Date Night... or... The Day I Found Food Network

I  really don't watch television much.  My standard answer to "Did you see the one..." is "Was it on television?  That's why I missed it." 

We have busy lives conducive to listening, not watching, so my media of choice is radio.  It's all the better now we can stream Internet and podcasts on our Sonos (shameless promotion of an excellent experience!).

During my five years as a single mom (in the early "aught" years), we didn't even have cable (gasp!).  We had an old TV (one you have to get up to change the channel) and a set of rabbit ears.  Five stations if the weather was clear and we held our mouths right.

So... at some point in 2005ish, the now-DH and I spent a weekend at (another shameless promotion of an excellent experience) Cooper's Landing Inn and Traveler's Tavern in lovely Clarksville, VA.  Find them on the web, book a room for a luxurious weekend of pampered privacy and unbelievable food.  They now offer weekend cooking class packages.  Tell Les and Nichol we sent you.  They'll remember us and tell funny stories, I promise.

One of the things we found there in our lovely Mid-Summer Night's lodging was a television with cable.  DH flipped the channels.  I found it dull.  Until he found this thing called "Food Network."  This I could watch.  My favorite thing: food.  My other favorite thing: easy.  We watched a single episode by an engaging host preparing a simple, low-cost meal for a small dinner party.  Hey!  We can do that ourselves!  Oh, and they have a website, so I can go home and pull up the recipes from this episode on my personal computer.  It almost made me wish for cable - one of those wishes which comes with the clarifying "and the time to watch it."

The engaging host was Dave Lieberman and the show was Good Deal.  Who wouldn't fall in love with a handsome fellow whose mission is "to teach people how to live, eat, and entertain like royalty, even on a commoner's budget"?

While I never saw another episode on TV, I did become a regular visitor to the network's website.  At the time, it was an easy-to-use interface with a great number of excellent recipes for many, many occasions.  It was a new world for me.  I celebrated by putting together an entire looseleaf binder of recipes.  Still have it and use it whenever I'm looking for inspiration.

In the years since, we've subscribed to cable and I've been in and out of regular work, so I've watched a fair share of Food Network and HGTV and (sigh) got hooked on NCIS.  So much so that I was doing a lot of watching (great for folding laundry time) but not a lot of doing.  Now I'm back to the "who has time for TV?" days and finds Food Network's internet site much less useful (I think it has to do with the auxiliary ads and animated graphics and my aged computer).  Fortunately, I still have the binder.

This particular episode, Rush Hour, is full of fantastic and price-conscious recipes which can literally be on the table with limited fuss and time.  It's perfect for our home "date nights" because each of us has a role in preparation, it's done with little prep, and is on the table inside 30 minutes.  These dishes, together, are a symphony of taste and texture.  Spicy meat, tangy salad, and creamy grits.

Oh, right.  Grits.  Got that north-v-south dictionary ready?

When I turned 18, my parents left home.  Seriously.  Specifically, the week after I graduated from high school, my folks packed up the house and moved south.  'Way south.  South Alabama south.  About as far south as we were north.  The only thing I knew about Alabama was what little we learned about the Civil Rights Movement in history class and that Oh Susannah and her banjo came from there.  Talk about a culture shock.

Well, a shock for everyone in the family but me.  I had a summer job and lodging lined up at home and was headed to University nearby in the fall.  Everyone moved except me.  Their version of this experience (my sister refers to it more as "trauma") is vastly different than mine.  For me, it's largely anecdotal and much easier to find humorous.  My sister was not amused.

My folks' most popular topic of discussion was the interesting gastronomical experiences they were having.  They learned a lot about a lot of things they'd never experienced.  Like catfish camps, hushpuppies, biscuits and gravy, sweet tea (that's another whole post, trust me), fried chicken, (well, fried ANYTHING), and grits.

Grits, to me, were the errant sand flecks which inevitably got into my sandwich at the beach or when the mussels didn't get washed thoroughly.  Oh, and that wonderful line from a '70s sit-com: "Kiss my grits!"  Grits as a voluntary food item was just, well, wierd.  I recall we tried them ONCE at home; no one was impressed.  Mom's take on this ubiquitous breakfast side dish in the South was that it was simply a medium to convey more butter to one's mouth (she has a similar observation about lettuce, salad dressing, and certain men in our family).  I think I tried grits once again on a visit to Alabama.  I opt for the toast or home fries option when I order breakfast.  Keep the grits.

The odd thing is that I love Cream of Wheat.  I prefer it to oatmeal (which I also like very much) for a hot breakfast, with maple syrup or brown sugar rather than butter, salt, and pepper.  In their naked form, Cream of Wheat and grits look very similar.  This dichotomy is not lost on me, but I can't seem to make it funny, so I'll just leave it there.

Here in mid-Atlantic Virginia, near the North Carolina border, grits are generally an option to toast, biscuits, and home fries for breakfast.  Even DH, a southwest Virginia boy, will usually opt for the potatoes.  Occasionally we'll see shrimp and grits on a menu, and my New Jersey-native Alabama-educated friend KK is WELL known for her version of this southern standard.  I'd probably opt for rice instead, although if given the opportunity to have KK's, I'll stick with what she gives me.  She's an EXCELLENT cook and I'm an appreciative guest.

Then I met Dave Lieberman and Food Network.  This show featured not only a tasty preparation of a thrifty cut of meat but also a side dish of cheesy grits.  I recall clearly our reaction to this:  "Oh.  I might actually like grits prepared that way."  Oh, yes, yes we do.  We certainly do.  Cheesy grits are a perfect companion to the spicy steak - smooth and creamy and a little bit sweet to balance the bite of the steak and the acid in the salad.  WOW.

So here are two and a half of the recipes from Rush Hour.  Follow the link below to the first one; there's a link to the episode and all of the recipes on the website.  Enjoy!

Dry Rubbed London Broil
4-6 servings, depending on the size of the steak
from http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/dave-lieberman/dry-rubbed-london-broil-recipe/index.html

1 (2#) London broil
2 T olive oil
1 recipe Dave's Rub (recipe follows)

Rub London broil with olive oil and coat generously with the dry rub.  Let stand about 15 minutes at room temperature. 

