Grilling at home - Beer Can chicken

Beautiful Chicago weather (finally) led to a desire to cook something outside and have some friends over. Thus my third trip down beer can chicken lane.

I have a very reliable recipe from the folks at Cooks Illustrated, and proceeded to make three chickens, braised kale, broccoli salad, German potato salad, sour cream muffins, and blondies for dessert.

Everything was pretty good, but there were nine people, and the completely devoured all three chickens. In a very short amount of time. The kale was great. I always forget how much I love kale. The muffins were a first try and were surprisingly good for having only 3 ingredients. The chicken was delicious and moist, but I need to get the skin crisper all the way around. there were some non-crisp skin sections, but the chicken was still good.

And blondies are my go-to dessert on short notice. I always have the ingredients, and I can make them in 30 minutes including baking and oven heating time.

Good times.....

**Tap Tap** Is this thing on?

Is it possible to resurrect a food blog, even one that never had a high readership?

No idea.

But I have been thinking quite a bit recently about the great food city that I live in.

It's Chicago, for those of you who don't know...

In any case, I have had some money concerns recently, and I've realized that I still eat some pretty amazing food. Mainly because I live in a great food city, probably also because I prioritize food as an essential expense. There are SO MANY great food options here, even on a tighter budget.

So I thought I'd explore some of those, and maybe try to entice a few of my co-bloggers back.

They don't know that I am posting right now, and all of their lives have changed quite a bit since they last posted. However, I'm pretty sure they are all eating interesting things.

I work an odd schedule. I only worked a partial day on Wednesday, then had Thursday and Friday off, and worked all weekend. As I described the gluttony of Wednesday through Friday to my boss, it hit me that I enjoyed that span of eating so much, I should probably tell the world about it. The world, in this case, consists of my co-workers and my roommates. That's a small group, so I thought I'd post it here.

Wednesday. 4/1/09. As a tribute to my mom, who is from Wisconsin and whose birthday is on April first, I had to leave work early so as to avoid going into overtime for the week. Since I was heading through the southwest suburbs back to my apartment, I realized that if I took a certain path home, I would go by a Culver's. This place is a Wisconsin based fast food chain that has started to spread out quite a bit. To my palate, they tie with In-N-Out for best fast food burger ever. So I had a late lunch there around 2 pm. Double Butterburger with cheese basket is only $4.99 right now. Great food, great price. Called my mom to wish her a Happy Birthday. She was jealous, and then gave me a guilt trip for not flying to Boise to surprise her for her birthday. Serves me right for going to Culver's alone. That experience should be shared.

Thursday. Woke up. Roommate # 1, the Asian one, was off last week, and roommate # 2, the student, doesn't have class on Thursdays. I arranged to meet up with Rick, the new dad, for an early lunch at Hot Doug's. Akira (roommate # 1) and Joe (roommate # 2) both agreed to come. So we went to Doug's at 10:45 am. It's been discussed on this blog before, but I'm too lazy to look for it and link to it. Hot Doug's is one of the best restaurants in Chicago. No one will agree with this until they actually go there, but trust me. Or trust the internet. Do a google search, or just go the link I included a few sentences ago and look at the specials menu. His food is REAL. His food is CHEAP. His food is AMAZING. Best fries I've ever had. Anyway, I had the Cinci style chili dog, 'cause everyone was doing it, and I had the Burgundy Wine Pork Sausage with Bacon-Garlic Mayonnaise and Camembert Cheese. And shared some fries. It was unspeakably good. Anyone who wants to visit Chicago, this place has to be on your itinerary. Get in touch with me. I'll take you.

After lunch, I realized I wanted to make Collard Greens. I like the idea of greens. I have a fascination with "Southern Food." I watched the Good Eats episode about greens. So I wanted to make them. Couldn't make them as a meal unto themselves, so I plotted what else to make. I realized I wanted something grilled. Joe's mom provided us with some home grown ground beef. So I thawed that and made an America's Test Kitchen-based recipe for Well Done burgers. (I have a slight fear of underdone ground beef unless it is ground to order). I also made the oven baked onion rings from the same ATK episode, and sour cream and onion smashed potatoes. Not the healthiest of meals, but it was REALLY good. The burgers were superb, the onion rings were surprisingly good, the potatoes were a little runnier than I usually like, but definitely delicious, and the Collards were GREAT. I need to investigate these hearty greens a little more. Usually if I go down that route it's just kale, but mustard greens and turnip greens are now calling ti me. As for the burgers, home grown ANYTHING is so amazing, and that includes beef. Can't say enough about it. And it was a relatively cheap meal. The beef was free, for us, and then everything else was less than a dollar a pound. Potatoes? Collards? Onions? Cheap! The most expensive part of the meal was the ham hock that went into the greens! Oh, yeah. I almost forgot the chocolate mocha cake with chocolate marscapone mocha frosting that I made. It was pretty good, too. All of the roommates joined me for dinner (Akira, Joe, Dane and Hensley), and Leo made an appearance as well.

Friday I woke up and went for an 11 am brunch at Tweet. Tweet may have made it on to the blog before, too, but just in case, let me tell you something. They have the best biscuits and gravy in Chicago, as well as the best hash browns. (I use hyperbole a lot, but they really are that good). They also have a cool space to work in, and very nice waitstaff. Went with David, a friend I used to work with. It was a great time, and we had some great food. Truth be told, I go to Tweet almost every week, so it will make a return appearance here at some point I'm sure. It's not the cheapest breakfast in town, but for quality AND quantity, it can't be beat. Another place I would travel a long way to visit.

Friday night some friends wanted to go to That Little Mexican Cafe. It's a cool place with great margaritas, very good guacamole, and a grilled pork tenderloin entree that really makes me happy. Good company with David, Ryan, James, and Alan. Good food. Easily the most expensive meal I ate over the past few days, but it was worth it. Plus David paid because I agreed to drive him to my place, give him some chocolate cake, and then drive him home. Definitely worth it.

All of that eating in the span of two and a half days made me realize that I missed writing about food, even for the small audience, but the meal that made me sit back down and start typing again came the next night...

