In the Kitchen at Bungalow Beauty

As promised for my good friend Marco who lives in New York City; here is a quick dessert that you can make in a tiny Manhattan kitchen.


To start we'll need 6 good sized ripe Bosch pears; unfortunately I didn't have 6 pears, I had 4. And I didn't have Bosch pears I just had Bartlett pears. But you work with what you got and make the best of it. Begin by peeling the pears, slicing them lengthwise, and then coring them. I never thought I would ever use our melon baller but tonight I finally had a chance to use it.Set them off to the side and prep our poaching liquid.


In a medium sized, non-reactive sauce pan, over medium-high heat, combine the following:


1/3 cup lime juice
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup grenadine
1 cup Marsella
1/2 cup port
1 cup water

Seems like an odd choice of ingredients huh? Well the grenadine is from the batch we made last week, and as for the port and the Marsella wine. Well I had about a half cup of port sitting around for awhile and wanted to get rid of it. Next, stir the liquid until the sugar dissolves and then add your pears.

Bring the pears to a boil and then reduce the heat to medium-low and let them simmer for about 30 minutes until tender.

Remove the pears from the poaching liquid and place in the refrigerator to cool completely. Reduce the remaining poaching liquid by half until it is a nice syrup. Remove the syrup from the heat and cool completely as well.Reserve the syrup for plating.

You can simply serve the pears by themselves with a hefty splash of the reduced poaching liquid as I have done so here. Or you can add a scoop of really good vanilla ice cream, the pears and then cover it all with the syrup. Start to finish you’re looking at about maybe 2 hours with the majority of that time being spent in the chiller. Anyway you serve it up, people are going to love it- and you don’t need a very big kitchen or fancy gadgets to do it!


That is all.

Tonight's post will be a short simple one.

I think there's really nothing better than roasted Italian sausage and peppers. You can eat them alone or you can put it in some crusty bread with some cheese and red sauce. The best part about this recipe is that it's so easy! Here's how I do it.

Start with about 6 links of good Italian sausage. This is sausage that i made a couple weeks ago and the vacuum seal didn't hold for some reason in the freezer. So since i had to defrost them i thought what the hell, i'll just cook it. Anywho- put the 6 links in a baking dish and toss it in a pre-heated 375 degree oven for about 45 minutes; turning them once about half way through.



Next we work on the peppers and onions. For this amount of sausage i used:
2 large sweet onions
4 medium green peppers
4 medium red peppers


Peel the onions and cut them in half through the root end and then slice the onions into crescent shapes.
Heat about 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium high heat in a large frying pan. When the oil is just about shimmering add the onions and season with about a teaspoon of salt. Stir them up and keep an eye on them while you prep the peppers.

Core and seed the peppers, remove any of the ribs from the inside of the peppers and then cut them into strips. When the onions have started to caramelize and have cooked down a bit, add the peppers to the frying pan. i usually add some more olive oil here also, you don't have to but i like olive oil. Let that all cook down until the peppers are tender and the onions are nice and caramelized.

Now go check on your sausage. Depending on your oven and you sausages they may or may not be browned after 40 minutes. Mine were not browned, they were cooked through but not brown. Hey it happens to all of us sometimes. So here's what i did. I took the sausage out of the baking dish and put them on a plate. I then transferred all the onions and peppers to the baking dish that had the sausage and all the drippings from the sausage. i mix them all up and toss them back in the oven. i then add a little oil to the now empty frying pan and add my sausages to the pan over medium high heat. Keep an eye on them and turn them until they are browned nicely on all sides. It shouldn't take more than about 5 minutes or so. I then add them back to the baking dish with the peppers and onions.



And that's all there is to it people; you can bring them to table in the baking dish and it looks pretty damn good if i do say so myself. And for my more astute readers; yes- there is a sausage missing from the first picture to the finished dish picture. I got hungry- it happens!

See this was a quick post.

that is all.

