Una Nueva Receta Cada Semana

Pi Date

2012-03-14T18:12:00.001-07:00

We talked about making pie today, in fact, we talked about making two - one dinner pie, and one dessert pie, and then we completely forgot, even though James remembered that it was March 14 - pie (pi) day (3.14). I had already picked out a recipe from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and James had bought the ingredients, so I just went ahead and made the Chickpeas with Potatoes and Tomatoes. The dish was cooked, and served, in our indespensible cast-iron skillet, so at least it was pie-shaped. The name of the dish leaves little room for surprise as to the main ingredients (2 cans rinsed garbanzo beans, 3 red potatoes, and a cup of diced tomato) but there is a bit more to this tasty, high fiber meal. I started by chopping one onion to sautee. To this I added two peeled and diced carrots, and 3 peeled and diced red potatoes and cooked for about 10 minutes. I added some red pepper flakes and 1 very large minced garlic clove, and sprinkled in some dried cilantro. The tomatoes and chickpeas were added along with a dash or salt and a twist of pepper from my pepper mill. Just before covering to simmer, I added a few splashes of water. It took about 20-25 minutes of simmering before the potatoes were fully cooked. Fresh parsley was thrown on top at serving time. This was pleasing to look at, hot and spicy to the taste, as well as satisfying. We paired this with some of our rye homebrew - a fine choice.

To top off the evening we re-watched a movie we saw for the first time about 13 years ago: Pi -a creepy black and white film about obession, numbers, the Torah, and insanity.

Here's to you, Izzy

2012-03-07T06:07:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was the anniversary of my grandmother Isabelle Laurerman's (neé Beanblossom, yes, Beanblossom) birth. She would have been 96. Today is the 17th anniversary of her death. Although she was quite ill, and medical professionals told our family she should have died weeks before, she steadfastly refused to give up the ghost until she turned 79. Then, I guess feeling it would put too much of a damper on the celebrations, waited until just after midnight the day following her birthday to breathe her last.

Grandma loved her Peppermint Schnapps. I am not really sure if she just drank it in shots, or made mixed cocktails, but I know she always expected to find a bottle of it in her Christmas stocking. In her honor, I picked up a bottle yesterday and prepared this recipe for Peppermint Patties, a mixed drink of Peppermint Schnapps and Coffee liqueur (we used Kahlua). I must say it did taste just like a liquid version of a York Peppermint Pattie.

Almost-Favorite Lasagna/e

2012-03-07T04:07:00.001-08:00

A Christmas tradition in our house is Pam's preparation of Everyone's Favorite Lasagne, entry #122 in our well-worn 365 Ways to Cook Pasta (see all of our entries from this book). Browsing last weekend as we planned the week's menu, I noticed that we already had several of the ingredients required for entry #121, Chicken and Broccoli Lasagne in Parmesan Custard. (I notice that the word can end in e or a -- this book prefers "lasagne," though I have always used "lasagna," which seems to be a slightly more common spelling.)

Lasagna is always dish-intensive, and this is perhaps more so: it requires a sauce pan, a mixing bowl, a cutting board (two boards or one that is washed during the preparation), a skillet, a stock pot, and a casserole -- plus half the utensils in the kitchen. The result is a blonde lasagna -- no tomatoes were harmed in this production -- that is sweet and savory.

Preparation begins with a custard of egg, milk, flour, butter, and Parmesan cheese, which is eventually poured under, within, and over the final dish -- becoming almost a matrix for the chicken, vegetables, and cheese that are layered between the noodles. The custard includes a pinch of nutmeg, which gave the final dish a mild sweetness. The recipe calls for ground red pepper; having only crushed red pepper, I substituted a pinch of cayenne. In retrospect, I was too cautious, and should have used a bit more to compete with the nutmeg.

We of course used real lasagna noodles. The existence of fake, no-boil noodles takes away our whining rights about the dishes, but I really cannot imagine doing all 80 percent of the work of a lasagna but leaving the noodles to chance.

Our filling was mostly organic -- chicken and carrots from the grocery store and broccoli and green beans frozen last summer from our Cochester CSA. The recipe calls for more than a pound of broccoli, of which we only had about half a pound. Cooking it together with some green beans worked out well. We were a bit short on mozzarella cheese -- about 2/3 of the called-for pound, but the end result was still quite delicious!

Mulligatawny soup with chicken, rice and lime

2012-02-28T11:25:00.000-08:00

A most delicious comfort food from The Bean Bible, by, aptly named, Aliza Green, mulligatawny soup is well worth the time it takes to prepare. One pound of chicken thighs was boiled for 20 minutes in soup stock. The chicken was then removed, and cut into pieces once it was cool enough to handle. Meanwhile, I chopped two garlic cloves, the hunk of ginger I had in my refrigerator, 2 jalapeno peppers, and 2 onions. All of this was sauteed in six tablespoons of butter in my indespensible cast-iron skillet. To this I added a teaspoon of cumin, a 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric, a teaspoon of dried cilatro, and one teaspoon of mustard (all of the spice measurements deviate somewhat from the recipe, based on our personal preferences, and what we already had on hand). This mix was placed in the soup pot, along with one pound of lentils. After it was heated to a boil, the heat was turned down to simmer for one hour. I also cooked 3 cups of rice in a separate pan during this time. I allowed the soup to cool for about 15 minutes then poured it, by batches, into my blender to puree. Then, back into the soup pot where the cooked rice was added, along with the chicken and juice of three limes. We did not top our servings with nigella seeds as the recipe indicates, as James could not find them under any of the names given in the recipe book (nigella, kalonji, or charnushka).

This took over two hours to prepare, and there was quite a bit of clean up involved as well. Once everything was served we had to wash a saucepan, skillet, stock pot, juicer (ours is manual, not electric), blender, 2 cutting boards, and various utensils, in addition to our dinner dishes. As I said, well worth it. This spicy meal was filling and delicious, and left our home with a tantalizing aroma that we are still enjoying today.

Celebratory Loaf

2012-02-24T03:52:00.001-08:00

For Thursday's dinner, we had decided to try a turkey loaf from Jane Brody's Good Food Book, which regular readers will know is a frequent favorite for simple, good foods.

At the grocery that morning, I had picked up one extra treat, a mango. Just a couple months ago, we had bought a mango splitter, Kevin Walzak's miracle device I had heard about on NPR seven years ago. Mangoes are the most readily available of the many tropical fruits I came to love during my 1996 summer in Rondônia, but I always make a huge mess with them. We are always cautious in our kitchen-gadget purchases, but the delay-to-cost ratio was pretty high on this one, and I was glad finally to have acted on a long-overdue and simple desire. My efforts lacked the symmetry of the Oxo stock photo, but I did have much better results than I have ever had with Mangifera indica.

Back to the main course -- Terrific Turkey Loaf on page 440 promises to be rich but low in fat, and it was. It begins with sauteed garlic, celery, leeks or onions, sweet red peppers and mushrooms. These are mixed with ground turkey, egg, fresh parsley, and bread crumbs and placed in a lightly-oiled loaf pan. An interesting innovation is that the loaf pan is placed in a larger pan, into which boiling water is poured to a one-inch depth, to keep the humidity in the oven high so the loaf does not dry out.

I departed from Brody's instructions in a few ways. First, I do not think I reduced the vegetables quite enough, and for this reason I chose a small casserole instead of a loaf pan. And though I looked at the recipe list several times and saw the pinch of nutmeg, I somehow forgot to add it. Finally, instead of the "fresh bread crumbs" of one slice of bread, I used packaged crumbs, and probably not enough. I think this is what made the loaf a bit soupier than it should have been.

The result was delicious, though a bit slow to cook. I think fresh bread crumbs would have worked better and allowed this to firm up better, and I think leeks and that pinch of nutmeg would have made the flavor even better.

What made this celebratory? At the very end of the work day, Pam received a letter from our provost, informing her that her application for promotion -- from Associate Librarian to Librarian -- had been approved. Academics only get a couple of promotions over their lifetime, so this was a big deal.

How to celebrate? A common impulse is to drop everything and run out to eat, and at times we have done that. But we did not even discuss scrapping a perfectly good dinner plan for something that would cost more and probably not taste as good. Instead, Pam got out the good silver and put a bottle of 2004 Vintage Rose from Westport Rivers in the fridge while I started the loaf. We had purchased this bottle for Valentine's Day, but careful readers will recall that for that meal we decided on a peppery Savignon Franc from Sakkonet. The line "pink champagne on ice" is now stuck in our heads, but thankfully the fruity notes of this champagne-style rose are balanced, and the wine went surprisingly well with the loaf.

Incidentally, our favorite vineyard began as a hobby in the year before we got married; a bottle or two may be on hand when we celebrate our own silver anniversary in early May!

Tamale-Style Beef

2012-02-15T15:15:00.000-08:00

The decision of what to prepare on February 14 could not be taken lightly. As former Arizonans we were acutely aware that this year marked the Valentine State's centennial. The meal had to have a southwest theme, and be worthy of two souls whose love transcends any Hallmark drivel, and be easy to prepare after working all day. The solution was found in The Well-Filled Tortilla byVictoria Wise and Susanna Hoffman. The recipe? Tamale-Style Beef. As Wise and Hoffman point out "making a tamale is an arduous task" and is traditionally done only at Christmas time. The tamale-style beef tortilla is an-easy-to-prepare meal, that can turn any day into a fiesta. We began by sauteeing onions and garlic rabe in our indespensible cast-iron skillet. Then added one chopped cubano pepper, and chopped steak which had marinated in Cachaça. (The recipe actually called for ground beef, but I read it wrong, and simply put "beef chuck" on the list, which James couldn't find in any case, so he just bought a steak and cut it up, which we agreed probably made the dish way better.) Next we added one chopped tomato, 1 cup of corn kernels, a bit of fresh oregano, and a dash of red pepper flakes, and 1/2 cup red wine. This was cooked until the liquid evaporated. The filling was wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla shell along with some of the Crema Mexicana we still had left from our ajiaco recipe. This was the perfect blend of sweet, spicy, and creamy (what could be more sexy?). It was paired perfectly with a peppery Savignon Franc from Sakonnet Vineyards. See James' post on Loving Coffee to find out how our dessert went. That Intercourses cookbook does not fail!

If you really couldn't think of anything more creative than candy, flowers, and dinner in a crowded restaurant to celebrate Valentine's Day you didn't deserve to get laid. Start planning now for next year.

Loving Coffee

2012-02-12T16:01:00.000-08:00

This is a bit of a departure for the Nueva Receta blog -- discussing a recipe a few days before we try it. The reason is simple: this recipe is for Valentine's day, and we think that some of our readers and friends might benefit (ahem) from having this post ahead of the holiday. As regular readers know, the purpose of this blog is more fully to employ the many books on our well-laden shelf. For this particular holiday, thoughts go immediately to Intercourses, a wonderful book we mentioned in Valentine's and anniversary posts last year.

Because Valentine's Day is also Arizona Day -- and this in fact is Arizona's centennial -- Tuesday's main course will be taken from a The Well-filled Tortilla, a book that somehow became our family bible when we lived in Tucson. While Pam searched out a recipe there -- check in Tuesday or Wednesday to read about that -- I perused the dessert "sexion" of Intercourses, with a special focus on coffee.

We chose "espresso cream" from page 32, for its simplicity and the promise of something a bit different than the usual. We will drain 1.5 cups ricotta cheese, and beat it together with 1/4 cup cream, until smooth. We will stir in 2T freshly ground, dark-roasted coffee beans (from Selva Negra, the most romantic coffee farm I know -- it has its own wedding chapel!) and 2-3 T sugar. The recipe calls for 4 t brandy -- we will use a coffee brandy, and probably be generous with those teaspoons.

This we will chill all day, and after dinner we will divided it into romantic cups and garnish with toasted almonds, a couple of coffee beans, and some mocha beans from Hilliards. (The recipe calls for chocolate-covered beans, but Hilliards was sold out and Star**cks has discontinued them. This seems a very reasonable solution!)

Next Valentine's Day, by the way, we hope to replicate the coffee martini we enjoyed recently at Imagine Restaurant and Bar in Granada, Nicaragua. We have the key ingredients (and will be sure to have fresh Selva Negra coffee on hand when the time comes), but we will need some coaching, which we hope to get next summer when Imagine's owner visits New England.

I have written elsewhere about the perils and pleasures of combining coffee and alcohol; this recipe seems to be well inside the pleasure zone!

NOTE: We ended up being short on coffee brandy (tragedy!), so I used about a tablespoon each of coffee brandy and 43, a Spanish vanilla liqueur. I did not grind the coffee as finely as I should have, but this still turned out quite nicely, and I am recommending it to my friends at Selva Negra.

Nuestra Ajiaco

2012-02-06T02:25:00.000-08:00

Some readers of this blog will be aware of my strong interest in coffee and coffee shops, which I share with one of my favorite comic-strip heroes, Adam of http://www.gocomics.com/adamathome. As I've written on my own blog, I always check this comic for coffee references, and am often rewarded.

Today's entry on Nueva Receta began with this strip, published October 8, 2011, when a coffee pun led our hero to inquire about a Colombian potato soup. I had not heard of ajiaco, but was quickly able -- through the wonders of the Internet -- to find this recipe from Andrea Meyers.

The recipe calls for several kinds of potato, including criollos, which, again, I had not heard of. Meyers provides a couple of alternatives, but I was very fortunate that a student whose family is from Colombia was able to find criollos for me in a market in Boston. He gave me a 1kg bag of the frozen, one-inch potatoes just before the end of the year. Yesterday, I finally put them to use.

The recipe as written calls for twelve pounds of potatoes, and since it would be feeding only two of us, I scaled down to a one-third recipe, though I did use two rather large chicken breasts in the first step, when technically I should have used about 1-1/2. I boiled the chicken, removed it from the water, and then added the three kinds of potatoes. Unfortunately, I did not realize the difficulty of finding guascas, an herb in the daisy family that goes by many names.

Even without this signature ingredient, and even though I boiled the potatoes for only three hours instead of four, this was a delicious soup. We used most of the toppings called for -- including genuine Mexican crema, very aromatic cilantro, and capers. We opted to put chunks of avocado in our bowls, rather than serving separately with rice, as the rice really seemed to be superfluous with all those potatoes. One other compromise: we could not find corn on the cob, so we tossed frozen, organic corn from last summer into the soup itself, rather than resting it on top.

This was a fantastic soup, and even before it was finished, I had ordered some guascas from Amigo Foods, to use with the remaining pound of criollos in our freezer.

Eating with a Favorite Beverage

2012-01-28T09:18:00.000-08:00

Before I became a geographer of coffee, brewer of beer, trekker of wine, and sipper of scotch, I often called Tabasco my favorite beverage.

The famous red sauce is still right up there, so for dinner Thursday, I turned once again to Tabasco Brand Cookbook, which has fueled a number of this blog's more savory entries. Because beans are healthy and keep well, I prepared a full recipe of Trapper's Camp Beans, though the quantity from a full pound of dry beans may have been a bit much, and the healthfulness compromised by the inclusion of bacon and sausage. The latter is ameliorated somewhat by the small quantity of bacon (1/4 pound) and the choice of the turkey variety of Polish sausage.)

This recipe begins with soaking a pound of beans overnight (I used great northern, which is the basis of Boston baked beans, but pinto and yellow eye are also suggested). The next evening, I added cooked bacon (again from Fresh Catch), chopped leeks and onions, vegetable broth (in place of chicken), and a whole onion studded with cloves. I brought this to a boil with marjoram, thyme, sage, bay leaf, garlic (frozen from our farm share last summer), and sliced carrots. I then simmered this on the stove for an hour, then stirred in diced tomatoes and sliced sausage before baking for another hour. A bit more time would have been better, actually, to thicken the mixture.

Oh, yes, several glugs each of regular Tabasco (called for) and Chipotle Tabasco (my idea). Tabasco is another of those ingredients -- like wine and most spices -- for which I generally eschew careful measurement.

Sole Fish Recipe

2012-01-28T08:47:00.000-08:00

Over the past decade, Nantucket has become a favorite -- though infrequent -- destination for us. Each time we visit the island (the only place in the U.S. where a county, town, and island are coterminous and cononymous), we enjoy perusing the shop at Bartlett's Ocean View Farm. At some point -- we remember not when or how -- we acquired the farm's cook book, which is a perfect example of the need for this blog project. We are nearly certain that we have never cooked any of its recipes.

At the big box store last weekend -- where we do stock up on some staples -- we considered getting some fish. We decided instead to buy some locally, from our favorite fishmonger (we love that word, too), which we have featured on this blog previously.

Back home, I scanned the cook book shelf for a likely title, and noticed the word "ocean" in the Bartlett book. I should have noticed the cornucopian cover (all veggies) and the word "farm" instead. I use the word "sole" in the title of this post for three reasons, the first of which is that page 89 contains the sole recipe with "fish" in the title. (I did later see tuna -- grilled or canned -- as an ingredient in two tomato dishes that seem like good bets for next summer.)

The second reason for the use of the word "sole" is that the Fish au Gratin recipe calls for "flounder, sole, or scrod," and although all three were available at Fresh Catch, I chose the sole. ("Scrod" is a New England term that can mean "cod" or can mean "whatever fish we feel like serving today." By this definition, scrod is always an option!)

Cooking only for two, and wanting only the fresh dish, I purchased just a half pound, though the recipe calls for a pound and half. With the fish at 1/3 of the specified amount, I decided to cut the other ingredients, in order to have something a bit saucy! This worked out very well, actually, but I'll use the original quantities in this discussion.

I preheated the oven to 475F, placed the sole fillets in a baking dish, and sprinkled them with salt and pepper (recipe says white pepper for looks) and a half-cup of chopped fresh parsley. Then I melted 2T each of butter and lemon juice, in which I sauteed a half pound of sliced mushrooms. Adding a tablespoon of flour to thicken, I then added 1-1/2 cups heavy cream and a couple tablespoons of Vermouth. (OK, I did not exactly measure the vermouth -- I never do.)

After this thickened, I poured it over the fish, sprinkled a tablespoon of shredded Parmesan (again, I never measure this, and probably did a bit more than called for, but not more than required!) After it was already in the oven, I remembered to add finely-crushed breadcrumbs, which was a nice touch, and paprika. I baked for far less than the 20-25 minutes in the recipe, because these fillets were so thin.

