Be Excellent To Each Other

Quite possibly, I live right next to the college

I'll just go to the good organic and local sourced farm shop which is a 10 minute drive away and choose a selection each week

My girlfriends mum got me a marinade injector for my birthday. What should I do with it?

Inject some marinade.

Nudge nudge, wink wink.

Astonished this hasn't been Zardozed yet.

Surely he just hasn't noticed yet.

Squirt 330ml of lemon juice down your winky and a pint of chicken stock up your arse.

Thanks Doc.

Don't forget to roll over every 15mins, let the juices run out, and baste yourself.

I have blueberries. I am making a steak dinner tonight, I want a blueberry based dessert. Any ideas good beex people?

Make a coulis and use it to top anything. Try a little balsamic vinegar in there to add an interesting twist. Cheesecake would be a logical suggestion.

Blueberries, in a bowl.

I've done cheesecake to death.

Would blueberry panacotta work?

Might be a weird colour if you stir them through. Could make a pannacotta and serve with a coulis on the side. Or maybe put blueberries in the bottom of the bowl and set the pannacotta on top of it.

I pickled a third jar of gherkins last night. Woohoo! Admittedly I'm not getting enough to brim the (large) jars, but they only last so long in the fridge and do need harvesting to keep the plant (which is now growing along the peak of the greenhouse!) producing.

Oh, and there are a fairly reasonable number of chillis/peppers coming through at last. Billions of tomatoes too... but none red yet. I may end up drowning in those green tomato and green pepper pickles this year, which would be no bad thing.

We've decided to stay put and convert 2/3 of the garden to kitchen garden, reserving the allotment for hardier things that only need weeding, and watering in the driest of conditions.

Make some green tomato chutney.

Make Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe.

With gerkins.

Tonight - pulled mutton and butternut squash hash. Mutton is my new favourite thing.

Huh. Mutton is the thing we decided to get out of the freezer and slow-cooker.

We'll be doing none of that squash shit though. What the fuck, dude?!

Ian got well out of control. He's now in six cup-slices in the freezer and a very wet fraction of a cup in the tub while we work our way through the extraordinarily sour spelt+smoked-malts the last loaf was made of.

Sourdough is brilliant but this particular experiment went well awry. The main mistake was believing the American website that said a room-temperature starter needded feeding 50g each of water and flour twice a day - even when it was 6 cups big, 20g of each twice a day was enough so from starting, 10g then 20g would be enough.

Aren't you supposed to feed it and then throw half of it away? Or something?

Throw half away then feed, yeah. Depends how much bread you make, whether or not you refrigerate it, how sour you want it - all sorts.

My theory was that if I underfeed it, I can use 2 cups of starter per loaf to increase the sourness.

TOO SOUR..

Helen insists I make a plain white loaf with loads of seeds and grains using commercial dried yeast this weekend. I'm mostly game to see how much of a "GOD THIS IS BLAND" face she pulls.

Don't get me started on girlfriends and bread preferences.

Honestly, if she's away for more than a day, I TREAT myself to a seeded batch loaf instead of the "50/50" or "Best of Both" compromise we usually get.

And if I'm buying a special loaf - say for soup or something - it absolutely can't have seeds inside, but seeds on the crust are permissible.

I think I conveyed the wrong message. Helen really likes heavily-seeded loaves, and did like the first few sourdough attempts.

It's just generally gone a bit* bonkers, really, and I quite agree that something needed doing. So now there are 6 cup-sized "slices" of Ian in the freezer which can hopefully be converted into reasonable bread in the future.

What's left maturing I'm going to try and turn into a fucking amazing thing though. It'll either be great or take out everyone in a mile or two radius.

* LOT.

I just wanted to get that off my chest regardless!

BBQing later. Currently making a batch of brioche burger buns to go with it.

And the rest of the mutton. Mutton 'carnitas' - pulled mutton, crisped in duck fat, then served in lettuce wraps with cheese, guac, and a quick bbq sauce.



Yesterday's mutton was cooked for 24 hours at 64C. It was moist and delicious, but it was tricky to 'pull' because very little of the fat rendered out. Today's was cooked for 24 hours at 64C then 24 hours at 78C. It was drier but not in the least tough, and the fat had rendered and worked its way into the meat. This actually worked out quite well for frying it to crisp it up afterwards.

Summary - mutton is ace.

That looks lovel! :drool:

Good work, Cras!

Here's tonight's burger:


Cheeseburger (om nom nom edition) by PenLlawen, on Flickr

Heston Blumenthal Ultimate Burger (from Waitrose), plastic cheese (of course), homemade light brioche burger bun. Cooked on the barbecue -- check out the smoke ring!

I was trying to work out how it appeared to be less cooked on the outside!

Craster!

Lettuce?

Objection!

Decided on Steak with potatoes, red wine sauce and garlic butter



Followed by this



Blueberry sponge with an icy cheesecake filling. NOM!

I'm liking your steak-potatoes ratio. And that dessert looks excellent!

I think each steak was around 350g. So not many potatoes were needed. Dessert was excellent, and surprisingly easy.

I haven't had steak for ages. That all looks very nice Nik, the dessert has made my mouth water and I'm full of cooked breakfast!

Yesterday, we discovered http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrata

It's like mozzerrella, only better. Not sure I can ever go back.

Needs more bacon.

I'm not a massive fan. Adding cream to things is rarely a bad step, but I find it makes the whole thing a bit sloppy.

I mopped the cream up with crusty bread with a little bit of olive oil and some balsamic pearls. Worked for me!

I am cooking the pulled pork that the Doc posted on facebook. 4 hours in and it smells fantastic.

The one that he posted on Facebook that I posted earlier in this thread, you mean

that will be the one

It was originally a link to the post, but people I work with read Facebook, and I'd really really rather people I work with not know about this place

Mrskov wants to thank you both.

Best thing I've made on my barbecue so far:


Barbecue rib of beef by PenLlawen, on Flickr


Barbecue rib of beef with cheddar and caramalised onion mashed potato by PenLlawen, on Flickr

http://objection-salad.com/post/3031317 ... ib-of-beef

We've still got a veal short rib in the freezer. One of these days...

Today we're slow-cooking rolled mutton loin in a rub I invented - tomato paste, olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika (lots), smoked paprika (even more), coriander, rosemary, chilli powder and turmeric ground in a pestle and mortar with cumin, fennel and fenugreek seeds. Forgot garlic, doh. Never mind, threw a few cloves into the pot with fresh bay leaves and sage. With whole chantenay carrots, diced potato, leek, shallots swede and... um... shit, can't remember its name. Butternut squash, duh - I even had to google 'gourd' to get the correct name.

having read your research and process since - nice! Much along the lines I've stumbled around the end of, without thinking to hit the internet. I'll be trying to take some of that on board.

Helen's been reading about outdoor wood fired ovens. excellent!

The mutton smells amazing.

It tastes fantastic.

Excellent!

Good work.

Not cooking, but this afternoon I have mostly been eating crusty bread with hummus and anchovies. Mmmmm, anchovies.