Having a Grape Time – Wish You Were Here! November 11, 2009
Posted by Toy Lady in Food, random stuff.add a comment
You know how I’ve always said “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing?”
Well, this isn’t one of those instances. Really, it’s not! Coming home from the farmer’s market with a mere peck of concord grapes is child’s play! (Several years ago, a friend and I drove to Naples and came home with bushels of grapes. A peck? Bah.)
However, it is an awful, awful lot of grape bread, and, tasty though it was, enough was enough!
So clearly, some processing was in order, huh?
This is one of the reasons I took a “fall vacation” rather than a summer vacation, you know . . .
The first thing we have to do is separate the seedy inner pulp from the purple skins. It’s not difficult to squeeze the “guts” into a pan – just a little sticky, that’s all!
However, two people working together make short work of it!
Ultimately we want all the grape, um, innards in a large-ish saucepan (for this amount of grapes, I used the small dutch oven) and all the skins in a separate bowl. Or two.
As an aside, do you know that, when it comes to wines the purple grapes are called “black?” I guess I can see why, huh?
Just an interesting bit of grape trivia there for you.
Now that the grapes have been separated, and we’ve washed the sticky off our hands (and arms), it’s time to go to work.
We take the pot of grape ooze, and it goes on the stove – just bring it to a boil, and let it cook for a minute.
Meanwhile, while we’re waiting for the stuff to come to a boil, I like to chop the skins. This isn’t really necessary, but I just think there’s something kind of off-putting about whole grape skins in my grape pulp. And besides, it’s not like I’m going anywhere – not while there are 8 quarts of grapes on the stove!
See how much purpler the skins get when you chop them? Pretty cool, huh? Because there’s still a lot of liquid in them, we pulsed them in batches – but remember, you just want chopped, not pureed!
Dump them right into another pot as you go – we went with the non-stick spaghetti pot.
Remember how we don’t want seeds in our grape pulp? Well, now’s the time to do something about it. Oh yay, right?
We just ran the slightly cooked inner grapes through the food mill, and voilá - separated seeds! I understand that one could push them through a strainer, but, to be honest, I’ve never not had a food mill, so I don’t know how that would work. Just fine, I’d expect.
You’ll note that we’re, uh, milling the grapes right into the same pot where the chopped skins are patiently waiting. It’s time to reassemble the grapes! Well, sort of – we’re going to put the insides and the outsides back together again, anyway.
After you’re done making pretty patterns in the purple-and-green-swirls, give it all a good stir and bring it just up to a simmer, then remove from the heat and let it cool. I let the whole mess sit in the fridge overnight before packing it up for the freezer.
And it just seemed to work out that a peck of grapes – 8 quarts – after processing, became 4 quarts, which makes for some mighty easy math, doesn’t it?
One quart is the perfect amount to make filling for a single pie, or, as I recall, it’s also a single batch of Nero Wolfe’s grape-thyme jam. (OK, Wolfe made jelly, but I much prefer jam!) Or it’s a good 4 batches of grape muffins.
Heck, I could probably even make grape smoothies. Now there’s an idea . . .
Thing #37 – In the Bag(el) November 10, 2009
Posted by Toy Lady in 101 Things, random stuff.4 comments
I’ve been subscribing to a sourdough baking newsletter for quite a while now, and let me tell you – there are people out there who take this whole sourdough thing SERIOUSLY! I mean. . . wow. So anyway, after a brief hiatus, Theresa at Northwest Sourdough shared her egg bagel recipe. The directions were detailed, we’ve got started in the fridge, so . . . who am I to turn away from a tasty, bready challenge? Particularly one that’s on my List!
So . . . first the ingredients.
Sourdough starter – check. Water – check. Eggs, oil, salt, bread flour – good to go. The recipe called for “gluten flour” – that’s probably what we buy labeled “vital wheat gluten.”
Um. . . non diastatic malt syrup? I have no idea.
So I did the next best thing – I went to our local brewing and hydroponic gardening store and asked about it.
After all, where there’s beer there’s malt, right?
