Lane's Squid Day 2 and Herb-Roasted Yam

Long day today, requiring a dinner with little or no work. So. Leftover squid from yesterday, plus a yam sliced, lightly brushed with olive oil and coated with herbs, and roasted at 425F for 50 min.

Eating Notes: The squid was better yesterday. By 24 hours later, the ginger dominated a bit too much. That said, it was still really good and a nice combination with the sweet softness of the yam. So, no complaints!

Millet - Rice Cakes

Felt like something substantial for breakfast, but still trying to avoid the gluten. My white (1975) Joy of Cooking had a recipe for rice flour "pancakes" but I wanted something a little bit more robust, and I thought I could improve things with some xanthan gum. I was right. While these look a lot like pancakes they are made differently and they taste like their own thing (see Eating Notes below)

Recipe:

Millet-Rice Cakes
Makes 10 cakes; recipe can be doubled

1/2 c white or brown rice flour
1/2 c millet flour
2-1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t xanthan gum
1/2 t salt (really! It will not taste too salty)
1 t light brown sugar or maple sugar (not syrup)

1 c milk
1 md - lg egg
1 T butter

fat as needed for frying

Melt the butter. Beat the egg in a small bowl.
Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and then sift. Do not skip the sifting step.

Using an electric hand beater, beat the dry ingredients while slowly adding the milk. Be sure everything is well mixed. Beat in the egg and melted butter. The batter may look a little thin. Do not worry.

Using a large spoon, pour the pancakes onto a hot, greased griddle. Mix the batter in a folding motion as you do this, as it may start to separate slightly. Flip when bubbly on top. Serve hot with topping of your choice.

Eating Notes: A success. While they can stand in for pancakes, they didn't taste at all like fake wheat pancakes. The texture was fluffy and a little crisp, and the inside had the distinct warm grain taste of millet. The cakes were perfect for breakfast with a bit of syrup or jam. Because of the millet, they also would be good as a foil to creamed shrimp or seafood or something similar. I would still add the small amount of brown/maple sugar; it added overtones but wasn't enough to make the cakes noticeably sweet.

Salmon, Lane's Squid, and Scrap dinner

We're trying to eat seafood at least once a week. I have never (honest!) cooked squid myself, even though I really like it. I had a salmon fillet in the freezer, and had stopped to get some frozen squid. And I had leftover cores and scraps from various leafed vegetable things. Also, since Lane doesn't usually photograph his recipes, I wanted to include some so people not accustomed to working with squid would know what they were looking at. So the obvious choice was a salmon, squid and scrap salad dinner using Lane's marinated squid salad.


Recipes:

Broiled Salmon
Serves 1-2 per steak (we split one)

Salmon Steaks (approx 6 - 8 oz. each, approx 3/4" - 1" thick)
1-2T Ghee per steak

Set broiler to high and preheat. Put salmon, skin side down, on a broiling pan and brush the flesh with 1/2 the ghee.

Put under broiler for approx. 4 min. Remove from broiler.

Flip steaks over so skin is up. Brush skin with remaining ghee. Broil another 3 - 4 min. Remove from oven. Cut in half if you are splitting and plate. Drizzle ghee and juices in the bottom of the pan over the salmon. Season to taste (I just used some fresh pepper)




Scraps from greens, cabbage, broccoli, etc.
Tomatoes
1T Vietnamese Roasted Red Chili Paste
1-2T coconut oil

Prepare scraps for Scrap Salad. Thinly wedge or slice some tomato (whatever you have).

Stir just enough water into the paste so that it is pourable.

Heat the coconut oil over medium-high heat. Saute the non-leafy green scrap bits until just starting to get soft. Add the leafy bits, tomato, and the softened chili paste and turn heat to medium-low. Stir and mix in until leafy bits get limp.

May be served hot or cold.


Squid Tutorial


I made Lane's squid and it was superb. Pictures show the frozen squid soaking in water; the squid after I've chopped it; and the cooked squid being rinsed in cold water to stop the cooking.

My only substitutions: I had no Mirin so I used sake. I had no pickled chili, and nothing to make a reasonable substitution, so I just left it out.

One clarification: the recipe should say to use a pound of cleaned squid. I got mine frozen right before, so I just kept rinsing it in changes of cold water until it thawed enough to slice. By then I didn't need to rinse the squid again in water.

Also, if you're working with the squid right from frozen, little blocks of ice will collect inside the squid bodies. Work these out before you slice the squid bodies.

When I cut the squid, in addition to splitting the tentacle bunches I cut the long tentacle (each bunch has one and sometimes 2) into 2" - 3" lengths.

Eating Notes: This was really nice and was very flexible time-wise because everything but the salmon can be made ahead. The squid really was nice. Tender, with just the right bit of subtle bite (and Phil and I both agree that Lane is to be commended for bringing up pre-teens who like marinated squid!). I'm saving half the squid for tomorrow to see what it tastes like after marinating a full day.

Mechazawa-san Meatloaf

Despite pigging out at lunch (kim chi, cheese, and leftover Vietnamese lunch) I was really hungry at dinner, as was Phil. And it's still cold here, steering us to comfort food. So had some Mechazawa-san meatloaf.

Note that the ingredients are as variable as egg pie. Put in whatever you have that appeals and it most likely will come out ok. The only rules I fairly stringently follow are to allocate 1 egg per pound of meat and to put in something (bread, potato, whatever) that will absorb some of the internal juice.

Recipe:

Mechazawa-san Meatlof
Serves 2 hungry people with nothing more or up to 4 with good sides
(ingredients reflect what I had on hand; be *very* creative)

1 lb ground beef (or mixture of 1/2 lb ground beef plus 1/2 lb other meat)
1 egg
1 slice of onion
3 md white (button) mushrooms
1T lime juice
1T Worcestershire sauce (I use Bulldog Japanese)
1T Vietnamese chili-garlic sauce
1T Yellow mustard
2 - 4 T Panko or breadcrumbs or a starchy substance to soak up juices
Ketchup to taste

Chop onion and mushrooms.

Mix all ingredients. Shape into 2 - 4 loaves with indentations in the top (see picture below). The indentations are important because they hold in juice during cooking.

Picture shows the loaves (in this case, 2 loaves made from 1 lb. of beef) ready to be put on the Big Green Egg.

Start the Egg and then let the grill sit on it for about 5 min to warm up. If you are concerned about the loaves "slumping" and getting stuck to the grill, it's better to freeze the loaves for a half hour or so than to try to grease the grill for that purpose.

