Celebrating an extended summer

Posted on October 13, 2012 by

Here in Seattle, we’ve had an absolutely incredible summer. The gorgeous weather hit, as usual, on July 5th, and has continued here into the beginning of October. Us Northwesterners are still a little shocked to be seeing so much of the big yellow ball in the sky, but we’re not complaining. Not one bit. We’re all spending as much time outside as possible, soaking in every last minute of time where we don’t have to cover ourselves head-to-toe in waterproof gear. Just a little glimpse of what I’m talking about:

This means spending time indoors preserving food is a tough challenge. But alas, fall bounty is in full effect, and it must be captured in order to enjoy all winter long! Steve and I took some time for food, celebrating both the season for preserving and the final days of grilling season.

Our new favorite grilling item: pork ribs! The Cook’s Grilling bible provided a fabulous recipe for us that we’ve been going back to regularly during these beautiful sunny days.

For preservation, we grabbed an entire box of peaches from the Broadway Farmer’s Market earlier in the day. Inspired by one of our favorite cooking blogs, I hopped to making some delicious peach jam as well as freezing several bags of peaches to pop into smoothies during the winter. A little burst of summer each time will remind us of this year’s stunning summer season.

And now, onto the recipes!

Grilled Pork Spareribs on a Gas Grill
From Cook’s Illustrated Guide to Grilling and Barbecue

2 full racks spareribs (about 6 lbs total)
3/4 c. Dry Rub for Barbecue (see below)
Hickory (or mesquite if you prefer) chips for the grill

It is not required, but we chose to brine the ribs for 1 hour before cooking to ensure optimal juiciness. 

Prepare the Dry Rub for Barbecue:

4 tbsp sweet paprika (we used smoked, and it was fabulous)
2 tbsp chili powder
2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp dried oregano
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp ground white pepper
1-2 tsp cayenne pepper

Mix all of the ingredients in a small bowl, or place in a pint-sized mason jar and shake to mix.

Rub both sides of the ribs with the dry rub and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour. You may have some rub leftover. It’ll stay good for a little while and you can use it for another rib grilling session later!

Soak about 2 cups of hickory chips in water for 30 minutes in cold water. Drain water and place either in a foil tray or in one of these awesome smoker boxes (we’d recommend!). Starting with cleaned grill grates, place the tray/box on top of the primary burner of the grill. Turn all burners to high and put the lid down until the chips are smoking heavily – it takes about 15-20 minutes depending on your grill.

Turm the primary burner down to medium heat and turn off all other burners. Place the ribs over the cool part of the grill and close the grill. Cook slowly, turning the ribs every half-hour until the meat starts to pull from the bones and looks rosy. Keep an eye on the grill temperature – it should maintain about 275 degrees.

Once cooked, remove the ribs from the grill and wrap in foil. Allow to sit for at least 15 minutes. You can douse the ribs in bbq sauce if you prefer, but we found the rub was plenty delicious.

We chose to roast potatoes we picked up at the farmer’s market on the grill as well, using one of our great new grill baskets. They turned out delightfully, and we added a salad and had a fabulous late-summer dinner:

See? No sauce needed – these ribs were fabulously juicy and perfectly spicy. The smoked paprika really makes a difference in this recipe for us. We haven’t even tried the recipe with sweet paprika, truth be told. But perhaps we’ll have to pick up some more ribs and give that a try. For research’s sake, of course.

Meanwhile inside, I was working quickly to process our huge box of beautiful Washington peaches.

We drink smoothies year-round, but more often in the winter when fruits are scarce. Freezing fruits throughout the summer allows us a chance to drink them in during the winter season, reminding us of the sunny season that we just passed. So I figured I’d freeze a few bags full of peach slices for smoothies, and use the rest of the peaches to make a batch of jam.

The nice part about freezing peaches (or any summer fruits for that matter) is that you can always use them later to make jam if you please. But getting them frozen buys you time, which is critical.

To freeze peaches, I sliced them into fairly wide chunks, and placed them on a cookie sheet. I placed them in the freezer for a couple of hours until they were frozen, and then dropped them into marked zipper bags. This keeps the fruit from sticking together in the bag.

Next up was making jam. I was getting caught up on the Tea and Cookies blog the other day and was reminded of the goodness that is making peach jam.

