Monday, September 03, 2007

Will Jiro Save Grocery Coupon Double Cash Back?


Hey! look at this cool pocket watch!



Aha. Now....
Just close your eyes and let your mind drift........
...there
....drifting.....
You are seated at your computer. You link
HERE .
You are happy. We are happy.
This makes us all very happy.
You think
this place is amazing. You cannot stop reading her archives. You want to give Subservient No More all your money. This is a good decision and it makes you feel very peaceful. Not reading Subservient No More will make you feel anxiety and fear. Unemployed people will hide beneath your bed and mess with your feet at night unless you read Subservient No More. Big greasy coelacanths will lick your steering wheel unless you read Subservient No More.
Oh yeah. They will.
Read
Subservient No More.

....and three, two, one-

Recipes! As requested by the Stainless Steel Amazon...

remember, you so wacky foreign persons who are talk funny to my ear! use the handy american-to-heathen conversion tools linked at the end of this post!*

Applesauce/Applebudder:
-Some ripe apples of any variety whatsoever, washed and cored, skin on
Now, theoretically you can stop right here and move on to the method. You don't have to add anything else.

If you want sweetening, I've had luck with

-1 large container frozen apple juice concentrate, thawed and undiluted
or
-Honey
or
-Fructose
or
-brown sugar (the Bikers method)

Again, you don't have to add spices either, but here's what I add:
-cinnamon
-allspice
-nutmeg

-The Biker adds cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and vanilla
***************
-Chunk up apples and run through the Cuisinart, each batch into a large bowl aside.
-On the last batch, add in the sweetening and spices if you're using them. Add to bowl, mix well
-Pour into shallow baking pans-the shape doesn't matter
-Place in cold oven, set to 300
-After first 45 minutes stir and lower heat to 275, then check and stir every 45 minutes or hour or so
-Finished when reduced by: 1/3 for sauce, 1/2 for thick sauce-butter, 2/3 for a peanut butter consistency spread.
-Cool, run through Cuisinart, box up and freeze!
________________


Pesto you freeze in cubes!
-Fresh basil, washed, spun dry, stemmed and flowered (basil flowers generally taste bitter although unopened buds are OK.)
-Olive oil-the very best you can afford, first cold pressing extra virgin.

Zip the basil leaves in the Cuisinart, stopping and scraping down if necessary, just to get them to the chopped up stage, not the mulch stage. Once you have about an inch of fragments in the bottom, begin to drizzle olive oil in until it just begins to mix by itself; in other words, you no longer have to stop the machine and scrape it down to get it to combine. It will go from a very dark green to a paler shade at this point.

How smooth or rustico you want the finished product to look is your choice at this stage of the game. I like liquefied. You can also add more olive oil; I just make it thick because some years I have space considerations...when I thaw it I add more oil if I need to.

You can stop here, dump it into ice cube trays and freeze. It should be so well air-emulsified that it will only separate a very little bit, if at all. Once the cubes are frozen, dump them out into a sealed container or bag and store in freezer.

I have added to the above:
-Fresh pignolia-not open stock or boxed. Buy sealed containers and a name brand (I've always had luck with Diamond) because when pignolia goes off it tastes like turpentine and old books.
note: do NOT use walnuts at this stage. Their flavor isn't stable in frozen storage. The only way this works is if you add ground walnut just before serving, off the heat. I think it's something to do with the natural oil in the walnut breaking down.
-Roasted cashews, unsalted
-Hazelnuts
-Heavy cream
-Dry cheeses: Parmesan, Pecorino Romano, Myzithra
-Grated Monterey Jack
-A sprinkle of chicken bouillon
-White sauce- Cream sauce-Bechamel, whatever neutral flour based sauce

Nowadays I just make the basic oil and leaves mixture and add the other stuff when I'm actually cooking with it.

*******************

Pate Brisee!

See Joy of Cooking for the recipe, but use a Cuisinart instead.

The butter and the water MUST BE ABSOLUTELY ICE COLD.

