New Ice Cream maker

My lovely wife brought me a new toy the other day in the form of a Cuisinart ICE-30BC ice cream maker. We have been talking about this for quite a while and I now have a little time on my hands so we decided to purchase one. I have been wanting to experiment with some unusual flavors of ice cream, like Dark Chocolate with Cayenne, maybe a Bacon version, Salted Caramel, things like that.
My first batch went in tonight and it was fairly innocuous but still interesting; I made a traditional Vanilla but added some Buttered and Salted Pistachios to the mix. I love that sweet-salt combination and I happened to have Pistachios on hand so I added 1 1/2 cups of chopped Pistachios to 2 Tablespoons of melted unsalted butter and 1/2 teaspoon of Kosher Salt.
The remainder of the recipe is pretty simple, including some cream, whole milk, sugar and Vanilla. That went into the machine and about 25 minutes in I added the Pistachios for the last 5 minutes. The machine produces a fairly soft ice cream so I saved a little to taste (quite nice, by the way) and put the remainder in containers in the freezer to harden up for tomorrow.
I was really pleased with the results in terms of taste; nice and creamy, and I am looking forward to seeing how well it freezes up and what that texture ends up like.
I look forward to reporting on the final results and how Teresa likes it as well!
Tim

Off the roof

I must apologize for not posting anything here for some time now. I have not been cooking much. A couple of weeks ago I was working on my roof and was getting down from it. I stepped on the ladder and as I put my full weight on it the ladder flipped sideways and I was headed for the ground from seven feet in the air. It is amazing how much thinking one can do at lightning speed while on the way to the ground! I could see I was going to land face-first so I decided to try to flip on my back. I made it part way around and landed on my left side. It knocked the wind out of me and I quickly realized I was home alone and this could be very bad. I got up on my knees and finally got my breath back and then stood up slowly. My word, did that hurt!
I was still breathing and I didn't have any obvious leaks or serious cuts but it did feel like I might have broken something. I managed to sort of pack up the job site and put my tools back in the truck because I figured I was going to have to get to the hospital somehow. I locked the house door and sat on a lawn chair for a minute to take stock of what I needed to do. My wife Teresa is an RN and was working so after I had crawled up into the truck and started down the road for the half-hour drive to the hospital, I called her and told her I was on my way there.
She met me at the emergency room and we soon found out that I had broken four ribs(#6,7,8,9) and had a grade2 laceration of my spleen.
To make a long story short, I spent the next five days in the hospital and am back home now trying to heal up. It will take a while and I will post as often as I can.
Thanks for your patience,
Tim

Sclavi's Restaurant

Teresa and I met my boss Marshall and his wife Mary at a relatively new restaurant in Superior, Wisconsin called Sclavi's. It has an Italian theme and is in the old Palace Bar location next to what used to be the old Palace Theatre which has now been torn down. the atmosphere is very nice and has a beautiful old tin ceiling painted in dark brown with sandblasted brick walls, very high ceilings and a minimalist feel about it. It is a fairly small space so the minimalist look suits it well, I think. the remaining walls are done in a light oak flat paneled look that is very elegant and the tables are set with nice white table cloths and very comfortable booths set similarly. the food was very good. We had an appetizer of Bruschetta and some good house wine. I ordered the Veal Marsala and Teresa had the Chicken Marsala and both were very nice. The sauce was excellent and the accompanying bread was a nice, crusty Italian loaf with a good chewy exterior and soft interior that I think is just perfect in a bread. The Bruschetta was excellent, with the same bread sliced thinly and toasted with a layer of mozzarella, olive oil, Pesto and chunks of tomato, onion, garlic, salt and pepper; really good stuff! I would definitely recommend this as good eats. The prices were very fair and a good value for the meal.
Good eating!
Tim

Slider experiment

Tonight I am getting ready for our dinner group's August event which is "burger night" and I am working on some sliders toward that end. I downloaded some recipes for various versions of sliders and burgers and they all looked very interesting but I thought I would do a little experimenting of my own.
I took a pound of 85/15 ground beef and cut it into 8 sections , 1/4 pound each and made them into patties about 2 1/2" in diameter and about 3/4" thick. Next, I rubbed them with a mixture of Spanish smoked Paprika ( available at Penzey's Spices www.Penzey's.com), Instant Espresso Powder, Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. I heated the gas grill to high and cooked them about 3 minutes per side until just cooked through. To finish them I made a mixture of Shredded Mozzarella, Shredded Parmesan and Gorgonzola crumbles and topped each slider with about a Tablespoon of the mixture, then closed the grill cover to allow the cheese to melt nicely.
Next, I grilled the buns after spraying them with olive oil cooking spray and served them with a dollop of mayonnaise and a spoonful of my Smoked Tomato, Pepper and Onion Ragu.
Frankly, these were amazing! I ate three of them! The smoked Paprika and coffee flavors blended very nicely and the Smoked Ragu really made them "pop". I am definitely going to use this recipe at our Burger Night this month. On to the next experiment with sliders!

