two bad dogs

I’m normally very proud of my dogs. They’re great with our goddaughter. They follow the rules. (No barking inside when we’re home. No dogs in the bedroom.) They haven’t had an accident inside in about seven years. I’m pretty sure they speak English, and I swear they can tell time – they wake me up every morning precisely at six. They do have some endearing peculiarities: they love ice, they really enjoy eating plants, they’re scared of thunder and hide in the closet when it rains, and they’re terrified of cameras. (I had to catch Belle by surprise as she came out of the bushes to get the above picture, and I had to use my lousy camera phone. There was no chance of getting them both in the same picture.)

Every once in a while, however, they make me mad. A couple months ago, I was going to pick Kaytie up from work for lunch. I made two sandwiches, left them on the counter, and left. (Most of the time, I can leave food on the coffee table, leave the room, and come back to find the food untouched.) When we got home, the sandwiches were gone, and Belle and Bailey had guilty looks on their faces.

With this in mind, I thought I’d taken enough precautions to protect my bread. The two loaves were cooling on a rack that I slid to the very back of the counter. I moved the knife block to create a physical barrier in front of the rack. I thought it was safe. We were on our way to a wine tasting, and we were throwing a small after party. The bread was for bruschetta with olives, roasted red peppers, and manchego.

I think you know where this is going. When we got back to the house, an entire loaf of bread had disappeared. At least they left us one loaf for the bruschetta, though I think that was due less to their altruism than to the second loaf being out of reach.

Anyway, you should have the recipe for this bread, even if you don’t have a picture of it. The bread is great – one of Mom’s staples when I was growing up. So easy to make that two of my brothers sold loaves door-to-door for pocket money, and so tasty that it’s always a crowd pleaser.

Easy Italian Bread
(makes two loaves)

4 ½ cups all-purpose flour, plus some extra for dusting
1 Tbs salt
1 Tbs sugar
1 Tbs butter
2 packages active dry yeast
1 ¾ cups warm water (110˚)
cornmeal
vegetable oil
1 egg white (optional)
1 Tbs cold water (optional)

The original recipe calls for making this in a food processor, which is easy. My food processor is not very big, so I used my stand-up mixer. Either way, you want to combine 3 cups flour, salt, sugar, and butter in the food processor or bowl. Pulse the food processor a few times to cut in the butter. If you’re using the mixer, cut in the butter with 2 knives in a criss-crossing motion and mix the ingredients with the paddle attachment briefly.

Stir the yeast into the water in a measuring cup. Add half the water to the dry ingredients. Pulse the food processor 4 times. (Or run the mixer using the dough hook for a few seconds.)

Add 1 ½ cups flour and the rest of the water/yeast mixture. Pulse the food processor 4 more times. (Or use the dough hook to mix.)

Run the food processor or the mixer until a ball of dough forms. Once the ball forms, keep running to knead for a minute or so.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board. Knead a few times to form a smooth ball.

Cover the ball loosely with plastic wrap and a dishtowel. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes.

Divide the dough in half. Roll each half into a rough rectangle that’s about 15 x 10 inches. Start at the wide side and roll the dough tightly to form a long baguette-looking loaf. Pinch the seams together and seal by gently rolling back and forth.

Grease one or two cookie sheets and dust with cornmeal.

Put the dough on the cookie sheets. Brush the dough with oil. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 to 24 hours.

When you’re ready to bake the bread, take it out of the fridge. Let it rest at room temperature, uncovered, for about 10 minutes while the oven is preheating to 425˚. Make 4 or 5 diagonal slits in the top of each loaf with a sharp knife. I keep a scalpel in the kitchen for just this purpose.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. (My oven’s perfect time is 16 minutes.) The bread should be light brown. (To check for doneness, thump the loaf on the bottom. If it sounds hollow, the bread is done.)

