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Cooking
Cooking two sort-of-made-up recipes today: Meatballs in Umami Bomb and Meat Candy.
The Meat Candy is because the grocery store had thick-cut peppered bacon in the butcher's case, so we got half a pound and I bodged together several recipes from online to come up with this:
1.5 lb peppered bacon
2-3 Tb maple syrup (I just poured, I didn't measure)
1/2-1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 or so Tb dark brown sugar.
Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with foil, place a rack on it and spray the rack with oil. Place the bacon on the rack. Cook for 15 minutes to render a lot of the fat.
Meanwhile, mix the maple syrup and Dijon mustard together. When the bacon comes out, brush it on both sides of the bacon strips. Sprinkle brown sugar on the bacon. Bake for another 10 minutes, since they're thick.
Let cool.
-----
Review: tasty! The Dijon was not assertive enough, needs more next time. Most of the pepper fell off the bacon when the fat rendered, so next time I'll sprinkle pepper on it when I brush the syrup on. I put them back in for 10 minutes because they were really thick pieces, but it ended up with the ends of a couple of pieces overcooked, even though the rest was OK, so maybe a couple of minutes less, depending on the thickness.
I have a vague idea for constructing bento-style Western lunches that involve a base (pasta, potatoes, rice, bread, etc. if you're a starchy person, veg if you're not), a protein, a side, and a shot of flavor to pep it up. A couple of small pieces of this bacon would be an excellent shot of flavor. (The shot-of-flavor basically fills the same culinary space as Japanese pickles do in bento. It'd be things like fermented or pickled foods, acidic like a lemon or lime slice, dipping sauce or dressing, things like the candied bacon, etc.)
Anyway, the other bodged together recipe originated because we impulse-bought meatballs from Central Markup a few weeks back and had them in the freezer, intending to cook them. We made tortilla pizzas earlier this week because we had several tortillas and din't want to leave the house, and did that with a small amount of pasta sauce, some pepperoni, and mozzarella. Which left us with most of a jar of pasta sauce.
We remembered the meatballs, although we didn't realize we'd bought 2 packages, which was 24 of the fuckers, and most of one jar of pasta sauce wasn't going to be enough. So we hit the grocery store and got another jar (and a spare) and I looked at a few slow-cooker meatball recipes and we inventoried our pantry and both had the same idea: as much umami as possible.
So were we go: Slow Coocker Meatballs in Umami Bomb Sauce
24 raw meatballs
2-ish jars pasta sauce
1 Tb dried porcini mushroom bits ground to a powder in a spice grinder
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes ground to teeny bits in a spice grinder (we didn't have tomato paste, this seemed a reasonable substitute)
2 Tb Worcestershire sauce
2 Tb low-sodium soy sauce
A decent sized pinch of freeze-dried basil and parsley that we found in the fridge
1 Parmesan rind
Line a pan that fits your toaster oven with foil. Place a rack on it, spray the rack with oil. Broil the meatballs in the toaster oven until they acquire some browning on top. How much is up to you--we have hotspots in the toaster oven, so some have a nice brown top and others are just browned on the edge. We also did them in 2 batches.
While the meatballs are broiling, mix together the rest of the ingredients (or search the pantry and fridge and come up with the recipe on the fly, and remember the package of frozen Parmesan rinds in the deep freeze at the last minute) in the crock of a slow cooker.
When the meatballs have acquired the level of browning you like, place them in the crock with the sauce and gently stir until they're all submerged, or at least all have sauce on top.
Cook on Low somewhere between 4 and 8 hours, or High 4-6 hours depending on which recipe you believe. We split the difference and went for 6 hours, assuming 8 would be overkill since they'd gotten some cooking from the broiler.
And that's where it stand: they're not done yet and I'm writing this up because I'm hungry and I'm trying to kill the last half hour before they're done. I tasted the sauce before the meatballs went in, and it was good. We'll see what it and the meatballs are like.