Pressure Cooker experiments

I am at the time of this writing having some fun with a vintage pressure cooker that my friend Jim Dreier found for me at a rummage sale. He and his wife Cindy are the consummate "rummage salers". They make it a part of their weekend event schedule and if I am looking for something I ask Jim if he could find it for me and he usually does. He found me a KitchenAid stand mixer and this pressure cooker. He's amazing. We have been friends since my 5th grade year in school and we hunt deer together and hang out at his grandparents' homestead in Toimi, MN, a place I call "Paradise in the North Woods". I digress. The cooker he found me was a Mirro-Matic Pressure Cooker and it is quite large. I tested it for pressure at 5 lbs, 10 lbs, and 15 lbs and it functioned perfectly. He paid $2.00 for it and it is excellent!
My first recipe is an adaptation of an Emeril LaGasse recipe for white beans; a Mexican quick meal consisting of Chorizo, white beans, Ancho chilies, Lime juice, Tequila, salt and pepper. I substituted Hot Italian Sausage and made it into meatballs about 1 1/2" in diameter. I had the rest of the ingredients and started at 10lbs for 45 minutes and then tested for doneness and taste. It was good but the beans were a little too hard so I put re-set the cooker at 15 lbs and cooked for another 15 minutes and that was the right amount of time.
The meatballs are very tender and the beans are just nicely cooked. Very tasty as well, I might add. I think this is going to be a fun way to cook. I am going to order a cookbook from my cookbook club featuring pressure cooker recipes and start to experiment. I will report my findings along the way and give you the recipes to try as well.
Cooking under pressure,
Tim

Smoked Tomato, pepper and onion ragu

Tonight it is good to get back to the smoker to try a little different take on my smoked pepper and onion ragu to add some tomatoes to the party and see how it comes out. I fired up the smoker with some basic hardwood fire and then added some wet apple wood to the fire for an hour and a half for a "cold smoke" treatment on the vegetables. After removing them from the smoke, I put them in a food processor and ground them to about 1/8" pcs. Wonderful smell, good flavor and success at the smoker for tonight. I think I will try to sell this stuff to a local restaurant for a condiment to their Bison Burgers; we'll see.
I recently met a new friend named Scott at our place on Lake Kabetogama while we were there for a weekend. He is from Stillwater, MN and I offered him some of my Smoked Salt for the Porterhouse Steaks he was cooking for he and his friend. I didn't think anything of it initially, but he called me a few days later and really enjoyed the salt on his steaks as a finishing salt. He said he would like to use it on his ribs as a shortcut to soaking the ribs in Liquid Smoke for while. I ended up sending him a jar of my Smoked Salt as a complimentary gift to him for his interest. He had some helpful tips for possibly marketing my salt and whatever else I come up with to you folks who might be interested. I am offering the Smoked Salt at $4.95/2oz. jar plus shipping and handling. If there is an interest, contact me at tmettner@gmail .com. and I will ship it to you for your culinary enjoyment.

Antipasti at the lake

This past weekend Teresa and I spent at our place on Lake Kabetogama in Northern Minnesota. We normally would have an easy Friday night dinner of Coneys and Potato Salad but based on the groom's dinner our dinner group did for our friends Casey and Mark's son Jon we decided to do an easier Salumi platter instead. I stopped at the Italian Village store on Central Ave. in Duluth for the Italian Sopresata and Prosciutto. It is a wonderful little shop specializing in all things Italian and serving lunches and various other goodies. I also bought some Ca De Medici Lambrusco for the beverage and some good cheeses and Calamata Olives as well as some Bleu Cheese Stuffed Olives. Then it was a trip to the Northern Waters Smoke Haus for some Smoked Whitefish and that topped off the platter. It was excellent and I think we'll make that a tradition for our first night there at the lake! We polished off the bottle of Lambrusco and it was a very pleasant evening indeed.
Tim