Bruschetta! A Light Summery Version

It's been too long since I posted anything here, and for that I am truly sorry.  I enjoy the blog and hopefully my paltry readership does too.  So I've got a couple of things to write about and I'm going to try and get them up over the next few weeks.

First, I'd like to talk about bruschetta.  Some folks think of bruschetta as a specific dish - it is not.  Bruschetta can be prepared in a tremendous variety of ways and I've yet to meet one that was not delicious.  Some folks like the bread heavily charred, others barely toasted.  If you search the web for bruschetta recipes, you'll find thousands.

Today I have for you a very light bruschetta recipe (and I use that term loosely here) that goes very well with summertime backyard fare.  It's something you can take to a party and not worry about having to bring home any leftovers.  The inspiration for this dish was an appetizer at The Schooner in Netarts, Oregon.  They haven't served it for years and they served several variations over the years that they did serve it.

What you'll need:
Bread - in this case, a baguette is perfect.  The smaller the diameter of the slices, the better.  Two baguettes is better than one.

For the tapenade:
3-4 Roma tomatoes
4 cloves fresh garlic
13 Calmata Olives
Fresh basil - see picture, I have no idea how to measure this stuff
Olive oil (extra virgin, of course)
Kosher salt (any coarse salt will do)

You can toast the bread however you'd prefer.  I've tossed slices in a skillet with some olive oil and simply toasted one side.  I've taken the whole baguette and sliced it lengthwise then toasted the two halves over a charcoal grill before chopping into inch-and-a-half long pieces.  How you toast the bread is up to you, and on occasion I've even served it on fresh bread (not toasted).  Serving it on fresh bread would not technically be bruschetta, but it's still a tasty appetizer.

Chop the garlic finely.

Place in bowl and cover with oil:

Chop the olives finely:

A word about fresh basil.  The grocery stores here sell large bags of fresh organic basil that are usually more than you'd use in a single meal.  The best way to store the unused portion is to cut the stems underwater and leave them near a window.  They'll often sprout roots and thrive for weeks.

Add the olives to the bowl and chop some basil:

Add the basil to the bowl.  You many need to add a little more oil to cover everything.

Now you've got a decision to make regarding the tomatoes.  You can chop them up and add them to the tapenade or slice them thinly and leave them on the side.

When I took these pictures, we served the tomatoes on the side and used fresh bread.  By this time I had forgotten about taking pics for the blog.  I remembered at the last minute...

Sorry about the casual setting.

To serve: take a piece of bread, top with a slice of tomato, a dollop of tapenade, a sprinkle of salt and enjoy!

Jerky! Salty, Smoky, Delicious Homemade Jerky

My daughter was lucky enough to kill her first deer on October 1st.  The lucky girl and her not-so-lucky prey:

On Sunday afternoon we butchered.  We have lots of ground Elk from last fall in the freezer, so we didn't want any more ground venison.  We cut steaks where appropriate (hello, back strap!) and cut the rest into thin strips for jerky.  What little we had left that wasn't fit for jerky we cut into small pieces and canned.

None of us had ever made jerky before.  My father-in-law has a propane smoker, and I've got Google.  I searched for jerky recipes and found lots of information.  After comparing a few recipes and processes, we decided on the following:

2/3 C Soy Sauce
2/3 C Worcestershire Sauce
Garlic Powder
Crushed Red Pepper

This was supposed to be enough for three pounds of raw meat.  I had four...

I poured the 2/3 C Soy Sauce over the meat, then emptied the Worcestershire bottle into the 1/3 C measure.  Out of Worcestershire, I substituted 1/3 C Bragg's Liquid Amino and added 1/3 C Black Vinegar (one of those stir fry secret ingredients - highly recommended).  I did not measure the Garlic Powder or Crushed Red Pepper, but I'd estimate 3 T Garlic Powder and 2 T Crushed Red Pepper.

i mixed it  up well and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight, mixing before bed and first thing in the morning.

The next day, we fired up the smoker.  We smoked at 150 degrees for about three hours with some Mesquite chips.  After the three hours were up, the flavor was excellent but the texture not quite as dry as we wanted.  We raised the heat to about 170 and let the jerky dry for another two hours or so.

The end product was fantastic, if a little spicy.  If you remove any red pepper seeds from the jerky, the spice level is nearly perfect.  If you want a little more heat, leave that red pepper in place.

I did not have high hopes for this project, and didn't take pictures or plan to use this recipe here.  I will take a picture of the finished product and add it to this post later tonight or tomorrow.

If you're going to try making jerky at home and don't have a young deer to process, I think I'd recommend using an eye of round roast, cut with the grain into thin strips (1/4" or thinner).

