Ninja Notes - the Oven Setting

I'm continuing to give the Ninja Cooker a work out since posting my last Ninja Notes here.  I've done three things in the Ninja on the "Oven" setting - beer bread, a flan (custard), and pork roast.

For beer bread I used the recipe found here.  The cooker's instruction book says that there's no need to preheat; but if I understand correctly, you should never use the cooker on the oven setting without having water in it.  The purpose of the Ninja's oven feature is to do "steam infused" baking or roasting.  I put four or five cups of water in the cooking vessel, placed the rack in the water, and the loaf pan with batter in it on the rack.   The water level was just below the pan - not touching it.

The Ninja's lid has a vent hole that measures almost three-eighths of an inch - pretty large for a vent hole.  An incredible amount of stem pours out of this hole when on the oven setting.  I admit it - I thought about plugging the hole, but my more responsible genes kicked in and I decided to read the instruction book - yet again.  Plugging the hole is a big no-no, and I think I see why.   If the vent hole was plugged, the water would probably boil right out of the pot and flow into the heating unit that the cooking vessel sits in which would probably ruin the Ninja, electrocute any by-standers, and burn the house down - maybe even the whole neighborhood.  Perhaps I'm exaggerating the possible outcome, but don't plug the hole!

However, I'm using the Ninja almost daily, and all my kitchen counters have wall cabinets above them.  I don't like the idea of all that steam going up under the wall cabinets.  If I was building a new house, I'd design the kitchen so that there would be a few feet of free counter space with a vent fan over it just for the Ninja and all the other small electric appliances that put out steam and heat.  But the only vent fan I have is over the stove, so I put a cutting board on the stove burner grates and set the Ninja on it.  You can see all that steam going up to the vent exhaust fan. 

I have to tell you that this is a no-no, too, according to the instruction book.  It says not to put your Ninja anywhere near the stove or anything that is hot.  Ok, I get what they're talking about.  But my stove is not hot when I put the Ninja on it.  I won't try to use the stove and the Ninja at the same time.  Of course, this might not be a good idea if you have children or loony adults at your house who might come along and turn the stove on while the Ninja is in residence.  And it's really a no-no if you have an old gas stove with pilot lights.  But since we don't have children or pilot lights and neither Jerry or I are loony - yet, I think it's ok. 



Before the broiler



After the broiler

Now, back to the beer bread - after baking for an hour, the beer bread was done, but not brown at all - not very appetizing as you can see in the picture.  As far as I am concerned, bread that is sickly pale just will not do!  I put it in my regular gas oven  under the broiler - after moving the Ninja off the stove, of course. I kept a vigil because usually bread will burn after two or three minutes under the broiler.  It took seven minutes to get this bread to brown!

By now you might be wondering how the bread turned out.  I've baked beer bread in the regular gas oven before, and Ninja "steam infused" beer bread is - well, different.  On the positive side, the texture is very fine.  Once the bread cools you can get nice slices that don't crumble.  Beer bread baked in a regular gas (or electric) oven has a coarse texture and tends to be a little bit crumbly when sliced.  But the regular oven produces much better tasting beer bread.  The Ninja bread didn't taste bad, it was just sort of blah.  I just don't think infusing steam into bread is a good idea - it makes a fine textured, heavy, relatively tasteless bread.

To be fair to the Ninja people, they didn't tell me to bake beer bread in my Ninja.  I just thought I'd give it a try.  But from now on I'll be baking my beer bread in the conventional oven.  I'm inclined to think any kind of bread will be better in the conventional oven.

The beer bread may have been disappointing, but the flan and the pork roast were big successes.  But this post is already too long, so I'll save them for the next Ninja Notes.
 

The Morning Update

It's cloudy and 80 degrees.  I'm looking out on our maple tree.  It has clothed itself with fresh new leaves.  Even the pecans trees are putting out new foliage, so spring is here in earnest.

I've written a post card to a new Fountain Pen Network friend.  She lives in Ynys Mon, Wales - the Isle of Anglesey.  I've been "visiting" there via the internet.  It's an intriguing place! 

Last month I received the First Day of Issue Cover that I ordered from the Royal Mail.  It has the new United Kingdom stamps commemorating Jane Austen and the six novels she wrote. A First Day of Issue Cover is an envelope with newly released postage stamps affixed and post marked on the first day the stamps are authorized for use.  I have a First Day of Issue Cover from 1956 with stamps commemorating Grace Kelley's marriage to Prince Rainier of Monaco.  I was a serious stamp collector when I was a child.  I still have my collection, but have only recently started to add to it.

I've had to turn the TV off.  It's so frustrating to hear about all the suffering brought on by the bombings in Boston and know that you are helpless to do anything about it.  Pray.  That's all I can do.  Pray for all those who are injured and the families of those who have died.  It's heartbreaking.

I'm off my housekeeping schedule.  The laundry should have been done Monday, but I'm doing today.  While the new washer is making all its strange sounds, I'm upstairs - in the Far Corner - my refuge from the activity of downstairs.

