Banana Bread

 Recipe:

2 cups cake flour, or all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

2 table spoons baking powder

2 table spoons ground cinnamon

2 table spoons vanilla extract 

1/2 tea spoon of salt

4 eggs

1 cups vegetable oil, cooking oil 

4 ripe bananas, blended

Preparation:

Pre-heat oven to 400F.

Mix all solids thoroughly, then add the rest of the ingredients,  mix it thoroughly. 

Pour into a baking form, bake for 10 minutes,  then lower the temperature to 350F for about 20 minutes, check if fully cooked with a tooth pick.

Hot dry Salami

 Hot dry Salami

This is a recipe for a basic dry Salami that I came up with that is currently in the dry stage, hopefully ready and delicious in few months.

    Previous attempts failed and the reason was the detachment of the meat from casing, during the dry stage, causing oxidation that completely ruined the salami. I used a dry fibrous casing for those attempts and I believe that it has contributed to the issue. The other factors were probably the smearing of fat during grinding and mixing, as well as not mixing the meat long enough to develop that sticky consistency that is important to make it stick to the casing.

    This time around and after watching several videos online, I have made few changes to the process that I believe will fix the issues, as follows:

• Freezing the grinding tool, in my case, the aluminum head of a electric meat grinder. This helps to maintain the meat cold, specially fat, during grinding.
• Using lean beef and pork as the meat source and a separated 100% pork fat from pork belly. This way I could measure exactly the fat content to 40%
• With meat and fat on separate bowls, ground it semi-frozen separately, making sure to avoid smearing of fat.
• Once ground, mixed just the meat in food mixer for couple of minutes (about 10min), until sticky, including all the spices and culture.
• Mixed the ground fat with the sticky meat, gently, to try and keep the fat chunks intact.
• This time around, using 3 different types of casing to see if any, specifically, is more prone to create the detaching issue. Used natural hog casing, natural dry casing (looks more like a collagen casing) and fibrous casing.

As I type this, this batch is dry curing for about 2 weeks now. Hot stage was very quick, with PH drop from 5.6 to about 4.76 in 24h. I believe that I misread the culture temperature range and had the hot chamber at 90F, when optimal range for the culture was 64 to 75F. I guess that the culture liked the warmer temperature and did its job very quickly. Hopefully, no off flavors from fermenting this hot.

So here is the recipe, and yes, will be using metric system:

• 454g lean pork loin
• 454g lean beef
• 605g pure pork belly fat
• 42g sea salt (2.8%,no iodine)
• 3.8g cure #2 (0.25%)
• 0.95g Sodium Erythorbate (0.063%)
• 3.03g malto-dextroser (0.2%)
• 3.03g coarse ground black pepper (0.2%)
• 3.03g whole black pepper corns(0.2%)
• 3.03g sugar (0.2%)
• 3.03g garlic powder (0.2%)
• 6.05g red pepper flakes(0.4%)
• 1.66g SPX culture, dissolved in 1/4 cup of water, at room temperature
• 90ml red wine

Salamis were set in a mini fridge chamber at 45F and 80% humidity. A separate post will talk about this chamber.

Initial tracking shown below. Average weight loss of 18% in 10 days.

Start Date	1/11/25	Salami #			PH
Target weight loss %	40	Fibrous	Natural	Dry natural
Start		412	389	545	4.76
Target		247.2	233.4	327	<5.1
Date
1/22/25		346	312	455

UPDATE 02/08/25

About 25 days in dry curing chamber, averages temperature of 45F and humidity of 79%, total weight loss for all casings is about 36%.

UPDATE 02/21/25

So it has finished curing, with weight loss of 43% in average (42,43,44). The outcome was somewhat expected, the fibrous casing detached from the meat, not so with the natural or dry-natural casings. With the detachment on the fibrous casing, oxidation imparted a nasty flavor and it ended up in trash. The other two salamis came out quite good, with my preference being the dry-natural casing. The natural casing seems to have a slight funky flavor, coming from the casing itself (my guess, reminds me of the casing smell when stuffing the salami).

Overall, this was a successful project and with my setup fine tuned to maintain temperature and humidity in check, I will making this recipe again. Here are the updated chart and few pics:

From left to right, natural, dry-natural and fibrous.

Natural:

Dry-natural:

Fibrous:

Natural and dry-natural, left to right:

Dry curing equipment setup

 Dry curing equipment setup

Humidity control, in my experience, is very critical to determine whether your salami process will fail or succeed. It is also a difficult thing to achieve with the tools available to the hobbyist  attempting to build their own curing chamber. 

