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.
Monday, December 29, 2014
Thursday, December 25, 2014
First Longer Day
 |
| THE REASON FOR THE SEASON Image: Dreams Time |
During the shortest day of the year, we were still enjoying food from the day before, so we actually waited until the day after the longest night to celebrate solstice. This seems more fitting, actually, as it is the first in a string of 182 days of increasing light.
When I made cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving this year, a friend had actually given me two bags of the precious berries, directly from her work at Ocean Spray, so the Chakra Cranberry Sauce recipe (pp. 180-181) was an obvious choice. I heated one cup of water in an indispensable cast-iron saucepan, and added one cup of organic granulated sugar. When it was boiling and the sugar dissolved, I removed the berries from the freezer and poured them in. I added one orange (pureed with our immersion blender), a diced apple and a diced pear. To this I added a cup of raisins (the recipe calls for any dried fruit) and a cup of chopped pecans. I omitted the 1/2 teaspoon of salt the recipe calls for, but did include plenty of ground cinnamon and freshly-shaved nutmeg. I simmered covered for the recommended 30 minutes, but kept it going afterward, as it was a bit too liquidish. The trade-off here is that it did not have time to cool very much. I recommend making this at least a few hours ahead if you want it to set up right, but it was delicious warm, served with a slotted spoon.
Our main course was stuffed turkey burgers (p. 188), which were similar to one of our staple dinners. In this case, to a pound (or so) of lean ground turkey, I added breadcrumbs, a tablespoon (or so) of dried thyme and the juice of half a lemon. I then made two very thin patties for each serving, forming a kind of pocket that I filled with a small amount of cheese. The recipe calls for bleu cheese, but nobody in our house eats that, so I used two cheeses we always have on hand -- aged Vermont cheddar for Paloma and me, and feta crumbles for Pam. I pressed the edges of each double patty together and put them on a plate in the fridge for a couple hours before cooking them up on our griddle.
I had been unable to find fresh thyme -- the recipe calls for 1/2 cup -- and our front-yard crop is way out of season; This was so delicious that I look forward to trying this again in the late spring, perhaps on Beltane.
The "perfect pairing" for this was to have been Glüwein (mulled wine - p. 194), but I completely forgot. As it was, we were quite satisfied to pair this meal with water, and will make the wine on some frostier day. We will compare Wood's recipe with the TasteFood version.
As always, Thank the Farmers!
 |
| Image: Ocean Spray Cooperative |
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
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.
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.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
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.
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.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Butterbeer
Earlier this year when I prepared Pumpkin Pasties in honor of Harry Potter's birthday, I also considered making some Butterbeer but the least-sickeningly-sweet recipe I found was for a hot beverage, and it was beastly hot outside, so I decided to wait for a more appropriate season. A cold and rainy St. Nick's Day seemed the right time. The recipe was simple calling for just milk and butterscotch chips. I put some chips in the bottom of some mugs, filled with milk and put them in the microwave, stirring every minute for 2.5 minutes. The chips melted nicely, and the milk was heated without being scalded. I have seen some question as to whether the Butterbeer in the Harry Potter books is an alcoholic beverage, but I think it is made pretty clear in Book 4 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - that Winky the House Elf gets completely soused on the stuff, so with this in mind I added a shot of vodka to each of the mugs. The beverage was hot and creamy, if perhaps a bit too sweet. If I make it again I will use fewer butterscotch chips.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Mashed Potato Pancakes
We brought home a bunch of mashed potato leftovers from our Thanksgiving dinner. Fortunately, the Huffington Post provided this list of 19 things to do with mashed potatoes just in time for the holiday. I wasn't even sure which one to prepare as so many of them looked promising, so I began at the beginning and made the Cheesy Pancakes. It was pretty simple as the potatoes were already mashed all I had to do was add some shredded cheddar cheese and some chopped scallions and form them into patties. They cooked quickly and easily, and were quite tasty topped with some sour cream.
Friday, November 28, 2014
Feast with Friends
Cranberries (James)
The day before Thanksgiving, as an icy drizzle began to fall on our town, I called a friend a few blocks away, to let her know I would be driving to her house. She waited at the door, so that she would be ready to trot out with a precious cargo -- a large bag of large cranberries -- so that I could rush them from her freezer to ours.
Rather than our usual rum-based preparation, we decided to try something from our previous home in Arizona, from a survey of Thanksgiving culinary traditions recently published in the NY Times. Of course cranberries do not grow in Arizona, but chiles do, so this would be another entry in our sweet-hot series.
Franksgiving Follow-Up
Thanksgiving is the holiday that keeps on giving -- in the form of leftovers -- and as we continue to reflect with gratitude on our many blessings, we also continue the feast, beginning with our Franksgiving hash.
The day before Thanksgiving, as an icy drizzle began to fall on our town, I called a friend a few blocks away, to let her know I would be driving to her house. She waited at the door, so that she would be ready to trot out with a precious cargo -- a large bag of large cranberries -- so that I could rush them from her freezer to ours.
During this year's harvest, she had been moonlighting in quality control at Ocean Spray, the grower-owned cooperative that markets our region's most important crop. Work in QC means taking samples that cannot be put back into the commercial supply chain, so our friend has more delicious cranberries than she can handle, and she rightly surmised that we would put some of them to good use.
 |
| Image: Chiltepin was Chile of the Month last April for the World of Chiles online chile club. |
I made a few substitutions in the recipe; if it is successful, I'll invest some time next year in getting it right. First, whereas our local grocery store in Tucson had an entire aisle dedicated to chile peppers, here our options are much narrower. I am certain I could have found the chiltepin called for in this recipe, but used some dried peppers of unknown provenance we keep on hand for just such emergencies. Two other omissions I cannot blame on geography: I simply forgot to put a lime and an orange on my shopping list, and decided four grocery runs in two days would have to be my limit. So I omitted the lime-zest garnish and substituted a splash of Triple Sec for the orange zest.