All right true believers as promised I have another post for you today. This time we'll take on two beverage related recipes. The first is a recipe for grenadine. I had always thought that grenadine was made from cherries. I mean look at how red it is; but it's really from pomegranate. Pomegranate- no shit.

Basically we'll looking at a simple syrup made from pomegranate; sugar and juice. I found this pomegranate juice at the Target. I was going to buy the POM brand juice but that's from concentrate as well so what's the difference? The Target brand was cheaper than the POM brand and twice as large. So there's your lesson in value:



the recipes I found online called for a 1:1 ratio of juice to sugar. I could not bring myself to use that much sugar. So I went with 2 Cups of juice to 1 1/2 Cups of sugar.

So over medium heat in a non-reactive sauce pan combine the sugar and the juice, stir until the sugar dissolves and then bring to a boil. When it reaches a boil reduce the heat to a simmer for about 30 minutes until the syrup is reduced by about 1/3.




After the syrup has reduced remove it from the heat and let it cool down to room temp. You can then bottle it and store it in the fridge up to a month or so; not only can you use it in mixed drinks but later this week I'm going to use it to poach pears!





The Mojito

Switching gears a little we move over to a mixed drink that has become a favorite of mine- the mojito. I had my first mojito at the Bahama Breeze restaurant up in Schaumburg, IL. This was probably about 5 years ago; before it became the "it" drink. The mojito is made up of rum, mint, lime, sugar cane juice, and seltzer water. At the Bahama Breeze they would actually put real sugar cane through a press to extract the juice to sweeten the drink, they would then server the drink with a swizzle stick made out of cane sugar. I got so hammered that night- it was wonderful (a big thank you goes out to my wife who was just my girlfriend at the time for knowing how to drive a manual transmission and getting my car and my drunk ass home safely.)

So Let's start.

Gather up your ingredients:

Tall glass
ice
limes
rum
mint leaves
sugar cane juice*
seltzer water


*Sugar Cane Juice- very hard to come by in the Midwest. My good friend M.R. in NYC was nice enough to send me a half dozen cans of Goya brand Guarapo de Caña. However-I was at Whole Foods one day and I saw this sweetener made from Agave (the same stuff they make tequila out of)and thought I'd give that a try- works great!


To make the drink you put about 8 or so mint leaves into a glass along with probably about half a lime cut up into wedges. You then muddle it all together. Muddle? What the hell is that you ask? A muddler is a small billy club looking thing that you use to crush the lime and mint leaves together. Muddling releases the essential oils in the skin of the lime. If you don't have a muddler you can use a spoon. After you muddle add about a tablespoon of agave syrup or so- you'll need to fool with that until you get something you like. And before any of you email- yes I know that's not a highball glass and thank you for not point it out.



Next we add the rum. Traditionally light rum was used, I however prefer dark rum. Try it, you'll like it. Fill your glass with crushed ice and add a jigger or so of the rum of your choice. Just do me a favor and don't use really cheap rum. Trust me- there's nothing worse than cheap liquor. If you can't afford good liquor don't drink at all.




Top off your drink with the seltzer water, add a lime and some mint leave for garnish, toss in a straw and you got yourself a drink. And now that you have step by step photo instructions on how to make a mojito go do it!




Probably no update tomorrow, maybe Thursday, I have a French Onion soup post waiting in the wings.

So until then-

that is all.

Let me start this post by saying that the weather here in Chicagoland has been very cool. So much so that I've been cooking up a storm. I have three more posts after this one. I hope to get them all out this week but that all depends on how busy I am. So I decided to kick off the cool weather cooking with pizza. How can you go wrong?


I've been making pizza for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid every Friday night was pizza night at our house. My mother would churn out pizzas left and right and I would help; eventually she taught me how to make them myself. She was a great a teacher, no doubt about that, but there was a flaw in her method. She never taught me to measure properly. Everything was, get the big green bowl, fill it with warm water up to here, add about that much salt, etc, etc. And don't get me wrong, it worked well, but that was enough dough for like 6 pizza's; kind of a bit much for just me and the wife.

So through trial and error I've come up a good recipe and I'm going to share that with you tonight.



