cookbook

Excerpt – Time, Fire, and Cuisine

Coming from the Pacific Northwest there just has to be some recipes with seafood. This one is a good way to do any white meat fish and it doesn’t take million dollars to make either. Chicken works well for those who do not do well with fish. On previous pages you can also see how people are supposed to grow so that nothing is impossible and after reading my books you could cook a lot better. That would be the plan at least

October 6th – Fish a la Piccata

Translating loosely to miller style fish this works best with white meat fish fillet. Trout is the recipe here but halibut and cod can work if you so chose. Any white meat fish is acceptable as long as it can hold through a pan frying. The fat of choice for this recipe is a blended olive oil or clarified butter. Pat the fish fillet dry before dusting with an all purpose flour. In the pan an ounce of your choice of fat should be simmering from the heat.

Place your fish in the fat to let it cook. If one side has skin then you will want to let it cook more on one side then the other. On the other hand skinless fillet can be found although they do break up easier. As the meat cooks you will want to make a sauce to accompany it.

Mince six small capers with a heavy pinch of parsley so that you are left with equal portions of each.

1:1:1 Minced capers to minced parsley to lemon juice

After your fish cooks dump the sauce ingredients in to saute for a moment. Next you will want to remove it from the heat while swirling a pair of small half ounce chunks. Monte Au Buerre in full affect your sauce should be warm and ready while your fish has rested slightly before plating.

Pour a small portion of the sauce under the fish as it rests against your starch and vegetable of choice before ladling a small amount over the top of it. It should have a nice looking dark colored sear that can hold up to the sauce.

If the salty flavor of the briny capers isn’t really up your alley minced sweet pickle or cornuchons can be supplemented for a portion or for the entire part of the capers.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Excerpt – Time, Fire, and Cuisine

One of my first friends in college was a Hawaiian girl and between my accent. I sound like a complete bumpkin accent and her pigeon speak it seemed we could understand each other without having to talk to anyone else. The difference is akin to Moxxi from Borderlands with her normal voice and her accent. Below was the first dish she told me about back on the islands.

It was also with her that we talked what kind of books and what we hated about cookbooks nowadays. They seemed like glory shot filled food porn magazines and they did not teach or better someone’s cooking ability. Having this up now on my own blog kinda makes me look back at the path to get here and to any would be authors wanting to start a book of any kind. Be in it for the long haul.

July 9th – Spam musubi

Knowing that musubi is a Hawaiian dish on default we are going to pair it with something that is about as integrated in to the island cuisine, spam. Looking at the can some people may not enjoy the taste of such a thing and if that is the case you can remove the spam for some spicy Portuguese sausage.

Start your preparation by taking some good sushi rice or in the case that none can be found some medium grain rice cooked so that it is slightly sticky. This can be done by finding a rice grain with a lot of starch and only rinsing it once in cold water quickly. Like the Japanese sushi you will need to create a blend of your favorite vinegars to flavor the rice. I prefer mixing a batch of vinegar that is a quarter of the dry rice by volume. My vinegar mix starts off at 3:2 rice wine vinegar to apple cider vinegar.

After mixing up the vinegars in a container and your rice is cooked you want to remove the rice from the pan in to a bowl preferably wooden. Wooden bowls, not being so popular though may be hard to get to so just relax before taking your favorite mixing bowl out.

Before you flavor the rice though on a cutting board take your spam, remove it from the can and cut in to slices as big as your middle and ring finger combined. Begin cooking these in a pan letting them crisp up a little before topping your rice.

Place your rice in to a bowl and with a firm spatula begin breaking up the rice until you get a half dozen large clumps. Then slowly pour in your vinegar while breaking down the sticky ball so that they have a slightly tacky surface while appearing moist.

Shape your sushi to be held with two fingers. Begin shaping your race making sure to wet your hands as the rice will stick to your palms less. Finish by topping your creation with your fried spam or sauteed sausage. Matches well with anything teriyaki flavored as well as a light seaweed salad.

Sushi rice – 4:1 dry rice to vinegar mix by volume

Vinegar mix – 3:2 rice wine vinegar to apple cider vinegar.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Excerpt – Life, love, and cooking

Enjoy!

March 10th – Bacon fat

Today’s society has brought a new font of knowledge on the topics of saturated fats. While looking back in the era of our grandparents cooking some of us may remember the old tin can or glass jar where the drippings of the breakfast bacon would go. As a fat it holds itself much to a use like butter, solid at room temperature.

