Pablo Neruda Pasta August 14, 2011

The Husband and I used to laugh over one of Pablo Neruda’s poems, Sonnet XX, back when we were literate and cool, that starts off with My ugly love, you are a messy chestnut and eventually gets to our favorite line,

Ugly: Not even the sea contains things like your toenails

Now. Maybe Mr. Neruda had never seen a Trader Joe’s canned cherrystone clam before, because I CANNOT imagine anyone’s toenails could be uglier than these things. If you have evidence of the contrary, please do not send it to me or post a photo of it. I am still in a delicate condition, you see.

I need to eat more iron-rich foods, and had read that clams were high in iron, so I decided to make some sort of clam sauce. I didn’t have a chance to get to the Local Fresh Clammery, so I decided to try these new TJ canned cherrystone clams, which had gotten good reviews on line.  Geez Louise, these things were disgusting looking! Still, I soldiered on, as the can said one serving would give me 25% of my daily iron requirement.

I chose a recipe off Epicurious.com—Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes, Basil, Lemon and Clams, available here: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pasta-with-Cherry-Tomatoes-Basil-Lemon-and-Clams-104811  I used a parmesan/Romano/Asiago cheese blend that worked quite well.

The recipe was very easy to make, had a very good flavor, but the clams were so tough as to be inedible. I didn’t even cook them for the minute–I just tossed them in the pasta at the end as I was afraid this very thing would happen. The Husband didn’t find it as offensive as I, and started discussing whether the tough, stringy part was the foot that clams use to move (what?!) and it really made me feel quite queasy.

I don’t think you get any iron from the clams if you just chew them for a second and spit them out. I might make it again with chopped clams, or maybe just a touch of clam juice, for flavor.

Tomato Hand Pies & Grilled Green Maters August 7, 2011

Because I am a glutton for punishment, I tried two new Martha Stewart recipes this week: tomato hand pies, and grilled green tomatoes with creamy basil sauce. No photos again this week–my camera appears to be possessed; there is a photo of the hand pie if you click that link, above.

The first I had seen written up on a couple of blogs, where it was reported that they were tasty. No one complained about them being fiddly and taking five hours, so I proceeded naively. The recipe involves making a pâte brisée, which is cut into squares to line muffin cups, and filled with roasted tomatoes and onions, oil-cured olives, feta, and thyme. Sounds delicious and rather simple, right? Well, of course it was not. Oh, it tasted good, if a bit salty, but it was totally a pain in the arse.

The dough came together easy enough in the food processor, and it was to be chilled for an hour in the refrigerator. Naturally, I put it in the freezer by mistake, so after an hour it was hard as a rock and I had to wait for it to soften up. This was not Martha’s fault, but it was her fault that the dough cracked. The Husband just shook his head and asked why I didn’t use Julia Child’s recipe. Indeed. 

While the dough froze, I roasted the tomato and onion slices for 30 minutes. Well, the tomatoes roasted but most of the onions burned to charred crisp. Sigh. I also had to pit the olives, which was tedious, even though I only made a half batch. After the dough softened up enough to roll out and put in the tins, I had to put the tins in the frig for 30 minutes, which only made the dough harder to work with, as the corners were supposed to be folded over top of the tomato/olive/feta filling, but as mentioned above, the dough cracked. Then the “pies” were baked for 50 minutes. The whole thing took forever; I mean, I started these at 6:30 or so, and they weren’t done until 10 pm! They did make a nice little snack the next day, but I would use less salt when roasting the tomatoes since they were salty.

The second recipe was plucked from Everyday Foods. It’s quite simple: slice three green tomatoes, brush with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and grill for 2-3 minutes on each side. They are served with a sauce that consists of 1/4 c mayo, 1/4 basil, 1 garlic clove, and 1 T lemon juice, salt and pepper, all whirled up in the food processor (better to use a mini chopper since there isn’t much to whirl). These were quite tasty, and a bit healthier than a fried green tomato. The Husband used some extra sauce on some roasted salmon the next day.

Vodka is the key July 24, 2011

Hello, cupcakes! It’s been a while and I have missed you. I checked my stats and, amazingly, I still get some hits, so I thought I would start posting again, a bit. Maybe.