(This is where DH takes over.  As the inimitable Rita Rudner observed:  Men will cook as long as there's danger involved.  My man loves his grill.)

Preheat grill.  Grill meat about 5 minutes on each side for medium-rare.  Remove from heat and let rest for 5 to 10 minutes before slicing on the bias.

Two notes: 
1.  Do NOT overgrill this.  Seriously.  Wave it over the grill.  Do NOT walk away.  Err on the side of less time, particularly if you like your steak on the pink side.  The meat will continue to cook while it's resting.  It will be tough if you cook it too long.
2.  Slicing on the bias is important; it helps make the steak easier to chew.  Trust me.

Dave's Rub
Mix ingredients together thoroughly in a small bowl:

2 T. chili powder
1 T. dried oregano
1 T. sweet paprika
2 tsp. garlic powder
4 pinches salt
15 grinds black pepper

Note:  in a pinch, mix 2 T. Essence with 2 T. chili powder.  Food Network also had a recipe for Essence, and I mixed up a batch some time ago.  It's pretty much the same, save the chili powder.

Cheddar Cheesy Grits
Makes 4 servings.

1 1/2 c. whole milk (skim works fine, but buttermilk was too tangy for my taste)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 c. instant grits
1/2 c. sharp white Cheddar, grated

Scald milk with salt in saucepan over medium heat until little bubbles appear round the outside.  Slowly whisk in the grits and continue whisking until the mixture barely simmers.  Cook, whisking often, until very thick (about 5 minutes).  Remove from heat and stir in cheese until melted and smooth.  Serve immediately.

Creamy Red Wine Viniagrette
Makes enough for 4 salads.

1/2 large shallot, minced (I use 1 tsp. bottled shallots because that's what's in my fridge)
1/2 c. mayonnaise
1/4 c. red wine vinegar
25 grinds freshly ground black pepper
1 to 2 T. olive oil
salt

Whisk together first four ingredients in large bowl.  Slowly whisk in olive oil until homogeneous.  Season with salt to taste.

Dave adds a head of red leaf lettuce (washed, dried, cut into large chiffonade), tosses gently, and serves.  We ususally do this.  I get the first serving, DH gets the second, more-dressed (more mayo!) helping closer to the bottom of the bowl.

We have no lettuce today, and it's chilly, so Substitution Queen went to work with succotash in mind:

I mixed up a half-batch of the dressing.
I heated 1c. each frozen green beans, edmame, and corn in my micro-cooker.  Beans first (2 min), added edmame (another 2 min), added corn (final 2 min). 

I mixed them together.  Fantastic!

A note about timing:

The cheesy grits are the last thing to be done.  When DH heads out to the grill, I make the salad dressing and toss it with the vegetables.  The grits don't need to be started until the steak come back in to rest and be sliced.  It's a perfect balance of food and marital harmony in the kitchen:  grits "fixing" keeps me from getting in the way of man and grill and sharp knife.

Moosewood Marathon

Several of us in the office today had a discussion about "hippie".  What's hippie?  What's hip?  Does hip hop figure in?  Ah, I'd run back to the dictionary (north-v-south again), but this one I know well and live and will attempt to explain.

I have a dear friend (and previous contributor to this blog) whom I've referred to in conversation as my "hippie friend".  Her parents have lived all over the world.  They settled in Vermont, and drove a VW bus.  We've been friends since Girl Scout camp.  She's a lot of things I'm not brave enough to be.  I value her choices, her passion, her restraint, her confidence, and the difficulties she's overcoming.  When I say "hippie", I mean it as a term of reverence.

Hippie is a lot more than tie-dye and whatever religion one proclaims, because I've known both tie-dyed Jesus freaks and tie-dyed atheists.  Hippie is not a cult, it's a culture.  Just as our American or Southern or Northern or Red Sox or Steelers or Baptist or Methodist or Tea Party or Occupy nations band together over a common idol/ideal, Hippie is also a nation.  You can be a hippie just by adopting a single un-traditional method. 

A good friend has referred to ME as HER "hippie friend" because I bake bread.  Bread from scratch.  From scratch occasionally.

Hippie is, clearly, non-conformism to some standard set by some individual or group at some random point.  Hippie is more a label bequeathed than adopted or embraced.  Hippie, I've decided, describes those who seem to be less-put-together-than-the-beholder.  Beauty, as we know, is in the eye of the Beholder.  So Hippies are the anathema to beauty. 

NOT!  Hippies are The Beautiful People.

To distill all this (and get to the recipes), I believe Hippies are simply brave.  These are the folks brave enough to do something, anything, a little differently.  From growing organic eggs to recycling to making peace necklaces for volunteers to baking homemade bread to leading peaceful sing-a-longs to marrying your love barefoot to participating in a co-op of any kind.  These are my friends who embrace not only life but also value the health of each other and our Earth.

Sometimes I'm brave, many other times I'm not.  I'm glad for my friends, for those who are and who aren't Hippie.

Today's recipes come from a duo of my favorite all-time cookbooks, the Moosewood Cookbook and it's follow-up, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest.  Both by Mollie Katzen.  The Moosewood Restaurant flourished in upstate Ithaca NY for many years.  Mollie, a cook (and visionary), captured their best and brightest recipes in these cookbooks which dominated our youth in crunchy-granola-northern-New-Hampshire in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Somehow, in our remote location, we had access to an order-only co-op which provided raw grains and nuts and wholesome bulk foods at extremely reasonable prices.  Every month my mom and her friends tallied orders and distributed goods.  I learned a great deal about wholesome foods, bulk ordering, and the value of an active group who worked together.  I live in a similar remote location now, and suspect there is a natural-food network out there, but haven't yet determined how to build it.  This is a "hippie" dream.

