Make do and make it good

A winter wine dinner

2011-01-20T14:23:00.000-08:00

[All photos courtesy of Meg Kassabaum. Thank you Meg!]

Last month, just to make sure everybody was properly warmed up for the holidays, we put together a full-on bring-your-A-game wine dinner. 5 courses, 5 wines, all original recipes. And I believe we can safely say it was a success...

We fed 14 people that evening, more than we have in the past, but it went off without a hitch (well, with a couple minor hitches, but none that guests ever had to know about...).

We started off with a number of small finger foods for people to snack on while everybody arrived and settled in.

There were farmer's market radishes with salt and butter.

There were boquerones (marinated Spanish white anchovies) and marinated mushrooms.

There was smoked salmon.

And there was Galician canned pulpo.

All of this with plenty of Cava Avinyó.

Off to a good start, we sat down to a spicy roasted tomato soup with garlicky NC shrimp (from our friends at Core Sound Seafood).

For wine, we drank Do Ferreiro's Rebisaca, always a winner with shellfish.

Up next, fresh whole wheat homemade paste made by Lindsey. It's topped with blanched strips of locally-grown Tuscan kale, and Turkish-spiced ground lamb.

Here we moved onto to reds, in this case the fresh, vibrant, yet powerful Garnatxa 2009 from Joan d'Anguera.

Then, it was time for some medallions of roasted pork tenderloin along with garlic brussel sprouts. The sauce is made from cashew cream, (dairy) cream, ancho chilies, and oloroso sherry to produce a deep, rich flavor.

Which of course required a deeper, richer, wine, one which could also handle some spices. For this we turned to an older Rioja, the 2005 Monje Amestoy from Luberri. I'm happy to report the wine was up to the task.

The oloroso sherry in this sauce with the pork provided the transition into our final course, which was paired with the Sangre y Trabajadero oloroso from Gutierrez Colosia.

On the plate were dried dates stuffed with a blue goat cheese, then wrapped in bacon and broiled until crispy. They sat atop a bed of spinach topped with a light and simple balsamic vinaigrette.

People had different opinions about which was their favorite dish of the evening, and which was their favorite wine, but it was pretty much unanimously agreed that this was the killer pairing.

We are already scheming about the next one....

Until then, cheers!

Quick and easy spice cake

2010-11-29T16:10:00.000-08:00

Here's the scenario: the holidays are approaching and you're given the task of bringing baked goods for your office meeting/bridge club/lemur appreciation society/whatever, and you want to bring something homemade and seasonally appropriate. But of course you've waited until the last moment. As you open your fridge to start getting your ingredients together you realize – horror! – that you are all out of milk and eggs. What to do?

Here is the recipe for your situation: an absolutely delightful spice cake (really just a sweet quick bread) that requires no milk and no eggs. It is also great fun to play around with in various ways. You can vary the level of sugar depending on whether you want it to be more of a dessert or more of a breakfast item. For spices, you can use whatever sounds good (or whatever you have). Cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, etc. – those nice holiday flavors – are all welcome in any combination you fancy. I particularly like to add grated fresh ginger to give it a good bite. But most fun of all for me has been playing around with the liquid: while water works just fine, I have so far used coffee, porter, and hard cider instead, all to great effect.

The recipe is adapted from the Tassajara Recipe Book.

Quick Spice Cake

Preheat oven to 350.

Butter and flour an 8 inch cake pan

Mix together in a big bowl 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1/2 cup white flour, 1/4 to 3/4 cup sugar (depending on how sweet you want it to be), 1 tsp. baking soda, and spices (any of the following: 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. nutmeg, 1/4 tsp. cloves, 1 tsp. allspice, 1 tbsp. ginger, or whatever else looks good).

In a small saucepan, melt 1/3 cup butter. Add to this 1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar, then 1 cup cold water or other liquid, such as coffee, dark beer, cider, etc.

[Quick note: if your butter is still hot, and your water quite cold, this will produce a very odd reaction, creating a kind of crystallized-looking mixture. Don't worry, this is fine, and it's also kind of cool looking...]

[Quick note #2: you could just use oil instead of butter and make it completely vegan]

Now mix your butter mixture in with your dry ingredients. Do not over-mix! This is a quick bread, so do just enough to moisten all the dry ingredients. It's ok if the batter is still a little lumpy and uneven.

Pour the dough into the cake pan, and bake for about 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

For an extra nice touch, sprinkle powdered sugar on top before serving.

Cooking oils

2010-11-17T07:58:00.001-08:00

Just a quick note today to point you towards this article by Harold McGee in the New York Times. McGee is without a doubt one of the most interesting food writers in operation. His book On Food and Cooking is absolutely essential reading.

His column in the Times this week is about cooking oil. The basic point is that most oils (good olive oil, bad olive oil, refined seed oil, etc.) are pretty much indistinguishable once heated:

We were surprised at how thoroughly heat obliterated the flavors in cooking oil until they all tasted more or less the same. Even prize-winning, and costly, extra-virgin olive oils lost much of what makes them special, though they retain their apparently healthful pungency. To get food with the green and fruity flavor of good olive oil, it seems more economical and effective to fry with an inexpensive refined oil and drizzle on a little fresh olive oil after cooking.

I've always used a slightly fruity but fairly neutral olive oil as my everyday basic cooking oil, but I might consider using more seed oil now.

Readers, do you have any thoughts on this?

Lindsey's beautiful stuffed pumpkin

2010-11-09T13:57:00.000-08:00

Lindsey, as you may recall, loves a stuffed pumpkin. And this time she really outdid herself...

These little pie pumpkins were full of rice, caramelized onions, chunks of apple, Italian sausage (from Giacamo's in Greensboro, NC), and shiitakes from our logs (yes, we grow shiitakes in our backyard).

In keeping with the autumnal feel of the dish, basque-style cider was used as a liquid (this style of cider is not at all sweet, and pretty acidic). The whole thing was then topped with cheese and baked. The cheese melted and browned, the pumpkin flesh was softened and infused with cider, and the whole thing came out beautifully... A triumph!

You do not need to soak your beans

2010-11-04T14:05:00.000-07:00

I was really glad to see this article in the New York Times yesterday.

It is a common (and, to me, galling) assumption that beans need to be soaked before cooking. I have seen this myth repeated many, many places, including cookbooks where the authors should have known better (Mark Bittman is a notable exception). As beans make up a very large portion of my diet, and I am always proselytizing on their behalf, I'm glad to see the truth spoken in a major media outlet.

Yes, it is true: beans do not need to be soaked before cooking. As in the recipe provided in the NYT article, dried beans can used directly in a long simmered stew, with no ill effect. Quite the contrary, in fact: this technique does a great job at melding flavors together.

But also, it is possible to cook dry beans on their own without soaking. The difference? It will take a little longer, though not nearly as much most cookbooks say.

So why soak at all? Well it will cut down on cutting time somewhat. The other potential reason is texture. This is somewhat anecdotal, but it does seem that sometimes, when using dry beans directly, the beans don't cook quite as evenly. This only seems to happen with older beans, though, which you should try to avoid anyways. And it can also be remedied by cooking the beans slowly and gently. My opinion is that, for texture, the best thing you can do is cook your dry beans in a crockpot for a few hours. It won't save you any time, but it requires practically no labor, and it really produces great results.

But the important thing to remember here: beans do not need to be pre-soaked, so don't let a lack of soaking stop you.

As it get colder... beer bread!

2010-10-17T14:45:00.000-07:00

This quick beer bread might be the bread I bake most often. It is extremely satisfying and easy to make – I don't know if I've ever screwed it up. It has a warm, malty, yeasty flavor that I find very comforting, especially as the weather turns cold. And the best: it can be made in under an hour, start to finish. This means I can wake up in the morning, make the bread, eat some for breakfast, and still make it to the office on time.

If it has a drawback, it is that it's not terribly versatile. This is not a bread for mopping up sauces at dinner, and it's nearly useless for making a sandwich. But for some things it's really good: as toast with butter (obviously), and it is great with certain sharp cheeses, like cheddar or aged gouda. Also, it makes good friends with many kinds of hearty cold weather stews.

Oh and of course it's great with a beer! The best autumn lunch ever might be this beer bread with cheddar, mustard, apple, maybe a little salami, and a nice malty British style ale....

Though I just stick with the basic recipe most of the time, there are a number of possible felicitous variations here:

-Try different types of beers. This is the most obvious variable. Try lighter and darker beers for different results (but avoid heavily hopped beers, unless you want bitter bread). If you want to get a little crazy, try a pumpkin ale or other seasonal spiced beers. (As a side note, the Joy of Cooking says to use any beer except stout, but I have used porter before, and the line between porters and stouts is thin to non-existent. Does anybody know why the Joy would say that? Hit up the comments if you have thoughts)

-Add in a quarter cup of nutritional yeast for additional savoriness.

-Add in grated cheddar (or other cheese) for increased cheesiness.

-Play around with the ratio of whole wheat to all purpose flour. Or substitute some fine corn meal for some of the wheat flour for a different texture.

-A favorite at our house: bake in muffin tins instead of a loaf pan (reduce cooking time to about 20 mins.)

This recipe is straight out of the Joy of Cooking. As with all quick breads, the key is to not over-mix when you add the beer to your dry ingredients.

Quick Beer Bread

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
12 oz. beer (not flat)

Mix together all the dry ingredients.

Fold in the beer, but don't over-mix. It's fine if the dough is a little lumpy.

