Dessert Labors of Labor Day Weekend

It was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, with company in from out of town, and I wanted to put together a special dessert for dinner that night. I had two recipes that I'd wanted to try out, and they promised a certain complimentary flair, so I tackled the time-consuming preparation of them both for much of the afternoon (and into the evening!). After a great dinner of pan-seared pork medallions in a ginger-shiitake-soy cream sauce, this was sort of a heavy dessert: an intensely chocolate-y layer cake with some homemade salty caramel ice cream on the side:

But it was not a particularly successful endeavor. Well, it was partially successful. Here's the deal.

Both of these items involved making caramel by melting down sugar. For the ice cream, that worked out reasonably well (although as you'll see below, I think it was an insufficient amount of sugar). The caramelizing of the sugar for the cake was in order to create a thick but spreadable layer of caramel to go between each of the cake layers...but even though I thought I watched it carefully, it ended up with a nasty burned taste. I discarded that caramel filling and doubled the rich deep chocolate frosting and used it as filling and as icing. That proved to be an excellent accommodation: this is about the most intense chocolate cake I've ever made, incredibly moist and flavorful. You probably don't want a regular sized piece of it, frankly. It has the potential to overwhelm you.

As for that ice cream...I have a small collection of recently-obtained ice cream recipes that I've wanted to work my way through. The first of those was fantastic: the red velvet ice cream with cream cheese swirl. The second one was reasonably well-received by that evening's company but I didn't think it was worth repeating: coffee toffee ice cream.

So the next one I tried out was for salty caramel ice cream, last Saturday night. I've become quite fond of salty caramel ice creams and gelatos. I've also enjoyed discovering the caramel version of Liberté yogurt. I was pretty pumped to try this out at home.

But where is the sweetness?! This is an incredibly blah ice cream. I expect some of it will get eaten, just because it's here, but I'll not be surprised if I throw out what's left. I realize kitchen life is full of its ups and downs, but man-o-man I hate to put in that many hours and come out with a double-dose of disappointment.

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"Chocolate-Caramel Layer Cake," by Lan Lam. In Cook's Illustrated, Number 136, September & October 2015, p. 20-22.

"Salty Caramel Ice Cream," a not-at-all-good ice cream, I'm afraid. Yuck. Try it if you want to. But I would discourage you. Totally. Adapted from Jeni Britton Bauer and originally published in Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. Found online at cookingchanneltv.com.

Meal No. 1371: World's Best Lasagna

I like it meaty, saucy, and cheesy. That's the lasagna that was talking to me this past Sunday night when some of the usual crew gathered around the table.

By the way, I guess the reason this is the go-to lasagna recipe for me is because it was the top hit on a google search and, once I tried it, I saw no reason to look any further. When I was writing up this blog post, though, I was trying to remember if the author was a restaurant chef. Turns out he's just a talented home cook. And this recipe has been Number One for 12 years on allrecipes.com.

This has led to a bit of newsworthiness for Mr. John Chandler, the recipe's author, on Good Morning America and in the Washington Post.

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"World's Best Lasagna," by John Chandler (Dallas, TX). Found online at AllRecipes.com.

One Phenomenal Pie: Atlantic Beach Pie

Granted: it's a North Carolina beaches concoction that is definitely similar to the way key lime pie is often made. But the variations are significant enough to grant it its own special imprimatur: Atlantic Beach Pie. Made famous all over again by the chef at Chapel Hill's famed Crook's Corner, this is a lemon, egg yolk, and sweetened condensed milk base cooked inside a sweet-and-salty crust made from pulverized Ritz crackers, butter, and sugar. It sure takes me back to many a meal on the southeastern North Carolina coast during childhood vacations.

Call it what you will, but this rascal finds a happy home in my mouth. It was a tasty dessert last Thursday night.

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"One Phenomenal Pie: Atlantic Beach Pie," from Chef Bill Smith. Published in Our State Magazine, May 2014. Also featured in "Found Recipes" on All Things Considered from National Public Radio, broadcast April 13, 2013.

Meal No. 1370: Pan-Seared Pork Medallions in a Ginger-Shiitake-Soy Cream Sauce

This past Saturday night, with a regular weekend guest on hand, I returned to one of the all-time Roediger House favorite meals: pan-seared pork medallions in a ginger-shiitake-garlic-soy cream sauce. It's as good as it sounds, my friends. The sides were mashed potatoes and seasoned lima beans, but the desserts (yes, plural!) will be blogged about later.

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Recipe based on "Pan-Seared Tuna with Ginger-Shiitake Cream Sauce," from The Bon Appétit Cookbook by Barbara Fairchild, 2006, p. 398-399.

