Not Mrs. Fran's London Broil

 I'll get to the steak shortly -- this is an easy recipe with a very nice result. The title above is the one given by author Kwame Onwauchi. We had flagged the article when we read his Notes from a Young Black Chef. Since that was almost a year ago, I had to skim over the pages just before the article to be reminded of the reason for this unusual title.

It brings to mind Not Your Mother's Green Beans from the mini Moosewood, which is a Hayes-Boh favorite whose title announces a departure from the overcooked blandness typically associated with a particular dish. Onwauchi is indeed offering a recipe that contrasts with the leathery steak served by his family friend Mrs. Fran, but he does so as a reminder to himself that as important as it may be to cook well (and he is OBSESSED with this throughout his life), gratitude for those who cook with great heart is even more important, even if their skills are limited. Read his "Dominoes" for the complete, humbling story.

Herewith, the flavorful approach from the Creole side of his culinary biography. It preparation should start 24 hours before the meal. If the steak is frozen, it should be thawed prior to the first step below.

Whisk together (and do not fret overmuch about exact measures):

• 3T olive oil
• 3T balsamic vinegar
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 jalepeño, quartered (or several, chopped coarsely)
• juice of 1 lime
• 1/4 cup cilantro stems (with leaves)
• 1 t salt
• 1/2 t ground black pepper

Put this in a ziplock bag with a 2-pound top round steak and put it in the fridge overnight. I had an excellent 1.5-pound free-range steak from Crescent Ridge, one of our local favorite sources. I often find some other way to marinate when a bag is called for, but I followed the directions this time and was pleased. It was easy to turn the bag over a couple times during the (almost) 24-hour process.

Onwauchi does not say exactly when to make the salsa -- he vaguely uses the word "meanwhile" -- but to me it made a lot of sense to make it right after the marinade, so that it could meld overnight and also chill. The salsa is most unusual, but also very simple. Mix the following in a bowl, and 90 percent of this meal is done:

• One pound of cherries, pitted and coarsely chopped; I was lucky to find fresh cherries at the beginning of their season; frozen would have been my other option. This is a bit time-consuming.
• 1/4 onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 T cilantro leaves, chopped (I used more)
• 1/4 jalapeño (I used a whole one)
• juice of 1 lime (yes, that's 2 limes total)
• salt (just a bit)

One the marinade has soaked and the salsa melded, the steak should be removed from the marinade and placed on a platter for 30-60 minutes, to reach room temperature. Onwauchi suggests patting it dry, but that seems silly. I just left if on a platter and picked it up with tongs (click-click!) when I was ready to cook. Rather than searing it on a hot skillet (he suggests 7 minutes per side, with a 130F internal temperature), I put it on our Big Green Egg, in which I had been baking potatoes at about 450F for over an hour. (We are all-out potato bakers!) 

My special blogger power is knowing when the final dish is not going
to be photogenic and also when the ingredients will be. These nice
colors all melded together in a tasty but not pretty way.

I did this for 7minutes per side, taking no temperatures. In retrospect, 6 minutes would have been even better, but these results were very good -- medium at the ends and medium-rare in the middle. I tented foil over the steak for 10 minutes and sliced it very thin (on bias, as he writes). I returned this to a clean platter and served with the salsa.

We shared this with friends we knew would appreciate the vibrant flavors and the local sourcing (we buy our best chickens from these same friends). The sweet/spicy, cool/warm contrasts of this meal were amazing. We will definitely repeat -- and we might be doing so with this salsa on their chicken. 

Bonus: this recipe involves a fair bit of chopping on the day before, but almost no work at all on the day it is served. That makes it a very nice thing to serve when friends are coming over.

Meat Loaf

 It would appear that we have never posted about meat loaf before. I'm a little surprised by this. But, I also know that we rarely have prepared this in our 34 years of marriage. The impetuous for the preparation of this ultimate of comfort foods was a bit of ground beef, a bit of spicy sausage meat, a bit of "bacon ends" and some leftover rice all sitting side by side in our refrigerator. Since I indeed had not made meat loaf in quite some time I turned to Amy Sedaris for some guidance. What I prepared was only loosely based on the recipe in her book I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence. For instance, I, remarkably, had no garlic or onion, so I used garlic salt and onion powder as substitutes. She called for ketchup (no quantity given). I used a can of tomato sauce. I used one egg instead of two because that was all I had. I also threw in about a cup of the cooked rice. I topped the loaf with some of the bacon ends before baking - a suggestion Amy provides. The loaf baked at 350 for 55 minutes. It wasn't as firm as either James or I remembered our mothers' loaves to be, but it was tasty and made for some good leftovers for lunches this week.

The ingredient list as provided in the cookbook is pictured below.

Loco Moco

We've had a bit of a hiatus on keeping up with trying new recipes, but mostly it's because we were having new experiences traveling in South America to see a total eclipse of the sun, and tasting wine.

