On the Menu This Week

I've been visiting the butcher at Apple Market more frequently these days. I was there yesterday and picked up a gorgeous pork shoulder roast which was beckoning to be included in our weekend plans. Time for a bbq! I will need to grab some Kirby cukes (golly, will I be able to find them this time of year?!?) to make those yummy pickles inspired by Chicago Q and a cabbage for Slaw. Then we just need some Cornbread and Grandpa's Baked Beans.

Our last bbq feast was a few days before Thanksgiving, the day everyone arrived in from out of town. I tried something new - slow roasting the pork in a Dutch oven on a bed of onions in a braise of apple cider. That was based on a recipe I saw on Oprah's site - click here to see it. I like to "brine" pork shoulder in a dry rub overnight before bbq'ing. I use spice blends from the Spice House (Smoke House Seasoning and Milwaukee Iron are my personal faves), sprinkling them liberally all over the roast and then wrapping the roast tightly in plastic wrap. To cook, I set my oven to 175 (you could do this in a slow cooker, as well), slice an onion and line the bottom of a 3 or 4 quart Dutch oven with the slices. Unwrap the roast and place on the bed of onions. Add about 2 cups of cider (or stock) to the pot, then put in the oven for like 6 hours at least. Pull it out when it's falling off the bone.  I love smoking the roast outside on the grill (using Hickory chips), but, let's face it, this is a lot easier.

This is a good time to talk bbq sauce, one of my favorite condiments. My all-time favorite is Noh Hawaiian, and I've picked it up at Apple Market in Chicago, but I didn't see it there the yesterday. I'm also a fan of Sweet Baby Ray's Original, which I thought of as a small-batch Chicago product when we moved here seven years ago, until the day I saw it bundled at Costco. 

Turns out, I knew very little about bbq sauce seven years ago. I thought the only differences were in smokiness or sweetness. I had no idea that bbq sauce existed that wasn't tomato-based. Zingerman's Roadhouse in Ann Arbor, is the only place I know where you can get South Carolina mustard bbq sauce, eastern Carolina's vinegar bbq sauce and the tomato-based condiment I love so much. (If you're still curious about bbq sauce history, geography and origins, read this from Zingerman's founder Ari Weinzweig.)

Ok, off to look for cukes and cabbage!

Read Full Post

Bonne Année, Bon Hiver, Bon Appétit!

Whew. 2012 was all about resistance training (a/k/a lifting heavy things). Only a fraction of that activity was based in my neighborhood gym - the rest was all emotional and intellectual. I skidded into the new year on fumes, having exercised every muscle past exhaustion, having stretched every sinew of faith and patience to their max. I spent the week between Christmas and New Years couched, supine, on a diet of ibuprofen to alleviate the literal pain in my neck.

Most of the pain is not even a result of personal circumstance but what I can only describe as heartache over the world as we know it (you know, life, death, illness), especially when people I know are affected, or when kids are involved.  (If you missed it, you might enjoy Maureen Dowd's Christmas column, Why, God?)

Anyway, 2013 finds me focused on rest and restoring the nutrients (pronounced nu-tree-UNTS, in remembrance of an episode in my daughter's first grade classroom too many years ago) needed to rebuild my weary soul.

Faith and patience take the most diligence to restore, but good music (such as the Avett Brothers, whose emotionally declarative hill-billy rock always strikes an uplifting or empathetic chord), the company of friends, and a good night's sleep are all restorative. I usually turn to Jazz in January. It's not the aliteration that drives the genre decision, it's carol-fatigue. I go on a Christmas carol bender each year for which Jazz is an effective hair-of-the-dog cure. Plus, jazz plays well in a room illumined by the bevy of candles I received for Christmas. But I'm not ready for jazz yet. Maybe next month.

Certain foods and beverages do more to rebuild than others. If I were only focused on my biceps/shoulders/triceps/hamstrings I'd be talking about the balance of protein and carbs. In my present case, it's about comfort foods.  I still enjoy my morning Americano, but afternoon tea has been a savior. I've been cooking classic winter foods that emphasize warmth and coziness: Spaghetti and Meatballs, Beef Bourguignon, Pesto Pasta with Haircots Verts, Soupe a l'Oignon. We've been steadily working our way thru a box of Ruby Red Texas grapefruit, a gift from my sister and one of my favorite foods, ever.