To start with you'll need a big bowl. I use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Now before you start crying that you don't have a stand mixer just remember that I used to do this all by hand. In fact; my mother still mixes her dough by hand; so shut yer pie hole and let's add the wet ingredients.

In your bowl add:

1 1/4 Cup warm water
1 package of rapid rise yeast
1/2 Tablespoon of kosher salt
2 Tablespoons of sugar
2 Tablespoons of olive oil

Toss it all in the bowl and stir it up until the salt, sugar, and yeast dissolves. It'll look like such.



So then, once the wet ingredients are mixed we'll slowly start to add the flour. I like to use flour made for bread machines; it holds up better in the mixer. In total we'll add about 3 1/2 Cups of flour a half Cup at a time until it becomes incorporated. It'll start to look like this:




When it gets to that point you'll have to knead it by hand or with the mixers dough hook for about 15 minutes. It'll eventually look like this:




Once it's been kneaded; rub the top with olive oil, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and toss it somewhere to rise. It should take about an hour and half to two hours to double in size. I don't buy into the whole "punch it down and let it rise again" I want to eat sometime tonight so that ain't gonna happen. While the dough is rising you should gather up your toppings. I'm all about convenience so I use a canned sauce (oh stop the gasping it's pretty good), pre-shredded mozzarella, mushrooms, sausage (fresh from the freezer after our first post), garlic, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.




I like to pre-cook both my mushrooms and sausage before I put them on the pizza. Why? Well I don't have a pizza oven at home, my oven only gets up to about 500 degrees, a pizza oven is much higher than that. I found that if I use fresh sausage on the pizza the crust is overcooked by the time the sausage is cooked. So to get around that problem I pan fry my sausage first. Once it's cooked I remove it from the pan, de-glaze with a splash of wine and then add my mushrooms. The mushrooms will pick up the flavor of the sausage as well as all them little brown bits of porky goodness.



Now that the dough has risen for a couple hours it's time to stretch it out into the pan; but first crank the oven up to 450 degrees. I use a rectangular sheet pan; I like them better than round pans for some reason. I use Crisco brand shortening to grease the pan. I've tried other things like butter or olive oil and flour, etc, but I find that the Crisco just works the best and produces an awesome golden brown crust; trust me. So stretch the pizza out into your pan; I use this little handy dandy rolling pin to get it where it need to go. I got it from the Pampered Chef. Once it's all in place I like to come back and press dimples into it with my finger tips. The little dimples make nice little pockets to hold sauce.



All right now for the assembly- first I spread garlic over the whole crust. Then I add the sauce, probably about 4 big tablespoons or so. Next I cover the whole pizza with the sausage. That's right- I use an entire pound of Italian sausage; it's just that f'en good. Cover the whole thing with the mozzarella cheese; I'd say about 1 1/2 to 2 Cups of cheese. Next I add the mushrooms, make sure you drain them first, you don't want them getting your pizza all soggy. Next, grind some Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese across the whole pizza, you don't need much since this cheese has a ton of flavor. Finally- I add my secret spice blend to the entire pizza top. I can't tell you what is exactly since it's my super secret pizza spice, but let's say it has dried oregano, basil, parsley, and some other things I can't mention.



It then goes into your pre-heated 450 degree oven for about 12 or 13 minutes. Check the bottom of the crust, it should be a nice golden brown. If the pizza is done pull it out and remove it from the pan onto cooling racks. It'll need to sit there about 5 minutes or so to cool down a bit. Look at how good it looks.



Normally I make a much thicker crust but I was in a hurry this particular night and didn't let the dough rise as much as I should have; but hey even a mistake like this is delicious. Slice it up and enjoy!

Alright kids, I know I haven't posted in a long time but things have been pretty busy around the ole bungalow beauty. A couple weeks ago I got around to smoking a rack of ribs, tonight I will finally be able to sit down and blog about it. So let's start.

