ROASTED CABBAGE

 Roasted Cabbage Recipe | Allrecipes

COOKING WITH ALUMINUM

Anoized aluminum seems okay https://www.cancerschmancer.org/blog/fran/how-toxic-aluminum-cookware

aLSO  There are articles suggesting that aluminum is not a cause of altzheimer's even though it was in the brains of folks who died.

It all is very confusing.  I'm just not buying a pan for now.

JALAPENO POPPERS

 Joyce Saibic

from Jennifer Sawyer

filling is cream cheese, shredded cheddar and garlic powder. Cut peppers in half, clean out seeds and membrane. Fill with cheese and wrap in slice of bacon cut lengthwise. Did these in air fryer at 375 for 11 minutes. Basically til bacon cooks and pepper get a bit soft.

You can also cut a piece out of the pepper, clean, stuff, replace cut piece and wrap in bacon (usually a whole slice) and cook on grill using mostly indirect heat and it will take 30-45 depending on how hot your grill it

Here is how I did it:

I sliced some pork belly into long pencil like strips and cooked it a bit in the pan to render some of the fat so the strip could get crispy in the oven. I like crispy. The recipe called for bacon, but it has too much salt for me. Pork belly is bacon with much less salt, and no nitrates, nitrites, etc.

I cut the jalapeno length wise, scraped out the inside with a grapefruit spoon, filled it with a cheese mixture of cream cheese and shredded manchego, put a pencil strip of pork belly on each end of the jalapeno with wooden skewers, and I broiled the whole mess of peppers in the oven on hi for five minutes, using parchment paper to save on cleanup.

I turned off the oven and let the stuff sit in the warmth for a few minutes.

When I tasted it, it needed salt, so for mine, I added my Benson's salt substitute and that made the taste perfect.

For garlic I used Lawry's California blend. Seemed to be a good choice. I may not have used quite enough.

For the shredded cheese to mix with the cream cheese, I used some Manchego from Sam's Club because a friend took us there this week. I like the taste of manchego, and I had bought a huge chunk. Also, it has a bit less salt than the cheddar in Jen's recipe.

The pork belly came out nice and crisp.

The peppers were still crisp.

It tasted great.

MIke comes for supper tonight, so we will have them for appetizers, followed with left over turkey, grilled Scottish salmon, and anything else we can think of.

It will all go very good with an Athletic Brewery NA stout. Perhaps Maple this time.

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5/10/2021

This time I think I have very hot jalapeno. Cleaning them drove me crazy with coughing, but it may be because I washed them as I took out the insides. The water here is a bit warm, and that seemed to get the scents in the air.

Anyway, I skipped the bacon and just sautéed chopped onion and cilantro in bacon fat for the flavor. Cream cheese, manchego and parmesan were the base. chopped cilantro sautéed with chopped white onion, Paprika, pepper, garlic powder were the spices.

It is in the oven on parchment in the glass oven dish.

CHICKEN AND GRAPES NY TIMES

 

• 2 ½ to 3 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs, patted dry
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon za’atar (optional)
•  Kosher salt and black pepper
• 6 medium to large shallots, peeled and quartered root to stem
• 8 ounces seedless red or green grapes, or a combination, broken into small clusters on the vine
• 4 to 5 thyme sprigs, plus 2 teaspoons finely chopped thyme
•  Flaky sea salt, for serving

Ingredient Substitution Guide

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  Nutritional Information

PREPARATION

1. Heat oven to 425 degrees. In a large bowl, toss together the chicken with 1 tablespoon olive oil, garlic and za’atar, if using. Season well with salt and pepper. Place the shallots and the grapes on the sheet pan and gently toss with the remaining olive oil and season well with salt.
2. Nestle the chicken skin-side up in between the shallots and grapes and lay the thyme sprigs on top of the mixture. Roast for 25 to 30 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the shallots and grapes at the edges of the pan begin to soften and caramelize.
3. Turn the oven to broil and move the oven rack to sit right below it. Remove and discard the thyme sprigs and broil the chicken for 1 to 2 minutes until the skin of the chicken is crispy and golden. Scatter with chopped thyme and season with flaky salt.

OYSTERS IN BUTTER

 

• This was the recipe
• Heat the butter in a sauté pan, than add the garlic and the green onions. Cook until the onion is nearly clear and butter is hot enough to separate into solids and oil. Keeping fire hot as you possibly can without burning it....nearly toasty, immediately add the oysters. Toss and coat with the butter. Add the mushrooms and parsley cook until the oyster curl. Divide in two soup plates and serve with a squeeze of lemon juice and hot sauce if desired.

