But I Would Do Anything For Love But I Won't Do That

Today was meat loaf for lunch, ugh! I am not a fan of meat loaf though I'm willing to eat a bite. Chef broke us into two groups of eight and said each group was to make meat loaf, a pasta dish, two vegetable dishes and a dessert. Family style southern cooking. We were cleaning out the walk in. We all had to cook, no one was allowed to direct and not cook. Bar Code and I immediately took over though I noticed he kind of deferred to me. We didn't have the strongest group: RK, Mayfield, the Sushi boys, Chico and Igor. Bar Code and I had the most experience though. I said it made no sense to have eight people making meat loaf and we should break into subgroups, three doing meat loaf, three doing the pasta and two doing the veggies and dessert. RK said he wanted in on the meat loaf since he's never made it before. Bar Code said find pick two other people. Mayfield and Sushi #1. Bar Code grabbed Chico and Igor and said they would make the starches, pasta and sweet potatoes. We had linguine and Bar Code didn't want to do Alfredo because he was sick of it. I said fine, do a pasta salad with it. Bar Code asked me about doing sweet potato fries. Fine, I don't like them but sounds good to me.

I grabbed Sushi #2 and we headed for the walk in. On our way Chef said someone had donated some pinto beans and it would be good to use them up. Good, we'll do barbecue baked beans. We didn't have much for vegetable selection but we found some yellow squash and thought about a squash casserole. Chef was very pleased, he had hoped someone would decide that. For dessert I suggested short bread dipped in chocolate ganache. Sushi liked the sound of it and it's pretty easy. Thumbs up from Chef.

Dinah and her Mom make a squash casserole and all I knew was that it was squash, soup and crackers on top. I asked Chef if we needed to make our own soup base or could we use canned? Soup? Chef said, "here's how I make squash casserole: blanch the squash, sliced onions, cheese sauce, Worcestershire , mayonnaise, Swiss cheese slices,bread crumbs." OK, we can handle that.

We got the squash sliced up. For some reason the water took forever to boil. Onions were sliced. I had an idea on how to do a cheese sauce but sent Sushi around asking. The book called for making a bechamel sauce first and I was pretty sure we weren't going that route. I confirmed that with Chef. After Sushi got back I poured a quart of heavy cream in a sauce pan, put it over medium heat and had Sushi start blending in some shredded cheddar cheese. He was doing it little bits at a time which made Chef chuckle. Finally Chef had him just dump the whole bag in. Then Chef had him fetch some Gruyere from the freezer. Up until this week I had no idea you could freeze cheese. Makes sense though, I mean it comes on frozen pizzas that way. The class knife wouldn't cut through the frozen cheese but my extra sharp knife with a thicker blade made short work of cutting a huge hunk of the Gruyere into cubes. That took a little longer to melt in and unfortunately we did burn on the bottom of the pan. I heard some whining in the dish washing area about that but strangely I had no problems getting the pan clean. Experience always wins.

When most of the cheese had melted I spiced it up with some dry mustard, ground white pepper, the Worcestershire sauce and added some mayo.

Finally our water was boiling. We blanched the squash until it was fork tender, drained then spread it out over the bottom of a hotel pan. We thought we would give the onions some extra flavor so we sauteed them in olive oil and then spread the sauteed slices over the squash. Next we poured the cheese sauce over the onions and squash. I had ground up some bread crumbs and we were spreading the bread crumbs over the top when Chef stopped us and said the bread crumbs should be mixed into the casserole. That was new to me but no problem. Into the oven it went. I t didn't take long for it to cook and the top got a nice golden brown. We pulled it out and topped the casserole with shredded mozzarella and put the pan in the warmer where the cheese would finish melting.

For the beans I made a batch of my Grandpa's barbecue sauce. This proved a little tricky because with two groups making meat loaf we were running low on ketchup. I just had enough though and the sauce tasted pretty good to me. We mixed in the can of beans and put it all into a half pan and into the oven. When the top of the beans started to brown I pulled the pan out and put it in the warmer.

We were going to make shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate but Bar Code's group finished their pasta early so they jumped on the dessert. It was interesting how every time they hit a speed bump they came running to me: "the other group is making a pasta salad!" Don't worry, just change the flavor. Barbecue and meatloaf is the theme today, try a barabcue pasta salad. There's andouille sausage in the walk-in. It might turn out good. "We don't have enough apples!" Go grab some canned apples and combine the two. I guess I'm the answer man.

