Impromptu Dinner Party: Spiced boneless leg of lamb with pomegranate glaze, and a great bottle of wine

We had another impromptu dinner party last night. Anyone who knows me well understands that I am an obsessive planner/forecaster/micromanager of all things food-related, so this devil-may-care last-minute inviting of guests is a new and unexpected twist. Past experience has shown me that trying to plan things in advance doesn't always work out - schedules change, other commitments pop up, restaurant kitchens catch on fire and your reservations get cancelled - and sometimes your best bet is trying to catch someone at the last minute and tempt them with a dinner invitation. And so it was.

"Impromptu" is a relative term. I knew I wanted to make this particular dish and try this particular wine, so I had to order it in advance and wait for it to arrive. I didn't know when I would make it or who I would invite, so it still counts as spontaneous. I was driving home from the grocery store and drove past my aunt and uncle's house - they were standing on the porch - it seemed like a sign. Three minutes later we had Saturday dinner plans.

I have a side business doing in-home wine tastings, and the company always publishes recipes to go with the wines. Spiced Boneless Leg of Lamb with Pomegranate Glaze made it onto the I'd Really Like To Make This Someday list. Because the wines are all small-batch and sometimes sell out quickly, it had to be on the I'd Really Like To Make This Someday SOON list. And because it's a lamb recipe, I had to invite family. (I don't plan it that way - it just seems like every time I invite family over I end up making lamb. So now it's a thing. I feel like Aunt Voula.)

I made this without the rosemary called for in the original recipe, mostly because I woke up Saturday morning and realized I didn't have any in the house. There was no way I was getting dressed and going to the store in sub-zero temperatures, either, no matter how strong a believer I am in "recipes as written" (see how relaxed and spontaneous I am these days? I'm practically reckless!).

About the wine: The suggested wine pairing for this meal is the Albion 2010 Cuvee Rouge, and it's made me a firm believer in the quality of the suggested food and wine pairings. This wine is just fantastic; a little tannic, a little acidic, with lots of pomegranate and vanilla and just a little bit of oak. It was rich and full without being overwhelming; my aunt says she's not much of a wine drinker - and prefers sweet reds - but she really enjoyed it as well. There are some wines that completely change their character when you have them with food, but this went really beautifully with the lamb. I'd put this in the Top 5 wines I've had since I started working for this company. (Shameless Business Pitch: Let me know if you're interested in ordering a bottle!)

Spiced Boneless Leg of Lamb with Pomegranate Glaze

1 boneless butterflied leg of lamb, about 3 pounds
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon Penzey's French Viniagrette seasoning mix (it has rosemary, I figured I could throw it in there; if you have dried rosemary in the house throw a tablespoon of that in instead)
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups pomegranate juice
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup basalmic vinegar

Mix together the garlic powder, Penzey's mix, pepper, and thyme. Take out 1 teaspoon and reserve it for the glaze. Add the salt to the remaining mix. Rub the lamb with the olive oil, sprinkle the spice mixture over it, and put in the fridge to marinate for at least 12 hours (or overnight).

At some point during the day, combine the pomegranate juice, molasses, and reserved spice mix in a small saucepan. Bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until it's reduced by about half. (This took quite a lot longer than the suggested 30 minute on the recipe card, btw.) Take it off the heat, let it cool to room temperature, and stir in the basalmic vinegar.

(I'm going to try making this with pomegranate molasses next time; since it's already super-reduced pomegranate juice, I'm guessing that I could thin it with a little water, then add the spices and a bit of sweetener. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.)

About 2 hours before you're ready to eat, casually mention to your husband that tonight's dinner is going to be cooked on the grill. Hope that he doesn't notice it's 7 degrees outside.

This went on a 400-degree grill and took about 30 minutes to cook, which got the internal temperature up to about 125 (rare to medium-rare). Brush the lamb with 1/4 cup of the glaze in the last 10 minutes of cooking. Let the meat rest at least 10 minutes before slicing.

