G is for Gingerbread Chicken. Really.

Yep, that says Gingerbread Chicken. Let’s all just be thankful it’s not Chicken Gingerbread.

This is an adaptation of an adaptation of a 14th century recipe mixed with a 15th century recipe. To find out what possessed me to do this, check out this post.

Here's how it looked on my plate. (Ignore the sad veg mix in the background.)

RECIPE FIRST, ESSAY SECOND

Gingerbread Chicken aka Lombardy Chicken

1/4 cup fresh parsley 

3 TBsp red wine vinegar

1/2 lb boneless skinless chicken thighs

1 cup chicken broth

1 tsp red sandalwood

1/4 tsp ground white pepper

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 gingerbread recipe, crumbled ~ 1/4 cup https://alphatestkitchen.blogspot.com/2024/02/g-is-for-gingerbread-very-very-old.html

1/2 cup soft breadcrumbs

1 egg, beaten

1 TBsp butter

1) Mince parsley. Place it and vinegar in a small microwave safe container. Heat on high 1 minute. Set aside to cool.

2) Place broth and sandalwood, pepper, cinnamon, salt, gingerbread and breadcrumbs into a saucepan. Bring to boil.

3) Cube chicken while waiting for broth to boil.

4) Stir chicken into broth. Reduce heat to low, achieving a slow boil. Cook 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked. Remove from heat.

5) Add beaten egg to parsley mixture. Strain this into chicken and broth, pressing to get as much liquid out of the parsley as possible. Stir well.

6) Return saucepan to very low heat. Add butter. Cook 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until mixture thickens.

Previously on What to Do With This Leftover 14th/15th Century Gingerbread?, I was debating whether to make the chicken recipe that had the gingerbread as an ingredient. I don’t generally think of sweet and meat as a happy combination. HOWEVER, I cajoled myself into it by pointing out that my go-to order at a Chinese restaurant is Sweet and Sour Chicken. Was this really all that different conceptually? No! 

The vinegar and parsley mixture.

Chicken and broth before adding the thickening stuff.

Chicken and broth after The Thickening. Not gonna lie, I kinda love that it's pink.

I was curious about why this was called “Lombardy Chicken.” Sadly, after conferring with Research Assistant Google, I remain in the dark. (Which I guess is appropriate given the time period (ha ha…sorry, i’ll show myself out).) Apparently, Olive Garden had a popular seasonal dish with the same name, and that is mostly what internet searches turn up these days. The Olive Garden version seems to be a sort of cheesy chicken marsala. I honestly am surprised I don’t remember this dish; I used to eat at Olive Garden quite a bit back in the day, and this absolutely sounds like my cup of tea. HOWEVER, it is definitely not that same thing I was making here. 

I found only one modern blog reference to a similar sounding Lombardy Chicken recipe, and it did not give any explanation for the name. I have a guess, and no support for it: the Lombardy flag back in the day had a red cross. Red cross, red dish? Maybe!

(Apropos of nothing, looks like I made this on Super Bowl Sunday Feb 11, 2024. Sooooo, Lombardi trophy/Lombardy chicken? Yeaaah, that’s a stretch.)

Where did this recipe come from? Welp, I have a cookbook called Ye Bors Hede Boke of Cookry (which is super fun if you’ve ever been interested in cooking medieval English recipes). They created their Lombardy Chicken recipe by combining two recipes; one from a 14th century book called Ancient Cookery, and the other from a 15th century recipe from “For the knights’ and kings’ tables” (BL MS Sloane 442). So that was my starting point.

This recipe being “for the knights’ and kins’ tables,” probably indicates that someone like me wouldn’t have been making this for my own dinner table back in the day. Also, while I was poking around on the internet before writing this, I found that someone in Norway had done their Masters’ thesis about “For the knights’ and kings’ tables” (BL MS Sloane 442), which engendered massive food history nerd excitement! I have not managed to dig into it yet, but I did download it and am looking forward to diving in at some point. Perhaps someday I will randomly email the person that wrote it with a question or twelve. That’d probably bemuse the heck out of them.

Pedantic Aside: the original recipe title is “Bruet of Lombardye,” which translates to “Broth of Lombardy,” not “Lombardy Chicken.” One of the OG recipes is much more flex on the meat choice, suggesting hens, chickens, rabbits "...or other good flesh..." I actually kind of appreciate this approach.