But we're back now and ready to take on some new cooking challenges. James made cheeseburgers on Wednesday night, and we had about 1/2 pound of leftover ground beef so I went to the New York Times cooking page to find something new we could do with it. Loco Moco is a Hawaiian dish. I selected it because we already had much of what we needed. It was a bit tricky getting everything timed to be ready at the same time (burgers, fried eggs, rice, caramelized onion) and that was without actually making the gravy indicated in step four.

The result was good, and flavorful. I found that I liked it best when I had a taste of everything on my fork and I expect it would have been better with the gravy. Next time I will not skip that part.

St. Patrick's Day Shepherd's Pie

We are low-key celebrators of St. Patrick's Day. I (Pam) have some Irish heritage on my father's side, so we wear green, and admonish everyone to do the same. (Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day!) We also eat an appropriate meal, generally one featuring potatoes. This year's repast was Shepherd's Pie made with a recipe from the New York Times Cooking Page. 

I started by peeling, cubing and boiling 3 large potatoes. While they cooked I peeled and diced 2 carrots, one onion, and 4 garlic cloves, and shredded a cup of cheddar cheese. 

When the potatoes were ready to mash I drained the water and put them back in the pot, and let them sit while I melted 6 tablespoons of butter and cooked with 1/2 cup of milk in our indispensable cast-iron skillet. Then I added the butter/milk mixture to the potatoes and mashed together, and then stirred in the shredded cheddar, along with a bit of salt and pepper. A taste test told me that this is a method I should use in the future for preparing mashed potatoes. They were way tastier than usual. The potatoes then waited while I prepared the rest of the dish.

The cast iron skillet was put back to work to sauteé the onions, garlic, and carrots in 2 tablespoons of butter. Once the onions were translucent I added a pound of ground beef and cooked until it was no longer pink. At this point the recipe calls for a can of tomato paste. I used some left over tomato sauce instead. It also calls for some beef stock, which I totally missed. So even though I saw it on the list of ingredients and had James buy some, it never made it into the dish. Finally, I added some rosemary leaves and thyme before spreading the mixture evenly across the skillet. This was topped with the mashed potatoes, and again spread evenly. The skillet then was placed in a 375 degree oven for about 25 minutes, at which point the potatoes were a lovely golden brown. I let the dish sit for 12 minutes before serving. This was divine. Wonderfully tasty, with a lot of texture. It made for lovely leftovers the next day as well.

Classic Beef Stew (Wets)

Gift card in hand, we headed to Trader Joe's on the day after Christmas and bought (among other things) some stewing beef. I wanted to make a childhood favorite using the classic beef, potato, and carrots mix I remembered from my youth. It seemed only fitting that a classic dish should come from a classic cookbook, so I used the recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. I made only minor deviations from the recipe. Instead of vegetable juice cocktail and "instant beef boullion granules" (I don't even know what those are) I used a can of tomato sauce and some beef stock from a box. I also used tri-colored baby carrots instead of sliced carrots, and skipped the celery all together. 

Some tasty comfort food for the holiday week. 

A final note on the title of the post: when I was growing up my father always pronounced the name of this dish backwards - "wets".

Dos Nuevas Recetas that we invented ourselves

It has been over six years since we started this blog. We usually find our recipes within our collection of cookbooks, although lately we have be finding more on the interwebs. Last week, however, we collaborated on a meal in which each of us created a new recipe, with one shared ingredient. Pam made a pasta-berry salad; James' innovation came in the way of a new steak rub.

I had found a thick, grass-fed sirloin that I wanted to use as a main course. I set it on a plate, and pierced it several times on each side with a fork. Regular readers will know that I frequently prepare a rub based on something I learned from our friends at Equal Exchange -- a mix of black pepper and ground coffee (fairly traded and organic, of course). In this case, I used home-roasted, hand-ground coffee from East Timor by way of our other friends at Deans Beans. Something I learned the first time I used this combination is that the amount of pepper and the amount of time resting with the rub should both be limited, so that the pepper does not begin to pre-cook the meat. In other words, it is possible to over-do this. But using about 1:4::pepper:coffee and resting for 20 minutes or so seems to work well.

Just before grilling -- on the Big Green Egg -- I added a couple of ingredients to the steaks. First, I sprinkled each side lightly with Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce. Then I pressed fresh blackberries into each side, using a fork to get them stuck a bit better. This was a bit messy. I then grilled at about 450. One problem with the coffee rub is that it masks the steak, so there are no visual clues to doneness. I should have used the Thermapen, but instead ended up putting it back on the grill once I had divided it. No harm done.

We had decided to use bow-tie pasta in some sort of side dish with the steak, and Pam remembered that we had previously made some mighty fine fruit-and-pasta dishes (see Pasta with Grapes and Strawberry Pasta). We had just made a trek to Trader Joe's and bought blueberries and blackberries, so we decided try inventing a new recipe. The cooked pasta (about 2 cups) was mixed with a handful of each of the berries, along with a sliced banana. Pam made a dressing by mixing about 6 of each berry, a tablespoon of honey, and a tablespoon of blueberry balsamic vinegar (from L.O.V.E. Oil and Vinegar Emporium), and 2 tablespoons of chopped mint leaves in a blender. The dressing was tossed with the berries and pasta. An eye-pleasing, as well as palate-pleasing dish, and it turned out to be a perfect complement to the steak rub...

