Category Archives: Cooking

Thoughts About Muesli

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I don’t know why it took me so long to try muesli. I like granola and oatmeal, both of which are twigs on the same branch of the breakfast family tree. Yet, every time I saw muesli on the shelf, I’d think “Looks interesting. Maybe one of these days” and then buy something else.

So I finally decided that one of these days had arrived and bought a bag of Bob’s Red Mill Muesli. They’re my go-to for oatmeal, so it seemed like a safe bet for the experiment.

I’ll admit to being both intrigued and bemused by the notation on the package that it can be eaten hot or cold. I don’t think there are any other breakfast foods designed for eating both ways. Granted, in my somewhat misspent youth, I’d occasionally eat English Muffins without toasting them, but that’s hardly what the makers intend. And, as Maggie pointed out, while there are people who eat Grape Nuts hot and Pop-Tarts cold, neither is standard behavior*.

* Yes, Pop-Tarts’ packaging pays lip service to eating them straight out of the box, but really, that’s not what anyone expects. Remember, the “Pop” refers to them popping up out of the toaster.

So, anyway, I expected cooking instructions for the “hot” option. And they’re there. I didn’t expect instructions for eating the cereal cold. I mean, do you really need to go beyond the standard “Pour into bowl, add milk to taste, eat”? Actually, yes. Those rolled oats need to soak up some liquid or they’re going to taste like cardboard.

I followed the instructions. I won’t make that mistake twice.

Served hot, it was an uncomfortable combination of sweet, hot sludge and weirdly warm nuts. The sunflower seeds were especially peculiar: their mouthfeel was different from anything else in the bowl–and not in a good way–and when heated, their flavor didn’t harmonize with the oats. Maybe if I’d used milk instead of water, per the alternate instructions, it would have turned out better, but I’m dubious enough that I’m not going to risk it.

The cold preparation was much better. But I found the recipe incorrect. Using the recommended quantity of milk, even after somewhat more than the recommended soaking time, I wound up with something that closely resembled soup. Maybe that’s the tradition, but when I finish the solid contents of my cereal bowl, I don’t want to have enough milk left to require a drinking glass.

Fine-tuning ensued. I find that about 2/3 the recommended quantity of milk and about 50% more soaking time results in something quite tasty.

In the final analysis, I’m not sure whether the experiment was a success.

I’ve still got about half the bag of muesli left. I plan to finish it, mostly on days when I’m not working and don’t have to balance soaking time with commuting. But will I buy it again? Not Bob’s; I’m quite sure of that. But I might try someone else’s interpretation.

Cold.

What To Do?

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People like leftovers. If they didn’t, why would there be so many websites about them?

Nearly nine years on, my infamous leftover sauerkraut post still pulls in views–as I write this, so far this year, that post has been seen six times more often than anything I’ve written in 2022*.

* Granted, the numbers are somewhat skewed, because most of the readers see new posts on the blog’s home page, so they don’t get counted as views for the individual post. But the point stands: leftover sauerkraut gets looked for hugely more often than anything else on the blog.

And it’s great that so many people are willing to help their fellows repurpose the stuff in those half-empty containers in the back of the fridge. But unused ingredients are one thing; complete dishes are another.

Turkey can go into sandwiches, soup, tacos, and a dozen other things. Extra cheese has roughly ten thousand uses (beer and cheddar soup, anyone?) But what are you going to do with the last of the turkey soup after you’ve had it for three days straight? Freezing it just kicks the decision down the road. And the example of Chopped notwithstanding, most of us aren’t prepared to repurpose a complete main course into something totally new.

We ran into a double dilemma of this sort recently.

The chili was bad enough. As has been noted previously, our chili tends toward a souplike nature. That makes it impractical to do chili burgers (or dogs) or put it on baked potatoes. I suppose we could make ice cream, but (a) there’s significant cognitive dissonance there and (b) we don’t have an ice cream maker.

But the Mac and Cheese? It’s really a monolithic dish, not amenable to breaking down into its components.

When in doubt, go with the classics: “embrace the power of ‘and'”. Pour chili over the mac’n’cheese.