Make Your Own

I've been pretty uninspired by food for most of the summer. Not enough time to cook, lack of desire to do the dishes, and other lame excuses have kept me from cooking, and eating out has been for convenience rather than for quality. But this past weekend, I broke out of that, perhaps only temporarily. Friday night, with Flynn in town, we went to Kuma's. Long wait for the food, but good conversation, good beer, good food. Saturday I woke up early, went to the Evanston farmer's market, bought some nice tomatoes, some corn, some carrots, and some zucchini / summer squash. At 1 pm, I started the cooking.

St. Louis cut spare ribs on the smoker.

Homemade fresh mozzarella.


side dishes: Steamed and chilled green beans tossed with Olive Oil

grilled squash

corn on the cobb

fresh tomatoes, including a few from the garden. Those were REALLY good.


dill pickles and pickled green tomatoes from a Michigan farm.

All together:


All of that took awhile, but it all turned out ok. The ribs were definitely good. Perhaps a bit salty, and I could have taken them off the smoker 30 minutes earlier and the texture would have been a little better, but they were a success.

The mozzarella was a bit of a process. It's not hard, but on my first try the curd didn't set up enough, so I had to try again. The second time I ended up with two mounds of fresh cheese. Not bad for a first or second try. Didn't make enough to serve at dinner, but Joe, Timmy, Liz and Thor all got to try it. The really nice heirloom tomatoes made the cheese taste that much better. I also made tres leches, which was really good. Not hard to make, either. But I didn't take a picture of it.

Then, late lunch Sunday at Los Nopales with Flynn. So, for the weekend, I ate at a couple of great local restaurants, and Saturday was full of local produce, fresh cheese, real home smoked ribs, and fun people. Not bad at all.

Surprise! New post!

It's just a link, but it's the type of thing that makes me excited about food.

Make your own what?

Get Large

Another country heard from. I'm Ian. I went to UChicago around the dawning of the new millenium, played ultimate there with JL and JSA and BK (when he was around). Now I live in Cambridge, MA. Blah, blah.

Let's talk bivalves.

A few weeks back, I was wandering the aisle of my local fishmonger, seeking shellfish so as to sate a craving. What I really wanted was oysters. Oysters are, well, delicious. But, oysters are also quite expensive, especially really good, really fresh ones. BUT! Next to the oysters was a big colander full of mussels. Mussels aren't expensive, and I hadn't had them in a very long time, so I decided that I'd pick up a couple of pounds and see what I could do with them. (I've found that about $2/pound is a pretty normal price for mussels, at least in the Boston area in the Spring. Figure on about 1 pound per person, assuming that other foodstuffs are going to be on the table as well.)

So, I brought them home, and turned to my trusty copy of Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything. And discovered, to my joy, that cooking mussels is very easy.

• You start by cleaning the mussels. This basically means rinsing them, and pulling off any "hair" that's hanging off of them. (Mussel's have beards. As a facial-hair-challenged man, I'm very jealous. Punk-ass shellfish, trying to show me up.) Mussel's that have already opened need to get tossed, because it means that they've already died and won't be tasty (and, well, they may kill you). Likewise for ones that have broken shells.


• Chop an onion and some garlic (a very rough cut is fine).


• Take a large pot with a tight-fitting lid. Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, over medium heat, and then saute the onion and garlic just until the onion softens.


• Add 1/2 cup of white wine, and the mussels. Cover, and turn the heat to high. Cook for about 10 minutes.

When all is said and done, you end up with a large pile of mussels, now open and cooked. And (and this is the good part. Seriously.) you have a good pile of wonderful, delicious mussel-wine-onion broth.

Pile the mussels in a bowl, pour the broth over them. Serve with crusty bread (which, of course, gets dipped into the broth, and which may actually be the real reason to make mussels in the first place).

Bittman's got about a dozen variations -- other things to add to the broth to make various sauces, or different spices that can be added before cooking to give a hint of other flavors to the shellfish. The ones that I've tried have been pretty good, but I'm still pretty set on the basic recipie. It works for me, and it's tasty.

Over the past 6 or 8 weeks, since my first experiment with cooking mussels, I've found myself ordering them when I go out, as well as cooking them at home on occasion. The Green Street Grill is a great local place that has a very nice mussel appetizer. (It's also one of the hidden gems of Cambridge. It looks like a dive bar on the outside, but inside has some of the best food I've found in the Boston area.) Grafton Street Pub is a little too yuppie for this yuppie, but they also do a nice job with their mussels. Green Street goes a little heavier on the cream and butter in the sauce, and the bread that they serve with the mussels is just about perfect.

(I have a feeling that East Coast Grill probably does a good job with their PEI Mussels steamed in coconut milk, if only because everything that Chris Schlesinger oversees seems to turn out well. Also because East Coast Grill is my vote for bestest restaurant in the whole wide world. But I haven't had a chance to wander down to try them.)

The upshot of all this babble: mussels are tasty, cheap, and easy to cook. You should make them sometime.

In the Kitchen with Todd and Geoff

Before I get into the meat (ha!) of this post, I'd like to make a quick ancillary comment about the state of cinema today: "300" is possibly the most homoerotic movie I've ever seen. Geoff described it best as "an epic battle between RuPaul and a bunch of underwear models." It was pretty much two hours of impassioned speeches heralding immortal man-love punctuated by a thousand silhouette shots of spears thrusting through bodies. Made me realize I need to hit the gym more, but also caused me to question whether floor-length cloaks and bikini briefs are really the ideal battle garments. Oh well, see it for yourself, it was visually stunning and awesomely violent, and definitely fun for the whole family, provided the family comprises a bunch of people who like glistening Scottish dudes with really ripped abs killing each other. Anyway, food...

Right. Saturday night. Geoff and I left the movie a might peckish, and luckily our psychic bond with Todd has a 10-mile radius. Todd texted that he'd be cooking up a storm when we came over, so the Brown Bear and I hopped in the car and headed off to Food Source and the booze store for provisions. All we knew was that Todd was making chicken cacciatore in his Dutch oven. We scooped up some essentials (and by essentials I mean produce that we'd eventually figure out how to prepare and a bunch of sweet, sparkling wine).

