Cooking Floyd: Making Coatings Stick

This is one of those things where you wonder why you hadn't figured it out years ago.  Here I was trying to use plain old egg wash to make stuff stick to other food stuffs when I should have been using whipped egg whites!  No more delicious coatings falling off into the pan!

Whip an egg white to a soft peak.  Pat dry and season whatever it is you're coating (in this case a salmon fillet).  Dip in the egg white and then press into the coating mixture (in this case sesame seeds but finely chopped nuts worked great too).  Place encrusted side down in a medium hot oiled pan until browned.  Then flip and finish on the stove top or in a hot oven.

Cooking Floyd: Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk! That's how I remember the pronunciation.  The 3 Stooges' Curly's way of laughing.  nya-OH-key.  Gnocchi!  Gnocchi are an Italian dumpling traditionally made with cooked starchy potatoes, flour and sometimes an egg, then boiled and sauced.  The beauty of gnocchi is that they are a blank canvas.   You can add all kinds of things to the basic recipe from spinach to cheese, herbs, spices and more.  I have two half bushel boxes of sweet potatoes squirreled away so I chose to make mine from our Beauregard variety.

By the way, if you're planning on growing sweet potatoes next season, the time to start your slips is NOW!  Slips are expensive and sometimes hard to find.  I started mine last year from grocery store sweets with great success.  Click here for directions.

Back to Gnocchi.

Cooking Floyd: Caldo Verde - Portuguese Potato-Kale-Sausage Soup

1-18-13  Ok, not the most auspicious start to the New Year.  That flu turned into bronchitis.  Still doing antibiotics, still coughing, but definitely doing better.  And the computer went down.  After Michael did a diagnostic and then another 2 hour diagnostic with some tech guy in India, HP had us send the tower to them somewhere in Indiana.  Thank God it was still under warranty because the mother board was fried.  So we're back online and-  oops....

1-19-13  Power's back on and we're back online *again*.

Cooking Floyd: Red Curry and Sweet Potatoes

Christmas has come and gone with a whimper around here.  Michael fought off what seemed to be a heavy cold right before the holiday.  Christmas Eve afternoon I had the "ohno" moment and proceeded to usher in Christmas Day with 102 degree fever and respiratory infection that would last nearly three days.

Michael did get to enjoy a sumptuous feast at Bob and Carol's of a beautiful standing rib roast from their own well-raised steer.  Carol is an awesome cook and loves to declare "I'm not Italian but I cook like one!"  That's the PC version anyway.  Her version is more colorful.  Thank you Carol for the plate sent home with Michael.

I was grateful for the soups I put up this past growing season.  They certainly helped nurse me through but when the fever broke and hunger pangs returned I wanted something with spices and heat that would break up my congestion.  I wanted a curry!

Cooking Floyd: My Annual Obsession

Finally, it's that time of year when for 3 days running we have to have dinner out.  Why?  Because nothing can get in the way of painting Christmas cookies.  I do them other times during the year but not with the singlemindedness I have when it comes to painting snowmen, holly, and Santa Clauses.

 

Preserving Floyd: Processing Venison

In preparation for this year's deer another project this past month involved grinding what was left of last year's venison into burger to make way for this year's deer.  I do a mix of 4 lbs of ground venison and 1 pound of ground pork for a nice lean to fat ratio that makes for juicy burgers, sausages, and loaves.  This year I made venison bologna using LEM's prepackaged spice mix a friend gave me to try.  This stuff tastes just like I remember my grandfather's venison bologna tasting.  I have no idea if this is what he was using way back then but I really like it.  Could be the nostalgia thing.  I also made a bunch of spicy teriyaki jerky for Michael to carry on his bicycle journeys.

I ended up with 5 lbs worth of the bologna in one pound sticks, 3 pounds of jerky and 15 pounds of ground burger in one pound packages.  Michael got his deer so in addition to the above we now have a new supply of roasts and steaks and enough trimmings to make a batch of link sausage.  Santa's bringing me a smoker for Christmas so I think I'm going to wait until it arrives to make my first batch of smoked venison sausage!

Preserving Floyd: Root Cellaring Root Crops

Somehow between Thanksgiving and Christmas the month slipped away from me.  I feel horribly guilty to have gone so long without posting but here in a series of mini posts is what I've been doing.  First up - cellaring root crops!