News and Chili

So hi, it's been a while!  It's been nearly a year since I updated this thing-- and every time, I say I'll be better about updating, so really, who knows.

I've started a new job at River Cafe (not the one in New York), so I've been cooking a lot more, overall.  Mostly a LOT of sandwiches, because that's primarily what we serve, but also side dishes and breakfast burritos and I've actually learned to be pretty decent at making coffee drinks, which I suppose is a good skill to have, for all that I don't actually like coffee.

I've been experimenting at home with the crock pot more than I used to (which is to say, not at all), so tonight's recipe comes out of that.  My sister-in-law is gluten-free, so we've been doing a lot more wheat-free meals; we had this with cornbread made from a Gluten-Free Pantry mix (available here), which is deliciously buttery.  I had mine with strawberry jam I canned last summer-- we're just starting to get strawberries here, and I'm looking forward to making another batch of it soon.

Chili

1 can each pinto, black, and kidney beans (you can also cook these yourself from dry beans, but I didn't have time do do so).
2 tbsp. oil
1 small red onion, diced
3-6 minced cloves garlic, depending on how much you like it.
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 lb. ground beef
2 chorizo sausages (about 1 lb. of meat-- I split the casings and just used the meat; you could also slice them once they're cooked)
1 12-oz. can tomatoes (or about 3-5 medium tomatoes, pretty much any variety)

Drain the beans of most of their liquid-- you will want some remaining (about 1/2 c.)  In a slow cooker set to low, combine the beans and stir together.  Cover and let warm.  (You could also do this in a dutch oven or heavy-bottomed pan over low heat.)

Heat the oil in a medium or large saucepan over medium heat; once it's warm, add the onion, garlic, red pepper flakes, cumin, and pepper.  Cook, stirring frequently until the onions are translucent, then add the ground beef and the chorizo.  Break up the meat and cook until it's no longer pink, then add the can of tomatoes.  Stir to combine, then add all of the meat/onions/etc. to the slow cooker.

Combine all ingredients and turn the slow-cooker up to high for an hour.  Turn to low and let cook for another hour.

Serves 8 (more if you're not super hungry, less if you are!) 

Cheese, part two

When I picked up my cheese to check on it last night, it was... leaking. Uh-oh, I thought, I hope it hasn't turned to mush. Although I had planned to wait until at least the end of February, as it's only been aging about three weeks at this point, I was worried enough to cut it open now.

It's an interesting sort of cheese. It's definitely firmer than the cheese I've been making, but it's a bit more like feta than cheddar in texture. In terms of taste-- well, it's interesting. You can tell that someday, it will be a cheddar, but it isn't quite there yet. There is a taste, but it's not hugely strong.

So: notes for next time.

1. Make sure to press the cheese with the right amount of weight for the right amount of time.
2. Make sure that the cheese is fully dry before you wax it.
3. More salt? I think it's not quite salty enough for my tastes.

Also: there is more cheese than I will eat before it gets moldy. I have about five pieces to give away; each is about three ounces. Who wants some?

Farmer's Markets in January

What it means to go to the Farmer's Market in January for me: apples, onions, lemons, beets. Lettuce, parsnips, carrots, squash. More goat shoulder (because it's delicious) and fresh squid from the Monterey Bay. There was a lot more available (lots and lots of leafy greens), but I was able to buy everything I wanted-- yay!

Oh, and that guy playing the accordion. (There's always some guy playing the accordion-- this one was actually pretty darn good!)

DDC, Week Six: Braised Goat Shoulder

Okay, so there's totally a post that should go before this (scrambled eggs with chanterelles, shallots, and goat cheese), but I have to write down this recipe before I forget it. This is heavily based off of this recipe.


2 lb. goat shoulder, bone-in
2-3 tsp. olive oil
4 medium carrots, diced
3 medium parsnips, diced
1 medium cippolini onion, cut into strips
2 large cloves garlic, sliced
1 tsp. sea salt
1/2 c. red wine (I used a 2007 Zinfandel from Heart's Fire Winery; it looks like they're closed now, but it's really kind of amazing.)
4 c. beef broth

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Brown the goat shoulder with the olive oil in a dutch oven. Once the meat is browned on all sides, remove it from the pan. De-glaze the pan with the red wine, then add the vegetables. Cook over medium heat until the onions are just barely soft. Add the meat back to the pan-- nestle it in to the vegetables. Add about 2-3 cups of the beef broth, until it the meat is about 2/3 covered. Make a parchment lid for the dutch oven, and put it in the oven. Cook for two hours.

