Cooking Habit

Broa

2012-01-22T19:57:00.000-08:00

Broa is a Portuguese yeast cornbread. I've eaten it in the Azores and made it a few times from Jean Anderson's The Food of Portugal. This loaf turned out especially well. I served it for the first course of a dinner with the neighbors, accompanied by Iberico cheese and Black Olive Pate.

Broa

Make a sponge by mixing 1 package dried yeast, 1/3 cup stone-ground cornmeal, and 1/4 cup warm water. Let work for about 40 minutes. I do this first step in the bread maker, and then add these remaining ingredients:

2/3 cup stone-ground cornmeal

1/2 cup warm water

1/2 cup scalded milk, or reconstituted evaporated milk

1 tablespoon olive oil

Scant teaspoon salt

2 1/2 cups unbleached flour (more or less depending on humidity)

Mix and knead in bread maker, and let rise until puffy. Form a round loaf and let rise in a greased pie pan for 20 or 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 475 degrees--get it really hot!-- turn down to about 425 when you put the loaf in and then bake for 30 or 35 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool on rack.

For the Olive Pate: Wrap a whole head of garlic in a a double layer of aluminum foil and bake for an hour at 300 degrees. Let cool, and then squeeze out the softened garlic into food processor bowl. Add 1 cup pitted Kalamata olives and some fresh black pepper and puree. Serve with bread.

Polenta in the Crockpot

2011-12-28T14:44:00.001-08:00

I love to cook and I love polenta, but I don't have the patience to stand and stir for 30 minutes. I have tried this crockpot version several times now, and it's been a big success.

Polenta

2 cups polenta

6 cups boiling water

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 teaspoon paprika

2 teaspoons salt

Place polenta in crockpot and gradually add boiling water, stirring until smooth. Add remaining ingredients. Cook on High for 3 to 4 hours, stirring every 20 or 30 minutes. If desired, a few minutes before serving stir in

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese.

Spiced Pecans

2011-12-28T14:34:00.000-08:00

Our friend Leila brought these delicious pecans to our Christmas hike and picnic, and then brought us some more the next day. Even better, she gave me the recipe. It's wonderful to find a Christmas nut recipe that isn't coated in sugar!

Spiced Pecans

3 T butter, melted

3 T Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
dash Tabasco sauce
1 lb. pecan halves

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Mix all ingredients, add pecans, toss. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, stirring often. Enjoy!

(I think there are a few left. I'm going to go eat them now.)

Beer Can Chicken, a Guest Recipe from Andy

2011-12-23T09:18:00.000-08:00

We gave Andy and his family some dried herbs from our garden for Christmas. He coated a chicken with them, refrigerated for 24 hours, and then made this Beer Can Chicken:

We like beer can chicken. It's dead simple, easy to clean up, keeps the chicken moist, entertains Abby... it's a winner. I'd recommend getting one of the can stands; they sell them in kitchen stores or even in the supermarket for like 5 bucks. The stand makes it easy to stabilize the chicken, although I've done it with just the can as well. Any beer works or really anything in a can... I've used Dr. Pepper. Just jam a bunch of your favorite spices in the cavity, drink a little of the beer, jam some more spices in the beer can and poke a few more holes in the top of the can, shove the chicken on so its legs are hanging down, maybe put a little olive oil and spices on the outside, put it on the grill on medium (if it's gas) for about an hour and 15 minutes for a 5 pound bird... a little longer for a larger bird... easy. I take it off the grill with a couple metal spatulas and put it on a big wooden cutting board to rest and cut.

Tucson Breakfast of Champions

2011-12-23T09:17:00.001-08:00

Anasazi beans, chopped green chile, oregano, cheese, green onions.

Gumbo

2011-08-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

I needed to use some problematic okra from the garden--some was old and pretty tough, and some was young and tender, and there wasn't very much of either. I started out with Paula Deen's gumbo recipe, and made a few modifications, as usual. I used chicken thighs instead of breasts. I used butter instead of margarine and cut down on the fat amounts a bit. Also, I didn't have 5 bouillon cubes (!) so I used two chicken ones.

I sliced the elderly okra and threw it in when the recipe suggested. Then I steamed the baby okra separately and garnished each bowl with a few of those. It was so pretty, and gave the okra its due.

Eating and Drinking in Alaska

2011-08-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

Our seven-week camper trip to Canada and Alaska has left me with some wonderful food memories.

Anchorage has many excellent restaurants! My favorite meal this time around was lunch at Muse, which is the cafe at the Anchorage Museum. I had a halibut sandwich and my mouth is watering now as I remember it. Although the place was busy, great care was taken with every detail: the fish was cooked so perfectly, and the bun buttered and toasted so that I had to eat every crumb. In Girdwood we lunched at Maxine's, where I had the lunch special, a duck quesadilla. In addition to the duck, the filling had a spicy homemade peach jam and a mild jack cheese. And slow-cooked onions, if I remember correctly.

In Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory, Dad had a birthday lunch of fish and chips, but in this case the chips were "yam fries."

Russell cooked some beautiful things for us at home, particularly this sockeye salmon that he caught and filleted. Together he and I made a rhubarb-raspberry cobbler with rhubarb from their garden. The topping was made with Bob's Red Mill gluten-free cornbread mix with a little sugar added.

Camped out in the forest above Hope we intended to make martinis but had forgotten the olives. So, inspired by a Spruce Tip Vinaigrette I saw on a menu in Homer, we invented the

Spruce Tip Martini

Gin

Vermouth

Fresh spruce tips

Ice

Estimate amounts of gin and vermouth in plastic glasses. Muddle with spruce tip and serve with lots of ice. Best enjoyed in cool, rainy forest setting.

Bean Salad with Hoisin Vinaigrette

2011-05-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite bean salad. It's vegan, it's served at room temperature so it's great for a potluck, and it's pretty.

Bean Salad with Hoisin Vinaigrette

1/3 cup rice vinegar

2 tablespoons hoisin sauce

2 tablespoons water

2 teaspoons chopped fresh ginger

Make vinaigrette by processing these ingredients in blender or food processor until smooth. Set aside.

6 ounces green beans

Steam or boil green beans until lightly cooked.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon chopped garlic

1 red pepper, cut lengthwise in thin slivers

1 can garbanzos, drained and rinsed

2 teaspoons sesame oil

Heat oil and sauté garlic and pepper until pepper begins to soften, about 2 minutes. Add green beans, garbanzos, and sesame oil and toss and heat until well blended.

¼ cup thinly sliced green onion

Chopped cilantro

Remove from heat and add Hoisin Vinaigrette. Taste and add salt or soy sauce if necessary. Serve at room temperature, garnished with green onions and cilantro.

Frittata

2011-05-20T13:12:00.001-07:00

I know we've both posted about frittata, but this one is a little different for me. I saw it in Parade magazine in last Sunday's paper. It includes stale bread cubes, which give it a little French toastie personality, and it doesn't get watery the way it can with potatoes. I used one cup of bread cubes to six eggs. Delicious for a light dinner, and very good the next day as well.

Crop Rotation in New Mexico, and a Quinoa Pilaf

2011-05-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

We stayed at Percha Dam State Park along the Rio Grande River in southern New Mexico again last week. Last October when we visited there, the surrounding fields were full of red chile pods awaiting harvest. Now, in May, those same fields were planted with onions, with many acres of alfalfa interspersed for healthy crop rotation. If the Midwest is the breadbasket of the world, this valley is surely the salsa bowl of the world.

I made a delicious, though unrelated, dish in the camper while here. I sauteed sliced onions, garlic, sliced red bell pepper, and strips of chicken breast in olive oil in a skillet. I added 1/2 cup quinoa and stirred until lightly toasted, then added a cup of chicken bouillon, covered the pan, and simmered until the quinoa was tender and the liquid absorbed--about 20 minutes, I think.

Summer Squash with Wine Vinegar and Mint

2011-05-19T12:30:00.001-07:00

See our zucchini plant? It's nearly ready to bloom.

I used a couple of larger yellow squashes last night to make a dish by Viana La Place. Since it is served cold, and will keep a couple of days in the refrigerator, it's a welcome change for hot weather.

Cut two summer squash in small dice. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a skillet until quite hot. Add the squash and saute until there are brown flecks and squash is tender. Remove squash from pan and place in serving dish. Add 1/2 cup red wine vinegar to the skillet and heat to boiling. Pour over the squash.

Then add 2 cloves minced garlic, 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves (I used parsley mixed with dried mint), and salt and pepper to taste. Mix well and chill before serving.

French Potato Salad

2011-05-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

Mary Ellen loved this last night, so I am posting the recipe for her.

Cube some red or Yukon Gold potatoes, cover with water, and boil for about 5 minutes or until tender yet firm. Eat a sample, don't just test with a fork!

Drain and let cool a little, then toss with a couple of tablespoons each olive oil and red wine vinegar. Gently fold in Dijon mustard--start with a tablespoon and add more if you like--and salt and pepper to taste. Potatoes are bland, so season generously. Add a couple of sliced green onions and some chopped fresh herbs. Parsley is okay, but fresh tarragon is best. Serve at room temperature. This is best made a couple of hours ahead.

Olive Update

2011-03-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

Back in January I posted about curing the olives from our backyard tree. It took a long time, maybe about two months total, but they were delicious. I used this marinade featuring vinegar, garlic, and lemon:

1-1/2 cups white wine vinegar

1 Tablespoon salt dissolved in 2 cups water

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

3 lemon wedges

2 cloves garlic

Olive oil to cover

Next time I wouldn't cover them with olive oil. They tasted best after a whole month of marinating. I wish I had some left!

Pictures above is our herb garden. Mostly you can see parsley, sage, and rosemary, but maybe there's tarragon squeezed in there. The sage is blooming with purple flowers. Since most things are in their prime now, I plan to dry big batches of each. Sage and tarragon are especially fragrant and palatable when dried.

Corned Beef and Cabbage

2011-03-17T20:49:00.001-07:00

I didn't do anything very fancy with this. I just boiled the corned beef, cooked the carrots and potatoes separately, and added the cabbage for the last 25 minutes--too long, but some people like soggy cabbage. It was flavorful and sort of homey and satisfying. I served horseradish and mustard with it. As usual, I mixed the horseradish with yogurt--it makes a perfect simple sauce.

I made Irish Soda Bread for the first time--I used the Joy of Cooking recipe--and we decided to have it for dessert because it was sweet. This version was a quick bread, sort of like banana bread with raisins instead of bananas. The traditional caraway seed made it interesting.

Bread No. 1 in a Convection Oven

2011-03-06T15:48:00.000-08:00

This is my first loaf of bread in the new oven. It's a convection oven, which I've never used for bread before. I used a plain old pizza stone on the rack. I set it to 500 degrees, which the oven automatically adjusted down to 475 because the convection is faster and more efficient.

The crust got quite brown; I haven't decided if it's too brown yet. But the loaf is wonderfully light in weight and crinkly and evenly baked, so I think with some experimentation this will be positive.

I used my go-to recipe for basic, accessible (by which I mean a little softer) European white bread, which is based on Peter Reinhardt's Italian bread recipe and is almost identical to my pizza dough recipe. Really, it basically is my pizza dough recipe, except that I make a sponge the day before, pretty wet, with 1/2 t of the yeast and half the flour (2.5 cups) and over half the water. I use only 1 T of olive oil in the final recipe instead of 3, but otherwise it's about the same. Makes two lovely loaves or four home-sized pizzas. The second half of the dough is in the freezer awaiting its fate.

I am dreaming about your olives, by the way, Mom. They were so good. Wish we had an olive tree here.

Tomatoes Provencale

2011-02-17T15:20:00.000-08:00

I got this recipe from the Arizona Daily Star. I usually make a bread crumb version of these, but this is better. I use a little less oil than called for.

Tomatoes Provencale

Serves: 6

• 6 hot-house, heirloom or your favorite tomatoes

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 2 tablespoons fresh chopped garlic

• 1/2 teaspoon fresh thyme; dry thyme can be substituted

• 1/4 cup fresh Parmesan cheese

• Sea salt

• Cracked pepper

Cut the tomatoes in half and cut a sliver off the ends so they will lie flat. Discard the ends.

