Archive for the 'Food' Category

Update: Just made this again with the final tomatoes of the season. Refined the recipe a bit and produced a sauce that is pretty close to perfect. The tomato intensity is kicked up several notches with the rest of the spices adding a subtle kick.

Some recipe as below, but:

• Nearly double the number of tomatoes. Ended up with three layers and filled in the gaps with cherry and pear tomatoes.
• Put the basil and garlic only on the first layer. Half the amount of garlic. Do not mince the basil leaves. Pile tomatoes on top.
• Sprinkle with Italian Seasoning instead of crushed Thyme and considerably less dry spice than before.
• Cook for about 2.5 hours at about 220 - 270 degrees.

That’s right, smoked tomato sauce.

As we are in the midst of a kitchen remodel, we have no oven. Or, I should say, we (and by “we”, I mean “I”) are using some combination of the Big Green Egg and the Cobb to do our baking and baking-like cooking.

Coincidentally, my community garden plot is producing Tons of Tomatoes. That is about it. Everything else this year has been a failure due to weird plant mojo and neglect. But tomatoes? I got em!

In any case, if you want to make a tangy, slightly smoky, incredibly tasty tomato sauce, it is quite easy! No need for a Big Green Egg, either, as this sauce could be made quite easily on a gas grill, in an oven, on a charcoal grill, or in anything else that can hold a temperature between 300 and 400 degrees for a couple of hours.

n[ate]vw asked about “off flavors”:

Could you elaborate a bit on tomatoes getting “roasted such that the heat totally changes the flavor”? When we’ve made tomato soup and spaghetti sauce, they’ve both ended up with an unexpected “off” flavor from what we’re used to — hard to describe, but it’s almost like the sauce is too fresh or something. Could this have something to do with the cooking temperature? Or would it have more to do with things like the tomato variety, us blending the skins and seeds together, or that we don’t pump HFCS into our mix like the store bought stuff?

The sauce had no off flavor, but I know what you are talking about. The food mill I used prevented almost all skin and seeds from making it into the sauce. I could easily imagine that pulverizing the seeds could quite distinctly change the flavor and in potentially unfavorable ways.

As I’m interested in this subject, I did a bit of research and found that tomatoes are exquisitely complex little beasties. They have dozens and dozens of uniquely identifiable organic compounds that contribute to the flavor, texture, aromatics, and cooking qualities of the fruit.

In particular, it seems that storage temperature can grossly impact tomato flavor. Specifically, cold storage — in the fridge — for any length of time can radically change the flavor, and not necessarily for the better!

Of the numerous articles I found, this one was particularly informative.

Given the acidity of tomatoes, I would also recommend avoiding cooking in aluminum or reactive metals. I could only get away with cast iron because the wok is both well seasoned, providing a layer of oil as a seal, and I was cooking a relatively large volume for the surface area involved. But, still, there was a hint of iron flavor in the final sauce — nothing unpleasant as cast iron is a relatively non-offensive metal — but it would be really bad with aluminum or other reactive metal.

Read on for details!


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When we arrived home yesterday, there was a generic USPS flat rate large box. As I wasn’t expecting a package, I had no clue what it might be.

Within about 5 yards of the door, I knew exactly what it was. There was this delicious, sharp, fresh, slightly spicy smell in the air.

Could it be?

Yup — it was a box full of fresh New Mexican Chile Peppers from Andrew Stone. Awesome. Brought back vivid memories of the summer (1992 or so) some friends and I lived with Andrew and worked on Stone Studio (now Stone Works). We lived on black beans, chile peppers, eggs, goat cheese, and fresh baked bread, mountain biking in the Rio Grande river valley every day. Good times.

Chile peppers are a celebration in New Mexico every bit as much as Garlic is a phenomenon in Northern California. And late summer is chile pepper season. Slashfood has a good summary of the chile pepper scene.

And, of course, with fresh chiles at hand, it was obviously time to make Chile Rellenos!


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When grilling food, I like to try and prepare as much of the cooked foods for a meal on the grill, if possible. It is generally a matter of timing and layering.