Keep in mind that you lose A LOT of weight with drying.  Our four pounds of raw meat probably lost 50% or more of the total weight by the time it was done.  Jerky is expensive for a reason!

If you have a smoker, I encourage you to try making some of your own jerky.

Summer's Over - Lots to Come this Fall!

My busy summer is finally winding down and I've got lots of good stuff to share this Fall.

A few weeks ago, we took a trip to Banks, OR, and picked about 20 pounds of cucumbers for making pickles. My mother-in-law has a truly fantastic recipe for dill pickles, and she turned the entire 20 pounds into quarts of dill spears for us.  If I haven't mentioned how much I love my mother-in-law here, I probably should have.

But wait, it gets better.  A week before the cucumber adventure we went to Silverton, OR (just south of Salem) and picked pears in the front yard of some of old friends of my in-laws.  They had five pear trees (not sure of exact species), two of which were "winter pears".  I don't know how many pears we picked, but it was enough to fill the back of a pickup with produce boxes full of them.  We had to wait a while for the pears to ripen, then we all spent a Monday canning pears.  85 quarts.  Eighty five!  And we had plenty left over for several pear crisps (excellent, of course) and some fruit leather (pear puree mixed with reduced home-canned concord grape juice).  I'm not sure exactly what we'll do with so many canned pears, but you'll probably get a first hand look right here before too long.

Today, my in-laws are once again in Banks picking up our tomato order.  150 pounds of vine-ripened tomatoes - 50 pounds for them, 100 pounds for my house.  We plan to can them all.  With an average of 2.5 to 3 pounds of tomatoes per quart, we should get about three dozen quarts of canned tomatoes.  That's about a year's worth at my house.

I'm out of home canned tomatoes right now, but not too long ago I had plenty and this is one of the things I did with them:

Meatballs!

I started with six pounds of ground meat.  In this case, I had two pounds each of ground veal, ground lamb and ground chuck that was ground at home:

(only half of the meat is pictured here)

I added one egg per pound of meat, along with an entire bulb of garlic (finely chopped) and some spices (oregano, basil, crushed red pepper, kosher salt & fresh ground black pepper:

Mix well:

Form meatballs and brown in a little olive oil:

Turn the meatballs to brown on all sides, add more as space permits:

Six pounds of browned meatballs:

Deglaze the pan with some red wine:

Add some onions:

Add the tomatoes - I used three quarts of home-canned tomatoes that I turned into a puree/sauce with a stick blender:

Ready for noodles:

I served this over linguine, and it was delicious.  I served the entire office meatball sandwiches the next day, and everybody loved them.

You can use whatever meat you have, but I'd advise against using 100% beef.  I made a four-pound batch last week and used three pounds of ground elk (about 10% beef fat) and one pound of ground pork.  They were also delicious.  I served meatball sandwiches again at work, and they were very well received.

I will be taking pictures during the tomato canning process, and will make a post here with all the details...

You Can't Go Wrong with Meat on a Stick

This is a long-held personal belief.  You simply cannot go wrong with meat on a stick.  Think about it.  Have you ever had any sort of meat on a stick that was not good?  Be honest.

I don't care if it's a corn dog or a halibut skewer, meat on a stick is always delicious.

And the best part is that you can skewer just about anything.  I recently bought a small package of petite sirloin steaks that had two small steaks in it.  My plan was to have them for dinner on one of the two nights that my wife works and it's just my daughter and me for dinner.  As it turned out, she had softball games both nights and we didn't get home until late.  The next night all three of us were home and these steaks needed to be cooked...

I cut them into a dozen two-bite-sized pieces, tossed them into a bowl with some kebab-sized chunks of bell pepper, white onion and button mushrooms.  I poured some balsamic vinegar and olive oil over them, seasoned with kosher salt & fresh ground black pepper, and gave a stir.  I let that sit for about 30 minutes before I started my charcoal.  Total marinade time was probably close to an hour before I skewered it all and put them on the grill.

A week earlier, we made halibut kebabs from some recipe my wife found online.  Cut the fish, skewer with veggies, then brush with a mixture of apricot jam, water, cider vinegar, oil, Serrano pepper, salt & pepper.  I don't recall the exact proportions but I think it was more or less equal portions of all  the wet ingredients.  Simply brush the skewers before placing them on the grill and baste once or twice during cooking.  I guess you could always serve some of the sauce on the side if you wanted.