Northwest Peach Jam

8-10 peaches, washed, pit removed, bruises & brown spots removed, then diced
4 tbsp honey (my best guess – I just emptied out the honey jar we had!)
1 1/4 c. sugar
Juice of one lemon

Note: these are very general amounts. I tend to use less sugar than recipes I find. Just taste as you go – that’s the best way to get the flavor and sweetness that you like the best.

Chop the peaches, placing them directly into a large pot for cooking.

Add honey & sugar and heat until boiling. Add lemon juice and turn down the heat on the burner to cook over medium heat. At some point in the process, after the peaches had become soft, I grabbed an immersion blender and sent it buzzing through the mixture to make the consistency smooth with a few little peach chunks remaining.

Cooking down the peach mixture to be ready for jelly can take some time. Be sure to leave yourself plenty of time (even up to a couple of hours) to allow the peach mixture to reach the proper jelly stage. You’ll need to keep an eye on it as well, stirring regularly so you don’t burn the jam as it cooks down.

What is the proper jelly stage? Just drop a dollop of the mixture onto a plate and pop into the freezer to let it cool (but not freeze). When you bring the plate out, if you can easily push your finger through the peach mixture it isn’t ready yet. Continue cooking until you get to the stage where the mixture resists a bit – then it’s ready for canning.

Follow typical hot water bath canning directions. I like to put jam in smaller containers as it makes for great gifts throughout the year!

And presto! A fabulous Sunday full of great food.

Life is good.

Posted in Farmer's market goodies, Seattle, This week's recipe | 1 Comment

Tacos Al Pastor

Posted on August 14, 2012 by

Wowsa – summer is already in full swing, and it’s been much too long since our last post! Apologies for the delay. :)

But never fear, our first summer post is a true winner! We cracked open the May/June 2012 Cook’s and dove straight into preparing one of our favorite restaurant orders: Tacos Al Pastor. The trick to cooking this dish at home, Cook’s will tell you, is to braise the meat in chile sauce to tenderize it before throwing it on the grill to brown it perfectly. Below are the details of our Al Pastor adventure – we hope you enjoy!

Tacos Al Pastor
10 large dried guajilo chiles, wiped clean (we substituted anchos, see below)
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/4 pounds plum tomatoes, cored and quartered
8 garlic cloves, peeled
4 bay leaves
Salt & pepper
3/4 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
3 pounds boneless pork butt roast
1 lime, cut into 8 wedges
1/2 pineapple, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch-thick rings
Vegetable oil
18 (6-inch) corn tortillas, warmed
1 small onion, chopped fine
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro leaves

First, a couple of notes on our ingredients. Unable to find guajilo chiles at the co-op, we opted to use what they did have available – anchos. As the cut of meat we selected was only around 2 1/2 pounds, we opted to pick up 6 anchos. Turns out that was just about right, in case you wind up altering the recipe slightly yourself.

We were also lucky enough to use some of our freshly harvested garlic in this recipe, which was a delight!

And for the sauce we used deliciously fresh plum tomatoes from Washington (hence the smaller size):

Toast the chiles in a large Dutch oven on medium-high heat until soft, 2-4 minutes. Move chiles to a large plate and let them cool. When you can handle them, remove the stems.

Simmer toasted chiles, water, tomatoes, garlic, bay leaves, 2 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, sugar, cumin and cloves in the same Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Cover, reduce heat and simmer until chiles are softened and tomatoes mash easily – about 20 minutes.

While the sauce is simmering, trim the excess fat from the exterior of the pork. Slice the pork against the grain into 1/2-inch slabs.

Transfer the cooked chiles & tomatoes to a blender and process until smooth, about 1 minute. Cook’s will then have you strain the puree through a fine-mesh strainer, extracting as much liquid as possible and discarding the solids. We thought that seemed like way too much work, and simply returned all of the puree to the pot.

Place the pork slices into the puree and bring it all to a simmer over medium heat in the Dutch oven. Partially cover and gently simmer over low-medium heat until pork is tender but still holds together, about 90-105 minutes (as we had less meat, it took less time – about 80 minutes). Be sure to rearrange the pork about half-way through cooking.

While cooking, play with dogs.

Transfer the pork slices over to a plate and season both sides with salt, then cover with aluminum foil. Transfer 1/2 cup of the sauce (mix it up first) into a bowl to use for basting at the grill. Squeeze a lime wedge or two into the sauce, and season with a bit of salt to taste. You can save the remaining sauce for another use (we’re still waiting to figure out what that will be).

