Roasted Cranberry Sauce

One of Oregon’s food exports is the cranberry, accounting for about 5% of the nationwide harvest. This year, we bought some local cranberries to make into cranberry sauce. My first time ever. Historically, it was Dad’s job (which he relished a lot) to make the cranberry sauce. His was usually ground up with oranges, sugar and nuts. I always tried some, but never LOVED it. But when I saw Nick post a Roasted Cranberry Sauce recipe, I had to try it. Since I don’t have any Triple Sec around, I modified it a bit, but it turned out great. I made it last night so it could mellow in the fridge overnight before the big day. And I daresay, this is the best cranberry sauce I have ever had. Sorry, Dad.

Roasted Cranberry Sauce with Candied Pecans (Adapted from Macheesmo, where it was pretty heavily adapted from a Bon Appétit recipe)
Makes about 3 Cups, easy to double or triple though.

Cranberries:

1 pound fresh cranberries
1 Cup sugar
3 Tablespoons neutral oil
1 Tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced
1 Teaspoon fresh thyme, minced (or 1/4 t. dried)
1 Teaspoon fresh sage, minced (or 1/8 t. sage powder)

Sauce:

1/8 Teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 Cup orange juice
1/4 Cup sugar
1/2 Cup currants (you could sub raisins, but chop them roughly so they aren’t so big)
Pinch of salt

Pecans:

1 Cup pecans, roughly chopped
2 Tablespoons water
1/4 Cup sugar

Instructions:

Mix cranberries, oil, 1 C. sugar, and herbs together in a bowl. Roast at 425°F for 20 minutes, stirring after 10 minutes.
While cranberries are roasting, mix sauce ingredients in a medium sauce pan and simmer for 10 minutes.
Remove cranberries from oven and add to the sauce pan. Simmer for another 2-3 minutes.
While simmering the sauce, mix the pecan ingredients and spread on a baking sheet and roast for 8-10 minutes at 425°F.
Remove nuts from the oven and stir as they cool. Place cooled pecans in an airtight container.
Chill sauce overnight in fridge. Serve heated or chilled, topped with pecans.

Spicy Mediterranean Chili

Recently I participated in a chili contest and this is the recipe that I came up with. I was feeling like making something different than your standard run-of-the-mill chili, so I went with a Mediterranean theme. I was hoping to win the hottest chili award, but I did not. But talking with the two others chefs at the contest who had the other two spiciest chilies, I think it was agreed on that mine was the spiciest. I think that some people just tried two chilies, and voted for the spiciest of those two or something. The one that won was not even remotely spicy. I think it was rigged. Anyway, I digress. I had it all made up and ready to go, but it was lacking a little depth in flavor, so I added a handful of Guittard dark chocolate. That did the trick. It turned it from a rosy red to a nice brown and gave it that je ne sais quoi I was hoping for. Chocolate and chilies are best of friends, right? My chili recipe from last year was not good enough to repeat, but this one most definitely is. If this isn’t hot enough for you (on a scale of one to habenero, I give it a four), you can always add a habenero or even just some hot chili sauce.

Spicy Mediterranean Chili

Original recipe by Vernon Mauery

Ingredients

1 clove garlic, minced
1 large onion, diced
2 carrots, grated
4 jalepeno peppers
3 cherry bomb peppers
3 sweet banana peppers
2 large (or 3 medium) red bell peppers
4 medium tomatoes (about 1 lb.)
2 C. prepared garbanzo beans (~3/4 C. dry)
2 C. prepared black beans (~3/4 C. dry)
1.5 oz. dark chocolate (or bakers chocolate)
1 lb. bone-in lamb shank
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground mustard
salt
water
olive oil

Directions

T-8 hours:
Rub salt on lamb shank and place in crockpot

T-4 hours:
Wash tomatoes and skin them. The easiest way to do this is to blanch them or roast them until the skins come off nicely. Dice them and add them to the crockpot.

Wash peppers and then roast them. The bigger peppers will take longer. Make sure that most of the pepper is charred or the skins will not come off easily. As they come off the grill (or broiler), place them in a covered container to continue to steam themselves. With protective gloves on, skin and core the peppers. You can keep or discard the seeds as desired. Dice the all the peppers except the bell peppers and add them to the crockpot.

