Bitters Tasting and a Spiced Dinner

It's been 2 weeks. The Christmas decorations are all put away, snow has come and gone, we watched Avatar, my wife visited the National Western Stock Show, and I've hosted 2 seminars.

And the the anticipation is killing me.

2 weeks ago I blogged about making bitters, gave you 2 recipies to try and promised I'd give you the results.

Well . . . .

Spicey!!

Bold!!


Alright, here's the scoop. I think it will get even better when it's had a chance to sit for another week or two, but it already has a powerful rosemary and juniper nose on the front-end and a liquorice finish. It's just bitter enough (wormword was the right choice).

But I have to confess, like the orange bitters before, it lacks a certain depth. I'll let it rest for a bit and give final judgement down the road. And I'd like a little more experimentation. Perhaps in the next batch, I'll add the juniper berries after 1 week and reduce the star anise by half.

We've got time, however, and I have Manhattan's to make. I'll let you know how it goes.

Tonight's dinner:


Spiced Pork Roast and OJ Gravy

2 lbs Boneless Pork Roast
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
2 stars of Anise
1 stick Cinnamon
8 -10 Juniper Berries, lightly crushed
Smoked Salt
fresh-ground Pepper
1 California Bay Leaf (2 leaves if you're using Turkish)
1 cup Orange Juice

In a pressure cooker, heat the olive oil until hot. Salt the pork, lightly and evenly, all the way around. Brown the roast on all sides. Sprinkle with pepper, and then add enough water to ALMOST cover the meat. Add the rest of the spices, but NOT the orange juice.

Cook it under pressure (follow manufacturer's directions, because they are all fairly different) for about an hour. (Good time to start your bread!) This makes for a very nicely infused and tender roast. Remove the roast from the pot and let stand, covered, in a nice warm place.

Use a slotted spoon to remove the spice bits that you can, but don't worry about fighting it too hard--a little juniper berry in the sauce is OK and the meat bits are GREAT! Heat the remaining liquid until boiling and start reducing it. Add the orange juice and keep reducing it. Stir or whisk often. When reduced to 1/4 of what it was, turn off the heat, get the pork roast out, pour over the roast, slice and serve.


Cardamom Flatbread

2 cups Flour, plus more for kneading
1 and 1/2 tablespoons quick acting Yeast
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon ground Cardamom
1/4 cup Olive Oil, plus more for the pan
1 cup very warm Water

Combine all the dry ingredients and mix together well. Add the oil and water. Stir together until the dough comes together as a shaggy mass. Turn out onto a clean and floured work surface and knead it until it's uniformly smooth. Let rise, in a covered bowl in a warm, draft-free area for about 30 min.

When about half-again as large as it was, divide into 6 equal parts. Working one at a time (leave the unused portions covered until you're ready for them) roll or press out like a thick tortilla into a disk about 8 inches across. Add a little oil to the bottom of a hot skillet and lightly pan fry on both sides until golden brown and delicious.

Eat while it's hot!


Moroccan Carrot Salad

3 Carrots, grated on the large holes of a box grater
1/4 cup Orange Juice
a fistfull of Raisins
a good dusting of Cinnamon (maybe 1/2 teaspoon?)

Combine everything in a bowl and mix well. Let rest for about 10 minutes.

Serve.

Living, Life and Lifestyle

My brother is moving back to Colorado.

Almost certainly.

Well, maybe.

Aside from the obvious questions for his move (Where to work? Can he afford a home? What to do with the old friends he's leaving behind? Will he make any new friends?), my brother has his priorities in the right place: a home near the best coffee, bar and restaurant in town. We have been tasked with today's mission: the hunt for Eden!

(BTW, when we Google Search "Eden", we get an apartment complex, spa and a Baptist church. OK, so not as easy as that. Although the spa looks nice and isn't far from a good neighborhood. We need a road trip.)

Some of my favorite restaurants include Bastien's (Home of the Sugar Steak!), Trattoria Stella, Tom's Home Cooking (incredible Southern comfort food, only open for weekday lunch and always too crowded to hold the people who want to sit and eat--but WOW! is the food good!), and my wife loves Domo. We also go to Pints Pub and Cuba Cuba whenever we can.