If you want a shiny loaf, do the following. Mix the egg white and cold water together. Take the bread out of the oven at about 14 minutes. Brush with the egg white mixture and return the bread to the oven. Bake for about 5 minutes more, until the bread is golden brown and shiny.

Cool the bread on a wire rack, out of the reach of your bad dogs.

eureka!

“Mmm, baby, this is the recipe!”

When Kaytie said that, I knew I’d finally made a great batch of biscuits. Off and on, I’ve been working on a recipe and learning the process of biscuit-making over the past year. I grew up with biscuits of the drop or canned variety, but now that I live in Mississippi, I wanted to learn to make the classic Southern biscuits that we have here.

Lots of people claim to have a great biscuit-maker in their family, and in the next breath, they tell me there’s no recipe. You have to watch someone to learn to make biscuits. But nobody ever invited me to watch.

So, I played. I looked online. I picked up some tips along the way. The fat needs to be cold. Kneading too much creates a tough biscuit. Don’t twist the biscuit cutter when you cut the biscuits out. White Lily is the best self-rising flour, and the recipe on the bag is the best. (Not all of the tips panned out. My attempt at the White Lily recipe was a flop. White Lily’s supposed to be good because of the low protein content, so I decided to use cake flour in my recipe. So, some good came out of that batch of tiny hockey pucks.)

These biscuits are soft and light and taste like butter. Good luck!

Classic Southern Biscuits
(makes 10-12 2-inch biscuits)

2 ¼ cups cake flour, plus some extra
2 Tbs double-acting baking powder
1 ¼ tsp salt
½ cup unsalted butter, cold
½ cup butter flavor shortening, cold
1 ¼ cups buttermilk

Put the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and whisk until well-mixed.

Slice the butter and shortening into quarter-inch slices. Toss the slices in the flour mixture to coat them. Use a pastry blender (or two knives) to cut in the butter and shortening. If you’re using knives, move them towards each other through the flour so that they criss-cross in the middle of the bowl like scissors. The point here is to cut the chunks of fat into smaller pieces. You should cut in the butter and shortening until you have pea-sized pieces throughout.

Put the bowl in the fridge for about 10 minutes. You want the butter and shortening to stay cold. I forget why, but it’s important. While you’re waiting, preheat the oven to 450.

Mix in the buttermilk until everything is just combined.

Get yourself a little bowl of flour. Dump the dough onto a floured surface. Liberally dust the top of the dough with flour. Knead it a couple times, adding more flour as necessary. You want the dough to be sticky, but not too sticky.

Pat the dough into a rectangle that is about 3/4 inch thick. Dust the top lightly with flour and fold the rectangle in half. Pick up the dough and smack it back down. I’m not sure why you have to be so rough with it, but Kaytie’s dad thinks the smacking is important, and I did it, and the biscuits turned out well.

Pat the dough back into a rectangle. Repeat this dusting, folding, and smacking process two or three more times.

Pat the dough down to about ¾-inch thickness. Cut biscuits with a two-inch biscuit cutter. (I use a drinking glass.) Do not twist the cutter. Press straight down and pick straight up. Go ahead and cut all the biscuits that can fit before you pick any of them up.

Peel away the extra dough, pick up the biscuits, and place them on a cookie sheet that you have lined with parchment paper. The biscuits should be just touching, side by side.

Mush the extra dough back together. Flatten it out, fold it over, and smack it down. Flatten back out to 3/4 inch thickness. Cut more biscuits, and repeat this process until all the dough is gone.

Bake for 13-15 minutes or until lightly browned.

one from the vault: olé!

This recipe comes from waaay back. Back in Marks, MS, in a tiny little house that had been a garage at one point. Window unit A/C, space heaters, bugs galore, and a flooded living room whenever it rained too hard – this was our first year living together. But we had a decent kitchen, and with only one restaurant (two, if you count McDonald’s) open for dinner, we set about learning to cook.

