chowplay

Now posting on: Improbable Pantry

2009-10-31T11:32:00.001-04:00

I started this blog in October 2008, and have had a year to play with sharing my food experiences with you. I've been wanting to make some changes, not the least of which was the name. So, I've rebranded as Improbable Pantry, and hope you follow me over there.

Cold snowy Sunday in October

2009-10-18T22:19:00.005-04:00

Every once in awhile, I follow a recipe start to finish, paying careful attention to every ingredient, every measurement, every nuance, to make sure I get it just right. More often, though, a recipe will get me thinking, and the thought evolves over time. Sometimes a few minutes, sometimes hours and sometimes days. As the time unfolds, the possibilities do as well. And what I imagine at the beginning, turns into something very different, influenced by my mood, the day, what I have, whether I'm in the mood to try something different, or the weather.

A few days ago, I saw Heidi Swanson's recipe for red lentil soup pop up on her blog. It got me thinking about lentils. I liked her simple recipe -- red lentils, onions, brown rice. Nothing to it. Except I didn't have any red lentils in the house, and plenty of those plain-looking brown ones. I did have lots of onions. And I'd been wanting to do a simple lentil soup flavored with lemon, perhaps with a little spinach. Simple.

Then, Sunday came, and it was snowing here in Boston. Snowing. In mid-October. I drove up from New York City in the snow, and was looking forward to an afternoon of hanging out at home, warming up the house with something fragrant and slow cooking. I am, to my core, a sucker for an everything-but-the-kitchen sink stew. I just get started, and don't know when to stop. And there were older veggies that needed eating up. Carrots, celery, potatoes, onions, scallions, lemons. I slowly shifted gears from a simple lentil soup, perhaps as an appetizer to something else, to a lentil stew that would keep us warm while it was cooking, while we were eating, and for the next few days. Intrigued by Heidi's brown rice, I decided to go for something that didn't take so long to cook -- bulghur, and which proved to provide a silky texture to the whole shebang.

Snowy Sunday Afternoon Lentil Stew

6 cups chicken stock (or water, or vegetable stock, or whatever)
1.5 cups brown lentils (pick out stones or dirt, and rinse)
1 large onion, roughly chopped
2 medium potatoes, diced
2 carrots, sliced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup medium bulghur
1 bunch spinach, chopped
2 scallions, minced
zest of one lemon
lemon juice, to taste
soy sauce (a tablespoon, or to taste)
parmesan cheese, finely grated
salt and pepper

Saute the onions and garlic in a few glugs of olive oil, until the onions are soft. Add the potatoes, carrots, lentils, and bulghur; stir, and cover with the stock. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20-40 minutes. Add water as needed to maintain a soupy, stewy consistency. When the potatoes, carrots and lentils are soft, and it all starts to meld into a stewlike consistency, add the spinach and lemon zest. Cook some more until the spinach wilts. Turn off the heat.

I let it sit on the stove for an hour or so, letting the flavors meld (and waiting for us to be hungry). About 15 minutes before showtime, crank the heat back up to high until it boils, reduce to a simmer, and season. I added salt and pepper (about five or six big pinches of salt).

At this point, you have a blank palette, and you can do anything. I kept it simple, and added the lemon juice and a little soy for umami taste. Other options: chili powder, cayenne, pimenton (smoked paprika), red pepper flakes, cumin, cinnamon -- depending on your mood. I kept it simple, and added the parmesan and minced scallions at the table. Serve with hearty bread, and it's a meal, with plenty of leftovers for another time.

I stopped short of overdoing the flavorings, keeping it very simple. Susan was enthralled with the subtle flavor of the lemon zest. (And I was enthralled with CREATING the lemon zest, with my new microplane -- what took me so long to pick up that fabulous tool?) I am not used to cooking with flavors that don't bonk you on the head, demanding to be paid attention to. So I added a tablespoon or so of lemon juice. But that's it. The taste was rich, but not overpowering. Warming. Perfect for the day.

Start with the spinach

2009-10-09T22:12:00.001-04:00

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Friday night, tired and wired, contemplating a quick call to the takeout joint. But it was COLD in the kitchen, and I figured cooking would warm it up. It always does. And cooking does tend to improve my mood. But I really didn't want to make a big deal of it. I just wanted to eat.

Unlike most days, I hadn't been pondering the contents of the pantry and fridge in between phone calls at the office, so I was starting from scratch. For starters, there was the spinach in the fridge, from Wednesday's farm share. It wouldn't last long. Boiling some water for pasta would be easy. And warm up the kitchen pretty quickly while fixed some other things.

A half tomato sitting in the basket. Cooking might improve it's flavor -- the tomatoes hadn't been great so far this year, so cooking would be kind. And there was another big one just sitting there, so I sliced half of it. And onion. Onion makes everything taste good.

But wait. I ran out of garlic the other day and hadn't replaced it. Enter the year-old pesto cubes in the freezer. I'd been wanting to use those up for awhile. They really won't last much longer. They have garlic in them.

So. Olive oil heating on the stove, add a vidalia onion (from the share), when translucent, add the tomato (from the share). Cook for about 15 minutes while the water heats up. Fascinating how cooking tomatoes this way will reduce them to almost nothing and concentrate their flavor. When the water boils for the pasta, add a pound of whole wheat penne, which will cook for 10 minutes, and set the timer for 8 minutes so I remember to add the chopped spinach to the pasta pot a minute or so before it's done. Remember the spinach? When the spinach goes in, add the pesto cubes to the skillet, and cook a little more. Then, at the last minute, on an inspiration, toss in a frozen cube of year-old tomato concentrate. Salt and pepper

Drain the pasta when it's done, rescuing a coffee mug full of liquid in case I need it to moisten things up a bit, and add the pasta to the skillet, for a nice quick meal.

Parmesan cheese would have been a nice addition, but somehow, it had disappeared, so I substituted the parrano cheese, which worked nicely.

Gourmet cuisine? No. A good hearty meal for one with leftovers for whomever was around over the weekend. Yes.

Roasting the box

2009-10-07T22:03:00.002-04:00

The box today came with a surprise -- corn. It's OCTOBER! And a winter squash, on top of the two I already had. Plus a load of greens, on top of the bok choy I still had leftover from the trip to the Super 88 a week and a half ago. (Those bok choy are pretty resilient!) What to do?

It's time to kick off roasted vegetable season!

Peel and cube the squash into large bite size chunks, and get them roasting in a thin coat of olive oil at about 350.

After about 15 minutes, add one ear of corn (roll it in the oil already in the pan, and add some butterflied bok choy, also rolled in the pan. And add 5 or 6 cloves of garlic -- just toss them in.

While those are going, get some quinoa in the rice cooker. I like to use the regular yellow quinoa, with about 1/8 red quinoa, for a little visual interest.

Keep checking on the veggies. The bok choy were the first to finish up, so I pulled them out, put them on a large board, and chopped them roughly. Then the corn, cutting the kernels off the cob, and finally the squash and the garlic. They all went into a large bowl, with some salt and pepper. That's it, and then squirt in the soft roasted garlic, stir around and serve with the quinoa.

The squash and the corn had enough flavor and sweetness to carry the dish, with little surprises of roasted garlic every once in awhile. Susan wanted a little more "something" and added a touch of soy sauce.

I find the combination of roasted vegetables and quinoa goes well for a meatless meal, with the quinoa providing the protein component. I love how the orange veggies add color and sweetness, whether they're squash, yams, or carrots. And potatoes are always great -- and I have a drawer full of them thanks to Enterprise. Or, if you want some meat, add a sausage to the roasting pan (just one's enough) and add to the mixture.

Secret ingredient brownies

2009-10-05T22:44:00.003-04:00

Susan's sister Elizabeth was in town over the weekend, and somehow the conversation turned to brownies. How does that happen? In any case, she was very excited about these, with a secret ingredient - black beans. I'd seen a recipe for black bean brownies before on Heidi Swanson's blog, 101 Cookbooks, and had been intrigued, so when Elizabeth's recipe arrived by e-mail today, I ran out for a can of salt-free black beans, and got to it. I left the walnuts out, just because Eleanor always makes them without nuts (even though she's not home -- go figure). Susan couldn't wait for them to cool, and when they did, we were both thrilled with the result. Tasty. Good texture. Next time I may add five minutes to the 30 minutes.

They use 1/4 the sugar of the baker's chocolate package recipe. And no one would know that they had beans. The recipe comes from the Whole Foods website.

Next time I may try 101 Cookbook's version, which uses agave nectar. Or maybe I'll swap in the agave in these. Stay tuned.

Flourless Brownies
Makes 16

Ingredients
1 (15-ounce) can no-salt-added black beans, drained and rinsed
3 large eggs
1/3 cup melted butter, more for the baking dish
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon gluten-free vanilla extract
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons cane sugar
1/2 cup gluten-free semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts
Method
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Butter an 8-inch baking pan. Place the black beans, eggs, melted butter, cocoa powder, salt, vanilla, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor and blend until smooth. Remove the blade and carefully stir in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Transfer mixture to the prepared pan. Bake the brownies for 30 to 35 minutes, or until just set in the center. Cool before cutting into squares.

Cooking what's inside the box

2009-09-12T21:26:00.007-04:00

The fridge was full of farm share that hadn't been eaten, and I was going away for a few days, which meant that Saturday night was cook the farmshare night.

Tomatillos. I'd never cooked with these before. I've seen them before, but had never been moved enough to buy them. But there they were, a bag of perhaps a dozen plastic bag tied at the top, each in it's green husk. A quick perusal of my usual online recipe sources turned up little else than roasted tomatillo salsa. So I figured I'd go with the flow and make some. Since I'd never cooked with them, I figured I'd make this up as I went, tasting often along the way to get a feel for the fruit.

Roasting the tomatillos seemed to be pretty standard, and I saw two different approaches, both involving the broiler. In one, they're done whole, and moved around a bit during cooking to avoid burning. In the other, the tomatillos are halved, with no turning. I started out with the first method (why bother halving them if I don't have to (halve to?), but after a little while I saw the advantage of a stable flat surface, pulled them out, halved them and put them back.

The tomatillos by themselves are a bit sour, but not unpleasant. Susan was horrified...she was expecting something tomato like, with some sweetness, and the only resemblance really is the appearance. I thought that adding some lime juice might add a little interest, and onions and jalapeno peppers a little bite.

At the same time I broiled the one remaining chili pepper from the week before, and then remembered that I'd want to roast up some onions. These were all done dry, without oil.

In the meantime, I steamed the three ears of corn, figuring those would go well in the salsa.

Once everything was cool (well...tepid anyway), I chopped up the tomatillos, onions, pepper, cut the corn off the cob, added some lime juice, a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper, and served them up with some tortilla chips (the black sesame and flax version from Trader Joes).

The lime juice and onions worked well to temper the sour of the tomatillos, and the little bit of hot pepper added some interest. Two of the ears of corn added some sweetness. The recipes I looked at said that this should be better the second day, so Susan will have to fill me on that aspect. If I came across tomatillos again, I'd probably make something similar, but I'm curious about other uses.

Simple recipe:

- A dozen or so tomatillos, halved
- Two ears of corn, steamed for ten minutes, cut off the cob
- One hot pepper, halved and seeded
- One onion (not sure what kind....it's an elongated thing from the share box)
- Salt and pepper
- Juice of two small limes
- tablespoon of olive oil

Roast everthing under the broiler under they start to char just a bit. No oil needed. Chop, combine and add salt, pepper olive oil and limes. Taste, and adjust seasonings to your liking.

In the meantime, I had a bunch of dinosaur kale, and some beet greens. The lesson with the beet greens is to eat them within a day or so of arrival, because they don't keep well. But the dinosaur kale kept nicely, and I went with a pretty much straight rendition of Molly Wizenburg's recipe on her Orangette blog -- braised kale with garlic, onions and chickpeas. The key here is the low heat braise of the greens to bring out some sweetness. I added kernels from the last ear of steamed corn as well.

Weekend lunch al fresco

2009-09-08T22:08:00.001-04:00

Summer's waning, it's not too hot anymore, but very pleasant to sit (in the sun!) in the backyard. What better than to put together the salad-ables from the farm share into an afternoon respite from the house chores.

Several handfuls of arugula and mixed greens
Tomato, diced
Cucumber, diced
Leftover corn on the cob, de-cobbed
Can of white kidney beans
Mint, chopped
Juice of one lemon
Olive oil, couple of glugs
Tahini, a tablespoon, or more to taste
Salt and pepper, to taste

Just throw in the veggies, and dress by drizzling the oil, lemon and tahini, then mix. Serve with a hearty bread.

Eye Candy

2009-09-02T21:41:00.001-04:00

Just a fun photo to liven up a business trip. I took this photo a couple of years ago after a very satisfying takeout meal from Shangri La in Belmont. These were the remnants.

Too hot!

2009-08-19T20:56:00.002-04:00

It's been too hot to light the grill, so it was time to clean out the fridge. Last week's CSA lettuce was history, and we'd just gotten another pile. There was some leftover meat and smoked fish from the other night, fresh artisan bread from the Arlington Farmers market, so there was no need to heat up anything.