Put the loaves directly on the grill rack. Grill for 30 (for 4 loaves) to 50 (for one loaf) minutes. Picture at the top of the post shows one of the 2-loaf, 40-minute meatloaves (meatloafs?).

Pour ketchup on the plate around each meatloaf and serve. Picture at the top of the post shows a plated meatloaf with the ketchup around and the indentation holding the juices from cooking.

Eating notes: Mechazawa-san *anything* always is good. This was no exception. Nicely browned and crispy on the bottom, but not at all dry. Really good.

No New Food...

Meeting commitments tonight, so no new food until tomorrow. Raining and gross outside - I'd much rather be cooking than driving! At least I have some nice leftover offal pie in the oven.

Offal Pie

It's snowing today, and I really wanted something comforting. There being no meetings or rehearsals to rush out to, and wanting something with no gluten, I decided on shepherd's pie, made with a mystery bag of "pork parts" obtained from Babes in the Woods.

ZZZZZZOMG it was good.

Recipe:
(Serves 4 - 6; ingredients reflect what I used)

1 lb pork parts
1 lb potatoes (I used 3 decent-sized red)
2 md carrots
1/2 onion
4 lg white mushrooms
1/2 - 2/3 c buttermilk
2 l garlic cloves
2 T fat (I used butter)
2 T deglazing medium (I used tawny port, and I used more than that but it was too much)
Salt to taste

Dice carrots 1/2" or so. Coarsely chop onions. Quarter mushrooms or divide into more pieces if quarters are too big for a comfortable bite.Picture above shows the organs and main veggies.

Boil potatoes. Cool, peel (reserve peel) and mash with the buttermilk (more or less as needed for consistency). Add salt to taste.

Steam the carrots 4 - 5 min. Add onions and steam 2 min. more. Add mushrooms and steam 4 min more. Turn out into mixing bowl. Chop the peel fairly fine and put into the mixing bowl with the vegetables.

Slice the pork parts (organs) into 1/8" - 1/6" slices. Finely chop the garlic cloves. Heat the fat in a large fry pan until fragrant. Add the garlic and saute until just starting to brown. Add the pork parts and saute 3 minutes or until just cooked.

Remove the pork parts to the mixing bowl. Add the deglazing medium and stir to get all the browned bits up. Pour the deglazing medium into the mixing bowl.Picture shows the innards and the mashed potato topping ready to put in the casserole. The picture at the top of the post shows it in the casserole and just out of the oven.

Mix everything in the mixing bowl up and turn it out into a casserole. Spread the mashed potatoes over.

(You can do this ahead and keep it until about 30 - 45 minutes before when you want to bring it all together)

Heat oven to 425F. Put casserole in and heat until bubbly/brown, about 20-25 min. Serve hot.
Eating Notes:

OMG this was so good. I couldn't tell what all the organs in my "pork parts" vacuum bag were, but there was very little waste and it seemed like there was a lot of really yummy liver. I said serves 4 - 6 but it seems like it could have fed an army. Highly recommended and I will make it again.

Squid snacks

This weekend was remarkably non-discussion worthy. Saturday, I made a simple Thai chicken dish that is not worth wasting the poor innocent electrons that would be consumed if I wrote about it. And Sunday was another chicken dish that I have basically forgotten already.

So, I an effort to remain somewhat relevant, I will comment on a quick squid creation I made. In an effort to make room for a variety of frozen animals that are coming into the house in the near future, I was pawing through the freezer and found chicken that could be cooked (as noted above) and a couple of pounds of squid. My children love marinated squid, so kill 2 stones with one bird and clean out freezer and make snacks.

Marinated squid

Cleaned squid
2 t ginger, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 t soy sauce
1 T olive oil
2 T unseasoned rice vinger
1 T mirin
1 pickled chili, chopped

Mix seasonings in a bowl. Cut squid bodies into rings about 1/4 inch wide and cut tentacle bunches in half. Rinse well in cool water. Toss squid in boiling water and allow to sit for 30 secs. No longer and no need to allow water to come back to a boil. If you cook it longer it will become tough. Drain in colander and rinse under cool water. Mix in with marinade and allow to sit for a few hours. Mix occasionally. The longer it sits, the more intense it becomes.

Fast Broken

So. The fast was broken at about 7:50. This was a bit late for us - we usually eat dinner at about 7:30. I was hungry but not any more than normal.

Dinner was pork chops smoked on Mechazawa (the Egg) - the delay in dinner was because unkowingly the lid was in the closed position and Mechazawa's fire went out, causing a delay in the proceedings. But (as is to be expected) Mechazawa rose to the occasion and delivered wonderful juicy smoked pork chops even with the snafu.

Accompanying the pork chops was a simple salad of greens, radish, mushrooms, carrots, and garlic with a commercial organic vinaigrette augmented with some live culture sour cream. It was really nice. And a half hour later, I don't feel like there are stones in my stomach.

So I give the fasting thing a cautious nod of approval.

Lard Tutorial

Lard is one of the easiest things one can make. Here is my tutorial, drawn from multiple sources and with pictures. I don't have a picture of the bag of frozen leaf lard, but it started out at just under 3 lbs. Leaf lard is the fat lining the abdomen and kidneys in a pig. You can render from belly fat, too, but traditionally "lard" refers to leaf lard fat, and that's how I've always made it.

My approach to lard has become very simple. The trick, for me, has been not worrying if it takes a long time, and embracing the whole food approach - so that I'm not obsessively trying to render every last little bit of fat out of the lard. If the approach appeals to you and you can put the leftovers to good use (see the Eating Notes at the end of the post), this recipe is for you.

Recipe:

Rendered Leaf Lard

Leaf lard

Put the lard in a heavy pot. Put in an oven set at 225F. Cook, gently stirring every now and again.
Cook until the solid pieces are floating. Take the pot out and mash the lard with a potato masher. Put the pot back in for another hour and repeat. picture above shows the lard just before mashed the last time.

After an hour after the final mashing, remove the pot from the oven. Increase heat to 425.

Strain the big solid pieces out and put on a rack over a pan. Cook about 20 minutes or until nicely browned but has not started smoking. Note that they look a bit like bacon, but there's basically nothing there but fat and they will crumble apart if any force is applied.
Remove the rack after the solid pieces have stopped dripping. Strain the lard from the pot and the pan under the rack (assuming it has not smoked - otherwise, use it for something else) through a fine cheesecloth into a container to chill. Reserve the chunks, pieces, and strained bits.Eating notes: Lard is great - it makes pastries really crumbly and fluffy and enhances the taste of fried foods without imparting a strong flavor of its own.