Love will keep us together.
But blackberries tied this meal together.

Final verdict: this meal was just a bit different, delicious, and fun to make. And of course it paired well with Malbec.

Going Dutch

When planning for a recent dinner at Whaling House, Pam cracked open the Vincent Price cooking tome, and found a simple Flemish recipe for steak -- Hollandsche Biefstuk (Dutch Beefsteak) -- and sauce. Really, it was gravy, but this is a very classy book...

Neither steak nor sauce photographs well,
so I am including this nice image of Mr. Price,
from the cover of his tv cookbook.

I began by tenderizing the steak with a heavy spoon. The recipe includes an admonishment to do this, since the steak will be cooking quickly. I then mixed 2T wine vinegar, 1t salt, and 1/2t pepper. I rubbed this mixture onto both sides of the steaks and let them rest on a plate for a half hour.

I then melted 1/4 cup of butter in an indispensable cast-iron skillet, and sautéed the steak for 4-1/2 minutes on each side. Actually, that is the timing specified by Mr. Price. Why the timing is so precise when the temperature is not specified at all, I'm not certain. Still, it seemed to bring the steaks to a good, medium doneness. The directions advise "moving it around while it cooks" which I just learned is what distinguishes sautéeing (as in "jump") from frying.

Keeping the burner on, I then set the steaks aside in on a warm plate, and added 1/2 cup chopped shallots to the butter remaining in the pan. I stirred these until browned and then spooned them onto the steaks. I then stirred into the butter (it is getting a workout here) 1t potato flour, 1C beef stock, and 1/2C beer. Actually, I used wheat flour and because we had no beef stock I used about 1/2 cup chicken stock, a bit of Worcestershire, and 1C beer. I stirred this until blended and a little bubbly, and then added 1/2t fresh thyme, 1t sugar, 2T fresh parsley (Vincent loved his parsley), and a bit of salt and pepper.

Vincent asks us to put the sauce in a gravy boat (thus revealing what this really is -- steak and gravy), but I used a little pitcher instead. Meanwhile, Pam had mashed a couple of potatoes (they are not just for Thanksgiving any more).

At this point, I will step back to the shopping for this dish. Careful readers of this blog might notice an increase in our use of beef about a year ago. This has been concomitant with our purchase of a Big Green Egg grill and with the availability of organic, grass-fed beef, mainly from a local farmer's market. We have often bought such a steak and then looked for a way to prepare it. This time, I went to the grocery store in search of a particular cut -- sirloin -- and settled for the most similar cut -- rib eye (I know, this is not so similar, but it was about the right thickness). All of the grass-fed beef available was in thick chunks that I did not think would be suitable. So I bought a couple of right-sized slices of ordinary steak.

Results: delicious gravy for the steak and potatoes, but not very inspiring flavor in the steak itself. Given the carbon and water footprint of steak, I want to have it only when it is going to be extraordinary. So I will make this dish again, but only with a more sustainable and delicious beef. And if I can figure out a way to grill rather than sautée, I will do that, too!

¡Ay, Patrón!

The title of this post refers to one of its least prevalent ingredients in this evening's preparation of champandongo, which I have also called Aztec Lasagna. See that post from earlier in the year for the geographic and literary background of this dish, along with a link to the basic recipe.

Since we have now made it several times, this post will focus only on the small departures from previous efforts. The first change was in the roasting of the peppers. We are fortunate enough to have two kitchens -- one in a place we find most weekends. The smaller "galley" at Whaling House has the essentials but not the frills, and it is where we are re-learning how to cook with an electric stove, just a few years after I had gotten comfortable roasting peppers directly on the burner of our gas stove.

Not a great photo, but at least I managed not to melt my phone!

Our alternative approach has been to buy roasted pepperrs (imagine!) or to roast peppers in the Cloverfield kitchen (yes, it is named for our former dog) before coming to Fairhaven. Friends recently told me of another way -- oven roasting. I did so this evening, and got the peppers both charred and gooey at the same time. I used one dark-red, long bell pepper and one jalapeño. The result was especially good for use in a sauce, as they were quite soft after I sweated them in a covered bowl. The only difficulty relative to roasting over fire was that the outer, charred skin was difficult to separate.

The other departure from our April endeavor was quite tiny -- when I was nearly done with the mole (mol-AY) sauce, I added just a splash of coffee-infused Patrón tequila. Thus this dish from a story in Coahuila (northern Mexico) used an ancient sauce from Puebla (central Mexico) and two ingredients from Oaxaca (southern Mexico). The other ingredient was the chocolate, brought recently from a friend who had visited Oaxaca last summer with our daughter.

How much coffee-infused tequila? Just a splash or three.

Double Deglazed Stew

Pam and I met in French class, so it is appropriate that this evening's meal includes a bit of a language lesson. Autumn has been warm and slow in arriving, with leaves lingering longer than we ever remember them doing. But finally in the past week or two our thoughts have turned to autumnal favorites, and one of those is beef stew -- known in the Hayes family as WETS, which is STEW backwards.