Add about one cup of water to the grated carrots in a saute pan. Cover and simmer over medium heat for about 20 minutes. Remove lid, add bell peppers and continue to cook until most of the water has evaporated. Pour mixture into a food processor and puree. Add puree to crockpot.

Add diced onion to the saute pan with about 1 T. olive oil. Saute for 4 minutes over medium heat. Add the garlic and saute for 1 more minute. Add mixture to crockpot.

Add the prepared garbanzo beans, with their water to the crockpot. Discard the water from the black beans and rinse them before adding to the crockpot.

Add cumin, mustard. Add salt as needed (depending on the saltiness of the beans and how much salt was on the meat.)

T-1 hour:
Pull the meat out and coarsly shred it with two forks. Put meat and bone back into the crockpot.

Add chocolate and stir until melted and dispersed throughout. Adjust spices as desired.

Serving Suggestion:
Serve with pita bread, chopped green olives, and feta cheese.

Nouveau Baked Beans

When you think of baked beans, you usually mentally insert Boston at the front. These are not Boston Baked Beans. More like Chickpea Popcorn or something. They make a great, tasty, healthful snack.

Nouveau Baked Beans

2 C. cooked garbanzo beans (~ 3/4 C. dry beans, prepared)
olive oil
seasonings

Coat the beans in olive oil and bake on a cookie sheet at 425°F for 15-17 minutes or until starting to brown. Take care, the beans hiss, spit, pop and jump while baking. You may want to stir them part way through. Remove beans from oven and toss with seasonings. Try salt and pepper, curry powder, cumin, or any other flavor you like. Eat as an appetizer or add to a salad. Mmmm.

Artisan Breads Every Day and Sourdough Pizza

Over this past year, I have been testing recipes for Peter Reinhart’s new book, artisan breads every day. The goal of this book was to find a way to get the full flavor that delayed fermentation offers, but to make the preparation time shorter. Or something. I don’t know, because with the delayed fermentation plan, you mix the dough and then bake the next day. Not a lot of involvement in the middle.

But one thing that this book did offer was something along the lines of the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day style of making a bulk pre-ferment and then using a part of it each day for up to five days and baking a fresh loaf from that. This actually makes some really good French bread. One of my favorite recipes was the “same day french bread”, which uses a pre-ferment to pull in extra flavor. It is called same-day because you don’t count making the pre-ferment for some reason (maybe because you can also use it for the next 4 days). But that was some of the best French bread I have ever made. And in the process of testing these recipes, I learned the importance of the “stretch and fold” technique. This is the best way to strengthen the gluten in a very wet dough. Even a dough that has 70% or more hydration can become smooth and workable with the stretch and fold. After doing this, I found that my freestanding loaves gained 50% in height, rather than being so flat.

Part of the reason I though I would write this was that I chose to make some sourdough pizza dough from this book for our Friday night pizza night yesterday. Mmmmm. I do love good sourdough. The dough turned out to be very tasty, though I think next time I will leave out the honey since I think it made the crust brown too quickly. Our old oven died about three weeks ago and our new oven can bake at up to 550°F, which is about where you should be cooking pizza, but not having experience with those extra 50 degrees is making pizza baking interesting. As far as the rest of the family goes, they say they prefer the original Pizza Napoletana recipe from Peter’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice book. That is a darn good pizza dough recipe, so it is hard to beat it. But I have to mix it up every now and then or we wouldn’t ever know if something better came along.

I will likely write more about Artisan Breads Every Day another time, as I find time to work through the recipes. Can anyone say Chocolate Croissants?

Praise for Heirloom Crops

In 2008 and 2009, we purchased seeds from Seed Savers and have been saving them. Last year, we saved some pea seeds (Green Arrow), some tomato seeds (Bloody Butcher) and some sweet pepper seeds (Tequila Sunrise). This year, we expanded the varieties and also saved some green bean seeds (Empress), and more tomato seeds (Siberian and Stupice). The King of the North sweet pepper seeds were not quite fully developed, but there are still some left in the package from this year’s planting. The mini sunflower seeds were some volunteers in our garden, likely planted by our neighbor’s trained squirrels. The sunflowers may or may not germinate next year, but I think the rest of the seeds will.