I rubbed the wooden salad bowl with a clove of garlic, and piled in the new lettuce leaves, old tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, new cucumber, leftover corn on the cob (now off the cob), and chiffonaded basil (from last week's share) and a couple of scallions cut on the bias. Dressing? Simply a few splashes of olive oil, salt, pepper (Susan's suggestion, and a good one!)

It was just the right amount of effort and just the right taste, texture and temperature. I'd never done the garlic clove trick, and was surprised that you really could taste a hint of garlic. And the chiffonaded basil worked nicely with the scallions.

Being at the farmers market was tough today. We're heading on vacation in a few days and are trying to eat down the inventory. And we hadn't yet picked up the farm share. So, we passed on everything but two loaves of bread, one from the Danish Pastry House, the other from Mamadou in Winchester. Susan and I polished off half the Mamadou multigrain loaf with no problem. I suspect Eleanor will take care of the other one.

Eggplant, up a notch

2009-08-16T15:55:00.002-04:00

There are some subtle things creeping into the blog posts that you may have noticed. One, that I moved recently. And that's taking up a lot of time, though I am still cooking a lot, I'm not writing much about it. And sometimes I cook, take photos, and do something dumb, like use the wrong white balance. So that's why you haven't seen some of my great slaw experiments. Coming soon, as soon as I get the camera kinks worked out.

The other subtle thing with big impact is that I joined a CSA a few weeks ago. CSA -- Community Supported Agriculture. Where I buy a share of the farmers crop and get a surprise box every Wednesday. It's been almost 10 years since I've been in a CSA, but since Susan likes vegetables and likes when I experiment, the time was ripe again.

There's a certain amount of stress that goes along with the CSA. That is to find something to do with everything before it goes bad. So there's a bit of triage that's needed when I open the box. Fortunately, Enterprise Farm, in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts gives me a day or two head start by sending out a newsletter at least warning me of what's coming. I know I need to deal with the softer leafy greens pretty quickly, and build my cooking routine around what needs to be eaten, tempered by what I feel like eating and what I think other people will feel like eating. There was a lot of basil and parsley the first few weeks, and since I grow those in pots, that was a challenge.

And arugula. Lots of it one week. And lots again this past week. That's a lot of peppery greens, but Susan's got a plan for those. Lots of dark leafy greens, which is great by me, but they take up a lot of room in the fridge. And beets, which fortunately keep for awhile (the bulbs, not the greens), since I ODed on those earlier in the season and over the winter with the beet and carrot salad.

In any case, I knew there was eggplant coming, and I've only recently started to like eggplant. It's been blazing hot lately too, so doing anything in the house with the stove was out. I did some web investigating for grilled eggplant recipes, which I've never done, and found that one in Kalyn's Kitchen provided the best inspiration -- Spicy Grilled Eggplant with Red Pepper, Parsley and Mint

I found Kalyn's Kitchen through a couple of routes. It turns out that Kalyn is a friend of Bobbi, an old friend of Susan who just came to visit. And she mentioned Kalyn when I mentioned that I food-blogged. So I was even more inclined to look closely when one of her recipes popped up on by Google search for grilled eggplant.

I followed the basic directions for working with eggplant, including sprinkling with salt and letting drain. I did find that the end product may have been a bit too salty, even though I rinsed the salt off and squeezed out excess water -- I may have to use less salt next time. So, look at Kalyn's recipe for the basic technique.

What made this concept fabulous was pouring the marinade of the hot, freshly grilled eggplant. It was made up of olive oil, lime, garlic, and I used Chimayo Chili powder (Kalyn had aleppo pepper)and some red wine vinegar. I loved it. Susan thought it was a bit too spicy. So next time, I think I might try some pimenton, smoked paprika, instead. Looking forward to next time. When I hope to remember the parsley and mint (it was great without, but I'm sure it will be great with!)

I have a feeling this technique will work well with some other things, but the spongy eggplant seems particularly perfect to soak up a post-cooking marinade. I'm using a variation on that theme tomorrow to pre-marinate some steaks.

What made this meal work so well was that it was blazing hot out, so all the cooking was outside. We started with a board of meat, fish and cheese. It started with the smoked mackerel from Whole Foods, which had an assertive, but not overwhelming flavor. And a very tasty Roth's Private Reserve, raw milk cheese, obtained from Whole Foods to impress our recent French visitors with American cheeses. This is also assertive, but was a good complement to the fish. There was a goat cheese which was good, and some pepperoni, which was almost overwhelming, but had a nice kick to it. And a raw milk cheddar, which was pretty nondescript among all the stars, and could have been skipped. All with a fresh baguette.

And some fresh corn and green pepper, both on the grill rounded out the meal. I tried the corn two ways -- lightly rubbed with olive oil and set on low-medium heat, and wrapped in foil with a tiny bit of water leftover from rinsing the ears. I had the naked version (which I loved) and Susan had the clothed version (which she loved). When it's too hot to steam corn inside, you know it's hot.

Tribute to one of a kind

2009-08-11T21:46:00.009-04:00

I opened my e-mail this morning to a wonderful story by Kim of her last visit to Phoenicia, telling of the delightful experience that we had always come to expect. Direct from Kim:

I've been wanting to relate the tale of my last visit to Phoenecia. It happened while my SF friends Rebecca and Phill were visiting. Of the half dozen or so times I've been, each visit seems to contain just a bit more magic, and this time did not disappoint.

I had to hype it, Phoenicia that is, quite a bit this time. Friends from out of town's, "Where should we go?" is sometimes not the open-ended question it at first appears, especially if, like me, you live in the downtown core and the restaurant you're proposing is a car trip away to far-flung sounding "West" Seattle. Wouldn't the prime restaurateurs be just steps away from my door? What about these touted rockstar chefs?

I whipped out your "Interpreter of Food Desires" phrase for my marketing angle, made a quick call, and a half-hour later we snagged parking on a very sunny, very busy Saturday eve, not far off the cruisey strip plied by motorcycles and convertibles. And, only half a block away from the restaurant. On entering, we were met by Hussein's wife. Her eyes darted among our faces, as though she was hoping to recognize us, to find a familiar look or gesture among us. It was an entrancing moment, her standing there in front of that low table loaded with wine, probing us with her curious eyes as I began to speak, and at that very moment, under his breath, my friend Phill, who was standing behind me, says, "oh, yes," quite convinced now apparently, that this, indeed, was the place to be.

At the table, a window table—a table with a view of a particularly beautiful Seattle sunset over the dusky islands and mountains at the far end of the Sound—Phill says, "I wonder what 'bread salad' is?" As I was explaining this peculiarity, a dish I've only had in Seattle, as "a normal salad, heavily dressed, heavy on the croutons, but the croutons aren't toasted," bread appears on the table, and, of course, as you would imagine, a little dish of Hussein's curious dip.

This time as last, the dip is the same but different, and therefore 'how?' becomes the question (but only in my mind). 'Perhaps it has more oil and less pomegranate,' I wonder, 'or more of that lemony herb?' but in any configuration, as you know, it is unfathomably delicious. We were each clutching the menus with one hand and dipping wildly with the other, when suddenly a salad arrived. Hussein himself brought it, saying, "Very special balsamic, very very special," and then he was gone. Phill's eyebrows went up, Rebecca said, "Wow," and the three of us speculated aloud as to how he knew we wanted—needed—bread and salad. Then we attacked the salad.

"This is always how it is," I say and recommended the creamy fish stew, the pink one that goes over the rice and grain dish that's sweet and nutty; Jewel of the Sea I think it's called. Do you remember it? The first dish we had there? Phill says, "I'm thinking 'lamb'" and Hussein abruptly returns, takes Phill's menu, and says, "You like lamb." Rebecca laughs. Phill orders the lamb. Hussein says, “I make you a curry, a lamb curry, very special.” Phil nods. What else can you do? Rebecca and I order the fish stew. Hussein leaves and the three of us discuss whether it's likely that the table is itself bugged.

We drink wine. Hussein buzzes through the room, charmingly unsettling the other diners, while we eat our bread and salad. He has adopted table-flaming, with a blow-torch, what appears to be a creme brulee. I keep hearing behind me the unsettling sound of pressurized butane, on fire, and directed at food.

You know the rest. The food's brilliant. Hussein continues to arrive suddenly, always as if on queue, asking his accusatory questions with a friendly smile. The wine he recommends is inexpensive and balanced to the table's needs: light enough for the fish, substantial enough for the lamb. As diners, we are relaxed, delighted, lost in time.

Perhaps his only failing that eve was to not push the creme brulee, which one imagines must have been delicately scented with orange and roses, as was that first desert he insisted we had, the one with the ice creams and the delicate, rolled and filled cookie. Sadly, Hussein died this past weekend. A note appeared in the West Seattle Blog from his daughter.

Stories and condolences are piling up. Hussein was greatly loved. As one person put it, “I’m sure the shockwaves are traveling round this globe today, for the loss of our beloved Hussein is just such a shattering blow."

Phoenicia was my favorite restaurant in the world. I would tell people this, and they wouldn't believe me, but I believed. The meals were always magical, and Hussein was always gracious, humble and charming. I looked forward to my business trips to Seattle with the hope I would have the time to be able to go. Each time I went, he asked where I was from, and when I said "Boston", he would say, "you must be a doctor!" And when I brought my daughter with me last time, he gave her the advice to not marry the first man that came along. He was always willing to share some (but not all!) of his culinary secrets with me when I asked.

I blogged about my experience last October. I did find out on my last visit a few months ago that rather than coconut milk, he used cream with very ripe banana for his special seafood bowl -- something I will have to try!

I will miss him, his food, and his spirit.

In lieu of words

2009-08-02T21:19:00.002-04:00

It's been a busy month, what with moving and all. I haven't had much time to write, but have had some time to cook and take pictures. I'll never catch up with the food stories, but here are some of the pictures, with as much as I can remember.

Raspberries from Tyler Ave, courtesy of Christie and Brian. And the mint courtesy of my porch plants. How much simpler can you get?

The first meal cooked at "the Park". Sausages, with some grilled veggies.

What was this?! Quinoa. With grilled veggies. Some olive oil and tomato paste in there as well, and some seasonings I can't remember.

I think this was an early attempt from the first farm share. Cilantro and cukes from the share, with some lettuce. And some leftover brown rice from the very wonderful Chinese restaurant here in Medford.

This was good! And it was today, so I remember! A can of white kidney beans, cucumber, tomato, basil, mint, olive oil, lemon juice, a little tahini. And a Ak Mak cracker.

Urban farming

2009-07-14T21:01:00.001-04:00

I'm moving from my apartment to a house in less than two weeks. Knowing that this change was upon me meant a scaled back urban farming operation this year. I chose the essentials -- tomatoes, which you can't buy in the regular groceries and cost dearly if you get them at farmstands. And some herbs -- basil, parsley, and mint...the most popular in this household.

The first tomatoes started to appear a few days ago, so this post is in celebration!

Cabin Cooking, Part 4

2009-07-05T22:25:00.001-04:00

May 30, 2009
Black bean chili

1 C dry black beans
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
Ancho chili powder – several tablespoons
Cinnamon powder – ½ teaspoon
Salt and black pepper
Cilantro, a handful, roughly chopped
Brown rice, cooked
Tabasco sauce, to taste

It just takes time, and time is what I had. The meal started to coalesce in my mind at the grocery store in Hayward on the way up to the cabin. At the grocery, I bought the black beans and a small can of diced tomatoes. And the garlic and brown rice and onions. Figuring all of these things would be good for something, somehow.

The cinnamon came from the inspiration from the previous meal. The ancho chili powder was a big surprise find at the Cable grocery store, as was the cilantro.
The beans needed to soak, so those started the night before. 1 cup of beans to 3 cups of water. While having breakfast the next morning, I started them cooking, adding a halved onion to the mix part way through. The package said to cook for an hour, so I did. After the hour, the beans were still a bit hard to my liking, which was going to be fine, because there was more cooking in store. I cooled the beans on the stove, and then stashed them, pot and all, into the fridge to await the evening.

About an hour and half before I wanted to eat, I set the pot of beans on the stove and brought them to a boil, then a simmer. Added whole cloves of garlic, and the can of tomatoes, and let that simmer while I got the brown rice going in a separate pot. (It would be interesting some time to try just cooking the rice right in the bean pot – add some more liquid, and see what happens. Why not?)

Then, back to seasoning the beans, with the chili powder, a good handful – I’m guessing three tablespoons at least, and a little cinnamon, salt and pepper. When it was all done, I tasted again, and adjusted the seasonings, knowing that as the beans cooled they would start to take on a richer, more complex flavor. It’s always difficult to know what something will really taste like when it’s boiling hot – the tongue can’t really interpret what’s going on properly. But let it cool a bit, and the flavors really start to come through.

