Archive for January, 2009
Gallery Update: Goetta Hobo sandwich
- One of those things that tastes better than it looks.
Great name, right? Anyway, if you are like me and from Cincinnati, OH, which I bet many of you are not, then you probably know what goetta is. If not you are seriously missing out. Goetta is a German peasant dish that apparently doesn’t really exist outside of Cincinnati anywhere. I asked people about it in Munich, Germany and they looked at me like I was crazy.
Well, as it turns out, goetta is about the best breakfast meat out there. Imagine sausage with oats. It has a very distinctive flavor and is fairly filling. Egg in the (a) basket, more entertainingly known as Hobo Toast, is a little more widely known than goetta. It is also shockingly easy to make, so long as you understand how you like your eggs and how to get them that way. Trial and error is probably the best way to go about this, but a knife to stab with and low heat will work just as well. It’s hard to cook a yolk once it’s running all over your plate (or chin).
The hobo toast is probably nothing new to most of you. I imagine in fact that the goetta though is a wholly new concept. Maybe a scary one. I personally think that ground, seasoned meat and oats sounds wonderful. I have also had the benefit of actually eating it. If it hasn’t been made abundantly clear yet, I am not a picky eater.
- Goetta. Looks a lot like sausage, eh?
I also feel obligated to mention that this is not exactly a light sandwich in terms of grease or how filling it is. Goetta and eggs are very filling. To be honest, making a sandwich out of this dish is really just an attempt to make it more portable. As you can see by the yolk all over my plate, I more or less failed. Ah well. The point of cooking for yourself is to make something that is tasty.
When you’re cooking for guests or for customers, then maybe it is time to learn how to make things look good. Cooking for your friends in college does not count as a situation that would require extremely pretty food, by the way. Just a reminder for the people I regularly cook for.
I digress. If you are going to venture into the world of hobo sandwiches, please remember to cook your goetta all the way through and not to burn the egg. A burnt egg is a terrible waste of breakfast.
P.s.: I justified all of the updates, because I think I like them better that way. Thoughts? concerns?
Hot Chocolate
- Not as good as some flavored brands, but pretty good.
A very quick update: Land O’ Lakes makes the best hot chocolate. Unfortunately, I drink the stuff far too quickly to enjoy it.
As an okay substitute I have begun mixing: Swiss Miss, Milk, cinnamon, a pinch of cloves, a Werther’s Original hard candy, and a drop of vanilla extract.
Be very careful how much vanilla and cloves you add. More than a drop and a pinch is overpowering and destroys any flavor that might have resulted from adding them. Additionally, it will take some time for the Werther’s to melt. Throw it in the milk as you heat it up so that by the time it is cool enough to drink most of it will be gone. You can also smash it up of you want. A peppermint would work well too, come to think of it.
Spicy Chicken Stew
- Spicy Chicken Stew
So last night at about 6 p.m. I decided that maybe it was time to make dinner. I had bow-tie pasta, chicken thighs and a variety of spices and vegetables on hand. The logical food to make was of course stew. If you’re going to make stew you might as well make cornbread as well.
I decided to make a spicy stew, using Jamaican jerk seasoning, chipotle and cajun seasoning for spice. I also added seasoning salt, a bay leaf, garlic powder and some black pepper. The spices gave the stew a nice heat. Not so spicy that it was unpleasant. Even Tim didn’t seem to mind the heat. Even with good spices, stew is nothing without vegetables. I added a little of everything I had on hand: potatoes, carrots, onion and celery.
The cornbread was simple enough. I prepared a box worth of jiffy cornbread to the recipe. Well, I baked it to the recipe. I added honey, butter, chipotle, a dash of seasoning salt and cajun seasoning. The result was a very sweet, somewhat hot cornbread. Beware though, the honey will make the muffins extra sticky. Prepare accordingly.
In the end I’m very pleased with how this stew came out. It seems to be one of those dishes (like red beans and rice) that is much better if you save it for the next day. Don’t misunderstand though. It was great to eat last night, but the little bit of leftovers I had today were even better.
The recipe made enough to give four people second helpings. Were I to do anything different I would use chicken breast instead of chicken thigh — which were very low quality — and start the cornbread much earlier. As it turned out everyone was well into their first bowl by the time the cornbread was done. This recipe was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, so if you make it please drop me a comment and let me know how it comes out.
Gallery Update: French Toast
- Two pieces of french toast
Another gallery update, as well as a few fairly substantial changes to how the site operates. The food page is now more of a gallery hub. That may change in the future, but for now this is how things are going to be.
I actually like the way that the galleries are working. I have to rework the coding for the actual food page a bit though. Right now it’s just basic tables. A click on the picture will take you to a nice thumbnail gallery of the food as well as the recipe used to create it. Feel free to use and abuse that. If you click on any of the thumbnail pictures a sort of slideshow will pop up. If you click away it will disappear.
For now the only foods in the gallery are the red beans and rice, french toast and focaccia bread pizza. The actual focaccia bread gallery page (and recipe) aren’t quite finished yet. You can expect that to be done by the end of the week, if not sooner.
Please do let me know what you think of how I have things set up. Just because I like it doesn’t make it any good. If the site is hard to navigate or doesn’t display properly on one particular browser, then I have not done my job well enough. For the record, I have tested the site in firefox and seen it in Safari and IE. The colors appear to be off in Safari and the font sizes in IE. Otherwise I have not come across any issues yet.
