Bread and tomatoes and other stuff

Here we are at the end of May.  Surprisingly here in Kansas City, we've not had much heat yet.  In fact, the first days of June later this week are forecast to be quite mild.  With the rainy spring we've had, gardens and landscaping all over the city are healthy and vigorous.  It seems we have a mild summer ahead of us.  At least that's how I read it based on my experience and history here in Kansas City.  We might roast once in a while in July and August.  But after such a mild time heading up to the summer season, it won't be too hard to get through any roasting days.

This next weekend we have honey oatmeal bread and roasted tomatoes on the menu.  They are a great combination.  I don't meant necessarily that they are meant to be eaten together literally.  But they do pair well, so maybe if you order both, you can make a nice meal out of them.  The honey oatmeal bread is a real addictive favorite of mine.  Once I slice into a loaf, I go back again and again as long as it lasts, until the last slice is gone.  I love this bread.  And the tomatoes are so healthy and flavorful that they are hard to resist as well.

The following weekend I have Swedish visiting cakes on the menu again since a few people didn't get a chance to get some in the last couple days.  I'm also making extras just in case.  And keeping with the Swedish theme, I also put Swedish oatmeal cookies on the menu.

Once we get to July, I will be doing more cooking than usual.  For the entire month, I have no teaching obligations.  I have many things on my list that I want to experiment with.  Sometimes I make such a list in response to requests from eaters here.  Sometimes it is spawned as a result of leafing through recipes in various sources, online and otherwise.  Sometimes it just comes because I find myself craving something or inspired to make something.  

When I'm cooking, no matter what I'm cooking, no matter how much I'm cooking, I taste everything.  Certainly it's a good idea to eat a cookie from a batch that I'm sending out the door to someone.  I always want to taste test to make sure that it's a good batch.  As long as I'm not distracted by something while I'm cooking (which might lead to a mistake I make), it comes out as expected.  But I like to be certain anyway.

Sometimes when I'm cooking, I taste one thing and it makes think of another thing and then a combination of things.  Pretty soon, I'm writing down the ideas.  Sometimes I get to those ideas right away, but most of the time they go on a list of things to experiment with at a future time.  Well, July coming up is a future time that will be devoted to whittling down this list.  I'm looking forward to it very much.  You'll be able to read all about it here. 

Here are the next menu offerings

 

I have just posted the updated menus for the next two weekends.

First up for the last weekend of May, we have triple chocolate sablés and Swedish visiting cakes.  For the first weekend in June, I am pairing up honey oatmeal bread and slow-roasted tomatoes.  

I got groceries yesterday.  It was one of those days where I just bought the things I really needed ... except at the very last minute, I decided I really wanted some crackers and cheese.  I was suddenly craving them.  And as I looked at the list of groceries I had put together, I figured it was so completely healthy in its entirety, with virtually nothing that could be labeled junk food ... well, I thought, "Why not?"

But I have to admit that even though I love cheeses, I was not really in the mood for cheese per se.  Actually I wanted a can of cheese spread.  I know, I know .... I know what you must be thinking.  But once in a while I'm in the mood for something from my childhood.  And I remember chicken-flavored crackers and spray cheese from my early years, and sometimes I like to indulge that memory.

So there I was at the end of a day sitting in a chair in front of a good episode of a fun TV show, and groceries had been put away, and I had a box of crackers sitting next to me and a can of spray cheese in one hand and a mug of milk close by as well.  I was quite happy as I sprayed that first bit of cheese on that first cracker from the box.  It tasted fun.  It tasted yummy.  It wasn't gourmet.  It probably wasn't even cheese.  But it hit the spot at that moment in time.

I ate quite a few of those crackers and quite a lot of that spray cheese.  And then I ate some fresh fruit to give my body something a little healthier to work on.  But I don't regret the crackers and spray cheese one bit.   

Food is good for us, but I like to have fun with it, too.

Pasta meat sauce

 

This past weekend, as noted in a previous post, I made three separate pasta meat sauces.  I love doing comparison cooking -- making multiple batches of the same food with different recipes at the same time.  In this case, I worked with three significantly different meat sauce recipes with the hope of seeing a significant difference in the end result.

I cooked each of them identically, using the same stainless steel skillet, using the same type and amount of beef, and using the same order of ingredient addition, etc.  The differences were in the seasonings and in the amounts and types of tomatoes (crushed, diced, paste, etc.), and in other added ingredients such as onions and garlic or green bell peppers, etc.

I cooked them in as identical a fashion as I could.  And then each batch was set aside while I cooked pasta, specifically spaghetti.  Then I added the pasta to the three meat sauces and put them all in the fridge to chill until the next day.

I love to make spaghetti and meat sauce this way.  Chilling the pasta overnight in the sauce means some of the sauce is absorbed and I love that texture and flavor the next day when I pull it out and cook it again with another infusion of sauce in either a saucepan on the stovetop or in the oven.  This twice-cooked spaghetti is really hard to resist, at least for me.  I always prefer spaghetti prepared this way.

After the spaghetti with the sauce was cooked the second time, I added generous amounts of finely grated Pecorino Romano cheese.  Is is possible to add too much cheese to pasta?  I don't think so!

