Steak Wraps (p. 187), Roasted Garlic (p. 277), Horseradish Cream (p. 565), Grilled or Broiled Steak (p. 473)

I decided to make Steak Wraps (p. 187). The recipe seemed easy enough--not a very long ingredient list and we had a T-bone steak that had been purchased on sale at the grocery store (Josh and I are loyal customers of the sale section of the meat department). Easy enough, that is, until I actually read the recipe.

Before making the steak wraps, you have grill or broil a steak (easy enough), roast a head of garlic (damn it! I'll have to turn the oven on), and make horseradish cream...wait...what's that? Horseradish flavored whipped cream?? Hmmm.....

I laid out the tortillas and got ready...

My first step was roasting the garlic (Roasted Garlic, p. 277). I'm ashamed to say that I've never roasted garlic. I LOVE garlic and have probably used it in every other imaginable way--but roasting seemed difficult and scary (plus mom never did it, so I didn't have a roasted garlic background). It's a skill that I definitely wanted though--I love roasted garlic as an ingredient.



Easy enough start--cut the top of a large bulb of garlic. Isn't the garlic beautiful?






The garlic is drizzled with olive oil and wrapped in foil:




Almost an hour later, you have a bulb of roasted garlic! I waited until it was cool enough not to burn my fingers and squeezed the garlic onto the tortillas.







When the garlic is extracted, you are left with a garlic husk. Garlic corpse? Empty garlic...



There was quite a bit of garlic per wrap...a great start!





Look at this picture--now that is a HUGE amount of garlic. That being said, roasted garlic is milder than non-roasted garlic. Looks delicious!





Onto the steak....I figured we would just grill the steak. When I asked Josh to go take care of it, he reminded me that we were out of propane (side note--I have a hard time not thinking of Hank Hill when I say the word "propane"). I decided to broil the steak (I know, great idea on a hot summer day) and used the T-bone in Grilled or Broiled Steak (p. 473).

The steak was attractive:





It only took about four minutes on each side (while turning the kitchen into an inferno--broiling in the summer=not smart). The steak was then sliced and placed on the wraps.




The final part of this recipe: Horseradish Cream (p. 565). Horseradish cream seems like a bizarre recipe to me--it's pretty much whipped cream with horseradish mixed in. Honestly.


I decided that I should be using my Kitchenaid to whip the cream. Not my smartest decision--the beater has a hard time with such small amounts of cream (only a half cup). If you make this recipe, only make a half recipe of HC, unless you really, really adore spicy whipped cream (it makes quite a bit).






You then beat in some acid (I used lime juice because I was out of lemon juice), horseradish, salt, and some red pepper. The concoction is chilled for a while.









Compiling the wraps was easy enough. Add some chopped tomato (out of dad's garden!) and some lettuce to the wrap, drizzle it with horseradish cream, roll up, and eat!







So how was it? Really good. The horseradish cream and the roasted garlic were really strong, but I adore both flavors. The lettuce and the tomato were tasty. And the steak was delicious--although I would have liked to have more meat in the wraps.

This recipe made the perfect amount--two wraps each, for the two of us. After that we were full but not overfull. I really recommend this recipe--although it's more of a fall-winter recipe since it requires a lot of oven use (I really need to stop using my oven because it really heats up the house!).





In other, non-TJOC news, I found a couple of interesting articles online this weekend:

1. Japanese Treats. The caramel corn--I never ate the caramel corn from Tohato, but the soda flavored "treats" were horrid. They tasted like cheetos that had been soaked in 7-up. The mayo they speak of is not as tasty as the mayo in the US and the bottles collapse on themselves. Onigiri is delicious as long as you are sure of what's in the middle--there is nothing worse than thinking you are just eating rice and biting into "sweet" red beans. Ramune drink--AWESOME! So much fun. You have to smash the bottle down, a little ball falls into it, and then you drink it. Fun and tasty. Mochi--don't even get me started.

2. The Top 100 American Foods. I have bolded the foods that are included in TJOC. All parenthetical statements are mine! I may have missed a few but I didn't really feel like looking each one of them up...How many of these have you eaten?