I joked about being sick in my last post, which was just a cold, but then I ended up truly ill with another sort of thing. Can we blame Martha for it? Possibly, but we will never know, I suppose.  For real, though, I have some great friends who cooked meals for The Husband and me while we were unable to, and I will never forget their kindness and generosity! 

Now I am (slowly) on the mend, and have started cooking again; if it involves throwing stuff into a food processor, I am all over it! I haven’t made anything worth posting about until today.

Richmond, like most places, has been beastly hot this week and will be beastly hot next week, so I threw the chilling mechanism bowl from my ice cream maker into the freezer a couple of days ago,. I just used it to make Pink Grapefruit Sorbet. It is cold and tart and über refreshing.  The key is the bit of vodka, which helps prevent the sorbet from getting too icy in the freezer.

Pink Grapefruit Sorbet

3 c grapefruit juice

1/2 c sugar

1/3 c water

3 T vodka

Make a simple syrup by dissolving sugar in the water over a medium heat. Let cool. Combine juice, simple syrup and vodka in the ice cream maker and process per manufacturer’s instructions. Eat immediately, or place in freezer. May rub on body, if overheated.

Ahem. February 26, 2011

I would just like to point out that after cooking and eating “Power Foods” for two weeks, I got sick for the first time in a year.

Correlation or causation? You be the judge.

Inedibles and Tofu Bowls February 19, 2011

This week I tried two recipes from Power Foods, a snack and a main dish. One was successful, and one was dangerous.

First, the snack, titled Crunchy Split Pea Bites. Oh, they were crunchy, all right. This involved soaking one and a half cups of green split peas in three cups of water for four hours. At that point you drain and dry them. Since I was not about to polish each pea individually, I just spread them out onto a paper towel to dry. Actually, two paper towels, because that is a ton of peas, in case you didn’t realize. They took forever to dry; by the next morning they were still damp, but I was already over the whole thing so I decided to finish them off so I could take them to work as a snack.

Half a batch of the peas were sautéed in a mixture of canola oil and sesame oil until they got browned and crispy, about 8 minutes. Then they were drained on paper towels and sprinkled with salt. They were ok–they didn’t have much flavor, so The Husband ground up some herbs de Provence on his, which he thought helped somewhat. The biggest problem was that some of the peas were still as hard as they were before soaking, and we were afraid we’d break a tooth on one. I threw out both the cooked half, and the uncooked half. Luckily, peas are inexpensive, so it’s not like we ruined an expensive duck breast (Martha!).

I was cautiously optimistic that the Brown Rice with Tofu, Dried Mushrooms and Baby Spinach would be good because it appeared to have a lot of seasoning,  and we liked most of the Asian-inspired foods in Dinner at Home.

The recipe was pretty easy–cook 1.5 cups of brown rice (the recipe called for short grain, but I used long and it was fine) in 2.75 cups of water with a half ounce of dried shiitake mushrooms, 1 T ginger, 4 minced garlic cloves, a crumbled dried red chile, and salt. When done (50 minutes), remove the pan from the heat and toss in a half package of drained and diced extra-firm, drained tofu, cover and let sit for 15 minutes. At the end of the fifteen minutes, you are supposed to be able to toss in 3 ounces of baby spinach and have them wilt in three minutes.  This didn’t happen, because the pan was no longer hot enough. I had to put it back on low heat and leave it until the spinach wilted, which also meant the rice started to stick.  After the spinach finally wilted, I mixed in several chopped scallions, cilantro (I used dried, since we didn’t have any fresh), 2 T + 1t of tamari soy sauce (low-sodium), 1.5 T of rice vinegar, and 1 t of sesame oil.

This had quite a nice flavor. The Husband added more garlic to his, but I thought it was super garlicky. In fact, later that night I could not get the garlic and scallion taste out of my mouth, even with vigorous teeth brushing. So, maybe this is not a good dish to take to your book club or on  a date, but it’s otherwise recommendable.

Scores:

Split Peas:  D  Both bland and too many inedible bits

Rice Bowl:   A-

 

Green Food Stuffs February 13, 2011

So! I think I may have found a cookbook under the Martha Stewart umbrella to work my way through.

The editors of her Whole Living magazine have just released a cookbook titled, Power Foods, featuring, natch, 38 “power foods” that are the healthiest things to stuff in your pie hole. I try to eat fairly healthily, but could also use help ingesting more vegetables and such. I like that there are only three red meat recipes in the entire cookbook, and very little dairy other than Greek yogurt and the occasional sprinkle of parmesan or goat cheese.