Using a gas grill, turn all burners to high and cover until the grill gets hot (should take about 15 minutes or so). Turn all the burners down to medium before cooking, then clean off the cooking grate and wipe grates with a paper towel soaked in vegetable oil (to prevent sticking).

Brush one side of the pork with 1/4 cup of the reserved sauce. Place the pork on one side of the grill sauce down. Cook until well browned and crisp – about 5 minutes or so. Brush the pork with the remaining sauce, flip the slices over, and cook another 5 minutes. Transfer the cooked pork to a cutting board. Meanwhile, brush both sides of pineapple rings with vegetable oil and season with salt & pepper to taste. Cook on the other side of the grill, until pineapple is softened and caramelized (5-7 minutes). We simply started cooking the pineapple when we flipped the pork over and it worked wonderfully.

Coarsely chop the grilled pineapple and transfer to a serving bowl. Chop the pork into 1/8 inch pieces. If you desire some more sauce, you can heat up the remaining sauce and drop the pork pieces into the sauce to coat.

Spoon pork and pineapple into warmed corn torillas, and garnish with finely chopped onion (we used green onions) and cilantro. Enjoy!

We will most certainly be making this recipe again. It was tender, flavorful, and fabulously spiced. Absolutely a summer favorite!

Posted in Fresh from the garden, Seattle, This week's recipe | Leave a comment

Delicious Veggie Lasange

Posted on April 6, 2012 by

Perusing our stack of Cooks, I came across the recipe for Vegetable Lasagne in the Sept/Oct 2011 edition. In the mood for a dish that would provide lunches for the week, I dove straight in.

Cooks makes a deliberate effort to “rescue” vegetable lasagne from being soggy and rubbery, as it can so often be. Reading through the recipe, which included pre-cooking all of the vegetables before baking, I was intrigued.

Veggie Lasagne
From Cooks Illustrated, Sept/Oct 2011

Tomato Sauce:
1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil (I used dried, as fresh is out of season – about 2 tbsp)
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

Cream Sauce:
4 oz Parmesan cheese, grated (2 cups)
1 cup whole-milk cottage cheese
1 cup heavy cream
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Vegetable filling:
A total of about 3 1/2 lbs of any mix of the following: eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, cut into 1/2 inch pieces (about 14-15 cups)
5 tbsp plus 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbsp minced fresh thyme (or dried if that’s all you have)
12 oz baby spinach (I used a mix of spinach and kale)

12 no-boil lasagne noodles (Trader Joe’s sells a great version)
1/2 cup minced pitted kalamata olives (I skipped)
12 oz low-moisture whole-milk mozzarella cheese, shredded (about 3 cups)
2 tbsp chopped fresh basil (again, I only had dried)

Whisk together all ingredients for tomato sauce and set aside.

Whisk together all ingredients for cream sauce and set aside.

Bask in their glory, then adjust the oven rack to middle position and heat to 375 degrees.

If you have a microwave, toss the eggplant with 1 tsp salt in a large bowl. Then line a large plate with a double-layer of coffee filters (or a paper towel) and lightly spray with vegetable oil spray. Spread eggplant in an even layer over filters/towels. Microwave eggplant, uncovered, until dry to the touch and slightly shrunken, about 10 minutes. Be sure to toss once halfway through. Let cool slightly, then return eggplant to the bowl and toss with zucchini and squash.

If you don’t have a microwave (like us), you can attempt to do the same by cooking the eggplant on the stovetop. I split the eggplant into two batches, and cooked each batch over medium heat in a cast-iron skillet for 15 minutes or so. I waited until I got a similar result when it came to the texture of the eggplant – somewhat dry, and smaller in size than when I started. I set aside the eggplant after it was cooked in a bowl, mixing it with the eggplant:

This easily slipped into the second step of the process, which is also on the stovetop:

Combine 1 tbsp olive oil, garlic, and thyme into a small bowl. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a 12-inch skillet (I used the cast iron again) until just shimmering. Add half of the eggplant mixture, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper and cook until vegetables are slightly browned – just over 5 minutes or so. Shove the cooked vegetables to the side of the skillet and add half of the garlic/oil/thyme mixture to the pan and cook about 30 seconds. Then mix with the vegetables, and transfer to a medium bowl. Repeat with the rest of the eggplant mixture and remaining garlic/oil/thyme.