The train of logic went something like this: tomato and pasta is a classic combination; cheddar cheese goes well in chili; and, hey, in Cincinnati they put chili on spaghetti. Okay, maybe that last isn’t a good precedent: can we really trust the judgement of an area that thinks cinnamon is a mandatory spice in chili?

But, we mixed our cinnamon-free, bean-laden chili with our vegetable-free m&c. And it worked. Got two large pots out of the fridge.

Somehow it had escaped both of our notices that chili mac and cheese is a thing. I won’t tell you how long it took us to figure that one out.

So we recreated the wheel.

But this “throw two meals together” notion has possibilities. Clearly we need to experiment further.

Fauxtisserie Chicken and potato soup? Could work.

But rest assured we will not be adding sauerkraut to mac and cheese.

Errata

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I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong. I’m not eager to do it, and I’m certainly not going to go out of my way to announce every little misstatement. But some errors are so egregious that they can’t be allowed to stand.

On July 4, 2017, I said “It’s also probably the simplest recipe I’ll ever post here.”

What was I thinking? That recipe has three ingredients and five steps! A simpler one was inevitable.

You ready for a really simple recipe? I’m not going to claim this one can’t be beat–I’ve learned that lesson–but I can’t think how.

Normally, at this point I’d give credit to the originator of the recipe and explain how we’ve modified it. But in this case, variations are all over the Internet and very few of them are credited. If you want to trace the history, please let me know what you learn.

Slow Cooker Salsa Chicken

Ingredients

  • 3 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken thighs – Don’t use breast meat: it gets dry and doesn’t soak up flavor well.
  • One jar, bottle, or other container of salsa – Whatever variety appeals. Chunky and smooth both work well. Just check the ingredient list before you buy: an unexpectedly high bell pepper concentration can ruin an otherwise delightful salsa.

Steps

  1. Dump the chicken in your slow cooker.
  2. Slop the salsa on top of the chicken.
  3. Cook on Low for 8-9 hours.

The salsa cooks down and combines with the chicken juices to produce a rich liquid that tastes great over rice, and leftovers work well as a chili base. Be aware, however, that the mingling and cooking does reduce the spiciness. If you prefer some kick in your chicken, a mild salsa is not your friend.

The chicken itself can go into the rice along with the salsa liquid, or anchor a burrito. It makes great sandwiches–try it with some pickled carrots or onions–and stuffs into baked potatoes well (don’t forget to add some bacon as well).

This is, by the way, one of those recipes that reheats well in an Instant Pot: pressure cook on low for zero minutes, shut off the cooker, and vent the pressure manually.

There you go: a mindless recipe for taxing times.

And, rest assured that if I find a two-ingredient, two-step recipe, I’ll let you all know.

Worst Good Eats

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Or should that be “Good Eats, Bad Cooks”?

I am thrilled and intrigued.

Which is just what They want, of course. But that’s fair enough. It’s nice to see some evidence of competence from time to time.

What I’m talking about is the upcoming season of Worst Cooks in America.

There are no major changes in the offing. Still sixteen bad cooks competing to improve their skills. Anne Burrell is still the face of the show. And a few minor variations to keep the whole thing from devolving into an unwatchable photocopy of the last half dozen seasons.

But, oh, those minor variations.

Foremost among them: Anne’s competition in training up the contestants this time around is Alton Brown.

This is going to be fascinating to watch.

Alton’s on-screen persona isn’t competitive. Despite the years hosting Cutthroat Kitchen, he still comes across primarily as an educator.

Which is, naturally, what the Worst Cooks participants need.

But will there be room for a few patented Alton historical and scientific digressions? There must be a lot that never makes it to the screen. I’m sure the competitors get plenty of one-on-one coaching from the instructors, and Alton’s methodical approach should be very helpful for whatever subset of the group who are capable of following directions.

But still. Entertaining as it might be to see how the gang takes a discourse on the chemical properties of gluten or the history of saffron, will it help their cooking?

And, given that entertainment is the name of the game here and the overall story arc of the competition between Anne’s and Alton’s cooks, are we going to see a few well-placed items from the Cutthroat Kitchen archives show up? How would Anne’s cooks manage with a corkscrew-shaped skillet?

