HOT POTS and CAPRICIOUS CANVASES

Capricious Canvas, INDEED!...

("London Lue", by Lori DeLozier, 24x30, Oil on gallery wrapped canvas.)

Capricious little model, too...my precious granddaughter, London Lue, who will be turning one year old this coming Valentine's Day. I'm afraid the painting doesn't do her justice. She's just so darling. Apparently, TOO DARLING to paint, ha!

I've posted the painting to FaceBook already, but my good friend Joan (hi, Joan!) has the good personal sensibility to not belong to FaceBook and so hasn't seen the painting. Joan is not, however, above reading this blog. Thank God for small favors.

Here's Joan:

I painted this at her studio last week. (AND...she fed me a wonderful cheese casserole that I might have to share the recipe of on this blog!)

Looking at the painting of Joan, I see that she TOO must be TOO DARLING to paint. (You gotta have tough skin to model for me, hahaha!)

Gotta Go, NoNNaLo

Sweet and Savory...

What you see pictured above is this blogger's Mom-in-Law at The French Hen. She's a sweet old thing, but not hardly that OLD, and she does love butter on her bread. That, you see, is the reason she's wielding a knife towards me...reaching for the BUTTER! Oh! O-k-a-y, then.

She decided the set of Pendleton sweaters that Ed and I gifted her with for Christmas was too big for her tiny lil' ole' scrap of a self and so, yesterday, nothing would do but we all drive down to Utica Square and exchange then for something that would better show off her feminine attributes. (She's gonna kill me for that one! Pray she uses something sharper, and therefore quicker, than a butter knife.)

Anyway, while we were out shopping in that precious warm sunshine, I decided I'd hoof it over to Sonoma (also in Utica Square) and see how much money I could (again) throw on the alter of the god's of good cooks.  The spice racks above Ruth's head are part of what I purchased. I like the way they sit securely on the back of the stove...we have a small kitchen here at the lakehouse, sorta like the Granddaddy to a kitchenette, actually. Anyway, new and inventive storage places are always a thrill! The spice caddies contain: Malt Vinegar Sea Salt (for fish?), Sweet Basil Leaves, Extra-Fine French Grey Sea Salt , Blood Orange Peel, Soup Base Seasoning....yup...just base for plain old generic soup...I will tell you though it smells heavily of CHICKEN!, Toasted Onion Powder, Sun Dried Tomato Flakes, Lemon Herb Seasoning--which is not just lemon basil, it's sea salt, lemon peel, garlic, onion, parsley, citric acid, thyme, savory, black pepper; The Mexican oregano is, on the other hand, just plain Mexican Oregano....not oregano pumped up with peppers, ha!, Juniper Berries; Chili Seasoning, Fennel Seed.

I think it's sort of fitting that a photo of my mother-in-law show up now and again in these blog pages. After all, she's the one that introduced me to entertaining, the one who spurred my love of fine dishes and cutlery, of heavy pots and pans...not to mention the art of cooking! Ruth is a wonderful cook. She cooks, as she does everything in life, with a light hand and her dishes always taste perfectly seasoned!

Anyhoo-hoo....The recipes for today are really the recipes left over from the weekend when my sister was here for a couple of days. The recipes are really (REALLY) good. They are also really (REALLY)  rich, so if you endeavor,  you're taking your life into your own hands. And...there's something else about these recipes, too...you have to go fetch this one and, then  this one. I'm sure you'll find all kinds of wonderful recipes on those sites but they should pop open to White Chicken Enchiladas and Salted Caramel 6-layer Chocolate Cake. I made the cake exactly like the instructions (except for the part where I boiled caramel all over my electric stove top and made a hideous mess that has not been completely resolved as of yet). The cake is "too good for words"....needs to be outlawed, punishable only by death.  With the enchaladas, I was wanting 2pans of large size enchiladas (10 in each pan) so I boiled a whole chicken and then deboned it and reserved the broth for the sauce. Everything else in the recipe was doubled. Also...instead of Monterrey Jack I used Extra Sharp White Cheddar. MmmmMmmm.....

Movin' Slow, But I Gotta Go,    NoNNaLo

Brined Fried Chicken...Mmmm,mmmm,mmmm!...

