The Economical Epicurean

How to fill up on free samples without looking like a (total) glutton

2011-12-08T13:57:00.001-05:00

It's the most wonderful time of the year for an economical epicurean, and not because of all the gingerbread and honeybaked ham one gets to consume. Much better than that: this is the time of year when many food purveyors are more generous than usual with their free samples. It would be nice to think it's all in the spirit of giving, but, if you'll forgive my cynicism, they just know you'll be more likely to buy that $20 wheel of Humboldt Fog when you're in a state of holiday marketing hypnosis.

Filling up on free samples has long been one of my favorite pastimes. As soon as I got my driver's license, I started borrowing my parents' minivan for special weekend trips to the grocery stores that enabled my free food addiction. The store I liked best was the long-gone Eatzi's, which peddled 16 oz. cups of soup for $7 (and this was the 90s!). While not so generous in its pricing, Eatzi's was -- for a brief while, at least -- incredibly generous with its samples. It seemed that everywhere you turned there was a different mayo-and-sour-cream based dip to smother a cracker with. These dips sold for around $5 each (and this was the 90s!), so I felt minimal guilt about all the cracker-smothering I did. All good things must come to an end, though, and so did Eatzi's sample stations. It was an omen of bad times ahead, because soon enough, Eatzi's itself was gone, too. I like to think it was the lack of market demand for $7 soup and not my gluttony that brought down the house.

Back in those days, I had no shame about my flagrant displays of greed, but as I've gotten older I've learned the importance of subtlety. There's a Whole Foods not far from my office, so maybe one or two days a week (Tuesdays are the best, I've found) I'll head over there to cruise for freebies. I am not the only one. It seems many people also enjoy this pastime, but most of them appear to lack my talent for it. They stand there filling up their toothpicks with four or five cubes of cheese, stuffing their faces like squirrels before dipping in for another round. To watch it is to fully appreciate why communism is a failed form of government: people are natural gluttons and will always try to take far more than their fair share, never mind the regulatory "Please take one" signs. But there are ways to exercise one's greed without being so obvious, and there are ways to sample heartily without putting grocers out of business. Here's how to eat for free like a pro.

1. Even if you are there to just fill up on samples, you should still carry a basket or push a cart. Better yet, fill it with a couple items you don't intend to buy. Even better than that, put the item that's being sampled (not the sample itself, of course!) in the basket.

2. Okay, actually, you should try to buy something. One person isn't going to force the establishment to stop giving out free samples altogether (though I really do take full responsibility for Eatzi's ban on samples), but what if everyone was there just to fill up for free? A store without samples it would be.

3. Make several laps. Don't loiter. Take one sample and go on your merry way. Come back a minute or two later, and take another one. Repeat. You'll need your exercise anyway.

4. Look as distracted as possible. Play with your phone or recite your "grocery list" aloud. (If you don't have a grocery list, recite that one from Sesame Street: "a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter.") Make it look like an accident that you just walked right into that Mediterranean hors d'oeuvres display for the third time. "Oh, hummus, I didn't see you there!"

5. Pick up a sample, eat it, then pick up the container of whatever is being sampled. Examine it closely, as if you are seriously considering it for purchase. Read the ingredients list and say something like, "Hmm. I didn't taste the smoked paprika in there." Have another sample just to be sure.

6. Wear disguises at grocery stores where there are clerks manning the samples, so you can stop by more than once. I'm only half-kidding. They probably don't recognize every repeat offender, but it may not be a bad idea to stash a wig in your bag when you go grocery shopping.

7. If a clerk appears to be giving you the stink-eye after you've sampled one too many, look at them with a sheepish, "Aw, gee!" smile and rub your belly to show how hungry you were. If they don't give you a knowing smile in return, then start muttering incoherently about sinners and the apocalypse. They'll leave you alone.

8. Look for samples in every nook and cranny in the store. The Whole Foods I go to has this one cheese station that's hidden behind a column. Two advantages here: the bowl is nearly always filled with Gouda because so many people seem to miss it, and I can chow down out of public view.

9. Don't stuff samples into your purse. How tacky! Only ladies ages 75 and over can get away with such behavior. And, to reiterate, if everyone acted in this way there would be no more samples. So, maybe just stuff them into your pockets instead; no need to be so ravenous. Just be careful before you do laundry or all your clothes may also be sampling those brownie bites.

Reunited and it tastes so good

2011-09-22T10:08:00.000-04:00

Blog, I know I did you wrong. For months I left you cold for my other blog. A wedding blog, of all things! Ridic. But that's all over now and I realize how much I missed you. Blog, baby, will you take me back? I just want to cuddle up with you and muse about pasta, not rant about the stupid wedding deejay.

Here's the catch, though: I want to talk about cooking in my new married life because there is a lot to say. Blog, is that okay with you? Is it okay that I don't always make my dishes quite as frugally as I used to? (Marriage has its financial rewards.) Is it okay that I have cut all yellow squash from my dinner repertoire? (Marriage involves compromise.) Is it okay that I no longer subsist on raw cabbage from time to time to maintain my girlish figure? (Marriage is a commitment to stay together through thick and thin, and I take that commitment quite literally, especially the thick part.)

Funny how my last post was about pre-wedding dieting. HA! I say to that, Ha! How things have changed. While I have not exactly been "letting myself go" just yet, I've enjoyed reconnecting with two long-lost friends, Meat and Carbs. We're just letting bygones be bygones or, more accurately, letting backflab be backflab. No big deal. But the real reason for our renewed friendship is this whole married life thing. Special Someone and I like to sit down for dinner and enjoy a meal together when we're both home. I like to cook more than he does, plus my tolerance for Steak-umms is non-existent-to-quite low, so I end up doing most of the preparations. But my single gal style of cooking cannot keep up with this man's idea of a normal portion or a filling meal. I am starting to comprehend the challenge my mother used to face nightly, cooking for her bottomless pit of a husband, three ravenous sons, and an equally gluttonous daughter (back in my youthful days of turbo-charged metabolism -- man, I miss those days).

Anyway, if I were to cook traditional Economical Epicurean-style meals for Special Someone every night, he would get too skinny (and I'm still in that newlywed phase where I think we need to eat the same thing, together, every night, so for now making our own separate dinners is not an option). And no amount of Cream of Poverty soup could ever sate this fellow. So it's a trade-off: either he gets skinny or I get fat. It's more fun getting fat, so without too much further ado, I present my original recipe for the most compliment-inducing meal I have ever made for him. (Not to get all "here's a man-pleasing meal to please your man" on you -- this is genuinely delicious, and though it's not very innovative, it is surprisingly quick and inexpensive to make, and will last you for days if you're not married to Special Someone.)

Recipe: Penne with Vodka Sauce, Sausage, Shrimp, Spinach, and Sundried Tomatoes (There's got to be a less unwieldy name for this, but at least I lay it all out there, and anyway Pasta with Five Esses sounds a bit contrived.)

I know what you're thinking: "Surf and turf? No way that's economical!" True, it ain't rice and beans, but it's not as bad as you think. (My recommendations for cutting costs are in the ingredients list.) Also, I must confess I totally cheated on this one and bought jarred vodka sauce. This was the more economical thing to do since we don't have any vodka in our house for some reason, i.e., I drank it all, and cream is darn expensive. The vodka sauce I bought was this fancy, all-natural Whole Foods brand that was on sale for $3.99 (I happened to be there eating free samples for lunch and felt the sudden urge to make penne alla vodka for dinner). I'm still including homemade vodka sauce in the recipe since it's super easy and convenient to make if you're the kind of person who manages to keep vodka and cream in the house at all times. You're the kind of person I aspire to be some day.

With all the spinach in this dish, it's a complete meal. The only accompaniment it may want for is some crusty bread.

Makes 8 servings (more like 4 in our household) and reheats well for lunch and dinner over the next couple days. Total time, including prep: 30 minutes

4 T olive oil
10 garlic cloves, finely chopped (sounds like a lot, but it's part of the vodka sauce; if you use store bought vodka sauce, just use 3 or 4 cloves)
1 small- or medium-sized onion, sliced into thin strips
2 spicy Italian sausage links, casings on, sliced into thin discs (feel free to use more sausage, but in the spirit of frugality I decided to save the rest of the package for lentils and sausage later in the week)
1/2 lb. frozen precooked peeled and deveined shrimp, any size, thawed or mostly thawed, tails removed (about half a bag)
a handful of sundried tomatoes, chopped (a nonessential but surprisingly inexpensive ingredient that adds excitement to any dish!)
1 lb. dried penne pasta
1 28-oz. can whole peeled tomatoes
1/2 t salt
1/2 t sugar
1/4 c vodka
1/2 c heavy cream
6 oz. baby spinach (or the contents of one bag)
additional salt to taste and freshly ground pepper
1/2 c freshly grated Parmesan
some parsley or basil (optional -- I make mine herbless and it's fine that way)

Special Equipment: a stick blender (or regular blender or food processor)

Place the olive oil, onions, and garlic in a Dutch oven and turn on the heat to low-medium (not the usual way, but starting garlic and onions in cold oil draws out more flavor than heating the oil first). Once things are getting a little crackly, add the sausage, shrimp, and sundried tomatoes and stir everything around for about 3 minutes (the sausage and shrimp are precooked so you really just need to heat them up). If you are using store-bought vodka sauce, dump in the entire jar along with the spinach. Cover the pot and go cook your pasta.

If you are making homemade sauce, remove the shrimp and sausage from the pan and set aside. Turn up the heat to medium, add the tomatoes with their liquid along with the salt and sugar to the Dutch oven, and stir around for a couple minutes to break everything up a bit (vodka sauce traditionalists tend to puree the tomatoes first and then add them to the pot -- do this if you don't have a stick blender, but otherwise you can blend everything at the end and it will have some good savoriness from the sausage and shrimp that were cooked in the same pot). Add the vodka, and while the sauce is simmering, get to work cooking the pasta: add about six cups of water to a large pot and set it on high heat, throw in a tablespoon or so of salt once the water boils, then add the pasta and boil for 10 minutes. Drain and return to the pot, reserving a bit of the water.

At this point the vodka sauce is definitely done, so turn off the heat, stir in the cream, and if you have not already pureed the tomatoes, puree the sauce with the stick blender or transfer it to the regular blender. Stir the pasta and the shrimp and sausage into the sauce, then stir in the spinach. Do not fear that this pasta dish you made has turned into a salad -- all that spinach will wilt almost beyond recognition. Add a bit more salt if you like and some freshly ground pepper. Serve with the Parmesan cheese and the herb(s), if desired.

The Skeptic Bride's Slimdown Plan

2011-04-28T09:15:00.015-04:00

Hi, friends! Sorry I've been away for so long. And to those of you who landed here from The Skeptic Bride, welcome! This is where I used to write up my own recipes and adapt cookbook recipes to my economical tastes. The blog--not the cooking--fell under severe neglect after I met Special Someone, since who wants to spend their evenings sitting in front of a computer screen when there's an adorable boyfriend to play with? Once he became my adorable fiance, though: PANIC! I needed a new outlet dedicated entirely to wedding madness. Ergo, the Skeptic Bride was born.

Our wedding is now just three months away and I've recently been inspired to start trimming down my physique a bit in preparation for it (I'm fully aware that I sound like I've been corrupted by The Knot, and it's probably true.). Longtime readers of this blog may recall that when I used to feel fat, I would eat massive amounts of cabbage salad. However, cabbage can only do so much to keep you alive. Despite being fibrous and requiring a lot of chewing, it does little to help one feel full for a long time. (Trust me, I've laid awake many a night, post cabbage dinner binge, craving a steak and a baked potato.) So now I'm getting a little smarter: adding more protein, controlling my portions, and getting up from this chair once in a damn while.

Well, duh. Everyone knows that's how you lose weight - eat better, eat less, and move more. To prove I'm not just all hat and no cattle, I'll provide some details (probably more than you care to know), complete with a few recipes. Now, I must admit that this new weight loss program, if you can really call it that, has been going on for only about two weeks. Okay, so maybe I am all hat and no cattle. I don't even know what I weighed to begin with, so I can't provide any numbers proving this thing works. Still, my clothes are fitting better already, I feel more energetic during the day, and I'm convinced my back flab has depleted ever so slightly. So here's what I've been doing:

1. Not going to the Ethiopian lunch buffet near my newish office in NoNoPe (North of NoPe). Another "duh," but it was getting to be a real problem. Still, it's delicious and a great deal at $7.95 on weekdays. I highly recommend it to anyone who doesn't care what they weigh or can exert good self control at a buffet table.

2. Going for thirty minute "power walks" before I eat lunch. Work gets demanding and weather in these parts is strange, to say the least, so I can't do this every day. But when I do, it involves putting on tennis shoes with whatever business casual outfit I'm wearing (since my work clothes are not nearly dorky enough to begin with), pumping my arms wildly, and admiring all the pretty flowers in residential NoNoPe while walking as fast as I can for a timed half hour. It's an enjoyable, if ridiculous-looking, part of the day.

3. Cooking as much as I can. I've always cooked fairly often, but now I make a conscious effort to cook larger quantities so that I have delicious leftovers to eat for lunch the next day. This helps me avoid Item 1. Some good old standbys that have been enjoying a revival in my kitchen include: Cream of Poverty soup, sweet potato chili, Seth Quinoa Salad, other assorted vegetarian one-pot meals, the occasional peanut butter & cabbage sandwich (now made even more delicious with the addition of Geeta's chili-lime chutney) and, as often as possible, lots of hearty greens like kale and collards on the side or mixed into the pot.

4. Eating as big a breakfast as I can stand (helps control mid-morning fatigue and lunchtime binging). Actually, I made this change awhile ago, but am now expanding upon it. I used to eat, at most, a granola bar or maybe a croissant from 7-Eleven. I would wait until around 10am to eat it; otherwise, if I ate when I woke up, I would be hungry again an hour later. Now, I try to eat a huge bowl of high-fiber, high-protein cereal, drink a glass of milk AND a glass of orange juice, and maybe even top it all off with a fried or hardboiled egg. All this is consumed before I have my first cup of coffee, since coffee supposedly interferes with the absorption of iron that you get from cereal, and I'm iron-deficient to begin with. I would like to start adding smoothies to my breakfast repertoire--my favorite, easy combo is one banana, one plain yogurt, a spoonful or so of sugar, and a cup of OJ--but my blender is broken. (Hello, wedding registry!)

5A. Speaking of breakfast, eating more eggs! But eggs are not just a breakfast food any more. I've gotten really into hard-boiled eggs ever since I learned how to cook them perfectly--who knew they didn't have to have putrid grayish yellow yolks and an aroma of fart?--thanks to another great Pam Anderson technique. You just put enough water in a pan to cover them, as many as you feel like cooking but not so many that they are crowded, then place the pan on the burner and crank it up to medium-high. As soon as the water reaches a rolling boil, immediately remove from heat, cover, and let stand for 10 minutes. When the 10 minutes is up, rinse out the hot water and run the pan under cold water until it's completely cooled. Then peel your eggs or keep them in their shells if you don't want to indulge right away. Really, I never knew hardboiled eggs could be so delicious, and they're only 70 calories each. I like to bring them to work for a filling snack or chop them up and add them to salads and pasta. And now I don't have to worry about my coworkers being like "Who farted?"

5B. Did I mention I'm eating more eggs? So yeah, omelets! They are not as fattening or as troublesome to make as many people think. Using my method it's just two eggs and one egg white; you don't need to use any butter or cheese; you fill them up with as many delicious cooked veggies as can fit; and then you eat the rest of the veggies that don't make it into the fold. Omelets do not require any talent, just a nonstick pan and a big spatula. Whisk together your eggs and egg white (you could also use all egg whites if you're gung-ho) for about a minute, add a couple teaspoons of vegetable oil to a frying pan and set it on medium to medium-high heat, dump in the whisked eggs once the pan is hot, scrape around the sides as they begin to set, then--once the middle starts to set--flip the whole thing over as best you can. Don't worry if it falls apart, it will still be highly edible. Then add your precooked veggies (lately I've been using a combo of sauteed spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, and tomatoes) to one side of the omelet, flip over the other side like you're folding over a taco, and slide it onto a plate. The whole process, if your vegetables are ready to go, takes less than 5 minutes. And you can save the veggies to use in an another omelet the next day.

6. Eating smaller portions and eating more often. You always hear this bit of advice from the diet cheerleaders, but I've found it's a good one. Lately, when I pack my lunch, I divide it into two containers. I'll eat one around noon and then the other one around 3. It just doesn't work for me to put it all in the same container and attempt to eat only half, like I used to - I would inevitably finish every bite.

7. Telling the whiny food-craving part of my brain to shut the eff up. This is where the "eating less" part is extra hard because my brain always thinks I'm hungry. Like, an hour after I've eaten a full meal. This is not because I'm actually hungry, but because I just love to think about food. When this happens I'll drink lots of water or go for a little stroll around the office. If that's not enough to refocus my brain, I'll have a piece of fruit and then usually forget about food until my next meal.

8A. Not cooking so many "man-pleasing" meals. Just typing this makes me feel lame. For a long time, when I would cook for Special Someone, I would stick to those kinds of meals that guys supposedly love: roast chicken, burgers, steak, pork roast, etc., usually all prepared with some kind of irresistible buttery potato dish. This style of cooking was misguided, fattening, and more expensive and time-consuming than it needed to be. While Special Someone is by no means a foodie (though he claims to disagree with that statement), he has expressed he is happy to eat my hippie-dippy bean/green/whole grain vegetarian melanges. Not that I believe there's anything inherently wrong with a roast chicken or beef stew (they're delicious!) - it's just that, like my skinnier, single gal old self, I'm now cooking these types of meals more occasionally, and am once again saving calories, time, money, and a few innocent cows and chickens.

8B. Or, finding low-fat substitutions for "man-pleasing" meals. Once again: lame. But wait till you make this delicious alfredo (alfred-faux?) sauce. To make enough for six servings of pasta (lately we're enjoying Trader Joe's brown rice penne - it's the most delicious hippie pasta I've found), heat together in the microwave one half cup of 1% milk, one half cup of chicken broth, and two minced cloves of garlic for two minutes. In a small pot, mix together a quick roux: melt 1 tablespoon of butter and whisk in 1 tablespoon of flower. Dump in the milk/chicken broth mixture and stir it until it gets thick. Add grated Parmesan and salt and pepper and serve over pasta (the other night I mixed in sauteed shrimp, white beans, and kale, and it was great). Also brought to you courtesy of that genius Pam Anderson.

9. Trying to cut the booze. Um, not really working. Beer is one of my favorite food groups, and I am loathe to eliminate an entire food group. Still, cutting back is something I need to do. One thing that's good for people to avoid when watching their weight is sugary mixed frozen drinks. As delicious as they are, a frozen margarita has around 700 calories. Dios mio! I'll stick with beer, thank you - hopefully just one.

10. Not obsessing. Wait, what? That seems a bit contradictory to this whole long list I just wrote. Why do so many diet manifestos always end with "Don't obsess" or "Enjoy life"? Because otherwise you go crazy, that's why. When I go out to dinner, I want to be able to enjoy myself, not just order a side salad and stare longingly at everyone else's entrees. I figure, as long as I'm cooking most of my meals--all of which are nutritious and low in sugar and fat--I can indulge on those occasions when I do go out. Otherwise, this eating plan becomes a true diet and, as everyone knows, diets don't work.

Revelations

2011-01-26T18:06:00.009-05:00

You may or may not have noticed that I disappeared from the blogosphere for about 10 months. I can't really say where I've been or what I've been doing that would keep me away so long. (Oh, I did get engaged to Special Someone -- how could I refuse? -- but it's not like we don't eat.) I have been cooking just as much as ever, if not more, and have come up with a bunch of new recipes for my repertoire. But every time I would start a new post, its content would feel flimsy and my writing style too self-conscious. I'm sure this post does nothing to change either of those things, but I don't care, 'cause I'm mad as a March hare for lentil sauce.

Here's how it began, all in one whirlwind day. I stopped at Whole Foods during lunch to fill up on free samples (the key is to make several laps - disguises your gluttony while burning calories) and on my way out picked up their newsletter. Despite Whole Foods' reputation for catering to the country club set, the recipes in the newsletter are usually cheap to make, surprisingly inventive, and far from fancy. I came across one called "Linguine with Spinach, [Canned!] Artichokes, and Red Lentil Sauce." After reading about the lentils -- "when simmered until they're velvety soft, lentils make a surprisingly creamy sauce for pasta" -- I nearly slapped myself on the forehead. Lentils! Of course they would be a delicious and nutritious pasta sauce. Dal is da bomb, yo - let's Italicize it and throw that joint on some noodles! I just had to try it, that very night.

Other than the lentils and linguine, I was not at all faithful to Whole Foods' recipe. I didn't have spinach or artichokes at home, but I did have sweet potatoes, ground turkey, and broccoli and threw those in the mix instead. Sorry, Whole Foods - I realize the whole point of these recipes is to inspire people to buy your stuff, but I just raided your free samples and your free newsletter. Thanks for the inspiration, though.

I also made my lentil sauce a bit differently, with the addition of tomato paste and subtraction of lemon juice. I had some leftover tomato paste that needed to be used up immediately (learn from my mistakes and always buy yours in the tube), but no lemons. When life hands you no lemons, use tomato paste! I realize tomato paste and lemon juice could not be more different (eh...I guess they are both acidic to varying degrees and fruit-based, though that's about it), but tomato paste seemed like a nice little Italianate touch and it never hurts on pasta. Without the tomato paste, and with the addition of lemons, this would've been a whole 'nother sauce.

The lentil sauce melded deliciously with the sweet potatoes, turkey meatballs, and broccoli, but it’s so good that it doesn’t really matter what you add it to. I think it would be excellent plain over pasta, rice, or a baked potato. The vegetables, meat, or whatever else you want to throw in there are just a bonus. I’m sure the artichokes and spinach called for in Whole Foods’ original are also scrumptious. Again, sorry Whole Foods – I failed you, but it was a big win for me.

Recipe: Pasta with Lentil Sauce, Vegetables, and Turkey Meatballs

Makes 4 servings.

It looks like a lot of ingredients, but doesn’t need to be – other than the lentil sauce, everything is variable, and even the lentil sauce could be easily modified. The turkey meatballs here are incidental – I had made turkey burgers the other night and had some leftover meat. But they were really good in this dish, so if you have some ground turkey I recommend using it here. Sweet potatoes are merely a seasonal addition and a good source of nutrients. They absorbed the sauce well, but you could use another root vegetable or none at all. Same goes for the broccoli. I can’t wait to try other veggie combinations. Next up, collards and cauliflower (for the alliteration, of course), red peppers and olives, and butternut squash and green beans. And in case you want to be extra rebellious, you could even use split peas in place of the lentils if you don’t mind the homely colors. Oh! And gnocchi. The sauce would be incredible atop some gnocchi if you are so inclined. Or fish! Seriously, it would be delicious over fish, or chicken cutlets, or maybe even pork. Heck, heat some up and drizzle it over your ice cream like it’s a sunset-colored hot fudge! Okay, I think I found the limit.

For the lentil sauce:

2 t mustard seeds
2 t olive oil
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 C chicken broth (Whole Foods calls for 1 C vegetable broth and 1 C water, which is more economical. Use whatever you have.)
3/4 C red lentils
2 t turmeric (I thought this would brighten the color. Not necessary though.)
2 T tomato paste
Salt and pepper to taste

For the rest, if you want to follow what I did beyond the lentil sauce:

2 T olive oil for sauteing, more as needed
2 sweet potatoes (the smaller kind, or one yam), cut into bite-size pieces
1/2 t ground nutmeg
2 t ground cumin, divided
1/2 lb ground turkey, room temperature
1 t Adobo seasoning
1/4 t salt
2 t Worcestershire sauce
2 T chopped flat leaf parsley (only if you have it)
1/2 lb whole wheat linguine (or any pasta you half)
1 stalk broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces

The lentil sauce and sweet potatoes take roughly the same amount of time to cook, so get these started in tandem. For the lentil sauce, put a small-to-medium-sized pot on the burner and turn to medium heat. Add the mustard seeds and cook a few minutes – they are supposed to pop after a few minutes but might not. It doesn’t matter. Add the olive oil, garlic, and onion and cook for a minute. Add the lentils, broth, turmeric, and tomato paste, stir everything around, turn heat to high, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and cover the pot – these should simmer for about 20 minutes or until lentils are very soft.

Meanwhile, for the sweet potatoes and the rest, heat a large skillet to medium heat and add the olive oil. When the pan is hot, add the sweet potatoes and saute for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally to keep from sticking. While sweet potatoes are cooking, form the meatballs: in a medium size bowl, gently mix the ground turkey, 1 teaspoon of the cumin, the Adobo seasoning, salt, and Worcestershire sauce (do not overmix or the meat will get gooey and gross!) and roll into balls about 1 inch in diameter. (If you have extra onion, use it up in the meatballs.) Move the sweet potatoes to one side of the pan and sprinkle them with the nutmeg and 1 teaspoon of cumin. Add extra olive oil to the pan if it has dried up, and add the meatballs to the other side. Use tongs to turn them, making sure they get browned everywhere, about 10 minutes. Cut into one to make sure it is done (i.e., not pink, or only a teeny bit pink on the inside) - if not, keep sautein'. Check the sweet potatoes - if they are soft enough that you want to eat them, they're done! Add a little salt and pepper if you like.

In another pot (yes, I know we're up to three pots now - this is not such an economical dish for your stove or dishwasher), cook whatever pasta you are using according to package instructions. Drain and stir in the lentil sauce, which should be done by now. It will seem like a lot of sauce, but remember, you will also be adding the meatballs and vegetables.

Add the sweet potatoes and meatballs to the pasta and lentils, stir around, and cover the pot to keep it warm. In the pan you used to cook the sweet potatoes and meatballs, add a bit more olive oil and turn the heat to medium-high. Add the broccoli and stir-fry it until bright green and slightly softened. (Feel free to cook broccoli any other way - steamed, roasted, microwaved, etc. - this is just how I like mine.) Salt it a bit and throw it into the pasta. Voila! Enjoy.

Guitars, Buicks, Pineapple Pizza

2010-04-30T14:24:00.005-04:00

The following post comes courtesy of the dreamy dude in my life, known in this blog as Special Someone. Although I initially pegged him for a "he's just not that into food" kind of guy, I was clearly mistaken. Also, anyone who uses the phrase "hogwash with Hollandaise sauce" is obvi a keeper.

Hello blog-world. The esteemed but exhausted Economical Epicurean (the EE) has passed the keyboard this week to the gentleman she calls her Special Someone (he is me) in the hopes that my rambling prose may inspire her to start blogging again regularly. Now let me preface this entry by highlighting the fact that I am very much not a writer, nor particularly known for creating the type of fine food focused alliteration that you have come to expect from the EE. As a side note, I did, however, start my college career with the best of intentions on becoming an English major. My first semester I signed up for a myriad of courses including ENG 101, ENG 102, ENG 103 and so on. It wasn't until half way through the semester that I discovered these were all Engineering courses. I was not necessarily the sharpest bulb in the pencil box back then. Obvi. Unfortunately, by the point I realized my error the die was cast and I was yet another victim to the allure of the siren song of thermodynamics. Alas. Anyway, I will try to minimize the misplaced modifiers and eliminate egregious errors but I must give apologies in advance for any absence of alliteration.

With that introduction out of the way, I now bid you greetings from the moral high ground of the Special Someone Estate (SSE), conveniently located in the ultra-trendy west SoDNoB (South of Duke, North of Beltway) district of Alexandria, in the humble Commonwealth of VA. Apparently, my one requirement in writing this blog is that I must, at some point, provide an absolutely delicious recipe that can be made by you the reader for pennies on the dollar. So I will get to that. Eventually.

First, a little more about myself. Aside from food and cooking, I have many passions and hobbies in my life. Those that probably most affect my culinary orientation and the style of my recipes include old Buicks, Film Noir, the art of Rafael DeSoto, guitars, softball and collecting antique pinball machines and other assorted old junk. So basically my cooking style has both a vintage and sporty but still artsy/musical flair to it. As can be imagined, variations on the ever classic ambrosia abound in the SSE.

