Baguettes and Knives

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

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!

Happy Birthday to Me! (and Rick Schroeder and Thomas Jefferson)

I attempted to post this on my birthday, the 13th, but was foiled first by iPhoto, then by our internet connection, finally by travel plans. So, without further ado, it's Jen's birthday menu: pizza, artichokes with bagna cauda, and ice cream.

I started with the ice cream a of couple days before My Big Day because, of course, you have to chill the mixture overnight, then again after you make the ice cream because it's like soft serve out of the ice cream maker and I just like it a little harder.

I chose "burnt cream" ice cream, and had to make a caramel for that. I knew that once it started to caramelize, I wasn't supposed to touch it. I'm not sure what happens if you do touch it, but I wasn't planning on finding out. The instructions say to go ahead and stir it until it melts. I figured out, after I had stirred it several times, that that is not such a good idea. The whole thing clumped and then I had to let it get far too brown in order to get all the sugar to melt.

AND, the whole process of melting probably took 30 or 40 minutes. Too long. Step two took even longer. You are supposed to add warm milk to the caramel while stirring. The instructions give a couple scenarios resulting from this mixing: foaming, bubbling, hissing, clumping. Mine did all of the above. The clumping was the worst part because I had a solid block of caramel on the bottom of the pan that took an hour to "melt" into the milk. In the end, it's a good ice cream with a very creamy texture. In the future, however, I will simply buy Ben and Jerry's Creme Brulee when I have the hankering. How do they do those chunks? I suppose I could pour caramel onto a silpat, let it harden, then break it up. Yes, that's the ticket. It was nice to have homemade dessert on my birthday, though. I was going to pair the ice cream with chocolate souffles, but couldn't for lack of time. Ice cream was certainly enough.

I thought I was going to be much more melancholy about the fact that I was making dinner and cleaning and packing on my birthday. I was kind of freaking out on the 12th. I didn't really make a big deal out of 30 - and I recall Josh being surprised by this - but 35 carries more psychological weight, for whatever reason. I found myself thinking down a path that was very Western, goal-oriented, and linear. I guess those adjectives are all pejorative because, really, if the follow-up to that is "and it made me feel bad," then, well, I need to find another way of looking at things.

Did someone say something about pizza earlier? I think I remember that.

I made the dough and proceeded to top it with pesto, roasted red peppers, roasted garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, and spicy sausage ... oh, and cheese, naturally. I highly recommend this combination.

I hand stretch my dough (as opposed to using a rolling pin) and don't make it enough to be good at it. It's never quite round, I always need to patch a couple of holes, and I usually have one really thick end, or arc, since it's a circle. I used my pizza stone for this, thinking that that is best, as opposed to the sheet pan I have been using, but I definitely don't do this often enough either. What I need to have the knack for in order to properly utilize the stone is transporting my packed pie from the cutting board to the oven on a peel. I just don't have the wrist flick and bravado to pull it off quite yet. So I build the pizza as fast as I can directly on the stone, pulling it out of the oven to do so. I can then use the peel to transport the cooked pie to the cutting board to slice. Kind of clunky, but it works.

Finally, the artichokes. So, I'm from California and we Californians love our artichokes. I always liked them, but they fell out of favor with my palate about mid-1998. I guess what I didn't like were my dipping options: garlic butter or mayonnaise. And I certainly was not going to eat them straight up.

Enter the bagna cauda.

A specialty of Piedmont, Italy, it means "hot bath." And what a tasty bath your vegetables will get with this sauce. Quite easy and quite delicious. It makes the artichoke experience nearly sublime. But it's not for the feint of heart.

Bagna Cauda:

3 heads of garlic, cloves separated and UNpeeled

3T butter

one 2oz. tin anchovies, drained and chopped

1/2 cup e.v. olive oil

Put the cloves in a medium saucepan and cover with water by one inch. Bring to a boil, then turn heat to low, cover, and simmer until the cloves are soft, about 25 minutes. Drain. When cool enough to handle, squeeze the cloves out and mash to a smooth paste. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, over medium heat. Add the chopped anchovies and cook, while mashing into the butter, for one minute. Add the garlic and the oil, stir to sort of combine (it won't emulsify) and let simmer for 10 minutes to let the flavors meld. Serve with artichokes or other veggies. Or, hey, use it as a pizza sauce!

