Cooking Cheap

Here’s a regional ingredient to get the foodies foaming. It’s made by/at Washington State University and it comes in a can (they are the Cougars so that’s what the name is about). A 30 oz. can. That almost two pounds to you. It’s a lot of cheese to me. My sister Kim gave it to me for Christmas (and a can to brother Larry).

Yes, you read that right. It comes in a can. Tin can. 30oz. The can is inside a Rubbermaid Reseal-able container (better that your normal Rubbermaid quality too!). Larry knew all about it and passed on sailing wisdom – “keeps for ever, everydody with a boat talks about it”.

Actually, kept in a can, it will keep forever. The little pamphlet explains that. And it says it ages in the can, so depending on how old your can is it could be smooth or crumbly. On the tin, mine says “Made by Sammy June 3, 2005″.

Sammy has a bright future as a cheese maker. I’d like to buy him a drink. This is some seriously good stuff. The closest cheese might be White Cheddar. My can was a bit crumbly to cut, and had some seriously good bite back, almost like a chunk of parmesan. I didn’t throw away a single crumbly bit. Not one. I put them all in my mouth. I’d have licked the cutting board if needed. I’d be happy to use it the same way as parmesan, subject to it not being as hard as parmesan.

Now I have to figure out what to do with it before it goes bad. All cheese is good, but some are better than others of course. I’ve had some “good” ones, some I liked and some not so much. I never research before writing up my opinions but now that I have my opinion written: “Get Some”, I can look at the their website. “World Class” in the 2006 World Cheese Awards in London. That seems big to me but maybe the French have other opinions. That would be too much research for me.

The Coug’s need the cash (BSU is gunning for them in athletics) and it’s seriously good cheese. Hell the price is even reasonable once you can find it on the website. $18 for 30oz plus $5 for standard shipping. Call it $12/lb to your doorstep. I don’t want to think about the cost of two pounds of parm. Yes, they’re different. Unless you age that tin a few years more, perhaps?. Too late for me know, I opened mine. I surrender.

– Sunday
As usual, I made a lot of food. If you’re going to fire up the smoker, it’s what you do. I will have enough left overs and freezer-fixens for a long time. This meal would feed 6, easily. I made a batch of potato salad, tried some homemade mac and cheese from a mash up of recipes so that makes it mine. And somewhere in there I’ve mixed a batch of sourdough bread resting for baking tomorrow. One rack of smoked spare ribs and one “fatty”.

A “fatty” is a roll of pork breakfast sausage that gets smoked alongside the main protein for 3 or 4 hours (at low and slow temps). I’d never done that. I can say now, “that’s some good eats.”. Any brand will do, I’m told and I believe it. I can hardly wait for breakfast or a late night snack. Putting it into the fridge for another day was the biggest challenge I’ve faced in quite a while.

The smoker was the least of the adventures. It got into the 250F area fairly quickly and stayed there practically forever with little need to play with vents. The ribs were done a little early so I wrapped them in foil and left them on the counter for 45 minutes. They had just the right finger licking temperature after that nap.Very tasty. Firm bark, fall apart in your mouth tender. Nothing wrong with the ribs, nor the rub (I have a fair amount of rub left over to use for “BAM”’s.)

The potato salad was wonderful. Just kind of a pain to cut all that up in the middle of the day. Which is why I don’t make it very often. But, I can control the mayo content and I prefer it light., well in the background.

The mac and cheese I’m not sure about. Oh, I had two servings so I’ll with hold final judgement until I eat some more. I used 1/2 buttermilk and 1/2 whole milk for the sauce. That may be the source of just slight “different” flavor – not bad, just different. It might have been the roux getting a bit scorched or too must mustard powder but actually I suspect It was the cheese or the buttermilk. Ill write about the cheese next (above post).

[Update 4/30/07]
I used the the left over ribs as a source of pulled pork, some KC Masterpiece and some homemade bread – a very fine sandwich. The mac and cheese, still just slightly off.

[Update 5/1/07]
Smoked a turkey breast. See up top. The Mac and Cheese really shined. Tonight it was excellent and thats after have reheating and fridge-ing twice. So the off flavor was more the mouthful of rub and pork reacting with the white sauce or the cheese or the butter milk. That’s a fine lesson to learn. It seemed like an odd pairing or ribs/pulled pork to me, now I know why.

