DIY: Coffee Creamer

I'm not a big fan of the store-bought version of this stuff. Don't get me wrong, I love it in my coffee. I just don't like paying $4 a pop for something with lots of ingredients that require a dictionary to understand), and some of them contain trans fat. Don't be fooled by the 0 trans fat claim. Check the ingredient list and you may find partially hydrogenated oil.

None of that stuff in my version. Here's what it consists of:

1 can evaporated milk

1 can sweetened condensed milk

milk

flavoring or extract of your choice

First, find a container similar in size and shape to the coffee creamer container you see in the store. Here's a perfect example. (Hint: get the 27 0z. size) Add the evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and top it off with whatever kind of milk you want. (I use 2%) If you want flavoring, add it as well. Put the top on, mix and refrigerate. You now have coffee creamer that costs about half what you pay for it in the store, and isn't AS bad for you as the commercially made stuff.

Since there aren't nearly as many preservatives and junk in the DIY version, it will cross over to the dark side after a week or so. If you're a regular coffee drinker, this shouldn't be a problem. In out house, a batch seldom lasts more than a week.

Enjoy!

Meats: Hot-Smoked Pork Tenderloin

Don't let the fancy name fool you; this is basically just barbecue. Sure, it doesn't benefit from the smoking process the way a pork shoulder would, but it's a lot lower maintenance after the fact. Just slice it up, there's no bones or connective tissue. It is more prone to drying out, so I do have to watch it more closely.

We're going to have dinner at a friend's house tonight, so this is my contribution. I was going to do ribs, but I couldn't find any that I liked on sale, so I had a tenderloin in the freezer, and set it out to thaw. By last night it was ready to go, and I did the dry rub and let it sit overnight in the fridge.

Dry Rub Recipe

4T. chili powder
1/4 c. dark brown sugar
1 t. mustard powder
2 T. olive oil
1 T. apple cider vinegar
2 T. crushed coriander seeds
1 T. kosher salt

Combine ingredients in a gallon resealable plastic bag and add the meat. Seal the bag. Try to get as much air out of the bag as possible. Squish the meat and dry rub around to mix the ingredients and evenly cover the meat. Refrigerate overnight.

About 7:30 this morning, I set up the smoker. I had some hickory chips soaking in water overnight, the wetter they are, the longer they'll smoke. Then I took the tenderloin out and placed it in the smoker. It'll be there until early evening. Like I mentioned earlier, a tenderloin will dry out if left alone for too long. I don't trim whatever fat is on it, I just try to keep the fat side up throughout most of the smoking process, so that the fat renders down over the meat, kind of a self-basting thing. I also mop the meat about every 45 minutes to an hour. I use a thin, vinegar-based sauce for this, anything too thick will build up a thick, syrupy coating that can get kinda gross.

Mop sauce recipe

Take what's left over from the dry rub bag and empty into a saucepan. Add:
1 1/2 c. apple cider vinegar,
1 c.dark brown sugar,
3 T mustard (just regular mustard, not mustard powder)
1 c. water
Disclaimer: I also added the rest of a bottle of Moscato (about a cup) that was sitting in the fridge. You can add whatever else you think might work.

Bring to a simmer and spread over the meat with a brush or similar utensil every hour or so. Keep it simmering on the stove. If you run low, make some more.

I took the tenderloin off the smoker at about 5pm. We sliced and chopped some and had it on sandwiches with slaw.














Good eatin'.

DIY: Pancake Syrup

Hey, when you made the pancakes (you dropped everything you were doing and made the pancakes, right?) you didn't use store-bought syrup, did you?

You did?

Oh jeez.

It's full of HFCS (high-fructose corn syrup) that evil stuff that your tax dollars pay for. (in the form of agricultural subsidies) It causes, well, pretty much everything, and it's in just about everything you buy at the supermarket. Wanna read more?

Oh yeah, there's gobs of it in your store-bought pancake syrup, along with preservatives and God knows what else.