Pour into a lightly greased loaf pan, and bake at 400 for 35 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

Doing crab cakes a little differently

2010-10-05T13:50:00.001-07:00

Pretty much all recipes for crab cakes require mayonnaise.

That's what I learned yesterday evening as I tried to make dinner. We had about a half-pound of crab meat left from our most recent CSF delivery, and Lindsey had requested crab cakes (a CSF is a Community Supported Fishery, like a CSA but for fish. Ours is called Core Sound Seafood – check them out they do excellent work).

Now I had made crab cakes numerous times before (pretty successfully, I believe, as the repeated request demonstrated). As per my usual cooking style, in making them previously I had based my approach on an existing recipe to get the basic idea, then taken it and done my own thing, adjusting and seasoning as I saw fit. The recipes always include some mayonnaise.

The problem was that last night I didn't have any mayonnaise. We usually make our own (much better tasting than the store-bought stuff), and I just didn't feel like taking the extra step. So I decided to wing it, without mayonnaise.

The result? Excellent! More straight crab flavor, and a little lighter. I would in fact probably do it this way again (though I have to say, a little dollop aïoli on top would be quite nice...).

Here's what I did (all measurements are very, very approximate):

I mixed the 1/2 pound of crab meat with a 1/4 cup fresh breadcrumbs. For flavoring, I used a generous dash of pimentón (smoked paprika – it belongs in pretty much everything), a pinch of cayenne for heat, a couple tablespoons of mustard, a few splashes of cider vinegar, and some salt. To bind it, I added tablespoon of olive oil and a small egg. I combined it all thoroughly, shaped it into 4 cakes, and dredged the cakes in a little flour. These were fried on medium-high heat in a mixture of butter and olive oil until nicely browned. Add a squeeze of lemon on top and it's ready.

And to drink with this? Txakoli of course!

Cutting potatoes, Spanish-style

2010-08-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

The last time I was in Spain, we were served patatas a la riojana at a winery in - where else? - La Rioja. This dish is typical of much Spanish cooking in that it relies not on complexity, but on specific techniques and high quality ingredients. In this case, it's just onions, a little garlic, chorizo, potatoes, and broth.

The idea is always simple - like with padrón peppers. These peppers are served all over the place in tapas bars when they're in season. They are fried in olive oil until slightly charred, then sprinkled in salt. That's it. Sounds incredibly simple; and it is. But, crucially, what makes them so delicious in the tapas bars is that they are just the right peppers grown in just the right soils in Galicia. They are fried in high quality olive oil and sprinkled with high quality coarse salt. You have to put all these elements together to make padrón peppers just right.

The patatas a la riojana we had that day were incredible. What, we asked, is the key to making something seemingly so simple so good? The matriarch of the place gladly explained how to make dish to us. According to her, there are two key things. One is in the ingredients: to make it just right, you need to use chorizo that hasn't completely finished curing. This way, the chorizo releases more of its flavor into the dish (this, clearly, cannot be reproduced at home, unless you're curing your own chorizo) The second crucial thing is in the cutting of the potatoes: they need to be cut into little irregular pieces in a technique called cascar. This verb translates roughly to "crack" or "chip." The idea is that instead of cutting through the potato, you stick a pairing knife into it, then pull back so the potato breaks naturally where it wants and creates irregularly shaped pieces.

This affects the starch structure of the potatoes and has two effects. The first is that the starch from the potatoes thickens the sauce properly, and the second is that the potatoes more readily absorb the flavors of the sauce. If anyone knows a more detailed scientific explanation for this, please hit up the comments, I'd love to hear it... Looking around, I can hardly find any information on this cutting technique. The best I could find was this.

I find it fascinating, and I wonder why it's not better known.

And beyond stews and saucy dishes, I've found that cutting potatoes this way is great for frying too. In fact, a few Spanish sources insist that this is the proper way to cut potatoes for a tortilla de patatas, a statement with which I will not disagree. The potatoes seem to develop a beautiful golden color and that comforting creamy texture inside far more readily. Again, any information on why this is would be appreciated.

So try cutting your potatoes like this next time, whether it's for a stew, a tortilla, a breakfast hash, or any number of other dishes. Take a starchy potato and peel it. Using a pairing knife, hold the potato in one hand, insert the knife, then pull it back and upwards towards you. You will feel the potato break and crack. With a little practice, it goes very fast, and I find it much more fun than regular potato cutting.

Aaand we're back.

2010-07-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

Getting married!

Cooking live lobsters from the Vieques fishmarket on our honeymoon!

Our Lobster feast!

Tropical rice and beans with coconut, mango chile salsa and avocado lime salad. We make it good wherever we are.

Sorry for the long interruption folks. We had a busy spring and early summer. Highlights: Getting hitched on May 15th at the Celebrity Dairy and traveling to Puerto Rico for a 2 week honeymoon. After all the excitement (and with the arrival of full summer excellence) we're ready to get back to posting about cooking and food! We've got a lot of new stuff to tell you about, including adventures in backyard chicken raising and cooking with our own fresh eggs so look out for updates over the next few weeks. For now I'll leave you with some shots from the spring.

Ravioli lessons with Chris and Meg: a photo essay

2010-03-11T10:42:00.000-08:00

The finished product.
waiting to be cut...
closing...
Closing...
Flip!
The key is no more than a teaspoon of filling

The pasta machine... fold and then roll... repeat...

Slow carmelizing onions...

Feta...

Butternut Squash...

The raw ingrediants: Our beginning dough...

The Fifth Taste

2010-02-08T18:46:00.000-08:00

What's up world? Well it's obviously been a little while since anything has happened with this blog... I could try to give excuses - holidays, travels, change of routine, etc. - but in the end there's not much point. The only point is that, well, we're back, and hopefully on a regular basis.

Now just because I haven't been updating the blog does not mean that I have not been thinking about food. I have been. Pretty much all the time.

And one of the topics that's been on my mind lately is umami. Umami is the least well known and least well understood of all the tastes, by a long shot. In fact, my spell check doesn't even recognize the word...

But its importance should not be underestimated. Umami is a crucial element of all cooking, but it's especially important to think about in vegetarian and vegan cooking, because most umami-ness comes from animal products.

But first, what is umami? Well umami is the fifth taste. We all know about sweet, salty, sour, and bitter, but then there's this other one. The word is Japanese, and it doesn't really have an appropriate translation. The best is probably "savory," or even "deep savory". It's that meaty, hearty, rich mouth filling taste. It's difficult to convey verbally what umami is, since it's not something we really have the vocabulary for. If this helps, the purest form of umami taste is found in MSG.

Umami is what makes a meaty stew so satisfying, especially in comparison to, say, a vegetarian bean stew. And that brings me to the heart of the topic.

I believe that when vegetarian cooking seems flat and unsatisfying, it is often due to a lack of attention to umami (and I hope it's clear at this point that I am no foe of vegetarian cooking). Everybody knows about salty and sweet, most know to think at least a little about sour and bitter too, but do many home cooks think about umami? Probably not...

So where do you find umami? Well the most obvious is meat, but that's not much help for vegetarian cooking. Seafood is also a particularly fertile source, with fish sauce and anchovies being prime examples. There's also marmite, if you're into that kind of thing (ok I'll admit it I kind of like marmite). But the most versatile is surely soy sauce.

I've said this before, but I add a dash of soy sauce to pretty much everything I cook. I don't do this to make my food taste like soy sauce - you certainly wouldn't want all your food to take on the distinctive taste of soy sauce - I do it to bring a little umami to the dish. Soy sauce does wonders in small quantities. Seriously, try adding a dash to your sauces, stews, whatever. It makes a huge difference.

Other really great (vegetarian) ways to get your umami include mushrooms, parmesan, and seaweed.

Mushrooms, especially intensely flavored wild mushrooms, can also do wonders. We keep dried wild mushrooms in the pantry all the time to use in cooking. Again, it's not necessarily about making your dish take like mushrooms (though of course it can be), it's about using the mushrooms for their umami giving properties.

Parmesan really doesn't need much said about it. It's great for finishing many types of dishes, especially Mediterranean style ones. One trick that not enough people know about is to save the rinds form your parmesan, then stick them in your soups or stews while they're cooking. They'll give the dish a wonderful richness and lushness (not to mention umaminess!). Pull the rind out right before your dish is done, and spread the gooey deliciousness on a piece of bread for an incredible treat.

Seaweed might need a little explanation. One of the important topics in umami, for me, is beans. I cook - and eat - a fair amount of beans. They are a fantastic and wonderfully useful ingredient, but they are also singularly lacking in umami. Seriously, try just making, say, a simple black bean stew with tomatoes and cilantro, and it will fall flat, unless you have incredibly ripe fresh tomatoes or you're topping it with a bunch of cheese, or you make it with chicken stock. The problem, as I see it, is that while beans are "meaty" in some sense, they're distinctly not meaty in the sense that, by themselves, they lack the power to bring that delicious savory satisfaction. In short, they lack umami.

But try cooking your beans with a piece of kombu first, and it's a whole different story. Kombu is a type of Japanese seaweed that packs a serious umami punch, and putting a little strip in the water when you're cooking your beans is a brilliant way to bring some glutamic acid to the party.
I'm not saying you wouldn't want to finish your stew with little cheese in the end, but it's a lot less necessary when you're cooking your beans with kombu.

So in short, don't underestimate the importance of umami! If you're cooking with lots of bacon or chicken stock or cheese, you probably don't have to think about it too much, but otherwise it is totally essential. It's one of just five tastes, for Christ's sake - you can't afford to ignore it.

