Despite all the food reading and writing I do, I often find myself falling back on the same five or six dinners. When I get home from work, unless I've planned ahead to try something new, the combination of hunger and weariness drive me to make the things I know by heart. These include things like turkey burgers, omelets, big salads with grilled chicken or a can of tuna, quesadillas, beans and rice with salsa and quick pasta dishes.
Tuesday night, it looked like it was going to be another one of those nights, with more of the same. On auto-pilot, I grabbed a pound of ground beef* from the freezer and set it in a bowl of water to defrost. I cut up some root veggies to roast and chopped up a bit of onion real fine to go in the meat. Instead of forming the meat into regular sized burgers, I decided to go with mini patties, making my very own sliders. It was a little adjustment, but it made for a far more interesting meal. Topped with some local blue cheese, thinly shaved onion, bright red tomato and a ruffled lettuce leaf and sandwiched between two toasted sourdough rounds, it was the best things I've cooked all week.
*One of the smartest things I've done in a long time is join a buying club for meat and poultry. Once a month I place an order and a week later, I pick up a bag of neatly packaged frozen beef, chicken, pork and turkey at a friend's house. It's all local, organic, grass fed/finished and means that there's always something wonderful in the freezer for dinner. It has helped immeasurably with the 'What to do for dinner?' question.
With entertaining and often addictive websites, such as YouTube, it has become common to find computers at the dinner table. It seems that over the past few years, dinners with friends have involved gathering around and looking at videos online. The computer is clearly changing social dynamics around the dinner table. A few weekends ago, while eating at a friend's house, my friend commented that she would not mind if she never saw a computer at the dinner table again. I wondered: is it poor etiquette to bring a laptop to dinner?
Is there something inherently wrong about a group of friends using a laptop as a means of socializing during dinner? To me, it seems like the problem would start once the socializing ceased to exist. Two people eating dinner and doing work on two separate laptops is obviously antisocial. Sending text messages and emails on a cellphone prevents us from enjoying the moment. And, enjoying a YouTube video with friends is not much different than watching television instead of conversing about the day.
Does a laptop, like television, function as a source of distraction? Does it disconnect us from each other and prohibit us from taking pleasure in our food and natural environment?
Have laptops infiltrated your social life at the dinner table? If so, do you think it's a bad thing?
After a number of months of hemming and hawing, I finally bit the bullet and joined an organic home-delivery fruit and produce service. It's awesome, and completely worth it. However, it means that I have to keep on top of my cooking. With this week's box scheduled to arrive this afternoon, I needed to clear out the remaining pieces of last week's score. That meant finding a use for some broccoli.
Seeing that I was also craving one of my super-delicious elk burgers, I decide to pair the two. I somehow knife-wrestled a patty from the frozen pile without losing a finger, and then grabbed the green stuff. The broccoli was fried until soft, and then set on the cheeseburger with some Kozlik's blonde mustard (so good), tomato, and mayonnaise. Teamed with some fries seasoned with ground anardana (pomegranate), smoked paprika, salt, and pepper, and this was the best burger and fries that I've had in eons.
Yesterday, I set aside a few hours to make pasta, which was a bit of a mess when the eggs toppled over what I thought was a nicely built tube of flour. Once I got it all worked out and rolled out an assortment of pasta, I went about making a spaghetti dinner for myself. But even with a freshly made sauce and pasta, it sounded boring.
So, I set out on an inspiration hunt. A quick peek in the fridge revealed some cheese that I was still meaning to eat. Then I spotted a freshly washed french onion soup bowl in the cupboard. And then I spotted my small fry pan that had a little bit of lemon olive oil left over after frying up the sauce's mushrooms. Voila!*
The noodles got tossed in the oil, and then in some of the sauce, before being placed in the bowl. Then it was topped with another scoop of sauce, a suburst pattern of cheese, and some leftover fresh basil. I threw that in my toaster oven's broiler while I tossed up a salad, and in no time, I had a quick variation on the normal pasta. The cheese melted into a perfect, thorough covering, and the pasta had a nice citrus hint that worked well with the sauce. It was definitely worth the slight extra effort, and next time I might even go another step towards the french onion route and add some crispy garlic bread under the cheese.
Last Thursday, I came home from work with absolutely no plan as to what to make for dinner. Most nights I have at least a semblance of a plan, whether it be 1). Eat leftovers from weekend cooking, 2). Turkey burgers and salad or 3). Gather the boyfriend and go out. There weren't any leftovers, nothing was defrosted and Scott was working late, which ruled out option three.
Taking stock of the fridge, my eyes hit upon the teeny farmers market eggs I had picked up the previous weekend. Egg salad it would be, made with finely chopped green pepper (I was out of celery and needed something for crunch), grated onion and a tiny bit of fresh dill. After the eggs finished cooking and were cooling down, my eyes found the pastry blender resting in the dish drainer. Normally I'll just chop the heck out of the peeled eggs on my cutting board and then scrape them into the bowl, but this time inspiration (and a bit of laziness) led me to use the pastry blender instead. It worked perfectly, created less mess and gave a nice variable texture to the eggs.