Todd was cleaning the chicken when we arrived, so Geoff and I annexed the dining room table on behalf of the kitchen and got to work. Brown Bear cranked out some yummy bruschetta while we waited for the chicken to cook. I cleaned some sweet, crunchy carrots and tossed them in a 1:1 mixture of olive oil (wow, I can't believe I almost just wrote EVOO - somebody needs to slap the Food Network taste out of my mouth) and honey, with a generous grind of black pepper. After, I spread the cut-up carrots in a roasting pan and put them on the top shelf of the oven (above the bruschetta, for those of you keeping track of the menu) to roast for an indeterminate amount of time. The feast was simple, mostly because Todd did all the multi-step cooking.

I stood at the table, santoku in hand, as Todd threw me mushrooms, garlic, and whatever else needed to be sliced or diced. I love chopping food up - always have - it always seems so cathartic. Anyway, we listened to 80s music with "Mean Girls" playing on mute in the background as we cooked (which gives you an excellent picture of our usual Saturday nights, no doubt). The bruschetta was tasty - I love fresh oregano and I'm pretty sure I could just eat garlic and tomatoes if given the opportunity.

The time for chicken was nigh; I sauteed some asparagus in a quick grind of pepper, dash of salt, and about half a lemon's worth of juice. Todd prepared a pungent salad of arugula, fennel, oregano-cooked mushrooms, and a zesty lemon vinaigrette. Wow, I can't believe I just used "zesty" seriously...

Everything came together wonderfully - the slow-cooked chicken fell apart as we speared the meat, the asparagus and carrots complemented the cacciatore nicely, and the salad was crisp and delicious. All that was left, then, was a bit of dessert.

I had bought a bagful of yummy-looking pears earlier and a little snit of bourbon just in case (I mean, things come up, right?) of emergency. In a flash of [potential] brilliance, I decided that pears poached in a bourbon/caramel glaze would do the trick just nicely. I let the cut-up pears stew in some of our wonderfully sweet wine as the sugar and bourbon intermingled in melty nirvana in the adjacent pot. From there, I poured off the wine from the pears into the sauce and brought it to a boil, stirring like a madman to avoid a foamy, but sweet, mess. After a few minutes I poured mosted of the bourbon-sugar-wine sauce mixture back into the pears and poached them for about 15 minutes as I let the glaze sit. The pears cooked until tender, I served each of us a generous helping accompanied by a generous pour of the bourbon sauce. I'd say the dish turned out well, but would have really benefited from some vanilla ice cream (if only to prevent us from the inevitable 2nd degree mouth burns from the molten pear-bourbon-sugar).

All in all, a delicious meal, and certainly more fun in the making than if we had gone out. An excellent end to what turned out to be a busy, stressful week for all.

Ribs. Chicken. Jalapenos.

There wasn’t much in the culinary aspect of this past weekend that would be deemed particularly exotic or adventuresome. It was all rather straightforward. At the same time, it was wholly satisfying. Anticipating decent spring-type weather to start the Spring League season here in Chicago, Joe and I lured the Martin-Lee family up to Lincoln Square for dinner Friday night at Los Nopales. We were seated right away at 7 pm. Pretty cool. They even made room for Akira to squeeze in when he found out we were there and demanded a seat. It’s BYOB, so we brought a six pack each of Pacifico and XX. They were nice enough to provide limes, so we opened our beers and ordered some guacamole. I realize that the Scrumptulescence team hasn’t posted about Los Nopales yet. I’m hoping if I foot the entire bill for Joe to get a good sampling of their menu, he will agree to do a write up about it in his true Crazy Nomad style. Trust me when I say this: It is a small family owned Mexican restaurant, where they use fresh ingredients and basic techniques to make delicious food. I once asked what was in their guacamole. It’s so good, I had to know the secret. Turns out they just make it fresh to order, and only put in 4 things besides the avocado. I think they might be on to something. Anyway, our table had tacos, mainly. Tacos al pastor, Chorizo tacos, and Tilapia tacos. Akira had the carne asada / chile rellenos combo, and Thor had a combo plate with some other stuff, like a taco, an enchilada, and maybe a tamale. I don’t remember. Everything was great, it came out fast, and we topped it off by splitting a slice of tres leches cake. Everyone should try this place.

Saturday morning brought the first day of spring league, and a gorgeous 70+ degree day. This is a food blog, so I won’t go into much detail, but my team won. Our household is split over 3 teams. The other teams in the household did not win. Such is life. My team played early games, so I went home to get the gas grill going and threw together a basic cookout meal to celebrate the nice weather. Not a lot of people, nothing special food-wise, except it was all pretty good. It started off with some guacamole prepared by Angela (which was excellent) as well as some weak salsa prepared by me. The main courses were chicken thighs marinated in mojo criollo, some excellent bratwursts provided by a certain someone’s special someone, a few chicken andouille sausages by Amy, and a grill full of red peppers, zucchini, and portabella mushrooms. Nothing special, but everything was pretty good.

Sunday was the big day. Meal # 3 on the Weber Smoker. Dragged Joe with me to Costco where I purchased six racks of baby back ribs, along with some asparagus and pita chips. Then I took a quick trip to Family Fruit Market to pick up a few more fixin’s. Then I prepared the ribs. A quick rinse in water, followed by a quick rinse with vinegar. A light coating of mustard, a thicker coating of spice rub. Start the fire in the smoker, get the smoke moving. Throw on all six slabs on 2 levels.

While the ribs were cooking, I made hummus, Grandma’s pasta salad, and BBQ sauce. I also sliced open some fresh jalapeños, pulled out the ribs and seeds, stuffed them with chorizo, and wrapped them in bacon. Call it an amuse bouche if you want, although I might have to shoot you if you do. As people started arriving, the double batch of hummus disappeared rather quickly. I kept everything else in reserve. After 3+ hours on the smoker, including a top and bottom rack swap, one flip, and a few spritzes with cranberry juice and olive oil, the ribs were done smoking. I was able to send Ruby the dog in to distract everyone while I took the ribs off, covered them in foil, and hid them in the oven. I put the stuffed jalapeños and 1.5 pounds of fresh Italian sausage on the smoker. Then I fired up the gas grill and covered it with 2 pounds of asparagus that had been tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper, and cayenne (thanks boss). When it was time to put everything on the table, this is what it looked like.




