Trina’s Elk Braised in a Squash

Continuing my penchant for cooking stews inside of vegetables (loyal readers will recall my frenzy over stuffed pumpkins of last fall), last night I served a slightly exotic dish that used wapiti for the meat.

Coming into possession of an elk roast this year was the work of my niece Trina. A 30-something beauty who happened to find herself in a family of avid outdoorsmen, she is no stranger to the massive elk hunt camp erected on a plot of land outside Williams, Arizona each fall. She can often be seen sporting perfectly coiffed hair atop an outfit of lavender camouflage.  She always looks gorgeous and like she is right where she belongs, no matter how primitive the setting.

And Trina loves the place they camp so much she got married there a couple of years ago, to a guy she met through the hunting adventures their respective fathers shared with their kids. A match made in heaven. 

Although we never see them at Thanksgiving because it is always the beginning of elk season, they don’t miss out on the dinner. In their dining tent they hold a full blown turkey meal for the 30 or 40 folks on the hunt and include every detail, right down to the real dishes and cloth napkins. Quite a feat.

So we were a bit surprised this year to get a call from the camp right before our own relative-filled residential dinner. Trina asked to speak to her Grandfather and imparted the news (most fittingly from that location) that she is with child. The first great-grandchild is in the chute, so to speak. So fittingly, in a sort of circle of life kind of way, the next day she went right out and got herself an 800- pound 6-point elk!

Not the actual elk referred to in the story; this was my pal at the Thunderbird Lodge at the Grand Canyon as seen last fall.

Now elk meat is very lean and mildly flavored. I like the challenge of cooking it because for one thing it is free to me and for another it takes some creativity to take it from just OK to delectable.

Two of my favorite things are winter squash and braising, so I decided this would be the perfect solution for this meat.

Braising is favored because it involves a several steps that any multi-tasker can accomplish simultaneously, it requires a range of ingredients that can be used in endless combinations and, it results in the most tender meat and rich sauce. Even better, it is perfect for a dinner party because you can (and for best results should) make it in advance and simply reheat it in the oven so you can minimize kitchen time and maximize the cocktail hour with your guests.

 I must give a shout out to Tom Colicchio here. After about 4 seasons of watching Top Chef on Bravo I suddenly realized that the master braising recipe that I had practically tattooed to my right arm having found it in an early edition of Taunton’s Fine Cooking, was from him! He really is a great cook; he doesn’t just play one on TV.

So back to the Elk Braise, here is what I did:

Cut up an elk roast into long strips about the size of boneless short ribs. There was no weight on the package but I am thinking it was about 3.5 pounds.

Season with salt and pepper. Brown in batches in hot olive oil in a large dutch oven or deep skillet. Reserve the cooked meat in a bowl.

Meanwhile, roughly chop a large onion and about 6 cloves of garlic. Dice 6 medium peeled carrots. Thinly slice one fennel bulb and cut the larger circles in half.

Upon removing the last meat from the pan, add the vegetables and stir to sauté and deglaze the pan. As the onion is about to become translucent, add a 15- ounce can of diced tomatoes, three large sprigs of rosemary, about 2 teaspoons of fresh, chopped oregano and 20 halved prunes and stir for about 5 minutes more. This skillet will look gorgeous.

Add about 1 cup of coffee, 1 can of Guinness, 1 tablespoon of molasses, a box of whole mushrooms (about 15 medium sized ones). Cut the meat into bite size pieces and add back to the pan. Stir all the ingredients together, adjust for salt and cook uncovered in a 350 ⁰ oven for 2 hours.

Note: I like to start the oven phase on convection roast at 300⁰ for about 45 minutes. The top gets a bit brown so I stir this back in and turn to bake and 350⁰ for the duration. Keep your eye on it and stir in some water or broth if the sauce is cooking down too much.

At this point you can remove the rosemary sticks, cover, cool and store in the fridge.

For the squash I used an heirloom variety that was about 10 inches long and fairly fat. Cut in half lengthwise, seeds and strings removed and a bit sliced off the bottom to allow it to sit flat, it offered two wells large enough to take most of the warmed braise. This fit perfectly in a roasting pan which I then baked for about an hour at 350⁰ to cook the squash, lightly covering the stew with foil.