If you've got other ideas about bringing the umami, hit up the comments. I'd love to hear them.

Simplest chickpea stew

2009-11-09T16:39:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't noticed, we're all about simple, frugal, and delicious cooking here. This might be the epitome of all these things: almost comically simple, it's delightful to eat, and your wallet will hardly even notice.

In short, you saute some onion, carrot, and garlic in a little olive oil and butter, add a little wine, then chickpeas with stock and tomato paste. You let it hang out a little all together for a while, then season with some paprika or other red pepper, finish with a little lemon and parmesan, and that's it. Serve with some grain - couscous, orzo, and quinoa are some of my favorites - and something green, and you've got dinner.

This is obviously just a template. In its simplicity, this dish also contains another virtue: it invites additions and modifications. Here are just a few ideas:

Little bits of meat, whether leftover chicken or some chopped up bacon or pancetta, would be right at home here.

Mushrooms would also be a decidedly delicious addition.

Add a Parmesan rind with your stock to make a richer and more luscious dish.

Onions, carrot, and garlic usually form the base of this dish for me, but there are plenty of other options. Shallots, celery, bell peppers, and leeks come to mind... Or even some chopped olives...

For the pepper, paprika is the default, but you can switch it up: try Turkish Aleppo pepper, or smoked paprika, or try stirring in some Harissa (a Morrocan chili paste).

Options abound...

A quick note about two of the main elements of this dish: the chickpeas and the stock.

I highly recommend using dried chickpeas that you cook yourself. Like with most canned beans, canned chickpeas are too mushy for my taste. You can get more toothsome chickpeas by cooking them at home and pulling them off when there's just the right texture. You can also make them extra delicious by cooking them with a piece of kombu.

As for the stock, sorry vegetarians - chicken is really where it's at. Of course a good vegetable stock will work wonderfully too; the best, as with the chickpeas, is to make it yourself, whether it be meat of plant based.

One last thing: I say to finish this dish with some lemon juice; if you don't have any on hand, use a splash of red wine or sherry vinegar instead, but don't omit this acidic touch, or the dish will likely seem a little flat...

Simplest Chickpea Stew

Chop up an onion and a couple carrots, and heat a little olive oil and butter in a deep skillet. Cook onion and carrot over medium heat for 5 minutes.

Add a few minced cloves of garlic (I use about 7 or 8), cook for a couple more minutes.

Turn up the heat to fairly high, and when heated up add a generous splash of wine (any color will work well, but I prefer white here).

After a minute or so, add a couple cups of stock and couple tablespoons of tomato paste.

Stir to dissolve, then add 3 cups cooked chickpeas.

Cook for 15-20 minutes, until sauce has reduced and thickened to your liking.

Add paprika or other red pepper to taste (sorry, can't be much more precise here since peppers vary so wildly in heat and intensity. For mild paprika, you'll probably want about 2-3 tsp.). Add fresh herbs (thyme and oregano are great) if using. A splash of soy sauce can be really nice here too, especially if you're not using a meat stock.

Let it all get acquainted for a couple minutes, then turn off the heat and stir in 1 tbsp. or so of lemon juice.

Top with a little parmesan when serving.

Best cabbage ever

2009-10-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

Cabbage is not the sexiest of ingredients, I'll admit it. But I love cabbage. I love its texture when it's been cooked just the right amount of time (i.e. not boiled to death), just lightly toothsome, and the slightly sweet flavor it develops. I'll vouch for cabbage.

But there's no convincing to be done with this dish. This is seriously the best cabbage I've ever had. Hands down. It comes from Bryant Terry, whose vegan soul style, as I've said before, I really like.

Around here barbecue joints often serve cabbage cooked in pork fat. This is Terry's re-interpretation of the dish. To "make up" for not using pork fat, he uses mustard seeds, pepper flakes, and a little sugar. I put the verb in the previous sentence in scare quotes because really we're not making up for anything here; this cabbage is better than any I've had, animal products or no. And for this one, I actually followed the recipe and don't intend to change it. So simple, yet the result is much more than the sum of its parts. Try it.

"Fried" Cabbage
Adapted from Bryant Terry's Vegan Soul Kitchen

Quarter, core, and slice into thin ribbons a smallish head of cabbage (about 2 pounds).

In a large saute pan, over medium heat combine 2 tbsp. olive oil, 2 tsp. mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes, 1 tsp. sugar, and 1/2 tsp. salt. Cook, stirring, until seeds begin to pop after a couple minutes.

Add the cabbage and cooks for 4-5 minutes until it begins to wilt. Add water, stir, cover, and cook another 4-5 minutes, until water is mostly evaporated.

Voila!

Croute en potiron (pumpkin with cheesy soup / bread pudding)

2009-10-12T18:12:00.000-07:00

This is a really awesome special occasion dish for vegetarians. It is indulgent, delicious and fussy, everything I like. I made it for "New Dishwasher day" when Alex and I got our new dishwasher installed a week after the old one crapped out on us. It is a bit of a lengthy process but no step is complicated in the slightest and the results are both attractive and tasty.

Croute en potiron

Ingredients for 2 servings:
One small pie pumpkin per person
About 1/4 lb. grated Emmenthal or other Swiss style cheese (I mixed it with parmesan since ours was boring)
About 3 cups stock (I used chicken this time but veggie stock is delightful)
1/2 stale baguette cut into thin rounds and toasted.
Fresh parsley, oregano, thyme, sage, or other fresh herbs
Garlic
Wine or brandy

Preheat the oven to 375.

Scoop out your pumpkins (set aside seeds to roast if you like). After they are all nicely hollowed out, rub the inside with salt and garlic. Set aside.

Warm up your stock and add brandy or wine to taste, let it simmer together for a bit to burn off some of the alcohol.

Put a thin layer of cheese inside the bottom of the pumpkin, sprinkle fresh herbs and then layer toast. Continue layering alternating cheese herbs and toast until the pumpkin is full.

Put the full pumpkin on a baking sheet then pour your doctored stock into the pumpkin over the layers of cheese and bread. Top with a final layer of cheese and herbs.

Bake the pumpkins in the middle of the oven until the cheese is golden brown and pumpkins yields to the tip of a knife (err on the side of caution, you do NOT want to overcook the pumpkin or the whole thing will collapse.)

Serve the soup in the pumpkin and as you eat it scoop out the pumpkin flesh with the cheesy melty bready soup. Decadence.

End of summer roasted tomatoes

2009-10-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

This is the perfect thing to do with end of summer tomatoes and it only takes a few minutes. After you broil them you can freeze them or use them right away and it is dead simple. We usually buy the "ugly" (1.50/lb.) tomatoes at the farmers' market. Any kind will do. Preheat the broiler on your oven. Core and slice in half up to 3 lbs. tomatoes, leave the skin on (unless you don't like it, then take it off.) Arrange the tomatoes skins side up in a casserole pan or deep baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Put tomatoes in oven on the center rack and broil until golden brown on top (about 15-20 minutes, but check on them.) At this point you have delicious broiled tomatoes that make a 15 minute sauce taste like you simmered it for hours. We make these on Sunday and use them on weekdays. Enjoy!

You learn something new every day...

2009-09-23T12:34:00.000-07:00

Who knew that it makes a difference whether you cook your beans with the lid on or off?

Not I... at least not until today.

This is why I'm hot

2009-09-23T10:51:00.000-07:00

This is why I'm hot, I don't got to rap
I can make a mil saying nothing on a track....

That's kind of how I feel about weeknight dinners sometimes. Ok maybe minus some of the boisterousness, plus we always need to do some work... But the point is that it's possible to put out banging meals on a weeknight with very little effort, which is almost the same thing as making a million dollars for not saying anything....

Anyways what I want to talk about here is always having semi-prepared foods around. No I don't mean packaged stuff you buy from Trader Joe's, but items that you partially put together on weekends or whenever you have time or feel inspired, then keep around in the fridge. This allows you to cook meals in 20 minutes that taste like they take hours. This is the key to making killer weeknight dinners.

Here are some things you'll often find in our fridge and freezer:

Marinated veggies: Blanch or roast veggies like carrots or peppers. Cook them until barely soft, then put in a jar with salt and cover with olive oil. If you're feeling fancy add a little vinegar or a clove of garlic. These are great additions to sauces.

Pesto cubes: at the end of the summer when we rip up our basil plants we make a huge batch of pesto, then freeze it in ice cube trays. A cube of this stuff can do magic to many dishes, or just be used with pasta.

Stock cubes: homemade stock, frozen in ice cube trays, are crucial. Thinning a sauce? Deglazing a pan? This is good stuff to use.

Marinated tofu: you'll find it a lot easier to make tofu tasty if it's already marinated in your fridge.

Cooked beans: I guess you could just stock canned beans, if you don't mind your beans mushy and metallic tasting. But the dried ones are so much better (and not as much of a hassle as many think; more on that in a later post). I like to cook them until they're just barely tender to allow for better control over their texture when I'm using with them later. This is a great habit to get into on sunday afternoons: prepare a pot of beans to use throughout the week.

Cooked grains: whenever you cook some grains, why not cook twice as much as you need? Keep the rest in your fridge, and it's ready to go for next time.

Chopped up leftover meats: let's say you do some grilling on the weekend, and there's a couple of chicken drumsticks leftover. Take the meat of the bone, chop it up into little bits, and keep it around. Now it's ready to go into stews, soups, sauces, frittatas, whatever...

There's plenty more options of course. Anything you use that's not on the list? Hit up the comments!

