A Mothers Life Lesson.

As my Mother gets older, she has the curse of watching all of her friends pass on.  One of my Mothers closest friends has been ill for quite some time and was nearing the end of her life.  I called my Mom to see if she was going to go see her friend in the ICU at the St. Cloud hospital as I felt the end was near.  She seemed a little reluctant to visit until I asked her if she would like me to drive her there.  She gladly excepted my offer and off we went to visit her good friend.
When we arrived at the ICU we went to the room where I met my RN wife, Mom’s friend was on a ventilator, sleeping, and looked to be at the end of her life.  I asked Mom if she was going to stay in the room as we where going to find the children as our families have been close for years and we wanted to be able to support them in their time of need.  We left my mother in the room and went on our search for the family.  After finding the family and talking for a little about the situation, we headed back to the room to find my Mom holding the hand and comforting this dieing woman who she had spent so much time with.  I was moved to tears seeing my mother comforting her good friend who was about to pass on.  We all had a good cry and stood around as two families grieving and telling stories about all of the good times we had shared in the past.
When I woke up this morning I heard that our family friend had past away just hours after we left and was happy my mother could go to the hospital to see her friend before she went to heaven.
Watching my Mother comfort her friend in her final moments in was a very significant moment in my life and really made me rethink what is really important in life.  Being close and helping friends and family is really something that you can’t take for granted, and I need to learn how to cherish the significant people in my life as I move on in life.
Thanks for another life lesson Mom.

The Greatest Invention Ever.

     So what do you think I consider the greatest invention ever, or a really good invention?  It's the Vacuum Sealer.  Why do I say this? As a family we have been making from scratch food forever in our household, and buying food in bulk, which gives us the ability to save food in a manner which preserves it without oxygen, or reduced oxygen.
     Another thing we use the almighty vacuum sealer for is to preserve food in our restaurant.  We would smoke beef briskets, cut them into thicker slices, smoke them again, then dice the thick slices, add them to a vacuum sealer bag with some BBQ sauce and that was our recipe for burnt ends.  When a customer would order burnt ends, we would pull a bag out of the refrigerator, warm it up, throw it on a plate, and out the door.
     Let's talk about marinading.  The fastest and most effective way to marinade something, is to pour your marinade into the vacuum bag, add what you want marinaded, set the vacuum sealer on "moist" then hit the vacuum/seal button.  As soon as you see the liquid started to move to the top of the bag, just hit the seal button.  In a short time, your meat, or whatever you are marinading will be ready.
     How about Cheese?  After you open cheese, did you ever notice how fast it get's moldy?  If you vacuum seal the cheese after use, your cheese will last much longer.  We also cold smoke cheese quite often and then vacuum seal it after it is out of the smoker.
     Another trick you can use is to leave the bags extra long, and after you use some product out of the bag you can reseal the bag if you have enough bag left.  That's why you leave it extra long when you are doing your original packaging.

Let's Make some bacon

Hey everyone.  It's bacon time.  Let's get started.

    First I bought pork bellies, Rind off, I think we paid like $2.50 a pound, so for these 3 pork bellies, it cost around $60 dollars and I got from our local Coborns grocery store from the butcher, his name is Steve and he's the man.  This is off the subject, but my buddy Rick got pissed (kiddingly) that I did not get them from Cash Wise as he is in charge of like 5 of them.  I did not trim them because I smoke the whole thing, and use the trimming for bacon bits and things like that.

Rind Off Pork Bellies

     The next thing I do is Cure the pork bellies, I use equal parts iodized salt and brown sugar.  The brown sugar cuts the, for a lack of better term, the saltyness.   For this amount of pork, I used 2 cups salt and 2 cups brown sugar.  I don't use any preservatives, like the store bought stuff does and I am not sure of the effects of ingredients like sodium nitrite or store bought cures, although I have used them in the past.   If you buy everything fresh, and watch your temps, like always under 40F for storage and when you cook the bacon, make sure it reaches the temp of 165F for 15 seconds, you are good.

Making Brine 2c Salt 2c Brown Sugar

     We add the pork bellies to a clean bucket that is marked "food only" on it, add the brine mixture and fill the bucket to the top with water so the pork bellies are completely submerged.

Pork Bellies in the bucket

     Then we put the bucket, with the pork bellies and brine in the refrigerator for 5 day (or so), making sure to turn and shake the bucket every day and mix it up.