This year’s growing season in Portland was longer than last year and much more productive. We ended up at the end of the season with a tub of tomatoes and peppers. We had several meals with fresh picked green beans. Since it was good for everything else, the peas were not happy. They died out a little too fast in the warm weather. I think it was the week of 100+°F that did them in. But we saved plenty of seed for next year. I think the King of the North peppers would have done better, but they were hit hard by a slug infestation early on. The slugs ate half the leaves on the plants, forcing them to spend energy on growing new leaves instead of peppers. But we did get some small ones by the end of the season. I think this year may have me giving up on leaf crops for a while. After two years of failure on the lettuce front, we tried swiss chard this year. It grew, but never got very big, so we didn’t pick any. By the time we did pick it, it was very tough and a little bitter. Next year, I think we will focus more on the beans, peas, tomatoes and peppers. Oh. And the basil. That failed miserably too. I finally gave in and picked up some starts from the farmer’s market.

Next year, I think we will start the tomatoes and peppers outside in a makeshift greenhouse so they can get more sunlight and yet not freeze at night. I learned that peppers need warm nights to grow and tomatoes need some chilly nights in order to not get too ‘leggy’ like ours did this year, growing in our house. We will see. I had quite a green thumb as a child, but I also had parents that knew their way around a garden to make sure I didn’t kill things. On my own, the garden is much trickier. 🙂

Flu Season

Flu season is upon us. IBM sponsors a flu-shot drive every year, offering flu shots to all employees for free. They have some company come on site and you flash your badge, sign on the line and they shoot you. I got mine about four hours ago. My arm aches. I have a headache too. They said it was a “weakened virus.” Weakened how? Did they take each virus and break both legs? Or soak them in acid like you might weaken an eggshell? Well, I tell you from first hand experience, a weak virus is still mean. Maybe it is like a wounded badger; more vicious than ever.

This is the fourth year in a row I have gotten a flu shot. Last year I caught the flu anyway. As miserable as it was, it did have a silver lining; I am ten pounds lighter this year than I was last. Come to think of it though, I am not sure I lost 10 pounds of fat…. I think I barfed up my spleen and maybe a few other organs.

I sit here at work, with my head in a cloud trying to force myself to work, but not doing so very successfully. Maybe I should have waited until 4 P.M. to get my shot.

Mmmm. Buh-licious bread!!

Finally a crust and crumb that I can brag about. This is a loaf that I started as part of a Toastmasters speech. The speech was about how to make the best pizza dough ever. Since for demonstration purposes, the pizza dough and the pain a l’ancienne dough are identical to start with, I figured nobody would notice. Really the only difference is that the pizza dough has slightly less water in it, which makes it less sticky to the point that you can handle it. The pain a l’ancienne dough is so sticky that you really don’t want to touch it unless you are armed with copious amounts of flour.

The first and only time previously that I made this recipe, I found myself just a little bit rushed (smaller holes) and slightly over cooked them (dry crumb). This time, rather than shaping them as baguettes, I shaped a fat batard, which puffed up nicely. And differently than other batches of bread I have done, I did my final shaping right on the foil I was going to bake it on so the final transition to peel would not degas it. I think this was especially important on this loaf because the dough was so wet.

To round out the meal (It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone) Lauren made a batch of delicious beef stew with home-made noodles. I am telling you, we eat like kings (and queens) in our house.

First 5k in ten years

While our family was in Pacific City, OR, for three days last week, I decided not to take a vacation from my running. I figured that if I took Saturday off because I was at the beach, then I would probably take another day off for this or that reason and it would snowball and I would be back on the couch in no time. It has taken me seven weeks (six of running and one with two days off to rest the weary trotters) to get me this far and I didn’t want to toss it out the window. I have run my first 5k without getting shin splints in the process. I am so happy. There are days that my legs are tired, but I wear supportive footwear and they feel much better. The biggest difference is that this time (as opposed to the 1 day ramp-up period in cross country) I took it slow to start with and let my body adjust to the change in abuse. Yes, running is abusive, but our bodies can learn to cope with the strain if given enough time. Only running three days a week also helps (rather than five).