The book has a large section at the front describing the benefits of each of the 38 power foods, and tips on how to prepare them, which is great if you are reading about papaya, but not so helpful for eggs. Then the book is broken into sections on breakfast, snacks, sandwiches, soups, main dishes, side dishes, and desserts.

There is a foreward by Martha herself! I don’t pretend to believe that she wrote any of the recipes, but some are awfully similar to recipes in Dinner at Home, like the pears with chocolate and baked apples, both of which were terrible. Yay.

I think there will be lots to snark at, such as the concoction I am drinking as I type this. It is an avocado pear breakfast smoothie ( it is 9 pm in reality–I don’t do fruit or sugar in the morning) made with avocado, silken tofu, honey, pear nectar, vanilla and ice. Hmm. Well, it isn’t as terrible as you would think,  but the vanilla overpowers it and it has a very odd taste. I would certainly never drink one willingly again. It’s good for me, though, right?

With the other half of the avocado (you don’t think I would make a full batch of that nonsense, do you?) I tried another breakfast item, the avocado and boiled egg salad. Can you make a salad with two ingredients? The  recipe is to mix chopped avocado, boiled egg whites, olive oil, salt and pepper. I do not know why this is considered a “recipe” any more than pouring booze on fruit, but this time I actually liked how it tasted and would eat it again. The Husband refused to even try it.

The third thing I’ve tried so far is a soy wasabi dip I made for my book club. It involved pureeing endamame, silken tofu, wasabi paste, Chinese hot mustard and lemon juice. I made it the night before and it was very spicy, but by the next day it had mellowed enough that I had to add more wasabi and mustard. I couldn’t get it to be as spicy again, and so I gave up. Some people said they liked it, but they are all very polite. I thought it was ok–endamame are kind of bland to me so I think it needed something else to help it out. It was a good excuse to eat rice crackers, at least.

Smoothie:  D  for demented ingredient list

Avocado & Egg Salad:  B  It tasted good, but why not add some additional foods to it?

Soy Wasabi Dip:   B (edited grade. I had some leftovers and thought it was pretty ok).

Beef Stew, 1958 February 6, 2011

Hello, crumpets! My mom says she misses my posts, but honestly, I have not been inspired much, in a good or bad way, by anything I have cooked lately.

There’s also been this to deal with–behold Thing 2. For 25 days we were all held hostage by the Cone of Consternation. To get back at us he would scrape it along every surface of the house, including Miss Pooch, all night long.

I made something interesting today, but I can’t talk about it yet, as it was an audition for a baby shower dish that needs to be a surprise. One day, we will chat about it.

 I have made some Rachel Ray recipes from her Look & Cook book–a cod and Italian sausage one pot that was ok, but too fennelish as leftovers; a spinach and artichoke macaroni and cheese that had no flavor; and a cherry tomato and cheese ravioli soup, which was pretty good. Bo-ring.

But! I also got hold of a vintage edition of Betty Crocker’s Dinner for Two, published in 1958.

(We have some of that china in pink!)

The best part is that it’s illustrated by Charley Harper, whom I love!  The drawing accompanying the Potatoes Anna recipe is somewhat terrifying, don’t you think?

The book contains complete meals, which are often handicapped by things that no longer exist, like Betty Crocker Cream Puff mix, which my mother says she doesn’t remember ever existing. There are lots of gelatin salads, and nearly everything calls for a variation of French dressing! Ick.

The first thing I made was the Beef Stew with Dumplings, from the “American Favorites” chapter. It called for an unusual seasoning mix–lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, sugar, and allspice, along with the usuals–carrots, potatoes, garlic, onion, etc.  Since it assumed you were cooking for two, it called for a mere 1 pound of beef. It was nice to have a bit of leftovers, but not quarts and quarts worth (I am talking to you, Rachel Ray).

It turned out quite yummy. The downfall was the dumplings. The book says to use Bisquick. I do no do Bisquick. I whipped up a biscuit/dumpling recipe I found online and the resulting dumpling was mealy. We just ate around them.

The thing that struck me about the recipe is how it assumed the cook was not an idiot and had basic cooking skills. For example, it didn’t say to peel the carrots and potatoes; it said to cook the dish for two hours, but didn’t say what heat setting to use. It said to add all ingredients “except vegetables,” and I was a bit unclear as to whether that included the onion and garlic. Yet, it all turned out fine, save the dumplings.