Yeah, they had no idea. The suggested I go to a bagel shop and ask. Seriously! (Though to be honest, I’m pretty sure it was only a matter of time before one of them asked where the Doritos were. . . )
Clearly left to my our devices, Peeps and I decided that “malt extract” was probably pretty much the same thing as “malt syrup” and, if not, well, the smallest can in the place didn’t set us back that much.
Following the directions – I mixed a HUGE batch of dough. And a firm dough it was, too, which only makes sense. Bagels are a heavy, dense bread – we don’t want soft and airy dough, now do we?
Now this recipe differs from many others in that it directs me to let the dough rise, at this stage, for 4-6 hours, until it’s doubled in bulk.
Then it was time to make the bagels. I divided the dough into 12 5-ounce blobs, then shaped each into a nice little ball.
And poked a hole in each little dough ball:
Then stretched the hole out until I had something more bagel-shaped.
Ta da!
And then the young bagels had to set out and rise again. For a couple of hours.
By this time, as is to be expected, the bagels were HUGE! They had risen to nearly twice their size and were more than ready for the next step.
And the next step was boiling them. You know, this is what’s cool about bagels. I mean, who EVER dreamed up the idea of making a bread dough, rising it, dumping it boiling water, THEN baking it? Doesn’t it make you wonder what they were thinking?
We boiled a pot of water, and to the water, we added more of the malt syrup/extract stuff, some salt, and a tablespoon of baking soda, then gently dropped the bagels in, to boil half a minute on each side (they floated to the top and needed to be turned).
Once all the bagels had been boiled, I baked them until they were delightfully GBD.
So here’s the thing about these bagels. I’m sure you can see – they’re far fatter and puffier than any bagel should be. Don’t get me wrong – they were probably the tastiest bagels I’ve ever had, but the texture was wrong. The appeared overproofed, which I should have known would happen when you let them rise as long as these did!
However, never one to let a tasty bread product go to waste, I will tell you that they made a delicious (if huge!) sandwich roll!
And, never one to admit defeat, I decided to revisit the bagel experiment once again. I did a bit of research and found that this procedure was somewhat, well, unorthodox.
I used the same recipe (split in half) with an amalgamation of several other recipes for the rising-cooking-timing process. This time, we covered the tray of shaped bagels and stuck them in the fridge overnight for a long, slow, cool rise.
However, it seems that I still should let them rise outside the fridge before the overnight chill – they did NOT want to float in the water!
Eventually, though, they warmed up a bit and rose a bit and were slightly buoyant, and we carried on as before.
This time, I also made the bagels a little more reasonably sized – just under 4 ounces (which is certainly hefty enough). The slower rise, as well as just less rising in general, produced a much heavier, denser product, and still just as delicious.
Now, next time, I just need to remember the parchment – even after a quick boil, and with a layer of semolina on the tray, those buggers still stuck like crazy! But they still tasted mighty good. We’re getting there – another couple of tries, and I should be an expert!
Monday Musings: 11.09.2009 November 9, 2009
Posted by Toy Lady in Musings, random stuff.6 comments
This past weekend was market weekend. I do love visiting the public market! Even this late into the fall, there are still great things available – a fabulous variety of apples, squash everywhere, and of course, greens. Lots of greens. I grabbed another trashbag full of mustard greens – for $2. How could I pass it up? And it’s not that much. Not really.
So, I got on the scale Saturday morning for my weekly weigh-in. This is what I like to see!
(I know, I know. I changed the battery. I liked it better like this, though. It’s just nice to have the validation, you know!)
Reason #9,037 why time change week sucks: Now that everyone is getting up an hour “early,” I have to deal with actual traffic on my way to work in the mornings again.
Here’s hoping that this week will see a return to normal traffic patterns. It’s MY highway at that hour of the morning, darnit!
And fall is well and truly here. I noticed last week that the Christmas cactus is just starting to form buds!
It usually does right around time change week – something to do with when we shut the lights off in the kitchen and when the sun goes down and how many hours of darkness versus how many hours of real or artificial light the plant gets . . . I don’t know. I took geology.
