Cookbook Challenge #9: And you get a sous vide! And you get a sous vide! Everybody gets a sous vide!

Or at least everyone should. The sous vide is wonderful and I love it, especially since I snagged mine for $50 at Aldi. It’s the logical answer to “What if I hate the way the slow cooker dries out my food but I still need to cook in advance?” (Other people ask this question, don’t they?)(Also, the slow cooker doesn’t really dry things out if you use the correct size but David insists that some things taste like they came out of the deflavorizer so I’m on the hunt for more ways to make dinner before I leave for work so I can be lazy at night.)

I’ve used the sous vide to make yogurt and oatmeal for running-out-the-door-today breakfasts that weren’t from McDonald’s. I’ve poached about 300 pounds of chicken (really not exaggerating on this one, I used to work in a restaurant that served a very popular chicken salad). It’s brilliant for fish, one of the few things I’m legitimately still afraid to cook. I’ve made desserts in it, including a fantastic black pepper-pineapple thing that was so, so good. It makes perfect steaks and tender pork chops. And, if you really want to plan ahead, it makes char siu that is better and more tender than anything I’ve had lately in a Chinese restaurant.

Not gonna lie – this is not a quick-and-easy dish, as you have to get it started pretty far in advance. And I can respect that fact that most people’s kitchens aren’t going to have all these ingredients just laying around (although mine did, and that’s a topic for a different post about condiment hoarding). But given sufficient planning, this is utterly delicious and well worth the relatively minimal actual effort. I made it right before we left on vacation, and served it chopped up in bento boxes with soba noodles and vegetables as an alternative to throwing ourselves on the mercy of roadside restaurants. We ate the leftovers around the campfire later that night, but they would have also been delicious thrown into some fried rice.

From Sous Vide For Everybody by America’s Test Kitchen, the same people who bring you Cook’s Illustrated magazine in all its exhaustively detailed glory.

Char Siu

4 lbs. boneless pork butt roast, trimmed and sliced crosswise into ¾-inch steaks
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup sugar
¾ cup hoisin sauce
½ cup Shaoxing Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
¼ cup grated fresh ginger
2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp five-spice powder
½ tsp ground white pepper
¾ cup honey

Whisk the soy sauce, sugar, hoisin, rice wine, ginger, sesame oil garlic, give-spice powder, and pepper together in a large bowl. Reserve 1 cup of the mixture and put in the fridge. Add the steaks, toss to coat, and refrigerate, covered, for 10-16 hours.

Remove the steaks from the marinade and divide between two zipper-lock freezer bags. Seal the bags, pressing out as much air as possible, and cook at 149 for 12-16 hours.

Whisk the honey and reserved marinade together in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat until reduced to 1 cup, stirring frequently and looking out for boil-overs. Boil-overs are sad and also a bitch to clean up thanks to all the sugar.

Cover a baking sheet or broiler pan with foil and put a rack on top of it, then spray with cooking spray. Transfer the steaks to the rack and pat dry with paper towels. Brush the top of the steaks with a generous amount of marinade and broil on high 2-6 minutes or until mahogany in color. Repeat on the other side of the steaks.

Brush both sides of the steak with more marinade and broil another 3-6 minutes until lightly charred. Transfer to a cutting board and let rest for 10 minutes. Slice crosswise into ½-inch strips and serve.

A Real-Life Fairytale about Olives: Cavatappi Nicoise

This is my olive face.

Once upon a time, there were two people who met and fell instantly in love but didn’t do anything about it for a good long while. Once they (OK, she) spent some more time making bad choices and then grew up a little bit and they both came to their senses, they very wisely got married and went on the sort of honeymoon that amply justifies her control-freak tendencies for the next two decades. While a great many silly things happened on that trip – things that were not one damn bit funny at the time but make excellent stories now – the very most unlikely thing that happened was the meal during which she ate an olive and didn’t die of disgust.

This wasn’t just any olive, of course; it was a very teeny and lovely Nicoise olive, which only tastes perfectly delicious when consumed at an outdoor table across the square from a fountain in Nice on one’s honeymoon. Nonetheless, our intrepid heroine has persevered and tried to like Nicoise olives under other circumstances, because she is a heroine and not in fact a princess. She has even tried to like other olives (which was singularly unsuccessful until friends gave her Castrelvatrano olives after their trip to Italy, and now she needs to go to Italy and try them there to see if they’re exponentially tastier on-site). But still: she’ll pick out pieces of olive from most dishes and they really don’t belong on pizza and the smell is still nasty AF, which is why her children adore olives and will eat them by the pound.

Alas! unless our heroine wins the lottery she won’t be going back to France – or any of the other places she had marvelous meals in Europe - anytime soon, which is a damn shame. The next best thing is cooking and eating things that are reminiscent of those marvelous meals; and since Nicoise salad is endlessly varied, tasty, and filling, it’s a great place to start. This particular recipe is a pasta-based riff on said Nicoise salad, and you should feel free to fiddle around with it and add whatever makes you happiest. As long as there are olives, of course.

From Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2009, with only minor editorial comments. Note that you can make this vegan for your friend’s picky daughter by swapping the tuna with chickpeas, skipping the anchovies, and adding a splash of soy sauce or white miso for a bit of umami in the dressing. This recipe also doubles and triples easily, constrained only by the size of the bowl you have for mixing and your tuna budget; makes a fantastic lunch the next day; and will stay toothsome even if you use gluten-free pasta thanks to the dressing.

