Getting back in the Swing

I miss you too.  Thrice I was asked today when I'd be blogging again.  The issue is getting back into the routine of school and activities, managing middle school and workloads and who is going where on what day.  Anything I've been making for dinner the past couple weeks has all been made before.  Everyone is tired.  Now is not the time for adventure, now is the time for tried and true meals that won't fail me.  And, I confess, a lot of scrambled eggs.  Oh, and I made mushroom barley soup in David Crockpott and it was very nice, dear, but after the effort it's a shame that mushroom barley just isn't high on my list of favorite soups.  It's in the freezer now in case any of my local pals want it. Another thing taking up my time is me.  I mean I've been trying to write again, and when I say write I mean work on that damn novel of mine, take the time every day in the early morning or late at night to write something because seriously, what the hell am I waiting for?  I joined Fanstory.com and have put up a few of the scribbles already posted on the blog.  There's been some good feedback and I just feel that I have something to say and a gift of sorts for saying it.  Anyway, my Fanstory site is here.

And as writing goes hand-in-hand with reading, and Reads is this blog's middle name, here are the pages I've been flipping:

    

Commuters I read and loved and then despaired of ever being a successful writer.  The Secret Lives of Dresses I was sure I was going to absolutely love.  I mean, it's about a woman who owns a vintage clothing shop and (wait for it) secretly writes stories about the dresses she sells.  Whichever patron buys the dress, they also get the story.  I mean is that a book made for me?  I was sure it was going to be my new BFF but alas, by the last chapters I was skimming and I thought maybe I can be a successful writer.

Now I'm reading Before Ever After and back to despairing because I know I'm going to love it and be humbled.  (Sigh)

And now let's have a snack.  I've made zucchini fritters before here.  Haven't I?  I must have.  Hmm...no...just black bean fritters.  Well no matter, it's the same premise, and I just discovered/remembered this recipe which I had dog-eared in Food & Wine.  It's Mario Batali's twist on shredded zucchini, eggs, flour, onion, etc.  His genius lies in the addition of ricotta cheese and lemon zest (smacks forehead), now why didn't I think of that?

Mario Batali's Forehead-Smacking Zucchini-Ricotta Fritters

  • 2 medium zucchini (about 7 ounces each), coarsely shredded
  • 2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
  • 3 large scallions, very thinly sliced
  • 1/2 cup fresh sheep-milk ricotta cheese
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • Olive oil, for frying
  • Lemon wedges, for serving

In a large bowl, combine the zucchini, garlic, scallions, ricotta, eggs, lemon zest and 1 teaspoon each of salt and pepper. Stir well, then stir in the flour just until incorporated.

Line a large baking sheet with paper towels. In a large skillet, heat 1/4 inch of olive oil until shimmering. Working in batches, add 2-tablespoon mounds of the zucchini batter to the hot oil, spreading them to form 3-inch fritters. Fry over moderately high heat, turning once, until browned and crisp, about 3 minutes. Drain the fritters on the paper towels and serve right away, with lemon wedges.

Eat.

Read.

Think about it...

Minestrone Soup, Part II

I did a post on Minestrone Soup back in February.  The recipe I used produced a thoroughly OK soup, but, if I may quote myself:

...there seemed to be elusive base note missing to the broth.  It just needed one last bit of “umph,” and I wondered if a couple teaspoons of tomato paste in the diced veggies would have provided it.  This could also be, simply, what you get when you go for the quick-and-easy, rest-of-us minestrone recipe.  It’s delicious, but lacks the soul and wisdom of the expert, slow-cooked version.

Lack of soul, indeed.  A couple days ago, emboldened by this spell of nasty weather we're having, I tried a new minestrone recipe from my new crockpot cookbook (Art of the Slow Cooker by Andrew Schloss).  It was delicious that night, and even more so over the next 2 days.  This soup had soul, and it is now my go-to.

Unfortunately, a dead camera battery means a pictureless post.  Use your imagination...