**If you like your lamb a little less rare you could tack on another 5 minutes, but for goodness' sake don't cook it all the way through. Well-done lamb is tough and dry and tasteless no matter what you've done to it up to that point.

To serve, slice the lamb thinly and serve the extra glaze on the side. To go with this, I made rice with pine nuts and currants, and steamed some green beans.

Calories, Schmalories. Fat is Insulating: Ham and Potato Pot Pie

This started as a post about scalloped potatoes, which are easy to make and utterly delicious. The problem with side dishes, however tasty and substantial they may be, is that they are side dishes. Hence you have to make something else to go with them. Nuh-uh. Not this week.

Pot pie to the rescue! I absolutely adore pot pies of any kind; in fact, I have an entire cookbook of pot pie recipes, which I have sadly neglected since we went gluten-free. While I admire David's spirit of culinary adventure, there's nothing quite like the actual recipe cooked as actually intended when you're feeling a bit weary from all the substitutions. Now that he's in school again I have a couple of nights each week when I can go back to some old favorites. Translation: We're eating a lot of potatoes and dairy on  Tuesdays and Thursdays. So of course, I had to go back and find the recipe for Ham and Potato Pot Pie.

(On a side note: I was pleasantly surprised to see how many recipes from this book we could make with minimal substitutions. Look for lots more pot pies this winter!)

This recipe has a lot going for it. One, everything in it could conceivably be in your kitchen right now, which means you can skip heading out to the grocery store in this awful cold. Or in my case, you get to use up the last of the Annual Ham, which is a holiday tradition that deserves its own blog post. Two, you don't need to pull out the mandoline slicer (unlike the scalloped potato recipe). Three, it's really good and even Mr. Picky will like it. Four, it looks impressive when your brother stops by for dinner at the last minute ("Why, yes, we eat like this every day!").

From Diane Phillips' ("Cooking shouldn't feel like a root canal") Pot Pies: Comfort Food Under Cover

Ham Pot Pie Topped with Scalloped Potato Gratin 

5 medium red potatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick (you can use Idaho potatoes if you forgot to put the red kind on your grocery list. Just peel them first.)
salt 
pepper
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1/2 lb of ham (or thereabouts), sliced very thin. (If you're using a spiral-cut ham instead of the deli ham, cut it into julienne strips or chop it into fairly small pieces.)
2 1/2 cups heavy cream (yes, I hear your arteries closing in protest. You can use half and half, or whole milk, or some cream and some whatever-milk-you-have-on-hand. Just don't use all skim milk or this will turn out watery)
3 eggs (really, after all that cream, do you even care?)
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 cups grated Swiss (or the mysteriously-named "brick cheese" if your fruit market doesn't carry Swiss for some unfathomable reason. I'd suggest grating the cheese yourself instead of getting the pre-grated, which is often not gluten-free anyway)

Preheat the oven to 400. Butter a 13x9 baking dish and mentally cuss out your husband for leaving your nice gratin dish at a church potluck.

Spread a layer of potatoes on the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle a few onion slices over the potatoes, season with salt and pepper, and add a layer of ham. Repeat. Top with a layer of potatoes.

In a bowl, beat together the cream, eggs, and mustard. Pour over the potatoes and top with grated cheese. This is point in the recipe where the author says you can cover it, stick it in the fridge, and cook it the next day; just be sure to bring it to room temperature before putting it in the oven. I'd probably keep the cream mixture separate and pour it over the potatoes at the last minute just to save on the amount of time it sits on the counter waiting to go in the oven.)

Cover the casserole with aluminum foil (spray the foil with non-stick spray and your top layer of potatoes won't get mangled later) and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 30 minutes. The potatoes should be very tender and the cheese will be golden brown; you'll want to take a picture of it, it's so pretty. Unfortunately you'll be so hungry you forget, so you'll borrow a picture from Dara Michalski at www.cookingcanuck.com.

