A New Adventure - Mexican Inspired Oxtail Soup

I want a place to put my adventures. In life I've eaten many kinds of ways, and now I do my own thing. It's largely gluten free, often paleo or close to it, homemade with no cheats. But if you bitch about my food I will throw down and make a gluten filled, covered in dairy meal. I just might make my own cheese. And yes, I would be making the bread.  

Apparently Photos Count As Content. I made this meal with a friend, and the plating could have been better but we'd been at it a long time and were tired. Yay tacos!

I don't want to share with you my life history or what I like to do in the summer. I will tell you about food and how to cook it, and share my knowledge about food with you. I might talk about places to shop and things that pertain to food and my feelings about it. But I'm not telling you about my grandma or what I like to do on my perfect Sunday. I might tell you about food I've eaten. 

Apparently if you don't blather on for a while and talk about random ass shit browsers think that you have no 'content' and won't list you in the results, also how much time people spend on your site and blah, blah, blah. Also, everyone wants money for everything so all the sites are teeming with ads. Such bullshit. So, I have to have 'content'. 

I will give you a little story about my post I'll Bet Your Gluten Free Dumplings Suck. I took the recipe off. People were stealing my methods and then passing them off as their own (such is life and I'm not saying I haven't done it), I had an idea to start a business and needed to keep that a secret. It didn't happen (though I had much support from many fans, and several moms of rich children who can't eat anything but bark begging me to supply them with dumplings). I'm not giving you that recipe. I know what it is. I know how to do it, it's time consuming and a pain in the ass. Get the book Asian Dumplings by Nguyen and figure it out yourself. 

So.. Let's begin.

3 Day Mexican Inspired Oxtail Soup

I recently got a sous vide machine stick thingy mabobber. It's not the machine that holds water. It's a stick that you use a pot to make your own jerry rigged sous vide. You can buy these for a about $110-$200 online. I was very excited, the things I could cook slowly! I have been thinking 'what's the difference between this and a slow cooker?' Easily answered, slow cookers cook at one or two specific temperatures, and this can cook at any temperature I want it to. You want flavored oils? Easy (I now have like 5). You need pasteurized eggs? Done. Perfectly cooked meats, blah, blah, blah. 

I also came into possession of a pressure cooker. Between these two things, I've really upped my game. 

The one thing that apparently you can cook in your sous vide, that you might not think about is soup. I've been doing it, and it's really the way to go. Though, I've devised the slowest way to go about making soup known to man. But I'll bet my soup will blow your socks off. 

Let's get started. NOTE: There's several parts to this, you do what you want, you want to use unicorn blood instead of broth? Go ahead, but I don't want you posting comments that you changed the recipe and it didn't come out and this sucks, or that it did come out and was amazing. That's not my recipe and I don't give a rat's ass how your recipe went. I'll just delete it. 

This is a multi day recipe. It took me three days to make. 

Mexican Inspired Oxtail Soup

4-5 bowls

The Broth

Save your various veggie scraps in a gallon bag in the freezer until you have it full. Items might include:

Onion ends and skin (the skin has flavor)
Green onion ends
Carrot bits and peels
Celery bits and leaves
Pepper bits
Tomato ends
Herb stems (basil, cilantro, parsley, thyme)

Once your bag is full, pull out your pressure cooker and dump the contents in. You might add to it:

An onion
A broken up carrot
Garlic
Bay leaf

For this recipe I had processed a bunch of Hatch Chilis and saved the tops from about a pound or two of them and put those in. 

Add water (NO SALT)

Cook according to your pressure cooker's instructions. I cook mine for about 40 minutes. Strain. Put into ice cube trays and freeze and seal in freezer bags. You can also (if you are crafty about it) put it in your seal a meal and freeze flat bricks of broth. I make 2 C. bags and label them. You will need 4 C. of stock, frozen.

The Other Things

2 lbs Beef Oxtail (if you can go to the butcher and get the biggest pieces you can, about 3 of them, I don't want to digress, the little pieces = FLAVOR, but sous vide often has space constraints)
1 Onion diced
1 Carrot diced
1-2 Jalapenos (seeded, not seeded, whatever you want) diced
1 can diced tomato
2 bay leaves
1-3 tsp Mexican oregano
1-2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp Avocado oil

SCROLL DOWN THERE'S MORE INGREDIENTS!

In a pan heat the oil and add the onion and carrot. Cook for about 5 minutes over medium heat. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a pan, add a little oil and heat over medium high heat. Brown the ox tail on each side until crispy looking and golden brown. This doesn't need to be perfect, we're just adding flavor. Set aside. Deglaze the pan with a little water. 

In a bag that is going to work with your sous vide machine and hold all the ingredients (I use my seal a meal, it works fine and better than ziplock bags for long periods of time), put 4C. frozen stock (it needs to be frozen so you can seal the bag), the deglazing, veggies (all of them), spices and ox tail into the bag. Add about 1 Tbs kosher salt, more or less as you please, but about a tablespoon will be enough. Check your ingredients to make sure you put them all in the bag. Did you check? You can't just go add those things your forgot, go check again. Seal up the bag making sure there is no air in the bag (you might find as it cooks that there's some, this is ok, it's soup). At this point you can put it in the fridge overnight if you need to. 

