Not so Krauty Kraut...

So last month I couldn't contain myself and I went ahead and made some Sauerkraut out of the Charcuterie book.  Then Low and behold this month was brining!!! So I saved this post like a little treasure until now..  Sadly my Kraut didn't come out as well as I had hoped.  It was still really REALLY good but not quite Sauer enough for my taste.  I'm positive that this had to to with our house being Effing freezing all the time.  We didn't even come close to that 70 degree mark you have to watch out for to prevent the bad BAC.  In retrospect next time I will leave the cabbage to Kraut in the kitchen or just let it sit longer.  It was still amazing on our hot dogs one night and it will make an appearance later this month on a Reuben or two.    

xoxo

Fast Alice

Sick and Sour.... :(

As you may have guessed it.... I'm sick. Not like have a cold sick but like sucky on the couch sleeping all day coughing my brains out until I puke sick. Good times!! And I am the first to admit that I am a GIANT baby when I am sick. I want blankets and tissues and white instant rice with just a tiny TINY bit of butter please.... and oh can I have some water?? I need an ice pop!! Baby.. I feel so sick... Whaaaaaaaa!! Grummble Grumble grouch GROUCH!!

The good news is I am almost never sick. Thank God! I don't think my poor hubby could take more than a few days of this kind of thing a year. Actually the last time I was sick was in early May 2010. Even this cold I was pretty stubborn succumbing to. I have my arsenal of vitamins and homeopathic remidies to repel you evil one!! You may have won this time but I will triumph in due time... Muahahahahahhhhh. I even managed to squeek out a new recipe last night (at which point I was certain it was just a head cold and needed a little soup, boy was I wrong).

This recipe is courtesy of Krazy for Kazu's, which is a Japanese sauce company. I bought their wares at Gosset's.. Surpise Surprise. And if you are reading Mr. Kazu man forgive me because at first I was just trying your free samples to be nice (and because I can't resist free samples). But after tasting the Ginger dressing and Ponzu Magic sauce, Big D and I realized.. Good God man you are bottling JOY and selling it for $7 a bottle. I was wrong and this recipe made with the Ponzu Magic is Oh.... so right. Enjoy!


Krazy for Kazu's Hot & Sour Soup
(I doubled this recipe to have left overs for lunches)
.5lt water
1 chicken thigh ( I used breast it was what I had handy, it was fine)
1tbsp corn starch (to coat chicken) I added a touch of garlic and chili powder to this for zip
2 large shiitake mushroom (thinly sliced)
2 oz onion (thinly sliced)
2 oz carrot (julienned)
3 oz tofu (bite-sized pieces)
1tsp red pepper
2 oz American Ponzu Magic
1 egg (beat breifly)
1tbsp corn starch (mixed with 1 oz water)
1tsp sesame oil
Any leafy green veggie (I used dried nori)
Scallion

Clean and cut chicken, cut veggies and tofu.
Put water in a pot, bring to boil. Coat chicken with corn starch, place chicken in boiling water. When the chicken is done (floating), put in mushroom, onion, carrot, tofu, red pepper and adjust heat to a simmer.
Add ponzu, egg, corn starch w/water, sesame oil, green veggie and scallion. Once veggies are tender it is ready to serve.

It didn't cure my cold but it cleared my sinuses for a few minutes. Two things the recipe above is pretty mild. Fell free to add more red pepper to taste. I also like mine really sour so I threw a little white wine vinegar in mine with a touch of soy sauce to top it off.

xoxo
Fast Alice

Ode to Gaia's Breath Farms....

Oh Gaia's breath farm... how do I love thee, let me count the ways. Every time I take a bite of my salty porky delicious pancetta I think of you and your black piggies... I imagine them happily rolling in fields of mud and foraging for acorns in the forest, every minute becoming fatter and sweeter. This vision makes me feel sligtly like the Witch in Hansel and Gretel as all the while I'm imagining eating those same cute happy little piggies... but hey, it is good stuff and if you tasted this pancetta you would we rubbing your hands together and squeezing piggie fingers in your mind to see if they are fat enough too.