In the meantime, I make do with the ingredients I can find at the local grocery and these beloved cookbooks stolen from my mom many years ago.  Honestly, I gave her updated versions and made off with the older copies.  I love them falling apart and lovingly stained with food or comments on the best pages.

So here are a couple of winners from Mollie and the folks at Moosewood.  The first is a family favorite, full of mushrooms and great taste.  The second is one I've modified to fit our refrigerator challenge.

Hungarian Mushroom Soup

based on a recipe from Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen, 1977

Serves 4 richly.

12 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced
2 c. onion, chopped
4 T. butter (I use 2)

3 T. flour

1 c. milk
2 tsp. dill weed (divided)
1 T. Hungarian paprika
1 T. tamari (or soy sauce)
1 tsp. salt (I leave this out and add later at table if needed)
2 c. stock (or water - if water, add the salt; if stock, leave it out)
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1/4 c. fresh parsley, chopped
fresh-ground pepper to taste
1/2 c. sour cream (or plain yogurt or buttermilk)

In a large skillet, saute the onions in half of the butter.  Add mushrooms, 1 tsp. dill, 1/2 c. stock/water, tamari and paprika.  Cover and simmer 15 minutes.

Melt remaining butter in soup pot.  Whisk in flour and cook, whisking, a few minutes.  Add milk.  Cook, whisking frequently, over low heat about 10 minutes - until thick.  Stir in mushroom mixture and remaining stock/water.  Cover and simmer 10-15 min.  Just before serving, add salt, pepper, lemon juice, sour cream, and if desired, extra dill.  Serve garnished with parsley and a loaf of crusty bread.

End of the Year Cauliflower-Cheese Soup
based on a recipe from Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen, 1977
marked "Yummy" in my mother's handwriting

We're in what-the-heck-why-not refrigerator emptying mode, so Substitution Queen has her crown on today!

makes 4-5 servings

2 c. potato chunks (Ha!  First Substitution right here.  No Potatoes).  I used rice.
2 c. cauliflowerets
1 c. carrot, chopped (Second Subs.  No carrots).  I used celery.
3 med. cloves garlic, crushed
1 c. onion, chopped
1 1/2 tsp. salt
4 c. water or stock (I used water and vegetable stock concentrate)

Place these ingredients together in a pot.  Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer 15 minutes.  Let cool 10 minutes.  Puree the entire mixture in the blender until smooth and creamy.  Transfer to a kettle (double-boiler if you have it).  Heat gently and whisk in:

1 1/2 c. cheddar, grated
3/4 c. milk
1/4 tsp. dill (left this out this time, see Subs #1 below)
1/4 tsp. ground dill or caraway seed (left this out)
1/4 tsp. dried mustard (left this out as well)
black pepper

Steam or saute another 1 1/2 c. cauliflowerets (skipped this; ran out above).

Just before serving, whisk in 3/4 c. buttermilk and stir in steamed cauliflower.  Serve topped with chopped scallions and extra cheese or a dollop of sour cream or yogurt.

First Substitution:  The role of the potatoes, primarily, is to thicken the soup.  The veggies are cooked, then pureed in the blender.  This results in a creamy soup which doesn't rely solely on dairy products and fat.  Yes, we add both a little later, but in far smaller quantities than needed as the starch thickens so beautifully.

So instead of potatoes, we used rice.  The leftover rice from DH's porkchop dinner - remember that small country we had enough to feed (overcooked? no problem!).  This was a little out there as a substitution because the rice was spiced and had vegetables in it, but what the heck, why not!  We're using what we have!  As a result, I left the majority of the spice in the second part of the rice and chose to adjust just before serving.  All it needed (in my opinion!) was a little more pepper.

Second Substitution:  We're out of carrots.  We have an entire bunch of celery (because celery is ubiquitous with mayonnaise and salad, and we still have mayonnaise to use), and my Food Substitutions Bible says Do It!  So I chopped up two stalks of celery and threw it in.  Realizing the celery wouldn't provide that nice orangey-color to the soup, I threw in that tiny jar of pimentos hanging out in the fridge as well. 

The verdict?  Pretty darned good.  The absence of dill and presence of soy sauce (from the rice mixture) with the cheddar cheese flavor was a little off, so I added some dill and all was well.  DH loved it!

A picture of my copy of Moosewood Cookbook, purloined from Mom's house (my excuse was that I bought her new editions, with pictures, but the real reason was because I wanted all the notes inside!).  The binding's been "repaired" to little avail.  This is a well-used (=loved) copy.  I wouldn't part with it willingly.

Better Marinated Olives

 I love olives.  Black olives, green olives, olives with pits, olives stuffed with garlic, olives whole or chopped or ground into tapenade.  Last year I marinated the best olives I could find (filled out with the only olives I could find in the grocery) using a recipe from Martha Stewart's Everyday Food.  They were wonderful, and beautiful too, although drenched in olive oil, most of which was leftover when the olives were long gone.

2011's diet allowed me "MUFA"s in abundance:  mono-unsaturated fats (the "good fats"), to be consumed with every meal in appropriate portions.  Hello, olives!  Our refrigerator has collected a nice collection of tapenades (green olive, black olive, even roasted red pepper with olive).  Some bought, some home-made.  Olives now can be found in the grocery in single-serving packs, perfect for lunch boxes and picnic baskets.  Olive oil is also a MUFA.  So are nuts:  almonds, peanuts, sunflower seeds, all those wonderfully crunchy delights.  This girl LOVED this diet!

Marinated olives were at the top of my easy-and-lovely Christmas Eve smorgasbord menu.  I found another recipe online which was much simpler, but still called for SO MUCH olive oil.  Three cups for one jar of olives.  THREE CUPS of olive oil.  That would dress 3 c * 16 T/c = 48 salads.  The green, diet salads, where 1 T. is a serving.  The marinade was good, the olives poor (the local grocery only had canned black olives available).  It was quick, it was easy, and we had olives.  I preferred last year's recipe, not just because the olives were better.