At the two hour mark, take the dutch oven out of the oven and check to see how much liquid remains-- mine was pretty dry, so I added more beef broth. Baste the meat. Cook for another hour (or until the meat is falling off the bones) at 300 degrees, basting occasionally.

Remove from the oven, let rest in the dutch oven for about 15 minutes. This is not a very pretty meal, but it is a very, very filling one: serves 5 (if they're not very hungry) or fewer.

It tastes almost like the best pot roast I've ever eaten. My temporary-housemate Sydni has been telling me for months that I really ought to cook goat, and was she ever right. I think that this is something I will cook even after the challenge is done-- it's amazing. Pictures will be going up later (ETA: they're up now!)


Goat shoulder: Old Creek Ranch, Cayucos (just barely inside my radius)
Olive oil: Bariani, Sacramento
Carrots: Lakeside Farm, Watsonville
Parsnips: from SV Saturday Farmer's Market-- I don't remember which farm, unfortunately!
Onion: Happy Boy Farms
Garlic: I really don't remember-- I'm fairly sure it was a FM purchase, but I've had it for a while.
Salt: Farmhouse Culture, Santa Cruz
Red Wine: Heart's Fire Winery, Campbell
Beef broth: home-made; beef from TLC ranch w/local vegetables

DDC, Week Three: Shepherd's Pie

Memo to self: don't cook when you're exhausted.

This one took way longer than it should have-- both to prep/cook, and to decide on. My younger brother (and housemate) works at New Leaf, which is where I picked up most of the ingredients for this. I wandered around the store one night for about half an hour, trying to figure out what I wanted to make. At the meat department, my choices were fairly limited: the beef was from Humboldt, but everything else was out of state. Humboldt isn't exactly within my 150-mile radius, but it is, at least, in the same half of the state as I am. I'd been wanting to make shepherd's pie for a while, so I decided to go for that-- I picked up potatoes, carrots, parsnips (thank you, New Leaf, for labeling the origins of your produce!) and cheddar cheese, then went home to cook. Overall, it went fine, but I wish I'd had a bit more time to think and plan this one.

...for one thing, if I'd planned, I would have remembered that I actually had some local ground beef in my freezer. So this ended up an imperfect meal, but a tasty one.

DDC Week Two: Spaghetti

Week two!


Nothing too adventurous, yet-- both this week's spaghetti and last week's beef stew are things that I cook regularly, just shifted a bit more locally.

This time around, my exceptions were pepper and parmesan cheese, neither of which I could source locally-- I really, really love parmesan cheese. Other than that:

Pasta: Spaghetti from the Santa Cruz Pasta Factory (note: I'm not sure where they get their flour, but their website says that they source ingredients locally whenever they can)

Sauce: My own, made this summer with tomatoes from Happy Boy Farms and my dad's garden. Two new rules for next summer: I am not allowed to talk myself out of buying flats of tomatoes, and I am not allowed to open my canned sauce until after tomatoes are no longer available at the farmer's markets. Because these were my last jars of home-made organic sauces, and it's only December. Technically, I still have a jar of yellow tomato sauce, but I feel like I should save that for something really special. We'll see.

Meat: ground beef from this place in Cayucas-- I don't remember the name, but will look it up next time I use some. Woo!

Salt: Farmhouse Culture

Olive Oil: Bariani, from Sacramento

Pepper: exception

Parmesan: excepetion

Although this is not the most daring, new, and exciting of meals, my housemates seemed to really enjoy it, at least based on the amount of leftovers!

Dinner didn't happen until quite late tonight, because my friend Laurel and I spent most of the day out shopping. I managed to only buy one thing for myself: a new ice cream maker! My old ice cream maker has been surviving, zombie-like, for the last six months or so-- one of my housemates tried to wash it out, and ended up draining about half of the freezing fluid. So while it could almost freeze everything, it fell just short, leading to oddly-textured ice creams and syrupy sorbets. NO LONGER! I have a new ice-cream maker, and it is shiny and red.

DDC, Week One: Beef Stew

I think that I've been planning to make this version of this stew for longer than I've been signed up for the Dark Days Challenge.

It's essentially the same as the stew posted here, only made with locally-sourced ingredients. My main exception, overall, is pepper-- I've managed to find local salt and olive oil, so I'm pretty set other than that, and a few things (like parmesan cheese) that just aren't produced anywhere around here, as far as I know.

