Pork shoulder is sooooo good

Pigs are the perfect sustainable animals to feed man. They produce both protein and fat, the very fuel your body needs to run efficiently.

Here is some pork shoulder that eventually was added to some leftover bacony onions and rounded out with Eggs and a splash of Tapatia for good measure.

A Worthy Post

Finally have my room set up, so here is a better caliber of post.

Last weekend at the farmers market I picked up a bag of multi-colored fingerling potatoes. In their raw state, they aren't very usable. My favorite "easy" way to get potatoes edible is to simply roast them.

It was 11:00 a.m. and I figured I would do some economy-of-scale cooking and make lunch while simultaneously preparing other condiments for later. Had some herbed goat-cheese and a spring greens mix from trader joes, so I figured I'd make a salad. I consequently wanted bacon, and figured I could use the rendered bacon fat for the potatoes- and then use if to cook up some yellow and green onions. Understand, the fat from the 3 pieces of bacon I cooked was the only fat that was used to cook the meal (and left-over portions).

Once the bacon was done, I patted it dry on a paper towel. After it had cooled and become crispy, I roughly tore up the pieces to make sure each bite of the salad could get a little bit of bacon.

About half of the rendered fat went into a stainless steel bowl with the potato wedges and I tossed with salt and pepper to even coat everything. Using tongs in a bowl is probably the easiest way to do this effectively to ensure that your finished potatoes aren't greasy. Meanwhile, into the skillet with the other half of the bacon fat went a whole yellow onion and the white-leakish side of 3 green onions and 1 or two of the stalks.

I let the onions cook on high since were so many of them. The potatoes went back onto the sheet pan and into the oven set to 550F (as high as it would go). They ended up taking about 30 minutes- but I was opening the door a bunch to move the onions in and out since the smoke detector kept going off even though there was really no discernible smoke. The potatoes took longer than anticipated, so I already had busted into my finished salad before they were ready to go on.

Putting it all together.... With proper amount of acid- in this case, balsamic and red wine vinegar

Have about 2 portions of onions and potatoes ready for the next meal :)

Computer back up and running!

Finally hooked up my main computer so I can blog again. Here was breakfast...

Summer Squash, Goat Cheese, Bacon, and Onions

Random fridge purging at 11:00 p.m. w/ friends. Very rich, but very delicious.

Heirloom Tomato Tart

Had some left over pizza dough in the fridge and one more tomato from the farmer's market. A make shift pizza was definitely in order.

Bacon Basil Tomato Sandwich

Take advantage of the cheap and delicious tomatoes right now in the farmer's market- here is a great way:

Bacon Basil Tomato Sandwich

I like basil over lettuce in my "BLT" just because I prefer the spicy and sweet aspects of fresh basil over the watery or bitter crunch that you get with lettuce. Plus the bacon is already giving you crunchiness, so I think the basil on the whole adds more to the sandwich. Bright colors and bold flavors- but really it is all about the  meaty slices of delicious summer tomatoes.

Ingredients:

• Favorite artisan roll toasted w/ bacon fat from the pan as the bacon cooks- Alot of the bakeries in Eugene make roll size versions of their breads. New Eugene Bread Co has a stand at the farmer's Market where you can get 6 for $5 or $1 a pop. Really good- I got 2 Cheddar Sourdough, 1 Cibatta, 1 French Rye, 1 Sourdough, 1 Kalamata Olive. The sandwhich in the picture is on a Cheddar Sourdough Roll.

• Heirloom Tomatoes w/ Salt, olive oil, and a little balsamic- I prefer the tomato to be the star of the sandwich with the basil and bacon helping to show off the tomato. The heirloom range runs the gamut of color and flavor, so mix and match until you have a good idea of what you like. 

• Fresh Basil- Fresh basil has a natural spicy sweet quality, a vibrant green color, and adds an additional texture to the sandwich.

• Thick Cut bacon- cooked till crispy and most of the fat had rendered- then cooled till crunchy

*if you need a fatty component to round it all out- I'd hit it with some Goat Cheese or a fried egg*

Chicken Salad

Had not updated for a while- here was yesterday's lunch:

Chicken Salad
- Hard boiled egg whites (yolks were used in the vinegrette)
- Confit Chicken Thighs- cooked in bacon fat, garlic, rosemary, and thyme
- Bacon "lardons" - giant chunks of really crispy bacon - bacon bits on steroids
- Oven-roasted potatoes - leftover w/ cajun seasoning
- Baby Spring green mix
- Balsamic vinaigrette w/ red wine vinegar, olive oil, and the hardboiled yolks of the eggs.

Really good- the vinaigrette turned out a bit on the acidic side and consequently was able to hold up against the chicken thigh meat and the salty bacon. No complaints, and an elegant way to use leftovers from breakfast.

Making Use of Leftovers – Old with the New – Part Deux

Missed my morning bacon and eggs fix, so I figured I'd have them for dinner instead. Also had a left over "baked" potato in the fridge and some salad greens that I figured I should try to use up...

I normally turn to a small cast-iron skillet for the majority of my single serving cooking. It can go from the stove top to oven to under a broiler with ease. I have found that bacon cooks nicely (renders and browns at a reasonable pace) in it on my electric stove-top's "medium" setting. Normally, there is a lot of excess rendered fat left over when I cook bacon. Never throw out this browny/gray gold. I keep a glass jar in the fridge that I add the (strained) excess bacon fat from each time I cook bacon. Aside from being delicious and imparting salty-bacony-goodness into all that it cooks, bacon fat has higher smoke point than olive oil, allowing you to sear things with less risk of filling your kitchen with smoke.

- Started with the baby skillet and added the 3 half slices from the "meaty" side of the bacon (so effectively 1 and 1/2 slices, but literally the "good" half from 3 slices of traditionally cut bacon).