When it was all ready to serve, I chopped the cilantro, a nice generous handful, and added those to the pile of rice and beans on the place. Before adding the Tabasco, I tasted first – I was curious as to what it would taste like with no heat. The chili powder and cinnamon made a complex combination. I was glad I chose not to add cumin – while that may have been good, too, it would have changed it entirely. Some allspice or cloves would have made a fine addition.
The Tabasco I added cautiously, just a few drops, to one corner of the pile, not wanting to ruin the whole batch if my instincts turned out wrong. My instincts were good, however, and the little bit of tart heat from the Tabasco (vinegar, pepper) was a welcome addition – though I could have easily done without. (What I think would be even better would be the Siracha pepper sauce – that Thai/Vietnamese sauce with the rooster – next time!)

With the Tabasco only dotted on one section of the beans, what I found was that the heat spread slowly through the rest of the pile, easing in intensity as I ate through it, which was a welcome variation in the flavor over the course of the dish. Like changing the volume of music, or the color of a painting, some variation.

Oh...and wine in little jelly glasses, was just the right amount of class for this cabin cooking...

This started off as a quick chili

2009-06-16T22:42:00.002-04:00

Spring has come and almost gone. And I finally had another opportunity to walk to work (and home). It's 2.8 miles and takes me about 40 minutes each way, and it's a good workout. I need to wear hiking gear and change at the office, otherwise it's just way too sweaty.

All of which is just to say that when I do this, I have 80 minutes of unencumbered time to let my mind wander. I don't do earbuds. So -- no music, no NPR, no books on tape. Just me and my brain and whatever the scenery, sounds and smells happen to be. So sometimes, especially on the way home, I get to think about dinner.

I have a pretty good sense of what's in the pantry and what's in the fridge, so I can compose themes and variations in my head. And let the concepts emerge, percolate, simmer, and then when I get home, all I have to do is make it happen.

This started out as a simple, quick black bean chili. I'd done a very nice black bean chili from scratch at the cabin (post coming soon!) and I was eager to try something with black beans, even if they were canned, again. The canned black beans had been in the cupboard for months, as had the canned tomatoes. So those were a given. Seasonings I could make up -- probably cumin, maybe some others. Onions, garlic for sure. And there was this big bunch of mustard greens that Eleanor and I had picked up a few days ago. I figured that would make a good addition.

So I got a roughly chopped onion and a few cloves of garlic going in the olive oil as soon as I'd changed out of the walking clothes, had a long drink of water, and got my heart rate down to something manageable. AFter they started to sweat just a bit, I added a good teaspoon or two of cumin, another of fenugreek, and another of coriander, mixed them around a bit and then the drained black beans and a chili-infused diced tomato can and got them to simmering. That part was on auto pilot. And I added about 3/4 cup of the rest of the bulgur and about a cup of water...I figured that would add an interesting texture.

Then what? The greens. There were A LOT of greens. A BIG bunch. The last time I'd used them, I also had a lot, and they'd cooked down to almost nothing, so I figured they would just be a nice addition to this "chili". I pulled out the center rib and chopped them up and added them, covered, and waited for them to wilt.

While that was happening, I was pondering some additions. I recalled the idea of using fish sauce in small amounts in unusual places to add some umami, so went with about a half teaspoon (probably less, actually). Then, I'd been playing with seaweed a bit lately, and toasted a handful of laver to just smoking. This was probably too far, but they didn't taste burned, and they made a good addition. I could've probably used five times as much if I'd wanted them to be a little more dominant. Lesson learned -- don't put laver in the toaster oven and walk away. They go to smoking pretty quickly -- a lot quicker than the 5-7 minutes at 350 that the package suggests. Some salt and pepper rounded out the seasonings.

As you can see, calling this "chili" would be a stretch. It's greens. With some beans and tomatoes and other interesting flavors. The mustard had a nice bite, but not overwhelming, that went well with the built in chili flavor of the tomatoes. The fish sauce and laver added a nice umami element, but not overwhelming. And I added a few sunflower seeds at the table for crunch.

All told, a pretty good effort that I'd easily try again with mustard or any other kind of greens, different grains, and maybe some other flavors. Maybe some anchovies? Or smoked fish chunks? Or...pork of course....

Cabin Cooking, Part 3

2009-06-12T23:42:00.004-04:00

May 28, 2009
The free range, super duper organic chicken bought from the farmer who raised it was sitting in the fridge, defrosted, and waiting for its turn. Today was the day. The weather was PERFECT. The fire pit in front of the cabin was equipped with a hanging grill. I’d never cooked over an open fire before, and here was the chance.
I was going to try out three new things here. One, cooking over an open wood fire. Two, using a super duper free range organic chicken. And three, salting and seasoning the chicken well in advance, as advised by Cooks Illustrated, to first draw the moisture out, and then return the salt and seasonings to the interior of the meat. I’d tried the last of these once last week when cooking some steaks, and the results were fabulous – but in that case, there were no other seasonings – just salt and pepper. I tried it again a few days later with some chicken pieces on the gas grill – this time with salt, pepper and pimenton. Again, fabulous. So, I guess I knew that that technique worked. But I still wasn’t very experienced with it.

This time, the seasonings were salt, pepper, cumin, cinnamon, allspice. Part of my usual “middle eastern” mix. My day of adventuring on the Bayfield Peninsula in northern Wisconsin went quite a bit longer than I thought it would. And I didn’t get home (the cabin) until after 6 PM. Why I look at the clock or wear a watch here is beyond me. When I’m around the cabin, I don’t wear it at all, and I should cover the clock!

The first step, then, was to get the bird split and seasoned, which was a quick affair. Then, to the fire. I knew that I would need to be patient, build a fire, and wait for a good bed of coals to set. I had no idea how long that would take, but I figured at least a half hour, and more likely longer. The advantage to eating alone was that I could be patient – this activity could take as long as it needed to. A few rosemary olive triscuits and some grapes was enough to hold me over till the main event.

I built a nice roaring fire...that settled into a nice smoldering pile of wood. Still burning, still coal-like, but still, not really anything that I would cook over. I needed to give it some more oomph, so added some small pieces to build up the flame, to encourage the wood to burn. In the meantime, I prepped the rest of the meal – small red potatoes coated lightly with olive oil, salt, fresh ground pepper (new pepper mill!), rosemary and oregano – and the last of the asparagus, coated in olive oil, with just some salt and pepper. These were ready backstage, waiting for their cue.

The fire took over an hour to be ready. More like an hour and a half. Which was, I think, a good thing. It gave the salt and seasonings a chance to do their job. And it taught me some patience. And let me enjoy the evening full of wind rustling the trees and birdsong. Punctuated by short periods of activity to tinker with the fire.

Finally, finally, the fire was ready. A nice glowing hot red bed of coals. With enough wood remaining to fuel the fire for what was likely to be a half hour to an hour of cooking. My biggest fear was hanging the chicken over the fire and have it ignite and burn immediately. And then be unable to extract the bird from the blazing inferno. So I was cautious. I hung the bird (and the potatoes) a good height from the base of the fire (maybe a foot, perhaps even 18 inches) with the skin side up, to give the bird a taste of the flames and the heat. I figured this was probably too high, but I could always adjust downward. Remember, there were still flames dancing around…it wasn’t just a bed of coals (as you can see in the pic).

This seemed to work pretty well. In retrospect, I was probably too cautious. After about fifteen minutes, the amount of time I would normally flip chicken pieces on my gas grill back home, I took a look. I had certainly not burned the underside of the bird, but it was cooking nicely, although perhaps a little slowly. I flipped lowered the bird a few notches of chain, and watched to see what would happen. It took to the new heat nicely, and I let it go another ten minutes or so.

By now, it was almost 8:30. And it was still daylight! But the light was starting to fade. I flipped the bird (he he), flipped the potatoes, and added the asparagus. Waited to see if skin side down would cause fat to drip into the flame and cause a conflagration. But it did not. I let it go another half hour, continuing to lower the bird as the flames died down, and the coals were big, glowing and hot. One more flip of the bird somewhere along the way, along with a surprise phone call in the middle from Jeff to see how I was doing in the cabin, and I figured I was done.

The asparagus were clearly nice and done. A little limp, but with a teeny bit of snap remaining. The potatoes seemed done – a little firm, but done nonetheless.
The chicken – I wasn’t so sure. By now, it was darker – not dark dark, but dim, and it was hard to see what was going on. I moved around the leg joint, and it was still pretty firm – which I didn’t think was a good sign. I was eager to try it, so I piled the vittels onto a dinner plate, headed outside to my table lit by a single candle (the sky now in the final stages of light – almost 9:30!) and tried the chicken. It was tough, and clearly not done.

Fortunately, Jeff and Emily have a microwave in their rustic cabin. And I was able give it another five minutes or so of quality cooking to make finish it off. Those last five minutes were the toughest to wait out.

Back outside, back out to the plate, for the first taste, and it was a winner. The chicken was tougher than I was used to, but I think that may be the free range part. It was tasty – very tasty. I could taste the chicken and I could taste the seasonings, all the way through the bird. My mistake, if there was one, was to do all three new things at once. I would have like to have tried the super duper bird with minimal seasonings, just to see what the bird tasted like without all the help I gave it. But I didn’t, and I was happy with the outcome.

The potatoes were the perfect foil to the flavorful chicken. And the timing of appreciating the role of potato as perfect foil was perfect as well, as I had just read an essay by M.F.K Fisher on the topic. And grilled asparagus takes the natural complex flavor of the vegetable to a new height. I’ve had grilled asparagus several times now this season, and I think it is my favorite way to eat it.

So, a fabulous, slow meal. With many lessons learned. And an entire meal of leftovers remaining. The fridge now contains at least two meals of leftovers, which means I don’t think I’ll be cooking tonight. What will I do with the time?

The cabin...

Cabin Cooking, Part 2

2009-06-11T21:01:00.001-04:00

So the first night, May 26 was asparagus, potatoes, carrots, corn. The second night May 27, I concocted a variation on that theme, because that's what I have the cabin. I didn't want to do potatoes again so I did onions instead. And to make sure I had enough protein, and enough to eat in general, I made up a batch of mixed white and red quinoa (about ¾ white and ¼ red), with a generous handful of chopped parsley added after it was cooked.

There's not much to say about them, the picture is worth 1000 words. As you can see, all I had with salt and pepper and the pepper was already ground -- so I used lots and lots and lots of it. A nice simple meal for a simple place. The onions in particular were a real pleasure. They were cooked so that their sweetness started to come through, slightly browned, but they still had some of that onion “bite”, with the edge taken off.

The other revelation was the parsley in the quinoa. I had not planned this when I bought the parsley. I just knew that parsley would come in handy somehow. This part of the dish was like hot tabouli. The quinoa by itself doesn’t taste like much, so it needs something. And I gave it enough parsley to make that flavor a dominant theme…with parsley being my greens for the evening…just like I enjoy tabbouli. I would do this dish again without blinking, even if I wasn’t in a remote cabin.

By now, I had gotten a little bit of a feel for the place, so here's a little bit to give you a feel for the place!

Cabin Cooking, Part 1

2009-06-04T20:07:00.002-04:00

I am writing this from a personal retreat and cabin in northern Wisconsin, with no running water, no cellphone service, and no internet. Perfect! Without the internet service I stashed away a few blog entries for posting upon arrival back in civilization. I'm back, so now I'm posting. Here's the first.

May 27, 2009

After scouting out the accommodations (thanks Jeff and Emily!) the first order of business was to make some food. Emily took me to the the Farmer's Market in St. Paul, which was conveniently running this Tuesday morning, and purchased some olive tapenade cheese (from the cheesemaker), summer sausage made a bison (from the sausage maker), and some asparagus (from the asparagus grower). The asparagus was the only fresh vegetable available, which is not surprising given that it's only late May. I also picked up a frozen free range chicken that was sustainably raised. At the grocery I picked up some carrots, various grains, potatoes and sweet corn.

I did not want to spend a lot of time cooking as it was a little chilly in the cabin. I thought using the oven would be a good thing. So I decided to roast the asparagus, corn, carrots, potatoes in the oven with a little olive oil and salt. There was only spray olive oil, but it was worth a try. Roasted at 350 the asparagus and carrots were done first. The asparagus and carrots were done to perfection, and the first ear of corn was pretty good but still a little hard, so I left the other ears of corn a while longer with the potatoes. While this was cooking, I kept myself busy with the summer sausage and cheese and some rosemary Triscuits.

The simple roasted veggie meal was the perfect easy meal that also served to heat up the chilly cabin. Filled me up, provided some leftovers, and got me familiar with the kitchen. The lack of running water will be a fun challenge...

"Have you ever tried wheat berries?" she asked.

2009-05-18T21:06:00.002-04:00

"I've been making a yummy salad with wheatberries, veggies in a sesame oil/ginger/garlic/honey/red pepper flake kind of dressing with cashews on top. I love the texture of that grain," Emily wrote in the e-mail (actually, she started it in a game of Lexulous.) I hadn't cooked with wheat berries for 30 years, I'm sure. And I had a fridge drawer full of grains, but I couldn't resist, so I picked some up at the Whole Foods, and waited for inspiration to strike.