Herby and Soulful Minestrone Soup

  • 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 3 carrots, peeled and sliced (I used six.  Duh.)
  • 2 celery ribs, sliced (I didn't have any.  Boo-hoo)
  • 2 yellow peppers, stemmed, seeded and diced (I had 1 1/2 peppers.  Shrug)
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 tsp chopped fresh savory (I don't grow this)
  • 1 tsp chopped fresh rosemary (I grow this!)
  • 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme (and this!)
  • 1/2 tsp each dried oregano, basil and sage.
  • 4 cups beef or vegetable broth (I used Nature's Promise culinary vegetable stock, 1 box)
  • 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (I used 1/2 can of chickpeas and 1/2 can of red kidney beans because I am very particular about the colors in my minestrone soup)
  • 1 cup 100% vegetable juice, such as V8 (I used Trader Joe's Garden Patch)
  • 1 can (28 oz) diced tomatoes
  • 1 tbsp red wine vinegar (I specifically went out and bought it)
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • 1/4 tsp ground black peppr
  • Juice of 1 lemon
  • 1/4 cup chopped parsley
  • 1/2 cup shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

1.  Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the onion, carrots, celery, and bell peppers and saute until the vegetables lose their raw look, about 3 minutes.  Add the garlic and herbs and cook another minute.  Transfer to slow cooker.

2.  Add the broth, chick peas, beans, vegetable juice, tomatoes, vinegar, salt and pepper.  Cover and cook 3-5 hours on high, or 6-10 hours on low.

3.  Stir in the parsley and lemon juice.  Serve with shredded cheese.

I also added in half a bag of frozen Fordhook lima beans at the end.  To cool down soup for the kids, I put frozen peas in the bottom of their bowls and then ladle the soup on top.  It doesn't dilute it like ice cubes.

I served with bread and butter and some marinated mozzarella balls (bocconcini).  Jeeps and I highly recommend dropping the cheese right into the soup, and then drizzling the herby olive oil on top.

Oh all right here...stock photo:

Vegetable Mess

Not really, I just love to say that. But I'll save it for the ratatouille post. Tonight I have a few roasted and grilled yummies to share.

First is grilled radicchio. Radicchio, also known as Italian chicory, is very bitter raw, but the bitterness mellows out when you roast or grill it. It's still on the bitter side, but in an appealing way. Like the girl with the interesting personality.

Grilled Radicchio with Interesting Personality

  • 1 small head radicchio, outer leaves discarded
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • Few grinds of pepper mill
  • 1/4 tsp dried thyme or 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme

Quarter the radicchio, leaving the stem end intact because this is what holds the wedge shape.  This never works for me but maybe it will for you.

Put wedges in a large bowl, toss with olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme. My friend Rob recommends tossing in bacon fat if you have some left over.

Grill 3-4 minutes per side until lightly charred.  Below it's served with a quinoa salad with cucumber, tomato and feta, and would also be nice with a wild rice salad.

Radicchio2
Radicchio2

Next is roasted cauliflower. I fell in love with this method from Molly Wizenburg's A Homemade Life, which calls for slicing the cauliflower straight across lengthwise.

Molly's Lengthwise Cauliflower

  • 1 head cauliflower, leaves trimmed but leave stem intact (just trim the nastiest part of the end off)
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1/2 tsp kosher salt
  • Few grinds of pepper mill

Preheat oven to 425

Slice cauliflower lengthwise about 1/4" wide. You're only going to get two, maybe three slices that end up looking like this:

The rest will just look like small, flat cauliflower florets but that's OK.

Put all the slices into a large bowl. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, turning carefully to coat so you don't break up the nice, big flatties. Place on baking sheet, spreading evenly and as flat as possible—you want as much surface area as possible to caramelize as it roasts.

Roast 20-25 minutes, flipping pieces halfway through, until golden brown.  Below we have some lengthwise cauliflower served over coconut rice and beans and jicama slaw.  A spectacular Meatless Monday Meal if you are so inclined.

Gremolata

“Sit down, Al,” Carlo said. “We’re having a little nosh.” 

