106 replies to this topic

[Anna N]

Well I managed to make the Carolina BBQ sauce but having no experience at making it or tasting it, I will await Kerry's return to determine if it is as is should be.



Now I have some bread rising in the TMX and with luck we will have buns to put the pulled pork on for dinner tonight.

[Kerry Beal]

Well I managed to make the Carolina BBQ sauce but having no experience at making it or tasting it, I will await Kerry's return to determine if it is as is should be.



Now I have some bread rising in the TMX and with luck we will have buns to put the pulled pork on for dinner tonight.

Looks good from here!

[Anna N]

Enormously happy that Kerry is doing low-carb and probably would not have put her pulled pork onto a bun as mine are pretty hopeless:



Not sure if it was the yeast (I usually use instant but Kerry seems to have a choice of fresh yeast or active dry). I chose active dry and I don't think it dissolved as it should. Anyway the buns will be binned as they are heavy and doughy. Will try again next week as this is a very successful recipe usually.

[janeer]

He dropped by the house with his wife Joyce last week to pick up a 1 kg container of nibs and he gave me one of his last bottles of this vintage of this Northern Whisper vinegar. He makes it from maple syrup that he makes into a wine then ferments to vinegar. It's a thick as syrup and very complex and wonderful. Like the finest aged balsamic!

First of all I have been reading with amazement that you are doing all this cooking while doctoring...and there is nothing better than being with a cooking friend,ALL ALONE.

Before you leave, any chance you can ask the Vinegar Man if he would part with at least the method for making the Northern Whisper. I've got to have some...

It's great fun having Anna here so we can cook together - usually at home we are just e-mailing back and forth talking about what we are making. Anna is an amazing cook - I learn a ton from her all the time.

I don't think Mr Vinegar would tell me the complete details - but what he has mentioned to me is that he dilutes maple syrup to a level that will allow him to make wine with it that gives about 5% alcohol. I suspect he dilutes with apple cider. After he gets the wine he must add the vinegar mother. I don't know how he gets it so thick though.

Anyway he's back at home - so it's unlikely I'll see him again for another few weeks.

Thanks for this. I'm going to think on it, maybe go through some of my really old New England cookbooks and see if I can find something on it. I'm intrigued...

[andiesenji]

There are a couple of people here in California that make vinegar from honey and also from mead and I believe the principle should be almost the same.

I know the guy who is in Tehachapi and he learned how to make it when he was in Jamaica and learned how to make vinegar from cane molasses.


This web site has instructions for making vinegar from Honey.

[Beth Wilson]

If you want, I have a nice tub with about 2 cups of fermenting unpasteurized Manitoulin honey - you could make a vinegar experiment

It is yours if you want to play!!! I can deliver for a small fee of dinner cooked on the EGG

[Anna N]

Last night I noticed that there were a few rashers of bacon in the 'fridge waiting to be used so in an effort to make a dent in the huge jar of marinated artichokes Kerry had bought on impulse, I decided to make these:



I stretched the bacon with the back of a chef's knife, cut the rashers in half, slathered them with mustard and wrapped them around the artichoke pieces. They made an OK bite. No real WOW factor but not bad.

Dinner was, of course, the pulled pork that Kerry cooked. I took mine with the sauce on the side and Kerry re-heated hers in some sauce. Here's my plate:



Today we are off to Sudbury in search of ingredients that are not available on the Island. We will also find some thrift stores, drop in to the restaurant supply store and visit Costco. If I return with some decent Gruyere cheese I will consider the day a huge success.

[Kerry Beal]

If you want, I have a nice tub with about 2 cups of fermenting unpasteurized Manitoulin honey - you could make a vinegar experiment

It is yours if you want to play!!! I can deliver for a small fee of dinner cooked on the EGG

Sounds like a plan - I suspect I have some vinegar mother around somewhere.

[Kerry Beal]

Had a nice trip to Sudbury today. We stopped enroute for breakfast at a greasy spoon along the highway. We decided I'd order the potato pancakes with my eggs and peameal and Anna would order the homefries. Potato pancakes turned out to be little latkes - and they even brought out sour cream to go with them. Of course I'd handed over half to Anna before taking the picture so my plate looks a little empty.





We had a busy day running thither and yon. We hit the grocery store for the international section to get stuff to make musubis, the bulk food store for some flours, spices and fruity bits, the Gourmet World just to look around. Then we hit 'Paris Fine Foods' - kind of an eclectic bulk, odds and ends and health food store. The shelves go up to the ceiling and they have any number of odd things you can't find elsewhere in Sudbury. We picked up the missing sushi rice and mirin as well as some Liberti yogurts for Beth.