Going to the gym helps, too. A solid cardio workout followed by resistance training makes me feel invincible. Running with my insane dog is a good interval workout because of his compulsion to sprint for squirrels. Also, he regularly finds a 5 foot long stick to bring along, firmly gripping one end so that the remaining 4.5 feet travels at his land-speed and at my shin-height, meaning that I get in some plyometrics and laughs, concurrently. Except when I don't see it coming and I get hit. That hurts.

I'll leave you with some lines from the Avett Brother's Salvation Song, playing now on my winter playlist.

We came for salvation
We came for family
We came for all that's good that's how we'll walk away
We came to break the bad
We came to cheer the sad
We came to leave behind the world a better way.

Thank goodness for everyone who adds something better to the world. That alone is a great lot to be thankful for and a great distraction from the people and events that do not.

Happy New Year to you and yours.

Read Full Post

The Best Dish of Thanksgiving

It had to be the cauliflower.

Stephanie Izard, of Girl & the Goat, is a talented and generous cook. When I decided to add cauliflower to my Thanksgiving menu but wanted to put a twist on it, I went trolling for some hints as to how she does her roasted cauliflower. Besides the Pig Face (best name ever), the Roasted Cauliflower and Grilled Broccoli were the most memorable dishes I've had at Girl & the Goat. I didn't have to search long for the cauliflower recipe: just a click over to Izard's site lead to a detailed recipe. The dish was a perfect addition to the Thanksgiving menu, though I think only my husband and I enjoyed it. We both had seconds but I'm not sure anyone else had firsts.

The rest of the menu was fairly standard. I salted the turkey overnight, made the usual Vegetarian Stuffing I love so much, and those awesome Golden Pillow Dinner Rolls. I steam-sauteed some of those long market carrots, the ones that are sold with the fronds attached. Those were great. I don't use butter the way I was taught in cooking school, but if you follow the real French cooking method, you end up with glistening carrots. What else? Mixed Greens with Candied Pecans and Pear, Cranberry Sauce...the usual suspects.

The mashed potatoes came out perfectly this year, with only a splash of lowfat milk. I used Yukons, mostly peeled and fully boiled them, then returned them to the pot to dry and wait. As everything was ready to go to the table, I mashed them with my trusty thick, wooden masher-muddler (which should go into the stocking of everyone not already in possession of same, save that of small children and - I can't even believe I'm saying this: dogs*). I can't advise you on where to buy one, though. I don't recall where mine came from, but it's our second one. The first muddler was more traditional and likely fine for cocktails. The new one (more than twice as thick at the mashing end) mostly gets used for guacamole. And mashed potatoes, once a year when we have them.

Oh, and Pumpkin Pie, Apple Pie, and a Chocolate Bundt Cake. My daughters had recently watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and so there was much heralding of the Bundt! all day.

Next up: adventures in the kitchen with pheasant. My husband came home (long story) with a whole bird, boneless breasts, and a smoked bird. Cassoulet is in the offing!

The reason I can't believe I'm said dogs is it sadly won't be long before the creation of  a line of bar-keeping dog toys because many people think that sort of thing is cute. Added to the list of things I don't want to trip on: a squeaky plush cocktail shaker.  That said, I did purchase a stuffed banana for my dog for his stocking for three reasons: 1. He loves bananas, 2. This one has a squeaker, 3. I am an idiot.

Read Full Post

On the Menu This Week

First of all, my favorite egg nog hit the chilled shelves last week. I've been zapping a small slosh (2-3T or so) in a little pitcher and then adding it to my Americano in the mornings. Yum. It's like an egg nog latte minus all the fat and calories.

On the menu this week is a fall favorite: Potato & Maui Onion Soup, which I fell in love with on our honeymoon in Hawaii 17 years ago. Wild salmon is done for the season, so I'm back to buying farmed Norwegian for our main course.

Tonight we're having Italian Beef with Ciabatta from La Fournette and a Pinch House Salad on the side. I've not yet tried the ciabatta from La Fournette. I really like the beer bread and the miche. But Italian Beef demands ciabatta, plus I like having it around for the kids lunches. Tomorrow they'll take fresh mozzarella and basil on ciabatta drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinager, their favorite lunch.