Place the open or cut sides up, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, rub the open halves with fresh chopped garlic, sprinkle with sea salt, fresh cracked pepper, thyme.

Bake for 20 minutes at 375. Remove from the oven and sprinkle fresh Parmesan cheese over top the tomatoes and place back into the oven for 5-7 minutes until the cheese has a golden color.

Advice About Vegetables

2011-02-06T11:38:00.000-08:00

Here is some of Dad's beautiful pak choy. I cooked the first smaller heads whole, but these were a little larger so I cut them into slices, sauteed them in a little oil until seared, stir-fried in some garlic and minced ginger, and dressed them with this sauce from Jack Bishop. Searing the pak choy really adds to its character and flavor. Pour in this sauce at the end and let it boil up for a few seconds.

1 1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 1/2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

And now to the matter of zucchini. It's really important to cut it into small pieces! I'm convinced that people who don't think they like zucchini are really just averse to large, wet chunks of it. I usually cut it in quarters lengthwise, then into small slices. In the dish above it is sauteed with garlic, then cherry tomatoes and black olives are added near the end. I believe I also added oregano, salt, and pepper.

Sugar-Free Granola

2011-01-20T07:36:00.000-08:00

This is delicious and easy. Most granolas are too sweet, I think.

Granola

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick oats)

Pour the oil in a 9"x13" baking pan and put it in the oven while the oven preheats to 300 degrees. Stir in the oats and bake for about 15 minutes, stirring often, until slightly toasted.

1 cup chopped walnuts, hazelnuts, or almonds, or a combination of these

1/3 cup raw sunflower seeds

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

Add the nuts and needs and toast for 10 minutes longer. Remove from oven and stir in:

1 cup raisin, dried cranberries, or mixed dried fruit

Our Olives

2011-01-19T08:08:00.000-08:00

We have an olive tree behind our house and this year for the first time since we moved in, it had abundant olives. Dad picked a couple of quarts and I looked on the internet for instructions. This article seemed reasonable.

I slit the olives and am brining them now. We are into the 5th week and they are still bitter, but there's progress: after the first week I had to spit out the one I tasted. Now they are tasting rather olive-like. I'll give them one more week and then marinate them.

I used a jar to weight down the olives in the brine, and I stored them in our laundry room, which is cooler than the rest of the house.

Ono with Beurre Noir

2011-01-19T07:57:00.000-08:00

We brought Bev a two-pound fillet of ono from Suisan Fish Company in Hilo. It is the most excellent and prized of Hawaiian fishes, and she made a wonderful dish with it. I believe she learned this in France.

Put a stick of butter in a hot skillet and cook until quite brown. Add the fish (cut in smallish serving pieces) and cook, turning once or twice, until done just halfway through. Set fish aside to keep warm. Add a cup or so of white wine to the pan and boil until somewhat reduced. Add capers to taste and season with salt and pepper. Return fish to pan and coat with sauce. Serve at once.

That pale orange side dish in the photo is green papaya salad.

Don't Try This at Home

2010-12-23T07:10:00.000-08:00

I have read that one can make tamales using canola oil instead of lard or Crisco, so I bravely tried it. They tasted okay, but didn't have that lovely, rich, mealy texture. I tried this so you will never have to.

Rocky Point Shrimp Cocktail

2010-12-18T10:59:00.000-08:00

This was an excellent recipe--I picked it up at the fish counter at Sprouts. I bet it would make perfect tostadas, too.

Pretty Salad

2010-11-30T16:53:00.001-08:00

Look how pretty this lunch was! The salad is from City Roots, and contained nasturtium flowers and leaves, pea shoots and arugula shoots, I think.

I made blue cheese dressing, which I have been making lately because Lawson announced he is sick of vinaigrettes with greens. I'm using no particular recipe, just an ad hoc, sample-as-you-go mixture of a minced garlic clove, some blue cheese, black pepper, salt, mayo, yogurt and milk.

Old/New Thanksgiving Food

2010-11-30T08:14:00.001-08:00

We had many of the usual dishes on Thanksgiving: Portuguese-style turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, applesauce, pumpkin pie, etc. I did manage to insert two new twists on cranberries and sweet potatoes, which we all enjoyed.

Sprouts sells these sweet potato chips, which are delicious. I often serve them with raw tomatillo salsa, but this time found a cranberry salsa recipe in the local paper. It was a satisfying and colorful appetizer.

Spicy Cranberry Salsa

1/2 small red onion

1 tablespoon canned jalapeno slices

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

8 ounces fresh cranberries

1/2 cup dried cranberries

2 tablespoons lime juice

2 tablespoons honey, or to taste

1/2 teaspoon or more salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

In food processor, pulse onion, jalapeno, and cilantro to chop finely. Add cranberries and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add remaining ingredients and mix lightly. Serve with chips.

Instead of the usual sweet potatoes, I made baked wedges with a yogurt dipping sauce, which we had at Zinburger recently. I got the recipe from the Bon Appetit website.

Tagines

2010-11-22T13:11:00.000-08:00

I'm in love again--this time with my new cookbook Tagine: Spicy Stews from Morocco, by Ghillie Basan. Dad noticed it in a cooking store in Tubac, and I've become very involved with it.

First I made a chicken and dried apricot tagine, quite delicious. Next I made one with lamb, prunes, apricots, and honey (top picture). With that meal I made sides from the cookbook, including an orange olive salad and a sort of Moroccan pico de gallo. And Moroccan bread.

Now I am turning to the vegetable tagines, and we loved this one made with carrots and chickpeas. It was very quick and flavorful.

Spicy Carrot and Chickpea Tagine with Turmeric and Cilantro

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, chopped

4 garlic cloves, chopped

Heat the oil in a tagine or heavy casserole and saute onion and garlic until soft.

2 teaspoons ground turmeric

2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cayenne

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Salt

3-4 medium carrots, sliced on the diagonal

Add spices and carrots. Add water to barely cover. Cover and cook 10 or 15 minutes, until carrots are just tender.

1 one-pound can chickpeas, drained

Add chickpeas and simmer for 10 minutes until flavors are blended and liquid is somewhat reduced.

Cilantro, chopped

Lemon wedges

Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve with lemon wedges.

Greek Chicken with Sage

2010-11-03T09:05:00.001-07:00

We have two varieties of sage in the herb garden at present. I don't know their names but I certainly admire the way they hung in there over our record-hot summer. I don't use sage very much except at Thanksgiving, so I was happy to find this vinegary, flavorful recipe in Susanna Hoffman's The Olive and the Caper. A bonus: it's very easy.

Chicken with Onions, Tomatoes, Capers and Sage

2-4 tablespoons olive oil

3-4 large boneless, skinless chicken thighs, halved

1 sliced onion

1/3 cup dry red wine

1/3 cup balsamic vinegar

1 cup canned diced tomatoes

3 tablespoons capers, drained

1 teaspoon or more fresh chopped sage leaves

Salt and pepper

Heat the oil and brown the chicken and onion for about 10 minutes. Add all the remaining ingredients and stir to mix. Simmer, partially covered, until chicken is tender, perhaps about 45 minutes. Reduce the sauce at the end if it's too liquid.

Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

2010-10-31T11:42:00.000-07:00

I love mushrooms and would like to use them more. I bought these portobellos because they were beautiful, but with no plan in mind. Viana La Place and Evan Kleiman can usually be counted on to have a good idea for vegetables. This is their recipe from Cucina Fresca.

Grilled Stuffed Mushrooms

Large brown mushrooms or portobellos

Fresh thyme leaves

6-8 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

Clean mushrooms with a damp towel--don't immerse. Trim off woody stems. Cut slits in the thickest part of the flesh so they will cook evenly. Brush with olive oil.

Mix chopped thyme leaves, garlic, and generous salt in a small bowl. Stuff this mixture into the gills and slits of the mushrooms.

Broil or grill for 5 minutes, more or less, depending on their size, until the mushrooms soften slightly.

October Beans

2010-10-31T06:27:00.000-07:00

We stopped last week to buy apples at a big farm stand near Hendersonville, and among all the lovely apples and beets and ornamental squashes and tough, late-season green beans were a few bags of dried, shelled beans marked "dried October shellies." They were available in pods, too, by the handful: half-dried, twisted pods, beautifully mottled with pink and creamy white swirls. The beans, too, were pink and white. I cannot resist beans, so I bought some.

I did some research at home. My cookbooks were little help; the only people writing about these beans (which go by the names October beans, shelly beans and -- get this -- horticultural beans) seem to have ties to Appalachia and heirloom seeds. These beans seem to be grown mostly in parts of the rural, mountainous South and Midwest. They can be eaten fresh or dried. The pods are edible, too -- people chop them up and put them in soups for flavor.

I cooked them very simply, Southern-style: a few hours of soaking, followed by cooking with two slices of chopped up, rendered bacon, a dried red chile, water and a drizzle of honey. They cooked more quickly than older dried beans.

Surprisingly, they taste very much like pinto beans. I expected a more crowder-pea-like, brassy flavor, or maybe something creamier and lighter like an Italian cannellini.

We ate them mostly plain with cornbread and sauteed spinach that night. We had them left over for lunch. And yesterday -- five days later -- I cooked the rest of them with some tomatoes, rosemary, dried red chiles and garlic and such and served them over linguine. I like Italian bean pastas a lot.

Chotee Gobi (Brussels Sprouts from Eastern India)

2010-10-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite ways to fancy up Brussels sprouts.

Chotee Gobi

1 large onion

4 cloves garlic

Olive or vegetable oil

Slice onion and garlic. Fry in 2 tablespoons oil until soft.

Stir in the following spices and fry for two more minutes.

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

2 teaspoons poppy seeds

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon sesame seeds

Add:

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1/2 to 1 cup yogurt

Juice of 1 large lemon

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon honey

Stir to combine and simmer for a few minutes.

1 pound Brussels sprouts, trimmed and cut in half

Meanwhile, gently boil the sprouts in water to cover until barely tender. Drain and add to the sauce. Cook and stir for about five minutes until flavors blend.

Better Snapper Veracruz

2010-10-10T16:23:00.000-07:00

We bought some gorgeous snapper from the Beaufort fish guy who sells up here on Saturdays. He said it was silk snapper. It had a big flavor-enhancing set of ribs in the middle of it, so we got a discount. (We also bought a little half-pound fillet of grouper that Lawson coated in flour and pan-fried for our lunch. I made tartar sauce and bought some nice buns and a tomato. We were very inspired by those flounder sandwiches at Whaley's in Edisto and have been thinking about them ever since, you see.)

I love fish Veracruz-style, but sometimes it seems too -- too cooked, I guess. Too stewed. Not fresh enough. I've always used Aida Gabilondo's recipe or similar variations, which call for pickled jalapenos and browned vegetables and such.

When I found Paul Johnson's recipe yesterday, I was really excited. It's more like a pico de gallo that you dump on the fish and cook all at once. No browning onions or garlic.

Here's my slight variation:

Marinate fish for 30 minutes in salt and juice of 1/2 lime.

Dice and mix:

small white onion
1 T garlic
1 pound tomatoes, fresh or canned or both (those Pomi tomatoes always taste less cooked to me. I like them.)
several fresh chiles, minced. I used two red Anaheims, a dedo di moca and a Tabasco. Any combo would work. If all you have are super-hot chiles, supplement with some bell pepper.
1/8 cup olive oil
2 T capers
12 or more green olives
the other 1/2 lime
salt to taste

Toast in a dry pan, crush in mortar and add to mixture:

10-15 coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon Mexican oregano

Heat oven to 375. Heat pan in oven if it's a stoneware style Dutch oven. Put fish in pan. Dump mixture over fish. cover. Cook for 20-30 minutes, or until slightly steaming and bubbling. Let rest for 5 minutes. Garnish with cilantro. Serve over rice.

It was amazing.

