Silicon Valley Redneck

So I'm not following the standard recipe...

Every so often, my North Dakotan ancestry manifests itself in ways other than wearing tropical attire in what passes for the dead of winter around here and laughing at the bundled-up Californians.

Being somewhat draggy and uninspired today (seems like I've had a slow-motion case of the flu the past couple of weeks), but figuring I'll be hungry sometime in the afternoon, I developed an inexplicable hankering for hotdish.

Following the origins of the form rather than the stylized modern incarnation: what do I have that looks like hotdish ingredients?

One lunk of leftover steak.  OK, chop it up fine, and in it goes.

Previously cooked brown jasmine rice.  That'll do for starch.

Frozen mixed veggies: corn, peas, green beans, baby carrots.  Good, though diced carrots would be better. I suppose I could thaw 'em and chop 'em up, but... naw.  Dump 'em in as-is.

Sliced mushrooms.  Bought those at Trader Joe's with no specific plan, but thinking pizza at the time.  Toss in a couple handfuls, and I still have some left for pizza another day.

Update: not exactly Authentic Fargo Cuisine, but pretty tasty.

Shredded Mexican cheese blend.  That plus the mushrooms can stand in for Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, right?

Moosh it all together, cover, and set oven to Fahrenheit.  (Any number, but be sure is Fahrenheit.)  300 for a couple hours oughtta do the trick.

Meanwhile... work, or gardening?  Or shall I take a nap?  This slow-motion flu thing is really a drag.

This would seem counterproductive.

Set out to bake a pecan pie.  All ingredients on hand, right?

Well... apart from having just enough actual pecans indoors.  The reserve supply is out in the shed, on the other side of rather a lot of weather.

Anyway: recipe calls for ¼ cup of maple syrup and ¾ cup of corn syrup.  Got plenty maple syrup.  Corn syrup hadn't gotten onto the shopping list because the bottle seemed to have at least one pie worth in the bottom.

Oops.  Bottom of the bottle (Betty Crocker brand, from several years back 'cause I just don't use that much of the stuff) is deceptive.  Not only does it taper, there's a huge dimple in the bottom, making the last half-cup look like a cup or more.

And so I ended up using a bit more'n half maple syrup, because the visual cue from the bottle of corn syrup had been telling me it wasn't time to buy the next bottle yet.

Now, why would a company in the business of selling corn syrup want to package its product in a way that discourages buying the next bottle in a timely fashion?

And, as it turns out, the crud I've had the last few days?  It hasn't gotten better today, and, while the pie was in the oven, I determined that I'd added a bit of a fever to the symptoms.  So, not going anywhere with that pie.

Oh, well.  Spread over a few days, pecan pie makes a fine breakfast.

Rainy morning

Well, the forecast was for rain this morning, and when I went out to fetch the paper the big drops were just starting.

So, I'm feeling rather unmotivated about going for morning walkies, which means there's some time, and a big bucket of cooked pumpkin in the refrigerator.  So:

SVR Pumpkin Muffins!

Heat oven to 375°F.

Get out the mixing bowl.  Let's see, now:

A pound or so of previously-cooked pumpkin.
2-3 eggs.
A goodly drizzle of flax-seed oil.
A slosh of milk.
A moderate scoop of sugar... maybe 1/4 cup.
Ground cloves... about half again as much as seems prudent.
Plenty of cinnamon.
A fair dab of minced ginger.

Mix well.

Add all-purpose baking mix* until a muffin-batter consistency is attained.

Add:
Chopped dates.
Crushed pecans**.

Don't add:
Mushrooms.
Olives.
Anchovies.
Soy sauce.
Pickle relish.
Polonium.

Dispense into a well-lubricated muffin pan by any expedient means, and bake for 25-30 minutes, as needed.

Serve with Bacon!

* 5 pounds white whole wheat flour, 1 cup baking powder, 1/8 cup salt.  Sift together.  Store in a moth-proof bucket.  Optionally toss in flax-seed meal, buckwheat flour, and whatever other ground-up grain-like products are handy.