Then, by courtesy of the internet, I stumbled upon today's recipe.  Warm Marinated Olives with only 1/2 c. olive oil.  NOW we're talking.  This recipe is similar to Martha's with substantially less oil.  It does require some waiting - you know, marinating - for several days as the flavors meld (we refer to this step as "get happy").  MARINATE.  A little patience, great results, and a little bonus:  I added that bottle of cocktail onions I'd been worried about using, an open bottle of good green olives, and the rest of the olives from Christmas Eve.  That's THREE empty containers.  Delicious!

Warm Marinated Olives
Based on this recipe: http://www.finecooking.com/recipes/warm-marinated-olives.aspx
Yields 2 cups.

1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

4 medium cloves garlic, peeled and smashed

Grated zest of 1 lemon (the original recipe called for orange and lemon zests, but we're out of oranges, so lemon zest it is)

3 branches fresh rosemary leaves

1 large or 2 small dried Turkish bay leaves (see note about these)

Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes

Generous pinch of ground allspice

2 cups olives  (green picholine and black Kalamata recommended)

1 jar (3 oz. less a few martinis) cocktail onions (remember, we're using things up here)

Heat the oil and garlic in a 2-quart saucepan over medium-low heat until the garlic turns golden, about 3 minutes. Add the zest, rosemary, bay leaves, red pepper flakes, and allspice and sizzle for 2 minutes more, stirring occasionally. Add the olives and onions and toss to coat. Transfer to a bowl to cool, then cover and refrigerate, stirring occasionally, for at least 2 days and up to 1 week.

Just before serving, gently reheat the olive mixture in a small saucepan over low heat until warmed through, 2 to 3 minutes. Scoop the olives and aromatics into a serving bowl and pour a bit of the oil on top. Serve warm.

A note about my zester:  I had a zester.  It's location and fate is still unknown.  Enter a Superior Substitution. 

While shopping at a nearby TJ Maxx (the source of much great cooking gear at reasonable prices, if you want what they have), I found this Microplane grater needing a good home.  It's "for chocolate".  I couldn't pass that up.  There may be better graters out there, but I haven't found them.  Microplane is a gold-grater-standard.

It's really for shaving anything you'd dream of - hard cheese, chocolate, and (YES!) it works fantastically for shaving lemon skin to make zest.  I'd tried using my first-born Microplane for zest, but it's a fine grater - the yield was too high, more oily and fluffy, not substantial enough to be considered "zest".  Perfect for fine-grated Parmesan cheese, but not so good for lemons.  This younger, bolder sister, is my new zester.  Hmm... zester/sister.  Much in common.

Oh, and about the Turkish bay leaves.  They are superior because they're softer and lend a better flavor faster in a saute or infusion like this marinade.  With a week's notice, I can order them from Penzey's.  If I think about it, I'll pick up some next time I'm in Richmond. 

Today, though, I have standard dried bay leaves on hand.  They're tough as leather (or magnolia leaves, for any of you, like me, who've dealt with a magnolia tree near the house) and release fanastic flavor when stewed or steeped.  I threw a couple into this mix, then IMMEDIATELY thought I should have substituted a few fresh sage leaves from the plant still thriving in my kitchen garden.  Perhaps I should have added the bay leaves when I added the garlic, giving it the maximum exposure to heat and liquid.  Maybe the Food Muse will grace me and this two-day-to-one-week marinating time will allow the bay leaves to give up their earthy flavor.

We'll see.  Taste testing begins with Friday Night Tapas.  I'm confident.

Creamy Vegetable Soup

No fancy title here, because there's nothing fancy here.  Just GOOD eating.

When I booked the state park cabin for the Christmas holidays, I wasn't expecting company.  I planned a retreat with my Bernina, The Dog, and my cross-trainers.  With that plan came good, nourishing food requiring minimal preparation and hearty flavors.  I planned for cold, even for loss of power.  I did not plan for company.

Sometime between booking and checking-in, DH decided to join me.  I sewed less, walked more, and had a continuously-stoked fire in the fireplace.  This was a blessedly simple holiday.

Creamy Vegetable Soup

adapted from http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Creamy-Vegetable-Soup-2 

which serves 12-16! 

While the ingredients list is long and the recipe a little fussy, it was ready in 30 minutes.

This version serves 2 generously (really, it's probably four servings, but we had just hiked 4 miles and were hungry). It also cleaned a few more things out of the refrigerator and freezer.  Also, two of my favorite words:  NO leftovers!

1/3 huge onion, chopped (about 1/2 c.)

2 T. butter

1 med. sweet potato, peeled and cubed (about 1/4" dice)

1/2 bunch broccoli (about 5 crowns), chopped

1 med. zucchini, chopped (sliced about 1/4" thick)
1 carton chicken broth
1 med. potato, peeled and shredded (I used a handful of uncooked hash brown potatoes from the freezer)
1 tsp. celery seed

1 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. salt (I used less and adjusted at the table)
1 tsp. ground black pepper
1 c. half-and-half (I used buttermilk)

Saute onions in butter.  Add sweet potato and broccoli; saute gently until crisp-tender (about 5 minutes).  Add zucchini and saute a minute or two longer.  Add chicken broth, simmer another 5 minutes.  Add shredded potato and all seasonings.  Cook another 10 minutes or until all vegetables are tender.  Stir in cream and heat through.

Ensalada Enlightenment

Salad.  What could be easier than salad?

Seems it depends on your definition of "salad". 

When I start talking about definitions, you know I'm headed toward the difference between North and South (which in itself is an interesting definition, since from where we viewed the world while growing up, almost everywhere in the United States was south). 

Perhaps this is good opportunity to review, for historical reference, where the Mason-Dixon Line falls.  Directly across the bottom of Pennsylvania.  Of which I now live south, but grew up much further north of.  Damn Yankee indeed (you know, those pesky folks from the North who move South and STAY.  DAMN!).  Please be nice about my use of prepositions, Oh Great Grammar Queens.

Anyway, back to "salad". 