1. New York pizza
2. Hoppin' John
3. New Mexico green chile
4. Homemade buttermilk biscuits
5. Tasso
6. Whole Maine lobster (well, whole lobster, at least)
7. Calabash-style shrimp and hushpuppies
8. Kansas City barbecue ribs
9. Hot glazed Krispy Kreme
10. San Diego fish tacos
11. Cheese curds
12. Key lime pie
13. Philly cheese steak
14. Memphis pork barbecue sandwich
15. Lowcountry boil
16. Huckleberry pie
17. New England clam chowder
18. Boiled peanuts
19. Buffalo burger
20. Eggs Benedict
21. Pastrami on rye
22. Corned beef and cabbage
23. Pancakes with maple syrup
24. Everything bagel with cream cheese and tomato
25. Thin Mints (preferably frozen)
26. Frito pie
27. Potato knish with mustard
28. Silver Queen corn on the cob
29. Soft pretzel from a street cart
30. Fresh-picked blueberries
31. Sourwood honey
32. State fair funnel cake
33. Chesapeake crab cakes
34. Candied yams
35. Oyster dressing
36. Snow cone or snowball
37. Wild Alaskan salmon
38. Sautéed morels
39. Persimmon pudding
40. General Tso's Chicken
41. Frozen custard
42. Italian sausage with peppers and onions on a hoagie bun
43. Chili dog
44. Buffalo wings with blue cheese
45. Spam musubi
46. Saltwater taffy
47. Fluffernutter sandwich on Wonder Bread
48. Black and white cookie
49. Frybread
50. BLT with thick-cut applewood bacon
51. Baked beans
52. Pumpkin pie
53. Collards with vinegar and Tabasco
54. Tex-Mex fajitas with skirt steak and sautéed peppers
55. Fried green tomatoes
56. Succotash
57. Shrimp and grits
58. Hot water cornbread
59. Barbecue chicken pizza with red onions
60. Chicken fried steak
61. Carnitas burrito
62. Apple butter
63. Geoduck
64. Soft-serve ice cream cone dipped in chocolate shell (especially Dairy Queen)
65. Pecan pie
66. Catfish supper at a church or fire station
67. Oysters Rockefeller
68. Homemade cranberry sauce
69. Pimiento cheese
70. MoonPie washed down with R.C. Cola
71. Pickled watermelon rind
72. Cracker Jacks at the ball game
73. Smithfield ham
74. Meatloaf and mashed potato blue plate special at diner
75. Chicken and waffles
76. Po'Boy
77. Green bean casserole with French's fried onions
78. Stuffed sopaipillas
79. Turducken
80. Shad roe on toast
81. Sweet potato casserole with or without marshmallows
82. Cioppino
83. New York cheesecake
84. Pan-fried river trout
85. Jambalaya
86. North Carolina pig pickin'
87. California rolls
88. Burgoo
89. Penuche fudge
90. Fried peanut butter and banana sandwich (the Elvis)
91. Scrapple or livermush
92. Elk medallions in red wine reduction
93. Muscadine grapes
94. Cheeseburger at backyard barbecue
95. Open-face turkey sandwich
96. Chicago deep dish pizza
97. Cobb salad
98. Peach pie a la mode
99. Macaroni and cheese with Tillamook sharp cheddar
100. Root beer float

Vegetable Stew (p. 131), High Altitude Peach-Pecan Upside-Down Cake (p. 751), and Sweetened Whipped Cream (p. 754)

Again, don't forget to enter the contest! There will very possibly be several posts in the next day, so make sure to read them all :)

First off, I know I mentioned that I made Vegetable Stew (p. 131) earlier in the week but I hadn't actually eaten it yet--so I didn't think it was fair to blog about it yet.


Dad had given me a bunch of vegetables from his garden and I needed to use them: okra, onions, a couple hot peppers, and a few tomatoes. Vegetable stew seemed like the perfect dish because it used almost all of the vegetables.

It was an easy start. I always like when a recipe starts with melting a half stick of butter. Yum!





Next step--chopping up a bunch of okra, celery, and an onion. At this point I ran into a problem--I only had two cups of okra, not four cups. No problem, I just halved the recipe. I know a lot of people HATE okra, but I personally like it quite a bit. Yum! Everything is ready to go!




The vegetables are then added to the butter...I had high hopes for this stew, since okra is a great thickener (it is the ingredient that makes gumbo thick).





