Flambé

     I made my first flambé dish tonight. I was complimented that I did no appear nervous. I will make it again too. Easy pan roasted pork tenderloin with bourbon-soaked figs from Serious Eats. 

http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/11/pork-tenderloin-bourbon-soaked-figs-weeknight-dinner.html

Paella again

     I made paella again last night and I made it better. We (my family, my sister-in-laws family and an extra cousin for a total of 9) spent the weekend on The Sound camping. We hiked (a little, 2 year olds don't tolerate longer), went to the beach, played cards under the tarp while it rained and ate pretty well despite the campfire ban. 

     After all that I had to cook with fire so I turned to my usual paella recipie on Epicurious (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/grilled-lobster-paella-366437). This time I added clams which opened up in about 10 minutes and spilled their tasty juice all over the dish. 

     Most importantly I held back from adding liquid during the grilling which increased the socarrat at the bottom of the pan. I also made sure keep my grill at 400°. I believe that I can make the socarrat a bit fuller if I cook a bit longer. The recipie called for a total of 40 minutes and I probably did about 45. Next time 50-55. I wish there was a way to check without disturbing the dish. Everyone agreed that it was delicious and my niece from the Midwest tried clams for the first time. Super win!

Grilled Potato Salad

Grilled Potato Salad

1 bag mixed new potatoes chopped in at least quarters

1 medium yellow onion chopped about the same size as the onions 

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

1/4 cup mayonnaise

1/2 cup cornichons chopped

     Toss potatoes and onions with olive oil, salt and pepper. Nuke for 5 minutes. Grill in grill basket in medium direct heat tossing every 4 minutes until done, about 16 minutes. Pull off grill and allow to cool for a little while. Toss with mayo and cornichons. Serve warm. 

It is the season for Gelato!

     I made my favorite Gelato today due to a request from my co-workers. I also remembered to take pictures during the process. The recipe is here. First you can see the simple tools and ingredients.

     You take the lemons, zest one of them and juice all of them. Keep the pulp. Chop up the zest.

      Discard the seeds and the membranes. You may need to put the pulp in the food processor but just for a second or two, you don't want to loose the texture.

      Add the juice & sugar and dissolve.

      Whip up your cream a bit.

     Put all in your ice cream maker.

      I run it for 30 minutes until starting to firm up. Make sure the freezer in the machine is good and cold and has been freezing for at least 24 hours or it won't set up very well.

      Put in a shallow wide, freezer safe Tupperware. It freezes quicker if it is spread out. It usually takes a day to get really frozen.

I smoked a pork butt today

     You can can do it on your webber! I smoked a 7 pound pork butt for 6 hours loosely following this recipie (http://howtobbqright.com/pulledporkrecipe.html). I had less time than I wanted so I had to crank the temp up near the end to reach the nirvana temperature of 195° F. 

     First I injected the roast with an apple juice brine then let it sit I that juice over night. Then I used Apple wood chips at about 250° F. The little smoker box sat right on the flavor bars on one side with the heat and the roast sat naked on the grill on the other side with a drip pan under neath. I mopped with soy sauce once and drippings the other. After 4 hours of smoke I put the roast on a pan with all its drippings and sealed it. I increased the temp to 350° and let it ride till I got to 195° F. It was delicious. I would use less salt and more sugar for my taste and I would use all the time and bring it up to temp slower. The meat was mostly falling apart with the deep interior still very tender. I wish I had a picture of the end product. 

Paella

     Paella is actually pretty easy to make. There are very few exotic ingredients, a special pan but the cooking is quite easy. What is hard is making it great. I would say that less than half of the times I have made it I have achieved socarrat. Socarrat is when the rice makes a tasty crust that caramelizes the rice and makes it crunchy and sweet. Last time I added to much water during the cooking and it stayed too wet. Another time I am sure that the grill was not quite hot enough. When I was in Spain in 2012 we went to the fantastic restaurant in the Mercado de la Boqueria. We had a wonderful meal. However we had three kids and a very short attention span and had to hurry their paella. They were horrified and now I understand. Triste.
     I used Gourmet's Grilled Lobster Paella recipe but I replaced the lobster with shrimp. I think is looks great and tasted good but not great. I will do better next time. I still have lots of summer left.

Thanks Alton Brown

I love Alton Brown's simple dietary list. Well I love lists and hate the idea of diets so this looks like a great plan. He lays it down nice and simple. Not like I can follow all of it.