I've made Indian-style lamb kebabs that were fantastic.  Marinaded in some yogurt and spices overnight in the fridge, the lamb gets very tender.  Again we just used some recipe we found online.  They were delicious!  At that same time, we also made chicken tikka masala, which calls for the chicken to be marinaded, skewered and grilled before being placed in a pan and having a sauce built around it.  It's meat on a stick that doesn't even look like meat on a stick!

It's summertime, so you should be cooking on the grill a lot.  Kebabs are very grill-friendly, and you can make them out of practically anything.  Next time you're drawing a blank when that proverbial "What's for dinner?" comes up, you can't go wrong with meat on a stick.

French Toast - Breakfast of the Gods

I do still plan to re-shoot my pizza entry, but softball season is in full swing and it might be a few weeks before that happens.  In the meantime, let's talk about breakfast...

Breakfast is one of my favorite meals.  I love cold cereals and milk, I love English muffins with butter & peanut butter.  I like hot cereals like oatmeal and farina (Cream of Wheat).  I really love eggs.  But for me, the crème de la crème of breakfast foods is French toast.

You might not be surprised to learn that the best French toast is made with day old French bread.  I'm sure that, like me, you've all grown up with French toast made with whatever sliced bread was in the house.  That sliced bread variety is also delicious--but if you have some French or Italian bread left over from a pasta dinner earlier in the week, slice that stuff up and make your French toast with it.  If you've never had anything but the sliced bread variety, you are in for a real treat.

One common mistake people make with French toast is not seasoning the eggs sufficiently.  I've seen French toast made with eggs and a sprinkle of cinnamon.  I guess if that's all you've got that it's still better than pancakes, but for proper French toast you need more than just some cinnamon.

French Toast Ingredients:
Eggs
Vanilla extract
Cinnamon - fresh ground if you have it
Nutmeg - fresh ground if you have it
Sugar
Optional - cream, milk or half-and-half

Bread

It's hard to give precise measurements.  For two people, I'd usually go with three eggs, a generous teaspoon of vanilla, more nutmeg than cinnamon, and a teaspoon or two of sugar.  I also add about a yolks' worth of milk, cream or half-and-half to my egg mixture.  The cinnamon and nutmeg really are "to taste".  Personally, I like a lot of nutmeg.  You might like a lot of cinnamon or maybe just a hint of both.  Experiment!

It's easy to make a larger batch, too.  Just increase everything as you increase the eggs.  A good rule of thumb would be to use one egg per person plus one egg.  Four people?  Five eggs.  This would be for two or three slices of bread per person.

Mix everything together, whipping the eggs, cream and spices in a large bowl until you have a smooth, consistent batter.

Put a skillet on medium heat.  A non-stick skillet with a little bit of butter or oil is best.  Dip the bread into the egg batter, allow to soak for a few seconds.  When you pull the bread out of the batter, allow the excess to drip off before you put it into the pan.  Cook until done on one side, flip and cook the other side.  This won't take long.  A minute or two at the most.

Serve hot with butter and maple syrup or your favorite jelly.

A word on maple syrup: use the real thing if at all possible.  It's delicious, it's natural and it's usually minimally processed.  If you're used to artificially flavored corn syrup, the flavor might seem mild at first but after a bottle or two you'll never go back to the fake stuff.

If you're feeling adventurous, you can use French toast as the basis for a Monte Cristo sandwich, with ham, turkey and some good Swiss cheese (typically Emmentaler or Gruyere).  Delicious!

Sometimes Life Gets In the Way

I've been trying to get a complete Pizza post up, and have failed miserably.  I made pizza on Friday the 13th and filmed it all with my digital camera.  The video quality is atrocious.  Maybe it's time to upgrade that camera...

I do have an HD video camera, so next time I make pizza--probably this Friday night--I'll re-record the entire process for you all.  I will cover everything from making the dough and the sauce to that first bite.

My daughter's playing softball, and that seems to occupy at least two nights every week as well as the entire day on Saturday.  My wife's on her summer schedule, so she's working two nights a week.  In short, the amount of time I have to spend having fun in the kitchen with a camera and my laptop is dwindling.  I will try to keep posting throughout the summer but don't expect a new article every week.

So for now, a few food-related thoughts for the week.

I have discovered the beauty of boneless skinless chicken thighs.  Mostly thanks to Mark Bittman whose series of short cooking videos The Minimalist are excellent.  In particular, I tried his 15 Minute Herbed Chicken recently and it was both simple and delicious.  If you are wondering what to cook for dinner some night, check out his videos.  Most are under five minutes and every one I've tried has been delicious.

