Hope It's Good!

Extended Hiatus

2006-04-08T16:56:00.000-04:00

To my faithful readers (all six of you!), I obviously have not paid much attention to this blog over the last couple of months. I blame a time-consuming but enjoyable job and a renewed focus on my other love, photography.

I was lucky enough to get two of my Holga images selected for a juried show as part of Houston's FotoFest celebration, and since then I've been asked to be a featured artist for a toy camera magazine. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I've turned my non-work energies to shooting and processing film. Go here if you'd like to look at a few images of mine in a gallery on a toy camera site.

I really like blogging about cooking (I still cook almost every day) so I'll leave this blog live but probably won't post again for several months. Eat well and see you later!

Three-Cheese Pizza with Onion, Sage and Rocket

2006-01-30T21:29:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'm back. It's been awhile but I'm committed to a once-a-week posting from now on.

Click Here for the Recipe

I'd never had much experience with homemade pizza, but I started seeing these really great-looking recipes. Making crust from scratch seemed a bit much, but then I stumbled upon frozen raw dough at the grocery. At Whole Foods, it's sold in pound lumps, whole wheat or white and is pretty cheap. It took me awhile to find the best way to work it, but now I've got it down. About four hours before cooking time, I take the dough out of the freezer, put a piece of wax paper on a rack, spread a bit of flour on it, take the dough out of its wrapper and sit it on the floured paper. Then I go back to work or do the laundry or read the paper.

When I'm ready to work the dough, I lay out my handy pastry mat, spread a little flour on it and punch the dough. I'll flatten it into a wheel about six inches across then drop it over my fist to let gravity pull the sides down. Then I'll handle it like a steering wheel, gripping the edges, turning it round and round, letting it stretch to twelve inches across. If it shrinks when I lay it down, I'll cover it with a dish towel for five or ten minutes so it can rest or catch its breath. Then I'll do the steering wheel bit again, and it usually stretches right out to 12 or even 14 inches. Once it's the size I want, I'll transfer the dough to a polenta-dusted piece of aluminum foil. More on this later.

I'll let it sit while I prep the ingredients, then I'll assemble the pizza. Once the pizza is assembled, transfer the pie, still on the foil, to a very hot pizza stone that's been pre-heating in the oven (didn't I mention that?). It's easy to move the pizza around on the foil and keep from burning yourself. Some use a wooden peel; I'm looking at one of those. Cook the pizza, then using the foil, move it from the pizza stone to a cutting board. Thanks to the polenta, the pizza slides right off the foil.

Tonight's pizza comes from Epicurious, but I've modified it a bit, as usual. We liked it, and I'll have leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

Culinary Books for Christmas

2006-01-03T17:52:00.000-05:00

Santa was very good to me this year and brought me lots of books about food and cooking. I don't want any more cookbooks (I did get two but both are classics); between what I've got, online sources and blogs I read, I'm done with cookbooks for now, thanks.

I can't say yet if I have a favorite, but I'm very excited about The Silver Spoon, a 50-year standby in Italian kitchens. It has just been translated into English for the first time.

Julia Child was a little before my time but I have an aunt who's devoted to her methods, and with all the hype about the Julie/Julia project, I thought I should take a look. I received both the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and DVDs of The French Chef, her show on public television.

I have started reading Michael Ruhlman's The Making of a Chef, a chronicle of his time at the Culinary Institute of America. It's a great read so far, and I think it provides a good perspective on that school, although he gets a bit emotional at times. Having worked in hotel food service with CIA graduates, I know feelings both for and against the school run high.

The Perfectionist, by Rudolph Chelminski, is a book about the life and death of a well-known French chef Bernard Loiseau, who committed suicide in 2003 ahead of declining ratings by GaultMillau and the rumoured loss of a Michelin star.

Other goodies:
The Chef's Companion, by Elizabeth Riely
Hidden Kitchens, from The Kitchen Sisters
Best Food Writing 2005, edited by Holly Hughes
Don't Try This at Home, edited by Kimberly Witherspoon

Sauteed Foie Gras with a Balsamic-Red Currant Sauce

2005-12-24T09:02:00.000-05:00

Sauteed Foie Gras with a Balsamic-Red Currant Sauce
Recipe

My good husband introduced me to sauteed foie gras (as opposed to the foie gras in terrines that are served room temperature), and I've become a convert. We've eaten it in several restaurants over the years, and I made it for the first time last New Year's Eve and I was somewhat successful in my execution of the dish. We decided we wanted it again but I needed a better recipe. The one I used last year wasn't really what I wanted. After some searching, I cobbled together enough information to write up my own.

Some learnings:

Buy it from a reputable butcher or specialty store who knows how to handle it and prep it for you. In Boston, I use the Butcher Shop.
Limit handling of foie gras. The heat from your hands makes the fat-laden liver start to melt.
If the butcher hasn't deveined it for you, devein using two knives. The vein, while edible, has a texture so different from the liver that it's very noticeable when eaten.
If it breaks into pieces, oh well. Cook them and reassemble when serving.
Flouring the liver helps it keep its shape when cooking.
If serving on a slice of bread, select a bread type that's soft and has a soft crust (or cut the crust off), and slice the bread thinly.
It cooks REALLY fast so be prepared to eat about four minutes after you begin cooking.
Any berry-laden jam could work; red currant is just a favorite of mine.

(Sort of) Southern Cornbread

2005-12-24T09:01:00.000-05:00

I grew up in the South, and no self-respecting Southerner puts sugar in their cornbread. We eat cornbread as a bread, not as a dessert. We eat it with stews and soups, so it's supposed to be savory. Corn muffins, on the other hand, are supposed to be sweet, so you eat them when it's appropriate to eat sweet stuff, like at breakfast or for a mid-afternoon snack with your coffee at Starbuck's. You wouldn't eat a blueberry muffin with your beef stew, so why would you eat sweet cornbread with your barbeque?

I used to make a great savory cornbread from a cookbook my brother gave me a long time ago called White Trash Cooking by Ernest Matthew Mickler. This type of cornbread is an acquired taste, as it's savory (no sugar) and dry (no flour), and you eat it by crumbling it into whatever else is on your plate or in your bowl. (And the cookbook is a classic!). White Trash Cooking Cornbread Recipe

Then I married a Yankee who didn't like my Southern cornbread. That took a bit of getting used to. If he didn't like my cornbread, what kind of future did we really have? I got over that useless bit of navel-gazing pretty quick, and started hunting for cornbread we could both like.

It took some searching, as most cookbooks out there feature sugar, and a lot of it, in their cornbread recipes. Even the usually reliable Cook's Illustrated published a cornbread recipe they called Southern that was way too sweet. I finally found the solution in the Joy of Cooking, and it's become my everyday cornbread recipe.

My Everyday Cornbread Recipe

It's got a tablespoon of sugar, just enough to appease the my good husband's cornbread sweet tooth but not enough to detract from the savory taste. Cooking the batter in bacon fat in a cast iron pan helps keep it authentic for me. I'll chop of two slices of bacon and fry them in the cast iron, then scoop out the bits and drain almost all of the fat from the pan, leaving a scant tablespoon. I'll add most of the bacon to the batter, and sprinkle the rest on about halfway through cooking. It's good cornbread and a great compromise.

