Oh, the things you can do with Spam

I've frittered away the evening with one of my favorite occupations--looking through recipes. My friends Elizabeth and Weldon are coming for supper next Sunday night. They are on a gluten-free, dairy-free diet and both feel much better for it. I knew what I wanted to cook--a top sirloin beef roast with a recipe from Cooks' Illustrated--but I couldn't find it in my appalling collection. I have two folders: Entrees Tried and Entrees Never Tried. I got mixed up about which one I'd gone through and probably went through both twice, but I finally found it in the Entrees Tried, where it shouldn't have been because I've never tried it. Cook's Illustrated tries several cuts of meats cooked several ways and then reports on which is best. I subscribe to it off and on but really should take it all the time, because it's a reliable guide. In this case, they say for a less expensive roast use top sirloin; second choice is a blade roast; stay away from bottom round roast. Recipe calls for lots of garlic, so it should be good.
Then I switched my attention to Spam--yeah, the canned meat kind not what you get on your email. Beth and Weldon also have a blog, "From Cows to Quinoa," about GF/DF eating. The title is a little misleading because they eat meat with relish, as long as there's no wheat or dairy involved in the prepration. But they do eat a lot of quinoa. Recently Elizabeth challenged readers to report on their experiences with Spam. It just so happened I had a cooking column ready on the subject, though it had never been published. So I'm to be a guest blogger.
Hormel has a huge Web site for Spam, plus lots of recipes, some of them mind-boggling. I culled through them looking for GF/DF recipes and came up with a beans and Spam dish, Spam and eggs (now I love lox and eggs, but Spam--I don't know), a Spam salad, and a State Fair prize-winning grilled Spam with raspberry, soy, honey, mustard sauce.
Don't get me wrong. I ate Spam as a child and loved it, and I would probably eat it today, except the fat content scares me away. I liked it in a sandwich, made with mayo and lettuce. 
A cool, damp, dull day in North Texas today and it was good to stay in and clear my desk of stray things, read papers for my class tomorrow, and so on. Tomorrow I'll get out and about in the world. Meantime, I'm watching one of my favorite TV programs--"Diners, Dumps, and Drive-ins" on Food Network. Guy Fieri rocks.

Books and Cooks

I seem to be in the mood for zany lately, but here are some books I've truly enjoyed. I think I've read all of the Blackbird sisters series by Nancy Martin (Murder Melts in Your Mouth, A Crazy Little Thing Called Death, Have Your Cake and Kill Him Too, and others). The sisters are zany beyond belief, as are the circumstances of their life. But the main sister, Nora, fall in love with the son of a New Jersey mobster, an alliance deemed absolutely unfitting in view of the sisters blueblood if impoverished status. The on-again-off-again state of the love affair provides a thread throughout the series, but like many amateur sleuth heroines, Nora keeps running into murder after murder--many lead her into danger, from which she is rescued by her mobster boyfriend. All great reading. I emailed Nancy Martin to tell her how much I enjoyed the series and learned to my regret that she is moving on to a new series. But you can find most of them on Kindle, and Martin has a Kindle page.
I just finished the book I was reviewing for Story Circle Network--Ann B. Ross' Miss Julia Renews Her Vows. It's the gentlest of cozy myteries, no murder, no perilous situations (besides great embarrassment) but some serious stuff--a young woman wrongly accused of theft and assault, the heroine's marriage in jeopardy or so she thinks, a smooth-talking, self-promoting marriage enrichment counselor. Through it all Miss Julia (really Mrs. Sam Murdoch) remains charming, slightly ditzy, very southern, cleverly scheming, refined (thought she hints at matters of the flesh), and absolutely charming. After beginning hesitantly, I dove into the novel and tonight sent off my review. Look for it on amazon (maybe) or Story Circle Network Book Reviews, though I don't know when it will be posted.
For those of you who don't know, Cooks' Illustrated is a magazine and a book resulting from kitchen research. The cooks try dozens of methods of cooking one thing, then tell you which is best and what was wrong with the others. They also test products the same way--cocoa, ketchup, you name it, they've probably done it. And yes, they have a TV show--on PBS I think. For some time (years) I've had their best recipe for roast beef in my "Never Tried" file, so this weekend I decided to try it and bought a 4 lb. top sirloin roast. I doubt Jacob and I will make a dent in it tomorrow night, but I had been wanting some lunch meat around and I really don't like the prepackaged kind.
The recipe involves something my mom used to do--inserting slivers of garlic into the roast. But it's much more complicated than Mom's version. You roast the garlic, unpeeled, then peel and insert the slivers. Then rub a mix of salt, thyme, and more garlic all over the roast and let is sit, uncovered, in the fridge overnight--which is where it is now. It's not the first recipe I've found recently that calls for meat to be uncovered--I think I recently did a roast chicken that way, though it was always a no-no to me. Tomorrow, I'll brown it in a high oven, then rub a garlic/oil paste on it and bake. It should come out rare, which will make Jordan stick it in the microwave if she eats the leftovers. But it sounds really good, and of course I like experimenting.  I may even see what Jacob does with corn on the cob.