Spinning and Roasting Pineapple While Keeping OSHA Out of the Backyard

I'm always looking for something a little different for the grill and also look for ideas for my rotisserie so when little sis posted a spit roasted pineapple recipe on Facebook I perked up. Now mind you, not just grilled pineapple but grilled pineapple on a rotisserie, don't get much better than that.  

I've grilled pineapple before but always as spears or cut up in rounds mainly because I didn't own a rotisserie at the time.  All the pineapple I've grilled have been good but the use of a rotisserie took the pineapple to a whole new level.  

To properly roast a pineapple we first must start with fresh pineapple, available at most grocery stores.  Fresh pineapples normally are pretty east to spot, due to their size and rather large greens on top.  This pineapple could be a little riper but it was the best I could find at the store this week.  

It's not hard to cut up a pineapple if you follow a few simple rules with rule number one being don't cut towards yourself, isn't that right John?  If I keep him around I'll have OSHA camped out in my back yard writing safety violations.  Follow the link I provided and it will explain how to cut up a pineapple better than I ever could.  

Once the pineapple is ready for the spit it's a matter of pushing the spit through the pineapple, being careful not to push the spit through the pineapple and your hand or you'll end up like John again, with a bandage around your hand.  After the pineapple is on the spit, and no extra holes in your body, it's time to assemble the cast of characters.  It's a simple cast starting with:

• 3 Tablespoons melted butter
• 1 Cup sugar (I used sugar in the raw)
• 2 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1 Teaspoon ground cloves

Mix the sugar, cinnamon and cloves.

Now it's time to fire up the grill and get it hot.  My grill had cooled off a bit since I used it to cook dinner that night so it took about an hour to roast the pineapple at 350 degrees.  The butter is basted on throughout the roasting time with the sugar mixture applied at the same time.

 It makes me drool just to look at the photo.  Like the wife said "What's not to like?  You got butter, sugar, cinnamon and cloves."

The last decision to be made is how to serve it.  The original recipe gives good options with one being with whipped cream.

No doubt that's a good option but my favorite, vanilla ice cream.

 That's hard to beat in my world.

Regardless what you choose, roasted pineapple on the rotisserie is hard to beat, simple and delicious, let's give it a 5 out of 5 forks.

Original Recipe

Mozzarella Cheese and How I Learned to Use Bottle Water

"Waiting tables is what you know. Making cheese is what I know. Let's stay with what we know here." - Jimmy the Cheese Man from the movie The Pope of Greenwich Village.

I really don't know much about waiting tables and I really don't know much about making cheese, although I did stay at a Holiday Inn once, but I do know how to read directions, or so I thought.  A few weeks ago, when it was her turn, little sister posted our weekly family recipe for making mozzarella cheese.  My first thought, what a great family recipe and I wish I'd thought of that.  

Even though I lived in Wisconsin and actually been through a few cheese plants, I still didn't have a clue how to make cheese.  I knew cheese came from milk and I knew the pasteurization process and I knew, somehow, whey came from the cheese making process and I knew when the whey was separated from the solids, also known as cheese curds, it was the curds that were the start of the cheese.  Well, maybe I had a small clue but what I didn't know was how the whey and curds were separated and what to do with the curds afterwards.  

It turns out to be a relatively simple process with some relatively tough lessons learned.  To be honest, I've tried four times and failed on two of those occasions. We'll get to the lessons learned but first lets introduce the cast of characters for mozzarella cheese which is simple and few:

1/2 Rennet Tablet (Found at a local grocery store)

1-1/2 tsp Citric Acid (Found at pharmacies)

1 gallon milk (Found from contented cow)

Water (Found from a bottle)

For my first attempt at making the cheese I used the recipe that little sis posted for our weekly family recipe.  Epic failure.  What did I do wrong?  Since the wife was helping we were both sure we had followed the directions to a tee.  We made sure we didn't use ultra pasteurized milk, a warning supplied with the recipe.  I wasn't alone in failure, big sis attempted and failed too.  Little sis had much better success than we did and she assured us the recipe worked.  

After failure, I knew of only one place for answers, the internet.  Google, at times my best friend, supplied me with plenty of information but one piece of information I came across stood out, use bottled water.  Could bottled water make the difference?  There is only 3/4 of a cup of water required for making cheese which makes it hard to believe that could be the difference.  The reason my water may not work?  It's chlorinated, or at least that's the only thing I could find.  That might make sense too, since little sis's water is good ole country water from a well.  

