Long distance cooking buddies share their food

[Anna N]

Thanks for the recipe - I tried some chipotle mayo this am, but added the chilis too early in the game, so the mayo didn't form. Next try I'll make the mayo - then add the chipotles.

. . . .

Gotta love the smoke ring.

. . . .

I cheat and use Hellman's!

Yeah, that smoke ring is impressive. I see you are having great fun with a new toy.

[Kerry Beal]

Thanks for the recipe - I tried some chipotle mayo this am, but added the chilis too early in the game, so the mayo didn't form. Next try I'll make the mayo - then add the chipotles.

. . . .

Gotta love the smoke ring.

. . . .

I cheat and use Hellman's!

Yeah, that smoke ring is impressive. I see you are having great fun with a new toy.

I am indeed! I wonder how long the fuel would last if I were to do something that required a lot more hours though.

That onion looks 'blooming' amazing!

Edited July 17, 2010 by Kerry Beal (log)

[Kerry Beal]

Rainy day for my one day off - so all my plans of walking down to the dock, the grocery store - abandoned! So I had some time to do some chocolate dipping and some 'snapping turtles'. I'll get a picture of them when I unmold them.

I roasted up two of the garlic bulbs I bought yesterday.

Baked a loaf of squidgy white bread so that Beth and Peter will have something to put their pulled pork on tonight.

First attempt at pizza in the mini BGE. My variant of the California Pizza Kitchen's BBQ chicken pizza - the BBQ sauce I made yesterday, some of the chicken I grilled on the egg, smoked gouda.

No chicken on this one - but a couple of cloves of the roasted garlic smeared on the dough.

I can't get the egg up really hot - so I don't think I'll ever get fabulous bottoms.

[Anna N]

The bread looks amazing, Kerry. I must roast some garlic too one of these days.

Not much serious cooking took place at Home today. It has been hot and humid and I tend to simply fade in such weather. We had errands to do today and lunch was threatening to be a bit of a logistical issue so we opted to grab a mixed meat submarine sandwich and take it home with us. We rarely eat out and rarely have take-out and this could be the reason why! It was really quite horrible. The meat was some kind of processed protein, the cheese was barely visible, the olives, hot peppers and tomatoes were tasteless. However, it was already long past our normal lunch time and we had skipped breakfast so we ate it.

Since it was late in the day when we had the sub, supper had to be something light and fast. A small strip loin, introduced to the grill but not permitted to get too intimately acquainted was served over a bed of lightly dressed greens and accompanied by some grilled zucchini brushed with a miso glaze. The glaze was too lacking in body to really cling to the zucchini so there was barely a hint of flavour. I made a note in my new kitchen journal to find a better glaze for next time.

[Marlene]

That's what my crust looked like, only worse. Why can't you get the egg really hot?

[Kerry Beal]

Anna - you are making me think I need steak for dinner tomorrow - and perhaps a little salad with it!

[Kerry Beal]

That's what my crust looked like, only worse. Why can't you get the egg really hot?

I suspect it's shear volume of fuel that will fit in the space and still leave room for the rack.

[Beth Wilson]

The white 'squidgy' bread was perfect with the pulled pork! Thanks for sharing that with us....I found another pork shoulder roast in the freezer and will be dropping it off soon.....further experiments will be appreciated

[Kerry Beal]

The white 'squidgy' bread was perfect with the pulled pork! Thanks for sharing that with us....I found another pork shoulder roast in the freezer and will be dropping it off soon.....further experiments will be appreciated

I shall wait with bated breath!

[Anna N]

At the end of this week I will be heading north to join Kerry on Manitoulin Island. We ill be staying in a cottage just a few kilometres away from the townhouse. So the week is dedicated to eating whatever we can from the two fridges and starting the pile of stuff that will go with us to the Island.

First though I made up a big batch of chipotle ketchup to keep my son-in-law happy while we are away.