The Meat Candy is because the grocery store had thick-cut peppered bacon in the butcher's case, so we got half a pound and I bodged together several recipes from online to come up with this:
1.5 lb peppered bacon
2-3 Tb maple syrup (I just poured, I didn't measure)
1/2-1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 or so Tb dark brown sugar.
Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with foil, place a rack on it and spray the rack with oil. Place the bacon on the rack. Cook for 15 minutes to render a lot of the fat.
Meanwhile, mix the maple syrup and Dijon mustard together. When the bacon comes out, brush it on both sides of the bacon strips. Sprinkle brown sugar on the bacon. Bake for another 10 minutes, since they're thick.
Let cool.
-----
Review: tasty! The Dijon was not assertive enough, needs more next time. Most of the pepper fell off the bacon when the fat rendered, so next time I'll sprinkle pepper on it when I brush the syrup on. I put them back in for 10 minutes because they were really thick pieces, but it ended up with the ends of a couple of pieces overcooked, even though the rest was OK, so maybe a couple of minutes less, depending on the thickness.
I have a vague idea for constructing bento-style Western lunches that involve a base (pasta, potatoes, rice, bread, etc. if you're a starchy person, veg if you're not), a protein, a side, and a shot of flavor to pep it up. A couple of small pieces of this bacon would be an excellent shot of flavor. (The shot-of-flavor basically fills the same culinary space as Japanese pickles do in bento. It'd be things like fermented or pickled foods, acidic like a lemon or lime slice, dipping sauce or dressing, things like the candied bacon, etc.)
Anyway, the other bodged together recipe originated because we impulse-bought meatballs from Central Markup a few weeks back and had them in the freezer, intending to cook them. We made tortilla pizzas earlier this week because we had several tortillas and din't want to leave the house, and did that with a small amount of pasta sauce, some pepperoni, and mozzarella. Which left us with most of a jar of pasta sauce.
We remembered the meatballs, although we didn't realize we'd bought 2 packages, which was 24 of the fuckers, and most of one jar of pasta sauce wasn't going to be enough. So we hit the grocery store and got another jar (and a spare) and I looked at a few slow-cooker meatball recipes and we inventoried our pantry and both had the same idea: as much umami as possible.
So were we go: Slow Coocker Meatballs in Umami Bomb Sauce
24 raw meatballs
2-ish jars pasta sauce
1 Tb dried porcini mushroom bits ground to a powder in a spice grinder
1/4 cup sun-dried tomatoes ground to teeny bits in a spice grinder (we didn't have tomato paste, this seemed a reasonable substitute)
2 Tb Worcestershire sauce
2 Tb low-sodium soy sauce
A decent sized pinch of freeze-dried basil and parsley that we found in the fridge
1 Parmesan rind
Line a pan that fits your toaster oven with foil. Place a rack on it, spray the rack with oil. Broil the meatballs in the toaster oven until they acquire some browning on top. How much is up to you--we have hotspots in the toaster oven, so some have a nice brown top and others are just browned on the edge. We also did them in 2 batches.
While the meatballs are broiling, mix together the rest of the ingredients (or search the pantry and fridge and come up with the recipe on the fly, and remember the package of frozen Parmesan rinds in the deep freeze at the last minute) in the crock of a slow cooker.
When the meatballs have acquired the level of browning you like, place them in the crock with the sauce and gently stir until they're all submerged, or at least all have sauce on top.
Cook on Low somewhere between 4 and 8 hours, or High 4-6 hours depending on which recipe you believe. We split the difference and went for 6 hours, assuming 8 would be overkill since they'd gotten some cooking from the broiler.
And that's where it stand: they're not done yet and I'm writing this up because I'm hungry and I'm trying to kill the last half hour before they're done. I tasted the sauce before the meatballs went in, and it was good. We'll see what it and the meatballs are like.
spork of happy fooding
Re: spork of happy fooding
The meatballs were great, by the way. We didn’t bother with pasta and just heated up some frozen corn to eat alongside. There’s plenty to f sauce for pasta, though.