A Rainy Food Truck Friday, and Gallery Hop

Just as the weekend was kicking off, and the trucks were in place for the latest Downtown Winston-Salem Food Truck Friday behind the house, the rains and some storming arrived.

But people merely retreated to their cars for a bit, or whipped out their umbrellas, or sought shelter under the food truck canopies. I watched from the pool table gable window until the rain let up. And then I went for some supper, from the Taqueira El Azteca taco truck.

Then I headed out to Gallery Hop in the Arts District on Trade Street. The rains had pretty much cleared out but you could tell it put a slight damper on the crowds. Still, I got to see some great art and had the bonus of meeting new neighbors who have moved in just down Spring Street. All in all, it was another fantastic Friday night in downtown Winston-Salem, capped off by enough time to relax over some Abita Andygators once I was back at the house.

Meal No. 1369: Savory Garlic Beef & Broccoli Turnovers

It's been years since friend and colleague Leslie Martin has come over to the house, and the dinner visit this past Thursday night was long, long overdue. It's my fault: she's promised to be here if I'd just send her the dates that worked best, and I repeatedly failed to get that ball rolling. Leslie definitely appreciates how much this house has been transformed by all the work that I've had done to it. She knew what it looked like when I first bought it in 2003.

For dinner that night, we had a terrific dish created by Kirsten Shabaz, as part of a Philadelphia Cream Cheese promotion, if I remember correctly. I stumbled across it in an issue of Taste of Home, which almost always then makes its recipes available via their website. This one isn't, though. Instead, to access the original, you might look at a reposting of it on food.com.

On the Kraft website, it's been reworked to account for the unavailability of the savory garlic cooking creme that's no longer marketed. I don't like that Kirsten's name has been completely removed from authorship, though. And quite frankly, I prefer the DIY cooking creme recipe that I've posted down below.

I guess the recipes that Kirsten and other women created back in 2010 or 2011 were supposed to boost the demand for the short-lived "cooking cremes" that were so briefly in grocery stores. Kraft seems to recognize that people still yearn for them, even though they were an unsuccessful venture in the Philadelphia line, and they finally put up this Tumblr page to help people craft (ha!) them at home.

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"Savory Garlic Beef & Broccoli Turnovers," by Kirsten Renee Shabaz of Minneapolis, MN. Taste of Home, November 2011, p. 31. (Go to food.com for a copy of the original recipe.)

"DIY Cooking Creme," from Finding Joy in My Kitchen, 25 May 2011.

Meal No. 1368: Spice-Rubbed Grilled Turkey Tenderloins

I made this meal quite recently but it was so delicious I was ready to give it another go. So the Roediger House dinner table this past Wednesday night was filled with spice-rubbed grilled turkey tenderloin, along with stuffing and baby Brussels sprouts.

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"Spice-Rubbed Grilled Turkey Tenderloins," from Southern Living, March 2009.

Meal No. 1367: Biscuits 'n Sausage Gravy

Wednesday's noontime attraction ended up being a meal instead of a snack or a sandwich, and it prominently featured biscuits and sausage gravy. This was not a meal that I grew up eating and only came to appreciate as I approached middle age. This might call into question some of my southern credentials.

And I couldn't quite finish it:

Meal No. 1366: Grilled Blackened Tuna Steaks

Although occupying a large portion of the plate, this grilled ahi tuna steak was actually cut a bit on the thinner side. It only took about a minute and a half per side on a very hot grill to cook it up just right this past Monday night. It was still too large for me to finish it all. With quinoa and sugar snap peas, it sure hit the spot.

A Mission Possible Endeavor: Caramel Popcorn Crunch Cookies

Oh, these caramel popcorn crunch cookies are devilishly delicious. I got up early yesterday morning so that I could make a batch, by special request, for the Mission Possible team I've been working with in Guilford County Schools. I had a planning meeting with them and this seemed like a good addition to our session.

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"Cap'n Crunch Cookies," found online at The Capitol Baker, with credit going to The Sugar Plum Blog for inspiration and the source of the adapted recipe.

Meal No. 1365: Pan-Seared Chicken Thighs with Shallots in Roasted Garlic Wine Sauce

This fine skillet chicken dish has only made one previous appearance at the Roediger House. I thought it was better on its inaugural run, but Sunday night it was still a delicious meal.

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"Pan-Seared Chicken Thighs with Shallots in Roasted Garlic Wine Sauce," from Amie, the Day-Dreaming Optimist. Her blog is A Meaning of An Optimist.

Meal No. 1364: Grilled Ribeye Steak and French Fries

This past Saturday night in downtown Winston-Salem, with a light pleasant breeze and awesome temps and low humidity...or to put it another way: a perfect night to grill out.