Sometimes, inspiration comes all at once, and sometimes it just percolates all day until something yummy emerges. This time it was the latter. I felt pretty good about the ginger, sesame oil, red pepper flake tastes. I thought about the garlic but decided to leave it out for once. It is not necessary to have garlic in everything! I wasn't sure about the honey.

So, I started the wheatberries (1 cup dry) the night before with an overnight soak, then got them to cooking after breakfast. Followed by some french green lentils (another dry cup)-- I thought those would make a nice combination, like they did a few weeks ago with farro). So these were ready well before lunchtime, and stashed in the fridge for quick action after coming back from the new Star Trek movie (perfect movie, by the way!) And let the rest of it come to me over the course of the day.

There was that half a butternut squash that was in the freezer. And I had picked up a nice green crunchy bunch of parsley. That could go well.

I cubed up the squash and put it in a skillet with some water and olive oil, and simmered for about 15 minutes until the squash was getting tender. Part way through I remembered, "onions!" and tossed in some chopped onion, right in the water. When just about ready, I cranked up the heat to evaporate the water so the squash and onions would sizzle in the oil and create a little caramelized crust -- I got a little of that, but I wasn't patient enough to wait. I also tossed in some grated ginger and a light shake of red pepper flakes (less than half teaspoon, I imagine).

When that was just about set, I dumped in the cooked wheat berries and lentils with some more olive oil, cooked over medium heat for awhile, and tasted. Salt. A few hefty pinches. Then, some more grated ginger -- the grated ginger I had cooked with wasn't really coming through. And sesame oil, a few tablespoons, for taste.

It was starting to feel right, but I wanted a little more in the way of veggies, so I tossed in a few handfuls of frozen spinach for some green. I had bought that bag of spinach a while ago waiting for just such an occasion. Taste. More sesame oil. More salt. A little sweet would be good, so I put in a few squeezes of agave nectar. Parsley in just before serving, and it was ready.

I served it hot (not cold). And forgot about the nuts, until we thought "nuts would go well with this," but didn't do anything about it. The wheat berries really do have a fun texture. They squeak a little when you bite into them. And have a nice earthy taste.

Tonight, for leftovers, I added some feta cheese and walnuts, plus a little sesame chili oil for a little more heat and was happy with the second-night result.

Next time, I might go a little more savory and do some tasty mushrooms. Maybe add a little miso or tamari? And remember the nuts!

Sometimes, it's just about the butter

2009-05-05T21:05:00.007-04:00

I didn't start thinking that it was about the butter, but by the time the evening was over, butter was clearly the theme. It started out being about the mushrooms. I'd been wanting to play with mushrooms for a long time -- not the white mushrooms, or the criminis, or even those gigantic portobellos that you see in all the stores. No. it was about grown up mushrooms. The ones in those bins at Whole Foods labeled $29 a pound. I didn't know which ones I'd end up with, but that was the mission. Some interesting mushrooms that I'd never cooked with before, and some scallops. In olive oil. With some garlic. Over pasta. Simple.

I'd been wanting to do the mushrooms since Michael Pollan's Omnivores Dilemma, which had a whole chapter on the topic. Mushroom hunting. I believe he was after chantrelles. Or morels. I don't recall. But I was going to try some. It's been a couple of years -- what's taken so long?

I went for the morels. I don't know why. A small handful. Maybe five or six, small to medium. Came to a whopping $3.00. Not even. I figured they'd be enough for me. And I figured right. I thought mushrooms were an autumn thing, but there they were, bins and bins of all sorts. Wonder where they come from. Somehow I don't think they're being hunted in the wild like Pollan hunted his chantrelles.

And then around another corner there were the fiddleheads. Those are spring. They define spring. And there were lots of them. A handful, into the bag. They were the first course. Sauteed in butter. I had intended to add some shallots and garlic, but entirely forgot to add them (they were not wasted, they just made it into the next dish). Simple -- olive oil and butter mixture, with some fiddleheads that had been well rinsed and boiled (simmered really) for 10 minutes. Spring. That's all there is to say. Eat them while you can.

Then the morels. First some shallots and garlic in olive oil and butter, sauteed slowly, until the garlic just started to turn golden. Then the morels, chopped roughly. I figured I'd just saute them until they started to release their liquid into the butter and wilt a bit. Which then did, and which filled the kitchen with that earthy mushroomy aroma that defies description. There's some umami going on there, for sure.

When the kitchen smelled right, I added the scallops, turned those translucent, and then added the cooked ziti. Some salt and pepper, and it was ready. Sometimes, you just hit a home run, and this was one of those times. The butter, olive oil, mushrooms, garlic, shallots, scallops -- they just were made to go together. The flavors blended perfectly, and needed nothing else.

The question now is...what's next with that bin of mushrooms?

Can't get much easier or tastier

2009-04-01T20:49:00.001-04:00

Just back from a quick vacation in NYC, and back at the office today, I started pondering the dinner opportunities while on a long conference call. There was the broccoli that's been in the fridge for over a week. Some TJs frozen shrimp that has proven itself to be very tasty in the past, and some very tasty chorizo (not too spicy, but packed with flavor) picked up a few weeks ago at Russos. That was a good base to start with, together with some braised pasta.

I got the pasta water started, and while I was at it reconstituted some shitake mushrooms. I took 7 medium frozen shrimp out of the freezer and defrosted under a thin stream of cold running water.

Once the pasta water boiled, I plunged the cut-up broccoli in for a minute or two and set it aside. In the skillet, sauteed two cloves of minced garlic and a couple of tablespoons of shallots in a few glugs of olive oil for a couple of minutes, till softened. Added a single, small, diced chorizo sausage (maybe three tablespoons worth), and let those mix together for a couple of minutes, watching the oil turn a luscious shade of chorizo red/orange. Then, in with the brocolli and mushrooms, followed quickly by the shrimp, until the shrimp went from the gray to translucent. Some salt and pepper, adding in the drained pasta with a tablespoon or two of the pasta water, topped with a few tablespoons of chopped parsley in need of a mission and I was ready to eat. I added some fresh grated parmesan (though I know the purists turn their nose up at cheese on seafood, but I don't care, I like it).

Start to finish, probably 20 minutes. Hard to beat for a weeknight, and cleanup was quick too.

Food is beautiful

2009-03-26T19:25:00.001-04:00

Sometimes the image is a good as the taste. And the taste of this was great. Beet and carrot salad. Gushed over before, but repeated often.

Savory Breakfast, redux

2009-03-25T21:11:00.000-04:00

I learned it from Tea and Food (Aaron...do you really have TWENTY ONE posts about savory breakfasts?!), and Bittman made it popular. And it's still yummy, and I haven't grown tired of my morning oats and protein. Usually cheese, but sometimes egg...which is way more attractive. And sometimes some other grains, but not often enough. I had some leftover bulghur the other day that worked well.

Some pics, just because.

I almost didn't cook tonight

2009-03-24T20:30:00.002-04:00

The beet greens wilting in the fridge were weighing on my conscience, and I knew I had to do something soon. But I had just driven back and forth to Hartford (two hours each way) for a one hour meeting and I was worn out and a little stressed from work. I did the quick change out of business armor and into my comfies, when I thought that a walk would do me good. But even the thought of a walk was overwhelming. Meditate. Why not meditate? I'd learned how from the book "The Relaxation Response" that had been written up somewhere or other recently, and found that it worked pretty well at reviving me -- even better than a nap. And it did! Fifteen minutes, eyes closed, saying "one" every time I exhaled, another five minutes to come back to the world, and I was raring to go. A fifteen minute walk livened me up even further, and I was eager to get going.

It became the evening to take care of the guilt. There was a butternut squash sitting on my counter since CHRISTMAS. And it's almost the end of March! It was time. I've always been reticent about using squash, because I think it's too much work to split open, peel and seed. Not so. At least with a good sharp knife. My new chef's knife went through almost as easy as butter. And the seeds came out in a snap, and my peeler made short work of the outer peel. Butternut squash is my squash of choice because of the smooth skin that lets you take nice long strokes with the peeler. Those acorn squash with their ridges are just impossible. So I got half the squash cut nicely into cubes, and then into a few splashes of olive oil in my new All-Clad 12 inch skillet.

The knife and skillet were new acquisitions, courtesy of the advice of Cooks Illustrated. It was hard to resist their gushing over these two. But I digress -- I think a separate post on the new equipment is in order. Soon.

The trick I learned this weekend with cooking potatoes I applied to the squash. The trick came from this FABULOUS recipe from Heidi's 101 Cookbooks, what she called a Lentil Almond Stirfry -- but I think I'd call a Lentil Brussels Sprouts Stir Fry, with almonds and dates. Either way...I made it pretty much the way she suggested (perhaps a few more brussels sprouts), and it was a big hit. Click on the link, and you'll see her recipe and her pictures -- because I neglected to take any. And I managed to avoid increasing the quantity of dates (only TWO!), and that was the right choice. The little sweetness surprises every once in a while was perfect.

The trick, though, is to cook these winter veggies in their own steam with a few splashes of olive oil. I had read another recipe somewhere that suggested adding some water for a braise, then when the veggies were getting close to tender, crank up the heat, and they brown nicely in the oil (which doesn't evaporate). Cool. Very cool. And it worked perfectly for these squash.

So...cubed squash, into a few splashes of oil heated on low-medium heat, creating just a hint of a sizzle, then about a half cup of water and cover, and turn low. Meanwhile, I sliced up a half onion, and just dumped those in with the squash.

While that was all going on, I prepped the beet greens. Just sliced the leafy part into thin ribbons (half-inch wide maybe), and when I got to the tougher stems, I cut those up into smaller pieces and kept them separate.

Once the squash were tender, and the onions fragrant (15 minutes or so), I cranked up the heat to get rid of the water...maybe five minutes, then another five minutes still on high to get some browning on the bottom of the squash. While the squash were browning, I plopped the beet green stems on top, to get those cooking a bit. I left the whole thing undisturbed to get the browning to work (that new skillet is great for browning!) In the picture below, you can see that I wasn't too careful about keeping bits of leaves from the tough stems -- no matter -- those beet greens can take it.

Oh...and I added a tablespoon or so of pancetta, for a nice umami-flavor.

Once everything was a few minutes from wanting to be done, I topped it all with the leafy part of the beet greens, and folded it all together.

The beet greens cooked down pretty quickly -- no cover needed. Maybe five minutes more, in a nice steamy, aroma filled pastiche.

This needed nothing more than a little salt and pepper. It was sweet, a little salty and very tasty. I could see all sorts of additions you could make -- some red pepper flakes or serrano chile for some heat. Pimenton for smokiness. Some herbs. But really -- it was very clean and tasty just as it was. And that deep orange, deep green and red pallate really works for me.

And I still have half of the squash in the freezer (cut into chunks) ready for the next experiment.

Tapas night

2009-02-21T23:24:00.005-05:00

While on vacation in Vegas (yes Vegas) Susan and I stumbled upon a fantastic, inexpensive, happenin' tapas joint not far from The Strip. Called Firefly. Well...we didn't really "stumble" upon it....there was a bit of research on Yelp involved. People were raving, and it was a tough reservation to get, and did I mention it was inexpensive?

Now...seeing as how this was WEEKS ago, and can't really remember all the things we had, but the one thing that stood out was dates wrapped in bacon, stuffed with goat cheese in a red wine reduction. Yummmm. And, I thought, "I can make that!"

So, a few Friday nights ago I decided to do tapas night at home, starting with a variation on the Firefly theme. Dates wrapped in proscuitto (actually "speck", which seems to be a smoked proscuitto). Pan fried in my cast iron skillet. That's it. No cheese. No red wine reduction. But it was fabulous. Sweet dates wrapped in the salty umami of the speck. Just the right starter to get me going for the rest of the evening.

Next up -- pan roasted parsnips and carrots. Now...I'm head over heels for roasted veggies in the winter. All sorts -- carrots, parsnips, turnips, brocolli, cauliflower, sweet potato, pototo, sqaush, onions, cabbage...whatever. Usually with rosemary and thyme, salt and pepper (though that big jar of herbs de Provence has been getting the call from the bench lately). It just needs to be tough enough to stand up to 45 minutes to an hour in the oven and roasted to a carmelized crunchy sweet hearty filling treat. Well....I didn't want to wait 45 minutes, and I wanted to keep it simple. So I simply sliced the carrots and parsnips (just white carrots, eh?), tossed in olive oil and the herbs, and skillet roasted them. Perfect. Like al dente roasted veggies. They had a bit more crunch, but not much, and the parsnips still had a little of their bitter edge to them, but not much -- the sweetness really came through.

And then the beets. I love beets, because you get at least two meals out of them -- one for the greens and one for the bulbs. And I'd just read about making a raw beet and carrot salad on Chocoloate and Zuccini, and was inspired. I followed her recipe pretty much verbatim, so I won't repeat it here, but the keys are cider vinegar and spicy mustard, and not overdoing it on anything. And those green flecks are cilantro, which worked well.

