Bacon Wrapped Turkey With Pear Gravy and Family Love!

It's nine AM and I am at my mother's house. I realize that I have to start working on the food and I am terrifyingly sober. Terrifying,  because I'm at my mom's house and I'm trying to cook despite her.

You see, it is my job to save the turkey from my mother. She wants to help, she really does. But there is a reason that during my entire childhood my mother either took us to Chinese restaurants on T day or bought the pre-made packaged meal from the market in a box. I really don't want to start drinking now,  but I am afraid. I think that I may have to bite the bullet and be brave. This turkey is not going to cook itself and we really can't afford to let my mother do it.

I'm working from this recipe. Obviously I will be deviating from it since I am naturally deviant:

http://www.chow.com/recipes/11130-bacon-wrapped-turkey-with-pear-cider-gravy

I've started washing the turkey and I am still terrifyingly sober.

My mother helpfully lets me know that the red side of the tap is hot water and blue side is cold. In addition, she reminds me that I should not leave the giblets in.

My mother points at the oven and says, "What is this?"

 Thinking she is pointing at the turkey I say, "Um, .... it is a turkey."

 But she is pointing at the temperature of the oven. It's a preheating oven. "You want it at 450?"

"Yes. It's preheating, mom. I'm going to turn it down later."

"Well, okay. But we don't want the turkey turning out dry like last time."

 Then she goes off on how dry it was for a little while.

Last time I made an orange-ginger-candy-glazed turkey. The bird caramelized to that perfect color you only ever see on TV.  The candy coating sealed in the juices to make the bird taste amazing in spite of it being, you know, ... a turkey.

My mother has mentioned how dry the turkey was last time approximately five times since we arrived yesterday.

My husband helpfully says that he did not think the turkey was dry. Actually he thought that it was delicious! No no, my mother says. The turkey was, in fact, dry.

As she goes on for another ten minutes, my husband pours a hefty amount of Kahluha in my coffee while my mother is not looking. This is a really good thing because I didn't want to go to jail for murdering my mother today.

To be fair she wasn't telling me it was my fault. Somehow the terrible turkey was all the fault of a broken meat thermometer. And yes, last time the thermometer WAS broken.

And my turkey was still fucking perfect.

The last time my mother tried to make a turkey she burnt the entire thing. She blamed it on the mountain oven and differing altitudes in the mountains. I am sure that had an effect. However, the skin was blackened. And when I say blackened, I do not mean with a delicious cajon peppery coating.

My mother is trying to find other things to do in the kitchen while I am doing the bird. I know she is trying to bond, but it is a small kitchen and I generally like cooking by myself. It's too hard to work around other people and it just takes too long to explain to other people what I am doing to have them help efficiently.  And even with the Kahluha I am still too sober.

 Mostly my mother has been looking for items to put in the oven while I have been preheating it. I am just about to put the turkey in.

I've put the salt and pepper on the bird. I've stuck celery stalks around the bird and chopped up two onions. Some of this gets put in the bird. Some gets put around the bird. I think I was supposed to chop the celery up but I didn't. My sister wants to use the one and only cutting board that my mother has in the house so she attempts to put all of the items I have already cut in a tiny cereal bowl even though I tell her she can just throw them on the actual turkey that is right next to her. She says by way of explanation "I don't approve of cooking turkey."

I guess, at this point,  I am glad that I didn't tie up the turkey legs together.

I was thinking I should put in an obligatory comment about the rubber gloves and some sort of sexual behavior - specifically fisting. because you know,  that's what you do with rubber gloves. But I don't really have any bread stuffing for the turkey this year.


Turkey goes in for 30 minutes at 400 and then out for basting. There wasn't much juice to baste with which really seemed a shame. As a result,  I added some chicken broth and a healthy dose of pear cider. This stroke of genius was fortunate since my Kahluha was long gone. Plus it was now 11am which is a more acceptable time of day on Thanksgiving to get toasted. I made sure to get a two large bottles of hard cider so that I could plan for it to be my drinking buddy for the day.

Turkey goes back in. Oven is down to 350.

Mom got this weird turkey injector. It's like a giant hypo you might see in a 1930's Buster Keaton film. I have no idea why anyone would usefully use it. I mean, I've already shoved butter under the skin before I started to cook the damn thing.

Oh.

I didn't tell you that part?

Well, I guess I already assumed you would know to shove about a stick of butter under the skin of any chicken or turkey you choose to cook. Some turkeys require two sticks of butter.

But back to the hypo. I find that it is not very useful, but it *is* kind of fun to take the drippings and inject them straight into the turkey to watch it expand before your eyes and then the little hole explodes like the tiny steamy geysers from Yellowstone Park!

I check to see that the rest of the ingredients are supposed to wait for the gravy. To me,  that doesn't make sense since gravy is made from the drippings. I decide to add everything to the drippings now. C'mon America! Shouldn't the turkey have the benefit of all that cider and fresh herbs before being roasted? Plus. I need to refresh my cider glass now.

At this time the turkey has about three cups of broth below it, three cups of cider, a spring of thyme and a two sprigs of sage stuffed into the cavity of the bird. A few more are neatly arranged around the sides.

I decide that the syringe is mostly useful for squirting stuff in the far back of the turkey cavity at high speeds. This way I can watch the juice flow explosively past the neck out the other side.

My mother tries to helpfully tell me that in order to use her meat thermometer I must first take it out of the plastic sheath. I tell her that that is great news since I thought that the thermometer went into meat items with the plastic sheath on and then later you took it off so you could use the metal bits to test vegan items. This way the two parts remained separate.