Even if Alton plays it straight, though, his sense of humor may be the only thing that gets him through the season. And, if this season’s selection of cooks are truly as horrible as in years past, we may all need to play the Alton Drinking Game to survive.

Here’s hoping for a season of golden Brown deliciousness. We’ll find out on Sunday.

Not Quite Instant

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Maggie and I have succumbed.

Not to the lure of another cat. Please don’t tempt us with the thought.

No, what we’ve given in to is the latest kitchen fad. Maybe not the latest-latest, but at least the latest long-lived.

We held out against the sous vide apocalypse, but we’ve accepted the Instant Pot into our lives (and our kitchen).

Seriously, given how often we use our slow cooker, the Instant Pot was a no brainer. A six quart IP takes up about the same amount of counter space as our three quart crockpot–maybe even a bit less–and that’s important in our one-and-a-half-butt kitchen.

Is it going to revolutionize our existence? Not likely. But that extra elbow room from the doubled capacity will be very nice when we do a fauxtisserie chicken. Might even be able to do it faster. Must experiment one of these days.

Though it may be a while. We’re still learning its quirks. Heck, we’ve only used it three times so far.

Braising a hunk of cow big enough for two dinners in ninety minutes–including heat-up time and extra time for the potatoes–was nice. More work involved than in using the oven, but the savings in time and electricity make up for a lot.

The pasta dish turned out well. I’m not certain we’ll do that regularly–for one thing, it actually took longer than the traditional stovetop approach–but I’ll admit that not having to drain the pasta was nice.

The Instant Pot “one dish meal” method is not the way to go if you’re looking for a bowl of sauce with noodles swimming in it. The goal seems to be to balance the ingredients so the liquid from the sauce goes into the pasta, leaving the sauce solids bonded to the outside of the noodles. Tasty (though we’ll definitely tweak the recipe next time–more oregano at the very least) if a bit disconcerting at first.

And it does function well as a crockpot. We did chili as our first slow cook experiment. Yes, there are plenty of quick chili recipes for the Instant Pot out there and we’ll probably try some eventually. But for this test we wanted to see how it handled a known recipe.

It seems as though Low Heat is a bit lower than our crockpot’s “Lo” setting. The onions were a bit crunchier than we expected, and the meat not quite as soft was we’re used to. It’s probably as well that we used thin fajita-cut meat instead of cubes. Next time we’ll set the pot on Medium, and that should improve matters.

Our slow cooker let us set a timer–cook for some amount of time, then either turn off or, if it was on “Hi”, switch to “Lo”. We never used it. The thought of coming home to either room-temperature food or excessively-cooked food didn’t appeal. The Instant Pot, on the other hand, can be set to switch over to a “keep warm” setting after the cooking time runs out. That might just be worth a good chunk of the admission price right there.

Speaking of warming things, I hadn’t realized just how many people believe microwave ovens are tools of the Devil.

Okay, I exaggerate slightly. But only slightly. I started researching how to reheat the chili in the Instant Pot, instead of using the oven as we normally do. Nearly every site I read warned about the unspecified health hazards of microwaves–and especially reheating food in one–though none actually stated what the risks are. I conclude they’re the same risks one runs by not eating “organic” foods.

Several sites said–and I’m not paraphrasing–“Thank God for my Instant Pot!” I’m not sure how much Hephaestus had to do with the creation of the Instant Pot, but I’m sure he appreciates their gratitude. Or maybe they were addressing Hestia–a goddess of the hearth might be a more appropriate vessel for cooking-related thanks.

But I digress.

Are there Instant Pot recipes we’re not going to try? Absolutely.

As a typical example, consider lasagna. I admire the dedication and determination of all the people who’ve created Instant Pot lasagna recipes, there’s no way I’m going to try them. Every one I’ve seen requires even more effort than traditional oven-based recipes do, most of them take longer, and a significant percentage call for finishing the cooking in the oven. Why bother?

But our initial experiments with Instant Potting (Instant Pottery would be something else, I think) have been successful enough to encourage us. I don’t think this will be the sort of kitchen gadget that gets used once or twice, then shoved in a drawer, never to be seen again.

And, as soon as the weather cools off a bit further, I intend to see how the Instant Pot handles our favorite hot spiced cider recipe. I’ll report back if we figure out how to reduce the cooking time without compromising the flavor.

