Smithy

It wouldn't surprise me a bit if that turned out to be true. @weinoo, what do you say?

The business about the meat not touching the pan began with cooking roasts in our crockpots: the meat that touched the crock would overcook and dry out. We've carried it over into oven cookery, and without having done rigorous testing it also seems to matter. Our theory is that the cooking vessel - whether metal or crock - transmits too much heat to the meat with direct contact. The potatoes act as an insulator. I think the very first chip-dip that I liked was a package of Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing (the powder) stirred into a pint of sour cream. That was in college. Shortly thereafter I discovered Lipton's Onion Soup Mix stirred into sour cream. I felt so sophisticated! 😄 I'm impressed that you worked your way all the way through those volumes of Julia's!

I think @ElsieD asked once about Lipton's Onion Soup mix. Here's what we keep on hand. It's actually marketed under the name Lipton Recipe Secrets these days. We like the Golden Onion (and no cumin) on beef chuck roasts, and the regular Onion on pork roasts. The Golden Onion is a smoother mix, without the obvious chunks of onion that the regular mix has.

Glad to oblige, although I should perhaps explain that according to my darling there is only One. True. Way. to cook pork shoulder. No experimentation is allowed. I have been known to carve the bone-in section into chunks to be marinated, then skewered, then grilled as souvlaki. I have to do it when he isn't looking. He loves the results, but hates the thought of letting a good pork shoulder be not-roasted! 😄 Cut potatoes into more or less a medium dice. The size may be arbitrary, but we find that relatively small chunks cook perfectly in the meat juice. He slices the potatoes into rounds 3/4" or so thick, then runs them through the 1/2" grate of an alligator chopper. How many potatoes you need depends on the size of the pot you'll be using and the size of the roast. There must be enough diced potatoes to cover the bottom of the pot, and of course you'll want enough for leftovers. There should also be enough to prevent the roast from touching the sides of the pot, but the side potatoes should not go much higher than an inch above the bottom layer. Otherwise they're likely to be underdone when the roast is ready. Cover the bottom of a heavy lidded pot - we use enameled cast-iron - with the potatoes. Rub the roast liberally with Lipton's Onion Soup Mix and generous amounts of freshly ground cumin. (Grind the cumin yourself, or open a fresh package. Ground cumin, convenient though it may be, has a shelf life of about 2 hours. Well, maybe 2 days.) Put the meat atop the potatoes, fat side up. Add any extra potatoes around the edge of the pot so there's no contact between the meat and the pot. If there's any onion soup mix left, pour it over the meat and potatoes. If you have a meat probe, put it into the middle of the roast. Put the lid on, and put the pot into an oven around 325 - 350F. (We're still a bit fuzzy on the numbers. We've learned that if we set the oven as low as it will go - 275F can be achieved here - the potatoes won't get done before doomsday.) Set the meat alarm, if you're using such a thing, for 160F. Go about your business. An hour or two later, the meat temperature will have risen to 160F. Turn off the heat, pull the pot out of the oven, and let the meat rest, covered. It will come up to about 170F. The pot will have its own juice, the potatoes will be done beautifully, and the pork will be perfectly roasted. Happy eating! But don't even think about treating the roast differently. Mind you, I'm only complaining a little. The result is delicious and marvellously tender, and the leftovers are delicious and tender, and we both love this treatment. I recommend the times, temperatures and general treatment. I just feel slightly straitjacketed.

I'll demonstrate about the freezer, even as I demonstrate one of the assembly-line projects that my darling so adores. We finished the Superburgers last week - well, there's one more, but he'll have that one sometime when I'm gone. We needed to make more. I'm beginning to suspect it's a ploy to avoid the fish I so love, but that's another story. Our Superburgers recipe is 3 pounds Hot Italian sausage, 3 lbs ground beef (preferably 80% lean), and a chopped sweet onion. (If at all possible that Hot Italian sausage must be Johnsonville variety. We're tried other types. Sometimes we've been disappointed.) Mix it all together, measure exactly 7 ounces, mash in the burger patty maker, with burger patty papers for separation. Stack all but two for freezing. This is approximately when I discovered that I'd left our quarter-sheet pans and eighth-sheet pans home. All of them. Fortunately, one baking sheet is small enough to wedge into the freezer. Cook two burgers that night, being sure to warm the smoked corn in the grease. A couple of days later, here is the final frozen product, ready to be bagged in pairs: And then it has to go into the freezer, which as I write looks like this: That large paper package at the upper right of the chamber is the other half of a pork roast that I bought while I was away. The first half was cooked for Christmas dinner. Maybe I'll get around to telling you about that before New Year's!

You are so right about the freezer! 😄 Right now the rolls are wrapped in Ziplock-type bags. We learned yesterday that they reheat and soften nicely in the microwave, with a small dish of water in the chamber with them.