Meal No. 1363: Multigrain Pancakes for a Saturday Lunch

The Convenience of FTFWS

It is not a short return trip when I come back home from working in Virginia Beach City Public Schools. After an intense but excellent five hard days of work, I got home Friday night and it was nearly 8:30 pm. Yet again, right behind the house, there was a whole collection of food trucks for the latest edition of Downtown Winston-Salem Food Truck Fridays. On a beautiful August evening with a very nearly full moon coming up over the city skyline, and tempting smells wafting all around the house, I stepped up to the Bulkogi Korean BBQ food truck and ordered my dinner. This here is kimchee fried rice with chicken bulkogi BBQ, and not a small amount of kick:

The spice in it caused me to too quickly down a couple of Abita Andygator helles doppelbocks, forgetting that they are 8% ABV...so I ended up a bit giddy once dinner was over. Guess that reduced my hesitations and why it was a double scoop of gelato I got from the West End Coffeehouse afterwards.

This Korean BBQ crew came all the way from Wake Forest, NC (not Wake Forest University!). I see from their schedule that they don't just stay in the Raleigh area. They'll be back for another Winston-Salem Food Truck Friday behind the house on September 11th (but I'll be in California!).

Tonite we're traveling to Winston Salem for their Downtown Food Truck Fridays at 751 W 4th St Winston Salem! Serving from 6-9! See you soon!

— Bulkogi Korean BBQ (@NCBulkogi) August 28, 2015

Repeating the Tweets of a Great Week!

This week, I've been on the road to Virginia Beach, where I conducted two Project CRISS trainings at two different high schools, with a session on Instructional Design sandwiched in the middle (attended mostly by administrators and other instructional leaders). It was a particularly awesome week that was full of high notes, serious conversations, responsive participants, and the genuine joy of working with capable and bright educators. I thought I might sum it up by embedding a few of the tweets that were posted by some of the folks I worked with:

Do we plan for teaching or plan for learning? @ReadingQuest pic.twitter.com/mx0sBmaSG4

— Meghan Timlin (@MsMeghanTimlin) August 26, 2015

Awesome presentation from Ray Jones on Instructional Coaching! @AnaCingel @smith2dw #poweronvb

— Cameron Vadersen (@CVadersen) August 26, 2015

The design of instruction should be so that it's impossible not to learn. @smith2dw pic.twitter.com/AtLqv7QHvE

— Ana Cingel (@AnaCingel) August 27, 2015

Great CRISS training at PAHS today! Looking forward to day two. It has me taking a close look at my current practices and how I can improve.

— Erik Tonnesen (@eriktonnesen) August 27, 2015

As always, the BEST professional learning experience I have ever had is with Dr. Ray Jones @ReadingQuest #thinkingaboutlearning

— Meghan Timlin (@MsMeghanTimlin) August 26, 2015

The Rat Came Back

I was at the kitchen sink, again washing dishes, and I spotted something strange under the bird feeder that's positioned for me to watch it from that vantage point:

This is not a squirrel.

The grass was a bit long but laid over, so I was mostly catching movement in the blades.

Then I caught sight of its face.

Then I saw it scamper.

I hadn't seen any rats in the backyard in about three years, so I'll have to get the pest control folks to rebait the traps outside.

One of the persistent and determined squirrels was back to focusing on the feeder above, hanging on a yard hook stuck in the ground:

I'm sure this rat was glad that the squirrel was spilling more seed down to the ground with his valiant efforts to break into the food bank.

But then the squirrel fell:

I was not quick enough with my camera to capture the way those two creatures tangled with each other, but I can assure you the squirrel was the one who backed away. That rat was not playing and he owned the day. They were wary of each other from then on.

That's downtown living, I suppose!

A Scarcity of Butterflies

Now that I've got two reasonably healthy butterfly bushes growing outside the door to the parking area, and now that they've been there for a couple or more seasons, I was hoping I'd start getting some great butterfly action. Alas, not so much. Thus far this summer, I've been able to catch sight only of two different butterflies, and one of them was on the job when I had my telephoto lens nearby.

Oh, and I think you might already know how much I love cicada season:

Keyless Entry

Yet another overdue task on my house to-do list was getting a locksmith in to do some work. Ever since the kitchen addition was completed in 2009, there's been a mismatch in exterior door locks: the rear kitchen door to the grill patio did not work with the same key as the other doors. I'm willing to lay the blame for that on my general contractor for that project, Peter R. "Pete" LaRoque of LaRoque Construction (Mocksville, NC). He didn't care that the lock didn't match.