One last thing - cornbread freezes really well. Each batch makes six pieces, and we can never eat them all at once. I'll wrap each individual piece in heavy freezer wrap, then put all the pieces in a freezer zip-storage bag, then I can pull out however many pieces I need later on. They thaw in about 90 minutes on the counter, then I put a pat of butter on each piece, wrap them in foil and put them in the toaster over to warm for 15 minutes or so.

Spicy Charred Green Beans with Scallions

2005-12-20T19:28:00.000-05:00

Spicy Charred Green Beans with Scallions
Recipe

This is a fab dish and is especially useful when the green beans in the fridge are past their prime. Plus it's spicy and vegetable-y and just really eatable. I got the recipe from Cook's Illustrated originally but I've tweaked it a bit and added sliced cooked sausage to it to make it a one-pot meal.

The secret - the cast iron pot (I have an old Lodge that I've seasoned myself). It gets hot enough to char the beans without overcooking them, and it gives them a great flavor. I've never cooked this dish in anything other than my cast iron; I doubt the non-stick could get hot enough to cook the beans without turning them into mush, and I bet the beans and especially the fragile scallions would stick to a standard non-coated frying pan.

I love, love, love my cast iron pot. Mark Bittman, esteemed food writer, recently extolled the virtues of cast iron in one of his recent columns in the New York Times. My good husband looks askance at it everytime I pull it out because it does in fact require a little maintenance to keep it so useful and there are a few rules of engagement. Mostly, keep tomatoes and vinegary sauces out of it, as the acid eats through the seasoning (a small amount won't hurt it), and don't let it stay wet or it will rust (it is just pig iron, after all). After cooking in it, I rinse it out with very hot water, then scrub it with a heavy wooden-headed metal brush (used only for this purpose). I put a little oil in it, put it over low heat and let it sit for five minutes. I lightly rub it out with a paper towel and it's ready for its next job. It cooks so nicely and adds such great flavor to just about anything.

A warning - pets love the seasoning of cast iron. I keep mine on the open bottom shelf of our butcher block island, and I have to keep a lid on it or my cat will lick the finish right off the pan, making little unseasoned patches in the pot. It won't hurt him - it's just a little iron and a little fat - but those naked patches of cast iron equate to sticky spots when cooking.

Cooking from the Center

2005-12-15T12:10:00.000-05:00

I didn't work this year from mid-January to October. When I wasn't planning my wedding, getting married or job-hunting, I was thinking about cooking, reading books and blogs about cooking, and yes, actually cooking. Since I wasn't working, I had the luxury of time and I chose to spend a lot of it in the kitchen, and I've had a lot of people ask me why.

I found cooking to be a great creative outlet and a very meditative process. I could get in a good mental groove chopping vegetables or stirring risotto or sorting through the week's farm share. I rarely felt drained by cooking; it seemed like cooking gave me more energy than it took from me. It felt effortless, like what I was meant to do. I'd found my cooking center.

Now that I'm working full-time again, I had to scale back my weekday cooking. Believe me, I didn't want to but after several poorly-executed meals and a minor meltdown, I realized I had to. So now I'm trying to cook interesting but not-too-complicated food in less time. I make and freeze soups and stews on the weekends to eat during the week, and search my archives and the web for quick but good dishes for weeknight dinners. I was frustrated by the constraints but now I realize it's just an opportunity to re-center. And since we're always having to re-center ourselves as our lives change, it's good practice too.

Savory Spiced Pecans

2005-12-15T06:34:00.000-05:00

This is my annual Christmas treat. I make pounds of them and give them away, to universal acclaim. The recipe came out of a cookbook my grandmother used to give every woman in the family upon her wedding called "The Stuffed Griffin," published in 1976 by The Utility Club in Griffin, Georgia, a small-town volunteer organization. It's a hoot to read, but pretty useful too.

Heat the oven to 250 degrees. While the oven is preheating, melt a stick of butter (no substitutes) in a large baking dish (a lasagne pan is good but bigger is better) in the oven. When the butter is melted, stir in a half-cup of Worcestershire sauce. Add 1.5 pounds of pecan halves and stir well, until all pecans are coated in the liquid. Pieces would work too but aren't nearly so nice to look at. Place in the oven and stir every fifteen minutes; it should take an hour for the nuts to absorb all the liquid.

Spread the nuts on paper towels to drain and dry. Sprinkle with salt and cayenne to taste. I've found the nuts can stand a fair amount of both. Once they're cooler and dry to the touch, store them in ziploc bags or plastic storage containers with tight lids.

A note on nuts: I live in Boston where you can't find a decent pecan to save your life (I've had people point me to walnuts when I ask for pecans - I swear!), so I order them every year from McEachern Pecans, a small farm in south Georgia, pecan-growing capital of the world! Pecan season is in the fall, so order in November for this year's crop.

Pasta with Lentils and Sausage

2005-12-10T16:03:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to dumb down my weeknight meals so they don't take three hours and a Ph.D. to prepare. Now that I'm working full time again, I just don't want to spend hours in the kitchen after spending hours at my desk. But it's hard to quash my enthusiasm for cooking; I want to make something interesting and good, and leftovers don't always qualify as either. So I try to find the balance between cooking a little but cooking well.

One night this week I made a pasta dish with lentils and sausage. You can use any kind of sausage you like except for the really esoteric ones like lamb and apricot (I have that in my freezer and haven't figured out quite yet what to do with it). I used a pre-cooked andouille because I thought it would pair nicely with the lentils and the tomatoes in the sauce, but any robust sausage would do, like kielbasa or Italian.

So brown the sausage in a bit of oil in a Dutch oven. Add a small can of diced tomatoes, a chopped onion, some chopped carrot, several pressed cloves of garlic (don't be shy) and some dried rosemary. Saute it all until it starts to smell really good, then add just about two quarts of water (I substituted about a cup of the water with some big red wine) and two cups of lentils. Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for 45 minutes. At some point, I stuck my immersion blender in the pot to thicken it up a bit.

I cooked up some farfalle to go with it, and added it right at the end and let it all sit together for a few minutes. But it didn't work well as a leftover (for lunch) because the pasta got mushy. Next time, I'll spoon pasta in the bottom of each person's bowl, then ladle the lentils over it. That will mean no pasta in the leftovers but no pasta is better than mushy pasta!

It was good and it was quick, satisfying my need for a tasty dinner without killing myself.

Eating My Way Through San Francisco

2005-12-09T21:01:00.000-05:00

I had to go to San Francisco for a meeting last week, and I had dinner out every night I was there.

On Friday night, I ate at Miss Millie's in Noe Valley (4123 24th St. bet. Castro & Diamond). I picked it for a few simple reasons - it was late (9ish), it was a short walk from my friends' house and it had the right light. I want to eat in a restaurant where the lighting makes me, my compatriots and the food all look good. That means indirect light, incandescent light and multiple sources of light. This place had it right, from the lace curtains in the windows to the waiters with ties and floor-length aprons to the really good lentil dish with spicy lamb sausage. The salad was forgettable, but the lentils made up for it. Plus it was a nice place to eat when one is by oneself. The waiter didn't treat me like a freak of nature like some do - a woman eating alone, quel horreur!