At left is tonight’s meal. Cheeseburgers with roasted garlic and a side of grilled hole potatoes.

Easy enough to do on a kettle grill or BGE — simply wrap the potatoes in foil, drop them in the coals about 20 minutes before doing the burger. Garlic goes on about 5 to 10 minutes before, depending on how hot the fire is. Done.

In this case, the challenge was to do it on the Cobb — a rather tiny grill at only 10″ in diameter.


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A little over a year ago, I wrote an entry describing a very simple means of producing extremely tasty grilled pork chops. About a month ago, Tom - Cobb Grill commented on the post. As with all posts that make it through the spam filter, I checked out the post and associated link.

Now, almost all spam is nullified by my spam filters. Some borderline stuff gets through. And the comment was borderline considered within the context of the link.

So, I visited the Art Fleederman and left a bit of feedback to see how serious/legitimate the company might be. I also offered to review the product, if they would send me a Cobb. I’m not above pimping my weblog for free stuff.

There is one simple rule: If said thing is a piece of crap, I’m going to say so in no uncertain terms.

Tom at Art Fleederman took up my offer and sent me a Cobb.

The Cobb is definitely one well designed compact grill. I hesitate to even call it a grill. It is more like a small charcoal-fired convection oven.

I dropped some soaked in-husk corn on the Cobb, which was fueled by 8 or 10 charcoal briquettes and let it sit for about 45 minutes to an hour.

This style is my favorite way to cook corn. Done right, the resulting corn is tender, moist, and will have a bit of a caramelized sugar flavor to it.

It was significantly more moist than the many times I have done the same preparation on a larger grill. And the Cobb only consumed about 60% of the fuel during the cook.

As can be seen in the picture, the Cobb is not a large grill. It can barely fit 4 reasonably sized ears of corn with the lid on!

Yet, it appears to be a very versatile grill. As can be seen in the picture at the left, the firebox is fairly small and sits at the center of the Cobb. What can’t be seen is the moat that surrounds it, into which you can place liquids for steaming and/or vegetables for roasting. It also appears to be possible to cook down sauces in this moat, using the renderings from the cooking meats to add additional flavors.

The grill is about 12″ in diameter and stands 14″ tall with the lid on. Their are a number of accessories; griddles, wok tops, etc…

It is also extremely portable and comes with an awesome carrying case. The design of the grill is such that the stainless steel mesh stays cool to the touch throughout the cook. I’m pretty sure I could cook with the Cobb on top of a tablecloth / wooden table without an issue.

In any case, it is a very impressive product and I’m looking forward to see how it fairs cooking meats and baking breads. It should prove ideal for cooking for my family, which is convenient given that my kitchen is currently destroyed in the process of a remodel.

Frankly, I knew nothing about The Cobb prior to tracing back the comment Tom made originally. I still know little about Art Fleederman other than that their online presence is both a bit campy and very interesting. The handful of communication I have had with Tom and with the company has been pleasant and responsive.

Art Fleederman carries what appears to be the complete line of Cobb grills and accessories. I’m very likely going to order the roasting rack soon.

As my sister so eloquently documented, our Apricot tree has gone completely bonkers this year. The last time I saw an apricot tree produce in this volume was Andrew Stone’s tree during the summer I was living & coding at Stone Design.

The fruit is just now starting to ripen and today was the first day that I could pick any quantity of apricots.

And Pick I did.

And pick again — three days later, I just picked an equal number.

I basically culled the tree for apricots that were ready to pick, while also removing any nearly-ready ‘cots that were weighing down branches to the point of potentially breaking them.

Even so, you can’t tell that a single apricot was removed from the tree! It looks like I have at least 3 to 4 more weeks of fruit to harvest!

Of course, the question is, what to do with all those apricots?

Eat ‘em!
Freeze ‘em!

Make: Jam! Pie! Pancakes! Ice Cream! Cheese! Poached Salmon!