Imaginary Mom to the Rescue! Blueberry Muffins

There ought to be a special word for the moment you wake up (late) in the morning and realize that you completely forgot to get your son's special GF dessert for the birthday party he's attending in a few hours, on a day when all the bakeries are closed. (If you coin such a word, please let me know what it is and I'll happily promote its widespread usage; I can't be the only one this happens to).

Imaginary Mom pursed her lipsticked mouth, smoothed her perfectly manicured hands over her ruffled apron, and suggested primly, "Why don't you bake something?" I have to admit, my defenses were down. I spent all day yesterday in my pajamas, I hadn't had my first cup of coffee, and the sight of all the clean-and-folded laundry from yesterday made me think that I'm a domestic goddess and this was a perfectly reasonable solution.

The difficulty is that GF baking wants a boatload of very specific ingredients, and you make willy-nilly substitutions at your peril. Baking is fairly precise to begin with; you can play around with spices and swap out nuts and fruit and such, but you need to keep in mind the strict proportions of dry and liquid ingredients, plus things like the leavening power of whatever you're using for leavening and all sorts of other food-sciencey stuff. This is why I am a devoted follower of baking recipes. One cook's special baking blend is invariably different from another cook's baking blend (yes, I realize this should give me confidence that there are multiple right ways to do this - mostly it means that I have a lot of storage containers full of flour blends with the author's name written on side).

These muffins,  then, represented the Holy Grail of GF baking. Normal ingredients! (This is a relative term, obviously. Do most people have xanthan gum in the cupboard?.) ONE kind of flour! A way to use up some of the overpriced impulse-buy blueberries! And fortunately for me, I have a kid who thinks that a blueberry muffin he can eat is a lot better than a birthday cake he can't.

This seemed like a deeply weird recipe at a first glance. That's a lot of eggs and not a lot of flour and I had my doubts, imagining some sort of watery sludge and an end result that looked more like a blueberry quiche of some kind. I clearly underestimated the power of coconut flour, which I've never actually used before (since I hate coconut). It was easy enough to put together that I could imagine whipping up a half-batch of these and making them in the toaster oven on a cold snowy weekday morning. Just kidding. That's Imaginary Mom speaking.

From Recipes for Gluten-Free Kids, by the mysterious "editors of Publications International," also the source of the awesome waffle recipe.

Blueberry Muffins

6 eggs (yes, really)
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup coconut flour, plus an extra teaspoon for the blueberries
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel (this took 2 lemons)
1 cup blueberries

Preheat the oven to 375. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

Whisk together the eggs, butter, sugar, and milk in a medium bowl. In a smaller bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, and xanthan gum. Sift the flour mixture over the egg mixture, add the lemon zest, and whisk to combine.

Toss the blueberries with the extra teaspoon of coconut flour, then stir them into the batter. You might be surprised at how thick the batter is with such a tiny amount of flour - I certainly was. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups; they'll be more full than a traditional muffin recipe, but they won't rise as much (translation: at all) so it won't make a mess.

The recipe as written says to bake 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into one of the muffins comes out clean. It took closer to 19 minutes before I was confident that we weren't all going to get salmonella from the undercooked eggs; our oven is generally fast rather than slow, so set your timer for 12 minutes and keep an eye on them. The difference between an undercooked muffin and a cooked muffin was immediately obvious.

Cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then remove from the pan. These are best served warm. As with all GF baked goods, they're a little spongey and you won't get crumbs; but the degree of sweetness is just right and this recipe comes together very quickly and easily. I don't think they'll win any prizes, but they're easily as good as the ludicrously expensive and oversized frozen ones, and you look like a champ for making homemade.

WTF?! Why Is There Wheat in My Rice Noodles? Cashew Chicken (with Rice, Dammit)

We've missed Thai food. The entire Asian pantheon of food appears more GF-friendly than a lot of other cuisines, but often that means that the gluten is sneaky and hidden in lists of ingredients that we can't actually read, or buried in the process for making items that we're not terribly familiar with. This happened recently, alas. I was really excited to make lad na (Thai wide rice noodles in gravy) until I found out that fermented soybean paste (tao jiao) is made with wheat or barley. And all the fresh rice noodles in the stores near us include wheat.

