Straight Stitches

Monday, January 09, 2012

New Year - New Ways

Heather January 09, 2012 0 Comments

Hello all!

How are all of you? Have a good holiday? I hope so.

I have nothing to post.

No projects. No recipes.

Just a sick baby at home. I've been pinning stuff, but my space bar is not working so well, and its driving me batty. Otherwise, I'd have a longer post, and probably include some pins.

Oh and I'm not going to be posting everyday. You've probably noticed that my posts are starting to get spaced out. I like it that way. There's less pressure on me to produce something every single day. I get tired.

My schedule has changed. I go to the gym 4 out 5 days a week. Then there's the normal house crap to do. I still love crafting, creating and sewing, but I just want to focus on me a little. Ok, a lot. I have 70 more pounds to lose. Its going to take some work. Ok - a lot of work.

I'm still going to share things, but I'm going to focus more on quality than quantity. I think the blog will be better for it.

I hope you guys agree!

Heather

Friday, January 06, 2012

Pursuing a Legend

Dana January 06, 2012 0 Comments

I've talked about my long of French food, right? Of course I have! Remember this post? Did you see the gift I wanted from Mike? Well, look at what he got me for Christmas...

It's so beautiful! This was, by far, my most favorite gift. So what did I make first? Cassoulet! If you don't know, cassoulet is a heavy French stew with beans and meat. Oh, and it's epic! Sally and I had some at a restaurant when she visited last May, and we both loved it.

You all must forgive me for not posting the recipe, though. See, it's three pages long...in tiny print. Five pages if you count the description and variations. That makes sense, though, seeing as how this is, literally, an all-day cooking dish. Not for the faint of heart.

The recipe called for pork rind, which I haven't the foggiest where to get. Thankfully one of the variations was using a ham hock instead by just simmering it with the beans. It also called for a lot of beans. Two pounds to be exact. This is my largest stockpot. Look how close the beans come to the top!

Oh, beautiful, smoky bacon, forgive me! The recipe specifically said to either buy unsmoked bacon (yeah right, this is America) or to simmer a pound of the smoked stuff for ten minutes. It even looks sad without all its smokiness.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. There's a fine line between lazy slacker and creative genius, and I walk that line everyday. I couldn't be bothered to find a string for my bouquet garni, so I wrapped it up, twisted it, and tied it. Genius!

This is a trick I learned from Alton Brown. After the beans are cooked, you add a whole bunch of onions and the bacon. Then you're supposed to skim the scum off the top. With the veggie steamer in there, the scum gets separated from the rest of the food, making it easy to skim away.

Scum isn't the only thing that floated to the top. The ham hock left some pretty serious grease in the pot. That's when my gravy separator came out. The filter caught any solid food I accidentally scooped up, and look at all that grease that didn't go into my stew!

Not gonna lie, lamb shanks make me drool. I was almost sad that we were putting these into soup and not straight roasting them. By the way, I got the shanks because the recipe called for lamb bones to be seared and cooked in the soup. Delicious! See?

This trick is one I learned from Rachael Ray. Cook your sausages in an inch or two of water until the water evaporates and then let the sausages brown.

Oh hey! Did you know that this stew has goose in it too? The original recipe has pork, but a variation of goose was offered, and I had goose leftover from Christmas. There's a method to my madness. When dismantling a cooked bird, I just dig into it with my hands and tear it apart...really.

The cassoulet eventually had to be layered in my stockpot because that's the only dish I had that would fit it. This dish makes enough for 8 to 10 people? 8 to 10 starving people maybe.

And that's just day one! Into the fridge it goes till the next day.

I needed two cups of breadcrumbs with parsley, but I didn't have quite that much, so I buzzed up some frozen cheese bread that I overcooked a bit and some butter crackers.

I love that my breadcrumbs look like a sandy beach. I also love that all that butter made it all lovely and toasty.

Two days of work in a bowl! And, boy, is it delicious! This dish is rich and hearty and so tasty! It is not for those on a low cholesterol diet, though. I am not even going to share how many tablespoons of bacon fat was called for. Like the saying goes, though, everything in moderation. So who wants to come and help me eat up the 8 quarts it made? :-)