On Saturday, I ate at Home on Union Street (not in the Castro). I was up in that neighborhood admiring the lights merchants and residents had strung up, dodging the occasional holiday character wandering the streets (Frosty, Santa, etc.) and listening with pleasure to the barbershop quartet with four old guys. Home had the right light upon entering, a lot of glass, a lot of nice low indirect light and a lot of candles. There were several tables for two open in the front section with all the nice light, but the host led me to a back room that I swear looked like my middle-school cafeteria and sat me at a table right in the center of the crowded room. So I popped up and went back to the bar and sat down to have dinner. Why sit in an ugly room to eat? You know the food will taste awful. The bartender called me sweetie so I called him honey and the evening progressed nicely. The food was good, especially the charred green beans on the side. I do something like that, stir-frying green beans (especially ones that are past their prime) in a hot cast iron pan, letting them blacken just a bit. Really good.

On Sunday, my friend Rajesh and I ate at Frascati (Green Street at Hyde Street), a place I'd found in Zagat. It was cozy, in an old house with lots of little rooms. It was a little close but not uncomfortably so. Now I really like my friend Raj but he does like things just so, and isn't shy about telling me when they're not. And several things were not just so for him, and some of them I'd agree with. He had a venison carpaccio as a starter, and while the carpaccio was quite nice, the plate it was served on was freezing. I would have sent it back but he just ate it. I had a gnocchi dish with some truffle oil. Raj's opinion was that the truffle oil was overwhelming; my own was that less wouldn't have hurt but it was still pretty good. I did have a less than memorable flat iron steak; it was gristly without any offsetting flavor, and I really can't remember what Raj had as an entree. I had a vin santo (with no cookie - Raj was appalled) and he had a Bonny Doon framboise. I've had that before and should have warned him. It's a lighter version of Chambord but just as raspberry-powerful. The service was quite nice, and Raj picked up the tab so it was a good night as far as I was concerned!

Monday was the worst. The concierge at the Grand Hyatt recommended Le Central Bistro downtown on Bush Street. I was having dinner with two girlfriends and didn't want to deal with large crowds or a lot of noise. We were going to talk a lot and wanted to hear each other. It was bistro food but very, very, VERY tired bistro food. Fortunately, neither of my dinner companions held it against me but Connie did tell me I couldn't pick the restaurant next time.

New Silverware

2005-12-09T20:45:00.000-05:00

As a wedding present, my lovely grandmother bought a set of twelve five-piece place settings for us. It's an example of repoussé, a process or the product of ornamenting metallic surfaces with designs in relief hammered out from the back, and it's also the name of the pattern. This particular silver was made by S.Kirk & Sons in Baltimore; Kirk and several other silversmiths in the area were apparently famous for using the repoussé method to create very ornamental silver.

Anyway, my aunt who lives in Baltimore went searching for some for my grandmother to give to me and she was quite successful. It was all made between 1900 and 1925, and the forks and spoons have various monograms and names engraved on the backs, like Betsy and RAMcG. I like that little touch.

We always set the table with placemats and cloth napkins, so adding silverware in place of the stainless seemed like a natural move. We put the stainless away, and put six place settings of the new stuff in the drawer. I don' t have space in the drawer for all twelve sets! I suppose I'll rotate it out every six months or so.

Cheese Fondue

2005-11-27T11:28:00.000-05:00

I remember my mother having a fondue set back in the 70s; I don't actually remember eating fondue, but I'm sure we did. As an adult, I would eat fondue at my Swiss friends' apartment in New York and when I would travel to Switzerland for work (luckily for me, it happened quite often). I haven't had it in a year or so, but for some reason I started thinking about it. It's coming back into vogue here in the States so I must've seen an article somewhere.

But before I could make it, I had to have a pot to make it in. I looked at other food blogs, on the cooking supply web sites and queried my Swiss friends. After some research, I bought a Le Creuset pot. My reasons? I love my Le Creuset cookware; it's never done me wrong. I wanted something that could go from stovetop to burner-top. And I wanted something smaller; it's just my husband and me at home and we don't entertain a lot, so getting a four+ quart fondue pot didn't make much sense.

Next I needed a recipe. I went back to my Swiss friends who supplied me with a recipe and some fondue trivia - whoever loses their bread in the fondue pot has to kiss their table partner, etc. I found a recipe on Epicurious too, the original Gourmet magazine recipe from 1966, plus some helpful hints from the Epicurious readers' comments. I love that feature of the Epicurious site; readers can comment directly to the recipe page (just like a blog), and even better, users can mark which comments they'd like to have printed along with the recipe itself. Very useful. So here's what my recipe ultimately looked like:

1 garlic clove, halved
8 oz Gruyere, grated
8 oz Emmenthaler, grated
1 T cornstarch (maybe a little more)
10 oz dry white wine (not vermouth)
3 oz kirsch
1 t nutmeg
One day-old baguette or other crusty bread, cut into inch cubes. If you only have fresh bread, cut it into cubes, spread the cubes on a cookie sheet and put it in a 200-degree oven to dry out.

Rub the inside of the fondue pot with the garlic halves and leave the garlic in the pot. Grate the cheese, then put it all in a gallon-sized zipper bag along with the cornstarch. Shake it up so the cornstarch is evenly distributed amongst the cheese. Heat the wine in the fondue pot on the stovetop, then add the cheese just before the wine boils. Lower the heat to medium and add the cheese a bit at a time, stirring in a zig-zag motion, not in a circular motion (this apparently keeps the cheese from balling up, a very big fondue faux pas). Once all the cheese is in, keep stirring; the cheese should be bubbling happily along but don't let it get too happy or it will start to burn. Add the kirsch and stir it for another five minutes or so, until it's thick and creamy. Stir in nutmeg.

Light the fondue burner and move the pot from the stove to the fondue stand. Spear a piece of bread with the fondue fork, stick it in the cheese, stir it around, pull it out, eat it. Repeat repeatedly.

This recipe is too much for two (we couldn't eat it all). It might be enough for four if a salad was served ahead of time. Next time, I'll cut the recipe by a third for the two of us.

Some fondue etiquette:
Always stir the cheese when you put your forked bread in the pot; it helps keep the mixture smooth.
Never eat your cheese directly from your fondue fork then stick it back into the cheese - not nice for the other eaters (unless you're all family or friendly enough that no one cares, or unless everyone has had enough wine not to care).
Drink white wine or hot black tea with cheese fondue. One Swiss friend swears you'll go to the hospital if you drink anything else.

Thanksgiving at the Federalist

2005-11-27T10:50:00.000-05:00

We have no-travel rules in effect over Thanksgiving and other holiday weekends; the airports are zoos, the trains are so crowded one can hardly breathe and the roads are a nightmare, especially up here in the Northeast corridor. We will drive if it's not too far (say to our niece's or nephew's houses in Maine or New Hampshire), but on Thanksgiving, we've found we like to walk, especially if we are walking to a very nice restaurant to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner someone else has cooked!

Last year and this, we went to the Federalist at the Fifteen Beacon Hotel (the site is pretty but content-starved; I don't know how an independent hotel survives these days without decent website content). There are plenty of reviews of it online, so I won't go on about it. It's a top restaurant in Zagat, and a great one in our opinion.