He set down a long oval loaf of bread on the table, followed by a huge ceramic bowl filled with cut-up wedges of tomatoes, red potatoes, and hard-boiled eggs, coated with some kind of dressing. 

"This is ciabatta," he said, tapping the bread.

“And this is gremolata,” Nina said. She tore off a chunk of bread, dipped it in the dressing and handed it to me. “Lemon, garlic, olive oil and fresh parsley.”

I took a bite and was assaulted by savory flavors, muted by the hot, doughy bread. It was fantastic. Nina scooped potatoes, tomatoes and eggs onto a small plate for me. Her mother handed me a napkin. 

Carlo was wrestling a bottle and corkscrew. “Who wants wine?”

“Me!” Nina sang, popping a wedge of tomato in her mouth.

“Al?”

“Sure,” I said, with a mouthful of gremolata and a heart plummeting into love.

--Bury my Heart in Cashmere

(Shyly) I wrote that. 

When I started dating Jeeps, he was living on the Upper East Side on the sixth floor of a sixth-floor walk-up. The kitchen was about two feet by four feet, but we did a lot of cooking in that tiny little space. Jeeps had one cookbook: Marion Cunningham's The Supper Book, which was perfect because the tiny kitchen didn't evoke big dinners, but it was perfect for supper. One of the recipes from the book we made a lot that first summer was Eggs, Tomatoes and Potatoes in Gremolata.

It was summer and it was the city and I started capturing the little bits of our romance into stories because that's just the kind of person I was. 

Am. 

Over the years, I began sewing the little stories into a larger story and it became a book called Bury My Heart in Cashmere, and the scene above is from it. Cashmere was never published. What became of it can be read in my fourth book The Ones That Got Away, but briefly: parts of Cashmere combined with an earlier manuscript called All The Running You Can Do, and became The Man I Love.

The Supper Book makes a cameo in my next novel, An Exaltation of Larks, but with a different recipe.

Enough promotion. Fast-forward to the present. 

Jeeps has a bad cold, and I'd been planning to make soup for dinner tonight to baby him. But the day started out muggy and got muggier by the hour. I got home from food shopping with soup makings and couldn't bear the thought of it. A much more summer-like meal was called for and for some reason, I felt like I wanted to make crab cakes. 

Crab meat had not been on the shopping list and I had no desire to go back out and get some. Tuna cakes could be an alternative but I wondered if could take the same premise and use roughy (which was on the shopping list). 

It's a mild fish, and I thought about using the flavors of gremolata—lemon, garlic and parsley—to jazz it up.

Thus were born...

Poor Man's Gremolata Crab Cakes

  • 1 lb roughy filets or other white fish
  • 2-3 garlic coves, chopped fine
  • grated zest of one lemon
  • 1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup bread crumbs (plain or seasoned)
  • 2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese

Spray a skillet with non-stick spray and heat over medium.  Saute the filets about 3 minutes per side until just opaque.

Let cool and then chop roughly and place in a large bowl.  Combine with rest of ingredients and form into small patties.  Fry in olive oil, 4-5 minutes per side until golden brown.

Drain on paper towels.  Serve with lemon wedges.

These were awesome.  Jeeps and I had them over arugula with focaccia and marinated mozzarella and cherry tomatoes.  A perfect summer supper.  Even for the invalid.

Eggs, Tomatoes and Potatoes with Gremolata

Recipe From Marion Cunningham's The Supper Book

  • 1 1/2 lbs small new red potatoes, about 1 1/2 inches in diameter, unpeeled
  • 8 eggs
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 2 1/2 tsp finely chopped lemon zest
  • 2 1/2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
  • 4 tsp finely chopped garlic
  • 4 medium tomatoes, each cut into 6 wedges
  • 1 tsp kosher salt

Put the potatoes and eggs in a large pot of salted water. Bring to a boil and cook about 12 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender with pierced with a knife.

While the potatoes and eggs are cooking, mix the olive oil, lemon zest, parsley, and garlic together. Drain the potatoes and eggs and let cool slighty.  Shell and quarter the eggs.