In the days of my youth, salad was both a blessing and a curse.  Mom made potato salad (with crunchy celery and peas and hard-boiled eggs, a touch of mustard and vinegar, then a little mayonnaise to hold it all together).  A little mayonnaise.  We also ate tuna salad and chicken salad, usually with celery, onion, pepper, and a little mayonnaise.  A little mayonnaise.

All other salads were diet salads.  The curse of being overweight.  Lettuce and other raw vegetables with a mere Tablespoon of Italian salad dressing. 

Truth be told, I LOVE salad.  I love lettuce, raw veggies, and a mere suggestion of salad dressing.  My mouth waters thinking about lettuce.  Bring on the freshly-ground pepper.  Please, don't put too much anything other than vegetables in my salad.  I even learned to love it with vinegar, hold the oil.

Salad is GREEN.

Even when it's Jello salad - made with gelatin and something else.  Mama Dot made a nice green Jello salad with lettuce for the Christmas Eve Smorgasbord.  I think it had nuts in it as well, probably pistachio.

Welcome to the South, little Dorothy.  You're not in Kansas (or in Maine) any longer.

I've been in Virginia for 15 years now.  I've learned a lot more about salad in these last fifteen years than in the previous thirty.

First of all, we have "Congealed Salad".  This did not sound appealing at all to my northern ears.  Well, turns out Congealed Salad is simply a salad made with fruit (or lettuce!) and gelatin.  OK.  I can love the dish while disliking the name.  Not sure I like the orange gelatin with lettuce, but I LOVE the cranberry with any sort of canned fruit.  FWIW, I'm the de facto Jello Queen at our local Daily Bread.

Next?  Well, all other "salads" here in the south involve mayonnaise.  A LOT of mayonnaise: enough to make my mother blush.  Pasta salad is mayonnaise with elbow macaroni and a few things (pimento and celery) thrown in.  Potato salad is mayonnaise with potato and something green - typically sweet pickles or relish.  Tuna salad is mayonnaise with tuna, celery, salt, and pepper.  When we make tuna salad, I take my portion, then DH adds mayonnaise to his.  It's all about the mayo.

Chicken salad is my favorite, because it's so different everywhere in the south I've been.  My favorite chicken salad was at a deli/restaurant in South Birmingham (Magnolia Something) with BIG chunks of chicken, pecans, celery, apples, and the perfect amount of mayonnaise.  This Thanksgiving we had a phenomenal curried chicken salad from Good Life Gourmet on the Outer Banks.  Somewhere in Hampton Roads I had a dilled chicken salad worthy of a medal.

Oh, wait.  Not ALL salads involve mayonnaise (at least not until dressing is applied).  You can order a "green salad" as a course with your meal at most restaurants - "green" means lettuce and some raw vegetables to which you apply salad dressing.  Ranch is the most popular... simply spiced mayonnaise.  You can also order a Caesar salad, which, when dressed, is... greens with mayonnaise-based dressing.

THEN... we began travelling the swim meet circuit.  Guess you figured it would come back to swimming eventually.

ANYWAY, one of the standard concessions fares at YMCA swim meets here in the southwest portion of Virginia is Pasta Salad.  Pasta salad made with (not mayonnaise) but oil-and-vinegar dressing and anything you might have on hand.  Most typically, it's made with colored rotini and raw veggies like broccoli and cauliflower florets and shredded carrot.  I've seen it with olives, zucchini and summer squash, crumbled feta, and even fresh corn kernels.  It's generally mixed with an oil-and-vinegar dressing, like Italian or Balsamic Viniagrette.

What-the-heck-why-not!  Pasta Salad.  Three things I desperately love.  Pasta, raw veg, and oil/vinegar dressing.

SO... in preparation for the aforementioned Marathon Swim Meet, I made a pasta salad from what was in the fridge.  Used up several raw vegetables, the previous dinner's leftover spaghetti, and the remaining bottle of Balsamic Viniagrette salad dressing.  It was great then, and great today when I ate the last bowl.  Two weeks later.  THIS is a keeper.

What-the-Heck-Why-Not Pasta Salad
(serves several hungry swimmers and their parental chauffeurs, with leftovers)

Cooked pasta.  (We had spaghetti on hand)
Chopped raw vegetables.  (We had carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower.  I do NOT recommend onions or garlic with this)
Crumbled, shredded, or cheese in small chunks if you have it.  (We didn't this time)
Cured meat (salami or pepperoni) if you have it, diced small.  (We didn't this time)
Salad dressing (oil-and-vinegar based) to coat.  (We used about 1/2 bottle Balsamic Viniagrette salad dressing left in the fridge)

Keeps (refrigerated) until the raw veggies become soft. 
Does not need to be refrigerated short-term (at least for the duration of Marathon Swim Meets).

The Taming of the Stew

Stew is a weathervane.  Stew means Winter’s finally here. We ate stew a lot during our formative years, because Winter is long and dark in our corner of New England. Stew is warm and comforting for any cold time. If chicken soup is my cure for flu, stew is my cure for cold. Mom’s Spicy Beef Stew is one of those epic recipes that can simmer all day (or not), and will always leave the house smelling wonderfully rich.

Stew beef, on the other hand, is not particularly rich nor is it particularly expensive. I stock up when I see it marked down at the grocery, because it takes up a small space in the freezer for the satisfaction it brings at table. It’s a fair quality meat available in small pieces, the leftover bits from a larger cut. Cook it slow, with lots and lots of liquid, just as you would with chicken bones to make stock. An all-day slow simmer will make it tender and cause it to release its juices into a deep broth. Add veggies, potatoes, onions and spice. Thicken it slightly. A peasant meal, cooked all day, together, getting happy in a pot on the stove. Or at least for an hour or so.

 

Mom’s version (origin unknown) stews the beef in a decadent sauce of onion and spices, with Worcestershire sauce and paprika to give it strength and lemon juice to brighten it up a little. Browning the beef bits first in hot oil caramelizes the outside of the meat, adding additional depth of flavor.

