cook: pickle brined fried chicken

I had requested from my husband that once he was done with the dill pickles in our refrigerator, that he not throw out the jar and its pickle juice, for I wanted to attempt to cook pickle fried chicken again, which turned out way too salty in my first iteration. Yesterday was a busy day. I had a doctor’s appointment, chair yoga class, and a ukulele lesson on my calendar. After my medical visit, I thought oh I’ve got an hour to stop by the clay classroom and unmold my slip cast.                                

The mold separated easily enough, but Oi! The drip marks, rough bottom, and separation line on my tea bowl were unsightly. I had about 40 minutes before yoga to get to work with sandpaper and green scouring pad to refine the pot. I wish I had remembered to use the rasp first, and I distorted the bowl a little bit. But I’m hoping it’ll dry without cracking.   

I looked at all the wares I’d made since the beginning of summer, which gladdened my ceramist ❤️. Once these vessels are bisque fired, I’ll pencil mark the Bmix 10 pots (like the mugs, bowls, and vases)for glazing and firing in the gas kiln.                           

My favorite yoga studio, Grace Yoga closed a month or so ago😞, but just reopened at the Mercy Center, a silent and meditation retreat center at a convent🙂. My chair yoga class was great. Dana, delivered a lot of anatomy lessons while guiding us through sun salutations, triangle, warrior, tree, downward dog, turtle, rabbit poses followed, of course, by a savasana and a lovely chorus of ohm and shanti, shanti, shanti chants. I didn’t use the assistance of the chair or blocks or straps, but it’s reassuring to know that even into my 90s I can avail myself of these props for my yoga practice. And then onward to the grocery store to buy sandwich fixings, lunch at home, and then my ukulele lesson. I may be skipping ceramics, yoga, and the gym for the next couple days while Patrick is out of town and I take over dog duty. Other than walking and gardening, Sadie will have to just lay down and listen to me strum chords on my ukulele or to the hum of my sewing machine as I finish a baby quilt. 

After music lesson and gardening, I started to prepare dinner. I didn't follow the recipe I found to a tee because TABLESPOONS of salt?!? Even for bone-in and skin-on chicken, that's too much. Also there's salt in the pickle brine and in the hot sauce, and so I omitted the salt in the marinade. I also used the jar itself to brine the 3 chicken thighs I had.                      

 

Also the recipe called for brining the chicken for 8 hours (up to 12), but I only brined it for 90 minutes.

And instead of the tablespoon of salt called for in the flour mixture, I instead sprinkled salt (probably a teaspoon)and pepper in addition to the other seasonings. I've become a fan lately too of onion powder and granulated garlic. I had only canola oil instead of peanut, and the lower smoking point worked just fine.

Since my blood draw this morning already happened, I decided to make a tropical colada with the Koloa rum I had brought back from Kauai.

 

Uggh, way too sweet. I'll use less fruit next time and more rum for tonight's repeat cocktail. Instead of making a fried chicken sandwich, I made it a meal with sides of mashed potatoes and leftover grilled summer squash.

I could definitely taste the dill from the pickle brine in the fried chicken despite only marinating for an hour and a half, and my palate thought it was just okay. Really I'll just stick to a more delicious  Southern fried chicken  like the 7 herbs and spices of a Colonel Sanders' Kentucky Fried chicken of my youth.

cook: thai red curry chicken & vegtables

Yesterday I came to the studio to discover that two out of three plates cracked. Sigh it had been a while since I worked with dark clay. I think I had put clay that was too wet into their molds. I resolved to compress more and get the obsidian clay as leather dry as possible. I also cast a tea bowl before I left and wish I had brought the mold home with me. And I was still feeling emotional and out of sorts by the news cycle of shootings and decided to go to the community garden and walk the dog.              

Once home, because we harvested summer squash and basil, I cooked a Thai curry. Per usual, I set out all the ingredients I might need. I sautéed the Thai red curry paste, shallots, and garlic in coconut oil. I'll need to remember that for a whole can of coconut milk, I can use ALL of one of those little jars of curry paste.                               

I also realized that I had forgot the key ingredients of fish sauce and palm sugar in my mise en place. But that was okay as long as I remembered while cooking. I decided too to instead replace the palm sugar with sweetened coconut cream (Mai Tai or Pina colada cocktails the next night after my medical appointment;) in order to use it up. Next I added the cut-up chicken thighs and lime leaves (thanks to my friend, Bob) and Thai chilies to the curry paste.