Cavatappi Nicoise

8 oz. harticots verts (or regular old green beans), trimmed and halved
8 oz. uncooked cavatappi pasta (or any other small twisty shape)(GF pasta is fine, obviously)
1 can solid white tuna, packed in oil; spring for the fancy premium stuff or swap out some poached salmon
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
1/3 cup Nicoise olives, pitted
2 tablespoons minced shallots
2 tablespoons capers, drained
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 anchovy fillets (I know, I know - but trust me on this. Don't skip them. Just....maybe don't tell anyone else they're in there.)

Cook the beans in boiling water for 3 minutes; remove with a slotted spoon and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking. Place the beans in a large bowl.

Add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to package directions, omitting fat and salt. Drain and rinse with cold water. Add the pasta to the bowl with the beans.

Drain the tuna in a sieve over a bowl, reserving the oil (if you use salmon instead, add a couple of extra tablespoons of oil in the next step). Flake the tuna with a fork and add to the bowl, along with the tomatoes, olives, shallots, and capers.

Combine the olive oil, reserved oil from the tuna (if using), vinegars, salt, pepper, and anchovies in a food processor or blender. Pour over the pasta mixture and toss to coat.

Cookbook Challenge #8: Tell Your Nonna It’s Not As Good As Her Bolognese Sauce

Many, many years ago, I lived dangerously close to a Pier 1 Imports with a roommate who firmly believed in retail therapy. This was a time when Pier 1 had a clothing section chock-full of cool quirky finds and a somewhat less-curated overall selection, so you could browse the corners and find all kinds of fun stuff on the cheap. I still own a surprising number of those items (though not, alas, the clothing), including a cookbook called The Top One Hundred Pasta Sauces.

This book was an absolute revelation to me. I was just starting to really explore food, and I had no idea that you could make something other than tomato sauce or cream sauce for pasta. Fettucine instead of spaghetti was comparatively wild. And recipes using metric – holy cow, I might as well be in Italy already. I felt exotic and worldly just reading it.

Someday I’d like to cook my way through this entire book. But since today is not that day, I’m going to settle for being grateful that Trader Joe’s is currently carrying fresh gluten-free pasta and that David has eased up a bit lately on his moratorium on dairy and nightshades. Clearly, Bolognese is called for.

Even the most cursory glance at the internet makes it clear that people take their Bolognese pretty damn seriously. “The ONLY authentic Bolognese!” “Make REAL Bolognese” “The Authentic Bolognese your Nonna used to make” “Yo mama makes Prince spaghetti” etc etc. There’s even an official version registered with the Bologna Chamber of Commerce. While even the most adamant stickler for tradition will admit that the sauce can have minor variations and still be considered authentic, there are a few common factors: meat dominates, with only a small amount of tomato concentrate; there are no herbs or garlic; the sauce starts with a sofrito of onion, celery, and carrot; and seasoning is limited to salt, pepper, and the occasional pinch of nutmeg. Cream is almost always added at the end. It cooks for hours and it tastes like love.

Whose sauce is the best?!?!

You might be wondering what could possibly compel me to spend that much time at the stove at the tail end of a 90-degree day. (I myself am wondering this right now, but I’m cranky and tired and hungry.) Anna and I went out to brunch recently and she ordered pasta Bolognese, which was good but not amazing and made me want to one-up them. She’s had a rough couple of weeks, and I thought that making one of her favorites from scratch would go a long way towards making her feel loved. We couldn’t decide what kind of carryout we wanted to get instead. Even though we spend a solid 6 hours doing heavy-duty yard work, I’d already bought the ingredients and it mostly tends itself on the stove and I could use the food processor for the veggies so it’s really not a lot of hands-on work…. And, mostly, BECAUSE I CAN. Because I can spend 2 ½ (yes, largely unattended) hours making this amazing, unctuous, luscious sauce and everybody in the house will eat it.

Note to self: A sauce this good deserves a really good bottle of wine. Properly I should be drinking Barolo or Barbaresco or Barbera or even Lambrusco. And if we had company I probably would, but instead I’m tackling a bottle of Chianti Classico from Trader Joe’s, because that seems like the kind of thing that you can sip on the deck admiring the results of your day’s labors without overthinking it. Also I’m trying to develop an appreciation for good-enough wines at a weeknight-friendly price point; while I don’t consider myself a wine snob by any stretch of the imagination (yes, it’s OK to only drink things you actually like), my wine rack is currently full of bottles I’d like to save for an occasion, which makes it harder to find something for a casual night in.

Taken from The Top One Hundred Pasta Sauces by Diane Seed, with some editorial comments added. 

Tell Your Nonna It’s Not As Good As Hers: Bolognese Means Love

5 oz lean boneless pork (cheat and buy pre-ground if you have a good meat counter)
5 oz lean boneless beef (same)
2 Tbsp olive oil
6 Tbsp butter
1 medium onion, minced
1 carrot, minced
1 stalk celery, minced
4 oz bacon, finely chopped
2 oz fresh Italian sausage (this is about 1 link from the meat counter)
1 wineglass white wine (technically a standard restaurant pour is 5-6 oz. Use your judgement. Or lack thereof.)
1 Tbsp tomato paste
1 wineglass stock
Salt and black pepper
5 Tbsp heavy cream (don’t skip this)(I mean it. Don’t skip this. If you can’t wrap your head around it, you’re thinking of Neapolitan ragu and it’s completely different and someone’s Nonna will knife you over it)
Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

If you didn’t buy pre-ground meat, mince it in a food processor. Heat the oil and 4 Tbsp butter in a pan, then add the minced onion, carrot, celery, and bacon. Cook gently for about 10 minutes.