What I did was this

Washed the oysters in the colander gently.

Melted butter and sauted the portobello mushrooms.

Added a taste of fresh spinach, pepper, and garlic powder.

Let it cook a bit.

Added the oysters and let them saute until they seemed done. 

Served in a large soup bowl and dipped a piece of toast in the broth.

This time I skipped the onion because we only had one, having ordered poorly from Insta cart.

I'd continue to do that.

I might perhaps want to use white mushrooms.  If not, use fewer than I did.  These oysters have a mild flavor.

I think in the future I'd buy them in the shells and boil/steam them open.  I did not get very many oysters for twenty dollars.  They were three dollars a pound and I saw a pound bag.  It looked like it had quite a few.

BAKED POTATO ENGLISH STYLE

 

3 Keys to Achieving British-Style Baked Potatoes

Making baked potatoes isn’t difficult, but here are the tips that made the most difference.

1. Slice them first. Like most Americans, I typically poke holes all over the potatoes before baking them to ensure they don’t explode in the oven. But Jo suggests slicing a cross shape about 1/4-inch thick into each potato. This helps them release some steam, makes the interior more fluffy, and also makes them easier to slice into when they’re piping hot.
2. Bake them for longer than you think. Many recipes (ours included) recommend baking potatoes for an hour at 425°F. Instead, Jo suggests baking potatoes at 400°F for closer to two hours. The potatoes won’t burn at this temperature and the long bake means the skin will be so crisp that it’s practically cracker-like.
3. Return them to the oven. After the two hours are up, remove the potatoes and carefully cut deeper into the slices you made initially. Then put the potatoes back in the oven for 10 more minutes. This helps to dry out the flesh further and makes it extra fluffy.
4. sEE FULL ARTICLE:
5. Jacket Potato Recipe - How to Make Baked Potatoes Fluffy & Crisp | Kitchn (thekitchn.com)
6. 
   

DUCK BEEN CAN IN OVEN

 There are two distinct advantages to using this rather than a makeshift beercan.

First we should not be cooking with aluminum, especially at high temperatures.  I've replaced aluminum foil with parchment paper in my oven cooking.  

Second the rack stabilizes the bird.  

Preheated oven 400 .  Rubbed with paprika and pepper after some poking with fork.

Put in oven.  I was very happy it easily fit.  

Basted it a couple times.

400 for an hour

375 for an hour

300 for a half hour.

I basted twice.

Next time up the initial setting to 425, and leave off the paprika which just blackens on the outside.  

Other than that the inner flesh was moist and the outer skin was crispy.  The fat was very clear and I put in in the fridge in a jar.  Very tasty on morning eggs.  Because the duck did not sit and brown on the roasting pan, there was almost no brown in the saved fat.

I had the back as leftover the next day. Unlike oven roasted duck, it had a good bit of crisp from the beer can roasting, and the rest of the crisp I got by frying it in a bit of duck fat. I don't think I'll ever put a chicken or a duck in a roasting pan again.

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Just pepper this time. 

IN the top of the  cavity I put some tangerines.

I used Bush NA beer.

 I did not have my Florida skewer racks, but I took two skewers and put potatoes on them.   We'll see.

This duck is very interesting.  It is unlike any I have ever cooked before.  It seems to have a bit more fat in the bottom and there is a fatty flap that includes the neck.  When flapped in place it hangs down a third the length of the duck.

The company is Jurgiewick.

America's Tastiest Duck - Jurgielewicz Duck (tastyduck.com)

425 degrees for about an hour

350 for about an hour.

Duck then was done.

Here is the recipe from the company, but it is not for the beer can version

1. Preheat oven to 425°F.
2. Place duck breast side up on rack in roasting pan and slowly pour boiling water over.
3. Cool, pour water from cavity into pan. Pat dry inside and out reserving water in pan.
4. Salt and pepper inside and out.
5. Cook 45 mins then remove from oven.
6. Reduce temperature to 375°F
7. Turn duck over, cook 45 mins, remove from oven.
8. Turn duck over again to breast side up, drain any liquid from cavity into pan.
9. Roast duck until skin is brown and crispy, approx 30 mins.
10. Drain liquid from cavity into pan and let rest.

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Here is a recipe that calls for pouring boiling water over the duck before scoring to make a crisper skin.

​​Crisp Roast Duck Recipe - NYT Cooking (nytimes.com)