In the kitchen, etc.

Soup and Sandwich

2012-02-08T15:25:00.000-08:00

There is little more satisfying on a snowy day than soup and a grilled cheese. I would argue that a good book, a quiet house, and a warm afghan are also nice, but I don't know when I will experience those again what with two young children in the house. But I can and did set about to make the meal happen at least. I picked up Essential Pepin, a cookbook totally worth its weight in gold as I see it, to guide me in the soup department. To trim this book down to its 700+ recipes, Jacques Pepin had to seriously cut. Can you even imagine having a repertoire so vast? I chose his cauliflower soup, which is flavored with curry powder. This is one of the things that makes JP so amazing - he is sooooo classically trained, coming up through the ranks the old fashioned way, yet he is not wedded steadfastly to strict French technique and tradition. He loves corn and sour cream! I think a lot of French chefs would sneer at that.

I even made the bread for my grilled cheese. I have been gun-shy on bread as of late because of two enormous mishaps. Blunders, really; no, travesties in yeast. I made four doughs that I ended up chucking after baking. I baked for twice as long as recommended - going by internal temperature on the last two loaves and tapping on the first two - and all four were undercooked. So strange a thing too. The inside of an undercooked bread is doughy and moist and smells like beer. So wrong. You think, I can salvage this. Maybe it's not underdone. You take a bite and realize that it is hopeless.

I went to America's Test Kitchen for a whole wheat loaf and hit the nail on the head. This bread was awesome. The crust was perfect and the chew was great. It was not dry, like wheat loaves I have made in the past. I followed the recipe to the letter - even setting a timer for the kneading process - because ATK is all about The Letter. Knead for 9 minutes? Check. Such a relief to get back into bread and have it work out. There's nothing that hurts more than a bad loaf. You put in all this effort and time and you so look forward to fresh bread, and then Yuck! you have to pitch it because it's nasty and unsalvagable. You feel like less of a person. I do, anyway. But I am back in the saddle. Yee-haw.

Southern-Asian Fusion

2012-01-28T13:41:00.000-08:00

The food of the American South sounds like some of the grossest and most unhealthy out there. It is enjoying a revival that includes small batch bourbons, local sourcing, heritage animals and so on. That's nice. I have never been to the South. I am from the West. These two facts combine to mean that (a) I can't possibly understand or comment on Southern food, and (b) I have never eaten true Southern food. I tried to make something Southern a few weeks ago: chicken-fried steak. Sounds wretched, doesn't it? It should be served with a white, flour-based sauce. I have three cube steaks in my deep freeze, and what does one do with that cut? One makes chicken-fried steak. So I did. And, man, was it good. I served it as leftovers the following day in a most heretical way: with tempura dipping sauce. I think that is actually called "fusion."

Speaking of the South, Paula Deen recently announced that she has Type 2 Diabetes. This comes as a shock to no one who knows what the woman makes: desserts and white-flour laden meals. Duh. She positively loves that her food is bad for you. She has a joke with her TV audience that you should "eat your greens" - she says this and then adorns her dessert with a mint spring. Ha ha. Apparently, Paula has had diabetes for a few years now and kept it out of the public eye because her empire is built on her unhealthy food. Wow. She might be working a deal with Big Pharma to promote a diabetes drug. Now that's gotta be called fusion too.

Lady who lunch

2012-01-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

Ah, the real reason I stay at home with the kids - lunch. I get to fix what I want and eat it in front of my favorite telenovela. Actually, I don't really have a novela now. One of the best ones just ended: La Fuerza del Destino. This is how I keep my Spanish ability well exercised.

bean de dok, mung bean pancakes with kim chi

I like to throw together a little leftovers with something new, most days. Here we have some bean de dok (I'm on a Korean kick), miso soup, and a salad with miso dressing. Quite the lovely lunch.

I call lunch my "break." Whenever T decides to nap, I get my break. When I have both S and T at home, I do not get a break. They have conspired against me - taking naps at different times. Actually conspiring so that, when it's time for Sam's nap, T wakes up from his. I remember wanting to blog every day about food. I also remember that I was quite active on Yelp, even getting "elite" status. Now I am not really active in anything. Two kids and a husband make a big mess to stay on top of - just feeding them means I am in the kitchen a lot. Like, a lot. I haven't been feeling very bloggy - I haven't even kept up with reading the blogs I follow. I usually at least do that. Ah well. Phases, right?

Ode to Mom's Cooking, by Sam

2011-12-07T14:10:00.001-08:00

post-Thanksgiving kitchen mess

You set before me this plate of food

And I stare and poke and search for something good

To stick my fork into, but instead find

That you must have left all the tasty stuff behind.

Because you know I won't eat these things that are green.

And pasta with sauce or meat or cheese - when have you seen

Me accept anything but stark naked noodles?

Stop all this ridiculous and fruitless effort and oodles

Of wasted meals - sweet potatoes no longer drive me wild.

I know I used to eat tofu and was a child

Who dipped his fork into any dish.

I understand that this adventurous Sam is who you wish

To see atable at 6pm when you are looking

In the cupboards and fridge to decide what you are cooking.

Though I am finicky, I really do appreciate and see

All the effort you put forth for my palette and me.

But, think of it this way, oh mother of mine,

I do eat from the food groups. I eat just fine.

Yes, my tastes are narrow and my appetite small;

I do choke and cry when you make me eat it all.

But I will eat fish, persimmons, and even squid,

And I often can be tricked when you mix new things amid

My staples of apples, kiwi, hard boiled eggs and cheese.

So, when I won't try your new dish, don't take it as a failure, please.

Someday I will comprehend your prowess with food.

In the mean time, don't let my pickiness affect your mood.

Rest assured that one of these days my tastebuds will gel

And we will mark the day when in love with your cooking I fell.

gougeres for Thanksgiving

Wedges

2011-11-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

brodo

There was one day last week when all my meals were shaped like wedges. I had leftover pizza, erbazzone, and fennel-leek tart. Funny. We were not supposed to order pizza, but we had to because, although I had been in and out of the kitchen for five hours that day, dinner still didn't come together in time. Ridiculous. I managed to shed zero tears, but I did feel like punching something. The pizza guy. With his smug grin and stupid pizza bag.

Although there is no photo of the pizza, I would like to air Pizza Complaint Number One: raw toppings. When I make pizza at home, it takes forever because I cook everything that goes on it. We ordered a fabulous, seasonal mushroom pizza that was covered in mushrooms ... raw mushrooms. Well, okay, they had been cooked for 10 minutes in the oven with the dough and cheese, but that's not enough. You need to saute, people! (If I had left the comma out of that sentence, it would have sounded like I make cannibal pizza. Saute people! Let's eat Grandma! Yum.)

So, for pizza night, I was in the process of making Brodo with capellini and chicken. The broth is made by browning the chicken and the vegetables, then simmering everything, adding wine, herbs, and water. I am always worried that I am going to season incorrectly, so I commit the same sin that home cooks everywhere commit - under seasoning. You think I would have learned by now; I am even writing about it, so I have learned, I just refuse to liberate my hand when it has salt in it.

So, the brodo was dark and lovely looking. And under-seasoned. It goes well with lots of pepper. And, funny enough, the parsley brings it together.

chard erbazzone

I was also making erbazzone that night, which came together by 9pm. It is easy, but requires attention during its several steps. Attention that was drawn away by my children. I do a dance in the kitchen: I look at the clock and think, Okay, I need 20 minutes solid for this next thing, can I start now? Well, if Teddy wakes up ... hmmm, I do need to shower ... Oh, Sam needs me ... hmmmm, how about now? I have ruined two dishes so far during this Two Kids thing I am doing. Burning garlic is the pits. I considered this meal the third Ruin, since we didn't eat it until the following night.

I have posted about erbazzone before, but this was the first time I made my own crust. It is the easiest crust ever! This from someone who cannot make crust to save her life: 2 cups flour, 1tsp. salt, 1/2 cup olive oil and 1/3 cup water. Bring it all together in a food processor. Knead for 30 seconds; let it rest in plastic wrap for 30 minutes. Bam. Crust. It rolls out to 1/4-sheet pan size, too.

fennel-leek tart

The third wedge was of this tart: fennel-leek. It is sooooo good. I did not make the crust; it is puff pastry. You have to be ready for the off-gassing that follows this dish. What? Too much for a food blog to talk about the GI implications? Sorry. Did you know that Gulliver's Travels was the first novel that dealt with matters of the water closet? Bawdy, no? You have to think about these things (gas, not Gulliver) when you are nursing because what goes around comes around, if you know what I mean.

Enough, I know. I'm not sure how many people I have looking at this blog anymore, so I am going for shock value.

Where is Panasia?

2011-10-06T14:36:00.000-07:00

kimchi

I have been watching The Kimchi Chronicles. As you can guess, it takes place in Korea and is about Korean cuisine. I only have a couple of experiences with Korean cuisine: bibimbap in a restaurant and Julie's mom's cooking and, well, that's a couple and that's it.

Kimchi, for the uninitiated, is a spicy, fermented cabbage - a distant cousin of sauerkraut - pictured above. It is stinky and can age for years; these two attributes combine to mean that households make and keep their kimchi outside.

Needless to say, this show gave me serious cravings for Asian fare, so I devoted a week to creating Asian meals. First was bibimbap, which is pretty simple, as it turns out. I think a lot of Asian cooking is simple, but requires so much prep that when you finish your meal the kitchen is cluttered with the biggest pile of dishes and bowls and pans ever. Josh hates it when I cook Asian for this reason, since he is usually on cleanup. I do firmly believe in and practice Clean As You Go, but, as you may know, things happen so quickly in Asian cooking that there isn't really time to pre-clean.

finished bibimbap

Anyway. Bibimbap consists of vegetables, beef, rice, kimchi, and an egg. Then you flavor with the Korean spicy sauce called gochujong. Easy. I chose lu choy, carrots, zucchini, shiitakes, enokis, and bean sprouts for my veggies and blanched them. Well, I cooked the shiitakes in some oil. For the beef, I bought Beef for Sukiyaki and marinated it for about 6 hours. It is sliced so thin that it took a couple minutes to cook. I found good kimchi that didn't have MSG or food coloring or other crap - you would be amazed at the number of items with crap in them. Why is there food coloring in sushi? Aspartame in pickled ginger? I then baked brown rice, but needed to innovate to get a more authentic bowl of bibimbap. You see, the dish should be served in a clay pot so that you get two things: (1) some caramelized rice stuck to the bottom (socarrat, for paella eaters), and (2) a degree of heat so high that all you do is crack the egg on top and mix it in to cook it! So, in order to approximate this, I busted out my cast iron skillet.

Truth be told, I fear my cast iron skillet. But, there are three culinary objectives I am trying to achieve: (1) drink more sparkling wine, (2) eat more interesting cheeses, and (3) use my cast iron skillet. I fear the CIS because you don't wash it. Ever. That's weird.

You'll be happy to note that my experiment worked and I got crusty rice for my bibimbap. I did have to fry the egg in a pan, however.

For my next trick, pad thai with real tamarind paste! I have made pad thai before, but I used ketchup to get that sweet and tangy flavor found in this dish. All I have to say is praise be to men who opened Uwajimaya. You need kimchi? No prob. Gochujong? Yup. Tamarind paste made from a pod that grows on a tree that lives nowhere near here? Yup, got that too. Oh, and lots of Spam to boot.

tamarind paste

Pad Thai is another very simple dish. It consists of rice noodles and bean sprouts, with a protein of choice and a flavorful sauce. I was surprised that the method was to pour quite a bit of sauce over the noodles and let everything cook in it. I added vegetables, cabbage and carrots and zukes, because that's what I do.

So my pad thai with a side Thai beef salad was awesome. My Thai beef salad beats the pants off of any you can get in a restaurant. Again, I used the cast iron to get my beef just so. The tomatoes are from my garden, but you don't need them. The recipe calls for cucumber, but I didn't get one and you don't need it. As long as you have lettuce, beef, herbs, red onion, and the sauce, that's all you need.

We have mint growing in our yard, and that's half of the herbage there. I planted the herb thinking it could spread around a lilac tree in one corner of our front yard. he he, funny ... mint doesn't like to be contained. Underground runners. I think that, by definition, plants that run underground are from Hell.

My last dishes, which I will not wax lyrical about, even though I should because they kicked ass, were Hanoi soup with marinated pork and vegetable lo mein. All I will say is that the broth is flavored with star anise! What?! Delightful, that's what.

I was also going to make laksa, an Indonesian dish, but a combination of events led me to postpone it. I have made it before - it has squid, scallops, shrimp, fishballs (which have nothing to do with fish anatomy, per se), and sometimes chicken or tofu or beef in a thick broth with noodles. I will be making it this week because I have squid in the freezer and lemongrass in the fridge to use. Not to mention fresh Chinese noodles, which also are hard to find without food coloring and weird chemical ingredients! What the?

Hangry Glucosavore

2011-09-27T13:32:00.000-07:00

I learned a new word that I shall add to my idiolect (feel free to add that one right there to yours): hangry. It is a combination of hungry and angry - something that I often am. When my blood sugar drops, I will take someone's head off. That might be one of the reasons I think so much about food and need to have meals planned and feel it is really strange when others do not plan meals. But won't you be hangry later if you don't make a game plan now?

Josh's good friend Jason also gets hangry. His wife Julie said she used to carry around granola bars so that when Jason started barking, she could shove one in his mouth to curb the hanger. Awesome.

Remember my canning woes? Well, the green tomato pickles are awesome. It kind of messes with your mind to bite into a tomato that is green and that tastes like a pickle, which is automatically a cucumber pickle in my mind.

I found out that fried green tomatoes are meant to be dredged in cornflour and fried in bacon grease! Hm, I do have another round of green tomatoes that need to come off the vine, given that the 60 degree weather has begun. And I do have some bacon. And I did bust out my cast iron skillet last night. Would that be what they call a "perfect storm"? I hate that phrase; but I detest "literally" even more. Have you noticed the pandemic overuse of this word? Ug.

Next, I am trying to purge all the sugar from the house so that I don't eat anymore. Naturally, I have to make some dessert in the mean time. I made Mexican chocolate souffles. I noticed that the first ingredient in Ibarra chocolate is actually sugar and not chocolate. Interesting. These were really good. And I have come to realize that souffles are ridiculously easy. I also made ricotta souffles, but didn't take a photo. It takes me four minutes to hand-whip egg whites ... silly how easy souffles are.

This sugar thing. So I read an article called "Is Sugar Toxic?" Scary title and scary topic. The author, in all his research, concluded that sugar is linked to all manner of metabolic diseases AND cancers. He didn't even mention the whole teeth rotting out of your head thing.

Then I go on thinking that life is meant to be enjoyed and surely I do not consume gross levels of sugar because we eat lots of veggies and little to no processed foods in my house.

Then I think about how much longer living cultures (some Italians, Okinawans) really eat of sugar, and I wonder if I should compare myself to their intake or if I should go cold turkey to be safe.

In short, I go back and forth in my sugar eating (glucosavorous) philosophy. It's a First World problem, isn't it? Probably just an American one, actually, because our food culture is so ... stunted? Inane? F'ed up?

Canning

2011-09-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

Preserving, canning, making your own sausage, keeping chickens - all these atavistic lifestyle choices are back en force. There is even a guy in this town who will come to your house, install a beehive, and then tend it for you. You get honey out of the deal.

I like the idea of urban quasi-homesteading, truly creating all these things for yourself and your family. Why not?

I'll tell you why not! Because I suck at it. Well, I have only tried the canning part and I am sufficiently bad as to stop trying. Last year I made blueberry and peach preserves - separately, not together in a jar - and they were both good, and the preserving process went fine. This year I canned four different things: raspberries, strawberries, pickled green tomatoes, and spiced peaches. Each one leaked juices into the canning water; each has too much liquid in the jars because I didn't smash the contents down enough. Bother.

Canning, heck, even making your own sausage, is about preserving the harvest, right? I realized, after spending a bunch on flats of berries and pounds of peaches, that I do not have a harvest to preserve. Meaning, since I pay for someone else's harvest, all I am doing is exercising some notion of what I am supposed to do in this post-Martha Stewart, post-women's lib world of homemaking I currently inhabit.

I did harvest our very own green tomatoes for the pickles. That feels satisfying. I would have harvested blueberries from our bushes, but since I did pretty much zilch in the yard this year, I couldn't be bothered to put nets over the bushes, so the cursed robins ate all the berries.

I did learn what "freestone" means in stone fruit. It should be obvious, I suppose. Now I know what a total jerk the peach guy at Ballard Farmers Market was when he sold me nine peaches that were not freestone when I specifically told him that I was using them for a cobbler. I smashed up several peaches trying to get the flesh off the pit before I relented and took my knife to them. I learned from that mistake and got a freestone variety for my canning. I have high hopes for my spiced peaches this winter on my oatmeal.

I was also going to ruin some marionberry preserves this year but didn't get the chance because the ladies in this neighborhood lined up 30 minutes before the berry stand opened. Apparently, the first few people in line bought up all the flats so no one else could have any. The lady running the stand said that they got 10 flats in a day and limited people to two. Can you imagine being sixth in line and watching everyone before you buy two so that you get nothing? And what happened to just buying a couple of pints to eat? Sheesh. I would have settled for a couple pints for a pie or in my yogurt!

I always seemed to pick the hottest day of the week to can too. Bah. Next year I'm sticking to cleaning. Oh, I bet I would be good at sauerkraut because you stick it in a jar and leave it to rot. That I can do.

Muffin Roll Call

2011-09-05T16:17:00.000-07:00

I was talking with a girlfriend about how Sam gets "special meals." I have mentioned this practice to you before, I am sure. Said gf was over as carrot muffins baked away. I said that I had a lot of carrots and thought I would make muffins in an attempt to get Sam to eat an actual serving portion of a vegetable. I then got to wondering about how many muffins and rolls and pancakes and patties I have baked veggies into in the hopes that Sam would eat them.

carrot muffin

Let's see ...

Sweet potato muffins and pancakes

Broccoli-cheese rolls

Carrot cake and muffins

Zucchini bread

Harvest cake (carrot, parsnip, zucchini)

lumpia with veggies

ravioli with veggies

veggie burgers
veggie pancakes
zucchini fritters

These morsels usually work for one or maybe two servings and then Sam's taste buds rebel or something.

harvest cake

I keep working and reworking my Child Meal Philosophy. As I see it, there are three basic thoughts:

1. The child eats what we eat. I like this one. How else are we supposed to transmit culture and dining etiquette, not to mention make sure we don't have a finicky Napoleon at the table who thinks the world revolves around his taste buds.

2. The child has a small portion of what we eat plus something we know the child will eat. This option seems a sensible middle road. Perhaps expecting a three-year-old to eat Thai beef salad is too much, but if he tastes a little beef and then has some inoffensive macaroni and cheese, surely this will create a child who is not afraid to try to new things and one who appreciates his mother's wonderful cooking. Surely.

3. The child has his own meal. This is the norm around here. It was also the norm, as I have mentioned before, when I was growing up. My mother and father would have their liver and onions with a side of steamed broccoli and mayonnaise, while we children had tater tots, carrot sticks, and chicken nuggets. There are so many problems with this, I don't even know where to begin. Mostly, I don't like it for two reasons. First, it means I spend extra time in the kitchen making something that Sam might reject. I have cried over a meal that I made just for him when he sent back to the kitchen with upturned nose. So my sensitiveness means I always err on the side of caution and make only dishes I know he won't turn down, which includes all of four things. Second, remember that Napoleon comment above? Yeah. I know my mother would say that we three kids turned out fine. I mean, look! I even have a food blog AND I eat anchovies and at one point had an entire 1/4 steer in my freezer.

But it's the philosophy.

See, I think in terms of right and wrong for just about everything. Oh, there are many ways to skin a cat, yes, but there is one best way, and that way is the right way.

broccoli-cheese rolls

There is another barrier to #1, and that is that dinner just isn't always ready at 6pm when Sam is ready to eat. So what then? I thought that I could reserve a small portion of the previous night's meal so that Sam and I can sit down to the same thing at the same time. But that hasn't consistently worked out. Also, I get worried that he'll starve. I mean, I know he won't really starve. He'll probably just go to bed hungry for a while. We already connect dessert to amount of new thing he tries and he already announces, "I don't want yogurt pretzels," to show us that he understands the connection and that he really doesn't have to try anything new because there will be more, better food tomorrow, thanks.

I could go old school and put the same dish of food in front of him day after day until he eats it. What's that? The same bowl of goulash, you say? Why, yes, it is!

I really just need to commit to having dinner done by 6pm and Sam eats it, period. That probably means making dinner around 3pm. Jacques Pepin said his daughter always ate what they ate. Lots of people do that. Why do I do that crazy American thing of making him his own meal? What came first, Sam's finickiness or me making him finicky by treating his meal as special? I probably brought this upon myself. Ug.

Authenticity

2011-09-01T18:56:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about authenticity recently. In a No Reservations episode I caught on the tele the other night, Tony went to Naples in search of the real McCoy, i.e. Neapolitan pizza. He ate at one of the two restaurants claiming to have made the first pizza and ordered the margherita, which is a purist pizza. Perhaps the purist. By outlining the virtues of this pizza, he also underscored the sins of many an American pizza pie: thick crust, tons of toppings, bland sauce, rubbery cheese. The real pizza should only have mozzarella di buffalo - fresh - for goodness sake.

Then Tony came back to New York and talked to two restaurants owners/chefs about their Neopolitan (Italian?) restaurant. They discussed authenticity and how that translates in the US. I was a Yelper once, and there is a lot of talk out there about whether this Thai place or that Sichuan place is authentic - and everyone disagrees. The point made by these two guys talking to Tony was that authentic Italian cuisine is local. Part of its very nature is that you serve what is in the region; you see the cuisine change from north to south, from mountain to sea. Okay, so for the US, we extrapolate that if you have Italian dishes and they are authentic, then they are actually inspired by Italy and sourced locally. As opposed to flying in the real ingredients from Sicily, say, and saying that you are an authentic Sicilian restaurant.

I'm just spitballing here. I think that I am a "spirit of the law" type of gal when it comes to this idea.

That you adapt to your locality makes you authentic. Perhaps everything in this country should be hyphenated. Italian-American.

Good Food did a celebration last year that was apparently Mexican-Italian. Blending is very American ... I'm thinking Spam sushi.

