Where Am I Now?

I have my own website! Please see the continuation of my cooking odyssey @ www.kaycooksjuliasway.com. See you there. Bon Appetit.

Table of Contents

Find out what I'm doing and why I'm doing it on my 9/12/9 blog. A listing of Julia's recipes, inlcuding the page number where they can be found in her cookbook, The Way to Cook, the post date and their 'thumb' is found on the 9/16/9 post. A listing of my recipes and where they can be found is on the 9/26/9 blog. Thanks for tuning in. Bon Appetit.

Pot Roast Wars: Julia vs Kay

Second Wednesdays this month was Julia's Pot Roast. As usual her recipe was majorly fussy requiring a whopping 5 pounds of bottom round, trussing, an herb bouquet and an entire bottle of 'a good red jug'. I didn't mind that last part, but the rest seemed like a lot of extra work.

The first hitch came when I asked the butcher for 5 pounds of bottom round, which was more than anyone had ever ordered before, so he had to go cut it especially for me. I foolishly didn't specify that it needed 1/8 inch of fat, so it came with only the lean. I didn't want to complain, and originally I thought that maybe it would be okay, but eventually I was back at the butcher seeing if I could buy some fat. I couldn't, but they dug some out of I know not where and gave it to me for free. So now there was a reason for the trussing, to tie on the fat.

Then the meat needs to be dried and painted with oil. Then it needs to be broiled so that it is nicely browned all over. Then the onion and carrots have to be chopped and sauted and added to the meat along with that jug of red and an equal amount of beef broth, a cup and a half of tomatoes the herb bouquet which included interestingly, peppercorn, allspice berries, cloves, thyme, garlic, parsley and bay leaf. Finally the entire pot is brought to a boil on the top of the stove and then put in the oven to braise for 2.5 to 3.5 hours with a sheet of aluminum foil over the roast plus a lid on the pan. Begin the braise at 400 degrees and then after 15 minutes reduce the temperature to 325. And even now you are not allowed to sit back on your laurels, now you need to turn that monster every half hour so that a different part of him is exposed and out of the liquid.

And for all of this extra effort do you actually get a superior product? I didn't think so. The end result seemed to me to be a bit dry. That could have been at least in part remedied if there had been plenty of gravy, but there was only 3 cups of gravy, which is a meager amount to serve with 5 pounds of meat.

But Kay's Pot Roast, which I have adapted from a recipe given to me by my good friend Joy McManus, begins with a 2-3 pound chuck roast and does its braising in the slow cooker, so once it is in and the lid is on, you can go on your merry way for the next ten hours. First roughly chop 1 onion and throw it in the cooker and plop the roast on top of it. Then cut up a 14 oz. can of cajun style stewed tomatoes (another type would work just find, but I think these add a little pizzaz) and spread them around the outside of the meat. Next add 2 peeled carrots and 1 peeled and chopped potato. Of course, I wanted to include the 'good red jug', but I only needed 2 cups of it and a half cup of beef broth. Then the secret ingredient, 2 packets of onion soup mix, one sprinkled on the meat and one on the broth. I get Lipton's but I am sure others would work fine too. (Each box includes two packets, so use the whole box.)

At the end of the 10 hours remove the meat from the pan and keep warm. Separate the vegetables from the broth and degrease using one of those pitchers with the spout that comes out of the bottom. Pour the remaining liquid (without the fat) and all the vegetables into a blender and puree for several minutes until totally liquified. Then pour it through a large mesh sieve (to catch any surviving chunks of vegetable) and you have 4 to 6 cups of nutritious and delicious gravy without having to make gravy! And the winner of the Pot Roast Wars-definitely Kay.

The Bottom Line:
Julia's Pot Roast-Thumbs Down
Kay's Pot Roast-Thumbs Up

For The Boys-There Is Nothing Like A Meatloaf

One of my guests actually said it was the best meatloaf he had ever eaten. Of course, he is in line to be my son-in-law, so his motives could be called into question. But even if his accolades were suspect, everybody else was grabbing extra slices off the platter too, so maybe it was the best.

At least it was the best I have ever made. Not that there was anything too different from any meatloaf recipe out there, but as is often the case with Julia, she takes a normal everyday recipe and makes it the best that it can be.

Her meatloaf calls for 2 pounds of lean hamburger and one pound of ground pork to be combined with 2 cups of diced onions, 2 pureed cloves of garlic, 2 eggs, 1/2 c. beef bouillon and 1 cup of bread crumbs. It also calls for 3/4 c. shredded Cheddar cheese, but The Main Eater refuses all sustenance that has been contaminated with cheese, so ours was cheese-free. I can only imagine how great it would have been if it had been included.

