Jen Caputo

New Years Eve 2012

This post is for my friend, Jeff, who complains I don’t post on my blog enough.

Adam and I hosted a small New Years Eve dinner party. Small because the food was expensive and we can only comfortably sit ten people indoors for dinner. We worked really hard on the 30th to get as much done as we could to make the 31st relatively stress free. So I’ll share what I made, the recipes I used, and what I did ahead of time.

 

The hors d'oeuvres spread included crostini, cheese, nuts, and olives.

 

On the left, we have Crostini with Ricotta, Honey, and Lemon Zest and on the right, Pear, Walnut, and Ricotta Crostini. I toasted all of the crostini the night before so that just before guests arrived all I had to do was slather on the ricotta, and toss on the other toppings.

 

 

Not much to the cheese plate, we just set out the blocks with a few chunks cut off with a knife on a cutting board. We served a 10 year cheddar, a Mango Stilton (I know! It was really good though), a havarti from Wisconsin, and a Gruyere. We set out cranberries, almonds, and pistachios, a variety of olives, and melba toast.

 

This sparkling gin punch was a huge hit.  In fact we had to make another batch midway through the night! We first tried it at Andrew and Meg’s holiday party last year and we were amazed at the Grapefruit flavor considering there is no grapefruit in it.  We don’t have a punch bowl so we improvised with a gravy ladle and a big stainless bowl. We froze ice blocks using old yogurt containers for molds. Our local grocery store sells fresh squeezed juice so Adam ran out of the morning of the party to pick it up so we didn’t have to squeeze 20 oranges. He made the grenadine the night before (equal parts sugar and fresh pomegranate juice) as well.

 

The Roasted Pear Salad with Pomegranate, Blue Cheese, and Hazelnut Vinaigrette was delicious.  I kept the blue cheese and pomegranate seeds separate in case people didn’t like them.  I roasted the pears and made the vinaigrette the night before. I also removed the seeds of two pomegranates the morning of.  We didn’t need them all for the salad so the leftovers were used as cocktail garnish. To serve all I had to do was toss the greens, pears, and dressing together.

 

My famous Rosemary Rolls are based off Pioneer Woman’s. Instead of using frozen rolls, I make them from scratch using the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day master recipe (which I made the night before).  They take a few hours to rise so I buttered the pan and formed the rolls 2 hours before guests arrived and then stuffed them in the microwave to rise until the prime rib came out of the oven and they could go in.

 

Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Shallots. The day before I cleaned and chopped the sprouts and shallots and sealed them in the fridge.  They roast in 10-15 minutes while the prime rib rests.

 

I started getting lazy about ‘plating’ my sides at this point so the Sous Vide Glazed Carrots were served out of the pan I glazed them in.  These were totally made in advance, I threw them in the Sous Vide Supreme to reheat them and just before we ate they went into a pan to reduce the glaze a bit.

 

 

Like I said.. I was getting lazy.  I made the mashed potatoes the night before and scooped them into a ziplock. I threw the whole damn bag into the Sous Vide Supreme 2 hours before dinner at 155 to rewarm them keeping the microwave free as a place to let the rolls rise and the oven free for everything else that needed to be in there.  It worked out great and as tacky as that plastic bag serving ‘dish’ looks, it sure made putting the leftovers away easy!

 

We went to the butchers and requested two USDA Certified Prime Rib Eye Roasts cut from the chuck side. They were the crown jewel of the meal.

 

We followed Kenji’s recipe for Perfect Prime Rib with Red Wine Jus and I’d say it came out pretty perfect.  Edge-to-edge beautifully medium rare and super juicy. The Red Wine Jus is not pictured. We salted the roasts the night before and left them uncovered on a rack in the fridge to help build the crust and let the seasoning penetrate more deeply. The roasts went in the oven about 6-7 hours before we were ready to eat it. I let it rest for a little over an hour (the middle still read 123 degrees on the Thermapen) while I dealt with everything else that needed to go in the oven and we ate our salad. The oven was cranked up to 550 and the roasts went back in on a clean pan to sear the crust.

 

 

Here is my dinner plate with an oxtail I fished out of the jus.

 

I forgot to get a picture of the dessert until after it was half eaten. I made Mascarpone Ice Cream with Berry Compote following Daniel Humm’s ice cream recipe but modified to cook the custard Sous Vide (which basically means whisk all the ingredients together, put them in a ziplock bag, and cook at 183 for 30 minutes). I made the custard the night before and spun it the morning of after it was nice and chilled.

 

We kept the drinks pretty simple.  A few bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon to go with the Prime Rib. A case of Cava, a box of sugar cubes, and an assortment of bitters so people could make their own Champagne Cocktails. The help yourself Gin Punch and beer cooler meant Adam didn’t have to mix up a single drink.  Actually when a few people requested an Old Fashioned, Adam offered to teach all the boys how to make one instead! 

 

How did you enjoy New Years Eve?

Sous Vide, Soft Boiled, or Poached Quail Eggs?

In a few weeks I’m entering a cooking competition in which I will need to create 200 small portions. I’ve decided on a Lyonnaise Salad (the key ingredient of the competition is bacon), and the best part of that salad is the poached egg on top. But chicken eggs are way too big for the small sized dishes we’re supposed to be serving so I turned my attention to quail eggs.

It’s roughly a fifth the size of a chicken egg.

Since I need to cook 200 of them, I wanted to find a quick and easy way to do it. My first try was just soft-boiling them in shells.  I boiled a pot of water, dropped in a quail egg, and pulled it out 1.5 minutes later. Following this tip from Wylie Dufresne, I put them in ice water for an hour before warming them back up and cracking them open. He says it will make them easier to peel. What a disaster. I mean the eggs were cooked perfectly but I spent about 5 minutes trying to get the shell off while the egg kept the pretty shape to no avail. I didn’t take pictures. It was ugly (but tasty!)

Next, with my fingers crossed, I tried Sous Vide. If it worked, it would by far be the easiest solution. All I had to do was throw a bunch of eggs in the Sous Vide Supreme, set the temp, and let ‘em hang out in ice water until I wanted to heat them up to serve them.

What temperature though?  I want a runny yolk and a set white that wouldn’t freak people out. When I normally cook my chicken eggs I do 63.5° C for 60 minutes so I shortened the time and gave that a try. I also found a chart from Douglas Baldwin and the Ideas in Food people chimed into this thread suggesting 75°for 5 minutes or so, so I tried that too. My results:

I would have been happy serving any of those but look at my shells:

Still a disaster with most of the white left behind.  Quail Egg shells are so annoying!