So we either cannot ever use the word authentic, or we can agree that it is fungible, in a sense. Perhaps you are a strict constructionist who thinks that authenticity is found in the method and the ingredients. You would therefore fly your ingredients in from whichever far-off lands were required. If you are a spirit-of-the-law adherent as I am, however, you go local and get inspired by those far-off locales.

Josh and I just ate at a local joint, Staple and Fancy, that calls itself Italian-inspired. Hm. I think there are others like me.

The above are all recent dishes chez moi: pizza margherita, pizza di zucca, spaghetti with roasted tomatoes and arugula and ricotta, tomato-mozzarella-basil (with tomatoes and basil from my yard!).

Clean!

2011-08-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

Few things thrill me more than the end result of a cleaning project. Actually, I like the middle part, too, because I listen to my iPod. Okay. I admit that I also love the middle part because I use Bon Ami to get all the crusty stuff off the stove. Maybe I even let things get a little crusty so that I can use Bon Ami. Maybe.

There is a podcast I am loving right now; it also makes me want to move to LA - Los Angeles, that is. It's called Good Food, and it's through KCRW. They have a "market report" where a reporter goes to the Santa Monica Farmers' Market and talks to the vendors about the produce. Then there are guests who talk about restaurants and ingredients and books and things like that. I love it. The Splendid Table is another food podcast I listen to, but it's different and I like is for different reasons. I don't like it as much as GF because of the call-in period. I tend to greatly dislike listening to the hoi polloi calling in to any kind of show. I end up yelling at the radio because the callers use "um" or "like" or "you know" too much, or because I do not find their commentary call-in worthy at best or, at worst, not interesting or intelligent. I'm kind of a B like that.

I like pulling all the bottles out of the refrigerator so that I can reorganize them on the doors. They must go in themes. So I have a mustard shelf (yes, I do have that many mustards), an Asian shelf, a tall bottles shelf that has olives, ketchup, syrup, lemon juice. Why does lemon juice in a bottle taste like licking a metal pole? Gross.

I also like wiping all the bottles off. I unscrew the caps and rinse them out; and I wipe off the threads on the bottle top. I once caught Josh using a bottle cap to catch the dripping barbecue sauce, which he then screwed right back on. I chastised him, to which he responded that it all just drips back in anyway, what was I talking about that it's going to get the bottle all gross, the bottles are clean. Then I had to break it to him that I actually clean the bottles. I think he was both shocked and saddened.

But what I like most is finding bottles full of stuff that has gone south. Then I get to dump out the contents, clean the bottle, and rearrange the shelf it was on. Empty space creates possibility!

I found a dessicated flower and a dead bug in my freezer. What? Don't even get me started on the silverware drawer. How do crumbs get in with my forks? That isn't even where we do prep work or cutting or anything. This is the great mystery of the kitchen.

When we first got this fridge, I heard the installation team drop one of the door shelves. Later, after they had gone, I found a shard on the floor and pieced it into the aforementioned shelf. The company sent a new shelf, no questions asked. Well, I then wanted to wash the shelves out during my first fridge cleaning adventure. I put the shelf on the bottom rack of the dishwasher. I am sure you can see where this is headed. The shelf warped - the very same shelf that was replaced because it was dropped and chipped. Funny.

This shot is eye candy for those of you who like to see what others have in their fridges. Don't worry, this is not the final arrangement. All that talk about cleaning, like I would leave my shelves in this kind of disorder!

Letter Update

2011-08-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

This is the actual email I sent:

Dear BA,

I was disappointed and actually a bit disgusted upon receiving my September edition of BA because of the perfume ad inside. I understand that advertising pays for a magazine, but, just as smelly candles and flowers do not go on the dining table, perfume does not go well with a food magazine. I hastily ripped out the ad, but the surrounding pages still reek. I have a feeling other readers felt the same upon cracking their monthly BA, especially after the magazine marinated in its plastic bag while sitting in a hot mailbox. I implore you never to do that again.

Sincerely,

Jen Sorenson

Open Letter to Bon Appetit

2011-08-24T18:57:00.000-07:00

Dear Bon Appetit,

I will not be renewing my subscription for three reasons.

1. You put Gwynyth Paltrow on the cover. I like her as much as the next gal, but she is the only person I have ever seen on the cover. You only put dishes on the cover, and I just don't think that you should stoop to this celebrity cookbook porn garbage. You already have a ton of advertisement on the inside pages.

2. You put a perfume advertisement in the September issue! What the hell were you thinking? In a food magazine? Overpowering odor does not go hand in hand with making food, thinking about food, or reading about food. Gross.

3. I hate your new layout. I hate the way the photos look. I hate the way the recipes look. I hate the way your monthly contributor pages look. I especially hate the way that last page of celebrity comment crap looks.

After all these years I have come to realize that you pretty much recycle everything anyway, so I am not feeling bad about the monthly vacancy in my mail pile that will arise with your absence.

Yours truly disappointed,

Jen

Leftovers

2011-08-19T16:25:00.000-07:00

Make chilaquiles. The best kind of leftovers allow you to put a fried egg on top. Perfect for elevensies.

Leftovers also allow you to sometimes have dessert ...

have a snack with mustard (the best kind of snack),

and even eat your greens.

I love leftovers.

Tea and Cookies

2011-08-18T02:09:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things in the afternoon is a cup of tea accompanied by a cookie. Said cookie must have some sort of chocolate in it or on it so that, upon dunking, the chocolate gets melty.

My wonderful friend EB came over with her family and not only brought us burritos for dinner, but also snuck some cookies into my kitchen. The cookies were crumbly and oaty and chocolaty and delicious. I tried my hand at similar ones, freezing individual portions so that I didn't make several dozen and feel that I needed to eat them all in one go.

I made the batch below using the timer in my head, which you can see is broken. But I like my cookies crunchy - that aids in the dipping, you see.

When Josh and I went to China, one of our travel companions brought chocolate chip cookies for the plane. They were plump and so very pale. I commented on this and she became agitated as she described her method of pulling the cookies at the moment before any brown appeared. How could anyone let their cookies turn brown? she wanted to know. I realized that I let that happen regularly and immediately thought it must be a character flaw. So I hide my crunchy cookies.

As I said, I like to dunk and cookies are a favorite in the afternoon. Unfortunately, another one of my favorite things is to fit into my normal trousers, which I still can't do eight weeks after childbirth. I keep telling myself that I need to eat up all the "bad" stuff in the house so that I can move forward with only "good" stuff. What to do with all this flour and sugar and butter? Cookies.

I also have two cups of heavy cream.

Empty House

2011-08-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

The company has come and gone. And this is what is left.
When Josh told me that six adults and one toddler would all be coming to add to our family of four for the weekend, I immediately thought, "What will I make for dinner?"

I love planning meals. I have menus for parties that I have never thrown: cocktail parties, beach parties, picnics. I find pleasure in spending (wasting?) time looking at cookbooks and pulling together recipes that will mesh into a grand fete. I try to balance burner and oven time as well as preparation time, and I try to plan a dessert I can make ahead.

I've been asked where my affinity for cooking comes from. I think everyone who loves the kitchen points to their upbringing, and I am no exception. Dinner was a way to show affection in my childhood home - not in the distorted way that I have seen depicted in books and movies, as in, Eat what I made to show you love me so that you get morbidly obese and have a disturbing relationship with food and me. Rather, I think that dinner in my house was simply a time to eat what you liked with family. My dad made us kids a separate meal from the adults - something that parents are either for or against, but something that definitely worked in our house. We ate what we liked and weren't forced to clean the plate. I recall being asked to eat "two more bites," but never to "finish that or you will see it for breakfast." As we got older, dinner was when we came together, even if it was over Seinfeld instead of lots of banter. When we three went off to college, we were close enough for weekend visits. Invariably, we went back to school after a weekend home with Tupperwares full of stews, burritos, and other foods we could freeze and reheat at our leisure. I think I went for weeks during my senior year without cooking for myself because Dad stocked me so well. Each of us also had a needy food phase (me as a vegetarian) which Dad included in dinner prep without complaint.

So food is important. Food communicates. It would be unthinkable for me to have people in my house and not plan meals and execute them to the best of my ability ... then critique myself.

Menu 1a: Brunch. Spinach and cheese strata; mushroom, bacon and cheese strata; sliced melon; pastries provided by the Rodes; coffee. I was pleased with the strata (stratae?). You have to assemble them the night before, which is perfect with two kids. I wanted to make waffles and muffins as well, but couldn't manage. I thought I could squeeze it in the morning of - ha ha.

Menu 1b: Dinner. Pasta with roasted cauliflower and zucchini in a olive oil-anchovy sauce, beet salad with goat cheese and walnuts, bread, bratwursts; dessert was a raspberry tart. I kept the anchovies secret because I know it sounds scary to conservative eaters. Both of my MILs do not like fish and both are generally conservative eaters, so when I prepared dinner I hid the tin and only revealed the other ingredients. I decided that a lie of omission was okay when it protected the innocent. Bobby Flay once said that anchovies are the ingredient that everyone says they don't like, but that everyone eats way more of than they realize because it is a common secret ingredient.

The raspberry (birthday) tart was awesome, if I do say so myself. I got the crust just right for the first time, but I almost made butter out of the filling, so the consistency was not perfect. Still delicious, just not perfect.

Menu 2: Dinner. Mexican chicken with sauteed peppers and onions, Mexican rice, cabbage salad with radishes, chips with salsa and guacamole, corn tortillas. I was too nervous to make this when my brother-in-law Sal was still here, since he is Mexican. I already second guess all of my menus when I start to actually execute them, and his presence would have made me shaky, I think. Not that he is a harsh critic or would have railed against inauthenticity or something. And Cass said that Sal would have approved of the cabbage salad with radishes especially, and that made me feel good. I kick myself for not having dessert and for not having time to make the refried beans, however. It cannot be an authentic Mexican meal without beans! That much I know. The dessert was supposed to be a lime-blackberry tart. It required a couple of time-consuming measures that I did not make a priority early enough in the day. First, I should have stood in line at 8:45 in order to get marionberries. Second, I needed to make a lime curd early enough to chill. Third, I needed to cook those marionberries in wine early enough to also chill. I was going to use store-bought dough because, as I have previously mentioned, I have a heavy hand with dough and screaming at shrinkage with guests in the house is untoward. Alack, no tart was constructed.

Menu 3: Dinner. Takeout pizza from 'Zaw. I did make dessert - a peach crisp. I had a menu for this evening, of course, but my two MILs talked me into (I think it was only a suggestion, actually, but I jumped on it) a carry-out from a pizzeria that sources locally (so hip!). You order; they assemble; you bake at home. Also very hip because it's almost like you made it. My other brother-in-law, Matthew, works at a pizzeria and was therefore in charge of the ovens ... although I almost micromanaged too much. (I think I got that from my dad too; he hovers, as do I.) I am glad I finally listened to Matt's sense of timing, because the pizzas would have been burnt if I were in charge.

The dessert came out all wrong. My peach "crisp" was dubbed a Peach Sweet Mush Thing. The topping melted into the peaches, so I guess it wasn't dense enough, and I think I needed a couple more peaches even though I had 10. My MIL was complimentary and said that her Southern mother would have been proud. I simultaneously thank her for the compliment and beat myself up. But don't think it went to waste because we still ate it with ice cream. Heck, even if it wasn't crisp, it was baked peaches smothered in butter and sugar.

And now the people are all gone. I have no more big meals to plan and only Josh to feed for dinner tonight.

Coffee

2011-08-08T08:33:00.000-07:00

That's right. I drink my coffee in a Winnie the Pooh mug.

Coffee works its magic on me much the same way that a bacterial infection works. Once, when Sam had a really high fever, I asked about the difference between a virus and a bacterial infection. Dr. Madanat said, "A bacterial infection is like a son of a gun who sneaks up and stabs you in the back and you never saw it coming." This is coffee in my system. I feel good, real good, when I finish a cup of joe. But then I crash and get real ornery. The crash comes several hours after I do lots of chores and write and cross items off my to-do list, and every time I think I won't crash, I won't hit rock bottom again, I won't scream at Josh for scrunching his socks up into a ball. No, not this time....

I once had a student who asked me, daily, if I had had coffee or tea in the morning. If it was coffee, she took it upon herself to prepare the class for my ire. Funny because, if I did have a cup of joe, her question irked me immensely, the little brat. But I thought her so cute when there was tea in my mug.

Obviously, coffee is not good for me. Obviously, if we have this destructive, abusive relationship, I need to sever it. But I like the high, and do you know what I like even more? The idea of coffee. The very idea of drinking it in the morning. The very idea of meeting someone for it. The very idea of sitting in a cafe, writing, reading, and sipping a mug all by myself. Yes, the very idea.

I love tea too. But the idea of tea is far less romantic. So staid. I think of someone's fat aunt who reads a lot, watches Masterpiece Mystery and lives with 12 cats. Tea is delicious and I drink it every day, but it is not romantic. It is prudent and pragmatic and goes with cucumber sandwiches.

Coffee is my jet-setting cousin in his Maserati. His hobby is taking photos and sometimes he stays out all night at the clubs. He doesn't like sushi, but he never passes up fois gras or excellent pasta. He makes his own pizza and throws spontaneous cocktail parties.

So, what existential comment am I making with the Winnie the Pooh mug? I'm not sure, but I do know that there is a Masterpiece Mystery on my TiVo just waiting.

Kids

2011-08-03T08:52:00.000-07:00

I recently read the book Hungry Monkey about a food writer here in Seattle and his daughter. The subtitle says it all: A food-loving father's quest to raise an adventurous eater. I found myself buoyed by his success, but also wishing him harm.

I have been trying to come up with and stick to a rational and realistic family dinner philosophy. (Have you noticed that I am all about philosophies? I missed my calling. After getting A's on all of my philosophy papers, how could I not become a philosopher? That has to be one arena without a glass ceiling; it just wouldn't make sense for one to exist. Existentially.) Anyway, I decided that we would eat at the table together, and eat mostly the same things, at least three times per week. Gradually, I want to work up to a special Sunday night dinner and eating together five nights a week. Also, Sam should have something to try nearly every night. "Trying" means he chews and swallows. Bribing is not off the table during the initiation phase.

I launched into my new plan with vigor.

To get him to try potstickers (not from scratch), I told him that he had to chew and swallow or he wouldn't have yogurt raisins for dessert. "That's okay," he told me. "I can have more tomorrow." Foiled! "No," I said. "No more raisins ever. Never ever. I will eat them all now." See, when you have a child and you decide to threaten, you must be prepared to follow through. I am not a huge yogurt raisin fan, but there weren't that many in the bag, so I was totally ready to see this threat to the end. I got the yogurt raisins out and grabbed a handful, dramatically bringing my fist to my gaping maw. In horror and desperation, Sam bit his potsticker and proceeded to gag and whimper as he chewed. "I want to spit it out," he said. "No," I hissed. "Swallow it." And I brought some raisins to my mouth again. Sam swallowed and declared, "I like it. That's delicious." He is nothing if not polite, because this was a blatant lie.

So one night I make this lovely noodle salad with tofu fritters on the side. I decide that Sam will try a fritter for his dinner, expecting that I will be eating his serving later. Lowered expectations have the potential to make you happy! He liked the fritter! He actually liked it. So, naturally, I am flooding the boy with fritters. I made a second batch a couple nights ago and snatched a couple out of Josh's mouth because "if Sam will eat these, then, by God, your portion will be strictly controlled." Josh begrudgingly gave up a couple.

The above noodle salad makes a lovely summer meal.

Noodle Sauce

3T sesame oil, 3T soy sauce, 1T sugar, 4tsp. rice vinegar, dash of chile oil, 1 tsp. grated ginger. Make some noodles and cut up a ton of veggies. I like cabbage, bean sprouts, radishes, celery, and shaved carrot.

Tofu Fritters

16oz. firm tofu, 2T minced green onion, 2 tsp. minced ginger, 1T sesame oil, 1T peanut oil, 3T miso paste of your choice (I like white or yellow). Saute the green onion and ginger for a couple of minutes over med-low heat in the peanut oil. Add the sesame oil for the last 20 seconds. Crumble tofu in a food processor; add the onion-ginger mixture and the miso. Blend until smooth. You can fold in edamame if you like. Heat your peanut or canola oil to 350. Then scoop little fritters into cornstarch to coat. Immediately (otherwise the cornstarch sinks into the tofu) add fritters to either a deep fry at 350 or a shallow fry of peanut or canola oil. Fry until GBD.* Drain on paper towels. These can be reheated later and last for a couple of days without loss of flavor.

*Golden-brown and delicious

Tartines: My New Dinner Philosophy

2011-07-27T07:59:00.000-07:00

I give up on dinner. As a concept and construct.

"Dining" rarely happened to my satisfaction during this past year when Josh and I were both working. Now that I am at home with Teddy (add Sam to that in December), it still doesn't seem to happen. It's that horrendous evening timing - that perfect storm of S needs dinner, bath, and bedtime; T needs to nurse; and I need to get started chopping, etc. after cleaning up whatever is on the one counter we have for a prep area and dirty dishes dump site.

Dinner just does not happen.

The definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior and thinking you are going to get a different outcome. I am insane. I keep thinking that if I only want it more or try harder or schedule adroitly, I will make dinner happen, dammit. We will all sit down to eat at 6:30 as a happy family. Josh will tell me about his day, I will nod and "hmm, mmm" appropriately, and Sam will eat all that is put in front of him. But it is not happening.

Meet the new dinner philosophy: Embrace your inner Spaniard. This means I make dinner for lunch, i.e. the big meal of the day happens in the afternoon, and lunch for dinner, i.e. a sandwich or soup or quiche (or tapas!) at night. This way I can manage that storm a little better ... and simultaneously stop being so insane.

I think my new routine is better for digestion and will probably help Josh and I with portion control, not to mention cleanup and the inevitable quibbling and hurt feelings that happen (sometimes only in my insane head). J and I have a pretty arrangement where I cook and he cleans, but there is often something that jams it up. Perhaps we eat so late that cleanup is just stupid, thus leaving the mess for me in the morning (insert hurt feelings here). Or the mess to clean up before dinner prep (remember the only counter space) is so large that cooking doesn't start until 8pm (insert a squabble here). Or Sam manages to postpone bedtime so J and I eat in shifts (insert both here). With the new plan there should be less of it all.

So I made tartines the other night. They are French-style, open-face sandwiches. Two were from the French Women Don't Get Fat cookbook, and the salmon was my own design. Our favorite was the anchovies.

Anchovy tartines

Toast four pieces of bread to your liking, keeping in mind that you will be eating them like a sandwich, so you don't want them to crumble or mush in your hand. In the mean time, rinse off as many anchovies as you want - I would say eight or ten for four pieces of bread. Pat them dry, them soak in 1T sherry vinegar for 1-3 minutes. Separately, add salt and pepper to about 1/2 cup of ricotta. Spread ricotta on toasts. Dump the vinegar off the anchovies and add 1T olive oil to anchovies. Place two anchovies per toast and drizzle over the olive oil.

Fat doesn't make you fat OR Musings over a cup of chai

2011-07-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

How did we discover chai in urban America? I assume that it is not as popular in rural America, but perhaps I do my country compatriots a disservice. I think the gestalt of chai probably owes itself to the confluence of the popularity of Indian cuisine and that of coffee drinks. I had Indian food for the first time in Portland, OR, over 10 years ago and chai for the first time ... I do not recall. But it has been a love story. There are a couple of varieties that are quite good in cafes: Morning Glory and the mix at my local place, Javasti, which makes its own. Oregon Chai is not good - I find it cloying. A delicious chai should be assertive, not saccharine and submissive.

I try to make chai at home. I have a decent recipe, but I really need to tinker to make it better. It has the right amount of ginger - about 1in.x1in., but needs more pepper, cinnamon, and probably an adjustment to the tea itself.

I use whole milk in my chai because that's what you have in your house when you have a toddler. It feels decadent and strange, that first glass of whole milk after years of skim. I remember when we switched to nonfat as a kid - how disgusting, thin, and tasteless it was. I've since changed my philosophy of fat and don't know that I will go back to skim. Maybe I will dial it down to 2% milk, but the full fat Greek yogurt definitely stays!

Funny that 80s obsession with fat free. The carry-over is that no one eats full fat dairy much anymore, and kids are switched to low fat pretty early. I realized this when my 6th graders read a book that referenced the skin that forms on the top of hot chocolate. The character in the book spoke of taking a sip such that he could remove the skin without having it stick to the lip, then chin, leaving you screaming in pain as you try to get the sticky hot mass off. My students asked what the "skin" was. I looked at their incredulous faces as I explained that full fat milk will form a skin when heated - haven't they seen this? No? Really?

I said to a co-worker once, "Fat doesn't make you fat." He thought I was being ironic. I've been doing so much reading about food in the past several years, though, that that seems to be true. It's simple sugars that make you fat, unhealthy, diabetic, and so on. Back in the 80s, the nonfat crazy logic said that I could eat a box of fat free cookies while you drank a glass of whole milk and I would be skinnier. That hasn't played out, however. The opposite seems to be true because not all calories are created equal. So I will stick to full fat dairy products and work at getting off the cookie addiction instead.

Banana Waffles

2011-07-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

Genius combination: banana waffles and blueberries with a touch of syrup.

I was just musing over the banana. If one is truly committed to eating locally in the US, that person would never eat another banana. That means no banana bread and no banana waffles.

Bon Appetit Night

2011-06-22T19:51:00.000-07:00

I went for a meal inspired by Bon Appetit magazine. I find that a lot of BA recipes have at least one ingredient that is a bit hard to find. This is in contrast to Gourmet (RIP) magazine recipes which always seemed to have at least one ingredient that was impossible to find. Well, maybe not impossible, just improbable unless you lived in LA or NY or somewhere with a large and diverse ethnic population so that you could go to a Persian market then an Ethiopian one, and perhaps a Morroccan, all in one day. We have a good mix of ethnicities in the greater Seattle area, but I'm not driving out to the 'burbs for one $20 an oz. ingredient.

When I first started reading BA, I read and ripped out recipes mostly for fun, not because I intended to make anything. Once I became familiar with the kitchen and that glorious notion of subsitution, I was able to dive into actually cooking from my subscription. I had a friend who was once beside herself because she couldn't find a species of apple called for in a salad. The grocer insisted that it was a variety found on the East Coast and she would never find it here. Well, she needed it for a recipe, or the recipe would not be made. I too was dumbfounded. Substi-what?

