Dec 7
I get stuck in food ruts. Sometimes it’s because I just really like one dish (Fettuccine Alfredo anyone? Or Triple Pepper Pasta?) or it’s because I think there’s only one way to make a certain kind of food. Take Stir Fry meat (which the Co-op so nicely labels). I go home with that and I make Stir Fry. Well, I’m a bit over Stir Fry. Read more
You’ve gathered at this point that I do not make desserts often. If Frank ate sweets (other than Chocolate Chip Cookies, of which he can restrict himself to eating just one and have his fill), I would bake more often. There is then, only two reasons to bake: New [exciting!] recipe or house guests.
I made these lemon bars this summer, just as it teetered on almost too warm to bake weather. Now that the weather has dipped into the 50s and we’re not turning on the heat, I’ll take any excuse to use the oven. This is a recipe straight out of my childhood in St. Paul, in our red house that sat on the corner. My mom would take a break from her work, open Betty Crocker’s cookbook, and between me and my brother, would delegate who broke eggs, measured flour and operated our pale yellow Kitchen Aid (which has since been handed down to me).
For the recipe, I called home. My fourteen year old brother answered the phone, and read the ingredients and directions out loud to me. To make sure he had the right recipe, I asked if there was flour and lemon stuck to the page. I received confirmation – of course he was giving me the recipe that had food bits on it.
Lemon Bars
From Betty Crocker’s Cookbook
1 cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel, if desired
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
Powdered sugar
1) Heat oven to 350ºF.
2) Mix flour, butter and powdered sugar. Press in ungreased square pan, 8x8x2 or 9x9x2 inches, building up 1/2-inch edges.
3) Bake crust 20 minutes.
4) Beat granulated sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, baking powder, salt and eggs with electric mixer on high speed about 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Pour over hot crust.
5) Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until no indentation remains when touched lightly in center. Cool; dust with powdered sugar. Cut into about 1 1/2-inch squares.
This is one very easy and delicious weeknight dinner where flavor shines. The only requirement is a little marinating time.
I am moving (slowly) through Melissa Clark’s In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite and really enjoy the recipes. They all feel very homey and taste like Mom’s cooking you grew up with but with more herbs. And butter. Clark has a very realistic perspective on making food, which is that it has to please everyone, has to take less than an hour to cook so you can make it any night of the week, and that bacon is a fine addition. I appreciate this about her.
Cashew Chicken: never had it in my life. I can’t say it’s something that I see on restaurant menus and I didn’t grow up with this, so was intrigued to try something new. After getting the ingredients, I find out that Frank hates Cashews, so it had to be at least a little interesting, right? My argument was to be adventurous and try something new. Turns out, Frank didn’t mind this dish at all as long as the remainder of sauce stayed far away from his plate.
Spicy, Garlicky Cashew Chicken
Melissa Clark, In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite
Ingredients:
1 cup roasted salted cashew nuts
6 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro, with some stems
1/4 cup safflower or olive oil
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 tbls soy sauce
2 tsp brown sugar
Juice of 1 lime, plus lime wedes for garnish
1 to 2 jalapeno peppers, seeded or not, to taste
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 pounds chicken thighs and/or drumsticks
Directions:
1. In a blender or food processor, combine the nuts, 2 tablespoons cilantro, the oil, garlic, soy sauce, sugar, lime juice, jalapeno, and 2 tablespoons water. Blend until smooth, scraping down the sides as necessary. Taste and season with salt and pepper if desired.
2. Season the chicken all over with salt and pepper. Smear on enough cashew mixture to coat the pieces thoroughly, but don’t make it too thick or the sauce will fall of into your grill. Set aside any remaining mixture. Let marinate at room temperature while you heat the grill or broiler. Or refrigerate for up to 12 hours before cooking.
3. Preheat the broiler or grill. Grill or broil the chicken, turning frequently, until it is crisp and golden on the outside and done on the
inside, 20 to 30 minutes
4. Sprinkle the chicken with the remaining 4 tablespoons cilantro and serve with lime wedges and the remaining cashew mixture.
As a side, our neighbors gave us a bag of beans from their garden, so we fried up bacon with chili peppers and sauteed the beans for about 5 minutes, cooked but still crunchy.