After making two attempts at onion blossoms I had a pot full of oil that would not be useful for much as it smelled and tasted very strongly of onion. But I was not willing to dump it just yet so I made these Indonesian fried onions

I make something very similar to accompany our Danish lunches but this was a different technique and the result was a revelation. The onions are thinly sliced, tossed with salt, gently pressed dry with a couple of towels before frying. Once in the hot oil they are stirred constantly until uniformly browned. These are just incredibly crispy and much more evenly coloured than my usual onions. Next time I would reduce the salt somewhat as I find these just a little saltier than I would prefer.

When my husband got up and smelled the onions cooking, he immediately assumed that we would be having Danish sandwiches for lunch – wasn’t in my plan when I got up but I suspect it is now!

I am hugely tempted to make some onion bhajis to really assuage my conscience about tossing this oil. Hmmmmmmmm…………………

My husband has to leave the house before 7 am today which will give me the opportunity to go through the fridges and toss any science experiments before deciding what needs to be used up by week’s end. Trying to do this while he is hanging about means that I must suffer the 3rd degree over every little leftover that I try to toss! To be continued……………………

[judiu]

Anna, don't 86 the oil just because of the onion flavor! Use it for fried chicken, unless the seasonings on the onions have degraded the quality too badly. The chicken will be yummy, I promise! When my mom used to make fried chicken, I would BEG her to make fried onions with it, too. She hated to, because it would make the house smell like onions for a few hours, but what the heck...

[Anna N]

Anna, don't 86 the oil just because of the onion flavor! Use it for fried chicken, unless the seasonings on the onions have degraded the quality too badly. The chicken will be yummy, I promise! When my mom used to make fried chicken, I would BEG her to make fried onions with it, too. She hated to, because it would make the house smell like onions for a few hours, but what the heck...

judiu,

I cannot remember the last time I made fried chicken but I can say my kids were still living at home at the time and they are now in their 40s and approaching 50! It used to be on a regular rotation but there is just something about it that no longer has any appeal. It is not a health thing for sure, I'll eat just about anything deep fried. Don't think I had a bad experience - just fell out of love with it. Now onion bhajis - that's another story and the oil is still here - who knows what tomorrow may bring.

[Kerry Beal]

Blew out of the house early this am to make it to rounds. Forgot to take a picture of the muffins I'd made. I made another of the lemon poppy seed cakes to take to the reserve where I was headed after rounds. Looks just like the last one!

The muffins were the Fine Cooking Bake Shop muffins. I added about 3/4 cup of the bottled citron tea from the asian store to the mix, and put another little glob in the middle of each muffin. I also sprinkled the top with some sugar that I'd doctored with lemon rind, lemon oil and bitter orange oil.

I did remember to take a picture of my snapping turtles - poprocks in milk chocolate.

Tonight I'm working on some Pichet Ong choux paste. I think I'll fill them with chocolate chantilly cream.

[heidih]

I'm kinda speechless looking at the turtles. Perhaps you could explain a bit more for confectionary neophytes. The citron tea you used in the muffins was that almost syrupy marmalade like stuff? Very interesting use. I do not care for it as a tea and had used it instead in marinades.

[Kerry Beal]

I'm kinda speechless looking at the turtles. Perhaps you could explain a bit more for confectionary neophytes. The citron tea you used in the muffins was that almost syrupy marmalade like stuff? Very interesting use. I do not care for it as a tea and had used it instead in marinades.

Well - the turtles were made by painting the inside of the molds with some metallic teal coloured cocoa butter - that got caught in the crevices - then backing it up with some solid lighter green coloured cocoa butter. You notice of course that I'm incapable of painting in the lines. Crying elf stamps on my straight lines even in kindergarden. Then I poured in milk chocolate and poured it back out. While the cavity was still wet I sprinkled in some poprocks, then a little glob of chocolate behind that. Finally I backed off the plates with more milk chocolate. So when you bite into them they crackle in your mouth.