A few days later it was time for another shot at cheese making, with bottled water this time.  I also decided to use the recipe that came with the rennent tablets, American Mozzarella.  I heated the milk up just like the instructions instructed(?) and let it sit for 2 hours.  After 2 hours I looked in the pot and  I couldn't tell if anything happened but after feeling down in the whey, yes it was actually whey, I found it, the cheese curd.  Yippie Kay Yay success.  Was it perfect? No, but I had cheese and it tasted good, definitely worth another try.

Now we fast forward to 3 months later and time to make cheese again.  Simple right?  Yeah right, read on.

Once again, I follow the directions, heat to 88 degrees stir in the dissolved rennant and citric acid, wait 2 hours and....................UGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!  NO CURD!!!! All I could think of is "What did I do wrong?" as I was dumping the failure down the drain.  For 2 days I kept thinking about it, what, what, what?  Then one night, as I was watching the Nats baseball game, it hit me, like a Ryan Zimmerman homerun, whack, "ITS THE WATER STUPID!!!!"  How could I be so dumb?  I knew from before not to use tap water, at least our tap water, but I did anyway. Stupid, stupid, stupid.   Oh well, if nothing else now we will find out once and for all if the water really does make the difference.  

The weekend came and I bought another gallon of milk, at least the diary farmers are making out on the cheese making experiment.  Once again, heat the milk to 88 degrees, add the dissolved rennent and citric acid in BOTTLED WATER this time and wait for 2 hours.  After the 2 hour wait feel in the pot and, YES, we have curds.  From here on it's clear sailing, heat back up to 108 degrees for 35 minutes, stir to keep the curd separated, and strain through a cheese cloth.  The whey can be saved for later and make ricotta cheese but when I tried it I didn't think the amount of ricotta cheese I got was worth the effort.  

After the curds are separated from the whey it's time to add salt and mix in thoroughly.  Now the fun part, microwave and stretch, microwave and stretch.  The hotter it gets, the more it can be stretched and the more it burns.  Stretch until you are satisfied with the smooth consistency of the cheese.  Once finished, form into a ball and store it in the frig in cool salted water for 24 hours.  

There you go, as easy as opening a bottle of water, mozzarella cheese.  The hardest part was finding the rennent and citric acid.  Taste?  I'll guarantee, nothing you buy in the store will compare to making your own and it's fresh.  The possibilities are endless, this batch ended up on a prosciutto, basil and mozzarella cheese pizza cooked on the grill.  

The next time you got a couple of hours to spare and don't know what to do, give cheese making a try, just don't forget the bottled water.

30 Minute Mozzarella Cheese Recipe

American Mozzarella Cheese Recipe  (Need Adobe Reader to view this recipe)

The Ultimate Quest for Pizza Dough

Pizza dough, who knew it could take so much time to find a good pizza dough to make pizza?  After all, a pizza will only be as good as the dough it's cooked on.  It doesn't matter if you're a thin crust or traditional crust person making and finding a good pizza dough recipe can be a daunting experience.  

Finding a good pizza from a pizza restaurant can be a tough proposition too.  I can think of a couple of good places in former places I've lived, Buccilli's Pizza in Clare Michigan and DeO'Malley's Pizza Pub in Plymouth Wisconsin, both serving tradition style pizza crust, my personal favorite.  Where we live now, Gaithersburg Maryland, we have yet to find a pizza parlor that matches either of the above two.  There is a good thin crust pizza place close to here called Coal Fire, actually cooked in a coal fired oven.  Who would've guessed.  

In my never ending quest to find the better pizza dough I have made many different recipes from many different places but I was never satisfied with the outcome.  In my opinion all tasted, well, homemade, and nothing like a good pizza place can make.  In fact, one of the better pizza crust I have come across, or at least as good as I have ever made, was the Pillsbury Pizza dough sold in tubes in the local grocery stores.  Now how bad is that?  