I also wanted to put a keyless codepad deadbolt on the door coming in from the parking lot. The Roediger House has so many good friends who regularly come and go, plus I liked the idea of being able to come in with groceries or from yardwork without having to have my keys on me. Also, over the years, a lot of various contractors have had keys to the house. Now that most of the major work is done, I wanted to reset all the exterior door locks to up the security protections. With this keypad, I can enter temporary codes when needed, and then take them back out. Another bonus is that any departing guest can lock the deadbolt from the outside, whether that guest is gifted with a code or not. That's a nice feature of this new lock.

So, Aaron-Elliott Locksmiths from here in downtown came in late June and rekeyed the locks, installed the new keypad lock, and switched a couple of interior deadbolts for rooms upstairs that I'd changed the assigned use of. So far, so good. It's a much more workable system.

The June Birds

Back in June, when I was enjoying a pleasant sit-for-a-spell on a lovely afternoon, I spent some time watching the activity of the birds, who were busy at the several feeders hanging in the small grove beside the house. At some point, I decided to get my telephoto lens and capture some of the action, including the following:

One of the items I brought home from my mother's estate was her outdoor concrete features, including two benches, two planters, and her beloved birdbath:

I have yet to properly place the benches and the planters, but I enjoyed watching the birdbath get put to good use a few days after the above pictures were shot:

Finally, I was working on plants on the far side of the driveway when I heard some ornithological commotion...and that signaled to me that the hawk was in the vicinity. I caught sight of him leaping down from the porch roof to the front yard, but all I had was my cellphone camera, so it's not as clear as I'd like. Still, as some of you are well aware, I love catching the hawk in action. Do you see him on the lawn, near the middle of this picture below?

It's Electric!

In a place like the Roediger House, one can accumulate quite a long list of items for when one finally gets around to calling on an electrician. Such was the case for me, with years to pile on the tasks, and my recent stretch of time at home allowed me to finally get on the case.

I used Angie's List to narrow down my choices and gave a call to Fred Schlosser of eWire Electric Company here in town. What a terrific guy he is...he was able to come over the next day, which was a Friday, and then he returned on Monday since it was more than could be finished in one afternoon.

Here's a sampling, but not the complete list:

I'd never gotten the ceiling light put back up in the study after the plaster repair was done. Since it's doubling now as a bedroom, it made more sense to put in a ceiling fan. Fred took care of it for me.

Near the old men's chairs by the fireside in the addition, I had a floor plug installed for the lamp there. However, it was cheap, plastic, and floor-level instead of recessed, so whatever was plugged in was regularly stepped on. Finally, one of the blades on a lamp plug broke off in the receptacle. I wanted something sturdier that was also recessed into the floor.

The left switch controls the outdoor security flood lights, which are on a photoelectric cell. But from time to time, they'd be inadvertently turned off by guests or workmen and I wanted to put a stop to it. I also still wanted to easily turn those outdoor floods off whenever there's a movie night, so I asked for the kind of switch that you see in schools, where the custodian has a key but otherwise the switch cannot be used. This was the perfect solution.

In both the laundry room and the master bathroom closet, the ballasts in the fluorescent fixtures had gone bad. The closet had been out for years, in fact, and I had a lamp in there for light!

Finally, at the suggestion of Philip Lamachio of Estate Plaster, Inc., I replaced the cheap and potentially faulty sconce lights in the main hallway. Fred installed these for me when he was here.

Meal No. 1362: Herb-Roasted Salmon Fillet

I love salmon and enjoy making it at home, but I swear I have a tendency to overcook it (usually) or undercook it (occasionally). Every once in a while, though, I nail it. That was the case tonight with a nice thick slab of salmon, which was perfectly seasoned and roasted. It was hard to beat, together with pearl couscous and lima beans, and a healthy dollop of chilled rosemary dijon cream sauce.

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Chilled Rosemary Dijon Cream Sauce, from "Poached Salmon," in The Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook, compiled and edited by Julie Fisher Gunter. Birmingham, AL: Oxmoor House (1999), p. 216.

Meal No. 1361: Spice-Rubbed Grilled Turkey Tenderloins

It was a full week of teaching and presenting on the road, so I was glad to be able to come in early on this Friday afternoon. There were two bonuses of how the week wrapped up: I was only two hours away in Roanoke, and I was finished with my presentations before 11 am.

Tonight's grub: grilled spice-rubbed turkey tenderloins along with stuffing and broccoli florets. And a cold Bell's Best Brown Ale to wash it all down. It was hopping around the house last night, with a Friday night Winston-Salem Dash baseball game and another round of Downtown Winston-Salem Food Truck Fridays behind the house. The evening inside the house went late with 19 games of pool, with the fireworks from the baseball stadium reflecting off the 751 West Fourth Building just across the way. One of these days, I'll try to snag those reflection pictures.

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"Spice-Rubbed Grilled Turkey Tenderloins," from Southern Living, March 2009.