The solids are equally good in other uses. Suggestions: Crumbled into a hot salad dressing recipe; Fry up a little bit and then spread around and start an omelet; saute with mushrooms; put into an egg pie . Anything where a little bacon fat would do or where you just want something a little unexpected and good is a candidate. I put the "crispier" bits in one plastic zippy bag and the solids left over from the straining in another. They both go in the freezer and I call on them as needed. Invariably, the solids are used up before the lard is.

First Fast?

So. Yesterday my singing group had an early dinner after rehearsal, with food from a very good Lebanese restaurant. I stayed away from the carbs and had an assortment of meats and some tabouli, baba ganoush, and hummus. It didn't seem like too much, and the food tasted great. I only drank water. But by a half hour after I'd left I felt bloated and gross. Not like I was going to throw up or have other gastric disturbances, but just like I'd eaten too much and it just wasn't sitting well. I don't know if it was the food or me, but there you are.

So 2. We've been toying around with a pseudo-paleo diet. As a result, I've read a lot about periodic fasting - some people recommend at least a 24- to 30-hour fast once a week. I say if you're hungry, you should eat, and scheduling a fast is hardly what our Paleolithic ancestors would have done. But so many people swear by an occasional fast that I have been curious.

So 3. This morning I got out of bed late (7:30-ish) and I don't know if it was that ton-of-rocks dinner or something else, but I was not hungry at all. So I thought, why eat if I'm not hungry? And I decided to fast. I figured if I got really really hungry I would just graze on a few pecans or something but otherwise I'd fast until dinner. Since we ate early yesterday, I wouldn't even have to delay my regular dinner time.

OK, so it's 4:30 now. I made some leftover lamb stew and eggs for Phil for breakfast, and I also made cat food and rendered some lard today, so the house smells *really* good (sort of like there's been bacon frying all day). I exercised fairly strenuously for 45 minutes and did a lot of chores and stuff around the house, so it was a fairly active day. I've had some coffee, tea and water, but nothing else. And yeah, I'm somewhat hungry, but hardly ravenous.

So I'm titling the post first fast, but putting in that question mark. I can definitely see doing this again. I wouldn't want to if I were hungry already at breakfast, and I definitely don't want to based on an arbitrary schedule rather than on how my body feels. But for those days when I wake up and just am not hungry, I'm thinking, why not?

Gluten-free Baking: Cornbread

First, a bit of a rant about gluten-free recipe books. Phil bought me a couple, and I am highly underwhelmed.

• Seem to focus almost entirely on making ersatz versions of things rather than on embracing things that naturally don't have wheat or gluten
• Call for all sorts of things you're not likely to have in the house - one asked for four different kinds of flour for a simple cornbread recipe
• Want you to make up magic baking mixes, which is fine if you're baking all the time, but if you're not, it's difficult if not impossible to figure out how much of ingredient X to put into just the thing you are making

But I was determined to make gluten-free cornbread this morning. So off to the Internet. I found a couple of interesting recipes to build from, and settled on this. I will have to check out more of the celiac.com site when I have a chance.

Recipe:

Gluten-Free Cornbread
Makes 1 8" x 8" pan
(Ingredients reflect what I used)

1 c Buttermilk
1 egg
1/4 c butter plus enough to grease pan
2T maple syrup

1 c cornmeal
1 c white rice flour
2 T san on tou (or light brown sugar or more maple syrup)
2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t xanthan gum
1/4 t salt

Grease an 8" square baking pan. Preheat oven to 400F.

Melt the butter. In a blender, process the egg and melted butter and slowly add the buttermilk and syrup. Blend until smooth.In a large mixing bowl, thoroughly mix all dry ingredients. Add the liquid ingredients, mixing gently but thoroughly with a large spoon. It will come together differently than with wheat flour. Turn out into the pan (the original recipe said "pour" but my my batter was stiff enough that I had to spoon it into the pan). The picture above shows the batter poured into the pan.

Bake 30 minutes. Turn out onto a rack to cool. Serve with butter or jam.

Eating notes:

I was very surprised when the cornbread turned so nicely out of the pan (see picture at the top of the post. Cornbread just doesn't do that, in my experience, unless you cook it in a hot, buttered iron skillet. The cornbread is definitely dryer than a wheat version, but not unpleasantly so, and a little butter took care of that right away. We really liked the crispy crust. The other good thing was that although this was made in a conventional oven and I did not use convection, it cooked very evenly. The center and edges, including the corners, were very uniform. So, all in all, a success that will go into my breakfast rotation.

Update: We each ate 1/8 of the cornbread at breakfast. I was gone for lunch and dinner and Phil ate 1/4 more. He felt out of sorts and overloaded until he had a bit of stew - it was just more carbs than he can handle in one day any more. Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't have to stop before he did. We have frozen the rest for later.

Offal Cultural Differences

No blogging yesterday. I sing in a Bulgarian/Eastern European group (Orfeia; long story) and we have several rehearsals over the weekend, so not much time to cook. But conversation last night was of interest.

Our director, Tatiana Sarbinska is from Bulgaria. She has introduced me to Bulgarian tripe soup and other really good traditional food. Everyone else in the group is American.

Because I have the lamb coming, and the most challenging part for me will be the head, I asked her if she had ever done lamb head. She was extremely enthusiastic and said yes, and I hope to get some guidelines from her today. Everyone else was going eeew, gross. Tatiana was saying no, it's really good.

We are a squeamish people.

(Oh, and she also has eaten eggshells and basically said yes, of course, they are very good for you.)

Lamb Hearts with Baked Creamed Broccoli and Carrots

To have a nice, carb-free feast, we defrosted 2 lamb hearts and had them scallopini style, with a broccoli-carrot casserole on the side.

Pictures of how the hearts look trimmed and untrimmed can be found here .

Recipes:

Courtney's Lamb Heart Scallopini
Serves 2

2T fat (I used some leftover chicken fat, plus the excess fat from the hearts)
2 lamb hearts
2-3 T chopped onion or shallot (I used onion)
1 lg clove garlic
1/8 t undiluted beef bouillon
1/2 c tawny port (you could also use broth or stock)
2T celery leaves (you could also use parsley)

Finely chop the garlic and the celery leaves.