Seriously?!?!

OK, it's been a great chance to educate myself about all sorts of things, like that fact that wheat has been cultivated in Asian for the last 11,000 years so I really shouldn't be so surprised that it shows up in recipes. It's all that sneaky stuff that gets me, like the fact that so many things are fermented with wheat or barley that DOESN'T SHOW UP ON THE LABEL. This is why all the GF people are so bitter.

I don't really anticipate that I'm going to be tying up blocks of fermented soybeans in straw and hanging them off the rafters to cure anytime soon (read: ever), and possibly the recipes for fresh rice noodles are deceptively simple. But I think there are some upcoming adventures in from-scratch Asian cooking in my future (we can already manage our own from-scratch hoisin sauce, thank you very much). In the meantime, I'm learning a lot about all the many, many, many different ways that soybeans can be fermented and looking for tao jiao substitutes. And also looking for an app that will translate food labels for me, because I don't have time to learn to read Chinese and Japanese and Thai and Korean.

My consolation prize was this recipe for cashew chicken. It's been hiding in a section on stir-fries (which I really should like more than I do), so I only found it recently. As with so many weeknight recipes, this is adapted from Mark Bittman, this time from The Best Recipes in the World.

Cashew Chicken 

2 tablespoons canola oil
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into strips
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced on the bias
1 cup UNSALTED cashews (I really can't emphasize this part enough)
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1/2 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
4 scallions, chopped
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine (which is also can contain gluten. Sigh.), dry sherry, or white wine
2-3 tablespoons tamari soy sauce
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil

Heat the oil in a large skillet or wok, then stir-fry the chicken until it starts to brown a bit, about 4 minutes. Remove the chicken from the pan. Add the celery and saute for about a minute. Add the cashews, garlic, and ginger and cook for about 30 seconds, stirring.

Add the scallions, then the wine and tamari. Cook for a couple of minutes, so that a little of liquid bubbles away and the sauce thickens. Add the chicken, cook for another minute or two, then stir in the sesame oil. Serve over rice.

Pretty good for a Yankee: Gluten-Free Fried Chicken

I have to admit: I really, really miss KFC sometimes.

Admit it - you crave KFC sometimes too!

I don’t pretend to think that KFC is actually *good* fried chicken, but it’s hot and greasy and delicious and comforting – it takes me back to a very specific part of my 20s during which KFC potatoes and gravy and a box of extra crispy meant that everything was right in my world, despite all appearances to the contrary (thanks, Cathy, for “good food attractively served”!)

So this gluten-free thing has made me sad – it’s hard to find any restaurant that we can eat at, and there’s pretty much no chance of ever finding fried chicken that's not going to incapacitate us for a solid month. Last fall I finally got around to trying out a gluten-free version of the Lee Brothers’ Tuesday Fried Chicken when my brother came to dinner; I’m pleased to say that it was a resounding success (i.e, no leftovers, and all of us too full for (much) dessert). Now that I've made it a few times, it doesn't feel that like that big of a deal.

Southern food has been on my brain lately - I read "To Kill a Mockingbird" over the holiday break and just finished "The Spymistress," an account of a Richmond woman who was a Union spy during the Civil War, so Anna's suggestion that I make fried chicken tonight was perfectly timed. I've been a huge fan of the Lee Brothers ever since a waiter at Zingerman's Roadhouse hooked me up with a personalized-and-signed copy of their first book. Some of the recipes feel a little complicated but every single one has absolutely been worth the bother. Most of the epic dinner I cooked for the church service auction last November came from this cookbook, and they've gone a long way toward shaking my impression that everything Southern was deep-fried and included lard, mayonnaise, and/or Jello. 