But now it's time for me to go back downstairs and check on the corned beef brisket that simmering on the stove - and get butternut squash ready to go in the Ninja Cooker.  More later . . .

Ninja Notes

Is there no end to small kitchen appliances?  No, apparently not.  Jerry and I both are fascinated by them.   I have to confess that we've been known to buy these gizmos and not use them much after the new wears off.  When was the last time we used the Showtime Rotisserie?  Don't ask.

Jerry has been interested in the Ninja Cooker for a while now.  I did everything I could to discourage him, thinking that it was pretty much like the two slow cookers we've already got.  And I figured if it wasn't like them, surely it was a clone to the three West Bend cookers that I've had for at least 25 years.  (One of these West Bend cookers was inherited from my mother.)  I like the West Bends and use them fairly often.

So I asked myself - Why do we need a Ninja Cooker?  At $159.00, it's got to be more than a cool-looking appliance with a cool-sounding name.  What does it do?  After doing some internet research, I found that it really is a different animal from the other appliances in our kitchen collection.

I read the fine print on my 20% off Bed, Bath & Beyond coupon and saw that Ninja Cookers were not listed in the exclusions.  So off I went to Baton Rouge.  I came home with a Ninja Cooker from BB&B and a nice little enameled cast iron Dutch oven from Walmart - but that's another story.  When I went to bed that night, the Ninja was unpacked, washed, and ready to go the next morning.

What sets the Ninja apart from our other appliances is that it has both Stovetop and Slow Cooker settings.  The Stovetop settings (high, medium, and low) make it like cooking on top of the stove.  It gets hot enough to brown meat or sauté vegetables.  The Slow Cooker settings (high and low) turn it into a slow cooker.  There is also a Buffet setting which keeps food warm after it's done.  And if all this is not enough, there's an Oven setting - more about that later. 

I had not been grocery shopping for ingredients to make one of the recipes in the little book that comes with the Ninja.  Besides, I wanted to see if I could fix my old favorite recipes in this critter.  It was 8:00 a.m. when I got out a frozen block of ground meat and put it in the Ninja on the low Stovetop setting.  About thirty-five minutes later, the meat was completely defrosted.

I could have probably defrosted this meat in a skillet on top of the stove in fifteen or twenty minutes, but I would have had to stand over it, scrapping layers of meat off as it defrosted, and watching to be sure it didn't burn.  In the thirty-five minutes that the Ninja took to do this job I made the beds, straightened up my bathroom, and did a few other chores.

I turned the Ninja to the Stovetop high setting and browned the ground beef - it sizzled, just like on top of the stove.  Then I added chopped onion and bell pepper, turned it to Stovetop medium, and let that cook a few more minutes.  The plan was to continue on and make my homemade spaghetti sauce.

But about that time, it came to my attention that the CPA needed a piece of paperwork from us before he could file our taxes.  Since this was the Friday before taxes were due, I had to race off to Baton Rouge to deliver the needed document.

I started to turn the Ninja off and forget about cooking until I got back, but then I remembered it's a slow cooker as well as a stovetop.  I gave up on my homemade sauce recipe since I knew it would be lunch time by the time I got back home.  I dumped a jar of ready-to-use spaghetti sauce in with the ground beef and vegetables, stirred, turned the Ninja to Slow Cooker high, put the lid on and headed for Baton Rouge. 

When I got home two hours later, the sauce was perfect!  I think I'm going to like the Ninja.  It takes interruptions in stride, and interruptions are all too common around this place.  Cleaning the non-stick, lightweight cooking pot was quick and easy.  There's more to tell about the Ninja.  Stay tuned.

Git Along, Little Dogies!

They say you learn something new everyday.  Once in a while you learn something new that's really extraordinary.  And that's exactly what happened recently.  Last month Stella Tanoos, our friend and local historian, gave a presentation at the Island Country Club about Louisiana cattle drives.

Now go ahead and admit it.  You thought - just like I did - that Texas had a monopoly on big cattle drives.  Wasn't every cattle drive movie we ever saw about Texas?  And, not to take away from Texas, there was a lot of cattle driving going on there between 1866 and 1890.

But did you know that cattle drives started in Louisiana in 1765 when a fellow named Jean Antoine Bernard Dauterive contracted to supply the newly-arrived Acadians with cattle and land to graze them on? 

Louisiana cattlemen used several routes to get their cattle to New Orleans to market.  Plaquemine was on one of these routes, and large cattle drives followed along the bayou. 

As I type this, I'm looking out the window at Bayou Plaquemine.  We've lived on the bayou since 1970.  I knew that a railroad once ran across our property.  Now I'm thinking that a lot of hooves may have pounded the earth here before the railroad came and went. 

By 1881 the cattle drives were pretty much over.  By that time cattle were being shipped by train and steamboat.  But Louisiana cattle drives spanned over a hundred years (1765-1881) and moved over two million cattle! 

Thanks, Stella, for all your research!