Now there have been some rumors spread about me in recent editions of this blog that perhaps I only eat to live. The implication being that I am not a "food purist" or, dare I say it, even a "foodie," let alone qualified to ghost write a food blog. To that I say, hogwash with Hollandaise sauce. I have three main rebuttal points supporting my love of food:

Point A. Would someone who was not into food go almost six years eating the same meals based on the day of the week? This was back in the days when I worked a lot and didn't have much time to cook nor be as creative as I might like with food, so I just picked my favorite meals and had them repeatedly. I have heard, but do not know for a fact, that Julia Child used to do the same thing. BTW, in case you would like to recreate this scrumptious meal plan: Sunday was pizza night, Monday was fish sticks with macaroni and cheese, Tuesday was steak sandwiches, Wednesday was spaghetti, Thursday was chicken and rice and Friday was taco loco time. Saturday night was a wildcard night with anything goes. For the movie fans out there this meal plan may conjure up visions of Rainman, but I assure you it was for convenience and deliciousness--not out of disdain for food or compulsive necessity. Besides, it wasn't like I had pizza on Mondays and fish sticks on Wednesday. Which would definitely have been a little strange. Definitely.

Point B. If I wasn't into culinary delights, why would my parents have gone to all the trouble of trying to set me up with someone who had their own cooking show on television (or as the hipsters out there like to call it, "TV")? True story. After I returned from living overseas a while back, my parents were going on and on about how they had found this wonderful woman for me, how she was single (at least back then) and that she seemed really nice and perky. They were sincerely describing this mystery woman as if my mom had met her in the grocery store and she was dying to meet me. Eventually they revealed this perfect match was Rachel Ray. The kicker being that of course neither of them actually knew Ms. Ray, but were just very familiar with her "TV" show and thought we would be great together, presumably due to our mutual appreciation of food. Thanks so much for that dating help Ma and Pa--the EE is better than RR anyway!

Point C. This isn't so much a rebuttal point as it is a non sequitur observation that very few food blogs seem to include much discussion about 1955 Buicks. Which, when I think about it, is really kind of sad.

So now having clearly proven my "foodie" credentials (or as we like to say on the mean streets of SoDNoB--my "food cred") it is probably time to provide today's recipe. The short name for the meal is Lasagna with Pineapple Surprise, but my sister's lovingly applied but slightly longer name for it is "What the heck is in this Lasagna? OMIGOSH it is Pineapple. Good grief, you put it in everything so I am not Surprised." I came up with this one night when I was thinking about how much I really like pineapple on pizza, although unlike in the Hawaiian tradition I prefer it with pepperoni rather than ham. Since lasagna has many of the same elements as pizza (tomato sauce, mozzarella etc.) I decided to try it in my lasagna and with that impulse, a classic meal was born. The recipe is pretty simple--make your lasagna the way you usually do, just add a layer of pineapple in the middle. If you normally put ground beef in your lasagna, probably best to not include it in this pineapple version. My sauce of preference is Ragu Super Chunky Mushroom, which seems to harmonize quite nicely with the pineapple. Sometimes I like to also add a layer of pepperoni (or you can try ham), but that will be up to your tastes and budget.

Ingredients:

Your lasagna recipe

1 can pineapple chunks or crushed pineapple (strain out as much juice as possible)

pepperoni (optional)

Anyway, hope you like it and do not consider it an iconic fail. Also, hopefully after reading this disjointed effort, the EE will now be motivated to return soon with yet another one of her great blogs!

On My Mind

2010-04-12T10:49:00.006-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about whether to continue with this blog. On the one hand, writing and cooking are two of my favorite things to do. On the other, I've been lacking inspiration for quite some time. Not really on the cooking side, but on the "coming-up-with-worthwhile-things-to-say-about-cooking" side.

About a month ago or so I got a great haircut, the kind that real grown-up women get, one that seemed to give me a new lease on life, at least for a few days, or till I realized I would have to blow-dry my hair for an hour every morning to make it look the way it first did. Similarly, perhaps a makeover to this blog would be good for a spell. Anyone know how to do that kind of thing? I am pretty tired of this generic, late '90s-ish template.

Since right now I don't have anything to say that can be condensed into a single pat post, I will resort to a kind of list of recent musings on cooking and eating. Perhaps this will spark something worthwhile for a better-crafted post next time. One can hope!

~After a brunch of oatmeal with a bruleed crust, my friend Rachel W. was inspired to go out and buy a blowtorch to fancify her morning cereal. The other day she texted me that she was making oat bran brulee. Livin' it up while stayin' regular! So, if you too own a blowtorch, that's something fun you can do. Be careful, of course!

~I've started cooking a lot differently now that a Special Someone is around. I probably don't cook for him more than once or twice a week, but when I do, it's mostly goodbye weird one-pot experiments with ingredients that may or may not work together (see: this entire blog), hello real sit-down dinners with a protein, a starch, and a green vegetable. Like the grown-up haircut, maybe it's a sign of progress. Yes, I AM worth opening that whole package of chicken breasts.

~Speaking of Special Someone, one of our (hopefully not tragic) differences is that he eats to live and I live to eat. But he raved about this one experiment I created a few weeks back, sort of a pasta puttanesca meets spaghetti bolognese. Puttanese? Bolognesca? In any case, I made a spicy tomato sauce with ground turkey (instead of ground beef - so yeah, total insult to both puttanesca and bolognese. But still delicious). It had a lot of garlic, Worcestershire sauce (no anchovies on hand), olives, ground fennel seeds. It was really good, and that is all I can think of to say about it for now.

~I tried Mark Bittman's Minimalist recipe for "weeknight tagine" from a couple weeks ago, and have a few thoughts. I'm pretty sad about the end of his blog, Bitten. The Times has condensed all its food blogs into Diner's Journal, which I guess is good news for their budget, but bad news for those of us who have no interest in restaurant trends or wine. Anyway, this tagine, while delicious, was not the first dish of his I've tried that makes me question how well he tests his recipes. He calls for using whole chicken thighs, browning them on either side, and then basically braising them for fifteen minutes. The idea is to turn a traditionally time-consuming recipe into one you can make any weeknight. However, chicken thighs take a much longer time to cook than this recipe implies. My suggestion, if you are strapped for time, is to cut up the chicken into chunks. You can cook them whole, but it will take at least half an hour, not fifteen minutes. Other than that minor misdirection, the recipe is a near perfect mix of sweet and savory.

~As always, I'm really late in catching onto a food craze, but the banh mi sandwich is my new obsession. And it turns out I no longer need to travel all the way to wretched Virginia to get my two-buck fix: Saigonese in Wheaton makes one that, in my opinion, is superior to the original Banh Mi DC Sandwich in Falls Church. Eat that, NoVa!

So, I guess that's all I have to say for now. In the meantime, I'll hang around the stove and see what happens.

Vacation Inspiration

2010-03-09T10:13:00.006-05:00

A couple weekends ago, I tried to relive a shortened version of last year's Florida trip. My friend Sarah and I flew down to Tampa, surprised her sister, Emily, who lives in the area and who took the incredible photograph above, and spent a few days cruising around St. Pete Beach and thereabouts. Back in Washington, there were still 10-foot tall, prison-gray snowbanks lining the streets, so I was grateful to be anywhere but home.

Sarah and I rode bikes from Dunedin to Tarpon Springs, a Greek fishing community and evidently the nation's natural sponge headquarters - who knew? We had a delicious early dinner Mykonos, a restaurant near the piers, where I ordered a baked lamb-and-orzo special. It was so good I would've jumped up and done the hora in its praise, had my legs not been so sore from the first bike ride of the year.

I came home to the chilly air and lingering snow, determined to make a baked lamb-and-orzo special at home. I know you're scoffing, "Lamb? And she calls herself economical." But this impressive dish that serves up to 10 people can be prepared for under $20, easily. Allow me to break it down for you.

Lamb shoulder, like pork shoulder of the previous post, is on the fatty side, so it tends to be a lot cheaper than leg of lamb or lamb chops. I found a big ol' 3-pounder at Shopper's for $15, and according to my mother there are better deals out there (try Costco or Middle Eastern or Indian markets). The other main ingredients in the dish - orzo and canned tomatoes - are cheap, and the rest of the ingredients are likely already in your cabinets or fridge. When the lammy is slow-simmered in a simple tomato sauce, then baked with the orzo, the results are a meaty miracle (4 out of 4 other Owens who tried it, plus 1 out of 1 Sanders, concur on this point).

I poked around the internets for a recipe, and was initially disappointed to find that the nearest version of this dish came not from some wrinkled yaya but from Martha Stewart (adapted from Greek cooking authority Vefa Alexiadou, in case you were worried my recipe is not authentic enough). Some of the steps in Martha's adaptation seemed a bit gratuitous to me, so I cut them out with no ill effects (e.g., she has you cook the lamb and tomatoes in a skillet and the orzo separately in a pot, when all you really need is one Dutch oven to do everything). I also lightened up the amount of butter and olive oil and it's still delicious, so you're welcome. I seem to be lacking eloquence lately - or maybe it's all the time now - so I will conclude simply: OMG DELICIOUS.

Recipe: Lamb and Tomatoes Baked in Orzo

Adapted from Martha Stewart. Makes 8-10 servings, and keeps well for a few days. The leftovers are delicious. Although the cooking time is long, the prep is easy. Sauteed spinach in garlic is the perfect accompaniment.

1/4 C olive oil
4 to 6 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
3 lbs. boneless lamb shoulder, cut into 1 or 1.5 inch chunks
1 15-oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 15-oz. can diced tomatoes
1 T red wine vinegar
1/2 t sugar
salt and pepper
1 lb. orzo
2 T butter
chopped rosemary from 2 or 3 sprigs (optional)
2.5 C hot water (more may be necessary)
kefalotiri cheese for sprinkling (unless your name is Pappas, you probably don't have this on hand; use Parmesan instead)
chopped fresh parsley (optional)

Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium heat, add the garlic, and add the lamb in batches, being sure not to overcrowd. Brown the lamb pieces on all sides and remove from the pot, reserving the liquid. Add the tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, and a hearty dash of salt and pepper, and bring to a simmer. Add the lamb back to the pot and simmer in the tomato mixture for 45 minutes. Preheat oven to 350. Turn off the burner and add the orzo, butter, rosemary to the pot, and give it a good stir. Add the water to the pot, give it a stir, and place the pot in the oven. Bake for about an hour, or until orzo is al dente, checking on the pot continuously to make sure the dish doesn't seem too dry - if it does, add about a cup of hot water at a time and stir it around. Remove from oven and stir in cheese and parsley.

(Above photo courtesy of the talented Emily Burnett Magdics. Check out her work!)

Stoo for yoo

2010-02-09T15:36:00.007-05:00

Ever since I read Ruth Reichl's first memoir, Tender at the Bone, I had been fixing to make pork and tomatillo stew, a recipe that came out of her hippie days at a co-op restaurant in Berkeley. I finally made it two Sundays ago for a herd of hungry snow travelers, and it was just as good as I expected. So good, in fact, that it even stole the spotlight from a big beautiful molcajete full of freshly made guacamole.

I had meant to make it with beef, since I wasn't sure that every visitor to my house was pro-pork, but there had been a run on all bovine products at my Safeway. Plus, pork is cheaper - especially when you stray from the recipe's recommendation of lean pork and choose a big, fatty shoulder roast (about $5.50 for a 3-pound hunk). The fat adds flavor to the stew, and I for one think extra fat is a very welcome thing when you've spent the day plodding through thigh-deep snow or shoveling out a driveway.

I had never cooked with tomatillos before, but what a fun little green fruit they are! They're also remarkably cheap. I bought most of the stew's ingredients, with the exception of the pork, at the Latin market on the ground floor of my office building in NoPe. Here a 2-lb package of tomatillos cost only $1.50 (found some other great bargains, too: limes are 25 cents each; a huge bunch of cilantro is 50 cents; a can of Goya black beans is 75 cents). To cook with tomatillos, you must remove the papery husks, and they may need to be scrubbed if there's still paper stuck to the skin. With the husks removed, a tomatillo looks like a cross between a tomato and a green pepper (their stems are similar). It's the main ingredient in many salsa verdes, and it adds a nice, tart, almost vinegary flavor to this particular stew.

The stew disappeared in a matter of minutes. While I do believe second and third helpings are the sincerest forms of flattery, I would have loved to have kept more to myself. But if you are looking for an easy and cheap dish to please - I mean, really please - a big crowd, this is it.

Recipe: Pork and Tomatillo Stew

Adapted from Ruth Reichl. Makes about 12 servings (per my quantities - you can find the original recipe here). I'm sure it would also be very good with chicken or beef in place of pork, or you could even omit the meat and add extra beans for a veg version. It tastes even better the second day.

1/4 C cooking oil
cloves of one whole head of garlic, peeled
3 lbs. pork shoulder roast, cut into cubes
salt
pepper
2 bottles dark beer (I used Negra Modelo in keeping with the Latin theme)
12 ounces orange juice
1 to 2 lbs. tomatillos, quartered
1 to 2 lbs. Roma tomatoes, peeled and chopped (alternatively, you could use canned tomatoes)
2 large onions, coarsely chopped
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped and divided
2 jalapeño peppers, chopped
2 14-ounce cans black beans
juice of 1 lime
sour cream, for serving (optional)

Heat oil in a very large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add garlic cloves, then add pork in batches so as not to crowd, and brown on all sides. Remove pork as the pieces get brown on all sides, and add salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, add beer and orange juice to a medium-sized pot over high heat. Add tomatillos and tomatoes, bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer, and cook about 20 minutes or until tomatillos are soft. Set aside.

When all pork is browned, pour off all but about a tablespoon of the oil in the pan. Add onions and cook about 8 minutes, or until soft. Stir, scraping up bits of meat. Add chopped cilantro and pepper and salt to taste. Put pork back into pan. Add tomatillo mixture and chopped jalapeños. Bring to a boil, lower heat, cover partially and cook about 2.5 hours. Check for seasonings, add black beans and lime juice and cook an additional 10-15 minutes. Serve with a dollop of sour cream in each bowl, if desired.

Lynne Rossetto Awesome

2010-02-02T17:56:00.018-05:00

I listen to a lot of public radio - begrudgingly. To me, it's ten times more tolerable than any other news radio, but this declaration comes with a lot of caveats. For example, I detest that faux-everyman windbag Garrison Keillor, yet his sinister droll still wakes me up every morning (WAMU airs The Writer's Almanac at an ungodly hour). I think This American Life tries too hard to look for the deeper meaning, but I subscribe to their podcast anyway (if you haven't heard "The Breakup" episode, you must). I think the hosts of Morning Edition are shrill snotfaces, but they nonetheless keep me company on every morning commute. I get annoyed when NPR reporters over-enunciate foreign words and names, but I still like how they cover corners of the world that most mainstream news sources avoid.

The one blameless thing public radio has to offer is Lynne Rossetto Kasper. If you ever saw "The Delicious Dish" skits on SNL (see Alec Baldwin's "Schweddy balls" if you can't immediately recall), they were designed to mock Lynne's show, The Splendid Table. These skits were funny but unfair, because The Splendid Table is NOT for boring cat ladies. Oh, wait...

Not surprisingly, I love Lynne and I love her show. Every episode begins with a visit from Jane and Michael Stern of Roadfood, who travel the country in search of the best local dives (I've tried a number of Roadfood recommendations, and the Sterns have never steered me wrong). Then Lynne usually does a few interviews with food experts, and gets into the hows and whys of such titillating topics as waxed versus unwaxed cheese. Okay, I admit it's not for everyone, but you have to appreciate Lynne's great big guffaw and her genuine interest in her guests' and callers' seemingly trivial gastronomical concerns. Listen with Lynne, and you too can become impassioned about the history of ramen, the politics of bananas, and the art of knife-sharpening. Plus, she often has cool guests like Amy Sedaris (though Lynne did seem a little unsure how to react when Amy kept mentioning her drug dealer). And lest you think this show is for food snobs, even The Splendid Table's resident wine critic, Josh Wesson, is credited for helping cheap wine earn some respect in the oenological domain.

Every week Lynne sends me (along with thousands of other public radio nerds with cats and M.A. degrees) an email with a recipe that she usually comes up with herself. I always read them through to the end, where she signs off "Have a great week" (you have a great week too, Lynne!), but seldom follow them. There was one that caught my eye a few weeks ago, a recipe Lynne adapted called "Salad of Pineapple and Winter Greens with Warm Roasted Chile-Coconut Dressing." The title was a bit lengthy for my taste, but what sparked my attention was the pineapple. A certain Special Someone I know is such a big fan of pineapple that he even puts it in lasagna. I hadn't cooked him anything other than a fried egg sandwich, if that even counts as cooking, so I set out to follow Lynne's recipe and make him a Splendid Table-quality first dinner.

The pineapple fan liked it (he even ate the soggy, dressing-logged leftovers for the next two days), which I guess was the whole point, but I was underwhelmed. But, as I stated before, Lynne is blameless, so I'm sure I did something wrong. Using the leftover ingredients I had bought for the salad -- peanuts, Thai basil, fish sauce, daikon radish -- I created a different salad a few nights later, one that I'm thrilled to include on this blog. It's just a remnant of Lynne's, and doesn't even have the titular pineapple, but it's definitely worth sharing. Have a great week.

Recipe: Lynne Rossetto Kasper-Inspired Crunchy Salad with Peanut Dressing

I'm having deja vu: I think I write about salads like this about 25 percent of the time, as they are my staple for weight loss attempts. But each one always seems better than the last one, so I can't resist posting them. This one contains two of my new favorite ingredients - daikon radish and fish sauce. I'm really late in jumping on the daikon radish and fish sauce bandwagons, but I'm glad I finally did. Fish sauce adds that mysterious umami taste (Lynne, as you may have guessed, loves talking about umami) and daikon is that delicious not-too-sharp radish you find in banh mi sandwiches and some Thai salads. Both are really inexpensive at Asian markets. I also used red cabbage in this salad; normally I buy green cabbage since it tends to be cheaper, but red and green are both 99 cents a pound at H Mart, so I went with the more visually appealing red. As with any salad I create, proportions are up to individual tastes, so this recipe is just a guideline.

Makes 4 generous servings. Lasts up to five days in the refrigerator. Add chicken, shrimp, or tofu to make it a more filling meal.

For the salad:
1/2 head of red cabbage (use green if you prefer)
1 carrot, shredded or cut into matchsticks
2 green onions, sliced (use green and white parts)
1/2 daikon radish, cut into matchsticks
1 handful Thai basil, cut into julienne, or cilantro
1 handful roasted, salted peanuts, chopped (food processor makes this much easier; cashews or macadamia nuts would also be good)
juice of 1 lime

For the dressing:
3 T peanut butter
2 T rice vinegar
1 T honey
1 t fish sauce
1 clove garlic, minced
a good sprinking of crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 t salt
water to thin the dressing, if desired

Mix together the salad ingredients; add the lime juice. Whisk together the dressing ingredients; add a few drops of water if you like a thinner consistency. Check seasonings and adjust as needed. Toss dressing with salad.

Spanx Salad

2009-12-28T13:43:00.008-05:00

If you don't know what Spanx are, you are probably not a woman between the ages of 18 and 55 (beyond 55, we get into girdles). Spanx are high-tech undergarments that help to smooth out our squishy bits. Since I have been eating catered cocktail party food almost every night for the past month, and wearing form-fitting dresses on most of these occasions (I'm a salesgirl, not a callgirl, but sometimes there's not much distinction), Spanx tights have been indispensable.

I was outraged when a now-former gentleman caller of mine boneheadedly suggested it would be better to "just get rid of" the jiggly parts than hide them under Spanx. To paraphrase the great Destiny's Child, he wasn't ready for this jelly. Still, it would be nice to not feel bloated and gelatinous all the time*, so last night I created this powerhouse salad to help me recover from a month's worth of Christmas cookies, vodka tonics, bacon-wrapped canapes, and things served with Tartar sauce. It's delicious and filling, and it will make me svelte - not that I expect to get rid of my Spanx any time soon.

*Yes, I'm singing the same old song - see here, here, and probably elsewhere for more posts of this kind.

Recipe: Spanx Salad
Makes 2 hearty main course servings. Can be served warm, cold, or at room temperature. The main ingredient is quinoa, the seed with superpowers. Apparently you can subsist on a quinoa-only diet and live to be 120, it's got so many life-sustaining nutrients. With the addition of broccoli, spinach, and nuts, now you can live to forever - and look good doing it!

1 C quinoa
2 C water
1 T olive oil
1 head of broccoli, florets and stalks cut into bite-sized pieces
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 C nuts (any kind - I had a leftover mix of almonds, walnuts, and pecans), chopped
a hearty sprinkling of red pepper flakes
2 C fresh spinach, tough stems removed
juice of half a lemon
a sprinkling of ground nutmeg (I'm thinking ginger would also be great, and turn this into a whole 'nother salad)
salt and pepper to taste
1 handful chopped fresh parsley (optional)

In a saucepan, add the quinoa and water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, cover pot, and cook for an additional 10 or 15 minutes, or until water is mostly absorbed. Fluff quinoa with a fork and remove from heat.

While quinoa is cooking, heat olive oil in a frying pan on medium heat. Add broccoli, increase heat to medium-high, and stir-fry for five minutes (add more olive oil if the pan dries out). Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and stir-fry another few minutes. Reduce heat to low-medium and add spinach, cooking until it's wilted. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Mix in the quinoa, nutmeg, salt and pepper, and parsley.

Notes from Snowdown 2009

2009-12-21T10:27:00.006-05:00

Some lessons for throwing a holiday party during the "Blizzard of the Century," or is it just "Blizzard of the Decade"? Either way, I am still trapped in a knee-deep winter wonderland, with not much to do besides write in this damn blog.

1. Obviously, make tons of food and have ample booze reserves, even if the attendance list is reduced by more than half due to inclement weather. Traipsing through two miles' worth of blizzard builds a big appetite. There were surprisingly few leftovers, and we were clean out of beer a little too early.

2. Maybe we would've had more beer left if I didn't drink about 28 Sierra Nevada Celebration Ales. Whoops. Also, try to stay awake until all your guests leave (or crash on your couch, still wearing their snowboots, as the case may be).

3. This is a no-brainer, but party guests will eat anything if it's wrapped in bacon: paper clips, lint, rubber bands, Christmas ornaments. But they will especially like devils on horseback, which is fancyspeak for bacon-wrapped, walnut-stuffed dates. (Actually, I think official devils on horseback contain pecans, not walnuts, but it really doesn't matter when there's bacon involved). Buy one package of bacon (not the thick kind), one container of pitted dates, and one bag of walnut halves. Chop the walnuts so they are thin enough to fit into the dates. The dates and walnuts will make sweet, sweet love, wrapped in a delicious bacon blanket. Gets me all hot and bothered just thinking about it. Oh, use kitchen scissors to cut the slices of bacon crosswise and roll them around the dates. Place them on a baking sheet in a 500 degree oven and bake till the bacon is crispy, about 10 minutes. Serve with toothpicks.

4. It's really easy to make a lot of varieties of crostini, and people will also go wild for these. If you don't have time/inclination to bake your own bread, buy a good quality pre-sliced crusty loaf. Cut each slice into halves or thirds. Set aside and make a couple different toppings, like caramelized onions (the fabulous Miriam aka Hungry Grad has a good recipe) or my sherry mushrooms (just slice up a bunch of mushrooms and half an onion and cook in a couple tablespoons of butter on medium-high heat; add a sprinkling of sugar to aid delicious brownedness; and splash in a good helping of sherry or red wine to make a reduction sauce). These go great spread on slices of bread with goat cheese or blue cheese, or just plain. Assemble and heat in the oven on a baking sheet a few minutes before serving, so everything is nice and warm and melty.

5. Ooh, I almost forgot! Another delicious crostini uses just two cans of white beans, drained; a few cloves of garlic, minced; a third cup or so of olive oil; the juice of half a lemon; salt and pepper; and some chopped, fresh sage and parsley. Mix it all together and dollop onto slices of bread.

6. I don't care what the food snobs say, baked brie is a timeless party classic. Don't bother buying or making puff pastry, though. Just use refrigerated crescent roll dough, a small wheel of Brie, and some kind of jam or chutney (see #7 for recipe for delicious pear chutney, below). Spread out the crescent roll dough as if making a pizza. Place the wheel of brie, rind on, on top of the dough and spread jam or chutney over the rind. Wrap up the brie in the dough as if it's a gift (it truly is!). Brush a bit of egg on top of the dough to get a golden crust. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, or till golden brown. Serve with crackers or slices of French bread.

7. Another gem from Laurie Colwin, my favorite food writer of all time: pear chutney. This stuff has many great uses, among them as a spread for baked brie or a dip for devils on horseback. In a heavy pot on the stove, cook together 3 or 4 large, firm pears (cored but not peeled, and chopped into chunks), 2 minced garlic cloves, 2 t salt, 2 t hot paprika, 2 t ground coriander, 1/2 C vinegar, 1 C raisins (I used Craisins in a pinch), and 1 T ground ginger. When the pears are tender add 1/2 C brown sugar and cook it down till "sludgy but not liquidy." This is not in Colwin's directions, but I like to grind up everything in the food processor if using as a dip.

8. See the recipe for Krunk Jewce, Inquisition Punch, or whatever you want to call this delicious sangria-esque concoction made with very well-disguised Manischewitz - also courtesy of the fabulous and clever Miriam. Truly, a breakthrough in Kosher mixology.

9. Per request, here's my recipe for these delectable little treats that are sort of a cross between chewy molasses cookies and gingersnaps, based on Shirley Corriher's "Cracked Surface Crunchy Gingersnaps" (I make them so that they are not all that crunchy). Before baking, they are rolled in regular granulated sugar, which lends them a festive, shimmery cast once they come out of the oven! They are spicy and gingery and perfect for this kind of weather. Cream 1 and 2/3 C sugar and 1.5 sticks butter, add 1/4 C molasses and blend well. Blend in egg on low speed. Set aside and whisk together 2 and 1/4 C flour, 2 t baking soda, 1/2 t salt, 1 heaping T ground ginger, 1 heaping t ground cinnamon, 1/2 t ground cloves, and 1/2 t ground nutmeg. Add the dry mixture to the wet and form a dough. Roll dough into 1.5 inch balls, then roll them in a plate full of sugar. Bake on baking sheets lined with parchment paper for 8 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Remove, and leave on the baking sheets for another minute or two before removing to a plate.

10. If setting out a vegetable platter, know that carrots are more popular than celery. Just FYI.

11. If people can't tell what something is, they are not very likely to eat it. Curse you, weird feta and red pepper dip with overly pungent briny cheese tang!

12. This is not food- or drink-related, but it is perhaps a lesson in resourcefulness. Say you want to build a fire, but you forgot to collect enough kindling wood and now all the sticks in your yard are buried under several feet of ice. If you are anything like me, about half the furniture in your house has been picked up off the side of the road. You are very likely to own a recycled, left-for-dead Ikea wicker chair that has a big hole in the seat and is pretty much unsafe for anyone but a cat to rest upon. Allow your burlier guests to destroy this chair - it will keep them occupied for at least half an hour. Then, throw the pieces to the flames! You will have the hottest, most raging pyre of all time, and your frostbitten friends will be very happy they traveled near and far to enjoy it.

The Fried Egg Sandwich Gets Its Due

2009-12-04T14:12:00.005-05:00

Is there anything better than a well-made fried egg sandwich? I submit that there is not.

I finally exhausted my supply of Thanksgiving leftovers and have yet to make another trip to the grocery store; hence, many fried egg sandwiches have been consumed this week. Lest you think this post is a cop-out for a real recipe, I must stress that not all fried egg sandwiches are created equal and that it is imperative that all human beings know how to make a good one.

