Two Easy Meals from Marian Burros

When I lived in New York City in the early 1990s, I became quite fond of Marian Burros's New York Times column, Plain and Simple. When we got married in 1996, I was thrilled when among our wedding gifts were a couple of her cookbooks, including 20-Minute Menus, originally published in 1989. These two dinners are not in heavy rotation chez nous, but they do periodically reappear. I'm not including any pictures, because the visual appeal of these dishes is quite limited.

Tortilla-Chip Casserole
adapted from Marian Burros's "Plain and Simple" column in the New York Times

This recipe originally called for using a half-pound ground turkey breast; I like it better as a vehicle for leftover roast chicken.

1 t olive oil
meat of some kind (leftover roast chicken, ground turkey or beef, leftover roast beef), optional
1 jalapeño, or to taste, optional (or a little cayenne)
1 large clove garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1 bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 t ground cumin
1/2 t ground coriander
1 sm can (or half a Pomi box) diced tomatoes, drained
1/4 t salt
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1 16-oz can low-sodium black beans, drained and rinsed (or refried beans)
3 oz grated (sharp) cheddar cheese
a few handfuls of tortilla chips, or a couple of corn tortillas, torn into pieces

Heat oil in large nonstick skillet. Cook meat if you're starting with raw meat, until no longer pink. Remove excess grease if any, then add onions and peppers and sauté until softened and starting to brown. Add garlic and spices and cook for 30 seconds more, until they're fragrant. Add tomatoes (and leftover meat, if using) and cook a few minute to blend flavors. Remove mixture from skillet and put beans in bottom of pan, then top with chips, meat/veggie mixture and cheese. Cover and cook a few minutes, until cheese is melted and everything is heated through. Serve with sour cream and fresh chopped cilantro, and steamed broccoli or cauliflower on the side.

Curried Red Lentils and Cauliflower with Cashews
adapted from 20-Minute Menus by Marian Burros

8 oz red lentils
1 medium-large onion, chopped coarsely
1 large clove garlic, minced
2 T olive oil
1 t coriander
1 t cumin
1 t turmeric
1/2 t chile powder
1/4 t cardamom
1/4 t cinnamon
1/8 t ground cloves
1 small to medium head cauliflower, broken into florets
1 C chicken stock
3 oz tomato paste
1/2 C unsalted roasted cashews
plain yogurt or sour cream

In covered pot, bring lentils to boil in plenty of water to cover. Cook about 10 minutes, until soft, then drain (watch pot carefully--I don't think I've ever succeeded in not letting it boil over).

Mix spices together in a small bowl.

Heat oil in dutch oven until shimmering, then sauté onion until softened and starting to brown. Add garlic and spices and continue cooking until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in tomato paste and cook another 30 seconds, then stir in chicken stock, scraping brown bits from bottom of pan. Stir in cauliflower, cover pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, until cauliflower is tender and starting to fall apart. Stir in lentils, simmer another couple minutes to blend flavors, then remove from heat. Serve over steamed rice, topped with cashews and yogurt/sour cream.

Black Bean, Kale and Butternut Squash Stew with Quinoa

I made this recipe earlier this week for dinner. The previous night I made Swedish Meatballs on my sister's recommendation, and they were pretty darn delicious but very, very rich (I could really tell how rich when I got out the leftovers for lunch the next day and there was white congealed fat around the edges of the container). Something less heavy was called for, and I wanted to use the quinoa, kale and butternut squash I already had on hand. I didn't have a jalapeño, so I added a pinch of cayenne with the other dry spices. I didn't have canned tomatoes, but I did find at the back of the fridge about a third of a pint of Emerald Valley Medium Salsa that needed to be used up, plus I tossed in a few cubes of frozen tomato juice. I used chicken stock instead of veggie broth, and I tossed in a couple cups of frozen corn at the end. Served over the quinoa, topped with the cilantro, plus grated cheese, sour cream, and crumbled tortilla chips, it was delicious, satisfying but not dense or rich. And if you follow the original linked recipe and forgo my animal-y alterations, it's even vegan.

Basic Veggie Risotto

I make this for our family on a semi-regular basis, since it's a big hit with the kids and is adaptable to what we have on hand. Many recipes for risotto recommend constant stirring, but I never understood why that was until I tried making it in a non-nonstick pan. If you're lazy like I am, skip the fancy risotto pan and stick with the nonstick skillet.

Basic Veggie Risotto

1-2 T olive oil
1-2 cloves garlic, minced or pressed through garlic press
1 1/2-2 C arborio rice (or whatever your family needs)
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
large pinch saffron threads, crushed
1/2 C dry white wine, if you have it
6-8 C low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth (this time I used the leftover strained pan juices from the French Roast Chicken in a Pot we had a few days earlier, about a cup diluted with water to make a quart of broth)
vegetables of your choice, steamed until just tender (this time I used carrots, broccoli, kale, asparagus and peas)
a few ounces Parmigiano Reggiano, grated
1-3 T unsalted butter, cut into chunks

Put olive oil and garlic into large nonstick skillet and heat over medium-high heat until garlic just starts to sizzle (don't let it get brown; browned garlic gives a bitter flavor).

Add rice to pan with 3/4 t or so of the kosher salt and a good amount of freshly-ground black pepper. Stir for a few minutes, until rice grains are translucent with white centers and make a sound like wet sand when stirred.

If using wine, add it now, along with saffron threads. Cook until wine is mostly absorbed and alcohol smell has dissipated, then add broth to cover, stirring well. Keep stirring occasionally, making sure rice is cooking evenly, and adding additional broth (and perhaps a little salt) as needed.

While rice is cooking, steam veggies until just tender, starting with the carrots, which take longest to cook. When veggies are done, remove from pan so they don't keep cooking while they wait for the rice to finish.

Rice is done when kernels no longer have hard centers and the mixture seems creamy (from the starch the rice has given off while it cooks). It should be a little looser than you want it to end up, as the rice will continue to absorb liquid as it cools. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the butter and cheese, then fold in the vegetables (I put in the peas while still frozen, which helps cool the risotto to kid-edible).

