Cooking with "This Will Make It Taste Good", by Vivian Howard

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Can an opened jar of olives sit out on the counter without refrigeration?

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Oh, and I misspoke:  SupermarketItaly offers twelve Castelvetrano olive varieties.  (OK, eleven actually, since one product is sold out.)

 

Also it seems Castelvetrano olive spread is a thing.  There are at least a couple brands to be found on the web.

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I thought of @Franci when I read Vivian is getting by in the pandemic by selling mail order baked goods.  I'm sure Vivian bakes good stuff, but I can't believe hers compare with @Franci's.

 

 

[Anna N]

9 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Can an opened jar of olives sit out on the counter without refrigeration?

 

I don’t see why not. Olive bars in supermarkets are not refrigerated. 

[Smithy]

7 minutes ago, Anna N said:

I don’t see why not. Olive bars in supermarkets are not refrigerated. 

 

That's a good point, Anna. For that matter, the open-air markets we used to visit in Egypt had giant jars of olives that were never refrigerated. It might be a good idea for brine-cured olives to stay submerged In the brine.

[Maison Rustique]

I'd be happy to trade places with those of you where it is too warm for your kraut. It was 31 degrees here this morning. While we have the furnace running, the basement is cool and the garage even cooler. 😉 Or, you could just send your kraut for safe storage. Ha, ha yeah. Like it would ever make its way back to you!  

[blue_dolphin]

17 hours ago, Anna N said:

I would be inclined to grill the romaine halves. Just a thought. 

 

17 hours ago, Margaret Pilgrim said:

Grilled romaine is astounding!   

 

I am nothing if not suggestible and this was an excellent suggestion.  

Today's breakfast was a grilled version of that Caesar Me Convinced topped with a crispy fried egg. 

 

Vivian cautioned that the dressing is best on the day it's made.  I wouldn't necessarily advocate long term storage but this was fine after an overnight in the fridge. 

I'd almost forgotten about that Philips Avance grill which was gathering dust and cobwebs in a corner.  It seemed to do an acceptable job though I've never had grilled romaine before so I'm not sure if my method was ideal - I just slapped it on the grill!

[Anna N]

13 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

I am nothing if not suggestible and this was an excellent suggestion.  

You just improved my day immeasurably. It would get even better if there were some romaine in my fridge but alas there is not. But it just made an appearance on my grocery list. 

[blue_dolphin]

Here we have the Red Devils p 114 that, unsurprisingly, use Red Weapons p 104 to flavor them.  

Like the deviled eggs in Deep Run Roots, these use both butter and mayo so they taste pretty rich to me.  I also wanted to add more sour flavor (there's no mustard or vinegar, save for the Red Weapons liquid) but the yolk filling was already pretty soft so my options were a bit limited.  Maybe I should have drained the chopped Red Weapons better?  I dunno.

I decided to take a page from Josef Centeno's Amá where he recommends mashing up leftover deviled eggs into egg salad for sandwiches.  

The bread helped balance the richness of the buttery yolk mixture and I went back and added more Red Weapons to top each of those open-faced sandwiches. 

No complaints. 

[Franci]

21 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

I thought of @Franci when I read Vivian is getting by in the pandemic by selling mail order baked goods.  I'm sure Vivian bakes good stuff, but I can't believe hers compare with @Franci's.

 

 

‘

Oh, Thank you @JoNorvelleWalker 😊🙏

[blue_dolphin]

Today's lunch combined 2 recipes from This Will Make It Taste Good

Sweet Potato, Kraut & Bacon Chowder p 91, featuring the Can-Do Kraut p 68 and 

Pinch Me, Frenchie, p 40, a monkey bread sort of thing made with the R-Rated (aka caramelized) Onions p 38

 

The soup is good.  A bit salty for my taste, but I think my kraut was a bit over salted.  I can watch that more carefully next time. 

I thought it looked very appealing before puréeing:

Next time, I will cut the potatoes smaller and run a knife through the kraut so I can skip the blender if I want.  No complaints though. It tasted very rich and creamy so the heavy cream could be dialed back if desired. 

 

The Pinch Me, Frenchie was a big pain in the butt.  In a small note in the book, Vivian says this would work with refrigerated biscuit dough.  That could be a good thing to try.  The end result is very tasty but the dough was annoying.

I, of course, went with the dough recipe. It is very wet.  Close to 80% hydration.  Rather like a batter in the beginning than something that's supposed to be rolled into 1/2" balls that get dipped in oniony butter, then into cheese before they go into the pan for baking. 

Vivian's baker must be a dough wizard if she can handle this stuff. I ended up adding a bunch more flour and probably could have used even more as it was still soft and sticky. I ended up using a bench scraper to cut the dough into pieces that I rolled into logs and then cut off small pieces.  A half inch ball is awfully small so I made them a bit bigger.  I put them into the bowl with the melted butter and caramelized onions and gently spooned it over the balls to coat, then transferred them to a plate with the grated cheeses where I again used a spoon to sprinkle cheese over and turn them to coat. Instead of a bundt pan, I followed the alternate suggestion of making individual breads in a muffin tin. 

Once you have one layer of balls in place, which I read as more or less half of the dough, you're supposed to take 1/3 of the remaining onions and cheese and sprinkle them over the balls before you continue with the rest of the dough.  When I got to that half way point with the dough, I had 3-4 balls in each muffin cup, all the melted butter was gone with just a small pile of onions left and almost all the cheese was gone.  I took this to mean that I was already distributing enough onions and cheese so I skipped that step, melted a bit more butter and grated more cheese and continued with the rest of the dough.

 

Here's how they looked at that point:

While I've been calling them "balls," the dough was really too soft and sticky to properly roll them.  They were more like blobs. 

 

Here they are when the first came out of the oven:

It could be the extra butter I needed but it bubbled over so it would be wise to put the muffin tin on a sheet pan.  I took one bread out of the tin and the bottom seemed a bit doughy. 

I loosened them all and sort of propped them on their sides to expose the bottoms and put them back in the oven for a while.  That did the trick and here they are, nicely browned:

 

Here's one pulled apart by a monkey:

 

The bottom line is that they're good, but were so annoying, in my hands.  I'm sure there's a better way to handle this and maybe I'll try something else.  I made a full batch of the dough but only used half of it to make 12 muffin-sized breads so I've got the rest of the dough stashed in the fridge to play with another day.  I'm thinking of puréeing some of the onions with the melted butter so I get a more even coating on each ball.  That should leave some onions to put in the middle. 

 

 

 

 

[Anna N]

2 hours ago, blue_dolphin said:

The Pinch Me, Frenchie was a big pain in the butt.

Not that I had ever intended to make these/this but I do appreciate your very careful description of how it went. 

[Shelby]

25 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Not that I had ever intended to make these/this but I do appreciate your very careful description of how it went. 

Me too.  I'm not a patient person and even more so right now.   I don't think I'd have survived this and I would have thrown the dough out the window.

[blue_dolphin]

31 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Not that I had ever intended to make these/this but I do appreciate your very careful description of how it went. 

 

I guess I could have left it with "annoying" but sometimes ya just gotta vent 🙃!

 

4 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Me too.  I'm not a patient person and even more so right now.   I don't think I'd have survived this and I would have thrown the dough out the window.

 

🤣😂🤣

I came very close to doing that!  I had some pizza dough in the fridge and I almost made R-Rated onion pizza instead!  

I'm still delighted at having plenty of hot running water in the sink and the ability to toss everything in the dishwasher so that helped my mood!

[Margaret Pilgrim]

I acknowledge being out of step and even out of bounds, but I find many popular/cult chef authors' books demanding beyond necessity.    There is an axiom in mechanics that says if you have a process that is prohibitively expensive, you put the laziest employee on the project and they will devise a simpler and more efficient method.    It does create a body of work that is salable, but at what cost to the many buyer/reader/users who plow through excessively labor and time intensive recipes.     I am not at all referencing this book...

