Not Enough Time In The Day
So...it has been 3 whole months since returning from Tokyo and it has been a time of experimenting with new recipes (coming up with a few originals in the process), as well as revisiting some old favorites. Since it bugs me not to write here on a regular basis, I'll just recap some of what's been going on, cooking-wise in our household...alas, none of it was documented with pictures. We’ll have to work on being better at that.
Texas Barbecue
Directly after returning from Tokyo, we put on our every-three-years Texas barbecue party. It's every three years solely because our last one was three years ago. Back then, we were kind of flying by the seat of our pants, stabbing in the dark as to how to throw a party for more then 10 people at a time (we had 36). So this time we were way more prepared. The goal was to beat our 55 pounds of meat record and we blew by that like it was no thing at all. When all was said and done, we cooked over 80 pounds of meat (two briskets, six pork butts, six chickens, six racks of ribs, a bunch of sausage, rib tips/ends). The smoking started the Friday night before the Saturday party so we managed to have some 17-hour brisket hit the table. We had over 44 people show up and most of the food was GONE when they were done!
Recipe development
We have been playing around with beans and potatoes lately. It has been mostly beans as I have had an unnatural craving for the tasty morsels. Black bean salsa, black beans and rice, borrachos (pintos cooked in stock and beer)...so many bags of beans have graced our kitchen. As far as potatoes...we developed a recipe for a picnic involving white potatoes and vinaigrette. It was born out of a craving for a summer potato salad that didn’t have mayonnaise or yogurt and could travel well. I’ll post it here…in a day or two but you can go to Gastronome and see it here)
Sunday roast dinner
The first time I went to London, my friends Shelley and Richard took my jet-lagged ass to a local pub for a Sunday roast dinner. And even though there was a large plate of meat and potatoes, it perked me right up. Well, the drawn ale helped too… A few days ago, sitting in a local pub (Katie Bloom's), I remembered how good it was and decided to do a roast dinner on the upcoming Sunday. It was a straight forward menu: roast prime rib, white potatoes, baby carrots, salad, Yorkshire pudding. The roast was slow-cooked at 275° until it got to around 115°. It coasted to 125° then went back into a 500° oven for 10 minutes to form that classic crust. All that and a bottle of 2001 Clos du Lac Cabernet made a nice way to end the week.