Feeling Ready for South Carolina

2010-08-14T20:02:00.001-07:00

In anticipation of our trip to South Carolina, tonight we had stewed okra and tomatoes, sausage gravy, and grits. Dad is picking about 15 okra pods per day right now, the best crop we've had. (I think sausage gravy is supposed to be served with biscuits for breakfast, but we do the best we can over here in the Southwest.)

Mediterranean Tomato-Saffron Tilefish

2010-07-25T06:57:00.000-07:00

There's a Beaufort-based seafood guy now coming to the All-Local Farmers Market every Saturday, and his fish is amazingly, absurdly fresh. Yesterday we bought grey tilefish, which I've never bought before. It was lovely -- bright spotted skin, big easy-to-find bones, grouper-like color and grain. You could put your nose right down on it and smell nothing except a faint, fresh sweetness.

I poked through some more complicated recipes and came up with this simple Mediterranean preparation, which has some of the flavor of bouillabaisse but is more straightforward. Any blend of garden and canned tomatoes would work; I used a little of both. It's not a super tomato-ey dish.

I'm out of the food-photographing habit, so here's Patty demonstrating how hot it is here lately.

Mediterranean Tomato-Saffron Fish

Preheat oven to 400.

In Dutch oven, saute in olive oil until onions are softened and smaller:
- 3 small Vidalia onions, sliced
- 8-10 saffron threads
- 1 teaspoon fennel seeds

Add and let some of the booziness cook off:
- 3/4 c dry vermouth

Add and cook for just a few minutes:
- 1 ripe tomato, chopped
- 1/2 cup chopped canned tomatoes
- salt
- pepper

Add, cover, put in oven and cook 8-15 minutes, depending on fish size:
- 1 lb. fish

I left the fillet whole, and it took exactly 15 minutes. The bones and skin thickened the broth just a little.

I served it over farro, with which Lawson and I are in love. He says it tastes like he wishes brown rice tasted.

Crusty bread would also be good with this. On the side we ate sliced cucumbers in rice vinegar, and baba ghanoush made with our own eggplant, which are the only plants really doing well this year in our yard. I drank vinho verde. Lawson drank Pabst Blue Ribbon. It was a good summer dinner.

Tomatillo Time

2010-05-21T11:50:00.000-07:00

Here’s a fresh, easy raw tomatillo salsa. It’s from Aida Gabilondo’s Mexican Family Cooking, still my favorite Mexican cookbook.

Green Green Sauce

1 pound tomatillos

2 fresh jalapenos

1/4 cup chopped green onions

1 cup cilantro leaves

Salt

1 teaspoon sugar

Remove the husks from the tomatillos and rinse. Pulse all ingredients together in food processor or blender, leaving a little chunkiness in the texture if desired. You may add a clove of garlic if you want.

Salade Nicoise

2010-05-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

I was so happy to discover I had the ingredients to make this the other day.

Green beans, blanched
New red potatoes, boiled
Anchovy filets
Lettuce
Hard boiled eggs
Tuna
Olives
Capers
Mustard sprouts (from City Roots -- so tasty)

The dressing is a simple vinaigrette: just mustard, salt, pepper, olive oil and vinegar. You toss some of it with the potatoes and green beans while they're still warm. Then you serve everything at room temperature and drizzle dressing over it.

We ate it with bread and butter on the side.

Chocolate Icebox Cookies

2010-05-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

I had a vague image of this recipe from my childhood--Grandma Oty used to make them--and managed to find the right recipe on About.com. It was in the Southern food section, though I think of them as quintessentially mid-Western. They are so easy! I love the mildness of the chocolate, because you can taste everything else: the butter, the brown sugar, the walnuts.

Cocoa Icebox Cookies

· 1/2 cup butter

· 1 cup brown sugar

· 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

· 1 egg

· 1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

· 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

· 1/4 teaspoon salt

· 2 tablespoons cocoa

· 1/2 cup finely copped walnuts

In mixing bowl with electric mixer, cream butter, sugar, and vanilla. Beat in eggs, blending well. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa; stir into creamed mixture, blending thoroughly. Stir in walnuts. Shape into a roll about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap roll in waxed paper and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Slice roll into 1/8-inch slices. Place on ungreased baking sheet and bake at 350° for 10 to 12 minutes.
Makes about 5 dozen cookies.

Note: I increased the cocoa by 1 tablespoon and reduced the flour the same amount.

Basic Beans

2010-04-25T10:29:00.001-07:00

I had to post this because for a while we couldn't find the recipe card--we worried that it might be lost to posterity. Dad makes these.

And I have to tout Anasazi beans again: they are less gassy than pinto beans, and they cook in about half the time without pre-soaking. This is a slow crockpot recipe, but on the stove top they become tender in a little over an hour.

Crockpot Anasazi Beans

1 pound Anasazi beans

Water to cover by about 1 ½ inches

Place in crockpot in the morning and cook on High for half a day.

1 ½ teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 small dried red chile

3 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tablespoons olive oil

Add the remaining ingredients and cook on Low until dinnertime.

Sweet and Sour Eggplant Salad

2010-03-20T13:21:00.001-07:00

This is from Claudia Roden. It's simple enough to let the flavor of the eggplant come through.

Sweet and Sour Eggplant

Olive oil

1 large Spanish onion, coarsely chopped

1 pound eggplant, partially peeled and cut in 3/4-inch cubes

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1-pound can diced tomatoes

4 tablespoons chopped parsley

3 tablespoons wine vinegar

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground red chili

Cover bottom of a large skillet with oil and heat. Saute onion until soft and golden. Add eggplant and cook, stirring, for about five minutes. Then add garlic and cook until colored.

Add remaining ingredients and cook over very low heat for 20 minutes. Serve cold (we had it warm last night and cold today--delicious).

And here's the Sidecar recipe. Russell made these for us.

Sidecar

1 part lemon juice

1 part Cointreau

2 parts cognac

Shake with ice.

And our version:

Poor Man's Sidecar

1 part lemon juice

1 part Triple Sec

2 parts bourbon

Spinach Enchiladas

2010-03-17T10:39:00.001-07:00

I finally figured out a good spinach enchilada recipe. For the filling I used 2 cups cooked fresh spinach, chopped and combined with shredded Monterey jack and cotija cheeses. I briefly fried corn tortillas, filled them, topped them with sauce and more shredded cheese. Then I baked them for about 10 minutes.

I made this sauce from Aida Gabilondo's Mexican Family Cooking.

Tomatillo Cilantro Sauce

1 pound fresh tomatillos, husked

1 cup cold water

4 garlic cloves

1 jalapeno, seeds and all

1/2 medium white onion

2 cups cilantro leaves

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

First put the tomatillos in a saucepan with water to cover, bring to a boil, and simmer 20 minutes. Drain.

Put tomatillos in a blender with water, garlic, jalapeno, onion, and cilantro. Blend until nearly liquid.

Heat oil in a pan and pour the sauce directly into it. Season with salt and sugar and simmer for five minutes.

Appetizers

2010-02-15T10:57:00.000-08:00

We had a progressive dinner with Mary Ellen and friends last night. Appetizers and wine were at our place, then we progressed over to her house for the main course.

My repertoire was limited to foods I had on hand--I did NOT want to go to the store on Valentine's Day while people were scrambling for flowers and chocolate at the last minute. I ended up with marinated carrots; empanadas with a filling of spinach, currants, pine nuts, and a little goat cheese to bind; and a frittata with green chiles.

I boiled the carrots in salted water until barely tender, then marinated them for a few hours in olive oil, wine vinegar, fresh thyme, garlic, salt, and pepper. They were a nice change from richer things, and colorful as well.

Elaine made a fabulous lamb-meatball-and-spaghetti dish with Middle Eastern seasonings. She was on a TV cooking show and won a prize for it. Maybe she'll share the recipe here!

Indian Lamb and Garbanzos

2010-02-07T07:54:00.000-08:00

I've really missed cooking these last few months. I've had a lot of evening work -- mayoral debates, late nights in the office -- and haven't had time for the kind of messy, unfocused cooking I like to do. We've had a lot more pasta dishes and tuna melts for dinner. I've made good stuff, and so has Lawson, but it's been different. It'll get better after the April city election.

Anyway, last night was a completely sprawling, right-brain, organic (in the procedural sense) night of cooking, and it was wonderful.

We were going to have grilled wings, naan and salad, but it started raining. Bad weather for an outdoor fire.

I'd already made the naan dough, so I decided to build a meal around that instead. I started cutting up some lamb we needed to use, leafing through Indian cookbooks, seeing what we had and what would taste good.

Here's what we ended up with, clockwise from left:

- Swiss chard sauteed with garlic and chiltepins, finished with a big squeeze of Meyer lemon juice
- lamb with garbanzos
- Boddingtons Pub Ale
- naan
- yellow lentils with spices (cinnamon, ginger, garlic and coriander, mostly)
- pickled okra

Lawson made the spice blend for the lentils. I made the rest.

The lamb-garbanzo dish grew out of a lamb recipe in an old cookbook called "Classics of Indian Cooking." It was called Cumin Lamb but I left out the cumin, added garbanzos, left out the bell peppers, and more, so it really is a completely different dish. You could use a teaspoon or two of cumin seeds in the spice paste; I didn't use them because there was a lot of cumin in the yellow lentils.

Lamb and Garbanzos
Blend in blender until smooth:

1" piece of ginger
3 garlic cloves
cardamom seeds from 10 pods
2 whole cloves
20 almonds
1 t chile powder or cayenne
1 t brown sugar
1 t salt
1/4 cup yogurt
stock as needed to moisten (I used lamb cut from the shoulder, so I simmered the scraps and bones for an hour or so beforehand and used that. Chicken stock would work, too. Leftover lamb stock goes to the dog.)

Heat in casserole or Dutch oven with lid:

3 T butter

Saute until golden brown:

1 onion, diced

Add and brown:

1/2 lb or more lean lamb, cubed

Add the spice mixture and fry it for a while, making sure it doesn't burn on the bottom. Add:

pinch of saffron (10 threads?)
1 can garbanzo beans
Stock to moisten but not make soupy

Cover and cook on low until lamb is very tender, 75 minutes or more, adding stock or yogurt as needed.

The beans keep this from being too rich, but it stills needs to be paired with some bright flavors and green foods to balance it out.

Tofu with Peppers and Pecans

2010-02-04T15:11:00.000-08:00

Hey, this is a really delicious tofu recipe. I can't remember where I modified it from, but we had it last week and really enjoyed it. Dad served one of his home-grown salads with it.

Tofu with Peppers and Pecans

1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons vermouth or sherry
1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juice or rice vinegar
3 cloves garlic, crushed
Red pepper flakes to taste
¾ cup vegetable broth

Mix above ingredients for seasoning sauce and set aside.

Prepare 1 tub firm tofu and set aside (cut into slices, drain, pat dry, brush lightly with oil, and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes per side.) Cut into strips or cubes.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 red, green, or yellow bell peppers, cut in strips
4 green onions, cut in 1-inch diagonals
¾ cup pecan halves

Sauté peppers and green onions in oil for 2 minutes. Add pecans and sauté 2 minutes more. Add seasoning sauce and stir until boiling and thickened. Stir in tofu and heat. Serve with rice.

Lemon-Chocolate Chip Pancakes

2010-01-31T07:46:00.000-08:00

I had an idea this morning. I looked up recipes for chocolate chip pancakes and lemon pancakes and made up this combination of the two.

Lawson put syrup on his, but I think all they need is plain yogurt. Sliced bananas would also be good.

Bowl 1:
1 1/2 c self-rising flour (or all purpose flour + 1 t salt and 1 T baking powder)
2 T sugar
zest of one lemon

Bowl 2:
3 T melted butter
1 egg
1 cup milk
1 t or more lemon juice

Mix well separately, then briefly together.

Sprinkle 4-10 semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips on each pancake as soon as you pour the batter.

Birthday Dinner

2010-01-15T08:12:00.001-08:00

Dad and I collaborated on my birthday dinner last night. We had Crab Louis, Stromboli Bread, Golden Mushroom Soup, and two cute little desserts Dad picked up at AJ's. And Dad stayed up late and did all the dishes!