So, in the above salad, I substitued radish sprouts for pea shoots. I thought maybe they meant pea tendrils, but the treatment was to eat them raw and tendrils really need a little time over heat (I think). I didn't even look pea shoots up. I realize that this was the odd ingredient that would be expensive, so I subbed. Sprouts are so fun to buy. These came growing on a paper towel sponge, basically. I cut away the sprouts and tossed them in the salad. So fun. And so spicy for eensy-weensy greens.

Then I made a leek and bacon risotto with a poached egg on top. From this angle you can't tell how truly messed up the egg is. I do the whole vinegar thing in the water, but I am not convinced it does anything to ease poaching. I thought I would just fry the darn thing and avoid the inevitable screaming and gnashing of teeth that happen with a poaching attempt in my kitchen, but in the end I went for fun and nuance. This risotto is so good. I have tried a few risotto recipes and this one is a keeper, along with my mushroom risotto. All the rest aren't worth the effort. And now that I have tried so many, I have the method down pat. It's gratifying to know how to make something so seemingly complex.

I almost forgot! The salad was the debut of a couple things. First, it was my first time buying real English peas in the pod. Second, it was my first time shelling real English peas from the pod. Man, are they good. They are, shockingly, so different from frozen peas. Now I understand what the fuss is.

From a box

2011-06-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

Funny the things we make from boxes. Brownies, cakes, cupcakes - these are all box staples, and decent ones. I have yet to make a truly good cupcake from scratch, actually. And I haven't tried a cake ... I made a chiffon cake once. All of my box cupcakes are marvelous. Somehow, when I get compliments, I just don't feel right taking credit for them. I used to get tons of compliments on my brownies too. What was my secret, I was asked. The secret? Choosing the cheapest box of brownies on the shelf. Refuse to pay over $2 for a box of brownie mix and you will not go wrong!

There was a bon voyage party for a Spaniard at work and I wanted to take two things: one very Spanish and one very American. I was going to make tortilla espanola, but ran out of time, so only made the brownies. I thought these were pretty darn American. And pretty darn good.

And from scratch!

It was the first time I made brownies from scratch. Well, the second time. I am ashamed to say that the first time, I wrote the directions down incorrectly and added 1.5 cups of oil instead of 1/2 a cup. The result was interesting. The brownies almost tasted normal, but you could wring the oil out and they didn't hold together at all. Kitchen errors like this anger me. So the second time around I was very careful. It's a Test Kitchen recipe, and they like to weigh as opposed to measure when they bake things, so that's what I did. The brownies were the best I've had. I felt very accomplished making them from scratch and not using something with preservatives and corn products in it.

I think I am converted to weighing for baking too. I made the brownies a third time to take across the street for a BBQ. They were delicious again, but a little different, and I think it was because I measured instead of weighed.

Please follow the directions

2011-06-03T19:46:00.000-07:00

I was feeling down on my tart cookbook. I made a lemon-almond tart that I was not fond of. No photo, in fact, because it was ugly as well as not tasty. I had planned to bring half of it to my neighbor's house, but it was unworthy. I was leafing through another cookbook after this debacle and found another lemon-almond tart that I previously made and was successful with. That's when I realized that I am to the point where I have travelled into the cookbook collector category. I have so many I can't remember what I have made and where recipes are. I do have a list of insanely time-consuming projects, and on this list is to make a gigantic index of all the recipes I have made with page numbers, cross-referenced ingredients ... the works. Until that is under way and complete, I continue to leaf.

The tart cookbook will not go in the garage sale pile just yet, however. I made these beauties accompanied by very astringent salads and was wowed. The above is the flamiche, which I have made before, and below is a sausage-sundried tomato-mascarpone-softened onion masterpiece. The key to balancing them both (on different days, mind you) was the aforementioned salad with vinegary dressing that cuts through the unctuousness that each tart brought to the table.

The first time I made the flamiche I did not follow directions because they say to cook the leeks for 30 minutes on low heat with added water and the lid on. No caramelization! I thought that sounded ludicrous, so I hit them with medium-high heat to start a color, then turned the heat down and allowed them to soften and caramelize further. The second time around, for some reason, I decided to follow those weird, French directions, and the result was something divine. I did substitute half and half for cream, but I got better results in the custard arena. I generally believe in following recipe directions, but sometimes you hit upon a recipe where you wonder Did they actually make this thing? I do know that some recipes are not tested. There is a dark underbelly of cookbook authors who throw in a couple untested recipes because they think they can get away with it. That's what I think that awful lemon tart was.

Anyway, the flamiche required 30 minutes of leek sweating, and the sausage-sundried tomato tart required 1 hour (!) of onion sweating - 3 onions sweating. Totally worth it! I even made my own crust for the second tart. I generally have bad luck with shrinkage, such that I shrink from attempting crusts and go for frozen puff pastry more often than not. I manage the temperature just fine; I think I overwork the dough because it never looks like I have enough moisture for it to come together after resting in the fridge. But this time (okay, it was because I was out of frozen puff pastry) I dove in and got just a tiny bit of shrinking. I chose this second tart to make solely because I had mascarpone that I wanted to use. It has no eggs! You just pile in potatoes, sausage, tomato puree, sundried tomatoes, mascarpone, the onions, and flavor with herbs de provence. A salad and a nice glass of white wine round out the meal.

I love tarts.

Harvest Cake

2011-05-19T06:29:00.000-07:00

In my continuing attempt to get my son to just eat a stinking vegetable, I made a cake. Yup. It has a zucchini, a carrot, and a parsnip in it. I was going to add mascarpone frosting, but the cake is so good that it doesn't need it! Crazy, I know.

I got the recipe in a funny place: a real estate magazine. Our realtor sends us a mag about the Seattle real estate and architectural world, which I quite enjoy, and it has recipes too. Funny because she was so taken with Sam while we were looking for houses that I do believe we inspired her to be ready to start her own family. Sure enough, about 10 or so months after we moved in, we received a birth announcement from her. I like to pat myself on the back and tout that as evidence that we're doing a pretty good job. Since you have to wait so long for results with these little people you create, it's nice to have some kind of feedback along the way.

Harvest Cake

2 large carrots, grated

1 large parsnip, grated

1 medium zuke, grated

1 tart apple, cored and grated

1 1/4 cups flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1.5 tsp. baking soda

3/4 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

(next time I'm going to add cloves and nutmeg)

3 large eggs

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup veg oil

1 tsp. vanilla

optional: 3/4 cup walnuts or pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9x9 in. square pan.

2. Toss the grated veggies and apple together in a medium bowl. In another medium bowl, mix together the flours, baking soda, salt, and spices. Set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugars until light and frothy. Add oil and vanilla and whisk until blended.

3. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture and stir until combined. Stir in shredded stuff and nuts, if using.

4. Spread batter evenly in pan. Bake 45-55 minutes until browned and set. Let cool in pan for 15 minutes, then on a wire rack for 1 hour.

There is no turning back

2011-05-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

I overhead a conversation about organics, which got me thinking about esoterics. You know when you start to head down a certain path of knowledge or study and you are moving along this path not realizing how far you are going. And then one day you overhear a conversation that has to do with the little world you joined, and you find yourself chiming in and then blathering on while others stare blankly.

The conversation was something like: If you want to buy organic food, but do not want to spend so much, you can save money by buying organic foods that "matter." The logic was that fruits like the banana do not have to be organic because you peel it and therefore do not ingest any pesticides. This led to a wider discussion about the woes of buying raspberries that cost $7 per pint. This conversation took place in March, by the way.

So I sat there, marveling first at the fact that no one seemed to get that organics is about more than just the pesticides that you may or may not ingest. And second that no one seemed conscious of seasons and fruit.

I have brought seasonality up before, in conversation. As a response I heard about the wonders of shipping, global trade, and living in the US. Yes, but ... other 1st world countries still do the seasonality thing. And raspberries out of season taste like crap. Furthermore, raspberries from the supermarket taste like crap. But people vigorously defend their food choices. If you have ever been a vegetarian, as I was for 5+ years, you surely know how people will defend their choice to eat meat, and they will defend it with gusto.

So this time I did not take part in the food conversation because I realized that I am on a, perhaps esoteric, path of knowledge about food. I guess that I have already walked a long way down it such that I can't see the fork in the road where I turned anymore. Instead of taking part I thought about how Josh and I went to a very popular steakhouse in Seattle and the waiter was so happy to announce that they serve "corn-fed beef." But ... cows eat grass. Do you know what happens to them and therefore all the medicine and crap you have to pump them full of when you feed them what they don't eat? Not to mention the corn that they are eating is GMO and covered with pesticides? What would the server have said to that diatribe?

There are several sayings associated with knowledge and the lack thereof. Knowledge is power. Ignorance is bliss. A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Then there is that whole biblical metaphor. And I certainly do not claim to be a purist. I buy conventional foods; I ate a steak from a corn-fed steer at the aforementioned restaurant. What am I saying, then? I don't really know. Perhaps just that the difference is in the guilt because of the knowledge of sin, or what I am coming to define as a food sin.

This would be blathering on, I think.

Baking Frenzy

2011-05-03T09:19:00.000-07:00

I had a simultaneous hankering for chocolate, fruit bars, and cinnamon buns. And had to do something about it. I first made these raspberry-almond bars. Then, when I was in the froufrou Metropolitan Market, I saw ...

McVitie's Digestive cookies! I can't get enough of these things. I have been on the lookout for cookies like the Bixits J and I had while visiting friends in Norway. McVitie's are darned close. Americans really don't do digestives like they do in Britain or Norway or Canada. I prefer to do my own chocolate layer so I can avoid all the nasty bits that have to be added to stabilize for transport and packaging. Plus, the price for chocolate cookies was $3 more than for plain! Lame.

My favorite time of day for a chocolate digestive is in the morning with my tea. I like to dip it to melt the chocolate a little. Yum. After downing this container, I went back to the store, planning to buy the whole shelf, and they were totally gone! In their place was a digestive with a milk chocolate side or a white chocolate side. Disgusting! Yet another thing to bemoan about this country and its culture! White "chocolate" isn't even chocolate, people! It's disgusting is what it is!

These are the cinnamon bun fix. As you can see, I went the healthy(ish) route. These actually have wheat germ in them! I decided against the egg wash with sugar on top and I regretted it. They do not look like the photo in the cookbook. *sigh* I just can't bring myself to spend an egg on a wash.

The frenzy ended with cookies for the kiddo. Sam and I made the dough and cut out the cookies together. He loves to "scoop," and whenever I pull out the flour he goes for his stool so that he can stand at the counter with me and scoop whatever needs scooping. It's a little nerve-racking and you have to get out many more bowls just in case the kid does something like, oh, shove his hands in the flour and start throwing it back in the container ... or pour the carefully measured flour from such a distance as to get roughly half in the bowl and half on the counter and floor. The mess is fine because Sam "helps" to clean by sweeping all the detritus onto the floor, which then becomes a slippery biohazard. But scooping and measuring have got to be great skills. And then there is that time with Mommy in the kitchen, participation in meal (or sweets) prep, and all that other great stuff.

In the end, we had quite the selection of baked goods in the house. Since I am pregnant, I am totally fine with that because no one can really tell that I am putting on anything other than baby weight. It does look like I am on track to gain more this time around, however. Insert sad face emoticon. AND I was recently asked by the tiny Thai delivery guy if I was having twins. Sad emoticon times two.

Baked Ziti

2011-04-28T06:14:00.000-07:00

I met baked ziti about 20 years ago. My mother had a cookbook entitled "365 Days of Italian Dishes," or something like that. There is a whole series, I believe. You could spend a year as all Italian, then one as all French, and so on. I was just getting into reading cookbooks and trying my hand at cooking. When choosing from the Italian book, I knew I needed a meal enough for the family of five that we were. I chose shrimp and kidney beans as a first course (a lovely combination, by the way), probably a salad on the side that I do not recall, and baked ziti. Everyone liked everything and my budding chef identity began. Ziti became a family favorite and even started appearing on the Christmas table. But it does have those pasta casserole sins: mushy pasta and a general dryness.

Fast forward 20 years or so when I met America's Test Kitchen.

I do not recall who introduced Josh and I to ATK, or if we discovered it on our own, but it's ingenious. The idea is that a bunch of chefs test recipes many times and many ways and come up with The Best way to make X. There are cookbooks, magazines, and a TV show. One day, I saw baked ziti. So I made it, and it was excellent.

The keys are way undercooking the pasta, like half the time, and making two sauces - bechamel and red sauce; also, a lot of basil. Oh yeah, instead of ricotta, cottage cheese! Ricotta is really moist and so contributes to mushy pasta. It felt odd pulling pasta out of the boiling water when it was still rigid (4 minutes instead of 11!), but it absolutely worked. And making your own pasta sauce is really the way to go. I just can't buy red sauce anymore in jars. Reading the labels is a horrible habit that puts me off buying, well, everything in a jar or box. And, sometimes, you just need something in a jar or box to help you out.

The size of this dish brings into relief the problem of cooking for two people, only. Too bad we don't live in a community with cousins and siblings, where you have a few extra people for dinner every night. I certainly halve recipes, but sometimes just go for the whole, thinking that we can reheat for leftovers. But reheating is not such a good idea with pasta casseroles, I find. The pasta gets mushier every time.

So the next time I make baked ziti, I'll just have to invite some people over.

Red Meat

2011-04-16T06:24:00.000-07:00

Josh, Sam and I took a little trip to Orcas Island a couple weeks ago. We had a right lovely time, even though it rained all weekend. We still paddled out in the kayak, threw rocks in the water (Sam's new favorite), and got in the hot tub.

True to form, I was the event planner. That meant that among my packing duties for Sam and I, were also the duties of kitchen supplies. I almost packed pans and tongs and the whole nine yards, but decided against going that far. I went with simply foodstuffs and a roll of foil. Turns out there was lots of foil there already.

In my effort to use up the remainder of our steer (so that I can get another one this fall AND a pig ... and maybe a couple of ducks), I planned some red meat meals. First was sirloin steaks with quinoa and spring vegetables. The quinoa dish doesn't look like much, but it was quite tasty. I'll put the recipe below.

I was quite distraught because the steaks were not searing. The barbecue was fancy, and was a combination of wood and gas. That meant I could set the temperature and still have wood flavor. Josh noted that it was set up for smoking. I didn't really understand what that meant until I cut into my steak. I should have taken a photo of the inside. I cooked them, by the miracles of my bbq timing sensibility, to a perfect medium. With nothing but salt and pepper and the smoke from that strange barbecue, the steaks were imbued with flavor.

I took my searing and temperature lesson from the first night and applied it to burger night. Again, all that went into the burgers themselves was salt, pepper, and celery seed. I put the burgers on rolls with melted havarti and tapenade. Delicious! I thought I was not a big fan of tapenade, but accompanying the burger and the cheese, it was perfect.

Sam's meals were less amazing: macaroni and cheese with strawberries. Since he doesn't eat vegetables, except for the occasional raw carrot, I figure fruit is better than nothing. I keep thinking and hoping that three will be the miracle age where he will relish in trying new things. How weary I am of hearing the phrase "I don't like that."

Quinoa and Vegetables

1.5 cups quinoa

1 cup vegetable broth

2 cups frozen peas, thawed

5T fresh mint leaves

1 garlic clove, peeled

3T butter

1 large leek, halved and thinly sliced (just white and light green parts)

3/4 cup sliced shallots

8oz mushrooms

1 bunch asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces

(If you can't find quinoa, couscous is a good substitute. The couscous to liquid ratio in a 1:2, or 1:1.5, depending on how dry and separated you want your grains.) Bring 2.5 cups water to boil in a small saucepan. Add quinoa and 1 tsp. salt; bring back to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook until quinoa is tender, 15-17 minutes.

Puree broth, 1 cup peas, 4T mint, and garlic clove until smooth.

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add leek and shallots; saute until soft and light brown, about 4 minutes. Stir in mushrooms for 2-3 minutes, until just beginning to get tender; then add asparagus for 3-5 minutes, until tender but still bright green. Mix in puree and the leftover peas; stir until heated through, about 2 minutes.

Serve vegetable mixture over quinoa and garnish with leftover mint.

The Zen of Roasting

2011-04-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

I will be the first in line for a kick in the rear if the question is Would you like some steamed broccoli or a kick in the rear? I have complained before that I find the vegetable offensive. Bitter and offensive. I don't mind it in a stir fry and I don't mind it raw dipped in ranch dressing. But steamed or sauteed - gross.

And then I found roasting.

I could eat broccoli all day with this recipe: 1 lb. broccoli, 3T olive oil, 1/2 tsp. each of salt and sugar, yes, sugar. Put a sheet pan in the oven as you preheat to 500. Mix the broccoli with those flavorings, settle onto sheet pan, and roast on the bottom rack for 9-11 minutes depending on how large your broccoli chunks are. You can dress it up with minced garlic, fennel seed, a squeeze of lemon once out of the oven, too.

Naturally, the broccoli stem is immune from contempt. That is the best part of the broccoli. Peel off the outer skin and munch on it raw. I don't understand how the flowerets can be so bitter while the stem is sweet and mild. Hm. Actually, it has to do with the nutrients collecting in the head where the flower will form, doesn't it. All that bitterness is an indicator of the stuff that is good for your body. I do find it offensive when I see all those poor, severed broccoli heads at the market. Where are the stems? Please don't tell me they were thrown out.

Ditto for the cauliflower - the fact that I find it offensive, that is. The only way I used to accept cauliflower was raw and with ranch dressing. Now, I roast it.

Preheat to 425. Put flowerets on sheet pan, pour over 3-5 T olive oil, sprinkle on some salt and pepper, and roast for 25-35 minutes depending on the size of your chunks and how roasted you like your cauliflower. I like mine a very dark brown.

Success and Failure

2011-03-28T18:48:00.000-07:00

I wanted to be somewhat festive for St. Patrick's Day, so I did a little cabbage with caraway. I had previously used caraway in an Irish soda bread. I thought I liked it. I thought it smelled good. But in this cabbage dish ... with a little apple and a little cider vinegar ... it was disgusting. Disgusting. It smelled awful and tasted worse. I spit out my first (and last) bite. I mean, look at it. It doesn't even look good. I did a terrible thing to that beautiful cabbage. I regret it.

Josh liked it, though. But he pretty much has to because if he complains at all, he gets in trouble.

And the pork was dry and overcooked. I know, the crust looks amazing - homemade breadcrumbs, even. You absolutely must brine pork chops. I didn't. What was I thinking?

And then I made this. Gorgeous, right? Delicious as well.

Funny how maligned potatoes are in the anti-carb culture we have going here. These humble tubers can be so sublime, so I will keep potatoes in my diet. Thank you. What was I reading? Perhaps The Omnivore's Dilemma - chronicling the rise of the American food culture as referring to food items as their type. For example: Don't eat too many simple carbs; you should eat more protein. Just eat food, how about?

Potato Galette

2.5 lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes, scrubbed and sliced 1/8 in. thick

5T butter, melted

1 T cornstarch

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. pepper

1.5 tsp. fresh rosemary (optional) (I used thyme)

1. Adjust oven rack to lowest position and preheat to 450. Place sliced potatoes in a large bowl covered with cold water. Swirl to remove excess starch, drain in colander, then drain on towels.

2. Whisk 4T butter, cornstarch, salt, pepper, and herbs in a large bowl. Add potatoes and toss well. Place remaining 1T melted butter in 10-in. nonstick and overproof skillet and swirl to coat. Place one potato slice in the center of the pan, then layer the potatoes decoratively. After the first 1-2 layers, dump the rest of the potatoes in carefully and spread in an even layer.

3. Place skillet over med-high heat and cook until potatoes are sizzling and beginning to turn translucent at the edges, about 5 minutes. Spray a square of foil with nonstick spray and place it, sprayed side down, on top of potatoes. Take a cake pan and press on the galette. Add pie weights to the pan and press again. Place skillet in the over and bake for 20 minutes.

4. Remove cake pan and foil from skillet. Continue to cook galette until potatoes are tender, 20-25 minutes longer. Return skillet to the stovetop over medium heat and cook, gently shaking to release galette from pan, 2-3 minutes.

5. Off the heat, place a cutting board over the skillet to flip the galette out.

Lasagne

2011-03-25T19:16:00.000-07:00

This lasagne, or the photo thereof, makes me think of styling food. And the fact that I don't. There is a blog that I like, called Tarelette, and the author is a food stylist. She put up a video of a styling session - props, alternate shots, the works. It was so interesting and awesome ... and time-consuming. I snap a few photos right before Josh and I dig in, so I won't be styling any time soon.

This lasagne is the best ever. I think it turned me into a white-over-red sauce gal. I'm not sure if people pick sides, but they should. That's some chard and mushrooms and couple of bell peppers thrown in for fun. I accidently used rice noodles, but they were really good, so I might make those my go-to lasagne noodle. I discovered that I should undercook the noodles by a couple of minutes in order to get the right texture with the lasagne. I've taken to undercook all of my pasta, actually, since I notice that it makes it too the plate perfectly al dente that way.

Since it is a white lasagne, I had to make a bechamel. I have been thinking this whole time that I am bechamel-challenged because of an utter fiasco with mac and cheese a few years ago. I have since discovered that I am a veritable bechamel genius and what I cannot figure out is the addition of cheese to make a cheese sauce. Phew. Mystery solved. I didn't have to add cheese to this masterpiece, thank goodness.

Valentine's Day

2011-03-08T13:20:00.000-08:00

Since my postings this year have been nothing if not erratic, sporadic, and ... nomadic, I give you my Valentine's Day feast! I roasted broccoli and green beans - you simply must roast green beans if you never have! Wonderful. I mashed up some celeriac and potato with cream and butter; and the star of the show was chicken breast with mushroom sauce. The sauce was really good.

When I was a girl - actually this continued into college years - my father gave us Valentine's Day bags full of candy and trinkets. It made my sister and I feel special and loved every February 14th, while simultaneously setting a standard for the future men in our lives. As an adult, after some disappointing Valentine's days with disappointing boyfriends, I think I have learned that I have to cultivate that feeling instead of expecting it to arrive from elsewhere. So I planned a special meal and made a special dessert for my valentine. Then I got on the phone with my sister and made a pact to send each other things every V-day to recapture that childhood sensation that we both miss.