- After I had an ample amount of rendered fat in the pan, I flipped the bacon turned up the heat, and allowed them to completely darken up. After shaking them off in the pan for a couple of seconds, I laid the pieces down on the remaining salad-greens in the fridge hit with balsamic vinegar. The game plan was to have some of the bacon fat mix with the yolk of the egg and the vinegar. You can see my sloppy plating with the bacon fat smeared off to the right side of the egg.

- With the little pool of bacon happiness in my pan, I cut up the potatoes to sear them off. They were already cooked- just need to be re-heated and crisped. Was going to reconstruct the potato after searing, but this proved to be overly-dramatic and not worth the effort
***Hindsight - would have been better to just roughly cut them up so there was more surface area the bacon fat in the pan could crisp and flavor***

- Lastly, I fried 2 eggs in the remaining bacon fat in the pan (oh ya- that much fat in the meaty half-ends of 3 slices of bacon that I was using). I shattered one yolk on impact in the skillet. It flattened and dispersed across the top of its whites and quickly turned into an overcooked monstrosity while the other fried nicely and soon became attached to him. I decided to perform surgery on the conjoined-egg twins, and separated the deformed "older" brother from it's tastier looking sibling. I plated the good looking egg atop my now very crispy bacon, and devoured the aesthetically unappealing egg off camera with the meal. A good fried egg will have at least one crispy caramelized side. I am not a fan of "cooked" egg-yolks- I find their intense fattiness and pasty texture unappealing. Sunny-side up (with firm whites) are how I like them.

Taking all the components in 1 bite- Yummmm.

Making Use of Leftovers – Old with the New

Recycling food is a good way to save money (that you can use to “re-invest” in quality products). Consequently, I try not to toss cooked food, and I try to cook in a compartmentalized fashion, so components can be subbed in as basic condiments to enhance later dishes. That is effectively what the best high end restaurants do. Most dishes are pre-cooked so that they can be “fired” or finished in a quick and efficient fashion without a drop in the actual quality of the food served. If you are served pork shoulder and it is meltingly tender – that shoulder meat has likely had to cook for well over 2 hours, meaning it was cooking long before you sat down and ordered it. Yes and No, its like at home where you cut a square out of Mom’s left-over casserole dish, except at the high end restaurants it is re-heated to optimal temperature, seared or sauced, and finished with a bunch of fresh touches that make it seem like something far more than “left-overs.”

I picked up some beautiful broccoli at the Saturday market and wanted to give it a try. I cut the florets off each bunch and oven roasted them. I cut the stalk portion into strips and pickled them (inspired by Mollie Katzen's recipe), adding lemon peel and cloves of garlic to the jar. We’ll see how they turn out in the next couple of days. I am finding I really like farm-fresh eggs, especially soft-boiled ones. I like the zip of vinegar with the vegetables, and the yolk and egg white add the protein and fat to round out the experience.   

Here we have a bed of mixed-baby greens, some leftover roasted onions (w/ bacon fat) from last night, the roasted broccoli florets on top. I sprinkled some classic blend of cajun seasoning on top of each egg and then cut them to make sure they weren't over cooked. Topped with some salt, pepper, balsamic and red wine vinegar. Really easy and tasty- an accidentally vegetarian and substantial salad that even a carnivore can enjoy. 

Summer Squash

Summer squash now should be widely available in your local farmer's markets. I have always generally tried to steer clear of zucchini since 90% of the time they are served cooked to relative degrees of putridly sweet mush.

I saw some great looking squash at the market and decided to play with the textures.

1. Roasted Squash traditionally (upper left)- sheet pan, olive oil, sliced squash into large inch thick slices and laided them on the sheet w/ onions and rosemary, into 500F oven for about 15-20 min (lost track of time). Look for the significant carmelization on the top- and the insides should be done. Once they cool down, their outside is crispy like a baked potato skin and their inside sort of pops. The liquid seedy portion is "trapped" in the center of each slice, bound between the squash's tender interior flesh and the seared top and bottom layers. Delicious.

2. Zucchini ribbons poached in bacon fat (middle right)-  I used a vegetable peeler and shaved off ribbons from 2 large green zucchini until I had effectively a square core of the seed portion of the plant. I added to a pan of sizzling hot bacon fat- onions, rosemary and 2 smashed cloves of garlic. I diced up the zucchini cores and fryed them in the bacon fat until they had been drained of moisture and started to crisp up. I then added the ribbons, gently coated them in the fat, and stuck them into the 500F oven for a couple of minutes. The goal was to get them to the tender stage without crossing over to the mushy side. Not really sure on effective times, but I think I they were in the over for about 5-8 minutes. Texture was great, and interesting to eat alongside an oven roasted chunk.

3. Soft boiled eggs (bottom middle) - Yolks were runny and would join the rendered bacon fat from the pan, and some red wine and balsamic vinegar to form a nice vinaigrette sauce to coat everything.

Absolutely delicious and a great way to experience all of the different textures the squash has to offer. You could easily make this a substantial meal with a good chunk of your favorite bread and a glass of your favorite beverage.

THERE WAS A GREAT BAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTLLLEE!!!

No Mercy

"Sausage and Peppers" and baked potato

Decided to branch out and give Latin flavors a shot for a while- especially since the only source for veggies within walking distance is a Mexican market. The market had some fresh chorizo that looked pretty tasty. I decided to pick up a couple of portions and play around with it this coming week. Still not a huge fan of the fresh stuff. You can't really chop it up/control it as well as the smoked product. This market's chorizo didn't turn out to be very spicy at all- but worked all the same. I am not a fan of bell peppers- so I went with one of its angry distant relatives with the same surname.

Here's what I did:

- Scrubbed a potato and stuck it into a 375F oven for 1 hr +15 min. 

*While the potato cooked*

- Vaccuum sealed the portion of the sausage I was going to eat and stuck it into the immersion circulator set at 160F. I was hoping the sausage might keep its shape and oils/fats if it was cooked to a low temperature- this failed. The sausage kept its shape (and was much easier to sear off in the skillet), but a lot of the fat/juice had boiled out of the casing and into the bag).