It takes a few minutes before she comes back dryly with; "I know I have raised a smarter girl than that."

Turkey goes back in for another 45 minutes.

My mother, having noticed I was grumpy with her even though I didn't say anything specifically has begun to withdraw and sulk, thus indicating it is all my fault.

Of course I feel guilty.

I use my instant happier to send me to my happy place. I listen to it twice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFzXaFbxDcM

This helps immeasurably. Also the family goes for a walk which I cannot go on since I have to baste the turkey. My husband stays behind. Yay!

Turkey comes out and pears go in it. The internal temperature is a little higher than I want it to be at this point. It's approx. 155 to 160 depending on where I stick the thermometer. I wanted it to be 120. But onward we must go. Anyway, if it actually *is* dry this year I won't be pissy when my mom talks about it the next time.

The pears go all around the turkey after being cored and split in half,  though not necessarily in that order.

Then the two pound bacon weave goes on top. Normally one would put one pound of bacon on the turkey. Andrew Conway showed me that this is entirely unaesthetic. I should put two pounds on so I can get a lovely basket design. Plus I can wrap the legs up like so:

While waiting for the turkey to cook, now is a good time to watch an inspiring video like this :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcJ5LxG4CRE&feature=youtu.be&t=9m47s#!


Turkey comes out again. Family is back from their walk. Sister makes obligatory comment about the fact that she does not appreciate the use of both turkey and pigs. Pigs are her favorite animal. Both turkeys and pigs are forced to die cruel cruel deaths in part by being forced to gain so much weight that their knees get crushed.

I manage to refill my wine glass another time.

In 45 minutes the turkey comes out for the final time. My sister does not skip a beat in making another remark about the death of animals which I have chosen to consume. Her fixation on animal cruelty is ironic due to many uncomfortable and horrifying stories of my childhood which I will not refer to here due to this being a jovial  and jolly recipe site where people come to relax, to laugh, and to toss back a few.

Ha ha ha ha.


 45 minutes later, the temperature of the turkey is still not quite 165 degrees. It's really close. And since I don't feel like feeding another amusing round of "last time the turkey was dry!" I left it out.

I suck up most of the liquids under the turkey and squirt them in a large sauce pan. I also throw in four pears and  then mash the hell out of them along with some fresh sage and thyme. I put a little bit aside and whip that up with flour in small amounts until I got about a half cup of paste. Then I added this back to your main gravy, I threw in a little milk and  I stirred vigorously.

That was it. That's the turkey. Thank you for tuning in! I hope you liked it.

Next Thanksgiving I plan to present "Rack of Pheasant Brined with Thyme and Thorazine and then Broiled with a Light Citrus Seroquel Glaze."

Thai Coconut Soup with More Expensive Wine plus an Open Letter to Martha Stewart.

Today I went for a St. Supery Fume Blanc to start off with. I thought it would be good to push the edge of the cheap wine rut I had been stuck in for a while. Actually, it tasted a bit like  Boone's Farm, but without all the sugar and costing more than three dollars. Also, it tasted good. You know what I mean. The taste of all those pears, cherries and apples but without the urge to light it all on fire from the bottle while pouring it over a six pack of Hostess Twinkies.

 Expensive wine is like that.

With Thai Coconut Soup it is important to remember that any vegetable can be thrown into this thing. Thai people are not as strict on the proper veggie mix as Caucasian people who write Thai recipe books like to pretend that they are.

Since we are going for authenticity I am going for whatever is in my fridge that might spoil. I have corn on the cob which I will cut off the cob, red bell peppers, portobello mushrooms, purple cabbage, small potatoes, spring onions, and broccoli. It's all going in.

Now I *did* go to the store. When I bought the wine, I also bought a few things one might really want to have to have on hand just in case you want to make this actually work out for you. These included; coconut milk, fresh cilantro,  serrano chili peppers, basil leaves, garlic, limes, and a soup base.

I tried to buy lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves but the local Pac 'n Save is only hip enough to carry $15 wine on a discount. That's about it. To make up for the lack of the necessary items I bought a concentrate Thai green curry paste.

It'll do, pig. It'll do.

 I mean, really, if you were actually going to go all authentic on it's ass you'd have started with a ham bone and you didn't, did you?

I didn't think so.

Anyway, I already own powdered galangal. You can use regular ginger but that shit is not the same thing at all. Not to say that ginger is not awesome. It is. It really is! But it is just not the same thing.

 And you, Martha? You didn't even tell them to include ANY ginger what-so-ever? What the hell kind of soup are you making?

I think middle America can handle a little ginger. I know that you've been in jail and you want to protect others from the kinds of things that you've seen. You know, I once caught a galangal by the tail and tried to extract the pungent spice from its scent glands. I can say in all honesty that it wasn't pretty. Have you ever expressed an ass of a wild dog with razor sharp canines? Well neither have I. But ginger is pretty safe even if it causes you some PTSD episodes. Leave in the ginger, for god's sake. Breathe and repeat this affirmation with me! "Just because it smells similar doesn't mean it's going to bite you on the cooter."

 BTW,  I know I told you all to be creative, but what the fuck is up with an english cucumber as a garnish on a goddamn Thai soup? Really, Martha? And Fuck You with your lemons! This isn't Goddamn British Codfish.  And, you didn't even say to add ANY peppers.... ? At all? The curry paste isn't going to carry itself, you know.

Now, it is up to you to tweek your recipe. You could put chicken in there or pork or cow or tofu or peanuts. Today I am not doing any of that. But YOU could. It's just that kind of soup. I encourage you to go crazy with it. Just be careful.

