Food

Food Hacking Link roundup

Jon — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:31:04 +0000

Making flavored (smoked, sweetened) salts: http://www.americastestkitchenfeed.com/holiday-handbook/2011/12/3-delici...

Dry-age your steak at home: http://lifehacker.com/5865849/dry+age-steak-at-home-for-steakhouse+quali...

Ice cube trays and nigiri: http://lifehacker.com/5859069/make-nigiri-sushi-quickly-in-an-ice-cube-tray

Shuck Local - the business behind a good Rappahannock Oyster: http://www.welovedc.com/2011/12/15/we-love-food-rappahannock-river-oyste...

Food Links: Bacon Hacking, Beer Politics, More Politics

Jon — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 21:17:24 +0000

Eight bacon "hacks" : http://lifehacker.com/5837068/8-essential-bacon-hacks (best hack: bacon cups). OK, one more bacon hack: homemade bacon salt: http://lifehacker.com/5838933/make-your-own-bacon-salt . OK, last bacon hack, a Cooks Illustrated method for using bacon paste (their term, not mine) to help chicken kabobs: http://www.101cookingfortwo.com/2011/04/bacon-coated-chicken-kabobs.html

Another fun hack (or a disaster) - sous-vide cooking salmon in your sink: http://lifehacker.com/5830856/cook-salmon-sous+vide-in-your-kitchen-sink...

The Georgian

Jon — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 19:33:57 +0000

In DC, we are at the peak weeks for stone fruit. Peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums. If it's a drupe, it's in season. For those of us with generally laughable growing seasons, this is pretty exciting. So, well, we might have gone a bit overboard in buying the past few weeks. We bought Marvin out of apricots the first week he had them to make jam for the winter, and keep ending up with, well, more peaches and nectarines than most sane people would try to tackle in a week.

A Tasty Breakfast

Jon — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:28:18 +0000

We came to the realization that if we want to preserve treats from this summer for the winter, then we need space to do that. We've done pretty well on our house-canned goods, but lacking a Freezer of Unusual Size (I don't think they exist), this meant we had to find uses for some items stored away in there currently.

Menu for the week of June 26

Jon — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 23:20:44 +0000

Sun: grilled whole rainbow trout, stuffed with lemon and rosemary, brushed with garlic scape pesto, with quinoa, grilled squash, and side salad of purslane and seabeans.

Mon : artesenal pizza w/salad on top
Tues: Gnocci in a brown butter sauce and side veg
Wed : Composed Salad w/ tuna
Thus: H St. / Art Walk
Fri : Baguette slices with heirloom tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, cured meats, cheese, olives, pickled mushrooms...

For the Record: Komi 5/28

Audrey — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 09:58:54 +0000

1. House-made brioche with smoked trout roe and greek yogurt
2. Cured salmon with squid ink toast and raw pacific mexican whitefish with green tomato
3. Raw scallops two ways - with coconut milk and with crumbled pistachios
4. Burrata with asparagus and lemon breadcrumbs
5. Egg ravioli with ramps and dried tuna flakes
6. One-bite spanakopita
7. Smoked fois gras with pea purée
8. House-made half smoke with spicy tomato chutney, half sour pickle and beer
9. Warm date stuffed with marscspone topped w olive oil and sea salt

Spring Menu: Week of May 21

Jon — Fri, 27 May 2011 18:22:33 +0000

Sunday night: grass-fed steak from Canales meats in Eastern Market

Monday: Fiddlehead fern salad with baked potato

Italian Week: Menu for the week of May 15

Jon — Sun, 15 May 2011 18:27:18 +0000

Sunday: Pizza with red sauce, fresh mushrooms and mozarella

Monday: Salad night

Tuesday: Spaghetti with lamb-sausage meatballs

Wednesday: Italian-style tapas featuring virginia cured ham prosciutto and pistacho pesto

Thus: Salad and Leftovers night

Menu: Asian week

Jon — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

We started the week with some oysters from BlackSalt, and then dived in to a full asian-inspired week.

Sunday was roll-your-own sushi, and we got playful with some fried wonton wrappers and seaweed salads from BlackSalt

Monday was steam buns using some leftover ham from the previous week, and steam buns frozen after making waaay more than we could eat in this recipe

Menu: Southern Week

Jon — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 14:54:28 +0000

Sunday was glazed ham, using an overly complex glazing recipe which I'd not revisit. The addition of cardamom and other spices was intriguing, but over the top in the end.

Monday was gourmet mac-and-cheese, abusing the "cheese ends" bin from the grocery to great effect.

Tuesday was audrey's shrimp louis salad

We had various combinations of leftovers and winter veggies (brussel sprouts, kale, etc.) the rest of the week.

We're really tired of winter veggies.

Menu: Mediterranean

Jon — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Sunday started us off with Braised Lamb Shank

Monday got us making all our various Mediterranean dips, and so Monday was dip night - tzatziki, drinker's choice, and hummus

Wednesday was shrimp saganaki

Thus we had brick chicken with salad and dips and grapeleaves.

Friday we went out the the Columbia Room and Coco Sala.

Menu: Mexico Week (January)

Jon — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 14:26:56 +0000

After getting back from a fantastic, super-long weekend away for the wedding of some close friends in Mexico, we wanted to keep the ball rolling with a week of Mexican-inspired dishes.

We spent the weekend gathering ingredients (thanks mostly to the mega mart at University and Piney Branch)

Lacquered Chicken in Classic Red Mole inspired by Rick Bayless, using this Mole recipe

The first fall menu

Jon — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 12:13:55 +0000

This past week was undeniably a fall week, and the best food options at the market reflected that.

Mon - Butternut Squash and ginger soup with a sage foam, alongside kale wilted with pancetta, dried cranberries and pecorino cheese
Tues - homemade butternut ravioli with a brown butter sauce and broccoli
Wed - More soup!
Thus - baked sweet potatoes and salad

Thirty Second Infusions

Jon — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:29:51 +0000

Dave Arnold just leveled me up with his article, Infusion Profusion: Game-Changing Fast ‘N Cheap Technique, which uses a iSi N2O powered cream whipper to infuse anything into anything in ~1 minute. I will have to try this...

Recent Kitchen Experimentation

Jon — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 01:47:26 +0000

On a whim, I bought a bunch of rhubarb at the farmer's market this weekend, figuring I could find a tasty recipe for it. I found a rustic rhubarb tart recipe at http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/05/rustic-rhubarb-tarts/ -- I made a few edits to their recipe, though. In the pastry, I used one whole egg instead of two yolks, and a flour mixture of 1 cup cornmeal and 1 1/2 cups flour. I didn't have any cream, so I just used 2% milk instead. In the compote, I added dash each of cinnamon, allspice, ginger, and a 1/2 oz of dark rum.