This turned out delicious, accompanied by a big baked potato each. Actually, I saved a bit of potato for the next day, and since Pam was making herself a tuna sandwich, I accepted her offer to share so that I could make a tuna potato for my lunch! (This simple recipe is described on my geography of food page, at the bottom.)

Zucchini Soup

2012-01-23T17:23:00.000-08:00

If, like me, you have recently discovered a frozen chunk of shredded zucchini in a ziplock bag in the back of your freezer, then this is your lucky day. This recipe, found in my seldom used Extending the Table cookbook, is warm and delicious for a winter's eve. I sauteed an onion and a clove of garlic in 4 T. of butter to begin, then added the shredded zucchini (still frozen, although I had taken it out of the freezer last night). Then I added a cup of water and a vegetable bullion cube. At this point the recipe says to "simmer 12 minutes" which, coincidently, was about the amount of time it took for the zucchini chunk to melt. To this, I added a dash of salt, and a bit of fresh ground pepper, and a healthy dose of basil, followed by 1/4 c. white wine. At this point, everything was poured into the blender and pureed. This made two servings, each served with a dollop of plain yogurt. The cookbook says to "serve with sandwiches and fresh fruit". James and I discovered that homemade skillet corn bread and a side of Easiest Cranberry Relish are also fine accompaniements to this soup. It was perfectly paired with the same wine I used in the recipe.

Marinated Turkey Blobs

2012-01-21T14:19:00.000-08:00

Late last year we started having our milk delivered (yes, you can still do that!). With our first order we received a bunch of welcome gifts including a package of "turkey tips" which had been in the freezer for about six weeks. Last night I decided it was time to cook them, and found this recipe for marinade from allrecipes.com which I modified a bit. I poured olive oil, Worsichire Sauce, and lemon juice, into a bowl, and to that mixture I added some garlic rabe (frozen from my CSA over the summer), some dried basil, black pepper, and brown sugar, then ground up about 1/2 a dozen cloves. I opened the package of turkey expecting to find small chunks of turkey, but instead there were two big hunks (blobs). It still worked out fine to marinade the blobs, which I did for about 2 hours. After which, I poured everything into my indespensible cast iron skillet and covered to cook for about 20-25 minutes (turning the turkey occassionally). The turkey was cooked through perfectly, and the marinade carmelized making a tangy/sweet sauce.We enjoyed this with some steamed string beans (also frozen from our CSA over the summer) and homemade biscuits. The meal was perfectly paired with some rye homebrew.

Nacatamales

2012-01-15T12:20:00.000-08:00

For the past several years, I have made traditional, Mexican-style tamales some time between Christmas and New Year's Day. We describe that experience on the Texas page of our Celebrating the States blog.

Each January since 2006, I have had the opportunity to make nacatamales, which is a Central American variation. Larger than a tamale and with a wider assortment of components, it is wrapped in several layers of banana leaf, rather than a single corn husk. Having learned recently that frozen banana leaf is available at PriceRite in Brockton.

As we have in several recent years, we had our lesson in assembling nacatamales at the home of Doña Petrona, one of the women who hosts my students on my annual Nicaragua study tour. Our participation was limited to the assembly; Doña Petrona and other community members had already spent hours creating the components.

Gathering together several pieces of leaf, we placed a cupful of corn dough (masa) in the center. The masa was made from a combination of parboiled, ground corn and potatoes. We then placed a "salad" that was essentially pico de gallo -- chopped tomato, onion, and garlic, soaking in water -- on top. We then added a couple small pieces of bone-in chicken, probably caught from the yard that morning, and a second masa. It was only on this trip that I learned that this red dough was the same as the as the first, except for the addition of achiote powder.

Once we assembled these parts, we had the option of adding a tiny red pepper before wrapping the whole assembly like a birthday present. It is important to wrap these tightly, because of another difference between nacatamales and their Mexican counterparts. Rather than being steamed above boiling water, the nacatamales are boiled in the water; any leakage would create a weird soup and soggy dinners.

Each member of our group assembled a nacatamale - including one vegan and some with more or less pepper. We then participated in some other activities for the rest of the afternoon, rejoining at the Petrona house, where about half of us managed to identify our individual dishes, but all were richly fed.

We include this photo of our student Jen, just because of the juxtaposition of the human and canine activity -- each working unaware of the other. Check this blog in coming months, when we will try our own version, and our dog will doubtless be involved as well.

Bien Organizada

2012-01-02T12:22:00.000-08:00

As readers by now know, this blog is a joint effort of a geographer and a librarian. It is a dialectic between exploration and organization in which the quest for the new is dominant. But without some semblance of order, the recipes we love so much would never be found. And though our collection of cookbooks is large and growing, it behooves us from time to time to reign it in. During this winter break, we (mostly Pam) did just that. The result is a rather less jumbly couple of shelves, south of the oven, north of the microwave, and under the bread machine.

We purged a few books, mostly those that rely heavily on branded products ("box" foods) that are increasingly scarce in our kitchen. In a few cases, we kept books from which we have never cooked, since redeeming such treasures is a major goal of this blog. Others we discarded even though we had used them a lot, since their use is far in our graduate-school past. The large green volumes on the bottom shelf are scrapbook-style binders containing many individual recipes from various sources, mainly newspapers and the sides of boxes. Pam has labeled them with some very broad categories; as we hunt for reliable favorites (such as my crepe recipe), we like encountering other unused or underused surprises.

The one knick-knack on these shelves warrants explanation. It is a ceramic porrón, which is a kind of wine pitcher common in Spain. This is one of two we were given as both a memento and essential piece of equipment during a night of following minstrels through the streets and tunnels of Guanajuato during our 1989 summer tour of Mexico.

Easiest Cranberry Relish

2012-01-02T09:49:00.000-08:00

For the start of the new year, we decided to clean up our cookbook shelf, and found a bunch of loose recipes and pamphlets shoved behind some other things. One of the things we discovered was a pamphlet of cranberry recipes. I had a pound of fresh, local cranberries on hand so I adapted the recipe I found for cranberry orange relish to fit the amount of cranberries I had. I put the rinsed cranberries in my blender and added 4 whole clementines. I wasn't sure whether to leave the rinds on or not, so I compromised and peeled two of them. I ground up the cranberries with the clementines and then moved the relish to a bowl, to which I added 3/4 c. sugar and mixed well. I chilled the relish for about two hours before serving as a side dish to our roast chicken and macaroni and cheese dinner. The relish was sweet and tangy, and a perfect addition to the New Year's Eve meal.

Louisiana Yam Muffins

2011-12-26T08:23:00.000-08:00

I make a traditional lasagna each year for Christmas dinner. Cooking the sauce is an all-afternoon affair, which is then layered with a ricotta cheese mixture, and shredded mozarella cheese, and lasagna noodles. This year, I added special muffins to the menu. I could not resist this recipe when I saw that it called for Tabasco and coffee - James' two favorite beverages. I also had half a sweet potato in the refrigerator, which after I steamed and mashed it, gave me the 1 cup that the recipe calls for (it does specifically say that yams or sweet potatoes can be used - I am not really sure what the difference is, anyway). The recipe also calls for 1 c. each of cornmeal and all-purpose flour; 1/4 c. sugar, 1T baking powder, 1 1/4 t. cinnamon and 1/2 t. salt. The dry ingredients were mixed together in one bowl, and in a smaller bowl I mixed 2 eggs, 4T canola oil, the sweet potatoes, coffee (1/2 c.) and Tabasco (the recipe says 1/2 t. but I just shook some into the batter. I am sure it was more than 1/2 t.). The wet and dry ingredients were mixed together, and then baked at 400 degrees for 16 minutes in the convection oven. There were a lot of flavors to be tasted in this. It was just sweet enough, and the coffee flavor came through. I probably could have added even a bit more Tabasco for more kick.

Eggnog Pumpkin Pie

2011-12-26T08:08:00.000-08:00

To finish off Christmas Eve's Day of Delightful Dining. I made Eggnog Pumpkin Pie. This was a recipe I modified from the Classic Pumpkin Pie recipe I often use during the holidays from The Pumpkin Cookbook. After cutting, steaming and pureeing a smallish pumpkin I added 2 eggs, 1/2 c. maple syrup, and 4 T flour. The recipe also calls for 1 c. light cream, for which I substituted a cup of eggnog. I also added some ground ginger, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. I did not measure any of the spices. I just threw in what seemed like good amounts. I think I could have added more. I poured the mixture into a homemade graham cracker pie crust and baked at 400 degrees for about an hour. The recipe said it would take about 30 minutes, which I think is usually the case when I make the "classic" pie. I guess with eggnog it takes longer to set. In any case, the pie was delicious. I good holiday treat.

Day of Delightful Dining

2011-12-25T11:52:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas Eve tradition, since 2005, has been to have lobster with friends in East Bridgewater, each year making it more of a day-long event. Yesterday was perhaps the best so far, and not just because their kitchen -- which has been under development this entire time -- is near completion (and perfection). No, it was mainly the company and also the food, drink, and music that made the day perfect.

Lobster is lobster, so there was not much room for culinary innovation on the main course itself. Rob -- raised on the Connecticut shore and possessed of two great lobster pots -- cooked six lobsters to perfection, with melted butter being all they needed.

In thinking about a side dish to complement the lobster, my mind turned naturally to Paul McIlhenny's Tabasco Brand Cookbook. This scion of the Tabasco-making family was smart enough to partner with a real writer -- Barbara Hunter -- for this work, so the book is like a small Louisiana Bible. I turned to it both for the Christmas Eve side dish and for breakfast on Christmas day.

My choice was Piquant Onion (p110), which I insist on pronouncing with a bad French accent. Small white onions -- a bit larger than pearl onions, but no larger than an inch or so, typically sold in mesh bags -- are browned in butter and then simmered for the better part of an hour in a mixture of broth, tomato sauce, and vinegar with sugar, thyme, bay leaf, and raisins. Yes, raisins.

To prepare for cooking in our friends' kitchen, I created a piquant-onion kit, assembling most of the ingredients in our own kitchen, knowing that they would have the basics (butter and cornstarch) and the essential cast-iron skillet.

I seem to recall using this kind of small onion recently, but I do not remember spending so very much time with them. The tricky part in this case was to peel them while keeping them whole. It would have been tedious, but for the fact that I was doing the job under ideal conditions: a nice counter top in a new but homey and huge kitchen, good company, good music, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and a festive chef hat!

Once the onions have been permeated by this sweet/sour mixture, it is thickened with cornstarch and zinged with Tabasco. The word "piquant" is appropriate, as the result is quite flavorful and complex, and not dominated by the heat. It worked very well with the lobster, fingerling potatoes, and macaroni.

The result was pleasing both to the palate and the eye. This will be a regular part of Hayes-Bohanan-Waterman-Rue holidays to come!

The title of this blog post comes from Rob's comment near the end of the day. In addition to the dinner itself, we shared various nibble and nips, including a toast to our lately-departed friend Anna, out by the fire. For this we had Portuguese aniz liqueur in ornate glasses with a requisite coffee bean in each. The title of the post should in fact it should be pluralized, since the good food has continued into Christmas day itself. I prepared omelet (p36) made with a little home-brewed rye beer and Tabasco, with fresh-grated Parmesan. I used twice as much Parm as called for, and should have used twice as much as that.

Of course, the cheese was grated with our stainless-steel box grater, a heavy investment when we purchased it years ago, but the last grater we will ever need. And we were able to inaugurate our whimsical cow cutting board (made of bamboo), sent for Christmas by none other than Lori, our beloved COW (Cousin Of Wisconsin). We were just realizing that ours should be a three-cutting-board kitchen, and then this arrived. Of course, cheese was its first project! The eyeglasses are another part of essential kitchen gear -- two twisted up for regular use, they stay in the kitchen so we can consult recipes without foraging in the rest of the house for glasses.

But the omelets were nice and light -- saving appetite for Pam's famous and delicious lasagna in the evening!

Eggnog Muffins

2011-12-20T07:15:00.000-08:00

Today's recipe is in honor of my friends Anna, and Rachel. Anna died earlier this year due to complications from breast cancer. The cookbook, Granny's Muffin House came from her kitchen. She gave it to me about two years ago, insisting that I loaned it to her, and she was just returning it. I told her I had never seen the cookbook before, but in her usual stubborn way would not let me leave without it. This is the first time I've used it. Rachel is a co-worker who just returned from a very long sick leave. We always have coffee together on work days. I told her when she returned I would have exceptional coffee for her, and make some muffins. I am so happy she is back. She gives this recipe two thumbs up.

Granny's Muffin House is conveniently divided into seasons, so that bakers can find recipes with ingredients that are seasonal. I opened right to the Winter section, and found the recipe for eggnog muffins. We had a bit of eggnog (3/4 c.) left from our recent Crescent Ridge Dairy Farm delivery, which turned out to be just enough for this recipe which also calls for 2 c. flour; 1 T. baking powder; 1/2 t. salt; 2/3 c. sugar; 1 egg; 1/3 c. melted butter; 1/4 c. rum and some nutmeg for sprinkling on top. Baking was at 400 degrees in the convection oven for 16 minutes. I don't think I've ever made a batch of muffins that called for a tablespoon of baking powder, and these turned out to have tall peaks.

Easy Salmon

2011-12-19T16:42:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago we decided to have some salmon that was recently delivered from our new dairy. We were to have it alongside one of our family favorites, mashed potato casserole (detailed below). I turned, as we often do, to our well-worn Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home. As we've noted before, this book is the simplest in famed series of books from a famed vegetarian restaurant, but it includes a section on fish.

The recipe is described as teriyaki. It calls for soy sauce, but I substituted Worcestershire sauce, which I boiled briefly with some minced, fresh ginger. I strained the ginger and mixed it with sherry, sugar, and minced garlic. The recipe had called for Chinese cooking wine, rice wine, or dry sherry. Sweet sherry did not seem to do any harm, though! I simply soaked the fish in this mixture for about 45 minutes, while Pam made the potato casserole, and then pan-seared it in our indispensable cast-iron skillet. The result was flaky and tender on the inside, sweet and crispy on the outside -- a simple and delicious way to prepare salmon.

This worked very well with the casserole mentioned above, which Pam prepared in the usual Hayes-Bohanan way. She mashed potatoes -- leaving the skins on and blending with some butter and plain yogurt. Then she layered it in a deep baking dish with steamed greens (frozen this summer from our CSA) and topped it all with freshly-shredded sharp Cabot cheddar cheese. This is one of our household's favorite comfort foods, and was appreciated by our daughter, who had just arrived home for the holidays.

Having a Three-Way

2011-12-15T17:07:00.000-08:00

Although eating a three-way sounds more like a scene from The Slutcracker than a respectable lunch, it may be the most popular lunch item in painfully straight-laced Cincinnati. In May of 1990 we were at the Contemporary Arts Center on the morning of its infamous arrest on obscenity charges, and the NC-17 rating was introduced the same year, arguably in part because of the prudishness of the Cincinnati Post. So it was jarring to hear the respectable local citizenry routinely seeking a "three way" at lunch time, and to hear such things advertised on television and radio, and so far from Las Vegas.

As you may have guessed by now, the Cincinnati Three Way is nothing more than a popular lunch item. It is, in fact, the ultimate comfort food of the Queen City. Throughout this week, we have been fortunate to have a variety of foods, from our own kitchen and elsewhere, in abundance. So after a lunch of leftovers, we still had plenty for dinner. I had committed to building some sort of casserole on the excess linguine I inadvertently made when reprising my Linguine Valenzana (this time with saffron and without tomato sauce). But then I had a sizable tray of chili and a HUUUGE tray of cheese sauce leftover from a catered luncheon at school yesterday.

Thus Pam's brilliant suggestion that we make recreate Skyline Chili's most famous dish. It turned out pretty well, actually, and was well paired with our rye home brew, though as far as we know the Cincinnati chain does not offer beer with its chili.

Compare:

Hayes-Boh

Skyline

A perfect meal for us would be delicious, nutritious, sustainable, and cheap. Few meals can meet all of these criteria, and lately we've settled on too many that emphasize delicious over all the others. But this meal was certainly cheap -- almost free, really. And though as a product of the corporate catering food system it was probably not very sustainable not in terms of the sourcing of ingredients, it did have this virtue. We reduced waste by having a meal of food that would probably have been discarded otherwise. That chili is all gone, and I imagine our daughter will be happy to help us with that cheese sauce!

Three Sweet Words

2011-12-13T17:25:00.000-08:00

As I wrote in the Tortilla Heaven post nearly a year ago, at the beginning of this project, The Well-Filled Tortilla is among my very favorite cookbooks. Often, when scanning our collection for a new recipe, I will grab this volume, even if I also take another from the shelf. It is organized by the main filling ingredients -- veggies, chicken, beef, seafood. This weekend, I started near the end and found a few favorites we had made recently. I was also surprised by the number of seafood entries, which I had not really noticed. I was especially surprised by the illustration of how to dissect a squid, which I found somehow unsettling.

I kept thumbing toward the middle of the book, when three words jumped out at me. Three words that I cannot believe I had not noticed together: tequila, sausage, and mole. (I always feel obligated to stipulate that mole is not a rodent in this context, but a savory, sweet sauce: mol-AY. The words were especially intriguing because we had a half jar of mole sauce left over from our recent Champadongo ecstasy.

This recipe (Tequila Sausage with Chocolate Mole Sauce, p 108) actually called for me to make sausage, but not in the gruesome way one might imagine. Rather, I simply mixed a pound of ground pork with minced garlic, rubbed sage, fennel seeds, cayenne, salt, and tequila. The recipe called for 2-1/2 pounds, but for just the two of us, a pound was more than enough. I cut back a bit on each of the other ingredients, except the tequila. Rather than prepare and cook it right away, I let it meld in the fridge overnight, so that the spices and tequila were absorbed.

Dinner this evening was then quite simple -- steam a couple soft tortillas (30 seconds in the microwave, rolled up in waxed paper), heated the mole sauce in a saucepan (though I guess a molepan would do), and then cooked the sausage with a bit of oil in a hot cast-iron skillet. I cooked the sausage until crispy, meanwhile chopping a cold tomato. The result: hot, spicy, sweet, salty, and not too heavy. Hmmmmm.

The Wait is Over!