One of the sauces wasn't to my liking.  It didn't have a flavor balance that I was happy with, and it seemed to have an unusual taste that wasn't really working with the pasta and cheese, undoubtedly from the seasonings chosen.  But the other two were very good.  One was a little sweeter and milder, and the other was a little darker with a little heat.  I finished the sweeter sauce with pasta more quickly than I finished the darker one.  But both were very good.  And I'm going to have to try them again, maybe with an extra spice or two added just to see what happens.  

This means that I've had a lot of pasta this week.  But I didn't mind that at all.  It all made for good meals, even breakfast.  Did you ever have pasta for breakfast?  It's a great way to start the day, I assure you.

So in the next week, hopefully, I'll do another batch of these two sauces, maybe tweaked just a little bit, and I'll see what I think when comparing one to the other again.  

Some people like a sweeter pasta sauce, and some don't.  Anyone care to offer their opinion on that?  

No matter what, though, I'm looking forward to another round of twice-cooked spaghetti and perhaps I'll send some out to be taste-tested by some of the regular eaters here at Bruce Bakery and Bistro.

The week ahead

 

Good Sunday morning to everyone!

This morning here in Kansas City, we have a dark and stormy day ahead of us.  Weather radar shows lots of rain coming.  Clouds are dark, and thunder is rumbling.  I managed to get outside and do a few things before the storms got here.  Now it looks like I'll be inside for the rest of day.  (It's about 900 AM as I write this.)

This upcoming weekend's orders have been pushed back one week as I have some obligations at the end of this week.  The menu remains the same, yummy chocolate cookies and Swedish visiting cake.

Yesterday I made three different meat sauces for pasta.  All have beef, but they are all different.  Sometime today, I'll cook up a batch of pasta and test them all.  I've made sure not to eat breakfast so that I have room for all of that later today.  Of course, since I've skipped breakfast that also means I'll be hungry when I taste-test the sauces.  And we all know that everything tastes better when you're hungry.  Perhaps I'll have a small brunch so that my sense of taste is not too heavily influenced.

Later on this week, I'll do more tweaking and tasting and testing of at least one of these sauces if everything goes according to plan.  

I happened to read that today is a day to commemorate St. Isidore the Farm Laborer.  Isidore is the patron saint of farmers and rural communities, according to further reading, and was particularly noted for care for poor farm laborers of Spain and the animals of those farms.

When I think about how much work is done by those who labor in farms and fields across the world ... wow!  We don't often give thought to those who do this work, but we should.  

So eat a good meal and give thanks, silent or otherwise, for those who make the meal possible.

Tools in the kitchen

I was looking at my kitchen shelves yesterday, at all the different pans, and serving ware, and tools and gadgets that are on those shelves or that are on little hooks on my walls.  I often do that as I continually review how I'm storing things so that I can re-organize and make my use of space more efficient.  And at the same time, I try to get rid of anything that I really don't use.  It's hard to do that, though.  I find something that I might have used once, something that I originally purchased with the idea that it sounded like a great tool to have around in the kitchen; but in practice, it went unused from the day I bought it.  I look at this tool and I wonder if I will ever use it.  But it's hard to discard it once I've added it to my kitchen arsenal.  

Most people would say that having tools around which are used for multiple functions is the best situation of all.  And I try to do that.  However, I have a garlic press.  I tried out multiple presses over the years before I finally found this one that is my favorite. It's used only for pressing garlic.  I've never used it for anything else.  I always prefer to press my garlic rather than chop or mince it.  This tool is one I would never part with because of that.  Yet it is used for only one thing.  Of course, garlic goes in a lot of different foods, so in reality this tool gets used a lot.  But in principle, it would be much nicer if this one tool performed more than one function.

I suppose most people love gadgets, and it's easy to buy lots of different things just because of our love of gadgets.  Of course, after a while, the room is filled with too many things that take up too much space and are rarely used.  With some gadgets, it's worth it to have a couple different types, though.  I have a normal sized food processor that I frequently use.  And I also have a mini-sized food processor that is perfect for when I need to chop up small quantities of nuts and other foods.  I will always have both sizes of this same gadget.  Both get used very frequently and there advantages when using one versus the other for different food types and different food quantities.

Knife sets usually come with many different sizes of blades.  However, I only use a few in my set.  The others just sit there.  Yet another example of having more choices in tools than are really needed.

It's nice to have the choices, but I also am into minimalism when it makes sense.  And it almost always makes sense.

Next weekly menu

Here we are heading towards the middle of May, and warm summery weather is finally coming in the week ahead.  We've been fortunate so far to not have a spring that is too warm.  The rains have been plentiful, and gardens everywhere are growing quickly. 

Here are the menus for the next two weekends:

speculoos and sweet creamy cookie dip

and

triple chocolate sablés and Swedish visiting cakes.

The speculoos and cookie dip have been paired in one offering to fulfill a special request from one of the regulars here.  The triple chocolate sablés and the Swedish visiting cakes are being offered because I've been craving them.  I suppose I could just make them anytime, but it's nicer when I can make them and send some out the door so that I don't eat them all myself.  