The fried egg sandwich has not been a very talked-about item in my lifetime, possibly because for years eggs were demonized as agents of high cholesterol. Pair them with the words "fried" and "sandwich" and you've got yourself a figurative heart attack. Eggs have made a big comeback in recent years, I think due to two things: their low cost and the faddishness of raising chickens in the city. Rarely a day goes by without me stumbling across the term "farm eggs" in some blog. I used to think the term was redundant - don't all eggs come from a farm? - but in this usage "farm" is meant to imply "happy hen haven." So, it's now very common to see hundreds of different recipes for baked eggs, poached eggs, and the newly fashionable migas, but what about the quietly delicious and not-that-bad-for-you fried egg sandwich? It demands our attention.

I've noticed at homes and roadside diners alike that some people equate frying with cooking at high heat. When it comes to eggs, nothing could be further from the truth. For, as we know, even when you hard-boil eggs, you are not actually boiling them (or at least you shouldn't). Fried eggs must be fried slowly and at low heat, whether you like yours sunny side up or over hard. Turning the burner knob any more than a quarter of the way around will produce eggs the consistency of latex gloves, and no one wants to eat that.

It does not matter whether you use white or wheat bread, but one thing is for sure: the bread must be toasted. The nice crunch of toast provides a great textural contrast to the softness of the egg. If the bread is not toasted, the sandwich lacks interest.

A piece of cheese is always encouraged, and although it can be nice to experiment with different cheeses, I find that sharp cheddar is always the best default. But I advise against white cheddar, if only for aesthetic reasons. An orange-hued cheddar against the dark yellow egg yolk evokes a beautiful sunset, and white cheddar simply does not achieve that effect.

Recipe: Fried Egg Sandwich The Right Way
Makes one sandwich. In the summertime, when there are good tomatoes, this delicious sandwich can become something sublime.

a drop of cooking oil (any kind you want)
1 egg
2 pieces of sandwich bread (any kind you want)
1 slice of sharp cheddar (Trader Joe's is the best value)
salt and pepper

Add the oil to a nonstick skillet or cast iron pan, and set it to low-medium heat. I use very little oil and just try to spread it around well, but you can use more if you want. When you cook eggs, the pan should preheat, so let the oil sit at this temperature for about five minutes, then reduce the heat to low. Break the egg directly into the pan and cook at least until it sets, about 3 minutes. Meanwhile, toast the bread. Depending on how you like your eggs, you have a number of options: remove the egg now if you like fairly runny eggs; let it cook another couple minutes without flipping if you like sunny-side up; let it cook another couple minutes and then flip and cook yet another couple minutes if you like over-easy; let it cook another few minutes, flip, and let it cook for another five to seven minutes if you like over-hard (the yokes are completely solid). Remove, set on one piece of bread, add salt and pepper to your taste, and top with the slice of cheese. Put it all together with the other piece of bread and enjoy.

Hurry hurry hurry, get your money ready

2009-11-28T16:42:00.004-05:00

QUICK! All 10-16 lb. turkeys are on sale for $5 at Safeway (and probably at other gro stos, too) for the rest of the weekend. These birds cost around $28 pre-Thanksgiving, so you will be saving like 85 percent, according my rough, English major calculations. And you can freeze it till Christmas (of 2010, if you want) if it seems too soon to start gorging on gobblers again so soon after Thanksgiving.

Not Talkin' Turkey

2009-11-23T12:04:00.006-05:00

Thanksgiving is only three days away, but this year I refuse to add to the Best Side Dishes and Turkey Techniques blogversation. I am still bristling over last year's stuffing episode. Bored of the perennial basic bread stuffing from Joy of Cooking, I went to the trouble of also making a sausage and cornbread stuffing. It was both completely delicious and completely untouched. (Republicans...I should've known.) Maybe your relatives are more adventuresome than mine, but if not, then I recommend you temporarily stop culling the food blogs - except for this one, of course - and stop dreaming up newfangled renditions of sweet potato casserole. Remember, it's only once a year that marshmallows get their place at the dinner table.

Better to leave the improvisation to chili (with apologies to Texans and Cincinnati residents), because chili, unlike stuffing or gravy, doesn't have to mark a special occasion. A couple weeks ago my parents came back from Savannah, Georgia, where they had serendipitously stumbled upon a chili cook-off. My dad raved about a sweet potato chili he tried and said it seemed like it could've been a "Diana Owen Original" (his words). I only wish I had thought of it myself! It sounded so good that I set to making one, and it turns out there are already about 200 sweet potato chili recipes on the internet. Mine loosely borrows from a few of these, but it is mostly a DOO (Diana Owen Original). Not to brag, but it's delicious and really good for you -- and it hits the spot when you're watching the Redskins break another little piece of your heart.

Recipe: Sweet Potato Chili
Makes about 12 servings. Like other kinds of chili, it gets better after a day or two. I've tried to make it a complete meal by adding kale for greenery. Cornbread is a welcome accompaniment, of course. I'm an enthusiastic recent convert to Alton Brown's creamed corn cornbread.

Whatever cooking oil you want, enough to cover the bottom of a large pot
2 large onions, chopped
4 large yams or 7 small sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into 1-inch cubes
about 6 cloves garlic, chopped (no need to mince)
2 T chili powder
1 t cumin
1 t ground coriander
1 t ground nutmeg
1 t ground ginger
1 t cayenne pepper
1/2 t chili sauce (I used homemade Mao Zedong Chili Paste)
zest and juice of one orange (sounds weird, but gives this chili a unique flavor and a great scent)
1 28-oz. can tomatoes, not drained (I used whole plum, but crushed or even diced would probably be fine)
1 can cheap beer
1 28-oz. can kidney beans, not drained
1 28-oz. can black beans, drained (so they don't turn the chili an unappetizing color)
1/2 lb. kale, coarsely chopped
1/2 C fresh cilantro, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat and add the onions. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, then add the sweet potatoes, spices, and chili sauce. Cook for another 15 minutes or so, or till the sweet potatoes begin to soften (add more oil if the pot starts to dry up). Throw in the orange zest and juice, tomatoes, and beer, bring to a boil, and reduce heat and simmer for about 40 minutes. Adjust seasonings if you want. Add the beans and kale and cook another 25 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in cilantro and salt and pepper to your taste.

Grocery Stores: A Curmudgeonly Rant with Maybe Some Practical Use

2009-11-09T14:23:00.023-05:00

For a long time I had been meaning to write some kind of guide to area grocery stores, but I'd never felt much urgency about it until one day recently when I was shopping at the Bethesda Trader Joe's and thinking a steady diet of raw cabbage salad might help awaken my girlish figure from the dead. There wasn't any cabbage in the produce department, so I went ahead and paid for my other items. The cashier kindly asked me if I found everything I was looking for and I asked if they had any cabbages lurking in the warehouse. Her answer: "Oh, we only stock cabbage around St. Patrick's Day."

WHAT?!? It was hard to maintain my composure and I had to remind myself that these ridiculous policies are not up to the cashiers. It's unbelievable to me that any grocery store, even a self-proclaimed "unique" one like TJ's, would fail to stock such a mundane item as cabbage, one that something like 90 percent of humans consume. On the other hand, I think it probably says more about the way people cook (or don't cook, as it were) than it does about the store itself. The ideal Trader Joe's customer, I suppose, thinks it's quaint to make corned beef and cabbage for their annual St. Patty's Day drunkfest, but otherwise would never cook such a lowly vegetable with any regularity (heh, regularity and cabbage, get it?) -- or cook at all for that matter, considering the store's emphasis on pre-made foods. This might also explain why TJ's sells Orange Muscat Champagne vinegar, but you'd be SOL if all you want is plain old white vinegar to make brining solutions or Almost-No-Knead bread.

Despite my frustrations with Trader Joe's (and just about every other food purveyor I've ever visited), I still shop there almost weekly. When it comes to dairy products, TJ's prices-relative-to-quality can't be beat. Wait -- scratch that -- their milk's expiration date is often, like, tomorrow. But it is the place for cheese, butter, and eggs. Love-hate, that's how I am with every grocery store. Below, my take on where to shop (and not to shop), depending on what you're buying. Sadly, even in this age of one-stop shopping, I have yet to find a grocery store that satisfies most of my (admittedly demanding) needs.

Some caveats: This list definitely has a southern MoCo bias since I live in Bethesda and work in NoPe, not far from Silver Spring, but most of the stores I go to are major regional or national chains that don't have too much variation from store to store. I have left out Giant from this list; I personally find it's a lot more expensive than Safeway and the quality is not much better, though I know some people will vehemently disagree. I've also left out Harris Teeter -- I'm a Marylander through and through, and it's only just recently made the long trek from Virginia.

Trader Joe's

Love: Like I said a couple paragraphs ago, this is where you go to buy most stuff that comes from an udder. Just be sure to always check dates on milk, half-and-half, and cream -- you may come across some rare antiques. Cage-free eggs are also a lot cheaper here than at most grocery chains. Some other things I buy at Trader Joe's because of the price/quality correlative: coffee, olive oil, dried pasta, some jarred goods (e.g., olives, capers, pickles), granola bars (only $1.99 per box and the best store-bought variety I've tried), lemons (only $1.59 for a bag of six! That's pretty much unheard of, unless you live in Florida or California), frozen fruit and veggies, canned beans (unfortunately they don't sell dried beans, grrr), bread, jams and jellies, nuts, dried fruit, and two novelty favorites, smoked salmon pieces and mini boiling potatoes. I don't often buy meat there, mainly because I hardly ever cook meat, but I have found that their ground beef and ground turkey is reasonable.

Hate: I hate them 'cause they hate me. It's clear that Trader Joe's likes you better if you don't make anything from scratch because they make more money off all their pre-packaged stuff (a lot of which, I'll admit, is pretty good, but I'm too cheap to buy it). For example, they sell lasagna "kits" but not lasagna noodles. *Wrings hands in fury!* I also avoid most of their produce since it's usually pre-packaged and I prefer to select my own quantities. TJ's is pretty lame when it comes to baking ingredients -- some of their mixes aren't bad, but if you do a lot of baking from scratch, better stick to Safeway or Shopper's. No 5-pound bags of flour to be found. Don't bother shopping here for cleaning supplies or toiletries, unless you can justify spending $5.50 on a tube of Tom's of Maine. And finally, don't get too attached to any one particular item, because TJ's may just decide to drop it one day. I've asked employees on separate occasions about decisions to stop selling Kashi Good Friends and frozen edamame (which has since been brought back), and the reason both times was "a disagreement with the vendor." Be wary of any grocery store that hides behind a chipper nautical theme, all the while burning bridges!

In short: a great place to shop if your idea of cooking means removing from box and reheating; otherwise, stick to mainly dairy products, bread, nuts, and jarred goods.

Safeway

Love: Really, the main thing to love about Safeway is watching all the numbers drop down on the cash register screen after you've scanned your bonus card. The sales can be great, but if you don't have a bonus card, there is absolutely no point in patronizing this pit of putrescence. The produce is pathetic, the meat is....oh, right, I'm supposed to say what I love about Safeway. Okay, so not all their produce is pathetic. Root vegetables and members of the onion family are inexpensive, plus they're hardy enough that it's okay if you don't buy them brand new (trust me, you won't be doing that if you shop here). There's a good selection of baking ingredients with a good range of prices and quantities. The same goes for peanut butter, cooking oils (but not olive oil - TJ's is the best value), and some dried goods like rice, beans, and pasta. Prices on cleaning supplies, food storage items, and hygiene products are competitive, though not as good as Target's. But in all honesty, I'm just here for the cat litter -- the Arm & Hammer brand, which I've determined after rigorous testing and observation has the most effective clumping ability and therefore the lowest changing frequency and consequently the best value, is usually on sale!

Sorry, I forgot for a moment that this blog is about food. If you're still reading...

Hate: Where do I even begin? Produce is often old and overpriced relative to its quality. Most greens are pre-bagged and those that aren't are no longer very green. Citrus fruit is exorbitant, berries are moldy, etc., etc. You know how it's supposed to be best to shop the outer aisles of the grocery store? Well, the opposite is true of Safeway. Stay away from most produce, most dairy (unless, again, you are going antique shopping), most poultry (Perdue's flavorless birds rule the Safeway roost), all fish (it's expensive and already smells before you even take it home; that's a bad sign), and all bread (way overpriced compared to TJ's). So what does that leave you with? Things you should generally avoid eating, such as Chips Ahoy and Clorox.

In short: Go here for vegetables with long lifespans, baking ingredients, some dried goods, and items that are not actually food.

Shopper's Food Warehouse

Love: If Safeway is food purgatory, then Shoppers is food hell, as many people seem to believe. I tend to disagree. Yes, their produce can be questionable, but not much more so than Safeway's, and at least it's cheaper and there's a better variety of it. The good things I've found at Shoppers are always-inexpensive generic Richfood brand items (Safeway, on the other hand, has good sales but can't always be counted upon) and huge baking and "ethnic" aisles. Seriously, I did not know Goya made so many products till I started shopping at the Rockville location. There's a lot of other legitimately ethnic stuff, too, though I do appreciate the wide variety of Goya dried beans. Meat can be hit or miss, but I did luck out one Easter with a $10 spiral cut ham that fed a whole army and happened to also be delicious.

Hate: Hate may be a strong word, for once. I am very forgiving of Shoppers' shortcomings, because at least it acknowledges them by billing itself as a warehouse. Safeway, on the other hand, does not always seem all that safe. Still, I recommend you tread carefully at Shoppers: examine produce closely and check expiration dates.

In short: Go go Goya!

H Mart

Love: H Mart is a Korean grocery chain not for the prudish of palate. If pickled pig's feet and ugly fruit are your thing, you will love it here. I sure do, but mostly for the prices, not because I buy that many exotic items. The place gets packed on weekends and it's not uncommon to hear shoppers sniping at one another in loud Korean or Vietnamese. I think this, along with the incredible variety of produce, meat (and meatlike things), and seafood, makes for one of the more interesting shopping experiences you will find in the DC area.

Hate: Locavores, stay away. Just about everything is imported. Also, though H Mart does carry non-exotic items like milk, eggs, and bread, these can be found a lot cheaper elsewhere.

In short: Go here for rice, tofu, coconut milk, soy sauce, chili sauce, basically anything with an Asian flair, and just about every kind of common fruit and vegetable, plus some very unusual ones. Oh, and don't forget the pig uterus.

Snider's

Love: Snider's, a Silver Spring institution, is old as dirt. This of course adds to its appeal, since everything else in these parts is so damn new. It's also one of few independent grocery stores left in the area, which earns it a very privileged status in teetotaling Montgomery County: yes, it sells beer and wine, too! There are some pretty good sales here, most of them organized on a shelf near the entrance of the store, or in bins toward the dairy department. The other day my roommate brought home a bunch of spices all priced around $1. Most notably, of all the grocery stores on this list, Snider's has the best value on meat and produce (ask my mother, a champion grocery shopper whose experience and expertise far outpaces my own, if you don't believe me).

Hate: Brand names and prepackaged items are pretty expensive here (and there's no generic, obv). Also, the aisles are really narrow and the parking lot is often jammed. Okay...so I'm wracking my brain to think of bad things to say about Snider's. It's really a good place -- just not for everything.

In short: Stick to meat, dairy, sale items (all clearly marked in the same sections), and beer and wine, and avoid most other things.

International Potato Week 2009: Friday

2009-11-06T11:46:00.015-05:00

I probably should be writing about potato soup instead of potato salad, given how cold it is today, but I don't think Potato Week is complete without this recipe (also, all the potato soups I've made are pretty run-of-the-mill variations on baked potato soup). However, my potato salad is the best there is, and here's why: it's not actually my potato salad but that of Ina Garten, also known as the Barefoot Contessa.

Say what you will about Ina's unabashed love of all things East Hampton, but the lady can cook. If you've ever watched her Food Networ k show, you may have noticed she's also really good at befriending gay Broadway producers, finding new uses for Pernod, and making eyes at her elfin husband, Jeffrey. But an economical cook she is not. She makes scrambled eggs with cream. She tops spaghetti with caviar. She fills pot pies with lobster tail. She makes cheese steaks with New York strip. And her house! Good grief, it's one of those cedar-shingled, Dutch-style, 8,000 square foot "cottages" that's practically dangling in the ocean. Oh, Ina, won't you let me spend the night? I can picture it now: the aroma of fresh-baked coffee cake and "good quality bacon" will find its way to one of the guest rooms, where I'll be slowly waking up from the best sleep of my life, on crisp, white, $400 sheets. I'll come downstairs, help myself to a Campari Orange Spritzer, and make cheerful chitchat with the two or three gay friends who've stopped by en route to Manhattan. In the afternoon, we'll set out in your gleaming silver Benz and hit the farm stand, the bakery, the butcher shop, and the fishmonger. Then we will come home, "assemble" our lunch -- I know how you favor assembling over cooking -- and carry it out to the beach in a wicker picnic basket. When the day is done, cute little Jeffrey will give me a lift to the LIRR, we'll talk about his Henry Kissinger days, and I'll be depressed the whole train ride home and probably for the next month. Oh, Ina, I want your life!

But I can't have Ina Garten's life, so I will have to live vicariously through her recipes - at least the few I can afford, such as this one for potato salad. This is not the hardboiled-egg-and-mayo-drenched version that ends up at every potluck and barbecue. That stuff is for the proles. This kind is high-class, with a punchy vinaigrette and a smattering of fresh herbs. There's a lot of ingredients, but you can definitely cut some of them out and still make a damn good potato salad. Here's Ina's recipe, with my tried-and-true suggestions for cheapening things up in parentheses.

Recipe: Aspirational Potato Salad
Adapted from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. Makes 4 to 6 side dish servings.

1 lb small white boiling potatoes
1 lb new potatoes (you can make this with just one kind of potato; Ina happens to like the color)
2 T good dry white wine (I say you can use bad wine, or none at all)
2 T chicken stock (I've left this out before because I didn't have any. NP. You can also leave it out if you want to make this a vegan dish.)
3 T Champagne vinegar (who has Champagne vinegar? Use whatever vinegar want, but definitely use it.)
1/2 t dijon mustard (crucial -- I might even bump it up to a whole t)
2 t Kosher salt (or table salt if that's all you've got)
3/4 t freshly ground black pepper (non-negotiable)
10 T good olive oil (if, by "good," you mean the huge $5.49 bottle at TJ's? Then, yes, good.)
1/4 C minced scallions, white and green parts (hey, at least she's using the whole plant. I prefer to leave these in, but I've made the salad without. If you have some of the other herbs, they won't be missed too much.)
2 T minced fresh dill (Ina LOVES her dill. It definitely goes well with potatoes, but again, if you have some of the other herbs you can leave it out.)
2 T minced fresh flat-leaf parsley (ditto scallions and dill. You can also use the declasse curly parsley, if that's what you got.)
2 T julienned basil leaves (ditto scallions, dill, and parsley)

Put the potatoes in a large pot and fill with enough water to cover them by a few inches. Bring to a boil and continue boiling for 20 to 30 minutes, until they are just cooked through. Drain in a colander with a towel over it and allow them to steam for another 10 minutes. Once they are cool enough to handle, cut the potatoes into quarters (alternatively, you can cut them before boiling and then boil for a shorter time, as I prefer to do). Toss them with the wine and chicken stock (if using; if not, just set aside, or mix in the dressing if you have already made it).

To make the dressing (which you can do while the potatoes cook), whisk together the vinegar, half a teaspoon of salt, and the pepper, and slowly whisk in the olive oil to make an emulsion. Add the vinaigrette, the rest of the salt, and the herbs to the potatoes, and toss. Serve warm or at room temperature (cold is also just fine).

Above photo from Ina's column for House Beautiful

International Potato Week 2009: Thursday

2009-11-05T12:35:00.004-05:00

Yesterday and the day before we traveled to faraway lands, but today we're sticking close to home, specifically a kitchen that's piled high with dirty dishes and reeking of skunked beer. This potato recipe is quick and dirty, like really dirty. Perfect for those mornings when you wake up with mascara under your eyes and a buzzing in your brain. Perfect for any time, really, if you are not at all concerned about heart disease, the effects of nitrates, or your physique. Everything is cooked in bacon fat (including the bacon, of course).

Recipe: Hangover Hash Browns with Bacon and Eggs
Serves...however many can stand it, or just 2.

Okay, there's not a formal recipe for this, but here's the gist. Cook 5 or 6 strips of bacon in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Meanwhile, chop up a potato or two into 1/2 inch cubes. When the bacon is done, remove it from the pan, but reserve the fat, and set the bacon aside. Add the potatoes to the pan and cook in the bacon grease for 20 minutes or till crispy. If you're not too hung over to remember, season them with garlic powder, salt, pepper, and cayenne (or whatever). If the pan seems too dry, add some vegetable oil. Remove the potatoes from the pan, reduce the heat to low-medium, and add a bit of vegetable oil if most of the bacon fat has been cooked away, and break two eggs into the pan. If you like your eggs over-easy, flip them once. If you like them sunny side-up, don't flip them at all. Cook them till they are a doneness you like. Then mix everything together -- the bacon, crumbled, and the potatoes, and top with the fried eggs. Feel better soon...or go puke, I don't judge.

International Potato Week 2009: Wednesday

2009-11-04T14:06:00.004-05:00

Yesterday our potatoes took us to the Canary Islands; today we are off to Calcutta. Amazing how a tuber can transport you from your dingy office in doleful NoPe to a vibrant exotic locale. The following South Indian recipe is adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, and it produces the most pleasantly piquant potatoes you will ever eat. Seriously. If you don't take my word for it, take Madhur's: "Can you imagine cubes of potato encrusted with spicy, crisply browned ginger-garlic paste? Add to that a hint of fennel, if you want it. That is what these potatoes taste like." As she suggests, they are the potatoes of your dreams.

Recipe: Sookhe aloo (dry potatoes with ginger and garlic)
Adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking (1983). Makes 2 servings.

If you already have the spices, this dish costs about 50 cents to make. Madhur Jaffrey's recipe has you boiling the potatoes "in their jackets," then letting them cool, peeling them, and finally frying them. If you are a purist about ethnic recipes, go ahead (all Madhur's potato recipes involve this long process), but I find it's a whole lot quicker to just peel the potatoes raw and fry them -- and the results are still delicious. I add a few glops of plain yogurt at the end, for tartness and texture. The spice paste would also be great as a marinade.

5 T vegetable oil
1 t fennel seeds (optional, but highly recommended)
2 large baking potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
3 cloves garlic, peeled
1 2-inch piece of fresh ginger (or 1 t ground ginger)
1/2 t ground turmeric
1 t salt
1/2 t cayenne pepper
2 T water
A few spoonfuls of yogurt (optional)

Special equipment: mortar and pestle or food processor

Heat the oil in a nonstick or cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Add the potatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, till they are starting to brown, about 20 minutes. While the potatoes are cooking, make the spice paste: in a food processor or with a mortar and pestle, grind together the garlic, ginger, turmeric, salt, and cayenne, and add the water a little bit at a time. Set aside. Add the fennel seeds to the pan and cook for an additional two minutes. Stir in the spice paste and cook for yet another two minutes. Remove from heat and stir in yogurt, if using. Serve warm.

International Potato Week 2009: Tuesday

2009-11-03T14:58:00.005-05:00

This next potato recipe comes from Jose Andres, owner of Jaleo and a few other DC-area restaurants and boisterous personality behind the PBS cooking show, Made in Spain. I always order the papas arrugas -- baby fingerling potatoes with a to-die-for cilantro and cumin mojo verde -- so I was delighted to catch the Made in Spain episode where he shows you how to make them at home. They're easy, cheap, and positively divine, or "astonishing!" as Jose would say. I do not have exact directions for the original recipe so the following is my own interpretation, and it has served me well. Also, you should definitely watch Made In Spain, even if you don't like to cook. You will find yourself talking like Jose and dreaming of Iberia.

Recipe: Papas Arrugas
Adapted from Jose Andres. Makes 4 side dish servings.

The sauce alone is a keeper. You can serve it with anything -- chicken, fish, other veg, bread. I eat it with a spoon. My stomach growls at the very thought. Baby fingerling potatoes are hard to find, but you can use any fingerling or even boiling potatoes. Right now Trader Joe's has bags of these cute little mini boiling potatoes, which I have been using.

Don't be afraid of the amount of salt you are using; it's more a part of the cooking process than the actual flavor. The salt is used to make the skin cute and crinkly -- apparently how they do it in the Canary Islands, where this dish originates.

2 lbs. fingerling or boiling potatoes
kosher or sea salt, lots of it
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 bunch of cilantro, well-washed, including stems
1 t ground cumin
1 t pimenton (smoked paprika)
1/2 C olive oil
1 T sherry vinegar (optional -- but Jose adds this to everything)
salt and pepper to taste

Special equipment: mortar and pestle or food processor

Add the potatoes to a large pot, and add enough water to the pot to just barely cover them. Add about a quarter cup of salt, and cook on medium-high heat for 25 minutes, or until most of the water is evaporated and the potatoes are soft. Drain in a colander and set aside. If the potatoes have too salty a coating for your taste, you can wipe them off with a paper towel.

While the potatoes are cooking, make the sauce: with a mortar and pestle or the food processor, grind together the garlic, cilantro, cumin, and pimenton. Slowly add the olive oil, grinding all the while, till everything is fully incorporated. Add the vinegar if you're using it and salt and pepper to your taste, and serve with the potatoes.

International Potato Week 2009: Monday

2009-11-02T20:38:00.007-05:00

There is probably already a national potato month or something like that, but I can't wait any longer. I am on a ravenous potato rampage, and I also haven't written anything in awhile (I'm sure you have been completely adrift without me). I formally declare the first week of November International Potato Week, which seems fitting since it's also right after Halloween -- potatoes are great diet food -- and coincides with the dark days of the Time Change -- potatoes are great comfort food, if you'll forgive my use of that stupid term.

I will be posting a favorite potato recipe every day, Monday through Friday. Some are invented, some are adapted, and all are unanimously believed to be delicious by those who have tried them. I wouldn't want anyone thinking I am blinded by love for the tuber (such an accusation has been brought against me before). Because it seems appropriate for the season, I may also include a recipe or two for sweet potatoes. But I have only five days, and there are about a billion things one could do to a potato, so I may end up sticking to the lighter-fleshed variety. We shall see how this exciting week unfolds!

Recipe: Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes with Feta and Roasted Broccoli
Makes about 3 main course or 5 side dish servings. Lasts up to five days and reheats well in the microwave.

This recipe's title bears the style of a food snob, but I couldn't think of anything better to call it without getting all Rachael Ray: "Cheesy Green Tater Smash'ems" or "EVOO Greeked Out Broccatoes" were options. Its main ingredients, all fairly common in most households, include potatoes, olive oil, some kind of green vegetable, and some kind of cheese -- making it essentially a deconstructed stuffed baked potato, but without the butter and sour cream. And, like the potato itself, the recipe is very versatile.

I came up with it when I found that the last few potatoes left in my 20-lb. bag from Costco had started sprouting coral reef-like growths. Most people in developed countries would throw the potatoes away at this point, but I was unfazed and just peeled them to make mashed potatoes. I also had a couple stalks of broccoli that were starting to turn, and wanted to add those to the mix. What came from these two humble old vegetables was one of the best and easiest potato dishes I have ever eaten. Of course, you do not need to wait till your potatoes and broccoli become potential health hazards to make this dish, but it is a good way to use up aging refrigerables.

While the potatoes boil, you cook the broccoli or whatever green vegetable you want to use. Spinach, chard, and other leafy greens are nice alternatives because you don't have to cook them; they just wilt in the warm potatoes. Also, the cheese does not have to be feta -- just about any cheese will be good.

3 large baking potatoes
2 stalks of broccoli
2 T olive oil, plus an additional half cup of olive oil
1 to 2 t hot or smoked paprika
2 t fresh rosemary leaves, chopped (optional)
1/4 C crumbled feta cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Peel the potatoes, cut them into chunks, and add them to a large pot filled with about 8 cups of water. Bring to a boil and continue to boil for about 25 minutes. While the potatoes are cooking, chop the broccoli stems and florets into bite sized pieces. Toss them with the 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the paprika, then spread them evenly on a baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes, then set aside.

