Coconut Caramel

I make a regular caramel during camp for the coffee table and for sundaes. Deciding to do a Coconut Chocolate Cake, I thought a coconut version of my caramel sauce might go well with it.

Ingredients:
13.5oz Can of Coconut Milk
11oz (about 1 1/3cup) Sugar
Water

I put the sugar in a sauce pan and added just enough water to get the sugar wet.


I also put the coconut milk in a saucepan to heat up. And I got a brush with some water to wipe down the sides of the sugar saucepan.


I brought the sugar to a boil, and brushed the sides of the pot to prevent crystalization. I do not stir the pot at all, otherwise the sugar could caramelize.


The sugar starts to caramelize after a few minutes.


It starts to develop an amber color.


I take it a little longer and try and get the color as dark as I can without burning it.


I take the pot off heat & then whisk in the hot coconut milk until it has all incorporated together.


And that is all there is too it. As it cools, it will thicken.

To make the regular caramel that I make out at the camp, just substitute heavy cream for the coconut milk.

Chamber of Commerce Charity Dinner

So, for the past several years my mother has been signing me up to do dinner parties for various charities. We usually do one or two sometime after summer. And I have gotten to the point were I really enjoy them.

This weekend we did a dinner party for the Chamber of Commerce. Nine ladies bought the wine tasting in an auction. All proceeds went to the chamber, my parents hosted it & bought the food. Peter Beeman, who owns the Main Liquor store in Kerrville, pairs and supplies all the wine. And I do the cooking.

For Appetizers we did Braised Pork Bellies with a Raspberry Glaze:


1st Course: Pumpkin Beggar's Purse with a Brown Butter Sage Sauce


2nd Course: Peach & Tomato Salad with a Lemon-Infused Olive Oil


3rd Course: Lobster Bisque with Chives


4th Course: Seared Halibut with Zuchinni and Squash Diamonds and a Lemongrass Sauce


5th Course: Tenderloin with a Parsnip Risotto and an Oyster Mushroom Demi


6th Course: Coconut Chocolate Cake with a Coconut Caramel Sauce



I recently did a wedding out here and was upset that I was just too busy to take pictures of the food when it was going out. So, this weekend I enlisted the help of the beautiful, talented, kind, and sassy Kathleen Williams to help me prep a little and take tons of wonderful pictures. Here she is picking a little sage:


My brother James helped with lots of Front of the House duties:


His lovely wife, Lindsay, helped with all the plating:


Edward, Mary Liz, and Edward Jr. showed up for the fun:


Here is a picture of Peter Beeman helping out in the back:


For some reason, I don't have a picture of my sweet sweet mom helping with everything, but she did a large part of the work.

It was, as always a good time.

Greatest Moments in Food History

I came across this wonderfully compiled list of the 100 Greatest Moments in Food History. Tip of the Hat to Ann Althouse.


Here are some of my favorites:

8. c3000BC The Sumerians (occupying the area of present-day Iraq) come up with the concept of the sausage, using nutritious but otherwise unappealing bits of animals and preserving them, probably by drying them in warm winds in casings made from the guts of the animal.

19. c5000BC A herdsman stores milk in a pouch made from the stomach of an animal. Due to the effect of rennet in the stomach, the milk curdles and sets into cheese. The herdsman curses his luck, but soon realises it’s nice with pickled onions.

21. 1924 In Tijuana, Mexico, restaurateur Caesar Cardini is short of food after a big party. Scouring the kitchen, he digs out lettuce, bread, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, Parmesan, eggs and lemon, and knocks up the first Caesar salad, a dish that does at least look healthy despite being full of fat. It is, needless to say, hugely popular.

42. 1900 André Michelin publishes a guide for touring motorists, offering advice on garages, hotels and restaurants: in 1926, a star system is introduced for restaurants. Inclusion in its pages has since become the accolade to which some (but not all) chefs aspire.

64. 1963 President John F Kennedy declares “Ich bin ein Berliner” to prove his solidarity with his German audience; it also means ‘I am a jam doughnut’.

87. 1927 Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Iowa produces the first bread-slicing machine, providing the standard against which all ‘best things’ are measured.


I particularly like the Caesar Salad one. I think there is something neat about creating something legendary out of a few random ingredients.

I think I just like lists in general though. And food history. Combine the two and I apparently have to blog about it.

Here is another cool link to the origins behind foods named after people.

Tomato Salads & Pizza

Richard. Again with the Tomatoes?

Yeah. Sorry. But it is currently the shining thing that has my attention. To say that I am really into them right now is a gross understatement. A few months ago, I talked with a Fredericksburg farmer for about two hours all about tomato growing. Ridiculous, I know, but I find them to be excellent.