Daily: whole grains, green tea, fruit, nuts.

Three times a week: oily fish, tofu, yogurt, sweet potato.

Once a week: alcohol, desserts, red meat, white starch.

Never: soda, canned soup, “diet” anything, fast food.

http://lifehacker.com/simplify-your-diet-with-alton-browns-four-lists-method-1699651847

Waffles from scratch

     It's not often that I have buttermilk around the house. When L requested waffles this morning I was happy to oblige. I also am usually a prepared mix kind of guy, going all the way back to bisquick. This recipe for Buttermilk Belgians in the Big Yellow Gourmet Cookbook did the trick nicely. Much better than a mix. I made a 1/3 batch and I used canola instead of butter. 1/2 a cup of batter did not quite fill my waffle maker. They were delicious. And they were gone before I could take a picture.

I got a picture this time. Special chocolate chip waffles for L's 6th Birthday!

Cake part one

     We make our nieces and nephews birthday cakes and my wife's sister makes our kids birthday cakes. We have made some pretty grand creations in the past. Today I started the 'How to Train Your Dragon' cake. It will be three layered and checkered chocolate, mint and buttermilk cake with Toothless on top. It we will be awesome but probably not a Pinterest moment. See phase one.

Chocolate cake tomorrow, then the building. Did you see that rainbow cake video in face book? We are trying a scaled down version of that. Go see our older creations on our Flickr site, see Birthday Cakes Album.

Last trip to the Boat Street Cafe

     Back in 1999 Stephanie and I got engaged at the lovely Boat Street Cafe just north of the ship canal. It has since moved to a grander spot but is now closing. The chef wants to pay more attention to her other reasurants.

      We went this last Friday for my birthday dinner and were blown away by the delicious food and great service. See my dinner below. Not my photo. 

     We look forward to going to The Whale Wins in Fremont. I have heard great things. 

Ceviche por la Madre de Ivonne y Luis

Our Spanish teachers, the sister and brother team of Ivonne and Luis, brought in their Mom to show us how to make traditional ceviche. This is the recipe. Here are pictures of the class.

Trumpet fish (small and white)
juice of 10 key limes. Key limes are small so maybe 5 normal limes are equivalent.
1 1/2 red onions
three tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
juice of 2 oranges
2 T olive oil
Black pepper
Green plantains thinly sliced

Debone and devein fish, cut small and put in juice of  7 limes with salt for 2 hours. Thinly slice (picar) red onions, wash onions with salt to reduce acid then squeeze in 3 limes, soak for ten minutes. Thinly slice tomatoes. Combine all with olive oil, cilantro, orange juice, and fish. Black pepper to taste.
Meanwhile fry sliced plantains in oil to make chifles.

Serve soup with chifles. Popcorn works too.

For shrimp, boil shelled and deveined shrimp for 5 minutes then soak in lime and salt for 2 hours.

Tortillas de Verde

The first recipie posted from our Ecuador trip. They taste like plantain latkes. Made by them given to us by our friend Anna who says she can't cook. Wrong.

4 plantain
50 ¢ queso fresco
2 eggs
1 onion (white)
Salt (one salt-spoon-ful)
Cilantro

=makes 10 quite large (could possibly be 12 smaller.
Fry in deepish oil, not as much as chips but nearly.

Anna Milsom

Can openers

     There is an ongoing issue with can openers in our trip that I must share. Back, long ago, when we arrived at the beach we got a mess of groceries including canned goods and commenced to unpacking.

     A day or two later two things happened. Our fridge died and we realized that our can opener was rusted shut. Our nice new neighbor Tony offered his fridge. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. It was hot there and we needed to cool many things. We had to wait three days for the fridge, I don't know why they can't deliver on Christmas. We looked at the small grocery and around town and there were no can openers to be found. There was even a traveling kitchen store (they set up shop in the town square) where we bought a kettle and a nice frying pan, no can opener. The grocery stores in town sold canned goods and some of them were pull top but not all. Fortunately we could wait for our canned goods, they were not going to go bad. Tony offered to pick up a can opener when he was off in the big town (an hour away). He did not find a can opener in town so he offered his second can opener. He was such a nice guy. His second can opener was also rusted beyond use. 

     Finally a week later we made the trip to the big town and looked for a can opener at their equivalent of Target. How do you say can opener in Spanish? After asking and wandering the isles we finally found the last can opener on the west coast of Ecuador and it was electric. We got it anyway. I'm sure it will rust out in a season. The story is not over. 