So we drove around. One can find good coffee nearly everywhere, and bars and pubs are on every street corner. As we knew it would, the decision will come down to the neighborhood with the best restaurants. I love Five Points. It's a center for African-American cultural heritage in the West and has a jazz history dating back to the 1920's and 30's. The homes are beautiful Victorians and American Four Squares. Tom's Home Cooking is here. Unfortunately, as with most historical and cultural centers throughout the nation, whenever they are "discovered" by the masses, homes get overpriced, douches move in and the neighborhood jumps the shark. So far this hasn't happened completely in the Five Points, but already taxes and rents have become too expensive for many of the original residents.

Highlands boasts great homes with character and a gentrified neighborhood that smartly enough replaced old cool with new cool. Here you will find great shopping, Common Grounds Coffee, Stella's, funky bars and my brother's favorite place for fish and chips, Mead Street Station. But with so much within walking distance, Highlands is already pricey.

Other areas include Wash Park (Washington Park) which is like Highlands 15 years later, Lafayette Historic District which is near Colfax and Colorado and has many cultural and artistic outlets nearby, Congress Park which is lovely and largely unrecognized by many in Denver (Bastien's is halfway between Lafayette and Congress Park), and Capital Hill which is still a rough neighborhood with pockets of excellence, but is the closest to downtown and Domo, Cuba Cuba and Pints Pub.

So where should my brother live? Everywhere is close enough to get around well, and great food and drink exist all over town. Bottom line, anywhere is going to be good and every place will also have it's challenges. I recommend visiting for a while and look around for yourself. Take a day or two, a week, a month. Maybe rent for a bit and try it on. See how it fits.

Tonight's dinner after driving around all day:

Something Like Really Great Stroganoff, Made with Venison and Served Over Homemade Noodles

1 lbs Venison, trimmed, sliced thin (I'm using Round Steak)
1 lbs Mushrooms, sliced
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon Canola Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/4 cup Bourbon
1/2 cup water
Sour Cream
whatever other Spices you like to add, to taste (I'm using Rosemary, because that's what I have too much of laying around)

Saute the mushrooms in melted butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Keep flipping or stirring. You don't want them to get overly brown, just a really good, soft saute. Remove from pan and set aside.

Turn up the heat to high! Add canola oil. (You could use any kind of fat, bacon grease would be best, but I'm trying to watch it right now.) When it gets hot (starts to smoke and moves faster than water on the bottom of the skillet) add the venison. Cook for about 1 1/2 minutes without touching. Flip, cook for 30 seconds longer. Add the rosemary. Stir in the bourbon and deglaze the bottom of the pan a little (be careful: hot bourbon will erupt suddenly into flames. Don't come crying to me when you don't have eyebrows--you have been warned.) Add the water. Add the mushrooms. Season with salt, pepper and anything else you want to season it with. Reduce to lowest setting and simmer for 20 minutes (or longer). Make some pasta. Or rice.

Just before serving, add enough sour cream to make a good sauce. Cook only long enough to heat thoroughly.


Egg Noodle "Pasta"

This is not pasta. It's egg noodles. But it's good and when you're well practiced, it's a nice substitute that's fun to make.

Flour
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt

Dump a couple of cups of flour out on a clean counter top. Make a hill. Stick your fingers in the top of the hill and move, gently in a spiral until you've formed a "volcano" shape.

In a bowl, combine the egg, water, oil and salt. Mix until frothy.

Pour into the volcano. Using your other (CLEAN hand) gently mix the liquid mixture into the flour, using the same spiral motion. When the liquid has taken on all the flour it can hold, move the rest of the flour out of the way and start to knead. You want to incorporate a little more flour--just enough that you have a firm, smooth ball of dough.

Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap. Let stand for 10 minutes.

If you have a pasta maker, use it. If not, get a good rolling pin and roll the dough out into 1/16th of an inch sheets. Using a ruler and knife, cut into 1/2 inch wide ribbons. Slice the ribbons into 3-4 inch lengths. Or get a pasta machine. Make your life easy. I don't care.

Add to lightly salted, boiling water. Cook for 3-4 minutes. Drain and serve immediately!

Amazing Things You'll Find on the Internet

Sometimes, serendipity happens. I love finding things that I didn't know existed. Like the blobfish. I never knew that existed. And forgive me for being so species-centric, but man! is it ugly!

But this is a food blog, and I cannot imagine eating one of these things.

Foodies have their fun on the net as well. Take The Grill Sergeants! This website showcases The Pentagon Channel's on-air cooking show. Make no mistake, the recipes are ok and typically taste good enough (albeit the printed format is often incomplete), and is perfectly representative of nearly every other cooking show. The real magic lives in the personalities. Each chef is, as the name suggests, a Sergeant in the military. For example, SFC Brad Turner, combines the on-air personality of Emeril Lagasse with the in-your-face charm of R. Lee Ermey. And if it sounds like terrifying spectacle, well, it is.