The processing is done by hitting the 'pulse' control. Dump in all the dry ingredients and whir for a second. Next, drop in four or five chunks of butter, 'zip-zip'. Drop in a few more, 'zip zip'. Drop in the rest, 'zip'. Drizzle in the water, 'zip, zip, zip, zip zip'. Then tip it out onto the counter-it won't look beautiful; it will be floury and grainy with chunks in it-and form it into one lump...just push it together like Play-Doh. Put the lump into a tupperware and put it in the fridge for 2 hours or overnight. Let it come up to room temp before you work with it; that takes an hour out on the counter in a bowl with a cloth over it. Now, if you have to work it a little longer for whatever reason it should still stay reasonably tender.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to use all these damn leeks.

_________________________________

*here is a nifty Fahrenheit to Celsius conversion
dealie...just enter a number and click!http://www.wbuf.noaa.gov/tempfc.htm

and here is a conversion chart for all kinds of shit,
including cooking nomenclature. scroll down to choose the
conversion category you want:http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/cooking

19 comments:

  1. All of those links went to google purgatory...was that intentional.
    You wanted us to use our imaginations right?

    You are on a real Marthaesque tangent. Did you ever see the SNL clip where 'Martha' is talking about the deafening silence of your own home on Valentine's Day. She demonstrates how she prefers to overcome the loneliness of the holiday by defecating in a shoe box. You can decorate the box with household items and finish it off with a beautiful bow.

    Martha then leaves her 'gift' on the doorstep of her ex-husband's home, rings the doorbell, and takes off.

    As she is running back to the car she turns to the camera and says,
    "Afterall, hatred is a form of Passion!"

    ReplyDelete
  2. Potato leek soup.

    You like Subservient because she tells stories almost as well as you do.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wait! Why haven't you ever hyp-mo-tized your throng of an audience to go to my feeble-ass blog???!!!
    I'm gonna go sulk and make pesto in cubes.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'll say the same thing here I'm going to say in her comments: Wonderful story, excellently told. And this is why I talk with animals. If we all allowed a magical cat to rule our lives we'd be much better off. Smelling faintly of salmon, but better off.

    ReplyDelete
  5. @ joeinvegas: YES. OMG, yes. That is precisely what I was thinking. Also, the content of the tales is similar - that sort of "that is wild...can't be true...wait. this is true, innit?...daaaaaamn." theme. I love that.

    Potato leek soup is good, just use the Joy of Cooking's recipe, that's all FN does...heh heh heh >:)

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  6. I loved the watch, now I'm sleepy...

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  7. HomoE: fixeded it. thanx! also, yes, i did. I loved it. I love Martha,too...although not as much as Rosie O'Donnel, perhaps.

    JoeVegas: Isn't she great? apparently there was an even earlier blog THAT SHE DELETED??!!

    mutha: lady, post something sometimes! you know i can't get enough of your yummy blogginess.

    danator: girl, i KNEW you'd like that one! do your cats give you diamonds? mine neither.

    SSA: you are so full of shit. I use my own recipe. Joy's recipe calls for CANNED STOCK. HA!! i ha laughily in the forlorn face of foodal foolishness!

    gale: send me one thooooousand dooooolars.
    send me one thooooousand dooooolars.
    send me one thooooousand dooooolars.

    ReplyDelete
  8. gale: teeeeach me how to spellll.
    teeeeach me how to spellll.
    teeeeach me how to spellll.

    ReplyDelete
  9. A sucker for cats in particular, that's me.Thankyou for that link.

    Now...I said I'd come back on the tomato post.What I was going to tell you was a nifty way to freeze pesto that still tasted fresh when used.
    I will now bow to your greater knowledge and creep back into my corner.
    You are right about the "strong" oils like walnut. I also find pine nuts a tad bitter unless chopped in fresh.
    I'll go now.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anonymous9:07 PM

    i'm guessing you're in a martha stewart mood today.