Preparation was quite simple, actually: I brought everything (including the cranberries directly from the freezer) to a simmer in our indispensable cast-iron skillet and then kept it on a very low simmer for about 20 minutes. I then transferred it back to the fridge.
I am especially intrigued by the chiltepin, which resembles both coffee and cranberry fruits. We have a good location for chiles in the sunny front yard of our house, so hope to have some harvested and dried by this time next year.
The Bird (James)
As we have for the past couple of years, we purchased a free-range turkey from Misty Knoll Farms in Vermont, delivered as part of our regular dairy order from Crescent Ridge. Among the many things for which we are thankful are companies such as these, and our financial ability to support them. One should not ask why ethical, healthy food is so expensive, but rather what corners are cut to make so many other foods relatively cheap. A few years ago, we learned that we could free up room in the ovens -- and have better turkey -- if we prepared the turkey outside. Rob began preparing the coals in an ordinary grill early in the morning, and when we arrived he put a pan on them to hold some white wine and to catch drippings. I had rubbed the turkey with a paste of paprika, garlic, and olive oil, and we set it right on the grilling surface, but over such low heat that it just roasted in a winy mist. As it neared the safe-food target temperature, Rob added a couple of slivers of milled oak for smoking. (Stuffing, by the way, was prepared in separate baking pans.)
Beets from the Farm Box (Pam)
Our last farm box pick up for this season was several weeks ago. We had eaten and/or frozen most of what we had from this year's "harvest," except for the last of the beets. We are not crazy about beets, and have tried all manner of ways of preparing them to hide the flavor. Some recipes have turned out better than others. I ran a search on allrecipes.com for beets to see if there was something new to try and found a recipe actually called Thanksgiving Beets which was pretty simple, and made use of a lot of spices. so I figured it would do a good job in covering the bitterness that we don't like. Although there were not a lot of beets, and there was a fair number of people (13) at dinner, only about half of this dish was eaten. We did have one true beet lover at the meal though, who was happy to take all the leftovers.
Dessert (Pam)
One of the special things about Thanksgiving dinner is that there are so many desserts to try. This year's options included homemade double-crust apple pie; homemade pumpkin pie; homemade bread pudding; homemade Dark Chocolate Guinness Cake with Bailey's Cream Cheese Icing (Pam's contribution). I emphasize that all of these are homemade because virtually all those who partook in yesterday's meal also had a hand in preparing it.
We got the Bailey's Bristol Cream a few months ago from an estate sale (the same one where I got the biggest bottle of wine. Ever. Which was also enjoyed at yesterday's dinner). The cake was rich, but not too sweet, and appeared to be a bigger hit than the beets.
It was a feast of foodies, with many of the victuals grown locally, in some cases at the same house where they were prepared.
The Bird (James)
As we have for the past couple of years, we purchased a free-range turkey from Misty Knoll Farms in Vermont, delivered as part of our regular dairy order from Crescent Ridge. Among the many things for which we are thankful are companies such as these, and our financial ability to support them. One should not ask why ethical, healthy food is so expensive, but rather what corners are cut to make so many other foods relatively cheap. A few years ago, we learned that we could free up room in the ovens -- and have better turkey -- if we prepared the turkey outside. Rob began preparing the coals in an ordinary grill early in the morning, and when we arrived he put a pan on them to hold some white wine and to catch drippings. I had rubbed the turkey with a paste of paprika, garlic, and olive oil, and we set it right on the grilling surface, but over such low heat that it just roasted in a winy mist. As it neared the safe-food target temperature, Rob added a couple of slivers of milled oak for smoking. (Stuffing, by the way, was prepared in separate baking pans.)
 |
| Roasted, not grilled. |
Our last farm box pick up for this season was several weeks ago. We had eaten and/or frozen most of what we had from this year's "harvest," except for the last of the beets. We are not crazy about beets, and have tried all manner of ways of preparing them to hide the flavor. Some recipes have turned out better than others. I ran a search on allrecipes.com for beets to see if there was something new to try and found a recipe actually called Thanksgiving Beets which was pretty simple, and made use of a lot of spices. so I figured it would do a good job in covering the bitterness that we don't like. Although there were not a lot of beets, and there was a fair number of people (13) at dinner, only about half of this dish was eaten. We did have one true beet lover at the meal though, who was happy to take all the leftovers.
Dessert (Pam)One of the special things about Thanksgiving dinner is that there are so many desserts to try. This year's options included homemade double-crust apple pie; homemade pumpkin pie; homemade bread pudding; homemade Dark Chocolate Guinness Cake with Bailey's Cream Cheese Icing (Pam's contribution). I emphasize that all of these are homemade because virtually all those who partook in yesterday's meal also had a hand in preparing it.
We got the Bailey's Bristol Cream a few months ago from an estate sale (the same one where I got the biggest bottle of wine. Ever. Which was also enjoyed at yesterday's dinner). The cake was rich, but not too sweet, and appeared to be a bigger hit than the beets.
It was a feast of foodies, with many of the victuals grown locally, in some cases at the same house where they were prepared.
Franksgiving Follow-Up
Thanksgiving is the holiday that keeps on giving -- in the form of leftovers -- and as we continue to reflect with gratitude on our many blessings, we also continue the feast, beginning with our Franksgiving hash.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)