So what did I change? First off, I halved the recipe I was following, both because I was feeling a little unsure about it, and because I had already used half of my gingerbread recipe as a dessert. I also went with chicken thighs instead of breasts because I find them more forgiving of cooking errors. (Thank you Food Network.) The white pepper is another of my twists on the original. That’s a personal preference thing.

And obviously, the original recipe didn’t involve a microwave, so cooking the parsley and vinegar that way was my being lazy, or efficient, depending on what kind of mood you’re in ;) 

Overall I would say the dish turned out great. It was delicious and waaay less weird to my palate than I had feared. Will I ever make it again? Ehn, probably not without A Reason. It’s a bit too complicated, ingredient-wise, to become part of my weeknight dinner rotation. But I’m definitely glad I goaded myself into making it at least once, especially since this whole cooking ancient gingerbread idea has been living in my brain for so long. And it did not ruin dinner in the slightest. Not a ringing endorsement, perhaps, but hopefully good enough to inspire me to continue trying this stuff out whenever the mood strikes.

G is for Gingerbread. Very Very Old Gingerbread

 

Spoiler Alert: here's how it turned out!

Ok, it's not the gingerbread that's old, it's the recipe. this is an adaptation of an adaptation of a 14th or 15th century gingerbread recipe.

to find out what possessed me to do this, check out this post.

RECIPE FIRST, ESSAY SECOND

2-3 slices of bread to make 1 cup soft breadcrumbs

1/4 cup honey

1 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp red sandlewood

1/4 tsp ground white pepper

pinch of nutmeg

pinch of cardamom

1) cut the crusts from 2-3 slices of bread. chop/tear the bread into small pieces.

2) put honey in small saucepan and bring to a boil. I did this on medium heat.

3) add breadcrumbs to the honey, lower the heat, and stir and squish until the crumbs are “dissolved.” 

4) remove from heat and stir in the spices.

5) dump out onto a kneading surface and let cool until safe to handle.

6) knead until the constancy of marzipan (or playdough). 

6.5) if making as a dessert, divide into several bite size balls and roll those in sugar. 

7) cool completely.

i’ve got to admit, when i first read this recipe i was a little confused and not terribly enthused. honestly i think that’s part of what stalled this project for so long. i was afraid i would go to the trouble of making this and find it super gross, thus wasting both time and food. to be fair, the recipe does not seem very “normal” as far as modern baking of gingerbread goes. for instance, there’s no flour. and also, oh hey yeah, there’s no BAKING. however, this year for me has become a sort of Finally Do This Thing or Archive It adventure. so here we are.

Oh look, it's mise en place! thanks Food Network.

I used Oroweat 12 Grain for the breadcrumbs.
3 slices wound up being overkill, but I just added the leftover crumbs (and the crusts) to my breadcrumb bag. I make meatloaf fairly regularly, so they won't go to waste.

Honey is really impressive when it boils, which I should have remembered from watching the Great British Bake Off.

I decided this looked "dissolved" enough for the breadcrumbs.
This part of the process was really more squishing than stirring.

Adding the spices gave this a really pretty color and a lovely smell. Warning that the kneading portion was an extremely sticky undertaking. I thought adding flour would mess things up, so I just went with it. If I make this again, I might try buttering my hands?

And this is how it turned out. The recipe I had actually has you making the gingerbread as part of another dish, but also suggests what you can do to make it more of a dessert. So I decided to go half and half on that and just happened to have some cute multi colored sugar sprinkles to roll the dessert balls in.

I’m happy to share the fact that my fears were not reality. this actually turned out pretty tasty. sweet and full of nice bitey warming spices (suck it, oliver cromwell). based on how it turned out, i feel like our closest modern equivalent might be a cake pop?