So yes, I could easily cook 200 eggs perfectly, but getting them out of the shell neatly was not going to happen. No Soft boiling, no Sous Vide… I have to cook these eggs outside of the shells.

I originally thought poaching a bunch of eggs was going to take forever, but Quail eggs take less then a minute to poach. And once poached, they’ll hold in ice water in the fridge for 24 hours easily, after which I can warm them up in a pan of water over a sterno at the event. I just need to make sure I keep the sterno water under 60°C (the temp at which the eggs might start to cook some more)

I started a pot of boiling water on the stove, added a splash of vinegar and cracked 3 quail eggs into 3 ramekins.

I swirled the water, carefully dropped in the eggs, and took them out with a slotted spoon about a minute later. No picture because I was working too fast at this point.  They came out of the simmering water and directly into a bowl of ice water.

Into the fridge they went. I left them there for a few hours to kind of simulate cooking them the night before. Then I filled a pot with hot water (50°C), put some toast in the oven, and fished my eggs out of the ice water and into the pot to warm them up (I cut off the long stragglies with scissors).

They were warmed through in 5 minutes, so onto the toast they went.

Perfect!  It’s going to take a while, but I think the standard poach of these quail eggs is the way to go, thanks to their impossible to peel shells.

Wish me luck in the bacon competition!

The Whole Duck

On Leap Day, D’Artagnan had a great sale and I took them up on it. When you order from them, you get to choose the day the food is delivered so that it doesn’t sit around outside when you won’t be home. It comes in a cooler loaded with ice packs.

This is what I got

• 6 Tubs of Black Truffle Butter
• 2 Tubs of Duck Fat
• Free-Range Australian Lamb Shoulder
• Whole Muscovy Duck

I was totally thrilled with all of my purchases. We love the truffle butter melted on top of a steak. We slow-roasted the lamb shoulder and had meals for days – it was delicious. Potatoes roasted in the duck fat – heaven!

I had really big plans for the duck though, and stretched it just about as far as I could. I started by butchering it (I watched Alton Brown butcher one and took notes)

 

I’ve got a bowl of scraps and the carcass in the back. 2 breasts, 2 wings, 2 legs/thighs, and a big pile of duck fat. I started with the fat.

It went in a heavy bottom pot just covered with water over medium heat. The water will all cook out but it helps the fat begin to render.

 

I put the bones in the bottom of my pressure cooker and threw in carrots, celery, onions, rosemary, peppercorns, bay leaves, parsley stems (frozen from last summer), and thyme. Then just barely covered with it water.

Then I dumped all of my salt on the ground.

Fun times.

I clamped on the pressure cooker lid, brought it up to high-pressure, reduced the heat to maintain pressure, and let it rip for 45 minutes before bringing the pressure down naturally.

Meanwhile. I attacked the legs/thighs. They were going to become Duck Confit!

I weighed the legs so that I knew how much salt I’d need to cure them and then mixed together some bay leaves. salt, juniper, cloves, etc.

 

I rubbed the cure all over them and put them in the fridge overnight.

Next, the breasts – soon to be Duck Prosciutto!  I covered the bottom of a glass dish with kosher salt, put the breasts in, and then covered them with more salt.  Into the fridge for 24 hours went this one as well.  

About 40 minutes had passed since I started rendering the duck fat. Most of the water had simmered out and the skin was almost crispy so I let it go a little longer. When they were finally done, I strained out the cracklin’s (they went in the oven with Brussels sprouts later that evening)

 

This is the fat I had left, which got strained through cheese cloth into a jar and then stored in the fridge.

 

At this point the stock was ready so I let it cool a bit and then strained it as well through a cheese cloth lined strainer.

 

At the end of day one (after about 1.5 hours of work), this is what my fridge looked like:

Duck Fat and Duck Stock on the top shelf. Duck confit on top of duck prosciutto on the bottom shelf..

After 24 hours it was time to take the legs and breasts out of their salt cures. As you can see, the legs had released a lot of liquid.  I rinsed them very very very well and then dried them off (but apparently not well enough, more on that later).

 

They got vacuum sealed with some duck fat

 

And I threw them in the sous vide supreme at 165F for 8 hours.  When the time elapsed, I dunked them in an ice bath to chill them before throwing them in the fridge where they stayed for 3 weeks. (Confit is a preservation method, they would have been fine for a few more weeks in the fridge at least)

 

I pulled the breasts out of the salt and rinsed them super clean as well. They got wrapped up in little cheesecloth bundles and tied with string.

 

I weighed them and marked their starting weights on a piece of masking tape along with their target weights. When these guys are fully dried they should lose 30% of their weight in water. I hung them in my basement and waited, checking their weights every few days.  It took just over 2 weeks before they were ready.

 

And here’s what they looked like when I unwrapped them.

 

I sliced it up as thin as I could so we could sample it. Wow! I must insist you all go get yourself some duck breasts and try this yourself. It is so easy and so delicious. Rich and salty and ducky. Yum. We brought it to two parties and got rave reviews, we’ve only got about half a breast left and I’m bummed. Definitely going to be making more of this.

And just this week, we finally decided to eat the duck confit. I pulled it out of the fridge and quickly dunked it in the sous vide supreme just to warm it through and melt the fat. Then I cut open the bag and dumped the whole thing in a cast iron skillet to crisp up the skin.

 

I made a spring risotto by sauteing mushrooms and onions in duck fat, toasting the rice, and then using the duck stock as the liquid to plump the risotto.  I added asparagus in the last 5 minutes or so and then plated the risotto topped with the crispy duck confit.

It was also delicious but the confit was a little on the salty side. I think next time I need to be much more diligent in making sure I get all of the salt off before vacuum sealing it. If I’d confit it in the traditional manner (in a big pot of fat in the oven) the salt wouldn’t have been an issue, but in the sous vide it is. We had a ton of the risotto leftover so the following evening I dunked some turkey drumsticks in the sous vide supreme before work and then shredded them in for dinner.

So, that was my adventure with a duck. I do still have two duck wings vacuum sealed in the freezer because I didn’t know what to do with them yet. I’m thinking I’ll have to get a few more ducks before cooking up all the wings together one day. I definitely think I got my money’s worth and then some out of this quacker!

Valentine’s Dinner

For Valentine’s Day we got home a little early so that we could make our favorite pasta dish, Fresh Ricotta and Egg Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter. (Who am I kidding, it’s one of our favorite dishes period! There’s really nothing like it.)

I paired it with a salad of shaved fennel, brussel sprouts, pea shoots, cranberry. and honeybell orange. And baked a baguette to mop up all the delicious brown butter and egg yolk.

 

Runny yolks get me every time!

For dessert, I made heart-shaped sous vide strawberries.

Cut a notch in the top of each strawberry.