We'll also have Beef Tacos with all the Fixin's, and Smoked Chicken Sandwich with frisee and an awesome Pommery mustard sauce drizzled all over.

What else? Oh, for the night we're running hither and yon, it will be Cantonese Roast Pork with Steamed Broccoli. I can marinate the pork loin overnight and grill it in about 10 minutes - a great weeknight meal on when we all tumble in the door starved.

And that's the week. Happy creeping toward winter!

Read Full Post

Hot Sauce! Demystifying Caramel

It's taken me awhile to do this, but I finally made caramel sauce with a candy thermometer. I've always cooked caramel by sight, having learned long ago what to look for in color, changes in bubbling, and smell. But this is hard to teach. Giving someone an exact number on a thermometer is a better way to ensure their caramel will come out right.

Caramel is the simple result of heating sugar to a specific temperature. Think broadly about sugar when considering caramel. You caramelize onions for French Onion Soup,  quiche, and salads just by cooking the sugars in the onions. Extended heating of goat milk will yield cajeta. In this process, it is the sugars in the goat milk that caramelize, lending cajeta it's distinctive flavor.

For a basic caramel sauce, you heat sugar until it reaches a fairly specific temperature: too low and your caramel lacks depth, too high and it's bitter. After the right temperature is achieved you add cream and vanilla.

My candy thermometer lists a caramel range between 360° F and 380° F.  Sugar (sucrose) begins to melt around 320° F and caramelize around 340° F. If you're going to the trouble to make caramel sauce with a candy thermometer, it's probably a good idea to test the thermometer first. Do this by measuring the temp of a cup of boiling water. At sea level, it should read 212° F. If it reads above or below this number, replace it or make necessary adjustments. Oh, and for my Telluride peeps, and those at higher altitude, please note: for every 1,000 feet you are above sea level, subtract 2 degrees F from the temperature you're aiming for.

I like caramel cooked to 360° F - that's the temp at which I find it has the flavor. For a point of reference, 355-360° F is considered medium caramel and 375-380° F is considered dark caramel. I wonder who made those distinctions in the first place. Another scientific tidbit, most caramel sauce recipes I've seen have a smidgen of corn syrup added. This addition adds a wee bit of glucose to the sauce (corn syrup is only about 20% glucose), probably not enough to change the cooking times, but does change the chemical structure and prevent the formation of crystals. Sucrose is a large crystal and it has a harder time bonding with other sucrose crystals when molecules of fructose and glucose are in the mix. I always add a smidgen of corn syrup to my berry sauces and sorbets, just to keep the sauces smooth and crystal-free.

Caramel Sauce
Print recipe only here

INGREDIENTS
2 cups sugar
1 T corn syrup
2 T water
1/2 vanilla bean
1 cup heavy cream
4 T unsalted butter

METHOD
Heat the water, sugar and corn syrup in a medium-large (but deep) stainless steel or heavy-bottomed saucepan, fitted with a  good candy thermometer. I use a deep 4-quart pot and have a flat-edged candy thermometer. 

Cut the vanilla bean lengthwise down the middle, only cutting thru one side. Open it up and scrape out the pods. Put the pod paste and the scraped bean into a small saucepan with the cream.

Heat the cream and vanilla bean over low-medium heat. You don't need to boil it (and don't, because it will make a mess if it boils). 

Cook the sugar until it turns a deep amber and approaches 360° F. Once it reaches that temp, immediately remove from the heat and carefully (and slowly!) pour the hot cream and vanilla bean into the amber sugar. It will get very excited and bubbly. Just pour slowly and you won't make a mess or hurt yourself.  Stir and allow to cool for several minutes, then add the butter and stir gently until melted and just combined. Now it's done. You can transfer it to a squeeze bottle or glass jar once it's cooled a bit more.

Warm, refrigerate leftover sauce, reheating as necessary. Keeps for awhile (a few months).

Read Full Post

High Fructose Sugar Cookies

Oreo Sugar Cookies, the confection produced by my young breed this weekend, are the turducken of the sweet kitchen. Full disclosure: the Oreos were crushed and added to the sugar cookie dough, whereas a real turducken cookie would have a whole Oreo encased in sugar cookie dough.