Now to come full circle, I'll leave you with this pretty hot remix of the song quoted at the top:

Food thought....

2009-08-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

The folks over at Ideas in Food come up with some pretty crazy stuff. They probe, deconstruct, and examine food in ways I would never think of. Case in point: this recent post about pasta. They figured out that you can leave pasta to soak for a while in cold liquid, and then cook it like fresh pasta by just dropping it in a hot water for a minute.

This brings up a couple of questions:

Most immediately, how can we use this technique to create new and delicious things? Soaking in chicken stock or tomato broth immediately come to mind....

But thinking bigger for a moment, what else do we prepare unthinkingly that could be done in new ways? What else could we do differently to open up new doors?

Quick tip: egg in your pasta

2009-07-31T04:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick tip to add a little something to quick simple pasta sauces: crack and egg over your hot pasta before you add your sauce.

The idea is to add a little creaminess, a little luxuriance, to your dish, but without rendering it heavy. This can bring a simple pasta with, say, olive oil, garlic, herbs, and cherry tomatoes to the next level.

Here's how you do it: when your pasta is ready, strain it and quickly return it to the pot (or to a separate bowl). Crack an egg over the pasta, and mix it in vigorously. The result should be a kind of airy creamy sauce (it should not be little bits of scrambled eggs). This essentially is the technique you use to make carbonara: add a bunch of cheese and bacon and you've got that dish. But add instead some veggies sauteed in olive oil, and finish with just a touch of parmesan, and you've got a brilliant summer dish: light and delicious, with just the slightest hint of decadence. Try it with ripe bell peppers, or with shredded zucchini brightened with lemon.

One more advantage of this technique: it does great things to whole wheat pasta, which I don't normally love.

Here's my current favorite way of using this idea. It hardly seems like it necessitates a recipe, but here it is. Use about 1 egg for every 1/2 pound of pasta.

Heat water for pasta. Add pasta when water is boiling.

Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a skillet and chop a bunch of garlic. Cook (along with some dried hot pepper, if desired) until garlic just turns golden.

Add in a splash of white wine, a couple tablespoons of the pasta water, some salt, and let cook for a few minutes. Add fresh herbs just a couple minutes before the pasta is done.

When pasta is ready, quickly drain, return to pot, crack an egg over the pasta, and mix vigorously for about 30 seconds. You should have a light, airy creamy sauce.

Add some halved cherry tomatoes and the garlic/oil/herb mix and toss all together.

Finish with a little parmesan and some fresh ground pepper, and serve immediately.

White wine sangria: my new favorite summer drink

2009-07-21T16:34:00.000-07:00

Sangria often sucks. In fact, I don't think I've ever encountered a red wine sangria I've really liked. Red wine seems to me to lack the brightness, the vitality, to make a good summer drink. Add that to the fact that most seem to think you should use the crappiest wine you can find to make the drink, and you've got a recipe for disgusting.

White wine, sangria, on the other hand, can be truly excellent. With higher acidity levels, less tannins, and generally less volatile components, white wine lends itself much better to this type of drink. I remember a version from a cuban restaurant in Portland (Pambiche) called the Palm Beach Cooler. I can't recall what exactly was in it, but it definitely involved lime and fresh sugarcane. That was good stuff: delicious, refreshing, vivacious, it was everything a summer drink should be.

So this summer I've set about refining and perfecting a white wine sangria of my own, working off a recipe Lindsey originally used. This drink is brightened with lime juice, sweetened with ginger ale, and fortified with rum, creating a kind of Cuban/Caribbean flavor profile (I told you that palm beach cooler has been on my mind...). Then you add in whatever fruit is fresh and on hand (often peaches for me) and serve it over ice. I've dubbed the drink El Veraniego, which translates roughly to something like "the summery one".

A note on the wine: as you might have gathered from what I said earlier, I don't believe in using crap wine to make sangria. Boring wine, sure. Bad wine, no. The things you add in might mask some off flavors, but using bad wine will still make an inferior drink. Conversely, any subtleties of a good white will be lost, so don't bother using anything too nice. Dry and unremarkable is ideal.

El Veraniego

1 750ml bottle of decent dry white wine

10 oz. (1 1/4 cup) ginger ale

4 tbsp. (1/4 cup) rum

2 tbsp. (or more, depending on your wine) fresh lime juice

Fresh fruit, cut up

A few crushed mint leaves (optional)

Combine all ingredients. Let sit all together in the fridge for an hour or two.

Serve over ice.

Watch out!

Summer cookin' : quick fresh tomato sauce

2009-07-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the interruption in the posts for a while there folks, but traveling got in the way... I'm back now (though Lindsey is off in Switzerland), so you can expect semi-regular posts.

Now that it's July, I am happily drowning in the summer goodness of tomatoes. They're coming in all colors: red, obviously, but also gold, purple, and even black. We are getting a serious bumper crop in the garden this year, and I'm loving it.

It is hot here in Carolina in the summer. So when you haul in plump, fresh tomatoes from the yard, you have the twin objectives of 1. preserving the deliciousness of the fruit, and 2. not killing yourself by standing over a hot stove for any length of time. Luckily, these two goals come together beautifully in the quick tomato sauce. How delicious the quick tomato sauce can be - when made right (which is not very difficult) and with peak fruit - cannot be overstated.

Really it should be called a tomato-olive oil sauce, since the oil is almost as important here as the tomatoes. It is the key to the luscious mouthfeel of the sauce, to the almost silky texture you get as the tomatoes break down.

As for the tomatoes, you can use almost any kind, but I think what works best here are meatier ones. We've been growing German Johnsons this year, and I find these work exceptionally well.

So there are really just

three key things to remember here:

1. Don't overcook (not hard when it's really hot)
2. Use only really fresh, really ripe tomatoes. Your sauce will only be as good as your tomatoes are.
3. Don't be shy with the olive oil.

Now you can strip this recipe down even further if you want - really, the bare bones are simply oil, salt, and tomatoes - but this is how I like to do it, with copious amount of garlic.

Pasta with Quick Fresh Tomato Sauce

Heat water for pasta in a pot.

Chop up a head of garlic (seriously) and heat about 1/4 cup olive oil in a large skillet on medium-heat. Add garlic, and cook until it just starts to turn golden.

Add a splash of white white wine, let it cook off for a minute, then add 1.5-2 lbs. roughly chopped tomatoes. Salt, and crank the heat up to medium so it gets bubbling vigorously.

Meanwhile, add a pound of pasta to your boiling water (I recommend penne). Your tomatoes should cook for about as long as your pasta: 10 mins.

Drain the pasta just a little before it is done. Return to pot, add with tomato sauce, and put on low heat, stirring to mix everything together. Cook for 3 minutes.

Finish with a little parmesan, and consume with a bottle of chilled white wine.

BBQ beans and rice

2009-05-06T05:42:00.000-07:00

If you haven't checked out Bryant Terry's Vegan Soul Kitchen yet, I highly recommend you do so soon. Terry is a really interesting and thoughtful cook who goes back to an older notion of southern cooking, more focused on vegetables and fresh ingredients, but with plenty of modern and playful twists. Go read his "Reclaiming True Grits" essay to get an idea of his philosophy.

I love the idea of Vegan Soul Kitchen for a couple of reasons. First, it shows that you can in fact make banging soul food that is also healthy and fresh. But I also like it because, though I am by no stretch of the imagination vegan, learning how to prepare delicious vegan meals makes you a better cook. When you can't rely on bacon or cream to cover up for an otherwise bland dish, you learn how to better construct a dish to make it flavorful. And moving on from there, you get a better sense of how you should use animal products on a day to day basis: judiciously, not just because.

I only got this book recently, and until yesterday had only made his coleslaw, which uses silken tofu instead of mayo to create a slaw that is more delicate and subtle - but also far more delicious - than most slaws I've had. None of that gopy heavy stuff... Yesterday I came home and decided to try something else out of the book, but of course I had no interest in going shopping, so a few substitutions were made.

Given the ingredients I had at home, I decided to make a dish called Boppin' John, essentially bbq beans served over rice. It was supposed to be made with black-eyed peas, but I'd recently used up what we had at home, so I used white beans instead. It was also supposed to have tempeh in it, another thing I was out of, and the only other soy product I had was tofu. While I don't think the bean switch was detrimental to the dish, I will go ahead and say it would be better to use tempeh, or to fry the crumbled tofu first to make crispy little tofu pieces, as the crumbled tofu I simply added in was texturally lacking. I also halved the amount of agave nectar (Terry's preferred sweetener), and I am glad I made that choice. Feel free to add more sweetener if that's how you like it.

BBQ beans and rice (Boppin' John)
Adapted from Bryant Terry's Vegan Soul Kitchen

- Cook 1 1/2 cup beans in ample salted water until just tender. Drain and reserve 1 cup of the liquid.

-Meanwhile, cook up a medium onion in some olive oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes, then add 3-4 (or more) minced cloves of garlic. Cook another couple minutes.

-Preheat oven to 350 F.

-In a blender, combine 2 tbsp. vinegar (sherry or red wine or cider), 1/2 cup tamari, 1 cup of canned tomatoes, 1 chipotle pepper, 1/4 cup agave nectar, 1 tbsp cumin, some thyme, the reserved bean liquid, and a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Blend until smooth.

-In an ovenproof dish, combine the beans, 1/2 pound crumbled tempeh (or fried crumbled tofu), the onions and garlic, and the sauce from the blender.

-Bake for about 1 1/2 hours.

-Serve over rice (or, in my case, rice tinted yellow with turmeric because it looks cool). This would also be delicious served over polenta or grits.

