Our Valentine's Dinner

For Valentine's Day I really, really wanted to make nachos for dinner. I'm not joking. I had some spicy chorizo, a couple of ripe avocados, and, as you might expect, a huge stash of cheese, and aren't holidays an excuse to splurge and eat unhealthy things that you wouldn't normally eat? I think so. Unfortunately my valentine wasn't down with the nachos idea, so I ended up going a little more traditional and made steak. It worked out for the best, as Matt told me that it was the best meal I've made in a very long time. A compliment like that is the best Valentine's gift a girl could get. At least I think. Now that I'm repeating it it sounds a little backhanded, but I can assure you that he meant it in the nicest possible way.

The menu:

Homemade rye bread

Roasted broccolini

Blue cheese mashed potatoes

Rib eyes with chimichurri

Chocolate mousse with freshly whipped cream

The bread recipe is from Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I recommend both the book and the bread.

I bought these gigantic rib eyes because they were on sale at Whole Foods for something like $10.99/lb, far cheaper than the $23.99/lb. filets I was planning on buying. Between the two of us we didn't even eat one, which means steak salads all week for me! Just as I started to get nervous about how my pesky fire alarm was going to react to me cooking a steak on the stovetop I saw Matt's friend Sarah's tweet about Bittman's method for pan-cooking a steak in a poorly ventilated apartment with no smoke. Miraculous!

Speaking of Bittman, I used his recipe for chimichurri to top off the steak. It was so good that I used it top off the potatoes and the broccolini as well. Then I used my bread to sop up every last drop. You can find a recipe here, and I would recommend making it in a food processor as he suggests in his book rather than chopping it by hand.

I had some red potatoes that I'd boiled earlier in the week for a salad that I turned into blue cheese mashed potatoes. Simply mash up some boiled potatoes and add any combination of milk, cream, sour cream, cream cheese, and butter, season with salt and pepper, and crumble in a generous amount of blue cheese.

Since my potatoes were cold I transferred them to a baking dish, topped them with some pats of butter, and baked them with the broccolini until they were heated through.

Oh yeah, the broccolini. Toss it with a little olive oil, sprinkle with salt & pepper, and bake on a cookie sheet at 375 or so for maybe 10 minutes. It's to die for. I may be exaggerating, but only slightly.

This meal was incredibly delicious and very easy to whip together. The chocolate mousse was the only thing that took more than about 15 minutes to make, but it was far from difficult. For as delicious as it is, it's totally worth the effort. If it weren't for the sinfulness of the mashed potatoes and the fact that I don't eat much steak I would make this meal all the time.

All of that chocolate is proof that this dessert is worth making. And check out my reflection in the double boiler. Hello, me!

The chocolate mousse recipe I used was from Orangette. You can follow the link to her recipe; I'll just show you some pretty pictures of the process. The only change I made was the addition of a little cinnamon to give it a little Mexican flavor. It was my consolation prize for not having nachos, I guess.

Molten chocolate.

+ egg whites

Folding in the egg whites.

WHIPPED CREAM

Sigh.

Sigh again.

There's nothing better than licking a spoon and discovering a second layer of chocolate underneath. NOTHING.

Extra whipped cream to top it off.

The big blue bowl remains. Who wants to help polish it off?

Goose Fat-Fried Pommes Frites

(First things first - here is my photographic tribute to the Hawkeyes - Orange Bowl Bound! The bear used to wear an Iowa Hawkeyes sweater, but that was replaced by the turtle shell that he now sports. No, I did not eat that particular turtle, but that gives me an idea for a future post...)

In their early greatness, by the shores of Gitche Gumee by the shining Big-Sea-Water, the native Americans are said to have let no scrap of their buffalo victims go to waste. While not exactly inspired by this noble ideal so much as by my taste for worldly excess, I would like to describe my Thanksgiving tribute to the ancient Iowans whose culture was obviously more humane and evolved than our own... NOT.

