Pot Roast

I have never attempted to cook a pot roast. Primarily because Craig is a vegetarian, and secondarily because I didn't grow up eating a huge amount of red meat or very traditional American dishes. I have become increasingly enamoured of my crock pot due to the amazing time-saving capabilities and have been researching crock-pot friendly meals. Yesterday at the grocery store I was intrigued by the various beef cuts in the meat section and decided to give one a try. I was pretty sure I remembered my grandmother cooking something that might have been pot roast, but since I was a kid I had no idea what I was actually eating.

A quick search on the Internet gave me ample pot-roast recipes to choose from that were tailored for the slow cooker. I decided on the absolute easiest one I could find and then improvised. I browned the meat in salt, pepper and flour. Then I cut up a few carrots, parsnips, potatoes, a sweet onions and several cloves of garlic. I dumped all of this in the crock pot, along with about a cup and a half of beef stock, set the dial to low, and let it go for 8 hours. I even managed to do all of the chopping with Maceo in a front facing baby carrier since he was on a napping strike. Everything but the browning.

At about the half-way mark I realized that the smell coming from my pot was very familiar and indeed a common aroma at my grandmothers. I took that to be a good sign. When Craig came home around 4pm, he opened the door and announced that our entire house - from the entry way on up - smelled like Burger King. Not a great sign. Nine hours later we had dinner. On the whole, I'd say it was pretty tasty. The meat was incredibly tender. The carrots and parsnips were sweet and the onion and garlic gave off a nice savory undertone. I was somewhat shocked by the oil that was on the surface - I tried to skim the majority off but I suppose that the fat marbling is what keeps it tender. On the whole, a good experiment. Not sure I would make it on the regular, but it gave off a comfort food vibe that can be just the thing for the right moment.

Nice Buns!

In addition to the full array of outside fun we had in New Hampshire, we ate like kings and queens. Unfortunately, we did a pretty poor job at documenting this aspect of the vacation despite the culinary masterpieces coming off the grill and out of the kitchen. Thankfully, the one exception were the absolutely perfect cinnamon buns that Niko made on Saturday morning as the centerpiece of our outside brunch. They were the centerpiece because A) they were just delicious, and B) he made 16 rolls for 6 people, which meant that we all had to do our part in the eating department. Not a problem with this crowd.

The recipe is from Cooks illustrated and is listed below. Sidenote: We failed to take a sexy close-up photo of the buns so I tried to crop them from another photos.

1 TBS melted butter, for pan

Cinnamon-Sugar Filling

3/4 cup brown sugar
packed
1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp salt

1 TBS melted butter

Biscuit Dough

2 1/2 cups flour, plus additional for work surface

2 TBS sugar

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups buttermilk
6 TBS melted butter


Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and preheat to 425 degrees. Pour 1 TBS melted butter into 9-inch nonstick cake pan or 8×8 glass pan, brush to coat pan.

To make cinnamon-sugar filling: Combine sugars, spices and salt in small bowl, add butter and stir with fork until mixture resembles wet sand. Set aside.

To make biscuit dough: Whisk dry ingredients together in large bowl, whisk buttermilk and 2 TBS of the melted butter in measuring cup or small bowl. Add liquid to dry ingredients and stir until just combined, dough will look very shaggy. Transfer dough to lightly floured counter top and knead until just smooth and no longer shaggy.

Pat dough with hands into approximate 12×9 inch rectangle. Brush dough with 2 TBS melted butter and sprinkle evenly with sugar filling, leaving 1/2-inch border around edges. Press filling into dough. Loosen dough with fingers or bench scraper from counter and roll dough, starting at the long side, pressing lightly to form a tight log. Pinch seam to seal. Cut evenly into 8-9 pieces, pinch bottom of roll with fingers to seal and keep filling in place. Place in pan. Brush remaining 2 TBS melted butter over tops of rolls.

Bake until edges are golden brown, 23-25 minutes. Loosen buns from pan, place large plate over pan and invert buns onto plate. Then place cooling rack over plate and invert onto rack.

More Practice with the Smoker

After some initial attempts last fall, Craig has become increasingly intrigued (read: obsessed) with the smoker we picked up at a New Hampshire yard sale. This year, we spotted another bargain smoker for $20 which we bought so we could have one in Boston and one in NH. Since bringing it home, we have been doing lots of experimenting: pork, multiple types of fish, chicken, and most recently, a turkey. My extended family is joining us next week for Thanksgiving so Craig decided we should smoke the bird. Hence, we needed to do a test run before the actually holiday to make sure it would work. Multiple hours were spent online reading various blogs about smoking and getting the scoop from smokers all over America about what makes a perfect bird. We ended up buying a syringe (so weird) to inject flavored oils into the bird to maintain moisture. We did not get our act together to brine the bird in advance, but the Thanksgiving turkey will be brined, botoxed and mopped in a maple syrup-butter marinade. Stay tuned ... in the meantime, here are some images from the last several practice runs.

Fall 2009 Canning

After minimal deliberation, Neema and I decided that beans and pickles provided the biggest "bang for our effort" with regard to our annual pickling activities. So, we passed on the radishes, diakon (don't try it), beets, and carrots and focused on the favorites. Together we made about 40 quarts of the provisions - the small jars of the "spicy" dilly beans had at least a full jalapeno in each jar yet don't seem to have that much fire.

A couple weeks later Craig and I tried our hand at applesauce. After discovering that we could pick a 1/2 bushel of "dropped" apples (translation: due to the crummy New England weather, tons of apples have fallen off trees and orchards are doing all they can to keep them from going to waste) for $8 bucks, be bought a full bushel (about 80-100 apples), a coring/peeling machine, and went to work. Who knew that making applesauce was so easy? Just core, peel, chop and let cook down. They were so sweet they didn't need anything added to them. We deliberated about adding some spices but decided to be purists and keep it simple. We have since given several quarts to friends with small children in the hopes that they will like it as much as we do.

In the spirit of food posts, this is the inside of an old smoker that we we found at a yard sale.  We got it fired up in New Hampshire and had a major smoking festival - ribs, fish, potatoes, turkey, chicken, onions.  We ended up doing it two weekends in a row and I think the novelty wore off after round two, but a fun way to bring in the fall season.