Corduroy Orange

Really, the main challenge to preparing this little-known delicacy is figuring out where to procure one. I’m reluctant to give away my family’s secret for fear of draining the supply, but I have met a local farmer who cures his own hogs, and if I’m able to work with him to create a source in Pennsylvania that I’m happy with, I’ll divulge the identity of my mom’s Southern supplier (with her permission of course).

In the meantime, if you do stumble across a source of salt-cured, no water injected, North Carolina-style ham, get yourself one, boy! Them is good eatin’.

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So, I got this link in my email yesterday: cheese-filled, bacon-wrapped, deep-fried hot dogs.

I must point out, though, that calling them cheese-filled is something of a stretch: they are hollowed out and injected with easy cheese (from a can), a substance classified as “pasteurized process cheese food product”—it doesn’t even qualify as food and quite likely has more in common with silly putty than it does with cheese.

That’s why I recommend that instead of following the plans outlined in the link, you enjoy a somewhat more wholesome version of the same snack containing real cheese and skipping the step of deep frying.

Simply slit the hot dog lengthwise (not completely in half: just enough to open up a pocket).  Stuff the hot dog with small pieces of your favorite real cheese.  I like a hot pepper cheese for this purpose, but any will work.  Wrap the dog with a slice of bacon and secure each end with a toothpick.  Cook in a hot cast iron skillet until the bacon is done.  By this point, the hot dog will be hot, and the cheese will be melted.  The bacon will have constricted around the dog as the fat cooks off and the protein coagulates.  Remove the toothpicks, put the dog in a bun, and dress it according to your preference.

Personally, I think that hot dogs require mustard equal in size to the hot dog itself; I’ll also add sauerkraut and onions if they’re available.  Never ketchup nor relish (ick!—too sweet!)

Over the past few years, I’ve grown tired of the sickeningly-sweet, aspartame-laced yogurt concoctions available on the general market. My reaction has been to get quarts of plain yogurt, which I think tastes great, especially if you get whole milk yogurt (fat is flavor). It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized I could flavor my own yogurt to my own non-sweet specifications. The process was beyond simple and the results were fantastic.

We’ve got a bag of onions in our kitchen that we really ought to have done something with about a week ago; all of the onions in it have begun to sprout. I cut off a bunch of these sprouts and sliced them thinly, thinking that I could add some green onions to my cheese sandwiches. Come lunchtime, I looked at my little half-full shot glass-sized tupperware container of green onions and my 1/2-pint container of plain yogurt and took the not too complicated mental leap of mixing the two together. The result? Another successful savory conversion: savory yogurt featuring thinly sliced green onions!

I tried to make your King Cake and I may have rolled my dough too thin. It fell apart when I tried to move it. I just sort of scooped it up and plopped it on the baking sheet and hoped the filling would hold everything together. It doesn’t look too bad but we’ll see what happens when I try to take it off the sheet.

Hopefully it will taste better than it looks.

That may be something that a bench scraper would help you with. Use its wide blade to scoop the first part of the dough off the counter. That way, you don’t have to tug at the dough, thus you’ll be less apt to lose its form. I’m sure it will be fine, though—the braided top is really just a way to make it look good; it’s not necessary to the success of the recipe.

In fact, for an easier and still attractive presentation, you could spread the filling over most of the dough (not just the middle 1/3) and roll it up into a long tube. Then, bake it the same way as you would if you braided the top.

You probably could have used that advice before you started the process; mea culpa.

PS—Update to the recipe!  I way-overestimated how long I rolled out my dough (like, by a foot!).  I should have written to roll the dough out to 2 1/2–3 feet in length!!  I have changed the recipe accordingly.

I realize I’ve been slacking on adding new content to the page for the past week or so. There are several reasons for this, but one of the main ones is that I’ve been getting ready for our annual Mardi Gras bash, which we held last night. It might perhaps more accurately be called a Samedi Gras bash, because we always hold it the Saturday before Fat Tuesday, but that would probably just confuse people.

We usually have a good spread of food for the party and last night was no exception. Homemade sourdough bread with homemade hummus, lamb and veggie jambalayas, and, of course, the treat of the season, King Cake.

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Savory French Toast and its Cousin, Savory Bread Pudding

I felt like having a grilled cheese sandwich yesterday for lunch, but when I cut into my sourdough baguette, it was stale. My disappointment didn’t last long, because I quickly realized that stale bread is great for French toast. I had already cut several slices of cheese, though, so I made the leap to the savory side of French Toast.