The last one was a little inspiration from wishing for something sweet. A few days before I had had the brainwave that if you take dried fruit and soak it in water overnight, you get reconstituted dried fruit. Now, for some of you, this may seem obvious, but for me, it took awhile to come around. I'd had fruit compote before, but I'm pretty sure that was cooked. This is simple -- just apricots, prunes and water. And after a few days, the water gets all syrupy. And I had a little sour cream in the fridge, leftover from something, so I added that as a garnish, and was very happy indeed.

What I liked most about the meal (aside from the food) was the pacing of the meal. One little bit of bites at a time, let it settle, move on to the next course in the kitchen and enjoy. And then think up the next course. An entire evening of entertainment!

Super Bowl -- Emily's Chicken Chili

2009-02-03T21:29:00.003-05:00

It was a small, intimate, Super Bowl gathering, and chili seemed appropriate. Emily had served this when I visited Minnesota a bunch of years ago, and I came home with the recipe, and that recipe's been in my binder all that time, and hadn't made it ot prime time even once. Super bowl is the right occasion.

This did require some attention over the couple of hours it took to make, but not too much. The problem with the Super Bowl, of course, is whether to get up and stir/add things during the game itself or the commercials. I opted for the game....if anything good happens they always have the replays. And the game (usually) is in longer chunks. That worked out well!

The chicken makes this chili a little lighter than a usual chili, but the flavor was great. The pimenton added a nice smoky taste -- I'd have used the Chimayo chili powder that Susan and I brought back from New Mexico, but I think it's all at her place. And the replacement of the green peppers with cabbage was based on a food aversion. I don't expect that cabbage is very traditional Mexican, but the texture and heft of cabbage isn't that different from green pepper. The taste may be a little stronger, but with all the flavor in the chili, it pretty much blends into the background.

Emily's Chicken Chili

3 T Butter, divided
2 C chopped onions
3 garlic cloves, large
1 jalapeno pepper, large, seeded and chopped
2 TBSP Chili powder (more to taste) I added a TBSP of pimenton...mmmmmm
4 tsp cumin
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp cinnamon
2 C condensed chicken broth (I used some chicken broth base with water)
1 28 oz can tomatoes, not drained -- I used fire roasted, diced
1 16 oz can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained -- I used black beans
1.5 C green pepper, chopped. I used red cabbage.
3 C chicken meat, chopped
1 oz unsweetened chocolate (Bakers), chopped
salt and tabasco sauce, to taste
corn tortillas
cheese (Monterrey Jack, or something similar), grated
sour cream
cilantro

Melt 1.5 T of the butter in dutch oven.
Saute onion and garlic until onions are translucent -- 10 min or so
Stir in jalapeno, chili powder, cumin, oregano, coriander, cinnamon, broth, tomatoes
Bring to a boil
Reduce heat, simmer, covered, one hour, stirring occasionally
Add beans, simmer uncovered 30 minutes. Stir frequently.
Meanwhile, in frying pan, melt 1.5 TBSP butter and saute green peppers (cabbage!) until tender, about 5 min.
Add peppers chicken, chocolate, salt, tabasco.
Continue cooking until chicken is done -- 10 minutes or so.

To serve, line a big soup bowl with tortilla, add chili, garnish with sour cream, cheese, cilantro. I cut the tortillas into bite size pieces.

New Foods

2009-01-30T21:31:00.006-05:00

Friday night was a night of food experiments, inspired by my friends on the food blogs. Sometimes you get in a rut (I'd been doing a lot of roasted vegetables lately...but hey...it's winter!), and sometimes you just need to break out. Friday night was breakout night.

Kimchee
First I had some kimchee. I had seen Aaron from Tea and Food blog about kimchee pancakes, and I thought -- I should try some kimchee. Had it in Korean restaurants many times, but have never had it at home. In the restaurants, it'd always seemed like little cubes of heavily spiced pickled cabbage. In the jar I bought of Sunja's Medium Spicy Kimchee from Whole Foods, it was more like Korean cole slaw. A stimulating first course. Pungent, bracing in its acidity and spiciness, and somewhat addictive. And it's hard to argue with healthy cabbage being a jar away in the fridge.

The main course was miso soup. Now...I've had miso soup loads of times in Japanese restaurants. A few little cubes of tofu and a few green seaweedy things floating around. Fine enough to take the edge off of hunger, but I was looking for something more. I hadn't actually cooked with miso for over 25 years. Heidi in 101 Cookbooks had a post not long ago about miso soup, which got it on the trusty shopping list, so that next time I was at the grocery, I picked some up and had some in the fridge, ready for when inspiration struck. That was a little while ago.

When I went shopping on Friday, I had in mind a simple sauteed shrimp with garlic, baby bok choy and scallions dish, to be cooked quickly. I had some frozen shrimp from Trader Joes already, and they were wanting to be eaten. As I started prepping though, I saw that miso in the fridge, switched gears, and made it into a miso soup:

Miso Soup
About 3 cups water
2 TBSP Red Miso
10 Medium Shrimp
2 stalks scallion, sliced/chopped
3 stalks baby bok choy, sliced/shredded
2-3 "stalks" of Dulce

Defrost the shrimp in cold water, and while your doing that, get the water boiling. Add the scallions and bok choy, and when they start to wilt, add the shrimp and dulce, and finally the miso paste.

The shrimp was succulent and tender. And as the soup cooled, the whole dish just exploded with flavor. This is definitely served best not searing hot, but allowed to cool a bit. The veggies were pleasantly tender too.

Seaweed and grape tomato salad
Notice that I put some dulce, seaweed in my miso soup. Pretty standard. Heidi from 101 had also posted recently about seaweed, which got me inspired again. Now...I didn't do anything like what she did, but I did have some seaweed in the pantry, and thought I'd use some Laver in a little salad of

grape tomatoes, halved,
lemon juice,
olive oil,
frozen cilantro -- a couple of cubes...you can get these at Trader Joes
laver

Let sit for a little bit so that the Laver softens, and eat. I'd had the frozen cilantro for ages, not knowing what to do with it...this was a good application. Tastes about how you would expect...very easy, very tasty.

Meyer Lemons
I first heard about Meyer Lemons when I heard about preserved lemon...the secret ingredient to give dishes an air of mystery. More on that soon. But, I'd heard about them again lately, I don't remember where, and then saw a big display of them at Whole Foods, and I figured I'd grab one to see what I could do with it. A little bit of browsing after the miso soup turned up this recent LA Times article, 100 things to do with a meyer lemon

The thing about Meyer lemons is that they're sweeter than typical lemons...not as sweet as an orange, or even a grapefruit...but sweeter. And their smell is intoxicating. I could've been happy just sniffing the meyer lemon for desert.

Well...I didn't do any of those things in the article yet, but did enjoy some Chinese Breakfast Tea with a little agave nectar and some Meyer lemon squeezed in. Perfect dessert. Just a little sweet, nice and tart.

I did buy a few more on my next trip, so stay tuned.

New toys

2009-01-11T18:15:00.012-05:00

Some new cooking toys arrived this December, and I finally had a chance to start playing with them. I've lived without a food processor for years. I had one, but it lived off the counter, down low in the cupboard, pretty much guaranteeing that it wouldn't get used. Plus it was over 25 years old, and the bowl was cracked. For the cost of replacing the bowl, I could get a brand new one...and, without a whole lot of research, decided to trust Mark Bittman's advice and get the 14-cup Hamilton Beach processor (well....Susan got it for me...thank you Susan!). And she also got me a nice little stone mortar and pestle. They both needed breaking in.

I had some ground lamb in the freezer, and it's been wanting a mission, so I had in mind something Greek or Middle Eastern...and I did some searching for inspiration. Chowhound had a couple of ideas, here and here. I took some bits and pieces from each, and created something that I'd say tasted something like moussaka, but without all the layering, and minus the white sauce that seems to be part of real moussaka. The lamb and the seasonings worked perfectly together, and the eggplant softened and soaked up all the flavor. I'm still learning to cook with eggplant.

Almost Moussaka

1 1/2 lb ground lamb
1 28 oz can tomatoes (diced, or whole, and process)
1 large yellow onion
1 medium eggplant
1/2 bag spinach
1 TBS garam masala
1 tsp whole cumin seed, ground
2 icetray cubes of roasted tomato sauce (made this past fall...and I can't find the recipe! You could use tomato paste, or some sundried tomatoes, or canned roasted tomatoes)
1 cup red wine
3 eggs

Brown the lamb, while softening the onions and adding the spices. When brown, add the rest of the ingredients (except the eggs), and simmer for about an hour...add the spinach until it wilts. Poke indentations in the top, and drop in an egg in each indentation. We had three eaters, so we used three eggs.

Serve over something starchy. We tried rotelli pasta the first night, and it was OK, but not spectacular (that's the picture above, with the egg). For the second night....Polenta! And it was perfect (that's the picture below). Mashed potatoes would work too...but Polenta is a lot easier, and I like it better anyway. Sop up the extra with some bread. (I tried my first "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" loaf....more on that experiment another time!)

I did find the eggs a bit extraneous. It was in one of the inspirational chowhound posts, and then I ran across eggs done like this in a bunch of Greek-inspired recipes. It didn't do much for me, and seemed like overkill.

Oh...back to the original title. I used the food processor for the onions and the tomatoes, and so far I'm happy. The cumin succumbed to the mortar (or is it the pestle) readily!

Comfort food

2008-12-28T14:05:00.003-05:00

This is the food I grew up with, and when I go home, some variation on this is usually served. It's perfect for a cold snowy weekend. You cook it on Saturday, warming up the house and giving it a nice aroma, and then serve it on Sunday. Since I took Friday off, I cooked on Friday and served on Saturday accompanied by some roasted vegetables. And, as a first course, Curried Sweet Potato and Apricot soup, as blogged by Bittman (not part of the comfort food concept, but I'd been wanting to play with it....and it's definitely worth doing again).

Bronx Braised Beef Brisket

3-5 lb. Flat beef brisket.
Salt
Garlic powder
Paprika
1 Big onion
1/3-1/2 cup tomato sauce, basic canned kind

Lightly brown the onion in olive oil
Coat the brisket with salt, garlic powder and paprika
Put meat and onions in a roasting pot
Add water to about ½ inch
Cook in 375-400 degree oven, uncovered for 1 ½ - 2 hours, until done. Meat should be brown
Take meat out of the pot, and let cool down separately.
Strain pot drippings, and mush the onions through the strainer
Add tomato sauce to drippings.
Add boullion or other flavoring to taste (optional...I've never had to do this)
Put drippings sauce in refrigerator. After it has cooled, skim fat off.
Put meat in refrigerator. After it is cool (next day) cut across the grain into slices about 1/8 inch.
When ready to serve put sliced meat and sauce into a saucepan, and simmer on top of the stove for a little while, depending on how tender the meat is. If tough, about ½-hour or more. If tender, less is OK.

I don't eat a whole lot of meat anymore, so I don't make this very often. Two-three times per year, at most. And I pretty much make it exactly like this each time, but I've been pondering some modifications, such as:

A handful of wild mushrooms, like Chanterelles, or something earthy
Pimenton instead of plain paprika
A Lebanese spice blend: cinnamon, allspice, ginger, fenugreek

Some day, perhaps!

What more can I say?

2008-12-09T21:50:00.007-05:00

Roasted root vegetables. And a chicken leg. I'd been conspiring to make this for a few days. It had been intended for Sunday, but I was too tired to cook, so it became tonight's meal. I love roasted root veggies in the winter. The way the oven heats up the kitchen. And the scent infuses the house. Perfect.

The only problem is that it takes time. And on a weeknight, I just want to get food on the table fast. That's why I do so much stir fry. Fast. But I had a plan...get the veggies cut, oiled, and seasoned and into the oven. Bite size pieces of:

sweet potato
an interesting large white and green turnip they had on display at Whole Foods
parsnips
carrot
red onion
celery
Seasoning: coarse salt, pepper, and herbs de Provence

And once they were in the oven at 350, it put in the empty cast iron skillet, seasoned the two chicken legs with Emeril's Bayou Blast (just some salt, onion, garlic, paprika, cayenne., and got those going too.

With those in the oven, and needing little attention, I could pour myself a glass of red wine, put some Trader Joes caponata in a bowl, scoop up with some corn chips, and satisfy the raging hunger till dinner was ready.

About in the oven....I upped the temperature for the second half to 400. Dinner was everything I had hoped it would be. The roasted veggies can really be a meal on their own, but the chicken side dish was perfect, as would many other sides. And there's enough left for at least another meal. I'll definitely being doing this again, even on a weeknight. Just like a stirfry, just a little more relaxed, complete with time to sit around and do nothing (or catch up on other blogs)....

While dinner was cooking, I was catching up on the blogs, and found this surprise at Tea and Food. The roasted veggies, pretty much as I'd done, and the drumstick to boot.

Live at the Improv

2008-12-04T19:28:00.002-05:00

I started this blog mainly because I was having so much fun exploring the food adventures of other bloggers, getting inspired by their experiments, or just searching the blogs, chowhound, epicurious, or whatever for something to do with an interesting new ingredient. But much of the time, it's just looking in the fridge, thinking about what's in the pantry, and creating something tasty. Most of the time it works well, occasionally I wonder what I was thinking. This time it worked well, and the need to improvise had become extreme.

