This Year I Dare
To Do
Anne of Anne's Food has tagged me for a meme titled The 2006 Food Challenge or This Year I Dare begun by Ilva of Lucullian Delights. Ilva frames it as a New Years resolution to "promise yourself to cook the five things you either don’t dare to make for some reason or that you made that once and made a mess of!" I don't do resolutions, nevertheless, there are a few things I want to try this year.
Charcuterie: Shortly after I bought my Kitchen Aid I bought the meat grinder attachment with the intention of making a sausage. I made country sausage once -- not good. I haven't tried it again. But I was already thinking I'd try doing it again this weekend, and I'd like to go further and try making some stuffed sausages such as Italian sausage and Andouille. Ultimately, making dried/smoked/cured sausage appeals to me as does making bacon.
Canning/Pickling: Preserving food seems to me a fundamental culinary skill and one that I've never attempted. I want to try making strawberry jam, bread & butter pickles, canned tuna, and when I was a kid my grandmother made the most marvelous pear preserves from the fruit of an ancient tree near her back door.
Making Cheese: There seems to be a preservation theme here. Charcuterie preserves meat, canning preserves vegetables and fruit, and cheese preserves milk. I want to make mozzarella and maybe chevre. There are a couple of farms in the area that supposedly have goats, but I need to investigate to see if they sell milk.
Duck Confit: This has been on my list forever, but I've never done it because I didn't have enough duck fat. At the moment, though, I think cooking just one more duck will provide me with enough fat. We'll see.
Fried Calamari: I've had perfect calamari exactly three times in my life and I loved it each time. But sadly, the damned stuff is almost always over-cooked in restaurants and so is tough and rubbery. If I want to eat good calamari I'm just going to have to cook it myself.
I'll certainly get to a few of these this year, but I make no promises. After all, charcuterie alone could keep me busy for several years.
So who to tag?
Alanna at Kitchen Parade
Stephen at Stephen Cooks
David at David Lebovitz
Susan at Farmgirl Fare
Doc Biggles at Meathenge
Anne of Anne's Food has tagged me for a meme titled The 2006 Food Challenge or This Year I Dare begun by Ilva of Lucullian Delights. Ilva frames it as a New Years resolution to "promise yourself to cook the five things you either don’t dare to make for some reason or that you made that once and made a mess of!" I don't do resolutions, nevertheless, there are a few things I want to try this year.
Charcuterie: Shortly after I bought my Kitchen Aid I bought the meat grinder attachment with the intention of making a sausage. I made country sausage once -- not good. I haven't tried it again. But I was already thinking I'd try doing it again this weekend, and I'd like to go further and try making some stuffed sausages such as Italian sausage and Andouille. Ultimately, making dried/smoked/cured sausage appeals to me as does making bacon.
Canning/Pickling: Preserving food seems to me a fundamental culinary skill and one that I've never attempted. I want to try making strawberry jam, bread & butter pickles, canned tuna, and when I was a kid my grandmother made the most marvelous pear preserves from the fruit of an ancient tree near her back door.
Making Cheese: There seems to be a preservation theme here. Charcuterie preserves meat, canning preserves vegetables and fruit, and cheese preserves milk. I want to make mozzarella and maybe chevre. There are a couple of farms in the area that supposedly have goats, but I need to investigate to see if they sell milk.
Duck Confit: This has been on my list forever, but I've never done it because I didn't have enough duck fat. At the moment, though, I think cooking just one more duck will provide me with enough fat. We'll see.
Fried Calamari: I've had perfect calamari exactly three times in my life and I loved it each time. But sadly, the damned stuff is almost always over-cooked in restaurants and so is tough and rubbery. If I want to eat good calamari I'm just going to have to cook it myself.
I'll certainly get to a few of these this year, but I make no promises. After all, charcuterie alone could keep me busy for several years.
So who to tag?
Alanna at Kitchen Parade
Stephen at Stephen Cooks
David at David Lebovitz
Susan at Farmgirl Fare
Doc Biggles at Meathenge
9 Comments:
Great list! And thanks for tagging me. I'll add this meme to the list of memes I've been tagged for lately but haven't done yet. I think this is either number four or number five. Maybe my New Year's resolution should just be to do all the memes! : )
P.S. If I get my act together, I will be posting my Italian sausage recipe for the upcoming Some Pig Blogging Weekend.
Susan,
"Maybe my New Year's resolution should just be to do all the memes!"
[snorf]Now there's a thought.
Do post the Italian sausage recipe. I'm going to be making an apple country sausage.
Good list, Kevin. There's something irresistible about preserving food even though we live among so much fresh bounty. Probably a human survival instinct.
PS: You can get a huge tub of frozen duck fat at Whole Foods for around $8.
CC,
I suspect you're right.
Sadly, there isn't a Whole Foods within 200 miles of me.[sigh]
Wonderful list!
Please don't forget to share all of your experiences with us ... our eyes and stomachs are waiting!
Grrrr..., ok I did it. Now let's drive a stake through the heart of these memes once-and-for-all?
(Your list was better than mine too!)
David,
"Now let's drive a stake through the heart of these memes once-and-for-all?"
I dunno. I tend to take liberties with them. Yesterday I got tagged for two, the second one asked for ten weird or random facts about me. So I lied about three of them -- that was fun.
http://seriouslygood.kdweeks.com/2006/01/yam.html
"(Your list was better than mine too!)"
Yours was much more fun.
Mozzarella seems to be a common theme (I and Sam at Becks and Posh both want to try that).
And once you get going on the sausage making, you'll be addicted. I love the creativity of it - there's virtually nothing you can't make into sausage (in a casing, anyway).
b'gina,
I'd planned on making sausage today for Kate Hill's event, but other things interfered.[sigh]
Oh well, maybe later this week.
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