One thing we cooked often was deer meat. (I grew up in Dallas, and we called it venison. Mississippi’s more straightforward.) We had a never-ending supply, thanks to Kaytie’s dad and a deep freezer. We’d grill or roast the tenderloins and grind the rest. I had an old-fashioned hand-crank meat grinder, and I’d mix about half deer meat and half beef, to get some fat in there.

Of course, then we had pounds of ground deer meat. Tacos and chili, sure, but after a while, we had to get a little creative. One of the best dishes was Mexican Casserole. (Probably not the most PC name – I’ll take suggestions for a new one...) It tastes great when you make it, and the leftovers are good, too. You can just reheat it, or you can scramble it in with eggs for breakfast. (Red beans & rice leftovers make a great omelette, too !)

Mexican Casserole
(makes 5-6 servings)

1 cup rice
1 ½ cups chicken stock (or water)
1 can Rotel tomatoes & chilies
½ onion, diced
1 jalapeno, seeded & minced
1 lb ground meat
1 tsp oregano
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp garlic salt
½ tsp paprika
1/8 tsp cayenne
½ tsp chipotle powder (optional)
2-3 oz cream cheese
8 oz Velveeta (optional)
plenty of grated cheese

First, make the rice. Put the rice, chicken stock, and Rotel in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat to med-low, and simmer 25-30 minutes, until all the water is soaked up.

Over medium heat, saute the onion in a little olive oil until it’s translucent. Add the jalapeno, and cook about 2 minutes more.

Add the meat and the spices. Cook, stirring, until the meat is browned.

Mix the beef, rice, cream cheese, and Velveeta together and put all of it in a casserole dish. Top with grated cheese – the more, the better.

Bake at 350 for about 10-15 minutes, until the cheese is all melted.

**You can make this casserole and freeze it. Just follow the recipe, but leave off the grated cheese, and put the casserole in the freezer instead of the oven. Let it thaw before you cook it, and cook for 20-25 minutes instead.

best broccoli

Used to be, Kaytie would have thought that good broccoli was impossible. Just the smell of cooking broccoli was enough to make her gag repeatedly. She hated the soggy, limp texture that steaming produced.

The solution? Roast the florets! The caramelization is great. Then, finish them off with some lemon – I’ve decided lemon is the best complement to most dark green veggies – sautéed spinach, asparagus, and of course, broccoli.

Roasted Broccoli

1 bunch of broccoli
2-3 garlic cloves
1 lemon
salt & pepper
olive oil

Preheat the oven to 425.

Cut the broccoli off the big stem into florets. Slice the garlic thinly. Put the broccoli and garlic in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle with olive oil. Toss to cover evenly.

Spread the broccoli and garlic on a cookie sheet. (I lined mine with heavy-duty foil first.) Roast in the oven for about 20 minutes.

After you pull the broccoli out of the oven, zest about half the lemon over the broccoli. Slice the lemon in half, and squeeze the juice over the broccoli, too.

Top with finely grated parmesan.

infusion conclusion

Well, Infusion 5000 has come and gone. About 20 people came over, and we tasted 13 infused liquors. It was a blind tasting – we had scorecards and everything, even a trophy!

I spent most of the evening pouring samples for everyone.

There were interesting combinations, some good and some not so much. After such success with our initial infusions, I went for a more complex flavor. Unfortunately, sun-dried tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, garlic, olives, basil, and oregano in vodka turned out to be disgusting. Might work in a Bloody Mary, though.

The scorecards had space for people to guess what had been put in each liquor. There were lots of references to medicine and disinfectants. Bengay, soap, and moisturizer. Walgreen’s cologne. “It burns!” Staircase pigs. (Turned out Mokry was trying to write staircase piss.) My favorite, however, was in reference to one of the last vodkas. One judge wrote, “Same. They all taste the same now.”

Of course, there were a lot of insightful guesses, too. And some tasty liquors. Tott took third with her apple, ginger, and vanilla vodka. Kaytie won second. She soaked basically any dried fruit she could find – figs, dates, apricots, blueberries, cherries – and tossed in some fennel, vanilla, nutmeg, and I’m honestly not sure what else. It was good, though. The grand champion was Mary Kendall. She infused bourbon with honey and rosemary. Yum.