College food: Instant oatmeal
- Apple cinnamon oatmeal with maple syrup
No one in my family eats oatmeal. Not even my mother who - much to the annoyance of my younger brother - regularly eats vegetarian pitas. In fact, I am fairly certain that until very recently I have never eaten oatmeal either. As it turns out it looks pretty gross.
Well, late last quarter I decided that I was going to try and hopefully enjoy oatmeal, come hell or profound disgust. Until just today each bowl of oatmeal was a battle. I have added vanilla, bananas, apples and any number of spices. I have used different amounts of milk or water as well. In the end I would find myself sitting in front of a bowl of what appeared to be very soggy cereal. Today after going to workout with my friend Jake I decided to give my lonely box of oatmeal one more try.
I do believe that I have finally come up with a way to make oatmeal that I can enjoy. In fact, the bowl in front of me is currently empty. Were I not pressed for time, I would consider making myself another. Maybe adding banana. Instead of actually listening to the directions on the box I decided to take the manly approach. I added a shot of maple syrup and cinnamon with just a little bit of vanilla extract to the oatmeal. Instead if measuring out 2/3 c milk like the box claims I added just enough to be seen around the sides of the oatmeal and left the bowl in the microwave for 1:30. What I got, as you can see above, was more of a ball of sticky goop than a cereal like I have in the past. Instead of a thin cereal I produced a dense mash.
More importantly, it was cheaper and more filling than a bowl of sugar cereal. Add to that the fact that it took me two minutes to make and we have something here. Feeding myself on my own money in college has been an interesting experience. I have a taste for good food, but not spending money. That means that any time I can come up with a cheap, decent meal I am very pleased. I expect that my morning routine will be including oatmeal for…as long as I still have milk.
It still looks pretty gross.
Gallery Update: Red Beans
- Served over Rice and cornbread.
Just a quick update: I have completed my first gallery for the site.
You can hop over to the Food tab and look under sub-pages for now. Red Beans and Rice, to be specific. I am devising a better way to manage the galleries, but for now this will have to do. I imagine that I will have a gallery page up soon. Expect another update within the next few hours.
I will probably post my focaccia bread as both a gallery and a recipe as well as the french bread that I made for brunch over the weekend. Then again, I don’t know that brunch can be served at 2 p.m., even if it is french toast. Oh well. We’re not here to argue the definition of food terms. Yet.
In Progress
Well, I had planned on getting some of the galleries and maybe some recipes up by today, but I have spent most of my time on the site playing with the layout. I am more or less happy with it now though, so tonight and tomorrow I will be working on getting everything else up.
I have not forgotten you, Internet. I am just working behind the scenes right now.
Rolling
Hey Internet, it is blog time. I have been fiddling with this particular web space for a while now. Unfortunately I also developed a nasty habit of accidentally deleting most of the content whole-sale while messing around with the code. I will do my very best to not do that anymore.
- Sourdough
My name is Jeremy. Jeremy or Jay is just fine. I’m a 20 year old Online Journalism / Public Advocacy Communication double major at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. I spent a number of years in the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) and made it all the way to Eagle Scout. Most of my hobbies are based around things I learned to do in my time as a scout. The rest of them have been inspired by the Internet and being jealous of other people and their hobbies. I am not sure how often this blog will be updated, though I will attempt to keep things regular.
In other news, I finally have some direction for BeanHat. In recent months I have developed a taste for bread making. In fact, a just bought a dough hook to go with my shiny new Kitchen Aid mixer. (The mixer was a gift. I am a poor college student.) The focus of this blog will be cooking. Probably baking to be more specific. An important note before we get started though; I am a hobbyist. I don’t really know what I am doing, but that seems like a silly reason to not do something. The lovely picture of what amounts to a hamburger bun off to the left is the result of my first attempt to make sourdough bread. I entered it into the “Hungry Scientist” contest over at Instructables, which netted me second prize. Expect an entry about that soon.
I expect that I will be uploading pictures of the breads I have made in the past and detailing my experiences. I will probably be doing any number of other food related things with this blog as well. I have made red beans and rice, gumbo and Chicken Parmesan in the past few months. Those will probably make appearances soon enough. For now though I will be outlining who I am, what I do and what to expect. Before I finish this post off and go about filling in the obliquity “About me…” page I will lay out what I will and will not be doing.
I will: be blogging my opinions and experiences. Any posts or images that appear on this blog are created and owned by, of course, me. Unless otherwise noted. I will be blogging about whatever comes to mind and doing so as honestly as I can afford. Any time I make an edit I will make note of it in the modified post. Comments, constructive criticism, money and food are certainly appreciated.
I will not: be doing anything that would compromise my integrity as a journalist. While this is a personal, informal blog, I am still (being) trained as a journalist. As such I do have a code of conduct that I will be following. No personal attacks, no unfounded rumors and no stealing or plagiarizing. I also do not expect anything out of this blog beyond my own personal gratification.
Most of this will be showing up in the “About Me” page soon enough.
BeanGallery
BeanWall
Latest on Mon, 12:46 pm
: Uh, Jeremy. Maybe you should update this thing. >.>
: I love how you write as you speak. It just makes your posts that much more amusing.
: i wish i knew how to have comments like this on my blog. but i guess that would require paying money.
: Cool! Glad you finally did something with this domain.