I just know that this means summer is really, truly over.
You may recall that I picked up a bag of butternut squash at the market a few weeks ago. And a couple of weeks later, I also scored several acorn squash. They’re so neat to stuff – which we did one night for dinner (I’ll tell you all about it later on).
And one of the by-products of either squash is the seeds – it’s not just pumpkin seeds you can roast, you know! I’ve been using a boil-then-roast method, and they’re so good that way!
This time, though, I decided to play around a bit with the seasoning – rather than just oil and roast them, I coated the seeds with about a Tablespoon of maple sugar and maybe half a teaspoon of cayenne, plus a teaspoon or so of canola oil. The result was surprisingly tasty – sweet and spicy and I couldn’t stop eating them until they were gone!
You remember how Peeps mentioned the, uh, gravy incident the other day? Yeah, it was a mess. Frankly, I think he was a little shocked when I called the one-man dog “cleanup crew” and told him that this is why people have dogs!
But really, does he look like he minds?
But don’t worry – Jarly’s not the only one who received a special benefit that day! The gravy was from a veal roast that I’d put in the slow cooker that morning. In addition to the regular players (onion, celery, carrots), there were also a couple of anchovies . . . and look who helped me clean out the tin before recycling it.
Doesn’t she almost look like she’s smiling there?
And once again, it’s time for the weekly menu plan. I just can’t believe how fall is flying by! We’re well into November, and my Christmas cactus will be blossoming before we know it! However, we do have the good fortune to be enjoying an “unseasonably warm” spell for a few days, and we know what that means – grilling weather!
Monday – The forecast is calling for mostly sunny and nearly 70°! In November! How can we not grab one last chance to throw some burgers on the grill? In addition, we’ll pan-roast some potatoes and toss a salad. Kind of a farewell to summer dinner.
Tuesday - Although it will be a little cooler, we should be able to squeeze one more grilled dinner in. I’ve got some chicken marinating in an orange-tarragon marinade, which will be terrific with some steamed broccoli and a specialty rice that we picked up on quick-sale. Really, rice on quick-sale!
Wednesday – Back to November weather AND it’s swim night. Peeps is going to put together some red beans, which will be seasoned with some leftover ham and some fresh and dried herbs, and the whole works will go in the slow cooker until we get home from swim class and cook some rice.
Thursday - In the interest of clearing out the freezer, we’ll defrost and reheat some of the veggie lasagna we stashed in there a while back, along with another fresh tossed salad.
Friday - As always, Friday night is pizza night! I’m not quite sure how I’ll top it yet – maybe some broccoli? Some leftover chicken? Just plain cheese? We’ll have to see what’s in the fridge, I guess.
Be sure to click on over to The Organizing Junkie’s Monday Menu Plan post for loads and loads of other ideas.
Please excuse me November 6, 2009
Posted by Peeps in random stuff.1 comment so far
After spending most of the day trying to come up with something to entertain our tens of readers, again I have nothing.
But as it turns out, while cleaning up after dinner I upset a pot of gravy. As in, I knocked it over, not insulted it. That’s hardly nice. Besides, it was actually fine gravy. My wife will tell you more about later.
But fortunately, we have a dog. And here, for your amusement, are a couple of shots of the dog finally pulling his weight around here.
I suppose this should be one more thing my mother needs to answer for. But she can’t help being allergic to dogs. Thus depriving me of the ultimate in cleaning partners. Oh well. But it’s still no excuse for all the rest of what I had to go through.
Have a great weekend.
My Big Fat To Do List November 5, 2009
Posted by Toy Lady in Home, random stuff.3 comments
One of the little “projects” I got caught up in while I was on vacation a couple of weeks ago involved painting. Lots and lots of painting. Oh, it started out innocently enough – the kitchen just needed some freshening up, that’s all.
Then, one Saturday morning, I stumbled across very simple direction for making a custom-color chalkboard. And I thought about my need to write lists. It’s not like I’m obsessive or anything. I just forget things, that’s all. And then I remembered all the times that I’d made a list . . . then I couldn’t find it.