Pork Bellies in Fridge

    After 5 days of soaking in the brine, I take the pork bellies out and rinse them and then dry them thoroughly.  This is important as the meat will not take the smoke if it is wet, so I make sure I have dried it, and let it sit for a while to make sure it is completely dry.
    After drying them, then it's time for the smoker.  Cold smoke is the key, I try to keep the temp in the smoker under 100 degree F.  I have a cold smoker attachment for the side of my grill that I purchased on Ebay.com, it is not the greatest, but it does the job.  I also try to smoke the pork bellies when the weather is cooler, and I also keep my outdoor smoker in the shade if it's warmer out.  I will also crack, and hold the door slightly open to let heat out if it starts getting too warm.   What wood you ask?  I use fruit woods like apple or cherry, I have also used alder chips, just making sure that there is always smoke rolling out of the smoker.  I prefer the sweetness that those types of woods impart on the flavor of the pork bellies.  I also smoke the pork bellies for a long time, at least 8 hour, I go longer if I can.  After the pork bellies have smoked a good long time, I pull them out of the smoker, let them cool in the freezer, they should go below 40F within 2 - 4 hours of pulling them out of the smoker to keep the bacteria growth down.  After they cool and are getting a little frozen, they are ready to slice.  Note, the pork bellies do not slice very well if they have not had a chance to firm up in the freezer.  Good luck with your bacon, I have had very good luck using these techniques.

Pork Bellies In the smoker

Hey, The Weekend is Here.

     Hello Everyone, This week was good, we learned about Cajun/Creole foods.  I ended up making Chicken Maquechoux.  It was really a good dish, it had corn, heavy cream, the Cajun Holy Trinity (Green Peppers, Onion, Celery) and assorted spices.  I also made Pecan Pie, with home made whipped cream and some Pecan Pralines.   The other recipes had a very good taste, and did not seem overly complicated.  In my opinion, if a recipe is too long and complicated, I just turn the page and move on to the next.  Cooking should not be that complicated.
    I got almost all of my homework done the last couple of days, so I am feeling good about how things are going in school.  I took a take home mid term, I have a catering assignment that I should just look over, but I think I'm done.  I do have to go to the grocery store, look over some unusual vegetable, and then look them up, write about them a little bit and turn it in on Thursday.
    I did fire up the smoker today.  I trimmed the spare ribs and took the trimmings and put them in the smoker for 4 hours.   After they cooled I cut them up, put'em in a large pan with BBQ sauce and cooked them on low for a few hours...  MMM  dinner. 

See you all later, Sam needs to do some research.

Good Morning

Today is Pizza in the brick oven day at our house.  Joe (son 1) is having a friend over (girl), and she has never had our pizza from the oven outside.

Outdoor Oven

To get the oven ready for baking, we have to fire it up around 2, so it's ready by 5pm.
      I made dough last night, and I let it rise once, then froze it.  I did take that same dough out of the freezer this morning so I can let it rise once more.  I made a pizza dough that is for pan pizza, it called for corn meal, but I did not put that in.  This recipe did call for vegetable oil which I did put in.  Let's see what happens at 900 degrees with the oil in the dough.

Update...  The pizza turned out really well, the oil in the dough gave it a softer, more flexible texture, so it would kind of fold over when you picked it up, like most other Neapolitan dough.  Although I like my dough very crispy, this dough was very good.  We also made an apple struesel desert pizza, that everyone loved.  If you would like the recipe, let me know.  Have a great Sunday all.

First Friday in February 2011 = Bread and Laundry

     Well, it's Friday and I'm doing laundry and am going to bake bread later.  Last night I made the "poolish" for ciabatta bread, which is equal parts flour to water (660 grams flour and water) and a little yeast (4 grams).  I let it rise overnight, got up this morning and made the second dough, which is not as wet, (990g flour, 660g water, 8g yeast and 33g salt) in the Kitchen-aid mixer, when the dough was mixed thoroughly and was sticking to the hook, I combined the two doughs together.  I have the dough rising again, and soon will just kind of fold it over itself on the flour to give it a little more body, but not disturb the dough too much.  I will fold it in flour every hour, or so until it's "right", maybe 3 or 4 times.

Baguette

    Ciabatta bread is a very wet dough, and IMO you do not want to mix it very much.  the different size bubbles in the bread is what makes it look like Ciabatta.  I am actually going to turn this dough into baguettes, long, skinny loafs of bread.
     Baking is done at a high temp, 465 degrees, on a stone in the oven.  I also make sure I have moisture, or steam in the oven when I first start baking so the dough is really able to rise up.

Ciabatta

 

 

Happy Tuesday

     Hey Everyone, Just trying to get all my stuff together for today, packing clothes, making sure I have all of the stuff for classes the next 2 days.  You ask why I drive to MPLS a day early?  because traffic sucks even at 6am around the Twin Cities, and I don't have to get up at 4am to drive to MPLS.  Truth be told, I don't really like going and staying away from our home in Rice, but it's better then driving back and forth, plus my brother lives a little different lifestyle then I am used to, like no cable TV.
     My cooking class is Florida and Caribbean cuisine.  Not sure what is happening in Menu Class and Purchasing class, although I am going to re-look at my homework before I hand it in.
    Brandy (dog 2) got fixed yesterday, and is walking around very gingerly today as her stomach has some stitches.   Lucy (dog 1) decided she was going to run off this morning and came back smelling, so both Lucy and Brandy got baths when we got home and smell a ton better.
    I am trying to get an internship at a fine dining restaurant somewhere close to home and I sent an email to Ciatti's in St. Cloud, and get the turn down email, but I responded again, hoping he will help me out, but we will see.