Bring skillet to medium/high heat and bring 1 tsp oil to shimmering. Add spinach (and kale, if you’re using it!) and cook, stirring frequently, for about 3 minutes or until just slightly wilted. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate and let drain for a few minutes before adding to eggplant mixture.

And now it’s time to combine it all for baking!

Get out a 13×9 inch baking dish and grease it  (either butter or oil works just fine). Spread 1 cup of tomato sauce across the bottom.
Add one layer of noodles on top of sauce.
Spread half of vegetable mixture (and the olives, if you want ‘em) on top of the noodles.
Add half of the cream sauce on top of the veggies.
Spread 1 cup of mozzerella on top of the whole shabang.
Repeat.
To finish, add one more layer of noodles, one final cup of tomato sauce, and the last cup of mozzarella.
Lightly spray a large sheet of aluminum foil with vegetable oil and cover lasagne.

Bake until bubbling – 35 minutes or so. I would recommend taking the aluminum foil off about 10 minutes before cooking was done to brown the top slightly. Enjoy!

Posted in Seattle, This week's recipe | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Breakfast Smoothies

Posted on March 5, 2012 by

Breakfast smoothies are a staple for Steve and I year-round. The adventure begins in the summertime, when we prepare and freeze berries by the gallon-bag-full. These berries, whether we pick them ourselves or get ‘em from the farmer’s market, are a tasty reminder of sweet berry season, which lasts here in the Northwest from early July to early September.

Upon request from our favorite temporary New Zealand resident, here are the basics of how we put together our morning smoothies:

Breakfast Smoothy
Approximately enough for 2 smoothies
2 cups frozen berries (we stock strawberries, blueberries, raspberries)
1/3 – 1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 – 2 cups juice (find your favorite!)
optional: 2 tbsp vitamin/protein powder, 1 tbsp lime juice

Note: all amounts are approximate. Depending on the type of berries or how much smoothie you’re making, you’ll find that you need to add a bit more juice or a bit more fruit to get the right consistency. We find that frozen berries not only mean we can use the berries we collected all year round, but that they give the smoothies the best consistency.

Place all ingredients into a blender. Depending on the type of berries you use, you’ll need to play around with the settings on your blender to get the ingredients mixed up properly. If you are adding a vitamin/protein powder, add it into the center of the mix to prevent the powder from just caking onto the surface of the smoothie.

Ensuring that all ingredients get fully blended in is important. I always wait until a hole develops in the center of the blender to indicate all ingredients are being chopped in fully. You never want to take a swig of your smoothie and get a huge chunk of frozen strawberry. Insta-brain-freeze.

And presto! Smoothie complete. You can always play around with ingredients to find what works best for you. We get bottled juice (not the stuff in the refrigerator) from our local co-op and switch it up regularly depending on what is on sale.

(Good luck smoothie-making Marth! Send us a photo when you’ve made one you love!)

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Potato Gnocchi

Posted on February 11, 2012 by

Picking up the September/October 2011 issue of Cook’s, I was inspired to try my hand at making homemade gnocchi. The recipe, titled “Light-as-air Potato Gnocchi” sounded too good to be true. So I picked up a stock of russet potatoes and got to work:

Potato Gnocchi w/Browned butter and sage
serves 2-3 as a main, or 4-6 as a side

Gnocchi:
2 pounds russet potatoes
1 large egg, slightly beaten
3/4 cups plus 1 tbsp (4 ounces) all-purpose flour, plus extra for counter
1 tsp plus 1 tbsp salt

Sauce:
4 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
1 small shallot, minced
1 tsp minced fresh sage
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp salt

Note to cooks: putting the gnocchi together takes some time. This is not the recipe to make when you just get home from work and want to whip something up quickly. That said, if you’re only cooking for two, this recipe is great because you get twice as much as you need. You either definitely have leftovers or, like us, you can save 1/2 the recipe by freezing the gnocchi before cooking. That should make the next round of gnocchi goodness much easier to put together.

And now for the gnocchi assembly:
Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat to 450 degrees. Poke each potato several times on all sides with a paring knife.  Cooks’ recommends you then microwave the potatoes until slightly softened at the ends, for about 10 minutes (turning potatoes halfway through). After microwaving, put the potatoes into the oven and bake until a skewer glides easily through the flesh (18-20 minutes).