This discussion will dovetail nicely with my sister's record of our recent post-Thanksgiving goose - that description being deficient in this key point: THAT GOOSE WAS ONE FAT HONKER. I don't think the picture of the whole goose in her post realistically depicts the sheer volume of grease (oil, fat, lard, blubber, tallow!) that graced the roasting pan when it was time for me to make the gravy. Now, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that most people would not have thought twice about decanting this syrupy mess and throwing it away, but I was under the influence of at least two trains of thought that made me, at that particular moment, unlike most people.

• Number 1 - as soon as we decided we were going to cook a goose, I had been looking forward to cooking the goose liver. Fate intervened, however, and the liver was thrown in a pot of boiling water along with the other offal only to end up not being used at all! No!

• Number 2 - since moving to Chicagoland, I have re-watched several cooking shows where the hosts sample various Chicago eateries and, in the pertinent episode of No Reservations with (pompous douchebag) Anthony Bourdain, what do they feature at a haute dog joint called Hot Doug's but duck-fat french fries? Hmmm...

Today, I'll be talking about cooking potatoes in goose fat. The plan is simple - heat the goose gut in a deep pan until it is really hot. Slice up some potatoes into french fry-shaped strips. Fry.

Let's begin at the beginning - after the goose was done cooking last week, I poured off the crystal clear goose fat into a couple salsa jars and let it cool to room temp before storing it in the fridge, where it turned solid and milky white. [And a week elapses...]

Let's face it, my wife ain't the fried-in-goose-fat type, so I waited until my mom was in town to give these a try. For the record, my mom turns out not to be the fried-in-goose-fat type either and made that clear.

To go with the potatoes, I cooked a corned beef brisket in my slow cooker (recipe: put corned beef in cooker with fatty side up; almost cover with water; add pickling spices that usually come with the beef; turn on low for hours and hours - I find, having 4 or 5 of these figuratively under my belt, that if the fat is above the water you get better results).

Back to the fries. I spooned out of one of the jars into a deep saucepan and set it to low to liquify the fat.

Once it was all melted, I turned the heat up to medium-high.

While it was heating up, I sliced a couple russet potatoes. I prefer the dark, rich flavor of russet potatoes over the creaminess of something like a Yukon gold. According to my mom, I sliced the potatoes thinly enough for me to call them "pommes frites," but I like the original French term "frites de liberté."

Testing the fat:

I added the potatoes and cooked them until they were browned. With these russets, they might look like they are burned, but they were perfect when the outsides were fairly dark brown like the bottom picture. As I mentioned above, my mother was skeptical of my plan, but after trying the fries, she told me "I admit it when I am wrong, and I was wrong about these." I have to say that they certainly are the best fries I've ever made at home, but that's out of a total of maybe 3 attempts. The corned beef was melt-in-your-mouth amazing. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of any of the salads and fresh, healthy, vegetable nonsense that Caryn put together to go along with my decadent 8-hour-cooked meat and meat-flavored vegetables.

Stay tuned for future goose-fat gastronomy. I have another fresh jar plus the leftovers from the fries. I'm at least going to make a pot of beans using the stuff, and I'd be willing to try other recipes if people have ideas.

Grandma's Cranberry Jello Salad

Hello, everyone! I started writing this post last week, but then finals caught up to me and I finally got around to finishing it today. Along with the recipe for my dad's favorite Thanksgiving dish, my grandma's cranberry jello salad, there are some pictures at the end of the post of our second Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, we had a second Thanksgiving dinner. I easily could have gone for a third and a fourth because I love Thanksgiving so very much, but I had to settle for just two.

The menu for our second dinner was pretty standard turkey day stuff, except there was no turkey. We went for a goose instead, and we were all pleasantly surprised by it. This was my first time having goose, unless you count the force-fed liver variety, and it was really good! It's comparable to the dark meat of a chicken or turkey. When I walk past all the geese in the park I now think "mmm...lunch" instead of "quit pooping everywhere." In other exciting goose news, my brother took the fat home with him to make fries. I've been told that he took pictures and that they were delicious, so hopefully he'll share those one of these days.