When the potatoes are soft when pierced with a fork, drain them in a colander and return to the pot, but place on a different burner that is set to low heat. Add the quarter-cup of olive oil along with the broccoli, feta, and rosemary and mash with a potato masher till you get a consistency you like. Add salt and pepper to your taste (with the feta and paprika, it might be seasoned enough for some tastes, but I add an extra teaspoon or so of salt and a vigorous grinding of pepper). Serve warm.

What to serve picky eaters

2009-10-11T12:39:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I think, how nice it would be to have my own family to cook for. Then I quickly come to my senses when I remember that most children refuse to eat most things -- a most unattractive quality. Not to mention, children are the dead opposite of economical, unless, of course, you live on a farm. As the saying goes, if you're old enough to read, you're old enough to drive a tractor.

But back to picky eater children: I know how awful they are, because I was one. If my parents had had any sense, they would've sent me back. Instead, they put up with my nonsense for years, which meant they ate fried pork chops and instant mashed potatoes about four nights a week. Sometimes I would let my mom mix it up, literally, with some Shake 'n' Bake. But I didn't even help.

I do not blame my parents for my childhood pickiness. They tried to get me to eat a variety of foods, and my three brothers have always been agreeable eaters. The problem was me, violently obstinate in my refusal to eat, say, all vegetables. I recall one particular episode in which trying a mere morsel of baked sweet potato sent me into a fit of gags and tears. My parents knew I would simply perish if not for Hungry Jack.

Twenty years later, one night I found myself on the other side, trying to figure out what to cook for the picky kids -- specifically, my stepcousins once removed. My cousin, their stepmother, told me ahead of time what they eat, which is...pretty much nothing, or sometimes chicken. Meanwhile, my cousin is a vegetarian who eats fish, and she was going to be there, too. In my head I made a Venn diagram of things that every dinner guest would enjoy. The overlapping part of the circles was empty.

I am not so presumptuous as to think I can influence anyone's eating habits, so I was not about to force anything unusual on my persnickety-palated guests. Besides, I figure, most picky eaters eventually outgrow those palates, as I have done. But I was also not about to let anyone at my table go hungry, so I determined to make something, anything, that would sate the kids for one meal and that everyone else would be willing to eat. The only solution I could come up with was pasta. We fancy grown-ups could dress ours with shrimp and scallops, and the young'uns could enjoy some spaghetti and meatballs. It seemed easy enough.

Well. It turns out that not all children like spaghetti and meatballs. These ones like their pasta with butter and cheese only, and lots of it. Luckily, that option was available, too. Their dad, however, could not get enough of my spaghetti (well, fettucine) and meatballs, for which I was very grateful. I certainly did not make three different pasta dishes for my health.

Recipe(s): Pasta for Persnickety Palates (Pasta Three to Five Ways)

Makes about 8 servings. Basically, you make one big batch of fettucine, or whatever long pasta you prefer, and separate it into three different bowls (or more if your guests are extra particular) before serving. The tomato sauce and meatballs can be made a few days in advance.

For pasta:

A large pot filled at least halfway with cold water
Salt
One and a half boxes of fettucine (or spaghetti or capellini)
Butter or olive oil

Boil the water. Once boiling, add a couple teaspoons of salt, return to the boil, then add the pasta, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn't stick together. Drain, reserving a tablespoon or so of the pasta water, and return to the pot. If not serving immediately, toss with a bit of butter or olive oil to keep it moist.

For tomato sauce and meatballs (this should be made well in advance of the pasta, as it takes about two and a half hours in total):

1.5 lbs ground beef
2 minced garlic cloves
2 T minced shallot or onion
1 t ground fennel seeds (optional, but highly recommended)
1 piece of bread, turned into bread crumbs in the food processor
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1 beaten egg
2 T milk
2 T olive oil, plus more if necessary
1 onion, cut in half
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 (28 oz.) can crushed tomatoes
1 (28 oz.) can whole peeled tomatoes
1 t dried basil
1 t dried oregano
1 t hot paprika
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste

To assemble the meatballs, mix the ground beef with the next 8 ingredients in a large bowl with your hands. Roll meatballs of about an inch in diameter (should make 30-40 meatballs). Heat the oil in a large skillet or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the meatballs, in batches if necessary, and cook till browned all around, stirring occasionally to make sure they cook evenly.

If you have guests who do not eat tomato sauce but do eat meatballs (these people do exist), or vice versa, and others who eat both, you have three options: remove enough meatballs for the anti-tomato guest to have his fill, and finish cooking them in a different pan over medium heat; or remove the meatballs that will eventually be cooked with the sauce and finish cooking the meatballs for anti-tomato guest in the original pot, then remove them and re-add the meatballs that will go into sauce; or start the tomato sauce and remaining ingredients in an entirely different pot to make a vegetarian ragu. Good grief.

Now that that issue has been taken care of, however you decided to approach it or not, add the two onion halves to the pot, plus a tablespoon or so of olive oil if the pot has dried up, and cook over medium-high heat. Once the onions are softened (after about five minutes), add the tomatoes, basil, oregano, paprika, and bay leaves. Break up the whole tomatoes a bit. Bring sauce to a simmer, then reduce heat to low and cook for two hours. Add salt and pepper to taste.

For seafood sauce:

3 T butter
1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 lb scallops
2 T cream (optional)
2 T chopped fresh parsley

Heat the butter in a frying pan over medium heat. Once melted, add the shrimp and cook for a couple minutes on each side, till both sides are pink. Remove from pan and set aside. Add scallops to pan, and cook for about a minute on each side, or till both sides are slightly browned. Remove from heat, and return shrimp to pot. Add cream, if using, and parsley.

For plain boring sauce:

4 T (half a stick) butter
1 C grated Parmesan
a sprinkling of salt

As if you need explanation: just add this to some cooked pasta.

To tie everything together for your Party of Persnickety Palates:

Make the tomato sauce and meatballs well in advance of the dinner gathering. About a half hour before guests arrive, start peeling and deveining the shrimp, grate a whole lot of Parmesan, and chop up some parsley for the shrimp and scallop sauce. About 20 minutes before guests arrive, set the water to boil, and cook the pasta. While it's boiling, reheat the tomato sauce and meatballs, and cook the shrimp and scallops. When pasta is done cooking, divide it onto at least three platters or large bowls, depending on the number of sauce varieties you make, and sprinkle all with extra Parmesan. Garlic bread and a salad are the only sides you need.

First Catering Gig: Lessons Learned

2009-10-04T21:02:00.005-04:00

My friend Sara was kind enough to refer me to her parents, who hired me to cater a luncheon they hosted today for a group from their church. I was, of course, disappointed in my debut, but, lucky for me, the hosts were very kind and easy-going.

I've thrown enough parties that I thought this affair, a lunch for just 14 people, would be a no-brainer, but I was wrong. Under pressure, I made a lot more mistakes than I usually do (which, in total, means a LOT of mistakes), but this time the stakes were higher. Yes, I was getting paid, which is both fantastic and completely new, but any time something goes wrong at a party I'm hosting at my house we can just drink enough to compensate, and, I presume, my friends will still like me either way (if this is not true, dear friends, please speak up in the comments section and I will find another hobby). Cooking for someone else's party, I found, was a whole 'nother animal.

I didn't make anything that difficult; even my two poached salmon were surprisingly easy -- you just make a foil pouch for each fish, fill it with chicken stock and some lemon juice, and bake it for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. But, for some reason -- I think a combination of nerves, carelessness, bad planning, and inexperience -- things didn't go as smoothly as I hoped. Some lessons:

1) It's difficult to cook and serve at the same time: I am both cheap and controlling, but it would've been well worth it to pay for a helper or two.

2) There are shortcuts I normally don't take when cooking at home that I absolutely should have taken this time; e.g., when catering a party, don't make your own chicken stock or your own bread. No one can tell the difference, or, at least, no one cares.

3) Strictly follow recipes you know to be reliable, or don't stray too far off the beaten path. I tried to get fancy with potatoes -- potatoes! my favorite and my staple -- only to find I had tried too hard. I made scalloped potatoes with feta and olives, something I've mentioned before in this blog, but, fearing that this quantity would not bake evenly, I boiled them for too long before baking them, thinking it would help the baking along. The result was waterlogged potatoes soaked in brine. Too bad, because other times I've served them they've been a huge hit.

4) There are few things worse than lukewarm soup -- I put a pot of butternut squash and roasted garlic bisque on the burner at a point that I amateurishly deemed too early, and so turned off the burner prematurely. The problem came when I started ladling the room temperature soup into bowls, complete with a garnish of homemade garlic bread croutons and fresh sage. The result of this oversight was a mad rush, and a rejuvenated appreciation for the microwave.

5) If you are serving some kind of spinach dish as the vegetable, and you have prepared it ahead of time at home, do not reheat it at the party. Just serve it at room temperature. Trust me! No one wants to eat airplane food on land.

6) With apologies to Laurie Colwin, who said the same thing in More Home Cooking, always buy more lemons than you think you need (this involved an extra trip to the store at 7:30 this morning).

7) At the same time, don't be discouraged if not everyone squeezes lemon juice onto their salmon -- even after you "plated" lemon slices as a pretty and functional garnish.

8) Though it may depend on the crowd, make a bit less than you think you need (see #6 -- there are exceptions made for particular ingredients). This goes against everything I ever learned about cooking for a party, but I fear it's true: I eat more than most people do, and my views of a serving size are skewed.

9) A good dessert can always help you redeem yourself after a mediocre meal. Try this upside-down chiffon cake, and use whatever fruit is seasonable. I used apples this time.

10) Realize that you, as the caterer, care much more about food perfection than any of the guests -- and possibly even the hosts -- do, and try not to beat yourself up over little mishaps, especially on your first try.

Recipe Redux: A Crazy Rant

2009-09-24T14:51:00.016-04:00

Almost every time I read the "Recipe Redux" column in the New York Times magazine, I am reminded that I should have been born at least fifty years earlier. "Recipe Redux" works like this: the Times' food editors choose an archived recipe, reprint it, and create a similar, more updated version. It's the updated part that I can't come to grips with, that sometimes spirals me into the darkest of depressions.

Take, for instance, Huguenot Torte, a recipe Craig Claiborne printed in 1965 with permission from The First Ladies' Cookbook. This recipe was featured in the chapter on Mrs. Martin Van Buren - anachronistically, it turns out, since the recipe postdates President Van Buren's term by an entire century. Whatever its origins, it looks like one for the Economical Epicurean's files: a few easy steps yield a crisp crust and a custardlike filling with apples and pecans, which are likely the only ingredients you might need to go out and buy.

Fast forward to the present: Huguenot Torte 2009 is not a torte, or anything you would bake in a dish, but "Thyme-Meringue Cookies with Boozy Apple," created by a woman who wrote a book called Organic and Chic. Go figure. In my nostalgic discontentment, I created this chart to compare the two recipes:

Recipe Name	Huguenot Torte (1965)	Thyme-Meringue Cookies with Boozy Apple (2009)
Number of words in name	2	6
Number of ingredients	10	12
Amount you might have to spend (in 2009) to have a complete ingredient list	$4	$30 (Maker's Mark is an ingredient)
Number of steps	7	23
Specified kitchen equipment	"rotary beater" (I think this means electric mixer), whisk, baking pan	two baking sheets; parchment paper; small, heavy-bottomed pan; food processor; standing mixer; piping bag with tip; cup for piping bag to "rest in"

Maybe you can appreciate my consternation by now? And it's not only the multitude of steps and the extensive and expensive batterie de cuisine needed to make Huguenot Torte 2009 that bring on my existential crisis. It's also the social ramifications! Let me clarify: torte is a group dessert, it's something you cut into and pass around; cookies are more often eaten alone, frequently on the fly, or sometimes while you sit at your cubicle, staring at your computer screen with dead eyes. Torte brings people together; cookies encourage isolation. And notice how these thyme-meringue-boozy cookies are piped out onto a cookie sheet: identical but spaced apart, conformist without coalescence. Cookies -- and, in particular, cupcakes, which are in essence cake for loners -- are tearing at the fabric of society!

Thank you for letting me get that off my chest. I have a flair for the melodramatic and a bad case of PMS. A cookie or four will help me feel better.

(Above photo credit: Amazon.com)

"Sometimes we all got to swim upstream"

2009-09-21T11:12:00.015-04:00

[If you can identify the above lyrics without googling, I will make you breakfast.]

Attention, shoppers! Trader Joe's now sells Smoked Salmon Pieces for $1.99 a pack! Now you can soak up some alpha omegas, enjoy wholesome salty deliciousness, and stay true to your Economical self.

What are Smoked Salmon Pieces? Why, they are pieces of smoked salmon, just like the kind you might buy if you were rich! The main difference, I guess, is that they are smaller than the ones normally encountered on a bagel. I think these are the leftover bits that are not big enough to sell for six or eight bucks. But, you do the math and tell me which is the better deal!

I've been buying Smoked Salmon Pieces as if the apocalypse were coming. Lately, my work-a-day lunch is crackers and cream cheese with the smoked salmon and a few capers. (To keep costs even lower, I buy generic brand cream cheese by the block - it's a lot cheaper than the kind that comes in a tub.) Last night I decided to be a bit more creative and, if I may boast, made one of the most delicious quiches I have ever eaten.

Recipe: Deconstructed Lox Bagel Quiche
Serves 8, and lasts for about a week. Great hot, cold, or at room temperature. I think it tastes better a day after you make it than it does fresh out of the oven. The custard filling is made with milk instead of heavy cream, so it's a bit lower in fat than most quiche recipes. But the consistency is still very creamy, thanks to the cream cheese (hmm, maybe it is not that much lower in fat than most quiche recipes - so much for my birthday diet). The flaky pastry crust is delicious and easy. Crust is best when the fat mixed into it is very cold, so I recommend putting the butter, after it's been cubed, and the shortening into a bowl and freezing them for about 10 minutes before mixing.

1 Basic Pastry Dough (see recipe below); a store-bought quiche crust, though not as delicious, is a time-saving alternative
about 8 or 10 dried beans for weighing down the crust during parbaking process
4 eggs
1.5 C milk
3 T flour
1/2 t ground mustard
1/2 t salt
1/2 t ground pepper
about 1/4 block of cream cheese, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1 medium tomato, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
2 T capers
2 T minced shallots (optional, but recommended)
Smoked Salmon Pieces (use the whole bag if you're feeling spendy; if not, just use about half of it)
a few teaspoons of chopped fresh parsley (optional; dill would also be good if you have some)

Press the pastry dough into the bottom and sides of a pie or tart pan, making sure it's very thin and evenly spread. Poke several holes in the bottom and sides with a fork. If using a pie pan, use the fork to create decorative indentations around the edges of the crust. Chill in the fridge for a half hour. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Remove crust from fridge, and scatter the dried beans around the bottom to weigh it down. Bake it for 20 minutes; remove from oven, remove the beans, and bake the crust again for another ten minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a rack, keeping the oven turned on.

Meanwhile, make the custard: whisk together the eggs, milk, flour, mustard, salt, and pepper. Set aside.

Once crust has cooled down, scatter the cream cheese, tomato, capers, shallots, salmon, and parsley around as if decorating a pizza. Pour the custard over the crust, and bake for 40 to 45 minutes. The center might be a little jiggly, but not liquid. Cool on a rack for at least 20 minutes before serving.

Recipe: Basic Pastry Dough
Adapted from the Gourmet cookbook. Makes enough dough for 1 regular pie pan or 10-inch tart pan. There will probably be extra dough, which you can shape into muffin tins or freeze for later. This is a really good recipe for flaky pastry, and it has become my standby for quiche, tart, and pie crusts. When I use it to make a dessert, I add a tablespoon of sugar.

1.25 C flour
3/4 stick cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
2 T cold vegetable shortening (yes, Crisco -- don't hate, appreciate)
1/4 t salt
3 T ice water

In a medium bowl, blend together the flour, butter, shortening and salt with your fingertips until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs (a few lumps can be pea-sized, but the rest should be crumbly). Drizzle in the ice water evenly and continue mixing until a dough is formed. Squeeze a handful or so -- if it crumbles apart, add more water, just a tablespoon at a time, till the dough comes together. (For even less work, you may do all the aforementioned steps in a food processor -- make coarse crumbs and a few pea-sized pieces, then add the water and pulse a few times till dough is formed.)

Turn the dough onto a work surface and divide into four portions. Using the heel of your hand, push down on each portion once to distribute the fat. Roll them all together to make a single ball of dough again. Cover it in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator at least an hour.

Eat more beets

2009-09-09T15:45:00.011-04:00

From whence this back flab and these love handles? I thought we were supposed to lose weight in the summertime.

But the summer is over, I'm about to turn 27, and I'm fatter than ever. Well, probably not fat by American standards, but heavier than appropriate for my frame. I think I'm even starting to grow jowls.

Time to stop making this and that, and stick to just vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. In particular, I must stop baking so much. Even when I bake for the sole purpose of gift-giving, I end up eating the raw dough equivalent of about 12 cookies. I also need to stop buying lunch, so that's adios to tacos con chivo and empanadas from NoPe's many fine dining establishments. And I really need to cut back on the alcohol, or at least modify my habits. By the way, did you know a frozen margarita contains roughly 700 calories? Vodka martinis from here on out, hold the vermouth and olive. Better yet, I'll just have ice water and get bored after 30 minutes at the bar. What fun my 27th year is going to be.

I can seek both consolation and a smaller waist in the crunchy deliciousness of good salads, like this one I made recently. Partially inspired by a recipe in Gourmet's September issue, it contains beets, which took me all of 27 years to learn to like. The beet was just about the only vegetable I disliked, and wrongfully so. I mean, it's a cheap root vegetable with some edible greens attached! It's like we were made for each other! In this salad the beets are chopped into cute little matchsticks, making the transition to beetlove a lot easier than it might be if you tried to boil up a bunch and eat them in one sitting. It's similar to dating: you think the guy's ill-mannered and unattractive at first -- and let's not even talk about his sweating problem and tendency to overuse "whatnot" -- but slowly, surely, you will cave, and come to appreciate that he's actually good for you and has a nice dark pinkish-purple interior. I get a little crazier with every passing year. Happy birthday to me!

Recipe: Beginner's Beet and Apple Salad

Makes 6 side dish servings. Inspired by Gourmet, whose recipe is just beets, parsley, and goat cheese. No goat cheese in my version, and it's fine without. But I still wanted it to be a fairly substantial salad, so I added some greens and an apple, which is also chopped into matchsticks like the beets. This salad is really good, really good for you, and really crunchy! To make it more filling, consider adding walnuts, sunflower seeds, or almonds. Also, unlike most dressed salads, this one actually tastes better the next day. Oh, and if you have just gotten a manicure or you are having tea with the Queen tomorrow, don't make it -- or wear gloves if you do. Beet juice stains like whoa.

2 small beets, peeled and chopped into matchstick-size pieces, plus their greens
juice of half an orange
1 apple, chopped into match-stick size pieces (squeeze a bit of lemon juice onto these -- it will keep them from browning right away)
1 quarter of a medium onion, thinly sliced
1 C loosely packed, chopped fresh parsley (I think some mint in here would also be good)
juice of one lemon (or a bit less if you want to lemonize the apple)
1/2 lb salad greens (arugula, spinach, frisee, or whatever you want)
a big drizzle of olive oil
fresh ground pepper

In a large bowl, stir the orange juice into the beets, then add the apple, onion, parsley, and lemon juice. Add the salad greens and a big drizzle of olive oil and toss everything together. Finish with some pepper.

Let them eat green goop

2009-09-07T12:43:00.007-04:00

Awhile back I wrote about new uses for old -- or, to put it more gently, no longer very youthful -- herbs. As they say, age before beauty, though I may be the first person to apply that phrase to food. Anyway, one day I wanted to make pesto, but had neither basil, nor pine nuts, nor very much olive oil, three of pesto's most essential ingredients. Thus, I created Poor Man's Pesto, a rebellious yet delightful interpretation of the classic green goop.

Recipe: Poor Man's Pesto
Makes about 1 cup. Because I use less olive oil, it has a chunkier, more chimichurri-like consistency than commercial pesto does. You do not need to be as stubbornly spartan as I sometimes am; feel free to use all olive oil instead of my cheapskate mix of oil, vinegar, and water. I do feel strongly, however, that everyone should consider using sunflower seeds instead of pine nuts -- they taste great and cost about one-fifth as much. Also, because of the oil and water combination, the pesto will separate after refrigeration; just give it a stir and everything will be fine.

2 C loosely packed fresh herbs -- I used a mix of parsley, a bit of rosemary (don't go overboard on it), and oregano, all of which I had left over
1/3 C sunflower seeds
2 peeled garlic cloves
2 T olive oil
2 T water
1 T white vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

In a food processor, pulse together the herbs, sunflower seeds, and garlic cloves a few times. Add the olive oil, water, and vinegar and pulse again till well blended. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Bridal Shower Feast

2009-09-05T16:02:00.018-04:00

My cousin Ashley's wedding shower, which I hosted last weekend, went off without a hitch, excepting a couple episodes of belligerent Pomeranians trying to murder the cats (not really the dogs' fault, but mine for neglecting my feline brood). A few people have asked me about the menu, which I'm delighted to present here:

Appetizers:

-Bruschetta: mine's very basic -- just a few tomatoes, chopped up, with a handful of chopped basil, a few minced garlic cloves, and a tablespoon or so of olive oil, plus salt and pepper. I serve it in a bowl rather than on each individual piece of bread. Much easier for the host!

-Cheese plate with some Stilton, Raclette, and Manchego, all found at Trader Joe's -- in my experience, the only place to buy good cheese without going into foreclosure

-Almost-No-Knead Bread, sliced up for bruschetta and cheese

-Bowl of mixed olives from Shopper's Food Warehouse, which has a surprisingly good olive bar

Main course:

-Special Occasion Chicken Salad -- meat from two roasted chickens, a cup of aioli, a big chopped bell pepper, a bunch of chopped scallions, about a quarter cup of chopped tarragon, a squeeze of lemon, salt, pepper

-Poached Salmon -- thanks, Mom! (The EE ain't in no shape to buy a whole damn fish)

-White bean and tomato salad -- you soak a whole bag of cannelini beans overnight, then boil them the next day till they're soft; then you roast a bunch of cipollini onions in olive oil and a few sprigs of fresh rosemary for about 25 minutes at 300 degrees; add a couple handfuls of grape or cherry tomatoes to the onions and continue roasting for another 15 minutes; mix in with the beans; add ample salt and pepper and parsley and a squeeze of lemon, and serve.

-Delicious late summer salad -- about two pounds of mixed arugula and spinach; a half cup or so of crumbled Stilton (cut off a hunk from the cheese plate); another half cup or so of raw almonds; and two peaches, cut into half-inch chunks. Serve with the best easy dressing: 1 cup of olive oil whisked together with a heaping tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and a heaping tablespoon of raspberry preserves. If dressing's too thick for your taste, thin it with a few teaspoons of water.

-Greek-style Scalloped Potatoes: my Aunt Mary had brought these to my Easter party and they were a huge hit, so I attempted to reproduce them -- with minor success. The cookbook I followed was too optimistic about cooking times, so this dish didn't come out till everyone was just about done with the main course (but, good girls they were, they piled it on their plates all the same!). Peel about 12 baking potatoes, and slice them to 1/8" thin, preferably using a mandoline to save time. Layer them in a baking sheet with about two cups of feta cheese and olives. Be sure to add lots of salt and olive oil to keep everything both tasty and moist. If you want, add fresh oregano or rosemary here and there. Bake for about an hour, or till potatoes are soft.

Desserts:

-Flourless Chocolate Cake

-Upside-down Nectarine Chiffon Cake

-Cupcakes (provided by the lovely Erika, one of the bride's friends)

-Vanilla ice cream

Drinks:

-White wine sangria: this time of year, it's one big bottle of vino cheapo (get a sweet white like Riesling), a chopped nectarine, a handful of chopped strawberries, a third-cup of sugar, and about two cups of club soda. Stir everything well, and refrigerate at least an hour before serving. Be sure to double when hosting a lingerie shower for 20 ladies.

-Lemonade: a bag of 6 lemons has been going for just $1.59 at TJ's lately, and when life hands you lemons...anyway, my ratio for making a big pitcher consists of the juice of about 9 small lemons, a cup of sugar, and 5 cups of water.

-Iced tea (provided by Mom -- she won't tolerate anyone else's iced tea)

-Iced coffee: for some reason, people get all precious about the making of iced coffee, and some even buy special iced coffee makers like the Toddy. No need for that -- just brew hot coffee, remove it from the coffee maker and put it on a trivet to cool off, and put it in the fridge to get colder. Duh.

-Cava and Prosecco (much cheaper than good Champagne, and much better than cheap Champagne)

Of course, the bride-to-be and her guests were really the focal point. Everyone seemed to have a great time, and we all wish Ashley the best!

Oh, and a HUGE THANKS to my friend Sarah, the most competent person I know, whose help I could not have done without!

The Economical Epicurean Now Caters!

2009-09-03T11:11:00.007-04:00

...Or would like to!

Although it's still just in the idea phase, I'm getting to work on opening a (very small, to start) catering business from my home, and I'm really excited about it! This is not to say I'll be quitting my day job -- for now I will keep it a weekend and occasional weeknight gig only (assuming I can get any gigs in the first place!).

Catering businesses are a dime a dozen in the DC area, and I'm sure demand has declined significantly over the past year. I'm hoping I can develop a reputation as the dirt cheap caterer who uses a lot of seasonal ingredients and brings in da funk. Okay, not dirt cheap, but I do want the privilege of continuing to call myself the Economical Epicurean. And I do want to also bring in da funk, whatever that means.

So, if you or any of your friends and associates are planning a party of any kind (well, any party with 100 guests or fewer -- not sure if my kitchen is equipped for more!), consider me! You'll save a lot of money and time and the party will be awesome! I definitely need to come up with a catchier tagline than that.

For more information, email me at dianaeowen@gmail.com. Thanks!

Quick Post About Pasta

2009-09-01T16:36:00.008-04:00

I can't remember if I've ever posted a pasta recipe, with the exception of one the first recipes I ever put on this blog. That is strange, considering how cheap pasta is and how much of it I eat (apparently in secret). More often I write about beans. The following recipe contains both beans and pasta, and produces an easy and filling dinner that segues easily into a cold or room temperature lunch the next day. The mix of flavors here is not particularly original, but there's a reason we continue to combine garlic, tomatoes, and basil: they're delicious together!

Recipe: Pasta with Chickpeas and Tomatoes
Makes 4 servings.

1 C dried chickpeas, soaked overnight; or 1 can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/2 lb. farfalle (bowtie pasta); may also use penne or rigatoni or some other pasta of similar size
salt
1 T olive oil
2 medium tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 t hot or smoked paprika (if you don't have hot paprika, mix 1 t regular paprika and a pinch of cayenne)
1/4 C loosely packed fresh basil, chopped
2 T chopped fresh parsley
1/4 C aioli; if you don't feel like making it, or if you are vegan, use about a tablespoon of minced garlic (the dish will not be as creamy, but you could add a splash of half and half or cream at the end if you want); however, I strongly recommend making aioli if you have time, as it has many uses and tastes heavenly!
salt and pepper to your taste

If using dried chickpeas, boil them in a large pot in the water you used to soak them (why waste?) for an hour or so, or until soft. Drain and set aside, rinse pot, and fill with 2 quarts of water to boil the pasta. Place on burner and set heat to high.

Once water is boiling, add a hearty sprinkling of salt and the pasta. Boil till al dente, about 10 minutes, and drain, reserving a tablespoon or so of pasta water. Add beans to pasta and reserved water.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a small or medium frying pan over medium heat. If using raw garlic (not aioli), add it now and cook for two minutes. Add the tomatoes and paprika and cook for two more minutes (tomatoes should not be cooked, just heated). Remove from heat and add the herbs and aioli. Stir tomato-aioli mixture into pasta-beans, season with salt and pepper to your taste, and serve.

