Clarified butter is anhydrous milk fat rendered from butter to separate the milk solids and water from the butterfat. Having the butter in this form increases its smoking point and also extends the butters shelf life. I like to use clarified butter in sautéing seafood as well as when cooking up my eggs in the morning. It is very easy to make your own clarified butter in your kitchen.
Step 1: Melt the butter. Start with 1-2 cubes of butter and place in a saucepan at medium-low heat. Stir while the butter melts. Once the butter has completed melting remove from heat and let sit for 3 minutes.
Step 2 Separate the solids. Now that most the water has evaporated and the solids have separated you now need to remove these solids. Many techniques call for carefully skimming these solids out but this had always seemed pretty tedious and I never got an much out as I wanted. For this reason I go with a filtering method using preferably three layers of cheesecloth but in a pinch a coffee filter or even a simple paper towel can work. Place the “filter” over your container and secure with a rubber band.
Carefully pour the melted butter on top of the filter and allow about 5-10 minutes for the liquid to filter through. Tip: You may want to carefully push some of the solids to the side if the flow to the container seems to slow (or stop).
Step 3: Cool. You have now created your own nice and clear clarified butter. Now simply cover your container and place back into your refrigerator and use as needed.
Every time I buy vanilla I always have to stare at the bottles for a few minute contemplating if I should pay the extra cost for “Pure Vanilla” versus the imitation stuff. Provided the real stuff costs 15 times more than the fake stuff when I walk away with my little eye dropper worth of pure vanilla extract for the small fee of $7.99. Just for the record $638.72 per gallon, which makes gasoline look pretty cheap.
The last time I made this purchase I decided this is the last time I would be buying vanilla and in the future I would simply make my own. After looking into the process I was blown away by how simple it was. Take some vanilla beans seep them in some alcohol and wait until it looks like vanilla. There are many advantages to making your own vanilla first of which is cost. For the same $7.99 I purchased 2 ounces of vanilla for I can make 12.68 ounces of my own. Another great benefit is as soon as you start looking for vanilla beans online you will see there are many different types to choose from creating your own special blends using beans from different areas as well as a variety of alcohol to infuse it in.
Many recipes I came across describe how to make super high concentration versions that require to to reduce your usage by quarter or half. I decided to attempt to make some single strength vanilla so mine should be similar to that purchased in the stores. I confirmed that commercial vanilla extract has 13.35 oz. of vanilla beans per gallon of alcohol. Provided I am using 375 ml of alcohol in my batch I would need 1.33 ounces of vanilla beans which equates to approximately 2.5 beans, which I picked up for $2.99 for 3 pods. Next was alcohol choice, for this you want something about 70 proof (35% alcohol) some obvious choice in this range are vodka, rum, or bourbon. With a desire to keep costs low and a desire to be able to see how the liquid’s color changed I went with the second cheapest 375 ml bottle of vodka I could find (I splurged and spent the extra 50 cents).
Step 1: As mentioned above the process is very easy, you start by splitting the vanilla beans lengthwise.
Step 2: Take the split beans and cut them to one inch lengths.
Step 3: Insert cut beans into bottle of vodka
Step 5: Shake bottle (when you think about it)
Within a few days your alcohol will begin to get dark and have a nice vanilla smell, but keep holding out for the good stuff.
After about a month your vanilla should be fully infused and have some vanilla with approximately the same strength as the expensive stuff you buy in the store at a fraction of the cost.
Now at this point you have a couple options:
Option #1: Screen out the vanilla beans (and fragments) and if beans (after dried)are still fragment place them into a sealed container with a few cups of sugar to make your own vanilla sugar.
Option #2: Let the vanilla to continue to infuse and have progressively stronger vanilla. For super flavor shake before using to get some of the bean fragments into your measurement.
Option #3: Top off the bottle with alcohol after use to have a nearly endless supply of vanilla. Eventually you will need to add a couple more beans.
