Kath - What's for Dinner Tonight?

So, Bread... part 1 of 2, maybe 3

2012-02-13T23:17:00.000-05:00

I have twenty student papers to read and so I feel it is high time I blog about bread.

I bake a loaf of bread almost every week and I think I've finally gotten pretty good at it. This is the bread I used to make pre- Em's dairy allergy - which is excellent bread unless you happen to be allergic to milk. And this is the bread I used to make before I started making my current recipe - also very good - particularly if you want to make a huge batch of bread and hack bits of dough off throughout the week. Click on the words "bread" if you want to make my former recipes.

Because THIS is my new bread, and I must say, if I do say so myself, it is spectacular. How do I know it is spectacular? Because my friend Mark practically begs me to make it for him; because my friend Laura asked over the weekend if I could give her a bread making tutorial; because I make a loaf here at home and it's practically vaporized within an hour of emerging from the oven. So, it's not just me tooting my own horn...

Here's another view - fresh from the oven. It's too bad I'm such a terrible photographer, because these loaves are so much prettier in real life. I seriously need to take a class and figure out some better lighting.

Ok, to begin: if you are going to bake yourself the bread pictured above, you need a few things:

this is one of them. This is called the Sasafrass Superstone Bread Baker; it's name alone should make you want whip out your credit card.

However, it is $54 on Amazon and unless you have a husband who is willing to give it to you as a gift, you don't really need it, particularly if you happen to have one of these:

A Dutch Oven is a beautiful thing.

This Dutch oven was given to me as a wedding gift
and is now about [redacted] years old. It is in incredible shape and I use it for soup, bread baking, boiling potatoes, stew, braises, the list goes on.
Unfortunately, they cost a small fortune. So don't buy one, because you can use ANY deep, oven proof pot as long as it has a lid.

Here's another hand-dandy little item I use all the time. It's a dough scraper and you can buy a cheap plastic one at Target, which works very well - or you can order your flour from the King Arthur Flour website and get one for free (which is, obviously, how I got mine...)

Don't You?

You need a large bowl and a rubber, though sturdy, spatula. I like this one:

And, finally, you need parchment paper and plastic wrap. Parchment can be found in the grocery store not too far from the plastic wrap. Parchment is essential for this bread. You cannot do without it. Sorry. That's just the way it is. However, it comes in handy for so many things. I always line my cookie sheets with parchment when I make cookies - do this and you'll never again wreck your manicure chipping baked on chocolate off your favorite pan.

Ok, moving on.

Gather your ingredients:

4 cups of flour. I don't care if it's bread flour, or all purpose flour. Either will do.

1 TBLSP Olive or canola oil -

1 TBLSP Kosher or sea salt. This is important - don't use table salt - it's too fine, and it doesn't add flavor the way kosher or sea salt does. HOWEVER - I'm all about availability - if you started this recipe and you don't have kosher or sea salt - DO NOT run out for it. Use table salt, but use ONLY 1tsp - that's right a teaspoon - this salt is so fine a teaspoon is all you need.

1/2 tsp of Yeast. You might think this is not enough - but it is. You can get the little individual packets - although for this particular bread you don't need a whole packet - (is usually about 2 1/4 tsp). You can buy a jar of yeast too - but keep that in the freezer and take it out when you need it - it will last longer that way.

1/4 cup of hot water: Turn on your tap and let the hot water run. When it is hot, but not so hot that you can't hold your hand in the running water, it is just right.

2 TBLSP Brown sugar - yeast loves to gobble up sugar, and brown sugar gives your bread nice flavor

Beer. Go to your refrigerator and take out a beer. (I will be posting a recipe for bread sans-beer - but this one ain't it) It should be a fairly flavorful beer - a stout, or something with a lot of hop to it (see what I did there...? Hop to it? Oh, never mind) It needs to be something tasty that you yourself would enjoy drinking. (Unless it's Lite beer. Please don't use Lite beer. I know some of you enjoy drinking it, - not naming names - ~~Ginny~~ - Plus, anything spelled incorrectly is not good. That's a rule I think we should all live by.)

1 TBLSP cider vinegar. Yep, that's right, vinegar. Vinegar gives your bread that almost but not quite sour dough quality that will have your friends scratching their heads wondering why your bread always tastes so good while their bread is merely ok.

Spray Oil: - you use this to spray the bowls as well as the top of your bread.

OK - you ready? Here we go:

1. dump the flour and salt in a bowl. Whisk it a bit to incorporate.

2. mix the brown sugar and hot water in a measuring cup. Add the yeast. Let it sit a bit and watch the yeast do its thing.

3. BEER. Beer usually comes in 8 ounce bottles. Use the whole thing. Or, measure out 1 cup. Dump it in the flour mixture. Add the oil and the yeast/sugar mixture as well as the vinegar.

Using your rubber spatula, mix this all together. If it seems too dry, add more water, 1/4 cup at a time. The key is that this dough should be pretty wet. Not so wet that it's watery, but wetter than you think it should be.

It's hard to see how wet this is - but the key is that it will stick to your hands when you pick it up. However, you should be able to pick it up all at once. If it's too wet it will just ooze out of your fingers in a very yucky way.

YOU DO NOT KNEAD THIS BREAD. Just leave it there in the bowl. You can spray the bowl a bit, as well as the top of your bread with some oil. Cover the whole bowl with plastic wrap.

NOW, preheat your oven to 100 degrees. When it reaches 100 set your timer for 10 minutes. After ten, turn off the oven, and put your bread in it.

And here is the most important part of the whole thing: LEAVE YOUR BREAD IN THE OVEN OVER NIGHT. Yep, I mean it. Just let it sit there in your oven for as long as you can. There's nothing in the dough that can spoil, in fact the longer it sits, the better it will taste. I once left my bread sitting around for about 24 hours. It grew faster than teenager - and I was able to divide it up and make 2 loaves. It also tasted fantastic. If you're not going to bake your bread after 24 hours, skip the whole oven heating thing and just stick your bread into the refrigerator. In fact, if you are at all squeamish about letting your bread dough sit around in the fresh air, you can put it in your fridge over night.

If you don't have plastic wrap, you can cover the bread with a clean damp dish towel.

After your bread has hung out for as long and you feel like letting it hang out (and, indeed, it can be baked after only hanging out for an hour or two) - your dough should look like the picture above. It will get kind of lumpy, and much larger. Dump it out onto a floured surface and roll it around a bit, forming it into a nice loaf the shape of the thing you will be baking it in. I shaped mine here in a loaf, but if I were going to bake it in the Dutch Oven, I'd have shaped it a ball. This is where your bread dough scraper will come in handy because the dough is still very wet. The scraper will also help you get any bits of dough and flour left behind off your counter before it turns to cement.

Get yourself a piece of parchment, spray it with a little oil and put your bread dough right in the center. Spray it again with oil, and cover, again with plastic wrap. Let it sit an hour or so. Although if you are anxious or particularly hungry for bread and butter, you don't have to wait that long. You can let it sit as you let your oven preheat. Unless you have refrigerated the dough - in which case you really should let it come to room temperature before baking it.

After your bread has sat for an hour, preheat your oven to 350.

Speaking of preheating, when you go to preheat your oven, stick the Dutch Oven or your Sasafrass Superstone Bread Baker in the oven to preheat as well. This is Very Important. Preheating the bread baker helps your bread get all steamy and not dried out in the center.

When the oven slash your bread with a sharp knife, pick it up using the parchment and plonk the bread dough, parchment and all into your baker. Put the lid on, shut the door to your oven and set your timer for 35 minutes. It is totally fine if the parchment hangs out over the lid - it won't catch fire or anything.

Take the lid of the baker off after 35 minutes, put your bread loaf back in the oven without the lid and bake another ten minutes or more - make sure your bread is all goldeny and cracked and delicious looking.

See how the parchment looks just fine after baking with the bread in the oven?

And it's insides will look like this.

Now, go ahead. You can do this - it is fantastic bread. And, as I believe Marc Bittman said, even the worst home baked bread is better than the best store bought...

But yours won't be bad - I promise.

Next post I'll give you my recipe for beer free bread -

Don't Tell The Kids...

2012-02-07T14:56:00.000-05:00

But this

is my new favorite ingredient. See what it says there, yes, it's "Milk Free" - but do you know what's in it?

That's right, tofu.

You know what it tastes like? Not sour cream because its:

ok, that's hard to read, but it says, better than sour cream -

And more importantly - NOT TOFU - not one bit. I'm sure you don 't believe me, but if you are going dairy free, as we have recently had to do - try this stuff! It will blow your mind...

I believe that I mentioned in an earlier post how much we are all missing mashed potatoes and how I was not so thrilled at the prospect of mashing potatoes with this:

HOWEVER - if you mash your potatoes with some of the (gasp) margarine, along with about a 1/4 cup of chicken stock and a 1/4 cup of

the mashed potatoes come out fluffy, creamy, and amazingly good. I made my brand new dairy free mashed potatoes to go with the ribs I had cooked up in my slow cooker for about 6 hours and my family ate them and NO ONE knew they secretly harbored tofu. And people weren't just eating them politely. They were not moving the potatoes around on their plates to make it look like they had eaten them - NO, they scarfed the potatoes - even my teens scarfed the potatoes.

AND THEN, when I was trying to use up all the ribs - because I had made quite a few - I took all the meat off the bone, sauteed up some onions, carrots and a bit of frozen spinach, dumped the meat into the pan when the onions and carrots were softened and the spinach had cooked down, tossed the meat around, added a bit more barbecue sauce (I'm a fan of Stubbs jarred sauce when I don't have time to make it, which is more frequent than I'd like to admit) and once again, I threw in about a 1/4 cup of

I served my little pork rib mixture over rice and it was glorious.

So far I have used Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream in muffins that called for yogurt, and in frosting instead of cream cheese, and on top of my chili because, though I like sour cream, THIS is BETTER THAN SOUR CREAM.

Just don't tell the children, 'cause if they find out, they will never eat mashed potatoes again... and dammit! I like my mashed potatoes!

A Pretty Salmon and Rice Dish

2012-01-22T11:15:00.000-05:00

We've been addicted to Dr. Who on Netflix. For Smith and Mad it's the stories, the space travel fantasy, gadgets (who wouldn't want a sonic screwdriver - or a TARDIS - who wouldn't want a TARDIS?) - but for me it has everything to do with this guy:

Yeah.

But the Doctor regenerated, as the Doctor does, and we're on to this guy:

This guy has great energy and he's funny, and Mad thinks he's cute, despite the Flock of Seagulls hair... But he's no

AmIright? Sigh.

What does Dr Who have to do with salmon and rice? Nothing, except that since I'm now only mildly obsessed with Dr. Who (as opposed to completely) I thought I might use some of the spare space in my brain cooking up something new for dinner. We haven't had salmon in a while and they were running a special on wild caught Coho at the grocery and so I bought a pound. And I only had to sell one kidney to do it.

Usually, I just throw salmon in a pan dressed with a bit of olive oil and some lemon, but, due to the extra brain space, I was feeling a bit creative and I came up with this:

It looked prettier in real life - I need to take a photography class

It's pretty, right? Obviously, not as pretty as:

But, enough said. The Doctor moved on, and I will too...

Here's my recipe:

Pretty Salmon and Rice:

1TBLSP Olive oil
1 small or 1/2 of a large yellow onion thinly sliced
1 cup of arborio rice (or, a long grain brown rice if you have it)
2 cups of cauliflower florets
1 cup of golden raisins
1 large or 2 small carrots thinly sliced
2 stalks of celery, sliced
2 teaspoons of curry powder
1 1/2 cups of chicken stock (or vegetable stock- if canned use low sodium)
1 large orange - zested and juiced - my orange gave me about 1 cup of juice
1 TBLSP of parsely, or cilantro or even basil if you like
1 - 1 1/2 lbs of salmon filets - for God's sake, buy what's on sale. Or go to Trader Joes and get some frozen filets and thaw them under running cold water

Preheat the oven to 350 F

Heat a lidded skillet or a Dutch oven on a medium flame, when it's hot, swirl in your olive oil then throw in the onions and saute until translucent. Add the rice and cook, stirring constantly, until the rice becomes translucent looking as well. Add the cauliflower, raisins, curry powder, carrots, celery, 1/2 of the orange zest and juice from 1/2 the orange (1/2 cup). Add the chicken stock. Cover your pot with foil or parchment, and then put the lid on (this keeps the steam and flavor in the pot) and put the whole thing in the oven for 25 minutes. (If you are using a long grain brown rice, it will take a lot longer to cook - closer to an hour. Also, in this house, we like our rice very mushy. If you're looking for something more al dente, take it out after 15/20 minutes.)

Meanwhile, season your salmon on both sides with salt, pepper and the other half of the orange zest. Squeeze the other half of the orange over top. When the timer for the rice goes off, take the pot out, and taste your rice - adjust the seasonings adding Kosher salt and pepper to taste. Place your salmon on top of the rice. Put the whole thing back in the oven, uncovered this time, and bake until the salmon is cooked through: 10 to 15 minutes depending on the thickness of your filet, and how well done your like your salmon. (Quite well done in this house - but most people like it to still be a bit pink in the center.)

Let your salmon sit for a minute before serving. Then sprinkle it with some chopped parsley or cilantro, depending on what you have. I had neither, as you can clearly see from my photo. However, if I'd had one or the other I'd have sprinkled and my salmon dish would have been even prettier. (Although, David Tennant, you will always be prettiest...)

A salad with a simple dressing of olive oil, lemon juice and a splash of sherry vinegar would taste good with this. Or you can saute some frozen green beans in olive oil until they are cooked through - finish with fleur de sel sea salt and fresh pepper.

Eat Mor Chik'n

2011-12-12T22:47:00.000-05:00

Don't you get sick of chicken? I don't know when it happened that the only acceptable protein is chicken. Is it because they aren't cute? Beef has a bad rap because it's all fatty and clogs your heart. Ditto bacon. Leaner pork is ok, but everyone is always afraid it's going to cause parasites or something. Fish is expensive. People don't shoot squirrels or possum for themselves; and if I tried to serve rabbit I think my children would disown me. Actually, they might try to have me arrested. Bunnies are cute. Cows and pigs are cute, fish is expensive (plus: mercury). Chickens, well, they are loud, smelly, and peck your feet.

Ok, I don't actually know that for sure because I haven't truly spent a lot of time with chickens. When my mom was growing up in Kentucky, there were chickens running all over my grandfather's gentleman's farm. And when my grandfather was growing up in West Virginia - a lot of what his family ate came straight from the yard - what they grew and what they raised. I think it's a little sad that I am most intimate with chickens when they are already sliced into a cutlet and wrapped in plastic. But what can you do. I don't live in the country. The farmers I know, I know because they are standing under a tent in the parking lot of the GSB building once a week. Selling stuff from a truck.

I'm going off on a rant here - and it's doing this post no good whatsoever because the meal I made last night was indeed chicken, pre-sliced into a cutlet and dressed with ingredients that are either slightly exotic or out of season, or both. So much for my holier-than-thou-I-only-shop-at-farmer's-markets attitude. Because the reality is, my kids ate it and asked for more - Which means that this recipe is a keeper and I'm going to make it again.

I took a Martha Stewart recipe and bumped it up a bit. The original is in the December issue of Martha Stewart Magazine. If you have time, marinate it longer - I really only had time to throw the ingredients on it and let it sit out on the counter for an hour while I cooked up some rice.

I do not like this picture, it's too shiny. Food shouldn't be this shiny.

Lime & Basil Chicken

2 limes - juice one and a half for about a 1/4 of lime juice. Slice the last half for garnish
1/4 cup of grape seed oil
2 tblsp of lower sodium soy sauce
1 shallot, thinly sliced
1 tbslp of brown sugar
1 tsp of dried basil
1 tsp salt
some grindings of pepper
8 thinly sliced chicken cutlets (or you can take 4 boneless chicken breasts and with a very sharp knife, slice them in half length wise)
1/4 cup of white wine (something slightly sweeter - but not too sweet)
1/4 cup of chicken stock
1/4 cup of fresh basil - (which I didn't have - however I did have the cool frozen basil from Trader Joe's - which comes frozen in these great little cubes - I used about four of those) plus a bit extra for garnish.

Mix the first 8 ingredients (limes through pepper) in a shallow dish - and then place the chicken in the dish flipping and swishing them until they are covered in marinade. Let them sit at least an hour, or, if you're more organized than I am, mix it all up in the morning before you head out for your day so they are all nice and marinady when you get home.

Then, heat your saute pan until it is very hot. Drop 3 or 4 cutlets in the pan (don't over crowd the pan, it's ok to do all this in sections). Turn the heat to medium and sear the cutlets on one side for about 4 minutes. Then flip them and sear for another 4 minutes. Repeat with remaining cutlets. Let the chicken rest in a bowl where all their chickeny juices can collect.

When all the chicken is cooked and relaxing in the bowl, pour the wine and chicken broth into the pan along with the marinade. Don't worry, you are going to cook the marinade - in fact start scraping up all the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Let the marinade come to a boil, stirring all the while. Reduce it down so that it is about half the amount, add the basil, and then return the chicken to the pan, cooking to heat it through over a lower heat. Serve the whole thing over a nice steaming bowl of rice. You can sprinkle some of the lovely basil over all, which I didn't do because I didn't have any. I did, however, lovingly place a sliced lime right on top of your cutlets. Very pretty. And it keeps the cows happy...

Steak & Potatoes -

2011-12-02T23:41:00.000-05:00

I did not take this picture which is why it looks so good...

So, the other day, I called my friend Laura and invited her to the movies. I wanted to see if she could drop everything and run to a 6pm movie with me, but she couldn't, so we planned on seeing a later show - 8:45 in Center City. It was Sunday, and I decided I'd make dinner for the family - I grabbed some steak, and sliced some potatoes, and sauteed some green beans. Then one daughter came home and started talking to me about the movie she'd just seen, and my husband began a conversation with me about what we were going to do with the leaves outside and my older daughter came down and declared that she wasn't going to eat, and then there was that fight. At about 7:45 I got the dinner on the table. We all sat down, and I played some Christmas music, and we all started talking about - actually, I have no idea what we were all talking about - but it was just one of those shiny moments that happen when you are completely involved - then the phone rang. It was 8:28. On the other line was my friend Laura who I was supposed to have picked up at 8:15. She said, don't tell me you forgot. But I did! I had actually completely forgotten that she and I had made a plan to do something FUN not two hours before.

This is my life - in a nutshell. I have no ability to attend. I'm like a freaking magpie - something - anything - shiny distracts me. I cannot hold a thing in my head: not plans I've made, not conversations I've had, not important things I'm supposed to do. Maybe it's age. I'm getting on up there, much to my own disbelief. Maybe it's because I have a lot on my plate with teaching and kids and - ok that's it, just teaching and kids - that seems to be enough. But even if I make a plan for something fun - if it's not bright and shiny and right in front of my face - it flies out of my mind like a goose flees winter.

This is why I like simple foods like steak and potatoes. It is the only thing that I can make when I am mightily distractible that I can do, and do fairly well, with out, well, as my 15 year old likes to say (a little too often) totally f*ing it up. Throw the stake in a hot saute pan, on a hot grill pan, or on a hot grill outside. Set the timer. Flip the steak. Reset the timer. Take the steak off and let it rest in a bit of marinade (I like to reverse marinade because who has the foresight to marinade earlier in the day). Flip it. Let it sit in the marinade a bit longer. It's that easy.

cutest freaking sous chef in the world

Potatoes are easy like this too - I always seem to have potatoes kicking around my kitchen. (Literally kicking around because some times my sous-chef likes to stretch her long paws up into the bowl on the counter just to see what she can get - and what she usually gets is a potato which she doesn't really like, but hey, she's a dog, and it's food, so she kind of takes a few bites before leaving it under the table where it gets kicked across the room a few times before some one thinks to pick it up.)

And while your steak rests and your potatoes rest you can toss some fresh green beans in a pot of salted water. Or frozen green beans in a pot of salted water. Or if you're feeling ambitious you can throw said fresh or frozen green beans in a saute pan with salt, water, a little olive oil and a crushed clove of garlic and let all that simmer on a low heat until the water has evaporated, at which point in time you give the whole thing a lazy stir so the oil salt and garlic get properly incorporated with the beans. But that's it. That's the whole effort - and a desultory effort at that.

This is the kind of food where all you have to do is set the timer on your iPhone while you drift into the family room to watch the last half of How I Met Your Mother (which the 15yrold is obsessed with) or Adventure Time (an obsession of the 13yrold) or X Files reruns (the husband). You can make this dinner if you are reading a really good book you can't put down which means you can only cook with one hand because you're holding the book with the other.

And this is the kind of meal I make when I have about 30 papers to grade, and I've been distracted by all sorts of shiny (ie movies with my friend... cleaning out the refrigerator ... organizing necklaces in my jewelry box) and I have to return said papers to students tomorrow. At 8am.

I'm making a lot of steak, potatoes and green beans these days.

My Favorite Steak

about 1 1/4 lb London Broil steak
garlic - as much as you happen to have
thyme, or tarragon, or parsley, or cilantro - what ever.
1/3 or so of olive oil. Or grapeseed oil, or canola oil
1/4 cup of lemon juice, or red or white wine or balsamic vinegar - or any other acidy liquid you have hanging about. My favorite is lemon juice, but red wine is also awesome. And if you use red wine throw in a splash of Worcestershire sauce - you won't regret it.
1 TBlsp of Sea Salt, or 1 tsp of Kosher salt or table salt
LOTS of fresh ground pepper.

Heat your pan super hot. Turn on the fan over your stove. Oil the steak, dash with a bit of salt, but not too much. Grind some pepper over the whole thing. Slap it in the pan. (Or grill). DO NOT TOUCH IT FOR 7 MINUTES. Then flip it over DO NOT TOUCH IT FOR 5-7 MINUTES depending on how well done you like your steak and how thick the whole thing is.

Meanwhile dump the rest of the ingredients in a dish that will fit the steak. Whisk it all up. When the steak is done, plonk it in the dish and turn it so that both sides have been dredged in marinade. Tent with foil and DO NOT TOUCH IT FOR 10 MINUTES. Flip the steak and let it be while you finish making the rest of the meal, setting the table, and drinking your Manhattan.

Cut your steak thinly and on the bias.

Potatoes:
Here's one way to do 'em -
New potatoes or Yukon Golds, quartered
Sea or Kosher salt
about 1/8th to 1/4 cup of olive oil

Preheat your oven to 400 or so. Dump the potatoes in a roasting pan, a cast iron skillet or a jelly roll pan. Swirl with olive oil and salt. Roast for 20 min.

OR slice your potatoes into match sticks, and do the same thing, only don't roast as long. Matchsticks will be cooked in 10 minutes

Green Beans - I don't actually need to tell you how to cook green beans, do I?

Best. Lunch. Ever.

2011-09-30T11:46:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it has very little to do with cooking and everything to do with what you have on hand. Sure, you could call this a melted cheese sandwich with a bit of preserves on top. But if that's all you see, then what we have here is a failure to communicate.