Anyway, here are some tips for infusing your own liquors.

Fatty substances, such as meat, dairy, or nuts do not infuse well.

Herbs infuse quickly; dried spices, even more so.

Buy dried herbs and spices in bulk; they’re so much cheaper that way.

Dried fruits work better than fresh fruits.

A combination of dried and fresh fruits or herbs is a good idea.

Higher-proof alcohol works best.

Fresh ingredients may rot if left in alcohol for too long.

Fruits and vegetables may take a while to infuse; best to start early and strain out if worried about rot.

Classic flavor combinations you enjoy in food will work well—e.g., lemon and basil, cinnamon and vanilla, orange and cloves.

Fruit will take about 2-3 weeks to infuse, and herbs will take about one week.

stating the obvious

I realize that most of our six readers are serious foodies and accomplished cooks. This post, however, is for the rest of you. I am going to tell you something very obvious--how to make a very tasty salad.

A salad is something I rarely crave (unlike Tott, who can put away AN ENTIRE BAG OF RAW SPINACH in one sitting). My grandfather calls it "rabbit food," and I pretty much feel the same way. But lately I've been trying to eat in a healthier way (five pounds down, baby!), so I've been wracking my brain to come up with interesting salads.

This was one that I actually enjoyed more than my main course (a fine but unexciting chicken couscous), so I figured I'd share.

A Good, If Obvious, Salad

baby spinach
red grapes
white onion
roquefort cheese
spiced walnuts
Newman's Own Light Balsamic Vinaigrette

Make the walnuts (see linked recipe). Dice white onion fine. Salt. Saute in a little olive oil over medium-high heat until browned. Remove from heat and cool. Put on top of salad with other ingredients and toss with dressing. (I went easy on the cheese and nuts 'cause the fat. If you are not watching your girlish figure, don't worry about it--put as much as you like.)

PS--I just realized that I posted this under DREW's name, not mine! Ha! That makes this post much funnier if you read it thinking Drew is writing.

infusion profusion

Last fall, kumquat trees were on sale for seven dollars. Seven bucks?! Of course I bought one. It had a bunch of green kumquats on it, and they ripened to orange. Which presented the question: What could we do with a bunch of kumquats?

Well, duh. We decided to soak them in vodka. There’s a little background here. I’d bought some glassware from a chemical supply company, and I’d been intending to make some infused liquors. Maybe a mint rum, or a lemon basil vodka, or a pepper vodka. These bottles had sat in a box for months. Finally, I had an excuse to buy a lot of vodka. (Luckily, we harvested the kumquats before the snow came.)

We had four bottles, so we went to the store and wandered around the produce section. We decided on four combinations: kumquats & rosemary; pomegranates & basil; blood oranges & star anise; and lemons, cucumbers, & dill.

Well, we opened the pomegranate & basil vodka with a few friends, and it was quickly gone. (Before I could even take a picture of it!) Delicious. The kumquat & rosemary was similarly dispatched. (Note: if you want to cover the taste of alcohol, use rosemary. Worked like a charm.) We have yet to drink the blood orange & anise vodka, but we’ve tasted it, and it is great. The herbs make these vodkas light and refreshing – something that makes a great aperitif over ice with club soda.

Notice that I have not mentioned the lemon, cucumber, & dill infusion. That’s because it was disgusting. It tasted like rotten pickles. We quickly dumped it down the sink.

Three successes out of four attempts is a pretty good record, especially since we had no real idea what we were doing. After a conversation with a mixologist at Cure in New Orleans, Kaytie came home with a wealth of information about infusing liquors, and we wanted to try more.

We also needed an excuse to have a party. The logical conclusion? Infusion 5000: The Epic Infused Liquor Contest! It’s going down this weekend. Stay tuned for the results.