Ugh. Well, this time it wasn’t our fault. We followed Thomas Keller’s recipe and got it to the right consistency, but the pork belly we picked from Whole Foods was mostly fat and hardly any meat (which we didn’t realize till after cooking it). So, what we had was just a huge puddle of rendered fat and a huge mound of braised fat. Not good.
Photos to come tomorrow.
Seems like the plants are doing quite well! I’m hoping some veggies will start growing soon. We’re getting there, but I think we still have about a month of waiting to do. The pole beans are doing about the same, but they’re basically at the top of the trellis. The cucumbers have sprouted some feelers and flowers and the squash have blossoms.
I think we’re looking pretty good! I’m hoping those squash blossoms grow a little bit more so I can harvest them. I don’t want to harvest too many since they’re the males and I need them to pollenate the females below. We’ll see. One of the blossoms already fell off its stem. I’m wondering if they won’t grow too much more because I’m growing them in a pot instead of in the ground, or maybe it’s the type of squash. It’s going to be a surprise what kind I’m growing because there are different types of summer squash. What I’m really excited about making is pickles. I have a feeling I’ll be making a lot of those this fall.
I’ve also been documenting our pork belly experiment with Thomas Keller’s recipe. That’ll be the next post! We’re going to be eating it tomorrow. It’s been an interesting process, but hopefully this time, we’ll be successful! (I have earlier posts about our pork belly failures if you’d like to indulge)
Welcome to the Bedford Avenue stop in Williamsburg. I took this video with my BlackBerry. How cool is the woman playing the saw?
Dr. Awesome and I were on a mission: find a blender, wine rack, jug for iced tea, iced coffee maker and some other stuff I’m forgetting. We went to a small kitchen shop called Whisk. We love this store because they have such great stuff and we’re supporting a local place. They have a booth in the new Limelight Marketplace. We ended up getting an ice coffee press (in green!), a tea ball, a new glass water bottle and some stuff to vacuum seal our wine bottles.
Once done, our adventure took us to Sur La Table, where we bought an awesome Cuisinart blender and also found a great pitcher for iced tea. I’ve never been a huge iced tea person, but because of the disgusting, humid weather we’ve been having here in NYC, its become a very refreshing drink. I figured, why keep buying when I can make my own? I have a ton of Earl Grey Creme tea from Teavana and it just sits there until the winter. Might as well use it!
Our journey ended at Whole Foods where they had some pork belly (finally!). For our next project, we’re going to be using our ad hoc at home book by Thomas Keller and will try his pork brine recipe. I’ll be documenting that here. We’re also going to attempt making hummus for the first time too now that we have a blender.
No wine rack today, but maybe tomorrow.
I ate with a friend at Moritmoto last night. That guy can do no wrong. We shared his hot spicy king crab. I can’t even begin to describe how amazing it was. It had tobanjan (hot bean sauce) aioli and micro cilantro. It melted in your mouth. I kid you not when I told my friend I wanted to just eat this and only this all night. For my entree, I had the “duck, duck, duck” which consisted of a foie gras croissant (that had sliced duck breast inside), roast duck leg and a soft duck egg and came with two dipping sauces. My friend had the angry chicken which had roasted finger peppers (angry!!!) and spiced chicken jus. I’ve always thought, without a doubt, that Morimoto is the best Iron Chef. You can’t order sushi there because you can get sushi anywhere. Do what we did and order his main dishes. I can’t wait to go back there.
Tonight, Dr. Awesome and I are heading to The Modern – Bar Room. I’ve heard great things. It’s been a delicious weekend so far to say the least.
Cold sesame noodles with chicken! Everyone had such awesome suggestions and I wanted to make them all. I remembered that I had leftover chicken thighs that I made the other day with some mushrooms and I figured an easy way to use them up was to just buy some soba noodles and green onions. The only thing I had to cook were the noodles.
The chicken I made had salt, pepper, garlic powder and chili flakes with sauteed mushrooms and brussel sprouts (those were eaten earlier).
I then chopped up some green onion and put it all in a container with some soy sauce and sesame oil to marinate for a little in the fridge.
I cooked the soba noodles and let them cool, then combined all the ingredients in a bowl with some more soy and sesame oil, plus some sesame seeds and voila!
A family friend of Dr. Awesome’s suggested some pickled herring with boiled potatoes and sour cream. That sounded delicious. I’m going to have to whip that up sometime! They’re from Sweden, so it’ll be a Scandinavian inspired dish! Plus, I love dill (an herb they use a lot there). It’s also something that’s used in Jewish cooking. When I was in Israel, some of the foods they made for Shabbat had dill and it brought back so many memories of my grandmother’s cooking. It’s really amazing how taste can bring out such a reaction. I was basically taken back to when I was a little girl eating her chicken noodle soup and gefilte fish (they served both) with the purple horseradish.
The plants are doing alright. I think cause it’s been so hot and the sun angle changed, they’re having a little bit of a rough time. The cucumbers were really droopy when I got home today, but I watered them and they perked right up. Phew.
I’ll be putting some Israel photos up tomorrow!
Again everyone, thanks so much for your “cool” dinner suggestions! Once we get a blender/food processor (don’t ask, I don’t know how we’ve survived) I’ll be trying out all sorts of stuff!
Hmmm, trying to come up with ideas for a “cool” dinner since I have no desire to light up the stove. Anyone have any suggestions? I’m looking up some stuff. I’ll update if I come up with anything! Oh, and we don’t have a blender or food processor (blasphemy, I know!), so this could get interesting.
I YUM New York 