The rest of the menu for the meal was a lime and pineapple salad, which I couldn’t make because I am allergic to pineapples. (Yes, I know. Who is allergic to pineapples? Me, that’s who.) Plus, tapioca cream (ha ha ha! ) and ginger cookies, baked from the Betty Crocker gingerbread mix. I didn’t make those either, as we already had some ginger snaps on the premises.

I just paid attention to this, but the accompanying illustration shows a herd of cattle nibbling on some hay in a field. A farmer, in a plaid jacket,  natch, is standing atop a giant pile of hay within a fence, and forking it to the cows. Oh, Charley, were you a vegetarian? I can’t imagine another reason to depict my dinner enjoying its bucolic setting. 

Later in the week, I made Betty’s Butterscotch Brownies/Praline Squares. They involved a mixture of shortening (I used butter), brown sugar, an egg, flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla and pecans. They also turned out very mealy, and I ended up throwing away the pan. What a waste of some good pecans.

Maybe things just were always mealy in 1958, and that’s the way people liked it.

Avec Poulet January 14, 2011

Today’s post features a recipe by Eric Ripert. He’s the French chef who owns Le Bernardin, among other places. He frequently stars on Top Chef as a guest judge, making the contestants pee their pants every time they have to cook for him. He has pretty hair.

He also has a show on PBS, Avec Eric Ripert, where he travels around being fancy, meeting people and cooking up things. He also has a new cookbook by the same name. I don’t have this cookbook, but his recipe, Roasted Chicken with Za’atar Stuffing, is published on the show’s website.

As you know, if you have been following along, we love Middle Eastern food, and za’atar is a spice blend commonly used in this type of cooking. There’s a photo of it baked on pitas in my Ode to Detroit post.  Naturally, when I saw this recipe I had to try it although I was worried Monsieur Ripert was trying to kill me by suggesting I eat stuffing actually stuffed into a bird.

The stuffing consists of diced crusty bread, chopped parsley, lemon zest, minced garlic and za’atar, all mixed with olive oil. He suggests a quarter cup of oil for 1.5 cups of bread. I used less than half of that, and the stuffing turned out super oily and gross, although the flavor is nice. I would eat it baked in a pan with even less oil.

The methodology surrounding the cooking of the actual chicken was odd. He had me hack off the wings, and set the chicken on top of them. I don’t know why–a rack would have worked just as well, and the wings would have been crispy. I used a Polyface Farms broiler, and I hate that they do not cut off the neck. I had to use my kitchen shears, and the bone crunching is just sickening.

The stuffed chicken is oiled up, salted and peppered and roasted at 450 for 20 minutes, when the temperature is decreased to 350, and garlic cloves are tossed in the pan. The chicken was fine, if a bit bland.

I much prefer the Thomas Keller roast chicken recipe, where the chicken is roasted at 450 for 50-60 minutes, because the bird was more tender, and the skin was more crispy.  I have to say that I am a bit disappointed in Eric Ripert, and this may color how I view his judging on Top Chef. His hair is still pretty, though.

Shakshuka & Lepinja January 9, 2011

Hello, again!

Can I just tell you have relieved I am not to have some Martha menu hanging over my head this weekend? I am very relieved.

I haven’t found a cookbook to work my way through yet; I pick them up and feel too constrained, so for this week I made one of the recipes I have bookmarked in my Favorites folder.

This is a Saveur recipe they call ‘Eggs  Poached in Tomato Sauce” but I have it on good authority (according to the interwebz) that it’s a dish called Shakshuka, and is frequently eaten for breakfast in Israel. It was brought over by Jews from Libya. Whatever you call it, it sounded good and easy.

To accompany it I decided to try making a Serbian flatbread called lepinja that we had last week at the new Balkan restaurant in town, named, cleverly, Balkan Restaurant. This bread was so far beyond an ordinary pita–it was light and fluffy and spongy in all the right places. I LOVED it.  According to numerous forum postings there is no way to make good lepinja outside of Eastern Europe because the flour isn’t the same. I would not be deterred, however. I found a recipe on allrecipes.com, which doesn’t exactly have the best pedigree, but three people gave it 5 stars so I thought I’d give it a go.

