I cured my own ham to serve for Thanksgiving this year. This was one huge piece of pork from Yonder Way Farm. It was cured for a couple of weeks before being smoked, braised, glazed and baked. The ham made for a fantastic meal or more like ten meals including breakfasts and work lunch sandwiches. After […]
Split Pea Soup with Ham, Fresh Peas and Mint Read More »
A long titled post suitable to a properly labor-intensive and delicious cold-weather meal. Both the Toulouse-style Cassoulet and the Walnut Tart are based on Paula Wolfert’s recipes in her book “The Cooking of Southwest France“. The bread is the Pain de Campagne (country bread) recipe from Peter Reinhart’s “The Bread baker’s Apprentice“. Making a proper Cassoulet is a good bit
It’s amazing how I manage to find more boar meat in my deep freezer overtime I look in there. I still have a couple of loins, some shoulders and maybe two hind (ham) legs. I see some boar sausage in my future, maybe Italian or Greek flavored…or some of each…we’ll see. Anyways, I took a
Wild Boar Loin, Puy Lentils and Apple-Port Sauce Read More »
Making something delicious out of “scraps” is one of the pleasures of cooking. It’s simple to make a piece of steak or a chop appetizing, but transforming an admittedly ugly-looking piece of pig – a tail in this case- into a dish worthy of a classy fine dining restaurant needs technique and some creativity. So, when a friend
Under Pressure: Fried Pig Tail, Deviled Quail Egg, Beans and Sauce Ravigote Read More »
I was picking up some ingredients for another dinner of Ramen the other day and stumbled on these awesome looking King Trumpet mushrooms. They looked fresh and plump, so I picked a few clusters up. The first thing that came to mind is to treat them as if they were the more prestigious Porcini or
King Trumpet, Miso, Fried Tofu Read More »
The whole reason this dish came together are those neat looking Cocottes, the small red ceramic dishes. Diana, always keeping an eye for good deals, picked them up as a Christmas present for me at Tuesday Morning for a good price. I knew I would be using these things as soon as I possibly could.
Confit of Venison Shoulder, Cauliflower Gratin and Bean Puree Read More »
Tuesday, January 13 , 2009 I love Mexican food but I do not cook nearly as much of it as I should. That’s probably because I live in Houston, and good real Mexican food or it’s descendent, Tex-Mex, is very easy to find. I’ve been planning to make Mole some time soon because that is
VDP: Black Bean Enchiladas with Tomatillo Salsa Read More »
Sunday, November 30, 2008 Another Americanized name for this pie is Chickpea Pizza. However, I just posted about pizza. Real pizza. Farinata my friends is not pizza. It does not taste like pizza nor look like one. It has no cheese, no sauce and no topping. Farinata is more like a pancake, or crepe really.
VDP: Farinata (Socca) Read More »
Sunday, October 20, 2008 My feelings about veggie burgers is similar to those about vegetarian chilli. I regard them as completely different dishes than their meat-centric counterparts. Veggie burgers are by no means a substitute for the real thing, but if you perceive them as nothing more than flavorful bean and vegetable patties, they work
VDP: Black Bean and Pumpkin Burgers Read More »
Monday, September 1, 2008 Well, Labor Day is here and, supposedly, so was Gustav the hurricane. We spent the weekend in San Antonio and ate a lot of heavy meaty foods like barbeque (chicken, brisket and sausage) and tacos (in all shapes and forms from lengua to chorizo and egg to awesome gelatinous spicy Chicharron).
VDP: Beans and Carrots with an Onion Salad Read More »