Here's a recipe for homemade that's not AS horrible for you:

2 parts sugar
1 part water
Maple flavoring

For my Saturday morning pancakes, I use 1 1/2 c. sugar to 3/4 c. water, and 1/4 t. maple flavoring. Yeah, so the maple flavoring is fake, so what? Go suck the fun out of someone else's day.

Heat to boiling, then serve warm over pancakes. The recipe above is perfect for 4 people, you just make what you need.

More DIY stuff to come. BTW, Heinz is now making ketchup with sugar and not HFCS.

About time they caught up with me.

Meals: Saturday Morning Pancakes

One of the things we've tried to do consistently as a family is mealtimes. We try to eat dinner together 99% of the time. Breakfast is a bit more catch-as-catch can, except on Saturdays. When we're not interrupted by kids sports or some other hoohah, we have breakfast together, and most of the time, that breakfast is pancakes.

The recipe I use is from the mid-century gold standard of American cookbooks, "The Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook." This is a relic from the time of June Cleaver and Levittowns. I've tried a few recipes from it, and most are bland and insipid (think chile con carne with a whole teaspooon of chile powder! Scandal!)

The buttermilk pancake recipe, on the other hand is very good. I've strayed from it a couple of times, only to hear the family intone, "what did you do with these?" like a Greek chorus.

Anyway, here's the recipe:

1 egg
1 1/4 c. buttermilk or sour milk (I use 2% with 2 t. apple cider vinegar)
1/2 t. baking soda
1 1/4 c. flour (also try 1 c. regular flour and 1/4c whole wheat)
1 t. sugar
2 t. melted butter
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t salt

Needless to say, it goes great with blueberries, etc. added to the mix.











Here's the mix. If it doesn't look kinda like this, you may want to start over. Or you may not.


















If you have a cast iron griddle, get it out and use it for this. If it's properly seasoned, it's the best nonstick cooking surface you'll ever use. Here's my griddle. It's a Griswold, pushing 100 years old. It belonged to my great-grandmother. This stuff literally lasts forever. I'll be passing it on to my kids, and so on.











Cooking them up.











The finished product.

A plateful of these and you're good to go until mid-afternoon.

I like to do this because it's a great breakfast, it's a fun ritual, and my kids will remember how Dad made panckaes on Saturday morning, the same way I remember how my mom used to make pizza from the Chef Boyardee pizza mix every Friday for dinner and we all sat down and watched Rockford.

Good times.

Debut: Something "Borrowed"

I'm going to start this whole thing by stealing referencing one of my favorite blog posts ever: "How to Make a Smoker from a Trash Can"




It was posted on Cruftbox waay back in 2003. He gave Alton Brown credit for the idea.
The basic design is this:

• Get a steel trashcan
  
• Cut a hole at the base big enough to get an electrical cord through
• Put an electric hotplate in the bottom of the can,
  
• Drill holes for ventilation and to install a grill in the upper part of the can
• Plug in the hotplate, fill a smoker box with chips, and you're ready
  

I saw this post in 2005 or so, and built one. It's a great design, and the only part you'll need to replace is the hotplate. (I go through about 1 each year) The important things to look for in a hotplate for this application are (1) cheapness, and (2) lack of safety features. More and more hotplates automatically shut off when they are on for too long. Find something that looks like it was made in China, and you'll probably be OK.

I've made all manner of smoked meats and cheeses with it (if you're patient enough, even smoked hamburgers are quite good) tried smoking some vegetables (the usual chipotles, eggplant, and even tomatoes) and have even made some of my early efforts at charcuterie (bacon, sausage, and ham) with this smoker.

The best thing about it is the incredibly reliable temperature control. It gets to 230-235 degrees F (ideal smoking temperature) and it stays there. Very low maintenance. With a large smoker box and wet chips, you only have to refill every 2-3 hours.

If you find this at all interesting, go out and drop the $50 or so it will take to make one of these. It will be worth it.

Gotta go buy some country-style pork ribs now.