As we don’t have a microwave, I simply did the entire process in the oven and allowed for more time. The potatoes were in the oven for about 45 minutes in total before they were baked to the proper level.

Peelin' hot potatoes!

Remove the potatoes from the oven and set on a plate (you can turn off the oven at this point – you won’t need it anymore). Pick up each potato with a potholder, and use a paring knife to peel the skin from the flesh. It’s easier than you think – the skin basically slides off the potato at this temperature.

Blending potatoes

Process the potatoes through a ricer or food mill onto a rimmed baking sheet. We didn’t have either a ricer or a food mill, but we did have this handy-dandy hand-held blender which worked just as well – you basically want a smooth consistency. Gently spread potatoes into an even layer and let cool for 5 minutes.

Transfer 3 cups (16 ounces) warm potatoes to a bowl. You might have slightly more than 3 cups on your baking sheet – either compost the rest or put them to another use (Buckley was a big fan of this step). Using a fork, gently stir in the egg until just combined. Next, sprinkle flour and one teaspoon of salt over the potatoes. Gently combine until there are no longer any pockets of dry flour. Press the mixture into a rough ball and then transfer onto a floured surface. Knead until smooth but slightly sticky (for about a minute), lightly dusting the counter with flour as you go to prevent the dough from attaching to your countertop.

Line two rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper and dust liberally with flour. (Have you noticed a theme yet? Lots of flour dusting in this recipe – the dough soaks up flour! Don’t go overboard, but prepare to have plenty of “dusting flour” on hand to keep you from a sticky mess.) Cut dough into 8 pieces. Lightly dust counter with flour (again). Gently roll each piece of dough (one at a time) into a 1/2-inch thick rope (you can do this with your hands). Cut rope into 3/4″ lengths. Holding a fork with tines facing down, press each dough piece cut side down against tines with the thumb of your hand to make an indentation. Roll the dough down the tines to form ridges on the sides.

The gnocchi process

This step serves two purposes: one functional and the other aesthetic. The ridges on each dumpling allows them to soak up the maximum amount of sauce possible, which is just what you want with gnocchi. They are tasty on their own, but they are insanely tasty if paired with a sauce that they soak up well. Additionally, the rolled-over-the-tines look is just what you get at the fancy restaurants, and your diners will be oh-so-happy with the result!

Line 'em up!

Transfer formed gnocchi onto sheets and repeat with the remaining dough. This takes a while. Please be patient, and plan ahead for time. Pour yourself a glass of wine while you do it and you’ll be pleased.

Cooking the sauce:
Melt butter in a 12-inch cast-iron skillet (if you have one) over medium-high heat until butter is browned and smells deliciously nutty (a minute and a half should do). Off heat, add shallot and sage, stirring until shallot is fragrant. Stir in lemon juice and salt, and cover to keep warm.

Putting it all together:
Bring a large pot of water to boil over high heat. Add remaining tbsp salt into the water. Using the parchment (or wax) paper as a sling, pick up the gnocchi and drop them into the water. Cook until firm and just cooked through – it takes about 90 seconds. The gnocchi will float to the surface after about 1 minute, and need just a bit more time after that until they’re done. Don’t pour into a collander – instead lift the gnocchi out of the boiling water with a slotted spoon and place them directly into the sauce.

Mix up and serve! We ate this dish garnished with parsley and shredded parmesan, sautéed green beans and a big fresh salad.

The final dish!

I really loved the consistency of the gnocchi in this recipe, but found that I wanted the sauce to be a little bit…more. It was delicious, no doubt, but I think I was wanting something more classic. I’d recommend trying it with a red sauce with finely shaved parmesan.

A note about freezing gnocchi:
I’m very excited to see how cooking up the frozen gnocchi goes as soon as we are ready for the dish again! I’ll be sure to update this post when the time comes. But an important note when freezing the gnocchi: first freeze the dumplings on the rimmed baking sheets you initially placed them on. This will allow them to freeze without sticking to one another first. Once frozen, slide them off the baking sheet and into a plastic zipper bag for simple storage.

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French-style Chicken in a Pot, and a Bonus!

