Wolf's Den

Our lovely Monkey Queen of Don’t Make Me Call My Flying Monkeys, was our May Daring Cooks’ hostess and she challenged us to dive into the world of en Croute! We were encouraged to make Beef Wellington, Stuffed Mushroom en Croute and to bring our kids into the challenge by encouraging them to create their own en Croute recipes!





Yes, we've done an en croute style challenge before- 4 years ago. Back then, I made a Salmon En Croute for Mark, and a Tilapia En Croute for me. This time around, I went with the ol' stand by - Beef Wellington, since we'd never made it before.

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For the April Daring Cooks Challenge, Lisa from Parsley, Sage and Sweet has challenged us to debone a whole chicken, using this video by Jacques Pepin as our guide; then stuff it, tie it and roast it, to create a Chicken Ballotine.




This was an interesting and fun Challenge. Very tasty too. And not as difficult as it sounds really. I watched the video twice through the day I made the Challenge. Then, I had Mark on hand to pause it as needed and had the whole chicken deboned in under 15 minutes. Not too shabby for a first try, eh?

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Ruth from Makey-Cakey was our March 2013 Daring Bakers’ challenge host. She encouraged us all to get experimental in the kitchen and sneak some hidden veggies into our baking, with surprising and delicious results!



For this Challenge, I made 2 different things- cake and muffins. I didn't go all out on this Challenge like I could have. But well, it's just the two of us and there's only so much baked goods we should and need to eat.}:)

We're strange people who actually like to have veggies with dinner, every night. Tonight in fact, we're having grilled zucchini.}:P



First up is the Banana-Spinach Muffins, from the recipe provided by the Challenge host. Mark thoroughly loved them. He says you can't taste the spinach. I refuse to eat them. Cause I made them so I know there's spinach in them.}:P

I tweaked the recipe- added an extra half of a banana and 1/4 cup of Amaranth Flour to add a hint of nuttiness. He said it reminded him of honey wheat bread with bananas added. I'll take his word for it.



Next was a Carrot-Zucchini Cake with Raisins and Pineapple and Pineapple Cream Cheese Icing- Torte/Flan style ( Pampered Chef Torte cake pans, they used to call them Flan cake pans years ago.}:P). This is a staple here. With the exception of adding shredded Zucchini, I usually tweak a boxed mix- This time it was a Duncan Hines Decadent Classic Carrot cake mix- with pineapple, and substitute the water with pineapple juice. It tends to create a more flavorful, moister cake. The Zucchini, while sort of evident in the flecks of green, was not noticeable in taste.

That actually makes 2 of the torte style cakes, so one went to work with Mark. He texted me that it was gone in under an hour and no one he talked to that had eaten a piece, realised there was zucchini in it.

Overall, a fun Challenge!

( The Recipes! )

Sawsan from chef in disguise was our March 2013 Daring Cooks hostess! Sawsan challenges us to make our own homemade cheeses! She gave us a variety of choices to make, all of them easily accomplished and delicious!



Well, suffice it to say, that finding non-UHT Goat's milk or even sheep's milk here, is impossible. I really wanted to try my hand at homemade Feta too. Bummer. Never did get any rennet either.}:/

So, instead I settled for a cheese I'd not made before or had either. Labneh, yogurt based cheese. It reminded us of cream cheese, only more tangy. It was great on crackers, on bagels, on the crispy flatbread from the Daring Bakers Challenge, on pretty near everything we put it on, or even on its own.

And because Photobucket is currently being stupid with throwing up a beta site that has so many issues to work out, you get only one measly photo. Sorry. Blame Photobucket.

THE RECIPES (PDF)

Sarah from All Our Fingers in the Pie was our February 2013 Daring Bakers’ host and she challenges us to use our creativity in making our own Crisp Flatbreads and Crackers!



This was a fairly simple Challenge. The hard part was making time to do it with everything else that's been going on here. So I did the crispy flatbreads and tweaked the herbs that were in the original recipe.

As you can see, we paired them with scrambled eggs and homemade hickory smoked roasted cinnamon cured bacon. Yes, we had breakfast for dinner. Doesn't everyone?

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For the January-February 2013 Daring Cooks’ Challenge, Carol, one of our talented non-blogging members and Jenni, one of our talented bloggers who writes The Gingered Whisk, have challenged us to make homemade sausage and/or cured, dried meats in celebration of the release of the book Salumi: The Craft of Italian Dry Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn! We were given two months for this challenge and the opportunity to make delicious Salumi in our own kitchens!



It's been a rough few months and it's only the beginning of 2013.

Right before Christmas, I caught the flu. Then, right after New Years, I caught a cold. Needless to say, I got a very late start on this challenge.

Then, the second week of Jan, we lost one of our beloved pets, Max, unexpectedly. Needless to say, grief compounded with seasonal depression really set in and starting on this challenge got pushed even further back.