 

I also started cooking the jasmine rice. I measured out a cup of rice and rinsed it a couple times to wash the excess starch off and then added 1 1/4 cups of water to the rinsed rice in a pot to boil.

 

Oops! Don't do what I did. I stepped out a couple minutes to remove recycling, and the pot boiled over in the meantime. Once your rice comes to a boil, immediately set the burner to low so it can simmer for 15 minutes. I removed the lid and stirred the rice to prevent rice from sticking too much to the bottom of the pot and then let it cook on low heat.

I then added the firmer vegetables like the broccoli and cauliflower to the chicken and curry paste. And then the baby corn.

 

There was too much fond I thought at the bottom of the pot, and so I added the coconut milk, sweetened coconut cream as well as a cooking spoon full of fish sauce to the pot. 

 

And then I added the zucchini and yellow squash. I stirred the pot and then added the snow peas.

  

I then let the curry simmer without a lid because I wanted the moisture from the vegetables to escape.

 

When the vegetables looked tender, I added the spinach which only takes a minute to cook. Before serving, I added the Thai basil. Can I tell you how chuffed I was to find holy basil plants at the Grocery Outlet?

I overcooked my vegetables, but it was delicious anyway.

I used a curry paste as it already contains the chilies, lemongrass, shallots, garlic, galangal, kaffir lime leaf, cumin, coriander, and turmeric even though I added extra shallots and garlic (and wished I had thought to use more fresh ginger too). I wished my curry had had more spiciness, and so next time, use the whole little bottle. Also I read somewhere to add the coconut milk after frying the paste in oil and then the protein and vegetables. And I'll try different proteins next time like pork or tofu. I wished I had bought a red bell pepper because my curry needed that bright pop of red. Tomatoes would work too. And kabocha. I think that firmer Asian squash would be so delicious in a Thai curry. Bamboo shoots and straw mushrooms too. I'll have to pick some up the next time I'm at the Asian grocery store. But I've enough leftover curry to tide me over for the next 2 nights when the husband is out of town because unlike him, I don't mind eating a meal on repeat a couple nights in a row. And next time, green curry.

clay: centering

Ceramics contains metaphors for life. Centering for example. Being centered in psychology means that you have a reference point or a place to come back to when life’s challenges and emotions push you off balance. The center is the place that you know you have to come back to, and I really need to. I woke up from a crazy, vivid dream this morning. In my weird reverie, I was the instructor of these young male military recruits. And they were assigned a performance task of which I was in charge of assessing, only I didn't know much about what they were supposed to accomplish, but somehow I got it into my head to find rubrics for their instructional goals and managed to reproduce copies of their two performance tasks. I could only make 2 complete rubrics, and so I divided them into teams and said they had to read the scoring guide as a team to complete the tasks and that really what I was assessing was their ability to work as a team. And then one of the dumb ass young men ATE the rubric. While cursing and upbraiding the young man and really all of them rubes, I woke up hearing myself lecturing aloud. My heart was racing, and I was frustrated, angry, and anxious. I tried to do a guided meditation and process and think through my numbness yesterday followed by my fury this morning. All the events in the news—Uvalde, Roe v. Wade, Chicago, more Supreme Court bullshit…I need to put my hands on mud today and maybe create something. At this past Saturday in the ceramics studio, I glazed probably 8 pots and then wedged two giant balls of reclaimed speckled buff for the next Saturday session. And planned to make another Rooftop Garden planter next Saturday. I also gave Meral her birthday present—the Dia de Los Muertos quilt I embroidered and machine sewed. And didn’t take any pictures except for this gorgeous mug that she made.          

Meral wedged Mason stain into Bmix and then it looks like she wedged that blue clay into some scrap clay of red and speckled buff and a bit of Frost porcelain before probably pinch potting (she so good at pinch potting)into this mug. She said she used one of her commercial blue glazes on the interior and the handle and burnished outside and left it unglazed.

 

Fucking gorgeous. I want one. I should commission one from her though yeah let me try to make one myself, which will look like a hot mess, but yeah whatever. I know I have some pink mason stain somewhere in my glaze box.  

cook: pancakes

Happy 4th of July!                      

I rarely eat breakfast, but last night we were invited to dinner at a neighbor’s and I ate ladylike bites and no second helpings, which is so not me. And so I’m starving this morning. I had looked for pancake mix at the grocery outlet, but there were only family size bags of Krusteaz. I only eat pancakes three or four times a year, and so I decided to make a batter from scratch. And I'm an experienced enough cook to not have to throw out that first pancake.                   