(although what this recipe personally reminds me most of is a bizarre snack I used to make for myself when I was a kid. I would take a slice of white bread and tear off the crusts. then I would pour sugar into the middle of the bread and squish the whole thing together until it resembled a large dough ball. it was sweet and delicious and not even remotely good for me, i’m sure. a snack only undertaken when under the unwatchful eye of an inattentive babysitter. sorry mom.) 

so where did this recipe come from? welp, i have a cookbook called Ye Bors Hede Boke of Cookry (which is super fun if you’ve ever been interested in cooking medieval english recipes) and it adapted a gingerbread recipe from a 14th or 15th manuscript, BL MS Sloane 221. interestingly this recipe doesn’t have its own page, but is a footnote to another recipe, a savory chicken dish that calls for the inclusion of gingerbread. i’m debating with myself whether or not i have the gumption to go ahead and make _that_ recipe now that i have some period appropriate gingerbread to hand.

i did some adapting on the recipe because, well, a of all) i’ve yet to encounter the recipe i don’t want to tweak a bit (shrug). but secondly, two of the ingredients called for were not already in my kitchen, and buying spices online winds up being kind of a commitment, due to the amounts. 

The ingredients in question were red sandlewood and long pepper. after reading about them a bit, I decided I was up for getting the red sandlewood (used mostly for color, and also an ingredient in the gingerbread chicken dish that I’m probably totally going to make), but not the long pepper (it’s described as a slightly spicier form of pepper when compared to black and white pepper and i’m unfortunately not into that kind of spice). consulting my dear friend professor google, i decided to approximate the long pepper with what i normally use, white pepper, plus some bonus spices.

overall I'm very glad I did this. it was tasty, and it was super satisfying to finally start this project. not sure i would necessarily make it again? but hey, if I'm ever stuck for a dessert and only have bread and spices, I guess I now have a useful trick up my sleeve.

G is for Gingerbread

Early in the pandemic, 2020 to be specific, my husband and I found ourselves watching a lot more television than we used to. Cheering ourselves up with Christmas programing in December, one night we stumbled on a documentary called Gingerbread Journeys (2015). I’m a foodie and he’s a history geek, so we decided to give it a try. It’s a super deep dive on the topic and we learned a lot. A whole lot.

Afterward, it occurred to me that I had at least one not-modern gingerbread recipe in my pile of cookbooks. I wondered if I had enough different recipes, specifically from different time periods, to make for an interesting baking project. It turned out the answer to that was a big ol’ “yes,” thanks both to The Joy of Cooking and a book I have with recipes based on 13th and 14th century sources.

So I thought I’d undertake The Gingerbread Project. And then, lo, many years passed. It’s a little hard to undertake a big project at Christmas, when so many other things are already going on. Also, my household is not a great match for large baking undertakings, as there are only two of us and one of us (hi) is diabetic.

But this year is kind of a “put languishing projects to rest” year for me. And it occurred to me that one gingerbread recipe per month is not a terribly intense undertaking. Plus, hey, regularly occurring obvious deadline, FTW. At least, I hope so. Stay tuned.

E is for Eggplant. Really.

Hey there. Hi. Busy spring spent producing MANOS - The Hands of Felt. Ate my brain.

And now we're back.

So, eggplant. Yeah, I have to admit, my past with regards to eggplant is not the greatest.

WARNING: DO NOT BE EATING WHILE YOU READ THIS.

In fact, the first time I encountered eggplant, I managed about three bites before I threw up on my plate. At the table, yes. (I've mentioned I have texture issues? Yeah, well, this stuff was pretty darn slimy.) I don't think my parents ever made it again.

But...I should be able to improve upon this as an adult, yes? I mean, look at The Eggplant. It's so darn pretty. There must be something I can do to it that won't set me off.

So what do I know about eggplant? Not much. I had it in my head it is related to nightshade, which Wikipedia confirms (all hail). Incidentally, this means it's also related to tomatoes, which connects some texture dots for me.

According to many (many) hours of watching Food Network, the most important thing to do to the eggplant is salt it to keep it from being bitter. So I'll be sure to pay attention to that.

And Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver has some lovely descriptions of pink stripey eggplants that sound really neat. I may venture to Whole Paycheck and see if they have something like that.

Despite jumping in pretty underinformed here, I actually already have in mind what I want to attempt: grilled, moussaka, and baba ganoush.

So we'll see how that goes. And hope for no vomiting.

E is for Excuses, Excuses

Hey everybody.

Sorry that I've not updated or launched into Plant Eggplant. When I got home from the holidays, my cat was sick. So I've been preoccupied with taking care of him. Fortunately he has stabilized, so I have some attention free for other things again.