Doing this on the central coast of California almost feels like cheating-- we can get a lot of fresh fruits and veggies year-round at the farmer's market, and there are a few stores that continually stock local produce. On the other hand, it is a bit more of a challenge than I had expected, as there are some things I thought would be available that I really can't find (like peas!).

Onions, Carrots- Happy Boy Farms
Bacon- home-cured, pork belly from Fatted Calf
Flour- Massa Organics
Thyme- home-grown
Salt- Farmhouse Culture
Pepper- conventional
Beef, bones for broth- TLC Ranch
Celery- don’t remember, from New Leaf/farm in Hollister
Beer- Devout Stout, from the Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing Company

This one stayed in the oven for a full two hours while I was at practice with the pipe corps, and it was om nom nomfully delicious when I came back-- I had no joy finding local potatoes or barley, which are the two starches I usually use, so I ate this with my favorite bread (whole wheat millet!) from Kelly's French Bakery in Santa Cruz. The onions had almost completely disintegrated, which was fun, and the flavors really came together well. I am sad that I likely won't be able to make this exact thing again, as TLC Ranch (from which I bought the stew beef and the bones for the stock) is no more.

Note: this was actually prepared and cooked on Wednesday, December 1, but I am awful about posting on time (and my camera doesn't like to talk to my Mac, so I had to wait for a different computer to get the photos!). Yes, I am utilizing the magic of back-dating for this entry.

Cheese, Jam, Broth

I'm sorry that I haven't been updating for the last few weeks! It's been work, and Thanksgiving, and while I've done a lot of cooking, I haven't done a lot of photography or anything like that. If you follow me on Facebook, you know a lot of it-- a friend commented to me the other day that from my FB, it looks like I'd have no time to do anything other than cook and eat!

I've been experimenting a lot more with cheese, for example. Within the last two weeks, I've made two batches of chevre, mozzarella, and am currently halfway through a batch of feta (from this recipe; I'm somewhat concerned that it'll stay more creamy than crumbly). This is in part due to discovering the lovely people at Mountain Feed and Farm Supply, up in Ben Lomond, who carry all the cheesemaking supplies a girl could dream of. I was so, so happy to discover them-- the staff is both very friendly and very knowledgeable. They also carry vacuum-sealers, smokers, juicers; in other words, things that I really kinda want. Like, a lot. Also, jars! Pectin! PH testing strips for canning! I could really go on for hours.

My dad has also been doing this thing where almost every time I go down to my parents' house, he gives me a whole lot of homegrown something. So far, it's been shallots, oranges, and dried tomatoes, all from the yard/garden. The oranges are getting eaten, the dried tomatoes became pesto, and the shallots... oh, the shallots.

Let me start by saying that I haven't always loved onions. When I was growing up, my parents would always remind me of my sister, Miranda, who absolutely hated onions-- and for a long time, I was right there with her. Sometime near the end of college, I started using onions when I cooked, and from there, it's been all downhill.

On the other hand, when your dad gives you two pounds of shallots, sometimes it's hard to figure out what to do. Thankfully, I'd been considering making savory jam, so shallot jam it was! I used this recipe (I more than doubled the cooking time after I added the balsamic vinegar, btw, so that it actually had a jam-texture), and we have decided that it tastes good on just about everything. I still have a bunch of shallots left, though-- anyone want some jam? It does look a bit like the creature from the black lagoon, but it tastes sweet and savory and the same time. I am in love.

(Also: the secret to Kelley's tuna sandwiches is, indeed, pickled red onions. Woo!)

Tonight I'm making vegetable broth in preparation for the Dark Days Challenge, about which I am incredibly excited. I've managed to find local ingredients for just about everything I need to make beef stew, so that'll be the first thing I make. I'm very excited about this challenge; it'll be the first time I've participated in something like this!

Grocery Shopping and Me

I've always had an interesting relationship with grocery shopping.

For most of my early twenties, I did the majority of my shopping at Safeway (or, when I lived in Ireland, at Tesco's)-- I ate what was cheap, because I was a college student on a budget. I tried to shop at Shopper's Corner once a month, as my "splurge." Essentially, I ate a lot of pasta, a lot of boxed macaroni and cheese, and a lot of rice-with-things-in.