Morels!

2009-04-26T14:56:00.001-07:00

Until the heat wave hit us full blast here in NC (it's 90 degrees as I write this), it was morel season, that brief, delicious periods in which the mysterious fungi appear.

Thanks to Lindsey and her intrepid crew of mushroom hunters, we had three glorious meals in the course of a week. They went out to their secret location three times, each time bringing back a bigger haul.

All the meals were riffs on the same theme, because there is no need to tinker too much with something so delicious. A light hand, a little butter, a little cream, and a few ingredients that highlight the morel flavor, served over a little pasta: that is the winning formula. And always with a light, earthy, red wine, of course.

The first meal involved penne and a little spring onions, all prepared quite simply. We cracked open a bottle of Bugey that we had hauled all the way back from France last Christmas.

The second meal got a little fancier. Lindsey cooked up some skillet roasted chicken thighs and served the whole thing over orzo.

The third and final haul was by far the biggest, and this one was prepared with another seasonal delicacy: asparagus. The morels and the asparagus complemented each other beautifully, and with so many morels this time the taste was far more pronounced.

I'm looking forward to next spring already...

Vegetarian Wine Dinner

2009-04-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

After the success of our last wine dinner, where we focused on sherries, Lindsey and I figured it was high time for a new edition. Spring has come here to North Carolina, and the farmers markets are coming back to life, so we wanted to capture the fresh, bright flavors of the season.

We had gotten, since the last dinner, a number of requests from our dietarily restricted friends. Because it seemed like a fun and interesting challenge, we decided to make this dinner meat-free.

Now a note on the philosophy behind this: vegetarian cooking can be wonderful, creative, and satisfying, but there’s two things it should not be. It should never try to pretend to be meat, or in some sense try to make up for the lack of meat. It should stand on its own, proudly, not trying to live up to some meaty standard. On the other hand, it should not feel austere or have any air of health-nut self-righteous masochism. So no mock chicken, and no sacrificing deliciousness.

In developing the menu, it became clear that the wines were all going to be white. The flavors were bright, the fresh herbs plentiful, the spices liberally dispensed, and the generally more refreshing and acidic flavor profiles of white wines just worked better.

So that was the game plan: all vegetarian and all white.

We started off with some little bites and some Vi D’Agulla 07, the lightly sparkling wine from Avinyó.

We had some roasted almonds with pimentón, and carrots marinated in olive oil, sherry and garlic. There were little crostinis: one with a generously-herbed feta and another, reminiscent of a sping picnic in the French countryside, with butter, radishes, coarse salt, and a little leaf of fresh oregano. Lastly, there was the new house favorite: kale chips. These are pieces of kale tossed with olive oil, cider vinegar, and salt, and baked until perfectly crispy. The effect is odd, tantalizing, and addictive: a shattering crisp rapidly gives way to a melting texture, while the flavor is salty, a little sour, and wonderfully vegetal.

After the Vi D’Agulla was dispatched, we sat down to the first dish, a chickpea-sweet potato fritter on a bed of fresh pea shoots with a homemade cumin-pimentón aioli.

The fritters themselves were earthy and enriched by the rich aioli, the whole thing complemented by the clean, crisp, pea shoot.

The wine here was the Gurrutxaga Txakolina 07. We’re a wee bit obsessed with txakolina here, and while it may be a slight exaggeration to say that it plays well with pretty much anything that isn’t too sweet, it showed beautifully here, clear citrus notes singing.

After that came a soup of roasted garlic and lemon with truffle oil croutons (photo missing, sorry). Lots and lots of garlic, mostly roasted with a little fresh, a dash of cream, and a hefty dose of fresh lemon juice for the high note. We had this with the A Coroa Godello 2007. I’m not sure if it was some combination of the crisp wine with the lemon in the soup or something else, but to me the whole thing was actually reminscent of seafood, like there was something almost ocean-y about it despite it lacking anything from the sea…

Next up, portabello caps stuffed with risotto and topped with homemade fresh cheese.

This was the most complex dish of the meal. The mushroom caps were marinated then grilled. The risotto was made with lots of spring garlic and spring onion, and a good amount of saffron. After the mushroom caps were stuffed with the risotto, we added toasted pine nuts on top, and then finally the cheese. The whole thing finally went into the broiler for a few minutes.

We brought out the Ostatu Blanco Rioja 07 here, since it was calling for a a slightly rounder wine then what we’d been drinking until now.

Finally, dessert. Thanks to our deliciously mild weather here in North Carolina, we could enjoy the first strawberries of the season.

What we did was slice the strawberries and arrange then in a circle. We sprinkled them with crushed pistachios, and drizzled them with a balsamic syrup reduction. And in the middle, a little mound of chocolate goat cheese from Celebrity Dairy. I know, chocolate goat cheese sounds wierd. And it is, but in a delicious way. It’s very sweet, so you only want a little, and the goatiness is muted by the chocolate but still present, just enough to give it something special and keep things interesting.

The dish was crying out for something with nutty caramel notes to accompany it, and the obvious choice was Pedro Ximenez sherry. This one was from El Maestro Sierra, and it did not disappoint.

That was the last of the dishes, but it was not the last of the wine drinking. As often happens, the porrón came out after the meal, and yours truly was all too happy to demonstrate its proper use.

(Thanks to Meg Kassabaum for the pictures)

Polenta, and a successful dinner

2009-02-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

The last two dishes I've cooked have been - how to put this? - if not exactly failures, then at least pretty blah. One involved a not-so-great combination of flavors, the other involved burnt garlic, among other issues (Burnt garlic?! Who does that? How amateurish...). I needed to redeem myself a little and give my culinary ego a little boost, and so I set out to cook dinner last night determined to make something more than just palatable. Jeff and Lindsey agreed that my creation was indeed quite tasty, the only criticism being that it was little unfocused. If nothing else it was aesthetically pleasing:

I started off by slowly cooking onions, carrots, and white sweet potato in abundant olive oil in a cast iron skillet, eventually adding some frozen bell peppers, a couple chipotle peppers, and garlic, which I did not burn.

At the very end I added some incredibly tasty baby spinach from the farmer's market, cooking it just long enough for it to wilt, and a splash of sherry vinegar (see ingredients I put in pre tty much everything). I served this over polenta, and topped it off with a fried egg and a little bit of grated pecorino. Ok so you can see why this might have seemed a little unfocused: there was a lot going on for one dish. But at least all the flavors were delightful and on good behavior, not clashing with each other despite a couple strong personalities. It all went down quite well with a bottle of vinho verde.

Let's talk about the polenta for a second. I adore polenta, but when something involves almost constant stirring for 20 minutes, it will inevitably fall into the category of "something I make only occasionaly." I wish it weren't so, but it's the truth. Then I discovered that there is actually a way to cook polenta without stirring! It takes about twice as long, but who cares when you can kick back and sip your whiskey while it does its thing? It goes like this:

No-stir Oven Polenta

Preheat your oven to 360 degrees.

Depending on how thick you want your polenta, use anywhere between 4 and 7 cups of liquid for every cup of polenta.

Mix polenta and liquid together in an oven-proof pot.

Bake for 40 minutes with the lid off.

That's all it is. Personally my favorite way to do it is to use 4-5 cups of stock, then when I pull it out of the oven stir in 1/2 cup of whole milk and either a little butter or parmesan. But there are so many ways to tweak it, it's fun to play around and this recipe is very forgiving.

Chili basics

2009-02-23T17:20:00.000-08:00

We have had a cold spell in Chapel Hill so in the past couple of weeks we have been making big pots of Chili. I call this post Chili guidelines because our method for making chili is pretty general and takes advantage of whatever we have lying around the kitchen. For example the first time I made this recipe I used smoked pork chops as the meat and the second time I used left over bbq chicken. This recipe can easily be made vegetarian (maybe using the crumbled tofu from this recipe) but we like using just a little bit of meat as a seasoning. In my opinion that is one of the coolest things about southern cooking, the way they use meat sparingly for flavor rather than as the center of a meal, this is a great way to make use of left overs and make great tasting economical food. This Chili recipe makes about 8-10 servings so you can freeze some and reheat it for a quick meal.

You will need:
3 cups dried beans (white, pinto or a mix)
1 bottle cheap beer
1/2 can tomatoes
1 onion roughly chopped
garlic (to taste)
Canned chipotle peppers (we used 3 peppers)
1 cup meat can be cooked or smoked (if using bacon, cook first and use the grease to brown the onions)
Salt
Pepper
4 cups stock or reserved bean cooking liquid
Optional: Grain such as quinoa, barley or rice, you can cook this in the chili to make it more of a stew or just serve the chili over a grain, or just crumble corn chips into it at the end.

First off soften the beans. When cooking beans make sure to rinse them and pick them over, taking out any bad beans, small stones or other weirdness. It is a good idea to soak your beans earlier in the day so you dont have to worry about it when you are cooking. Cover beans with water, throw in a bay leaf, maybe a clove of garlic and some salt if yo are planning to use the cooking liquid as your stock and put them on low heat. When they are softened but chewy take them off and rinse them, saving the liquid if you want.

To assemble the chili begin by softening the onion with garlic and chipotle until onion is translucent over medum heat. At that point add meat and cook for about 5 minutes. Pour in bottle of beer, scraping the bottom of the pot to deglaze any browned bits. Add tomatoes and simmer for about 10 minutes. Add beans and ladle in stock, should be a little more liquidy than you want your final product to be. Add grain if you are going to use it. turn heat to low and simmer for at least 30 minutes, preferably more, until you like how it tastes. ladle into bowls and serve. Cheese and avocados make great garnishes. OR To take it to the next level, ladle into ramekins, top with cheddar cheese and throw under the broiler until cheese is bubbly and slightly brown and THEN serve, like this.