2011-12-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

Chicken in Rose Petal Sauce

Our November 1 post about Jersusalem artichokes gave a teaser about a new blog Pam's class was creating based on recipes from the novel and film Como Agua para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate). We continued the stroking with our November 18 post on Champadongo Magic. The blog "Como Agua Para Chocolate Recetas" is now up and ready with photographs, recipes and commentary. Like the "Nueva Receta" blog, although the title is in Spanish, the posts are in English. However, we did happen upon another blog of the same title, that is written in Spanish, but it does not appear to be based on the story.

If Elvis and Paula Dean Had a Baby, This Sandwich Would Be It

2011-12-06T17:43:00.000-08:00

I uttered the sentence above at the first bite of this evening's sandwich bomb. We knew it as an Elvis Sandwich, based on our September viewing of Sandwiches You Will Like. (We thought that film would be trouble, and we were right!) But the sheer decadence of this sandwich put me immediately in mind of Paula Deen. Since I mainly know her from occasional NPR segments, rather than print or television, I decided to check the spelling on her web site. Finding the above teaser as the banner at the top of the main page confirmed my inkling that this might have been her kind of sandwich.

The recipe from Peanut Butter and Company in New York City is quite simple: fry bacon, butter bread. Put one slice of bread on a hot griddle, spread with peanut butter, top with banana slices, top that with bacon, and apply the other piece of buttered toast. Grill until brown on the outside and melty on the inside. It is a simple recipe, but not entirely an easy one, as applying peanut butter over a hot griddle to buttered bread is rather a sticky prospect. The term "hot mess" seems to apply.

By the way, we used Cabot butter from Vermont, yogurt bread made in the bread machine by Pam this afternoon (that's Stonyfield yogurt, of course, again from Vermont), rather ordinary bananas as we found no fair-trade types at the grocery this time, and bacon from Nodine's Smoke House, purchased at the nearby Peaceful Meadows dairy store. We love bacon and would eat it all the time were it not bad for us and even worse for the pigs. So we eat it infrequently and from the highest-quality, most local sources we can, instead of factory farms.

We let the bread cool thoroughly and I sliced it as thinly as I reasonably could, but as with all our bread-machine bread, it provided ample heft for these sandwiches. As Pam arrived home from her recorder lesson, the bacon and all the other sandwich makings were ready; I had even preheated the griddle. So the following progression took only about five minutes, ending with sandwiches that were golden-brown outside and gooey inside.

I kept them on the griddle long enough to pack them down a bit. Then I cut them in half (sailboat-style) and served them with chilled, pure apple sauce from Hanson Farm. And a lot of milk, just as Elvis might have done! We agreed that they were far tastier than expected, but also far more filling. Next time, a single sandwich will do for the two of us!

Fish of Distinction

2011-12-03T18:20:00.000-08:00

At the 2008 annual meeting of Massachusetts Colleges Online, I was honored to receive the organization's teaching award, the Course of Distinction Award, better known as COD. Somebody put considerable thought into the naming of the award, which recognizes online instruction in one course from each member institution each year. The keynote speaker that first year the award was given spun a marvelous tale (or tail) filled with allusions, puns, and imagery related to Gadus morhua.

I was delighted that in addition to the recognition, I received a Boston-area prize with a family connection: a ceramic Gurgling Cod from the Boston jewelers Shreve, Crump & Low. The Shreves must be distant cousins on my mother's side, and a Sacred Cod, after all, adorns the chamber in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and our most prominent peninsula bears its name. Author Mark Kurlansky explains the importance of the fish -- particularly in our region -- in his brief and wonderfully geographic work Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World.

This is all by way of explaining why, when we arrived at Fresh Catch in Easton to select a couple fillets for this evening's dinner, I did not hesitate to suggest the fresh, wild-caught cod. Though it was not cheap, it was available, and though it once was a staple common as lobster, it is now relatively rare, something for a special occasion.

The special occasion was our first use of Bruce Carlson's Cooking Seafood and Poultry with Wine, a palm-sized delight that we picked up in the beautiful shop at Sakonnet Vineyards a few weeks ago, during our months-long transect of the Coastal Wine Trail. When Pam suggested that we actually use the book that has been bouncing around these past few weeks -- in keeping with the purpose of this blog -- I agreed, and we simply turned pages from the beginning until we saw something that looked feasible with moderate effort today. (As I wrote in July, I am still not altogether confident in my seafood cooking abilities.)

Poached fish on page 28 seemed just the thing for today, especially since a few of the ingredients were already on hand. The first step was to buy Chablis, which we had not purchased in years. The recipe calls for 3/4 cup of this or some other white table wine, but where a recipe mentions a specific wine, I usually try to find it. This was itself educational. Stopping by one of our favorite local shops -- Russo's -- we started to browse and were not seeing the Chablis. The clerk -- who I think knows me as a slightly-above-novice wine buyer offered to help us find what we were after, and could not suppress a grin when we asked for Chablis. He pointed to the section where the pedestrian wines are kept, the ones in bottles 1.5 liters and larger. Then I understood -- the large bottles, low prices. Since we've started getting more wine at places like Sakonnet and Westport Rivers, we had not spent much time with table wines, and we never really understood that the Chablis varietal in general is associated with these wines. Incidentally, it was a bit sweet and simple compared to local wines we've been drinking lately, but it was certainly a good accompaniment to this dinner.

Oh, yes, the dinner: After the shopping expedition -- saving on the wine and going to a budget grocery for many other items, so that splurging on the critical ingredient cod was not a budget-buster -- we set about preparing what turned out to be a marvelous fish. I finely diced a half of an onion we had on hand (the recipe calls for one small, which seemed close enough) and spread it on a couple layers of foil, which were in turn on a backing sheet. (The recipe calls for heavy-duty foil, but we used regular stuff, with a second layer just in case of leakage.) I then spread the two beautiful fillets over the onion, close together. The recipe suggests 1.5 pounds; I had about 1.8 pounds in the two fillets. Carlson suggests that if the fillets are very thin, they should be rolled up and held with toothpicks, but these wild cod were plenty thick.

Then I dotted a small amount of butter on the fillets and sprinkled on the remaining minced onion, some chopped parsley, ground black pepper and a little salt. Then, careful to form a package around all this with the foil, I poured 3/4 cup of Chablis over the fish, folded over the foil to make a cooking pouch. I then baked the whole assembly for 20 minutes at 375 (slightly faster, actually, in the convection oven). Then I started to prepare a very simple pasta dish -- fettuccine with a bit of olive oil and Parmesan.

As the baking of the fish neared completion, I prepared a roux of 3 T butter and 3 T flour. When I brought out the fish, I formed a spout of one end of the foil package (a bit of a trick, but if I can do it, anybody can) and poured the wine/fish liquid into the measuring cup. I then let the fish rest while I whisked the liquid into the roux. Then I added a half cup of light cream and over medium heat briskly whisked it until I had a fairly thick sauce, adding a few drops of lemon juice at the end. (Thankfully Pam helped with a lot of the preparation and handling, so that I could focus on the right heat and whisking for the sauce.)

The next tricky part was re-configuring the foil into a sort of box so that I could pour the sauce over the fish. I did not want the parsley and onion to be swashed over to one side, so I poured the sauce over an inverted spoon to keep it even. Then I sprinkled the whole thing with a generous portion of freshly-grated Parmesan (yes, Parmesan in the main course and the side dish) and placed it under the broiler for just 3-4 minutes. I am nervous about broiling and brought this out when it was not quite as browned as I might have liked, but the result was fabulous -- just a bit of golden caramelization on the top, rich creamy and flavorful fish in the middle, and just a bit of crunchy, pungent onion underneath. It went very well with the simple pasta, which did not need a real sauce of its own.

This recipe made enough for at least four people, and will definitely be in our "company's coming" repertoire from now on.

Franksgiving Tradition

2011-11-25T12:05:00.000-08:00

Our friend Korin and her family celebrate Wanksgiving -- a Wednesday-Thanksgiving feast since she is nurse who is always on hospital duty for Thanksgiving (which is conveniently held on Thursday; if it were a Monday holiday it would be Manksgiving, which makes no sense). Anyway, when we saw her briefly yesterday (the rest of her family joined us for a second celebration), we started to discuss today, which unfortunately is known is Black Friday. We decided to call it Franksgiving, and thus the name of our post for a hash that has become our traditional morning-after breakfast.

Food photography is a special skill, which I do not possess.
Trust me: the hash is better than it looks!

We are cheating the "Nueva Receta" concept a bit, as we open the recipe book each year for this, but our excuse is that it is too good not to share with our readers. Plus, we did use a new way to make coffee. I coarsely ground some coffee prior to starting the hash, so that I could prepare the coffee while the hash cooked.

Pam peeled two sweet potatoes (a small and a medium). I cut them into large chunks and steamed them (in a steamer basket set over a small amount of water in a saucepan) for ten minutes, just to soften them. Meanwhile, in our indispensable cast-iron skillet I sauteed a finely chopped onion and some bell pepper (we usually keep some chopped frozen peppers on hand for just this kind of thing) in butter, and somewhat smothered them with cumin and black pepper.

I then added a cup or so of diced turkey leftover from yesterday. We had never really noticed that our recipe calls for smoked turkey, and Pam commented that we were fortunate that this year our turkey actually was smoked. For the first time, our friend Rob and I had cooked a huge local turkey on his Weber grill. He is a wood-worker who happened to have a few nice slats of oak with which to smoke the bird at the end. Once I had browned the turkey and the onions were translucent, I diced the softened potatoes and added them.

Then I started the coffee, made a whole new way. It was actually a couple months ago that we became convinced to try a vacuum pot, which is said to make even better coffee than a French press. Once our Bodum Santos (since renamed PEBO) arrived, however, it looked a bit complicated, and something that would require a bit of extra care the first time.

Of course, Franksgiving is the perfect extra-time day! Armed with the succinct manufacturer's directions and an instructional video from I Drink Coffee. The video was not quite as instructive as I had hoped regarding the placement of the filter, but we had enough information to proceed. (The video is good, but please see several caveats at the end of this article.)

While the hash was cooking down, with confidence gained from seeing the demonstration online, I started to boil the water in the lower chamber while the coffee waited in the top. Then I cracked some eggs onto the hash and covered it, while the water boiled. After a few minutes, the water started to work its way into the bottom of the upper chamber, mixing with the ground coffee. Once the water quit rising, we let it steep for another minute or so (as suggested in the video). Once we removed it from the heat source, the pressure-differential (erroneously called a "vacuum") was reduced, and the coffee drained back into the lower vessel. This show alone is worth the trouble!

By this time, our ciabatta (grocery store variety, left over from our own Wanksgiving dinner) was toasted and the eggs were poached atop the crispy hash. Actually, the coffee distracted me slightly, so that the egg yolks were a bit harder than I might have liked. The overall result, though was very satisfying -- warm, crunchy, soft, sweet, savory, and nutritious all at the same time. The coffee was fantastic, though as Pam suggested this might remain a weekend and holiday treat, as it is a bit time-consuming compared to French press. As suggested in the video, the sweetness was really brought out, and the brew had no sediment. As Pam said, there was not a trace of bitterness. The coffee was a highly decent but not exceptional blend -- the fair-trade, organic Vermont Country Blend from GMCR -- and tasted better this way than any other time I have had it. I cannot wait to try it with the next batch of single-origin coffee, which I expect from El Salvador in the next couple days.

Here are those caveats about the coffee video. In the video, Mr. Slawek suggests putting the pot on a "cold" surface after boiling, but of course Bodum warns against that, and he did not actually put his pot on a cold surface after all, but a soft, room-temperature surface. He also suggests putting the burner on "high" to boil the water; that advice applies to the small burner he was using, but would have burned the handle if I did that with our superburner. Another do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do piece has to do with removing the pot from the flame. This is about one minute after most of the water has risen to the top. If all of the water were to somehow be removed from the bottom, the whole thing would shatter. One minute or so after the water stops rising is fine, and thankfully it is not likely to boil completely away. Finally, Mr. Slawek pours the coffee into plastic cups, which of course undermines much of the benefit of better brewing.

Oatmeal Spice Bread-Fail!

2011-11-25T11:50:00.000-08:00

Back in May, I committed to using my bread machine at least once a week, and I have to admit, I have not kept up with that very well. I do use it more than I had been in the last few years, but hardly once a week. Freshly recommitted after having read William Alexander's book, 52 Loaves which documents the author's quest for the perfect loaf through baking one loaf a week, by hand, in a real oven, I figured it really shouldn't be that hard to find time to use a bread machine, for goodness sake. Last Sunday I selected Oatmeal Spice Bread from the Gold Medal New Bread Machine Cookbook which tell the baker to "greet the morning with fabulous French toast made from this sugar and spice bread." Who could resist. This sweetbread calls for brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. Yum. I had to use my kitchen math to adjust the recipe to fit into my 1 pound machine, so I am not sure if I miscalculated something, or selected the wrong setting on the machine, or perhaps left out some important ingredient, but this was not bread in any sense of the word. When it machine beeped I opened to lid to find an unrisen square of doughy substance at the bottom of the pan. When I removed the "bread" from the pan I discovered it was about 2" thick, and when I cut into it found it not cooked. I had to throw the mess away. At least the house smelled good for a few hours.

Champandongo Magic

2011-11-18T17:39:00.000-08:00

Hispanic Kitchen

We did not even know there was a contest, but the winner has been chosen. The best casserole in the world is -- without doubt -- Champandongo. Much of this blog is about eating healthy, local, environmental-friendly food. This post is a bit of departure -- a cross-cultural culinary experience that is pure indulgence.

This particular experience began almost two decades ago, when we saw the film Como Agua Para Chocolate in an art theater in Tucson. Around the same time, Pam read the book, whose title in English is Like Water for Chocolate, referring to a temperature -- literal and figurative -- just below boiling. More recently, Pam showed the film to her Spanish 101 students.

Laura Esquivel's story is that of Tita, whose love of cooking is intertwined with her forbidden love for her brother-in-law, Pedro. Every twist of the plot turns on food, whether it is the longing induced by teardrops in a wedding cake or the burning of the loins engendered by chicken in rose-petal sauce. The magic in this tale of magic realism comes from the food, so Pam assigned her students recipes from the book, which they prepared, wrote about, and then shared at a gathering in our home last week. (This aspect of the assignment seemed a bit odd for an 8:00 a.m. class, but the food was so delicious that we hardly noticed we were eating a rich and savory dinner for breakfast.)

Chicken with rose-petal sauce:
Best shared with someone you love.

Most of the dishes were familiar to us, but the champandongo is a lesser character in the story, known only as a fancy meal Tito serves on a special occasion to a fiance she does not love. It is based on mole (pronounced MOL-lay) sauce, a complex concoction of chocolate, sesame, and chiles that we knew from our long-ago summer in Puebla. Unlike highland mole that is simply ladled over roasting poultry, however, the champandongo incorporates the sauce as one of many ingredients in what is most comparable to lasagna. We were very impressed with the example prepared by Pam's students, particularly since one of the team who made it is a vegetarian but nonetheless went to the trouble to prepare the mole from scratch, something that not even we have attempted. He did not get to experience what turned out to be quite a satisfying meal, and one that inspired us to follow up with our own version.

Pam found the recipe on Hispanic Kitchen -- a delightful social network for foodies. The recipe is fairly simple and clearly written, though a couple of the ingredients are a bit tricky. Most confounding at first was the Manchengo cheese, a sheep's-milk cheese from the part of Spain from which Quixote's Man of La Mancha got his name. This was available from our local grocery store, and resembles Parmesan but with a sweeter flavor. We took a short cut on the mole sauce, using about half a jar (about three times what the recipe calls for) of the Trader Joe's version.

The result is pure indulgence -- cheesy, complex, sweet, and spicy all at the same time. What completed the experience was a perfect wine pairing. The recipe suggests a "smoky red wine," so we decided to try one of two red wine we recently purchased on the Coastal Wine Trail. Good red wines are rare in New England, where the growing season is too short for them to develop, but we had recently encountered two. Of these, we are saving Sakonnet's the peppery Cabernet Franc for a steak dinner, so we chose the 2006 Elms Meritage from Greenvale by default. Imagine our delight when we read the tasting notes: "wonderful aromas of berry, smoke and subtle spice."

A meal perfectly paired with its wine, and
even the glasses match!

No Recipe Potato Chicken Chowda

2011-11-18T08:46:00.000-08:00

Most of November has been quite warm here in Massachusetts. One might say "unseasonably" so, but based on the last 10 years or so, I would say, it has become, rather disturbingly, pretty normal. Anyway, yesterday the weather actually turned cold, and grey, and so it seemed that chowder season was finally upon us. I took the opportunity to make use the last chicken breast that was in our freezer, along with the organic yukon gold potatoes we purchased recently to prepare some comfort food for my sweetheart and me. I have made a lot of chowders before, so I figured I'd done it enough that I could create my own. After defrosting the chicken breast I diced it into small pieces and cooked them in my indespensible cast iron skillet in a bit of canola oil. Meanwhile, I boiled 2 cups of water and dissolved two teaspoons of "better than boullion" into it. To this I added 2 cups of lowfat milk, the cooked chicken, 5 small peeled and diced potatoes, a diced onion, a minced garlic clove, a bay leaf, and a bit of sage, salt and pepper. Once it boiled I turned it down to simmer and let it cook while I prepared Deborah Madison's buttermilk biscuits (except I substituted plain yogurt for the buttermilk). During the last few minutes of soup simmering I added some greens that I'd frozen during our CSA season. Everything turned out just as I hoped. The chowder was warm and creamy with a lot of texture and flavor, the biscuits were perfectly browned, and the company was sparkling. The only thing that could make this any better would be a couple of bottles of home brew. Luckily, we had some!

I'm looking forward to enjoying the leftover soup and biscuits for my lunch today.

Oddly, I'm looking forward to reading this...

2011-11-18T08:14:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month, a KFC employee found Colonel Sanders original "food autobiography" in the company's archives. According to this press release, the document tells of Sanders' passion for "home style cooking" and hard work. One can only imagine what he would say about the KFC Famous Bowl. Here is something I would never consider cooking at home. Blech.

Melty Tuna Melty

2011-11-14T18:50:00.000-08:00

As Pam noted in the "Best Tuna Melt" section of her New Jersey entry on Celebrating the States, my usual open-mindedness with respect to food (and most other things, other than Dunkin' Donuts), generally fails me when it comes to tuna. I do not eat tuna salad unless I am at home, and then only if I have made it or a trusted family member has made it under my supervision. For me, incidentally, it is not really a "salad" since it only has tuna, mayo, and ground black pepper.