Add the ground pork, beef, sausage, and wine. Cook gently for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally and making sure the meat is broken up. Add the tomato paste, diluted in the stock. Season to taste with salt and pepper and cook for 1 ½ hours.

Stir in the cream until is has been absorbed by the sauce, then set aside. Cook FRESH pasta according to package directions.

Return the sauce to the heat for a moment and add the remaining butter. Turn the pasta into a serving dish, make a well in the center, stir the sauce well, and pour it into the middle of the pasta. Set the bowl on the table in front of your admiring family/friends/guests and serve freshly grated Parmesan on the side.

It’s Too Damn Hot to Cook Anything Except This Pesto Pasta

I don’t want to go on record as saying that I hate summer, per se, but I’m not crazy about really hot, humid weather. For the record, I don’t really love winter either, but at least when it’s cold you can put more clothes on; the reverse is not always true. This “spring” in Michigan we had roughly 100 consecutive days of rain, followed by 90-degree humid horror. As a person who lives without air conditioning, mid-June is a bit early for this nonsense. I need to build up my tolerance to sun and heat gradually.

Best argument for trading in
the bottom-freezer refrigerator

Unfortunately, my family still expects to eat on days when it’s so hot that anything more vigorous than sitting up is exhausting, and there’s only so much carryout we can eat (plus we have to agree on what to get, and there’s the whole food-restriction thing, and dining out is expensive and time-consuming and gets old fast). So what’s a mom to do? Scrounge up this recipe that happens in the amount of time it takes to boil water and tastes like summer incarnate.

I highly recommend using fresh pasta here; aside from being delicious and feeling more like a “I’m making you a nice dinner” choice than dried pasta, it cooks super fast so your stove is on for less time. Every second counts here, people. I was very happy to discover fresh gluten-free fettucine at Trader Joe’s recently; while it had the same ludicrous price difference as every other GF item in the world, it wasn’t completely outrageous and made a world of difference in the finished dish.

From Cooking Light magazine, April 2010. I can’t even express how sad I am that this magazine closed.

Linguine with Arugula Pesto 

12 oz uncooked linguine
1 Tbsp pine nuts, toasted
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 cups loosely packed arugula
2 cups loosely packed basil
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
¾ tsp salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
6 Tbsp freshly grated pecorino Romano cheese (who are we kidding, you’re not going to measure this. Use as much as you want.)

Cook the pasta according to package instructions, omitting fat and salt. Drain, reserving ½ cup cooking liquid, and put in a serving bowl.

While the pasta cooks, put the nuts and garlic in a food processor and process until mixed. Add everything except the cheese and process until well combined.

Add the arugula mixture and reserved pasta cooking water to the pasta and toss well to coat. Serve with the cheese.

One Fish, Two Fish: Sometimes Costco is Better Than Your Friends

Back when I was working as a career counselor, I had a lot of conversations with people about the importance of being able to visualize exactly what it was that one was looking for. A resume is important, a LinkedIn account helps you reach people, networking, yada yada - but if you don't know what it is that you're looking for, you're not going to be able to ask people to give it to you or recognize it when it comes your way.

I feel that way about fish, too.

I know a fair number of outdoorsy-type people, or at least people who profess to love hunting and fishing and have all the requisite equipment. I have, at various times, requested venison, bear, turkey, duck, rabbit, and/or any kind of fish whatsoever. Never once have I gotten any of these. However, Hope Springs Eternal and I will continue to ask. Surely, SURELY someone must be catching fish these days?!?!

When your outdoorsy friends don't come through for you, sometimes Costco will. While I'm not holding my breath for a haunch of bear at the local warehouse store, I do stroll through the fish coolers periodically and do a wee bit of impulse buying, which is how I recently ended up with quite a large amount of catfish recently.

Here's how it went in my head: Oooh, catfish! Yum! First I'll make this lovely Lee Brothers catfish pate and serve it to guests while David's birthday dinner is cooking, along with all these other delightful appetizers. Then I'll make this scrumptious Caesar salad with catfish croutons during the week - we love our dinner salads! - and round it out with some fish tacos with all the trimmings.

Here's how it really went: Oooh, bourbon! Batch cocktails! My part in cooking David's birthday dinner is done so I'll just have a wee nip with our guests. Five hours later: Now that everyone is gone and we've torn through all the bourbon and put a hurt on the wine, this catfish pate sounds perfect as a midnight snack - best of all, I don't have to share! (evil laughter) Three days later: Wow, that's a lot of catfish in the fridge. I should do something with it.

Naturally, the Lee Brothers have come to the rescue once again, with Fish Man's Fish Stew. Have I told you about the Lee Brothers? They're on my personal bucket list of People I Want To Meet, a couple of Yankee boys who got transplanted to the South during their teenage years and fell in love with the food. Some years ago I was lunch at Zingerman's Roadhouse with my BFF from grad school, and thanks to an upcoming event there was a display of Lee Brothers cookbooks handy. I was browsing through one while waiting for our lunch and the waiter offered to have a copy signed for me at the upcoming event. A week later I got the book in the mail, beautifully wrapped and with an actual personalized message, not just a scrawled signature (not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you) that inspires me to hospitality every time I read it. Let's also give a great big customer service shout-out to the Zingerman's waiter, who - ok, yes, made a sale - but also went out of his way to make sure I got this book that I have since fallen in love with - hard. I cook from it more than any non-Mark Bittman cookbook I own, and I've never once been disappointed in any recipe from them since. In an alternate life, I get to have dinner with them sometimes.

