KitchenKatalog: Blog 153

Made a big batch of Carne Adovada again. Followed my regular recipe pretty normally. I did it with 2 cups of the pepper water to try to kick up the spice. I also (probably) went pretty heavy on the spices.

Meredith put it in the oven and it cooked for like 4 hours and then I did another 1/2 hour uncovered.

Singapore Noodles

Meredith prepped, and then I cooked, Singapore Noodles from Spoon Fork Bacon (LOCAL). The big note of changes were:

As I was cooking it, I added salt, and more of both powders, but it still needed more salt for next time. But, we liked it and would do it again! The burned crispy bits of the noodles were really good.

Enchilada Casserole

I made Enchilada Casserole the night before for us (including my mom). I made it with 2 lbs of ground turkey. The only thing I needed to do to accommodate my mom was to make sure the red chile sauce didn't have flour. That was not a problem since Santa Fe Ole was gluten free.

It made a lot of it and I used the entire jar of sauce. It came out really good, though way too wet. I also made two extra little ones (and the main one was way too full)

Carne Adovada

I didn't take a photo but I made a big thing of Carne Adovada. I basically followed the recipe but noted that you can adjust the heat with the amount of the water. I cut up the pork loin into smaller pieces so they were bite sides. I liked it a lot and let it simmer for ~4 hours covered¹ plus 1/2 an hour uncovered to reduce. It was really good!

I recall doing it at 310°F since I think the oven is a bit cool ↩

Huevos

I made huevos rancheros for Meredith and my mom. My mom doesn't like any runny egg so on hers (lower) I separately fried and fully cooked eggs. Meredith had a normal one and I had the small one since I wasn't too hungry. I did it with green chile and leftover rotisserie chicken.

Sun-dried Tomato Pesto Eggs Benedict

First time cooking since we had Caroline! I made Meredith some sun-dried tomato pesto eggs benedict. I just used that basic recipe for the hollandaise. I cheated on the eggs and fried them (and for a little bit too long...oops). I used Boars Head Tavern ham.

Turkey Tacos

Biscotti (Christmas Style & Lemon Poppy seed)

I thought it would be nice to make and bring biscotti to the hospital for all of the doctors and nurses. I figured I'd make them ahead of time and freeze them.

So I pulled out my dad's trusty biscotti recipe and, without thinking, planned to make the basic kind I made for christmas. Unfortunately, that required I made my own candied cherries since they are hard to find this time of year (see below). In making them, I also figured out a trick to transfer (see below).

But anyway, the first (and originally only) batch came out pretty good, but I was looking at my dad's recipe and realized I really missed an opportunity. Meredith really likes lemon poppy seed and I didn't even think to make them. So what was I to do? I made another batch the next day. I used the recipe with the tips at the bottom though I went even heavier on both lemon ingredients. I also sliced these a bit thicker just to make my life easier. They also came out really good. Not the rich lemon flavor I was originally hoping for, but unmistakably lemon. According to my Dad, Emily sometimes uses lemon extract so maybe that is worth trying in the future too.

Anyway, now I have two giant bags of biscotti to bring with us! (and there were smaller bags leftover from each batch. We still have the lemon but we brought the Christmas-style to a friends' house)

Tips for transferring biscotti

I think I finally got it, though I broke one of the logs "getting it". After the biscotti have cooled for the 10 minutes, the first goal is to get them off of a rimmed sheet so you can more easily get in there.

To do this, I slide a big cutting board under the silpat from the long side (I originally did the short way and broke one). Then, I used a pastry spatula to slide under. Then, using another cutting board of the same thickness, I slid it over with the short side first (so I could better place it). It wasn't perfect, but seemed to work well enough

Cherries

As I noted above, I had to make my own cherries since I couldn't find them². I used the recipe from King Arthur Flour (LOCAL) and intended to stay pretty true to it. The only planned change was the reduce the final temp by about 10°F to align with the boiling point of water in Albuquerque¹. However, it went from needing 10° more to being 25° over! Oops! I made the "executive decision" to take them out of the liquid while they were hot as opposed to letting it cool as per the recipe. This was a good idea since the remaining sugar turned into a tough taffy and I would have never been able to free them.

I ended up adding them to the batter one-by-one (as I could free them) so they wouldn’t all stick. That also made them break up a bit more than they would have otherwise but I think that is fine.

When it comes to candy making, adjusting for altitude is actually a bit easier than other types of baking. Temperature is a proxy for the ratio since you are constantly at the boiling point. Since the boiling point for water is depressed by the lack of pressure at high-altitude, the candy should be adjusted the same. ↩
My Dad later told me that he has seen them at craft stores like Michael's. I didn't think to look there and just tried WalMart since someone on the internet said they found them there. ↩