Now that I have a real job! With a real paycheck!, one of the things I like being able to spend money on is food. I shop at New Leaf (which is also where my younger brother works!), I shop at our local farmer's markets (there are about nine million of them), I will goddamn shop at El Salchichero when it opens. I still shop at Shopper's Corner-- they've got the best butcher's corner in town, as far as I know, as they actually process much of their meat on-site, meaning that I can totally special-order some pork fat from them later this year to make more sausages. Occasionally, guiltily, I shop at Whole Foods.

Usually, this combination leads to pretty good meals, with the more-than-occasional stop at my old stand-by of boxed macaroni and cheese. I make spaghetti, stew, tuna-noodle casserole, crepes, and burritos. I make lemony chicken with peas and rice.

Sometimes, though, things go wrong, and occasionally, this combination of markets leads to interesting purchases... such as this weekend, when I returned from the Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz farmer's markets with five pounds of beef bones and a pound of stew meat from TLC Ranch (which, I was very sad to learn, is closing! I've really loved their meat over the last few years, and will miss them quite a lot), some cippolini onions and a flat of just over-ripe heirloom tomatoes from Happy Boy Farms, and some pesto focaccia from Beckman's Bakery. Nothing, you will notice, that makes a complete meal without some work (although tomato-based beef stew with cippolini onions would taste really good!), which led to last night's dinner (Burger King) and tonight's (housemate's very tasty japanese curry).

Tomorrow, though, there will be lasagna (from the Moosewood cookbook, but with the addition of some ground beef, because NOM) made with some of the tomatoes. Later this winter, I'll be able to cook beef stew with the broth I made yesterday from the bones (and some locally-sourced carrots, onions, and leeks), and spaghetti with the orangey tomato paste I made yesterday. In between, there will be knitting, a craft fair, and Thanksgiving break (oh, how I long!)

It's been a long day.

Thursday Night Risotto

Thursday nights are interesting to me. For the last few years, Thursdays have been the night that I eat with my parents-- they live about ten miles away-- either at my house or theirs. Cooking on a Thursday night means that I'm usually doing something special, because when I cook for my parents, I tend to go all-out.

Now, my brother works late on Thursdays, so we're considering switching our family meals to Sundays so that we can all make it. But cooking on Thursdays still feels like it should be something special to me. Tonight, at around 7:00, I realised that I hadn't yet eaten dinner, and decided that I wanted to eat risotto, because it's easy and filling and I had everything I needed at the house. Because it's a Thursday, I also decided to put a little extra effort into it-- really, only a little-- this is pretty darn close to my usual risotto. So!

Thursday Night Risotto

3 tsp. olive oil
1/2 of a small yellow onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. oregano
1/4 tsp. fresh-ground black pepper (or to taste)
2 tbsp. dry sherry
1 c. arborio rice
~3 c. chicken broth
1/2 c. grated parmesan cheese

Optional, but tasty:
1/2 tsp. truffle oil
1/3 c. chanterelle mushrooms, sliced
(Don't be limited! This is a great thing to use to empty out your pantry-- see what looks interesting and works with chicken/rice/cheese)

A note on measurements: When I am cooking for myself, and it's a recipe I'm familiar with, I generally don't measure, um, anything. So when I say "~3 c. chicken broth," what I mean is that I defrosted two plastic baggies of homemade chicken broth that I had in the freezer, and I think it was around three cups. If that seems like too much or too little to you, by all means, change it!

In a a small/medium saucepan, sautee the onion, garlic, oregano, and pepper in the olive oil over medium heat until the onions are translucent. Add the rice, stirring constantly. When the rice grains are mostly translucent, with a dot of white in the center, add the sherry. Stir until the sherry has been absorbed by the rice.

Next, add the chicken broth about a cup at a time, stirring in between additions until all the broth has been absorbed by the rice-- if you add all the broth at once, it won't work nearly as well, and if you don't wait until the broth has been absorbed, you will end up with a mushy, gooey mess. If you're adding the mushrooms and truffle oil, add them after the second cup of chicken broth.

Once the rice is cooked to your liking, turn off the heat. If you're using a gas stove, you can leave the pan on the burner; if you're using an electric stove, move the pan off the heat. Sprinkle the parmesan cheese over the top of the risotto, and then fold it in slowly, until the cheese is melted in. Adjust saltiness until it's to your liking-- if you're using commercial chicken broth, it's likely not to need salt, as the parmesan is also quite salty.

This recipe will serve two people who are decently hungry, or more people as a side dish. Enjoy!

(Also, second attempt at goat cheese is turning out weird. More on that later.)