Heat your sous vide machine up to 155 degrees F. Set the timer for 24 hours. When it's up to temp add the bag and attach it to the side of the container. I use my metal stock pot and some very strong magnets for this. Wait.

When it's done take it out and put the whole bag in a pot, sealed, and then in the fridge overnight. This GREATLY improves the flavor. 

Open the bag and scoop out all the oil and fat, this should be easy as it should be mostly solid. Remove the tail and put the rest of the soup into a pot and put over medium heat. Test for salt. Remove the meat from the bones and discard the bones (I actually kept mine, I added them to my beef stock bag, I wonder if there's more life in them. We will see). Chop up the meat, don't worry that it's not grey, it's perfectly cooked. Wait until the soup is heated up to add the meat and just warm through, or you could divide it up among bowls and just ladle the hot soup over. 

The Accouterments 

2.25 C Drained and Rinsed Pinto beans (I make my own, they're better that way)
2 Tbs Garlic oil 
2.5 oz Queso Fresco
2-3 Radishes
2 Tbs minced Cilantro

Using a mandolin and care slice the radishes and then stack up and cut into little strips. Crumble the Queso. In a pan over medium/medium high heat - heat the oil (make sure it's a big pan, and more oil won't hurt here). Fry the beans until they are crispy and set aside. 

Ladle the soup into bowls and top carefully with 1/4 C beans, .5 oz Queso Fesco, several radish slices and cilantro. 

Enjoy!

Even better than before!

I just made a new batch of my GF pumpkin muffins, and they are so good I realized I had done a disservice to you all by posting my previous recipe. I'm so amazed at the goodness created by the new flours I'm incorporating it's really hard to believe that I waited so long to expand my horizons.

When I started out GF it was very intimidating. There are so many flours out there that the lists go on, and on. I decided I would only start with a few alternative flours and learn those first, and the nature of non-wheat flours. I used rice, tapioca, potato starch, and a little oat, I also tried a bean flour mix. I worked on the rice mixtures and tried all sorts ways to recreate the protein structure of gluten. I tried eggs, gelatin (btw, that does NOT work), xanthan gum, guar gum, no gums, lots of gums, medium amounts of gums, all the gums, and I have settled on two options. I have some guar gum in my pantry, I will use it if I need to. Now I use Gluten Free Gluten, and that works really well. I also have xanthan gum and use that quite a bit. The thing about the GFG is that it has some of the gums you would normally use in it, it also has a few that are only available to commercial bakers. Perfectly measured out, you use 1 part of the GFG to 5 parts whatever flour mixture you use. I don't use it in quick breads, it's only intended for yeast breads, where you would have a higher gluten content.

Having been baking a lot this last two months, attempting to recreate bread for a sandwich (not easy to do), I am starting to branch out. I pulled out my mill today and milled up some quinoa. I have some milled oat flour and some teff on the way. I did this mostly because rice flour has a lot of calories in it. 550 calories a cup? Wheat flour only has around 400 a cup. WW says rice flour has 15-17 points in a cup of rice flour, wheat flour has 12 points in it. It's a big difference when you're really counting calories.

Let's talk about GF bread for a minute. I'm sure it would make great stuffing, because it's all so dry! Many of them taste fine, but they tend to be small, already stale, and expensive. I bought a local commercial loaf, thinking it would be great, however the slices are so tiny and thin it makes me wonder how they're packing 80 calories into a slice! Also when I toast them they turn into hard chunks of mouth ripping cardboard.

Tomorrow I'm making french toast.

I did find a local gluten free bakery, and I've had some items from them that are really quite good. I liked them so much I bought a cookbook written by the owner. I then went and bought a loaf of bread from the bakery. The woman loves bean flour. Garbanzo bean flour in this, garbanzo bean flour in that, making cookies? Add garbanzo beans why not? Can you make your baked goods more dense? You want to know why the cakes are so heavy and a loaf of bread from this place weighs two pounds, yet is the size of a bloated softball? Garbanzo bean flour is super heavy, and doesn't rise very well. I'm not saying her bread is bad. It's quite good, but not really what I'm looking for. It is tasty, but I'm not sure it's the best for sandwiches unless you slice your slices 1/4 pound thick. I am not a fan of her cake. It has garbanzo bean flour in it. Cake SHOULD NOT BE DENSE! The densest cupcakes known to man.

It also makes me think: she says she focuses on whole grains, but mostly she just uses garbanzo bean flour. Where's the variety? I have noticed that once chefs find a method that works for them, they stick to it. In cookbooks, they tend to have one basic blend, and that's what they use for everything. It's usually a rice blend, augmented with teff, sorgum or garbanzo bean flours.

I'm not sure where I'm going, but I don't want to have a 'generic' mix, and would rather use the freshly ground grains I have from my recent millings, so they stay fresh and use what is available rather than a standard mix.

