Knitting Update

Well, I threatened that I might do one of these!

I have very little self-control when it comes to buying yarn. This is why I have made up the following rule for myself:

I am not allowed to buy yarn unless I have finished a project.

This usually works pretty well. On the other hand, this rule does not say how much yarn I am "allowed" to buy upon project-completion. Earlier this week, I finished knitting a pair of fingerless gloves (taking less than one skein total), so that meant yesterday was yarn-buying day. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), is was also day-after-paycheck-day.

Four skeins of yarn later...

...I am about a third of the way into these, but in bright blue and green! I love them so much, even though the colorwork means that there are no "break" rows, where I don't have to pay attention to what I'm doing. TV knitting, this is not! I'll try to post pictures of something eventually.

Day of Food

Every few weeks, I try to spend a day (or at least six-eight hours) cooking food. Today, the second rainy weekend day of the fall, was a perfect day, seeing as I spend the *first* rainy weekend day of the fall on the couch, knitting.

I had a few things planned-- sausages and ice cream-- but there were a few new things, too!

The first thing I started were the sausages:

Apple-Cinnamon-Nutmeg Sausages

1 1/2 lb. pork loin
2 oz. pork fat
1 tbsp. kosher salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tbsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. apple, minced
casings

I followed the directions here, essentially, to make these sausages. They're sitting in the fridge right now, waiting to be cooked for dinner tomorrow. We'll see how they turn out!

As the sausages take a few hours all together (between each major step, you have to re-freeze your meat), I made goat cheese in between sausage steps, following the directions here, at Urban Cheesecraft-- for those of you who were living with me this summer, this is where I bought my cheese kit from. I didn't realise that the curds had, in fact, separated from the whey, because they were so tiny! A few hours of straining later, though, I have a really pretty chunk of goat cheese. I plan to split it in half and make half of it honey-and-lavender (we had this at Harley
Farms a few months ago, and it was delicious), and make the other half garlic-and-herb.

Once the sausages and the cheese were done, it was clearly time to make ice cream. Housemate Brianna had wanted earl grey and lavender ice cream, so that's what I made-- following the recipe for vanilla ice cream in Ad Hoc, and substituting looseleaf earl grey and lavender for the vanilla. It, too, is not quite done, but should be deeeeelicious.

Then, it was 9:45, and I made dinner...

...a package of tortellini from Safeway.

One True Biscuit

I have a new One True Biscuit.

For years and years I have been using The Tassajara Cookbook's biscuit recipe, and it's never ever risen properly-- I'd get decent-tasting, very flat biscuits. Within a few hours of baking, you could use them as hockey pucks.

No more, I tell you! To go along with tonight's breakfast-for-dinner (scrambled eggs and homemade sausage), I decided to try out a new biscuit recipe, from Alton Brown's Good Eats cookbook.

They are AWESOME. Fluffy, light, kinda squishy in the middle, and a great vehicle for all sorts of curds, jams, and honey. I'm not going to share the recipe, as it's from a cookbook, but needless to say, I have found my new One True Biscuit.

(We're still working on pictures, but lovely Temporary Housemate Sydni took some surely lovely photos!)

Anyone else out there have a One True Recipe that they feel like sharing?

Savory Galette- Draft

This one is a request from my co-worker, Kristin! This is sort of an anything-you-have-in-the-fridge recipe; I generally make it with what's on hand. The filling for the galette is very similar to what I use for ravioli.

Please note: It's been about six months since I last made this, and I've never written down the recipe. I'll try to cook it again this weekend and give everyone an updated version.

For the filling:
1/2 c. yellow onion, diced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 lb. bacon, chopped
2 c. spinach, chopped
1 1/2 c. mushrooms, sliced
1 whole chicken breast, bones and skin removed, cut into small pieces
3/4 c. goat cheese
1/4 c. parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

For the crust:
2/3 c. plus 2 tbsp. butter
2 c. flour
up to 3 tbsp. water, if needed
1/2 tsp. salt

To make the crust:
Cut half of the butter into small pieces and mix it into the flour. I usually use my hands, but you can also use a pastry cutter or stand mixer. Once half of the butter is mixed in, the texture should feel somewhat like cornmeal. Repeat this process with the other half of the butter, until it is all mixed together. Add enough water for the dough to stick together, but not so much that it becomes sticky. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge until you are ready to roll it out.

To make the filling:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

I typically make the filling in one pan-- I cook most of the ingredients individually, but I do not clean the pan between ingredients. Start by frying the bacon in a medium skillet until it is cooked through, but not crispy. Remove the cooked bacon from the pan, but leave the bacon fat in. Saute the onions and garlic together with salt and pepper until the onions are translucent, then remove them from the pan. Next, cook the mushrooms until they are squishy, then the spinach until it is limp. Finally, cook the chicken until it is no longer pink, but still tender.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together all cooked ingredients and the goat cheese until they are thoroughly combined.

