Let summer begin

Pernil. Started on the grill, finished in the oven. About 8 pounds of it.

It’s Memorial Day.

Yesterday was the first of several summer pilgrimages down to Lake Greeson, a less-crowded lake than my lake, where I have a standing deal that I come down and bring dinner and I get to bask on my friends’ boat all day.

This was dinner: Pernil, Sunday beans, rice, slaw and peach/cherry cobbler.

And it wasn’t half bad, if I did cook it myownself.

Sunday beans. Bacon and onion, simmered in orange and pineapple juice, with cumin, coriander and chile powder.

Finished it off with a fruit cobbler featuring farmer’s market peaches (tiny, but oh-so-sweet) and Bing cherries, because I love me a cherry and I found them for the first time this spring in the grocery.

The pernil is a big chunk of Boston butt — which had precious little fat on it, by the way, giving rise to some concern it wouldn’t be tender, but it was) marinated overnight in a paste of onion, garlic, oregano, cumin, olive oil and pepper,  in the fridge. In my big salad bowl, as I had nothing else large enough in which to marinate it. I started it on the grill when I was cooking Saturday night’s burgers, to take advantage of the charcoal; when the charcoal had burned out, it was about 150 degrees internally, so I moved it to the oven at 300. Turned that off after about an hour, left the thing in the oven overnight, and then turned it back on when I got up the next morning, for about another hour. It was pretty much perfect, if I do say so myownself. Sliced up like a dream — I had originally planned to pull it, but the lack of internal fat meant it sliced really, really well.

The beans — well, you dice four strips of bacon, and while they’re frying up, dice up an onion and four or eleven cloves of garlic or however many you feel like, throw that in and let it soften, toss in a tablespoon of cumin and a teaspoon of coriander and a couple of teaspoons of chile powder, add a cup of orange juice and a half-cup of pineapple juice (seriously!), simmer that a little bit, and then dump in four cans of drained red beans and simmer however long you want to. Then serve it over rice.

Old-fashioned, sweet-tart, and just plain damn good.

And the cobbler. I peeled and sliced about 8 tennis-ball-sized peaches and probably a cup and a half of cherries, simmered them with a couple of tablespoons of amaretto, a half cup of sugar, and about a quarter-cup of water, then put them in the bottom of a foil pan. Mixed up two cups of AP flour, a tablespoon of baking powder, 2 cups of sugar, a cup of milk and two sticks of melted butter, and dolloped that over the fruit. Baked it for about an hour at 350. (The photo is when it had baked about 30 minutes, when I pulled it because we had to head out, and then finished baking it when we got to the lake. It needs to be a nice dark golden brown in order for the doughy part to bake through.) Pretty perfect — not too sweet, not too tart, fed a herd.

The slaw I learned to make from the chief jailer at the Crittenden County Jail, some 30 years ago. It’s shredded cabbage and carrots, with onions and bell pepper if you like (I don’t), all tossed together. Then you heat a cup of cider vinegar, a cup of sugar, a half-cup of water, 1 teaspoon celery seed, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric, and a teaspoon of dry mustard to almost boiling, pour it over the cabbage mix, and let it sit, covered, on the counter for at least two hours; then you can shake or stir it and refrigerate it. Best slaw in the world with barbecue, and it’s not half bad with fried fish, either.

Today will be country style ribs, leftover slaw, potato salad, and probably grilled corn and squash. And we will have officially ushered in summer, though it’s not officially here for another three weeks, but y’know? That’s OK.

You and y’mama ‘n ‘em have a grand old celebration.

Luck and prosperity

Well, I should have the bases covered.

Black-eyed peas. Check.

Cabbage. OK, kraut. Don't quibble. Check.

I got my good luck, I got my prosperity, all here in two pans with copious quantities of smoked sausage. And it makes a damn fine New Year’s meal, particularly with copious quantities of mimosas that I didn’t drink last night.

Happy 2010, and all that good stuff

I hope everyone had as peaceful a New Year’s Eve as I did. Someone had to call me at midnight and wake me up; I’d gone to sleep on the couch, Kindle in hand, reading some thriller novel about folks trapped in a cavern with descendants of the Incas, beneath the Andes. Hey, it was free.