I did find however, already cooked breakfast sausage patties, at the grocery outlet, which will also make great breakfast sandwiches a la McDonald's Sausage McMuffin (wish I had also remembered to pick up English muffins, but again I rarely eat breakfast). Martha Stewart's recipe for simple pancakes is a good one, but next time I'll use buttermilk instead of milk. Of course, I had to slather on the butter and pour lots of maple syrup.

Woo hoo it's a holiday. Granted I'm bummed that June is already over, but I am looking forward to grilling over charcoal briquets.

cook: beef stroganoff

I bought a package of white button mushrooms, which I thought I was going to cook for pizza and on impulse turned into beef stroganoff which I thought I was going to make with ground beef, but instead was cooked with chuck beef tips. I had watched an America’s Test Kitchen video of beef stroganoff made with ground beef and where the noodles are cooked directly in the stroganoff rather than boiled separately. And so I experimented. First the mise en place including freshly harvested green and purple string beans from our garden.      

Differently from the video, I didn't cook the chopped onions and cubed beef and sliced mushrooms separately. I browned the beef first and remembered to have the flour, beef broth and wine for deglazing at the ready.

I sprinkled the flour on to the beef and wish I had not because the fond was too much at the bottom of the pan. And so I added the onions and mushrooms next to add moisture back into the pan.

 

And the recipe called for simmering the noodles in an open pan, but I worried that too much moisture would escape and so I used a lid to keep the steam in.

But I noticed that the noodles were softening too quickly and took the lid off and let the casserole continue simmering. And it didn't take long at all for the noodles to cook. The package indicated 6 minutes for al dente noodles, and before I knew it, the casserole was ready for sour cream.

Note to self, no need for lid and omit the flour on the browning meat as there was enough fond for deglazing the pan and enough starch on the noodles to thicken the sauce.

The noodles were a bit too gummy for my taste, and I think in the future I'm okay with cooking the noodles separately though they are more flavorful when cooked with the stewed meat and mushrooms.

Roasted green beans may be an unappetizing color compared to steamed green beans, but they were tender and delicious. Today's Bay Area weather was windy and chilly, and so comfort food and homey smells emanating from a warm kitchen were the right call for a gloomy looking early evening.

cook: open face crab melt

Whenever I go to the Sardine Can in my hometown of Vallejo, I order the crab melt: crab salad, avocado, and Swiss cheese slightly toasted and barely melted between sourdough bread. My other favorite restaurant in Vallejo, the Joy of Eating also makes a crab melt but it’s sandwiched between slices of their homemade buttery Pullman loaf. A crab melt is one of my favorite grilled sandwiches. And I order a crab sandwich whenever I see it on the menu. A week ago I met up with two of my favorite colleagues, Barbara and Sue who retired a year ago from the high school I still teach at. I asked if we could meet up at the Beach Chalet at Ocean Beach and Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. The weather was glorious. While most of the Bay Area was baking in a heat wave, it was a balmy 66 degrees on the coast.

And I love the Beach Chalet for the WPA murals and architectural features.  

It was great to see Sue and Barbara too.                                    

And glimpse the lovely view where we sat. Barbara said she was going to order the crab sandwich, and Sue and I both said oh that’s what I  want too. And I didn’t take a pic of it, but I liked my crab sandwich. A lot. The crab melt didn’t have avocado, but it was gourmet. Lemon aioli. Lots of crab. Open faced atop toasted sourdough bread with Gouda and cheddar melted to a bubbling golden brown. Sue and I ate crispy French fries while Barbara had ordered a side salad instead. However, there was a tiny bit of that green salad with some lovely fennel and perfectly dressed in a vinaigrette (champagne or white wine or sherry vinegar?). I aimed to make that same salad at home.            

Okay here’s how I made our Friday night supper. I made a lemon aioli with lemon zest, lemon juice, grainy and regular yellow mustard (couldn’t find the jar of Dijon), spring garlic, scallions, and Kewpie mayo and in which I folded in lots of lump crab meat. I buttered both sides of sourdough bread and broiled it in the oven. Once toasted, I topped the bread with a generous amount of the crab salad and then a slice of provolone and some grated Gruyère, which I then popped back under the broiler until hot and bubbly. I also dressed green and red leaf lettuce and thinly sliced fennel and cherry tomatoes in a lemony balsamic vinaigrette. Omg. This is gonna be my meal again today after sewing and before ceramics today.