I saw this Stromboli Bread in a bread cookbook. I made my regular French bread dough (3 cups white flour) with the addition of 2 tablespoons of olive oil and let it rise; rolled it out to about 8 by 14 inches; sprinkled it with a mixture of Swiss cheese cubes, shredded parmesan, chopped ham, 2 cloves garlic, and a handful of chopped basil; rolled it up starting at the short end and brushed it with olive oil, then sprinkled on salt, pepper, and chopped rosemary; then poked holes in it before baking it without a second rising at 400 degrees for an hour. It was good-looking and delicious.

New Cookbook

2010-01-07T19:12:00.000-08:00

One of the best things about Christmas is getting new cookbooks: I received a check from Bob and with it I bought The Book of Latin American Cooking by the famous Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz.

Much of the book is taken up with Mexican cooking, about which I already know a lot--I was looking for Central and South American stuff. The Mexican things in this book, though, tend to be more exotic, very far away from Tucson-Sonoran and Tex-Mex.

Tonight I cooked a halibut steak which Russell and Brittany sent from Alaska for Christmas. I loved the simplicity and flavor of this dish. Here is the recipe.

Pescado con Cilantro

1 pound fresh fish fillets (snapper, flounder, etc)

Salt, pepper

Juice of 1 fresh lemon

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

Canned jalapenos, chopped

Sprinkle fish with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.

Heat olive oil and saute onions until tender and lightly browned.

Place the fish in a baking dish and cover with the onions. Top with chopped cilantro and jalapenos. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until just cooked through.

Cooking A Goose

2010-01-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

Yes, there were many jokes about our goose being cooked.

For Christmas I was going to roast a duck -- the perfect two-person holiday meal, with just enough delicious leftovers and rich stock. But the grocery store was out of ducks, so Lawson bought a goose instead. (A very expensive goose, as it turned out, so we felt extra-compelled to use every little bit of it.)

I proceeded to read everything I could about cooking geese. I decided to skip Joy's complicated two-day process for drying out the skin; decided to skip stuffing, too. I read about goose anatomy and goose grease. I'm glad for it, too, because it prepared me for some of the strangeness of goose.

The bird weighed 11 pounds. It was big, but just short enough to fit on a regular pan, unlike a turkey.

I took off the wing tips, rubbed the thing with salt, put it on a little folding metal poultry rack, set it in a deep pan and roasted it at 400 for 30 minutes, then 350 for a few hours. I flipped it from breast down to breast up halfway through the cooking time. I let the meat temp get pretty high since there was so much fat -- maybe 175 in the breast and somewhat more in the thigh.

Here were some of the strange things about goose:

Fat
An incredible amount of fat rendered off that goose. More than a quart and a half. It filled the deep roasting pan twice over, and there was still plenty left in the skin, not to mention the chunks I'd pulled from the cavity beforehand. Pre-cooking, the whole bird felt greasy and weird, like a hunk of sheep.

I have a lot of it left over in jars in the fridge.

It's great fat: snowy white and mild, really delicious. I roasted potatoes, beets, sweet potatoes and turnips in it to great effect. I intend to use it in tamale dough soon.

Goose Cracklins
The skin on the goose was still pretty blubbery, so I didn't serve it. Instead, I cut it into strips with scissors and put it in the roasting pan at about 290 degrees to render further, per Julia Child. Now I have a container of crispy goose cracklins. They are incredible.

Connective Tissue
Parts of the goose are clean and easy to eat. But parts -- particularly the back, wings and the part of the breast closest to the bone -- have a ton of connective tissue, almost like the muscle fibers are wrapped in casing. You know how you can sort of push meat off a chicken backwith your thuumbs? Not so with a goose. It meant some meat loss, as some of the bird wasn't good for regular plate eating. The dog got some gristly bits, and some went into stock.

Big Cavity
There's a lot of space inside a goose. I understand the desire to stuff it, but I think leaving it empty helped it cook better and render more fat.

Tight Joints
That's how Joy described them -- and they were right. I wish I had pictures of me grappling with that bird before roasting. It was bony, very bony, and I found out what "tight joints" meant when I tried to trim the enormous wing tips. Much twisting and crunching of bone ensued. The dog was impressed.

After roasting, the bird remained tight: prying a leg off was quite hard.

Good Stock
The carcass made lovely stock -- copious amounts of it, too. The enormous gizzards, the heart, and the two-foot neck helped, too.

Goose Liver is Not Foie Gras
The liver was just a regular liver, not fattened and yellow and mild like foie gras. It was tasty, though: I sauteed it and sliced it, then deglazed the pan with a few drops of Cointreau and poured that over it. It tasted like duck liver, fairly dark but not at all bitter and only faintly musky.

Amazing Gravy
I made a simple, classic gravy with pan drippings, red wine, black pepper and flour.

The Final Yield
Two big meals of roasted goose with root vegetables and gravy.
One goose liver appetizer.
Five quarts of stock.
One batch of goose tortilla soup (chicken tortilla soup with goose stock and goose meat).
One week of dog dinner supplementation with goose scraps.
One cup of goose cracklins.
Two pint jars of pure goose fat.

Lime Cordial and Lime-oncello

2009-12-26T10:05:00.000-08:00

Those tiny yellow limes you grew are so intense, Mom -- they're wonderful, but more acidic than regular limes. Today I used some of them in booze-related experiments.

Lime-oncello
First I zested 14 of them and started a batch of limoncello using limes instead of lemons.

I read a few recipes and enjoyed this overly detailed recipe the most. I more or less followed it but didn't filter the vodka -- it seems silly to filter something that's distilled. We had a bunch of Skyy vodka and since we don't drink vodka very often this seemed like a good use for it -- no grain alcohol in my version.

Two hours in, the vodka is already starting to yellow (it's in the jar on the right). After a few months it should be very pretty. Either that, or it'll look like urine. We'll see.

Lime Cordial
So then I had a bunch of dermis-free limes -- way too many for margaritas or mojitos. I thought about juicing them and freezing the juice, but again, they're so acidic, if they were to lose any delicate lime flavors through freezing they wouldn't be very useful -- all tartness, no flavor.

I poked around online for a while and decided to make lime cordial. Rose's Lime Juice is lime cordial, but Rose's seems pretty gross lately. Maybe it's the high fructose corn syrup. I made a gimlet with it over the summer and it wasn't very enjoyable.

Recipes for lime cordial online mostly contain lime juice, simple syrup, citric acid and tartaric acid. I have neither of the latter two ingredients. I decided the limes' acidity was intense enough to make up for the missing citric acid. For the tartaric acid I used cream of tartar. I'm no chemist, but cream of tartar retains the acidic flavor of tartaric acid, which I think is the goal of the acid, and is also a potassium salt...and I figured salt is a positive thing from a preservative standpoint.

I think I can taste the potassium from the cream of tartar a little. There's a slight bitter aftertaste similar to potassium chloride -- the taste of those "salt substitutes," or of Marmite, or of banana bread with too much baking powder. But Lawson says he can't taste it, so it's probably not a big deal.

After some adjustments, here roughly what I ended up with:

2 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
1 scant teaspoon cream of tartar

Boil the water and sugar until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat; stir in lime juice and cream of tartar. Strain into bottles and refrigerate.

I'll make gimlets tonight. And I'll let you know how long the lime cordial keeps.

Christmas Goodies

2009-12-17T15:58:00.000-08:00

I love to make food gifts for Christmas. This year I made marmalade, lemon curd, chocolate chip cookies, fudge, and sour cream cupcakes with peppermint and cream cheese frosting. I might also make some coconut cupcakes.

If you find out late some day that you have to contribute something for your child's bake sale or your office party, this Microwave Fudge might save you. After ten years I still can't believe how easy and good it is.

Microwave Fudge

1 pound powdered sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup butter or margarine, cut in small pieces

1/4 cup evaporated milk

2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup coarsely chopped nuts

In a 2-quart glass container, combine sugar and cocoa. Stir in butter, evaporated milk, and vanilla. Cover with waxed paper and microwave on high for 2 minutes.

With wooden spoon, stir hot mixture until butter melts, then beat vigorously for one minute or until fudge loses some of its gloss. Stir in 1/2 cup of the nuts. Pour into greased 8 or 9-inch square pan and sprinkle with remaining nuts. Refrigerate one or two hours until firm.

Chard Tart with Pine Nuts

2009-12-13T09:25:00.000-08:00

I remember you making chard pie when I was younger, Mom, and I got to thinking about it this week when I bought some tender, lovely Swiss chard. I didn't want something too eggy -- not a full-on quiche, but rather a light, creamy pie with lots of chard.

I used this crust recipe, which has become my favorite for both savory and sweet uses. It's pretty rich, but if you're going to go to the bother of making crust, why mess around?

I used the food processor this time, and it worked fine. I rolled out the dough, pressed it into a tart ring, brushed it with plenty of egg white, and put it in the fridge to chill.

For the filling, I sauteed in olive oil:

1 very small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 big bunch Swiss chard (1 lb?), including stems, chopped

I let that cool slightly, then added it to a bowl in which I had beaten together:

3 whole eggs + the leftover white (the other leftover white was used to brush the dough)
3 oz cream cheese (I had no Parmesan, which is what I would have used; this gave it a nice mild smoothness.)
1/2 cup half and half, roughly
salt
pinch of nutmeg
lots of black pepper

I poured the filling into the tart shell -- it was very wet, another reason to make a rich crust -- and sprinkled the top with a handful of pine nuts. I baked it for about 45 minutes at 375 degrees.

As with most egg dishes, it was much better once it had cooled to room temperature. It was mild and clean-tasting, and the pine nuts seemed impossibly sweet, almost candied, against the dark green chard flavor.

Salsa Rapida with Tamales

2009-12-05T17:26:00.000-08:00

We went to the Tucson Tamale Festival today and bought two and a half dozen tamales from various booths, all family operations. The best part was the free samples.

The main varieties on offer were green corn (made with fresh corn) and traditional (made with masa, a dough with lime-treated ground corn). They were filled with beef, pork, chicken, or cheese. Sweet tamales were also available.

I always serve Salsa Rapida by Aida Gabilondo with tamales. I thought I had posted it before, but here it is in all its simplicity:

Salsa Rapida

1/2 cup pure red chile powder (no spices)

1 cup boiling water

1/4 cup vinegar

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste

1 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon pressed garlic

Soak the chile powder in the boiling water until for about 15 minutes. Add remaining ingredients, rest for a few minutes, and serve.

Successful Dessert Things from the Internet

2009-11-15T16:57:00.001-08:00

I was flailing a little on Sunday morning before my piano recital--I have a reputation for serving an excellent dessert buffet after the music, and I had made only one measly (well, okay it serves at least twelve people and has a pound of butter in it) chocolate tart.

It's very dangerous to just grab recipes from the internet and make them for guests, but I did it anyway, and these two were quite wonderful. The pumpkin dessert thing is embarrassingly easy.

Nobody ate the coconut cupcakes that afternoon, but as leftovers--which I have spread around the neighborhood, referring to myself as the Calorie Fairy--they have been very popular.

Microwave Risotto

2009-11-15T06:18:00.001-08:00

Yeah, I know, this isn't a picture of risotto--which isn't very photogenic--but rather a tableau of the way watermelon is eaten in Mexico, with a squeeze of lime and a dusting of chile powder.

I tried microwave risotto because I was casting around for a substantial side dish, and I had some arborio rice and some excellent homemade chicken broth on hand. I was also trying to finish my sweater and didn't want to stand over the stove and stir for a long time. I think this recipe originally came from a microwave cookbook by Barbara Kafka, but it's written out in my longhand from decades ago, so I can't be sure. It was delicious and the texture was just right.

Microwave Risotto

1/2 small onion, chopped fine
3 tablespoons butter

Microwave, uncovered, for 3 minutes.

1 cup arborio rice

Stir in rice and microwave 2 1/2 minutes.

1/4 cup vermouth
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
Medium pinch of saffron threads
1/4 teaspoon salt

Add vermouth, broth, saffron, and salt. Stir, cover, and microwave for 10 minutes.

Remove cover, stir, and microwave 8 minutes longer.