Gray Days

Today is another gray day. So far, 2013 has been rainy and cloudy, occasionally punctuated by a much appreciated sunny day. I'm fixing French Onion Soup - Rachael Ray's recipehere- for lunch. Gray days always call for soup, stew, or gumbo. Jerry cooked a delicious chicken-sausage gumbo out in the barn a few days ago when our kids and grandkids were here. We had enough left to put in the freezer. We'll bring it out on another gray day, but today it's onion soup. I don't have any Gruyere cheese, but I do have some Seaside Cheddar that ought to do just fine. I never met a cheese that I didn't like.

I ran errands in Baton Rouge yesterday and made my usual pilgrimage to Whole Foods for apples. If I'm going to eat an apple, it's got to be a good one - very crisp and sweet, but not too sweet. Lately I've been buying Honeycrisp apples - crisp, juicy, just right! The only down side is the blow to my wallet at the cash register. I noticed a bin of Kiku apples - a dollar a pound cheaper than Honeycrisps - and decided to buy just one to try. Apples have to audition and pass muster before I buy more than one. The lone Kiku passed with flying colors! They're a little smaller than Honeycrisps, but just as good.

Season Three of Downton Abbey ended on a depressing note which, of course, makes all Downton Abbey addicts eager for Season Four. But that is no doubt at least a year away. We Downton people have to cultivate patience. In the meantime, I plan to break out the Season One DVD on Sunday evenings and start the saga over.

Two of my favorites have combined - Jane Austen and postage stamps. The United Kingdom has issued six new postage stamps representing Miss Austen's novels. And did you know that you can order stamps directly from The Royal Mail onlinehere ? Very convenient for those in the US who like to collect British commorative stamps.

Happy Candlemas Day!

I learned about Candlemas years ago from reading English novels, and everybody knows about Groundhog Day. But so help me, I never made the connection between the two until I read about it in Romancing the Ordinary by Sarah Ban Breathnach.

Candlemas dates back to the middle ages when candles were blessed at church and sent home with those who attended the Candlemas service. The candles symbolized the Divine Light. But as with most spiritual things, there was a very practical side. By the beginning of February, the household candle supply was waning and might need a boost to get to springtime when the daylight hours increased and candles were not in such high demand. Women were known to take a candle inventory before they headed off to church.

At some point the idea caught on - I have no idea how - that the weather on Candlemas was an indication of how long winter was going to last. An old English proverb goes like this:

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright,

Winter will have another flight.

If on Candlemas Day it be shower and rain,

Winter is gone and will not come again.

The Scots put it this way:

If Candlemas is bright and clear

There'll be two winters in the year.

What does all this have to do with groundhogs? I'm not sure what the official explanation is - or if there even is one, but it seems obvious to me what happened. Children, being inquisitive little characters, probably began to ask some legitimate questions. What if it's cloudy on Candlemas morning, but the sun comes out in the afternoon? What if the reverse is true? What if Candlemas is like a lot of other winter days where sun and clouds are intermittent all day? Parents were flummoxed as they often are when their children start with the questions.

Here's when the groundhog was called into service. Parents decided to deal with the pesky questions by saying that it all depended on whether or not the groundhog saw his shadow when he emerged from his burrow on Candlemas. Silly adults! They thought that would satisfy their curious offspring! But the children were perplexed as to how we would know the length of winter unless someone observed the groundhog seeing or not seeing his shadow. And this accounts for otherwise mature adults - some in very cold climates - bundling up on February 2nd to watch a groundhog emerge from a hole in the ground. Leave it to humans to go from the sublime to the ridiculous by linking an observance of the Divine Light to a groundhog. But it's all good fun, and I've no doubt that God holds groundhogs in high esteem since he created them.

I confess that I did not get up early for a rendezvous with a groundhog, but I'm looking out on a bright sunny day here in southern Louisiana. I won't be packing the winter jackets away just yet in spite of what Punxsutawney Phil did not see this morning up in Pennsylvania.

The Gratitude Journal

When I was young, gratitude journals used to intimidate me. I thought the only things worthy of being listed were the really big important things - like my health and my family. To list trivial things was to equate them with the big things, and that somehow seemed ungrateful - or so I thought. But listing the same big important things every day got to be boring, so I never kept a gratitude journal for very long.

I'm happy to say that I've acquired a little bit of sense as I've grown older. I've learned not to eschew the small things. G. K. Chesterton said he was grateful for "stars and street faces and wine and the great sea." I decided if Chesterton could be grateful for wine and the faces of strangers on the street, I could learn to appreciate the small things in my daily round.

Now I list in my gratitude journal all the little things that make me glad in a day's time. I'm finding that taking note of what delights me or satisfies me or gives me a sense of accomplishment is an excellent way to get to know myself better. Lately, I've been grateful for sunshine, crisp apples, and Bailey's Irish Cream. Sometimes I'm surprised at what delights me - a fresh clean dish towel or the act of lighting a candle or looking out the window by my desk as the evening fades into night.

Robert Louis Stevenson said, "To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive." I think he's right.