First off, we're doing pork ribs here, nothing wrong with beef but today we're focusing on pork ribs. You have two types of pork ribs, spareribs (aka St. Louis style) or loin ribs (aka back ribs). The first thing you're going to want to do is make up your rub. A rub is just a mixture of spices to season the meat with. If you search the internet you can find recipes for thousands of different kinds of rubs, or if you're lazy you can just buy it; however for those of you who are not lazy, here is my recipe:

2 tbsp kosher salt
6 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp ground cumin
2 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp ground black pepper
5 tbsp paprika
3 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder

Mix all the spices together and store them in an air tight container, like such:


  

Now we turn to the ribs. The ribs have a very tough membrane on their backside. You need to take this off if you want tender and flavorable ribs. If you want to have a hell of time eating them you go ahead and leave it on. I warned you. To get it off just work a knife under the silverskin, when you have a bit of it up grab it and very slowly pull it away until it's all off, you should be able to get it off in one pull; if not- try try again.


  

Now that the silverskin has been removed I usually cut the rack in half, it's just easier to handle I think.


  

Now to apply the rub, I like to slather my ribs in yellow mustard. The reason is two fold, 1)the vinegar in the mustard helps to tenderize the meat 2)the mustard holds the rub onto the ribs. So slather the ribs in mustard and coat them in the rub. *Note: you will not use all the rub that we made above. Only use enough rub to coat, not cake. I then like to toss them into a vacuum bag and let them sit overnight in the refrigerator:


      

I let these sit in the fridge at least 12-24 hours, if you can't wait that long then don't bother wasting our time. Bah-bye.

Day 2



Now if you have a smoker you can just skip all this and look at the pretty pictures. But if you're still reading chances are you don't have a smoker, and that's okay. I don't have one either (not yet at least) but we can still smoke our ribs in a Weber kettle grill. This website here has a great illustration on how you want to setup your grill. Basically what you want to do is cook with indirect heat, have the coals one side and the food on the other. Now the link above suggests putting a drip pan under the ribs and another pan with water above the coals. Hogwash! I say. You don't need the water pan and the drip pan, well I can't remember the last time I used one and I haven't had a problem. Next we need to look at the smoke; I like to use hickory wood chips that I've soaked in water for about an hour. I've also in the past used a blend of oak, hickory, and mesquite; but go easy on the mesquite it can be really strong and over powering. Don't toss the chips on dry, they'll just burn, we don't want them to burn we want them to smolder, hence the wetness. So then- toss a handful of soaked woodchips on the coals and they'll start to smoke. Next you need to position the grill so that the wind enters the bottom of the grill under the wood chips and exits the grill through the vent over the food. This setup will pull the smoke across the ribs ensuring a very good flavor.


    

Now for the fun part, kick back and crack open a beer! Seriously we have like 6 hours to kill. We need to keep the temp right around 225 in the grill so toss a thermometer in the grill and keep drinking and adding wood chips as the smoke stops. Seriously though- after about 2 hours the food is going to absorb as much smoke as it's ever going to absorb- I like to keep smoking beyond that to keep the neighborhood smelling good.

so here we are about 5 hours later, I know I know I said 6 hours but I was hungry. Here's what they looked like:


  

You can see the meat pulling back away from the bones, that's good, if you tug on the bone and it comes right out you've overcooked them- congratulations you've just wasted your day- but look on the bright side, at least your failure is still pretty delicious and you can eat it, pork is pretty good like that. Beef on the other hand is not as forgiving- you over cook beef and you have shoe leather. In any event, when you bite into the rib the meat SHOULD NOT fall off the bone; if the meat is falling off the bone it's overcooked. You should have to pull at it a little bit- got it? Good.

Now notice I still haven't mentioned barbecue sauce anywhere in this blog, why? You don't need it. Your ribs should be good enough to stand up on their own without barbecue sauce. Barbecue sauce should be a condiment, a finishing sauce, or table sauce, that's all. I don't understand these people who drown their ribs in barbecue sauce- dumbasses. However- if you must, add it during the last 15 minutes, don't do it sooner or the sauce will just burn and again you've just wasted your day but this time your failure won't be delicious enough to eat still.


