Notes from James

Homemade Ice Cream

Made homemade ice cream according to this recipe. Well, close anyway:

• Get a plastic bag, fill it with ice
• Add 6 tablespoons of rock salt. I didn't have this, so I used regular salt.
• Get a ziploc type baggie, fill it with:
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1/2 cup of milk. I used 2%, and added some creamer to get the fat up a bit
• 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla
• Put the little bag in the big bag, and shake for about 5 minutes. It took me about 10 minutes, and I had to add extra salt to get the mixture to freeze. Still not sure why this works, but it seemed to help. That and a lot more shaking.
• Put the big bag in a waterproof container when it starts leaking.

It didn't taste too bad...sort of like crystalized vanilla ice cream. It was a hot day, though, and it was good enough to try again in the future. At least, a good waste of an hour! It always tastes better when homemade. No matter how awful it tastes.

Waves Photographed in a Wine Glass

Ok, the wine glass made music, and this is sort of a science experiment. I filled up a wine glass full of water and ran my finger around it to make a musical tone. I then used my camera to take a picture of the waves. The thought was that I could determine the tone that was being played by counting the waves and doing some math with respect to the circumference. Well, I didn't do any of the math, but got a cool picture of the waves around the outside of the glass.

 

Biscuits 101

Rescued article from Google!

In the same vein as making pasties, I decided to make biscuits. I looked for the simplest recipe that I could find on the internet that took the least effort and the least ingredients. As I didn't search that long, here's what I found.

Baking Powder Biscuits, from a 1933 Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups sifted flour

2 tsp. baking powder

4 tablespoons butter or shortening

1/2 tsp. salt

about 3/4 cup milk

Sift Flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift again. Cut in shortening or butter. (this is where I use my hands by rubbing the butter into the flour). Add milk gradually, stirring until soft dough is formed. Turn out on slightly floured board and lightly "knead" for 30 seconds, enough to shape. Roll 1/2 inch thick and cut with 2 inch floured biscuit cutter. Bake on ungreased sheet in a 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. Makes 12 biscuits. You can also make tiny tea biscuits that are only 1 1/2 inches wide with a small cutter or glass bottom. These are great served with tea, jam or honey. Makes 24.

The Experience

I'm not really sure what "tea biscuits" are. I assume that they are some sort of English biscuit that you eat with tea. Anyway, after mixing and following directions, the biscuits seemed a bit dry. I added a tad bit more milk than called for, to get a nice consistency, based on my vast experience (ha!) of making pancakes. Make sure that you use the floured board before trying to roll, as the dough seems pretty sticky. Also, make sure that you read the tablespoons before you get started, as I had a 1/4 tablespoon and 1/2 tablespoon, and I thought the 1/2 tablespoon was the "normal" tablespoon. I figured this out almost too late, but I got enough baking powder into the mix in time. I hope.

End Result

Not too bad. I tried to bake them a bit longer than stated above, and they were a bit on the dry side. Taste ok with butter though! Yum!

Pasties 101

Well, I'm not a chef. I'm not even a cook. I can barely order McDonald's. However, a few weeks ago, I got a craving for some pasties, a sort of stew-in-a-pie-package that is a delicacy of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I got a recipe off of this web site, and here it is, with my comments. Note! I have not yet eaten them, so if they turn out terrible, well, here is the proof.

Making the Crust

3 c. flour
1 1/2 sticks butter (cold and cut into bits)
1 1/2 tsp. salt
6 tbsp. water

In a large bowl, combine flour, butter and salt. Blend ingredients until well combined and add water, one tablespoon at a time to form a dough. Toss mixture until it forms a ball. Kneed dough lightly against a smooth surface with heel of the hand to distribute fat evenly. Form into a ball, dust with flour, wrap in wax paper and chill for 30 minutes.

My Commentary

This sounds a lot easier than it is in reality. As far as mashing the flour and butter together, I did this with my bare hands as pressing it around a bowl with a wooden spoon was taking too much time and did not seem to be making any good progress. I also ended up added probably somewhere in the range of 10 tbsp of water since it all kept falling it apart, and forming it into a ball was impossible.

Making the Filling

1 lb. round steak, coarsely ground
1 lb. boneless pork loin, coarsely ground
5 carrots, chopped
2 lg. onions, chopped
2 potatoes, peeled and chopped
1/2 c. rutabaga, chopped (can substitute turnip)
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper

Combine all ingredients in large bowl. Divide the dough into 6 pieces, and roll one of the pieces into a 10-inch round on a lightly floured surface. Put 1 1/2 cups of filling on half of the round. Moisten the edges and fold the unfilled half over the filling to enclose it. Pinch the edges together to seal them and crimp them decoratively with a fork. Transfer pasty to lightly buttered baking sheet and cut several slits in the top. Roll out and fill the remaining dough in the same manner. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Put 1 tsp. butter through a slit in each pasty and continue baking for 30 minutes more. Remove from oven, cover with a damp tea towel, cool for 15 minutes.