While cooking and food sites usually boil down (forgive the pun?) to a list of recipes (if you're lucky) and lots of advertising for kitchen gadgets, a few exceptions stand out. Cook's Illustrated gathers all of it's revenue from subscriptions and production of PBS shows and has no advertising on its website nor in its magazine. Its product reviews are objective, with the end user in mind, and the recipes (complete with an almost Carl Sagan-like nerdiness of explaination behind them) are nearly foolproof and quickly sorted with their search engine. However, as their intellectual property is their only revenue, you must pay to play. (Worth every penny IMHO.)

I also rather enjoy Cooking.com, but the recipes all have some kind of agenda. For example, look for "rice." 739 results and not one tells you how to cook rice. Sure you can see how to make a serviceable paella, but if someone wants to make a pot of rice . . . tough.

And then there is the discussion of vegitarian vs. carnivores. Or worse, vegitarian vs. vegan. Regardless of your politcal stance, basic nutrition dictates that a balanced diet has room for some meat and far more veggies than most of us eat. The World Wide Web is another story, though! Meat is comparatively under-represented. There are some gems, though. Case in point, the very classy, very well designed Exotic Meats USA. Lovely to look at, easy to navigate, simple to shop. Also, entertaining to read. (Look for the "Eat Your Mascot, 8Lbs. Sampler.") However, the recipes are a challenge to find, and not numerous.

Compare this to VegCooking, a very good source for vegetarian and vegan recipes and musings. But not as pretty to look at. (As an aside, will someone please tell me, why do vegetarians WANT everything to to be meat? "Mock Fish." "Mama Gleaton's Tofu Turkey with Dressing." " 'Beef' and Broccoli Stir-Fry." Meat substitutes can be found everywhere and in all forms. Rare is the product or recipe that touts, "I am not a meat and proud of it.")

But the most disturbing vegan cuisine, at least visually, is Cuitlacoche, a corn fungus. I will say little more on the subject. However, Steve says a LOT more, and far more colorfully than I would dare on this family-oriented posting.

The culinary arts are warming up and I'm excited to discover where the future will take us. Wherever it may be, I know I'll be able to get there on the often frustrating, occasionally informative and always amazing internet.

And in case you thought I would leave you stranded:

Rice

Put between 1/3 and 1/2 cup of dry white rice per person into a pot. Tap the side of the pot until the rice is evenly distributed over the bottom of the pan. Barely touch your fingertip to the top of the rice and fill with cold water until the water comes 1/2 way between the 1st and second knuckle. Add a bit of salt. Put it on the stove on high and bring to a boil. Without lifting the lid, immediately reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. (If you use an electric burner instead of gas, put it on another burner or you will boil it too long while the element cools down.) Let stand, covered, for a minute or two while you set the table, fluff the rice and serve.

A New Hand at an Old Friend

The digestif known as bitters flavors a number of cocktails, not least of which is my favorite, the Manhattan. Angostura makes the most famous brandname, but many recipes exist for making bitters and some of these can be found online. I tried an orange bitters recipe a little while back with good, but not perfect, results. So I wanted to give it another whirl, this time with my own flavors.

I have a guess as to what flavors I want, and I know with certainty what I don't. The problem with the orange bitters recipe as written: the alcohol is too strong leaving an antiseptic aftertaste. I want something richer, deeper, bolder and a little more complex. Something with hint of spice. We took a trip to Boulder, to our spice shop and apothecary.

Spice shops for me are like candy shops for little children. The apothecary jars filled with rich, exotic spices which promise such wonders, but with a Mona Lisa smile hinting at the mysteries still to be unlocked. Oh! And the aroma! Even walking on the sidewalk past the door, the fragrance calls to me like a siren's song. Savory Spice Shop certainly delivers on every wonderful promise.

When you go to a spice shop, open the jars and get a good whiff of the flavor. Experience how the spice hits the nose--is it all bright, in the nostrils? Or does it hit the back of the throat? You can get a great sense of how something will taste just from its smell. This is good when you are creating your own new recipe. Also, ASK FOR HELP. Savory's staff is knowledgeable and very friendly and was, frankly, very patient with me. What is the difference between California and Turkish bay leaves? Star anise and anise seed? This clove vs that clove? How do these flavors mix? If this was the type of flavor you were going for, what else would you try?