Cook your bacon in the pan on medium heat making sure to drain the fat after every other batch. Before you get the third batch going take your wire mesh strainer and pour the fat from the pan in to the strainer with the can waiting underneath. The strainer will remove the extra shards of bacon still left in the fat.

Due to the amount of salt in the bacon you will have a lot of salt in the drippings. This was the reason why some people would have the can out because so much salt can act as a preservative. Even if this is the case I keep mine in the fridge so that way there is less chance of accidental spills. Even though it is technically a solid at room temperature that does not mean it is a rigid solid. It will be a little softer then room temperature butter if you need something to associate it to.

Collecting, straining, and storing fat aside what would be some things you would want to use it with. The answer stands anywhere you want a savory fat to be heated. It can be added to warm sauces, used in replacement for oil in sautes as well as stir fry’s.

Wash some potatoes and cut them in to rings a half inch thick dry them off before warming your bacon fat in a pan to medium heat. Drop your slices of potato in to the fat and let them cook until they get a good coloration before flipping. As soon as the second side is finished let dry on a paper towel before sprinkling with old bay seasoning for a tasty snack.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Excerpt – Life, Love and Cooking

Here is something from one of the book projects I currently have in the starting round of editing. Something for every day of the year going over kitchen wisdom, recipes, tips, tricks and my own experiences working in various kitchens.

January 5th– Ratios vs. recipes (quick pie crust)

Things do not need to be difficult to be good. Some times I will crack a cook book to find a recipe with too many ingredients, and many of which serving no purpose to the final dish. Pie crust is an ingredient that is a great example of this. Dozens of possible combinations between fats, flours, and flavorings may make things confusing. You will need a pastry cutter for this. Otherwise a pie crust is always within a three step countdown. Ratios you will find to be much more useful then complicated recipes. I will try to give ratios whenever possible in the future.

So three parts all purpose flour with two parts fat either shortening or butter and one part ice cold water. Pinch some salt in with the flour and give it a light stir with the hand. So which fat do you use? Shortening would be useful if you’re new to the crust game for the simple fact that it will not melt as easily so you have more time. Butter will bring better flavor and richer texture just realize that you will need to chill the butter even freezing it may be suggested. If you want to go halvsies on the fats I have found that will give you the best of both worlds.

Put your fat in the flour and using your pastry knife cut the fat in to the flour. This will take some time if you’re not used to it that’s ok. Now how much you cut it to depends on what you are using it for if you need a flaky crust such as the top cover to a double crust pie then you want to cut the fat to the size of frozen peas. Cutting to rice size fat granules will create a mealy crust. Reason for this is that when you roll the dough the fat flattens and the larger size lends itself to creating layers while the mealy crust will be structurally sound. Next add the water do so slowly stopping at the last tenth before kneading together if it seems a little dry then continue with the last tenth until amalgamated. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap before putting it in the fridge to chill before rolling out to whatever you need.

3 parts all purpose flour 2 parts cold fat 1 part ice cold water 1/8 tsp salt for 8 oz of dough.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Ox Baker: A childhood hero

For those who do not know I am a pro wrestling fan one of many things. Back when I was younger I felt I was not doing enough good I had this feeling that I was the bad guy in a world populated by people who want to be heroes. I will do whatever to get some jobs done so it made perfect sense to me back then. Kind of a downer really back then until I heard of a guy named Ox Baker.

A guy who ran life like it was good to be bad and a resume that said he did what he wanted when he wanted. Nearly six and a half feet tall and over three hundred pounds he was a guy that had a wild eyed stare like getting in his way was signing your own trip to the hospital. I never got to see any of his work in person. He is notable for training people after he retired one of which being the Undertaker. I was about thirteen when I looked up a lot of his work in the territories including when he incited a riot. His finisher, the heart punch was the last thing felt in the ring before two people died. Neither actually did of course, but he took the heat and made everyone love to hate him. People paid money to see him get decked and he did not mind as long as he and the people were happy at the end of the show.

It may be weird for someone with a cooking background, but Ox Baker had self published a cookbook of his own among many other projects he finished including writing and recording songs and making coloring books. He wanted to do something then he did it. Loud and boistrous while wearing a black hat for those who watch westerns, but only being the true bad guy when he needed to be. It was kind of refreshing because he did those things for the reason of his wanting to. He also did some acting bit parts including one as the antagonist against Kurt Russell in Escape From New York. He died a while ago and I just want to say my piece. He was awesome.