     Weeks later we have moved from Olon to Cuenca, an actual city with multiple places to shop including a big grocery store. After settling in and doing a great shopping trip to a close grocery store, we discovered that the apartments can opener's gears were stripped. I settled on using it by popping a bit then opening it and moving a bit then popping a bit more all the way around the can slow but it worked. You would think it would be easy to find a can opener in a big city like Cuenca. You would be wrong. First we tried the big grocery store. Steph got berated for not knowing Spanish and they did not have can openers. We looked at a couple of other places including a nice kitchen shop with brands we knew. No can opener. One place suggested Su Casa. Was that a store or were we invited to her house every time we needed a can opened? Finally in the middle of the old town we found a small department store with two kinds of can openers. Of course the kids wanted blue but Steph and I picked orange because it matches the apartment decór. I suggested we get the whole stock, move to the coast and retire on the profits. Is this story over?

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Food in Ecuador

     I know this blog used to talk about food all the time. How I make it. Yummy food I had. I have not spent much time reflecting on that here because there have been many challenges. I've been tinkering with this post for days and have not really said anything partially because there has not been much to say. Today however we had our first great cooking experience.

     Our language/surfing school offered cooking classes and we finally booked a class with them. Ivonne and Luis, the language teachers, brought their mother and sister in to teach us how to make ceviche. It was great to see this Ecuadorian family make one of their frequent (weekly) dishes. They grew up just two towns down the coast and had ceviche every Sunday with arroz and chifles. It was very fresh with vegetables we chopped up there. I was allowed to help chop and Luis said 'Paulo es bueno chef.' Madre also made her own chifles, plantain chips, from scratch that the reasurants serve store bought from a bag. Her children were surrounding her helping; her son was smiling ear to ear especially when he ate the ceviche. What a wonderful experience. The recipe is pretty simple but we got some great tips from the source and we will make it for you when we get back. 

     Now back to the post I have been working on.

     We are still learning how to get the ingredients that we are used to cooking with. There are a couple of great fruit and vegetable stands here but the produce is ripe enough that it has to be used that day or the very next because they don't use any preservatives. I'm not used to broccoli going bad after a day. The mangos, limes, pineapples, papayas, strawberries, cherries, and watermelons are yummy and everything seems to be in season. The veggies are okay but not what we are used to, except the tomatoes, peppers and avocados, they are great. Our produce bill is equal to how much I spend on just apples in Seattle. 

      Groceries are much harder to get. On our first big shopping trip we got some canned goods like beans, tomatoes and tuna however there are no can openers to be found in this little town. Two weeks later in the big city the big grocery store had only one can opener and it was electric. We will see how long it lasts since everything metal here starts to corrode. 

     There is no fresh protein at the grocery store except eggs. All animal proteins are sold on the street each morning because most people don't have a fridge. We have seen many a man chopping up chickens and filleting fish on the back of their tricylcles. We have done what we can with frozen chicken and packaged ham. The best chicken, fish and pork we have eaten is at restaurants owned by the locals. They know where to get chicken and pork. Beef is not part of the typical food in this region. This may change when we move up into the Andes. 

     Seafood is becoming easier now that we know how to do it. Just hang out in town in the morning and someone with a big bucket of fish or shrimp or langoustines will eventually drive by.
     One of our new friends who has been here for a couple of years has picked up a few recipies. She know how to make fresh limeaide and tortilla de verde, green plantain fritters, or Ecuadorian latkes as I think they taste. 

     We are learning that we are indeed first world people. As much as we are trying to assimilate we are not fully making that happen. So we will continue to do the best we can. But man do I miss Central Market.

Fermenting

I tried pickles this summer but now I have read about the health benefits of fermented veggies. This site lists recipes for many vegetables and other things. http://www.savorylotus.com/85-ways-eat-fermented-foods/. I tried the brussel sprouts because they are on sale still on the stalk at the best grocery store in the universe, Shoreline's Central Market. And because I love brussel sprouts. I will let you know in a week if they taste good.

My Favorite Cookbooks

     I love to cook. I started as a kid when my mom told me to start the baked potatoes and chicken when I got home from school. I learned from her, my friend Joe who's step-dad had a chinese restaurant and I read cookbooks. My wife can cook from scratch and I can in a pinch but I love a good recipe to follow.
     The first cookbook that I remember using was the Kitchen Wizard Cookbook by Deborah Jarvis. You might remember the artist Arthur Robins from the great books "Where did I come from" and "What is happening to me."  It is out of print. The recipes are easy and the illustrations fun. There is a section on basic kitchen ABCs that anyone should remember.