– Saturday
I picked up some spareribs and a turkey breast, the later frozen). Both are “enhanced”, no doubt. i thought about doing the Turkey tomorrow so I put in a the big sink with cold water to defrost. Then, a few hours later I changed my mind. I’d rather do the ribs tomorrow and the turkey on Monday or Tuesday.

I prepped the ribs: I removed the membrane, sort of. I didn’t bother with doing the St. Louis or Kansas City thing butchery and trimming. Presentation isn’t that big a deal with me and it wasn’t that big a chine bone (just 6 lbs of of spares). I mixed up way too much rub for the this rack of spares so I adjusted it to be usable on the turkey in a day or two. I hope.

1/4 C Kosher salt (Mortons)
1/8 C Paprika (the base recipe says 1/4 C but mines a bit strong)
3 Tbl chili powder
2 Tbl Black pepper, supermarket brand
1 Tbl ground cumin (that’s a fair amount)
1 Tbl garlic powder
1 Tbl onion powder
1 Tsp cayenne (might be a bit hot)

Thats more rub than one rack of untrimmed spares can take on. Enough to do the Turkey breast too and maybe more. If it’s going on poultry I need to tone down the paprika and chile powder. I added
2 Tbl of Turbinado Sugar – Yeah it’s lot. Use 1 Tbl of brown sugar instead.. That’s a fair amuunt. Just enough to take the bite off all those others. Well, that’s my plan and the die is cast.

I’m a skeptic, so when foodies go blog wild, I’m just skeptical. Read the post and the comments and click though to the various links they provide. Web surfing the old way! I’m not a foodie to the degree they are. They may be correct about this or that or not and I might care or not. I buy from the cheapest mega mart and I’m fine with my dispassionate status. I’m not saying organic or free range is better or worse. Price per pound, I have my opinion of better and you can have yours.

I know you won’t click all those links. I didn’t click them all either. When the conspiracy mindset becomes dominant, the topic is off limits for rational discussion. Here’s my summary. The USDA wants to track all meat from the supermarket back to the source – to the farms and what they were fed and the veterinary practices and so on. The have a new scheme I gather called NAIS which as described would be difficult for small producers to comply with. The degree of difficulty depends on the details and emotion is running too high to dig into those pesky details.

I used to work for the agra-biz, and they implemented a computer system 15 years ago to track their feed lot cattle. Whether those systems work, I can’t say, but it was big deal for them and those who did the worl. A small division of the company but boy did they care about tracking. That’s well before NAFTA and the supremacy of Trial Lawyers as deities in our food chain. Their tracking system had to serve many goals. The big ones:

1. They wanted to know what practices and feed would be best (for them of course – but profit is multi-dimensional)
2. They wanted to be able to recall before something got out of hand. (and fix the problem – there’s no profit in recalling all product. Ask the pet food companies. Actually, you should think about how well that recall worked.

Big business was way ahead of the USDA on this. That should surprise no one. Now we get to the conspiracy, like profit or happiness, conspiracy is multi-dimensional and some folks live in dimensions others don’t. Under attack the emotional catch phrases erupt “destroying the family farm”. Just as the big military-industruial complex was directed by the Illuminati back in 1966 or 1666 or 1466 or way back to 666 A.D.

From what I’ve read, NAIS is a bad bit of rule writing, IF EVER IMPLEMENTED. It could be worse, the DIA could have written it for Cheney’s amusement. That would be worse. If you need a vast conspiracy of evil doers to get your heart thumping and emotions racing, the “death of the family farm” is one bugle call. Just ask first if small scale farming was ever monetarily profitable in the last few hundred years. Ever. And if so, how? If so, how? If the answer is all about foodie virtues of quality at any price (take a hint, raise prices) or old Americana nostalgia, or vast conspiracies to do something vastly evil, you might want to find a successful farmer for some perspective. Just flag down his banker in the next Toyota you see and ask.

Did that old romantic world ever exist? If so, how? Why? Should it exist forever? Before you flame, remember that the Taliban want that old world back too. Those good old days are really good. Bring them back.