Making the Most of Mediocre Fruit

2009-08-25T20:34:00.013-04:00

Much like crushed dreams and nose hair, mediocre fruit is an unfortunate fact of life. Even in the prime of summertime, even when we buy it fresh off the farm, there is no guarantee against bruises, puckering, or unpalatable tartness. Fruit, I'm inclined to believe, is vindictive - at least that's an easy way to explain why it can go from beautiful to blighted within the span of a short trip home from the market.

It's inhumane to cook a perfect peach or strawberry, but it's well known that heat gives life to lackluster fruit. Too often, though, recipes involving cooked fruit (pies, cobblers, jams) mandate massive quantities, and we economical epicureans feel left out. While we may occasionally reap the harvest of a benevolent neighbor's garden, we rarely find ourselves with, say, two quarts of blueberries or fifteen plums. But what can we do with those three bruised peaches or that pint of just-okay raspberries?

Happily, I offer two delicious solutions, and neither requires more than two cups of homely fruit.

Solution 1: Preserves

I fear canning, with all its sterilization and strange equipment. Plus, most recipes for jams and jellies assume you have an entire kitchen full of fruit ready to be heated and stored indefinitely. I am pretty convinced that, unless your backyard is an orchard, canning is not an economical option. This recipe is perfect for those who prefer not to take fruit preservation seriously.

It should work with any fruit that might be used in jam, though you may want to experiment with sugar and water quantities (if the preserves seem to be too watery as they cook, you can definitely dump out some of the water). You can also experiment by adding different liqueurs and herbs. I made blackberry preserves with Chambord, a raspberry liqueur that I probably hadn't opened since college. I added two tablespoons for extra flavor. A tablespoon or so of red wine might be good, too, especially with stone fruit (peaches, plums, cherries). Below is the basic recipe; double, triple, or half it depending on the quantities you have. It has great conventional uses (e.g., toast, English muffins, PB&J's), but I recommend using it for scones, salad dressing, and PB&C's.

Recipe: Lonesome Preserves

1 lb (2 C) berries or chopped stone fruit
1/4 C sugar
1/4 C water
optional: 1 T fruity liqueur or red wine, 1 cinnamon stick, 1/2 t ground nutmeg or cinnamon, 1/4 t hot red pepper flakes, or 2 T fresh herbs (basil, rosemary, mint, etc.)

Stir together all the ingredients in a small, heavy saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, then reduce heat to medium, keeping at a simmer, stirring frequently, for about 1 hour or till mixture is thickened and reduced by about half. Transfer to a bowl and let cool. If the mixture has a lot of solids (e.g., pits, skin, etc.), pour it into a mesh strainer and use a spoon to push all the liquid out, discarding the solids. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a month.

Solution 2: Upside-Down Cake

An upside-down cake is the perfect thing when you have only a few pieces of mediocre fruit -- and when you feel like putting in the time to make an upside-down cake. It's not something many people would make on a whim, but it is great when you're trying to impress company. That is, if you don't make the same mistakes I did the first time I attempted this recipe, which comes from Dorie Greenspan's Baking with Julia, the book that came out of Julia Child's last PBS series. (To be precise, the original recipe is Nectarine Upside-Down Chiffon Cake, but you could also use peaches, apricots, plums, apples, pears. Maybe berries? Who knows, give it a whirl and find out!) I didn't bake the cake long enough and failed to butter the springform pan, so what came out the first time looked like this (after I dumped it into a baking dish and let it cook another 20 minutes):

It was bread pudding, not an upside-down cake. Still tasted great, but not my original intent, which was this:

Got it right on the second try -- typical behavioral pattern for this clumsy baker. This upside-down cake is better than any I've ever had, thanks to a winning combination of fluffy texture, almond streusel, and lots of lemon flavor. The baked fruit is, forgive me, just the icing on the cake, so if your fruit looks good enough to eat -- and thus too good to cook -- feel free to go fruitless.

Recipe: Nectarine (or whatever you want) Upside-Down Chiffon Cake
Adapted from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan.

Topping Ingredients:

1/2 stick unsalted butter, cut into 4 chunks
1 C packed brown sugar
2-3 nectarines, peaches, pears, or apples; or 3-4 plums or apricots, and sliced into eighths

Streusel Ingredients:

1/4 C almonds (can also use pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, etc.)
1/3 C flour
1/4 C packed brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon or nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 stick cold unsalted butter
1/2 C quick cooking (not instant) oats

Chiffon Cake Ingredients:

1.5 C sugar
1 C flour
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
4 large eggs, separated
1/2 C vegetable oil
1/2 C fresh lemon juice (from 3 small or 2 large lemons)
2 large egg whites

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

To make the topping, melt the butter in a greased 10" springform pan over medium heat (it's okay to put a springform pan on direct heat). Once the butter is thoroughly melted, remove from heat and sprinkle in the brown sugar slowly and evenly. Press the sugar onto the bottom of the pan so it provides a nice even coating. Then arrange the fruit on top of the butter/sugar layer in an artful circle (or not artful, whatever your style). Wrap the outside of the pan in aluminum foil to keep the butter from dripping. Set aside.

To make the streusel, scatter the almonds on a baking sheet and bake for 7 minutes. Remove from oven and place the almonds in the bowl of a food processor (reserve the baking sheet for later). Once the almonds are cooled, add the remaining streusel ingredients and pulse till you get a consistency of coarse crumbs. Set aside.

To make the cake, sift together 1 cup of the sugar with the flour, baking powder, and baking soda in a medium bowl. Add the salt. In a large bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, oil, and lemon juice. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the egg and oil mixture, whisking all the while. Set aside. Beat all 6 egg whites in a large bowl with an electric mixer with a whisk attachment: start at a low speed and beat the whites until they are foamy and form soft peaks. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat in the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar until whites are thick and shiny and form soft peaks. Fold about 1/3 of the whites into the yolk mixture to lighten it, then fold in the rest till everything is just blended.

Scrape about half the batter into the springform pan, then pour the streusel mixture over it. Scrape the remaining half of the batter in, and set the pan on the baking sheet. Bake for an hour or until the cake is browned and a tester comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before inverting onto a platter.

Nothing beats free

2009-08-19T19:05:00.016-04:00

When it comes to cookbooks, we economical epicureans often find ourselves in quite a predicament. They beckon to us, the same way red wine does, and we cannot resist. They are expensive, sometimes upward of $40, especially the pretty, famous, or encyclopedic ones, but we rationalize them as a necessary expense, or at least a sensible, self-improving one. Yet -- and this may not apply to all economical epicureans, just the capitalized Economical Epicurean -- we rarely maximize their utility. We may refer to the same four recipes again and again, neglecting the remaining four hundred. Did we really pay $40 for four recipes, we sometimes ask ourselves in horror?

Then, we realize, we are using the first person plural rather peculiarly, and so we scratch our head, think maybe it's time to seek therapy, decide it's too expensive, and revert back to "I."

Almost a year ago, I wrote about the cookbook-buying success I've had at used bookstores and book sales. Among my better finds are Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, Pam Anderson's The Perfect Recipe and How to Cook Without a Book (ironic title, I know), and Molly Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook and Enchanted Broccoli Forest. But such successes were the result of a combination of simple luck, hawkish bargain-hunting strategy, and occasional violence. Most of the time, if a cookbook is good, its owner wants to keep it, and so the good ones seldom end up on the $5-and-under shelf.

For this same reason, the library is a great place to find cookbooks. It doesn't seem to occur to people that you even can borrow cookbooks from the library, and why would you want to anyway, many cooks might wonder. Cookbooks are reference items, and what use is a reference item if you have to return it in three weeks? Note, for example, how the reference books in the library are not in circulation. But for those of us who are promiscuous with our cookbooks -- using them a few times, then moving on to the next pretty hardcover -- checking them out at the library is the most economical way to bake our cake and eat it, too. You could also treat library cookbooks as test drives: if the thought of returning a particular cookbook sends you into depression, you might as well buy it. At least you know you are paying for something you will actually use. I, for one, have paid full price for way too many cookbooks that turned out to be lemons. If only I'd had the good sense to test-drive them first.

On recent trips to the Rockville and Kensington branches (both part of the Montgomery County system), I encountered the entire collections of just about every celebrity cookbook author whose newest release you might see propped up on a display table at Barnes and Noble. From Nigella Lawson to Mark Bittman to Rachael Ray, they were all sitting there, glitzy covers in need of a good dusting, rarely if ever reshelved. More exciting for me, one of those annoying cookbook snobs, was what I'll call the NPR collection -- cookbooks with a scholarly approach, one that is more concerned with a recipe's authenticity than its ease. (I can't believe I just wrote that.) These books can be hard to find in bookstores, but at the library they're as ubiquitous as loud cell phone conversations. By the way, since when did librarians stop enforcing the quiet rule?

Anyway, at the 'brary you'll find Claudia Roden's Arabesque and New Book of Middle Eastern Cooking, Diana Kennedy's many books on Mexican food, Peter Berley's outstanding vegetarian cookbooks, and Cecilia Chiang's recent The Seventh Daughter, with recipes from her famous Chinese restaurant in San Francisco. If you're really high-falutin', you could borrow the roughly 200-lb Larousse Gastronomique, which retails for $75. Also, just about all of the America's Test Kitchen and Best Recipe books are in circulation, so I can finally outfox that smug, bowtie-bedecked Chris Kimball, who's always hitting me up for more money.

I was most pleased to find the entire collection of Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's beautiful cookbooks, based on recipes they've encountered on their years of wandering through Asia. I started with Seductions of Rice because of the sexy title. It's full of great anecdotes, gorgeous photographs, and, oh yeah, a lot of rice, which indeed is a lot more seductive than I had previously thought. I made one of the first recipes, a scorching hot chili paste based on a version that Alford and Duguid encountered in the hometown of Mao Zedong (certainly a spicy character in world history). I had every intention of using Mao Chili Paste in another Seductions recipe, the Spicy Cucumber Surprise, and tossing it with some rice and beans to make a full meal. Unfortunately, the cucumber in my fridge had turned into Fuzzy Blue Surprise. Ergo, my recipe is a full departure from Alford and Duguid's, but still uses Mao Chili Paste, and is -- if I may say so myself -- a delicious, healthy, and inexpensive dinner. I just may buy Seductions of Rice, or maybe I will just keep renewing it till the Montgomery County Libraries hunt me down.

Recipe: Mao Chili Paste
Adapted from Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid's Hot Chile Paste from Seductions of Rice. Dried red chilis are very cheap, especially at Asian grocery stores. Alford and Duguid, who seem pretty trustworthy when it comes to the cuisines of Asia, say this is better than any store-bought chili paste they've ever tried. It's extremely hot, so if you don't like spicy food, don't even go near it. Just being in the kitchen while it's on the stove will make anyone's eyes water. I halved Alford and Duguid's recipe, and my proportions are below. Makes about a half cup.

1/2 C loosely packed dried red chilis, rinsed
1/2 C boiling water
1/2 t salt
1/2 t sugar
1/2 T peanut oil or vegetable oil
2 T minced shallots (optional)
1 t rice vinegar or cider vinegar

Place the chilis in a medium bowl, pour the boiling water over them, and use a wooden spoon to press the chilis into the water. Let soak for at least 20 minutes or up to 2 hours. Transfer the chili/water mixture to a food processor or blender and puree; add the salt and sugar and puree again. Set aside. Heat a wok or heavy skillet to medium-high heat and add the oil once the pan is very hot, then add the shallots, if you are using them, and stir fry for about until soft, 2 minutes. Add the chili mixture and stir fry for another 20 seconds, then remove from heat and stir in the vinegar. Allow it to cool, then transfer to a well-sealed container, where it will keep well in the refrigerator.

Recipe: Spicy Rice and Beans Surprise (pictured at top of post)
Inspired by Spicy Cucumber Surprise, also from Seductions of Rice. The Cucumber Surprise sounds great, so if you have a cucumber handy, just chop it up and stir fry it with all the ingredients for a couple minutes. I used red rice and chickpeas because I had some already, but you could use any rice or beans for this dish. Makes two servings.

3/4 C rice
2 C water
1 C chickpeas, soaked overnight and boiled for an hour and a half or till soft
1 T peanut oil
2 t ground ginger
1 t sugar
1 T soy sauce
1 t Mao Chili Paste (less for a milder version)
1/2 t salt
2 T chopped basil or cilantro (optional)

In a heavy medium saucepan, boil the water. Rinse the rice in a strainer and add to the boiling water; wait for it to return to a boil, then reduce the heat to low-medium, and cook, stirring occasionally, till the water is absorbed and the rice is slightly soft. Remove from heat, fluff with a fork, and let sit a few minutes. In a frying pan, heat the oil over medium-high heat; once it's very hot, add the garlic and stir fry for a minute. Add the beans, ginger, sugar, soy sauce, and chili paste and stir fry another minute. Remove from heat, and stir the bean mixture into the rice. Add the salt and basil or cilantro, if using.

Saying Yes to NoPe

2009-08-17T15:55:00.005-04:00

In DC, a city with a population that changes drastically with every election, neighborhoods are constantly reinvented and renamed. One of the more irritating of these is NoMa, unimaginatively named for its location north of Massachusetts Avenue (New York, after London, has been naming neighborhoods -- SoHo, TriBeCa -- with this abbreviation style for years, seemingly seamlessly, but when DC tries to do the same thing, it just seems lame and contrived). The original name for this neighborhood -- Swampoodle -- is much closer to reality, as it's a kind of pidgin portmanteau for "swamp puddle," which describes DC's topography to a tee. But, the realtors and developers assume, a name like NoMa sounds cool and will make city newcomers forget they are living in a wasteland of railroad tracks and abandoned buildings. That is, until they step out the front doors of their sparkling but mostly-still-vacant condominiums and see a wasteland of railroad tracks and abandoned buildings.

Such is the way of DC, and I accept it. This is how I arrived at a new name for the neighborhood I work in, known to its residents as Brightwood, which is a perfectly nice name*. However, since I am a) white, b) of British ancestry, c) a saleswoman, d) a saleswoman in the construction/development industry, and e) something of a wordsmith, I decided it is my Manifest Destiny to confer upon Brightwood a name that might resonate better with other potential newcomers to the neighborhood. And so I chose NoPe, which is an abbreviation of North of Petworth, and which, conveniently, has two different pronunciations: "Nope," as in, "Nope, you don't wanna go there," and "No pay," which works pretty well given the number of boarded up buildings along this stretch of Georgia Avenue. Since Petworth has already begun to "transition" (the more sensitive among us prefer to avoid the word gentrify, as it reminds us a little too much of reality), a process that usually takes about 3 months in DC, but may be a little slower now, you know, because of the economy, it's probably time to start spreading the word about NoPe before all the other yuppies conquer it. You too can be a pioneer!

What's my point again? Oh yeah, I was going to write about NoPe cuisine for NoPe-phobes. Say Yep to:

Julia's Empanadas
What: Empanadas, which are like Hot Pockets, but delicious because they're delicious, not delicious because they're disgusting. Also, they are very filling and cost only $3.41 before tax.
Where: 6232 Georgia Ave NW
Why: You've been to the Dupont and Adams Morgan locations, now where's your sense of adventure? NoPe just opened one, and no other white people know about it yet! Jump on it!

Taqueria Distrito Federal
What: Extremely delicious and incredibly cheap Mexican/Salvadorean food
Where: 805 Kennedy St NW
Why: Maybe you've been to the Columbia Heights original after a wild night at Wonderland. Well, guess what, Wonderland is so 2006 and now you can get your tacos con chivo after a wild night at Red Derby!

Teddy's Roti Shop
What: The West Indian specialty, roti, which is kind of like a huge pita stuffed with one metric butt ton of spicy meat
Where: 7414 Georgia Ave NW
Why: Even WaPo has known about this one for years, which doesn't help your street cred. But, getting yelled at by the sassy owner lady because you can't order right makes you feel like this is an Authentic Experience. How quaint!

*For a perfectly nice residential neighborhood; the commercially zoned sections of Brightwood, though full of vacant space, offer plenty of bright spots as well. Sorry for the lame pun.

Disclaimer: The author is aware of the potential offensiveness of this blog post and hopes that readers appreciate her attempt at satire (or at least don't hate her for it). She promises to go back to writing about cooking next time.

The Economical Epicurean Eats Her Way Through Eastern Europe

2009-08-05T07:19:00.031-04:00

I feel a strong need to post pictures of Eastern European food before I reach that Statute of Limitations on Writing About Cuisine That I Sampled On a Vacation That Already Seems Like It Ended a Long Time Ago. Anyway, I returned fairly recently from an incredible trip to Slovenia, Croatia, and Hungary. "What a fraud!" you might exclaim. "Surely no one who calls herself economical can afford to travel to Europe in the summertime." But, if you do exclaim that, you are wrong! My penny-pinching ways at home allow for the very occasional exotic vacation. Plus, Eastern Europe is dang cheap, airfare aside.

I did not have very high expectations for the cuisine, which I expected to include goulash, paprikash, and more goulash. I am a meat and potatoes girl in theory, but not in 90 degree heat. Lucky for me, there were so many other delicious things to sample. And it turns out goulash is pretty good in any season. Below, a sampling of the samples, in rather haphazard order (Blogger makes it difficult to move pictures around; also, I am technologically handicapped).

I am on the hunt for a recipe for these hazelnut shortbread Linzer-esque cookies, which can be found everywhere in Budapest. I wish I had written down the name, but it was probably something like ajdhfslofheifanofdiwodfal, with 4 umlauts and 3 other diacritical marks. Magyar is an impossible language.

Okay, when I said "delicious," I was being judicious. For some reason the Hungarians really like Unicum, even though it tastes worse than bathroom cleaner (I'm guessing).

I got into the amusing habit of ordering dishes with completely mysterious menu names (so mysterious that even the Hungarian-English dictionary couldn't help us out). One of these was the Slambuc Plate, above, at Al Foldi in Budapest. Now that I have internet access again, I know, thanks to Jamie Oliver, that Slambuc is a kind of Hungarian shepherd's pie. But to me, it was a delicious doppelganger for vomit. In fact, it reminded me of something I would throw together in attempt to use up some scraps of food that are about to turn. Homely home cooking, that's my style.

I loved the cold sour cherry soup, a Budapest specialty. I wish I had known about it when tart cherries were still in season here in the Mid-Atlantic!

In addition to mystery food, mystery drinks were another favorite thing to order in Budapest. This one is called "The Golden Girl," so of course I ordered it. Then I spilled the whole thing over the table. But the few sips I got to enjoy contained rum and pineapple juice.

Sausage and paprika are both serious business in Budapest -- no shame in that.

The picture didn't turn out well, but those two hanging bowls contain Hungarian fish stew, another staple, one that elevates the plebeian carp and catfish to a gourmet level. I didn't order it, but my friends who did liked it a lot. Might be worth reproducing at home, and it would be a very cheap way to enjoy fish.

Possibly my favorite dish of the whole trip -- and, no, it is not goulash. It's venison in whortleberry sauce, and I ordered it for the sole reason that I had never heard of a whortleberry (which has no relation to the mysterious googooberry). Wikipedia tells me it is more commonly called a bilberry and comes from the same genus as the blueberry. Huh! Anyway, whortleberry sauce and Bambi go very well together. And venison, when eaten in Hungary, is very good and very inexpensive.

Excellent pistachio-cream-cake-with-chocolate-base-kind-of-thing, a caprese salad, and the requisite espresso at a cafe, whose name I think was Cafe, near our apartment on the Buda side of Budapest. I must've consumed about 50 espressos on this ten-day adventure.

This menu translation at a roadside pizza joint south of Budapest was priceless. I ordered the Pizza Verhovina just so I could find out what a "scathing rationale" is. I never did find that out. Through inductive reasoning, we concluded at least that "trotters" are diced ham.

The Pizza Verhovina - tomato sauce, cheese, peppers, onions, diced ham, and a dash of scathing rationale. I'll just have to accept it's an ingredient that I am too feeble-minded to ever comprehend.

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of any f0od item from Croatia -- we spent just one night there, in the Istrian town of Rovinj on the Adriatic coast. Grapes seem to grow like ragweed around those parts, so you can tell it's a great area for wining and dining.

The alpine town of Radovjlica, Slovenia, is close to the Austrian border, and one order of wiener schnitzel could feed about 12 hungry yodelers. Also pictured here are potato croquettes and, to the left of the fries, the "Slovenian national dish," which is like a very bland kugel. FYI, if you order an iced coffee in Slovenia, you will get a milkshake that contains mostly ice cream and whipped cream, with some splashes of rum and espresso for good measure. Don't expect it to wake you up.

We all loved Bled, Slovenia, so much that it's a good thing our last meal there was a memorable one. Have you ever seen prosciutto and melon arranged more artfully?

For this same Last Slovenian Supper, I ordered the baby squid stuffed with sausage. Unbelievable!

The Slascicarna Smon bakery in Bled had the most delicious pastries. Everyone's favorite was this one -- a horn shaped roll stuffed with a nutty, brown sugary filling and doused in powdered sugar. Again, I wish I had written down the name!

That same bakery is better known for its cream cake, a Bled specialty consisting of two layers of flaky pastry and one metric butt ton of cream in between. I come from a family of almond cream pie fanatics (my people love it so much, it's known simply as AC Pie at home), and I hope they get to try this some day!

At the Gostilna Pri Planincu, where we celebrated Rachel's birthday, the birthday girl and I both ordered these meat patties, which we had no idea were the size of hatboxes till they arrived at the table. That oozing, buttery lump in the middle is a mascarpone-like cheese. Regarding my friend's cleavage, our saucy waiter said it's "quality, not quantity" that matters, but this statement seems at odds with Pri Planincu's serving sizes.

Also at the Gostilna Pri Planincu, I ordered some of the best cream of mushroom soup I had ever tasted. Actually, I think I liked it because was not that creamy at all. I definitely need to try to replicate this one at home.

Slovenia being so close to Italy, a lot of pizza was consumed on this leg of the trip. No "scathing rationale" in this pie, but prosciutto, asparagus, and fresh mozzarella are always delightful.

The pizza diet made me feel a little squishier than normal, so I ordered the "Fitness Plate" at a beachside lunch spot on Lake Bled. Salad greens topped with grilled chicken, toast, yogurt dressing and tomato slices -- I was a new woman!

Beautiful produce at the Saturday farmer's market in Ljubljana, Slovenia's capital

And, oh yeah, horse meat. The horse burger was the one thing I didn't have the courage to try. Maybe next time, after a night of drinking too much Slovenian wine.

Aioli is Ai-mazing

2009-07-20T13:04:00.011-04:00

I have discovered the elixir of life: aioli!

Aioli is a garlicky, mayonnaise-like concoction whose main ingredients are traditionally olive oil, garlic, blood, sweat, and tears.

To say I have discovered it is a lie; I think it was very trendy in the late 90s. But I made it for the first time, and discovered there is an easy way to make it that doesn't involve stirring -- ahem, "emulsifying" -- until your arm falls off. The secret lies in the blender.

Now, if you are a baby or expecting one, don't use this method, as it mandates a raw egg. Alas, you must go the traditional mortar and pestle route, which I'm sure is at least as satisfying, if you are willing to put in the time and elbow grease. The vegans will also want to follow the sore forearm method. I'm pretty sure most vegans I know would elect to go this route anyway, egg or no egg -- they are such masochists!

Whatever your creed or condition, you must make this NOW. I served it at a barbecue, to rave reviews. It was perfect spread over some homemade bread, topped with tomatoes and herbs. I also stirred it into chicken salad in lieu of regular mayonnaise, which now seems so unexciting compared to aioli that I'm not sure I'll ever eat it again.

Recipe: Quick Aioli
Adapted from the Gourmet Cookbook. Makes about 1 cup.

1/4 c coarsely chopped garlic (about 8-10 cloves)
1 t salt
2 T olive oil, plus 1 c olive oil
1 egg

In a mortar and pestle, or in a bowl using a fork, mash together the garlic, salt and 2 T olive oil for a few minutes. Add to the blender, and blend till fairly smooth, then add the egg and blend again for a few seconds. On a low setting, slowly pour the remaining 1 c olive oil into the blender in a steady, thin stream (assuming your blender has a removable cap that you can use without making a huge mess -- if not, use the next recipe). It may taste incredibly pungent at first, but will mellow out a bit after a little while. Keeps well in the refrigerator for a few days.

Recipe: Slow Aioli (Vegan)
Adapted from the Gourmet Cookbook. Use the same ingredients for Quick Aioli, minus the egg, and a large mortar and pestle, if you have one, or a medium-size bowl. Mash together the garlic, salt, and 2 T olive oil. Add the remaining cup of olive oil, one teaspoon at a time, whisking vigorously upon each addition. This should take about 20 minutes and will build good forearm muscles.

This is why we're fat

2009-07-14T15:15:00.009-04:00

I don't know what's taken me so long to post the Googooberry Pie** recipe, but as soon as I saw this New Yorker review of several "weight-gain books" (as opposed to the more common "weight-loss books") -- all studies of or attempts to account for this country's obesity problem -- I knew I could no longer hold off.

You would think that reading this article would have the opposite effect; upon learning, for example, that 40 percent of young women are too heavy to join the U.S. Armed Forces, I should be more inclined to write about cabbage. But, as we all know, and as this book review elaborates, the human mind is a "calorically demanding organ," so it only makes sense that I immediately thought of the one recipe I know by heart that contains two sticks of butter, a block of cream cheese, three eggs, a whole box of powdered sugar, and a cake mix.

What else could it be but the creation of Paula Deen, Reigning Butter Queen? (Full disclosure: Gooey Butter Cakes are really a St. Louis specialty, but only Paula Deen had the guts, so to speak, to add a cake mix to the mix without apology.) Her Gooey Butter Cakes are so delicious and so popular at her Savannah restaurant, The Lady and Sons, that a Google search yields a countless number of variations: carrot cake, peanut butter, pumpkin, double chocolate, lemon, and on and on till the cows come home -- that is, if they don't tip over first.

At a glance, gooey butter cakes are easily mistaken for ordinary blondies or brownies, but their taste is otherwordly. The cake mix, egg, and one of the sticks of melted butter form a chewy crust, which is then filled with a cheesecake-like mixture of cream cheese, the other stick of melted butter, a pound of powdered sugar, and a big scoop of cocoa powder if you choose to go the chocolate route.

I've made thesed dozens of times, and I've found that Paula Deen's recommended baking time (37-40 minutes) is too long for my oven. You will want to check them first before removing -- the top should be a bit browned and crusty. The fork test will not work here. Gooey butter cakes are supposed to be gooey, after all.

There's not really any need to slice them and remove them from the pan. In fact, it's very un-American to not finish them all in one fell swoop, preferably by yourself, standing over the stove, in nothing but a size XXXL t-shirt. Don't hold back, fatty: eat the whole batch. You're in good company.

Recipe: Googooberry Pie, a.k.a. Gooey Butter Cakes
Adapted from Paula Deen.

**Googooberry Pie: Gooey Butter Cakes' unofficial and more melodic nickname, a result of a hilarious verbal misunderstanding on the part of a family member who will remain anonymous for the time being.

For the crust:
1 yellow cake mix
1 egg
1 stick melted butter, slightly cooled

For the filling:
1 block of plain cream cheese, room temperature
1 stick melted butter, slightly cooled
1 t vanilla
2 eggs, room temperature
1 (16 0z.) box powdered sugar

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, mix together the cake mix, egg, and butter to form a fairly stiff dough. Press it into the bottom of a 13" x 9" metal baking dish to form a crust. Set aside. Rinse the same bowl, and in it beat the cream cheese till smooth. Mix in the butter, vanilla, and eggs. Gradually mix in the powdered sugar. Pour the mixture over the crust and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the top is slightly browned and crusty. Remove and let cool before slicing into squares.

Recipe: Chocolate Googooberry Pies

Follow the recipe above, but use a chocolate cake mix for the crust, and add a half cup of cocoa powder to the filling before adding the powdered sugar.

Getting My Groove Back

2009-07-06T13:50:00.010-04:00

I've been so busy lately, mostly with work, which inevitably means eating badly, overspending on restaurant food, and feeling generally uninspired on the rare occasion I do cook.