Trim the lamb hearts of any excess fat, ligaments, or blood vessels. Slice approximately 1/8" thick.Heat the fat in a heavy skillet. Add the heart and stir-fry 2-3 minutes. Remove the hearts to a platter and keep warm. Picture below shows the hearts keeping warm, next to the finished broccoli-carrot casserole, which is also keeping warm.

Return the pan to the heat. Add the onion and saute 1 min.

Remove from heat and add the garlic, bouillon, port or stock, and celery/parsley. Set heat to medium, return the pan to the heat, and add the heart. Saute another 1 min. Remove the heart and plate. If necessary, reduce the sauce over medium-high and pour over the hearts. Serve hot.

Picture below shows the finished dish. Again, my plating could use some help...




...and for the side...

Courtney's Creamed Broccoli-Carrot Casserole
Serves 4 as a side
(note that all ingredients reflect what I had on hand. Feel free to adjust!)

6 oz broccoli (approx; any combination of florets and stems is fine)
1 md carrot
1 2" round, 1/4" thick slice of onion
1T ghee
1T flour (I used regular wheat flour)
1/2 c milk
1/4 t paprika
1/4 t garlic powder
1/8 t salt
1 - 2 T pecan meal
1 - 2 T shred/grated hard cheese
dash cayenne

Cut broccoli into florets and/or 1/2" pieces. Cut carrots into 1/2" dice. Finely chop onion.

Steam broccoli and carrots until just starting to get tender, approx. 5 - 8 min. Drain and rinse with cold water. Chop fine by hand or in a food processor. You can also puree it if you want a different texture.Make a roux by heating the ghee, sauteing the flour until just bubbly, and slowly adding the milk, paprika, garlic powder and salt. Stir in the broccoli-carrot mix. Keep stirring until it bubbles again and is light. Turn out into a baking dish. Picture above shows it done and ready to turn out.

Cover with pecan meal, shred cheese, and a dusting of cayenne.

(At this point you can continue, or just leave it and go away for a while)

Cook in a 425F oven until the cheese browns (see picture). Serve hot.



Eating Notes:
This time I quick-cooked the heart instead of braising it. It was a little more chewy, but just as good - full of flavor. Really, deeply satisfying.

Phil commented that while we still like pot pie and corn pudding, this type of food has become our comfort food. Somehow, over the past year we have switched from craving carb-rich stuffings and the like to breathing our happiest food-sighs over offal and veggies. And we've lost weight and gained health in the process.

Getting Back On the Low-Carb Bandwagon

Evening commitments and leftover pot pie = no cooking today. So just a quick blog about this low-carb diet. Phil and I have had a lot of carbs over the last few days - the corn pudding, followed by the pot pie; plus some hefty sandwiches at a post-inauguration get-together yesterday. The result? We are really looking forward to finishing the last of that pot pie so we can get back to our now-normal diet.

I've read about this response on a lot of the paleo and low-carb blogs, but really didn't think I'd feel that way, too. But it turns out I do. Tomorrow, meat and vegetables. Maybe some lamb heart cappriccio, I'm not sure. But I do know I don't want to see a piece of bread or bunch of starch on my dinner plate!

Unexpected Whole Food

1.I was at Barack Obama's Inauguration today....wait....let me savor that wonderful food again. I. was. at. Obama's. inauguration. today.....

Ah. Ok. So because of that, I wasn't planning to do any blogging. But two things happened.

The first, a funny thing, involved a lamb. Lane and I are splitting a lamb from Groff's Content Farm and I needed to call their butcher today, because they do not get the inauguration off. In butcherese, the call was not very unusual. Miscellaneous directions on subdividing meat and bones. No, I don't know the ear tag number of the creature. Yes, I'd like the intestines. Yes, I'd like the head and any organs. And if anyone else doesn't want their organs, I'd be happy to take those, too.

The thing is, this type of conversation held in a dense throng of N million people pretty darn far away from an actual farm, well, draws looks. One person standing by asked me where I was from. "Silver Spring, Maryland." Oh. It was pretty funny.


2.The second thing involved a simple, hardboiled egg, was new even to me, and has set me thinking.

I guess because security teams thought trash cans might be a risk, they removed them all from the Mall. For sustenance, I had brought some cheese, cashews, and hardboiled eggs. At about 9, having been out since 6:30, I decided on an egg.

I broke it by dropping it on the ground and dusting it off. Then I went to find a trash can to peel it into. There weren't any. I didn't have anything to put a shell into. And even though other people were dropping things left and right, I couldn't bear the thought of littering. So I ate the eggshell.

I have never done this. The only time I've eaten eggshell is when someone didn't do a very good job of it and there were shards in the egg or salad or whatever. So when I tried I fully expected it to be a fail and for me to sort of spit it out after choking on sharp shards. This did not happen. The shell chewed easily and was easy to eat and swallow. I had no idea. I'm not sure why we don't eat eggshells, or what this means going forward. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'll know more tomorrow.

Update: No ill effects. So I deem hard-boiled eggshells to be edible. Who knew!

Update 2: I gave Phil two eggs in his bento for work. He tried them with the shells. He said it didn't make too much of a difference one way or another in terms of "better" or "worse," but it did have the benefit(?) of grossing out his colleagues.

Cleaning out the Freezer Pie

In anticipation of a big load of meat coming in next week, plus the fact that we couldn't tell which trash bags were holding cat food and which were holding people food, I cleaned out the freezer. In the process, I found some leftover turkey and gravy from Thanksgiving 2007. Realized I had some leftover puff pastry from Christmas, so didn't even need to make a piecrust from scratch. So. Made some most excellent pot pie with very little pain.
Mis en place above shows everything I used except the pots and pans. The "baggies" on the right in the background are the frozen bags of leftover gravy.

Recipe:

As always, be creative! If you don't have gravy, make a roux with stock. Don't have turkey? Use any kind of meat. Just tailor your gravy/stock/roux accordingly.

Generic Pot Pie
Serves 4 as single-dish meal

2 c cooked meat (I used turkey)
2 c gravy or roux (I used turkey gravy)
2 - 3 c total vegetables (I didn't have any leftovers so used fresh broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, and onion)
enough pastry for a 9" - 10" double crust pie (I used frozen puff pastry)

Dice the vegetables if using fresh and steam 8 - 10 minutes until cooked. Run under cold water to stop the cooking process.