So here's the rest of what was going on on Christmas Eve, in a culinary sense: the making of cinnamon rolls. I have never done this, at least not from scratch. I'm sure that when my parents were alive and we celebrated Christmas together there must have been cinnamon rolls baked at home, maybe from the whomp tubes. But I've never done it. My darling has been rhapsodizing and reminiscing about his mother. She baked bread for the family from time to time, and otherwise bought bread at the day-old bread store. There were 5 children and a tight budget, but that's another story. What my darling remembers is that when she brought out the big bread bowl, he knew there would be warm bread, or cinnamon rolls, or both, when he got home from school. Maybe I'd be willing to do that? he pleaded. Not the school part, but the cinnamon rolls part. Well, that sent me on a bit of a search. I'm still trying (with little success) to make sourdough bread. I didn't think that would be right. What did he remember about her recipe? Nothing. Did it have eggs? Milk? Shrugs. He didn't know. I guessed that it probably did, that it would be nearer to Peter Reinhart's sandwich loaf - an enriched bread - than to a lean artisan-style loaf. I started to mix a batch of Reinhart's bread, from one of his Craftsy classes I took, then I remembered this book, that I acquired this year when it was reprinted: Bea is a wonderful, warm, kind woman, well deserving of the awards she's won over the decades. I don't know her well but I've met her a few times, through mutual friends and some work I did with her husband. I looked through the book. No cinnamon roll recipe, as such, but the recipe for Good Basic Sweet Yeast Dough looked like just the ticket. It wasn't hard to make the dough, although I found myself wishing I'd packed the Danish dough whisk I bought last summer. While the dough was resting and rising, I began a quest for the filling ingredients. The pecans (from Llano, TX) and raisins (from a grocery store in Yuma last week) were easy. The cinnamon and brown sugar were more of a challenge. I wrote around Thanksgiving time, I think, about looking high and low for them and finally buying more. I found them later when I was looking for something else. There's been a lot of that going on this trip. However, at least I knew where to find them. I just had to excavate them...from way back in the back of this bottom cupboard... ...after removing much of the contents of that cupboard.... Then, and only then, could I open the box containing some fine cinnamon and some rather oldish (but still good) brown sugar. (There's some dried candied fruit in the back of that cupboard that I bought for making Christmas stollen, 2 or 3 years ago. I haven't thrown it away yet, but I think I'll do so soon and reclaim that space.) I had to refer to another cookbook to get the cinnamon / sugar / butter ratio, but by the time the dough was ready to be rolled I was ready to fill it. I was none too sure about raisins, but he wanted them. I wanted pecans. This is how I resolved the question. "How big did she cut the slices?" I asked my darling. He didn't know. "Well, did they puff up high or were they flattish?" He couldn't remember. I did my best guess: cut slices about an inch high and loaded them onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Meanwhile, the wind howled and YouTube played some marvelous Christmas music, and the poblanos were roasting for the hot dish listed above, and both 2-footed and 4-footed residents demanded attention...it was quite the juggling act for me. But I got everything rolled up, and we ate dinner. He thought it all looked very complicated, and apologized. I noted that it was because I was doing 2 unfamiliar dishes at once, but neither was very complicated. You've seen the dinner we ate. Here are the rolls, after sitting covered overnight and after baking: It was a delightfully Christmasy breakfast! Oh yes, I'll do this again. I'll probably make a smaller batch, though. Or wait until we have company.

One thing about "going away for a few days" is that by the time I pick up the narrative again, there's plenty to post about. I'll start with Christmas Eve Day. Actually, I'll start a couple of days before that. The storms that are bringing much-needed water to California are occasionally coming far enough south and inland to affect us. We knew we'd be getting rain one evening, so we covered the outside gear, tilted our decks to keep rain from soaking into them, and enjoyed the sound of the rain all night. We awoke to low-but clearing clouds, and lovely rain-decorated plants. After such storms comes wind, from the west. This windstorm was forecast to be a humdinger -- as in, rattling windows and challenging our ability to stay warm - so we anchored everything that might blow away, and closed the tailgate to keep warm inside. So it was that on Christmas Eve Day I had a lot of time to putter around in the kitchen. I've been wanting to try a Washington Post recipe for a Chile Relleno casserole, and thought it might make a good Christmas Eve dinner. Here's the recipe, probably behind a paywall: https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/12/14/chile-relleno-casserole-recipe/. I'll summarize it... Start with canned poblanos, if you can find them. I couldn't find any in the grocery store, so I bought fresh poblanos... ...roasted them until they blistered... ...put them in a covered bowl to cool down, then peeled and seeded them. Meanwhile, this package of ground beef from my darling's daughter... and an onion got to know each other in a pan until the meat was browned. The seasoning was ground cumin and a touch of salt. The recipe calls for pepper too, but I decided I couldn't be bothered to find it. (More about finding things later!) The assembly of the hot dish is: layer the poblanos in a baking dish, then put the meat/onion mixture atop it. Top with shredded cheese and diced peppers. Then - and this is the brillaint part to me - pour a mixture of milk, flour, whisked eggs and a touch more salt over the entire dish. I'm not always careful about reading and comprehending directions in a recipe before I start, and in this case I'd expected to be making a bechamel over the stovetop. Nope. Just pour the mixture over the contents of the baking dish, and bake. Voila! Or maybe I should say, Ole! Dinner that night saw the first use of the Christmas dishes I splurged on a few weeks ago. This recipe is a keeper! It's really very easy, too, unless you're also juggling the making of cinnamon rolls. I'll tell about that in another post.