As Pam rightly predicted in that same entry, my willingness to eat -- and even enjoy -- a tuna melt in which the tuna was polluted with celery and onions did not mean I had turned over a new leaf in this area of gastronomy. Strict limits are still in place. (Sorry to call onion a pollutant -- in its proper place, of course, I love it! Its proper place is anywhere but tuna salad.)

The bottom line, I suppose, is that I have some issues with the preparation of tuna. I rarely prepare tuna melts, but for some reason today I had a hankering for them, and arriving home for lunch just a few minutes ahead of Pam, I decided to surprise her with one (one each, that is).

I made tuna "salad" in my conventional way -- a can of tuna in water (squeezing the water in our dog's food dish -- all of our dogs have loved that) with a minimal mix of reduced-calorie mayonnaise (Hellman's: let's not even talk about Miracle Whip, since this is a family blog) and fresh-ground black pepper. I grilled this on regular whole wheat sandwich bread with freshly shredded Cabot cheeses (Monterrey Jack and extra sharp cheddar), in the style of grilled cheeses about which we've been blogging of late.

Nothing terribly innovative so far, except that this is the first tuna melt I have made since we got grilled-cheese religion, and I stacked the shredded cheese as high as it would go, giving it plenty of time to melt down before flipping the sandwiches.

Here is the innovation, though: on my own sandwich, I added a couple tablespoons of what I call "hots" -- jarred, crushed red pepper. I often order this on deli sandwiches, but never thought to get it for home use until I recently noticed it on a grocery shelf. In this case, it is Gouveia brand, imported to New Bedford from the Azores (an Atlantic archipelago that is part of Portugal).

I would never have thought to blog about this, because it was a simple recipe, but Pam pointed out that we have not posted much lately, so to keep up a weekly pace, I should mention it. Though the meal (which included milk, tortilla chips, and canned peaches with cinnamon) was not fancy, it did meet the main criteria for lunch: nutritious, delicious, easy and cheap!

To Market To Market

2011-11-09T16:39:00.000-08:00

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig,
Home again, home again, dancing a jig;
To market, to market, to buy a fat hog;
Home again, home again, jiggety-jog;
To market, to market, to buy a plum bun,
Home again, home again, market is done.

So wrote Mother Goose, and generations have had this jingle stuck in their heads. So when Rick Sebak and his team from WQED-Pittsburgh decided to make a paean to public markets throughout the United States, they chose the opening line as both their title and a bit of a quest.

I watch a lot of films about the geography of food and teach many aspects of it in my classes. The films that show what is wrong -- drastically wrong, criminally wrong -- with our food systems are important and sometimes even enjoyable. This film is different and quite important, as it leads by example.

To Market To Market to Buy a Fat Pig is a pure celebration of that which is most right about food in the United States. (See Netflix listing -- available in streaming format.) The film explores farmers' markets in nine of these United States. The markets differ in all the ways that markets vary. Some are recent inventions while others have enjoyed a century of continuous operation. Some attract dozens of shoppers; others thousands. Some operate in fixed buildings every day of the week; others are set up in tents on city streets. Some are supplied only by local, organic farms; some include seafood; some include a lot of food pre-packaged or prepared on the premises.

In our own community, a small group of residents have worked over the past years to build and sustain Bridgewater Farmers Market. Results have been a robust mix of successes and difficult lessons, but the market seems close to a critical mass of both vendors and shoppers. As the film makes clear, no single model is appropriate to every community, and Bridgewater continues to work toward a model that will serve this community well.

Farmers markets are about getting closer to one's food, those who produce it, and others who happen to care. In a good market, we can find out more about that food and the conditions under which it is grown, fed, or caught. Several markets in the film offer seafood, as did our Bridgewater market for a few weeks this summer. Markets also encourage cooking -- the actual preparation of food from ingredients -- which we find making a bit of a comeback as the economy tightens and people look for ways to improve their lives while saving money.

I am proud to be playing a small part in the cultivation of a farmers' market in my own town, and equally proud that a young person who once studied coffee with me is now well-known as the manager of one of the most successful markets in the Boston area, the Union Square Farmers Market in Somerville.

Educators who wish to show this video to their classes may find my viewing companion (Word format) useful. Feel free to adapt to your own class, and please notify me if you do so.

Home Cookin'

2011-11-09T03:48:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, Wiley Miller's Non Sequitur comic shares a curmudgeonly view of cooking at home. Indeed, a lot of what is "cooked" in homes is merely heated up by legions of "box food people." I am happy to report, however, that a growing number of young people are interested in cooking.

This very morning, Pam's Spanish class is converging on our house to share dishes they created in relation to their study of Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate). Last week, students attending a Real Food Challenge event at BSU brought a fabulous assortment of dishes they created themselves.

When I asked students in my introductory environmental geography class how many of them (or their parents) grow at least some food at home, about 2/3 raised their hands, and many beamed as they listed the home produce. In the film To Market, To Market to Buy a Fat Pig, one of the market managers explains that his goal is to encourage home cooking.

Dining out is still enjoyable, of course, if it is actual dining. But as a friend who once worked in food service told us, the four major food groups in some restaurants are bags, boxes, bottles, and cans. We've found that all too often, eating out has meant paying much more for boring food than good food would have cost, with the only benefit having been that someone else did the dishes. And with a dishwasher in our kitchen, that is a mighty slim benefit!

So, we find ourselves in restaurants only when it is necessary in order to meet people or get other things done, or when we know that the chef can make something better than we can make it ourselves! We often find ways to avoid the former, and the latter becomes increasingly rare.

Here's the thing about Jerusalem Artichokes...

2011-11-01T09:47:00.000-07:00

We just don't really like them. At the end of our CSA season we received a bag of this root vegetable, which had also been included in the early harvest. Our first attempt at making them palatable can be found here. Over the weekend I decided to try a recipe suggested on Colchester Farm's own blog and followed the instructions for the Cherokee Spiced Jerusalem Artichokes. I thought perhaps since the recipe calls for honey the sweetness might make them more to my liking. These need to marinated for several hours before serving, so I prepared them right after church on Sunday, and then James and I went to a play, and then did some shopping for a project my Spanish class is doing (stay tuned for links to recipes and other information about Like Water for Chocolate!) As we were finishing the shopping James mentioned how looking at all the good ethnic food had made him hungry. And I, without enthusiasm replied, "well, we have that jerusalem artichoke salad to look forward to when we get home." At which point he suggested we let it marinate another day, and that we order a pizza instead. So, finally, on Monday we served the 'chokes, along with some chicken breasts in mango sauce. "They aren't horrible," said I. "They're weird" answered James. This was the best we could say about them. I did finish my serving, but James, who took about 1/2 what I did, left some on his plate with a sarcastic remark about his eyes being bigger than his tummy. Later in the evening I was reminded of something we were told the first time we had them: that they were a "gassy vegetable." Right. Next season I think we will skip them.

Pho Fame

2011-10-26T19:23:00.000-07:00

In our recent Faux Pho post, we described how and why we made pho, the traditional noodle dish of Vietnam. Little did we know that our creation would become locally and briefly famous, as part of a photo essay on a pho-noodle lunch at the Bridgewater Public Library. Our trusty, wedding-present crock pot received a bit of media limelight as well!
The event was organized by the Bridgewater One Book One Community committee as part of a series of events related to the reading of John Shor's Dragon House. Bridgewater Independent reporter/photographer Charlene McNeil beautifully captures the event, in which Anh Nguyen described her life in Vietnam, her flight just ahead of the fall of Saigon, and her life in the United States since 1975. As the photos reveal, the audience was mesmerized by the life of this delightful and unassuming woman.

A New Cocktail that I just Invented

2011-10-18T17:42:00.000-07:00

Take the fruit of 1/2 of a rather small watermelon, remove seeds and put in blender. Add the juice of 1/2 a lime, a handful of fresh mint leaves, and a jigger of apple schnapps. Blend well. Refreshing.

You Had Me at Gratin

2011-10-18T17:31:00.000-07:00

We do have other good cook books, but as readers of this blog have surely noticed by now, Deborah Madison's tome is the Bible of our kitchen. As the name implies, it is full of vegetarian recipes, but they are available to everyone. Of course that is true of all vegetarian recipes, but I think what Madison means is that these are recipes that are so enjoyable that carnivores will not whine about the "sacrifice" they are making by eating lower on the food chain for a meal or two.

Our latest foray began in an interesting way. We had accumulated a few squash and fresh herbs over the past couple weeks, and were looking for an original way to use them. Pam turned to the index of VCE and found something that used the stuff we had -- or reasonable substitutions, such as butternut and pattypan (flying saucer) squash for the zucchini squash specified.

I must say that I consented to the choice Sunday night without looking at it, and in fact on Monday morning I realized that I had failed even to note the name or page number -- Summer Squash, Herb and Rice Gratin on page 286. Fortunately, Pam marked the recipe itself and noted the link back to the Béchamel sauce required. Unfortunately, the combination was not going to fit well between the evening's scheduled meetings.

In the end, all was well, as I was able to substitute ingredients and cut corners enough to make the dish fit in our time and ingredient constraints. The shredding of butternut squash is more time-consuming than zucchini, especially since we insist on shredding with our high-karma manual shredder, rather than any kind of electric gizmo. I did the shredding as quickly as I could, in order to give the lightly salted squash a bit of time to drain while I worked on the sauce and cooked the rice.

Béchamel sauce is sometimes described simply as "white sauce," but in the case of this recipe the scalded milk is first infused with onions and other herbs. We took a walk on the wild side -- as we so often do -- and just threw in all the herbs we had on hand. The infusion is done simply by scalding the milk with these ingredients and letting the chopped onion and herbs sit in the hot milk. Given the need to hurry, I kept the milk over a very low flame (cooking with gas!) and let it steep for just 5-7 minutes or so.

Here is the tricky bit, which I somehow actually did as instructed: Once I was satisfied that the milk was adequately aromatic, I poured it through a sieve into the bubbling butter-and-flour roux. As I write this, I realize that I could have sieved the milk and then whisked it into the roux, but that's not what Deborah Madison told me to do!

The basic idea of this recipe is to divide this herbish/onionish white sauce into two parts, mixing one part with rice and shredded squash for the bottom of the pan and mixing the other part with shredded Parmesan (see trusty shredder above; it got a work out) as a cheesy top layer. Then the whole thing gets browned in the oven.

"Gratin" means cheese, at least to me, which is why I dove into this recipe, despite my better judgment. The result was good enough that we will try this again, when we have a bit of leisure to do it right. We will refrain from mint, which was interesting but probably not ideal with the other herbs.

Watermelon-Lime-Mint-Feta salad

2011-10-17T10:12:00.000-07:00

From the ultimate authority on vegetarian cooking, Deborah Madison, comes this unlikely taste treat. We got a small watermelon in a recent CSA pick up, and since James is allergic to them, it was up to me to make sure it got its proper due. I noticed this recipe in Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone while I was looking for a good squash recipe (stay tuned - James will blog about same, soon). I cut up half the watermelon into chunks, squeezed the juice from half a lime, tore up some fresh mint leaves, and a sprinkled a bit of feta plus a dash each of salt and pepper on top. This was quite refreshing, and made a perfect light meal. Total prep time - about 5 minutes (including going to my garden to get the mint). My greatest challenge was spitting out all the seeds. Either eat this alone, or make sure you are among good friends.

Free-Form Apple Pear Cranberry Tart

2011-10-16T16:28:00.000-07:00

photograph from the Cooking Channel.

In last Tuesday's CSA pick up we had a small bag of pears, and on Wednesday this recipe appeared in our local newspaper. Except for the cranberries (and the vanilla ice cream!) we already had the other ingredients, so after a trip to the store we were ready to start baking. We made this together on a beautiful fall evening. Following the instructions, we began with the crust. Things went well, except that I had to dig around in the freezer for a whole stick of butter. Good thing the recipe calls for the butter to be "chilled". Indeed. It also says to use your fingers to mix the dry ingredients with the butter. Uhmmm, no. That's what pastry cutters are for.

We ran into one snafu while making the filling which, in addition to apples, pears, cranberries, calls for 1 teaspoon of orange zest. We each ate an orange for breakfast this morning, so, knowing that we would be making this recipe later, I took the zest off of one before cutting it. I put the zest on a plate and put it in the refrigerator. The zest was to be mixed in with some sugar, cloves and cornstarnstarch, but when I went to get it out it was not in the double-secret spot under the drawer where I left it. James had cleaned out the refrigerator after church and figured, reasonably, that an uncovered hidden plate was one of Paloma's silly leftovers, and since she has been away at school all week, threw it away. No matter, James came up with a great solution: Triple Sec! We sprinkled this over the fruit mixture as a substitute for the zest. Brilliant.

The crust was rolled out into something like a circular shape then placed on parchment on a baking sheet. The filling was added and the sides of the crust folded over top. It was brushed with egg, and sprinkled with sugar and baked. Wow! Was this good - especially served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. A damn fine dessert, or, in the immortal words of my father, eating the candles off his second-birthday cake, "mmmm, good pie!"

Faux Pho

2011-10-10T05:29:00.000-07:00

Twice a year the Bridgewater One Book One Community steering committee selects a book for a community wide read with programming. This fall the Committee selected Dragon House by John Shors, a novel about Vietnamese Street Children. Two of the main characters in the book, Mai and Mihn, like to eat a noodle soup called pho when they have enough money. The Committee decided to have "Pho for Lunch" as the first of its fall programs. Two different recipes were provided to the Committee members to make for the event. Although the Lunch does not take place until Saturday, I decided I should do a kitchen test, since the recipes looked complicated. I took both recipes, and using elements of each, came up with the following:

Broth:

3 cups of vegetable stock from cans

4 cups water

2 onions

1 very large garlic clove-minced

1.5 T soy sauce

2 inches of ginger root cut into rounds

1 peeled carrot cut into rounds

a dollop of red wine vinegar

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

1.5 t brown sugar

2 basil stems

1 stem cilantro

Additonal ingredients:

rice noodles

4 oz. firm tofu - cut into chunks

8 fresh shitake mushroom - chopped

basil leaves

cilantro leaves

scallions - chopped

All broth ingredients went into a soup pot which I boiled and then simmered for about 45 minutes. I strained and discarded solids.

The rice noodles I prepared according to the package. While they were cooking, I stir fried the tofu and mushrooms together.

When the noodles were ready, I divided them into 3 bowls, ladled the broth over, and added the mushroom/tofu mix.

The basil and cilantro leaves, and the chopped scallions were set on the table to use as toppings. James and I added them; Paloma did not.

Final verdict - everyone agreed it was tasty and a good comfort food. The noodles were very difficult to keep on our spoons though. Paloma figured it was meant to be eaten with chopsticks.

Cod with Spicy Orange & Black Cherry Sauce & Couscous

2011-10-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

From Clean Eating Magazine James found this recipe for Cod with Spicy Orange & Black Cherry Sauce with Couscous. I used tilapia, rather than cod, because we had some on hand. Making this recipe started with a trip to the grocery store to buy the green onions, carrots, black cherry All-Fruit and couscous. I did a lot of chopping and dicing for this recipe, and used many pots, pans, and utensils. The broiling time for the fish was minimal (8 minutes), but the prep work was time intensive. I made a few adjustments to the recipe as written. I skipped the cayenne pepper, and rather than placing a slice of orange with its peel on top of the fish before broiling, I used a grapefruit spoon to scoop out the wedges to top the filets, which necessarily also meant that there was a lot of juice on top as well. It did not adversly affect the fish, and all worked well especially when topped with the sauce. I was not sure about the couscous because I remembered not liking it and was going to use rice instead, but James convinced me that the couscous would be fine. And it was. This was a good, romantic meal with lots of colors, flavors, and textures - visually appealing as well as tasty. We served Chardonnay from Westport Rivers Vineyards with this one.

Pan Frances

2011-10-01T09:48:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't love French toast? This morning I decided it would be a good idea for a late breakfast (I suppose it could be called brunch), and then I realized we had half a loaf of some rustic white bread left over from the delicious spaghetti dinner Pam made last night.

Full disclosure: this was just a nice loaf from the nearest Trucchi's grocery -- nothing we did ourselves and nothing too fancy. Still, we did give it a little thought, as in spending a few seconds thinking about whether we should use this or use the wheat sandwich bread on hand. I don't know why we hesitated. Not only was half a loaf better than none, half a loaf was just right!

I made a simple batter of three eggs, beaten with an equivalent amount of one-percent milk. I added some pure vanilla and cardamom for flavor and a smidge of baking powder for fluffiness. I then sliced the bread into one-inch slabs and heated up the indispensable cast-iron griddle, melting just a small amount of butter on it. I was a bit concerned as it heated and I caught a whiff of the Old Bay from our most recent crab-cake meal, but in the end this was either not noticeable or blended with the inherent saltiness of the bread.

I noticed that the bread was both firm, so that it did not fall apart in soaking, but also large-pored, so that it did not hold a lot of batter. The crusts were rigid, though, so once the first side had browned, I drizzled just a bit of the batter over the bread, "trapping" some of it in the middle. Quite a bit ran onto the griddle, but nobody was harmed by that. Pam noticed a bit of a custardy center in the final product. We had considered a multi-grain bread last night, but the texture of this white bread was probably better.

And the final product was quite nice, indeed, I must admit. Served with some warmed, local maple syrup (you'll find no Aunt Jemima's in Casa Hayes-Boh), it was just perfect: mostly sweet but a little savory, mostly soft but a little crusty. Cold, organic applesauce and a fresh batch of Sumatran coffee rounded out the meal.

Sometime soon, though, I will prepare a rustic loaf of my own, just for this purpose!

Tomatillos -- Muy Local

2011-09-29T16:12:00.000-07:00

Photo from What's Cooking America

In her post on sammiches, Pam mentioned our front-yard tomatillo patch and suggested that I write about the salsa I made a few weeks ago. There may be a technical difference between salsa and pico de gallo ("chicken beak"), but in my mind the former has liquid and the latter is just finely-diced solids, more like a relish.