1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

Stir in Parmesan and serve.

Chile Verde

2009-10-31T07:05:00.000-07:00

I guess this green chile was good, because after I ate a bowl of it last night I fell asleep on the floor next to the dog.

None of the recipes I looked at were quite the classic New Mexican green chile I was looking for, even from the usually reliable James Peyton. So here's what I did.

1 pound tomatillos
1 pound lean boneless pork, cut into 2" chunks
2 small or 1 big onion
2-5 cloves garlic
1 carrot
half a bell pepper...red here
roasted green chiles - about 8, or half a Food City bag
vermouth (or beer or white wine or something for deglazing)
water (or chicken or pork stock)
1 sprig fresh oregano
cilantro
salt

I simmered the tomatillos for about 10 minutes in a few inches of water, turning them over so they got soft all over. I whirred them in the food processor for a few seconds.

I browned the pork in a little olive oil and then removed it. Then I sauteed the onions, carrot, bell pepper and garlic, in that order. Deglazed the pan. Tossed everything but the cilantro together and let it simmer for about 3 hours until the fat had cooked out of the pork chunks. I put the cilantro in during the last 30 minutes.

The carrot and bell pepper were minimal, really just to round out the flavor a little -- it's mostly about the pork and the chile. And I expected it would need thyme or cumin or something, but it really didn't. Even with just water, not stock, it was super flavorful.

I just served this with tortillas, and it was plenty of food.

Misadventuring in New Mexico

2009-09-24T16:27:00.000-07:00

Our trip to Hillsboro became an adventure. It rained hard after turning north from the Hatch cutoff, in fact so hard that we stopped at the first dip--and indeed, it was full of rushing water. We waited for 20 minutes, a couple of other vehicles came along, and it subsided enough that we crossed it although it had a strong current and was up to mid-tire. Two miles later we crossed a shallow running stream (over pavement) and then came up on a big new drainage coursing across the road. We decided to turn around and take the long way on the freeway, but on the way back a new wash had occurred, a big one, so we were trapped between two flash floods. We contemplated spending the night in our car--no problem, plenty of food and wine on board, and we were on fairly high ground. In a half hour the far stream had subsided and we drove on.

We got to Hillsboro at dusk and the town was so dead, we thought the power was out. Not so--the town of 200 people or so was just quiet, asleep. We had reserved a room at the single motel, but there was nobody there. Dad checked his notes from making the reservation, and Room 7 was mentioned. The door was unlocked, so we made ourselves at home. The owner came over later in the evening to give us a key. We took a walk around town in the lessening rain, and then ate our cold supper of smoked salmon, Jarlsberg, crackers, fruit, and chocolate, with champagne--we were prepared, as usual. The room was clean and comfortable.

The next morning the town's single restaurant was open for breakfast and we found two stools at the old-fashioned counter. We waited an hour for breakfast because apparently the whole town was there, but it was worth the wait: I had a bowl of homemade pinto beans topped with a fried egg, melted cheese, and Hatch green chile. This absolutely replaces the loco moco in my book.

On the way we had lunch in Deming, New Mexico, which has a terrible freeway presence and we usually avoid. But we found a nice little shady downtown area with several restaurants, including Campo's. I had the best chiles rellenos of my life. They were advertised on the menu as "lightly crisped." I can't decide if they were lightly floured and deep-fried, or lightly battered and sauteed--anyway, it was mostly chile stuffed with cheese, and on top of that, a homemade tomatillo sauce. Wow. The place was busy, mostly because of a large family having a First Communion lunch with a little girl in a white lace dress.

After that lunch we visited the local winery, Luna Rossa, which had lovely vines hanging with grapes, and the wine was pretty good. We bought a couple of bottles. We'll share them when you visit us.

Simplicity

2009-09-07T20:54:00.000-07:00

We went out for Italian pizza lunches at the two best places near here with Mary Ellen, and had a variety of 12-inch pizzas ranging from Margherita to prosciutto with arugula. Quite a worthwhile project, although fattening. I don't always succeed in getting my photos in order here, but a prosciutto, arugula, and truffle oil pizza is pictured.

And here's the cobbler recipe from your childhood.

Fruit Cobbler

Place in a baking dish or 10-inch pyrex pie plate:

4 to 6 cups prepared fruit (berries, or cut-up peaches, or a mixture)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour

Make biscuit topping:

1 cup flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar

Mix with fork.

1/3 cup milk or water
1/6 (2 and 2/3 tablespoons) cup oil

Mix liquids and stir into flour mixture, stirring only until lightly blended. Drop by teaspoon blobs onto fruit. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar if desired. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. Serve warm, maybe with ice cream.

Succotash Salad

2009-08-30T12:57:00.001-07:00

It's so hot here we finally got Emily a summer haircut. She loves it.

And because of the heat we've been eating lots of salads. Last night I tried this salad recipe based on one by Bobby Flay. It was a big success with ribs.

Succotash Salad

2 cups cooked lima beans

2 cups fresh corn, cooked and cut from cob

1 cup halved cherry tomatoes
1/2 red or yellow bell pepper, diced

3 green onions, sliced

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup cider vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Pinch of sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Combine vegetables in a bowl. Mix olive oil, vinegar, and seasonings to make a dressing; toss with vegetables. Serve cold.

Grouper Sandwich

2009-08-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

Clockwise from upper left: tomatoes from Jason and Laura's garden, homemade tartar sauce (mayonnaise, lime juice, pickle relish, and New Mexican chile powder), a tempura-fried slab of perfect grouper, and a toasted whole wheat bun.

My iPhone is good at just about everything except taking decent food photos.

There's finally a place in town to get decent fish: The Old Timey Meat Market on Rosewood gets fresh fish in every Thursday. So I bought this gloriously fresh one-pound chunk of grouper, and Lawson mixed up some tempura batter and fried it so we could have fish sandwiches.

He became enamored of fried fish on our Alaska trip, where he ordered halibut and chips at least three different times.

As a first-time home experiment, this was pretty successful. He surveyed a bunch of different tempura batter recipes. He combined the common elements, which were wheat flour and water and egg. And then he cut the fish in half and fried it in a bit of peanut oil. It was not the least bit greasy.

Patty wanted some.

Pois Chiches

2009-07-30T10:58:00.001-07:00

I'm sharing this recipe partly because I'm in love with the French name for chickpeas--pois chiche--and partly because it's so easy and a nice change. I use canned garbanzos often because they're versatile and nutritious. Think of this as French bean salad. It's from Mereille Johnston's Cuisine of the Sun.

Pois Chiches Marines

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 slivered onion

2 teaspoons thyme

1 clove garlic, crushed

Salt and pepper

1/2 cup dry white wine

Juice of 1 lemon

1 can chickpeas, drained

Saute the onions, garlic, thyme, salt, and pepper in the olive oil for 5 minutes. Add the wine and lemon juice and simmer 5 minutes. Then add the chickpeas, bring to a boil, and simmer 5 more minutes. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Bittman Slaw

2009-07-28T14:03:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I get so annoyed with Mark Bittman's writing style, but I do, so in an attempt at being a nicer person I'm directing you to his article in the NY Times about 101 Simple Salads.

This is #20, with the substitution of carrots for radishes. I love Chinese cabbage but I forget that it exists until I go the the 17th Street Market where the Asian vegetables are so beautiful. This was refreshing and unusual.

Cooking Frenzy

2009-07-22T20:39:00.000-07:00

I got fired up today and made granola, blueberry jam, and an Italian supper of salmon, fettucine with peas and saffron, and yellow peppers with mint.

I think this is happening because I'm happy to be home after being away for four of the last six weeks; and also because I've started a regimen of piano practice for a September program, and I love to alternate practice with cooking, just like I did when you were a baby.

The granola was a Joy of Cooking recipe with no sugar or salt, just toasted oatmeal with nuts and dried fruits. I'm looking forward to it for breakfast tomorrow with yogurt.

Blueberries are one dollar a pint now. We've stuffed in all the fresh ones we can eat, so I made a small batch of microwave jam.

In this hot summer weather I turn to Mediterranean recipes. My current favorites are Viana La Place's Verdura and Mireille Johnstons's Cuisine of the Sun.

The pasta was real Italian fettucine, so good after the whole wheat and rice pastas I've been trying to use. Saffron, peas, and green onions were delicious together, garnished with fresh basil. This was also a Viana La Place recipe.

Here is La Place's yellow pepper recipe. I couldn't handle her advice to garnish the peppers with raw garlic, so I added the garlic to the skillet for a few minutes at the end of the cooking time.

Fried Yellow Peppers with Mint
2 fat yellow or orange bell peppers
3 tablespoons olive oil
Salt to taste
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 large clove garlic, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

Trim the peppers and sliver them lengthwise. Heat the olive oil until very hot and add the peppers, stirring until they have brown spots. Reduce heat, add salt, and cook covered until they are tender. A minute or so before they are done, stir in the garlic.

Off heat, add the vinegar, check seasoning, and stir in the mint. Serve at room temperature.

Picado de Repollo

2009-07-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

I made this Cabbage Relish from my favorite Gabilondo Mexican Family Cooking to accompany a lunch burrito, and also because I had a half cabbage languishing in my vegetable bin. It is the perfect foil for Mexican food, and is supposed to ripen and keep well in the refrigerator--but I think we'll eat it all before that happens.

Picado de Repollo

1/2 cabbage

2 fresh jalapenos

1 clove garlic

1/2 cup white vinegar

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

Fresh ground pepper

Grate the cabbage, jalapenos, and garlic in food processor. Toss with the remaining ingredients.

My Pizza Method

2009-07-08T09:15:00.003-07:00

Here's how I do pizza: I start the dough in the bread machine about two hours before serving time (this was 2/3 whole wheat and 1/3 third unbleached flour) and let it rise until puffy.

I preheat the oven and the pizza stone at 450 degrees for a long time, at least 20 minutes before baking; roll out the dough into a rough circle and then fit it to my perforated pizza pan. I don't let it rise again at this point, although I know some people do.

I brush the dough with olive oil, and then put a layer of shredded cheese, then various toppings--this had fresh tomatoes and herbs chopped together with garlic, and then anchovies, olives, and jalapenos.

I bake the pizza in the pan set on top of the hot stone for 8 minutes, then slide it off onto the bare st0ne to finish for about 8 more minutes. I find this method eliminates any disastrous transfer from a peel to oven, especially if the dough is sticky.

2009-07-08T09:15:00.001-07:00

Kidney Bean and Celery Salad

2009-07-08T08:37:00.001-07:00

This is an absurdly refreshing dish for summer--no cooking, and it uses ingredients I usually have around the house. It's from an old Sunset Mexican cookbook and I don't believe for one minute in its authenticity.

I have kept coming back to it over the years, though. It's not overly sweet like other bean salads.

Kidney Bean and Celery Salad

1 can dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
2 stalks celery, finely diced
2 green onions, sliced, or ¼ cup finely chopped red or yellow onion
½ cup chopped walnuts
2 tablespoons pickle relish or chopped sweet pickles
2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper

Mix and chill.

Zucchini Soup

2009-06-29T18:32:00.000-07:00

It's great to be back in my own kitchen again. Last night, after a swim at Mary Ellen's, we all had a dinner of cold zucchini soup and homemade bread; followed by a second course of grilled Copper River red salmon, grilled eggplant from the garden, and French potato salad. I call it French to distinguish it from the mayonnaise version.

For the potato salad, I used red potatoes and after boiling them in their skins until barely tender I cut them into chunks and tossed them with this dressing: 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, a pressed clove of garlic, a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, salt and pepper. I also added a sliced green onion and some fresh tarragon.

Here is the soup recipe:

Curried Zucchini Soup

2 tablespoons butter
2 large zucchini, thinly sliced
1/2 onion, thinly sliced

Melt butter and add zucchini and onion. Cover and cook 10 minutes; do not brown.

2 teaspoons curry powder
1 teaspoon salt (maybe a little less)

Add curry powder and salt and cook another 2 minutes.

2 cups chicken broth
1 cup half-and-half (or evaporated milk)

Place vegetables in blender, add broth and cream, and process until creamy. Chill. Garnish with chives or parsley.

