Braised lamb shoulder

Mmmm, lamb. Mmmm, shoulders. I had some left over cherry tomatoes in the fridge that were getting a bit squishy, so they'll make a lovely sauce. ^ _^ Ingredients are: lamb shoulder, cherry tomatoes, red onion, garlic, olive oil, white wine, and almost all the herbs from my porch (rosemary, sage, basil, and thyme), plus some salt and pepper, although I forgot to get it in the picture.

Searing time. ^ _^ Get some o.o. nice and hot. I mean super hot. Have fun sprinkling a bit of water on it to make sure it's hot enough. If it fizzles and spits at you, you're ready.

SEAR!

Yeaaa...Nice and seared. Both sides of course.We're not trying to cook the shoulders through this way, so only keep them in the pan for a few minutes on each side (like less than 3min). Set them aside for later.

Choppy choppy!

Sauté some on-yon.

Don't forget the tasty herbals.

Wash and remove the stems from the little tomatoes while the other stuff is stuff-ing.

Slicey slicey!

Oh crap, I think it's ready.

DEGLAZE! Be sure to use a wooden spoon to get all the tasty browned bits up off the bottom.

Let it thicken up a bit, then throw everything in!

Cap it! Turn the heat down low and let it slow cook for a looong time. At least an hour.

Oh my, that looks ready. See how the meat is pulling away from the bone? Yeaaa. They tried to fall apart on me as I took them out of the pan. Yum. ^ _^

Dump on top of some over toasted french bread, and NOMS!

MEAD BOTTLING!

HOLY CRAP! I've been busy. Some crazy roommate convinced me to audition for Nightmare Vermont, VT's premier theatrical interactive haunted house extravaganza! It's made up of an all volunteer cast, stage crew, directors and managers, and it benefits the South Burlington Rotary. Seriously, check it out. It's not just your boring old spook shack with guys dressed in black jumping out and going "boo!" It's a full production - a scripted storyline with awesome actors, and professional stage lighting, effects, and combat!

Anyhoo! That's my excuse for not posting my MEAD BOTTLING pictures! Mike and Amanda's wedding was AMAZING! There were so many good foods and drinks! My mead got to sit in the same tent as brews from American Flatbread! They cooked a WHOLE FREAKIN' PIG! The Starline Rhythm Boys provided the music! HOW MANY EXCLAMATION POINTS AND CAPITAL LETTERS CAN I USE TO CONVINCE YOU OF THE EVENT'S AWESOMENESS-NESS?! MANY!!

Ok, taking a breath. FIRST. Sanitize and Sterilize EVERYTHING. I find a wipe down of vinegar, then after a few minutes hydrogen peroxide for all the counter surfaces that anything will come in contact with makes for really cheap sanitization and sterilization (Fun note, kids: they're not the same thing).

S&S your tools! I find having some extra vessels on hand for mixing up S&S fluid helps. They also make for good fermentation vessels. Thanks, Carlo!

S&S those dirty, dirty bottles! This took so much longer than I thought. That's 48 standard 750ml wine bottles there that my mom got me for my birthday. ^ _^

See, filthy little beggars they are. Let the S&S solution sit in them for a good few hours.

Guess what? More S&S! For the corks: brought 2 crushed up campden tablets (that's a tiny eeny bit of potassium/sodium metabisulphate) and 1gal of water to a boil. Turned off the heat, let the concoction stop bubbling, then let the corks go for a swim!

Take a plate and something heavy to weigh the corks down so they're fully submerged in the S&S liquid. I had to get the amount of water in that bowl just right and carefully balanced. I spilled water all over the kitchen the first time as the corks tipped it over. Let them also sit for several hours.

Holy crap, it's time to do this. At this point I put the camera down and spent the next several hours racking the mead in to bottles, learning how to use my beefcake corker (also an awesome birthday present!), and generally making a sticky mess...

I paused in between some bottles so you could see the pretty colors of the blueberry. I'd rinse out the scrap of cotton fabric I was using as a filter every now and then, and then after dipping it in the one step S&S it would turn a pretty dark blue...Weird.

Silly me didn't take any pictures of all the bottles! It was an impressive sight. My "mead nursery" (aka the space under my stairwell lined with garbage bags) was PACKED!

Delicata fries

My farmer friend Amanda is obsessed with winter squarshes. This is the first season I've ever had delicata; it's so yummy and easy to work with! You can pretty much treat it just like potatoes. FRIES TIME!