We got our tomatoes planted a bit late this year, it seemed, late enough to realize that groundhogs would be a serious issue, so I created the San Quentin of tomato pens in front of our house. I watched the plants grow, even as various flowers outside the "compound" were chomped to the ground as soon as they sprouted. I knew we had a variety of plants -- as Rob always provides for Pam's late-May birthday, but I was surprised when I realized that they were mostly tomatillos. We eventually concluded that some clever ground hog may have gotten to one of the regular tomatoes.

Although we lived in the Southwest for seven years and ate plenty of tomatillo salsas and picos, I had never actually worked with them before this summer, and had certainly never seen them on the vine. Nor had I given much thought to how the parchment layer gets formed. I had always assumed it was just a layer that grew with the fruit and eventually got pushed off. I was therefore fascinated to see that it was more like a little scrotum (I guess Chinese lantern would be a more polite analogy, but take a look some time and tell me I'm wrong) that emerges overnight and gets filled over the next week or so. When it is full, the fruit is ready.

I harvested a handful, perhaps a bit shy of fully ripe, sharpened a knife and chopped them into fine dice. I added a bit of whatever hot pepper was at hand (could have used a bit more), along with finely-chopped onion. I think that was all. It was amazing! Fresh, local, organic, simple, and delicious! It was a bit tart and so flavorful that I found myself just shoveling it in, sometimes using a spoon so I would not fill up on chips. It is that good.

It also puts me in mind of the pico at a small restaurant I visited last January in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. We went on two consecutive days. The first time, several of us took the pico as a topping. The next day the buffet line ran out of it quickly, as several of us treated it more like an entree. Mine was not nearly as sweet as that one, which was based on sweet, red tomatoes, but until I can return, it was a nice substitute.

Sandwiches that You Will Like

2011-09-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

Taking its name from an old sandwich shop slogan, this documentary visits sandwich shops all over the country to find out what is unique and special in America's hometowns. From Beef on Weck in Buffalo, New York; to the Philadelphia Cheesesteak; and the Maid Rite in Marshalltown, Iowa; and many others to the north, south, east and west, we found out all about why some folks take special pride in their hometown flavors. We'd heard of Elvis Presley's favorite sandwich before, grilled banana and peanut butter with bacon, but we watched one being prepared at Peanut Butter and Company in New York City, and now have a true hankerin' to try one. Next time we can get some good bacon it will be put to good use! This is a fun movie to watch, but maybe not so much for vegetarians. With a few exceptions, "a lot of beef" is how I can best sum up the sandwiches featured in this film. The companion website does not include any of the recipes featured in the movie, but it offers an opportunity to purchase a cookbook, and provided one "teaser" recipe (not found in the film) and so I prepared the "Spiedie" a favorite of locals in Binghamton, New York.

The first thing one must be aware of is that this dish requires a minimum of 24 hours to marinate, so preparation must begin at least one day in advance.

I took a few liberties with the marinade, using red wine vinegar instead of cider vinegar, since we had the former, but not the latter, and I also added tomatillos from our garden, just because I had so many of them. (And, I will take this opportunity to thank my friend Rob for providing me with the tomatillo seedlings from which James has also made a tasty salsa (you should post that, honey) ). I also used fresh basil and mint because we had those in our garden as well. Otherwise, I used the ingredients as listed. I also deviated from the recipe by not putting the meat on skewers, and simply cooked them on our indespensible cast iron griddle. These were served on nice soft hogie rolls with a side of organic mashed potatoes. Delicious.

Ratatatatouille

2011-09-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

Around this time each year, we start to dread the eggplant. If cooked to absolute perfection, we find it just tolerable. And we don't know how to cook it to perfection. A few weeks ago, an early specimen came in our farm box, just after our daughter learned that she actually liked eggplant parm from a couple different restaurants. I tried my hand at it, using a salt-and-drain method so it would not be too soggy. I actually got it TOO dry and way to salty! It was passable but not scrumptious.

Then I noticed a Facebook friend at least a thousand miles away was reveling in her ratatouille, and somehow I knew that it involved eggplant. So I asked her for recipes, and she obliged with several. The first was all I needed: If Weapons-Grade Ratatouille would not do it for me, nothing would! Besides, she had gotten the recipe from a recent installment of radio's best cooking show, Lynne Rossetto Kaspar's The Splendid Table. (For a no-cost, no-fat culinary indulgence, just listen to this radio program some time!)

I looked at the recipe at least a dozen times before preparing it, partly to assess the ingredients list and partly to brace myself for the battle to come! I was put in mind of Lori Petty in the 1995 cult classic Tank Girl. Was I up to the challenge? Would this end up being just another stew, or would it live up to the bold adjectives Francis Lam ladles on the recipe as posted in Salon?

By working almost entirely with local ingredients (substituting fat, local scallions for the leeks and dried thyme for fresh), and cooking the pureed peppers and tomatoes even longer than Lam suggested, I think I made a very decent first showing. Because of my teaching schedule today, I completed steps 1-3 around noontime, and started on step 4 almost four hours later. Even with the convection oven, it took a while to get the small-dice eggplant and squash as brown as I wanted, but it was worth the wait.

The result was a very satisfying contrast of flavors and textures, especially when topped with just a sprinkling of extra-sharp Vermont cheese.

As I readied myself for this endeavor, being only familiar with the dish in vague terms related to the Disney film of the same name, Pam mentioned that the witty, delightful, and famously rotund children's author Daniel Pinkwater had mentioned this dish as part of his weight-loss program. Indeed, it is the second step of a three-step program by which he lost roughly 50 pounds. He offers a flexible recipe, but I will stick with Mr. Lam's version, as Mr. Pinkwater combines two words that I never like to see in the same sentence: "eggplant" and "soft." Other than that, I'm going to be doing my best to take his advice!

Stuffed Tomatoes

2011-09-12T07:13:00.000-07:00

There is nothing like tomato season. I am glad tomatoes are available year-round, but there is nothing like the fruit of the late summer - so full of flavor and texture it almost seems crimnal to add anything to them. Nevertheless, I couldn't resist this recipe from last Wednesday's Brockton Enterprise. I began by scooping out the middle from two large tomatoes, bought at the Bridgewater farmer's market, and setting them in a small baking dish. I cooked up some sausage I bought from Brown Boar farm; and added onion and garlic from our farm box, along with rosemary, oregano, toast and vegetable broth. When the mixture had cooked down, I stuffed the tomatoes with it, and cooked at 400 for 20 minutes. Then the tomatoes were topped with shredded mozarella and baked another few minutes to melt. These were colorful, juicy, and flavorful.

"Not Your Diner's" Chicken Salad

2011-09-11T06:54:00.000-07:00

In diners and delis, of course, chicken salad is a cold salad consisting mostly of chicken chunks held together with mayo with perhaps a bit of celery. It is served in a sandwich or on top of a couple slices of lettuce. Pam sometimes orders this in diners, but I rarely do, being innately resistant to any mayonnaise salad that was not made by me or a close family member. It's just a thing I have.

At Casa Hayes-Boh, "chicken salad" means something very different. It would be more aptly called "salad chicken" since it is mostly salad, with just a bit of chicken. We prepare this fairly often, so it is not exactly "una nueva receta" for us, but it might be new to some readers.

I suppose it is inspired by the commonly-offered "chicken Cesar salad" that we see in many restaurants, but somehow this is a bit more special. It varies a bit each time, with yesterday's salad coming together particularly well. Here is what we did:

The salad base was lettuce, a cuke, and a few assorted greens from our Colchester CSA. We added a huge tomato we had just purchased at the Bridgewater Farmers Market, parsley from the grocery and some basil from the pots on our porch.

To this we added one chicken breast -- I marinated it in margarita mix (any citrus juice would do), Worcestershire sauce, and Seagram's 7 (any inexpensive whiskey would do). With a tiny bit of canola oil, I seared the chicken over high heat, and then cut it in the pan -- of course it was an indispensable cast-iron skillet!

We put this on top of the salad and tossed with a generous dose of Pam's famous dressing:
3 parts canola oil and one part each of balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, and local honey. This is tastier, healthier, and less expensive than most commercial dressings.

We paired this with a 2009 Riesling from Westport Rivers. If you are trying this at home, however, we must advise that German Rieslings are unlikely to work; South Coast Reislings -- especially those from Westport Rivers -- are semi-semi-dry, not cloyingly sweet.

Company Rice and Beans

2011-09-01T06:07:00.000-07:00

Another recipe from the wonderful Jane Brody's Good Food Book. We were able to use some of our CSA farm box bounty in this delicious dish - which I must say is suitable for company.

We used up every grain of the rice we had left in the house to make this. The recipe calls for 3 cups of cooked rice, which means 1 cup dry rice, and 2 cups of water. We knew we had rice in several different containers and hoped that the small amounts we found in each would equal a cup when added together. The goddess was with us as we watched the last of the rice top off the 1 cup measurement. While the rice cooked I gathered the ingredients for the beans, which included onion, garlic, tomatoes, what I thought was a zucchini, fresh oregano, and one can of black beans. Starting with the chopped onions in my indespensable cast iron skillet, I cooked them until soft, then added the minced garlic. Tomaotes, of several colors (red, orange, yellow) were chopped and added, and then I cut into the zucchini, and discovered it was really a great big cucumber. No worries, that yellow thing from the farm box that looked like a ufo I knew was some sort of squash so I made an executive chef decision and substituted it. Finally I added the drained black beans (Brody says black, red, or garbanzos all work equally well). I left this to cook on low heat until the squash was soft enough, then served over the rice. Topped with shredded cheddar, this is a visually appealing, as well as appetizing, and healthy dish.

Ginger Chicken and Chickpeas - aka "Chicken a la Irene"

2011-08-31T10:25:00.000-07:00

As hurricane Irene struck the east coast on Sunday, James and I were grateful to have a gas stove, knowing that when the electricity went out we'd still be able to use the stovetop to cook a hot meal. Every report we read indicated that most of our neighbors were without power, and we waited, expected, ours to go out at any time. It never did. Among the lucky few who had power the whole storm, our biggest problem from the heavy winds was losing one big branch from our walnut tree. Nevertheless, the storm was severe, and we were not about to go out in it to get any ingredients. We chose a recipe that we could make with things we had on hand, or could be easily substituted. From Jane Brody's Good Food Book we selected Ginger Chicken and Chickpeas. We thawed some chicken breasts from the freezer, soaked them in lemon juice and water, and then browned in our indespensible cast-iron skillet. The chicken was removed from the pan, and then it (the pan) was used to sautee the onions. Once the onions were soft we added ground ginger (the recipe called for fresh, but we made do), cumin, cardmom, coriander and a pinch of red pepper flakes. The chicken went back to the skillet along with a can of drained and rinsed chickpeas, a cup of water, a teaspoon of cornstrarch, and a few dashes of worcheshire (the last three ingredients were a substitute for broth). After bringging the water to a boil, the pan was covered and set to simmer for 30 minutes.

This was a good, hearty meal on a day that felt more like fall than summer. The chicken had a definite kick, but I think the fresh ginger would have provided the more spicy flavor I prefer. I think I was too parsimonious with the red pepper as well.

Why Our Dog is Not a Fan

2011-08-27T07:31:00.000-07:00

Thanks to humorist and fellow dog-lover Mike Peters for illustrating the reason our dog Perry is not an active participant in this blog project. The key is presentation; here (Aug 27, 2011) Grimmy is dejectedly reading the evidence for what our dog has not yet really understood: their culinary lives are boring. Perry has not caught on, because of the enthusiastic way we call out, "Plain brown dog food! Plain brown dog food!" (With credit/blame to Dave Barry.) Also, though her main courses are more boring than wood, she frequently gets chicken-flavored jerky treats that we simply call "doggie crack."

Another Cross-Blog Site

2011-08-25T05:44:00.000-07:00

Should I add this to my "Nueva Receta" blog or my "Library Books" blog? I added it to both. Mary Yogi, The Food Librarian is "librarian by day, baker by night". Read her interview with the American Library Association here.

Today in Cooking History

2011-08-19T05:34:00.000-07:00

Click picture to read the story.

A Cross-Blog story

2011-08-18T06:38:00.000-07:00

I wasn't sure whether to post this story about a community garden at the public library on City Island in the Bronx here, or on my Library Books blog. A decision had to made, though, so here it is.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/16/at-this-library-check-out-the-tomatoes/

Libraries are wonderful places for foodies. Beyond cookbooks, one might attend a good food lecture, gardening advice, or even an heirloom seed exchange.

Coffee Banana Smoothie

2011-08-18T06:26:00.000-07:00

The Hayes-Bohanan's have been drinking smoothies since before smoothies were cool. Back before people even used the word "smoothie" to describe a drink made of blended fruits, juices and yogurt, we simply called them "fruit shakes". And of course we were among the generation that made drinking coffee cool (see my coffee story). So when we recently were offered a free download of a Starbucks Coffee Recipe Book, we could hardly turn it down, and when I saw the recipe for the Coffee Banana Smoothie I knew what I wanted to try first.

The recipe calls for two peeled, sliced, and frozen bananas, so one must begin the night before in order to properly freeze the fruit. The bananas go into a blender along with 1 1/2 cups milk, 8oz. of coffee yogurt, 1/4 t. of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg. We did not have any coffee-flavored yogurt on hand so I substituted vanilla yogurt flavored with the morning's leftover coffee. The recipe also calls for optional mint leaves as a garnish. I walked out to my garden in the morning dew to cut same.

This was a refreshing drink for an summer morning. Next time, however, I will use less milk, as the coffee itself provides enough liquid to the mix. I will also blend the mint leaves right in, rather than using as a garnish.

Kohl-whatee?

2011-08-17T16:27:00.000-07:00

Image: Vegetarians
in Paradise

Kohlrabi, that's what! Behold, the kohlrabi, a stout member of the cabbage family, also known as a German turnip. Varying from golf ball to nearly softball in size, it looks like a cross between a Brussels sprout and Sputnik.

One of the great things about having a share in community-supported agriculture (CSA) is the introduction to all sorts of foods -- mainly produce -- that may have been unknown. That was certainly the case for kohlrabi in our family. I remember being introduced to it last year by our friends at Colchester Neighborhood Farm, and cooking up a small bit of it with herbs.

One of the challenges of a CSA is learning -- or relearning -- to live with food seasons. It is always harvest season in a supermarket, but that harvest may be thousands of miles away! So a good CSA community provides not only varied foods but also help with figuring out what to do with them. Enter this evening's dinner: kohlrabi and turnip soup, courtesty of a fellow farm-boxer through the Colchester listserv.

The recipe came as a JPG this time, so I've attached it in that form (click to enlarge). By the way, food photography is a rare specialty, so please don't judge this soup by the photo! The accompanying note suggested that this would be popular with fans of potato soup (which we are), and since we had only one kohlrabi (is that a kohlrabo?) and two small turnips, I added a couple of potatoes. I'm glad I did, as the bitter flavors of the other roots were moderated by the potatoes. I also substituted canned vegetable broth for the chicken stock. I did manage to use all the other ingredients as called for, though I did not manage to remove the garlic before hitting puree.

The results? I loved it, which actually surprised me. Pam found it tolerable but bitter. With Paloma, we reverted to bite-counting games more suited to a younger child. Good thing I also made some biscuits!

Cheese Helps

2011-08-17T05:53:00.000-07:00

That great American poet Cyndi Lauper memorably exclaimed, "Money changes everything!" So, too, does cheese. In the case of our latest zucchini adventure, cheese enhanced a collaborative casserole without overwhelming the delicious local vegetables.

Just in time for the surfeit of zucchini that arrives each summer, the Boston Globe Magazine featured several recipes, along with directions for desiccating this often water-logged vegetable. I think I had tried this method before -- salting zucchini slices in a colander for an hour or so before cooking. Adapting the second recipe in the article, I errantly ignored the advice to blot the salt from the slices, since the recipe calls for salt anyway. The quantities, it turns out, are not comparable!

Other modifications were more conscious. Careful readers will note that the recipe also calls for olives, which are strictly verboten in family meals at our house. Also, we had Mexican queso blanco on hand, which everybody loves, and though we like crumbled goat cheese quite a lot, this was a worthy substitution. Finally, as careful readers will also notice, Paloma recently prepared caramelized onions as part of her pretzelito feast, and we had some of these savory bulbs left over. I intended to mix these in with the zucchini, but even though they were central to my decision to make the dish, I forgot them until fairly late in the process, so they became part of the topping -- a delicious part!

We were pleased with the results, though the salt in the cheese would have been plenty, and I've learned my lesson about blotting salt when using this drying method. The zucchini was much firmer than in other casseroles, though, and the flavor was quite nice. Paloma's spicy- onions did help to balance the salt, and some cool applesauce completed the meal.

Cooking from scratch - for a crowd

2011-08-17T05:28:00.001-07:00

Cafeteria workers in Colorado are will be serving healthier meals, made with fresh ingredients to students when they return to class this week.

A Taste of Summer - Pasta Fresca

2011-08-16T06:06:00.000-07:00

I really didn't like tomatoes at all until I was in my mid 20s. I couldn't stand anything about them - they were too acidic, and the texture made me squeamish. But somewhere along the way I started eating them, and liking them. I have now come to a point that I have a favorite variety: the pineapple tomato. Big, juicy, colorful, and sometimes hard-to-find, I scored some at the Bridgewater Farmer's Market. I selected the biggest one, and used it to make an old favorite - Pasta Fresca from Katzen's Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home. The tomato went into the blender along with 6 basil leaves, a clove of garlic and a tablespoon of olive oil. All of this mixed within a matter of seconds, and was poured over 2 cups of cooked penne pasta. Additonal tomatoes were cut up and added to the pasta. This tastes so good it is seems hardly fair that it is so easy to make.

This is clearly not a "nueva receta" for me, but I could hardly have the summer go by without giving it its proper due. I think anyone who does not eat this at least once during the height of the tomato/basil season should be punished.

Pineapple tomato

Post Script - I completely forgot to mention the mozzarella cheese! 1/2 pound cut into cubes goes into this dish as well! phb 08/22/11

PRETZELITOS ;{D

2011-08-14T13:52:00.000-07:00

Guest blogger Paloma Bohanan

The other day I walked into the room and said "I want pretzels for dinner." My dad said no. So I told him that pretzels are no less of a meal than a slice of cheese, a basil leaf and a tomato. He still told me no. My mum walked in and said "What's going on?" to which my father replied, "The girl wants pretzels for dinner." My mum, totally oblivious to what had just happened told us that "We can have pretzels for dinner and you and I can also have a Caprisi Salad." That was lovely. Anyways, that's exactly what we did. I made pretzels from an old children's cookbook called Honest Pretzels by Mollie Katzen. I served them with a variety of condiments: Lay's Ranch Dip, Grey Poupon, bread and butter pickles, and caramelized onions. I didn't use any of the condiments besides the mustard, but apparently the caramelized onions weren't bad. They took about an hour to cook over stove top, and were seasoned with lemon juice, Cajun spice, brown sugar, and roasted ground ginger. You can buy the cookbook on amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1883672880/firstparishchu03.