Because this a melted cheese sandwich made from fresh Okracity cheese from Stoudts - hand made cheese with, yes, roasted okra dotted throughout it. I bought it from the cheese lady at the Farmer's market yesterday. This cheese sandwich is also made from my own bread and topped with cranberry chutney that I picked up when traveling in Maine this summer.

And THIS was my breakfast yesterday:

I'll admit, I'm a fan of the bread and cheese combo for the small meals. What you see here, is a cup of coffee from local a coffee roaster, my bread (again) and a bit of locally produced goat cheese from Whole Foods. Perfection.

I'm always making stuff like this for myself on the weekends - a little hummus on crackers with some minced parsley and squeeze of lemon. Avocado slices on a toasted English Muffin with a sprinkling of sea salt, maybe a thin slice of tomato. A little leftover Rao's Spaghetti sauce, straight from the jar with a bit of fresh basil straight from the yard, maybe a little cheese, or not, on top of toasted pita, thinly sliced bread, or just some water crackers. Bread, goat cheese, pumpkin butter. Sliced grapes, feta, and chopped haricot vert salad. Maybe with a can of chopped drained tuna thrown in...

Whatever you have. Smith has gotten into the habit of waiting to see what I'll make myself, before he goes to his default, PB&J. Sometimes he sticks with the standard (particularly if what I'm putting together involves olives), sometimes he takes what I've got, and adds his own touch. The big dinners are important, sitting together at a table with your spouse and children, or your fiends is an important part of the day, but it is the small meals, often eaten alone, which make up the majority of our dining experiences. And these, in my opinion, should be tasty, created from the foods you love. Pure comfort even if it's five minutes in the middle of the busiest part of the day.

Pancakes (Dairy Free)

2011-09-16T10:44:00.000-04:00

Poison

So for the past, oh, 3 years or so, our Emm has eaten a Van's Chocolate Chip Waffle for breakfast. Van's Waffles are the best frozen waffles you can buy. They toast up crunchy on the outside, tender on the inside and have an excellent vanilla taste. And because I don't allow my kids to have syrup on their waffles on a school day, I gave her maple flavored yogurt to dip her waffle in.

If you read my previous post, you already know the disaster that created.

The third ingredient in Van's Chocolate Chip Waffles? That's right, Non Fat Milk. And yogurt. She doesn't even like yogurt, I just made her eat it because I thought it would be better for her than maple syrup. It's like when they were children, and they'd be all, Mommy my feet hurt, and I'd be like no they don't we just bought you new shoes, but they'd complain and complain and you take them to the shoe store and it turns out their little feet have grown two solid sizes and you've been jamming their feet into those now tiny shoes. It was like that. Only worse. A lot worse. Yeah, so I don't feel badly about that AT ALL.

We started giving her oatmeal for a quick breakfast, but on weekends we are serious fans of pancakes. (With a side of bacon, of course.) And I always made pancakes with buttermilk and butter - but I wanted to see if I could make them dairy free - and still have them taste good. I started out using vanilla flavored soy milk and the dreaded earth's best margarine (again, previous post for what I think about THAT stuff) - and the pancakes were passable - but didn't get that nice crust we liked that came about when you buttered the pan. Plus, the soy milk, no matter how much you try to hide it with vanilla flavoring, to me just tastes off. There is an aftertaste. I know lots of people like it, and I'm certainly not hating on the whole soy industry - it's just - for us, well, ew. Plus in all my breast cancer research, there is a link between soy and hormones and breast cancer, so the girls and I are probably better off not drinking it. So we switched it out for vanilla flavored rice milk - and that was great. No weird after taste - but I was still left with, ok I'm just going to say it, flaccid pancakes. Ew.

I don't know why it took me so long, but I finally switched the margarine out for good old canola oil, and LOW AND BEHOLD, the perfect pancakes. Add to them some dairy free chocolate chips and they were amazing. Plus, no stomach ache. And the other family members loved them. So happiness all around.

I like to mix the dry ingredients for my pancakes and just leave it sitting in a jar so that it takes me a fraction of the time to make breakfast in the morning.

To do this scoop 4 cups of all purpose flour, 3 TBLSP of baking powder, 2 tsp of baking soda, a scant TLBS of sea or kosher salt and 2 TLBS of sugar into a large jar and put the lid on and shake it up. If you want to get fancy, you can divide this mixture into two smaller jars and drop a vanilla bean into one and an orange peel in the other - which will gently flavor your pancakes. Or get crazy and drop in a cinnamon stick.

Then, when you are ready to make your pancakes, break 1 large egg into a large bowl. Add 1 cup of vanilla flavored rice milk and 1TLBS of canola or other lightly flavored oil (grapeseed is good, but olive oil is too strong) to the bowl and give it a good whisking.

Then dump in 1 cup of the pancake mixture. If you mixture is plain, add 1 tsp of vanilla before mixing it. If it is already flavored, leave it be. Play around - have fun - go nuts with the flavors. Mix it up until it is only marginally lumpy. If it looks too dry, add more rice milk. I don't like my batter too dry.

While you are doing all this, you should be preheating your pan or griddle. Just before you make you pancakes - add a swirl of canola oil (this is usually a couple of tblsps) - Cook the pancakes over medium heat until the bubbles burst, then flip 'em. I find that if I cook them on to high a heat they burn quickly, probably because of the oil - but do be sure your pan is good and hot before you add the oil. Then turn the heat down to medium when you add the batter.

We are big fans of adding chocolate chips. Emm has become addicted to these Enjoy Life Mega Chunk chocolate chips which are dairy, wheat and nut free. A handful of these sprinkled on top of the pancake while it cooks, before you flip it - takes it from darn good to spectacular.

Heavenly - dairy (and stomach ache) FREE

Goodbye Yellow Brick

2011-09-10T17:43:00.000-04:00

Yes. That yellow brick. After 2 years of agonizing stomach aches, innumerable blood and skin tests, one endoscopy and a truck load of prescription strength Prilosec, we have our answer: Em is allergic to dairy.

OH. MY. GOD. I was kind of hoping for something simple, like corn. It's not like corn is in everything... oh wait. Actually, it is.

So, my heart is breaking. Of course on the bright side, we'll all probably lose a few pounds here since I won't be adding tablespoons of butter to everything a la Paula Deen. On the dark dark dark side: mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes are a staple in our house. I know one can mash up potatoes with chicken stock (in fact, I usually boil my potatoes in a combination of chicken stock and and water), but to get them super super creamy you need butter. A lot of butter.

Want to know what is NOT going to cut it for the mashed potatoes? This:

This would be margarine. I don't care that it's in gold packaging, I don't care that it is organic margarine (an oxymoron if I ever heard one) it's margarine and it sucks.

Years ago, in the late 70's when my parents and the parents of everyone else I knew was on a heart-healthy-health-food kick and consuming enormous amounts of margarine (...if you think it's butter but it's not...) - I remember my grandfather taking a stand. Margarine was simply not allowed in his house. My grandmother would plead, "But, Jimmy, our arteries..." and my grandfather would have none of it. "That stuff'll kill you," he said plainly. This was a man who salted his cantaloupe half each morning. Who drank a Co-Cola every day, and a cocktail every night. Sure he only lived briefly into his seventies, but he LIVED. You know? I miss that guy.

So, margarine isn't in the genes. And I think olive and other expeller pressed oils are fine - and can be used in a lot of things in place of butter (see my next post which will be on truly yummy dairy free pancakes) but - oh - dear - the mashed potatoes.

No recipe in this post, just mourning here. Just mourning...

Sauteed Pork With Brussel Sprouts Leeks and Apples, Plus, Creamy Polenta

2011-07-11T15:19:00.000-04:00

OK - here's the picture of my latest creation. Right off the bat I want to say that my daughter Mads took a much more appetizing picture - but I'm a spaz and I couldn't find the thingy to connect to the camera and the laptop to upload the pictures so I had to upload the ones I took with my phone. Hopefully, you get the idea that this was delicious and not at all slimy.

This was really fun to create. It started with Ina Garten's recipe for creamy polenta found on page 182 of her book, How Easy Is That? - I was thumbing through it yesterday looking for ideas for meals this week before heading out to the grocery store. I love polenta - but no one else in my family likes it as much as I do - still every now and then I just need to make something I like, right? Polenta is pure comfort food. I think it's because I spent a lot of time in Kentucky in the summers and my cousin Martha was fan of grits back then. Plain grits with melted butter. I remember trying them for the first time in my Aunt's kitchen. She had that crazy green and white trellis wall paper in her breakfast room that a lot of people had in the '70s. And she had this beautiful chandelier over the breakfast table that was white and shaped like vines and flowers. Martha made the grits for me, and at first I thought they were tasteless. And gritty. (Hence, grits - probably - right?) But then that butter melted in, and I added more salt, and I was hooked. I cannot pass up grits if it is on a menu. Nor can I pass up grit's Italian cousin - cheesey, creamy Polenta. Fuggeddaboutit. The best.

Then I had this idea that the pork sirloin I'd bought would be tasty with the polenta - AND I had this thought that my sage outside - sitting pretty on my deck was getting a bit large and could do with a trim. And it dawned on me that those things would taste nicely together - polenta, sage, pork...

Of course when I went to make the ~~grits~~ polenta, I did not have most of the ingredients - despite going to the grocery store less than an hour before firing up the stove. (see "spaz" in the 1st paragraph) Ina calls for chicken stock. I had beef stock. Ina calls for parmesan - I had nought but a rind, dammit. But I always have goat cheese. And of course, when I was at Whole Foods, I intended to pick up some sort of vegetable to go with the pork and polenta but, as usual, I got distracted by something shiny and forgot - So, did what I always do and winged it. Had about a 1/4 bag of frozen Brussels Sprouts and a 1/4 bag of leeks in the freezer - which I threw in after cooking the pork. Wanted to make a wine sauce to deglaze the pan - no wine - only beer. Used that. Then I thought it looked like it needed plumping up, so I added the apple and it was a home run.

Sauteed Pork, With Leeks, Apples and Brussels Sprouts over Creamy Polenta

For the Polenta:

(I made this to serve 4 people, three of whom claimed they didn't like polenta all that much - this recipe is easily doubled. Doubled it should serve 4-6)

1/4 cup olive or canola oil

10 or so whole sage leaves

2 Cups of Beef Broth (low sodium in you have it - you can also use chicken stock, homemade or not - you know me, I'm all about using what you have)

1 minced garlic clove

4 fresh sage leaves

1 cup of polenta or stone ground grits

Kosher salt to taste (I think I used a tsp & 1/2 of it)

Freshly ground pepper to taste (probably about 1/2 a tsp - I love pepper)

1/4 cup of creme fraiche - (I can't figure out how to make that look French - but you know what I'm talking about) - or you can use sour cream - but creme fraiche is better -

1/4 of goat cheese (instead of the parmesan - ! And better! Who doesn't love goat cheese, right Ina?)

First, heat the olive oil until it is very hot, and drop your sage leaves in a few at a time until they are crispy. Take them out and let them drain on a paper towel. Repeat until all the sage leaves are crispy. Set this aside.

In a medium sized pot heat the broth, garlic and sage leaves until the broth has hit a rolling boil. Slowly, whisking constantly, add the polenta and continue to whisk until it is all absorbed. Switch your stirring implement to a spoon and keep stirring until the broth is absorbed and the polenta is thick. Take your polenta off the heat and whisk in the creme fraiche and the goat cheese. Adjust your seasonings. My seasonings were a bit salty because my beef broth was NOT low sodium, so I had to add more creme fraiche until it tasted right. This is never a bad thing. More creme fraiche is only ever a good thing.

For the Pork:

4 bonless sirloins of Pork cut into 1/4 inch strips. ( I have to confess, I don't know how much pork I had - I threw the package away before I wrote it down. Suffice it to say, I had 2 packs of 2 sirloin cuts of pork - maybe a lb all together? I don't know (refer back to "spaz"))

1/8 cup or so of olive oil

2 TBLSP of fresh sage, minced

1 large apple, cored and cubed

1 1/2 cups frozen Brussels Sprouts

1/2 cup frozen leeks (you can get these at Trader Joes! Yay!)

1/4 cup beer (I used a darkish Mexican style beer - but something more stoudt-ish would be good too)

1 TBSLP butter - I used my salted Kerry Gold - because that's all I had (What DID I buy at Whole Foods yesterday, you must be asking yourself, and the answer is, I don't know. Sigh.)

salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a sautee pan or cast iron skillet until it shimmers. Add the pork in batches and sautee it until it is lightly browned - just about 3-4 min a batch. Take it out of the oil and let it sit - repeat until all the pork is cooked. Add the frozen leeks and brussels sprouts (I didn't even bother to try and defrost them - if you have fresh ones of these things, you might need to pre-cook the sprouts a minute in a pot of boiling water or a microwave because they'll never cook here otherwise - fresh leeks you can just chop and throw in) - add the beer and scrape up all the browned bits from the pork. When the leeks are nice and wilty and the sprouts are pretty much defrosted in the middle, add the apples to the mix, then return the pork and any of the accumulated juices to the pot. Stir all this around until the pork is heated through - about 5 or so minutes - take one of your pieces out to check it - then stir in the butter and add salt and pepper to taste. With a slotted spoon, remove the pork and sprouts, but try to leave some apple chunks behind. Let your sauce simmer, and smash the bits of apple right in to thicken it.

Serve the pork over the polenta - Remember that sage you fried? Pour a bit of the oil over each serving and crumble your fried sage leaves on top.

The sad thing is that I made the polenta fully expecting to have leftovers for lunch today - and darn my family - nothing is left. (insert frowny face here.)

I believe this counts as a full meal because it included starch, protein and vegetable - even the dairy - all on one plate - which should make Mrs. Obama very happy. OH - one thing we DID buy at Whole Foods - a very delicious strawberry rhubarb pie, which we ate for dessert. Mmmmmm.

LET THEM EAT CAKE! - Oops - wrong revolution, Still: CAKE!

2011-07-05T17:14:00.001-04:00

Red Velvet. I'm still perfecting it - so I'm not going to put the recipe up yet, but I couldn't possibly let a great title like that slip through my fingers.

Here she is - a grand old Lady:

My cake decorating skills leave a lot to be desired, I know. Usually I'm a little better, but I was rushed last night because the girls had their own plans for fireworks and the like and I was trying to get at least one daughter (and her friend) to eat a hamburger so I wouldn't have to receive the, "Mom, I've got a bad headache can you pick me up NOW," call. I hate that call - because if they'd only listened to me and had a little food...

Who am I kidding? They don't listen to me. They're 12 and 14. In ten years they might be ready to listen to me but until then I do my best to speak through their father (for whom they still have a bit of respect.)

We had fun this Fourth. Mads, her dad and I went to the usual parade - with the ooompa loompa band:

they old timey cars:

Plus your usual panoply of kids on bikes, floats made by parents featuring their infants, politicians (some more smarmy and blown dry than others) - police cars and fire trucks. The guy on stilts was there, as he is every year as well as the creepy, yet still somehow cool horse drawn hearse from the historic grave yard that borders our town. This is the very same hearse used in the 1800s to carry those who could afford it to their eternal resting places:

See what I did here - used my camera+ to make it LOOK old timey

even though I took these pictures yesterday- because I'm clever that way. (Love those horses)

Any way - even though I'm still working on my red velvet cake recipe (because frankly the one above was a bit dry) - I'll give you the method - (because everyone has this recipe) - for creating my awesome cream cheese frosting with which I frosted my July 4 cake:

Super Fluffy Cream Cheese Frosting:

3 cups of powdered sugar

2 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter room temp

tsp of good vanilla (the best you can afford)

pinch of salt (just regular old table salt, not sea salt)

1 package of cream cheese - room temp as well - chopped up into bits about a table spoon in size

Sift the powered sugar. Sift it again. And just to be on the safe side, sift it one more time. The main thing here is no lumps. At all. I mean it. If you see a lump sift it. Put your butter in a standing mixer if you have one - although a hand held is fine, it's just more boring because you have to whip the heck out of the butter - you just leave it in the bottom of the mixer getting all whipped up by the mixer until it's light and incredibly fluffy - then add the sugar about a cup at a time - letting it get all whipped into the butter before adding more. When all the sugar is whipped add the vanilla and pinch of sugar then add the cream cheese a block at a time until it is all incorporated and very very whipped.

Every time I write the word whipped I keep thinking that there's got to be a joke in there somehow involving Paris Hilton or a Kardashian - but I can't do it because I'm not a guy.

Anyway - when all your cream cheese is incorporated and, well, whipped, you will have the lightest most yummy cream cheese frosting ever. And if you want to make it chocolate, just swap out 1/2 cup of cocoa powder for 1/2 cup of sugar and sift, sift, sift and mix like mad. People will love it. Even if your cake is a little dry.

Happy 4th. Yay US.

Soup to Nuts. Actually, Halibut or Pork Chops with Pesto, Rice Salad, Grilled Vegetables

2011-06-30T19:03:00.000-04:00

Prepare yourself. This is an insanely long post. Here's a picture of the result, just as a little teaser...

My mom loves my blog - but she wants more. More than just one recipe for one dish. And she doesn't want to search around my blog picking and choosing, she wants me to do the work for her. And I guess since she raised me, and I guess since I spent umpteen years yelling for her to please bring me a glass of water/sandwich/cookie/toast when she was folding laundry in the basement and I was watching TV in the family room which was three steps from the kitchen, I might owe this to her.

So, Mom, this post's for you.

I love to make my dad fish for dinner because my mom is either allergic to or dislikes most all creatures from the sea and so, obviously, rarely cooks anything fishy for him at home. On Father's day this year I bought a lovely piece of Halibut from the fish market, as well as some really gorgeous pork chops for my mom and my girls. My husband, the other dad at the table, was planning on having a little of both. It was win win for everyone.

Here's what I did -

First, made a bit of pesto. This I did on Saturday because we were having our friends Mark and Barry over and Mark has made it clear that he just might love my pesto a little more than he loves me - which is ok because my pesto is freakin' good, if I say so myself. If you click on the words pesto in this or the above sentence, you will come to my recipe for both pesto and pork chops with pesto. OR you can make it the way I made it last Saturday - because I seem to make pesto differently every time.

Pesto:
1 to 2 cloves of garlic
1 large bunch of basil - cleaned and stemmed
1 large bunch of parsley - cleaned
zest of 1 lemon
juice of 1/2 a lemon (or to taste)
juice of 1/2 a lime (or to taste)
1/8 cup of freshly grated parmesan
1/8 cup of freshly grated pecorino romano
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil - (or more, just splash it in until it is the consistency you like)
sea salt and pepper to taste.

whir the garlic, basil and parsley (use the parsley stems - they have flavor which I learned from watching PAULA DEEN on the food network - I believe it is required to write her name in all caps) and the lemon zest and juices in your food processor or blender. Add the cheese, whir it up again. With the motor running, slowly add the olive oil until it is at the right consistency. Give it a taste and add pepper but only add salt if it's absolutely necessary.

On Sunday morning - I rubbed this pesto all over the chops and put them back in the fridge. If I'd had my wits about me, I'd have done this Saturday, however my wits were not about whatsoever and were probably taking a much needed holiday with a gin & tonic out behind the shed. (The children are on summer break, need I say more...)

Also on Sunday morning, I cooked a batch of basmati rice for the rice salad I wanted to serve at dinner. I always cook rice the same way - I think most people have their own fail safe rice recipe - but if you don't - this is mine:

boil 2 cups of water, add a tablespoon of oil or butter and 1 cup of rice, cover your pot, turn it down and simmer for 15 min. Turn the heat off, DON'T TOUCH THE POT, let the rice sit covered for 10 min or more. Open up the pot and fluff with a fork.

When the rice was done, but while it was still hot, I added 1/2 cup of frozen peas and half of my vinaigrette. This is important, because you want the peas to unfreeze, but not to cook, and you want your vinaigrette to be absorbed by the still warm rice.

Here's the vinaigrette I used - it was the same one I used for my last post (back to the farmer's market - click on the link) - I used marjoram for the herb. Then I refrigerated the rice.

My mom and dad came over around 5ish, and we all sat around and outside getting eaten by mosquitos until we couldn't stand it no more - and then every one went in and my husband fired up the kettle grill. I have to say, right now, that he is becoming the master firemaker. It is an art form and a beautiful thing to see. He banks most of the heat on one side of the grill so there's a hot side and a cool side, and he's my hero for that. I sliced two zucchini lenghtwise, trimmed my spring onions, and cut the peppers in half tossed all of it in olive oil, and grilled them first while the fire was very hot.

Meanwhile, I slathered my beautiful halibut with my pesto and let it, and the chops sit out a while so they could come to room temperature.

Took the veg off the grill, sprinkled them with this pear/balsamic vinegar that I bought last month at Garces Trading Co. and let them sit.

Ran back inside, chopped up some basil and cherry tomatoes and parsley and tossed all that into my now cold rice salad. Poured the remainder of my lemon vinaigrette over it. Tossed it. Tasted it. Added a pinch or two of sea salt and a bit more pepper.

Back outside, I put my pork chops on the grill - on the side without the heat - 5 min a side because they were rather thick. Then 1 min on each side over the very hottest part of the grill to get the good grill marks. Pork goes on a platter to rest covered with foil while ...

... Finally -cook the halibut. You have to clean the grill first with a crumpled up piece of foil because if anything at all is on your grill the fish will stick and that's the end of it. Use your tongs and rub the grill with the foil, then wad up as many paper towels as you can stand to use and oil the grill. Then oil the fish, even though it's already smeared with pesto -

I grilled the flesh side for about a minute - then flipped it and grilled it another 7 or 8 min on the skin side. By this time the fire was much cooler, so I grilled the fish pretty close to the coals.

Whew. Fish rice salad, grilled vegetables. Happy Dad, Happy Husband/Father of my children. Both girls and their Nana happily gnawing on pork chops - It was all good.

Ice cream for dessert - got my Dad's favorite - butter pecan - everyone else got chocolate.

Back to the Farmer's Market!

2011-06-17T22:52:00.000-04:00

Beautiful beets at the farmer's market last week. I think they were called bullseye beets because they were crimison on the outside, but white like radishes on the inside with a little red bullseye when you cut them in half. I cut them up tossed them in sea salt and olive oil and threw them on the grill along with some tender broccolini - then I dressed the whole thing up in lemony vinaigrette. Here are the results:

This is a truly terrible picture, out of focus and you can't really see how beautiful the beets and broccoli looked together. Dang.

I love the vinaigrette I make. I can eat it by the spoonful. Or if I have fresh bread, by the loaf-ful.

Throw a crushed or minced garlic clove in the bottom of a measuring cup. If you happen to have been to Trader Joe's recently, and they have this:

...then you are in luck my friend. I love this stuff - it's pre-crushed garlic in these little squares that you keep in the freezer and you plonk into whatever you happen to be making - such as vinaigrette.

On top of the garlic, spoon some dijon or a nice grainy country mustard - anywhere from a tsp to a tblsp - depending on your taste. Grate in a bit of lemon rind, then squeeze in half the lemon. Chop some herbs - tarragon is good - I am growing thyme and marjoram in my sad little garden (yes, the one with the one with the very hungry caterpillar eating my fennel - as pictured below) which is what I threw in my vinaigrette. (Left the caterpillar outside. It's still eating my fennel.)