But first, the garlic.

You really must use fuckloads of garlic. I enjoy the use of a garlic press. Some say this is not necessary. Some say that this is cheating. To those people I say; Fuck you! And for those of you who want me to tell them exactly what a "fuckload" is, I say;   Here at "Many Much Cookings of Greatness," we don't infantalize our readers like those lackeys over at say..... Martha Stewert's blog do.

 Just sayin'.

After you press the garlic in the pan, you should chop up some onions. I am using spring onions. You can use whatever the hell onions you want.

I *do* have sesame oil on hand. It's way better than that crap Martha Stewert told you to fry up onions in and it's really cheap so long as you just go to an any regular asian market instead of Whole "Ooops! I-Fucked-Ur-Rent- Budget-Up-So-Now-You-Have-to-Eat-At-Soup-Kitchens-For-The-Rest-Of-The-Month!" Market.


You will want to gut and chop your serrano chili peppers while wearing gloves unless you like hella seeds in your soup and you want your ass ring to burn like fire at regular intervals in the day. You should know by now about the gloves and that no amount of Vaseline will take the burning away until you've cried enough salty salty tears over your hands.

Actually, I didn't wear gloves.

And I kept all the seeds in unlike all you pussies.

Now here is where the sesame oil comes in. Put that shit in the pan. I don't know how much,  just put it in there. You want enough to saute some crap. I think you can handle eye-balling that amount? You know how to saute, right? Ok! Do that thing that that thing entails! You Go! I believe in you!

By now you will be done with the chopping and the saute-ing. It is time to fill a large pot with water and cause it to boil!

YEEE-Haww! Beers, Steers, and Queers!
(shhh... do a little dance here.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyGp98Xoq9g&feature=related

Once it boils, put your entire can of coconut milk in along with the juice of three or four limes. Put a teaspoon in of galangal, or not. Put in enough soup mix for the water, and then add a healthy few flings of the green curry paste. Add your saute'd stuff in and then realise! "Oh NO! I forgot the soy sauce!" So add that, too. Put all liquidy boil-ey things into the larger pot with all the chopped and waiting veggies. Add more water until the pot is kinda full and then add half the cilantro you bought.

Now it's full!

Put a lid on it and set it to low/medium. Add another lime. Add some more galangal, but only if you can stand the pain. Also, throw in a glass of the wine. It's like christening a boat!

But please! Without the broken glass!

You did refrain from throwing glass in there, didn't you?

Oh Shit! There is no time! The basil! Put the basil in! Now Now Now!

 That......... was close!

Martha, why did you tell them to just add basil as a simply a garnish? Are you afraid of basil, too?

You know that it has none of the agitated spiciness of galangal, right? I've worked with people from the prison system. I know that it does funny things to people. Are you becoming one of those folks that believes cornstarch and catsup are enough?

It's not enough, Martha.

 Just because cornstarch causes things to  have the consistency of cum does not mean that it automatically contains protien! You have to listen to me and hold my hand.

Just try to say this with me: "Items that might not go into pruno are still worth cooking with. Items that might not go into pruno are still worth cooking with!"

 Please! We can work through this together.  I'm a professional. Just trust me enough to take this dried galangal. I swear it won't bite.

Pickled Watermelon Rinds

Pickled watermelon rinds are a bitch. They are  precisely the kind of bitch that orders sulfite free wine when you go out to eat and then insists on ordering veal because she is an animal rights activist and she wants to only eat the old sheep. But she's got a great rack and she's nice to show around so you go on a date with her only when you've forgotten why you couldn't stand her in the first place.

 I mean, it's not that they are particularly hard to make.  It's just that they are tedious as all mother fucking hell.

But it's a Southern delicacy, so whatayagonnado?

To start to make these things you need a watermelon. A big fat one is better than some little topiary round anemic thing  engineered to have no seeds. A big fat old fashioned watermelon is going to have the most rind on it and that is what you are after. The rind. Think of it like an Oakland butt.

First things first, scoop out all that red stuff in the middle. You don't need to scrape the edges bare. A little red looks nice when left on the rind. You can set the fruit aside for whatever other awesome thing you want to do with it. Jello-shots? Watermelon margaritas? fruit pops? I don't know. You can figure that out.

Now starts the bitch of the process. You have to cut all that green off the rind in order to render it fit for eating. This takes a really really long time and it helps if you have a friend to help you because if you don't it's going to suck for you.

I'll wait until you are done. Don't worry. I'm just going to start working on this painting over here.

Okay! I've finished my portrait of Mike in the traditional Dutch Masters style! Are you done yet? No? A little more time?

I'm back from my getting my hair cut and colored and I love my new pedicure!  You are done, yes? Hooray! Let's celebrate by going to the next step. You are going to take all that shit and soak it in water overnight! Yay!

The next day you are going to make a brine for these things. You will need to procure a giant pot and put in as much water as it looks like will cover what you have there. You'll then add in a lot of sugar. Would you say a cup and a half? I didn't measure. I  just put in the whole rest of the sugar bag I had since I've had it around for a bit. but then it wasn't sweet enough so I had to put in some sugar cubes I had lying around.  You will need to throw in a small handful of cloves and around three cinnamon sticks. Also some salt. I put in a little vanilla extract, some brine water left over from brining my jackfruit last night and a handful of  dried cherries, just because they looked festive. Of yeah, and a little tamarind paste because I bought it and I think it sounds really cool. You don't have to do any of this, though. You do want your water sweet/salty and tasting like Christmas without the brandy ( I know, I know) and as much salt as your Gramma Mildred's mouth.

