoking again. Another 45 minutes or so in there really helped the pork. After that, I took it out, wrapped it in foil and put it in the oven to finish. When it was done, and tender, I removed it, broke it up and let it cool enough to handle (barely) and pulled it.

We had the pork in taco, with cheese, shredded cabbage, pickled onions and hot sauce. YUM! I had made a fresh pot of beans earlier in the day, and cooked up some long grain rice and fideo (the really short Mexican vermicelli) with extra-virgin olive oil, chicken broth and garlic. A very tasty dinner.

A few days ago, we had a late lunch/early supper of Lebanese-style grilled, spiced chicken with garlic sauce, grilled ciabatta bread (brushed with the lemony garlic sauce too), and cucumber-onion-tomato salad. Also a very tasty meal!

A Warm Sunday...

I kinda' burned out on cooking anything elaborate for awhile. I'm starting to get back into it. After a morning working in our new community garden plot, I came back and fixed lunch.

Philly has its cheesesteak, Boston has chowder, Cincinnati its own unique chili. The Northwest, in my mind, goes for pizza, subs and teriyaki chicken (...besides the ubiquitous coffee). Teriyaki is probably the big one of that trio. I've seen an intersection in the Seattle area where there were three different teriyaki joints. I decided to try my hand at it, so I cooked up some homemade teriyaki sauce (fairly traditional - just sake, mirin, soy sauce and sugar, w/a little cornstarch to thicken it) and marinated some chicken thighs (bone-in, skin-on) overnight. For lunch, I grilled it over oak charcoal and served it with some short-grain rice, homemade coleslaw and watermelon. It came out quite nice. Smoky, moist and tender, good flavor from the marinade (soy & mirin, garlic & ginger, scallions, sesame oil, some fresh ground pepper & seven-spice powder, etc), a mellow, molasses-y sweetness (not as strong as actual molasses) probably offset by the winey flavor of the sake and mirin. All-in-all, very successful.

Dinner was just some simple bacon, egg & cheese burritos, a few (leftover from Friday) spicy chips, and for the warmth, a refreshing drink called es timun, an Indonesian drink of fresh squeezed lime juice, sugar, peeled and seeded cucumbers and ice, all put through the blender. Very nice.

Next Weekend!...

May 16th-17th will be the dates for the 5th annual Seattle Cheese Festival at Pike Place Market. Over 200 local and international cheeses are supposed to be on hand! Yum! I'd love to go...but I don't know that we can make it this year. We do have some tentative plans the 15th and 17th...so I don't know if we want to try for a triple play weekend...lol.

Its sooo tempting, though.......... . ... . . . . . . .. . .

Oh yeah. And coming soon, there should be details on Portland's Cheese Festival, the Wedge!

Not Much...

...going on in Sun Bear's kitchen, lately. I've been busy with a lot of other things, and haven't had much time for the cutting board and food processor, spice mill and skillet.

We've been eating a lot of breakfast burritos (bean, egg & cheese or bacon, egg & cheese), sandwiches, and the like...simple food. I did break down last night and make a Burmese curry of pork & pineapple, along with akyaw (a simple stir-fry of...in this case...green beans, onions, garlic a little turmeric, and sesame oil), and lots of rice. The curry was standard Burmese fare...browned cubes of pork cooked 'til tender in a puree of onions, garlic, ginger, turmeric (fresh...yum!), and (mostly mild) chilies. I tweaked it with a couple of seasonings, added some petite diced tomatoes, and in the last ten minutes of cooking, half of a fresh pineapple I'd cut up. Good, good food...really savory and filling, but with the occasional burst of sweetness from the fruit. I'll be making it again.