Stir your ingredients all around with a baby whisk or a fork. Pinch in some salt and pepper. Add about 1/4 cup of sherry vinegar then 1/4 to 1/2 cup of olive oil. I like my vinaigrette on the tangy side. You can play around with the lemon juice too. Add more salt and pepper if you need to as well.

there's my cute baby whisk!

Pour it all on top of what ever you like, salad, a steak fresh from the grill, roasted potatoes, or, in this case some still crispy beets and brocollini hot off the grill.

I promise, this vinaigrette will make you so happy you won't care about the garlic breath you'll have the next day.

Well, this has been a long way of saying I'm so glad the Farmer's Market is back in business for the season.

This is What Happens When Mom Gets a Full-Time Job

2011-05-30T14:24:00.000-04:00

I know you're wondering what happened to me. Give you this Thanksgiving teaser and then fall off the face of the earth for a while. To brine or not to brine? - Give you the answer? Well, first, let me sing you a song of meatballs and jarred sauce.

Because this is what happens when mommy gets a job:

Trader Joe's and take out.

That's right, right after Thanksgiving was the run down to finals at the University, and then, job over. I'd already been informed that there were no jobs for me there. I'd sent out resumes galore and had gotten no response, I was looking forward to a leisurely spring filled with lots of time and monetary anxiety. Lots of monetary anxiety.

I prepared and read finals. Christmas showed up. I created a decent Christmas - and I wanted to blog about it - I really did - but I was paralyzed with anxiety about my future jobless existence and looming bills.

So my advice is to be careful what you wish for - Cuz I got me, at the last minute, not one but 3 classes. And when I say the last minute, I mean I was hired with less than one week to prepare for 2 of the classes and 24 hours to prepare for the other. Yeah, you read that right, 24 hours. So, as an old employer of mine used to say, I was behind the airplane (yeah, it makes no sense, yet the image has stayed with me). And I remained behind the airplane an entire semester. Which meant that including the month I was paralyzed, I have not contributed to my blog for 6 months.

That's a long time to leave people hanging and wondering about brine.

So let me talk about Trader Joe's for a minute. I love the freaking party meatballs there. And here's a tip, if you have a leftover jar of Rao's Marinara, and a left over jar of Newman's Own Alfredo Sauce, and 3 cups of leftover cooked pasta and a bag of those party meatballs, and if you dump them all into a large and wide sauce pan and heat the whole thing, your daughter will tell you it's the best meal you've ever made. Never mind you create fantastic recipes OUT OF YOUR HEAD - 2 kinds of jarred sauce and mushy pasta will win every time. Here's some more good things (hello Martha) about Trader Joe's. The pot stickers. They are amazing with rice noodles and a little soy sauce. And those suckers can be cooked up in less than three minutes with a glass of wine in one hand. You know what else is good from there? This pizza with artichokes and goat cheese. Kids eat the plain pizza, Smith and I chow that one. I could go on, because we spent the last six months alternating Trader Joe's food, with rotisserie chicken and frozen vegetables and take out from Elevation Burger - because I had lessons to plan, man!

I'm coming out of it now. The girls have a couple more weeks of school - all the grades have been turned in for one of my classes, and I just have a couple more weeks for the other 2. I made dinner - a real freaking dinner - the other night for the first time in ages. (more about that later) - and Smith and I are finally starting to ~~organize the crap we've been throwing in~~ straighten the guest room.

And so, to brine:

In the end, the brine won. I brined and roasted turkey number one - and it was succulent and tasty and before I could take a picture of it, it was reduced to this:

The grilled turkey also tasted incredible, but it was dry. It looked better though, crispy and a little charred, it had an excellent smoky quality and it took a lot less time to grill than I anticipated. - I think maybe this year, I'll brine and grill the turkey. Then again, this year, we are thinking of bagging the whole Thanksgiving thing and heading to Disney World.

To Brine or not to Brine

2010-11-23T18:51:00.000-05:00

I like to imagine Shakespeare all done up in a frilly little apron with a chef's toque balanced on his head trying to decide
whether 'tis nobler for the bird to suffer overnight

The salt and herbs of outrageous fortune (particularly when purchased from Whole Foods)

Or to baste, thrice, upon a skin rubbed with butter

And, by opposing the brine, end one step of prep. To baste, to brine--

No more--and by basting to hope we end

The dry bird, and the thousand natural gacks

That dried out flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To baste, to brine--

To baste--perchance to forget to baste: ay, there's the rub,

For in that dearth of basting what chalkiness may come

When we do shuffle out the mortal fowl,

Must give us pause.

Tonight, I cook the brine:

my pretty brine

I am using a brine for chicken I found in Ad Hoc At Home - by French Laundry dude Thomas Keller - I haven't changed it at all - so I probably can't just reprint it without getting sued (not that so many in the world read this blog - In reality I'm probably quite safe). However, the important thing to know is that you should use 10 oz of kosher salt - (I use Davids because it doesn't have any anti-caking agents in it, it's just pure salt), one quart of water and 1/2 a cup of honey. Then throw in whatever herbs or other flavor agents you choose. (garlic, lemons, parsley for example...) All this is for a 10 - 12 lb bird.

You have to cook your brine the day before you brine your bird because it has to cool thoroughly before you dunk your bird in it. Then don't let the bird sit in the brine more than 12 hours or your turkey will taste like a plate of table salt.

I'm also planning on cooking a 10lb turkey the regular way (I have 20 people coming, and, perhaps more alarming, 4 of them are teenaged boys) - although I'm going to butterfly that bird, and cook it upside down for an hour before flipping it.

I'll let you know which turns out better - perhaps Hamlet's poultry ponderings will be answered anon...

From The Shameless Self-Promotion Department:

2010-11-23T07:41:00.001-05:00

This is my flash fiction just published on Melusine! (click on shameless self-promotion above for the link)

A Bucket of Bread (dough)

2010-11-14T15:47:00.001-05:00

Check it out:

I bought this great book Artisan Bread In Five Minutes a Day - and while it does take a bit more than 5 minutes - I have been baking bread just about every other day with the recipes there-in. This is what one recent loaf looked like:

wow. this is one blurry picture. sorry.

Beautiful, right? And I have, almost single-handedly been eating a loaf of bread a day. With Irish Butter. Oh. My. God. I have to stop. My double chin is going to develop its own double chin.

So, what you do, is mix up a big batch of bread dough in a big tub, like the one pictured above. I got that one from the King Arthur website. It's pretty easy - in a big tub or bowl, stir together 3 cups of warm water, 2TBLSP of yeast, 1 TBSLP kosher salt and I add 1TBLSP of brown sugar. Let that sit for a while, then add 5 cups of flour and squish it all together with both hands like it's wet clay and you're six. Let all that sit at room temperature for 2 hours - or so - then refrigerate it over night. In the morning hack off a 1lb portion (about two large handfuls) - form it into a ball or a football shape - let it sit out for 2 hours, or all day if need be - there's nothing in it to spoil - and then when you are on your way home from teaching, call your daughter and ask her to preheat the oven to 450. After she's finished arguing with you about it (E:"but mom, I'm watching HOUSE!" K: "On the DVR! Which you can PAUSE for 3 minutes to punch three numbers on the controls!"), and with a huge I-do-so-much-for-YOU-what-have-you-done-for-ME-lately-sigh gets up and does it, you can be smug the rest of the way home that tonight you and your family will feast on fresh baked bread even if you accompany it with canned soup and frozen veggies.

When you get home, dust the dough with flour, make a couple of slashes in the top and slide it in the oven. I don't have a pizza stone (which is what the book recommends*) so I've been baking it on my massive cast iron skillet which you should throw in the oven to preheat about 10 minutes before throwing the bread on top of it. The book suggests pouring a cup of water into a pan on the rack above the bread - which I've done a few times, but which, I have to say, has not created the desired extra crispy crust that was promised. So I don't do it because I'm lazy. Bake the bread for 30- 45 min - you want the crust to be fairly dark - darker than you'd think - because the dough is so wet. Resist, resist, resist cutting into the bread for an hour or so after you take it out because it really does your bread a disservice - releasing all the steam before it's done, and causing it to be soggy. Sometimes I can actually wait.

Buy this book, or get it from the library, because there's all this science behind the baking of this bread which you will want to read. Or, if you live in my neighborhood, be extra nice to me and I might just give you a loaf of bread for free. Before my double chin's double chin develops yet another double chin.

* I bought a pizza stone from I-don't-remember-where and every time I used it, it made the house smell like Elizabeth New Jersey, which is to say, chemicals. I thew it out.

Nine to Five

2010-11-07T14:56:00.002-05:00

Ok, more like noon to five, but whatever. I'm a working girl now, and even though I'm only teaching two days a week, it is amazing to me how much that has cut into my cooking time. (I do have essays to set, and articles to read and papers to grade... so there!) My wonderful mother, bless her heart, has brought us dinner about once a week from this amazing Italian deli somewhere near her. My family is addicted to the chicken marsala - (Smith and I recently got into a brief but intense tiff over who would get the leftovers for lunch the next day) - but I still have to make dinner 5-6 nights a week and lunch for the kids & husband the next day. (I know, they should all be making their own lunches, and sometimes they do, but I also admit to feeling so thoroughly OUT of their lives at school and work, I actually kind of enjoy it.) And then there are those last minute things your children like to spring on you.

For instance, last Wednesday. A good friend's son was in town to visit colleges in the area, I had student conferences starting at noon, my class to teach and another student conference directly after class. Then I had to drive down to Center City to pick up my friend's son. (I know I'm being particularly parenthetical in this post, but I just want to say, that though I do have friends who have college-aged children, those friends had their kids when they were 12. 12, I tell you. We are all still very young. That's all I'm going to say on this matter right now.)

As I'm driving home, Em calls to tell me she volunteered that I'd bring muffins or cupcakes to school the next day for a bake sale.

It's 5:30pm. We have a guest for the night. I'VE ALREADY GOT DINNER MADE (you read that right - yes I was that organized.) All I need to do when I get home is warm it up and cook some pasta. I even have fresh bread waiting to be baked (more on this in my next post). Halloween candy for dessert.

And, of course, I haven't been to the grocery story in quite some time, because, if I don't have time to cook (something I like to do), I most certainly don't have time to get to the store (something I HATE).

But because I'm the kind of mom who says how high when her children say jump, I spent the whole car ride home thinking about ingredients I may or may not have in the pantry. Flour? Only cake flour. Canola oil? Not likely, there's unsalted butter though... Chocolate chips? Nope. Turns out several grubby little hands had demolished those by the fistful over the past few weeks. Lots of apples. Lots and lots of apples. So, apple muffins.

I got home, and put dinner together, and had fun talking with my friend's son (who, unlike my own children, helped me tidy the kitchen) (although if my kids were at someone else's house they'd probably help there) and made apple muffins. I started with a recipe from Nigella Lawson's cookbook, Nigella Express for bananna butterscotch muffins. And then I used what I had.

I have no idea whether the muffins sold well because Em got a stomach ache and came home early the next day.

As Alanis Morrisette would say, isn't that ironic. *

These are not the Applesauce muffins. These are chocolate chip muffins I made a different day. I sent the apple ones to school before photographing them. However, this post was looking so sad and blank, I decided to post this picture hoping it the chocolate chips wouldn't be noticeable. They are. I'm just going to keep it up anyway.

Applesauce Muffins

1 cup of cake flour
2/3 cup of all purpose, or white whole wheat flour (which is what I used)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp of cinnamon - or apple pie spice
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup melted butter

2 eggs beaten up with a fork
1 1/4 cups applesauce
1 cup of diced skinned apples

1tsp cinnamon
1TBLSP granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 400 and line a 12 cup muffin tin with liners. (You will hate yourself if you don't use a liner. No matter how much you butter or oil your tin, the muffins will stick - if you don't have liners use parchment cut into little squares. If you haven't got parchment then aluminum foil will do, if you haven't got foil, well then God bless you.) (Holidays are around the corner, but my family will not allow me to play anything from my vast collection of Holiday music until Thanksgiving. Sigh.) (moving on.)

Dump all the dry ingredients into a big bowl and stir them around a bit. Add the eggs and melted butter. Stir. Fold the applesauce and diced apples into this mixture.

Divide equal quantities into the muffin tin (I use an ice cream scooper) and bake for 20 minutes - or so. Mix the cinnamon with the sugar and sprinkle on the muffins the moment they come out of the oven so it has a chance to melt in a bit.

* I know full well many believe Alanis Morrissette used "ironic" incorrectly. However dictionary.com does allow this definition of irony: an outcome of events contrary to what was, or might havebeen, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/irony

In my case, I believe this use of "ironic" holds up...

Apricot Chicken - or, The Yummiest Chicken Ever

2010-10-25T21:49:00.000-04:00

Oh My God - it's been a month since I posted. I just don't know what happened. Well, other than the start of school for the girls and the start of a new teaching job, then Em's birthday and my [redacted]-year high school reunion. I don't know why this all has to be so stressful, it just has and while I've been cooking and even taking pictures, I just haven't been able to carve out the time to write.

The funny thing is, I didn't take a picture of the yummiest chicken ever for this post - but since my kids LOVED it - (have even mentioned several times since they ate it how much they loved it) - I thought I'd better post this recipe before I forget what I did.

So, here's the story: Last Sunday I was thumbing through Better Homes and Gardens and there was this recipe for chicken with tomato and dried apricots and raisins which, I actually thought sounded kind of yucky, but which suddenly reminded me that apricots and soy sauce are a very tasty combination and I hadn't made my apricot chicken in a long time.

Smith and I left the kids at home and made a little date of going to the grocery store. (That just sounds kind of sad, doesn't it - but it was actually fun! And he only bought blue cheese - no weird condiments! Yay Smith!) I bought a pack of chicken breasts (bone in, skin on), a jar of apricot jelly, some raisins, could not find dried apricots - or fresh for that matter, but oh well. Then, we went home and I spent a lovely Sunday afternoon cooking this up, sipping a glass of wine, and listening to Harry Shearer on NPR satirize all the wack-a-doodle politicians in this great country of ours.

Apricot Soy Chicken

4TBLSP Apricot Jam or Jelly
1 TBLSP Soy Sauce

2 -4 Chicken breasts (I bought 2 and cut them in half because no one in my family eats that much)
kosher salt to taste (probably 1-2 tsp)
pepper to taste (several grindings)
1 small onion
1 stalk of celery

1/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup chicken stock
1TBSLP soy sauce

1TBLSP of all purpose flour

Preheat your oven to 450.

Find a nice bowl and spoon the Apricot Jam or jelly into it, followed by the soy sauce. Stir it up using a whisk. It shouldn't be soupy - the jelly should keep it a bit thick.

Salt and pepper the chicken - both sides. Then rub the jelly/soy mixture all over the chicken breasts, making sure you shove a bit of it up under the skin. Chop up the onion and the celery and scatter them over the bottom of a 9x13 roasting pan. Don't use anything too big - because next you are going to nestle the chicken on top of the onions and celery and if you use a pan that's too big, you chicken will sit next to the onions and celery not on top of it. Stick the chicken in the oven for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, pour the chicken stock into the bowl that you used previously to mix up the apricot/soy stuff. Then, stir the raisins and the soy sauce into the chicken stock. When the chicken has roasted for 15 minutes, turn the heat down to 200. Pull your chicken out and pour this mixture over the whole thing. Put it back into the oven for about 20 - 35 minutes, depending on how thick your chicken breasts are. (If you have a thermometer, the chicken will be done at about 165) - take the chicken out of the oven and put the chicken on a plate and tent with foil. Then, pour the sauce, onions, raisins and all, into a sauce pan, sprinkle in the flour and stir stir stir. Let the sauce bubble away until it is reduced by a half -

When you are ready to serve, plate your chicken along with whatever frozen vegetable you've heated up at the last minute, and pour the sauce over the breast. Your children will love you for this, guaranteed.

Lemon Cupcakes Make Even the First Day of School Bearable

2010-09-24T09:52:00.001-04:00

School: we're two weeks in - how's it going for you? Frankly, I'm happy to be back on a schedule again - Every spring I'm thrilled that school is over thinking that my summer will stretch into long lazy days, reading down the pile of books on my nightstand, taking my children to amusement parks and beaches, wandering the halls of cool museums - the reality? Driving. I spend my summer driving. I drive the girls to camps, and summer classes, and pick up their friends, and drive for take out food and driving to the mall and when I'm not doing those things, I'm doing my usual errands, groceries, dry cleaners, dog food. This year I was hired as an adjunct at the very last minute by Temple, which is "yay" but also "holy #@% I have to prepare!" So, it's been hectic. Good hectic, but, you know.

Anyway - to deal with the anxiety of the start of school, Mads and I made a batch of yummy lemony cupcakes with vanilla pudding in the middle.

I admit, I used a boxed pudding which I had kicking around in my pantry (I intended to use it for a cake which I never made..) but the cupcakes we made from scratch.

They were so good - I didn't frost them - we thought that it would be overkill what with the pudding inside and all, so we made a little glaze with lemon juice, confectioners sugar and a teaspoon of heavy cream. Spectacular, if Mad's and I may brag a bit.

We doctored a basic yellow cupcake recipe from a sweet little book called Cupcakes! by Elinor Klivans - you can get it from Amazon here

Lemon and Pudding Cupcakes

3/4 cup of unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup of unbleached cake flour
1/2 tsp of baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 cup of sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter at room temp (if you haven't taken the butter out of the fridge in time - which Mad's and I hadn't - shred your butter on a box grater, spread it out on a plate and let it sit out while you get everything else together - it will come to room temp fairly quickly.
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp of lemon zest
1 Tblsp lemon juice (or to taste)
1/2 cup milk

Lemon Glaze:
3 TBLSP of Lemon juice
3 TBLSP of confectioners sugar
1 TBLSP of heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350

Sift the flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a small bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together. Beat in the eggs. Stop mixer and scrape down the sides. Add the lemon juice, zest, vanilla and beat for a bit.
Add the flour and milk

alternating between the 2
and finishing with the flour. Mix until just incorporated.

Fill your muffin tin with paper cups, and then, using a 2 inch ice cream scoop, scoop your batter into each cup. Lick the bowl - it's worth it.

Bake your cupcakes on the middle rack of your oven for 20 - 23 min - or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the middle cupcake comes out clean.

Let the cupcakes cool on a rack - while you make the pudding and the glaze.

I made pudding from a box - but this is how I made the glaze:

sift the confectioners sugar into a shallow bowl, using a whisk - whisk in the lemon juice until the glaze is runny. Then add just a small amount of heavy cream - up to 1 TBLSP- which cuts the acidity of the lemon a bit (you can leave this out if you want).

Once the pudding is made, and cooled and your cupcakes are cooled,

dip the tops of your cupcakes in the glaze. Wait a few minuets for the glaze

to set - then carefully cut the top off the cupcake, dig out a little well for the pudding and spoon about a teaspoon of the pudding into your well before replacing the top.

You have to store these in the fridge where they will last about 3-4 days. Or, you and your family can greedily eat them up all at once for the back-to-school comfort only a sweetly tart cupcake like this can bring...

Basil

2010-09-12T17:39:00.000-04:00

I have planter of basil in my yard. One. And even though I have an enormous amount of pesto in my fridge, and the plant still looks like this:

You can see how dry it's been - I watered this this morning

I cut it back almost every day, and over night it grows back to frightening heights, and I just want to say that plants like this scare me. It's all a little alien - like if we don't pay close attention they might just take over. Grass is like this; grass grows through blacktop. Freaky. Let's just say I'm looking forward to the winter months when things are dormant. In the meantime, I'm making pesto as fast as I can. Since my daughter can't eat pine nuts, I usually mash the basil up with garlic and oil and call it a day. Sometimes I add cheese, sometimes I don't - however the other day, I added lemon and it was a revelation.

I've been using my little crock of lemon/basil pesto on EVERYTHING - from turkey sandwiches to scrambled eggs.

But the best thing, so far was slathering a tablespoon or so on these beautiful pork chops I picked up at the Farmer's Market and marinated. Then I grilled them and heavens they were good!

Look at em:

I just ate lunch, and these still make me hungry

Aren't they beautiful?

Lemon Basil Pesto

Start with a fistful of basil from your yard (or the farmer's market) and strip all the leaves from the stems. Jam it all in your blender or food processor, or if you have one in the bowl of a stone mortar. Add at least one clove of raw garlic, and about a tablespoon of lemon zest (I used one large lemon). Blend, pulse or pound all this together until it makes a paste. Then squeeze the lemon into the basil paste and blend, pulse or stir. Finally add about 1/4 cup of very very good extra virgin olive oil to the whole thing. If you are blending or pulsing, add it slowly through the feed tube. If you used a mortar then whisk it in until combined. Taste the whole thing. You can add some parmesan here if you like, about 1/4 cup grated, or, just sea salt. Both are good. Sometimes I just like just to add the salt - especially if I'm going to let it sit in the fridge for a while because the parmesan can kind of take over. Always add a bit of pepper. If you like a little zing - add about a 1/4 tsp of red pepper flakes to the mixture before you blend, pulse or pound. This keeps in the fridge for about 3 weeks or so. You can also freeze this: put tablespoons of the pesto into ice cube trays, freeze for a couple of hours, then pop them out and put the cubes of pesto in a freezer bag. Very yummy in the dead of winter when all you want is a shot of something really really green.

Pork Chops and Basil Pesto

So go get yourself some pork chops or lamb chops - they're good too with this. (Although I always feel like I have to sell a kidney or something to afford enough lamb for the 4 of us.) Slather them with the pesto at least 2 hours before you grill them, or over night.

Heat the grill - I have a new charcoal grill that I'm in love with - I like to pile all the hot coals on one side of the grill so I have a really hot side (for searing) and a cooler side for the cooking.

By the way - if you make a small slit in the fat around the outer edge of the chop, your pork chops won't curl up when you grill them. (I stole this tip from Cook's Illustrated).

Out of the Freezer and Into the Frying Pan

2010-08-03T22:58:00.000-04:00

You know how you come home after a frustrating day, and you open the fridge and there's nothing, absolutely nothing in there to cook and your kids are whiney because they're hungry and they are starting to pick on each other and your husband is tired, too tired to pick up take out on the way home, and you yank open the freezer hoping there's a frozen pizza in there, but there isn't, all that's in there are some turkey burgers you froze last week when your daughter gave you a hard time about having turkey burgers AGAIN and she hates turkey burgers and so you said "FINE we'll have pizza" and she said, "I hate pizza we always have pizza" and you said, "fine we'll just not eat," and your husband got all prince charming and made you one of his new amazing drinks with gin and lemon; and you know how when you have a little gin you go to your happy place where cooking is really not an option and so you wrapped up all those turkey burgers and threw them in the freezer for another day, and your daughter came downstairs and allowed as how she could have pizza after all, so you ordered one, and turned on a movie and, now, flash forward in time and here we are with all those turkey burgers after a long day, but you never defrosted them and every one knows you should always defrost meat before your cook it it, because, because, well, why - why not, why not just throw it in a pan, frozen, on a very low heat, and cook it slowly and see what happens because there is nothing else in the house and what the heck. You know how that happens?