Slicers them in half and spoon out the goo. Save that goo! We're making salty crunchy snacks out of the seeds too.

Slicers roughly into fries shapes. Squeeze as much of the goo as you can off the seeds, until it drives you nuts.

MAGIC SAUCE TIME. Olive oil, kosher salt, pepper, paprika.

Goobers them fries well. Say hello to Oster the toaster so he doesn't get lonely.

The seeds too.

Laid out nice and flat and oven ready. I think I set it to 450°F...I don't remember.

Toss things around a bit as needed; watch them carefully! I think I did 10mins per side on the fries, and 5mins per side on the seeds...Just watch 'em and toss 'em as you like. You can see I like my seeds nice and black. ^ _^

Oh hello, chorizo rice! So nice of you to join us from leftiesland in the fridge to make a proper dinner plate!

Coming up next time: Sarah tries to use her new hand corker and not make a complete mess out of bottling a CRAP TON OF MEAD for Amanda and Mike's wedding!

French bread

Simplest tasty bread! 1C+1TBS warm water, 1TBS butter, 1TBS sugar, 1TSP salt, 2.5C flour, and 1.5TSP bread yeast. That's it!

Be sure to let the yeasties warm up to room temperature first.

Go get your cheater machine (I mean bread maker...Thanks mom!) Dump all the crap in according to your special directions. Mine is all liquids and spices first, topped with flour nicely spread out over the water, with the yeast on top.

Wait...For the dough kneading...

Punch the dough down (the best part!) and pull and poke it on to a nicely buttered pan.

Cover it up with your favorite cat dish towel and let it rise for 30-40mins.

Holy crap that has risen!

Heat your oven to 425° and then slather your loaf with an appropriate amount of melted butter.

When it's golden brown and sounds hollow if you tap the top with a knife it's ready to come out (about 20-25mins). Set on a wire rack to cool so it doesn't turn into mush when you first try to cut into it.

Eat with something tasty like, oh I don't know, that weirdo kale pesto you just made. ^ _^

Kale PESTO?!

Oh yea, that's right, kale pesto. Kind of. More like "Kale puree with whatever else I've got lying around" which appears to be garlic, sun flower seeds, olive oil, and SPEARMINT? Good Lord!

Behold! The cheater's way to rinse kale. 1) Stuff in plastic bag with holes poked in bottom. 2) Slosh water around vigorously inside bag, then tie to faucet to let drip dry. 3) ??? 4) Profit! Yea ok, I know that meme is a little dead, but it still makes me laugh so shut up!

Smashy smashy...

Pull off some spearmint and wash it thoroughly, then throw it with the garlic and sun flower seeds in the food pro. Maybe a bit of O.O. so it doesn't all stick together and PUREE!

Yummy. Minty, oily, garlicy sunflower butter. Transfer to another bowl and move on to the kale.

Peel the kale off its tough stem, tear it up and puree in the food pro with plenty of O.O. Maybe throw in some spoonfuls of the sunflower mush so it all blends as you're working. Repeat until you want to scream, or you have reached an appropriate kale-i-ness taste to your pesto.

Mead update

Things smell pretty good in my house right now. ^ _^ Well, except for something under my desk, but I'll clean later, it's time for more meading right now!

I strained the berries out of the blueberry batch, but sorry I didn't get any pictures. It was a tedious and messy process and I didn't want to get my sticky berry hands on the camera. When I say 'messy' I mean like move the kitchen rug out of the way, go barefoot and wear clothes that you don't mind being stained purple messy. But look at its pretty colors! I really like how the Montrachet yeast gives up a nice deep burgundy. I used it on some raspberry mead once and it was positively pink!

Some little bubbles. I also forgot to take a gravity reading, but I bet it's almost completely done fermenting considering how lifeless the airlock is.

See? Barely pushing the lock thinger up.

And here's the big kahuna dry! Very done fermenting, now just enjoying a nice calm clarification period.

I'm always fascinated by how the temperature affects my little yeasties. Come sundown the water level will be, uh, level. During the day they get a little warm and upitty and push the water a tiny bit. I might hear a bubble once or twice a day, compared to before when it was a pleasant blooping more than once a second.

Yeast graveyard at the bottom. Thanks for your service, little ones!

Now we wait and let them clarify naturally. I probably won't touch them again until just before Amanda and Mike's wedding.