Have a good one.

Lazy Saturday Morning to ya....

     Good Morning all, I am trying to get my butt going this morning after getting home last night late, and finding dog 2 (Brandy) crapped in her kennel, and got it all over herself.  So, we ended up cleaning that up, and her before bed last night.... Not fun.
    I rolled out of bed at 8am, staggered out to make coffee and let the dogs out to do their business.  I then looked around in the kitchen and decided it needed to be worked on, and did nothing about it.  
    Did I mention that we went to an SCSU B-Ball game last night?  Well, we did, and I actually had a good time after thinking that I would not like it as I am not much of a B-Ball guy.  I did tweet a bunch of smart-ass comments last night about B-Ball from the game, even though I had fun.
   We are having Sherri's sister Amy over later this afternoon.  The menu is as follows.  Grilled steak, honey and soy marinated kabobs with a variety of vegetables.  Amy is in charge of a desert, which I think is brownies.  Oh, and I'm also going to do that flat bread that I did yesterday since I have a couple of dough balls just waiting patiently in the refrigerator.  I'm not sure, as I think about it that the bread with pizza seasoning really goes with the kabobs, so I will think about it as the day moves ahead, and may do some research on the net today to find a more suitable topping.

Have a great one today.

The Dough and cooking in general

      Now, to understand Tony cooking, you have to understand that I believe all recipes, including dough recipes are a guide and not an absolute.  But keep in mind that it is also my belief that if you deviate too much from dough recipes, you may have issues, but to me experimentation is fun, although you can't fix a loaf of bread after it goes into an oven.   It's put it in the oven and pray.  
 
    This morning I made a dough..  3.5 cups of flour (the all purpose cheap stuff from the Sam's Club 25lbs for $6.xx) 2.5 tsp SAF yeast (I have not had good luck with the individual packets) 1.25 cups of water, 2 tsp salt and a little olive oil.   The dough ball cleaned the bowl, and lightly stuck to the dough hook. After I turned it into a dough ball with the kitchenaid, I oiled the kitchenaid bowl with olive oil, rolled the dough to cover it completely in oil, and let it rise for a couple of hours.  The dough more then doubled.  I then punched it down, cut it into 3rds, made littler dough balls, 2nd rising here we come.

    After the 2nd rising, I took one of the dough balls and rolled it out on a floured surface, and let it rest a little bit, maybe 20 minutes while it was covered with a damp towel.

     The dough has rested now so I put some pizza topper (spice) and shredded some Parmesan Cheese on top of it and put it in the oven at 425 on a hot pizza stone, baked it for 20 minutes or so until it looked right (a lovely dark brown).

   After it cooled a tiny bit, I cut it with a pizza wheel and dipped strips of it with pizza sauce.  Man it's good.

See you later

Happy Friday in January Everyone

     Good Morning from Rice, MN.  I have a day to myself until the kids are done with school.  Sherri is working and I am doing the laundry and watching Mike and Mike on ESPN.  I made a dough this morning for later, which will most likely be like a flat bread with pizza spices on top sprinkled with parmesan cheese, and most likely we will dip the "flat bread" in pizza sauce.  Yum.  I want to make sure I have some good recipes down for this type of "appetizer" as I would like to use it in the future.

     Later today, I am going to work on menu costing and descriptions for a class I am taking in MPLS.  We had to find actual cost for for menu items, then put what we should sell them for.  In the American cuisine class I am taking we worked on Southern foods, Carolina's, Virginia, in that area of the country. I thought it was interesting that the BBQ sauces change so much as you move even a little bit across a state.   Eastern Carolina type sauces are very thin, spicy and vinegary, which I don't know if that is really a word, but as you move to Western Carolina vinegary with tomatoes, Alabama is mustard sauces etc...  I still prefer Memphis style sauces, but I also enjoy KC BBQ.

    I hear the dryer buzzer, means I'm off to work on that, I hope you all have a great day.

Hey Everyone

     I am new to blogging, but let me start out by giving you a little of my background...  I am a former IT/Telecomm leader and Bar/Grill owner, who decided that the IT/Telecomm world was not what I wanted to do anymore, so I am now in the middle of Chef school in MPLS at the Arts Institute and plan on either opening another restaurant, or "Cheffing" for another for a while.  I realized after some time off that I was working for 20 years doing something I did not enjoy.  So here I am today, back to school for something that I love, cooking, baking, bbq'ing, etc...
    I am the father of two awesome boys, 16 and 14, and the best wife a man could have.  We have a great time together, and best of all, she is able to put up with all of my faults.
   I will try to update this as much as possible.  The kids are fighting downstairs, so I am off.