All of this should simmer a bit. I'm letting mine simmer while I cut and gut the jalapenos. Traditional recipes do not call for chili peppers in the mix, but what the hell. I ask you, is anything truly not improved through the addition of chili peppers?

Remember! Always wear gloves when putting your fingers in new or unusual orifices! It's just good sense.

I'm going with a half now / half later approach. Half the sliced jalapenos go in with the pickling water and half are saved in vinegar in the fridge for tomorrow. And, yes! You are going to need to do another overnight process!

With jalapenos added and then water all cooled, Take your rinds, clear off the water and then dump them in this new mixture to soak overnight. You'll go to sleep excited to know that you have more day of work waiting for you tomorrow.

This next day, you are sure to have a bad hangover from drinking so much while trying to get these damn watermelon rinds finished, but like a champion you get back on that horse girl! You fix yourself a bloody mary and you keep on running because stamina is what it is all about, Sugar!

And speaking of sugar, I sure hope that you kept some on hand since we need that for round three.
You are going to take those rinds and dump out all that lovely brine mix down the bathtub drain since the rest of your kitchen is absolutely destroyed from your other cooking endeavors and you can't possibly fit that collander in the sink anymore. Just repeat after me, dishes are for husbands and husbands will clean all those dishes on their day off tomorrow.

So, you will need to rinse all the brine on those watermelon bits off using your detachable shower head. No. I 'm not making a euphemism when I say "watermelon" and "brine." Haven't you been following along on this recipe already? Now pay attention!  You fill the pot with just enough water to cover those bits. Then you put the whole thing on the stove again and bring it to a boil. This is going to boil for ten minutes before you .... guess what! Ha! No, bitch, you are not done. Put down that victory flag! You are going to pour all that out water again and rinse those little fuckers off one more time.

Okay, breathe. You are really near the finish line again. Did you refresh your Bloody Mary? Good.
Put the rinds all back in the pot. Slice into pretty little wheels two large oranges and four lemons. Some recipes call for more cinnamon and cloves. I say, ditch that. I mean, unless you really WANT to be reminded of the forced tortures of family bonding that are the holidays during your summer.  No, we are adding the jalapenos, plus three cups of sugar... except that I forgot to buy more sugar so I used two cups of brown sugar and a cup of agave. It should be okay. It's all sugar. Then you add one cup of apply cider vinegar and one cup of lilly white vinegar to mix all up with that molasses. You need just enough water to cover the whole mess in fluid and then it time to boil those little bastards all over again.   They are going to take a lot longer to boil with all that damn sugar in there, but you should be too inebriated to care at this point. You should also make sure that you are too inebriated to start questioning yourself as to what the point of this whole long and torturous exercise. Torture your liver, not your mind. Studies show that livers bounce back faster from abuse.

Once this mix has boiled for fifteen minutes or so, you are now done. Really done. As in "Hallelujah! Oh my gawd I thought that would never end and now I am done!" done. Don't celebrate too quickly by eating a rind or you will cause a blister to form on your lower lip and just your lower lip will look like Kim Bassinger's. Just relax and enjoy your booze marathon while your little babies cool.

You can proceed canning them now. I mean, that is if you are some sort of goddamn masochist, you can. And I don't mean the fun kind, either. I mean the kind that delights in using their tongue as a sort of button hook when fastening their Master's Victorian boots. I don't have patience for that kind of shit. Me, I just fed a few to my friend  to make sure they were not poisonous and then I froze the rest to take up to Queen Acres. They turned out awesome. Just like when I turned out that fine little sulfite free lovin' mamma onto San Pablo and she started bringing some real cash back for me. Now *that* was a can worth the investment.

*if serving them  fresh, serve as is. If serving them later,  toss the citrus and rinse the melon slices several times in cold water or they will be cloyingly sweet.

Pulled "Pork" Vegan Style

Since my husband is cooking pulled pork (the actual pig related stuff) for our trip to Queen Acres I decided to try to make a vegan style of this fine fine dish! I ran across several recipes which all called for Jackfruit. I mainly worked with this one: http://eatingappalachia.com/2012/05/24/vegan-pulled-pork-with-rhubarb-bbq-sauce/#.

In the end I combined several of them to create my own concept before I proceeded to run with it.

I should let you know that it was really really hard to find the jackfruit. There were cans of jackfruit in syrup at the Berkeley Bowl in the "ethnic" section. There were no cans in brine. Since pulled "pork" is savory, syrup will simply not do! I was almost going to just go to an Asian market. I'd gotten everything else I needed and really did not want to make another trip somewhere else. Several clerks looked at Mike like he was crazy when he asked them if there was any jackfruit anywhere. We finally did ask the help desk, which was unmarked as a help desk,  and they said it was in cut melon section. Since I had never seen a whole jackfruit before, it took my smart phone to help me look at picture to indeed confirm that this thing labeled "winter melon" was  actually a Jackfruit after all. I didn't even know that it was a melon. I had creeped this guy out for, like, an hour while staring and stalking the unusual fruit section of Berkeley Bowl that he was camped out in for his own unknown reasons. Who hangs out in a fruit section for an hour anyway? Creepy.....
Just sayin'

Now, the Jackfruit is a thing that seems like it came from a William Burroughs novel. In fact, pulling all the yellow fruits from the center of the melon has the texture and feel of what I imagine it would be like to disembowel a creature from Naked Lunch but without the imagined horrifying smells or possible unearthly screams.

I showed you this already. But here it is again:

I chose fresh Jackfruit because I could not find the item in brine. As a result, I had to brine it myself. I threw a bunch of vinegar on top with a little salt and some water to cover the whole mess. I let it soak overnight so it will be a little salty and acidic instead of just smelling vaguely like a lab created banana.