I did not end up making Valentine cookies for the neighborhood, as I thought I would way back on December. Did I really think I would? I was just glowing from all the neighborhood connections I made while I dropped off my sugary Christmas creations.

I would like to celebrate Valentine's Day at the end of April, the way I recall the Catalans doing in Barcelona. It was April, right? I'll look it up. Anyway, it was el Dia de San Jorge (Jordi) and girls got flowers while boys got books. I would rather have a book, actually. So I think that I shall make a San Jordi feast this year - after I look up the date - and work in the garden and read a book.

I'll send my sister some flowers and a book too. Won't that be nice.

Supreme of Chicken, adapted a bit from Jacques Pepin's Fast Food My Way

2T butter

1-2 T olive oil

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/3 cup minced shallots

1 cup diced white mushrooms

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

1 T ketchup

1/2 cup water

JP says to cook the breasts in the oven at 180 degrees for 10-30 minutes. Mine were raw after 20 minutes, so I cooked them in a skillet with the olive oil instead. Also, his recipe uses four breasts, but I like a lot of mushroom sauce, so I used two and kept the same amount of sauce.

Remove the breasts and add 1T butter and the shallots, cooking over medium-low heat for about one minute. Add the mushrooms and stir, then leave them alone so that the water is released after a few minutes. When the mushrooms are sitting in their own juices, turn the heat to medium-high until most of the juices evaporate and the mushrooms caramelize. Add the vinegar and ketchup and continue to cook for one minute, scraping up the bits. Add the water and cook until the liquid is reduced by half. Add the remaining 1T butter, and stir to incorporate. Serve over chicken.

JP serves this with sauteed corn and peas, seasoned with salt and pepper, butter and chives, I liked my celeriac and broccoli.

Multigrain Loaf

2011-02-20T08:47:00.000-08:00

You've got to see this bread. It's awesome. This loaf is my version of the "Struan" loaf from the place down the street. Of course, for artisinal bread, you pay an arm and a leg, and I am getting addicted to this bread. So I made my own, darn it.

Making my own also means that I do not have to go into the hated establishment called Grateful Bread. To sum up their sins: (1) Teenagers who give a crap about service work there. Once you are over the age of 30, you care about service and attitude. As in, Please stop talking to your friend/coworker so I can order my coffee and bagel. (2) The place set itself up to showcase all of the social ineptitude of the Seattle masses. As in, Yes, this is the line. Yes, we use words like 'Excuse me.' Yes, you actually can share a table with someone if a person is alone at a four-top. No, you may not sit in the kids' play area without a kid, especially when a woman with a kid comes over to play! No one was taught how to use their words or common sense in this town. (3) You have to bus your own table when there are way too many teenagers on staff? Just say no to bussing your own table. (4) Puff pastry is supposed to puff. You do bread well. Stop there.

I'm done now.

Back to my loaf! Among the standard AP flour and whole wheat flour, it also has semolina flour, brown rice flour, honey, milk, eggs, and seeds on top! And I did that awesome twisty thing as well as brushed on olive oil. The crust was the best ever.

Becoming Filippina

2011-02-20T07:42:00.000-08:00

I've got a whopping two dishes under my Filippina belt now. You may recall the many batches of lumpia I made. You may also recall the eclectic Thanksgiving meal we had this year with a curry soup, no potatoes of any kind, and pancit.

Among the several guests present at T-giving, was R's mother, in town from St. Louis to help with the new baby. R's mother is Filippina, so she brought pancit. For the uninitiated, this is a noodle dish with some carrots, cabbage, maybe celery, onions, maybe bean sprouts, and then a ton of different meats, fishballs, tofu, what-have-you. R's mom said that she used soy sauce for the sauce, and she served it with lemon wedges. I picked up a recipe at Uwajimaya that called for a soy sauce, oyster sauce, chicken broth sauce, so I decided to go with that one. There was way too much liquid, though - a whole can of chicken broth? and no cornstarch? Crazy. So I made some adjustments. It was still saucy, but the flavor was good. I made my pancit with no meat at all and lots of cabbage. I served it with miso salmon and bok choy with tofu.

It led to those lunch days where I was excited to eat lunch because I had awesome leftovers that got envious looks from my fellow teachers as they munched on their school-lunch chicken pucks.

Tart Time

2011-02-06T10:37:00.000-08:00

I swear I have all these great ideas, witticisms, and transcendent musings while I cook. I can't wait to type them out for my blog. ... And then I sit down days later and they are gone. Like we don't all know that we should write ideas down as they occur to us. I just keep thinking I'll remember. Again and again ... after I forget. Maybe I need a 12-step plan. "Hi. My name is Jen. I keep thinking that I don't need to write things down."

I was on a tart kick. I made erbazzone twice in a week's time. The first time, I served it with a root vegetable soup, and it was good complement. But the second time! I found a magical combination with a lentil and chard (with truffle oil!) dish. Magical. I believe I usually skimp on the chard in my erbazzone, but this time I used two humongous bunches and that was the ticket.

You simply must invest in truffle oil and drizzle it on lentils. It is divine.

My second tart looks like a mess, and sounds odd, but is quite good, I promise.

Fennel and Leek Tart with Poppy Seeds! It's more like a quiche. With the erbazzone the eggs just bind everything together with breadcrumbs and cheese. But with this one, there is a custard and the vegetable are in it.

I used frozen puff pastry for each crust - so quick and lovely. I was going to use frozen pie crust, but the ingredient list is way too long and has way too many unknowns. This crust is butter and flour. Nothing your grandmother wouldn't recognize.

Cravings

2011-01-31T19:04:00.000-08:00

A series of cravings kept me in the kitchen for several hours last weekend. First, I wanted a burger. I have had quite a few burger cravings recently, and I satisfy them by sending Josh to Red Mill. Last time, however, there was too much cardamom in the secret sauce, so I decided to make my own burgers this time around. We still have meat from our 1/4-steer! I ordered it in October of 2009. I suppose that, in order to truly enjoy the beef in a timely fashion, I should have thought of it more like an Argentinian would. As in: Hm. I have this high-quality, grass-fed beef that is high in the right kinds of omegas and that does not have all that heart-stopping garbage that corn-fed beef has. I should eat it every day! I was taking more of a moderation sort of tack. As in: One serving of beef per week, thank you. There is some that I have no idea what to do with. Forgive me if I mentioned this before, but what the hell is a cube steak?

Anyway, my burger was fabulous. As per usual I was too shy on the salt, but once I added a bit divinity was definitely present. I mixed chimichurri into the burgers themselves. Oh, you don't make that? You must. It's good with everything! I'll put the recipe at the bottom. Mix some with burger meat, dump it on meatloaf, dress roasted veggies with it ... salmon, chicken, pizza sauce, savory crepe filling with mushrooms ... I could go on. The best way to have it with the burger is to make sure that you toast some buttered bread as your bun.

Naturally, fries were part of the craving. I make a mean oven fry. The trick to great texture is soaking the potatoes in hot water for 20 minutes. That pulls out just the right amount of starch. Red Mill has good fries, too. They are pretty thick and not greasy. My oven fries are much better, of course.

The final craving was for nutella. I know, I know. That is easy - just buy some! But I really want to cut back on how much my family contributes to King GMO Corn and the petro-chemical industry who, together with heir apparent GMO soy, have taken over the US agricultural landscape. And there is corn in everything! Homemade nutella is good, not as smooth and not as spreadable as the jarred stuff, but definitely the real deal. I'll give you the recipe to that, too.

When I lived in Spain I was told how kids have nutella as a snack on bread when they come home from school, or in the late afternoon, or whatever. I thought it indulgent and silly. Then I pondered the peanut butter that I had for lunch often. It dawned on me that Nutella merely combines a nut butter with chocolate. If you get the right kind of chocolate, it's good for you. I've come around, is what I'm saying. I no longer think those Nutella-loving Spaniards, Italians, and French so bizarre and gluttonous.

Chimichurri:

1 cup cilantro

1/4 cup parsley

6 scallions

1 T oregano (or 1 tsp. dried)

1 head roasted garlic (roast 30 minutes at 375)

2 T red wine vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

salt and pepper and a little cayenne to taste

Whir it all in a food processor. You can drizzle in the oil, if you like.

Nutella:

1/3 cup toasted hazelnuts

1/2 cup heavy cream

3 oz. high-quality dark or bittersweet chocolate (I use Ghirardelli bittersweet chips)

3 T brown sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla

pinch of salt

If you have to toast your own hazelnuts, go for 350 and check them after 8 minutes. Total 10-15 minutes. They are really easy to burn and taste awful when they get that far. Take the hazelnuts and process them until you make nut butter - 5 minutes, maybe more! It's hard to get it truly smooth. Warm the cream until little bubbles form on the edges - don't boil. Then add the sugar, vanilla and salt to dissolve all that. Take it off the heat and pour in the chocolate bits to melt. Dump that concoction in with the nut butter and puree until you get nutella!

Scones

2011-01-22T07:05:00.000-08:00

Sam does like his morning breakfast pastries. Plenty of toddlers may suggest "cookies" for breakfast. My son knows that cookies are for after dinner and that croissants are for breakfast. I suppose I could make my own - there is plenty of frozen puff pastry for the working lasses who want to make puffy pastries, but don't have the four hours to roll their own dough. I just like going to cafes so much that I steer clear of going down that slippery slope of making croissants and pains au chocolate myself.

But scones! a lady can get behind those.

I had my doubts about these scones. I mentioned previously that I don't know what is wrong with the cafes around here, selling things called "scones" that are blobby, cloying messes. I make lovely, flaky beauties sans frosting, sans chocolate chips, sans all that gross "filling." Do scones have filling? NO. So I got a nifty new cookbook for Xmas, a child-focused cookbook. It has a scone recipe that calls for cream, not butter! I decided that, even if they were not true scones, Sam might like them, and that's who I was making them for anyway.

They were delicious! Even with cream instead of butter, they had the "correct" texture. Well, maybe they weren't as flaky as they could have been, but they were not blobby. I put sprinkles on for Sam. You can't really tell, but the scones are in the shapes of hearts, moons, and houses.

I put a heart in Sam's lunch and it came back uneaten! What? I tried again the next day with the same result. Ingrate. This was the kid who tried to grab the freshly baked ones right off the tray.

So I start eating them as after-work snacks. Well, of course, Sam spots mine with butter and jam and wants a bite ... and another ... and he eats the whole thing. Fine. Scones for dinner.

Josh and I tried family dinner one Sunday. The kid just doesn't eat. I think he eats at school - all his lunch and snacks, then fasts at home. He also fasts on the weekends. This is my curse. I can't stand picky eaters, and I've got one. I continually tell myself (pray?) that he will grow out of it - that three is a magical year when we will have family dinners and Sam will adroitly use utensils and actually eat all those vegetables that he merely names now.

To dream ....

2011-01-10T06:35:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year when we (amateur, at-home) bakers learn - or relearn, in some cases - baking techniques and rules. For example, if the recipe says to let sugar and butter boil for two minutes without touching it, don't touch it. I know it looks like it really wants to be stirred. I know you wish that the cookbook would just say,because you will ruin it if you touch it, so that you know why you are not supposed to touch it. But don't experiment when you don't have another pound of butter waiting in the wings just in case.

Another thing is that, when grinding your own nuts, once you see that they are ground, stop. Just one more pulse spells the difference between ground nuts and nut butter.

I did this to my hazelnuts, which I was using for pfeffernuesse, which did not come out spicy and earthy like I wanted them to. I need another recipe. Preferably, one that does not use hazelnuts because ... this time of year, I also remember how much I hate hazelnuts. They are easy to over bake and hard to peel. You do all this work for bitter, nastiness that you throw out to the squirrels. Harrumph.

I do love baking cookies, though. A couple recipes got me really mad this year - and that is part of the fun. I forget how much work it is and how much my feet hurt and how ticked off I get when a dough sticks as I roll it, or doesn't look right, or what-have-you. But you forget all that stuff so that you bake again next year, of course. Because the best part about making cookies is handing them out.

I gave away seven or so plates, mostly to neighbors. I was invited in to three out of the five houses I visited. My husband dropped off one more plate, and I am sure I would have been invited in there as well. One house in particular - the gruff old man next door, who I absolutely love - did not invite me in, and barely opened the door wide enough. But his face when he saw that plate of cookies! 82 years old and he lit up like a toddler on Christmas morning. Then he thanked me and closed the door in my face. Ah, gruff old men.

I want to give people plates of Valentine's cookies this year. Wouldn't that be fun? Winter is lonely in Seattle, as we all hole up with our space heaters and humidifiers and fleece. I think people would be happy to get a little pink plate with heart-shaped cookies. Yes!

Thanksgiving

2011-01-03T18:12:00.000-08:00

I know. A little late, right? I had a long hiatus ... I forget why.

So, I neglected to take ... uh ... any photos during the event at the Walkers' abode this year. Too bad because we had quite the eclectic Thanksgiving spread.

I made my cornbread-sausage-squash stuffing. It came out really sweet, like the butternut squash swallowed a bunch of maple syrup. Eating a small portion with turkey and gravy made it work, but I might use a Danish squash or something not so cloying next time.

Then there was the cauliflower puree. One of the attendees at our Thanksgiving fete detests mashed potatoes. But Josh and I were discussing the fact that we simply must have something to pour gravy on. So this is cauliflower boiled in chicken broth until very tender, then pureed with some broth until smooth, and finished with salt, butter, and creme fraiche. So good. It worked with or without gravy.

I think that segues into the eclectic nature of the feast itself. The usual suspects that were missing: mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry, and green beans. What we did have was pancit, a Filipino dish of noodles and various meats, and a cauliflower-apple curry, yes curry, soup. Both were lovely, and the dinner was excellent - moist turkey, rich gravy, fabulous overall. Josh and I did have a funny feeling afterwards because of all the missing elements, however. Funny how you are just locked, psychologically, into certain items.

You simply must hear the potato story - the reason G won't go near a pile of mashed potatoes, ever. So, his older brother turned 10, or something, and was not interested in cake. Their mother, being accommodating and clever, created a smashing, colorful birthday cake molded from smoothly whipped mashed potatoes. Unfortunately, little G was not apprised of his mother's dastardly plan, and took a scoop of what his brain was calling cake and frosting, shoving it greedily into his mouth. The brain's expectation of sweetness clashed violently with the information from his tongue: cold, savory, blue and red ... mashed potatoes? The only solution for an 8-year-old? Vomit.

Never again will the mashed tuber pass his lips.

Oh! I forgot to take a photo of my pie. It was gorgeous and awesome! I made a pear tart with a syrup infused with star anise, cloves, and vanilla. It was my first time scraping the vanilla goop out of a real pod. Good times.

Preserves

2010-12-31T06:23:00.000-08:00

I did it and I forgot to tell you. Well, I do recall that I wanted to write about my awesome cherry preserves. But, by the time I got my supplies and got organized, it wasn't cherry season anymore. I was able to make blueberry and peach preserves, however.

I couldn't decide whether I wanted to jam or preserve. Ultimately, I decided preserves (low sugar) because I planned to put them on my morning yogurt.

Preserving is pretty easy, actually. The toughest thing was getting the equipment. Funny, because I looked all over - restaurant supply, grocery stores, anywhere that seemed logical. I ended up ordering online. Of course! Then, long after I had made preserves, I was in Target, of all places, and voila! a whole shelf with the very same kit I bought online. Awesome.

Why is the preserving cage so wide, anyway? For the uninitiated, you place your jars in a sort of cage in a pot, cover with water, boil, and so on. And the cage is humongous. Luckily I have an enormous pot that it fit in, but who has something that size? Not even my husband's giant beer-brewing pot fit that thing.

I decided that my yogurt also needed homemade granola. The recipe made a boatload! I will halve it next time.

This whole DIY-back-to-the-land-citizen farmer-homespuns ... whatever it is we are doing with our locavore, homemade obsessions, is satisfying.

Deeply satisfying.

Boatload Granola

(adapted from the Marketplace Cafe, Seattle, recipe)

6 cups whole oats

1 cup slivered almonds

1 cup pecans

1/2 cup pistachios

1/2 cup sesame seeds

1/2 cup sunflower seeds (make sure they are not rancid!)

1 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup real maple syrup

1/2 cup honey

3/4 cup canola oil

3 T brown sugar

1 cup dried cherries (you can cut these because they are really big and chewy)

2 cups Trader Joe's dried fruit mix (cranberries, golden raisins, blueberries)

Other possible additions that I left out because I am not such a fan:

1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

1.5-2 cups walnuts

1/2 cup dried currents

Also, for the TJ's mix, the recipe just says raisins.

Preheat oven to 300. Chop nuts into smaller pieces, or leave large - whichever you prefer (I whirred mine in the mini-chop for a bit). Combine oats, nuts, and seeds in a large bowl and set aside. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the cinnamon, vanilla, syrup, honey, oil and sugar. Whisk occasionally until warm and the sugar is dissolved. Pour wet mixture over oat mixture. Stir until everything is coated. Spread onto two lightly oiled or nonstick pans. Bake, stirring every 5-7 minutes, until granola is golden brown, about 20-25 minutes. Once granola is cool, add the dried fruit. Store in an airtight container.

A Poem for My First Donut

2010-12-02T06:26:00.000-08:00

by Sam

Roses are red

Violets are blue.

I have found the donut

And my love is true.

Oh, donut, donut

You are mine.

You are fried in oil

So that you truly shine.

Then dipped in sugar,

And cinnamon too,

Without you, donut,

My life would be blue.

Biscuits and other tender and flaky edibles

2010-11-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

A long absence, I know. I had resigned myself to only posting once a week due to work and toddler and ... well, that's it. But it's enough. THEN! I suffered a neck-shoulder injury-trauma, brought on by what else, stress, and was off the computer for a couple of weeks. This is week five and my shoulder still isn't 100%, but it's much better. So here I am. I have been looking at my favorite blogs, so that has been lovely, but I needed to get writing mine again.

When you have job+child, it's hard to figure out where you fit in. I mean, where are my hobbies. If I have seven, that's too many. But, can I have three? I find that I need to plan and "make time" and bargain and settle. Cooking happens mostly on the weekend. That makes me sad.

I keep thinking I am going to hit some sort of graceful stride and be able to not only cook during the workweek but also blog about it. Maybe. Doesn't seem like it's around any corner of any block that I am curretnly walking on or en route to.

Weeks ago, with the last tomatoes from our yard as an accompaniment, I made this leek tart. It was creamy and gorgeous. I thought the crust looked liked the Collosseum. As an accompaniment, we had homemade bread with those garden tomatoes I mentioned. Delicious.

And when you break out a wedge of something like this at the lunch table, you feel a certain pride. I heat my leftovers and wait to be asked what it is so I can beam and crow, "Oh, this? It's just a tart. Made completely from scratch with these very hands. It was nothing."

Speaking of light and tender. Biscuits. They should be light and tender, right? I don't know how well I did atop the pot pie - it was good, but hard to really judge texture when you are eating it with other goop. The whole pot pie preparation got me thinking about scones and the travesty being visited upon them in coffee shop and bakery, near and far. Several times now, when I had a hankering for a scone, I would check out my local purveyors ... and conclude that no one undestands this treat. The scone does not have frosting. The scone is not cloying. The scone is not a cake. You cut in the butter, like a biscuit. The housemade scones at the local cafe Josh and I frequent always sells out of their scones. I was fortunate enough to arrive early once to see what the fuss was about. The fuss is about nothing. Nothing. It was cloying and cakey, not light and tender with a hint of sweetness. I had a conversation with my mother's neghbor about why her scones never came out right - she was making them from a mix. I told her about the whole cutting in thing. But I am sure that a lot of the shops around here would think those mix-originated scones were just fine. But they aren't. They really aren't!

Stop the madness! Bring light and flaky back!

Sausages

2010-10-10T06:28:00.000-07:00

When Josh and I were in France in 2002 - that long ago?! - we visited Bayeux. As I am sure you know, one usually travels there to see the Tapestry ... you know, the one that depicts the Battle of Hastings of 1066. The battle that turns the tide of, well, lots of things, including language and cultural influence of the French, Normans really, on the Anglo-Saxons, and all that good stuff. What do sausages have to do with this history lesson? Well, while in Bayeux, Josh and I hit the market and noticed people cheerfully holding onto what looked like hot dogs. Wha? Sure enough, we spotted the wiener cart off in the distance. I knew how to say saucisson, but my head started spinning with the notion that I didn't know precisely how to order this saucisson. And what if I was asked about condiments? What do the French put on their sausage? Yikes. Nearly paralyzing for a perfectionist who easily reddens. But Josh and I wanted one of those sausages, so we got in line and I furiously read the signs and eavesdropped on other people ordering. When it was my turn, I procured two sausages, in bread, with mustard. They were magnificent.

We will also remember the cuisine of Bayeux because this was where we met a very strange Frenchman who declared, in English, "I hate cheese," when we asked for a recommendation. Don't you get deported for that?

I once had a Rachel Ray cookbook. For the uninitiated, she is a TV personality-chef, which is to say, not a real chef, which is the say, she hasn't had training, but she's got some skills anyway. Her claim to fame is 30-minute meals. When I, a simpleton, actually make these meals, however, I find them to be more like 40-45 minutes. I suppose that's still pretty good for dinner preparation time. Anyway, I went through a very heavy Food Network phase when I watched pretty much everyone and all shows. The above sausage dish is one of Rachel's, and it is quite good. You brown sausage - kielbasa is nice - then remove it from the pan and caramelize your onions. Throw in your greens to wilt, adding a little chicken stock if dry. Once everything is wilted to your liking, dump in some drained sauerkraut, a few spoonfuls of brown mustard, and a tsp. of paprika. Throw the sausage back in, and mix. Rachel suggests servings with pan-browned perogis - potsticker-like. I couldn't find any at Trader Joe's, so we went with gnocchi, and it was great. Sam even ate a little bit ... when Josh offered it to him, of course.

Speaking of sausage, our American version is, of course, the hot dog. My mother has been on me for months to just get some for Sam. Josh has reminded me, every time I muse over the possiblity, that hot dogs are the #1 choking and death-by-choking food for toddlers. But I found these franks with no nitrates or other chemical weirdness in them, so we gave the wiener a shot - all cut up really small.