At this point, tomato, brown sugar, paprika, and water are added. The tomato I decided to add was a orange tomato, which made the stew a strange orange-y color.




Then onto the best part of the recipe--3 slices of fried bacon! Any recipe with bacon in it is a winner in my book! I didn't add any meat to the stew, but ham would have been DELICIOUS in it.




So how was it? Really really good. If you hate okra, don't make this recipe, because it definitely is okra-heavy. If you like okra, have I got a stew for you!! I made some rice and poured the stew over it--delicious. I think it would be really good on couscous too. I hope you all enjoy my awesome 70's style bowls--I can't wait to get new dishware at some point.





I listed out all of the recipes that I've made--and I've been sadly deficient in cakes and cupcakes. I know why--it's because I am terrified of making baked goods because of the altitude. I swear I used to be a great baker--friends, back me up!! But now I'm nervous...so I decided to make High Altitude Peach-Pecan Upside-Down Cake (p. 751). This has actually been on my to-make list several times, so I had the pecans on hand. I also had some peaches. I started to peel, half, pit, and slice them when I noticed that they were really mealy. I HATE mealy fruit. The peaches were organic (I don't tend to buy organic but they were on sale for a dollar a pound) which don't seem to keep as well. Fortunately, I had some nectarines (conventional) on hand, which were in perfect condition. I HATE peeling fruit, and the nectarine's pits did NOT want to come out. I probably should have blanched them first....

I started by making the batter. First step, the dry mixture. The dry mix had a TON of spices...cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg. The wet mixture was more typical except for honey and buttermilk....uh oh....

Buttermilk....

I don't keep buttermilk on hand and hadn't planned on this recipe, so I hadn't bought any. Thank you google! Apparently, pretty much a tablespoon of acid mixed with a cup of milk is a substitute for buttermilk. I used lemon juice and let it sit for ten minutes.

The wet mixture:




Mixing the dry into the wet--I decided to mix it by hand since cakes seem to be more fluffy when they are hand mixed.





I don't have an ovenproof skillet (definitely going on the wedding registry) so I placed a cake pan on the burner (I was very skeptical of how this was going to work) for the cake. Butter and brown sugar were stirred right on top of the stove.




Honey, cardamom, and nutmeg were then mixed in. Honey, honey, honey...do I have any honey? Oh yeah! I have TONS of honey. I bought a vat of it at the farmer's market in Des Moines last winter (it was an indoor market). The real reason I bought it was for dog treats but I haven't used it yet.



I wasn't confident at all that Josh was going to like this cake considering he don't like cardamom....and this recipe has a LOT of cardamom in it. Josh also doesn't like fruit mixed with cake or cookie--and, thus, isn't a fan of upside-down cakes. I ADORE upside-down cake and really like fruit mixed into desserts (raisins in cookies, etc.).





At this point, the peaches/nectarines need to be arranged in the syrup. The recipe says to "pinwheel" the fruit. How exactly do you create multiple pinwheels? Or was I supposed to make one huge pinwheel? I couldn't figure it out, so mine was more abstract.




The pecans were then tucked in around the fruit (rather willy-nilly):






The batter was then poured over the top of the mixture. The recipe said not to worry if the batter seemed skimpy, but I thought it looked fine.




After cooking:



It looked great! I couldn't wait to flip it over! Unfortunately, I had to wait ten minutes.

So what did it look like?




Awesome! Perfect! Wonderful! It popped right out and was complete--no sticking at all :) I was thrilled. And it smelled delicious. But what is the last line of the recipe?

(Whipped Cream, 754)

Now those of you who are familiar with TJOC, you know that parenthetical statements mean that the ingredient or step is not required. But what a great idea! I love whipped cream. I made Sweetened Whipped Cream (p. 754), one of seven whipped cream recipes in TJOC.


First step, whip the cream in a cold bowl (I popped the bowl and the beaters in the freezer for about a half hour) until thicken.




Great, so far, so good. Next step, add sugar and vanilla to the cream. No problem--and I used the good vanilla too. I don't know why I even buy imitation vanilla--I hate using it.




Next step, back to beating. I was nervous--the whipped cream section makes it clear you can over-beat the cream and ruin it. But I think I did a good job--it looked (and tasted) wonderful.