    

Now as you look at my ribs you'll notice two things. First, the pink ring around the meat, this is called the smoke ring or "lucky smoke ring" as I like to call it. Some people may think it's pink because it's under cooked- um hello mcfly you've been cooking for the last 6 hours- of course it's cooked. Second- it may look like they are burned- they're not- the rub just crusted up a bit because I was sidetracked making homemade hotdogs (that's another post for the encased meats series we're doing here at in the kitchen). But let me tell you this, these ribs were damn good and I ate almost all of them myself. I saved some for the next day, mmm mmm good. So then- as you can see anyone can make a good rack of ribs, all you need is time and a kettle grill. Now I know at least one person will read this and leave me a comment about how his apartment in new york is too small, blah, blah, blah, to him I say- add some liquid smoke to the mustard before your rub, wrap your ribs in foil and slow cook them in a 225 degree oven for about 6 hours, at the very end toss them under the broiler for about 5 or 10 minutes to char up a bit. fantastico!

Sorry it took so long for this post but it's been a busy month. Hopefully I can update again real soon. Any suggestions for the next post? ???

Hey everybody it's your favorite homeowner Rock Strongo coming at you with a brand new blog! Now you may remember me from such blogs as bungalowbeauty.blogspot.com and now I've spun off another blog to fill in the gaps when I'm not posting on the bungalowbeauty website. I figured what would be better than a blog on cooking and kitchen related crap since I do tend to cook quite a bit? So here we are with the first recipe of the season. Today I bring you Italian sausage making 101. I've been making Italian sausage for the better part of 15 or so years. I started when I was young by helping my grandfather make sausage. I got to poke the wholes in the sausage to let the air out as he stuffed. Later I got to move up to tying off the links with butchers string. Finally after what seemed like years I got to actually stuff! Pigs- what magical animals- sausage, pork chops, ham, bacon, pulled pork, ribs, the list goes on and on.



Now you may think I'm a little crazy but come on it's sausage! Nothing is better than making your own. You know exactly what's going into it; you can control the salt, fat, and seasonings. Believe it or not, it's really easy to make; watch I'll show you.



First we start with the meat- pork butts, sometimes called Boston Butt or pork shoulder; here I have a little over 12 pounds; it was on sale for 99 cents a pound. Now you tell me- for 99 cents a pound how can you not make your own sausage?




First thing you need to do is trim off the fat. There's a thick layer right on the top and it comes off pretty easy with a sharp knife. You're going to want to cut the pork in about 2 inch cubes. Trim off any large amounts of fat and make sure you get most everything around the bone.




As soon as I'm done cutting up one of the pork butts I put it in the freezer to chill before grinding. You need to keep everything cool- cold is key throughout this whole process. I grind in two batches; each one is about 5lbs after trimming off the fat and removing the bone. Here's a shot of everything that's left over- I show it for two reasons:



1)You should save it! Why? Well for one thing toss the bones in your sauce the next time you make some and it'll give it some great flavor and the pork fat? Well there a whole list of things you can do with pork fat that I won't even go into in this post. Pork fat does rule.

2)I'm trying to be more healthy these days- I threw it all out. Aren't you proud of me? I thought so.








So while the meat is in the freezer chilling I take this time to prep my casing. I user natural hog casing; they're nature's best- I know because the label on the package says so. Believe it or not it's pretty easy to find natural hog casings in most major supermarkets. If you can't find in the grocery store go to an old tymey butcher, if he doesn't have it order it off the internet. The casing comes packed in salt which you need to wash off completely before stuffing. I run it under cool water for a bit to flush out the inside of the casing, run water all over the outside to clean that up, and then I actually hold the end of the casing upside down under the water to make the force of the water turn the casing inside out. You can then be sure that it's clean both inside and out. Now to me this is the most time intensive part of the whole sausage making process and if doesn't appeal to you you can always buy collagen casing off the internet. It comes clean and ready to use; but if you think hog casing is disgusting I'm not going to even tell you where the collagen comes from! Back on topic- the casing is cleaned and left to sit in a bowl of cool water in the refrigerator with a bit of vinegar or lemon juice added to the water. The lemon juice or vinegar will help to keep the casing soft and a bit clearer so your finished product looks better. On the left is the salt packed casing and on the right is the now cleaned and ready to stuff casing