Chicken!

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Why didn’t anybody tell me?

Long-time readers know of my love of Alton Brown and his TV shows. Some may even recall my sorrow three years ago when Cutthroat Kitchen went off the air.

At the time, Alton was talking up his plans for a Good Eats successor. It was supposed to be an online-only show and would tackle subjects the original wasn’t allowed to address.

As best I can tell, that show never happened.

And then. A couple of days ago, Maggie and I were watching Kids Baking Challenge and a little blurb popped up in the corner of the screen. This is something Food Network does with great regularity, and it never fails to annoy me. Normally I do my best to ignore such mini-ads, but this one caught my eye. “Up Next: Good Eats Reloaded”

Picture my face with exclamation points replacing my eyes.

On second thought, don’t. That’s a rather creepy image. But you get the idea.

It turns out that Food Network has been running these shows for the past year or so, and I completely missed it. They’re not new content either. They’re reworked and updated versions of some of the original Good Eats episodes.

We’ve seen two of them so far (or most of two of them: Sling’s DVR functionality has issues). Updates on broth are well and good, but the updated pasta show may be useful, given the amount of noodles we go through.

But the really good news is the reason Food Network moved Good Eats Reloaded to a better time slot: Good Eats: The Return is coming. Three weeks from today, in fact. Not quite close enough to set the DVR, but near enough to smell the garlic.

The blurb on Food Network’s website sounds a lot like what Alton was talking about for the never-happened online-only show.

I can’t wait. Well, I can–I have too–but I can’t wait patiently.

To celebrate, I’m going to do something I haven’t done for a while: post a recipe.

As with most recipes I post, it’s not a family recipe or something original. Credit where credit is due: this is stolen and modified from Sara Welch’s Slow Cooker Whole Chicken as posted on “Dinner at the Zoo”.

We’re suckers for crockpot cookery, especially recipes that require very little actual effort. If we can throw some stuff together, turn on the pot, and go to work, we’re in. When we saw this one claimed a five minute prep time, we had to try it.

And, of course, we had to tweak it a bit to our tastes.

Ingredients

  • One five pound whole chicken. Note: a bird this size fits almost perfectly into a three quart slow cooker.
  • Your favorite spice rub. Sara’s suggested mix is tasty, and does largely replicate the flavor of a store-bought rotisserie chicken. But it does require a minute–maybe even ninety seconds–to assemble. We’ve had good results with commercial BBQ rubs. Laziness FTW!
  • 4-6 small potatoes, washed. Keep ’em whole; you don’t want them to cook too quickly.

Steps

  1. Spray the inside of the cooker with cooking spray.
  2. Place the potatoes on the bottom of the cooker. They’re going to serve as your rack so the chicken doesn’t get submerged in its own juices. Soggy chicken is no fun.
  3. Rub your spice mix all over the bird. Be generous. And don’t forget to rub some inside the body cavity.
  4. Put the chicken into the pot on top of the potatoes, put on the lid, and turn the cooker on on High.
  5. After one hour, turn the cooker down to Low.
  6. Ignore it for at least five hours. We’ve gone as long as ten without harm to the result. Be safe: if you’re not letting it cook all day, use a meat thermometer to confirm the thickest part of the thigh has hit at least 165.
  7. Crispy skin is a must. Put the chicken in a baking dish and shove it under your broiler for five minutes.

Yes, you do serve the potatoes too. Why wouldn’t you? They’ve soaked up plenty of chickeny goodness. And save the liquid that’s accumulated at the bottom of the cooker. It freezes well and makes a great base for soups and stews.

SAST 13

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Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Short Attention Span Theater. Lucky Number 13! For those of you new to the blog, sometimes I do an SAST because I literally don’t have enough mental focus to write a full post on any subject. More often, it’s my way of clearing the blog’s to-do list of ideas that aren’t worth an entire post of their own.

I’ll leave it to you to decide, based on the internal evidence, which category this is in.

Ready? Too late, here we go anyway.

Perhaps you remember my handy theatrical guide to long-running news stories. For the record, the Bay Bridge Bolt Botch stayed in Act One for an incredible length of time before zipping through Acts Two and Three, bypassed Act Four entirely, and is now in Act Five.