Feb 11
6
Light wheat bread recipe
Like many recipes this one was completely created by accident. I was making my typical sweet white bread recipe but unfortunately halfway through I realized we were short a cup of white flour. Thinking fast, I replaced it with a cup of whole wheat. Not only did it make the bread for nutritious and was much more flavorful at the same time so this has now become my staple recipe for bread.
Simple Light Wheat Bread Dough Recipe
- 1 cups warm water
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 tablespoon of active yeast
- 1/8 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 2 cups of while flour
Directions:
- Dissolve sugar in warm water, followed by yeast in power mixer. Allow to proof until contents looks like some light brown cream foam.
- Add salt and oil and mix to combine.
- Switch to hook attachment and add flour until dough does not stick to your finger when you touch it.
- Let the hook do some of the kneading work for you by letting it run for 4-5 minutes on a medium/low setting.
- Knead by hand for 3 minutes or until smooth (adding flour if it still sticks to your hands)
- Cover with damp cloth and allow to rise until it doubles in size. (about an hour depending on temperature of your kitchen)
- Punch down bread dough and place into well oiled 9X5 inch loaf pans allowing to rise for 30 minutes.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes
- While still hot baste the top of bread with butter.
- Once cool, if there is any left by then, slice up and place into a gallon Ziploc bag.
Dec 10
2
Pumpkin cheesecake recipe
I decided to combine a couple of my favorite desserts this Thanksgiving and was pleasantly surprised with the results of my first pumpkin cheesecake (or cheesecake for that matter) Though the prospect of making a cheesecake may sound daunting it is actually pretty simple to make.
Pumpkin Cheesecake Recipe
Ingredients
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1 graham cracker crust (homemade or store bought)
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16 oz. of crème cheese (2 – 8 oz. packages)
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2/3 cup brown sugar
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1.5 cup of pumpkin puree (or one can of store bought pumpkin)
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1 teaspoon vanilla
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3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
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1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
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1/4 teaspoon ginger
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2 eggs
Directions
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Preheat oven at 350 degrees
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Beat cream cheese until it appears fluffy
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Add sugar, pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger and and beat until well combined
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Add eggs one at a time and beat until creamy
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Place empty graham cracker crust to a cookie sheet and place in oven with rack pulled out. Fill with mixture until full and carefully push rack (and cheesecake) into the oven. You can attempt this pour and move away from the oven but unless your day job is working on a bomb squad most likely this will lead to some filling on the floor and yourself.
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Bake for 50-60 minutes keeping a careful eye on the edges if you start to see some browning your cheesecake is ready to be pulled out.
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Place cheesecake on a cooling rack for 1-2 hours. Though if you are in a hurry you can speed up the cooling by placing your cheesecake in the refrigerator after 10-15 minutes though you significantly increase the chance of causing a ugly split down the middle of your nice cheesecake.
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After cooling for 1-2 hours cool overnight(if you can wait that long)
Nov 10
22
How to make homemade chicken stock
With the holidays coming up and a half a rotisserie chicken from Costco in the fridge on the verge of having to be thrown out, I decided to try out making my own chicken stock. Of course you can buy this stuff in a can or carton but it will never have the rich flavor by doing it yourself. As an added bonus it gives your whole house the aroma of Thanksgiving turkey in the oven as a little foreshadow of things to come.
I started with my remaining chicken and chopped off the wings, leg and split the rest of the chicken in half and placed it in the biggest pot I own. I then filled it up with enough cold water to just barely cover the chicken.
Note: you can also use raw chicken/turkey for this as well. Any parts work what you are extracting is the collagen from the bones and meat which is what gives you your rich flavor.
Next I added a handful of baby carrots, 2 stalks of celery (broken in half), 1 onion (quartered), 2 cloves of garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground pepper, 2 bay leaves and 1 teaspoon of dried parsley and sage (fresh herbs are better bit there was nothing left in my garden)
After you have all your ingredients in turn the temperature to medium and adjust until you have a soft boil. This should be producing minimal bubbles and just a hint of steam. If you are seeing something different increase/decrease the temperature as appropriate.
