basement cheese #1 2009

Made in a vaguely "Swiss mountain cheese in one-gallon miniature" style: thermophilic cultures, and Propionibacter but I didn't get any CO₂ evolved. Tastes... buttery, smooth, with some booty to it.

From basement cheese #1 2009

Bacon Bun Burger

I promised to upload pictures of the burgers we made with the bacon buns a while ago, and finally got around to getting them off my phone.



Ngh. That looks good. I also have a couple shots of our liquid accompaniment. First, the beer:



I've never had anything bad from Stone, and this was no exception. I don't remember the Tripel being exceptional. Meanwhile, we had a lovely red recommended by my boy Emile at Champion Wine Cellars, one of the treasures of Seattle:



A bright and fruity Medoc, it was lighter than many Bordeaux reds, but still had plenty of heft. Stood up the burgers nicely, and these were serious burgers.

smoked whale

CIMG1057
Originally uploaded by meganursula

While i Norway Josh and i tried some smoked whale. We both felt sort of weird about eating whale, but it is something traditionally Norwegian, and legal there. It was really pretty good. Although, since the foremost flavor was 'smoked' i don't think its something i'll miss never having again.
At that same meal i had some salt cod - really tasty, a bit too salty for me to eat such a large quantity. Josh had Elk. Over all, the food was really good. The presentation reminded us of a much more traditional time in the US - very meat and potatoes - but it tasty food. I was struck by how good the vegetables were - they all seemed to have a lot of flavor.

Yes please.

I found this photo on my computer today:



Thick cut bacon, heirloom tomatoes, butter lettuce, jalapeno mustard. Ungh.

And to think, at one time, I didn't like B.L.T.'s. I preferred just a "B".

Kentucky Hot Brown (not a euphemism )

This is a long overdue post, but I was uploading the photos off my phone and came across this gem. I had some leftover bacon from one of my traditional waffle breakfasts, and I wanted to do something fun with it. Besides just eat it, of course. I dug out my copy of Sara Perry's Everything Tastes Better With Bacon to have a look. And what caught my eye was the recipe for a "Kentucky Hot Brown". Despite sounding like something that belongs in Urban Dictionary (and, no surprise, it's there), this is a sandwich made with turkey and cheese sauce that is broiled (hence the brown). Sounds good to me! It actually sounds a lot like a sandwich I used to have at a diner that my father used to take us to sometimes, and sounded like a good idea.

The cheese sauce was simple, just a roux, some milk, wait for it to thicken, add the shredded cheddar, salt and pepper. The interesting addition was using Worcestershire sauce, which was a nice addition. I then layered the bread on a sheet pan, added some sliced tomatoes and turkey slices, and poured the cheese sauce liberally on top. It looked like this:



I just popped it under the broiler until it got nicely browned and topped it with crumbled bacon and chopped parsley:



Delicious!

Gazpacho recipe

I made this a few weeks ago for our Tuesday night gathering. Sadly I forgot to take pictures.

GAZPACHO (modified from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook)
serves: 8
prep time: 20-25 minutes
total time: 2.5 hrs (includes 2 hours chilling time)

3 large ripe tomatoes (1.5 lbs) cored and quartered - I used heirloom, extra-tasty
2 red bell peppers, stemmed, seeded and chopped coarse (I cut them
into 1/8ths)
2 lg cucumbers, 1 peeled, halved, seeded and quartered; the other
unpeeled halved, seeded and chopped coarse
5 cups tomato juice
1 onion, minced (I used 1/4 onion)
1/3 cup sherry vinegar
2 garlic cloves, minced (I used one)
1/2 tsp Tabasco
salt and pepper
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley or cilantro (I forgot to add this and didn't really miss it)
extra virgin olive oil (optional - I did add this)

1. Pulse tomatoes in food processor until finely chopped, about 12
pulses. Transfer to a large bowl. Pulse the bell peppers and peeled
cucumber until finely chopped, about 15 pulses. Add to the bowl with
the tomatoes. Stir in the tomato juice, unpeeled chopped cucumber, onion, vinegar, garlic,
Tabasco and 1 tsp salt. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.

2. Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste. Ladle into chilled
bowls and sprinkle with the parsley and a drizzle of olive oil before
serving.

Notes:
Process the vegetables so that they are 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch in size.
If they are processed finer, the soup will resemble tomato slush.
The soup can also be garnished with chopped pitted black olives,
chopped avocados and croutons.
Gazpacho can be covered and refrigerated for up to 2 days.