Position the strawberry in an egg slicer as shown above.

Slice and repeat!

And you get a happy little strawberry heart family

They already look pretty perfect but we went a step further by putting them in a sous vide bag with a teaspoon of sugar and a quarter cup champagne, sealed ‘em up and then dropped them in the sous vide at 183F for 15 minutes.  Topped with a bit of freshly whipped cream (spiked with homemade vanilla sugar) and you have a lovely light romantic dessert!

Sous Vide Lobster w/Oyster Mushroom Barley Risotto and Asparagus

This is one of those things that I can’t believe I actually created myself.

It started last night. I ran into the Aldi across the street from work to pick up a few small things and on my way to checkout, I saw these lobster tails.

I know what you’re thinking, I was too… seafood? from Aldi? Are you sure you want to do that. Well I checked the ingredients list on the package. Maine Lobster Tail. That was it. And the price was right – $11 for both. What the heck. I threw ‘em in the cart.

When I got home, this package of dried mushrooms I ordered from Michael Ruhlman’s Open Sky store was sitting on the counter. Adam asked me what on earth I was going to do with them, so I accepted the challenge.

Before I went to bed, I opened the package of oyster mushrooms, poured some white wine(Sauvignon Blanc) over them, weighed ‘em down with pie weights to keep them submerged, and threw ‘em in the fridge to rehydrate overnight.

  

Tonight when I got home from work I pulled out some homemade chicken stock from the freezer and warmed it in a pan and drained the oyster mushrooms (reserving the soaking wine) and dried them on a paper towel.

 

I cut up an onion and removed the lobster meat from their shells. I threw half the onions in one saucepan with some butter and the lobster shells. This pan will be the sauce eventually.

 

I put the other half of the onions in a second pan with olive oil and butter. I chopped up the drained oyster mushrooms and added them to the sauce pan after the onions softened.

 

I measured out a half cup of pearl barley and added it to the onions. In the sauce pan, I sprinkled everything with a bit of flour.

 

I ladled in a half cup of the warmed chicken stock and added it to the pearl barley. I added the reserved wine soaking liquid from the mushrooms to the sauce pan. As the stock cooked down out of the barley pan, I added in another half cup. I repeated this process about 6-8 times until all of the stock was incorporated into the pearl barley ‘risotto’.

 

Meanwhile, I vacuum sealed the lobster tails with a half stick of butter, sliced up some spinach, and pre-heated the sous vide supreme to 59.5 degrees Celsius (about 140 F) Not pictured is Adam who snapped the ends off the asparagus, peeled them, tossed them with olive oil, salt, and pepper and threw them in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes.

 

After the sauce reduced by about half, I pulled out the lobster shells, stirred in a squirt of tomato paste and some half and half. As you can see, the barley is plumping up nicely.

 

When I thought everything else was 15 minutes to being done, the lobster tails went for a bath in the Sous Vide Supreme. I took most of the mushrooms out of the sauce pan and transferred the rest of the sauce and mushrooms to a smaller pan, using my immersion blender to blend it to a sort of smooth, sort of chunky consistency.

 

The mushrooms I pulled out of the sauce got added to the risotto as did the spinach, just minutes before I was ready to plate.

 

I cut some slices of a sage compound butter that I had frozen this fall and stirred it, cube by cube, into the sauce. The butter poached lobster came out of the sous vide. We reserved the butter for another use (I’m thinking seafood bisque)

 

Then I plated (Two different ways, I was trying to be creative).

I didn’t plan this meal ahead of time, in fact, I wanted to make mashed potatoes with it but I didn’t have any potatoes in my cupboard. The barley was a last minute replacement. Everything came from the pantry or an earlier in the week grocery store trip. And it was so good! So much flavor. I didn’t provide a ‘recipe’ because I have no clue how much of anything I used… I know that 2/3 of the wine bottle was gone before we sat down to eat and I didn’t drink any while we were cooking… so there’s a lot of wine in this dish. I guess I won’t turn my nose up at Aldi seafood next time so long as it inspires creativity.

What I've been cooking

I've been pretty crummy about posting lately but that's because I've been pretty busy cooking.  Our friends bought us a Sous Vide Supreme as a late wedding gift (which I talked about here) and it's inspired me to want to cook every night.

Check out some of the things I've made recently:

Sous Vide Belly of Pork with Soy Bean and Udon Stir Fry with Momokawa Diamond Sake

We sous vide the pork belly Tuesday night, chilled it, then seared it Thursday night. Stir fry of shitaki mushrooms, udon noodles, Swiss Chard (from the backyard), and shelled edamame. Reduction of soy sauce, red wine, garlic, and bay leaves. Based of a recipe I found here. 

It wasn't perfect (but oh so close). But it was pretty damn good and we learned a ton. It was also pretty quick (besides the 12 hour sous vide and 2 day rest), less than an hour of work total. We'll definitely be making this again.

 

Sesame-Crusted Tuna with Ponzu Sauce over a fennel-frond, grapefruit, avocado, and cucumber salad.

I'm proud of the way this dish came together because it was totally unplanned and just thrown together with stuff we had in the fridge. All the flavors matched beautifully. But the tuna was originally for Wednesday's dinner so it wasn't the freshest and dragged the meal down.

 

Sous Vide Seared Scallops and Oyster Mushrooms over a Soy-Ginger Butter Sauce.

At $25 a plate for a homemade meal (not counting the wine), the most expensive thing I've ever cooked. Delicious. Wine: 2010 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc from Kim Crawford, New Zealand. Recipe from Bon Appetit.

The scallops were beautiful, but $3 a piece. Didn't want to take any chances over cooking them so we washed and dried them, and sprinkled with salt and pepper, then vacuum packed them with olive oil and sous vide them.  We dropped the bag in ice water to quickly cool them before searing them (again, to avoid over cooking). The Soy-Ginger Butter sauce was ridiculous. This was also my first time dealing with Oyster Mushrooms.

 

Sous Vide and Skillet-Roasted Chicken over Barley Risotto with Acorn Squash and Spinach topped with a pan gravy.

Recipe: from Bon Appetit (adapted, I didn't have farro so I used Barley, I made a pan gravy instead of the herb Pistou the recipe makes. I had leftover spinach so I didn't buy kale.)

This is one of the best meals I have ever made in my life. You start by splitting a whole chicken in half and then vacuum packing it in olive oil and a ton of herbs and letting it marinate over night. The next day, you throw it in the sous vide for a few hours (I did 4 but I'm sure it's fully cooked in 2). Then you crisp the skin in a skillet and throw the whole pan in the oven. In the meantime, you make a risotto type dish with Barley and roasted acorn squash. The flavors are incredible, the meat is so moist and tender... Make this!!!!