My whole pizza dough life changed one day via Twitter (who said I was technologically challenged?) when someone tweeted to Mario Batali "What is the best pizza dough recipe?"  Mario is one of my favorite tweeters (is that what they're called?) if someone asks him a questions he will usually answer it.  Mario tweeted his answer back as "Mozza, the same one we use in our Mozza restaurant."  Since twitter is limited to 140 characters he couldn't very well give the entire recipe in his tweet and that's why google was invented, to fill in the gaps.  After a quick search on the 'net I came up with a recipe called Nancy Silverton's Pizza Dough. (I'm sorry it's an Oprah link but it's the best link I could find that explains the what and whys for making this pizza dough.)

The cast of characters is, for the most part, simple with a couple of surprise guests, raw wheat germ and barley malt.

  

1⁄2 ounce (1 Tbsp) compressed yeast or 1 tsp active dry yeast

26 ounces unbleached bread flour, plus more as needed

1⁄2 ounce (1 Tbsp) dark rye flour or medium rye flour

1 1⁄2 tsp wheat germ

1 1⁄2 tsp barley malt or mild-flavored honey, such as clover or wildflower

1⁄2 ounce (1 Tbsp) kosher salt

The barley malt is the interesting character, the Kramer of this show.  It's a natural sweetener and, I believe, gives the dough its flavor.  

One note of caution, this pizza dough takes a lot of time to make so if you do decide to try it make sure you give yourself plenty of time.  Sometimes I'll make it the night before and put it in the frig until the next day.   

 The day I made this pizza dough I ran out of bread flour, oops forgot to buy it when at the store, so I used 50% whole wheat flour and that's why the dough has a little hint of brown.  Still delicious, although not as good at using all bread flour as the recipe suggest.  

I normally cook my pizzas on a stone on the grill, which gives fantastic results and something an oven just can't match.  Also, I think I finally have a pizza dough recipe that can compete with the best pizzas I've had at any restaurant, so much so I would rather stay home and cook my own pizza instead of going out for pizza.

Original Recipe:

Nancy's Pizza Dough

Spinning Food with a Purpose

It's been awhile since I last visited here but I think I'm back to post more pics, recipes and whatever else I feel like, after all, this is my blog and I can do what I want.  A couple of years ago the whole family moved to Facebook and that killed the blog writing for everyone.  Why spend all the time writing and editing photos for a blog post when all that needs to be done is to take a pic with the new fangled phone cameras, post to Facebook and write a clever sentence or two?  It all seems so easy when compared to writing and maintaining a blog.

I thought about it a few weeks ago and decided I wanted to get back into the blog business, back to my roots, where it all started years(?) ago.  I'll still post a pic or two on Facebook, after all how else will I ever get anyone to visit my blog, but the blog will tell my story with words, recipes and of course photos.  Will I be able to post photos of nightly dinner 5 minutes after I finish eating and before I even start to digest my meal?  Hell no, that is the big advantage of Facebook but with the blog I can share more photos and share recipes.  The blog will also give me a history of my food exploits and that is something hard to do with Facebook, even with the new timeline.  Now, on to the blog.

If you have been here before but it's been a while you will notice the new look.  It's called a " dynamic" blog where photos, somehow or other, are suppose to load faster.  Also, it's suppose to be easier to navigate when a visitor comes calling.  We'll see, if I don't like it I may change it back.

Enough BS let's get to the reason I'm here..........FOOD!!!

Weber Rotisserie Attachment

Rotisserie Magic About to Happen

For the last couple of years I've thought about (maybe I should say procrastinated) buying a rotisserie for my grill.  Ever since I cooked some barbecue chicken for my little sister and made the mistake asking her if it was as good as Grandma Williams barbecue chicken and she gave me the ole head shake no I knew eventually I would have to break down and buy one.  Now, I have to admit, I think I make a pretty mean barbecue chicken on the grill but apparently it's not up to Grandma's standards.  I had everything she used, grill and charcoal, but I didn't have a rotisserie.  Like I said earlier, after two years thinking about it (okay procrastinating) I finally broke down and bought one.  

Grandma's Barbecue Chicken?

Rotisserie cooking, as I have found out, brings a whole new level to cooking.  I don't know what took me so long to get in the game but I'm sure glad I did.  Stay tuned over the next few days because I got a couple of backlogged food items, obviously from the rotisserie, to post.

Throwdown Time!!

Christmas is almost here and that means it's time for another throwdown.  This years throwdown ingredient, rice.  The rules, according to niece Shae: Must use rice in the recipe.  I like it, short, sweet and keeps big sis from finding ways to cheat. 

I did my final trial run last weekend for Sunday Dinner and thought I would give everyone a sneak peak.