In the morning I drained the brine and coated it with a dry rub. For dry rubs you could use any combination of things like paprika, crushed pepper, cayenne, cumin, onion flakes, garlic powder, and salt.  Since all of these were already mixed in the Chili 9000 stuff my mother-in-law got me, I used that.  I let the coated thing-a-ma-jigs sit for a few hours in the fridge while I started in on the Rhubarb BBQ sauce. I also chopped some onions, some red bell peppers, and some garlic to keep the jackfruit company.

I pulled from this recipe: http://eatingappalachia.com/2012/05/24/vegan-pulled-pork-with-rhubarb-bbq-sauce/#

But, of course,  I used my own awesome style because I am so awesome!

First off, I don't really understand what constitutes "a bunch" of rhubarb. Berkeley Bowl sells them in individual stalks. I was doubling the recipe. So I used three of the four stalks I had bought.
Another thing different I did was to add half the Adobo chili can's sauce into the mix. It's an awesome sauce! I don't want to throw it out.

I used white onions instead of red ones and I threw in the entire small can of tomato paste since whatever was left would have gone bad anyway. I finished off with a tablespoon-ish of tamarind concentrate.  Then I boiled the hell out of it for about an hour and a half.

I tried to throw all of this into the Cuisine-art to mix it, despite it far exceeding the indicated limit for fluids. As you may have predicted, this did not work and I had to clean some sauce off the floor, which was sad.

Maybe because I threw in the extra adobo sauce, I don't know, but it was very very spicy! Not that I mind. But I have a higher spice threshold than others do, so think about that when you make yours.

I took most, but not all, of this sauce and I added the jackfruit mix that was marinating in the fridge. I threw a little water on top because I wanted it all covered with liquids and I set aside a cup of the BBQ sauce in case I wanted some for something later. It was so tasty, it was! As for the stuff in the pot,  I slow cooked the hell out of this mix for six or so hours. Here is it just starting out:

Wikipedia said that the roasted seeds of the jackfruit is a delicacy, so Mike decided to try it. Finding no real recipes for it, he treated them just like you would regular pumpkin seeds. That is to say, fry them in oil and salt and when they pop they are done.

One thing that is particularly weird about these seeds is that they taste almost exactly like carnitas. Or, rather, like carnitas if carnitas were not that good and had a chalky texture. It is true that they do become more tasty the more regularly you shell them and then pop them in your mouth.  I don't know if they will end up being the next Acai berry. Please don't invest in roasted jackfruit seed stock just yet. It's so untested. I mean, first we have to unlock the secret as to why they taste like carnitas at all.

When it was done I shredded up the remaining solids. Some say that you should roast those shreds to make a pork-ish like product. However, my end result was so tender that it was more like a sloppy joe than pork and there was really no way to dry that out in the oven. I *did* evaporate a fair amount of liquids by cooking on medium without a lid for a few hours.

Last step-   chill that goddamn shit and then reheat it and then put that fucker on a bun with some vinegar based cole slaw and some god damn jalapeno pickled carrots!

 See if you can get *that* at your local Chick-fil-a, motherfucker!

Pickled Carrots with Jalapenos!

I am cooking a mess of food for a gathering of gay men who dress in 80's finery and engage in a Dynasty bitch fight at a lovely scenic pond in the mountains. Because of this, I may do a few more posts than I normally do this month.

Today I made spicy pickled carrots. I also started some pickled watermelon rinds and pulled "pork" made from  Jackfruit. Jackfruit is a creepy melon type fruit that is apparently labeled  "winter melon" instead. I was only able to find it by matching my phone's pictures of jackfruit with the actual fruit. The decimated item looked like this:

More about jackfruit later.

The first thing one does when one starts cooking any tedious and labor intensive item is to open the wine. Todays wine is a Cava that was on special from Berkeley Bowl since my husband was very excited about having mimosas. The other thing that is important is to put in some good music. I chose Electric Six because they are both spicy and ridiculous, like pickled carrots with jalapenos are!

I bought a bag of, what is sometimes termed, horse carrots. This means that they are fat and cheap and just a little old. Just like me. Don't worry about them being tough. You're going to pickle their asses and they will tender right up! If you want to be all cute and fancy you can get those teeny tiny baby carrots and pickle them whole in a charming canning jar and pretend you are Martha f'in Stewert when you serve them to your local senators for tea with tiny cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. But I says, fuck that shit! We got horse carrots! We are ready to roll.

You are going to wash and peel and cut the ends off these carrots just like you would for any other recipe. Now it's your choice after that how you want to slice them. Traditionally they are sliced in round or oval slices all the way up the carrot. Today I chose to slice and quarter them into sticks. They not only go on sandwiches when they are done, but they will be perfect to put in Bloody Mary's in the morning.

 I know. I think of everything.

When they are all sliced how you like them throw those puppies in a bowl and focus on the jalapenos because they are going to need your attention. Gloves, darling. You are going to need gloves.

No. I am not propositioning you for some kinky activity. You need those gloves to protect you from the  acid that leaches from those peppers and stays with you for days. Russ says to put two pair on, but I never have found that I need that much protection unless I am working with habaneros or  some juicy little tart that just loves to be tasted. You know who you are, Esmerelda!

So, you've taken all the seeds out of the peppers and sliced them up into - well, slices. Now is the time to combine the carrots and the peppers with, oh, I don't know... five bay leaves? Five is a good number.
And then you throw in some peppercorns. You don't need me to tell you how many! You are a responsible adult and you can decide for yourself! I trust you.  I mean, kinda.