     Five years ago the family stayed in a little house in the Tuscan country side near Siena. I won't go into details in this post but the food was fantastic. I studied the Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan before hand and made a few really good meals that we are looking over a grapevine covered valley. Upon our return I mastered he gelato recipe (seen other posts).
     Flavors by Donna Hay was a favorite for a while and is a very beautiful cookbook. It is also simple and good for beginners.
     She-Smoke: A Backyard Barbecue Book by Julie Reinhardt has great BBQ and grilling ideas and a couple of great charts that I use almost every time I grill for perfectly done meat. The author is a Seattle local and owner of Ballard's Smokin Pete's BBQ.
     I am working my way through many different cuisines and I frequently return to Thai food. It is not nearly as hard as it looks although I have been stymied by rice noodles. Thailand: the Beautiful Cookbook by Panurat Poladitmontri is my favorite one and has a great fish cakes recipe that everyone loves. Never however have a made the dishes as pretty as a Thai restaurant 
     Pasta and Co. Encore by Marcella Rosene is by far my wife's and my most used and most loved cookbook. We met the author at her cooking class in 1999. Every recipe is great. Most notable are second skin chicken. apple cake I have given it as a gift many times 
     The Gourmet Cookbook: More than 1000 Recipes -Ruth Reichl, John Willoughby, Zanne Early Stewart. WIth 1000 recipes I have barely scratched the surface. It also has great cooking advice. Be mindful however that some of the recipes are quite involved and take a long time. To my detriment I have started recipes at 5 for dinner tonight and realize that it will be for dinner tomorrow night, usually worth it but still a long time.
     Better Homes and Gardens: Cookies and Candies -Better Homes and Gardens Test Kitchen. This is a holdover from a distant past. My mom looked for a copy for years after loosing her's. I have tried a couple of recipes but I really only have it for the "best peanut brittle in the world." -Poppop
     Urban Pantry -Amy Pennington. Amy Pennington is a NW cook and I frequently read her blog about cooking in Seattle. This book is really for a beginner and talks about many ideas for creating food wonderful in a small space.
     Macrina Bakery and Cafe Cookbook -Leslie Mackie. This is from the best bakery in Seattle and has many great recipes. My wife has used it more as she is the baker.

     I could go I but I must post sometime. It took me forever to find the Kitchen Wizard Cookbook to start this blog.

Squash Gnocchi

Don't bother with a ricer. It used to be the best way to get the appropriate texture but a cheese grater blade on your cuisinart will do just as well and be 1/4 the time and mess. Or do I speak to soon. Maybe they will fall apart  We will see. Stay tuned. Right now the gnocchi are cooling in my new fridge and I will cook them tonight.

Go here for the recipe I used. I don't know what squash I actually used.
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Butternut-Squash-Gnocchi-with-Sage-Brown-Butter-361270

Shrimp Ceviche with Rellenitos

I have started practicing my cooking for living in Ecuador. Did I tell you we are going to Ecuador? This winter for three months all four of us are going to spend 3 months in Ecuador. Why? We have always wanted to go abroad for a while.  A whole year is to expensive and we would have to work. Thailand is out cause of a coup. We decided on Ecuador due to an inexpensive place to stay. We will have a language immersion time for the whole family and daily beach time. That is why I am practicing Ecuador cuisine.
I made rellenitos which are plantain cakes stuffed with sweet blackbeans. Then I made ceviche.

My backyard dinner table makes the best background for food photos. That is rose in the redhook glass.

SOUP PARTY

For many years my wife and I and now our whole family have had an annual soup party. Usually is has been early in December. We invite many people for an open house, make five or so big pots of soup and then sit back and let people come visit us (not as easy as it sounds). It is a great way to see and catch up with lots of our friends and feed them. Previous favorite soups have been Poppop's Fish Chowder, Tomato Fennel with Pernod, Carrot Curry, and Marcella Hazan's Minestrone. We use our favorite cook books and websites and family favorites. To see some family favorites go to my recipe page here at BigOven.
For 2013 we went to DisneyLand instead so we decided to throw a summer soup this year. Same rules as before but all the soups were cold and we sat outside in the backyard.

Review

Many thumbs up for the strawberry dark chocolate gelato. Thanks Stephanie and Kyra.