- Hot cast iron skillet- added olive oil enough to barely coat the base of the pan, seared off the sausage on either end. Didn't do a whole lot since the portion that really had contact with the pan was a narrow strip on either end. 

**Hindsight- Probably should have sliced the sausage into bit sized rings and seared them off on either end in the pan- will do next time (would work especially well if stacked)**       

- Onions- I cut an onion in half, and diced some thick rings- I wanted them to have a meaty texture and not break down quite as fast. In they went with the sausage along with all the juices from the vacuum bag the sausage cooked in. 

Added:

- Serrano Peppers 

- Dried thyme

- Salt + Pepper

- Pimenton

Cooked on high until most of the juice had boiled down, added:

- Red Wine Vinegar

- Lime juice

- Coors Light Beer (and finished the can with dinner)

Looked alright, but I had some more produce to spruce it up texturally. Added some diced raw tomatoes and some finely sliced raw serranos (since the cooked ones had lost all their color and texture to the pan-sauce). I wanted to try slicing the baked potato thinly so I could use each as a base to pile on the onion and pepper mixture and sausage. 

** Hindsight- These would be better off caramelized under a broiler w/ a little oil and then re-assembled for  plating***

- Topped everything with reduced pan juices, some Balsamic vinegar, and a little olive oil (picture was taken just prior to the balsamic and oil) and lime zest (which turned out to be irrelevant) 

Everything worked well together- The sweetness of the Onions and balsamic balanced well against the heavy heat and acidity in the dish. Slicing the potato that way made it much easier to eat- although not as visually homey as one turned into a boat and fluffed with a nice knob of butter. 

Next time I think I am going to try and keep everything in relative rings- maybe by baking each component individually on a sheet, and then layering it like a fallen tower on the plate. Alternating rings of potato, chorizo, whole round braised onions, peppers, all covered in the pan sauce. The diner could then easily take in forkfuls of each of the major components of the dish. Oh- and cilantro is 100% going in over the lime-zest in all future versions of this dish (all the cilantro the store had was old and not worth it when I visited today).

Helpful Cooking Tip #10 - Heat Explained

Helpful Cooking Tip #10 - Make sure there is a liquid or fat in your pan

Most cooks have sort of a vague notion about how heat transfers to the food they cook. Electric stoves are all the rage, and they typically use heat settings distributed in a uniform way- either from 1 to 10 or low, med, and high (with some settings in between). What those numbers or settings correspond to is the amount of time that the coil which your pan sits on is activated. When active, electricity is sent through the coil, heating it up to temperatures much hotter than anything your food will end up being. When you sit a pan on the coil, the heat from the coil transfers over to and across the area of the pan. Sticking something into the pan allows the heat to in turn transfer from the pan to your food. That is why setting most consumer pans on a coil set to high with nothing in them will ruin the pan because the metal gets too hot and starts melting/warping/tempering, but by placing water or any other substance to absorb and radiate the excess heat in the form of steam, the pot will be fine. Cast iron pans are especially great because they can disperse heat across the pan very well, reducing specific "hot spot" points where the pan might be dramatically hotter or cooler than corresponding. They are also tend to be more heavily constructed than other pans, making them more durable and resistant to especially high heat. Plus, they can go straight from the range to under a broiler/in a hot oven with ease.

Perfectly Cooked Steak:
- Requires high heat/oven safe pan (cast iron is great)
- Steak
- Fat w/ high smoke point (corn or canola oil is most common - has a higher smoke point than olive oil)
- Cooking thermometer (digital is typically better because they give a more accurate/faster reading)

Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350F
- Add a little vegetable oil/fat with a high smoke point
- Turn the burners on high
- Wait until the oil gets hot- almost smoking (will start to shimmer)
- Add your steak and make sure to drag it around the pan a big to coat the bottom layer in oil so it doesn't stick/burn
- Once the bottom side has enough color for you, flip the steak, and spread it around the pan to coat the new side initially just as you did with the other side.
- Once both sides of the steak look pleasingly caramelized, stick the pan into the oven until the internal center temperature of the steak reaches the desired doneness you'd like- I'd start probing every 5-10 minutes until your steak is close (but remember, each time you open the oven door the oven's internal temperature drops) :

140-145F Rare
145-150F Medium Rare/Medium
150-155F Medium/Medium-well
160F+ Well done

Make sure an let the steak rest for a couple of minutes after cooking so that the juices that have dispersed from the outer "well done" areas of the steak settle back evenly through the meat. Enjoy.

Helpful Cooking Tip #9 - Have fun

Helpful Cooking Tip #9 - Have fun

Cook food that YOU want to eat and that YOU enjoy, and try to have fun. Play music or turn up the television, decorate the kitchen in an appealing (yet functional) way, and get the tools to make the technical process simpler. The worse thing to happen to the amateur cook is to become discouraged and swear off cooking forever. Not everything you cook will be flawless, but with time, practice, and constructive criticism, you will eventually be able to turn out perfection (or close enough to it) with ease.

Helpful Cooking Tip #8 - Take advantage of color

Helpful Cooking Tip #8 - Take advantage of color

We eat with our eyes (normally) before any other sense can contribute to our experience. Our eyes can't sample aroma or taste flavor, but they do devour light. Just as with texture, color is an excellent medium that can be used to enhance a dish.

What most people don't realize is that color actually can impact the diner's enjoyment of the dish at the psychological level. Studies have been done to determine whether we get more satisfaction from the anticipation of a reward or receiving that ward. Essentially whether you happier about being told your about to receive a cookie compared against the happiness you get from eating it. If I remember correctly, the potential for the pleasurable experience clearly induces more happiness (in the form of dopamine). In fact, psychologists have pointed to this aspect as a way to rationalize how people become addicted to gambling- the thought of winning $25 for .25c actually makes you happier than if you win the $25. What this means is that if your food looks really good, your diners are going to get a greater hit of dopamine in their brains and consequently enjoy the overall experience more than if they were blindfolded. That being said, in the event that your food looks unappetizing, it might be a good idea to bust out the bandannas and have your guests try your food initially without the use of their eyes.  