Here is where it gets tricky. Now listen. I poured in some white balsamic vinegar. It was white. It was vinegar. It did have some funky flakes of some sort floating around in there that I swear were not that there a year ago. The bottle said the vinegar was filtered to be "crystal clear." I tasted it, and it tasted okay. And vinegar is supposed to be a preserving fluid, so..

I just threw the whole bottle into that bowl, yes I did! That way I won't have to worry about how those flakes develop next year. And then I put in some water. Then I put in some apple cider vinegar since there was just a teeny bit left in the bottle. There were flakes in there, too! And then I put in some cumin and a little ground cayenne spice, because you *know* those jalapenos just aren't all that hot. I topped the mix off with a little more water and  bit of regular white vinegar and then I sprinkled salt over the whole top like a fine Christmas snow. Or possibly what a fine Christmas snow looks like to someone who was born in Los Angeles. It did snow there, once. I don't think it was on Christmas. Actually, I was getting my hair cut and the whole damn mess melted before I could get outside to look at it at all. But I *did* see it from the mall's glass top roof. Anyway, the salt should be kind of like the snow that day.

I had these five garlic cloves all smushed and skinned and  ready to go when I found I had forgotten to buy olive oil. I don't really own any other kind of cooking oil normally. But then I remembered I had just bought the coconut oil for the vegan pulled "pork" so I used that to fry up those garlic nubs. When I was satisfied that the garlic was all cooked up I threw everything else in the pot and simmered the whole damn mess for like, I dunno, ten minutes?

You are going to let the whole thing cool before eating some or you might hurt your mouth. Unless you take one carrot out and let that cool . That could be okay. But really the whole thing's got to cool before you put it in the fridge. I don't much care how you store it. That's your business. Just remember, these are not going to last forever like your store bought neon yellow mustard does. You should eat them before they go bad. And if you have a reaction to the funky vinegar that you put in, I will not be held responsible. I ate mine two hours ago and I feel fine.

Happy Fourth of July!!

It's a Wednesday. I have the day off. I got a bottle of some Barefoot sparkling thingy or other for my birthday and I am making mimosas.

That means only one thing!

Cookings of ManyMuch Greatness is about to begin.

I've been wanting to stuff yellow wax peppers with a bunch of shit and wrap bacon around it ever since my vegan sister flipped her lid over the fact that I still eat meat. Okay, I actually wanted to do stuff with it before, but the sister-flipping-lid thing has just made it necessary to follow through. You see, I used to be a vegetarian. I started at 14 and stayed that way until I turned 20 and I went to study medieval and renaissance art in Italy for six months. There people made many "My Mother's Recipe's" for me, and who the hell was I to turn down good hospitality just because it contained pork?  That would be rude.

I did teach a bunch of Italian men how to make vegan sushi in a tiny kitchenette. But that is a story for another blog.

Today I had a mess of yellow wax peppers, a bunch of premium bacon I needed to use, and a dream to follow.

I was sad that I had used up all the rubber gloves for sex. There were no rubber gloves in the house to protect my hands from the spicy chili oils. I would have to be brave and dive in.

(side tip: if your hands are burning from chili juices you should rub them with dry salt. I know it sounds weird but it really really works. All the other shit is just lies they print so they can laugh at you while you futile-y soak your hand in a bowl of pepto-bismal and vaseline)

(Bonus tip: if you *do* soak your hands in a bowl of pepto-bismal and vaseline you will be ready to fist at an all male sex party as long as it is held in 1972! You might even earn the nick-name "Hot Hands." because, you know, you still have chili juice on them.)

So, there was all this bacon and left over corn and wax chili peppers and other things kitchens often have in them. So what I did was this. I drank a Mimosa for my pre-warmup.

Then, I hollowed out all the peppers and rinsed their peppery guts out in the sink.
I stuffed some left over baked chicken that we have on hand to feed to our geriatric cat so he will actually eat his thyroid medication twice a day into the bottom of the peppers. It just seemed like a good idea. I mean, there is chicken there and chicken and bacon seem like a good mix, right? I had to feed some chicken to the cat because he has become spoiled since we started giving him thyroid meds via chicken delivery and feels that all r chicken are belong to him, now. And I'm totally putting my foot down and stopping the spoiling by giving him more chicken when he does his loud meow/scream thing.

This is why I don't have kids.

I cut up the left over corn from my birthday BBQ last Sunday and stuff it in after the chicken. I need something to hold the corn down and also retain spices I throw at it, so I stuff a chunk of butter in after the corn. Butter is a healthy fat. *And* it's yummy. Bacon and butter are probably a really really good food combo idea. I think it is time to find out.

I throw salt, pepper, lemon zest, and garlic on the butter. IT STICKS! Well, that was the point, anyway.

I cap the peppers off with White Welsh Chedder. I'm black Welsh (somewhere back in the family tree), but I don't hold that against the cheese.

So, then the bacon. I wrap all the chili peppers in bacon. I've never done this before, so I wrap them all and try to squish them together to make sure the bacon will not unravel during cooking. It still might unravel anyway, so for a few of them I break the tips off wooden skewers and use them like toothpicks because, despite owning a really cool toothpick holder that looks like a voodoo doll, I don't have any toothpicks.

I set the oven at 350 degrees since that seems like the normal temperature things cook at and I slide them in a glass cook pan along with more bacon and the leftover corn. The result looked something like this:

Mmmm.