For the bitters I'm working toward, I know I want to start with Whiskey as the base and Rosemary as the central element, so I am looking for a deep supporting cast. Juniper Berries to add another complimentary evergreen flavor; California Bay Leaves to deepen the complexity while adding a slight minty brightness; Star Anise and toasted Cardamon Pods to add sweetness. And I use Wormwood Extract instead of Gentian Root Extract to keep the bitterness more herbal rather than woody.

This is absolutely a work in progress. I'll give you the recipe and let you know how it goes. 2 weeks.




Rosemary Bitters

750ml Canadian Club 100 Proof
about 10-12 inches of fresh Rosemary sprigs (I used the tips of our Rosemary plant)
4 leaves Organic California Bay Leaves
10 Juniper Berries, lightly crushed
6 Green Cardamom Pods, toasted in a skillet
3 stars Star Anise
20 drops Wormwood Extract

Combine all ingredients in an airtight glass jar. (Lets keep it clean, people. Wash it well, first.) Swirl the concoction around immediately and then every other day for 2 weeks. When not shaking it, store it in a cool, dark place.

After 2 weeks, strain for big chunks, then filter through a water filter (I use a Britta). Bottle in a VERY clean bottle, seal, and if you can stand it, let it rest for another 2 weeks to develop flavors.

Serve a shot over ice, or combine into your favorite cocktail.
Orange Bitters
This recipe is pretty good and the flavor has certainly improved over the past 2 weeks since making it. No one told me to store it before consuming. I highly recommend this last step. (Credit to Chow.com for this one.)

750 ml Everclear 151
1/2 lbs dehydrated Orange Peel
1 teaspoon Fennel Seed
1/2 teaspoon Coriander
4 Cardamom Pods
20 drops Gentian Extract

Combine all ingredients in a very clean, glass jar with an airtight lid. Shake well and store in a cool, dark locale. Shake it every other day.

At the end of 2 weeks, strain and filter. (See recommendation above.) I HIGHLY RECOMMEND letting some of it sit for another 2 weeks before using.
The Manhattan

8 count pour of Bourbon
2-4 count pour of Sweet Vermouth
1-2 count pour of Orange Bitters (above)
Garnish
Combine Bourbon, Vermouth, & Bitters in a cocktail shaker, over ice. Shake vigorously, strain into chilled cocktail glass.

Garnish with a Maraschino Cherry, Orange Twist, Orange Slice or Lemon Twist.

(For those who were never bartenders nor had a bartender as a BFF, a 1 count pour is a less-than-one-second count with a bar pourer in the mouth of the bottle. A 4 count pour is about 1 1/2 oz of a liquid.)

Now, go entertain yourself. We are laughing uproariously over FUpenguin. Unless you are my Mom. Then you should still look at this link and laugh. It's funny, with strong language and irony. I'm still going to church.

A Quick Non-Salad Salad

Fist-Full-of-Salad

I got home from work and didn't feel like cooking. Fortunately, we had a lot of leftovers. Unfortunately, everything was protein and starch--no nutritious vegetables. But what to do that's fresh and not labor intensive? This one took 5 minutes.

4 large Butter Lettuce leaves, washed
1 large grated Carrot
1 medium Tomato, chopped
fistful of dried Cherries/Raisins/Crasins/other fruit
1 Clementine, peeled & sectioned
Salt & Pepper to taste
a drizzle of your favorite Salad Dressing (I just use Olive Oil and a splash of Red Wine Vinegar)
fistful of Grape Nuts/Nuts/other crunchy stuff

Layer the goodness on top off of each leaf. Sprinkle with salt, pepper. Top with a little less salad dressing than what you think you need (you can always add more).

Eat it like a taco.

Try adding shrimp, chopped hard boiled egg or cheese for protein.

What a Little Knowlege Will Do or A Day of Decadence and Good Business Sense

Make no mistake. I love my chosen career. I love the people I work with and work for. I love the thought process I have in seeing the relationships between people and their money. And I love that I can make my own hours.

After a good day of dedicated effort and rewarding results, I left the office for my favorite establishment to meet a good friend and client. We weren't talking shop other than to expound on the joys of life, and we had a few beers and a dozen wings. (Smithwicks at OLI. It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.) More friends joined us. What little bit of decorum we had flew out the window. Laughter. Raucous behavior. Looks from other tables. In short, our kind of fun.