If you don't already, try shopping at some ethnic grocery stores.  Even in my small town we have a Mexican grocery, and nearly every town of any size has an Asian grocery or ten.  If you can find an Indian grocery store in your area, check it out.  They've got all kinds of foods you've probably never tried, and that means lots of chances to try new things.  Always try new foods.  You never know when you'll find the best thing you've never tasted.

Grilling season is coming, and I've got to say that I'm a big fan of lump charcoal.  If you're a propane griller, consider making your next grill a charcoal burner.  If you use a charcoal chimney to start your coals the wait time is really not long at all and the flavor is worth the wait.  One thing I'll definitely post this summer is grilled oysters.  If you're lucky enough to live where live oysters are available and affordable, an evening of grilling oysters is about as good as it gets.

Quiche!

As promised, I've made a quiche.  If you're old enough to remember when the book Real Men Don't Eat Quiche came out, there's a chance you've never eaten the stuff.  If you're too young to remember those days, the chances are even better you've never had quiche.  This is a travesty.

For starters, the most famous quiche of all, Quiche Lorraine, is about as manly as food gets.  It's eggs, heavy cream, bacon, cheese and a little bit of onion.  Doesn't that sound delicious already?  Even better, it's baked and looks like a pie.  It's in a pie crust that, in a perfect world, would be made with lard.  That's right.  LARD.  What could be more manly that bacon, eggs and cheese in a lard-based crust?

Sadly, I did not take the time to make my own pie crust.  I used a frozen crust.  Sue me.  They're cheap, they're better than most homemade crusts, and they're very convenient.

My wife has a pie crust recipe that is fantastic.  I'm not kidding.  This is Blue Ribbon Pie Crust.  Literally.

The recipe's written down around here somewhere but if I published it I would become Public Enemy Number One in short order.  This is a recipe that's been handed down for at least three generations and is not for sharing.  I'm not a "secret recipe" kind of guy.  I'd tell you how to make anything I know how to make.  Even my professional chef brothers seem perfectly willing to share any and every recipe and technique they've got.  Maybe it's a woman thing.  In any case, this cheap frozen crust worked great.

You can find an endless number of quiche recipes online.  Mine is no revelation.  Really, it's the concept that counts.  Don't get the wrong perception, while Quiche Lorraine might not be the most health-conscious dish you've ever had, quiche does not have to be the least healthy dish in your repertoire.  You can find quiche recipes that use loads of spinach, no egg yolks, and no heavy cream.  They won't be as rich and delicious as the real thing, but it can be done.

The first quiche recipe I ever used was from the good old Betty Crocker cookbook.  It called for four eggs and two cups of heavy cream.  For me, with an egg:cream ratio like that it's more like a savory egg custard pie than a quiche.  It's delicious, but I prefer a closer to 50:50 egg:cream mixture.

I call this Quiche American.  Basically, it's Quiche Lorraine with Tillamook Medium Cheddar instead of Swiss cheese.

Ingredients:
1/2 lb. Bacon, cooked crispy and crumbled
1/4 lb. Cheddar Cheese, finely grated
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
5 eggs
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
Salt & pepper

Cook the bacon.

You want it pretty crispy.  Certainly much more done than I prefer when eating it on its own with a fried egg or on a BLT.

Shred the cheese while the bacon cooks.  In keeping with the spirit of Chop Your Own, buy block cheese and grate it yourself.  This is a rule.  Shredded cheese has anti-caking agents that tend to mess with melting properties.  I won't lie and say I never buy shredded cheese, but I do shred my own cheese as much as I can.

Chop the onion.  The one-half cup measurement is a guess.  See the picture.  Use more or less according to taste.  As my brother Pete once told me with regard to his French Onion Soup recipe, "Use your brain.  It's not all in the recipe."

Crumble the bacon into the pie crust.

Put the eggs into a mixing bowl and whisk lightly.  Add the cream.  Mix a little, but not much.  Be careful - you don't want whipped cream.  Season with salt & pepper.

I know, there are only four eggs in the bowl.  I thought that four eggs and 1 C. cream would be enough.  It wasn't  I ended up whisking another egg and 1/4 C. of cream and adding it to the crust after I realized I needed more liquid.

Add the cheese and onion, then pour the egg/cream mixture over the top.

You're going to bake this at 375 for about 45 minutes.  Put a cookie sheet under your pie crust just in case.  You don't want this stuff burning on the bottom of your oven.

The finished product:

Yes, it is delicious.

It makes an excellent breakfast the next day, too.  Some folks eat it cold but we usually heat it for 45 seconds or so in the microwave.  You can even freeze individual slices (wrapped tightly) for next week.  It won't freeze well long term.

I'm going to try to take some pics this evening as I make pizza...