Whenever cooking, I always try to incorporate the most vibrant colors possible. If the main dish comes out looking a little dull or one note, give it some additional flare by adding some colorful condiments. I don't think I would ever add an ingredient solely for color (seems sort of silly), but if it adds something else that contributes to the taste of the food (texture, flavor, smell) I think the addition is easily justifiable.

So in addition to playing with texture, utilize products with vivid color to enhance the eye appeal of your food.

Helpful Cooking Tip #7 - Use different textures to make your food interesting

Helpful Cooking Tip #7 - Use different textures to make your food interesting

In addition to using good quality ingredients, it is important to utilize texture. An ingredient like a potato can be soft, fluffy, creamy, or crispy, all depending on how it is cooked. The same is true for most veggies.

Use the textures of your ingredients to enhance whatever your dish is showcasing. Take a classic from childhood- the cupcake. I personally have a deep spot in my heart for the "yellow" cake based treats- I love the subtle egginess that nicely contrasts with chocolate frosting, and of course topped off with rainbow colored sprinkles (I prefer the flat disks over the miniature pill shaped ones). Looking at the cupcake through a different lens, we see it balances the soft texture of the cake itself with the creaminess of the frosting on top (also giving you a little sweet lubrication so you don't start choking on the dry cake) and of course the tiny crunchy bits provided by our sprinkles. A simple harmony of textures that makes a cupcake interesting to eat.

Think of the foods you personally enjoy, and try to figure out the multitudes of textures that intertwine in the dish. Vietnamese Pho, a good sandwich, spaghetti and meatballs, a taco (Mexican or American style), a gyro, and most salads are all examples of foods that utilize a diversity of textures to help achieve their deliciousness. In some cases, these different textural elements just stack to provide an extremely complex result. In others, the addition of a singular contrasting element can help reinforce the texture you are trying to showcase. What better way to make a baked potato interesting than by adding sour cream (smooth/creamy), diced scallions (crisp veggie texture), and bacon bits (very crispy/crunchy). While texture is important, I imagine these ingredients are also chosen because they bring some contrasting flavors to the somewhat naturally bland potato.

Think of cooking like art, and use texture as a tool just as painter or sculptor might use it to highlight and enhance their end product.    

Helpful Cooking Tip #6 - Slow and Steady

Helpful Cooking Tip #6 - Slow and Steady

Another common mistake that can lead an amateur cook to disaster is trying to move too quickly. Cooking isn't fun for all people, especially those that have had particularly bad luck in the past. The natural inclination for those that don't like to do it is to get it over with as fast as possible. Typically that means higher heat and less planning/preparation. A couple of things to realize:

- You can always add heat to an undercooked item, but once something is over cooked it can never revert back (think of a raw egg vs. a fried egg). Many artists start their drawings in light pencil that can easily be erased so that the components of the picture can still be easily changed until they are ready to be permanent. Cooks can do effectively the same thing by dialing down the heat.

- Preparing ahead of time helps prevent panic. Take time to prepare initial ingredients ahead of time if you are working off of a recipe. Read the recipe a few times so that you are familiar with everything you are about to do. Find gaps (if there are any) in the active cooking time so that you can prepare ingredients for later steps while the food presently cooking can sit unattended. If there is nothing to actively prepare during these periods, use the empty time to clean up the kitchen or your workspace. If you aren't working off a recipe, plan out how you are going to cook your dish either mentally or on paper (which I find is more useful), and follow the same basic guidelines.

- Planing helps prevent forgetfulness. I have been in countless situations where I had intended to include a specific ingredient in a dish and then realized I completely forgot about it after it was too late. Plan ahead of time and set your workspace up in such a way that you can easily access and use the ingredients you intend to use. Making checklists can also help in this regard.

- If you have a big party, start making the food days in advance, and cook things to the point that you can easily finish the dishes the day of. It also gives you some leeway if something gets screwed up or burned. Two days before your Mom's birthday party you can remake a pork shoulder that accidentally was left in the oven too long, but if you are cooking it the day of, you likely won't be eating pork shoulder for dinner. Additionally, when you cook ahead of time, you have a lot more freedom to break up the cooking times so the process isn't quite so overwhelming the day you intend to eat.

Helpful Cooking Tip #5 - Risk For Reward

The greatest things in life come in all different shapes and packages. Part of elevating your mindset about food and cooking requires you to step out into uncharted territory and try new things (especially if your palate has led a sheltered existence). The next time you go out to your favorite Hole-In-The-Wall, order something different from the usual. If the restaurant offers anything you've personally been interested in tasting, give it a shot. If you live in a city with many food options, pick a cuisine you are unfamiliar with, and go on a food fact finding mission. These are especially fun and cost effective the more people that are involved.

Worst case scenario (assuming you are eating at a place that cares about food safety), you don't enjoy the dish and lose what you paid for it. 

Best case- you find a new favorite food at the place you frequent. 

Helpful Cooking Tip #4 - Planning For Perfection

One of the most important "secrets" to cooking great tasting food is careful planning. Different components of your end meal cook at different rates. You need to plan out your time and preparation so that when it's time to eat, all of your food is ready to go and just finishing. This might sound too complicated, but let me demonstrate with a classic BBQing dilemma: 

Lets say you are cooking chicken at a BBQ. You have legs/thighs and chicken breasts. If you throw them all on at the same time, either the legs are going to be undercooked/impossibly tough to eat or the chicken breasts are going to be completely overcooked. Why?