So here are a few things I have done lately with the tomatoes:

So that is an heirloom salad with avocados, pistachios, a little olive oil and some salt & pepper.

This is a Tomato Caprese Salad with mozzarella, basil, a balsamic reduction and some salt & pepper.

That is a salad out of the NYT that I found out about through Ann Althouse. It has peaches, red onion, cilantro, a little lemon juice, olive oil, red pepper flakes, and salt & pepper. It is astonishing, though I didn't drain the liquid from the tomatoes as well as I should have.

My sweet friend, Carolyn Angiolillo, sent me some wonderful buffalo mozzarella.

Which I had to immediately try with a Mortgage Lifter and a Cherokee Purple.

I made a salad for the Aides that had an assortment of Heirlooms smothered in the buffalo mozzarella & walnuts, with a little red wine vinaigrette and some salt & pepper.

And finally, today I made a few Pizza Margheritas with the Heirlooms. I loved the color, but I was extremely impressed & surprised with the taste. Just that 15 minutes of heat really brought out the sweetness of the tomatoes, but still keep them nice and juicy. Astonishing.

The Tomatoes So Far.

So, overall I am pretty pleased with how things are going this first year with the tomato garden. I have learned a lot about growing them, and have many things I want to do differently.

This is a recent picture of the garden. If you notice, the left bed is not caged and is laying along the ground. I had planned to cage them all, but summer happened and I ran out of time. 70 of the plants are caged, 10 are not.

This summer I realized just how little time I have for anything other than the kitchen. Next year, I have got to make the garden as low maintenance as possible.

Bugs have been a small problem. Nothing too bad, but I have had fireants, small bugs, grasshoppers and cutworms. I plan on looking for organic methods next year for dealing with them all, though I am not all that opposed to using chemicals.

The cages I bought were a little too flimsy. As the tomato plants grew bigger and taller, the cages bent and fell. I plan on making my own cages next year out of heavy duty wire and staking each for support. I also plan to cage them much much earlier.

The biggest thing that I didn't get to was the irrigation system. It takes me a good hour to water all of the plants at night. Which is time I just don't have. So, I need to get the irrigation system in place and with soaker hoses that go off on a timer. That way the ground will stay consistently moist.

I have two very visible problems with my tomatoes. The first has been blossom end rot (BER) which has caused little brown bottoms on my tomatoes. It was very apparent at the beginning and now has pretty much dissipated.

The second problem is cracking. You can see the cracking in the 2nd picture above. For the most part, the cracking is just ugly. But the cracking can cause fungus, disease and rotting. Which is pretty irritating.

Both of those problems are caused by the irregular watering. The ground is either dry or wet. not just a steady moist. So, the soaker hoses will help with all that.

The last thing I want to do differently is to put down mulch. Specifically straw. The straw will help the soil keep it's moisture and will also prevent weeds from seeing the light of day. It will help with fungus & disease.

So, I am pretty happy with the taste and colors that I am getting, but I am extremely eager about next year and all the improvements.

Blogging Hiatus

I apologize for my lack of posts.

I actually expected to be able to get a lot of good photo blogging in this summer. Why, I don't know. Since it is, after all, camp season.

I am taking pictures as much as I can, and have a few things I want to blog about. I just need the time. I'll hopefully be able to once everyone is fully trained.

The above picture is the first two tomatoes to come out of my garden. A Black Krim on the left and a Merced on the right.

My Tomato Garden

So sometime in early March my DVR broke down. I recommend this happening to anyone who wishes their productivity would increase dramatically.

I love fresh tomatoes. I love heirloom tomatoes. A tomato that is actually the color it is supposed to be when it is picked and has never been in the refrigerator is easily one of my favorite things. So, at some point, I decided to construct a garden in order to grow tomatoes for the camp during the summer.

I decided to build on the other side of the back tennis courts. The land is mostly flat, it gets a ton of sun, there is a water source, and one of the fence sides is already built. Contrast this photo with the one above:
So, I marked off the land I wanted. I decided to build it 72' x 33'. I broke up some of the larger mounds in order to try and even the land somewhat. This is actually a large mound:

I then ordered over 800 standard cinderblocks (16x8x8) from Lowes.

I built the first two beds. Each bed is 33' long and stacked two cinderblocks high.

The depth is 15" deep.

I put newspaper about 5 sheets thick into the bottom and watered it to keep it from blowing away. This will help weeds from coming through and the newspaper will breakdown with time.