Once you have the right temperature stir occasionally and add hot water if the water level evaporated exposing the ingredients. If you see some “scum” on the top of the surface use a mesh strainer or a large spoon to scrape this off the surface, though if you are cooking a rotisserie chicken like I was there shouldn’t be much scum on the surface.
After about 6-8 hours your chicken stock will be done. You will know this if you take one of the bones (which meat will also fall off of) and bend it, it will be brittle and break. This is caused because of the lack of collagen in the bones.
Next you need to separate the stock from the chunky ingredients. I do this by first dumping the contents of my pot into a colander with a bowl overnight. This removed the biggest chucks but you will still see some pieces of herbs and meat fall through.
I dispose of the captured chunks, pour the liquid back into the pot and repeat the process again this time placing a couple of layers of cheesecloth on top of the colander to remove the smaller chunkies.
At this point you could throw this pot of hot liquid in your refrigerator, though depending on the amount you have created this could lead to dangerously raising your refrigerator temperature and allowing your stock to be in a dangerous zone (40F-140F) which can be a breeding oasis for bacteria. To get around this I place my bowl in a sink full of ice water for about 30 minutes stirring every 5-10 minutes. This will chill down your stock quickly and get it down to a temperature where you can safely move to your refrigerator. If you are creating a large quantity of stock (2 gallons+) you may want to consider using a cooler filled with ice instead.
Leave your stock in the refrigerator overnight at this point it should look (and taste) like some like some meat flavored Jell-O. There may be a layer of poultry fat on the very top which you can remove and throw away or use for other cooking.
For storage I scooped 1/2 a cup of stock which confidently fit into the holes of a muffin tin pan nicely.
I covered these with plastic wrap and froze and after a few hours, I removed the frozen stock puck by gently pressing from the bottom of the tin to pop them out.
Finally I marked a freezer bag and put my yummy stock into the freezer where it will keep for about months for use in gravies, soups, etc. Though with the precautions you should have minimalized bacteria growth…though just to be safe you should always boil the stock for 2 minutes before using.
After smelling chicken in the air all day Saturday my oldest daughter insisted I make some homemade soup. Which was enough by taking 1 cup of chicken stock, a small can of chicken, 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder, 1/2 teaspoon of onion powder, and 1/4 teaspoon parsley to a pot and boil for 2 minutes. Pour over a couple cups of cooked noodles and some instant soup for a could winter day.
Looking for more ways to use up some of my pumpkin puree and decided to make some pumpkin ice cream, though technically this should be called pumpkin frozen custard, either way it tastes great.
Homemade frozen pumpkin ice cream
Ingredients:
- 1 cup fresh pumpkin puree
- 1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
- 2 cups heaving whipping cream
- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 5 egg yolks
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- pinch of nutmeg
Directions:
- Whisk pumpkin puree and vanilla, cover and refrigerate for 3 hours.
- Add 1.5 cups cream and 1/2 cup of brown sugar to saucepan at medium heat for 5 minutes. You should see some bubbles forming around the edges though no boiling. Remove from heat.
- In a separate bowl add remaining cream and sugar, egg yolks, salt, and spices and whisk until smooth.
- Add 3 tablespoons of warm mixture to bowl one tablespoon at a time while whisking between tablespoons. This is to slowly bring up the temperature of the egg mixture without “cooking” the eggs causing some chunky custard. This process is known as tempering.
- Add egg mixture to saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes
- Strain custard mixture though a metal sieve into metal bowl placed in a sink (or even larger bowl) filled with ice water and stir for a few minutes to quickly reduce the temperature.
- Place plastic wrap directly over the custard mixture to prevent skin from forming.
- Place custard in the refrigerator overnight.
- Pour into ice cream machine for 45 minutes then move into freezer for 3 hours (though I would recommend sneaking a taste before putting in the freezer)
Nov 10
1
Homemade pumpkin bread recipe
After having an abundance of cooked pumpkin after over purchasing on a couple of organic pie pumpkins I decided to make some pumpkin bread, here is the recipe I have had great success with.
Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked pumpkin plus 1 cup or water or 16 oz can of canned pumpkin plus 1.25 cups water
- 3.5 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp. baking soda
- 3 cups sugar
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 1.5 tsp. kosher salt
- 2 tsp. cinnamon
- 2 tsp. nutmeg
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Combine flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar into a large mixing bowl.
- In a separate bowl whisk eggs, water, oil and pumpkin.
- Slowly at wet ingredients to dry ingredients and blend until well combined.
- Pour into two lightly greased and floured bread loaf pans.
- Bake for 1 hour and test if done by inserting a knife into the middle of the loaf and when it comes out clean it is done.
- Let cool for 30 minutes, top with aluminum foil and place into your refrigerator and let cool overnight.
While out picking out pumpkins for my daughters I saw some nice organic heirloom pumpkins (Winter Luxury Pie) and decided to try my hand in using a couple of these to make a pumpkin pie instead of using canned pumpkin
Step 1: Clean the pumpkin. Use a little water and scouring pad to remove loose dirt
Step 2: Remove stem and cut pumpkin in half. This will take a little muscle to get through but using a serrated blade should make quick work of this little pumpkin.
Step 3: Scoop out seeds and innards. Using an ice cream scoop scrape out the seeds and the stringy innards, you don’t have to get this completely clean as you can see below. I also decided to save a few seeds with hopes to grow my own sugar pumpkins next year using the seed saving techniques I have wrote about last year.
Step 4: Cut the pumpkin into smaller equally sized pieces. Once you have all the seeds and gunk out slice up the pumpkin halves into several equally sized pieces.
Step 5: Cook the pumpkin. Places pieces in a casserole dish and cover with top or if yours are overflowing your largest casserole dish like mine you can simply cover the dish with a piece of aluminum foil. Place in a preheated oven at 350F and cook the pumpkin for 45-90 minutes. The pumpkin is done cooking when you can slice through the pumpkin flesh with an edge of a fork with almost no effort.
Step 6: Blend. Use a large metal spoon to scape the pumpkin away from the skin and place into a blender and blend until smooth. If you have a very dry pumpkin like mine you might need to add a little water to get a good cortex going like above.
That is it. With my 5 pound pumpkin I purchased for $5 I got 6 cups of pumpkin puree, which is enough to make 3 pumpkin pie or 6 loafs of pumpkin bread and if my math is right about $30 compared to buying the canned variety. After making a pie and a loaf of pumpkin bread this left me with 3 cups of pumpkin goo, which I put in 6 half-cup containers which I froze to make some more pie for Thanksgiving.
Pumpkin Pie Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 cups of pumpkin puree (see above)
- 12 oz. can of evaporated milk
- 1/2 cup of brown sugar
- 1/3 cup of white sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon cloves
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
Directions
- Mix sugars, salt, spices, lemon into large bowl. Beat in eggs then pumpkin puree. Finally add the evaporated milk and whisk until thoroughly combined.
- Pour mixture into chilled pie shell and make at 425F for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes reduce temperature to 350F. Bake 45-50 minutes, or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.
- Cool on a wire rack for 2 hours
- Note: If you are lacking some of the spices above…you can replace the spices above with pumpkin pie spice.
Sep 10
25
First pork shoulder on the BBQ
I picked up a Brinkmann Smoke’N Grill Charcoal Smoker (El Cheapo Brinkmann aka ECB) to make some chipotle peppers but after seeing a Labor Day sale on pork shoulders (aka pork butt) I decided it was time to get this baby worked in.
Whether it is gardening or cooking I am never one to jump right into something new without thorough research so after some data gathering this is what I found:
- Have to cook low and slow. Unlike better quality of meats shoulder/briskets are loaded with connective tissue given these are the main working muscles of the beast. As a result cooking these fast will result in some very tough meat. Alternatively cooking at a lower temperature over a longer period of time will result in delicious tender meat.
- 200-225 is the ideal range to cook your meat for optimum tenderness.
