Tilapia with Lemon and Some Pickled Crap Thrown on Top

In order to make this promising tilapia you first have to have put in the time to pickle some crap. I’ve been into pickling lately. However, since I do most of my pickling sober I haven’t blogged about it. Pickling is a long drawn out process and my parole officer explicitly stated that I am not allowed to be drunk for the appropriate amount of time it would take to make that blog.

 I have been putting all kinds of shit in water salty enough to make even a veteran gourmand of the captain’s pudding blush. Currently I’m trying a daring process of fermenting salty plums I picked from my yard with rosemary and lemons in a brine of red wine. It might need to be thrown away in a few weeks. After all,  I'm not afraid to admit that I am scared of death which is a thing that can happen when eating the fruits of experimental pickling. 

With that said, In honor of the amazing Martha Stewart, I am going to leave any and all pickling instructions entirely out of today’s recipe. 

First, I was going to make this fish with a peach. But after some basic research I said all fucks to that.  

Instead I took the tilapia and put it on a big tin foil  sheet which my geriatric cat had already started to lick just a tiny bit because he has a plastic fetish and he felt tin foil was close enough substitute. Also, he hoped I would plop raw fish in front of him while he just happened to be practicing eating it. 

I did not change out the tinfoil because I love our Mother Earth. Also I figured that the heat will naturally bake off any cat anus germs.

 I covered those fishy bitches in salt and pepper and a healthy splash of that provincial herbs mix before slicing one lemon in a fan of thin slices over the top.  Then I realized my coconut oil was starting to get old and it heats better than olive oil and it also fights some kinds of brain diseases though when I was  younger I was told that it would just make us fat.  Ah, the miracle of transformation! Of course globs of coconut oil were strategically placed around the fish like tiny mounds of iced cream!

 I was rudely startled to discover that  I had no fresh garlic in the house. No one really has any good excuse to ever be out of garlic even if you engaged in a month long garlic festival ...  especially if you have engaged in a month long garlic festival. I don't understand those poor  bastards who try to tell me not to put garlic in my food because they claim in does something funny to them.  Be a man, poop it out. Don't you know that some people actually pay extra to have their colon washed with water nearly as fresh at your toilet bowl's before having them stuffed back inside?

Since I did have pickled garlic and pickled onions by the handful I was saved. It’s best if you have a tiny food processor in which you can throw in the garlic cloves and those thar Herbs du Provence and pickled onions in order to make a jaunty puree which you can spread across your fish before you roast it . However, if you live in a residential group home then there is a good chance  that someone threw the entire apparatus (cord and all) into the dishwasher on the second day it arrived from Costco. At this point you have only been able to use it  for a shallow yet  Dadaist invoking vase.  In this case mash the pickled garlic  and sprinkle across the body of these four brave yet bold fish that gave their lives to eventually travel though your lower intestines before going back out to sea in a slightly altered form.

 Also, don't forget to spread the finely chopped pickled onions!

I put a splash of lemon juice for good measure, because can one really trust  a lemon slice to deliver lemony goodness? No. Like a Republican senator’s wife, It’s just kinda there to look pretty while he finds the real business in a gutted bathroom stall in Downtown Detroit. Okay, maybe more gay downlows happen in D.C., but isn’t Detroit just perfectly picturesque?

By now you have everything in place. All you have to do is seal that fish into a tinfoil rosey vaginal pouch like a newly reconstructed hymen. Be sure to shush it and tell it God knows it’s still virginal and that her fish is all blessed and fresh inside.

Put on the grill for 10 to 15 minutes, or until that flakey fish just quivers and falls apart at the slightest touch from an assertive man’s hand, like God intended.

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!