It took me a long time to get this part right: the oil has to be hot, hot, HOT (think wok hot) to sear the meat and keep the moisture in while creating that delicious outside. I had a tendency to brown the beef at lower heat (to cut down on the spattering of hot oil all over my stovetop) and wound up with gray meat in a puddle of murky juices. Now I crank up the heat under my deepest pot, sear half of the meat at a time, and use a spatter screen to cover the pot during the volcanic eruption. I still have to clean up some of the oily splash, but the quality of the stew is far superior.

Brown the meat. Add the entire “first column” to the pot (in our hand-written recipe card days), including 4 c. hot water, and simmer an hour. Add the vegetables, simmer ‘til done (another half-hour or so). Mix flour with cold water, add to the pot, and cook a few minutes to thicken. Serve in bowls, always with hot biscuits.

Truth be told, I do know a little bit about making biscuits, despite my Northern heritage (and penchant for using this as a point for self-deprecating north-vs-south humor). We ate biscuits during our youth, but hardly ever for breakfast (unless they were English Muffins!), almost usually with stew. Ours were always Bakewell Cream baking powder biscuits: high and light, made with shortening (not butter) and never, ever sweet.

Fast forward to today. Allow me to introduce my particularly pesky southwest Virginia family. DH loves the stew, detests the biscuits. Dear Offspring detest the stew, love the biscuits. I crave these comfort foods on a cold winter day like today, particularly craving the process of making the stew and the biscuits. This is a way I nourish my family and demonstrate my love for them.

Can we fix it? Yes we can! It’s interesting that the fix came from ‘way up North, at Mom’s Welcome Back Again Inn, when I was visiting last year for a significant high school reunion. Mom’s now making the beef mixture (with less liquid), steaming the carrots, and mashing the potatoes. One look at this meal on my plate and I was thinking, “THIS my family will eat.”

I’m still learning to make biscuits. I have the best results, I’m ashamed to say, with the pre-made ones found in the frozen foods section of the grocery. I’m trying, though. I try half butter, half shortening and add a little sugar to the mix. I gave up on the Bakewell Cream version; can’t find it here, and DH didn’t like the strong taste. The best homemade biscuits emerge when there’s buttermilk in the house. Last weekend I made a double-batch (by mistake) and put half in the freezer for later. I’ll let you know tonight how that worked.

When we get home (again) from the swim meet.

DD’s Facebook status today: “If you only have one day to live, go to a swim meet. They last FOREVER.” Particularly a big meet, one with heats and finals, in which your Dear Offspring swim unusual events on the last day. FOREVER, with a LONG intermission.

Fortunately, this pool is only 30 miles from home. When we were done at 10AM, we went home, returning about 4:30PM for the finals. In the meantime, we did lots of laundry, cleaned the kitchen (again!), and made most of tonight’s not-stew, hoping DH will take on the finish-cheffing while we’re trekking home.

I peeled and chopped carrots. They’re in the micro-cooker with a little water, waiting. I peeled and chunked potatoes. They’re in salted water on the stovetop, ready to be boiled, smashed, and whipped with butter, milk, and a little sour cream (shh… don’t tell DS). The beef is browned deliciously, simmered an hour with onions, spices, and 2 c. liquid (remember that reserved sun-dried tomato liquid from the other day? This is where it found a place in life beyond the refrigerator). Ready to heat, finish with some flour and cold water. Biscuits are in the freezer, waiting for the nod.


We’re all on deck. Take your mark. The bell rings on the last lap and we’re done when the last whistle blows and DD is out of the locker room.


Mom’s Spicy Beef Stew (origin beyond that unknown)


Serves 6-8.


2# beef chuck (1 ½” cubes)
2 T. vegetable oil
1 lg. onion, sliced
4 c. boiling water
1 T. salt
1 T. lemon juice
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp. pepper
½ tsp. paprika
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp. sugar


Brown beef in oil. Add remaining ingredients above to pot. Simmer 1 hour.


Add:
6 carrots, sliced
6 medium potatoes, cubed
1 # small onions
(pearl onions are my favorite, but impossible to find here, so I leave them out)

Simmer until done (about ½ hr).

Mix:

¼ c. flour in ½ c. cold water

Add to stew, cook about 5 minutes to thicken.

PS. One substitution: We’ve cleaned out the lemon juice. I used lime juice.

The Verdict:  Everyone's happy, and stuffed.  Biscuits were perfect (crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside).  DH thought the gravy was a little rich - probably the tomato juice was a bit much.  Slathering it over the mashed potatoes in the two lunch portions left should take care of it.  Two lunch portions left.  Perfect!

Alice Watters Does, Shouldn't We?

I’m back to breakfast again. Remember:  Weekend = Cooked breakfast.

I’m the early-riser again, well before the sun here on the western side of our time zone. Attempting to make the best of my day already. Wow.


I heard an interview recently with renowned chef Alice Watters, of fresh local food and kitchen garden fame. One of the things she says she does is to sit down in her home with her breakfast to enjoy it. She makes a special effort, in her crazy busy life, to savor the taste of food and the feeling of peace it brings. My early mornings lately have some of that same flavor and sense of meditation.  Today's includes ingredients from right here in my own garden.


This day started with pesto, an adventure in using up home-grown goods from the freezer. “Sun-dried” tomatoes (actually dried in a slow oven) and basil stored in airtight plastic bags. While they aren’t much to look at, they were harvested at their peak and stored carefully, so are hopefully still full of some bright summer sunshine on this cold December day. Throw in some pine nuts, garlic, (both from the fridge) and some olive oil, salt, and pepper from the pantry and Voila! Another condiment is born. So are three more holiday gifts!

I stored my dried tomatoes DRY, rather than in olive oil, so for this recipe I reconstituted them as I would dried mushrooms, by pouring boiling water over them and letting them “steep” for some time. Actually, I did the reconstituting last week and kept them in the liquid in the fridge. When I was ready to use them, I drained them, reserving the liquid for another recipe.

