Good Eats Episodes 4, 5 and 28
Having not touched the book for a few months, I got back to it on Saturday night. I made our entire dinner from the Good Eats book. Unfortunately that wasn’t an easy task since a lot of the recipes call for different cooking temperatures or methods but I ended up coming up with a combination that worked for us.
- Episode 4: Veni Vedi Vinaigrette
- Episode 5: B&B Chicken
- Episode 28: Better-than-Grammy’s Creamed Corn
I made the vinaigrette a couple of hours before dinner and it turned out great. I prepared our salad the way Alton specified in this episode; hand washing the lettuce before gently drying it (sorry Alton, I’ve got no salad spinner) and tearing it by hand. As he specified, I put some dressing in the bottom of a large bowl and used my hands to mix it over the greens mere seconds before we were ready to eat. I have no clue why I never did that before — it came out perfect. The greens weren’t wilted and all had dressing on them.
I’m not sure I butterflied the chicken properly, but it worked out. In fact, it cooked a bit more quickly than I expected — the breast meat was dry, but the legs and thighs were absolutely perfect. The skin was beautifully crispy, and the red wine gravy was a perfect accompaniment. And then there was the creamed corn.
You have never eaten creamed corn before. I don’t care if you think you did — you didn’t, unless you’ve had this creamed corn. It was the highlight of our meal. The kernels were crispy, there was real cream in it, and the whole thing had amazing corn flavor. Unfortunately I only had enough corn for a half batch — otherwise I would have leftovers so that I could make the cornbread that was featured in the same episode. I’m going to be making the creamed corn again soon so we can try the bread. I’m not kidding — this recipe was our favorite part of dinner.
Catching Up
It’s been a while since I’ve written much. I ended up being sent on a last-minute business trip to Huntsville the week of April 19th. Term papers and final projects were due for my college classes last week. I just got back from a business trip to Orlando this week. Finished the last of my final exams this morning. Time to start being a human again.
We’ve got 40+ mph winds here today; it’s crazy.
I have tomatoes, peppers (bell, hot banana, red hot cherry, and cubanelle), sweet onions, green onions, carrots, radishes, green and yellow squash, cucumbers, lettuce, spinach, brussels sprouts, oregano, parsley, mint, basil, cilantro, green beans and rhubarb in the ground. Wow, that’s a lot of stuff. I still have one more variety of tomatoes to get down and then I think I’m done.
I’m also happy to report that I’m almost famous.
In March and April I was working on a magazine article on software assurance. After responding to some comments that the editors had, I was informed this week that they’ve accepted it and sent it in as part of the package for the September/October issue. This certainly doesn’t mean that it will get published; apparently the decision about what gets published and what doesn’t in this magazine is made by Department of Homeland Security. For those of you who are in the Defense industry, keep an eye out for the September/October issue of CrossTalk. If DHS liked it, my article will be in there; if not then it will be held by the editors for a future issue. It’s not a paid thing, but it is very exciting … at least for me.
Also in the area of exciting: one of my major clients, Xerox, has asked me to participate in a webinar that they will be doing this month about security features of multifunction devices (copiers, for you laymen). I will be speaking about the Common Criteria during the webinar. An announcement was emailed out to their customers, but nothing is on the website yet. I’ll link it here when it does go live. Again, not life changing but very exciting for me. These small opportunities give me a sense of validation that I am an expert in my field.
In general, March and April brought me amazing highs (me, famous? Mamma Mia! on Broadway?) and insane lows (how many people get rejected by Korea for adoption, exactly?). I’ve been looking forward to some downtime this month to get my classes finished, my veggies in the ground, and back to being a human being….. before classes start again on June 1st. *ugh*
NYC 2010 – Mamma Mia!
John has been taunting me with a surprise since January. He told my close friend Diane what the surprise was — so she knew for 2 months! But I didn’t get to find out until the week before. The surprise was a day-trip to New York City (via Amtrak) to see Mamma Mia! on Broadway.
We got to NYC around 10am and wandered around for a couple of hours. Along the way we stopped at Starbucks for warm drinks. Neither of us realized how many there are in NYC; I swear, there is one on every corner! We stopped in the Times Square information center to get some maps and brochures of what’s in the area (because we did have some time to kill). While we were in there, we saw an exhibit of little pieces of colored paper tacked to a wall with notes on them. It turns out that since 2007, the folks that drop the ball have been putting out pieces of colored confetti for people to write wishes on. On New Years Eve, this confetti is what gets tossed off the top of buildings onto the crowd below. The temptation was too great — I had to write out my wish for NYE 2011. Can you guess what it was? LOL
Eventually we needed some lunch so we stopped at an Irish pub for fish and chips. It wasn’t the world’s greatest – -that honor still goes to Yorkshire County Fish Shop at Epcot. The bread was soggy, but the fish and the tartar sauce were tasty. John enjoyed a black and tan while he was there.
And then the show. The theatre was very small. The show was absolutely awesome; 100x better than the movie. If there had to be a first time ever for seeing a real show on Broadway, then this was the best one John could have picked. By the end, everyone was standing up and dancing — except for me because I felt bad for the little kids in the row behind me who couldn’t see.
We had such a great day. It was so nice to get away, just us, with no cell phones ringing, a good time to look forward to after the hard time we’ve had recently, and we had all day long to just talk.
Bourbon Brown Sugar Glazed Ham
Enough of the depressing stuff; here is the seriously awesome ham that I made for our Easter Dinner for two.
- 1/2 fully cooked smoked bone-in ham, not spiral cut (about 10 pounds)
- 1-1/2 cups packed brown sugar
- 3/4 cup dijon mustard
- 6 tablespoons bourbon
Trim all but 1/4 inch of fat from the ham, and score remaining fat in a criss-cross pattern, just deep enough to reach the meat without cutting it. Place ham, fat side up, on a rack in a roasting pan. Add 2 cups of water to the bottom of the pan. Tightly cover ham with foil and bake as directed on the package.
Mix brown sugar, mustard, and bourbon well, and set aside.
When the internal temperature of the ham reaches 100 degrees, begin basting every 20 minutes with the glaze. Continue baking until internal temperature of the ham reaches 160 degrees. Remove the ham from the oven and let stand 30 minutes before carving. The glaze in the bottom of the roasting pan can be used as a dipping sauce or thickened into a gravy for serving.
