Waffles

You have gotta make these waffles. They were delicious. So, so good. I had buttermilk leftover from Emma's birthday cake and wanted to use it up. It seemed like a good reason to make these. For the girls I made some hippy whole wheat waffles with almond milk. Ha, ha on them. They actually liked their hippy chow just fine, but that's because they had not tasted the deliciousness that is these waffles. Make them. Make them soon. They have a lot of cornstarch in them, which struck me as creepy, but it is okay. TRUST me. It's the second recipe.

Homemade Tortillas

For Emma's birthday lunch I made a pot of homemade refried beans and flour tortillas. The tortillas were very easy to make and also DELICIOUS! I kept being amazed that they were, "Just like real tortillas!" Here is the recipe...

2-2 1/4 c. flour
1/4 c. vegetable shortening or lard (I used vs)
1 t. salt
1 c. warm water

In a bowl combine 2 c. flour, the shortening and salt. Use fingers or a pastry knife to rub ingredients together until the mixture has the consistency of fine crumbs. Gradually add the warm water, stirring it in with a fork, and continue to mix until the ingred. come together to form a soft dough. Add the remaining 1/4 c. flour if the mixture is sticking to your fingers.

Gather up the dough, pat it into a ball and place in a bowl. Knead the dough inside the bowl until elastic, about 2 min. Cover with a kitchen towel and let stand at room temperature for 2 hours.

Break off small pieces of dough and, rolling each piece between your palms, form into balls. Experiment to see what size you want as you roll the ball out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface. This recipe said it made 24 tortillas, but we wanted larger tortillas for burritos and only made 7! I am not talking enormous tortillas either. As you roll out the tortillas, turn them over a few times and add flour to the surface to prevent sticking. I rolled mine pretty thin.

Heat a dry, heavy frying pan or griddle over medium heat. Place a tortilla on the pan or griddle and cook until it looks dry and the underside begins to brown, about 30 sec. Turn the tortilla over and cook the second side until browned, about 30 seconds. Transfer the tortilla to a kitchen towel. As the tortillas are cooked, stack them and cover completely with the other half of the towel to keep them warm and moist until serving.

To store tortillas, let cool, seal in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2-3 days or freeze for several weeks.

Weekly Menu

I have actually been cooking lately, just not a lot of inspiring dinners, hence no posting. I did make some yummy pesto, a few birthday cakes, beans, tortillas, lots of bread and last night I made a yummy chicken parmesan using my favorite sauce from Giada. I like that I can just leave the cheese out of the girls portions and they still like it.

Here is an attempt at this weeks menu...

Mon- waffles, sausage, eggs

Tues-grilled chicken pesto sandwiches on no knead bread, tomato, red onion, basil salad

Wed-oven baked yams, meatloaf, cherry tomato and asparagus salad

Thurs-potato leek soup, caesar salad with no knead bread croutons

Fri-I'm spent just planning this week, so we will probably eat out at Thai Basil

What are you cooking??

Gai Lan and Cous Cous (Meatless Saturday)

I picked up $1 worth of gai lan - Chinese broccoli - at the downtown farmers market on Friday, and couldn't decide what to do with it. Gai lan looks like a cross between broccolini and asparagus, with long straight stems giving way to tender leaves and flower buds. I'd had it in Chinese restaurants, usually with stir-fried beef and oyster sauce, but I wanted something lighter that I could pair with our usual cous cous (with carrots, raisins, cashews and green onions).

The trick with gai lan is to get the stems tender without overcooking the leaves and tips. The solution is relatively straightforward: cut 'em in half, and start cooking the bottoms first. I put a pot of water on to boil while I started the cous cous, then added a good bit of salt when it came to a boil. I set a timer for three minutes, tossed in the stems, then, a minute later, added the tops. When the timer beeped, I drained the pot and popped the steaming, bright green, gai lan into a bowl of ice water. The stems were still a little too chewy to serve.

I let the gai lan chill out while I finished the cous cous, then drained it and gave it a quick shake to dry. Meanwhile, I chopped a few cloves of garlic and added them to some olive oil in a hot skillet, along with a little salt. As soon as the garlic smelled good (before it got brown), I threw in the gai lan, tossed it for a minute to coat with the garlic, then turned off the heat. A healthy squeeze of lemon and a dusting of white pepper, then onto the plates - crisp tender, bright, and very fresh tasting.

Chicken Tawook

(I'm back in the kitchen, after a long weekend of leftovers, lavash pizzas, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and general mayhem. Nothing we've eaten since Friday has required more than 10 minutes to prepare, and we missed our usual Sunday farmers market, so we're running low on just about everything good.)