He died on the 20th of October at 80 years of age after complications of all things a heart attack.

Also if anyone can find his cookbook and they want to get rid of it let me know because I would like to have a copy.

R.I.P Ox, From A Fan

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Thoughts in the culinary world – Bobby Flay and James Beard

Now it seems that everyone worth their knives has something to say. The world of professional cooking is sometimes akin to the world of professional wrestling when larger then life personalities clash. Everyone has their own thing to say and everyone makes mistakes. When you do something you love so much, and someone makes you feel subpar some people are going to shoot off their mouths. From Top Chef to Paula Deen everyone seems to have their hand halfway in a boiling soup pot which is sad.

Bobby Flay is the most hated person in cooking. Which I can see as he seems very abrasive, almost disrespectful of other cultures and just sometimes acts like an ass. Seeing the food he makes and listening to him talk as well I really would not want to go to his restaurants. One thing no one can take away is he knows the business side enough that he has put himself in position on cooking shows for many years. Releasing books and through all the mistakes he has made one must give credit that he has used his business to back up where his cooking fails.

It is kinda sad he will be the most well known chef of the era because one of my cooking heroes is an Oregon born man by the name of James Beard. Cooking wise his recipes were never the absolute best, but across the board there was not a man who could boast the skill set he did. On top of that you would have to search to have someone say a bad word about him he always seemed to have a love of food that was only matched by the size of the man himself. The only thing you may find if you actually looked was how nearing the end of this life he decided to take endorsement deals to open more cooking schools. Which he even said made him feel like a “gastronomic whore”.

Sometimes we forget that the measure of a person is not just by popularity. A man can be the best without being the most well known. For the most part we as a culture bring much more infamy for all of our bad before allowing some to spotlight the good. Just some thoughts

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Back to work

So after the tearjerker we got a whole new setup for the channel which will be a bit challenging and we will be executing a set of aggressive advertising plans as well. My roommate and I after getting all the main videos redone to raise the quality level up we are going to advertise it for all we are worth. After the advertising plans we will wait for three months.

After that we are going to have a meeting and see how hard we want to push this channel over all of out other projects. Since everyone is getting much more comfortable with their programs as well as their responsibilities.

Magic training has involved more with what may come up and hoping for a finish worthy enough for at least a good payday. Cooking wise I have nothing new to report as it seems someone as cast a disappearing spell on my cookbook.

new banner october

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Weekly update 5/19/14

So in an attempt to get some advertising for the videos we had some meetings with small card shops in the area. It was an experience that was interesting to say the least. Trying to sell ourselves as a new resource to get more people to play. As it stands we have planned out the deckbuilding series as well as the series about different decks you may encounter in play. You always know when you feel comfortable about something until someone else sees it for the first time. I hate that part even if it is perfect I still go to full ocd mode.

The final fantasy shirt designs are done and will be posted soon as well as fiction posted to different sites. One day I hope I can do more enjoying of my life and less work. Oh well sometimes the journey can be just as important.

Also I have gotten a “new” cookbook with recipes that may show up on here ever so often. It is the New York Times Cookbook 1968. Nice old book that I got on sale at a secondhand store.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

As the Year Goes On

So at the beginning of the year most of us made resolutions to keep ourselves on track with a specific goal. As the time goes on some of us are closer while others are less so. As it stands I have a lot of things coming including a new set of shirts on zazzle, new videos oncoming within a couple days ( Planet of Gratuitous Sarcasm for table gaming videos ) New pictures on deviant art, and a new recipe with a story behind it in the next post ( The Earned Sandwich). Writing is still going on and pictures have begun for the cookbooks.

How was your year everybody. Have you made progress toward your causes?

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Update on the week

Grocery day is on the seventh so you will find the recipe around that time. That does not mean that this week was spent sitting on laurels.

Research was done in the big magic tournament so that we as a group of people will know some of big guns coming in. In Magic at the Grand Prix – For those who do not know the Grand Prix it is a major event for the trading card game. It is a gaming event that can set you up for the possibly lucrative pro tour. However, it is still a game so from the get go it will be fun. It helps to research the possible enemies your could be facing. If you want to give Magic the gathering a chance check some of the videos on the youtube channel linked to the side.

Photography will begin on 100 Ingredients Home Edition on the seventh.

I am now a dudeist priest. Like ordained. Thanks Eian for sending me the link to get ordained.

0 CommentsLeave a comment