And.. all of the cheese in the front melted off onto the center bacon. Some of you may have predicted this. In my prototypes I had wrapped the chili in foil so the cheese stayed. I had forgotten about that whole "gravity" thing. So the only thing to do was to put more cheese on the top and put them back in while the bacon still needed more cooking. There would be a, sort of, cheese/bacon/corn casserole to enjoy in the middle is all.

My ancestors were always in the middle of something. During the revolution they had split and the family fought on both sides! Though mostly they fought for the South because they liked supporting the  Free Labor Party in Maryland.

Oh wait. Sorry. Wrong war.

 But still.....

Anyways, the end result looked something like this:

Happy Fourth of July!

How to Make Soup!

      First you make soup by getting out a really large ass pot.  You are going to need a pot because a pan is too small to make soup in and you can't make soup on a plate. You are going to use a large ass pot because everything that might go bad in your fridge, barring a few items and adding a few others, is going to go into that pot. You should adjust the size of "large ass" to fit your personal needs. If you, say, live in Oakland, what might be a "large ass" for someone else might be a medium sized or small ass to you, particularly if that other person lives in, say, Mendocino County. I hear that there is a lot of speed there. For the hipster boys that thought it would be fun to start an ironic frat house two doors down from you and play loud football in the street at 11pm on a Monday night, this might mean be the equivalent of a sauce pan.

     Onions and garlic go in first. They don't *have* to go in first. If you find you forgot to put them in first you can always put them in later.  It will really not make that much of a difference. But you want to put in the garlic and onion first if you are into that sauteing thing. Soup can be made without sauteing and it is fine, but today you are going to saute. Other cooking peoples say to saute in a frying pan or wok. This is bullshit unless you like cleaning more dishes.

It's important to add one fuckload of minced garlic and two fuckloads of chopped onions to the pot with no heat. Then you are going to add just south of a shitload of olive oil, or enough to coat everything on the bottom of the pan and turn on the heat. Don't turn on the heat before or you might burn your garlic. Burnt garlic sucks and you don't want it in your soup.

Tip: send your husband out to chop the onions in the backyard with goggles. This works way better than the other way you have been doing it.

Start to add some salt and pepper to your mix, then decide to use the Penzey's Ruth Ann's Muskego Ave. Chicken and Fish Seasoning, which is really a sort of lemon pepper salt thing and you have been putting it on most everything since you got it despite your original suspicion of it as being just glorified salt. Plus your mother-in-law got it for you.

Stir everything until the onions are no longer just white, but are now kind of a pearl color.

At this point it is really time to open the red wine. Pour in half a bottle. This is going to leave you and your husband with only a glass each and you are going to want more. You should have bought more, but you were thinking that one bottle of wine and one bottle of vodka would be enough last night. You were mistaken. So, plan a wine run in the middle of your soup making.

Pull everything veggie or meat that might go bad out of your fridge. Be sure to sniff the sausages and check if they have a sticky or slimy texture before chopping them up and putting them in the pot.

Tip: A bad smelling or slimy sausage is not something you should put in your pot. Tell your husband to shower or perhaps get that thing checked out by a qualified physician.

Potatoes go in early if you want a creamy texture of dissolved potato or late if you want chunks. Scrub well, but don't bother peeling them. Why would you peel them, anyway? Carrots should be peeled, however. You then add chopped bell peppers, tomatoes, turnips, and  yellow squash in the pot. You chop up some fresh basil and then realize you have to add the entire bunch because you chopped it on top of the sausage area and you can't put that shit back now because it might turn septic. So, the equivalent of a  fuckload of basil goes into the pot. You also add some Herbs de Provance because it sounds cool and your mother-in-law got it for you.

Your pot is now full. You will have to put the other vegetable back in the fridge. Hopefully you have added some water to the pot so you have a pot full of both  vegetables *and* boiling water or you might need to separate the batch into two pots. You don't have any broth, but Bragg's will do just fine. It's really the same thing anyway, right? And plus, look at the shiny hair!

Now you are ready for your wine run. Put it on simmer and tell your three cats to make sure the house doesn't burn down while you are gone.

Target is the place to go for the soup wine run. While there you can also pick up other things like lint brushes and attempt to find some sort of ginger matching foundation for your husband. Sadly, you find that Target, like MAC, has a bias against gingers and there is no foundation there for anyone with a pink based complexion. The MAC store clerk lied when she said that adding blush to the light foundation would convert it to a ginger hue. Instead, it converted your husband into a large carrot. Don't believe the MAC counter ladies.

You notice that there are a plethora of hot ladies at the Target. Was this always the case or did more ladies become hot as you hit your mid-thirties? When you realize that you said this out loud you notice that the woman in the yellow polka dot dress is quickly moving away from you and into the next aisle. Maybe this is because you have a little of the impetigo left over on your face which your cat gave you last month. It's not a good look.

There is a really hot Amazonianly tall giant red head of a woman in front of you and your husband at the check out line wearing only an oversized man's work shirt and cowboy boots. Your husband looks at you and says something about that being the way he wants to die. You hit him in the arm, but secretly you agree.You both decide it would be a bad idea to ask her if she knows anything about ginger foundation.

Back at home, you can now open the second bottle of wine.


Taste your soup. If it is a little bland,  add  one buttload of Bragg's and a half a bottle of the newly opened wine.

If your flavors are still off, add some of that spicy beer mustard that worked so well when you were making corned beef and some siracha because siracha goes in everything.  Stir and taste again. The flavors should now be starting to have a harmony. Add just a bit of thyme and this  thing called "Mural of Flavor" from Penzey Spices because the name sounds cool and your mother-in-law got it for you. You might add a lemon, but you do not have a lemon.