Breaking Dad Stereotypes

2011-08-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

Happily, today's Close to Home strip is not close to reality at Casa Hayes-Boh, but we enjoyed the chuckle. Stereotypes are wrong-headed, but sometimes they are reality-based!

Pressure Cooker Education

2011-08-08T21:29:00.000-07:00

We love to cook, but only as amateurs! A chef is not simply someone who cooks really well; it is a seriously challenging profession, preparation for which is arduous. From various documentaries, I have noticed the great attention paid to planning, organizing, and economizing, with even more attention to training. Culinary students practice cutting, slicing, paring until most regular people would be bored crazy!

As part of our quest to see all things foodie, we were drawn to Pressure Cooker, a film about something even more important to us: education. The film traces a year in the life of the demanding and extraordinary culinary-arts teacher Wilma Stephenson and of the students who rise to the constant challenges she presents. The stakes could not be higher for these Philadelphia high school students: a year-end culinary contest can spell the difference between no college at all and a full ride to some of the best cooking schools on the planet.

Viewers learn quickly that Stephenson pushes her students very hard, brooking no nonsense, laziness, or disrespect. She seems to view success in her class as a matter of life and death, and given the retreat of support networks from American inner cities, that view is well-founded. The students in the middle and end of the year number far fewer than those the viewer sees on opening day. The demands are unrelenting, but so is the love. Better than many films of this kind, Pressure Cooker reveals various dimensions of the lives of the students involved, some of whom do simultaneously pursue excellence in other areas, scholastic, artistic, and athletic.

Throughout the film, students cut an extraordinary number of potatoes into little football shapes and store them in water so that they will have uniform pieces with which to cook. This combined with many scenes of dicing and sharpening to reinforce our understanding that culinary education has at its foundation the mastery of skills that culinary students think they have already mastered. It is in this context that I was profoundly moved when a contest judge exclaimed that the pieces of a student's diced vegetables looked "like little jewels."

Rote mastery of the basics is not all that is going on, of course; it is the foundation. The teachers (mostly Stephenson but also some of the judges) exude passion for food and a balance of compassion and high expectations for the students. Viewers can almost taste the results!

Culinary students with
good coffee.
Click to enlarge.

What is shown on screen is compelling enough, but we know that much more is going on in the hours that are not shown. We know that the pots and pans and knives and spoons the students use -- much less the cans and bottles and fresh vegetables -- do not appear on their own, and that dedicated teachers all too often use their own time -- and often their own funds -- to make sure classrooms are equipped. This is one of the challenges of teaching any subject, but must be all the more pressing in culinary education.

Pam and I got a brief glimpse of this world a few years ago when we did some coffee education for the culinary students of Bob Buccino at Nantucket High School. Mr. Buccino recognizes that as difficult as it is for non-millionaire families to live on the beautiful island now, it will only be more difficult in the future, and educating students for professional positions in the island's incredible number of high-end restaurants is a real key to Nantucket's social and economic development. Our own small contribution to his work with students was to help them understand the value of pairing good coffee with the good food -- a lesson that had not yet been learned at most island establishments we have visited (even the coffee shops!).

At this point, I have to have a healthy serving of crow, as my only writing about Rachael Ray has been an unfortunate incident with Dunkin' Donuts I describe on my Coffee Hell page. Without backing off from that particular rant, I have to say that she has more than redeemed herself with her reaction to the Wilma Stephenson story. Recognizing the tremendous successes that Stephenson and her students had achieved with a modest investment in equipment and supplies, she invested very heavily in both, and also in the individual students. At a time when politicians across the so-called political spectrum are willing to slash investments in education, Rachael Ray deserves a lot of credit for championing this teacher and her students.

At one point in the film, Wilma Stephenson admonishes a student to improve the presentation of a dish, with an upscale restaurant in mind. By the time I was in high school, I had probably been in only one restaurant that even had upscale ambitions, and none that would really qualify as the kind of place these students are preparing for. It occurred to me that the experiences of Stephenson's students with fine dining would be even more limited. For that reason, it is all the more helpful that Ray invested not only in a glorious new kitchen for the classroom, but also in a "bistro" that now provides an upscale restaurant experience for the students. Alas! I would love to have this kind of immersion in coffee education on my own campus.

The closing credits of the film mention two important web sites. The Pressure Cooker page on Take Part: Inspiration to Action puts the culinary program in the context of other education projects. The CCAP web site provides details about culinary competitions, scholarships, and programs in Philadelphia and other cities.

Very Local Sauce

2011-08-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

The better the coffee, the less the need for cream or sugar. When I organize a tasting event, as I did yesterday, I try to balance this fact with the knowledge that for many people, both additives are essential for a variety of reasons. I therefore always provide half-and-half, and often guess incorrectly how much is needed. I must admit that yesterday I even partook of a bit myself, as the student presenting Vietnam coffee suggested -- correctly -- that the Vietnamese add condensed milk to their coffee for good reason. Not having that particular confection, half-and-half was a helpful substitute.

Coffee is just the prelude to this story, though, which is really about basil. When I brought home all the extra dairy product, Pam suggested using it in a recipe she had recently found in one of our shelf's oldest stand-by books: 365 Ways to Cook Pasta. We have had this highly-rated book for over 20 years, but did not use it much at first as some of the ingredients seemed too fancy. Over time, it has become a reliable source of ideas, and Pam had used one of its best features: a thorough index. Unlike many cookbooks that index only by a recipe name and main ingredient, this book indexes far enough down the ingredient list that a reader can find a way to employ just about any ingredients that might be at hand. In this case, we have plenty of extreme-local basil to use, and Pam had found a recipe calling for basil, cream, and not much else. (Extreme-local refers to this basil's "farm" of origin being a series of pots on our front porch!)

A more obvious choice, since we had recently purchased a big block of Parmesan (we never buy the over-priced pre-shredded stuff), would have been fettuccine Alfredo, and our daughter was clamoring for that. I opted for this lighter recipe (#94), simply called Spaghetti with Basil Cream Sauce. I adapted it in the following ways: half-and-half instead of heavy cream (see above) and lemon juice from a bottle instead of fresh. The recipe simply calls for gently boiling 1.5 cups of cream until it reduces by half, then adding 2 Tbsp julienned basil, a tsp of lemon and a pinch of salt. Meanwhile, I cooked 12 ounces thin spaghetti and tossed together.

The sauce was too thin, which I could have corrected by adding flour (if I had realized it in time), cooking a bit longer (if I had realized it in time), or using heavy cream (see above). All of those options off the table, I simply sliced some Parmesan into the finished dish, and got no complaints.

And the daughter? She went back for seconds. And thirds, fourths, and fifths. She argued that it was only because she took small portions, but I think we can safely add this to the reliable comfort-foods list!

Poupon U

2011-08-02T17:34:00.000-07:00

We are a family of mustard lovers. Ten years ago, in fact, we made a day-long side trip from a visit to our wonderful Wisconsin cousins to visit the Mt. Horeb Mustard Museum, since relocated to Middleton, Wisconsin and reborn as the National Mustard Museum -- a good excuse for another road trip. A tired joke from that museum is the basis of this post's title.

Anyway, the point is that we enjoy mustard, and although it has become rather pedestrian, we do enjoy Grey Poupon, even if it is now owned by Kraft Foods, one of the apocalyptic Four Horsemen of Big Coffee. Today's dinner centered around a recipe found on a Grey Poupon jar, and though it is not especially "foodie" it was easy and delicious. Here is the meal that I prepared, with Pam's help in the planning:

1. Salmon. Whisk together 1/4 cup of maple syrup (the recipe called for "maple-flavored," but we do not traffic in fake syrup, especially not on Maple Avenue), 2 Tbsp. Grey Poupon (I probably used more), 1 tsp. minced garlic, and 1/4 tsp. ground ginger, and 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper. Chill -- the recipe says several hours, but one hour worked pretty well. Brush oil onto salmon fillets (alas, from Trader Joe's, because our local fish monger was not around last week), grill (I pan-seared) and brush repeatedly with the sauce. Yummy -- I'm sure it would be even better grilled.

2. Potatoes. I simply cut Yukon gold potatoes in half lengthwise, sliced thinly, and sauteed in Canola oil, adding salt, pepper, a bit of oregano and a healthy dose of Old Bay, aka, the national spice of Maryland. I cooked this to within an inch of Cajun, and it was quite nice.

3. Salad. I made a small salad of local organic lettuce and tomatoes from our local farmers market and a bit of a cuke from our farm box, drizzled with a sweet honey-mustard (there's that condiment again) dressing that Pam had made previously. (Much of the honey in our house comes from bees who are known personally by some of our local friends, but this honey came all the way from a Rhode Island farmers market.)

All in all, this was a quick, delicious, healthy meal that did not overheat our kitchen.

Better than Oprah

2011-07-30T06:09:00.000-07:00

Turkey and apple are not a traditional pairing, but they are a perfect together. I rarely order omelets in restaurants, for example, but enjoyed a scrumptious turkey-apple-bacon-brie omelet just last week at Duesenbergs in Catonsville. (The coffee was horrific, though!)

As Pam wrote back in February, shredded apple brings a lot of flavor to a turkey burger and greatly improves the texture. My effort yesterday was a further modification of the modified Oprah recipe that Pam made so marvelously in the winter. Starting with a half pound of ground turkey, I added some sliced, local scallion tops, herbed bread crumbs, and half a shredded granny smith apple. I simply mixed these ingredients together and formed the patties. I then heated a little canola oil in our indispensable cast-iron skillet, added the patties, and covered so they would fry and steam at the same time.

After flipping the burgers, I topped each with a generous spoonful of Trappist mango pepper jelly from the monks in Spencer, Massachusetts. I then lowered the heat and we read together for a while so that the burgers would cook through and the jelly would turn to a nice glaze. We put them on soft, multi-grain buns. We knew these would be good, but were not prepared to be overwhelmed by the savory, hot sweetness and amazing texture of these burgers.

We decided that our friend Anna -- who brought us the jelly -- is now responsible for keeping us supplied permanently. Or we might just order it by the case!

These burgers worked perfectly, by the way with one of August's (or near-August's) great pleasures: Pam's fruit salad, with peaches, bloobs, the rest of that apple, and a banana -- tossed with mint from our garden and our Pam's "secret weapon" for fruit salad: margarita mix. Some home-brewed pale ale completed this memorable meal.

Spaghetti with butter, parmesan and browned bacon

2011-07-29T06:44:00.000-07:00

Recipe no. 204 from the 365 Ways to Cook Pasta Cookbook begins with 4 slices of smoked bacon, purchased from Brown Boar Farm a few weeks ago when they made a special appearance at the Bridgewater Farmer's Market. We enjoyed the delicious-smelling kitchen while we prepared the spaghetti, and shredded the parmesan cheese. Once the pasta was ready, melted butter was added, the bacon was crumbled into it, then tossed with the cheese and fresh basil, which I retrieved from the front porch. The recipe calls for parsley, but basil was a fine substitution. This was a delightful summer dish. Add since the resident vegetarian was away at camp this week, we didn't even need to make a separate bacon-less plate for her. We washed this down with some Little Penguin Shiraz.

Astute readers will no doubt notice that there was no "nueva receta la semana pasada". We were away visiting family in Maryland, and did no cooking. In lieu of a recipe, however, I will recommend a restaurant for anyone traveling on Rt. 80 through Union, Connecticut. Traveler's Food and Books Restaurant is just what the name says. Go for some good, diner-type food, and take a free (used) book with you when you are done. There are also books you can buy. Ask for a table near the picture window in the corner for a good bird-watching.

Landlubber Arrives

2011-07-12T14:50:00.000-07:00

I have been cooking for forty years -- starting with basics at home, then old-school home economics (at my old school), then years of experimentation, travel, and reading. After all that, I have a few definite areas of weakness. One is that I never cook anything with the moldy cheeses, because I will not eat them. The other is that even though I love seafood, I am generally intimidated by its preparation. I have been reluctant to overcome the combination of expensive, unfamiliar, easy to overcook but nasty (in my view) if undercooked.

These have been my excuses, plus, seafood is easy enough to find in restaurants or at our friend Rob's house. In fact, we have an annual Christmas Eve lobster feast in which my main chore is to drive for the lobster run and keep the beer stocked.

After 14 years as a New Englandah, though, it seems past time to embrace this culinary arena. The first thing was to decide, as I did a few years ago, that a variety of fish could be managed by the 10-minute rule, which is that cooking at medium-high temperatures, fish should not be cooked for more than 10 minutes per inch of thickness. This has worked out pretty well. A bit of trial and error has led to some success with a variety of fishes.

Recently we have gotten bit more adventurous, as a fish monger has been among the regulars at the weekly Bridgewater Farmers Market, just a short walk from our house. (We can feed our minds there, too, as our church has a book sale at the market each week. I recently found a fun coffee book there.) Having had mussels last weekend -- from the very same market -- prepared by the aforementioned Rob and his wife Lisa -- we decided we were ready to try it for ourselves, and picked up a two-pound net bag of the bivalves, along with two modest salmon steaks.

For the mussels, actually, I hate to admit that it was not just the preparation that was a stretch for me. Even though I have been to Bertha's on several occasions -- THE Bertha's in Fell's Point, that is -- I had rarely consumed mussels. When I was a student visiting Bertha's, it seemed that the beer (including my first Anchor Steam) was priced more efficiently than the seafood. And after I could afford restaurant seafood, if I was in Maryland, I always defaulted to Callinectes sapidus.

Be that as it may, on Sunday I was ready to prepare the mussels, following as closely as we could the example Rob and Lisa had set the previous week. I sauteed some green onion tops and garlic, then added water and wine. The local grocery did not have vermouth, but rather than make a separate stop, I purchased some Sauvignon Blanc, pouring half of it in the pot and half of it in our glasses for a perfect pairing. I sprinkled cilantro over the whole lot, brought the broth to a boil and covered the pot. After 2-3 minutes, the mussels started to pop open, and they were indeed delicious. I think I was a bit impatient, though. Next time -- and there will be a next time -- I will give the critters another minute or so, because we ultimately discarded those few that did not open on their own.

Image: Cornell Fish

For the wild salmon, we turned again to Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home, a standard in our home that Pam mentioned in her Fish is not a Vegetable post back in March. As with the previous seafood endeavor in this book, I used Worcestershire in place of soy in the creation of "teriyaki broiled or grilled fish." I whisked it together with ground ginger (we were out of ginger root, so this step was actually easier than the recipe suggested), sugar, minced garlic, and Japanese cooking wine (which we had on hand and substituted for the Chinese cooking wine). I simply marinated the salmon in this mixture and then pan-fried it for about five minutes -- with the pan covered. The result was succulent, sweet, and tart. The sauce mildly caramelized, so that this dish was actually quite amazing!

For both of these dishes, we had starchy sides -- rice and potatoes, respectively -- with beans for protein for our vegetarian daughter. Both meals were healthy, tasty, and satisfying. We cannot wait to see what the fishmonger has next time we are at the market!

Another winner from Grilled Cheese, Please!

2011-07-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

Chapter 7 of this book, on Regional American Grilled Cheese would have served me well during my Celebrating the States project. On Sunday I prepared the "Californian" which, according to the book reflects California's "agicultural bounty." This includes raisins, almonds, goat cheese, Monterrey Jack cheese, and chiles. The chile and cheeses go between slices of cinnamon-raisin bread, upon which butter is spread and then topped with slivered almonds before grilling. I wasn't sure about including the chiles in this one, but the sweetness from the raisins made a perfect complement with the spicy chile pepper. Another magnificent contrast was the gooey cheese and the crunchy almonds. A perfect sandwich, especially when served with sweet potato chips.

Featured Chefs

2011-07-06T04:44:00.000-07:00

Our first entry for the month of May was for a recipe that Pam had originally posted on a commercial web site -- our adaptation of Laura Esquivel's succulent and sensual recipe for unforgettable poultry. I was just reminded that another standard recipe of our house has made it to a commercial site: my recipe for queso dip is the only reason I get invited to some parties (at the least, I'm not allowed to show up without it). The dip also attracted the attention of FastRecipes.com, which featured me as a "chef" for a month back in October 2009.

My fun recipes page includes some other favorites that have not yet made us famous.

Hail, Caesar!

2011-07-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

This week's story is about a salad so simple that it barely deserves the term "salad," yet I cheated on the recipe! When we reached the end of last week, however, we realized that we had not chosen a blog-worthy recipe, but we had a cookout invitation in hand and a full head of organic romaine lettuce from our CSA in the fridge. So we decided that this simple salad would be our featured recipe this week. Fortunately, though the salad is simple, the story is not!

Caesar salad is my favorite salad -- plenty of cool romaine, shredded or shaved Parmesan, croutons (which I love on any salad) and decadent dressing. I repeatedly delude myself into thinking that the fiber and vitamins from the lettuce offset the saturated fats of the dressing. Many restaurants offer a grilled chicken version that I will sometimes order as a main course, but usually I have just the salad. I remember at least one restaurant that offered a "half" version. When I inquired, I learned that this meant "only" a half a head of romaine was used! I also found a restaurant that did not include any form of Parmesan cheese, which is just wrong.

My friend Rob enjoyed the salad I prepared yesterday, but insists that it was not "real" because it did not include anchovies. According to Susan Stamberg's Roots of Caesar Salad story, however, anchovies were a later addition to the Prohibition-era dish. Actually, anchovies are almost always present in almost homeopathic concentrations, because anchovies are an ingredient in Worcestershire sauce, and that sauce (a.k.a. "Woostah-shur") is present in Caesar dressing.

Helen & Cesar Chavez with RFK
read more at Latino Like Me

But I've gotten a bit ahead of the story. Caesar is not only a favorite salad; it is a treasured word in our house. My middle name is Kezar, a Maine variant of the German variant Kaiser (Wilhelm II probably having something to do with my family's creative spelling). It can also be spelled Cesar, as in the great labor leader Cesar Chavez (see also RFK/Cesar connection).