So how was it?



AWESOME! This is a spicy, strong cake--almost a spicecake. It was TERRIFIC. I would highly recommend it to everyone--not just those at high altitude (and this is totally the cake I'm making if Pieknits and Mr. Pieknits ever come to visit me). The whipped cream was a great addition and ice cream would be great on the top too.

That being said, the cake didn't keep that well. The fruit got really strange looking--so make it when you plan on gorging yourself on it in a day or two.

Oddly, the whipped cream kept quite well!





I'm behind in posting and I did a rather lot of cooking this week, so keep your eyes open for more posts!

Summer Squash Casserole (p. 307) and Johnny Marzetti Spaghetti Pie (p. 95)

First off, don't forget to enter the Japan Treats Contest.

Second, in all likelihood, even if you are a regular reader of this blog, I've posted four blogs in a very short time (even though they are dated to the dates they SHOULD have been posted) so make sure to go back and read them :)

My trip to Japan was an awesome experience but I am really grateful to be back...and back to The Joy of the Joy of Cooking!!

So what did I decide to make on my reentry into the world of TJOC?

I made Vegetable Stew but I haven't eaten it yet so I'm going to blog about it later. I also made Summer Squash Casserole (p. 307) and Johnny Marzetti Spaghetti Pie (p. 95)--strange, totally out-of-season choices. No idea why I made these choices other than I've been meaning to make the spaghetti pie for a while (because it sounded horrible to my Italian sensibilities) and zucchini was on sale at the grocery store.

The recipe for summer squash casserole pointed out that either yellow squash, pattypan, or whatever is available will work--so I used zucchini.



Next step...soften the onion. I really dislike onion. But it didn't seem like that much and this was onion from my dad's garden so it should be better than most. I do recognize that this isn't even close to a fine dice--I didn't notice that until it was already in the pan.






At this point you can add Monterey Jack, Swiss, or Brie to the concoction...I LOVE MJ, but didn't have any, and had a feeling that Brie would overpower the squash (plus I didn't have any), so I added Swiss. Another choice I got--sour cream or creme fraiche. Easy choice--I didn't feel like going to Whole Foods for the creme fraiche, so sour cream it was. White vermouth or white wine? Being that we don't have a full bar, and thus lack vermouth, white wine it was.


All of this was pretty easy--but then I came upon it....


ANOTHER TJOC MISTAKE! It's exciting (and confusing) to find TJOC mistakes! The recipes call for Au Gratin, but gives the page number for Breadcrumbs and obviously is requiring breadcrumbs...so I used the breadcrumbs. But I wonder how many people poured au gratin all over their casserole....

***Correction*** This was a Jessica mistake! Apparently, I had only paid attention to the Au Gratin recipes earlier in the book and thought that Au Gratin was the sauce rather than the topping. But I was wrong! The Breadcrumbs are next to the Au Gratin and it is not a mistake :) Actually, I haven't found a mistake in TJOC since the cauliflower (and that might not be a mistake but sure is confusing). ***Correction***



Doesn't it look delicious!?




Although squash is really summery...sticking a casserole in the oven for 35 minutes isn't summery at all. Hmmm....not a great move for a hot August day... it was tasty though! If you had more attractive casserole dishes, this would be a great dish for a backyard barbeque or something.




Onto the Spaghetti Pie...

This recipe is the intro recipe in the Brunch, Lunch, and Supper Dishes category and I've spent a lot of time in the last year looking at it. Most of my friends know that I really dislike pasta casseroles so I wasn't very optimistic about this. The recipe began easily enough...

Brown beef, another of dad's prize onions, and some garlic.




Then add diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, oregano (I still have some dried oregano from mom), a bay leaf, and some salt and pepper. Add cooked pasta (it recommended ziti, spaghetti, or anything else and the idea of making this with spaghetti seems really really gross to me. I used penne) and cheese (sharp cheddar).

So far so good. I re-read the the intro and it said that the TJOC authors like to add olives, mushrooms, or mozzarella. I LOVE black olives and have about a thousand cans in the cabinets, so I added some. It was a great addition--I really recommend it.






So what to pour this concoction into...a 13x9 inch pan??? That is a HUGE pan? How much does this make anyway?? At this point I started to get concerned about the recipe.

