Calzone

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?

Bouillabaisse

Norm and Jane from Washington came for dinner and to spend the night. Norm is a vintner and brought two delicious bottles of his wine, an unusual Petit Verdot and a Voignier. Here was our Valentine menu.

Bouillabaisse

Homemade Bread

Salad from the Garden

+++

Brownies

Strawberry Ice Cream

Fresh Blackberries

This soup is wonderful for guests because you can make the broth ahead, and then throw in the fish for five minutes right before serving. The flavor of the broth is lovely, starting with fennel and leek instead of the usual carrots, onions, and celery. The recipe is mostly from the 1997 Joy of Cooking.

Bouillabaisse

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

1 leek, cut into 1/2-inch half rounds

1 small fennel bulb, cored and sliced

1 stalk celery, thinly sliced

1 bay leaf

1 star anise

Peel of 1/2 orange

1/4 teaspoon saffron threads

1/2 teaspoon salt

Heat the oil and butter and gently saute the above ingredients for 5 to 10 minutes, until tender but not browned. Then add

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Saute a further 2 minutes, then add

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1/2 cup dry white vermouth

Boil gently for 3 minutes. Stir in

1 one-pound can diced tomatoes

3 cups Fish Broth*

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3/4 teaspoon salt, depending on the saltiness of your broth

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer gently for 20 minutes. You can stop at this point if you want.

Just before serving time, stir in 1 1/2 to 2 pounds of mixed fish and shellfish, cut in similar sizes so they will cook in the same amount of time--or else put the larger items in first. Cook up to 5 minutes or until just cooked. For this batch I used:

1/2 pound shrimp (I used the shells in the broth)

1/2 pound cod in 1-inch chunks

3/4 pound bay scallops

2 Australian lobster tails, cut in half lengthwise

1 can chopped clams

*I made this particular fish stock by simmering the shrimp shells, the juice from the can of clams, and a couple of tablespoons of fish sauce with water.

PS: We had the leftover soup for lunch today with Grandma and it was still excellent. Be careful not to reheat too much.

Fancy Nachos

Trying to use up food from the fridge, I made pretentious fancy nachos with:

• homemade corn chips
• bourbon-tomatillo black beans
• goat Brie
• white cheddar
• roasted red peppers
• cilantro
• chives

I made the corn chips by cutting up corn tortillas and frying them in a small amount of peanut oil.

I made the beans by opening a can of black beans and cooking them down with some Herdez green salsa and 1/8 cup of bourbon. No kidding.

I compiled the whole thing and baked it for 10 minutes or so.

No meat here...maybe something like leftover roasted duck or homemade wild boar sausage might have been silly enough to match the rest of the dish.

Enchiladas and Beans

We cooked our standard comfort food yesterday: green chile enchiladas and beans. Tonight we had pulled pork, sweet potatoes, and ratatouille over at Grandma's. It's cold here. At 50 degrees, our thoughts turn to all-day oven dishes.

However, the real purpose of this post is to share that flatbread recipe you asked for.

Brown Rice Flour Flatbread

3/4 cup brown rice flour
1/2 cup blanched almonds
3/4 cup mixed gluten-free flour mix
1/2 teaspoon anise seed
2 tablespoons sesame seed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon xantham gum

Process above ingredients in a food processor until finely ground.

1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 egg
1/2 cup water

Mix yogurt, olive oil, egg, and water in a measuring cup. Add to processor bowl and process for about 30 seconds to make a sticky batter.

Spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray, or line with parchment paper.

Scoop the dough out onto the baking sheet into two lumps. Pat into flat round cakes with the help of a little additional rice flour. Slash the tops of the cakes in a grid pattern, 1/4 inch deep. Bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

February Thaw

Mom, we're geniuses. I just made that cocktail we invented in conversation last week, and it's great: a Campari and soda, but with an ounce of gin to cut the sweetness and make it stiffer.

The best part is that the gin and Campari flavors both come through well, with their two different varieties of bitterness. It's modeled on a negroni, of course, which is equal parts gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari, but is far less bizarre than a negroni, which is a drink I can probably have only once every few years, so sweet, strong, and unsettling is it.

This is 1 ounce of gin, 3 ounces of Campari, and maybe 5-6 ounces of soda -- enough soda to fill an ice-filled glass the rest of the way. Very good.

There's an actual sunset occurring here in Columbia at this very moment.

Last night, to capitalize on the warm weather, I grilled hot dogs. I also made a salad of mixed lettuces, sugar snap peas, and strawberries; the dressing was lemon juice, tahini, olive oil, honey, salt, pepper, and fresh mint. Very summery.

As much as I loved cooking and eating with you and Dad, it's good to be back in my own kitchen again, you know?

Cooking Fish with Eva

Here's another meal we made together last week: red snapper with charmoula, green beans, and gluten-free flatbread.

