We had cornish game hens on Sunday.
I kind of knew how to spatchcock, but wasn’t quite sure, so I looked it up on youtube. I found this result.
While very interested in this cooking method, it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. I did check out a few of her other methods before finally realizing that her cooking style wasn’t suited for the tools I have.
Instead, I found a video of some really gay guys teaching me how to spatchcock. They had really good enunciation on the word “spatchcock” – or at least I imagined it.
Antioxidants arent always good for you and can impair muscle function, study shows.
Isn’t there a law somewhere that says that – when science claims something is good for your health, it will inevitably be proven unhealthy in a matter of time?
I’m starting to dislike Girl Scout Cookies.
Trefoils and Samoas were/are my favorites. The trouble is, I’ve learned how to make shortbread, and as such do not need the Girl Scout’s version of it. And have you ever looked at the health information for Samoas? Of course you haven’t, unless you’re in your thirties, where eating cardboard and getting away with it is no longer possible.
Every year they add new cookies to the lineup, and it seems like every year they end up replacing those new cookies. Some people say they try a new variety every year regardless of success – but I don’t believe that. If tons of people ordered Thank U Berry Munch cookies this year, you bet your butt those cookies would make appearances year after year. Anna likes the tagalongs. I used to like the tagalongs too, about ten years ago when they actually put real peanut butter in them, as opposed to the lightly nut flavored sludge they use now.
I guess the thin mints are ok. But there are better chocolate-mint cookies. Specifically the ones that have filling made of crisco and sugar.
Maybe I’m just old and bitter. I have to buy them to support the kids in the neighborhood, though, so that one day when Owen is selling sugared tripe or whatever, my neighbors that will have moved away remember that I supported their kid. I’m also too lazy to make my own, although I understand it is possible.
Pressure Cooking: Fast, Healthy Eating – Bitten Blog – NYTimes.com.
We have a pressure cooker that I’ve used for canning. It’s quite large, so I’m not sure how efficient it would be for cooking meals that normally serve two people.
Having no top teeth, I imagine this is difficult.
We’re going to attempt a new routine tomorrow.
I get every other Friday off, as some of you may know. About one mile away from us, there is Pierre Michel French Bakery. We’ve been there once for breakfast, and they have the best croissants we can find in Denver.
I am not sure if we’re welcome back, though. Last time we went, we split a mixed berry croissant and had some coffee with fresh cream. The cream was in a caraffe, which may have been left too close to the edge of the table, while Owen was in his early grabby phase – you know, the one where anytime anything is in reach, it gets grabbed. You may imagine how that went – thick, rich, organic heavy cream quite literally everywhere.
It was incredibly amusing, because you have this relatively tiny human holding on to the handle of this caraffe, cream dripping everywhere, with his parents looking at him like “Oh no.” And he’s just looking back with eyes that say “What? Should I not have done that?”
Anyway, back to the routine – we’re going to try and walk to the bakery on my off Fridays for breakfast. It’s roughly forty minutes of walking, though – not sure how Owen will handle it. But here’s the cool part: I can take a picture of the croissant and post it tomorrow from the bakery. IT IS THE FUTURE.
Genius.
It’s time to renew our farm membership!
We joined Monroe Organic Farm in 2008 – and apparently just in time. Members are grandfathered in at their original price when they joined, which means that for $200, we get a constant, weekly supply of more veggies than we can eat from mid June to late October. Now that I’ve learned how to can, and Owen is morphing into a grade-A vegetable consumer, this is a great thing.
But, before you call me a liar, let’s get to the meat! They’re offering sides and quarters of beef. For the sake of this particular rant, I’m going to assume that our family of two-and-a-half omnivores will not be able to eat two-hundred pounds of beef in a year, and so a side of beef will not be discussed further. But a quarter of grass-fed beef? I’m tempted, even though in order to facilitate this, I’d have to find a butcher, and buy a bigger freezer.
It’s tough to calculate value on this, since cattle vary in size and weight, and you’re not necessarily going to get formulaic X strip steaks, N filets, etcetera. But if I assume that a quarter of beef yields a meager ninety pounds of deliciousness at a cost of $450, which I am not sure covers butchering. That’s $5 a pound without butchering. Let’s say that the butchering fee is $300 – which seems about average in my initial research – ninety pounds of healthy, grass-fed beef is $8.33 a pound, and that includes ground meat, roasts, steaks, tips – all of it. That isn’t a bad deal, other than it’s more than the two dollars a pound we used to pay for pre-ground meat. Grass-fed beef at King Sooper’s (which is Kroger) is about eighteen dollars a pound for strip steaks – it seems like you make out pretty well in this deal.
They also do hogs, or as is the custom today, they are called “free range pork”. This pork is more marbled and has a lot more fat – and hence more flavor. It’s only $250 for a half hog – a half hog yields twenty pounds of pork loin, a five pound pork butt, ten pounds of bacon, sixteen pounds of ham, four pounds of spare ribs, and fifteen pounds of pork sausage. That’s $3.50 a pound, pre butchering costs. That would support one hell of a barbecue!
The foodie and hippie in me wants to do it, but this is all ignoring the fact that we don’t have a freezer that can store 160 pounds of meat. Yet. I feel like I should start saving up.
The veggies weren’t real!
Also, they know the ingredients ahead of time. Dashed, ruined, I am.
I used this pizza dough recipe, with some modifications.
For Christmas my parents got me Cookwise: The Secrets of Cooking Revealed. The first chapter goes deeply into the science of baking and all the magic that is happening in that process. It’s actually a good enough cookbook to read through, versus just skipping through to the recipes.
One of the methods of dough preparation is the sponge method. Basically you put together most of the moisture, flour, and yeast, and let it sit and activate for a while, before adding the rest of the dough ingredients. This causes the yeast to be more active and significantly affects the texture of the baked dough. So to do this, I did:
And mixed it with the paddle blade of the KitchenAid mixer. Let it sit for about thirty minutes, so that the magic can happen.
Then, add the remaining 1C flour and hit that thing with the dough hook for about five minutes on medium speed. Here’s where it’s fun – depending on the gluten content of your flour, these proportions will either be just right, or way wrong. I think it’s usually way wrong, so you’ll have to tinker by adding more water or more flour depending on how the dough sticks to the sides of the bowl when it’s being kneaded by the dough hook. If it’s sticking too much to the sides of the bowl, add more flour. If it’s way too dry, add more water. You want it just barely sticky to the touch, and sticking to the bowl, but not leaving behind any dough klingons.
After kneading, spread a bit of olive oil on it, and sit it on a flour surface to rise for a half hour or so.
This isn’t my best pizza dough recipe, but it is quick. With about fifteen total minutes of prep time, the quick dough recipe yielded two of the pizzas pictured above. Delicious.
Mixer is actually on sale cheaper, here.