This is the casserole post-cheese pre-breadcrumbs:




Again, this recipe is totally a winter recipe. Anything that requires the oven for 30 minutes or more is a winter recipe in my book. Apparently I'm ready for colder weather!!


So how was it??





It was good but made soooo much casserole!


Let's just say 6-8 servings my ass. Josh and I have already eaten five servings out of it and it's only half gone. So don't make this unless you a) have a crowd or b) really really want to eat it for a week.

JAPAN CONTEST! CONTEST NUMBER ONE!

Contest! Contest! Hooray! (and yes, this is entitled NUMBER 1! I hope to have a contest for a copy of TJOC--for those of you that don't have a copy--later in the year).


I know I picked up some readers with my Japan exploits--how would you like to have a "taste" of Japan? I carried back plenty of cool Japanese snacks and want to send you some! So if you want to try Japanese snacks, here's what you have to do:

1. You will get ONE entry for leaving a comment on this page. You must also email me your name and address at thejoyofthejoyofcooking@hotmail.com

2. Because I would like people to actually READ the blog, you will get ONE additional entry for leaving a comment on a blog entry OTHER than this one. That's two entries! But make sure you email me your name and address.

3. This contest starts today (August 25th) and ends in one month (September 25th).

There will be at least 1 prize, but if lots of people enter, there will be multiple prizes :) The winner will be chosen by a random number generator.




If you have any questions, let me know! I will update this page as I need to...(hopefully, I won't need to).

Now back to my regular TJOC programming...

Frequently asked questions

Frequently asked questions!

**If you have a question you would like to know the answer to, email me at thejoyofthejoyofcooking (at) hotmail (dot) com***


So how much weight have you gained since starting?
None! My personal opinion is that since the food in Joy is so filling (full fat, etc) that you don't eat TONS of it. It also makes great leftovers which means NO fast food!

I bet this has been really expensive, right?
No, the food in Joy is pretty simple. Once you start cooking a lot of recipes out of it, the same ingredients are used over and over, so it's not very expensive. And more cooking=less eating out=less expensive.


I think I read your blog but then I seem to miss entries. What's up?
I date the blogs when I actually made the food. Sometimes it's a couple of weeks ago--so the blogs show up as old but are actually new. It's not a problem in most blog readers! I also have a bad habit of writing several blogs at once, so if you only read the most recent blog, you might miss others.

Do you have contests?
I do and I hope to have more!

I am fully intending on stealing your pictures for my blog/presentation/whatever. Is that okay?
No. It's fine if you credit my website for the picture. If you don't, it's wrong.

I heard you went to Japan. Did you blog about it?
Heck yeah, I blogged about it! Look under keyword "Japan".

When do you think you'll finish all the recipes?
About fifty years from now. I'll probably be cooking the final Joy recipes for my grandchildren.

What edition of TJOC are you using?
I'm using the 2006 edition. I truly hope to finish this before the publish the next version!

What do you consider "vegetarian" versus "vegan"?
I go the ova-lacto route when I think of vegetarian--no meat (red or otherwise) or fish but eggs and milk products are okay. Vegan means no animal products.

Pondering America and Japan

As I sit here in the airport, waiting for my delayed flight to take off, I have been pondering Japan and America. This list is not complete and I'm sure I'll update it! I promise to upload my final Japan blogs in the next few days (probably about two more blogs?) and then back to The Joy of The Joy of Cooking!

Things I love about the US:

1. When a smallish 27 year old woman is struggling to get about 140 lbs of luggage down her stairs and to the taxi, someone in the US would stop to help. I refer to this as the "Emily's couch" effect, such named, because when Emily asked how I thought we were going to get her new couch into her truck and out of the estate sale, I said, we are going to struggle with it, and some guy will come to help. And that's exactly what did happen.

2. If someone fell down the stairs in the US, people would ask if they were okay. They might snicker, but they'd ask. I'm not confident of that in Japan (not that I feel down the stairs--although mom almost did). It could be because they don't want to embarrass you by pointing out that you just fell down the stairs--but I would still rather someone ask if I was okay!

3. If you are even close to the correct word or sentence in English, people can understand. If you aren't exactly correct in Japanese, nobody has any idea what you are saying (unless they've spent a lot of time with Westerners--then sometimes they can "interpret").