In all seriousness I was really overwhelmed with how amazing this product was. It rang in at $8 a pound but I was able to order exactly the poundage I needed without the skin. If you remember, at the regular butcher it was going to be $4 a pound for regular pork but I had to buy the whole belly with skin approx 20lbs!!! Stupid!! So my total cost for 5lbs natural pork belly was $40. In addition to the lower price tag overall I had the most wonderful interactions with Mark, who runs Gaia's Breath. He got back to me super quickly asked what I was making, offered advice, then sent me the most amazingly perfect pretrimmed belly for pancetta. I was left with virtually no waste. When I tied up the pancetta itself I trimmed two small pieces from each end, purely for asthetics and devoured them quickly with my husband for brecky. Mark also answered my many questions about different products, even the price for a whole pig head. Which was very reasonable needless to say, I can't imagine many people ask for it these days. The belly was delivered to Gosset's Farm Market where I picked it up at their booth.

I was so pleased with the results I went back to the Market and had Tara, who runs the Gaia's booth, help me pick out an amazing 60 day aged Jack cheese to make my Saltimbocca recipe with. I can't say enough about my experience with this company!! I def plan to do their farm share. So exciting :)

Mark!!! If you are out there... You must get a booth down in NYC so my friends can try your products. They are too wonderful to miss. Wait... no!! Don't go to NYC.. stay here.. only here... Yes.. so that they have to come and visit me whilst picking up their pork and cheese. Ahhh.. much better.. lol.

xoxo
Fast Alice

A Belly to Rub... Charcutapalooza: Challenge 2

Recently, Kim at The Yummy Mummy asked us Charcutapalooza peeps to get deep and make our blogs our memoirs... to tell our ever growing blog community why we have embarked on this challenge and what we are learning.

I debated with myself for a long time about writing this post. Most of the time I bill myself as an extremely open person. In fact I often have a penchant for discussing things that most people would find inappropriate. However, I don't usually care to talk about my problems or things that are going on in my life that worry, scare, or intimidate me. Those topics, I tend only to discuss with a very VERY select few. Mostly people who would love me or have to love me no matter what. That said, despite the effortlessly witty blog title that sprung to my mind for this post, I was and still am apprehensive about talking about this on my blog. But I'm going to take our "To the Meat!!.." saying to heart, and make this post about what is really at the center of Charcutapalooza for me.

Not too long ago Big D and I adventured into baby making land.... Blindly, with the notion that in moments we would be blessed with a little Fraley to call our own. But as many of you know getting pregnant sometimes takes a little (or a LOT) longer than you could have expected. True to form, I immediately threw myself into every activity, job, craft, cure, etc in a desperate attempt to keep my mind off this process. A process which is supposed to be fun but at a certain point invariable becomes something stressful instead of joyful.

I didn't want to talk about this for a number of reasons. Um fear.. yeah, that's a big one. Fear about something being wrong with me, that is probably the #1 fear. Which is totally unfounded at this point. But every month that ticks by closer to that one year "Hey You're Infertile :)" mark... the anxiety starts to rise. Fear about other people judging or feeling bad for me, or giving the old "just stop trying advice." Ughghhh, I hate that and at this point if I try any less we will just stop having sex all together. I seriously almost cried when a former client of mine referenced our baby making as "Our little problem." Another fear, and I know it's a stupid one, but I'm sure some of you out there would understand.. is that Big D and I have been blessed, I mean amazingly blessed with material abundance beyond our wildest dreams. My worst fear is that there is some sort of cap on happiness. That of all the things I have been most fortunate to receive in this life I will have to be denied at least one thing. And this is the last thing people... the one little bundle between me and my dream life. It's a big fear.. A gnawing never ending fear in my heart that no amount of prosciutto is going to fix despite my best efforts.

So Charcutapalooza is an escape for me. Something constructive to do with my hands, where I can see results and feel good about a project that is entirely unrelated to baby making at all. In fact it revels in not being pregnant, as cured meats become a "no-no."

I don't know what I expect from writing this. I thought maybe it would help just to get it out of my head. And this pancetta is undoubtedly the most beautiful kitchen creation I have ever mustered. But despite it's beauty the more you try not to think about something the more it pops up... so here is my recipe...

