Tag: Food

So I’ve been intrigued for a while about the idea of cold-brewing coffee. This is a method whereby one extracts the flavors and oils from coffee not with hot water, but with cold. (Duh!) Basically, you mix ground coffee and cold water and let it sit out, at room temperature, for a long time: 12 to 24 hours. Then you strain out the coffee, resulting in a concentrated coffee extract that, because it was done at a low temperature, cuts down on the coffee’s acidity.

So I acquired a really nice glass bottle, hunted around for recipes (eventually settling on this one), and away I went! Here’s the pictorial tale.

First, I measure out coffee: 4.5 oz of it. Which turns out to be quite a bit of coffee.

Into the bottle goes the coffee. Most recipes I’ve looked at say to use a fairly coarse grind, since the long steeping time will be used and since it’ll be easier to strain it out later on.

Then, into the bottle goes the water: 3.5 cups of it.

This results in a pretty gross-looking sludge. Don’t worry! This is normal.

Now came the waiting game. I did the prep part of the job at 4:30 in the afternoon, and I did the straining around 8:00 the next morning.

Straining turned out to be…problematic. The recipe I used said to simply put a standard paper coffee filter into a fine-mesh strainer and pour the sludge through there, slowly, and let it drain into a bowl. The problem is that when I did this, the paper filter clogged up almost immediately; the initial slow pour of coffee slowed in minutes to a slow drip, and then stopped altogether. I tried another filter, and the same thing happened. This was a problem, obviously. So I dispensed with the paper filters: I poured the coffee mixture through the fine-mesh strainer into the bowl, and then, after cleaning the glass bottle, I strained the coffee again, through the same strainer, back into the glass bottle.

The result? Here’s my coffee concentrate, after double-straining and several hours of refrigeration.

Yes, it’s only half the bottle. But it is, after all, a concentrate, so you’re not going to use that stuff straight. (Well, I suppose you could, if you wanted to. It’s your nervous system, folks. I’m not the bossa you!) The idea is to dilute the coffee concentrate, with whatever it is that you typically like. You could use water, I suppose, but that seems goofy. I used milk, in equal portions. Here’s what I ended up with:

And then:

I have to tell you: this is really pretty tasty. In the future I think I’ll use the half-size tumbler for this, though; a glass that size is a lot of this stuff to drink at once. And I’m kind of wondering if I don’t need to use one percent milk or maybe even two percent, because we only keep skim milk around, and for this kind of drink, I kind of miss the mouth-feel I get from a little bit of fat content.

And of course, there’s a virtual galaxy of flavorings I could add to the mix. On a future iteration, I may well try adding a teaspoon of cinnamon to the coffee during the steeping. And if I get into this in a big way, I might start keeping the finished concentrate in smaller glass bottles (of which I have a few floating around, from commercially-prepared iced tea) so I can start the process over again with my main bottle.

Ah, coffee. You make things possible!

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No, not the snow. Ice cream.

For the past couple of years I’ve been hearing about a local outfit that makes artisanal ice cream, called Lake Effect Ice Cream, after our region’s most notable climate feature. Problem is, by ‘local’, I mean within thirty miles of Buffalo, and in the opposite direction from Casa Jaquandor. Lake Effect Ice Cream is located in Lockport, NY, which is quite a road trip from lovely Orchard Park. In other words, we weren’t road-tripping just for ice cream. (What else is there in Lockport, anyway? I’m genuinely curious. If there’s a good reason to road-trip, I’m game.)

But now, the Lake Effect folks have grown big enough to be able to start putting their wares in local stores, one of which actually is about fifteen minutes away from Casa Jaquandor. So off we went today to pick some up.

And…wow.

I had the Salty Caramel; The Wife had the Loganberry. I suppose Salty Caramel is self-explanatory, but for anyone not from Western New York, “Loganberry” probably needs some explanation. Loganberries are a kind of hybrid berry, between blackberries and red raspberries. They are also a very popular flavor of fruit beverage in these parts, not unlike fruit punch. There are few things more satisfying on a hot summer evening than a glass of loganberry drink accompanying a hot dog and fries. Some places have loganberry milkshakes, and now, Lake Effect makes a Loganberry ice cream.

The Salty Caramel is very, very good. The Loganberry is amazing.

We’ll be trying more flavors, obviously. I saw one called “The Aud”, which claims to use as a base “Labatt Blue ice cream”. Ice cream, flavored like the area’s favorite lager beer? Really? Can that be possible?

I will find out, and report!

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Food has become a bit of a challenge here at Casa Jaquandor of late, as The Wife has found it necessary to adopt a gluten-free diet. For the most part, we find that eating gluten-free is not that hard, as long as you are (a) diligent in checking the ingredients of what you eat, and (b) curious and willing to explore foods you’re unfamiliar with. The Wife is very wide in her tastes and willing to try new foods, so while some favorites have slipped beyond our grasp, we’ve found other things to eat and we continue to look for ways to get back some stuff that’s been ruled out. (I, personally, am not on a gluten-free diet, but it’s often easier to just go that way, simply because it seems silly to make two meals every night.)

Anyway, one thing we’ve been stymied on is meatballs. We’ve always loved spaghetti and meatballs. We have found gluten-free spaghetti, but gluten-free meatballs have been a bit more difficult. So I figured it was time to take matters into my own hands.

Now, meatballs are one of those things I’ve always thought I should be making myself anyway, but never did because I was just lazy about it. This was the time, though, so I bought a package of hot italian sausage links and removed the meat from the casings. Then I mixed the meat by hand with a cup of gluten-free panko crumbs, about half a cup of grated Parmesan, two eggs, and about a half cup of milk. After that, it was a simple matter of shaping the meatballs and baking them at 400 degrees for about twenty-five minutes. The result? Wonderful meatballs that The Wife can eat! We had a few of them for dinner, and now the rest are in the freezer. (My total yield was about 36 meatballs.)

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So, in my ongoing efforts to become more culinarily self-reliant, I’ve taken to cooking whole chickens in the crockpot. This, it turns out, is cheaper than buying chicken parts when I need just regular chicken meat for a soup or salad or something. And it’s incredibly easy. I just rinse the chicken, pat it dry, and toss him in the pot. Then I cover him with salt, pepper, and whatever spices I feel like grabbing.

The best thing about this procedure, though, isn’t the large amount of cooked chicken I end up with. It’s the next part of the process, because now I’ve begun making my own chicken stock, too.

After we eat whatever of the freshly-cooked chicken we plan on, I bone the rest of the bird and then throw all the remaining parts of the carcass back into the pot (retaining all those wonderful juices that the bird itself exuded whilst crocking away for eight to ten hours). I’m talking skin, bone, fat, gristle, all of it. I cut up a couple of carrots, some celery, an onion, and a head of garlic; into the pot they go. Same with a quartered lemon. Then I cover the entire works with water, put the lid on, and crock the works on low for another twelve hours. The result?

In the words of Emeril Lagasse, ‘Oh yeah, babe.’

I use my Chinese strainer to remove all the big chunks of veggies, bone, fat, and assorted whatnot (if we lived someplace with a yard, I suppose this stuff could go in a compost pile, but we don’t, so into the trash with it).

Then I ladle the broth through a fine sieve to remove the tiny particles of stuff…

…and after that, I have a whole bunch of tasty, unsalted chicken stock. We’ve been portioning it into 8oz servings and freezing it. Having homemade stock on hand is a great feeling, and I’m already thinking of getting beef bones so I can make my own beef stock, too. I can certainly say that my days of using store-bought stocks or bouillon powder are over. Had I known it was this easy–!

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