The restaurant had a three-course prix-fixe menu, including soups and shellfish for appetizers, turkey (of course) and seafood for entrees, and desserts like pumpkin creme brulee and pecan pie. My husband chose the traditional route (sort of), having Maine diver scallops as an appetizer, turkey and trimmings as his entree and the pumpkin creme brulee as his dessert. I chose a truly yummy celery root soup as my appetizer, duck leg confit and roasted breast with root vegetables in a pinot noir sauce as my entree and pecan pie for dessert.

One of my favorite things about this restaurant is the room; dark, rich wooden paneling, high molded ceilings (white with dark wood) and high windows with dark brown wooden blinds. A banquette runs around the room that's well-upholstered and bouncy, and they have the requisite white linen tablecloths and napkins. The effect is one of rich coziness; sitting on the banquette having a glass of champagne on a holiday is the nicest feeling.

Our reservation was for 2:00pm, so we were able to sleep in, have a lazy morning, then get all dressed up (suit and tie, skirt and blouse) to walk over. From our place, it's a quick walk unless one has high-heeled boots on, then it takes a bit longer, especially in the snow. This was not a fast meal; we weren't home until maybe 5ish. And no supper later on, just a movie and a glass of water!

Polenta is Yankee for Grits!

2005-11-22T13:16:00.000-05:00

I could eat polenta every day. Really. Especially now when the New England winter is settling in (snow on Thanksgiving!). It's savory and hearty and comforting, especially cooked in milk.

I found a nice baked polenta recipe with tomato sauce that's good with everything from chicken to steak. Heat some milk, salt and butter in a pan. Just when the butter is melted, slowly stir in the cornmeal. I prefer a whisk to quickly distribute the cornmeal so it doesn't clump but I understand there's some cult out there that dictates polenta must be cooked with a wooden spoon. Whatever.

Bring the pot to a simmer, then turn the heat to low (you still need a few bubbles), and stir until it gets nice and thick. Stir in two egg yolks and grated parmesan nice and easy. Tip the polenta into a greased baking pan or a baking pan lined with plastic wrap with extra hanging over the sides. Let it cool, then cover the polenta and refrigerate until the polenta is firm (I usually do this a day or two ahead).

Whenever you're ready to eat it, turn the polenta out of the pan and onto a board. Cut the polenta into squares and put them back into the original baking pan, but overlap them so the squares are leaning on each other (the better to expose more surface to the heat). Brush them with olive oil, sprinkle with some Parmesan and bake until the squares are a nice golden color. You don't have to use the whole recipe in this step; I usually just cut four pieces for the two of us, then wrap up the rest, put it back in the fridge and use a different baking pan. It will keep for several days. Now top the puffy squares with your favorite tomato sauce or even just serve them as is.

Butternut Squash with Red Grapes and Sage

2005-11-21T20:00:00.000-05:00

Early winter in New England and we're awash in squash. They're overrunning the produce aisles, not to mention my pantry shelf. Butternut squash is easy enough to cook (peel, seed and chop into cubes, toss with some oil and roast until tender) but a little bland on its own. So I went Googling and found this really interesting combination on Epicurious.

Peel, seed and chop the squash and put it in a big mixing bowl. Add red seedless grapes (nice and firm, no mushy ones), an onion chopped into big pieces and lots of chopped fresh sage. Drizzle with a combination of oil and melted butter, season with lots of salt and pepper and mix it up well. Pour it into a big roasting pan and roast for about a half hour at 425 degrees, stirring once or twice.

Garnish with toasted pine nuts. I was going to omit this, but I had some pine nuts in the pantry and they really added a nice crunchy tangy element to the sweet squash and grapes. I served this with broiled veal rib chops for a very nice dinner.

Mussels!

2005-11-21T19:35:00.000-05:00

You might well ask "you live in Boston, what took you so long?" and I don't know what I would answer. Laziness? Hardly, especially since I'm a 10-minute walk from a venerable Boston wholesale/retail seafood establishment, James Hook & Co. Dislike of mussels? Not likely, given how I slurp them down when we order them out. Fear of the unknown? Maybe a little of that. I ate shrimp, crawfish and oysters home in the South; lobsters and mussels were unknown to me.

But it was time, and I found an enticing recipe in the Boston Globe. They don't have the best food section but every now and again they'll have something worth reading. This recipe has a tomato-based broth and it had andouille sausage in it, and I've never met a sausage I didn't like. Chop some onion, press some garlic, cut the andouille into inch-sized pieces, put it all in a Dutch oven and add some canned diced tomatoes, salt, pepper and some olive oil. Mix very well. Roast for 15 minutes at 425, stirring once. Transfer the Dutch oven to the stovetop, and add some wine to make a nice sauce. Bring it to a boil, then add the mussels and cover the pan, shaking it every so often. After six minutes or so, the mussels should be open (you know the rule; throw away any that aren't), then spoon some of the sauce and mussels into bowls and serve with good bread and big wine like a cotes du rhone. What took me so long?

Sausage and Kale Soup courtesy of Williams-Sonoma

2005-11-07T20:10:00.000-05:00

Chicken sausage is a recent find of mine, and I'm just enamoured (sp?) of it. I especially like it in soups, and of course I still have some kale to use, so when I saw this recipe in the Williams-Sonoma Christmas catalog, I decided to try it. I love those catalogs; the photography is lovely and they always have interesting-sounding recipes, but I'd never tried one.

So I tried this one, and it wasn't bad. There were the usual suspects - onion, garlic, carrots, celery, leeks, thyme, chicken stock - plus some vermouth reduced by half, kale, chicken sausage and white beans. Chop up the vegetables (except the kale) and soften them up in a Dutch oven. Reduce a cup of wine by half and add to six cups of chicken stock in a large stockpot. Add the beans to the stockpot, then puree the beans. Bring the liquid up to a low simmer while the vegetables are softening. Broil the sausage, then slice it up. Add the liquid to the vegetables and let it simmer for 20 minutes, then add the sausage and kale (cleaned and torn into pieces) and simmer for another 10 minutes. Top with some Parmesan and serve with a nice crusty bread. Pretty good stuff for a catalog.

No More Farm Share

2005-11-07T19:20:00.000-05:00

Our farm share is over for the season as of November 1, and I have to say I'm of two minds about it. On one hand, the tyranny of the vegetables is over (not to mention the trip out to the Allston/Cambridge line). I was getting a little sick of having my menus dictated by Mother Nature; I've got one more recipe's worth of kale I've got to do something with, and I've got five bulbs of celeriac in the fridge I have absolutely no idea what to do with.

On the other hand, I went shopping at Whole Foods this weekend and browsed the produce section, just for reorientation purposes. I saw anemic green beans, tired lettuces and pitted peppers. Gone are the vibrant colors and lucious smells of just-from-the-farm veggies. The prices sent me and my cart careening right out of there! Looks like it will be a long and expensive winter.

The Best Roasted Potatoes

2005-11-06T09:46:00.000-05:00

I give all credit to Nigel Slater for these - they are so, so good. For each person, buy a medium sized waxy potato, like a Yukon Gold. Peel them, then cut them up into two-bite pieces. Put them in a pan of cold water, bring it to a boil, salt it then reduce the heat and let them simmer for five minutes. Drain the water, leaving the potatoes in pan. Then shake-shake-shake the pan, roughing up the potato surfaces. Put them into a roasting pan with a layer of fat (just a skim, not too much) on the bottom - I use olive oil, which I'll augment with meat fat if I have any on hand - and stir the potatoes so they're coated. Cook them in a 395-degree oven for 45 minutes, stirring the potatoes every fifteen minutes. Sprinkle them with salt when they're done, serve and keep your hands out of the way!