Commercial curing equipment are available, some small enough to fit on you kitchen counter, that supposed to give you full control of both temperature and humidity. These, however, can cause a dent on your bank account, going from few hundred to thousands of dollars.

Being on the DIY side, I have been trying to build my own setup using mini fridges and so far, I have had limited success. I just finished building a new setup and will report back in a couple of weeks. The different thing about this last design is about the humidity control, more on this later.

For those starting to consider dry curing, I would recommend to get your setup built first, fine tune it to ensure that it delivers what you are aiming for in terms of temperature, humidity and air flow. The last thing you want is to have lots of meat ready to cure, to then realize that your system is not able to maintain the parameters that you need. 

The following are the basic capabilities that I would consider for any setup:

• Hot stage: maintain temperatures in the range of 80F to 100F, for fermentation stages of curing, like in dry salami. Humidity control in this setup is not totally required, since you can maintain higher humidity by just wrapping the meat in clear film during fermentation (close to 100% RH). Also, precise control of temperature is not a big deal since most curing cultures will work just fine in a wide range of temperatures.
• Cold stage: maintain temperatures and humidity for the longer dry curing period, which can last several weeks to months. In this period, desired temperatures can be in the high 30's to low 50's and humidity in the range of 75% to 85% RH. This is when the trouble strikes, maintain both temperature and humidity in check, when these two variables are inter-dependent. Most controllers are either for temperature or humidity, less common to find a device that can control both simultaneously and even then, it just ignores the fact that controlling temperature affects the relative humidity, and the other way around.
• Air flow, internally and intermittent external air exchanges. This is not a major challenge since small fans can be used for internal flow and by just opening the chamber door every other day, one can provide the external fresh air needed.

Let's address each of these stages and my experience in trying to achieve it, "trying", because to date I have not been able to get results to my liking. I hope that these attempts and failures help other enthusiasts to avoid wasting time and money with methods and equipment that will not deliver what you need.

The hot side

The purpose of this step is to create the ideal environment for fermentation, where the curing cultures (good bacteria) will convert dextrose into lactic acid, dropping the PH and stopping bad bacteria from developing. The recommended target PH during fermentation is <5.3, before you can move the meat into the cold stage curing.

For the most part, dry salami and other fermented sausages make use of a fermentation step, although whole muscle curing can also make use of curing cultures. There are different ways that you can achieve this step, some as simple as hanging your meat in room temperature, in your oven with the lights on, or a simple chamber with a cheap temperature controller.

The idea is to provide the curing culture with the temperature range that it supposed to work best, for instance, some examples of common cultures and range shown below:

• Bactoferm T-SPX: 64-75F (dry salami)
• Bactoferm FRM-52: 72-90F (medium-diameter salamis and other dry, fermented sausages)
• Bactoferm HPS: above 90F (whole muscle)

Although it may sound interesting to have both hot and cold side in one chamber, for instance a mini fridge with a heating element inside, you may realize that it makes more sense to have two separated chambers, so you can have meats in different stages of curing, simultaneously.

I strongly suggest to start simple with a batch of salami, using either T-SPX or FRM-72 cultures, so you can ferment the meat at room temperature and focus on the cold side setup. If preferred fermenting in a slight warmer temperature, you can use the kitchen oven with the lights on. The process of fermentation usually lasts for a day or two.

If you decide to cure using other strains that require warmer temperatures for fermentation, like Bactoferm HPS (>90F), building a hot chamber can still be a simple project, here are few suggestions:

1. Think about how big the chamber needs to be, so you can fit the meats that you are curing, or plan to cure in the future, with plenty of space to add some additional equipment inside, like a humidifier and or dehumidifier.
2. Any closed space can be turned in a curing chamber, ideally an insulated box, like a cooler or something that you can build cheap. Even a large cardboard box can be used. Building an insulated box is also not complicated, for example, cutting and hot-gluing 1in XPS (extruded polystyrene) boards together from Home Depot, Lowes, etc.
3. Get a temperature controller or an all-in-one mini electric heater, something cheap and easy to use. This selection depends on how comfortable you are with connecting wires and doing electric work. There are many options online, a few listed below:
• All in one systems: These plug directly into an regular wall outlet and although I have not used these, seems like a straight forward and cheap way ($26 i Amazon)
  

• Plug and Play temperature controllers: The variety of devices available is immense, and can also be a cheap option. For the most part, these also plug in a regular power outlet and switch on-and-off a power output for an external heater, or cooler device. The external heating device can be as simple as a regular light bulb, an infra-red bulb, or a heating element powered with 120vAC. Unless you plan to have the hot chamber in a location with ambient temperatures above the range that you need, cooling is usually not required. Adding a cooling device to a chamber can be tricky and for the most part, a minifridge is turned into the chamber, a more expense project. Below are few examples of these types of controllers and option for the heating elements, all found at Amazon or other online stores.