I had almost reached the point of "read my lips, no new food". The fridge had aging veggies. The freezer was overflowing. It was time to purge. So...

Red cabbage (1/4 head)
Yellow onion
Small red potatoes, 3
Habanero pepper, half, seeded, minced
1 carrot, sliced thin with mandoline
Kielbasa, half, cut into bite sized pieces
Pea tendrils, handful
cilantro, 4 or 5 sprigs
1 cube frozen roasted tomato sauce, made in early fall.
salt, pepper

I pulled out the trusty wok that I've had for going on 30 years. I'd been avoiding the wok for awhile in favor of the cast iron skillet because I'd been polluted by an article I read in Cook's Illustrated where they compared the heat-inducing behavior of home woks (as opposed to restaurant woks) versus flat bottom skillets and concluded that the flat bottom skillets were far more effective at transmitting heat, and getting to hot hot wok searing stir fry temperatures.

But I'd been thinking that I really like the way you can toss stuff around in the wok with wild abandon. With the skillet, the food pops out easily and messes up the stove. And what I really wanted to try was sauteing food in the wok, rather than blasting it with high heat.

Which is what I did with the above. The trick to this kind of cooking is to cook the tougher things first, adding items as they became more tender. The onions typically go first, because they need some time to soften and develop a sweet flavor. This time, since I was sauteing, and I didn't want to over do it, I didn't wait very long before I added the cabbage and the kielbasa, and then the carrots. I didn't want to overcook the cabbage, and I was hoping to get some carmelization on the kielbasa. The habanero got tossed in at the same time, and I beeped the potatoes in the microwave till they were barely cooked....quartered them and tossed them in.

When things were pretty much where I wanted them, I tossed in the defrosted cube of tomato sauce, the pea tendrils and the cilantro, just warming them up a bit. Stir around a bit, add some salt (not much....the kielbasa is salty) and pepper. The kielbasa also carried along some garlic, so there wasn't the need for any more flavoring.

Served with some bulghur done in the rice cooker, and I had a meal. Several actually. I think I got a second dinner and a lunch out of this.

Will I ever make this again? No. Will I make something else, someday, with interesting things that I have in the house? Of course....many times!

Welcome back into the fold, wok. Sauteing works very well!

Oatmeal Latkes

2008-11-29T19:33:00.003-05:00

I don't throw away food easily. Usually, that's a virtue, sometimes it just gets in the way, and the refrigerator gets a little tough to navigate. The other morning I made some steel cut oatmeal, and had some leftover, so I dutifully put it in a plastic container for another day, with no idea of what I would do with it...perhaps figuring I'd just beep it some morning.

Well, tonight's dinner was to be a hodgepodge of leftovers, and I was pushing the oatmeal aside to get to other things in the fridge when the idea of shaping them into patties and pan frying them started to form. It just continues on the idea of savory oatmeal. I've done this with leftover mashed potatoes before, so why not oatmeal?

I heated up the cast iron skillet, put in a few tablespoons of canola oil, plopped the stiffened oatmeal mass onto the cutting board, and found I didn't have to form them, I just had to cut them into pancake shaped disks. Fry on medium-high (turned down to medium after a bit) and flip when then start to brown.

They were good. Not great, but good. Some salt and pepper helped. What would have really helped would be some minced onion. So next time, I'll try to have the presence of mind to add some minced onion before I put the mess into the fridge. Or...maybe just sprinkle in some onion powder -- that'll just give it a little more interest. Or, just fry them up with some onions in the skillet. I ate them by themselves, as an appetizer, but they could easily be a side dish.

It could also be served like potato latkes, with some apple sauce, or something else on the sweet side, even some maple syrup, brown sugar or cinnamon. But I think I'll stick with the savory them for awhile.

Breakfast Redefined

2008-11-23T11:41:00.004-05:00

Thank you food blogging community.

The thing I love most about this blogging adventure is that it's not just about the experimentation, the writing and the photography, but about the collaboration and sharing that is happening, spreading culinary ideas around the globe as fast as people can blog and comment.

Case in point. Steel cut oats with egg. Consider this journey.

It's getting cold, and I've been eating oatmeal more frequently in the mornings, and had worked off last winter's supply. Shopping list in hand, at Trader Joes, I headed over to the oatmeal, and instead of buying the usual rolled oats, I bought the steel cut oats -- which I'd never made before (or even eaten).

Next morning, excited by my new acquisition, I was all set to put in a large bowl, add some water and salt, stick in the microwave for 2.5 minutes, and add some agave nectar and dried fruit -- just like I usually do with my oatmeal. Until I read the directions. Thirty minutes on the stove top. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Stir occasionally. I was NOT going to do that on a weekday morning, so I abandoned my plan, and had a bowl of cold cereal (I was even out of granola, which I often have with milk warmed in the microwave, when I'm not in the mood for oatmeal). I figured the steel cut oats experiment would have to wait until the weekend.

Then I saw this Tea and Food post about savory oatmeal. Encouraging readers (not for the first time) to skip the sweet and revel in the savory at breakfast. Hmmmm. I thought I'd give that a try. As soon as I bought some more of my old standby rolled oats.

In the comments to the original post, though, Karen B mentioned making steel cut oats in a rice cooker. !. I could do that, even on a weekday. Roll out of bed, put oats and water in rice cooker, hit the button, then proceed with other morning activities. A half hour later, my oats would be ready. And indeed they were. For my first foray into steel cut oats, and I decided to take the traditional path. Agave nectar and a banana. Wonderful. Great texture. Great taste. A keeper. The oats did foam a lot, overflowing the top, making a bit of a mess, but not really so bad that I wouldn't do it again.

I mentioned this all to Susan, who said: "Cheesy Grits"! She'd been doing this for years. Grits, cheese, salt and pepper. Perhaps an egg on top. So we proceeded to have that yesterday morning, with that sage cheddar that she hordes whenever she finds it. Delicious. She's always trying to get me to have grits, which I now realize after many grit adventures with Susan is way more tasty than the sorry looking puddle of white tasteless stuff served with eggs and bacon in the South Carolina hotel I stayed at 25 years ago and prejudiced me against grits for a long long time. (We didn't have grits growing up in New York). Someday I'll fill you in on Shrimp and Grits.....but not today.

Today was the day to try the savory steel cut oatmeal, done in the rice cooker. Easy as can be. 1/3 cup of grits. 4/3 cup of water (that's four-thirds). A half hour, and presto. When it's all done, fry up a sunny side up egg, add salt and lots of black pepper, and that's a tasty hearty breakfast. Which I will do again and again. I may even try cooking the egg on top of the oatmeal itself, as Tea and Food's Aaron suggests.

But beyond all this, when I had first read about the rice cooker steel cut oatmeal, I decided to do a little browsing to see if others were on board with this technique, and indeed they were. And some have been using a slow cooker, started the night before, and ready by the time you wake up. That'll be the next experiment. Stay tuned.

So...thanks to Aaron, Karen B. and the forgotten web site that suggested the slow cooker. Breakfast just got a lot more interesting.

Weeknight cuisine in a flash - Part 2 - Warm Slaw

2008-11-20T20:04:00.002-05:00

Once I got that red cabbage going last night, I was in the mood for more. I had seen a bunch of recipes using red cabbage in a slaw, with all sorts of interesting dressings, some Asian inspired. Sounded good -- I was set. But when I got home, it was COLD...and I wasn't going to munch on cold cabbage. So I thought, why not warm it up a bit. Just a light saute, heat it through, done.

So I took that pile of ingredients you see up there: red cabbage on a rough chop, cilantro, ginger, carrot, little bit of jalapeno, and dumped it all in at once to a heated skillet with a little olive oil, and sauteed just for a couple of minutes, till the veggies brightened and were warm...barely starting to wilt. A pinch of salt, some sesame oil and rice wine vinegar, and I had a tasty side dish to go with the leftover steak and couscous.

Weeknight cuisine in a flash - Part 1

2008-11-20T19:45:00.003-05:00

Anatomy of a weeknight meal. Two steaks picked up at McKinnon's over the weekend, needing to be eaten or frozen. Checking the blogs and assorted online food resources at lunchtime at work for Steak au Poivre....representing one of the best meals I ever had when in Paris. Susan coming after some drinks with a friend. Getting the basic gist of it. Not hard, and I didn't expect it to be. But I did pick up a good hint about how to crack those peppercorns....back end of a cast iron skillet. And some thoughts about the sauce. Unbeknownst to me, the sauce is usually made with Cognac...which I just happened to have picked up a bottle of the other day....but the directions said that it would probably flame up, and I wasn't in the mood for dealing with that (I hadn't ever done flaming food). Other sites suggested red wine as a good substitute, which was great, because I had an open bottle under vacuum seal waiting to be used.

Susan and I were both starving, so we munched down some caponata from Trader Joes with a few crackers....instant satisfaction, and gave me a little time to play. Get some TJ's Israeli couscous mix in the rice cooker (cool stuff...10 minutes, and it's got nice colorful addins). Chopped some onions and red cabbage for a simple saute, and got to cracking those peppercorns...which took a little longer than I thought it would, but was effective. Salt and press the peppercorns into the meat (rump steaks), and I'm ready to hit the heat. Cast iron skillet...a little cooking spray, make it hot, and 3 minutes per side. Wave kitchen towels under the smoke detectors (the fan over my stove vents into the kitchen....not helpful). When cooked, remove to a plate, and add some wine and butter to the skillet and reduce to a sauce. (I was supposed to use shallots, but I didn't have any). Serve. Done.

Next time I'll cook the steaks a tad longer...but the flavor was great. The shallots will make a nice addition, but really, the were very tasty....with one leftover for the next day.

With the kitchen smoky and us starving, I didn't stop to take a picture. Sorry!

Pumpkins and cranberries

2008-11-18T22:25:00.003-05:00

Susan introduced me to pumpkins. Of course I'd always eaten the seasonal pumpkin pie at the right time of year, but I never took pumpkins seriously. Nor squash for that matter, but pumpkins...certainly not. I've since learned that they can be made to taste great, and their great for you. And you can get pumpkin right out of a can, to use anytime you feel like it. Susan has a whole recipe book of pumpkin. It's orange.

So the other morning, I saw the cranberries that had been in the freezer since last year this time. And I had several cans of pumpkin that I picked up at whole foods for 99 cents a can, and I thought that these two November-like ingredients should go together. I can't say that I'd ever seen them together in one dish. Sure...cranberry sauce for dinner and pumpkin pie for dessert, but never all in one. So I riffed on my standard pancake recipe, added half a can of pumpkin, some chopped cranberries, and we had pumpkin cranberry pancakes. They were tasty, but something was wrong. The pancakes never quite set right. They were still mushy inside...like the texture of pumpkin meat. Maybe I used too much pumpkin...I'm not sure, because Susan and I successfully did pumpkin pancakes at her place one day.

But that left a half can of pumpkin in the fridge waiting to be eaten, and inventing pumpkin-cranberry bread seemed like just the thing. Except that a quick web browse found LOTS of such recipes, so I guess I wasn't the first to think of this (so why hadn't I seen it before?)

Choosing a recipe from among the many options is a fascinating process. I wanted something with whole wheat, and most of the recipes used white flour. I'm not quite confident enough to transpose white flour to whole wheat yet. Some just didn't appeal. But one was perfect. It used the orange juice I bought the other day just in anticipation of this project. And the buttermilk I had leftover from some other project. And just cinnamon, so I could show off that Vietnamese cinnamon I bought the other day. And only a cup of pumpkin, which I figured was pretty much what was left in the can. Sold. The original recipe was at this site devoted to spas. It goes to show, you don't ever know. But it was a good start. Here's what I ended up doing, based on the fact that I had orange juice, not concentrate, and lemon zest, not orange zest, and frozen cranberries, not dried.

And I didn't wait until it cooled completely to slice it. Come on...really now. That would've been tomorrow morning.

Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

1-1/2 cups (7 1/2 oz/235 g ) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup (5 oz/155 g) whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup (8 oz/250 g) butternut squash or pumpkin puree
1/2 cups (3 1/2 oz/105 g) packed light brown sugar (I used Turbinado Raw Sugar)
1/2 cup (4 oz/125 g ) plain nonfat yogurt or buttermilk (buttermilk for me)
1/4 cup (2 fl oz/60 ml) frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed (Just OJ, not concentrate)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon grated orange zest (lemon zest...it's what I had around)
1 tablespoon canola oil
3/4 cup (3 oz/90 g) dried cranberries (frozen...and probably a full cup...I just wanted to use them up).