Fresh Brussel Sprouts - Who Knew?

2005-11-03T07:27:00.000-05:00

In our farm share last week and this, we got big stalks of brussel sprouts. Yuck, you may say, and that's what I said too. But I couldn't hide from them forever (plus they were taking up way too much room in the fridge), so I pulled out my vegetable cookbook to see what to do with them.

With a sharp paring knife, I sliced them off the stalk, then I trimmed the ends and got rid of any yucky leaves. It's amazing how much they look like little cabbage heads. Then I rinsed them a couple of times in salt water (to kill any hidden critters) then a couple of times in fresh water (to get rid of the salt). I set some water to boil and once it was at a boil, I added the brussel sprouts. After six minutes, I turned off the heat and drained them.

While they were cooking, I melted two ounces of blue cheese in about a 1/4 cup of heavy cream with a splash of vermouth, and whisked it until it was blended and a little bubbly and reduced a bit.

I read in my cookbook that halving the sprouts would be a good thing if you were going to serve them with a sauce, so my good husband took knife and tongs in hand to cut the little hot sprouts in half. There has to be any easier way, but it seemed to me that if I cut them in half first then cooked them they'd cook really fast and probably lose their shape.

The end result was great! They were sweet and crunchy and just yummy. I know, I know, they had a cheese sauce on them but they weren't swimming in it. I served them with broiled boneless chicken breast (I spooned some of the sauce over them too) and twice baked potatoes with blue cheese in them. Another successful dinner. And quick too. Who knew?

Stir-Fried Marinated Steak with Fried Rice, Corn and Peppers

2005-10-30T20:36:00.000-05:00

This was a menu driven by various necessities - I couldn't start dinner until 7:30, we have no outdoor access and we have the worst laid-out kitchen ever. The stove is in the corner and the vent blows back into the room, not out onto the roof. [We live in a large one-room loft on the seventh-floor of an eight-floor building, and the kitchen is situated in one of the corners.] So no grilling and no searing or other type of cooking that could cause a lot of smoke. If we really crave steak, I'll either saute a filet because it doesn't have much fat or I'll marinate and stir fry. Sauteing (or broiling) even a filet creates enough smoke that we have to take evasive action vis-a-vis the smoke alarms so stir-frying usually wins out.

Stir-frying doesn't have to mean Chinese; I've been experimenting with marinades and sliced meat (this works well with pork and chicken too) to take advantage of flavors we like. Back when we lived in a house and had a grill, we loved a southwestern marinade with tomato paste, chili powder, cayenne, cumin, garlic, brown sugar, oil and soy sauce. So I started using it for a stir-fry marinade. I buy a nice boneless strip (dry-aged if I can find it), slice it into 1/3" strips and trim most of the fat. I whip up the marinade, and put the meat into the marinade. I'll let it sit, depending on time demands, for a half hour at room temperature or up to three in the fridge.

It's so easy I almost hesitate to write it down. Get a big non-stick skillet or saute pan, spoon some of the marinade into the pan and heat it on high for about 90 seconds, till the marinade solids are sizzling. Using tongs, lay the steak slices into the pan. When they're all in, cook for one minute and turn them over. Cook for another 45 seconds for medium rare. Here's the trick - DO NOT leave them in the pan for more than two minutes or they'll cook too much. If you are a fan of well-done steak, then two-minutes plus will work for you, but for the majority of you, medium rare takes one minute and forty-five seconds. Slices of meat 1/3" thick cook really fast. And no matter how much fat you use, it won't smoke when it's only on heat for three minutes.

At this point, I put the slices into a warmed serving dish and let them sit in a warm oven while I finish cooking everything else. Tonight it was frozen leftovers - rice from a dinner earlier this week, and corn and peppers from late summer. I poured most of the fat from the skillet that I used to cook the steak, heated it up again and added the (thawed) rice. Over almost-high heat, I stirred the rice for a few minutes, then added the (thawed) corn and peppers, and let it all cook for another four minutes. I put it in a serving dish, pulled the steak out of the oven, dropped everything on the table and had a great dinner ready in 15 minutes (not counting the marinating). My excellent husband had set the table, found a good wine and good music while I was cooking. It was a great meal, made greater by the fact it was so easy!

Apple Crisp

2005-10-29T23:08:00.000-04:00

I'm a savory cook, not a baker. My baking experience runs to southern-style cornbread (no sugar, thank you very much), good biscuits and an annual birthday cake for my husband. One dessert I do cook a lot of in the fall is an apple crisp. My husband's late mother had a nice but basic recipe that I've been working on now for a couple of years. Hers called for just cinnamon; I added nutmeg and allspice. Hers called for a lot of white sugar; I cut it down. I also added more apples, but I never really made it work until I started using light brown sugar. What a difference! I don't normally include recipes in my posts, but I will here.

Six medium apples, cored and cut into about 1/3" slices
1/2 c water
1/2 c white sugar
1/2 c light brown sugar
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t allspice
1/2 t nutmeg
7 T unsalted butter, cold

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Butter a 9x13-ish casserole. Put the apple slices into the casserole and spread them evenly. Pour in water.

In a food processor, combine all dry ingredients. Cut the butter into pieces, add and pulse until the mixture looks like wet sand. It will take at least 30 seconds, probably closer to a minute. Spread the topping onto the apples and cook for 45-50 minutes.

My husband likes to eat it warm with ice cream; I like it reheated in the toaster oven for breakfast. Whatever. Just eat it!

A few notes: I don't worry about apple type. This year, I've been using whatever apples come in our farm share so I have no idea what I've been cooking with and it never seems to matter. Also, I'm going to keep experimenting with light brown sugar. Next time, I'll use only light brown sugar and see what happens.

Chicken Stew with White Beans and Kale

2005-10-26T22:22:00.000-04:00

More comfort food, but so good and so easy. Get yourself a rotisserie chicken and pull all the meat off of it, except for the wings. In a Dutch oven (mine gets such a workout), heat a bit of oil, then add the wings, chopped onion and chopped carrots. Put the lid on to get them soft. Add some chicken stock or broth, a splash of white wine or vermouth and some drained and rinsed canned white beans. Here's a step that's a bit of a pain but so worthwhile - fish out the wings and set them aside and use a handheld blender to puree the onions, carrots and beans. Put the wings back in, and add the meat from the rest of the chicken. Bring it to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer for a half-hour. If you want, you could add the chicken carcass in here to really pump up the chicken-y taste.

Now add in a load of cleaned kale, torn into small pieces. You'll be amazed at how the kale will shrink, although it won't shrink like spinach would - it's too dense. But kale is a major ingredient here so don't be shy. Keep adding it and keep stirring, then let it sit over medium-low heat for about ten minutes. Remove all the bones and serve with some bread. This is a really filling dish, and so good for you! Amazingly enough, it also freezes well and makes great leftovers because kale is so hardy.

I'm considering adding a bit of spice next time I make this dish - maybe some rosemary and garlic.

Lentil Soup in a Nor'easter

2005-10-26T22:00:00.000-04:00

The combination of the remnants of Hurricane Wilma, Tropical Storm Alpha (the name of my next dog!) and some other atmospheric conditions led to horrific weather here in Boston this week. Driving rain, incredible wind gusts and dark skies just cried out for soup! I love lentil soup and have tried many a combination of lentils, meats and vegetables. I've settled (for now) on a nice combination of some standard lentil soup ingredients (onions, carrots, garlic, tomatoes) with some extras like pancetta, thyme, balsamic vinegar and fresh spinach. Plus it's pretty easy and doesn't take too much prep.

Chop up some pancetta, crisp it up in a Dutch oven and remove it. Drain most of the rendered fat, then add some chopped onions and carrots to the remaining fat and cooked until softened. I usually like to put the lid on at this point to get the vegetables nice and soft. Add some pressed garlic, bay leaf, tomatoes and thyme and let it cook for a few minutes until it starts to smell really good. Add the lentils and salt and pepper, lower the heat and let them sweat in the covered pot for ten minutes. Pour in some wine and let it simmer, then add lots of good chicken stock or broth. If you've got some parmesan cheese rinds in the freezer, throw them in. Bring it to a boil then let it simmer for an hour.

At this point, I like to stick my new handheld blender into the pot and puree some of the soup to create that really nice soupy smoothness. I'm a bit of a klutz so I have to be careful putting a super-fast rotating blade into a big pot of very hot liquid, but it's easier than ladling some of it into a blender then back into the pot!

Just before serving, add a splash of good balsamic vinegar. In the bottom of each soup bowl, layer some fresh spinach leaves. Ladle the hot soup over the leaves and let it sit a few minutes before serving so the leaves wilt. You can add the spinach directly to the pot, but that makes for slimy leftovers. Grate some fresh parmesan on top, sprinkle on the pancetta and serve, then thumb your nose at the bad weather outside.

Craigie Street Bistrot

2005-10-22T08:58:00.000-04:00

This is a bit of a departure, but I just can't help myself. We had an excellent dinner out last night at Craigie Street Bistrot in Cambridge. It's in the basement of an apartment building in the middle of a residential neighborhood just off Harvard Square, a totally unassuming address. The room is small with windows at right at the ceiling but it's painted light neutral colors to keep the walls from closing in. There is a teeny little bar area with two tables and a very short counter that is actually a bit claustrophobic as it's right by the kitchen and the front door.

You can read for yourself the restaurant's philosophy on the website so I won't reiterate it here; I'll just tell you what we ate! I had a great, but suprisingly large, appetizer of braised boneless veal shank with veal sweetbreads, which looked and tasted like they had been very lightly breaded, in a bone marrow and Jerusalem artichoke sauce with mushrooms and fresh white truffle shavings. I ate so slowly because I just didn't want it to end. What a lovely dish. I have to say, as an American without much experience in eating offal, those 'wobbly bits' sometimes get to me, but the sweetbreads were firm enough and the combination of the shank (it was practically confit) worked. My husband had a duck-broth based soup with chesnuts, little gnocchi and confit of duck tongue and gizzards. More wobbly bits, but again not so overtly wobbly. I had a taste and it was yummy, and he stopped just short of slurping the last bit right out of the bowl.

For my entree, I had duck two ways - a confit and some sliced breast with some little carrots and turnips and parsnips in a glaze, and what the menu called buckwheat polenta. I still need to parse that, but whatever it was, it was good! Again, it was a pretty large serving for such a slavishly French restaurant; I couldn't get through it all. Although I do eat a lot more slowly at restaurants like this, where I order food I haven't yet cooked at home, trying to figure out how the dishes were prepared. Maybe I just got full because I took so long to get through it. My huband had a marinated hangar steak that was good but the rarest medium rare we've ever seen. The flavor was really good though, and it came with some bone marrow (more wobbly bits) presented in a bone about three inches long, cut lengthwise. He scooped the marrow out and ate it with the steak, and proceeded to clean his plate.

This was our second time at this place, and we'll go back, but here were a few things I would comment on - the medium rare steak was too rare, the staff was very professional but very distracted (yes it was the Friday night of Head of the Charles weekend but still), and the cloth napkins were too starchy.

Potato-Leek Soup with Kielbasa

2005-10-22T08:36:00.000-04:00

This was a dish dictated by the vegetables we got in our farm share. I had been accumulating leeks over the weeks, was up to about five pounds and really had no clue what to do with them. I hit the recipe books and sites looking for some ideas. I also had been getting potatoes each week, so when I saw this recipe, I thought why not? I make a lot of bean soups and meat stews in the winter, and something like this wasn't generally on my radar. But it would get rid of the leeks and the potatoes in one go, freeing up space in the fridge as a bonus!

It's also easy. The hardest part is the prep, washing and chopping the leeks - what a pain. I'm no expert at this process so you'll have to figure it out yourself. Chop off the dark green stuff at the top and the root end, then slice in half and cut into one-inch pieces. Peel the potatoes and cut into smallish cubes. Slice the sausage in half lengthwise then slice into 1/4-inch pieces. Heat some butter in a Dutch oven and sautee the leeks until they are soft but not brown; if you overcook them, you'll get hot leek mush. Sprinkle flour over the leeks and cook for a few minutes, then whisk in stock (preferably homemade, of course). Add a bay leaf and the potatoes, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, then cook for no more than ten minutes. Add in sausage, then take the pot off heat and let it stand for ten minutes to let the flavors blend.

There's plenty of time while the soup is cooking to clean up, set the table, slice some nice crusty bread and figure out what wine to drink (we had a California chardonnay with enough substance to stand up to the kielbasa but not overpower the subtle flavor of the leeks). It was a very nice soup, I have to say. I did have one serving's worth of leftovers, now sitting in the fridge, but I'm not too sure how it will stand up to reheating. I'll keep this recipe on-hand in case I ever need to get rid of a lot of leeks!

Roasted Butternut Squash with Shallots and Thyme

2005-10-22T08:19:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we've been getting winter squash in our CSA farm share, including butternut. I had made a butternut squash risotto and while good, it wasn't good enough to post here, keep the recipe or make again. But I had more squash, so I decided to keep it simple and roast it. I found a great recipe in Cook's Illustrated that included shallots and thyme, two of my favorite flavors. And it's so easy!

Peel the squash (this is the hardest part because the squash gets slippery - if your peeler is dull, forget about it), and cut it into good-sized cubes. Peel some shallots and separate the bulbs. Trim the root end and slice the top off the other end. Mince some thyme leaves. Put it all in a roasting pan, toss with olive oil and salt. Put it in a 425-degree oven and cook for 45 minutes, giving the pan a good shake every fifteen minutes. I served it with boneless chicken breast marinated in grated shallots and oil, then sauteed with some herbs. The dish is savory and sweet, makes the kitchen smell yummy and is just generally great. I'm making some tomorrow to take up to our niece's house in Maine, and I don't expect to bring home any leftovers.

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)

2005-10-17T21:36:00.000-04:00

My sister is an agricultural extension agent down in North Carolina, and I was complaining to her last February about how I couldn't find a good source of local produce. She referred me to the Community Supported Agriculture page on the US Dept of Agriculture site. This is a nifty little program which hooks up farms looking for capital to people like me who are looking for a regular supply of local produce. Just plug in your zip code and you'll see a list of farms near you who participate.