I liked this flat round of unleavened bread made of brown rice flour, gluten-free baking flour mixture, egg, yogurt, and baking soda. It didn't try to mimick yeast bread, but was flavorful and slightly crunchy. It's from The Wheat-Free Cookbook by Jacqueline Mallorca.

Cooking Habit Live and In Person: Plating

I liked this sequence of photos from when we made dinner together earlier this week, Mom.

First, roasted tomato vinaigrette.

Then polenta -- just coarse cornmeal and water simmered for a few hours and finished with butter and parmesan -- and pan-grilled grouper.

And finally swiss chard, grown and harvested by Dad and sauteed by you with some garlic.

Food for Travelers

I always make soup or stew for company arriving by airplane, because terrible things can happen to the timing of dinner. If possible, I leave it in the crockpot while we drive to the airport.

I love Laurie Colwin's essay "Jet Lag and How to Feed It" from More Home Cooking. She recommends lentil soup, which is perfect for jet lag. She is a wonderful food writer.

Eva arrived early and without trauma at the airport yesterday from South Carolina, but I was still happy to have dinner simmering. We had posole, tortilla crisps, a big salad from the garden with blue cheese dressing, and lemon bars.

Mahi Mahi Redux

"Redux" is in honor of John Updike. I have to read something of his again. Reading the Rabbit novels twenty years ago, I thought they were so mundane--I have to give them another look.

I bought some gleamingly fresh mahimahi today, and prepared it according to a recipe I found on the internet--I'm always wary, but allrecipes.com has been a good source for me. I baked an acorn squash and boiled two ears of corn, and served the fish on a bed of arugula.

The $3 Bill Project: Eating Cheap

In today's Free Times I have a story on Eve Ross and Justin Shearer, who are eating for $3 a day through January and possibly through February and half of March as well -- depends on whether the groundhog sees his shadow.

Their goal is to examine their own food spending habits, and to donate the saved money to a local food bank. And they were kind enough to actually make dinner within their budget for me and Graeme, the photographer. Yes. It was awesome.

I loved everything they made us, but especially the soup. Here's Eve's recipe for a similar version made with squash.

Inspiring all around, and good company.

Chicken and Pastry

Here's a new one from the Southern food files: chicken and dumplings, aka chicken and pastry.

Southern dumplings are completely different from what we think of as dumplings, Mom -- these are more like big noodles, like those big 3" square Thai rice noodles except made out of soft wheat flour.

Most people here call the dish chicken and dumplings, but Lawson's dad's family calls it chicken and pastry, which I think is more descriptive. For me, the word "dumpling," what with that "plump" assonance and my own childhood memories, just describes balls of dough better than flaps of dough. So pastry it is.

There's another key way in which Southern chicken and dumplings is different from what we make elsewhere, and this difference took me longer to understand. It's not a soup, although it's made with a bunch of broth. It's got no vegetables, and it's not heavily seasoned. It's more like chicken and noodles in gravy. The dumplings thicken the stock as they cook, and you serve the chicken and dumplings on a plate or flat bowl with just some of the liquid, which clings to everything like a sauce. Vegetables go on the side.

Here is Lawson's grandma's recipe for chicken and pastry, as written down by his...maybe great aunt?:

Make a hole in the center of a pan full of self-rising flour. Get a cup full of hot chicken broth and pour it into the hole. Take a fork and stir it around and work in enough flour to make a firm ball. On a floured surface, roll it out thin. Leave it for a couple of hours to "die." (I don't know if you would have to "let it die" if you used all-purpose flour, we never had any of that kind at our house.) Then cut into thin strips and drop into the boiling pot of broth and chicken. Cook until tender, (not long).

Lawson remembers watching his grandma make chicken and pastry when he was a kid, so he was able to fill in some of the holes in that recipe for me. I also looked at Jean Anderson's instructions in the cookbook you gave me, Mom, and a few other places. And here's what I did:

Chicken and Pastry

Roast a chicken. Eat half of the meat at one meal. Pick the other half of the meat off and save for chicken and pastry.

Make stock with the carcass, skin, pan drippings, an onion, and a carrot.

(Most traditional recipes call for starting with a whole chicken and boiling it. But most traditional recipes are for tough old hens that have stopped laying, not grocery store roasters. Roasting the chicken first gives a bland bird more flavor. And since we can get several two-person meals out of one chicken, there's no use just boiling the whole thing.)

When the broth is finished, make the pastry dough:

• 2 cups white all-purpose flour -- I used White Lily.
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
• warm broth, not yet skimmed -- I used a bit less than a cup, but this will vary.

Mix together with a fork just until doughlike. Do not knead. Form into ball and set aside.

Skim the fat off the broth and heat the broth in a clean pan. Add salt, pepper, a fresh sage leaf, and a sprig of thyme and simmer for 10-15 minutes, long enough to get the flavors smoothed out.