I then lined it with around 4-5 inches of peat moss.

I then put in about 3-4 inches of in-camp horse manure that is around a year old.

I then put in about 6 inches of LC1 soil.

Then topped it with another inch of horse manure.

So, again, the layers are:
Newspaper
Peat Moss
Horse Manure
LC1 Soil
Horse Manure

Weeds should be minimal.

Then I built the next two beds & filled them the exact same way.

Then I continued on with the last 4 beds.

While I was putting up the beds, I was also putting up the corner posts, the gate posts and the gate.

I dug 18" down for the corner and gate posts. Which is actually an extremely long way down through tough dirt.

Edward helped me dig and even invented a new game that is sweeping the nation.

We dug holes for the line posts and then measured off the height for the line posts.

My bud, Mere Vasquez, helped with the cementing, since I know really nothing about such things.

We cemented all the line posts in place.

I then placed the crossbeams.

We stretched the chainlink into place.

The fence is a little over 6' tall.

Deer can jump that height, but I don't think they will want to in such an enclosed space.

I think it looks fantastic.

We lined the bottom with chicken wire and then I placed some of our Mystic rock along the bottom. It should help keep small rodents like black squirrels and skunks out.

Plus the rock looks awesome.

Finally, in early May, I was able to plant. Or rather, transplant. I went to the Planthouse, a wonderful nursery in Kerrville, and picked up 40 various plants from them. I planted them at night, and planted them as deep as I could.

I have been growing Heirlooms from seed in my bathroom. I'll get all into that in another post.

So, I planted those heirlooms in the other four beds.

I planted those at night as well. I spent almost 2 weeks "hardening" the plants off, getting them used to the wind, the sun, and the changing temperatures bit by bit.

Still, they had a little bit of transplant shock:

Though, 2 days later, they were looking wonderful.

That is the same plant.

I went ahead and caged the Planthouse plants, since they are much further along than the plants I started from seed. I started mine on April 1st, where the Planthouse may have started these in late Feburary.

Tomatoes naturally want to lie along the ground when they start getting weighed down by their fruit. The cages allow you to rest their stems on the wires, and basically prop them up like Weekend At Bernies.

So, I have 80 plants in the ground and really have no clue what I am doing. Anyone who has actually grown tomatoes finds me insane to have planted this many.

I have 21 different kinds of tomatoes planted. It will be nice seeing which types do the best and which are the most popular.

My Tomatoes:

Bed 1	Bed 3	Bed 5	Bed 7
Big Rainbow?	Cherokee Purple?	Lemon Boy	Italian Red Rose
Big Rainbow?	Cherokee Purple?	Lemon Boy	Italian Red Rose
Big Rainbow?	Cherokee Purple?	Lemon Boy	Italian Red Rose
Big Rainbow?	Cherokee Purple?	Cherokee Purple	Italian Red Rose
Big Rainbow?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Cherokee Purple	Italian Red Rose
Green Zebra	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Cherokee Purple	Surefire
Green Zebra	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Better Boy	Surefire
Green Zebra	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Better Boy	Surefire
Green Zebra	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Better Boy	Surefire
Green Zebra	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Better Boy	Surefire
Bed 2	Bed 4	Bed 6	Bed 8
Green Zebra	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Big Boy	Black Krim
Black Krim	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Big Boy	Black Krim
Black Krim	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Big Boy	Black Krim
Black Zebra?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Beefsteak	Black Krim
Black Zebra?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Beefsteak	Black Krim
Black Zebra?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Beefsteak	Merced
Black Zebra?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Carnival	Merced
Black Zebra?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Carnival	Merced
Black Brandwine?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Carnival	Brandywine
Black Brandwine?	Rainbow Heirloom Mix	Mortgage Lifter	Brandywine

Beds 1-4 are the plants I grew from seed. Beds 5-8 are the plants I purchased from the Planthouse. Beds 7 & 8 are the ones closest to the tennis courts.

The ones with question marks near them are tomatoes that are most likely what they say. 80% certainty. There was a mishap. I'll get to that when I blog about the tomatoes I grew from seed.

The Rainbow Heirloom Mix is a random mix of five different plants: Omar's Lebanese (Red), Dutchman (Pink), Golden Sunburst (Yellow), Black Russian (Purple), Djena Lee's Golden Girl (Orange). Hopefully I will get at least 2 of each plant.

I still need to put in the irrigation system, but I am pretty happy where I am with this right now.

1st term will probably get a good number of the Planthouse tomatoes about halfway through the term. I think 2nd and 3rd term are going to be getting a large amount of tomatoes from all the plants.