If using frozen veggies, run under warm water until at room temperature. If using leftovers, be sure they are in a suitable dice.

Line an 8" or 9" square casserole with 1/2 - 2/3 of the pastry. Ladle in the veggies (see above). Grate a generous amount of pepper over. If you are using an otherwise unseasoned roux, season to taste. If you are using seasoned gravy or stock, just let it stand alone.

Heat the gravy in a saucepan. If making roux use a standard 2T flour+2T fat+2c milk or stock ratio. Once the roux is thickening or the gravy is hot, add the meat. Stir to combine. Pour over the veggies.This shows it, ready to be covered.

Cover the entire thing with the rest of the piecrust. Crimp the edges securely. Cut vents.

Bake 25 minutes or until you can't stand the wonderful smell permeating your house!

Eating notes:

Ultimate comfort food. Beloved by humans and cats. Worthy of adulation and praise.

The upper crust is all crunchy and the lower crust gets mushy absorbing all the pie-like goodness. People who don't like soggy bread-things should just eliminate the lower crust. Grease the casserole and pour in the ingredients, then put the crust on top. Sort of like a shepherd's pie but with piecrust instead of potatoes.

Hunger (or lack thereof)

Dinner tonight was the rest of the cabbage-sausage melange from last night. But it has made me think about hunger.

Last night we had the first flush of the cabbage dish, which, according to Kathleen's Diet Planner measures up at just over 500 calories. This morning I made corn pudding, eggs, and sausage that added up, according to the same source, at a very substantial 1030 calories. Then I had about 35 calories of low-fat ricotta cheese for lunch. So. about 1600 calories. I exercised strenuously for 1 hour in mid-afternoon. And I was not hungry. AT. ALL. I ate the rest of the sausage casserole happily at 7:30 but I was not craving it and I was not at all feeling deprived.

Corn Pudding

Trying corn pudding this morning in the Advantium (result shown above). I understand corn is one of those "modern" foods I should probably be avoiding, but I just like it too much! This is adapted from the GE recipe website.

Recipe:

Advantium Corn Pudding
Serves 4 - 6

15 - 16 oz cooked corn kernels (one drained can or a bag of frozen is fine)
1 c milk
3 eggs
2 T butter plus enough to grease the casserole
2 T flour (I used rice flour)
2 T sugar (I used san on tou)
1/2 t salt

Grease a 1-1/2 quart round casserole or souffle pan.

Melt 2T butter. If using frozen corn, run under warm water until it is about room temperature.

Crack the eggs into the casserole and beat them until fairly well mixed. Add all the other ingredients except the corn and mix well. Add the corn and stir in.

Cook 22 - 24 minutes or until barely set at u=6 L=4 M=0. In a conventional oven, I'd guess maybe 325F for 40 - 45 min. - the "until barely set" part is the key.Eating Notes: I had this with some pork breakfast sausage and fried eggs. It's filling enough that you wouldn't really need the rest, but they were a nice counterpart.

The pudding came out with a sort of thin, sweet-ish sauce component. The eggy part was set perfectly, so I know that wasn't the issue. My leading explanation is that this was because I used frozen corn instead of canned, which is what the initial recipe called for. Or maybe there is something to wheat flour even when it's only being used in small doses as a thickener. The flavor was really good and the textures complementary, so I wouldn't change it. But it did mean that a bowl-like dish was required and I couldn't plate it directly with the rest of the food.

Barbeque short ribs

I was at the store yesterday looking through the butcher counter feeling remarkably uninspired and then saw short ribs and thought, this is good. Haven’t had for a long time and can think of something simple and low effort. It is cold here so that is important when all I feel like doing is staying in front of the fire and reading.

3 lbs Flanken-style short ribs
2 slices bacon
2 t lard
1 med onion
3 carrots
3 ribs celery
1 T celery seed
1 T ginger, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 brown sugar
1/4 C cider vinegar 1-14 oz can tomato sauce
1 T Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper

Cut ribs between bones. Chop bacon into small pieces. Dice carrots, onion and celery. Sauté bacon until crisp in lard and remove to bowl. Brown ribs in oil in dutch oven on both sides, you’ll probably need to do this in batches. Remove to bowl with bacon. Toss vegetables and spices in remaining oil and sweat for 10 minutes over med high heat, stirring.

Add brown sugar and stir for a minute or so and deglaze with vinegar. Add tomato sauce and Worcestershire sauce and stir for a minute. Return ribs and bacon to pot and any juices. Simmer for an hour plus. Enjoy

Serves 4

Sausage-Cabbage Melange

Pulled out some sausage last night for breakfast today and tomorrow, but ended up making eggs and mushrooms poached in tomatoes with a side of hash browns, so had some extra sausage to use. Came up with this, adapted from Bruce Aidell's Complete Sausage Book (Amazon link here).

Recipe:

Sausage-Cabbage Melange
Serves 4

1/4 c butter or bacon fat (I used butter)
6 oz fresh sausage (any kind of pork sausage would be fine)
2 carrots
1 md onion
1 sm head cabbage
3 lg garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
1-1/2 c stock or strong broth
1T dried thyme
3T tomato paste
1T Vietnamese chili garlic sauce (or to taste)
2T sour cream
salt and pepper to taste (I didn't need any)

Crumble or dice sausage. Dice carrots. Slice onion thin. Quarter, core (save core to use in a veggie scrap salad) and thinly slice/shred the cabbage.

Assemble your mis en place. The mis en place picture above shows everything except the butter and sour cream, ready to go. Things that will be added at the same time are binned or mixed together.

Melt the fat over medium heat in a 4- to 6-quart saucepan with lid. When fragrant, add the sausage and saute 3 minutes. Add the carrots and onions. Mix them in, cover, and cook 10 minutes. The onions should be limp and may show some color.

Add the cabbage and garlic and bay leaves. Stir in. Cover and cook 10 more minutes, stirring once or twice.

Add the stock and stir to deglaze until you are sure no tasty bits remain on the bottom of the pan. Add the thyme, tomato paste, and chili garlic sauce. Cook, covered, 10 minutes more.

At this point you can turn the heat down to low and leave it for up to an hour, until you are ready to serve.

When you are ready, turn the heat up and reduce the liquid, if needed, to a medium-thick sauce-like consistency. Bring the pan off the heat and wait for it to stop simmering. Stir in the sour cream. Serve hot. Picture below shows one dinner-sized serving.