 

Greens, Dates, Walnut, and Bacon Lardon salad (from a friends' homemade bacon), Porterhouse steak done sous vide at 133 for 6 hours and then pan seared in the rendered bacon fat. Regular 'ole baked potato.

Our friend makes his own bacon and always brings us in a slab. I cut it into lardons to crisp, I then made a warm vinagarette using the bacon fat in place of oil. Awesomesauce! 6 hours sounds like a long time but remember, the meat is just sitting in the water bath, you are doing no work. It's like a crock pot, you can go to work and leave it and it'll be fine when you get home. No overcooking is possible because it can't ever get above the temperature you have the bath set of (so 133 degrees for a medium rare steak).

 

Rib-Eye, Truffled Broccoli, Garlic Rosemary Potatoes.

All cooked sous-vide over 2 days, topped with a red-wine sauce. Man, would you look at that edge to edge red meat!  The only way you can achieve that kind of perfect consistency is by cooking it sous-vide. I undercooked the potatoes.. they weren't so good. I have yet to perfect my sous-vide veggies.

 

Homemade Pasta, Spinach Pesto, Garden Tomatoes, and Herbs with Garlic Bread

I made the bread and pasta from scratch. I mixed the pasta dough before work and left it in the fridge to relax until I got home. I then used my kitchenaid attachment to roll it out. I always keep bread dough in the fridge (using the Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day recipe) The tomatoes and herbs are from my backyard. The pesto was made and frozen when my basil was in its prime a few months ago. This dish is divine.

 

Rabbit Two Ways over Celery Root puree w/poached apples. Served with Lagunitas Bavarian Styled Doppelweizen. The most perfect pairing in existence.

The two ways: The loins were cooked sous vide, then bacon wrapped and seared.  The hindquarters were braised in apple cider. Based on this recipe. This was my first time making celery root puree. I'm in love!!!!!! (Also my first time cooking rabbit)The apples were poached in the braising liquid. The greens are watercress.

 

Mussels and Frites w/homemade garlic aioli and Goose Island Matilda

I had just learned to make my own aioli from scratch (who knew it only took 5 minutes from start to clean up!) so was looking for ways to use it. This is an awesome 20 minute meal.

 

Sous Vide Short Ribs over Celery Root Puree & Peas.

I told you I loved that celery root puree. Also, these short ribs were f'ing ridiculous. Cooked to perfection over 72 hours to 134 degrees in my Sous Vide Supreme . Believe it or not, this dish took about 30 minutes to put together.  I bought a bunch of short ribs when they were on sale a few weeks ago. As soon as I got them home I seasoned them with salt and pepper, vacuum packed them in groups of 4 and threw them in the freezer. So when I want to cook them, all I have to do is throw them in the water bath and walk away for 3 days. Obviously the peas steam in about 5 minutes and the celery root puree takes about 20.  A quick sear of the short ribs takes 2 minutes as well. See, you can have an amazing dinner in less than 30 minutes and it can be completely from scratch!

 

This last one I made at a friends house so they are crappy camera phone photos but this is also the very best thing I've ever made so I'm posting them anyway.  Here I am making them:

And cracking them open.

Ricotta and Egg Yolk Ravioli

Get the recipe right here, and make this immediately. Everyone you serve it to will love you forever. You only need one per person as an appetizer. 2 is good for a main course.

 

So, that's what I've been up to. Has anyone else been making anything amazing? Does anyone have a sous vide machine yet? I'm always looking for blog recommendations, especially those cooking sous vide, I always need more ideas for my new toy!

Honeycrisp Breakfast Sausage

Pork Butts were on sale, honeycrisp apples are in season, and with the frost soon approaching, our sage wasn't going to last too much longer in the garden. Seemed to be the perfect time to whip up a big 'ole batch of breakfast sausage.  You should too! Here's what you'll need:

Ingredients:
10 lbs Pork Shoulder (aka Pork Butt)
6 large honeycrisp (or similar) apples
1 sweet onion
1.5-2 cups fresh sage leaves
8 tsp kosher salt
4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
4 tsp fennel seeds (Optional)
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

Before you start, take your meat grinder attachments and stick them in the freezer. Also take a large metal bowl and stick it in the freezer or fridge. 20 minutes before you grind the meat, stick it in the freezer as well.

Begin by peeling, coring, and dicing the apples. I got to try out my new Pinzon Apple Peeler, Slicer, and Corer. I bought in on a whim because last time we made this sausage, prepping the apples was the worst part. This thing is a dream! I had all of the apples done in probably 5 minutes. Highly recommend it even if you only peel apples once a year. The machine slices them horizontally while it's peeling them so then all you have to do is give it a few chops in the vertical directions.

Peel and chop the onion too

In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium heat.  Throw in the onions and saute until soft and translucent (3-4 minutes)

Add in the apples and continue to cook until the apples begin to soften (but you still want them to be kind of crunchy) and brown slightly.

Set aside in a large bowl to cool. They need to be completely cool before you mix it in the sausage so consider putting the bowl in an ice bath or in the fridge or maybe even doing this step the day before.

Go to your backyard and pick a huge bunch of sage leaves. We grow regular and golden sage. If you don't grow it, try to find the fresh stuff in the supermarket. Use 1/2 the amount of dried sage as a last resort.

Stack up a bunch of leaves and chiffonade them.

then dice the chiffonades.

Now we need to crush the fennel seeds. You can do it with a mortar and pestle if you want, or try to crack them with a knife, but I've found the easiest thing is to slightly grind them in a spice (aka coffee) grinder. I keep this one just to grind spices and it is awesome. (Just before I ground the fennel, I used it to grind the peppercorns that were going into the sausage too. I wasn't worried about cross contamination because it would all end up in the same spot, otherwise I would have cleaned it in between).

You aren't creating a powder or a dust, you just want to slightly crush the seeds to release their aromas and flavors. Just a few pulses until you get something that looks like this:

Some people hate fennel so you can skip this step if you want.

Now it's time to grind the meat. The secret to the perfect textured sausage is to make sure none of the fat melts prematurely. This is why at the very beginning we froze our grinder attachments, bowl, and made sure the meat was as cold as possible (without being frozen).

We had two pork shoulders, if you do too leave the second one in the fridge while you work on the first. Using your grinder of choice (I use the kitchenaid food grinder attachment), cut the meat into strips and then pass through the grinder. Don't throw out the fat, grind the fat, you need the fat. You are looking for a ratio of 20% fat to 80% meat.

Once all of the meat is ground, cover it with plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for 20-30 minutes. Remember, we want it to be super cold before we mix in the rest of the ingredients since the mixing process will warm it up.