Thanks for your patience,
Raej

H is for Holiday Cooking

I've traveled to see family for the last seven years, so my December holidays find me doing very little personal baking, but plenty of cooking in other people's kitchens.

Like yesterday, when I was urgently requested to make a batch of chocolate chip cookies. They were completely gone within 8 minutes of hitting the plate.

Or take today, when we made five dozen cookies. I'm hoping they last for awhile. A long while.

And then tomorrow I am to whip up some Toasted Ravioli. I'll be using the easy method, which would feel like cheating except

a) my sister doesn't have a pasta maker or a food processor
b) you can buy frozen Toasted Ravioli in the store here, so i'm actually being much less lazy than i _could_ be.

I think Christmas Day I'll be in charge of green beans (casserole style) and gravy. Let's start praying to the gravy god now, shall we? No lumps, no lumps, no lumps.....

Anyway, whether your Christmas finds you up to your elbows in flour and giblets, or being decorative while others do the heavy cooking, I hope you have a happy one!

~ Raej

S is for Sixth

Hi everybody!

Just wanted to say: Thanks for voting for me in the Iron Foodie Challenge.

I got sixth. Not bad for a relative beginner. It comes with no further prize except a warm and fuzzy feeling. Mmmmm!

I is for Iron Foodie, Prequel 3

or E is for Easy Toasted Ravioli

Before I launched into my Iron Foodie recipe, I decided to do a Proof of Concept pre-run (Mythbusters fan, yes).

I'd found plenty of easy-ish looking Toasted Ravioli recipes out on the interwebs, but I had no idea whether or not they would wind up tasting like the real thing.

Hey, what better time to take on a completely untried recipe than Thanksgiving? Oh, just about any time, I would normally say. Since I, however, am an experienced member of The School of Turkey Basting, I wind up with a fair amount of free time in the kitchen on Feast Day. So I jumped in.

What I Did:

1 egg
2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream
1 cup stuffing cubes
1 pumpkin cookie, stale
frying oil
1 package of Spinach and Cheese Ravioli
1 jar of Vodka sauce

1) Use a fork to mix together egg and cream in a shallow bowl.

2) Put the stuffing cubes and cookie into food processor and mix until the cubes are crumbs. Place in a bowl or on a small plate.

3) Fill a skillet with oil for frying (I like to go about 1/2 inch deep. You do what suits you) and warm over medium heat.

4) Dip ravioli in the egg mixture, shake off excess.

5) Dip eggy ravioli in crumbs, shake off excess.

6) Place ravioli in hot oil. Fry 3-4 minutes per side.

7) Pour sauce into a small sauce pain and warm over low heat.

8) Put fried raviolis on a paper towel-lined plate.

9) Serve ravioli with sauce. Eat. Enjoy!

How Did it Go?
Great! I put this out as an appetizer and people devoured and praised it, despite not having ever heard of it before. (Not a lot of St. Louisians on hand here in Seattle.) So, concept proved as far as I was concerned.

What Would I Change?
- I started heating the oil a little late, so the first couple of ravioli weren't as crispy as I would have liked. I wound up adjusting this for my Iron Foodie recipe.
- The cookie crumbs wound up a little too big. They tasted ok, but it threw the texture off a little. (To me. Pretty sure my friends didn't notice/care.)

E is for Foods that start with E?

While I wait and hope to become an Iron Foodie, it's also probably time to get back to regular business, yes?

We're on the letter E. Currently under consideration:

- eggs
- eggplant
- elk

Any suggestions from the peanut gallery? I'm open.

I is for Iron Foodie Ingredient Sampling, part 2

Ideally I'd've talked about this _before_ posting my Iron Foodie entry recipe, but, well, Tech Week interfered. Consider this a prequel. : )

The Marx Foods Box of Mystery contained two ingredients that, in my opinion, needed a platform for useful/accurate tasting:

- Smoked Salt
- Tellicherry Peppercorns

(Of course you _can_ eat pepper and salt plain, but they don't tend to taste very good that way.)

What I did:

1) I equipped myself with a couple of steaks. Salt and pepper are the only things I like to put on a steak (credit to Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for the Food for this preference), so I figured this would make the differences between basic salt and pepper and the gourmet versions pretty apparent.