GF Version of the Lee Brothers’ Tuesday Fried Chicken

For the fry dredge:

½ cup all-purpose baking blend (I used whatever mix I have on hand: the one that's been turned into waffles lately seems to work just fine)

3 tablespoons fine- or medium-grind cornmeal

2 teaspoons salt

1 ½ teaspoons ground pepper

For the chicken:

2-3 lbs. chicken drumsticks (or a mix of drumsticks and thighs)

3 cups peanut or canola oil

Equipment needed:

12-inch straight-sided frying pan with a lid (often sold under the name “chicken fryer," mysteriously enough)

Long-handled tongs

A kitchen timer

A thermometer (preferably a candy thermometer)

A certain sense of fearlessness

Preheat the oven to 250.

In the pan, heat the oil to 325-350. Use the candy thermometer to gauge this; you really can’t eyeball it, although I’ve noticed the oil makes a very specific popping sound as it get close. You'll recognize it the second time around and stop using the thermometer. 

While the oil is heating, dredge the chicken in the flour mixture and shake off the excess.

When the oil reaches temperature, add 4-6 pieces of chicken to the pan using the long-handled tongs. Set the timer for 6 minutes, put the lid on the pan, and adjust the heat as needed to keep the oil in the right temperature range (I adjust it to just over medium and it holds the temperature perfectly). DO NOT OVERCROWD THE PAN. The chicken will look a little lonely in there but it’s okay, you don’t want to crowd the pan, since that brings the temperature down and makes the chicken greasy. (Eeewww.)

When the timer goes off, remove the lid, turn the chicken, and replace the lid. Set the timer for 6 minutes.

(I say this as if it’s the easiest thing in the world, but the first time I made this it was a little bit scary. I have a pretty spectacular history of grease burns and the pressure cooker scares the s*#t out of me. Hence the recommendation for long-handled tongs. It’s much less scary the second time, although I don’t recommend that you open that beer until you’re done frying. It’s helpful to have somewhere heatproof to set the pan lid – turn on the vent fan – I promise your house will not smell like a diner. )

When that timer goes off, turn the chicken, replace the lid and cook for 3 minutes. Turn the chicken a final time, cook for a final 3 minutes, and put the pieces on a paper towel-lined plate in the oven.

Does this seem like a lot of bother? Only the first time. It gives you plenty of time to pay attention to other things – like side dishes – and since you’re making it in batches and holding it in the oven anyway, you don’t have to feel pressured to stand over the pan the entire time  (you can walk into the living room and write a blog post, for instance). Continue until all the chicken is fried. A batch of fry dredge will cover a good 3 pounds of chicken, and you can scale it up as needed. When you’re done and the oil has cooled, strain it into a jar and you can re-use it a time or two.

After the first time, this will go really quickly. Have I said that enough times to convince you? And it's definitely less hassle than trying to find a place to serve gluten-free fried chicken. 

Merry Groundhog Day! (er, I mean, Never-Ending Christmas Break): Rice with Mushrooms and Meat

At some point, Christmas vacation turned into Groundhog Day - the movie, not the actual Groundhog Day (better known as Warthog Day in our house). Because Christmas fell mid-week this year the kids have been off school for 2 full weeks, and we were all ready to get back into our regular routines. Then we all became intimately acquainted with the term "polar vortex" - and between the I-don't-even-know-how-many-inches of snow and the bitter cold, it's now the middle of the second week of January and they Still. Haven't. Gone. Back.

You're kidding, right? Another freakin' snow day? 

Imaginary Mom is having a great time, building forts out of blankets and romping in the snow with the kids and baking homemade deliciousness and serving up top-notch dinners every night. Actual Mom is a little concerned that the house is out of bourbon, and Anna has just admitted that she hasn't brushed her hair since Christmas. The kids are going to remember this as the vacation during which they actually said, "We want to go back to school! Pleeeeeeeease!" (I should record this for posterity.)