Served over a bed of arugula sprinkled with steamed, diced Yukon gold potatoes, the diners self-served

using large spoon to dig out the squash with each portion. A nice wine, a crusty, airy bread with herb or blood orange infused oil for dipping (and to pour over the main dish) and a side salad of chopped pink grapefruit in its juices, with thinly sliced fennel and a drizzle of vanilla infused olive oil and voila, a satisfying winter meal.

Not only was this the essence of comfort food, it was beautiful to serve and easy to clean up, which is always a nice thing for my lovely dishwashing assistant.

So thanks to Trina we are living large off the land.

Black-eyed Peas for Good Luck in 2011

We started 2011 off right:

Lots of laughs with some great friends;

Lots of rest on January 1 and lots of black-eyed peas (frijoles de ojos) on January 2 with a steady stream of luck seekers coming throughout the afternoon.

 On a personal level things are pretty good; only 3 more tuition payments and we will have a graduate on our hands. She lined up a job during Christmas break-who could ask for more than that in this market? And she was looking for apartments just before she left.

Both of our fathers are in remarkably good health and our mothers are holding their own, for the moment anyway.  

We both have jobs we like and all the Christmas stuff is already put away.

My first art show is coming up in February.

We have a reasonable mortgage on a fabulous house and so far have dodged the declining real estate bullet as even now we have equity.

My 5 year- old car just turned over 48,000 miles and the pump on the right side was actually open at the gas station today.

Our social calendar is filling rapidly and we have more great friends than we can even count. We are truly blessed and it would seem either the black-eyed peas are really working or we are just plain lucky. Probably a bit of both.

If only things were looking as bright in the world of politics. Arizona is in a tragic state of underfunding which is going to cause lots of social unrest. Things at the federal level are not much better financially and with the influx of new party members to Congress it is going to be very interesting to watch. The financial future of our entire country is downright scary. And foreign affairs are not much better. I saw a list of 10 separate spots around the world in serious unrest. Yikes!

In addition we have the interaction between state and federal policies. So it is interesting that the federal government has completely failed to manage illegal immigration-a job that should be a priority if you read the Constitution. In contrast, state after state is legalizing the use of marijuana to varying degrees but it remains illegal at the federal level creating uncertainty about how that is going to play out if the feds decide to enforce against Doctors and their patients in the medical marijuana field. 

As if that is not enough, an unaccountable Commission just voted 4-3 to regulate the internet which is government once again going looking for a problem to solve as if they don’t already have their hands full. This points up the problem inherent in trying to spread yourself too thin-the things you are supposed to be doing get ignored while you concentrate on items that are questionably within your bailiwick. The result is the entire system suffers, none of the governments receive the respect they require to function properly and the erosion of order is exacerbated. It is even worse here in Maricopa County where scandal after scandal continues to break. These may seem like small issues now but taken in the aggregate with everything else that is going on, these are hardly good  developments.

How can it be that things are so great on a micro level and so miserable on a macro level? If the positives that were being mentioned on today’s radio reports hold true, maybe economically things are looking up. That would be a step in the right direction. We can only pray and eat more black-eyed peas.

Pumpkin recipe-Heard It On NPR and Just Have to Make IT and my old favorite too.!

This sounds amazing. Of course  I plan to "Americanize" it. [Editor's note: I did make it with the rice and green chile flakes. Found some Gruyere/cheddar combo at Trader Joe's (of course) and used shallots. It was a big hit. I am definitely planning to do it again.][Did it again with arborio rice steamed first and chunks of Parmesan cheese and smoked pork from the Meat Shop downtown-also great]

It reminds me of our old favorite Pumpkin Pot Stew. The firrst is a French recipe, the second Argentine. As Dorie Greenspan notes in the NPR story we could use some culinary diplomacy in politics.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130704456 The pumpkin could be the key.

The best part of both of these recipes is you can apply your creativity very easily.

Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good

Makes 2 very generous servings

1 pumpkin, about 3 pounds

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1/4 pound stale bread, thinly sliced and cut into 1/2-inch chunks

1/4 pound cheese, such as Gruyere, Emmenthal, cheddar, or a combination, cut into 1/2-inch chunks

2–4 garlic cloves (to taste), split, germ removed, and coarsely chopped

4 strips bacon, cooked until crisp, drained, and chopped

About 1/4 cup snipped fresh chives or sliced scallions

1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme

About 1/3 cup heavy cream

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment, or find a Dutch oven with a diameter that's just a tiny bit larger than your pumpkin. If baked in a casserole, it will keep its shape, but may stick requiring service from the pot — which is an appealingly homey way to serve. Baked on a sheet, you can present it freestanding, but  take care in moving it. 

Cut a cap out of the top of the pumpkin (think Halloween jack-o'-lantern) working the knife  at a 45-degree angle. Scrape away the seeds and strings from the cap and  the pumpkin. Season the inside of the pumpkin generously with salt and pepper, and put it on the baking sheet or in the pot. Toss the bread, cheese, garlic, bacon, and herbs together in a bowl. Season with pepper and pack the mix into the pumpkin. The pumpkin should be well filled -adjust the amount of ingredients accordingly. Stir the cream with the nutmeg and some salt and pepper and pour it into the pumpkin to nicely moisten the ingredients.

Put the cap in place and bake the pumpkin for about 2 hours — check after 90 minutes — or until everything inside the pumpkin is bubbling and the flesh of the pumpkin is tender enough to be pierced easily with the tip of a knife. Because the pumpkin will have exuded liquid,  remove the cap during the last 20 minutes or so, so that the liquid can bake away and the top of the stuffing can brown a little.

When ready, carefully, very carefully — it's heavy, hot, and wobbly — bring it to the table or transfer it to a platter that you'll bring to the table.

Serving

Cut wedges of the pumpkin and filling; or spoon out portions of the filling, making sure to get a generous amount of pumpkin into the spoonful; or n dig into the pumpkin with a big spoon, pull the pumpkin meat into the filling, and then mix everything up.. Served in hearty portions followed by a salad, the pumpkin is a perfect cold-weather main course; served in generous spoonfuls or wedges, it's just right alongside the Thanksgiving turkey. 

Greenspan's Stuffing Ideas

There are many ways to vary this arts-and-crafts project. Instead of bread, I've filled the pumpkin with cooked rice — when it's baked, it's almost risotto-like. And, with either bread or rice, on different occasions I've added cooked spinach, kale, chard, or peas (the peas came straight from the freezer). I've made it without bacon, and I've also made and loved, loved, loved it with cooked sausage meat; cubes of ham are another good idea. Nuts are a great addition, as are chunks of apple or pear or pieces of chestnut.

Pumpkin Pot Stew

2 1/2 T oil, divided use

2 lbs. Rump or chuck roast, cubed

1 clove garlic, minced

2 medium onions, chopped

1 red pepper, chopped

2 large tomatoes, chopped

1 t salt

1/4 t pepper

1 t sugar

21 ounces beef broth

1 dozen pitted prunes

6 ounces dried apricots

2 sweet potatoes, cubed

2 new potatoes, cubed

10 ounces frozen corn

1 large pumpkin, cleaned.

Saute meat until brown in 1 T oil.

Separately saute onion, garlic and red pepper in remaining oil. Combine with all the other ingredients except corn and cook one hour.  Add corn and transfer to pumpkin (bottom trimmed to sit flat).

Cover with pumpkin top or foil and bake at 325 for 1 1/2 hours or more. Serve in pumpkin. (see above for serving options)  (Do not store leftovers in pumpkin).

Makes 8 to 10 servings.

TMI in All the Wrong Places

I read a column by the great observer Peggy Noonan yesterday. In it she pointed out that for the last twenty years politicians have been telling us what a lousy group of losers they are through their use of negative attack ads. It appears that they have done a great job of applying the fundamental rule for marketing; that of managing expectations. And they all seem to be living down to them.

I was at yoga the other day and apparently someone passed gas because the instructor cautioned us not to worry as this exercise will cause such reactions from the most modest of us.