So? Well? What happened?

The short version: Josh and I have some hot dogs to eat.

How about this veggie update: Sam will eat carrots if you give him the whole stinking thing. The carrot you see here was just barely gnawed on after much protest because I cut the green end off. Sam likes to suck on and contemplate that end, declaring, "Don't eat the green part." I denied him that pleasure, so he only ate a bit ... like a rabbit, too.

Box o' produce

2010-09-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

I was talking with my dad about the delivery items we're getting these days: milk and produce. They both come on Tuesday and it is simultaneously marvelous and terrible to see a cornucopia on your doorstep. Marvelous for obvious reasons, I think; those being that, huzzah!, someone else did your shopping. Terrible because you have to unpack, clean, wrap in plastic or paper towels, or whatever, while rangling your toddler and fighting back tears because, Christ!, you have so much stinking work to do and you are still a fulltime wife and mother, and tell me again why I shouldn't eat pasta with sauce from a jar every night?

No jars. I made, instead, lentils with beet greens, and a side of roasted beets.

Then there were the chard cakes with a side of pasta with sausage and tomatoes from our garden! Tomatoes from the garden, that is. Maybe pigs in the future. Ha. I have shared the chard cake recipe before and I must say - you think you can eat 20 when you start out, but cheese is so rich. Huh. And I never remember this. Each time I make these I look at the paltry plate of 6 patties and think: I can eat all of them! Then I push back after one and a half.

So Dad was saying that when he was a boy they got the milk delivery, in glass jars. I don't know why this image is part of my understanding of his childhood - where did I get this mental picture of a milkman and those jars? TV, probably. What I didn't know was that the produce guy would come down Dad's block once a week too! What? A farmers market come to your door? Surely you jest. I'm sure there was no arugula or squash blossoms, but still! Oh yes, the ice man too. I have that image as well: big calipers grasping ice. No, that can't be right. I need to replace the calipers with a medieval hook of sorts. Yes, that works.

My dear blogger-friend wanted my meatloaf recipe. Ah, Charlene, you honor me with your request.

Meatloaf with brown sugar-ketchup glaze:

Glaze: 1 cup ketchup, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 3T cider vinegar. Mix all the ingredients in a small saucepan and set aside.

Meatloaf: 2tsp. veg oil; 1 medium onion, chopped; 2 medium garlic cloves, minced; 2 large eggs, lightly beaten; 1/2 tsp. dried thyme; 1 tsp. salt; 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper; 2 tsp. Dijon mustard; 2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce; 1/4 tsp (or more) hot sauce; 1/2 cup plain yogurt; 2 lbs. meatloaf mix (1lb. ground beef; 1/2lb. ground pork; 1/2lb. ground veal - I usually don't get veal, I just use more beef or lamb); 2/3 cup oats OR 1 1/3 cups fresh bread crumbs; 1/3 cup minced fresh parsley

Procedure:

1. Heat the oven to 350 (medium). Heat the oil in a medium skillet over medium-low heat. Add the onion and garlic and sweat until translucent, not browned, about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.

2. Mix the next eight ingredients in a medium bowl. Add this mixture to the meat in a large bowl. Then add then crackers, parsley, and onion mixture. Mix to blend with a fork or hands. I like hands because if I gently squeeze the ingredients while mixing, they get incorporated well. The mixture will be slightly sticky, but shouldn't stick like glue to the bowl. If it does, add milk, a couple tablespoons at a time until you get a good, cohesive, not-too-sticky mass.

3. Turn the mixture onto a sheet pan lined with heavy duty foil (easy cleanup), and shape it into loaf form, 9x5 inches.

4. Remove about 1/3 -1/2 cup glaze from the saucepan and brush it over the meatloaf. (Some people add bacon to the top of this!)

5. Bake the loaf until it is 160 degrees, about 1 hour 20 minutes.

6. Meanwhile, simmer the remaining glaze over medium heat until it thickens slightly. Serve alongside.

-America's Test Kitchen recipe

Cognitive Dissonance

2010-09-21T05:42:00.000-07:00

You grow up eating certain things. Often, these dishes become your Comfort Food when you are older. I don't know if every culture has a phrase that equates to Comfort Food, or at least share some sort of archetypal understanding of it. It does seem like something that only Western cultures would think of. Food is so much a part of the luxurious lifestyle in the West that we can afford to have even the idea of comfort, let alone associate it with something as basic as food.

For my second week at school, I made a meatloaf to last Josh and I for several days, and I made vegatables to accompany it. The peas portion is a joke, really. We had large salads with peas in it, but I thought I could conjure some Americana by putting a tiny bit of green on the plate with the huge servings of meat and potatoes. Meatloaf is definitely comfort - my mother made it and it was good, I recall. I have my own version, which I like very much, especially with a little extra sauce americaine, i.e. ketchup with sugar, vinegar, and hot sauce, thickened a bit in a saucepan. And white potatoes are pure vice - done up with onion powder, garlic powder, sliced gralic, and thyme. It's nice to come home to something meaty and sweet - something you don't have to spend a lot of time making, but rather just heat up.

The week before meatloaf week, I got my first organics home delivery. The produce is gorgeous and seems to always include greens. I sauteed some kale for my mom, who was here watching Sam. I may have shared the recipe with you before - it's my simple saute that I usually do with spinach in garlic, olive oil, pepper flakes, and golden raisins. You finish it with slivered almonds and sherry vinegar. It's good with spinach and fabulous with kale, I think.

The reason I bring this up is because my mother said that she liked it (thank goodness), and that she believed it was her first experince with kale! It is true that we never really ate greens other than salad growing up. And now I think Dad (the chef in the family) uses collards and chard sometimes, but certainly did not when I was a kid. Then I started thinking about all the things that I now consider part of my diet, like beets and greens and winter squashes, that I didn't grow up with. Mom asked me how I even found out that I liked kale. I didn't know. What makes us want to experiment? It might have been the TV!

Next on my experimentation list is kohlrabi. What in the world do you do with that thing?

Breads of the veggie variety

2010-09-11T20:01:00.001-07:00

I combined the idea of Sam eating vegetables with Sam eating a variety of cold lunches at school, and I came up with carrot cake and zucchini bread! Although the recipes call for white flour, I went ahead and substituted half the amount for whole wheat flour, thinking that that makes the breads even healthier! I don't know how the cups of sugar figure into the health equation, but I have a feeling there is a direct and negative effect. Hm.

That's a photo of banana bread because I forgot to photograph the zuke bread. Does it look weird? Trader Joe's is now on my shit list! (I know, this is the first curse word on this blog. I hope I have not driven you away. It won't happen again. Well, no promises.) The reason I am mildly annoyed with my beloved TJs is that they packaged baking soda (that's bicarbonate for my British readers) in the same sort of container as baking powder! What? Everyone knows that soda comes in the box and you use the flap to level off your scoop. The powder comes in a can with a 1/3 cover-like thing that you use to level your scoop. Well, TJs used the can for the soda! When I grabbed my supply of baking powder out of the cabinet I discovered - yikes - that it was baking soda. Curses! Meaning I had to bake bread with no powder. I know that they have different functions and was fairly certain that my bread would rise anyway because we do have Irish soda bread which, of course, uses baking soda as the leavener. But, knowing that one often uses both white powdery substances in baked goods, I did worry a tad. The bread rose, but not normally. It was good, so hey.

Cramp in My Style

2010-09-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

I have gone back to work. This puts a serious cramp in my blogging schedule, not to mention my cooking schedule.

I did a trial run during Sam's first week of daycare. The trial being: Can I cook dinner, prepare lunches, get myself and Sam ready in the morning, and so on. I only went to work a couple of those days, and cleaned the house during the others. The trial was me waking up at 5am, trying to exercise and ready myself, and make Sam's lunch and get him up and eating breakfast. Turns out that is too much to do in the morning.

The trial also included me hanging out in the kitchen all day Sunday. I prepared a couple soups and a few items for lunch. I even made Sam empanadas which - surprise - he didn't like.

I made bread for breakfast and lunches, too. It was a recipe I found on the back of my whole wheat bread package that called for "cracked wheat" and "cracked rye," neither of which can be found. I substituted wheat berries, thinking I would crack them myself with a rolling pin. That didn't work. So we had incredibly chewy bits in the bread. So chewy that it prompted Josh to ask about their identity, which is his way of saying that he doesn't like something. "Hm, what is this?" He manages to wipe all curiosity out of his tone so that you get the message. It was good bread, the wheat berries just needed more soaking so that you could chew them ... at all.

I made a soup that I have featured here already: Lydia Bastianich's vegetable soup. I got to include more potatoes from our garden. Yippee.

The second soup was a Jacques Pepin recipe: Corn Soup. You use hominy and tomatoes, thyme and cumin, then add fresh corn and cilantro. It was delicious.

I think I will continue with this plan of making a couple big things over the weekend. But I don't want to spend all day in the kitchen. I know I will get used to my new schedule, but it is so different and my body is so tired. I was exhausted when I got home every day. I just wanted silence - something not easily had with a two-year-old.

Speaking of which, I have to pack his lunch every morning. This is a major drag because (a) he is picky, and (b) it has to be cold. The parents are advised from the outset to pack a variety of lunches. Okay. Sure. The real curve ball is that the daycare is peanut free! What the hell is wrong with Western culture that we have created all of these allergy mutants! Who in the world is allergic to all nuts? I had a kid tell me he is allergic to stone fruit! What? These were domesticated thousands of years ago in the Orient and you are allergic to them? Egg whites? What?!!

My New Fridge

2010-08-24T18:32:00.000-07:00

As you can plainly see, the space for the fridge in our kitchen was not made for this behemoth. Josh removed some molding and we made it work. I think cleaning behind the old fridge was almost as gratifying as loading up the new one.

There are two reasons I love this fridge. #1 the long meat/cheese drawer. Don't you hate it when your lame drawer takes up valuable shelf space? You can only stick really really short things under it and you forget they are there because you can't see them and one day you're like, "What is that smell? Oh, it's this unidentifiable thing that was in a baggie under my cheese drawer for 10,000 years. Darn."

#2, the bottom freezer. You know, you pull out your produce drawers and your like, "How does cat hair and my hair and dust bunnies and ... is that a bug ... get under these drawers?" My theory is that you create an eensy-weensy vortex of air every time you open the fridge and everything on the floor in your domicile gets swept up in there. But with the bottom freezer, no more! The only thing under my freezer drawers are little ice crystals. Ha!

The capacity is amazing. And a good thing, too, for I am returning to work this year after two glorious years raising my son (read: watching Mexican soap operas) full time. We need some serious capacity for the huge soups and stews I will make on Sunday to get us through to Friday so that I don't have to kill myself every night. Gone are the days when I can stick a roast in for 2.5 hours in the middle of the day! Well, unless that day is Sunday and we aren't eating it until Monday, reheated.

I have a feeling I will have much more to say about this working-mother-frustrated-chef thing very very soon.

Lumpia, Part II

2010-08-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

After my enlightening conversation with the pediatrician regarding the fact that one can hide veggies in food, *gasp*, I made more lumpia. Half meat, half veg in each one. I didn't let it marinate with enough soy sauce, though, so the flavor wasn't as strong as my previous batch.

And guess who noticed?

I slaved over these things for hours. And this time I did not cook the meat before stuffing and that made it so much easier. That might have had something to do with the flavor? You think? Well, His Royal Highness, the Mighty Refined Palate, Sir Sam, spit them out. Now I have 40 lumpia in my freezer.

Why, yes, Sam is learning the periodic table of elements. He has gotten far beyond the alphabet and really needs a challenge.

Deception

2010-08-18T06:55:00.000-07:00

Things that look good, but aren't. Parmesan flan, for example. Sounds delicious; looks lovely. Tastes like gunk from between your toes, mitigated by the lovely tomato-basil topping. Topping? I tend to think chocolate sprinkles with that word, but it works here, technically.

And then we have the deception I engage in to get my son to eat vegetables. Recently we had a doctor's appointment, and I asked about vegetables. I was looking for assuaging. I was looking for something like, "Don't worry, lots of kids do this. A year or two without a single vegetable won't kill him. He will not die of scurvy or other weird 16th century sailor diseases. It will all even out by the time he is 10, provided he eats vegetables then." I got nothing of the sort. Instead, Dr. S told me that I can hide veggies in many things, like pizza! So I screamed, "I don't need recipes! I have a blog about food! I am a veggie-hiding genius! He doesn't eat them!" Only, I screamed that on the inside while smiling and thanking the doctor on the outside.

I took this beautiful cauliflower and I made a puree and called it "cauliflower yogurt." Sam always asks for yogurt, honey and O's for dinner. I was happy to oblige. Unfortunately for me, this particular veggie has a distinctive smell that alerted Sam to its non-yogurt-like nature. He refused to try it. I did what any mother would do and proceeded to mix 1:1 puree to yogurt, and gave him O's thinking that they would dull the cauliflower taste even more.

This was the reaction. As in, "Get this out of my mouth! What have you done to my beloved yogurt? You can't fool me, you witch!"

Josh and I happily ate it with our dinner because it was soooooo good. I opted for no O's in mine.

Cauliflower puree:

1 head cauliflower

1-2T unsalted butter

2-4T creme fraiche

1/4-1/2 cup cooking water

salt and pepper to taste

Add cauliflower to pot of boiling water and cook until soft, but not mush, 8-10 minutes. Drain, reserving some cooking water. Puree cauliflower with everything else, adding just a bit of water to start and adjusting for your desired texture.

Creme fraiche makes life worth living, so add a lot!

Let's Talk Salad with Fruit

2010-08-06T05:52:00.000-07:00

Well, last time I talked about wanting to eat bread and muffins because of cool weather. Then summer arrived! I have been making lots of salads this summer, and in them, fruit! I know this is not revolutionary. We have been seeing fruit in salad for many summers now, but it seemed too odd to me. Until now. I still can't go with strawberry or watermelon, but I did some peach and plum recently. The verdict? Delightful. It all has to do with the Universal Salad Equation:

Creamy+nutty/meaty+acid+sweet+tart/bitter+x = Good Salad

Avocado fulfills creamy, as above - that, or a nice cheese. I think if the cheese is a bleu it counts as umami, i.e. the x factor. You must have nuts. I have decided that they positively make a salad. Actually, you can use beans instead of nuts, getting a similar effect. If you candy nuts, two parts of the equation are taken care of. Lemon can function as the acid in the dressing. The sweet can be a little fruit, caramelized onions, honey in the dressing, something. The greens will give you tart/bitter. I like arugula for almost any salad - it goes well with fruit ...oooooh, and beets. For bitter, radicchio will do the job - another item I discovered for myself this summer.

I find that I can barely stand a salad without nuts in it these days. Which reminds me of the Sarouhans. My family used to go to the Sarouhans' house around Christmas every year, or every other because I guess we alternated hosting. E, the head chef at the Sarouhans, would put out the same hors d'oeuvres every time: salted peanuts, and an orange-yellow-nutted cheese log with crackers. There might have been something else, but that's all I recall. Right before she served the salad, E would dump the leftover nuts in it. I thought her behavior was downright malicious and I avoided each and every nut in my serving. Now, I totally get it.

I put this salad on a homemade pizza with goat cheese.

The fruit must be sweet. These were organic plums, so I felt good about them, but not very tasty, so at the same time every bite made me mad. I don't think it's full plum season anyway. I seem to recall that plums are more August - late and into September. I think. Last summer I found an awesome plum purveyor at the Lake City Farmers Market. He had several varieties of plum hybrids. So good.

Speaking of farmers markets, I just really want a European market experience. I realized this when I read French Women Don't Get Fat, and then recalled my experience in Spain when I lived there so many years ago. I was initially appalled when I was told to be careful of touching the produce in Spain. What would happen, I wanted to know. I need to choose my fruit; surely the vendors won't pick good ones. Oh, how wrong I was. Here and now, as there and then, I want to be asked, "When do you want to eat these? I will give you these for today and these need two days. Be sure to have a nice glass of champagne and some cheese alongside. " Instead I get to pick my own and maybe they ripen and maybe they don't; maybe they are as tasty as the sample, and maybe they are mealy. I know we like to be independent here in the States, but ... but ... I want to be helped at the farmers market. Handing me a bag does not count as helping.

Baking Fool

2010-07-26T14:13:00.000-07:00

Usually, summer is for fruit and salad - delicate, slimming eating. But here in the Pacific Northwest, summer was a late arrival, and sunny days are interspersed with overcast ones. That means I still feel like baking... which does not create a beach-ready midsection.

Sam was asking for "muffin? muffin? muffin?" so I made these. They sounded so good, and I had some raspberries. Raspberry Crumble Muffins. They look good, don't they? Well, they would have been much better if I didn't have some sort of brain hiccup while I was making the streusel topping. I managed to completely omit the sugar. It tasted a bit floury, so I scraped it off every muffin I had. I made a second batch with cherries that were awesome - and not floury. Sam? He decided that he didn't want a muffin after all.

I must take a tangent here to comment on my son's fickle nature, as I have done before. So, he loves raspberries and cherries and all manner of interesting dishes ... when we are out and about and especially if someone other than me has prepared it. I get excited. I buy ingredients. I get it all home, work my magic, and voila! "No, Mommy. O's." Fickle. The boy eats zero vegetables.

But he did eat this - surprise. I put sausage on it - his favorite. I snuck peas into the sauce, along with artichokes. Great! BUT, he wouldn't eat it two days in a row. I spent too much intellectual time wondering about people who don't like leftovers - my son is now one of them. You can't make anything else out of pizza, either. There is no disguising the leftovers.

I made some wheat bread too. I decided to go with my tried and true recipe, instead of the 5-minute-a-day version that makes four loaves. I think I let it rise too long. I think I always let it rise too long because the top always seems to flatten out like that. Hm. I must experiment.

My New Weapon

2010-07-25T13:15:00.000-07:00

I have been so out of sorts. But I have been thinking about you. About us. I will do my darnedest to get back into the swing of things with blogging. What have I been doing instead? Cleaning. And watching two telenovelas, i.e. Mexican soap operas. What? I need to keep my language skills up.

One of the great things about having this blog is that when I screw up in the kitchen, I get to release it all on the page. I go through the intellectual exercise of acknowledging and atoning for my wrongs. In a way.

To wit:

The Cherry Clafouti. You may recognize this country-French dessert, originally from the Limousin region. Basically, it's a fruit cake (not to be confused with a fruitcake, all one word, which is full of candied fruit and soaked with rum *shudder*), with cherry being the traditional fruit, although you will find plum, berry, pear, or whatever fruit is in season. I had never eaten, not to mention made, clafouti of any sort, and really didn't know what it was supposed to be like. I took the recipe from a book that I dislike more and more with each new recipe I try. I think you see what's coming: the dessert wasn't very good. I dutifully ate it, nonetheless.

The saddest part about the clafouti, was not the wasted time, nor spent ingredients, but rather that I made it for my son's second birthday. He took a bite ... spit it out ... and had vanilla ice cream instead. He paid for his ungratefulness with his first intense ice cream headache. Poor Sam howled and grasped at Josh screaming that it was "hot! hot!" I suppose that is how your head feels with a brain freeze, somehow.

Clafouti prep was quite fun, such that I do not regret trying it - which is how I feel normally when I screw something up. In fact, I purchased a new gadget: a pitter! I do want to make preserves and jam this year, so I do plan to use this thing more than once. I also have a few olive recipes where I could employ it, so it won't collect dust, really.

In addition to the cherry preserves, I also hope to make jams from various berries. My neighbor has huge raspberry bushes that she said I can pick from. Actually, she specifically said that I can pick "whatever hangs on your side." She has said this several times, in fact, to both me and Josh, always emphasizing the "your side." Now, I firmly believe in following instructions, so I don't even want to reach across the plane the fence creates, nor would it be following the letter of the restrictions to pull a vine over to my side so that I could pick the berries.

And yet.

I do recall that last year there were scads and scads of berries on the ground such that it became breeding ground for all the fruit flies in Seattle. So, I might allow for some liberal interpretation of her offer because, hey, you can't just let food go to waste like that. I'll even give her some jam.

So I got a cherry pitter for those preserves. And if you have been reading religiously, you know of my run-ins with various purveyors of kitchen equipment and the attitude I have been getting for wanting supplies for atavistic pursuits, such as canning and preserving. So I went ahead and ordered a darn jar lifter online because, as previously noted, you cannot find one in the whole state because "no one cans anymore." God willing, you will see a post with the pitter as star again.

Pitting is nasty business ... and fun. Just like going to the firing range. What? Bear with me. (1) You load your weapon with a cherry. (2) You apply enough force to discharge the weapon and force a solid object from within a fleshy one. (3) Red juice squirts all over. It was messy and a little off-putting.

The next time I talk about my cherry pitter, it should be when I am making preserves. The cherries can't wait forever. I hope I get my lifters and pint jars soon!

Potatoes? Can you just grow those?

2010-07-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

I spoke ill of my garden in the last entry. Let me just amend with the fact that the real pride and joy of the farmland here is the potatoes! Josh has been tenderly nursing them in containers. Do you know what a potato plant looks like? I was raised in a suburb of San Francisco and my parents were not gardeners of food, so I definitely had no idea what many things looked like, or if they grew in the ground, on trees ... or in plastic containers!

Speaking of being far-removed from our food and what the heck it looks like, I had a conversation with a grocery bagger the other day about chamomile. She said that, until she started working at the co-op, she had no idea that chamomile was a flower. I then commented that I have discovered a whole host of things that I didn't realize a person could just make. Like, really, who makes a marshmallow? No way. Who grows a potato? And I went looking for jar lifters and was told that "no one cans anymore" so no stores carry these necessary items. Really, sweetheart? These skills are coming back with a vengeance. I bought jars and now I need to lift them out of boiling water without breaking them or burning my hands! Stock some jar lifters! Doesn't Oxo make jar lifters?!

So my garden ... There are a few things that work and imbue me with enthusiasm and hope in spite of my deep-seated pessimism and Russian-novel-driven angst and self-torment. Josh planted the potatoes and we harvested and ate the first batch - see above. How do you know when to harvest? It seems that the plants die back when the potatoes are ready. Fascinating, right?