The healthiest part of this dinner, and the only part that really would photograph well.

Pam found a NY Times stew recipe and jotted down the major ingredients for me. I was intrigued by one in particular -- cognac. And oddly enough, we were out of cognac, so I went off to a newly-expanded package store (packie) in our town to fetch some. It was a greater challenge than I expected, but I did find some. Good news for this dinner, and good news in general.

I followed the recipe more or less as written, though readers of this blog know that some exceptions are certainly following. The first of these was that I did not begin with salt pork; I used an equivalent amount of butter and a little salt instead, cooking the onions and shallots in butter, and transferring them to a bowl. I then added the lightly-floured cubes of beef (store-bought organic -- our farmers-market source for local beef is gone for the season) in two rounds.

While the aromatics and beef rested in the bowl, I broke out the cognac for deglazing, and in that moment realized what it is -- the use of any cool liquid in a hot pan to break up the bits that are stuck -- in a sugary glaze -- to the bottom. This is the beginning of many sauces, and as someone who loves the charred bits stuck to any pan, a very welcome step. Using a bit of cognac made it even more satisfying! From The Reluctant Gourmet, we learn that those bits on the bottom are called fond -- not because I am fond of them, but because this is the French word for bottom, like fundamental, foundation, and so on.

So this stew -- like other French beef stews we have made -- is as much a vehicle for sauce as anything. The use of cognac in deglazing was just the start. The Dijon made the sauce rich and flavorful, without a mustardish edge. I was curious about the second suggested mustard -- Pommery. A substitution post on Chow Hound taught me two things: 1) any whole-grain mustard would do in a pinch (we did not have any, and I was not going out again); and 2) this specific recipe is a popular use of Pommery mustard.

The final touch was a red wine, and regular readers will not be surprised to see that I used a small amount of Malbec, reserving the rest for a brilliant pairing. Together with some freshly-baked biscuits, we enjoyed this stew immensely. Our cognac should last until the next time we prepare it, and we have time to pick up that grainy mustard!

Oh right: the double deglazing! I almost neglected to explain the title. Our weekend galley has an electric stove, which I am trying very hard to learn how to use. My initial simmer on medium instead of low started scorching the stew before I knew what was happening. I moved the pan off the heat, scooped most of the contents into the large bowl that was on hand, and put it back on the heat with another splash of cognac. The back of the spoon liberated a second round of fond, perhaps making this even better than it would have been.

Lumberjack Stew

In Casa Hayes-Boh, the Sedaris family is a favorite source of high-brow/low-brow humor. We have read and heard almost everything brother David has written, and have made a couple of pilgrimages to see him in person. He once even gave us cake mix, and his inscription "...with the honor of meeting bakers ..." makes his copy of Holidays on Ice one of our household's great treasures. David specializes in tawdry word play for the NPR set; his twisted sister Amy takes the family business to a new level, most notably as a middle-aged former sex worker attending high school in Strangers with Candy.

Amy has a distinctly domestic side that is expressed -- with a bit of a twist -- in I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, which has been our guide for a couple other Nueva Receta entries. The book offers recipes in the context of entire home-entertainment events organized around a particular kind of guest.

As the title of this post suggests, for a few pages she applies her fertile imagination to the prospect of a visiting lumberjack. Queue up the obligatory musical reference, which my own Male Bonding Band has been known to perform on occasion.

Welcome back ...

Amy's Lumberjack Crosscut Stump Stew is part of a (fantasized) evening's entertainment with a strapping arborist, for whom she would also prepare a stack of white bread and her Lumberjack's Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. She also suggests a series of gift ideas for visiting lumberjacks, from an ax guard to tea tree oil shampoo.

The stew itself is rather simple to prepare -- we adapted it slightly to the cookware we have in our smaller kitchen at our Whaling House in Fairhaven. We began with very good, very local beef that we acquired at the farmer's market held each Sunday at Fairhaven High School (a.k.a. Hogwarts -- have a look). It was packaged specifically as stew beef by  J.H. Beaulieu Livestock and Produce Farm in Fairhaven, scarcely a mile away.

I browned the cubed beef in olive oil on high heat and then transferred it to a crock pot (not the casserole that Sedaris calls for). I then cooked a chopped onion and two minced cloves of garlic in the same pan the beef had been in, and added crushed tomatoes (she calls for puree), red wine, and a bit of balsamic (in place of white vinegar). To this I added a bit of sugar (trusting in Amy), salt, pepper, whole cloves and a stick of cinammon. I simmered them all together briefly and then transferred the whole mess to the crock pot.

After one hour, I boiled a package (10 ounces) of pearl onions in water, rinsed them and removed the outer skins, and then added them to the pot for another hour and a half of stewing. (NOTE: Pearl onions are great, though working with them is tedious.)

Meanwhile, Pam prepared drop biscuits from our kitchen bible by Deborah Madison. We enjoyed the biscuits along with some local cinnamon apple sauce, local milk (for Pam) and the decidedly non-local Malbec that had been used in the stew (for James).