While the meat is chilling, retrieve the apple mixture and add in the spices

and the sage

Mix well

After the meat is well chilled, dump the apple mixture into the meat bowl

And use your hands to combine. Don't overmix, remember, you don't want to melt that fat!

Once the meat mixture is combined, it's time to make breakfast! No really, this is a crucial step. Before you do anything with the sausage you need to cook up a little patty to make sure the flavor is right. We were starving for breakfast at  this point so we threw 2 patties in a cast iron skillet.

Added them to a toasted baguette and topped them with a fried egg.

Divine!!!! But we were glad we did the taste test because we decided it definitely needed more salt and a tad more pepper. (Recipe above was adjusted to account for this). Since the salt and pepper we were adding didn't have the benefit of being mixed with the other ingredients you need to dissolve them in a tiny bit (tablespoon) of water and then mix thoroughly.

Then it was time to package up the sausage. We opted not to stuff it in casings since we figured we'd mostly want to make patties. I tried a few methods of storing them.

First I laid out some plastic wrap

And dropped a bunch of meat in the center

And shaped a log

Which I then vacuum packed.

I also tried just throwing the meat in the bottom of a food saver bag

and then kind of forming logs before sealing them.

I think I prefer the shape of the ones I did in plastic wrap better.

The plan is to pull out a log when we need one, cut off a few slices, and then seal it back up. We're also going to try to sous vide a log as is in the bag, removing them from the water bath, slicing, and quickly searing them in a screaming hot pan. We're actually going to try that at the Michigan/Northwestern tailgate next weekend so I'll be sure to update with the results.

So what do you think? Have you ever made your own sausage before? Thinking about trying it?

Our First Sous Vide Dinner!

We have these amazing friends. Quinn, Kristin, Harper, and Dave, knowing how much we love cooking, decided to get us a Sous Vide machine for our wedding. They thought we needed one. And we didn't know it at the time, but they were right, we did.

It showed up about a week ago and we tried a few soft-boiled eggs in it (they were great), but we hadn't tried a piece of meat until tonight.

In case you aren't familiar with Sous Vide, I'll explain quickly. Sous Vide means "Under Vacuum". If you vacuum seal something and submerge it in water held at a constant temperature, it will never get hotter than that water temperature. So, if you want a piece of medium rare meat (134 degrees Fahrenheit), you seal a piece of meat, drop it in water that's held at a constant 134 degree temperature, and after an amount of time, the meat will emerge perfectly cooked. So after 45 minutes, a 1 inch thick steak is perfectly medium rare. But after 4 hours, it's also perfectly medium rare. In fact, you can keep it in the water for up to 8 hours and it will only get better and never be a degree over medium rare.

So why didn't we all own one of these machines?  Because up until a year or so ago, machines that could accomplish this were completely un-affordable for the home cook. I'm talking several thousands of dollars. It's just recently that they've come down in price. And they are still really expensive but they're down around several hundred dollars now and if you are really into perfectly cooked meat, this is the way to do it.

Ok, enough talking.

We started with a super cheap piece of meat. This is a top round steak. It cost $7 and easily serves 4.  But what makes sous-vide so awesome is that you can take the cheapest cut of meat and make it taste like filet.

I started by well seasoning (with salt and pepper) both sides of the steak. Then I vacuum sealed the steak with 4 cloves of garlic, 4 sprigs of rosemary, 4 sprigs of thyme, and 2 tablespoons of butter. (I actually did this as soon as we got home from the grocery store yesterday and just threw it in the fridge this way)

Today, I set my Sous Vide Supreme for 133 degrees (they recommend 134 but since I knew we were going to sear the meat later, I opted for a tiny bit undercooked).

Then I dropped the meat in and ran out to a 6:30 beauty salon appt I had.

When I got back about 45 minutes later, it looked like this

 

it's really not this pretty at this point. But it was technically done cooking. I could have taken it out right then and it would have been delicious, but I still had to finish our sides.

We had a ton of cherry tomatoes in the garden so I worked in a Cherry Tomato and Blue Cheese Salad and I'd also just picked up a bag of fingerling potatoes from the farmers market so I made my very favorite potato recipe. It's a variation on this one from Martha Stewart, but instead of salt and vinegar, I add fresh rosemary and garlic from the garden along with plenty of sea-salt.

When these the sides were just about done, I had Adam go heat up a skillet on the grill burner. I removed the bag from the machine, cut it open, pulled the meat out and handed it to Adam on a platter. It looked like this:

Kinda gross, huh?  Gotta be patient dude, it'll get awesome soon.

Out on the piping hot grill, (after a small splash of oil) it soon looked like this (by the way, you could totally do this on your stove, we just were trying to keep the inevitable smoke out of the kitchen).

After 30 seconds (literally) we flipped it.

After a 10 minute rest under foil, it was time for the moment of truth.  We crossed our fingers and Adam began slicing.

Oh my God. Do you see that edge-to-edge pinkness? The perfect medium rare across the entire steak? The beautiful crust we achieved by a 30 second sear in a hot pan on each side. And do you remember that this is a super cheap, $7  hunk of meat?

Yeah, this was an absolutely delicious dinner and probably the best cut of beef we've ever made. Adam thought the tomato salad was a bit too rich so he ran out to the back of the garden.

And came back with some Swiss Chard that he rinsed off and then tore up into our tomato salad. (sorry no pics of the finished salad)

When we got back in, Adam sliced up the remainder of the steak, I baked a homemade baguette, and we're going to make steak, tomato, and blue cheese sandwiches for lunch tomorrow.

Can you even begin to get over that perfect edge-to-edge color?  Or how awesome Quinn, Kristin, Dave, and Harpster are for hooking us up with this machine?

Tomorrow we're making Olive Oil Poached Salmon.

Salad Box Update

A few weeks ago, I shared how I made a salad box. But I never showed what I did with it. Well, here it is after about 3 weeks planted with various greens and one broccoli plant. It lives in my driveway for now as that seems to be our sunniest spot.

Broccoli is the big guy. That's arugula on the right.

Joining the salad box in the driveway are the super sugar snap peas. I started these guys indoors and didn't plant them out until they were about 6 inches tall. Everyone says you aren't supposed to transplant peas but I'm so glad I did because they are certainly happy!  I believe we will be enjoying peas much earlier this year than last. To compare, I direct sowed lincoln peas in the planter behind this one (visible on the right side of the picture) and they are only a few inches tall. Both pea planters are sharing their pots with more salad greens.

These are the greens I harvested for a dinner salad tonight.

And these are the rest of the ingredients for our salad.