The Bourbon Blossom

2009-06-27T19:58:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention in the last post that we invented a new drink for Father's Day, which we named the Bourbon Blossom.

2 ounces bourbon

1 tablespoon Triple Sec

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Lots of ice

Orange slice for garnish

Shake the bourbon, Triple Sec, and lemon juice with ice. Serve in a glass over ice, garnished with an orange slice.

Seafood Orgy

2009-06-27T19:49:00.000-07:00

Moderation was abandoned. Although I think it's a good idea not to overconsume certain resources, we ate seafood every night on Cape Cod: halibut, scrod, scallops, lobster, haddock!

For Father's Day we had halibut, asparagus, sweet potatoes, and a Razzleberry Pie. Of course, you bought the pie from Marion's Pie Shop, so you know all about it. What a great Father's Day present.

Beet Pickled Eggs

2009-06-27T07:40:00.000-07:00

I had only eaten one pickled egg before this. It was between undergrad and grad school, when my friend John was hanging out with some guys who met every week at a local bar to watch pro wrestling on the big screen. I went with them once, and one guy had pickled some eggs. He pulled a big warm jar out of a paper bag. I ate an egg. It was strange.

Now it's...what, 9 years later? A few months ago I saw a picture of a beet pickled egg, all purple and Easter-y and lovely, and I decided I would make a batch.

I poked through various recipes, thought about my own pickling past, and came up with this.

The Eggs

First, I hard-boiled a dozen eggs.

My eggs never seem to get that ugly blue discoloration between yolk and white. They used to when I was younger. I buy brown free-range eggs -- I suppose that could be a factor -- but it's more likely my standard method that makes the difference.

I put cold eggs in a pot of room temperature water and brought it to a boil over medium-high heat, uncovered. As soon as it boiled, I put the lid on and took the pot off the burner. I let it sit for about 8 minutes -- no longer -- and then took the eggs out and ran cold water over them and put them in a dry cool bowl immediatley into the fridge.

This method always seems to make perfect eggs.

I peeled them about 20 minutes later, as soon as they were cool.

The Pickling Mixture

I mixed the following ingredients and let them sit in a pan on the stove until the eggs were peeled:

One small beet, roasted and peeled and sliced, left over from the previous night's dinner
Two cups water
Two cups vinegar
One tablespoon sugar
Two tablespoons salt
Half teaspoon dry mustard
Bay leaves
One teaspoon brown mustard seed
Several allspice berries
One teaspoon dill seed
Half teaspoon celery seed
One teaspoon black pepper

I used a big glass jar with a hinged locking lid -- I love those. I put the eggs in it and brought the mixture to a boil on the stove, then poured it immediately over the eggs.

I got the jar cooled down as quickly as possible and put it in the fridge.

After three days, I ate an egg.

I loved it. Sweet and sour and pickly and mild -- really delicious.

I had to coax Lawson into trying one. After trying it, he said "I think that's something I'd have to be in the mood for."

Nobody else who's visited has wanted to try one, either. Pickled eggs are something they sell in rural convenience stores around here, all weird and yellow and bobbing around in massive jars next to the crock pot of boiled peanuts.

So I've been happily eating a pickled egg every few days. They're almost gone.

Look, a perfect dinner: vichyssoise, Heather's seeded sourdough, salad with Parmesan, and a few pickled things.

Empanadas

2009-06-15T15:19:00.001-07:00

We had some people over to swim yesterday. We ate:

Ribs smoked by Lawson
Hummus made by Lawson, with whole wheat pita bread
Watermelon
Carrot salad, your recipe
Spiced spinach-zucchini empanadas

For the empanada dough I used your recipe (you inspired me quite a bit this weekend, I see). Here is how I made the filling. It was inspired by Mexican and New Mexican dishes I've had but didn't follow any recipe.

Spinach-Zucchini Empanada Filling
This wasn't quite enough for all the empanadas (I made them smaller than your recipe calls for -- there were 10 in all). For the other three I had some longaniza in the freezer that I hadn't put in casings, so I used that. Those three are like British pasties, except Central American. Very good.

Here's the filling.

Saute in order:

one small onion, diced
one zucchini, diced
one teaspoon garlic, minced
a bag of spinach, torn up

Add and simmer:
small handful currants
1/8 cup walnuts or pecans
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
salt to taste
a bunch of black pepper

Remove from heat, let cool slightly, and add:

several handfuls grated Parmesan
1-2 eggs

I filled the empanadas and baked them as instructed in your dough recipe. I served them with Herdez salsa verde.

It was a lot of food, but the watermelon and carrots offset the heavy ribs and empanadas well, so nobody felt too stuffed.

More about Road Food

2009-06-11T17:51:00.000-07:00

We care a lot about food, in case you hadn't noticed--I guess we bought a camper so we could drag our kitchen around. I hate eating junk. Now we are on this freeway/motel trip from Tucson to Cape Cod, and here is how we survive. We eat out only once a day, usually dinner, and avoid chain restaurants, looking for anything local or ethnic or fresh--not always possible, but it's fun to look.

We take a small ice chest and a plastic box of food and utensils, and a paper bag with fruit. This five-day trip the cooler contained Jarlsberg cheese, English Coastal Cheddar, a package of fancy Italian cold cuts, mustard, a couple of kinds of hummus, small cans of tomato juice, baby carrots from the garden, grapes, cherries. The box contains a small cutting board, a roll of paper towels, a tablecloth, a knife, a corkscrew, silverware, a box of RyKrisp, a loaf of whole wheat sliced bread, a tin of herring fillets with black pepper. The produce bag holds two avocados, a small bunch of bananas, apples, peaches, plums, etc. which we eat as they ripen. All this costs less than a few fast food lunches! And we only spent an hour apiece assembling the ingredients--Dad at Trader Joe's, me at Sprouts.

We eat breakfast in our motel room and have a picnic lunch wherever it happens. We've been lucky with dinners on this trip and even though we've driven 500 or 600 miles per day, ended up with New Mexican food the first night, then barbecue, last night sushi, and tonight a sort of hometown Pennsylvania seafood/Italian thing.

Getting Lucky in Kansas

2009-06-10T05:17:00.000-07:00

We arrived at our motel in Ottawa, Kansas after 7:00 last night, in a downpour. We have driven 1200 miles in two days, on track to get from Tucson to Cape Cod in five days.

There were "restaurants" all around us: Applebee's, Wendy's, McDonald's! We really wanted barbecue, so we looked in the Yellow Pages and there was indeed a barbecue joint--and they delivered! I ordered a rib plate and a chicken plate with spicy sauce, and twenty minutes later it arrived. $7.85 per plate. A miracle.

We had been lugging around a bottle of champagne, waiting for something worth celebrating--and this was definitely it.

Sweet Corn Quesadillas

2009-06-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

I knew gardenlessness would be hard, but I didn't know it would be this hard.

Lawson decided to skip the garden this year. We've had terrible pest problems these last few years -- stinkbugs and their cousins the leaf-footed bugs, primarily, plus some bacterial leafspot. And rats, always rats. Then last year we had mole problems AND nematodes. So Lawson decided to just let the land rest for a year.

So now it's June and I absolutely ache for a yellow garden squash. It's killing me. No new herbs -- just the year-round ones like rosemary, thyme, and oregano. No chiles.

The grocery stores have lots of raspberries and blueberries and strawberries, so I've been buying them to make me feel like it's summer. But the vegetables in the store look the same as ever...with one exception. SWEET CORN.

I never cared much about corn when I was younger. Didn't like corn on the cob. Thought it tasted weird. But, as with so many things that changed when I moved to the South, the sweet corn here really is amazing, and I've been converted. I still can't eat multiple ears in one sitting like Lawson can, but I do love it.

So now we're coming to the point of this whole post: that blurry cell phone picture up there conceals the fact that those quesadillas are the best quesadillas ever made. I saved a cooked ear of sweet corn from dinner the night before, cut the kernels off, and made sweet corn quesadillas.

Each quesadilla contained:

Medium cheddar
Half an ear's worth of sweet corn
A handful of chopped cilantro
Whole wheat tortillas

All these ingredients were essential. And I don't think just any old corn would work: it had to be fresh sweet corn.

I sauteed the quesadillas in a big pan in some olive oil and served them with plain old Herdez green salsa.

We just couldn't handle having no garden anymore, so over the weekend Lawson bought some basil and chile plants and a cherry tomato which he will plant in containers.

Lemon-Basil Daiquiris

2009-06-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

Our beach trip a few weeks ago was somewhat marred by cold weather, but was otherwise beautiful. You can see in this picture I am holding a daiquiri in my long pants and wool jacket.

Sharon had heard about this drink somewhere, so she and Annie set about trying to re-create it. Here is the recipe for a blenderful, as perfected over several days.

4 ounces light rum
1.5 ounces lemon juice
1/8 cup or more sugar
4 basil leaves
ice to fill

It sounds almost too minimalistic. It is very light and crisp, like a mojito. But all the ingredients come through just right, assertive but not too strong.

They experimented with using lemonade, lemon zest, and freshly squeezed lemon juice, but in the end settled on high quality bottled lemon juice. I would probably juice a lemon just because that's what we usually have around.

I think you should make one with your homegrown Meyer lemons and garden basil, Mom.

Kitchen Art

2009-06-01T14:53:00.001-07:00

Can you guess what this photo is?

Grandma's Birthday

2009-05-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

In a final flurry of entertaining, we had Grandma's birthday party today. First Ron and I played a recital of a Mozart duet sonata, the Chopin two-piano rondo Opus 73, and a jazzy Gershwin arrangement. With champagne.

For lunch I made salad plates consisting of a layer of lettuce on which I placed a mounds of curried chicken salad*, curried lentil salad, grapes, and glazed pecans. I made a batch of blueberry muffins to serve with the salad.

For dessert I made a French chocloate tart.

*I read in a catering book years ago how to prepare chickens in bulk for various dishes. You put whole chickens in a roasting pan with an inch of water, then tent them loosely with foil and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour and 45 minutes. This keeps them moist but has a lot more flavor than poaching. I used two chickens and then made broth with the carcasses in the crockpot. Last night we had some of the chicken broth in Red Chile Sauce, which I served over thick Sonoran masa cakes.

South American Food

2009-05-24T18:03:00.000-07:00

Sam and Grace came over for dinner on Friday. We sat outside for the cocktail hour, with wine, fresh veggies from the garden, and Swiss chard empanadas which I baked outside.

For the main course we had Argentinian chicken, a quinoa pilaf, and zucchini cooked with corn. And Easy Almond Tart for dessert. I make this tart so often--it's not enormous like my other tart recipes, and so easy, and everyone loves it. I am reporting here that Sam ate two pieces.

May Breakfast

2009-05-24T18:01:00.001-07:00

Berries have been wonderful this year. We had these yogurt bowls for breakfast last week. There's a layer of bananas underneath.

Foods from Elsewhere

2009-05-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

I hope I never lose my curiousity about what people eat in other parts of the world. Tonight I tried the most unlikely-sounding combination from the Claudia Roden book: meatballs, spinach, and garbanzos (our variation included buffalo meatballs and swiss chard), browned and simmered together for half an hour, with fried garlic and coriander added at the end. It tasted wonderful.

With it I served a salad of grated carrots from the garden, and a plate of sliced tomatoes with olives, feta, green onions, and basil. Here is the salad recipe.

Indian Carrot Salad

2 cups grated carrots

1/4 teaspoon salt

Toss carrots with salt.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon black mustard seeds

Heat oil in a small skillet, toss in mustard seeds, and remove from heat as soon as seeds begin to pop. Pour over carrots.

2 teaspoons lemon juice

Add lemon juice and toss. Serve cold or at room temperature.

Oh by the way, I bought a small electric skillet for cooking outside and have made several things out there next to the toaster oven, saving the house from cooking heat. It works pretty well.

