Sometimes, it's just about the butter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.