Everything is pretty identifiable. The BBQ sauce is a little shadowed, but it looked like BBQ sauce. The potato chips are jalapeno crunchers. Great BBQ food. The wine is Casillero del Diablo Carmenere from Chile. Great casual red wine. You might not buy it because of it’s price. Trust me, it’s worth every penny.

Closeup time. The pasta salad is very basic. I actually didn’t put enough mayo in, but I knew the crowd would like it better with less mayo. I just used Grandma’s recipe, but instead of the rainbow rotini, I used a very nice imported whole wheat pasta that somehow avoids the graininess of most whole wheat pastas.





Grilled asparagus. So easy, so good.





The smoker has a lot of fire left in it even after 3+ hours of cooking time. Stuffed, wrapped jalapenos and Italian sausage seemed like good things to throw on while the ribs rested awhile. The Italian Sausage was tasty enough, but the flavors were a little too subtle to stand up to the ribs and the jalapenos. The jalapenos were really good. A could of guests said they were the best thing they’ve had that I’ve cooked.





How was the main event? Pretty good. I need to work on the fire control a little bit. They might have been a little overdone in places, but overall, flavor and texture were good. I didn’t sauce them at all, preferring to let the guests add sauce for themselves. People seemed to like them. I thought they were pretty good. Definitely be making them again pretty soon, I would say. Here are a couple of slabs, before I sectioned them for easier eating.







I have to say, it was a pretty good culinary weekend, and the food was appropriate to the weather. Now that we’re supposed to drop into the 40’s this afternoon, I need to start thinking about braising and stewing again, until it’s time for spring to come back. Hopefully mid-April.

Oh, who were the guests? The roommates minus the new guy. One brand new (and fantastic) ultimate player who is also a roommate girlfriend. The Russells, the Martin-Lees, some tall guy from Indiana, puppy Ruby, and her owner. Three of those people just kind of showed up and were fed. If you’re feeling left out, you shouldn’t. I generally don’t make too many phone calls for these things. Just call if you sense there might be something cooking.

Nooner

That's right, a few quickies from the past few days that don't rate their own post.

Thursday night we went to Fogo de Chao so Kevin could get his meat on before moving to China. It was the usual meat orgy. I ate too much. Kolb acted like the total n3wb that he was. I've never seen someone so worried about the positioning of a red and green cardboard circle. The meats were all good. While I enjoyed the garlic beef, the pork ribs, the bacon wrapped items, and the new ribeye they are serving, the best tasting meat item the gauchos brought over: chicken legs. I've probably eaten at Fogo ten times. Each time a different meat has been prepared just a little better than the rest. For the first time it was poultry. Good work, Fogo de Chao. By the way, if you ever go to Fogo, take Thor along. Watching him narrow the meats down to the one he wants, and then watching him ask for it at every opportunity, sending the gauchos and managers scurrying to find it is highly entertaining.

Friday I didn't feel much like eating.

Saturday I did some shopping and bought some wine and good beer. I took a BR approach to beer selection: pick the beers with cool labels. Walking down the aisle at Binny's, I started looking at those big Belgian bottles that they sell, some with actual corks in them. I decided that since it would just be JL, KC, and I hanging out, I'd splurge on some good stuff. But I'm not that familiar with the large fancy bottle style of beer, where you don't by 6 or even 4 packs, you buy one 24-36 oz bottle. So I grabbed 8 different bottles from all over the world. I don't know which brands. Trust me, they were good. I know because they were expensive. Went home, did some dishes, and we started drinking the fancy beer. Turns out these nice beers have a lot of alcohol in them. I know because both Kevin and I agreed that "Employee of the Month," which we watched while drinking, was pretty funny. As the fine-beer-haze started drifting away, I offered the choice of two meals: grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with tater tots, or homemade mac & cheese. KC asked for the mac & cheese and the tots. Whatever. I don't think they have any of that stuff in China, so in about 25 minutes, it was ready. I even steamed some broccoli to make it a healthy meal.

Sunday morning we woke up and went to The Depot American Diner for breakfast. It's out of the way, on West Roosevelt. Good cooks doing classic diner food. Had to try the biscuits and gravy, which were definitely good, but I liked the ones at Tweet better. Service was so so, possibly because there was only one server. Great breakfast potatoes.

The Depot American Diner
5840 W. Roosevelt
(773) 261-8422


Sunday for dinner some Cincinnati folks had been talking about chili, so I made Cincinnati-style chili. For those who don't know, it's a ground beef chili made with some sweet spices like allspice, cinnamon, brown sugar, and cocoa powder. Usually it is served over spaghetti and topped with grated cheese, onions, and/or kidney beans. Pretty good stuff, and I do a passable version. So we ate that and watched the NBA All-star game. Which was boring. But the food was good.

Monday I received my new smoker. More on that in the future, I'm sure. Monday night I made winter vegetable chowder from all of the root vegetables that Fresh Picks has been sending. It was decent. Light and hearty at the same time. JL tried it, but the rest of the roommates went with the leftover chili. Hard to argue with that decision, I must say.

Tonight? Meal number one from this 5 step course on mastering the vertical water smoker.

Have a good day. Everyone should eat or drink something good or at least interesting tonight. Feel free to post a comment here about that.

Cupid and Cheese Cubes: A Valentine's Day Food Special

So, Valentine's Day. Another quasi-holiday whose purpose is to exacerbate the situations of the ugly, lonely masses. You go to Hallmark. You buy cards, flowers, candy, little cute Gund bears with those glossy button eyes and ever-so-soft fur, new cars, diamonds, etc. You book the worst table at the best restaurant (you totally should have thought about making reservations BEFORE today). You iron your finest shirt. Ha! Totally got you there; dudes do not iron shirts. Dudes wear shirts (any women out there can disregard the previous sentences. Besides, you probably weren't going to wear a damn shirt anyway. You probably had a blouse or something, or whatever chick shirts are called these days).

