Happy 4th of July Folks

I’ll leave aside most of the political commentary and just hope that everyone is having a good day of food, family, friends, and fireworks.

Since fireworks are illegal in my city, you’ll have to make do with the floral fireworks.

50 imaginary points to your House if you can identify this flower!

And here’s a bonus flower with a bit of a firework like look to it. It’s dill!

Everyone, have a safe and fun holiday.

A New Year for Cast Iron Therapy

2011 was a memorable year for me on a personal level. So many of my friends reached major milestones in their lives, getting engaged or married, finding new jobs, and so many other good things. There have been many trials and tribulations as well, for them and for me. It was a very memorable year, and I am hoping that 2012 will be even better.

So for now, I am going to make some public Cast Iron Therapy specific New Years Resolutions:

1. Learn more healthy recipes.
2. Do more to pick up Vietnamese cooking at home.
3. Blog at least 8 times a month (But ideally 12+)
4. Read all of my food related books cover to cover.
5. Stick it out through all of the 52 weeks of cooking challenge on reddit.

There are some other things I want to do, but I think they fall more under goals than actual resolutions given the relative straightforwardness of the tasks.

1. Brew up a batch of beer.
2. Learn how to butcher a pig.
3. Try out every formula in Michael Ruhlman's Ratio.

Sorry about not making this a recipe post, I am in the process of applying for a rather exciting sounding position, and this is all the time I can spare for a few days.

Look for exciting things coming toward the end of the week though!

Japanese Christmas Cake! Week Zero of 52 Weeks of Cooking!

First of all, hi to reddit and those taking part in the 52 weeks of cooking challenge. This is indeed my first entry for week zero, with this “week’s” theme being holiday food. After perusing the very helpful wiki link on Christmas dishes around the world posted by rach11, I settled on Japan, because Japan is awesome, and the Japanese Christmas Cake seemed very appealing. On that note, I send my holiday wishes to r/japanesefood and r/asianeats!

As an admittedly big time anime fan, I find great humor in the trope of the Christmas cake as a metaphor for women in their mid twenties fearing becoming one. No matter how delicious a Christmas cake is, no one wants it after the 25th. If you still don’t get it, the saying means that women won’t be able to marry if they haven’t married by the time they are 25. It is an utterly ludicrous and highly old fashioned sentiment, but still pretty funny in anime format. Ok, on to the Japanese Christmas Cake!

Another Autumn Treat: Pumpkin Ice Cream!

Earlier in the month, some friends invited me over for a bit of a celebration, and banana pudding was highly demanded by many of my friends. And yeah, that could have been enough. But not for me. I needed to bring something else to really make an impact. That and I just love cooking.

I still had plenty of pumpkin puree left over from my experiments with pumpkin pie, and having had the good fortune to find actual heavy whipping cream at my local grocery (unlike the other local grocery which is lame and does not have it) I decided an excellent use of the pumpkin would be pumpkin ice cream, to keep with the season. Spoiler alert, it was very well received.

Please note you will need an ice cream makerfor this recipe. Also note this is hardly an instant satisfaction recipe, there’s a lot of chilling time involved. And you probably need to freeze your ice cream maker container if it is one of those models.

On to ingredients! Clockwise from upper left: Bourbon, nutmeg, cinnamon, ground ginger, heavy cream, brown sugar, vanilla extract, egg yolks, pumpkin puree (or canned). Specific measurements and recipes at the end of the post!

Post Thanksgiving Post

Hi everyone, yesterday was a success. I had to feed 28 people and pulled it off quite well, handling a great deal of the preparations.

My own responsibilities were two turkeys, gravy, cranberry conserve (basically sauce), mashed sweet potatoes and the dessert, persimmon tarts.

The other prepared dishes were salad, which my mom took care of, and I guess what you would call a Pomegranate Fizz which my dad was in charge of (though I did most of the seeding there.)

There was also bread and corn, nothing fancy there. Now for the food porn!

First the big contenders:

My family’s Char Siu style marinated bird.

Here’s a better angle if a worse picture, sorry about the blur. Fending off six children demanding turkey skin is challenging.

And here’s my “Cajun” brined turkey. The original recipe triumphs over the traditional in flavor! Go me.

What’s this? A roux, with celery and onions, which will go with the following:

Turkey stock and pan drippings…

To make a very striking dark gravy.

To balance the intensity of the gravy, a cranberry conserve.

Stuffing! Sorry for the not very attractive globs of turkey fat on it, I forgot to take a picture after putting this in to crisp it up a bit more and let the delicious turkey fat baste it.

I had a brief moment to take a picture mid-meal.

And for dessert, some freshly baked persimmon tarts.

Extremely well received by the family.

Let me know if you want more clarity on anything here.

How did everyone else’s Thanksgiving dinners go?