Adjust seasonings, let rest for just a couple of minutes, then serve.

Pasta with Summer Squash Redux

I made this recipe again, and I remembered to take a picture. Just barely (this is the last of the leftovers).



Too bad the kids are on an anti-zucchini kick.

Making Life Simpler

So, I had these corn tortillas that had been in the freezer for who knows how long (seriously, well over a year--I can hear my sister gasping from here), and the last time I used them to make enchiladas they were kind of hard to deal with, and didn't roll up all pretty like they were supposed to. Hmmm, I thought, I wonder what would happen if I made all the ingredients for enchiladas, and then layered them in the dish à la lasagna? Last night I found out.



Deliciousness. And you can skip all that softening-of-the-tortillas nonsense. I followed the recipe for the sauce, but didn't strain out the solids, and mixed just the cheese (queso fresco) and cilantro together. I put a little of the sauce in the bottom of the pan, made an overlapping layer of six tortillas, topped it with half the cheese, then half the chicken (trying to leave most of the sauce in the pan), then repeated, scraping all the sauce out of the skillet with a silicone spatula. After 20 minutes in the oven at 300, it was perfect. Newton thought it was a bit too spicy (buying bulk chili powder is a bit of a crapshoot when it comes to the Scoville scale), but was able to finish his serving with a little sour cream. Cindy Lou liked it okay, but the Wizard switched to leftover pasta.

Stay tuned for more adventures with the technically-still-edible as I try to plan around things already on hand in the pantry.

The Potluck That Wasn't

Last night was the opening activity of Newton's school year--the back-to-school ice cream social. Last year's similar event was a potluck dinner, and with a starting time of six, it didn't occur to me that this year's wouldn't be. Silly me. So we left our salad in the car, had dessert first (blecchy little single-serving ice cream cups, you know the kind I'm talking about), and then ate what we could of the salad (I was making for a potluck, not for my little family, several members of which are dubious about salads anyway!).

I made a salad I've been craving lately: BBQ Chicken Chop. I first had it at California Pizza Kitchen several years ago, and was so delighted that I wrote down all the ingredients on the paper tape that had secured my napkin around my flatware. This time I made it with homemade ranch dressing. No, for once I wasn't trying to be an overachiever. I had come across the recipe while looking for one for dip to go with crudités. Then I discovered that the bottle of ranch dressing in my fridge was about 3 years past date and suspiciously beige. And then I realized that I had all the ingredients for the recipe. Since I'm not a frequent ranch dressing consumer, I'll probably end up making it for those occasions where nothing else will do.

BBQ Chicken Chop Salad

chopped lettuce (I used romaine and green leaf, about 1 1/2 heads--you need something crisp and sturdy)
5 oz grated Monterey Jack cheese
3 small scallions, minced (I used a bit more than this and came to regret it)
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 C frozen petite corn kernels
1 C small-diced jicama
1 C diced tomato (I used red and orange--very pretty with the yellow corn and black beans)
ranch dressing (bottled or homemade)
broken tortilla chips
barbecued chicken, shredded in sauce (I use Lloyd's, that comes in a tub)

Toss everything but the chicken together, then top with the chicken. (If you're taking it to a potluck, take the cheese, chips, ranch and chicken separately and assemble the salad after you get there.)

To make the ranch dressing, I started with a recipe in The New Best Recipe, from the Cook's Illustrated people. I doubled it, which made a bit more than I needed for the above amount (but I think a single recipe wouldn't have been enough). I also made it in the Cuisinart instead of mincing everything by hand, and after it was put together I added more sour cream, about doubling what they originally called for. It's plenty allium-y (especially if serving with the scallion-y salad above!), so err on the side of less with the garlic, scallion and shallot. Here's how I made it:

Ranch Dressing

1 small-medium clove garlic, pressed through garlic press
2 small-medium scallions, white and green parts, chopped
1 medium shallot, chopped (a couple of tablespoons)
1 T minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 T minced fresh cilantro
2 T chopped red bell pepper
1 t freshly-squeezed lemon juice
1/2 t salt
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 C buttermilk
1/2 C mayonnaise
1/2 C sour cream

Process in food processor in order given, scraping down sides of work bowl repeatedly to eliminate large chunks. Refrigerate and use within a few days.

Fricassee Chicken/Chicken Fricassee

In search of a recipe that would use the chicken thighs in the fridge, I leafed through my stack of March-April Cook's Illustrateds. Chicken biryani looked promising (I'll surely make it soon), but needed too many ingredients. Chicken Fricassee, from the Mar-Apr 1999 issue (which also contained the Best Split Pea Soup Ever--if the Double Chocolate Pudding in that issue turns out great, it might win the coveted Favorite Issue award), was much more promising--all I was missing was a little white wine and a little lemon juice. The basic recipe in the magazine called for mushrooms, but a published variation called for peas and carrots. Mavis would have liked the mushrooms, but the rest of us like peas and carrots better, plus I already had them in the fridge/freezer. Maybe some other time I'll make it with the mushrooms.

When J&J were living in Jamaica, the butler at a favorite vacation villa (doesn't that sound posh? when you live there and can get resident--as opposed to tourist--rates, it only seems like you're living high) used to make a dish called fricassee chicken, with a rich brown sauce. This is not that dish, nor does it resemble it in any way beyond consisting of chicken cooked in a tasty sauce. It was, however, very good.