Well, that was my day the other day and I took a chance.

I took four turkey burgers straight from the freezer and stuck them in a pan over very low heat, and covered the pan. It did take a long time, but they cooked through, and you know what? They were really really good: not dried out, not bacteria filled, and in fact BOTH my girls ate them and pronounced them yummy. My theory is this: 1)the turkey was a mixture of light and dark meat. 2) I had also mixed them with shredded zucchini in an effort to use some of the enormous amounts of that vegetable I suddenly seemed to have and that kept them moist because zucchini is really water. 3) I have a tendency to squish my burgers very flat, because that's the way the kids like 'em, and I do what my kids like. And, most importantly, 4) I think the very fact that they started our frozen was the very thing that kept them from drying out. I do.

So, friends, fear not. Drag your burgers still frozen from the deep freeze and toss them on into the frying pan. And if you have frozen buns, stick those in the toaster. Or, do as I did, and use plain old white bread toast and slap on a pice of lettuce and a slice of tomato (a nice heirloom from the farmer's market). I believe at the last minute I also added a couple pieces of cheddar.

My Recipe (but feel free to use your own - I think the key is to make the burgers fairly flat)
yielded 6 burgers

1/2 lb white meat ground turkey (more or less - )
1/2 lb dark meat ground turkey (very important, or your burgers will be dry and tasteless)
1 large zucchini shredded
A splash or two of Worcestershire Sauce
1-2 tsp of sea salt
ground pepper, as much as you like

Mix all of this in a bowl with your hands. Form into 4-6 flat patties - I have girls so I make smallish burgers and give Smith 2 if he's really hungry. Get into a big fight with your kid, drink gin, throw the burgers onto a cookie sheet and stick in the freezer. After an hour, take them out and wrap in parchment and put each into a ziploc freezer bag.

To Cook:
Set a skillet on the stove. Wipe the skillet with an olive oil drenched paper towel - you don't want too much oil or it will get greasy, but you don't want the meat to totally stick either. Add the burgers, turn the flame on LOW. Cover. Resist the urge to check until about 10 min have passed. Then check, if the burgers look less frozen, flip them. Keep the flame on low for at least 7 minutes. Then check your burgers, mine looked pretty juicy, and they gave a bit when I pressed them gently. Then I turned the heat up a lot, took the cover off, and let each side sear a minute. Take them out and let them rest covered in foil for 10 min. Serve! You will thank me for this, you really will.

OH - by the way, thanks for reading to the end of this post, and because you put up with me and my rambling on for so long about turkey burgers and teenagers I'm now going to give you Smith's recipe for his amazing summer gin cocktail, which, I promise you will kick your butt - so make sure you drink it in a small glass, like I do. Smith got this recipe from his former boss who is now a friend, and who has a confusing last name, and who my children have called Mr. Guacamole since they were little, so I am calling this awesome cocktail, the

"Frank Guacamole"

1.5 oz gin
.25 oz of Campari
.25 of Cointreau
.75 oz lemon juice

Place all ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake. Strain into martini glasses. This is supposed to be enough for one cocktail, but I usually split this with Smith - then he'll make himself another later...

With Figs Like These...

2010-07-24T18:25:00.000-04:00

Well, my old high-school friend Marc is back from Uganda- and in honor of his return I decided to do something with some figs I picked up because his post on figs had me salivating. Plus, I had this gorgeous goat's milk ricotta I bought at the farmer's market in my fridge that I really needed to do something with. On top of all of this excitement, we were going over to Mark and Barry's for a pre-vacation send off dinner (their vacation, not ours - we, sadly, are going exactly nowhere this summer) and Smith was bringing mojitos and I wanted to bring an appetizer that would go well - something spicy and salty and a little bit sweetish.

I have to admit I never used to be much of a fig fan, unless they were surrounded in a soft cookie were titled "Newton". When I was a kid, fig Newtons were my second favorite after school snack, following slightly stale and soft graham crackers dipped in milk until they fell apart. After which you quickly drink the milk before the crumbs hit the bottom of the glass. Mmmmm. But, oddly, tastes change even as adults. For instance, a year or so ago, I was out with my olive-despising friend Caroline - we hadn't seen each other in a while - so when she ordered the hummus/warm olive appetizer I almost fell off my chair. I felt I didn't know who she WAS anymore - you know? We've known each other since the late '80's and in all that time, I never once saw her eat an olive, mostly saw her gag in the vicinity of olives, yet suddenly there she was slurping them down. And so it is with me and figs. Where the raw fruit once kind of skeeved me out (perhaps because of a music video involving plates of fruit greasy haired men and women in leather that MTV played incessantly my freshman year of college...), now, I love them, especially warm from the grill or the broiler. They are fantastic. So, for dessert, make them Marc's way (delicious!), but for an appetizer, follow my little recipe here, because they were simply and just sublime:

Figs with Bacon and Ricotta

*(of COURSE there was bacon - ! - had to use up the last 2 thick slices in the freezer)

2 thick slices of bacon cut up into small pieces
1 nice little pint of figs - I think there were about 8 in the one I picked up from the store - sliced in half length wise
1/4 - 1/2 cup of goats milk ricotta - or any fresh ricotta
a few dashes of Tabasco, or any hot sauce of your choice
a pinch of fleur de sel, or other really tasty sea salt

First, haul out your cast iron, or stainless steel skillet, heat it up and toss in your bacon. Cook until crispy then take it out and let it drain on some paper towels. Pour out all but a tablespoon or so of bacon fat out of the pan, reheat, and put in the figs, cut side down. Cook over medium heat until just fragrant. Meanwhile preheat the broiler (I use my toaster oven broiler because it doesn't take a lifetime to hit 500 degrees). Place your figs on a cookie sheet covered in parchment, spoon a little ricotta in the center of each fig, hit each ricotta filled fig with a dash of hot sauce and a tiny pinch of sea salt, then place the sheet into the broiler and broil until the ricotta turns a nice golden color. Just before serving place small piece of bacon on top. Serve immediately.

So Much Zucchini, So Few Recipes ( or, In a Pickle)

2010-07-14T16:24:00.001-04:00

Last week, I was back at the farmer's market, and bought zucchini, cucumbers and these nifty little yellow peppers that look like a cross between a banana pepper and and a jalapeno. Then some friends of mine went off to England for a few weeks and asked me to pick vegetables while they were away, which I did. Sadly, the tomatoes were still too green to take home, though I nabbed a few eggplants. However, what my friends had was a preponderance of zucchini. There was so much zucchini, and the zucchini were so large, I found myself looking nervously around for Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams. Seriously, do not fall asleep near a patch of zucchini. I am only half joking about this.

Anyway, suddenly I had pounds and pounds of zucchini - I made a batch of zucchini bread, I shredded some up and mixed this into some turkey burgers along with an egg and a splash of Worcestershire Sauce (very similar to the turkey meatloaf I made a while ago) which was pretty good, but I still had about 5 1lb zucchini (ies? - how does one plural zucchini) to do something with and that was the moment I thought: pickle.

Who doesn't love a pickle? And aren't zucchini rather close in essence to the ubiquitous cucumber? What's more, I have a new favorite cookbook, Simple Fresh Southern by the Lee Brothers which has a neat recipe for zucchini pickles and in the snacks and appetizers section.

Using their recipe as a base, I whipped up a batch of pickles, and have been obsessed with pickles ever since. So far I have pickled (Using the recipe below as a base for experimentation) the zucchini, cucumbers, onions, fresh cherry tomatoes (surprisingly wonderful) the yellow peppers and some radishes. I am NOT boiling jars and using sealing wax, however, so if you use my recipe, be aware that you should use up these pickles within 2 or so weeks. Smith and I have been eating them at dinner, with a little swirl of this outstanding olive oil I picked up when we dropped Mads at camp. Amazing.

Pickles

First, find yourself a pile of jars. I used old jam jars as well as a couple of pyrex bowls with lids. I am on the prowl for more jars, however. Any friends in my neighborhood interested in dropping empty glass jars with lids off at my house will receive pickles in return...

1lb of zucchini (or cucumbers, or peppers or, well, whatever it is you want to pickle)
1 onion (or a couple of shallots, or a handful of green onions with the roots cut off, or sweet red spring onions - which will turn your pickles pink however)
A handful of your hardier herbs: dill, or parsley or cilantro tough stems cut off (depending on what you think will taste good with what you are pickling) (P.S. basil just turns brown, don't use it I don't care how rampant your basil is in the back yard. It become unappealing over time in the vinegar)
1/2 cup of champagne vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
1/2 cup of lemon juice
1 cup of water
3 large garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
2 tsp kosher salt
1-2 tsp of sugar
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 bay leaf

Slice your vegetables they way you want to eat them. The Lee Bros. like em sliced on the diagonal, but if your zucchini is the size of a T-ball bat, you might need to half it before cutting it on the diagonal. Cut any onions thickly. I didn't cut the tomatoes at all. OH - didn't use the lemon juice with the tomatoes, just used a whole cup of vinegar - but I think lemon juice would be fine. Shove your veggies in the jar.

Heat the rest of the ingredients in a non-reactive sauce pot - and let it come to a simmer. When it is just simmering pour it all over the veggies in the jar. Let the jar sit open until it comes to room temperature, then seal it up and put it in the fridge. Finish off within two weeks.

Crush

2010-06-25T14:37:00.000-04:00

I have this little crush on David Tanis. For six months he is the head Chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. (I know I've written about my love and adoration of Alice Waters.) Then for six months he lives and cooks in PARIS. Holding little salons and dinner parties and a private dining club. IN PARIS. Maybe it's not so much David Tanis I have a crush on, as it is his lifestyle. I have his book, A Platter Of Figs and Other Recipes, and you know who he thanks in the acknowledgments? David Sedaris. When he's in PARIS he hangs out with David Sedaris. Ok? See what I'm saying here? (Has anyone ever noticed before that Sedaris rhymes with Paris in this weird way?)

I also have a crush on David Tanis's food. His whole philosophy is to use food when it is at the height of its season and to prepare it in a way that is both simple, fresh and flavorful.

So, last week, we're going to this party and I'm supposed to bring a dish, and I'm flipping through A Platter of Figs and see this spring menu with rabbit and what not and spinach cake - and I'm just caught by this spinach cake idea. It looks so easy, and yet could be so amazing what with the fresh spinach I already had in my fridge from the farmer's market. It's just leeks and a bit of butter and steamed fresh spinach and eggs and you whir it all up in a blender and pour it into a deep dish pie plate with a bit of parmesan on top and bake it until it's fluffy and set. Well, maybe it's because I didn't spin the spinach after I washed it, or maybe it's because I had to let the concoction sit in the blender for 10 minutes when I went to pick Mads up from a friend's house, or even maybe it's my oven, which hasn't been calibrated in a while and might be cooking at a lower temp, or, maybe it's because I don't live in PARIS, but the whole thing turned out tasty, but watery. Really watery. I was bummed. I know it wasn't David Tanis's fault, because that guy is a god.

So, I decided to make the whole thing over again last night because the farmer's market is on Thursdays and I thought I'd be able to pick up some awesome spinach, except there was this unbelievable hail/rain/armageddonish storm at 3pm right when people were setting up the farmer's market and most people just packed up and went on home. I did score some incredible chocolate cake from Sarah Bakes - Sara is a parent at my daughter's school and is a good person to know if you need cake or brownies. A really, really good person to know. But, no spinach. Only potatoes.

I did have a little bit of spinach left over from a salad I'd made earlier in the week, and I had some broccolini - which the girls love - and I had the leeks and eggs - and I was getting all ready to make this when I got a couple of phone calls which I had to take, then there was some issue in the basement with the dog eating a couple of pairs of underwear (you don't want to know...) and I thought we were having a guitar lesson for Emma, but that turned out not to be the case, at which point Smith came home and uncorked a Reisling, and the next thing I knew it was almost 7pm and I hadn't even begun to saute vegetables for a dish which needed 45 minutes (possibly more) in the oven.

In the end, I did what I always do - I took the basic idea of David Tanis's spinach cake and winged it - sauteed the vegetables, mixed up the eggs with some milk and tossed them into the pan, and baked it at 400 until it got puffy. I liked it - but it was no David Tanis recipe, and it was a lot like a fritatta. Then again, when I made David Tanis' recipe it was no David Tanis recipe...

This is what I did:

1 leek, chopped and rinsed of grit
2 TBLSP of butter
1 lb of baby spinach
1 lb of broccolini (that baby broccoli with the long tender stems) roughly chopped
salt and pepper to taste
a quick grating of nutmeg
a 1/4 tsp of cayenne pepper - optional if you have kids, which I do.
6 eggs, whisked well
1 cup of milk
a grating of parmesan over the top

Preheat your oven to 400. Saute the leeks in the butter. When the leeks are nice and tender add the broccolini for a bit, then finally the spinach. Season everything well because you're going to be adding the eggs soon. Let the spinach wilt and the vegetable cook down

Meanwhile, whisk up the eggs the nutmeg and cayenne with the milk until it's all a bit frothy.

Pour the egg mixture over the vegetables, grate on the cheese and stick the whole thing into the oven. (Make sure you are using an oven proof pan!)

Let it cook about - I don't know 15 min? I just kept checking though my oven's little window because I didn't want the whole thing to deflate. It might have been 20 minutes. In any case, I took it out when it was nicely browned and crusty.

Do check out the recipe for spinach cake on page 34 of A Platter Of Figs - and let me know if yours turns out better than mine...

The Farmer's Market and a Stir Fry

2010-06-22T22:53:00.001-04:00

I'm trying to go meatless 3 nights a week, which isn't easy for a mostly carnivorous family like mine. Any day now, I tell my friends, my daughter, Mad, will go vegetarian; she already despises people who wear fur and leather. (It is very difficult to find shoes without even a trimming of leather unless they are Converse All Stars, flip flops or Crocs - and she won't wear crocks any more). However, like Michael Pollan, Mad feels that humans were born omnivores, and an omnivorous diet includes meat. She feels that we need meat for our health, perhaps even for survival, but that with all the synthetic fibers out there, we do not need to, as she likes to say, "slaughter animals for FASHION."

I'm afraid to say, that my desire to go meatless several times a week has more to do with the deficit in my own (synthetically produced) wallet, as opposed to say, animal rights or green concerns. Ok, it also has to do with my preference for organically and humanely raised meat, and the fact that such meat costs, well, let's just say, a lot. So we're cutting back which is lovely because this cutting back coincides with the opening of the brand spankin' new farmer's market in my township.

Last Thursday I bought these beautiful red spring onions, some garlic scapes - which are the tops of the garlic bulb (and which I discovered can be tough if you don't cut the pointy tops off) - some parsley, some chervil and a ton of fresh basil.

This is what I made with it all. The girls ate it up - which is just a complete miracle in my opinion (please, no one tell them about the fish sauce).

Farmer's Market Stir Fry

TBLSP of oil - I used peanut but you can use grapeseed if you like
1 bunch of red spring onions - or scallions - trimmed and sliced
1 bunch of garlic scapes - trimmed and chopped

1 tsp fresh ginger (or more to taste)

2 cloves of garlic

3 cups of cooked white rice (I soak it then cook it because you want it very soft, not at all al dente)

1/3 cup fish sauce

juice of 1 lime

2 eggs, lightly beaten
about 1/4 cup of fresh basil

On the table:
Chinese chili sauce
soy sauce

I don't own a wok - (I do have a birthday in July coming up...) - so I use a large skillet. Place this over a very high heat and get the pan as hot as you can. Swirl in the oil, then throw the onions and garlic scapes in and stir around quickly. When the onion and scapes are wilted throw in the ginger and garlic, but don't let them cook too long because they burn quickly. Throw in all of the rice, then add fish sauce and the lime juice. Let this cook down about a minute. Add the eggs. Let the eggs sit in the pan for 30 seconds to set, then stir it all up very quickly. Add the basil, and you are done.

Plate it up, adding a little fresh basil. At the table I like to add a few drops of chili sauce (Smith adds a LOT of chili sauce.) My Mad, who is a salt-aholic adds soy sauce, but I feel the fish sauce is salty enough for my taste.

No pictures (sorry) - I never think to charge the battery soon enough.

Why I Don't Own a Microwave ...

2010-06-10T16:01:00.003-04:00

A lot of my friends are astonished that I don't own a microwave. How do I defrost things? (In the refrigerator, over night.) How do I cook frozen vegetables? (In a pot with water, it's just as quick.) What about popcorn? (Cast iron dutch oven, heat-tolerant grapeseed oil = a lot more fun making popcorn. Plus, Jiffy Pop if I'm desperate. Who doesn't love Jiffy Pop?) How do I melt chocolate? (I'll admit, the chocolate melting is the best reason to own a microwave - no chance of steam sneaking in from the bottom part of the double boiler - but still, not a good enough reason.)

And then they ask, Why?

Well, I'm happy to tell you why we don't own a microwave, and it comes down to one very simple and clear reason:

paranoia.

I'm not the least bit embarrassed to admit this. My microwave paranoia began when I was pregnant with my first child. I'd throw the potato in the oven, slam the door, hit the 5 minutes on full power button then run to the other end of the house quick as I could. When I became too pregnant to quickly get out of the way of the "dangerous leaking microwaves," I made my husband hit power, once I was safely out of the way.

Many of our friends used microwaves to heat milk and formula for their babies, but not us. I felt it was wrong, somehow. Plus I kept reading things about how microwaves don't heat evenly and children were being scalded by "hot pockets of milk". We didn't use a lot of formula, but when we did it was room temperature for my babies, all the way. To this day, Mad prefers her milk after it's had a chance to sit around a bit.

Then, in 2002 I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and baby that was the end of it: the microwave was out. I'd never trusted it, but now, now I felt there was proof. It became my scapegoat, the source of my illness, and proof that the "fastification" (yes I did just make that word up) of food and food prep were helping no one. We'd been eating organically grown food, drinking milk from grass fed cows, spending a fortune at Whole Foods and the health food store. I made my own bread. I idolized Alice Waters! I was NOT a candidate for cancer. I remember telling my sister-in-law about my diagnosis, and her response was, "YOU?!" I never smoked, I went to bed early, I breast fed my children (the second one until she could talk...), I exercised, and there was no history, whatsoever, of breast cancer in my family.

Ergo, the microwave. I threw it away, and when we redid the kitchen, I didn't even make a space for a new one.

I'm sure my family missed it: what with the surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, I don't think I cooked much for almost a full year. My poor husband. Lots of people brought us meals, and it probably would have been nice for him to have been able to heat it up quickly and easily with the touch of a button. But no go. My paranoia had been confirmed: I had proof positive. (I also believe that any sports team I actively support will lose if I watch them in the playoffs. Proof positive: last night I caught a couple minutes of the Stanley Cup. Don't blame Michael Leighton, Philadelphia, blame me.)

During my treatment I met a nutritionist who confirmed my fears about the microwave. She told me that there had been a study in Switzerland by these two guys: Blanc and Hertzel which showed the microwave actively changed the molecular structure of the food it was cooking, especially if you began with raw food. And that when one ate this food, one's body had to work hard to recognize it as food - which caused your blood to produce more white blood cells, which caused - you guessed it - cancer.

When I came home armed with this new information, my husband despaired of ever being able to eat his Ben and Jerry's with out running it under warm water, or letting it sit out for 20 minutes. He missed his microwave.

But who cares, right? Because once treatment was over, I was all fine and dandy. We kept on with the organic food, grass fed beef and milk, microwave free home.

Except.

Except two months ago I go in for my routine MRI.

And then the oncologist calls.

It wasn't quite cancer, but it was DCIS, a kind of pre-cancer which meant, given my history, more surgery. Which I did. And I'm fine. They say it's all gone, that I'm not going to get breast cancer again (unless of course something metastasizes, but who am I to look on the dark side?).

OK, that was a long way of explaining why I haven't blogged since April. I was tired, and my chest hurt and for two weeks my dear friends brought us food, and after that, I was just too whiney to do anything but cook old standbys. We've been eating a lot of pasta, and the girls are pretty sick of it.

And I thought, well, maybe it wasn't the microwave after all. And I decided to google that theory about the microwave changing molecules ... and, yeah, it's most likely a bit of bunk. It kind of depends on which website you choose to believe...

My husband is holding out some slim hope that I might allow a microwave back into our home. But I tell him, "don't hold your breath," because even though I'm (supposedly) cancer free, and even though the microwave=cancer theory is (supposedly) untrue, one thing remains unchanged:

I'm paranoid.

I Never Seem To Post About Holidays (Lemony Bean Dip)

2010-04-09T18:35:00.000-04:00

It was Easter recently. We celebrate Easter here, although we'll never turn down a Passover Seder invitation. Love that apple/honey/nut stuff... Anyway, my mom asked me to bring hors d'oeuvres to the lunch she was serving, and as I was thinking about what to bring, I realized I've never really posted anything holiday-ish here. Mainly because the things I post are last minute dinner ideas, rather than the long thought-out recipes that one cooks up for a fancier meal. However, it turns out that the dip I brought kind of covers both - ok, scratch that, it wasn't thought-out in any way - I cribbed the whole idea from an Oprah Winfrey magaizine (don't judge until you've read of copy - there's good stuff in there-) - and I used ingredients I had in my fridge, freezer and pantry.

Since we were having lamb for the main meal, I went with a kind of Greek theme. In my fridge were all kinds of olives because I love olives and no one else in my immediate family likes them as much as I do. So I marinated the olives in some oil, vinegar (I used red wine because that was what I had) a dash of Vermouth and some parsley and some thyme.

I did dash out to the store because I had a sudden and intense craving for Feta - bought a block, came home, broke it up some, sprinkled it with cracked pepper, as well as good olive oil and a squeeze of lemon. Very yummy.

Finally, I made this dip. In the magazine, they used it as a spread for a club-style sandwich with sliced tomatoes, avocado and bacon, but I felt that if I doubled it I could make it into a yummy dip and top it with all those things. And then, of course I didn't have quite all of the ingredients called for so I started substituting here and there. Let me tell you, it was good.

Here's what it looked like when it was all done:

Here's how I made it:

Lemony Bean Dip:

2 cans white beans, rinsed and drained
1 can chickpeas rinsed and drained
1/4 cup olive oil
4-5 cloves of garlic peeled and sliced
1/4 cup of dry vermouth (or white wine if you have it, which I didn't)
1/2 cup of broth: chicken or veg, (or add another 1/4 cup of vermouth plus 1/4 cup water)
Juice of one medium lemon
peel from that same lemon, diced
2 tsp of thyme (O calls for rosemary which I simply didn't have - but could be good - you could also use parsley, chervil, or even some basil or better yet, a bit of mint)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or tabasco, or any hot sauce you have - you can leave this out too)
cracked pepper to taste
sea salt to taste
1 avacado diced
1 large diced tomato - or a handful of cherry tomatoes quartered
2 slices of crisply cooked bacon, crumbled (also optional- but I always have bacon because I freeze individual slices on a cookie tray, then drop the frozen slices into a ziploc and keep them in the freezer. Easy-peasy. However, to my horror I did not have bacon the saturday before Easter, I guess we must have eaten it all right before we left for Spring Break, and so, no bacon was crumbled on my dip.)