I thought I'd tackle something fun, but with a relatively short cooking time, and I had a couple of hours to myself this morning for shopping and prep. Chicken Tawook came to mind right away - it's tasty, needs only a few minutes on the grill, and goes well with rice or cous cous (comfort foods for me and Liz). I made the marinade this morning, and it seems just right - I followed the recipe almost exactly, adding only a little ground sumac berry, which I've been playing with in mid-eastern dishes.

I had to dust off the mortar & pestle to grind a little cardamom (the recipe only calls for 1/8 teaspoon, and I didn't think my spice grinder could make any headway with such a small amount). That reminded me that I've always wanted to try my hand at Toum, the amazing garlic sauce often served with Tawook. Keep your fingers crossed for me, and I'll let you know how it turns out.

Don't Try This At Home

I thought I was pretty smart yesterday afternoon, when I dumped pasta into the big dutch oven in which I had made a rich meat sauce, then popped it into the oven. I thought I was saving myself the trouble of washing a casserole dish....

It wasn't until I took the pan out of the oven that I remembered why I use a casserole - and why I always grease it well, with olive oil, before adding the food to be baked. Even after an overnight soak, the dutch oven was a bear to clean - the casserole would have rinsed mostly clean and gone into the dishwasher.

So much for saving myself trouble!

"Stacked Pesto"

I had fresh basil and parsley, but I was in a hurry tonight (and I couldn't face the Cuisinart). So I "deconstructed" a pesto, stacking basil chiffonade and chopped parsley on grilled chicken breasts and asparagus. I spooned on a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, into which I had stirred pressed garlic, black pepper and salt (a pinch of red pepper flakes would have been good, too), then grated a little Reggiano on top.

I covered the dish loosely, then parked it in a warm oven while I picked up Liz and the kids at the park, and grabbed a baguette from Babette's.

There weren't any leftovers. The chicken was juicy and very flavorful (I'd thought ahead and taken it off the grill before it was quite done, so it wouldn't dry out). The "pesto" was fresh and herb-y, without the zing of my regular recipe, but still quite good. The asparagus was crisp-tender (like the chicken, I'd under-cooked it a bit). And the juices in the bottom of the dish, sopped up with baguette, were a real treat.

Best of all? 30 minutes, start to finish, and very few dishes to wash.

This Week's Plan

Tonight

Bastard Shepherd's Pie (Leftover debris (cajun shredded potroast), whole Yukon Gold potatoes, diced onions - all thrown in a pyrex dish and parked in the oven until tender)

Garlic-bacon green beans (boiled for 2 minutes, then drained and tossed with bacon fat and garlic until crisp-tender)

Tuesday

Grilled chicken breasts & asparagus
Pesto?
Polenta?

Wednesday

Baked pasta with meatsauce
Broccoli with lemon butter

Thursday

Lavash pizzas
Leftover broccoli
18-year-old Scotch

Liz leaves town Thursday afternoon, returning late Tuesday, so our menu for the weekend will revolve around leftovers, kid-pleasers and take-out, with an emphasis on meals that are quick to prepare and don't require either the grill or much patience.

I'll let you know how we do, and I'd appreciate suggestions for the weekend.

Tonight's Dinner

Tonight we are having a delicious and easy broccoli beef. There will probably be spaghetti and meatballs with no knead bread another night, and then I am going to take it one day at a time:).

Mother's Day Menu

An all-request dinner for Liz:

Bacon-wrapped Filets Mignon
Grilled sweet onions
Tuscan potatoes
Sauteed spinach with garlic & fennel seeds
Grilled garlic bread

I'm not a big fan of filets - I much prefer something with a bit more fat, such as a rib-eye. These were terrific, though: the bacon added flavor, fat and protection from the flames.

After wrapping with bacon (secured by toothpicks), I gave them a liberal coating of my tri-wizard rub and left them on the counter for about 30 minutes. The steaks got about 4 minutes per side on a hot (500F) grill, then another two minutes off the flame, but still in the heat, until interior temps hit about 120F. I let them rest, loosely covered, for about 5 minutes while I made the spinach. The result: a nice crust, beautiful medium rare inside, tender and flavorful.

Pickles

I picked up some beautiful pickling cucumbers at the Downtown Farmers Market on Friday - firm, dark green, bumpy and just the right size for a quart mason jar. I wasn't smart enough to remember to buy dill, though, so I had to wait until today before getting them started.