Pappadums in the Microwave

2009-05-11T20:30:00.000-07:00

This was fun. I had fried Indian papad disks (made with garbanzo flour) in oil before, but it was messy and caloric. Somewhere I read that they could be microwaved, so I searched the web and found many forms of advice. Here's one: http://www.geocities.com/rananegro/papad.html

I made a few at 23 seconds per side, and Dad cooked the rest. They were a delicious and exotic alternative bread with our meal of Shanghai tofu salad and snow peas stir-fried with mushrooms.

Vegetarian Southern Food Again

2009-05-10T05:36:00.000-07:00

Mark returned for a short visit, this time with his awesome new wife, and I made a vegetarian Southern meal the last night they were here. It was semi-successful.

The grits were fine, nothing fancy -- you can see them soaking on the right side of the picture. Just soaked, simmered for a few hours, and finished with half and half.

I made black eyed peas -- I browned onions and garlic and flour carefully but quite a bit, then added some sherry and a lot of vegetable stock and some fresh thyme and cooked it all down for an hour and a half. It was a nutty brown, very rich and good.

I quickly sauteed garden collards with some red pepper flakes, finishing them with vinegar.

Florida okra and tomatoes have started appearing in stores, so I made stewed tomatoes and okra. Very simple: just sweated half a Vidalia onion in some butter, then added the okra (stems cut off) and a few chopped tomatoes (seeds and some skin removed) and cooked it all down for 15 minutes, covered.

And I made strawberry rhubarb cobbler.

Restaurant Review: One and Three-quarters Thumbs Down

2009-05-08T14:39:00.000-07:00

We ate last night at Sur Real, an upscale Latin-themed restaurant on Skyline Drive near La Costalotta. Reviews have been good, and the promise of Cuban flavors excited us. I knew we'd made a mistake when I couldn't hear the hostess welcoming us because of the loud "Latin jazz" band that overwhelmed the room. The band did sound vaguely Latin, although the only tune I really recognized besides The Girl from Ipanema was The Days of Wine and Roses with the rhythm distorted.

The partial thumb up is because it was South of the Border wine night, and all the South American and Spanish wines were $5 a glass. I had a Spanish garnacha and an Argentinian white I can't remember the name of, and Dad also fared well. They were all delicious.

Because of the band and the cheap wine, the bar was filled with younger people, and they were having a good time. It was definitely a mismatch for us--all the old people like ourselves in the place (Tucson is full of them, they're everywhere) had strained expressions on their faces, and were frowning and cupping their ears when the waiter spoke to them.

But, the food: We had acceptable empanadas for an appetizer, filled with chicken and sweet potato. I ordered paella and should have been alerted by the mention of arborio rice. Indeed, it wasn't a pilaf at all, but a leaden risotto dotted with little shrimp, cubes of chicken breast, and some salami-like sausage chunks which I swear were flavored with Liquid Smoke. Small clams sat on top. The thing weighed a good five pounds--its remains sit in the refrigerator as I write, like a doorstop. Dad's a good sport and will eat it for the next several lunches. Pray for him.

Cinco de Mayo

2009-05-06T20:03:00.000-07:00

We gave a nod to Cinco de Mayo yesterday. I made spinach enchiladas, beans, and salad. Of course I cook Mexican food two or three times a week, so the coincidence was not that startling.

I have eaten spinach enchiladas at a couple of restaurants, but never made them at home. Dad picked the rest of the spinach crop for this spring, so the time seemed right. The recipes I found on the web just didn't seem very authentic--in fact, I was suckered in to using nutmeg in my filling, and I should know better! Anyway, I made a filling of browned onions, spinach, and crumbled cotija cheese.

I tried a new method of preparing corn tortillas for enchiladas: brushing them with olive oil and microwaving them--okay, but traditional pan-frying feels more satisfying. Then I made a light cream sauce with a chicken broth base and some chopped canned jalapenos added. I rolled up the enchiladas with the spinach filling, poured the cream sauce over, and topped with some grated mixed cheese. I baked them in the outside oven for 10 or 15 minutes.

Salad consisted of fresh garden greens with lots of avocado slices.

A Weekend of Cooking and Picnicking

2009-05-03T20:19:00.000-07:00

Friday evening I pan-braised a little pork tenderloin with mustard and vermouth sauce. With it we had focaccia with blue cheese, sage, and walnuts; and carrots and snowpeas.

Then Saturday we took the leftovers with us to visit the Amerind museum. It's just off of I-10 at Texas Canyon, where we turned off to go to Cochise Stronghold. The museum was wonderful, but the picnic area was a truly special place, with huge granite boulders and live oak trees. We had a memorable picnic. Afterwards we drove to the east side of Saguaro National Park and, after an hour's drive on a washboard road, took a 3-mile hike through the woods to the wilderness boundary.

Today we began with a breakfast of a grilled cheese and green chile sandwich, and finished with Grandma and Walt for dinner. I served Italian chicken with red wine and olives, raw broccoli salad*, and Piedmont peppers. Grandma made bread. I had leftover ice cream pie from last week's recital, which I served with fresh blackberries.

This broccoli salad is very strange but satisfying.

Broccoli Salad

1 pound broccoli
4 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled (optional)
1/2 cup raisins
1/4 cup diced red onion
1/2 cup cashews or other nuts

Cut broccoli into small florets, or chop. Combine in large bowl with bacon, raisins, red onion, and nuts.

1/3 cup light mayonnaise
1/3 cup non-fat yogurt
1/3 cup sour cream
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons vinegar
Salt and pepper

Combine mayonnaise, yogurt, sour cream, sugar, and vinegar to make a smooth dressing (or use bottled ranch dressing). Toss with broccoli mixture. Chill at least one hour.

Italian Spring

2009-04-27T09:09:00.001-07:00

I made a sort of minestrone last night with red and orange peppers,
garlic, carrots, fennel, arugula, and tomatoes with fresh oregano,
rosemary, and thyme. I used some frozen homemade pizza dough to make
flatbread. Pickles, anchovies, and cheese provided some salty contrast.

Man, what a messy table.

German Chocolate Cupcakes

2009-04-27T09:03:00.000-07:00

How long can the cupcake remain wildly fashionable? When I decided to make cupcakes rather than cake for my recital refreshments this weekend I looked on the web and found that there are whole cupcake blogs, and cupcake shops!

I used to make the time-consuming traditional German chocolate cake recipe found on the back of the package: separate egg whites folded in at the end, extended creaming of butter with sugar, and so forth. This time around I used a delicious one-bowl recipe which I found at Diana's Kitchen.

German Chocolate Cake

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter,
softened
1 cup sour cream
4 large eggs
4 ounces sweet baking
chocolate, melted
1/2 cup milk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Grease and flour two 8-inch square baking pans.
In a large bowl,
combine flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, butter, sour cream, eggs, chocolate,
milk, and vanilla. Beat with mixer at low speed until blended. Increase mixer to
high and beat 2 minutes longer. Spoon batter into prepared pans. Bake in a
preheated 350° oven for about 35 minutes, or until a wooden pick or cake tester inserted in center comes out clean.
Remove to
racks to cool completely.

(I filled cupcake liners 2/3 full and baked them 20 minutes. It yielded 32. I used the topping recipe from the back of the package.)

In a stroke of genius, I used a paring knife to make a big divot in each cupcake. This made room for more coconut-pecan topping, resulting in a better topping-to-cake ratio. I am saving the divots in the freezer to make a trifle or something.

Roasted Garlic, Sun-Dried Tomato, and Goat Cheese Pizza

2009-04-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

That's a really pretentious name for our very best favorite pizza. I think I started making this when you were in high school.

For this one I made a crust of 2/3 white and 1/3 spelt flours. I baked 10 garlic cloves in olive oil in a little baking dish for 30 minutes. I soaked some sun-dried tomatoes in boiling water for 15 minutes, then drained them and tossed them with a little of the oil from the garlic.

I brushed the raw pizza crust with the garlic oil, then spread on a thin layer of mixed shredded Italian cheeses. Then I decorated it with the sun-dried tomatoes, the chopped garlic, and 6 ounces crumbled goat cheese, and sprinkled it with chopped fresh basil and parsley. Mmmm.

NY Times: Southern Cooks Use Premade Biscuits

2009-04-19T05:24:00.000-07:00

And some of the best barbecue joints serve canned sweet potatoes and flavorless storebought dinner rolls. Just because these foods have authentic uses doesn't mean they're any good.

I sure do want to try some Sister Schubert rolls now, though.

Guatemalan Longaniza

2009-04-18T10:41:00.001-07:00

Hey, Mom, I finally re-created the sausage you and Dad and I had at that Guatemalan restaurant ~~(aptly named "Guatemalan Restaurant")~~ in Tucson.

The menu, you'll remember, said:

Longaniza: Guatemalan style sausage stuffed with ground pork,

onions, jalapeno peppers, mint and spices.

The sausage was grilled over hot coals, almost blackened in some places but never burnt. It was stuffed in hog casings that the chef split open prior to grilling. The pork was quite lean and finely ground for sausage. The mint and chiles were fresh and abundant. It was like nothing I'd had before.

So I looked for a recipe. And it turns out this post is destined to become the top search result for the phrase "Guatemalan longaniza," simply because I couldn't find any such thing anywhere on the internet or in any of my cookbooks. There's Spanish longaniza, which is smoked and mint-free. There's Mexican longaniza, which appears to be like Mexican chorizo except in casings (look, a video from Arizona on Mexican sausagemaking in which the narrator has a Castilian accent. Seriously, listen to the Spanish version. Where did they find that guy?)

And there's Filipino longaniza, which is garlicky, spicy, sometimes sweet, and occasionally contains mint.

But no Guatemalan longaniza. I wonder if the chef, the older woman at that restaurant, has connections or family in the Philippines? Maybe there's a Filipino community in Guatemala? You'll have to do further investigative work for me, I'm afraid.

Anyway, I bought a Boston butt on sale at Publix and cut the meat off the bone. I used about three pounds of meat and froze the rest. I decided not to add any fat as I usually would for sausage: the butt was quite fatty already, and I wanted to keep it lean like what we had.

So I mixed the following together and sent it through my grinder fitted with the finer of the two blades:

3 pounds fatty pork, cut into strips
a white onion, diced and sauteed in olive oil
a clove of garlic, minced and added to saute pan at end
a handful of fresh mint
a jalapeno from the grocery store
a few tabascos from last year's garden, frozen, since grocery store jalapenos are so lame
red pepper flakes to round up the chile flavor
kosher salt
black pepper (lots)
fresh thyme (not much)
1/3 cup light rum

I also separately chiffonaded another handful of mint and mixed it in after the grinding, since the grind was so fine and I wanted some visible mint leaves.

But it wasn't quite right. I put the mixture in the fridge and thought about it for a whole day...and finally realized the secret ingredient had to be a good dose of sugar. That would account for the scorched look of the restaurant sausages where the filling had burbled out of the slits. And it worked: it pulled the mint and spices together in a very Vietnamese way.

So I added:

several tablespoonfuls of sugar

In fact, Lawson's first comment on the sausages (which he liked) was that they reminded him of the Chinese sweet sausages he used to eat in NYC and at The Orient, the Chinese restaurant in Columbia where he learned much of what he knows about Chinese cooking.

Next time I think I will add lime or orange zest or juice, just a touch. I may also play with some other spices besides thyme and pepper.

I stuffed these into medium hog casings, tied them into 5" links, and hung them in the fridge for two days. I used the gas grill to cook them the first batch, but I will grill them over wood next time. I have been enjoying my homemade sausages grilled over wood so, so, so much more than over gas. The wood seems to fill in the flavor gaps and mellow any dominant flavors -- like, my bratwurst over gas taste too strongly of nutmeg, but over wood they have the right musky, earthy-homemade nutmeg solidity but don't necessarily taste like snickerdoodles.

The longaniza was good. I'll make it again -- it's a very summery sausage.

I have sausages and pork on the brain after interviewing local food activist, politician, and fancypants pig farmer Emile DeFelice a few days ago for an upcoming Free Times story. We foraged for mushrooms (well, as much as my inappropriate footwear would allow). Fangirl and journalist struggled mightily within me. Fortunately, the best defense against asking questions like "How'd you get so awesome?" is to ask as few questions as possible and just let a guy talk. (Actually, that's pretty much my one and only interview tactic: Shut the hell up.) Look for the article on Wednesday.