Heat oil in a large skillet, drop in garlic for a couple of minutes, but don't let it brown because garlic burns really quickly, toss in the zest, then the 3 cans of beans. Cook a few minutes, then add the vermouth, broth, lemon juice, herbs and cayenne. Let this all cook a bit until it gets thicker. Then whirr it up in a food processor. Add salt and pepper to taste.

So, let your dip cool until it reaches room temp. When you go to serve it, put the dip in a shallow bowl, chop your avocado and tomato into manageable chunks and stir them in, reserving some for the top. Sprinkle the top with the crumbled bacon. If you have it. Which I didn't. Which was a damn shame.

I served it with pita chips from the grocery store, as well as some thickly sliced cucumbers and carrots

The whole thing really complemented my Mom's lamb dinner: grilled lamb, green peas, mashed potatoes and salad.

Yesterday, I had a left over lamb sandwich with some of the bean dip and the remaining feta on top. As my 13 year old would say: OMG.

A kind of Ragu - I guess

2010-03-02T21:09:00.013-05:00

On Friday my dog got into the drawer where we keep the Benedryl and Motrin. Somehow she opened this drawer - all on her own - and managed to get the child proof top off the motrin and swallow some. At first, I thought she'd only gotten into the Benedryl, but it turns out she must have gotten into the Motrin too because by Sunday at 3am she was wildly drinking water and peeing every few minutes. Smith took her to the doggie hospital. Yesterday Mads and I drove down to see her, and had to wait an hour before they could bring her out and by the time we got back home we were so cranky and tired (plus Mads had a test she was freaking out over - did I ever freak out over a test in 5th grade?, no, I don't think so...my kids are so much more stressed than I was) that we ordered Chinese.

Have I mentioned that she's my sous-chef? I think I have. It's hard to cook when she's not by my feet.

Today, the Vet Hospital told me I could pick her up at 3pm. One of the beautiful things about having a 13 yr old is that she can walk over to the elementary school, pick up the 11 yr old and walk on home. Of course Em forgot her key this morning and I had to drop it off at the elementary school (because Middle School is a little like prison and won't let you see your kid at all during the day). So, I left later than I wanted, then got lost on the way, then got to the Animal Hospital and had to wait for the dog to be released, then drove home in rush hour traffic, and walked in the door only to fight with the girls because they'd been watching TV all afternoon and wanted to watch EVEN MORE because TV is like heroin when you're a pre- and a teen and the more you watch the more you absolutely must watch. Those two would watch TV 'til their eyes bled.* And they weren't even watching good stuff - like the Simpsons, or The Office (their usual fare) - but total crap - ie: Wizards of Waverly Place and Look Alike. God.

At least it wasn't "My Super Sweet Sixteen."

I wanted to make meatloaf tonight. I wanted to make meatloaf and mashed potatoes and green beans with orange slices (from the Lee Brother's new cookbook). Because I'd established a craving for this. But by the time I got back, I only had 40 minutes before Em's guitar lesson and that is simply not enough time for meatloaf.

So I made another one of my "throw it all in one pot and hope for the best meals" - and this one turned out ok and I decided to call it "Ragu" - after a recipe in a Nigella Lawson cookbook that has very little resemblance to the one I made up tonight, but what the hell.

Before I even started to make dinner tonight I needed a little bit of this:

Because it's been a crappy week. And it's only Tuesday.

*(by the way, Mads declares she wouldn't watch TV until her eyes bled, she'd play on the computer until her eyes bled - so, my bad)

Once again, I had all this stuff in the fridge that I wanted to use up: some 2 week old baby peppers - not quite wrinkly; cauliflower; some ground bison; some frozen green beans; an onion. Tossed it all in and it wasn't half bad. The beauty of the thing was that I didn't have quite enough meat for a whole meat loaf, but throwing it all in a pan with a pile of vegetables stretched the meat far and wide so that there were even leftovers for Smith to bring in the next day. Oh, and I threw these itty bitty potatoes I had left over from that bag of potatoes I bought last week into the toaster oven at 425. They were so small they cooked in about 40 minutes.

I went a little wild with the pictures today, so bear with me.

Not Nigella's Meat Ragu

1 lb of ground meat (whatever you've got: bison, turkey, chuck)

1 yellow onion

1 or 2 carrots (I chopped up a pack of baby carrots just to get them out out out. I get so sick of baby carrots - I don't know why I ever by them, no one ever eats them - and they're always dry as dirt)

1/2 head of cauliflower

frozen green beans snapped in half

1 tblsp of Worstershire

1/2 - 1 cup of Chicken broth

3 sprigs of fresh thyme (if you have it, which I did tonight)

1 bay leaf

Salt and Pepper to taste

sour cream (optional, but nice)

Pull out your biggest skillet and brown the meat in a little swirl of olive oil. Brown your meat, take it out, swirl in more olive oil if need be, return pan to heat, dump in onions, cook until almost translucent, dump in rest of vegetables except green beans (if frozen, if they're fresh dump them in now), add Worstershire, broth, thyme, bay leaf, salt and pepper to taste. Bring up to a simmer, and cook a few minutes until the vegetables are tender-ish (the cauliflower will be crispier than the rest, but I like it that way). Return meat to pan along with green beans. At this point you can either add the sour cream and stir it into everything, or you can plop it on top of the whole thing later.

You could also add a good handful of shredded cheddar if you have it, or maybe a little chutney (I didn't have either one. Damn.)

Here's the finished thing:

Here's pictures of the girls hands, because they liked these pictures and asked me to put them in:

And here's my sous-chef cleaning up:

I missed her.

Glad she's home.

Twice Baked and Stuffed

2010-02-18T13:07:00.015-05:00

Looks good, doesn't it? What's not to love about a stuffed potato?

Bought this huge bag of potatoes at Produce Junction for about $2 the other day, thinking I could make a meal of them for my Feed the Hungry Edition - and learned a mean little lesson: it's really hard to feed your family for $5 unless you are buying each of them a .99 cent burger from McDonalds.

Still, I spent a lot less than $25 on this meal - but only if you consider the fact that I had to spend almost $25 to get there. In other words, I got about 15 small potatoes for $2, I spent $1.99 on a 16 oz thingy of sour cream and and a pound of butter cost $3. My quart of milk also cost $3. I spent $1.66 on a tiny amount of turkey and almost $5 on a pound of turkey bacon. A block of cheddar was also about $3 and as was a bag of frozen green beans. Even though I only used bits of these ingredients, saving the rest for another meal (or two) - still: what if I ONLY HAD five dollars in my pocket? And that's kind of the point, isn't it? I have enough money to make a nutritious meal because I have enough money to buy the ingredients to begin with. I didn't even factor in the salt and pepper and grapeseed oil because, since I have them at home all the time I forgot to write down their price when at the store.

So, my four stuffed potatoes plus 1/2 a bag of frozen green beans cost about $9 to make, which meant that we put $16 in our Feed The Hungry Jar.

Stuffed Potatoes (and frozen green beans - I think you all know how to cook the beans - so I'm not going to tell you...)

4 (or 5 baking potatoes, if the potatoes a small and meager looking)

1 piece of turkey bacon cut into small pieces (* see note below)

1TBLSP grapeseed oil, just enough to lightly coat the skillet

1/4 lb (more or less) ground dark meat turkey

1 cup of sour cream (if you like 'em tangy, which we do, or use less of this and more milk)

1/2 cup of milk

2 TBLSP butter

1/2 cup of mild cheddar cheese divided

Heat your oven to 450 then throw in your washed and pierced potatoes. (I use the toaster oven to cook potatoes because a)I'm generally to lazy to preheat and b) it uses a lot less energy.)

Heat the oil in a cast iron skillet (or any fry pan) and cook up the bacon until it's crisp. Take it out and saute the ground turkey in the same skillet. When the turkey is almost cooked through, take it off the heat, mix the bacon back in and set aside.

When the potatoes are done, take them out of the oven and cut them open so they lie flat. Scoop out the insides and put in a bowl (if you used 5 potatoes, save the 5th potato skin for later, but add the insides to the bowl). Add the sour cream, milk, butter and 1/4 cup of cheddar. Then mix in the turkey. Salt and pepper it to taste. Set your potato skins out on a cookie sheet and carefully (I know Nigella Lawson would say, lovingly, here) return your potato mixture to the skins. Sprinkle each potato with some cheddar, and return it all to the oven. Bake about 15 minutes until completely warmed through and the cheese on the top has gotten melty and maybe a little brown in spots.

See:

** Note: I use the turkey bacon because I find ground turkey to be a little insipid and the bacon boosts the flavor. You certainly could leave it out, just make sure to salt and pepper the turkey while you brown it.

3X Chicken - Part III: Creamed Cabbage a la Martha

2010-02-10T13:49:00.011-05:00

So, the other day I'm at a school meeting and I happen to mention to my friend Sheryl that I was about to post again, and she goes: Not more chicken!

Crap.

Yes, more chicken - because I promised I'd tell you what I did with that last bit of chicken from two weeks ago. (Dear God! Two weeks? How'd THAT happen?)

But after this chickeny story, I promise to do something else, because actually I've made quite a lot of other kinds of food since the chicken but I just haven't had time to get it all down. I do ~~occasionally~~ work, you know. Over the past 2 weeks I've had a newsletter to create, and some long-time clients who need help with manuscripts. Plus my Ladies! - which is this little creative writing group I lead. Very fun, and we haven't met in a long long time and I've missed them dearly. And then, of course, there's been THIS:

which means girls home from school and everyone wants cookies. Which I made. And which (I promise, Robin) I'll post. Soon. I will. Really soon.

Alright: down to business. That last bit of chicken, which was already poached (if you remember) and some of which was made into soup, was finally added to a very tasty, though rich, cream cabbage dish I ~~stole~~ borrowed from Martha, (and for which there will be no picture because I am a spaz and deleted it by mistake.) (Also, I tried to find a link to the recipe at MarthaStewart.com, but it wasn't there, so if you want the original recipe you'll have to get your hands on the January 2010 issue.)

Creamed Chicken, Spinach and Cabbage

1/2 head of cabbage - MS recommends green, but I had a head of Napa, and I think you could use anything. My cabbage was very tender - but if yours is one of the crunchier type, I suggest a quick par-boil, the instructions for which are below.

2 cups of fresh baby spinach (you could do this whole thing with spinach as far as I'm concerned - and just about any amount is fine, adjust seasoning accordingly)

3 TBLS of unsalted butter

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 small onion, diced, or 1 leek cleaned, trimmed - using white part only

2 cups warm milk (Martha says use whole milk, I use 2% Lactose Free, and it was just FINE)

1 cup of shredded cooked chicken

1/4 cup plus 1 TBLSP finely grated Pecorino Romano cheese (or just use Parmesean if you don't have this)

1 TBLSP finely grated lemon zest (about 2 lemons - and if you don't have lemons don't panic - you can leave them out all together and it will be ok, OR you can instead of lemons grate about 1/8 tsp of nutmeg into this.)

Preheat oven to 350. If you need to parboil the cabbage: bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Add cabbage, cover and steam until tender, about 5 min. Drain and cool slightly.

If your cabbage is a tender variety, just rinse it and the spinach, make sure all grit is gone. Give the greens a good shake and pat them dry with paper towels, then cut them into strips - taking the spine out of the cabbage first.

Melt butter in a medium sauce pan, add onion or leek, stir over low heat until soft. Slightly raise temp, stir in flour and cook until bubbling but not brown. Slowly add milk, stirring constantly until it's incorporated into the flour and the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Remove from heat, and add 1/4 cup cheese and lemon zest, then fold the cabbage, spinach and shredded chicken into the whole thing. Season with salt and pepper.

Spoon into a shallow casserole dish (Martha recommends 6 cup capacity - but I have no idea how big the one I used was: every thing fit and fit fine, that's all I know.) Sprinkle the remaining tablespoon of cheese over the whole thing. Bake about 30 - 35 minutes or until it's slightly browned and bubbling. Let stand a bit - 5 or more minutes - before serving.

It's hard to write about my own dinner when so many are going without it

2010-02-03T10:52:00.000-05:00

Haiti reminded me, but it's not just Haiti, it's here: Philadelphia is one of the "hungriest" cities in the country.

I forget constantly that I'm lucky. I can buy Cheerios: I don't have to buy the cheap no-name cereal. I can put whatever cut of meat I want on my children's plates. When I run out of milk I jump into my car and drive up to the Acme for more. My girls are 13 and 11, and even at this stage, teen and pre-teen, they can't stand to be hungry for even one second so I often have apples and gum and cereal bars in my car. Just sitting around my car.

I give money - to Philabundance, and, recently, to a Hospital Albert Schweitzer, 90 miles outside Port Au Prince (click here to donate - your money goes directly there, and is not filtered through other organizatins) and I bring canned goods and cereal to our church (when I remember to) - which then gives donations to a Philadelphia community center. But I don't know. There is something so easy about doing these things. What am I teaching my children about helping others -- that all you have to do is write a check?

Last night I couldn't sleep, so I went online and found this story about The Power Of Half in the NYTimes - by op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristoff. It made me think of hunger - what could I do without to help alleviate the hunger in my area? My 13 year old and her friends in our Sunday school will fast one Saturday in March to call attention to world hunger - which is awesome - but it's only once a year. What if we did something like that as a family once a week? Ok, not fast. That wouldn't work with my two. But we could do something smaller on a regular basis, such as forego meat and dessert, and put the money we would have spent on that food toward hunger in the Philadelphia area. We all talked about it at dinner and decided that we would calculate what we spend per night on a home cooked meal and one night a week spend only a quarter or less on dinner for the family, donating the rest to a charity that fights hunger. The girls are I are going to do the shopping together, too, so we all really understand what things cost. I've read that the "average" middle class family of four spends about $20-$25 a night on dinner (That seems like a lot!) Can we we make a nutritious meal for a family of four for $4 or $5? It is a challenge when things like a head of broccoli cost $3 or more depending on where you buy it. And another question: does it count if I have to go far out of my way to shop at the cheaper market? Should I factor gas into the equation? I kind of feel like I should.

So this is what I'm doing - it's a process and we'll see how it goes. I'd love to know: how are you all talking with your families about Haiti and hunger and poverty?

Chicken x 3, Part Deux

2010-01-26T16:00:00.007-05:00

I feel the addition of French in the title up there adds a little something doesn't it? (Even if that addition is the painful memory of a Charlie Sheen movie I walked out of way back in the early '90s.)

So, remember all that left over chicken and that little bit of broth I cooked the chicken in last post? I made it into a very nice soup.

See? Here it is:

It's got carrots, and some spinach and a very light grating of ginger. I whipped up a biscuit to go with it. I didn't use all the chicken, though, used only 1/2 of what was left.

Here's what I did:

Chicken Soup with Spinach and a bit of Ginger

1 small onion, chopped

1 carrott

1 clove of garlic

1 tsp fresh ginger* (or so - to taste)

1 large bunch of spinach, washed and torn into rough pieces

Left over chicken, shredded

Left over broth - I had about a cup (which should be pretty flavorful by now after sitting around a night and day)

4 cups of stock (I had some in the freezer, but feel free to use something from a can or box)

In a large dutch oven or stock pot, sautee your onions in a swirl of olive oil. Throw in the carrot and let the onion and carrot soften up. Throw in the garlic and the ginger, just for about 30 seconds or until fragrant (they both burn quickly, so pay attention), throw in the spinach and let it wilt. Toss in the shredded chicken and the stock. Taste everything. You may want to add more ginger, and it will surely need salt and pepper.

By the way - I haven't said this in a long time, however, just about everything I make serves 4 - unless I say in the recipe that it serves more or less.

A Little Aside: I've Been using a Lot of Leeks and Carrots lately

2010-01-26T13:50:00.003-05:00

Just noticed that, after reading over several posts. What can I say, I go on binges. There are a lot of leeks at the grocery store right now, and they aren't super expensive. Roasted leeks are delicious:

Split them in half, wash them well to remove grit, and pat them dry. Preheat your oven to 450. Lay them out on a rimmed cookie sheet and sprinkle with oil, sea salt and pepper. Roast until they are all wilty and tender - about I don't know - just check them after 15 minutes let's say.

These are really good with all sorts of things, or even as an appetizer: piled into a big bowl with another drizzle of good olive oil, a fork and a very thinly sliced baguette on the side.

Chicken x 3

2010-01-25T10:30:00.014-05:00

It was late -- almost too late to start dinner, certainly too late to get to the store and still make dinner -- and I was tired, tired, tired. It was Wednesday. I don't like Wednesdays. People are always all: it's hump day, half way toward the weekend, but for me it's just another indication that another week of my life has whizzed by and what do I have to show for it.

And I was also thinking of Haiti. I couldn't stop looking at the pictures. And it reminded me of how I felt after 9/11 - that my small obsessions are so pathetic in the face of that kind of tragedy. Which just added to my Wednesday malaise, rather than snap me out of it.

Bla.

OK. So I picked myself up and went to the store. I bought some chicken parts -- one half chicken breast and a pack of boneless thighs. And I made three full meals out of that little bit of chicken! Which made me feel a little better, a little less wasteful. It wasn't like I hadn't made versions of these three meals before, but it was nice to see that a little - much less than I usually buy - could really go a long way toward feeding my family. I had a Michael Pollen moment, which took me out of myself for a little bit. Made me feel like maybe I have done something with this week after all.

Chicken and Rice (Wednesday night's dinner)

Usually I got to the store and buy a whole already roasted chicken and tear it up and toss it with pasta and vegetables - but they were having a sale on parts and the parts were going to cost me less than a whole already roasted bird - so this is what I did instead:

2 TBSLP Olive oil (divided)

1/2 chicken breast

3 chicken thighs (from a pack of six)

1/4 cup of wine (optional, you can just use broth)

1 small onion, chopped

2 celery stalks, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

3/4 cup of chicken stock or broth

1 bay leaf

1 anchovy

1 carrot, sliced thinly

1 leek, chopped, white part only

1 bunch of kale

White rice

First, I got my cast iron skillet very hot, and then swirled the olive oil over it. Seasoned the chicken with a little salt and pepper then pan seared it in batches, just so it browned a bit, but not so it was cooked through. Took the chicken out. Poured in the wine and 1/4 cup of stock to deglaze the pan -- added more oil, threw in the onion, celery, carrot when the oil was hot. Sauteed those a bit. Put the chicken back in the pan, settling it around the vegetables and poured in the rest of stock. Threw in the bay leaf and let it all simmer until the chicken was just cooked through and a lot of the broth was evaporated.

At this point I took the chicken out of the pan along with the broth and set it aside to let it cool.

Meanwhile, cooked the rice.

I reheated the same pan, once again, added a bit more oil threw in the anchovy, let it dissolve, thew in the leek and carrot, let them cook until they got softish, threw in the kale let it wilt. Shredded just some of the now cooled chicken (about 1/4 of what I'd cooked) - thew that in and got the whole thing warmed up while the chicken finished off cooking. Gave it a taste, and adjusted the seasoning. The anchovy adds the salt, and a nice layer of flavor without tasting at all fishy. You're just going to have to trust me on this. I think I added more pepper and a pinch of salt here, but that's all.

Plated it up over rice.

Reading this over, it seemed like a lot of work, but it really didn't feel like it at the time. It felt like fun.

My next post will be about what I did with "all" that leftover chicken...

A Can of Beans, A Swig of Tabasco, and You...

2010-01-20T14:51:00.005-05:00

My kids hate beans. Therefore, I'm always trying to get them to eat them. I puree them into soup, I hide them in spaghetti sauce, I make a great mild but flavorful chili. They always know the beans are in there, and either flat out refuse, or simply and quietly pick the beans out and feed them to the dog. On occasion, I leave trickery behind and go straight for the bribe: extra computer time if you just taste the beans...

The answer is always, "no."

However, I never ever learn, plus sometimes, as my mother used to say, "tastes change." I remember when my daughter hated cucumbers for a while, and then suddenly started eating them again. Kids do that -- they like to mess with your head. So, beans. Pinto beans, to be exact, which were knocking about the cabinet. I sauteed them with carrots, celery, some leeks. Cooked them for a minute with a cube of chicken broth (I like to freeze chicken broth in ice cube trays so you have just a tablespoon or so when you need it, without having to open a 15oz box or defrost a whole container) I threw in a bay leaf and some cilantro and let it all simmer a bit.

I cooked up a pot of rice and served the beans and the wee bit of broth over it.

I loved them. They were fresh, and very satisfying. My husband loved them -- although he added several dashes of tabasco at the table, because he likes things HOT.

The girls ate chicken nuggets.

Oh well.

Rice and Beans (sorry, no picture for this one, camera battery's dead)

1 TBLSP olive or grapeseed oil
1 leek or onion -- whatever you have
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1 carrot peeled and chopped
1 can of pinto beans (or, again, whatever you have, black beans, navy beans...) rinsed and drained
1 TBSLP dry white wine
2 TBLSP chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1/4 cup of cilantro

Cooked Rice (I used white, but brown is better, just didn't have any)

Heat the oil in a skillet, when it's shimmery toss in the onion, celery and carrotts. When those are soft, add the beans, wine, broth and bay leaf. Let this simmer until the liquid is reduced - about 5 minutes. Add the cilantro, and cook for one minute more. Serve over rice.

If you like more heat than a few dashes of Tabasco can give you, cut up a fresh jalapeno or serrano chili and add when you are cooking the vegetables.

Shepherd's Pie (yes, more pie)

2010-01-14T21:41:00.009-05:00

Hello, lover.

I'm talking to the potatoes.

So, I've been thinking about my stomach a lot lately. It's large. It is. I know this because every time I go in for a physical my doctor discretely hands me print-outs for the Mediterranean diet and sometimes Weight Watchers. I'm your classic "apple" all belly and butt. My husband seems not to care, and I don't really care, except that it's January and every time I turn on Regis and Kelly they've got some new diet guru on and since I only watch Regis and Kelly when I'm upstairs getting into, or getting out of, the shower, I'm often a bit vulnerable.

So, a couple of days ago this guy named Jorge Cruse is on and he's talking about "belly fat," and I hear him and I think, "hey! I've got some of that!" and I decide to actually stand in front of the little tv in our bedroom and listen for once, and the guy sounds good. He's a little bouncy - a Tiggerish kind of guy - but I like what he's saying. Like it enough anyway to go over to my local Borders and read his book up in the cafe while sipping a mocha latte and nibbling on a bit of a muffin.

I took notes.

And what I came away with is that Jorge believes belly fat is caused by excess insulin as opposed to the amount of calories you take in. He's all about cutting the sugar, and switching out the carbs for the ones with whole grains, etc., yadda yadda yadda. And then I get to the good part: he's also all about cream and butter. Not eliminating them, USING them - without guilt. Without counting them. And I almost choke on my muffin because if you told me to give up ice cream, or candy, or even (gasp) cheese cake, I'd be like, okay... (swallow)... I can maybe do that. But the moment you say no more Irish butter (which is what my physician was seriously implying) - I say $%$#@ that! The butter stays. Don't mess with my Kerrygold.