4. Apparently, I like "American" food because I missed it. Foods I missed include: Loaded baked potatoes, Chimichangas with queso blanco and guacamole, Steak, Oven-roasted potatoes coated in garlic, Heinz ketchup, various soups, and Americanized Chinese food like Hot and Sour soup and crab rangoons. This is not a complete list, of course, but a short list of things I wish I was eating right now.

5. Americans are friendly. I like smiling and striking up conversations with strangers.

6. I've never been body slammed in America. But it's happened to me about a hundred times in Japan. Shoving=extremely common.

Things I love about Japan:

1. It is bizarrely safe. People leave their Gucci bags on the table at a McDonald's (to save the table) and go to a different floor to order. And nobody steals their bag--or their table! In the US, the purse would be stolen and people would be sitting at the table when you got back.

2. People are so helpful with directions. In fact, sometimes I felt like I was in the Amazing Race, as people would walk me to the address I was looking for. That was great.

3. Even with no tipping, the salespeople and waitstaff in Japan are still a billion times more friendly and efficient then they are in the US. Even at high end stores, where I would get ignored in the US, people were willing to help me.

4. Tokyo's public transportation is spectacular. Just amazingly great. Clean, safe, cheap. And you can get ANYWHERE for less than three dollars. I can't say enough about it--they should be really proud.

5. Grapefruit sours. The best mixed drink ever.

Mom's visit and my return to the US!

As some of you know from my last blog, my camera went missing before I could pull my pictures off of it...so all I have are mom's pictures and there aren't that many :(

One of the cool places that mom and I went was Ueno park/zoo. This zoo wasn't near as bad as the Himeji zoo. Apparently, until recently the zoo had a panda, but the panda died. This was a giant tragedy to the zoo and the zoo has a strong panda theme--but no panda, which was strange. My mom kept bemoaning the fact that she didn't get to see the panda, particularly strange because I could never remember her talking about pandas (in any context) before that point.

I had a better picture of this on my camera but one of the first exhibits had prairie dogs, a bison, some wild pigs, and a turkey together in a cage. It took me a minute to come up with the theme--but I finally did. It was an America exhibit! I thought that was a particularly funny mixture of animals to represent the US. I'm not sure what I would have put in there (I'll give you the bison, I probably would have picked that too) but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been that combination. Anyone have any better ideas?




At the edge of the zoo was a giant pond full of enormous flowered water plants. I thought they were REALLY cool but a little creepy--almost like something out of a sci-fi movie. Enormous lotus blossoms.






There was just an enormous amount of these huge flowers. And they were STRONG smelling.





Mom and I went to Asakusa and wandered around. Asakusa is a touristy area but is pretty cool.




I took all of my guests to the Meiji shrine because it's one of my favorite places in Tokyo. I think it's really cool to see the weddings. Mom wanted her picture taken in front of this giant door for some reason. It is a cool door.




Some of you know that I was on a wild hunt for Mexican food. I started ccrrraaavvviiinnnggg it, so when mom and I were in Harajuku and I spotted a Mexican restaurant, I knew I HAD to have it. The restaurant was in a cute little spot on the second floor of a building.

So how was it?





It was good, but too high-end. I was craving the cheap, low-end La Mexicana, local Mexican dive type Mexican food. And that wasn't it. But I want you to know--you can get excellent Mexican and Italian food in Japan. The Italian place by my house was deliciously good!

While mom and I were shopping we came across my shop again! So, I posed with it again :)



I was sad to see mom go--we had a really great time (even though mom insisted on getting up at five am every day). My mother also managed not to eat a single Japanese meal while we were there due to her fear of chopsticks. After mom left, I only had two more days in Japan! I took lots of pictures, but of course, they were on the missing camera, so I have no picture evidence :(



After the spectacularly long ride home (with delay after delay and my poor father picking me up at eleven even though he was leaving for South Africa first thing the next day) I finally made it back to Iowa!


The dogs were happy to see me again! I missed the silly little ladies :)



Mom and I also bought both Gracie and Duchess kimonos! Who doesn't love a dog wearing a kimono? SO CUTE!



Duchie actually has two kimonos...and a sushi toy...so cute...