I’m pleased to see that the Transbay Terminal mess isn’t following a similarly distorted trajectory. We got out of Act One in a mere five months, and we’re now solidly in Act Two. In mid-March, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority threw all the blame for the debacle on the various contractors, individually and collectively.

Naturally, by the end of the month, two of the three contractor had responded, saying in essence, “Hey, we did everything right. Take a look at the third contractor and the designer. They’re the ones that really muffed it.”

Putting on my QA hat for a second, I’ll just note that one of the jobs of the QA team is to point out problems with the design. It’s always cheaper to fix an error before it gets built. That’s true whether you’re talking about software or buildings. If the contractors had concerns about stress on the beams, why didn’t they raise them before construction started?

Anyway, I find it interesting that, so far as I can tell, the third contractor has yet to respond to the accusations of the TJPA and the other two outfits. Clearly, we’re not quite finished with Act Two, but we’ve got clear signs that Act Three is imminent.

That being the case, we may find ourselves watching a bold theatrical experiment, with multiple acts being staged at the same time. If the gimmick works, we might even find ourselves watching Acts Three, Four, and Five simultaneously.

I expect rapid developments in the play come summer. Remember, the terminal is supposed to reopen in June; we can expect a large PR push to convince commuters that it’s safe. That’s almost sure to provoke a lot of finger pointing and the launch of the inevitable lawsuits and countersuits.

Moving on.

For anyone interested in our litter box experiments, we’ve settled on a new long-term litter plan.

We tried Sledpress’ recommendation of Dr. Elsey’s litter with the Formerly Feral Fellows, and it did work as promoted. There was some scattering, though not as much as with the Nature’s Miracle. It did well at controlling odor, and the dust wasn’t as bad as some of the reviews led us to expect. On the downside, it’s hard to find locally, and even allowing for the fact that we got an entire month out of one jug, it still comes out more expensive on a per use basis. Most importantly, though, it seemed as though the Fellows weren’t very enthusiastic about it. They used their other box, loaded with more conventional litter, more often than before we introduced them to Dr. Elsey.

The more conventional litter we tried out is SmartCat All-Natural Clumping Litter. It’s grass-based, clumps very well–I’d even say “frighteningly well” given the size of some of the clumps we’ve found, and does a decent job of controlling odors. We are getting more scattering than I’d like, but it’s at a manageable level. No litter is perfect, but this stuff seems good enough that we’ve converted all but one of the indoor boxes to it.

The exception is currently using up what we expect to be our final bag of World’s Best Cat, and we’re finding that the gang would rather use the SmartCat boxes than the one with WBC.

Finally, there’s this.

Regular readers are already aware of my feelings about the devil’s condiment.

I’m delighted to note that we now have scientific evidence to support my purely logical reaction to that stuff. Forget HoldThatMayo, Bon Appetit, and JSpace. While it’s nice to see fellow travelers, one can’t help but note that their appeals are based on paranoia, emotion, and prejudice.

That’s why it’s great to see the word from Popular Science that there’s well-grounded, firm scientific support for the contention that mayonnaise is eeevil.

Take cheer, my brethren. The battle will be long–I expect the pro-mayo forces to be at least as persistent as the anti-vaccination loons–but with Science! on our side, we’ll win in the end.

Chili

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I can’t believe I’ve never written about chili here. It’s a great cold-weather food, freezes well, has an infinite variety of recipes, and comes with an impossible-to-resolve debate. It’s hard to think of another food that matches it for taste, flexibility, and entertainment potential.

We’ve been making chili for about thirty years, and it’s a bit embarrassing to realize how little our recipe has changed. A definite case of “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

It began as a fairly literal implementation of the one on the Carroll Shelby’s Chili Kit box. (Have I mentioned that we’re lazy cooks?) Over the years, we’ve tweaked it for even more laziness–but also more flavor.

Yes, it’s heavy on cans. There’s that lazy thing again. And also yes, it is a crockpot recipe. That’s not laziness, that’s convenience.

As for that debate? We’re firmly in the pro-bean camp. We’ll cheerfully eat bean-free chili, but if we make it ourselves, it’s gonna have beans. Sorry “real” Texans.