So I took enough notes to understand that it's all about keeping the sugar down and the carbs to a certain minimum and if you want to know more, you can google the guy. I'm going to think about it for a few more days, and I might go visit his book at Border's again, and if my Library gets it in the next month or so, I may even actually borrow it --

However, in the mean time, I think Jorge might like this dinner I made tonight - which was shepherd's pie made with buffalo meat. Buffalo is a naturally lean meat, which is better for you (and more interesting tasting) than your basic hamburger. (I know - classic shepherd's pie involves lamb, but ground lamb involves the extra step of asking a butcher to grind it and I think we all know how I feel about taking the extra step.) The big news with this recipe is that there's both butter and cream in those potatoes... it is not for the faint of heart. So for all you last-decade calorie counters out there, this recipe is probably not for you -- but for anyone who is (shakily) interested in banishing sugar for a while in favor of good old, all American FAT -- I say: enjoy!

(Buffalo) Shepherd's Pie

Filling:

1 lb ground buffalo meat

a swirl of olive oil

1 leek, sliced in half length-wise, then roughly chopped (then rinsed to get out the grit)

1 celery stalk

sea or kosher salt to taste

pepper to taste

1TBLSP Worcestershire sauce

1TBLSP heavy cream

2 cups of frozen peas (or spinach, or one of those veggie mixes with the peas and carrots and corn all cut up in the nice uniform dices)

Topping:

3 or 4 large potatoes, or 5 or six small red ones, peeled and cut into chunks

large pinch of Kosher or sea salt

3/4 stick of unsalted butter

1 TBLSP of heavy cream

about 1/2 cup (more or less) of 2%milk (Jorge would NOT like the milk, there's a lot of sugar grams in milk - which I did not know until I looked.)

more salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375.

Brown the meat in an oven proof hot skillet swirled with olive oil. When the meat is mostly brown, but not too cooked, take it out and pour off all but about a TBLSP of the fat. Put the skillet back over a medium flame and then add the leeks and celery and a pinch of salt. Cook until they are slightly softened, then throw the meat back in the pan, along with the rest of the filling ingredients. Stir everything around to distribute, and give it a quick taste, adjusting the seasoning if necessary.

While the meat was browning, you should have been boiling those potatoes. Put the potatoes in a big pot, cover them with cold water and a large pinch of salt, bring them to a boil and cook until you can easily pierce them with a knife. Drain, return potatoes to pot. Add butter and mash. Add cream and mash. Add milk, just enough for the potatoes to get creamy.

Now, scoop out those potatoes spread them over the meat mixture and stick the whole thing in the oven for about 20-30 minutes, depending on how hot your oven is. (Mine needs adjusting, so it took the full 30) or until the peaks of your potatoes are golden. Let the dish rest for 7 to 10 minutes before serving.

Turkey. Sigh.

2010-01-13T16:38:00.005-05:00

I don't know about you, but I just get so tired of coming up with dinner. Which is kind of stupid, because, well, I write a blog about it, but what can I say, I'm human. Yesterday, trolling the Whole Foods, feeling both bored and poor, I stumbled across turkey cutlets. We are mighty tired of chicken, I thought, and tossed them in the cart. Fine. Whatever .

But turkey isn't that different from chicken, is it. And once home, staring at those turkey cutlets - while they were inexpensive - I felt so thoroughly uninspired I almost tossed them in the freezer and called the pizza guy. Except we just had pizza on Sunday - and I was bored of that too. I'm just bored of everything. Perhaps it's the weather. Bored. Bored. Bored. Aren't you bored of this post already? - I know I am. Perhaps I should just get to the dinner I made, because, while I was in quite a sad and sorry state of ennui when I came up with it - it did turn out nicely. And even though I sighed throughout the meal, Smith and the girls liked it a lot - plates were cleaned and seconds were asked for. And it was easy easy easy to make. Which was good because it gave me more time to drape myself over the divan and sigh...

Turkey Cutlets with Red wine Mushroom Sauce

Served, 4 (2 of em, kids -- for most families, this would serve 2 - so feel free to double the amount of turkey - but we are cheapskates and pile our plates with sides to make up for the lack of meat)

4 Turkey cutlets

sea salt to taste

pepper to taste

1 TBLSP of olive oil, or 1 TBLSP of butter or a combo of both

12 (or so) cremini mushrooms * (see below)

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup chicken broth

1/4 cup red wine (Used a tasty Zinfandel called "The Zin" which is on sale at the State store)

1 or 2 table spoons of half and half, or milk or if you don't have either a bit more of butter

So, wash and pat your turkey cutlets dry. If you don't dry them they won't brown, so do not skip that step, although I am often tempted to do so. Salt and pepper the cutlets on both sides.

Wipe the dirt off the mushrooms and cut them into thicks slices. Preheat your skillet. When it's nice and hot swirl in the oil, then toss in the mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper, and cook until the mushrooms are brown on both sides. You'll need to do this in two batches, because as Julia Child said (and Julie Powell learned) the mushrooms won't brown if they are too crowded. When the mushrooms are browned and cooked through, slide them onto a plate and wipe out the skillet.

Preheat the skilled again, and once it's hot toss in more oil or butter (or combo - if butter is being used, let it get frothy). Meanwhile, dump the flour into a pie plate and dredge each cutlet through it, knocking off the excess before placing it in the skillet. Don't crowd the meat either - nothing browns in a crowded pan. Do this in batches if you have a small pan (like I do) and keep what's been cooked warm -- I like to put a cookie cooling rack in a 195 degree oven and put the cooked cutlets on the rack. Doing this prevents the loss of crispiness.

When the cutlets have been cooked, raise the heat a bit and pour the broth and wine into the pan. Scrape up brown bits, reduce a minute then add the cooked mushrooms and the cream. Adjust the seasoning, it might need pepper, or it might not. Serve IMMEDIATELY - or the whole thing will get soggy.

It helps to have made the sides before you cook the Turkey. I boiled up some egg noodles and some frozen peas. The sauce was awesome on the noodles.

And, no, my children did NOT eat the mushrooms, which was fine: more for Smith and me.

**- you can also soak dried mushrooms in about 1/2 cup of boiling water. After the mushrooms have reconstituted, take them out, squeeze them dryish and strain the water they soaked in through a paper towel. You can use the mushroom water in place of the chicken broth for a more mushroomy taste

Leftover Pie

2010-01-06T17:44:00.010-05:00

I don’t mean pie that’s been left over, I mean leftovers baked INTO PIE. Well, pie crust. How could anyone say no to that? Not my children. Mad wandered into the kitchen, scanned what I was making for dinner and actually said, “That looks good.” And Em managed to eat almost half before declaring she was full. Well, in my mind, those ringing endorsements certainly meant this was a blog-worthy dinner.

I stole got the idea from Cooks Illustrated who made speedy beef empanadas by using Pillsbury Pie crust - which I like a lot and believe is the closest you can come to fresh pie crust without cutting all that butter into flour.

This exciting leftover meal originated last Sunday. Sunday was the final day of Winter Break, and almost Epiphany, which is, apparently, the 12th day of Christmas (did you know that annoying song is about the 12 days AFTER Christmas? I did not until I heard it on NPR, which is where I get most of my education these days) -- and I’m a big believer in drawing special occasions out as long as possible. (For instance, I firmly celebrate the birthday week). (Apparently, I’m also a big believer in the parenthetical.)

So, in an effort to draw Christmas out to its absolute last day, I made a big dinner of everyone’s favorite comfort food: Turkey Meatloaf and Mashed Potatoes. We had candles, and wine glasses filled with orange cream soda - ok, Smith and I had a nice red Zinfandel - I fired up the Christmas music one more time, and after dinner we lit candles in the fireplace and opened one last present each. It was really nice. Our girls sat with us for a full ten minutes after the present opening before dashing off to their respective electronic devices, and then Smith and I drank a bit of 12 year old Scotch and watched the candle flames flicker until the dog managed to swipe an un-rinsed dinner plate off the counter, and we had to rush into the kitchen and pull bits of china from her jaw. Good times.

I'd made a huge meatloaf thinking people would eat it for lunches -- nothing better than a cold meatloaf sandwich with extra ketchup -- then somehow, no one did eat if for lunch, and I realized that if I didn’t do something else with those leftovers soon it would go bad and there is nothing I hate more than throwing out something that could have been made into something else (hence, my packed attic, but that’s an entirely different story.)

But after seeing the empanadas, I suddenly thought, I could chop up the meatloaf and reheat it with the mashed potatoes then wrap it up in pie dough. I just threw the meatloaf, potatoes, as well as several 1/4 bags of vegetables I had lying around the freezer, along with a tablespoon or so of Ketchup and a 1/4 cup or so of chicken broth, into my cast iron skillet and stirred everything around until it was hot. Then I cut the 2 pie crusts in half, placed them on a parchment lined cookie sheets, and plonked a spoonful of my turkey mixture in the center of each and sprinkled it with some shredded cheddar. I closed up the pies by folding them over into little triangles, dampening and smooshing the edges together to make a pocket. Then I baked them at 400 degrees for about 24 minutes. (See pictures below - it will all become clear)

One little pie for each member of the family, like a little present left to open. See? I can make Christmas stretch as long as I want to, baby.

How to Cook a Chicken

2009-12-28T16:57:00.008-05:00

It's actually roast a chicken, but I couldn't resist the MFK Fisher reference. Anyway - I know you've missed me. We had a bunch of family things, plus a pile of birthday/Thanksgiving/Christmas stress and I took a little break from blogging here - now, I'm back - and I roasted an awesome chicken the other day that I want to tell you about.

But first, a little story:

So, several years ago I had this friend (who has since moved far far away), with whom I had an ongoing conversation about chicken. We wanted the ultimate crispy skin, tender meat, not dry, not under cooked. She was all about pan searing the bird before sticking it in the oven - which for me (as anyone who has read this blog on a regular basis knows) is just WAY TOO MUCH WORK. Plus, an extra pan to wash. I don't think so.

At the time I was in love with Barbara Kafka's book Roasting - which is all about cooking things at 500 degrees. Which we tried. Great crispy skin, although the meat was a little drier than I would have liked. However, I also had (and still have) a crappy kitchen fan which was louder than the tarmac at La Guardia the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. So, even though the 500 degree method was easier than pre-pan-searing, it was either a whole house stinking of roast chicken for three days, or requiring everyone in it to pop in a pair of Hearos. It also required me to clean the oven after roasting. Yeah, like that is going to happen.

Others told us stories (perhaps apocryphal) of people roasting their birds upright on beer cans, or on specially made devices that look like beer cans, but we never got around to trying that before she moved away, far far away, and I went back to baking chickens in a 350 oven because tender meat was more important to my family than crispy skin.

It’s a terrible story: one that has been haunting me chicken after chicken... so many chickens...

At one point, I did improve upon my baked chicken when I stole got the bright idea of cutting the back out of the chicken before cooking it, which greatly reduces the amount of time it takes a bird to roast. Which I have been doing for years and which everyone likes.

Until, suddenly, last Sunday, I thought, OMG why not roast, at a very high heat, for a very short time, then bake the damn thing until it is perfect! It was like a light shone down from heaven and illuminated the pale little plucked chicken before me. Angels sang (although I did have my friend John Treacy Egan’s Christmas cd playing on the ipod so perhaps I was confused...)

I roasted that chicken at 500 for 15 minutes, then dropped the whole thing down to 350 for about 40 -- And it was: Perfect. Crispy, juicy, and it’s only taken me five years to come to this. Five years, when you all probably figured out what I was heading towards in my first few paragraphs. When many of you have, most likely, been roasting your chickens in this very manner for ever. It’s just so obvious, yet for me, so very elusive. I have no excuse.

I’d post pictures, except I don’t have any because we all ate the chicken so fast I’ve got nothing but carcass. Plus, if I waited to roast another chicken (which I might do tomorrow, but still...) I’d probably never post this chickeny story, and those of you whom I see on a regular basis would still be asking me when I’m ever going to post again.

Here's my method:

1 lovely chicken (get mine from Whole Foods - its usually about 3lbs)

2 stalks of celery

2 fat carrots

1 onion, cut in half and peeled

olive oil

sea salt or kosher salt

1/4 to 1/2 cup chicken broth (optional)

Preheat the oven to 500.

Wash your bird, dry it thoroughly, then flip it over and cut out the back using sharp sheers or a boning knife. Flip it back over and press down on it to flatten it some. Rub oil, salt and pepper over the whole thing, front and back. Then, in a low sided roasting pan, create a little rack with the celery and the carrots - lining them up next to each other and putting the chicken, breast side up, on top. Tuck the onion halves under the bird.

Stick it in the oven, put the timer on for 15 minutes (20 if it was a pretty big bird) - turn the fan on and endure the noise - or your children will complain the house stinks every time you walk into it for the next week.

When the timer goes off, turn the oven down to 350. Pull the bird out and - if you have it - pour the chicken broth over it. Stick the bird back in the oven and roast for 20 min. Pull it out and bast with pan juices (you don't have to do any of this, I just like to do it and think it improves the flavor of the skin - but everything will be fine if you don't). Put the bird back in for another 20 minutes. Take it out and check it - you can either slice it at the thigh and look to see if the juices are running clear, or you can stick a meat thermometer in the fat part of the thigh and be sure it hits between 160 and 165 degrees.

When it's done, take the bird out and resist the urge to dig right in -- tent it with foil (so you don't steam out any of the crispiness of the skin) and let it sit as long as you can -- between 7 and 10 minutes is about all I can stand. I usually spend this time making a salad or some sort of vegetable.

This bird is a beautiful thing - I suggest you volunteer to put away any leftovers so you can stand at the counter and surreptitiously stuff into your mouth what ever is left of the skin.

Because I'm a Moron

2009-11-09T22:42:00.007-05:00

I haven't been writing much in the "blogosphere" (I really hate that word) lately because I signed up to write a 50,o00 word "novel" (and I use the word loosely, very very loosely) in one month with NaNoWriMo. So far, it's week 2 and I have 7,000 words. Not enough, obviously. I should have at least 12,000 if I ever hope to finish. The good news is that I work well under pressure. The good news for my family is that because I have been fairly preoccupied I've been hammering out tried and true recipes - things I don't even have to think about to make for dinner. The good news for YOU, dear readers, is that one of those recipes is turkey chili which I made a couple weeks ago to feed some Halloween revelers, and which I made recently for my sister and her kids, all of whom are suffering from the dreaded H1N1. (is it just me, or does H1N1 remind anyone else of the word heinie?- is that how you even spell heinie? Smith thinks its hynie -- my spell check has no idea - ok, clearly I am sleep deprived. This is what attempting to write a novel in 30 days does to you. Ok. Moving on.)

So, turkey chili. Very easy, very delicious, and my favorite kind of recipe because you just dump into it all sorts of things you have hanging about your refrigerator. I made it two slightly different ways: in one I used a link of turkey kielbasa and in the other, because Whole Foods was out of turkey kielbasa, I used this Tuscan sausage they made. I liked the kielbasa better.

Serves 4-6 - (easily doubled)

3 TLBSP of olive oil

1 onion diced

2 stalks of celery, diced

1 carrot diced

1 or 2 cloves of garlic either pressed or sliced (you decide!)

1 -2 TLBSP of taco seasoning (either buy a packet or make your own - click here for my recipe)

1/4 lb of ground dark meat or thigh meat turkey (* see note below)

1/4 lb of ground white meat or breast turkey

1 or 2 links of turkey kielbasa or any other type of turkey sausage you think would work (some sliced chrorizo would be awesome - though too spicy for my kids)

1 can of beans drained and rinsed - I like black beans, pinto, or white beans

1 14ounce can of whole tomatoes

1TLBSP of tomato paste

salt and pepper to taste throughout

Cilantro or parsley, coarsely chopped (optional)

jalapenos (optional)

sour cream (optional)

Heat a dutch oven over medium high flame and swirl in 2 TLBS of olive oil then add onions. Cook onions until almost translucent, add celery and carrots and let cook for a bit - until they soften some (10 min or so) stirring so they don't burn or stick. Sprinkle some of the taco seasoning over everything and cook another minute or so.

Take everything out of dutch oven and reserve, swirl in your last TLBSP of oil then when oil is hot, add all the ground turkey and cook over medium heat. While this is cooking you can either saute the whole sausage in another pan with a little water and oil then slice it when it's browned and add to chili after you add the beans, OR, remove sausage casing and add it to the ground meat RIGHT NOW. Either ways is yummy.

When the turkey is almost cooked (don't cook it completely through or it will be tough later) add the beans, tomatoes with the juices, the tomato paste and the rest of the taco seasoning. Put the vegetables back in the pot. Give it a taste and see if it needs salt and pepper - add to taste. If you sauteed the sausage, add it now.

Let all this simmer down until you like the way it looks. If you want a thicker chili add another can of beans and adjust the seasoning.

* You can also use leftover turkey (THANKSGIVING ALERT!) - just chunk it up and toss it in after the vegetables have cooked a bit - you don't have to remove the vegetables. Add the tomatoes right away. I've also thrown in some baby spinach, or a frozen pack of peas, or some chopped kale or swiss chard which you can saute with the vegetables.

To serve, put it in a bowl with a little sour cream, jalapenos and chopped cilantro sprinkled on top. Or, if you prefer to tell your kids it's a taco, warm some taco shells and plonk the chili in - the kids will eat it up.

This is easy and filling and something even a moron like me who agrees to write a novel in one month (ONE MONTH!) can pull off . I've been a little shouty in the this post, I can't help it, I'm SLEEP DEPRIVED.

Melissa - This One's For You!

2009-11-02T10:23:00.007-05:00

We had an excellent Halloween this year. Which is especially wonderful because Halloween for us almost always goes sour: trick or treating plans don't work out, or the "you need a coat/I don't need a coat" fight goes nuclear, or the costume (despite a certain amount of parental nagging) isn't what it was imagined it would be. There are ALWAYS tears. But not this year - this year I took it all in hand and invited the parents and kids my kids had plans with. We had wings (which I made, but which didn't have nearly enough kick, so I'll save that recipe for later) and cheesy bread Mark and Barry brought, and a very yummy guacamole/salsa thing from Laura. She even went the extra step of creating a spider's web out of her dip. It was very cute, and I wish I'd taken a picture. So we ate, and drank red wine or Guinness (the kids had apple cider mixed with ginger ale) and we hung out so long it began to rain before we got out the door, so I had to race back for umbrellas and coats, and then everyone was back inside of an hour, but no one cared, and in fact parents were happy because that meant less candy, and the kids sat on the floor and traded for their favorites, and the grown ups had more red wine or Guinness and talked about Scientology and how creepy Tom Cruise is and Melissa said, I loved your Cauliflower soup recipe, but I kept looking for the actual recipe and it wasn't there. And indeed it wasn't, because I got a little lazy that day, and never actually wrote out the recipe, so here it is, because Melissa got one of those nifty hand blenders and she's itching to use it and this is the perfect recipe with which to try out a new hand blender.

Potato, Leek and Roasted Cauliflower Soup

1 head of cauliflower, roughly chopped into pieces that are about the same size

Olive oil

Sea salt

1 leek, or one small onion, or some scallions or a couple of shallots, chopped

3 potatoes, diced into 1 inch pieces

2 fresh sage leaves

Leaves from 3 thyme stalks

3 to 4 cups of chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste (I use sea salt, always)

1 lemon, cut in half

Set your oven to 450 degrees. Toss your cauliflower with a spin of olive oil and sever good sized pinches of sea salt, then layer on a parchment lined cookie sheet and roast until golden bu still crispy, about 10 - 15 min. (You'll have to eyeball this because I don't remember how long I cooked this - 15 min sounds right)

Meanwhile, heat up a large dutch oven or stock pot on your range and then swirl in some more olive oil, (about 1 tblsp of olive oil and half a tblsp of unsalted butter) Toss in the leeks and the sage and cook until soft. Season with a small pinch of salt and a good amount of pepper (if your family likes pepper). Add the potatoes and thyme and cook for a minute or two. Add your chicken stock and simmer until the potatoes are almost tender - about 10 minutes. By this time your cauliflower should be done, so toss that into the stock pot, and squeeze 1/2 of a lemon into the soup. If you plan to puree this soup, take it off the heat and let it rest a bit. Obviously letting it cool makes it safer to puree, but I always let soup rest because Lydia Bastianich (See Lydia's Italian-American Table) says to let soup rest and I always do as Lydia asks.

Once you're pureed your soup, taste it and adjust seasonings. You may need more salt, or more pepper or another squeeze of lemon juice.

This is very yummy soup - feel free to leave it unblended, or to roast broccoli instead of the cauliflower, or to toss in some already roasted chicken, or a nice sliced pre-cooked turkey kielbasa.

What My Sister Might Have for Dinner Tonight

2009-10-22T17:03:00.008-04:00

If she reads my blog, that is. Starting Monday my sister, Ginny, is having her kitchen renovated and she is trying to eat down her pantry. Last night she was telling me she's down to a can of tuna, some pasta, a can of tomatoes, a can of chicken soup and a can of chili. Why she buys canned chili is beyond me, but I try not to judge. Which is hard, because, eww.

Anyway, as she was telling me this I suddenly remembered a pasta dish I used to make years ago, but stopped making because it involved tuna and both my girls took a dislike to tuna when they were about 4 and 7. (Although, happily, Em will now eat tuna salad if I make it with celery and give it a spin in my food processor.)

So this is what Ginny should do tonight:

Boil the pasta (it doesn't matter what kind).

Heat a saute pan on her nearly defunct cooktop. Swirl a little olive oil (or whatever kind of oil she has) in the bottom of the pan. Meanwhile chop an onion (Gin said she had a red one, but any onion will do) and toss it into the pan with the oil and cook until soft. Open the can of tomatoes and pour them in with their juice, cook down a bit. Open the can of tuna, drain it and toss it in. Taste (once the tuna is warmed through), season as needed with salt and pepper. Now, at this point she could throw in a tablespoon of capers, but Ginny isn't likely to have that. Or she could sprinkle some Parmesan on top of the whole thing, which is surprisingly good with the tuna. Peas are good too - and then she won't have to dirty up another pot making a vegetable.

Toss the tuna/tomato mixture in with the pasta. Eat it up, yum.

I also suggested she pour the soup over some rice and chicken breasts like our moms used to do with canned mushroom soup and chicken, then bake it for an hour, but she said her oven is kaput and her toaster oven couldn't really handle something like that.

As for the chili? I recommend saving it for an apocalypse -- when there's nothing else left.

Cozy Soup (in Real Time)

2009-10-20T15:31:00.012-04:00

I have this sweater that wears me. It's this silvery grey soft wool, it has shiny silver thread running all though it (I'm like a magpie with shiny), it has an empire waist, 3/4 sleeves and it has little flowers around the neckline. Yeah. It sounds kind of grandmothery but it's a DKNY Jeans sweater that I bought at a Macy's one day sale for $25-- so its actually kind of cool -- but because it's DKNY it's meant to be worn by someone at least 5'9" and the size of a post, whereas I'm 5'2" (after an hour of yoga) and shaped more like a pumpkin. But I don't care because I really like it and it's warm and surprisingly cozy for a shiny/silver/flowery thing. Whenever I put it on, which is fairly often because it's cozy, my friends all say, "ooh, cool sweater," which is significantly different from, "that sweater looks great on you!" I also know the sweater wears me because my Mom says nothing when I wear it -- which means the whole thing probably washes me out and makes me look exactly like a pumpkin, a grey pumpkin, despite it's DKNY status.