** Without the shells, please.

Update: Left out the sugar initially.  Also left out the sugar in the actual muffins I made this morning.  I knew they didn't taste quite right!  If you didn't grow super-extra-sweet pumpkins, don't forget the sugar.  On the upside... they do taste OK, and they're probably better for me this way.  Still, I think I'll eat the remaining ones with a bit of honey drizzled on.

An exercise in precise communication

I made a batch of my Seasoned Shredded Chicken.  Joy, initially skeptical of the entire concept, liked it.

Herewith, my formerly secret recipe:

Ingredients: one package boneless chicken thigh meat from the Chinese market, and stuff from the pantry.

Procedure: in the heavy aluminum pot, put some water, a moderate slosh of balsamic vinegar, a sprinkle of red pepper flakes, a fair bit of thyme, plenty of tarragon, and a little salt.  Stir.  Add a goodly slosh of olive oil, and stir some more.  Toss in the chicken meat, and unroll it and swish it around so as to get the herby liquid on all surfaces.  The liquid is almost enough to cover the meat?  Good.

Bring to a boil, reduce to low simmer, cover, and cook for a couple of hours, peeking occasionally.  When the liquid gets kind of low, poke one of the lumps with a fork.  It falls apart, right?  Good.  Tease the lumps apart into shreds, getting the liquid on the newly exposed surfaces.  Cover, and leave on simmer until the aqueous component of the liquid is nearly gone, leaving mostly oil under and around the chicken.

Stir while the last of the water evaporates.  You should now have moderately oily seasoned shredded chicken.  Turn the burner off now.

You can eat the stuff right away, as-is or maybe over rice, but it's really meant to be stuck in the refrigerator for later use in constructing burritos and similar.

So there you have it.  Simple, no?

Market day

I finally got around to checking out the Sunnyvale Farmers' Market.

It's a modest-sized market morning, spread out over a larger area than the Palo Alto one (so, less crowded!) and with a decent amount of nearby parking.

Plenty of fresh fruits & vegetables on offer, as well as baked goods, specialty prepared foods, and hot lunches.

Resisting the vast quantity of blueberries on offer (my bushes are producing now, and I'd just had my first homegrown-blueberry muffins of the season), I escaped with a few nectarines, rather a lot of ripe-smelling strawberries, and a dozen free-range eggs - quite a bit pricier than grocery-store eggs, but, if these are anything like the ones I sometimes get from Deer Hollow Farm, there ees a deeferance!

Anyway: that needs to get added to my weekly shopping routine, now that I've seen where it is and what's on offer.

Update: meh.  These particular farmers'-market free-range eggs are somewhat better than grocery-store eggs, but not that much better.  Back to the much cheaper ones from the store, unless I happen to be passing the farm when eggs are available, in which case I'll get the farm-direct, fresh-this-morning ones.

Sometimes, it's worth trying stupid stuff.

I've finally gotten around to rummaging through my copy of The Lost Art of Real Cooking.

The material on yeast, and the differing strains thereof, set me a-thinkin'.  Catching and taming wild yeasts, as suggested in the book, seemed a bit much work, and I wasn't quite ready to try using probiotic pills as leavening (apparently some of the bacteria in those might be appropriate), but I figured a stop at a brewers' supply store might yield interesting material, both yeast strains and fermentibles.

So, having errands to the north this morning, I swung by More Beer! in Los Altos.

The salesman insisted that beer yeasts are as inappropriate for bread as bread yeasts are for beer, and that I wouldn't like the results.  Still, I bought a couple of packets of different varieties of dry yeast.

Home again, and experiment at making a mini-loaf of Boring White Bread with ale yeast.  (I'd expect to use it in Interesting Mutigrain Bread, but wanted to find out what flavor it would bring.)

So: warm water, bit of sugar, sprinkling of yeast, stir, add white whole wheat flour until it starts getting doughy, spritz canola oil over the top, leave it sitting someplace warm for a while.  OK, seems to be rising a bit.  Add a bit of salt and some more canola oil, stir well, dump into a mini-loaf pan.  Let rise for, I guess, an hour and a half.  Bake.

The top of the loaf collapsed.  Well, I had taken the incredibly-lazy approach; it wasn't even remotely properly kneaded.