 

When I started kicking around the idea of frying chicken I found that it was indeed such a rare occurrence that my Crisco (a full small container) had expired better than three years ago. And I figured if I was going to the trouble of brining and then frying a chicken, I wasn't going to use anything but the time-tested (albeit deadly) best, and it wasn't going to be rancid.  So...step one of this recipe is check the date on your Crisco-- that is, if you even have any in your pantry--if you don't, go buy a small tub for this special occasion. Or don't...you could fry it in sunflower or canola oil, but don't blame me if your Grandma rolls over in her grave.

Actually, this whole recipe might have had my own Grandmother pooh-poohing me in the kitchen. She was a great cook, but one for simplicity. I can't see her taking 2 days to get a chicken fried, ha!

Anyhoo...Here's your list of ingredients:

Brine

1 large onion

5 cloves of garlic, smashed with back of a knife

1 teaspoon oil

3 tablespoons Kosher salt

6 Rosemary branches

1 cup water

4 cups of ice 

1 lemon, quartered

Chicken 

1 whole cut up chicken

3 cups flour

3 tablespoons fresh ground pepper

2 tablespoons paprika

1 tablespoon fine sea salt

2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons baking powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

2 cups buttermilk

Crisco for deep-frying

Wash chicken pieces and set aside. Slice onion into thin rings. Brown onion and smashed garlic in teaspoon of hot oil for about 3-4 minutes. Squeeze lemons into hot pan (have the seeds removed), then add lemon quarters and rosemary branches and cup of water. Boil aromatics for 1 minute.
 Then add 4 cups of ice to cool brine. Put chicken pieces into large enough container hold chicken and brine.
Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours, removing every several hours to turn chicken pieces in brine so that they are evenly marinated.

When you're ready to fry chicken, whisk together all dry ingredients making your flour mixture. Divide mixture between two pie plates. Pour buttermilk in another pie plate.  Heat oil to 350 degrees (watch for little river-looking channels to form in the hot oil and start moving around to know that it's hot enough). Dip chicken piece in first dish of flour mixture and then into buttermilk and then into second dish of flour mixture. Repeat and repeat and repeat. Fry pieces in hot oil, not too close together for about 30 minutes, depending on size of chicken piece. (I used 2 pans to fry up my chicken.)

This chicken is so tender and crispy...so FLAVORFUL!...but distinctly NOT southern!

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Alive and PEELING better!...

Peel a whole head of garlic in 10 seconds! (Check link.)

Or...peel a few cloves this way:

You just need a tightly-lidded large container (1 gallon, here) so's you can get a real good (HARD) shake on those little cloves.

All but one of the cloves came free of their peeling! Cool.

This is good to know, NoNNaLo

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Lemon Sticky-Top Cake with Poppy Seeds and Cream Cheese Frosting...

Cake Batter: 3 cups cake flour, 1 and 3/4 cups sugar, 4 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 3 1/2 tablespoons poppyseeds, 2 sticks butter--softened, zest of 1 large lemon, 1 and 1/4 cups buttermilk, 5 egg whites.

Set aside egg whites and 1/4 cup of the buttermilk. Mix dry ingredients in a large mixer bowl. Add butter, lemon zest and 1 cup of buttermilk. Mix thoroughly and then beat for 90 seconds. In separate bowl wire whisk egg whites and buttermilk briskly for 30-40 seconds. Gradually add egg white mixture to battter. Pour batter into 9x13 pan which has been sprayed with Pam and bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes (depending on your oven) and until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

While the cake is cooking, boil the ingredients for your "sticky top" (the "hop-and-dance-in-the-sunshine-flavor" of this cake) until it's golden, condensed and syrupy. The ingredients for the sticky-top are: 1/3 cup water, juice of 2 lemons, 1/3 cup sugar.
Here's the cake with the sticky-top spooned over it (while the cake is hot).
Now all we need is a little (or a lot) of lemon cream cheese frosting to top off the completely cooled cake.  Gather up: Zest of 1 lemon, 8 ounces of softened cream cheese, 2 sticks of softened butter, 5 cups of powdered sugar. Put everything in your mixer bowl and turn it on slowly, slowly...then faster, faster. Beat it until it's smooth and lovely.
And, here's the cake! Summertime in mid-January...Yummy, yummy and Yea!