So, here are two recipes for catfish, and I promise that neither will disappoint. Both are taken, with very teeny adjustments, from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, the book that also brought sour orange mojitos, pickled shrimp, and pimento cheese into my life.

Lee Brothers Catfish Pate 

1 cup plus 1 tbsp dry white wine
1 cup chicken broth
2 bay leaves
3/4 lb catfish fillets
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1 tbsp olive oil
8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
1 tbsp capers
1/2 tsp Tabasco, Durkee Red Hot, or Sriracha
1 tsp cognac, bourbon, or dark rum
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/4 tsp kosher salt

In a medium skillet, bring the cup of wine, broth, and bay leaves to a simmer. Add the catfish and poach, uncovered, for about 10 minutes, flipping once halfway through.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a small skillet and cook the onion until soft but not brown, about 6 minutes.

When the fish is done, chop it coarsely, then drain in a fine strainer, pressing once or twice to release all the liquid.

Cut the cream cheese into pieces, add it to a bowl with the remaining ingredients and the chopped fish, and mix well with a fork. Refrigerate at least one hour or overnight before serving with crackers or toast and lemon wedges.

Fish Stew Man's Red Fish Stew

1/4 lb bacon, diced
1 1/2 lbs Yukon Gold or other waxy potatoes, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch thick moons
2 cups chopped yellow onion
1 1/2 cups broth (ideally fish or shrimp, but I used chicken)
1 cup full-bodied white wine
3 bay leaves
1 28-oz can whole peeled tomatoes
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp mustard seeds, ground to fine powder with a mortar and pestle (or cheat and use mustard powder)
2 tsp whole coriander seeds, toasted and ground etc etc (see above re: cheating)
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp ketchup
1 1/2 lbs flaky white fish, cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
1/2 cup half and half
1 cup fresh corn kernels, cut from the cob (about 2 ears) 

Brown the bacon in a Dutch oven, then remove to a small bowl and pour off all but 2 tbsp of the fat. Add the potatoes and cook in the bacon fat for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Add the onion and cook until they begin to soften, about 5 minutes.

Add the broth, wine, and bay and bring to a simmer. Cook until the liquid is reduced by about a quarter, 10 minutes or less. Add the tomatoes and their juice, crushing each tomato lightly. When it comes back to a simmer, reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook about 20 minutes.

Add the salt, pepper, mustard, coriander, sugar, Worcestershire sauce, and ketchup and cook an additional 10 minutes or until the potatoes are completely tender.

Add the fish and simmer another 5 minutes. Add the half and half and corn and simmer 5 minutes. Adjust the seasoning if needed with salt, pepper, and/or Worcestershire sauce.

Serve over hot white rice and garnish with the bacon.

Kill the Rhubarb

It’s been a year with lots of milestones for our family, and we finally wrapped up 5 non-stop weeks of celebrating various things with a birthday/last day of school dinner: flank steak marinated in soy sauce and bourbon, some really fantastic grits, David’s famous collard greens, broiled acorn squash, and of course, David’s favorite dessert.

I can’t believe I’ve never blogged this recipe, as it’s a summertime staple for us. It originally came from the July 1997 issue Gourmet magazine and is officially called Doris Gulsvig’s Rhubarb Crunch (it was a reader submission)(and bless you Doris, wherever you are, everyone loves me when I make this), but in our house it’s always been Kill the Rhubarb.

About a million years ago, AKA pre-kids, we were up north with friends of ours. My father-in-law had brought a big bag of rhubarb from the plant in his yard and was delighted that I had a recipe that didn’t “ruin the rhubarb with strawberries.”  Everyone else was watching Looney Tunes while I was prepping dessert and “What’s Opera, Doc?” came on. While Elmer Fudd was bellowing “Kill the wabbit!” I was apparently chopping in time to the music, and thus this dish was renamed. And of course, I have to sing this - with great gusto - every time I make it. And I’ll bet that it’s in your head now too. You’re welcome.

Kill the Rhubarb

1 ½ lb rhubarb
1 stick butter, melted
¾ cup sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 cup water
½ tsp salt
½ tsp vanilla
1 cup flour (GF blend is fine)
¾ cup rolled oats
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven the 350 and grease a 13x9 baking pan.

Trim the rhubarb and cut into ½-inch pieces (roughly 5 cups). Arrange the rhubarb evenly in the baking pan.

In a small saucepan, stir together the sugar, cornstarch, water, and half the salt. Bring the mixture to a boil and simmer, stirring, until thickened and clear, about 3 minutes. Stir in the vanilla and pour the mixture over the rhubarb.

Stir together the flour, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, butter and remaining salt until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle evenly over the rhubarb.

Bake 1 hour or until the rhubarb is tender and the top is crisp and golden. Cool for about 15 minutes before serving or the top of your mouth will be burned by the delicious liquid hot magma hiding under the oats; should you find yourself unable to wait that long, a large scoop of vanilla ice cream will go a long way towards alleviating your distress.

Ain't No Party Like a Slow Cooker Party: Pork Carnitas

This has been a season with lots of milestones for our family – a significant birthday for my daughter, my son’s Coming of Age ceremony at church, my husband’s thesis defense and graduation, 8^th grade promotion – plus all the usual end-of-the-school-year activities, sports practices, etc. Every parent I know has some version of this going on right now. And it’s not a complaint; these *are* celebrations, after all, and we certainly love a good party around here.