Admittedly, this is not a very groundbreaking concept—people have eaten Monte Cristo sandwiches for years. I opted against the sandwich format, though, and instead topped it with Muenster cheese then served it with some Siracha Sauce and a side of cole slaw. It was a quick and easy meal, and I expect that I’ll experiment with the possibilities of savory French Toast in the future.

The batter was incredibly easy to make: instead of adding cinnamon, allspice, and vanilla to a mixture of eggs and milk like I might have to make a sweet French toast, I added about a half-teaspoon each of salt, cayenne pepper, and cumin. I added the cheese as soon as I flipped the toast and it melted while the second side cooked.

When I finished the usable portion of the baguette, I still had some eggwash left, plus the heels of the bread and the end of another loaf. I didn’t want to let it go to waste, so I decided to make Savory Bread Pudding (a dish that could quite easily be called French Toast Casserole).

I cubed the bread and tossed it with enough eggwash to moisten everything thoroughly (I had to supplement what was left with a couple more eggs and another healthy splash of milk, plus some more seasonings), then added a diced onion and several thinly sliced cloves of garlic. I let the bread marinate, covered, in the refrigerator for several hours, then put it into a greased and floured loaf pan and baked it at 350 F in my toaster oven for an hour.

I sliced the bread pudding loaf down and served it with pork stew. The onion and the garlic that I included with the pudding definitely added a pleasurable flavor component to the meal—the Bread Pudding wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good as it was without them.

Last March, when I was in Los Angeles for a wedding, I had a weekend full of waffles, all of them sweet. My favorite came from Charlie’s Coffee Shop in the old Farmer’s Market. Their booth is right near Gate 4 off of Fairfax Avenue and their waffles come with a big ol’ hunk of real butter and—upon request—a pitcher of real maple syrup. The waffle I got from Swingers Diner (below the Beverly Laurel Motor Hotel at the corner of Beverly and Laurel) wasn’t quite as good as Charlie’s. The diner itself is a nice place, though, with real pizzazz, and a great choice if you’re in the mood for a brownie a la mode and a cup of joe.

While we (Aurora, our friend Rebekah, and I) were eating dinner in Swingers one night and I didn’t order a waffle, they started giving me a hard time about it. “I’m surprised you didn’t order that sandwich to be made between two waffles,” Rebekah laughed, which led to a discussion about the unexplored possibilities of waffledom: savory waffles!

Because, really, what’s to dictate that waffles have to be a sweet treat served with syrup? Yeah, they’re tasty like that, but why not serve them with vegetables and savory sauces? I thought I was on to something completely new and different. Turns out, I was just resurrecting a concept that’s been dormant for years (perhaps since the Depression). According to The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion, “In the 1930’s, waffle suppers consisting of waffles with a savory topping—most often creamed chicken—were standard entertainment. They enjoyed a particularly favored place in the Franklin Roosevelt White House, whose thrifty head housekeeper saw them as an economical way to entertain heads of state” (12). Of course, I didn’t know that when I set about to create my own savory waffle dinners, which made my work all the more fun and exciting.

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Not what I was aiming for, but pretty good for what they are

This summer, I was excited about canning. I had never canned anything before, but for a couple of years had let languish in my basement a pre-WW I era canner that my mother had cleared out of her basement and given to me. Finally, I decided to make it a goal to can some stuff for the winter.

I didn’t want to let my ambition to get ahead of my ability, though, so I opted for a couple of easy, high-acid projects: applesauce and pickles (especially when improperly canned, low-acid goods have a risk of botulism associated with them). I haven’t yet opened the applesauce (because I still have the overflow from my pre-canning project in the freezer that I’m trying to go through first), but on Christmas day, we tried a jar of my first pickles and I was pleasantly surprised—not because they were good (I expected that they would be), but because they were good despite turning out much differently than I expected.

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If you’re like most people, you probably look at your head of broccoli or cauliflower and see two possibilities: steamed/boiled or raw. There’s a third, more exciting option for what you can do with that vegetable, though: roast it! The dry-heat cooking method gives your cooked vegetable a more pleasing texture and tossing it with oil and spicxes before hand gives it a mouth-smiling taste because the florets cling to the oil and lock the flavor in. Whenever I get one of these vegetables, I don’t even consider pulling out a saucepan anymore. Instead, I grab a mixing bowl and a cookie sheet.

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Hollandaise—it’s not just for asparagus and eggs benedict anymore

In its essence, hollandaise is a very simple sauce, consisting of little more than egg yolks and melted butter seasoned with salt, cayenne pepper, and lemon juice. Because it is so simple, the results of your sauce rely in large part upon technique. Made incorrectly, the hollandaise will break and greasy butter will float upon slightly scrambled eggs. Fortunately, there is a never-fail technique that takes advantage of modern technology to get perfect results every time.

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