Success and Failure

I went crazy this week and tried two new things with Sam. First, pizza. I made neither the dough nor the spread this time, so I wasn't feeling so emotionally invested. I have shed more than one tear on more than one occasion when something I slaved over was roundly rejected. Anyway, I had a feeling that it would be successful because we had tried this very pizza at Trader Joe's and Sam liked it. I actually was glared at while going back for a second "sample." I guess TJs is very unlike Costco in that they frown upon people trying to make meals out of samples. I felt compelled to explain myself: "You see, I ate the first bite and merely gave my son here - see, isn't he cute? - a tiny bite. So this sample is for him. And now watch me lean over and grab a jar of the spread to show you just how interested and moved I am by your pizza making."

Sometimes I really am that 12-year-old who cares way too much what I think other people are thinking about me. I remember ... in the wise words of my mother: "Why do you think they are looking at you? No one is looking at you!"

So this is a plain dough with artichoke heart spread and a little mozzarella. Sam liked it quite a bit unless the piece was especially goopy with the artichoke heart spread. Then he would drop the piece, stare at the goop on his finger, and say, "Sticky."

Since the vogue seems to be to prepare kids as early as possible for college, I went ahead and let Sam eat his slice in front of the TV. I held - and drank - the beer; Sam just learned how to say "beer."

The second dish was an utter failure. I learned this recipe while participating in the National Outdoor Leadership School. This is fantastic backpacking food. Of course, we didn't take shrimp in our backpacks. When you prepare it outdoors, dried veggies and peanut butter that doesn't have to be refrigerated are employed. This is the backpacking version of the Indonesian dish Gado Gado. While in the great outdoors you have it over pasta, so that's what I did for Sam. I made some penne and put a tiny bit of the peanut butter sauce on it - no go. He did that thing where he takes the offensive material out of his mouth and interrogates it with his eyes: What ARE you? Why have you been served to ME?

When you have a child and you experiment with his meals, you have to be emotionally prepared to eat or toss your creation if it is rejected. Usually I am okay eating it; sometimes I am not and so I become irate (and sad) when I have to toss it. Think of the starving Armenians! This time, I had an exit strategy. See above photo.

Backpacking Gado Gado: 3T each of peanut butter, oil, vinegar, soy sauce, and brown sugar; 3/4 cup water. Throw it all in a small saucepan and whisk over medium heat to combine.

Obviously this is the most basic recipe that you can work with to your liking. Your questions would be What kind of oil? What kind of vinegar? etc. Use what you want. Since it's Asian, I use peanut oil, rice wine vinegar, and I add sriracha chili sauce. You can saute some aromatics with your stir fry that would also add to the flavor, like green onions, ginger, and garlic. You can also play with the amounts; I like a bit more peanut butter and a little less water. This last time I experimented with adding 1 tsp. cornstarch (after I pulled it out of the fridge the day after I made the sauce for Sam), then poured the sauce over the cooked veggies in the saute pan to thicken. Basic stir fry saucing method. It worked swimmingly.

Pizza and Salad

I had spinach I needed to use, so I made a pesto and added ricotta. I prepared some pasta for night #1, then this pizza for night #2. These are Sam's dinners, by the way. Pasta is always consumed eagerly. The pizza ... was rejected. He tried. He picked up his little slices and turned them this way and that. He was unmoved by the small amount of flavor he got from licking a piece. Back on the plate it went, shoved across the table at me with a firm, "All done. All done." Fine, Cheerios it is. It would be nice if what I made for Sam got the same reception that Cheerios get: "Ohhhhhhh." This is high pitched and delivered with a sense of delight.

More spinach to use became a salad for Josh and me. This is New Best Light's Spinach Salad with Sausage and Apples. I found an apple-chardonnay sausage at Trader Joe's - excellent. You saute red onion, toast walnuts (which I didn't have, so I used pistachios), then warm the dressing of cider vinegar and mustard so that it wilts the spinach ever so slightly when you pour it on. Lovely. Apples and nuts really complete a salad, don't they?