Chicken Fricassee
serves 4 (or, in our case, 3 adults and two hearty-eating small boys)
adapted from Cook's Illustrated Mar-Apr 1999

8 small boneless skinless chicken thighs (about 1.5 lb)
4 T butter
2 T olive oil
2 1/2 C chicken broth (from concentrated low-Na homemade stock)
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1 medium carrot, chopped fine
1/2 C dry white wine (I use Crow Canyon chardonnay, $6.99/bottle)
1/2 C frozen peas
3 T flour
1 C half and half
1 t fresh thyme leaves
1 1/2 T fresh lemon juice
1/4 t grated nutmeg (original recipe calls for freshly grated, which would have been nice had I had any on hand)
1/4 C minced fresh Italian parsley

Season chicken lightly with salt and pepper. Heat 1 T each olive oil and butter in both a dutch oven and a medium skillet (both with lids that fit) over medium-high heat. When foam begins to subside, add chicken pieces and cook until well browned, 4-5 minutes on each side. Don't crowd the pans and don't move the chicken pieces until you're ready to flip them. Pour off all but 2 T fat from dutch oven, put all the chicken in the pot (squished into one layer), and add stock. Partially cover and bring to boil, then simmer 25 minutes. Remove pot from heat, transfer chicken to a bowl and cover with lid from pot.

While chicken is simmering, drain all but 1 T fat from skillet, and add onion, carrot and 1/2 t salt. Sauté over medium-high heat until onion begins to brown. Reduce heat, add wine, cover, and simmer 10 minutes or so. Stir in peas, increase heat, and cook another couple minutes until almost all the liquid has evaporated, a minute or two more. Transfer veggies to bowl (scraping skillet with silicone spatula) and set aside.

Heat remaining 2 T butter in skillet over medium heat until foaming. Add flour and whisk until golden, then vigorously whisk in half and half until it's smooth. Then quickly whisk this (very thick) white stuff into chicken cooking liquid in dutch oven. Bring to boil over medium-high heat, then reduce heat and simmer, stirring often, until thickened to the consistency of heavy cream, 6-8 minutes. Stir in veggies, thyme, lemon juice and nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste. Add back in chicken and simmer until heated through (which might be right away if the chicken hasn't been out long, or a couple of minutes at the most). Stir in half of parsley, reserving rest for garnish (I actually stirred it all in, for convenience, and it was just a tad grassy. Next time I'll just mince half as much.).

I served it over brown rice, with another loaf of Simple Crusty Bread and a simple salad of baby spinach, avocado and Valencia orange with honey-balsamic vinaigrette. The Wizard had two helpings of salad!!



For dessert we had these funny Kyrgyz candies brought back to the US by Mavis's mom and to us by Mavis's dad, who arrived yesterday.

Roast Chicken IV

MWR had suggested that I try the Chez Panisse and Simply French roast chicken recipes, and since he was going to be passing through on Sunday, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. So, Chez Panisse it was. It's quite a simple recipe, involving rubbing the chicken inside and out with a spicy rub, shoving a handful of fresh thyme in the cavity, and roasting it until it's done, in a pan with no rack, no turning, no basting. In other words, no funny stuff.

Spice-Rubbed Roast Chicken

1 t fennel seed
1/4 t red pepper flakes
1 1/2 t kosher salt
1/2 t ground black pepper
bunch fresh thyme
4 lb roasting chicken, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine first four ingredients in mortar and pestle and grind to crack fennel seeds. Remove giblets and excess fat from chicken cavity, and rub chicken inside and out with salt mixture. Stuff thyme inside cavity. Put chicken in roasting pan and roast for about an hour, or until thigh temp is 165 and breast no more than 170. Remove from oven and let rest 10-15 minutes before carving.

Here it is before popping it in the oven (note: this is not a four-pound chicken! It was the last one in the coop that day, so it's a 5.25-pounder).



Sous-chef/dinner guest MWR brandishing the chicken as we flip it onto its tummy to rest.



Resting chicken before I tented it with foil.



The flavor, with the fennel and red pepper, was really lovely. We overcooked it a tad, so the breast meat wasn't as moist as I like, but the flavorings were worth doing again for sure.

We had ganache-filled and cream-cheese-frostinged mini cupcakes for dessert, and once again I forgot to photograph them with their pretty pink frosting on. Here's what it looked like after we had consumed a dozen.

Saffron-Yogurt Chicken Curry

So, I copied Adriana and made that Chicken Curry from FoodBuzz. Because it was a complicated recipe, I did a mise en place with most of the ingredients, and naturally missed adding a couple of things (the sugar and the tomato puree (I used tomato paste from a tube)) at the right time. It still turned out fantastically tasty.

The yogurt-saffron mixture (I used whole milk yogurt, and some of that Spanish saffron):



The spices to be bloomed in hot oil:



The onion/garlic/ginger paste, with the spices due to be added with it:



I decided to brown my chicken before starting anything else, for more flavor. Next time I'll cut the chicken into smaller pieces.



After the sauté, starting to stew (next time I'll add the cauliflower half-way through, and resist the impulse to add just a little extra water):



The finished curry, after stirring in the yogurt/saffron and simmering a bit longer (when I first added it, the yogurt seemed to curdle, but after a little while simmering, it seemed to un-curdle; white bits visible in the finished dish are from the overcooked cauliflower):



Served over long-grain brown rice, with frozen naan from Trader Joe's (remarkably tasty):



Finally, a picture of Cindy Lou with Mavis (he's usually the one behind the camera). I wanted a picture of her in one of my favorite outfits for her before she outgrows it:

Reverend Spooner Jr.

A lot of the odd pronunciations favored by Number Two/Mr. Middle/Whatchamacallim are because he can't say certain sounds, like S-combinations or Ls. Others are Spoonerisms, where sounds are swapped between words or syllables. Hence, chicken when he means kitchen, effawint when he means elephant, etc. My all-time favorite (so far), though: he spotted Mavis in the study taking off a pair of headphones, and said, "Daddy done with phode-hens." Awesome.

We had Split-Pea Soup for dinner last night, and it was fantastically delicious, as usual. I added a leftover sweet potato, diced, with the russet, and it made it even better--more colorful and more flavorful. We ate the last of the honeyless half-whole-wheat crusty bread, and I continue to be absolutely thrilled with the ease of that recipe and the quality of the results. For tonight's dinner of split-pea leftovers, though, I'll be making some other kind of bready item, maybe biscuits. I'll mix up the next batch of bread dough, but I won't bake it today, to give it more time to work its magic in the fridge.

