Shucking An Oyster - VIDEO

Oysters are an acquired taste and are thought of as a regional treat, but they are both healthy for the environment as cleaners of the the bays in which they reside, and for consumption due to their high zinc and protein contributions.

Making Roast Turkey (or Chicken) Gravy - VIDEO

Besides the family stuffing, gravy seems to provoke the most debate, and have a certain family propriety to it.  Your gravy will conjure up memories of childhood Thanksgivings or other holidays, and strange gravy will fall flat on your memory banks.

Thick or thin? Giblets or smooth? Salty or bland?  Each family seems to have a tradition.  But gravy, while a simple concept, is not so simple in execution.  Remember those lumpy, starchy gravies of youth (maybe even of today)?  Gravy is more than a mixture of stock and thickener.  It is the unifying element on the plate, the sauce in which all the important meal elements swim.  Isn't it worth a little effort?

Making Butter At Home. Good Stuff - VIDEO

Making butter at home is both simple and delicious with the right ingredients, tools, and technique.

Butter is simply the liberated fat from cream, which is generally stored in the emulsion that is cream.  The trick is to use agitation to combine the tiny fat globules into a growing mass until all the fat is liberated from the solution.  Chemistry. 

Making Fresh Pasta At Home

Carbohydrates have become the scourge of American diets, cursing some of the best comfort foods of the ages such as potatoes, pasta, and bread.  But each of these culinary elements is the spice of life.  Who can imagine a pot roast without mashed potatoes, roast chicken without stuffing, and any Italian dish without pasta and Sunday gravy?

I have been making fresh pasta for years, but grudgingly, with hand-kneading of the dough and a simple hand-cranked Atlas pasta machine that must be close to 30 years old at this point.  The heavy manual labor and time involved had put my pasta-making skills on hiatus thanks to kids/life balance.  But some new techniques and some investment in a few tools has made the process infinitely more simple and quick, allowing for same-day turnaround for an excellent product.  And there is nothing wrong with bragging rights for making your own product.

Smoking a Pork Butt in a Garbage Can Smoker

When summer comes around, outdoor cooking beckons and with little room in our Georgetown home for a standard offset smoker, the family retreats for part of the season to Narragansett, Rhode Island.  There we have more space to play, and more time to cook on weekends.  This past weekend we pulled out our homemade garbage can smoker from the garage for a low a slow smoke of some cured pork butt (also know as a pork picnic).  This cut of meat is comes from the shoulder of the pig, is relatively inexpensive (although prices for pork have recently skyrocketed due to PED, a porcine virus that has been killing piglets), and requires long cooking or braising over low heat to bring out both its tenderness and full flavor.

Crawfish Boil

We're having about 40 folks over for a school fundraiser tonight and I am the main course leg of a progression dinner at three homes in Georgetown.  The menu tonight includes seared lamb carpaccio, tuna sashimi, french onion soup, and smoked pork shoulder tacos.   But the most exotic course on the menu is the humble mud bug.

Properly Prepared French Fries: Twice Cooked

The french fry is one of the greatest of culinary indulgences, appropriately firm and crispy on the outside and fluffy and airy inside.  Getting this combination of textures can be a challenge, witness all the poor examples of fries in restaurants.  But with the proper tools and this two-step technique, you can easily produce delicious fries at home.

Easy and Savory Lasagna - VIDEO

I know that lasagna appears to take an inordinate amount of time for what is supposed to be a weekend casserole, however the mix of flavors and the promise of leftovers usually makes the effort worth the while.  And while this different take on lasagna is multi-stepped, most of the time is spent simmering on the stovetop or in the oven rather than requiring your time.  And the benefit, beyond the first bite, is the jealousy you will instill in your neighbors who will inevitably smell the components being prepared.

Quick and Easy Guacamole - VIDEO

I regularly hear from folks about the dreamy guac they had at restaurant X.  I find it crazy, as they see how the guac is made:

A waiter (with his shirt unbuttoned just slightly too low) comes over to the table with a couple of avocados.  He cuts them and mashes them with a fork.  He seasons the guac to the order.  He serves it in a Mexican molcajete.  Sexy.

Well, I can mash avocado with the best of them, and I can keep my shirt on.

Simple Dutch Oven Artisanal Bread - VIDEO

The Necessary Hardware

When it is gloomy out, like it was yesterday, I crave comfort food.  Nothing goes better with that type of cuisine than a great crusty loaf of bread.  It used to be thought that making such bread at home was next to impossible, as the commercial stoves have sophisticated ovens with terrifically hot floors and steam injection to improve the rise of the dough while baking.

Best Food Processor Pizza Dough and Pizza From Start To Finish - Video

 

A Good Looking Pie

Pizza seems to be intimidating to the home cook, in part, I think, due to the intimidation of the from-scratch dough making, and due to the lore surrounding this wonderful and mysterious dish.  Go to a pizzeria and you will see 10-foot long Blodgett pizza ovens or worse, the wood-fired clay oven.  Fellas impossibly throwing dough over their heads to stretch and round it, and "old family recipe" sauces conceivably never replicated in a simple home kitchen.  Bullshit.

Osso Buco - A Great Evening For a Braise - VIDEO

On a cold and dreary day, when you have plenty of time to go low and slow, there is nothing better than a braise.  Slow cooked stew, cassoulet, carbonnade, or pot roast go hand in hand with short days and damp and cold weather.  And as we are in the middle of such a weather system, Sunday seemed like a good day to consider this time-tested technique.

Simple and Delicious Peel-Free Mashed Potatoes - VIDEO

Yukon Gold Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are a staple in most homes, an alternative to other starches such as pasta or rice.  There are many techniques and supposed rules to make this potentially delicious side dish, but done improperly and the potatoes can become gummy, lumpy, bland, or runny.

And why anyone would purchase dehydrated mashed potatoes in a box is completely lost on me. 

Homemade Mozzarella Cheese - VIDEO

Tired of paying north of $7-$10/lb for fresh mozzarella from the grocer?  Then this process is not for you as it requires ingredients that cost nearly as much and involves an investment of time and energy that make no economic sense.  HOWEVER, if you want to see how cheese is made, have a great weekend project, and take home bragging rights making homemade pizza with your own cheese, this is your ticket.

An Introduction To Our New Blog

 Welcome to our new blog.  Well, sort of new.  We already have another blog that chronicles my life as an urban beekeeper, now turned commercial beekeeper, here in Washington, DC.  You can follow that very busy part of my free time here:  http://dchoneybees.blogspot.com/.

My vocation is real estate development, a profession in which I have worked with some of the largest developers in this city building thousands of apartment and condominium units.