Basically, you provide working capital to the farm, which the farmer uses for whatever - seeds, fertilizer, labor. Once the harvest starts coming in, your dividend is a box of vegetables. Every farm is different; some offer multiple levels of investment and the pricing is driven by market and location. My farm is The Food Project in Lincoln, MA. Back in March, I wrote a check to them for $400 for the summer growing season; in Massachusetts, that's June through late October/early November. I did the math, and that $400 breaks down to about $20 per week during the harvest season. The money I've saved not having to buy produce from Whole Foods every week for five months has been enough for a decent vacation.

Every Tuesday, we pick up a roughly half-bushel-sized box of produce. I never know what we'll get; it's not like going to the market where I can pick and choose. I do go through the box and if there's stuff I just can't stand - eggplant or beets, for example - I'll drop them in the share basket for someone else to take. I might also take something out of the share basket if someone else has gotten rid of anything good.

Then I take it home, shake off the dirt and try to figure out what to do with it all. It has required a commitment, not only to figure out how to cook stuff I've never cooked before (or even laid eyes on - kohlrabi looked like a little purple alien baby) but to build menus around vegetables I've never cooked before. My husband called it my ultimate cooking challenge, and he was right. Some weeks I just couldn't get to it all, but I tried and have made a good effort. I've learned a lot, and am no longer afraid of unknown vegetables. To give credit where credit is due, I'll say I could not have managed without Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. She has good recipes, but I generally used the book as a reference guide on how to store and clean vegetables (and sometimes to identify them!). Every Tuesday after I'd run to Cambridge to pick up our box, I'd come home, unload the contents of the box and pull out her book to help sort through it all. Just invaluable. My biggest challenge? Finding space in the fridge for everything. I need a bigger fridge!

I should also give credit to my husband, who has always been a game sous-chef and vegetable eater. He takes great prep direction, and never makes a face unless I give him permission. I know my culinary horizons have expanded during this harvest year, and I hope his have too.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox. But now you know what I mean when I talk about my CSA vegetables.

Black Bean Soup with Sausage and Sweet Potatoes

2005-10-17T21:28:00.000-04:00

I love beans and lentils and now that it's getting chilly, I've started digging out my recipes and reading the soup sections of my favorite cookbooks to remember what we like. Tonight's soup was a new one. I've made black bean soups - who hasn't - but this recipe caught my eye. I was looking for recipes for sweet potatoes that didn't including baking or mashing, and here was something interesting!

So I soaked some beans, added a bay leaf, some allspice and some garlic, let it simmer, then added andouille sausage and a squeeze of tomato paste and a bit of worcestershire. I peeled and chopped up a big sweet potato (one pound plus), and steamed it, overcooking it a little bit. Then I put the potato in the soup. Before bringing it up to a simmer, I scooped out some of the beans and potato (avoiding the sausage) and pureed them in the blender. I put that back into the big pot and brought it to a nice bubble and let it cook for a few minutes.

It could've used a bit of green, maybe some cilantro or scallions, but the combo of the hot sausage, the sweet potato and the beans was just great. I'm already looking forward to lunch tomorrow!

Carrots with Brown Sugar and Nutmeg

2005-10-16T21:58:00.000-04:00

I love cooked carrots, but my husband doesn't. The only way he'll eat them is with some kind of sauce, so I figured this dish out. I cut carrots into coins, then steam them. When they are about done, I remove them from heat, dump the water from the bottom of the steamer pan and put the carrots in it. I add some butter, a pinch of nutmeg and some brown sugar (light or dark depending on my mood, or whichever box is easier to get to) and sautee it until the sugar and butter are melted and the carrots are coated. If I've got other pots going, I just put a lid on the carrots and take them off heat; they will keep for ten minutes or so (just don't overcook them during the steaming process). It's an easy dish, tasty and attractive, and most people like it, even carrot-haters like my husband.

Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi

2005-10-16T21:45:00.000-04:00

A couple of years ago, I read an article in the Boston Globe (good local newspaper, terrible food section) about gnocchi. I'd heard of it but had never eaten it and certainly never cooked it. It sounded interesting so I followed the recipe and boy was it good! It's not made with potato but with spinach, ricotta, flour, parmesan, nutmeg and an egg to hold it all together.

I have to say I really like the process of making gnocchi. My husband helps me, and we can get through a batch in about 20 minutes. We lay out the board his grandmother used to make her ravioli, put the batter between us, a little pile of flour in front of each of us and a spoon to dig out the batter. We make balls about the circumference of a nickel, then set them on a floured baking sheet to dry out.

We've made it many times since then, and here's my secret - really good broth. I usually use some of my own chicken stock. If I don't have enough (I use about six cups), I'll add some Swanson's organic chicken or vegetable broth. It's not even worth making if you aren't going to use a really good broth. I have had gnocchi in restaurants in with brown butter and sage, which was quite good, so I'll try that sometime too.

One of the best things about gnocchi is how easy it is to freeze. My recipe makes about 120 or so gnocchi, so we eat some (about 15 per person per serving), then I freeze the uncooked gnocchi in batches of 30 by wrapping them in freezer plastic then putting them in a quart-sized ziploc. They need about three hours to completely thaw and dry out, but it's an easy Sunday or Friday night supper. I also re-use the broth I cook them in; I just freeze whatever's left and label it as gnocchi broth because it's always got bits of cheese and spinach in it. When I go to thaw it, I know I have to strain it to get the bits out, but it's got a nice flavor to it.

I thought adding some fried sage would be a good touch, but I'd never done that before. I checked my vegetarian cook book and found some directions. So I brought some oil to a high heat in a little saute pan, and dropped some leaves into the oil. I'm guessing I didn't let the oil get hot enough or maybe I just left them in the oil too long, but they were just disgusting and went straight down the garbage disposal. I love fried sage, so I'm going to have to figure this out!

Acorn Squash with Brown Sugar

2005-10-15T22:20:00.000-04:00

I'm a Southerner so I didn't grow up eating the winter squash (acorn, butternut or spaghetti) native to Massachusetts where I live now, but we get them in our CSA share so I have to figure out a way to cook them. If I'm feeling lazy, I can just cut the squash in half lenth-wise, put them in a baking dish, cover them with plastic wrap and put them in the microwave for 20 minutes or so. Let them cool a bit until I can handle them, then chop them up, put some butter on them and serve them. But that's too easy.

We had an acorn squash tonight. My sweet husband cut it in half (with a rubber mallet and a cleaver), I put them in a baking pan, covered them up with plastic wrap and put them in the microwave. When it was done, I transferred them to a little broiler pan that fits in the toaster oven and turned the little oven to broil to heat it up. I combined some brown sugar and butter and a little salt in a small saucepan and whisked them together to make a syrupy sauce. I spooned the sauce over the squash and put it under the broiler to caramelize.

It was really tasty, but I think next time, after the squash comes out of the microwave, I'll cut it into pieces, into eighths, then spoon the syrup over the pieces, then broil them. We've got another acorn squash sitting in the pantry so I'll have to use it in the next week. The squash had a nice but subtle flavor, and the syrup was a hit. Plus it was easy, and I didn't have to use the regular oven or stovetop, another bonus.