Dark meat has to get up to a much higher internal heat before it starts to breakdown and flake off. I think food safety standards say you should cook dark meat until an ***internal temp reading*** registers 185F - but you probably want to go slightly higher than that to get meat that just slips off the bone. It is very difficult to overcook dark meat (but easy to burn if you are using high heat). Even on a low setting, the heat coming off the burners in a BBQ is well above 185F. Just shut the lid and let the thighs cook (effectively cooking them in an environment similar in principle to an oven).  

Breast meat typically is made of a different type of muscle and has dramatically less internal fat that needs to break down. You can cook it on low or high heat, it doesn't really matter. You want to cook it long enough so that its internal temperature reads at least 145F. Depending on the relative thickness of the breast and heat of the BBQ, this could mean 1-2 mins on high on each side, or much longer on a lower setting. Once the internal chicken temp passes 160F, it's "well done" and not going to change anymore. At that point, the longer you cook it, you are just increasing the tissue breakdown of the muscle, causing fluid from the cells to breach the walls and spill out- resulting in dry chicken. I prefer chicken breast that is cooked to between 145-150F. It is still juicy but not pink. 

Putting these facts together, we can solve our chicken BBQ dilemma:

1. While heating up the BBQ, we stick the chicken thighs on- keep it on a medium/low setting initially, and use a food thermometer to figure out where the internal temp of your chicken thighs are. Remember- if the pieces are of different sizes, you are going to want to base your end decision on the thickest chunk. If smaller pieces get close to finishing early, just pull them out and stick them in a pan off the heat. Put them back on at the end when the heats gets kicked up for the breasts. 

2. Once the thighs are close to be ready for finishing (around 185F in the center), crank the BBQ up to high. That high heat is going to help sear the outside and get a nice crust to provide contrast between the exterior and the hopefully juicy interior. But if it is on high, you probably need to hold your attention temporarily at the BBQ. Just set aside 10 min or so (depending on amount of chicken) where you minimize distractions and you should be fine. Remember, internal temps on the chicken breasts need to be at least 145F, but they all tend to cook much more uniformly than the legs since they are solid chunks of muscle without bones. So once one breast is finished, all the other ones of the same size should be done (or close to it) as well.

Make sure to marinade ahead of time, finish with some glaze or sauce, and prepare to blast off to chicken bliss. 

Helpful Cooking Tip #3 - Heat is your friend

Helpful Cooking Tip #3 - Heat is your friend

One of the easiest ways to make food that tastes and looks great is to take ample advantage of the scientific process called the Maillard reaction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction). This reaction is responsible for food browning in the pan, developing distinctly nutty or toasty notes, and a crust. It dramatically increases flavor and only comes at a cost of a little extra attention. For it to work, there needs to be high heat (310F+). Often times you want to use some kind of fat lightly applied over what you are cooking to prevent sticking and burning (and for a little extra flavor/texture- especially if the thing(s) you are cooking have very little fat in them). But that is it- high heat + time (and a little fat to prevent sticking)

You have to be more vigilant the higher the heat you are using. The difference between perfect and inedible when something is placed under a broiler is often a function of seconds, but don't worry until it gets close, and try to error on the "safe" under-browned side if you are unsure. If you keep burning things, drop down your "go to" setting to brown foods to a level that works slower until you develop a better feel/awareness for the timing. 

If you are going to be visiting with guests or unable to keep close watch once your food starts getting into the precarious zone, drop down the heat or just turn off/take it out of the oven until you are ready to finish it. Leaving things in the oven to "keep them warm" often does very little other than simply dries thing out and keeps them lukewarm. You are better off quickly finishing everything at once under a broiler right before you bring your dishes to the table than finishing them off sequentially a head of time and just letting them sit under an effective heat lamp.  

Addi's Diner

Anyone driving into Springfield from Glenwood/Eugene invariably passes by the place just before they reach the Springfield bus station.

Addi's Diner stands as a tiny white and red throwback to a Coca-cola era with tin signs and Elvis records plastered to the walls. Though everything on the tables and walls had to be decades old, the place was immaculately clean and the staff seemed very nice.

Menu- really not many option. Classic combinations or mix and matches of eggs, bacon, sausage, steak, etc. I had read a blog prior to visiting that said that the hotcakes are the things to get. You can sub out your potatoes and toast that come with your meal for one if you'd prefer. Trust me, there is no way that the potatoes and toast could be half as filling as the singular hotcake (sold by itself for $3.25). I used to be a big guy with an exceptionally healthy appetite. If someone stuck a gun to my head, I could probably pound down 2 McD's value meals in a sitting... I got about 1/3rd of the way through the hotcake and hit "the wall." Aside from being giant, the hotcake is perfectly cooked- thick but not pasty or doughy, with nice crispy edges/crust that provides the perfect contrast to its delicately fluffy interior. The cake comes with a nice chunk of butter and half a Snapple bottle full (literally) of syrup.

I ordered the eggs and diced bacon and then subbed out the rest of the meal for the hotcake. The eggs and bacon were fairly unremarkable - I am guessing the cook just fixed the bacon and eggs together and then chopped them up on the griddle. Eggs ended up really dry and the bacon pieces were cooked but not crispy.

The hotcake, however, completely lived up to its expectations. I made the mistake of trying to spread the syrup and butter over the whole cake. Next time, I think it is just going to just eat a giant chunk out of the center and make a well right in the middle of the plate for dipping each bite. The problem with spreading the syrup out initially is that it over-soaks into the cake and makes it mushy.

By the time I threw in the towel, I made it about 1/2- 2/3rds of the way through one, but hard to tell since I had haphazardly eaten from the outer edge in. Whole bill came to $6.50.

I think there is probably no better deal from Wednesday to Sundays (open at 7 am) for breakfast than a hotcake at Addi's Diner for $3.25. I don't think the small portion of eggs and bacon they bring out alongside the meal is worth the extra $3.25 for the breakfast plate itself, but the hotcake alone has to be one of the best deals (quality/value for price) in Springfield.