Ready? Great.

Ingredients

  • One bottle of dark beer. Please, not whatever’s cheap. Get something you might actually want to drink. Lately, we’ve been using Guinness. Apologies to any Irish readers who believe contact between stout and solid food is sacriledge.
  • One fifteen ounce can of kidney beans. Go for the low-sodium version. There’s quite enough salt coming in from other ingredients.
  • One fifteen ounce can of black beans. Again, low-sodium. Sure, you could use two cans of black or red beans, but why? They’re both tasty. Embrace the power of “and”.
  • One fifteen ounce can of crushed tomatoes. Just tomatoes. No peppers, no spices. If you can find a salt-free or low-sodium variety, even better.
  • One six ounce can of tomato paste. I’ve heard people claim this is a thickener. Nope. Just a flavor magnifier.
  • Optional but recommended: One onion, chopped. It adds flavor and a little bit of texture. A very little bit.
  • Three tablespoons (plus or minus one, depending on how much of a kick you want) of chili spice. Not mix. This, by the way, is where most of the salt is going to come in.
  • Optional but recommended: Additional spices to taste. Got an interesting barbeque rub? Toss in a tablespoon or so. We think highly of Penzeys’ “Arizona Dreaming”.
  • One pound of stew meat. Beef is good. So is lamb. We’ve never tried it with poultry, but if you do, go for chicken thighs or turkey. Chicken breasts don’t have enough flavor to bother with.
  • One pound of ground meat. Again, think beef or lamb. If your provider offers a “coarse” or “chili” grind, go for it–unless they pre-spice it or mix in peppers. Bell peppers in chili aren’t an abomination in the same way mayo on a burger is, but they take the flavor profile in the wrong direction.

Preparation

  1. Combine the beer, beans, tomatoes, and tomato paste in your crockpot.
  2. Add the spices and stir well.
  3. Toss in the onion if you’re using it.
  4. Stir in the meat. Many recipes recommend browning the meat first. We don’t usually, but if you do, add the fat and liquid that cooks off. You don’t want to lose that flavor. If you don’t brown the ground meat, don’t toss it in as a brick, crumble it.
  5. Cook on low until you’re ready to eat, at least six hours. If possible, stir it once about halfway.

Be aware this makes a very wet chili. One might even go so far as to call it a soup, rather than a stew. Rather than thickening the pot with masa as many recipes advise, we lazily suggest allowing diners to thicken their own portions to suit their tastes:

  • Crumble in a good handful of crackers–we recommend saltines or oyster crackers, but we’ve been known to use Ritz crackers.
  • Serve with a substantial bread, something with a thick crust and dense insides. Dip the bread to soak up chili juice, or drop in bite-sized pieces. Done right, the bread can take on a very dumpling-like texture.
  • Maggie swears by Parmesan cheese as a thickener. I’ll refrain from comment.

As I said above, this chili freezes well. It also keeps well in the fridge and reheats nicely in the oven. Have some for lunch while you watch a Spring Training game!

Hot Cider

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I had a lovely Christmas, thanks, and I hope yours was as pleasant as mine.

We slept late–one of the advantages of not having small children in the house–and waited until the caffeine was ready before we opened gifts. I’d like to be able to say we opened them slowly and with due appreciation, but…We’ve been bludgeoning adulthood into submission for enough years that we’re not about to go grown-up now.

We stayed in our jammies all day, talked to family on the phone, watched one of our favorite Christmas movies*, had a nice dinner, gave the Backyard Bunch gooshy fud instead of the usual Kitty Krunchiez, and largely ignored whatever’s was going on in the outside world.

* It’s got its flaws, but it’s also got some of the most quotable lines ever.

Oh, yeah. We also tried a new spiced cider recipe. Since it was wildly successful, I’ll pass along our modified version. For those of you stuck in colder realms, it’s the perfect drink to accompany watching someone else shovel snow.

Credit where credit is due: the original recipe comes from Christine Gallary at The Kitchn. We’ve merely tweaked it slightly and adjusted it for a smaller crockpot.