Pork Tenderloin Wrapped in Sage and Proscuitto

2005-10-15T22:03:00.000-04:00

Holy smoke, what a great dish. I found it on Epicurious and it sounded like a great thing to do with a pork tenderloin, one of my favorite cuts of meat but admittedly flavorless without a fair amount of help. Lay out some very thin proscuitto slices, five or six for a good-sized tenderloin. Then add fresh sage, maybe eight or nine leaves, depending on your taste for sage. You could use whole leaves, which tends to concentrate the lovely sage taste into specific areas, but next time, I'll I roughly chop up the sage and sprinkle it evenly over the proscuitto. I've never used dried, but I'm sure it would be fine in a pinch. Pat the tenderloin dry, then rub some pepper (no salt) over the the meat. Place the meat on top of the sage/proscuitto, tucking in the skinny end, then wrap the proscuitto around the tenderloin.

Move it, seam side down, to a small roasting pan. I haven't used a rack yet, but I'll try it next time. The fat in the proscuitto renders during roasting, and I think the tenderloin stews a bit too much sitting right on the floor of the roasting pan. Anyway, roast the tenderloin in a 425-degree oven until the meat is about 140-145 degrees internally, depending on your taste for pork doneness. Let the meat sit for ten minutes, and the internal temperature will rise a few degrees. Overcooking a tenderloin is such a waste, so I am always cautious with temperature.

While the roast is resting, add some vermouth or dry white wine to the roasting pan and deglaze it, letting all the brown bits and the fat and the wine combine for a nice sauce. Add any liquids that have accumulated under the meat to the roasting pan. Slice the roast, being very careful not to disturb the wrapping, then tranfer it to a serving platter and pour the pan juices over the tenderloin and serve, to rave reviews.

A few notes - I won't salt the tenderloin because I've found the proscuitto adds more than enough salt. And that's another thing - don't get carried away with the proscuitto. Too much will make it too salty.

Pasta with bacon, onion, tomato and cabbage

2005-10-14T21:59:00.000-04:00

My husband is not a big cabbage fan but I love it sliced and sauteed. We got a big head of it in the last CSA delivery, and I needed to use it. I found this recipe for pasta with bacon, onion and tomato, and it seemed like a good accompaniment to cabbage.

Chop up some bacon, maybe four slices, and crisp them up in a dutch oven (I love my Le Creuset). Pull the bacon out with a slotted spoon and drain off most of the fat, reserving it for use with the cabbage. Put some water on to boil for the pasta. Add the onions and cook over medium heat until they are nice and brown (don't rush this step; you may need to add some reserved fat), then add about some dry white wine or vermouth and a big can of chopped tomatoes, drained, or two fresh plum tomatoes, chopped and seeded. Add some red pepper flakes to taste and some salt. Cook it down over medium for about five minutes, then add the bacon back in and lower the heat to low.

Slice up a half-head of cabbage into ribbons, no more than a half-inch thick. I discard the really thick pieces because they'll never be edible, but if you like your cabbage really crunchy and like to be uncomfortable the next day, go for it. Add some bacon fat to the skillet and put it over high heat. Put the ribbons in the hot fat, lower the flame to med-low and use tongs to turn the ribbons, like you would sautee greens or spinach. Add the pasta, like farfalle or penne, and some salt to the pot of boiling water. Time it so the pasta and cabbage are done at the same time (the cabbage shouldn't be on the heat for more than ten minutes or it will get that nasty overcooked cabbage taste that no one likes). Drain the pasta, reserving about a cup of the cooking water.

Add the pasta to the onion/bacon/tomato mixture; add whatever pasta water is necessary to keep the mixture saucy, then add the cabbage. Blend it all very well; don't be shy, and add in a good amount of parmesan cheese. The trick to this dish is to blend the flavors. Don't overcook the pasta or the cabbage, and everything should be good. It's a great savory fall dish with lots of taste and crunch. It makes about three generous servings. I've never had leftovers and my thought is that leftovers wouldn't be pretty.

Chicken Stock Zen

2005-10-14T13:25:00.000-04:00

I work from home so today I decided instead of cooking myself lunch, I'd have some cheese and crackers and make chicken stock. Really, what's not to like about chicken stock? It's cheap - chicken parts, an onion, a couple of carrots, a couple of celery stalks, some parsley, some thyme, some salt - maybe $8 worth of ingredients. And it's easy - rinse the chicken, chop up the veggies, dump it all into a big pot with a gallon of water, turn on the burner and go back to work.

Sure, you have to check on it occasionally to make sure it's not bubbling too much and skim some of the gook off the surface, but it's basically three hours of nothing. You can go back to work, watch some TV, or just stare at the friendly little bubbles rising through the stock (I did a lot of that when I wasn't working). After three or so hours, I strain it to get the big stuff out, then let it cool a bit, and skim and strain it again with cheesecloth to get the little stuff out. I let it cool a little more and divide it up into those disposable freezer containers, two or three cups each, and put them in the freezer.

A word about gook. I started making stock using rotisserie chickens from the market. I would strip most of the meat off the bones to use for something else, and use the carcass as the base of the stock. There's not much foam or fat using a cooked chicken, and I'm assuming it's because most of the fat and other liquids melted out during the rotisserie cooking process. Now I use raw chicken pieces, which results in a LOT more gray foam and shiny bubbles of fat. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Now I've got stock for risotto or soups or gnocchi or whatever! Sure, sure, I hear you - I don't have four hours to do the prep, let it cook then store it. Really? What did you do last Sunday afternoon? Or Saturday morning? I find it to be a very soothing routine, making chicken stock. I don't fuss over it but I do like to keep an eye on it because good-tasting chicken stock means good-tasting dishes down the road. It's a great thing.

Edit from later: I will say there's one thing I've always done with stock, and that is simmer it at too high a temp. I usually get about six cups of stock from sixteen cups of water, which is about half what I probably should get. So today I froze my six cups in two-cup containers and stuck a Post-it on them (which will end up on the freezer floor so I need to figure that out), reminding myself to dilute them.

Creamed Corn Stir Fry

2005-10-13T13:32:00.000-04:00

No joke! My husband is a corn freak and a few years ago he cut out a Mark Bittman recipe from the Times for a stir fry with chicken, corn kernels (canned or fresh) and canned creamed corn. Of course I turned my nose up at it. But I held onto the clipping, out of loyalty or guilt, you pick, and finally made it last night.

Bittman never forgets the little things knowing they can make a big impact, so to set off the canned goods he included minced fresh garlic and ginger, a bit of chili pepper, sherry and sesame oil. As with most stir fries, the prep took longer than the cooking but the final dish was a good one, and my husband loved it. I personally just couldn't get away from the canned taste, so next time (and there will be one), I'll substitute fresh kernels for canned. I have some cooked corn in the freezer, and that will fit the bill perfectly. I served it over leftover rice I had, stir-frying that with a little more garlic, ginger and scallions. I topped it with some cilantro (probably the last Massachusetts native cilantro I'll see this season) and some chopped cashews.

Stir frying as a technique is a great gift to a working woman. Plan ahead, keep the ingredient count down (less prep), find another set of hands during prep, cook and it's on the table in a half hour. And it's fresh (except for the canned stuff).