But one day recently, I decided to stop at the farm stand on my way home from work. Rows and rows of blackberries, sweetpeas, and corn, all so colorful and tempting, all called my name and recited this little speech, "Diana! I cost three times as much as the stuff you find at Safeway, but I am so worth it, and even though I come from questionably local sources and may have been picked a week ago, you should -- in fact you must -- BUY ME! By the way, you NEED to buy WAY more of me than you or even you and your three brothers and two parents can possibly eat before I go bad, which I may or may not have already started to do!"

And so that is what I did; I bought a bunch of vegetables that were not at peak season and cost me a pretty penny. But they were in fact worth it, because with them I made this gorgeous salad (and, fortuitously, the corn tasted like mid August corn and even the tomatoes were good) and sort of Got My Groove Back. For a spell, anyway. I suggest you replicate this, especially in a few weeks when summer vegetables are reliably both good and cheap.

Recipe: Fresh Corn and Other Summer Veg Salad
The corn makes this. Serves 6 as main course. The leftovers can be used in an excellent frittata (below).

1/2 lb. green beans, ends removed
6 ears corn, shucked
1 pint grape tomatoes, halved
1 cucumber, chopped into 1/2 inch cubes
1 (16 oz.) can blackeye peas, drained and rinsed
1/4 C olive oil
juice of half a lemon
pinch salt
pinch pepper
pinch sugar
some combination of herbs: basil is great, perhaps essential; I also used parsley and a bit of rosemary from my struggling herb garden

Fill a soup pot halfway with water; set it on the stove to high heat. Bring to a boil and add the green beans. Boil for about 8 minutes or until crisp-tender. Have a bowl of ice water ready, and remove the beans with tongs or a slotted spoon to the bowl to prevent further cooking. Add the corn to the boiling water and boil for two minutes. Remove and let cool. Meanwhile, chop the green beans into one or one-and-a-half inch pieces. When the corn is fully cooled, remove kernels from the ears. Stir together the beans, corn kernels, tomatoes, cucumber, and blackeye peas. Stir together the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and sugar and drizzle over the salad you plan to eat. Toss in the herbs.

And if you still want more...

Recipe: No Longer Very Fresh Morning After Frittata
Makes two servings.

1 T vegetable or olive oil
Leftover salad veg
Salt
5 eggs
Some kind of cheese -- about 1/4 C, shredded (optional)
Herbs (optional)
More salt
Pepper

Heat the oven to 450 degrees. Heat the oil in a cast iron pan over medium heat. Add whatever leftover salad veg you have, and stir around. Add some salt. Reduce heat to low-medium and cook for about 5 minutes. Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk together. Pour eggs into pan and let cook another two minutes. Sprinkle in any cheese and/or herbs you are using. Add some more salt and some pepper, and then transfer to the oven. Cook until eggs are puffed up and slightly browned, about 8 minutes.

Most Excellent Salad

2009-06-17T22:30:00.006-04:00

I wanted to post this quickly before I forget and all the strawberries that are now very ripe start to turn and, poof, it becomes raspberry season -- not that there is anything wrong with raspberries, of course; in fact, they too will figure in the next paragraph.

Recipe (In Narrative Form): Most Excellent If Slightly Boojy Salad

The other day I made a Most Excellent If Slightly Boojy Salad consisting of adorable, tiny, local strawberries, some crumbled goat cheese, and some candied pecans over a mix of arugula and spinach. The dressing is one of my best inventions yet, made with three parts olive oil to one part balsamic vinegar and one part raspberry preserves. I whisk everything together, add some fresh basil and salt to the concoction, let it sit for a couple hours to soak up the basil flavor, and then strain the whole thing to get rid of the solids. I also whisk in a couple teaspoons of water at the end to thin it out; I've never been fond of viscous vinaigrettes.

This salad is a lot more Martha Stewart-esque than the dishes I usually make, but it's nice for a change. If you too choose to make it, you could substitute feta cheese or candied walnuts (or a non-candied nut, if you prefer). The dressing also could be made with a different kind of preserves or another herb -- mint would be good. And although this salad may reek of privilege, you can use sparingly the more expensive ingredients, like goat cheese and candied pecans. If you want you can sprinkle the cheese finely and coarsely grind just a couple tablespoons of the nuts in a blender or food processor. This way, the flavors are still well-represented but plenty of leftover ingredients remain.

I wish I had taken a picture of Most Excellent Salad in all her beauty and refinement! Just picture for yourself a salad that might be on the cover of Martha Stewart Living, next to headlines about peonies and chiffon cake and the like.

Losing Streak

2009-06-05T09:30:00.005-04:00

This ain't my week. The week before was pretty bad, too. And the week before that I had the consumption, or maybe just some terrible cold, and spent most of my time watching either The Real Housewives of New Jersey (the beastliness of those women is captivating!) or various PBS cooking shows on the WETA Create channel (TRHONJ's equally captivating polar opposite). Three weeks later, the hacking cough and general yuckiness still linger on, but at least my 10-hour-a-day TV habit has been cured.

All this time as an invalid, I still never lost my appetite. But despite watching so much Lidia, Julia, Jacques, and that smug but still likeable Chris Kimball and his mad scientist brigade, I've been in a cooking slump (with one exception, which I'll get to in a few paragraphs). Not that I haven't been inspired -- a few nights ago, for example, I decided on a whim to make corn tortillas. Rather, it's the talent and foresight that seem to be missing. Now, I don't own a tortilla press, and had never before considered buying one. That evening, though, plucky resourcefulness was all I thought I needed to get by.

To make corn tortillas, you just make a dough out of 1 part masa harina (similar to corn meal, and available at most grocery stores), three-quarter parts water, and a teaspoon or so of salt. Then you form the dough into smaller balls which you then flatten with a tortilla press. If you don't have a tortilla press, you resort to dangerous and bizarre techniques, such as setting the dough ball on a plastic-wrapped wooden cutting board and thwacking it as hard as you can with a cast-iron pan. The dough never gets flat enough, a hand bone possibly shatters, and the wooden cutting board most certainly shatters. Then your roommate suggests you use a rolling pin, and you marvel at your own stupidity. But, you discover, corn tortilla dough is too brittle for a rolling pin to be very helpful, and you wish you had thought to buy a $15 tortilla press on your last trip to Target or, better yet, made something more sensible to eat, like a sandwich.

But you forge ahead with a crazy look in your eyes. You are also very hungry at this point. So you heat the same cast iron pan you were earlier using as a weapon. The pan gets extremely hot, and the smoke alarm goes off, but you casually wave at it with a piece of your broken cutting board until it stops. You return to your first pancake-thick corn tortilla, which is frying away over a dry, excessive heat for about 30 seconds on each side. You remove it, take a small bite, and think to yourself, "Not bad, if you like your tortillas the consistency of matzoh."

You then fill your tortilla -- which, you are amazed to discover, actually bends -- with the pinto beans that have been sitting on the stove all this time. You think to yourself, "When it comes to legumes, I got mad skillz yo, these pinto beans gonna be the icing on this particle board, I mean tortilla." But, horrors! you take a bite and almost spit it out! You can't understand what went wrong. You had simmered the beans over low-medium heat for a couple hours. You had doused them in delicious spices and herbs like cumin, cayenne, bay leaf, and oregano. You added plenty of salt at the end. And still they taste terrible. You have no reasonable explanation, so you think to yourself again, for maybe the 15th time in three weeks, "Today just ain't my day."

In fact, the past three weeks have been so bad that you desperately search your recent memory for a silver lining, and stop on some delicious sauteed collard greens inspired by your favorite new cookbook, Vegan Soul Kitchen. The thought of this cookbook and its charming author, Bryant Terry, makes you so happy that you open it and turn to its first recipe (the only one you have yet to try), "Citrus Collards with Raisins Redux." You may be in a slump, but at least your arsenal now contains this dish, which has completely changed how you cook collards, and which you will keep going back to again and again.

Recipe: Bryant Terry's Winning Collard Greens

Adapted and renamed from Vegan Soul Kitchen. Makes two gigantic side dish servings. Consider serving it over rice and beans for a very fast, filling, and healthy meal. Also, save the stems from the collards -- Bryant (we're on a first-name basis) also taught me this -- and cut them into one- or two-inch pieces and saute them separately in olive oil and lemon juice till they're just tender. He refers to these cooked stems as "collard confetti." I like to add them to garlicky white beans and tomatoes. People mistake them for asparagus and have no idea they are usually meant for compost!

1 bunch (about 1 lb) collard greens, stems removed
2 T olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
handful raisins
juice and zest of half an orange
salt and pepper to taste

Stack a few collard leaves at a time, roll them up, and slice them into strips about an inch wide (this is also known as julienne). Do this with all the collards. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the garlic and saute for two minutes. Then add the raisins and collards and saute for another three minutes, stirring to make sure all the collards get cooked. Add the orange juice and zest and cook for just 15 seconds and remove from the heat. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Ruth Reichl, Mothers, French Canadian Baked Beans: A Love Story

2009-05-06T10:35:00.011-04:00

Tomorrow night (Thursday, May 7, at 7pm), Gourmet editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl will be at Politics & Prose to discuss her latest book, Not Becoming My Mother. I'm planning to go, but I don't think I will ever read the book. For now at least, it's available only in hardcover, and the Economical Epicurean would never waste her money that way. And, besides, Not Becoming My Mother is -- surprise -- about Ruth Reichl's mother and, frankly, I'm sick and tired of Ruth Reichl's mother. Within the past few months, I've read two other Reichl memoirs, Tender at the Bone (loved it) and Garlic and Sapphires (liked it). Both of these memoirs center around Reichl's life's work -- cooking and eating. The former is about her years as a burgeoning home cook and then chef, and the latter is about her experience as the New York Times restaurant critic. Both books are engaging page-turners, filled with mouth-watering recipes and a heaping side of angst. (I think I liked Garlic and Sapphires less because I just couldn't sympathize with all the angst that apparently went with getting paid to write about four-star meals for America's most prestigious newspaper. I felt only jealousy, sometimes to the point of rage.)

Another thing these books have in common is a fixation on Reichl's literally and figuratively toxic mother. As "The Queen of Mold," she provides some great material for Reichl's more humorous pages, but for the most part she is a huge source of conflict in her daughter's otherwise enviable life. I really don't need to read any more about this difficult woman, especially since probably most of the books I read involve the tenuousness of mother-daughter relationships as a major theme. Enough, already! But I still can't get enough of Ruth Reichl, so I will go see her anyway. And I hope -- and fully expect -- that her stories of reconciliation and forgiveness are peppered throughout with stories about food, as those stories are what Reichl does best.

That reminds me of baked beans, which I used to think were disgusting. I promise, there is a proper segue on its way. As I discussed in my last post, we celebrated my friend and roommate Mike Sanders' birthday this past weekend with a barbecue. He smoked a brisket, and I made the side dishes, all traditional barbecue fare like cole slaw, macaroni and cheese, potato salad, biscuits, and baked beans. Best supporting role went to the baked beans, hands down. I had loosely followed the recipe for Maple Baked Beans from the Gourmet Cookbook, whose editor is...Ruth Reichl. (There! Segue as promised, though maybe not so proper as I had hoped it would be.)

These beans are incredibly delicious and incredibly easy, despite some lengthy hands-off cooking time. I did a bit of research on the French Canadian origins of this dish, known in Quebec as feves au lard. According to Ken Albala's Beans: A History (yes, I am a dork with a capital D), the Quebecois started making this dish, or at least writing down the recipe, in the 19th century, and would follow almost exactly the directions that now appear in the Gourmet cookbook:

Soak navy beans or Great Northern beans in water overnight. Drain and rinse. Boil covered with 2 inches of water and simmer until the beans are somewhat tender. Place in a bean pot with the cooking liquid, maple syrup, mustard, thyme, a hunk of salt pork and a chopped onion. Bake for about six hours at a low temperature. Add a little more syrup and serve.

For my version, I omitted the salt pork so the dish could be enjoyed by vegetarians and omnivories alike. Because I feared this omission might be detrimental to the depth of flavor, I added a couple teaspoons of chili powder to smoken things up. Due to time constraints, I cooked the beans for a shorter period of time -- and at higher heat, to compensate -- than the Gourmet version calls for. To keep costs down, I also used less maple syrup, and I'm glad I did -- I think following the original recipe exactly would have produced some excessively sweet legumes.

Even though baked beans are a side dish, they have great main course potential. They can be served over rice or barley or a baked potato. In the last hour or so of cooking, you could add some chopped bitter greens, like kale, collards, or mustard greens, for a boost of nutrients and an interesting twist of flavor. You could even eat them in a tortilla or pita, maybe with a sprinkling of cheese. Any way you eat them, you will be thankful for the Quebecois for coming up with the recipe, Ruth Reichl for including it in her cookbook, and Ruth Reichl's mom -- however horrifying she may have been -- for bringing this great epicurean into the world.

Recipe: Feves au Lard, or Maple Baked Beans

Adapted from the Gourmet Cookbook. Serves 12-15 as a side dish. If you're cooking this for just yourself, halve the recipe. You will have no trouble finishing it over the course of a couple days. Maple syrup aside, it costs pittance to make.

1 (16 oz.) bag of dried navy beans
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 t salt
1 t pepper
2 T chili powder
2/3 C real maple syrup
1 t dijon mustard (the original recipe calls for dry mustard -- use whichever you have or prefer)
6 C water

Soak the beans overnight. Drain, and put them in a Dutch oven. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Stir into beans the onion, salt, pepper, chili powder, maple syrup, and mustard. Add the water to the beans. Bring to a boil on the stove, then cover and bake for an hour and a half, stirring occasionally. Remove cover and bake for another hour or until liquid is mostly absorbed.

Mint Juleps

2009-04-30T12:07:00.007-04:00

The Kentbury Kompound will be hosting yet another outdoor (weather-permitting) fete this Saturday, and though it is principally a celebration of roommate Mike Sanders' birthday, it happens to coincide with the Kentucky Derby. No burgoo or hot browns for us -- we'll be enjoying brisket courtesy of Sanders' fancy new smoker instead -- but I'm planning to give Derby Day a nod with some refreshing mint juleps. I've been combing the internets for a good recipe and I'm happy to find that, unlike most things in life, mint juleps come pretty standard.

Recipe: Mint Juleps

Can serve as many people as necessary, depending on how much simple syrup you make and how much bourbon you have -- just keep in mind that each drink gets one tablespoon of the simple syrup, and 16 tablespoons equal a cup. If you make a simple syrup using one cup of sugar and one cup of water (obviously, the sugar dissolves in the water, so you don't end up with a full two cups of syrup), you should have enough for maybe 20 or so servings.

You make a simple syrup by boiling equal parts sugar and water together for five minutes. Then you stir in some mint leaves (for extra mintiness, grind them in with a wooden spoon) and refrigerate the simple syrup overnight. Before serving, fill each glass with ice, two shots of bourbon (we happen to have some Maker's Mark, but there are definitely cheaper ones out there), and one tablespoon of the minted simple syrup, and stir together. Garnish with extra mint leaves.

So classic, so elegant, so surprisingly economical! I sure hope the weather's nice because I already have in mind the perfect dress to go with my mint julep, ridiculous as that may sound. But, more importantly: Happy Birthday, Sandy!

UPDATE: The party was a great time, and Sanders' brisket was delicious, and we all got a kick out of Derby-winning jockey Calvin Borel, but it turns out I don't even like mint juleps (even though I do like whiskey) and would advise against following my recipe. Sorry. Make mojitos instead!

A good book and a poached egg

2009-04-28T16:07:00.016-04:00

As a hobbyist food writer, or an aspiring one, it goes with the job (or hob, short for hobby? No?) that I also read a lot about food. And in reading about food, I never cease to be amazed at how unsophisticated, how behind-the-times, and how uneducated I tend to be. The inexpensive thrill of cooking with goat meat, to illustrate. I thought I could be the first person to have something to say about it; self-satisfied and self-aggrandizing, I would post comments that linked back to my blog on a hundred other blogs, subsequently earn myself rank among the Orangettes and the Wednesday Chefs, and be known as that plucky young woman who pointed out to all Americans -- or at least all food-interested yuppies, eager for any new fad (I say this without a sneer, for I include myself among them) -- that while goat is eaten by something like 78 percent of the world, it has never occurred to about 78 percent of Americans that it's even edible. In rallying for this ruminant, I would singlehandedly turn chivo and cabrito into household names and boost the sales at ethnic markets nationwide.

Before I could even plan my next trip to Patel Brothers, on March 31 the New York Times broke (I say broke intentionally, as if it were Pulitzer-material investigative journalism) this story, "How I Learned to Love Goat Meat." It's over, I thought -- now I will have to extol the delicacy that is slow-roasted suburban squirrel, anything the established food bloggers haven't already thought of. Sure enough, Serious Eats and The Kitchn got their goat within hours. And it turns out that even the Times was behind the times -- New York magazine had already done a piece on goat meat about six months earlier.

It's the same thing with the late author Laurie Colwin and her wonderful 1988 essay collection, Home Cooking, which I'd never even heard of till I fortuitously picked up a copy at my high school's used book sale. I thought I had uncovered some lost artefact of the late 80s, but it turns out that Colwin has long been a favorite topic in the food blogosphere, despite that her untimely death in 1992, at age 48, occurred almost a decade before the word "blog" was even a part of the American lexicon. Colwin's work still gets a lot of press, and -- after devouring her first collection of food writing in just a few sittings, within the short span of a single lazy Sunday -- I understand why.

My plan for this particular Sunday was to spend it in solitude, but Home Cooking kept great company all day. It may have been less enjoyable were it not for the stick-to-your-ribs PB&C I ate while I read, since this is the type of the book that can make you painfully hungry. Luckily enough, I had the book in one hand, weird sandwich in the other. In fact, mid-bite of some crunchy cabbage and salty peanut butter sprinkled with red pepper flakes and raisins and sitting between two staling slices of wheat bread, I read this most fitting passage:

Dinner alone is one of life's pleasures. Certainly cooking for oneself reveals man at his weirdest. People lie when you ask them what they eat when they are alone. A salad, they tell you. But when you persist, they confess to peanut butter and bacon sandwiches deep fried and eaten with hot sauce, or spaghetti with butter and grape jam.

But this was just one among about a thousand favorite passages (in a book of fewer than 200 pages). There is no way I could ever do Colwin's beautiful, inspiring, spare, funny, and simultaneously self-righteous and self-deprecating writing any justice here. But, I will give a few tastes, as well as a recipe, in hopes that you, too, will read this book and love it as much as I (and the rest of the food blogosphere) do. Regretfully, I don't think I can lend my copy, as I want to always be able to use it for reference.

On Fried Chicken:

As everyone knows, there is only one way to fry chicken correctly. Unfortunately, most people think their method is best, but most people are wrong. Mine is the only right way, and on this subject I feel most evangelical.

On Not Being a Picky Eater:

I will never eat fish eyeballs, and I do not want to taste anything commonly kept as a house pet, but otherwise I am a cinch to feed. My only allergy is a slight one to caviar, making me a cheap date. Furthermore, I am never on a diet regime I cannot be talked out of.

On Vegetarians:

Like Protestants, they come in a number of denominations. Lactovegetarians will eat dairy, eggs and usually fish, but some lactovegetarians will not eat fish. Vegans will not eat dairy products or eggs or fish. And some people say they are vegetarians when they mean they do not eat red meat, leading you to realize that for some people chicken is a vegetable.

On Dinner Parties:

It is a fact of life that people give dinner parties, and when they invite you, you have to turn around and invite them back. Often they retaliate by inviting you again, and you must then extend another invitation. Back and forth you go, like Ping-Pong balls, and what you end up with is called social life.

Colwin could write about anything, and I would keep coming back for seconds and thirds (I'm eager to begin reading her novels; her day job was fiction writer, and she wrote about food for fun), but I feel especially lucky to be acquainted with such an enjoyable writer who is also a champion of cheap cooking. Colwin spends many a page analyzing and reinventing frugal classics such as chicken salad, potato salad, lentil soup, chili, and frittatas. One recipe I felt I must include and adapt for this blog comes from the book's second essay, "The Low-Tech Person's Batterie de Cuisine," and can be made by someone who owns "nothing but one knife and one pot."

Recipe: Sauteed Vegetables and Poached Egg in One Pot

Paraphrased from Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking (1988). Serves 1.

Some vegetables - Colwin suggests "a little green zucchini, a little yellow one, a few snow peas, a small sliced onion," but for springtime I might try asparagus, green beans, broccoli, some kind of bitter green, or whatever else is lying around in the crisper
Some butter and minced garlic
Black pepper
One or two eggs, "depending on how hungry you are"

Saute the vegetables in butter and minced garlic, partially covered, till soft. Remove the cover, grind on some black pepper, push the vegetables to the sides of the pot, and melt a bit more butter. Break in the egg(s) and cover till cooked.

Colwin concludes the recipe thusly: "If you are civilized, you can arrange the vegetables on a plate and put the egg on top. If you are not, you can eat it right out of the pot. If you want some grated cheese, you can scrape it with your knife."

Homo Erectus in the Kitchen

2009-04-21T21:20:00.011-04:00

My affliction with epicureanism, no matter well how it satiates my ever-growing gut, sometimes leaves me feeling rather empty, in the metaphorical sense. It's just food! We all have to eat, I remind myself, and most people in the world don't (or can't afford to) get so precious about it. If you do treat cooking as an art, you probably have too much time and money on your hands. Shouldn't I be spending my time and money doing loftier things? Like...I don't even know, that's how shallow I am. Alright, then shouldn't I be spending my time and money doing things that need to be done, like taking my car to get new brake pads? It has needed them for at least two months. Not very economical of me to wait till the brakes potentially need to be replaced altogether.

Today's Science Times had an encouraging interview of primatologist and anthropologist Richard Wrangham, who argues -- very effectively according to this writer with no science background -- that cooking was the key to our evolution from apes to humans. I'm terrible at paraphrasing, but it's a fascinating argument, and one that certainly goes against the raw food movement: our height and brain size are the products of a healthy diet made possible only when foods are cooked. Makes pretty good sense to me, but perhaps I am just biased.

But, to return to my original predicament, can I start to think of cooking as "lofty" because the apes don't do it, because it just may be the thing that makes me a human!?! Indeed, pursuits such as music and art are considered lofty. True, sometimes monkeys make art, like if the zookeeper gives them an open can of paint or something, but the humanly desire to "Create!" does not seem to be there. On the other hand, another thing that separates us from our fellow primates is that we can stand up straight and this, to me, despite whatever literal interpretations you want to make, is not lofty, nor does it make feel particularly special.

Certainly, something that cooking gave us a lot more of, in addition to perhaps size, brains, and longevity, is free time. (Dr. Wrangham's chimpanzees "spend most of their day foraging and chewing extremely fibrous foods," some of which they'll "masticate for a full hour.") For me, cooking -- or spending more time cooking than one has to in order to survive -- is probably nothing more than an enjoyable way to use up some time and give the ol' palate a kick. If nothing else, it definitely beats gnawing on the same fibrous plant till my teeth hurt.

Family Jewels

2009-04-19T13:50:00.005-04:00

Last night I enjoyed a picture-perfect barbecue at the home of my cousin Kate and her husband, Seth, joined by Kate's sister Liza and Liza's boyfriend, Avi. I brought along as my date a six-pack of Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre, whose brute strength left me still weak in the knees this morning. Heh. A good date, indeed.

The weather was perfect, the conversation lively, the fire pit roaring, and the food excellent. As an added bonus, I learned two important lessons from Kate and Seth's wonderful, casual, al fresco dinner:

1) Boiled potatoes with nothing but salt and pepper on them are underrated and delicious -- and a frugal eater's dream.

2) Grilled chicken need not be dry, if you follow this important step: boil it first! Kate learned this brilliant bit from her mom, my Aunt Mary. No need to boil it very long, maybe 5 or 10 minutes. This way, the chicken is already parcooked and doesn't desiccate away on the open flame.

That reminds me, I have another gem to offer, courtesy of Aunt Mary: her amazing broccoli salad, which I mentioned in my last post and served at Easter. It's been a popular fixture at the past three or four holiday functions, I think. I dare you to find a better way to eat broccoli.

Recipe: Aunt Mary's Broccoli Salad

Adapted from Richmond's Ukrop's Deli via a 1980s Washington Post recipe, which does not seem to be available on their archives. Makes 6-8 servings.

For the salad:

1.5 - 2 C finely chopped broccoli florets and/or stalks
2-3 finely chopped celery ribs
1/2 C finely chopped onion
1/2 C golden raisins [Mary's note: dark is fine]
7 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled [DEO note: omit the bacon if you want to make a vegetarian version]
6-8 large, well-shaped lettuce leaves for serving [DEO note: Mary doesn't serve the salad in lettuce leaves, and it is just fine that way.]

For the dressing:

1/2 - 2/3 C reduced calorie mayonnaise [DEO note: use full-fat mayo if that's what you already have]
1/4 C sugar
1.5 T cider vinegar
1/2 - 1 t seasoning salt
1/8 - 1/4 t freshly ground pepper

Combine all the salad ingredients, except for the bacon, in a medium-sized bowl. Combine all the dressing ingredients and spoon over the salad; stir and cover. Chill 4-8 hours before serving. Top with the bacon. Serve on lettuce leaves (optional).

Tentative Easter Menu

2009-04-07T21:00:00.009-04:00

My parents are out of town yet again this year, so it's up to us at the Kentbury Kompound to host an Easter egg hunt and accompanying brunch/dinner. It's at 3pm. What do you call that mealtime? I don't like the portmanteau "linner" -- it doesn't sound like what it's supposed to mean; it sounds to me like a vulgar combination of "inner" and "linger," or maybe I'm the vulgar one.

Anyway, Easter was always my favorite holiday as a kid, and now that I'm older (but not wiser) I still get really excited about being surrounded by pastel colors and wearing a church-appropriate dress and, of course, all the springtime-y food involved (not to mention, egg hunts are still just as fun as they were when I was a wee one, now that I'm allowed to drink). I took a kitchen inventory, and here's what I'm thinking for the menu this year, but we'll see if I can get everything done:

-Roast leg of lamb (only because I found one sitting in my parents' freezer; I can't afford no stinkin' sheep. Not that I'm stealing, per se, only helping: this animal would continue to freeze for all eternity if I didn't use it.)

-Various quiches or frittatas that use up whatever veggies and cheese I already have or can find on the cheap. Most likely, I'll make some frittatas -- that way I don't have to bother with the crust. To make one, you simply preheat the oven to 450, heat whatever veggies or meat you are using in a cast-iron pan over the stove, add 6 or 7 beaten eggs, let them continue cooking for two minutes or so over low-medium heat, until the mixture begins to set in the pan, sprinkle some cheese on it if you want, and then transfer the pan to the oven and bake for 9 minutes or until the frittata is puffed up and brown.

-Some kind of white bean salad, since I have a whole bag of dried. I also could cook that lamb with the beans in the crockpot...the wheels are turning...

-Some kind of salad with quinoa (not a grain, as I mistakenly called it awhile back, but a seed), since I also have a whole bag of that. I'm thinking about riffing on my Sprightly Spring Couscous using quinoa; 'twould be good and good for you!

-An asparagus or green bean dish -- maybe with the veg mixed in with some roasted potatoes. Though I'm also interested to try the peas with poached eggs from today's Times article on Newark, New Jersey's Portuguese section -- where I can say I've happily eaten a few times!

-My Aunt Mary's awesome broccoli salad. I definitely need to post this recipe soon, but it deserves a whole post of its own.

-For hors d'oeuvres: I'm planning to make Almost-No-Knead bread again and toasting it for crostini. Or, if I run out of time, just serving it with some garlicky olive oil. I have a big hunk of goat cheese left over from Nana's birthday party; homemade bread with goat cheese and honey sounds very tempting right about now. If time lets me, I would like to make Dorie Greenspan's gougeres (cheese puffs), always a hit at my parties, and, conveniently, I happened to find a big bag of pre-shredded (horrors!) cheese that also needed to be rescued from my parents' black hole of a 'frigerator.