The possibilities are endless. In this case, I quartered the apricots into vacuum bags and froze them for the non-apricot season.

However, not all… some were set aside for eating and a couple were turned into a muddled apricot margarita with a blueberry juice float (which can be seen next to that gigantic bowl of ‘cot quarters).

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Things have been a bit quiet around here. I have been a bit distracted over the last week.

Today was spent doing a mass amount of yard work; trimming, cleaning, weeding, mowing, watering and all kinds of other yard activities that require no thought.

However, I did make it out to a friend’s birthday party where his girlfriend brought him something like 2 lbs of freshly picked Morel Mushrooms. We made — I volunteered to man the stove — morel fondue, morel cream sauce on pasta, and pan fried smoked pork with morels.

The smoked pork, not surprisingly, was of my own making. I had a frozen butt that I had reheated earlier and, thus, it was best served with a bit of saucing.

To wit:

• Heat 1/2 cup of butter in metal pan until it just starts to brown.
• Add diced onions, diced peppers, and morel mushrooms (halve or quarter any large ones). Simmer until tender.
• While simmering, spice veggies with a bit of salt, pepper, cayenne, and whatever strikes your fancy. I added a bit of dried lemon (really, it was a “jamaican spice” but it was mostly dried citrus, salt, and pepper).
• Shred smoked pork into pan.
• Continuing mixing ingredients over low heat until pork is warm through.
• Add a splash of white wine and mix in some melty cheese– mozzarella works just fine.
• Stir until cheese is thoroughly melted and wine is somewhat reduced– you don’t want it too soupy!
• Sprinkle corn meal lightly over the pork and then stir in. No more than 1/4 cup.
• Increase heat and sauce with a decent BBQ sauce. Whereby “decent” means that it is sweetened primarily with fruit and cane sugars. No HFCS!
• Stir for a couple of more minutes to let the sugars caramelize slightly.

In our case, we served it with pita bread and most folks made quarter-pita tacos. It was delicious. The morels added an earthy essence to an otherwise relatively traditional pan fried pork.

If apples or pears were available, I would diced same and simmered it with the onions/peppers/morels.

The photo has nothing to do with anything (it isn’t a morel). It looks like a little laughing mushroom cyclops dude and, thus, captures the rather relaxed mood I’m in after a totally awesome WWDC.

The Bay Area Vegetarians linked to my Maker Faire 2008 post in their summary of their presence at the Maker Faire.

Specifically:

And then there were those who looked from a distance at our model of battery caged hens, read our sign about WHY VEGAN, but didn’t approach. As one blogger frankly posted in a reference to Bay Area Vegetarians “various ‘activist’ vendors pushing everything from a vegan lifestyle (been avoiding that booth)”.

What I said in my original post was:

Gone are the generic arts-and-crafts vendors from the years before, replaced with various “activist” vendors pushing everything from a vegan lifestyle (been avoiding that booth) to awesome chocolates to composting toilets to amazing beer.

Their site seems to be having some stability issues. My response, in case it is lost (in all of its unedited wordpress submission form glory):

That particular quote is just ever so slightly out of context; beyond the “avoid” part, it was meant as a compliment to the organizers of the Faire in that they opened up what had been a cheesy vendor area to a group of people that were passionate to selling their causes in such a venue.

But let me take a moment to explain the “avoiding that booth” part.

You might not be surprised to find that the image of the chickens in cages offended me, but you might find it interesting why.

I find industrialized meat production to be an extreme offense to nature and to the health of the human race. It is unnatural. It is poisoning our land and us.

Of that, I think we all agree. You might be surprised to learn that I also shun the “organic” products of the likes of Whole Foods, many of which are flown in from far away places (thus consuming mass quantities of fossil fuels) or have been made with such oddities as “organic high fructose corn syrup”. No thanks, if I’m gonna be “green” like all the hipsters, I know that asparagus in August is unnatural.

My avoidance of the booth was more because my initial impression was that your stance is fundamentalist. That Bay Area Vegans were there to sway opinion and gain supporters through sensationalist headlines and viscerally unpleasant imagery.