Then there are the peas. Josh threw a billion peas all over our yard. We have peas everywhere and they fruit like mad, baby! I believe I already spoke of my peas, so I won't bore you with more. But I will say that if you have never grown your own, and you like them, you really should throw some around your yard. You can even grow peas on a balcony if you live in an apartment. That crispy, snappy, sweet goodness is simply divine right off the plant.

Speaking of divinity, the Berry - any color and creed - is my very favorite. Our strawberries have been teasing me all strawberry season... which is pretty much over. All of Seattle's strawberries behaved badly this season because of the crazy weather and complete lack of spring, but ours were especially rotten. I caught glimpses of berries that would shrivel up and fall off. We have several species and the one above looks like the only plant that might deliver. My cat killed a rat the other day, so that's one berry-robber down.

There's so much hope in a green berry, isn't there?

And yet.

We have a species of green strawberry, and I realized the other day that I won't know when to eat them!

Our lettuces are going pretty well, too. I planted a few more rounds, so we should have lettuce for a while. I also want to plant squash and a cover crop and I just don't know how that will all work. I listened to a radio show on gardening on Tuesday and, basically, you are supposed to have several areas for planting so that you can leave an area fallow every year. Ug. I seriously need to get someone out to get rid of our awful vinca so that I can plant a cover crop in the current bed. We really need to build humus.

I set a goal for myself: Do one small thing in the garden every day. I have done this ... zero times. Sam simply won't let me get anything done while he is awake. That leaves approximately 2.5 hours of nap time to do IT ALL. "It" often includes feeding myself, cleaning up ... and my Mexican soap opera. What? I need to keep up my language skills!

Gardening Vicissitudes

2010-07-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

Did I tell you that I gave up on my garden? Well, the yard, really. I keep planting and thinning in the raised bed just so I have something to moan about when the crops don't look incredible as ... my next door neighbor's, who must have the best humus anywhere on the planet. We have a huge yard in front and back and, according to the same neighbor, work has not been done on it for roughly 10 years. Josh and I weeded and built a raised bed. We also pulled out a bunch of dead heather and crazy viney plants that were taking over, and planted flowers and herbs to take their place. We amended the soil. We dreamed.

But those damned weeds are so very good at what they do. I know I have said this before. And crap! how about grass? Why does anyone have grass? I think, if you aren't pasturing a ruminant in your yard, get rid of the lawn! I have been drooling over rock gardens as of late. I'm not kidding! Why bother weeding when it all comes right back? Ug.

But peas make you dream. They just grow so ... easily and fast. Their flowers are so cute - like little bonnets. And you think, when they all flower and fruit like mad, I am a gardener! Look at the life I have created! Look what I nurtured from seed, I say!

Then your beets and leeks and turnips all end up in some sort of strange suspended animation. And the weeds come back with a vengeance. And grass starts to come up from within the wildflowers you plant. And. It's. Too. Much.

But we did have peas. Ah, the peas.

That I managed to overblanche. But they were still delightful with a bit of butter and salt.

Baguettes and Knives

2010-07-08T17:57:00.000-07:00

No, this is not another version of the classic economics exercise with guns and butter; this is my life.

Forgive me for being so completely out of the blogging loop. I haven't been able to keep up with the blogs I follow, and I definitely have not kept up with my own writing and cooking. I've been feeling down and in a deep deep rut ... my toddler is dragging me through this rut, actually. I have no time for anything. I don't know how I ever thought that I was busy when I didn't have kids. Hell, I don't even work and I have no time!

The knife collection is back. The star player, i.e. the chef's knife, was missing for a couple of weeks. I had a Henckels and liked it very much, but the wood handle was pulling away from the tang and reached a point of no return. I asked my knife guy what to do and he said that They should give me a new knife for free because it's a manufacturing defect he sees all the time. Free? New? So I call and customer service tells me to send it in and if they "determine it to be a manufacturing defect," I will get a new knife or be "offered" one at wholesale. No, no, my knife guy said. You tell them a new one and nothing else. Hmmmm. I don't know how to wrangle and bargain. I do not think I was ever a Turk in a past life. Completely foreign; it makes me totally uncomfortable. I am convinced there is a world of secret passwords and just the right amount of complaining at a perfect E flat in order to get what you want.

So I sent my knife in with a note detailing the damage and that I like their knives and I deserve a new one! Then I read the Henckels fine print about "manufacturing defects" and got all worked up thinking that there was no way I would get a new knife. I just knew those bastards were going to screw me! Uh, the humanity!

Happily, I was wrong. I received a lovely, brand new knife in the mail. Yeah! So sharp and delightful.

I made some new bread. I told you I intended to try a baguette, so here it is. I know; I know. It's funny-shaped. When I slid it from the peel onto the stone - I need a new, bigger stone, by the way - part of it slipped over the side, so I tucked it back on, at great peril to my fingers and forearms.

It was good. The texture was nice. BUT I wasn't too fond of the crust. AND the other loaves I made from the dough came out weird. Well, one of the loaves, anyway. I made a batard for my neighbor and one for me. I really hope hers was okay because part of mine wasn't cooked. I think it had to do with a sort of hard, goopy part that was stuck to the container from the last dough that was in there. The authors of my new-fangled bread book said to go ahead and keep adding dough to the same container because you can build a nice particular sourdough, but I don't intend to do that again. Or it might have been my rolling technique. Anyway, how do I get that crunchy crunchy crust? Gah! I'm just going to have to try a real baguette, with its crazy manifold steps and rituals. Do I have to sacrifice something to Escoffier?

It made excellent pizza dough, however. The topping was totally random but so good that I will definitely try to repeat it. Try. Does this happen to you: I tend to throw a bunch of stuff on a pizza and it comes out awesome! Oh! Josh and I oooh and ahhhh about it being the best ever... never to be replicated because it was so organically spur-of-the-moment. Hm. On this one: zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant - all sauteed in olive oil. The sauce: garlic-thyme olive oil made by heating those in oil. Cheese ... and maybe sausage, too.

Pizza and Soup

2010-07-02T13:15:00.000-07:00

I used the Peasant Loaf base to make pizza. Since the dough had been in the fridge for several days, it was taking on a sourdough quality. It lent a strange flavor to the pizza, I thought. Josh liked it more than I did. It was definitely a tasty crust - really fluffy and chewy, yet light. Josh never eats his crusts from take-out pizzas but he said that this was a crust that deserved to be eaten. That's a good thing. I topped it with some mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, and homemade pesto. Pesto really deteriorates after a couple of days in the fridge. And the verdure is gone in a matter of minutes. I have heard that you can blanch the basil and that keeps the green color, but I have yet to try this out. Who wants to get out a pot, wait for it to boil, uhhhhh. Too many steps.

I am loving this bread book. I am about to try a baguette! If you have ever made one the traditional way, as I have, it's tough. In fact, I didn't even finish my loaf because I messed up the first proofing step. I consider myself a baguette connoisseur. Well, that's too strong. Maybe I am a demi-connoisseur... or a pseudo-connoisseur. Anyway, I have strong opinions about my bread, and I really hope I can make this work.

This soup looks weird and sounds weirder, but is so good! You simply must make it! Chilled Watercress Soup with hard-boiled egg. No way, you're thinking. Not for me. Oh, yes it is.

Watercress Soup:

2T unsalted butter

3 medium leeks, white and light greens parts, washed and sliced

1 medium potato (Russet, or other non-waxy potato, about 8 oz.), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice

3 cups chicken broth (or more)

2 bunches watercress leaves and some stems are fine too

1 generous cup baby spinach

salt and pepper to taste

fresh lemon juice

hard-boiled eggs

Melt the butter in a medium pot over medium heat. Add the potato and leeks and sweat until softened, about 5 minutes. Add broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer, cover and cook until veggies are tender, 10-12 minutes. Add greens and stir to wilt, about 1 minute. Puree in a blender, or a food processor, or with a stick blender, or however you can. Add salt and pepper and lemon juice, to taste. We ate the soup warm with egg, but it is "supposed" to be chilled. Do as you wish, but, for goodness's sake, do!

Lazy Saturday

2010-06-28T16:15:00.000-07:00

As my re-introduction to the kitchen (and blogging) after our vacation to Decatur, Ill., I decided to make bread. My friend Richie recommended this bread book that he swears by. Now, I already have a baking book and a couple of cookbooks that have breads in them, but this book is revolutionary! The authors' idea was to have homemade bread daily without working on it for hours. In fact, it's called "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day." Of course, that doesn't include rise and baking time, but you don't have to knead (!) and the way that it takes mere minutes to throw together is because you make a huge batch and refrigerate it! You can pull four loaves from that base over the course of two weeks. You need to invest time on day 1 to make the dough, but there is no blooming or kneading or anything. It's fabulous. Really, anything that Richie recommends is guaranteed to be fabulous. The guy is a Renaissance man. He lives in a yurt! That he built!

I opted to start with the European Peasant Loaf. It's chewy and light and lovely. You use steam for this particular loaf, so you have to put a pan in there, like I have done before. No big deal. So, without really thinking it through, I grab what it closest: a Pyrex. I see if it will fit in the tight space between the racks and, hey, leave it in there while the oven heats to 450. I then pull it out to pour in the boiling water because ... I am the dumbest girl on the planet! Please note that boiling water is 212 and the oven was 450. What happens when there is a 200 degree difference between glass and water?

It explodes.

Well, it pops and then falls all over the place. I managed to only let out a little scream of shock. It was a good thing I took the Pyrex out of the oven to fill. Normally, I would have slid it out of the oven just a bit to pour in the water. That would have meant glass in the oven and all over the floor. As it turned out, I had it on the range. Thank goodness my burners are sealed. But, man, those shards went everywhere.

I had freshly made banana bread sitting next to the range, too. I picked off a couple shards, but refused to throw it away because it was really good banana bread! I made the right decision because neither Josh nor I have a torn esophagus.

Veggies

2010-06-25T11:36:00.000-07:00

My parents came to visit and I made a couple veggie dishes that were quite good, if I do say so myself. One was sauteed bok choy. We all know that this vegetable can be bitter, but if you sear it over high heat and use the right sauce - given that you have chosen young enough specimens - you get something great. I managed to make this dish great. It makes me extra happy when that happens for guests. I just hate it when I mess something up when people are coming over. I want to ensure everyone that I am better than that, really.

Bok Choy: 1lb. baby bok choy, cut into quarters; 2 T chicken broth, 1T oyster sauce, 1.5 tsp. soy sauce, 1.5 tsp. cornstarch, 1/2 tsp. sugar, 3T veg oil, 2 ginger slices (optional), 1 clove crushed garlic. Procedure: Combine broth, oyster sauce, soy sauce, cornstarch, and sugar. Heat a wok or large skillet over high heat until definitely hot. If using ginger, add half of the oil and ginger, and fry for 10 seconds until fragrant. Add the rest of the oil, bok choy and garlic. Let the bok choy sear before stirring for 2-3 minutes total until leaves are limp but still green. Add sauce and let thicken for 1-2 minutes. Note: you can double the sauce, but only use 2 tsp. cornstarch.

The other dish was out of Bon Appetit. There was a glut of greatness in the last issue. The current one looks promising too. This is green beans and zucchini in a sauce verte. I don't normally like zucchini, but if you caramelize and cover it in a nice sauce, what's not to like?

Sauce verte: 1/3 cup basil leaves, 1 green onion, 1T parsley, 2 T capers, 1T lemon juice, 2tsp. Dijon, 1 garlic clove, 3T e.v. olive oil. Puree the first 7 ingredients, adding the oil slowly.

Vegetables: 1T olive oil, 1lb. green beans, trimmed; 12 oz. zucchini, in strips; 3 T water (optional - see below), 2 T parsley. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add veggies and stir until coated in oil. Sprinkle salt and water over and cover. Cook about 4 minutes, until crisp-tender. Uncover and cook through to tender, about 2 minutes more. Alternately, you can omit the water and simply saute the veggies until seared and tender, about 5 minutes. Stir in sauce, season to taste, and garnish with parsley.

Two Haiku

2010-06-12T19:44:00.000-07:00

Pasta eggs - couscous

Flying fish eggs - tobiko

Both stick to tables

Couscous sticks to hands

Tobiko to the table

Finding both in hair

Steak and Salad

2010-06-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

Bon Appetit magazine is chock full of fabulous ideas this month. I usually read through all the recipes and put stars next to the ones I intend to try. Much like highlighting college textbooks, I felt like it would have been easier to mark the ones I did not want to use this month.

Here we have harissa-marinated sirloin tips and Isaraeli couscous with asparagus and peas. As with many BA recipes, the steak is marinated in something that, although increasingly popular among the cuisine-minded, is not found in the local market. I have realized that I can almost always figure out something to substitute after reading the description of the exotic ingredient in question. So, harissa is a chile sauce of Northern Africa. Well, I have Sriracha, a chile sauce of Thailand, already in my fridge - voila! - substitution made.

I used steaks from my frozen 1/4-steer and was determined to cook them perfectly. In my mind, "perfect" means rare. Medium-rare if I have to. So I seared them quickly ... too quickly. Turns out, treating fat slices of steak like shrimp doesn't work so well. Josh and I cut into our first bite and thought it looked like ahi. I probably would have eaten it if it was just me, quite honestly, but Josh thought it would be best thrown back in the skillet for a couple minutes. I will admit that they tasted better in the medium/medium-rare state they ended up in.

I believe I am paraphrasing Anthony Bourdain when I say that anyone who eats their meat well-done doesn't actually like meat. I would extend that to medium-well, even. The reason is that, once you cook a thing to smithereens, all real texture and flavor is lost. AB even said that when someone in a restaurant orders meat well-done, the kitchen will grab the oldest piece of meat in the fridge. Since there will be no flavor left, the diner will not be able to distinguish any off color, flavor or smell; these disappear through over-cooking.

I suppose this is part of my right way-wrong way thinking. I pretty much ascribe to the philosophy that there is a correct and, therefore, incorrect, way to do pretty much everything. Eating meat on the raw to medium scale (excepting poultry) is correct, so that's the way you should do it! Using the entire acceleration ramp to merge with freeway traffic is correct, so 99.99999% of Seattle drivers do it wrong and should learn how to drive correctly!

The couscous was quite good, too. The key was the dressing. Also key: toasting the couscous and cooking it in chicken broth.

Steak Marinade: 2T e.v.olive oil, 4 garlic cloves, minced, 2T golden brown sugar, 2T soy sauce, 1T minced fresh thyme, 2 tsp. harissa or Sriracha. Mix all that, toss in meat, and marinate anywhere from two hours to overnight. I put the marinade together in the morning and used the meat that night.

Couscous dressing: 2T e.v.olive oil, 2T lemon juice, 1 minced garlic clove, 1/2-1 tsp. grated lemon zest. Actually, I didn't measure the zest, I just used a small lemon and grated off the zest of the whole thing.

Civilized Lunch

2010-06-11T12:38:00.000-07:00

I told you about the book I was reading: French Women Don't Get Fat. It changed my thinking about food and meals, so much that I bought the French Women Don't Get Fat Cookbook in order to complete my transformation.

One of the things Guiliano notes is that French women sit down to lunch. You eat several courses - small courses - sometimes with a glass of wine; you take time to enjoy this food. So I really want lunch to be a meal - something good, balanced - something that makes me feel nourished and not looking to snack 10 minutes after I am through. I have been eating a salmon burger and salad - great, but I am "hungry" not long after I finish.

So this past week I decided to make a frittata - leek and smoked salmon with some cheese melted on top - and a vegetable soup.

The soup is like a minestrone and was easily the best vegetable soup I have ever had. I made it from my newish Lydia Bastianich cookbook. And, yes, I did have a wee glass of wine with my lunch. When Sam goes down for a late nap and I know I am not going anywhere in the afternoon, I go ahead with my little tipple, thank you.

It's most civilized and I highly recommend it.

Recipes can take a while to type because I am slow. If you want the soup recipe, let me know and I will gladly type it out for you, dear readers.

Ricotta Tart

2010-06-05T09:48:00.000-07:00

I discovered ricotta as dessert. I know, those of you with European influences are probably like, "Duh." I made little tarts with honey and ricotta for Sam once. Surprise! he didn't like them ... but I did. I decided to make this tart when my sister, M, was visiting.

I thought it was delicious, especially with the chocolate crust and orange and lemon zests in the mix. Josh confessed that he finds ricotta "chalky." That is not a pleasant description of anything, except chalk.

I also made a rhubarb compote. I had only eaten rhubarb once before, in brownies, and I had never worked with it. The fact that the greens contain a toxin kind of put me off. Nevertheless, this spring I resolved to try all the bounties of spring. My brain has finally held onto seasons and what grows when. Rhubarb heralds spring, so I needed to get some.

I cooked it too long such that it turned mushy, but it was still delicious - tangy and astringent, but sweet too.

Lumpia - Take Two!

2010-06-04T19:11:00.000-07:00

This time I got the recipe I wanted. Funny, though. So I asked the gal, R, for the recipe a couple of times. Really what I did was strongly hint that I would like to be invited to her house to learn to properly make lumpia in all its Filipino glory. I believe I said something like, "I would love to learn how to make these. Sam likes them so much. I think I would need a tutorial because yours are rolled so nicely, and they look hard." That's a pretty obvious fishing expedition, I think. But my hints went unrecognized. I then emailed R asking for the recipe. I got no response! I thought maybe it was a family recipe and she didn't want to, or was forbidden to, share it. I was going over all the reasons in my mind, really trying to steer clear from the high school-ish She just doesn't like you reason.

Then I talk to my friend EB, who is friends with R, goes out with R, socializes with R, has tea and crumpets with R and her husband, G, who is a lovely man, by the way. Turns out, R gave EB a strange photocopy of a recipe, written in haste, on binder paper. I assume that this was for me ... or maybe the original went to EB because she wanted it and she made me a copy because she knew I wanted it. Hmmmm. The piece of paper has the "recipe" plus parts of two other recipes and a scratched out shopping list. Huh? As I mentioned before, it's not really a recipe. There is an ingredients list and the instructions say three things: marinate overnight, cut the lumpia wrappers in half, keep a wet cloth over the wrappers to prevent drying out. What was missing from the instructions was whether or not I cook the meat before stuffing. I have a total of three lumpia recipes and two say to cook the meat, while R's says nothing. I do know that one can make potstickers and wontons without cooking the meat ahead of time. And I thought that not cooking it makes sense because R's lumpia are solid rods of meat and how could she get them to be like that if she was stuffing with cooked meat? I erred on the side of cooking. I mean, I guess you wouldn't say "don't cook" in instructions, but I thought it was weird. And, since R clearly does not like me, vis-a-vis bizarre recipe-sharing demeanor, I knew that emailing or calling (not that I have her number or would be authorized to get it) would probably get me nothing.

They were delicious anyway! My meat marinated for two nights because ... I have a toddler. They took me a couple of hours to assemble, and I assembled close to 60, I think. I had 1&1/2 lbs. beef, which doesn't look like very much in a bowl. When you realize you are only spooning a couple of teaspoons into each one, however, you know you're in it for the long haul.

In comparing this second set of lumpia with the first, I learned what makes a difference. First, marinate the meat, etc., overnight in a generous amount of soy sauce. R's recipe is 1/4 cup and the others I have only call for a tablespoon with as much meat. Not enough flavor and seasoning. Second, lumpia wrappers are awesome! Imagine a crepe; now slice it horizontally and you have the thin thin lumpia wrapper. I found them in the frozen section and spent I don't know how long just pulling them apart before stuffing them. Much much thinner than wonton wrappers, and that makes all the difference in the crunch factor. Third, egg is superior to water as a sealant. Fourth, and most importantly, Who needs a stinking fryer? You can totally do anything in a wok!

I bet I need to make my own wrappers to be declared Honorary Filipina. I'll work on that.

Next ethnic dish that requires a ridiculous amount of time: pastizzi. It's Maltese!

Toddler Dinner Boot Camp

2010-05-31T15:24:00.000-07:00

The goal: To have dinner with Sam, at the table. Since Josh gets home between 6:30 and 7pm, and Sam eats at 5:30pm, I will eat a coupe faim while Sam eats a "homemade" meal. The quotes are because sometimes it's a heated item as opposed to something created by my hands.

Day One: Pea-ricotta "pesto." Sam didn't put so much as one piece of pasta in his mouth. He just looked at it and pushed the bowl away. This happened on both Sunday and Monday evenings when I tried this meal. I continue to believe that we need a pig. The pig would be well-fed, eating all of Sam's rejects as well as his leftovers. And then we could make our own sausages, bacon, etc., and put it on the blog!

Day One Verdict: Failure.

Day Two: Falafel. What was I thinking? The photo of the meal could be both the before and after shot. At first, Sam took a big bite and said, "Mmmm." He chewed. I stayed myself, waiting for the bite to come tumbling out, but it didn't. He chewed as he examined his carrots. Chewed as he told me that we would "then [watch] Elmo," meaning after dinner. It was all I could do not to rush back into the kitchen, grab all of the falafel, and shove them onto his plate screaming, "There are lots more, son! Lots more! Eat! Eat!" I watched him chew thinking what a great story this was going to make! A miracle food: the falafel. And then! out came the tongue, pushing little shreds of falafel with it. He sat there with his falafel-covered tongue protruding as he exclaimed "Uh! Uh!" I wiped his tongue with my napkin as he told me that he "choked, choked!"

Day Two Verdict: Failure.

Day Three: I didn't manage to make anything, per se. I only heated up a breaded tilapia stick and a spinach cake. Both were rejected. The fish stick is usually devoured, while the spinach patty is a crap shoot. But to have both dismissed out of hand? Crazy. This kid is on a rejection roll. I then gave him a wee slice of the homemade whole wheat bread that I baked earlier in the day. He took one bite, then set it down and started sucking his arm. I tried a bowl of O's, and he ate with gusto. Oh, and we didn't have dinner at the table because Mommy was having a hard afternoon and knew that if he rejected his dinner and I was sitting across from him that I would either (a) break down crying, or (b) scream and break down crying. Since I already freaked out about him climbing on the couch with mud all over his pants, I decided that Sam had his freaky Mommy fill for the day.

Day Three Verdict: Failure.

Day Four: Macaroni and cheese. I know, this seems like a gimme. What kid doesn't like mac and cheese. I dress it up a little by using pureed cauliflower for the "milk" addition. I am, naturally, speaking of the packaged M&C variety. Not the neon orange one, but rather Annie's, which is organic, but still packaged. Well, bless my son because he doesn't like it anyway. I have three boxes left that I will give to Matthew W if he wants them.