Then I thought about the kitchen door – you know, the one that leads to the basement. Where the crazy cat is still hiding out. And how the dog had SO MUCH FUN digging and scratching and chewing at that door before we smartened up and started squirting him with a water bottle.
Yeah, I know. It’s mean. YOU try getting between the freaked out kitty and the overly-enthusiastic dog. A little water isn’t going to hurt him.
So, where was I again? The door. And a chalkboard. Yeah. As I said, the dog has pretty much stopped trashing the door, so I think it’ll be safe to do something with it. And to replace the kitty door that they ripped the flap off of. (Even though I can’t seem to find the same size – all the “small” pet doors seem to be out of stock at all the pet stores. What is UP with that, anyway?)
Why not make a chalkboard? A nice coat of paint over the dark wood door is bound to brighten up the kitchen, right? And it’ll be useful. I’m a big fan of useful things, you know.
So I chose my color (a couple of shades lighter than the very dark green of the trim), made a trip to The Big Box Home Improvement Store and went to work.
The directions were specific – NON-sanded grout. I have no idea what that means, but sure enough, there were boxes of non-sanded grount and sanded grout. Who knew?
And I got a quart of flat latex paint. (I had to do a little spackling, on the door, and I went ahead and primed it, so I didn’t need the kind with the primer built in.)
I mixed 2 Tablespoons of grout stuff in with a cup of paint.
Let’s try to keep in mind, though, that there ’s a bit of a learning curve. Don’t use a canning jar to mix the paint up. It seems like a good idea, yes. However. You’re going to turn around and pour the paint into whatever you’re using as a paint tray, and you’re never going to get it all out, so even though you so cleverly measured and marked 1 cup on the jar, you won’t be able to measure in it anyway.
Also, if I did this again, I would measure the grout first, make sure all the lumps are out of it, then add the paint, a little at a time. Kind of the way you’d make a roux. That’s what I’d do now.
I used a small paint roller and a disposable tin pan for the paint. I thought that was pretty clever, actually. The paint mixture was super thick – I’m not sure if it was supposed to be like that or not, but there you go. After the first coat, everything got wrapped in a plastic bag for the next coat the next day.
So I put a second coat of paint on the door and let it dry. And lest we forget, this was the DOOR. To the BASEMENT. I had to leave it open, risking life and limb if you-know-who ever figured out it was open! Fortunately, I had put a baby gate up in the kitchen doorway to do the painting, and the dog had had a chance to get used the idea – he didn’t charge the gate, and the cat didn’t instigate anything. But to be on the safe side, I put the last coat on the door right before we went to bed.
Once the paint was dry, it was time to sand. I started sanding by hand with a piece of sandpaper and a sanding block, but I switched to the Mouse Sander in short order. A door has a a lot of area to sand! Oh, and you might want to put newspaper or something down on the floor. Or, you know, not sand in the kitchen. (sigh)
OK, we’re just about done here! I was getting so excited! The door needed to be “primed” (no I have no idea why, but what the heck). I had already bought a box of chalk, so we sacrificed one piece and just covered the entire door with a film of chalk.
By the time I got the entire door covered, that stick of chalk wasn’t even a stub!
Then I took a damp cloth (paper towel) and just cleaned the whole thing up, and voila! Instant chalkboard.
And it really works, too!
Of course, there are a couple of things I’d do differently – I’d do a much better job making sure the paint is smooth, to start with. I was able to sand most of the lumps out, but still. I would probably also put a third coat on. The coverage is fine, but it’s just a tad uneven, I think because the door itself was so dark and the spackle I used (to fill in the dents, holes and chew marks) was white.
Oh, and it should be noted that the chalkboard paint doesn’t keep. I went back to use what was left in the can a few days later, and it was horrible! It was really lumpy, and the grout had sort of formed a layer of rock in the inside of the paint can.
However, for my purposes, this is great! I can write lists to my little heart’s content, and I’ve learned a (questionably) valuable new skill.
So now that I think I know what I’m doing, any suggestions for something else I could paint into a chalboard?
