Monday Sept 4. Made That Chicken and those potatoes and stuffed tomatoes. Few notes for next time.

• It was a large chicken and the 5 potatoes were large too. Made for too much potato and some steaming rather than roasting and browning. Try 4 large or 5 small potatoes.
• Didn't rest the chicken long enough at the end.
• Tried baking the tomatoes in the same oven as the chicken, but they came out over cooked and mushy. Maybe it was the higher temp (500F) or the that the tray was too low in the oven but don't try that again.

Sunday Aug 26, 2006 - Made Alton Brown's braised baby-back ribs for the first time. Basically worked well and was liked by all. A few notes for next time:

• Even tho the recipe suggests that the rub is enough for several batches of ribs, I used it all on one batch. It seemed like the right amount in the end result.
• During the dry rub marinating, the aluminum foil wrapper got punctured so that the braising liquid all ran out when poured in so I did a second layer of wrapper but it would probably be better to save the foil wrapping until just before adding the braising liquid.
• The braising liquid takes a while to get down to a glaze. Maybe > 15 minutes. So don't start broiling the ribs too soon after starting the boiling down.

Also made breadcrumb-stuff tomatoes from our home grown tomatoes. Used a combination of recipe ideas from Cook's Illustrated Perfect Vegetables and from Julia Child's The Way to Cook:

Cut tomatoes in half and squeeze and shake out the seeds and juice. Salt cut surface liberally and set face down on paper towels for at least 20 minutes.

Made stuffing from

2 C fresh bread crumbs (from Acme batard)
about 20 leaves fresh basil - julienned
2 cloves garlic finely minced
1/2 C freshly grated pecorino romano cheese
4 oz fresh goat cheese, crumbled
salt, pepper, olive oil
12 kalamata olives, pitted and minced
-- mix them all together (leave the olives out for Phil)

Preheat oven to 400F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the tomatoes on the sheet and mound the filling on them. Bake 15-20 minutes. Brown under the broiler at the end if not brown enough rather than over cooking the tomatoes.