Salts on the left, peppers on the right. Grinder with the special pepper indicated by the purty pink ribbon.

2) I salted and peppered each side of the steaks and let them sit for 20 minutes while the broiler preheated.


Regular pepper on the left steak, Tellicherry on the right. Smoked salt across the top, regular table salt across the bottom.

3) I put the steaks in the broiler, 5 minutes per side.



4) I let the steaks rest as long as I could bear (seven minutes in this case) and served with sides of my choice (tots! brussels sprouts!)


How Did it Go?
- The Smoked Salt has a really, really strong scent before you cook it, which, to be honest, worried me a bit. It seemed that it could easily be overpowering. Fortunately, this was not the case. Cooking mellowed it out a little, while letting it keep the smokey edge. It worked really well with steak, and I bet would be good with lamb as well.

- The Tellicherry Peppercorns seemed to be both more and less subtle than your average black table pepper. The pepper taste was gentler, but the heat level was cranked up. *Full disclosure: I did go ahead and eat one of each type of peppercorn, just to confirm this impression. Whew. It confirmed both that opinion, plus my notion that eating pepper plain is just not a good idea.

If you'd like to see what I wound up doing with these ingredients, click here to see my Iron Foodie recipe: Toasted Ravioli.

T is for Toasted Ravioli or I is for Iron Foodie Contest Recipe

Ok, Tech Week almost done, deadline looming, here, finally, is The Recipe.

(Here's Marx Food's Iron Foodie Contest explained, in case you're just now tuning in.)

Toasted Ravioli is a local specialty in my hometown of St. Louis, Missouri and is very hard to find elsewhere. In fact, most people who haven't spent time in StL have never even heard of it. This is their bad luck, because it's very very very good. How good? The only hometown food I miss more is White Castle.

Since, as I mentioned earlier, I was already thinking in an Italian/meat-ward direction, Toasted Ravioli was a most acceptable brain wave. As usual, I hit the internet for some recipe theory research, and found some useful stuff.

In fact, I did a sort of proof of concept experiment as a Thanksgiving appetizer. It was definitely well received. But I decided Iron Foodie deserved no less than true, complete insanity. So, I made mine from scratch. Research debts also in the direction of Cooks dot com and Betty Crocker's New Cookbook (the 1st cookbook I owned as an adult).

What I Did:

~ Pasta ~
1/3 cup of macerated Dulse Seaweed*
2 large eggs
1 TBLSP olive oil
1/2 tsn Smoked Salt*
2+ cups flour

0) Soak the seaweed in boiling water for 15 minutes (this is macerating. big word, simple concept.)

1) Combine eggs, seaweed, oil and salt in a food processor until blended.

2) Put the flour on a decent sized flat surface and create a well in the middle (a sort of volcano shaped thing; the crater is to hold the liquid.)

3) Slowly work the flour into the liquid until completely combined. (This gets messy. No worries.)

4) At this point you will most likely have to adjust your pasta dough. If it is too dry (crumbly, not sticking together, i.e., what happened to me), gradually incorporate little bits of liquid (TBLSP at a time) until you achieve a nice dough consistency. If it is too sticky, gradually incorporate bits of flour.

5) Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 5-8 minutes.

6) Plastic wrap the dough and rest in the fridge for several hours.


~ Filling ~
1 cup cubed squash
2 TBLSP olive oil
1 lb. ground pork
1/2 tsp Smoked Salt*
1/2 tsp ground Tellicherry Peppercorns*
1/3 of a medium sized onion, chopped
1/4 cup fresh sage
2 TBLSP fresh parsley
2 cloves garlic, SMASHED!
1/4 cup white wine
1/3 cup macerated Dried Wild Porcini Mushrooms*
1/2 cup cottage cheese

7) Parboil squash

8) Cook oil, pork, salt and pepper in a skillet over medium heat until pork is thoroughly cooked.

9) Add all other Filling ingredients (except cottage cheese) to skillet, cover and reduce heat to low; stir occasionally.


10) Cut one third off of the chilled pasta dough.

11) Roll it through a pasta machine on the widest setting. (If you don't have a pasta machine, use a rolling pin and skip ahead to step 15.)

12) Fold the pasta sheet in on itself from the ends, roughly into thirds. Sprinkle lightly with flour. The idea is to get it to a width where you can turn it 90 degrees and run in through the pasta machine again.