The result -- a delicious, hearty stew that served as both lunch and dinner, with perfectly autumnal spice. As good as it was, it will be even better next time, when I will cook it at least an hour longer to make sure that the local, lean  beef has time to get uniformly tender.

Simply Hot

Pam and I scanned the recipe shelf as we contemplated a Nueva Receta for this week, and for some reason our eyes rested on the same title: The Tabasco Cookbook, a slim volume written by a scion of the McIlhenny family on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of my favorite sauce (almost my favorite beverage).

Every page exudes Paul McIlhenny's upbringing in the midst of culinary legend. Many of the recipes we will save for seasonal ingredients, a larger crowd, or the availability of seafood. The vignettes of Tabasco lore sprinkled throughout make this a particularly good cookbook for browsing.

After a few minutes of noting recipes best suited for a different day, we chose "Craig Claiborne's Ultimate Hamburger" on page 88. (The name was familiar, but it is only upon finding his obituary that I realized he was both a food writer for the New York Times and a native of the Mississippi Delta.

The recipe is simplicity itself. Start with good ground beef and handle it minimally, just enough to form patties. Heat a cast-iron skillet to a searing temperature, sprinkle it with salt and then sear each side of the burgers. Once flipped, cook for three minutes or to desired doneness and then top with salt, pepper, Tabasco, lemon juice, Worcestershire, and fresh parsley. Transfer to buns and serve.

I digressed just slightly from this recipe. My one failing is that I got the skillet -- which I had just reseasoned -- hot but not searing hot. I will be braver next time. Second, I added a little Mexican cheese. I also used basil because we had it fresh and a little lettuce and tomato. Next time I will skip the cheese, cut back on the salt (the cheese combined with Claiborne's prescribed salt was just a bit much), and also skip the vegetables.

Regarding the salt, Pam pointed out that it was nicely balanced by the Wild Oats Shiraz we paired with this meal, and I agree.

It is fitting that as I prepared this, I listened to an interview about simplicity, food, and flavor that I am writing about separately under the title We Eat Giant Babies, forthcoming on my Environmental Geography blog. It was a hopeful interview, in which a food writer expresses the view that people really are starting to understand what we have lost in big-ag food systems, in terms of both health and flavor. A simple recipe works well if the food -- in this case the beef -- is real food with its own inherent flavor.

Actually, the title of this post is a bit of a lie. The pan was hot, and hot sauce was involved, but the author rates this as one chile on a four-chile scale, and we have to agree. Even New Englanders can try this without fear of excess Scovilles.

Kitchen Sink leftovers

Last night's dinner was put together with a variety of leftovers, combined with some of the vegetables I froze over the summer from our CSA.

I started by sauteeing an onion and some garlic scrape (CSA), in a large cast iron pot and added some ground beef. Once the beef was browned, I added some diced celery (CSA); parsley (CSA); and dried basil. Next I added a 6 oz. can of tomato paste, and 12 oz. of water. When everthing was mixed I added some kale (CSA) and leftover rice. Upon taste testing I found it a bit bland, so I added some red pepper flakes and a tablespoon of the mole leftover from James' adventure a few weeks ago with Champandongo which gave it just the right kick. We topped our servings with shredded cheddar.

Champan-Hayes-Boh

For a small honors seminar this semester, I decided to hold the final exam as a discussion over food at Casa Hayes-Boh. I decided to make champandongo the main course, as I have been thinking about this mole-based (MOH-lay) dish ever since we had it here with a group of Pam's students here three years ago.

In that case, Pam had made the food of Coma Agua Para Chocolate a major theme of her Spanish course, and had secured an undergraduate research grant to facilitate having the class make most of the dishes from Laura Esquivel's book (see my posts on its revolutionary context and on Latin American films).

We have cooked several of the dishes from Esquivel's work before -- most notably chicken based on her quail-and-rose-petal recipe, but Pam's class project was far more ambitious, especially since it involved students, many of whom had little if any cooking experience. Working in pairs, students created both a fabulous meal and a permanent record of their culinary efforts. Each post on the CAPCR blog explains how a dish was prepared and how it is connected to the story. All of the dishes were shared at our house during this 8:00 a.m. class. Most were then served again -- either remade or thawed from leftovers -- at an undergraduate research colloquium open to the entire campus.

I must admit that I know the movie far better than the book, and so was unaware of champandongo prior to this adventure with the students. I have been a huge fan of mole -- a complex chocolate-chile sauce usually associated with poultry -- since Pam and I spent the summer of 1989 in Puebla, Mexico. The sauce is properly known as mole poblano, meaning "sauce of Puebla" and represents one of the several ways cacao was used for centuries before people thought of it as a candy. Its use in this lasagna-style dish was simply amazing, and it is hard to believe I have not yet attempted it myself.

In planning my own version, I of course began with the description by Sullivan and Laura. (Incidentally, Sullivan is the only student in this class who I knew previously, both as a student and a long-time family friend.) As complex as the dish was, however, I knew that authentic mole is much more complicated: Campbell's soup, for instance, was rarely available to the ancient Aztecs. I turned to the Hispanic Kitchen blog for more authentic versions, and quickly found an impressive recipe for chicken mole.