Breakfast was genius: using the “fresh” pesto, a pie crust from the freezer, and the goat cheese we bought for Thanksgiving but hadn’t gotten around to eating yet, I fashioned a quiche. I followed a recipe (well, mostly!) and decided I could have added another egg and more milk because there was plenty of room in the crust; I’m accustomed to my quiche cooking up a bit higher than this one did. Maybe it was the flour thickener? Anyway, add a package of sausage discovered in the back of the freezer (under the pie crust), and it meets both of DH’s breakfast needs: eggs and sausage. Win!

Sun Dried Tomato Pesto

from Kevin at www.closetcooking.com/2010/08/sun-dried-tomato-pesto.html

Makes ½ c.

½ c. sun-dried tomatoes, drained

2 T. fresh basil leaves
1 clove garlic, sliced
2 T. pine nuts, toasted
2 T. parmigiano reggiano cheese, grated
Salt and pepper to taste (about ¼ tsp. each)
3 T. olive oil (or oil from the sun dried tomatoes)


Place all ingredients in a food processor and puree until smooth. Add a little more olive oil if needed to adjust consistency. Store in glass jars in refrigerator for up to two weeks.


Breakfast Quiche with Sun-dried Tomato Pesto and Goat Cheese
(based on a Pesto, Goat Cheese, and Sun-dried Tomatoes Quiche from allrecipes.com)

4 T. sun-dried tomato pesto

1 (9-inch) unbaked pie crust

4 T. crumbled goat cheese (I used a 4 oz. log)

3 eggs
½ c. half-and-half (I used skim milk)

1 T. all-purpose flour

Salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste, sprinkle of paprika for color

Preheat oven to 400 degF.

Spread pesto evenly in the bottom of the pie crust. Sprinkle goat cheese over pesto.

In a large bowl, beat together eggs, half-and-half, and flour. Season with salt and pepper. Pour over goat cheese in pie crust. For a nice touch, sprinkle paprika on top to give the quiche a little color.

Bake in preheated oven 30 minutes, or until done.

Note: allrecipes.com says this quiche makes 8 servings.  I cut quiche into generous servings.  This one was just 4, as it didn’t have as much filling as my others often do.

The fun part of this day was that I got to use two – count ‘em, TWO – of my newest kitchen gadgets: a mini-food-processor and this metal ring which kept my quiche rim from getting too brown. Ahh!

Burger Queen

We're omnivores here.  My apologies to Michael Pollan:  even though I've checked his book out of the library a half-dozen times, I still haven't read it.  I may have a dilemma, but this week it's NOT about ground beef.

We generally have at least one package of ground beef in the freezer, or ground turkey, or ground chicken (ground pork is hard to come by here, or we'd probably have that too).  Sometimes it's on sale and we'll cook two pounds, freezing some for later.  It's our go-to "emergency" protein (well, after peanut butter, that is).  We can have a pound of hamburger cooked and turned into a goulash or a chili or a meat sauce inside 30 minutes.  We like whole burgers grilled and cheesed, or occasionally stuffed and pan-fried.  We've learned to bake meatballs in our mini-muffin pans.  We really, really like ground meat as a versatile ingredient for a family meal.

There's one meat dish that says "I Love You" more than any other to me.  It's a Spicy Meat Pie recipe my mom made occasionally that's delightful, just fussy enough to be something we didn't have often, and uniquely flavorful due to it's unusual ingredients.  The recipe, oddly enough, came from Hellman's; I suppose because the crust is made with mayonnaise.  The unusual spice comes from the celery leaves and cloves in the filling.  The recipe below is my mom's (and Hellman's) original.

Earlier this year I experimented with making this a filling for tartlets to eat as finger food on a buffet, rather than the traditional family-style pie.  Since I was making a lot of different foods for a large crowd, I used store-bought pie crust instead of the mayonnaise crust.  I cut circles with a glass and lined the mini-muffin pans with the crust, filled with the spicy meat mixture, and topped them with more crust, cut into leafy shapes.  I probably painted them with egg wash before baking them.  They looked gorgeous.  They tasted DRY.  Too much crust, not enough meat in those mini-muffin sizes.

Not one to throw food away (particularly food I worked so painstakingly hard on!), I froze them.  They were still in the back of my freezer this week when I was planning and prepping ahead.  I decided to experiment again, and this time was really successful.

I took another package of hamburger (also from the freezer) and made another batch of the meat filling, using onion, celery leaves, and chicken stock left over from the chicken soup (augmented with a tsp. of vegetable stock concentrate because it's in the fridge and I wanted a richer taste).  I also added a can of white beans to stretch it.  I thickened it with cornstarch and cold water, and filled the bottom of a Pyrex baking dish, and had enough for a lunch-size dish as well.  Instead of making crust, though, I topped the meat mixture with the thawed tartlets, pressing them deep into the mixture until they were almost submerged, with their leafy tops peeking out.  I covered them with foil and heated them through (about 15 minutes).

Coupled with a leftover pasta-and-veggie-gratin from last week.  Gorgeous, and delicious.



Spicy Meat Pie (Serves 4 - fits in 1 qt. baking dish)
Original recipe from Hellman's

1# ground beef
1/2 c. onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/2 c. celery leaves, chopped
3/4 c. bouillon (I used chicken stock augmented with 1 tsp. vegetable stock base)
1/4 tsp. sage
1/4 tsp. ground mace
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. ground cloves

3 T. cornstarch dissolved in 1/4 c. cold water

Saute meat, onion, and garlic.  Stir in celery, bouillon, and seasonings.  Mix cornstarch and water, stir into meat mixture.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer (covered) for 10 minutes.  Transfer to 8" square (1 qt.) baking dish.

Mayonnaise Pastry
1 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. real mayonnaise
1 1/2 T. cold water

Mix flour and salt, blend in mayo, stir in water.  Press into ball.  Roll larger portion to fit 8" square pan.  Fill with meat mixture.  Roll pastry large enough to cover baking dish.  Crimp edges to fit neatly.

Bake at 425 degF for 30 minutes.

Easy is Relative

The first week is easy.  Easy is relative.

We were cruising along just fine... lots of things prepped over the weekend for the week ahead.  We have a LOT of beef in our perishable inventory.  Then influenza came to visit.