    ReplyDelete
  11. OK, so it takes me a while to get 'round all the blogs.I have a life, y'know!
    But I've just read your comment at Mutha's about H.P's lip blister.
    I'm pinching (stealing) that! You are one wicked woman.Bless you!

    ReplyDelete
  12. *****WAILS ***
    I HAVNT GOT JOY OF COOKING

    ****RUNS OFF SOBBING *****

    ReplyDelete
  13. Fear not Beast. If you're not fussy about which edition to own, you will find a copy of TJOC in a thrift store near you. Unlike TJOS which is harder to find because of the nice pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  14. P.S.: Roasted cashews are pretty good for pesto, too.

    ReplyDelete
  15. So come on people W T F is pate Brisseeeeeeeeeeeeeee .

    I cant be expected to be a Domestic God if I dont have the right information.
    I am currently boiling a ham in cherry coke
    Because I can
    And you cant stop me
    So there

    ReplyDelete
  16. dinamow: no wait! WAIT! tell me! your idea might be better and then i'll never know! and i'm still waiting to hear all about the exotic foodstuffs you grow in your exotic garden!

    beast; my darling, i can fix that. NOBODY should be without a copy of THE JOY OF COOKING (rombauer-becker 1975 is the best edition but whatever) it is ESSENTIAL. UTTERLY ESSENTIAL. i will email you with the linx-n-stuff. hang on little buckaroo.

    ara: do they have a Joy version for the UK? that would be so awesome. I always wondered
    oh hell, you know what, folks? i'm just going to do another post on this, ok??

    Danator: oh yeah! not tires, though. or steel wool. that sucks.

    beast: DROP THAT HAM AND FACE THE WALL! HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK! DO IT! NOW!
    as aphrodite said to the baby jesus, 'it's not worth going through a pair of diapers over'. just hang on! it's still morning here!

    ReplyDelete
  17. eek! PINK!
    feeling like Martha Stewart? hell, on a good day Martha Stewart feels like me, baby.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anonymous11:01 AM

    Leeks? Try leek pudding, a classic geordie (Newcastle) dish.
    Line a pudding basin with greaseproof. Make sure there's some overlap at the top as it will help you when you turn out pudding;

    Wash and slice your leeks and saute very lightly in butter. You'll need more than you think you will as they will cook down loads.

    You can add a few chopped rashers of streaky bacon if you like but as I normally serve this with stewing steak I usually don't bother with the bacon.

    When leeks are slightly transparent then take off heat and make the suet pastry.

    The best suet is beef suet you get from the butchers but it can be a pain in the ass to grate so you're allowed to use the sort you can buy ready grated from the supermarket. That has the added bonus of having the recipe on the packet but from what I can remember you use equal quantities of suet and self raising flour and mix the two to light dough. Divide pastry into two parts one about two thirds bigger than other.

    Roll out largest amount to about half to three quarters of an inch thick and line pudding bowl.

    Add leeks and bacon to dish. Press down with a spoon to pack it all in .

    Roll out second lot of pastry to cover top of leeks.

    Wrap dish in clean cloth and either cook in bain marie in oven or place in large pan of boiling water on stove.

    Steam for a couple of hours or until the suet has risen. It's almost impossible to ruin this dish by overcooking just keep the heat to moderate and remember to top up water in pan.

    Alternatively leeks wrapped in bacon, covered in cheese sauce and baked in oven is really good too.

    Or, you can use leeks in a tuna and tomato quiche. Simmer leeks in toms until juice has evaporated. Place in pastry case. Add tuna (fresh or tinned). cover with egg:cream and bake for about thirty mins or until eggs are cooked.
    Thanks for the Pate Brisee recipe btw. F's sister made two tarts for our vist on Sunday, one camembert and tomato and one using apples and sour cream. Both were wonderful and both used pate brisee.

    ReplyDelete
  19. FN, oops, I thought Beast was from the US. Sorry Beast! Hello Bournemouth.

    ReplyDelete