I really want to learn how to Can, but I can’t find the motivation to do it. So I’m learning the art of freezing. Freezing, as it turns out, is a great way to preserve the ripe flavors, is easy enough to pull out during winter and use, and doesn’t require any special tools or steps to avoid contamination (does anyone else get totally freaked out about that part?). I plucked out a nice variety of tomatoes on Saturday and Sunday (Beefsteak, early girl, cherry) and am a little relieved that they can all go into the pot together. Read more
I continue to carry on my love affair with butter, cream and cheese, which manifested itself in an adaptation of Melissa Clark’s “Mac and Cheese, a la Jamie Oliver” recipe. I stuck to the recipe, but because we’re still getting peppers in (I’ve eaten more peppers this summer than I have in my life, cumulatively), I added a host of them which kicked up the heat and garden fresh taste. Read more
Did you watch The Pioneer Woman on Food Network last Saturday? No? Okay. I watched it and then made the featured chicken fried steak and here’s what happened: It made my house smell awful for two days and gave us stomach cramps. The upside was that it taught me how to make gravy and heightened PW’s likeability factor by calling balsamic “basalmic” and doing her own makeup (versus a makeup artist) so she could sleep in a little more. Rene Lynch from the L.A. Times wrote a nice article about it here.
Chicken Fried Steak with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
I didn’t use cubed steak because my co-op doesn’t carry it, so I used a top round which Lobel’s Meat Bible said would be okay. For the most part, it was, but I can’t help wondering if I should have made a special trip to Cub for cubed steak. Anyway, another lesson is that frying for more time until deep golden brown (the brown that starts to look like black) is good – that’s what will keep it crunchy.
This it is not a meal I would make often because I don’t think I’m making it right and given I’ve never had a proper chicken fried steak from down south, I’m probably not. Perhaps I should have known better when I asked “why isn’t there chicken in the ingredients list?”
Lamb has been a disaster meat for me. It’s expensive, hard to cook, and never tastes how I think it should. But I keep seeing recipes for Lamb and my tackle/conquer spirit kicks in. This is exactly what happened, though without as much ambition, when I wanted to master Roast Chicken. Read more
We planted plenty of peppers this year in the vegetable garden: banana, green bell, yellow bell and red bell, chili, jalapeno and ornamental. 48 pepper plants to be exact. We now have more peppers growing than I think we can eat, but this triple pepper pasta put quite a dent in Friday night’s haul. Read more
In the late spring as I was weeding the vegetable garden, I plucked out what looked like radishes. Knowing I wouldn’t eat them, I tossed them, thinking perhaps in all the crazy winds, some seed from someone’s garden flew over into ours. Turns out, after being exposed to a genius way to get some radishes into your diet, I shouldn’t have tossed them! I was invited to my best friend Betsy’s house for a post-work glass of wine and she busted these babies out on a plate, and I could not resist myself. I think I had five. Read more
Grilled buffalo chicken sandwiches have been a go-to meal lately because the ingredients are staples in the weekly grocery run, so we always have it on hand, and Frank basically makes dinner. Like any sandwich, you can dress it up or dress it down. Frank likes to add bacon (shocking!) to his, and while I think to add lettuce and tomato to mine, I am happy with blue cheese dressing and pepperjack cheese. Read more
My dad gave me a huge pot (it’s at least 100 pounds of dirt and root) of rhubarb last late spring. At first I thought this was a great thing because I like growing food and collect vegetables and fruits for the garden like one collects porcelain figurines. Read more
If I’m going to defend Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook, it seems fitting to cook some of her recipes and let you know how they turned out. This last week I made corn chowder on a rainy day involving a tornado (or three) touchdown, and her “Best stir fried chicken” which she makes “when craving Chinese, but don’t want the MSG.”* Read more
Gwyneth Paltrow has been getting a lot of slack since she started her lifestyle blog Goop but the slack has clearly intensified into snark since the release of her cookbook, My Father’s Daughter. Read more
I noticed yesterday my chives are thriving and, as they are the only edible growing thing from my garden, sought out a recipe to use them. Thirty minutes to make and although there’s heavy cream and Parmesan, it’s quite light tasting. Read more
I’m on a smoothie kick. I hate blenders, so I use the mini Cuisinart Chop/Grind (usually on sale for $20 at Macy’s) and it makes exactly one pint of Smoothie. I put a banana, 2/3 cup of Honey Greek yogurt, half cup of OJ and a cup of frozen raspberries or strawberries (hopefully later in the summer I’ll get to use fresh strawberries and raspberries from the garden). Read more
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