Update: Thanks to Lindsey, we had Irish Soda Bread. It was tasty (love the flavor buttermilk imparts), but a bit dense, like, I'm not sure it rose at all. Maybe this will be a future set of recipe trials.

Mmmm, Chowdah

For tonight's dinner I tried another recipe from that free trial issue of Cook's Country. It was quick and tasty. I made about 2/3 of the recipe, and we ate about 2/3 of it or a little less. Next time I'll have proportionally a tad more chicken (tonight's package had just under a pound). Here's more or less how I made it (using the magazine's original proportions):

Chicken/Sweet Potato/Corn Chowder
serves 8-10

3 C whole milk
1 cup Jiffy corn muffin mix
2 T butter
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1/2 t ground cumin
1/2 t dried oregano (I'll use fresh when I have it)
2 qts low-sodium chicken broth (I used turkey broth from last Thanksgiving--it needed to be used up or risk languishing in the freezer forever)
1.5 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 sweet potatoes (about 1.5 lbs), peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (I always use garnet "yams")
1 C shredded Monterey Jack cheese (I used cheddar, because the Monterey Jack I had had on hand got used up before I got around to making this recipe)
3 C frozen corn kernels (not thawed)
1/2 C chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste

1. Mix milk and muffin mix in large glass measuring cup (if you have to measure the milk anyway, why dirty another bowl?). Heat butter in dutch oven over medium heat until foaming. Sauté onion until softened and starting to brown. Add chicken and continue sautéing until chicken has lost most of its pink parts and the fond is building up on the bottom of the pan. Stir in garlic, cumin, oregano and about 1 t kosher salt until onions and chicken are coated and spices are fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add broth and sweet potatoes, bring to a boil and then simmer until potatoes are just forkable, 5-6 minutes.

2. Stir in milk/muffin mix mixture and simmer another 10 minutes, until soup thickens. Remove pan from heat and stir in corn and parsley. Adjust seasonings, then ladle into bowls and topped with grated cheese to serve.

Never again! Stop me if you sense me heading that direction.

About every three years, I see an intriguing recipe and decide that it would be a good idea to pan-sear salmon. And then somehow I magically forget how messy it is, and how the smell lingers in the downdraft vent until it gets thoroughly degreased. I guess it's like childbirth that way, except that the end product (NPI) is more temporal.

So Saturday night I decided to try a pan-seared salmon recipe from Cook's Country (to which I subscribed for a year, until I decided my recipe inflow was insanely excessive; this recipe came from a recent free issue they sent me trying to get me to resubscribe). The thing was, I was in a hurry to get the salmon into the pan because the oil was smoking, and I splattered grease on my face and right hand. I don't recommend doing this. I managed to finish preparing dinner while spending as much time as possible holding my hand under cool running water (it blistered anyway) and pressing a cool wet dishtowel to my face (it didn't blister, but I am looking considerably more blotchy than is usual). I hope you'll understand why I didn't manage to take any pictures. I'm just glad I was wearing glasses, as a couple of big blobs hit smack in the middle of the lenses. I shudder to think.

Anyway, the pan-seared salmon was good, as usual, but not really worth the extra trouble, as usual, not to mention the injuries. The glaze was pretty tasty, though, and I'll probably make it to go with salmon prepared another way.

Balsamic Glaze

1/4 C balsamic vinegar
1/4 C orange juice (I used the juice of half of a large navel)
2 T honey
1 sprig fresh rosemary
2 T cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
salt and pepper to taste

Mix vinegar, juice and honey to dissolve honey, then put in a small skillet with rosemary. Simmer and reduce until it's syrupy and only a couple of tablespoons remain. Turn off heat, leaving pan on warm burner, and stir in butter. Season with salt and pepper and serve over salmon.

Bread and Chicken, Chicken and Bread

Friday was the third and last roast chicken trial. This is the method I used most in the past, taken from The Cook's Bible by Christopher Kimball.

Slow-Roast Chicken

3.5-lb chicken
little bit of butter
kosher salt and freshly-ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Remove giblets from chicken cavity and pat dry with paper towels. Poke chicken all over with small skewer (I used a bamboo cake tester) (this is borrowed from the crispy-skin method, in part to make the skin crispier and in part because the pok-pok noise when you pierce the skin is so satisfying). Put chicken in V-rack in roasting pan, breast side up. Put a little softened butter on your hands (a teaspoon or so) and rub the chicken all over. Then sprinkle lightly with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. (I suppose now is where you could put the whole assemblage into the fridge overnight to dry out the skin, in which case you shouldn't have the oven on yet.)

Put chicken in oven and roast for 30-35 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 200 degrees and roast for an hour. Then raise oven temperature to 400 degrees for a further 15-30 minutes, until temperature is 165 in the thigh and 170 in the breast (or thereabouts).

As you can see from the pictures, I also tried this time to stick veggies in the bottom of the roasting pan: a garnet yam, peeled and cut into chunks, the rest of the Russian Banana fingerling potatoes, a few carrots, peeled and cut into sections, and two leeks, quartered. I drizzled with a tiny bit of olive oil (since the chicken would be dripping its own fat on them, too), sprinkled with some salt and pepper and tossed to coat. The leeks didn't fare so well--if I do them again, I'll leave them whole (the ones I've been getting don't have much if any dirt down in them), or switch to whole shallots.

This chicken was delicious, and just about as easy as the French pot-roast method. I think in the future I'll use the French method if I want to make gravy, or just for a change, but I'll go back to this method as my default.

I also baked up the last of the Simple Crusty Bread, this time borrowing from another no-knead bread recipe, in Cook's Illustrated. They suggest letting the dough rest/rise in a parchment-lined skillet, and then transferring dough and parchment to a preheated cast-iron dutch oven in the oven. The oven and pot are preheated to 500 degrees, and then the temperature is lowered to 425 for the remainder of baking, the first half-hour with lid in place, and second half-hour uncovered.