My recipe is ridiculously simple: dump spices (peppercorns, mustard seed, coriander, red pepper flakes), vinegar, salt and garlic directly into clean jars. Cover, and shake, shake, shake to combine - the kids love helping with this part. Once the salt is dissolved, unscrew the caps, toss in a small handful of fresh dill, then wedge in the cukes, as tight as you can. I usually cut them in half, lengthwise, but you can leave them whole, or slice them into spears or chunks or whatever you like. Add cold water to cover, then throw them in the fridge. Twenty minutes, tops.

The hard part is waiting for them to cure - you'll need to leave them in the fridge for about a week, for best flavor. And it helps to take them out and shake them every day, just to make sure the brine is well distributed.

For your minimal effort (and a little patience), you'll be rewarded with crisp, tangy, fresh pickles. If you like 'em spicy, add more pepper flakes or slip in a couple of red peppers along with the cukes. I like a little extra garlic, too (who am I kidding? I like a lot of extra garlic).

One of my goals for this summer is to make naturally fermented pickles, without vinegar. I'll report back when I discover enough counter top.

Sunday Farmers Market Haul

Today's catch:

Basil
Parsley
Dill
Spinach
Broccoli
Green beans
Asparagus
Russet potatoes
Cherries
Tangerines

I've got plans for most of the haul - pesto, pickles, snacks and veggie sides (e.g., Tuscan Potatoes) - but I'd like to see how well I actually use what I've brought home.

Wish I had a wife

I am in a periodic cooking slump. We had popcorn for dinner. No, really. I don't want to cook dinner anymore. Do you want to come cook for me?

Q. & A. With Julie Sahni

From the New York Times, a nice series of for Indian cooking, in three parts:

First, second, third.

I think I'll plan on a couple of Indian dishes next week.

Mostly Meatless Friday

Another shot at a meatless meal, saved at the bell by a last-minute entry from the freezer. Tonight's menu:

Sesame noodles with green onions and snow peas

Chicken shu mai (from Trader Joe's, frozen - not bad!)

The noodles are a paragon of simplicity - the sauce is just whisked together and tossed with the drained pasta. If you have fresh snow peas handy, just throw them in raw or add to the pasta water a minute or so before the pasta is done.

The sauce is extremely flexible, too. I often add fresh ginger, or a pinch of chinese mustard, and I usually sub red pepper flakes for the chili oil. I usually sprinkle toasted sesame seeds on the plated noodles, for a nice presentation and a little extra crunch.

We often serve this with grilled chicken, but it's also good with sliced steak, and would be fine with tofu, too.

Rrrrrr....back it up

If you were wondering, those were my tires screeching to a halt. Tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, and I have chicken picatta on the menu. What is wrong with this picture??? Where was my head?? So a quick change of plans and this is what I am making. This looks delicious. Throw in some homemade corn tortillas, guacamole and chips, a Pacifico (or possibly a margarita) for me and a Negro Modelo for Sam, mmm... I can't wait.

Mostly Meatless Monday

We strive to do a mostly meatless meal once a week, but it's a struggle. Tonight's menu:

Cous cous with carrots, raisins, cashews and green onions

Grilled asparagus (fat ones!) with olive oil and lemon juice (I usually splash on sherry vinegar, but I already had a lemon handy...)

Steamed broccolini with lemon juice

Leftover rosemary pork chop, sliced (optional)

No matter what I try, the kids won't eat cous cous - even though they love raisins and cashews and will tolerate carrots and green onions in other dishes. I think it's the texture. Fortunately, Liz likes it as much as I do, so cous cous is on a fairly regular rotation, especially in the summertime. This is my favorite preparation, with the carrots and raisins softened in a little butter, but not browned, and cashews and sliced scallions added after the cous cous has steamed. I often use chicken stock for the liquid, but tonight just went with water - really fresh tasting, sweet, nutty and oniony.

Weekend wrap up and this week's menu

CityMama had a recipe for cilantro beef that we tried tonight. Everyone but Delaney liked it, so it's a keeper. It was easy and fast, and yummy over rice. We also made some bagels in the afternoon. They are fun to make, and they have a much better texture than grocery store bagels. The girls love bagels anytime, so they are gone very quickly. Delaney helped me knead the dough, and I did the rest. The girls and I had some for dessert with strawberry jam. They were tasty, but a little funny looking. They are sensitive, so don't make fun.

Here is this week's menu...

Mon- pork and tomatillo stew with coleslaw (didn't love it)

Tues- leftover stew

Wed- chicken picatta, rice, green salad with walnuts, dried cranberries and vinaigrette

Thurs-Kristin's peanut chicken wraps

Fri- I'm hoping for a refridgerator roundup