For now, here is my grandma's recipe for cranberry jello salad. Also, Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Cranberry Jello Salad

1 lb. cranberries

1 cup sugar

1 large can crushed pineapple

2 envelopes Knox plain gelatin

1 cup frozen orange juice concentrate

1/2-1 cup pecans, chopped

16 oz. container sour half & half

2 1/2 cups mini marshmallows

Here's the actual recipe card that my Grandma gave to my mom. I wish I could still write in cursive. Dang!

Cheers!

Rinse the cranberries and pick out any bad seeds.

My mom (and I'm assuming my grandma) always uses the KitchenAid grinder attachment to grind the cranberries. You can probably pulverize them by other means as well - maybe a food processor or your really strong fists. Just kidding about the fists. Unless you are indeed really, really strong.

Grind the cranberries into a large bowl, stir in the sugar, and set it aside.

While the sugar and cranberries mix, measure out the orange juice concentrate.

Pour the packets of gelatin into 1/2 cup of cool water.

Drain the pineapple, but reserve the juice in a measuring cup.

Add water to the pineapple juice until you have 1 1/2 cups liquid. Bring it to a boil, and then add the gelatin mixture.

Add the orange juice and gelatin mixture to the cranberries.

Add the chopped pecans.

As well as the pineapple.

Stir everything together and pour it into a large dish - either a large, round dish or a 9x13" dish. Refrigerate until set.

Once the gelatin mixture is made, combine the sour half & half with the marshmallows and refrigerate it. It's best to do this several hours before you're going to eat, but if you forget it is fine if eaten right away.

As you can see, it's not your typical jello mold with random objects suspended in it. It's a far more sophisticated dish that can only be achieved with the holy trinity of gourmet ingredients: canned pineapple, orange juice concentrate, and gelatin.

Here is the rest of our Thanksgiving #2 menu:

Dill mashed potatoes.

Boil a bunch of potatoes until fork-tender. Mash with any combination of butter, cream, milk, sour cream, plain yogurt, and cream cheese. Season with salt and pepper, and add as much chopped fresh dill as you can handle.

Southwest Corn, Chili and Cumin Saute from Bon Appetit, November 2002

Goose with Port Sauce and Chestnut Stuffing from Saveur.

Goose!

More goose.

My brother's pretty plate.

My brother's plan to make a pumpkin pie for dessert fell through, so we ate some of these amazing mint-filled brownies from Noble Pig.

Delicious.

Pretzels and Pretzel Pups

For months now my mom has been talking about wanting to make pretzels, and since she planted that seed in my head I've been wanting to make them as well. I've certainly never been one to turn down an opportunity to eat a twisted mass of dough. Or dough in pretty much any form, but that's beside the point. My mom wanted to make pretzels, and my brothers and I were happy to assist. Although the process of making something like pretzels or bagels can seem a little daunting at first, once you've done it a couple times it's really no big deal. You just throw everything in a mixer (or not, as my brother has successfully made pretzels sans any sort of special equipment), let it rise, shape it, boil it, and bake it. If you have 5 people working together to do the shaping, it takes no time at all and can be really fun.

After it was settled that we would be making pretzels, my brother mentioned the bagel dogs from Einstein's, and that got the ball rolling on pretzel project #2. Way back when we would buy bagel dogs from Ted, the Schwan's man, but I think Kyle was too busy picking his nose and eating it to remember that. Roasted! Besides, bagel dogs are so fifteen years ago. Pretzel dogs are the new thing. Pretzel pups, rather. Forget about those dried up hot dogs sitting behind the plastic case at Einstein's. Pretzel pups are the real deal.

My mom almost drove into town to pick up smokie links for the pups because she sometimes gets cravings for things we used to feast on back in the 80s (Cheez Whiz, Chef Boyardee ravioli, Bugles), but after discovering a package of Niman Ranch hot dogs in the freezer we decided to just use those. It turns out, not surprisingly, that Niman Ranch makes some top notch hot dogs. I think they actually call them Fearless Franks, but let's be honest, they're hot dogs. As the old saying goes, you can put lipstick on a hot dog, but it's still a hot dog. Am I right?

By the way, I don't mean to turn all Rachael Ray on you by making up a cutesy name like Pretzel Pups. I just felt like busting out a little alliteration. A little alliteration: an oxymoron? Anyway, puppies are so cute, so why not name foods after them?