Since we were done I went to get some of the dishes caught up. I enjoy running the dishwasher, and I'm pretty good at it. Earlier, Chico, who is absolutely brilliant, started the garbage disposal without looking to see if anything was in it. Immediately there's a sound of metal being ground up. I think it took him a full thirty seconds to process the information and turn the disposal off. Now an hour later, I get ready to run the disposal but I check first. Chico never bothered to remove the measuring spoons he ground up in the disposal. The bastard just turned it off and walked away!!! Unbelievable! I fished them out. They were only bent, no rough or ground edges, so I straightened them out, fished out the ring, reassembled them and ran them through the dishwasher correctly. Like I said, brilliant.

We all had to man the chaffing dishes and serve at lunch. I was shocked that nobody wanted the sweet potato fries. They are a staple down here. I thought they were actually pretty good even though it is not a food that I like. A few people tried our baked beans. I will admit they were quite different, not bad but probably not what people wanted. There was no sweetness to them and I think that turned some people off. They were also a little on the thin side. It was then that it dawned on me that my Grandpa's 50+ year old recipe is more like a buffalo wing sauce than any barbecue sauce. I guess he was ahead of his time. Sushi #2 really liked them though.

No one ate any of the barbecue pasta salad which is a shame because it was pretty good. It was on the sweet side because they put honey in it. They did cook it down too low so the sauce was about the consistency of peanut butter. Like I said, Chico is brilliant. The funny thing was the sauce almost tasted like a peanut sauce, like a satay. It was pretty good on the noodles. I liked it.

There was some green bean casserole with home made french fried onions on top. It was OK. And there was a macaroni and cheese casserole made with bow tie pasta with the soupiest cheese sauce yo ever saw. The meat loafs were meat loaf. What can I say. The desserts were awesome! There was an apple pie that Mouth made and the cherry cobbler that Bar Code made was great. I guess he switched gears at the last minute since they didn't have enough apples.

I have to say that our casserole was the best dish and I'm not saying that because we made it. It really was good. It was pretty cool that we made such a good dish working with only a concept and not a true recipe.

Tuesday was field trip day. We were going to a food show in Gwinnett.

Back to the Food

Yesterday's return to food was simple, pork steaks and tater tots. And while I was at it I made a butternut squash soup for Dinah to take to work.

As you may or may not remember back in December I started using coupons in earnest and buying in bulk at my local grocery store (which by the way I learned yesterday sucks. They don't have the same stuff or as much stuff as the neighboring towns' Ingles do. I'm switching to the Ingles in Murphy). On one of my trips I bought a fifteen pound bone-in Boston butt. I have no idea what to do with a fifteen pound pork shoulder, especially one with a huge bone in it. I could smoke it and make BBQ, but that was way more effort than I wanted to put into it.

For those of you not of the Southern persuasion, the Boston butt is THE cut for pork barbecue which is THE main food group here below the Mason-Dixon Line (really lower than that). As much as I may whine about down here, it is also one of my favorite food groups, so for me it is a perk of living here. I did start early in life. My Dad was born in Louisiana of Hoosier stock and grew up in Houston. My Grandpa used to barbecue HUGE amounts of chicken with his own secret sauce, hot not sweet. And I grew up with that, but I prefer pork. And truth be told the best of all options is a Texas Plate, preferably somewhere in Texas, of smoked sausage, brisket and chopped or sliced pork with beans and fries and a sweet tea (all my trips to Texas, I ate it almost every day). I love it so much that someday I hope to complete the NC BBQ Trail. So far I've got Murphy and Shelby under my belt. But I'm getting way off topic here.

Boston butt is a pork shoulder and is quite tough. But it is well marbled with fat and so when it is cooked "low and slow" like in a smoker it basically self bastes and the meat comes out soft and tender and very moist, a la perfect barbecue. I cut out six pork steaks from the shoulder. The rest was pretty fatty with some meat and of course the bone. That I broke down and froze for a later day, maybe I'll smoke it, more than likely I'll make chorizo with it.

The meat was interesting. The steaks looked exactly like NY strips except with the marbling you typically associate with a rib-eye. Even the meat looked like beef rather than pork, deep red in color. I grilled up two about a month or so ago. Didn't pay attention and over cooked them, well they were perfect for those of you who grew up with pork that had to be cooked dry to prevent trichinosis, but I like mine just at done. And sure enough they were tough, just like the pork I grew up with, needed a lot of bottled barbecue sauce to get down.