But OLI, beer and wings was not our true plan. My friend and I soon journeyed to a little cigar establishment in Lafayette, Barlow's Premium Cigars and Pipe. For years, I have enjoyed the occasional cigar as any red-blooded American man will. But never before has it been an experience. I've been missing out on the joys of what a truly good cigar can bring to the party and what kind of parties can be found at true gentleman's retreat. (Not to be confused with a gentleman's club, in which may be found cigars, but the attraction is really anything but gentlmanly.) More importantly, however, I was transported to a time and place of Men. Like my imagined hunting lodges of old Europe, we didn't care about the work-a-day rabble trudging on in their self-imposed chains, nor did we worry about our own trials and tribulations that we'll face tomorrow. No. We told stories of larger-than life exploits. Of hunting and fishing and golf and sports. Of kids and family. Of stupid things that men and boys do when women aren't around to provide good counsel. The men here are leaders in their respective industries and many of them celebrate their success with the one thing more precious than all the money they could make: leisure time. Yes, they also all seemed to be rather happy men in their families, their businesses, and their accomplishments in whatever their personal endeavors may be. We all reveled in the stories we could tell. And we smoked cigars.

My friend is an educated connoisseur of cigars, well able to distinguish between regions and wraps and seeds and flavors. He knows how each will smoke, its ash, and the length of time one should savor its rich aroma. When you first enter Barlow's the musky, smokey, leathery smell embraces you and invites you in further. And the humidor is where the magic is ensconced. Dozens of brands, each with muliples of shapes, lengths and girths and styles. He asked what flavors I liked and what type of cigar I'm most familiar and made a few recomendations. I chose an Illusion Epernay. Similar to a robusto in size, its flavor was earthy and nutty, not unlike good forest mushrooms, with a little bit of leather and oak. And then it hit me. This is very much like drinking wine or scotch. You don't have to know every little detail to enjoy it, but if you're aware--truly present to the experience--you'll recognize tastes you already know and love. You need to release yourself from the pretensions of what you're doing and just enjoy it for what it is. When you start to taste the flavors you'll know if it's right for you. Like something sweeter with a bit of chocolate? Or something a bit more bitter like coffee and chicory? Or perhaps a little more floral? I look forward to each of these and to discover new combinations I haven't yet imagined.

I expect you'll hear more from Barlow's.


Tonight's Dinner:

Pan Seared Chicken in a Citrus Sauce with Garlic and Rosemary

4 boneless, skinless Chicken Breasts
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
Juice of 1 Lemon
1/2 cup Orange Juice
2 tablespoons fresh Rosemary Leaves, minced
3 large cloves of Garlic, minced
Zest of 1 Lemon
Corn Starch slurry in Orange Juice

In a heavy skillet, on high heat pour in 2 or 3 tablespoons olive oil. Heat it up until it moves like water in the bottom of the pan when you swirl it around. Using tongs, lay the breasts into the oil--be careful, it WILL spatter. Sprinkle with salt. Brown the bottom then flip. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. (Don't put the pepper on until the side browns. Pepper burns and looses its flavor, or at worst could turn bitter.)

Reduce the heat to medium low, flip the breasts and pepper that side, too. Remove the breasts from the skillet and set aside for a moment. Add another tablespoon of olive oil and quickly sautee the rosemary, garlic and lemon zest. Add the lemon and orange juices and deglaze the bottom of the pan. Add the chicken back in and simmer at a low heat for 20 minutes.

Remove the chicken to a serving platter and add the corn starch slurry to the sauce in the pan. Turn the heat up to medium and whisk until smooth. Let come to a boil and thicken the sauce. If it's too thick, you can thin it out with more orange juice or even some chicken broth.

Serve over bowtie pasta with a sprinkle of shredded parmasian cheese.

The sauce would also be good on salmon.

How Laundry Tells Us What We Need to Know About Cooking

Sundays are laundry days for us. It's one of those lovely days where an in-tune soul can live reminiscently through the past week's events in recognizing what he was wearing when those events took place. For example, I was wearing a black T-shirt with a Woodstock print (thank you Target for affordable around-the-house fashion) when I was browning the venison for a Texas Green Chili.

Eggs and custards; sauces, marinades and salad dressings; sautees and fried foods. My clothes bear witness to the stains of almost everything I make. While the memories are pleasant, grease, oils, berry juices and many protiens do not come out of cotton. My lovely wife Heather, being both an accomplished artist and seamstress, has a remarkable talent for cutting the image off of the newly stained T-shirt and sewing them onto another, new, plain T. This creates a a great layered effect of fabrics and print, but creates another, larger problem: I like this look.