the next step is to grind and if the meat is too warm the fat in it gets all mushy and gums up the blades in your grinder. So keep it cold; 20 or 30 minutes in the freezer is enough to firm it up but not freeze it. To grind the meat I use the course plate in the grinding attachment on my Kitchen Aid stand mixer (the mixer was a Christmas gift from my wife the first year we were dating- can she pick a gift out our what?!)







After we're done grinding the meat goes back into the freezer for chilling. This gives us time to setup our stuffer. There are many different types of stuffers out on the market and they haven't changed much in a long time. I have an attachment that fits on the end of my Kitchen Aid's grinder but the problem with that is that it's way up in the air; not very practical. I have a handheld funnel that works great if you're only doing a few pounds. In fact that was all my grandfather ever used even if he was making 25 or 30 pounds! There are also crank types, water assisted types and the small plunger type that I have here. I mounted mine on a piece of wood for some added stability and tossed on some rubber feet to keep it from sliding on the counter.






Next comes the mixing part- I like to use a Rubbermaid type container and mix about 5 pounds at a time. This is a sweet Italian sausage I'm making here. The recipe is pretty simple:

2 1/2 Tablespoons of Kosher Salt
2 Tablespoons of toasted Fennel Seed
1 Tablespoons of coarse ground black pepper
1 Tablespoon of toasted anise seed
1 1/2 Tablespoons of paprika
1 Cup ice water







The only way to really mix it well is with your hands. Sorry but there's no way around it you have to get in there and work it all together. Once you have it mixed well fry some up so you can make sure your seasoning is where it should be. If you think it's missing something adjust your seasonings, mix, fry, and eat.




After you have your seasonings all straightened out it goes back into the freezer to chill while you prep your stuffer. Prepping the stuffer is pretty easy, just slip the casing onto the end of the funnel. It slides on easier if it's a bit wet still. Once the casing is on the horn it's time to fill the stuffer. With this particular stuffer you can't completely fill it; if you do you'll never be able to pull down the handle- trust me- I've tried.






Pull down on the handle and you'll start to push the meat out the horn. Once you have about an inch or so extruded you'll want to tie off the end with some butchers twine. Push out some more meat and as it comes out you have to control how fast the casing comes off the horn. The speed that the casing comes off is directly related to how hard you're pulling down on the plunger to extrude the meat and how tightly you're holding the casing to the horn. It takes time and practice to get it right; if you let the casing off too fast your sausage is all loose and lame looking, too slow and the casing will burst. Also you'll have to remember to poke holes anywhere you have air pockets to prevent bursting. I fill the whole casing first and then I come back and turn links. There are two ways you can do links, one way is with a butchers twine. Simply tie a knot everywhere you want a link. The other option is to pinch at two places and twist into a link, the trick there is to alternate your twists so you don't unravel the previous link. I usually tie off the ends with butchers twine and then pinch and twist the links in the middle. If a link bursts- and yes it even happens to me; I just tie off on both sides next to the break. You may end up with a smaller sausage but don't worry, someone will always eat it.






Once all your stuffing is done leave the sausage in the refrigerator for at least a couple hours for the flavors to meld. Beyond that- eat it usually within a couple days or freeze it. I like to keep some of my sausage in bulk (not in the casing)for when I make pizza. The rest gets vacuum sealed and put in the freezer.



So as you can see it's pretty easy to make Italian sausage; but don't stop there- there are tons of different encased meats you can make. But remember also that you don't even have to stuff it. You can buy ground pork from the grocery store, season it and you're done. Give it a shot- it's not as hard as you may think. Check out the links in my cookbook section for two books on sausage making that i think cover the topic pretty damn well.



And that my friends is all.