This method definitely works better than throwing water in the broiler pan underneath the baking stone for developing a crisp, shiny crust. However, it seemed to me that the parchment imparted a slightly off flavor to the bottom crust of the bread. I've never had that issue with baking on parchment before, but then it's never had direct contact with a preheated-to-500 degrees hunk of cast iron before, either. I seem to recall one of the other no-knead recipes I've seen also called for baking in a dutch oven, but without parchment. I'll see if I can track that one down and try it.



And finally, the bebe, hanging out with Grandma.

"The Perfect Dinner"

Or so Number One said, per Mavis (I didn't hear it when he said it, and true to form he wouldn't repeat it). I don't know if I liked it better than the previous night's chicken (and the prep was a bit more complicated), but it was delicious and worth making again.

Crunchy Baked Pork Chops, Apple Slaw, steamed broccoli, roast Russian Banana fingerling potatoes.

Crunchy Baked Pork Chops
adapted from Cook's Illustrated Jan/Feb 2008

4 boneless center-cut pork chops, 6-8 oz each, 3/4 to 1 inch thick, trimmed of excess fat (I had some random tenderloin ends instead, about the size of chops, so I just cut off the silver skin and went for it; I'll probably use chops next time)
4 slices hearty white sandwich bread, torn into one-inch pieces (I had a random collection of crusts in the freezer leftover from some other recipe. I had originally thought yesterday's homemade bread would have enough left over for this recipe, I didn't feel like buying a whole new loaf, and this stuff was at least white)
1 small shallot, minced (about 2 T)
3 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed (about 1 T)
2 T vegetable oil
ground black pepper
2 T grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 t minced fresh thyme leaves
2 T minced fresh parsley leaves
1/2 C unbleached all-purpose flour, divided
2 large egg whites
2 T dijon mustard (Cook's calls for 3 eggs whites and 3 T mustard, and a little bit more flour, which I think would be possibly too much and wasteful; in any case I had plenty)

Preheat oven to 350. (Cook's calls for brining the meat, which I never do. If you want to--and if you are using injected/seasoned supermarket pork you unequivocally SHOULD NOT--they recommend 1/4 C table salt in 1 qt water in gallon zipper-lock bag. Squeeze air out of bag before sealing and refrigerate 30 minutes. Then rinse under cold water and dry thoroughly with paper towels.)

Pulse bread in food processor until coarsely ground, making about 3 1/2 C crumbs. Put crumbs on rimmed baking sheet with shallot, garlic, oil, 1/4 t salt, and 1/4 t pepper. Toss with your hands until oil coats crumbs and other ingredients are evenly distributed. Bake until browned and dried, about 15 minutes, stirring every five minutes. Remove baking sheet, but do not turn off oven. Let crumbs cool to room temperature, and toss with Parmesan, thyme and parsley.

Put 1/4 C flour in one shallow dish. In another, whisk egg whites with mustard until smooth, then mix in 1/4 C flour until fairly well blended but not entirely smooth.

Increase oven temperature to 425. Cook's calls for using a wire rack in a rimmed baking sheet, but I only have the one rimmed baking sheet and no rack to fit it, so I used a nice broiler pan (with pointed ridges and therefore less contact with the meat). Season chops with pepper (oops, forgot that). Dredge each chop in flour, then use tongs to coat with egg white/mustard mixture, letting excess drip off. Coat all sides of chops with bread crumb mixture, pressing gently to help adhere, then transfer to broiler pan.

Bake until center temp of chops is 150, 17-25 minutes (20 was just right for mine). Let rest 4 minutes before serving. (Cook's serves with lemon wedges, obviously because they didn't have the following Apple Slaw recipe.)

Apple Slaw
from Real Simple, who knows how long ago

I think if I were serving this as a condiment, this recipe would make too much. That was my initial thought. But if you take it as a salad (and it works quite well as one), this is just the right amount. I think any firm and tart apple would work about as well as the Granny Smiths--this fall I hope to use the winesaps from my own tree.

2 Granny Smith apples, cut into matchsticks (I started out using a knife and quickly switched to the julienne blade on my mandoline)
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
1 T fresh lemon juice
1/4 C sour cream
1/4 C chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 t salt
1/8 t pepper
1/3 C toasted pine nuts

Clawing My Way Out of That Rut

We were all getting sick of the winter rut (Mavis actually told me after I last served it that he was pretty much done with pearl couscous with sausage and butternut squash), so I am now entering what I sort of hope will be a significant period of experimentation and adding new things to our regular repertoire. I say "sort of" because as much as I love cooking and putting together wonderful meals for my family, trying new recipes takes more time than throwing together familiar ones, and I get even more behind in my other projects and responsibilities. So we'll see how long I am able to keep it up before the burgeoning chaos (read: piles of random stuff) completely swamps the computer.

I have read in several places lately (okay, probably over the last year or so) several different versions of no- or low-knead bread. Tonight I tried the first of these collected recipes. As with the chicken, this one seems so easy that I may never get to all the others (although watch this space for the third and last roast chicken trial, coming in about a week). I got this from the Oregonian FOODay, but I can't find the recipe online.

Simple Crusty Bread
makes 4 loaves

1 1/2 T yeast (regular, not instant or rapid-rise)
1 1/2 T kosher salt
6 1/2 C unbleached all-purpose, plus more for dusting dough
3 C water
cornmeal for dusting pizza peel

In a large bowl or plastic container, mix yeast and salt into 3 C lukewarm water (about 100 degrees). Stir in flour, mixing until there are no dry patches. Dough will be quite loose [not really]. Cover, but not with an airtight lid. Let dough rise at room temperature 2 hours (or up to 5 hours [what I did]).