And thus the dilema. I like having unique clothes that Heather makes for me and my current cooking style fast tracks this opportunity. But a responsible financial advisor such as myself shouldn't endorse the frivolous and wanton destruction of perfectly good clothing. So, should I live with stained clothes? Stockpile plain T-shirts with the hope that Heather will create works of art? Or perhaps other options?

The first potential remedy is covering up. An apron or a cooking jacket is not only a fashion statement unto itself (and even another canvas for Heather's art), but is a great and fairly inexpensive way to shield unwanted splatters from one's clothing. A nice full-sleaved cooking jacket or a full broad apron will assuage any splatters and bubble overs from the clothing beneath. For that reason each are also a good safety meassure around hot liquids and pans. And I'm serious about the fashion statement. An apron (or even better, jacket) gives a certain air of authority in the kitchen--you're the one giving directions, the one making decisions, creating a masterpiece. I've been told confidence is sexy, and frankly that's one of the things I do well. (Confidence, that is.) Since I'm not going to change my cooking habits, this is a great first step. Unfortunately, I don't regularly remember to cover up until it's too late. Which takes us to our second option.

JoAnn Fabrics (and probably other places) sells a little stain remover called the Magic Wand. Again, I confess, this is not my department. Heather buys and works the Magic. With time, a little elbow grease and The Wand, I've watched Heather remove tar from a linen shirt. Certainly, no mere grease stain could stand up to this kind of cleansing vigilanteism. . . . But alas, if the wearer is not diligent in removing that article of clothing and at least soaking it in cold water, immediately, well then, all hope is lost. While many of my shirts' lifespans have been prolonged with this wonderful creation, the Magic Wand cannot cure all.

So laundry is trying to tell me something about my cooking. Maybe I should be more aware of my sexy power in the kitchen and wear an apron. Maybe I should be more aware of when I make a mess and change and soak my shirt so the Magic Wand can do its magic. Or maybe, just maybe, I should change my cooking style? Less grease? Sauces cooked slowly and patiently so they don't bubble and splatter? Perhaps. But until then, Sunday laundry days will continue to describe the cooking adventures of the week that was. Leftovers, if you will.


Texas Green Chili

1 lb of Ground Meat (I use Venison)
1 large Onion, chopped
3 cloves of Garlic, minced
1 16oz can each of Black Beans and Kidney Beans
2 tablespoons ground Red Chili
1 27oz can of Hatch Green Chili (what a weird size can!)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Brown the meat in a heavy pan. Add the onion and garlic and sautee until soft. Sprinkle with the red chili,salt and pepper and stir until evenly coated.

Add the beans and green chili. Stir and simmer at a low temperature. Keep cooking at a low temperature. Cook it a while longer. Take it off the heat and put it into the refridgerator until the next day. Heat it again. This is one of those meals that gets better with age. Leftovers rock! Serve with warm tortillas.

What's for breakfast?

We're making Johnny Cakes this morning with bacon and eggs.

Basic Johnny Cake recipe:
1 1/2 cups Yellow Corn Meal
1 (light) teaspoon Salt
2 teaspoons Sugar
a pinch of Cayenne Pepper
2 1/4 cups Boiling Water
Butter or your favorite fat

Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Carefully and quickly add the water, whisking the entire time to break up the lumps. Let the batter stand for 10 minutes.

Preheat a skillet to about 325 degrees (I love my electric skillet for this!) Melt a tablespoon of butter in the skillet. Drop in spoonfulls of the batter until the cakes are about 4 inches across and about a 1/4 inch high (or so). Cook for 6 minutes. Flip them over cook for another 6 min. They should be golden brown on both sides, crispy on the outside and tender (maybe even a bit mushy) inside.

We serve Johnny Cakes with maple syrup, but they go well with savory sauces as well. Or serve with porkchops during dinner.

Makes 8-10 cakes

For a variation, you can add diced jalapenos or corn kernels.



Oven Bacon

Place strips of bacon on a cookie cooling rack on a sheet pan. Make sure the sheet pan has at least 1/2 inch sides all the way around or you will have a smokey grease fire in your oven. I tried it, you won't like.

Put the pan in a cold oven and set the oven for 400 degrees. When the oven comes to temperature, start checking the bacon every few minutes, because the bacon will get burned in a heartbeat.

This is a great way to cook bacon because it eliminates splatters on the stovetop and each strip comes out straight and flat.

For a variation, try adding a thin sprinkle of brown sugar to the bacon before putting it in the oven!


We cooked everything in bacon fat this morning instead of butter--in part because we were out of butter and partly because bacon fat makes everything better.