Because we had determined not to name a child James Kezar V, in fact, we had decided that if ever we had a son, "Cesar" would have been his name.

What does Prohibition have to do with this salad? Quite simply, Tijuana was an easy get away for Los Angeles film stars at the time, and a group that dropped in on chef Caesar Cardini in 1924 were looking for something filling to go with their booze. Cardini scrambled to put together something from what he had on hand, which explains the odd combination ingredients that are found in the salad to this day. Apparently the name of the salad (connoting an emperor) and the lettuce (connoting his empire) are just coincidental!

The Tijuana connections are interesting for me as well. My first foray into Mexico was in Tijuana in the 1980s, and it is the scene of much of Kerouac's On the Road. The stereotypes -- some well earned -- arising from its various vices are sent up in Manu Chao's amazing and satrical Welcome to Tijuana, an essential element in my teaching. I am looking forward to seeing a new documentary film of the same name.

Finally, just a bit about the salad at hand. Despite the fact that I had already purchased Newman's Own Creamy Caesar Dressing, making this the simplest possible salad, I lacked confidence at the last moment. Should I cut or tear the romaine, for example? Our usual mainstay, author Deborah Madison, was of no help, apparently considering this too simple even for her book of basic recipes. Or maybe she does not consider this salad vegetarian, given the fishiness of the dressing.

Based on the Caesar Salad I recipe on AllRecipes.com, I decided to rinse and then tear the entire head of romaine (after chopping off the hardest part of the heart), toss it with about 1/3 cup of the dressing, a generous handful of freshly-shredded Parmesan, and nearly an entire bag of croutons (specifically sold as Caesar).

That no pregnant woman should ever have to travel 200 miles to satisfy a craving again

2011-06-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

I craved two foods during my only preganancy. Early on I wanted lots of grape juice, although prior to that I was happy to take it or leave it. I accepted this yearning as part of my pregnancy, and towards the end of my first trimester, when James noticed we were out of grape juice and asked if he should go out for more, I thought and minute, then replied "no, I guess I'm done with that." It was not until about two months later that I experienced my only other craving: a Monte Cristo sandwich. James picked me up from work at lunchtime one Friday and asked what I was in the mood for. When I told him I wanted a Monte Cristo, he wondered aloud if there was any restaurant in the Rio Grande Valley that might have them on the menu. Dejectedly, I told him that I doubted it. I don't remember what we ended up eating that day, but I do know that following day, we drove 3 hours to get to Corpus Christi where we thought our chances might be better at finding the sandwich I wanted. I also remember that by the time we got there I was so hungry I was more interested in having any food, than continuing the Monte Cristo quest. We went into a seafood restaurant, mostly because it was open, and were prepared to order anything that looked appetizing. As luck would have it though, the Monte Cristo sandwich was on the menu! I ordered it and ate half, then asked that the other half be wrapped to go. A few minutes later the waiter came out to confess that the other half had accidently been thrown away, and that they would take half the price of the sandwich off our bill. In a rather uncharacteristic move on my part, I explained about waiting a whole day, and traveling 200 miles to get the meal, and inisted that another sandwich be prepared instead. My request was obliged. Later, when one of my co-workers asked if I'd craved anything during my pregnancy and I told her the story about the Monte Cristo, she said me she'd never heard of a Monte Cristo, so I explained that it was an egg-batter fried ham and cheese sandwhich, topped with powered sugar, and served with jam for dipping. She pursed her lips, and said "well, that sounds like something a pregnant woman might crave."

In honor of that day 14 years ago, today we made our own Monte Cristos using the recipe from our new Grilled Cheese, Please cookbook. The one thing this recipe specifically says is that one should NOT grate the cheese "because dipping the sandwiches in the egg mixture is a messy affair." We strayed slightly from the recipe in the book in that we did not use both turkey and ham, only ham, and did not use mustard. Didn't see the point in that at all. These really are simple, and I don't know why I didn't just make one for myself that day, but that's all amniotic fluid under the bridge now.

The Best Cookbooks of 2011

2011-06-23T05:25:00.000-07:00

The International Association of Culinary Professionals selected its choices for the best cookbooks of 2011. In over 20 categories winners and finalists were selected from over 500 entries.

Dos recetas nuevas

2011-06-21T08:32:00.000-07:00

It is "leafy green season" here in New England, so we have eaten a lot of salad thanks to our CSA farm share. We have had quite an abundance of greens the last few weeks, so in addition to salads I have been looking for ways to cook some of the greens. One simple meal was to simply sautee some mixed greens and add leftover rice to the skillet. I topped it with cheddar cheese to give a bit more flavor. That still left us with many, many greens so I went to that doyenne of veggies, Deborah Madison, to find another recipe. I selected "Greens with Potatoes" from the Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone cookbook, knowing that my daughter will eat almost anything if potatoes are included. This was pretty similar to the rice and greens I threw together. I boiled some potatoes while sauteeing the greens with garlic rabe and scallions (garlic and scallions courtesy of the farm box as well), then mashed the potatoes and added them to the skillet unitl the greens and potatoes were throughly mixed. I added two peeled and diced tomatoes before serving.

And, since it was Sunday, I held true to my vow to use my bread machine. I picked Potato Rosemary bread from the Gold Medal New Bread Machines Recipes cookbook. I think we have had mashed potato flakes stored in our freezer for over a decade. We bought them for use in the bread machine, but hardly made potato bread, so I was glad to use them finally. I can't image using them to make mashed pototoes, which I would only do with real potatoes. For my 1 pound bread machine I used: 1 c. water; 1.5 T butter; 1 1/4 c. white flour and 1/2 c. wheat flour; 1/3 c. mashed potato mix; 3/4 T dried rosemary leaves; 3/4 T sugar; 1 t. salt; 1.5 t yeast, and used the regular setting. The bread was delicious. I am going to make it again soon. I'll be glad to use those potato flakes again.

The whole family enjoyed this meal.

FoodMatters

2011-06-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

This documentary on nutrition featured quite a lot of anecdotes about people who were cured of diseases, from cancer to depression, by taking the right vitamins and eating the right foods. While I believe some of what I heard in the film (e.g. doctors get very little education in nutrition, or that pharmeceutical companies are driving the health care industry, and that most Americans don't eat well) most of this I took with a grain of salt (actually, more like a pillar). There were plenty of stories by alternative health care practicioners about patients they'd cured, but we never saw any testimonials from those who had been cured. And while I am aware that cooking foods removes some of the nutrients, is it really true that cooking them makes them "toxic"? The clincher was at the end of the credits when a very long disclaimer flew by, the gist of which, from the glimpse I got of it, was that the filmmakers were not responsible if any of the viewers decided not to seek medical treatment based on what they saw in the movie. This, ironically, gave the feel of watching an ad for a prescription medication.

Huevos al estilo Español - Spanish Eggs

2011-06-13T05:31:00.000-07:00

On May 31, I posted about La Cocina Historica, a blog from UT San Antonio freaturing recipes from its cookbook collection. I selected one, as promised to for dinner last night.

One thing we have trouble getting our teenage vegetarian to eat, is well, vegetables, so we were happy to see her eat a plate full of this egg dish made with onions, garlic, peppers, and potatoes. I parboiled the potatoes, so they didn't stick to the pan they way they often do when I make a tortilla española, and this was simplier in that the eggs were simply scambled into the sauteed vegetables, rather than having them set, as we would with an omlet. We ate this with lightly-toasted, bread-machine french bread. Tasty.

More at: http://lacocinahistorica.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/huevos-al-estilo-espanol-spanish-eggs-1908/

Arugula Grilled Cheese?

2011-06-04T13:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, arugala grilled cheese! As Pam wrote rcently, we learned about a new grilled-cheese cook book from our local paper. Although this blog is mostly about using cookbooks we already have, I could not resist Laura Werlin's grilled cheese please!, and added it to our collection.

Learn more at
GrilledCheeseSandwich.org

http://grilledcheesesandwich.org/Many of the recipes involve relatively obscure cheese and/or meats. One recent evening, I was looking for a vegetarian meal that would use something from our local farm box, and I found just the thing on page 7. The "burrata with roasted peppers and arugula" recipe calls for an unfamiliar cheese but suggests fresh mozzarella as an alternative. It also calls for French bread and olive oil instead of butter for the outside of the sandwiches. Piled with arugula and roasted red peppers, Pam and I found these sandwiches savory, creamy, and delicious.

It was not, however, a hit with our resident vegetarian, so I will let her choose the next selection from this fun book.

Guest Blogger for "Throw Me a Bone"

2011-06-03T06:12:00.000-07:00

In honor of our Min Pin, Perry, turning two (that's 14 in dog years!) our almost-14 year old daughter (that's in people years!) prepared this recipe from Throw Me a Bone, a cookbook for dog lovers!

For Perry's birthday, I made "pawcakes". As you may be able to tell from the name, they are pancakes for dogs. They consist of flour, cornmeal, baking soda, baking powder, buttermilk (or in this case, substituted with milk and yogurt), milk, eggs, vegetable oil, and eggshells. The egg shells are ground up very small, almost into a grain-like substance. This is full of calcium. They were very easy to make, much like normal pancakes. After I was done making them, I fed a spoonful of strawberry jam to Perry, to see if she liked it. She did. So, I took a small bit of jam, and microwaved it for a minute to make a syrup. I poured it on top, the candles were lit, and the dog ate her birthday cake.

Gotta Love This! La Cocina Historica

2011-05-31T06:13:00.000-07:00

My American Libraries Direct e-mail included this tidbit about "La Cocina Historica" a blog that features recipes from The University of Texas San Antonio's Mexican, Southwest and Texas cookbook collection. I really have no choice but to prepare one of these recipes for my "nueva receta" this week. Stay tuned!

What I especially loved was discovering this blog post from the Bilingual Librarian = Bibliotecaria Bilingüe.

Hazelnut Espresso Bread

2011-05-30T06:51:00.000-07:00

We have had our bread machine for over 13 years. I know we used it a lot when we first got it, but over the last years it has taken up a disproportionate amount of "kitchen real estate" for the occasional use it has seen - mostly for making pizza dough, or "company bread". Last Sunday, when I made yogurt bread for the red pepper, bacon and jelly sandwhiches (see my sauteed jerusalem artichokes post) I decided that I would make bread every Sunday. I have a Gold Medal New Bread Machine Recipes cookbook on my shelf - the kind you pick up at the grocery store check out line - which I don't know if I have ever used, and from it selected the Hazelnut Espresso Bread. I had to do some kitchen math in order to adjust the ingredients for my 2 cup maker, as the recipe had proportions for 3 cup or 4 cup makers. This was made with 3/4 c.strong coffee, 1.5 T butter, 2 c. flour 1.5 T dry milk powder, 2 T. sugar, 1/3 c. hazelnuts (or filberts as they are called in Oregon), 2/3 t. salt and 2 t. yeast. The result was flavorful, and crunchy. We could definitely taste the coffee in it. We enjoyed it last night with our dinner fresh from the machine smeared with cream cheese, and this morning with our breakfast lightly toasted with butter.

50 food festivals

2011-05-23T06:18:00.000-07:00

We usually do not read the "Parade" magazine in the Sunday paper, but this week couldn't help but notice the "Eat Your Way Across America" cover story about food festivals in each state. If one wanted to do all 50 celebrations they are listed chronologically, although some overlap, and might it require some sort of control over the space-time continuum. They are also listed regionally, so one could select just one section of the country at a time and spread it out over several years. This is a fun read that celebrates local foods.

Sautéed Jerusalem Artichokes with Sunflower Seeds

2011-05-23T06:03:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month we began picking up our annual CSA farm box from Colchester Neighborhood Farm. This week we received Jerusalem Artichokes (or Sunchokes). We had never had these before and looked to Deborah Madison, author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone for guidance. Her cookbook is over 700 pages long and has recipes for every kind of vegetable you've never heard of. I decided to try the sautéed with sunflower seeds recipe for the jerusalem artichokes. This root vegetable looks a lot like ginger, but is bitter in flavor. I cut the 'chokes into rounds and sautéed in canola oil. I added salt and pepper, then topped with toasted sunflower seeds and parsley and some other herb (the parsley and unknown herb also came from our farm box). James pointed out that I should have shelled the sunflowers first. Well, yes. I was so glad to be using the sunflower seeds that have been in our cupboard for over a year that I didn't think about this part. Mostly we ended up eating around them. I was glad to use the ingredients from the farm box, but I have to say I wouldn't buy jersusalem artichokes on purpose. This was used as a side dish to an old favorite - grilled cheddar, bacon and red pepper sandwiches. We got the recipe from the newspaper a few years ago. We were glad to find it as we were not sure what to do with the red pepper jelly we got in the big basket of homemade jellies we won at our church auction that year. We ended up liking these sandwiches so much that red pepper jelly has become a "staple on Maple". Of course we made the change of grating the cheese this time! And prepared them on fresh yogurt bread, still warm from the bread machine. We paired this with sweet pineau de pinot from from Westport Rivers vineyard.

Beans for the Birds

2011-05-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

My contribution to Nueva Receta this week was a simple and satisfying bean dish, based on a recipe for Bird-Style Beans (Fagioli all'Ucceletto) from page 208 of Aliza Green's comprehensive classic, The Bean Bible: A Legumaniac's Guide to Lentils, Peas, and Every Edible Bean on the Planet! (Note: the exclamation point is part of the title.) It is appropriate that the author of this book is named Green, an aptonym given the prevalence of vegetables in the book!

This recipe calls for dried borlotti (or cranberry or pink) beans, chicken stock, olive oil, plenty of garlic, sage, fresh plum tomatoes. I chose the pink beans (from Goya -- similar to pintos), because I had no idea how to find the other two. I used vegetable bouillon in honor of our resident vegetarian, and I used "fresh" regular tomatoes from the grocery store. I will be sure to try this recipe again when local tomatoes are available. I also used minimal salt, rather than the two teaspoons called for. I found that a dash of Tabasco sauce worked very well in place of excessive salt. When I prepare this next, I will try to find a way to avoid using both a stock pot and a Dutch oven, as this created more dish-washing than seemed warranted.

The result was a warm, satisfying, if very simple meal. I dipped a bit of tortilla in mine, and would have welcomed some more substantial accompaniment, but it did work well with a salad for a light meal. After we ate it, I noticed that the author recommends serving this with grilled meat or poultry -- something we will definitely be trying. It is worth noting, though, that the Tuscan originators of this recipe apparently prepared it as a substitute for game birds that they could not afford.

This was a perfect book for our project, as it has been displacing significant shelf space without inspiring a proportionate number of meals. Using our underused cookbooks is precisely what this blog project is about, and now that I've used the book (not for the first time, but for the first time in a long while), I expect to be tucking into it again and again. It is interesting that one of the Amazon.com reviewers notes that she purchased this book after borrowing it from the library and determining that she would actually use almost all of the recipes.

The same reviewer notes something else interesting: no pictures accompany any of the recipes in this volume. We had just noted the exact opposite phenomenon in our newspaper, which sometimes includes photos of dishes for which it does not include recipes. The most recent example was in the grilled cheese article that Pam reviewed recently, which included a photo of a decadent grilled cheese dessert with no clue as to its contents.

Aliza Green has done just the opposite: providing text that so fully prepares a cook that no images are needed.

Don't cut the cheese - grate the cheese!

2011-05-21T04:25:00.000-07:00

Each Wednesday The Brockton Enterprise features a "Good Taste" section which highlights food and recipes. The May 18th edition included a story called "Grilled Cheese Grows Up", which originally appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette as "Grilled Cheese: What's Old is New Again". I did not specifically prepare any particular recipe that the article provides, however, I did follow this advice from Laura Werlin, author of Grilled Cheese Please! 50 Scrumptiously Cheesy Recipes, whose book according to the article, "is full of good ideas, starting with her time-tested tips on making the brest grilled cheeses, such as always grate the cheese." On Friday I made myself a grilled cheese, fried egg and tomato sandwhich for lunch (what we call in Brazil a "mixto quente") and grated a mixture of mozarella, cheddar and monterrey jack. I must say, Werlin was dead on. The result was one of the creamiest, evenly melted grilled cheese sandwiches I have ever had. I will never go back!

BTW - This is not our "nueva recipe" for the week. James will be posting about the Bean Bible for that one!

Lemon-Pepper Shrimp and Strawberry Salad

2011-05-14T05:30:00.000-07:00

In honor of our 24th wedding anniversary last Monday, James and I revisited our Intercourses cookbook. This spicy/sweet recipe was perfect for the warm spring day. The shrimp was grilled with lemon-pepper seasoning and then served on a bed of mixed greens, then topped with a sauce made from fresh strawberries, canola oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and a dash of sugar. I mixed the dressing in my blender and it came out smooth and creamy, then poppy seeds were added. Served with the bewitching Sweet Tooth Mead from Isaaks of Salem, purchased in Salem earlier in the day, this was a perfectly romantic meal.

Plus, after I was so successful at making the strawberry dressing in the blender, I tried my hand at honey mustard, and again, I was not disappointed. I may never buy dressing again.

At the Beginning, After Many Years

2011-05-06T16:55:00.000-07:00

This has been a great week for Mexican food at our house, culminating with some nice leftovers Friday evening. Monday we had sweet-potato quesadillas, with a smoky, spicy filling brimming with cumin and various peppers but topped with a cool sour cream. For my birthday on Wednesday we had the luscious rose-petal chicken that Pam mentioned in an earlier post. This was all the wind-up for the perfect pitch on Cinco de Mayo.

This blog is all about using recipes that have been sitting on our shelves, sometimes for years, in books we use for only a recipe or two each. The recipe we chose for 5-5-11 was a special case, coming from a book we are pretty sure we have not used at all. Ironically, Helene Siegel's Mexican Cooking for Beginners had eluded us in part because its most interesting recipes looked too complicated.

I chose -- from page 64 -- chiles stuffed with chicken, raisins, and nuts. This was another dish-intensive dish: in addition to chopping surfaces and bowls, it required a skillet, Dutch oven, and baking pan. And I had actually skipped a step by using canned tomatoes, since local tomatoes are not yet in season. The intimidating part for me, though, was roasting the chiles. This is what has kept me from making my own mole poblano, even though I fell in love with it during our summer in Puebla (where the dish was prepared for me in an Aztec home).