You know how it is when you go to the grocery store and you're hungry.  At least for me, when this happens I always wind up buying much more than I intended and not all of it very healthy.  Well, in the same fashion, when I'm craving something and I make it, I'm very likely to quickly eat through the entire batch, eating much more than I intended.  It's just the way I'm wired.  I suppose a fair number of people have the same wiring.  

I will take one cookie, and then say to myself, "Well, what's the harm in one more."  Before too long, I'm doing that again and again.  Fortunately, I don't do this all the time.  And I regularly keep trays of cut-up fruit and vegetables on hand to snack on.  But there are those times when I want nothing more than a whole pile of rich chocolate cookies.

On the other hand, when I'm craving something, it's a good time to browse recipe books, looking for ideas.  It doesn't erase the craving but it's great fun.

I've read that sometimes people crave foods that contain things they need; meat and the associated iron, for example.  What does it say when one is craving ice cream or cookies then?

As I write this, I'm at the end of a morning of yardwork and tedious household chores, and I did it all without the benefit of breakfast.  I guess that's why the subject of craving is on my mind.  I'd better go eat something at least a little healthy for my first meal of the day.

I hope everyone can enjoy our first summery week of the year!  

Early mornings

 

Today is Saturday.  Last night I made peanut butter cookie dough so that it could chill overnight.  This morning I baked that dough and made multiple batches of lava field brownies.

All that cooking meant that I was up early this morning.  When I get up early in the morning and start a bunch of cooking and baking, it's quite a peaceful experience.  Sure, I might be a little drowsy at first, and it might take me a while to get going.  But once that food starts coming together, and the dawn begins to break and I'm already ahead of schedule ... that's a nice feeling.  I often put on quiet music when I cook in the early pre-dawn hours, and between the tasting and the baking and the music, it all makes for an enjoyable beautiful morning.

When I feel like I'm the only up in the whole entire world, I kind of like that.  And when I'm preparing delicious food for people who will appreciate it, I feel like my time is well-spent.  So to me, it's worth it to be up early.  Plus, if I'm up early, I can do everything at a leisurely pace and that makes the kitchen experience much nicer.  

One typically hears of all the fast-paced activity that goes on in a commercial restaurant.  But for me, I'd just as soon have a more casual relaxed approach.  And that's what I get when putting out food from my own kitchen.  Then cooking is a ritual of sorts, not just something that is done as quickly as possible to get a lot of food to a dozen tables all at once.  If the day comes when I have a dozen tables waiting for food, everything will be organized and done with a schedule that allows for a more relaxed pace, even if those tables have to wait just a bit longer for the plates to show up.  I think it's important that the people making the food enjoy what they're doing as much as the people eating the food enjoy it.

So take your time making some food when you get the chance.  Don't hurry.  Don't rush.  Enjoy the ritual.  

Here's what's coming up

It's the first day of May.  We're well into the spring and so far we have had no significant heat.  I've always thought that if we have no significant heat before May 15, that the heat of the coming summer won't be too bad.  Sure, we may roast once in a while in July and August, but without the longer buildup of heat in April and May, it always seems to me that the following season is a gentler summer.

This coming weekend we have lava field brownies and peanut butter cookies on the weekly menu.  The following week's offering was designed as a result of a request from one of the regular eaters here at Bruce Bakery and Bistro.  It was suggested that speculoos and my sweet and creamy cookie dip were a perfect combination.  So I'm making lots of both.

This evening after making food yesterday, and working out in the yard both days of the weekend, and after hosting family here for a bonfire and movie and food day yesterday, I'm taking it easy.  I'm watching some fun TV shows while drinking lots of milk and scarfing down mini chocolate chips.

I keep lots of chocolate around all the time because I use so much of it.  That also means that I snack on it whenever the craving is there.  I love to take a small ramekin and fill it with my favorite brands of mini chocolate chips, and plop down in a comfortable chair while watching a movie or TV show.  I always intend to eat them one at a time, casually, without rushing.  But invariably I start grabbing two or three or nine.  The problem is that when I start grabbing more, occasionally one of them drops from my fingertips which are trying in vain to hold too many chips.  The chair I'm most often sitting in is a black desk chair.  And under it is black square of flooring for the chair to roll on easily (instead of carpet).  This means that if I don't catch one of these little tiny mini chocolate chips before they fall, it's likely I will looking for it for quite a while as the black chip will disappear into the black of the chair or the black of the flooring square.

I grab my flashlight and get down on my hands and knees looking for the chip.  It might be on the chair in which case I will be sitting on a slowly melting chip if I don't find it.  It might be on that black square of flooring and if I don't find it I may roll over it with the wheels of my chair.  My cat comes over and is very curious to see what I'm doing.  He gets in my way as I look for the chip.  Eventually I find it.  And then I stand up and vow to not drop another chip ever again.  Usually I drop another one within five minutes.

Oh, well.  It's something that's going to happen if I keep insisting on snacking on these little tiny chips.  So I resign myself to it and always make sure that the flashlight has charged batteries.

Have a great week!