Brainfood!

There is a distributor for a local meat processing plant literally 3 blocks from my house, and they sell smoked pork chops (from locally raised pigs) for about $2 a pop in 4 packs. Combined with 2 eggs fried in the rendered pan fat of the pork chop and hit with salt, pepper, and a dash of Dave's "temporary" (out of the real stuff) insanity sauce- you have a delicious and healthy breakfast that will carry you through the day without feeling the hypoglycemic crashes of a carbohydrate based meal. And guess what your brain actually runs the most efficiently on? Fat! Especially the saturated fats in animal products. So eggs and porkchops may calorically look bad, but don't believe any ignorant person that might tell you that together they are an "unhealthy meal."

Together, the two contain the fats your body needs for your brain to function efficiently and the proteins your body needs to harvest amino acids to do most of the other functions that are not fulfilled by the fats you consume. Your body synthesizes fat in a more efficient way than carbohydrates. Fat's don't immediately charge your body with energy (chains of basic sugars) causing a spike in your blood sugar level.

When your blood sugar level starts increasing rapidly, your brain figurately screams "Oh SH**T!," and to prevent you from slipping into a diabetic coma, slams a giant panic button releasing insulin from your pancreas into your bloodstream to bring your bloodsugar levels back down. But Uh Oh, a second warning mechanism fires off, your blood sugar is now dropping really fast- faster than normal. Your brain thinks you must now suddenly be starving. EAT SOMETHING! FEEL HUNGER!!! Those super caloric donuts or pieces of bread- eat them and fast- MUST GET BACK TO NORMAL! That's why you start craving to eat more food even though you might have just polished off enough raw energy (calories) to fuel you for an entire day. Stop listening to your brain- listen to your body. When your tummy rumbles and you actually feel hunger pains, that's when you give your brain the autonomy to use its creative imagination to decide what to eat. No diets are necessary.

Our bodies adapt to our environment, and if you *keep* giving a mouse more and more cookies, eventually he gets used to eating tons of cookies. And to get the same satisfaction he used to get from just eating one, he has to eat 100s. That's the curse that comes with being greedy (implicit all the way down to the basic mathematic level- demonstrated in the economic law of diminishing returns) with the satisfaction one gets from food and with anything in general.

I think next time I am going to sear the pork chop off on both sides in the pan to get better carmelization since the convection oven broiler side didn't color it at all before the egg yolks started firming up.

Helpful Cooking Tip #2 - Practice Makes Perfect

Helpful Cooking Tip #2 - Practice Makes Perfect

I always cringe when I hear someone say, "Oh, he was born to cook," or, "He's just naturally gifted at cooking and I am not." I cringe for two reasons:

1. Completely not true- it's like looking at an NFL lineman and saying that he was "born" to play football. He popped out of his mother's womb a 350lb tank with all of the plays and situational awareness already pre-programed into his brain! No, it was probably decades of hard work that brought that gentleman to where he is now, and saying that his achievements are a function of the genetic lottery is as wrong as it is insulting. Yes, some people are born with body types incapable of being competitive NFL linemen, but those that are "lucky" enough still have to put in a tremendous amount of work to be capable of playing at that level. The same is true with cooks. Behind every picture perfect cake or casserole is likely a graveyard of burnt or undercooked abominations whose hideous deformities ensured that the cook would never make the same mistakes again.

2. ANYONE CAN LEARN TO COOK. You know those restaurants you eat at? I bet that 1/2 the kitchen staff in the back can't speak English and literally learned to cook that food that you so love in a day or two- and not because they are international cooking savants. The back end of a kitchen is closer to an assembly line than a culinary artist's studio. Cooking isn't a quarter as complex as most people think it is. Stop lying to yourself and get proactive. Go on Amazon.com, pick a style or regional cuisine or even a generic cookbook that is highly rated, and either pick it up from your local bookstore or order it online. Then read it until you understand why the author is telling you to do the things his/her recipes tell you to do. Think critically about the food you do eat, and copy anything you like.

No one is the perfect cook right out the gates. You are going to have some disasters- I certainly have. You are going to burn things, over and under cook things, under and over season, and have things that you thought were cooked perfectly come out awful.

LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES SO YOU DON'T REPEAT THEM.

If you need to set timers, do it. Don't let anyone embarrass you if you use short cuts or simplistic recipes. Find out and do what works best for you, (but that isn't an excuse to act stupidly or to ever give up on what you want) and don't let anyone guilt you into thinking otherwise. Just imagine, Phil Mickelson or Tiger Woods were both probably jeered about their golf abilities by different people at multiple points in their life (though probably with less frequency or impact in their recent years). I can assure you that when you start whipping out dishes that people would happily pay $15 per/portion, no one is going to have anything to laugh at. It's literally just a function of the right education and proper amount of experience.

Read and watch as much media on cooking as you can. You'll find that cooking isn't alchemy or magic, that good food is guided by a couple of basic principles and techniques. The more you cook, the more you will see these similarities across the dishes that you make, and the better you will be able to improvise. Just laugh and learn from your mistakes (and have a good delivery/take out option ready just in case). Overtime, your relative balance of successes to failures should swing in your favor, and the more you cook, the better cook you will become. More importantly, you will be comfortable in the kitchen, and no longer intimidated by cooking.

Helpful Cooking Tip #1 - Buying For Quality

Going to try and do daily cooking tips to force myself to keep updating...