This is my current favorite salad. It hits all of the food groups, is delicious, filling, and so healthy! Clockwise from top left corner (ending in the center)

• 1/3 C. Walnuts chopped
• 10 Asparagus spears, blanched for 3 minutes and then plunged into ice water, cut on the diagonal
• 2 celery spears diced
• 1 apple diced
• 3oz. Aged Gouda diced (the aged gouda goes so well in this salad, I wouldn't dream of replacing it with anything else)
• 2/3 C. Red Quinoa (which is packed with protein) rinsed and cooked to the package instructions, then cooled.

This made enough for 2 large dinner salads and a full size lunch portion for me to eat tomorrow.

I dressed it with a homemade balsamic vinaigrette of garlic, brown sugar, dijon mustard, balsamic, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Bacon Sage Popcorn

One of our favorite Chicago-area brewpubs has been open less than 2 years but is already leaps and bounds above most of the others. Revolution Brewing. Not only are their beers delicious but they have a unique menu full of fantastic pub fare. One menu item sticks out above the rest. Ask anyone who has been there. Their Bacon Fat Popcorn is the thing dreams are made of. Bacon, crispy sage, & parmesan, don't you want some right now?

We had a few slices of bacon left over from breakfast recently so I decided to try to make my own. And it turned out awesome. Revolution's is better but I'm sure they are much more generous with the bacon fat than I was willing to be in my own kitchen.  So here is an ever-so-slightly healthier version of Revolution Brewing Company's Bacon Fat Popcorn.

As I said, we had a few slices of bacon left over from breakfast. I chopped it up and set it aside.  I also strained the bacon fat left in the pan through cheese cloth and saved it in a jar in the fridge.

You're going to need: popcorn, bacon, bacon fat, fresh sage, salt, parmesan cheese.

Stack up about 15 sage leaves and run your knife through them to create small strips (a chiffonade).

Take your leftover crumbled bacon and throw it in the toaster oven at 350 on a foil lined sheet until it's nice and crispy again.

Add a tablespoon of bacon fat to the bottom of a heated heavy bottom pan. drop the sage leaves in and fry them for a minute or so until they are crispy. Set aside.  Please disregard my heavily stained dutch oven. It's in need of a little softscrub therapy session.

Yum, crispy sage!

Now, add a few more tablespoons of bacon fat to the pan along with 3 kernels of corn, put the lid on, and heat on medium heat until you hear at least one of the kernels pop. Remove the pan from the heat, add 1/3 cup of kernels, return the lid, shake well to coat the kernels in the bacon fat, then return to heat. Heat until pops are more than 1 second apart.

Transfer popcorn to a bowl, add the crispy sage, bacon, and parmesan. Go ahead and be naughty - melt another tablespoon of bacon fat (or butter), and toss that on as well. Salt to taste.

 

Enjoy with a fresh, hoppy IPA!

Mmm... bacon fat popcorn!

Ingredients
4-5 Tbsp. Bacon Fat (divided)
3-4 slices cooked bacon, crumbled
15 sage leaves
1/3 Cup popcorn kernels
2 oz Parmesan Cheese
Salt (to taste)
Butter (optional)

Instructions

1. Chiffonade sage. Re-heat bacon in 350 degree toaster oven until crisp.
2. Add 1 Tbsp. bacon fat to a heavy bottom lidded pan. Add sage and fry until crisp, 1-2 minutes. Set sage aside.
3. Add 2-3 more Tbsp. bacon fat to pan along with 3 kernels of popcorn. Put the lid on, heat on medium heat until you hear at least one of the kernels pop. Remove the pan from the heat, add 1/3 cup of kernels, return the lid, shake well to coat the kernels in the bacon fat, then return to heat. Keep on heat until more than 1 second passes between pops.
4. Transfer popcorn to a bowl, add sage, bacon, parmesan, and salt to taste.
5. Optionally add another tablespoon or two of melted bacon fat or butter.
   

Umami Pizza

This truffled mushroom pizza I made the other night just oozes umami and is a total feast for the taste buds!

I started by rolling out about a half pound of the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day master recipe onto a floured pizza peel.

Then I brushed on some olive oil and fresh garlic

And dropped on a bunch of fresh mozzarella (the kind in packed in liquid)

And then, the mushrooms. This is a few cups of cremini and shitake mushrooms, first sauteed in butter with garlic and then cooked down with red wine and finally tossed with a few tablespoons of truffle oil. The smell of these mushrooms is mind bending! (I actually made them for a vegetarian lasagna I served last weekend but set aside a little extra with this pizza in mind.

Flake some goat cheese all over the top too.

This entire time you want your oven cranked up as high as it will possibly go (mine goes to 550) and you want a pizza stone in there the pre-heating with the oven. I like to pre-heat mine for about 45 minutes so that everything is piping hot.  Then use the pizza peel to deliver the pie to the stone. I use the Lodge Pro Logic Cast-Iron 14-Inch Pizza Pan and the EXO Super Peel Pizza Peel

Now don't go anywhere because it doesn't take long to cook. Here it is after about 5 minutes. The crust has already risen, the cheese is melting, and it's starting to brown.

After 8 total minutes in the oven, it's done! Time to grate some fresh parmesan over the top.

Then for some color, texture, and deliciousness, I grabbed some of my micro greens

And cut them close to the soil line right over the pizza.

I think I need to cook down a batch of these mushrooms about once a week so this pizza is always an option!

Aunt Ginny's Sugared Pecans

Last Christmas we were over at my Aunt Ginny and Uncle Jack's and they brought out these delicious Sugared Pecans. We loved them and Aunt Ginny sent me the recipe.  We've been making them ever since. They are such a crowd pleaser. This year, I decided to bag up a few for Christmas Gifts.

The cast of characters includes:

• 1 lb pecans
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. cinammon,
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 egg white with 1 tbsp. water

Preheat the oven to 250 and melt a stick of butter on a sheet pan.

Beat egg white and water until medium peaks form

Add pecans to egg whites and stir until coated

 

 

Stir in sugar, salt, and cinnamon until evenly coated

Spread on buttered pan, bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

After removing from the oven, stir a few more times so they don't stick together while cooling.

Package 'em up!

(all stamping supplies from Papertrey Ink)

Recipe

Sugared Pecans

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter
• 1 egg white
• 1 tbsp. water
• 1-1.5 lbs pecans (recipe calls for 1 but with the full stick of butter, I find it's enough for 1.5 - your call)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. salt

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 250. Melt 1 stick of butter in jelly roll pan in oven
• Beat egg white and water until medium peaks form
• Add pecans to egg whites and stir until coated
• Combine sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Add to pecans and stir thoroughly.
• Spread on buttered pan
• Bake for 1 hour, stirring every 15 minutes.  After removing from the oven, stir a few more times so they don't stick together while cooling.