I am tempted, however, to call this dinner a success because Sam decided on and then ate his own dinner. Yogurt and O's he said. So that's what he had while I ate my homemade wheat bread and triple cream cheese. He had two servings and we had a delightful conversation. It's a success of sorts. I'm just glad it wasn't plain O's. My mother tells the story of me eating nothing but Rice Krispies for three weeks - that's breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The fact that Sam had yogurt is wonderful. And, you know, that's probably a better choice than the mac and cheese even though yogurt isn't really "dinner."

Day Four Verdict: Quasi-Failure.

Day Five: Zucchini patties. I got the recipe from Bon Appetit and thought I would make them for the adult dinner, but keep the toppings (creme fraiche and smoked sardines) off for Sam. He sat down with Josh and Auntie Mel and was actually, I thought, eating them. Nope, that was Josh and Auntie Mel making their own coupe faim from Sam's rejects. What he did eat was bread (my homemade whole wheat!) and peanut butter. That's okay.

Day Five Verdict: Quasi-Failure.

Day Six: Lumpia. I know, again? This time I got the recipe for the ones that Sam definitely likes. "Recipe" is generous, as the instructions are minimal. I have much more to say about the lumpia I made this time, but will save it for a separate post. So, this should have been another gimme because, as I have mentioned before, Sam loves lumpia when R makes them. We have had them a couple of times at gatherings and he goes wild gobbling them up. The verdict on these? Sam looked at the one I held out for him, repeated lumpia, then asked for yogurt with O's. The three adults ate lumpia with our stir fry. They were awesome!

Day Six Verdict: (Delicious)Failure.

So, Sam ate nothing I prepared for him this week. Wow. That has to be some kind of record. I think next week I will be even more daring and just serve him what Josh and I eat. Really, if he's not going to eat the things I make specially and separately and painstakingly for him, why bother? Seems like a no brainer! I won't bother!

Barbecuing in the Rain

2010-05-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

Or should I say a thunderstorm ... because that's what it actually was. We don't get a ton of those in these parts, but, by gum, I decided to bust out the barbecue during one. The coals were just ready when it really started to pour. I was able to move my operation under cover and not burn the house down. Nice.

Why is barbecuing associated with men? It's funny, really. If I do the cooking, it also stands to reason that I do the 'cuing. Somehow, if we add a real fire, the outdoors, and, presumably, meat, we add men to the picture? Hm.

Not that men don't cook and barbecue, of course. My dad certainly does both.

This is what the sky looked like.

And this is what I made. Zucchini and red potatoes in a mustard-rosemary "sauce".

And pork tenderloin. It marinated for two days. This was a good thing.

Marinade:

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup sesame oil

1-2tsp. honey

1/4 cup brown sugar

2T Sherry

8 garlic cloves, minced

4-8 green onions, sliced thin

2-4T sesame seeds, toasted

This is one of my dad's recipes. I think he made it up. I've used it several times and like it a lot. I'm thinking of tweaking the sugar:honey ratio. I usually use fewer green onions, too, since I don't much like them although I do enjoy the onion essence they lend to the marinade.

Go-to Dish

2010-05-26T18:14:00.000-07:00

Everyone needs a go-to dish - one that's quick and easy; one that has ingredients usually found in the cupboard. I learned about this dish in Spain. My friend Ginger took me to a simple restaurant (that I would go back to again and again) and told me about their Cuban plate. It had rice, beans or ground beef, red sauce, a fried egg on top, and a plantain alongside. We had all those ingredients (minus the plantain, those were last week), plus some leftover fennel-olive stuff from the fish. A five-minute, nutritious meal was had. Yeah me.

Lessons

2010-05-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

Microgreens garden salad with toasted hazelnuts, beets, apples, and maytag bleu cheese.

My current read, although "study" might be more accurate, is "French Women Don't Get Fat," by Mireille Guiliano. Compelling title, no? It purports to offer the unique European formula to permanently shift your outlook and assumptions about lifestyle. That shift will lead you to equilibrium. The book is written for American readers, since the author is French but lives in NYC most of the year, and has experience with weight gain a la americaine. I am almost finished and so inspired. I ran out (read: clicked out on amazon.com) and bought her cookbook, too, assuming that it has all the recipes in the book, and there are many. I thought it was going to be a novel, and there certainly are stories of her life in there. But it's really more a lifestyle guide with pertinent recipes and anecdotes. I highly recommend it.

One lesson that I intellectually knew and understood but never truly put into practice, is about portion size. We have discussed how my family eats large portions and that my sister thinks we are uniquely endowed with the power to burn a multitude of calories and not get as fat as others we see eating similarly large portions. Maybe that's true, but what is definitely true is that we Americans eat way too much and it's way too big. In addition, what I have been slowly realizing, and what Guiliano also writes about, is this thing that the American food industrial complex is doing: ruining everything! So we eat more of things that are gross. Example #1: Chocolate can be something beautiful, sensual, luscious. How does a Snickers bar fit into that equation? It doesn't. The second example is embedded in the segue to the next lesson: pay more for quality (in smaller portions). After reading about Guiliano's charge that Americans, in the wake of the growing popularity of balsamic vinegar, found out how to wreck it, I checked the ingredients of my bottle. Who would ever think to check that? You should see only "wine vinegar" and probably "sulfites." Do you know what is in mine? Caramel color! It's made from corn and actually is on the no-no list is you are gluten-free. What the what?

Speaking of books and the French, I also bought "Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques." It is enormous, so my plan is to read a section every few nights and then add the wisdom therein to my Understanding and Practice. Even the introduction has good information. One tidbit that I will share with you here - because I was so shocked (Dad, you will need to be seated for this) - is that JP tells us, implores us to never (sic) use charcoal briquettes to barbecue. Never. He avers that the nice, smoky char on your chicken contains carcinogens and tar such that you might as well eat a pack of cigarettes. And guess who just bought two bags on sale at Costco. I will be making the switch to real chunk, because JP says so.

That takes us to my recent barbecue adventure. Let me just say here that I suck at fire management. I can certainly make one, yet once I dump the coals into the BBQ, I go from a bunch of red cherries to one eensy-weensy hot core that I try to squeeze everything around. Do I just need more, like way more, coals?

This is jerk chicken and it was pretty good. I have another jerk rub that I like more, so I won't bother with the recipe here for this one. It does have a habanero, also known as Scotch bonnet, in it! To my knowledge, this was my first dealings with the chile. I wore gloves so as not to get any juices on me. And I removed the ribs and seeds so as not to overdo it. For four chicken breasts, it was just enough heat for me.

Which reminds me. In Spanish, the "H" is silent. Always. And the "A" makes an "ahhhhhh" sound. Always. I recently heard a newscaster talking about Hugo Chavez and he sort of combined Spanish and English pronunciations of the first name, calling the Venezuelan president "Yugo," like the car. Funny.

That glop next to the charred poultry is plantains! Not my first taste of the pod, but definitely the first time I worked with them. I was supposed to get black ones, as the varying degrees of ripeness make a huge difference in texture and flavor, but they were only slightly black at the store. I stuck them in a paper sack with an apple to speed things along and it worked somewhat. Peeling those things is so weird - the peel sticks and is tough. The flesh itself it meaty and firm. The preparation has you boil chunks until tender, then mash them with coconut milk and butter and salt. It was pretty good, and fun to have something different as a starch. I would like to try this again with a different milk, maybe rice milk. I just don't like coconut milk. It tastes like I am eating suntan lotion.

There is so much going on in the food section of my brain right now. Notes to self:

1. Only chunk coals for the BBQ.

2. Smaller portions, always.

3. High quality ingredients that I must be emotionally prepared to pay more for. And, hey, note #2 helps with the pocketbook aspect, doesn't it?

4. Throw out my balsamic vinegar. Gross.

What Nana and Papa missed

2010-05-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

My parents were supposed to come for a visit this week. Dad, aka Papa, was slated to spend two days in town, while Mom, aka Nana, was going to stay longer to watch Sam, thus freeing me up for some serious house and garden work. Alas, the flights didn't work out, so they are still in SF, and Sam and I continue to battle things out on our own in Seattle. To add insult to injury, the Fates smote me with sour weather. Is it almost June or not? Curses. Being indoors with a mischievous (read: delightfully curious) toddler can drive even the most patient of nuns to drink. I've been having my own tipples this week.

Another crying shame about them not making it is the now complete waste of a fabulous menu. Highlights include artichokes with bagna cauda, barbecue pork, crab cakes, and a chickpea ragu with sausage. I hit my new Jacques Pepin cookbook hard while deciding on my dishes. JP is my father's culinary hero ... come to think of it, my mother would have been the one enjoying the dishes, since Dad would have already left. I know; you're thinking, Jen, you can still make all these fabulous things, take photos, and tell us all about them. And this is incentive to continue as planned, dear readers, it is.

And yet.

I have a toddler. These meals take time and require someone to watch the boy. I suppose Elmo has watched him occasionally ... but I don't wish to rely on E too often. Although Sam can count to 14, and I didn't teach him that. Thank you Sesame Street.

By the time I got the news that they definitely weren't coming, I already had all of my ingredients for Tuesday's dinner. So, onward.

Orecchiette (or, rather, the pasta I had on hand) with cauliflower and croutons. The recipe is from the May edition of Bon Appetit. The magazine focused on a few countries and created menus with expert, native input. The most attractive to me was the Italian (Puglian) menu, so I chose a couple dishes (originally, I thought I would make four or five, but realized that I was only cooking for four, so I should just settle down). I think this pasta is something that would be thrown together, perhaps at the end of the week, with leftover veggies and old bread. I have made a couple recipes like this with pasta and garlic croutons or breadcrumbs. So good. The "dressing" is olive oil and anchovy paste. Add some Pecorino and Parmesan and parsley - minding your P's - and you are good to go. I opted for the broccoflower, as you can see, instead of cauliflower because I wanted to and it was on sale.

Who can resist a whole fish? I don't know when certain fish are in season. And I don't know which fish are the best to get when they aren't local. These are bass, but they are from Taiwan. I paused before I got them, but went ahead noting that they were fresh, blah blah. I got them at Uwajimaya, of course, and I have decided that I will only shop there on Tuesday mornings and with Sam. I have mentioned before that Tuesday is their senior discount day and Sam is an elderly person magnet. He has had members of the older set speaking to him in several languages on any given Tuesday at U. This is in contrast to the parking booth guy who thinks that Sam is ill because he is so blond and pale. I tried to explain Scandinavian coloring to this Ethiopian man, but something was lost in translation. "He sick? He so white." Yeah. It's natural, really. Anyway, this particular Tuesday was the best ever! We walk in to our usual smiles and waves in the produce section and at the butcher counter. And then! Fish counter! Bam! Asian Grandpa is there again and comes out to poke Sam and get in his face. Thank goodness this makes Sam laugh and not scream because Asian Grandpa then gives Sam an enormous lump of crabmeat! This is from the $24/lb. case. I hold it in front of Sam, as my mouth waters. AG then gives Mommy some, too. Sam poo-poos his and Mommy scores two chunks of sweet sweet crab. But AG doesn't stop there: "Does he like shrimp?"

Is this the chasm in toddler eating culture? Compare what Japanese two-year-olds eat to American. Let's say American kids who have a parent that cooks. I have a feeling they are eating fish and pickled things and slurping noodles. And then there's Sam. I make Sam his own meal because, in my experience, he doesn't eat what I make for Josh and me. I want him to eat something other than Cheerios. But, what if it's just a war of attrition that I am refusing to fight? What I mean is that if I serve him normal homemade, wholesome, tasty food every night and allow him to turn his nose up, will he eventually give in and eat his artisanal pizza instead of chicken nuggets? When will he say yes to coq au vin? I keep thinking that the magical age is two because that's when I go back to work and will only have time for one dinner that he and I will eat together at the table. I'll be damned if I'm going to make two different meals, do all the cleanup, wrestle a toddler into the bath, and then grade papers. No way.

So, anyway, the trip to U was awesome and Asian Grandpa told us to call him that, and the guy with the cross-eye yelled that AG was going to scare Sam, and it was all fun and games. I was so glad that I ordered whole fish because the quiet one took a while to scale and gut, thus leaving more time for all of that other stuff.

I pan sauteed the bass (after a dusting with flour) to get a nice crust on the skin (yummy), then stuffed them with garlic and parsley and lay them on a bed of fennel, red onion, tomatoes and oil-cured olives (I found the last jar at QFC - bring back the oil-cured olives!). It was good but really needed lemon to complete it. Maybe I'll do it again when Nana and Papa finally make it up.

Microgreens and other garden wonders

2010-05-18T06:52:00.000-07:00

Josh planted a round of veggies in February, when we had a warm spell. They have been growing very slowly since then. The slow growth and small pickings have made me realize a few things:

1. The supermarket has seriously distorted my (our? American?) view of normal size. When I let my radishes get to the size I think they should be, their insides are dust. It's odd. If you slice through the middle, it looks like a snowflake ... and kind of tastes like one too. I picked a bunch of small ones, partly to thin the row and partly to test, and guess what. They were great - piquant radish is one of the best flavors, isn't it? My father taught me to love radishes. The fun thing about picking them so small is that you can eat the greens and all.

2. Microgreens is a racket! Oh, I thought they were so cute and I dutifully paid $10/lb. when I wanted to make the exact salad I saw in Bon Appetit. But now that I have grown my own, I will no longer be duped. I wanted to show you a salad I made almost entirely of microgreens from my garden, but iPhoto, once again, is making my blogging life impossible. Picture, if you will, eensy-weensy beet greens, fennel, radishes, and kale, combined with almost normal size arugula. That was one awesome salad.

3. You must thin mercilessly. Sounds like advice given to a newly arrived wanna be movie star from Iowa. I have been worried that I will somehow choose the wrong sprout to represent its kind in the bed o' produce. This season I have changed my practice and go in, head down, pluck pluck plucking so that the ones left have enough room. That's the point, right? Right. Otherwise I sow nothing. Or only microgreens, I guess.

4. Fertilizer is your friend. Our stuff is growing seriously slow and small. I think I need to just fertilize. I was thinking that it's like giving your plants bovine growth hormone, which is wrong and gross. But maybe it's more like creatine powder, which does help you bulk faster, but is still okay for your body, soooooo.

5. Growing your own food is exciting. It has only been twice now that I have planted veggies and both times I thought, as I dropped seeds into the ground, No way is this going to grow. Who do I think I am? And then it totally grows so much that you have to thin! Seeds are so cool, man. Maybe I can plant one of my rock hard kiwis and grow my own tree. This isn't Mediterranean climate, like I think they are used to in New Zealand, but maybe I can get away with it. Hm.

I also need a fig tree.

Fruit

2010-05-17T08:03:00.000-07:00

I am livid.

One of the worst things on the planet - after poverty, hunger, war, etc. - is the fruit industry in this country. For years, I have been complaining that fruit doesn't taste like it's "supposed to." Finally, I hear many more people saying the same thing. Fruit is picked too early and blasted with ethylene (a natural chemical produced by apples and bananas) to "ripen" them, but they don't really ripen, do they? They look ripe, but rarely smell like the fruit they are, and taste like ... nothing. I haven't had a decent strawberry from the market in ages. And I never buy the fringe berries that we have here: blackberry, marionberry. They taste like dirty water. Those have to be picked in the woods.

Am I the only person who smells her fruit? People stare at me when I pick up a pineapple and hold it to my nose.

Surely, part of the beauty of this international market of foods is that you can get these wonderful things in northern latitudes: passionfruit, starfruit, dragonfruit, pineapple. But they just aren't right when they are here, are they? I remember eating a mango in Taiwan. Holy crap! Is that what they really taste like? I recall discovering that, yes, I do like pineapple ... in Hawaii. Before, I actually thought it was gross. Who doesn't like pineapple? But that stuff doesn't grow here. Is it great that we can enjoy them, even if they are not all they can be, or is it wrong? Perhaps we shouldn't ship those delicate things. Those tropical things. Those things that age on the table, but really should ripen on the vine. Maybe they will be better and even more special if you can only eat them where they are grown. Some fruits you will never eat. Some just once in your whole life.

Where is this coming from?

I bought a container of kiwi and a pineapple from Costco. The pineapple is fine - pretty sweet, but not Hawaii sweet. The kiwi are rock hard and not ripening, but rather shriveling, like an old woman's lips. The moisture is ... evaporating or something.

And I'm pissed. I keep cutting them open thinking that, yes, it gave to a little pressure, this one, this one is ripe. No. Inedible. It's been two weeks!

Have you ever had a peach from the American South? I mean, California grows some good fruit, but no way do the peaches even compare. No way.

So I am vexed by my fruit conundrum. Do I eschew all the sweet delights that cannot be grown close enough to home to allow them to be picked when ripe and not rocks? Buying organic helps a little, but not much, I've noticed. Buying at farmers markets definitely helps. But I'm not going to get my passionfruit fix at an Seattle market. I won't be shaking the hand of my local durian purveyor any time soon.

Vexation.

Friendship Bread

2010-05-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

My neighbor came over with a Friendship Bread starter. I was ridiculously excited about it. She also brought over a sample of the baked version - so sweet and cinnamony. Yum.

Day 1: Do nothing. Days 2-5: Stir with a wooden spoon.

Day 6: Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup milk. Stir.

Day 10: Add a bunch more stuff, take some out to pass on to three friends, then add more stuff to make two loaves.

There are a bunch of versions of this bread. I saved one of the three starters that I was supposed to pass on so that I can make more. I think I will try something with chocolate next time. I found a few websites that talk about the bread as "Amish." I don't know if it really is, and don't see why it would be. If anything, it should be Quaker, since they are the Society of Friends, and all. You can order a huge starter kit for over $100. But I'm sure you can just make your own starter, right?

I was quite worried that my loaves wouldn't turn out. I did a couple things wrong. First, I seemed to have quite a lot left over once I removed the three portions to pass on. The recipe says you'll have a little over a cup, and I clearly had more than "a little more." Next, I finally read the package of instant pudding that I was to add, and it was a little over 1 oz. shy of what I was supposed to have. Oops. And I forgot to get pecans at the store. I'm sure nuts are optional, as they always seem to be in baked goods, but I thought a few pecans sprinkled on would go so nicely. It did taste like a coffee cake.

But my fears were unfounded. I know, shocker. I am quite the baker. Can I think of anything I have ruined? Oh, wait, yes I can. So we will chock this delicious bread up to sheer luck. Josh took one loaf to work and it was gone within an hour. Verdict: Delicious.

Mother's Day

2010-05-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

I know. A little late, but I had to get all the photos uploaded, blah blah.

I got to do a little bit of everything on M Day. Josh said I got to decide what the day was about, and that he would execute to the best of his ability. Of utmost importance to me was that I did not want to set foot in the kitchen to clean or cook. At all. This might be surprising, since I obviously like to cook, and fancy that I don't do a terrible job at it. But when you are a homemaker, you spend hours in the kitchen, almost constantly with a rag in your hand wiping up, wiping up, wiping up. And we have so little counter space that I feel the need to completely clean up before I begin cooking ... you get the picture. I wanted one day of freedom. And this I was granted.

The day started with some lovely treats. Josh and I first ate a "French" sandwich and half a bagel with lox at the park with Sam running amuck. We came back, put Sam down for a nap, and enjoyed some pastries and conversation. The pink glaze was a little off-putting - it looks too much like a donut - but it was quite tasty, with thick pastry cream inside. In the background is a pithivier, I think they are called. An Italian slipper? Dunno. There is pear and pastry cream inside and it's my favorite.

For lunch, well, I made lunch. But I still ate it with my hubby, calmly and over conversation. Really I just prepared lunch from leftovers, so I did not over-exert myself. Quinoa with vegetables alongside the best veggie burger, and a herb creme fraiche.

Dinner was quite an affair. Josh decided to barbecue, and he headed to the store for foodstuffs. We had lovely grilled asparagus, which J skewered in order to avoid losing them all in the coal pit.

He also grilled bok choy, Anaheim chiles, and fennel, chopped them all up and added a soy-sugar-something dressing. Lovely.

The piece de resistance was a spicy rub grilled salmon. This is Copper River, wild, king, superduper salmon, and J cooked it perfectly. Yum.

There was even dessert: angel food cake with macerated strawberries.

Chipotle Pork with Beet and Cabbage Salads

2010-05-09T13:26:00.000-07:00

My sister gave me a subscription to Bon Appetit magazine for xmas. I have decided that I am going to do as many recipes as possible (and desireable) from the magazine in the month I receive it. This is revolutionary because my old tack was to read the thing, then rip the recipes I liked out and put them in a folder. This folder grew and grew to such proportions that I became overwhelmed and finally threw the whole thing out when we moved because we were already moving quite a bit of crap and 17 years' worth of ripped out recipes? No. So, for the upcoming week, I looked to BA and my old Cooking Light mags. They inspire me for spring. Which is a month old, I realize, but we stay pretty cool and gray in these parts for well into it. As I previously mentioned, I am done with the heavy meat cuts, like short ribs and lamb shanks. I feel ready and able to move into more fish and, hey, pork tenderloin!

Pork tenderloin is a delight to cook, isn't it? Easy and pretty quick, too. Lean, as far as meats go, to boot. And the perfect foil for so many flavors. It just gives and gives, that swine.

This is a recipe I make a bit, from one of those accumulation magazines, like The Best Winter Recipes from Sunset, or something like that. I could get up and look, but I don't feel like it. I like to have something light beside this recipe, due to the spice. I spotted the cabbage and beet salads in BA and went for it.

Speaking of which, we have some beets planted now, and I have plans to plant more in the fall so that we have them for winter. What I really want is to grow all my own root vegetables and cabbage and hard squash and then have a root veg "cellar" of sorts. I have had a design in my mind's eye that would use a wood frame and fill it with sand. I would keep it somewhere in our clogged workroom (the final frontier of move-in mayhem; yes, that was nearly a year ago!). I have lots of goals like this for my home garden. I tend to soar in imagination, making lists, drawing up plans ... then I get overwhelmed and deflated by all I haven't done. Arg. I need to think step-by-step and not go haywire when I can't reach the moon on the first jump. From my 35th birthday to Mother's Day, I've been really good at beating myself up and measuring myself against all the things I haven't done. No root cellar? Fail. No chicken coop? Fail. And where, oh where, are the espaliered pears and apples? Fail.