I ate some of the salad open-face on a piece of toasted whole grain bread, sliced tomatoes standing in for the second piece bread. It was a quick dinner that was fresh tasting and left the kitchen cool and not too messed.
The other night, I found myself at my favorite Creole place and had one heck of a tasty crusted catfish with collard greens. (It was Southern Accent -- go if you're ever in Toronto!!) Even though I had it less than a week ago, I'm still dying for more. So, last night I whipped up a quick chicken version which proved to be one heck of a tasty summer meal.
It was also quite simple. First, I threw some sliced mushrooms in a pan with garlic, onions, and a bit of fresh-ground ginger. While they were cooking, I cut up one chicken breast, and followed the flour-egg-breading dredging technique using some crushed saltines. When they were limp and ginger-perfect, I took them off and threw the sliced collard greens in the pan with a little more ginger, butter, and garlic. While they cooked, I quickly fried the chicken, placed a few pieces on top of the mushrooms, and teamed it with the greens.
It was delicious, filling, and quick, but light enough for summer due the ginger flavor (which worked particularly well with the mushrooms).
I didn't put it down until I had at least looked at every single wine on the list. It's Gary first list of favorite and recommended wines, and it's chock full of enthusiasm, energy, and genuinely great recommendations.
Here are some ways this book can be useful for you:
Exploring wine if you've never really tried wine before and have no idea where to start.
Choosing great wines for specific occasions from Gary's very cleverly organized and insightful lists for any event.
Finding the best wine for that flavor profile you really like (best dry Reisling, best "fruit bomb" red, etc.).
Learning how you can become better at recognizing what you like about wine and what wines you're passionate about (hint: drink more wine!).
Understanding that wine can be fun, and that it doesn't have to be serious or snobby.
What I really love about this book is the genuine authenticity that just reverberates from everything that Gary has to say. Each individual wine write-up is like getting to read an episode of Wine Library TV, chock full of enthusiasm, honesty, and insightful wine wisdom. The only thing I would change about the book is that, for a truly ignorant wine novice like myself, it's hard to tell which wines are white or red, etc., which is important for me since I have a hard time really enjoying reds and wanted to go through and pick out all of the wines that I knew I would want to try right off of the bat. A quick cheat sheet or wine primer at the beginning of the book (Petite Sirah is red, Reislings are white, etc.) would have been really helpful for me.
Overall, the book is well written, very straightforward in Gary's typical style, and I think it has potential to really help the everyday wine enthusiast reach a level of immersion in the wine world that many of us don't think we can reach. It can be expensive to start out in wine and buy a bottle of everything, especially if you're back at square one when the wine isn't a quality example of the genre you're trying to explore. This book makes jumping into every corner of the wine world a real possibility for every wine drinker, and that is something really worth sharing. Keep a copy handy for your own trips to the liquor store, and give a copy to a wine-loving (or wine-curious) friend!
I realize that none of these ingredients are considered wild like the things I usually write about, but it keeps within my love of frugal foods. I love turning leftovers into something that makes people say you made this with what?
Leftover grilled chicken is a great starting point. I use it on top of salads, or as a great starter for fajitas. Endive, along with its cousins frisee, radicchio, and escarole, is a relative of the plant chicory, which is seen along roadsides all over the country. Don't expect to pick and eat wild chicory though. It is almost always too bitter to use. I will cover other uses for it in a later post. A few years ago I had the pleasure of attending an event at an upstate college where the chef went crazy on endive hors d'oeuvres. This wasn't one of his creations, but that event inspired me and started my love of this wonderful spoon-shaped green.
Separate your endive into individual leaves. Lay a thin slice of cheese (I used an aged swiss) along the bottom of each piece of endive, then add two to three small chunks of your grilled chicken, a small slice of avocado, some chopped sweet onion, and cover with alfalfa sprouts. Drizzle some olive oil over each one, and a small amount of sea salt and ground pepper. Serve any extra ingredients around the stuffed leaves.
I guarantee that your leftover-phobic family members will be cured after trying this.
For reasons I've yet to understand (perhaps in recompense for my obsessive heirloom veggie gardening), the food fates smiled upon me today. I reached into the crisper drawer for a bunch of scallions, and instead drew out (gasp!) ramps -- still viable, even though my last foraging adventure was several weeks ago, and ramp season is gone, daddy gone. They weren't 100% cook 'em up and eat 'em with nothing else fresh, though, so I hedged my bets and went with a fave of mine -- ramp pesto. Should you not be similarly gifted by the veggie gods, garlic scapes work well, too.
We are having something of an unprecedented heat wave here on the East Coast (and it's not even officially summer). Yesterday it was 96 degrees and they are predicting that it will top out right around 100 degrees today (and with the humidity, that means it feels more like 105). I have a brisket in defrosting in my fridge, but the last thing I want to do is turn my oven on long enough to get it cooked (it will just have to wait until Wednesday, when the heat breaks).