13) Click the pasta machine down one setting and run the pasta sheet through again.

14) Repeat 13 until you get the pasta as thin as you want it. (For me, this takes it down to the narrowest setting. So you can read through the pasta. Your taste may absolutely vary.)

15) Turn the heat off on the filling.

16) Lay the pasta sheet out on waxed paper. Cut pasta circles out of it with an upside down glass. (There are other ravioli cutting methods, but this one best appeals to my innate sense of laziness.)

17) Add filling and cottage cheese to food processor. Pulse for about 20 seconds, until everything is just combined.

18) Spoon small heaps of filling on one pasta circle.

19) Wet the entire edge of the circle (use water, butter, milk, whatever really…..I used the water from macerating the Porcini Mushrooms).


20) Place a second circle on top, and gently press edges together all the way around.
***It's right about here that this becomes the longest recipe I've ever done on this blog. HUZZAH FOR IRON FOODIENESS!***

~ Sauce ~
1 macerated Aji Panca Chili*
1/2 heavy whipping cream
1 clove garlic SMASHED!
1 can tomato sauce
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil

21) Slice open the chili and scrape out the seeds and membranes.

22) Chop chili and add it, garlic and cream to a small sauce pan. Warm over low heat.

23) Just as the cream wants to try boiling, turn off the heat.

24) Dump saucepan contents into food processor. Blend until completely mixed.

25) Return sauce to pan. Add tomato sauce, oregano and basil and warm over low heat, stirring occasionally.

~ Toasted…ing…ness…stuff... ~
1 egg
3 TBLSP heavy whipping cream
2 cups stuffing cubes
~ 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
oil for frying

26) Fill a skillet with oil for frying (I like to go about 1/2 inch deep. You do what suits you.) and warm over medium heat.

27) Use a fork to mix together eggs and cream in a bowl.

28) Put the stuffing cubes and cheese into food processor and mix until the cubes are crumbs. Place in a bowl or on a small plate.

29) Dip ravioli in the egg mixture, shake off excess.

30) Dip eggy ravioli in crumbs, shake off excess.

31) Place ravioli in skillet. Fry 3-4 minutes per side.

32) Put fried raviolis on a paper towel-lined plate.

33) Serve ravioli with sauce. Eat. Enjoy!



How Did It Go?
It went surprisingly well, given the large number of new things i was trying (ingredients and techniques), and considering that I've not made scratch ravioli in a long long time. Texture was right on, flavor was pretty nice. Mostly a win here.
Also:
- The seaweed gave a really neat color to the pasta dough.
- The mushrooms rounded out the taste of the pork in a way that surprised me.
- The chili sauce wound up being not too hot for me, which is something of a miracle, frankly. And not being in pain, i was able to appreciate the flavor.

What Would I Do Differently?
- More filling! I put about a teaspoon's worth of filling in each ravioli, which wound up being not quite enough. The pasta to filling ratio was too high, which buried a lot of the flavor of the filling when everything was put together. Lacked balance.

- More vegetables! I think I'd up the butternut squash ratio a bit, just to get more vitamins involved. I mean, since you're eating something fried, it's nice to strike a blow for Stealth Health when you can.

I is for Iron Foodie Ingredient Sampling

Two of the items in The Marx Foods Mystery Box were
- Dried Wild Porcini Mushrooms
and
- Dried Aji Panca Chilies

Neither of which I had ever, to my knowledge, eaten. Yay for new food!

First things first, before I could really taste them, I had to macerate them...

...in this case, with boiling water.

And then wait 15-20 minutes.

The porcini mushroom had a nice intense flavor that, in weight, reminded me a bit of chicken liver. The texture was a bit chewy, so it's clear that I can't use these "raw".

The chili bits were, ummm, weeeeeell, I considered them spicy, but I tend to order a one-star at Thai and Indian restaurants. Even I can admit they were not really painful. And I could actually taste the red chili flavor. So "mild" is probably an accurate description.

Odds are good that we will find both of these ingredients in my Signature Recipe. :)

T is for Tech Week

The show I'm rehearsing is heading into Tech Week. (For those of you not in theatrrr, this means every waking moment, which will include more of those than usual, will be focused towards getting together a performance-ready piece by the end of the week.)

