Sunday, January 8, 2012 Kettle Corn in the Dutch Oven

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways... Of course, I'm talking to both my dutch oven and my kettle corn.

When carnival season arrives it's the kettle corn that drives me out of the house and into the general public. I love the sweet and salty. I can eat a whole large bag, the size of a first grader, within a day or two.

With my New Year's diet in full swing I needed to abandon microwave popcorn. It's cancer anyway, why expose myself to all that crap when I have the tools to make my own awesome popcorn.

The dutch oven.

Heavy lid, heavy bottom, heavy all around. This isn't the popcorn making from my youth, burning kernels and shaking pots on electric stove tops. I barely have to move it, I probably don't have to move it at all but I burn a few more calories in the prep and I don't feel so bad eating the entire bowl.

I followed Rachael Ray's recipe for the most part. I halved the amount of sugar so it was...

1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup popcorn kernels
1/8 cup white sugar
salt sprinkled over the top <-- That I did not measure

Put the pot on the stove at 7 1/2 (electric stove.) Put in the oil, the popcorn, put the lid back on. When the oil starts to sizzle sprinkle the sugar in there and put the lid back on. Then you just wait for it to pop, pop, pop. I haven't been too good at judging when it's done, it seems I have a lot of leftover kernels. But I'm pretty sure that's not the end of the world. The whole two pound bag only cost me $1.50, so wasting money is not an issue.

YUMMY!!!

I am thrilled at the prospect of never having to go to another sub-par street fair for a taste of kettle corn. Never again will I be forced to hang with the commoners in order to experience the salty sweetness. Thank goodness.

I can see lots of experimenting on this front. Colored sugar, candy flavors... And popcorn is a whole grain so I'm not totally blowing my diet. YAY!

How do you rock your popcorn?

-HH

Thursday, December 8, 2011 Lovin' the Dutch Oven

I love this thing.

My neighbor gave it to me a few months ago when she thought she was moving. She hasn't moved. And she's not getting it back.

I didn't even know how to use it, really. I had to ask on Facebook, I wasn't sure if the enameled bottom would stick to my stove top. It doesn't. It's brilliant.

I've done a couple beef roasts in it so far. This week I made a chicken. Whole freakin' thing, right in the pot. So far we've had two meals - tonight it's fajitas with the rest of the chicken.

Starting with the pot on the stove top I seasoned the whole chicken with Penzys Northwoods Seasoning. Then I put it in the hot pan with some olive oil breast side down. After a few minutes I struggled with some tongs to flip it over. None of this was probably necessary, cooking it breast down would have been just fine. As you can see in the picture I ripped off a hunk of skin when I flipped it. The quality of the meat was unaffected. I also threw in about 6 or 7 ham stock cubes. I let it go for about 2 hours at 300 and then threw in some sliced onions and chunks of peeled sweet potato for one more hour of cooking.

Absolute perfection. The chicken was falling off the bone, one smooth move and my husband had the whole breast off in one beautiful hunk. The knife slid into the sweet potatoes like a hot knife in warm butter. I sauteed some spinach in butter and garlic - for some reason it smelled like lobster to me, but I went with it. We quickly ate ourselves into comas.

To be honest I just left it in the pot. Let it cool on the counter for about 1/2 hour and then put the whole thing in the fridge. This might not always be safe. Remember the whole temperature thing - 40-140 is the danger zone. You don't want it there for more than 4 hours total (put simply). You need the food to cool quickly, but you also don't want to put a big hot thing in your fridge, you may spoil everything else. I felt the leftover portion was small enough that it would cool quickly. A huge pot of sauce, for example, may remain hot in the center. That can cause bacteria to grow.

Always use your noggin.

Yesterday, when we reheated it, I put it in the oven at 350 for an hour and then dropped it to 250 until we were ready to eat, about 1 hour later.

See what I mean about this thing? It's low-tech, set-it-and-forget-it.

I bet chili in a dutch oven kicks-ass! Stay tuned!

