Normally on Sundays we don’t have anything to do in the morning so I let Carrie sleep in. I spend a few hours in the kitchen in the morning experimenting while listening to music. Yesterday I made the brines for the corned beef and pastrami. I picked up about 16 pounds of brisket yesterday which I split between the corned beef and pastrami. Both will be ready for when our families visit. I really look forward to the pastrami and making my own corned beef hash.
| Corned Beef Batch II | Pastrami Batch I |
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Candied Orange Peels I
Next I peeled some oranges and began the process of making candied orange peels. I think we will make some of these chocolate covered. The one I tried before the peels finished drying was pretty tasty.
The last thing I was working on when Carrie woke up was
brandied figs. I had been reading one of the library books on preserving and it had a recipe for the brandied figs. Following the recipe to make the brandied figs there was a recipe for a gratin of brandied figs. The writer declared that recipe was to die for so I had to make the brandied figs.
So this what I have been up to so far today. And with this I leave you with a view of the top shelf of our refridgerator. The corned beef and pastrami and about 6 pounds of Fickle Creek Farm pork back fat. I use the fat to augment my sausage making.
What can I say I like to experiment with meat. In preparation of my family visiting during Christmas I made some more bacon. It is quite amazing how easy it is to share homemade bacon. I tried two different cure flavorings this time. The ole standby of brown sugar and molasses was made along with a honey, ginger and cardamom. Unfortunately the honey, ginger and cardamom portion of the batch did not have a very strong flavoring. I will have to tinker with adding the flavors earlier into the curing process.
Alex got me me my very own Mr. Bento for my birthday!!! Here is the first bento lunch that I packed. (Did you know there are several bento pools on flickr?) Yes, I realize the insulated jar is supposed to be for rice, but whatevs. I think now I know why Japanese people are a) so small and b) healthy – this forces you not only to pick a variety of healthy foods, it controls the portion size. They are clever folk. Even the small containers stack up inside the bigger jar and the bag collapses for storage! So innovative! And, it matches our kitchen. Double ding. Thanks again Alex! 
Well, it feels like all we post about is bacon lately. Oh well. Just looking at this picture is making my mouth water, so I have no option but to continue with this post. So, here’s another use for bacon – we made home made bacon egg and cheese sandwiches for dinner one night last week. I totally didn’t know that Oak had gotten some rolls from Rockland Bakery, so we could make these tasty treats at home! These sandwiches are super simple to make – just fry up your bacon and eggs, and then add the cheese on top of your eggs until it melts. Put it all on your sandwich with a squeeze of ketchup (sounds a little gross, I know, but it’s a necessary addition – just believe me!). They’re not just for breakfast anymore!
Well, we can get bubble tea in the Triangle, especially at the Asian shopping centers. But, they are nothing like this true cutesy-pink-Sanrio-inspired bubble tea place in Chinatown. I seized the moment and got a new flavor that I hadn’t had – kumquat and lime. It was quite delicious. Oak’s little sister and father did not approve of the tapioca balls so much – but I agree they are an acquired taste. If you look at the link, you’ll see they also have vending machines with all sorts of crazy Japanese characters. Let me tell you, I was tempted. But $3 for a vending machine item seemed a bit too much.
We also had dinner in Chinatown – at a place called something like “New Wang” that Alex recommended. Despite its silly name (which doesn’t sound so silly in Chinese), it was very tasty.
Later in the evening we walked through Little Italy. I got my cannoli, a black and white cookie for later, and enjoyed the hawkers trying to get us to come to their restaurants. Sorry, we were full! Maybe next time. At night they block off the streets. There was even a small street carnival, complete with an Italian band (the guys wearing the funky red white and green hats). And, you might guess that their hit tune was “New York, New York.” Go figure!
Blogging community watch out! To allow Carrie to focus on things other than my favorite animal I thought I would post regarding the next batch of bacon making! After completing batch 1 Carrie and I were satisfied with our first foree with bacon. It did not take us long to decide on doing the Brown Sugar Maple bacon.
I had begun the initial cure of the bacon when I received word that I needed to return to NY. Taking lemons and making lemonade I decided to pack up the pork belly in a cooler and bring it to NY with us. Knowing that I would have the ability to smoke the pork belly on my fathers smoker.
My father would never admit it but he has a sweet tooth when the situation presents itself. Sharing a love for the smoking meats my father was very interested and even insisted on basting the bacon towards the end with more brown sugar and maple syrup! Here my sister is doing some maple syrup basting under the tutelage of my father.
Here’s the finished product. Wow the smoking makes a huge difference, in my opinion it is a required step. I am nearing the bacon flap for which I seek.
Stay tuned in June for the Pignic and my beginning attempts at dry curing sausage.