Now, if for some reason you couldn't get a table at any restaurant, you might break out the fry pan and caviar (probably in no direct combination) and give an old-fashioned romantic meal a go.

This is an awful idea. Let me tell you why. First, we'll need to go back to basics. Below is a list of known aphrodisiacs/sexy foods that people try to cook without any real experience and probably cock up more than anything:

-Oysters
-Strawberries
-Champagne
-Chocolate
-Asparagus (I didn't know either)
-Almond
-Honey
-Truffles
-Wine

Okay, it's only a partial list, but it's all the ammunition I need. Take a good look at that list, and I guarantee the majority of foods listed are seldom in heavy rotation for you amateur chefs out there. I'll split them into two categories to make this easy:
1) Foods you eat often but don't necessarily incorporate into a special occasion menu;
2) Things you do not eat outside a restaurant.

For me, I know I eat a lot of chocolate, almonds and strawberries, cook asparagus regularly, and drink a good amount of wine. I love truffles, oysters, and sparkling wine when I'm out to eat. I want to you make a note of where these foodstuffs fall in your life. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Right, so, here we are with a bunch of food that are familiar and you probably like. And yet, there's something amiss. Most attempts to present these arousing foodstuffs in concert with each other will turn out disastrous. I imagine two distinct, yet equally awful, scenarios (per items 1 and 2 above - I love referring to my lists, it makes me feel organized).

1) You spread the ingredients out on the counter and see them as completely separate entities. You panic. You and your significant other end up eating a handful of almonds to start (I hear seven is the optimal serving to maximize the positive effects of protein and folic acid, yet minimize the amount of fat). Then you eat some asparagus, probably [I hope] as an accompaniment to something else you know how to cook (like a boring chicken breast - remember, you used all your energy considering the ingredients and their ability to drop the drawers, as it were). Then you finish up with champagne and chocolate, but not necessarily the right sparkling wine that goes with the right chocolate (I won't even get into that). You drink wine throughout, and that's cool, because you like wine. Boooooooooring.

2) You have no clue how to prepare oysters. You've only ever had them raw at Bobby Flay Steak and one time somebody said something about Rockefeller, but you figured it was another one of Jay-Z's marketing ploys to get you to drink his vodka or buy records or something. So you serve them raw. That is, after you cut the hell out of yourself trying to open them with a chef's knife. So, you're bleeding, but you apply pressure and suck down a few oysters. They taste a little fishy, but that's okay, right, because they're from the ocean? A jagged piece of shell scores your esophagus, but only slightly. You wash it down with a hearty swig of Franzia blush. You move on to the main course: asparagus and truffles. You hear it's better if asparagus is crispy, so you don't cook it. You weren't sure if they meant truffles from the ground that pigs sniff out or the chocolate ones. Who would eat something that's all dirty and was in a pig's nose? Eww. You opt for the chocolate ones. You choke everything down with more Franzia. The dinner has ended, thankfully, so you raise a toast of Cold Duck brut as you force-feed Hersey baking squares into your date's maw.

Flash forward a couple hours: your hand is still bleeding, and you feel a little faint. As your date drives you to the ER, she starts vomiting uncontrollably. Somehow you make it, only to hear that you've lost nearly a pint of blood and her healthy bowel flora has been overtaken Vibrio vulnificus and she'll be riding the toilet for the next 48-72 (that is, provided she doesn't die from consuming the tainted oysters). You smile sadly and drool a little, since your throat is bleeding from the shell and you can't swallow. You wake up the next morning with a ridiculous hangover from the cheap booze and have to go to work because Valentine's Day was on a Wednesday. Awesome.

There you have it. Happy Valentine's Day. If you choose to cook, go with what you know and let your charm (read: diamonds) be your aphrodisiac.

Game for the Big Game

What to do for the Superbowl? I like to cook food for people, but cooking for a crowd can be a little overwhelming. And sometimes you have to compromise on quality in order to make it work. This year, I actually wanted to watch the game, and I have a tradition of serving food at halftime, having underestimated the time necessary to get everything ready.

Since we live in Chicago, and one of my roommates is from Indiana and is a huge Colts fan, I wanted to push up the food quality a bit and spend some extra time on making some good food. But I like traditional Superbowl food. Wings, chili, various chips and dips, mini-burgers, taco pie, things of that nature. I have a beef chili recipe that I like quite a bit. It's from a basic slow-cooker recipe in Cook's Country magazine, made with chunks of beef chuck, not ground meat. I change things around and try different things when I make it, but it's a solid recipe. Plus, it doesn't have beans. I don't think beans really belong in chili. Possibly because I don't like beans, but there are historical reasons behind it, too. Anyway.

OK, lets make chili. With beef. Well, there are other meats out there, right? Maybe I should do a beef, lamb, and pork chili based on the same recipe. I've done it before. It's pretty good. But why stop there? This is Chicago. I should be able to get some good meats, right? So I decided to look for a source where I could get venison, boar, and bison. I also checked with my party guests to make sure everyone was willing to contribute about $15 to the event. They all said yes. I posted a query to the great LTH forum folks, and came up with some helpful replies. I called Chicago Game and spoke to a very nice woman there. It's a great business, but there's no storefront. They mainly sell to restaurants, so you have to be willing to buy large pieces of cryovac'd frozen meat. But they have a large variety, and are happy to sell to the public as long you're willing to buy the correct quantities. During our conversation, she helped me to realize that bison isn't practical, because the smallest roast I could get would be like 30 pounds. It turns out the bison is a big animal.
I ended up ordering a 5 pound boar shoulder, and a 20 pound "Denver leg" of venison. This is where they take a venison leg, remove each whole muscle, and clean them up of silverskin and other non-meat matter. I'd use half of the vension for the chili, and keep the other half in the freezer for grilling later on.

I also decided to get some beef stew meat from Costco, to make a pot of beef only chili, so we could compare and decide if the expense of the game meats was worth it.