Here is the dough after mixing and before rising (after five hours it was up to the rim of the bowl; actually, it was there after 2, but didn't get any bigger after that):

Bake at this point or refrigerate, covered, for as long as two weeks. When ready to bake, sprinkle a little flour on dough and cut off a grapefruit-size piece [or, since this is supposed to make four loaves, 1/4 of the dough] with a serrated knife. Turn dough in hands to lightly stretch surface, creating a mounded top and a lumpy bottom. Put dough on pizza peel sprinkled with cornmeal; let rest 40 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough or refrigerate it, loosely covered.

Here is the shaped loaf, sitting on the pizza peel to rest.

Place broiler pan on bottom of oven. Place baking stone on middle rack and turn oven to 450 degrees; heat stone at that temperature for 20 minutes.

Dust dough with flour, slash top with serrated or very sharp knife three times. Slide onto stone. Pour 1 C hot water into broiler pan and shut oven quickly to trap steam. Bake until well browned, about 30 minutes. Cool completely.

Tonight's other trial came from the latest Cook's Illustrated. It seemed like something we would all like, and I already had some of the ingredients. The original recipe called for using 4 8-oz chicken breasts cut into 8 cutlets to serve 4 people. Heavens, that's a lot of meat. I halved it (or close to it--the two breasts I bought were just over a pound total) for the four of us, and it was perfect. Here's how I made it:

Chicken Saltimbocca

1/4 C unbleached all-purpose flour
freshly ground black pepper
2 chicken breasts
1 1/2 t minced fresh sage leaves, plus 4 whole large leaves
thinly-sliced prosciutto to cover one side of each cutlet (for me, 2 slices of Prosciutto di Parma were enough)
2 T olive oil
5 oz dry vermouth
1 t freshly-squeezed lemon juice
2 T cold unsalted butter, cut into four pieces
1 1/2 t minced fresh parsley
salt to taste

Preheat oven to 200. Combine flour and 1/2 t pepper in shallow dish. Trim chicken, removing tender from underside, and carefully cut parallel to cutting board into 1/4 to 1/2-inch-thick cutlets.

If chicken seems wet (mine didn't), pat dry with paper towels, then dredge in flour, shaking off excess. Sprinkle one side of cutlets evenly with chopped sage, then top with prosciutto, trimmed to fit (Cook's says to press lightly to adhere, but when I did this it only made it stick to my hand).

With familiar recipes I'm cooking from memory, I don't usually do a mise en place, but it's a really good idea when you're trying something new to have everything ready to go before beginning, especially if it's a pretty fast-moving recipe and/or you're trying to prepare (as I was tonight) other parts of dinner at the same time.

Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add sage leaves and cook until leaves are uniform in color, 30 seconds maximum. Carefully lift out with tongs and put on paper towels. Carefully put half the cutlets in the pan, prosciutto side down (tricky because it doesn't really stick to the chicken), and cook until light golden brown, 2-3 minutes. Flip carefully (I used tongs) and cook on the second side until also golden, another 2 minutes or so. Transfer to warm plate in the oven, and repeat with the second batch.

Pour off excess fat from skillet, and pour vermouth into the pan, scraping up brown bits if necessary (I found that the pan was hot enough that the boiling action of the vermouth lifted it all up without any scraping on my part). Simmer until reduced to just a few tablespoons, 5 minutes or so. Stir in lemon juice, then reduce heat to low and stir in butter, one lump at a time. Remove from heat and stir in parsley and season with a little salt and pepper.

The finished sauce:

Remove chicken from oven, pour sauce over it, and top each cutlet with a sage leaf.

I served it with the bread (just a tad dense; I'll make more/deeper slashes for the next loaf) and cheesy polenta with zucchini. Argh! I just realized I forgot the fruit dish I had planned to serve, incorporating some of those beautiful canned pears I put up last fall! Oh well.



This meal was a big hit with everyone except Number Two, who was too tired to be overtly enthusiastic about anything other than the bread, but who nevertheless ate almost all of what we served him.

Speaking of Number Two, I've decided to come up with better blog names for my kids. Suggestions are welcome.

Three Kids/Three Things

The bebe rolled over for the first time yesterday. Mavis was home with the two younger kids while I was teaching choir at Number One's school. She was playing on her mat while Number Two watched Sesame Street and Mavis was in the adjoining study. She suddenly got fussy, and he turned to see that she'd gotten stuck on her tummy and didn't know how to turn back. She's done it a few times since. Aw, she's growing up!

Number Two is getting more excited about words, even occasionally recognizing them in print. Today as we were getting ready to leave a playgroup, he saw a sign and said, "That says 'Stop'!" which it did. Well, he actually said something more like "Gnat say ''Top'!", where the apostrophe before the T stands for a nasal exhale--how he commonly deals with esses in consonant combinations.

And finally, Number One keeps all my faithful and dedicated readers in mind. Last night, midway through dinner, he said, "This is new--shouldn't you take a picture of it?" He was right, it was something I haven't blogged about, but there wasn't really enough left on the plates to justify taking a picture. The recipe was one I originally found in the NYTimes when I lived in New York, from Marian Burros's "Plain and Simple" column (I think--I'm too lazy to go downstairs and dig it out). She originally served it with basil mashed potatoes, and I went for our old standby orange and green mashed potatoes (with the last of that purple kale, and shallot instead of onion) instead. The recipe might have originally included a small amount of white wine, but I don't remember for sure and in any case I didn't have any one hand, so this is how I made it last night.

Lemon-Thyme Chicken

boneless skinless chicken breasts (I made four, which was one too many, but they almost always come two to a package)
flour, seasoned with salt and pepper, for dredging (optional if you're trying to reduce carbs or just lazy)
olive oil or butter or combination
salt and freshly ground pepper
medium shallot, chopped fine (ping-pong ball sized)
few sprigs thyme (I popped leaves off before adding to the pan; Marian originally left them on and then removed the stems before serving)
juice of one half-lemon
zest from about half the half-lemon
1/2 C chicken stock
few blobs of butter (maybe a tablespoon total)

Pound the chicken breasts to an even thickness (usually about a half-inch), and dredge in seasoned flour if using. Heat oil/butter/both in nonstick skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering, then add chicken in a single layer (if you didn't dredge it in flour, season with a little salt and pepper now). Brown on both sides, then remove from pan (or, if it's not too brown and you have a big skillet, stack it all on one side). Add shallot to pan and sauté until translucent and starting to brown, adding thyme leaves or sprigs halfway through. Add lemon zest and juice and chicken stock and scrape up browned bits. If you removed the chicken from the pot, or if it needs a tad bit further cooking, flip it in sauce to coat and let simmer a few minutes until done. Then add blobs of butter as you remove the pan from the heat, correct seasonings and serve.