I'll have to reread the rules but I fairly certain I followed all the rules of the throwdown. Let me see, must include rice, check, I did that.  I think I'm good to go.

Watch out I'm ready and playing for keeps this time.

And just in case you're not sure what I am making here is the recipe

Ingredients:
Rice

Directions:
Cook

Good luck to all.

Caring for Cast Iron

So you finally broke down and bought your first cast iron pan but you're not sure what to do with it. It said on the package "preseasoned" but is it really? You want to use it but you're not sure about cleaning it. Well this is the place for you because I am going to tell you how I take care of my cast iron. You might find people that will argue with my methods but I can tell you I don't have any problems with food sticking to my pans and they are as easy to clean as any other pan you can buy.



I have used preseasoned cast iron pans out of the box and they perform fine but if you want to go up one more notch and make your cast iron pan truly non stick then read on.

First of all take a good look at the pan straight out of the box.



Run your finger across the bottom of the pan, feel that? Feel the roughness of the surface and some areas may even feel like a sharp point? That's because the finishing process in the factory isn't perfect. When they break the cast iron pans out of the sand molds they were formed in they then either sand blast them or roll rocks around them (or something like that I'm not really sure) to get a "smooth" surface before they preseason the pan. I like the idea of buying my cast iron pans already preseasoned but I don't like the roughness of the surface from the factory so what do I do?



I sand the surface of the pan. Yeah I know it ruins the preseasoning of the pan but I would rather reseason the pan myself and have a truly non stick cast iron pan then put up with the possible struggles of cleaning the pan straight from the factory. And trust me it makes a big difference.



I start with a medium grit sand paper or like you see in the above photo scotch brite pad. I sand all the rough peaks off and then I switch to a very fine sand paper or scotch brite pad.



Now run your finger across the pan and feel how much smoother it is, big difference huh? I only sand the inside of the pan not the entire pan. There is no reason to since you only cook with the inside portion of the pan.

At this point since you have taken the seasoning off the pan you can wash it with soap and water you want hurt anything. Make sure you get the pan clean because there will be a lot of cast iron dust left behind from the sanding process.

Now we can reseason the pan and I will explain how I do mine.



I use vegetable oil for seasoning my cast iron. This is where you might find some arguments with other people on what is the best thing to use for seasoning cast iron. I have read where all you should use is vegetable shortening and other articles that say you should use bacon grease or lard. I guess I am not really sure what is best but I can tell you I have had extremely good luck using vegetable oil so I stick with it, and it's easy.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees........



.....and get ready for a long day.

Next coat the pan with vegetable oil and place the pan upside down in the oven for one hour at 350 degrees. You may want to place a piece of aluminum foil on the bottom rack to catch any oil that may drip off the pan. After one hour turn the oven off and let the pan cool off in the oven for about 2 hours. Once cool coat the pan with oil again ,only this time with a thin coat, and repeat until you have done this for three times. The last time for me is normally at night so I let the pan sit in the oven over night to cool off.



When you pull the pan out of the stove the next morning you will have a pan with a rock hard smooth finish and a pan that is ready to cook with.

Let's take another look.



Remember what we started with?



Even in the photos you can see the difference.

The next question is how do I clean the pan after I use it? You may be surprise how easy it is to care for cast iron after you clean one a couple of times. Here is how I do it. I clean the pan right after I use it because it is easy and fast. First put the pan back on the stove so it remains hot. Next pour a little water in the bottom, I normally use about 1/2" or so in the bottom. The water will boil right away and at this time I use a soft nylon brush and quickly scrub the pan being careful not to burn myself. Then I dump the water down the drain and put the pan back on the stove and most times I will repeat this step a second time as a rinse for the pan. After the "rinse" cycle it is back on the burner again to dry. I will normally wipe the pan out with a towel and then pour 1 teaspoon of oil in the pan and wipe it all around the bottom while the pan is hot. From here I just leave the pan on the stove until cool. Once the pan is cool if I see any oil laying on the bottom of the pan I will wipe it out before I put it away.

There you have it how I take care of my cast iron pans. If you follow these directions you will end up with a pan equally at home over an open camp fire or cooking your most elegant meals. I will guarantee you once you have the cast iron pan mastered you won't want to go back to your coated non stick pans plus you will have a pan you can hand down to the next generation.