Beef-Barley Skillet

From perhaps the most-used cookbook in our collection - More-with-Less Cookbook - comes this simple, yet filling, dish that used a bunch of the things I froze over the summer from out CSA.

I began by sauteeing some onion, and browning about 3/4 pound of ground beef in our indispensable cast-iron skillet. I took some garlic scrape, and chopped celery from the freezer and added a handful of each to the skillet. Next I added a dollop of salsa, a bit of Worcestershire sauce, a can of diced tomatoes, a dash of marjoram and parsley, a bit of pepper, and threw in some frozen greens for good measure. Finally I added 1 1/2 c. of water and 3/4 c. of barley. Once this was all brought to a boil, I reduced the heat, covered and let cook for 50 minutes.

A tasty, and  hardy winter meal.

The Secret Ingredient is L.O.V.E.

We planned our Valentine's dinner for over a week, with one overriding goal: no crowded restaurants for us. With a little work and forethought, we knew we could have a superior dinner with no reservations. Each year at this time, we recall an evening spent wandering from restaurant to restaurant, skipping a 20-minute wait only to find a 40-minute wait, eventually settling for a dinner that was made enjoyable mostly by our readiness to eat anything.

Once we established the Valentine's-Day-at-Home tradition, actually, we have endeavored to make it both a romantic and delicious experience, and this year we seem to have done quite well. We each prepared an entree, waited a bit, and then each of us created part of dessert.

James: A week before the event, I accidentally recycled the newspaper in which I had seen a very intriguing recipe for steak tips with mole (moh-LAY) sauce. Librarian Pam said, "Have no fear!" (or words to that effect), since newspaper recipes are all syndicated and will show up easily on some other paper's site. About 2.5 seconds later, I was looking at Beef Mole with Buttery Baguette, courtesy of The Oregonian.

Fans of this blog will know that we have an affinity for mole, more properly known as mole poblano, after the Mexican state of Puebla, where we spent the summer of 1989. Although I love making "real" mole, it was nice to find this "express" version of the recipe, a gringo simplification that required no pepper roasting and a simplified ingredient list. I followed the recipe as written, using our new immersion blender for the sauce itself. Just as I was bringing it to boil, I realized that two vinegars from our friends and fellow Retrievers at Lebherz Oil and Vinegar Emporium (hence the L.O.V.E.) would make it even better. I added the dark chocolate and espresso balsamics, and as with our first mole encounter in July 2012, it turned out loverly, indeed! (Careful readers will recall that the chocolate balsamic also figured in the success of our award-winning mocha cake later that year.)

Pam: I knew that I'd find an appropriate Valentine's Day recipe in Intercourses: An Aphrodisiac Cookbook, but Wow! How could we have imagined how great the strawberry pasta would turn out! This super simple recipe had only a few ingredients. To the 1/4 pound cooked spaghetti I added some shredded Parmesan cheese and then about a dozen pureed strawberries and some melted butter heated with 1/4 c. heavy cream. This was all tossed together in one bowl and then garnished with fresh chopped mint leaves. It was sweet, incredibly creamy, and a perfect complement to the chocolate in the mole sauce. It truly had a sensuous flavor and texture. Everything was served with sparkling Brut Curvee "RJR" from Westport Rivers Winery.

Pam: After allowing our fabulous dinner to settle a bit we made our dessert and coffee. A Facebook friend posted this recipe for "Cake Batter Ice Cream" (essentially an ambitious banana ice cream). We already had frozen banana slices in the freezer as anytime I have a banana go past ripe I slice it up and freeze it to use for smoothies. These had been frozen for several months and gave our blender quite the workout. It actually began to smoke. I modified the recipe a bit to use ingredients we had on hand, although James did go out and get romantic red sugar sprinkles to put on top! Smooth, creamy and sweet!

Proportions are 4 ripe, frozen bananas; a t. each of vanilla, and almond extracts, 1/4 t. baking soda; 1 T. agave nectar; 1 T Butter Pecan syrup; sprinkles to taste.

James: The two-shelf collection of cookbooks that got this blog started includes several that are specifically about the romance of preparing and sharing food. One of these is called quite simply Coffee Love (which is incidentally also the title of the PG-13 section of my Geography of Coffee web site). Leafing through the book, my eye settled quickly on Café de Olla on page 52. I started one cup of coarsely hand-ground Sol y Luna coffee from my good friends in the Corrales family. It is not dark-roasted, but it was grown and prepared with love, and just happens to be some of the best coffee on the planet. I added 1/2 teaspoon of anise seed and a two-inch piece of cinnamon stick to one quart of cool, filtered water in a saucepan. I had hoped to add four ounces of piloncillo (Mexican brown sugar), but had to substitute a half cup of regular brown sugar and a tablespoon of molasses. I brought all of this gently to a boil, while briskly stirring with our molinillo. After letting it simmer for 15 minutes, I filtered it. The recipe does not specify how to filter it, but no better method could be found than our trusty Chemex.