Lightly coat an 8 1/2-by-4 1/2 (21.5-by-10-cm) loaf pan with vegetable oil spray. In a large bowl, mix together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. In a blender or food processor, combine the squash or pumpkin puree, brown sugar, yogurt or buttermilk, orange juice concentrate, egg, orange zest, and canola oil and process until smooth. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the squash or pumpkin mixture. Stir just until blended; do not overmix. Stir in the cranberries and scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for about 5 minutes; turn out onto a wire rack and let cool completely. (I didn't have a food processor, and didn't feel like getting the blender messy...using a whisk worked just fine)

Freeze it in

2008-11-15T15:47:00.012-05:00

I grew up with the phrase "freeze it in". These three words represented a simple philosophy of shopping, cooking and kitchen management, that meant....cook way more than you need when you can get something, and put the extra in meal-size packages in the freezer for another day. Growing up, the goods that were frozen were typically a variant on pot roast -- either brisket, or veal breast. Now, in my own kitchen, it can mean anything. The bean/squash mole from the other day? Now frozen in, to be extracted when I'm in the mood.

At the end of this summer, Susan and I found ourselves with a bumper crop of basil, meaning it was time for pesto making. There are many ways to make pesto, pick your favorite, but we had way more than we could use in a few days, so we froze it in. In ice cube trays, with one cube about enough for a dinner. (Do not mix Parmesan cheese in with the pesto cubes...you can add that when you serve). Pictured up there, next to that frozen, cooked shrimp (Trader Joes takes the frozen in thing to the next level).

The problem with the freezer is remembering whats in there, but when you do, you're in for some fun surprises. So, I had two remembrances of late summer in the last few days when I extracted the pesto. The first was a little unusual, but surprisingly good. The second, a bit more traditional.

Potatoes, Kale, Chicken - and Pesto
In the spirit of "what I have lying around", this was a solution to using up the Kale that had been leftover after a few other meals. The red potatoes had been patiently waiting in the cupboard for an appropriate opportunity, the frozen chicken pieces had been in the freezer for months, needing to be used up...and the big bag of pesto cubes was begging for a chance at something besides pasta.

This was a straightforward preparation, sauteed onions, thinly sliced potatoes over medium high heat. I had hoped that the potatoes would cook quickly when cut so thin, but the took their time, so I turned the heat to low, covered the cast iron skillet, and let them steam a bit in the moisture from the cooking vegetables. About 10 minutes later, I was able to add the cubed chicken meat, then the kale, cooking until the kale shrunk a bit. When the chicken was cooked through and the potatoes tender, I removed it all from heat and added the defrosted pesto. With some shredded Parmesan on top, it had a savory, flavor and succulent texture that was a pleasant surprise.

Pesto, Pasta, Shrimp
The next dish was more straightforward. Whole wheat pasta served with defrosted pesto and defrosted cooked shrimp from Trader Joes. And some shredded Parmesan with a dose of freshly ground black pepper completed the preparation. Hard to beat for a quick meal, but all made possible from the little bit of effort at the end of the summer.

Derivative works

2008-11-12T17:53:00.006-05:00

At least half the fun about blogging about my food adventures is sharing in the adventures of others. We're all out there cooking...scouring our recipe books, or our fridges and pantries...looking for inspiration. We're also looking at each others posts. Since we're all doing this in real time, we're all cooking with seasonal produce, food that's appropriate to the season. So there are times you see what other bloggers have posted, and you think...I HAVE to make that.

Such was the cast a couple of weeks ago, and the reason I have that luscious looking butternut squash up top. Squash was one of those things I just stayed away from....too much work. I was always afraid I'd slice my hand off cutting them open and peeling them. And those seeds were such a pain to remove. But then I saw this recipe on 101 Cookbooks called Borlotti Bean Mole with Roast Winter Squash. Squash, beans, kale. I had to make it. And risk severing my hand. (They do have peeled and cubed squash available from the grocery, but Whole Foods had butternuts on sale...)

Fortunately, Susan's sister was in town, and she doesn't eat meat, so I had the perfect excuse to make my version of this. Truth be told, I followed the recipe pretty much verbatim, but I substituted in Anasazi beans (which I could find in the local health food market) for the borlottis (which I'd never seen, much less heard of). I won't repeat the recipe, because it's done in nice detail in the original.

I will give some warning though...make sure you're willing to spend the afternoon. When I fell in love with this recipe, I hadn't quite figured out how much time it would take. But, after you've soaked and cooked the beans, which you can do ahead of time, it was about 3 1/2 hours, start to finish. Which was no problem at all, because I had plenty to do at home, and the house smelled great. But this was one time where I had to sit down with the instructions and lay out a time line so that I could figure out how far in advance I had to start.

It was all worth it. I'd never made a mole before, and it was fun chopping up the chocolate, dumping it in the pot, and watching it slowly disappear, coating everything with chocolate and infusing it with a rich, slightly sweet, but not too much, flavor. And a little heat from some long red peppers I had lying around made it perfect.

Beets

2008-11-04T20:09:00.008-05:00

To me, beets had always been those pickled red disks in salad bars. Or, the base of the borscht that my Dad used to pour out of a bottle, topped with a dollop of sour cream. The borscht thing never appealed to me. And the pickled beets were OK, but I wouldn't go through a lot of effort to create them. And they always just seemed like too much work....especially peeling them when they were hot. But then beets were on one of those lists about the things that you should be eating. And I found out you can eat the skins. And the greens. So....I started exploring with beets.

The thing about beets is that you've got several meals there, with the greens and the bulbs. I understand that the greens are pretty much the same thing as swiss chard, but grown for the bulb instead of the leaves, but that you can eat the leaves too. I started out simply. On the first day, I make something -- a stir fry usually -- out of the greens. And while I'm doing that, I boil the bulbs -- let them cool, stick them in the fridge, and have them the next day. They don't need anything else, they're so sweet. No salt, no vinegar, no nothing. Just slice 'em up and eat 'em. Just like that.

The other day I was in whole foods and they had some huge beet bulbs attached to some very nice greens (see the picture above), so in the cart they went. First I gave the bulbs a nice scrub with that new vegetable scrubber -- aren't they pretty like that? The greens got fried up with some onions, garlic, ginger, parsnips (cut thin....I'll need to post about parsnips one of these days), a small crown of broccoli I had lying around, and some tempeh that I'd been dying to try. Simple stir fry, but very tasty.

While that was going on, I graduated from boiled beets to roasted. As I've said before, roasted veggies rock. The thing about beets though, is it's difficult to know how long to cook them. I've learned to take them out before they seem to be soft, because they continue to cook in their own heat even after you remove them. A little olive oil (not even any salt), and roasting for about 1.5 hours and I had some very tasty beet quarters.

I popped a few in my mouth right after my stirfry, and kept the rest in the fridge for later. To eat cold, or hot, or even cut up into another stirfry a couple of days later. This time with cabbage, carrots, onions and kielbasa. And I just popped the last two in my mouth today, a week after.

Moral of the story...don't be afraid of beets!

Veggies and some meat

2008-10-19T22:05:00.012-04:00

Josh and Ruth came for dinner on Saturday night, which was an opportunity to try the something old, something new idea. Josh is a big meat eater, and loves steak, so I got some flanksteak. He also loves tomatoes, but tomato season is just about done. I did, however, have that box of tomatoes I wrote about the other day, so there was some tomato roasting in the plan. Bittman had written about a faster no knead bread, which was worth a try. And I wanted to get a veggie main dish in there.

First, the bread. I have to say, it was a disappointment. Not that it was BAD, mind you, but just boring and not WOW, the way the original no-knead bread is. The idea is you slop it together, let it rise about four hours, pull it out, turn it over a couple of times, let it rest about 15 minutes, and then plop it into the preheated vessel (I like a ceramic casserole dish that gives a nice round shape). The idea is to try to do in four hours what we were doing in 12-18 hours before. No. Not gonna work. The result was a tight crumb, and a flavor that wasn't very interesting. It was OK the next day as toast, but I really don't think I'm going to try this again. I will say this though. Bittman's recipe uses white flour, and I like whole wheat. My versions of the original no-knead are typically half white/half whole-wheat, and it comes out great. I did the same thing here, and was not happy; perhaps all-white will be better? I may try someday.

The tomatoes were great...as good as the first time, which predates this blog. The recipe was taken from Orangette's blog, and definitely needed a reprise performance while tomatoes were still around. It was as wonderful as the first time....tomatoes, garlic, parsley, olive oil. Hard to beat. And they keep for days in the fridge. They're best eaten at room temperature, but what I discovered this time was that you can pop them in the microwave and warm them up a bit beyond room temperature -- somewhere between tepid and hot, and they are marvelous -- even without goat cheese. Just spooned onto some toasted hearty bread, with lots of the flavor infused olive oil. Ah...the memories!

The main course was the veggies. I had a nice bunch of Kale that Ruth was kind enough to chop for me. And a quarter head of cabbage which I chopped. Some onions. Carrot, julienned. Garlic. That's about it. The onions and garlic browned up nicely in the cast iron skillet, after which I put in the huge pile of leaves which cooked down pretty quickly to a manageable size. I think I added some pimenton. It was a nice sweet dish. The cabbage and the kale had two shades of green, and a sweet flavor.

And then there was the flank steak. Nothing too elaborate there. Josh took charge of seasoning, which was Penzey's Turkish Seasoning -- salt, garlic cumin, Telicherry black pepper, Turkish oregeno, paprika, sumac, cayenne, cilantro. On the grill, cooked perhaps a minute or two too long to medium, not medium rate and sliced on the bias. All served over brown rice.

Harvest Bounty

2008-10-17T21:57:00.009-04:00

It was "market day", so I'm here at home with counters full and refrigerators full of produce and other goodies. I may have gone overboard...but I don't think so. It's hard to contain yourself at Wilson Farm. I didn't have much on my list, but was on the lookout. Right at the entry they entice you with nice displays of fresh produce. Sometimes you bite, and sometimes you don't. But if you don't, they have another display of the exact same stuff inside.....so they hit you up twice. In any case, they had these little cases of tomatoes for 5.99. Must be 20 or more tomatoes in there. All for $5.99. Hmm. I could get a handful of heirlooms for that price, or a whole box of pretty good looking tomatoes. I bet they would work well roasted -- part of the plan for this coming weekend.

The blame. These were just sitting there. What could I do?
Much more to come with these....stay tuned.

But to test the tomatoes, I thought I'd make a little tomato salad:

tomatoes, roughly chopped
flat leaf Italian parsley
olive oil, splash
balsamic vinegar, splash
fleur de sel
ground black pepper

and then I remembered about feta cheese!

All told, it was a very nice dish. Tangy, sweet, salty, sour....all in one.

Sitting in the fridge was last night's cole slaw. There was some canned Italian Tuna in olive oil in the cupboard....that seemed like a nice addition. And some Dulse (wild Atlantic sea vegetable).

Grapes. These were pretty easy dessert.

Theme and variations

2008-10-16T21:14:00.008-04:00

Sometimes, it's just a matter of what you have lying around. And how much energy you have. I had little energy for real cooking tonight, but didn't have a whole lot the would have made an acceptable instant dinner. I'd had a big lunch, and didn't want much anyway. But a peanut butter sandwich wasn't going to cut it.

There was this head of green cabbage sitting in the fridge, patiently awaiting the call from the bullpen. And a new utility player I'd just acquired, waiting in the dugout for an opportunity to be tried out. I'd been playing around with the idea of cabbage and tempeh stir fry, but I really didn't want to "cook". But chopping up some cabbage into a cole slaw....I could handle that.

It's just been this summer that I realized that I could play around with cole slaw. I'd been making it the way that Bertel taught me: cabbage and carrots, grated very fine; olive oil and white vinegar; dill -- fresh if you have it; salt and pepper; scallions (but I'd been leaving those out for years due to family preferences); and the secret ingredient -- sugar...just a little. Over the years, Eleanor had been put in charge of getting the proportions for the cole slaw just right.

But lately, I've been doing some experimentation. Parsley instead of dill. Some creamy dressings from the bottles in the fridge instead of the vinaigrette. Some of these variations work with roughly chopped cabbage rather than the finely grated cabbage -- finely grated is critical for the vinaigrette version...somehow it just doesn't taste or feel right unless the cabbage is fine.

So, for tonight, a combination of things I might not have thought about putting together before:

Cabbage, roughly chopped
Carrot, grated
Green zebra tomatoes, chopped
Jalapeno peppers, a few, chopped
Olive Oil
Thai fish sauce.

I'd bought the fish sauce a few weeks ago, but hadn't ever used it. It was a bit salty, but overall, the taste was nice. Together with the last leftover chicken leg from the freezer and a warmed up Lamajeun from Eastern Lamajeun Bakery in Belmont, it was a meal.

Salmon and Spinach in Coconut Milk

2008-10-11T20:51:00.007-04:00

The name of this dish does not do it justice. First, some background, then the details.

In West Seattle, on Alki Beach, amidst fish and chips and nondescript pubs, exists the best restaurant in the world -- Phoenicia. Kim and I just wandered in here one day in search of food, and have been back at least four more times since. The proprietor, and chef, is Hussein, who I have nicknamed the Interpreter of Food desires. The first time we were there, we couldn't decide what we wanted, but as as we were studying the menu, a platter of seafood in a fragrant liquid walked by, we looked at each other and said...."we'll have that please". The next time, we again couldn't decide. His daughter, the waitress, said, "wait....I'll have him come out". And out comes Hussein, talks to us for 10 minutes, and then says..."here's what I'm going to make for you" and proceeds to wow us again. Neither of these items were on the menu. If you don't believe me, read the gushing over it on Yelp.