We went into Homesense - which carries a whole lot of nice housewares at discount prices and picked up some spatulas, silicone basting brush, a thermometer, Tuscan olive oil, wasabi mustard and a couple of cookbooks. We hit costco for cheese - whole lotta cheese! Appenzeller, cheddar, asiago, gouda and gruyere. I have plans to smoke some cheese tomorrow.

Then we hit the restaurant supply for some toys, Liquidation World and Value Village to check out the housewares, cookbooks and anything else we needed.

By now we were getting peckish and realized that the My Thai Palace restaurant was open (hadn't been the last time we wanted to eat there).





My jasmine tea was brought it this rather unusual (but very lucky) tea pot.



We shared an appetizer plate with calamari, wontons, salad rolls and satay.



Tom yum for me.



Won ton soup for Anna.

[janeer]

Before you leave, any chance you can ask the Vinegar Man if he would part with at least the method for making the Northern Whisper. I've got to have some...

According to the link in the original post, you can buy it (as well as several other interesting sounding vinegars). It's apparently just bottled under a different name now.

Roger's Maple Syrup Vinegar... "Formerly known as Northern Whisper Maple Syrup Vinegar".

Somehow I missed this before--actually, somehow I missed the last two days of cooking and photos, I think I skipped a page. So thanks for this link, and Kerry and Anna for all the nonstop cooking.

[Anna N]

No much cooking happening on the Island today. At 6 am the hydro was shut off to the whole Island as a grid upgrade is in progress. We almost froze this morning and a loud cheer went up when the lights came back on at noon. But Kerry was not easily discouraged by a mere lack of electricity and made this UDDERLY beautiful smoked cheese on Eggbertina this morning:



I have Dorie's Cauliflower-bacon gratin ready to go into the oven at dinner time and I have done a bit of pre-prep work on a couple of other recipes from Around My French Table. No liquor stores open on the Island today so the Beef Daube will have to wait yet another day.

[patris]

Whoa.

If Georgia O'Keeffe and Salvador Dali had a baby who became a cheesemaker, that is exactly what he or she would make. It's... umbilical. And no doubt delicious - what kind of cheese is it?

This reaches back a couple of days, but thank you for reminding me that roasting is a good way to cook shrimp. I always boil it, and it always ends up overcooked no matter how vigilant I am. I roasted some today and it's beyond good.

[Anna N]

Whoa.

If Georgia O'Keeffe and Salvador Dali had a baby who became a cheesemaker, that is exactly what he or she would make. It's... umbilical. And no doubt delicious - what kind of cheese is it?

This reaches back a couple of days, but thank you for reminding me that roasting is a good way to cook shrimp. I always boil it, and it always ends up overcooked no matter how vigilant I am. I roasted some today and it's beyond good.

It is a Gouda cheese and very delicious with the apple smoke.

[andiesenji]

I have a perfectly nice, fairly low calorie and should be satisfying dinner planned.

Now I am craving latkes, cheese, roasted or smoked and every other darn thing you have pictured today and I didn't even go back a page.

Have I mentioned about the drooling? Now I need a bib!

[prasantrin]

Tom yum for me.

Is that tom yum or tom kha gai? It looks like it has coconut milk, and although there is a version of tom yum with coconut milk, it's not very common.

[Anna N]

So tonight we ate leftover pulled pork with a side of Dorie Greenspan's Cauliflower-Bacon Gratin:



And I have to share with you the beautiful hues of these farm-fresh eggs:

[Kerry Beal]

Tom yum for me.

Is that tom yum or tom kha gai? It looks like it has coconut milk, and although there is a version of tom yum with coconut milk, it's not very common.

Last night I was lying in bed worrying - thinking "did I title that soup Tom yum when it was supposed to be Tom kha?" Just knew I'd get caught! Indeed Tom kha.

[Kerry Beal]

So - playing with food - when I was home a couple of time for a few minutes this afternoon I started various parts for my Bologna musubi. Anna finished off the sushi rice for me when I got called out. Got called out again just after it was assembled so took it with me to work so the girls could polish it off.

So sushi rice, bologna rounds grilled on the little Egg, brushed with teriyaki sauce, assembled with toasted nori and sprinkled with home made furikake.




It really needs one of the little plexiglass assemblers I have (thank you Suzi Sushi) for the spam musubi to push everything nice and tightly together.

[Kerry Beal]

Blueberry Oatmeal muffins for rounds.



Hermits for the clinic where I'm working until noon.

[Anna N]

So after Kerry left for work I pulled together Dorie's "back-of-the-box cheese and olive bread". I know I should have waited until it cooled before cutting into it but it smelled too good to obey anyone's instructions! It really is quite delicious. I used a combination of cheeses: asiago, cheddar and gruyere - just because I could .



Now I will do the mise for "my go-to beef daube". Kerry will pick up some wine on her way back from work and I will pull it together this afternoon. Wish I had some of those really cute cocottes that are in the photo of the recipe.