Wasn't I talking about pork? Right.

Chipotle Pork:

1-1.5lb. pork tenderloin (or, really, however big you want) - Trim off all the gross silverskin and fat. Heat a pan over med-high, add some canola oil, and sear the pork on all sides, about 2 minutes per. Then toss into a baking dish or onto a sheet pan and roast at 425 for about 20 minutes, depending on the size of the loin and how cooked you like yours. I like mine rare; the one pictured is medium.

Sauce: 2/3 cup maple syrup; 4 T chipotle chiles and sauce; 2 T dijon mustard. Whisk or blend together and serve on the side.

Options: I am thinking of a couple things I want to try with this. (1) Barbequing the tenderloin and basting on the sauce near the end. (2) Heating the sauce in a small saucepan and adding a cornstarch slurry to thicken.

Salads: These go quite well with the spiciness of the pork.

Beets: 2T Sherry vinegar, 2 tsp. dijon mustard, 5 T safflower or canola oil - Whisk together and pour over 3 large red beets, grated. OR, what I did was buy pre-roasted beets from Trader Joe's and slice them.

Cabbage Salad: 1/4 white vinegar, 1 T soy sauce, 1 T sugar, 5 T safflower/canola oil - whisk and pour over 6 cups shredded cabbage and 2 T chopped mint.

Italian(ish) fare

2010-05-08T15:36:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to get a post out for a week now. I think that toddler who lives here and demands my constant attention was more demanding than usual this week. Plus, I just couldn't sit down for the time necessary. Do you have days like that? You just can't get into a sit groove. Anyway.

I must confess my love for Mario Batali. I used to watch his show religiously - Monday at 11am on the Food Network. He wove in personal stories as well as historical and sociological information from the various regions in Italy. I appreciated that. I have made a few of his meals, and one has become a favorite in our house: fritelle sarde, or sardine fritters. A couple things, right off the bat: (1) I often use trout instead of sardines because I am (was) afraid of sardines due to a bad experience. ... Oh, okay, I'll tell you. I tried one straight out of the tin! I tried to backpedal and forget the experience by trying one again and working really hard to tell my taste buds to just give it another shot. I had #2 with mustard and on bread, but there was no going back. (2) I don't make them "fritters" in the sense that I don't deep fry them. Mario had a whole jug of olive oil for frying and I just can't bring myself to use that much oil, so I pan fry and simply flip.

I've been using canned trout (the recipe is for canned fish), but Josh recently read that sardines are good for us - all of us, that is. They have more omega-3's than salmon; their place on the food chain means they aren't full of toxins, unlike other canned fish I could mention. So I decided to give sardines a try and made the fritters for lunch. Well, I'll be horn-swaggled, they were great. Lovely with a little pa amb tomaquet, or tomato bread, which was standard fare in my adopted city of yore, Barcelona. Notice that I threw on some capers because I saw a fellow blogger with a similar Maltese bread dish that uses the little briny fruit, and I though, Why not? Indeed! A delight!

Speaking of tomatoes in Spain. I recall marveling at the distinction between salad and bread tomatoes. I lived with an older woman and a Dutchman who both bought greenish, rock-hard tomatoes for use in salads, while saving the red ones for bread. Not only did they save these, but they let them further ripen on the counter, getting to the point where the skin started to wrinkle. Yuck, I thought! I came around pretty quick - never to the hard salad tomatoes, but definitely to the bread tomatoes. If you've never had it, it's quite lovely. You take a red, red tomato, slice it in half horizontally, then squeeze the guts out onto a nice baguette (toasting is optional). I think it's nice to let it sit for a bit to soak in. Then, you drizzle e.v. olive oil over that, and sprinkle salt generously. Simple and so nice. Slap some jamon on there, perhaps a fritelle, or a tortilla (omelet, to my Western friends who will think I am talking about a Mexican corn or flour tortilla). When I have really good garden tomatoes, then I put the whole slice on the bread instead of just the guts. Enough salt is the key to really unlocking the flavors.

I also made this beauty. I already told you that I got a new cookbook, by Lydia Bastianich, right? It's on my cookbook list. I made the meatballs in broth from it. I was looking to do something with greens that didn't involve simply sauteing them, not that this isn't a fabulous way to do greens. I mean, no fuss means you get unadulterated greens flavor, not to mention fewer calories and a way easier preparation. But I was looking to fuss, I suppose, when I happened upon erbazzone with chard filling. Yes, please. I created shortcuts by using store-bought pie crust instead of making my own dough. But I definitely am going to make some dough out of this book because many of the recipes use olive oil as the fat. What?! Italians are so crazy. Don't even get me started on Berlusconi, am I right?

Trout/Sardine Fritters:

2 tins of trout or sardines (packed in water or oil, smoked or not, according to taste); 2 eggs, lightly beaten; 2 cloves garlic, minced; 1/4 cup parsley, minced; 1-2 T chopped pepperoncini; 1/2 cup bread crumbs; 1 T grated caciocavallo/Pecorino/Parmesan cheese.

Mix everything. Then make fritters any size you like, I guess. Mine are a couple inches in diameter. You can deep fry them as balls, or slightly flatten them and pan fry in as much or as little oil as you like. Serve simply with a salad and lemon wedges.

Erbazzone with Chard Filling:

1 lb. chard, cleaned, cut into thin slices, ribs cut out and tossed (or saved for stock); 2 T olive oil; 2 garlic cloves, sliced; 1/2-1tsp. salt; 2 eggs, lightly beaten; 1/2 grated Parmesan; 1/4 bread crumbs; 1 tsp. fresh rosemary, minced; 1 batch dough of choice.

Prep the chard by bringing a pot of water to a boil and mixing in the chard. Turn the heat down to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes. Drain chard really well, squeezing excess water out. Heat olive oil over medium heat, add garlic and saute lightly. Mix in chard and salt to taste, and saute until the chard is dry, but not browned, just a couple minutes. Put the chard mixture, and the rest of the ingredients in a bowl and mix. Roll out your dough. Add the mixture to the dough and fold over the corners so it's like a picture frame. You can bake either on a stone or on a sheet pan, at 375. The time will depend on your dough. My pie crust took about 25 minutes.

Lumpia

2010-05-03T19:14:00.000-07:00

Me: I think I need a fryer to make these look and taste right.

Josh: Well, you used wonton wrappers. Those aren't made from rice flour.

Me: Oh, yeah. I guess that makes sense. Say, was that your smarty-pants, know-it-all voice? Are you being condescending?

Josh: I don't have a know-it-all, etc. voice.

Me: There! That's it!

I might have made most of that conversation up, but the facts are good: I used wheat flour wrappers. Although Uwaj claims to be a rather comprehensive Asian foodstuffs purveyor, I did not see "lumpia wrappers." And I didn't think to look for rice paper wrappers. Curses. That must have been the problem with Sam liking the lumpia. He knew what authentic was; my lumpia were not it.

My setup. Ready for stuffing.

Making dumplings is an art. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that. The ones that Sam has had before, and liked, made by R, are always perfect little cigars. A couple of mine came out looking pretty good, but getting them "right" was taking way too long, so I started rolling them as a diamond instead of a square. It was easier, but not as pretty. A person learns many a thing while making dumplings of whatever sort. I learned that you really need to crumble the meat completely. The few large chunks seemed to bust through the wrappers every time, such that several needed to be double-wrapped. Since I still have half a pack of wrappers, I will continue to use my newfound dumpling knowledge for Good.

They came out okay. I got the recipe off the Food Network. The whole reason I dared to try lumpia is becuse Sam liked them so much, the several times he had them. R, a friend of a friend, is Filippina and has brought them to several dinner parties. Hers are little fried rods of meat in a perfectly crunchy shell. So good, you don't even need dipping sauce, although she always makes some that is quite tasty. I asked for the recipe, but never heard back, so I went searching on my own. Voila. The FN recipe includes a bunch of vegetables, while R's is solid meat. Of course, since I was making them for Sam, sneaking in veggies couldn't possibly be a bad thing. The stuffing, however, was largely flavorless. Again, not always a bad thing for a toddler, so I plowed ahead.

In the end, Sam liked the crunchy outer part, and did eat a bit of the stuffing of one. He must have thought that the lumpia was all crunch because he boldly grabbed a second and bit through about 1/3 of it with gusto. And ... then ... it ... came tumbling out of his mouth. Not by accident. If you have a toddler, you know that sometimes spitting accidents happen. This was definitely purposeful; I saw the tongue on the ejection follow-through.

Once again, I had a backup plan. Josh and I added lumpia to our dinner of fried rice. I was going to make a pasta salad. But the day was so gray, and the pasta salad equally gray (if you're thinking pouring-salad-dressing-over-noodles gray, you would have what I was intending). So the lumpia actually provided inspiration for a way out.

You won't find the recipe here, of course, because they weren't very good. My friend EB reportedly has R's recipe, so you will see another lumpia attempt. This I swear.

Cookies!

2010-04-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

I had a rare Domestic Goddess day. I cleaned, I cooked, a wrangled a toddler, and I baked cookies. I elected lime cookies because they sounded somehow refreshing as well as fattening. Yum. The lime went with the curry dinner, too. Not that we ate them with the curry. I just pictured sopping up curry with a cookie. Hm.

I tried a trick that I have seen on the TV before. You take your glob of cookie dough, wrap it in wax paper, and grab a sheet pan. You position the pan and hold the paper in such a way that you slide the pan on the wax paper and into the dough such that cookie dough fills the wrap in a perfect tube. Well, this was Herculean. I think I didn't give myself enough wax paper. I was pressing so hard, trying to use my body, and envisioning all the ways it could go awry. To wit: cookies dough squirts out the sides and onto the floor; wax paper completely rips and I slam the sheet pan through the dough, making a complete mess of everything; and a few other scenarios that involved personal injury and broken kitchen items. None of that happened; I got a decent tube.

I had decided that the frosting was superfluous and far too decadent for a cookie with such a high butter:flour ratio. But the wee glutton inside shouted, Why wouldn't you make frosting? You deserve frosting. The world needs more frosting. I listened attentively and realized that, having already done so much, yes, I did deserve frosting. I called my husband and told him to bring home a lime for the frosting ... and a bottle of Lillet. Because I deserved that too.

This was my restaurant pour, i.e. 1 oz. of drink over lots of ice, with a twist! I like mine with a splash of soda. The orange twist, by the way, is a must.

Lime Cookies:

Cream together 12T unsalted butter (1.5 sticks), 1/4 cup each powdered sugar and granulated sugar. Mix in 2T lime juice and 2T zest (from two medium limes). Add 1.5 cups flour, a bit at a time, until blended. Make a tube of cookie dough in wax paper however you can: roll it out on a floured surface first, try the sheet pan trick, whatever. Chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour, until sliceable. You can also freeze the dough for up to 3 months and slice at will. When ready to bake, heat the oven to 350. Slice dough into 1/4" cookies and bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the edges get golden. Frost when cool.

Icing: 3/4 cup powdered sugar, 3-5 T lime juice, zest of a lime - Mix.

Let's Talk Curry

2010-04-29T18:44:00.000-07:00

I was craving curry, so there you go. I usually buy the Thai Kitchen brand curry in a jar, but was taken aback when I couldn't find it at Uwajimaya. I dragged a teenager away from his stocking (and talking to a girl) and over to the aisle where I used to find the curry in question. Pointing accusingly at the new wall of prepared Thai Kitchen foods that a diner need only add water to, I shouted, What gives? He turned me around and pointed to the new stuff - in tins! Unfortunately, almost all of it has MSG. Now, I am aware of the fact that this stuff is like salt, and commonly added to all Asian cuisine. And, if I am to believe what I see on TV, a small percentage of the populace is actually affected by it, while a great big, fat, uninformed majority only thinks they are affected by it. I know I don't react to it, but still want to steer clear of anything that is a derivative of anything else and requires an acronym in order to speak of it. Sam sat patiently while I read umpteen labels before finding an MSG-free one. Good. I wonder if some other store will carry the brand I know and like. I can't see TK totally getting rid of it, right? Everyone I know who cooks Asian food has a jar of either the red or green curry in the fridge. Anyway, the new stuff worked out fine. But the tin v. glass meant that I needed to transfer the leftovers to a new container. I opted to freeze it, like I did my chipotle and tomato paste, in 1T measurements. Genius, I know. It was Josh's idea. He's an ideas-man, I tell you.

Speaking of jars. So I get a new one of fish sauce. Look at this darn top - how in the H am I supposed to open that? I have a vivid imagination and pictured all sorts of puncture wounds when I visualized how I might use a knife to make a hole. Josh (ideas-man) told me to use scissors. I have kitchen scissors, i.e., sharp ones, but they still made of mess of things. In fact, when I clipped the first little piece of plastic, it went flying ... right into my bowl of clean cabbage. What?! I dumped the whole thing out on the cutting board, looked at every piece of cabbage and never found it. Whatever. With all the Teflon already in our systems, what's a little plastic?

The Japanese potato: satoimo. (I think. I always want to call it a satsuma, but that's an orange.) It is the best in this curry. I was using sweet potato, which is also good and packed with vitamins, but this one tastes like it belongs. Cabbage also tastes like it belongs more than the spinach called for. But, really, it's all about making a recipe yours, isn't it? Now it's MINE. My intellectual property. Just kidding.

Fish Curry:

1 lb. sweet potato (or potato of your choice) cut in 1/2 in. dice

2- 14oz. cans coconut milk

2T Thai red curry paste

2 tsp. lime zest (from one lime)

2T each fish sauce and brown sugar

1 1/2lbs. firm fish, in 1-inch cubes (halibut, tilapia, or, hey shrimp is great too)

6 oz. green of choice (spinach, cabbage, etc.)

1c. each basil and mint, chiffonade

Prep: Steam the potato by bringing a couple of inches of water to boil in a large saucepan. Place potato pieces in a steamer basket, cover, and let cook for about 10 minutes, mixing to redistribute after 5 minutes. Spoon 1/4 cup off the top of the coco milks (the thick milk) and into a large saute pan with the curry paste. Over medium heat, cook, stirring, until the mixture is almost dry, 3-5 minutes. Then add the rest of the milk, lime zest, fish sauce and brown sugar. Mix and bring to a simmer for 5 minutes. Depending on what type of fish and greens you have, you can either add them together, or one a minute or two early, so that they steam together in the sauce and are done at the same time. (That means you have to know the cooking times. For shrimp, it's 3ish minutes, and the nappa cabbage is about 5 minutes.) Add the potato to heat through. Turn off heat and mix in herbs. Serve with rice and limes.

Quick Dinner

2010-04-28T17:17:00.000-07:00

I decided to just start going through couple cookbooks, making things for Sam. I chose a bean spread, thinking that he has liked beans in the past, and I can spread it on a roll to hide it. Well, he found the spread with his nose, then his fingers, and tossed the roll into the air. I tried to talk him into it - How many words does he understand? Does he understand that this is a convincing voice? Blah blah Sam blah blah try blah blah beans blah blah bread, then he gets the objectionable thing re-offered. I'm sure he figures things out. Incidentally, the rolls I picked up at Trader Joe's molded in two days. Two! I wanted more bread, so I picked up a horrible baguette from Pike Place Market. Oh! It looked good, but was like cotton - all airy and like a Safeway baguette. You offend me!

I was prepared to use the spread for the grown-up dinner, if things didn't work out with Sam. I made bruschetta and a salad-like thing, dressed with balsamic vinegar and e.v. olive oil. Delicious. You may recall that I made an hors d'oeuvre like this, but with arugula. I did have arugula for this meal, but it rotted quickly too. Can't wait until I have my own in the garden. That is, if the raccoon doesn't eat it! Yeah! Raccoon! I scared it off the roof by hurling rocks at it. I'm sure I'll see him again. He better not eat my strawerries ... or the neighbor's raspberries, which Sam plans on eating this summer.

I made the easiset soup ever as a complement to the bruschetta: meatball. I recently got a few cookbooks from Amazon, one of them is Lydia Cooks from the Heart of Italy. I just love her show on PBS, especially when she has her mother on. Everyone deserves a cute, Italian grandmother figure. So, perusing her book for an easy soup, voila: meatballs in broth! Of course, any serious cook would have made her own broth. And I am serious, but I was seriously short on time and patience, so I made the meatballs and set them in canned broth. It was delicious!

I halved Lydia's meatball recipe, which actually called for 1&1/3 cup pork and 2/3 lb. veal, and used only pork when I did. I thought about getting good veal from WF, but decided that it wasn't worth the extra trip, since this was supposed to be easy fast dinner. Also, I decided not to saute them, opting for poaching in the interest of added calories. Also, the recipe calls for orange rind, but I didn't have any. I wonder what they would be like with the citrus ... I'll have to make it again. With homemade broth, too.

So, I'm writing out the recipes below, but I was reading another blog the other day, and the author brought up the possible ethical - at least, and legal, at most - violation that ostensibly occurs when one posts a recipe that "belongs" to someone else. That brings up the issue, for me, of How does a recipe belong to anyone? As in, Did you completely and totally make it up? I thought of Caesar dressing as an example. It appears in a million cookbooks and magazines, but no one gives the origanl Cesar credit, saying that the recipe you now see is "adapted". That, in itself, is another issue. To whit: someone commented that it grates on them when a person claims that they adapted the recipe, but really only made a couple of substitutions, or something seemingly negligent. Is anything "negligent" in cooking? If I adapt by substituting thyme for rosemary, that changes the flavors, right? Does that count? Certainly adaptation in biology leads to nothing more and nothing less than survival of the species. In my comment on said blog, I mentioned Napster, positing that perhaps all of us bloggers are a very disperse Napster to the cookbook and magazine insdustries. One day, we shall all be tried en masse. I look forward to taking it to the Supreme Court so I can meet, and by vigorously questioned by, Justice Sotomayor.

White Bean Spread with Bruschetta and "Salad"

Spread: Whir together 1- 15oz. can cannellini beans, drained and rinsed; 1/4 tsp. minced rosemary; 1 garlic clove; 2 T each olive oil and water; 1 T lemon juice; salt and pepper, to taste. Salad: mix 3 oz. arugula and 1/4 red onion, thinly sliced, with 1 T each balsamic vinegar and e.v. olive oil. Bruschetta: slice your bread of choice, and toast under the broiled for a couple minutes on each side. While hot, take a clove of garlic, peeled, and rub it on the toasts. This melts the garlic onto the hot bread. You might need a couple cloves, depending on their size. Then, brush a light coat of olive oil on top of that. You now have all the parts - put them together!

Pork Meatballs (this is half of Lydia's recipe; makes about 25 small meatballs)

Mix together 1 lb. ground pork, 1T golden raisins (soaked in boiling water for 5 minutes, then chopped), 1T toasted pine nuts (chopped), 1 egg (lightly beaten), 1/4 cup bread crumbs, 1/4 cup grated Parmesan, 1 tsp orange zest. Make small, 2 tsp., meatballs, rolling them in your hands. Drop them into salted boiling water - they will sink, then rise. Cook for 5 minutes, then remove. You must discard this water. Then, make your own broth, or used canned chicken broth for the soup part. Oh, if you want to saute the meatballs, Lydia suggests you dredge them in flour, then add them to a pan that has a generous coat of oil on the bottom. Turn them to brown on all sides and cook through.

Best Ever

2010-04-27T13:37:00.000-07:00

It was not my intention to create personal bests, but I did. One was from a recipe, so I can hardly take credit. But the other, the other was from my mind and the simple and omnipresent need to use up leftovers.

Pasta salad. I didn't put this in the title because I didn't want to put people off. You say "pasta salad" and what comes to mind? A cucumber, a tomato, some black olives and a bottle of vinaigrette poured over soggy pasta. This is not that pasta salad. I already had a pasta salad recipe that I, and others, like, so I wasn't really looking, but I wanted to use up my sun-dried tomatoes and stumbled upon a way to do that. (I really want to create a complete index of all recipes and everything they use. There are so many times when I am searching for a way to finish off a couple tablespoons of this or that and just need some guidance.)

Pasta Salad:

Sauce: 1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes (in oil, chopped and drained), 1 T capers (chopped and drained), 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, 1 garlic clove (minced), 4-6 T e.v. olive oil. Whir everything together in a food processor. Use 4 T evoo to start and check the consistency to see if you want more.

Salad: 1 lb. fusilli pasta, 12 oz. cherry/grape tomatoes, 8 oz. fresh mozzarella (ovoline), 1 cup fresh basil, 1 cup Parmesan, 1/2 cup oil-cured black olives (optional), 4-5 pepperoncini, 1-2 roasted red peppers. Cook the pasta within one minute of al dente in order to ensure that it won't get soggy. Let it cool for a couple of minutes after draining, and then throw it in with the dressing. Slice the tomatoes in half. Cut the mozz into bite-sized pieces. Chiffonade the basil and grate the Parm. Now, the rest of the ingredients are optional. I didn't have olives, so I threw in one jarred red pepper for the oiliness. I simply like pepperoncini, so I threw in a few of those, sliced, as well. Do what you like. Parsley might be nice.

Then, quite by accident, I created the best veggie burger. Earlier in the week I made fried rice and split peas that were both rejected. The rice was a surprise because it tasted good and Sam eats the fried rice I buy at Uwaj. The split peas, well, I foresaw rejection, but I thought I would give it shot. I ran into them in the back of the pantry and thought Hey I should use these. I recalled that the last burgers I made used lentils and bulgar and thought that my rejects were similar enough to work. So I dumped: (1.5 cups when dried) split peas cooked in chicken broth; 2 cups fried rice, complete with 1T soy sauce, some minced veggies, and a scrambled egg; 1/2 cup toasted cashews; 1/2 cup packed each cilantro and basil. I then took them for a spin in the processor, gradually pouring in canola oil until it held together. A few minutes on each side in a pan, and bam! best veggie burger ever.

Of course, if the parts were rejected, the whole - which was much more than the sum of said parts - would also be dismissed, right? Oh, I hoped, but was prepared to eat the burger if Sam didn't like it. He popped one of the pieces in his mouth and bit down. His jaw sort of froze as he winced and began ejecting the offensive material. He even used his fingers to wipe his tongue and flick tidbits off of his bib and jeans. Oh well. I can have them for lunch.