No good sausage or Emile pictures, sorry. My camera woes continue.

Stir Fried Shrimp and Vegetables

2009-04-13T21:13:00.001-07:00

Tonight I made a pretty good stir fry with shrimp, snow peas, spinach, and rice noodles (and of course garlic and jalapenos). I served it with some baked tofu topped with your peanut sauce.

What I like about this meal was the number of things that came from our garden: spinach, snow peas, cilantro, basil, jalapenos, green onions, and lettuce.

Improv

2009-04-12T20:47:00.000-07:00

Cooks improvise and substitute constantly in their cooking--the alternative is slavishly following written recipes and running to the store for every missing item.

I began to make bouillabaisse today for our Easter dinner and discovered I had no fresh fennel, no leek, and no celery for the broth (note to self: read recipe before shopping). Instead I used anise seed, onion, and celery seed. There's plenty of flavor in this dish already with saffron, wine, and fish stock. For seafood I used two crab legs, scallops, shrimp, and tilapia. It was good.

Grandma made bread and lemon pudding, I made the soup, and Dad made the salad. Mary Ellen brought champagne and red wine and we had an excellent party. Happy Easter to all. I missed dyeing and hiding eggs, though.

Grilled Radicchio Salad

2009-04-03T13:35:00.000-07:00

I'm glad you got out of town for a few days, Mom.

I invented a salad. I guess this means my cooking slump is over. I don't know if Lawson loves it as much as I do; he is not as into bitter leafy things as I. Too bad for him.

I've grilled radicchio before, but I was never successful at tempering its bitterness very well. This works, though. It accompanies easy grilled meals well, too, because you do most of the speedy prep ahead of time, then grill the radicchio along with your burgers or sausage or whatever right before serving.

Toss together and set aside at room temperature for at least an hour:

cherry tomatoes, halved (or chopped good summer tomatoes, when available)
sugar snap peas, de-stringed, halved if desired
balsamic vinegar
olive oil
merest hint of salt
pepper

Then quarter one head of radicchio and lightly spray all sides with olive oil cooking spray. Grill quarters over direct but not too high gas or coals, turning as needed, until radicchio is browned but not charred.

Cut grilled radicchio pieces roughly with scissors, toss with tomato mixture, and serve.

The picture is blurry because my camera sucks. I am in the market for a new one.

Desert Camping

2009-03-30T20:09:00.000-07:00

We escaped to the desert last week--Organ Pipe, Joshua Tree, Death Valley, and Mojave National Preserve--all National Park Service areas. Long live public lands!

We saw lots of wild flowers and hiked and drove in such beautiful country. We cooked in the camper every night, including meals of salmon patties, buffalo chili, chicken sausage and pasta, and finally a sort of chicken piccata with quinoa.

I sauteed the peppers and onions, browned the chicken, and then made a pilaf with the broth and quinoa. Delicious served with Brussels sprouts.

The last night we camped in our favorite sort of place, out in the wilderness with geology all around.

Deer Sausage and Mushroom Gravy

2009-03-29T14:55:00.000-07:00

My friend Dave gave us some venison that his cousin shot and took to a processor. Item #1 was this entertainingly packaged sausage.

It looks like something you would buy from under the table at a flea market, but it is very tasty. It's seasoned like standard American breakfast sausage -- black pepper, sage, salt, red chile flakes -- and is well balanced in a way that highlights the dark, sweet deer flavor.

Item #2, unfortunately -- and Dave warned me about this -- is a packet of square patties with some kind of seasoning added such that they taste very much like fast food chicken sandwiches. They are quite alarming. The meat is too finely ground and the seasonings oddly chemical. They taste nothing like deer. They are nearly inedible.

I put some of the sausage to good use for a recent dinner. I made two sausage patties and browned them and set them aside -- they were probably medium rare at that point, but they cooked a little more in the sauce at the end.

I then used the same pan with a little extra olive oil to saute onions, garlic, shitake mushrooms, and cremini mushrooms. Then I added vermouth or maybe leftover Riesling and scraped up the pan goop left over from the sausage. There was a lot of it -- very effective. I added chicken broth, fresh sage, and thyme, and let the whole thing simmer a bit.

I thickened it slightly with cornstarch, which made for a nice glossy brown sauce.

At the end I added a bunch of parsley and reheated the sausage patties in the sauce. I served it over polenta/grits...I think I called it polenta that night.

Diagnosis: Purple Soup

2009-03-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

The strange cooking slump continues. This has never happened to me before for more than a few days: it's like I've lost both confidence and sense. I've made some good food and some crummy food, but I haven't felt right about any of it. It's like being a pitcher or shooting free throws -- something is off, and I don't know what, but the fact that I know it's off reinforces the offness of it.

Too abstract? Here's an exhibit.

I made chicken tortilla soup a few nights ago. Homemade stock, nice roasted chicken, green chiles, tortillas fried in a mixture of peanut oil and schmaltz [I have a newfound academic interest in schmaltz thanks to Melanie] -- good stuff. I had some red cabbage in the fridge that I wanted to use up. "Cabbage would be good in tortilla soup," I thought to myself. But my cooking sense should have followed that up with "Green cabbage, maybe. Red cabbage would turn the soup purple."

But that second voice never spoke, and indeed, the soup was purple.

Tasty, but purple.

Now that I've identified the problem, I think the only way to solve it will be to ignore cooking for a short time -- to keep doing it, but to just stop thinking about it. Again, exactly like shooting free throws.

So last night we had grilled cheese sandwiches with pickles on the side. They were excellent. For lunch today I'm having black beans from a can mixed with cheddar and hot sauce and heated up in the microwave. It hardly counts as cooking. That's the idea.

Meanwhile, in the absence of cooking mojo, there has been more knitting. I made Lawson a kickass scarf. And here is part of a hat.

Calzone II

2009-03-18T16:41:00.000-07:00

Here's another calzone, this one much more traditional. The filling was homemade Italian sausage, sauteed onions and garlic, ricotta, mozzarella, and parsley. I added some fresh thyme and dried oregano too, I think.

I have a sinus infection and am not doing much cooking, which is why I'm writing about food from a week or two back and don't remember exactly what I did. Makes for poor food blogging, I know. But the calzones are lovely, aren't they?

Sunday Night Supper

2009-03-16T07:05:00.000-07:00

"Sunday night supper" connotes comfortable food that doesn't require too much work--or possibly a lighter meal because it follows a gargantuan lunch of roast beast.

Last night our supper menu was Curry-Crusted Scallops, Quinoa Tabulli, and little carrots and snow peas from the garden, followed by black raspberry/chocolate chunk ice cream.

I loved quinoa as a substitute for bulgur in my regular tabulli recipe. This was the first time I tried it. Dad grew the parsley, so this was a big success.

Here's a product endorsement especially relevant to our times: this ice cream, which is a Kroger store brand, cost $1.30 and was just as delicious as any $5 famous stuff.

Shepherd's Pie

2009-03-15T15:38:00.000-07:00

I bought some nice grass-fed ground lamb on sale the other day. I looked at various spiced lamb meatball recipes and Moroccan lamby stews and such, but in the end I decide to make plain shepherd's pie, the sort of thing you might be served at a pub in England.

For the stew part, I browned the lamb and removed it, pouring off all but a few tablespoons of fat and adding a touch of olive oil for flavor. I browned onions and carrots next, then added some white wine and frozen peas and a mix of chicken broth and water and let the whole thing cook a bit. Oregano, maybe? Thyme? Cinnamon? Lot of black pepper, for sure. Definitely a huge handful of parsley at the end.

I made the mashed potatoes by boiling a few potatoes, semi-peeled, for a good 20 minutes or more until they were soft. I mashed them using a ricer with some butter and a good glug of half and half.

I put the stew in a pretty casserole dish, covered it with potatoes, and baked it for a while at 375 until the potatoes firmed up a little.

On the side we had a simple arugula salad with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and a lot of shaved pecorino romano.

I thought the sheepy cheese would complement the sheepy pie, and it did.

I've had sheep on the brain lately because I learned to knit. Here's my second completed project: some fingerless gloves for cold nights at band practice. They're just little rectangles of Noro Kureyon yarn, sewn up above and below the thumb.

Pasta Puttanesca

2009-03-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

I had a couple of episodes of stomach pain in the last week, which prompted me to look up my symptoms on the internet. All articles advised me to examine my intake of alcohol and caffeine--uh oh.

So I began to follow Dr. Andrew Weil's anti-inflammatory food pyramid, which advises among other things to drink only green tea for caffeine, and up to two glasses of red wine per day. And we are not cooking meat at home, only fish and vegetarian for a while. I hate to admit that I feel practically reborn. I'll try this for a while since it's easy and allows for almost all of the things I like (although I did not see margaritas on that list).

Last night we had collard greens from the garden, and Pasta Puttanesca. I hadn't made that for a while--so easy and full of flavor. This is revised from Joy of Cooking. I used brown rice pasta.

Pasta Puttanesca

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 teaspoon dried red chile flakes

Saute the garlic and chile in the olive oil until lightly colored. Add:

1/2 to 1 cup chopped pitted olives (Kalamata or oil-cured)

6 anchovy fillets, rinsed and chopped

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

Cook another minute. Then stir in:

1 one-pound can crushed tomatoes

Simmer for five minutes. Finish with:

3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

2 tablespoons capers

Salt and pepper to taste

Toss with cooked pasta.

Bosnian Food in Tucson

2009-03-09T09:13:00.000-07:00

I was away all day at rehearsals Saturday, so Dad--who understands that procuring the perfect take-out meal is an art--went to the new Bosnian restaurant nearby and brought home the most wonderful homemade meal. Our menu: Bosnian Salad Plate (like antipasto, but fresher) accompanied by homemade bread that was unsalted, a nice contrast; a vegetable stew with potato dumplings (not heavy, though--and the stew sauce was vaguely vinegary); a lamb stew with large limas (gigantes, they're called in some cuisines); and a dessert of dried fruit confection rolled into balls. A cabbage salad accompanied everything--it seemed to have been wilted or blanched and was so mild and tender.

We'll be going back there often.

Lemon Meringue Pie

2009-03-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the hiatus here. Other things got in the way of cooking and picture-taking.

Here's a lemon meringue pie I made before the break. I always make one for Christmas, and we usually leave it with Lawson's brother, who is a big fan. This year we felt like we needed a little more lemon meringue pie in our lives, so I made one for us to brighten up the late February gloom.

I use the 1997 Joy of Cooking recipe exactly as written (so I won't reproduce it here), and it's perfect every time. My favorite thing about it is that the yolks go in the filling and the whites in the meringue, so I don't have to figure out what to do with leftover egg components.

The second photo is very instructive in terms of the contents of my kitchen. Clockwise from top left we have: a kitchen scale, some Abuelita brand Mexican hot chocolate, a jar of homemade Tabasco sauce, a roll of yellow duct tape, a homemade shelf built from plywood and glue with the aid of the 1970s book Furniture Without Tools, which houses my collection of David Wade cookbooks and leaflets (possibly the world's most extensive private collection of Wadiana -- much larger than that of the Library of Congress), a bread machine, a wire rack with a pie on it, the edge of the dog's wet food bowl, a tin of anchovies, the lid of a small, yard-sale-sourced Coleman cooler (generally used for transporting beer to private social events), 4 lemons picked off the Moore family Lisbon lemon tree in Tucson, a dish towel, a box with a Paypal address label, and an iron.

I did not put these things on my kitchen table. Things just end up there.

Calzone

2009-02-20T06:47:00.000-08:00

I made a calzone using my regular pizza dough recipe. It's a fairly wet dough, which made it a little tough to work with. Lots of cornmeal on the peel made it all okay.

No ricotta in this one -- just what we had around, which was homemade Italian sausage, mozzarella, and sauce made with canned tomatoes.

Mom, I used to love those calzones you made with ham and cheese when we were kids. I think that was my birthday dinner for several years running, wasn't it?