Number One really liked the flavor of the sauce, so I suspect I'll be getting a request to fix it again soon. I successfully planned menus for most of this week (yay me!). Saturday we had beef and broccoli stir-fry, Sunday a veggie risotto, then the lemon chicken. Tonight will be buffalo burgers, tomorrow or Thursday pan-roasted pork tenderloin and couscous salad, and Friday I'll make mac and cheese for the kids while we go out. I'm still missing one dinner, hm.

It's Cold Outside

There was a little snow yesterday, and I mean a little, at least in our neighborhood. Just enough to make things sort-of white and the roads a bit slick. School was delayed two hours and canceled altogether in snowier areas. Today it's storming to beat the band, but temperatures have risen a bit and it's just wet wet wet.

The lavender shortbread recipe I got from Adriana turned out awesome. I rolled the dough into cylinders and cut it into 1/4-inch slices using my wire cheese slicer. Today I tried these New-Wave Nutmeg Cookie Logs, only using the same sliced-cylinder method and skipping the frosting. Pretty tasty, but I definitely like the shortbread texture better.

It's been a big week of change for the two younger kids in the house. Number Two started stuttering, quite severely at first, at the beginning of the week. Then, mid-week, he abruptly decided he was no longer going to take a nap (this from a kid who only the week before had been relishing a three-hour afternoon sleep). Then, Sunday, the stutter miraculously disappeared, just when I was starting to wonder if a call to his pediatrician was in order. Odd.

The bebe has been madly chewing on her hands and flailing at anything that comes into range. She also started laughing, though it still sounds a bit strained, while being tickled or led through a game of pattycake. Awesome. Last week she had a few days where she was waking up earlier on each successive day, and I was starting to get worried she'd start regressing, but since then she's resumed her not-waking-up-before-seven-am habits (after going to bed between 10 and 11 pm). Bless her heart.

Number Two loves to hold the bebe:




Last night's dinner was flank steak fajita burritos. Well, sort of. Really more of a cross between burritos and tacos, since we used the smaller size of tortillas. For the meat, I defrosted a flank steak for 24 hours in the fridge, then sliced it in half lengthwise, then into 1/8-inch slices. It is way, way easier to do this if the meat is still mostly frozen. I tossed the meat with a little chili powder and some freshly-ground cumin, then sautéed over high heat with a thinly-sliced red pepper. I heated up a can of refried black beans with some cheese for the boys and Mavis (I'm avoiding beans for the bebe's sake), and we assembled our own tarritos à table. 8-inch whole wheat tortillas, heated in a dry skillet and kept on a plate in a kitchen towel. A small Haas avocado and an heirloom tomato, cut into chunks. Fresh-ish salsa (from the refrigerated deli case, not in a jar). Sour cream. Coarsely chopped red leaf lettuce. Yum.

Rut.

I haven't been making much new for dinner lately, just going with my old winter standbys (Butternut & Bacon Risotto, Red Lentil Dal, and Moroccan Couscous, Chicken with Mole Sauce (I tried it with boneless skinless thighs and it was even better than I had hoped--it just takes longer), Spaghetti Carbonara, Chicken & Dumplings, Maple-Glazed Roast Chicken and Root Vegetables, Sausage with Pearl Couscous, and Roast Beef with Orange and Green Mashed Potatoes. Tomorrow I'm planning on a nice Kale-Leek-Bacon Quiche, with a new locally-made Brindisi cheese. I have been pretty proud of myself for planning actual meals before it gets to be 5:15 and Mavis calls to say he's heading home and I tell him to pick up takeout on his way.

The one thing I've been experimenting with a little more is baking. I made Minty Chocolate Crinkles (and found that 12 minutes on uninsulated cookie sheets was better than the 10 they recommend). Here is the recipe for the delicious Pumpkin Pie Bread Pudding with Bourbon Toffee Sauce that my sil made for the big shindig. I also made Garnet Yam Poundcake (can't find the recipe online, but it came from the paper, too), and was more than a little disappointed. I love poundcake, and would love to be able to bake it for myself, but why is it that every full-sized poundcake I've ever made was getting way too brown on the edges before the middle was close to being done? It's happened at different times and in different ovens, from different recipes. Do I need to divide the batter and cook it in smaller pans? Lower the cooking temperature? If anyone has a poundcake recipe that REALLY WORKS for baking at home, I'd love to try it.

Anyway, next on the docket is lavender shortbread like Adriana made recently. Mmm. Oh, and I'm getting around to the (award-winning!) fudge and caramels that didn't happen before Christmas. Now I'll be delivering homemade candy for Valentine's Day.

A note about toasting hazelnuts (I needed some for the Garnet Yam Poundcake)--I know I've said various things about methods in the past, but this was my most successful yet: spread nuts in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet and pop into cold oven. Set temp for 300 degrees, and check on them after 20-30 minutes. When the skins are cracked and they're just starting to smell fragrant, pull them out. Remove skins right away by rubbing in a towel, or wait until they've cooled and rub them off with your fingers.

Savory Fall Risotto

I made this last week, and remembered to have the camera ready to take a picture of it, but then the batteries were dead, and I was too impatient and hungry to track down new ones. So when I made it again this week, I was sure to remember.

Here's the finished product:




This is from a recipe of Jamie Oliver's that was published in the Oregonian a few years ago. He called it "Pumpkin, Sage, Chestnut and Bacon Risotto"; I call it Butternut & Bacon Risotto, and my version (adapted from his) is below.