                            $18

                            $35

                            

• Panel mounted controllers: These require some wiring, so may not be for every hobbyist. 

                        $20

                        

                    $25

                    

• Heating elements

                    $10, bulb socket.

                    

                       $14

                        

                    $12, heating mat for reptile enclosures

                    

                    To be continued....

• 
  

Hummus

Here's a quick recipe that I started making recently, proven to be just delicious.

Ingredients:

• 1lb canned chickpeas
• 1/2 cup Tahini paste
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 1/4 cup EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
• 1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 3 minced garlic cloves

Drain and wash chickpeas in cold water, then add all ingredients to food processor (blender will not work for this), mix on medium high speed for few minutes. I recommend to have the chickpeas in fridge overnight prior to making this recipe as to not overheat the mix while processing in food processor. Otherwise, you can add few ice cubes while mixing it to keep temps down. You can also add a little amount to cold water. It will make it smooth but add in small amounts to avoid your hummus to become to watery (I made this mistake, by the way, the first time I make it).

Good thing about making your own it that you can add more garlic or other spices that you like, make it to your taste.

Server with EVOO and sprinkles of Summac for a typical Middle Eastern cuisine.

Ocean puddle stew

Rich stew with a variety of sea food ingredients.

Ingredients (serves two):

• 1lb sea food mix. Fresh or ready to cook, as seen below.

This one in particular tastes very fresh and has a good variety of ingredients, octopus, squid, cuttlefish, clams, shrimps.

• 1 tsp minced garlic.
• 2 TBS oil.
• 1/2 chopped onion.
• 1 TBS chopped parsley.
• 1 TBS copped cilantro.
• 1 TBS chopped green onions.
• 1/2 cup chopped green peppers.
• 1 cup chopped variety of red, yellow, orange peppers.
• 1/2 cup chopped carrots.
• 1 tsp Chipotle pepper sauce. Or more if you like to kick up heat a bit.
• salt to taste.
• juice from 1/2 lime.
• 1 tsp soy sauce.
• 1 tsp fish sauce.
• 4+ cups water.

Steps:

1. Whether fresh or previously frozen, squeeze juice form 1/2 lime and mix with seafood.
2. Add oil to pot, onions, cook until soft. Add garlic, cook on medium-low heat for a minute
3. Add the seafood ingredients, bring heat to high and fry for 1 min, mix often
4. Add water and rest of ingredients, simmer for 30 min. Test bite a piece of squid or octopus to check, if too hard, simmer for another 10 min.
5. Complete with water if needed, salt to taste.

Lamb Shank 2, the ultimate

This is a recipe for the ultimate grilled and slow cooked lamb shank that is one of the best dishes I have ever cooked. Just heaven delicious falling apart lamb meat with a mild nutty flavor.

All starts with the shank from my local grocery. These are usually imported from New Zealand or Australia, at least in the Pacific Northwest. Great quality, mild gamey flavor.

Seasoned with a dry rub mix as below, crushed on a mortar:
- 1 TBS each of black pepper, sea salt, paprika, garlic powder and onion powder
- 1 tsp each of anise seeds and coriander
- 4 bay leaves

Onto the natural lump charcoal grill to sear and develop that great smoky flavor.

Into the slow cooker, topped with bell peppers, onion, sea salt, 1/4 cup of each Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. Cooked on slow for 24h.

Just amazing

Mouth watering

Oatmeal raisin wholegrain cookies

Oatmeal raisin cinnamon cookies

Ingredients for 15 to 20 cookies, 3 in diameter:

·    1 ½ cup whole wheat flour

·    1 ½ cup brown sugar

·    ½ cup wheat bran

·    ½ cup flax seed meal

·    1 cup raisins

·    ¾ cups oat meal

·    1 table spoon cinnamon powder

·    ¼ cup warm milk

·    2 sticks softened unsalted butter

·    2 eggs

Mix all dry ingredients. Mix milk, eggs and butter, and then add to dry mix. Mix until combined.

Form dough balls with 1 ½ in diameter, set on tray 3 to 4in apart.

Bake at 350F for 15min.