Eating notes: When we saw what 1/4 of the output was (see the picture above), we thought that there is no way this would be enough for dinner, and that we'd certainly be back to the pot for the rest. But it was the opposite. I had to give some of mine to Phil because I couldn't eat it all, and even so, I felt more full than I can remember feeling in a very long time. Even as I blog this my stomach is a bit, well, comfy. It's an extremely filling dish.

Also, it's a dish that would lend itself to creativity, especially in terms of the protein and spice. Nutmeats or liver or instead of sausage; spicy sausage instead of mild; coriander or cumin instead of chili-garlic; all (and probably lots of other combinations) would have been interesting and good.

Last of the Chicken

So dinner tonight is Chicken Carcass Soup - and the last day of the fabulous roasted chicken that I made on the Egg on Tuesday. This means that our $16 chicken produced 8 dinners (4 for each of us) plus 4 lunches, plus a bit to appease the 4-footed ones. Makes spending a bit extra for true pasture-raised creatures seem a bit less extravagant.Here's a picture - it looks more paleo than attractive, I'll admit, but it tastes really good.

No recipe - just throw the carcass and whatever veggies you have on hand into the crock pot, add water, turn it on low and cook the heck out of it. Season to taste whenever it makes sense to do so (e.g. garlic and pepper early, green spices later, etc. etc.) I know a lot of recipes have you stop cooking chicken after an hour or two, but that doesn't soften the bones enough so you can eat them. Even so, I spit out most of the little bones, but anything with marrow in it is *not* going to see the inside of a trash can in this household if I can help it!The picture shows what's left. Phil wants everyone to know he's the bone-eater; the remnants on the left are his. I think I started out with more bones, but that's an argument for another day...

As if I needed to prove my geekiness, I weighed the parts we threw away. 2.25 ounces, out of a 4.1 lb chicken. I need to say again that we are well-fed, middle-class persons and everything scarfed down tonight was because it was *good.*

Sauerkraut and Potato with Leftover Chicken

Still noshing on Tuesday's chicken and working extra hours, so wanted an easy-but-good go-with vegetable. Combined with the fact that it's COLD for Washington DC and I added in "comfort food" as a factor. This, adapted from the Woman's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery delivered on all counts. I'd never really thought of Sauerkraut except as a condiment or side salad. This has changed my mind.

Sauerkraut and Potato Comfort
Serves 2
1 lb. (mine was 14 oz. dry weight but you don't need to be picky) Fresh Sauerkraut. The "Fresh" part is pretty important. It would be ok with good preserved, but the kind you get in the deli section (or have made yourself) will yield a much better result.
8 oz. red bliss or similar thin-skinned potato (again, approximate)
1 md onion
2T bacon fat, lard, or butter (I used bacon fat; use butter only if you want to keep the dish vegetarian - the fat/lard makes a big taste difference)
1 c white wine (I used a semi-dry Riesling)
1/4 t salt
1 T coriander
(for next time: 1 lg carrot)

Chop the onion. Grate the potato. Drain the sauerkraut. (for next time: grate the carrot)

Heat the fat and saute the onion in it until it is translucent. Add the sauerkraut and saute a couple of minutes. Add the wine, salt and coriander and mix. Cover and simmer 30 minutes.

Uncover and add the grated potato (for next time: and the carrot) and mix. Recover and simmer 20 minutes more. Uncover. Turn up the heat and saute until any remaining liquid is of a medium sauce-like consistency.

If serving with meat (as shown in the post picture) put into dish, making a well in the center. Put meat in the depression and grate black pepper to taste.

If serving without meat, season to taste.

Serve and eat hot.

Chicken with cumin and chili

This is a modification of a recipe from somewhere. I can’t attribute it because I have neither a clue where the original came from nor what it was called. Quantities are highly variable because I have nothing written down and I use what I have on hand outside of the core ingredients of chicken, Jarlsberg cheese, sour cream and cumin. Ok, that’s pretty much the basic recipe, but it is easily modified to change other flavor notes.

1 1/2 lb Chicken, breast or boneless thighs
1-1 1/2'ish C sour
1/2 lb’ish Jarlsberg cheese
1 – 4 oz can green chili
1-2 Serrano chili
1/2 C flour
Cumin
Salt and pepper
2 T some oil

Cube chicken into 1-1/2 inch chunks. Grate cheese. Mince chilies. Mix four and 1 T cumin and salt/pepper to taste for dredging chicken. Heat oil in pan for a quick sear of chicken. Dredge chicken chunks in flour mix and add to pan in non-overlapping single layer, will need to do this in batches. Brown chick on and remove to platter. Don’t cook to death or dry it out.

When done with chicken, toss chilies into pan and cook over low hear for a minute or so. Add sour cream, start with 1 cup, and gently warm. Add cheese and mix until melted. Add extra sour cream to create desired consistency. I add extra cumin if desired (I do.) Add chicken and any juices back to pan and gently warm. Serve with rice.

Serves 4

Chicken and broccoli semi-fail

Tonight my intention was to make a modified version of Lane's rosemary chicken and some broccoli casserole of some sort. Aaaahhhh, best laid plans. When I went to start smoking the chicken, it was still partially frozen, so stuffing under the skin was out of the question. Therefore, the chicken is just Chicken slow smoked (under 275F at all times) for four hours a la Mechazawa, which is of course fabulous in its own rights.

I tried again (and semi-failed again) with the broccoli. I sort of made up a recipe from an amalgam of things that didn't involve cheese (which I didn't want, because I already was having meat). I swapped out rice flour for the wheat flour. I was hoping for a souffle, but as you can see in the picture, I sort of got a custard. I'm going to give the recipe, because it was fluffy and really good, so even if it doesn't turn into a souffle it's worth the effort. Hopefully I'll take advantage of my own notes at the end to make it superlative the next time.

Broccoli Souffle - or Custard
Serves 4

12 oz fresh broccoli
4 eggs
1/4 c fat (I used butter)
1/4 c flour (I used rice)
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
1/4 t cayenne
1 c milk
2 t lemon juice
1/8 t nutmeg
1/4 t cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a souffle dish with whatever fat you're using to make the roux.

Steam the broccoli for 12 minutes or until done. (see note below)

Separate the eggs. Whip the egg whites until soft peaks form. Beat the egg yolks until well blended.