 

NoNNaLo

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Splashing on the UMAMI...

I am cooking this week (and last week, too) from my little lakehouse kitchen. That is to say, my little kitchenin our big lakehouse. Whoever designed this 3000+ square foot getaway obviously had little interest in spending much (any?) time preparing meals. I know for a fact, this house can sleep upwards of 30 people (making use of everyconceivable flat surface, of course), but I suppose the original owners thought every man for himself. And, well, to tell you the truth when there's that many people...each would be well advised to bring their own ice-chest, ha! But... really, the kitchen is the smallest room in the whole dang house. We do have every intention to remodel the place...inside-out and top-to-bottom, but it's hard putting a hold on usage (our great little vacations and weekend escapes) to begin gutting the place. If it were only a tiny-tiny bit easier, I'd have done it months ago, just to get rid of the AWFUL pumpkin colored and peachy tan paint the old owners blessed us with. It's almost more than I can bear.
One thing though, except for feeling crowded by the clutter on the counters (the cabinets are full and so storage has spilled onto the counter-tops) cooking here makes me less tired than in my more spacious gourmet kitchen back home. There, I find myself walking all over the place, around and around that center island just to locate dishes and utensils.

BUT...back to UMAMI. Here's the rub I prepared for a pork tenderloin roast. Spanish smoked paprika and cumin in almost equal parts...not quite, though...heavier on the paprika. Add about a teaspoon of Fish Sauce (prepare to gag, and then re-check this recipe, and then doubt my sanity if you've no prior experience with Fish Sauce, and then gag, again) then, add enough olive oil to give the rub a nice "sticking" consistency.
Here's what my rub looked like all mixed up.
Here's my $14.00 pork tenderloin roast from Whole Foods. Was I a little worried about putting the smelly Fish Sauce rub on it? You bet your socks I was! (In fact, I thought it was your dirty socks I was about to rub all over my beautiful cut of meat! Your socks, your neighbors socks, your teenage son's socks, your dog's socks.) This Fish Sauce business is new to me and it's...well...it's YUCKY smelling. Disgusting. Nasty. You must wonder why I used it then. Well...I read about UMAMI in the "The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper". Umami is the fifth flavor...savory. Of course Fish Sauce is not the only way to produce or enhance the fifth flavor, but supposedly (and I know now it is) it's a great way. It just takes a lot of courage to use it the first time.
Here's my roast, marinating. I left in the fridge, all rubbed up and smelly, smelly, smelly for about 5-6 hours. (I left it tightly sealed in a zip lock bag...for many obvious reasons.)
Here's where I stopped and looked out the sliding glass door in my kitchen. Just to calm myself. It's only a roast, it's only a roast. 

And...here's where the photo's of the Pork Roast stop. (BOO!) We were having company that evening (and for dinner) and when they came in, I got side-tracked and forgot to finish my photo-session. Here's what happened next, though.

Before I put the roast into the a 350 oven I draped strips of thick sliced smoked bacon  (that had been cut in half) edge-to-edge on top of the roast. I then popped the roast into the oven and allowed it to cook until it reached 150 degrees inside with meat thermometer. Prior to the meat having reached 150 degree's I mixed together a "pinch and dash glaze" of brown sugar, stone ground mustard and a little coca-cola which I'd cooked over a medium high heat until it had thickened a little. (No measurements for this glaze. You should have lots more sugar than mustard and coke. Just a little mustard really. Just enough Coke to get the stuff fluid. And enough total glaze to equal about 3/4 cup. Once you start heating it all, you can adjust ingredients until it starts to appear "glaze-y".) When your pork roast is 150 bring it out of the over and spoon the glaze over the bacon slices on top of the pork. Put the roast back into the oven and cook until it reaches 160 degrees. MAGNIFICENT! Beautiful, too! It was truly a wonderfully seasoned pork roast (which we all know can be SO BLAH!) Too bad I didn't get a picture for the blog. Ah, well...

