Brave Little Kitchen

Meat: it's what's for dinner

One of the items on our list is cooking red meat. Another is cast iron, although I am less worried about that lately. I seasoned my own (even though Ann offered to do it for me, thanks, Ann!). But, regardless, I combined the two with something else I’m a little leery of: cooking game. This guy in my office is quite the hunter, apparently, and the other day I saw a coworker leaving his office with what I actually thought was a heart. It wasn’t (I don’t think) but when I went over to the guy’s cube he offered to let me have some of the venison he had – shot? Hunted? Whatever, there was a cooler of meat in his cube and I took some. (Nope, doesn’t sound sketchy at all. – T)

I looked around and found this recipe, which calls for rubbing the venison with herbs, pan-searing it, finishing it off in the oven and then making a pan sauce with dried cherries and wine. YUM.  (Man that looks tasty, why wasn’t I invited over? – T)

On Top of Spaghetti

Shall we just gloss over that it has been awhile and just jump right in? Yes? Good, glad we see eye to eye on this. But, ah, sorry about the whole not being around thing. We really have very good excuses; excuses like vacation, and training for work, training for a marathon, and planning Fake Thanksgiving [and, laziness – Court]! We are back now though and ready to talk about pasta! (With a little side jaunt to into lamb ragu first.)

Both Courtney and I were afraid to make our own pasta. My [our] fear, as with many things, was based on not having all of the right equipment (and not being willing to buy it since, well even though I run a lot, I don’t usually choose pasta to carbo load [Crazy, right? Who doesn’t like pasta? – Court]). However, after reading a bunch of articles on The Kitchn, I thought it was time to take a chance and convinced Court that it was time too. From our research it seemed that pappardelle would be an easy pasta to start out with since we really wouldn’t need any fancy pasta rollers or KitchenAid attachments.

Piece of cake, upside down

And now we have another guest post - this time from my handsome husband and BLK supporter/dishwasher, Tom.

Let me start by acknowledging that I wholeheartedly embrace the BLK concept. Let me follow with the admission that – to me – a recipe could very well be filed under “Recommendation.” Do I sense foreshadowing?

After a delightful year of parenthood, Court and I went back and forth on how exactly to prepare a cake for Jackson’s first birthday. We eventually decided to focus on “theme/decoration.” The theme would be “dog,” one of Jackson’s emerging obsessions, and the decoration would be “Clifford.” [Wow, can you tell Tom is a lawyer yet? – Turk]

Sushi: really, can it get any scarier? (Or, how to make sushi in seven easy steps.)

I mean seriously, raw fish, sticky rice, seaweed. What in that sentence isn't scary? Okay, so I didn't tackle raw fish with this sushi. I did do other stuff to conquer this dish, though. In fact, I decided it was best to take a class! Also, it was a LivingSocial deal for Culinaerie, a cooking school a few blocks from my house. Hey, I am nothing if not practical. My friend, Rosita, took the class with me, even though she is already a sushi pro. I was glad to have her support and additional knowledge since I am a Midwestern-white girl who didn't even eat sushi, much less make sushi, until a few years ago.

third time's the charm

Right before I left for my lovely vacation in Maine, our friend Angela finally (finally!) had her sweet baby boy. Turk and I decided this was an occasion worthy of a lattice crust pie. OK, or we just needed an excuse to make the lattice crust and Turk had picked up some peaches at the farmer’s market. Either way – we embarked upon our peach pie journey.

It turns out the filling for peach pie is pretty standard: peaches, sugar, cornstarch or flour; some recipes call for nutmeg, vanilla, or some lemon juice. As long as the peaches are good, I think the filling is easy as, well, pie. It’s the crust that can be difficult. Some recipes call for butter, some for lard, some a mixture of both. Some use ice water, some have you blend with a pastry cutter and others use a food processor. But the crust really makes the pie, and in this case it’s even more crucial since we were going to be making it fancy [Note: I was not the one to suggest being fancy this time! – Turk]: weaving strips of crust over the top of the pie to form a lattice. Like the kind on the side of old-timey houses, with roses growing up them.

is one biscotti a biscotto?

It's been a while since I've done a post. Did you miss me? I don't really have a good excuse (unless having a baby still counts? can I still use that when he's 10 months old?) aside from the fact that it is too damn hot to cook. Still, I take my duty as a BLK-er seriously, so I finally looked through the list and decided to make biscotti.

Ribs. Need I Say More?

For the 4th of July holiday weekend I trekked to northern Ohio to visit one of my sisters and celebrate my goddaughter's birthday.

Cheesier

After conquering ricotta (eventually), I decided I needed to do mozzarella. Plus, it was the other recipe in the cheese making kit, so it was the logical next step.

There are a lot more steps to making mozzarella than ricotta, so I was a little intimidated . . . okay, I was a lot intimidated. And it was perhaps not the best day to be doing this recipe. The world seemed to be against me: I screwed up with the coffee maker (again) this morning; after getting the coffee to work I then spilled coffee everywhere cleaning up after breakfast; I made a bus reservation but made the return trip for the same day instead of the next (which I have done before with an airplane reservation - at least this was only a $20 screw up); and I also made honey-vanilla ice cream, but I kept separating the yolks and whites into the wrong bowls. Basically, I thought this was going to be a definite failure. 

BLK, thy name is hubris.

Usually, we're not total imbeciles in the kitchen. In fact, we're pretty good, especially with baked goods. So it makes sense that we would make treats for the baby shower of our friend and guest poster, Angela. We could make cake balls, then show you the process here; you know, to prove that we are good cooks when we know what we're doing, and that not every recipe is fraught with misadventure . . .

moules flambé

Some of the items on our list, we’re afraid of because of the techniques (see yeast rising, frying, etc.). Other items are on the list because we’re afraid of the ingredients. That’s definitely the case here: mussels. They’re weird looking, they come in shells, and if you don’t cook them right everyone could die of salmonella, or something. Plus, she might not want to admit it but up until a few years ago Turk claimed not to like mussels. (Until she tried them, ahem.) [ I'll admit it . . . though really, if you were from a land-locked state, would you have tried mussels before you moved closer to the ocean? - Turk]

Mussels are pretty tasty – briny, chewy, what’s not to like? But honestly, the best part of eating mussels is the broth in which you cook them. You can go traditional, with white wine and garlic, or more modern, with a saffron cream or even beer-based broth. Either way, sop that stuff up with some crusty bread and you are in heaven.