Roll out the pastry on a floured counter. At first I rolled it to about 3/8", but Lawson said it should be still thinner, almost translucent, so I did that. Later we decided the thicker pieces were a bit better -- they had some chewy substantialness that was lacking from the thin ones.

Cut the pastry with a knife into rectangles about 2" x 3".

Add the chicken meat to the broth and bring to a boil. It should be a big rolling boil. I didn't like it and tried to convince Lawson to turn it down, though he swore he remembered a ferocious boil -- I thought it would make the broth taste scorchy and flat. But I understood after we put the pastry in that the broth has to be moving and hopping furiously to keep the pastry from sticking to other pieces. So do that.

Drop the pastry pieces one at a time into the pot. Once all the pastry was in, it probably took about 15 minutes for everything to cook through and the broth to thicken slightly.

We ate it with green beans boiled and then tossed with lemon zest and a touch of butter. Very simple, and perfect on a cold wet January night in South Carolina.

Cod Cakes

Alaskan cod is one of the most reliably fresh and available fishes I can buy in Tucson. I often make it baked Greek-style or with capers, lemon, and parsley. Tonight, however, I simmered it and made it into old-fashioned New England cod cakes.

I flaked the cooked, cooled cod (about 1 pound) and mixed it with 2 medium boiled smashed potatoes, 1/4 cup evaporated milk, an egg, a chopped green onion, a teaspoon curry powder, salt and pepper. I formed the mixture into fat patties, dredged them in flour, and sauteed them for five minutes per side in a little olive oil. (I consulted Mark Bittman's Fish for this recipe.)

Serve with oven fries, tartar sauce, and ketchup. Oh--and don't forget to garnish with arugula.

Not Yet Assembled Breakfast Burritos

I've been having intense cravings for breakfast burritos all week. I don't know why. On Monday they were quite strong, so I made some tortillas, but like all my tortillas they were too small for a big serious burrito and too thick to wrap happily around a bunch of filling.

This was my compromise: a plate of burrito fillings served with a basket of small tortillas.

The beans are just canned beans cooked down with a little olive oil, some chopped cilantro, a smashed garlic clove -- I cooked them until they were less wet. The potatoes were cubed, microwaved for about 5 minutes, and then sauteed in olive oil and salted. The eggs were soft-scrambled. The avocado and lime were sliced. And I served some habanero-carrot salsa on the side.

Italian Sausage

For Christmas a few years ago, Lawson gave me a grinder attachment for my KitchenAid. This year, he gave me the sausage horn attachment, a hank of hog casings, and a book on sausage-making. So I was finally all set to make sausage.

The grinder is funny: I tried it for cranberry-orange relish last year, but it was no good -- it made the relish too wet and gooey, and I ended up using my hand cranked old metal grinder from the flea market instead. But for meat, the grinder was perfect. I used the coarser grind plate, and everything went quickly and smoothly.

Italian sausage recipes are surprisingly simple and similar to each other. This was roughly what I used:

3.5 pounds of pork butt, cut off the bone
1 pound of fatback
2 tablespoons fennel seeds
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon pepper
kosher salt
1 tablespoon red chile powder
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
1/4 cup vermouth

I used too much salt at first and had to go buy another pound of lean pork to grind in. I used the amount of salt called for in the main recipe I was following, 4 teaspoons, but it turned out the fatback was salted, and it threw everything off.

I fried up several little samples of the sausage throughout the process to make sure everything was tasting right.

So I ground everything together and put it back in the fridge. I would have liked to have stuffed it that day but had to wait another day, and the meat got kind of stiff and hard to stuff.

I rinsed out four casings by putting them over the faucet and running water through them.


To stuff a sausage, I had to thread an entire casing, all three or four feet of it, onto the sausage horn, which was attached to the grinder with its plate and knife removed. I then started piling meat into the hopper and pushing it down with a little wooden stomper. Once the initial air was pushed out and there was an inch of meat in the casing, I tied the end of the sausage and started stuffing.

It took a long time, and quite a bit of skill and feel. My sausages were passable, but they weren't all that pretty. I would stuff each casing full, then section it off and twirl the sausages to seal them into links. I set them in the fridge overnight to cure, then packed them in freezer bags.

They taste a little salty still, and a little lean -- that extra pound of meat I had to add upset the balance a bit. They could have used more fennel, too. But they are delicious. We grilled a few the first night. I froze the rest. We took some to the mountains this weekend and made pasta with tomatoes, red pepper, onions, and sausage.
All very good.

Next time I'll try something I can smoke, like andouille. And I want to perfect the Italian sausage recipe.

Lamb Stew and Bread

Coming soon: thorough documentation of my first home sausage-making experiment.

For now, though, there's just this lamb stew (two lamb shanks, onions, carrots, potatoes, parsley, etc.) and homemade multi-grain bread (white flour, wheat flour, cornmeal, oatmeal, wheat gluten, honey, yogurt, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, etc.)

I'll be back late Monday with sausage tales.