The citron tea is indeed that syrupy marmalade stuff - I've never had it as tea - but I had to find some use for it. Actually processed a little to make it finer - it's good in chocolate centers.

Decided to go with a chiboust for the choux puff filling - so I've made a pastry cream and an italian meringue and mixed them together. I put a couple of bowls of it in the fridge for the rug rat and the sitter for lunch dessert - I think it will be pretty darn good as a pudding.

[Anna N]

The beer fridge yielded a large hand of ginger, two limes and a couple of tired shallots. The ginger quickly met some garlic and I made this:

Ginger-garlic paste is essential in some of the many Indian dishes I make for my daughter and to have this stuff on hand in the freezer makes the job so much easier and faster. I freeze it flat and can then break off the amount needed.

The limes I will juice and freeze the juice in ice cube trays for beverages and other uses and the shallots will make an appearance in another batch of Back Eddy Pickles from Quick Pickles.

One thing I was not counting on was defrosting this small fridge but it could not be put off any longer. It’s not a difficult job just one I hadn’t planned for.

The big fridge yielded far less waste than I had anticipated. A couple of tablespoons of yoghurt, about the same amount of heavy cream, and a sad heart of romaine were all that landed in the green bin.

A partial tetra pack of chicken stock was boiled and cooled and frozen in an ice cube tray and before the week’s end I will grate up some cheese ends and stick those in the freezer. The rest of the cheese will come with us to the cottage. Any remaining dairy products will go up to my daughter’s place on Thursday.

The unplanned Danish lunch took care of some sliced ham, a half jar of pickled herring and a small strip loin that I cooked to rare and sliced very thinly to make one of the open-faced sandwiches. My husband really enjoyed the Indonesian fried onions but I found them to be too salty and their incredible crispiness had largely disappeared. This may have been my fault for not immediately storing them in an airtight container.

Since a lunch like this is washed down with ice cold Akvavit and beer it requires a long, long afternoon nap. It also negates the need for a hearty evening meal so I made a fried egg sandwich for my husband and I had the leftover strip loin with some buttered spinach.

After dinner I just had to have a go at making onion bhajis. The result was disappointing. I think I had run out of steam and did not pay attention to the size of the onions pieces nor to the ratio of onion to batter.

[Kerry Beal]

I'm keeping track of what I'm making (particularly in the thermomix) in a notebook while I'm up here. Better to keep track of changes than the computer.

Yesterday's offering - creampuffs with vanilla creme chiboust.

Today's offering - butterscotch squares with pecans this time.

I'm working on chicken thighs in vietnamese caramel sauce for later today.

[Kerry Beal]

Oops, forgot the chipotle and roasted garlic mayo.

[Kerry Beal]

Vietnamese Caramel Chicken with Ginger - made in the morning so I'd have something to feed the medical student when we came home for lunch during a nice long break in the ER. I had some boneless/skinless thighs. It got a little dry from overcooking because I'm used to making this with skin on/bone in thighs.

The owners of the Okeechobee Lodge in McGregor Bay are from the east coast originally. They like to have a weekend party for their friends once a year. And they have a lot of friends! On Friday they do a big fish fry with local fish, on Saturday a lobster boil (the lobsters fly in from PEI for the party) and steaks and on Sunday a turkey dinner. Sounds like over the years it has grown quite sizeable. One of my sitter's husband (who is the cook in charge at the Wiki nursing home) cooks for them for this event. Apparently he'd been told to expect about 45 on Friday and was told at the last minute that it was closer to 85.

Anyway I asked if he would bring me back a couple of lobster shells so I could play with a recipe for lobster bisque - he did better than that - got some nice lobster to go with it.

Roasted the shells, I'm cooking them with the aromatics, brandy and vermouth in this picture. You actually grind them up shells and all in the thermomix. Biggest problem I've got is no chinois up here to finish it off. The finest strainer I have here holds about half a cup.