There are only two items that set hers apart from all the other meatloaves you have ever been subjected to. First, the onions were sauteed before being added to the mixture which mellowed them nicely. Plus I diced them in my food processor, which mulched them more than diced them, and enabled them to be totally incorporated into the fabric of the loaf. The second difference was the spices. I have always been satisfied with salt and pepper, but she also includes 2 t. each of thyme and paprika and 1 t. each oregano and allspice. The end result was a finer texture and more flavor.

Thank you Julia.

The Bottom Line
Beef and Pork Meatloaf-Thumbs Up

Sauteed Zucchini is a Hard Sell

I think almost everyone I know hates zucchini. Unfortunately they grow pretty easily around here so it gets to be hard to avoid them.

For her Grated Sauteed Zucchini recipe Julia recommends 6-8 of the 8-inchers. They need to be washed, the ends lopped off and after 10 seconds in the food processor you have a mountain of zucchini shreds. Mix 1/2 t. salt into the mountain, set it in a colander and let it "steep". Shortly it will begin to shed green water, and after 15 minutes and some gentle squeezing you will have an amazing amount.

Next add 3 T. butter to a frying pan set to high, after it begins to foam add 2 T. chopped shallots and shortly after that the zucchini. Toss them for a few minutes until just tender and serve immediately.

This recipe was okay. Of the four of us eating two refused to eat more than a micro-taste and he other two of us thought it was good enough, but it would be hard to imagine ordering it in a restaurant. However, a dish may still get a 'Thumbs Up' rating if I could imagine someone who liked the ingredients thinking it was good enough to make it again. Based on that I think it's a winner.

Grated Sauteed Zucchini-Thumbs Up

It's Thanksgiving So We Have to Make Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Surprisingly Julia and I make Mashed Potatoes almost the same. I'm actually feeling a little smug about it.

She begins by directing her students to purchase Russet potatoes, and although I use Yukon Gold pototoes for everything, I picked up a 10 pound bag of Russets. One thing is for sure, you can save a lot of money by following her recipe, because the Russets cost $3 for 10 pounds and Yukon Golds would have been about $1/pound. We both agreed that they should be peeled, washed, quartered, put in a pan, covered with salted water (1.5 t.salt/quart of water) and then brought to a boil. She recommends boiling them for 15 minutes and I tasted them at that point and determined that they needed another 3 minutes. Normally I would have boiled them for about 25 minutes, until they were exceedingly soft, but this is her cookbook, so I let her make the decision. But it was wrong.

After draining she suggests her students return them to the pan and place them back on the burner for a minute to dry them out. Following that I put them into the mixer and began beating them with the wire whip attachment. Since I was only using about 4 pounds of potatoes I added 1/2 cup of heated milk and 2 T. of butter while they were mixing. But despite 10 minutes of mixing they were still a bit lumpy. This would not have been the case if they had boiled 25 minutes, instead of 18.

To make the 'mashed potatoes' into 'garlic mashed potatoes' you must peel an entire head of garlic and simmer the cloves in 1/2 cup of cream for at least 10 minutes. Then puree it in the blender and add the entire mixture to the potatoes while they are still in the mixer.

The result has a garlic aroma and a vague garlic flavor which is both delicate and delicious. If you prefer a more dynamic garlic presence you might want to use 1.5 to 2 heads of garlic.

The Bottom Line
Garlic Mashed Potatoes-Thumbs Up

I'm Not Sure About These Asparagus

I wasn't going to make a Julia today. But we were having asparagus anyway, and she has a master entitled 'Plain Boiled Asparagus', so I decided to get it out of the way. Obviously my attitude could use a little work.

My friend Pam introduced me to baked asparagus a while back and they are totally delicious. Just line them up on a cookie sheet in a single layer, not touching each other, dribble on a little olive oil and salt and bake them at 450 degrees for about 8 minutes. So that was what I really wanted to make, and who would ever want to make something that had "Plain Boiled" in the title anyway?

There are two things that set her "Plain Boiled" apart from anyone else's. First she considers it a waste to bend them until they break and then throw away the 'butt' end (her word not mine). And second, she makes you peel the stems, which really made me wish that I had bought fat asparagus instead of a bunch that could almost have passed for green beans. But other than that, she just has you drop them into boiling salted water for 4-5 minutes. Make sure they are done by tasting one to confirm that it is just barely cooked through and still possesses a crunch. Then dress them up with a sauce or butter.

But in order to find this a wonderful preparation you would have to like your vegetables crunchy, and I prefer them soft.

The Bottom Line
Plain Boiled Asparagus-Thumbs Down