Well, we ended up heading up North to Oak’s old neck of the woods for the holiday weekend for some family stuff, but of course, we cannot be stopped in the pursuit of tasty treats. Like the South, the North has its own specialty breakfast items that you can’t get anywhere else.
Actually, these breakfast items are pretty unique to the NY metro area… because I certainly never really ate them growing up. We were more into donuts, but that’s another entry!
First, we had a bacon egg and cheese sandwich on a kaiser roll. According to Oak, this is a typical blue collar breakfast. I don’t care what collar eats them, they are tasty! Even if they don’t have hand-crafted bacon on them. Maybe Oak needs to learn to make kaiser rolls so we can have them at home!
Secondly is the BAGEL. Apparently Oak is the one that introduced me to Real Bagels(TM). Any grocery store bagels, bagels from Brueggers, Dunkin Donuts, and the like… while sometimes acceptable, are not Real. Rockland Bakery is THE place to get the Real Deal. It’s a huge complex that has not only bagels, but breads, pastries, cookies, deli, etc. The best part of a visit is the conveyor belt of freshly baked bagels that is always running. You can grab a fresh bagel and eat it right there! Of course, we bought almost a dozen bagels.. I’m enjoying having them for breakfast for the next few mornings toasted with cream cheese. I still have to get used to lox. I’ll be sure keep you updated on my lox enjoyment level.
So, unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to post the remaining BaconCam(TM) photos at the time they were taken, so you get the entire remainder of the bacon-making experience in this single entry. I will do my best to summarize the bacon-making process as narrated by Oak.
So, the salted bacon continued to marinate in its own juices for several days – and Oak flipped it a few times during this process. This is what the final bacon slab looked like:
At this point, you trim off the skin and then you can then bake (or smoke, if you’re so equipped) the slab in a very low oven (like 150 degrees) for a long time. The slab comes out of the oven, and you can slice it up to your desired thickness! It’s ready to cook!
Here’s Oak frying up the bacon! Yum!
It gets nice and crispy:
We cut up the bacon and used it in this swiss chard pasta recipe. The swiss chard makes it healthy, right?
Needless to say, Oak is already in pursuit of another hunk of pork belly to make more bacon. We were watching Cook’s tour the other day, and in Portugal these guys were making prosciutto and bacon in a crazy wooden box full of salt. Why do I have a feeling strange meat products will be brewed the moment we get a garage? Oh dear.
I don’t think I’ve blogged about our CSA membership. We’ve always been big on going to the farmers market and getting our weekly load of fresh veggies. Last year when we went on the Piedmont Farm tour, we learned about community-supported agriculture and how helpful it is to farmers. Because people sign up for memberships early in the season, the farms get income when they need it most during their plantings. In exchange for our membership, we get a box full of fresh-picked vegetables from the farm every week!
Our CSA is through Brinkley Farms, and we’re sharing a family membership with some of the 605 crew, though they do individual and couple memberships as well. Monday mornings we get a list of what’s fresh on the farm that week, and Thursdays after work one of us takes a little side trip to RTI (seriously like across the street from IBM), where the CSAs set up their trucks.
Because it’s so early in the season, we’ve been eating truckloads of greens – spinach, chard, lettuces, arugula, collard greens.. and needless to say I’m pretty much religiously looking at Epicurious for recipe ideas. It’s definitely ensuring that we get tons of fresh vegetables in our diets. I’ve never seen Oak eat so much salad!
This week’s loot includes a huuuuge fennel bulb that is now taking over the refrigerator, a delicious head of green oakleaf lettuce, rainbow chard, and a half pint of sugar snap peas. Unfortunately they only had enough for 1 pint of snap peas per box so we had to split them up. Delicious though!
We haven’t completely stopped going to the farmer’s market, but it does give us a chance at some items you might only get if you’re an early bird (which I most definitely am NOT, especially on Saturdays – sorry Oak!).
So, I’ll try to keep taking pictures as the crops get more and more colorful. If you ever get a chance to join a CSA, give it a try!
Apparently this is my week of nostalgic blog entries. So, in 4th grade, I played the Jell-o girl in our “History of LeRoy” play at Wolcott Street Elementary School. Because of this important acting role (my only roles in plays were in my elementary days.. sigh), I felt it was my responsibility to share with my readers this New York Times article on the origins of Jell-o. Also, if you’re really feeling the need to further explore the history of flavored packaged gelatin, you can visit the Jell-o museum in LeRoy. I wonder if they have a record of 4th grade Jell-o girls past and present. I bet they are completely missing this important piece of Jell-o history. In fact, I wanted to top this entry off with a photo of me as the Jell-o girl, but alas, I have no idea where the pictures are. Time to make Mom dig through the archives..