Last night for dinner - I cooked up one of my blade eye (chuck eye for the americans in the group) steaks in butter following the directions in "The Chronicles of Chuck". Thank you Dave Scantland! Of course my steak wasn't 2 inches thick - but it was still a respectable piece and it was tasty I must say.

Still working on the texture in nougat. The trials will continue as long as the almonds hold out.

[Kerry Beal]

The lobster bisque - (well a really small amount of it strained through the really small strainer). The decorative swirl looked perfect until I tried to put a little lobster claw meat on it!

Two new batches of nougat. The first had just the right texture - but is tooth achingly sweet. The second was my 'usual' recipe, but with some modifications to the temperature and with the addition of some albumin. It's almost there - still a bit soft - but I'm hoping some more slight temperature modifications will solve that.

Made a pan of gingerbread to take to the nursing home on the reserve today.

Stopped on the way home from work to pick some raspberries - say goodbye to my favorite shorts - totally stained with raspberry juice. Forgot to take pictures though. Since they were really soft - they pretty much all went into the freezer.

When I arrived home I discovered Anna and her hubby were here - apparently the cabin isn't theirs until tomorrow - so we have lots of action around here. Decided to go out dinner at the Anchor - a local bar and grill that serves pretty respectable food. They were in the weeds, we waited quite a while for dinner. Friday night with all the boaters!

Really nice calamari - the dipping sauce was sweet red chili sauce mixed with mayo - an excellent combination.

Anna and John had the steak sandwich.

I had a chicken caesar. We were so peckish by the time that food arrived we forgot to take pictures until half way though.

Red sky at night...

[Kerry Beal]

On the way to work this morning I stopped off at the "Garlic Patch" to pick up this year's order of garlic. Ten pounds for me, twenty pounds for Beth.

Again the car smelled wonderfully of garlic when I headed out at the end of the day.

The woman who owns the farm says she has had garlic ice cream and didn't like it - but I'm wondering about using roasted garlic. What do you think about a 'rum and roasted garlic'?

[Kerry Beal]

Finally got the texture I'm after. Soft, excellent bite, but stands up without flow and can be cut quite easily.

My picture taking ability seems to have gone to hell in a handbasket tonight.

Realized after I'd dipped them that they should have been on their side so you could see the nuts - DUH!!

[Chufi]

Great thread ladies. Lovely to see how eG and loving food brought you together! Brings back memories of the good old eG foodblog days.

Kerry - those turtles are too cute!

[Kerry Beal]

Today the three amigos - Anna, Beth and I went off to Sudbury together to see what cooking goodies we could find.

We stopped at a couple of bulk food stores and got a variety of ingredients (I got a whole lot more almonds - I think the nougat experiments are over and the next batch will be a final edition with almonds, pistachios and some orange peel).

At Value Village - Beth scored a nice pizza stone, a pasta drying rack and a nice little Fry Daddy deep fryer. Anna got a couple of cookbooks and some steak knives. I managed to leave with another cream siphon and a nice little gadget for holding a chicken vertical over the little Big Green Egg.

At the restaurant supply Beth pointed me towards a little condiment holder in the bargain bin that should be adaptable to hold part of a rack on ribs on the grill of the BGE.

We were pretty darn peckish by the time we found a place for lunch. We had planned on Thai at a place just up the street - but like so many places in Sudbury - it wasn't open on Sunday. We took the advice of the girl from the restaurant supply - and found ourselves at a place called MIC for Made in Canada - Canadian Eatery and Whiskey Pub. We started eating the minute she dropped the food - then realized pictures were required. So excuse the half eaten meals.

Meatloaf with a poutine side - a bit of maple detected - all in all quite tasty.

Smoked salmon melt - apparently not very smokey.

Shepherd's pie - actually cottage pie - and spelled shepperd on the menu.

[heidih]

Shepherd's pie - actually cottage pie - and spelled shepperd on the menu.

I think there is an entire career niche for restaurant menu proof reading and correcting!