THIS time I planned ahead. Two hours before I was planning on grilling I tossed two steaks in a gallon sized Ziploc bag and covered them with some Fat Bastard Shiraz we had laying around that was old but had not gone bad. Put them in the fridge and flipped them over every half hour or so. The marinating did the trick. I cooked the steaks perfectly through and they were still tender and moist. There was an ever faint but pleasant taste of the wine, matter of fact it may have even made the meat taste more like beef than pork. It was an excellent little technique tenderizing tough meat and shows you why you should do it BEFORE you cook it rather than after.

As for the soup, I don't eat it nor do I eat squash though I did the last time. So I can't say much about it, yet. The recipe is here. When Dinah reports back, if there are positive reviews, I will write up how I made it and post it here. It looked right, just like the picture.

A Happy Thanksgiving

We hosted Thanksgiving this year since leading up to it no one could seem to decide what to do. I think it came off excellent.

Our dining room is a little undersized for seating more than six but we had eight adults and three kids. It worked out. I wouldn't want to do that every day though.

I baked two pumpkin pies (pungkin as Rose says) the night before. I have made the real deal before with real cooked pumpkin but the can really is the way to go if you want to be sure that the pumpkin itself is going to taste good. But you have to buy the canned pumpkin not the canned pumpkin pie, big difference. I used store bought pie crust too. I wasn't in the mood to go homemade on that. I still got rave reviews. My secret? Mace and nutmeg.

I picked up the smoked turkey on Wednesday. This worked out great. We just needed to reheat the bird for two hours in the oven. Since our target was 11:00AM, this sure beat getting up at 4:00AM to pop it in the oven, not to mention the labor saved in not having to prep and season the turkey. It came out perfect. I let it rest for about 30 minutes before cutting into it and the legs just tore off. I barely had to use a knife. We got a 13 pound turkey and I carved half for serving and the other half for leftovers for people to take home.

Our bread was a combination of yeast rolls I picked up when I got the turkey and frozen biscuits I got when my coffee shop closed. The yeast rolls went over better than the biscuits but I preferred the biscuits.

Dinah's mom brought the traditional squash casserole and baked sweet potatoes. I don't like yellow squash but this casserole is quite good. I attribute it to the crushed crackers. Rose normally likes it but not yesterday. I'm not a sweet potato fan, especially the traditional pan with marshmallow on top. I was grateful that Dinah's mom's version has brown sugar and pecans instead of marshmallow. It was very good. Rose had three helpings. I thought it was adorable that she spit out a "seed." I had missed a pecan in serving her. Good girl.

Dinah's dad brought scalloped potatoes. They were out of a box and I LOVED them. Always have. The funny thing was he had never made them before and bought a bag of potatoes with the two boxes. Apparently Debra teased him about the potatoes already being in the box. And they were!

Deana brought the dressing and gravy. I grew up with stuffing, My Mom makes a traditional oyster stuffing with wild rice and croutons. She leaves out the oysters though. Every year half was stuffed in the turkey and half was cooked in a casserole. And every year we sobbed when the stuffing from the bird was gone because is always tasted better than that made in the casserole. Don't let anyone tell you they are the same. I LOVE stuffing. I'm still not up on the dressing thing which is made in a pan and cut and served like brownies. It's dry and needs gravy (graby as Rose says). I know this was an old family recipe. I like it but it just isn't the same. There was very little left though.

Rose didn't seem to care for any turkey at the beginning of the meal. I think the sweet potatoes preoccupied her. But near the end she asked me for "chicken." She had two helpings of white meat. Good girl. The turkey really was excellent. I think because it was smoked and only reheated it was much juicer than any I've had before. It barely had any smoke flavor and they must have brined it because every now and then you'd get a taste of something sweet or a bit of spice. And best of all was the crispy skin because I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE turkey skin and I'm the only one who eats it. It was mine, mine, mine.

So who knows what's missing?

MASHED POTATOES!

WTF? Apparently there was a communication break down and we ended up with none. I had planned on making them in my super-duper-can't-live without-anymore stand mixer, even looking forward to it, but I pulled off since I was told they were being brought. If there is anything close to being sacrilegious with Thanksgiving it is no mashed potatoes. I sobbed but we all survived fine.

And the best part? Aside form the food and family, we got to leave Rose with Grandma and the two of us went to the movies! Four Christmases was HYSTERICAL!

PS

I forgot about the cranberry issue. I grew up with real cranberry dressing. A bag of cranberries cooked down with sugar and spices until the berries start to pop. My wife's family eats the cranberry equivalent of spam. I'm not sure what this gelatinous red bile in a can is but there is no way I can eat. I've tried, it's not happening. It was nice to know that Debra was equally revolted, so I was not alone for once.