A large form sous vide project I am currently working on, and will post about in depth in a couple of weeks, got posted to Lifehacker today (I got scooped on my own build). Somebody found my Flickr set on the project and it has gotten a lot of coverage today - which is very cool - but it isn't done!.

Here is a link to the build photos so far, I am adding new ones as I complete steps in the project. The full article and documentation on the project will come as soon as I complete the build and testing. 

Hack a Day Story - Nov 9th 2011: Kitchen hacks: What would you cook if you had a Sous-Vide this large?

LifeHacker Story - Nov 10th 2011: This 16-Gallon Sous-Vide Water Oven Is Perfect for Huge Holiday Meals

A pâté de campagne is a traditional country terrine, a rustic preparation, slightly more refined than a pâté grandmère mainly in that it uses only a small amount of liver. In a pâté campagne liver is used as a seasoning device rather than a dominant flavor. In the past I have always used a recipe for a more or less traditional styled pâté de campagne from Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. Thier recipe is made up of ground pork and chicken or pork liver, but I wanted to try to make a variation that offered a richer flavor profile - with a game like character, and this recipe made a successful step in that direction.

The mushrooms bring out the earthiness in the duck and lamb. Morels would be a wonderful alternative to the porcini's I used in this recipe, but I couldn't find any this weekend. In either case I prefer to used dried mushrooms, the grind breaks them into the perfect size and I find that their flavor permeates the pâté in a way that fresh mushrooms don't offer.

The duck and duck fat brought a much finer texture to the pâté that I found to be very appealing as well as creating a earthier and more robust character. The liver flavor in this recipe wasn't as strong as it might have been, If you enjoy a strong liver flavor in your pâté you might consider adding an additional 50 to 100 grams of duck liver. The stronger flavored meats in this pâté make the liver a bit more background than in a pâté made with pork (especially commercially produced domestic pork in the US - which I find to be a bit less flavorful than heirloom pork like berkshire, which is far preferable for this kind of preparation).

Some great news on the gardening/brewing front, at least 9 out of 10 of our hops plants lived through the winter. I have to admit being pleasantly surprised. We had some very cold days this winter -44 fahrenheit according to our outdoor thermometer, and even in the photos I have uploaded you can see frost heave in the hops bed. 

We planted 5 varieties of hop rhizomes last year, and were very lucky getting a reasonable batch of hops for brewing in our first year from two of the varieties. I am pleased to see that all of the varieties have survived, though one plant hasn't yet broken the surface - we will have to see if it catches up later, or if it is a casualty. 

Today's recipe has become one of my flagship deserts - a deep, dark, rich chile and cocoa experience. The delicate addition of finely ground, carefully selected ancho and New Mexico chiles to this sinfully flourless chocolate cake creates a culinary tryst of surpising complexity and history.

I have named the cake for a very old Aztec drink served almost exclusively to royalty. Sophie and Michael Coe, note the drink in thier book The True History of Chocolate: "Universally popular throughout Mesoamerica was the addition to the drink of chile, dried and ground to a powder. The Molina vocabulary [the first Nahuatl-Spanish dictionary] calls the drink chilcacahuatl."

You will love this cake if you take care in creating it.

As I write this the snow is drifting down, the wind blowing, its cold and wet outside. It has been snowing all week, a thick wet snow that only lasts until about 10 AM each day before the sun melts it off. Tonight we are expecting 3 inches, which might stick around a bit longer, but all of this is great news. Spring is here!

Saturday I was planning a fishing trip down in Colorado, where spring is farther along. A fishing buddy, Tom and I were going to try and fish the Cache la Poudre River up in the canyon north of Fort Collins, but A fresh snowfall, a cold and fever, and a spouses migraine cancelled the trip. The fact is that the river might be too high to fish as well, and facing all of this, and no one to go with I ended up staying home.

For the trip fare I had been planning on making a lunch that my buddy and I could eat in the canyon. Eating well when out fishing is, in my opinion, an incredible pleasure, and my plan was to make a couple of shooter's sandwiches to make our day complete - with or without successful fishing.

I ended up making two different versions of carne asada tacos, with one main difference in the recipes (see recipe below). In the second recipe I added a 1/4 cup of medium heat New Mexico red chile powder.

Once a week is steak night at our house. Both my wife and I realy enjoy tri-tip and flank, both of which are a bit toothier than some more expensive cuts, but both offer great flavor, marinate well, and when cooked properly are a fantastic value.

One of my favorite ways to cook both of these cuts is Sous Vide. Cooking using this method is nothing new to the foodie community, and last year the introduction of the SousVide Supreme made affordable sous vide cooking available to the home cook. I was happy to be an early adopter of this gadget, and honestly after using it for over a year now, I am a really big fan.

At my daughters school they make a big deal about Saint Patty's Day. They tell the children that Leprechauns visit the school while the kids are out playing, and hide chocolate coins around the classroom. Fiona, my daughter, has been entirely unsure what to think about all of this, she is clearly excited about the chocolate, but inquired quite seriously recently about the existence of Leprechauns. "Tell me the truth daddy... Are leprechauns real?"

Oddly enough, I was fearful of telling her that they were not - mostly because at least in my mind, the next question would be about Santa, and at 4 I couldn't bear her thinking that Santa isn't real.

What came out of my mouth after assuring her that they were real... I have no excuse, except that it was funny..?

"Sure they are Fiona! In fact, Saint Patty's day is the one day of the year that we are allowed to hunt Leprechauns!"

Fiona didn't believe a word of it, and went straight home to tell my wife just how horrible Daddy was - teasing her that I was going to hunt Leprechauns, and even worse, make Leprechaun Sausage! My wife to her credit, thought all of this was very funny.

Now I should back up and explain that there is a lot of talk, especially lately, about hunting around the house. Many of our friends hunt and I have been shopping for a rifle and a shotgun. We have also been cooking a lot of game recently, and Fiona has expressed a sincere interest in "learning to hunt with Daddy" when she grows up.