About that time, Caena, our Akita, started trying to chew her skin off, yanking her fur out and necessitating us resorting to a cone of shame. Then, a week later, we discovered a serious issue with mold/mildew in our bedroom, which resulted in our having to empty the bedroom to bleach and paint the walls with Kilz primer. It also required the moving of our 20 gal fish tank from the upstairs to the downstairs, as we think that, combined with the humidifier and absolutely no circulation beyond a fan in the hall, in that room, is what caused the mold/mildew.

Caena went to the vet- turns out she may have a mold/mildew allergy, which after a round of antibiotics and Prednisone, along with twice weekly baths using medicated shampoo, has cleared up nicely. That week, I broke down and went as simple as I could with this challenge, which meant making homemade bacon.



So, since I already had a pork belly, all I needed was a cure for it. I will admit, this actually cured for 2 weeks, because I got sidetracked by packing up all the books (7 boxes worth, close to 600-700), and moving out what we could from the bedroom, then priming the entire room with 2 coats of Kilz, next thing I know, it's the following week and I'm busy repainting the entire bedroom with 2 coats of lovely semigloss paint, so it got put off until last weekend. Umm, 2 weekends ago counting this past weekend.



The PDF file has links to sources for the 'Pink Salt', or you can go the simple route like I did and just use the Morton's Sugar cure, which works great. Initially, I added maple syrup to it, but between the natural flavoring that comes with the sugar cure and the smoking, the maple syrup flavor was lost. And we learned not to let the pork belly cure for longer than the week it's supposed to. Why? Because if you eat more than 2-3 pieces at a time, it tends to start tasting rather salty. And really, it's bacon, who can only eat 2-3 pieces? }:P



I really wanted to use Applewood smoking chips, but short of ordering them online, that just wasn't feasible, since locally, they're only around in the spring and summer. So instead, we went with hickory. Soaked for about 30-45 minutes prior to use.





Fired up the smoking box on the grill, added some dry smoking chips to help bring the heat up to temp. And then waited. Once the smoke built up and the temp inside the grill itself reached 200 degrees, the pork belly was added. Then it became a waiting game, where every 15-20 minutes, I'd add a few handfuls of soaked smoking chips to keep the smoke quantity up while the soon to be bacon smoked.



About 2 hours later, we had slabs of bacon! I will admit, I looked at the internal temp wrong, and well, it got a little hotter than I wanted. But it was still very good looking bacon.



I let it rest for about half an hour, then I carefully sliced the skin (aka the rind) off, trying to leave as much of the underlying fat as possible. And hour after that, while it was still warm but I was too impatient to wait any longer, I sliced it down into thick cut slices of yummy bacon.



Homemade bacon cooks just like store bought. But you know what? It smells oh so much better.}:P



And it tastes oh so much better than storebought too. Right now, I have my last 3lb piece of pork belly curing in the fridge. This time, I went with the plain sugar cure and added roasted cinnamon to it. Saturday, I'll smoke it. Then next week, I'll take it to my butcher, whom it turns out, will slice it for me on his meat slicer! WooHoo! and I'll also pick up the pork belly I ordered and make more bacon and I'm thinking of trying my hand at some pancetta.

By the way, if you're interested in making cured meats, bacon, sausage, etc, definitely check out the PDF file and go get yourself copies of both Charcuterie and Salumi. They are well worth it!

And definitely check out the slide show of other Daring Cooks' cured meats! They're delicious looking!


THE RECIPES.(PDF FILE)

Our Daring Cooks’ December 2012 Hostess is Andy of Today’s the Day and Today’s the Day I Cook! Andy is sharing with us a traditional French Canadian classic the Paté Chinois, also known as Shepherd’s pie for many of us, and if one dish says comfort food.. this one is it!



So very late posting this. Ah well.

We make Shepard's Pie often here. Or, as I have been corrected about before- Cottage Pie. You see, apparently, certain people elsewhere get very touchy about Shepard's Pie and if you don't absolutely use ground lamb, carrots, I believe peas and that's it for the filling- besides gravy- then, they are adamant that it's Cottage Pie, not true Shepard's Pie.

To be honest, I've made it both with lamb and our standard ground beef and I can't tell a difference. So. Each to their own, I say.

However, the version of Shepard's Pie Andy makes with creamed corn, I've never heard of before, but it sounded really interesting. Unfortunately, I didn't get to it in time for this Challenge. It's been a very stressful month, which makes this comfort food an awesome addition, really.



Normally, I use mixed veggies, but Mark asked for just corn and peas this time around. It's an easy dish to prepare- browned beef (or lamb) and onions- optional, we like them, so we add them. Then I mix in a mushroom gravy. The meat mix goes on the bottom, topped with your veggies. Usually I mix the meat and veggies. This time I wanted that 'layered' look so didn't. Then the whole gets topped with mashed potatoes and liberally sprinkled with cheese.

Into the oven until the cheese is melted and the whole is bubbly and hot. Delicious, easy and leftovers are even better the next day.

Check out the other recipes here! The Fisherman's Pie version sounds delicious and is on our must try list after the New Year.}:)