nothoo.com » food http://blog.nothoo.com meritorious marginalia Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:28:21 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Beef Stock and Boeuf à la mode http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/03/08/beef-stock-and-boeuf-a-la-mode/ http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/03/08/beef-stock-and-boeuf-a-la-mode/#comments Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:28:00 +0000 jeff http://blog.nothoo.com/?p=618 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> I just finished making beef stock for the first time. It smells amazing and is nice and gelatinous. I wanted to drink a cup of it but refrained, for now. The pure white layer of fat that congealed at the top was beautiful. I saved the fat, not sure what to do with it though, it seemed a shame to toss it.

The stock was cloudy, I am not sure if I should be worried about this or not. I basically made it the way Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall describes in his The River Cottage Meat Book (a fantastic book BTW).

I started with 2 marrow bones, then roasted about 5lbs of misc beef bones (neck mainly) in the oven, to this I added my collection of beef trimmings, maybe about 4 lbs of meat, sinew, and fat. I added a handful of bay leaves, carrots, celery, and onion. I had it at a tremulous simmer for about 6 hours. I then cooled in an icy water bath and stuck in the fridge overnight. I defatted it this morning and put it in 2 cp portions into the freezer.

I am planning on making a French style Pot Roast (Boeuf à la mode) today and using some of the stock for the sauce. I am using a recipe from Cooks Illustrated that uses unflavored gelatin and bacon in place of the calves foot and lardons respectively. Cooks Illustrated usually is pretty good with these streamlined braises so my hopes are high. I will try my damndest to post tomorrow with a post mortem on the dish.

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]]> http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/03/08/beef-stock-and-boeuf-a-la-mode/feed/ 0 The Future http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/03/02/the-future/ http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/03/02/the-future/#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2009 02:59:44 +0000 jeff http://blog.nothoo.com/?p=610 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> Sometimes big decisions by others force you into making big decisions of your own. After 12 years of slinging code in the software industry (all with crazy start ups) I am leaving my career. After much deliberation, hand wringing, number crunching, and other such stuff, my wife and I have decided to make some major life changes. First, I am not going back to work in the foreseeable future (maybe some small freelance stuff here and there, but that is it), my wife has upped her consulting hours (behavior analysis/modification for children with autism) and will be the bread winner. She will be able to keep her hours down so that she still gets time with our two wonderful kids.

This also means that we will have to make budget cuts (now if only we could get the god damned government to do the same!). One of our largest expenses is Montessori school for our oldest son. We have loved having him there but we think that we will like having him at home even more. Yes, we are going to homeschool our kids. Seems crazy to many I am sure  but we really feel that this is the right answer for our family. Public school sucks and private school, besides being hideously expensive, is really just a better version of public schooling. The attitude that it is all about preparing for college, preparing to become a cog in the machine, is not what we are after. I want my kids to learn to learn, love to learn, and not feel that their path forward is riding the rails of cookie-cutter American success. So look for more home schooling (unschooling?) blogging.

My last bit is about food. I love food. I love cooking it, reading about it, watching it being made/eaten, and eating it myself. I have spent the last 12 years exploring food primarily through the wealth of great restaurants that we have here in the Northern Virginia area (only secondarily via my whim driven dabbling in cooking). Eating out is expensive. A tighter budget means less eating out. Which also means more eating at home. More cooking, more exploration, more getting my hands in it and my head around it. I am really loving this aspect of being “Mr. Mom”. I have been baking (cookies, bread, pizza), curing meat, creating my own “recipes”, mixing, matching, and melding flavors, all while providing a meal for my family. My freezers are full of stock, bones, chunks, cubes, sausage, etc… (all examples of meat thrift a concept seemingly lost in this age of cheap meat). I definitely want to blog more about this. Maybe when the kids are a bit older I can even start a new career in food.

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]]> http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/03/02/the-future/feed/ 0 Recent Adventures in Pork http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/02/21/recent-adventures-in-pork/ http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/02/21/recent-adventures-in-pork/#comments Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:43:28 +0000 jeff http://blog.nothoo.com/?p=606 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> I bought 2 ~9lb pork shoulders (blade). These broke down into:

  • 8 lbs of cubed meat and 2lbs of cubed fat for sausage – 1/2 is frozen, the other 1/2 got turned into 5lbs of Sweet Italian Sausage
  • 3lb blade roast (dinner tonight w/ braised cabbage)
  • ~3lb of bones and scraps – frozen, to become stock
  • 2lbs of extra meat and fat for the next sausage batch

I also bought a ~12lb pork belly. It broke down into:

  • ~1lb of skin, frozen until I decide to make some cracklins
  • ~3lb of “short” ribs, frozen, to be smoked
  • 2 x 4lb belly pieces – 1 is in a cure right now to become some bacon, the other is frozen and will become pancetta

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]]> http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/02/21/recent-adventures-in-pork/feed/ 2 Anything Edible on a Cow or Pig is For Sale… http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/02/04/anything-edible-on-a-cow-or-pig-is-for-sale/ http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/02/04/anything-edible-on-a-cow-or-pig-is-for-sale/#comments Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:17:46 +0000 jeff http://blog.nothoo.com/?p=602 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]> Are there finer words to be found on the website of your local Latin grocery store then these?

We sell whole pigs, whole lambs and whole goats, anything edible on a cow or pig is for sale in our meat shop.

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]]> http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/02/04/anything-edible-on-a-cow-or-pig-is-for-sale/feed/ 0 Things in my Kitchen Right Now http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/02/04/things-in-my-kitchen-right-now/ http://blog.nothoo.com/2009/02/04/things-in-my-kitchen-right-now/#comments Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:14:35 +0000 jeff http://blog.nothoo.com/?p=600 Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>
  • On the stove, a 15 Qt stock pot filled with chicken carcasses, water, some herbs and vegetables. Soon to be stock.
  • a 2lb bucket of rendered pork fat “the pride of Atlixco, Puebla Mexico” it says on the label
  • a half empty bowl of bacon fat
  • 2 slices of Jamon Iberica
  • 1/3 lb of Jamon Serrano
  • 1/3 lb Prosciutto (soon to become part of a hunk of bread…)

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