Cocksup

2009-02-22T09:09:00.000-08:00

This is very simple and hardly even a recipe but it is a good idea. I was playing around last night looking for a good dipping sauce and I combined one part Sriracha hot sauce (Cock sauce) and one part ketchup. Genius. The spicy sweet sauce was awesome for dipping fritters and also with sausages. Basically just a great replacement for ketchup and also a pretty sweet dipping sauce.

Note: We use organic ketchup which it turns out actually makes a nutritional difference, silly as it sounds. Organic ketchup is made with tomatoes skin on and contains much more lycopene than conventional ketchup. It also does not have high fructrose corn syrup in it like the conventional stuff.

Continuing with the tofu theme...

2009-02-10T07:16:00.000-08:00

Looking back over the recipes on this blog I just realized that I never posted my tofu "meat" sauce recipe. I make this hearty pasta sauce about once a week in the winter and it is a great way to add some protein to a simple pasta and red sauce. The basic sauce principles can be used to make any kind of home-made pasta sauce (so much better and cheaper than the jarred stuff). In addition, the technique for cooking the tofu, crumbling, marinating, frying then re-adding the marinade, is another great way to approach the tofu "problem" Alex mentioned in his post and you can use this technique to cook tofu for all sorts of dishes not just this sauce.

1 onion
5 cloves garlic
1 can tomatoes (I like whole ones but diced work too)
1 bay leaf
1 pepper, 1/2 bag TJs frozen mixed bell peppers (Optional)
Artichoke Hearts (optional)
olive oil
Salt
Red cooking wine/ balsamic vinegar

For the tofu
1 block extra firm tofu
olive oil
soy sauce
worcheshire sauce (NOTE TO VEGETARIANS: If you live in Chapel Hill/ Carrboro Weaver Street sells vegetarian Worcheshire sauce, otherwise you can leave this out or you might try using balsmaic vineger. The point is to add some "meatiness" to the tofu and I Balsamic has the depth of flavor to suite the purpose.)
cayenne

To prepare the tofu (you want to do this first). drain the tofu and crumble it into a non-reactive bowl with enough room for marinade, there is no need to press it at this point. In a cup or other bowl (I like to use a measuring cup) mix up a marinate with the olive oil soy sauce woostershire sauces cayenne and whatever else you want (sriracha etc.) Make your marinade to taste but it should taste a little stronger than you would want in the end. There are no quantities on this because I have no idea how much of anything I put in, just kind of splash it, there should be a total of 1/2 cup of liquid). Pour the marinade onto the crumbled tofu, mixing it up to get full coverage if you need to, and set aside to get your sauce going.

Chop up your onion and sautee it in a skillet (not cast iron) with about 2 tablespoons olive oil until it is translucent over medium heat. Add garlic and cook both together for a couple of minutes. Add any vegetables (peppers, artichoke hearts) and a splash of cooking wine/ vinegar, stir. Turn the heat down to lowish and add 1 can of tomatoes, bay leaf and salt, stir and then leave it alone.

Now go finish your tofu.
heat up a cast iron flat bottomed pan, a skillet or dutch oven will work. Pour your bowl of tofu onto a clean dishtowel or cheesecloth and twist the marinate out of it into the bowl (save the marinade) you want to get the tofu as dry as possible or it will not brown. Put the drained tofu into the hot cast iron and make sure in is as spread out over the surface as possible. The oil on the tofu should prevent it from sticking but a light coating on the pan certainly won't hurt. Fry tofu without stirring for 5 minutes or until borwn, then stir it up and brown more, when it is brown to your liking scoop out with a slotted spatula either onto a paper towel or directly into your tomato sauce simmering away on another burner. Add the marinade to the sauce as well and stir. Let it all get acquainted for a few minutes while you make pasta.

Cook your pasta, mix it up with the sauce and some parmasan and serve. OR Mix it up with the sauce and parmasan and put it in a casserole dish, cover it with bread crumbs and more parmasan and bake for 15 minutes then serve.
Pictures to follow

Broasted Tofu (with mustard honey sauce)

2009-02-06T08:13:00.000-08:00

Lindsey coined the term for this technique because as far as we know there isn't really a word for what I'm talking about here - a combination of braising and roasting. There's probably a good reason for this: I can't imagine it would work well for anything but tofu (though Lindsey suggested it might be good for certain vegetables; hit the comments if you've got any other ideas).

Basically I'm talking about baking tofu cutlets baked at high heat in a marinade/sauce. Here's why we do it:

Tofu gets a bad rap for a couple reasons: one is texture and one is flavor, or rather the lack thereof. I personally have no texture issues with tofu; I think even the silken version can be wonderful if used right. But for most people (myself included most of the time), firmer is better. Using extra firm tofu and draining it before cooking helps enormously. Baking tofu also does wonders.

As for flavor, the real way to go with tofu is marinating it. Tofu is a blank slate, and you want to fill it completely, not just draw on the borders. The problem, of course, is time. I love to keep marinated tofu around, but I don't always get it together to prepare it advance. Sometimes I need to just work with tofu straight out of its watery home.

Enter broasted tofu. The idea is that tofu kind of marinates while it cooks and develops a nice crispy top. Take a block of extra firm tofu and drain it for a few minutes (put it on a cutting board slanted towards your sink, and put something heavy on it, like 3 or 4 plates). Make whatever marinade or sauce suits your fancy (recipe for a mustard honey version below). Cut your tofu into 1/3 inch thick cutlets and arrange them in a baking pan. Now pour enough marinade into the pan that your cutlets are about 3/4 submerged. Sprinkle some breadcrumbs on top of the cutlets for a little extra crispiness. Put the whole thing in a 450 degree oven for about 20 minutes. Your marinade/sauce should have reduced and thickened, your tofu should be flavorful with a firm chewiness and a lightly crispy top. Spoon a little extra sauce over the cutlets on the plate.

I love tofu, even if it's not always the easiest thing to work with. Broasted tofu, I hope, helps solve some of the more common issues with its preparation.

The recipe makes an excellent dinner served with quinoa (or another whole grain) and simple winter vegetables.

Broasted Tofu with Mustard Honey Sauce

-Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

-Drain 1 block of extra firm tofu for 10-20 minutes.

-Make the marinade by combining:
1/4 cup soy sauce
5 tbsp mustard
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp. olive oil 1/4 cup dry sherry (or white wine, or light beer, or sake)
Generous pinch of cayenne
Dash of worcestshire sauce (optional)

-Whisk it all together until well combined

-Cut tofu into 1/3 inch cutlets and arrange in a baking pan. If you're using a fairly standard size rectangular baking pan (mine is about 12''x8'') the cutlets should just fit in one layer.

-Pour marinade all over until it almost (but not quite) covers the cutlets.

-Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the top and pop it in the oven.

-Bake until top of cutlets is golden brown and sauce has thickened, about 20 minutes.

-To serve, arrange cutlets on plate and spoon a little extra sauce on them.

Casserole Redux

2009-02-03T10:44:00.000-08:00

(The title of this post is a reference to the casserole post I did last winter when no one was reading this blog, there is an awesome recipe for southern tofu casserole in that post, you can view it here.)

See that delicious looking thing behind our title? That is a casserole. That particular casserole was made from Israeli couscous, red wine, garlic, squash, artichoke hearts (bought frozen from TJs) onions and home made fresh mozzarella. That was an elaborate casserole but really anything can be transformed into a casserole and many things should be. Pasta dishes benefit significantly from being baked together. Last week I made a simple red sauce and penne that turned into a wonderful baked pasta dish. I undercooked the penne and tossed it and the sauce and parmesan together in a pyrex casserole dish, then I coated the top with breadcrumbs and a little more parmesan and baked the whole thing together for 15 minutes in a 400 degree oven until the top was slightly browned. Baking the sauce and pasta together really kicks up the depth of the flavors and the whole is more than the sum of its parts. It is a huge improvement over plain pasta with sauce and requires almost no effort and a little time.

A little food thought....

2009-02-02T11:47:00.000-08:00

My friend Beth tipped me off to this crazy idea of smoked french fries from the folks at Ideas in Food. Not sure if I'll ever get around to making that, given my more minimalist, laissez-faire approach to cooking, but my, what an idea. These people are really thinking about how food works.

I started poking around the website this recipe was on, and while much of what's on there is a too science-y for my taste, I love the creative, outside-the-box thinking about food they do. This post in particular caught my attention. It really makes you think about flavors: what element does a given ingredient bring? Is there a better or a different way to it? I know that the more I cook, the more I'm interested in understanding how flavors work. What brings the sweetness, the acidity, the spiciness? And then there's texture: why do you, say, brown and then bake a piece of chicken, instead of doing it the other way around?

Giving a little thought to the why of food, I believe, can only help the curious cook working towards improvement in the kitchen.