Helpful Cooking Tip #1 - Buying For Quality

One of the most standard problems that most home cooks have is their virtual stinginess when it comes to the products they use in cooking. Generic bargain brands taste the same as the "real" stuff, right? Sometimes- yes. There are some products where it is almost impossible to tell the two apart- Salts (brand wise), Celery,  etc. Think of things which you contribute to the greater whole as opposed to the ingredients that you are really showcasing in a dish. Generic brands tend to drop in quality directly correlating with more ingredients/processing effort. Why? Well, they are cheaper for a reason. In many cases, it is because they are using the cheapest products they can find to make their product. Making one more logical leap, the cheapest quality produce/meat sold at market is likely to be of lower quality than the stuff that can actually be sold at a higher price.

"Hold on," you say, "Chefs are always talking about cheap cuts of meat being the tastiest and their not expensive!" Very true, there is a slight problem though. These cuts are cheap for a reason- they need time to get where they are edible/delicious (i.e. 3-4+ hours slow and low). You can't sear off a slab of chuck or shoulder and expect to be able to eat it like a tenderloin. All the intramuscular fat will make it akin to chomping into a nice slab of beef flavored rubber. But when you cook the meat low and slow- that fat renders and the meat falls apart.  

However, often times, even these "lower end" cuts are still often too expensive for generic manufacturers, especially if we are talking about stuff that can be blended together so that visually and texturally the quality of the initial ingredients just doesn't matter. For them, the amount of beef in their product is a statistic as apposed to something tangible (i.e. 10%  or 12% of product weight is "meat"). They are looking for food grade beef that is slightly above what the dog food manufacturers look for. If their primary selling point is that they are cheaper/bigger than their competitors, that's what the company cares about maintaining. Taste is an after thought. If you fry it or cover it in dough, add the right amount of high fructose corn syrup, salt, pepper, and textured soy filler, even dog food could probably be made to taste palatable to a human.  

Benefits of buying quality:

1. Easy to cook- if you start out with ingredients that taste great even in their "raw" form, you actually have to massively screw up when you cook to come out with something that doesn't taste good. Take a salad for example. If all the parts going into a salad, the lettuce, the onion, the tomatoes, the cheese, etc. all taste great individually, they are probably going to taste just as good or better together. Simple concept. 

2. More nutrients. Do you know why Safeway can sell tomatoes at 1/3rd of the price of a small farmer at a market? A couple of reasons:

• It is probably a variety of tomato bred (literally) for shape, color, and shelf-life. Most people have little understanding about the food they eat. So when they see a gnarled up heirloom variety that looks like something out of a horror film contrasted with a softball globe beefsteak that is half as expensive, which is the average shopper reaching for? I'll give you a hint, it isn't the one that tastes better or has the most nutrients. 
• Unfortunately, nutrient dense produce spoils very fast. This is because there are actually things in the vegetables that the billions of little bacteria floating around microscopically in the air can/want to eat. Supermarkets don't like nutrient dense produce not because they purposely want to sell you garbage, but because spoiled produce = lost profits. Pure and simple. So even though you are paying twice as much for a tomato, all tomatoes are not created equally. 
• That beefsteak sitting in the produce bin was probably picked weeks ago, shipped up, and gassed to induce ripening. Even though it was picked weeks prior, once ripened, it will last longer than a heritage variety picked at the same time. And that is literally what the plant varieties sold in most major grocery stores have been selected to do (in the same way that most dog breeds were bred for specific activities).  
• Stores can import from warm tropical countries where these varieties can be grown year round due to climate, taking advantage of cost effective economies of scale, whereas the American farmers are somewhat handcuffed by Mother Nature.
• Most consumers have unrefined palates and (unless they focus really hard) they literally are incapable of distinguishing the difference between a tomato that is rich in nutrients and one that isn't, especially if the ingredient isn't being showcased in the dish

3.  Nutrient dense food tastes better and keeps you going longer. Try eating a McDonalds cheeseburger and see how long until you feel hungry again, then try to "re-create" the same cheeseburger using roughly the same amount but better quality ingredients (approximate or cut the burger in half if you have to). In all likelihood, you should feel full longer from the latter cheeseburger than you would the former. Why? Because you are getting exponentially more substances your body needs to function in the latter burger. 

4. You don't need to eat/use as much of the stuff when it is good quality. A true balsamic vinegar has the viscosity of syrup, is much less acidic, and has dramatically more complex flavor than its cheaper imitators. If you don't believe me, go to a place where they do olive oil/vinegar samplings and see for yourself. It's worth springing that extra $2-5 on the bottle when you only have to use 1/2 to 1/4 as much each time you use it.

Disadvantages:

A. Price- Yes, you have to pay more for the good stuff. But if you plan ahead, buy things that freeze well in bulk, and do your best to ensure you are not wasting anything, you'll find that it really isn't that much more expensive (or that you can use less of the expensive products and pop out with something tasting twice as good as if you used double the lower quality stuff). 

B. Convenience - I know that the busy shopper wants to go to a single giant Super Walmart where they can buy everything they need for the month and not give shopping a second thought. Good quality can be found for cheap, but you often have to go out and visit your local butcher or baker's shop (which unfortunately isn't conveniently located next to the hardware aisle or place where you can pick up laundry detergent). You'd be shocked at what you've probably settled for at Albertsons when you could have gone around the corner and found something much better...

So- Cliffnotes:
Buying Quality=
- More nutrients
- Better tasting
- Easier to cook
- More satisfaction/pleasure
- Can be more expensive
- Often not as convenient

Made it to Springfield

Made the move successfully to OR last weekend. Unfortunately, the new place still needs an internet connection (which should be set up by this coming weekend). 

The house is old and funky, but absolutely perfect- and the new roommate is awesome. 

Everyone up here is just so much more laid back and happy to help than in Sacramento.

As soon as my internet hookup gets set, going to be uploading a bunch of pictures. Here are some basic pictures of the house and kitchen in the mean time.

Cooking:

Had some extra frozen chopped spinach and mixed it with some large chunks of napa cabbage. After defrosting and squeezing the moisture out of the spinach, I cooked both with some sesame oil, shaoxing rice wine, and some soy sauce. Finished it off with some combo pork/chicken stock I had frozen. Had the look and texture of collard greens with distinct Asian notes, but not greasy at all. 