While they are still warm, put the potatoes, eggs and tomatoes in a large bowl, and add the salt. Add a little more than half the gremolata and toss to coat thoroughly. Put the remaining gremolata in a small bowl to pass with bread at the table.

My craft supplies called....

...they want me back. Bad. I've been a little busy in the evenings. In a good kind of way:

I haven't sat down to make cards since I made Valentines in February. I just kind of stalled out in the crafting department. Come to think of it, I haven't actually worked at my desk this summer. I was mostly sitting at the dining room table with my laptop because my office doesn't have windows, and with all the work I do in the gardens, I want to be able to see them. Also it gets chilly downstairs and I hate to be cold.

But I wandered down a couple nights ago to clean up my desk. Next thing I knew, in a daze of must...create...now...stamps...paper...fabric...yes. 

Said daze just kept going on and on, and now I've got birthdays covered.  Is it too early to start Christmas cards?

This one is by far my favorite:

And I love making white-on-white cards:

And combining elements of sewing with paper was fun, too:

Beef Carbonnade: Big Bertha meets David Crockpott

I have two books on crockpot/slow-cookers.  This one I didn't like so much:

This one I liked very much and has a bunch of dog-eared pages to prove it:

With Hurricane Irene bringing out the need for comfort food - either for oneself or to bring to someone without power - I became smitten with the recipe for Beef Carbonnade.  According to Andrew Schloss,

Brittany is the England of France:  pubs replace bistros, beer trumps wine, and carbonnade is their boeuf bourguignonne.  Carbonnade takes advantage of the high moisture and sugar content of onions, simmering them until they collapse into a sweet pungent syrup.  Add a bottle of beer, the richness of well-exercised beef, some brown sugar, a few herbs, and several hours in the slow cooker, and you've got the heartiness of a British stew tweaked with a bit of je ne sais quoi.

For some miraculous reason, I had a bottle of lager in the fridge.  For a slightly less miraculous reason, I had power in the aftermath of Irene because last year when we were doing renovations, we yanked out a lot of bells and whistles and niceties from our master bathroom plans and put that money into wiring the electrical panel into an exterior generator, since christened Big Bertha.  Now, when the power goes out, there is a moment of darkness, an audible, satisfying ker-chunk, the generator kicks in and the lights come back.  I wasn't thrilled at time of install.  Now I go out and kiss Big Bertha many many times during heavy snowfall or hurricanes.

You'll notice this recipe does not include carrots and I simply cannot fathom a stew without them, it's impossible.  And how can you put in carrots and leave celery behind to pine in the crisper drawer?  If you're with me, add in 6-8 carrots, peeled and sliced, and 3-4 ribs of celery, sliced.  And what the hell, if you're gonna use carrots and celery, you might as well throw in frozen peas at the end, right?

Right.

Irene's Beef Carbonnade

  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
  • 3 lbs beef chuck, trimmed of excess fat and cut into 1/4 inch slices; OR 3 lbs beef short ribs (I used the short ribs)
  • 3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
  • 5 large onions, halved and cut into thin slices (I used a mix of red and white)
  • 2 slices salt pork or bacon, finely diced (I had neither, I skipped the step that involves them and don't feel the stew suffered)
  • 1 tbsp fines herbes or heaping 1/2 tsp each of thyme, oregano, basil, sage, and rosemary
  • 2 tsp dark brown sugar
  • 1 bottle (12 oz) ale or lager beer
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley

1.  Mix the flour, salt, and pepper on a plate.  Turn the beef in the seasoned flour until coated; pat off any excess and reserve the remaining seasoned flour.  Heat the oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat and brown the beef in batches, 3 to 4 minutes per side.  Set aside on a plate

2.  Reduce heat to medium-low, add the onions, and cook until tender, about 10 minutes.  Transfer to a 5- to 6-qt slower cooker and lay the beef on top.  Add carrots and celery if using.