If we celebrated everything individually, I would just invite half my family to move in since they’d be here all the time anyway. Given the limits of my familial affection we’ve smooshed a few things together, glossed over a few others, and tried to make the remaining events as stress-less as possible. Coming of Age presented a particular challenge, since we had to be at church that morning and lunch was at our house immediately afterwards. How do you serve up a taco bar that caters to everyone’s tastes, leaves the kitchen clean enough to serve lunch buffet-style, and doesn’t leave anyone languishing hungrily while the food is cooked? The marvelous, magical slow cooker, of course. (This event used 4.)

David and I have mostly agreed to disagree on the matter of slow cooker food. He thinks it all turns into dried-out, de-flavorized mush, and I indignantly point out a whole list of tasty things he didn’t even realize came from the slow cooker. (The key is to make sure your insert isn’t too big for your food – the marvelous Stephanie ODea recommends filling the insert 2/3 – ¾ full.) And while I’ll agree that there’s nothing at all as tasty as a big hunk of pork cooked slowly over applewood chips, ain’t nobody got that kind of time around here. 

While you can just throw some Boston butt in and call it a day, a little extra effort up front makes all the difference in the end result; and if your guests are used to getting the high-effort version of meals at your house, they’re going to assume that’s what you did this time. If they did realize it took 5 minutes of actual effort, they’d applaud your new, more relaxed approach to entertaining because they love you and want you to be happy and get some sleep sometimes and also this really is marvelous. And then you won’t even have to hide the cake mix boxes.

Slow Cooker Carnitas

4-5 lb Boston butt, trimmed and cut into 3” chunks
1 tablespoon oil
1 bottle of beer (we used Daura Damm, a surprisingly tasty gluten-free lager)(David just told me he used a bottle of hard cider instead yesterday)(also very tasty)
1 large white onion, diced (David skipped this when he made it, but anyone who has picky eaters vs. dietary restrictions should just put them in anyway because the picky people aren’t going to notice them)
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 chipotle in adobo, chopped, plus 1 teaspoon sauce from the can (adds flavor, not heat)
2 ½ teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder (seriously, it’s not going to turn out spicy)
1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. Working in batches, sear the pork until it’s nicely browned on all sides and put in the slow cooker. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook on low for 6-8 hours or until the pork pulls apart easily with two forks.

Preheat your broiler and cover two baking sheets with aluminum foil. Shred the pork and divide it evenly between the pans. Ladle about ¼ cup of the broth from the slow cooker over the meat.

Broil the pan for about 5 minutes, toss, and ladle another ¼ cup of broth over the top. Broil again and add a little more broth. Repeat with the second pan. You’ll get some nice little charred bits here and there but the pork will be incredibly tender and juicy – perfect for tacos!

This held beautifully in the slow cooker for a few hours and the leftovers were excellent, not a bit of dried-out meat anywhere in sight. The original recipe calls for pickled red onions and jalapenos plus a chipotle sour cream and I have no doubt they are completely fantastic; if you’re so inclined, please check out the original recipe. Since I’m the only person who can/will eat either of these it didn’t seem worth the effort to make them with dinner last night, and during the party we had so many taco trimmings it seemed like overkill (yes, even I can recognize too much of a good thing sometimes). The leftovers from yesterday are going into a tamale pie for later this week, since the June madness continues unabated and having dinner made in advance seems very practical.

Cookbook Challenge #7: A Delicious Salad Full of Things We Hate

Meal planning in our house generally careens between obsessively-detailed lists of all-new recipes culled from my (far too large) collection and complete, total, utter laziness. I tend to feel pretty ambitious on Sunday mornings when I make my grocery list – I believe that Imaginary Mom takes advantage as that first cup of coffee kicks in - but between the lure of books, the distraction of other chores, the gravitational pull of teenagers in front of the TV watching something interesting, and the horror of crowded grocery stores, the actual shopping doesn’t get done until Monday mornings. Since I work mid-day Monday, this means the imagined meal prep doesn’t actually happen and we end up cooking dinner start to finish during the week like everyone else. It would actually be interesting (to me, anyway) to record the progression of our pre-dinner conversations; I imagine it would be something like this.

Monday: I’m working tonight, so my completely-unnecessary Working Mother Guilt has driven me to prepare this delicious meal for you – all you need to do it heat it up/throw it under the broiler/open the slow cooker and steam the healthy fresh vegetables that I’ve lovingly cut up for you.

Tuesday: It’s so nice to be home with you tonight. I planned a nice complicated meal to make up for the fact that I wasn’t here yesterday even though you were all doing your own thing and didn’t even notice I was gone. All the ingredients are neatly organized in the fridge chronologically.

Wednesday: I know I bought all the ingredients for this; they’re in here somewhere. This recipe doesn’t look familiar and I’m not sure why I picked it earlier this week but – oh, right, we’re missing that one key ingredient but that’s okay, we can improvise. Also we’re starting dinner later than I wanted, why are there all these dirty pans on the stove? No, it’s okay, I don’t mind eating right before bedtime…

Thursday: Am I the only person who knows how to clean anything around here? I don’t remember what we’re having. I wrote it down on the calendar. Do you look at the calendar? Isn’t it someone else’s turn to cook? This is an important life skill. Seriously, I need a nap before I can even look at you holding a knife, much less help. Yes, frozen peas are fine, I can’t find whatever vegetable was supposed to go with this anyway.

Friday: Every single day, you people want to eat. I’m over it. Feed yourselves.