I was planning on going to a party last night. But it was way the hell and gone the other end of the lake, and it was going to be 28 degrees before morning, and I was dealing with the remains of the sinus crud, and there was football and basketball on TV and I’d been to the liquor store and grocery store. That, my friends, is a balance heavily tipped in favor of staying home. So I did. Child C, a partier much after her mama’s heart, stayed home as well. We ate potato-corn chowder, which was quite good.

Today I’ll cook black-eyed peas, and maybe some kraut and smoked sausage, just because one is supposed to have cabbage for NY day as well, and, well, kraut is cabbage, and besides, I’ve got some. And cornbread. May make some shrimp dip to go with chips and football. And think about New Year’s resolutions.

The Christmas recap

Holidays and food. Wonderful combination.

Christmas dinner’s take included a ham and a turkey, as well a broccoli casserole, corn pudding, glazed carrots, wild rice, and I’m sure there was other stuff but I’m not certain I remember what. With eggnog pound cake or peach pie for dessert.

Today for after-Christmas brunch with all my family, it was French toast casserole, quiche, a Spanish tortilla with andouille, roasted sweet potato wedges, cranberry salad, and ham biscuits.

The Christmas tally

In the last five days, I have cooked for the holiday:

• Three batches of fudge
• 1 batch of pralines
• 2 batches of chocolate bark
• a batch of toasted chickpeas
• a batch of toasted black-eyed peas
• two batches of cookies
• two eggnog pound cakes
• three loaves of sweet potato bread
• plus a pot of white bean soup and a pot of beef stew

I may not be back in the kitchen for a while, and certainly not making anything sweet.

Y’all and y’mama ‘n ‘em all have a wonderful Christmas (Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, Solstice, or whatever-the-hell), and get ready for your blackeyed peas for the New Year.

And WHY am I still in the kitchen?

It is Christmas Eve Eve, and I now remember why I don’t bake much. When I get started, I can’t stop.

You will recall last night I made two kinds of cookies, and fixed treat boxes, because I was quite certain there was someone I needed to give something to that I’d forgotten. So far, I have not remembered who that is.

Tonight, after we got off early, I came home and made an eggnog pound cake for Christmas dinner/day-after-Christmas brunch. And it smelled so good, and I’ve got the eggnog, so I’m making another one, because I can bake it up in little loaf pans and it’ll make a nice gift for a couple of friends I know I’ll see in Memphis.

A Grinch-y kind of night

Confession time. I don’t particularly like Christmas. It’s too frantic, we get all too caught up in everything we need to do and ought to do and what people will think less of us if we DON’T do, and it’s just not fun. It hasn’t been fun for a long time, but some years it’s less unpleasant than others.

This is, unfortunately, a more-unpleasant year.

Christmas goodies, Part II: Sweets

My freakin’ TEETH hurt.

This is the picture they're going to put next to "sugar shock" in the dictionary.

By my count, I have incorporated six pounds of sugar, 1 1/2 pounds of butter, about a  quart of assorted kinds of nuts, and a pound and a half each of dark chocolate and white chocolate into a batch of Christmas treats.

Plus I toasted a batch of crostini, and also toasted some pecans in butter and Worcestershire for Sara, because she loves them. And packed up treat bags for the folks at work (well, mostly; I need to add some chocolate bark and pralines, which may mean taking some of the fudge out).

And I made a pot of Tuscan white bean soup — a Big Damn Pot — because the blues society is meeting at my house tonight, which means I need to see if I can get this puppy whipped out, and a shower, and the bread toasted in the next two hours. Whipping out this puppy is winning out, as I am too freakin’ tired to do anything else at the moment, and I write fast, a remnant of the newspaper days.

Christmas goodies update, Part 1: Savories

I am not real sure what led to this, but I have made chicken liver pate this morning. And I’m not real sure why.

I didn't do so good clarifying the butter. Oops.

I’m not a liver fan, though I do like SOME pates. But Elise at Simply Recipes posted a recipe for some this week, and it just hit my “I Want That” switch. Didn’t use Elise’s recipe, though; used the one from Epicurious, here, http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Bourbon-Chicken-Liver-Pate-108720, and followed it slavishly, albeit I think I cooked the livers a little too long, and I used brandy instead of bourbon.

It’s cooling as we speak. I’ve got a couple of loaves of decent French bread in the freezer (sacrilege, I know), and even a couple of demi-baguettes I can toast. It tasted pretty good still warm out of the FoPro; we shall see. If I throw it out, well, livers were cheap, and butter was on sale, and I had the onions and spices and garlic anyway….