Let cool a bit, slice, sniff.  Smells OK, not like white bread, but certainly like a fermented grain product, and not disgusting like beer.  Apply butter and eat.  Yum.

So:

• Ale yeast does in fact work for making bread.
• The resulting bread has more character than the other ingredients would account for.
• It doesn't come out tasting like beer.
• It does come out tasting like unusual, but good, bread.

Maybe tomorrow I'll make a proper loaf of interesting bread.

(Bread: it's like solid beer!)

Footnote: Joy says it smells like beer, and doesn't want to taste it.

Footnote 2: small doses. I don't think all the, er, volatile organic compounds cooked out of this stuff.  "We never eat bread, for they make it with yeast, and one little bite turns a man to a beast.  Oh, can you imagine a sadder disgrace than a man in the gutter with crumbs on his face?"

Update: solid beer, yeah.  I dunno what the actual VOC content of that stuff was, but I had a long afternoon nap, then stayed up late, then had a largely sleepless night with my brain whirring randomly.  Not my normal reaction to a small dose of alcohol, and there's no way it was really a large dose, so I suppose there must have been some other post-Thanksgiving metabolic weirdness enhancing the effects.

I think I need to change the process in various ways next time I try that.  Notably: more exposed surface area while baking.

 

I don't think I'll be using...

...the contents of that particular can of tomato paste.

I applied the opener with some trepidation, noting that the lid was somewhat corroded, and, I fancied, just possibly domed.

The cupboard shown is about 4 feet from the point of opening, and the top of the spatter is about 2½ feet above where the can was.  Them's mighty lively tomatoes, worthy of Jim Richardson.

Looking at the bottom of the can, I find that it was about 2 years out of date.

Shows how often I use tomato paste.  Well, I won't be using it this evening, either.  Guess I'll use tomato sauce (whereof there's an ample stock, oft rotated) and let it simmer for a while.

And now for comething completely different

Honey loquat ice cream!

Note: that's loquat, not locust.

Put cream and honey in the blender and blend well.  Add loquats (minus seeds and skins, please!) and blend lightly.  Dump into the Donvier and freeze as normal.  Quantities are rather arbitrary (as in: I didn't bother measuring).

It's... different.  Not really a usual ice cream flavor.

Fairly tasty, though.

Could be a novel dessert to serve at a small party, if you happen to be bringing dessert to a small party during loquat season.

I don't really think I'll bother developing it further (as in: trying again and measuring the ingredients), but it was an interesting experiment.

Abomination!

Via Insty comes this coverage of a "food" gimmick (which I'd actually heard of a few days ago, when a friend forwarded a link to the product's web site).  Beyond Cheez Whiz... it's Pancake Whiz!  Er, "Batter Blaster."  For people who can't be bothered to mix Krusteaz pancake mix and water.  Yeesh.

Mind you, I don't use Krusteaz anymore.  I make my own pancake/waffle mix out of white whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt, and whatever else catches my fancy at the time (oat bran, flaxseed meal, buckwheat flour, etc.).  When it's time to make a batch of pancakes or waffles, I just roughly measure about the right amount of the mix, and toss in an egg or two, a bit of oil, enough milk to get the right consistency, usually a bit of vanilla extract, and maybe some fruit.  Hey presto!  Hardly any trouble, cheap, and the composition matches what I'm supposed to be eating this year.  (Well, modulo the syrup, which at least is genuine tree squeezin's and not vaguely maple-flavored corn syrup.)

New health-food concept!

I've taken to making my own pancake & waffle mix, with healthy whole-grain stuff (white whole wheat flour, buckwheat flour, oat bran, flax seed meal, that kind of thing).

Then, when I make pancakes or waffles, I go and pour maple syrup all over them, which kind of ruins the "healthy" bit (or at least the "low glycemic index" aspect of it).

So - what the world needs now is - whole-grain maple syrup!

(With sawdust in it, I guess.  Wasn't there "diet bread", once upon a time, that was made with sawdust?)

And no objecting that "whole grain" is the wrong term because maple trees aren't "grain."  Ever look at maple wood?  It's got a lovely grain to it.