Posted on January 10, 2012 by

Winter meals are about warming the soul. Here in Seattle the winter months can be dreary – not too cold, but dark, gray, gray, more gray and relentless. (unless you have a ski habit, in which case it’s not too bad). Making delicious, soulful food brings us back to life and reminds us that life is pretty darned great, and that we live in a place of abundance. Of food, of friends, and of good times.

We recently had some dear friends over for dinner at our new home in the Central District in Seattle. Maria is a spectacular water-color artist and Darin is a rockin’ web designer.  Maria agreed to bring over one of her originals that we were interested in, so we could see it in person. Turns out, we loved it, and it’s adorned our living room wall ever since.

Spring Green!

In addition to being awesome company, Maria & Darin brought over an amazing galette for dessert. Darin has apparently been perfecting his methods, and we were the lucky recipients of one of his finest recipes. More on that coming soon as we try our hand at galette making!

For the evening’s dinner, we decided to make French Chicken in a Pot (from the Jan/Feb 2008 Cook’s). We’ve made it once, and were incredibly eager to make it again. The recipe calls to dry-cook the chicken. It’s similar to braising, but there are no added juices – the chicken cooks in its own juices only. This means no dilution of flavors – just tasty chicken! We loved it so much we barely snapped any photos, and neglected to take photos of the fully plated meal (served with roasted fingerling potatoes and yummy salad). It was just that good!

French Chicken in a Pot
1 whole roasting chicken (4 1/2 – 5lbs), organs removed & discarded, wings tucked under back
2 tsp Kosher salt (or 1 tsp table salt)
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, chopped medium
1 small celery stalk, chopped medium
6 medium garlic cloves, peeled & trimmed
1 bay leaf
1 medium sprig fresh rosemary (optional)
1/2 – 1 tsp juice from 1 lemon

Use a nice chicken – this recipe is best when you use a higher-end bird, as you’re relying wholly on the flavor of the chicken itself. If you want to skip having chicken skin (are you crazy?!?), take it off after cooking – not before. The amount of jus will vary depending on the size and type of chicken. Season the jus with about 1/4 tsp lemon juice for every 1/4 cup.

Place oven rack to the lowest position and heat to 250 degrees. Pat chicken with a paper towel to dry, then season with salt and pepper. Using a 5- to 8-quart Dutch oven (depending on the size of your bird), heat oil over medium heat on the stovetop, until just smoking. Place the chicken breast-side down in the pot, scattering onion, celery, garlic, bay leaf, and rosemary around the chicken. Cook until just brown, which should take about 5 minutes.

Chicken and veggies, getting their simmer on

Using a wooden spoon, insert into the cavity of the bird. With another wooden spoon, flip the bird over (breast-side up). Cook, until chicken and vegetables are browned (about 8 minutes). Remove the pot from heat.

Golden delicious - it's not just for apples anymore!

Place a large sheet of aluminum foil over the pot and cover tightly with a lid (this helps trap juices inside). Move pot into the oven, and cook until an instant-read thermometer reads 160 degrees when inserted into the thickest part of the thigh. This should be somewhere between 80 and 110 minutes – you just have to keep an eye on it.

Once you get the right temperature, transfer the chicken to a large cutting board and tent with foil. Let the chicken rest 20 minutes. It won’t get cold – we promise.

Back to the pot, strain the chicken juices through a fine-mesh strainer. Discard the solids. Allow liquid to settle for 5 minutes (and you can scoop any fatty solids out of the top). Pour into a saucepan and set over low heat. Stir lemon juice into jus to taste.

Carve the bird and serve it with jus. YUM!

And it was all cooked in our awesome new kitchen – awesome, eh?

Cooking in the new kitchen, this time with two helpers!

While we completely neglected to snap photos of our full plates, we did take a photo of our delightful appetizer – radishes with salt. This has become one of our favorite appetizers – the tang of the radish is cut beautifully by dipping it lightly in coarse salt. If you want to be even crazier, you can stuff the radishes with a dollop of butter. Yuuuuum:

One of our favorite apps - radishes and salt!

And we ate so, so well. the chicken was moist, flavorful, and had plenty of jus for dipping our potatoes in.

But wait! There’s more! In addition to the delight on the first day of eating, this recipe gave back to us again the next day. We made chicken stock with the bones and froze some for future soup endeavors.