Cut to the Saturday before the game. I need to cut and brown all of the meat, approximately 20 pounds worth. Well, actually, the beef is all cut. So I cut and clean up the boar first (sorry for the slightly blurry picture):



There was a LOT of fat going through it. No big chunks, but a lot of it. Before eating it, I would have said it was a little fatty. After eating it, I would say it was nicely marbled. I started browning the boar, and then started unwrapping the venison. I took a picture of one piece of it sitting next to a pile of the cubes. It was absolutely beautiful. No fat whatsoever, and a perfect deep red color.



Here's a shot of the meat browning. On the left is boar, on the right is venison.



After one batch of venison, Kevin, Joe, Mina, and I each tried a piece, brown on the outside, medium on the inside. We all agreed it was pretty good. They were up helping clean up after the party the night before, and keeping me company. Yes, I felt a little bad about putting this venison into the chili. It really should have been grilled or roasted, and kept away from a stewing process. Such is life. The patrons were promised game chili.

The browning took quite awhile. After each pan of meat was done, I would deglaze with a cup or so of Goose Island Honker's ale, in the keg that was leftover from a party the night before. I added the beer / fond goodness to the browned meat. Once I finished browning the boar and venison, I moved on to the beef (with some help from Mina). The stew beef from Costco is really nice, but no need for pictures. After the meat was all browned, I packaged it in three bags. One for venison and boar, one for venison and beef, and a third for just beef. I was making three crockpots of chili, so those would be the three varieties. The cutting and browning of the meat had taken about three hours, from 8 am to 11 am on Saturday. I took a break to do a few things, then came back around 4 pm to prepare the rest of the chili ingredients. First, the chili powder.
Usually I used a commercial chili powder for this recipe, but since I had gotten good meat, I took the extra step of making the chili powder. I got pasila, arbol, and ancho dried chiles from the Family Fruit Market, as well as while cumin seed. Next I stemmed and seeded the chiles, and cut them into strips. Then they all got dumped into a dry skillet along with the whole cumin seed. After about 10 minutes, I could smell the chiles and the cumin and they had darkened somewhat. I set them aside to cool, and then spun them in Joe's food processor. I toasted some extra cumin by itself, and ground it in a coffee grinder I keep just for spices. Into the chile and cumin mixture, I added garlic powder and oregano, and spun it again. This would be my chili powder.

The next step in this recipe builds a lot of flavor and adds richness and thickness to the chili. I blistered 18 small fresh corn tortillas under the broiler (six for each pot of chili). Then I tore them up and microwaved them with chicken broth to form a mush of sorts. Spin that in the food processor, then add canned diced tomatoes and some canned chipotles. Spin it all together.

After that, it's time for the aromatics. The yellow onions I got from Family Fruit Market were HUGE, so I only used one per chili pot. I diced and sweated the onions for about 7 minutes along with 3 diced jalepenos per pot, then added some chili powder and chopped garlic and cooked another 2 minutes, and added a little more cumin. I mixed the tomato/tortilla/broth/chipotle mixture with the onion/jalepeno/garlic/chili powder mixture in 3 separate containers, and put it all in the fridge. The chili was ready for Sunday morning.

Sunday. 8 am. Three crockpots. Three batches of chili. Over eight hours of cooking. Each pot took one bag of meat and one bag of the other stuff. Mix and let it go. Here's what that looked like.



Believe me, the smell was awesome.

No superbowl party would be complete without various chips and dips. One of my roommates claims that Hidden Valley Ranch dip (the $2 powder mixed with sour cream)is the best thing I make. So I made it, along with a number of other dips that I made from scratch. You know, for comparison. Here's the table of chips and dips:



Starting at the front left and moving to the right, the dips are packaged ranch dip, caramelized onion dip, guacamole, salsa, and then hummous is back on the right. The chip components are potato chips, tortilla chips, pita chips, pretzels, and pita bread. I got compliments on all of the dips except the ranch dip, which made me happy.

Time to eat the chili. I was too busy eating and drinking and watching the game to get many pictures of the finished product, but I grabbed one. It's serving number two for this bowl, so it's not exactly the cleanest presentation field.



But you get the idea. The toppings for the chili were merely diced white onion (rinsed under cold water), shredded cheese mix (I didn't want to take the time to shred all of that cheese), and Fritos. It was all very good.

Was the game meat worth it? I was really impressed with the boar. It just melted into this intense porky goodness. I feel like I may have overtrimmed it, actually. It was really nice. The venison was good, you could taste the intensity of it's flavor. It has a much stronger flavor than the beef, and that did come through in the chili, IF you were looking for it. But the venison wasn't falling apart like the beef and the boar. It wasn't tough, but you can see in the pictures. There wasn't much connective tissue to melt away, so they chunks of venison stayed chunks of venison. But still, great flavor. I would probably do game meat chili again for a special occasion, but I think for everyday use, I'll stick with beef, and maybe supplement it with pork shoulder.

I wanted to have some good beverage options, not just cheap beer. I asked over on the LTH forum for some beer and wine ideas to go with spicy game chili. (some of this report is copied from my results post there) They had some great ideas. We had half a keg of Honker's ale, so that was the main beverage, and it went really well with the chili. It helps that there were probably about 15 cups (reduced) of the stuff spread across the three pots of chili . Someone suggested a good strong Bock beer. I got the relatively new Anchor Bock. Not bad, but it didn't actually go well with the chili. I went to Binny's wine store and asked them to help me pair some inexpensive wine with the game chili, suggesting maybe a decent Zinfandel. He thought that Zin would be ok, but pointed me at a rack of California field blends, saying their low tannins and fruitiness would go well with the chili. He suggested two in particular, Rosenblum Cellars 2004 Chateau La Paws, a blend of Carignane, Syrah, Zinfandel and Mourvedre, and one known simply as Ten Mile, a blend of Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, Barbera, Malbec, and Carignane. I bought two bottles of each, knowing that the beer would be in high demand, not the wine. I tasted both wines with the chili, and they both went really well. I'm not a wine guy who can describe the bouquet or the nose or detect the spices and fruit that consume my palate, but I can tell you that both wines really highlighted the flavors of the chili. They were both quite different, but both were good. And I can tell you that they are both quite drinkable without the chili present. (I had to kill both bottles later that night). And both were inexpensive. The Ten Mile was 9.99 a bottle, and the Chateau La Paws was like 13.99 or so.