Oh Well. I say, it's good to have something cozy that wears you because it takes the pressure off. Which brings me to soup. Soup, while it doesn't wear me (though I've been known to wear IT), is the definition of a cozy and pressure free dinner. Tonight, because it's a perfect fall evening -- chilly and crisp -- I'm going to make soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.

This afternoon I am baking bread for sandwiches (click "bread" for the recipe) and right now I am roasting cauliflower for a potato-leek-cauliflower soup I intend to make when I get back from Em's voice lesson. I've got stock (made and froze last week) defrosting in the fridge, and I have about six little russet potatoes and one leek. When I get home I plan to chop the potatoes up into pretty small pieces, saute the leeks with some fresh sage and a bit of thyme.

Oh - timer just went off for the bread and I just took it out and it's all sunken in -darn! And it looked so pretty after it's second rise. I must admit, the dough was a little wetter than I usually let it be, so that's probably it. Cauliflower looks good though -- just took it out of the oven and it's nice and goldeny, but not too mushy - it still has a decent amount of crunch.

Heading out to the voice lesson now. Wearing the dowdy-only-on-me-sweater.

I'm back. Diced 3 potatoes and and one small leek and threw it all in a pot with my stock two minced sage leaves and a stalk of thyme and pinch of sea salt. It's simmering now. It'll take about 10 minutes for the potatoes to get tender.

Time for a glass of wine.

Ok - potatoes are tender. I fished out the thyme stem, then stripped a bunch of fresh thyme leaves into the soup. Tossed the roasted cauliflower into the soup. More salt, a bit of pepper, a squeeze of half a lemon. A lot of people would then blend this soup up either with a hand blender or in a blender -- but I'm not going to because my kids hate creamy soup. Weird. Anway...

While the soup rests, I'm going to grill the sandwiches (half cheddar, half mozzarella).

Sandwiches are done, ladling soup into the bowls. I'm more squeezing lemon into Smith's and mine because the girls can only tolerate so much lemon.

The sandwiches are really good dipped into the soup.

So there's my evening. Mad is finishing homework, Smith and Em are doing dishes, I'm finishing my cozy soup blog, curled up in my sweater and and an old pair of jeans, large wool socks, dog on my lap. Yes.

Nachos Libre

2009-10-13T10:38:00.004-04:00

You know what I hate? I hate having had a difficult day with teens & preteens and the plumber for the shower and the cat on antibiotics and the newsletter due to the printer among other things and all I want to do is go down to the local bar with my sister and order a beer and a plate of nachos to pick at and the nachos come and the cheese is nicely melted and browned on top and there seems to be plenty of jalapenos and you grab the first chip, only to discover the cheese and the jalapenos are nothing more than a facade -- a false front for a big pile of warmed-over slightly stale tortilla chips. That's what I hate.

Nachos are supposed to be layered people. You put a layer of chips down, then you layer some beans and maybe some salsa and jalapenos and then some cheese and then more chips and then beans etc., and top it all off with lots of cheese. Then you stick the whole thing in the oven, then you broil it for a few minutes until the cheese on top bubbles and browns. Those are nachos.

Not some pile of chips with a few measly gratings of cheese on top of the whole thing.

So for lunch today, because, as my friend Sylvana used to say, the craving had been established, I made nachos they way they should be made when you order them with the beer. Except I had a coke because I still have to pick the children up from school and take them to the orthodontist.

You probably have your own way of making nachos, but here are my instructions just in case a certain bar cook in my neighborhood happens to be reading. You know who you are.

Preheat your oven to 350:

top your chips with a layer of cheese. Bake for a few minutes until the cheese starts melting, then layer on more chips, bean dip, black beans or whatever:

stick this in the oven, again until cheese starts to melt.

take them out - add more cheese, beans, whatever (I added jalapenos and chopped tomatoes) and turn your oven to broil. Broil until golden.

Now THESE are nachos:

Gourmet

2009-10-06T18:14:00.000-04:00

I honestly can't believe Gourmet is closing. It's one of those magazines, one of those things in life you just think is always going to be around, even if you don't happen to be subscribing to it at the moment. And I loved the new covers: September it was a pear, October an apple dripping with caramel.

Years ago, I had this great recipe from Gourmet for almond toffee which I'd make for my dad every Christmas. I'd copied the recipe from my mother who had copied it from a magazine which had belonged to a friend. My copy lived on an old bank envelope push pinned to a bulletin board in my NYC kitchen. When I moved, I carefully put this beloved recipe into my Joy of Cooking, where I could find it. And did find it, returning it to the JOC, for years. Until we redid the kitchen. Then, I lost it. And have spent more time than I want to think trying to recreate it.

I never ever have.

More Pie

2009-09-30T19:14:00.006-04:00

Still thinking of pie. I love pie. Not just desserty pies either, all pies: chicken-pot, shepherds, fish pie. And tarts too - tarts are just topless pies, in my book. Like pizza. Mmmm, pizza. It's perilously close to dinner time right now...

So, I have this book, published in 2003, by Tamasin Day-Lewis (yes, that Day-Lewis: sister to Daniel-I'll-never-forget-him-shirtless-withhisblackhairstreaming-LastoftheMohicans-Day-Lewis (sigh)) called, racily: Tarts With Tops On. It's about pie. Last week I was scrounging around the fridge, as I so often do, looking for something to make for dinner, feeling uninspired, when I remembered this book. Flipped through it and realized I had the ingredients I needed to make Cheddar Cheese and Onion Pie (found on page 44). Except, as you know, I can never leave any recipe alone. Plus I had to use up the last of the kale, celery and apples I'd purchased at the farmer's market before they became appropriate only for the compost pile. So, if you're interested in the original recipe, buy the book.

But if you're interested in what I made for dinner, well, here it is:

Pie crust: (I didn't love this crust, still a bit too dry, still on the search for the best crust...)

3 cups of all purpose flour (I've been using King Arthur, but I'm beginning to think that I need a more southernly produced flour - Wondra maybe? -- which has less proteins because it's from a warmer climate - see Shirly O. Courriher who writes about the science of cooking)

pinch or 2 of sea salt

3/4 cup of unsalted very cold butter cut up into small cubes

several tlbs of condensed milk (because I never have cream, but I always have cans of this stuff)

beaten egg yolk for glazing the crust

Insides: VERY YUMMY - this turned out great. I think it was the celery.

1 Tblsp of unsalted butter

1Tblsp of olive oil

1/2 large white onion (or 2 leeks, or whatever oniony thing you have)

2 stalks of celery cut into a large dice

3 apples cut into a large dice

3 large leaves of Kale, center stem stripped, and julienned

1/2 cups of shredded cheddar

2 eggs lightly beaten

4 Tblsp of condensed milk

a sprig of thyme

sea salt and black pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 425. Sift the flour and sea salt together into the bowl of the food processor. (Or into a big bowl). While the bowl is running, drop in the butter. When all this is combined and the flour and butter looks like crumbs. (In a bowl, just rub it between your palms to incorporate.) Add the milk, tablespoon by tablespoon until the dough comes together. Roll the dough out onto the counter, shape it into 2 balls and stick them in the refrigerator for 45 min or longer.

Melt butter and olive oil in a large skillet, then gently cook onion, celery, kale until soft. Let cool. Toss into a bowl with the apples, cheese, eggs, thyme, salt and pepper.

Roll 1 ball of dough out and gently place in 9" pie plate. Tip the onion, cheese mixture into crust. Roll out second ball of dough and gently place it on top, pinching the crust in a decorative way (if you can). Brush the crust with egg. Slice little steam slits.

Bake for 30 or so minutes - until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbling.

Let it sit for 10 minutes before serving.

This was remarkably yummy - I think the addition of celery and the apples just made it sing.

Here's pictures of the process:

In Fall a Middle-Aged Woman's Fancy Turns to Apple Pie

2009-09-30T10:08:00.002-04:00

When I was in high school, I used to show up at my friend Phebe's house in late September early October to find everyone in the midst of making pie. They had this wonderful large kitchen with a round table right in the center of everything on which Phebe, her mom, one or two of her siblings, their live-in babysitter, were rolling out crust, chopping apples, tossing it all with cinnamon, sugar and lemon juice. I loved showing up on those days, the air outside was snappy, the kitchen inside was warm and busy, and if there weren't enough apples, we'd run out to the small grove in her back yard and climb the ladders and pick more. Yeah, she had apple trees and a swimming pool in her back yard. I spent a lot of time at Phebe's house.

So Saturday morning, when I got up and let the dogs out, the air was cool and gentle and the tree in my neighbor's yard had it's first patch of red and gold leaves up at the very tippy top, and every molecule in my body cried out for apple pie. I wanted pie so badly, I sliced an apple, put those slices on top of my toast, sprinkled cinnamon sugar over the whole thing and stuck it in the toaster oven for a few minutes, just to get the apple pie essence. Which was kind of good, but no apple pie, my friend. And my house is not Phebe's (Phebe's house isn't even Phebe's anymore: now she lives in Santa Fe where the trees aren't much taller than me -- can one grow apples in the desert?) And there wasn't a passel of people in my kitchen talking laughing and throwing peeled apple slices or raw pie dough down each other's shirts, because that's what we did back then for hilarity. But it was a crisp day, and I was thinking that pie dough is something easily made, but which most people are really afraid of making and maybe it'd be a good thing to post about.

I sound blase in that previous paragraph, but the truth of the matter is that I really don't know what I'm doing when it comes to pie crust. In fact, it's been quite a while since I made pie crust, finding adequate, as I do, the red box of Pilsbury in my grocery refrigerator section.

Anyway, I pulled up cooksillustrated.com because they make pie crust with vodka, and who doesn't love a little vodka in the middle of a saturday (even if you're not actually going to drink it for another 5 hours. I was indoctrinated, at an early age, that you must wait until 5pm for any alcoholic beverage).

Here's how the whole thing turned out:

Yeah, we ate half of it before I remembered to take a picture. Sue me.

Still, the crust is not exactly the uniform golden brown it is supposed to be. And in fact, even though everyone else liked it, I found it to be a bit dry.

Which means I'll have to make it again, because now I'm obsessed with pie crust, and I must make pie until I get it right.

Darn.

I don't know about copy rights, so I don't actually know if I can reprint the vodka pie crust recipe from Cooks Illustrated, so I'm not going to do it. Here's the link, although it might not work because you have to have a membership & a login.

In any case, this is how I made the insides:

apples (I used about a six large jonathan apples) peeled, cored and sliced

1 TBLSP brown sugar (more or less - to taste)

1tsp cinnamon

quick scrape of nutmeg

juice of 1/2 a lemon

zest of 1/2 a lemon

1/4 cup calvados (love this stuff, I keep it in the fridge and splash it in all sorts of stuff)

pinch of kosher salt

1 egg beaten with a bit of water

sanding sugar (optional)

preheat oven to 425

I put all the ingredients in a large dutch oven and cooked them a little bit, stirring frequently, until the apples can be pierced easily with a fork, but not so cooked they fall apart. (Full disclosure: I got this idea from Cooks Illustrated as well because I like a piled high pie, but sometimes the apples in the center don't completely cook) Let apples cool in the pan. When they are coolish to the touch pour them, juices and all, into the pie crust and quickly cover with the top crust and pinch the 2 crusts together in a nice way. (I almost always fail to do this -- the darn thing never looks good). Brush the top of the pie with the egg and don't forget to make a few slivers in the top of your crust so steam can escape. I often forget this because I'm a spaz. Sprinkle the top of your pie with sanding sugar if you have it.

Bake at 425 for 15 min then lower to 350 and bake until your pie is that lovely golden color I dream about. Take it out and let it sit (if you can bear to do that) for 30 min to an hour. Or, just get a fork and dig in, burned tongue be damned.

Sandwiches: Not Just For Lunch Anymore

2009-09-24T17:41:00.014-04:00

This is what we are having for dinner:

That's right:Leftovers!

The last of the rotisserie chicken I bought Monday, the last bits of the bread I made/bought (loaf, homemade, baguette bought, ), cheddar and mozzerella that's been sitting around the fridge.

And: Farmer's Market Stuff!

In this photo are the tomatoes and the incredible goat's milk cheese (check out this website, the cheese is made by hand and awesome) I bought this afternoon.

What am I going to make with all this? Sandwiches! (I'm feeling very exclamatory tonight).

Yes, sandwiches. Originally, I was going to make a butternut squash soup to go with said sandwiches, but considering that it's hotter and more humid today than it's been all summer, I'm bagging the soup and focusing on sandwiches. Although, I am going to grill them, because somehow dinner, even if it is absurdly warm today, needs to be hot. That's just the way I roll.

OH -- Hey! Just found a jar of:

I'm going to mayonnaise the outside of the bread I made (yes, most of you know that I do hate mayonnaise -- however it's really good on the outside of a sandwich instead of butter -- I'll simply breathe through my mouth while I slather the bread) and grill up tomato, goat cheese and chutney sandwiches for Smith and me. For the girls I'm going to make chicken cheddar/mozzerella sandwiches (with the option of chutney) melted on the panini press.

I do have green beans from the Farmer's Market too -- I might not cook those -- they're so fresh they'll be good raw.

The End Result!:

Yes, that is a glass of Riesling:

Back to School

2009-09-22T17:04:00.004-04:00

Well, we are all just exhausted here. Remember how I was complaining in May about how the end of school s$!#s and how it's s$!#iness always so unexpected. Well, I was being a big baby then, because September is rough and that's all there is too it. The most difficult part being rousing one pre- and one full-on teen each morning from the comfort of too many bedclothes. And then getting said people into bed at a reasonable time (before 11pm) so their dad and I can once again watch things rated M for Mature without looking like zombies the next day. (Oh well...)

So, in all of this drama, dinner has gone a bit by the wayside, and this blog has gone a LOT by the wayside, although I am still cooking.

For instance, on Sunday I made spaghetti with meat sauce. Went to Whole Foods where they were having a special on grass fed beef, bought less than a pound (because I didn't have an entire gold ingot at the time) and then was at a loss for how to plump it all up so the kids and the husband would feel like they'd got their dinner's worth. Also, I was feeling a bit spacey when I got to Whole Foods and bought just the meat and some fruit, forgetting that I needed canned tomatoes too.

When I got home, and started browning the meat (in about 1/8 cup of olive oil, and dashed with some kosher salt), I realized that last week I'd bought some beets intending to roast them, but of course had ordered bacon and pineapple pizza that night instead, so I julienned the beets and tossed them in another pan with some sliced onion, a couple garlic cloves, some left over julienned kale (it's september so I'm using SAT words) some minced celery and a sliced carrot. Because I forgot the canned toms, I threw in what was left of a pint of cherry tomatoes, a dash of red wine, and 1/4 of a bottle of Rao's Marinara that had been sitting on the door of the fridge and which wasn't moldy yet. I combined the browned meat with the vegetable sauce and seasoned everything with salt and pepper.

Smith boiled up all the 1/4 boxes of pasta I had lying about the pantry and we tossed it with the sauce.

It was really good. Everyone liked it, and no one noticed the beets, until the leftover sauce turned the leftover pasta a really scary color. But that wasn't until lunch the next day, and by then everyone was long gone in school or at work.

I'm sorry I don't have a picture -- I keep forgetting to charge up the camera battery from when we went on vacation.

I'll get there. And things will calm down. I'm sure of it. And if they don't, well then my next post may be on the medicinal and recreational importance of the perfect Manhattan.

Taco Night: A Meal in Pictures

2009-08-19T03:43:00.014-04:00

My husband bought this:

I know.

Anyway, it's been sitting around here

for ages. I think he bought it during one of his infrequent trips to Whole Foods in the vain and desperate hope I'd buy a pork loin someday and maybe grill or roast it up. I don't know what it is about pork, but I always seem to forget about it when I'm at the store, even though everyone in my family seems to like it when I do cook it. In any case, this pork seasoning had been sitting in my cabinet for so long, it had become invisible to me. Even if I'd had some pork to grill or roast up, I'd never have remembered I'd had this.

So, last night Em requested Tacos -- a good idea because I, miraculously, had Taco shells in the cabinet, and I had tomatoes and lettuce and green beans (yep - greens beens) along with a good sized block of cheese and all that sour cream from that pineapple thing from last week and some hamburger meat in the freezer. Plus it was hot and I'd been to the pool and had recently injured my back cleaning my other daughter's room out of books she no longer wants to read and I didn't really feel much like cooking. Tacos are one of those kitchen sink meals: you just toss a bunch of things in bowls and let everyone make their own. And you can put anything in them -- anything at all that sounds good to you, or that you have to eat before it goes off in the fridge. I got stuff together:

Except: No Taco Seasoning. Now, I could have made my own, but there's that back injury thing, and I still smelled like chlorine, and I still had to brown the meat, and to be honest here, I just couldn't face one more step. Back to the cabinet, thinking I might at least have some chili powder when I saw

A quick check of ingredients: brown sugar, kosher salt, coriander, cumin, pepper, paprika, ancho, cayenne : Perfect!

My trusty souschef

and I browned the meat,

got the table ready:

And called everyone to dinner. It was all a huge success.

If I WERE Going to Make Taco Seasoning, This is How:

1 TBLS chili powder

1 TBLS brown sugar

1 tsp Kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp paprika

1/8 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (use more, or less, depends on you)

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Whisk it all together. You can leave out the red pepper and the cayenne if you want to -- chili powder has them both -- but I like the added kick. Adjust the seasonings to your own taste.

Next time I make this I'm going to put some coriander in it too.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled food blog for a word about Michael Vic

2009-08-15T17:40:00.009-04:00

I don't know what to do with this Michael Vic thing. Have you seen the National Geographic documentary about the dogs they rescued from there? It horrific. The fact that he's going to play for the Eagles has got me, and in particular my youngest daughter really worked up. My Mad is the biggest, most intense, dog advocate I know and I was so worried about how she would react to the news that Vic will be here, in Philadelphia, I didn't tell her for most of the day.

I didn't tell her until right before dinner, and then the four of us had a big long discussion about the whole thing while we ate, and it was really interesting because we talked about whether Vic should be able to play, about how he did something terrible, something wrong, he was caught, he was punished and he apologized. Even if we can't forgive him because what he did to those dogs was disgusting, shouldn't we let him get on with his life?

Because its not like we haven't done bad things (ok, not that bad, obviously), but when we do something bad, and we do the time and we apologize and try to make amends shouldn't others respect that and let us get on? So if the Eagles are doing that, maybe it's good. At some point, there has to be an end to the punishment -- because most punishment is a finite thing. I say that to the girls all the time: you're sister has apologized for [wearing your favorite shirt/breaking your whatever/reading your emails] and she will [get the stain out/ spend her own money on a new one/ give her computer time up to you] and she will have some sort of consequence, so now it's time to stop haranguing her for it.

Except, does Michael Vic need to be paid 1.5 million dollars? Couldn't the Eagles just have signed him for some more reasonable fee instead? And are they teaching the hundreds of kids who are super fans of the Eagles something about forgiveness, or are they saying that if you do something really bad, I mean really really bad, you still get to be famous and make tons of money and have people laud you if you happen to pay football well enough to win? Are we saying that winning is the most important thing here?

And maybe the real reason we are all up in arms about it because it's hard to believe that someone who is capable of that level of cruelty can really completely change no matter what he's been through in those 18 months of prison. However, I want to give Michael Vic the benefit of the doubt -- I want to see what he does now -- not on the field but in the world. And this is what I ask of my children each time they do something wrong, or I do something wrong in their view: that we start anew, with a clean slate.

It was a really good dinner time discussion, the kind where everyone has a good point to make and we all left the table still thinking about it.

Anyway, it all boils down to this: Mads won't watch the Eagles this year, I don't know if I will be able to stomach watching them either, even though, intellectually, I know the man's paid for his crime. It's an emotional thing, its a visceral reaction, and it's such a bummer, because there is nothing better on a cold November Sunday than cracking a beer, making a plate of nacho's and watching the home team play.

Just Dessert: Weird but Good

2009-08-14T12:04:00.008-04:00

I loved my grandmother a lot. She was very funny, she thought I was great even when I was a snarky teen and she gave me my "first" gin & tonic before I was even 18. The one thing she couldn't really do was cook. I mean she was ok -- nothing she ever plated up was burned, spoiled or inedible, but she didn't really care for cooking, it wasn't fun for her and so her food was just that, food, for dinner.

Except this one time, we were at my grandparents for dinner and we'd just had Salisbury Steak, or some such thing, with an iceberg lettuce salad (which my grandfather loved), and it was time for dessert. My sisters and I, expecting the usual orange sherbert, were stunned when she brought out something different. Something, well, weird, in our book. We weren't sure. My mom had to execute a few well placed underthetable kicks before we'd try it, but to be polite, (and the four of us were nothing if not polite away from home) we did. And it was great. And it is one of my favorite simple desserts and today, even my picky kids love it.

It is:

Pineapple chunks with brown sugar and sour cream.

Yep. That's it. That's all there is to it. And it's weird. I know it is -- but it is incredibly yummy and you should try it for dessert tonight. Seriously. Get yourself some pineapple, chunk it into a bowl, sprinkle a couple pinches of brown sugar over it, drop a spoonful of sour cream on top. If you're feeling bold you can sprinkle a little more brown sugar over the whole thing. Eat it up, yum.

The other day I was reading a recipe for grilled watermelon salad by another Philly cooking blog -- Figtree Appetizers -- and suddenly I thought: Grill the Pineapple! So I did, and this is what it looked like all warm from the grill with the sour cream and brown sugar all melting together:

It was really really good. Better, actually, because the pineapple got all carmelized on the grill and the brown sugar got all melty and I just loved it. Soak some wooden skewers in water for 20 minutes, thread your pineapple onto them and grill over a medium heat for about 5 minutes per side. Then slide them off, and add the brown sugar and the sour cream.

I put the pineapple into my other grandmother's tea cups and I think it all just looks so pretty -- and it makes me miss them both. In fact, since it is "five o'clock somewhere" (as they both used to say when a cocktail was needed somewhat early) and My Husband just got home, I think I'll have a small gin&tonic right now, in their honor.

Cheers.

Nifty New Kitchen Gadget: $21 Tongs

2009-07-29T22:54:00.013-04:00

Monday was my birthday (we won't discuss the number), and to celebrate I went to Williams Sonoma with my Mom and bought a pair of $21 tongs. Yes I did spend that on a pair of tongs, but as I said: it was my birthday. These fabulous tongs are made by Rosle Sure, you can buy a set of tongs at the hardware store for $7.50 -- but they won't have this awesome action: when you hold them downward and slightly squeeze, they open up gently. Then when you hold them upright, squeeze, they close. Very easily (no need to bang it's butt on the counter.)

