Busy Weekend in the Kitchen

It was a busy weekend in the kitchen at our house this past weekend.  Uploaded the photos, and will blog over the course of this week.  Here is a preview of what’s to come:

Ribs, Pastrami, and Walnut Raisin Bread

Baking Bread with the Kids

We are a family that loves food.  Its especially nice when our children can participate in the preparation as well as the consumption of the food.  Believe it or not, they even help in the clean up after the preparation!  With some frequency we bake bread on the weekends. It’s a new activity for us in the last 6 months or so, and I’m thrilled about it.  It all started with Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and a few basic tools.  One of our favorite recipies is the Oatmeal Bread – its crusty, hearty, and just a hint of sweetness.  The whole reason that we make bread with some frequency is that its dead easy.  Yep, baking bread can be very easy – and very rewarding.   Its so easy, that my 2.5 YRO helped this past weekend.

Tyler helps with the bread baking

Day Before:

• combine warm water, salt, yeast, maple syrup etc.
• add flour, oat bran, wheat bran and a couple other things in the mixer.
• Rest on counter for 2 hours, put in fridge.

Day of (next morning):

• Lightly grease (Pam) a loaf pan
• Remove a 1.5 lb (grapefruit) chunk of dough, shape, put in pan
• Rest for 1.5 hour
• Preheat oven to 350, for 20 minutes
• Put bread in oven, with 1 c. water in a broiler pan (for some steam)
• Bake 40 minutes.
• Let cool and enjoy

The whole point of the book is that its easy and fast to bake high quality bread. There is no kneading, no thing precise… just throw the ingredients together and bake later. It’s so easy that its hard to do it wrong.

Quick Post: Brownies

What better un-fancy and unfoodie food than brownies made from a box.  You could, of course, make brownies from scratch, but I just don’t think they are as good (Not that I’ve tried).  From what I hear, it sounds like you don’t get that chewiness in brownies from scratch.

Our family *loves* the Ghirardelli 6 Pack of Triple Chocolate Brownie Mix from Costco.

Mix up the batter, pour in a pan, cook,  cool and serve.  Bonus points for a little powdered sugar dusting on top  Easy enough to make and the kids can help out too. In our case, a 2.5 YRO and a 4.5 YRO.

Better than a Blood Orange?

Blood Oranges may just be the perfect fruit.  They are widely available at grocery stores right now, and are a great citris treat for late winter. The season is roughly Dec. thru May and we are probably eating fruit grown in Texas and California.

Shrimp Tikka Masala

Shrimp Tikka Masala - http://www.seriouseats.com - Photograph: Blake Royer

Shrimp Tikka Masala

- serves 4 -

Adapted from Martha Stewart Living, January 2010.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons neutral oil or clarified butter (ghee)
1 large onion
3 tablespoons grated ginger
1 tablespoon grated garlic
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons garam masala
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 cup water
20 medium-to-large shrimp
1/4 cup plain yogurt
Salt and pepper to taste
Cooked rice for serving

1. In a heavy pot such as a dutch oven, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion and cook gently until golden, about 20 minutes, then add the ginger, garlic, tomato paste, chili powder, and garam masala. Add a little oil if necessary to allow the ingredients to blend into a thick-yet-runny consistency, and cook until the flavors have begun to marry and are very fragrant, 3-4 minutes.

2. Add the water and stir until the mixture is smooth, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Add the shrimp and cook gently over medium heat until they are just cooked through, about 4 minutes.

3. Remove from the heat and stir in the yogurt quickly. Serve immediately with rice.

Recipe Credit: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/01/dinner-tonight-shrimp-tikka-masala-recipe.html

Smoking my first Pork Shoulder

Tonite is the first time I’ll be smoking a pork shoulder (butt) and only the second time the Bradley Smoker has been fired up.  Here is the step by step of what I did… this is my first time.  Might be tough tonite, as the low temperature here in MN is going to be just below zero.  A post on the Bradley Smoker forums really gave me a great high level overview of what to do. There are other posts in more detail, but I used this to get going.

I will update this post over the course of the smoke (approx 18 hours)

• Purchased two Pork Shoulders -total of 14 lbs from Village Meats in Wayzata, Mn.

• 7 PM – Place the meat on a cookie sheet, cover with your favorite rub. Tonight I’m using Wee Willy’s Porkie Pal, let it rest and warm up from fridge temp. for an hour or so

• Turn on the Bradley Smoker on High, place the trays, water bowl (3/4 full with hot water) and let it warm up for 30-45 minutes.

• It’s 9PM – Place the pork in on the bottom two racks, smallest one on top. Insert a remote digital thermometer to monitor the internal temperature (IT) – We are shooting for 190-205 final temperature - prob. ~18 hours from now.  I’m using Apple Wood bisquettes and will give 4 hours of smoke.  The vent on top is about 25% open.

• Check the temp. of the smoker at about 10, then time for some sleep, back at 1. At 1AM (after 4 hours of smoke), check the meat, and refill the water bowl.  Notice the smoke coming out the top and the temp. reading of 117.

• UPDATE: 7:30 AM – The Bradley has been on all night long, suffering thru sub zero tempratures… but things are looking on track. The smaller shoulder has reached 154 degrees.  Time to swap the shelves and update the post.  Looking good, eh?

• UPDATE: 4PM – The shoulders are off. One came off a couple hours earlier than the other prob. due to the size difference and the way they were rotated in ths smoker. Here is the final meat (see the bone sticking out?) and initial pull of the meat. Gotta say it looks fantastic.  The dark spots are the bark (and man is that packed with flavor).

• The final result… Pulled pork sandwich (carolina style – with coleslaw on top) and cornbread. It was a crowd pleaser!

Couple of last notes… The Ryan family was over for dinner, and we had my favorite BBQ Sauce – Cowtown BBQ Sauce – the retail version of the sauce from Okalhoma Joe’s in Kansas City and my new favorite Cornbread from Trader Joe’s!  I won’t mention the rack of ribs that I fogot about in the smoker…