Roasting Hatch Peppers

It is Hatch pepper season.

My local grocery store was having a sale so I bought a bunch.

Had a few raw that I  chopped and had on a burger for some extra taste and had the in a few other dishes.

Nice amount of heat, nothing to much bu enough to know its there, great flavor, and it tastes better than a jalapeno, IMHO. 

I had a lot leftover so I decided to roast them.

 I grilled them on a friend's propane grill.

Once all roasty,  I had them sweat in a bowl covered in plastic wrap for 15 minutes.

Then I proceeded to skin them and the burned parts came off quite easily, leaving behind wonderful and tasty roasted peppers.

 These then got placed in quart ziploc bags and put away for later use.

 I did, however, forget one rather important step.

Yep, I wasn't wearing gloves. There were no food gloves available.

So, after peeling the peppers and putting them away, I washed my hands repeatedly with dish soap, dried them and washed them again with the soap. Did that cycle 5 times. 

This should have been sufficient. 

Should have being the operative words, but it was not. 

A few hours later, I went to take out my contacts, again washing my hands well before doing so.

Nope, that didn't help either, the peppers got their revenge. 

Fingers removed contact lenses and then instantly: 

Ouch. Frack, Ouch.

I think this is probably what being pepper sprayed feels like.  

Ouch, more Ouch, and F me even more Ouch. My eyes, they were a burning, they were tearing, they were burning some more. The burning feeling  continued.

And these are Hatch peppers, not even really hot peppers!

Anyhoo, the burning sensation eventually went away. A useful lesson was learned. 

I'm now going to make sure I have some plastic food handling gloves available and on my hands whenever handling even mild peppers.

So I'd count that as a success with eight roasted peppers and a practice exposure to pepper spray all in one go.

I would however suggest to most people to forgo the exposure part and just process the peppers while wearing gloves for a far more sedate and less painful process.

It's Passover, So It's Time For Matzah Brei

Since you can't eat leavened bread during Passover, and this morning I wanted a good breakfast, it was time to make Martzah Brei.  Think french toast but with matzah rather than bread.

First, you break up the sheets of matzah, 2 sheets per person or more if you're very hungry.

 Next, soak the broken up matzah in water for about 5-10 minutes until soft.

 

 Once the matzah has soaked, dump it into a strainer to drain the excess water. Beat one egg per sheet of matzah in the bowl very well as the matzah sits in the strainer. Then pour the matzah from the strainer back into the bowl onto the eggs and keep stirring until the egg is all absorbed.

Heat up a frying pan with some oil or butter (or both) and keep flipping the matzah until it is no longer soggy and gets nice and crunchy but nor burned.

 Serve with powdered sugar or maple syrup, or both.

 And enjoy a traditional Passover breakfast.

Cold Flame

We're having Rocky and his human family over for dinner tonight for some fun and socializing, and it called for something special.

Tash suggested something smoked, and of course I couldn't refuse.

So here I am, out in the snow adding charcoal and wood to the smoker trying to get it up to heat to make some 10 pounds of smoked country-style ribs.

The ribs have been marinating all night, and have spent the morning covered in a nice rub waiting to be placed in the smoker until I began the cook at noon.

While it's not freezing cold out, the smoker's thermometer is showing me it is struggling to get up to heat, and I need to keep adding wood and charcoal more often than usual.  Also the lighter is being a real pain in the cold and wind making it an extra pleasant struggle to start the charcoal in the chimney.

On the upside the smell is awesome and, worst comes to worst, we can always finish the cooking off in the oven at a nice low 240 degrees inside where its warm.

Did I mention I need to make these in two batches as the smoker won't fit 'em all?

First batch should be done by 3, with the second batch done by when the guests arrive.  This should work.

Update at 3:19 pm: First batch is done and Wow! is it great - they're tender, perfectly cooked with a great flavor that doesn't even need some BBQ sauce on top to improve, but I'll likely add some sauce anyways.  Somebody stop me before I eat all of them before company arrives.
Batch #2 is underway.

Corned Beef, Cabbage and Computer rebuilds

Yesterday after being inspired by Alton Browm's show on Corned Beef decided to follow his recipe for Corned Beef and Cabbage. It involves careful preparation and hours of nice slow cooking.

This was a good thing as I used the time to completely rebuild my computer.

As I related before, ever since purchasing it my HP Pavillion with Vista 64 has been everything but stable. HP technical support suggested a destructive rebuild was in order, so after spending hours backing up my system I began the rebuild process.

After work today I have the restore just about done and it does seem more stable (it hasn't crashed yet after multiple restarts).

On the upside the Corned Beef and Cabbage was out of this world fantastic, so it made up for the fustration of having to rebuild the system from the bottom up.