Here are some pictures of me doing this very thing:

Though I won't be winning any awards for photography, I think you get the idea. These tongs are also very grippy and did a great job of lifting my fried wontons from the pan without shredding them. (See previous post about wontons) However, I have to say that while these tongs are nifty, if it hadn't been my birthday and if I hadn't been feeling generous toward myself (not to mention slightly depressed about that number I won't mention), I'm not sure I'd have bought them. I mean, really, $21 is quite a lot to spend on tongs no matter how cool. If you've got the money, I say go for it, otherwise head to the kitchenwares section of your local hardware store and save yourself $13.50.

Our Beloved Monster and Me

2009-07-29T15:02:00.010-04:00

Our oldest daughter has been on the verge of 13 for about 3 years -- though now that the actual birthday is only two months away she seems to have ramped up the process.

For instance, yesterday: I thought we’d make a quick jaunt to the bookstore before picking Mad up from camp. About halfway there we got into a discussion about why I wouldn’t leave her alone at Borders for the forty minutes it would take to pick up her sister. I might (though probably not) have done it if she’d had both her cell phone and a friend with her -- but without those two things, no go. And so I found myself stuck in the car with Em in full politician mode: alternately arguing her case and accusing me of not trusting her. There was some name calling on her part. Without her realizing it I turned down a side street and drove back toward our house, parked the car in the driveway where I turned off the ignition and waited for her to finish before asking her if she’d like to stay home while I picked up her sister, or go get something to do in car while we picked up her sister because we sure as hell weren’t going to the bookstore now.

And this morning: I go to wake her at about 8:30, as I always do, and she asks me to snuggle, a rare request, so of course I want to snuggle, which I do for a few minutes, but I have several things to do (make lunches, put over laundry, walk the dogs, take a shower) before we leave for camp so I give her a kiss and remind her to get going and I’m half way down the steps to the kitchen when I hear: MOM! MOM! -- and I rush back up thinking something’s wrong (bloody nose?). I get as far as her doorway when she says, “can you pull my blankets up for me? I’m cold.”

This child, who can’t pull her own blankets up, is indignant that I won’t allow her to go to the bookstore and hang out by herself.

Sigh.

There’s more, but I won’t bore you. It’s enough to know she hates me/she loves me/ she needs me/ I’m an idiot. I’ve been on both sides of this equation now, and frankly, if I had to choose, I choose my present (parental) side because nothing could make me go through those teen years again. I’m getting whiplash alternating between sympathy for my girl and complete engulfing frustration. Living with her right now is like trying to balance on a surfboard: We’re at the top of a ten story wave an

d my only hope is to plant my feet and keep my head so I don’t flip both of us beneath the foam.

But last night: we had fun. She took a cooking class recently, so last night she gave us a quick tutorial in the art of fried wontons which we filled with chicken and broccoli and sauteed up in a pan of grapeseed oil, then ate, piping hot, with our fingers. Em says this is a great way to use up the leftovers in the fridge, and I totally agree. A pack of wontons is not more than a few dollars at the store and you can fill them with whatever you like. We just threw ours into a fry pan last night, but when we make them again, I think we’ll steam them a minute first then plonk them in the hot oil because then you only need to cook one side. They were crispy, golden, delicious. Her dad and I dipped our wontons in soy sauce, but Em liked hers plain. These would make great appetizers.

Here are Em’s instructions on how to do it:

Cook some chicken (I seasoned 2 boneless chicken breasts with sea salt and pepper then poached them in 2 cups of water with several dashes of low sodium soy sauce, a bay leaf and some gratings of ginger.) Or use some leftover chicken.
Thaw about 1/2 cup of broccoli and roughly chop
Using only small pieces of broccoli and chicken fold them into individual wontons.
Seal the wontons by dipping a finger in a glass of water and running your finger over the 4 sides of the wonton and then folding the wonton into a triangle, or make a little pocket book by gathering the four corners together or roll it up and seal the ends by folding them over.
Plonk them into hot grape seed oil. Fry until they are golden on all sides. (see notes)

Notes:

I use grape seed oil because it can safely get very hot -- without catching fire (unlike olive oil).
Em’s cooking class threw them into a deep fryer -- which I don’t have -- but which would effectively cook all sides of the wonton all at once --
Which is why I’d steam them first. I don’t have a steamer so I stick a colander in a large stock pot of boiling water and put a lid over the whole thing. Steam them just for a minute - maybe even less- so the wonton dough cooks a bit before tossing them in the oil. Then just cook one side up crispy and golden. We cooked our wontons in batches because we don’t have a fry pan big enough to accommodate

Make as many fried wontons as you have the patience for. We used about 3/4 of a pack before Em got bored and hungry and we all just started shoving the cooked chicken and broccoli into our mouths until it was gone.

Goat Cheese

2009-07-15T19:58:00.005-04:00

Last night I went out to dinner with my friends Laura and Michelle and we had goat cheese for appetizers and goat cheese in the main course. We were sharing everything, and I expressed my insecurity about ordering too much goat cheese, when Michelle, who is a very wise friend, said, "there can never be too much goat cheese."

I think this is one of the great truths of the universe. Goat cheese rules. So, this afternoon I ran myself over to the farmer's market and bought a bunch of gorgeous heirloom tomatoes (because my sad few on my sad vine aren't red yet) and a fat hunk of goat cheese. I chopped those tomatoes and threw them in a bowl with a bit of sea salt and let their juices leach out and settle. Then I cooked up a bag of ravioli I had knocking around my freezer, along with the last bit of a box of pasta, sprinkled it with olive oil. Ran outside to cut some basil, which is doing very well, thank you very much, and threw it all together with goat cheese while the ravioli was still warm. Oh yeah, I also tossed in a few sprigs of parsley and a several grindings of pepper.

Perfection. Because we all know, there can never be too much goat cheese.

Just Dessert

2009-06-12T12:18:00.013-04:00

For some reason, when we have people over for dinner, I always forget to plan a dessert. Always. I never learn from my mistakes. There I am, plating up the cheese and crackers, sauteing mushrooms and garlic or preheating the oven, when one of the guests (usually a child) chirps, "What's for dessert?" Do I panic? Do I send the husband out for ice cream? No. No, because I can always make brownies.

The reason I like brownies, is that they can be made at the last minute, they are very much a dump and pour baking recipe and therefore are tough to screw up (unless the husband is serving his famous margharitas, in which case I will screw it up, trust me -- but no one will care) (well, the children might care, but they can eat popsicles). I start with either the Ghiradelli brownie recipe, or Ina Garten's both of which are yummy just on their own, except I can't ever leave anything alone, so, to this batter I almost always add either dark, milk or white chocolate chips. Or peanut butter chips, or, even better, a tablespoon of smooth peanut butter swirled into it. Or a leftover smashed up candy cane. Or some caramel. A cup of shredded coconut soaked in 1/2 a cup of coconut milk then squeezed out, is good too. I never add nuts because Em's allergic to tree nuts, plus I HATE nuts in sweet things. Always have. Nuts just wreck the mood. (Oh, that just doesn't sound right, does it.) But this shouldn't preclude your adding nuts if they work for you. Or, Whatever.

If I don't have bittersweet chocolate bars to melt, I use powdered coco mix (usually Ghiradelli, but sometimes Dutch Process, or whatever I have as long as it's not instatant) and I do this:

1 1/4 cups coco

2/3 cup of flour

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

sift these together

Melt a stick of butter (1/2 cup), let it cool in a bowl, add

1/4 cup of sugar (I've used brown sugar in a pinch)

1 tsp vanilla (you can leave this out if you don't have any, I've done it, and although vanilla helps everything, leaving it out doesn't kill the brownie experience in anyway I can tell)

2 eggs , lightly beaten

Add the flour mixture to the butter/egg/sugar mixture and stir.

Add 1 cup of any chips (see list above) if you want

Line your 8in square pan, or a 8in round pan, or whatever (I've scooped this batter into oven safe tea cups) with parchment and pour your batter on in. (LINING YOUR BAKING PAN IS VITALLY IMPORTANT: YOU CAN JUST LIFT THE BROWNIE SQUARE OUT OF THE PAN EASILY AND WITHOUT RIPPING IT TO SHREDS.)

Bake @ 350 about 20 minutes.

I know they're done when the center of the pan doesn't seriously jiggle, even though they look not quite cooked. You can do the toothpick in the center test, but you don't want the toothpick to come out clean because the brownies will be dry in the center and asphalt at the edges. Still, you don't want it to be completely wet in the center either. Somewhere in between, erring on the side of not done enough. Let those brownies sit and cool as long as you can stand it. They will finish cooking through then. We like them when they are no longer hot, but warmer than warm.

Lift the Brownie out with the parchment and then cup them up and top them with ice cream -- Em likes Mint Chocolate chip, Mad and I like Caramel Swirl, Smith sometimes goes for the classic vanialla, but just as often reaches for chocolate peanut butter. (We are Edy's or Turkey Hill fans -- both have been safe for my food allergy kid). Or if you have it, make a little whipped cream. (1 cup heavy cream, tsp sugar, tsp vanilla, whisk up in your mixer).

Even when you don't consider yourself a baker, brownies are easy peasy.

The Best Bread Ever (according to my children)

2009-06-03T12:22:00.004-04:00

When I tell people I often bake my own bread they look at me as if I've just said: I often operate on peoples brains. It's that scary. I think it's the yeast -- everyone thinks they are going to kill the yeast, and the bread won't rise. Or they think, all that kneading, ACK! And they give up before they've even begun. I, too, was once afraid of baking bread, afraid of the yeast, afraid of the rise, etc., but now, I am here to tell you that, unless you are trying to make bread from a 10 year old packet of yeast you've had lying about your spice drawer, you can't screw it up. The bread will rise, and it will taste better than any grocery store bread around.

Bread bakers have all sorts of recipes, techniques and bits of information about how to create the perfect loaf -- and I am hoping to get some of these to you in another post. However, today's blog is about the bread I made last night, which my disaffected 12 year old proclaimed as The Best Mom's Ever Made. Considering that she'd likely pick water boarding over speaking to me as her choice of torture, I'm darn thrilled with this declaration.

This recipe is for a sandwich loaf. It is not a crusty European style bread, rather it is intended for thick peanut butter sandwiches, or to be turned into toast slathered with Irish butter, or to be layered into a BLT. My recipe is adapted from several sources: Cooks Illustrated Cooks Bible, Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything, Marion Cunningham's Breakfast Book, Peter Reinhart's Brother Juniper's Bread Book.

Breakfast Bread

1/2 cup warm water

2 1/4 tsp of instant yeast (or 1 package)

1 TBSLP of Brown Sugar

1/2 cup of boiling water

1/2 cup of Rye flakes (or rolled oats-not instant, though)

2 TBLSP unsalted butter

1/2 cup of nonfat (or low fat) dry milk (*see note)

1 cup of warm water

1 scant TBLSP of kosher salt (just don't completely fill the spoon)

3-5 cups of bread flour (all-purpose flour is fine too)

Put the 1/2 cup of warm water in a mixing bowl (by warm I mean not so hot you can't touch it.)
Add the yeast and brown sugar. The sugar helps the yeast go nuts. You know your yeast is bad, or the water was too hot if it doesn't start bubbling after a minute or so.
In another bowl, mix the Rye (or oatmeal) with the boiling water and add the butter so it will have a chance to melt. Stir it all together and let is sit so the Rye will have a chance to absorb some of the water.
Add the 1 cup of warm water, the dry milk, salt and 2 cups of flour to the yeast mixture. Stir it all up with a rubber spatula
add the Rye (oatmeal) mixture. Stir this up too.
Add more flour until you have a manageable dough -- something that holds together, but which is still somewhat sticky. I usually end up adding at least one more cup of flour, but it really depends on the brand of flour you are using.(** see other note below)
Now you can do one of two things: if you have a large stand mixer with a dough hook you don't have to do any hand kneading. Hopefully you've mixed all this up in your mixer's bowl, so now all you have to do is attach the dough hook, turn it on and let'er rip. Let the mixer have it's way with your dough for about 5 minutes. Turn it off, let it rest for 10, turn it back on for another minute or so. If you don't have a stand mixer, turn your dough out onto a lightly floured counter and start kneading. (Pull the dough toward you and fold, push it away and then pull it toward you and fold again) Knead for about 2 minutes, let the dough rest for 10 minutes or so, then knead until it feels more elastic -- about 2 more minutes. Now, was that so hard?
Use cooking spray to lightly oil a large bowl and put the dough in this. Spray the top of the dough lightly, then cover the bowl with plastic wrap. If it's winter and your 50 year old house is as drafty as mine, preheat your oven to 200 for 10 minutes, turn it off, and stick the bowl in the oven. Otherwise it can sit out on your counter if you're sure the cat won't get into it.
Let your dough sit for an hour -- it will double in size. I promise.
After an hour, turn the dough out of the bowl, spray 2 loaf pans with oil (I use glass pyrex loaf pans, but you can use whatever you have). Cut your dough in half and roll the halves up into logs. Put each log into a loaf pan. Spray the tops with oil again, stretch a bit of plastic wrap over the top and let the loaves sit for 30 minutes. OR -- do as I do -- stick them in the fridge overnight and get up early in the morning to bake them so your children will have hot fresh bread the moment they wake up thereby assuring a gratitude and a decent mood from them for at least 20 minutes.
Preheat your oven to 350. Remove the plastic wrap. Bake you loaves for about 30 min (35 - 40 if they are cold from the fridge). After 30 or so minutes, take your loaves out of the oven, slip them from the loaf pans and stick a thermometor in its butt. (The bottom of the loaf) You want the bread to register 195 - 200 degrees. Usually it will read about 180 or so which is good, because now you can stick the loaf back in the oven without the loaf pan. Yep, that's right, just stick your loaf right on the rack. What's good about this is that it gets all four sides of your loaf nice and brown and crunchy. This little thing is what makes it the best. Give your bread another 7 minutes in the oven. Take it out, test it again, if it's close to 195, it's done.
Let your loaf rest a bit before cutting into it. I know this is difficult, but it is important because it has to finish baking a bit (like meat needs to rest) and also because the whole thing will just collapse if you try to cut it too soon.

* 1st Note: if you don't have dry milk, substitute 1 cup of milk (whatever you have) for the 1 cup of water. Warm the milk, or let it stand a bit, to take the chill off before you add it to your dough.

** 2nd Note: believe it or not brand makes a difference because there are different amounts of protein in different brands of flour. See Shirly O. Corriher's book Cookwise for more information on this) I use King Arthur Organic Bread Flour.

Best Laid Plans

2009-05-28T09:56:00.022-04:00

Well, at 9:11 this morning I planned to write for an hour and 1/2, walk the dogs then write for another hour before heading over to Mad's school to stuff envelopes. But I logged into Blogger and started reading some of the blogs I follow, then my mom called and asked if she could bring my (very beloved) Aunt and Uncle over for a quick visit while they are in town. I said yes, of course, bring them on over because I don't get to see them nearly enough, and what was I going to do with the time anyway -- write? Hah.

So we had a great quick visit, and now here I am, snuggled back into the comfy couch, dogs on either side, laptop fired up, and damn if I'm not hungry. It's hard to blog about food when you're hungry. Must. Write. Blog. But perhaps if I had another cup of coffee...

I'm so distractable.

(Here's a fact: according to my computer's dictionary, there is no such word as distractable. Ah, but the Mirriam-Webster online dictionary does acknowledge it... interesting... did you know distract likely comes from the latin distractus, past participle of distrahere, literally to draw apart, from dis- + trahere to draw?)

For instance, every week, usually on Tuesday, I get out my favorite cookbooks and find recipes, and make a shopping list of food for the week. Then, I dutifully go to the store and buy only those items on my list, which I have trained myself to do so I don't wind up buying whatever the store happens to be hawking that day. The rest of the day, I walk around feeling all smug and superior because I was able to resist the spicy peach chutney and andouille sausage because they just didn't fit into this week's plan. No matter how excellent they tasted. No matter how many times I went back to the hawk-er, pretending I needed to try that chutney one more time so I could decide whether my husband and children might like it. I resisted, I stuck to the plan.

Except that on, say, Memorial Day Monday at 5pm, my original list/menu plan long gone in the jumble, I find myself staring into the refrigerator and thinking, why did I buy all that ricotta? The friends we've invited over on the spur of the moment are piling through the front door with their children and their bottle of wine, and I've promised food, positive I've got something in the fridge. Nope. I've got a ton of ricotta and a lemon. What the heck was a I planning to do with that?

Completely flummoxed (ORIGIN mid 19th cent: compare with dialect flummock to make untidy;confuse), my first thought is pizza? Got flour, got yeast, got a bit of tomato sauce somewhere, ok, it's paste but I can use that -- no mozzerella. It wasn't pizza. I don't have time to dig around the cookbooks, and if I'm going to be completely confessional here, I'd probably already used whatever other ingredients I was planning to mix with the ricotta when I abandoned (lost) my menu plan earlier in the week.

But, there's a 1/4 bag of frozen broccoli and a 1/4 bag of frozen peas, and I've got pasta (I always have pasta) , and olive oil, and waaaay in the back of my fridge, I've got an old rind of Parmesan, and this is what I made:

Pasta with Ricotta, Broccoli and Peas

Serves 4-6 adults if you've got some salad and some bread (I served 4 adults and 4 children, but girl-children, who happen to eat like birds)

1/2 cup ricotta

olive oil (1/8 cup or so)

lemon

1lb pasta (I used macaroni shaped pasta for this, but whatever)

1/4 cup frozen broccoli, run under warm water in a sieve until it is less frozen)

1/4 cup peas (also run under warm water)

a grating or two of Parmesan

kosher or sea salt

a solid grinding of pepper

Scoop ricotta into a bowl and swirl in olive oil stirring until the ricotta isn't quite so thick. Zest the lemon into another bowl and set aside, then cut the lemon and squeeze 1/2 into the bowl with the ricotta and olive oil. Stir all this vigorously with a whisk until the mixture is well incorporated. Boil up your pasta, plonking the broccoli and peas into the boiling water for a couple of seconds right before you drain the whole thing. Put the pasta/vegetables back in the pot and immediately throw the ricotta mixture in the pot as well. Stir it all up. Add a teaspoon of lemon zest. (Put the rest in a ziplock and save it in the refrigerator for another time) Grate a tablespoon or so of Parmesan into the pot, and add a pinch of salt and a grind or two of pepper. Taste it. Add more lemon juice, or Parmesan or salt depending on your taste. You can eat this right away, or you can put it in a nice looking bowl and let it sit until you're ready to eat it because it's also good room temperature.

If you happen to have broken down at the grocery and bought the andouille sausage that lady was pushing, then slice it up and saute it in some oil because it's good on top of this pasta (not that I did this exactly. Oh, fine. Ok. I did come home with the sausage, but I froze most of it and just cooked up one link and it was heaven.)

If you have some fresh thyme in the garden (I didn't, but I will once I get to the garden center and buy some) about a tablespoon into this mixture would seriously enhance the whole thing.

Mint might be good too, actually, but I don't have that either.

And If I'd had a can of artichoke hearts I would most certainly have chopped a few of those up and thrown them in.

Have you noticed how my tenses have been slipping all over the page in this post? Like I said, distractable. Past, present, past perfect -- what other crazy tenses have I used all you English majors out there?

Sometimes You Just Order Pizza

2009-05-23T07:25:00.008-04:00

We've been eating a lot of take out lately and I'm not too proud to say it. I don't know what happened. Well, yes, actually, I do. It's the end of the school year and everything is going ka-blewie. We are all insane here. For instance, this morning I can't find the coffee press. I've looked in all the usual places, and I've looked in all the unusual places and now I'm just caffeine deprived and mad. This is what comes of giving angry pre-teen children jobs to do around the house. Ask one to empty the dishwasher, but don't expect to find your coffee press ever again.

Dear God, I may have to go to Starbucks.

I hate end of school-year stress. It always feels much worse to me than even the stress of September. Sure, September brings new classrooms, different kids, school supply shopping. In September, kids who have been going to bed late and waking up late, now have to go to bed early and wake up early. There are new routines, plays and bands, choruses and teams to try out for, and I'm shelling out money right and left for t-shirts, and field trips, cleats and guitar lessons.

But May is sneaky. It is deceptively stressful. You're all happy because the sun's finally out and the plants you thought you'd killed last fall are sprouting hopeful shoots, and the dogs can lie outside on the deck with their bellies turned toward the sun. You feel like you're running down the home stretch because school's almost over -- which is a good thing, right? Except that one child has a chorus concert, and a project on Rome due which is 60% of her grade, and a biography project for language arts which is 40% and for which we have to go to the actual library, in town, and look for books. The other daughter has soccer tryouts, and an end of year band concert, and, even though she's only in 4th grade, she's in the chorus of the 5th grade play and she has to be at rehearsals, and we need to make 80 madeleines for the French festival (and we only have one pan). And she's stressed because transitions stress her to the ceiling so all you have to do is say boo! and she's the Tasmanian Devil.

Oh, and because one of my 100 jobs is tutoring highschool kids in writing, I'm getting calls about their end of year projects. Which is good, work is always good, but still... time.

Also, the end of April is my dad's birthday, then the first week in May is my husband's birthday, then it's Mother's Day, then the week after that is our wedding anniversary: all wonderful events, celebratory events, but events which take time and definitely preparation.

Sorry. Didn't mean for this post to turn into a big whine-fest. However, this is a long way of saying that sometimes, pizza is very very good.

Instead of a recipe, I am linking you to Poppi's pizza -- my favorite joint in this area. They have this thin crispy, New York style crust that I cannot get enough of. (I'm sorry, everyone else in the world, but New York crust is the best. Just like New York bagels are the best. It's the water there, so don't feel bad. When I was pregnant with Em I almost had Smith talked into driving me to my favorite pizza place on Greenwich and 6th -- even though we lived in Center City Philadelphia at the time. At the last minute he made some panicked calls to a native Philadelphian who directed him to a pizza place he swore had NY style crust. It didn't. If Poppi's had been around back then, a very ugly chapter in our marriage would never have happened.)

However, there is quite a lot one can do with leftover pizza. We always order a large, and sometimes two because you can put slices on a cookie sheet and freeze them, then, once they're frozen (about an hour), wrap them in parchment and stick in freezer bags. Take a slice out and reheat it in the oven (never the microwave, which makes the crust soggy) whenver you want it.

To make it taste yummier, take your leftover pizza and plonk a spoonful of tomatoes from a can on top, grate a bit of parmesan, stick it in the oven at 425 and in 10 min you have crispy pizza. Really, any cheese you have is good on cold leftover pizza. I like ricotta, goat, brie, tallegio, but not all at once. Or, put a few pieces of pineapple on your plain, bacon or sausage pizza before warming it up. I've also put frozen slices of mango on my pizza -- surprisingly yummy, especially for breakfast. Right now I am eating plain cold pizza while sipping hot coffee. (Found the coffee press, it was in the cereal cabinet). Christine Lavin prefers her's with cold coke.

Em prefers her leftover pizza delivered to her in bed by her mother as a bribe for getting up before 10am on a beautiful May Saturday in order to go do something as a family without a huge argument. At least I'm hoping this will be the case. Wish me luck.