3.  Add the salt pork or bacon to the skillet and cook over medium heat until cooked through but not crisp.  Add the herbs and reserved seasoned flour and cook until the flour browns, about 3 minutes.  Add the brown sugar and beer and simmer, stirring, until slightly thickened.  Pour the sauce over the beef in the cooker.  Bury the bay leaves in the sauce, cover, and cook on high for 4 to 5 hours, or on low for 8 to 10 hours.  Skim off fat (there will be mucho if you use short ribs) and remove the bay leaves (I always forget this).  Add the frozen peas if using, stir until heated through.  Stir in the parsley.

Serve over egg noodles or mashed potatoes.  Light the candles, hunker down and weather the storm.

Pickle? Picklee?

"I think pickles are cucumbers that sold out.  They sold their soul to the devil, and the devil is dill..." --Mitch Hedberg

So I bought my own copy of Canning for a New Generation which is full of swell ideas about putting up and putting by without anxiety.  And maybe I shall foray into hot water canning one of these days, but in the meantime, my cucumber plants are making prolific miracles in the garden, and what's a girl with a sour tooth to do?

Make icebox pickles.

To clarify:  these are quick-brined pickles that are meant to be jarred and stored in the refrigerator until quick consumption.  You can put them up, put them into the fridge, and serve them 2 hours later.  Or they keep practically indefinitely.

For pickles that you are going to store on a pantry shelf, you would need to follow hot water bath canning protocol.  Hold that thought.

Canning jars come in all sizes but I bought a case of half-pint ones.  They're not intimidating, they look darling in the fridge and on the table, they make a nice little gift for a hostess, and there's no guilt in polishing off the entire contents of whatever may be in them (cough).

As for the cukes, you want pickling or "Kirby" cucumbers.  I grow two kinds in my garden - "Pickalot" which are green; and "Boothby's Blonde" which are white.  A mix of them looks really cool in the jar.  You can of course cut the cukes into spears, or slice them into chips.

Now, brine:  you need vinegar, and feel free to experiment with white, cider, what have you, there is no right or wrong, it's all a matter of taste.  As for spices, you can measure out peppercorns, mustard seeds, red pepper flakes and so forth, or you can use a pre-made pickling spice blend like McCormick's.  I've done both and have to say McCormick may have an edge.  Anyway, half-pint jars need approximately 1/2 cup of brine each.  More or less.  If you are short, simply make a solution of 1 part vinegar to 3 parts water to top them off.

So I sense Stacie is getting impatient so let's get to it.

Quick Icebox Pickles

For 4 1/2 pint jars you need:

  • 5-6 pickling cucumbers (slice as you go; whatever doesn't fit in the jar, just eat yourself)
  • 4 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed with the flat blade of a knife
  • 4 sprigs fresh dill or 1 tsp dried dill
  • 1 rounded tsp kosher salt
  • 2 rounded tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp mustard seeds, 1/4 tsp peppercorns, 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes OR 1 1/2 tsp of McCormick's pickling spice
  • 1/2 cup vinegar
  • 1 cup water

Wash jars, rings and lids in warm soapy water.  Put one smashed garlic clove in each jar and, if using, one sprig dill.  Slice or spear cucumbers and pack into jars.

In saucepan, combine water, vinegar, dried dill (if not using fresh), salt, sugar and spices.  Heat until just simmering and sugar and salt are dissolved.

Ladle into jars, leaving 1/2 headspace.   Put on lids and screw lids on finger-tight.  Let cool to room temperature, then put into fridge.  Put the jar on the table and stand back.

Now, if you have a steady supply of cukes at your service, in theory you can re-use the brine: when you eat the last pickle, just go pick 2 more cukes, wash and slice them, throw them into the jar, throw the jar back into the fridge.

So as another experiment, I tried pickling carrots.  Recalling what purple carrots did to my first crockpot attempt, I stuck to just the white and orange ones in the garden.  Instead of dill, I put a few sprigs of thyme in the jar (the only pint-size ones I could find), but the rest of the procedure is the same.  These should chill out in the fridge for a least a week because carrots are thick and take longer to soak up brine.   So hold that thought.

Pickle?  Picklee?