The pretzel recipe we used is from Bobby Flay, and you can find it here. We doubled the recipe, but we didn't follow it to a T. Instead of muscovado sugar we used regular brown sugar, we didn't have the full amount of yeast so we used slightly less, and we certainly did not use 3/4 cup of baking soda in the boiling water. I don't think using all of that baking soda would hurt anything, but for some reason my brother was adamantly opposed to using so much. In the end it all worked out, and that's what matters.

Soft Pretzels

Slightly adapted from Bobby Flay

1-1/2 cups warm water

1 package active dry yeast

2 tbsp brown sugar

6 tbsp unsalted butter

2-1/2 tsp kosher salt

4-1/2 to 5 cups all-purpose flour

Olive oil

About 3 quarts water

About 1/4 cup baking soda

2 whole eggs beaten with 1 tbsp cold water

Coarse sea salt or pretzel salt

Melt the butter over low heat in a small saucepan. Add the water, yeast, and sugar. Turn off the heat and let sit for 5 minutes so the yeast activates. You could also melt the butter in advance and just combine the four ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer.

After the 5 minutes, add the butter mixture to the bowl of a mixer. Add the salt and flour 1/2 or 1 cup at a time, mixing to combine. Once you've added all of the flour, increase the speed to medium for 3 or 4 minutes or until the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl.

If the dough is too wet and not pulling away from the sides after a few minutes you can add more flour in small increments. It will look something like the photo above when it starts to pull away. Remove the dough from the bowl, and transfer it to a flat surface to knead with your hands.

Ahh! My brain has been sucked out of my skull! Unfortunately my numerous talents do not include the ability to cross my eyes, so the whole brain-outside-of-the-skull trick did not work as I had hoped.

Knead the dough a few times and form it into a ball. It should be pretty smooth at this point.

Drizzle some olive oil or vegetable oil in a bowl, add the dough, and turn the dough to coat it. Cover the bowl with a clean towel and set it in a warm spot for about an hour, or until the dough doubles in size.

While the dough is rising, cover a couple baking sheets with parchment paper and spray the paper with cooking spray. Toward the end of the rising period preheat the oven to 425, and turn the heat on under a large pot of water and baking soda.

Pretzel making is fun for the whole family! I'll spare you the more obscene pictures that you can imagine ropes of pretzel dough would produce.

Once the dough is ready, all you have to do is tear of chunks about the size of an orange and roll it into ropes. You could also turn out the dough onto a flat surface and divide it into eight equal pieces, but what fun is that?

Look at that thing fly!

Form the ropes into pretzel shapes (you can add another twist in the middle if you prefer), and they're ready to boil.

Boil the pretzels two at a time for 30 seconds in the water and baking soda.

After boiling, transfer the pretzels to one of the lined baking sheets and brush with the egg wash. Sprinkle liberally with salt or other toppings. My brothers put some minced fresh garlic on a couple of them. Grated cheese would be good, too.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown. Let them cool for a few minutes before diving in.

Did I mention there was cheese sauce involved? Because there was. My mom would never consider making pretzels if there was not cheese sauce. The original recipe makes a poblano cheese dip, but we didn't have poblanos so we used pickled jalepenos. There was a mustard sauce as well, but I prefer plain old yellow mustard to the sweet, grainy mustard sauce from the recipe.

For the pretzel pups, follow the same steps as above for regular pretzels. The only difference is that you wrap a rope of dough around a hot dog instead of forming it into a pretzel shape. Everything else is the same. Boil the dough with the dog in it, brush it with egg wash, sprinkle with salt, bake until golden, etc. Please, please, please do not skip the step where you make a rope with the dough and just wrap a chunk of dough around the dog or you will end up with more of a hot dog bun than a fully encased hot dog once they are baked. See the difference between the bottom one and the third from the bottom? The third from the bottom one was done properly.

P.S. My apologies to Ted, but homemade pretzel-wrapped hot dogs are so much better than frozen bagel dogs from your big, yellow truck.

P.P.S. If I one day get a wiener dog I am going to make him a pretzel dog costume for Halloween instead of the traditional hot dog costume.