-For dessert: definitely flourless chocolate cake, an Easter tradition in the Owen family, for which I'll follow Alice Medrich's recipe again. I'd like to try a rhubarb crisp, too, since rhubarb is in season and I haven't cooked with it before. If I remember, I will also make Key Lime pie. I don't have an interesting recipe for this; we always follow the one on the back of the Key Lime juice container that you buy in the grocery store. I don't even remember the brand, but it's usually the only one of its kind. It's really good and really easy, and requires only three ingredients if I remember correctly: a frozen pie shell, a can of sweetened condensed milk, and the Key Lime juice.

-For libations: white wine sangria -- I mix together two big bottles of the cheapest white wine, a cup or so of club soda, another cup of triple sec, a bag of Trader Joe's frozen Fancy Berry Medley, some lemon or orange juice, and a quarter cup or so of sugar. It pleases a pretty big crowd. Once we run out, I guess we'll get creative with our bizarre assortment of liquors and liqueurs, or finally take care of those PBRs in the fridge.

-For the egg hunt: I'll be putting the family collection of plastic eggs to use by filling them with homemade truffles (all you do is mix together 2 cups of chocolate chips, a stick of butter cut into pieces, and a teaspoon of vanilla in a heat-proof bowl or double boiler, melt it over a pan of boiling water, stir it together, refrigerate it for an hour, form into balls, and roll in a mixture of 1/2 C cocoa powder and 1/2 C powdered sugar), which I'll wrap individually in tin foil. The eggs will probably also contain things I find around the house, such as pennies, cat toys, q-tips, used Post-It notes, barrettes, staples, and safety pins. What, you want me to go buy pastel M&M's? Times are tough, people!

So, all this seems like a lot, but nothing I'm making is very difficult and most of it just requires ingredients that I already have. The only things I will have to buy are broccoli, asparagus or green beans, some fresh rosemary, some potatoes (maybe), rhubarb, and the three Key Lime pie ingredients. Probably some more eggs for dying, too. I happen to have a pretty well-stocked kitchen, but I'm also not using any particularly expensive ingredients (with the exception of that free lamb -- score!). I'm really looking forward to it, and I hope to see you there!

And, lastly, if you'll pardon my horn-tooting, this blog was mentioned by the Chicago Sun-Times Food Section, in a feature on two of my favorite blogs, Cheap Healthy Good and Casual Kitchen, and is also listed on the Culinary School Guide's Top 100 Blogs for the Frugal Gourmet. I'm getting fatter -- and this time it's not just my waistline!

New Uses for Old Herbs

2009-04-05T22:25:00.015-04:00

The feast for Nana's birthday left behind some great leftovers, which sustained me for at least the first half of this past week, but it also left me with a lot of uncooked ingredients languishing in the refrigerator, their dank holding cell, where they lay wilted and guilty in anticipation of their inevitable landfill death sentences (yes, I know I should both compost and avoid metaphors that don't map very well, but now's not the time). The ingredients whose sentences I was most eager to appeal were the fresh mint, parsley, dill, and chives, all expensive and all quick to spoil.

I have heard you can freeze herbs, but, knowing my kitchen habits, the freezer would simply act as a maximum security prison to the fridge's holding cell, both leading to the same imminent death at the trash heap gallows (there I go again). I had to act quickly and, ideally, with delicious results.

While I understand that grocery stores are businesses and need to make money, the cost of fresh herbs nonetheless usually sends me into mild shock. Of course, they are also pre-packaged in such a way that one is forced to buy far more than one ever needs. I know, I should just grow my own, just as I should compost, and I intend to when the weather gets warmer. But this wouldn't necessarily solve the problem of too much herb, not enough time. In my rather limited herb-growing experience, the mint in particular spreads like the smallpox, but wipes itself out before you can say "More iced tea?"

The herbs whose fates I was now debating were too wilted at this point to pass off as a garnish for pasta, soup, or salad. However I was going to use them, I needed to fully incorporate them into the dish in attempt to mask their ages, which, mind you, were not that old, but certainly old enough. I succeeded with the following two recipes -- and have enough tasters (speak up, you guys!) to prove it.

These recipes would be handy for other aging herbs, too. Hummus, especially, is a great "canvas," to quote Sanders, for creative experimentation. In place of the mint and parsley, you could use basil, cilantro, dill, chives, scallions, lemongrass, rosemary, tarragon, and probably some others I haven't thought of. For the bread, I would avoid using the leafier herbs, which might not stand up to all that baking, and stick with the heartier ones like rosemary, thyme, and of course dill and chives. Sage also could be interesting.

The bread and hummus work wonderfully as a pair, but if you already have some antique pita bread, I suggest toasting that and making pita chips as well. The whole point here is to use up old ingredients and avoid buying new ones, so I've included lots of ideas for substitutions where appropriate.

Recipe: Orange-Mint Hummus

Most store-bought hummus is bland, but my homemade hummus is just like me: nuanced, mysterious, sophisticated, exciting, tan in color. Okay, not like me at all. Anyway, this hummus has depth. You might think, "Mint? How strange!" -- but don't worry, it does not make the hummus taste a thing like toothpaste. The mint is subtle, as is the orange juice and zest. You could definitely use lemon juice and zest, which is more traditional; I happened to have only half a lemon, but also a whole orange that had been sitting on my countertop for too long, and the orange makes this hummus even more unique.

1 can chickpeas, drained, or 1 and 1/2 C dried chickpeas, soaked overnight, simmered for about an hour and a half, and drained
1/3 C tahini
1 t salt
1/4 t soy sauce (optional -- feel free to use additional salt instead, or none if you prefer)
3 cloves garlic
1 t cumin
2 T chopped shallots (not essential - I just had half a shallot I wanted to use up)
juice and zest of one large orange (or juice of two lemons, plus zest of one lemon; leave out the next ingredient -- more lemon -- if you go this route)
juice and zest of half a lemon (I was also trying to use up half a lemon; consider this ingredient optional)
2 T water
2 T olive oil (feel free to add more to get a consistency you like)
1/4 C loosely packed mint (or use whatever amount you have, though probably no more than a quarter cup)
1/4 C loosely packed parsley

Pulse everything together in the food processor till well-blended. Makes about 3 cups.

Recipe: Dill and Chive Almost-No-Knead Bread

The basis for this recipe comes from the mad scientists of America's Test Kitchen; only they could've figured out how to improve on a Minimalist phenomenon. I first sampled it at the home of my friends Danny and Miriam (check out Miriam's fantastic blog about cooking on a grad student budget) awhile back, and Danny kindly sent me a scanned PDF of the recipe from Cook's Illustrated. I am pretty sure they added rosemary to their rendition of this bread, which we dipped it in olive oil as a delicious appetizer. It's pretty easy to make -- I don't think I even followed all the steps correctly (typical) -- but it still turned out really well, with a nice, crispy crust and a light, chewy inside. With the time allotments involved, this is definitely a bread best made on a weekend. You need a Dutch oven that can withstand 450-degree heat, and if you don't have one, consider making Cuban bread and adding the herbs before you leave the dough to rise. The advantage of Almost-No-Knead Bread is, quite obviously, that it requires minimal kneading.

3 C all-purpose flour, plus extra for work surface
1/4 t rapid-rise or instant yeast
1 t salt (I like a bit more, and next time I will add another half teaspoon)
3/4 C water, room temperature
1/2 C mild-flavored beer, room temperature (this is not in Mark Bittman's No-Knead-Bread, but is added here for extra flavor. If you do not have beer, consider following the Bittman version)
1 T white vinegar
2 T minced chives
2 T minced dill
Vegetable oil spray (I do not have this, so I lightly brushed vegetable oil over the parchment and the bread)

Whisk the flour, yeast, and salt together in a large bowl. Fold in the water, beer, vinegar, and herbs with a rubber spatula till the dough comes together and looks "shaggy" (not my word, but you will know it's ready when it begins to resemble Snuffy from Sesame Street, texturally). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for at least 8 hours, or up to 18 hours.

Lay an 18" x 12" sheet of parchment paper inside a 10-inch skillet (or 10-inch shallow bowl) and spray with vegetable oil spray (or brush with vegetable oil). Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand to form a smooth, round ball, 10 to 15 times. Shape the dough into a ball by pulling the edges into the middle with floured hands. Transfer the dough, seam-side down, to the prepared skillet.

Mist (or lightly brush) the dough with vegetable oil and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let it rise at room temperature until doubled in size and the dough barely springs back when touched, about 2 hours. About 30 minutes before baking, adjust an oven rack to the lowest position, place a large Dutch oven and heat the oven to 450 degrees (although the original recipe says to heat the oven to 500 degrees, I was nervous about my pot, and kept it at 450. The bread still turned out well.).

Lightly flour the top of the dough and score it with a knife. Carefully remove the pot from the oven and remove the lid. Pick up the parchment and the dough and lower them into the hot pot, letting any excess parchment hang over the edge. Cover the pot, and place it in the oven, reducing the heat to 425 degrees, and bake covered for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and continue to bake until the center of the loaf registers 20 degrees on an instant-read thermometer and the crust is deep golden brown, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove the bread from the pot, transfer to a wire rack, and let cool to room temperature, about 2 hours, before serving.

You turn 85 only once

2009-03-30T15:38:00.011-04:00

The birthday girl and me, enjoying cake and ice cream, of course.

Yesterday, my family threw a big party for my grandmother's 85th birthday. In the spirit of this grand occasion, I abandoned all frugal sensibilities and went hog-wild at several different grocery stores. Shrimp! Smoked salmon! Marcona almonds! Goat cheese! Arugula! Belgian endives! Skinny asparagus! Fresh herbs, all different kinds!

Nana herself would have exercised more restraint. Even as her dementia has worsened, she has never let go of her Depression-era ways -- e.g., reusing paper towels and foil and saving the smallest scraps of food -- which people today are adopting for our current situation. But, oh, as M.F.K. Fisher writes in the section "How to Practice True Economy" in How to Cook a Wolf (1942, financially the toughest year of the war), there are occasions when it's acceptable to "throw discretion into the laundry bag, put candles on the table, and for your own good if not the pleasure of an admiring audience make one or another of the recipes in this chapter," which includes lots of luxuries like butter, booze, and cream. And one such occasion is one's grandmother's 85th birthday.

I brought smoked salmon tea sandwiches, biscotti, cabbage salad, and an improvised shrimp pasta salad, but my favorite contribution was a classy little tapas dish I discovered at Jaleo. I hunted down the recipe and found it on the Food Network site for Rachael Ray's $40 a Day -- I guess from an episode where she visits DC -- but changed the proportions significantly. It tastes of early spring, requires no cooking, and went over smashingly at the party. The birthday girl herself didn't take much notice -- these days, all she wants is dessert. And when you're 85, you can have as much as you want.

Recipe: Endive Boats with Oranges, Almonds, and Goat Cheese
Adapted from Jose Andres via the Food Network.
Makes about 40 tapas. Can be covered in plastic wrap and refrigerated overnight.

1/4 C sherry vinegar (I didn't have any, so I used red wine vinegar -- seems fine)
1/2 C olive oil
1 minced garlic clove
1 T minced shallot
dash of salt
dash of pepper
5 Belgian endives
6 small to medium oranges, peeled and cut into pieces about a half-inch long
1 C almonds, coarsely chopped (I used Marcona to be fancy, but any kind should be fine)
4 oz. goat cheese, crumbled
3 T chives, snipped
dash of salt

To make the dressing, whisk together the first five ingredients. Set aside. Cut the roots off the endives, peel off the leaves and lay them down, concave side up. (Some of the leaves might be too small to work as "boats" -- save these for a salad or some other use.) Fill each endive boat first with the oranges (about 4 or 5 pieces each), then with the almonds (about a teaspoon each), then with a sprinkle of the goat cheese and chives. Strain the dressing, keeping the liquid only (you can keep the solids for some other use -- I added them to the shrimp marinade for my shrimp pasta salad). Drizzle about a half teaspoon of the dressing over each boat.

Addendum: later in the springtime, strawberries would be a delicious substitute for the oranges. Also, feta cheese or even blue cheese would be good, and julienned basil or chopped parsley would work in place of chives.

Strangely Delicious: The PB&C

2009-03-20T19:29:00.004-04:00

The food writer Michael Ruhlman has a great blog that teaches me how to do all kinds of things I will probably never do, like make my own duck prosciutto. It makes for interesting reading, but I prefer to leave the meat-curing to Sanders, who has made his own bacon (that's not a euphemism in this context) and is planning to build a smokehouse in our backyard.

Recently, Ruhlman introduced his readers to the peanut butter and cabbage sandwich, his go-to weekday lunch. He claims to consume "several pounds" of raw cabbage each week, and credits it for his "virile good health." I like cabbage, and I like peanut butter, and I like the idea of virile good health, so I decided to try it. Indeed, it was delicious. I added a sprinkle of red pepper flakes for some oomph. I think a bit of ginger would be good here, too. Hot pepper jelly would be perfect. Heck, you could spread the peanut-ginger dressing from my last post on two pieces of bread, slap some cabbage up in there, and throw a party in your mouth.

If you're still not convinced, think of this sandwich as a relative of celery sticks and peanut butter, only with a lot more nutrients.

The Cilantroversy

2009-03-15T20:53:00.009-04:00

It seems no herb but cilantro can provoke such strong opinions. I first witnessed this years ago, working at the Rio Grande Cafe in Bethesda. The special of the day was "Shrimp Acapulco" -- grilled shrimp served over a bed of "cilantro rice" and topped with mango salsa, if I remember correctly. I'm sure it was very thoughtfully named. Anyway, I was describing it (in more detail than what you just read -- this tactic is known as "upselling" in the restaurant world) to a middle-aged couple and their son, during a lunch shift. As soon as I said the word "cilantro," the woman shuddered, "Oh, ugh. I can't stand cilantro." What?? I had just sampled the new special earlier that morning, and I'll be damned if it weren't "out of this world" -- my favorite way to describe food to customers. Plus, I thought, cilantro makes everything better.

It turns out a lot of people hate, hate, this herb. It may just be genetics: a behavioral scientist recently took his cilantro study to the Ohio Twins Festival and found that if one identical twin hated cilantro, chances are the other twin felt the same way. Also, most cilantro-haters detect in it a soapy taste and smell, which strikes me as a genetic kind of thing -- a very scientific opinion, I know. It reminds me a little bit of the asparagus pee phenomenon; studies have shown that eating asparagus always results in an odiferous urine, but not everyone is able to smell it. I'm glad I can't, because it might ruin asparagus for me.

Anyway, cilantro. There have been a number of groups formed on Facebook dedicated to a collective detestation of this most ubiquitous of herbs. The below is a small sampling of the wall posts for the group I HATE CILANTRO, now boasting almost 2,000 members:

"We are born with something people who can tolerate cilantro don't have. It's called a soul."

"Cilantro is just plain vulgar. Its flavor lingers and repeats for at least three days. Reasturants should warn customers about every item that contains it. I HATE IT! It chould be illegal."

"Fresh coriander is an abomination.
It is surely the scent of evil, the stench of hell, the proof that the Enemy is working around us.
On his occasional meetings with the Devil around the turn of the first Millenium, it is reported that St. Julian Hospitaller could always detect the odour of fresh coriander - cilantro. It should never be consumed by human beings and restaurants should ALWAYS have a warning sign for any dishes dishes carrying this noxious weed. I certainly send my food back if they come up with pearls of culinary stupidity as a 'coriander pesto' but they only anounce it as 'pesto'."

Gentle readers, these are highlights from only Page One of the wall posts.

I'm not sure which came first, but there is also a website, ihatecilantro.com, where you can read all about the evils of the herb and the people who cook with it, and order your "I HATE CILANTRO" sweatshirts, messenger bags, throw pillows, mouse pads, and beer steins. There's even a canine-sized "I HATE CILANTRO" t-shirt, for that dog of yours who becomes nauseated at the very thought.

I jest. If cilantro-hating really is a matter of genes, then I can't fault the haters. But, all this hulabaloo against an innocent herb? It's kind of hilarious. I guess I, too, have joined "hater" Facebook groups -- my favorite among them being "If you can't differentiate between your and you're, you deserve to die." But what did cilantro ever do to you? Okay, touche, what did the your/you're offenders ever do to me (besides make grading their English 101 papers extra tedious)?

Well, doggone it, I love cilantro, if you couldn't tell already. I love it so much that I take a long whiff every time I encounter it. Mmmmm! Makes everything seem so fresh! The following two recipes are cilantro-heavy, but if you happen to be a hater, you could just as well make them without the cilantro. I had my parents and two of my brothers over for dinner tonight, and served the cabbage salad as the first course and the soup as the main course, fearing the flavors of each dish were too strong to be served at the same time. Home run! Everyone loved everything (my people don't have the cilantro-hating gene, clearly). Plus, it's all pretty low-fat, and yours truly is looking to get rid of about 10 pounds.

Recipe: Peanut-Ginger Cabbage Salad
The dressing is adapted from 101Cookbooks. Serves 6 as a heavy first course.

For dressing (makes about 1.25 C):
2/3 C creamy peanut butter
1/3 C rice vinegar
1/4 C maple syrup (I was out of maple syrup, so I just used 2 T sugar)
3 T water
2 T tamari (I do not have this, so I substituted soy sauce)
1 T minced fresh ginger (or 1.5 t ground ginger)
2 cloves garlic
1.5 t toasted sesame oil (use regular sesame oil if you don't have the toasted kind)
1/4 t crushed red pepper flakes (omit these if you don't like spicy food)
1 C cilantro

For salad:
1 half of a large head of green cabbage, cut into julienne strips
2 large carrots, coarsely grated
1 red pepper, julienned
2 C broccoli florets (ends of about two broccoli)
juice of half a lime
1/4 C loosely packed mint leaves
1/4 C loosely packed cilantro

To make the dressing, grind together the first nine ingredients in the food processor or blender. Add the cilantro and pulse a few times. Add water as necessary to get a consistency you like for salad dressing. May be refrigerated for up to two days.

To make the salad, toss together all the salad ingredients. Toss with the dressing.

Addendum: Feel free to use any combination of vegetables here. Red cabbage can be substituted. Green beans would be good. A different-colored pepper. Sliced radishes, especially daikon radish. Cucumber might be a nice addition. Red onion, perhaps. Use your imagination!

Recipe: Spicy Chickpea and Tomato Stew
Inspired by Rachael Ray's Indian-Spiced Chickpea and Fire-Ro asted Tomato Soup (don't hate). Serves 6.

1 T olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium onion, diced
3 15-oz. cans chickpeas, or one and a half bags of dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
3 t ground cumin
1 t garam masala
1 t ground turmeric
1/2 t cayenne pepper or two chopped, seeded dried red chiles (omit if you don't like spicy food)
2 C chickenor vegetable stock
1 C water
1 28-oz. can diced tomatoes
1 C cilantro
1.25 C plain yogurt
Pita chips (optional, recipe follows)

Heat a large pot over medium heat and add the olive oil. Add the garlic and onions and cook, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Add chickpeas and spices. Reduce heat to low-medium and cook another 5 minutes. Add chicken stock and water, increase to medium, bring to a low boil, reduce heat to low-medium, and simmer about 30 minutes. Add tomatoes and cook for another 15 minutes. Reduce heat to low. Ladle soup into bowls and give each a tablespoon or so of cilantro and a dollop of yogurt. Serve with pita chips.

Pita chips: Heat oven to 300 degrees. Take four pieces of pita bread that are about to go stale. Cut each in half crosswise (so each pita becomes two full circles). Slice into fourths. Brush each piece with olive oil on both sides. Sprinkle each side with salt. Bake for about 10 minutes, or until crispy.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

2009-03-13T14:12:00.005-04:00

Breakfast of Champions

My new job consists of a lot of things that make me uncomfortable: asking people for work, public speaking, "networking" (I hate that word, but it's not nearly so offensive as "interfacing"), and being addressed as "young lady" by certain colleagues of an older generation. But I 've recently discovered the secret to making at least the first three things a little easier for me: homemade biscotti.

I knew this recipe was a keeper the first time I followed it. Success on the first try is rare for me, a notably absent-minded baker. But the first batch's results -- a super crispy, almond-y, tart breakfast treat, ideally dipped in coffee -- were so good that I presented them as part of a housewarming gift to my friends Brigid and John. Placed in a colander with a pound of coffee, the whole package was very well-received.

Less than a week later, I was brainstorming what kind of "leave-behinds" (another stupid term, like "interface," that I picked up when I worked for the ad agency) my company should bring to client presentations. It seems everyone has more pens, mugs, and stress balls than their desks can handle. Plus, my new company is a start-up, still deep in the red. A homemade leave-behind seemed just the thing!

And sure enough, it was a hit, to quote the client himself. To say the presentation itself was a bit rocky is an understatement. But the silver lining came when the client sent me an email later that day, raving about the biscotti and including a forwarded email from his coworker who wanted the recipe. I have a few other big client presentations lined up over the next couple weeks, and I will be sure to try to win 'em over again in the same fashion. Because it's not what you say, it's how it tastes. Or something.

Recipe: Cran-Almond Biscotti
Adapted from Bon Appetit's Dried Cranberry and White Chocolate Biscotti, via Epicurious. Makes about two and a half dozen cookies.

2.5 C flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1.5 C sugar
1 stick butter, room temperature
2 eggs
1/2 t almond extract
1 C dried cranberries (the original recipe calls for 1.5 C, but I used less for cost-saving purposes, and found the results still cranberryish enough)
1 egg white (optional, in my opinion -- but it creates a pretty, glazed look on the crust)
6 oz. white chocolate, chopped (optional: I also omitted this, and didn't miss it)
Handful of sliced almonds (not in the original recipe, but I added these the second time I made them, and I think this batch was even better than the first!)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium-sized bowl. In a large bowl, beat the sugar, butter, eggs, and almond extract till well blended. Mix in the flour mixture to form a fairly stiff dough, then fold in the cranberries (and the almonds if you are using them).

Pick up the dough and divide it into two halves. With floured hands, shape each dough ball into a log measuring 3" wide, 9.5" long, and 1" high. Transfer these to the baking sheet (you may also shape the log on the baking sheet, which I found easier and more efficient). Whisk the egg white and brush all over each log. Bake till golden brown, 35 minutes.

The "logs" before baking -- I forgot about the egg white this time, and it didn't seem to matter too much. Just a less shiny crust.

Cool completely on a rack, keeping the oven on. Transfer the logs to a cutting board and discard the parchment. Use a serrated knife to cut them on a diagonal into slices about a half-inch wide. Arrange each biscotto cut side down on the baking sheet (you will probably need to get out another baking sheet, unless you want to bake them in shifts). Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven, and flip each biscotto. Bake until they are just beginning to color, 5-7 minutes. Transfer to a rack.

Optional: melt the white chocolate in a heat-proof glass bowl in the microwave in 30-second intervals, stirring in between intervals, until completely melted. Drizzle over the biscotti and let stand about 30 minutes.

Addenda: This recipe is a great template for other biscotti. You could skip the almond extract if you want and add the zest of an orange for Cran-Orange biscotti. You could also use the zest of a lemon, which I think would be great with dried blueberries. You could also add a teaspoon of anise seeds or a half teaspoon of anise extract for a licorice flavor. You could use dried currants instead of dried cranberries. You could drizzle dark chocolate instead of white chocolate. You could replace the dried cranberries with chocolate chips. You could use vanilla extract instead of almond extract. You could add dried cherries, cocoa powder (maybe a half cup? Better look this one up), and hazelnuts. You could use pistachios. Ooh! I want to try lime zest, shredded coconut, and pieces of dried mangoes for a sort of tropical biscotti. The possibilities are endless!

Take Back the Tuber

2009-03-09T20:40:00.007-04:00

So, I was in fact too busy with the cabana boys to write anything about my road trip to Florida. Besides, a vacation is not really a vacation if it involves a computer screen. And besides that, I figure no one besides me would find my food finds that interesting. But, if you ever find yourself traveling along both coasts or cruising down Route 1 in the Keys, and you are wondering what to eat, get in touch! I did not have a single unimpressive meal -- and this was almost two whole weeks of road food. Also, and this may come as a surprise, I do sometimes do things that don't involve eating (e.g., sleeping, drinking, lying on the beach, petting stray cats), and I'd be happy to pass that related information along, too.

Me in my bathing suit, Siesta Key, February 2009

But the vacation's over, another new job has begun, and news about the economy (is there any other kind of news?) gets more depressing every day. Well, bless her little heart, Jane E. Brody has come to America's rescue by encouraging us to Take Back the Tuber. I suppose I am amplifying her potato praise a bit -- it covered only two paragraphs or so of her Science Times column on March 2. But it did have its own section heading: "Potatoes: One of the Good Guys." Can I get an Amen?!?!

J. Bro goes on to point out that potatoes, defamed in recent years as nothing but carb-heavy repositories of butter and bacon, provide 35 percent of your daily vitamin C, 20 percent of your B6, 10 percent of your niacin, iron, and copper, and 6 percent of your protein. I'll add to that list that if you eat the skin, you also get a shitload (pun intended) of fiber.

Anyone who knows me well knows how much I love the homely old tuber, any way I can get it. But there's really nothing more comforting -- or more affordable -- than a baked potato. Tonight I topped mine with a tiny bit of butter, some salt and pepper, a whole lot of steamed broccoli, and a couple sprinkles of blue cheese (so tempting, all melty and soft in the potato's heat. Methinks my next career will be the first author of tubercentric romance novels, an untapped genre). Baked potatoes are also great for using up leftovers of almost any kind -- think of them as edible landfills (yes, that makes no sense at all) for chicken salad, ground beef, roasted veg, beans, whatever. I'd like to douse a tater with my dal saag or cilantro-garlic yogurt sauce. Talk about a stimulus package!

If you are one of the poor souls who doesn't know how to bake a potato, 1) you are no friend of mine, and 2) here's how to become my friend: turn your oven on to 400 degrees; take a potato, preferably a "Baking Potato," and scrub it under running water for a few seconds; get fancy if you want and slather that wet potato skin with salt; use a knife or fork to poke a few holes in the skin; put it in the oven for about 45 minutes (longer if you are baking multiple potatoes -- maybe about an hour); take it out of the oven; cut a big slit in it lengthwise and get creative with your toppings. Or use just a little bit of butter, salt, and pepper (just salt and pepper if you're watching your figure; just pepper if you're watching your sodium; just plain if you're a self-flagellating monk).

In conclusion, if we want to "get back to our values," as everyone keeps saying, the solution is really quite simple. Buy potatoes and bake them! Really, the slogan of the United Potato Growers of America can legitimately be "Country First." Let me break it down for you:

1) When you buy potatoes, you are "buying American." You really think we are dumb enough to import potatoes from China? Okay, maybe we are. But thankfully, we don't usually do that. In fact, we are the world's fifth largest exporter of potatoes.

2) Even so, supply is outweighing demand, which has caused potato prices to drop. Right now, that's good for you (on the other hand, price drops are usually compensated by federal subsidies, so consumers don't pay much less than they did before). And if we all start buying more potatoes, it'll be good for the farmers and good for the taxpayers!

3) Because they are so cheap, potatoes keep money in your pocket, which you can then stuff under your mattress. When your mattress becomes uncomfortable, you know it's time to hit the fire sales.

4) As Jane E. Brody so wisely enumerates, potatoes, as long as they're not scalloped or turned into fries, are good for your health. Lowered health care costs, my friends! Let's think long-term.

Destination: Florida?