UMAMI #2
Here's my chuck roast (on another day), browning away in sunflower oil.
Here's my chuckroast covered in my late Grandmother Baber's secret roast ingredient, ketchup. (I was intrigued when I read a cookbook of genuine old Polish recipes to see how many of their old-time dishes were seasoned with ketchup.) To this, I added my new Nonna DeLozier's secret ingredient (ha!), Fish Sauce. I doused the meat fairly liberally (you will find fairly liberally--when it comes to Fish Sauce--is not something you have to worry about over-doing, haha! You just naturally HALT! in plenty of time!)
To this roast I added carrots, onion, celery and zuchinni. Also about a teaspoon of vegetable boullion powder and a handful of finely chopped parsely and about a cup of water. And, yes, what the heck...another teaspoon of Fish Sauce. And salt and pepper. I didn't add potatoes because I made a big dish of mashed potatoes and gravy to accompany the roast.
Here's the lovely drippings before I whisked in the (pre-mixed, by me) flour and milk to thicken and make a yummy gravy. (The ketchup left tiny little red splotches & splashes of bright flavor to the gravy...nice against the SAVORINESS!)
Here's the finished main dish. (Don't think for a second that the usually "holiday's only" mashed potatoes and gravy weren't a major highlight, though!) The food was good...the Fish Sauce gave us a change of pace (and NOT fishy at all)...the kind of improvement I'm sold on and will stick with from now on.

If you're interested in cooking, go ahead and research UMAMI...you'll find it an interesting subject.

Something new and good to know, in the kitchen,  NoNNaLo

Pucker, please...

Lemon confit (kohn-FEE)...another lemon experiment presently underway in my kitchen. (Let it not be said that I don't--even if only eventually--know what to do when life hands me lemons.)

This lemon seasoning reportedly takes about 3 months to cure. Once the transformation is complete, a lemon can be removed from the salt and the squashy flesh and pith removed from the PEEL...the peel being the desirable portion. Rinse and/or soak confit in water to remove some of the saltiness and then chop or mince and add to...fish, chicken, sauces, vinaigrette's, etc. (As I said, this experiment is on-going and only freshly begun. I have not yet had the chance to taste-test this recipe...although my imagination (a vast and often untrustworthy frontier, ha!) tells me confit should be a great tool.)

Lori's Lemon Cofit

2.5 lbs. kosher salt 

1 lb. cane sugar

5 lemons, halved

1 cup water

Juice of 1 lemon

1 Large glass container with seal

Mix sugar and salt in glass container. Spoon over each lemon half, rubbing mixture into flesh of lemons (see photo). Once lemons are coated, place them in the jar, burying them in salt mixture. Pour water and lemon juice over all. Shake or jiggle jar to get salt/sugar over lemons. Place jar in fridge or in pantry for 3 months.

(Conceivably, that should be it. However...after about a week my confit looked like this:

...notice the lemons:  barely covered, and in liquid, not salt. So..

I added more salt and sugar (fairly close to a 50/50 ratio...probably an Oklahoma dab more salt than sugar) to cover the lemons and make me feel more confident in their preservation. Now...there's really no whole recipe. Also...looking back at my photo's, I see I didn't actually use "kosher salt", like the recipe calls for, until the latest salt addition, but used a coarse sea salt and a fine sea salt. This led to a little investigation (a little too little, and a little too late) on kosher versus sea salt. Hopefully the salts I used didn't contain any preservatives or fillers that will mar the taste of the confit. Nothing to do but wait this one out...

"PICKLED LEMONS"...

Finally...a capricious canvas...ha! "Pickled Lemons", 12x12, oil on canvas, gallery wrapped. Wet paint.

I am an eggsperienced woman, now...

Since I was surprised (knock me over with a feather) with this beautiful Big Green Egg (ceramic smoker) for my birthday--on the 27th-- I decided yesterday to crack it open and try my hand at smoking some pork baby back ribs.

First, I removed the membrane from the back of the rib rack by using a butter knife to get a portion peeled up and then by grasping it with a paper towel to get a good hold/pull. (No pictures...my hands were just a little icky.) Then I seasoned the meat fairly heavily with "Head Country" seasoning--good stuff and highly recommend by an old hand smoker friend--and let it sit at room temp for 30 minutes or so.

Next, I checked on my fire...