So the search for a middle ground continues. (And I legitimately enjoy cooking. If you hate cooking I can imagine all the weeks might start on Friday and believe me, I'm not judging anyone.)

There are a couple of issues at play here, and I’m betting that everyone is dealing with at least one of them (not necessarily the same one, either) every single day.

1. We have legit food restrictions around here
2. My picky eater is a moving target
3. We're tired by the end of the day
4. Everyone likes a lot of variety, even if they say they’d happily eat the same 5 meals every week that’s a lie and I journaled about the tantrum that resulted when I tried it
5. Cleaning the kitchen is a job that nobody thinks should belong to them regardless of who’s cooking

Given all of this, it’s a rare delight to pick out something that I’m pretty sure everyone will hate (chosen because I want it, and to hell with you all because I can only eat so much broccoli on the side) and then it’s surprisingly delicious and everyone likes it and it keeps well in the fridge and morphs into a whole other meal and your daughter says, “Mom, you should totally blog that. We can make it on vacation.”

I’m slowly overcoming my loathing of olives, and we kept the feta and tomatoes on the side so David didn’t get poisoned. Sitting in the fridge for an hour does something magical to tame the onion and fennel, which both my kids normally hate. Everything stays crispy for Day 2, and there’s no mayo or egg or cooking or fussing so you could totally take this to a potluck and ignore it. It’s good as-is but also likes the leftover rotisserie chicken in the fridge. You could throw it into a pita and make a sandwich of it. I’m not a big improviser but I can see there is lots of potential here, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a regular on our table this summer.

From Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2011.

Fresh Mediterranean Salad

3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons water

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 tsp Dijon mustard

½ tsp kosher salt

2 garlic cloves, chopped

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 cups thinly sliced fennel

1 ½ cups thinly sliced red onion

1 cup olives, pitted and halved

¾ cup chopped fresh parsley

½ cup crumbled feta

1 can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained

6 plum tomatoes, quartered

Mix the vinaigrette ingredients together. Drizzle over salad ingredients, cover, and chill at least an hour. See above re: the flexibility, tastiness, and general happiness that will be caused by this salad.

JoCo Loco: The Best Drink of the Best Cruise with the Best People Ever is the Wang Wang

We just got back from our second JoCo cruise, and once again it was one of the best weeks imaginable.

If you’ve thus far been spared my in-person rhapsodizing, JoCo is an annual week-long cruise that features artists, musicians, writers, and other talented nerd culture-friendly people. The attendees are known as Sea Monkeys and contribute programming to the official schedule just as much as the headline guests; in addition to concerts, book readings, and discussion panels with the named guests, the Sea Monkeys themselves run sing-alongs (Alexander Jamilton, anyone?), crafting, scavenger hunts, lectures on various topics, writing workshops, and so, so, so many games. All the games. A 24-hour game library. Beta testing of as-yet-unreleased games. Games in the dining room. Games on deck. Video games. RPG games. Board games. Dice games.

In short, there is never a shortage of things to do onboard even if lazing in the sun drinking something fruity isn’t your jam. And if it *is* your jam – well, make sure you get some sleep at some point, because your days and nights are going to be full.

A few highlights from this year:

• My cousins Alex and Maria came along, which was fun for all of us – we were able to find a balance between togetherness and apartness that worked for everyone. Playing on the beach in Half Moon Cay was a highlight.
• I ate seafood at every single meal for the entire week. If I die of mercury poisoning, I think we’ll all know why.
• Drinking rum at a roadside shack in the mountains of Tortola, which was beautiful in an austere, non-curated-for-tourists way. We also visited the oldest rum distillery in the Caribbean.
• Mofongo, arepas, and the best mojitos ever at a little bar in San Juan.
• A long, wine-filled dinner and conversation with Annie and Dan, a couple from Princeton that I met on last year’s cruise.
• Jean Grae and the incredible positivity of The Church of the Infinite You. My description wouldn’t do it justice, but everyone should walk out of their church of choice feeling so uplifted.
• Geek Prom, a mostly-80s themed dance DJ’d by John Scalzi. It was like the ending scene of the best teen movie never filmed, full of happy, exuberant people dancing their hearts out unselfconsciously. I’d be hard-pressed to choose a favorite fellow participant: the man in the 3 Musketeers hat? The transgender woman with the pink Mohawk and sequined dress? The giant light-up glasses? The group dressed in Hogwarts formalwear, or the many stylish fez options? The googly-eye tiara? The pirate hat? Mouse ears? The stuffed shark (Shork!) with her own Twit-arr feed?
• The concert in San Juan got rained out before They Might Be Giants performed, and soggy happy Monkeys crowded under the tents and sang and drank beer until we were finally banished back to the ship. The staff and crew worked a series of miracles that led up to the announcement, “They Might Be Giants” will begin a concert right now and will stop at 5 minutes before midnight so John can get off the boat before it sails.” The near-instantaneous abandoning of every public space on the ship has been referred to as “the nerd rapture” and it’s pretty damn accurate.
• The decommissioning of the Legoosterdam, including removing crocodiles from the pool and taking down the ion cannons. And Santa. And the kraken.
• Spending a week with the most exuberant, creative, accepting, open-hearted group of people I've ever had the pleasure of being among. The stuff you do on the cruise is fun, but it's the people that really make this an extraordinary event. 
• Discovering (on the last day! – a tragedy) the marvelous WangWang, the unofficial tropical drink of Sea Monkeys everywhere, which puts mojitos and daiquiris to shame and even eclipses the legendary Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster.