-HH

Wednesday, November 16, 2011 My First Saugatuck Craft Butchery Experience

Look at that little bundle of joy. Go ahead, just look at it. I won't judge you.

OMG. Yesterday I had my first Saugatuck Craft Butchery experience. I was looking forward to it since I'd first read the article on CTBites. As most of my Facebook fans know, I'm not one to get excited about restaurant openings. But butcher openings? Give me a place to get some kick-ass ingredients and I'm a happy headbanging camper.

Well let me tell you, they did not disappoint.

As I walked up to the joint there was a nice young woman setting up shop for the day, placing doormats with pink pigs in their proper places. Of course I had to comment and we started talking (the doormats were at Bed, Bath & Beyond) and the conversation organically shifted to the organic meats (get it? Ba-dum-bum). She was super nice in assisting me, it's a good thing I was the only customer there because I had no idea what I wanted. I knew I wanted to use the fancy dutch oven my neighbor gave me, that was about it. I hemmed and hawed over lamb for a bit, I've only really liked it once. I know I need to learn to like it, and the uber-patient young woman helping me explained that pasture raised lamb has a different taste than supermarket lamb, but I was still unsure about it. Thankfully the Owner/Head Butcher who had been busy breaking down a steer with a bunch of other manly-men in burlap hats chimed in with a beef roast and I was sold. A pound-and-a-half, just enough for me and my husband. It was $15.08 - I know that sounds like a lot of money to some people. But just think about it, I supported a local business, a local farmer; I can live with the fact that the animal I ate only had one bad day in his life (straight from the butcher's mouth) and my husband and I had an awesome dinner. That was money well spent!

Check it out! They have tons of stuff, local yogurt, maple syrup, all sorts of dried meats, burgers, chicken wings, local cheeses. They use up every bit of the animal and even have cuts of meat you've never heard of. They visit all the farms as well as the slaughterhouses. It's a top notch operation, people; just go already! I can't come up with any more words to describe the awesomeness. Two Tits-Up for Saugatuck Craft Butchery!

And now, the recipe portion of this programming...


So I get this beautiful, tied-up piece of meat home. I give it a good covering of garlic salt, onion powder, rosemary powder and pepper and let it sit for a while. Just before General Hospital started I put the enameled dutch oven directly on the stove top (Which I wasn't sure I could do. Thank you James and Jane) and I browned the meat in olive oil all around. Then I threw in some of my husbands white wine and some bay leaf, threw on the lid, tossed it into the preheated 300 degree oven and left it for two hours.

When I opened the lid I was horrified. Everything looked scorched, my piece of meat had been replaced with a much smaller piece of meat that looked horribly overdone. I almost cried. I've never used a dutch oven before and I was convinced I'd ruined that beautiful piece of steer. My husband consoled me, assuring me it would be great. He grabbed some stock-cubes from the freezer as I doused it with more wine and tossed in some onion and carrots.

An hour later I took it out of the oven. I took the meat out to rest and put the carrots back on the burner. I tasted it, adjusted the salt, added pepper, rosemary, a shot of maple syrup to take out the bitter; a corn starch slurry thickened it up as it simmered on the stove. I threw some green beans and pine nuts under the broiler for a few minutes. I like them that way, nice and crispy - some people might say they were raw but that just means they've eaten overcooked green beans their whole lives...how sad for them.

The meat rested for about 20 minutes before my husband sliced it. There was no slicing. It was so tender...just look at the picture.




The carrots were covered in a rich brown onion sauce and cooked perfectly, giving way easily to my fork and still bright orange in the middle. The meat was incredible, light as air, almost indescribable. Have you had the Hershey chocolates with the air bubbles? This is the meat equivalent to that. Smooth like ice cream, tender. We dogged it. Wasn't one bite left.

I will be using both the butcher and the dutch oven more often. Rock on! \m/

-HH

Saugatuck Craft Butchery is located at 575 Riverside Ave in Westport, CT - Right of I-95 exit 17