These two events, having occurred within close proximity of one another, got me to thinking about our social mores. We are completely embarrassed by the most human of bodily functions but we are unabashedly and magnetically attracted to the muddy side of the famous person--movie star and politician alike. And if there is a commercial reward involved there seems to be no boundary at all, at least in that most impersonal of mediums, the TV ad-we see folks holding hands in bathtubs and speedy acts of incredibly potent sexual climax on a regular basis. (See what you DVR’ers are missing?)

What is up with that?

The rules for polite society grew out of the Victorian era. Although on the surface people were most reserved, underneath it all they were amazingly human. Discretion, however, kept such things as homosexuality and extramarital affairs out of the public eye. These were not the topic of dinner conversation, much less the length of an erection, as they are now. No heart-wrenching revelations of the torture of carrying a sexually transmitted disease being revealed to the people who know you only through your role on reality TV and their interest in your ability to design things.

Why do we need to know the sexual activities of these people?

Yesterday I also read a very compelling essay by a gay army man about the burden of living with the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. The military, being more than just a job, puts people in close living proximity for long periods of time. Of all the places where it might be relevant to discuss these things, it is off limits.

Does this make any sense whatsoever? How is it that the one place it would be handy to know a person’s sexual tendencies-in the field barracks that you will be intimately sharing for months on end-you are supposed to have no clue, but if you were at home watching TV you have a ring-side seat at the sexual banquet of any number of people, including your own Senator. 

Too much information in all the wrong places!

This kind of thing gives me a headache. Especially when I consider that the means by which we pay for that dedicated army man to “protect” our national security is in great peril by the unprecedented and unsolvable deficit levels that threaten our national security in a very profound way..

Could we please leave the talk of bodily functions to the boudoir and get back to the business of running the country? If we don’t, my migraine will only increase. And with Obamacare on the horizon I fear for the ability to get quick, effective treatment.

Handy information; read all the way down

E-Mail Tracker Programs -- very interesting and a must read!!!

The man that sent this information is a computer tech.  He spends a lot of time clearing the junk off computers for people and listens to complaints about speed.  All forwards are not bad, just some.  Be sure you read the very last paragraph. 

He wrote:
By now, I suspect everyone is familiar with snopes.comand/or truthorfiction.com for determining whether information received via email is just that:  true/false or fact/fiction.  Both are excellent sites.


Advice from snopes.com   VERY IMPORTANT!!
1) Any time you see an email that says "forward this on to '10' (or however many) of your friends", "sign this petition", or "you'll get bad luck" or "you'll get good luck" or "you'll see something funny on your screen after you send it" or whatever --- it almost always has an email tracker program attached that tracks the cookies and emails of those folks you forward to.  The host sender is getting a copy each time it gets forwarded and then is able to get lists of 'active' email addresses to use in SPAM emails or sell to other spammers.  Even when you get emails that demand you send the email on if you're not ashamed of God/Jesus --- that is email tracking, and they are playing on our conscience.  These people don't care how they get your email addresses - just as long as they get them.  Also, emails that talk about a missing child or a child with an incurable disease "how would you feel if that was your child" --- email tracking.  Ignore them and don't participate!


2) Almost all emails that ask you to add your name and forward on to others are similar to that mass letter years ago that asked people to send business cards to the little kid in Florida who wanted to break the Guinness Book of Records for the most cards.  All it was, and all any of this type of email is, is a way to get names and 'cookie' tracking information for telemarketers and spammers -- to validate active email accounts for their own profitable purposes.

You can do your Friends and Family members a GREAT favor by sending this information to them.  You will be providing a service to your friends.  And you will be rewarded by not getting thousands of spam emails in the future!

 Do yourself a favor and STOP adding your name(s) to those types of listing regardless how inviting they might sound! Or make you feel guilty if you don't! It's all about getting email addresses and nothing more.

You may think you are supporting a GREAT cause, but you are NOT!

Instead, you will be getting tons of junk mail later and very possibly a virus attached!  Plus, we are helping the spammers get rich!  Let's not make it easy for them!
ALSO:  Email petitions are NOT acceptable to Congress of any other organization - i.e. social security, etc.  To be acceptable, petitions must have a "signed signature" and full address of the person signing the petition, so this is a waste of time and you are just helping the email trackers.

Also of note: