Behind the curve

I know a lot of cooks, people from California, and food lovers already know about this, but check out my new bean dealer: Rancho Gordo! They carry heirloom beans, dried hominy and chilies. I just ordered 3 packages of dried hominy (I only wanted 1 but I hit the wrong button and couldn't figure out how to change my error) and some New Mexican chile powder. Can you guess what I am making? That's right, red posole! I saw the recipe on 101 Cookbooks and have not recovered since. My chef at work gave me some cans of hominy last night, but as he handed them over he said "these are a sorry excuse for dried or frozen hominy." That will not do. So I ordered the good stuff from Rancho Gordo and am going to throw the cans in the trash. Kidding! I will eat those too- but I want my first attempt at posole to be sincere.

Image from Ranchogordo.com

A Whole Duck

I got a whole duck from work on saturday night, beak, eyes, paws, flippers and all. It is soooo cute and now different parts of its body are allll over my kitchen. First, its head, spine, and ribcage were dismantled and roasted in the oven( I am a terrible butcher, by the way. It took 4 knives and a lot of ripping for me to get everything apart). Toasted bones make a great stock.
Meanwhile, the breasts have been wrapped and are now relaxing in the freezer until further notice with a pound of awesome ground beef that I changed my mind about for tonight's dinner. The legs and wangs are in the oven after being pan seared, and are nestled in around 4 pounds of lamb shanks, onions, garlic, herbs, tomato sauce and cabernet.
The skin is boiling on the stove in order to render of some fat that I can eat with a spoon during dark moments.

What ever am I up to?

Well... I saw Julie and Julia on Saturday morning with Kevin and Shane and we (I) cried through the whole movie. I loved it! And, just like everyone else who saw it, I remembered how amazing Julia Child was and rushed to get a copy of MtAoFC (and wished I went to a private cooking school in Paris). Naturally, every (every) book store in Portland is sold out! It was kind of embarrassing to ask for it today, as I knew all kinds of yahoos have been searching for it just because of the movie. I'm just sad that I didn't already have a copy.
You see, I already made plans and invited everyone over to have Pate de canard en croute tonight. But then I couldn't find the book this morning. I already had the duck, the beef and the pork for the filling, I just needed the recipe and a trussing needle!
So anyway. It was not meant to happen today. I did find a copy of Julia Child & More Company though, and decided to make a cassoulet. I tracked down four pounds of lamb shanks and some navy beans, and now everything is cooking.

I had never butchered a duck before today- it is much harder than they make it look at my job. I will post photos later of the process and the results. In the mean time, go see that movie!

Independence Day

Dogs, children, friends, pulled pork and my grandma's baked bean recipe made this day very extra-special.

Oma's Baked Beans:

1 can butter beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can lima beans
1 can white kidney beans
1 can (16 oz.) diced tomatoes
1 onion, sauteed in olive oil
2 tablespoons worcester sauce
1/4 to 1/2 cup brown sugar to taste
1 fat piece of bacon or pork belly
S+P to taste

Preheat oven to 270 degrees. Saute large onion and bacon in a dutch oven. Add the tomatoes, and then all of the drained beans. If you have time, my Oma liked to use mostly canned but one dried variety for extra texture and flavor. In this case pick which bean you would like to start as dry and soak overnight before cooking. After adding beans, stir in brown sugar and worcester sauce. Don't be afraid to stir in some catsup if the mood strikes you. We forgot to, but usually it is a featured ingredient. After this all has heated stove top, put the covered dutch oven into the oven. Bake for a couple of hours! It should reduce a bit and be bubbly, sweet and salty. This can be made vegetarian but vegetarians usually want to be lied to about baked beans with pork.

Sprout Update

The sprouts had a bath this morning and got fresh sheets on their beds. Are these little guys done yet? I vote yes. In fact, I am putting some on my school snack today and we'll just see how it goes. They are scheduled tonight for delivery, so they'd better be ready.

the bean series

The Bean Corral


Day One


Day Three (honey how you've grown)

Sprout Sitting *and* Dropping Out Of Greek Mythology

I just dropped out of my Greek Mythology class*, so to those of you who were really sure that I would never learn to enjoy epic poetry, you were right. Here's the thing. My friend Nic is going to the Nordic Countries (all of them, via sailboat, NOT fair) for a couple of weeks. In his wake, I have been left along with 40,000 sprouts to babysit. I have not actually counted them but it seems like a fair number. The pressure is enormous. Having two dogs is already completely time consuming, especially when one is a control freak who lacks control of his bladder and the other is bad, but this is a whole new ball game. People are counting on me for the well-being of these sprouts. You see, Nic is a sprout dealer. I wont give too much of his game away, but suffice it to say I'm in deep. I'm fucked. The jar of beans ( just waiting for me to give them life!) might as well be a big jar of Jacky Scrapple's all needing to be walked.
My responsibilities include but defiantly are not limited to: Soaking the beans for 24 hours. Rinsing the soaked beans 4 times a day until they sprout (3-4 days). Delivering sprouts to clients. Repeating process until he gets home.

Hopefully I will be able to post photos of the journey from bean to sprout, but we'll just have to see how much strength I have left after all of this.


*Mom- I am still in school. Don't worry.