To finish the galette:

On a flat surface, roll out the galette dough. Center the crust on a baking sheet. Put the filling in the middle of the crust-- there may be more filling than will fit! Add the parmesan to the filling. Fold up the edges of the crust; they should not entirely cover the filling. Sprinkle the salt on the outside of the crust (I use rosemary salt from Eatwell Farm, which is useful for just about everything).

Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until the crust is slightly golden. Let the galette rest for a few minutes, until it is cool enough to eat.

Enjoy!

Weekly Recipe: Fall Beef Stew

I've been waiting for the last few weeks for it to be cold enough to justify making beef stew. Today, with the few drops of rain that I got on my drive home, seemed like the perfect day to break out the dutch oven.

A word of warning: this recipe takes about four hours, start to finish. It is not something to cook on a tight schedule! That said, it's really tasty, and makes great leftovers. It is definitely a hearty stew, as well, although it also gives you some vegetables-- there's a reason I waited through summer to cook this!

This recipe started its life as the Beef Carbonnade, from the Silver Palate Cookbook, which I made once, and declared both boring and bitter. This recipe adds vegetables, beef broth, and starch.

2 medium yellow onions, cut into thin half-circles
1/2 lb. bacon
1 c. flour
1 tsp. thyme
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. fresh ground pepper
2 lb. stew beef, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 12 oz. can dark beer (I used Guiness)
1 qt. beef broth
3 large carrots, cut into 1/4 inch slices
2 stalks celery, cut into 1/4 inch slices
Either cooked barley, potatoes, or your choice of starch
You may also need some additional cooking fat-- I keep leftover bacon fat in the fridge and use that.

Cut bacon into 1/2-inch pieces, and fry in a medium skillet. Reserve all runoff bacon fat; you will need it! Leaving all remaining fat in the pan, drain the bacon and set it aside.

Add the onions and extra bacon fat to the pan. Cook over medium heat, covered, until the onions are translucent and limp-- about 20 minutes.

While the onions are cooking, put the flour, thyme, salt, and pepper in a 1 gallon plastic bag. Add about a dozen pieces of the beef, seal the bag, and shake until the pieces of beef are covered in the flour mixture. Remove the beef from the bag and put it on a plate. Repeat until all of the beef is covered.

If you still have a bit of time before the onions are done, now is a good time to cut your carrots and celery.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees-- yes, now. If you do it earlier, you're just wasting energy while waiting for the onions to cook.

Once the onions are done, strain them into a dutch oven (or similar large, oven-safe pot). Pour any cooking liquid left in the pan through the strainer with the onions. Over medium heat, add about six pieces of beef at a time, browning all sides. Once all sides are brown, remove the beef from the pan and repeat until all the beef is browned. If you run out of drippings, use your supplementary cooking fat. The beef should not be cooked through-- that's what the oven time is for!

Leaving the heat on, add the beer to the dutch oven. Using a large spoon, scrape the bottom of the pot to loosen all those delicious bits of partially burned-on flour and thyme. Add the beef, onions, bacon, and vegetables, followed by the beef broth. You can leave the pot on the stove until the broth is boiling or your oven reaches temperature.

Cover the dutch oven and place on the lowest rack of the oven. Cook, covered, for at least 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Serve over starch-of-choice. Serves 6-8, depending on how hungry you are.

Substitutions/additions: Let me know of any you make! The last time I made this, in late spring, I used golden beets and turnips in addition to the carrots and celery. Peas are also good, although they have a tendency to get mushy.

Note: I'm going to try to post one recipe each week (time allowing). Let me know if you have any questions, or if something in the recipe is unclear. Happy eating!

A little about me...

I am a 25-year-old middle school teacher who really enjoys cooking, knitting, and watching both sci-fi shows and procedurals. I have been threatening to start a food/cooking blog for the last few years, and, having finally decided on a title, decided to give it a shot. (The title, by the way, is a play on rosemary and rue, which is a bit from Shakespeare, and also unfortunately unavailable as a title.)

I do a lot of the actual cooking in my household (which currently consists of my younger brother, his wife, and three of our friends). I've recently discovered canning-- I put up a whole lot of tomato sauce and raspberry jam this summer!-- and hope to continue doing that this winter, in some form. I enjoy local foods, although I don't eat them exclusively, and will occasionally spend far too much money at the farmer's market. If you read this blog, you will probably hear quite a bit about my love for Thomas Keller, as well as my random experiments in more complex food preserving.

I am not a terribly skilled photographer-- it's one of the things that I've always been somewhat intimidated by, on other foodblogs, because it seems like one of the things One Ought to be Able to Do, if one is talking about food all the time.

While most of the posts to this blog will be about food, I will also be posting the occasional knitting and/or real-life update. If you have the inclination, you can check out my main knitting/crafting blog here-- I share it with a few other like-minded craftspeople.