Both dishes were variations on what he calls Jewels of the Ocean, which is seafood in a fragrant coconut milk. I've asked him what's in it, and he's told me, but I'm pretty sure he hasn't told me everything. I know that he uses tamarind and pomegranate a lot. Garlic. Onions. From there, I don't know.

Last time I was in Seattle, Eleanor came along, and I took her on a pilgrimige, and he did not disappoint. She ordered salmon, her favorite food, after some prodding from me that I was pretty sure we could trust that he wouldn't ruin it by drying it out. He did not disappoint.

Well....Eleanor is home from college this weekend, so I thought some salmon would be nice. And I'd started this blog, so I was into some experiementation, and so far, all I've written about has been recipes that I found online. So, the time was right to take my chances on replicating Jewels of the Ocean in my own humble way. I did a little poking around on the web for fish dishes with coconut milk with a lebanese slant, and got a few ideas. Here's what I did to cook for the two of us, with some leftovers for tomorrow.

1 TBS ginger, minced
1 TBS garlic, minced
1 can (13.5 oz) coconut milk
1 smallish onion, halved, then sliced
1 tsp lemongrass slices
a few flakes of red pepper flakes
a few threads of saffron
a few drops pomegranate molasses
1 tsp tamarind water
5 basil leaves, chopped
a few pinches of salt.

Put all of the above in a pot, and simmer until the onions are soft. Then, add

3/4 lb salmon, cut into chunks
a few handfuls of fresh spinach

Cook until the salmon is tender and the spinach is reduced.

Serve with rice (I used a brown rice mixture) and some nice bread to sop up the remaining sauce. Add a few scant shakes of Japanese shredded salmon and cod roe, for a little additional umami taste. (One of the recipes I looked at called for dried shrimp paste, which I couldn't find, so this seemed like a good idea..and I was right).

This is definitely different from Hussein's master work. I'm pretty sure he doesn't use lemongrass. Virtually certain he doesn't use shredded salmon and cod roe. I wanted to use some tumeric for some color, but somehow, I didn't have any. I was successful at not being too heavy handed with the pomegranate....just a few drops. And not too much on the tamarind....just enough for the sour taste notes. The result was a very flavorful dish, with the mystery of not quite knowing what tasted so good. It may not have been as good as Hussein's but it was plenty good. I know it was good (great) because I didn't want the taste to leave my mouth, and put off a chocolate ice cream dessert for an hour later.

This was easy to make, and worthy of future experimentation. Lessons learned....it is not necessary to make everything POW. This was a very subtle dish, with subtle flavors, that worked very well. I would use any kind of firm fleshed seafood, and shrimp would have made a nice addition. Chicken would be good as well.

Cauliflower, anchovies and raisins?

2008-10-08T20:25:00.005-04:00

Cauliflower? Cauliflower? I've never been a big fan of Cauliflower. White; boring; not much taste. When I ate it as a kid, I would eat it raw, just like all my other vegetables, with a little mayonnaise to increase the interest level. (I ate all my veggies this way, even raw spinach). In adulthood, I perhaps tried steaming it a few times, but that's pretty boring. And I never tried much else.

Then, over at cousin Beverly's for one of her family soirees, and there, in the center of the table, is a cauliflower salad with a mustardy kind of sauce. It was an eye opening experience. I know I had seconds, and probably thirds. I'm pretty sure I asked for the recipe, but don't know where I put it. In any case...it opened up the possibilities for cauliflower, and hey...it's only been three or four years since I had that.

But then I read one of those lists about things I should be eating, and this thing called "cruciferous" vegetables keeps popping up, and you can get kinda tired of eating broccoli. Though I do have a newfound appreciation for the magic of cabbage, but more on that another time, since I have a head of it in my fridge, just waiting for some inspiration. And somehow cauliflower came up in discussion with Susan, and she found a recipe that used Cauliflower and garam masala. Which will have to wait for another day.

On my weekend walk to Whole Foods (which I discovered is less than a 15 minute walk away, hurray), they had big heads of cauliflower sitting out front on special for $2.00 a head, and into the basket it went, awaiting appropriate inspiration. Which again, came from some web browsing, and this time, from Bittman.

Bittman is always a good place to start, and I had never tried searching his blog for recipes....I've always just kinda taken them as they come across the threshold, since they're so seasonal anyway. But there was Cauliflower, Raisins and Anchovy Vinaigrette. I have to say, this did not immediately appeal to me. The raisins threw me off...I'm wary of savory recipes with fruit in them, but am coming around to them. It was the anchovies though, that were the attraction, because I had a little jar of them sitting in my cupboard...probably for a year or two, because I had seen ANOTHER Bittman blog post which used anchovies in a simple pasta sauce. Obviously, I haven't made that yet....but....now that the jar is open, I need to do something with the rest of those anchovies. And the roasting. I was pretty sure that if I were going to like cauliflower, that it would be roasted. Roasted veggies rock!

So...seeing as how I had everything I needed, I went and made this. As you can see from the picture, it was a nice big plate of cauliflower, tinted a nice brown by the roasting and the anchovies. Since it was a weeknight, and I came home from work hungry, I polished off the rest of the white bean hummus that Trader Joes puts out....which is a great thing to have in the fridge, because you could always just live on that for a day or two with some crackers or toast. And I got to use up the rest of the cucumber that was threatening to become a messy shadow of its former self if I didn't pay attention to it.

The recipe says it was for 8. I assume that was as a side dish. As a main dish, for myself, I ate about 1/3 of it, maybe a bit less. And supplemented with a leftover chicken leg from the weekend....but that's about it.

The taste was a nice gentle and umami-ish. Not too salty..in fact I needed to add a bit of salt. And not overwhelmingly anchovy...just about right. I skimped a bit on the parsley, because my new kitchen parsley plant is still not that big....I wouldn't have minded a little more. I could have easily done without the raisins, but they were a nice visual note, and the little bit of sweetness was a nice complement. I could see sprinkling some walnuts over this for some crunch. Maybe I'll try that with the next leftover batch.

An interesting "note to self". You only add a few tablespoons of the anchovy dressing during the roasting. The rest is added at the end, just before serving. I tasted the cauliflower before adding the major dressing -- bland and boring. Which goes to show that if I try new things with cauliflower, I need to do some bold flavors. I could see doing a lemon-tahini thing. Next time....I hear cauliflower's good for you. And for $2.00 a head feeding me for three meals, that's a pretty economical bunch of meals!

The Eating Week Begins on Sunday

2008-10-06T20:28:00.008-04:00

If you cook well on Sunday, you can eat well for much of the week. Sunday has a lot of things going for it. It's a day off, for one. There's time to shop. To peruse recipes. Plot. Make a plan.

Sometimes I get ideas during the week, reading food blogs. In particular, Bittman and Orangette. In this case, Orangette made a compelling case for stuffed tomatoes. A very compelling case. And seeing how tomoto season was running out, and I wouldn't get too many chances, this was clearly the mission for Sunday. I had the recipe printed out and ready to go. And the day was to be chilly, meaning that having the oven on for an hour and half in the late afternoon would be welcome.

Grilling season is over. Oven season is in. Bread baking commenced a couple of weeks ago, but I wasn't in the mood for bread baking. But I digress.

This was the second roasted tomato recipe I lifted from Orangette. The first was absolutely spectacular. Who knew such flavor could come from tomatoes? These were plum tomatoes, roasted for 2+ hours, with olive oil and oregano, and a touch of sugar. Yum.

Yesterday's adventure was with large tomatoes, scooped out, sauteed with a little olive oil and onion, some arborio rice (just 1/3 cup), and then stuffed back in and covered with bread crumbs.

This did not start well. First of all...the selection of tomatoes at Wilson Farm was getting pretty meager. But they had their standard large "our own" tomatoes, that looked a few days from being ripe, but what the hey. (Moving to Medford has moved me many miles from Verril Farm, who has the BEST TOMATOES IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD), but it was hard to justify the drive.....I should have justified it. When looking for the link to put here, I see that they're asking people to support them after their devastating fire by buying food from their temporary farm stand.....I could have helped them!)

In any case, cutting the tops off the tomatoes revealed that these were indeed poor substitutes for in-season, Verril Farm, heirloom tomatoes. But, I bought four of the suckers, so I was committed. But I gotta tell you....even mediocre tomatoes in the oven for over an hour, with a little basil and some olive oil can taste pretty terrific.

The huge-o tomotoes with the sliced Yukon Gold potatoes off the the side would have been plenty enough, without any meat. But I thought I'd add a little meat side dish.....chicken legs baked in the same oven, with some Penzy's Northwoods Seasoning (basically, salt, pepper, paprika, thyme, rosemary, garlic and chipotle in a little convenient bottle), plus some pimenton. Bittman blogged about pimenton about a week ago, and I just had to do some cooking with it. (Susan made his pimenton soaked swordfish, which was spectacular!)

I have to say....I haven't done much yet with the idea of meat as side dish. But this was a perfect way to do it. The tomato and rice was filling enough, especially with those potatoes. The little chicken leg on its own was perfect...though it could have used more pimenton. But the idea that I would have a meal with just one little chicken leg would have struck me as absurd just a few months ago.

Since I made four huge tomatoes, but there were only two of us, and I made ten chicken legs, and there were only two of us....I had enough for today's dinner, and then enough to stash some chicken legs in the fridge, and maybe even a few in the freezer. I'd never tried that before...cooked chicken in the freezer, but I don't see why that wouldn't work.

Well...maybe this won't feed me for the week, but if I do have some leftover grain in the fridge, and some cabbage....I can probably make something of that when the inspiration strikes.

The Beginning of an Adventure

2008-10-05T15:08:00.007-04:00

Eating abounds with choices. Eat healthy. Eat smart. Eat for fun. Be frugal. Splurge.

My life is in transition. Just divorced. Kids off to college. House sold. Living alone for the first time -- ever. Thinking about what to eat shouldn't be a strain, but it is fun.

I've always been a healthy eater. And loved cooking. Mostly chow, not cuisine, but I take pleasure in finding interesting and tasty things to do with the food I have lying around, and sharing that with others. And then I read Pollan's books -- The Omnivore's Dilemma, and In Defense of Food. Which got me thinking about the whole idea of eating a lot more. Not obsessively, mind you, but it just got me thinking.

I'd been through periods where I at mostly vegetables, and little meat. Back in the day. In college and soon after. The days of the Cambridge Food Coop. Tofu. Brown Rice. Whole Grains. Just because it seemed to be the right thing to do.

Over the years, married with a family, I fell back into the meat, vegetable, starch way of organizing a plate. With meat at the center, or at least a big piece.

Now that I'm on my own, I have a few different challenges. One -- it's just me. And Susan, when we share meals. But....when I go shopping, it's just for me. Whatever I want. The choices are entirely mine. Mine mine mine. The shocking thing is how little I need to buy. And if I'm smart, how long the food can last.

Eat food, mostly vegetables, not too much. Pollen's credo resonated. I had the choice I could make for myself. Going into the farm stand, or the farmers market...seeing what's there, and then deciding what to make of it. That was the food life for me.

So the adventure has begun. Coming up with things to eat that do not involve meat at the center. Vegetables at the center. With meat as a condiment, or a side dish. But where would I find guidance on how to do this? There are plenty of vegetarian cookbooks. There are plenty of cookbooks period. But I thought it would be fun to chronicle my adventures of eating in this way.

I get my food inspirations from a variety of places, but increasingly, it's coming from the Internet. There are so many places to find recipes, other bloggers' adventures, newspaper articles. But as I take these guideposts and turn them into my own, perhaps it will be illuminating for someone else on the same journey. At the very least, it will chronicle my own adventures.

My aim is to:

Seek out and find fresh, flavorful, and healthy foods to eat
Use local products to the maximum extent possible
Find food grown and raised using sustainable methods
Experiment
Not spend fortunes on food
Not cook every day, but use the fridge, freezer, microwave and wok to leverage full scale cooking into several days worth of meals.

There's probably more, and I'll fill this in as I go.

A word on inspirations

I'd say Michael Pollan's work pushed me over the edge into the is adventure. I suspect there's a whole community of Pollanites out there discussing this, so I'll try to find out where they are over time. For now, though, I've been on my own. The Internet offers some pathways, though.

When I'm searching for things to cook, I tend to enjoy reading Mark Bittman's blog, because it always seems seasonal, easy to cook, and usually full of things I want to eat. His column, The Minimalist is great too, as is his book, How to Cook Everything -- which is conveniently on Susan's bookshelf when I'm there.

And Orangette is always inspiring. I may have cooked more things out of Molly' blog than anywhere else lately, and if I had the time, I could spend time searching her links to other inspirations. And perhaps I will.

The Chowhound community is always good for asking questions, and for seeing the questions that others have asked already.

And then, you never will know what will come out of a simple google search for an ingredient.

Well....this is as good a start as any. We'll see where this adventure takes me.