DH, who spent most of the weekend caring for his flu-ish folks, again proved the "no good deed goes unpunished" adage Sunday evening and Monday.  Poor guy.

Who feels like eating when the flu's in the house?  Who even feels like smelling anything that's cooking?  Anyone who does NOT have the flu.  So everyone's hungry on Monday except poor DH.  Well, teens aren't ever hungry... they're either starving or they're asleep.

Fortunately, by the time I came home at noon to check on the patient (with ginger ale, Gatorade, oyster crackers, and the ingredients for the only meal I could imagine preparing), DH was feeling better, just weak.  Since I was home only for a lunch break, I decided to try something new:  Chicken Soup in the crock pot.

WHAT a win this was.  Dump all the ingredients in the crock pot.  Turn it on HIGH, and leave it alone until we get home at 6 pm.  Turn it off.  Remove the chicken and set aside to cool slightly.  We strain the solids/liquids with a fine-mesh sieve to have a (mostly) clear broth and use some of the broth to start the rice in a separate pot.

We then sort through the veggies, adding the ones which are whole back to the soup pot.  This step is to be sure we get all of the chicken bones out.  We picked the chicken from the bones and shredded it, adding it back to the pot as well.  Since this recipe made double what we really needed for the time being, we put half of the chicken and vegetables in a quart zip-top bag.  We then added the strained liquid back into the pot to cover the vegetables and chicken.  We stored the remainder of the chicken stock (about 1 qt) in the freezer for a future meal.

When the rice was done, we had a fantastic chicken-and-rice soup with oyster crackers.  It was a simple meal for empty and sensitive stomachs.  Warm and nourishing and full of good cheer.  Bonus was that DD helped with the straining, the sorting, and the rice.  Hooray!

We froze the stock and the chicken and veggies separately to give us more options in the weeks ahead.  We may use them together, but will more likely make the chicken and veggies into a pot pie and use the stock in place of water in something else altogether.

CROCK POT CHICKEN SOUP

adapted from a COOKS.COM recipe found at http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1639,156182-243203,00.html  Content Copyright © 2011 Cooks.com - All rights reserved.

2 chopped onions
3 carrots, sliced
2 celery stalks, sliced
2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. basil
1/4 tsp. thyme
3 T. parsley
1 (about 2 1/2 lb.) chicken, in pieces
4 c. chicken broth plus water from rinsing the container

Place all ingredients in crock pot. Cover and cook on HIGH 4 to 6 hours (or LOW 8 to 12). One hour before serving, remove chicken and cool slightly. Remove meat from bones and return meat to crock pot. Serve with rice or noodles.

Breakfast is Champion.

Let's talk about Breakfast! 

Breakfast is the favorite meal around here, even when we share it after the sun's gone down.  It's our favorite meal, even as our eating habits relegate something so "complicated" as Breakfast to a day or two on non-working days or evenings when we're all together.  Don't challenge me on what constitutes "work" around here, I'd write volumes.

As kids, we ate cereal a LOT.  We loved it.  We loved it for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, for snack, whenever we were snacky-hungry.  We ate it with milk and sugar, then just milk, then eventually au natural because eating with spoons and driving a stick shift were mutually exclusive.  Cereal is not just a breakfast food: it's a snack, but it's so healthy, it's also a meal.  Cheerios were (and still are) by FAR my favorite.  The one food I won't substitute with store brands because frankly, only General Mills gets this one right.

That's not to say we didn't cook breakfast on occasion, because we certainly did.  Mom had this neat electric griddle with convertible sides which would be flat, for pancakes, or notched, for waffles.  I LOVED those days.  We had eggs and toast and bacon a lot, sometimes even sausage.  We're from the Frozen North, where sausage isn't a food group, but more of a side item.  We had hot cereal: oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar, cream of wheat with butter and brown sugar, both with milk.  We learned to make omelettes with cheese when Mom found the right sort of saute pan.  Eggs Benedict became a family Christmas Brunch tradition.  We found home fries at a local restaurant in my late teens.  We found bagels and English Muffins and homemade muffins with butter and jam to be excellent substitutes for toast.  We even ate doughnuts occasionally.

When we were busy, though, it was cereal, or it was toast.  Cooked breakfasts were for lazy weekends, and we had them, but not often or regularly.

Now we live south of the Mason-Dixon line, where local tradition dictates that breakfast is cooked.  Not toasted, dryly, in a machine, but cooked, on a stovetop, with whatever pork product is on hand. 

DD has friend whose family she dearly loves to stay with because their family of farmers cooks breakfast EVERY morning.  When home errantly, DH likes a cooked breakfast.  Always.  We'll miss early church service to have breakfast.  We'll skip morning routines (except the fair-weather golf one, when first tee takes precedence over sausage) to have breakfast.  Cooked breakfast involves eggs (they might be scrambled, if it's easier, but omelettes with cheese are preferred) and meat (sausage > bacon > steak > ham) and biscuits (when Someone's ambitious) or toast (when Someone's tired), and potatoes when they are available.  Jam, jelly, maple syrup, molasses, apple butter, you name it, it's there in the fridge.

We had a delicious cooked breakfast TWICE last weekend.  Bacon, bacon gravy, eggs, and biscuits on Saturday, the same on Sunday with an eggy/cheesy omelette featuring leftover steak, some stray onions and mushrooms, and the nice Havarti we brought home from our Thanksgiving trek to the Beach. Saturday’s biscuits cut into halves, buttered, then toasted in the oven. DH helped (in MY kitchen!). A few toes were stepped on, but the taste buds won over the toes.  

A mistake on my part resulted in twice the biscuit dough needed, so I tried an experiment.  I put some of the cut biscuits on a cookie sheet lined with parchment and put them in the freezer.  Once they were frozen through (maintaining their cut shape), I stacked them in a freezer storage bag.  We'll see how they work later this month!

Spent the bulk of the remaining weekend cleaning and blogging. Writing doesn’t seem to take long. Editing sure does!