Milwaukee Journal March 28, 1943 Welsh

Commentary

Well, in writing this up, I realize that I forgot the salt and pepper. I figure that it's not that big a deal as I plan on adding extra salt and pepper at eating time (sorry, I'm a computer geek and talk about run-time and compile-time). I'm also planning on eating them with brown sauce, which is pretty salty anyway.

This is a LOT of food. When I was out buying the food, I didn't realized how much food this is. After rolling out the dough, trying to pack all that food in would be impossible. I got maybe 2/3 of it in, and I'm going to have to figure out what to do later with the remainder.

Rolling the dough turned out to be a lot of fun, but I had to keep the kids away. Their comment about eating uncooked dough: "It tastes like Play-Doh".

I used 3 spanish (yellow) onions, since they were pretty small and the recipe called for 2 large onions. They were pretty strong, and made me cry quite early into the process.

I used a turnip in place of the rutabaga. I picked just a small one. They are tough little vegetables and strong to the taste. I think that if anything fails in the recipe, it's going to be due to not chopping up the vegetables enough.

Well, 45 minutes to go...more later. I'll publish this now to avoid closing this window by accident.

Aftermath

These were, by far, the best pasties I have ever eaten. I'm sure that a good part of that is due to the fact of the work I put into it. However, the really did taste good.

Things to think about in the future: Next time, I have to figure a better way to put them on the plate. I put down wax paper, but evidentally (according to my wife), it was upside down. That really is the worst part of the whole thing. A bit of work, and it came off ok. The salt and pepper thing didn't seem to matter at all.

My son's comment: "Much better than Play-Doh." I'm serious. I'm not making that up.

Adventures in Swedish Glögg

Today, after about a year, I'm trying to recreate my Swedish Glögg (spicy wintertime alcohol drink) recipe, as well as provide something for next year when I try to recreate it again. So, here's my recipe. I'll update this after I taste it so I can correct as needed.

Recipe:

• 2 Cups port wine
• 10 cloves
• 10 cardamom seeds (also added some crushed cardamom because I didn't find the seeds in time)
• Crushed orange peel
• Orange peel (since I was eating one at the time)
• Some allspice
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 4 chunks of crystalized ginger

Combine spices and port wine, simmer on a stove for 1 hour. Make sure you turn on the correct burner.

Then, in a separate pan, combine and boil:

• 2 cups of sugar
• 1 quart (4 cups) of water

Add boiling sugar water to the mixture. Then, add:

• 1 quart of vodka (100 proof).

I only had 80 proof vodka and didn't feel like buying another bottle of vodka, so we'll see what happens with this.

Serve warm with raisins and sliced almonds in the bottom of a coffee mug.

To be continued...

Pasty Recipes

Here are some nice recipes for pasties. Note that it's pronounced "pass-tees", not "paste-ease".

Super Easy Improvised Roasted Pumpkin Seeds Recipe

This is what I do to roast pumpkin seeds. As I am lazy and don't really want to go around buying special ingredients, here is my bare bones recipe for yummy roasted pumpkin seeds. You will note that I use the words "or so" a lot in the following recipe. Use this as shorthand for "improvise as required". This is a recipe that MacGyver would use in a pinch.

1. Wash the pumpkin seeds. I have not found a quick and easy way of doing this, nor of getting the pumpkin seeds separated in the first place. I assume that the only way is manual labor.
2. Lay out the pumpkin seeds on a cookie sheet covered with aluminum foil. Improvise as required if you do not own a cookie sheet or aluminum foil. I think non-stick aluminum foil would work best, but use what you have lying around.
3. Salt them pretty good.
4. Put them in an oven at 250‘’ F. According to my house of conversion, this is about 120‘ C.
5. Using a spatula (or pencil or stick or something), move them around every 20 minutes or so. The idea is that you don't want them to stick to the aluminum foil, burn, etc. You want them to dry out evenly.
6. They should be done in about 3 hours or so.

That's it! Eat and enjoy. I know other web sites have you adding oil and such, but if you are a bit culinary impaired (like I am), this is an easy way to get a nice result without too much work.

Shrimp Roll

Here's a place where I ate a great shrimp roll in Brewster, Mass., on Cape Cod: Cobies.