The result was surprisingly delicious -- I usually do not like to have anything at all in my coffee except for coffee, but this was an exception worth making. It was quite good while hot, though the flavor did not withstand cooling very well at all. Next time, though, I hope to use real piloncillo, and a real olla instead of our steel saucepan!

My first pot roast

We spent some time with the family in Maryland over the holiday break. I did much of the food preparation for my mother and stepfather who are both experiencing some health problems. We did some food shopping with the list my mother prepared which included a pot roast. I wasn't even sure what to look for in the meat department, but a nice piece of beef labeled "chuck roast" seemed to fill the bill. I took it back, and with my mother guiding me through, I put the meat in the slow cooker along with a bit of wine, some garlic, onions, celery, and carrots. It cooked for a very long time (hence the name slow cooker, I guess) and in the mean time some friends of my parents came by with crab cakes from G&M, so the roast had to wait until the next day to be eaten. I was pleasantly surprised that even after being taken out of the slow cooker, put in the refrigerator, and then heated in the microwave that it was still very tender (and tasty too!) James had already left Maryland by then, but as an added bonus I got to enjoy this meal with my brother, whom I rarely get to see. It was almost like a family dinner. James and I are not big beef eaters, but next time we decide to have a red-meat based meal, I think I will try this at home.

Syrian Rice

From dinners last week, we had a bunch of leftover rice, and an uncooked, but thawed, portion of ground beef so I started looking for a recipe that would use both these ingredients. I found this Lebanese dish in Melange (an international cookbook) which was put together with recipes from international students at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

The dish was pretty easy and quick to make, although I adapted it a bit since my rice was already cooked. I eschewed the "stick of butter" that the recipe called for in favor of a generous portion of olive oil in which to brown a handful of pine nuts and the ground beef. Once the ground beef was cooked I added 1/2 t. of  allspice and 1/2 t. of cinnamon. I added some more olive oil, and then put in the rice and stirred until everything was well mixed and cooked. I made a separate pan using soy-based crumble for our resident vegetarian. The dish was accompanied by a lovely mixed green salad from our CSA farm box, and paired well with our home-made "Cloverfield" red wine.

Everyone seemed to like this, including our daughter's teen-aged guest. All diners were clean-plate rangers for this one.

One Bobotie, Hold the Ball's

This Nueva Receta concept must be working: a quick search in this blog on the title Extending the Table reveals about a half-dozen uses of this handy little book so far. For those wishing to diversify their cooking to what real people around the world might be cooking at home, this volume is a great investment.

One of my closest friends and colleagues is a geographer who moved to the United States from South Africa many years ago (he is there on a visit as I write this). Whenever an occasion calls for a potluck contribution, he brings what I always call "South African meat loaf" because I can never remember the name -- bobobtie (boh-BOH-tee). It is sweet, mildly spicy, and just delicious. He does not share the recipe, which is how he keeps getting invited to dinners. (Just kidding!)

I thought that the recipe was some very local specialty, and so had never thought that it might be sitting on our very own cookbook shelf, until I noticed it while browsing for something else in Extending the Table recently.

The recipe calls for curry powder, which we tend to avoid. It also calls for soaking a slice of bread in 3/4 cup of milk and then squeezing the milk out of it -- using the soggy bread and the breadish milk separately.

Essentially, the recipe has three steps, once that bread is soaking and the oven is on 350 or so.:

First, saute a small, diced onion (I will dice it more finely next time) in butter, adding 1 T curry powder, 1t turmeric, 1/2 t sugar, 1/4 t salt, a dash of black pepper (a large dash in our case) and 1 T lemon or vinegar.

Second, mix one pound ground beef or turkey, one beaten egg, the wet bread, and the cooked onion in a bowl, thoroughly until it is a consistent mass. (We used 1.3 pounds organic ground beef.)

Third, put the mixture in a loaf pan or casserole (the recipe says "well-greased," but I did not prepare the dish, since the beef has plenty of fat). Beat together another egg and the breadish milk with a dash of salt and pepper, and pour this mixture over the meat.

The recipe suggests serving this with rice and chutney. I made rice with Persian-lime-infused olive oil, but alas, we have no Mrs. Ball's. For this is what South Africans mean when they say Chutney. And in my experience, they enjoy mentioning the brand name as much as they like to share the Ball's itself.

Verdict? We both loved the flavor, and it went well with the lime-infused basmati. Lacking Ball's, I tried one small serving with no sauce and another with ground red pepper (the kind like relish, served as "hots" in some delis). It was good both ways, though I am hoping to have some Ball's in the kitchen soon.

The texture was not quite as fine as my friend's more expert preparation, and I did not realize until I made it myself that the "stuff" on top is really a kind of custard. His is full of spices, and mine will be too the next time. Still, at least until we perfect this recipe, he will be welcome at all potlucks!

The dish went well with a recently-acquired bottle of 2011 Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa by way of Stellar Organics.