On nights like this, I turn to cool summer greens from the fridge and cans from my pantry. I always keep black beans, pickled beets, garbanzo beans, artichoke hearts and tuna in olive oil in the kitchen cabinet, so that I can augment veggies with much-needed (at least for me) protein. I create a table top salad bar with the beans, tuna, diced tomato, sliced cucumber, grated cheese, carrot rounds and anything else I can find and go to town. If you need a carb with your meal, add some crackers or bread from a local bakery.
That's my basic meal for those nights when I can't bear to heat up my apartment. How do the rest of you beat the heat in the kitchen*?
*I know that those of you out on the West Coast are freezing and still wearing your winter coats. What are you eating these days?
It's so exciting when carry-out pizza arrives at your doorstep, and terribly dissapointing if the pizza became smushed or the cheese slid to one side or some other disaster occurred. The Washington Post tested out various pizza parlors in the area to see which pizzas withstood the delivery process the best, and found seven that fared pretty well. Though the actual list applies mainly to those of us hanging out in the D.C. area, I'm wondering if there are any national chains notorious for delivering pizza that has fallen apart? And similarly, which service provides pizza that looks like it came straight from the oven?
During my layover in Paris, I entered what appeared to be a high-end deli. These high-end delis appear all over Paris. They are called charcuteries. The French charcuteries are one-of-a-kind. At first, when I entered Jeusselin, a charcuterie in the 7th arrondissement in Paris, I was stunned by the gorgeous displays of the prepared delicacies, such as white asparagus, tête de veau (calf's head), saucissons (French sausages) and jambons (French hams). Every aspect of the shop seems artistically calculated. The people who work at charcuteries such as Jeusselin are not simply seen as charcutiers (pork butchers), but also as traiteurs (caterers), so the presentation of every food is taken seriously.
But, it's not just the food displays that make the French charcuterie unique at Jeusselin. It's also the way the traiteurs cure their meats. In fact, the word "traiteur" means a cook-caterer. They are chefs in their own right. The history of the traiteur goes much further back in time before restaurants existed. In France, up until the eighteenth century, these master cooks would serve meals to large parties. So, it's not surprising that when restaurants (as opposed to long-existing cafes and taverns) sprang up for the first time all over Paris in the 1700s, traiteurs felt threatened and brought legal charges against some of them. In other words, they were as well-respected as today's star chefs.
The traiteurs at Jeusselin are proud of their work and excited to share their knowledge with their customers. They have been at 37 rue Cler since 1937. During my visit to the shop last week, the current owners of Jeusselin were eager to show me photos of their family members who started the business.
I have a faint recollection of eating Spam when I was a kid. I know that my mom bought it once in a while, but I tried it a while back and I don't think it's something I would try again (that film on top...gah). I think the only way I would try it is if it's in a recipe where it's cooked a lot or smothered with other flavors.
Like the recipe after the jump. It's for Spaghetti Carbonara and it comes courtesy of spamrecipes.net.
Frozen sandwiches are always an iffy deal. They either come out really hard and crunchy (especially if you cook them too long) or they come out all limp and lame. And often the meats and cheeses inside leave a lot to be desired.
But now I've found new Lean Cuisine Flatbread Melts, and they're approximately 300 times better than you think they're going to be. They are sooooo good. The flatbread is actually soft enough without being limp (you can fold it and it retains its structure) and they taste really, really good.
I was buying the Lean Cuisine Panini Sandwiches for a while (really, I'm not lazy, I just like to keep these in my fridge), and they're OK I guess, but these flatbread melts are the best frozen sandwiches I've ever had. They come in four flavors: Chicken Ranch Club, Chicken Philly, Chophouse Steak, and Pesto Chicken.
It's an increasingly globalized world out there, with an increasingly global food market. That can lead to a certain amount of homogenization and difficulty for small producers of artisan foods. The idea behind the "Ten things to eat before they die" gala dinner in Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead, England this week is to bring attention to some of the worlds most endangered delicacies.
The spotlighted ingredients in the dinner aren't endangered by over consumption, but from under consumption. Items like the English asparagus that used to be a favorite of ocean liners but that's now grown in only four acres, and the Spanish capers that used to be famous but that now can't get sold outside of the local villages will be highlighted.
The event organizers wanted a thought provoking dinner. Part of the idea is to get some of these great foods known to foodies so that maybe high end retailers will pick them up, thus allowing the small producers to make a living selling their delicacies. I'd love to go, but as the dinner is in England and it costs about $160 (£85) it's a little out of the question. The goals of the planners are working, though: I am very intrigued by some of the items on the menu. Does anything on the menu strike your fancy? What would you try?
If you're a Vayniac, you already know that Gary Vaynerchuk came out with a book called 
It's so exciting when carry-out pizza arrives at your doorstep, and terribly dissapointing if the pizza became smushed or the cheese slid to one side or some other disaster occurred. The 
Frozen sandwiches are always an iffy deal. They either come out really hard and crunchy (especially if you cook them too long) or they come out all limp and lame. And often the meats and cheeses inside leave a lot to be desired.
Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