Easy Chicken Stock
from Rhulman’s Twenty (highly recommended reading)
1 roasted chicken carcass (and any leftover pieces or bones)
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 carrots, coarsely chopped
2 bay leaves
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp tomato paste
Other additions: garlic cloves (highly recommended), sprigs of fresh parsley and thyme

Break the chicken carcass into pieces. Place carcass and pieces into a 3-quart oven-proof saucepan. Add water to cover (about 6 cups or so).

On the stovetop, put the uncovered pan on the back burner oon low for several hours. The surface of the water should stay still, but the pan should be too hot to touch. Cook for at least 4 hours, but up to 12 hours. You can also cook the stock at this step in a low temperature oven – set it to 180 or 200 degrees and cook in the uncovered pot.

Add the remaining ingredients, bring the stock back to temperature over high heat, then reduce heat back to low (or pop it into a low-heat oven – about 180 degrees) and cook for 1 hour longer.

Strain the stock through a fine-mesh strainer. Place into containers and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months. If you’re going to freeze the stock, I don’t recommend glass. Opt instead for a reused plastic yogurt container or something along those lines.

Tasty stock, ready to be frozen for later

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Steak Hobo Packs: Cooking on the Road!

Posted on November 29, 2011 by

My apologies for the long gap between posts, everyone! Steve and I have had a whirlwind couple of months. And we’ve been busy with all sorts of good things, including an excellent road trip to Colorado (which is where this post comes in), buying a house, and getting engaged! Life is very, very good here in the Northwest.

We are to be wed!

We wanted to share one of our favorite recipes from our big road trip to Colorado: hobo packs (which I’ve been informed are also known simply as aluminum foil packs in more civilized societies)!

Cooking on the road can be pretty boring. When traveling without all the ingredients normally in your kitchen, it can be tough to make food that’s not, well, meh. After rediscovering the hobo pack on a recent backcountry camping trip, we knew we couldn’t survive a camping trip without them. They’re everything you want before climbing into your tent: warm, flavorful, and easy to clean up!

We didn’t get set up to start cooking until relatively late, so all our photos are taken in the dark, but hopefully they give you the picture of what we created. Here assembled are most of the ingredients in our tasty dinner: steak, potatoes, garlic, onion, sweet potatoes (you can use yams as well), bell pepper, green beans, butter and salt/pepper:

All the important supplies at the ready.

While I hopped to chopping the ingredients, Steve got to work getting a fire good and ready. You need to get the fire nice and hot and have a good size pile of coals before you can start cooking, so be sure to get that fire started as soon as you can.

Steak is the ideal meat to cook up in hobo packs – it’s simple, divides easily into two, and provides a ton of flavor. The first step in getting our packs ready was to rub the steaks with salt and pepper:

Salt & pepper rub

All the veggies were chopped coarsely and divided between the two packs. Steak was also divided between the two packs. Adding butter before it’s all sent into the fire helps keep things from sticking, and makes everything tastier (we probably put about 1 1/2 tbsp in each pack). That’s what butter is good for:

Buttery and good!

An important note is that triple-wrapping in foil helps to get the vegetables nice and cooked without charring too much. It also helps because as the foil heats up it becomes more brittle and breaks easily. So when you’re flipping the packets you’re able to do so without worrying that your food is going to come flying out of a gap. It might seem like way too much when you are getting it all wrapped, but I can assure you it’s worth using the additional foil.

Be sure to make a good amount of room for your hobo packs to land on hot coals for cooking. If you started your fire early enough, you’ll be rewarded with a ton of beautiful hot coals to rest your packs on:

Into the fire they go!

Packs will stay on the coals for a varied amount of time depending on how hot your fire is, and how much food you’ve stuffed into each pack. Steve and I cooked ours for about 7-10 minutes on each side, turing the packs every few minutes to keep from getting burn areas.

What was the drink of choice for this tasty meal you ask? Well, Champagne was in order, as we were celebrating the end of our road trip and our engagement!

Pouring some bubbly!

Here is the final spread, on our fabulous new camping table:

Dinner is served!

This particular hobo pack was prepared at our camp at Yellowstone National Park. It was our only rainy, incredibly cold night, but the hobo packs kept us warm from the inside out. And lucky us, we woke up to beautiful sunshine and elk sightings on our way out of the park.

Elk saying adieu!

Next time you’re planning a backcountry (or frontcountry, as the case may be) adventure, we’d highly recommend steak hobo packs. They’ll win you over every time!

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