Boil down for an hour until the flavor is more concentrated and enjoy!

Irish-ish Corned Beef and Cabbage

For Irish Day, I made the expected Corned Beef and Cabbage Thingy. Some of you liked it. Some of you want the recipe.

Here is that recipe.

First you will need a giant-ass pot. You are going to put this pot on the stove. Once it is safely on the stove, and you have made sure there are no cats inside, you will need to go out to the back porch and grab two cans of Budweiser out of the cooler melt which your friends left behind from that baby shower last week. They will also have been rained on and might be radioactive. At the very least you live in Oakland, so you should wash them off.

Pour the two Budweiser beers into the cooking pot. Then go and grab a third beer. But this time you are too lazy to wash it off. Just pour it in. Most of the beer really does not touch the outside of the can anyway when it is on its way out and the radioactivity just might add a tangy flavor.

You are then going to add some water to the pot until it is sort-of half full.

Now you are ready to start.

Turn the heat on the beerwater mixture to high. Before it begins to heat up it's okay to throw in some of the produce already. You know you are going to boil the hell out of anything that goes in there so it really just doesn't matter. Then you think that maybe it might matter, but for just a moment before you realize you don't care. Throw in an entire stick of butter. Go ahead. Throw it in. Watch it float. You were supposed to sauté all your vegetables in butter, but you knew that you were not going to. This way, at least your food items will be coated in butter as they were meant to be.

Toss in a half bag of peeled and sliced carrots, plus two onions, and an entire bulb of crushed garlic. Slice up some small potatoes and throw them in the pot. Also, take that giant ass slab of corned beef you bought from Costco and wonder at the amazing amount of fat that was on the side that was hidden from view by the clever Irish-ish packaging once you have managed to remove it. Decide to slice most of the fat off, since there really is a disgusting shitload of it. Throw all that fat away in the compost bin and put that slab of pickled beef into the pot.

Now that you have gotten rid of all that fat and made your mixture leaner, take out the package of Apple Smoked Neman Ranch pork bacon which you also bought at Costco. Slice up the whole damn thing into one inch strips of fat and throw it the pot with the beef.*

The water should be starting to boil now. At this time you should decide to add that weird little thing of pickling spices that came with the meat plus some more stuff which did not. Take a healthy handful of pepper corns and throw it on in there. Take half a handful of mustard seeds and do the same. The recipe said you should add parsley but you don't have any. You decide that a mixture of celery seeds, some basil, and five tiny bell peppers should be roughly the same thing. You also toss in some oregano sprigs because they are there in the fridge and they look kind of like parsley and they might go off soon.

Begin to worry for a little bit that basil plus oregano might mean the food will come out tasting Italian. To counter the Italian anxiety, throw in a half a cup of Jameson Whiskey plus an entire head of cabbage and a can of Guinness which has been partly consumed by you and your husband.

Marvel that there is a little plastic ball that rattles in the empty Guinness can. What does it do? Does it prevent Guinness cans from being recyclable? You could cut out the plastic ball from the can and it would be recyclable but that would be a lot of work. Plus, it might wreck your kitchen knives. Not to mention the potential injury a sliced aluminum can is to the hands of those brave folks who scavenge the recyclables from your trash, making it possible for you to drink more since, when they are done, you can fit more bottles into your recycling bins.

So your Irish-ish Thingy has cooked on medium low heat for perhaps an hour or possibly two hours while you ponder this.

You realize that it would taste better with chilies because everything tastes better with chilies but you didn't add any and now you are fucked. You Facebook about the option of adding chilies hoping someone will tell you chilies are a terrible idea. However, everyone likes the idea of chilies and says you should add them not knowing it is too late and there are actually none in the house and you are not going to go get any.

To compensate for the lack of chilies, you try to fake it by adding two tablespoons of the Serrano chili simple syrup you made last week and a tablespoon of that stuff that tastes like sriracha sauce but comes in a jar with a rooster on it. Also, you put in some Braggs. That lady on the bottle has really bitchin' hair.

Later you decide the mustard flavor is not that pronounced. You add some whole grain mustard from the squeezy bottle your husband bought for his sandwiches.

Also, in the fridge, is a large jar of sauerkraut. You decide that since there is already a lot of cabbage in there, and that mustard goes on hotdogs, it really just makes sense to add half the jar. Then you add some more mustard and another can of Budweiser.

You cook this for another hour and then cool it and put it away for the night.

In the morning (which is noon) you take the thing out and scrape all the hardened fat off the top. Admittedly most of it is prolly from that stick of butter from yesterday. You take the floaty bits of fatty bacon and put those in the compost, too. Then you realize that there are hella ants crawling all over the compost bins because it has been raining and the ants, who also want to get away from the liquid nuclear fallout, have taken their colony inside. Wonder briefly if ants can be radioactive. Take the entire compost bin and put it out in the rain being careful not to scream.

Heat the pot again. Throw in more potatoes, more carrots, and one and a half more cabbages since all the previous veggies have now become sauce. When the meat starts to fall apart in large clumps, add another can of beer.

You've already started drinking because this is the only day of the year you have an excuse to drink hard alcohol in the morning (which is noon.) Throw some of that whiskey in the pot, too. Boil the mixture down so that the liquid in the pot is reduced and simmer until your friends show up to the house. Play the Wolfe Tones until your friends threaten to stab themselves in the eye with a fork and serve.

*My husband insists I clarify that when I say "whole package" I actually mean one of the packages of the three you are forced to buy as a unit from Costco in order to obtain the savings from them. I *did* try to tell him that no one was actually meant to cook from this recipe.