(Then... I did a whole bunch of other stuff that I don't have pictures of because...well, because...I got a lot of smoke in my eyes or somethin' and forgot to take them. I did stuff like: set the grill up with the ceramic plate setter, set the smoker temp to about 325 (give or take) by fiddling with dampers, put ribs on with a drip pan underneath, and then locked the whole thing down like a magic kiln, ha!)

The last hour that the ribs were smoking I let them cook slathered in the sauce pictured above. It's "KC Masterpiece Original"...but "doctored up", as we country cooks used to say. I threw in hefty pinches of the items you see in the photo, extra hefty on the honey. The flavor was good, the honey being the most brilliant addition, as it caused the sauce to truly cling, and stay clung, to the meat.

Lately I've been crazy about the jalapeno coleslaw at The Wild Fork at Utica Square. Apparently the recipe is a big secret, too. Anyway, I scanned through a dozen Jalapeno Coleslaw recipes and contrived my own version. Here it is, if you want to give it a whirl. It's really good...a nice balanced, mildly sweet and spicy salad.

Hot Nonna's Coleslaw

1 bag of shredded carrot and cabbage

1/2 green pepper, diced

2  cloves garlic, minced

1 cup mayo

2 tablespoons juice from pickled jalopeno's (you could use more if you want more heat)

1/4 cup sugar

salt to taste

no --zero, zilch-- cumin (it's in the photo, but I changed my mind and did NOT add it)

These rolls are not (obviously) homemade. BUT, if you haven't tried "Sister Shubert's" frozen rolls (ready in 10 minutes) you really have not lived. These rolls are magnificent. My neighbors turned me on to them and I will now and forever have a bag in my freezer ready at a moment's notice. The rolls have also been (unnecessarily) "doctored" a bit.  I brushed them with Irish unsalted butter and sprinkled a touch of my fancy $12/jar pink Himalayan finishing salt on top.

And, here's the real deal meal. It was good one, satisfying my husband who even went back to the fridge for "cold ribs" later that night.

Cookin' Low and Slow, NoNNaLo

Preserved Lemons...

I researched various methods to preserve lemons finally settling on this modus and recipe. (Lemon pickling procedures are all very similar. The seasonings vary some.)

Needed:

a sterilized jar (or jars) with lid and rubber seal

as many lemons as needed to fill sterilized jar

as many more lemons needed to fill said jar 1/2 full of fresh lemon juice (once lemons have been added)

a good finishing salt

4-5 bay leaves

2 tsp coriander

5 cloves

1 cinnamon stick

1 tsp fennel

fresh ground pepper

Wash your lemons well. Scrub them! Cut them length-wise, leaving the bottom sections still connected.  Holding the lemon in your palm, spoon a teaspoonful of finishing salt into the "pocket" of the lemon and then press the fruit into the bottom of the jar, squeezing it a little. Follow suit with all the remaining lemons, until your jar is full of yellow, sticky, salty, joyful, lemons. Next, take the leftover lemons and juice them into the jar. Juice them until the jar is about half full (give or take) of fresh, tart, sunny lemon juice! Now...add all the seasonings below. Plus another teaspoonful of that fabulous salt you've splurged on (mine is pink and mysterious and from the Himalayas) along with that fresh ground pepper. Then...choose your very choosiest olive oil and glub, glub, glub it in till it reaches the top of the jar. Place the lid on the jar of lemons and give it a good He-Man-D0 firm turn. Then give the jar a couple of shakes for fun and to reassure us, yourself and the universe that oil and water (juice, in this case) still all these eons later... do NOT MIX.

Your beautiful jar(s) of preserved lemons (pickled lemons) will be ready to eat in about a month. They will stay good for about 4 months. The uses for persevered lemons go on and on and on!.....They are most obviously used in classical Moroccan cuisines, but add flavour in almost any circumstance where a savoury lemony flavor is called for: with fish, or stuffed into a roasting chicken, in marinades, in risottos and pastas, and in sparkling and unique vinaigrettes.

You may notice the book in the top photo. It's a "Traditional Moroccan Cooking" book published in '57 and picked up in Morocco during one of my good friend, Joan's, fabulous world flits. When I presented her with her Pickled Lemons, she insisted I take the well worn book. (I know she loved Morocco and I have a feeling she loved that cookbook too. Love her.)

Happy Pickling, But Take it Slow...NonnaLo