At the end of the night, the Colts had won, but I was feeling pretty good. The food was pretty successful, and thanks to the wonders of the crockpot, I was able to enjoy the game, the food, the drinks, and the people, and not worry about the cooking. I even stayed ahead on the dishes, cleaning up as I went. Thanks to all of the roommates for the help, or at least the encouragement to go ahead with the game chili idea, and thanks to the guests who were willing to chip in so we could have better food and beverages. And if you read this far, good work.

P.S. There was quite a bit leftover. All five of us who live in our house had it for dinner Monday and Tuesday night, and a couple of them had it for lunch those days, too. I think it was all gone by Wednesday night. It was even better tasting each day, but I got a little tired of it. I would have frozen some if it weren't in such demand.

Pizza Pizza Pizza Pizza

That's right. Pizza. Four times.

Evening dawns in the Old Irving Park neighborhood of Chicago. Which evening? Last Tuesday evening. Having purchased the ingredients for a night of pizza making from Family Fruit Market* , I whipped up a double batch of pizza dough. My dough recipe of choice right now is from this book. I used the 24 hour variation. Slower rise theoretically equals better texture and flavor. I also slow braised some sliced onions in a liquid of olive oil, vinegar, and sugar. Three hours in the oven at 250. Sharing the three hour oven were 8 sliced roma tomatoes on a pan drizzled with olive oil and chopped garlic.

Cut to Wednesday morning. Joe remembers to take the dough out of the fridge for a 10 hour room temperature rise. Cut again to Wednesday night. Pizza stone in the oven, heating to 450. Bag of semolina next to the stove, ready to dust the peel and the stone. I make a quick spicy tomato sauce for use on one pizza. I dice some spicy calabrese salami and slice some andouille sausage. A variety of cheese are grated, sliced, or crumbled: Romano, Parmesan, Gorgonzola, Mozzarella, and Fontina. All were domestic, as I didn't feel the need to go to my favorite Italian cheese importer for pizza for this batch of pizza. It's time to shape the dough.

I cut the dough into 4 pieces, and shape each one into a ball. I'm no whiz with pizza dough. I've been known to resort to a rolling pin if I make a dough that is too elastic and don't feel like waiting for the dough to rest between each attempt at stretching it. This time, with the nicely slow-risen dough, it was actually quite easy to handle.

Pizza number 1:



I made a circle-ish oval with the first dough ball. I just pressed it out with my fingertips, and then used the hold-the-middle-while-pulling-the-sides method, where you do exactly that, rotate 90 degrees, and keep pulling. When it got to the correct size, I put it on the dusted peel, brushed the outside inch of it with olive oil, and poked it all over with a fork. Topping time: a layer of the spicy tomato sauce. A layer of the diced calabrese salami. A layer of sliced mozzarella, then a touch of fresh oregano and some parmesan cheese. Into the oven. It looked pretty good when it came out. It tasted fantastic. The calabrese really elevated it above the usual pepperoni pizza.

Pizza number 2:



We'll call this one the mistake. I decided to get a little bolder with the dough. I patted it out a little, making a disk of sorts, and then put it up on my knuckles and tried tossing it in the air. The amazing thing, it actually worked. I caught it on my fingertips and it was noticeably bigger. So I kept going. Ended up with a nice sized round with a think edge and a REALLY thin center. I dusted an edgeless sheet pan with semolina, because the peel was waiting to pull out the first pizza. I brushed oil on the edge and topped it with a layer of the slow cooked onions, a very little bit of fontina, then the oven-dried tomatoes, then some sliced andouille, and then a little bit of romano. Onto the now vacated peel, to put in the oven. The problem, it won't budge off of the sheet pan. At all. It won't slide. So I have a pizza with a very thin center, with a good amount of topping. I could have just tossed the whole pan into the oven, but I didn't think of that at the time. So Joe and I grabbed it with four hands and tried to cleanly move it to the peel. Surprisingly, the dough didn't break through, but all of the toppings slide to the middle. So after some quick rearranging, the pizza went in the oven. Twelve minutes later, out it comes. It's the second picture. Note that I didn't prick the dough with a fork before it went in, so the edges bubbled up quite a bit. How did it taste? Pretty good. The crust was great at the edges and didn't have much texture in the middle. Not surprising. The tomatoes kind of overpowered everything, and I wish I had looked for better andouille. Also, it needed more cheese.

Pizza number 3:



Not wanting the excessively thin center, I decided not to spin-toss the pizza. When I was about 19, I spent a summer delivering for Dominos. I didn't prepare any food there, but I recall the managers talking about why you should never spin-toss the dough. Instead they used a horizontal method, passing the dough from one hand to the other, holding onto the edges and turning it as you toss it back and forth. Hard to describe, but I tried it, and it worked. It gave me a nice crust that was uniformly thicker in the middle than in the previous attempt, and gave me a good ridge around the edge. Toppings for this one? Gorgonzola and parmesan covering a smear of the slow cooked onions. No tomatoes at all. It came out with the best crust, but overall the calabrese pizza was still in the lead. The Gorgonzola might have been a little too strong for the subtle sweetness of the onions. Still, a good pizza. It's the third picture.

Pizza # 4:



Pizza number four was supposed to be another try at the 2nd pizza, but I put on fewer tomatoes, and threw on the odds and ends of cheese I had from the others. Used the horizontal passing method for the crust. It came out well, with an odd protrusion from one side. Good flavor, tomatoes weren't overpowering, still disappointed with the cheap andouille. Picture number four.

No one came over to share the pizza, it was just three roommates and I. The calabrese / mozzarella pizza was the winner in my mind. The horizontal toss method worked well for the crust. The wooden pizza peel, big stone in the oven, and semolina flour were essential to the success of the evening. Definitely a successful food night.


*Family Fruit Market is a small grocery store in our neighborhood with an amazing selection of produce and deli items. Joe and I probably shop there 2-3 times a week. It will get its own post someday.

