Author: AuSable

Let the random canning begin for 2010

Posted on by AuSable

For some reason this year, I’m going to need to do a lot of canning/freezing, since the garden is putting out way more food then I can eat each day. And this bounty already includes plenty of stuff that I’ve already given away to friends and co-workers. Just to give you an idea of the bounty this year, on July 14th I picked sixteen cucumbers from the garden that went into the 3 quart jars of pickles. When I went into the garden today the 18th to check the sweet corn for wind damage (because of the heavy storm we had last night) I ended up picking 8 cucumbers from the garden without really looking hard.

So last week I started the first of many canning sessions that will happen this year, and the first experiments of the year was 3 quart jars of dill pickles, 4 pint jars of spicy pickled beans (both green & wax from the garden) and 4 pint jars of pickled carrots (I ended up using baby carrots from the store, since the potatoes over took the carrots in the pallet bin.)

I’ll add separate posts over the next couple of days for the recipes for the dill pickles, pickled carrots, and spicy pickled beans. Just to keep the length of this post manageable, compared to the sausagefest post which ran close to three pages just in text.

Sausagefest – July 2010

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Nothing to me says Forth of July, like grilling out with family and friends. So I thought that I would do something a little special this year and make my own sausages for the Forth. But what really spurred the decision to make fresh sausage was when I found out that Fareway sells fresh casing packed in brine for $14.99 a pound. So after I bought a 1/2 lbs worth of casing, it kind of pushed me in the direction of making fresh sausages. Continue reading →

Potato Chip Review – Better Made – Salvatore’s Sicilian Style Parmesan & Garlic

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Its strange how the same cut of chips, in this case Krinkle Cut from Better Made could be so different. On the one hand you have Salvatore’s Sicilian Style Parmesan & Garlic Krinkle Cut chips that are totally awesome, and on the other hand you have the ho-hum taste of the plain Kinkle Cut chips. Continue reading →

Beef Satays – v1 – July 2010

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Since I had so much peanut sauce leftover from making chicken satays, I thought that I would make another batch of satays. Originally I was thinking about going with pork. But on Saturday morning I was watching Primal Grill with Steven Raichlen, and he made beef satays on his Lodge Hibachi. So after seeing that episode, it sealed the deal for me to make beef satays with some of the leftover peanut sauce. Continue reading →

Cooking Swiss Chard – v1 – June 2010

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Swiss chard ended up being one of those random things that I grew in the garden this year. And the only reason that it happened in the first place, was that my farmer neighbor gave me a bunch of swiss chard transplants at the beginning of the season that were headed to the compost pile at the farm if they weren’t planted. So not being one to turn down free plants, I picked a spot in the newer side of the garden for the swiss chard. Continue reading →

Garden – 07/08/2010

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Look at the green garden monster grooooooow. Its been raining on and off for the last couple of weeks. So I really haven’t needed to use the irrigation system that I set-up around the yard. So for now, I’ll call that a bonus. Continue reading →

Potato Chip Review – Doritos – Mr. Dragon’s FireChips

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OK, so talk about a random bag of chips.
When I was down visiting my sister and her husband a while back. My sister ended up picking me up a bag of Mr. Dragon’s FireChips from Doritos. Personally I didn’t know what to expect, since the name really didn’t lead you down the road to what the chips should taste like. But the description on the back of the bag ended up being a subtle clue with the statement:

From the base of Mt. Fuji, this dragon, a symbol of luck, had brought DORITOS one of Japan’s most intense flavors.

And with only one bite the enigma was solved, and all the clues then made sense. So what do you think the flavor is? Give up?
Continue reading →

Happy 200th Post!!!!

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Has it been 200 already? I had to check the calendar and number 200 took about nine months to reach, while getting to number 100 only took about six months. But somehow the MIIA train just keeps on rolling down the tracks, one post after another. So thank you very much, for hanging in their through all the crazy posts.

-AuSable

Bacon Grilled Cheese – v1 – June 2010

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For some reason last week, I was in the mood for a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches as a late night snack. But when I checked the fridge, as usual I didn’t have half the items to make a “normal” grilled cheese. So after giving the fridge a quick scan to see what was available to make a grilled cheese. What I had on hand was six slices of Finlandia jalapeno muenster cheese and some cooked bacon. At the time I didn’t realize it, but now that I think about it, I ended up making more of a “ham & cheese” instead of a “grilled cheese”, but that is where the similarities ends. So on to the fun stuff, and making some sandwiches. Continue reading →

Chicken Satay – v1 – June 2010

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You know, I’ve made chicken satays once before, but that was many many years ago. And since I don’t have central air in my house, I’m looking to cook as much food outside as possible. So doing some grilling fits the bill.
I had two recipes on file for chicken satay, but I really don’t remember which one I used when I made this dish years ago. So I kind of combined parts of both recipes (here & here) and create a new recipe. My usual cooking notes are listed below, so lists get on to the ingredient list:

  • 2 Chicken breasts and 2 chicken breast tenders (which were from a whole chicken that I de-boned myself)
  • 1 cup smooth peanut butter
  • 1 cup Vegetable Oil
  • 1/2 cup soy sauce
  • 1/2 cup toasted sesame oil
  • 2 TB Fish Sauce
  • 1 TB Hoisin Sauce
  • 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
  • 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 TB of fresh ginger, minced

Combine all the ingredients listed in a bowl ( minus the chicken) and whisk it all together. Personally I used my Braun stick blender to get it all mixed up. Then cut up the chicken so that it is in pieces about 1/2″ wide by 1/2” thick and 2” long. Take the chicken and skewer about two or three chicken pieces onto each bamboo skewer. Once all the chicken is skewered give it a pretty heavy coating of the peanut sauce, and let it marinade for about 24 hours in the fridge. You’ll have more then enough sauce to coat all the chicken skewers, plus 2 cups of leftover sauce.
Once the chicken is done marinating overnight, I cooked the satays on the Weber for about a minute or two a side, but basically until browned and firm to the touch.

And the results, pretty good if I do say so, but check out the side notes for what I would do differently next time. Enjoy.

Side notes:
1) Don’t bother using bamboo skewers. Sure they look cool, but stick with stainless steel skewers.
2) Needs more spice, since I barely tasted any of the red pepper flakes that I did add. So I’d probably pump it up to a full teaspoon the next time.
3) I’m also thinking about tweaking the liquid ingredients. Since I really don’t think that the sesame oil added anything extra, so I would just increase the vegetable oil to 1.5 cups.
4) Also I just happened to find out that fish sauce is totally awesome, so I would cut back on the soy sauce and increase the fish sauce, so that each was a 1/4 cup.
5) Have you noticed that there isn’t any salt in the recipe? It because the soy sauce and fish sauce have plenty of salt to begin with, so adding in some kosher salt doesn’t make any sense.
6) If you don’t want any leftover peanut sauce, just cut the sauce recipe in half.