I have little patience for fundamentalism, regardless of form, and I had no energy or interest in confronting fundamentalism in the otherwise open forum of ideas that is the Maker Faire.

With that said, I am the first to admit that I have no experience with this organization and am looking forward to learning more. In particular, I would like to understand how an entirely animal free method of food production is compatible with the various species of commonly eaten domesticated vegetables that have been selected to best survive in conjunction with domesticated animals as their source of fertilizer.

Thousands of years of symbiotic, human perpetuated, evolution is awfully hard to overcome. The industrialized meat and vegetable complexes made a hell of a success at such denial in the last 50 years. I would like to see us not make a similar set of mistakes in the next 50.

The pendulum swings wide and the answer to sustainable perpetuation of species typically lies somewhere in the middle.

Regardless of anything else, the Bay Area Vegetarians have quite a collection of what look to be very yummy recipes.

The Maker Faire is always full of surprises.

The fine folks at Far West Fungi had a wonderful display of growing mushrooms, were selling mushroom mini farms, and were sharing a lot of mushroom lore. I’ll definitely be ordering some fresh mushroom products from them in the near future!

On my third pass by their booth in the process of taking a new set of friends on a whirlwind tour of the fair, I noticed they were also selling Truffle Salt.

Coincidentally, my first experience with Truffle Salt was at a dinner party not but a few weeks ago. The menu was a simple combination of fresh broccoli, potatoes-au-gratin, and slow roasted chicken. On the table was a small salt dish containing truffle salt. The food was awesome on its on, but the truffle salt put it right over the top.

So, of course, I grabbed a little pot of truffle salt from Far West! The stuff is awesome! Casina Rossa Truffle and Salt contains 5% dried, powdered, truffles suspended in your basic high quality italian sea salt.

Truffles have an intense flavor to start with; an almost smoky and extremely rich kind of woody flavor.

I made popcorn (on the stove, of course) and used a pinch of truffle salt. What normally would have resulted in about a half of bowl of left over popcorn was entirely devoured.

Awesome stuff. Amazon has Casina Rossa Truffle and Salt at a slightly cheaper price, but the shipping is really high. Amazon also has a Black truffle salt 10%. More truffle for the money, but it might be overwhelming, too!

Update: I found FungusAmongUs Truffle Salt (6% Truffles) sold through Amazon itself and, thus, eligible for Amazon Prime based delivery. I know nothing about this particular truffle salt, but have ordered some to give it a taste test.

Update 2: FungusAmongUs Truffle Salt received! Delicious stuff. Quite significantly more pungent and flavorful than the Casina Rossa product. At half the cost (taking into account shipping), I’ll stick to the FungusAmongUs until something better is found.

Every kitchen should have some!

Mmm…. Turkey. Yum. See that big dude on the right with the snood hanging down?

That would be our thanksgiving dinner this year. I reserved a turkey with a rather awesome local poultry farmer, Paul Hain, earlier in the season. He raised the turkeys in his walnut orchard. Completely organic.

The turkey needed to be picked up at farm on the weekend before thanksgiving and Paul invited us to come down, tour the farm and participate in the turkey harvest, if we wanted.

Ben and I jumped at the chance. To play a role in the harvest of the turkey — to actually know what happens between “bird eating bugs & grain” to “me eating the bird — is something that we both feel is important knowledge.

Personally, I find it hypocritical to both eat a food and be unwilling to acknowledge how said food is produced.

Enough of the PC BS. If you don’t want to read about animal slaughter, see pictures of blood, or know how a turkey goes from walking around to ready to cook, don’t click through to the full story.

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Christine’s parents are in town and for Christmas Eve, we decided to do a traditional Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes dinner.

My mother-in-law Ann is a fantastic cook who has a wide range of italian delicacies mastered. Christine and Ann put together a rough menu. Ann and I then obtained most of the fishes from the farmer’s market, along with a number of necessary accoutrements.

Click on through for the full menu, in order, with pictures and descriptions.

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