So I'm spending the evening working on my Iron Foodie recipe. Stay tuned.

T is for Egyptian Turkey

The way I do the thanksgiving turkey winds up looking like I'm preparing it for the afterlife.

Which I guess I am, in a way.

As I said last year, I get my turkey method from The Joy of Cooking and, after 8 years, I'm a true believer. I know a lot of people are becoming converts to The Church of Brining, but the barding/basting 1-2 punch has never let me down, so I don't see changing it up any time soon.

But I can live in harmony with my brining brethren. 'Cause, really, isn't that what The Thanksgivinging is all about?

T is for Egyptian Turkey

I is for Iron Foodie Thoughts

Not to give too much away before the actual recipe, but I've been chewing on the contest a bit (pun intended) and here's where I am:

- Everything in the box is essentially a spice (not technically, granted, but due to the dried-ness of things that would otherwise be more feature-able). This is both a great thing and a scary thing. (Yay, I can do anything! Whoa, I could do anything. Like that.)

- What do I like to cook? I ask myself, in order to narrow things down a bit. Answer: breakfast, dessert, Italian food, meat. I'm likely to do something in one or more of those categories.

- The fennel pollen is The Ingredient Least Likely to be Used. It's basically a more intense fennel experience. And, well, I kind of hate fennel. Not bell pepper level hate, but.....it reminds me of licorice (they're not related), which reminds me of NyQuil, which reminds me of unpleasant times.....you see the problem.

- Next up will be some ingredient tastings. Every time a cheftestant on a cooking reality show doesn't do this, I get very indignant at them (from the safety of my couch; yeah, I'm totally an armchair sous chef). So it's be pretty stupid of me not to. I'll keep you posted.

I is for I still -heart- South Park

I'm sitting here watching the episode of South Park mocking the Food Network (and Food Network addicts...er, like me) and it's just so wrong but oh-so-right at the same time.

They had me at the late-nite Food Network HOTline:

"Do you want to deglaze this pan with me?"
"Oh yeah, I'm gonna deglaze that pan with you so good."
"It's searing hot..."
"Oh yeah. Do you have a wooden spoon?"
"Yeah, baby, I have a spoon and it's really hard."

hee!

W is for What's In The Box??!? part 2

Other items in The Mysterious Marx Foods Box of Mystery:

~ Dried Aji Panca Chilies ~
The label says they are "mild". Being a spice wuss, I'm betting a more accurate assessment is "comparatively mild".

~ Dried Wild Porcini Mushrooms ~
Massive score!

~ Tellicherry Peppercorns ~
I did some pepper taste experiments a few years back, which is what led me to the wonderfulness that is White Pepper. I look forward to seeing how this one compares.

~ Dulse Seaweed ~
Reply hazy. Try again later.

~ Maple Sugar ~
Oh baby. This ingredient is in serious danger of not making it into recipe consideration because I may just have to eat it. I'll put it in one of those giant straws like I used to get at the roller skating rink and then ride the sugar high for the next 12 hours.

W is for What's In The Box??!?

Turns out The Mystery Box of Mysterious Iron Foodie Ingredients was on my doorstep when I got home Friday:

It was, without contest, the best smelling box I've ever opened.

Alas that there was no elk.

Ah well. All of the ingredients were dry, so it would've had to've been elk jerky, anyway. Try as I might, I just can't make myself feel too bad about a lack of elk jerky in my life.
So there we have it. The strongest scented ingredients were the vanilla bourbon beans, the smoked salt (smells like BACON!) and the fennel pollen. More on the, ahem, subtler ingredients tomorrow.

(Not to worry. In the meantime, I'll be busy formulating my evil, contest-winning plan! Er, I mean, recipe. Yeah. Mwah ha ha ha ha!)

Z is for ZOMG! Iron Foodie Contest!

Well hey howdy hi, I got chosen to compete in the Marx Foods Iron Foodie Contest!

Squee!!!

As I type, apparently a box of 8 tasty food items is winging its way to me. I will need to use (at least?) 3 of these items in a Signature Recipe.

Since the box has already been sent, I have no scruples about telling you I'm crossing my fingers for Elk. I mean, "E" is next on the agenda, after all.

Oh, and truffles. Just because, hey: TRUFFLES.