I found a great balance between relaxing and participating, and my FOMO was under control this year. Best of all? I get to do it again next year!

Wait, wait, you say – what’s this WangWang? How can it possibly be better than a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster (which admittedly is much more exciting-looking)? Can I make one at home? Will it transport me to the tropics? Is it safe to drink more than one? (Answer: I’ll tell you. You’ll have to drink both and see for yourself, but I’m sure you’ll agree with me, and this will rip your head off much more efficiently. Yes, if you have a well-stocked liquor cabinet. Undoubtedly. Probably not but I’m not going to judge you.)

Best Drink of the Best Cruise with the Best People Ever: The Wang-Wang

Courtesy of the Filipino bartenders of the Holland America Cruise line

¼ oz vodka
¼ oz gin
¼ oz white rum
¼ oz Scotch
¼ oz Bourbon
¼ oz tequila
¼ oz Triple Sec
¼ oz brandy
1 ½ oz. pineapple juice
1 ½ oz. orange juice
Splash of grenadine

Mix everything except the grenadine together and pour over ice into a tall, fancy glass that looks like it belongs on a cruise ship. Top with a splash of grenadine. Optionally garnish with a maraschino cherry, orange slice, and/or pineapple wedge, but there’s nothing wrong with a naked Wang Wang. What happens on the cruise ship stays on the cruise ship!

Sweet Black Pepper Fish without a Story

I was going to post this as a Cookbook Challenge recipe so you could all see that I’m continuing to make good use of each and every single one of my cookbooks, thereby justifying the fact that I keep buying them. Alas! I’ve already posted something from this particular book (funnily enough, also a fish recipe), which is from the very first year that I discovered (now-defunct) Cooking Light magazine.

Then I thought that I could talk about how much John has been cooking lately and amuse you with tales of his kitchen adventures. But he was at karate yesterday while I was cooking this, so that won’t work either.

Make up any story you like about this recipe.

There’s no story about this one, unless you count the fact that John loved it and I had to cut him off so we could all get some dinner, which is completely in keeping with the price; halibut is an outrageous $19/lb. right now and he only likes expensive fish. Having made this as written, I would be perfectly happy trying it with cod or swai or just about any white fish on sale. Or shrimp. Or lobster…. ooooh, that would be fantastic. I totally should have done that instead.

Here's the the thing about expensive ingredients: No matter how much you spend at the grocery store, it's going to be less than you spend at a restaurant. The math might work out differently for people who are only cooking for one - which I suppose is a big part of the popularity of meal kit services - but I couldn't feed all 4 of us a seafood dinner at a restaurant for what I paid for that halibut. Nor could I eat it sitting in an armchair in my pajamas drinking sparkling wine with a friend, unless I could talk her into going to the restaurant as well. At home I don't have to worry about cross-contamination or having a waitress who thinks that soy sauce labeled "low sodium" is the same as soy sauce labeled "gluten-free," and I don't have to argue with my kids about pop, dessert, or going to a second restaurant afterwards because one of them can't find anything on the menu they like. 

The whole thing came together in under 20 minutes with ingredients I had on hand. And yes, I realize that you might not have lemongrass just lounging around in *your* freezer, but it’s been surprisingly useful and I don’t have to go running all over hell's half acre looking for specialized ingredients since I started making a monthly trip to the Asian or Indian grocery store. I found that now that I spend all day cooking I'm not quite as interested in making something complicated or time-consuming on weeknights; and with the kids cooking more regularly, it makes sense to ease them into it with relatively straightforward recipes. 

From Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2005, just like every other thing we ate this week.

Sweet Black Pepper Fish

½ cup water, divided
3 tablespoons sugar
2 ½ tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoons minced peeled fresh lemongrass (I found a big plastic tub of pre-peeled, pre-chopped lemongrass in the freezer section of the Asian market. It beats the hell out of dealing with fresh lemongrass.)
1 tablespoon minced fresh garlic (since I was already taking shortcuts, I used jarred garlic paste)
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (ok, I actually did grind this. For a dish with this much pepper it was worth the extra 20 seconds of effort.)
1 cup coarsely chopped green onions
4 6-ounce halibut fillets
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro

Combine ¼ cup water, sugar, and fish sauce in a large nonstick skillet. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

Add the lemongrass, garlic, and pepper. Cook about 2 minutes or until slightly reduced.

Add the remaining ¼  cup water, onions, and fish, and cook over medium-high heat 7 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork, turning once. Sprinkle with cilantro before serving.  

Better Than the Other Cookies That I Said Were the Best Ones Ever Because They Have NUTELLA

Once upon a time, my brother dated a girl who gave me a recipe for 3-ingredient peanut butter cookies that were a complete revelation – I could knock a batch together in the time it takes the oven to heat up, and the kids got cookies so regularly they would’ve sworn Imaginary Mom was living with us. They’re still David’s go-to cookie (the only downside of this is he doesn’t make our favorite chocolate chip cookies nearly as often).

These cookies have those cookies beat by a mile.

Same concept: 3 ingredients you already have on hand (what?! You don’t keep a GFS-sized jar of Nutella in your cupboard?) in a basically foolproof recipe that will produce a batch of cookies faster than you can put on your shoes and drive to the grocery store. There are some ways to tinker with this, of course, and if you’re interested in such things you should read the post where I found this over at Food52.

This shirt is real and it exists on Etsy!