Well, of course, I immediately screwed it up, despite the simple directions: heat 2 T milk, sprinkle on yeast, mix with a cup of water and some sugar, then combine with flour and a bit of salt. I thought the dough seemed wetter than it should be, and then I realized that I had mixed two cups of water into the yeast. So, I fixed up some more yeast, added more flour and planned what to do with lepinja for 24. The dough rises three times, but the last two are just 30 minutes so it wasn’t too onerous of a process.

(That same day I also accidentally used the men’s restroom at Borders! In my own defense, there were no urinals, just stalls…. I blame all this on the fact that I was at the gym by 7:30 am that morning. Delirious.)

The bread didn’t turn out as well as what we had at the restaurant, and there was no pocket inside, but it was still tasty bread.  I certainly didn’t mind eating it!

The shakshuka involves browning onion and jalapeno, then adding cumin, smoked paprika and garlic, followed by some whole tomatoes that you crush in your bare hands like a beast. The sauce cooks until slightly thickened, then the eggs are cracked on top to poach, covered. After the five-minute recipe-alloted time the whites were still clear, so I turned the heat up. That resulted in overcooked yolks, but it was fine. The dish is topped with chopped parsley and feta cheese before serving.

I liked this dish well enough, and would be thrilled if this were a regular breakfast item in our culture. It’s much better than soggy French toast, for example. That said, I think the sauce could use more flavor. The jalapeno didn’t add much heat, so next time I would add more or try a different pepper. I will admit it isn’t much to look at.

Hot mess

Bread: B+

Shakshuka: B

To review January 2, 2011

Here it is, Sunday, and I have no Martha meal hanging over my head. I can cook whatever I want! I can go to the store in my neighborhood and see what looks good or what is on sale and cook that. I am FREEEEEE!

Thanks to those of you who have stuck with me throughout the project, and read my cranky posts. Your encouragement helped me keep going when it would have been easier to quit. I immensely enjoyed the project, even though I didn’t enjoy a lot of the food. I hadn’t written anything for pleasure in a very long time, so that part was fun. I did not enjoy all the time, money and food we wasted, however, running all over town hunting down speciality ingredients, only to end up with leftovers uneaten in the frig. 

Both the book and I have suffered many indignities...

Standouts in Spring were the: lemon mousse; currant scones; catfish po’boys; bananas with caramel sauce;  arugula and avocado salad; fontina flatbread; spoonbread; pasta with mint pesto; pan-roasted chicken pieces.

Summer:  tomato/basil/white bean salad; Mexican corn cakes and refried beans; spicy shrimp and noodles in coconut broth; blackberry shortbread squares; tuna in tomato-basil sauce; chicken kabobs.

Fall: roasted pork with sage and garlic; spiced lamb chops; sautéed okra and tomatoes; apple-cranberry crumble; quail with figs and pine nuts; roasted parsnip and chorizo bites; celery root puree.

Winter: crispy ham sandwiches; tart apple bistro salad; citrus-soy sweet potatoes; sesame-spinach rolls; artichokes on toast; hoisin chicken; spicy cucumber scallion pickles; citrus-cashew salad; cauliflower gratin; chicken in tarragon sauce; curried vegetable pot pies; rosemary yorkshire puddings; Italian sausages with red onion gravy.

That may look like plenty, but when you consider that the cookbook has more than 200 recipes, that is actually about 16%.  When you take into account that some things were spectacularly bad, like the oily Swedish meal, the caramel pudding, the soapy kiwi in jasmine syrup, haricot vert with tapenade, the horribly bitter salads and the shaved asparagus tart, I just can’t recommend the cookbook overall, as there are much better ones out there.  

Things learned, not to be confused with ‘life lessons’:

1. I like kumquats

2. Cooking clams and mussels need not be intimidating.

3. I don’t want dessert most of the time, especially the ones in this cookbook

4. I kind of miss the old people creamy desserts. Or, rather, writing about them.

5. Martha needs Seasonal Produce Identification lessons

So, what is next? At this point, I can’t commit, for mental health reasons, to cooking my way through another book. For now, I plan to pick from my stack of recipes I have been waiting to try, or my other cookbooks. I promise to make some things that may be a challenge or terrible. 

I hope you continue to read, and if there is anything you would like to see me cook and review, let me know!