The fount of this recipe (reduced to two steps by my husband: 1. sugar; 2. cookies) is easily imagined - summer camp, where fun goes on a sugar-binge. Sidebar: I'll never stop chuckling at the U of Chicago's unofficial motto: where fun goes to die.

So, yeah, the children made Oreo Sugar Cookies and I had to steer clear of the kitchen all day. Cookies are my weakness. Years ago, I read a book called Cowboys are My Weakness, which was good but unconvincing. I find cowboys generally aloof and insufficiently cuddly (if memory serves, so did the author), hardly something to go weak for. I would brake for a cowboy, but that's out of general human kindness and wishing to avoid being charged with vehicular manslaughter.

Owing to my fondness for cookies, and a childhood wholly devoted to the Children's Television Workshop, I also have a weakness for Cookie Monster. I'm indebted to a certain adolescent who tipped me off to this masterpiece:>

Best line: Please someone call the girl scout.

This recipe is decidedly for the younger set, or those not thrown off kilter by glucose spikes.

Oreo Sugar Cookies

INGREDIENTS
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup sour cream

1 1/2 cups Oreo Cookies, crushed

METHOD
Preheat oven to 350. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Add Oreos to a large Ziploc bag and crush with a rolling pin or your hands. Reserve.

Using an electric mixer on medium-high, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 to 4 minutes. Add egg and vanilla; mix well to combine.

With mixer on low, add half the flour mixture, followed by sour cream, then remaining flour mixture, and mix just until smooth. Add Oreo crumbles and mix until just combined.

Drop mounds of dough 3 to 4 inches apart, onto two parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until edges of cookies are just firm and tops are barely beginning to brown, 20 to 25 minutes, rotating sheets once halfway through. Cool and enjoy.

Read Full Post

On the Menu this Week

First of all, the Roasted Lamb from a few weeks ago was amazing. I can't recommend it highly enough, especially if you're serving six or more lamb lovers. I had the butcher at Whole Foods cut me a 2.5-pound piece of bone-in lamb shoulder which fed our family of four generously. We keep our animal protein portions small, though, so get more if you have bigger eaters.

Now that the school year has begun, my menu planning has taken a turn for the practical. In the summer I like to daydream a bit about food, but when the kids are in school and time is at more of a premium, I find I have to be more pragmatic about the time I can spend planning, shopping, and cooking. I tend to start each week thinking about what we haven't eaten in a while and plan my weekly menu around the combination of proteins and seasonal veggies. Then I make sure I'm stocked with grains, and produce for nightly salads.

I typically plan for five dinners, knowing that often we'll be out on a weekend night, or have one random night where we forage on leftovers or I make something simple like panini* and a salad. Tonight I'm planning on making Chicken Pesto Pasta, since I have chicken breasts and a bag of fresh basil on hand. Tomorrow will likely be a a quick Teriyaki night (quick pan-fried pork loin, on rice with stir-fried broccoli and bottled teriyaki sauce) since the family calendar has each of us in a different direction at dinnertime. Wednesday might be a good night for salmon, as it's a good day for me to get to Whole Foods, where I buy fish. I like to purchase and cook fish on the same day. Asian Salmon Salad sounds really good right now, so I'll make sure I get some bell peppers at the Green City Market on Wednesday morning.  Now I just need dinners for Thursday and Friday. We've not had Lamb Kabobs in some time, so that's an option, and Friday is a great night for Pizza Margherita, or Chanterelle Pizzas, if chanterelles are still coming to the market. It's a bit late in the season, but it's still possible.

And there - the weekly menu plan is done. Now I just have to plan my little shopping excursions and stock the fridge.

*Ham & Gruyère Panini
Featured on Pinch in 2008, In a Pinch

METHOD
Preheat a griddle. Spray lightly with canola spray. Slather one piece of low-gluten sprouted bread with your favorite mustard. For the bread, I like both Alvarado Street or the comparable version at Trader Joe's.

Thinly slice some ham and Gruyère (note: Gruyère is very flavorful and a little goes a long way. I only use a few, thin slices to keep the sandwich healthy). Assemble and cook on hot griddle until the bread is toasted and the cheese is melted, about 2-3 minutes on each side. Press down using a panini press or a heavy lid, right on top of the sandwich. It's really good with greens dressed with Balsamic Vinaigrette.

Read Full Post