I made my first-ever attempt at cinnamon rolls for Christmas breakfast. My husband has been busily reminiscing about his mother. When she got out the bread-mixing bowl in the morning before he and the other kids were off to school, he knew that when they got home there'd be either warm bread or cinnamon rolls, or maybe both. I decided to take a whack at it. He wanted raisins, per his memories. I'm not a big raisin fan but I adore pecans. I went with raisins at one end, pecans at the other, and both in the middle of the roll before cutting. They came out pretty well, even with the raisins! It's a good thing, too: with just the two of us, we'll be eating these things for a while. 😄

Packaged salads, shredded cole slaws, a bunch of other items processed in Yuma, AZ and Bessemer, NC sold under Dole, Kroger and other brands, are recalled due to listeria concerns. For the first time, I need to go check my refrigerator. Here's a link to an article about it: https://www.abc15.com/news/state/packaged-salads-produced-in-yuma-and-north-carolina-recalled-due-to-listeria-concerns?_amp=true Here's Dole's recall notice: https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/dole-fresh-vegetables-announces-voluntary-recall-salads-processed-its-bessemer-city-nc-and-yuma-az eta: My cole slaw mix is in the clear. Whew.

You are so right! 😄

I forgot to mention the air fryer I bought because of the gang of enablers here. In this case I'm looking at @Shelby (again) and @mgaretz...I knew I'd left someone out a few posts back!

My name is Nancy, and I have been enabled. Many times. Much of the credit / blame goes to @Shelby, @Kerry Beal, @rotuts, @gfweb and @btbyrd, in no particular order, but I'm probably forgetting some names that belong in the Enablers Hall of Fame. 3 Instant Pots, different sizes and technologies (although one was a gift, so not my own purchase) A handful of Thermoworks products: instant-read thermometers, IR thermometers, Smoke remote-read dual-probe system, pH meter. Everything but the pH meter is in pairs, at least: one for our trailer, and one for our house. Ninja Creami Anova circulator Joule circulator Immersion blender (I'm on my second one, now) 2 Food Savers and a manual vacuum-packer Are cooking pots "kitchen gadgets"? They were my gateway enablement, thanks to our late, lamented @fifi and our long-since retired @Wolfert. Put their names on the wall, too. And @andiesenji! Le Creuset enameled cast iron pots of many different sizes clay pots of many different sizes and shapes a Moroccan tagine I think I already had a cookbook fetish before discovering eGullet, but the collection has expanded massively.

Yesterday at Fry's grocery store (Yuma, AZ) the Neufchatel was 2/$4.00, or (IIRC) 1/$2.59. There didn't seem to be a shortage, and the prices were not discouraging. The same prices applied to the regular Philadephia brand cream cheese.

I generally get their "Light" cream cheese (i.e. Neufchatel) but that seems like the usual price for both. I haven't checked the grocery stores for it lately, though; still working on the pair of packages I bought LAST WINTER for a dessert that never happened.

The daughter knew what it was and claimed it had been there all along. The mother denied knowledge of it and claimed the daughter must have brought it with her when she moved in! No, I didn't try to make off with it, since the daughter uses it.

I had never heard of a Foley potato masher, nor seen such a strange "fork" until this topic. Two days ago I was visiting friends...and spotted this in their drawer!

Here ya go: @ninagluck's Eggnog recipe There are questions and discussion in a few following posts.

I just realized that my Kevlar glove would be a good idea when I use my box grater. I usually have no casualties with relatively soft cheese, but the last batch of parmesan took a small toll. Kevlar: it's not just for mandolines any more!