Secret Ingredients

2009-01-29T16:46:00.000-08:00

Ok so they're not exactly secret, but I wanted to share some of the more unusual ingredients that I put in pretty much everything. The reason they might be called secret is that I often don't use them in amounts where you can discern their individual flavors, but they all add a depth and complexity to dishes that would be missing without them. Which is not to say I don't use these ingredients as pronounced flavors at times - I most certainly do - but more often I will use just a little but in places where they may not be expected. So, here are a few of these crucial ingredients:

Chipotle

No one saw that one coming right? Especially not after my last post... A little chipotle adds mainly two things: spiciness and smokiness. This can be great as a primary flavor (in, say, scrambled eggs, or a chili), but its utility extends beyond that. I add small quantities to pretty much everything: lentil soups, tomato sauces, frittatas, whatever. Lately I've just been incorporating it into my sofrito bases: most dishes I make at this time of year will start with onion and carrot being slowly cooked in some oil; try adding a little chipotle to the mix. The stuff I keep around is the type that is canned with adobo sauce. This summer I plan on smoking my own jalapenos and seeing how that goes.

Vinegar: sherry and cider

Acidity is a component of food that I believe people don't give enough thought to. Acidity is what gives food that brightness, that bite, that liveliness. And unless you're cooking with citrus or wine, there's probably not enough of it in your food. That's why I add a little vinegar to most things. My two favorites are sherry and cider, mostly for their versatility. I have no problem with balsamic, but because its flavor can easily overwhelm I tend to reserve it for very specific uses.

Soy sauce

Another element of food that isn't emphasized enough is umami. If you're cooking with a lot of meat or, say, seaweed, you don't really have to think about this too much. But if like me you cook mostly vegetarian, then the quest for umaminess is all important. Umami is that meaty, deep savory flavor that makes a dish so satisfying. Soy sauce will help you bring the umami. Of course you don't want everything to taste like soy sauce, but in small doses you won't overwhelm and the soy sauce will simply act as an umami giver. (Umami side note: fino sherry has also been scientifically proven to enhance the umami flavors of food, which is why it's so good with pretty much everything. Drink more fino!)

In pretty much any dish, be it a pasta sauce or a vegetable sauce, a little dash of any (or all!) of the above can add serious dimension to a dish.

There are a number of other ingredients that could be part of this list, like smoked paprika (you do know about pimenton, right?), but the ones above are the ones I'm currently infatuated with.

What are your secret ingredients you add to everything?

Chipotle and Red Wine

2009-01-27T15:50:00.000-08:00

You know how there are some flavor combinations that are just transcendent, where certain flavors just feel like they were made for each other? Many are well-known, like fish and lemon, or wild mushrooms and cream, or bacon and anything. Sometimes, though, you hit on some less obvious ones.

The other day I was thinking about this sauce my mom likes to make with port and ancho chiles. It's a delightful and surprising combination of flavors, sweet, bitter, and spicy. It's the kind of sauce that you remember, vividly, for a long time. I was thinking about this sauce and contemplating making something like it, but port and ancho chiles are two things I don't usually have around. The closest things I had were two items that are staples in our kitchen: chipotle peppers and red wine. So I decided to give it a whirl, and, my, what a revelation...

My mom serves her sauce over creamy polenta, so I followed her lead on that one. I don't actually know how she makes the sauce though, so I made it up (full recipe below). I put some red wine and some stock in a sauce pot with a little garlic and tomato paste and let it bubble until it reduced and the flavors concentrated. Meanwhile I slowly cooked an onion and a carrot in a little butter until they caramelized. I then added some chipotle, then the wine mixture, then some white beans for bulk, and let it all hang out for a while. The results were glorious: the earthiness and spice from the chipotle, the tannins and fruit from the wine, a slight sweetness from the caramelized onion.

Fast forward a few days: I had intended to make a boeuf bourgignon for Sunday dinner but, inspired, I tried a different route. I swapped pork shoulder for the beef, and slow cooked it in - you guessed it - red wine and chipotle for 5 hours. It was like boeuf bourgignon took a Mexican vacation; I dubbed it carnitas bourgignon. Now that I think of it, a little cilantro would be a great addition...

White Beans in Chipotle and Red Wine Sauce

-In a small saucepot, heat 1 1/2 cup stock and 1 1/2 cup red wine with 2 cloves garlic and 2 tbsp. tomato paste.
-Let simmer for 20 minutes or so.

-Meanwhile, caramelize 1 minced onion and 1 minced carrot over low heat in a little butter.
-After about 20 minutes, add 1 chopped chipotle pepper (I use the ones canned in adobo).
-After 5 minutes, add the wine and stock mixture and 2 cups cooked white beans.
-Simmer it all together for 15-20 mins, until slightly thick and all the flavors are well-acquainted.

-Serve over creamy polenta.

Winter

2009-01-25T13:54:00.000-08:00

Hello reader(s),
Sorry it has been a while since my last post. I am making some changes to the blog. Alexander has been granted full admin status and will be adding more content and influencing the direction of the blog. Hopefully with 2 of us we can publish more often and keep this thing a little more current. It has been a cold winter here in North Carolina and our attempts at winter gardening failed. Recently we have been focusing on food chemistry experiments, making our own lemoncello, gin, mustard and cheese. We will try to get recipes and pictures up soon as well as more actual food recipes.

Guinness Mustard

2009-01-25T13:42:00.001-08:00

Ok, so we got this recipe out of the January Saveur (cheating, I know) but it is easy and excellent and we want to share it.
12 ounces of Guiness Stout (we used a draft can)
1 1/2 cup brown mustard seeds
1 cup red wine vinegar
1 tbsp. kosher salt (we used sea salt)
1 tsp. Freshly ground Black Pepper
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. allspice

Combine ingredients in nonreactive mixing bowl (we used pyrex) cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 1-2 days so that mustard seeds soften and the flavors meld. Transfer mixture into a food processor (We don't have one of those so we used a blender). And blend, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides with a rubber spatula. Do this for about 3 minutes until the seeds are coarsely ground and the mixture thickens. Transfer into a jar and refrigerate over night and use immediately or refrigerate for up to 6 months.

Note: You probably won't want to eat this the next day as it is VERY intense when it is fresh. I recommend waiting a couple of days before you eat it. It is awesome then though.

Um, like, woah

2008-08-15T17:40:00.000-07:00

When you've been doing something for a while, you naturally assume you get better at it. I've been baking bread regularly for about 2 years now, and thought that inevitably my technique was getting better. I adjusted things here and there, did little bits of experimentation, always with the aim of making a better loaf.

Well I can now report that things don't always work that way. As I was writing my post about bread baking, I began thinking back to some of the earlier stuff I'd made. In particular, my comment about not being able to achieve a great crust. I mean, it's true that without a commercial oven, it's nearly impossible to get that crunch. But my crusts hadn't always been this lacking had they? Of course Lindsey and I have been moving around a lot over the past couple years, and adapting to different ovens, different yeasts, different flour, etc. can take a little while.

But it turn sout I'd slowly drifted away from a cooking method that makes a much better crust. For whatever reason, I had little by little changed to baking faster at higher heat, and that's really not the way to go. Writing out my method for making my bread really made me think about why I was doing it the way I was, and in so doing I began to wonder about my baking method. So here's the better way to do it:

Heat your over to 450 degrees with dutch oven in it. When hot, put dough in dutch oven with a tablespoon or two of water and immediately put the lid on. Bake for a half -hour with lid on. Take lid off, and cook for another 5 to 15 minutes until deep golden-brown.

This produces a much better crust. Moral of the story: it's worth thinking about your cooking techniques rather than using them reflexively.

Really, it's true

2008-08-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

Baking bread is easy. I know, I know, you've probably heard that before and found that the recipe in fact involved 10 steps, many hours, and obscure techniques. But this, I swear, really is easy. Put your ingredients (all 4 of them) together in a bowl, mix it up, let it sit, then bake it. That's it. It doesn't really have an intense crustiness but it does have a great full flavor that's a little sour if you let the dough sit long enough.

My technique is kind of an amalgamation of two recipes that have been printed in the NYT in the past couple of years:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/08mini.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=no-knead&st=cse&oref=slogin
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DEEDB153FF932A15752C1A9619C8B63&scp=1&sq=artisan+bread+no-knead&st=nyt

I've taken both those recipes, played with them a little, and come up with a version that suits me just right. The recipe below makes two decent-sized loaves, but quantities are easily adjusted. Basically, you need to have a little more than twice as much flour as water by volume. This recipe also assumes you'll let the bread sit around overnight. If you want it faster, increase the amount of yeast, but I find the flavor just isn't quite the same....

In a big mixing bowl, dissolve 1/2 tablespoon yeast and 1 1/2 tablespoon salt in 3 cups water lukewarm water.

Stir in the flour until fully moistened. The dough should be shaggy and sticky. If dry spots remain add more water a little bit at a time.

Cover with a moist kitchen towel or loosely with plastic wrap, and let sit anywhere from 10 hours to 2 days (or even longer, if you want; just make sure the dough doesn't dry out).

When ready to bake, flour hands and counter well (the dough is pretty sticky). Take half the dough and shape into a boule (it should kind of keep its shape, but don't worry if it's a little flabby) (I usually wrap the other half in plastic wrap and leave it in the fridge until I need another loaf).

Now bread will bake in a hot oven no matter how you go about it exactly. This is just my favorite way of doing it, but it requires a dutch oven or something similar. About 35 minutes at 475 should do the trick whether you have a dutch oven or not.

Preheat oven to 475 degrees with dutch oven in it.

When hot, place dough in dutch oven. Pour a tablespoon of water around the edge onto the hot metal, put cover on immediately, and stick it in the oven.

After 15 minutes, take cover off and bake another 20 minutes or so.

Bread is ready when deep golden brown in color.

See, that wasn't so hard...