Chicken Impregnated with Pancetta

or

Chicken Saltimbocca with home cured Pancetta

Needed:
Two chicken breasts cut in half the long way. ( I press my palm into the top of the breast and cut evenly down the center with a sharp knife. Risky business, so be careful, but it comes out really even that way.)
2 cups shredded stinky cheese (I used a 60 day aged Jack cheese from Gaia's breath farms. But in the past I have used Asiago cheese. Anything stinky and melty will work)
4 large sage leaves
8 thin cut Pancetta slices
1/2 Cup white Wine
1/2 lemon
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 cup flour seasoned with Salt, Garlic Powder, Pepper and Chili powder.
4 toothpicks

Preheat oven to 350 deg:

After slicing the breast in half pound them out until they are very thin. ( I do this between pieces of plastic wrap until the chicken is slightly translucent). Set them aside so they can get to room temp. In a frying pan over med heat cook the pancetta until crisp and put on paper towel to drain. Remove pan from heat but keep bacon fat for frying the Chicken later. Take a piece of chicken (lay it the long way)lay one sage leaf at the narrow end with 2 pieces pancetta on top . Take 1/4 of the grated cheese and place on top of the pancetta (I squeeze it in my palm into a rough log shape so it doesn't escape as much during frying). Roll tightly all the way up and secure with a toothpick. Continue with the other four pieces of chicken. Put the frying pan with the bacon grease back over med heat. Dredge all four Chicken rolls in the seasoned flour then add to the pan when hot. Sear the chicken on all sides then place in the heated oven on a baking sheet. Take the white wine and deglaze the pan making sure to get up all the tasty chicken and bacon bits off the surface. Reduce 2/3 then add the chicken stock. Reduce again by 1/2 and squeeze in the 1/2 lemon. Cook sauce until it thickens. Remove the chicken from the oven and return to the frying pan. Toss gently with the sauce then serve over anything ( I chose Swiss chard and teeny potatoes roasted with shallot)... it will taste awesome :)


xoxo
Fast Alice

Lil' Bitty Bacon!!

I went to the Gossets Famer's Market on Saturday (as I do most Saturdays) and purchased the most beautiful Cheddar-Chili biscuits. They were just begging for an egg and some duck prosciutto bacon. They came out just sooooooo cute. Itty bitty baby bacon slices... almost too cute to eat. I stress almost because after a snapshot and a sigh this meal was devoured by Big D and I in no time flat.

Also..... our pancetta.. is done!!! I seriously can't wait until the 15th to blog about this. I don't think I have ever made anything I was quite so proud of. Making bacon comes with a satisfaction I just can't describe. I encourage you all to try it for yourself if you haven't already.

Valentine's day is just around the corner. Made up holidays always make me feel weird. Part of me wants to indulge and take advantage of any excuse to celebrate in February. The other part says.... Gross comercialism=lame. But at the end of the day I'm a sucker for those Russell-Stoffer chocolates (all dark if you are taking notes). I usually buy them for myself the day after Valentine's Day so I can get one of those HUGE boxes and eat them in bed and whisper.. I love you.. to myself in the mirror...lol. Only half of that is true buy it made me laugh thinking about it.

Happy Valentine's!!

xoxo
Fast Alice

Duck Prosciutto Take Two :)

Sorry for the radio silence this weekend.  But we had a lot going on here at the ol' Fort.  It was our housewarming party this weekend.  Complete with In-Laws and City friends galore.  Seriously it was awesome... A lot of work.  But awesome.   For the party I decided to revisit the Duck prosciutto for our cheese plate.  This time I did a few things differently.  I did two different seasonings.  One breast was cracked pepper encrusted the other Herbs de Provence.  I used a scale to ensure that the breasts lost between 20-30% weight.  They were much more firm this time and more cured through the center.  I also used our new deli slicer to shave off super thin slices.  Which worked AMAZINGLY well.  We got our slicer at target online for $99 dollars and it was worth every penny.  I already sliced meats for the party which would have cost easily $50 to buy at the deli so it already half paid for itself. 

The prosciutto is hanging in our sun room.  Gently veiled like a bride in cheesecloth. (I was worried it would leave a greasy stain on the wall...lol).  I'm not gonna lie we sampled a little of the prosciutto that I trimmed when I was rolling/tying it... and it was CRACK.  It is taking all my power to keep from running outside and licking it right now... Sigh.  Seven days!!! Arrrghghghhh (shakes fist at the sky).  

But I have this to console myself with..

Hello Lover...

 (Duck Prosciutto and pear)