Autumn Stew

We have no photo of the meal itself (beef stew is delicious but not photogenic). Instead, I staged the items that were on the table for our meal, as a reminder that centerpieces are not just for weddings! In fact, however, this lantern is repurposed from the wedding of a friend last year. We usually have a candle in it, but for the season we have filled it with miniature pumpkins from Hanson Farm  The tea lights are indeed resting on coffee beans.

Our plans for a stew on Sunday evening were delayed by an historic opportunity -- the last day of the premiere of Jack Kerouac's Beat Generation in his home town of Lowell. It was an enjoyable bit of time travel -- followed by a foliage-rich and sunny drive home along I-495 and the outer western suburbs of Boston.

It meant for a somewhat rushed (two hours instead of three or four) preparation of beef stew, based loosely on a recipe by Amy Sedaris. Yes, the twisted sister of David Sedaris has a cookbook -- more of a lifestyle book -- entitled I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, and its recipes are actually safe to use!

Page 254 features "What's Your Beef, Stew?" I started by not using a pound of sirloin steak tips from Northeast Family Farms in place of the cubed chuck. This grain-fed beef arrives marinaded in ginger and teriyaki, providing an exceptionally tender and flavorful base for the stew. I browned it in olive oil as I added  several table spoons of flour (less than Sedaris called for), skipping the shake-and-bake method she suggests as well. I sauteed an onions with the beef and then added water to simmer for an hour. (Sedaris calls for more and she is correct, but we did want to eat while we were still awake!)

Then I added potatoes, more onions, and carrots, and simmered for another 45 minutes. Actually, I failed to turn down the stove, so it was more of a continued boil (covered, thankfully) than a simmer. The result, however, was a rich, flavorful broth infused with ginger and the added pepper and paprika. Pam made delicious biscuits (see our chicken chowder post). Pam used a 50/50 mix of white and wheat flour, which was perfect!

Speaking of perfect, both the biscuits and the stew were very happily paired with our own baralo, a red wine that is maturing beautifully in our basement. The pairing was made even more perfect by the fact that I included about a half cup from the wine we had set aside on bottling day. Anytime we can cook with the beer or wine we are serving, we do so. We have never regretted it.

Coffee Sirloin

We are always busy during the academic year, but the past week has been busier than usual, with outreach programs on many subjects for many audiences. Still, we eat dinner at home almost every night. Readers of this blog will know that we are not "box food" people, and will not be surprised that we do our best to avoid fast food, especially if we are at home. (We do sometime cheat and order a pizza, and did so once during the past week.)

Knowing the hectic schedule, we made a simple plan for quick dinners this week, and that plan involved Fresh Catch in Mansfield, a choice we find ourselves making a bit more frequently since this project began. Oddly enough, we visit this meat and fish store as part of our effort to reduce our consumption of meat, both for our own health and that of the planet. We sometimes skip meat for days or weeks (Pam does not eat it with breakfast at all), but we do not see ourselves giving it up altogether. We have decided to make it count when we do have it, which is why this blog from a low-meat family has a lot of good meat recipes on it.

On Tuesday I picked up locally-caught cod (real cod, not "scrod") for quick, simple, and delicious pan-fried fillets. I simply dipped the cod in a mixture of egg, milk, and Tabasco and then dredged it in a mixture of flour, corn meal, and Old Bay. At the same time, I got two small, thick sirloin steaks, with the intention of using a recent gift from my mother -- Cowboy Blend with Coffee Steak Rub from Rancher's Reserve (a private label of Safeway).

Between classes, advising, and our huge Kony 2012 event last night, there was just enough time to steam some frozen green beans -- the last item from our 2011 Colchester farm box -- and prepare the steaks. This was simple -- just brush on olive oil and rub in the mix. A grill would have been nice, but starting with high heat and reducing to medium-high, these steaks were done very nicely in about ten minutes. I err on the side of well-done, and I did not give these the rest time that they deserve. But for stove-to-plate timing, this was quite savory, and sustained me through a bit of a hectic evening in the public arena.

I had prepared coffee steak in the past, trying to replicate something the former chef at Westport Rivers had demonstrated when she hosted a special dinner with Equal Exchange. That evening a few years ago, she used very dark coffee and black pepper, and I believe the steak was paired with a stainless-steel Chardonnay. On my previous attempt, I used too much pepper, partially curing the meat before grilling, so it was very dry. This time the commercial rub was more sweet than spicy, and the coffee not nearly so dark. Still, we paired it with the biggest red we had in the house, a 2010 Pinot Noir we purchased last year at Travessia in New Bedford. This region is not known for reds, as the growing season is too short, but this one has reasonably good body and complexity, and paired nicely with the mildly spicy and sweet steak.

What to do at the end of a hectic week? At the time of this writing, there is no plan. As she left the house to celebration National Library Week in Boston, Pam said something that we almost never say around here: "There is almost no food in this house." We are grateful that this was not literally true, of course, but it does mean that dinner tonight will require some quick thinking -- or a bit more cheating!

Lagniappe:
A bit of wine haiku by Marco Montez appears on the Pinot label:

Parker sips my red
light body low alcohol
spits, screams: fifty points!


Epilogue:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/fiesta-mexican-restaurant-east-bridgewater