Our garden

2008-08-12T14:08:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of our garden at the new house. We are growing Crimson Sweet watermelon, French Round Zucchini, Italian Basil, 4 kinds of tomatoes, Lakota Squash and Musk Melon. This picture is from earlier in th summer, the tomatoes are much bigger now.

Chiogga Beet Salad

2008-06-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

When I made this recipe I used Chiogga heirloom beets we grew in the front yard of our townhouse. You could use any kind of beet and it would be tasty, though of course the Chioggas have a very unique visual effect. This recipe is easy and is perfect to make when it is hot out, and here in North Carolina it has been in the 90s or above for weeks!
4 or 5 Beets, cleaned, stems removed and scrubbed (DO NOT PEEL!)
Feta or farmers cheese
Fresh oregano
Olive Oil
Balsamic vinegar.
-Wrap beets in tinfoil in a little packet and bake for an hour or until tender at 375. Set aside to cool.
When cool thinly slice beets horizontally so that bullseye shape comes out in every slice (They should not have bled very much if you have baked them whole, and you should be able to see the stripes if working with Chioggas). Arrange thin slices on a plate or platter in circles with some overlapping (see photo coming soon). Once beets are arranged on plate crumble cheese over top, drizzle with olive oil and balsamic vinegar (I usually do the olive oil first and then just a few tiny splashes with the vinegar and then garnish with either fresh oregano sprigs or chopped oregano.
Serve.

Sorry

2008-06-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

I have been in the middle of an epic move and renovation of our new house, therefore my cooking has been on hold, should be posting again in a week or two and using more pictures after the move for the visually inclined.

Casserole love

2008-05-29T11:53:00.001-07:00

God I love casserole, I am pretty sure it is one of the best culinary inventions EVER! Casseroles as we know them now were invented during the depression and stayed popular during WWII as a way to stretch tight supplies and create hot filling meals out of very little, guess what? It still works, no canned cream of mushroom soup required! I have been making most of my casseroles from leftover pasta and grain dishes that were a little liquidy when I first made them, all you do to make those is put the leftovers in a casserole dish, cover with grated cheese and bread crumbs and back until browned on top in a 350 degree oven. If it looks too dry, pour some milk or wine on it before baking. I guarantee you this is better than slimy leftover pasta from the microwave. The other kind of casseroles I make are ones that incorporate the cheap (or free if from our yard) seasonal local vegetables from our farmers market in new ways, there are only so many times one can eat sauteed kale. Here is a recipie that can be made any time of year but for us in North Carolina is perfect winter food, mostly because it incorporates about everything we have in the winter.

Southern Winter Casserole
1 large bunch greens (kale or chard)
2 large sweet potatoes or yams
1 block firm tofu
1/2 onion (sweet if you have it)
Garlic (we use 6-8 cloves)
Milk
olive oil or butter
sherry or other white cooking wine
Casserole pan (oven safe)
Bread crumbs

For tofu marinade
soy sauce
worstershire sauce
Olive oil
sherry/ beer whatever
Honestly, whatever you like to marinate tofu in)

First, press tofu and mix up marinade to taste, cut tofu into 1/2 inch slices and cover in marinade mixture, let sit.

Roughly chop onion and garlic, cook onion in 1 tblsp butter/ 1 tblsp olive oil until transulcent, add garlic halfway through. Chop sweet potatoes into smallish peices and put in steamer. grease casserole pan and chop greens. When onion is translucent splash with sherry and stir to deglaze. add greens into skillet and cover. sweet potatoes should take 15-20 minutes. Take them out and put in mixing bowl, see if you can mash with fork, add milk until texture is right (smooth and mashable), garlic and salt, mash with fork or empy beer bottle until mashed potatoes, I like to leave the skin on for texture. flatten mashed potatoes into bottom of pan, add steamed greens/ onion/ garlic mixture in 2nd layer. arrange tofu slices on top and cover with bread crumbs, bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, serve when ready, will benefit from rest and stay warm for up to 20 minutes.

Food is not expensive if you don't waste it

2008-05-29T11:27:00.000-07:00

In the last weeks the news has been full of reports on how expensive food is, filled with stories of Americans buying packaged crap because they "can't afford" organic or whole foods. The global food crisis is real, no doubt, people are hungry in many parts of the world as well as in the United States. As a graduate student getting by on less than 15,000 a year I know things are hard. That is why I am going to share with you all what we do when we roast a chicken in our house so that none of it gets wasted. We bought 1 all natural happy chicken from whole foods for 7 dollars, it was 1.69 a pound and weighed about 4 pounds. I realize meal 1 is probably not a weeknight meal for most people (unless, like us, you eat at 9 pm) but could be good on sunday and the remaining meals are definitely weeknight friendly.

Meal 1 (chicken recipie taken from Alice Waters simple food)
I brought the chicken home, took out its giblets pack, discarded most exept for the neck, which will return later ( a mistake, they should have become gravy, but I don't like raw chicken organs).
I rubbed the chicken with salt and pepper, filled the cavity with fresh thyme, oregano and rosemary, stuffed rosemary and garlic under the breast and thigh skin, wrapped it back up and wenat about my day.
I took the chicken out of the fridge about an hour before I wanted to cook it, let it get to room temp. while I preheated la oven, cut up some potatoes, sweet potatoes and garlic, threw those in a casserole pan and put the chicken on an improvised rack on top. I roasted it breast side up for 20 minutes while I went to the drug store, came back, flipped it, roasted it breastside dow for 20 minutes, flipped one last time and roasted breast up again for 20 minutes, then I let it rest for 15.
I served it for 3 with the potatoes cooked in the drippings, salad and a pan gravy made with drippings, red wine and garlic reduced in the oven. It was my cousins birthday and a festive and delicious meal.

After dinner, pick the carcass clean and put it in the fridge with the neck, put all the meat in a separate tupperware.

Meal 2 Chicken salad
Take a fork and shred leftover meat into bitesizish peices, add enough mayonnaise to lightly coat, mustard, garlic and paprika to coat and serve in sandwiches

Meal 3 and BEYOND
Place chicken carcass and neck in stock pot with vegetables (we use veggie scraps we save in a bag in the freezer to have on hand, if you can afford it by all means buy veggies just for this, entirely unnessecary) and a " bouquet garnis" (herbs either tied together (if fresh) or tossed in. cover with water. Simmer on medium heat, checking to make sure water does not boil for 4-6 hours. You do not have to look at this or pay attention to it at all during this time, you could check and skim off fat, or do that when you cook with it. strain out chicken and veggies and you have enough homemade chicken broth for ages, we usually take about 3 months to go through ours.

This is all the joy you get out of 1 "fancy" chicken for 7 dollars, we saved about 3 dollars each on storbought chicken salad sandwihiches, also had a straight left overs meal and made enough stock for 9 or 10 soups or recipies that need stock. Considering fancy organic chicken broth goes for about 1.50 a container, this is a considerable benefit.
Anyways, saving food might be a theme for a while, stay tuned for a post on the art of the leftover casserole..

by popular demand

2008-04-30T17:33:00.000-07:00

Here is a version of the pasta with sauce, I added mushrooms and had about an hour and a half to kill before we ate dinner so it simmered for longer. Served with Capellini

Roasted tomato and fresh oregeno pasta sauce

2008-04-23T06:21:00.000-07:00

(serves 6)
1 sweet onion
Olive oil
1/2 head garlic (or whatever amount)
1 can fire roasted whole tomatoes (we found the organic ones on sale for 1.79)
some crap red wine
Fresh Oregeno
optional: smoked pimenton (I know.)
Salt
optional: pepper (our peppergrinder does not really work so I did not use any, but it would be good)

Pour enough olive oil in the skillet to just cover the bottom. chop onion into at least bite sized pieces. Heat oive oil a little and add onion, heat on medium. while onions are cooking, chop and gradually add garlic, stirring a little when you do, garlic changes flavor with every degree heated so I like to add it at varied intervals. cook onions and garlic until onions are translucent. pour a splash of red wine in, enouch so onions and garlic turn purple and their is a tiny bit of liquid simmering, not enough that they are floating. Stir. Open can of tomatoes and pour juice into skillet. I like to take the tomatoes out of the can and crush them into the skillet one by one wih y bre hands because it is fun and I can see exactly how much I am adding, that being said you could pour the whole can into the skillet and mash them up with the spoon if you were n a hurry or did not want to gat your hands dirty. stir everything together and add salt to taste. leave to simmer. I simmered this for about 1/2 hour because I was waiting for Alex to get home, it could go shorter or longer. Start pasta water, cook pasta. While pasta is cooking cut and add fresh oregeno and dried pimenton, stir. drain pasta, return to pot, pour in sauce and serve. This should be enough sauce for 1 pound of pasta, you can use any pasta with this sauce, I used linguine because that is what we had, spagetti would be a classic choice and penne would also be good.

New directions

2008-04-23T06:15:00.000-07:00

Last night I was cooking and thinking about the hybrid nature of quasi objects (canned tomatoes, nature or culture? BOTH) when I realized that this blog could actually serve a purpose, and so it shall. The new plan is this, I will use this blog as a place to post recipies Alex and I come up with for my Dad and whoever else feels like reading them. We spend a fair amount of time and energy learning how to make delicious things from scratch and cheaply, because even though food prices are rising, we have not had any extra money in years. In addition, we work on eating down the food chain, making things from scratch and growing what we can in the little tiny garden outside of our town house. These things both make our food cheap for us and cheap for the world. Enjoy!

introduction

2007-09-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

this blog will focus on the excitement of my pursuit of a PhD in all its bloody glory. It will also give me an opportunity to procrastinate regularly.