For once, dinner went as planned, and was not part of the normal repertory. Puff pastry, rolled out (without breaking!) and spread with roasted tomatoes in olive oil, Trader Joe's marinated artichoke hearts in olive oil, chopped salami, fresh basil, and shredded parmesan. 400F oven until the pastry was puffed and browned, the cheese melted, and all the ingredients had become friends. Finger food, once a knife had cut it into manageable sizes. Crisp crust. Delicious ingredients. Even my darling, who would never dream of choosing something like this, enjoyed it greatly. We ate every crumb. Delicious? Yes. Rich? With all that olive oil? Oh, yes. Urrp.

Thanks for the insights, everyone. I've gotten some private commentary as well. The upshot is that I haven't done anything with those jars except open one, note its beautiful topping of fat sealing it, close it again and put all the jars back in the refrigerator. I can throw 'em out later, or (probably) do the small taste-test-and-wait routine. At any rate, I'm going away for a few days so nothing will happen on that front for a while. Today has been a maintenance day. We took the Princessmobile to an RV dump site to empty the holding tanks, refuel the generator tanks, and refill the water tanks. The entire process, including driving, takes about 2-1/2 hours. It began with a bit of drama, however: the trailer brakes wouldn't work. This has happened before: he steps on the pickup brakes but the trailer brakes don't activate. It's a bit of a nuisance on flat land, downright dangerous going downhill or in tight traffic at freeway speeds. Our brakes had been intermittent and we couldn't figure out why. I sighed, had him pop the hood, and looked at the associated fuse. It wasn't just blown, it was broken! I've no idea why. The top is the fuse as we found it; the bottom is the new replacement. These particular fuses are hard to find, so we buy several when we find them. It's a bit of a deal getting the Princessmobile ready to move, even for a few hours: an extra hour at each end for teardown and setup. I still have my feet up, resting, having finished a small sandwich and some potato salad. That sandwich has mayo, horseradish mustard, salami, a small chunk of ham, the last of the Cooper's dill pickle chips, and lettuce. Lots and lot of lettuce, as I like it. The sole maintenance job still under way is the oiling of my Boos butcher block. The wood gets thirsty in this 12% humidity, and if I don't stay atop keeping it oiled it can start to split. I wasn't diligent enough with it the first year I had it, so there are small splits at the ends, but I think I've kept it from getting any worse. Here it is when I had just added the oil on half, so you can see the contrast in wood condition: The cutting board is still in the process of soaking up that oil, and I'm allowing it an hour or three to take it all in: I'll flip it and do the other side later. Last night I'd planned ham 'n' mac 'n' cheese for dinner, but we spent too much time admiring the evening sky. Can you say "Plane of the Ecliptic"? From upper left to the sunset: Jupiter, Saturn (faint but visible in the picture), Venus, and the faintest sliver of new moon on the threshold of winter. Happy Durin's Day. We came inside and nixed the ham 'n' mac 'n' cheese in favors of grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, which are much, much quicker. Tonight, if I get off my duff, we'll be having a puff pastry pizza. If I don't get going, it'll be something else you've already seen before!

LOL here we all are, giving advice to the Italian nonna of wild game!

@Shelby, have you ever tried cutting smaller chunks - one or two bites each, to marinade, skewer and then barbecue as kebabs? That might work for tough meat, though I couldn't swear to it.

This has been a wonderful update of your blog. I've said before but will say it again: your food is sooo much better than anything my hunting gang and I enjoyed during our deer camps! I'd really love to come stay with you for that time...and hunt, or not hunt...heck, I'd love to come camp out with you any time! Many thanks for bringing us into your house!

Speaking of shelf life...I am about to take a deep breath and empty these jars into the garbage. 😞 Two years ago I attended a class on meat preservation at my favorite kitchen store. The class was taught by some of Duluth's preeminent preparers and vendors of such dishes. They made and let us taste pork rilletes, duck confit and king salmon candy. They gave us recipes to make them, and recipes with which to use them. They also sent us home with sealed jars of each, prepared in their commercial kitchen. I brought mine along in the Princessmobile refrigerator, saving it for the special occasion when my sister came to visit. Then ... the world turned upside down... she couldn't make it for Christmas, and then the pandemic struck. I called the teachers recently, told them I still have those carefully prepared jars, unopened and refrigerated these two years. Would they still be safe? The answer came back: absolutely not. They weren't preserved with that sort of shelf life in mind. *sigh* Part of me thinks they're thinking mostly of liability. Preservation of meat with salt, sugar and fat is a time-honored tradition. The other part of me thinks that I did ask because I wasn't sure, and these guys are the experts.. But this stuff still looks so good. *sigh* I'm probably going to pitch it today, instead of continuing to stall as I have been. I'd love some reassurance that with it sealed refrigerated it's still safe unless it smells or tastes spoiled. Opinions? Advice? And the obvious advice is: DON'T save the good stuff for a special occasion. Make a special occasion instead!