Friday's Dinner and Saturday's Lunch

note: I meant to post this before leaving for Minnesota last Wednesday, but ran out of time.

I've been posting photos on Facebook of my adventures in cookery, but the space is limited there, so I can't expound much on the recipes I used, and the pros and cons of the outcome. Also, it's tough to go back and find stuff I've made. I figure my blog would be a little more permanent, as well as searchable, as well as expoundable.

Friday, 04.01.11
Southwest Scramble with "Texas Bruschetta"

In retrospect, I should have taken a photo of the salsa, but I'll make do.

This was supposed to be a Southwest Omelet, but Sarah wasn't home to make the actual omelet, and that's something I haven't quite learned yet. The nice thing about omelets is that if you screw up, unless it's a really bad screw-up, you can just call the results "scrambled eggs". It's not how I would have made them had that been the intention, but it worked....well, sort of (you can see that the eggs got a little over-cooked, but I like that, especially with a good toast).

Speaking of toast, let's talk about something I call "Texas Bruschetta". You probably know of Texas Toast as thick garlic bread, or the packaging of particularly "hearty" sandwiches. Really, it's just extra-thick bread. The bread I used isn't particularly thick, but it is a roll, so it has a little more bulk. The "Bruschetta" comes from the salsa. Starting with a red tomato and a tomatillo, I added some red onion, garlic, red, yellow, and orange bell peppers, parsley, cumin, paprika, and kosher salt. It's a little concoction I call DELICIOUS. It's actually a slight variation of a recipe I stumbled upon this summer. An amplification, if you will. Normally, I use just an onion, a red tomato, a red bell pepper, some garlic, and the spices.

The tomatillo surprised me. I'd never done anything with them, and if I've ever eaten anything with them, I didn't know it. I plan on using them more in the future. Salsa verde? Something like that.

I toasted the bread, and put a little butter on it, then spooned some of the salsa on top. The juices from the salsa seeped into the crannies of the roll; the two elements melded together into something similar, but different. Texas Bruschetta.


Friday, 04.01.11
Pulled Pork with Texas Bruschetta


Ok, I'll be honest, this was the original intent of my Texas Bruschetta. Generally when Sarah and I make pulled pork, we have it as a sandwich. Or, at the very least, with bread. So, I wanted to do something a little different. Sarah was to be home late from class on Friday, though, so I decided to save it for Saturday.

First off, the pulled pork. Not my best effort. It's a 4-5 lb pork shoulder, rubbed with a mix of ground chipotle, allspice, dill, and ground coffee. Sounds odd? Only if you didn't watch Top Chef this season. Angelo Sosa apparently reached into the pantry with his eyes close, and just grabbed the first four spices that he touched (I think coffee could be considered a spice), and made a great pulled pork. I made this a couple weeks after that episode aired, and it came out pretty good, though working without a recipe, I don't think I used enough dill, and it disappeared. The chipotle gave a great "slow burn" and the pork had a great flavor.

This time, I think my ratios were all off, and we ran out of ground chipotle. Not wanting to bury it in other peppers, I only mixed in a little ancho and cayenne. Again, not enough dill (though, I think that's better than the alternative). I cooked it in the pressure cooker, with a little water, a dark ale, and some bbq sauce on top.

The pressure cooker is a mysterious piece of kitchen equipment. Sarah got it for her birthday, and we've only used it 3 times. Counting the experiences of both Sarah and I with other pressure cookers, runs that total up to...3. So, you wouldn't be too far out of line to say that we're pretty inexperienced. Each time we use it, we hunker down in the living room, inching lower on the couch as the steam builds, trying to keep our heads below the sill of the open wall between the living room and the kitchen, but trying not to look like we're doing it. Of course, I'm unable to just leave be, so I'm up every few minutes, checking on the lock indicator, the pressure valve. Then, when it gets to temp, we turn down the heat, and debate what constitutes a "slow rocking". Timer set, we watch TV.

After 50 minutes, I move the cooker to the sink, dousing it in cold water, releasing the pressure. Opening the lid back on the stove, the beautiful scents waft out, and we check on the meat. Not cooked. This happened the first time, and happened this time, as well. Ok, no biggie, seal the cooker, bring back up to heat, go back to the couch, and wait. The first time, we repeated this a couple of times. This time, I set the timer longer (~25 minutes), and just let it cook. Timer. Cold water. Open. Thermometer. Done. Well past done, in fact.

It's not as moist as it could be, but also not as dry. It's pretty good with some bbq sauce.

The only change I made to the toast was the butter. Instead of just regular butter, I whipped up some compound butter, using some garlic powder and some ground rosemary. Good stuff, and great for a variety of purposes.