Where is all this going? I removed a cup of rice flour from my pumpkin muffins and added to it 1/2 C quinoa flour and 1/2 C oat flour. I also ground my own rice flour, it took some time and I had to put it through the mill a few times. I thought they might turn out too grainy or gritty, but no! The mill worked really well for the rice, it ground up very fine and very little remained after sifting. Quinoa also mills into a nice fine flour on the finest setting. I have a heavy duty professional grade KitchenAid stand mixer, so I'm able to use the mill attatchment with that. I don't think you should use a mill if you have a smaller stand mixer, just buy a quality free standing mill.

Every time I make baked goods, I must try them. Especially muffins, or little items, I'm so curious to find out if it turned out good. I made up the new muffins and ate one (I had the WWPP for it, so no problem), so good. So much, much better than before! The nuttyness of the oat and quinoa together was very mild, but went so well with the pumpkin. I'm so happy with the new results that I plan on taking them to a ladies afternoon event with me.

Spurred on by my success I started working on my sandwich bread. I'm so close. The last loaf I made was almost as good as the wheat infested stuff. It just had a little too much egg in it. Also the book I'm adapting the recipe from, the lady likes to 'spread' her dough, and the loafs never look nice if you do this, so I have my own method. It came to me on my way to work. It's worked very well. You can spread if you want, but your bread will not look nice and round and it probably won't rise up as good.

Now I know I just got done saying not to have a 'generic mix' but I do have a basic mix that I keep around to help make baking easier and faster. This is for when I want to make up some rolls or pizza dough at night and I am tired. I just don't use it all the time.

Basic Gluten Free Gluten Rice Mix

6 oz. Thai rice flour
3 oz. potato starch
3 oz. tapioca flour
2.4 oz. OrGran Gluten Substitute

I would not recommend mixing home milled whole grains, as they need to be frozen and used quickly to prevent them from going bad. Just make up your basic mix and supplement as needed. Also, this is done by weight so the amount of gums in your mix will be the correct amount. I would recommend to any GF baker: just get a scale and quit whining.

Buttermilk GF Sandwich Bread

Ingredients:

1 C. GFG rice mix
1/2 C. oat flour
1/2 C. quinoa flour
1/8 C. tapioca flour
1/8 C. potato starch
.8 oz OrGran Gluten Substitute
2/3 tsp. kosher salt
2 Tbs. unbleached sugar
1 Tbs. dry active yeast
2 tsp. baking powder
1 large egg
3 Tbs. canola oil
3/4 cup + a little extra(about 2 tbs) warmed buttermilk
extra flour for dusting work surface


Method:

Grease a smaller bread pan.
Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a stand mixer. Even the yeast. Whisk the wet together and pour into your off stand mixer. Turn the mixer on low till the wet and dry are just mixed. Turn the speed up a bit and mix until you have a smooth mixture. It's not really a dough, and not really a batter. Prep your work surface with flour and put the mixture on the flour. Pat it into a loaf and coat in flour. Put into the pan and let this rise for about an hour. After 45 minutes or whenever the appropriate time is turn the oven onto 350 degrees and then bake your bread for about an hour. Remove from the pan and cool on a rack.

Slice and enjoy!

A New Blog

This is to be my first blog. I might blog more, but this is the first one. I hope to tell you about the food I make.

I love food, and like most women in their thirties, I struggle with my love. I try to make wonderful food that is practical, tasty and healthy, though often you'll find that my attitude is extreme. If you're going to eat cookies, eat good cookies. Made from butter and white flour, there is no such thing as a lower fat cheesecake or light mousse. These things are made from the things we love: salt, fat and sugar. On the other hand I do have the weight conscious mind, so sometimes I make something that's better for you.

I cook many things: simple one pot dinners, extravagant party items, whole five course dinners, full Korean meals, dog food (really), cat treats, things for kids, things to taste good without being bad for you, really bad for you treats, barbecue, slow cooker, comfort food, brunches, breakfast goodies, camping goods to keep you warm, whatever you want. I hope you will find my daily cooking adventures here.

I also have an idea in my head that what we eat should be good for us, in a global and local sense. I don't want factory meat or mass produced anything (alas: reality). I try to get my eggs from my parents, who raise them. Sometimes we raise our own meat (it's the only way to be SURE it's well treated). I am currently on an adventure to buy a lamb from this gentleman: http://ebeyfarm.blogspot.com/p/we-sell-pigs-pork.html I'm very excited about the prospect for having my own, whole lamb; only 11 days till I can go pick one out!

I guess what I mean is, when I can buy local I'll spend more, when I can buy good sustainable farming practice I'll buy that, and pay more. I think when you buy from the farmer you're doing your part to help them remain farmers, so I'll also buy in bulk if that's what it takes. I try to grow my own garden, eat from farmer's markets and shop at non-major chain stores. I also draw the line at outrageous costs. I know it costs more to responsibly raise animals, but I'm not paying $15 a pound for ground beef. If that's the cost I'd rather not eat it (I have found affordable beef, I'm just saying that I'm not paying $15 a pound for ground chuck burgers, come on!)

So If you'll follow me, I'll tell you about my food, and give you my secrets. Something many people have been after me for, for a long time now.