I should have taken a photo of the unusual site of bright green peppers being charred directly on our stove-top, but this was so successful that I am sure I will do it again soon. It was a bit tricky to be sure, but Siegel's words do not just direct the reader: she is more like a coach than an author, and I was made confident enough to pull the dish together and knowledgeable enough to do it a bit better next time. (Pam helped with the spices, but mostly with getting the rest of the house in order while I was absorbed in this preparation.)

San Andres Cholula

This dish reminded me very much of the first chiles rellenos (literally: stuffed chiles) we had -- again in Puebla, but not with Aztecs -- in our visit during the summer of 1989. The mother of our friend Homero made them in the authentic style, meaning that the chiles themselves varied from mild to hot to impossible. I had a hot (which I liked) and then an impossible, from which she encouraged me to scrape the sweet/savory stuffing. What I made yesterday was not exactly the same, but it was very similar. Now that I am somewhat familiar with the roasting, I will try Siegel's recipes for both the the rellenos (as with most restaurant versions, hers is filled with cheese) and the Holy Grail of Mexican cooking: the mole (pronounced moh-LAY) itself!

Not exactly "nueva" but worth mentioning nonetheless

2011-05-05T07:28:00.000-07:00

James turned 48 on Tuesday, which means his birthday was on Wednesday (to find out more about that please see my Attainment Day page). To celebrate this auspicious occasion we made one of the most romantic dinners ever invented - Quail in Rose Petal Sauce. This recipe was made famous by Laura Esquivel in one of my favorite books: Like Water for Chocolate, and movie by the same name. Anyone who has seen the movie will not forget watching the lovely, naked, Gertrudis riding away on horseback with a revolutionary after eating the dish that her sister Tita prepared to inspire the passion of her unrequited love, Pedro. We have made this recipe before, although we have never actually used quail, but chicken instead. There are many flavors, and textures, and a special sweetness that comes from the honey. It is really not that hard to make, although be sure you have a clean kitchen to start, this will generate a lot of dishes.

Rotary Club Pancake Breakfast-Go for the chicken pie!

2011-05-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

When I worked at the McAllen (Texas) public library in the mid 1990s we were working on indexing articles from the local paper, The Monitor. Using a simple database software we created entries for local stories, skipping the AP and wire stuff, which would be included in other national and commercial indexes. Some of the stories were more newsworthy than others of course; nevertheless, entries were made for all local stories. I began referring to the "feel good" stories, that seemed to exist only so a person could see their name in print as the "chicken pie" stories.

Here in small town New England I find there is plenty of chicken pie to go around. Whenever we go to a local fundraiser, town clean up or other local event we say we are going for the chicken pie. I have become a lot less cynical about having my chicken pie, and this morning we attended the annal Rotary Club pancake breakfast. Here we can talk to neighbors we don't often see, hobnob with local business owners, and have some fabulous homemade sausage, from the last working farm in Bridgewater, Hansen Farm. We enjoyed being in the company of our community as much as we liked eating the blueberry pancakes. For $20 the whole family had breakast and we got 7 raffle tickets. We'll keep our fingers crossed in hopes of winning the wine and liqour gift basket!

Sesame Noodles with Asparagus Tips

2011-05-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

This tasty recipe from Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone was easy to make, and had sweet and spicy flavors, as well as a host of textures. A marinade was prepared with sesame oil, Worcheshire sauce, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, salt, ginger, garlic and cilantro. This was tossed with noodles, sliced scallion, sesame seeds, and asparagus. We strayed a bit from the recipe as written, as we did not have chili oil, and I used regular egg noodles, rather than thin Chinese egg nooodles. We had this on Thursday night while it was still warm, but it was also good as cold leftovers on Saturday. We still have a bit left which we will finish up today for lunch.

Food and Life

2011-04-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

Last night we watched the first of a three-part PBS series called The Meaning of Food. The rich cultural and ritual uses of food in the United States were highlighted in this episode entitled "Food and Life". Life is celebrated in an Italian wedding feast, and a Greek restaurteur who cooks to honor his deceased wife. Preparing food for religious purposes was explored through the Muslim celebration of Ramadan; a cookbook originally written from recipes passed by word-of-mouth by prisoners at Auschwitz; and a former Texas inmate who found his Christian calling through preparation of the last meals of death row inmates. I am looking forward to seeing the next to parts of this series.

Pasta with (not so) Fresh Tomato and Vegetable Sauce

2011-04-21T06:09:00.000-07:00

This week's recipe comes from the 365 Ways to Cook Pasta Cookbook by Marie Simmons. It called for fresh diced tomato, but since we are not in tomato season, I used canned diced tomato instead. This was mixed with cooked penne pasta, and then other vegetables were added. I was glad to used up the less-than-one serving of broccoli that was in the freezer, the six carrot sticks that were in the refrigerator, and the two particially used red and yellow peppers. Oregano, thyme, basil and black pepper were also added, and then it was topped with grated parmesan cheese . It did look pretty. I am sad to report that my vegetarian daughter did not try this dish. She ate her pasta with butter and one piece of broccoli on the side. Even without the fresh tomatoes, this was good. I think it will be a great dish to try again in the summer when we can use farm-fresh veggies.

I really did try a new recipe last week

2011-04-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

Today I finally post about the recipe we prepared a week ago. We made the Pizza Rice Casserole last Thursday night, and the following day, when I would normally write my blog post, was spent at the Massachusetts Sustainable Communities Conference, and from there we drove to Connecticut for the night, in order to get to Maryland to visit family on Saturday. In Massachusetts the third Monday in April is a holiday - Patriot's Day (to celebrate the midnight ride of Paul Revere). We came home Monday night, and I realized yesterday that I had not actually posted about the dish. This recipe was good for using up the big jar leftover rice we had in the refrigerator. It was pretty simple to make. After browning some ground turkey, and then adding onion, tomato sauce, and some spices, I mixed it with some cottage cheese. Then I layered the rice on the bottom of a casserole dish and added the meat sauce on top. This was topped with shredded cheese and then baked at 325 for 25 minutes in the convection oven. It was a good dish for using things we had on hand, although I did have to buy the cottage cheese. It made for good leftovers, too. The recipe came from the More-with-Less Cookbook.

Nueva Receta? Well, maybe not

2011-04-11T06:28:00.000-07:00

We saw this article in last week's Boston Globe magazine Eggs for supper: Three easy skillet dinners - The Boston Globe. The first recipe for Piperade looked good, and we assumed it would be significantly different than the Chachouka that we make regularly, since the second recipe in the article was for Chachouka. When all was said and done, and eaten, though, it seemed liked all I had done was make a variation on Chachouka. The Piperade did have a bit of meat in it, which we had never done before, and James said he liked it better. I was ready to post this as a "Fail", but James talked me out of it. We will come up with something newer and better this week.

Food Books!

2011-04-06T08:54:00.000-07:00

For a feast of food books see the Farmbrarian blog. Reviews of all kinds of books about food, farming, and sustainablity - including fiction, non-fiction and children's books. This website is a collaboration between a nutritionist and a librarian. Well done.

Sweet Potato Chowder

2011-04-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

This week I picked a recipe from a never-before-used cookbook - Better Homes and Gardens Annual Recipes 2003. The book has a Christmas sticker on it, in indicating that it was a gift from my mother. I don't think we've had it since 2003, although I am hard pressed to say when it appeared on my cookbook shelf.

This recipe book has a set of recipes for each month of the year. We didn't find any that we were willing to try in the March section (it was still March when we made this), and instead chose the very first recipe in the book, under the heading "Simple Celebrations for the New Year."

This chowder was made with coconut milk, rather than regular milk, which gave it an exotic kick. It also had onion, garlic, vegetable broth, ginger and salt and lemon pepper. This was accompanied with Pita Crisps, the recipe for which was also included. It called for heating cumin seeds, mustard seeds, and caraway seeds, and then spreading the mix on a buttered piece of pita, which was then cooked at 350. Since we had the first two ingredients in a powder, rather than seed form, we melted the butter and added the spices to it, then spread it on the pita triangles. The soup was creamy and warm, and perfect for a late season snowy day. Even Paloma liked it. The crips complemented the chowder well.

Bean Hash

2011-03-24T17:00:00.000-07:00

For this week's new recipe, I returned to Extending the Table, which really is proving the point of this entire project: a cookbook we had scarcely opened is proving to be a font of many excellent meals! This evening it was picadillo de vainica, a Costa Rican dish known in English as "green bean hash" and found on 177.

The book mentions that any of the vegetables in the recipe can be substituted, but I am glad we used all of the vegetables and herbs mentioned (I went a little heavy on the herbs -- both parsley and cilantro). The vegetables included onions, garlic, green beans, carrots, and potatoes. All were chopped fine, in order to speed the cooking and minimize the amount of fuel consumed.

In addition to the herbs, the recipe called for a small amount of ground meat and bullion. I used soy crumble and vegetable bullion, adding water even though the recipe did not call for it. The meal needed about 15 minutes of active cooking on the stove top (in the indispensable cast-iron skillet) and another 20 minutes covered on very low heat.

I served it over some fluffy basmati rice, and it was delicious. (I had slightly overdone the black pepper, which I did not think was possible, but we all still enjoyed it.) "Costa Rican shepherd's pie!" I declared. Another item for the household repertoire: delicious, nutritious, easy, and cheap!

I Like You, Too, Amy

2011-03-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

Although my lovely daughter will not eat spaghetti with any kind of tomato sauce, insisting that she does not like tomatoes, she reguarly will eat other types of pasta with tomato sauce. This has been pointed out to her, on numerous occasions, but she is sticking with her beliefs. We learned a few weeks ago, at an event I don't now remember, that she liked baked ziti (in tomato sauce) and I told her we could make it at home sometime. So, this week when I pulled out Amy Sedaris's I Like You (Hospitality Under the Influence) and discovered a baked ziti recipe I knew the time was right. Sedaris's irreverent look at entertaining is really funny, and includes some good recipes. The Pastitsio (meat pie) turned out to be a rather big project for a Monday after I had worked all day. This recipe is neither easy nor quick, and creates a lot of dishes to wash. When I was done my pasta pot, sauce pan, indespensible-cast-iron skillet, cheese grater, mortar and pestal, and several other dishes were all dirty. Alas, Paloma had not emptied the dishwasher before I started, so I was not able to do CAYG (Clean As You Go). If she had, I would have, and she would have had a much easier time with the dishes at the end.

Anyway, in addition to ziti, this dish calls for butter, eggs, parmesan cheese, nutmeg, red wine, parsley, ground beef (we substituted Morningstar soy crumble), onion, garlic, olive oil, tomato paste, broth, milk, flour, sugar, salt and pepper (I actually did not use those last three).

The sauce was made with the crumbles, onion, garlic, olive oil, tomato paste, parsley, broth and wine. I knew that James had recently bought a few bottles of inexpensive wine and put them in our wine rack, so I grabbed one and added the 1/2 cup called for. Shortly after, we both noticed a smell of chocolate in the kitchen, at which point James indicated that the bottle of wine I used was called COCO. Well, it was red in color. This is one of the reasons I skipped the sugar. The sauce turned out really good though. It did have a definite chocolate undertone, which we decided to call "Aztec flavor". Part of the cream sauce (made with butter, flour, milk, and nutmeg) was added to the meat sauce. The cooked ziti was mixed with egg, cheese and butter, and layered on the bottlom of a casserole dish. The meat sauce was added on top, followed by another layer of ziti, then the rest of the cream sauce. This was baked at 350 for 45 minutes. A yummy, rich dish, that tasted really good when paired with the COCO wine we used in it.

Traditional Irish Soda Bread

2011-03-19T09:37:00.000-07:00

It has long been a tradition in the Hayes-Bohanan house to have mashed potato casserole on St. Patrick's Day. This easy-to-prepare dish is simply mashed potatoes mixed with cooked spinach in a casserole dish, and topped with cheese. Bake at 425 for 20-25 minutes until the cheese is golden and bubbly. This year, after hearing this story on NPR, James suggested we have some traditional Irish Soda Bread with dinner. I had made what I believed was Irish Soda Bread before, but it turns out I was very wrong indeed. The stuff with raisins, and icing, is not real soda bread. I followed the recipe for the Traditional White Soda Bread which required getting my fingers sticky with dough. The instructions call for putting the dough in a round cake pan, and putting a second cake pan on top. I almost used the lid from my indespensible cast iron skillet instead, but I am glad I didn't. The bread rose quite a bit and would have stuck to the lid. This turned out fabulous in my convection oven. A great addition to our meal, right from the oven.

Faux Valenzana Success

2011-03-14T16:17:00.000-07:00

In choosing this week's recipe -- for a dinner with friends who dine with us frequently -- Pam and I grabbed a few of the cookbooks that have worked well in recent weeks, and started browsing. This time, Pam was the first to find something that was both appealing and new to us. Coincidentally, it comes from the same "flexitarian" swath of the Moosewood oeuvre that Pam mentioned just two weeks ago in her fish is not a vegetable post.

What she found -- on page 183 of Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home -- has a name whose geographic significance we did not recognize. Pasta Valenzana is a linguine dish with a savory sauce that is named for Valencia, Spain. The word "faux" in the title of this post refers to the fact that I did not take the time to recognize the geographic reference and its culinary significance, which I now see plainly in the marginal note next to the recipe! The word "success" refers to the fact that the dish was a tremendous success anyway.

We were able to find most of the ingredients in our house, from a green bell pepper to shrimp. We did not have linguine, and I refused Pam's suggestion to substitute spaghetti, because I know each holds sauce a bit differently. I did however -- perhaps arrogantly -- make a few other substitutions. Where the recipe calls for scallions, I used a bit of finely chopped onion. Where it calls simply for diced tomato, I could not resist adding a bit of tomato sauce to give the dish more body. And most arrogantly of all, I omitted the saffron, as I almost always do. Although I'm often a bit of a spendthrift in pursuit of culinary integrity, I've never been able to justify the expense of saffron. I understand that it is delicate and that it needs specific conditions and intense labor, leading to a cost -- in the hundreds of dollars an ounce -- that is difficult to fathom for a product that can be grown legally. Since it is both the most expensive and the most subtle of spices, I never have seen the point. But now that I have realized -- belatedly -- that this recipe is actually named for Valencia because this Mediterranean port city is the hub of saffron production, I will try to include the saffron next time.

And there will be a next time! This dish -- even bastardized -- was delicious. Everyone who tried it loved it! (Our daughter is a real vegetarian, so she had stripped-down linguine instead of the Valenzana dish.) Reflecting on the dish later, I think what distinguishes this dish is that the garlic is cooked first and allowed to caramelize with the crushed red pepper, then quenched with sherry before the onions are added, and the onions do not get a chance to sweeten in the same way. The dish also includes peas, which seem an odd element, but they are always a welcome source of fiber and vitamins. Paired with a local Chardonnay and served with a rustic, crusty bread, this was an savory and popular meal.

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I am not afraid

2011-03-12T18:24:00.000-08:00

I selected Crisp Potato Balls, or Perkedel, an Indonesian recipe from the Extending the Table cookbook for Friday's dinner. It looked simple enough. The written recipe is only about 2 inches long. I think that might have been what made James so nervous about it. He didn't think it had enough detail in the instructions, which are basically to make some mashed potatoes, and add cooked ground beef (we substituted ground turkey) with onions, 2 beaten eggs, and leeks. (We had no onion or leeks, so we used garlic and mushrooms). Form the mixture into balls and deep fry. James could not figure out how we were supposed to make balls out of ingredients that were already cooked. I assured him I was up for the task. It really wasn't hard. Since I intended to pan fry them, I really should have made them more like pancakes though. Mostly we ended up with a crumble of all of the ingredients. It tasted good though. James and I both had second helpings. This one falls squarely in the "comfort food category." I heated up the leftovers with some rice for lunch today.

Fish is not a vegetable...

2011-03-03T13:53:00.000-08:00

...so what is it doing in a Moosewood Cookbook? The Moosewood Cookbook, and its spinoffs - The Enchanted Broccoli Forest, Sundays at the Moosewood Restaunt, and The Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home among others, are classics of the vegetarian cooking genre. Fifteen years ago James bought me the Cooks at Home Cookbook before he left on a 3-month sojourn to the Amazon. Knowing that I did't like to cook just for myself, he selected it because it featured good meals that could be made in 30 minutes or less. Like the rest of the Moosewood series this is a vegetarian cookbook. There is not much of explanation in the book as to why fish recipes are included, except to say that some vegetarians will eat fish.

This week our family decided to eat what we had on hand,before doing more food shopping. I knew we had fish fillets in the freezer so we decided to find a fish recipe that incorporated ingredients we already had, or that we could easily substitute and selected Asian Fish in a Packet. Ingredients include:
Scallions - we substituted the rest of the baby onions we had left from our Julia Child recipe.
Garlic - good thing I still had some frozen cloves from the CSA farm box
Fresh Ginger- bought recently for another recipe
Dark Sesame Oil - I had light Sesame Oil, although I can't imagine why.
Bok Choi - There was probably some of this in the frozen mixed greens I still had from last summer's CSA farm box.
Soy Sauce - Worcestershire sauce was substituted
Rice - Always on hand at the H-B home.

The fish was layered on top of the cooked rice and greens, then a mixture of the rest of the ingredients was spread on top of each fillet and everything was wrapped into a foil packet, and cooked for 20 minutes at 450 in our new convection oven. These turned out perfectly. Delicious and tender. We opened a bottle of sparkling white wine to pair with this spicy meal.

The Adventures of Food Boy - the movie

2011-02-23T08:51:00.000-08:00

Begin with the basic premise found in the classic '80s movie Teen Wolf , throw in a couple of Animal House allusions, add peanut butter, pastrami, and mix well. The result?

The Adventures of Food Boy

Although not entirely orginal, this film about a lad who discovers that he has the ability to conjure up food from his hands, does have some rather funny moments, and a few surprises. Lucas Gabreel, plays Ezra (a.k.a. Food Boy) who is baffled by the lunch meat that flys from his hands during his bid to become Junior class president. He learns from his grandmother that he has inherited a "gift" and he must not only learn to control it, but to use it for good - not evil. Ezra, who thought his grandmother was just an old lady sitting around waiting to die, is chagrined to find himself under her tutelage. As well he should be! He also discovers there is more to life than getting into the Ivy League. Even my teenage daughter admitted to liking this one.