We miss you Aunt Ginny

Salted Caramel Jars & Money Cards

I was watching Kelsey's Essentials on Cooking Channel this morning and she was crafting Holiday food gifts. One of the items she made was a salted caramel sauce and I decided to give it a try this morning before Adam woke up.

You can find her recipe for the caramel right here. It says the caramel only stays good for 2 weeks in the fridge so I decided to package it in these small 4oz jars (or maybe they're 3 oz) so people wouldn't have to figure out what to do with all that caramel. But I had to pretty them up first!

I started by die-cutting canvas with the largest scalloped Nestabilities die and stamping a snowflake on each with Palette Hybrid ink.

Then added a little Homemade stamp on top of it.

 

I added the date the Caramel would be good until in the date box as opposed to the date I made it. With the lid already on the jar, I placed the canvas over the top and centered it.

Then I screwed the band on 

 

I used the Papertrey Ink coordinating dies to die cut a bunch of snowflakes in 2 different sizes.

I decided to die-cut the whole sheet since I thought it might make a cool background for another project (look for that at the end of this post).

Then I stamped the coordinating snowflakes on the dies and punched a hole in each one.

 

Tied some jute around the jar bands.

And then tied the snowflakes with a button onto the ends of the jute.

 

 

 

 

I also needed a nice card to use to hold a monetary gift and I wanted to see what I could do with the leftover die-cut paper.  I started with an entire sheet of 8.5 x 11 cardstock and scored it at the 4" and 8" marks.

Then I cut about an inch off the 3" flap and rounded the corner. This will hold the money.

I added a contrasting piece of paper on the middle section of the inside and then adhered the left hand side only.

And then I used the leftover piece of die-cut paper that I mentioned above as the base of the card.

Mascarpone Nutella Bread - Thanks SBG!

Yesterday I came home to two giant boxes from Amazon.  They were wedding gifts from my wonderful and generous family at Scrapbook Graphics. I wanted to use a few of the gifts right away and feature them in one of these wedding gift posts to show them how very thankful I am.

We're making this.

My own invention - Mascarpone Nutella Bread.  Oh baby.

From the SBG Gals, I'm using:

• Fiesta Sil-pin Silicone Rolling Pin
• iSi Silicone Scraper Spatula
• CIA Masters Collection Measuring Spoon Set

You'll also need:

• About 1 - 1.5 pounds of dough - I posted my recipe right here.
• 1 Cup Mascarpone Cheese
• Zest of one lemon
• Powdered sugar
• Nutella
• Flour for dusting your work surface
• Butter (to butter your bread pan)
• Microplane (to zest the lemon)
• Bread Pan
• Mixing Bowl/Mixing Utensil

First, we have to make the mascarpone filling.  Dump the mascarpone into your mixing bowl, add the zest of one lemon (or less if you don't want it too lemon-y)

6 tablespoons of powdered sugar.

Stir it up.

Butter your bread pan.

Flour your work surface, shape your dough into a bowl and dump it on the counter.

Roll out a rectangle, until it's about 1/8" thick. This silicon rolling pin worked beautifully and never stuck to my dough.  Old wood rolling pin, meet Goodwill!

My rectangle was about 13" wide and 18" long.

Spread a little less than half of the Mascarpone mixture onto the dough. Make another loaf tomorrow with the other half :)

And then the nutella. 

Now, you have to roll it up.  This is where the silicone scraper comes in so very very handy!

Look, we're all rolled up and no dough is stuck to the counter - woohoo!

Since my roll was long and skinny, I folded it in half, popped it in my buttered bread pan, and covered with plastic wrap. You have to let it rise in a non-drafty location for at least an hour or until it's doubled in size.

I brushed a little butter onto the top of the loaf. Put it into a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes.  Let cool for 30 minutes before slicing.  Consider adding a little more of the mascarpone mixture on top as a spread! (I did.)

Also pictured - a beautiful bamboo cutting board that my favorite girl, Kristin gave me at my bachlorette party and the J.A. Henckels Twin Signature 8-Inch Bread Knife from Aunt Peggy.

Shower Gifts: Food Scale & Dough Whisk - We're making bread!

Today I'm making bread dough with the following gifts:

• Oxo 1130800 Good Grips Food Scale with Pull-Out Display from Aunt Ginny
• Danish Dough Whisk from Aunt Sherry & Kim

Look at that bow on the package from Aunt Ginny - she made it!

I thought I would walk you through the dough-making process that I've used with all the breads I've shared.

As I mentioned before, I use the master recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. This is such an easy bread to work with and you really don't need to purchase anything except for a few basic ingredients.  Using the food scale to measure your ingredients makes this dough so much quicker to come together!

Here's what you need:

• Unbleached All Purpose Flour
• Yeast
• Salt
• Water
• Something to mix it in (I use the Cambro Round Food Storage Container)
• Something to mix with (I use a Danish Dough Whisk)
• A food scale (I use this one from Oxo - it is light weight, small, runs on batteries, and rocks!)

Put your mixing container on the scale and zero it. Add 1lb 12.75 oz of flour.

Zero it again

Add 1/2 an ounce of yeast, and 1/2 an ounce of salt.

Stir it up and then pour in 1.5 lbs of warm water. (not hot!)

 

And mix

You want to continue to mix just until all of the flour is incorporated. Don't overmix, don't knead.  Eventually it will look like this:

Then, you rest the lid on top (don't snap it all the way shut)

and let the dough rise until it doubles in size and flattens off.

And that's it - I keep this dough in the fridge all of the time.  Here are a few pictures of various breads I've made with this dough:

Not pictured: flatbreads, cinnamon swirl loaf, pepporoni rolls, pita bread, boule's, etc.

Shower Gifts: Jars, Sheet Pans, Spice Grinder: Sun Dried Tomato Powder!

This is the next post in my series of "Things I Did With My Shower Gifts".

Today's posts features the following gifts:

• Chicago Metallic Professional 3-Piece Value Pack with 2 Cookie/Jelly Roll Pans and Cooling Grid - 2 sets, 1 from Aunt Sherry and Kim, the other from Cousin Gloria.
• Oven Thermometer from Aunt Sherry and Kim
• Silpat 11-5/8-by-16-1/2-Inch Nonstick Silicone Baking Mat from Aunt Peggy
• Krups 203-42 Fast Touch Coffee Grinder, Black - From Adam's friend Zack
• Ball 4OZ Canning Jars - From Cousin Julie

 

We used these gifts to make a delicious Sun Dried Tomato powder.  Actaully we made two flavors, one from Beefsteak Tomatoes, one from Jubilee, both from my garden!