Topped it off with cuts off of a Beef Round Eye tenderloin that I had souvided to medium rare in sesame oil, dave's insanity sauce, shaoxing rice wine, and soy sauce- then cut steaks and seared them off in the pan. 

The red dots around the plate are deposits of siracha, just in case anyone wanted a little more pain. Turned out better than I could have hoped. The combo of spinach and the napa actually worked great. Perfect meal to share at 1AM.

Long's Meat Market

It warms me to experience honest and genuine service when it is completely unprompted and unexpected. On the last night of my trip up to Eugene to set plans for the move in the coming weeks, I wanted to really cook something for my host (and potential future roommate), so I set about getting the ingredients to make my rendition of a French Onion Soup. I like to use Mirror Pond Pale Ale instead of kirsch, and incorporating raw spring and red onions as a garnish for additional texture and color (all of those ideas are borrowed from the preparation of the soup at the Deschutes Brewery's Pub in Bend- a place I would highly recommend). I also would have floated it with some broiled chevre (for tang) and emmenthaler cheese (for contrast and texture) on top- but I literally forgot to buy one of the cheeses- and then forgot to garnish with the one that I did have. 


... But back to Long's Meat Market


My host recommended Long's as a good place for picking up the bones that I would need for makings the stock. I should have just purchased the stuff they had in the cold case buy the door, but we came in on the opposite side of the shop and I didn't notice the case until I was leaving. While on on the other side of the store, however, I picked up a bottled root beer since I was pretty thirsty. I knew just by their cheese selection that the place was going to be great. It is akin to visiting a new restaurant, cracking open the menu, and wanting to try a bite off everything the place serves. 


I am confident in my ability to distinguish between pretension and pure quality- and Longs has very little of the former and cases full of the latter. I am sure their prices aren't as cheap as bargain brands. However, when buying meat at Long's, you are literally getting a more nutrient dense product for your money. This is because the meat is  straight off the carcass, natural, and not pumped with water (or products intended to increase the meat's absorption of that water). So while the raw weight of the product you are buying at a Safeway may be less per pound, all of your "savings" can be found in those extra items tacked onto the end of the "Chicken" or "Beef".. i.e. water + salt + ? in the package ingredient list. Go out and check a package of chicken breasts in the freezer or "fresh" packaged meat section of your favorite large-chain supermarket if you are curious. I once watched an online video of Heston Blumenthal literally doubling the weight of a chicken breast using a syringe, salt water, and a chemical additive designed to increase the absorption of fluids in the cell walls of meat. The cut of chicken slowly inflated, but didn't have any kind of noticeable bulges (just looked a lot bigger than it did originally) . Even if the bargain brands are 1/2 as much, you can probably still buy more actual meat for the money (instead of meat + added water) when you buy from Long's. 


So I needed to make beef broth for my rendition of the soup, and began to make my way to the Beef side of the meat counter. This was quite difficult, because (to borrow a joke from Patton Oswald) I literally felt like Templeton the rat at the fair in Charlotte's Web.


Gazing at Long's awesome selection in the case, I spied some excellent stew meat. Yes, even their "stew" meat looked delicious. I can't remember if the actual meat cut was listed, but generically I think it is shoulder and leg pieces. Essentially it is cut from the places on the animal that are doing a lot of work, so there is a lot of intramuscular fat deep in the muscle. That fat renders slowly over time, making these stewing cuts more tender in longer cooking applications than their leaner cousins. I also noticed Long's unfortunately didn't have any beef bones for sale.


I decided to break from tradition further and snap up some of that picture perfect (literally) stew meat, since "Why not?," there really wasn't anything "French" about the soup at this point anyway. Everything planned to go into it, short of salt and pepper, was/were coming from either Eugene, OR, or the surrounding areas.  


After getting the stew meat, I asked the gentleman that began assisting me on the other side of the case if they had any beef bones they might sell me. He smiled and said "Let me check," and walked over to a covered counter with a large covered partial carcass. He cut me off a large piece (not sure what it was off of but it had a lot of meat on it that I cut off and added to the soup when I finally removed the bone. I probably would have had to pay 5 dollars for something like that from a Sacramento market or butcher shop. My half pound of stew meat, bone, and Root beer ($1) rang up to just under $4. I didn't realize it at the time, but I wasn't even charged for the bone. 


The soup turned out great despite my forgetfulness, but I felt the need to extend a special thanks to Long's Meat Market for their hospitality. 


As I was leaving, I noticed a newspaper clipping (or copy maybe?) of an article reviewing Long's. The story featured a picture of the gentleman who was assisting me, owner Mike Wooley. 


Thanks for the great level of professionalism and the quality of the products that your store sells, Mike. I hope the natives of Eugene really appreciate the amount of effort you put in to stocking the best quality products, resulting in Long's Meat Market being an exceptional resource for local gourmets and amateurs alike.

  
The only picture I managed to snap from the store- but you can visit their website at http://www.longsmeatmarket.com/index.htm

Back in Sacramento

Eugene was absolutely awesome. Just everything about it was great. It has an amazing food scene, beautiful lush green landscapes, and is populated by a bunch of really nice people. Highlight of the trip was definitely visiting the Saturday Market downtown- but it was exceptionally relaxing to see the area in person. I know I am going to love it up there. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip...

Trip to Oregon

Going to be leaving tomorrow to visit Eugene, see U of O, and setting up formal preparations for law school in the fall. Not quite sure when I am going to be back (probably no later than middle of next week).

Here's the game plan....

North on I-5 starting in Sacramento and moving up to Corning --> Stop off at the Olive Pit --> Continuing up I-5 with a planned stop in Redding.

Continuing up from Redding --> (*possible stop depending on time) one of these small towns --> continuing on to Ashland --> home stretch to Eugene.