[Anna N]

Tonight Society member, Beth Wilson, joined us for dinner. She sampled and enjoyed the smoked cheeses that Kerry had made on Eggbertina, tried the Cheese and Olive Bread from Dorie's book and then had a plate of Dorie's Beef Daube and a side of Kerry's pureed cauliflower:



Thanks for the photo, Beth!

The beef was meltingly tender. My only small complaint is that the parsnips turned a rather unappetizing colour in the red wine-based sauce. Since they were an optional ingredient I would leave them out next time or cook them separately and add just before plating.

There are no rules up here as to what constitutes dinner so we all also enjoyed a taste of "The Chicken" done on Eggbertina and an artichoke and cheese dip. I will leave it to Kerry to expand on this.

[Kerry Beal]

"The Chicken" is a recipe from the egghead forum that is very popular. It consists of thigh and drums shaken in flour and cooked on the egg on a raised rack over a bed of veg (veg not necessary to the cooking - but very necessary to prevent the flareup). They are then bathed in a nice sauce that has about 4 different types of hot stuff in it, wrapped in foil, then held wrapped in a towel for 30 to 60 minutes in a cooler.

Working on a mini means the chicken is pretty darn close to the heat source and we suffered some major flares. The skin was black with creosote! But we peeled off the skin, bathed it in the sauce, wrapped it in some parchment and foil with a little extra sauce and let it sit in the cooler. It was not a thing of beauty - but it certainly tasted great - nice moist chicken, a sauce that surprisingly only bit back a little.



"The Chicken"

With the residual heat after cooking the chicken I finally got around to making the artichoke dip - the mayo that Anna had made the other day, grated asiago and parmesan and chopped up marinated artichokes. Put it on the Egg until it was bubbly and browned.

[Anna N]

Today I made the Pierre Herme Olive Sables from Dorie's book and was well on my way to finishing the whole batch when I came to my senses and packed them away!



I made them in the Thermomix except for the last step of folding in the olives.

Then I learned we were having company for dinner tonight so when Kerry and I got back from shopping I quickly made these two tiny boules.

[Kerry Beal]

Two Boiurrote aux poire this time - the square loaf pan turned out beautifully - the round pan was a bit raw on the inside after the 40 minute baking time. So back in it went for another 20 minutes or so.

Anna's olive quick bread and olive sables were nothing but crumbs in about 5 minutes after they arrived.

[Kerry Beal]

Tonight we invited the doc on call (who lives 40 minutes away from town) to share dinner with us. We did another of the little rib roasts as a steak on the mini BGE, grilled some romaine, Anna made peperonata and some wonderful mushrooms. Horses duvers included some smoked cheese and Anna's olive sables.

We had nothing for dessert, but served the doc some marshmallows and chocolate callets. She was very happy with that - having spied the pink marshmallows when she came in.

[Kerry Beal]

Lemon Snaps as today's offering.

For some reason when I switched from Mastercook to MacGourmet all my cookie recipes got ditched - finally got them all back where they belong. I feel like I have choices again.

[prasantrin]

Two Boiurrote aux poire this time - the square loaf pan turned out beautifully - the round pan was a bit raw on the inside after the 40 minute baking time. So back in it went for another 20 minutes or so.

I've searched both the above spelling and the previous one (boirotte), and I can't find any google links! What's a boirotte/boiurotte and more importantly, how do I make one?

[Kerry Beal]

Two Boiurrote aux poire this time - the square loaf pan turned out beautifully - the round pan was a bit raw on the inside after the 40 minute baking time. So back in it went for another 20 minutes or so.

I've searched both the above spelling and the previous one (boirotte), and I can't find any google links! What's a boirotte/boiurotte and more importantly, how do I make one?

I know - I couldn't find anything online either - strange. Maybe we should go google france and check.

Anyway - recipe in post 38.

Nope - nothing google france either - I'll have to go back and ask Denny.

Edited by Kerry Beal, 06 October 2010 - 06:13 AM.

[Toliver]

Today I made the Pierre Herme Olive Sables from Dorie's book and was well on my way to finishing the whole batch when I came to my senses and packed them away!

At first glance I thought they looked like they had blueberries in them.
The Olive Sables sound intriguing.
Of course, now I'm wondering if I could actually make blueberry sables.

[Kerry Beal]

Today I made the Pierre Herme Olive Sables from Dorie's book and was well on my way to finishing the whole batch when I came to my senses and packed them away!

At first glance I thought they looked like they had blueberries in them.
The Olive Sables sound intriguing.
Of course, now I'm wondering if I could actually make blueberry sables.

With dried blueberries - but I'm not sure that wet blueberries would work with the cutting required.

Another beauty of these olive sables - the salty counterpoint to the sweet cookies.