In practical terms, this has meant that we stocked the house with groceries a week ago and have been cooking our wintertime staples with what's on hand rather than being fun and experimental in the kitchen; Kristi's cheese dip continues to be the breakfast of choice and we're still chipping away at the enormous ham that David insists on buying every Christmas.

Because we have a ham, and because ham fairly begs for a side of scalloped potatoes, this began as a post about Scalloped Potatoes and its evil comfort-food-intolerant twin, Scalloped Rutabaga with Non-Dairy Milk Substitute. But....today happened. David cooked dinner, which was excellent, and the ingredients were found entirely in our pantry and freezer because I am tired after the 19th consecutive day at home with my cabin-fevered children. John has been singing "Cat's in the Cradle" to the tune of "Do Your Ears Hang Low?" since 11 a.m. And did I mention that Anna whistles?

Rice with Mushrooms and Meat 

2 cups short-grain brown rice, rinsed and soaked for however long it takes you to get everything else ready
2 tablespoons canola oil or similar (not olive oil for this one)
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 lb mushrooms, sliced
1/2 lb ground beef
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon dark sesame oil
2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds (really, don't skip this part; it only takes a minute)
2-3 chopped green onions

Put the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and meat and cook, stirring, until the meat is browned and the mushrooms are softened, about 10 more minutes.

Drain the rice and add it to the skillet, stirring to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Add enough water to cover by about half an inch and adjust the heat so it the mixture bubbles. Check it after about 15 minutes; the rice should be done and water absorbed. If not, add a little more water or let it cook a few more minutes.

When the rice is done, stir in the remaining ingredients (except the green onions). Garnish with the onions and serve. Pray that school is back in session, because the school principal has sent you an email promising that it is, and you want to have a conversation with grown-ups and feel like you're good at your job again.

The Moscow Mule, or Why Nobody Drank My Sangria on New Year's Eve

Last year I purchased a book on vintage cocktails in the gift shop at Greenfield Village. It's a hilariously funny book to just sit down and read - but of course, one of the perils of reading any cookbook is that you (well, I) immediately want to start making all the recipes. It turns out this is as true for cocktails as it is for, say, Southern cooking or dim sum or anything else, and I fully intend to work my way through the entire book.

There are 64 recipes and so far, everything I've tried has been declared "my new favorite." I expect it's going to take a while to work through the whole thing - it took 3 months before I moved on from the first drink I tried, the Gin Sling. And I will never, ever make a Whiskey Sour with pre-made mix ever again. I'm now fairly confident that given any citrus fruit and even the most understocked liquor cabinet, I can manage to make a named cocktail for any unexpected guests and present it in my nifty vintage cocktail glasses, which gives the impression that I am far more glamorous than I actually am.

The Moscow Mule was the surprise hit of the New Year's party; 2 pitchers of very tasty sangria went largely ignored as everyone started with these. Depending on what source you're consulting, this drink was invented to either drum up demand for vodka (was this actually a problem?) or ginger beer. It must work because we promptly ran out of both.

I think this is called a "mule" because it hits you like one. If you have more than a couple of these in the course of a night, I imagine you'll feel like a mule kicked you in the head the next day, though I opted not to test this theory myself. If you're a Michigander, feel free to substitute Vernors. It doesn't have quite the same kick as ginger beer, but it's better than watery Canada Dry ginger ale. I'm now longing for a set of copper Moscow Mule cups to add to my barware collection, in case anyone is in the mood to buy me a gift for no reason.

The Moscow Mule 

2 oz vodka
4 oz ginger beer (I highly recommend Feverfew brand ginger beer, which you can find at Western Market in Ferndale. Substitute Vernor's if you must)
1/2 oz lime juice (squeeze a wedge of actual lime for this; if you're going to use bottled lime juice, you might as well go for the Canada Dry ginger ale and Smirnoff from a plastic jug. "Easy" doesn't have to mean "standards-free")

Pour over ice. Drink.