I figured what better place to run than on the beach? I ran down on the packed sand right next to the water line. There were several places I had to be light footed to keep out of the water. Week six of the Couch to 5k program has different workouts for each day, with the third workout being a solid 25-minute run. Back in the day, I would run 5k in less than 18 minutes, but now I am running more at the 22-23 minute pace. The fact that I can run it at all is really saying something. Last week, the last day was a 20-minute non-stop run. That was not quite 5k for me (though they estimate 20 minutes is two miles and 25 minutes is 2 1/4 miles). This week, I definitely went the distance. And man, does it feel good. The plan still has another 3 weeks left in it, but I think I am just going to switch over to my own plan now that I have hit 5k. I have several routes that I can run in my neighborhood that are about the right distance. The biggest difference between routes would probably be how many hills and where they are in the course.

I don’t know that I will ever get back into competitive running, since it seems to be against the reasons that I started running. Competitive running is pushing your body to its limits to run faster or longer. This often has the tendency to break your body in the process. I am running to be in better shape and take better care of my body, so I think that my competitive running will be like any other of the competitive activities I participate in: I lost?, oh well. But we all know that merely crossing the finish line makes us all winners.

Week three of nine

I am currently at week three of nine in the Podrunner Intervals Couch to 5k program. This week has me running for up to three minute intervals. Last week I was starting to get worried about shin splints until I started to wear shoes during the day. Normally, I am a bare-footed kind of guy; my feet love the open air. But especially on the day after a run, I really need to wear something that has good arch support or my legs and feet feel very fatigued. I suppose this means I should go see a podiatrist or something, but the only one I know is still finishing up school and is planning to take over his dad’s practice in Utah. So a fat lot of good that does me.

I am just happy to be out and running. There really is nothing else in the world that can replace that for me. Knowing that I am self propelled and seeing the world go past me is just super great. Backpacking is similar for me, but a much slower pace.

I guess we will just have to see how dedicated I am to this running thing. I would love to be able to run 5k again. Not so much for competition sake, but for the healthy feeling you have when you are physically active. Mix that with all the fresh local veggies I plan on eating this summer and I should be healthy as a horse or something. Just as long as I don’t eat too many cookies.

Couch to 5k

Running has got to be my favorite form of exercise. But I was not born to run. All through high school, I had nasty posterior shin splints all through cross country season and right on into track season. I think I understand now more the causes of shin splints and how to deal with them. They are a repetitive stress injury, where stopping the painful activity will make them go away. Also, there some things that can be done to help treat and prevent them. With all that in mind, I have decided to start running again. Slowly this time. Well, not actually _running_ slowly, but rather starting with a slower regimen. I read that one common cause of shin splints is to start up too fast in the spring. My schedule is one I heard of from a friend, called Couch to 5k. It is a nine week program that starts you running in intervals, interleaved with a brisk walk. The first week, you only have to be able to run for 60 second intervals. The second week it is 90 seconds, and so on. Each week you run more and more until you are running for a full half hour. I think this is certainly a reasonable pace. I remember starting cross country and track like we were coming out of a cannon or something. We didn’t waste any time there. And I think this may be part of the problem in that kind of training. Sure it gets you whipped into shape really fast, but your body suffers for it. Or at least mine did.

Len pointed me to the Couch to 5k website, which is a great resource of links to running information and stuff. It takes the interval information from a program hosted by Cool Running. They also have a wealth of other information for runners. One of the links I found was a bunch of ‘pod intervals’, mp3 podcasts of music that is timed to help you stay on track with your running/walking intervals. The one that I chose was Podrunner Intervals: First Day to 5k. It uses mostly word-free music with a good beat to help you keep rhythm.

Hopefully I will be able to get back into this running thing. Walking doesn’t cut it. I can’t imagine that a treadmill would either. I have a deep-set need to move across the ground and see the world moving by; to feel the wind on my legs, arms and face; to lose myself in the run. It is really more than just the exercise that I think motivates me to run.