In a large saucepan, heat the butter. When it is just beginning to bubble, add the flour, salt, pepper and cayenne. Cook until bubbly but still white. Add the milk, stirring constantly to avoid lumps. Cook until thickened. (see note below)

Temper the egg yolks by slowly adding about half the hot roux to them while stirring rapidly. Pour this back into the pan. Add the lemon juice and nutmeg. If your saucepan is large enough, also add the broccoli (mine wasn't, so I just put the broccoli right into the souffle pan.). Fold in the beaten egg whites. Pour all into the souffle pan. If the broccoli was already in the souffle pan, stir gently to combine. Bake 40 - 45 minutes.

NOTES: OK, the broccoli was supposed to fluff up a lot, but as the picture shows, it didn't. Some thoughts:
1. (my most probably explanation) the saucepan was too hot and cooked the sauce prematurely so it didn't have a chance to rise in the oven. Take the saucepan off the heat once the roux is starting to thicken, and do everything else off the heat until you put it in the oven.
2. Maybe there's some element of gluten that makes things fluff and the direct rice flour-to-wheat flour substitution just doesn't cut it.
3. Maybe if I'd mashed or pureed the broccoli rather than leave it in bigger pieces, it would have risen more.

In any event, it was good enough to have like this, and to try to improve. So, onward!

Slow-Cooked Lamb Shanks

Rehearsal day for me so it's a crock pot recipe. No pics, sorry. This is adapted and shrunk from an About.com recipe.

Braised Slow-Cooker Lamb Shanks
Serves 2

2 lamb shanks
1/2 red onion
1-2 t Bulldog Worcestershire* (or use regular Worchestershire)
dash salt
2 garlic cloves (would have used more but that was all I had)
1-1/2 c beef stock
1 10-oz can diced tomatoes and chilis
1 T mixed Italian green herbs (oregano, basil, thyme, etc.)
1 t ground allspice
1 bay leaf
fat for browning shanks (I used bacon grease)
*Bulldog is an inexpensive brand of Japanese Worcestershire sauce. It's quite different from my standard Lee & Perrins. But if you use regular it will be fine.

Brown the shanks on all sides.

While they are browning, thickly slice both the onion and garlic. If any of the mushrooms are really big, halve or quarter them. Separate the onion and scatter the onion rings at the bottom of the crock pot. (You'll put the garlic and mushrooms on later.)

When the shanks have browned, pour the Worchestershire over and turn the shanks to coat. Put the shanks and any sauce in the crock pot. Lightly salt the shanks. Arrange the garlic slices over. Put in the mushrooms.

Mix the stock, can of tomatoes and chilis (including juice), and spices. Pour over the shanks. The tomatoes will kind of coat the top of the lamb; that's fine.

Cook the heck out of it - all day on low, or until tender.

Savoryish ketchup

Ketchup weekend. I also have a barbecue sauce and a baked bean recipe that I will post sometime, as well.

1 T olive oil
1 sm onion
1/2 C sugar
2 T ground cinnamon
1 t ground allspice
1 t ground clove
2 C unseasoned rice vinegar
1 1/2 lb tomatoes
1 C apple cider
1 T salt
1/2 C orange juice

Peel, seed and roast tomatoes. Dice onion. Saute onion in olive oil until translucent. Add sugar, cinnamon, allspice and clove and stir for a minute or so. Deglaze with vinegar. Add tomatoes, cider and salt. Simmer for 45 minutes. Transfer to food processor and puree. Add orange juice to desired consistency.

Makes about 2 pints.

In Defense and Praise of Pork Kidneys

I'd been reading a lot about kidneys in preparation for the pork kidneys I did tonight. The general theme was, in essence, 'if you're going to use kidneys, use veal or lamb - don't even bother with anything else.'

I was a bit nervous, because I had only one of the stepchildren - pork kidneys. But one of my older cookbooks said to treat pork kidneys like veal kidneys, so I felt that at least I had a start, and had the courage to proceed.

Maybe it's only because I've not yet had lamb or veal kidneys, but the pork kidneys met the grade and then some. They had this wonderful earthiness and firm but not tough texture. Phil likened it to really good mushrooms, and I think it's a good analogy.

The recipe I adapted called for the kidneys to be sliced. I wasn't sure about the direction, so I sliced one lengthwise and one widthwise. I didn't notice a difference, but Phil preferred the widthwise slicing because it put the fat (on the slices with fat) in the center instead of running along the ends.

In addition to the recipe provided here, I think the pork kidneys would be good sliced and sauteed in bacon fat, ghee or lard as breakfast meat.

Flambeed Kidneys
Adapted from Madeline Kamman's The New Making of a Cook.
Serves 4 (I made a half batch, but all of the sauce)

4 pork kidneys
2 T oil of your choice (I used lard)
salt and pepper to taste
2 oz bourbon or Cognac or Armagnac, divided in 2 1-oz portions
2/3 c stock of your choice (I used beef)
1-1/2 t German yellow mustard (see note below)
1-1/2 t Strong Dijon mustard (see note below)
1/4 t san on tou (Japanese brown sugar; see note below)
3 T unsalted butter at room temperature

NOTE: the recipe calls for equal parts Dusseldorf and hot honey mustard. I had neither and made the substitution of yellow and Dijon mustard plus some san on tou. It was really good. I think you can be flexible here.

FURTHER NOTE: The recipe calls for you to serve this on crustless toasted rounds of French bread. While that would soak up some of the sauce, I don't think it would add to the overall taste or effect.

THE LAST NOTE FOR THIS RECIPE: They call for you to use a sauteuse pan but (as you can see in the pictures) since it didn't need to be covered or stewed I felt more comfortable using my standard Griswold iron pan. It worked just fine.

Instructions:

Trim the fat and remove the membrane from the kidneys. Mine came very well cleaned, as the first post picture shows.

Heat the oil in a large pan. Salt and pepper the kidneys lightly. Raise heat to high under the pan. Add the kidneys and stir-fry, making sure to toss or flip so both sides hit the pan. Saute until the kidneys turn gray, or about 1 minute.

Flambe with one ounce of the liquor. Let the flames die out and immediately dump the kidneys and the sauce into a colander. Let drain.

This picture shows the kidneys sitting in the colander, draining.

Return the pan to the heat. Add the stock and remaining liquor. Reduce to 1/2 cup over medium heat. When reduced, turn the heat all the way down and pull the pan off the heat.

Off the heat, add the mustards and mix well with the pan juices.