2009-01-29T21:40:00.011-05:00

Above photograph stolen from icanhascheezburger

For the next couple weeks I will be cruising around the Sunshine State and hope to post some of my economical epuricean findings therein -- that is, if I'm not too busy ordering pina coladas from sinewy cabana boys and watching this guy do his nightly show in Key West. I have a lot of restaurant recommendations from Roadfood and can't wait to sink my teeth into the following Floridian specialties:

-Stuff made with datil peppers, found all over the northeastern coast
-Ropa vieja, or really any Cuban specialty, in Little Havana, Miami
-Apalachicola Bay oysters on the half shell
-Hogfish, especially if it's hugged by a sesame seed roll
-Key lime pie, obvi
-Lots of BBQ (we tend to forget Florida's still part of the south)
-Some good mullet (and I mean the fish and the hairstyle, both abundant in these parts)
-Some good cooter (and I mean the turtle but not the ladyplaces)

Non-Floridians tend to associate Florida with geriatrics, Disney World, congestion, spring break, endangered manatees, endangered little Cuban boys on rafts, George W. Bush's first election, and violent crime. And by non-Floridians, maybe I just mean me. You would wonder why I want to go there. The main reason is that it's like 50 degrees warmer there than it is here in icy, miserable DC. Besides that, it's a mecca of honky tonk Americana, one of my favorite things. And, I'm quickly and happily learning, it's a mecca of good eating, my absolute favorite thing. I can't wait!

Also, if anyone has any good recommendations for cheap-but-not-scary motels, restaurants, and things to do, pass them along! For now, I'm planning on taking I-95 to Savannah, then switching between I-95 and A1A down Florida's east coast with a few days in the Miami area and Everglades National Park and quite a few days in the Keys (southernmost point of the U.S.!), coming back up along the Gulf Coast, posssssibly hitting up the panhandle, and coming back home through Atlanta, with a stop in Blacksburg, VA, to see the bro. Whew!

He's Just Not That Into Food

2009-01-21T20:39:00.009-05:00

Above photograph stolen from the New York Times

There are many things about Barack Obama that I really like, a couple things I don't like, and one thing that truly makes me nervous about the fate of this country: he is a notoriously finnicky eater. A Newsweek article a few months back noted that most presidential candidates gain weight on the campaign trail, understandably, since it is really just a tour of America's folksiest barbecue joints and roadside diners. But President Obama, who, according to this same article, once requested his pancakes "to go" (we can easily assume he skipped the drippy syrup and butter, if he touched them at all), actually lost weight during his campaign. Yeah, yeah, the man has a lot of nervous energy, even melancholia, which probably has a lot to do with his success. But think about it: if he gets his pancakes to go and eats pretty much the same thing (salmon, rice, vegetable) every night, what will he do at foreign policy dinners? "Thanks, Vlad, but I'll pass on the potatoes. Gotta watch the carbs. Yeeahh, doesn't vodka come from potatoes, too? Do you have any unsweetened iced tea?" I sense a looming international fiasco! Then again, maybe Putin and Obama could make peace over a smoke.

Much talk has been made lately about Obama's 2001 appearance on Check, Please!, a Chicago public television show dedicated to local restaurant reviews. The blogs are now pinning Obama as a bona fide restaurant critic after a merely skin-deep discussion of Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop, located in his old legislative district. When asked what he ordered at his last visit, Obama replies, "the Southern Sampler, just because I couldn't make up my mind." Though he claims to "eat there quite a bit," he seems unattached to the cuisine. For him, the camaraderie this unassuming neighborhood diner creates is far more remarkable than any particular entree.

Fine, but thinking about Obama in relationship to food became most troubling when Sanders and I began planning a menu for the inauguration party we hosted yesterday. To represent Obama's adopted hometown, Sanders was in charge of Chicago-style hot dogs and Polish sausages. (We should've also represented Obama's newest adopted hometown with half-smokes, but that's an embarrassing subject for our new president.) I had a harder time deciding what to make. Internet research on Obama's favorite foods revealed...only that he's not that into food. So I decided to delve into recipes from Hawaii and Indonesia, two places where he spent portions of his childhood and teenage years. I admit I was getting a bit precious about this menu-planning, but that's just what I do. The food had to be cheap, seasonable, and able to feed a crowd, so most Hawaiian recipes I found were out: too much fish, too many exotic fruits, and too much Spam, oddly enough. But I did come across a great Indonesian (not sure how authentic it is, but it is at least Indonesian-inspired) recipe on my new favorite food blog, 101cookbooks.com. It was unusual enough to be a conversation-piece, and tasty enough that a few people asked me for the recipe. I plan to make it again this week, not only because I now have many of the ingredients left over, but also because I can't stop thinking about it. I do not know if President Obama would ever eat it, but that wasn't really important to me in the end. I'm contented that, despite his picky habits, Barack Obama inadvertently expanded my culinary horizons!

Recipe: Vaguely Indonesian Red Rice Salad

Adapted from 101cookbooks.com. Serves 8, with reservations. I tripled it for the party, and with only about 15 people at my house, there were no leftovers. If you are planning to serve this as a main course -- it's certainly filling enough for that -- the amounts below provide for about 4 servings. Red rice is not available in most grocery stores, so now's your chance to explore the Asian market. H Mart in Wheaton sells 4-lb. bags for $5.99. You could also use basmati rice, but the red is just so purty. Heidi at 101cookbooks uses macadamia nuts and basil. I am too cheap to buy macadamia nuts, so I used peanuts, and basil this time of year is so wilted and pitiful that I used cilantro instead. Also, if you are doubling or tripling this recipe, I would not double or triple the amount of soy sauce. I learned this the hard way. A quarter-cup, which Heidi uses, is plenty, even when the recipe is doubled.

As always, the recipe below is modified a lot according to my own tastes and budget, and my modifications are in parentheses. Despite the long ingredient list, this dish is actually very easy.

2 C water
1 C red rice
2 T oil (I used 3 or 4 tablespoons, as vegetables got dry too quickly)
4 shallots, chopped (I had only two shallots, so I added one small onion)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large red chili, seeded and chopped (I used a dried chili, and did not seed it)
1-in. piece of grated ginger root (I used 2 T ground ginger, but I LOVE ginger)
1 t ground coriander
1 large carrot, thinly sliced
1/2 lb. green beans, trimmed and chopped
1/2 C coconut milk
1/4 C soy sauce (this was too much soy sauce for my taste, so I used about 2T instead)
1/2 t molasses (mine was about 3 years past its prime, so I omitted)
4 large eggs, boiled and peeled (forgot about these, didn't hurt)
1/2 C julienned basil (I used cilantro)
1/4 C macadamia nuts, toasted and chopped (I used peanuts)
1 lime, quartered

Bring water to a boil in a medium stockpot. Rinse and drain the rice, and add to the boiling water. Keep heat high until it returns to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook for 45 minutes or until water is absorbed. Reduce heat to low and let stand for 10 minutes, then remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.

In large wok, saute pan, or Dutch oven, heat oil over medium-high. Add shallots, garlic, chile, ginger, coriander, carrot, and green beans. Stir-fry till vegetables are crisp-tender. Add coconut milk, soy sauce, and molasses and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and add rice. Stir in basil and macadamias, then toss everything together. Before serving, arrange hardcooked eggs on top. Serve with squeeze of lime and arrange lime wedges on top, if desired.

Two Economical Epicureans Under One Roof

2009-01-08T21:46:00.003-05:00

Just before Christmas, my good friend Mike Sanders, fondly known as Sanders, Sandy, or The Colonel, moved into my house, fondly known as the Kentbury Kompound. Since we already knew each other so well, the adjustment to living with a roommate again has been relatively painless, and it's nice to have someone around who's both considerate and funny and potentially able to save me from the antisocial cat lady I might otherwise become. Sanders, meanwhile, is slowly discovering the joys of feline attention. Just don't bring up the rogue turd he found in his laundry basket; it remains a sore subject.

One thing is certain about our new housing arrangement: I am and will continue to be eating a lot more meat than I used to. (Oh, and another thing is most thrillingly certain: my kitchen now contains a big blue Le Creuset dutch oven!) Sanders is a legendary master of the braise and the grill and probably a whole list of other methods that I've never even tried. And he sure does eat a lot of pork products for a Jewish guy.

The other night, living up to his surname, he made the absolute best homecooked fried chicken I have ever eaten. My own experimentation with fried chicken has resulted in nothing but soggy skin and dried out meat, but Sanders has it down. Now, I probably should also point out that our house came the closest to burning down that it ever has – flames erupted from the stove, but we calmly smothered them with a pot lid. So maybe that's the secret to good fried chicken: get the oil so hot and use such an overabundance of it that the pot catches on fire. A small price to pay for what you're about to eat.

Okay, don't do that, but do read Sanders' thorough instructions below for fried chicken that is both incredibly delicious AND fire-safe. We make mistakes so we can learn from them. In his words:

Recipe: The Other Colonel Sanders's Fried Chicken

I use this recipe (loosely adapted from an Epicurious recipe) to fry chicken thighs, which I prefer because they are juicier than other chicken parts, meaty, and inexpensive (economical!). But I'm sure it would work equally well for other chicken pieces.

Ingredients:

10 chicken thighs (bone-in and skin-on, otherwise, don't even bother!)
2 eggs
3/4 - 1 cup of half and half (if you must substitute, do not use low-fat or skim milk...it won't do the job)
1/2 cup water
2 - 2.5 cups regular flour
generous amounts (a tablespoon or two, I'd say) of thyme (dry), paprika, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste (I prefer Kosher salt)
copious amounts of peanut oil (see below for guidance on how much to use).

Preparation:

1) Season chicken thighs with salt and pepper. Beat together the eggs, half-and-half, and water and pour over the chicken pieces (they don't need to be submerged, just enough to marinate). Set aside for about half an hour, turning the thighs occasionally to ensure both sides get good exposure to the liquid.

2) Pre-heat the peanut oil in a large, heavy pot. Use enough oil so that several chicken thighs can be fully submerged for cooking. Heat the oil to between 350 - 375 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature is very important to getting good results, so I highly recommend using an oil thermometer (they're inexpensive). If you don't have one, good luck to you. All I'll say is that much oil takes some time to heat up, so turn the burner on pretty high and give it at least 10 minutes.

SAFETY ALERT: Do not fill the pot up all the way! Oil expands, and it can easily overflow the pot and start a fire if you use too much (learned the hard way, folks). As a rule of thumb, I'd say fill the pot no more than 2/3 full.

3) Combine the spices and the flour. Remove the thighs from the liquid (be sure to let the excess drip off) and dredge very thoroughly in the flour mixture (be sure to get all the nooks and crannies). Shake off the excess and set aside. This can be done in batches just before cooking.

4) When the oil is ready, carefully drop a few pieces of chicken in the oil. Using a metal slotted spoon (preferably one of those deep-frying wire/mesh spoon dealies) gently and constantly move the thighs around in the oil to prevent them from getting charred on the bottom of the pot. Flip thighs once or twice during cooking. The thighs should be fully cooked in about 10 minutes depending on their size. (Use an instant read thermometer to check; they should be just shy of 160 degrees internal temp).

5) Remove thighs and place on a paper towel-lined platter. Immediately season with a bit of salt and tent with aluminum foil while you cook the other batches.

Serves 5 - 7 people (unless they eat like me, then it's more like 3 - 4).

If by "sexy" you mean "soupy."

2008-12-14T22:05:00.008-05:00

I need to just post this recipe, once and for all, before I forget and before it loses seasonableness. All I have to say about it: it's delicious; it's cheap; it's sophisticated; it's great for cold weather, football, and loneliness; you should make it.

Oh, and I believe it's called a bisque because the original recipe calls for a significant amount of whipping cream. Well, I can't afford no whipping cream, nor does this soup need it. I have made it about a dozen times and never once thought to myself, "Man, if only I had some whipping cream." (That thought does pop into my head a lot, but not this time.) Sadly, I think that, without the cream, this creation no longer qualifies as a sexy bisque, but as a soup. Not sexy. Just call it a bisque, and call it a night.

Recipe: Butternut Squash and Roasted Garlic Bisque

Adapted significantly from Epicurious. Serves 8. Reheats well in microwave and lasts about 5 days.

2 large butternut squash
2 heads of garlic
4 T olive oil, divided
2 C chopped onions
5 C chicken or vegetable stock (or, preferably, the turkey stock you made over Thanksgiving!)
3 T chopped fresh sage
salt
pepper

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cut both butternut squash in half, lengthwise. Wrap each half in aluminum foil and bake for about 20 minutes. Meanwhile, cut each garlic head crosswise. Brush exposed garlic cloves with olive oil, wrap heads in foil, and bake about 20 minutes. Remove butternut squash from oven, unwrap, and let cool. Heat remaining olive oil in a heavy pot over medium heat. Add onions. Meanwhile, peel squash and chop into 1-inch chunks. After onions have cooked about 10 minuts, add squash, stock and sage to pot. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer uncovered until squash is tender, 20-25 min. Meanwhile, "unwrap" garlic by squeezing pulp out of cloves (and unpeeling if necessary). Squeeze all garlic pulp into a bowl and mash with a fork until smooth. Stir into soup. Puree half of soup in blender, or using an immersion blender. Return pureed soup to pot. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

The Taste of Winter...

2008-12-08T21:17:00.007-05:00

...is, for me, I've recently discovered, not a soup or stew. It is a raw, crunchy, delicious salad composed of some of the only produce whose star turn occurs during this frigid time of year.

It started with what I thought was an overabundance of grapefruit. Thinking I'd come across a great deal, I bought a bag of seven ruby reds for $3 at Safeway. It turns out Shopper's is selling three for a dollar, which, I realize, after much pitiful brain-wracking, is a better deal. I'll just have to buy more, anyway, because this salad is my new obsession. Actually, slaw might be a better name for it, but I've always hated that word (and the mayonnaise-saturated connotations that go along with it). In my quest to not gain 10 lbs this winter (the snowbirding of my bicycle, which I can't seem to get over, has not helped this cause), this salad may be just the answer: it's so crunchy that, thanks to all the chewing involved, you end up eating less than you expect -- not that it matters since the thing is practically fat-free and chock full of fiber and vitamins, e.g. A, B, C, K, and B6. A sprinkling of sunflower seeds adds a crucial nuttiness -- for a lack of a better word -- as well as some much-needed salt.

I believe that in the last post I said something about a cornbread-crusted chili. I might postpone it till January/Super Bowl season. I'm saving my calories for Christmas.

Recipe: Grapefruit, Fennel, and Red Cabbage Salad

Like a lot of things I create, it tasted strange to me at first, but, after a few more bites, I couldn't stop shoving it into my mouth.

Serves 8 as side dish (4 as light main course). Keeps well for a few days.

2 grapefruit
1 head of red cabbage
2 fennel bulbs
1/2 C roasted, salted sunflower seeds (may substitute cashews, pistachios, peanuts, or probably any salty nut)
1/4 C rice or white wine vinegar
1 T sugar
1 t salt
1/4 t red pepper flakes
1/4 t ground pepper
1/4 C olive oil
fennel fronds, for garnish

Peel the grapefruit and chop flesh into bite-size pieces. Chop cabbage into thin strips. Chop off root of fennel and separate the pieces (it's similar to a celery stalk, but with fennel you want to use only the bulbous white parts near the root). Chop off the celery-like stems, which are too tough to eat, and save for stock, reserving some of the fronds. Take the bulb pieces (the large, white-ish parts) and chop into bite-size pieces. In a large bowl, mix together the grapefruit, cabbage, fennel, and sunflower seeds. For the dressing, which can be made a few hours in advance, whisk together the vinegar with sugar, salt, red pepper flakes, and ground pepper. Slowly add the olive oil, whisking, to create an emulsion. Drizzle it over the grapefruit, cabbage, and fennel, and garnish with the fennel fronds.

Kaling Me Softly

2008-12-01T20:04:00.004-05:00

Kale is an underappreciated vegetable, and I know this for two reasons. One, Trader Joe's doesn't sell it and, at least here in Bethesda, Trader Joe's decides what everyone eats at home. Two, a pound of it costs only a buck-twenty at Safeway. Do you know how much kale it takes to get to a pound? Considering that its weight is comparable to looseleaf paper, the answer is quite a lot.

BUT! Kale is great, and everyone should eat more of it, especially when you are feeling as zaftig as I feel now. Thanksgiving came and went, and all I got was this lousy back flab. Until recently, though, I did not take full advantage of kale's health benefits. I would cook it for a very long time, usually in bacon fat. I'm no scientist, but I surmise that whatever vitamins (K, C, A, and B6) and other nutrients (fiber and potassium come to mind) kale offers somehow disappear when cooked this way, leaving you with little more than a discolored, if quite tasty, slop to pair with your boiled ham.

The kale in the following recipe is cooked for a much shorter period, which I hope makes it healthier and I know makes it better for reheating as leftovers. Also, thanks to the addition of beans, it rises among the side dish ranks and is possibly up for promotion to main course. Certainly, it makes an ideal light main course for those of us who fear we might soon develop cankles. Oh, who am I kidding? Next post will feature cornbread-crusted chili.

Recipe: Add-a-few-years-to-your-life Kale and Beans
This recipe is inspired by, but loosely based on, Deborah Madison's kale with cannellini beans from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. I omitted rosemary, which probably would've been good, but I didn't feel like buying it. I added some sugar as well as lemon, since I happened to have one and since I thought it would somehow make the kale taste fresher. Her recipe calls for white wine, which I don't usually buy -- but I had some red on hand. I plan to continue to use red, as the reduction sauce looks much more dramatic this way. You could also use vinegar, if you or your budget prefers. But you definitely need some kind of acid here to temper the bitterness of the kale. Assuming you already have the majority of the ingredients, this recipe need not cost much more than $2, or about 33 cents per serving.
Serves 6 as light main course.

1 lb kale, ribs removed
1.5 T olive oil
1 shallot or small onion, minced
1/2 t sugar
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
pinch red pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 C red wine (preferred) or white wine or vinegar
1.5 C white beans (may use any other bean, too)
juice of one lemon quarter (optional, but highly recommended)
salt
pepper

Place all of the kale in a large pot and fill it with water so about half the kale is covered. Bring to a slow simmer on medium heat. Reduce heat to low-medium and cook for an additional 5 minutes. Drain and return to pot. This technique is sort of a lazy man's braise. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in another relatively large pot over medium heat. Add the minced shallot or onion and sugar, stirring occasionally, about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes, cooking an additional minute. Add the wine or vinegar, and increase heat to medium-high. Cook until wine or vinegar is reduced to a syrupy consistency, about 10 minutes. Reduce heat to low and add beans, kale, lemon juice, and salt and pepper to your taste.

The Save the Dead Turkeys Project

2008-11-29T00:43:00.007-05:00

Do you know where your turkey carcass is tonight?

If the garbage man hasn't already taken it away, remove it from the garbage immediately. Then remove any leftover skin, and return that to the garbage, holding tightly to your precious carcass. Then remove any large pieces of meat, and consider using them to make a turkey salad (recipe follows). Or add them to soup. Or make a turkey sandwich. Or just eat it straight off the dead bird with your fingers. I don't care, as long as you waste nothing. Then return to the almost-clean carcass. Then begin dreaming up all the delicious soups you will soon make with your very own homemade turkey stock.

Recipe: Turkey Stock
Adapted from The Joy of Cooking, 1997 ed. Makes 12 to 20 cups of stock.

1 turkey carcass from a 12- to 25-lb bird, broken up, plus any rogue bones lying around
1 onion, quartered
1 carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 celery stalk, coarsely chopped
1 bay leaf
1 small bunch parsley (optional)

Put the turkey carcass in a large stockpot and fill the pot with cold water so that turkey is just barely covered. Bring water to a boil over medium heat, reduce the heat and simmer gently about 30 minutes. Skim often to remove impurities floating at surface. Add remaining ingredients and simmer, uncovered, for 3 hours. Continue skimming impurities and add water as needed to cover contents of pot. Strain into a clean pot or heat proof container. Let cool, uncovered, then refrigerate. Remove the fat when ready to use. May also be kept frozen for up to one month.

Recipe: Curried Turkey Salad
So good! I usually make it with chicken, but it's equally good, if not better, with turkey. Great on sandwiches. Makes 4 servings.

1/2 C plain yogurt, preferably Greek-style
1 T plus 1 t curry powder
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
1/4 C sliced almonds
1/4 C golden raisins
2 C shredded turkey meat
salt to taste

Mix together the yogurt, curry powder, salt and pepper. May be made a few days in advance and kept in the refrigerator. Stir together almonds, raisins, turkey, and yogurt. Season with salt to taste. Keeps in the refrigerator for up to about 5 days.

Turkey Day Recipe Ambush

2008-11-24T16:03:00.021-05:00

Not going to go off on my usual multi-paragraph introductory tangent. Just getting down to business for everyone's favorite gastronomical throwdown and typing up the recipes for three items I'll be contributing to this year's smorgasbord. But I would like to take a moment to reflect on how very economical Thanksgiving can be. First of all, a turkey is not exactly a highfalutin' bird. It feeds a ton of people and leaves behind a carcass big enough to make a whole vat of delicious stock. Secondly, the sides are almost as proletarian as the main course. In no other American holiday do homely tubers and root vegetables play such a starring role. Thirdly, these homely tubers and root vegetables often originate in cans, and are then sprinkled with marshmallows and served in casserole dishes. And fourthly, gelatinous sliced cranberry sauce. That sentence doesn't even need a verb.

Above picture stolen from but at least attributed to the Dallas Morning News

Recipe: Sweet Potato Chips (not pictured above)

These are kind of labor intensive, but everyone loves them. And they are a lot less labor intensive now that I have a mandoline. Mine's kind of fancy (Cuisinart -- it was a gift) but, even so, it was around $30 according to the gift-giver. And now that there's, you know, a recession, you could probably find one a lot cheaper than that. Terra Chips, be damned!

Serves about six people sitting in front of a football game. No matter how many chips you make, there ain't never enough!

2-3 large yams or 5-6 sweet potatoes
1/3 C olive oil
2 T cumin
2 T nutmeg
peanut oil for frying - as much as you need to fill your pot 1.5 in.
sugar for dusting
salt for dusting

Peel the yams/sweet potatoes as thin as you can without slicing off your fingers. Roll them around with the olive oil, cumin, and nutmeg, so all are fairly evenly coated. "Marinate" them for a couple hours or up to 24 hours. Heat the peanut oil in a heavy pot at medium-high heat. You'll know it's ready to go when you drop in one of the smaller chips and it immediately sizzles. Fry the chips in several batches to avoid overcrowding in the pot. You definitely don't need to fry them in just a single layer, but be prepared to do some stirring around so they don't stick to each other. Each batch should be done and crispy in about 3 minutes. Remove the chips from the pot with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel on top of a plate. Add the next batch and, while it's frying, sprinkle the chips that are drying on the paper towel with salt and sugar. Once they seem fairly dry, transfer them to a large bowl. Change paper towels every couple of batches. Repeat these steps with the remaining batches. Very good with cilantro-garlic yogurt sauce as dip.

Addendum, or On The Joys of Peanut Oil:

I've used other oils to make these, but peanut oil definitely works the best. I find that canola and vegetable oil can be hard to control, and the chips end up either soggy or charred, plus they taste too much of the oil and not enough of sweet potatoes. Olive oil is absolutely out of the question for deep frying. However, peanut oil is not all that cheap (I usually find it on sale at Safeway for around $17), and I think people are hesitant to buy it since it only comes in monstrous jugs. What if you never need to use it again?!?! Well, my friend, once you start frying in peanut oil, you will never go back. Its good qualities are its mild flavor and high smoking point. Its bad qualities are none, except maybe the price. But let's think about these sweet potato chips as an example: all you really need to buy are 2 yams ($1?). To fry up a large batch, you will use roughly a quarter of the jug of peanut oil -- less if you use a pot with a smallish diameter. So, really, this awesomely impressive appetizer that serves a crowd of football-frenzied, hungry Owen men costs about $5. An impressive feat, to say the least.

UPDATE: Shopper's sells peanut oil for $12! So now you really have no excuse to avoid it.

Recipe: Sausage and Cornbread Stuffing

I made this for the first time last year, and it was a hit. Unfortunately, I cannot locate my original source for this recipe. If you've ever heard me harp on some of my former students' sneaky ways, you know that nothing boils my blood like a plagiarizer, but I hope you will forgive me this one indiscretion.

My family also still serves the Joy of Cooking's traditional bread stuffing, since Owens can be somewhat hunkerous about their traditions. Hence, the cloying sweet potato casserole continues to feature prominently, despite my years of protest. But this stuffing was quite popular among the more progressive members of the family. Yes, I realize sausage and cornbread stuffing is not exactly newfangled, but we're a gelatinous sliced cranberry sauce kind of people.

Serves 12-14.

5-6 hot Italian sausages
4 T olive oil
2 C chopped carrot
2 C chopped celery
1 C chopped onion
1 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1/2 C fresh sage leaves, chopped
1 13" x 9" pan of cornbread, double Mark Bittman's recipe or use two boxes of corn bread mix
6 eggs
1 C chicken stock, plus more if needed

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Remove sausage casings and heat 1 T olive oil in large pot over medium-high heat; add sausages and break up and brown them. Remove from pot, drain sausages on paper towel, and set aside. Add another tablespoon of olive oil to the same pot, and add the vegetables, salt, pepper, and sage. Cook about 10 minutes, until veggies are slightly soft. Crumble the corn bread in a very large bowl and add to it the sausage, veggies, egg, and chicken stock. Stir everything together. If it seems dry, add a bit more chicken stock. Transfer to a 2-quart baking dish and bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or till browned and crispy.

Recipe: Flourless Chocolate Cake

I've already overdosed on the pumpkin desserts, so I will be bringing this cake. I have not made it before, but the recipe comes from the Cook's Illustrated Holiday Baking Book (on sale today at grocery stores nationwide!), and was created by Alice Medrich, aka the Queen of Chocolate, so I know it's going to be fabulous. I love that it requires only three ingredients: eggs, butter, and chocolate.

In all Cook's Illustrated recipes, the cook/author has an extremely specific goal in mind, and tests as many versions of a particular dish as necessary to meet that specific goal (after all, they do work at America's Test Kitchen). Alice describes her vision of the perfect flourless chocolate cake as follows:

"I wanted something dense, moist, and ultrachocolaty, but with some textural finesse. I wanted a texture somewhere between a substantial marquis au chocolat--that dense, buttery, and just slightly aerated chocolate mousse with a characteristic dry but creamy texture--and a heavy New York-style cheesecake. I wanted the flavor and character of good, eating-quality chocolate to reign supreme, with no unnecessary sweetness and not even a grain of sugar on the palate. In short, I wanted an intense bittersweet "adult" dessert -- no sticky kid's stuff."

Wow. While I'm happy if any dessert I make is merely intact, Alice's lofty goal yet inspires me to do better! Her description also puts to words exactly how I think a flourless chocolate cake should be. The family will no doubt be blown away by the ultrachocolaty finesse of this intense bittersweet "adult" dessert, so long as I take extra care not to miss some important step.

Serves 12-16. Best made a day in advance, and stored in the refrigerator overnight.

2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces, plus extra for greasing pan
8 eggs, cold
1 lb semisweet chocolate, chopped coarse
1/4 C strong coffee or coffee liqueur (optional)
powdered sugar or cocoa powder for dusting (optional)

Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Line bottom of 8-in. springform pan with parchment paper and grease the sides of pan. Wrap outside of pan with 2 sheets of aluminum foil and set in large roasting pan. Bring a kettle of water to boil.

Beat eggs in large bowl (preferably with whisk attachment, if your mixer has one) at high speed until the volume doubles, about 5 min.

Meanwhile, melt chocolate and butter (with coffee or liqueur, if using) in large heatproof bowl set over pan of almost simmering water until smooth and very warm (about 115 degrees on instant-read thermometer), stirring once or twice. Using spatula, fold one-third of egg foam into chocolate mixture until only a few streaks of the egg are visible; fold in half of remaining foam, then last of foam, until mixture is totally homogeneous.

Scrape batter into prepared springform pan and smooth surface with rubber spatula. Set roasting pan on oven rack and pour in enough boiling water to come about halfway up the sides of the springform pan. Bake 22 to 25 minutes, until cake has risen slightly, edges are just beginning to set, thin-glazed brownielike crust has formed on surface, and instant-read thermometer inserted halfway into center reads 140 degrees. Remove cake pan from water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

About 30 minutes before serving, remove sides of pan, invert cake onto sheet of wax paper, peel off parchment paper, and reinvert cake onto serving platter. Sieve light sprinkling of powdered sugar or cocoa powder over cake, if desired.