Hardware and Ingredients

  • A 3-quart slow cooker
  • A tea infuser, small cheesecloth bag, or other similar device for confining spices
  • 1/2 gallon of apple cider. Not the alcoholic stuff (much as we love that) and not the sparkling stuff either. If you can’t get cider, get juice–preferably unfiltered. The important thing is to check the ingredients. If there’s anything other than apple juice listed, put it back on the shelf.
  • 1 baseball-sized orange. Maybe a little bigger, but don’t get up into anything suitable for softball. And no, you can’t substitute a couple of those little clementines that are so popular this time of year. The ratio of flesh to peel and pith is all wrong. Cut it into quarter-inch slices and discard the ends and any other pieces that don’t have much flesh.
  • 3 cinnamon sticks.
  • 1/2 tablespoon of whole cloves
  • 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of whole peppercorns
  • A few pieces of crystallized ginger (yes, a very precise measurement), cut into half-inch squares.

Instructions

  1. Pour the cider into the crockpot. Hardest thing you’ll do all day.
  2. Toss in the ginger, orange, and cinnamon. Gently: don’t splash.
  3. Restrain the cloves and peppercorns into a single packet and drop it in.
  4. Put the lid on the cooker, set it on Low, and leave it alone for two hours.
  5. Stir. Make sure to shove the orange slices under the surface of the liquid. They’ll float back up, but it helps distribute the flavor if they’re damp on both surfaces.
  6. Leave it alone for another couple of hours.
  7. Ladle it into thick-walled mugs and enjoy.

Note: You will get bits of orange and ginger in your mug. Don’t sweat it, just drink around them. Or eat them. Your choice. Mopping up the spills after you try to pour the contents of a hot crockpot through a filter into another pot just isn’t worth the effort.

Proper Construction

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It’s that time of year again–when zillions of people across the country are making a mess of their leftover turkey sandwiches. And that’s a real shame. The noble turkey should never be wasted on an inferior sandwich.

And it’s so unnecessary. We covered the making of a proper turkey sandwich four years ago.

To be fair, the blog had fewer readers then. So if you’re new here, check out that post and spread the word. As a bonus, you’ll get our mindlessly-easy recipe for turkey soup.

But that aside, there’s another sandwich-related problem plaguing America–a worse one, as it strikes at the very foundation of indigenous American cuisine.

As we noted four years ago, mayonnaise is the devil’s condiment. So why has it become the default on hamburgers*?

* Let’s not get into the argument about the ancestry of the burger. Sure, every meat-eating culture has a dish involving ground meat. It’s a great way to use up the leftovers. But the hamburger qua hamburger? American born and bread. (Sorry).

I blame Canada. No, seriously. Forty years ago, Canadians were the only people so lost to virtue as to put mayo on a burger. Today, everywhere in America, if you don’t say “NO MAYO, DAMN IT!” you’re going to get a thick, slimy layer of that white stuff on your burger.

Yeah, a thick layer. Even if I was prepared to accept mayo on the bun–which I’m not–it would have to be as a condiment, like the ketchup and/or mustard* it’s ostensibly replacing, not as an ingredient in its own right. But no, the default is a giant scoop of the evil stuff, outweighing the bun. Heck, I’ve occasionally gotten a burger where I’m fairly sure there’s more mayo than meat.

* You may be surprised to learn that a person of such definitive opinions won’t take a position on the ketchup/mustard debate. The reason is simple: my preference in the matter changes. Some days I want one, some the other, and sometimes both.

It’s a deplorable situation, folks, and it’s only made worse by the ever-increasing tendency for burgers to include lettuce.

I’m not talking about a big wad of shredded lettuce intended to make a fast food burger look as though it’s got some nutritional content. No, I’m talking about an allegedly legitimate food burger with a wad of iceberg big enough to have sunk the Titanic.

Does anybody think this is a good idea? Really. Serious question. Lettuce adds no taste. On a burger, it does two things, neither desirable. It bulks the burger up to the point where you can’t possibly open your mouth wide enough to eat it, and it delivers water straight to the bun, making it soggy.

Really, people, get with it. You want tomato on your burger? Go for it. Onion, raw or grilled? No problem.

But when it comes to lettuce, follow Nancy Reagan’s advice and Just Say No.

And that white, slimy stuff?

Hell No to Mayo!