This might seem like a lot of work but it is literally only about 20 minutes total of active work time and that includes cleaning up.

• Preheat the oven to the lowest temp you can set it.  For me, this was 170. 
• Line your sheet pans with a silpat or parchment paper.
• Cut the tomatoes as thin as you possibly can and lie them on the lined pans.  One tomato should cover an entire sheet pan.
• Sit them in the oven.

• After 6-10 hours you will have these paper thin dried tomato slices. They are so sweet and delicious! But try not to eat them all right now.

• We asked for the coffee grinder to use as a spice grinder since we didn't want to mix spices with coffee.  Load up the 'spice grinder' with your dried tomatoes.

 

• Process them into a fine powder.

• And store them in air-tight jars

Enjoy on pizzas, caprese salads, pasta, etc.

Roasted Tomato Soup

What to you do when you find yourself with a huge harvest of tomatoes?

You make Tyler's Ultimate Roasted Tomato Soup! (Get a load of that carrot on the right - he had 5 legs!)

Cut everyone up, stick 'em on a sheet pan, drizzle with EVOO and roast them for 30 minutes.

Dump it all in a stockpot

Add chicken broth, bay leaves, butter, etc.

Blend it all up and complement yourself on the giant mess you made.

 

Garnish with roasted cherry tomatoes, roasted squash, croutons, and a dollop of sour cream.

Double Rainbow Tomato Birthday All the Way!

A little bit of a hodge podge post here.

We're up in Madison for the Great Taste of the Midwest. It's the friday before the fest. It's raining. It stops, just as we show up to Brickhouse, we go outside. What do we find?  A double rainbow all the way! Woah!!! Oh my God! Oh my God!

Do you see it?  I only had my 50mm f1.4 lens with me so I couldn't zoom out enough to get the whole thing. But can you imagine how funny it is to listen to 50 beer filled strangers recite "What does it mean..."

It was starting to look like a triple rainbow, but then it dissipated. We never found out what it meant.

When we got home on Sunday, we went tomato picking in the backyard.  12 lbs later.

 

 

Yesterday was my birthday. To celebrate, we went to dinner at Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard's brand new restaurant, The Girl & the Goat. Here is what we ate.

 

We started off with a loaf of bread, filled with corn. It came with whipped goat cheese and corn relish.  The two cocktails in the background were delicious.

 

We'd actually partially tried a similar dish to this one at one of Stephanie's Wandering Goat dinners. We wanted to try the finished product though.
hiramasa crudo - crisp pork belly - aji aioli - caperberries
one of our faves of the night.

 

A delicious salad.  Perfectly balanced. 
shaved kohlrabi - fennel - blueberries - evalon - toasted almond

 

Since it's normally one of my favorite dishes, I was expecting more from this dish. Probably the biggest let down of the night. Not that it wasn't yummy...
escargot & goatballs - romesco, bagna cauda, almonds

 

This was our other favorite.  Mmmmmm.... can you believe those servers tried to take the plate away from us before we'd sopped up all of the delicious juice?!?
seared scallops - braised veal - caponata - marcona almond butter

 

At this point, we figured we had one more small plate in us.  We asked to see the menu so we could decide between a dessert or another savory dish.  The waiter pretty much insisted that we get a dish that combined them most.  I know I said that two other dishes up there were our favorites, but this last one was beyond a favorite... it was perfection.  And it came with a birthday candle for me!

fried potato dumplings - lemon-poached eggplant - figs - honey yogurt

I know, I know... eggplant in a dessert?  Well believe it or not, this is the second eggplant dessert I've eaten and I loved them both!

 

Stay tuned for my review of the Taste of the Nation event!!!

Mid August Garden/Harvest Update

I'm way behind on my garden updates but it is finally tomato season! I didn't think these things were ever going to ripen.

Here was our very first tomato/pepper harvest. August 1st.

A few days later, we harvested our first Brandywine. 

It was so meaty and delicious.

It became a BLT with basil and beet greens.

Adam wanted me to show you this angle of it... that's all I'm going to say about that.

Less than a week later, we were harvesting tons more tomatoes! Look at everyone I brought in yesterday.

They quickly became my favorite summer meal: Chop up all the fresh veggies you can get your hands on.  Tear up some basil, mix in a little feta or manchengo cheese, and marinate in olive oil and white balsamic.

Scoop it onto a cracker or crusty piece of bread and you have yourself a delicious meal or snack.

Elsewhere in the garden, we have the Centennial Hop Monster.

Which is covered in hop cones.

We harvested a bunch and are experimenting with making some hop infused Tito's Vodka.  It should be done in a few days - we'll let you know how it goes!

I wanted to show you all this one Yellow Pear tomato bush.

I don't think you can tell, but this thing is 10 feet tall and extends roughly 5 feet in each direction (including over the fence into my neighbors backyard).

Maybe this pic of him next to Adam (who is 6 feet tall) will help.

He is covered in adorable tear drop shaped tomatoes.  At least 200 on this one vine!  (I have another yellow pear planted and he's only got 15... something crazy must have happened to this guy.)

 

These are cherokee purple... none of them have turned purple yet but we ate a red one yesterday and it was probably the best tomato I've ever eaten.

This branch weighs at least 10 lbs.  I've tied it up multiple times but those tomatoes just keep getting bigger.

Lastly, take a look at my baby eggplant butts.  Aren't they adorable?  These were a total experiment, I'd forgotten to plant my seedlings and in the beginning of july I decided to throw them in a bucket on the side of the house.  They seem pretty happy! I'm guessing I'll have one to eat in the next week or two.

On a sad note... i think my squash is done. I never even got any zucchini, but look at him:

I'm pretty sure it started out as powdery mildew. I thought I'd cured it with the baking soda/water/oil trick but now he looks like this.  What should I do? Pull him?  See if he recovers?

You want to eat this bread

Trust me you do.  I don't think I've ever tasted anything more delicious.

Let me tell you how to make it.

Start with about 1.5 lbs of the master recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.

Flour your work surface and roll it out into a rectangle, roughly 10" x 14".

Go out to your garden and pick a packed cup of herbs. I used 60% basil, 30% oregano, and 10% thyme.

Throw the herbs in the food processor with 1/2 cup parmesan, and 4 or 5 cloves of garlic. Turn it on and stream in some olive oil until you've created a pesto.  Slather it all over the dough, roll it up, stick it into a greased bread pan. Let rise for 1 hr, sprinkle with poppy seeds, give the top a few slashes, then bake for 25-30 minutes at 425.

Oh my.

Trust me, you've never had bread this good in your life.