But really, why would you want to mess with this kind of perfection? Just the right balance between chocolatey and nutty, not too sweet, and perfectly tender without falling apart. If you're in the middle of, say, making 10 pounds of hamburger patties AND trying your hand at making dairy-free yogurt AND reorganizing the kitchen AND there's an ambitious Indian dinner planned tonight, you can still justify the teeny tiny itty bitty mess that this recipe will generate. (Also, you are probably a little stir-crazy and should go out with friends tonight to siphon off some of that extra energy). If, say, someone were to shovel the driveway and sidewalks, they would be so very happy to come inside afterwards and find a couple of these next to something warm to drink. You could bake them on February 5, which is World Nutella Day. (Fun fact: At the time of his death in 2015, Nutella creator Michele Ferrero was the wealthiest man in Italy.)

Recipe found at Food52 (the best food website evah, IMHO).

3-Ingredient Nutella Cookies

1 ¼ cups Nutella
½ cup flour (we used Namaste brand all-purpose GF flour blend)
2 large eggs
A little pinch of flaky salt for the top

Heat the oven to 350.

Mix the ingredients together until smooth, then drop the batter by tablespoons onto a cookie sheet (use parchment paper or a Silpat mat. You're welcome), spacing them about 2 inches apart.

Bake 7-9 minutes, based on personal preference. The recipe states they'll last 2 days in an airtight container, but it's going to be a miracle if they last til dinner so I'm not worrying about that part.

Introducing….. Imaginary Son! Sweet and Sour Chicken That Reminds Us Being Boiled in Oil is a Horrible Way to Die

Imaginary Mom has been keeping a pretty low profile these days. We had a bit of a falling out around the holidays, and I declared 2019 to be The Year of the Slacker (so far, so good). I was all set to order some Thai carryout for dinner this week when my son decided that he wanted to learn how to make sweet and sour chicken, one of his very favorite dishes and one that he doesn’t get often now that our local Pei Wei has closed. Sure, says I, before realizing that he’s never actually cooked a meal before and that this is going to require some assistance on my part. So much for a lazy Thursday dinner.

Really, he couldn’t have picked something a little easier?

I’d like to acknowledge that yes, there *are* easier versions out there on the interwebs. There are versions that aren’t breaded and fried (basically a stir-fry). There are versions you can bake. There are even version that use (shudder) pre-made sauces. But let’s be honest here – when you’re craving sweet and sour anything, you really want the kind that comes in a white Styrofoam container from your local Chinese carryout, the kind with the warm pineapple pieces and bell peppers and onions and the strange red sauce glopped over the top and an egg roll on the side. This version has everything you want and is so much tastier.  

This is the first time that John and I have ever really cooked together, unless you count his admittedly-fantastic skills at food arranging and napkin folding, and his lingering obsession with foods served in hollowed-out cucumber rounds. It ended up being one of the nicest nights I’ve had in a long time; I was every bit as patient and good at explaining as Imaginary Mom could hope for, and he was totally engaged from start to finish as only Imaginary Son could be (no distractions! no getting bored halfway through! no declaring something was not as much fun as expected!). I only stepped in to help with the actual frying and do a little bit of chopping. Since I decided that everyone in the house is going to take turns making dinner – seriously, I cook all day, why would I want to do more of it at home every single night? – this was an outstanding start.

You could definitely make this without the frying step; just saute your chicken pieces in a little oil for a few minutes before you add the veggies and sauce. And I’m sure it would be delicious, and it would save on calories and fat and time and mess. But then you wouldn’t have the fun/danger of standing over the stove with a 13-year-old boy who reminds you that being boiled in oil is a horrible way to die. Why is this a thing? Because he was reading all the sayings on a Lulelemon bag earlier this week and upon seeing “Visualize your eventual demise. It can have an amazing effect on how you live for the moment,” promptly replied “Probably murdered.” And then spent the next 15 minutes all the ways he could think of to die. Suffice to say, John plans to have a very interesting and improbable life. I wish his biographers well.

Recipe found at https://dinnerthendessert.com/sweet-sour-chicken/, with only very minor adjustments made to some amounts based on our experience cooking. I'm looking forward to cooking more recipes from this site! 

Sweet and Sour Chicken

1 ½ pounds chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch chunks
½ cup cornstarch
2-3 eggs, beaten
½ cup flour (we used a blend of rice flour and tapioca starch to keep it gluten-free)
1 can pineapple chunks, drained
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 green bell pepper, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 yellow onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
½ cup apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup ketchup
4 teaspoons soy sauce
2 cloves minced garlic
Canola oil for frying

Make the sauce: Whisk together the sugar, brown sugar, vinegar, ketchup, soy sauce, and garlic in a small bowl.

Pour about an inch and a half of oil into a frying pan or Dutch oven (or turn on the deep fryer, although you’re still going to end up dirtying a pan for this). The goal is to get the chicken pieces to cook in about 2-3 minutes, so the heat needs to be fairly high.

Put the cornstarch in a large Ziplock bag, add the chicken pieces, and shake to coat. Dip the chicken pieces into the egg, let the excess drip off, and dredge in the flour before adding to the hot oil. Don’t crowd the pan – you want the oil to stay at temperature, so this is going to take multiple batches.

When the chicken is brown and crispy (or pale and crispy if you’re using GF flour, because nothing you do is going to compel it to brown up), remove the chicken to a baking sheet. (Don’t put paper towels under the chicken.)

When all the chicken is done cooking, pour off all but a tablespoon of the oil. Add the pineapple, peppers, and onion and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the sauce and stir to coat the vegetables, then add the chicken pieces back in and stir until the sauce coats everything and is thick and bubbly. Serve with white rice.