[Shelby]

I made herb-dacious yesterday.  I skipped the sad plastic containers of herbs and bought some potted ones instead--basil and dill.  Oh and one bunch of cilantro.  Still expensive for how much you get, but not as bad as the aforementioned.  In my haste to get out of the store, I didn't notice that some of the basil was far beyond using.  So, I probably got about 1/2 a cup of basil.  The rest was made up of parsley, dill and cilantro.  Heavy on the dill and parsley.  This stuff is good.  It's kind of like pesto only much brighter with the use of the lemon zest and juice.  I'll try to get around to using it in a recipe if I can stop eating it out of the bowl with a spoon.

 

[blue_dolphin]

Can't wait to see how you use that, @Shelby! 

Speaking of Herbdacious, last night I followed one of the "No Brainer" suggestions to use it on a pizza:

I added zucchini, red onion and Taleggio cheese.  Very pesto-like in this application. 

[Shelby]

On 10/24/2020 at 9:25 AM, Shelby said:

Ok, so, I know Vivian said to wait 3 days before using the Red Weapons, but I waited a day and a half (plus I left them out of the fridge all Wednesday night like she said I could so I figure that counts as more time lol).  I simply had to make the Grits and Chicken last night (pg. 110)

 

I don't make grits very often at all and I need to change that.  I knew I had a bag.  I dug through the pantry and found it...I was nervous, but I had exactly a cup which is what this recipe needs.  I quickly ordered more from Amazon that will be here soon.  Anyway,  I had chicken quarters, not thighs so I subbed them.  Otherwise I made the recipe just as she said to.

 

Red Weapons

 

I didn't get a great brown on one of the quarters.  Not enough skin was on it, but here is the whole dish before going into the oven.  I was nervous because it was really soupy....

 

 

But it worked!  I baked it 10 or 15 mins longer than the recipe says, but that was my fault because I didn't heat the CSO up long enough before putting it in.

 

 

Definitely will make this again and again.  The RW's give the grits a tangy, bit of spicy goodness that mixes awesome with the juices of the chicken.  The grits on the top have a great texture and the ones underneath are super creamy but light at the same time.  Ronnie is not a grit fan and loved it.

 

Since I have the herb-dacious, I decided to make the chicken and grits again last night.  I made it with thighs this time, too.  Really good especially with the sauce!!!  I'm going to be sad when my red weapons are gone (it will be soon).  I think I will make a batch with my canned tomatoes....

 

 

Backing up to lunch, I made a grilled cheese with LGD.  I wished I had made two.

 

[BeeZee]

Question for those who have made LGD...do you think I could use fish sauce in lieu of the anchovies?

[kayb]

1 hour ago, Shelby said:

 I'm going to be sad when my red weapons are gone (it will be soon).  I think I will make a batch with my canned tomatoes....

 

I betcha you could use cherry or grape tomatoes from the store and make good ones.

[kayb]

59 minutes ago, BeeZee said:

Question for those who have made LGD...do you think I could use fish sauce in lieu of the anchovies?

Bet you could.

 

[blue_dolphin]

2 hours ago, Shelby said:

Backing up to lunch, I made a grilled cheese with LGD.  I wished I had made two.

Oooo...LGD grilled cheese...yum!  

 

I listened to an interview with Vivian on a recent episode of the Radio Cherry Bombe podcast the other day. It reminded me that unlike so many restaurant chefs who use (credited or uncredited) co-authors, Vivian actually writes her own books.  

I very much enjoy her voice so find the new book and interviews like this to be very much like catching up with an old friend.  The podcast is available here. 

 

[rotuts]

@blue_dolphin 

 

if you are able to watch her PBS series of shows

 

even better :   you can see how she evolves over time

 

and interacts w her Deep Run roots.

[blue_dolphin]

Good suggestion, @rotuts!   I've watched every episode of Deep Run Roots and Somewhere South several times but now that I have the book, I should watch again.  

 

I'll say that I was delighted to see that This Will Make It Taste Good features Vivian's own spin (using her Citrus Shine) on Von Diaz's recipe for coconut-braised collards that appeared in an episode of Somewhere South.

I'm looking forward to trying it soon!

[Anna N]

Inspired by @Shelby’s grilled cheese sandwich, leftover lunch naan with Gruyere cheese and LGD.