Butternut & Bacon Risotto

1 medium butternut squash, sliced into 1-inch slices and seeds removed
olive oil
1 T whole coriander seeds
salt and freshly ground black pepper
12 thin or 6 thick slices of bacon or pancetta (I had thick on hand)
a few ounces chopped shelled roasted chestnuts
15 or so fresh sage leaves
6-8 C chicken broth, reconstituted from concentrated stock
3 shallots, finely chopped (about a racquetball's worth)
2 large ribes celery, finely chopped
two small or one large carrot, peeled, halved lengthwise, and sliced on the diagonal
6 or so leaves of black Italian (lacinato) kale, stems removed and sliced crosswise into 1/4 inch pieces
1 1/2 C arborio rice, give or take
[1/2 C dry white wine or dry white vermouth--didn't have so didn't use]
a few tablespoons butter, cut into cubes
a few ounces finely grated parmesan

Preheat oven to 375°. Cut neck of butternut squash into 1-inch slices. Cut bulb of squash in half lengthwise, remove seeds and pulp, and then cut crosswife into 1-inch slices. Arrange squash on a lightly oiled large rimmed baking sheet, drizzle with a little olive oil, and set aside.

Using a mortar & pestle, crush the coriander seeds. Sprinkle about half of them over the pumpkin, along with a little salt and pepper. If using thick-cut bacon, spread it over the squash slices now. Bake until squash is soft, about 30-40 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine the other half of the coriander seeds with the chestnuts and sage and a little salt and pepper. Add a tablespoon or so of olive oil, and toss to coat. Pull pan of pumpkin out of the oven. If using thin-cut bacon, spread it over the squash. Sprinkle the coriander-chestnut-sage mixture over the top, and return to oven until bacon is crisp. [I found my bacon was so thick that I had to pull it off for more frying to fully render the fat, which added another step. Tant pis.] Remove from the oven and set aside.

Warm your broth in the microwave so it's piping hot. Heat a large skillet, dutch oven or risotto pan, add a little olive oil, shallots, celery, carrots, kale and a pinch of salt. Sauté until starting to soften, then add rice and keep stirring for a couple of minutes, until the rice starts to be translucent. If using wine, add it now and stir until it's absorbed.

Start adding broth a bit at a time, stirring well after each addition (but you don't have to stir it CONSTANTLY). Meanwhile, chop the bacon (before or after frying it to crisp it up if you used really thick bacon like I did), and skin and irregularly-chop the squash, adding it to the pan as you go (that way the earliest bits will break down completely, and the later bits will be chunky). Rice is done when it doesn't have any hard bits in the middle.

Remove pan from heat and stir in butter and parmesan. The original recipe calls for sprinkling the bacon, chestnuts, coriander & sage on top, but it's much easier to just mix them in.

Now, that's basically the structure of the recipe as it was printed in the Oregonian. However, it would be possible to make it in fewer steps and with fewer pans. I think I might have done it this way before (there's a note at the bottom of my copy of the recipe--"cook pumpkin in risotto?"). This would involve starting out with the bacon in the risotto pan, frying the sage leaves with it, reserving a small amount of bacon grease to sauté the aromatics, and dicing the squash raw and adding it to the pan with the first addition of broth. I think it would still work, and it would be faster and easier.

One thing's for sure--do not skip the crushed whole coriander seeds. In the past when I've made this recipe, I didn't have any on hand and used a small amount of ground coriander. It's so much better with the crushed whole seeds, I can't even tell you.

Progress!

Number Two's had a language breakthrough in the last day and a half--last night he said what we are considering his first complete sentence, with subject, verb and object: "[Number Two] like ham." It seemed fitting (the ham to which he was referring had lately been served in macaroni and cheese, on a Hawaiian pizza, and in the below soup). Then, this morning he came out with "[Number One] watch TV" and "Mommy make toast," followed by many others as the day went on. We're also seeing development in how he recalls and relates things, and makes connections--it's so cool!

Number Two also got his worst owie to date today. We were at a friend's looking at pictures she took of the bebe, and as he was making his way over to the Duplos to build a tower, he lost his footing and fell into the coffee table. The look on his face was just awful--pain and shock and betrayal, all at once, more than he could get out in one cry. It took a long snuggle for him to recover enough to get back to tower-making. It actually looks a little worse in real life than in this picture (taken as I was getting him up from his nap):



I'm pretty proud of how much cooking I've done this week: only one takeout dinner (though, granted, Sunday dinner was at J&J's), two batches of cookies, and a good dose of planning and prep for tomorrow's book group brunch and next week's Chaos, with Turkey (tm). A few nights ago, we had this soup, adapted from a recipe in the Cook's e-newsletter.

Pink Soup

(It was only pink because of the red Swiss chard stems I included. It did also have some pink ham, but I think you could make a perfectly fine soup that tasted exactly the same but was not pink.)

6 C chicken broth (1 C homemade concentrated stock, diluted)
2 lbs potatoes (about half peeled-and-cubed russets, half marble-sized multicolored babies)
1 bay leaf
1 T unsalted butter
1 4-oz link country sage sausage, cut into 1/4" slices
about the same amount ham, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 medium yellow onion, cut in half polewise and then sliced thinly crosswise
1/2 bunch Swiss chard, leaves and stems separated, and cut crosswise into 1/2" pieces
1/2 C frozen corn kernels
a little flour-water slurry to thicken at the end
2 T balsamic vinegar
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. Bring broth, potatoes and bay leaf to boil, then simmer until potatoes are tender. Mash the russets roughly, so some chunks still remain.

2. Meanwhile, melt butter in dutch oven and sauté onion, chard stems and sausage until getting nicely browned. Add chard leaves and cook just until they're starting to wilt.

3. Add potato mixture to sausage/onion mixture (removing bay leaf), deglazing pan as needed. Stir in corn kernels. Use flour-water to thicken as desired. Simmer a few minutes to blend flavors. Stir in balsamic vinegar, adjust seasonings and serve.