Return the pan to the heat. Turn the heat up until it just barely starts to simmer. Do not bring back to a boil. Turn the heat down to low again.

Return the kidneys to the pan and, while shaking tha pan back and forth over the heat, fluff in the butter tablespoon by tablespoon.

Correct seasoning and serve. As you can see, this is served with kale. I cook my kale by just sauteeing it and stirring until it is limp. I only add a touch of water if I need to. Tonight, I put some of the extra sauce over the kale and it was really good.

Offal for the Economy

Yesterday Phil picked up meat from our pork guy, Bill from Babes in the Woods farm. Because Bill didn't have bacon :-( and I have lots of meat laid in, it was all offal.

We ended up with 4.something pounds of liver, 2 pork kidneys, a spleen, and a heart (so figure, in all, enough for at least 8 and probably 10 meals for the two of us) for just over $13. So, I'm getting forest-raised premium creature at less than $2 a pound. The fact that so far anyway I'm just blown away by how good organs taste only adds to my amazement.

Making the kidneys tonight; hopefully the trend will hold!

Sun-dried tomato and prosciutto sauce

Not really sure what to say about this. I will comment that it is not a particularly pretty dish. It’s a simple pasta sauce, though it could easily be used on top of any grain, too. Or, just eat with nothing added. It is fairly rich.

1 lb Roma tomatoes
1 C onion, diced
1 T garlic, minced
1 jalapeno
1/4 lb chunk prosciutto
1/2 lb zucchini
sun-dried tomotoes
4 T grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 C cream
1/2 t dried chilled flakes
salt and pepper

Peel, seed and chop tomato in 1/2 dice. Seed jalapeno and mince. Julienne prosciutto. Slice zucchini into 1/4 inch thick rounds. Chop sun-dried tomatoes into 1/4 inch chunks, you'll want about 1/4 cup.

Sauté onion and pepper in 3 T butter until onion is translucent. Add garlic and stir until fragrant. Add prosciutto, stir for a minute and add zucchini and simmer for another minute. Toss in Roma tomatoes and simmer 10-12 minutes.

From a preparation stand point, this can just sit until you are ready to finish the dish and serve with whatever else is going with it.

To finish, add sun-dried tomatoes, chili flakes, cheese and cream and heat through. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Serves 4.

I served it over pasta with some more Parmesan and a salad made with greens, tomato, mushrooms, hearts of palm and garbanzo beans.

Ketchup-Scrap Casserole

I couldn't let three cups of perfectly good tomatoes and onions go to waste. So after some thought, I came up with a casserole.

Courtney's Ketchup-Scrap Casserole
Serves 4

Tomato and onion scraps from making (New Old-Time Ketchup)
1 T Vietnamese chili-garlic sauce
1/4 t salt (yes, you really need this much)
1 t ground black pepper (ditto)
1/8 t cinnamon
2 - 4 T fresh ketchup if you have any left over after canning
3 eggs
1/2 c buttermilk or milk or cream
2 oz cheese (I used smoked swiss)
Lard to grease pan

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease an 8" square casserole. Mix together scraps, sauce, and spices. Put in greased pan. Beat eggs and milk product together and pour over scraps. Stir around a bit so that it will all hold together. Shred cheese over top. Bake 40 min. Serve hot.

Here's what it looks like coming out of the oven. It is *really* fluffy and nice. You could make this for company and nobody would know it came from scraps. It does need the spices and cheese, though. The fun part is you don't get to make it again until you make more ketchup!

New Old-Time Tomato Ketchup

Used the last of the ketchup last week, so I made more today. This is the basis of my recipe, from Canning Preserving and Jelly Making by Janet McKenzie Hill, 1915.

"Old-time Tomato Catsup: Slice a peck of ripe tomatoes and two dozen onions. Let them boil one hour. Then press through a sieve. Add one quart of vinegar, one pint of port wine, one tablespoon of ground cloves, one tablespoon of allspice, half an ounce of mace, four nutmegs, grated, one tablespoon and a half of pepper, one scant teaspoonful of cayenne, and half a cup of salt. Scald over the fire and store in fruit jars or in bottles, covering the corks with sealing wax."
A peck of tomatoes is about 16 pounds. The first time I made a full batch and it took two days and every pot I had in the house. I made half that for this batch. Seasonings are highly variable and I like mine on the spicy side; the only measures I keep are for the vinegar, salt and port wine, as I think they may have preservative properties.

New Old-Time Tomato Ketchup
Makes 3 - 6 pints depending on how thick you like it

8 lbs tomatoes
3 lbs yellow onions
2 c water
2c vinegar
1 c port wine (I use ruby; not sure if it matters)
1T ground cloves
1T ground allspice
.3 oz mace (about 5t)
2 grated nutmegs
1T ground black pepper
1t cayenne
1/4 c salt

Slice the onions and tomatoes, add the water, and bring to a slow boil in a large pot. (The first picture in the post shows the tomatoes and onions and illustrates why you don't want to do a full batch unless you're sure you can handle it!) Boil until very well cooked, 1 - 2 hours. Cool slightly and transfer to another large bowl or pot.
This picture shows the tomatoes and onions after they have boiled.

Using an immersion blender, or blending in batches in a food processor, blend the result to break up the stringy bits.Pass the pulp through a Foley food mill (here is Phil taking his turn at the crank) and back into the large stock pot. Once you are done, you should have about 3 - 4 cups of solids left over. Save these for (Ketchup Scrap Casserole).

Add the vinegar, sugar salt and spices. The picture above shows the ketchup after it's been through the food mill and the spices have been added. Bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer and reduce until it reaches desired consistency. It will not thicken much more in the jars. This is highly variable based on what you like.

I like my ketchup on the "saucy" side, so I made a little more than a 1/2 reduction from where I started. It took a little more than 2 hours to sufficiently reduce.

Meanwhile, bring a dozen half-pint mason jars and their lids to a boil in a canning jar. This should be more than you need even if you like your ketchup as thin as I do, but it's much better than not having enough! Boil 10 minutes then turn heat down. Keep off the boil but hot.When ready, remove the jars and lids and ladle the ketchup into the jars, leaving 1/4" of headspace. Position the lids and screw down the bands finger tight. Process for 10 minutes in a boiling-water bath.

(Now the hardest part) Wait at least 2 weeks before using. This is important. If you taste the ketchup just after you made it, it will be impossibly salty. But after a couple of weeks the spices seem to meld and the saltiness is not so overpowering.