- After an internal temperature 145F your meat can no longer build a thicker smoke ring.
- Meat is done when the internal temperature is at least 185F
I started with a good fire, after some research I went with the Minion method. The basic concept is to load your fire pan with unlit charcoal, then take a half of charcoal chimney and pour it on top. This will help bring your smoker up to temperature quickly and the unlit charcoal will continue to burn for several hours without having to add any new charcoal.
Next I added my 7 lbs pork shoulder which I applied a dry rub the night before and wrapped in plastic. This provides some flavor to the meat and the salt content to help draw moisture from the inner part of the meat to provide plenty of gel for the smoke to adhere to. Now every BBQ must keep their magical rub recipe a secret, but here is a recommendation. Start with 1/4 cup paprika, 1/4 cup kosher salt, 1/4 cup brown sugar. This is your base, then add spices like cayenne/chili pepper and taste until it is something that is appealing to you. You can also play with other spices like coriander, celery salt, mustard seed, basil, black pepper…to give your rub its own unique flavor.
Knowing that once the meat gets to 145F, my hopes of adding a good smoke ring I opted to cook at the low end 180-200F to allow as much time as possible for the meat to absorb as much tasty smoke as possible. The smoke is delivered using a “smoke grenade” which is water soaked hickory/apple wood chips wrapped in heavy duty aluminum foil with a couple holes poked in it. Simply throwing this on top of the coals produced a good amount of smoke from the 50-145F internal cooking range.
Once the temperature reached 145F (about 6 hours) s0 I wrapped the shoulder in aluminum folder and raised the temperature to be in the 200-225F range (3 more hours) until it hit the 185F internal temperature.
Closer look before wrapping in foil…
I pulled the pork and added a little bit of commercial BBQ sauce (working on my own, but haven’t found a good recipe yet) and I must say I wasn’t optimistic of the success of this but I can honestly say this was the best pulled pork I have ever eaten. Now I live in Washington State so we are not exactly known for our BBQ, so most pulled pork is probably cooked in an oven though I did find a couple of local restaurants who had real smoke BBQ pork and I tried them out and they both did not compare.
Can’t wait to try this out some more…
When you think about “homemade” it is hard to not to think about some good ole homemade chicken soup. I have made chicken soup from scratch but normally cut some corners by using some precooked chicken and skipping the whole chicken stock process. This time I decided to do things closer to “how my grandma would make it”.
Homemade Chicken Stock Recipe
Ingredients
- 4-5 lbs of chicken breasts (skin on)
- 6 cups of water
- 1 large onion (peeled and cut in half)
- 3 bay leaves
- 12 whole black peppercorns
- 1 celery stock broken in half (3 stalks set aside)
- 1/2 lb of baby carrots
- 3 cloves of garlic (chopped)
- chicken bouillon powder or concentrate to make 6 cups of chicken broth (about 1/4 cup chicken bouillon powder)
Directions
- Add chicken to pot and fill with water to just cover chicken
- Cook over high heat to bring water to boil, reduce heat and cover then simmer for 30 minutes
- Skim off and fat floating on top (with chicken breasts there shouldn’t be too much here)
- Place remaining ingredients into pot and simmer for 1 hour
- Strain solids and dispose everything but chicken which when cool enough to handle cut into bite size pieces
Homemade White Chicken Soup Recipe
Ingredients
- Homemade chicken stock (see above)
- 1/2 pound baby carrots (sliced)
- 3 stalks celery (halved and sliced)
- 1 tsp chopped parsley
- Cooked chicken (chopped in bite size pieces)
- Wide egg noodles
Directions
- Return stock back to pot and add carrots and celery to pot. Bring to boil then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes.
- Add the chicken and parsley to the pot and serve over cooked egg noodles.
Note: You can also add the uncooked at the same time as chicken/parsley and boil for 10 minutes (or until noodles are soft) though this is way to much for our family to eat in 1-2 sittings so we normally freeze about 2/3 of this for a few easy meals later.