A Real Man's Vegetarian Chili

In honor of the upcoming epic clash between Da Bears and the Colts, I've decided to post my as-yet-unpublished-for-totally-inexplicable-reasons recipe for my veggie chili. A quick note: I don't think I've ever made the same chili twice, so maybe the official recipe should be Drew Coursin's Groundhog Day Veggie Chili - you know, innumerable, subtly different iterations of a certain culinary motif. I'd draw the obvious comparison between Rachmaninoff's endless variations on his second symphony, but I'm not sure Scrumptulescence is ready for such stratospheric conceits. So, here goes:

Ingredients:
1 Large, shiny green bell pepper (preferable a deepish hunter green, because that means fresh)

1 Equally large, shiny red bell pepper (or orange, or even yellow, if you like that kind of thing)

2 Pretty much bustin' out of their enormous toadstool chapeaux-size portobello (portabella for those of you who like to spell it that way) mushrooms

1 small can yellowish (not necessarily totally yellow, but it's okay if it is) corn

2 cans kidney beans (one light, one dark to represent the duality of life and impermanence of being) - feel free to cook dry beans if you're one of those non-can purists. Same with the corn - feel free to use fresh-off-the-ear, or better yet, why don't you just grow it, Squanto?*

*Note: this is not a slander toward American Indians, but rather a clever but biting reference to the ostensible "helper of the Pilgrims" before the supposed First Thanksgiving in the apparent pre-United States of America

2 cans chick peas - there is nothing funny about this ingredient

1 package extra firm tofu

1 package seitan (if you have a problem with meat substitutes, you'd probably have stopped reading at tofu. Jerk.)

5 vine-ripened tomatoes

1 can tomato paste (optional for thickening if you put too much bean juice in - don't put too much bean juice in, dummy!)

8 cloves garlic, minced (or squashed, smashed, diced, even whole if you're a real man, in which case make it 50 cloves of garlic)

3 large carrots

Cayenne, hot chili powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper

1/2 can chipotle peppers and sauce (I mean, use the whole thing if you're into it, Hercules)

If you're soft, try 1/2 thinly-sliced jalapeno (sorry, I can't get the tilde to work) pepper without the ribs (it's not that seeds that are the hottest, Alex Trebek! And don't touch your eyes or private parts after handling!)

2 squares semi-sweet baking chocolate

THE ACTUAL RECIPE:
1. Dice everything dice-able up, place into three separate bowls the following:
-Green peppers, mushrooms, tofu, garlic
-Red peppers, corn, carrots, seitan, garlic (Ha! You put all the garlic in the first bowl!)
-Everything else
2. Saute in groups per step 1. Add chipotle peppers and sauce judiciously as the vegetables and meat substitutes cook. Cook until delicious.
3. At about the same time, but a big pot on the stove, on low heat. Squeeze the hell out of those tomatoes and place seeded, diced tomatoes in pot alongside all beans (use some of the delicious, syrupy bean juice if you like. Otherwise, add some water to make it a bit soupy).
4. When step 1 ingredients are cooked to delicious, add them as you see fit.
5. Stir often. Adding spices and hot peppers and other stuff you want to add. It's your meal, I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life.
6. Cook for 2-10 hours on low heat. I mean, cook as long as you want. Do it in a slow cooker if you like.
7. During the last 1/2 hour of cooking, add the squares of chocolate and some more cayenne (you know you need it).
8. Serve in attractive bowls, top with lots of cilantro, maybe some queso fresco, and a draught beer.
9. Enjoy.

If it sucks, it's entirely your fault, because I'm made this stuff countless times, and every time it's been f-ing awesome. Yum!

For the Soul?

In the current issue of Cook's Country magazine, they published the results of a chicken soup contest. Since it appeared in the mail while I was away in Mexico, I was feeling comparatively cold when I read it. Plus I got a new enameled cast-iron dutch oven that I wanted to put through its paces. So I went to the store and obtained the ingredients necessary to make three of the soups they featured. All of the recipes take less than an hour to make, and all use store-bought chicken broth and boneless - skinless chicken breasts. Heresy, yes, but I don't currently have any made from scratch chicken stock, so these were a good way to get some warming goodness into the roommates and myself. So, over the past 6 days, I made three chicken soups.

First up, New Orleans Chicken and Sausage Soup. It's a pretty basic soup based on onions, garlic, red bell pepper, chicken, smoked sausage, and rice. For the smoked sausage, I would have preferred andouille, but I was shopping at the local produce store, where they have all kinds of smoked polish sausages, but no andouille. So I used kielbasa. The soup was quick and easy to make, involving a very quick blonde roux for thickening. One of my roommates compared it to gumbo, which I can accept, but it didn't have the complex and deep flavors I associate with good gumbo. Probably because of the quick cooked roux, canned chicken broth, and lack of real andouille. No one complained, though. For a hearty soup in less than an hour, it was pretty good.

Next up was Thai chicken soup. Bring chicken broth to a boil, reduce to a simmer. Throw in 6 smashed cloves of garlic, 6 big chunks of ginger (also smashed), the zest of one lime, 5 jalepenos, and 2 chicken breasts. Simmer until the chicken is done, pull out the chicken and set it aside. Fish out all of the aromatics, toss them out. Put in some thin rice noodles, let them simmer until they are soft. Stir in some basil and some cilantro, the juice of half a lime, 5 sliced scallions, and cut up the cooked chicken and throw that in. Then serve it. This was probably my favorite soup of the three. Least amount of prep work, big flavor reward. Lots of leftovers, too.

Those two soups made dinner for 3 nights in a row for me, and some roommates ate it for breakfast and lunch at work, as well. So I took a break for a few days. Last night, I made the last one, which was actually the winner of their contest: Chicken and Corn Chowder with Sweet Potatoes. It's exactly what it sounds like. Make a basic chicken soup that includes chunks of sweet potato. Stir in milk and corn muffin mix. Let it simmer to thicken. Stir in frozen corn and a little bit of cheese. Simmer until the corn isn't frozen anymore. This was my least favorite of the three. It wasn't bad, but I don't really care for sweet potatoes, although I am trying to like them more. Between that and the corn muffin mix and the corn, it was a little too sweet for me. But it was a pretty successful and inexpensive set of meals, and if the roommates will eat the rest of the chowder, we will have eaten a lot of decent meals at home without much effort.